Vaults of Terra- The Hollow Mountain - Chris Wraight

by Warhammer 40K

  He could smell it now. He could feel it too, rising up from the floors, permeating the crystal around them, curling up like smoke. It made him feel as he had done at the Eternity Gate, only this time the blood-rush made him exhilarated rather than terrified. Something immense lay up ahead. Something burning and burning and thundering like an unending watercourse. He pictured it in his mind’s eye, recalling the detail of the hololith perfectly. He knew where they had to go, but time was running out. They would be lowering the internal doors soon, shutting out the madness, believing that by locking themselves down they could ride out the storm.

  ‘Hurry, assassin,’ Crowl said, getting up and limping down the long aisle. ‘Hurry, hurry. Must not be late.’

  Khazad looked down at the corpse again. She kicked it once, watching the head rock. She looked around her, at the mass of limbs and skin. Then she came after him, her blade crackling in the dark.

  Revus slumped into a corner. Ten of his storm troopers had made it in, but two of those were badly wounded. One of them couldn’t speak, it seemed. Gorgias was darting back and forth, caught between his usual fury and a more unusual sense of remorse. The skull didn’t know what to do now. Revus could sympathise.

  Hegain busied himself with the control column, trying to find out more about the situation. The rest recharged their weapons, wrapped bandages around wounds, recited battle litanies.

  If Spinoza had been shocked by what had just happened, she didn’t initially show it. She worked with Hegain for a while, trying to figure out how far they had come and what to do next. Revus attended to his weapon, ensuring it could be used again. His sense of panic was fading now, leaving a hollow feeling in its wake.

  He remembered the Custodians. He remembered the endless hours of training, the desire to learn. He remembered the snarl of their golden halberds.

  Spinoza came over then, squatting down in front of him.

  ‘Thank you, captain,’ she said, quietly.

  Somehow, that made it much worse. ‘You were right,’ he said, for the want of anything better to say.

  ‘We were right,’ she corrected.

  ‘Crowl is not himself,’ he said. ‘But the assassin?’

  ‘Be thankful they are together, even in misjudgement.’ She made to get up. ‘Come, we cannot linger here.’

  They rose and went over to the central column. Hegain looked up at them from his glowing lens port.

  ‘Hard to get much more out, in truth,’ he said. ‘All instruments are playing badly. But the Lord Crowl was right – I think they left things too long, trying to fix them. They have not issued distress calls. Or, if they did, they were not answered.’

  Spinoza rested a weary hand on the column’s edge. ‘Then we need to do so for them. I take it we do not have the numbers to do much here on our own?’

  Hegain shook his head. ‘There were thousands stationed in these sections. If even a fraction of them survived, we will not last long.’

  ‘Can we get back to the gunships?’ Revus asked, trying to make sense of the schematic.

  ‘Possibly,’ said Hegain, indicating the respective positions. ‘But they have limited range transmitters, and would not carry verification markers for this location.’

  Spinoza leaned further over. ‘That is a communications tower, is it not?’ she asked, pointing out a spire jutting from the Fortress’ edge, close to their current position. ‘Is it active?’

  ‘Everything is inactive, lord,’ Hegain said. ‘But, if we could get there, it might be salvageable.’

  Revus calculated the distances. ‘Not far,’ he said. ‘If we moved now, before more of them got our scent, we could make it.’

  ‘And we could broadcast a signal from there to the Palace?’ Spinoza asked.

  ‘If the equipment could be made functional,’ said Hegain, ‘to wherever you like.’

  Spinoza looked over at Revus, who nodded his agreement.

  The interrogator stood tall then, turning to address the remaining members of the detachment. ‘You came here under the command of the Lord Crowl,’ she told them. ‘In his absence, you are now under mine. This Fortress is at risk of destruction, and that cannot be countenanced. We must strike out to secure the tower and broadcast a priority distress signal. Then, and only then, if we can, we shall attempt to go after the inquisitor. You have served with him for a long time. You have been loyal to him. I understand that. But I need to know, now, that you will do this for me.’

