Void Stalker (20 page)

‘It is rare because they have no focus. I will deal with that. We have Mechanicum adepts among our crew – they will make planetfall and attend to your flawed equipment. We will then broadcast these images to the other cities, as a sign of what comes for them.’

The archregent’s mouth was dry. ‘You will give them time to organise resistance?’ There was no hiding the hope in his voice.

‘Nothing on this world is capable of resisting us,’ answered Talos. ‘They are free to prepare however they wish.’

‘What is the Mechanicum?’

‘You would know it by their slave-name: the
Adeptus Mechanicus
.
’
Talos fairly spat the cult’s Imperial title. ‘Cy?’

Cyrion walked over, his eyes never leaving the burning city. He hungered to be down there – they all did – and it showed in the movement of every muscle.

‘You are enjoying this,’ he said, seeing no need to make it a question.

Talos’s nod was subtle enough to almost go unseen. ‘It reminds me of the days before the Great Betrayal.
’

And that was true enough. In that age, in the farthest, shadowed reaches of the Emperor’s Light, the Eighth Legion had slaughtered whole cities to ‘inspire’ the other settlements across a given world into obedience
of
Imperial Law. ‘Peace through justice,’ Talos said. ‘And justice through fear of punishment.’

‘Aye. It reminds me of the same. But most of our brothers down there are doing it for the thrill of the hunt, and the pleasure of slaughtering terrified mortals. Remember that, before you graft a false layer of high ideals over what we do here.’

‘I am no longer so deluded,’ Talos admitted. ‘I know what we are. But they do not need to share my ideals for my plan to work.’

‘
Will
this work?’ Cyrion asked. ‘We are on the wrong side of the Imperium’s border. They may never know what we do here.’

‘They will know,’ said Talos. ‘Trust me, they will hear this, and come running.’

‘Then my advice is this: we should not be here when they arrive. We are down to four
C
laws, brother. After this, we have to return to the Eye, and link up with whatever Legion forces we can ally with there.’

Talos nodded again, but said nothing.

‘Are you even listening to me?’ Cyrion asked.

‘Just get me the astropaths.’

They numbered one
hundred and thirty-eight in total. The astropaths marched in as a disorderly pack, dressed in the same ragged clothing so typical of Sanctuary’s citizens and the detritus caste of humanity found on frontier worlds across the Imperium’s edges.

Yuris of the newly-organised Second Claw led them in. Blood marked his armour in dry splotches.

‘There was a struggle,’ he admitted. ‘We tore our way into their guild shelter, and seven of them died. The rest of them came without a fight.’

‘A ragged conclave,’ Talos noted, walking around the prisoners. An equal mix of men and women; most of them were filthy. Several were children. Most interesting of all, none of them were blind.

‘They still have their eyes,’ Yuris said, noting Talos’s stare. ‘Will they still be of use to us if they’ve not been soul-bound to the False Emperor’s Throne?’

‘I believe so. They are not a true choir, and enslavement to the Golden Throne has not refined their power. In truth, they are barely worthy of the name
astropaths.
These are closer to telepaths, dabblers, witches and wyrds. But I can still make their powers work as we require.’

‘We will return to the city,’ Yuris said.

‘As you will. My thanks, brother.’

‘Good fortune, Talos.
Ave dominus nox
.’

Second Claw left the chamber in a loose pack, no more organised than the prisoners they’d brought in.

Talos faced the wretches, his targeting reticule flicking from face to face.

‘Who leads you?’ he asked. One woman stepped forward, her ragged robe seeming no different to any of the others.

‘I do.’

‘My name is Talos of the Eighth Legion.’

Confusion momentarily
shone
through the dullness of her eyes. ‘What is the Eighth Legion?’

Talos’s black eyes burned. He inclined his head, as if she had somehow proved a point.

‘I am in no frame of mind to provide a lesson in history and myth,’ he said, ‘so let us simply say that I am one of the original architects of the Imperium. I hold to its founding ideal: that the species must know peace through obedience. I aim to bring the Imperium back into these skies. A lesson was once learned on this world. I find an amusing poetry in using this world to teach a lesson in return.’

