‘The Axis is five zones distant. A journey of many hours,’ Fai’sahl answered from the seat opposite them. ‘Regrettably our only functioning port is on the hive’s outskirts. That is one of the limitations we hope to rectify with your aid.’
‘Fio’vre Daukh will make a full assessment of your requirements,’ Adibh said, keeping her tone neutral.
‘My team stands ready to assist you,’ Daukh concurred earnestly, though his eyes didn’t leave the car’s window slit. Doubtless he saw much of note outside. ‘I predict there is considerable work ahead of us.’
‘The Order’s resources will be placed at your disposal, honoured fio’vre,’ Fai’sahl promised. ‘Together we shall achieve great things.’
‘Assuming we reach an accord,’ Adibh cautioned, sounding querulous even to herself. In the cramped cabin Fai’sahl’s presence was almost overpowering.
‘We shall, por’el. When we reach the Axis you will understand everything.’ Fai’sahl smiled and Adibh felt a rush of unwelcome affection for him. No, it was simpler than that – more primal.
How he has changed, she mused. He looks younger than he–
Bright light flashed into her face, breaking the fascination. Abruptly Fai’sahl was gone and a hollowed out, predatory thing sat in his place, appraising her with hungry eyes.
‘Forgive me, por’el,’ the Seeker said from the seat beside the apparition. He extinguished his helmet light – and with it the horror. ‘I fear my helm has developed an error.’
‘See that you correct it, Fire Warrior,’ Adibh replied, surprised that her terror hadn’t reached her voice. Perhaps it was because shame eclipsed the fear. The Seeker had seen her desire…
No! The desire was not mine, she thought angrily, willing Kyuhai to see that.
‘Are you well, my friend?’ Fai’sahl asked, his face furrowing with concern.
‘Perfectly well,’ Adibh said. It was the most profound lie she had ever told.
The twilight district passed in a blur of crooked tenements, their growth stunted by the confines of the iron sky. Some had been reduced to scorched husks, while others had collapsed into rubble. Citizens haunted the squalor like flesh-bound ghosts, either alone or in small groups, often huddled around open fires. All were emaciated and grey, their bodies as wasted as their world. Most ignored the convoy, but a few watched it pass with empty eyes. Sometimes squads of purple robed watchmen moved among them, their weapons swivelling about as they patrolled. Once the vehicles swerved around a towering bipedal automaton with a warrior sitting astride it. The machine stomped through the streets, rocking back-and-forth to its own graceless rhythm as its searchlight scoured the hovels.
This is a warzone, Voyle judged, or the tail end of one. Occupied territory.
They had been travelling for almost an hour when the road narrowed and carried them into a stretch of gutted manufactories. The vehicles slowed to a halt and Voyle heard a clamour from somewhere up ahead – presumably the watchmen disembarking.
‘Erzul, take a look,’ he ordered. The pathfinder nodded and clambered onto the truck’s cabin.
‘Something on the road ahead,’ she said. ‘Looks like another truck, but–’ She threw herself flat as a barrage of gunfire erupted from the ruins to their right. One of the gue’vesa snapped backwards and fell as a bullet punched into his face. Another ricocheted off Voyle’s helmet.
‘Stay low and return fire!’ Voyle shouted, ducking as bullets battered the vehicle’s sides. There was a chorus of electronic chimes as his troops activated their pulse rifles, followed by the sibilant whine of plasma bolts when they opened fire.
Voyle raised his head and scanned the ruins through his rifle’s scope, weaving about until he locked onto a figure lurking behind a broken window. His weapon pinged as he increased the magnification and drew his target into sharper focus. It was a man in ragged grey fatigues, his head protected by a rusty iron helmet painted with a stylized ‘M’. An archaic rebreather mask covered his mouth, its tubes snaking over his shoulders into a bulky backpack. Above the mask his eyes were bloodshot wounds in a pallid face riddled with scars and sores. He appeared to be in the terminal stages of some flesh-eating pestilence, yet he stood straight, unbowed by his bulky stubber gun.
This lot look worse than ours, Voyle decided sourly, lining up on the attacker’s face.
