Part 1 (1/2)

WARRIOR COVEN.

Deathwatch - 02.

C.S. Goto.

It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor his sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the G.o.ds, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carca.s.s writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperoras will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the s.p.a.ce Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their mult.i.tudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants a and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most b.l.o.o.d.y regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting G.o.ds.

CHAPTER ONE: TRAITORS.

The two figures moved in utter silence and with incredible speed. They were only suggestions of images, lingering on the edge of visibility like the shadows of a lurking death. They flicked and whirled with motion, flas.h.i.+ng like darkness in the deep shade of the dimly lit corridor. Moments of deepest quiet darted out from their movements, as though they were emitting shards of nothingness, covering themselves with a shower of imperceptibility. The total silence in the corridor hissed with unnatural menace, as though it were an aberration, and the dark figures bathed in it like composers in their own symphony.

As the two dark eldar wyches worked, the air between them started to s.h.i.+mmer and liquefy, as though curtains of watery darkness were being drawn across the corridor. Sparks of light from the glowing veins that ran through the mysterious, s.h.i.+mmering substance of the ceiling and floor caught the unearthly ripples like bursts of starlight. As the liquefaction intensified, so the shadowy motion of the wyches was cast into even deeper darkness, silhouetted against the erratically glimmering curtain. They dashed from one side of the corridor to the other, making adjustments to the devices that they had already fitted to the walls, touching their fingers to b.u.t.tons that did not compress or click but which glittered as the wychesa flesh approached.

At an unspoken and invisible signal, the two wyches snapped into stillness and then dropped to their knees, bowing their heads towards the warp field that they had just created in the bowels of the vast Ulthwe craftworld. The rippling field started to pulse with waves, scattering droplets of darklight over the kneeling figures. The waves rose and gathered momentum, cras.h.i.+ng into interference patterns that sizzled with unspeakable power.

Somewhere in the maze of corridors behind them, the wyches could hear the metallic trampling of running feet. They presumed that the effete Ulthwe had finally realised what was going on. Pathetic: it was about time. Involuntarily, both of them snarled their upper lips in disgust at their feeble and distant brethren, but they did not move. They had no fear of the eldar guardians a the lightlings. They knew what was about to emerge from the warp gate that they had constructed in front of them, and in comparison the closing eldar were insipid, puny and spineless.

Having seen the horrors at the command of the haemonculi, fear took on a whole new meaning, and there was nothing that the Ulthwe could do to perturb the wyches. Despite themselves, the two interlopers smiled, letting the dim light spark off their black teeth; knowing that their own superiors would happily exact more terrible suffering on them than their enemies could possibly imagine liberated them for the fight to come. There was always a small chance that they would suffer even if they returned triumphant, but part of their souls rejoiced in this m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic prospect. The gentrified and pompous eldar had no idea what the G.o.ds had cast into their future. They didnat even know that their G.o.ds were dead, the short-sighted fools.

As the footsteps grew louder, so the ripples and waves in the warp field grew more violent. Refusing to look up, Kroulir and Druqura held their gazes into the polished deck, letting the reflections of the warp dance and flash beneath them, watching the erratic and spectacular patterns gradually resolving themselves into familiar shapes. Fragments of the field splattered out of the gate, spitting icy pain over their backs as they remained bowed in patient deference.

Behind them, the sounds of footfalls s.h.i.+fted in tone, as though they were no longer m.u.f.fled by walls or corners in the corridor. It seemed that the eldar guardians had finally reached the two wych raiders. As if to confirm their calculation, a cloud of tiny projectiles whined past the bowed figures, slicing into their scant, sculpted armour, peppering the devices that they had implanted into the walls, and splas.h.i.+ng into the immaterial substance of the warp field itself. With suitably masterful timing, tendrils of warp started to reach out of the s.h.i.+mmering pool, questing into the thick, soupy reality of the craft-world pa.s.sageway. They snaked and grew, reaching and thickening, intertwining and interlacing, oblivious to the hail of shuriken fire that sizzled out from the eldar guardians who were charging down the corridor towards them, behind the bowing wyches.

The running eldar guardians were shouting, sending blasts of sound and psychic noise thundering down the pa.s.sage. Kroulir could hear the fear in their voices and sense the urgency in their thoughts. As tiny shuriken shards of toxic pain bit into her back she grinned, running the tip of her tongue around the glistening points of her upper teeth. Not long now. She could feel the saliva moistening her mouth in antic.i.p.ation as she stared fixedly down into the deck, still unmoving.

Finally, the warp field before the wyches erupted, as though struck from the other side by a tsunami of energy. Waves of shaaiel a warp energy a broke and crashed out of the gate, was.h.i.+ng over the two dark eldar wyches like an ocean over rocks, covering them in freezing pulses of agony. Kroulir thrilled. Behind her she could hear the gasps of the eldar guardians and sense them fighting against their own panic a it was humiliating to think that those pathetic lightlings shared anything in common with her.

