Mortarion knew the spoor of such beasts, but more than that, he recognised the scent of one of his own.
‘You see, my lord,’ said Apothecary Burcu. ‘It’s plain to see there’s nothing here, so can we all please vacate the gene-labs?’
‘You’re wrong,’ said Mortarion.
‘My lord?’ said Burcu, consulting a grainy holo floating above his narthecium gauntlet. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘He’s here, he just can’t show himself yet, can you?’
The primarch’s words were addressed to the air, but the voice that answered sounded like rocks grinding against one another in a mudslide and seemed to echo from all around them.
Meat. Need meat.
Mortarion nodded, already suspecting that was why he had chosen this place. The Deathshroud formed a circle around Mortarion, warscythes at the ready, sensorium desperately searching for the source of the voice.
‘My lord, what is that?’ asked Burcu.
‘An old friend,’ said Mortarion. ‘One I thought lost.’
No one ever thought of the Death Lord as being quick. Relentless, yes. Implacable and dogged, absolutely. But quick? No, never that.
Silence was a hard iron blur, and by the time its blade completed its circuit, all seven of the Deathshroud lay slain, simply bisected at their midriffs. An apocalyptic quantity of gore erupted within the vault, a glut of shimmering, impossibly bright blood. It sprayed the walls and flooded the polished steel deck plates in a red tide. Mortarion tasted its bitter tang.
Apothecary Burcu backed away from him, his eyes wide and disbelieving behind the visor of his helm. Mortarion didn’t stop him.
‘My lord?’ begged the Apothecary. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Something grim, Koray,’ said Mortarion. ‘Something necessary.’
The air in front of Mortarion looked scratched, a phantom image of a humanoid form etched on an incredibly fine pane of glass. Or a pict-feed with the half-formed impression of a body on it, an outline of something that existed only as potential.
The scratched, hurried impression of form stepped into the lake of blood and gradually, impossibly, the liquid’s outward spread began to reverse. Slowly, but with greater speed as the rich fluid of all life was drawn into its ethereal form, a figure began to take shape.
First a pair of feet, then ankles, calves, knees and muscular thighs. Then pelvic bones, a spine, organs and whipping, cording, glistening musculature wrapping itself around a wet red skeleton. As though an invisible mould were being filled with the blood of the Deathshroud, the powerful form of a towering, transhuman warrior took shape.
Fed and fashioned from the blood of the dead, it was form without the casing of skin. A fleshless revenant with butcher’s hocks of meat laced around ossified ribs, hardened femurs and a skull like a rock. Red-rimmed eyes of madness stared out from lidless sockets and though the body was yet freshly made, it reeked of putrefaction. The thing’s mouth worked jerkily, rubbery tendons pulling taut as the exposed jawline flexed in its housing of bone.
A tongue, raw and purple, ran along fresh-grown nubs of teeth.
For the briefest instant, the illusion of rebirth was complete, but it didn’t last. Flaccid white runnels of decomposition streaked the red meat like fatty tissue, and curls of corpse gas lifted from flesh that wriggled as though infested with feasting maggots. Weeping sores opened across the musculature and purulent blisters popped like soap bubbles to leak viscous mucus.
Glass cracked and warning bells began chiming.
Mortarion looked to his left as, one by one, the bell jars of developing zygotes exploded with uncontrolled growth. Rampant necrosis swelled from algal fronds of stem cells and nascent buds of organs. Veined with black, they grew and grew until the bloated mass ruptured with flatulent brays of stinking fumes.
Chemical baths curdled in an instant, their surfaces frothing with scum and overflowing in glutinous ropes. The centrifuges vibrated as the specimens within expanded and mutated with ultra-rapid growth before dying just as quickly.
Behind the primarch, Apothecary Burcu was desperately trying to manipulate one of the key-drivers while punching in a code that had already been rendered obsolete.
‘Please, my lord!’ he shouted. ‘It’s contamination. We have to get out of here right now! Hurry, before it’s too late!’
‘It’s already too late,’ said the wet, fleshless thing of glistening organs. Burcu turned and his eyes widened in horror at the sight of an oozing weave of translucent skin coating the monster’s body. It grew and thickened over the naked organs, unevenly and in patches, but expanding all the time. Decay claimed the skin almost as soon as it grew, flaking from the body in blood-blackened scabs.
