[Night Lords 02] - Blood Reaver

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden - (ebook by Undead)

“Run,” he whispered again.

  The Red Corsair sprinted for Septimus. He backed away, still firing, as Octavia reached the sealed bulkhead. It opened the moment her fingers touched it.

  “Out of the way!” Uzas shoved her, pushing her down onto her backside. He hurled his axe.

  He could still feel pain.

  Though the gunfire did little more than ache like scratches upon the skin, the little bastard’s shotgun blasts left him reeling, muted by the wounds, and trembling with the lingering agony. It fuelled his anger, as was only righteous, but Blood of the Pantheon, it also hurt.

  The axe cracked against his head with the same kind of kicking, slamming pain. He had a single second to grunt, before he realised the blade was still live. The teeth snagged in his skull right after impact, clicked once, twice… then started chewing.

  The pain of his jaws and throat being blasted apart turned out to be nothing, after all, compared to the feeling of metal teeth eating inside his skull and shredding his brain into paste.

  The creature roared, though no sound emerged from the remains of its face. Its head had a shattered eggshell look to it, while its throat was a bleeding mess of blood-gushes and abused meat. It turned from Septimus, feral and enraged, hunting the greatest threat—the causer of the greatest pain. To reach Uzas, it ran forwards, spilling into the pool of water, turning its charge into a thrashing wade.

  Uzas was already firing his bolter. It crashed and bucked in his grip, spitting mass-reactive shells into the daemon’s body. Each one popped inside its torso with no apparent effect. The soft, crumpling thuds of bolter shells bursting harmlessly were almost disheartening.

  Xarl was at his brother’s side, his two-handed chainblade ready. “Give it up,” Xarl told him.

  “It wants the Navigator.” Uzas reloaded, taking aim to fire again. His head snapped back as Xarl crashed an armoured elbow into his faceplate.

  “Give it up,” the other Night Lord hissed again.

  Uzas shook his head to clear it, glancing between Xarl and the nearing daemon. He scooped Octavia up by her throat, carrying her with neither grace nor kindness, and followed Xarl back into the corridor.

  Caleb had nothing left except for his rage. He hauled himself from the pool, hurling himself through the door…

  They were waiting for him. The things he’d hunted, gathered now into a great pack. They crouched on the deck, they gripped the walls, they clung to the ceiling—twenty sloping, iron daemon-masks, each one with two red eyes crying painted tears of silver and scarlet.

  They chattered, and growled, and hissed and spat. In the midst of them, two Night Lords stood with bolters raised in one-handed pistol grips. One of them held his prize by the throat, heedless of her kicking and squirming.

  Her blood smelled divine, but he couldn’t focus on her. The pack tensed, moving in bestial unison. His anger drained, like pus from a lanced infection. It was as if the Pantheon abandoned him, sensing his worthlessness.

  Caleb tried to summon it all back, to harness the anger again, to block out the pain and feed his muscles.

  The bulkhead closed behind, sealing him in with the Raptors. The Red Corsair looked over his shoulder, seeing their armoured leader holding onto the ceiling, reaching down to shut the door with one claw.

  “I am going to eat your eyes,” Lucoryphus promised him.

  The Raptors dived as one.

  Speaking was difficult, but she gave it her best.

  “Hound?” She squeaked his name through a harsh throat. “Hound, it’s me.”

  She rolled him over. He’d never been pretty, but there was even less left of him now. She caught at his trembling hand, squeezing it tight.

  “Tired now, mistress.” His voice was as weak as hers. “Thank you for my name.”

  “You’re welcome.” She had tears in her eyes. Tears, for a mutant heretic. Oh, if her father could see her now. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

  “It is dark in here. As dark as Nostramo.” He licked his bruised lips. “Did it die? You are safe now?”

  “Yes, Hound. It died, and I’m safe.”

  He smiled, squeezed her hand with weak, dirty fingers. “It is raining, mistress,” he chuckled softly.

  Octavia wiped her tears from his scarred, wrinkled face, but he was already dead.

