by Guy Haley
‘Illegal activities,’ said Kellendvar. ‘Crimes committed for profit, that have already tainted our ranks.’
Skraivok held up his finger. ‘Done maliciously, I agree, but done purposefully, it is useful. The recruitment procedures have been reformed. This new crop are among the worst of all men. Sending them to us is a benefit to the home world and our Legion. Everyone wins!’ His sharp laugh abruptly ceased. ‘Except perhaps those we are unleashed upon. Our Lord Curze demands we be a weapon of fear. What is more fearsome than a boy who would kill without compunction? Or take his pleasure as he will, without regard to others?’
‘The stock we have received lately has been poor,’ said Kellendvar, pressing his objection. ‘Why celebrate it?’
‘It was poor only because it was poorly handled,’ snapped Skraivok. ‘You are being rather objectionable considering the nature of your brother, Kellendvar. Kellenkir is the kind of man I am talking about. He is fearless and fearsome.’
Kellendvar made a noise of annoyance, amplified by his helm to a growl. If Skraivok heard over the clattering deck he did not remark upon it.
‘It is true this kind of recruit will not respond well to psycho-indoctrination or appeals to higher morality. We must exploit their natures. Their drives are of the baser sort, and therefore easy to control. I shall alter the training regimen of the Forty-fifth Company to suit, don’t you worry.’
The ship’s flat, broad prow entered the hangar, the integrity field sectioning it with a blue line as the craft eased in. Vapour chilled from the air swirled over the metal. A klaxon blared. Lights snapped on around the ship’s designated landing bay, summoning the ship into berth and sending servitors trudging out of the way.
Engines sighing, the ship entered the Umber Prince, the largest the hangar could take, its outspread atmospheric wings passing scant metres from the edges of the slot. Plasma jets shrieked, brushing black rings onto the dull deck. Grav plating thrummed as it reversed to cushion the ship’s mass.
Almost delicately, landing claws clicked upon the metal. The ship eased down upon its hydraulics, swallowing greased pistons into its bulk, and there squatted, ticking and groaning from the exertions of flight.
A high ranking Legion serf strode towards the vessel, full of the self-importance of little men. Skraivok’s ungentle hand in his path took the wind from his sails as well as his lungs.
‘I will take it from here,’ said Gendor Skraivok.
Taking care not to show the breath was knocked from him, the serf bowed and held out a data-slate. ‘As you wish, my lord captain. New recruits.’
‘I am aware,’ said Skraivok. ‘Find yourself other business for a minute. Wait with your serviles.’ He looked to the small block of serfs in medicae white ready to take the recruits to the apothecarium. ‘Over there. With them,’ he said, when the official was slow in responding.
The man bowed again. ‘My lord.’ He rejoined his men.
‘The first thing these new warriors should see is the might of what they will become – not meek serfs bowing and scraping, but lords of the stars!’ Skraivok waved the data-slate at the headsman, beckoning him to follow.
A single gangplank descended midway down the ship’s fuselage. A pair of human recruit masters came out first, shock goads ready. After them shuffled a pack of blinking youths in irons who hid their confusion behind defiant, killer’s stares. More recruit masters brought up the rear.
‘Fine additions to our ranks,’ said Kellendvar sarcastically.
‘Silence now, headsman,’ said Skraivok. ‘You are becoming as insolent as your brother, a characteristic I do not approve of.’
The Painted Count walked under the creaking hull, and stopped before the small crowd of recruits. The recruit masters parted, allowing the boys to see their lord.
‘I am Gendor Skraivok, Claw-Master of the Forty-fifth Company. Your new master.’
He let them process the information, relishing the fear lurking under the boys’ bravado. ‘You are here at the command of the lords of Nostramo, chosen for your murderous and pitiless natures,’ he said. ‘In less enlightened times, you would have died for your misdeeds, but we shall make use of you!’