The monster’s hand punched out. Its fingers stabbed through Burcu’s eye lenses. The Apothecary wailed and dropped to his knees as the monster tore the helmet from his head. Burcu’s sockets were ruined craters, gaping wounds in his skull that wept bloody tears down ashen cheeks.
But losing his eyes was the least of Koray Burcu’s pain.
His cries turned to gurgling retching. The Apothecary’s chest spasmed as lungs genhanced to survive in the most hostile environments were assaulted from within by a pathogen so deadly it had no equal.
The Apothecary vomited a flood of rancid matter, falling onto all fours as he was devoured by his hyper-accelerated immune system. Death fluids leaked from every orifice, and Mortarion watched dispassionately as the flesh all but melted from his bones, like the humans of Barbarus who climbed too high into the poison fogs and paid the ultimate price.
His brothers would be horrified by Burcu’s death and his abhorrent murderer, but Mortarion had seen far worse in his youth; the monstrous kings of the dark mountains were endlessly inventive in their anatomical abominations.
Koray Burcu slumped forward and a slurry of stinking black and vermillion spilled onto the deck. The Apothecary’s body was no more, a broth of decaying meat and spoiled fluids.
Mortarion knelt beside the remains and ran a finger through the mess. He brought the sludge to his face and sniffed. The biological poison was a planetary exterminator, but to one raised in the toxic hell of Barbarus, it was little more than an irritant. Both his fathers had worked to render his physiology proof against any infection, no matter its power.
‘The Life-Eater virus,’ said Mortarion.
‘That’s what killed me,’ said the monster, as the regenerating and decaying cloak of skin slithered over its body. ‘So that’s what the warp used to remake me.’
Mortarion watched as waxen skin inched over the skull to reveal a face he’d last seen en route to the Eisenstein. No sooner was it revealed than it rotted away again, an unending cycle of rebirth and death.
Even bereft of skin, Mortarion knew the face of one of his sons.
‘Commander,’ said Mortarion. ‘Welcome back to the Legion.’
‘We go to the killing fields, my lord?’
‘The Warmaster calls us to Molech,’ said Mortarion.
‘My lord,’ said Ignatius Grulgor, turning his limbs over to better examine the reeking, living death of his diseased body and finding it much to his liking. ‘I am yours to command. Unleash me. I am the Eater of Lives.’
‘All in good time, my son,’ said Mortarion. ‘First you’re going to need some decent armour or you’ll kill everyone on my ship.’
It was bad enough when the occupants of the nameless fortress prison had been unknown to Loken, but knowing he had no choice except to leave Mersadie incarcerated cut him to the bone. The cell door closing was a knife in the belly, but she was right. With agents of the Warmaster likely abroad in the solar system, perhaps even on Terra itself, there existed no prospect of her release.
Perhaps his escort sensed the build up of anger in him, for they led him back to the embarkation deck without the needless obfuscation of the route. As Loken had suspected, his final destination had been close to where the Tarnhelm had set down.
The sleek
ship sat in a launch cradle, already prepped and ready to depart. Bror Tyrfingr had called it a draugrjúka, a ghost ship, and he was right to do so, but not for its stealthy properties.
It carried people who might as well be ghosts, presences that went unnoticed by all, and – more importantly – whose existence would never be acknowledged.
Loken saw Banu Rassuah in the pilot’s blister on the arrowhead frontal section, and Ares Voitek circled the craft with Tyrfingr, using his servo-arms to point out especially noteworthy elements of the ship’s construction.
Tyrfingr looked up at Loken’s approach. His brow furrowed as though detecting a noisome stench or the approach of an enemy.
His eyes roamed Loken’s face and his hand slipped to his holster.
‘Ho,’ said Tyrfingr. ‘There’s a man whose icerunner’s slipped a sheet. You found trouble?’
Loken ignored him and climbed the rear ramp to the fuselage. The central dormitory section was only half full. Callion Zaven sat at the central table with Tubal Cayne, extolling the virtues of personal combat over massed escalades. At the far end, Varren and Nohai compared scars on their bulging forearms, while Rama Karayan cleaned the disassembled skeleton of his rifle.
