THE TONE OF Tchaq's voice deepened. 'That's bad,' he said. 'Could be messy. But there's some better news. At least we'll have company.'
The inquisitor's features lit up in delight. For a moment, Danielle expected him to drop his saddle-bags and hug her. 'How many safe?' he demanded. 'Grunland among them?'
'Grunland, aye. Franca too; Plovitch and Van Meer. Their raft hit the hills about sixty kilometres north. Took it worse than ours.
Brody was aboard but didn't make it. Rest of them flamed with the ship.'
Valdez tapped the vox-comm thoughtfully. 'Not bad,' Survival rate had exceeded probability; as much as could be expected.
'Get back to Grunland with my commendation. Explain the position and tell him to get his men to the northern approach to Mordessa, and no further. We'll meet them there. Now, what about Kar Duniash?'
'All the military channels are shot. We'll have to try and pick up one of the freight circuits. Golun's working on it. It'll take time, that's all.'
Valdez made a brief inspection of their Cabellan guides. Six thin youths fidgeted uneasily in the saddle, waiting for the order to move out.
The inquisitor frowned. 'Tech-priest, are you still needed out there?'
Tchaq sounded non-committal. 'I could stay here supervising Golun. Fact is, he can patch in a commnet with his eyes closed.'
'In that case you'll be more use with us. If you set off within the hour we'll rendezvous well before nightfall.'
There was a pause. 'And how am I supposed to get there, with no transport?'
Valdez grinned nastily. 'Then treat yourself to some exercise, tech-priest! Your legs could use stretching. And, Tchaq—'
'Yes, sir?'
'Well done.'
THE METALLED ROAD out of the settlement beat a path through scenes from a well-run war. The land was cut into vast squares, fields of cultivated vegetation stretching to the horizons. Where the man-made plateaux ended, legions of alien plant life erupted like a virus, tracing the lines of demarcation, slicing up the face of the land into chessboard squares.
As the journey wore on, closer to the site of Mordessa, the terms of the battle altered. Men grew sparse in the fields, then disappeared. The hard-fought squares of industry became straggling expanses of thin, untended crops. Even the tangle-weeds had given up. Grey rather than green, they sprouted now in intermittent, limp clusters, as though the land had lost all nourishment.
In time the idle chatter of the Cabellan troopers gave way to an uneasy silence. By late afternoon, new growths were flourishing amidst the wild corn: strange black fungi like mutated rain-spore. They oozed a scent of death.
'Over here!'
A sturdy figure was striding through the field towards them, pushing through the crops and rotting fungus. Tchaq was perspiring under the weight of a disproportionately huge field gun that he'd salvaged from the raft. He was propelling himself towards the riders at a brisk pace, powered in equal measure by determination and bitter curses.
He reached the roadway, keeping a wary eye on the Cabellan troop. 'What's this then? More frightened jackrabbits?'
Valdez laughed. 'A band of heroes to fight for the Imperium. What news?'
Tchaq spat against his sleeve and polished the gun barrel with great deliberation. 'Golun's got it in hand. He'll have Kar Duniash for us, soon enough.'
Valdez nodded, satisfied. 'Ride up here with me. With luck we'll reach the village soon after dusk.'
NIGHT CAME QUICKLY, as though the dark growths thickening in the fields were leeching the light from the sky. The smooth paved roadway had become no more than a rutted, overgrown path. Few travellers had ventured this way.
Danielle reached out with her mind, beyond Tchaq's taciturn fatalism and the inquisitor's sharpening scent for slaughter, into the gathering night. She saw no shadow of living man, but somewhere in the gloom ahead she sensed the first stirrings in a darker well, its epicentre a pool of blackness so deep the universe itself might drown within it.
Somewhere a clock, long stopped, began to mark time again. Old wounds began to re-open.
They had reached their journey's end.
At first sight Mordessa could have been just another small colony village. A crop of low buildings nestled together in a shallow valley, a spire visible above the rooftops. But, off to one side, Danielle saw other structures. The remains of walls, fluted and curved, inlaid with strange, spiral patterns. Something in their line and form suggested an older, prehuman presence, as though the pioneers of the Imperium had built their village beside the remnants of another, long departed race.