Another rush of shaaiel flooded out of the gate, swamping the deck with immaterial pools. Then a curdling shriek pierced the icy air. It was a single, tremulous tone, like a tortured soul. Another joined it, and another, until in an instant there was a chorus of agonising sound searing out of the warp gate, filling the corridor with memories of pain and thoughts of misery. Inchoate yells and screams ricocheted around the corridor, the warcries of the approaching eldar guardians blending into the curdling shrieks that emanated from the warp gate. Kroulir could hear a couple of the Ulthwe stumble.

There was a clatter as weapons were dropped, and Kroulir could imagine the guardians clutching at their oversensitive ears like weakling mon-keigh, howling like children. She stole a glance over at Druqura, and saw that the young wych had not moved at all; she remained stooped in a reverential bow, and there was a faint glint from her bowed face as the dark-light of the warp reflected from her eyes and the tips of her pointed teeth.

A sudden rush erupted through the air above the heads of the wyches, but neither of them had to look. They knew what was emerging from the warp gate. They could hear its signature in the way that the screams of the eldar changed, stopping abruptly. Only Quruel, mistress of the beasts, could bring such a shocking silence into the cacophony of battle. The wyches grinned, finally unfolding from their reverential bows and spinning into pirouettes as they unsheathed their blades and turned to face the eldar behind them.

Still dripping with shaaiel from the warp gate, Quruel stood in the centre of the corridor between the wyches and the eldar guardians, her hair a snaking nest of fiery tendrils, with a warp whip crackling darkly in one hand and a staff-mounted talon spinning in the other. She was flanked on both sides by unG.o.dly, barbed and scaled beasts. They were like small dragons, gnas.h.i.+ng and thras.h.i.+ng around Quruelas legs, spitting fragments of shaaiel like saliva. Their ruddy, rust-red scales seemed to swim and s.h.i.+ft over their bodies, twinkling with black stars, as though they were tiny, refractive windows into the immaterium itself. And their eyes burnt like pitch, deep and soulless. The only parts of them that looked material and real were their green claws, their yellow teeth, and the barbed silver spikes that ran from the crests on their heads to the very tips of their las.h.i.+ng tails. They were horrifyingly real.

A formation of black and red Reaver jetbikes flashed out into the jungle clearing sprays of projectiles hissing out of their nose mounted splinter rifles. The dark eldar riders were craned forward over the controls, leaning along the scaled nose cones of their vehicles with their wild, long hair flooding out behind them like jet-streams. They were howling like warp beasts, and their eyes glinted with maniacal pa.s.sion. As they sped into open ground, a volley of fire smashed into the front of their line, shattering their formation as the riders peeled away to avoid the onslaught.

The leading rider pulled up short, smoke and debris pluming out of his ruined Reaver. Just as the machineas engine core detonated, the rider vaulted to the ground, flipping neatly and turning a crisp somersault before landing with his splinter pistol already drawn. Before he could get off a single shot, his body was punched and riddled with a tirade of fire, throwing him shredded to the ground.

The eldar of Ulthweas Dark Reaper Aspect Temple, dug into their bunkers around the edge of the clearing, tracked the flight of the speeding Reavers with their reaper launchers, las.h.i.+ng flurries of rockets out through the foliage as though it were paper. They stood with their leg stabilisers planted firmly against the ma.s.sive report of their fearsome weapons, unleas.h.i.+ng an inferno that even the dark eldar should fear. Ulthwe may not host as many of the Aspect Temples as some of the other eldar craft-worlds, but they had always provided a home for the sinister Dark Reapers.

So close to the lashes of the Eye of Terror, the Dark Reapers of Ulthwe were constantly vigilant for signs of the return of their Phoenix Lord, Maugan Ra, the Harvester of Souls, who had vanished into the great Eye when the lost craftworld of Altansar had been swallowed whole. For now, Ulthwe was the closest place to home.

Truqui roared his fury into the wake of the speeding Reavers as they skirted the circ.u.mference of the glade, darting between the streams of fire that flooded out from his fellow Aspect Warriors. His reaper launcher was a formidable weapon, especially at range, and its constant recoil was driving his braced feet steadily into the ground. He yelled again, willing the tiny rockets into ever increasing ferocity, driving them after the treacherous raiders as though convinced that his hate for the darklings was a weapon in itself. But the rear afterburners of the Reavers were becoming faint as the dark eldar penetrated more deeply into the jungle climate of Ulthweas forest-domes.

