by Various
The khan pulled a cube of meat the size of his fist from one of the ammunition crates, picking off the largest bits of swarf before taking a massive bite. He turned to face his old friend, stale blood running down his long black moustache as he chewed loudly. Eyebrows knitted in mock concern, he motioned the Stormseer forward, his frown fading to a wet red grin.
Shaking his head in resignation, Sudabeh joined his captain on the balcony. He looked up at his distorted reflection in the silvered, eyeless skulls that were spitted on pikes along the balcony’s edge. Most of the trophies were human-sized, but the largest was the size of a Land Speeder.
To the south, a large gunmetal lander was lowering its bulk towards the perimeter of Third Bronze Yurut. The squat ship’s backblast sent waves of plains-dust outwards in concentric circles before its striped underskeleton finally touched down.
‘Cargo?’ asked Sudabeh, squinting through the dust.
‘Trophies,’ the khan replied around a mouthful of raw meat.
The bulk lander’s front jaw lowered with a distant hiss of hydraulics. One at first, then a dozen, then hundreds upon hundreds of human heads poured down the ramp towards the yurut wall. Though the first to emerge bounced and rolled as if freshly taken from the neck, those spilling over the rear part of the lander’s jaw slopped over in a state of advanced decomposition. Their smell was unpleasant on the wind, but the khan’s stomach growled in appreciation nonetheless.
‘Heretics,’ said the khan, savouring the word. ‘Tarotian IV.’
Sudabeh nodded thoughtfully. He watched the servitor work teams retrieve the disembodied heads by the armful and dump them onto the vector carriages parked along the bronze yurut’s walls. Inside each carriage, wizened eyethieves rode the cupolas upwards towards the lances that jutted up from the wall’s crest. As they went, they took it in turns to stoke the carriage’s braziers and burn each trophy’s sockets clean with a length of red-hot iron.
Out past the dropsite, steed-beasts broke from distant herds. They galloped in to fall upon those heads left unattended, gnawing strips of meat from faces and scalps before the low blast of the lander’s horns drove them away. Part of Kor’sarro longed to be back in the saddle at the head of his tribe, hurling his spear into the flank of some doe-eyed zellion or marauding felid with a taste for human flesh.
‘Spit it out, then,’ said Kor’sarro.
‘My khan?’
‘You didn’t hide your scars under battleplate just to come out here and bait me, Stormseer. My temper’s not that tight.’
‘Of course,’ said Sudabeh, his tone suddenly formal. ‘The astropathic choir has a message for you, my khan. The Third Company is needed on Agrellan immediately. We are to eradicate a tau infestation, as loudly and as memorably as possible.’
‘Out of the question,’ replied Kor’sarro, but there was doubt under his tone. ‘You told me yourself, the Tarot indicates that Blackheart’s renegades draw closer with every passing hour. We are needed here, to defend our home world.’
‘Our elders have decided that our duty lies elsewhere, my khan,’ said Sudabeh. ‘Many other companies are ready to repel the Red Corsairs. Chogoris will endure without us, I can feel it. Quan Zhou will stand.’
A wordless pause stretched out, both men staring upwards as if Huron Blackheart’s fleet would glimmer into being at any moment.
‘Tau,’ sighed the khan. ‘So we face their cursed weapon-magicks again.’
‘Indeed,’ said Sudabeh. ‘I believe they seek to use the planet Agrellan as a staging post in order to seize the mineral-rich tithe worlds on the cusp of the Damocles Gulf.’
‘Agrellan,’ the khan continued, fingering his long moustache. ‘Dovar System, yes?’
‘Correct again.’
‘Ha. Terrain?’
‘Unremarkable, for the most part. Technically a hive world, but mostly scorched deserts and open plains.’
The khan’s grisly smile reappeared, bits of meat bleeding between his teeth.
‘Anything else?’
‘It’s haunted,’ said Sudabeh, matter-of-factly. ‘The place was subject to Exterminatus centuries ago. The Malleus alone know why.’
‘No doubt they do. The stain of Chaos is not easily erased.’
‘As you say. Reading between the lines of the data-slate, it seems the virus bombs left a highly toxic legacy. The planet still bears the marks of its former death, both physically and spiritually.’
‘Ghosts, then,’ said the khan, shrugging. ‘Common enough.’
‘Not these ones,’ the Stormseer replied.
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