‘It can be done,’ Yllithian insisted with surprising vehemence, ‘and it is our path to victory. With one of Vect’s most deadly enemies at our side the kabals would abandon the tyrant in droves. The value of someone who has defied the tyrant previously cannot be overestimated.’ The sudden tirade seemed to wear Kraillach out and he fell back in his throne waving one hand feebly as if to brush Yllithian away.
Yllithian lapsed into silence. On the central stage the wyches’ dance of death was almost over. Now they skirmished with each other over the crimson dunes of sliced meat they had made, skipping grotesquely over the still screaming, quivering piles of maimed slaves.
Her favourite, a highly ranked succubus named Aez’ashya, was taking on two other wyches at once. Her knives blurred in gleaming arcs as she pressed them back with a lightning fast flurry of blows. One of her foes was a yraqnae with an electrified shardnet and impaler but Aez’ashya gave him no space to make a cast. Her other enemy tried to slide around behind her and come at her unprotected back while she was occupied.
‘He failed, Nyos,’ Xelian said. ‘Vect crushed him and his entire realm in a single night. I’m not much given to recruiting failures be they living or dead.’
The crowd gasped as Aez’ashya suddenly dropped, but the shardnet flew through the space she had occupied and wrapped itself inexorably around the wych behind her. Aez’ashya flipped back onto her feet and resumed her assault with a lusty peal of laughter. The netless yraqnae had only sharp-tined impalers left to defend himself with and quickly succumbed to the dancing knives of the lithe succubus.
‘El’Uriaq’s only failure was underestimating Vect’s desperation and lack of imagination!’ Yllithian snapped. ‘Our own illustrious forebears fell to the same ruse, only in El’Uriaq’s case the tyrant dispensed with the artifice of using a foreign vessel as a distraction and crashed it on his damned head instead.’
Yllithian’s barb about their illustrious forebears was well-placed. The noble houses that once ruled Commorragh were virtually annihilated by invaders deliberately provoked into attacking the city by Vect. While the lords of High Commorragh fought to protect their holdings Asdrubael Vect and his allies had picked them off one by one on the battlefield. By the time the invaders were driven out Vect was well placed to fill the power vacuum left by the recently deceased high archons. In the centuries of anarchy that followed the old order was swept away and Vect instituted his new system of kabalite law.
Kraillach grimaced. He had been only a child when Imperial Space Marines smashed through his family’s quarter of High Commorragh but he recalled the night all too well. The leaping, hissing flames and the distinctive staccato roar of boltguns in the shattered streets had never left him. He remembered the running and the hiding, the shock of hearing that the high archon was dead, killed by the blast of a dark lance from his own ranks, though by accident or design no one knew…
‘Vect must pay,’ Kraillach said bitterly. ‘The tyrant has to suffer for his crimes against the city and my house.’
On the central stage haemonculi were moving through the drifts of injured. They bore gravitic wands that they used to pull glistening loops of viscera from the fallen and send them skywards in dancing arches and whorls. Some of the haemonculi raised up red and screaming almost-whole victims to be artfully vivisected for the entertainment and edification of the crowd. Others stabilised the dying and roused the insensible with elixirs and pain goads. From the terraces thousands of eyes watched every move hungrily, savouring the dregs of the first course and whetting their appetites for the next.
‘The tyrant became so and remains so because he’s willing to use the biggest weapon he can find,’ Yllithian said. ‘If he’s threatened he’ll use it to strike without hesitation or warning. We need our own weapon, we cannot defeat him otherwise. We need an unthinkable weapon and the will to wield it, if the tyrant has taught us nothing else he has taught us that. Both of you may carp and complain about my plans but where are your own? We all desire this thing, we are all bound together by blood and vengeance.’
The outer platforms of the arena were reconfiguring themselves, flowing like mercury to touch one another until they formed a continuous strip hanging scant metres from the fluted stonework of the terraces. The Reaver race was about to begin.
‘What do you say, Kraillach?’ said Xelian. ‘I want to at least hear Yllithian’s idea in full. None of us is getting any younger.’
