The Abyssal Edge - Aaron Dembski-Bowden Page 2

  'Yeah,' he panted, head down, staring at the floor between his knees. 'Never better.'

  * * *

  Ulatal was in no fit state to spend too long gazing out of portholes as they glided in to dock, but he still spared himself a smile at the sight of all that void plating cast in dirty cobalt and tarnished bronze against the endless black. She was filthy from her journeys and bloodied from battle, but the Nightfall wasn't without her charms. If she ran out her guns, she was capable of levelling cities in minutes, and killing worlds within hours.

  Disembarking took place without a hitch, and the fleet liaison had assigned him quarters. Better quarters than his own back aboard the Serpent of the Black Seas, which was a surprise. The liaison had known he was coming, of course. He'd followed protocol and sent word ahead of his arrival. No sense making a bad first impression.

  'Wing Commander Orthos Ulatal, assigned to the Eighth legion, seconded to Crusade Battlefleet Archival Resources. Thank you for coming. I'd like to speak to one of your ranking Legion archivists,' he'd said to the portly, officious fellow duty-bound to welcome him aboard. 'At his earliest opportunity.'

  The liaison was of Nostramo, his skin the near-albino of the bulk of that world's unhealthy population. He spoke Gothic with the mellow flair typical of the Night Lords themselves, and kept to the common tongue of the Imperium despite the fact Ulatal spoke several Nostraman dialects as fluently as any native.

  'I will do what I can,' the liaison replied.

  'This is important,' Ulatal stressed in the face of the other man's placidity.

  'As I said, sir, I'll do what I can.'

  Ulatal winced as he leaned forward to unlace his boots, and something wetly unpleasant slipped in his healing guts. 'You don't sound confident,' he pointed out. 'I've served the Eighth Legion for almost two decades, my friend. I know what Space Marine officers can be like. You don't need to be delicate about this. I trust what you're trying not to say is that your overseers are standoffish bastards?'

  The liaison cleared his throat, seeking the right balance of truth and diplomacy. 'Well, they rarely fraternise with mortal crew—'

  'Listen to me,' Ulatal interrupted, looking down at his data-slate again and reading through the info-spillage. 'I just need to speak to one of the flagship's archivists. Not the bloody primarch himself, nor even any of the officers. Just an archivist.'

  The liaison hesitated, then gave a crisp salute. 'I think that can be arranged, sir.'

  It took three days to get an answer. The liaison didn't return. When Ulatal contacted him through his quarters' crew terminal, the replies ranged from evasive to placating, always smooth, never mired by awkwardness. The last time Ulatal reached out, he was politely rebuffed by a servitor, who informed him in a monotone drawl that he should remain in his chambers and await the arrival of someone who would be able to help with his investigation.

  'I can't help but think your phrasing is a little suspicious,' Ulatal replied to the lobotomised cyborg on the other end of the link. Instinct had him check his sidearm after the vox-call ended.

  The warrior that pounded a fist against Ulatal's door had come armed and armoured. The legionary towered above Ulatal, who was a tall man himself, standing clad in the brass-edged midnight ceramite of the VIII Legion. Standing this close to a Legiones Astartes warrior was never a comfortable experience, even for those used to the sheer size of them. This one, this close, was a revelation of immensity. In one of its hands, it held a chain-bladed glaive with a haft over three metres long. In its other hand, it held a snarling skull helmet crested with twin wings. The active power generator on the Space Marine's back made Ulatal's gums itch. He had to resist the unpleasant urge to rub his eyes; they felt like they were vibrating in their sockets.

  Ulatal knew who it was. He'd seen the warrior's image in countless Imperial inspirational holos relaying the deeds of Legiones Astartes heroes. He'd seen the armoured giant in almost as many classified post-mission picts, describing the VIII Legion's many victories over the last century.

  The Night Lord stared down, his inhuman eyes offering a gaze of passionless, unblinking blackness. When he spoke, his voice was the sound of an avalanche somehow given the power to sneer.

  'Greetings,' said First Captain Jago Sevatarion. 'You and I are going to have a conversation.'

