by Guy Haley
A circle of boltguns pointed at her head.
‘And now you will die.’
‘Hold!’ cried Vangorich. He and Krule rushed into the antechamber of the Sanctum Imperialis, a space big enough to station an army in. Though there was no army, war had recently visited. To the right, halfway to the Ultimate Gate, beyond which sat the Emperor Himself, a dozen Adeptus Custodes lay dead on the ground, a single, skull-masked eldar among them. The mosaic floor was cracked and ruined. Craters in the walls guttered with burning metal, damage from Titan weapons fire. A circle of Adeptus Custodes surrounded something hidden in its centre. ‘Hold!’
Four warriors stepped into Vangorich’s path, their guardian spears crossed. Their massive armoured bodies formed a wall he could not see over.
‘Let me through! It is I, High Lord Vangorich.’
‘Grand Master Vangorich?’ shouted a commanding voice. The warriors parted, revealing their leader.
‘Captain-General Beyreuth! I must beg your indulgence. Do not execute the prisoner! We must interrogate it.’ Vangorich pushed his way into a forest of metal giants. Beyreuth waved them aside and he came to their captive: a female, by the shape of her. She was kneeling, beaten. Her clothes were brightly coloured and patterned, though dirtied with battle’s smirch. Her face was hidden by a featureless mask of silver, and this was flawless. A thicket of blades pointed at her, the bolters mounted on the backs of the spearheads ready to obliterate her at a word.
‘She has already tried to trick us with talk of parley,’ said Beyreuth. ‘I will not consider her release so close to the Golden Throne. Most of this breed are witches, who knows what she plans? She has breached the Emperor’s innermost sanctuary. For this insult she must and will pay.’
‘Parley? What did she say?’ said Vangorich.
The eldar spoke for herself, her voice thick with blood. ‘My name is Lhaerial Rey, Shadowseer of the Ceaseless Song. I come here at command of Eldrad Ulthran to deliver a message of great import to the Emperor of Mankind.’
‘Lies,’ spat Beyreuth.
‘Captain-general, please!’ said Vangorich.
‘You, the lord of killers, and you make a plea for her life?’ said Beyreuth. ‘Or is it only humans your kind kills?’
‘I understand you are angry, furious, but we must be cautious,’ said Vangorich. ‘Orks are in the sky, and these xenos come alone. What if she is telling the truth?’
‘I am being cautious. It is a lack of caution that led to the arrival of the orks. We cannot afford any further mistakes.’ He raised his hand.
‘I order you to stop!’ shouted Vangorich.
‘You are a High Lord, and a member of the Senatorum Imperialis, but your office is no longer numbered among the High Twelve. You have no authority to command me. None have, save the Emperor Himself.’
‘Then this will prove sufficient!’ called Inquisitor Veritus. The boots of his power armour rang on the mosaic floor as he stamped into the chamber, his Inquisitorial seal held high. Storm troopers fanned out either side of him, training their guns on the Adeptus Custodes.
‘I am Veritus, and I am of the High Twelve. By this sigil I wield the authority of the Emperor. While He cannot speak, the Inquisition are His voice.’
Beyreuth uttered something that might have been a sigh or a curse. He gestured, and his warriors stood back.
‘I am so glad you could make this latest emergency, Veritus,’ said Vangorich. ‘After you departed the Senatorum so dramatically, I feared we had lost your good offices permanently.’
‘Don’t be facetious, Vangorich.’
Vangorich twitched his eyebrows. ‘If I am facetious, it is merely because I find myself in a world governed by idiocy. I laugh, or I despair. You have arrived in the nick of time.’
‘I got your message. I had to gather my forces. I am here now.’
‘A reply would have been polite,’ said Vangorich.
The three men looked down upon the captured eldar. Vangorich’s spine shuddered as her faceless bowl mask looked back. A quiet power surrounded her.
‘Why should we believe your protestations of friendship?’ demanded Veritus.
‘I have upon my person a token,’ said the eldar, ‘given by the Primarch Vulkan to the Farseer Eldrad Ulthran during your recent civil war.’
