by Joe Parrino
More quick strides brought him to Klara. Here he broke his ritual, moved away from the handshake and the name. His eyes drifted down to her side, to the wound hidden beneath her bodyglove, then flickered back to meet her gaze. It was a quick thing, so fast a lesser being would not have noticed. But Klara, raised and trained by the Callidus Temple to be a keen student of the microgestures that betrayed the human face, took notice.
Her hand rested on the sword at her hip. ‘Do not offer me your hand, cretin,’ she snarled, ‘or I will cut it off.’
Something like confirmation dawned in the Vindicare’s eyes. He nodded once. ‘Viktor Zhau,’ he told her, his voice no different than the times he had spoken to the other Assassins. His eyes darted back to Adamta while Zhau smoothed the drape of his cloak with the quick efficiency of a habitual gesture. ‘Am I the last to arrive?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Adamta said. He took a long pull on his lho-stick and refused to meet anyone’s eyes.
IV
The journey from the rendezvous point to the Achyllus System was a matter of days, an almost inconsequential distance in the grand reckoning of warp travel and the Imperium.
The Traduceum’s halls were still silent, but now they had taken on a tense atmosphere. There was none of the camaraderie expected of lesser beings marching to war. The Assassins were solitary creatures, used to working alone. To gather them together spoke to the true scale of the threat.
Chromed machines gurgled and lights winked. Tubes stretched from Rhasc’s back and neck, injecting polymorphine and other chemicals necessary to sculpt her body. She felt heavier. A vid-screen recessed into the table before her and flickered through identities she might need, backstories that might prove useful.
She was already in her bodyglove, weapons prepared. The gene-replenishment was the last preparation she required. Rhasc liked to hold on to her identity for as long as possible, to retain the features and face that met her gaze whenever she looked in a mirror for as long as possible. The ritual was a simple thing, by Imperial standards. There was no incense, no chanting and no murmured prayers. She was alone with the faces of her trade, mantras reverberating through her subconscious as she readied for the mission. Her mind danced through different identities, subsuming her own, one by one.
I am Klara Rhasc, she told herself. Her voice grew deeper as the syllables left her throat.
She shifted her accent and rolled her tongue. A man’s voice emerged in another dialect of Gothic from a heavy browed face thick with care and years. An ataal Hovtalk Gendro bin.
Ayam soule Boratrix Boudic.
I am Lukas Fretz.
Viktor Zhau.
Torq.
Kurei Adamta.
Hours passed as she remoulded her bones and muscles, as she reshaped who she was. From man to woman and genders in between, the Callidus operative reshaped her mind as well as her body.
She was lost in a trance when Kurei called her.
‘I’m sorry, Klara,’ he said.
It was the first time they had spoken since the Vindicare’s arrival. ‘What do you want, Vanus?’ she snapped.
‘Just business then,’ he replied. All the friendship that had once flavoured his words was gone, vanished into the aether. ‘It’s time for the briefing. Ten minutes, Rhasc, and play nice.’
The briefing hall aboard the Traduceum was the only part of the vessel devoted to ostentation. Ordinarily the Officio Assassinorum eschewed such frippery. They were a disjointed organisation, crafted for a single purpose. The Assassins of the Temples delivered the Emperor’s judgement.
The murals in the room displayed that purpose. The Emperor, enthroned as the god of justice, stared down from gold-tiled mosaics. From His Golden Throne, the Emperor waited in judgement, an executioner’s blade in one hand and a balance scale in the other.
Scarcely less honour was paid to his incarnation as a god of the dead. Those murals depicted the Emperor’s nine sons beside him, each girded for war. Nameless Space Marines, and darker shadowed figures between them, stood above the faceless ranks of the dead.
The message was clear to Rhasc: the Temples were the Emperor’s instrument, his dark blade of judgement and death. She had never been a pious woman, but the sights here always filled her with awe. They were a justification of her purpose, her creation. Darkness came too easily to an Assassin’s soul. Their work was demanding, damaging to the psyche.
