Nemesis

by James Swallow

  Before, such a slip might have been problematic; he was convinced that such thoughts were how the psyker wench Perrig had been able to gather a vague sense of him down on Iesta. But with her no more than a pile of ashes in a jar in the Iubar’s Chamber of Rest, that threat was gone for the moment. Spear knew from Hyssos’ memories that Baron Eurotas had spent much influence and coin in order to bend the Imperium’s fear-driven rules about the censure of psychics; and given the present condition of the Consortium’s welfare, that would not be repeated. The next time he met a psyker, he would be prepared.

  He smirked. That was something unexpected he pulled from the operative’s ebbing thoughts. The Void Baron’s secret, and the explanation for the shabby appearance of his agency’s compound on Iesta; for all the outward glitter and show the merchant clan put on for the galaxy at large, the truth whispered in the corridors of its ships was that the fortunes of Eurotas were waning. Little wonder then that the clan’s master was so desperate to hold on to any skein of power he still had.

  It made things clearer; Spear had known that sooner or later, if he murdered enough members of the Eurotas staff and made it look like Sigg was the killer, the baron would send an operative to investigate. He never expected him to come in person.

  Matters must be severe…

  Spear halted in front of the red jade frieze, and reached out to touch it, tracing a fingertip over the sculpting of the Warrant of Trade. This place was full of glittering prizes, of that there could be no doubt. A thief in Spear’s place could make himself richer than sin – but the killer had his sights set on something worth far more than any of these pretty gewgaws. What he wanted was the key to the greatest kill of his life.

  The hubris of the rogue trader irritated Spear. Here, in this room, there were objects that could command great riches, if only they were brought to market. But Eurotas was the sort who would rather bleed himself white and eat rat-meat before he would give up the gaudy trappings of his grandeur.

  As if thought of him was a summons, the doors to the audience chamber opened and the Void Baron entered in a distracted, irritable humour. He shrugged off his planetfall jacket and tossed it at one of the squad of servitors and human adjutants trailing behind him. “Hyssos,” he called, beckoning.

  Spear imitated the operative’s usual bow and came closer. “My lord. I had not expected your shuttle to return to the Iubar until after we broke orbit.”

  “I had you voxed,” Eurotas replied, shaking his head. “Your communicator implant must be malfunctioning.”

  He touched his neck. “Oh. Of course. I’ll have it seen to.”

  The baron went for a crystalline cabinet and gestured at it; a mechanism inside poured a heavy measure of wine into a glass goblet, which he snatched up and drank deeply. He gulped it down without savouring it. “We are done with our visit to this world,” Eurotas told him, his manner veering towards a brooding sullenness. “And it has taken our dear Perrig along the way.” He shook his head again and fixed Spear with an accusing glare. “Do you know what she cost me? A moon, Hyssos. I had to cede an entire bloody moon to the Adeptus Terra just to own her.” He walked on, across the mosaic floor. The cabinet raised itself up on brass wheels and rolled obediently after him.

  Spear searched for the right thing to say. “She had a good life with us. We all valued her contribution to the clan.”

  The baron turned his glare on the vanishing planet. “The Governor would not stop talking,” he said. “They wanted our fleet to remain in orbit for another week, something about ‘helping to stimulate the local economy’…” He snorted with derision. “But I have little stomach for the festivals they had planned. I walked out on them. More important things to do. Imperial service and all that.”

  Spear nodded thoughtfully, deciding to feed the man’s mood. “The best choice, my lord. With the situation as it is in this sector, it makes sense for the clan to keep the flotilla moving. To be in motion is to be safe.”

  “Safe from him!” Eurotas took another drink. “But the bastard Warmaster is killing us by inches even so!” His voice went up. “Every planet he binds to him costs us a weight in Throne Gelt that we cannot recover!” For a moment, it seemed as if the baron was about to give voice to something that might have been considered treasonable; but then he caught himself, like a man afraid he would be overheard, and his expression changed. “We will head for the edge of this system and then make space to the rendezvous point at the Arrowhead Nebula.”

