Octavia caught it in both hands. A tiny bundle, no larger than her thumb, wrapped in blue cloth. The material looked ripped from a Legion slave uniform. She glanced at Septimus, but he was busy turning off her two dozen monitors, one by one. Slowly, she opened the ragged cloth.
A ring sat in the palm of her hand. A circle of light, creamy ivory, with elegant, miniscule Nostraman runes branded onto the surface.
‘Oh,’ she said, for want of anything better to say. She didn’t know whether she should feel pleased, shocked or confused. All she knew for certain was that she felt all three.
‘It’s to thank you,’ Septimus deactivated the last viewscreen, ‘for Crythe. When you helped us run, rather than kill us all.’
‘Oh,’ she said again.
‘I traded for it,’ he said. ‘In Blackmarket, of course.’ He moved back over to her, standing by her throne. ‘They’re very rare. The material is difficult to cut into jewellery. Only those with access to machines are able to do it.’
She turned it over in her hands, unable to read the spidery Nostraman. ‘What’s it made from?’
‘Bone. From a Blood Angel – one of the enemy warriors that died on board.’
Octavia looked up at him again. ‘You bought me a gift made from the bones of an Imperial hero.’ It wasn’t a question, nor was it spoken with a smile.
He smiled, though. ‘When you put it like that...’
‘I don’t want it.’ She offered it back to him. ‘You’re unbelievable.’ She shook her head as she met his eyes. ‘You’re also an idiot, and... and a heretic.’
He didn’t take it back. He just walked away, nudging a pile of junk with the side of his boot. ‘All of those accusations are true.’
Anger was getting the better of her now, but she let it flow, guiding her incautious words. ‘Was this supposed to impress me?’
Septimus hesitated. ‘Impress you? To what end?’
She glowered. ‘You know to what end.’
His laughter annoyed her even more. ‘You’re serious,’ he said, and laughed again.
‘Get out.’ She smiled thinly, ‘Before I shoot you.’
He didn’t leave. He came back over to her, taking her hand and slowly, carefully bringing her dirty knuckles to his lips. The kiss was as soft as the memory of a breeze.
‘That is not how this works, Octavia. You are the most precious mortal commodity on this vessel, and a death sentence hangs over anyone that angers you, for you are the Legion’s favoured prize. You are beautiful – the only beauty in this sunless world. But it has not crossed my mind to do anything more than watch you from afar. Why would I have ever considered it?’
He seemed genuinely amused, holding her by the hand as he spoke. ‘I am not one to chase uncatchable prey. My normal duties are difficult enough.’
She still scowled up at him, resisting the need to lick her dry lips. His stare wasn’t annoying, but she told herself it was.
‘You should go,’ she told him. Her voice caught on the words. Throne, he had the darkest eyes. Well... one, anyway. The lens was half-covered by his scruffy hair.
‘Besides, I heard a tale,’ he lowered his voice, ‘that humans die from a Navigator’s kiss.’
‘That sounds like a legend to me,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘But you never know.’ She tilted her head, her lips parting slightly. ‘Navigators are dangerous creatures. Don’t ever trust one.’
He trailed a thumb along her jawline, not saying anything. Octavia drew a breath, and–
–froze as the door opened on grinding tracks. After a split second, she stepped back from Septimus in an awkward hop, thumping her backside into her writing desk. Hound lumbered in, followed by Maruc. The older man looked like a beggar in his dishevelled slave uniform. He gave her a shy wave, sensing he was intruding.
‘Mistress,’ her attendant said. ‘Mistress, forgive me.’
‘It’s fine.’ She refused to look at Septimus. ‘It’s fine. What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘A guest, mistress. I could not refuse him entry.’
One of the Legion’s warriors stalked into the room. His midnight armour caught what little light existed, its polished surface painted with bolts of lightning, akin to veins along the ceramite. His bare face was thin, unscarred, with emotive eyes despite their rich blackness. He was smiling, though only slightly.
‘Lord Cyrion,’ Septimus bowed.
‘Septimus,’ the warrior greeted him. ‘We dock tonight. You are needed in the preparation chambers.’ Cyrion gestured to Maruc, with a growl of armour joints. ‘You too, Nonus. The thrills of hard labour await, my dear artificers.’
