Shadowsword

by Guy Haley

  Missrine hauled the girl half upright and smacked her back and forth across the face, but although blood ran from her nose, she could not be roused. Her eyelids fluttered over eyes in which only the white could be seen.

  ‘Moooooottther! Help me!’ came Missrine II’s cry, close by. Any other who heard it was discomfited by the heir’s unnatural voice, for it was thin and whining. But to Missrine, it was everything.

  ‘Mother’s coming!’ she cried, and lumbered back to her feet. The vat-born heir’s wails increased in volume. She ran round a corner, bouncing off the wall in her haste. A door ahead lay open. Purplish light shone from inside. As she raced towards it, Dostain staggered out from the room, bloody to the elbows. He collapsed against the wall and ground the heels of his hands into his eyes as if he could rub out whatever he had just seen. Her ladies-in-waiting came running after their Governatrice, apparently having gathered their wits. Too little, too late; she would have them all killed if her heir had been harmed.

  The cries had stopped. Her heart fell through her stomach. Missrine II was dead.

  ‘What have you done? Where is my heir?’

  Dostain’s head came up, grinning wildly. He blinked as if the sight of his aunt were a completely novel and confusing experience. Slowly, his eyes focused within their rings of blood, and his smile turned into a frown. He reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead, smearing more vitae over his eyes, like the war-paint of an island savage.

  ‘We have new allies, aunt. The war will be won!’

  ‘Where is my heir!’ bellowed the Governatrice. Her ladies-in-waiting held back, weeping. None dared look into the room.

  Dostain looked at her, his mouth slack. He pushed himself up the wall, smearing it with blood.

  ‘I... I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to do it. She made me. Pollein. I mean, Dib did. It was him, wasn’t it? I don’t know any more!’

  ‘Joliandasa, call the guard! Have them arrest my nephew.’

  ‘They did not do this alone,’ said another voice, smooth as silk. ‘Will you arrest me too?’

  A young man of radiant beauty, quite naked, stepped from the room. His skin glowed – literally, appearing so healthy and vital that a sheen clung to the curves of his muscles. His hair was blond as the morning sun. Absently, he brushed a tangle of it from his shoulder.

  ‘Who... who are you?’ asked the Governatrice.

  ‘Someone of consequence,’ the man said. He advanced on Huratal. ‘He did you a favour, killing that thing. That was no child. A bundle of cloned organs and machine parts. How could you love it?’ He shook his head disapprovingly.

  The youth’s eyes were brown, the deep brown of forest pools, full of motes of gold as lively as darting fish. Huratal felt herself being dragged towards them, and she staggered back.

  ‘I know you,’ she whispered. ‘The Devil-in-the-bush!’

  ‘No royal “we” today?’ said the youth. ‘No such thing exists as the Devil-in-the-bush. It is a story, as you so rightly pointed out to the corpse-god’s lackeys before you had them killed.’

  ‘Dostain, what have you done?’ said Huratal.

  ‘Your own laws do not permit such technomancy as created that “child”. Indeed, I believe they are outlawed on most of the worlds of your petty Imperium. What your heir did is no worse, not in an absolute moral sense. He ended an abomination. Don’t you think, Dostain?’

  Dostain began to cry. Huratal stared at him in disgust. When she looked back at the man, she saw Pollein instead, the gauzy dress she wore stuck to her skin with blood. She moved with a sinuous sensuality to Dostain’s side, and placed a tender hand upon his shoulder.

  ‘She is quite talented, you know,’ she said in the youth’s voice. ‘Very powerful. I’m surprised you didn’t notice. Or is this your greatest crime? Did you keep her? Did you keep your sister from the Black Ships?’

  Huratal’s eyes bulged.

  ‘Ha! That’s it, isn’t it? Stupid woman. I have you to thank for my presence then.’ Pollein curtseyed. ‘This world will be mine, thanks to you.’

  ‘Pollein!’ said Huratal. ‘Pollein.’

  ‘Sister?’ said Pollein in her own voice. She smiled, but the purity it once exhibited, and that Huratal had always so despised, was tainted by something fell. ‘Something wonderful is coming!’