  Spear knew already what their next port of call would be, but he asked anyway. “What will our intentions be there, lord?”

  “We will lay to wait to assemble the clan’s full fleet, and while we are there meet a ship from Sotha. Aboard are a party of remembrancers under the Emperor’s aegis. I will personally take them home to Terra, as the Council has requested.”

  “The security of the remembrancers is of great concern,” said Spear. “I will make all arrangements to ensure their safety from the moment they board the Iubar to the moment we bring them to the Imperial Palace.”

  Eurotas looked away. “I know you’ll do what is required.”

  Spear had to fight down the urge to grin. The path was open, and now all that he needed to do was follow it all the way to the end. To the very gates of the Emperor’s fortress—

  NO

  The voice crackled in his ears like breaking glass, and Spear jerked, startled. NO NO NO

  The baron did not appear to have heard it; the killer felt a peculiar twitch in his hands and he glanced down at them. For one terrible moment, the skin there bubbled and went red, before shifting back to the dark shades of Hyssos’ flesh. He hid them behind his back.

  NO

  Then the echo made the origin of the sound clear. Spear let his gaze turn inwards and he felt it in there, moving like mercury.

  Sabrat. Until this moment, Spear had believed the purgation that the idiot reeve’s cohort interrupted had gone to plan, but now his certainty crumbled. There was still some fraction of the stolid fool’s self hiding in the shadowed depths of the killer’s mind, some part of the false self he had worn that had not been expunged. He pushed in and was sickened by the sense of it, the loathsome, nauseating morality of the dead man staining his mind. It was bubbling up like bile, pushing to the top of his thoughts. A scream of recrimination.

  “Hyssos?” Eurotas was staring at him. “Are you all right, man?”

  “I…”

  NO NO NO NO NO

  “No.” Spear coughed out the word, his eyes watering, and then with effort took control of himself once more. “No, lord,” he went on. “I… A moment of fatigue, that’s all.” With a physical effort, the killer silenced the cries and took a shuddering breath.

  “Ah.” The baron approached and gave him a kindly pat on the shoulder. “You were closest to the psyker. There’s no shame in being affected by her loss.”

  “Thank you,” said Spear, playing into the moment. “It has been difficult. Perhaps, with your permission, I might take some respite?”

  Eurotas gave him a fatherly nod. “Do so. I want you rested when we reach the rendezvous.”

  “Aye, lord,” Spear bowed again and walked away. Unseen by anyone else, he buried the nails of his hand in his palm, cutting the waxy flesh there; but no blood emerged from the ragged meat.

  RUFIN FOUND ANOTHER intercom panel on the station’s mezzanine level and used it to send out an all-posts alert; but if anything he became even more afraid when the only men that reported back were the ones at the armoury. He told them to hold the line and started on his way to them. If he could get there before any of the terrorist attackers did, he could open the secure locks and drag out all the big, lethal weapons that he had been so far denied the chance to use. There were autocannons down there, grenade launchers and flamers… He’d give these loyalist bastards a roasting for daring to cross him, oh yes…

  Descending an enclosed stairwell, he caught sight of the western platforms. Monorails there wer
e filling with prisoners, each one closing its doors and moving off seemingly of its own will, carrying the inmates to freedom. The first few to go had ploughed through the barricades across the lines; now there was nothing to stop a mass exodus. Rufin didn’t care, though; he would let them go, as long as he could keep the guns.

  Reaching the lowest levels, he found the men at the first guard post were gone. In their place there were piles of clothing and lumps of soggy ash, illuminated by the flickering overhead strip lights. The air here felt cold and oppressive, and Rufin broke into a run again, propelled from the place by a cold pressure that was like a shadow falling over his soul.

  He turned the corner and ran towards the armoury post. Six men were there, and all of them were pale and afraid. They saw him coming and beckoned frantically, as if he were being chased by something only they could see.

  “What happened back there?” he snapped, turning his ire on the first man he saw. “Talk, rot you!”

