Shroud of Night

by Andy Clark

  The man’s body went slack in Kyphas’ grip. His eyes glazed.

  ‘Now,’ said Kyphas, setting the Tsadrekhan on his feet. ‘What is your knowledge of this area?’

  ‘This is Underbilge level zero-zero-five, west sector,’ said the sergeant, his voice dull as though he fought sleep. ‘Its productivity output is thirty-two per cent, population–’

  Kyphas whipped one of his daggers from its sheath, snake-fast, and sliced a neat line up the man’s cheek.

  ‘Strategically relevant information only,’ he said. ‘Do you know this region well enough to expedite our swift navigation through it?’

  Blood welled from the cut on the Tsadrekhan’s face. Black lines of corruption were spreading from the wound, Kyphas’ poisons going to work.

  ‘I am from the level one-zero-eight garrison,’ he said, wincing unconsciously at the poison seeping through his flesh. ‘Our patrol routes are confined to twenty-floor radiuses. This is the first time I have ever been to this level.’

  Kyphas slashed the man’s other cheek. Kassar felt disquiet as he watched the relish on his brother’s face at this act of casual violence. Power over others had become a drug for Kyphas, he realised. Perhaps even more than that.

  ‘Do you know of any location wherein we can gain a clear and concise knowledge of our surroundings, of the layout of the Underbilge, and of the strategic situation within the hive?’ Kyphas demanded. The Tsadrekhan, who was twitching now as the poisons built up in his system, struggled to answer.

  ‘Yes,’ he started, before coughing a mouthful of bloody vomit and starting again. ‘Yes. The Adeptus Arbites precinct on level zero… zero… eight… has access… to…’

  The Tsadrekhan dropped to his knees. Black blood was weeping from his eyes and nostrils, and his flesh was purpling. Kyphas gripped him by the chin, crushing his swollen face, and hoisted him back into the air.

  ‘Access to what?’ he asked.

  ‘…hngh… vid… feeds… gggnnnnh… vox… thieves… gh… gh…’

  The sergeant’s jaw worked.

  ‘Mark it,’ said Kyphas, thrusting his auspex at the man. ‘Mark it on here. Now.’

  The Tsadrekhan tried to comply, raising one twitching, darkening hand and stabbing his finger at the auspex map. It took him three attempts.

  ‘You’re sure?’ asked Kyphas.

  The sergeant tried to speak, but more gory bile spilled from his lips, drowning his words. Foam followed, as his flesh darkened from purple to black. Kyphas spun his dagger up and punched it through the man’s eye, piercing his brain. He ripped the blade free and savagely cut the man’s throat, before slamming him backwards against the wall hard enough to dent the metal. Kyphas dropped the bloodied corpse, then closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. He wiped his blade, spinning it back into its sheath.

  ‘What was that?’ demanded Kassar.

  ‘Arbites precinct, level zero-zero-eight,’ said Kyphas. ‘We have what we need.’

  ‘Not that,’ began Kassar, but Thelgh placed a hand on his shoulder and shook his head.

  Not the time.

  Kassar nodded. Another problem, he thought, that had to be set aside until this mission was done. Another brother at breaking point. That was the burden of leadership, though. And at least there were some conversations that he would not have to delay any longer.

  ‘It will take us too long to progress to point beta at this pace. Knowledge is power. We reroute to the Arbites precinct and hope that Kyphas’ victim provided us with an accurate location for it.’

  ‘There will be signage, as we get closer,’ said Skaryth. ‘The corpse worshippers revel in their petty authorities and oppressions.’

  ‘True,’ said Kassar. ‘Then let us move with a purpose. Cultist. You will walk with me.’

  They moved quickly, Syxx forced into a half-jog-half-walk to keep up. He came to Kassar’s side reluctantly, his posture hunched and defensive. The bleeding from his head had stopped, leaving barely a mark to show where he had been hurt. Syxx saw Kassar notice, and tried to shift his broken mask to conceal it.

  ‘What are you?’ asked Kassar, keeping his voice low while unable to speak in serpenta.

  ‘Lord, it’s as I’ve told you. I am an acolyte of Phelkorian,’ said Syxx. ‘And the bearer of the incantation that will desecrate the beacon in the name of Slaanesh.’

