Fabius Bile: Clonelord

by Josh Reynolds

  But that didn’t mean the fight was over, just yet.

  Pict-feeds jostled for space across the interior of his visor. Across the ship, mutants swarmed over the invaders, pulling them down through sheer weight of numbers. They died in the doing so, but once the crimson-armoured Space Marines were down, tangled in the dying, it was a simple enough matter for the waiting Gland-hounds to disable them. He watched in satisfaction as special blades, reinforced and driven by augmented muscle, pierced seals and joins, crippling the Space Marines long enough for armour-stabbing rounds to punch through helmets. A dozen mutants died for every warrior who fell thus, but there were hundreds more where they came from.

  As Arrian watched, slowly, surely, the invaders were driven back to the now-sealed breach-points, and contained. With extraction imposs­ible, they sold their lives dearly, painting the corridors red in the blood of mutant and Traitor Space Marine alike. Throughout the ship, the story was the same, as he cycled through the feeds. Again and again, they made their stands and paid the price, even as the Vesalius began to pull away from the pursuing cruiser.

  It wasn’t a battle anymore. Now it was to be a slaughter.

  And we both know Khorne loves a slaughter, eh, brother?

  Arrian ignored Briaeus and glanced at one of the hulking over­seers who marched stolidly alongside him. ‘Activate the pain-implants.’ The overseers were a special caste of mutant, bred for combat and implanted with stimm-pumps and sub-dermal armour. They wore crude plate, fashioned from deck plating, melted and hammered into shape, and carried a variety of weapons, as well as a control-node.

  At Arrian’s command, they activated the nodes, sending a signal to the receptors implanted in the skulls of the flesh-chattel they herded before them. These were the lowest of the low, things with no bones or too many, barely bipedal and with only a dim sentience. Walking collections of tumours and screaming masses with no true shape.

  Worthless meat, Briaeus muttered.

  ‘Quiet, brother,’ Arrian whispered, tapping the skull. ‘They have their purpose, as do we all.’ The chattel filled the air with their screams and whimpers, often attacking one another in their pathetic eagerness to rend and tear something – anything. Only violence made the pain go away.

  A touch of the familiar, that, eh, dog-brother?

  ‘Just a touch,’ Arrian murmured. Each of the debased creatures wore a cowl of cortical implants, much like those he himself bore – though far more crude in form and function. He knew, because he’d designed them himself.

  Pain was the only way to control such creatures. They were too dull-witted for anything else. Once activated by the overseers, the pain-implants would fire until the flesh-chattel reached the enemy, compelling them to hurl themselves into battle as quickly as possible. It was a brutally efficient way of overwhelming enemy positions, and Arrian had put it to good use on more than one occasion.

  Bolter-fire cascaded down the corridor, punching through the flesh-chattel. Many fell, but the rest pressed on, crawling across their fellows to fling themselves at their prey. The Space Marines were forced to contract their lines in the tight corridors, and fall back, as the tide of howling meat pressed them.

  Arrian counted the moments, giving the flesh-chattel enough time to make an opening. Then, with a low growl, he darted forward. He drew his Falax blades as he moved, and the ghosts of his brothers howled in excitement, Briaeus the loudest, as ever. He burst through the heaving wall of mutant flesh and struggling Space Marines, and scanned the corridor. Breacher squads defended the entry point, huddled behind a shrinking wall of ablative shields, as their brothers tried to free themselves from the mutants crawling over them.

  The World Eater sprang forward, blades scything out. He hacked into a shield and hauled himself atop it, crushing its wielder backwards. A boltgun roared, and he reversed his blades, driving them down through the lenses of his enemy’s helmet. He wrenched the blades loose and spun, raking them across another Space Marine’s side, widening the gap in the wall. The squalling chattel took advantage, squeezing behind the shields and clawing at their wielders. What was once an organised defence dissolved into a confused melee.

  ‘Hold fast! Die well, oh, you sons of kings!’ The roar carried easily over the clamour of battle. Arrian sought its origin. The Space Marine was lean and clad in battleplate that was marked with little in the way of insignia or heraldry, save for the lines of poetic script delicately etched into many of the flat planes. There were so many of these lines, that his armour was almost solid black in places. A horse-hair crest rose above his helm, and he fired a gilded bolt pistol, picking off mutants with undeniable precision.

