Khârn: Eater of Worlds

by Anthony Reynolds

  Veering off its defensive vector sweep, it banked several kilometres off the bow of the Defiant, angling past immense arched weapon bays, cannon turrets and missile tubes. Its embarkation ramps gaped open and seven figures leapt into the vacuum of space. They were unseen by scanners not yet fully operational, and too small and insignificant to be registered by fighters and assault boats.

  They drifted through the expanse of nothingness in absolute silence. Against the immense backdrop of the World Eaters fleet they were tiny. Insignificant specks closing the distance to the Defiant.

  They were the last of their echelons, these seven. Their battle brothers had all died, either on Terra or in the killing frenzy that came after. All had seen the death of hope.

  They were Bloodborn – warriors oath-sworn to a death-mission. Nothing could turn them from their path, not now.

  They came for different reasons: resentment; jealousy; a long harboured grudge; fatalism. Only their blood-pledge united them.

  He had been clever in choosing them for this task. They would not point back at him. They would succeed and die, or they would fail and die. None would be mourned. All those who would have done so were already ground to dust.

  The Bloodborn landed on the exterior of the Defiant, unnoticed. Boots maglocked to the immense armoured hull. Kilometres long, the length of the ship stretched out before them. As one they began their slow progress, striding across the exterior of the Defiant, closing in on the access hatch designated as their entry location.

  No vox-chatter passed between them. Each knew their task.

  They came to kill.

  ‘Shields?’ said Stirzaker, his voice even.

  ‘Up in five, four, three, two, one,’ said the officer of the deck. ‘Shields active.’

  ‘Weapons?’

  ‘All online, sir.’

  Already, Dreagher could see the World Eaters fleet turning towards this lone cruiser, like sharks sensing blood in the water.

  ‘Who are they?’ he said. ‘Surely none of Dorn’s get would have pursued us this far. Russ’s Wolves? The Scars?’

  ‘Incoming vox-hail, captain! It’s being projected on all channels, fleet-wide.’

  ‘Bring it up,’ Stirzaker ordered.

  A face appeared on the oculus, though the image quality was poor. Pict-scrubbers worked to eliminate the pixilation plaguing the image, and it was brought sharply into focus.

  A human woman of middling years glared haughtily onto the bridge. Her face was high-cheeked and stern, and her hair was pulled back in an artful hive skewered with long, silver needles. A teardrop tattoo was emblazoned upon the bone-white skin below her left eye.

  Dreagher instinctively loathed her. She may have had captain’s pins on her lapel, but her appearance was one of decadence and arrogance. His instantaneous appraisal was proved correct as soon as she opened her mouth to speak.

  ‘World Eaters,’ she said, derision virtually dripping from her accented, high-born lips.

  ‘It’s a one-way transmission,’ said Stirzaker. ‘She’s rejecting vox transmission from our fleet.’

  ‘This system is claimed by the Third Legion, the peerless Emperor’s Children,’ said the cruiser’s captain. ‘Halt your advance immediately. To not do so will be regarded as a provocative move of unwarranted aggression.’

  The screen went blank as the III Legion ship abruptly cut off its broadcast.

  Dreagher snorted, taken aback by the brashness of this mortal woman. He could imagine the reactions her statements were having across the rest of the fleet. Was she looking to start a war?

  Stirzaker did not even look to Dreagher for guidance before ordering the Defiant to recall its fighters and interceptors and increase its momentum.

  ‘And ready torpedo bays one through sixteen,’ he added.

  It was no surprise to see the Emperor’s Children vessel lurch into a hard bank as it swung abruptly away from the World Eaters fleet turning towards it. Such a manoeuvre would put the ship under considerable stress, and Dreagher could imagine the warning klaxons and alarms blaring though its corridors.

  The III Legion cruiser’s plasma core burned hot as it pulled away, extricating itself from immediate danger. Turning one’s back and running from World Eaters was only ever going to elicit one response, however. Even the most restrained and controlled of the remaining XII Legion captains were unable to resist the tantalising urge.

  As one, the fleet accelerated up to combat speed, giving chase. The hunt was on.