  ‘I am not one to gamble, when I can help it,’ said Kassar. ‘I do not take unnecessary risks unless I must. I weigh the cost of every decision, using what information I possess to make informed judgements. Do you understand this?’

  ‘I do, lord, but why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because,’ said Kassar as they crossed an intersection and started up a spiralling ramp lined with abandoned hovels, ‘I am performing that calculation while we speak. I am weighing what I believe I know about you, against the condition you must be in to remain mission viable.’

  Understanding dawned across Syxx’s features. He paled.

  ‘My lord,’ he said. ‘Please. You must believe that I have told you everything I know.’

  ‘No. I do not have to believe that,’ said Kassar, voice still quiet and calm. They reached the top of the ramp, picking their way through a breached barricade littered with headless corpses.

  ‘I don’t know precisely what the incantation will do,’ said Syxx urgently. ‘Phelkorian didn’t tell me, but I know him and I do not believe it will be a pleasant way to die. But whatever it does, it is still worth it to escape him.’

  They were moving now through a wide-open space, with a low, pipe-thick ceiling pressing down from above. Some kind of shanty-market, Kassar thought, looking at the demolished remains of tarpaulins and stalls, scattered gewgaws and blood-spattered promethium lanterns.

  ‘I believe everything that you have just told me,’ said Kassar. ‘But you know that is not what I am asking about. If you evade the question, I will hurt you before asking again.’

  ‘I should have died,’ said Syxx. ‘In the tunnel. When it flooded.’

  ‘You did die,’ said Kassar. ‘We could survive those conditions for some time. You could not. And yet…’

  Syxx picked his way through a litter of broken bodies and torn cloth. When he looked back at Kassar, his expression was equal parts fear and confusion.

  ‘I don’t understand it, lord. Honestly I don’t. Perhaps Phelkorian… did something to me? Perhaps it’s the effect of the incantation worked into my flesh?’

  If the man was lying, then Kassar had rarely met a mortal who could do so as convincingly as this.

  ‘What about in the garrison car?’ he asked. ‘With the daemon engine? Why did you not tell me that you were a psyker?’

  ‘I should have said something,’ said Syxx. ‘I am sorry that I didn’t, but I didn’t realise that you would care. My masters dealt with such potent entities and exhibited such outlandish gifts, they have never taken any interest in my pitiful powers.’

  ‘We are not the Emperor’s Children,’ said Kassar. ‘We are Alpha Legion, and unless a great deal has changed since we were marooned upon Bloodforge, our Legion does not embrace the corruption of the Dark Gods in the same way that our erstwhile brothers do. But that is beside the point. I wouldn’t call holding back a daemon engine pitiful.’

  ‘I can sometimes sense if someone is speaking falsehoods,’ said Syxx. ‘On a few occasions I have conjured pyrokinetic manifestations. And countless times I have served as one of a coven of acolytes when Lord Phelkorian summons daemons. But lord, please believe me that I have never managed anything even remotely resembling what I did today.’

  They left the market by way of an arched transit tunnel, finding more devastated barricades stretched across its width. Strip lumen flickered fitfully overhead, illuminating an abattoir scene.

  ‘Ominous,’ said Skaryth. ‘I have seen no fallen Berzerker
s, and surely the Tsadrekhans would have managed to kill at least some of their attackers.’

  ‘Unless their attacker was just one warrior,’ said Kyphas. ‘One they couldn’t lay low.’

  ‘Be cautious,’ ordered Kassar. ‘But stay on this route. With luck, we will follow in his slipstream right through the defenders’ lines.’

  He returned his attention to Syxx as they pressed on through the flickering gloom of the tunnel.

  ‘Assuming for the moment that I believe you,’ said Kassar, ‘this does not make my calculation any easier.’

  ‘But I haven’t deceived you!’ said Syxx, frustrated and fearful.

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Kassar. ‘But now we have a psyker in our midst, whose powers appear to be growing, perhaps beyond his comprehension or control. I’ve been in this situation before, cultist.’

  ‘What happened?’ Syxx asked quietly.

