by Henry Zou
‘Hazareth, your words stir this old heart,’ said Sabtah. The verbal dance was almost theatrical, more of a symbolic gesture than any meaningful exchange. Despite their piratical nature, the Blood Gorgons were traditionalists at heart and Sabtah was a piece of their long history. To the assembly, Sabtah was the old grey ring-wolf they had always known. He was carefully presented in his Mark II Crusade armour, the articulated hoops of the relic lending an impressive bulk to his already broad girth. Most impressive was his beard, a tiered cascade of uniform ringlets that reached the bottom of his chest guard, black and well oiled. There was no doubt that Sabtah was venerable, but more than that, he would ensure the proper functioning of the Chapter beyond the death of Gammadin.
‘Full Chapter strength deployment,’ Sabtah repeated. ‘But understand this – I know that there are those of you who do not support my custodial rule of my fellow brothers.’ Sabtah paused to let this statement sink in.
There was an uncomfortable silence from the assembled Blood Gorgons. Amongst them were younger squads who showed fealty to the witch-psyker Muhr. Others still gave tacit support to the few rogue captains who were rumoured to harbour aspirations of Championship. It would be a volatile time for the whole Chapter.
‘This is not the time for petty conflict and spiteful loyalties,’ Sabtah continued. ‘An unknown threat has chosen Hauts Bassiq as a target. Whatever is making our world their playground will soon have nine hundred Blood Gorgons crashing down around their ears. This, this will be a good fight. One that will be remembered, as the ancients remember the massacre at Dunefall!’
Hazareth barked hungrily at the thought, a loud war-mongering belch issued from valve amplifiers. They all cheered, stamping their traction boots in a deep raft of applause.
‘That will not be happening,’ declared a psych-amped voice. They turned to see Muhr descending the stairs into the pit of the Temple Heart. His long black hair was slightly wild and his eyes were still milky with the aftergleam of recent psychic strain. ‘This will not be happening,’ Muhr repeated. ‘Gammadin has entrusted the Chapter to me. I will not deploy my Chapter blindly into an unknown threat. Certainly you do not mean to commit and risk all of us to save some nullius world of primitives?’ Muhr asked as he reached the assembly.
‘As great as Lord Gammadin was, he did not have the authority to make you our lord,’ Sabtah responded. ‘That is the way it has always been. If you seek to rule, then declare it openly. I will challenge your title.’
‘I declare it!’ hissed Muhr.
As he spoke, Sabtah levelled his power trident at Muhr. The three-pronged trisula hummed like a tuning fork as the disruption field vibrated up and down its length.
‘I accept your challenge,’ Muhr shrieked. The witch-psyker was already amping, his eyes and mouth streaming a harshly unnatural light. He screamed to emphasise his potency and vomited a beam of energy into the ceiling. His own battle-brothers backed away and slaves scattered in mobs. Nearby, a dancer collapsed, her brain haemorrhaged by the psychic build up.
In response, Sabtah fired a quick burst from his bolt pistol over their heads. The gatling burp punctured the far wall, pushing deep holes into the basalt veneers. This was ritual posturing amongst the Blood Gorgons, a slow escalation of violence that could either end in death or the submission of one of the challengers.
The Blood Gorgons were cheering hard now. Amongst the chaos of gunfire and confusion, above the screams of slaves and performers, the bond-brothers were shouting the name of Sabtah. There were others amongst them, a minority of Muhr’s allies, who drew concealed blades and punch daggers. The atmosphere became volatile. Muhr pressed forwards until he was within arm’s reach of Sabtah, putting his skull directly in front of Sabtah’s pistol. In the background, an eager bond-brother emptied his bolter clip into the ceiling.
Sabtah aimed his bolt pistol at Muhr, his trident arm poised like a javelin thrower.
Muhr feinted forwards, provoking Sabtah. The old veteran’s nerve held steady; he did not fire. The trident darted forwards, calculated to miss Muhr’s neck by a razor’s breadth.
Muhr flinched.
