“I think not,” she said. “I will be safer with you.”
Ragnar did not have time to argue. He rushed forward. There was a strange stench in the air, of death and something else. There were traces of strangers. He rounded the corner and saw that the guards who should have been there were not. He sniffed for scents and headed through a doorway into a storage chamber. There were corpses and a great deal of blood. The warmth of the scent trace told Ragnar that the killers had been here recently.
He patched himself into the comm-net. “There are intruders within the palace,” he said. “We have lost two warriors already, maybe more.” He added the coordinates of his position within the building. “Inform Valkoth and the others.”
“I have already been informed,” came Valkoth’s deep melancholy voice. “I am dispatching reinforcements to your position.”
“The intruders were here very recently. I am going to investigate.”
“Be cautious, Ragnar. We do not know what we are dealing with.”
“Aye,” said Ragnar. His mind raced. This could be very big. They had no idea how these strangers got in. One thing was certain, murder had been committed here. The Belisarians had not drawn their weapons; they had been taken completely off-guard. Was this an attack? Who could be behind it? The Brotherhood, or someone else entirely. Surely it would be impossible for the fanatics to get in, he thought. Unless they had help…
“Stay here,” he told Gabriella. “House troops will be here soon. You will be safe.”
“These men were House troops, Ragnar,” she said, pointing to the corpses. “How safe were they?”
It was a fair point. “Stick close and dive for cover if there is trouble. I cannot guarantee your safety.”
“I will take my chances.”
“That’s what you will be doing.”
Ragnar moved swiftly and silently in the direction of the scent trace. They were coming perilously close to the entrance to the Vaults.
The scent trails became thicker. There were at least a dozen men here and they were certainly not from within the palace.
Ragnar drew his chainsword and bolt pistol. He felt his awareness expand as it always did when he approached combat. They came to one of the massive sealed doors. It was sealed no longer. Someone had over-ridden the controls, and let themselves into the Vault.
“That’s not possible,” said Gabriella. “Only the upper echelons of the family have access to these codes. And the senior Wolfblades.”
“I fear it is possible,” said Ragnar, sniffing the air. “Someone has access to the treasures of Belisarius.”
It was then his nose caught another scent. It had the mad strangeness of Chaos. This was getting weird. Was this how the strangers had entered? Had they used Chaos sorcery to let themselves into the Vaults and then fanned out from there? That was not what the scent trails told him.
“This is worse than I thought,” he said. “The stink of mutation is all over this place. Chaos has corrupted even the sacred soil of Terra it would seem.”
Gabriella gave him an odd look. “Perhaps it is not Chaos you scent,” she said.
Ragnar did hot have time to answer her. The sound of a weapon being fired echoed through the corridor, and there was a wild inhuman scream. At the same time, the lights flickered and failed. Total darkness. Ragnar shrugged. This was no hindrance to him. He could move by scent and touch and instinct if need be, but the girl would not be safe. He was surprised to sense her moving ahead of him.
“It is all right,” she said. “I am a Navigator. My pineal eye can see through far worse gloom than this,” The scent of gunmetal coming from her became slightly stronger. He sensed that she too had drawn a weapon. A moment later the lights flickered once more and came on although much dimmer than before. He noticed that there was a stillness in the air that had not been there before. The palace’s ventilation systems were down.
As his eyes adjusted to the new conditions Ragnar saw that Gabriella was well ahead of him, a small laspistol in one hand, her dress sabre in the other. He moved swiftly in front of her. No harm would come to the daughter of Adrian Belisarius if he could help it.
He lengthened his stride towards the sound of violence, and emerged into a large chamber in which something bloated and white and huge lay on the floor. Its legs looked more like flippers, its arms like tentacles. But the face appeared human and it had three eyes, one in the middle of the forehead that looked suspiciously like that of a Navigator. Had this creature somehow found its way in here during the attack, Ragnar wondered? Very unlikely. What then were the Navigators doing with the thing? Was it a prisoner, something they performed experiments on? Whatever it was no longer mattered. The creature was dead now. Someone had filled it full of bullets. They had taken the time to write “Die mutant scum” on the walls in its blood as well. There was a lot of hatred there.
Gabriella entered and let out a small shriek. At first, he thought it was in horror at the sight of the monster but then he realised that she was weeping openly.
An awful suspicion entered his mind that was confirmed when she said, “They are killing the Elders.”
“What?”
“You heard me — they are killing the Elders!”
“These things were Navigators?” said Ragnar, appalled.
“They are Navigators, very old ones, very wise ones.”
“They are mutants.”
“As are we all!”
“But you look…”
“I look more human. It makes no difference. If you live long enough and are exposed to the warp often enough, this is what happens. It’s the price that we pay so that humanity can have star flight.”
Ragnar shook his head, struggling to comprehend. The logic of her words was inexorable, and he remembered the conversation he had with Ranek back on Fenris about the things he might learn on Terra. It all made more sense now. The old man must have known this, and in his own way he had tried to prepare him. But nothing could have prepared him for this reality.
“The Emperor…” he said.