‘Subtle as ever, Xelian. Very well Yllithian, make your case.’
‘We can effect the return of El’Uriaq with two simple steps. First we raid a maiden world with its own crop of Exodites and seize one of their worldsingers to act as a catalyst. Second we retrieve a fragment of El’Uriaq’s body from Shaa-dom. I have secured the services of a master haemonculus to undertake the task and he assures me that it is perfectly viable.’
Yllithian timed his deposition nicely with the beginning of the race. A cluster of lean, predatory-looking jetbikes and their half-wild riders had snarled into place both above and below the race strip, preparing to race in opposite directions. An expectant hush fell over the crowd as every eye strained to Xelian awaiting the signal to begin. Xelian raised a gloved hand imperiously and paused for a moment before letting it drop. The bikes instantly leapt away with a multi-throated howl and shot off along the course at an eye-watering rate of acceleration.
The Reavers expertly threw themselves around the curved track at breakneck speeds, only their extraordinary reflexes preventing them from smashing into the arena walls or each other. After the first lap obstacles began to appear: saw-edged teeth protruding from the track, moving blades sweeping out from the arena walls, drifting gravitic anomalies and monofilament nets.
The appearance of the death traps was also the sign for a general melee to break out among the Reavers. They began to side-swipe one another with their bladevanes and loose off blasts at the leading bikes with their built-in weaponry. The dance was a deadly one. Every Reaver had a mass of hooked, razor-sharp knives mounted on their craft in their own customised array. All too often a quick twist and roll brought an incautious attacker onto an impaling dagger before they could make their own blades connect.
‘If this thing can be achieved, how do you propose to control El’Uriaq?’ Kraillach said, ‘He was renowned for being proud and wilful. We would simply exchange one tyrant for another.’
‘Aside from El’Uriaq’s obvious common cause with us the haemonculus has assured me that certain… checks and balances can be introduced into his regenerating body that will afford us complete control if we deem it necessary. We would hold his life in our hands and we could dispose of him at any time. Such a puppet tyrant might even help to ease the transition of the city back under the rule of the noble houses.’
Below them the race was entering its final stages. The contra-rotating packs of Reavers had thinned to include only the luckiest and most skilful riders. The gleaming strip of the raceway began to ripple and twist to test their nerve and coordination even more, sending the speeding jetbikes even closer to the cliff-like walls. One Reaver was struck by splinter fire from behind and careened straight into the crowd, plunging into the screaming mass like a fiery comet before exploding in a shower of white-hot fragments. Xelian yawned.
‘Interesting,’ she said with a smile, ‘and just what steps do we take to avoid Vect divining our plans?’
‘One among the tyrant’s own pets will be the one to suggest the maiden world raid and our forces will simply offer to join it. During the raid itself an elite clique of our agents will slip away to abduct the worldsinger in the confusion. Only when the worldsinger is secure do we move to reclaim a physical link to El’Uriaq from Shaa-dom.’
The vicious g-forces exerted by the twisting track were now flinging out both packs of riders so far that they passed through each other before plunging on their separate courses. Explosions of blood and viscera marked each pass. Some machines plunged straight into each other and fell lock
ed together as a single flaming mass of tangled wreckage.
Soon only two Reavers were left, a jade-green carapaced jetbike with a bare-headed rider that threw itself against a glittering black one in a rolling dive. Bladevanes flashed as the two came together head-on, the jade-green vehicle jinking at the last second to sweep a sharpened wing above the other’s curving prow. The black-clad Reaver had anticipated the move and jerked below the onrushing jetbike, laying open the guts of his enemy with an upthrust dorsal blade. The jade-green cycle spiralled away spitting smoke and flames, disappearing out of sight. The victor roared around the track in triumph accepting the acclaim of the bloodthirsty crowd.
‘Truly you have all the answers, Yllithian,’ Kraillach sneered. ‘All we need do is trust that honeyed tongue of yours and we’ll be wafted to happy golden uplands in no time at all.’
