Dante

by Guy Haley

  His backpacks were at least lighter. Daneill and Florian got their much bigger packs on and picked up their curved bone poles.

  ‘Lead on,’ said Florian, his voice muffled.

  With the ticker in one hand and his staff in the other, Luis motioned upwards on a line oblique to their previous path. ‘That way,’ he said.

  They struggled on in their thick suits. Luis didn’t want to think how much moisture he was losing. Wherever there seemed to be an easier path, the ticker buzzed angrily, the needle wedging itself into the danger zone, and they were forced to take more difficult routes. Luis thought bad things about the ticker’s machine-spirit, but dared not voice them for fear of offending it.

  The rad zone lasted for several hundred yards of punishing climb. The sun was shining on them the whole way. His body was slick with sweat and his throat tight with thirst. He became dizzy, but they could not stop.

  As the climb became unbearable, the sun crested its noon and went to the other side of the Heavenwall Mountains, bringing them welcome rest from its heat. As the day became cooler and the shadows reddened, the ticker’s rattling became a regular tocking. The needle twitched by fits and starts away from the red. Soon it was bumping only sporadically up from the bottom of the white, and the ticks became quieter, then stilled.

  Luis led them on a hundred yards further until he was sure the needle would not spring back into action.

  They were on a steep slope of wind-smoothed rock. A few more degrees of gradient and it would be impassable without ropes. He braced his feet awkwardly and tore his hood from his head. He sighed with pleasure as the gathering night wind chilled his damp face.

  ‘The rads are gone. We’re safe here,’ he called. The others came nearer.

  ‘Looks like there’s a cave ahead,’ Florian said. ‘We can make camp there.’ He nodded at a break in the rock face. ‘We should stop for the night.’

  The cave was a fault in the rock widened by erosion. They had to stoop to get in, but once inside the ceiling rose high enough so that they could stand, before doubling back down. Thirty paces from the edge, the weight of the stone pressed the cave down to little more than a few feet, although the crack continued back into the darkness of the mountain. Sand covered the floor.

  ‘This is good!’ said Florian. He ran his hands over the stone as he walked towards the back. He dropped his things, ducked down and peered into the narrowing tail of the cave.

  ‘What’s back there?’ said Daneill. He stood near the entrance. ‘I don’t like it. It’s too deep. Could be anything back there.’

  ‘There’s nothing! Comes down together not far back, I reckon.’ Florian sat on a boulder and began to tug off his rad suit with his back to the crack.

  Daneill still did not set down his pack and poles. ‘I wish we had something to make a fire. It’s getting cold.’

  ‘Too cold, frightened of a crack in the rock – what kind of angel are you going to make?’ said Florian. He folded up his rad suit. The boys had no knowledge of the need to decontaminate their gear, and no way to do it if they had, and so he simply jammed it back into his pack. ‘This is the best campsite we’ve found for ages. You’ll see.’

  Luis put down his bags. ‘You’re probably right. I’m exhausted. We need to rest.’

  ‘What do you know about anything?’ said Daneill.

  ‘He knows enough to have a ticker when we don’t!’ snapped Florian. ‘Will you just give it a rest?’

  Daneill’s eyes widened, followed by his mouth. He took a step back. ‘Florian!’ he whispered.

  ‘Don’t start!’ said Florian. ‘Can’t you just…’ The look on Daneill’s face stopped him. The older boy turned to look into the back of the cave. Glinting there in the subterranean dark were three clusters of four eyes.

  ‘Fire scorpion!’ yelled Daneill. He stumbled backwards, cracking his head on the cave mouth. Luis snatched up his staff as Florian screamed.

  The scorpion lunged out of the dark.

  The fire scorpion of Baal Secundus had little in common with the scorpions of Terra, but enough resemblance to warrant the name. Cousin to the catch spiders of the salt wastes, it had a similar flat, oval body but was much bigger. Six of its ten limbs were legs, the foremost pair having evolved into giant crushing pincers. Like the spiders’, its body was divided into three flat segments covered by natural, banded armour and its head was protected by a peaked cowl coming off its exoskeleton. The mouth had multiple, toothed palps. Luis cursed their laxness; they should have been more careful.