  XXVI

  AFTERMATH

  Uzas turned to face the opening door. He’d been standing in the centre of the cell, staring at the wall, thinking of blood’s scent, the thin-oil feel of it on his face and fingers, and the stinging, addictive warmth of its bitter sweetness running over his gums and tongue. A god’s name hid within that taste, within the touch, and within the scent. A god he loathed but praised, for the promise of power.

  “I knew you would come,” he said to the figure in the doorway. “After Vilamus. After what you said in the fortress. I knew you would come.”

  His brother entered the small chamber—a spartan echo of Uzas’ former bare cell back on the Covenant. Truly, it took little effort to recreate such a lack of comfort; all it lacked was the heap of skulls, bones and old scrolls forming a midden in the corner.

  “I didn’t kill him,” Uzas murmured. “Does that matter?”

  “It would matter if it was the truth.”

  Uzas hunched his shoulders. Anger threaded through him at the accusation, but true rage, let alone wrath, was sluggish in his veins this night. He didn’t rant and rave this time. He didn’t have it in him; what use, to rebel against the inevitable?

  “I did not kill Arkiah,” Uzas said, taking great care with each word. “That is the last time I will tell you, Talos. Do whatever you wish.”

  “Arkiah was the last in a long, long line, brother. Before him, there was Kzen and Grillath and Farik. Before them, there was Roveja. Before her, Jaena, Kerrin and Ulivan. You have butchered your way through the Covenant’s crew for more than a century, and you carry the blame for the deaths of Third Claw. I will not let you do that on the Echo of Damnation.”

  Uzas actually chuckled. “I am to blame for every murder that ever took place on the Covenant’s hallowed decks, am I?”

  “All? No. But blood is on your hands from a great many of them. Do not deny it.”

  He didn’t deny it. Denial would neither serve him nor save him, anyway. “My trial is done, then. Carry out the sentence.”

  Uzas lowered his head, feeling both hearts beating harder. This… this was it. His skull would roll free. No more pain. Never, ever again.

  But the prophet didn’t reach for his weapons. The silence made Uzas raise his eyes in dull, slow surprise.

  “You have been judged,” Talos said the words with a care equal to Uzas’ denial, “and you are bound by Legion law.”

  Uzas stood impassive, saying nothing.

  “The judgement is condemnation. You will stain your gauntlets with the red of a sinner’s last oath, and when your lord demands your life, you will offer your throat to the edge of his blade.”

  Uzas snorted, not far from a laugh. The tradition was rare even in the Eighth Legion’s glory days, and he doubted many warbands carried the practice with them down so many centuries. On Nostramo, members of gangs or families that betrayed their sworn oaths would sometimes be sentenced to delayed executions, so they might work off their sins in purgatorial duties before final justice was done. The home world’s tradition of tattooing the condemned’s hands bled into the Legion as a more obvious repainting of his gauntlets. To have hands stained sinners’ red was to show the world that you lived on the sufferance of others, and that you could never be trusted again.

  “Why not just execute me?”

  “Because you have duties to fulfil for the Legion before you are allowed to die.”

  Uzas mused on this, insofar as he ever mused on anything anymore. “The others wanted me dead, didn’t they?”

  “They did. But the others do not lead. I do. The judgement was mine to make.”

  Uzas looked at his brother. After a time, he nodd
ed. “I hear and obey. I will stain my hands.”

  Talos turned to leave. “Meet me on the bridge in one hour. We have one last matter to deal with.”

  “The Atramentar?”

  “No. I think they went down with the Covenant.”

  “That does not sound like the Atramentar,” Uzas pointed out.

  Talos shrugged and left.

  The door slid closed, and Uzas stood alone again. He looked down at his hands, seeing them for the last time in midnight clad. The sense of loss was real enough, cold enough, to make him shiver.

  Then, with a moment of confusion, he glanced around and wondered where he was going to find red paint.

  The back of her head thumped against the wall, hard enough to make her wince.

  “Sorry,” Septimus whispered.

  Octavia’s eyes were watering despite all the blinking going on. “Idiot,” she accused with a grin. “Now put me down.”

  “No.”

  Their clothing whispered as it met. He kissed her, barely, the faintest brush of his lips on hers. He tasted of oil and sweat and sin. She smiled again.

  “You taste like a heretic.”

