Night Lords Omnibus

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  ‘The Exalted requested,’ Talos smiled, ‘or demanded?’

  Lucoryphus twitched with an involuntary muscle spasm. His avian head jerked, and the daemonic faceplate released a hissing breath. His left talon-hand snapped shut, the clawed fist trembling. When the fingers unlocked, they curled open on squealing metal joints.

  ‘Requested.’

  ‘First time for everything,’ said Cyrion.

  The Exalted licked its teeth.

  It still wore its armour for the most part, though the ceramite plating had long since become part of its altered flesh. The apothecarion was expansive, but the Exalted’s nature forced it into an uncomfortable hunch to avoid scraping its horned helm across the ceiling. All around it was silence – the silence of abandonment. This chamber hadn’t seen any real use in many years. As the Exalted stroked a taloned finger across a surgical table, he reflected how the decades of neglect would soon be undone.

  The creature moved over to the cryogenic vault. A wall of sealed glass cylinders, all racked and stored in perfect order, each etched in Nostraman with the names of the fallen. The Exalted growled low, a tormented breath, as its knife-like digits scratched squealing streaks down the metal vault racks. So many names. So very many.

  It closed its eyes and listened, for a time, to the Covenant’s heartbeat. The Exalted breathed in unison with the distant rhythmic thrum of the fusion reactors, rumbling as the engines idled in dock. It listened to the whispers, the screams, the shouts and the blood-borne pulses of everyone on board. All of it echoed through the hull into the creature’s mind – a constant sensory tide that took more and more effort to ignore as the years passed.

  Rarely, it would hear laughter, almost always from the mortals as they endured their dim, dull existences within the ship’s black bowels. The Exalted was no longer sure how to react to the sound, nor what it could really signify. The Covenant was the creature’s fortress, a monument to both its own pain and the pain it inflicted upon its grandfather’s galaxy. Laughter was a sound that pulled at the Exalted, incapable of dredging any true memories, yet still whispering that, once, the creature would have understood such a sound. It would’ve made the sound itself, in the age when ‘It’ had been ‘Him’.

  Its lips peeled back from its shark’s teeth in a grin it didn’t feel. How times changed. And soon, they would change again.

  Talos. Lucoryphus. The knowledge of their presence didn’t come in simple recognition of their names. It was their thoughts drifting closer, bunched tight like fused writing and polluted by fragments of their personalities. Their approach came upon the Exalted like a whispering, unseen tide. The creature turned a moment before the apothecarion’s doors opened on protesting gears.

  Lucoryphus inclined his head. The Raptor stalked in on all fours, the sloping thrusters on its back shifting side to side in sympathy with the warrior’s awkward gait. Talos didn’t bother to salute. He didn’t even acknowledge the Exalted with a nod. Instead, the prophet entered slowly, his armour a mauled palette of absolute ruination, and his face little better.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked. One of his eyes was buried beneath strips of torn pale skin and weeping scabs. His head was laid open to the bone, and the flesh was scorched and angry. Damage from a bolter shell, and one that had almost killed him. Interesting.

  Despite the prophet’s typical undignified defiance, the Exalted felt a moment’s gratitude that Talos had come in such a condition.

  ‘You are wounded,’ it pointed out, its voice a draconic murmur. ‘I can hear your hearts labouring to beat. The blood-stink... the mushy, liquid concussion of overstrained organs... Talos, you are closer to death than you appear. And yet you come before me now. I appreciate your display of trust.’

  ‘Third Claw is dead.’ The prophet spoke as bluntly as always. ‘First Claw is crippled. We need two months to recover.’

  The Exalted inclined its tusked head in acknowledgement. It knew these things already, of course, but the fact the prophet reported it like an obedient soldier was enough to work with. For now.

  ‘Who broke your face?’

  ‘Dal Karus.’

  ‘And how did Dal Karus die?’

  Talos moved his hand from the great puncture wound in his side. The gauntlet came away coated in a sheen of blood. ‘He died begging for mercy.’

  Lucoryphus, hunched atop one of the surgical tables, emitted a shrieking snicker from his vocalisers. The Exalted grunted before speaking. ‘Then we are stronger without him. Did you harvest Third Claw’s gene-seed?’