Before he could fire there was a voltaic crackle and a streak of light flayed his mark like an electric whip. The man convulsed as current played about him, igniting his clothes and charring his flesh. Voyle turned and saw the Warden marching across the building’s rubble-strewn courtyard with her watchmen following in a wide arc. Venting an electronic ululation, she seized a chunk of debris with her claw and hurled it at a crouching enemy. Simultaneously her rifle’s glassy barrel glowed blue and spat another jagged bolt into the ruins. Without slowing their stride, her troops fired a volley of explosive rounds in perfect synchronicity, every bullet finding a different foe.
‘They’re fighting as one,’ Voyle murmured, studying their lethal combat symmetry. He felt calm now, as if the skirmish had elevated him above his private damnation. The Voice was still there, oozing around the battlefield like an auricular spirit of war, but it almost made sense now.
Can they hear it too? Voyle wondered hazily as he slipped into harmony with the Order’s enforcers, becoming another cog in a precision killing machine, aiming and firing and executing the raiders without hesitation.
Bullets exploded around the advancing watchmen, frequently tearing through their robes and ricocheting off the armour beneath. The Warden appeared impervious, but occasionally one of her cohorts would jerk or stumble as a bullet penetrated its armour. One fell to its knees with a shattered leg, but continued to fire as its comrades marched on. Another took a round in the throat and toppled over.
‘They don’t lack courage!’ one of the gue’vesa yelled.
Maybe, Voyle thought, stirring from his combat reverie. Or maybe they just don’t know any better.
‘No heroics,’ he cautioned. ‘This isn’t our fight.’
And they don’t need us anyway, he gauged. The ambush was already faltering under the Warden’s counterattack. Whoever the raiders – or rebels? – were, they were woefully outclassed by the Order’s troops, but they were fighting to the bitter end.
This wasn’t a chance attack. The poor bastards threw everything they had at it. Why?
As the Warden reached the building a raider threw a grenade from the window above. She seared him with lightning and lashed out with her claw, snatching the grenade from the air and hurling it back, but it detonated a few metres above her. She staggered under the concussion, her augmetic arm whipping about as she fought for balance.
What…?
Voyle’s rifle pinged repeatedly as he zoomed in on her whirling limb. The explosion had torn away a patch of its armour, revealing not raw machinery but what looked like more plating, though it was rounded and dark blue in colour. Almost organic…
Like insect chitin.
Voyle froze, staring down his scope as the Warden recovered and stomped into the building, leaving him zoomed in on nothing but memories.
Void black eyes, holding him transfixed as the predator uncoils to embrace him…
‘Status report, Two?’ his helmet’s communicator hissed. The Stormlight.
‘One gue’vesa dead, one lightly wounded,’ Voyle answered automatically. ‘Situation under control, shas’el.’
‘Acknowledged, Two. Hold your position.’
As the last of the watchmen entered the building Voyle made up his mind.
‘Cover me,’ he ordered his squad and vaulted from the truck. Keeping his eyes on the injured watchman who’d been left behind, he sprinted to its fallen comrade. The warrior lay flat on its face, motionless.
What do you expect to find? Voyle asked himself as he knelt by th
e body.
A cold and thirsty poison awakening in his blood and watching the world through his eyes…
He heaved the warrior onto its back and a third arm slid free from its robes. Like the Warden’s ‘augmetic’, it was encased in segmented iron plates, but it ended in a scythe-like blade that was unmistakably bone.
‘Mutants,’ Voyle spat, feeling his gorge rise.
He appraised the gaping wound in the warrior’s throat. A large calibre round had torn right through it, almost decapitating the creature. Nothing human could have survived such trauma, but did that mean anything here? As he reached for its mask the subterranean swirl of the Voice surged into sudden clarity: ‘No…’
Voyle froze. That denial was the first meaningful word it had said to him – perhaps even the first time it had been truly aware of him.
‘You were never talking to me, were you?’ Voyle whispered, following a tenebrous intuition. ‘I was only ever listening in.’
‘No.’ The prohibition was more forceful now, yet it held no sway over him.
‘What don’t you want me to see?’ Voyle challenged. ‘Why–’
A bullet drilled into the ground by his feet. He turned and saw the kneeling watchman had levelled its rifle at him.