Skraivok made a point of staring into the eyes of each one, noting which looked afraid, and those who showed no emotion at all.
He pulled his fingers down his face, following the twin streaks of sooty black tattooed over his eyes. ‘These marks here were given to me by my father. Not our Lord Curze, but my birth father, who demanded that his sons be strong, and unafraid. My father was the master of his own destiny, who, even in the ordered realm the great primarch ordained Nostramo to be, was feared and mighty. Though I am of noble birth, I spent much of my childhood running with the likes of you, in the poison rain of the hive slums, choked by pollution, hunted by those who thought themselves stronger than me. I killed my first man when I was ten. My second days later. My father declared me the strongest of his sons, and marked me so to display it.’ He pointed at various youths wearing similar marks. ‘Like you, who also bear the marks of strength. “You will never look out from anything but shadow now,” my father said as the tattooist’s needle stung me. I relished the pain for the approval it showed. I am a murderer. I was born in a society of murderers. I am proud of my heritage, a true son of the sunless world! You should be proud too. We will not change your nature, but hone it.’
He let his words die in the general noise of the deck.
‘You will know suffering greater than any artist’s needle. Your bodies will be marked by more than crude sigils. When the pain is done, you will be reforged, given power to spread terror in the Emperor’s name.’ He held up his hand, his pauldron shifting with a growl to accommodate the movement. ‘We are Night Lords, the glorious Eighth, we look to our gene-father, the fabled Night Haunter, who would have slaughtered you all for your crimes were he still upon Nostramo. You will serve him instead. Purge your sins with blood and pain. Murder and maim for the good of humanity, with the words “Ave Dominus Nox” forever on your lips. You owe your allegiance to him now, the master of the night.’ He paused. ‘But your obedience belongs to me, your captain, your claw-master.’ He paused again, and lowered his voice, pitching it so it still carried over the noise. ‘I welcome you who will successfully endure the process of apotheosis into our brotherhood. Those who fail will still know a life of meaningful toil as serfs, if you survive. All of you have a second chance – the purgation of sin through service, the dispensation of justice through terror.’
Skraivok finished. There was no applause. He gave the youths one last imperious stare, then signalled the recruit masters and the apothecarion staff.
‘Take them away. Begin testing and implantation immediately.’
The boys trooped by. A few were shaking. A handful glared at the legionaries with naked hostility. Skraivok chuckled indulgently. Kellendvar lunged at them, making them jump and stumble over their chains. He snorted at their fear.
‘They are wretches,’ said Kellendvar. His voice was leaden through his vox grille.
‘At this moment, yes,’ said Skraivok, ‘but with them we shall reforge this Legion in a new image, a cadre of killers like no other before it, merciless, without conscience. Let others be the sword of the Emperor. We shall be its dagger in the night!’
‘They are weak, Gendor, murderers, criminals. You should not give them this power.’
‘So, I should take it away from your brother too?’
‘This is madness! Inform the primarch. Kill these cattle. No good will come of this.’
‘I will not, and neither will you. Their weakness is their strength,’ said Skraivok. ‘They will hearken to a strong leader. They will be faithful. They will be loyal, you will see.’
‘Loyal to the Legion, or to you?’ said Kellendvar.
Gendor Skraivok smiled.
TEN
CARRION WORLD
‘Men like Gendor Skraivok were the first hints of the wickedness that would befall my
Legion,’ said Curze to his corpse statue. ‘Selfish, interested only in power. There were many like him. In my impatience to see your vision fulfilled, I marginalised them rather than purging them, relying on the most faithful, men like Sevatar. Sevatar understood, he saw the need for fear to bring order to the galaxy. My other captains were allowed to wage war as they liked so long as they achieved my objectives. I did not pay their misdeeds enough attention. By the time I noticed the rot, it had run its roots deep into the heart of many companies.’ His face wrinkled in disdain. ‘I was better alone. You made me a general, yet did not give me the capacity to act like one. So many errors, father.’