‘What lesson?’ she asked. Unlike many of the others, she showed little overt fear. On the cusp of middle-age, she was likely at the height of her powers, not yet bled dry by them. Perhaps that was why she led them all. Talos didn’t care, either way.

‘Seal the doors,’ he voxed to First Claw. Uzas, Cyrion, Mercutian and Variel moved to guard the chamber’s two exits, their weapons clutched in loose fists.

‘Do you know of the warp?’ he asked the leader.

‘We have stories, and the city’s archives.’

‘Allow me to guess. To you, the warp is the afterlife; a sunless underworld where those disloyal to the Emperor are punished for their faithless ways.’

‘This is what we believe. All the archives state–’

‘I do not care how you have misinterpreted your records. You are the strongest of your guild, are you not?’

‘I am.’

‘Good.’

Her head burst in a rupture of blood and bone. Talos lowered his bolter.

‘Close your eyes,’ he said. ‘All of you.’

They didn’t obey. The children drew close to their parents, and panicked murmurs broke out, as did intermittent weeping. The guild mistress’s body hit the decking with a bony clang.

‘Close your eyes,’ Talos repeated. ‘Commune with your power in whatever way works best. Reach out now, and feel for the soul of your dead leader. All who can hear her spirit still shrieking in the air around us, step forward.’

Three of them stepped forward, their eyes uncertain, their limbs quivering.

‘Only three?’ Talos asked. ‘How very disappointing. I would hate to have to start shooting again.’

Another dozen stepped forward. Another handful followed.

‘That is better. Tell me when she falls silent.’

He waited in silence, watching the faces of those who claimed to hear their dead mistress. One woman in particular winced and cringed as if suffering tics. When all others claimed to hear her no longer, she only relaxed a full minute afterwards.

‘Now she is gone,’ she said, scratching her thin, lank hair. ‘Thank the Throne.’

Talos drew his gladius, tossing it and catching it three times. As it smacked into his palm on the last catch, he turned and hurled it across the chamber. One of the men who’d stepped forward sank to the deck, gasping soundlessly, his eyes wide and his mouth working like a fish deprived of air. The sword impaling through his chest made a gentle, tinny sound as it tapped on the deck with each spasm.

At last, he lay still.

‘He was lying,’ Talos told the rest. ‘I saw it in his eyes. He could not hear her, and I do not like being lied to.’

The air around the crowded guilders was charged now, alive with overlapping tiers of ripe tension.

‘The warp is nothing so mundane. Beneath what we see of the universe is a layer we do not. Through this unseen Sea of Souls, an infinity of daemons swim. They are, even now, digesting the spirits of your murdered kin. The warp is not sentient, neither is it malicious. It simply
is,
and it responds to human emotion. Most of all, it responds to suffering, to fear, to hatred, for in such moments humanity is at its strongest and most honest. Suffering colours the warp, and the suffering of psychic souls is like a beacon. Your Emperor uses that suffering as fuel for his Golden Throne, to project the Astronomic
a
n.’

Talos could see few of them followed his words. Ignorance stunted their intellects, and fear blinded them to the nuance of his explanation. This, too, he found grimly amusing, as his red eye lenses drifted from face to face.

‘I will use your suffering to breed a beacon of my own. The slaughter and torture of this city’s people is merely the beginning. You can already feel the pain and death pressing against your minds. I know you can. Do not resist it. Let it saturate you. Listen to the screaming of souls as they dissolve from this realm into the next. Let their torment ripen within you. Carry it with you as an honour, for together you will become an instrument no different from your beloved, distant Emperor. You, like he, will become beacons in the endless night, bred from agony.

‘To do that, I will break each one of you. Slowly, so very slowly, so that madness breeds within the pain. I will take you up into our warship, and over the course of the coming weeks, I will have you crippled, flayed, excoriated and excruciated. I will consign your ruined, pained forms – kept alive by our expert grace – to prison-laboratories where your only company will be the skinned carcasses of your children, your parents, and the corpses of others from your dead world.