  “Screaming,” came the reply. “Oh, sir, a screaming like you ain’t never heard. From Hades itself, sir.”

  Rufin’s fear bubbled over into anger and he backhanded the man. “Make sense, you fool! It’s the terrorists!”

  At that moment, the floor below them exploded upwards, the iron grid-plates spinning away as a hulking figure burst out of the conduits beneath. Rufin saw a grinning, fanged skull made of tarnished silver and then a massive handgun. A single shot from the weapon struck one of the guards with such force it blew him back into another man, the velocity carrying them both into the curved wall where they became a bloody ruin.

  Rufin stumbled away as the dark shape blurred, releasing an inhuman snarl. Gunfire sang from the weapons of the guards, but it seemed to make no difference. There were wet, tearing noises, concussive blasts of bolt-fire, the dense sounds of meat under pressure, breaking and bursting. Something whistled through the air and hit Rufin in the chest.

  He went to his knees and slumped against the wall, blinking. Like a blood-painted dagger, a broken human femur, freshly ripped from a still-cooling corpse, protruded from his chest. Rufin vomited black, sticky spittle and felt himself start to die.

  The skull-faced figure came to him, trembling with adrenaline, and spat through the grille of the mask. “Oh dear,” it rambled. “I think I broke him.”

  Rufin heard a tutting sound and a second figure, this one more human than the clawed killer, hove into view. “This is the base commander. We needed him to open the ammunition store.”

  “So?” said the skull-face. “Can’t you do your trick?”

  “It’s not a parlour game for your amusement, Eversor.” He heard a sigh and then a sound like old leather being twisted.

  Through blurry eyes Rufin saw his own reflection; or was it? It seemed to be talking to him. “Say your name,” said the mirror-face.

  “You know… who I am,” he managed. “We’re Goeda Rufin.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” Now it sounded like him too.

  The mirror-face drifted away, towards the locking alcove near the heavy iron hatch that secured the ammo stores. It was impregnable, Rufin remembered. The built-in security cogitator needed to recognise both his features and his vocal imprint before it would open.

  His face and voice…

  “Goeda Rufin,” said the mirror, and with a crunch of gears the armoury hatch began to swing open.

  Rufin tried to understand how that could be happening, but the answer was still lost to him when his heart finally stopped.

  THE RENDEZVOUS WAS a spur-line outside a storage depot in the foothills, several kilometres beyond the capital. Under Tariel’s guiding hand, the simple drive-brains of the monorails had obeyed his command and cut fast routes through the network that confused the PDF spy drones sent to follow them. Now they were all here, emptying their human cargoes as the sun set over the hillside.

  Kell watched the rag-tag resistance fighters gather the freed people into groups, some of them welcomed back into the fold as lost brothers in arms, others formed into parties that would split off in separate directions and go to ground, in hopes of riding out the conflict. He saw Beye and Grohl moving among them. The woman gave him a nod of thanks, but all the man returned was a steady, measuring look.

  Kell understood his position. Even after they had done what he had charged them to do, and obliterated a major stockpile of turncoat weapons into the bargain, Grohl could still not find the will to trust them.

  Because he is right not to, said a voice in his thoughts; a voice that spoke with his sister’s words. The rebels believed Kell and the others were some kind of advance unit, a scouting party of special operatives sent as the vanguard of an Imperial plan to retake Dagonet in the Emperor’s name. Like so many things about the assassins, this too was a lie.

  A man in a hood emerged from the midst of the rebels and said something to Beye; but it was Grohl’s reaction that gave away his identity, the sudden jerk of the severe man’s head, the tensing of his body.

  Kell drew himself up as the man came closer, drawing back the hood. He was bald and muscular, with a swarthy cast to his skin, and he had sharp eyes. The Vindicare saw the tips of complex tattoos peeking up from his collar. Kell offered his hand. “Capra.”

  “Kell.” The freedom fighter took it and they shook, palm to wrist. “I understand I have the Emperor to thank for this.” He nodded at the trains. “And for you.”

