Manflayer - Josh Reynolds Read online

  ‘Well?’ Fabius murmured, not looking at him.

  ‘She claims to be handling it,’ Saqqara replied. ‘I have no doubt she will make a mess of things, as usual,’ he added sourly.

  ‘I did not ask for your opinion, only whether or not she had acquiesced,’ Fabius said, not looking at him. ‘Now be silent.’ He turned his attentions back to his Consortium. A small thrill of pride went through him as he studied them. He fancied that the accumulation of knowledge in this chamber could not be equalled in the known galaxy.

  Most of the gathered Apothecaries were attended by slaves or assistants, organic and artificial alike. Vatborn scurried about, carrying trays of carefully selected stimulants or alcoholic beverages. Fabius cleared his throat, and the noise level dipped.

  ‘Brothers,’ he said. Then, more loudly, ‘Brothers.’ He thumped Torment’s ferrule against the floor. ‘Attend me, please. I beg but a moment of your time.’

  ‘We’ve been sitting here for an hour already,’ Skalagrim Phar said. ‘Some of us have things to do, Fabius.’ As ever, the former Son of Horus went bare-headed. His scarred features were hidden beneath a greying tangle of hair and beard, and his weathered flesh was inscribed with gang-runes. Similar markings had been etched into his dark armour, and even the tools of his trade. A diamond-toothed chainaxe rested on the table in front of him, and he occasionally gave it a fond pat, as if it were an animal in need of soothing.

  At heart, Skalagrim was still the ganger thug he had been the day he’d been chosen as an aspirant. He was a scrambler by nature, always looking for an angle and an opportunity. Fabius found such bloody-minded determination to survive almost admirable. It was one of the reasons he’d taken Skalagrim under his protection.

  ‘Chief Apothecary,’ Arrian corrected. He sat opposite Skalagrim, and like the Son of Horus, wore no helm. His blades were not visible, but were no doubt close to hand.

  Skalagrim grinned at him. ‘My apologies, brother. In the future, I shall endeavour to show our lord and master the proper respect.’ He looked at Fabius. ‘Talk, old monster.’

  ‘Are you certain?’ Fabius looked down his nose at Skalagrim. ‘I know how important it is to you to feel as if you’ve had your say.’

  Laughter rippled along the table. Skalagrim bared his teeth, but subsided. Fabius stared at him a moment longer, letting the Son of Horus feel the full weight of his gaze. Then he tapped at the runes on the console of his lectern, calling up the data-feeds.

  Pict-captures showed an agri world – populated, or it had been. Now, flames danced across the horizon, and the inhabitants tore at one another in bestial frenzy. Images of carnage swarmed over the viewscreens, and in every direction a new horror reared its head. People crammed the streets of hab-blocks, fighting one another in panic, trampling those too slow to move. Others turned their weapons on each other in an orgy of mutual destruction. Men danced and flayed themselves on street corners.

  The world had gone mad.

  ‘What exactly are we looking at?’ Skalagrim asked, trying to discern some pattern to the carnage playing out before him.

  ‘Daemonic influence, perhaps?’ Marag offered. He leaned forward, visibly intrigued, and his slaves scribbled urgently, taking note of every atrocity.

  ‘No,’ Saqqara said flatly. ‘There are no physical abnormalities or daemon-sign evident. Whatever this is, it is not the work of the Neverborn.’

  ‘Something else, then,’ Duco growled. Ornaments of bone clanked against his dark-blue armour, and his bare face was a mask of Nostraman gang tattoos. Lank hair the colour of oil hung from his fish-belly-pale scalp, and his teeth had been replaced by fangs of etched gold. ‘A chem-weapon, perhaps, or a memetic pulse designed to unravel the mind’s higher functions.’ He looked at the hulking Apothecary sitting next to him. ‘Do you recognise it, Khorag? Chem-weapons are your speciality, after all.’

  Khorag Sinj sat back, the weathered, yellowing plates of his ancient Terminator armour creaking in protest. ‘No. Whatever it is, it looks to be effective.’ As the former Death Guard spoke, effluvial smoke issued from his armour’s ports and fogged the air about him. ‘I would dearly like a sample of it, however. What world was this?’