  Then she was gone, and the thing wore the man’s shape and spoke again. ‘Dib! Dib! Devil-in-the-bush!’ It laughed. The sound was a peal of silver bells, but it made Huratal feel nauseous. ‘I quite like it. It’s not my name, of course, but you need some sort of label, shall we say.’ The golden man ceased to smile. ‘Can you guess my real name? If you do, I will let you live. But you never will.’

  The thunder of booted feet rang up the corridor. A score of Yellow Guard approached the murder room from both ends of the corridor. Huratal’s maids fled, shrieking as the soldiers took up double firing lines, their weapons upon the golden man.

  ‘Mistress!’ shouted Oravan.

  ‘Oravan! Kill him, kill him now,’ said Huratal, stepping back.

  ‘My lady, kill him?’ he replied in confusion. ‘It is Pollein there, your sister. You wish us to kill the Heir the Third?’

  ‘Now!’

  ‘We may kill you!’

  Dib, for it was Dib Huratal saw and not Pollein, cocked his head and pulled a face. ‘They might. They really might.’

  ‘Do it!’ said Huratal.

  Oravan needed no more convincing.

  ‘Fire!’

  Scores of las-bolts hammered into Dib’s flesh, making the golden skin smoke and curl. He stood smiling sweetly, even when a beam of coherent light punched out his eye neatly as a needle. But he did not fall.

  ‘Emperor’s teeth!’ yelled Oravan. The shooting dwindled away.

  With his remaining eye, Dib looked himself over. Even as he did so his flesh rippled, and became whole again. A new eye pushed its way out of the back of the ruined socket, swelling like a fruiting fungus captured by pict-feed and sped up. His completed face changed, then back again. Now he was Pollein, now he was Dib.

  ‘My turn,’ he said.

  He lifted his hand. There were no pyrotechnics, only a wall of invisible force that crushed men’s souls. Twenty men fell, writhed on the floor making noises of unashamed pleasure, then as one twitched their last and died, their backs arching so hard in their spasms that they broke.

  Dib stalked towards Huratal.

  ‘Do you know, your subjects say you have no heart?’ he said. ‘What do you say we take a look?’

  Drawing back his arm he punched forwards, smashing his fist through her ribcage with an awful crack. Huratal grunted as Dib rooted around in her chest cavity. She shook, eyes rolling back in her head, blood pouring from her mouth.

  ‘Hm, I can’t find it,’ he said. ‘Perhaps they are right?’ He withdrew his arm, dripping with blood.

  She fell to the floor. Dib licked at her vital fluids absently. ‘That’s that then,’ he said. He walked to where Dostain sat against the wall, dripping red upon the marble.

  Dib knelt before Dostain and bowed his head. ‘My lord, you are Heir the Second no longer!’

  Dostain drew in a snivelling breath.

  ‘Don’t be like that! You’re the king of the world, my boy! Stand tall now.’ Dib reached and grasped Dostain under the armpits. To an observer, had there been any left alive, it would have looked like an act of kindness, but Dostain felt a serpent’s hooked fangs bury in his flesh.

  ‘You are the Lord of Geratomro! And will be forever and ever, and ever. Your allies come. The first ones you’ll like, the others you’ll get used to. Well, eventually. They’ll stop the dogs of Terra. But first,’ Dib said, clapping his hands, ‘we must arrange your coronation and wedding. It will be fun! I do so love parties. But oh, I suppose,’ he said, looking down at Pollein’s ruined dress, fo
r he wore her shape again, ‘someone really should fetch me some new clothes. These are quite ruined.’

  ‘Girls,’ Dib called, treading bloody footprints down the corridor. ‘Oh, girls!’

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Moors

  HILL SEVEN-BETA, RASTOR TERRITORY

  GERATOMRO

  087298.M41

  Smoke drifted in lazy streamers across the battle-scarred ground of the ridge. Bannick sat shivering in the cupola of the tank, more from shock than the cold. The grey dawn revealed the extent of the carnage on the hill. The broken bodies of men lay tangled with blasted timber and metal. A hand grey with dust poked out from underneath the rubble of a shattered trench-line. Bannick stared at it as he smoked. He never smoked, but last night had shaken him. When Meggen offered him a cheroot it seemed like a good idea. He sucked in the foul-tasting smoke and blew it out mechanically.