As the humans walked from the room, Cyrion looked over at the flushed Navigator. She seemed to be intrigued by a few scraps of paper on her desk, judiciously avoiding looking at anyone else.
‘So,’ he said to Octavia. ‘How are you?’
Hell’s Iris welcomed them two hours later with no shortage of posturing. Frigates declaring themselves as outriders for the Blood Reaver’s fleet pulled into formation with the limping Covenant, escorting the larger cruiser closer to the station.
On the bridge, the Exalted sat enthroned, flanked by Garadon and Malek of the Atramentar in their hulking Terminator war plate. The human crew worked around them, busy with the mathematical intricacies of guiding the massive warship into port.
‘We made it,’ the creature drawled.
Malek inclined his head in a purring growl of armour joints. His tusked helm swung to face his master. ‘Now comes the hard part: staying alive until we leave.’
The Exalted grunted in acknowledgement as Hell’s Iris grew larger on the occulus. It galled it to admire what it was seeing, but the Tyrant’s resources were second only to the Despoiler’s in scope and might. Hell’s Iris triggered a very specific jealousy within the daemon’s heart, for its past as much as what it represented now. The port was a nexus of secessionist activity, and it was far from the largest waypoint in the Tyrant’s empire. The station itself had once been the Ramilies-class void fortress Canaan’s Eye, positioned in deep space controlled by the Astral Claws Chapter. When indignity and betrayal swept through the region centuries before, during the Badab War, the fortress became one of many assets claimed by the rebels in their drive to secede from the Imperium. Imperial archives listed Canaan’s Eye as destroyed by a battlefleet led by the Overlord-class cruiser Aquiline. What Terran records failed to state was the subsequent recapture and towing of the Ramilies hulk into the Maelstrom warp rift by the piratical renegades that rose in the wake of the Astral Claws’ subjugation.
Centuries of raiding had only added to the rebuilt station. It sprawled in space around the dead, warp-corrupted world of Yrukhal, its metal halls home to tens of thousands of souls, serving as a port for hundreds of ships.
‘My skin crawls to return here,’ Malek admitted.
‘Too many ships,’ said Garadon. ‘Even for Hell’s Iris, this is too many.’
The Exalted nodded once, its eyes never leaving the occulus. Massive cruisers suckled at the station’s fuel feeds, while smaller destroyers and frigates sailed at the outpost’s perimeters.
A continent of steel, populated by carrion-feeders.
‘Huron himself is here. Nothing else explains the presence of so many warships in his colours.’
Malek grunted. ‘That will not make our dealings any easier.’
The Exalted ground its teeth together. ‘Master of Auspex, sweep this fleet.’
‘Aye, my lord,’ a human officer called back.
The command deck doors rumbled open, admitting two more Legion warriors. Talos and Lucoryphus – the former striding in with his weapons sheathed, the latter crawling with all the monstrous grace of a gargoyle.
‘Blood of the Legion,’ Talos swore as he saw the occulus. ‘What have we sailed into?’
‘A sea of sharks,’ Lucoryphus hissed. ‘Very bad. Very, very bad.’
Belatedly, Talos made his salute to the Atramentar warriors on
the Exalted’s dais. Lucoryphus didn’t bother. He prowled around the bridge, disconcerting the mortal crew by staring at them. His painted, crying faceplate watched with unblinking intensity.
‘Greetings,’ he leered at one officer. Even hunched on all fours, Lucoryphus was the height of the mortal man, and four times as bulky in his war plate with its back-mounted thrusters.
‘Hail, my lord,’ the officer replied. He was a gunnery rating, clad in a faded Imperial Navy uniform stripped of insignia, his silvering hair thinning at the crown. Despite half a lifetime in the Legion’s service – indeed, in the Exalted’s presence – attracting the direct attention of a master was still something to make even the most jaded soul start sweating.
‘I am Lucoryphus,’ the Raptor cawed, ‘of the Bleeding Eyes.’
‘I... know who you are, my lord.’
The warrior crawled closer, its weeping eye lenses somehow alive with cold delight. The officer instinctively inched away.
‘Do not run. That would be unwise. Bad things happen to humans who turn their backs on me.’