Now Mordessa, too, was dead. As they drew closer the village was revealed as a charcoal shell, a skeletal frame of scorched iron and blackened timber. The spire presided over a grave.
The Cabellan captain shook his head ruefully. 'This is an unlucky place.'
«Deathwing»
Edited by Marc Gascoigne & Andy Jones
Danielle dismounted and followed Valdez down the path to a barricade of rusting razor wire. A signboard, faded and rotten, still clung tenuously to the fence. The legend had been obscured but the crude depiction of a skull was still clear enough. The warning hadn't been heeded. Just beyond the path, the fence had been prised apart.
The sound of feet slithering on stones somewhere in the darkness ahead of them. Cabellan fingers sweated on rifle stocks. A voice called out in greeting: 'Hold your fire. Friend!'
The inquisitor's expression betrayed his astonishment. 'Van Meer?' He spoke softly seeking corroboration from his companions.
Tchaq shook his head slowly in disbelief. 'He's a better man than I. It should have taken them another hour to reach this place.'
Danielle stayed silent. The voice was van Meer's, she needed no special powers to recognize that. And yet - she bit back a warning word as a tall, powerfully built figure dressed in the night colours of the Third Army of Kar Duniash emerged from the shadows.
Sergeant van Meer strode up the road leading from Mordessa, an unidentifiable load straddling his broad shoulders. The grin on his face was almost as wide.
Inquisitor Valdez returned his salute. 'Greetings, sergeant. The Third Army surpasses itself yet again.'
'Captain Granland's felicitations, your worship. He sends you this little offering,' He shifted his load over on to one shoulder. 'Rich pickings.'
The body of a man tumbled from the sack on to the ground.
Valdez turned to the Cabellans. 'Gestartes?'
The troop captain, Tolmann, nodded nervously. 'That's him. The Emperor knows, he never did us any harm.'
'Nor will he, now. Van Meer, how did you come by this fortuitous catch?'
'Our paths met as we approached the village from the east. The mutant ran into our arms. He was so ripe with the sickness of evil, he barely knew where he was.'
Van Meer flourished his bolt pistol. 'A few rounds of this was all the medicine he needed.'
Gestartes stared up at the stars, dead eyes fixed in a mask of blistered wax.
Valdez prodded the corpse with booted foot. 'We'll take this and burn it,' he said moughtfully. 'Are the rest of the men far?'
'Not far at all. Captain Grunland's searching the village as a precautionary measure.'
'Good. Let's hope this one's the last of an unwelcome line.'
'I'm sure of it,' van Meer said. 'I've met these diseased mutants before, on Edmund's World. See this—' He turned Gestartes's face with one heel, exposing a dark crop of subcutaneous welts. 'Until these pretties blossom out, the infection can't take. We caught him just in time.'
Not true. A voice, anonymous but certain, spoke in Danielle's mind.
'Where did your raft crash?' She asked the question even before she was fully aware of it. Van Meer looked perplexed, taken aback. 'What?'
Vexed, Valdez turned to her, but his words were lost. The nebulous darkness which had been bearing down on her suddenly focused. The raft crashed here. Not in the hills. They never left the village.
Valde
z was striding out to meet van Meer, hand extended. Danielle reached deep into the soldier's mind. The physical outline of van Meer faded out of mindsight. Beneath it—
'Valdez - wait!'
The moment froze. Valdez stood only feet away from the sergeant, surprise turning to anger.
Danielle was taken off-guard by the urgency in her own voice. Then she found the words. 'Don't get near him. That's not van Meer any more. Van Meer's dead.'
The Cabellans slipped the safety catches on their rifles.
Van Meer had stopped in his tracks, astonishment on his face. 'What's this?' he appealed. 'What sort of welcome is this for the Third Army? A mad psyker and a gang of blood-lusty farmhands?'
No one spoke. Valdez looked at Tchaq. The tech-priest's face was unreadable, but his fingers drummed gently against the trigger of his gun.
'Your worship,' van Meer implored. 'We must send word back to sector command.'
The sound of feet pacing carefully on stones behind him. Van Meer's glance flicked briefly rearwards. His eyes were eager, sparkling. 'Kar Duniash,' he insisted. 'They could have a ship here for us in a matter of days.'