  The scorpion seized Florian’s foot in one huge claw. Florian responded by kicking it repeatedly in the face, forcing the head and its deadly mouth back into the chitinous hood. Hissing angrily, it heaved itself out of the crack fully into the cave, and the tail came up and over its back. Florian screamed again.

  ‘Stay away from the tail!’ shouted Luis.

  It was at the rear where the scorpions’ anatomy diverged most significantly from the spiders’. The scorpions’ rearmost limbs had fused, and turned up and backwards into a long, jointed tail. The feet had become a hollow gland fronted with an orifice closed by barbed hairs that locked together. The tail swayed back and forth. Chemical brume boiled from the tip.

  Luis made to help. Daneill grabbed his arm.

  ‘Let it get him! We can run. We can’t stop that – it’ll kill you. It’ll kill us all!’

  ‘You leave if you want,’ said Luis harshly, ‘but you’ll be no worthy angel.’ He threw off Daneill’s arm.

  Florian scrabbled for a rock with his hand while continuing to kick at the scorpion’s face.

  The scorpion drew back its tail. The gland oscillated rapidly side to side. Within, thick vestibules opened, mixing volatile chemicals in the chamber behind the hair-locked plates. The scorpion’s characteristic bubbling screech, caused by the building exothermic reaction, filled the cave.

  ‘Florian!’ shouted Luis. He charged at the scorpion, knocking its bulbous fire gland aside as it opened, spraying a sheet of stinking, flaming liquid across the cave. Florian yelped as fire landed on his arm. Luis caught the tail under the fire gland with his staff and yanked it back, dragging it towards the ground. The scorpion hissed and pulled back, rotating towards Luis, dragging Florian with it. Smothering his burning sleeve with sand, Florian snatched up a rock and raised it over his head in both hands and started to pound at the claw.

  Luis was dragged back and forth by the whipping tail. Chitin cracked on the claw. The scorpion shrieked. Luis leaned back with all his weight as the fire gland made its song, yanking it vertical. The chemical fire jetted out and hit the ceiling, spread out in a circle, and rained down all over the cave, setting Luis’ cloak on fire. The confined space was choked with reeking fumes.

  ‘Let! Go! Of! Me!’ shouted Florian, driving the rock through the claw’s armour and into the soft muscle beneath. The scorpion keened and released him. He scrambled to his feet. Trailing its smashed claw, the scorpion turned to snap at Luis with the other, but Daneill came in, yelling an incomprehensible cry, and drove his knife into the joints on the tail. The scorpion whipped its tail back, snapping the knife off near the hilt. Luis was sent tumbling to the floor. Cornered and injured, the scorpion skittered around and dived back into the crack.

  The three boys lay gasping in the cave, chemical fire burning out around them.

  ‘We were lucky it was a juvenile. It must have moulted recently, or you’d never have cracked its claw like that,’ said Luis. He held out his hand to Florian.

  ‘You came back for me. You could have run,’ he said, taking the hand.

  ‘I would never run,’ said Luis, and hauled Florian to his feet. He could feel Daneill glaring at him.

  ‘A bigger one would have killed us all,’ said Florian. ‘You were brave to tackle it.’

  ‘Brothers, you said. At least until we get to Angel’s Leap and the Wind River,’ said Luis. ‘I stand by my promises.’ He looked back at the crack. ‘We can’t stay here.’
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  They climbed as far as they could. Firstnight lasted an hour at that time, giving them half an hour of extra daylight when it finished. Truenight came soon after, forcing them to halt. The chill of night came on, and they huddled together for warmth under Baal’s cold stare.

  They took it in turns to watch for the fire scorpion, although in truth none of them slept. Every noise had them staring into the night. When dawn came they greeted it with ecstatic whoops.

  ‘We gotta go up,’ Florian explained. ‘Cross the mountains. The Wind River is a long way on the other side. This bit is going to be hard.’

  Following Florian, they climbed high, up so far the Great Salt Waste was just a blur. The mountains reared higher, their faces steep as walls. Florian took them on a narrow trail that dropped precipitously to the lower slopes. They stood on a knife-edge, the radzone and scorpion cave far below them. Luis’ breath failed to nourish his lungs, and the cold burned at his throat. Daneill had it worse, stumbling so much Luis had to help him walk.