  I smell a high-rider, Briaeus growled. Look at him, dancing about with that toothpick of his. Take his skull, dog-brother.

  Arrian bulled towards his target. The warrior turned, but not quickly enough. Arrian was on him in an instant, Falax blades biting into crimson ceramite. The Space Marine roared and brought the butt of his bolt pistol down on Arrian’s head, staggering him. Arrian’s blade whipped out, driving his opponent back. The warrior backed away, firing. Arrian absorbed the impacts, trusting in his armour. A blade chopped down, hacking through the barrel of the pistol.

  The warrior stumbled back against a jagged section of hull plate, casting the ruined weapon aside. Arrian paced after him, grinning tightly beneath his helmet. He could feel the nails biting, and the ghosts of his brothers clustered about him, whispering their encouragement.

  The Red Path calls, brother… do you hear its song?

  ‘I hear nothing,’ Arrian said out loud. He shook his head, trying to cast aside their voices. ‘Only the fading murmurs of fools and monsters.’

  His opponent drew the curved sword from its horse-hair sheath on his side. ‘Are you mad?’ he asked, as he extended it. ‘Is that why you talk to yourself?’

  ‘I am talking to the dead,’ Arrian said, tapping one of his skulls.

  His opponent nodded, as if that made sense. ‘Ah. Do they bid you join them?’

  ‘They are not choosy.’ Arrian sheathed one of his blades. He extended the other. ‘I am Apothecary Arrian, of the Twelfth Legion.’ Behind him, mutants howled and died, and dragged warriors he might once have considered brothers down into death with them. He felt the faintest flicker of regret – not for their deaths, but merely the manner of them.

  ‘I am Kasra, Shehan of the Red Scimitars. I will weave your name into my death-poem, when this day is done, Arrian of the Twelfth.’ The Space Marine spoke harshly, with an air of ritual resignation. Here was a warrior who knew the value of things.

  Arrian inclined his head. ‘I applaud the sentiment, Kasra of the Red Scimitars.’ It was a ridiculous exchange, amid the carnage, but welcome for all that. Too often, the niceties were sacrificed in the name of expedience. War was his art, and art must be indulged, lest it turn to madness. He lunged, and their blades connected with a harsh scream of steel.

  It felt good, to fight this way. To meet a foe on equal footing, the deck slick with blood beneath their feet, and only the cold stars, glimmering on the other side of the breach, to witness the dance.

  Kasra spoke as they fought. ‘I have heard stories of you lost ones, passed down from the honoured ancients in their sarcophagi.’ Their blades became entangled, and the Red Scimitar pressed Arrian back. ‘How you danced on the razor’s edge, until at last you slipped and spilled your souls into the dragon’s mouth. Are you one of them, in truth, or do you simply wear their heraldry?’

  ‘I wear the heraldry I have always worn,’ Arrian said.

  ‘Why do you lost ones cling so hard to that which you discarded?’ Kasra ripped his sword free and stepped back. ‘You are like children, I think. Frightened of your own misdeeds, seeking sanctuary in better days.’

  ‘Possibly. If so, we are not alone in that.’ Arrian lunged, and they spun again in a brutal dance, matching each other blow
for blow. He was reminded of his confrontation with Alkenex. This was a better dance by far. A purer one. But Kasra fought with the exuberance of one already dead, and that made him sloppy.

  He parried a savage blow and stumbled back, momentarily off balance. Careful dog-brother, she is watching, one of his brothers murmured.

  ‘Who?’ he demanded, knowing even as he did so that he shouldn’t. The dead were always trying to distract him. They held a grudge. Especially Briaeus. Her, his brothers whispered.

  He thought it nothing more than a shadow on his visual feed, at first. He blinked, trying to identify the lean shape that danced and spun across his vision, there but not. It wavered, shrinking and billowing like a shadow caught in a strobe as it moved through the battle. Something about it had hooked his attention, preventing him from looking away. He fought on instinct, blocking and parrying with all the grace of an automaton.

  ‘He must be – must be – must be held to his path.’