Without lowering his weapon or releasing the trigger, Truqui spat in disgust. aReapers!a he yelled, keeping his eyes fixed on the vanis.h.i.+ng darklings, watching the threads of reaper rockets tracing their path behind them. Before he could utter another word, his command seemed to be fulfilled: a black Wave Serpent drew out of the tree-line behind him, hovering a metre above the earth, its twin linked shuriken catapults and cannons sizzling with constant fire.

Without turning Truqui released one hand from its brace along the elegant barrel of his singing weapon and s.n.a.t.c.hed it into a signal. At the sign from their exarch, the squad of Dark Reapers broke their firing lines behind him and vaulted into the anti-grav transport tank. The Wave Serpent accelerated forward, speeding after the rapidly disappearing Reavers. As it flashed past him, Truqui reached out his free hand and caught hold of a brace on the side of the vehicle, lifting himself up onto its hull without taking his eyes off his distant prey.

The ma.s.sive guns of the Wave Serpent coughed and spat shuriken fire after the Reavers, but the dark eldar jetbikes were too fast and too manoeuvrable to present effective targets weaving erratically between the trees. From the tankas roof, Truqui trained his eyes on the darklings, letting his reaper launcher twitch and scan automatically with his line of sight. He knew that the guns of the Wave Serpent would not be precise enough from this range, but he was an exarch of the Dark Reapers and he lived for moments like this. Squinting his eyes in momentary concentration, Truqui released a volley of rockets from his weapon, targeted into a small, empty clearing in the trees in the distance. There was nothing there.

Whether by divination or calculation, the reaper rockets arrived at exactly the moment when a dark eldar Reaver streaked into the clearing. The warheads punched into the exhaust tubes that protruded out of the back of the jetbike, shattering the rear of the engine block and detonating inside the energy core. The Reaver was wracked with explosions along the line of the exhaust, and then it erupted into a sudden fireball as the engine caught, incinerating the bike and the rider instantly.

Truqui held his gaze on the dying flames for a second and then started to track his next target, realising in dismay that the Reavers were much too fast to be caught by his Wave Serpent. Just as the realisation dawned on him, a bank of Ulthwe guardians slid up alongside the transport tank on gleaming black and silver jetbikes. Truqui turned to acknowledge the timely reinforcements, and the squadron leader nodded in recognition, before gunning her bike and streaking off in pursuit of the Reavers, a squadron of glittering jetbikes falling into formation behind her.

Watching the jetbikes streaking off in pursuit of the vile infiltrators, Truqui cursed beneath his breath, unwilling to accept that his Dark Reapers could not finish the job themselves. Beneath his feet, he could feel the Wave Serpent decelerate, as though attuned to the disappointment flowing from his mind. Then, with a sudden start, it lurched back into acceleration and Truqui grinned. The vehicle banked sharply, angling away from the chase and plunging into the deep jungle like a shark into water. This was not over yet.

The two inquisitor lords sat in silence, their features almost invisible in the half-light, hidden in the deep shadows cast by their heavy hoods. Vargas peered over his steepled fingers at the concerned expression on the face of his oldest acquaintance, his eyes glinting with untold pain.

aWe have heard nothing for centuries,a muttered Seishon, as though merely voicing his thoughts.

aPerhaps there has been nothing to hear?a offered Vargas, but even he was unconvinced.

aYou are too charitable, my old friend.a aWe have no reason not to trust in our arrangements. They were made by devout servants of the Emperor with the glory of the Imperium in mind. We must not doubt ourselves, especially not in such testing times,a replied Vargas, his voice tinged with defensiveness.

Seishon unfolded himself from his chair and stalked over to the viewscreen that dominated the wall. A million stars twinkled back into his bright eyes, filling his mind with expansiveness and icy void. The image was steady and crisp; the old inquisitor might have been looking out of a window at a local starscape, instead of off into the terrible distance. The joint Inquisitorial substation, Ramugan, was positioned as close to the Eye of Terror as was safe, but it was still a very long way away.

aYes,a he whispered, half to himself. aThese are indeed testing times.a As he spoke, Seishon leaned closer to the screen, letting his proximity trigger the zooming mechanism that scrolled the designated quadrant into closer focus. A deep red mist was faintly visible around the minor constellation of Circuitrine. The red colour had been deliberately lightened and enhanced on the screen, but the mist was real enough. It was a red so deep that it was almost indistinguishable from the blackness of s.p.a.ce around it. Not for the first time in the last few weeks, Seishon wondered whether anybody else had yet noticed it.

aRe-phase and unfilter. Bring up the Eye.a Still seated at the long table in the centre of the room, Vargas snapped the command to an unseen servitor.