He flipped through his book, smiling at certain passages, scowling at others. ‘Such a thing it is, to write a book. I am tempted now to scratch whole sections out and begin them again, but then, that would result in a different book. What has been set down must be preserved. It can only be changed so much, until it is a new thing altogether, and the truth of its original nature lost.’ He closed the book and stalked around the chamber, passing around the back of his mock-father, stepping over the savaged body of the unfortunate slave. He straightened, adopting the air of a man dictating a letter, or a scholam master lecturing his students. ‘I was never true to myself, always trying to do what you expected of me, for little thanks. When I came here again, to this place, I realised that I had to stop trying. I had to embrace my fate. I am a monster, father, and should be punished for it. That is what I am, and that is where my destiny leads.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Why fight it?’
Flashes of things yet to be forced themselves into Elver’s nightmares.
Giants clad in armour the colour of midnight storms crowded him, each so huge he felt small as a rat. Dust raced through a chill atmosphere, stinging his skin, scratching his eyes.
Konrad Curze looked at him for one last time, and Elver saw he did not care at all what happened to him.
Dozens of pairs of slanted ruby eyes shone their malevolence upon Elver.
‘My lord!’ he cried.
An armoured hand reached for him.
Gentle trilling woke Elver from his troubled sleep, not that he experienced any other kind. He rolled over, his single eye bleary, the numbers on the chronograph swimming in his vision.
In primitive digital sticks of green, the chronograph displayed the time and the subjective date. Neither of these measures were as important as the third set of data, a countdown ticking towards zero.
He stared at it, not believing that after so long it was nearing the end.
‘It’s time,’ he said.
He rubbed his left hand over his face. It’d taken him a long time to get used to doing that with his left rather than his right. Scars ran down his cheeks from the time he’d forgotten the augmetic claw Curze had given him for a right hand.
He groaned, and sat on the edge of the bed. There was recaff to be drunk, and a long day ahead, but first a small moment of contemplation. This was a momentous occasion, long in coming.
The time had come to prep the ship for deceleration.
It took him three attempts to stand. Curze’s boredom had cost Elver dearly.
In the years since his arrival, Curze had taken three more of Elver’s fingers, the lower half of his left leg – not all of it gone in one easy session, but nibbled away, centimetre by centimetre over months. Curze had torn out Elver’s right eye in a night of terror that still made him want to scream. A smooth patch of skin crossed by an ugly, puckered scar covered over the socket.
The worst injury was to Elver’s right arm. That was the one that had nearly killed him. One evening, Curze had pounced on him without warning, borne him away and, tittering madly, had peeled the skin from his forearm and hand with such agonising slowness that Elver had begged that he rip it off in one go to get it over with. Curze had left him in a bloody heap. He’d contracted an infection shortly after, and nearly died.
When the primarch returned, it was to save him. Elver’s simpering gratitude for the crude augmetic Curze replaced his arm with shocked him. He came closest to becoming a snivelling cur at that point. Afterwards, he expected to break, waited for it, but it never happened. Under pressure, part of Elver’s being compressed into a small, cold diamond, and this place of strength became a harbour for his sanity. As bad as things got, he never went mad, he never broke; he prided himself on that, and Curze seemed to respect him for it. An equilibrium of sorts was struck between defiance and deference, and between terror and Elver’s determination to survive. There was no other way to be. There was nowhere to hide. Curze could hear Elver’s heart from the other end of the vessel. He could taste his fear on the air. The multiple locks and bars Elver put on his door were little barrier to the primarch’s strength, but he used them anyway.
Elver reflected on these things as he limped through the Sheldroon. Without maintenance from Overton’s piratical crew, the ship had suffered. A lot of the things that he needed to do could no longer be controlled from the command deck. He was prepared for a long day.
