A pair of Rhakaeth’s grotesques guarded the door to the haemonculus’s chambers: his altered ones, his companions, his twisted cortege; his more successful experiments. These eldar had come to the haemonculus willingly, desperate to experience new and varied sensations, and they had begged and backstabbed their way into Rhakaeth’s favour in order to feel the touch of his razors.
One of the grotesques stood taller even than Drazjaer. Hundreds of quill-like spines had been surgically inserted into his flesh, running down his spine and across the backs of his arms. His mouth had been cut into a new form, a vertical slash bisecting his horizontal lips, and additional musculature added so that when it opened, its four corners peeled back independently. The abomination’s eyes were those of some serpentine, alien species, and a dual pair of eyelids blinked as the grotesque looked towards the approaching dracon and his incubi. Its quills stood on end and began to shiver noisily. More spines flicked from within his forearms, and others slid forwards from the base of its palms.
The second of Rhakaeth’s guards, a female eldar, was completely naked, though her flesh was covered in small metallic blue scales that shimmered and turned a dusky red as Drazjaer drew near. Her luscious, ruby lips parted and a forked tongue, pierced in a dozen places with metal studs, flicked out past sharpened teeth. The fingers of her left hand had been replaced with long knives, and parts of her body – and her companion’s – bore scars and fresh wounds that had clearly been the result of her caresses.
Neither of the altered eldar warriors bore weapons, their enhanced bodies their instruments of death.
The incubi at Drazjaer’s side levelled their glaives at the pair, and runes flickered with witch-light upon the blasters built into their sweeping tormentor helms. The potent weapons were neurally linked to the incubi’s brain waves, and could be fired with a mere thought, leaving the warrior’s hands free to wield their punisher glaives.
The grotesques hissed at the powerfully armoured incubi, the female creature flexing her fingers, and her male counterpart turning his upturned hands towards them. Drazjaer had seen that one fight before. It was capable of firing the spines from its palms, and the merest scratch of one of the quills would cause a slow and painful death. The haemonculus Rhakaeth had been particularly proud of that creation.
Drazjaer waved them aside with a languid, dismissive motion, and the pair of grotesques backed away from the portal, still hissing at the incubi.
‘Stay here,’ Drazjaer said to his bodyguards, in his soft, dangerous voice. The incubi bowed their helmeted heads in respect of his wishes and stood to attention, taking up a position opposite the grotesque bodyguards, the ruby-red crystal lenses, hiding their eyes, glittering menacingly.
Drazjaer strode into Rhakaeth’s chambers, the bladed arcs of the door slicing closed behind him, and gazed around.
He avoided the haemonculus’s private chambers whenever possible, and it had been some years since he had last set foot in this part of his ship.
The only light within the room was a dull, pulsing glow that emanated from the floor and ceiling, throbbing like the beat of Khaine’s heart; Rhakaeth’s eyes were particularly sensitive to bright lights. The walls of the circular chamber were smooth and the colour of dried blood and bladed stands atop which was spread a veritable cornucopia of curios and torturous implements hovered above the floor.
There was no obvious order to the mess of objects strewn across the levitating stands. The hollowed skulls of eldar, carved with runes, lay alongside blades covered in rust-like flecks of dried blood, jars filled with blinking organic creatures that squirmed within their confinement, and decomposing severed limbs and organs left to rot.
Drazjaer moved to one of the hovering stands and lifted up a cube the size of a child’s skull. Its sides were covered in stretched, flayed eldar skin, and as he held it, faces began to push from within, straining to escape. They opened their mouths wide in silent cries of torment.
‘That was a gift to me from my old master,’ said a hollow voice, and Drazjaer turned to see his haemonculus, Rhakaeth, ghost into the room, his impossibly thin, skeletal frame seeming to glide across the floor. Blood was splashed across one emaciated cheek, shockingly bright on his monotone countenance.
The haemonculus folded his wasted arms across his chest, skeletal fingers covered in blood scratching idly at the emaciated flesh of his upper arms.
‘Before you killed him?’ asked Drazjaer.
‘Indeed. It is a crucible. The soul-spirits of an entire seer-council of our brothers of Ulthwé are housed within it,’ said Rhakaeth.
