The ur-ghul pack went wild, running and leaping in all directions with horrid agility. By some sixth sense several leaped directly up at the Raider, their hooked claws outstretched, but the Raider’s steersman had judged his height nicely and it bobbed just out of reach. The one-sided battle continued with the kabalites gunning down the ur-ghuls at their leisure. The pack was dispersing now, most trying to find places to hide even as some continued to hurl themselves pointlessly at their flying tormentor. The Raider turned to pursue a handful of ur-ghuls that were fleeing directly towards where Kharbyr, Bezieth and Xagor were hiding.
‘Something’s definitely sending good fortune our way,’ Bezieth murmured quietly. ‘Let’s not disappoint it. Xagor, do you think you can hit their steersman with that rifle of yours?’
Xagor shook his head frantically, hunching his shoulders helplessly as the Raider chased the berserk pack of ur-ghuls closer.
‘Let me rephrase that,’ Bezieth said coldly. ‘Xagor, you will hit the steersman with your first shot or I will gut you like a fish.’
CHAPTER 19
THE POWER OF MISDIRECTION
Motley did not stop running and stretched his lead ahead of Morr as they raced away through the rushing darkness. They dodged between broken walls of lapis lazuli and down blackened alabaster streets, wove between piles of scintillating rubble and across fields of shattered crystal, the Harlequin’s gazelle-like agility always keeping him ahead of Morr’s pantherish, loping strides. After a time Motley perceived that Morr seemed to be content to follow, and had no trace of insane murder-lust in his eye. He dropped back to run alongside him, glancing up at the incubus’s exposed face.
‘Are you tired? We can rest a little if you like but we have to keep moving. Caraeis will be able to track us like a hound so we have to keep moving faster than they can catch up with us.’
‘I am well rested,’ Morr rumbled. ‘Those prancing fools gave me ample opportunity to regain my strength, it chafes my heart to leave them alive.’
‘They would shoot you full of holes first and you know it. So… you’re not mad at me for knocking you out like that? I confess I thought there would be more running and shouting involved before we made our peace.’
Morr laughed, a peal of manic sound that was lost in the battering winds. ‘Little clown, you have moved among us in the eternal city yet you are still blind to our ways. That trick is so old that it has its own name. It is called a Roc’chsa when two slaves turn on one another in order to gain favour with their new master. I approved of your quick thinking.’
‘Oh. I never thought of it like that,’ Motley said, slightly perturbed. ‘I suppose that should make me feel better about it, but somehow it doesn’t.’
‘Why do you not simply make a gate now as you did in the shrine?’
‘The warlock, Caraeis, would sense it instantly, and he could block its formation for long enough for the Dire Avengers to reach us.’
‘So where do we run to?’
‘A permanent gate, I think, is somewhere close by. If we can reach that and enter the webway I can get us to Lileathanir.’
‘Surely the warlock will hold that shut against us also.’
‘It will be much harder for him to do with a permanent gate. You’ll have to allow me some leeway here, I’m sort of inventing this as I go.’
‘Then tell me who attacked the craftworlders and by what happy coincidence they came to help our escape.’
That… is my little secret to keep for now, just know that we have friends as well as enemies in this particular production.’
‘Gone!’ Caraeis snarled. He kicked at the broken shackles angrily and fought with a desire to tear off his masked helm so that he could fill his lungs and scream into the howling winds in frustration. Aiosa, the Dire Avengers exarch, stood to one side watching him rage, her own impassive mask coolly inscrutable beneath its tall crest.
‘Calm yourself,’ she said to him with mindspeech. ‘Your passion has no place here, remember your Path!’
The warlock tried to check his emotions and fought to breathe more calmly. Caraeis’s personal investment in this mission had become like a living thing dwelling inside his chest, gnawing to break free. He ran through the thousand and one mantras he had been taught about the hideous dangers that were inherent to uncontrolled passions for a psyker.
The runes, the mask, the Path of the Seer itself, all were ways of insulating him against the perils of the warp and lending him enough protection to safely wield the limitless power it represented. If his underlying will lacked focus and discipline it meant that nothing could protect him. If his connection with the warp became too personal, if he bared his soul even once to the daemons then he was lost and his time on the Path of the Seer would be over. He quieted the beast within his breast only with great difficulty.