A long table, carved of some dark wood, stretched down the centre of the large hall. A hololith danced in its centre, glowing a dull green. Flickering candles set in the skulls of Temple instructors provided further illumination, setting the mosaics to uncertain life. Darkness and shadows moved through the hall. Gothic arches framed windows that looked nowhere, filled with stacked stone. The hall had the feeling of some dark temple and it reminded Klara Rhasc of home.
Zhau was already seated when she entered. His eyes stared straight before him, boring into a data-slate. He offered no acknowledgement of her arrival, no greeting.
She sat opposite the Vindicare.
Torq entered, followed by the withered husk of a woman. The Eversor’s eyes were dull and lifeless, filmed almost grey. The servitor behind him carried ranks and ranks of ampoules and tubes. Its fingers were needles, injected into the Eversor’s back. He was being prepared for the mission to come. His presence was only a formality. His chem-bleached mind could not be counted on to contribute to their instruction.
Adamta entered last. The hololith shifted into the shaking impressions of a battlefield. Sound filtered faintly from hidden speakers.
‘This,’ Adamta began, ‘is what we are facing. This is what we must kill.’
At first, all that could be seen were Astra Militarum soldiers. They loomed large and proud, indomitable, unbreakable.
‘Hnnh,’ Torq drooled.
Fifes and drums echoed. The distant shouts of charging men prowled through the room. The timbre shifted.
The hololith danced and lost focus. Rhasc heard chanting and knew it for a psyker’s focus aid. The hololith shifted to show the sky, turquoise rife with auroras. Ships exploded and drop pods fell.
‘Who provided the source for these images?’ asked Zhau.
Adamta responded, ‘A Cadian battle-psyker called Cataboldine. These are the last images he saw. This is the message he provided to the Inquisition, forwarded to the High Lords of Terra.’
Zhau nodded.
Explosions rippled through the Cadian ranks. Bodies and blood flew everywhere, but there was something wrong with the weapon dispersal pattern. To Klara’s eyes, this did not resemble artillery.
A deep bass roar reverberated through the room, chilling even through the speakers. The true threat revealed itself. Armoured in red and bronze, loping out from the battlefield pall, came Chaos Space Marines. Cadians were pulled apart as the traitors advanced.
‘What warband is that?’ Klara asked.
‘We believe them to be the Crimson Slaughter, formerly the Crimson Sabres. Fallen in…’ Adamta consulted his notes. ‘…late M41. Their Chapter records and post-excommunication data are available in your mission briefing.’
Rhasc heard the unmistakable howling of daemons, and the wails and screams of the damned.
Something huge came into view. A massive armoured form, wreathed in fire and smoke, scattered Cadians. Jewelled eyes glared out from a horned helmet. Golden fire streaked from the staff clutched in one hand. The other directed bolter fire into knots of Throne-loyal men and women. The hololith paused.
‘Break him,’ Torq growled. ‘Break him, kill him and cut him.’ The servitor behind him emitted a series of binaric cants. Metal needles slipped free from the Eversor’s back.
The other Assassins stared at the Eversor for a moment.
Adamta cleared his throat.
‘Quite,’ he said. ‘This, as you’ve no doubt surmised,
is our target. We believe this creature is Severin Drask, once a Librarian of the Crimson Sabres, now sworn to ruin. Billions of deaths have been ascribed to this sorcerer. The exact details of his actions are either unknown or sequestered somewhere that the Officio’s archives cannot or will not reach.’
‘What is the traitor’s end game? What does it want with Achyllus?’ asked Rhasc.
‘According to Cataboldine, Drask seeks to conduct a ritual in something called the Temple of Shades. What that ritual is intended to accomplish is impossible, indeed reprehensible, to understand. Who can say why the servants of ruin do what they do? What is clear is that we have identified a traitor to the rule of man. The High Lords have deemed it necessary to kill the creature before it accomplishes its aims.’
Zhau placed his pistol on the table, slowly, deliberately. It gave the barest of metal clicks as it settled. ‘Why does this mission require more than one Assassin of the Temples?’
