by Andy Hoare
Skarl had never entered the cell before. What it held inside was so valuable to his master that few were ever allowed to do so, upon pain of torture or, if lucky, death. As he passed through, he took in the unfamiliar surroundings. The cell was in fact a large, round chamber, its vaults lost in darkness far overhead. The walls were of brass, stained by centuries of runoff from dozens of corroded grilles. Other stains were in evidence too, great arcs of long-dried blood and other bodily fluids lending the walls a mottled finish. Sconces were mounted all around the chamber, their flickering flames casting the illumination Skarl had seen from outside.
Voldorius stopped in the centre of the huge chamber, and Nullus came to stand beside him. Skarl followed a respectful distance behind them, still bowing, eventually coming to stand behind Voldorius. Before the three stood a pair of cell-masters. They were massive brutes, clad in heavy leather aprons encrusted with filth. The bare skin of their arms and upper chests glistened with sweat in the flickering light of the torches, and the face of each was obscured by a heavy mask, piggish eyes just visible behind the thin visor. At their belts the cell-masters carried an assortment of crude tools, their general purpose clearly evident to the equerry. In his hand, each held a long electro-prod. The two implements crossed in between the two men. At Voldorius’s approach, the cell-masters raised the prods, a brief arc of electricity spitting between the tips before they were brought upright, revealing what they guarded.
Behind the two cell-masters was a brass orb, perhaps two metres in diameter, its entire polished surface carved with impossibly intricate lines and devices. Skarl’s gaze was drawn into the unnatural patterns, and it took a formidable effort to turn his eyes away from them. Any not promised to the Ruinous Powers were likely to become entrapped by the sigils and forms, their soul forfeited by the very act of looking upon them. It was only when he tore his glance away from the orb’s surface that Skarl realised that the entire construction was floating above the deck, held aloft by invisible lines of arcane force. Powerful sorceries were at work, for no mere anti-grav generator was being utilised.
A preternatural quiet descended on the cell as Voldorius stepped between the two attendants. Even the flickering torches mounted upon the wall fell silent, though their flames still danced.
The daemon prince halted in front of the orb and laid a clawed hand upon its surface. Red and orange energies played between claw and brass. No mere mortal could have survived that contact, for only Voldorius had power over what lay before him. The daemon prince closed his eyes, his bestial face becoming unusually still for a moment. Then he opened them once again and spoke, his voice shattering the silence of the chamber.
‘Awaken, prisoner,’ Voldorius grated. ‘And know your fate!’
After a pause that felt like an hour, a whisper filled the chamber. ‘None can know their fate, Voldorius. Not even you.’
The voice seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere, from a million throats and from none. The voice was not a voice at all, but the mere echo of one, separated by impossible gulfs from its source. Even as the ghostly words faded, Voldorius replied.
‘You will obey me, prisoner, or you will know such pain as even you cannot imagine.’
Again, a long silence preceded the prisoner’s response, throughout which ancient thoughts formed and reformed in the ether before they coalesced into words.
‘We have felt the pain of billions, Voldorius, as well you know.’ An ethereal undertone spoke of anguish and despair, but also of resignation. ‘Nothing you can do can make us obey.’
Skarl shuddered as waves of fell anger radiated from his master before Voldorius spoke once more. ‘I have kept you for two thousand years, contained you, tempered you. Now I awaken you, and you shall do as I command. Of that you can be assured.’
A displeasure that few witnessed and survived was written across the daemon’s face. Through clenched teeth, Voldorius addressed his equerry.
‘Prepare the meat-casters,’ Voldorius growled. ‘Send word that the orb is to be unsealed, at last. The prisoner is to be broken, his will is to be destroyed, his mind is to be shattered, whatever the cost. I only order that no matter the ruin visited upon his flesh, life must remain, if only in a single, dry, quivering cell. Take the prisoner to Quintus, to the palace in Mankarra, render it unto the meat-casters, and then await my order.’
Skarl prostrated himself before his master, touching his forehead to the filth-encrusted floor. ‘I obey, my master,’ he mumbled.
