Manflayer - Josh Reynolds

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘Well handled,’ he said.

  ‘I am not entirely incompetent.’

  ‘Your competence is self-evident. What is questionable is your willing­ness to use that competence for anything other than your own pleasure.’ He paused. ‘Regardless, I am certain that you will find some way to survive the coming conflagration, Savona. You are the proverbial cockroach. It would take far more than the forces arrayed against me to end your existence. Still, if you would like to leave…’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your loyalty does me honour.’

  ‘It’s not loyalty,’ she said quickly. ‘I think you have a godsdamned plan, Clonelord. And I want to see what it is.’ She ran a hand through her braids. ‘All this scampering to and fro, bargaining with enemies, calling in favours… you’re up to something. You have to be. And I intend to reap the rewards of whatever gambit you put into play.’

  Fabius nodded. ‘I wish you good luck in that, Savona of the Ruptured Skein.’

  She grimaced. He was laughing at her. He was always laughing at her. ‘You sound like you’re giving up.’

  ‘No. Never that.’ Fabius gestured, tracing the music through the air. ‘I have no intention of ceding any more ground than I already have. But I am a realist, Savona. I have tilted at windmills long enough. Now comes a time of hard choices.’

  ‘We could leave,’ she said. ‘Abandon this world, find another.’

  ‘My foes have shown a remarkable tenacity. They will not cease their search. I would only be delaying the inevitable. No. Better to meet them on my terms, and bring this chapter of my life to an end.’

  ‘Fine.’ She considered her next words carefully. ‘What do we do about your creatures? Igori and the others. The renegades. The enemy could turn them against us.’

  ‘They will not.’

  ‘But they could.’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘How do you know?’ she insisted.

  ‘I sent Arrian to talk to them,’ he said. ‘They always preferred his company.’

  ‘Why not go yourself?’

  Fabius paused. ‘She does not want to see me. I will honour that wish.’

  Savona laughed. ‘Have I ever told you that you remind me of my father?’

  ‘Didn’t you kill your father?’

  ‘Yes, but that’s beside the point. My father gave me everything I could have ever desired – except my freedom. I was nothing more to him than a pet. A pampered one, to be sure. But a pet nonetheless.’

  ‘Is there a point to this?’

  ‘Did you ever intend to let her do as you designed her to do? Or was it always a lie?’

  Fabius turned off the music. ‘I did not lie to her. Or to them.’

  ‘And yet they were forced to seize their destiny for themselves.’

  ‘They were not ready yet.’

  ‘Would they ever have been?’ Savona picked at her teeth with a talon. ‘I’ve been beside you long enough now to see how your cancerous mind works. You’re an idealist at heart, however much you proclaim your pragmatism. And idealists never know when to stop. They’re always seeking perfection, even when they have already attained it.’

  ‘If I am an idealist, what does that make you?’

  Savona grinned. ‘A hedonist, obviously. As you said, I want pleasure, not perfection. I want an eternity of rapine and plunder, and the skulls of my enemies crunching beneath my hooves. I want to live… to feast on all that the galaxy can provide.’ She tapped his chest with a claw. ‘But you… you want to rewrite the rules. You want to change the story to suit you. And the gods won’t allow that.’

  ‘So I have been informed – repeatedly.’ He touched his chest. She smiled. She wasn’t sure what had gone on in Fulgrim’s garden, but whatever it was, it had shaken him. That old arrogant certainty of his had taken a dent. It was almost worth all the trouble to see it.

  She turned as a mutant gave a garbled yell. She peered at the holo-displays and gave a bark of laughter. ‘Then again, maybe I was wrong.’

  ‘What are you blathering about?’ Fabius asked.

  She expanded the display, showing him several unfamiliar gunships dropping through the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Each of them bore the heraldry of the III Legion.

  ‘It seems the gods are looking out for you after all.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Prisoners of Flesh

  Hexachires turned to his guests.