  Revus stood at her side, making his feelings plain. Hegain did the same.

  Gorgias swung low. ‘Affirmativo,’ he rasped, though with less of his usual ebullience. ‘Now, quick-quick.’

  None of the others demurred. Spinoza turned back to Revus.

  ‘Very well, then,’ she said. ‘Prepare yourselves – we move out.’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  They kept their bodies low, embracing the deep shadow.

  Every so often, they would hear evidence of the debased adepts, usually from far off. Occasionally they would see them at a distance, limping in gangs through the passageways with stringy hunks of meat clutched in their pale fingers. The dead outnumbered the corrupted, but the corrupted were still numerous, their foreheads swollen and their eyes blackened.

  At times, they had to fight to make progress. Khazad led the way, using her blade in order to reduce the sounds of combat, supported by Crowl’s marksmanship when necessary. They had to surprise the enemy, if possible – some of the psykers still had command of uncanny abilities, and telekinetic assaults had almost overwhelmed them more than once.

  ‘Getting dangerous now,’ Khazad told him, her voice low, as she nursed a gash along her right thigh. She strapped it up, her hands moving quickly in the gloom. ‘Too many.’

  Crowl nodded, reloading Sanguine. Despite his restraint, he was running low on ammunition. ‘Not far now,’ he said, hoping he had calculated the route correctly.

  ‘And what then, when we get there?’ Khazad asked, sealing her makeshift wrapping and cutting the bandage off. ‘We fight them all, too?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Crowl, sounding more confident than he felt. ‘We won’t have to.’

  They set off again, padding through the murk. They entered a maze of some kind, perhaps designed according to ritual purposes. Crowl ran his fingers along the walls, feeling the engraved surfaces click against his gauntlet-tips, and wondered what was depicted on them. Something likely unsettling and esoteric. This mountain-city, even in normal times, was an arcane place, a home for the soul-cursed. Everything was symbolic, arranged to channel and conduct the psychic power that curled up tight at its heart. The corridors, the halls, the great vaults and the baroque chambers – all of them were part of a complex web, growing like a cancer around and beneath the central orb.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he murmured, recognising the ways the paths took them. ‘This is right.’

  They passed through tighter confines, squeezing through a series of narrow service corridors. The bloodstains were fewer here, though even the servitors had not been spared – several lay at the gaping portal of some dormant refuse furnace, ripped apart, their blank eyes reflecting dully in Crowl’s helm-lumens.

  Soon, lights flickered up ahead. The sound of bootfalls, then low voices, welled up from below. They edged out, emerging from the service tunnels. They were high up, it seemed, having crawled into an empty gallery above a larger space below. Both Crowl and Khazad stayed on all fours, worming through the gaps between the empty seats and pressing themselves up against a spiked metal railing.

  Below them, five metres down, was a grand chamber, lit up by the movements of dozens of armour-mounted lumens. Its floor was a chequerboard of blue-black marble, its walls the same dark crystal that lined every surface in the Fortress. Statues stood at regular intervals, some of vaguely human form, others of more indeterminate – and troubling, to the non-psyker �
�� shapes. A few wall-inset lumens still burned, though most were smashed. Armourglass fragments littered the floor, alongside the familiar detritus of bloodletting.

  Over to their right-hand side, where the chamber terminated, rose a sheer wall. It was black, and inscribed with occult symbols linked by geometric swirls of inlaid silver. It reminded Crowl a little of the maps in the Nexus Axiomatic. The skull-and-eye of the Adeptus Astronomica gazed out from a giant obsidian lozenge. At the base of the wall were a pair of reinforced siege doors, each one still raised, but clearly poised to drop soon. Steam pooled from the heavy lift-columns, spreading like condensation across the debris-strewn floor. Several squads of grey-armoured guards lingered, looking anxious to get inside. Perhaps more importantly, fine-grained hexagrammatic wards were engraved on almost every surface, overlapping one another, intersecting with one another, creating a perceptible, tangible barrier against the psychic.

  ‘Here they come,’ Crowl whispered.