  ‘It ended badly,’ said Kassar. ‘I don’t mean to see this mission go the same way.’

  ‘What are you going to do with me?’ asked Syxx, and again Kassar found himself impressed.

  ‘You don’t plead, or beg, as most mortals would,’ he said.

  ‘When you have lived as the plaything of the Emperor’s Children, you soon learn that begging and pleading will do you no good,’ Syxx replied.

  ‘They’re degenerates,’ said Kassar. ‘We are not. But I need to know that you won’t endanger my warriors. You must stay alive and, I presume, whole for your incantation to work and our mission to be successful. Besides, the powers of survival you have displayed have been significant. I’ve no guarantee that if we tried to kill or dismember you for our own safety, we wouldn’t simply rouse whatever power it is that seems to be protecting you.’

  ‘Will you bind me, then? Gag me? Beat me unconscious?’ Syxx sounded resigned, conditioned to violent solutions.

  ‘No,’ said Kassar. ‘That would require Krowl to carry you again, and with so few warriors left I cannot spare him. No, cultist. I’m going to trust you.’

  Syxx blinked.

  From ahead, Kyphas sent a string of vox pips to halt their progress. He checked his auspex, then indicated a ladder that led up to a hatch in the tunnel’s ceiling. Skaryth nodded and started climbing. The rest of them followed.

  ‘My lord,’ said Syxx. ‘I will be worthy of your trust, I swear to you.’

  ‘Don’t mistake me,’ said Kassar. ‘This implies no fondness on my part. If I could see another, safer path I would take it. But you have not knowingly betrayed us yet, and weighing all the information I possess, the scales tip this way.’

  ‘Yes, lord,’ said Syxx.

  And, thought Kassar, if you break my trust I will turn the entire Harrow upon you and between us we shall put the lie to your apparent invincibility.

  Gripping the rusted rungs of the ladder, he began to climb.

  Their route took them up a narrow shaft, then through a snarl of maintenance crawlways and pipeline gantries. As they traversed them, they passed close to the ironclad skin of the hive, and heard the groan of the ocean waters pressing outside. They passed through an abandoned skavvy encampment, where water dripped from the ceiling into salty pools, then they emerged through another hatch into an alleyway between two hab blocks.

  A dead Tsadrekhan lay on his face nearby, sprawled amidst a toppled stack of aquila-stamped crates. Close by, Kassar heard gunfire, and bellowed battle cries. He and his surviving warriors swathed themselves in the remains of their cameleoline cloaks, and crept to the end of the alleyway.

  Kassar looked out along a wide processional. Hab blocks towered to either side of the ferrocrete roadway, rising into a sky lost amidst glowing vapours, winking lights and precarious-looking gantries. Groundcars and Tsadrekhan troop transports were strewn around, many rolled onto their roofs or piled in heaps where they had collided at speed. Fires burned. Bodies lay where they had fallen.

  ‘There,’ said Skaryth, pointing through the smoke. ‘Combat.’

  Magnifying his auto-senses, Kassar saw a pair of armoured transports parked nose to tail across the transitway. Rhinos, their hulls black and bone. Around and atop the tanks stood grim-faced Sisters of Battle, their guns blazing as they held off an onrushing mass of Khornate cultists.

  ‘The corpse worshippers are winning,’ noted Kyphas. ‘But they are also occupied. We need to go that way, but we should be able to skirt around them.’

  ‘Quick and quiet,’ said Kassar, gesturing for the Unsung to move out.

  They ghosted through the smoke, sliding around wrecked vehicles and staying low. Just because they hadn’t seen any other enemies, didn’t mean there weren’t any. Bolter fire echoed between the hab stacks, mingled with the roar of engines and the screams of the dying. In such a tangled warzone, death could come from any angle.

  ‘That alleyway,’ said Kyphas, studying his auspex. ‘We follow it around the rear of this block, then climb the stack ladder at its rear. From there we should be able to follow the rooftops and stay above any fighting all the way to the Arbites precinct.’

  An overturned Chimera currently blocked the mouth of the alleyway. They could climb over it, but doing so would expose their silhouettes to any who might be looking.

  Better to go beneath.