‘With the pain I give you, with your prolonged agonies, I will choke the warp at the Imperium’s edge. Fleets will come to investigate, fearing nearby worlds may succumb to daemonic intrusion. Mankind’s empire will ignore Tsagualsa no longer, and will learn an old lesson. It is not enough to force criminals and sinners into exile. You must make an example of them, and crush them utterly. Leniency, mercy, trust – these are weaknesses that the Imperium must pay for. The Imperium should have destroyed us here when it had the chance. Let them learn that once more.

‘Your lives are over, but in death you will achieve something almost divine. You have prayed for so long to leave this world. Be pleased, for I am granting you that wish.’

As he fell silent, he watched the dawn of horrified disbelief on their faces. They could scarcely imagine what he was saying, but no matter. They’d understand soon enough.

‘Don’t do this,’ came a voice from behind.

Talos turned to face the archregent. ‘No? Why should I not?’

‘It… I…’ the old man trailed off.

‘Strange
.
’ Talos shook his head. ‘Your kind never has an answer to that question.’

XVI

SCREAMING

Septimus made his
way through the dark corridors without any obvious effort. His pistols were holstered at his thighs, and his repaired facial bionics no longer clicked each time he blinked, smiled, or spoke. He could see clearly enough with his augmetic eye piercing the gloom, and a photo-contact lens over the iris of the other – yet another perk of being one of the more valuable slaves on board.

His hands ached though, right to the knuckles. Nine hours of armour maintenance would do that. In the three weeks since Talos had returned from Tsagualsa, he’d managed to repair most of the damage to First Claw’s armour. A treasure trove of
salvage
and spare parts from the Genesis Space Marines and slain Night Lords left the artificer spoiled for choice. Trading with artificers who served the other claws had never been easier, nor as fruitful.

An hour ago, Iruk, one of
Second
Claw’s slaves, had spat something brown between his blackening teeth while they’d traded for torso cabling.

‘The warband’s dying, Septimus. You feel that? That’s the wind of change, boy.’

Septimus had tried to avoid the conversation, but Iruk wouldn’t be swayed. Second Claw’s arming chamber was on the same deck as First Claw’s, and just as chaotic with all
the
junked armour and weapon parts lying everywhere.

‘They’re still following Talos,’ Septimus said at last, looking for a way out of the discussion.

Iruk had spat again. ‘Your master makes them crazy. You should hear Lord Yuris and the others speak about him. Lord Talos is… They know he’s not a leader, but they follow him. They know he’s losing his mind, but they listen to every word he speaks. They say the same things about him and the primarch: broken, flawed, but… inspiring. Makes them think of a better time.’

‘My thanks for the trading,’ said Septimus. ‘I have work to do.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you do.’

He didn’t like the amused glint in Iruk’s eye. ‘You have something to say?’

‘Nothing that needs speaking out loud.’

‘Then I’ll leave you to your work,’ Septimus said. ‘I’m sure you have as much to do as I have.’

‘I do indeed,’ Iruk replied. ‘But my “work” doesn’t involve stroking that three-eyed witch’s pale arse.’

Septimus made eye contact for the first time in several minutes. The kit bag full of spare parts slung over his shoulder suddenly felt heavier – as weighty as a weapon.

‘She isn’t a witch.’

‘You want to be careful,’ Iruk smiled, showing several missing teeth among the darkened ones remaining. ‘Navigator spit is supposed to be poisonous, they say. Must be a lie though, eh? You’re still breathing.’

He turned from Second Claw’s crew, moving away and hitting the door release.

‘Don’t take it so hard, boy. She’s lovely to look at, for a mutant. Has your master allowed you to start sniffing around her heels again?’

He genuinely considered braining Iruk with the sack and drawing his pistols to shoot the older man on the floor. Worse, it felt like the easiest, most satisfying answer to the man’s idiotic barbs.

With teeth clenched, he walked from the chamber, wondering at what point in his life murdering someone became the easiest solution to a moment’s discomfort.

