Night Lords Omnibus

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  Talos watched her go. The voices of his brothers were heated in his ear. Even his brothers within First Claw railed at him for this most disrespectful of disobediences.

  ‘The Haunter chose this fate!’ Vandred screamed.

  ‘Talos, this was his final wish!’ Cyrion implored him. ‘She must escape back to Terra!’

  Talos moved back into the shadows, a crooked smile on his face.

  His vox-link screamed in a hundred tinny voices, others now joining the raging arguments.

  The sons of Night Haunter had recovered their desperate ambitions quickly enough. Acerbus, Halasker, Sahaal and the others – the other captains, the other Chosen. Talos heard them whining and raging in his ears, and he found himself smiling at their furious and helpless disbelief.

  ‘She has taken his signet ring,’ one stormed.

  ‘His crown!’ another wailed like a lost child.

  ‘Our father had not foreseen this,’ one of them said. And then the ultimate hypocrisy – they demanded the entire Legion do now for greed what they had been cursing Talos for attempting in the name of vengeance.

  ‘She must be slain for this!’ they cried.

  ‘She has transgressed against us all!’

  The names of Legion relics stolen from their rightful inheritors was a litany Talos had no desire to listen to. He tuned out their voices, so suddenly full of righteous indignation.

  How soon his brethren turned from faith and love in their gene-sire to grave doubts – the very same moment they realised the assassin had stolen weapons and relics they believed were theirs to inherit.

  Such greed. Such pathetic, disgusting greed.

  Talos despised them all in that moment. Never before had the sickening ambition of his corruptible brothers been shown so clearly.

  And so was born the hatred that would never heal.

  The assassin escaped the palace, and did so with apparent ease.

  The Night Lords took their ships, ragtag gatherings of claws and companies, racing to their Thunderhawks to return to their vessels in orbit. The entire Night Lord fleet ringed the world of Tsagualsa, and they gave chase in unprecedented force.

  Four vessels pulled ahead of the others. These were Hunter’s Premonition of 3rd and 11th Companies; Umbrea Insidior of 1st Company; The Silent Prince of 4th and 7th Companies, and Covenant of Blood, of 10th.

  The assassin’s ship, no matter how sleek, fast and exquisitely-wrought it was, stood no chance at all. As it powered away from the dark orb of Tsagualsa, the pursuing cruisers lanced in its wake, weapons roaring at their quarry’s essential systems.

  She fell from the warp, powerless and crippled, dead in space. Boarding pods spat from all four Astartes vessels, crashing home and locking fast in the metal flesh of the Imperial ship.

  The hunters bit into their prey, each one desperate to be the first to taste blood, and with it, victory.

  On board the assassin’s ship, Talos ran with the other hunters in his pack. Menials, mortals, servitors – all fell before the howling Night Lords as they flooded the decks from a hundred hull breaches.

  It was to be a day forever imprinted in the annals of Legion history, as well as one held in the hearts of every Astartes present in that moment of denied vindication.

  As the hunters found her – squads from 1st Company claiming that honour – a fresh anger broke out across the vox-network.

  Talos stood in the charnel pit of the crew habitation quarters, surrounded by brothers from the 10th and the ruined meat of so many mortal crew members. Blood painted the walls, the floor and the dark fronts of their armour plating. Not a soul would survive the culling of the murderer’s ship.

  At first, the reports had difficulty filtering through to the Astartes engaged in the hunt on board. Their blood was up, and the alerts were lost within the chaos of howling voices taking hold of the vox-channels.

  Talos was one of the first to hear. He powered down his chainsword, tilting his head as he listened carefully.

  How can this be?

  ‘We are under attack,’ he voxed to the others in proximity, his voice cold, calm, but edged with the taint of disbelief.

  ‘We are under attack, by the eldar.’

  In the centuries to come, the warriors of the VIII Legion would argue over the exact nature of the xenos ambush. Riding from their unknowable pathways through the void, wraith-like eldar ships ghosted around the embattled Night Lords vessels, alien weapons bringing light to the blackness, cutting into yielding shields without mercy.