As he worked, he waited for Curze to appear and butcher another part of his body. Respect did not stop the primarch; he couldn’t help himself. Curze paid no attention to Elver’s pleas, or his tears, not when the darkness was on him. But after each session of abuse he would treat Elver as if nothing had happened. Sometimes, he would spend time with Elver, and instruct him in various matters. In those rare days Elver glimpsed the regal being beneath the filth. Elver’s world expanded under his tutelage even as, on other occasions, his body was whittled away, knife stroke by knife stroke, by the ragged king.
For much of the voyage Elver didn’t see Curze. Weeks could go by when he had no idea where the primarch was lurking. Occasionally he found evidence of the primarch’s presence. One time, he came across a hundred rats crucified on tiny crosses, each one’s abdominal cavity carefully opened and pinned back. Several were still alive, their tiny hearts twitching. The amount of work Curze must have done to create this macabre display chilled him more than anything. Against this background of fear, Elver attempted to do his duties as best he could until, in the end, terror became mundane.
He reached a switchboard for the starboard thruster array. The remote system to set the ship for directional change had burned out, and he’d needed to wire in the controls directly. He checked his makeshift repairs to the activation circuit. It looked like it still worked. If it didn’t, then the thrusters wouldn’t fire to flip the ugly freighter around, and they’d carry on their merry way forever.
He closed the box door.
He missed Curze when he was absent.
Throughout the pain and the boredom, the Sheldroon coasted on towards Tsagualsa. It ran quietly, its halls host to nothing but ghosts and rats creeping up from the bilges, its lumens dimming and dying one by one.
Elver limped painfully to the enginarium. The arm was the only gift Curze gave him. His stolen leg was replaced by a simple peg of metal he’d had to make himself. It had amused Curze to shorten his leg further after Elver had made it, so it had never fit right. Elver was no metalsmith, and the leg was uncomfortable, its cup socket chafing perpetually at his stump.
Simple freighters like the Sheldroon lacked the giant propulsive units and the reactors to power them that mightier craft possessed, relying for the most part on inertia. Nevertheless, the energy required to accelerate to its top speed was considerable, as was that required to slow back down. Elver had waited for this moment for twenty months, looking forward so much to the break in his monotonous existence that it had become something of an obsession. Turning over such a long and cumbersome ship was a technically challenging exercise, especially when undertaken alone. Now it had come, he found the preparation tedious. It went on and on, and so much could go wrong.
The last few hours were hectic. There was a little leeway to his deadline, but not enough, and the final moment he could possibly fire the main engines rushed at him with terrifying speed.
By the time all was done, he w
as tired. His aching eye stared into the lights of false stars hanging in the bridge cartolith. He’d checked it a thousand times already, but felt the need to key his calculations into the ship’s primitive astrogator one final time. Its simple logic engine hummed inside its dented casting. Eventually, the green indicator lumen came on with an audible snap, and flickered at him impatiently, the same way it had done every other time.
Elver grunted, then went around the bridge priming switches and rerouting key controls to the command throne. He hauled himself over and sat down. Fragments of the chains with which Curze had bound him to the seat still hung there. The blood of the crew clung blackly to the deck, years later, reduced to a kind of tar. Once he’d got the heat back on in there, it had rotted slowly, stinking the place out for weeks. Only stains remained of human life. He didn’t even notice them anymore.
He pulled the brass keyboard over his lap, and activated the control systems.
Everything was ready. He looked behind him, half expecting the primarch’s abyssal eyes to glitter in the gloom there, but there was no sign of him. Elver was disappointed.
‘Activate,’ he said, to no one, and activated the attitudinal thrusters. A growing pressure pushed down on him as the ship swung about on its axis. ‘No going back now,’ he muttered.
Moments of crisis came and went, each headed off before it became disaster. Adrenaline granted him speed and focus. Once the ship was turned, he spooled up the main drive and ignited its plasma jets. The final act went unexpectedly smoothly. Before he knew it, they were slowing down.