Praetorian of Dorn

by John French

  The words felt strange even as they left his mouth. He had been a razor in the gangs, a loner, shunned and used for his quickness. He had been marked and answered to others, but he had never been one of them; he had never had his survival depend on anything other than his own wits and reflexes. Now, by the fact of the chains around his neck, he could only live if those standing beside him lived as well.

  ‘You lead,’ called the taller one.

  Just like that, thought Kye, no questioning. Minutes before they had been fighting him; now they were following his word without question.

  A pair of beasts bounded over the body of their kin and leapt at him. He shifted his feet, feeling the blood on the floor under his toes. One of the creatures reached for him with its claws. He pivoted, and slammed the bar into the side of its skull with the full force of momentum and muscle. The beast dropped, the side of its skull a crumpled mass of metal, bone and blood. Kye leapt into the space where it had been. The other two aspirants came with him, and they battered their way into the oncoming tide.

  The forest of girders loomed above them. Kye was reading the best way to make the climb, when a grunt of pain came from behind him. The chain yanked at his neck, and he stumbled. A beast’s claws flicked out. Pain exploded across his thigh. Blood sheeted down his leg. He twisted and struck the beast with a back-handed blow. The creature snarled and retreated. Kye looked over his shoulder, muscles bunching in his neck as the manacle bit deep.

  The tall aspirant was lying on the floor, a wide gash open down the left side of his chest. He was shaking, blood pumping in time with ragged breaths.

  ‘Get him up!’ shouted the one with the brand scars. The chain linking him to the bleeding figure had pulled him to his knees, and he was whirling his metal bar over his head. The beasts were a wall around him, eyes and jaws pressing close.

  Kye hesitated. They needed to climb, and quickly. Dragging a dying body would be almost impossible.

  ‘He’s–’

  ‘Move!’

  Kye moved, dropping the metal bar. He gripped the wounded aspirant under the arms, lifting him onto his shoulders. The movement was strangely easy. He began to move. The branded youth was just behind him, swinging his bar in a circle. They had a second before the beasts realised they were vulnerable. Kye was at the base of a girder that met the ground at a sharp angle. He gripped the metal with one hand and used the other to steady the body across his shoulders. He could hear breath bubbling. Blood was flowing down his skin. His own wound was a dull throb at the edge of thought. He braced his feet and began to climb.

  He felt a brief tension in the chain, and then the other aspirant leapt from the floor and gripped the girder. The chains linking them clanged against the rusted iron. Beneath them the beasts howled and leapt up, claws dragging sparks across the girder.

  Kye breathed hard. The beat of his old and new hearts rose. Blood was spattering down into the jaws of the creatures. He hauled himself up, shifting his grip and feet until he reached a crossbeam. It was narrow and rough with rust, but as its coolness touched his skin, he thought that he had never felt anything more perfect in his life.

  The aspirant with the branded face hoisted himself up next to Kye a second later. He was bleeding from a dozen gashes in his chest and shoulders. He looked at Kye, bloodied chest rising and falling as he sucked air.

  ‘That was quick thinking, and better climbing.’

  ‘Where I was from you learnt things like that fast.’

  A smile spilt the branded face.

  ‘We all came from somewhere like that,’ said the aspirant with the brand marks. ‘I am Archamus.’ He gestured at the figure who was half slumped on the girder across Kye’s back. ‘And he–’

  ‘Is still alive enough to give his own name.’ The figure stirred and rolled off Kye’s back. His movements were weak, but the wound in his chest had sealed. Hard nodules of congealed blood gleamed in the low light. Kye glanced down at the cut in his own leg. It too had closed, and the blood begun to clot. ‘I am Yonnad,’ said the wounded aspirant, his voice low and solemn. ‘Thank you. Thank you for my life. May I know your name?’

  Kye paused. He felt strange, as though he had moved into a different world without moving.

  ‘I am called Kye,’ he said.

  Archamus grinned again and spat a thick gobbet of blood from between his teeth. Down below, the beasts bayed louder.

