by Mark Clapham
‘All power,’ echoed Valthex. He adjusted the controls to maximum, deactivating every safety control.
For a few seconds, nothing seemed to happen.
Then it began. The air filled with static, sparks flying between metal objects. Valthex lifted one gauntlet to see lightning crackle between his fingers. The ground began to shake, and looking around he observed that the effect stretched as far as the eye could see, Red Corsairs and Space Wolves alike struggling to stay upright as the quake effect spread.
Close to the lake, gravity began to reverse, objects and people lifting off the vibrating ground, drifting upwards. Valthex, having been released by Huron, held on to his control panel as he felt his body lift up into the air.
Under his helmet, Valthex felt his teeth itch.
‘Yes,’ said Huron, elated, his mouth twisted into an insane leer, his feet still anchored to the ground. ‘It is happening.’
Then it struck, a bolt of white-hot energy from Threshold’s sun, discharged right into the centre of the lake. One of the galleons was utterly obliterated, but Huron just laughed, staring right into the column of light, as pure energy flowed down and the water began to boil, twisting into a whirlpool, and at the very heart of the whirlpool was heat, and darkness, and an expanding disc of something turbulent, unformed, a constrained build-up of…
Valthex couldn’t tell what it was, whether it was matter or energy. As he looked at the darkness at the centre of the lake, all the sensors in his helmet were registering the substance he was looking at as unidentifiable.
It didn’t matter. He didn’t know what it was made of, but he knew what it was, its purpose.
It was the portal, a tear in the world, forming in the centre of the lake.
But how to stabilise it? Valthex looked down at his lashed-up controls, but they had burned out. He tore them away to look at the stone machine he had been overriding, but that too seemed fused by the colossal amount of energy running through it.
Whatever was happening, it was beyond his control now.
A great hum filled the air, drowning out even the sounds of combat all around, and then there was… release.
The portal expanded at tremendous speed, like a tidal wave, and Valthex found it hurtling towards him, spreading out in all directions, a liquid energy that was all colours and no colours, and raised his arm instinctively, stupidly, to block it as it flowed over him.
His last thought before the portal, the wave, whatever it was, consumed him whole was that this was the technology he sought; these were the secrets he was looking for, so why wasn’t he more excited about what was to come?
Then he was gone.
They were all gone.
The Red Corsairs, the Space Wolves, the Tallarns, the Lastrati. Their weapons, their vehicles, the ground beneath their feet, the trees around them, the water from the lake. Drained out of existence in a second, leaving a vast crater on the inner surface of Threshold, one which would be visible from the other side of the world, if there had been anyone there to see it.
There wasn’t. Once more, the lost world of Threshold was free of sentient life, left to the birds, the insects and the plants.
And above them all, showing no sign of the fearsome energies it had only just unleashed, the sun turned in the centre of the world.
Twenty-Seven
Anvindr was dead, to begin with.
They had been charging the Red Corsairs line on Threshold, when the world had exploded. Had the lunatic Huron Blackheart found another way to tear apart one of the Hollow Worlds, destroying Threshold as he had Hacasta?
The world ripped away, Anvindr had fallen, and he felt at peace. His thread had been cut and he was tumbling through darkness, but it was not the impenetrable darkness of being buried, of a world without light, but a warmer darkness, like sleep.
Not the immortal sleep he had experienced since becoming a Sky Warrior, but the sleep of his mortal childhood, the darkness found in unconsciousness, buried beneath a pile of furs. The darkness before those times, even, of very earliest life, a distant place removed from the concerns of a bright, cold universe full of dangers.
He was weightless, bodiless, until he was not.
He did not land, but instead found himself standing, walking in mid-step, his boots crunching against a desert of coarse, translucent sand beneath his feet. He was walking through a valley, a dead place with no wind or life.
Although this place was cold, Anvindr had expected the afterlife to be something more like the wild cold of Fenris, a wasteland populated with legendary beasts to slay for eternity and warm caves where heroes could retreat to for ale and food. Here there were no beasts, no halls of glory, no feasts in his honour.
