Silver Skulls: Portents

by S P Cawkwell

  ‘When I want the minutiae, I will ask for it. If time permits, you can tell me your story later. For now, we leave.’ She studied the woman with an impassive expression on her cold features. ‘What happened to your husband? Do you have any idea?’

  ‘No,’ came the response. ‘They took him several days ago. I had been able to conceal myself from his guard, but they found me. They shot at me… I ran and hid. I heard terrible screams and awful voices. Chanting. Singing? No. Not quite. Oh, it was…’ She put her hands over her ears as though she could block out the memory.

  ‘Inquisitor.’ Nathaniel looked over at his mistress, who gave him a long, hard glare. The slight psyker gave an infinitesimal nod of his head which she returned in kind before reaching out and forcibly pulling the hands away.

  ‘Lady Gryce, stop this. You are a woman, not a child. You have a civic duty to your people and to the Imperium.’ The inquisitor snapped the remonstration, barking the words out. ‘I am a representative of the Holy Inquisition and I demand nothing less than your full cooperation. You will be given enough time to refresh yourself and take sustenance, but matters are critical. There is no time for you to wallow in your misery.’

  Lady Gryce looked shellshocked at such treatment. All her life, she had been a pampered woman and now she was being commanded like a common serf.

  ‘Nathaniel…’ Inquisitor Callis turned to the psyker at her side but he had already moved forward and he reached a hand out towards the governor’s wife.

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said to him and her tone was veering on shrill. Nathaniel simply tipped his head on one side and studied her.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I have no real desire to anyway.’ In a very vocal demonstration of his inability to engage socially, he continued with another biting comment. ‘After all, you’re terribly dirty.’

  She looked insulted at this, particularly given Nathaniel’s own current state of dishevelment. The psyker showed no indication that he cared. Or indeed that he had even noticed. ‘I merely wanted to ask if you required assistance from me. Trust me. Far better you take it from me than wait for the inquisitor to order one of the soldiers to carry you.’

  ‘Nathaniel, that’s enough.’ The inquisitor’s tone was sharp and there was the kind of threat behind her words that suggested if he continued in this manner, she would gladly flay the skin from his scrawny bones. He shrugged in the offhand manner that he had and fell silent. ‘Lady Gryce, you will walk with Nathaniel. Take her downstairs and secure her in one of the vehicles. Get what you can from her and compare the information to what we already know. I will join you shortly.’

  ‘I will, inquisitor.’

  ‘And then, Lady Gryce, you and I will have a friendly discussion.’ The inquisitor reached out a hand and patted the woman’s cheek in a manner that was gentle, but far from friendly. ‘About a lot of things.’

  A fuel tank had been ripped open by one of the many projectiles that had torn down this quadrant and although it had long since drooled its contents into a slick of chemical waste that oozed a rainbow path across the damp ground, the smell of promethium was still strong. Kerelan studied the retinal feed from his helmet as they continued their progress towards the chapel.

  They followed the course of the parasitic cables through the decrepit city, their route revealing yet more hijacked generators and violated machinery. Each was destroyed in turn, but even Djul, diligent in the execution of Kerelan’s order to disrupt the enemy activity, began to question the point of their actions.

  ‘These are treacherous scum, Kerelan,’ he said in his bass rumble. ‘They have no sense of honour. They will not meet us on the field of battle. They will draw us into the shadows where their strength is greater and their advantage greater still.’

  ‘I am aware of that, brother,’ said Kerelan in a flat tone. He gripped his relic blade more tightly and his shoulders visibly tensed. ‘I have battled against the forces of Chaos countless times, just as you have. But we cannot safely ignore these works. It may be nothing more than a distraction or it may be that we are moving towards…’

  Whatever it was that the first captain thought they were moving towards would never be revealed. Reality howled and buckled as the air protested at the unnatural abuse that suddenly assaulted it. There was a tortured heave of energy and a crackling ozone stink as something huge was vomited into existence. Moments later, a figure clad in ancient power armour coloured deep, arterial red was standing where before there had been an empty alley. The helm that it wore was crowned with a pair of curving horns and the decals and etchings on the armour were chased in writhing gold.