  ‘Get up, Kye,’ said Archamus, and began to pull himself along the girder. ‘We have a long way to go if we are going to reach the exit.’ He moved around Kye and helped Yonnad into a crouch. Kye shook his head, but Archamus spoke before he could. ‘You have carried him enough for now, Kye. And besides, you should lead.’

  Kye looked at him for an instant, and then began to climb. Behind him the beasts howled, and the chains linking him to the other two clinked.

  VI

  ‘I will not submit,’ Kye shouted, as the saw pulled back. The blood was bright on his teeth as it spun down. ‘I. Will. Not!’ He forced the words out, one after another. Machine limbs reached down, and he heard the crack as they pulled his ribcage open.

  Above him the grey eyes of the Apothecary looked down from behind the mechanical arms.

  ‘Why?’ said the Apothecary, his voice echoing from a speaker in his collar.

  Kye could feel the pain coming again. He was always awake when they operated now. Always awake, and never numb. Needles twitched in his arms and neck. He could feel his body fighting to suppress the pain and staunch the flow of blood. But there was too much pain, and too much blood. Too much, but not enough that it would release him from its hold.

  ‘I asked you a question, aspirant,’ said the Apothecary.

  ‘Kye,’ he hissed. ‘My name is Kye.’

  ‘Is that why you will not submit, for pride?’

  Another set of machine arms swung into view above him. A tubular lump of grey flesh hung from the machine’s chrome fingers. A web of blood vessels hung from it.

  ‘Can you remember why you resist?’

  ‘I...’ began Kye, and reached for the memories and feelings that lived behind his defiance...

  He would not submit. He would not break. He would not bow. He would not.

  ...and found nothing. He did not know why he would resist, only that he would.

  ‘I do not remember,’ he said, eyes snapping back into focus to see the arms lowering the grey lump of flesh into his chest.

  ‘Strength does not require reasons,’ said the Apothecary.

  VII

  Kye hung in silence and dreamed the dreams of two worlds.

  In one world his mind was asleep, his thoughts tumbling down through echoes of compressed memories.

  In the other world his eyes watched the corridor junction, his thoughts moving with the same, slow beat as his blood. His eyes were open, and they twitched as though seeing things move in front of him. But there was nothing in front of him, just three long, dark corridors. He had been like this for fifty-six hours, half of them fully awake, the other half split between the waking and sleep that he could now enter at will.

  ‘Kye?’ Yonnad’s voice fizzed inside his ear. ‘Kye, respond if you can hear.’

  His eyes stopped twitching, and he blinked rapidly. He had to bite down on the instinct to vomit as his dreams meshed with a waking world that he could already see. The pressure of the void suit was a sudden sensation on his skin, and he felt his hearts begin to thump faster.

  ‘I hear you,’ he said.

  ‘Confirm status,’ said Yonnad.

  ‘Steady at intersection twenty-one. No movement. Just like before.’

  ‘They are out there,’ said Archamus, his voice a growl over the vox-link. ‘They are coming. Did that rust pit of a hive you were born in not teach you patience?’

  ‘Oh, it did, but somehow it failed to make me enjoy floatin
g in the vacuum, waiting for an unknown enemy to appear,’ said Kye.

  Archamus laughed, the sound a quick bark that settled back into quiet.

  ‘They might not be coming,’ said Kye at last. The thought had been itching away at him every time he came out of a split-sleep cycle.

  ‘That is not the way things are done,’ came Yonnad’s measured tones. ‘If we are here, then so is the enemy.’

  ‘What if that is not the lesson?’ asked Kye, shifting to stare down one of the three passages. Cables dangled from crumpled inspection hatches, and pipes hung from ducts like severed blood vessels. They were in a damaged region of a transport barque which had been left open to the void. There were other trios of aspirants scattered throughout the structure. Each had a different mission, but none knew where the other trios were, or the details of their missions. Kye, Archamus and Yonnad were watching a cluster of dead passages. All of them were skinned in armoured void suits, and armed with shot-cannons and chainblades.