  The prophet wiped spittle from his lips. ‘I had servitors store the bodies in the cryo-vaults. I will harvest them later, when we have a greater supply of preservative solution.’

  The Exalted turned its gaze upon the mortuary vaults: a row of lockers built into the far wall.

  ‘Very well.’

  Talos didn’t hide his wince as he took a breath. The pain of his wounds, the Exalted suspected, must border on excruciating. This, too, was interesting. Talos had not come out of obedience. Even grievously injured, he had come because of the location the Exalted had chosen. Curiosity could motivate even the most stubborn souls. There could be no other answer.

  ‘I am tired of this existence, my prophet.’ The creature let the words hang in the cold air between them. ‘Aren’t you?’

  Talos seemed on edge, taken aback by the remark. ‘Be specific,’ he said through bleeding gums.

  The Exalted stroked its claws down the sealed gene-seed pods again, leaving theatrical scratches on the precious containers. ‘You and I, Talos. Each of us is a threat to the other’s existence. Ah, ah. Do not even think to argue. I do not care whether you are as ambitionless as you claim, or if you dream of my death each time you allow yourself to sleep. You are a symbol, an icon, for the disenfranchised and the discontented. Your life is a blade at my throat.’

  The prophet made his way to another operating table, idly inspecting the hanging steel arms that dangled slack from the ceiling-mounted surgical machinery. A rime of dust painted the table’s surface grey. When he brushed the powder aside with his gauntlet, the surface beneath was stained brown by old blood.

  ‘Doloron died here,’ he said softly. ‘Thirty-six years ago. I pulled his gene-seed myself.’

  The Exalted watched as Talos indulged in memory. The creature could be patient, when the moment required it. Nothing would be gained by rushing now. When the prophet faced the Exalted once more, his good eye was narrowed.

  ‘I know why you summoned me,’ he said.

  The Exalted inclined its head, grinning between its tusks. ‘I suspect you do.’

  ‘You want me to begin rebuilding our numbers.’ Talos raised his left arm, holding it out for the Exalted’s inspection. Something sparked in his elbow joint. ‘I am no longer an Apothecary. I haven’t carried the ritual tools in almost four decades. None of the fresh blood from Halasker’s squads have endured the training, either.’ Perversely warming to speaking of their dire straits, Talos gestured around the chamber. ‘Look at this place. The ghosts of dead warriors locked in cold storage, and three dozen surgery tables gathering dust. The equipment is little more than scrap due to age, neglect and battle damage. Even Deltrian couldn’t repair most of this.’

  The Exalted licked its maw with a black tongue. ‘What if I could replenish all that was lost? Would you then replenish our ranks?’ The creature hesitated, and its deep voice drew in a breath somewhere between a growl and a snarl. ‘We have no future if we remain divided. You must see it as clearly as I. Blood of the gods, Talos – don’t you wish to be strong again? Don’t you wish a return to the times when we could face our foes, to chase them down like prey, without endlessly fleeing before them?’

  ‘We are above half-strength, but only barely.’ Talos leaned on the surgical table. ‘I’ve done a soul count myself. The Blood Angels butchered over a hundred of the crew, and almost thirty of our warriors. We are no better than before we inherited Halasker’s men, but at leas
t we are no worse.’

  ‘No worse?’ The Exalted tongued aside the stalactites of saliva that linked its teeth. ‘No worse? Do not turn a blind eye to your own sins, Talos. You have already slain seven of them this very night.’

  Metal wrenched in protesting chorus with the harsh words. The Exalted’s monstrous talon deformed the wall where the creature gripped too hard. With a grunt, it pulled its claw free. ‘Halasker’s warriors have been with us a matter of months, and already the infighting is savage enough to see bloodshed almost every night. We are dying, prophet. You, who can stare down the paths of the future, have no excuse to be so blind. Stare now, and tell me if you see us surviving another century.’

  Talos didn’t answer that. It didn’t need an answer. ‘You call me here, proposing a truce I don’t understand to a conflict I’m not willingly fighting. I do not want to inherit Malcharion’s mantle. I don’t want to lead what remains of us. I am not your rival.’

  Lucoryphus emitted another static-laden burst of noise – either a hissing laugh or a derisive snort. Talos didn’t know the warrior well enough to tell. ‘Soul Hunter carries the war-sage’s weapon, yet claims not to be Malcharion’s heir. Amusing.’