As the footsteps of Voldorius and Nullus receded, Skarl repeated over and over, ‘I obey, my master. I obey.’
Chapter 4
Vengeance is Mine
‘Cytha,’ hissed Makaal as the resistance cell-leader peered through his spy-lens at the dark passageway up ahead. ‘You’re clear. Go!’
Covering the lithe, bodyglove-clad form of Cytha as she darted from the shadows to his left, Makaal offered up a brief, silent prayer to the Emperor of Mankind. Please, he beseeched, let us succeed, even if it costs us our lives. Let us end the terror unleashed upon Quintus by the vile one, once and for all.
‘In position,’ Cytha’s whisper came back a few seconds later. Makaal looked to the shadows where he knew his second in command was waiting, satisfied that he could not make her out. ‘Bys,’ he whispered. ‘Your turn. Go!’
Makaal raised his hellgun to cover the larger man as he ran past. Bys was nowhere near as nimble or stealthy as Cytha, or indeed any other member of the cell, but he was as strong as a bull grox. He had to be, to carry the weight of explosives he had stowed about him.
After twenty seconds, Makaal was satisfied that Bys was in position, and addressed the last member of the cell. ‘Rund, you’re up. Go!’
Rund dashed forwards. He was neither as stealthy as Cytha, nor as strong as Bys, but Rund was a certified lay-technician and had served in the capital city’s generatorium for a decade under his Adeptus Mechanicus overseers. His skills were critical to the success of the cell’s desperate mission.
And that mission, whether or not that bitch Malya L’nor and the other self-appointed ‘leaders’ of the pro-Imperium resistance on Quintus would sanction it, was to assassinate Voldorius whatever the cost. The resistance had received word from their contacts inside the palace of the deposed governor of Quintus that the vile one was returning to the world after some errand off-planet. The daemon would be arriving, so the contacts claimed, by way of the palace’s ancient teleportarium, and he would be doing so within the hour.
When Rund had taken position, Makaal took one last look behind to check that no sentries lurked in the dark service tunnel far beneath the palace. He darted forwards past his comrades, taking point. Pressing his back to the wall, Makaal made himself as small a target as possible, melting into the shadows that lined the passageway. He ordered his subordinates forwards, one at a time, covering them with his hellgun and scanning the tunnel up ahead through his spy-lens.
So far, the infiltration had gone to plan and Makaal had allowed himself to feel a small measure of vindication. The mission was by necessity an improvised affair; a plan opposed by the bulk of the resistance leaders in Mankarra, the capital city of Quintus. The debate had been brief but bitter. In the end, Makaal had defied Malya L’nor, his immediate superior in the resistance, and rounded up whichever cell members he could find who were willing to follow him. His plan was almost certainly suicidal, but Makaal reasoned that his life was worth the prize – deliverance from the evil Voldorius had visited upon his world. L’nor and the others had argued that his failure would spell the doom of many more innocents. They believed Voldorius or any who survived him would never allow such a deed to go unpunished whether or not it succeeded.
Makaal hated Malya L’nor. He hated that she was so eager to save the lives of those who had already surrendered their very existence to the whim of the vile one, who had allowed themselves to be enslaved. He would pro
ve her wrong, of that he was determined.
The smallest of movements up ahead caused Makaal to abandon his train of thought in an instant. He held up a hand and gave the silent signal that would warn his comrades of a possible enemy presence. Holding his breath and forcing every muscle in his body to stillness, Makaal scanned the tunnel through his spy-lens. The service tunnel ran another one hundred metres through the bedrock beneath the palace, densely clustered pipes and cables lining its walls and ceiling. The end of the tunnel was marked by a square of wan light, which Makaal zoomed the spy-lens in upon to examine in closer detail. As the magnification increased, the image became grainy, but Makaal was sure that he had seen movement and waited for the machine-spirit inside the device to confirm it.
