Anarch - Dan Abnett Read online

  He hoped they’d all got out.

  From the cover of the archway, he saw two figures sitting side by side on a cot at the far right end of the chamber.

  It was Dalin and Yoncy.

  Dalin was just staring at the next cot along, his arms in his lap, his rifle on the sheet beside him. Yoncy was snuggled up against his side, whispering quietly in his ear.

  He heard Dalin murmur, ‘No, Yoncy.’ Like a denial. A weary refusal to accept.

  Kolea took another step.

  Yoncy looked up sharply, frowned at him, and then darted away.

  ‘Yoncy! Come back, girl!’ Kolea yelled, and ran down the chamber between the cot rows. She’d already vanished through an archway at the back.

  ‘Where’s she going?’ Kolea asked.

  Dalin didn’t look up.

  ‘Dal! What’s she playing at? This isn’t a game.’ He turned back to look at Dalin. ‘Get up, Dal,’ he said. ‘Right now. Help me fetch your sister.’

  Dalin looked up at him, his face deadpan.

  ‘She doesn’t make any sense,’ he said quietly.

  Kolea frowned, and sat down beside him. ‘You all right? Dal?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. This is all just a bit strange.’

  ‘You got that right,’ said Kolea. ‘There’s some ugly feth going on down here, Dal. So let’s jump to it. Find your fething sister, and drag her out of here by the skirts.’

  ‘She’s only playing,’ said Dalin.

  ‘Well, this isn’t time for games.’

  ‘She said she was hungry.’

  ‘Well, we’ll cart her upstairs and get her a meal.’

  Dalin nodded.

  ‘Dal, have you seen anyone else? Bask or–’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not anyone? They got everyone else up out of here? The whole retinue?’

  ‘I think so. I was just looking for Yonce. She was playing hide-and-seek when the lights went out. Got scared, I think.’

  ‘No doubt. Come on, move your arse before she gets too far ahead of us. Dalin?’

  Dalin looked at him. It looked like he was trying to process something. Kolea didn’t like the way Dalin seemed so lethargic.

  ‘She said things,’ said Dalin.

  ‘What things?’

  ‘She said… she said word had come. That it was time. She said there was a woe machine here.’

  ‘A woe machine? What, like–’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Dalin. ‘It’s one of her games. “There’s a woe machine coming” she’d say, and then she’d hide and you’d have to find her. She’s been doing it for years. But when she said it just now, I thought…’

  ‘What?’

  Dalin shrugged. ‘How does she know about woe machines? I’ve never thought about it before. I mean, I barely remember Vervunhive. I was just a child, and she’s younger than me. How does she remember that?’

  Gol scratched his cheek. He remembered woe machines all too well. It was the term Vervunhivers had used to describe the ingeniously grotesque death engines that Heritor Asphodel had launched against the hive. They had come in an inventively murderous range of designs. None of the Verghastites in the regiment, Guard and retinue alike, had ever forgotten their malevolence.

  ‘She’s just heard talk over the years,’ said Kolea. ‘Gossip in the camp, bad memories.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And made a bogeyman out of it. You know how she is with games.’

  ‘What, like her bad shadow?’ Dalin asked.

  Kolea said nothing.

  ‘She said I should talk to you about it,’ said Dalin.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘She said papa would explain it to me.’

  ‘She calls everyone papa,’ Kolea replied sadly.

  He put his hand to Dalin’s shoulder.

  ‘What’s the matter with you, Dal?’ he asked. ‘I don’t like this. Are you sick?’

  ‘I just…’ Dalin stopped and sighed. ‘She said such weird things. She’s always been strange, but–’

  ‘She’s always been your sister,’ said Kolea.

  Dalin looked at him sharply. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Nothing. Dal, get your fething head in gear. We have to find her, wherever she’s hiding, and get her out of here. There’s bad shit going on and she shouldn’t be down here. We shouldn’t be down here.’

  Dalin nodded and got to his feet. He picked up his lasgun.

  ‘Yeah, of course,’ he said. He seemed a little more together. ‘I’d just spent so long looking for her in the dark, and then I found her, and I tried to calm her down, but she just wanted to play. And then the things she said just got to me.’

  He looked at Kolea.

