‘Come on, come on...’ Thonius sobbed.
The wind picked up, scooping sand from the ground and winnowing it around them. The housekeeper tried the door again.
‘Come on!’ screamed Thonius.
The housekeeper began rattling the key furiously, and then started banging at the door.
‘It won’t open,’ the housekeeper cried. It was the first emotional expression any of the housekeepers had made. ‘It won’t open! My key doesn’t work!’
‘No!’ cried Thonius.
‘Keep trying,’ Ravenor said.
‘Oh look, by the blood of my clan, look!’ Angharad called.
Something had appeared, cresting the line of black rocks. It looked like a wave at first, like fast-flowing liquid spilling over the rocks in a flood and rushing on across the duned regolith towards them.
But it wasn’t liquid.
‘Open the door,’ said Ravenor firmly.
‘It won’t open!’ the housekeeper screamed back.
The wave was made of organisms, a swarm of fast-moving black and white creatures. They came on in a rippling, scurrying tide, chittering and yapping. Organic armour glinted like lacquered steel in the sunlight. The organisms were man-sized bipeds with torsos and heads hunched low and forward like sprinters, and rigid, spike tails held out high to counterbalance them. Their limbs and bellies gleamed off-white, like dirty ice, but their backs and long heads were a polished onyx black where the armour was thickest. Dead black eyes, mere slits, gazed out from behind heavy nasal horns. The snapping, chittering mouths were full of needle teeth. Four sickle-hook arms were neatly folded under their upper bodies. There was a smell coming off them that was even more distressing than the clicking, chattering cries they were making. The smell was worse because it was not like anything any of them had ever smelled before. It was dry, and musky, and caustic, like wood polish, like fermented fruit-mash, like the funerary spices of a mummified corpse. It was all of those things and none of them.
It was alien in the most extreme sense.
‘Please, please open the door!’ Thonius begged.
Bounding, sprinting, clicking, the wave bore down on the figures at the lonely door, gleaming, jostling black and white bodies and bouncing counterbalance tails. They were so fast, so agile, so many. Regolith dust rose in a shimmering cloud above them, lifted by their scurrying feet.
‘Holy Throne,’ Ballack managed to stammer.
The front of the wave was on them. Long-hooked limbs flicked up to strike.
‘Open the door!’ wailed Thonius.
‘It’s too late,’ said Ravenor.
PART THREE
The long way round
One
She was freezing cold. Lucic had taken her environment coat off her in an act of petty spite. ‘That’s for losing my jacks,’ he had said sullenly, tossing her garment off the dock into the pool.
Lucic’s friend was evidently a bounty hunter or hired gun. Tall and coarse, with a well-conditioned body of sinewy muscle, and a face that had been decorated with puckered burn tissue down one side, he wore a bodyglove armoured with reinforcing plates, and a quilted, fur-trimmed jacket. His weapon of choice was a cut-down lascarbine, ex-Guard issue. The man himself was probably ex-Guard issue too.
He’d searched Plyton unsympathetically for concealed weapons, tugging out the little Tronsvasse insurance she kept stowed in her waistband. His grubby hands had gone everywhere, and he’d been smiling while he worked.
‘Pig,’ Plyton had called him when he was done. Without hesitation, he had smacked her hard across the face with the back of his hand, and knocked her onto the deck.
‘Hey, don’t!’ Lucic had cried out.
‘What’s she to you?’ burn-face had asked. The look in burn-face’s eyes had forced Lucic to shrug and back down. Not so much a ‘friend’ after all. Down on the deck, her face stinging and her eyes hot, Plyton had noticed this detail.
Burn-face had dragged her up roughly and forced her to sit on an empty lube drum.
‘Don’t move,’ he had instructed.
It was hard to track the time, but she figured an hour must have passed. Lucic put on his coat and started to pace, Plyton’s combat shotgun slung over his lanky shoulder. Burn-face had briefly dropped down into the underboat, and then returned, chewing on a ration bar from the boat’s supply. He had several other bars stuffed into his coat pocket.
‘So, what’s the play?’ Lucic had asked the hired gun lightly.