Xelian had an impulse to attack the wizened archon there and then, sating her growing ire with a gush of blood. Kraillach’s chief executioner, Morr, shifted subtly behind his master’s throne in a tacit admission that the silent incubus had picked up on Xelian’s impulse even if his archon had not. Xelian forced herself to relax and focus. She had her own doubts about Yllithian’s scheme but Kraillach’s opposition was relentlessly driving her towards embracing it. Was Kraillach manipulating her? No it was more likely Yllithian’s doing. He was always a clever one.
Xelian gave her attention to the next performance now starting in the arena while turning over Yllithian’s insane plan in her mind.
The central stage was empty again, its white sands perfect and unblemished. A rapidly flickering holo-radiant hung above them now. It retold the story of the raid in a breakneck kaleidoscope of jump-cut imagery: black, hook-winged craft plummeting through atmosphere, a night-time scene of a primitive settlement, missiles flashing upwards, disintegrators flaring in reply, terrified families fleeing into a night that suddenly blossomed into fire and steel.
The content was of little interest to the restless crowd and some jeered at it with a crass lack of finesse. Xelian had insisted that they retain a context for the exhibition of the deathworlders that even now the turncoat would be releasing from their cell.
The last scenes of the holo-radiant montage showed the last stand of the settlement’s defenders. They fought a brave but futile battle against eldar superiority in both numbers and technology that supplied a few images worth showing: a howling, bearded human thrusting a bayonet into the guts of a kabalite warrior, a barrage of laser bolts knocking another eldar off his feet. Haywire grenades crackled and a rush of wyches stormed a shot-scarred building that formed the last node of resistance.
The holo-radiant shifted to a direct sensory implant woven into the turncoat’s nervous system, just the first of several such carefully prepared viewing points. A hundred thousand hungry souls rode behind the human sow’s eyes as she hurried to open the locks to the deathworlders’ cell. They felt her fear and avarice for the reward she had been promised burning inside her as she pulled the door open. The hairy, ugly deathworlders were ready and waiting. Two of them slipped out into the corridor while their evident leader took his betrayer protectively under his arm. The two scouts found the coast was clear and the rest filed out silently to follow them.
‘What really makes you think this plan of yours will work, Yllithian?’ Xelian said. ‘I’d like to offer my whole-hearted support but I can’t shake the sense that you aren’t being entirely open with me.’
Although they were primitives the humans clearly thought they were both skilled and stealthy. Despite their wariness they were surprised by their guard blundering into them – as scheduled – from an unseen entryway. They reacted with deadly speed to the threat, one grabbing for the guard’s splinter rifle while the other dived at his back.
The first lost fingers on the rifle’s monomolecular blades but got a grip somehow and held fast even after the guard reversed his grip and punched a curved blade into his attacker’s guts. The second assailant dragged the guard to the decking and after a brief, vicious struggle broke his neck.
A vicarious thrill shivered through the watching audience. Xelian relished the rush of excitement, and the undercurrent of loathing for the dangerous brutes that swept in after it. As she’d hoped, sacrificing one of their own had made the drama a hundred times more visceral.
‘Securing a worldsinger is apparently a delicate matter, although I have assets in place that will smooth the way,’ Yllithian said carefully, but Xelian simply stared at him waiting for the rest. Sensing the impending battle of wills the archon of the White Flames gave a small shrug and surrendered gracefully. ‘It’s also possible that returning El’Uriaq will bring about a Dysjunction in the city, although it’s my belief that with our forewarning of the occurrence we can use this to our advantage.’
‘Aha, you mean you’d hoped to use it to your own advantage while telling us nothing!’ Kraillach said. Xelian found to her distaste that she was actually inclined to agree with the withered old fossil about something.
The deathworlders were fleeing now. Alarms sounded shrilly all around them and lights were strobing at an oscillation chosen to induce panic in humans. The turncoat ran with them, always being held protectively in their midst – the deathworlders desperately wanted to believe that they had found a friend. The one that had been injured fighting the guard was left behind with a captured splinter pistol to hold off pursuit as long as he could.