‘I’ve been with the Legion too long,’ he’d said to the darkness.

An hour later, with servitors left to deal with the final work on Lord Mercutian’s chestplate, Septimus was drawing close to what Octavia unsmilingly called her ‘suite’ of chambers. He could hear screaming from some directionless distance. The
Echo of Damnation
was named well
:
its halls and decks rang with faint screams, generated from mortal mouths elsewhere on the ship and carried wherever the
Echo
’s
steel bones and cold air willed.

He shivered at the sound, still not used to its infrequent rise from nowhere. He had no desire to be illuminated on whatever the Legion was doing to those astropaths, or what they were inflicting on the countless other people brought up from the cities.

Rats, or things like them that he felt no need to examine closer, scampered off ahead of him through the darkness, skittering into side passages and maintenance ducts.

‘You again,’ said a voice ahead, by the main bulkhead leading into Octavia’s chambers.

‘Vularai,’ Septimus greeted her. ‘Herac, Lylaras,’ he greeted the other two figures. All three were wrapped in filthy bandaging, clutching weapons. Vularai held her Legion gladius resting on one cloaked shoulder.

‘Not supposed to come anymore,’ the shortest of the figures hissed.

‘And yet, Herac, here I am. Move aside.’

Octavia slept in
her throne, curled up in the huge seat and blanketed against the chill. She awoke at the sound of bootsteps approaching, instinctively reaching to check her bandana hadn’t slipped.

It had. She adjusted it quickly.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she said to her visitor.

Septimus didn’t answer at once. He looked at her, seeing the bandana over her third eye; seeing her reclining in a throne made for its mistress to use in sailing the Sea of Souls. Her clothes were filthy, her pale skin unwashed, and she’d aged a year for every month she’d been on board the
Echo
and the
Covenant
before it. The dark rings of sleep debt decorated her eyes, and her hair – once a cascade of black silk – was bound back in a straggly and frayed rat’s tail.

But she smiled, and she was beautiful.

‘We have to get off this ship,’ Septimus said to her.

Octavia took too long to laugh. It betrayed more surprise than amusement. ‘We… what?’

He’d not meant to say it out loud. He’d scarcely even realised he was thinking it.

‘My hands ache,’ he said. ‘They ache every night. All I ever hear is gunfire and screaming, and orders spat at me by inhuman voices.’

She leaned on her throne’s armrest. ‘You lived with it before I joined the crew.’

‘I have something to live for, now.’ He met her eyes. ‘I have something to lose.’

‘How rare.’ She didn’t seem overly impressed, but he could see the hidden light in her eyes. ‘Even in your atrocious accent, those words bordered on being romantic. Did our master give you another head wound, for you to speak so strangely?’

Septimus didn’t look away as he usually would. ‘Listen to me. Talos is driven by something I cannot comprehend. He is arranging… something. Some grand performance. Some great point to prove.’

‘Like his father,’ Octavia pointed out.

‘Exactly. And look what happened to the primarch. His tale ended in death through sacrifice.’

Octavia rose to her feet, casting the blanket aside. She was still not showing, though Septimus had too little experience to know if her belly should be beginning to round yet or not. She seemed unconcerned, either way. He felt a brief, guilty flush of thanks that she was strong enough for the both of them, sometimes.

‘You think he is leading us towards some kind of last stand?’ Octavia asked. ‘That seems unlikely.’

‘Not intentionally. But he has no desire to lead these warriors, and nor does he wish to return to the Eye of Terror.’

‘You’re just guessing.’

‘Perhaps I am. It doesn’t matter, either way. Tell me you want our child born on this ship, into this life. Tell me you want him taken by the Legion and shaped into one of them, or to grow in the darkness of these decks, starved of sunlight his whole life. No. Octavia, we have to get off the
Echo of Damnation
.’

‘I am a Navigator,’ she replied, though there was no longer any amusement in her eyes. ‘I was born to sail the stars. Sunlight is overrated.’

‘Why is this a joke to you?’