But he was with his pack. Tormodr, Gulbrandr and Hoenir were there, looking dazed upon the sands.
Surely they should be reunited with long-lost Liulfr also? And the other fallen warriors from packs long gone?
Instead, they were alone, stripped even from the army they had run with on Threshold, before the world ended.
Except it hadn’t, had it? Anvindr realised, with something near to disappointment, that he was not dead, not ready for eternity yet. His last winter was not over. The Red Corsairs had been trying to break through to somewhere, to the centre of the Hollow Worlds, and they had succeeded.
He looked up to see that the sky above was the concave surface of another Hollow World, this one smaller than the others. Above, the interior of the world was neither land not sea, but a swirl of shifting plates overlapping and moving, the gaps between them showing glimpses of great machinery beneath. In the sky an artificial sun hung overhead, but its light was harsh and unnatural, its surface patched with tears from which burst ripples of energy that discharged themselves into the land above.
‘Exultance,’ he said aloud. ‘We’re within Exultance.’
Hoenir scooped up a handful of the crystalline sand in the palm of his power fist, and let it drop back to the ground. The individual grains spiralled around each other in an erratic descent. Tormodr let out a low growl watching the sand fall in such a strange way.
Anvindr felt it too. This was an unnatural place, not bearing the taint of Chaos but not part of the natural order either.
‘We need to reach higher ground,’ said Gulbrandr. ‘If we have been transported, then so will others.’
‘Agreed,’ said Anvindr, leading the way up a dune. The crystal sand was compact enough for them to not sink too far, but the Space Wolves still found themselves knee deep in it by the time they reached the top.
‘Great Russ,’ rumbled Tormodr, looking out.
They were on an island a few miles wide, surrounded not by sea but the abstract machinery of Exultance’s interior. A short distance away the desert gave way to a forest of crystal outcroppings that rolled out onto lower ground, and beyond that Anvindr could see rocky hills rising up to a central peak, on which sat a domed fortress of a kind unlike any he had seen before, its curves stretching off and around in ways that blurred his vision. Debris from Threshold – an overturned Corsairs galleon, a pile of broken tree stumps – was scattered across the landscape.
Everything – land, forest, hills, fortress – was illuminated from within. Looking down at himself, Anvindr’s armour and body seemed translucent, glowing.
The rest of the pack were similarly disoriented by this strange place, and it was Gulbrandr, ever alert, who broke the silence.
‘We are not alone, brothers,’ he snarled.
Gulbrandr was right; there was a presence here. Anvindr felt it. But he looked around and could see no one. Of course he couldn’t, he thought, they were further away. Comrades and enemies, they were out there.
Anvindr realised he could feel their presence, and looking to Gulbrandr and the others, he saw that sensation was shared.
They were connected.
‘Are
we psykers now?’ asked Hoenir.
‘I bloody hope not,’ said Tormodr. ‘I can stomach some of the priests, but I have no great taste for witchcraft otherwise.’
‘It’s this place,’ said Anvindr. ‘We are at the centre of the Hollow Worlds. The rules are different here.’
‘Is this what Blackheart wanted?’ asked Hoenir.
Anvindr shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. That bastard has sorcery already. I’ll wager whatever it is he’s after, it’ll be in there.’
He gestured with his bolter to the domed fortress on the hill. As they all looked up, a bolt of energy crackled down from one of the stars above, and was absorbed by the round building, seemingly absorbed into the… stone? Glass? Crystal?
Whatever it was made of, it drew in power.
Anvindr expected Sindri to make some quip about how obvious a destination the place was, but of course Sindri wasn’t there.
As the thought entered his mind, Anvindr found his mind reaching out to Sindri’s, and while he could not touch the other Space Wolf’s thoughts, he did register his presence, a short march away in the forest ahead, and also the presence of others: dark souls.
‘Red Corsairs,’ Anvindr spat. ‘Sindri’s alone near Corsairs.’