  ‘Krowl,’ said Kassar, gesturing to the wrecked tank.

  With his customary grunt, Krowl crouched beside the wreck, braced himself, and hefted one end upwards a few feet. Immediately, Skaryth dropped to his belly and crawled under the wreck to the far side, rising in a firing crouch. Kyphas followed, then Syxx, then Skarle. Kassar came after them, crawling beneath the crushing weight of metal as Krowl dutifully held it up.

  Thelgh came last, leaving just Krowl on the wrong side of the tank.

  While Thelgh and Kassar kept watch, Kyphas, Skaryth and Skarle braced the tank between them. Answering Kassar’s vox-pip summons, Krowl scrambled through and joined them, helping his brothers to lower the wreck back down. Between their strength and care, it barely creaked as it settled on its roof.

  ‘Alleyway looks clear,’ said Skaryth.

  ‘Then let’s move,’ said Kassar.

  They climbed the stack ladder, swarming up its switchback rungs and platforms to the roof of the hab. It was a gruelling climb, especially for Syxx. By the time they passed through the hazy clouds of the cavern’s microclimate and reached the rooftops above, the cultist was gasping and shaking. No one aided him, but Kassar was ready to catch him if he fell.

  They found the hab-zone rooftops to be a different world. Above the clouds and smoke, everything was starkly lit by the huge arc-lumen that dangled from the ceiling high above. They looked like captive stars, thought Kassar, albeit sad, crude, anaemic ones.

  The hab-tops marched away from them in a grid, with yawning gaps between them where the transitways ran. Flocks of scruffy avians fluttered and swirled in the distance, disturbed by the violence of battle far below. Huge ventilator units and generatorums hunched atop the roofs, studded with baroque gargoyles and old, corroded servitors. The salt tang of the ocean was strong here, though Kassar couldn’t have said why.

  They set off quickly, following Kyphas’ directions. Gasping to regain his breath, Syxx kept up.

  Kassar had feared they might have to jump between rooftops, but narrow metal bridges spanned the gaps between the habs. Recycled wind wailed around them, shaking the thin metal of their construction and singing through the guide-wires that formed their flimsy railings.

  ‘Do not fall,’ he said to Syxx, who had shrunk into himself at the sight of the perilous crossings. The cultist looked at him and nodded.

  They made the best time they could, edging carefully across the juddering bridges, bracing themselves against the puckish winds that threatened to pitch them off and into the clouds below.

  Down there, Kassar could still hear the distant thump and roar of battle
. Occasionally a large explosion would underlight the cloud cover. But nothing came their way. They skirted the warzone, staying focused on the mission.

  After a perilous and exhausting hour, Kyphas at last called a halt. They crouched in the lee of a chugging generatorum, Thelgh keeping watch through his scope. Kassar noticed that Syxx was visibly shaking, though whether with fear, exhaustion or cold he didn’t care.

  ‘The Arbites precinct fortress is directly north of here,’ said Kyphas. ‘But it is not part of this rooftop network. The building looks to stand alone in a wide plaza, presumably to provide it with protection and good sightlines from all sides.’

  ‘Back to ground level, then?’ asked Skaryth.

  ‘Many guns I hear them fire, I’ll throw their wielders on the pyre,’ sang Skarle.

  ‘You will not,’ said Kassar. ‘There is a great amount of gunfire down there. Sounds like a pitched battle in full swing. Is there no other route to reach the precinct fortress?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kyphas, though Kassar heard again a note of struggle in his voice as he revealed the information. ‘The electro-conduit wires that stretch from atop this generatorum look to span the gap and connect to capacitors on the fortress’ side.’

  ‘Hardly perfect security,’ said Skaryth contemptuously. ‘Why have a fortress whose power can be cut so easily?’

  ‘They’ll have backup generatorums,’ said Kassar. ‘Oceanic world means scarce resources. This sort of practice is likely an efficiency measure. Kyphas, are you suggesting that we climb across on the wires? Will they take our weight? Are they live?’

  ‘The generatorum is running, so yes, I would say there is a good chance that the wires are live, but so long as we do not break their sheaths then we should remain insulated from the motive force. As to them taking our weight, let’s inspect them.’