‘Why was no guard left behind?’ he asked eventually, his tone remarkably steady in his own ears.
‘I instructed you to remain on guard,’ Aiosa replied. ‘Why did you not do so?’
‘I… that is not what I heard,’ Caraeis said in confusion. ‘I heard you instruct me to follow.’
Aiosa gazed at him silently, waiting for an explanation with not a shred of doubt in her demeanour that Caraeis had made an error. Caraeis searched his memory carefully, Aiosa’s mind-speech had seemed a little garbled at the time but he had put it down to the confusion of the firefight. He had definitely had the strong impression of the word ‘follow’ being in it, although now he came to analyse it, he was unsure precisely who had said it. A cornerstone of Caraeis self-assurance crumbled perceptibly – was it possible he had been duped? As he wrestled with the implications a Dire Avenger approached and dropped several objects into the dust at Aiosa’s feet with evident disgust.
‘Exarch, we found these at the battle site. dark kin were here.’
A barbed, wicked-looking pistol and a tall, dark helm surmounted by a crescent moon lay in the drifting dust. Both showed signs of recent damage, shurikens had torn into the helm and the pistol had a broken barrel.
‘Nothing else?’ Aiosa asked. ‘No blood, no bodies?’
‘Nothing, exarch, no tracks either – although the ground was unsuitable for them.’
‘Very well, return to overwatch positions.’
Aiosa turned back to Caraeis. ‘Well?’ she asked as if no interruption had occurred.
‘Someone told me to follow, but I don’t think it was you. I was tricked.’
‘I see,’ the exarch said clinically. ‘Tell me your opinion of these artefacts.’ Caraeis had a momentary impression that he was being addressed by an automaton, that if he peered inside Aiosa’s armoured suit he would find it empty. He shook his head and tried to focus on the helm and pistol, he held a gloved hand over them, cautiously feeling for their psychometry. He shivered unexpectedly and pulled his hand back.
‘There is no doubt that they are of Commorrite manufacture. The pistol has been fired recently, before it was broken. The impressions were… too chaotic to read anything beyond that. What do you think?’
‘That someone is trying to mislead us again by laying a false trail back to the dark city. We were left these clues to find.’
‘That seems very convoluted,’ Caraeis said dubiously.
‘We were not attacked by dark kin, our supposed foes went out of their way to avoid harming us.’
‘Then who?’
‘The answer is obvious. The Harlequin called in more members of his masque and they led us in a merry dance while he escaped with our quarry.’
‘What?’ Caraeis spluttered, animal outrage scratching inside his chest again. ‘That’s monstrous! Why would they favour the dark kin so flagrantly? They’re supposed to be jealous of their beloved neutrality!’
‘You told the Harlequin that he was also your prisoner. I believe they could convincingly argue that you committed t
he first affront and they acted only to rectify it.’
Caraeis fell silent. Aiosa was correct, in his hubris he had given the Harlequin grounds to argue he’d been compelled to accompany them against his will. Caraeis had been so sure that his path would lead straight to the council chamber on Biel-Tan that he hadn’t stopped to consider that someone would work so actively to divert him. He felt shock that events, so neatly mapped out in previous rune castings, were spiralling out of control.
‘If an entire masque is against us our mission will fail unless we declare war,’ Aiosa said flatly. ‘And that I will not do.’
‘There’s no evidence of that being the case,’ Caraeis retorted with something of his old assurance. ‘We-we must reassess the situation based on what we know, not just what we suppose. The prisoner has escaped us temporarily, but I do not sense that he has left this world as yet. He has accomplices but he hasn’t gone far. The incubus can be recaptured with the forces we have on hand. The Harlequin knows he cannot intercede directly without entering the conflict and now we know that too.’
Aiosa’s mask stared back inscrutably at him as if suggesting that she had known that particular fact all along.