  Some claimed the assault was to claim the relics of the primarch, just as the assassin had. Others argued that an alien race would have no need of such treasures, and it was either indecipherable xenos reasoning – or merely a night of ill-fortune conspired by fate – that brought the fleets into contact at such a moment.

  Umbrea Insidior would be lost, and with it, the betrayer Sahaal. The Silent Prince would suffer devastating damage, but ultimately the xenos fleet would be annihilated.

  Yet few of the Legion claimed any satisfaction in the hollow triumph won that night.

  During the evacuation, eldar warriors materialised in the hallways of the assassin’s ship, manifesting before the packs of enraged Night Lords to be cut down even before they were free of the shimmering smears that marked the aftermath of alien teleportation technology.

  First Claw, along with the other squads on board, fought their way back to their boarding pods.

  ‘Whatever they’ve come for,’ Cyrion voxed as he cut the head from an eldar female even as she appeared, ‘they want it badly.’

  ‘Back to the ship!’ Captain Malcharion was shouting over the disorderly fighting retreat. ‘Back to the Covenant!’

  The vox was no clearer now. Jubilant cries clashed with the calls for withdrawal and hateful curses levelled at the aliens. Somewhere in the verbal melee, Talos could hear the victorious shrieks of Captain Sahaal, and the fevered raging of 1st Company.

  Something was wrong. He could hear it in their voices.

  He slowed in his stride, falling behind the rest of his claw, his attention pouring into the myriad cries and conflicting reports coming over the vox. A pattern emerged soon enough.

  Captain Sahaal had reclaimed one of the Night Haunter’s relics… and immediately fled. He was taking Umbrea Insidior away from the fleet, breaking formation and trying to run from the eldar.

  He has abandoned 1st Company. Talos swallowed. Had he heard that right? Had one of the Legion’s most respected commanders left his own warriors to die at the hands of the eldar?

  Talos stopped dead in his tracks, the corridor silent now that the rest of his squad had raced so far ahead.

  Sahaal had fled with his treasure, running into the void. 1st Company were battling their way to their boarding pods, and would be stranded, forced to die fighting or rely on the charity of the other vessels to save them.

  Talos cared little for most of this. The struggles of 1st Company were 1st Company’s own trouble. The Legion was in retreat from this grotesque ambush, and 10th Company would be fighting to save itself.

  But M’Shen’s death had still not been confirmed over the vox-network.

  In his greed, Sahaal was fleeing with his trinket, all thoughts of vengeance forgotten… and the assassin was still alive.

  Talos turned from his path of escape, and moved deeper into the ship.

  The power was out, leaving her in darkness, but she was safe at last.

  As quickly as they’d come, the Astartes had fled.

  Her ship still shuddered, but it seemed to her that the alien attackers, the filthy xenos creatures that named themselves eldar, had withdrawn with the Night Lords’ retreat.

  One of them had taken her hand with a swing of his blade. She could not fight off five of them at once, and the blow had severed her wrist in a clean slice. Her training made any pain from the wound utterly ignorable, but M’Shen bound her wrist with a tourniquet and a temporary seal of synthetic flesh nevertheless. The
bleeding had been a danger, even if shock and pain had not.

  She stood on the bloody ruin of her bridge, listening to the laboured breathing and shivers of the few crew members that yet drew breath.

  None of them could see. The auxiliary power should have come online by now, resurrecting the lights. The continuing darkness was a bold enough statement that her ship was almost certainly damaged beyond easy repair.

  M’Shen spun on her toes, her blade in her remaining hand. She could see nothing in the pure blackness, but she didn’t need to. The thrum of live power armour filled her senses. The low growls of its servo-joints and false muscle fibres flexing told her all she needed to know. The Astartes’s location, his posture, everything.

  The assassin edged to the right, allowing herself a smile. Despite her exhaustion and blood loss, a lone Astartes would prove no threat. She–

  Talos closed his hand around her throat.

  He could sense she was duller, slower, and the beat of her heart was quicker than it had been in the palace. The assassin was weakened from her escape and the recent battle.