There – crossing the square of light at the end of the passageway was a figure. It was gone in seconds, but Makaal had seen all he needed. It was one of the traitors of the Mankarra Household Guard, the former governor’s most trusted warriors. How ironic that they had been the first to turn and take up arms with Voldorius and the Alpha Legion. The grey- and black-armoured guards had gunned the governor down even as their former master had fled for the bunker beneath the palace. They had strung his ruined body from the highest of the palace’s spires.
Makaal waited until he was sure it was safe, and eased his body out of the shadows, his hellgun gripped tight. Checking the weapon’s status counter, Makaal confirmed that he had sufficient charge to face whatever might lie ahead.
Makaal and his team approached the light at the end of the tunnel, covering the one hundred metres of ground with extreme caution. It felt to Makaal that the approach was taking far too much time, and that he might miss this opportunity to attack Voldorius when the daemon was at his most vulnerable. Yet he knew that undue haste now would bring the mission to an abrupt and fatal end.
At length, Makaal eased himself into the shadows five metres from the opening, and peered cautiously out. A chamber formed a junction between half a dozen other service tunnels. A hatch was set into one rock wall, which Makaal knew to be a cargo escalator that served the upper levels of the palace. Beside the hatch stood five troopers of the palace guard.
Forcing his body to complete stillness, Makaal watched the guards for several minutes until he was sure they were not merely passing through the area. Evidently, the traitorous bastards had been posted to the tunnel junction to guard against intruders. It made sense, for the resistance had been launching attacks across the entire city for weeks. The junction provided a base the guards could launch patrols from into the sprawling network of service tunnels beneath the palace. They would have to be dealt with before the cell could advance any further.
With a last hand signal, the cell leader counted down five seconds before he surged out of the tunnel.
The first of the palace guards went down before any had registered the attack. Makaal put a searing hellgun blast through his torso that flash-boiled his internal organs in an instant. Even before the guard had hit the ground, the other resistance fighters were out of the tunnel. Cytha darted to one side, rolling athletically as one of the guards brought his lascarbine up and blasted an unaimed shot in her direction. Cytha’s move took her halfway across the chamber, where she came up into a kneeling position and brought her compact laspistol to bear on the trooper nearest to her. The man tracked her as she took aim, but he was too slow. Cytha’s pistol spat and the guard was speared through the neck by a bright lance of lethal energy.
One of the remaining guards bellowed an order and all three dived for the cover of a crate near the escalator hatch. Knowing that his team would be caught in the open should the enemy find cover they could defend themselves from, Makaal called out his own instructions. Bys moved to the left while Rund darted to the right. Makaal moved towards Cytha, who was already working her way behind a cluster of barrels to outflank the enemy.
‘We’ve got to end this, now,’ Makaal told Cytha as he caught up with her. ‘We don’t have time to get bogged down.’
‘Agreed,’ the fighter replied, peering around the edge of a barrel. ‘What’s your plan?’
There was only one solution. He limbered his hellgun and drew a long blade from his belt. Seeing his intention, Cytha stowed her own firearm, and drew a wickedly sharp stiletto blade. She raised the weapon to her lips and kissed it tenderly. ‘Ready when you are,’ she whispered.
‘Go!’ Makaal ordered, springing from the cover the two had shared.
The three guards had made the cover of the crate and were even now raising their weapons over it, only their heads and arms visible. Bys and Rund worked their way around the chamber’s edge, each firing as they went, taking advantage of what little cover was provided by stanchions and pipe work. The two men’s fire was forcing the guards to keep their heads down, to a degree at least, but Makaal knew that would not last long.
Makaal and Cytha closed on their targets together. Cytha was fastest, the fighter leaping atop the crate with the speed of a hunting predator. Coming down into a nimble crouch, Cytha kicked out at the nearest guard, snapping his neck. In an instant, Makaal was vaulting past her. He slashed downwards with his blade as he passed the second guard, gouging a deep, red wound across his shoulder.