The Raider slewed alarmingly as its steersman exploded messily across its stern. The fleeing ur-ghuls, somehow sensing the sudden change, immediately turned and leapt up at the wallowing grav-craft like grotesque frogs. In a flash a trio of the needle-toothed horrors were scrambling over the gunwales and clutching at the kabalite warriors aboard. Stabbing combat blades and point blank range splinter shots hurled off the creatures in short order, but not before their combined weight had tilted the Raider so that it sank even lower to the ground. More ur-ghuls leapt aboard and the Raider’s blood-slicked deck quickly became a struggling mass of hook-clawed fiends and bronze-armoured warriors fighting for survival.
Bezieth led Kharbyr and Xagor in a silent rush towards the stricken craft. An ur-ghul hissed and turned on her with rows of scent pits flaring. Bezieth’s djin-blade crunched through the creature’s dome-like skull without her even breaking stride. Aboard the Raider a warrior made a desperate leap to grasp its curving tiller bar and bring the craft under control. He was instantly tackled by the frenzied grey-green shape of an ur-ghul and the struggling pair tumbled overboard to fall to the ground with a bone-snapping crunch.
Kharbyr made an agile leap that put even the ur-ghuls to shame, swinging himself up onto one of the Raider’s blade-like outriggers. Xagor was plying his hex-rifle indiscriminately, kabalites and ur-ghuls were swelling and popping obscenely left and right. Kharbyr ran along the outrigger and jumped across to the narrow deck near the stern. A Hy’kran kabalite, wheeling to face him in surprise, met Kharbyr’s curved blade as it crunched point-first into his throat. Kharbyr wrenched his knife free and hacked off a clutching, hook-clawed hand even as he turned and sprang for the tiller bar with the speed of desperation.
Bezieth thrust her keening djin-blade through another disgusting, whip-thin body with such ferocity that it virtually sheared the ur-ghul in twain. Another leapt at her and she cut it out of the air in twitching fragments. Axhyrian’s spirit was obedient in her hands, the djin-blade light as a wand as she cut and thrust. She glanced up to see Kharbyr braced at the tiller bar with it clamped beneath one arm as if he were steering the Raider through a storm. Kharbyr heaved the curving control bar hard over to tilt the wallowing grav-craft almost onto its side. Kabalite warriors and ur-ghuls, unprepared for the sudden shift, came tumbling off the deck in shrieking clumps. Bezieth grinned appreciatively and ran forward to catch at a tilted railing, hurling herself aboard the Raider as Kharbyr brought the craft upright again.
Almost as her feet hit the deck another needle-fanged horror came clambering over the railing opposite. Bezieth’s sword flashed across the intervening space like lightning and sent the creature flying backwards in an explosion of black ichor. She turned to Kharbyr and shouted.
‘What are you waiting for? Go! Now!’
‘But… Xagor!’
Bezieth glanced below to where the wrack was struggling with an ur-ghul that had its claws wrapped around his rifle. Needle fangs champed for his throat as the horrible strength of the creature relentlessly bore him down. An instant of calculation flickered through Bezieth’s mind, save the wrack or abandon him to his fate? If it had been Kharbyr down there the conclusion would have been instant – even though the skinny assassin had just raised his worth a notch or two in her estimation – but the wrack was actually useful. She leapt down from the Raider with a long suffering sigh, her djin-blade licking out to decapitate the ur-ghul pinning down Xagor. More ur-ghuls circled, but with easier prey at hand in the form of hapless fallen kabalites than an armed and aware opponent they warily kept their distance.
Kharbyr dipped the Raider as she pulled the wrack to his feet so that she could virtually throw Xagor straight onboard. She caught a look of calculation on Kharbyr’s face as he manoeuvred the craft and swarmed swiftly aboard herself before he could form any bright ideas of his own about leaving her behind. The Raider’s angular nose came up and they rose quickly upwards out of reach of the struggling ur-ghuls and warriors beneath.
‘That was… nicely done,’ Bezieth admitted.
‘Thanks,’ Kharbyr grinned, elated with his success. He felt like he was actually starting to like Bezieth on some levels. Despite the scars and rough manner she was turning out to be the most reasonable, down-to-earth archon he’d ever encountered. It was a very odd feeling for him and it didn’t last long.