  “I am a heretic.” Septimus leaned closer. “And so are you.”

  “But you’re not dead.” She tapped the corner of her mouth. “That whole Navigator’s Kiss thing was a myth, after all.”

  He answered her smile with one of his own. “Just keep your bandana on tonight. I don’t want to die.”

  The door chose that moment to open.

  Talos stood in the arch, shaking his head. The towering warrior gave an irritated grunt.

  “Stop that,” he said. “Come to the bridge at once.”

  She saw several of her attendants at his heels. Not Hound. The nameless ones. The ones she didn’t like. She wilted in Septimus’ arms, listening to his racing heartbeat with her head against his chest.

  Closing her eyes was a mistake. Again, she saw Ezmarellda. Desire died within her, wholly and absolutely.

  Ruven was the last to enter. He raised a hand in greeting to First Claw, who lurked in a loose crescent around the hololithic table.

  A throne that mirrored the Exalted’s seat of blackened bronze stood empty, as did the raised dais, once the province of the Atramentar. That will change soon, Ruven thought. Talos may refuse that throne, but I will not.

  The thought was worth musing on; the prophet had never expressed any desire to lead, and First Claw would likely be honoured by promotion into the Atramentar themselves. They would be effective bodyguards for the time being, at least until the next generation of Legionaries was raised from the fresh influx of infant slaves.

  Ruven watched the strategium crew at work, taking note of the various uniforms on display. Most of the mortals were either in the insignia-stripped Naval uniforms of Covenant crew or the dark fatigues worn by the Eighth Legion’s serfs, but several dozen spread across various stations were clearly former Red Corsair slaves. Most of the latter wore the red robes of that fallen Chapter’s servants.

  The last time Ruven had walked the decks of a Night Lord vessel, the Covenant’s crew stank of misery—that heady compound of exhaustion, fear and doubt, forever in the air when mortals stood in proximity to the Exalted. A nectar of sorts. Here, it was an undercurrent to the salty scent of tension. The sorcerer pitied them, so enslaved to their terrors. Such an existence would surely be intolerable.

  He stood with First Claw at the hololithic table. Lucoryphus was present, crouched in his gargoyle’s hunch on a nearby console. The two slaves, the seventh and eighth, were also present. He disregarded them without a greeting. They shouldn’t even be here.

  “Brothers. We have much to discuss. With a ship of our own, free of the Exalted’s tedious paranoia, the galaxy is ours for the taking. Where do we sail?”

  Talos seemed to be considering that very question, studying the transparent imagery of several nearby solar systems. Ruven used the moment to steal a glance at the others.

  All of First Claw was looking at him. Mercutian, straight and proud; Xarl, leaning on his immense blade; Cyrion, arms crossed over his breastplate; Uzas, leaning forward, red-handed by Legion decree with his knuckles on the projector table; and Variel, their newblood, standing in midnight clad, his armour repainted and the Red Corsair clenched fist icon on his shoulder guard now shattered by hammer blows. The Apothecary still wore his narthecium vambrace, and was absently closing and opening his fist, triggering the impaling spike to release every few seconds. It snicked from its housing, retracting a moment later, before Variel’s clenched fist deployed it again.

  Even the slaves were watching him. The seventh, with his machine-eye and worthless weapons strapped to his frail, mortal shell. The eighth, pale and drawn, with her warp conduit hidden behind black cloth.

  Ruven backed away from the table, but the prophet was already moving, a crescent of crepitating gold flashing out from his fists.

  Talos stood over the cleaved body, watching its hands still working, clawing at the decking.

  “You…” Blood bubbled from Ruven’s mouth, drowning the words. “You…”

  The prophet stepped closer. First Claw closed in with him, jackal-eyes glinting at the promise of carrion.

  “You…” Ruven gargled again.

  Talos rested his boot on Ruven’s chestplate. The body ended there—everything from below the sternum had toppled the other way, leaving what was left to fall, crawl, and take almost a minute to die. Talos ignored the severed legs, only paying heed to the bisected less-than-half still capable of speech.