  The prophet ignored the Raptor, focussing on the creature that had once been his commander. Before he spoke, he had to swallow a mouthful of blood that welled up from the back of his tongue.

  ‘I do not understand, Vandred. What has changed to make you speak like this?’

  ‘Ruven.’ The name was spat as a curse as the Exalted turned its bulk, resting both of its warped claws against the vault wall. Hunched, growling, it stared at the genetic treasure within. ‘At Crythe, when we fled before the wrath of the Blood Angels. That night poisons my thoughts even now. Ruven, that thrice-damned wretch, blithely dictating to us as if he were anything more than the Warmaster’s peon. I will not be commanded by one who abandoned the Legion. I will not kneel before a traitor, nor heed the words of a weakling. I – We – are better than that.’

  The Exalted turned again, its black eyes staring with the passionless, soulless intensity of a creature born in the ocean’s silent depths. ‘I wish to be proud once more. Proud of our war. Proud of my warriors. Proud to stand in midnight clad. We must rise again, greater than before, or be forgotten forever. I will fight that fate, brother. I want you to fight it with me.’

  Talos looked over the decrepit machinery and the abandoned tables. The Exalted couldn’t help but admire the warrior’s restraint in swallowing the pain he must be feeling. Something, some restrained emotion, glinted behind the prophet’s good eye.

  ‘To repair the ship and restore our strength, we’ll need to dock at Hell’s Iris again.’

  ‘We will,’ the Exalted grunted.

  Talos didn’t reply to that. He let the silence speak for him.

  The Exalted licked its blackened maw. ‘Perhaps we won’t see quite as much bloodshed this time.’

  At that, Talos took a pained breath. ‘I’ll help you,’ he said at last.

  As the prophet walked from the room, the Exalted’s cracked lips stretched back from its rows of stained teeth in something approximating a smile. Behind Talos, the door sealed with a grinding clunk.

  ‘Of course you will,’ the creature whispered wetly into the cold air.

  The door closed, leaving him alone in the sub-spinal corridor to reflect on the Exalted’s words. Talos didn’t labour under any delusion – the creature’s offer of truce was founded in its own gain, and none of the Exalted’s assurances would keep the prophet from watching his back at every opportunity. The Covenant wasn’t safe. Not with the tensions boiling between Claws.

  When he judged he’d come far enough, Talos slowed in his stride. Wiping his good eye free of blood was a constant irritant. The flayed half of his face was bitter with chill now, and the air stroked his skull with unpleasant fingers. Beneath it all, his pulse did little more than push pain around his body.

  Remaining out here alone was unwise. Upon leaving the apothecarion, the first place he needed to reach was the slave holds. If the Exalted wished the warband to stand stronger than ever before, that required trained slaves, gunnery menials, artificers, manufacturers, and it required Legionaries. This last need was the hardest to fulfil, but it could be done. Ganges Station had surrendered a bounty in flesh, as well as plunder.

  The prophet turned into a side corridor, feeling his hearts clenching in his chest at the movement. They didn’t beat, they hummed: buzzing as they overworked themselves. A fresh wave of nausea gripped him in an unwelcome and unfamiliar embrace. The genetic resculpting done to him as a youth had all but banished the capacity to feel dizzy in the human biological sense, but intense stimuli could still be disorienting. Evidently pain could, too.

  Four steps. Four steps down the northward corridor, before he crashed against the wall. Blood tainted his tongue with a coppery sting, mixing with the caustic juices in his saliva glands. An exhalation became a purge as he vomited blood onto the decking. The puddle hissed and bubbled on the steel: just enough corrosive spit had washed into the blood for it to become acidic.

  Something locked in his knee joint, almost definitely a cord of fibrous wirework too damaged to bend any more. The prophet pushed off from the wall and limped away from the still bubbling blood-vomit, moving alone through the ship’s darkened tunnels. Each step brought fresh pain blooming beneath his skin. With a lurch, the world turned. Metal rang out against metal.