  The path joined a ruinous road, its surface worn away and buttress walls fallen down. The air grew thinner. Daneill became confused. Luis felt dizzy.

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ said Florian, pointing upwards.

  At the mountain’s shoulder a wide pass split one peak from another. The heights stood imperiously, impossibly high, their heads white with ancient snow, and yet on one of them the remains of an ancient building could be seen.

  They reached the mouth of the pass, a wide vale between the peaks.

  The boys climbed on a few more hours. The air was so dry the insides of their noses crackled and their tongues stuck to their mouths. When they finally stopped, they were exhausted. Daneill cried out in his sleep.

  Luis awoke feeling sick and exhausted, but forced himself up all the same. He looked forward to descending.

  He stood to rearrange his clothes for the day’s trek, but stopped dead. Florian and Daneill were nowhere to be seen. Florian’s gear was where he’d stacked it the night before. Daneill’s outer robes looked like they had been abandoned, but his pack and wing spars were gone.

  ‘Florian? Daneill?’ he called.

  ‘…eill, …eill, …eill,’ the mountains responded.

  The silence of the mountains pressed down on him. Cliffs of sheer red stone walled him in. The floor of the valley was a jumble of giant rocks through which the faintest of trails ran. The wind drew sorrowful notes from the landscape. He couldn’t remember a time when he had felt so alone.

  There was shout from ahead, upslope. Wrapping his outer robe as he ran, he stumbled upwards. The air at that altitude was rarefied and he could manage no more than a jog.

  Florian was shouting. ‘Daneill! Stop! Stop!’

  The slope of the pass ended in a brow. They had ascended many such the day before, expecting each one to be the last and the pass to begin its downward path. Every time they had been disappointed. This one, however, proved to be the summit. Luis crested it, and looked down onto the pass as it rapidly widened, forcing the mountains apart as it headed away to far deserts.

  ‘Daneill!’ Florian shouted. His voice was weak in the attenuate air. A moment’s searching revealed two figures a few hundred yards down slope, struggling in the lee of a mighty boulder. The air was so clear, only the boys gave the landscape scale. Without them, Luis could never have guessed the boulder’s true size.

  He set off running, eyes fixed on them. Daneill and Florian were fighting. Daneill was carrying his pack and was weak from mountain sickness, but Florian had been burned and was exhausted. Daneill’s strength won out, and he shoved the other boy to the ground. Taking one of his wing spars he hit Florian hard on the head. Luis ran harder.

  Luis reached Florian, gasping for air that could not satisfy his body.

  ‘Stop him!’ said Florian from the ground, where he nursed his bloodied face. ‘The mountain sickness is clouding his mind. He’s going to drink it!’

  Luis’ face displayed his confusion.

  ‘Thirstwater!’ said Florian. ‘Go!’

  The pass shelved off to the east there, and Daneill was making his way down the slope. Luis ran after him, but he could not catch him. He reached the top of a slope to see Daneill making his way towards a sparkling pool of water bubbling up from a spring in the stone. Luis’ blood ran cold.

  ‘Daneill! Daneill! Stop!’

  The stocky boy gave him a stare as hateful as it was bleary, and continued down to the water, where he dropped his pack and poles, still smeared with Florian’s blood. Luis ran after him, reaching him just as he neared the edge. He grabbed Daneill’s arm and pulled him back from the pool. ‘Don’t drink it!’

  ‘What?’ he said. Daneill’s manner was confused. His voice slurred, and his actions were slow and exaggerated. ‘I’m thirsty, salty. Let me be.’

  Daneill was still strong, and he was older than Luis. He swung a rock into Luis’ wrist. Luis released his arm with a cry, and before he could stop him, Daneill was reaching for the water. Luis grabbed his foot, receiving a kick in the face that sent stars rocketing across his vision.

  Daneill plunged his hands into the thirstwater and sucked greedily from cupped palms. He made three swift gulps, then stopped. He spat, raised his face up and looked at Luis in horrified realisation.

  ‘Help me!’ he said.

  By then, it was too late.

  ‘Daneill!’ Florian cried, hobbling down the slope.