‘I don’t…’ Adamta began and then caught himself. ‘The High Lords demanded it.’
‘Has an Execution Force of this scale been called before? I don’t recall having read anything like this, or hearing of its like.’
‘According to the records we officially have access to? Never. According to the ones we don’t… very, very rarely.’
V
The iron door buckled with a screeching tear. Plasma washed from within, flowing out in a sun-bright stream. Three Crimson Slaughter warriors were caught in the flow, their armour igniting. Bellows of rage and pain flared over the vox before abruptly dying as the warriors melted.
Drask and the other Crimson Slaughter watched, impassive.
The towering edifice of the Astropathic Sanctum loomed over the Space Marines of the Crimson Slaughter. The aquilas and other symbols of Imperial rule were all that remained to announce this planet’s adherence to Terran oppression. Drask’s warriors and ships had scoured Achyllus Prime, slaughtering its citizens.
Shouts came from within the sanctum, delivered from thin, mortal throats. Las-bolts lanced down from crenellations and murder holes, acting as nothing more than an irritant.
Rocks and debris hurtled at the gathered Space Marines. One crushed a warrior, the sudden pressure popping the warrior’s armour in a gout of gore and viscera.
Almost absentmindedly, Drask conjured a dome of fire to cover his warband. The sounds of the outside world drew away – the haunting cries of the butchered population and the hunting warbles of the neverborn. All that remained was the machine growl of ill-maintained power armour, the heavy breathing of the Chaos Space Marines, and the whispers that assailed their minds.
Entire choirs of voices had been added to Drask’s tormenters. The sorcerer lord winced as the voices of the recently dead levelled their accusations and their censure. Let them ramble, the sorcerer told himself. Let them vent their impotent rage. They can affect nothing.
Drask stole the heat from the cooling plasma and channelled the caged fury into the fire dome above his head.
His warriors stormed into the revealed breach and were met by a hail of lasgun fire. Akkarnol led them, the daemon at the fore.
Drask followed, wading through piled corpses. Within, a small guard fought against the Crimson Slaughter assault.
Laughing Space Marines tore their struggling bodies apart. Others toyed with the mortals.
‘Save them,’ Drask demanded. ‘I will need their blood and their souls to bring the Temple of Shades into reality.’
Akkarnol spat a curse and bared his teeth in resistance to the command.
Drask hesitated. Had the daemon finally overwhelmed his friend? He levelled his staff and prepared a word of unmaking.
Akkarnol shuddered and his outward mutations receded. His crown of horns pulled back into his skull. The flesh that covered his armour boiled back into the joints.
‘My apologies, lord,’ he said, dropping to his knees. ‘The daemon slumbers once more.’
‘Unreliable,’ Drask rumbled. ‘Rein it in. I would hate to kill you, old friend.’
‘Your will, my lord.’
‘Take the tower. Find the astropaths,’ Drask ordered the Chaos Space Marines around him. ‘Akkarnol, you will take a detachment to guard the sanctum. Ensure that none disturb the ritual.’
Drask watched Akkarnol wrestle with the order. The message that lurked within was clear. The possessed Space Marine was being punished for his lack of control.
Staircases curled into the tower’s interior. They stretched from the entrance hall, dotted with landings. Dark stone formed the walls. Slogans and wards glittered in gold. Crude, drawn by a hand that was only just beginning to grasp the intricacies of the warp, they were meant to focus the minds of those who dwelled within the sanctum.
Cultists slunk in through the door, mortals sworn to the Dark Gods. Frail, but useful as delaying fodder, Drask brought the human dregs along to die. Puffed up and posturing before their masters, the wretches brandished their mutations. The Crimson Slaughter ignored them.
Drask lumbered up the stairs, cracking the granite beneath his heavy tread. Hooded minor sorcerers followed, brought down from orbit.
A bullet pinged off Drask’s shoulder guard. His head snapped up, hunting. His mind analysed the trajectory, and he followed the sound and angle of the shot. A blink-clicked rune switched the sight in his helm from reality to the flowing soul eddies of the warp. Two floors up, a small soul glowed behind a balustrade.