  ‘Septimus,’ he said to the darkness. For a time, he breathed in and out, working the ship’s stale air through his body, feeling something hot and wet drip from his cracked skull. Shouting for a slave wasn’t going to help him now. A curse upon Dal Karus’s bones. For a vindictive moment, he imagined granting Dal Karus’s helm to the slaves to use as a chamber pot. Tempting. Tempting. The prospect of such childish vengeance brought a guilty smile to his bleeding lips, even if the reality of such an act was too petty to really consider.

  Forcing himself back to his feet took an age. Was he dying? He wasn’t certain. He and Xarl had borne the brunt of Third Claw’s bolter fire – their armour was devastated, and Talos was well aware how savage his wounds were if his blood wouldn’t clot to seal the great rupture in his side. What remained of his face was a lesser concern, but if he didn’t deal with that soon, he’d need extensive bionic implantation to repair the damage.

  Another dozen steps sent his vision swimming. Blinking his eyes wasn’t enough to clear them, and the telltale sting in pulse points was a stark indication that his armour had already flooded his system with synthetic adrenaline and chemical pain inhibitors to incautious levels.

  The Exalted was right. His wounds were graver than he’d wished to reveal. Blood loss was starting to steal the sensation in his hands, and he felt leaden below his knees. The slave holds could wait an hour. Nerveless fingers felt for the secondary vox-link in his gorget.

  ‘Cyrion,’ he said into the link. ‘Septimus.’ How short, the scroll of names he could call to in perfect trust. ‘Mercutian,’ he breathed. And then, surprising himself, ‘Xarl.’

  ‘Prophet.’ The reply came from behind. Talos turned, breathing heavily from the effort of staying on his feet. ‘We must speak,’ the newcomer said. It took a moment for the prophet to recognise the voice. His vision was getting no clearer.

  ‘Not now.’ He didn’t reach for his weapons. As a threat it would be too obvious, and he wasn’t sure he could grip them with any conviction anyway.

  ‘Something wrong, brother?’ Uzas delighted in tasting that last word. ‘You look unwell.’

  How to answer that? The constriction beneath his ribcage told of at least one lung collapsing. The fever had the sweaty, unclean edge of sepsis, a gift from the myriad bolter shell fragments punched into his body. Add the blood loss and severe biological trauma, coupled with his weakened state suffering an overdose on the automatically administered combat narcotics... The list went on. As for his left arm... that no longer moved at all. Perhaps
it would need replacing. That thought was far from pleasant.

  ‘I need to get to Cyrion,’ he said.

  ‘Cyrion is not here.’ Uzas made a show of looking around the tunnel. ‘Only you and I.’ He stepped closer. ‘Where were you going?’

  ‘The slave holds. But they can wait.’

  ‘So now you limp back to Cyrion.’

  Talos spat a mouthful of corrosive, pinkish saliva. It ate into the decking with glee. ‘No, now I stand here arguing with you. If you have something to say, make it quick. I have duties to perform.’

  ‘I can smell your blood, Talos. It flows from your wounds like a prayer.’

  ‘I have never prayed in my life. I’m not about to start now.’

  ‘You’re so literal. So blunt. So blind to anything outside your own pain.’ The other warrior drew his blade – not the weighty chainaxe, but a silver gladius the length of his forearm. Like the rest of First Claw, he kept his weapon of last resort sheathed at his shin. ‘So confident,’ Uzas stroked the sword’s edge, ‘that you will always be obeyed.’

  ‘I saved your life tonight. Twice.’ Talos smiled through the blood sheeting his face. ‘And you repay me by whining?’

  Uzas still toyed with his gladius, turning it over in his gauntlets, examining the steel with false nonchalance. The bloodstained handprint was a painted smear across Uzas’s faceplate. Once, on a single night long ago, it had been real blood. Talos remembered the moment a young woman had struggled in his brother’s grip, her bloody fingers pushing with absolute futility against Uzas’s helm. A city burned around them. She was writhing, struggling to avoid being disembowelled by the very blade now in his brother’s hands.

  After that night, Uzas ensured the image remained painted onto his faceplate. A reminder. A personal icon.

  ‘I don’t like how you look at me,’ Uzas said. ‘Like I am broken. Cracked by flaws.’

  Talos leaned over, letting dark blood trickle between his teeth to drip onto the decking. ‘Then change, brother.’ The prophet straightened with a pained hiss, licking the taste of rich copper from his lips. ‘I will not apologise for seeing what stands before me, Uzas.’