‘We stay planted here and wait for the word,’ burn-face had replied, munching. He ate fast and messily, like a wild animal. He sat down on a coil winder, and chewed some more. After a while, he rested his carbine against his leg, and took out Plyton’s Tronsvasse. He started to play with it, stripping it out, popping the clip, and flicking the safety on and off. He aimed it at several imaginary targets around the docking pool to gauge its qualities.
‘Nice piece,’ he remarked. He looked at Plyton. She avoided his gaze. The cold was getting to her bones. She was shivering, and sat with her arms wrapped around her body.
Burn-face ate another ration bar and threw the waxed paper wrapper into the pool. Through the grille decking, Plyton could see it floating beneath her in the grease ice beside her slowly sinking coat.
The hired gun patted his pockets. ‘Got a smoke? Lho or anything?’ he asked Lucic.
‘I’m out,’ said Lucic distractedly, taking out his link and staring at it as if willing it to chime.
Burn-face looked at Plyton. ‘You?’
She shook her head. Then, on inspiration, added, ‘They were in my coat.’
Burn-face glared at Lucic. ‘You daft bastard,’ he growled.
Out here, a man needs all the friends he can get, eh? Well, Lucic, you’re losing your only one fast.
‘Best find something else to do to pass the time,’ burn-face mused. He looked at Plyton again. ‘You cold?’
She nodded.
‘Maybe we get you a little colder still, then warm you up some.’
‘Hey!’ Lucic said. ‘Don’t be getting nasty with her.’
The bounty hunter got to his feet. ‘Don’t be getting nasty?’ he replied, mimicking Lucic’s prissy outrage. ‘Frig you, nasty is what we do.’
‘Even so–’
‘I was told you were in on this. I was told you could be counted on.’
‘I can, I can,’ said Lucic, hastily. ‘I did what you people wanted, didn’t I? I did it right.’
The bounty hunter shrugged. He was chasing a lodged scrap of ration bar out of his teeth with his tongue. He found the scrap and spat it out.
‘Big boys’ games now,’ he told Lucic. ‘Big boys’ rules. You better keep up.’
‘I can keep up.’
‘So why you so protective of this bitch?’
‘I...’ Lucic began. ‘I didn’t know we’d have to kill all of them.’
‘Maybe we won’t. Maybe we can all be very good friends. We’ll see. They’ll call and tell us how it pans out.’
‘If it’s a no?’
‘Don’t worry,’ burn-face said, sitting back down and taking out Plyton’s Tronsvasse again. ‘That time comes, I’ll do her. If you know what I mean.’
Lucic scowled and resumed pacing the deck.
The bounty hunter eased back on his seat and stared at the lapping water below.
Another ten minutes crawled by. Plyton was getting so bone cold she was afraid she might shut down. Hypothermia. If she passed out, Throne help her.
There was a rumble and a shudder. The hanging chains in the wharf area, some of them massive, trembled and swung. The House was adjusting its stance again. Chunks of grubby ice that had formed around the chain links were dislodged by the movement, and splashed down into the pool.
‘It’s taking too long,’ Lucic said.
‘It takes as long as it takes.’
‘I’m going to call up,’ Lucic said, taking out his link again.
Burn-face shrugged. ‘Knock yo
urself out.’
Lucic keyed his link. ‘Hello? Copy back. This is Lucic in the dock. What’s taking so long up there?’
‘I don’t need your frigging agitation in my ear, Lucic,’ Worna snarled into his wrist-mounted link. ‘We’re sitting tight, so sit tight with us. I’ll tell you whoa or go as soon as there’s a whoa or go to tell you.’
The Wych House’s theatre chamber was painfully silent. Worna’s paid guns had spread out around the room in a securing spread. The housekeepers had been forced down in a little huddle of seated figures, with two men watching them. The candles and lamps flickered.
Kys and Nayl sat side-by-side on the raised walkway with their backs against the outer wall. Two men had been posted to watch them too. One of them had been given the psy-scanner, and was studying it closely, as if his life depended on it.
Which it does, Nayl thought, in a small, savoured moment of optimism.
Worna was standing on the upper platform, staring at the closed, silent door. They’d heard his side of the vox-link exchange. At the mention of Lucic’s name, Nayl had risked a look at Kys.