The wrong words. He knew it as soon as he’d spoken them. Her gaze flashed as her smile became glass.

‘It is not a joke to me. I merely resent your patronising assumption.’ In all her time there, she’d never sounded quite so like the aristocrat she’d once been. ‘I am not so weak that I need
saving
, Septimus.’

‘That is not what I meant.’ But that was the problem. He wasn’t sure what he meant. He’d not even meant to speak the thought aloud.

‘If I wished to leave the ship,’ she
said,
lower
ing
her voice, ‘how could we do it?’

‘There are ways,’ said Septimus. ‘We’d think of something.’

‘That’s very vague.’ She watched him as he moved around her chamber, absently tidying away old food ration containers and data-slates her attendants had brought her as entertainment. Octavia witnessed the bizarre domestic ritual with her arms crossed beneath her breasts.

‘You are still filthy,’ he said, distracted.

‘So you say. What are you thinking?’

Septimus stopped for a moment. ‘What if Talos knows more than he’s telling his brothers? What if he’s seen how this all ends, and works now to his own plan? Perhaps he knows we’ll all die here.’

‘Even one of the Legion wouldn’t be that treacherous.’

He shook his head, watching her with those mismatched eyes. ‘Sometimes, I swear you forget just where you are.’

She wasn’t blind to the change within him tonight. Gone was his cautious, endearing tenderness, as if
fear
ful she would either break at a touch or kill him with an accidental glance. Gone was his vulnerability. In place of his patient virtues, frustration left him raw and curiously bare before her.

‘Has he spoken to you recently?’ Septimus asked her. ‘Is there anything different in his words?’

She moved over to her bank of monitors, reaching for several tools in a nearby crate. ‘He’s always spoken like someone expecting to die sooner rather than later,’ she ventured. ‘Everything from his mouth is like some painful confession. I’ve always seen it in him – he never became what he wanted to be, and instead hates what he’s become. The others… deal with it better. First Claw and the others – they enjoy this life. But he has nothing but hatred, and even that is growing hollow.’

Septimus sat next to her throne, closing his human eye in thought. His augmetic eye sealed closed in response, like a picter lens whirling shut. Screams filled the silence: distant but resonant, anonymous but so very human. He was no stranger to the sounds on an Eighth Legion vessel, but too much had changed now. He couldn’t tune it all out the way he’d done for years before. Now, no matter what he did, no matter where he worked, he could still hear the pain in those crying voices.

‘Those poor bastards being skinned alive – do they deserve it?’

‘Of course they don’t,’ she replied. ‘Why would you even ask such a stupid question?’

‘Because it was the kind of question I’d stopped asking years ago.’ He turned to look at Octavia, holding her gaze for several long moments. ‘This is your fault,’ he told her. ‘Maruc understood, but I tried to ignore him. You did this to me. You came here, and made me human again. The guilt, the fear, the desire to live and feel and…’
H
e trailed off. ‘You brought it all back. I should hate you for this.’

‘You are welcome to do so,’ she said as she worked on rewiring one of her external viewfinder monitors. Octavia was hardly in love with the work, but the little tasks of maintenance helped pass the time. ‘But you’ll be hating me because I returned something valuable to you.’

Septimus gave a noncommittal grunt.

‘Do not huff and sigh at Terran aristocracy,’ she said. ‘That’s childish.’

‘Then stop… I don’t know the words in Gothic.
Yrosia se naur tay helshival,
’
he said in Nostraman.
‘
Smiling to mock me.’

‘You mean “teasing”. And I’m not teasing you. Just say what you want to say.’

‘We need to get off this ship,’ he said again, watching her as she worked, sat there with a wire-stripping tool between her teeth.

Octavia spat it out, using it with one dirty hand. ‘Maybe we do. That doesn’t mean we’ll be able to do it. The ship can’t go anywhere without me. We’ll hardly get very far before they realise we’re gone.’

‘I’ll think of something.’ Septimus moved over to her, embracing her from behind. ‘I love you,’ he said, speaking into her hair.