  ‘Beleghast-Primus,’ Fabius said. ‘As of two hundred and thirty-five standard hours ago.’

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that one of your cache-worlds?’ Skalagrim asked.

  ‘One of my first. The creature who ruled it was descended from the first generation of my creations.’ Fabius gestured dismissively. ‘A brutal autocrat with little subtlety and a tendency to incite civil unrest among the menial population, but he made up for it with dogmatic loyalty.’ He tapped at the console again.

  The images shifted towards an overhead view and slowed, isolating a blurred shape. The shape was magnified, revealing a graceful, lethal form – all wrong angles and sharp edges. A vessel, but not one made by human hands.

  ‘Drukhari,’ Arrian murmured.

  ‘They call it a Voidraven bomber,’ Gorel said. His battleplate was the colour of an open wound, and studded with what Fabius considered to be an unnecessary number of drug pumps and stimm-nodes. Coloured smoke billowed from the vents of his helm as he spoke, and congealed into strange shapes that writhed about his head. ‘I saw one in action once. Nasty things. Fast as blazes.’

  ‘Status of the cache-facility?’ Marag asked.

  Fabius looked at him. ‘Compromised.’

  ‘Population?’

  ‘Exterminated.’

  A murmur went through the gathered Apothecaries. Fabius waited until it had died down before continuing. ‘This is not the first cache-facility I have lost in such a manner of late, nor, I fear, will it be the last. We are under attack.’

  ‘What do you mean, “we”?’ Gorel shook his head. ‘Your problems with the drukhari are your own, old monster.’ Mutters of agreement accompanied his words. Only Arrian and Khorag abstained. ‘Whatever enemies you made in Commorragh have nothing to do with us.’ Gorel pushed himself to his feet. ‘Are we done, then?’

  ‘Not quite.’ Fabius gestured, and the image changed. Another world, another slaughter. ‘Goshen. One of the break-worlds on the edge of Segmentum Obscurus. Does anyone recognise it?’

  Only Duco growled his assent. ‘I do. It’s a feudal world. Chort has a research bastion there, hidden in the mountains of the southernmost landmass. I helped him set it up a century ago. Just after you left on your little… pilgrimage.’

  Fabius nodded. ‘This is Goshen as of fifteen standard hours ago. The images are courtesy of Administratum data-feeds, all gone silent now.’

  It was almost the same scene as before. A world murdered and its popu­lation all but exterminated. The gathered Apothecaries were no strangers to such devastation. But even so, they fell silent, watching it play out.

  ‘It should come as little surprise to any of you that I maintain contact with many former members of this august body. Chort was among them. It is with great regret that I inform you that he was numbered among the dead.’

  The scene changed. A mountain was there, and then not.

  ‘Voidravens again, albeit employed in a more conventional capacity,’ Fabius said flatly. More images replaced those of the fallen mountain. ‘Tenker-Prime, a forge world in Segmentum Tempestus. Devale Majoris. Lacilar.’ The name of each world was accompanied by a slew of similar scenes. ‘Some of these worlds are – were – mine. But not all. Holvall, for instance – a frontier world, on the edge of Ultima Segmentum.’

  ‘Herik Stymphalos,’ Emicos murmured. ‘Wasn’t that one of his projects?’

  ‘Indeed it was.’ Fabius brought up an image of what had once been an immense aviary, now burnt-out and shattered. Dead birds of a thousand species littered the scorched earth. ‘As far as I am able to determine, Herik has suffered the same fate as Chort. Neither, you will note, had been a member of the
Consortium for some time.’

  He paused, letting the murmur build to a febrile pitch, before striking the floor with Torment, silencing them.

  ‘The obvious conclusion is that we are all targets. But if you’d like to take your chances, I will not force you to stay.’ He swept his sceptre out, gesturing towards the doors. ‘There is the exit.’

  Silence. Fabius studied each of them in turn, calculating. Unexpectedly, Duco was the first to speak.

  ‘I liked Chort,’ he said simply.

  ‘Herik was a brother of the Legion,’ Emicos said.

  Aelian nodded. ‘What do you propose, Chief Apothecary?’