‘Don’t get too close to those towers,’ Bezieth snapped. ‘The Azkhorxi will burn us down just for fun if you give them the chance.’
‘Where to then?’ Kharbyr asked sulkily.
‘Into the tubes, the plan hasn’t changed.’
‘What about the ur-ghuls?’
‘Just don’t stop to pick up any more passengers,’ Bezieth told him acidly.
Vhi was becoming dangerously frustrated. Impatience, his memory engrams told him, was often the cause of mission failure but that piece of wisdom did not seem to help right now. The psychic trail was fresh and distinct. There was no doubt that the target had passed this way recently not just once but several times. The narrow substrata tunnels Vhi was now investigating were rank with the spoor of the target and it was absolutely clear that its lair must be nearby.
However, try as he might, Vhi could locate neither the target or the lair and was now finding himself crossing the same spots over and over again. When Vhi had first hit upon the fresh trail he had experienced a desire for communication capability so that he could illustrate his manifestly superior hunting skills to Cho by sharing the knowledge. Now he experienced a similar desire for communication capability so that he could consult Cho on the findings. It was most puzzling and Cho was too far out of range to ask. The enhanced sensing capabilities of the Cho engine were something his protocols now told him were sorely missed.
Vhi stalked back and forth on whisper-quiet impellers through the tangle web of sub-surface tunnels, drifting through the darkness in silence as he analysed his sensor returns. Available information bore no indication of the tunnels’ existence and so he had to painstakingly map them as he went, laboriously cross-referencing that information with the confusion of multiple target trails he could also sense. It didn’t help that the layout of the tunnels seemed to be random and followed no discernible pattern on either the horizontal or vertical plane.
Vhi gradually came to realise that the randomness of the tunnels was because structural damage had occurred in them recently. Some had collapsed entirely, others were partially blocked, voids and crevices had opened up to make connections between sections that hadn’t existed previously. The psychic spoor led straight up to walls of fallen debris in several places, yet as the three dimensional map Vhi was building grew he could see that the trails continued beyond the blockages. Clearly these trails were older and had b
een made before the structural damage occurred. With a rush of excitement Vhi flagged all such interrupted trails as older data and eliminated them from his calculations.
Sure enough the remaining psychic traces formed a distinct nexus, a knot of activity that could only denote the location of the target’s lair. Vhi rotated his hull smoothly in place to point directly towards the area in question. His segmented tail curved forward over his carapace and the heat lance mounted on it glowed with ruby energy. A fiery line connected the lance with the tunnel wall for the briefest instant before the dense matter of the wall began to soften and drop away in viscid blobs. Vhi modified the output of the heat lance and began pushing slowly forward into the resulting hole. Vhi was done with creeping around through tunnels, he had decided, cutting a direct course for the target’s lair would achieve maximum surprise and in the meantime it was a gratifyingly destructive path to take.
Yllithian stood on the deck of his barque pondering the complex vagaries of so simple a matter as sending a message in Commorragh. Secure communications were always problematic in the eternal city. Even after millennia of dedicated efforts by paranoid archons to find ways to prevent it any signal could be intercepted or blocked or broken by a clever enough foe. Even supposedly unbreakable line of sight energy pulses could be interfered with, redirected or eavesdropped on.
Assuming you could get over those difficulties the simple fact of accepting any kind of communication also accepted the possibility that it had been tainted in some fashion. An innocent-seeming message might, for example, be corrupted to introduce a command into your armour systems to cut your own head off, as occurred most notably to the unfortunate Resy’nari Kraillach on receiving what was ostensibly a report of his victory over Ly’lendel the scrivener. How can you communicate when you don’t trust one another or anyone else? It was a pretty problem however you sliced it.
Yllithian was diverting himself while waiting patiently to receive notification of his assigned district from Vect – however that might be achieved. Around him were arrayed his somewhat reduced band of warriors. Their reaver and hellion auxiliaries were huddled in tight around the surviving Raiders, all silently holding station together like a shoal of sleek, predatory fish. The dark, jagged slope of Corespur swept away below them to where the titanic, screaming statues of Vect stared out over the distant spires of Sorrow Fell.
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