“The Emperor knew, Ragnar. The Emperor knew and he granted the charters anyway.”
“But he told no one, said nothing.”
“He might have done had Horus not wounded him mortally and sentenced him to eternity in the golden throne. He was a great man, Ragnar, and he knew the truth. And while we stand here debating this, others of my kin are dying. You can hear it if you listen!”
Ragnar paused. He felt very unsettled and very unsure of himself. He was being called upon to defend mutants, real mutants. The Brotherhood was right. Was defending these mutants honourable?
“Are you going to do your sworn duty or aren’t you?” Gabriella asked. “Are you going to side with those mindless bigots or are you going to side with us?”
And there it was. It was not about the Navigators, it was about him. It was his choice. He could defend the Navigators or not. It would reflect on him. What was the difference between Gabriella whom he liked, and the corpse at his feet? Time. “Will you…?”
“If I live long enough,” she said. “I will look like that. Maybe not exactly but close enough. And I will still have done my duty to the Emperor. Will you?”
“It’s not for you to question my loyalty to the Imperium, girl,” His decision made, he was already on the move. He had sworn to serve the Celestarch and he was going to protect her people. He would do his duty, the rest he would figure out later. The universe was more complex than he had been led to believe.
From up ahead came the butchering sounds of somebody using a chainsaw, followed by screams of pain, and then laughter.
“Hard to move without any legs, isn’t it, mutant?” said a man garbed all in black, as he brandished a chainsword over the strangely altered body of someone who once surely must have been a woman.
“Yes, it is,” said Ragnar and put a bolter shell through both of the man’s kneecaps. It was a cruel and unnecessary thing to do, but someone was going to feel the
brunt of his anger. The man’s companions turned to face him. They were quick and hyped on combat drugs and they brought their weapons to bear with astonishing speed. Ragnar did not care. He stepped to one side putting himself behind the shelter of the doorway and then snapped off shots. Every one of them was rewarded with a scream. A hail of shells answered him, tearing chunks out of the wall opposite the archway. He bolstered his pistol and lobbed in a flash grenade. A moment after it exploded he stepped through the door and opened fire. He wasted no shots this time. He put a bullet through the head of every stunned man and then approached the Navigator they had been torturing.
She was skeletally thin and unnaturally tall. Her face was narrow like an eldar’s, but her skin was scaled like a snake. Her stomach had been slit fully open and her innards had tumbled out. Not even the most advanced medicine would guarantee her survival, and judging by the look on her face she knew it. Terrible agony twisted her features. “Kill me,” she said.
Ragnar turned to Gabriella who nodded. Ragnar put a bullet into the ancient woman’s head, right through the pineal eye. He wished he had not felt a faint grim sense of satisfaction as he did so. He hoped for Gabriella’s sake it had not shown on his face. His prejudices ran very deep.
From all around came the sounds of shooting now. It seemed that this was not the only team loose in the Vaults of the forbidden zone. There were others.
Gabriella looked very angry now. “Navigators were behind this,” she said.
“How do you know?” he asked, ready to lunge off into the darkness once more.
“Only another Navigator House would know about these hidden Vaults and their significance.”
“Feracci?” Ragnar asked.
“The most likely candidate, don’t you think?”
“If it is, he will pay.”
“Not if my House is wiped out. No one will avenge us.”
Ragnar moved on. “The Inquisition might.”
“No. It might use this as an excuse to move against the other Navigators. But Cezare must know about this and be prepared to deal with it, or he would not have done it.”
“Then the Wolves will claim your bloodgeld for you.”
“Will they?”
“Indeed they will,” Ragnar wished he felt as sure as he sounded. Honour was one thing; the politics of the Imperium was another. Something occurred to him.
“If Cezare was behind this, then he was also behind the death of your father and Skander.”
“You could never prove that.”
Ragnar showed his fangs in a wolfish grin. “What makes you think I require proof?”
Xenothan strode through the corridors doing his considerable best to look like the panicked folk around him. Terrible chaos had erupted right in the heart of House Belisarius. Long held plans raced to fruition. The fanatics were loose in the Navigator’s precious Vaults. Assault teams were contaminating the water and air supplies. The main powercores were out.
Over the comm-net earbead he could sense panic. Word of the attack on the Vaults filtered back to the Belisarian command. They assumed that the Elders were the target of all of this and moved to defend them. Now was the time for Xenothan to strike. Misdirection was the key, he had to keep two steps ahead of his enemies. That counted for more than strength, or firepower, or wealth. It was something he was a master of. He marched on through the heart of Belisarius towards his goal.
Before this night was over the power of one of the oldest Navigator Houses would be broken, and his employer would have moved one step closer to his goal.
“How are you feeling?” Ragnar asked Gabriella. She looked pale and wan and filled with horror.
“I’ve been worse,” she said. She was bearing up well, given the number of her relatives she had seen butchered. But he could tell she was tired, scared and beginning to fray at the edges. He could not really blame her. This style of warfare was enough to test the nerves of the most seasoned warriors.