  For the first few minutes, Ulatal was quite convinced he was going to die with each movement the warrior made. He was no coward. No one could rise to his rank and win the wars he'd won if cowardice ran through their veins, yet he flinched each rime Sevatarion's armour joints snarled at the merest motion. His guts physically clenched when the warrior dropped his war spear on the table with a resounding crash. As spacious as his quarters were, the Space Marine officer took up a threatening span.

  When the feeling of imminent death faded, it didn't retreat far. Instead it was replaced by a certainty that he wouldn't leave the room alive once his story was told. The idea of drawing his sidearm for protection was a cold and hilarious comfort; using his service laspistol on the first captain of the VIII Legion would be no more effective than throwing rocks at a Land Raider.

  He'd offered the Space Marine a cup of tea from his hospitality supplies, and First Captain Sevatarion had smiled, charmed by the offer, amused by it, or doing his best to mimic politeness.

  'No. Now start talking.'

  With those words, and the order within them, business had begun in earnest. Both men had sat - one with the grunt of his wounds troubling him, the other with the powered growls of his armour joints adapting to the change in posture. Ulatal handed over a data-slate with the transcribed report and relevant hololithic data. Then all he could do was wait. He sat there while the Night Lord finished reading, doing his best not to cough or clutch his pained stomach. The last thing he wanted was for the warrior to mistake his sickness for nervousness.

  Sevatarion's features were pale above his armour's ceramite collar, the pallid flesh so typical of all Nostraman-born souls. His black eyes flickered as he read. At one point he ran his gauntleted fingertips through the widow's peak of his black hair. At another point, his lip-curling sneer melted into a dry chuckle.

  A Space Marine's cognition was a thing of transhuman processes. When Ulatal had shown the text to Perdita, it had taken her almost an hour to read it all. Sevatarion finished reviewing it in less than six minutes.

  The warrior didn't give back the data-slate once he was done with it. He locked eyes with Ulatal from across the chamber's low table. 'You're looking at me as though you expect me to kill you.'

  Ulatal gave a cautious smile. 'The thought had crossed my mind.'

  Sevatarion kept his eyes on the human as he nodded down at the data-slate still in his hand. 'Because of this?'

  Careful, careful.

  'With all due respect, lord…'

  ' "Sevatar" is fine, in this circumstance. Leave the "lord" elsewhere, please. I am not a king.'

  'With respect… Your reputation isn't one of patience and mercy.'

  Sevatar stared back at him, unblinking, unmoving. A servitor would have shown more emotion.

  'I feel that's an unfair judgement of my character,' the warrior said, perfectly calm. 'Your words grieve me. I'm deeply aggrieved.'

  Silence reigned. Is… is he joking? Is this a jest?

  Ulatal cleared his throat and drew breath to speak, but Sevatar interrupted him. 'There is hardly enough information here to be worth butchering you over. This is only a fraction of the story.'

  Ulatal leaned forward, feeling the looseness inside his chest and guts squirm in ways he'd rather not have considered. 'I came for the truth, first captain.'

  Sevatar met his gaze without blinking. He stared: judging, considering. 'You chase revelation with the fire of fever in your eyes, Orthos Ulatal. But such flames char a man's soul.'

  'This is my duty. That's all there is to it.'

  Sevatar's lip curled in some flavour of amused disgust. 'Is it indeed. I saw the gun-picter footage of y
our crash, by the way. The impact should have killed you three times over. You're a lucky man.'

  Praise was the last thing he had expected. 'I… thank you, first captain.'

  'Although you look like you were sewn back together with body parts from half a dozen men. Were you an attractive fellow before the crash, Ulatal?'

  The officer hesitated again. He could feel this confrontation slipping through his fingers. He opted to stick with truth over false modesty.

  'Yes, sir. I was.'

  Sevatar tilted his head, fluid and animal in his movement. The Space Marine studied the human as if trying to see the man Ulatal had been in the wreckage he'd become.

  'Well, at least they scraped you out of the cockpit, even if they left your looks behind.'

  Ulatal said nothing. Holding a conversation with the first captain of the VIII Legion was like trying to ward off an approaching grain thresher with nothing but prayer.

  'Well?' Sevatar prompted. 'You said you wished to speak to someone present for the Devastation of Zoah.' The Night Lord knocked his knuckles lightly against his breastplate. 'I was there. So speak.'