  Luis scrambled away from Daneill’s outstretched hand. Florian gave an anguished shout. Luis grabbed him to stop him aiding his friend, and with a snarl Florian fell on Luis, punching and kicking him. Luis grappled with the plainsman, locking out his arm and pitching the boy face first into the dust.

  ‘Stay away from it. Don’t get any of it on you!’

  ‘Floriaaaaaaan…’ The name trailed off to an agonised rasp. Daneill’s mouth gaped, showing his tongue shrivelling to a black nub in his mouth.

  Daneill walked three steps, scarecrow stiff, legs kicking out as his tendons dried. His mouth worked, trying to suck air in to speak, but his lungs were gone, and his lips smacked together even as they dried and pulled back from his teeth. Hollows appeared in his cheeks, and his eyelids drew back from eyes that rolled in terror. His limbs contorted into painful shapes as his tendons drew tighter than gun springs. His fingers jabbed out at unnatural angles, the sharp cracks of snapping bone echoing around the pool.

  Daneill’s moistureless corpse crackled like a fire as his tissues shrank and split. His body shuddered as his spine curved, and his skin turned black. Finally his eyes, freakishly moist in his desiccated face, shrivelled up to nothing in his skull. A hideous clicking emanated from a throat now little wider than his spine.

  ‘You know what it is, right? You know what it will do to you if it gets on you.’

  Florian choked and spat helplessly into the rocky ground. ‘In our clan they say it was a weapon, that it’s alive, breeds, creeps around looking for people to kill. They say it was thirstwater drank the oceans dry and made the wastes. I know what it is. Now get off me!’

  Luis stepped back, releasing his hold on Florian’s arm. The older boy snatched his hand back and stood, looking helplessly at the mess of sinew and bone trapped in tight yellow skin. Daneill’s lipless smile bared teeth made huge by gum recession.

  The water swirled, a vortex that sucked itself away into the fractured stone of the pass. Its passing left no moisture, as if it had never been.

  Florian crouched with his head in his hands, sobbing. After a time he stopped. His breath still hitching, he scrambled angrily to Daneill’s pack and poles. He snatched them up, marched to Luis and threw them at his feet in a fury.

  ‘Looks like you found yourself some wings,’ he said, his voice brimming with anger. ‘You’re coming with me, salty, all the way.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE SANGUINOR

  998.M41

  Asphodex Low Anchor

  Cryptus System

  The relentl
ess firing of macrocannons ceased as Dante’s Stormhawk approached the Blade of Vengeance. The port battery fell silent first, to allow past the ships fleeing Asphodex. The Sanguine Shadow went by quickly, towards the giant flank shield halfway to the stern where the hangar decks sheltered. As soon as the last ships had pierced the field holding back the landing bay’s atmosphere, the guns arrayed along the battle-barge resumed their devastation of the planet below.

  The Sanguine Shadow touched down next to its sisters. Hardened deposits of alien fluids clogged the landing claws’ workings, causing them to squeal in complaint as they took the load of the craft. The blood-red of the hull was marred with dark scars and acid burns. In places the ceramite armour plating was pocked through to the plasteel airframe beneath. Forge-servitors rushed forwards, esoteric scrubbing gear plugged into their multi-sockets, to cleanse the craft of xenos fouling. They moved with uncharacteristic swiftness, impelled perhaps by some sympathy of machine for machine. The Stormraven’s spirit was in no mood for patience. The assault ramp slammed down as brutally as if the craft had landed in a combat zone, and Dante strode out.

  Chapter equerries awaited their masters at the back of the deck, all in red. Those whose masters had perished wore black crosses sewn upon their breasts, and skull amulets of polished basalt around their necks. Along the wall, three-tiered corpse biers held the bodies of Dante’s brothers in arms, stacked and waiting to be borne away to the apothecarion. The blood thralls of the Chapter were stoic men, as emotionless in their way as their lords, but they wept silent tears, all of them, for the Blood Angels who had fallen. Chaplain Ordamael went from corpse to corpse, offering praise for the deeds of the dead and thanks for the return of their gene-seed, chanting servitors trailing in his wake. Sanguinary Priests gave the bodies cursory examinations, checking for progenoid damage. Techmarines from the Armoury removed wargear, their blood thralls reverently swaddling it in crimson sheets.