The Outcast Dead

A duel between a swordsman and a longer-reaching hammer was an unequal contest, but these were no ordinary combatants. As Severian killed with impunity and the World Eaters regrouped in the midst of a furious short-range firefight, Kiron darted and wove between slashing blows of Ghota’s hammer. His skill was prodigious, his footwork flawless and his attacks launched with no hint of their target, and Atharva saw him working towards a decapitating strike.

  It was a battle of contrasts: precisely controlled skill and perfect discipline against raw violence and hunger for the kill. In the end, there could only be one victor. Kiron ducked beneath a killing arc of the hammerhead and thrust his blade into the narrow gap between Ghota’s breastplate and pauldron. The blade stabbed deep into the meat of the man’s body, yet he merely grunted as the blade went in. Ghota shoulder barged Kiron, gripping him by the neck and smashing his forehead into the exquisitely handsome features of his opponent.

  Kiron’s nose and cheeks broke, transforming his beautiful face into a shattered mask of fractured bone and squirting blood. Atharva paused in his escape, stunned at Kiron’s wounding. Though gunfire and screams still filled the square, the tempo of the battle seemed to drop as the combatants on both sides watched so perfect a warrior fall.

  Ghota’s hammer looped around in a bludgeoning curve, and smashed into Kiron’s shoulder, destroying muscle and flesh and driving down into his chest in a welter of broken ribs. Atharva heard the crack of bones and felt a sympathetic spasm of pain as Kiron’s agony flared in the aether.

  Kiron spat a torrent of blood, staring defiantly at his killer.

  Ghota’s hammer swung around to crush Kiron’s skull to splinters.

  A heavy fist caught the enormous weapon’s haft on its downward arc, a pale, sepulchral hand streaked with blood and empowered with all the strength bred into the warriors of Mortarion’s deathly Legion.

  Gythua sent a right cross into Ghota’s jaw, the blow hitting home like a pile-driver and sending Babu Dhakal’s warrior reeling.

  ‘That’s my friend you’ve killed,’ he barked.

  Atharva knew the Death Guard should not be alive. He should already be dead, a bled-out corpse cooling on Antioch’s bench. He shouldn’t even have survived the crash, but here he was, unyielding even unto the end. Ghota shook his head and spat blood, taking in the measure of his opponent and giving a crooked-toothed smile.

  ‘You’re as good as dead,’ said Ghota.

  ‘That’s as maybe,’ agreed Gythua. ‘But come near my friend again and your blood will run with mine on this fine ground.’

  ‘I’ll kill you before you can raise a fist,’ Ghota promised.

  ‘Then come on, boy,’ snapped the Death Guard. ‘You’re boring me already.’

  Gythua’s talk was brave, but Atharva knew he could not hope to stand against Ghota. Determination and honour were keeping Gythua on his feet, but they wouldn’t be enough against so formidable an opponent.

  The sounds of gunfire slackened, and Atharva saw that as Kiron and Ghota had fought, Severian and the World Eaters had finished the battle. Bodies littered the square, some cut open, some headless and some simply torn limb from limb. The odds in this battle had turned on their head, and Atharva saw that understanding in Ghota’s blood-red eyes.

  The warrior raised his hammer and spat on the ground before walking away from the slaughter. No one raised a weapon against him, though Tagore had one of his victim’s guns held across his bloodied chest. Subha and his twin watched Ghota go with a mixture of wary respect and anger, while Severian swept up a fallen rifle and scanned for fresh threats.

  With Ghota out of sight, Gythua sank to his knees beside Kiron, his head dropping to his chest as the life ebbed from him. Atharva ran to his side and laid Kai down on the ground in time to catch the Death Guard as his indomitable strength finally gave out. He held the dying warrior and wiped blood from his ghostly pale face.

  Beside him, Kiron coughed a frothed mouthful of blood and struggled to speak through the pain of his shattered body. The World Eaters gathered round, bloodied angels of death come to witness the final moments of their fallen brothers. Even Antioch had emerged from the wreckage of his home to see something most mortals would never see through the entire span of their impossibly brief lives: the death of a Space Marine.