Tylos Rubio was nowhere to be seen, and Qruze emerged from the low-ceilinged passageway leading to the pilot’s compartment.
‘Good, you’re back,’ said Zaven, managing to completely misread Loken’s humours. ‘Perhaps we can actually get out of the system.’
‘Qruze,’ snapped Loken, reaching to his belt. ‘This is for you.’
Loken’s wrist snapped out, and the lacquered wooden box flew from his hand like a throwing blade. It flashed towards Qruze, and though the Half-heard was no longer as quick as he once was, he caught the box a finger’s breadth from his chest.
‘What’s–’ he said, but Loken didn’t let him finish.
Loken’s fist slammed into Qruze’s face like a pile-driver. The venerable warrior staggered, but didn’t fall, his heartwood too seasoned to be felled by one blow. Loken gave him three more, one after the other with bone-crunching force.
Qruze bent double, instinctively driving forward into the fists of his attacker. Loken slammed a knee into Qruze’s gut, then spun low to drive an elbow to the side of his head. Skin split and Qruze dropped to his knees. Loken kicked him in the chest. The Half-heard flew back into the lockers, crumpling steel with the impact. Buckled doors flew open and the stowed gear tumbled to the deck: a combat blade, leather strops, two pistols, whetstones and numerous ammunition clips.
The Knights Errant scattered at the sudden violence in their midst, but none moved to intervene. Loken was on Qruze in a heartbeat, his fists like wrecking balls as they slammed into the Half-heard.
Qruze wasn’t fighting back.
Teeth snapped under Loken’s assault.
Blood sprayed the bare metal of his armour.
Loken’s fury at Mersadie’s imprisonment cast a red shadow over everything. He wanted to kill Qruze like he’d never wanted to kill anyone before. With every ringing hammer blow he unleashed, he heard his name being called.
He was back in the ruins, surrounded by death and creatures more corpse than living thing. He felt their claws upon his armour, pulling him upright. He threw them off, tasting the planet-wide reek of decaying meat and the hot iron of expended munitions. He was Cerberus again, right in the heart of it.
Lost to madness on the killing fields of Isstvan.
Spitting breath, Loken swept up the combat blade. The edge glittered in the subdued lighting, hanging in the air like an executioner awaiting his master’s sign.
And for an instant Loken wasn’t looking at Qruze, but Little Horus Aximand, the melancholic killer of Tarik Torgaddon.
The blade plunged down, aimed for Qruze’s exposed throat.
It stopped a centimetre from flesh, as though striking an unseen barrier. Loken screamed and pushed with every scrap of strength, but the blade refused to budge. The handle froze in his grip, blistering the skin with arctic ferocity before turning it black with frostbite.
The pain brought clarity, and Loken looked up to see Tylos Rubio with his hand extended and wreathed in a haze of corposant.
‘Drop it, Garvi,’ said a voice, though he could not say for certain to whom it belonged. Loken couldn’t feel his hand, the icy touch of Rubio’s psykery numbing it completely. He surged to his feet and hurled the blade away. It shattered into icy fragments on the curved fuselage.
‘Throne, Loken, what was that about?’ demanded Nohai, pushing past him to kneel by Qruze’s slumped form. ‘You’ve damn near killed him.’
Qruze demurred, but his words were too mangled by swollen lips and broken teeth to make out. The faces of the warriors around him were pictures in shock. They looked at Loken as they would a lunatic berserker.
Loken went to go to Qruze, but Varren stepped in front of him. Bror Tyrfingr stood next to him.
‘The old man is down,’ said Tyrfingr. ‘Leash your wolf. Now.’
Loken ignored him, but Varren put a hand on his chest, a solid, immovable brace. If he wanted past, he’d have to fight the former World Eater too.
‘Whatever this is,’ said Varren. ‘This isn’t the time.’
Varren’s words were calmly said, and Loken’s anger diminished with every heartbeat. He nodded and stepped back with his fists uncurling. The sight of his brother legionary’s blood dripping from his cracked knuckles was the final parting of the curtain, and reason resumed its position at the seat of his consciousness.
‘I’m done,’ he said, backing away until he reached a wall and slumped down to his haunches. His assault had not exerted him overmuch, but his chest heaved with effort.
