Fate Unbound - Robbie MacNiven Read online

  A cloud of spores, glowing with a luminous, sickening light, hung in the air before the Grey Knight, marking the corrupting influence of Chaos. Azrael had commanded his Librarians to attend him, but the whole of the Rock’s hardwired vox-network had unexpectedly shut down, undoubtedly evidence of further daemonic tampering. The corridors of the Rock would need to be thoroughly cleansed once the threat had been removed, but until then the passing taint was the only way of tracking the daemon.

  That, and the scattering of hideously mutated, mewling bodies it left in its wake. Ragnar killed each deformed horror with a swift thrust of Frostfang, while Stern and Azrael pressed on. They could hear the thing’s laughter echoing up from the levels below, mocking and childlike.

  ‘It’s headed for the vaults,’ Azrael said. ‘We can’t let it reach them.’

  ‘What is it trying to achieve?’ de Mornay called after him.

  ‘Let’s stop it before we find out.’

  ‘Lower your blocking shield, Supreme Grand Master,’ Stern said. ‘Allow my brethren to teleport aboard. We could cut it off.’

  ‘No. We will find this trickster eventually, with or without your help.’

  The trail led them through the Rock’s gloomy structures, out into a processional way lined with graven statues of hooded, skeletal angels. The great force shield crackled and spat lightning overhead. At the far end of the way vault doors loomed, just one of a number of entrances leading deeper into the fortress-monastery’s hidden depths. The doors themselves were carved in the likeness of more angels, features hidden by their cowls, broken swords in their fleshless fists. Two Deathwing Terminators, looking for all the world like two more towering, bone-carved statues in their off-white Tactical Dreadnought armour, stood either side of the heavy doors. They raised their storm bolters as the party approached.

  ‘Lower your weapons,’ Azrael snapped. The Terminators hesitated before doing so.

  ‘Lord, you… only just passed this way,’ said one of the hulking Deathwing.

  ‘We have been compromised,’ Azrael replied. ‘There is a shapeshifting warp entity on the loose. He could be any one of us. No one is to enter or leave here alone, is that clear? Only when there is more than one of us. Even if the Lion himself demands passage, you are to halt him.’

  ‘Yes, lord.’ The Terminator’s red lenses swung across Ragnar, Stern and de Mornay, lingering on the inquisitor. ‘And what of these three?’

  ‘They are with me,’ Azrael said. ‘For now.’ The Dark Angel pulled his cowl back, stepping up to the door’s retinal scanner. It blinked, and there was a gentle hiss as the great Angel-crafted slabs of adamantium rolled smoothly back.

  Beyond, darkness. It took a second for even Ragnar’s advanced senses to adjust. Below, a stone stairway led to a second set of great doors, similarly inscribed with the Chapter’s angelica mortis heraldry.

  Azrael hesitated at the top of the stairs, a hand snatching Stern’s pauldron before he could descend. He looked back at Stern, Ragnar and de Mornay, his dark eyes holding each gaze in turn.

  ‘Down here, you must stay by my side at all times. There are places you cannot go.’

  ‘Wherever the warpspawn are found, there shall I smite them,’ Stern said, reciting one of his Ordo Malleus canticles. Azrael said nothing, but removed his hand. Asmodai leaned in close to de Mornay, words hissing from the shadows of his cowl.

  ‘I’ll be right behind you, inquisitor.’

  Into the darkness they went.

  Soon.

  The realisation thrilled the Changeling. To an immortal such as it, time was everything and nothing – the warp made it eddy and shift in inconceivable patterns. And to the Changeling, the past century of painstaking preparation had felt like an aeon.

  It slid through another ward gate, its muttered incantations burning away the hexagrammic seals. It no longer laughed. Matters had become serious. The games were over. Fate, the very essence of the future, was writhing about it like a great, slippery sea creature. It had to snatch onto it, grasp it, latch its yawning maw to the present, so that its silver tail became the future, stretching out into infinity.

  It was deep down now, so close to the core of the Rock that even the throb of the mobile fortress-monastery’s engines was a distant, tiny tremor, fainter than the last beat of a dying man’s heart. The air around it shivered, as though the musty, ancient place found its presence repellent.