She met the look. Lucic. Betrayed.
Worna clumped down the steps to rejoin them. He towered over their seated figures, then squatted down. Kys could smell his breath. Gutter meat. Bad rations.
‘Taking a long time,’ he offered, almost comradely.
‘I don’t know what’s taking a long time, because I don’t know what’s going on,’ Kys replied.
‘Not so much talk from you, witch,’ Worna grumbled in his penetratingly low voice. He looked at Nayl.
‘What the hell happened to you?’ he asked.
‘Life happened,’ Nayl replied coldly.
Worna frowned. ‘We saw some fine times in the old days. You and me, and the others. Scored plenty. Now look at you, taking the Throne’s coin. What drives a man to do that, I wonder?’
‘I got a good offer.’
‘From the ordos?’ Worna laughed. ‘This Ravenor cripple?’
‘Originally, no. His master, Eisenhorn,’ Nayl replied.
‘Oh, yeah. I heard of him. Eisenhorn. Tough old bird. But he’s dead, right? That’s what I was told.’
‘I think he’s dead.’
‘And now you throw your lot in with this crippled scumbag?’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘No?’ Lucius Worna shrugged. ‘Maybe not. This isn’t some frigging loyalty thing, is it? Please, please, powers that be, don’t tell me Harlon frigging Nayl went and got himself a conscience.’
Nayl laughed despite himself, and shook his head.
‘Walk with me,’ Worna said, rising, and beckoning Nayl to follow him. Nayl got up and joined Worna in a long, slow circuit of the railed deck.
‘You wanna smoke?’ Worna asked.
‘A smoke’d be good.’
Worna flicked his fingers and one of his men proffered a pack of lho-sticks. They took one each, and the man lit them obediently.
Kys watched. The Harlon Nayl she knew never smoked these days.
Lucius Worna took a deep draw and exhaled. Nayl toyed with his lho-stick rather more circumspectly.
‘Wanted to get you away from that witch,’ Worna confided. ‘She’s bad news.’
‘If you say so.’
‘If I say so? What is this, be nice to Lucius week?’
‘You got the guns, you got the manpower, hell, you got the drop, Lu. What the frig else am I gonna do except be nice to you?’
Worna chuckled. ‘In your place, I’d do the same. But then, you always knew how to play a scene, didn’t you, Nayl?’
‘I’ve had my moments.’
‘Hell, yeah. Good work. We did good work. You remember what’s his name?’
‘Probably. What was his name?’
‘Shinto... Shinko... Shimko... some frig like that.’
‘Alek Shinato?’
‘That’s the frigger!’ Worna exclaimed. ‘Throne, that was a good day. Sarum, on the look out. You got a tip on the down low and we were in. But how many frigging gun-happy trogs did that guy have waiting for us?’
‘Almost too many,’ Nayl admitted.
‘Almost too many, that’s a fact. Las like confetti. Bracer bought it right off.’
‘Bracer was a stump,’ said Nayl. ‘He was asking to be wiped the day he applied for his licence.’
‘Yeah, that’s true.’
They walked on a little way.
‘I was in the chasm that day, Nayl,’ said Worna. ‘Pinned. Took one in the leg, still pains me. But you came through. Cleanest kill shots I ever saw, no lie. The two stiffs with the cannon, then Shinto himself. End of story.’
‘Shinato.’
Worna grunted. ‘He’s dead. What does it matter?’
‘I’m the one pinned now, Lu.’
‘Yes, yes, you are.’
‘Never seems fair to me,’ Nayl remarked, knocking the ash off his lho-stick. ‘We work for coin, always have. It’s never about ties or bonds or loyalties. I saved your life that day, but it doesn’t count now.’
‘Maybe so, maybe no,’ Worna replied. ‘This is why I wanted to talk to you, in private, so to speak. I don’t like to see you go swirling down the head with these other mongrels. There’d be a place for you, just say the word.’
‘A place?’
Worna gestured around them. ‘I got a new crew together, with a good source of retainer fees, all the perks. These bastards are the best, but I could always use another good gun. Say the word, and you’re working for me.’