  ‘Didn’t… think… you’d get a… glorious death… all to… yourself, did you?’ hissed Kiron with gurgling, breathy effort.

  ‘Can’t say I was… trying… to die at all,’ replied Gythua. ‘Damn fool of you to go up against that big bastard.’

  Kiron nodded. ‘He made me miss, and… I never… miss…’

  ‘I won’t tell,’ said Gythua, and the last of his life bled out.

  Kiron nodded and put a hand on Gythua’s shoulder before letting out a rattling cough that stilled his breath. Atharva watched the light of his aura fade to grey and bowed his head.

  ‘They are gone,’ he said.

  ‘They died well,’ observed Tagore, one hand pressed to his side where he had been shot.

  Asubha knelt beside the two dead warriors and closed their eyes.

  ‘Their Crimson Path is ended,’ said Subha.

  Tagore looked over at Atharva and aimed his gun at Kai. ‘You still think the astropath is worth this?’

  ‘More than ever,’ said Atharva with a nod as Severian emerged from the shadows with a weapon held at his shoulder.

  ‘Good enough,’ said Tagore, lifting the weapon as though seeing it for the first time.

  Severian turned his gun around in his hands and said, ‘You know what these weapons are, who they were made for?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Atharva. ‘I do.’

  ‘I heard they were dead,’ said Tagore. ‘I thought they all died in the last battle of Unity.’

  ‘So history tells us, but apparently Terra holds its own secrets,’ said Atharva, staring at the thin wisp of fumes drifting from the hissing patch of ground where Ghota had spat.

  ‘History can wait,’ said Severian. ‘Our hunters will not, and this will draw them to us like moths to a flame.’

  ‘What about Gythua and Kiron?’ asked Subha. ‘We can’t just leave them here like this.’

  Atharva turned to Antioch. ‘Do you have any suggestions, chirurgeon?’

  ‘I can’t keep them,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’m in enough trouble as it is.’

  ‘No, but as chirurgeon in a place like this, you must be aware of places where dead bodies can be taken.’

  Antioch looked up, and whatever caustic reply was forming on his lips remained unspoken as he saw the deadly earnestness in Atharva’s eyes.

  ‘Best you can do is to take them to the Temple of Woe,’ he said. ‘There’s an incinerator there if you don’t want the bodies picked clean by daybreak.’

  ‘The Temple of Woe?’ asked Atharva. ‘What is that?’

  Antioch shrugged. ‘A place where folk that don’t want their dead left to rot take their bodies. They say it’s run by a priest, if you can believe that. I hear he’s some madman who lost his mind and thinks that death is something you can appease with prayers.’

  ‘And how would we find this place?’

  ‘It’s a few kilometres east of here, built into the foot of the scarp you can see over the roofs there. You can’t miss it, there’s dozens of statues carved into its walls. Leave your friends at the feet of the Vacant Angel, and they’ll be done right.’

  Atharva’s psychic senses flared at Antioch’s words, and the memory of his recurring vision returned with all the clarity of a lucid dream.

  A haunted mausoleum, a stalking wolf and the towering statue of a faceless angel…

  NINETEEN

  Enemy Emperor

  Night is Falling

  Execution

  KAI FELT WARMTH on his face and a cool breeze caressed his skin with fragrances of glittering oceans, long grasses and exotic spices designed to inflame the senses. He wanted to open his eyes, but some lingering anxiety made him keep them shut for fe
ar that this precious moment of peace might be snatched away from him.

  He knew he was dreaming, and the realisation of that did not worry him unduly. The life he had left in the waking world was one of pain and fear, emotions he did not have face in this state of limbo. Kai stretched out his senses, hearing the soft sighing of water on a beach, the rustle of wind through high treetops and the emptiness of space that can only be felt in the greatest wildernesses.

  ‘Are you going to make your move, Kai?’ asked a voice that came from right in front of him. He knew the speaker instantly: the golden figure he had pursued through the marble cloisters of Arzashkun. Hesitantly, he opened his eyes, surprised for some reason that he could do so.