Veritus looked to the Custodians.
‘You may take it out. If it is a trick, you shall die,’ said Beyreuth.
Lhaerial reached into a small pouch strapped to her thigh. From it she removed an object and passed it to Veritus. The inquisitor’s power armour whined as he reached for it.
He opened his hand. In it was a large tooth, capped with exquisitely worked gold.
‘A tooth of a Nocturnian salamander. It could be as you say. These creatures are found only on Vulkan’s home world. But how do I know this is not a trick, and that it was Vulkan who gave this to your master?’
‘I have no master save the Laughing God,’ said Lhaerial. ‘That token is all I have to prove my good intent. If you do not value it, then Eldrad Ulthran underestimated you. My task is done and my life is forfeit. I die laughing at the fools that would not listen to sense.’
Veritus growled deep in his throat. ‘The orks are at our door and an alien witch wishes to speak with the Emperor,’ he said. He folded his fist over the tooth. ‘We must take her away from here. It is not safe to have her kind so close to the Emperor.’
‘You are to take her to the Inquisitorial Fortress?’ asked Vangorich.
Veritus nodded. ‘Wienand is there. I shall deal with two problems in one.’
‘Then I suggest you hurry,’ said Vangorich. ‘The orks will move soon.’
Lhaerial spoke. ‘You have far less time than you realise.’
Five
Woman in the moon
There were mountains that walked, and people trapped beneath them. A looped segment of time that Galatea Haas could not escape played repetitively in her dreams. The Proletarian Crusade was trapped between two walls of grinding metal and stone, coming together with awful finality. A wave of blood bore down on her, carrying terrified screams that suddenly cut out.
Haas came awake with a jolt, hands scraped raw through gripping the rough stone of her resting place. She was hidden at the back of a narrow cranny, high up the wall of a tunnel more crevasse than corridor. Her ears strained to pick out whatever it was that had disturbed her from the constant noise of the attack moon. Clanking mechanisms pounded ceaselessly, unshielded and raucous. After the disaster she had passed through one of the orks’ machine halls, and her ears rang for hours afterwards. From the racket, it must have been only one of many hundreds of similar rooms.
Her flight from the doors was a jumble, a terrible memory broken into meaningless flashes of incident. Somehow, she had escaped. Drenched in the blood of the Crusaders, she had run through rough-hewn corridors and gaping natural caves. She was sure of discovery. Only her training and her will had kept her from succumbing to fear. But no one had found her, and eventually, exhausted, she had found this place, and fallen into a troubled sleep.
Something was close. She heard piping voices, far too high to be orks. Cautiously she put her head out over the lip of rock.
Three of the little creatures that served the orks were passing below, carrying small metal boxes and shoving at each other in malicious high spirits. The sight of them made her skin crawl. There was something worse about these beings than their masters. They were humpbacked and crooked. They rolled along with a sly gait. She imagined them stealing into homes in the dead of night, seeking out young to devour. Creatures from story, they seemed. Until yesterday she had had no idea they existed.
They were filthy, and they stank worse than the dirtiest man. How they smelled her over their own noisome reek was a surprise, but they did.
The leader stopped directly under her hiding
place, its followers running into its back. They tittered horribly, provoking the leader to slap them into silence. It held up a finger for quiet. Nose twitching, it turned its head upward. Haas snatched her head back just in time.
The leader jabbered at one of the others. The second’s ears drooped and the third laughed at its comrade. An argument ensued, finishing in more blows. Quiet fell. A moment later, a dirty green head appeared over the edge of Haas’ hiding place. Its ears shot up in surprise as it saw Haas staring back at it.
The creature squealed as she swatted it with her shock maul. The weapon was designed for the suppression of civil disorder, but cranked up to full output it could deliver a fatal blow, and the slave orks were small. The creature flew against the wall, shrieking horribly. It impacted with a wet splat, and slid to the uneven floor, smoke pouring out of its ears. She levered herself out of the gap and fell between the other two.