‘It’s very nice,’ said Drazjaer, placing the cube back upon the hovering stand.
‘But you did not come here to admire my collection,’ said the haemonculus, ‘you came here to pay witness to my work. Please, my lord, come through.’
Drazjaer followed him through to a side room and gazed upon the two bloodied bodies that were held aloft by a multi-legged mechanism, their limbs pierced by the blade-arms of the machine.
The two figures were immense, as tall as eldar, but easily three times the weight, their bodies bulked out with thick slabs of muscle. Blood was everywhere in the circular room. It had sprayed across the walls and ceiling, was pooling on the floor, and covered the bodies and the mechanical arms that pinned them in place.
The dark red armour plates of the mon-keigh were scattered across the floor. Drazjaer moved one of them with his foot. It was heavy and inflexible, a brutal and crude form of armour for a brutal and crude race.
Returning his gaze to the two human bodies impaled upon the bladed arms of the mechanical apparatus that held them, Drazjaer saw that one of them was clearly lifeless, and anger blossomed within him. What good were they to him if they were dead?
As if feeling his master’s anger bloom, Rhakaeth stepped away from the dracon, putting the bodies between them. The eyes of the still living human flicked towards the dracon, fires of rage in his lidless orbs. The man’s flesh had been stripped from his body, and his chest cavity was open to the air, organs pulsing within.
‘My lord dracon–’ Rhakaeth began in his deep, hollow voice, but Drazjaer cut him off.
‘I told you to keep them alive,’ the dracon said, his voice low and deadly.
‘This one did not die as a result of my ministrations, my lord dracon,’ said Rhakaeth. ‘The mandrake, Ja’harael, delivered it half-dead. It was all that I could do to keep it alive for as long as I did.’
‘Ja’harael. It’s all Ja’harael’s fault,’ said Drazjaer, sneering. ‘I’ve heard that before, from the snivelling sybarite rotting in your cells. I do not wish to hear any of your excuses, haemonculus.’
‘Whether you wish to hear me or not, my lord dracon, I speak the truth,’ said the haemonculus, his voice devoid of fear. Indeed, Drazjaer had rarely heard any emotion in his servant’s voice.
‘And this one?’ asked Drazjaer, leaning over the massive form of the still living human creature. It pulled at its restraints, massive muscles bulging as it stared at him in hatred. The dracon was unmoved, and peered with interest inside the figure’s exposed torso.
‘Living, and strong, my lord dracon. The potency of its soul-essence is worth a hundred, a thousand of the lesser mon-keigh breed.’
Drazjaer licked his thin lips. He had already gathered almost ten thousand souls for his lord and master, the dark lord Asdrubael Vect, but this did not yet meet the extortionate tribute the high lord of the Black Heart cabal had demanded of his vassal.
When Vect had butchered the cabal leaders of the Bleeding Talons, the Vipers and the Void Serpents in one dark night, Drazjaer had been cast adrift, vulnerable, now that his lord had been slaughtered in the murderous plot. He had been forced to kneel before Asdrubael Vect in chains, and had been asked if he would submit to his rule, if he would join the Black Heart. Only once he had sworn his warriors to the Black Heart over the soulfires of Gaggamel did Vect lay down his terms.
Drazjaer’s time was run
ning short. The Great Devourer hive fleet would overrun the system within the day, and his harvest would be over, his tribute not yet fulfilled. There was no running from Asdrubael Vect. No matter where Drazjaer went, no matter how far from Commoragh he fled, Vect would find him.
However, if he could gather more of these enhanced mon-keigh, these Space Marines, he mighty yet gain Vect’s favour. Perhaps the dark lord would even raise him to the exalted status of archon, in command of an entire slave fleet.
‘Their physical makeup is interesting,’ the haemonculus was saying, ‘clearly the result of gene-conditioning and surgical enhancement. It is offensively crude work, with little subtlety or grace, but I feel that I could harvest their organs to create a superior blend of eldar warrior.’
Drazjaer barely heard the sibilant hiss of Rhakaeth’s voice, lost in his own thoughts of greed and desire.