He didn’t even give the order. The entire pack broke into a run, their boots kicking up diamond motes as they went to rescue their brother.
Rotaka had found himself in a clearing of crystal trees, or maybe crystal outcrops, alone.
No, not alone, there was another. A Space Marine of a different colour.
A Space Wolf, one more slender of face than the others, his helmetless head a mass of blond curls. As the Space Wolf stood up, Rotaka saw that it was one of the prisoners they had lost on Kerresh.
Well, thought Rotaka, this is convenient. This Space Wolf might not have been present in the Orrery, but Rotaka would happily take his life in memory of Malinko. Damn Garreon and his schemes, imprisoning these animals.
He raised his bolter in the direction of the Space Wolf, who seemed delirious and lost.
‘Rotaka,’ shouted Hulpin, from somewhere behind him.
Rotaka swung around in annoyance to see Hulpin entering the clearing, gesturing for his captain to follow him, then looked back to where the Space Wolf, alerted to Rotaka’s presence, was moving into cover.
Damn you, Hulpin, thought Rotaka. You’ve startled my prey.
Then he saw the other Space Wolves emerging from the far end of the clearing, weapons raised. Four of them.
So that was what Hulpin was calling him for. The numbers were against them. Even if Wuhrsk still stood, now Verbin was dead – another comrade dead by Rotaka’s hand – and they were no match for a full squad of Space Wolves.
Cursing his poor luck again, Rotaka ran after Hulpin.
Anvindr raised his bolter, targeted the traitor who was fleeing the clearing, and fired.
There was no sound of gunfire, no bolt tearing from the barrel of the bolter to explode in or against the target.
Instead, a bolt slid out of the barrel and fell to the ground.
Anvindr stared in disbelief at his bolter, a noble weapon that had served him, and countless Space Wolves before him, for many centuries. It was as solidly crafted as any in the Imperium, a reliable weapon.
‘Damn you,’ snarled Anvindr. ‘Gulbrandr, take him out.’
Gulbrandr raised his own weapon and fired.
The same thing happened. No sound of a shot. No blaze from the barrel. The bolt rolled out of the barrel and seemed to hover in the air for a second, as if caught in a field of inertia and robbed of its momentum, before tumbling to the dusty ground.
Gulbrandr cursed the distant target, now lost in the treeline, and inspected his own weapon.
‘This isn’t a malfunction,’ he grumbled. ‘This is something else.’
Anvindr picked up the two bolts from the ground, holding them in one gauntleted hand, then stripped off his other gauntlet and touched the tip of his bare finger against them.
Cold. Utterly cold, as if they had been sitting in a rack gathering dust rather than just been fired.
‘It’s this place,’ said Anvindr. ‘Whatever damned witchcraft rules here, it’s affecting our weapons.’
Tormodr, helping the stunned Sindri to his feet, let out a long, weary sigh, clearly about to say something unpleasant.
‘Spit it out,’ said Anvindr.
‘Loathe though I am to admit it,’ grumbled Tormodr. ‘But if this is a matter of witchcraft, we should find the inquisitor. Heresy is his speciality.’
‘I don’t mean to alarm you unduly, inquisitor,’ said System Governor Dumas Cheng. ‘But I do not believe what we are breathing is air. In fact, I am not entirely sure we are breathing, as such. Yet we are alive.’
‘Fascinating,’ said Pranix.
He did not, to Cheng’s ears, sound fascinated. In spite of his commitment to pursue the Red Corsairs wherever they went, regardless of his own fate, to enter Exultance seemed a step too far. No one from the Hollow Worlds had been able to access Exultance for millennia, and there were bleak myths relating to the expeditions sent to explore this world back when the Hollow Worlds were newly settled. With those myths already preying on Cheng’s nerves, the strange feeling in his lungs was pushing him to the edge of panic. But Pranix seemed to have something else on his mind.
‘Inquisitor?’ Cheng asked. They had arrived on a dusty plain that glittered like jewels, beneath a shifting sky of giant layered machinery. They had suffered losses, but still numbered around fifty Space Wolves and a hundred or so mortals, including Cadian infantry and Tallarns mounted on lizards. Cheng could also feel – feel, not see – that the Red Corsairs were here.