‘They’re yours, aren’t they?’ Voyle said to the Voice. ‘All of them.’
‘Go… now…’ it breathed. Now it had the key to his head it was learning fast. Did that mean it would start pulling his strings soon?
‘No,’ Voyle snarled back and activated his helmet’s transmitter. ‘Erzul, wounded watchman to my right. Take it out.’
A bright bolt lanced across the courtyard and erased the warrior’s head in a burst of plasma.
She didn’t hesitate, Voyle thought with grim satisfaction. I might be losing my mind, but my squad still trusts me.
Ignoring the Voice, he pulled the dead watchman’s mask aside. And froze.
Watching and waiting for the moment when he can claim another to feed the hunger that can never be sated…
Voyle switched his transmitter to the squad-wide channel. ‘Seize the vehicles,’ he ordered. ‘The watchmen are hostile. Take them down.’
He looked up and saw the Warden emerging from the building, doubtless summoned by her unseen master. Her helmet swung about, its visor slit pulsing with blue light as she scanned the battleground.
What’s under there? Voyle wondered, glancing back at the corpse. Its face was a travesty of humanity, with deeply recessed eyes and rubbery, mauve-hued skin. A chitinous ridge ran from its forehead to the bridge of its nose, beneath which its face erupted into a nest of pink tendrils. Many of them were still twitching, as if animated by a life of their own.
The Voice was gnawing at Voyle’s mind now, but he shut it out, sensing that every word it spoke would sink another root into his soul, like one of the corpse’s undying tendrils.
‘I’m not yours,’ he rasped as the gue’vesa opened fire on the watchmen.
‘Seize the vehicles,’ Voyle’s voice hissed inside Kyuhai’s helmet.
The Seeker acted without conscious thought, moving before the command had even concluded. The tone of Voyle’s first word was enough to tell him that the wheel of possibilities had turned, carrying them from diplomacy into conflict. The cause and consequences could be assessed later. For now only action mattered.
‘Do not be alarmed,’ Fai’sahl was saying beside him, responding to the muffled sounds of battle. ‘The watchmen will–’
Kyuhai’s armoured elbow slammed into the side of his head. As the emissary slumped over, the Seeker leapt up and surged towards the driver. The man turned and Kyuhai’s fist hammered between his eyes, throwing him against the wheel with stunning force. Fai’sahl had called the pale, hairless creature a timekeeper of the Fourth Rotation. Had he been one of the armoured warriors Kyuhai wouldn’t have risked holding back, but for now killing was best avoided.
‘The watchmen are hostile,’ Voyle’s warning continued as Kyuhai hauled the unconscious driver from his seat and took his place. ‘Take them down.’
‘What is happening, Seeker?’ Adibh asked, shocked by the sudden violence.
‘We are betrayed,’ Akuryo answered flatly, activating his pulse rifle. He had also heard the message, but his reaction had inevitably trailed behind Kyuhai’s.
‘See to your men, Stormlight,’ the Seeker commanded, assessing the controls. The car appeared to be standard gue’la technology – rudimentary, but robust. ‘We must return to the ship immediately.’
‘Understood.’ Akuryo opened the hatch and leapt out, slamming it closed behind him.
‘How may I serve?’ Adibh asked. Once again Kyuhai was impressed with her. She had adjusted quickly.
‘Search the emissary for weapons then alert the ship, por’el,’ he said. ‘The status code is mal’caor. Fio’vre, see to the driver.’
‘Yes, aun’el,’ they chorused.
What have you done, Voyle? Kyuhai wondered as he gunned the engine into life.
Voyle raced for the vehicles, weaving between piles of rubble as plasma bolts swept overhead and solid rounds exploded around him. Sometimes a whiplash of electricity crackled past, but he sensed that the Warden was only trying to slow him.
‘You want me alive,’ Voyle muttered between breaths, addressing the Voice. ‘You want to know… how I work… or why I don’t.’