They were poor fighters, but aggressive. They attacked together, raking at her with filthy fingernails, ripping the regimental uniform issued to her for the Crusade to tatters and scoring the skin underneath with burning scratches. She was fortunate that her enforcer’s armour protected her from the worst of it.
The leader went down, its pointed head sporting a new and fatal dent. The last gibbered and shrilled in the orkish tongue, flailing at her with arms that were too long for its body. Its pointed nose and ears flapped as it jumped onto her, trying to throttle her with grasping, greasy fingers. She gasped for air. Pointed yellow teeth snapped millimetres from her nose, spattering her with saliva. She fell backward to the ground, luck more than effort putting her maul in the right place. She slammed the butt into its eye. It screamed and reared up. She scrambled backward and caved its ribs in with a panicked swipe.
Panting hard, she pushed the dead creature from her legs. The energy of fear left her, and she struggled to get herself upright. Her head swam. She had not eaten since the Crusade had departed, and was so hungry she considered going through the slaves’ filthy clothes to find some morsel of food or drink, but was not yet so desperate that she could bring herself to do it.
Numbly, she stared at the corpses.
A noise made her start.
By a kink in the corridor, framed in dull ruddy light, a fourth creature stood staring at her with wide red eyes, ears flat against its head in fear.
‘Throne!’ she exclaimed.
The creature’s thin-lipped mouth worked wordlessly. Suddenly, it dropped its burden, turned on its heels and fled, squealing out a shrill alarm.
‘No, no, no, no, no!’ she shouted, staggering after.
The creature was fast, moving with a bounding scamper that she struggled to match. It cast terrified looks behind it at her, shouting without pause as it ran. Her throat burned with thirst and the polluted air of the moon, and the creature was gaining ever more ground.
Haas raced round a corner to see it diving through a crack between two armoured plates bolted to the rock. Haas threw herself after. Anything could be on the other side, but if the creature raised the alarm, she was dead anyway.
With relief, she saw it was all alone, quaking against a wall ahead, arms spread wide on the stone.
Hefting her maul, she approached.
A giant hand cuffed her across the back of the head, sending her sprawling face first into the rock. Stars swam in front of her eyes. She got to her hands and knees, blood flowing from her mouth. Something slammed into her neck. Wide metal jaws closed around her throat with a click. She grabbed at them futilely as she was hoisted high. Almost gently, the pole shifted around, bringing her face to face with the ork holding it.
Her captor regarded her with curious eyes glinting from eye sockets like caves. Its jaw was covered in a beard of bright but dirty hair, and more of the same crested its head. A single ivory fang, as long as Haas’ forearm, jutted from the left side of its mouth. The damn thing was smiling at her, its eyes twinkling with vicious humour.
It rumbled something in the tongue of the orks. Haas raised her maul. It shook its head and flicked a switch on the haft of its catchpole. A massive shock cracked out from the jaws, and Haas fell unconscious.
‘She’s coming round,’ said a man’s voice.
‘Be quiet, Marast, you’ll have One Tooth in here on us!’ hissed another.
‘Looks different,’ said the one called Marast. ‘She’s not one of us. She’s a standard.’
‘So? The galaxy’s crawling with them. Give her something to drink, for the Emperor’s sake.’
‘It means, Huringer, that we’re somewhere else, do you see? We’ve moved away from home,’ said the first irritably.
‘Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid!’ said Huringer.
‘Don’t be stupid, then. This armour too, enforcer or arbitrator, I’d say. But those badges aren’t like anything I’ve ever seen.’
A canteen was pressed to Haas’ lips. Warm, metallic water spilled into her mouth. She coughed, and swallowed gratefully. Her head felt heavy as a boulder, but she struggled up onto her elbows anyway.
There was not much light but it hurt her eyes. She was in a sweltering cell plated with metal. There was one door, a small grille at the top of it letting in a little light from outside. A little more came from a buzzing lumen globe dangling from a bare wire in the middle of the room.
Two odd-looking faces peered at her. She squinted until they came into focus, and pushed herself back in alarm when they did. Bald heads with pronounced eyes looked back, their owners crouching on unnaturally long legs.