  Men moved all over the ridge. They spoke very little, numbed by exhaustion. Priests chanted somewhere out of sight, praising the Emperor for victory and commending the souls of the dead to His care. The scent of incense mixed with spilled promethium and residual fyceline.

  The occasional gunshot cracked out as the 477th put the enemy wounded out of their misery. At least that killing masqueraded as mercy. The few Yellow Guard prisoners had been shown no forgiveness and were shot without compunction, but not immediately. Their screams still rang in Bannick’s ears. Their bloodied bodies lay heaped with their fellows killed in the attack. Everyone was filthy. Huddles of men given no duty crouched in the lee of the escarpments not far away, all grey with mud but for pink holes where tired eyes peeked out. The rain and the attack had churned the slope into a slippery morass. From the hill-top, Bannick had a fine view over the mist-shrouded lands to the south. Where the fog had lifted, he saw large patches of terrain churned by warfare. On the western horizon pillars of black smoke climbed skywards, the glow of fire banishing the night early. Something like thunder sounded far away, that abrupt rumbling that spoke of lance strikes. In the near distance he could just about make out the line of the road. The tiny shapes of armoured vehicles moved alongside it, headlights winking in the early morning. They were free of bombardment; at least he could cling to that.

  His eyes were drawn back to the dead hand. What had driven its owner to fight so fiercely against overwhelming odds? Would he do the same if his own planet were threatened? To rebel against the rule of the Imperium was unthinkable to Bannick, but it might well have been the same for this dead soldier until recently.

  He thought of what the 477th had done to the captives. Nobody here could claim the moral high ground.

  He turned away, and slid back down into the tank.

  Ganlick’s body was encased in a waxed canvas sack. There was one for each of them in the tank’s stores, names already stencilled upon them in anticipation of their inevitable deaths. Epperaliant had his arm bound up. His face was raw with burns. The morning breeze blew in through the breach the Destroyer shot had burned through the armour. The tank had been angled slightly down when it had hit, and the beam had continued into the comms and tac desk. Epperaliant’s sliding seat had been at the far of the rail when his station had been destroyed – only that had saved him. Kolios worked underneath the desk, singing praises to the minor spirits of vox and cogitator, his box of tools open beside him.

  Ganlick had not been so lucky. Molten plasteel was flung across the command deck by the blast, catching the third loader in the side of the head with force enough to crack his skull as well as burn his flesh from the bone. Bannick couldn’t get the image of his wounds from his mind. His screams had blended into the clamour of battle, and when the fight was done, so was Ganlick. They said it had taken him minutes to die. Bannick had come close this time himself. Molten metal was splattered all up the back of his own seat, burned through the padding to the wirework beneath, heavy lumps of it resting on the deck-plating. If he hadn’t have been in the turret–

  ‘Sir!’ Epperaliant saluted him, snapping Bannick out of his daze. ‘Kolios has restored internal vox, but we’ve no long-range communications capabilities.’

  ‘What’s the rest of the damage?’ asked Bannick.

  Kolios slid himself out from under the tac desk. The red cowl he wore over his Astra Militarum fatigues was stained with oil. Bannick felt for men like him. He was neither of the Adeptus Mechanicus or the Astra Militarum. There were insufficient enginseers for one to be stationed on every super-heavy tank, but the vehicles’ technical complexity meant a well-trained man was needed to effect battlefield repairs. Those chosen were not scions of Mars. They would never be accepted as tech-adepts. Because of their training they stood apart from the run of the men, scorned by the Adeptus Mechanicus and their former countrymen both. They were trapped between two worlds. The tech-adept aspirant bore these burdens with a solemn stoicism.

  ‘The main logic engine has been destroyed, sir,’ said Kolios. ‘It is beyond my skills to repair. We have three of five cogitators operating at limited capacity, but machine shock has set in to them. They mourn their brothers’ deaths and may well die in time. Our targeting aids and capacity to link into the army group noosphere have gone. Life support controls are inoperable. I might salvage the long-range vox, but other than that our communications capacity is limited on every front.’

  ‘My chartdesk?’

  ‘The device itself is functioning, but without the direction of the tactical cogitator array it is useless,’ said Kolios.