  He sat on a wooden stool before a polished regicide board on the shores of the lake beyond Arzashkun’s walls. The game was underway, and the silver pieces were arranged before Kai, the onyx ones laid out before a tall figure clad in long robes of deepest black. His opponent’s face was hooded, but a pair of golden eyes glittered deep in the blackness within. Embroidered words in fine black thread were stitched into every seam and fold of the fuliginous robes, but Kai couldn’t read them, and gave up trying when the figure spoke again.

  ‘You have come a long way since last we spoke.’

  ‘Why am I here?’ asked Kai.

  ‘To play a game.’

  ‘The game’s already begun,’ pointed out Kai.

  ‘I know. Few of us are granted the privilege of being present for the beginning of events that shape our lives. One must look at the board one is presented with and make of it what you can. For example, what do you see of my position?’

  ‘I’m not much of an expert on regicide,’ admitted Kai, as his opponent pulled back his hood to reveal a face that shimmered in the haze of sunlight that danced through the waving leaves of this oasis. It was a kindly face, a paternal one, yet there was a core of something indefinable, or perhaps undefined, behind that mask.

  ‘But you know the game?’

  Kai nodded. ‘The Choirmaster made us play it,’ he said. ‘Something about making us appreciate the value of taking the proper time to make a decision.’

  ‘He is a wise man, Nemo Zhi-Meng.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Of course, but look at the game,’ insisted his opponent. ‘Tell me what you see.’

  Kai scanned the board, seeing that a number of the pieces were hooded, making it impossible to ascertain their loyalty. From what he understood of the game’s complexities, it appeared there could only be one outcome.

  ‘I think you’re losing,’ said Kai.

  ‘So it would appear,’ agreed the figure, drawing the hood from one of the pieces, ‘but appearances can be deceptive.’

  The revealed piece was a Warrior, one of nine remaining to onyx, rendered as an ancient soldier in gleaming battle plate.

  ‘One of yours,’ said Kai.

  ‘Then make your move.’

  Kai saw the revealed piece had been pushed forward as part of an aggressive opening, but it had been left unsupported by its fellows. Kai moved his Divinitarch from a nearby square and took the piece, placing it on the side of the board.

  ‘Did you mean to sacrifice your Warrior?’ asked Kai.

  ‘A good sacrifice is a move that is not necessarily sound, but which leaves your opponent dazed and confused,’ said the figure.

  ‘I was told that it is always better to sacrifice your opponent’s pieces.’

  ‘In most cases, I would agree, but real sacrifice involves a radical change in the character of a game, which cannot be effected without foresight and a willingness to take great risks.’

  And so saying, the figure swept his Fortress down the board and toppled Kai’s Divinitarch. The piece in the figure’s hand glittered in the sunlight, seeming to shift from black to silver and back to black.

  ‘The sacrifice of a Warrior is most often played for drawing purposes,’ said the figure with a sad smile. ‘Against the very strongest players it can prove to be quite useful, and one of the advantages of playing so risky a gambit is that the average opponent knows little of how to defend against it.’

  ‘What if you’re not playing an average opponent?’ asked Kai. ‘What if you’re playing someone just as clever as you?’

  Kai’s opponent shook his head and crossed his arms. ‘If you allow timidity to guide your play then you will never achieve victory, Kai. All you will find are new ghosts to fear. Too often you allow the fear of that which your opponent has not even considered to keep you from greatness. That is the truth of regicide.’

  Kai looked down at the board, enjoying this moment of calm in the pain-filled nightmare his life had become. That it was a temporary fiction made it no less real at this point, and Kai had no intention of rushing to embrace the madness of his waking life.

  ‘Do I have to go back?’ he asked, moving his Templar forward.

  ‘To the Petitioner’s City?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That is up to you, Kai,’ said the figure, repositioning his Emperor. ‘I cannot tell you which path to choose, though I know the one I would wish you to take.’

  ‘I think the warning I have is for you,’ said Kai.

  ‘It is,’ agreed the figure. ‘But you cannot tell me yet.’

  ‘I want to,’ said Kai. ‘If you are who I think you are, can’t you just, I don’t know, lift it from my mind?’