‘What are you?’ she said. Her stomach rolled with nausea.
‘Oh, that’s charming. Very nice,’ said the one called Marast. ‘People, that’s what we are. If you don’t like us, we can call the orks. Maybe they’ll give you a waking you’d prefer?’
Haas blinked. They were human, of a sort, but stretched in the body. Her eyes strayed to their legs.
‘Guess she’s never seen a longshanks before,’ muttered Huringer.
Marast patted his leg with a thin-fingered hand. ‘That’s what we are. Don’t stare so – in here you’re the odd one out.’
‘You’re… mutants?’
‘Abhumans!’ said Huringer angrily. ‘We’re loyal subjects of the Emperor, same as you, lovey. Ain’t our fault our home’s low-g.’ He turned away from her pointedly.
Haas groggily got to her feet. The room was crammed with longshanks. They had arrayed themselves as best they could around the walls, backs to the metal, long legs drawn up in front of them.
‘Where are you from?’ she asked. Haas was aware there were sanctioned sub-strains of humanity scattered around the galaxy, but that was as far as her knowledge went. On Terra any deviation from the norm was a mutation, and a mutant was a criminal by default.
‘Orin’s Well,’ said Marast. ‘Greenskins overran the planet and took thousands of us up here. Seems we’re good for working on the moon. Most of it ain’t got no gravity generators. Doesn’t bother us as much as it bothers them. You?’
‘You don’t know where you are?’
Marast shook his head. ‘Not a splinter of an idea. Been down here slaving for weeks now. Not many of us left.’
‘Terra! You’re in orbit over Terra!’ She tapped the badge on her shoulder guard, much worn now, that marked her out as an arbitrator of the Imperial Palace, 149th Administrative District, General Oversight Division.
Marast’s mouth opened wide in amazement. ‘Terra?’ He made the sign of the aquila over his chest. Murmurs went up from his freakish compatriots. A few reached out to touch her. She shook their hands off and stepped over their fragile-looking legs to the door.
‘Don’t do that!’ hissed Marast. ‘You’ll have One Tooth in here on us!’
Something grunted outside. Haas threw herself against the wall as a bucket-jawed giant squinted into the room. One fang, a dirty beard. Her c
aptor.
It banged on the door hard, making it shake in its mountings, and roared out a string of gruff alien words.
Marast crept to her side and pulled at her arm. ‘Don’t do that, don’t talk, don’t look them in the eye!’ he said fearfully. ‘If you do, they’ll hurt you bad, might kill you, take you… take you through there!’ He pointed at the wall.
‘What’s through there?’ asked Haas, dreading the answer.
Marast winced. ‘The meat pen.’
Haas could not help but look, her eyes drawn by a force outside of herself to the wall separating their holding pen from the room next door.
‘I can’t stay here. There must be a way out!’ she said.
‘Where to?’ said Marast. ‘Get out of that door and there are a million orks. Even if there weren’t, where would you go? Walk to the surface and toss yourself off into space? Although that’s better than the alternative, I suppose. But you can’t. The only way we’re getting off this moon is if someone comes and rescues us, and let me tell you something sad, lady arbitrator – no one’s coming, not for the likes of us. You keep your head down, work hard, and they mostly leave you alone.’
‘I won’t. I’m going to get out of here,’ whispered Haas.
Marast shook his head sadly. ‘Not once you’ve seen the gate, you won’t. It’s hopeless.’
‘Gate?’
‘The place they come through. A flash of light, and they’re there. As many orks as they need. There’s no army in the galaxy that can stop them.’
In the boundary zone between the Oort cloud and the dwarf planets parading around the edge of the Sol System, space convulsed. Vile lightnings cracked around a puckering in the fabric of real space. With a silent scream, the universe tore.
Hundreds of warships arrowed into reality, diabolical vapours spilling off their glowing Geller fields. Behind them boiled the cauldron of the warp, a pit of madness none should cross. Reality sealed itself in a blinding flash of non-light, shuddered, and was still.