  But she would kill him before his hearts had time to beat twice if he tried to hold her. Everything about this creature was engineered to end life, and with infinitely more skill and grace than the blunt efficiency of the Astartes. He was a warrior, but she was a murderer. He was trained for battle and war. She was bred only to kill.

  The same second his hand gripped her throat, he was already acting.

  Not to squeeze. Her armour of precious synskin would resist such trauma. He jerked her close, risking a headbutt to daze her. That was a mistake. The assassin leaned her head back like a recoiling serpent. Curse her, she was fast.

  Talos felt her fisted hand coming up to unleash the lethality within her rings – each one a digital weapon of some unknown configuration. He wasted no time.

  The Night Lord spat into her face, and hurled her away.

  She had not screamed in many years.

  It wasn’t that pain was new to her, nor even a surprise, but this was no neat severance of limb from the body – this was the dissolving of her eyes in her skull, and never before had pain eclipsed her senses so completely. Even through the agony, she imagined the wretched Night Lord stumbling away in his cumbersome armour, amused at her momentary helplessness.

  And she was right. In the darkness, Talos relished the sound of her scream. Even sweeter was the subtle, mellifluous hiss of acidic venom eating into the soft tissue of her beautiful blue eyes.

  Panting now, seeing nothing but milky white sunfire, the assassin swallowed the pain, remembered her teachings, and used the agony as a focus. Over the vicious tssssssshhhhh of her melting eyes, she heard the humming rumbles of his armour.

  He had to die. He had to die now.

  She launched at him to make the need become reality.

  Talos fired at the floor, bolt shells masking his movements as their rapid explosions overwhelmed the bridge chamber with noise. He cast a black-eyed glance at the assassin blindly fighting the air, her lashing kicks and blade sweeps utterly lethal – aimed at audible joints and weak points of his armour – but utterly useless. Talos was already across the bridge away from her, bolter still barking.

  Deafened and disoriented, the assassin slowed her movements. Desperately poised, muscles taut, she seemed to be trying to filter the noise of his armour through the banging detonations.

  He risked another shot to distract her, aiming squarely in her direction. She weaved a minimal amount, just as she had in the palace, and the bolt went wide.

  Talos breathed out a curse as however she sought to sense him succeeded perfectly. The assassin turned to face him, and started running.

  With his free hand, he slammed on his helm.

  The Night Lord was a fool.

  Every explosion ringing from the floor betrayed the shell’s point of origin. It was complex, a matter of rigid concentration and training, and M’Shen was slowed by the pain she struggled to overcome. That was why triangulating his location took almost four entire seconds – an age to her preternatural senses.

  Bolts started tearing directly at her, which confirmed her belief that the Astartes was a fool. Even rendered sightless, these she dodged with ease.

  A new sound overrode the slicing whoosh of missing bolts. A sound she had only heard once before. His voice, speaking a single word.

  ‘Preysight.’

  Had her blows landed, he would have died. He knew this with cold certainty.

  Assassins, those from the Imperial-sanctioned temples, were already legends in the young Imperium. Her remaining hand would have thrust, blade-like and steel-hard, into the joints of his armour, crushing nerves and perhaps even breaking the enhanced bone of an Astartes warrior’s skeleton. From there, his death would have taken mere moments. The pain he’d inflicted would be repaid tenfold.

  None of her blows landed, because she made no attempt to strike him. As the blur of dull thermal movement came charging towards him, as every bolt he fired was dodged with ease, Talos filled his three lungs with the blood-rich air of her wrecked bridge.

  As deep and echoing as the first thunderclap of a breaking storm, he roared his hatred at her.

  Within a Callidus assassin, training and instinct met in honed, focused fusion. That fusion split within M’Shen as she lost the second of her senses. The depriving assault hit as hard and fast as the first. A moment of ear-splitting pain lanced through to the core of her mind, shaking her hearing, and all was suddenly silent.

  She had no idea if the Night Lord was still screaming or had fallen quiet after detecting his triumph. Her senses were killed. She felt only the air shaking around her as her enemy moved again, and as bolts slashed past.