‘You’re joking? I’ve been serving the Inquisition for decades.’
‘I know. But, like you said, we work for coin. No ties, no bonds, no loyalties. You’ve been working for pay, and pay is what I’m offering. Since when did you or me care who was servicing our bill?’
‘This is because you owe me?’ asked Nayl.
‘This is precisely because I owe you. My life, I owe you. I’m offering you your life in payment of that debt. Join my crew. I can square it with Culzean. Pay’s sweet, did I mention that? I don’t like the thought of you skull-shot with the others, and I have a strong feeling that’s how it’s going to end. Come and play with the winning team, now, before it’s too late.’
Nayl drew on his lho-stick. ‘Nice offer. Tempting. But how the frig would you ever trust me? Hello? Ordo work, for decades, remember?’
‘Well,’ murmured Worna, ‘you’d have to prove yourself, to me and the crew.’
‘How?’
Lucius Worna looked back around the chamber to where Kys was sitting under guard. He slid a vicious combat dagger out of his hip rig. ‘Gut the frigging telekine witch for me, would you?’
Nayl blinked. Then he smiled and took hold of the blade.
‘Make it last,’ Lucius Worna advised.
Two
Leaping, bounding, skipping, they pour down over us under the red heat of the gunshot sun. Their chitter hits us first, then their stink, and then the impressing weight of their torrent.
Carl is screaming. The housekeeper is screaming. Both are hammering at the unyielding door.
I know the door is sealed and will not open because I know this is a trap. Zygmunt Molotch’s last, best and most horrific trap.
The first of them land on me, scraping their hook blades off my chair’s hull. The weight of them pushes my chair down into the dust and threatens to topple me. There is a sour stink of the adrenal hormone driving their aggression.
What are these chattering creatures, these monsters? They are unknown to me, unknown to Imperial lore. What does it matter anyway? They are death. They are my death.
Ballack is firing his weapon, yelling out. The wave rolling in on him falters, punctured. Vile, purplish ichor explodes from shot-blasted bodies and clumps the dry sand where it splashes. How long can he hold them back?
Angharad. No wonder Harlon is so enamoured of her. She’s like a fury, standing her ground, her long steel swinging. Limbs fly off, hooked members flipping
and spinning away through the air. Snouts are truncated. Horns are turned aside, hooks deflected. Ichor sprays. Evisorex bites. The Ewl Wyla Scryi. The genius of sharpness. I doubt any Carthaen in clan history has ever faced down such a foe single-handed. She is magnificent. She turns and spins, kicks and slices, driving the organisms back, damaged and slain.
I estimate she will last another minute and a half.
Carl turns from the door, firing his autopistol wildly. He scores hits. It’s difficult not to, given the sheer wall of squirming menace driving into us. Leaping forms burst in mid-air and tumble, twitching.
These are impossible odds. We are going to die. Hook blades squeal and scrape against my chair’s surface. We are going to die. How quickly is up to me.
I fling the increasing layers of gouging, yapping bodies off me with a mind-flick. Some of the creatures sail back a long way into the ranks behind them. Righting my chair, I send out another telekinetic burst that pulps the front rank in a blizzard of purple-black jelly and shattering chitin.
I am an Imperial inquisitor. I will not go down without a fight.
I pop my weapon modules out of my chair’s chassis. Paired psy-cannons. I open fire and blitz the black and white organisms bounding towards me. Ballack has drawn his back-up weapon, an auto-snub. He fires into the oncoming swarm. There’s been no time to reload his las.
Evisorex rips and shreds. Bodies are opened, bisected. Hind limbs still attached to violently lashing tails fly past, gushing noxious liquid from their severed waists. I sustain my fire, as long as my hopper loads last. Leaping horrors pop, burst, fracture, explode in showers of viscous matter.
‘Open the door! Open the door!’ Carl is screaming.
The housekeeper has sunk to the ground in shock, the key falling from limp hands.
I can just hear the housekeeper murmuring. What is that?
The Great Devourer. The Great Devourer...
The action is savage, unstinting. The more I hit and burst, the more of them there are, capering and bounding in. Their chattering mouths seem to be laughing at us.