  Most obvious of all of these was the eight-pointed star design that was worn in pride of place on the shoulder pad where the Chapter’s insignia would once have been. In the centre, a slitted daemonic eye throbbed with evil light. The Talriktug already had their weapons trained and the roar of storm bolters filled the damp air, explosive shells chewing the ferrocrete into dust and fragments.

  Reality shrieked again and another Adeptus Astartes was standing there, this time to the group’s right. A third stepped from nowhere behind them. A fourth. Fifth. Within a heartbeat, the Talriktug were surrounded, an island of muzzle flares and gunfire in the gloom.

  ‘Sergeant Ur’ten…’

  ‘Already moving on your position.’ Kerelan could hear the roar of a number of jump packs firing and knew that within seconds, more warriors would arrive to support them.

  Death from above.

  Gileas and his squad had moved ahead to act as a scouting force and Kerelan enjoyed the briefest moment of satisfaction that the young sergeant had obviously been monitoring the vox-channel closely.

  Kerelan was by far the most seasoned of the warriors present, but for each of them there was a rush of righteous hatred that only the presence of traitors to the Imperium brought. The Silver Skulls had many enemies and a particular contempt for the foul eldar, but Adeptus Astartes who had lived on and perpetuated the vile treachery of the long-dead Warmaster Horus were abhorred above all others.

  ‘No mercy, Talriktug,’ ordered Kerelan. ‘Destroy them all. Now.’ He held aloft his relic blade and roared his command. ‘Now! For Varsavia!’

  The unit bellowed their assent and joined in the battle cry. As a single group, they moved forward, weapons at the ready, and began their assault. They were joined bare moments later by the assault squad who roared down from the heavens to bolster the attacking fury.

  The traitors’ movements were hard to follow, their motions flickering like a badly tuned pict. They wove their way between the Terminators’ assaults and pressed the attack. One gave a short barking laugh and raised a hand. He released a wave of sizzling power towards Gileas’s squad, swatting three of the Assault Marines from the air and even staggering a pair of the Talriktug caught in the backwash. Motes of energy danced across the ornate skin of their ancient battleplate, but did little more than cause momentary disruption in their retinal feeds.

  Resuming his approach, Kerelan whirled the relic blade above his head, the ancient weapon arcing for a killing strike. His aim was true, but his adversary intercepted the blow with a conjured shield of white-blue energy.

  ‘Imperial slaves,’ growled the red-clad warrior, speaking for the first time. ‘So blinded by your creed, so easily led. The Great Deceiver will witness your demise at our hands.’

  ‘Our demise, traitor?’ Kerelan shifted position, spinning his sword low into another attack. ‘Just try it.’

  ‘You should not test your betters,’ the traitor taunted as he moved. He fired a pair of shots into the first captain’s armour, the tainted blue projectiles blistering the sacred battleplate. ‘We know more and have seen more than you could possibly imagine.’

  Kerelan drove everything he had into his next swing, a precise and well-honed killing blow that was aimed with unerring accuracy at his enemy. By all rights
it should have cleaved the Oracle’s head in two.

  It would have done as well, had his opponent, and the one Djul had been trading blows with, not simply vanished.

  Kerelan lowered his relic blade warily. He did not ask the obvious question, merely turned to join in the fight going on elsewhere. The others, seemingly taking a cue from their leader, also disengaged and disappeared.

  ‘Teleportation?’ Djul lunged forward to the spot where the Space Marine with whom he had been fighting had been standing.

  ‘Warp powers.’ Kerelan said the words with obvious distaste. ‘Chaos-tainted filth.’

  Djul swore and curled his huge hands into fists. His rage at losing his quarry was palpable.

  Nicodemus stepped forward and stared through his lenses at the surrounding area. Particulate dust, propellant and vapour hung heavily in the aftermath and the eyes of his helm glowed softly in the gloom. He reached a hand out in front of him and swiped it downwards as though grabbing at a cobweb. The axe in his hand throbbed a bitter shade of blue.