  ‘You know about that thing that attacked her and Mam Daur down at Low Keen?’

  ‘I heard,’ said Kolea.

  ‘What if that was a woe machine? I mean, it took apart a whole pack of enemy troops.’

  ‘But spared the pair of them? Where’s the logic in that?’

  ‘Did woe machines ever have any logic?’ Dalin asked. ‘You’d know.’

  ‘Not much,’ Kolea admitted.

  ‘And they were made by the Heritor.’

  ‘Asphodel.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘I know,’ said Dalin. ‘But there are other heritors. We know that. I mean, Salvation’s Reach was a workshop for their breed. What if this is something made by one of the others? What if it followed us here from the Reach? What if… what if it’s here? In the city. What if it was out there at the old billet, and now it’s got in here?’

  Kolea shook his head. ‘A death engine like a woe machine couldn’t get in here. The palace? Dal, it couldn’t get past the guards. The walls. The–’

  ‘Something has,’ said Dalin quietly.

  ‘Yes. Something has.’

  They looked at each other for a moment.

  ‘Let’s find her, Dalin,’ said Kolea.

  ‘Oh, for feth’s sake!’ Baskevyl snapped and lowered his rifle.

  Up ahead, in the low light of the bunk hall, Meryn and Banda lowered their weapons too.

  ‘I nearly fething shot you, you fething idiots,’ Baskevyl said.

  ‘Likewise,’ snorted Banda. ‘How are you lot fething in front of us?’

  ‘I’m telling you,’ said Blenner, coming up behind Bask, his voice agitated. ‘I’m telling you, there’s something not right going on down here. How are Meryn’s mob up there when they should be behind us? And where’s everybody else? Hmm? Where is everybody?’

  ‘There’s definitely something shitty-weird going on,’ growled Meryn. ‘We can’t find anyone and we can’t find the way out.’

  ‘What?’ snapped Baskevyl. He looked past Meryn at Leyr, one of the regiment’s finest scouts. Leyr looked deeply uncomfortable.

  ‘I can’t find the main stairs, sir,’ Leyr said.

  ‘Is everyone a fething idiot today?’ asked Baskevyl. ‘What do you mean you can’t find the stairs?’

  ‘I just can’t,’ said Leyr. ‘They’re not where they were. It should be back two rooms, and then to the right. But it’s not. It’s freaking me out.’

  ‘You’re freaking me out,’ said Baskevyl.

  ‘I’m not joking,’ said Leyr angrily. ‘It’s like everything is shifting around. Doors, walls–’

  ‘This palace,’ said Baskevyl very calmly, ‘has been standing for centuries. It’s about as solid as anything gets. It’s not fething-well shifting around in the dark. Have you been at the sacra, Leyr?’

  ‘Feth you. I’m telling you what I know. The plan of the whole undercroft is not stable. Every time it goes dark, things move.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Baskevyl. ‘Find me Bonin. Find me a scout who knows what he’s fething
doing.’

  ‘Mach was leading the retinue out,’ said Neskon. He was standing just behind Leyr. His eyes were hard. ‘There’s no sign of him, or the sergeant major. Or the retinue. It was a lot of people, sir. A lot. Women, kids. With the dark and all, and just the one staircase, they should still be filing out. An evac would take half an hour at least. We should still be able to hear them.’

  ‘And we can’t even find the stairs,’ said Banda.

  ‘Are you going to tell them what we found?’ Blenner asked.

  Baskevyl glared at him.

  ‘We found the Munitorum work crew,’ said Blenner, looking at Meryn’s squad. ‘What was left of them.’

  ‘What?’ said Meryn.

  ‘They were very dead,’ said Blenner. He palmed something from his coat pocket and swallowed it dry.

  ‘So this is an attack?’ Banda asked.

  ‘I don’t know what it is,’ said Baskevyl quietly. ‘We can’t find Shoggy, or Luna, or Dalin, or the girl. We can’t find anybody.’

  ‘Not just me, then,’ muttered Leyr.

  Baskevyl glanced at him. ‘Well, as long as your professional reputation is intact, we’re all good,’ he growled.

  ‘Have you seen anybody at all?’ Osket asked Meryn.

  ‘Not a soul until you came along,’ said Meryn.