  Ulatal cleared his throat. 'I don't know if I should file these reports. The Thousand Sons cast our Legion in a… negative light.'

  Sevatar still hadn't relinquished the data-slate. 'That they do,' he agreed. 'Though it would hardly be the first report to do so. Who filed this miserable poetry?'

  'An officer listed as "Khayon of the Khenetai", who belongs to something called "The Order of the Jackal". He's cited as captain of the warship Tlaloc.'

  Sevatar shrugged, the barest movement of his shoulders. 'Never heard of him. I couldn't tell you if he was there or not. I paid little attention to the Thousand Sons junior officers at Zoah. They all tended to whine in the same way. They blurred in my memory after a while.'

  He paused, reflecting for a moment. ' "Order of the Jackal". "Khenetai". What amusing titles the other Legions use.'

  A strange insult, Ulatal thought, from a man known as the Prince of Crows.

  Sevatar's stare was sudden and bestial. Not aggressive, but undeniably animal. Something that might almost pass for a smile infected its way across those scarred lips, inch by inch.

  He hears me. Ulatal felt an icy prickle along his spine. Emperor's blood, he can hear me.

  But the Night Lord said nothing, did nothing, beyond gesturing for him to continue.

  'I can't file the final report in this form,' said Ulatal. 'It's judgemental, melancholic and reads like propaganda. And there's the risk to morale, as well. First, I need to confirm the report's veracity. After that, I can gather counterpoints that balance its biased tone.'

  Sevatar blinked at last, and his imitation of a smile faded. 'Here is what you may do. You may file this report as it is, leaving it in the archives for future generations to regard as a mild and anomalous curiosity. Or you can delete it, and no one will know or care. If you do either of those actions, you will leave these quarters, and then leave the Nightfall, returning to what remains of your life. You will never fly a Fury fighter again, but your mind is not broken. Only your body. You will almost certainly be promoted for your service, either to a frigate's command crew or to the rank of group captain overseeing a carrier vessel's fighter squadrons. Is that a good life? A bad life? I do not know. My standards are my own, and yours are yours. So humour me as we paint more of this grand picture. You will rise high, yes, of that I have no doubt. Yet you will always piss into medicae bags. You will always taste blood when you eat, from your false teeth and your ruptured insides. You will always labour to breathe with the single shredded lung that remains in your chest. Even if you are granted more vat-grown organs and accept cybernetic grafts, you will heal, but never really recover. Your body was destroyed in that crash, Orthos. You know that. I see the knowledge in your eyes. I may have no gift for reading human emotion, but I promise you, I read truth and lies as easily as other men read the words of a book.'

  Ulatal exhaled slowly. He said nothing, nothing at all.

  The Night Lord reached for one of his belt pouches and drew forth a fist-sized orb of polished brass. Ulatal raised an eyebrow at the sight of the antiquated holo-projector as Sevatar rested it in the centre of the low table between them. The warrior rose with purring armour joints as he spoke once more.

  'You can leave and live that life, Ulatal. Or you can watch this, and get the answers you've come for. Contained within are no vital records that will benefit the Great Crusade, no damning truths that will threaten either of the two Legions involved. Just the words of two brothers at odds. Words that neither brother wishes those outside their Legions to know. This…' he tapped the activation rune with his thumb but didn't push it down, '…is a matter for legionaries and primarchs. A family matter. Not something for mortal eyes and ears, and certainly not the Crusade's archives.'

  'Then why offer it to me?'

  Sevatar chuckled. 'Why indeed.' His tone made it rhetorical. 'Farewell, wing commander.'

  Ulatal watched as Sevatar reclaimed the immense war spear. 'This recording, first captain. If I watch it…'

  The Night Lord fixed his black eyes upon Ulatal's uplifted gaze. 'Are you asking if you will forfeit your life by learning the truth?'

  Ulatal nodded. Sevatar did not.

  'Let me ask you something, Orthos Ulatal. If you were to die tonight… would you really care?'

  The spire at the heart of the city was fashioned from an igneous blue stone quarried only on Zoah's easternmost landmass. Acknowledged by Zoah's population as the wonder of their world, it was a dizzying feat of architecture that pierced the clouds - a monument to mankind's hard work and its capacity to create beauty.