  The vox pulsed with the sing-song lilt. A feminine voice. Arrian shook his head, trying to clear it. Was the figure moving closer, or getting further away? It was impossible to tell. His armour’s auspex showed nothing at all. He hesitated, and nearly lost a hand to Kasra’s blade. He stepped back, putting distance between himself and his opponent. Fear was not in him, but he knew better than to listen to unfamiliar voices, murmuring in his ear. A thousand years in hell taught even the dullest student valuable lessons, and swiftly.

  ‘The path – the path – the path… He must be held to the path. Or all is lost.’

  The shape continued to dance and leap. Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone. As it faded, he saw Kasra lunge. Arrian jerked aside at the last moment. The blade sliced through a cable on his helm, leaving himself open to a blow that bisected the servos in his right greave. He staggered. Arrian, head ringing, slid aside, and deftly sliced through a knot of power cables. Kasra cursed as the weight of dead armour sought to drag him down. Another blow severed his armour connection to its power plant.

  The Space Marine tried to rise, regardless. Targeting runes flickered across the inside of Arrian’s helmet, isolating a weak point in Kasra’s back-plate. Arrian flipped the Falax blade around and drove it down with every iota of strength he possessed, piercing the ceramite and puncturing the flesh within. The blade juddered against augmented bone, severing the spinal column and crippling his opponent.

  Arrian set a boot against Kasra’s helmet, and levered his blade loose. ‘A good fight,’ he said, though he doubted the warrior could hear him. ‘Good enough that I am sorry for what comes next, Kasra of the Red Scimitars.’

  Part Three - Obscurus

  Chapter eighteen

  Lightless Gulfs

  ‘It is said that the light of the Astronomican does not reach into the Eastern Fringe. I have never seen it myself, though I have gathered descriptions for my records – most often it is seen as a bridge of ­silvery light and heavenly voices, extending into infinity. Or, rather, about fifty thousand light years, give or take.’

  Fabius stepped out of the antechamber containing the tertiary strat­egerium, dismissing the hololithic data-feeds as he went. The last signs of pursuit had faded into the galactic distance. Even the lapdogs of the Corpse-Emperor had their limits, and the Red Scimitars had reached them some weeks back. ‘Your brothers have turned back. You are alone now, and in my keeping.’

  His words were directed at his guest. The Red Scimitar hung on a vertical examination slab, wrists and ankles securely manacled, head bowed. He had been stripped of his battleplate, which sat in pieces on a slab nearby. It had been some days since he had awakened. His body had taken that long to recuperate from the damage Arrian had inflicted. Fabius circled the slab. The middle section had been removed, so as to allow an unobstructed view of the wounded area.

  Gently, Fabius probed the scarred flesh. ‘Healing nicely. Arrian wields a blade the way I wield a scalpel. Were you free, you might even be able to walk again. Perhaps you shall have the opportunity, in time. Once we have come to an accommodation, of sorts.’

  He turned to the second slab and its burden of armour. He picked up a section of crimson battleplate. He ran a finger along the lines of poetry etched into its crimson surface. The language was archaic, as was the style. ‘A deliberate stylistic choice, or has literature degenerated to such an extent that this is the best you can do?’ he murmured.

  The revolt against Terra had not simply irreparably damaged the physical infrastructure of the nascent Imperium, but its society and culture as well. Lorgar’s bleating flock had pillaged and burned a million repositories of knowledge, for no greater purpose than spite. Horus, at least, had ransacked the great oculariums and archives in a search for knowledge, but he had burned them all the same. As if they’d sought not just to overthrow a tyrant, but upend the foundations of civilisation itself – and for what? Power. Control.

  ‘A child’s game,’ he murmured, still examining the poem. ‘And at its end, only children remain, unable to do anything more than ape those who came before them.’ He looked at his guest. ‘Is that what you are, then? A feral child, raised on the stories of a golden age that never truly existed, save in the tales of remembrancers and iterators?’

  The Space Marine said nothing. He was not unconscious. He had, in fact, been awake for no small amount of time. Biding his time, in hopes of escape, perhaps. Fabius set the chunk of armour aside. ‘There is no escape, brother. You might get out of my laboratorium, even off of this deck, but no further.’