  Over to their left, another set of doors slid open. More figures emerged into the uncertain light, all hurrying, some limping, others dragging wounded with them. Most were in the dark grey armour of the Fortress guardians, but some were decked in nightshade robes, their pale skin standing out amid the wash of gloom.

  Crowl narrowed his eyes, studying carefully. These adepts looked older than most of those they had encountered already. One, the most senior by her look, wore an elaborate lace ruff at her neck and walked with an ebony cane. She was bald, like they all were, with that mix of pale skin and black augmetic enhancement so reminiscent of the cadaverous.

  They were agitated. Even as they made their way towards the waiting siege doors, fresh noises of scampering pursuit could be heard.

  ‘You can make this?’ Khazad asked him doubtfully, gesturing towards the long drop.

  Crowl smiled grimly. ‘No real alternative, is there?’ he said. ‘My armour will take the brunt.’

  Now that he was stationary again, the pain in every joint had come back with a vengeance. It was harder to maintain the belief that this place was making things better. That now seemed, like a number of other things, to have been something of a misjudgement. He was getting tired. Very tired.

  Khazad peered over the edge. Her blade was inert, held ready. The cavalcade approached the siege doors, and some of the adepts were ushered inside. The woman paused, conferring with one of the guards. They were almost directly beneath the gallery’s edge.

  Crowl looked at Khazad.

  ‘Now?’ she asked.

  ‘Now,’ he confirmed.

  They both got up, grabbed the railing, and vaulted over, dropping to the marble floor. Khazad landed in a fluid crouch before springing up and setting her blade alight. She sprang towards the woman, going for her throat.

  Crowl crashed to earth alongside her, overbalancing a fraction before correcting, whipping Sanguine out and aiming it at the woman, aware that a dozen lasguns were now also aimed at him.

  Khazad had frozen. She was in mid-stride, one leg off the ground, her blade held high, entirely static.

  The woman looked at both of them coolly. Up close, it was apparent she was very old. Her skin was crinkled like fine lace, her augmetics wire-thin and delicately made. Her nightshade robes were of rich velvet and mottled with subtle damask, though there were dark stains splattered at the hem.

  Some movement was still possible, at least for him. Crowl slowly reached for his rosette, keeping Sanguine trained on her the whole time.

  ‘An inquisitor,’ the woman said. Her voice was dry, arch and pene­trating. What was most disconcerting, though, was the fact her mouth never moved. ‘What a night of surprises.’

  ‘Greetings, mamzel,’ Crowl said. ‘You will want to take us in there with you.’

  ‘I do not think so.’

  ‘I must speak to your master.’

  ‘He has other things on his mind.’

  ‘He will make the time for me,’ Crowl said.

  The noises from the far end of the chamber began to grow in volume. Something was coming their way, heading rapidly up out of the darkness. Some of the guards began to look a little jumpy.

  The woman signalled to those stationed at the doors, and the steam gouted out more powerfully. Slowly, grindingly, the siege doors began to drop. One by one, the grey-armoured troops filtered inside, along with the last of the more junior adepts, ducking as they entered. Soon only the three of them remained outside.

  Crowl could see Khazad struggling against the psychic lock. He began to wonder if he’d even be able to pull the trigger, if it came to it. The woman did not seem overly concerned at the threat.

  ‘I suggest you go back the way you came,’ she said, gathering up her robes and walking towards the portal. ‘I wish you luck.’

  ‘Four beasts,’ said Crowl. ‘Four beasts, full of eyes, before and behind.’

  She halted.

  ‘Three beasts have been uncovered,’ Crowl went on. ‘Who is the fourth? I will discover it. Perhaps it is me. Ask him about that, when you see him.’

  She turned back. Her face remained a mask, taut as a screen of ivory. She looked at him, long and hard. She glanced at his rosette again, then over at the still-struggling Khazad. An unearthly scream rang out, echoing up from the chambers at the other end of the hall. More followed, louder and closer.

  For a moment, he thought she would remain firm. She closed her eyes briefly, as if communing with someone or something. The doors kept coming down. Soon they would be below shoulder-height.