‘Do whatever pleases you, Rhakaeth,’ he said. ‘Just see that that one does not die. I believe that it is time to unleash Atherak and her wych cult upon the Imperial world.’
‘The bitch’s arrogance knows no bounds,’ said the haemonculus.
‘Indeed,’ agreed Drazjaer. ‘Let us see if her boastfulness is founded. Let us see if she can bring back more than two of these mon-keigh.’
‘I will look forward to working upon more of these,’ said the Rhakaeth, indicating the pair of altered humans strung up before him.
‘Fine,’ said Drazjaer, turning and striding from the haemonculus’s chambers.
Outside, his incubi were still eyeing up the grotesque guards, and a third warrior had joined them, another of his sybarite captains.
‘What is it?’ asked Drazjaer.
‘My lord dracon,’ said the warrior, bowing. ‘The traitor returns.’
Solon Marcabus knew that the end was near. They were running low on food, down to the last protein bar, and his strength was fading.
Dios seemed neither to tire nor despair, and he pressed on through the snow with grim determination while Solon often lagged behind, and it was Dios who rubbed warmth into Solon’s frostbitten fingers and toes whenever they set up camp.
He was determined to see Dios on a shuttle away from Perdus Skylla, and though he had never been a pious man, Solon swore that he would devote his life to the Emperor if he only allowed the boy to survive this nightmare. Dios would have a future somewhere, on some distant planet, far from the threat of xenos incursions. Solon was fixated on the completion of what had become an epic pilgrimage towards the Phorcys spaceport, and he would fight to his dying breath to see the boy safely off-planet.
Dios could have the life that Solon’s son had been denied.
The ice crunched beneath his laboured steps. He could barely feel his arm, and though it was a relief to be free of the throbbing pain of his wound, he knew that it was a bad sign.
He heard a sound like thunder rolling towards them, over the blinding gale, but he gave it little thought; just more bad weather heading in their direction he thought grimly. He kept plodding along through the snow, putting one foot in front of the other.
The sound got louder, and Dios cried out. Solon lifted his head to see the boy gesturing wildly into the air.
A shuttle roared out of the banks of billowing snow and ice, flying low and fast through the storm. It was hit with a blast of wind and dropped metres through the air as it was buffeted to the side, and for a moment Solon thought it was going to crash, but the pilot compensated and the shuttle righted itself, engines screaming. Solon waved his arms above his head, attempting vainly to get the attention of the pilot, hoping and praying that the shuttle would stop. It passed low overhead, blocking out all sounds of the wind, and Solon stared up in awe and amazement as the shuttle screamed past, making the ground shudder with the power of its engines.
Then the shuttle was past them, its retro-burners blazing with blue flame. Solon whipped his head around as the shuttle roared over their heads. He could feel the heat from the plasma-core engines even through his exposure suit, and he relished the almost forgotten sensation. Stabiliser burners fired on the underside of the shuttle, lifting it over an outcrop of ice. Dios was standing, staring, his eyes filled with wonder as he watched the shuttle disappear once more into the concealing storm.
Solon felt a sudden surge of hope. They had come for them! They had come looking for survivors! He was certain that he had sensed the shuttle slowing down. The pilot must have seen them!
‘Hurry, Dios!’ he shouted, filled with a sudden surge of energy, and he set off in pursuit of the shuttle, pounding through the snow and ice, his fatigue forgotten. They had come for them! They must have picked up the blinking distress beacon in Solon’s exposure suit that he had activated as soon as the raiders, the ones that Dios called the ghosts, had departed.
Dios was falling behind, and Solon paused to wait for the boy to catch up, his heart thumping. Scooping the boy up in his arms, who whooped in excitement, Solon set off, pounding through the snow, running madly towards where the shuttle had disappeared.
Reality hit home like a punch in the guts. No one would be coming back. The shuttle was probably heading to Sholto guild to pick up rich merchants, or other high guilders of influence. No one would be coming to find an orphan and a lowly crawler mule.
He slowed his pace, feeling suddenly exhausted, and dropped Dios back down to the ground. The boy looked up at him in confusion. Solon avoided the boy’s eye contact, hanging his head and putting his hands on his thighs, leaning forward as he strained to catch his breath.