They stalked the gloomy Vaults. Massively outnumbered, their only chance was to strike from the shadows, and withdraw. If they were going to save the Elders there was no sense in courting a heroic death. Speed, savagery of attack and swiftness of flight would serve their purpose better.
Again and again, they came upon small groups of fanatics. Ragnar would open fire on the men and try to draw them away from their prey. If that failed, and it often did, he would return and snipe again, killing more and more. Overwhelmed by blood lust, the invaders brutally tortured the mutated Elders instead of proceeding with their mission. Ragnar suspected that it was only bloodlust that was preventing total eradication of the Navigators. If the Brotherhood’s warriors had moved swiftly and killed quickly, they might have succeeded in their task.
Perhaps not. Here and there Ragnar came upon massive blast doors. Some had been shattered with thermal charges, but many had held. Ragnar knew that beyond them, an Elder perhaps survived. He could only hope so. At least time was on their side. More and more House troops were rushing down here, and soon they might begin to overwhelm their attackers.
The fanatics must have known this would happen, he thought. But still they came on. There was something almost admirable about the way they were prepared to throw away their lives for the cause they believed in.
Almost, he reminded himself. But they were throwing their lives away to slay people who could not fight back: crippled mutants who were incapable of holding a weapon, let alone using it.
Over the comm-net Ragnar was getting reports that they had used other weapons as well. Poisons had been introduced into the air-circulators and water supplies. The filters were being replaced and casualties were light, but it was obvious, even to Ragnar that they had come incredibly well prepared. They had staggeringly detailed knowledge of the place they were going to attack and all its weak points. Everything pointed to the presence of a traitor in their midst. It was the only way anyone could have acquired such a complete pool of intelligence data.
As he padded forward towards the scent of more fanatics, his mind continued to gnaw away at the problem. A traitor would explain how they got in too. He did not doubt that somewhere and sometime later investigators would find a security door that had been unsealed, as well as guards who had either been bribed or killed. It was the only way such a breach could be achieved.
He poked his head around the corridor and saw a group of black-garbed men. One of them was sawing the tentacles off an Elder with a chainsword, while another lay groaning and bleeding nearby. It seemed that they had encountered one mutant determined to fight back. While he was sighting the back of the chainsword wielder’s head, another thought struck him.
What if the Elders were not the invaders’ principle target? He was drawing conclusions from what he had seen, and in military terms that could be a dangerous and incorrect method of doing things. Presumably with the intelligence they had they were capable of striking at anyone they wanted within the House.
Why would they pick on the Elders? They were politically powerful, but from what he understood, they were mostly retired or engaged in strange research.
He pulled the trigger and the back of his target’s head exploded in a cloud of red mist. His brains decorating the intruder in front of him. Ragnar sprang forward, sweeping his chainsword down at another target, and decapitated him instantly.
Gabriella too closed with the enemies. He moved swiftly to put as much distance as he could between them. He did not want to strike her accidentally in the savagery of the fray.
He lashed out with his boot, sending one invader flying into his comrade behind them. As the men went down in a tangle of limbs he pounced like a tiger on a tethered goat. He broke one man’s neck with a blow from his fist, the weight of the bolt pistol clutched in it adding power to the blow. He took the other’s head from his shoulders with the sword. It rolled to the ground and blinked stupidly for a moment. There was a look of utter dismay on its face.
As his body went through the motions of combat, Ragnar
asked himself, why now for this attack? Perhaps it had something to do with the guards’ shifts, and the presence of traitors within the defence. But it could be more complicated. What had changed with the big picture? Why would an attacker choose to roll the dice on this evening, and not some other?
Ragnar threw himself flat as a fanatic opened fire on him with a las-pistol. While the man struggled to bring his weapon to bear, Ragnar rolled and shot him, coming to his feet with a single lithe spring. Then it occurred to him: the vote for the new representative was tomorrow. This attack might well throw the Belisarians into confusion at a most critical moment. Or, he thought sombrely, it might bring a traitor to power if the Celestarch was killed. With the Elders gone or in disarray the House would have to find an alternate way of selecting its new ruler. That would take time.
But, he thought, as he lunged to put his blade through a man’s heart, that could only happen if the present Celestarch was dead. A sudden dread filled Ragnar. He felt certain he had divined the enemy’s plan.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Xenothan proceeded through the palace, following the guidance he received from the main datacore over the comm-net. In case of emergencies, he had memorised the layout from the plans the traitor had provided, but so far he had had no need to use it. Some of the area he knew from his own many trips in disguise, but these were the public places and the less secure sectors abutting them. Now he was right in the core of the palace. Behind his altered features he felt excitement, the excitement of the hunt. Tonight he stalked dangerous prey for the greatest prize of all. Tonight, he would alter the course of the Imperium for generations to come. It was a mission worthy of his talents.
A young servant strode up, with fear on her face. “What is going on, sir?” she asked. In the stress of the moment, she had abandoned the usual protocols and spoke to him without being spoken to. “Why the alert?”
“Intruders,” said Xenothan, injecting a note of panic into his voice. He knew that the more alarm and confusion he caused the better.