  It was directly below the Tower of Angels. It passed through mouldering, lightless crypts and ancient armouries, the blades and battleplate thick with cobwebs. Even the Angels dared not tread here, bound up in their own superstitions. The Changeling could sense the revulsion Azrael felt as he accompanied a trio of outsiders into the most sacred depths of his home, twinned with his fear. He knew exactly what the daemon’s intentions were.

  A cavernous, bare rock tunnel took the daemon back up a level, out of the Angelicasta’s depths. The sweet, slow-burning taste of lingering pain and despair lured it on, filling its warp-flesh with vigour. It would be their salvation. And through them, it would take despair from these few, and give it to the many.

  A cluster of dungeon vaults lay ahead, just some of those that pierced the Rock’s cold heart. The green ceramite and white cloth that encased the Changeling were serving it well. None dared doubt the veracity of the Supreme Grand Master himself.

  More guards fooled. With the entire vox-network disabled it was impossible for Azrael to get news of the imposter to travel ahead of the daemon itself. By the time they realised their mistake, it was already outside the first reinforced hatch. Outside the very first of the cells holding the Fallen. The dungeon’s anteroom was circular, two-dozen heavy, barred doors each leading off to an individual holding block. Each one was flanked by graven statues, their broken swords inscribed with active warding runes. To the Changeling’s warp-sight, the very stonework bled despair, agony and regret, the tendrils of emotion a delicious aroma to the hungry daemon. Its borrowed hand reached for the gene-lock of the first hatch.

  Where it stopped. A shudder – a rare sensation – ran down the Changeling’s borrowed spine, the shadow of an instinctive reaction born from its time wearing mortal flesh. Skin prickled and the servos in the illusion of its power armour whirred as its fists clenched. Around it, for the first time since it had set events in motion, Fate buckled.

  There was something at the far end of the cell corridor. The Changeling could not so much see it as sense the absence of the aether around it. To the daemon’s warp-sight, the thing was really an un-thing, a black void without tangible thoughts or emotions to define it.

  The daemon tried to look upon the un-thing with Azrael’s flesh-eyes. It was diminutive in size, its form hidden beneath the thick folds of a bone-coloured cloak, as though in imitation of the Lion’s sons. The shadows beneath its deep cowl were utterly impenetrable, as dark to mortal eyes as its soul-presence was to the Changeling’s warp vision.

  It did not move. It did not have to. The Changeling found itself taking a step back, the daemon’s flesh quivering. Fear was something the Changeling could not feel, only feed upon, but the sight of the un-thing watching him from the shadows caused the daemon an indefinable, icy discomfort.

  The Changeling could not stay here. It could go no further. This part of the wider plan was unnecessary anyway, a mere addendum to the ritual that would carry the daemonic trickster away, and drag the Lions with it. The Changeling doubled back the way it had come, the cells untouched. Fate’s weave morphed, the future a newborn, fresh entity.

  Behind it, the Watcher in the Dark remained silent and unmoving. It was still there, unseen, when back within the Angelicasta’s depths the Lion, the Wolf, Knight and Angel Hunter finally caught the Changeling at bay.

  Svellgard

  The madness was gone. The skies above Svellgard no longer blazed with firepower, and the ocean’s remains lapped at their
new shores, tides calm once again. The great tracts of barren, exposed former seabed steamed in the evening light while the tundra of the islands – now hilltops – gleamed coldly.

  ‘Well met, Redmaw,’ Harald said. His fellow Wolf Lord nodded, face and forearms streaked with wyrdling ichor.

  ‘Likewise, Deathwolf. It is good to finally bloody the Murderpacks.’

  ‘The curse has struck you hard, brother.’ No comment had been made of Bran’s savage appearance. The Wolf Lord merely nodded, looking out over his packs. They still prowled with hungry intent around the crags and shoals of Svellgard’s former seabed, their wyrd-hate unsated.

  ‘It was a long voyage here, Deathwolf,’ Bran said eventually. ‘I am just thankful we made it at all.’

  ‘Our companies owe you life debts,’ Harald said, glancing over to where Sven was pulling himself back onto his feet with the assistance of his Bloodguard, Olaf. The vox in Harald’s ear clicked.