Dios reached out to him, taking hold of his hand and urging him on. Solon angrily shook his hand free. Again, the boy reached for him, and Solon swatted his hand away.
‘It’s over, boy!’ he shouted, suddenly enraged. ‘Don’t you get it? There is no salvation. No one is coming to help us! We are going to die out here, and no one is going to know. No one is going to care!’
Dios stared back at Solon blankly, and Solon fell forward to his hands and knees, tears welling in his eyes.
‘No one is coming,’ he said again, this time more softly as despair washed over him. ‘No one is coming.’
Dios stepped alongside him, putting his arm around Solon’s shoulders, and he felt all the tension and fear within him well up. The tears ran freely, and Solon was glad that the hood of his exposure suit hid them from the boy. After a few minutes, a calmness descended over Solon, and he took a deep breath.
He looked up at Dios, who was peering at him in concern, and he gave the boy a smile.
Solon pushed himself wearily to his feet and checked the digi-compass beneath a flap of canvas on his left arm, realigning himself with the direction of the Phorcys starport, which he guessed was still a day and half’s hike away. Nodding to Dios, he set off again in that direction, but a tugging at his belt gave him pause.
Dios was gesturing in the direction that the shuttle had taken.
‘No, Dios. It wasn’t coming for us. I’m sorry, boy.’
Still, the orphan was insistent, gesturing more emphatically in the opposite direction that Solon had set off in.
With a sigh, he gave in, and turned back. Dios leapt forwards enthusiastically, grabbing hold of his hand and dragging him through the snow, into the billowing ice storm.
They had moved perhaps a kilometre through the snow when the wind changed direction, blowing the banks of fog and ice away to the west, leaving the view out in front suddenly clear. Solon could see further than he had done for months, and he marvelled at the display of colour that danced across the heavens.
It was called the Aurealis Skyllian, and it was said that the phenomenon occurred only under specific atmospheric conditions. Solon had seen it only twice before in his lifetime, once when he was a boy, a week after his father had died in a mining accident, and again on the first night he had spent on the foreign and terrifying ice crawlers, just after he had been expelled from the guild. Both times had been momentous occasions in his life, and this one would prove likewise, f
or there, on the ice, a kilometre away, lit up by the eerie, heavenly light in the dark sky overhead, was the shuttle.
It was settling on the ice flow, and Solon again felt his spirits soar. They were stopping for them! Even if they had not actually seen the two refugees tramping across the ice, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that the shuttle was landing, and it was within their reach.
A desperate fear that the shuttle would leave again before they reached it filled Solon, and again he scooped up Dios in his arms, and began to plough his way through the snow.
Salvation had come, at last.
Thank the Emperor, thought Solon.
‘The Idolator is inbound,’ said Kol Badar’s voice, ‘touching down over the ridge to the north.’
‘Good,’ said Marduk.
The Land Raiders had outrun the downpour of xenos spores, and there had been no enemy contact for almost an hour. Nevertheless, sensors indicated that the waves of inbound spores were intensifying, and their spread widening.
‘Be ready for disembarkation,’ Marduk snapped at the warriors in the Land Raider. ‘Two minutes and counting.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Baranov,’ said Eustenov, the pilot of the Rapture, ‘they are pulling us in. Five minutes.’
The smuggler, rogue trader and sometimes blockade-runner leant forward over the back of his pilot, peering into the blackness of space ahead, on the shadow-side of the doomed planet Perdus Skylla. The sleek shape of the ship that the Rapture was to dock with could barely be seen, even at this distance, and he shook his head, marvelling at the technology that concealed it. It was merely a part of the surrounding darkness, though the bladed vales that protruded from its length like the fins of a fish gleamed sharply as the forward lights of the Rapture swept across them.
Patting the clearly nervous pilot on the shoulder, Baranov turned and stalked towards the rear compartment of his trading vessel, where members of the wealthy elite of Perdus Skylla were housed. He took a deep breath, gathering himself, and wiped the sweat from his brow. Then, with a casual, relaxed smile on his face, he placed his palm on the register panel beside the door-frame. The portal slid silently aside and he strode confidently through.
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