  “The Imperium never turns its face from its citizens,” he replied. “We’re here to help you win your war.”

  A shadow passed over Capra’s face. “You may be too late. My people are tired, few, scattered.” He spoke in low tones that would not carry. “It would be more a service to help us find safe passage elsewhere, let some of us come back with the reprisal force as tactical advisors.”

  Kell did not break eye contact with the rebel leader. “We did this in a day. Imagine what we can do together, in the days ahead.”

  Capra’s gaze shifted to where the rest of the Execution Force stood, waiting silently. “Beye was right. You are an impressive group. Perhaps… Perhaps with you at our sides, there is a chance.”

  “More than a chance,” insisted Kell. “A certainty.”

  Finally, the man’s expression changed, the weariness, the doubt melting away. In its place, there was a new strength. New purpose. He wanted so badly for them to be their salvation, Kell could almost taste it. Capra nodded. “The fate of Dagonet rests with us, my friend. We will not forsake it.”

  “No,” he said, as Capra walked away, gathering his men to him as he began to rally them with firebrand oratory.

  But the rebels would not know the truth, not until it was too late; that the fate of Dagonet was only a means to a single end.

  To place the Archtraitor Horus between Eristede Kell’s crosshairs.

  PART TWO

  ATTRITION

  ELEVEN

  Hidden

  Sacrifice

  Cages

  THE CAVERNS WERE deep inside the canyons of a rocky and forbidding landscape that the Dagoneti called the Bladecut. From the ground, the real meaning of the name wasn’t clear, but up high, when glimpsed through the lenses of one of the aerial drones the rebels had captured, it was obvious. The Bladecut was a massive ravine that moved easterly across the stone wilderness beyond the capital, the shape of it like a giant axe wound in the surface of the landscape. There were no roads, nothing but animal trails and half-hidden hunting routes that meandered into sharp gullies which concealed the mouths of the cave network. Thousands of years ago, this had been the site of the first Dagonet colony, where the new arrivals from Terra had huddled in the gloom while their planetforming technologies, now lost to history, had worked to make the world’s harsh environment more habitable for them. The rebels had retaken the old halls of stone, secure in the knowledge that deep inside nothing would be able to dislodge them short of bombing the hills into powder.

  Jenniker Soalm walked through the meandering tunnels, her face co
ncealed in the depths of her hood, passing chambers laser-cut from the rock, ragged chainmail curtains hanging over their entrances, others closed off behind heavy impact-welded hatches. Inside the caves everything was in a permanent twilight, with the only constant the watery glow of biolume pods glued to the stone ceiling at random intervals. Capra’s people – some of them warriors, many more civilians and even children – passed her as she walked on.

  Soalm glimpsed snatches of the everyday life of the resistance through gaps in the curtains or past open doors. She saw Beye and a few others surrounding a chart table piled high with paper maps; across the way, a makeshift armoury full of captured PDF weaponry; a skinny cook who looked up at her, in the middle of stirring a huge iron drum of thick soup; refugees clustered around a brazier, and nearby a pair of children playing, apparently ignorant of the grim circumstances. The latter was no surprise to her; the rebels did not have much choice about where their people could go to ground.

  Further on, she saw a side-chamber that had been converted into a drab approximation of an infirmary, right beside a workroom where figures in shadow were bent over a jury-rigged device trailing wires and connectors. Soalm detected the familiar odour of chemical explosives as she moved on.

  A hatch was creaking shut as she approached, and she turned to see. As it closed, one of Capra’s men gave her a blank look from within; over his shoulder she saw a bloodied trooper in clan colours tied to a chair, a moment before he disappeared out of sight. She paused, and heard footsteps behind her.

  Soalm turned and saw a pair of refugee children approach, eyes wide with fear and daring. They were both grimy, both in shapeless fatigues too big for them; she couldn’t tell if they were boys or girls.

  “Hey,” said the taller of the two. “The Emperor sent you, right?”