'Yes,' Valdez agreed softly. 'They could.'
Further down the path to the village, a second figure stepped from the shadows. 'Trouble, sergeant?'
'A little, sir.' Van Meer fixed his eyes squarely on the horsemen. 'The lord inquisitor's been badly advised.'
'I see.'
Danielle looked from Valdez to Granland. The squad captain was staying well back by the cover of a ruined outhouse, his face illuminated peach-blonde in a shaft of moonlight.
'Not to worry, your worship,' Grunland shouted to Valdez. 'We'll leave these oafs here to play with their toys. As for the psyker,'
his gaze rested on Danielle, 'maybe she'd have been better fitted for the Emperor's table after all.' Grunland smirked contemptuously. 'The village is clean, sir. Time to move off.'
Tchaq nudged his mount forward a few paces. 'Keen to get going, aren't we?'
'Of course. The sooner we—'
One of the horses suddenly reared. Instinctively, van Meer spun round, hand slicing down for his gun. Before he reached it, six rifles blazed. The sergeant was picked off his feet and thrown backwards on to the path.
Utter silence. Even the horses were still.
Van Meer's body twitched, spasmodically at first, then the spasms became co-ordinated movement. Slowly, steadily, the bear-like figure rose to its feet. Even in the darkness there was no doubt most of the bullets had found their mark. The Imperial uniform had
«Deathwing»
Edited by Marc Gascoigne & Andy Jones
been torn open across the chest, twisted shards of bone bursting from the ruptured cavity. The lower part of van Meer's jaw had been blasted away. Remnants of a mouth opened in a cavernous smile, dripping a thick, yellow pus.
Fear ran through the Cabellan troop like bushfire. Valdez snarled.
The creature which had been van Meer turned, but Valdez was faster. The bolt pistol spat four rounds before van Meer had a chance to draw. His features atomized, bone and muscle spewing out in a dark mist. The headless monster toppled, and stayed down.
Another burst of bolt fire; Tchaq was aiming shots at a target further down the path: Grunland.
'Save it,' Valdez commanded. 'We've lost him for the moment.'
He gave the order to dismount. The Cabellan riders circled the remains of the sergeant then dismounted warily.
The inquisitor beckoned Danielle towards the breach in the wire. 'Now's your chance to serve the Imperium. Can you read any trace of them in there?'
Danielle closed her eyes to the night and concentrated on the ebb and flow of aura in the village below. She sensed evil stirring like a slow breeze through the blackened buildings, but only in a general, enveloping swell of unrest. She couldn't focus it.
One thing was sure. However many living men had set foot inside the village, no flicker of a human soul now remained.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'We'll have to get closer.'
Valdez grunted, a neutral tone that was neither acceptance nor displeasure. 'You,' he said to Tolmann. 'Is there any other way in, except for this path?'
Tolmann hesitated. Like a thief, Danielle lifted a word from his mind. 'Styras?' she asked. 'Tell us about that.'
The Cabellan's frightened eyes widened further in amazement. 'Who gave you that name?'
'You did,' she said simply. 'Now tell us.'
'Mordessa lies in a valley,' Tolmann explained. 'But for this road, it's cut off by a deep pool. Styrus.'
'But the pool may be crossed?' It was more assertion than question.
The Cabellan looked up at her and rightly guessed it was pointless to deny. 'There's a crossing, of sorts - west of the village. A line of stones. It's said a man with a good eye can leap from each stone from the next.'
'Said?'
Tolmann wrung his hands. 'No one goes across there. The lake stands guard on Mordessa. Styrus is a name from old times.'
Styrus. A name from the old times - from before humanity came to this world. A psychic legacy left for the pioneers. Ancient, alien words took shape like a warning in Danielle's mind. Stoi Yn Ra. The One Who Waits. She mought again of the strange, spiral structures lying in the village. For an instant her mind filled with another image, a scene frozen in time, plucked from the forgotten age. She saw battle rage amongst the silver-green facades where Mordessa now stood. She saw alien creatures, half-man, half-amphibian, beset by the forces of eternal darkness. She saw death; the silver structures laid to rain.