  ‘As you can see, under my leadership, the Thirteen Scars are quite capable of waging war. It is only rarely cost-efficient to do so, however. The Tower of Flesh is a vessel unlike any other in the galaxy – a leviathan of bio-sculpted meat and muscle, held together by a latticework of bone, ligament and fatty tissue. Vast plates of armoured bone sheathe what few vulnerabilities it has, and its connective tissue is reinforced with wraithbone. A mobile bastion, capable of shattering the defences of any lesser redoubt.’

  Hexachires preened as he spoke, sunken chest puffed out and hands clasped before him like the talons of an enormous insect. Or so it seemed to Oleander. He squatted unobtrusively near the centre of the chamber, watching as Hexachires showed off his toy to his allies. Avara and Peshig – or rather, Veilwalker – looked suitably impressed. Salar just looked bored.

  Oleander wondered how Veilwalker had convinced the other two archons to join Hexachires. Perhaps they were simply greedy. Profit from raids rarely lasted long, especially in Low Commorragh. He looked around.

  The chamber had once sat at the lowest point of the Tower. Now, it acted as a strategium hall. The slick bone-plates of the floor were covered in tangles of fibrous cabling and shimmering boils the size of a slave’s head, newly grown for this outing. Each boil was in actua­lity a display node, connected to several of the innumerable sensors studding the outer dermis of the Tower.

  Wracks crouched over these boils, manipulating their angles of view with quick flicks of their fingers. Each of the wracks had a glistening strand of techno-organic tissue emerging from a contact port at the base of their skull. The strands all fed into a central node, formed from what appeared to be raw neural tissue and something that might have once been a cogitator system. The node itself was taller than a drukhari, and flowered at the top, forming a smooth, seat-like dimple.

  Diomone sat here, surrounded by an irregular array of polyps covered in raised weals of scar tissue. As Oleander watched, her fingers danced across the scars, making minute changes to the Tower’s stride and balance, compensating for the varied contortions of the webway. She noticed his gaze, and returned it challengingly.

  ‘What?’ she demanded.

  ‘Merely admiring your skill at the controls.’

  She snorted. ‘You say that as if it is something anyone can learn.’ She tapped the side of her head, indicating the profusion of cortical connectors inserted along the sides of her skull and the length of her spine. ‘Controlling this monstrosity requires an extra cerebral lobe as well as a dozen new nerve endings to compensate for the constant flow of data.’

  ‘Fascinating. And if something were to happen to you?’

  ‘Then one of my other colleagues would take her place,’ Hexachires said, as he placed his hands on Oleander’s shoulders. ‘Or perhaps even you, Oleander. After all, your master helped design this system. It has since been modified, of course, but I suspect with a bit of jiggery-pokery we could get it up and running with you at the controls. Or in them, as it were.’ His grip tightened, his claws digging in and releasing thin trickles of blood. He leaned close and murmured, ‘So don’t get any ideas.’

  Oleander didn’t flinch. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘Of course not. Not when we’re so close to victory!’ Hexachires raised a fist in somewhat melodramatic fashion. Polite applause greeted this exclamation. Hexachires wheeled about, flesh-mask twisting into a scowl. Peshig’s clapping t
railed off, and he – she – smiled widely.

  ‘A marvellous display, Hexachires. And a marvellous engine, besides.’

  ‘Yes. One wonders why you even need us,’ Avara said.

  Hexachires smiled. ‘I do not. We do not.’ He held up a talon, before she could reply. ‘But, I regret my earlier rudeness. I treated you shabbily, and offer you this opportunity by way of apology. You are among the coven’s finest patrons, and I would not see us fall out over a difference of opinion.’

  ‘He means he needs our warriors,’ Salar said.

  Hexachires shot him a glare. ‘We have army enough for the task at hand, and more besides, I assure you. But I did not bring you three aboard simply to show off. No, I wished to discuss the revels to come. We are drawing near to the access node. A few more days’ travel and we will be knocking at their threshold.’

  ‘Yes, and how convenient that you managed to locate this spur of the webway,’ Avara said suspiciously. ‘Almost as if you knew about it all along.’

  Hexachires pressed a hand to his heart. ‘I assure you, I did not. But I agree that it is most fortunate. Perhaps the Dark Muses are looking out for us.’