Drask raised his hand and called down fire from the warp. His sharp gesture brought the fire sweeping down, crushing that soul beneath the weight and heat of his will.
Pain stabbed into his mind. A rising squeal of white noise assaulted his ears. Random thoughts and voices filled his head. Visions of things that he had never seen, vague impressions of places he had never visited and crises he had never dealt with overwhelmed him. Above all, the sorcerer lord felt the scourging fire of golden light. Context came. He faced the combined assault of the sanctum’s astropathic choir. Which meant the golden light was likely their combined memory of the soulbinding.
It took him moments to recover his wits, to filter falsehood from reality. The golden fire scoured his mind. This fire lacked the familiar comforts of his power. This fire spoke to a barely remembered time of shackles and service. He staggered back, Terminator footsteps stumbling on the stone steps. His staff fell from his hand.
Drask clutched at his skull, trying to hold the fire at bay, tried to keep that awful judgement from pressing in on him. He failed.
The servos in his knees whined as they fought to keep him upright.
A mote in the golden light failed. Then another and another as astropaths died from their mass outpouring of psychic resistance.
Drask felt the holes form. He shaped his mind into a chisel, breaking away at the holes in the light. More motes died. His mind formed a hammer. It pounded into the edges, breaking into the holes, making them wider.
The astropaths renewed their attack, but he was wise to their tricks now. He shut his mind to the images, to their memories and their messages. He was adept at avoiding such things, adept at blocking the voices that afflicted him.
Echoed exhaustion flooded into him, the sympathetic feeling emanating from the astropaths almost forcing him to slow once more. The astropaths severed the link, broken and shattered. Failures.
His backwards flight ceased and his staff flew into his hand. Drask bulled up the stairs. Several sorcerers were left scattered behind, smoke drooling from their eyes and ears. Their bodies had already begun to smoulder.
Grim-faced guards, their minds stunted against manipulation, marched in lockstep down the grand staircase. They fired hellgun volleys into Drask and his attendant sorcerers.
Mindless discipline drove them. Drask’s lip curled. At least the Cadians expressed courage. These men and women were too brain-dead to know the dif
ference.
A hellgun blast cut through his pauldron, slicing a hole through his shoulder. Heat spread down his arm before pain suppressants brought cooling numbness. Another speared through his thigh. His forward momentum slowed. Paint abraded from the front of his armour.
The sorcerer’s own answer slammed into them. Changing fire clung to the broken tatters of the lobotomised guards’ minds. Flesh rippled and became vegetable matter, darkening to purple or blazing into a cloud of eyes.
Others burned in crackling sheets of bronze and black.
Drask’s attendant sorcerers added the weight of their sorcery to his. Their powers manifested as telekinetic shifts in pressure, crushing bodies and bones. Three guards turned their guns on their own.
Their resistance crumbled as the sorcery destroyed them. Bodies hurtled from the railings, thrown into the darkness. Crackling holes in reality burst open and daemonic hands reached out and pulled the lobotomised guards with them. Confused daemons poured from the rifts in the warp and fell into their ranks. With senses confounded by this new realm, the weak daemons lashed out at the dim soul-fires around them.
Drask withstood the last ragged volley of hellgun fire. Holes leaked smoke from his armour. Pain flashed through his systems, but the sorcerer lord ignored them. He was transhuman, gene-crafted to be superior to any threat the galaxy could ever conceive.
Fire lashed from his outstretched palm, coiling like a whipping serpent. Then he was among them. His golden staff crashed through a rank of three guards, crushing bones with an audible pop and flinging the bodies over the edge. His backswing crushed a man’s skull.
Drask the fire sent lashing through the body of one man and into another. Emerald smoke drifted from the wounds.
He burst through the staggered ranks and turned on them before they could readdress. His sorcerers followed him in a wedge.
Drask corralled the minds of his attendant sorcerers, pulled them together and forged their strengths to his. Alien thoughts invaded his mind, the minds and memories of his wretched followers. The sorcerer lord ignored them.