‘Good. I’d hate to have to kill you,’ said Tyrfingr, taking a seat at the table. ‘And by the way, you owe me a knife. I spent weeks getting that one balanced properly.’
‘Sorry,’ said Loken, watching Nohai work on Qruze’s ruined face.
‘Ach, it’s only a blade,’ said Tyrfingr. ‘And it was Tylos here that broke it with that witchery of his.’
‘Me?’ said Rubio. ‘I stopped Loken from murder.’
‘Couldn’t you have plucked the blade from his hand?’ asked Tubal Cayne, examining the broken fragments of the blade. ‘I once saw a psyker of the Fifteenth Legion pluck the blades from an eldar swordsman’s hands, so I know it can be done. Or was the Librarius of Ultramar less skilled than that of Prospero?’
Rubio ignored Cayne’s jibe and made his way back to his private compartment bunk. Loken pushed himself to his feet and crossed the deck towards Qruze. Varren and Tyrfingr moved to intercept him, but he shook his head.
‘I only want to talk,’ he said.
Varren nodded and stepped aside, but kept his posture taut.
Loken looked down at Qruze, whose eyes were all but obscured by swollen flesh. Clotted blood matted his beard and purple bruising flowered all across the Half-heard’s face. Impressions of Loken’s gauntlets were battered into his skin. Nohai was clearing the blood away, but that wasn’t making the damage Loken had inflicted look any less severe. Qruze lifted his head at the sound of his approach, seemingly unafraid of further violence.
‘How long did you know she was here?’ said Loken, the calmness of his voice in stark contrast to the fading colour of his skin.
Qruze mopped his cheek where the skin had split and spat a wad of bloody phlegm. At first, Loken thought he wasn’t going to answer, but when the words came, they came without rancour.
‘Almost two years.’
‘Two years,’ said Loken, and his fingers curled back into fists.
‘Go on,’ said Qruze softly. ‘Get it out of your system, lad. Beat me some more if it helps.’
‘Shut up, Iacton,’ said Nohai. ‘And, Loken, step back or I’ll seriously reconsider my Apothecary’s Oath.’
‘You left her to rot in there for two years, Iacton,’ said Loken. ‘After you’d risked everything to save her and the others. Euphrati
and Kyril? Where are they? Are they here too?’
‘I don’t know where they are,’ said Qruze.
‘Why should I believe you?’
‘Because it’s the truth, I swear,’ said Qruze, grimacing as Nohai inserted another needle into his skull. ‘Nathaniel might have an idea where they are, but I don’t.’
Loken paced the deck, angry and confused and hurt.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked, as the hulking shape of a gold-armoured warrior appeared silhouetted at the boarding ramp.
‘Because I ordered him not to,’ said Rogal Dorn.
A space was cleared for the primarch of the Imperial Fists, though he declined to sit. Chairs were righted and the debris of the recently unleashed violence cleared away. Loken sat the farthest distance he could manage from Iacton Qruze, a terrible weight of shame hanging around his neck. The fury that had driven him to assault the Half-heard had dissipated utterly, though the lie between them still soured his belly.
Rogal Dorn paced the length of the table, his arms folded across his chest. His granite-hard face was stern, and heavy with duty, as though ill-news still swathed him. His armour’s golden lustre was faded, but here on this hidden fortress, nothing of beauty could shine.
‘You were hard on Iacton,’ said Dorn, and the square tones of his voice reminded Loken of how astonishingly soft it had once been. Soft, yet with steel in its bones. That steel was still there, but all softness had been stripped away.
‘No more than he deserved,’ replied Loken. He was being churlish, but even genhanced livers took time to purge black bile.
‘You know that’s not true,’ said Dorn, as Ares Voitek set a cut-down fuel canister in the centre of the table. ‘Iacton was obeying an order from the Lord Protector of Terra. You would do the same.’
The last sentence was as much challenge as it was statement of fact, and Loken nodded slowly.
The months following Loken’s return from Isstvan had shown him the depths of Rogal Dorn’s displeasure as he was pared down to the bone for signs of treachery. That Malcador and Garro had vouchsafed him loyal was perhaps all that had saved him from an executioner’s blade.