  Peshig – Veilwalker – coughed. ‘One god is much the same as another. At any rate, I suggest we approach with caution.’

  ‘Indeed. Which is why Oleander is here, to act as our native guide. Oleander – speak.’ Hexachires gestured to him grandly.

  Avara looked at him. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t kill this beast, after that last debacle.’

  ‘There is still some use to be had of him yet,’ Hexachires said. He snapped his fingers impatiently. ‘Speak, slave.’

  Oleander cleared his throat. ‘If he stays true to form, he will have established his apothecarium as close to the centre of the city as possible. Defences are staggered, mostly automated weapon emplacements or gun-servitors.’

  ‘Troops?’ Salar growled.

  ‘Some, perhaps. More than usual, if he suspects we’re coming for him. He favours dispersed positioning…’

  ‘All the better to pick them apart,’ Avara said, tapping her holstered blast-pistol. ‘Though I’m not looking forward to fighting more of those armoured beasts.’

  ‘I am,’ Salar said. He caressed the hilt of his sword as he spoke, and the others sidled away from him. Salar’s bloodlust had only got worse in the intervening weeks.

  Hexachires signalled to Diomone, and she activated the chamber’s hololithic system. ‘Due to my diligence, we have maps of the city surrounding the node. I suggest you familiarise yourselves with them. When the attack begins, we will have little time to reconnoitre.’

  ‘I have already despatched scouts to range ahead and make an accurate assessment of any defences this particular node might possess,’ Avara said. Hexachires glanced at her, and then nodded.

  ‘Excellent.’

  Oleander turned away as they began to discuss their strategy. He had no interest in it. No interest in anything. He felt numb. Broken. More so than ever before – as if he’d lost some vital spark.

  Oleander…

  He stiffened. ‘Melusine,’ he murmured. She did not reply. Could not reply. Hexachires had caged her high in the Tower. A flush of something that might have been guilt filled him. He’d tried to warn her that Hexachires was up to something, but she hadn’t listened. She’d merely smiled and kissed him, the way she’d done the moment they first met. His lips still burned, though they had not touched hers.

  He’d not thought it possible for Hexachires to capture her, though he’d seen Fabius do it often enough. The question was, what to do about it? What could he do?

  ‘You were supposed to kill him.’

  The words whispered through him. He turned slightly, glancing up at Diomone. Her mouth had not moved, but the words came regardless.

  ‘You’ve had any number of chances to strike. Why haven’t you?’

  ‘The time is not yet right,’ he sub-vocalised, trusting that Diomone could hear him.

  ‘You don’t have long, mon-keigh. If he succeeds, his position will be unassailable.’

  ‘That’s your problem, not mine.’

  ‘It’s both our problems, fool. If he realises that helm of yours isn’t working as he intended, he’ll kill you out of hand.’

  ‘Then I will just have to make sure he doesn’t realise it.’ As he spoke, he looked up.

  Veilwalker was watching him, a knowing smile on her false face.

  After the others had departed, Hexachires allowed himself an indulgence – one he was only too delighted to share with Oleander. At the top of the Tower was an observation chamber, and within that chamber was a cell. Shaped from crystals plucked from the arterial tracts of the Tower, the cell was a hexagon – six facets, each etched with certain sigils and runes culled from the works of long-dead sages and philosophers.

  Inside the cell, the daemon crouched. No longer was she a glorious terror, but instead shrivelled and hollow-looking. Like a victim of some chronic ailment. Her hair was matted and limp, the sheen of her hooves dulled and her frame shrunken tight to hypothetical bones.

  ‘She’s looking a bit withered, poor thing,’ he said. Oleander did not reply. Hexachires glanced at him. ‘I’m starving her, you know. Daemons, much like my people, feed on the emotional current of their victims. Deny them that current, and they shrivel up like fruit left in the sun. Only, unlike fruit, they never quite rot away. She’ll persist, and grow ever more frail, until I decide to feed her, or release.’

  ‘But you do not intend to do either,’ Oleander said. Hexachires smiled.