  The hatch was unlocked, as expected. With a final twist of its central locking wheel, it swung silently open, and the Bloodborn drifted in, using handholds to propel themselves into the decompression chamber beyond.

  Strobing red warning lights filled the interior. Faded hazard stripes edged the hard surfaces of the chamber. Arrows painted in cracked paint indicated the orientation of the ship, and the Bloodborn arranged themselves accordingly, rotating in the zero-gravity environment and maglocking themselves to the deck floor.

  One of their number sealed the hatch, swinging it shut and securing its locking mechanism. The red lights ceased their incessant flashing, and were replaced by a single, slowly pulsing amber lumen. A warning chime sounded, three times. Recycled oxygen was shunted into the chamber, and the pressure between equalised.

  The brazen armour of the Bloodborn was liberally hung with spiked chains, severed heads and other moribund death-tokens. They floated at odd angles but as gravity slammed in, they dropped, pulled towards the ship’s deck.

  The amber lumen turned to green, but the way forward into the battleship’s interior remained sealed. A narrow window, the glass thick and tri-layered, was set into the chamber’s lone portal into the battleship proper. A shadowed figure stood beyond it, features obscured by low light and the moisture trapped between the glass layers. He looked within, unmoving.

  One of the Bloodborn pushed to the front of the group. He placed his spike-armoured gauntlets palm first on either side of the narrow window and leaned forwards, staring out at the figure beyond. The snarling faceplate of his helm was mere centimetres from the glass. His eye lenses were slanted and glowed with hellish light, lending him an aggressive demeanour. He did not speak. He did not move. He simply stared.

  Seemingly satisfied, the shadowed figure within the ship stepped away from the window. A moment later, with a hiss, the portal slid upwards. A second was revealed, a bonded alloy blast door of adamantium, plasteel and ceramite capable of withstanding anything barring concentrated melta blasts. It too ground open.

  The Bloodborn strode through, chains clinking, glowing eye lenses scanning for threats. Several of them glanced down at the figure that had opened their way as they filed past. The smell of blood was heavy upon them. Their armour plates bore black handprints upon their helms and breastplates, marking them for death; none of them expected to survive this mission.

  None of them spoke. There was no need to. They knew what they had come to do. They had memorised the labyrinthine path they intended to walk. The way forward lay open before them.

  Without acknowledging the one who had allowed them access, they ghosted into the gloom of the Defiant’s interior. They moved with surprising stealth for such large, heavily armoured beings. Within seconds they were gone.

  Maven sealed the blast portals. He removed a heavy magnetic override from the metal chest of the door servitor embedded in a wall panel beside the portal, and slipped out a long, needle-tipped cable from the servitor’s forehead plug. The servitor twitched. A rope of drool hung from its grey, lumpen lips.

  The override allowed Maven access and ensured his actions were shrouded, an inbuilt feedback scrub making the ship believe that the portals had never been opened. It was a device of his own creation. He shook off the cranial slime from the needle-plug, grimacing, and folded the cable around the device’s circular casing. He slipped it
into a deep pocket and glanced around him. The corridors were empty.

  He pulled his hood up over his head, and walked away, taking a different route from the Bloodborn. Within moments, he too was swallowed up in the labyrinthine interior of the battleship.

  Chapter 7

  Galerius’s expression was cold, matching the alabaster perfection of his skin. His violet eyes had no warmth.

  ‘Why have I been confined to my cell?’ he said, his tone icy. ‘Why are there guards posted at my door? Am I a prisoner now?’

  ‘You are no prisoner,’ said Dreagher. ‘But neither are you free to wander as you please. That you were able to do so previously was a privilege.’

  ‘That wandering saved the life of your precious human pet,’ said Galerius.

  ‘For which I am grateful,’ said Dreagher. ‘External events have forced my hand.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ said Galerius, narrowing his eyes to slits.

  The Palatine Blade had felt the shudder and groan of the battleship as it advanced to combat speed. He’d half expected to feel the impact of an enemy barrage, but none had come. That had been when he’d discovered that his cell door was maglocked, and that his vox had been disabled. After a period of hours that had felt like weeks, the ship’s advance had slowed. Now the engines were still, thrumming rhythmically through the braces of the ship.