  ‘From the wrong direction…’ Blenner whispered.

  ‘Gol?’ asked Baskevyl.

  Meryn shook his head.

  ‘All right,’ said Baskevyl. ‘We’ll try to finish the section search. At the very least, Gol’s team is down here somewhere. Then we’ll pull back. Meryn, take your squad, circle back and find the fething stairs. Got any pencil flares? Any chalk?’

  ‘I’ll find a way to mark the route,’ said Leyr.

  ‘Good. Do it.’

  Baskevyl turned and led his team back the way they had come. Meryn glanced at Banda, Leyr, Neskon and Leclan.

  ‘You heard him,’ he said.

  They turned around and moved back down the hallway. The lights were flickering again. Every three metres or so, Neskon paused and scorched a burn-mark on the wall with a quick burst of his flamer.

  ‘That’ll do the trick,’ said Leyr.

  The air began to fill with the stink of burned paint and scorched brick dust. It mixed with the damp reek of burst drains, and caught in their throats. They reached a T-junction that none of them could remember being there before.

  ‘Right or left?’ asked Neskon.

  Leyr paused.

  ‘Left,’ Meryn decided.

  Banda held up her hand.

  ‘What was that?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It sounded like sobbing,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Leyr.

  Meryn gestured at Neskon, who damped the ignition flame of his unit. The constant, chugging rasp of the flamer died away.

  They listened.

  ‘That’s sobbing,’ said Banda. ‘Or giggling.’

  ‘A kid…’ said Leclan.

  ‘Gol’s brat,’ said Meryn. ‘Gotta be.’

  ‘Well, we should find her,’ said Neskon. ‘Everyone was looking for her.’

  ‘That way,’ said Leyr, indicating the left-hand tunnel.

  They advanced. Neskon and Leyr took the lead, but Neskon kept his burner dead so they could hear. He roped the nozzle-gun over his shoulder, and drew his sidearm. Banda and Leclan followed them, and Meryn lurked in the rear. He kept glancing behind him.

  ‘Oh feth,’ Leyr murmured.

  Up ahead, every few metres, there were burn patches on the whitewashed wall.

  ‘Somebody else had the same idea,’ said Neskon.

  Leyr shook his head. He touched one of the marks. ‘Still warm,’ he said. ‘You did this.’

  ‘Feth I did,’ Neskon objected.

  ‘We’re following our own footsteps,’ said Leyr.

  ‘Shut the feth up,’ Meryn told him.

  The lights dimmed suddenly and went off. The darkness lasted about three seconds, then the lamps began to glow again. They barely rose from nothing. There was no more light than an overcast dusk, sallow and yellow.

  The Ghosts flipped on their stablights.

  ‘Door,’ said Leclan, and nodded ahead. There was an archway to their left. A small storage room.

  Leclan and Leyr advanced, and came in either side of the door. Leclan had his sidearm out, Leyr had the butt of his lasrifle tight in his shoulder.

  They swung in.

  The room was a small stone vault. On one side, the wall was lined with old wooden racks that had once held wine casks. Several broken packing crates stood nearby. The stone floor was wet, with a couple of centimetres of rank standing water. Several steady drips were spilling from the bowed ceiling.

  Yoncy sat on a crate in the far corner with her back to them. Her head was bowed and her shoulders were shaking.

  ‘Hey, Yoncy,’ said Leclan. He holstered his sidearm and hurried in, pulling his medicae satchel in front of him. Leyr followed.

  Leclan knelt down by the young girl.

  ‘You all right? Yoncy? It’s me, Leclan. Are you hurt?’

  Yoncy glanced at him, her head still down. She had been crying.

  ‘Papa Leclan,’ she whispered, and sniffed.

  ‘That’s right. Are you hurt? I’m just going to check you over, and then we’ll get you out of here.’

  ‘I was hiding,’ she said softly. ‘Because the woe machine is here.’

  ‘What did she say?’ asked Leyr, moving closer.

  ‘Something about a woe machine,’ replied Leclan. He was trying to turn Yoncy’s head towards him so he could check her pupil response with his penlight. ‘I think she’s in shock.’