Up ahead both the armoured car and the rearmost truck had begun to reverse along the road. Erzul and two other gue’vesa crouched in the truck’s back, exchanging fire with the watchmen. Unlike the raiders’ antiquated guns their pulse rifles punched through the mutants’ armour with ease, forcing them to stay in cover or die. Even the tank-like Warden had retreated behind a wall. Suddenly Voyle felt a ferocious pride in his xenos liberators. In a galaxy drowning in corruption they were surely the best – perhaps the only – hope.
‘Gue’vesa’ui, be swift!’ the Stormlight transmitted.
Voyle saw Akuryo leading the rest of his team against the lead truck. The Warden had left a pair of watchmen behind and they had taken cover behind the driver’s cabin, one on either side, where they held his comrades back with alternating volleys. Two gue’vesa were already down and Voyle cursed as another was blasted from her feet as she tried to flank the mutants.
‘Unity!’ he growled and swerved towards them, sighting down his rifle as he charged. It was a precision weapon, ill-suited to such assaults, but he knew its rhythms better than his own mind and his third shot brushed the nearest watchman’s hood, setting it alight. The fourth bored a molten crater into its chest as it turned, throwing it backwards. An obscene hissing bubbled from behind its flame-wreathed mask as it tried to level its rifle at him. With a roar of loathing, Voyle barrelled into it, sending it crashing into its comrade. The impact threw him to the ground, but he kept firing, riddling the entangled watchmen with plasma bolts. He didn’t stop, not even when they fell – then fell still. His hatred was too deep. Too hungry…
And the hunger gazes back at him from the void it has carved out in his soul. And then it speaks, for it has a Voice: ‘Voyle…’
‘Voyle!’ someone shouted, hauling him up. He stifled a snarl as he recognised the Stormlight.
‘We must go!’ his commander snapped.
‘The truck…’
‘No time! More enemies come.’ The Fire Warrior jabbed his rifle at the road ahead. A bipedal walker was striding through the wreckage of the vehicle that had blocked the convoy’s path. It was similar to the one Voyle had spotted earlier, but its saddle was fitted with a massive cannon. The gun’s spinning barrel was still smoking from the destruction it had just wreaked on the obstruction.
‘Move, Voyle!’
They sprinted after the retreating vehicles, following the surviving soldier who had accompanied Akuryo. Both the captured vehicles had picked up speed now, but t
hey were still hobbled by their inability to turn on the narrow road. As the fleeing trio drew level with the car a bolt of electricity struck the gue’vesa, throwing him against the vehicle. Voyle leapt over the charred corpse that rebounded into his path and glanced over his shoulder. The Warden was marching across the rubble in pursuit, flanked by her surviving watchmen. Worse still, the strider was bearing down on the car with frightening speed, its cannon spinning up to fire. Moments later a storm of high-velocity rounds rained down on its prey.
We’re done, Voyle realised, ducking as ricochets whistled past him.
Suddenly the car thrust forward, its engine roaring as it accelerated towards its hunter. The strider lurched off the road, but the vehicle veered after it, its iron-shod tires clattering over the debris. There was a thunderous crash as it rammed the automaton. The strider’s legs buckled and its saddle plunged forward, sliding along the car’s roof and ploughing a deep fissure in its wake. Voyle and Akuryo dived aside as the wreckage hurtled past them, still bearing its stiff-backed rider and cannon. The gun detonated when it hit the road, vomiting a fireball into the dark sky.
‘Sacred Throne,’ Voyle growled, dredging up the old Imperial curse as the car whirled out of control and overturned. It spun about on its roof, shedding armour as it screeched along the ground. Caught in its path, the Warden was swept up and ground down, along with the watchmen flanking her. Finally the car’s momentum gave out, leaving it wedged halfway up a mound of rubble.
‘The Seeker!’ Akuryo yelled over the transmitter. He was already on his feet and racing towards the wreckage.
‘Rouse yourself, por’el,’ the Seeker commanded, his calm voice cutting through the cacophony that lingered in Adibh’s ears. Ignoring the protests of her battered body, she uncurled from the foetal huddle she’d adopted and rolled to her knees. Kyuhai’s sensor-studded faceplate loomed into view, appraising her.
‘You are fortunate,’ the Seeker pronounced. ‘Did you send the signal?’
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