‘Not now!’ Hazareth boomed into the squad links. ‘We can’t afford this now.’ The deep bass tones were so loud that they glitched the broadcast with shrill feedback.
‘This is not how Gammadin would have led us,’ said Hazareth. ‘Is this leadership? To divide the Chapter when our ancestral grounds are threatened?’
‘Ancestors? Bassiq is nothing more than a harvesting site for genestock. We can find others,’ Muhr said dismissively.
‘You are a petulant child,’ said Sabtah, his trident still rearing. ‘Where is your pride?’
‘I am a realist. We don’t need to risk ourselves at the summons of some distant, half-remembered populace,’ Muhr responded.
Sabtah looked clearly disgusted, as if Muhr was speaking about something else entirely. ‘This is not about that. Someone has touched our chattel and property. We don’t turn a blind eye. We hit them with the weight of our entire arsenal and inject the fear of angry gods into them.’
Hazareth drummed his heavy tail-end against the ground in agreement. ‘Without history we are nothing. We are nomads, and history should mean everything to us. Without pride or connection to our roots we are nothing.’
Muhr was not convinced. The psy-fire did not leave his eyes. If he chose to, the rites of challenge allowed him to slay anyone who opposed him. Even Hazareth, but that would not be wise now.
‘I propose a scouting deployment. Five squads,’ said Sabtah, bristling. ‘You cannot deny us that.’
‘I will personally answer to that,’ Hazareth agreed. ‘I will select the squads from my own company.’
There was no more Muhr could say. Hazareth’s company was his to command and only Sabtah could countermand such an action. Several dissident Blood Gorgons leapt up and began to voice their protests. Others howled them down. Muhr hissed and recoiled, displaying displeasure by baring his teeth.
Unseen amidst the pandemonium, Sabtah squared up to face the sorcerer. The old warrior was in his face, his jaw set grimly. ‘What do you know of brotherhood?’ Sabtah growled. ‘The witch-psyker takes no bond. You know nothing of brotherhood. Remain with your coven and leave the business of war to us.’
The Cauldron Born prepared for warp jump at first cycle. The reclamation of Hauts Bassiq was under way.
The coven summoned Yetsugei for his blessing. The witch-surgeons sang and chanted to the gods. Gun-servitors were anointed and their nerve receptors plugged to the vessel’s lance batteries, ordnance turrets and the hull-bound gun citadels that studded the vessel’s orange hull.
The floating fortress shifted on its gravitational axis as its warp drives gathered power. Even in the expanse of space, the space hulk was a leviathan. From a terrestrial telescope, the Cauldron Born resembled a blend of paleo-gothic shipcraft and oceanic fish. High exposure to the warp and the Eye of Terror had mutated the vessel’s structure. The neo-tropical flora that infested the ship’s interior had expressed itself on the ship’s exterior, but on a mammoth scale. Barnacles of lamprey lights clustered like eyes on its hammerhead prow. Large sail-like fins edged with delicate, translucent fronds rippled along its flank. Muscular ridges and weeping fungal colonies contrasted with the architecture of its hull.
It entered the warp-sea slowly, laterally decompressing a void into the fabric of the materium. It sent ripples of gas flowing outwards and disturbed the orbit of minor asteroids and moons. Then, with a final, trembling burst of its engines, the warp-sea swallowed the fish whole.
The middle-day suns of Bassiq seemed to burn the air, boiling it so hot that every breath stung the nostrils. It grew so hot that sleep during these rest hours was impossible.
Roused from a fevered dream, Ashwana woke up feeling ill again. Her armpits and neck were burning with a throbbing, almost rhythmic pain. R
olling over she tried to bury her face in the straw mat but the clattering became persistent. For a while she blinked, angry at her grandmumu for having woken her. A final, loud clatter brought her up and Ashwana snapped back the curtain that separated her sleep nest from their carriage.
‘What are you doing?’ Ashwana groaned.
‘Going hunting,’ muttered her grandmumu, rummaging through a barkskin case of tools.
‘Eish! We’ve talked about this. It’s too dangerous,’ Ashwana whispered.