  ‘Come with me,’ said Dreagher. ‘See with your own eyes.’

  ‘My blade,’ said Galerius. ‘May I bring it?’

  ‘Do as you will,’ said Dreagher. ‘As I said, you are not a prisoner.’

  That the World Eaters were on a war footing was obvious. Legion serfs and servitors hurried by, hauling boxes of ammunition and ordnance. Squads of XII legionaries loped past them as they strode through the corridors of the Defiant accompanied, much to Galerius’s chagrin, by four World Eaters guards. The legionaries snarled at him in open hostility as they passed by, revving the engines of their chain weapons. Others spat at his feet, the powerful acid in their saliva making the deck sizzle and bubble.

  A sneer turned Galerius’s handsome face cruel. They were a wild rabble, these World Eaters, with no sense of order or discipline about them.

  ‘Is this necessary?’ he snapped. ‘There is nowhere I could go, even if I wanted to.’

  ‘They are your protectors, not your captors,’ said Dreagher. ‘Without them, you’d already be dead.’

  Another squad of World Eaters jogged past. They were fully armed and armoured for war, and heading for the embarkation decks. Some unwilling victim was soon to feel their wrath.

  Whatever wretched backwater world the XII had come upon this time was going to die, its civilisation left in ruin and dust as so many others that had been obliterated since he’d been aboard the ship. It was tiresome.

  They stared at him, growls crackling from the grilles of their helms. One of them, a brute clad in blood-drenched plate – many of the XII refused to wash the gore from their armour post battle – slowed as he noticed Galerius. He drew a heavy serrated blade from a sheath strapped to his vambrace and took a threatening step towards him.

  Galerius stared at him, a look of distaste of his face. He did not reach for Argentus. Not yet.

  One of his so-called bodyguards interposed himself, placing one hand on the warrior’s chest, halting his advance. In his other he held his bolter one-handed, the barrel levelled at the World Eater’s head.

  ‘Back off,’ snarled the guard, using the mongrel Nagrakali tongue. Galerius knew enough of the barbaric language to understand those words, a fact that he had no intention of sharing with his hosts.

  One of the legionary’s squad pulled the aggressor back, dragging him away from the confrontation. He allowed himself to be withdrawn, though he lowered his blade at Galerius as he did.

  ‘Your skull is pledged for the Skull Throne,’ he said in stilted Gothic before he moved on.

  ‘I will miss this place so, if I ever get off this ship,’ said Galerius.

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Dreagher.

  ‘Where are we going?’ said Galerius.

  ‘To a view deck,’ said Dreagher. ‘There is something I believe you will wish to see.’

  Maven walked swiftly through the halls of the Defiant. That he was Argus Brond’s man was well known. He was not questioned or stopped. To outward appearances he was hurrying upon some errand of his master. Only those close to him would have been able to read his tension.

  He was armed; a wide-bladed sword hung on his belt, while on his other hip a large-bore hand cannon was holstered.

  As he walked, he lifted the small vox-bead attached to his lapel close to his mouth.

  Still there was no answer. The other end of the vox was silent. He swore in frustration.

  ‘Come on,’ he breathed. ‘Answer!’

  Galerius stood with his hands on the armourglass of the view deck’s curved portal, staring out into the void. There were blood-tinged tears in his eyes, forming red rivulets down his ivory face. Dreagher stared at the Palatine Blade, partially amused, partially repulsed.

  Beyond the thick reinforced layers of the portal, past the armoured spine and bristling arrays upon the prow of the Defiant, a fleet was spread out across the void before a blue-grey planet, swirling with cyclonic, continent-sized storms.

  The fleet hung in perfect, resplendent formation at the very edge of enhanced visual range. Such distances were vast by any mortal standards, though dangerously close in the scale of void wars. Being able to see a ship with your own eyes always meant that it was within weapon range.