The injured deathworlder’s end came ignominiously at the jaws of hunting beasts set on their trail. He managed to shoot the first but the others patiently crept up on him as he struggled to stay conscious through shock and blood loss. The howling beasts were soon back on the trail of the dead man’s friends. Yllithian and Kraillach continued their bickering without regard to the unfolding drama.
‘A Dysjunction could wreck the city!’
‘The city has survived worse. The tyrant would be the one to suffer the most harm.’
‘Madness to take such risks.’
‘Madness to expect change will occur by sitting idly by.’
‘Hush now,’ Xelian said dangerously. ‘Our guests are about to arrive and I want to enjoy the moment.’
The deathworlders had reached a deserted-looking oval bay dominated by a bronze metal arch at the far end. The turncoat had been instructed to tell them that the portal visible as a shimmering curtain inside the arch led back to realspace and safety. She had not been forewarned about the ambush.
Kabalite warriors emerged from hiding and shot their splinter rifles at the deathworlders with a startlingly poor show of accuracy. Shots flew everywhere, smacking into walls, ceiling and floor. Xelian grimaced unhappily; the warriors were supposed to drive the deathworlders through the portal but they were overdoing it with their obvious ineptitude. She needn’t have worried. After a moment of confusion the deathworlders stampeded headlong for the arch while diving, darting and rolling for all they were worth.
Xelian withdrew her attention from the sensory link and focused on the central stage. The deathworlders flared into existence still running. They stumbled to a halt on the white sands as they took in their surroundings. As the hapless primitives finally apprehended the joke being played on them gales of cruel laughter echoed around the arena from the watching crowd. Some of the deathworlders stood dumbfounded, others fell to their knees or cursed their tormentors in their primitive, grunting language.
The psychic malaise of their despair was utterly delightful – so pure and natural that it had a kind of lost innocence to it. The primitives had been convinced the universe worked a certain way, that they were the heroes in their own tale of derring-do. The last shreds of their ego had finally been stripped away, revealing them to be the playthings of older, darker powers utterly inimical to humankind.
Xelian rose to make a final address to the crowd before the last act was played out. She had a hand-picked coterie of wyches standing by to fight the deathworlders in one-on-one combat. The primitives would be
armed and permitted to fight their hardest for the pleasure of the crowd. More layers of self-belief would be destroyed as they discovered just how laughable their much-vaunted fighting skills were when compared to the grace and speed of a knife-wielding wych. Talos torture-engines were standing by to take what quivering remnants were left and commit them to an eternity of suffering inside their adamantium ribs. Xelian stood proudly and pointed to the filthy primitives on the central stage.
‘Here are the beasts that have declared themselves rulers of the Great Wheel! See them grovel before you, my brothers and sisters! They thought to deny our greatness, to defy our glory–’
The whole arena trembled slightly and Xelian paused. An involuntary chill ran through her. Dysjunction already? Surely not, there would have been some warning from the crones and card-fondlers of Low Commorragh at least.
A vast, jagged ziggurat of black metal was rising over the rim of the arena and blotting out the light of the captured suns above. Hovering grav craft overhead scattered before it like a cloud of insects. Long shadows raced across the white sands towards Xelian’s dais and swallowed the forgotten deathworlders completely. The assembled crowd fell to their knees like wheat falling before a scythe, abasing themselves as if they were themselves primitives intent on worshipping some strange new moon. Xelian grimaced and reluctantly went down on one knee. Behind her she could hear a silent Yllithian and a protesting Kraillach doing the same.
They had no choice. The tyrant was at hand.
Thorn-like probes and antennae on the underside of the ziggurat flared into life. Shafts of greenish lightswept through the crowds like searching fingers before closing together into a luminous inverted pyramid. A face the size of a mountainside flickered into being, the visage of the creature that had held the dark city in thrall for six millennia. Asdrubael Vect, Supreme Overlord of Commorragh.
The arena echoed with the cheers of the kabalite warriors present, a bestial roaring that rose and fell around the terraces with a life of its own. When the face finally spoke it was with a voice of falling glaciers and grinding ice floes that stilled every throat.
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