  ‘If I could, do you not think I would have done so?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I have seen a great many things, Kai, but some secrets are hidden even from me,’ said the figure, indicating a handful of hooded pieces that Kai was sure hadn’t been there a moment ago. ‘I have watched this moment many times and replayed our words a thousand times, but the universe has secrets it refuses to reveal until their appointed hour.’

  ‘Even from you?’

  ‘Even from me,’ said the figure with a wry nod.

  Kai took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. The skin around them was irritated and sore.

  ‘The Choirmaster always said regicide was about truth,’ said Kai as they took turns to move their pieces across the board.

  ‘He was right,’ said the figure, moving his Emperor another square forward. ‘No fantasy, however rich, no technique, however masterly, no insight into the psychology of your opponent, however deep, can make regicide a work of art if it does not lead to the truth.’

  Despite Kai’s averred lack of skill in regicide, the game appeared to be balanced in neither player’s favour, though he had more pieces remaining. After the opening salvoes and the mystery of the middle game, it was clear the endgame was now in sight. Both players had lost a great many pieces, but the lords of the board were coming into their own.

  ‘Now we come to it,’ said Kai, moving his Empress into a strong position to trap his opponent’s Emperor. In the early stages of their game, Kai’s Emperor bestrode the board with confident swagger, while his opponent’s had remained steadfastly in defence, but now the master of onyx drew nearer the fighting line.

  Their pieces jostled for position, and Kai had a growing sense that he had been lured into this attack, but he could see no way his opponent could win without the ultimate sacrifice. At last, he made a confident move, sure he had the onyx Emperor boxed in by his cardinal pieces.

  Only when the robed figure moved his Emperor boldly forward did he realise his error.

  ‘Regicide,’ said his opponent, and Kai saw with growing admiration and shock how deftly he had been manoeuvred into baring his neck to the executioner’s blade.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘You won with your Emperor. I thought that almost never happens.’

  His opponent shrugged. ‘During the opening and middle game stage, the Emperor is often a burdensome piece, as it must be defended at all costs, but in the endgame it has to become an important and aggressive player.’

  ‘It was a bloody game,’ Kai pointed out. ‘You lost a great many of your stronges
t pieces to bring my Emperor down.’

  ‘Such is often the way with two equally skilled players,’ said the figure.

  ‘Do we play again?’ asked Kai, reaching for the pieces lost in the game.

  The figure reached over and took hold of Kai’s wrist. The grip was firm, unyielding, and Kai sensed strength that could crush his bones in an instant.

  ‘No, this is a game that can only be played once.’

  ‘Then why is the board ready to play again?’ asked Kai, seeing that all the pieces were restored to their starting positions without him having touched them.

  ‘Because there is another opponent I must face, one who knows every gambit, every subtlety and every endgame. I know this, because I taught him.’

  ‘Can you defeat him?’ asked Kai with a mounting sense of unease as a shadow moved on the edges of the oasis.

  ‘I do not know,’ admitted the figure. ‘I cannot yet see the outcome of our meeting.’

  The robed figure looked down at the board, and Kai saw the pieces had moved once more, into a convoluted arrangement that defied interpretation. He looked up and saw his opponent clearly for the first time, seeing the burden of an entire civilisation resting upon his broad shoulders.

  ‘How can I be of service?’ asked Kai.

  ‘You can go back, Kai. You can go back to the waking world and bring me the warning Sarashina gave you.’

  ‘I’m afraid to go back,’ said Kai. ‘I think I might die if I do.’

  ‘I fear that you will,’ agreed the figure.

  Kai felt a cold knot in the heart of his stomach, and the fear that had consumed him since the Argo returned with a sickening lurch. The sky darkened, and Kai heard muttering voices raised in argument from somewhere far distant.

  ‘You’re asking me to sacrifice myself for you?’

  ‘No sacrifice is too great for the scalp of the enemy Emperor,’ said the figure.

  COLD MIST GATHERED around the many benches bearing laboratory equipment, and the hum of generators could be heard beyond the insulated walls of the low-ceilinged chamber. Banks of equipment that would not look out of place in the halls of a Martian geneticist whirred as centrifuges spun clinking vials of raw materials, incubators nursed gestating zygotes and vats of nutrient-rich liquid fostered the growth of complex enzymes and proteins.