Her grandmumu Abena wasn’t listening to her any more. Her old, creased face was stern with determination. She discarded a flint stone from the case, tossing it to the pile of unwanted tools at her feet.
Ashwana tried to stand up but she was too weak and the head rush brought her back down onto her haunches. ‘Don’t go,’ she pleaded.
‘You’ve not eaten in two days,’ scolded Mumu Abena. Braced between her stout legs, a recurved bow was being strung. The bow had once belonged to Ashwana’s father and it was a beautiful piece. It had an accentuated curvature and was detailed in the ridged horn of a caprid. For years it had resided, unstrung, in the barkskin tool case.
‘Mumu, I’m not even hungry,’ said Ashwana. She was telling the truth. She could barely sip on water without nausea. The sickness had caught her swiftly, as it had the rest of her kinship. Three weeks past, the hunter Bulguno had been the first to catch the illness upon his return from a hunting trip in the Central Craters. In that time it had spread and almost all of the kin complained of fevers, pains and insomnia. Within days, the kinship had its first death – it had spread from there.
Lying back down, too tired to argue, Ashwana looked about their carriage – the rusting iron walls, the mesh ceiling, the familiar plastek curtains. It was a small space, a mere cubicle within the road train of their kinship. She could not remember how long they had been camped. They moved with their nomadic road trains, the relics of early prospectors. Many of them still had working gas engines that were thousands of years old, retained and cared for by the shamans. The engines failed often, and they camped until the shamans could coax life back into the valves and pistons that were beyond her understanding. She could not remember how long they had been camped there.
Ashwana’s aimless gaze fell upon the shrine that hung above the boiler stove at the centre of their cabin. Hanging from a length of rope was a square clay face, framed by charms of squall feathers and the dismembered hoof of a male caprid. The face was of the Godspawn. A tiny wooden dish of acid berries and gourds was placed beneath it as an offering. Despite the fact that their oven had been cold for days, and there was no other food in the carriage, Mumu Abena had spared enough for the Godspawn. It seemed all they did these days was appease the Godspawn, but in return they received nothing but suffering.
Ashwana had lived with her grandmumu for all the twelve years of her life that she could remember. Without her parents, life had been hard within her nomadic kinship. The community moved often, following the migration patterns of the horned caprid, and it was difficult for her mumu to keep up without the help of anyone else. By all rights, Mumu Abena was an elder, and an elder’s immediate family had a filial duty to ensure she was well cared for. But Abena had no other family except little Ashwana and she was too young to do much.
Of course, that had not stopped her from trying. Every day, she tried to tend and milk the caprid, but her hands were too small to placate the wild, shaggy-haired animals. She tried to gather sticks for the communal fires, but she had not been strong enough to carry the enormous bales on her head like the other women. Mumu Abena often laughed and told her that she was not yet old enough and she should play clap sticks with the other youths.
‘Your skin is not old and dark like mine,’ her mumu would say to her, while pointing to the deep, leathery bronze of her own skin. The sun of their land was exceedingly harsh and while bronzed skin was a sign of seniority among elders, tanned children were a sign of impoverishment. It meant the child had to work, and was a source of great shame. Her mumu was too proud a woman to live with that.
So it was that Mumu Abena, old yet spry, tended to their few domestic caprid, cooked, wove and contributed to the kinship in every way she could. It was a burden she should not have had to bear given her age.
But in the past season, things had become progressively worse. Since the strange lights in the sky, there had been little to eat for weeks. Travelling herdsmen from distant kinships had brought word of a plague spreading from the Northern Badlands. Ashwana’s kinship had dismissed it as the panic of isolated northern plainsmen, but they had been wrong to do so. It was not one plague, but many. A blackening wilt had destroyed what meagre vegetation the red plains had offered. Rinderpest killed the caprid herds, causing the animals to be so fatigued they could no longer dig up the roots beneath the clay. Animals died in masses, flocks of birds fluttering down from the sky to die amongst the droves of upturned, sun-swollen caprid bodies.