  ‘It’s Arro,’ said the Shadow Haunter. Last the Wolf Lord had seen of the sinister descendant of Corax, he and his sole remaining Initiate had been battling alongside Feingar and his Coldeyes Wolf Scouts. ‘The crusade forces have been ordered to evacuate the surface immediately. You may wish to do the same. I suspect another bombardment is imminent.’

  ‘They wouldn’t dare,’ Harald said, fighting to keep the weariness from his voice. ‘After all this, they couldn’t now strike us from orbit.’

  ‘I cannot claim to know their minds, Wolf Lord. But your Chapter are the executioners of old. Tell me, if you were loosed upon mutants, would you stop anywhere short of total annihilation?’

  The Rock, in high orbit above Midgardia

  ‘Brothers,’ said the Stern-thing.

  ‘Daemon,’ Stern replied, raising his force sword. Ragnar, Azrael, Asmodai and de Mornay came up short behind the Grey Knight, staring at his twin, a perfect reflection dominating the far end of the corridor.

  The Stern-thing’s face twisted with a wild grin, an expression that looked utterly unnatural on the Knight’s graven features. Ragnar activated Frostfang at the same time that Azrael and Asmodai brought up their own blades.

  ‘Stay back,’ Stern said, pacing towards the waiting daemon. ‘There isn’t room enough for all of us.’

  As much as it pained him, Ragnar saw the daemonhunter was right. The corridor was a narrow one, the paladin’s silver pauldrons almost scraping its stone walls. The grin on the opposing Stern-thing’s face remained fixed.

  ‘I was beginning to wonder if you would ever catch me, brothers. It was getting lonely down here, amidst the–’

  Stern struck. If any of them had expected the daemon’s trickery to unravel, they were to be disappointed. The Stern-thing met the real Grey Knight blade for blade, and both weapons flared with equal force, bolts of lightning arcing and snapping at the surrounding walls. The two warriors drew back as one, the movements perfectly mirrored. The daemon’s mimicry was sickeningly accurate.

  ‘Begone, foul warpspawn!’ the Stern-thing bellowed, abandoning its grin in favour of a theatrically grim expression. ‘Back to the black pit from whence you crawled!’

  ‘I have not come here to be mocked,’ Stern snarled, and slashed. Again the blades clashed.

  ‘Speak not unto the daemon,’ the Stern-thing said, all fake earnestness as the two parted once again. Ragnar was thankful the narrowness of the corridor prevented them from circling one another. He doubted he’d have been able to keep track of the true Stern.

  And then, the thing changed. There was a blaze of light, diffracted and kaleidoscopic. Ragnar snarled and averted his eyes. When he looked again, Madox glared back at him over Stern’s shoulder, baroque armour gleaming in the glow of the lumen orbs.

  ‘Everything I told you was true, Wolf,’ the Thousand Sons sorcerer said, voice dripping with disdain. ‘Why didn’t you listen? You could have saved Midgardia. You could have saved your Great Wolf. And now he’s gone. Logan Grimnar is dead.’

  Ragnar took a pace towards the daemon, fangs bared. Azrael snatched him by the shoulder.

  ‘Rein in your savagery, Wolf. It’s trying to trick us.’

  ‘Is it, Lion?’

  This time the voice was as cold and cutting as serrated steel. The corridor was abruptly plunged into darkness, the actinic lightning of Stern’s, Azrael’s and Asmodai’s weapons the only illumination. When the dull lumen orbs flickered on a second later, the thing had changed once again.

  Now it was clothed in a manner not dissimilar to the Dark Angels, white robes hanging over ancient, black power armour. The thing’s hood threw its features into deep shadow. An ornate, heavy-looking blade hung from a scabbard, draped from chains behind twin pistol holsters.

  ‘I am here to make you answer for your crimes, Keeper of the False Truth,’ the figure said. ‘I am here to make you repent. In the name of the Lion–’

  Azrael’s roar drowned out the daemon’s words. The Master of the Unforgiven thrust violently past Stern, obsidian blade lunging for the hooded figure. It darted back, the crackling light of Azrael’s sword illuminating a vicious grin beneath the cowl.

  ‘Stop!’ Stern bellowed. ‘You don’t know what you’re dealing with!’

  Ragnar felt his hairs prick as the Grey Knight thrust a fragment of his will into the command, charging it with psychic energy. Azrael shuddered to a halt, face contorted with fury. Stern pushed him aside.