  Fabius straightened. ‘If the drukhari have one weakness, it is their rapaciousness. Their greed makes them foolish. Sloppy. Like all predators, they are easily fixated on their prey. So, we will wait until their teeth and claws are otherwise occupied before we strike.’

  ‘Meaning?’ Skalagrim said.

  ‘He means we’ll stab them in the back while they’re busy butchering someone else,’ Duco said, his tone admiring. ‘An appealing strategy.’

  Fabius ignored the compliment. ‘According to what was left of Bele­ghast’s orbital defence network, there was only one vessel of significant size in orbit. The rest were escorts or fighter craft. The other reports I’ve gathered indicate that the attack pattern is the same every time. They slip the sensor-nets, punch a hole in the orbital defences and raid the world below. The raids are always a cover for a pinpoint assault on my caches. But this time, we will be waiting for them.’

  ‘In force, I presume,’ Marag said.

  ‘You presume correctly.’ Fabius called up a schematic of a webway portal generator. ‘Over the past decades I have ensured that every world my children settle has some access to the sub-dimension we know as the webway through previously existing nodes. It makes transport of materials between caches much more efficient.’

  ‘It also makes them easier to attack,’ Skalagrim said. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ He sat up, a slow smile spreading across his face. ‘That’s how they’re breaching your caches. They’re using your own backdoors against you.’ He laughed.

  Fabius grimaced. ‘Yes, our enemies have turned my cleverness against me. And now I shall turn theirs back on them. The next time they come through a portal, we will be waiting for them.’

  ‘How do you know where they’re going to be?’ Duco asked.

  ‘Given the attacks thus far, I have extrapolated two dozen probable targets.’

  ‘Too many to defend,’ Marag said doubtfully.

  ‘Yes, but of those, eighteen were established in the last century,’ Fabius said. ‘It took several hours to identify the pattern behind the attacks – and an equal amount of time to even determine that there was a pattern.’ He called up an astrometric projection and expanded it, so that it hung over the centre of the table.

  ‘The cache worlds attacked so far were the oldest – established in the retreat from Terra, and the long pilgrimage to the Eye. Other, newer cache-worlds scattered along the same route since have seemingly escaped the drukhari’s notice. They’re acting on out-of-date information. From this, I have deduced that Peleus-Tertius is the obvious target.’

  ‘If you’re right–’ Skalagrim began, as he peered up at the map.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘If you’re right,’ Skalagrim continued, ‘what then?’

  Fabius thumped the lectern with Torment. ‘Our foes seek to draw me into battle. And so they have.’

  He smiled.

  ‘But if I must fight, I will do so on my terms.’

  Chapter Six

  Phantom Pain

  Peshig reclined in his chair and lazily studied the holographic data-projections floating above the table. ‘All these worlds. Truly a bounty unheard of.’ He looked at his fellow archons and a smile tugged at the edges of his mouth. Neither looked especially happy to be there. ‘At least by me. What say you, Salar? Avara?’

  ‘I say you still owe me a raider,’ Salar growled. He thrust his knife into the table. Peshig couldn’t make out what he was carving, but had no doubt it was some gutter-obscenity. And likely misspelled, to boot.

  ‘He’s right,’ Avara said. ‘It’s too good to be true. We’ve hit how many worlds – five? Six? And so far, not a sign of pursuit.’ She grinned, showing off sharpened teeth. She was utterly lacking in hair, and one of her eyes was hidden behind a monocle, which was wired into a data-port on the side of her skull. Like the other two, she was armed, though with a bulky blast-pistol.

  ‘At least, no organised pursuit.’ Peshig called up a second data-feed. ‘Various system defence fleets have been alerted to our presence, but one ship can slip through nets that would entangle a fleet. Especially this ship. It was once owned by Duke Sliscus himself, you know. Lost it to me in a game of cards.’

  Salar snorted. ‘More like you stole it from the scrapyards after he scuttled it.’

  ‘The pedigree is sound, regardless.’

  Avara leaned forward. ‘This ship is mostly rust and leakage, but even the worst junker in Commorragh is superior to those floating bricks the mon-keigh call warships. It helps that we’re not following any pattern that I can determine. I’d give anything to know how he’s finding these worlds.’