The officer swallowed. ‘How may I serve you, lord?’
‘You are not of the home world. Your eyes are not pure.’
‘I was taken,’ the officer cleared his throat, ‘I was taken years ago, in a raid. I serve loyally, my lord.’
‘You are not of the home world,’ Lucoryphus hissed. ‘Then you have never heard the hunting call of a Nostraman condor.’ The Raptor’s neck twitched, causing a growl of joint servos.
A second shadow, a taller one, fell over the mortal’s face. He managed a salute, and the words, ‘Lord Talos,’ fell from his lips.
Lucoryphus turned on his claws. Talos stood behind him, his armour bedecked in skulls and Blood Angel helms.
‘Soul Hunter?’
‘Please do not call me that.’ Talos gestured to the officer. ‘This man’s name is Antion. He has served us twenty-three standard years, in the destruction of exactly eighty-seven Imperial vessels, and more raids than I care to remember. Is that not true, Gunnery Officer Antion Kasel?’
The officer saluted again. ‘It is true, my lord.’
Talos nodded, looking back down at Lucoryphus. ‘We do not toy with the lives of those that serve us, Raptor.’ His gauntlet rested on Malcharion’s bolter mag-locked to his thigh. ‘That would be counterproductive.’
‘The mortal and I were merely having a conversation.’ Lucoryphus’s voice hinted at a smile behind the daemonic faceplate.
‘The mortal has a duty to do. If we need to open fire, I would prefer all of our gunnery officers to be able to do so, rather than have them distracted in conversations with you.’
Lucoryphus gave a cackle and crawled away, armour joints snarling.
‘Thank you, my lord,’ the officer said quietly, saluting again.
Thank you. Those words again. Twice in one year. Talos almost smiled at the thought.
‘Back to your duties, Kasel.’ He moved away, returning to the Exalted’s raised dais. A rune flickered on his retinal display – incoming message – the name-glyph signified Malek of the Atramentar. Talos blinked at the icon to activate it.
‘Nicely done,’ Malek voxed.
‘Raptors,’ replied Talos. ‘Those things should be leashed.’
‘And muzzled,’ Malek agreed. ‘Brother, a warning: the Exalted is uneasy. Huron is here, at Hell’s Iris.’
‘Understood.’ Talos cancelled the link, standing on the steps leading up to the throne. Only the Atramentar and the Exalted itself were permitted to stand at the top of the dais.
‘Auspex scan complete,’ the Master of Vox called.
The Exalted’s eyes were closed. It reached its senses beyond the heavy, cold hull, feeling the drifting warp-wind as the Covenant adjusted its course by guidance thrusters. The escorting frigates broke formation and pulled away, rejoining the patrolling fleet.
Something... the Exalted sensed it out there. Something familiar...
‘Speak,’ the creature demanded. Its black eyes flicked open. ‘Ignore the names and classes of individual craft. Tell me only what matters.’
‘My lord, the enemy fleet is–’
‘They are not our enemy,’ the Exalted snapped. ‘Yet. Continue.’
‘The Corsair force is of considerable strength, but with unconventional fleet disposition. Many cruisers lack support craft, and several frigates and destroyers seem to lack any larger cohesion. This is a mustering of several flotillas, with at least nine marks of allegiance spread across various craft. They appear to be composed of renegade Adeptus Astartes Chapters and defected Imperial Navy vessels.’
‘No,’ the Exalted growled. ‘There is something else at work, here.’ The daemon stared into the occulus, its talons clicking at keys on the armrests of its throne, cycling through external views.
‘There,’ it barked, baring its teeth. ‘That ship is no Red Corsair vessel, no matter what its colours claim.’
‘It registers as the Venomous Birthright.’
The Exalted shook its horned, tusked head again. ‘No. Probe deeper. Peel back the layers of auspex deception.’
‘Focussed scanning, my lord.’
The Exalted narrowed its glinting eyes, unable to break its stare. The vessel was a weapon of crenellated, Gothic beauty, a sister to the Covenant of Blood, born of the same design and craftsmanship. Whereas the Covenant’s hull echoed from the earliest ages of the Great Crusade, before the full homogenisation wrought by the Standard Template Constructs of Mars, much of the Corsair fleet was wrought from the more codified principles of construction instituted on Mars in the last ten millennia.