  ‘But our reactor, guns, all that. We can still function?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The power feeds to the right sponson are severely damaged. The lascannon array will have to be replaced by the company fabricatum.’

  ‘I saw it come off, Kolios. What’s left of it is scattered across the north face. Of course we need a new one,’ said Bannick tersely, and instantly regretted his tone. His men looked at him in surprise. ‘I’m sorry. I’m... I’m tired.’

  Kolios paused a moment before continuing. ‘The bolters on that side are also affected. I can patch the lines, but the efficiency of motive force transference to their servo-motors will be lower, and the guns will be less responsive.’

  ‘Can you work on this while we move?’ Bannick asked, pointing at the tac desk.

  ‘Yes, sir, I can.’

  Bannick looked through the hole in the hull. ‘Then patch this and fix the power lines to the sponson. I’ll go find Kenrick, borrow his comms and get on the vox to Hannick. Meggen, Shoam, get Ganlick to the priests. At least here he’ll be buried alongside his fellow Paragonians.’

  Bannick climbed off the tank, his boots sinking halfway up his calves in the grey mud. Paragonian field engineers were already setting to work repairing the fortifications. He caught the arm of a passing sergeant, who directed Bannick towards the centre of the trench complex. There a squat bunker, crowned with camouflaged comms arrays, hid behind stubby columns of rock. Bannick passed between sentries on the main gate. Plasteel doors had been blown off their hinges. He descended steps into an unexpectedly extensive complex. Lumen strips flickered on emergency power. Blood was everywhere. The smell of weapons discharge and death was strong in the enclosed space.

  Kenrick was in the enemy command centre. Like in Matua Superior’s fort, the rebels had succeeded in destroying all their informational technologies before the Astra Militarum could take it. Wrecked machines and burned-out cabinets were being carried out by Kenrick’s men, and Bannick waited to let them by. Inside, enginseers were at work setting up portable command units. The large chartdesk at the centre had been patched up and put back into the service of the Imperium.

  ‘Bannick!’ said Kenrick. He was elated. Victory had made him forget the concerns he had before the attack. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘Sir,’ Bannick saluted.

  ‘Without you, we’d still be at the bottom of this bloody hill. Thank you.’ He held
out a grubby hand. Bannick shook it.

  ‘You suffered casualties, I hear?’

  ‘One dead, one wounded. Cortein’s Honour took a direct hit from the Destroyer. Only the Emperor’s protection kept us all from the grave.’

  ‘I am sorry. A terrible business this. I envy you your war on Kalidar. Ever since we were raised we’ve been fighting men. It still makes me sick to the stomach that they’d turn and that my soldiers must die when there are so many other threats to our kind out there. These people are so stupid, so short-sighted.’

  Bannick swallowed, suddenly nauseous. He agreed completely, but his words stuck in his throat.

  ‘My comms array is out. If I might, I wish to use your long-range vox to contact my company commander and refresh my orders, sir.’

  ‘Be my guest. I’m rather tempted to order you to stay here – you’re a fine asset to command, but I’d be overruled. We’re to occupy this fort in case of enemy pushback. I doubt it will happen, but it is good to be ready. Good too to see that someone with foresight is up there, watching the war. Especially when it means my men are off the front line for a while.’

  ‘That sounds like Iskhandrian,’ said Bannick.

  ‘Perhaps. It’s hard to know who’s really in charge at the moment. Jindilin, show the honoured lieutenant here to the vox-array. Take as long as you need, Bannick.’

  It took five minutes of negotiating vox-relays and their various operators before Bannick was patched in to Hannick. Bannick passed on the news of the engagement and the damage to Cortein’s Honour. Hannick gave him his orders.

  Bannick pushed the chair back and got up.

  ‘Cortein’s Honour has been ordered to rejoin the rest of the company. We’re moving on Magor’s Seat.’

  Kenrick gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘If there’s anything your men need, Bannick, let my quartermaster know. He’s not bad for a Departmento puppet.’

  Cortein’s Honour was resupplied, and Ganlick’s corpse removed. Kolios finished his makeshift repairs with help from Kenrick’s two enginseers, although the long-range vox could not be saved. They took a brief few hours rest, and were on the move again by Geratomro’s chilly noon.