  ‘I asked,’ Salar said.

  Avara looked at him. ‘And?’

  ‘He said it was a trade secret.’

  Avara sat back, arms crossed. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say we’re being used.’

  ‘Of course he’s using us,’ Peshig said. ‘Those caches we keep targeting are proof of that. He might be on the trail of some renegade, perhaps.’

  ‘What about the mon-keigh?’ Avara said. ‘The one that trots after him everywhere.’

  ‘What about it?’ Salar said.

  Avara looked at him. ‘Doesn’t that concern you?’

  ‘That he has a slave? No, not particularly.’

  ‘Not just a slave. An augmented mon-keigh. Those things can’t be tamed. They’re barely controllable at the best of times.’

  ‘And yet this one seems perfectly docile,’ Peshig mused.

  ‘Which is what concerns me, especially after what we encountered in those last two caches. Augmented mon-keigh, both of whom looked to be practising the fleshcrafter’s arts.’ Avara shook her head. ‘It’s unnatural and I don’t like the implications.’

  ‘What implications?’ Salar said impatiently. ‘What are you blathering about?’

  ‘She means that Hexachires might have done something quite rash,’ Peshig said thoughtfully. ‘Which might well be valuable in and of itself. Of course, there’s no proof, so it’s all moot at this point.’

  ‘Why would that be valuable?’ Salar pressed. He leaned forward, eyes bright with avarice.

  Peshig smiled. Salar was so terribly easy to predict. He faked a yawn and said, ‘There are rumours, of late.’

  ‘There are always rumours,’ Avara said.

  ‘These come from trustworthy sources.’

  ‘More of your important friends?’ Avara said.

  Peshig gave her a lazy glance. Avara was a tougher nut to crack than Salar. She was ambitious, but not stupid.

  ‘I’ve always wondered…’ she continued, ‘if you know so many important people, why are you here with us?’

  ‘Bad luck, mostly,’ he said airily. ‘What do you know about the Thirteen Scars?’

  She looked at him. ‘As much as you, I’d wager.’

  ‘You’d lose,’ Peshig said. ‘I recall something my dear friend Aurelia – Aurelia Malys, you know, I’m certain you’ve heard of her – said in passing, once… Why thirteen?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why not twelve? Or six? Or thirty? Why thirteen?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why thirteen?’

  Peshig shrugged. ‘
Who knows? It’s a mystery.’

  Avara gave him a venomous look, and Peshig laughed. ‘Then what was the point of that story?’ she snapped.

  ‘That we can’t trust anything they tell us,’ Salar said. ‘They don’t think like we do, these haemonculi.’ He pointed his knife at Peshig. ‘He’s saying we need to be careful.’

  Avara sat back. ‘I agree with that, at least.’ She frowned. ‘Maybe we should return to Commorragh. Before our luck sours and we run into something we can’t handle. Or one of these worlds gets a warning to the next.’

  ‘They won’t,’ Peshig said. ‘The frequency jammers Hexachires provided are second to none. Or so he assures me. I am inclined to take him at his word, given the lack of serious pursuit. Or serious resistance.’

  ‘And what happens if they fail?’

  ‘Then I shall have a pointed discussion with Hexachires,’ Peshig said. ‘Though you do raise a good point.’

  ‘Cowards, the pair of you,’ Salar said.

  ‘Opportunists,’ Peshig corrected. He gestured to Avara. ‘We are opportunists. And as opportunists we keep our eyes open. Hexachires is up to something – something he doesn’t want the other covens knowing about.’

  ‘And how did you come to that conclusion?’ Salar demanded.

  ‘Simple. These raids are easy – the targets oh so soft. Little worlds with few defences. So why let us reap the overlord’s share? Deniability. As I said, there have been rumours aplenty – stories of a mon-keigh fleshcrafter being given access to the secrets of a coven, and then being allowed to escape.’

  ‘I’ve heard the same,’ Avara said.

  ‘But what does any of that have to do with these raids?’ Salar growled impatiently. ‘I see no connection between them.’

  ‘That I have yet to determine.’ Peshig leaned back and steepled his fingers. ‘But there is a connection, and when we figure it out we’ll know how best to profit from it.’