  Still no reply. Fabius sighed. ‘You are not unconscious. My sensors registered the spike in your heart rate when I picked up this section of armour.’ He tapped it. ‘My criticisms of your fumbling attempts at the poetic were not intended as an insult, I assure you.’ He frowned. ‘Your name is Kasra, is it not? So it says on your armour.’ He waited for a moment, and then continued. ‘You are still alive, Kasra. This is of concern to you, I am sure. It can only mean terrible things. This is true – but, it is within your power to mitigate the extent of those things. I will speak plainly. Cooperation earns you a swift and relatively painless demise. Stubbornness will earn you only agony. That agony will increase in direct proportion to your obstinacy. The more you resist, the more it will hurt.’

  ‘Pain – pain is an illusion.’ Kasra’s voice was hoarse.

  ‘No. Pain is the body’s way of alerting you to injury and malfunction. It is a warning. The more pain you feel, the greater the warning. For example…’ Fabius tapped Torment against the Space Marine’s bare torso, eliciting a bellow of agony. The transhuman warrior convulsed in his bindings as an etheric torrent of pain ripsawed through him. ‘That was but a mere tingle, compared to what awaits you if you choose to test my patience. Do you understand, Kasra, Shehan of the Red Scimitars?’

  The Space Marine hawked and spat. Acidic saliva hissed, eating through Fabius’ flesh-coat. ‘I see. You do not understand. Very well.’ Torment slid forward, at a lower angle this time. Again, a hoarse roar of pain. Fabius stepped back after a slow count of ten, the smoking head of the sceptre nestled in the crook of his arm like a contented pet. ‘Now?’ he asked. Ragged panting was the only reply. Fabius caught his hair and jerked his head up. Kasra truly was unconscious, this time. Annoyed, Fabius let his head fall.

  ‘Why do you do that?’

  Fulgrim stood behind him, watching. The clone looked perplexed. Fabius frowned. ‘Do what?’

  ‘You are hurting him. Why?’

  ‘It is necessary.’

  ‘Why?’

  Fabius’ frown deepened. ‘The quest for knowledge is rarely pleasant, Fulgrim. It often involves blood and pain. In this case, his.’

  ‘Do you… enjoy it?’

  ‘No.’

  Fulgrim didn’t look happy. It was an odd thing, to see that face twisted up in such childish dismay. Even with all of his knowledge, the clone did not truly understa
nd. Fulgrim – the real Fulgrim – had conducted experiments of his own on Chemos. Procedures meant to extend lifespan, and cure the various ailments, such as glowlung, which afflicted his adopted people. But those had had an obvious purpose. Perhaps that was it.

  Fabius guided the clone away from the prisoner. ‘Rest assured, his suffering will not be extensive. Few choose to resist beyond the first touch of Torment.’

  ‘Do you have to kill him?’

  ‘He is our enemy, Fulgrim. He would kill us, and gladly, were he able, in the name of his Corpse-Emperor.’ Fabius laughed sourly. ‘Indeed, I have died at the hands of brutes like him more than I care to admit.’

  ‘You… died?’ Fulgrim looked horrified.

  Fabius nodded. ‘Oh, yes. Several times in this millennium alone.’

  ‘Then how are you here?’

  Fabius tapped the side of his head. ‘So long as my mind lives, it can inhabit a prepared body. As you are a clone, so too is this flesh I wear.’ He gestured to a row of nutrient tanks. Each contained a web of nerve tissue. ‘Cloned neural networks – my mind, at different stages of its development.’ He watched the nutrient pulses as they fed into the glistening strands of nerve tissue. There was something obscurely satisfying about watching such a process. ‘In the event of death, my mind, my knowledge, continues.’

  Fulgrim frowned. ‘But they are not you.’

  ‘No, and yes. Once implanted in a compatible host, that host will think they are me, and thus will do as I would do. I am no less me than the me who stood in the temples of the Laer and scrounged for secrets.’ He smiled in recognition of his own achievement. ‘They are based on the neural artifice of aeldari infinity circuit technology. It took me a century to grow them, from tissue cultures taken at regular intervals.’