  The ships were bedecked in regal purple and gleaming gold, their magnificence a stark contrast to the battle-worn, fire-blackened battleships of the World Eaters fleet.

  It was the Emperor’s Children – perhaps the entirety of the Legion.

  Their dispersal was ordered, arranged in a logical, coordinated defensive screen. Dreagher would expect nothing less of the III Legion. The World Eaters ships, in contrast, were scattered and isolated, each operating as an individual, with scant regard for formation, overlapping fire-arcs or mutual support. The XII fleet was as divided as the Legion itself.

  ‘I have to make contact,’ said Galerius, still staring out at the distant fleet, unblinking, red tears tracking down his face. ‘I have to make contact with Lord Commander Cyrius. I am his Palatine. My place is by his side. Gods below – the Phoenician! Does the Pride of the Emperor still sail the aether? Is my lord primarch out there?’

  ‘I do not have any answers for you,’ said Dreagher. ‘None of the Third Legion have yet deigned to speak to us.’

  ‘We are allies! So let me speak with them.’

  ‘Our Legions were allied to Horus,’ said Dreagher. ‘Not to each other.’

  ‘Even if the ties of brotherhood no longer bind our Legions, we have common cause. Fighting each other is pointless.’

  ‘Some would say our common cause is dead,’ said Dreagher, his ceramite-encased fingers drumming a rhythm upon his vambraces. ‘And I am not sure that I disagree.’

  He unfolded his arms, and rubbed a hand across his dark mahogany face, as if trying to wipe away the problems plaguing his mind.

  ‘There are those among the Twelfth who would gladly wet their blades in Emperor’s Children blood,’ he said.

  ‘Give me a shuttle,’ said Galerius, his gaze drawn like a lodestone back to the Emperor’s Children fleet. ‘Let me return to my Legion. I can end this deadlock. Let me speak on your behalf. We can end this without hostilities.’

  ‘That is not going to happen,’ said Dreagher. ‘Not until this situation is resolved.’

  ‘So, I am to be… what? A hostage?’

  ‘Should things deteriorate, you have knowledge that could be used against us,’ said Dreagher. ‘That cannot be allowed to happen.’

  ‘Let me speak of what it is that
I know: that your Legion is a shadow of its former self, riven by factionalism and division. I know that you’ll be destroyed utterly if you walk this foolish path,’ said Galerius. ‘I know that you don’t have the numbers to defeat the Third Legion. If those ships out there are at quarter-strength, then we outnumber you what, three-to-two? Two-to-one?’

  Dreagher’s expression hardened. ‘Nothing can survive a war with the World Eaters. You may defeat us, but you know as well as I that we’ll take your Legion with us to hell.’

  ‘United, maybe,’ said Galerius. ‘But your Legion is divided.’

  Dreagher sighed. ‘I’m not sure this is a path we can turn away from. Not any more.’

  ‘Then you have a choice to make, Dreagher,’ said Galerius.

  The Bloodborn moved steadily through the Defiant. Their path was circuitous, wending its way through the tight corridors of the underdeck. Legionaries were seldom seen down in those lower levels. This was the realm of the ship’s menials, serfs and slave-workers, where the mortals that kept the ship running slept, ate and socialised, bred, fought and traded.

  To the mortal inhabitants of the Defiant, this was their world. Most had never stepped foot off the battleship. Few had ever lived a moment of their lives without the incessant thrum of the ship’s engines reverberating underfoot, without the low ceilings and close walls pressing in upon them. The universe and its machinations beyond the ship’s hull were nothing they had ever seen or experienced – a concept that they understood simply as theoretical, like the existence of paradise to the devout, or hell to those who knew better.

  The Bloodborn could see the mortals peering at them from the shadows as they marched through this underworld realm. The arrival of a group of legionaries down here was a rare thing, seen perhaps once or twice in a mortal’s lifetime, and their curiosity was strong. None were foolish enough to get in their way, naturally – more often than not, the appearance of one of the armoured demigods of the XII Legion was a herald of death. They scattered before them, slinking in the darkness like vermin, peering back from side-corridors and from behind grilled ventilation hatches at the armoured transhumans.