  ‘What do you mean?’ growled Archamus. Kye took a careful breath before answering. The Inwit-born youth could switch in temperament from jovial to abrupt to anger in the space of a heartbeat. The alterations being made to his mind and body had not dulled that quality; if anything his temper had become more marked.

  ‘What if waiting is the wrong thing to do? What if there is no threat, and the only thing holding us here is that we think there is a threat?’

  ‘No, Kye,’ said Yonnad, speaking before Archamus could. ‘We have a task, and we will see it done.’

  ‘But what is the mission?’ asked Kye. He turned to look down the second passage. The movement spun him over, and he had to grab hold of the tether attaching him to the wall to steady himself. The second corridor was empty, just like the first. ‘What if we have not understood it correctly?’

  ‘Kye...’ began Yonnad, but Archamus cut in.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean there might be no enemy here. They might be somewhere else, somewhere that is struggling because we are held here by fear.’

  ‘This is duty, not fear,’ said Yonnad.

  ‘Is it?’ snapped Kye, before he could stop himself. He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. He had noticed that happening more and more recently; emotions and impatience would bubble up out of nowhere. It was like another person was living in his thoughts, someone with cold edges and hot bile. He had no idea why. ‘I am sorry...’ he began to say.

  ‘Enough,’ said Yonnad. ‘We are brothers, you need say nothing more. Just never say such a thing again.’

  Kye swallowed and nodded even though no one could see him do it.

  Brother. The word was still as strange an addition to his world as the organs stitched into his flesh.

  ‘Perhaps he is right,’ said Archamus. ‘We have not heard anything, and the command channel is static. We are too scattered. Even if that was the ordered formation, we are exposed. We could link up with each other and form a trio. If it is clear up to the core bulkhead, we can form a core defence.’

  ‘No,’ said Yonnad, his voice hard. ‘We stay. If we start second guessing...’

  ‘Kye,’ said Archamus. ‘I am going to move towards you. Try not to shoot me when you see me.’

  Yonnad hissed something in the language of his birth world. Kye didn’t understand the words, but he didn’t need to.

  ‘Detaching tether, and moving now,’ called Archamus.

  Kye turned so that the passage Archamus would come down was at the edge of his sight. He kept focused on the others. After a few moments, a light flickered in the far darkness of the passage.

  ‘Nothing here,’ said Archamus. ‘Unsurprising.’

  ‘I do not like this,’ hissed Yonnad. Kye could hear the tension in the words. He was suddenly not sure that he should have voiced his thoughts about changing the battle plan.

  ‘Victory comes from suffering,’ said Archamus, the edge of laughter back in his voice now. ‘I can see your suit lights, Kye. Closing on your position.’

  ‘Confirmed,’ said Kye, and glanced back up the tunnel to where the light was bobbing closer. ‘I can see yours too.’

  ‘I do not have my lights on,’ said Archamus.

  Kye heard the words and felt them slide cold over his skin. He turned. The light closing towards him was accelerating. He brought his shot-cannon up.

  Blinding light flicked down the passage towards him. He pulled the trigger. The cannon roared. The gun’s recoil spun him over in the weightless dark. And saved his life. A bolt of energy skimmed his upper arm. Fabric and rubber flashed to vapour. Flakes of burning material peeled away. The tether connecting him to the wall snapped tight, and he was tumbling over and over. Pain burned in his right arm. Air vented from the hole in his suit. A pressure-loss alert began to ring in his ears. The wall slammed into him, and he caught it before he rebounded. His shot-cannon was still in his left hand. The pain in his right shoulder exploded as he pulled himself against the metal plates. Bolts of energy flashed past him.

  He could see the light now. It was not one light but four, closely bunched, moving in jumps through the black. He had an impression of bronze plating and steel limbs. He fired again. The cannon flashed. Force slammed though him, but this time he was braced for it. The lead light went out. Air was streaming out of his suit. He could hear it, a low hiss in the silence.