  ‘I would suggest that… they are stepping sideways through the warp,’ he suggested in a low voice. ‘They must have great power, or some kind of arcane technology to achieve it, but that’s the only possible explanation. They…’

  The psyker had sensed, rather than heard, the sound of a weapon being unsheathed. Spinning on his heel he poured power into his weapon, sending spears of lightning flickering along its edge.

  Another Chaos Space Marine had appeared behind them. Whether it was one of the original forces or a new arrival hardly mattered to Nicodemus’s mind. As he ate up the short distance between him and his enemy, he had to alter his path to avoid the double-headed axe that was swung in his direction.

  ‘You can claim no victory here,’ the Oracle said. His voice had the distortion that all of the Adeptus Astartes had when wearing their helms, but there was something else there too. Something strange and unnatural. His voice was not the deep bass rumble of a Space Marine; rather, there seemed to be a chorus of voices coming from his throat, a maddening, impossible sound. He opened his free hand and snaking tendrils of power lashed from his armoured fingers. Nicodemus was sent flying, his psychic hood blazing as it countered the sorcerous attack. He crashed to the ground several metres away and dazedly scrambled to his feet. The young psyker rushed to the offensive again, but Gileas had already raced ahead and swung furiously at the waiting Oracle.

  His chainsword met the axe with a scream of metal and sparks, the teeth whining furiously as they tried to gain purchase in the hell-forged steel. Putting all his weight behind the strike, Gileas pressed his foe back. The Oracle matched Gileas in strength and the two were locked in stalemate for a few seconds before the Oracle barked a short laugh, releasing his grip. Gileas staggered and nearly fell. His opponent unclamped a bolt pistol, aimed it and fired in a single motion.

  The shell struck Gileas’s shoulder and he stumbled backwards. His armour absorbed the worst of the impact and the shot had little effect. Before he regained his balance and returned to the fight, the Oracle of Change was falling back, his flickering image fading in and out of existence as he retreated through the ruins.

  Without hesitation, Gileas bounded after him, joined by Reuben. Even as the two warriors pursued him, the Oracle tore open another rent in reality before him, vanishing as easily as if the world had simply swallowed him up.

  ‘He’s gone,’ reported Reuben across the vox, but Gileas’s senses prickled with unease and he spun to confront the anticipated attack. Sure enough, his enemy reappeared, only this time he was charging along the crumbling wall of the nearby hab, parallel to the ground in open defiance of gravity.

  ‘You are slow to learn, Silver Skulls!’

  In reply, all of the Space Marines opened fire. The resulting hail of shells tore the wall of the hab to pieces and carved an interior stairwell to shards. Splinters of red and gold armour went spinning in all directions accompanied by a spray of black ichor and the enemy roared something in a language Gileas did not know before vanishing again.

  ‘You winged him, brothers. At least now we will know it is him if he chooses to re-appear.’

  An eerie silence settled around the abandoned ruins of the once glorious Valoris City in the wake of the noise that the brief skirmish had brought, and after several minutes had passed without any further incidents, Gileas voiced the thought that was on every pair of lips.

  ‘We have been duped.’

  ‘I concur, brother,’ said Kerelan. He looked around and nodded, challenging anybody to counter Gileas’s deduction.

  Nobody did.

  Kerelan nodded again. ‘We move on.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Nathaniel nodded. ‘I sensed it the moment that we found her.’

  ‘You must be wrong. There’s nothing in her records to suggest any…’

  ‘Inquisitor…’ Nathaniel was snappish in response. ‘I know it to be the truth. You are not gifted with my talents. For once, I advise that you don’t question what I am telling you. Sinnaria Gryce is a psyker.’ The pinched features of the gaunt man fixed on the inquisitor and she paused before nodding. This new revelation did not bode well for the future of the investigation.

  ‘How powerful is she?’

  ‘I can’t tell. She must be either barely strong enough for me to have picked up the traces of it, or so powerful that she is effectively able to ward herself.’