'Old times,' Tolmann repeated. 'Dark times. Legend has it that—'
'I don't want your legends,' Valdez interrupted. 'Times are dark enough now. If there's one small chance of getting into that village without walking naked into the hornets' nest then we're going to take it.'
Tolmann lapsed into gloomy silence, but Danielle read the unspoken words in his mind: the undead.
Emboldened by the same sense of doom, a second trooper approached. 'Sir, wouldn't it be better to return with reinforcements by daylight?'
Tchaq laughed, hoarse and rasping. 'Daylight? None of us'll see daylight again if we turn our backs now.'
'Wise words,' Valdez agreed. 'Whatever abominations are in there, they won't let us go now. We finish them, or they us. Got that?'
'Nine against three,' Tchaq goaded the Cabellans. 'Aren't the odds good enough for you?'
He lifted his gun and peered through the sights. 'What about you?' he asked Danielle. 'Can you weave a spell or two with one of these?'
'I call on other powers.'
Valdez loaded another machine clip into his pistol. 'We'll see about that, won't we? Now, let's move before they cut us down where we stand.'
They turned off the path and skirted through overgrown woodland rising above and away from the village. The forest was dark, air foul with the reek of the grey fungal cancer matted in a canopy over the brittle husks of dead trees, masking off the sky above.
Occasional spears of moonlight pierced the gloom, casting pale silver pools amongst the rotting vegetation. Twice the ember glow of watching eyes blinked out on the riders, but there was no sign of pursuit.
At length the path turned downwards again. The forest thinned; the ground grew soft and marshy underfoot. Horse hooves sluiced through shallow, stagnant ponds.
'There. Down below,' Tolmann indicated beyond the edge of the trees where moonlight blistered on a screen of water. 'Styras,'
On the far side of the lake, the dark outlines of Mordessa. Between them and the village, just visible, a line of smooth stones across the water. The crossing wouldn't be easy, and they would have to leave the horses behind.
Tchaq cursed quietly, distrustful of the slick, black water.
Valdez slapped the tech-priest across the back. 'Don't worry. We'll see if we can't save you a swim.'
'No one swims in there,' muttered Tolmann. Looking like a man condemned, he began to coax his ho
rse down towards the water's edge.
As they passed into the narrow clearing between forest and pool, Danielle felt a white-hot stab of warning. 'Look out!' she shouted. 'They've seen us!'
A metallic whine cut open the night. A Cabellan trooper was catapulted from his horse. The others scrambled for the cover of the trees as the young soldier lay shaking on the earth, life pumping inexorably from a raw fissure in his guts.
Valdez leapt from his horse and dropped to the ground beside Tchaq. 'Foul gods! What was that?'
«Deathwing»
Edited by Marc Gascoigne & Andy Jones
Tchaq swore and spat a mouthful of dirt. 'Nightfire rifle. If they've salvaged a couple of those they'll pick us off like cattle.'
The Cabellans loosed off a volley of shots across the water. The answering blast struck Tolmann, pulling off an arm like meat ripped from a carcass.
The Cabellan captain lay on the ground, screams drowning the echo of the shot.
'Shut him up in the Emperor's name,' Valdez commanded, 'or they'll have the lot of us.'
Danielle cradled the soldier's head in her hands, dulling lobes of pain until death came. As she lowered Tolmann's body with a silent prayer, a solid form shifted on the fringes of her mindsight.
'There!' she whispered. 'I can sense one of them now. Across the lake. There's a boathouse at the waterfront.'
Valdez raised his head a few inches from cover.
'We'll have to draw him out. No use blasting away at shadows.'
'Seven to three,' Tchaq commented grimly. 'And narrowing.'
Valdez turned at the sound of wood crackling under hooves, just in time to see the Cabellans galloping back into the forest. 'Make that even odds, Tchaq.'
Tchaq clambered to his feet. 'Damn them. I've had enough of wallowing on my belly like some swamp beast,' he declared. 'If we're going to draw them out, we'll have to give them a tasty morsel to aim at.'
He began to advance into the open. 'And let's hope you shoot better than they do, inquisitor.'
The dark outline of an Imperial Guard shimmered in Danielle's mind. 'He's seen Tchaq. He's moving to the door of the house. Aim to the left. Further.' The image solidified; she saw Franca squared within the sights of the inquisitor's pistol.
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