  ‘I know what you are,’ the Grey Knight said, addressing the daemon. ‘Even in the realms of the warp it would be impossible for anything else to do what you have done here, Changeling.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure, corpse-worshipper,’ the hooded Space Marine said. Then, still grinning, he exploded. Bloody meat and shards of ceramite scythed towards Stern, Azrael and Ragnar, evaporating as the illusion came undone. Something unfurled itself from the space where the Adeptus Astartes had been, spreading feathered pinions, its beaked head stooped against the corridor’s low arches. It screeched, the sound piercing Ragnar’s ears and shaking the rock around him. For a moment even Stern stood transfixed, staring up at the crouching, blue-feathered Lord of Change.

  ‘M’Kachen,’ the Grey Knight breathed.

  Who else?+ The greater daemon’s words thrust directly into their minds, accompanied by a peal of mocking, avian laughter.

  ‘No,’ Stern said through gritted teeth. ‘Your lies are at an end, Changeling.’

  ‘We are buried in lies here,’ the daemon taunted. ‘They’re all around us.’

  It made a series of arcane gestures with its claws. There was an ear-splitting crack, and a sudden fissure appeared in the stonework to the right of the greater daemon. Sickly, diffracted light blazed from it, followed by a phantom gale that tugged at the habits and cowls of the Dark Angels. The M’Kachen-thing croaked a series of unutterable syllables and the cracks split wider, bursting apart in a hail of shattered stone. The portal blazed with eldritch energy, the howling of a realm of pure madness grating from the jagged, broken stone like a million razor blades.

  Horrors bounded from the infernal light. The dank air filled with their mad gibbering, and warpfire sparked and ignited in the corridor around them.

  ‘Stop them,’ Stern shouted. ‘I will banish the trickster.’

  Asmodai struck first, roused to righteous wrath by the presence of warp filth in the Rock’s most sacred depths. The ghost-wind snapped at his white-and-green habit, making it billow around his black armoured form. He swung his crozius arcanum in a crackling arc, the wings of the holy weapon wreathed in white energy. Daemons disintegrated before him, their unnatural flames breaking and spluttering harmlessly around the Interrogator-Chaplain. The rosarius hanging from an adamantium chain around his neck, crafted in the likeness of the hooded Angel of Protection, blazed with golden energy as it shielded him from the dark warp magics.

  Ragnar and then de Mornay fought to join him,
pressed against the corridor wall. The Wolf Lord carved through one pink horror after another, Frostfang reducing them to writhing ectoplasmic blobs. Even as he killed them their swirling remains reformed into smaller blue horrors, sneering and snapping at him as they tried to claw through his power armour.

  De Mornay fired his plasma pistol into the twisted mass coming from the portal at point-blank range, a prayer on his lips. The incandescent bolts of blue energy vaporised the leading clutch of daemons, but still they came. Soon the pistol was burning in the grip of the inquisitor’s exo-gauntlet, steam venting from the carbon-adamant ventilation casing and the magnetic accelerator coils ribbing its spine glowing blue with overuse.

  Down the corridor, Azrael and Stern fought the Changeling. It was a blur, toying with reality as it battled the two Space Marines, the borrowed flesh of the greater daemon seeming to shift and twitch like a faulty viewfeed as it phased away from its attackers. The Angel and the Knight rained blows on it, their weapons wreathed with power, but the daemon matched each and every one with a long silver staff. A riposte dented Stern’s pauldron and scarred Azrael’s breastplate, ripping his habit.

  The thing was fast. Azrael recklessly lunged into its guard, the black obsidian of the Heavenfall Blade punching like a lance towards the thing’s shifting core. It moved again, but this time too slow to properly avoid the sudden strike. The Sword of Secrets caught the Changeling in the flank, the ancient weapon searing through feathers and flesh alike. The M’Kachen-thing let out a screech and snatched at the Supreme Grand Master. Left exposed by the lunge, he found his arm gripped in the greater daemon’s avian claws. It twisted viciously, and there was an audible snap before it flung the Dark Angel bodily back against the chamber’s far wall.

  Stern thrust forward, force sword blazing with white light. The winged greater daemon parried the blow with its staff, deceptively spindly arms bolstered by the strength of the warp. Stern locked in place, servos groaning as the two strained.