  Inquisitor Callis looked up at the Chimera where they had sequestered the governor’s wife. She had been put inside with an armed guard – not to stop her escaping, the inquisitor had explained, but to stop anything getting in with her. Now she wondered if she had got the decision the wrong way around.

  ‘Then our line of enquiry may have to change,’ she said. ‘And we must be more guarded than we would otherwise have been. I want you with me during her interrogation, Nathaniel.’

  ‘Where else would I go, inquisitor?’ The unspoken words that passed between them were weighted with the psyker’s melancholy.

  And with whom?

  They headed for the Chimera holding Lady Gryce and entered it.

  ‘Why must that be with us?’

  Sinnaria Gryce pointed a finger at Nathaniel. Her manner was imperious, with no trace of the terror she had exhibited when they had found her in the palace. Inquisitor Callis had dropped any veneer of politeness and courtesy and had become entirely more aggressive in her approach to questioning. She’d barely even entered the Chimera before she’d started to talk.

  The inquisitor’s questions came thick and fast, and so rapidly that Sinnaria could not draw breath between her answers. When had she last seen her husband? With whom had he consorted? Had he made any unpopular legislative decisions in recent weeks? Questions, questions, questions and Sinnaria could not answer them all.

  She seemed deeply unnerved by Nathaniel’s presence. The psyker had simply settled down, cross-legged on the floor, and was watching her closely with his head tipped thoughtfully to one side. Occasionally, his lids would close as though he were simply dropping off to sleep. Whenever that happened, she felt the tell-tale probe at the edges of her mind.

  ‘Make it stop,’ she said to Inquisitor Callis. ‘Make it stop doing what it’s doing.’

  ‘He is working under my orders, Lady Gryce,’ snapped the inquisitor. ‘I need to establish the truth behind what you tell me and his abilities are perfect for that job. Don’t worry yourself that he will somehow harm you. Nathaniel’s power is considerable but so is his self-control. He will not hurt you. On that you have my word. Others have… far less control over their abilities.’

  ‘Really.’ It was a statement rather than a question and something in its cadence made Nathaniel’s eyes snap open until he was staring straight at Sinnaria Gryce. ‘Well, I wouldn’t know about that, would I?’ Her lips curled in a cruel smile.

 
‘Nathaniel has reason to believe that you yourself may have some psychic talents, Lady Gryce. I’m sure I don’t need to explain the importance of being candid with me in this matter.’ Callis hesitated. ‘You are a woman of breeding and intelligence, however, and so I am prepared to give you this one chance for confession before I have to resort to more … direct methods.’

  ‘Flattery and threats?’

  ‘Observation.’

  The air between the two crackled palpably and although the inquisitor was the smaller of the two, it was Sinnaria Gryce who looked away first. When she turned her head back, that cruel smile had gone from her face and there was something entirely colder there.

  ‘Easier by far to show you than to tell you,’ was all she said and Nathaniel felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He was not even able to jump to his feet and shout a warning. He opened his mouth to speak and then began choking for breath as his throat began to constrict. A translucent paw shimmered in front of him, fastened around his neck, and he felt phantasmal talons pricking at his skin.

  ‘Release him now.’ Inquisitor Callis had already drawn her pistol. ‘I will kill you if you don’t.’ The soldier who was standing guard also pointed his rifle at the governor’s wife.

  Nathaniel was struggling to breathe. He reached up to pull at his throat as though he could somehow fight the insubstantial hand that was crushing the life from him. His pale face was starting to turn dark purple and he kicked and thrashed against his own suffocation.

  ‘Have I answered your question as to whether I am a psyker or not, Inquisitor Callis?’

  The inquisitor fired but Sinnaria Gryce made a nonchalant gesture with her free hand, flicking the projectile onto a new trajectory. It buried itself in the soldier’s eye and the man pitched backwards with a gasp, dead before he hit the ground. His weapon discharged, burning a scar across the inquisitor’s back and spinning her from her feet with a cry of pain. Despite his own predicament, Nathaniel stared over at her, his eyes widening in shock.