  ‘No. I don’t. Instead, I intend to pull her apart, and see what she is made of. I have experimented on daemons before, but none quite like this. Something about her reminds me of… him. Why is that, do you think?’

  Again, Oleander said nothing. Hexachires brandished the pain-baton. ‘Reticence serves no one, Oleander. I barely get any satisfaction from your screams, these days. Tell me, and perhaps I will give her to you when I am done. A Neverborn pet of your very own.’

  Oleander looked at him, and something in his gaze made Hexachires sidle back. He held up the baton between them.

  ‘Not quite broken yet, are you?’ he murmured. ‘Not quite. But you will be, soon enough. Is she a spy, then?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘Lying again, I think.’ Hexachires leaned forward. ‘Yes. I think she’s a spy – a filthy little spy, whispering my plans to Fabius. How else could he have escaped? And you are in it with her. A pair of eyes in my camp.’ He prodded Oleander with the pain-baton. ‘Confess, and I will be lenient.’

  ‘Have you ever heard the story of the Trueborn who taunted the ur-ghul?’

  Hexachires straightened as Peshig entered the chamber. The archon’s form shimmered and bled away into something altogether gaudier. Veilwalker shook her head in mock consternation.

  ‘What are you doing here, clown?’

  ‘Merely coming to ensure that all the pieces are in place.’ She lifted Oleander’s chin with her staff. ‘Count Sunflame kneels at the feet of the Lord of Knives, his bride caged, sickening from fear and want.’

  ‘Another story, then?’

  ‘A good story. Do you know it?’

  ‘I have no interest in stories.’

  ‘You did once, Hexachires Ulthiliad.’

  He grimaced, his flesh-mask rippling. ‘You use that name like a scalpel.’

  ‘I use it to remind you of your place, as you use that baton to remind him. The stage for this drama was set long before you set aside your paints and picked up the butcher’s blade.’ The Harlequin leaned close. ‘There are others who would serve as well as you in the role. Remember that.’

  He laughed. ‘Would you replace me then, at this late a date? I think not. You need me, and know well that I am not some half-wit archon from a minor kabal. And
I am content to let you play out your little drama, so long as I get what I want – even if, as I suspect, you engineered this whole debacle for your own benefit.’

  Veilwalker leaned on her staff. ‘In one story, as his kingdom sickened, the Lord of Knives sought out the King of Feathers, in order to cure a plague,’ she said, as if to a child. ‘To that end, he captured Count Sunflame and his bride on their day of marriage. For he knew that the count could lead him to the king.’

  ‘That thing is no one’s bride,’ Hexachires said, indicating the daemon.

  ‘No. It isn’t.’ Veilwalker circled the cage. ‘Hello, child.’

  The daemon snarled, and Veilwalker retreated a few steps. Hexachires chuckled.

  ‘Rest easy, Veilwalker. She cannot escape. Those symbols weaken her. She has no strength.’

  ‘No. She does not.’ Veilwalker looked at him. ‘You should destroy her.’

  Oleander stiffened, and Hexachires caught him by the shoulder. ‘And why would I do that?’ he said, intrigued by the thought. He’d banished such creatures before. There was little difficulty in that, when one had the proper tools. ‘Does she frighten you so much?’

  ‘Not her.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘There is more to a thing, than the thing itself. The shadow on the wall. The ripples on the water. No story ever truly ends. They all continue after the last stanza.’ She tapped the cage with her staff, eliciting another snarl from the daemon. ‘What she is, in this moment, is not what she might become. And it is that possibility which we must prune from the tree of fate, lest it affect all other possibilities.’

  Hexachires raised an eyebrow. ‘Nonsense. Utter twaddle. Cryptic drivel. I don’t know why I expected a straight answer.’

  He leaned forward, still clutching Oleander. He could feel the tension in the mon-keigh’s bones. Could smell the stink issuing from his pores. He wondered if Oleander was afraid. He hoped so.

  ‘Go and bother someone else. I have more important matters to attend to than the ramblings of a lunatic clown.’