  ‘Woe machine?’ said Neskon. He and Banda had followed the scout and the corpsman into the room. ‘Tell her there’s no fething woe machine here.’

  Meryn stood in the doorway behind them.

  ‘It’s just a game she plays,’ he said. ‘Hide-and-seek. Stupid little freak.’

  Banda glared at him. ‘Feth you, Flyn,’ she warned in a hard whisper. ‘She’s scared.’

  Meryn shrugged. ‘We’re all fething scared, sweetie,’ he replied.

  ‘There’s no woe machine,’ Leclan told the girl gently. He opened her mouth and shone the penlight inside. ‘Have you seen anybody? Yonce? Did you see anybody when you were playing your game? When it went dark?’

  Yoncy closed her mouth.

  ‘I saw Dal. And Papa Gol,’ she said.

  ‘Where were they?’ Meryn called across from the door.

  ‘They took a wrong turn,’ Yoncy whispered to Leclan conspiratorially. ‘I’m really hungry.’

  ‘What’s that mark on your neck here?’ Leclan asked, tilting her head gently to look.

  Banda looked back at Meryn.

  ‘If Gol’s close,’ she said, ‘or Dalin… maybe try your link again?’

  Meryn sighed, and adjusted his earpiece. The deep itching in his eardrums was back. It suddenly seemed to have got very cold.

  ‘Kolea? Dalin?’ he called. ‘Anyone read? Kolea?’

  There was a sharp screech, a howl like grinding metal. Meryn started, and yanked the earpiece out, thinking it was the wail of feedback. But the noise continued even with the earpiece gone.

  He looked back into the room. Something was happening to Leclan. He was standing with his back to them. His body and out-flung arms were vibrating violently. Meryn stared in utter incomprehension. What the feth was Leclan doing? He couldn’t see Yoncy. Just Leclan, shaking and juddering like some fething ecstatic worshipper.

  Leclan began to rise into the air, his arms still wide. Water dripped off his suspended boots. Meryn screwed up his face in disbelief. The screech turned into the excruciating, ful
l-on howl of a bone saw.

  Leclan disintegrated. Tissue, shredded clothing and shattered bone fragments blasted out in all directions, splattering the room. A small bone shard caught Meryn under the right eye with the force of a slingshot, even though he was metres away.

  There was blood everywhere. A drenching mist of it.

  Leyr stumbled backwards. A piece of Leclan’s left clavicle had embedded in his throat. He tried to raise his weapon, arterial blood squirting from his neck.

  Darkness, wailing like a cycling saw blade, boiled out of the back of the room. It came on like a wall of shadow, a flash-flood of darkness. Leyr loosed two wild shots. Neskon screamed and reignited his flamer. It took two or three frantic pumps to gun it into life.

  By then, the rushing tide of shadow had reached him. The saw howled. Neskon shredded. He came apart where he was standing. It looked as though he had been sliced vertically by four or five separate blades. As the pieces of him toppled in a blizzard of blood, the trigger spoon still clutched in his right hand gouted, engulfing Leyr in a sheet of roaring flame.

  Leyr, burning from head to foot, dropped to his knees and toppled forwards.

  The entire horror had taken just a second or two. Meryn shrieked, and scrambled backwards out of the doorway. The darkness swept towards him, like black water filling the vault.

  He ducked aside, about to run, but something clawed at him, holding his arm and shoulder tightly.

  He snarled and fought back.

  Banda was clinging to him with both hands. He could only see her head, shoulders and arms. She was folded around the door jamb by the armpits, the rest of her inside the room.

  Her eyes were so big.

  ‘Flyn! Flyn!’ she screamed.

  He fought to break her grip. It was like a vice on his arm.

  ‘Flyn!’ Banda shrieked. ‘It’s got me! It’s fething got me! Pull me out!’

  ‘Let go!’

  ‘Pull me out, you fething bastard! Pull me out!’

  Meryn thrashed wildly. He refused to look into her staring eyes. His churning elbow mashed her left wrist and her grip broke.

  Meryn tumbled backwards into the hallway.

  ‘You fething bastard!’ she screamed as the room pulled her back in. ‘You toxic fething–’ Her fingers raked along the whitewash, leaving bloody scratches. Then she was gone, snapped back like a whip around the edge of the door.