The screen flickered and then flashed with colour, forcing Seishon to step back and shade his eyes from the sudden burst of light. The speckled darkness was instantly replaced by a supernova of colours: bright reds and pinks burst out through clouds of blues and purples, riddled with explosions of dark green and rings of yellow. It was as though an impossible quant.i.ty of toxic chemicals had suddenly erupted into flames and set the galaxy itself ablaze.

aIt is utterly invisible in the lashes of the Eye of Terror,a observed Vargas, as though reading his friendas mind. aI would be surprised if anyone else has noticed it.a Seishon nodded slowly as he stared into the blinding maelstrom of warp energy that defined the Eye of Terror on the screen. It was certainly true that the gentle red mist around Circuitrine was imperceptible against the ma.s.sive rush of energy discharged from the Eye every second.

aI do not share your optimism, old friend,a he said, finally, turning back to face Vargas at the table. aIf we can see it, I am sure that there are agents in the Ordo Malleus who can also see it very clearly. They will not be dissuaded of its importance simply because we have not heard anything about it from the aliens a Seishon trailed off, realising that he had gone too far. He and Vargas may well be inquisitor lords, and they may be secreted away in the Ordo Xenos sanctum of Ramugan, but walls nearly always had ears, especially in a facility of the Inquisition. And Ramugan was no ordinary facility.

aIf it were a major storm, we would have heard,a insisted Vargas, carefully avoiding vocalising the ident.i.ty of the agents from whom they would have heard. aLook at where the emissions and eddies are, Seishon! They are pluming out around the Circuitrine nebula. You know full well that our a.s.sociates have been based there for untold centuries. They would have told us if there was anything to concern us a that is the very meaning of the coven, after all!a Vargas chose some of his words carefully, but his confidence betrayed him.

aPerhaps,a replied Seishon, as he turned back to the viewscreen. aBut we have heard little from these a.s.sociates since the coven was formed. I am not sure that we can trust them. I am not even sure that they will remember us at all, when the time comes.

aIf the Ordo Malleus have not yet seen this, and if they discover that we have known about it for weeks, there will be questions, Vargas. This is their territory, after all. Why should we be monitoring that quadrant so carefully? Why didnat we share our intelligence with them immediately? These are not questions that I would be prepared to answer before a Hereticus Commission.a aThere will be no questions. Who would dare to interrogate two inquisitor lords of the Ordo Xenos? When was the last time that we received any intelligence from our a.s.sociates in Malleus, or even Hereticus? Sharing is not what the Inquisition does best, Seishon, not even here in Ramugan,a replied Vargas dismissively. aBesides, we have nothing to hide, Seishon. Our souls are untarnished.a aI hope that youare right, old friend,a said Seishon sombrely. aI hope that youare right.a Every face in the council chamber turned to gaze on the beautiful features of Eldressyn, her translucent white robes cascading freely around her elegant form, as though caught in a divine breeze. She had uttered the words that none had dared to voice for untold centuries, and her startling blue eyes shone with a radiance too terrifying to comprehend.

aThere is not strength enough amongst the Sons of Ulthran,a she repeated quietly but with such force that they seemed to penetrate directly into the minds of the eldar on the council. aWe cannot face this threat alone.a aWhat you imply is a kind of sacrilege,a hissed the angular and pale face of Ruhklo. He was by far the oldest seer on the council, and his sibilant voice carried the liquid gravity of the years. aDo you presume that this council did not foresee these events many centuries before you had even seen this chamber? Do you really want to suggest that we are not prepared?a There was a murmur of a.s.sent from the others. It was unthinkable to believe that incidents of this magnitude would have gone unnoticed by the Seer Council. The mighty Eldrad Ulthran himself should have seen them on the horizon from a distance of several millennia.

aIf we are so well prepared, Ruhklo of the Karizhariat, then why are our forces so ill-equipped to deal with the darklings?a Eldressyn turned her glorious blue eyes on the veteran seer, peering into his soul and testing his heart.

The old eldar recoiled, as though touched by beautiful, icy fingers.

The grand council chamber of Ulthwe was located in an elaborate dome, high up amongst the peaks and towers that rose gloriously out of the top of the ma.s.sive craftworld. It was shrouded in a cloud of shaaiel, which made the dome pulse in and out of material existence a only members of the council itself could be guaranteed to find the chamber in phase when they approached its ancient, wraith-bone doors. Other visitors might pa.s.s through the legendary doorway and find nothing but void on the other side of it. For the uninitiated or the uninvited, the doors to the Seer Council were literally a gateway into the tortured void of the warp itself.

Even though the dark eldar incursions were happening in the very bowels of the craftworld, countless thousands of metres below them, the seers in their grand hall could hear every shuriken burst and feel each shudder of shaaiel released in the various combats that raged. Inside the hall of the Seer Council, the rulers of Ulthwe could bear witness to any event taking place in their ma.s.sive, sprawling, semi-organic vessel. The infinity circuit itself could be tapped from Ulthranas Dais, the altar in the heart of the chamber, and its labyrinthine expanses reached into every flickering speck of life in Ulthwe.