The Venomous Birthright obeyed no such strictures. It could only have been born in the naively prosperous centuries of the Crusade itself, or in the bloody, hate-fuelled decade of the Horus Heresy. Whichever was true, it traced its roots to an era before the rest of this fleet had even been conceived.
‘My lord?’ The officer sounded uneasy.
‘Speak.’
‘The ship’s transponder code has been altered. I read signs of encryption scarring in its identity broadcasts.’
‘Break them. Now.’
‘Aye, my lord.’
The Exalted closed its eyes again, reaching out with its hidden sense. With deceivingly gentle caresses, it ran ethereal feelers over the warship’s hull, smoothing its psychic sense over the armoured contours. Yes, the vessel was old – ancient, even – so much older than these other craft. Its pedigree was a noble one, and it had sailed the stars since the Great Betrayal, ten thousand years before.
Greetings, void hunter, the Exalted whispered to the craft. You are no weapon of the thin-blooded Corsairs. You are older, greater, and were once something so much more.
Something within the ship, some cold-fire core of intelligence, responded with a predatory snarl. Its presence was goliath, its emotions too alien to contain within a human, or even daemonic, mind. Yet for all its immensity, it spared no more than a second’s attention for the psychic intrusion.
Begone, its immense heart demanded, little fleshthing.
The second of connection was enough. The Exalted pulsed back into the body it wore, opening its eyes to see the bridge once more.
‘My lord, the encryption was crude. I’ve managed to pierce it, and the vessel is–’
‘I know what it is,’ the Exalted growled. ‘Or rather, what it was. Did you ascertain its former name?’
‘Aye, my lord.’
‘Speak it, for all to hear.’
‘The original identity signifier reads as the Echo of Damnation.’
The Atramentar warriors tensed by the throne’s sides, and Lucoryphus released a hissing stream of Nostraman invective. The Exalted gave a wet, grinding chuckle, feeling the name set Vandred’s spirit writhing within.
‘Yes,’ it grunted. ‘There, my brothers, is the reality of the carrion-feeders we are dealing with. The Corsairs, in their endless expansions, have claimed one of the Eighth Legion’s warshi
ps. Look upon it, and tell me your thoughts.’
It was Talos who spoke. ‘Some sins will not be allowed to stand.’ He faced the Exalted, his words burning with conviction even through the crackling of his helm’s vox-speakers.
‘That’s our ship.’ The prophet clenched his teeth behind his faceplate. ‘And we are not leaving until we take it back.’
Even in dock, the Maelstrom’s void-tides rippled against the Covenant, their gentle crashing formed from aetheric energies cooled in the icy nothingness of true space. The crew couldn’t help but hear the polluted solar winds caressing the warship’s hull, and despite all he’d seen and heard in the last ten years, it set Septimus’s teeth on edge. He checked his pistols, thumbing the ammunition runes to check their power cells.
‘Nonus,’ he said.
Maruc clicked his tongue, not quite tutting. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to get used to that.’
‘It’s not that difficult, I assure you.’ Septimus handed him one of the pistols. ‘Have you ever fired one of these?’
The older man scratched at his unshaven jawline, which was well on its way to being buried beneath an itchy grey beard. ‘Of course not.’
‘Well, this is how you do it.’ Septimus raised his pistol, mimed the activation, and dry-fired three times. ‘It’s not difficult. These were designed for use in the Imperial Guard, so they are far from complicated.’
‘Hey.’
Septimus raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’
‘Don’t you be mocking the Guard, son. They’re heroes, one and all.’
Septimus smiled. ‘Your perspective tends to change when your masters decorate their armour with Imperial Guard skulls for months after each encounter with them.’
‘I wanted to be Guard, you know.’
Septimus let it drop. ‘As I was saying, keep this weapon with you at all times. Hell’s Iris is a particularly unpleasant port.’
Maruc – he still couldn’t think of himself as ‘Nonus’ – blinked twice. ‘We’re going ashore?’
‘Of course we are.’ Septimus leashed his machete to his shin. ‘We have a duty to do. This place is dangerous, but if we tread with care, no harm will come to us.’
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