  Sevatar looked at the tower, his targeting reticule dancing here and there, tracking for structural weaknesses. Its beauty didn't figure into his thoughts, nor did the idea that other people would find it beautiful. His mind didn't work that way.

  In the parlance of Zoah's native culture, the building was called the Ivil'kuuh, translating into Gothic as the Tower of Serenity. The translation was inexact, for serenity in the Zoahn culture implied not peaceful enlightenment, but a condescending sense of noblesse oblige of an educated elite over the ignorant masses. He knew this because he'd read it in the mission data-feeds, and studying the operational data was what a good soldier had to do. Context was vital in a warzone.

  'It's beautiful, isn't it?' Shang's voice was a crackling purr across the vox.

  I don't know, thought Sevatar. How do you tell if something is beautiful?

  'Yes,' he said aloud, because he suspected that's what he was supposed to be thinking. 'Truly a marvel.'

  'It will be a shame to pull it down,' Shang added.

  'The law is the law,' Sevatar replied with the instinct of repetition. Shang's reply was a grunt of agreement.

  Sevatar looked at the tower's base, and the targeting crosshairs on his retinal display flashed across several far more tempting targets. The Thousand Sons ringing the tower stood in ordered ranks, bolters and blades clutched at parade rest. They waited - no, they stood guard - and the only thing that would change that fact would be the words of the primarchs currently in orbit.

  Sometimes the Thousand Sons' efforts were visible, sometimes they weren't. Every now and again, Sevatar saw a shimmer of the telekinetic barrier in the air. Each time, the tower wavered like a mirage behind the invisible wall of force that kept it unharmed.

  The Night Lords first captain crunched over the broken rock of the conquered city, boots grinding down on the dusty gravel of destroyed homes. He approached the nearest Thousand Sons officer - a dark-skinned man clad in the red and gold of his Legion, his eyes ringed with weariness and an artistic curl of kohl.

  'Ahzek,' he hailed the warrior.

  'Captain Sevatarion.' The Thousand Sons legionary gave a Nostraman hand gesture of greeting, palm open and out to show no violent intent, and Sevatar smiled at the courtesy because smiling was something people were supposed to do.
>
  'Has there been word?'

  Ahzek Ahriman shook his head. 'None.'

  Both warriors looked across their opposing ranks of men. Where the Thousand Sons stood in defiant vigil, as rigid as automatons, the Night Lords were grouped in loose flame-unit teams, speaking amongst themselves and eyeing the tower's defenders with a naked revulsion that curdled their white faces.

  The stalemate had stood for three hours so far. Packs of Night Lords occasionally spread apart so pairs of warriors could duel - over abused honour, avenging insults or mere boredom. The Thousand Sons allowed themselves no such laxity in discipline.

  'Is it worth all this?' Sevatar asked, nodding to the opposing forces. In the last hour, battle tanks had been drawn up on both sides.

  This close to the tower, he could feel the telekinetic barrier prickling at his skin. A maddening and unscratchable itch, a pressure that seeped inside his skull and expanded to plump up his brainflesh. He clenched his teeth and swallowed the desire to vomit. For a moment, he thought he could hear the chanting murmurs of the Thousand Sons over the other Legion's vox-links. They sounded ghostly, foreign, unbearably tired.

  'Yes,' Ahriman replied. 'The Emperor would weep if we allowed this knowledge to be destroyed.'

  Sevatar exhaled through closed teeth. Other people's delusions were such tiresome processes to deal with. 'If that were the case, my primarch would not be ordering us to burn it all to ash.'

  There was patience in Ahriman's expression - patience and sympathy. 'With the greatest respect, Captain Sevatarion, you speak in ignorance. We have sailed the tides of the Great Ocean in ways no other Legion can imagine, let alone comprehend. The lore within this tower pertains to the realm behind the Veil, and only we are qualified to judge its worth. The Crimson King's word is the only decree with any weight here. We will take this lore to Prospero and then, once it has been studied, we will take it on to Terra.'

  Sevatar managed to unclench his jaw. 'You have a way of treating brother-warriors like children, you know. The sugary treacle in your tone does not hide the fact you are a patronising Terran shithead.'