Travellers told tales that the city of Ur, the only city on the planet of Bassiq, had sealed its great walls for fear of the black wilt. But that did not matter to Ashwana. She had only ever seen Ur once, and even then, only from a distance. The denizens of Ur did not often make contact with the kinships of the plains. Most plainsmen were not welcome there.
Now, finally, the plague had come south. It started with an innocuous cough and an inflammation of the throat. From there, like the others, Ashwana developed a persistent fever and painful swelling in her neck and underarms. Some languished for weeks while others began to die in a matter of days. But it was no merciful death. The sick slowly lost their memory, their eyes becoming dull and their minds deteriorating. There seemed to be no cure and even the medicine men were helpless. White stunt grass did nothing to alleviate the pains and even brewing gecko skin and sunberries only brought temporary relief from the joint pain.
Ashwana still hoped that her sickness was not the plague but a simple condition brought about by weeks of malnutrition. It was a forlorn hope, as the buboes in her neck suggested otherwise. Already, she had experienced brief moments where fragments of her mind seemed to slip, a tell-tale sign of the plague. She forgot simple things like whether her mumu had put oil on her mosquito bumps or what time of day it was.
‘I don’t need food,’ Ashwana murmured again.
Her grandmumu shook her head, the tightly beaded coils of her white hair rattling. ‘Some roast talon squall,’ she suggested, ‘or maybe a bush tail soup.’
‘It wouldn’t matter. I could die soon.’ Ashwana said. The words hung in the air. The bar of honeyed sun shone through the roof hatch, holding tiny motes of dust in suspension. Neither said anything else and Ashwana immediately wished she’d never let the words out. She closed her eyes and silently wished her grandmumu had not heard it.
‘You’ll be better, my little duumi,’ said her grandmumu finally. She swung the bow over her shoulder and secured a quiver of long arrows across her hip. Mumu Abena put on a brave face, the same stern face she used when Ashwana refused to drink her bitter bark soup. ‘This will pass soon,’ she said soothingly.
Overwhelmed by fatigue, Ashwana rolled over. She couldn’t remember what they had been talking about. It seemed there was a dark patch in her memory for the past several hours, perhaps even days. Watching with hooded eyes, Ashwana saw her grandmumu step outside their carriage into the white sunlight outside, a bow across her back and a pail in her hands. Try as she might, Ashwana did not know where her grandmumu was going or why.
Grandmumu Abena left the camp at the base of the crater-like cirque and climbed the highlands with the suns at her back. Before her lay endless longitudinal sand dunes interspersed with shining white salt lakes. Chenopods and the salt-tolerant eragrostis grasses dominated the fringes of the basins.
Despite her age, she was surprisingly nimble and her old legs carried her well. She crossed the dry remains of a creek, reme
mbering that just two seasons past, broods of barraguana, with their long fleshy tails and webbed feet, had basked in the shallow waters. It seemed that even before the plague, the climate was becoming harsher and more untenable, or had it always been so?
She was old now, and she could only remember better times and more glorious days. The plainsmen of Bassiq had always been a hardy people and there had been times in her youth, during the harshest season of Fume, when her kinship would scrape the bark from fissure trees. The bitter bark would be boiled into soup so that its numbing qualities could dull the hunger pains, nothing more. Even then, life had been good. She had been allowed to ride talon squalls and help muster the caprid droves, drink from the communal water jug and sleep on the ground when it rained.
Abena could not remember anything as bad as this before. The plague had taken so many of the kinship and already some were whispering that the world would end. It was not a life she had wanted for her children’s children.
She left the creek bed and began to cross the Great Northern Plains. Although there were no roads, she navigated a thin track ridge through the clay desert. Such ancient tracks had been made during seismic surveys for gas and fuel deposits by early colonists, or so the tales went.
After several hours of walking and a short water rest in-between, she approached a familiar place. She was in the territory of the Nullabor, a neighbouring kinship. During the cooler seasons, the Zhosa and the Nullabor had feasted together and performed their traditional dances to celebrate the defeat of the double-headed eagle by the Godspawn, as the suns of Swelter were eclipsed by a red gas giant, marking a twilight and celebration that lasted for an entire lunar cycle.