The last of the guards was too involved drawing a bead on Rund to react to Makaal and Cytha’s assault, and Rund had allowed himself to be distracted by the sight. The guard squeezed the trigger of his lascarbine, and the weapon spat an incandescent line across the chamber. Rund went down heavily, before Cytha was upon the firer. Her stiletto punched into his right ear, the man transfixed as the tip emerged from the left side of his head. For a moment, the ghastly tableau was frozen, before Cytha withdrew the blade with a jerk of her arm, and the guard dropped to the floor.
‘Bys!’ Makaal bellowed. ‘Check Rund.’
Praying that the lay-technician was not fatally injured, Makaal turned angrily towards the guard he had wounded. The man lay sprawled across the crate he had taken cover behind, and was even now reaching for his dropped carbine. Makaal lifted a foot and brought it down across the man’s wrist, forestalling the attempt to regain the weapon.
‘You,’ Makaal spat through gritted teeth, ‘I name traitor.’
Unlimbering his hellgun one-handed, Makaal brought its barrel down, its end centimetres from the man’s face. He looked into the wounded guard’s eyes and saw only hatred and anger. Part of him had hoped that the traitor would, at the last, see the error of his ways and perhaps even beg Makaal’s forgiveness. He did not.
Makaal looked away as he pulled the trigger, the weapon’s sharp report filling the chamber. Cytha looked on dispassionately, seemingly unaffected by the callous yet necessary execution.
Bys was helping Rund to his feet. ‘He’ll be fine,’ the big man said, his eyes flitting to the mess at Makaal’s feet before he looked back. ‘But we need to hide those and get moving.’
For the last thirty minutes, Makaal had been conscious of a slowly building, bass hum in the air. The rock floor of the dark service tunnel the fighters crept along was faintly vibrating, and the hair on the back of Makaal’s neck was standing on end. The very air he breathed tasted somehow metallic, and every now and then a static charge would snap from a pipe or stanchion to sting his flesh as he passed.
‘We’re underneath the primary capacitors,’ whispered Rund from behind.
Makaal had little idea what such a device was, but he could detect pain in the man’s voice. Bys had applied a dressing to the chest wound Rund had sustained in the brief fight against the palace guard, but he would need proper medical attention if he were to survive. If any of us escape, Makaal thought.
‘Another hundred metres then,’ Makaal replied. ‘Is everyone ready?
Each of the fighters nodded. He had scarcely needed to ask, but felt the burden of command weigh heavily as the cell neared its destination. These people had followed him of their own volition
, and he had little doubt that they would all die because of it.
As if shaking off a premonition of his own death, Makaal crossed his hands across his chest in the sign of the aquila. His comrades did the same, and moments later he was leading them cautiously towards their final objective.
As Makaal approached the end of the service tunnel, Cytha by his side and Bys and Rund close behind, the air became increasingly charged. Blue light flashed intermittently from the chamber beyond the tunnel, each discharge accompanied by a harsh crack of the air being split by titanic energies.
‘Both of you know your objectives,’ Makaal whispered.
Moving forwards to the mouth of the tunnel, he stole a glance into the chamber. The teleportarium was a huge, domed space, dominated by a raised, circular platform at its very centre. Banks of pulsating, glowing machinery lined the walls, actinic sparks and whiplash energies playing up and down tall copper shafts. Fat cables snaked across the stone floor. Hundreds more looped down from above or crawled across the walls, linking each and every item of machinery together in an insane web of crackling energy.
Makaal mouthed a silent prayer to the God-Emperor. Never before had he seen such a thing. Indeed, he had only recently heard that such machines could exist, though he was assured that they were so rare they could command the ransom of an entire planet. The teleportation device had rotted away for millennia beneath the governor’s palace, all knowledge of its operation and maintenance long since forgotten. No one knew what the device had been used for, or who had built it. Over the centuries it became a temple the tech-priests would worship in. Only with the coming of Voldorius had the chamber been restored to its original use and the machinery returned to a working state by the ministrations of the rogue Mechanicus who served the daemon prince.
And one of those fell individuals stood nearby, his back to the fighters as they peered out of the tunnel.