  Blood ran in a forceful flow, pooling around the fallen halves, but gushing most fiercely from the cleaved torso with its straining, flapping arms. Discoloured innards spilled out with the sorcerer’s thrashing, slick with blood still being uselessly regenerated in the dying body. A glimpse of bone led to the broken remnants of the ribcage, sheltering the dark, pulsing organs. Two of his three lungs had been halved by the single chop.

  Talos kept his boot on Ruven’s chest, preventing any more futile crawling. Xarl and Mercutian each placed a boot over Ruven’s wrists, pinning him completely as his life flooded out onto the deck.

  A crooked smile crept over the prophet’s lips—his bitterly sincere, maliciously amused expression of subtle delight.

  “Do you remember when you murdered Secondus?” he asked.

  Ruven blinked, his shattered chest shaking as breath heaved through wounded lungs. Over the taste of his own blood, he supped the acrid iron of Talos’ stolen sword, as the prophet rested the blade’s razor tip against his lips.

  “You sound just like he did,” Talos said. “Gasping through dying lungs, panting like a beaten dog. And you look the same, eyes wide and flickering, dawning awareness of your coming death breaking through the pain and panic.”

  He slid the blade’s tip into the sorcerer’s mouth. Blood gouted onto the silver metal. “This is the fulfilment of a promise, ‘brother’. You killed Secondus, you caused harm to sworn servants of the Eighth Legion, and you betrayed us once, just as you surely would again.”

  He kept the sword in the sorcerer’s mouth, feeling each flinch as Ruven split his lips and tongue on the blade’s edges.

  “Any last words?” Xarl grinned down at the fallen sorcerer.

  Incredibly, he struggled. Ruven thrashed against his confines, against the inevitability of his own demise, but strength had fled, carried out by his spilling blood. Half-summoned warp-frost plastered his gauntleted fingers to the floor.

  First Claw remained with their prey until it died, wheezing out its final breath, finally resting back onto the deck.

  “Variel,” Talos said quietly.

  The Apothecary stepped forwards. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Skin the body. I want his flayed bones to hang from chains, above the occulus.”

  “As you wish, brother.”

  “Octavia.”

  She stopped chewing her bottom lip. “Yes?”

  “Return to your ch
ambers and prepare to sail the Sea of Souls. I will do what I can to ensure you are not overexerted, but the journey will not be an easy one.”

  She wiped sweaty palms on her trousers; her nose still wrinkled at the sight of Ruven’s bisected body. Variel on his knees, cutting away armour and going to work with a flesh-saw, didn’t exactly help.

  “What’s our destination?” she asked.

  Talos called up an image on the central hololithic. Glittering stars cast a malignant glow down on upturned faces and faceplates.

  “I want to return to the Eye, and make contact with some of the other Eighth Legion warbands. But for now, I do not care where we go. Anywhere but here, Octavia. Just get us there alive.”

  She saluted for the first time in her life; fist over her heart, the way the Legion’s warriors once saluted the Exalted.

  “Quaint.” Talos’ black eyes glinted in the reflected artificial starlight. “To your station, Navigator.”

  This time, she performed a Terran curtsey, as if she were back in the ballrooms of the distant Throneworld.

  “Aye, my lord.”

  Once she’d left the bridge, Talos turned to his brothers. “I will return soon. If you need me, I will be with the tech-priest.”

  “Wait, Talos,” Variel called, wrist-deep in the traitor’s chest. “What should I do with his gene-seed?”

  “Destroy it.”

  Variel squeezed, bursting the organ in his fist.

  The Echo’s Hall of Reflection echoed, just as the Covenant’s Hall of Remembrance had echoed before it, with divine industry. Red Corsair plunder was dumped on the floor to be cleansed when Deltrian had time to attend to such insignificant details. Meanwhile, he observed his servitor army installing his precious Legion relics in places of pride.

  The loss of every single artefact caused him a categorised host of digitally-interpreted approximations of negative emotion—what a human might call regret—but he was pleased with the modest horde of equipment he’d managed to salvage.

  On an exceedingly positive note, the Echo of Damnation boasted an extremely well-appointed chamber for housing the treasures of his trade, and although rot had set in across the ship during its years in the Corsairs’ clutches, nothing was ruined beyond the application of careful restoration and routine maintenance.