  Blinded, deafened, clutching a shimmering blade that had taken the head of a fallen god, she twisted in her sprint and leapt at where she was certain the Astartes must be.

  Her estimation was, as always, perfect.

  Talos held her with the gentleness of a lover.

  ‘My father told me of this night,’ he whispered to her. ‘And I never believed him. I never believed I would disobey him, until you came into our home and took him from us.’

  M’Shen never heard his words. She would never hear anything again in her life, which was now measured in seconds. The assassin dropped her blade. As her gloved fingers uncurled almost against her will, she felt the heavy weapon thump against her foot.

  Strengthless arms wouldn’t move. Trembling fingers couldn’t crook to fire digital weapons within the ornate rings. Painkillers choked her veins with no effect beyond an irritating tickle of sensation. Her stomach was aflame. It hurt even more than the hissing holes where her eyes had been. Some violation, some iron-hard presence pressed her in place, transfixing her torso.

  She guessed correctly what it was. The Night Lord’s chainsword. He had impaled her on his blade.

  A dim, fading part of her mind tried to assess this damage, but the brutal and human edge to her consciousness overrode a life of combat narcotics and relentless training. She was dying. She would be dead within moments.

  ‘Godslayer,’ she said to him, never hearing her own words. ‘That… is how I will… be remembered…’

  Talos blinked stinging tears from his eyes. His thumb edged closer to the chainsword’s activation rune.

  Threat, threat, threat the warning runes flickered. Talos blink-clicked them away, clearing his red visor display of all but the assassin’s masked face and her hollow, bleeding eye sockets.

  ‘Ave Dominus Nox,’ he whispered, and gunned the impaling chainsword into life.

  He drifted for sixteen hours, alone in one of the boarding pods left by the ravaged survivors of 1st Company. In the absolute silence, he had only his grief and satisfaction to pass the time.

  They did so admirably.

  When his brothers found him, when the pod was brought aboard the Covenant of Blood as it returned to seek survivors and salvage, Talos was still sitting in one of
the pod’s thrones, his armour spotted with dried blood.

  The pod’s doors opened into ramps, and Talos looked out into the Covenant’s starboard launch bay.

  First Claw stood watching him, their weapons raised.

  ‘She’s dead,’ he told them, and rose to his feet, movements sluggish and weary.

  His chainsword’s teeth were clogged with dark, chewed meat and shards of bone. Before leaving her vessel, he had sawn her into nothing more than gobbets of biological matter, venting his final frustrations on her remains. In the darkness of the bridge, the surviving mortal crew members heard everything, with only their fearful imaginations to provide the imagery.

  ‘Talos…’ Captain Malcharion, the war-sage, approached slowly. ‘Brother…’

  Talos raised his head with equal slowness.

  ‘She killed our father,’ he said in a crackle of vox.

  ‘I know, brother. We all know. Come, we must… deal with the aftermath.’

  ‘The Haunter said I would do this,’ Talos looked at the gore-caked blade. ‘I did not believe him. Not until I felt the rage of her presence in our palace.’

  ‘It is over,’ said Malcharion. ‘Come, Talos.’

  ‘It will never be over.’ Talos dropped the blade to the ground with a crash. ‘But at least now I know why he named me as he did. “One soul,” he said. “You will hunt one shining soul while all others turn their backs on vengeance”.’

  ‘Brother, come…’

  ‘If you touch me, Malcharion, I will kill you next. Leave me. I am going to my chambers. I need to… to think.’ Talos left his weapons where they lay. Primus would gather them.

  ‘As you wish,’ the war-sage said, ‘Soul Hunter.’

  ‘Soul Hunter,’ Talos chuckled in response, the sound laced with bitterness. ‘I believe I could get used to that.’

  XVIII

  BROTHERHOOD

  The interlocking cavern network beneath the Omnissiah’s Claw mountain range was home to miracles of immense scale and ingenuity. Here lay the living core of the Legio Maledictis, and the sacred heart of the Adeptus Mechanicus’s operations on Crythe Prime.