  A line of energy burned into the wall next to him. He fired again, and again, switching the angle of fire to send the scatter shot ricocheting off the walls. Another light went out. Something flashed at the edge of his eye, and he glanced to his side where the other corridors led off into the dark. Lights were moving towards him down both passages.

  ‘Brothers!’ he shouted the word, as he fired a scatter shell down each passage. The recoil almost sent him spinning again.

  ‘I am almost with you,’ yelled Archamus.

  ‘I am moving,’ said Yonnad.

  Kye fired again, rebounding from shot to shot. He could see the servitors now. They crawled over the walls like spiders. Articulated metal limbs moved in place of arms and legs, and their heads bent upwards on necks of ribbed steel. Weapon pods projected from their spines like scorpion stings. And there were dozens of them.

  ‘I see you,’ came Archamus’ voice. ‘I have clear targets.’

  The flare of gunfire lit the distant passage, blinking as shrapnel tore through the vacuum. Kye grinned, sudden joy blotting out the pain of his arm. He had felt it before, and knew it. This was the warrior’s song singing in his veins, the joy of feeling death reach for him and shouting back into its face.

  He braced and fired again. Three shots. Four explosions of flesh and metal. He glanced over his shoulder. Archamus was ten metres away, wedged between the wall and a block of machinery. He was firing at the servitors closest to Kye.

  ‘Well,’ shouted Archamus over the vox. ‘At least we found the enemy.’

  Kye laughed, and turned to fire again.

  A flash of energy burned out of the dark. And the world ripped away like a banner blown into the night sky.

  VIII

  He woke to cold light. Numbness held his body.

  ‘You are persistent,’ said a voice from just out of sight. ‘I will give you that.’ The grey-eyed Apothecary stepped into view. ‘Lucky even. An aspirant with your injuries would normally be allowed to die, or be made into a servitor. But it seems that fortune is on your side.’

  Kye took a breath and felt fluid rasp in his throat.

  ‘Archamus...’ he hissed. ‘Yonnad...’

  ‘The other two in your trio? One dead. One alive.’

  The words sank through him, cold in the sea of his numbness. The Apothecary watched him, unblinking.

  ‘Which one?’ asked Kye at last. The Apothecary raised an eyebrow. ‘Which one died?’

  ‘The one w
ho was closest to you when you were hit. I do not know the name. He was caught out of position and overwhelmed.’

  Archamus, thought Kye.

  ‘It is not just the weak in body that we winnow out,’ said the Apothecary. ‘It is those who are flawed in thought. He was not strong enough to become what he needed to be, and so he fell.’

  ‘It was me,’ said Kye. ‘He should have been in position. It was me that wanted to alter it.’

  ‘Then he died for your weakness,’ said the Apothecary, and moved away, leaving Kye with the words echoing in his thoughts.

  IX

  He lay in the dark and felt the ghosts of his lost limbs. Shivers of pain rain down his right arm from shoulder to fingertip. He could feel his right leg ache when he lay still. The energy blast had vaporised his arm from just above the elbow, and scooped a chunk of bone and flesh from his torso. A second blast had struck his knee. To simplify the fitting of the bionics they had removed the remaining flesh and bone up to his shoulder and hip.

  When they had first fitted the bionics, he would stare at the bronzed pistons and wires of his new limbs, and feel another set of fingers and muscle twitch somewhere within the unmoving metal. Now he lay in the dark of his cell and waited, clenching his right fist, one digit at a time.

  What are you afraid of? The words came again, along with the face of the man who he had seen in his cell. What are you really afraid of? He will ask you.

  The darkness did not answer.

  The door to his cell opened. Light fell across him, bright and golden. His eyes adapted instantly to the change in illumination.

  ‘It is time,’ said the figure by the door. He did not recognise the voice, but the size and the purr of active power armour told him enough. Once he would have thought the figure a giant, but as he stood their eyes were on a level. The plugs in his spine still itched, but he no longer even thought of the hard, black carapace under his skin, or the beat of his second heart, or the channels that his thoughts flowed down. Only the question – asked by a man who had not been there, to a boy who was no longer there – tugged at his calm.