  Then her eyes opened again. Khazad was released, though her blade spun from her fingers and embedded, shivering, in the stone floor.

  ‘A night of surprises,’ the woman said again, her mouth as rigid as a stone. ‘Stow your weapon. Remove your helm. You have bought yourself a little more time. Let us see what you can do with it.’

  Spinoza stood before the closed doors, her crozius snarling. She took a final moment to memorise the route ahead, calibrating that with the numbers left to them and their capabilities.

  Losing Khazad was a blow – she was invaluable in a close-range fight, and now she was gone, haring after Crowl on a mission that would surely see them both dead soon.

  The prospect of that, of both of them being lost in this horrific place, racked her. Everything about the Fortress did. She knew why, of course, but that didn’t make it much easier to deal with. Maybe she should have spoken out earlier, at the final meeting in Courvain, but it was hard, almost impossibly so, to break the lifetime habit of fealty under all circumstances.

  Doubts crowded at her mind, even as she tried to think past them. She saw Crowl’s disbelieving face staring at her, over and over. She had never disobeyed a direct order from a superior before. Tur would likely have shot her on the spot, rather than let her get away with it.

  That was not Crowl’s style, of course. And it had to be remembered that, as Revus had said, the man was not himself. If things had been less critical, if the situation had been otherwise, she would never have done it. Now, though, as Hegain had demonstrated, the decision was surely the right one. Losing tracts of hab-units to anarchy was regrettable; losing the Astronomican was unthinkable.

  ‘Ready, captain?’ she asked Revus, who stood on the opposite side.

  Revus nodded. The others were all in place, lined up facing the doors in two ranks, the first kneeling, the second standing. Gorgias had unsheathed his needle-gun, his eye glowing a determined dark crimson. Once out, they would have to move fast and keep moving. They could already hear the scrape of fingernails down the outside of the portal, and more were arriving all the time.

  ‘May He guide you all,’ she said, crouching down, and released the lock.

  The corrupted cascaded inside immediately, clawing and drooling. The storm troopers opened fire – a mixed barrage of las-beams, plasma bolts and hard rounds, shredding and cutting
and sending the corrupted adepts scattering backwards.

  Spinoza and Revus swivelled around the door’s edges and launched into the flanks, cutting and blasting. A flesh-stretched face leered up at her out of the gloom, and she smashed it aside with her crackling maul. A scrawny claw grabbed at her ankles, and she kicked it away.

  The first rank of storm troopers, having loosed their concentrated wave of las-fire, leapt up and charged. Two grenades spiralled overhead, bursting right at the heart of the press of horror-creatures and throwing their broken bodies against the corridor walls. The foremost storm troopers reached for combat blades even as the second rank raced to cover them with pinpoint las-blasts. In such tight confines, the tactic was effective, and the corridor ahead was blasted clear, its floor half-buried in a glut of twitching, claw-flexing bodies.

  ‘Now run,’ Spinoza ordered, leading by example.

  They charged out of the chamber, barging the remaining corpses aside and sprinting down the long capillary.

  From up above, where the vaults ran away into darkness, a chorus of hissing drifted down. The distant roofs ran with the sound of scuttling, as if an army of rats had been stirred into motion.

  Spinoza ignored the sounds, keeping the mental map of the way ahead fixed in her mind. They had to reach one of the steep stairwells running close to the inside skin of the outer walls, get up it and fight their way into one of the major communications towers perched on the western-facing battlements. The distance was not great, but the passages were confined and tortuous.

  Just like Courvain’s, she thought to herself, with a pang of memory.

  They reached a rectangular hallway, smeared with the evidence of extravagant tortures, at the end of which rose the first of the stairs. She had nearly made it when something leapt at her from under the heaps of flesh.

  A dozen las-beams scythed into the creature, sending it slamming back into a twisted glut of cold bodies. Then, from the other side of the pitch-dark hallway, two more adepts burst from cover. Each was a vision of derangement – foreheads bulging as if fit to burst, striated with pulsing veins, the eyes compressed into black slits. They extended their arms, and a wall of pressure burst out from their bloodstained fingers.