As he waited for Pranix to speak, Cheng found his gaze drifting to a hilltop beyond the plain, and the domed building atop it.
‘Not subtle, is it?’ said Pranix. ‘All roads lead there, I expect.’
‘And what is in there?’ asked Cheng.
‘I have no idea,’ said Pranix. ‘All I know is that we need to get there before Huron Blackheart.’
At the rocky ground at the base of the hill, Valthex had adjusted to observing this new world as a mortal might, via the purely optical spectrum. His helmet was fitted with every possible sensor and filter known to man, and many that man had long forgotten, yet they were all scrambled and distorted by the atmosphere of Exultance, and he had needed to switch them off for his own sanity.
Lord Huron and his closest allies, including Valthex, had arrived together. On top of the hill stood a round building of indeterminate scale.
The enemy was sighted shortly after Huron and his retinue had arrived on Exultance, and Becaro fired upon them immediately.
At which point it became clear no firearms or explosives would work here.
‘Curious,’ Valthex said, picking up the fallen bolt. ‘Some kind of inertial dampening field, presumably to protect the inner mechanisms of this artificial star.’
‘Providing the enemy are similarly handicapped,’ said Taemar, wielding his axe, ‘then I am content to take a more direct approach to their termination.’
‘Then you shall be content indeed,’ said Huron, his voice a low rumble, lesser Red Corsairs parting as he stalked between them, his body tense with expectation. He turned to look down on Taemar, and there was a hunger in his eyes that Valthex recognised all too well. This close to his goal, Huron was insatiable.
‘Kill these Space Wolves for me, Taemar,’ said Huron. ‘Gather my Corsairs and slaughter them for me, and defend this hill at all cost. You have my full authority.’
‘You do not wish to lead the attack yourself, my lord?’ asked Taemar.
‘No, Taemar,’ said Huron, staring up at the fortress above. ‘My fate lies elsewhere.’
‘Wake up, Kretschman,’ said a familiar voice
. ‘Wake up, damn you.’
Kretschman woke up. He had passed out in the transition from Threshold to… wherever he was now. He forced his eyes open, and saw a blurred face staring down at him. He breathed in sharply, thinking he saw something hideous.
Then the blur resolved, and it was just Kulbard looking down on him.
‘I think I hit my head,’ said Kretschman weakly, closing his eyes again.
‘Never mind that,’ snapped Kulbard, his voice distant now. ‘The inquisitor needs you. Come on.’
Kretschman forced himself upright and opened his eyes again. The glittering world around him made his head ache. Kulbard was gone.
Find the inquisitor? How was he supposed to do that?
To his surprise, he realised he knew how. He could feel where the inquisitor was, and as he stood up uncomfortably, flexing his limbs, Kretschman knew exactly where to start walking, not towards the fortress he could see in the distance, but curving around the hill.
He decided to ignore the environment around him. The rest of the Hollow Worlds had been bad enough, with their seas in the sky. Now this was too much.
Find the inquisitor. Find Pranix. Concentrate on that, with Cadian vigour.
As he walked, then ran across glittering sands, Kretschman realised that as well as Pranix, he could also still feel the presence of Kulbard out there, closer to the round fort.
But in spite of having been standing over him less than a minute ago, Kulbard’s presence was further away than the inquisitor’s, the imprint of his soul distant, somehow.
How was that even possible?
Leaving Taemar to stand guard, Huron summoned his closest advisers to join him in the ascent to the fortress: Valthex, Anto and Garreon.
The technician, the sorcerer and the biologist, masters of the arts that kept Huron Blackheart alive, holders of the secret of the deterioration that had threatened his existence. Valthex walked behind the others as they climbed a narrow path that wound between sharp rock formations, snaking up to the fortress.
‘Anto,’ said Huron as they ascended. ‘Report. And do not think I have forgotten your failure to eliminate the inquisitor.’