Season of Shadows - Guy Haley Page 4

  There was a daemon here. The hatred burning unasked for in his twin hearts made him sure of that. His teeth itched, a metallic taste was in his mouth. A sure sign of sorcery. That was the only word fit for it.

  ‘Let the Emperor’s light show me the way. Let his light cast perfect brilliance, dividing that which is true from that which is not true. Let it show lies for lies, deceit for deceit.’

  His prayer grew louder, until it rang from the walls of the tunnel. In response, his vision shifted, the tunnel becoming the pulsating gut of a great creature. A brief vision that mocked his pleas for veracity, but this falsehood was driven aside by his will.

  ‘Let his light blind my unholy foe. Let his light show me my enemy. I am a son of Rogal Dorn. I am the chosen of the Emperor. I am a vessel for his wisdom and his vengeance. I am a Space Marine of the Black Templars, an adept of the stars, and I know no fear. Show me yourself, I command it.’

  A deep, throaty laugh answered, an entirely inhuman sound blended with the purring of predators and the gurgle of sucking wounds. This was a laughter that brought madness.

  ‘Little soldier, little soldier. How you amuse! What power is yours to command me?’

  A rasping noise followed, as of scales on stone. A hideous shriek directly blasted Brusc’s ears, bypassing the aural dampers of his battleplate. He stumbled, ears ringing, which brought forth another burst of laughter from his unseen opponent that ended in a menacing, polyphonic growl.

  Brusc staggered around the final turn of the stairs and came into a stone chamber bathed in blood-red light. An obelisk stood at its centre, made of dark crystal. Multifaceted and irregular in shape, it was pointed at the top and thinned near the base to the width of Brusc’s thigh. A domed ceiling, covered in flaking paintings of things out of nightmares, curved over it.

  The daemon watched. Long snake coils looped around the obelisk, black scales glinting. The thing was entirely serpentine but for the head. In place of a serpent’s face it bore the features of three men. The leftmost and centre were shrunken, dead things, wizened as mummies, but the one on the right regarded Brusc with a vile amusement. A strange smell came from it, not the acerbic stink of reptiles, but an unexpected muskiness, pleasant until deeper breaths revealed undertones of rotting meat.

  The chamber resounded with an unsettling babble, many voices, many languages. This uncanny chatter was inconstant in volume, falling below hearing and rising up again until the words were almost clear. The voices were in pain, or they mocked Brusc and his Emperor, or they begged him for an end to suffering or cajoled him to join them. Animal growls and hisses competed with the human sounds. Alien voices were there too. There was nothing of purity in any of it.

  The daemon reared up high so that it might look down upon Brusc. This display of superiority from something so low spurred the Black Templar’s recovery. Hatred spiked in him, and he pulled himself tall.

  ‘The power of the Emperor is mine. It is the birthright of all men, should they have the strength to call upon it. I am of the Emperor’s elect. I am one of his chosen.’

  ‘You are no pysker-soul,’ said the daemon.

  ‘Through my faith alone is the Emperor’s attention upon me, and He stands by my right hand. Through me, He will slay you.’

  ‘The Emperor. You worship? He is your god?’ hissed the daemon. The cacophony of the damned swelled as it spoke and the daemon gurgled a laugh. ‘Well. This is novelty not seen for long ages. Only once have I witnessed the cripple of Terra’s clone children bleating praises. Their devotion did not end well for them.’

  ‘No others of the Adeptus Astartes see the truth of the Emperor’s light, nor ever have. We alone are the chosen.’

  ‘Do not be so sure, little soldier. There were others, until they saw the truth behind your master’s lies. But He is persistent. We grant Him that. Worshipped He is, and worshipped He has been. Foolishness is eternal.’

  ‘The truth saves.’

  ‘Ah! It does, it does! That you are right!’ the daemonic serpent swayed sinuously across the room, its body lengthening obscenely. ‘Not your truth, for that is a lie. Behold! Here is one who was saved by the truth.’

  The daemon moved aside, revealing a man kneeling beside the obelisk who had not been there before; the second of Ghaskar’s sentries. He was facing away from Brusc. At some prompting he turned slowly, revealing his skinless face. He clacked exposed teeth together and said something unintelligible for his lack of lips. Slowly, he raised his hand, and showed the tattered rag of his face. It writhed of its own accord, an expression of utter horror upon it.

  ‘If you wish to worship, this is the way it is done, little soldier. Sacrifice and receive. A simple transaction, more honest than the lies of the Golden King.’ The triple head darted forward. A smile played across the thing’s plump lips. The dry smell of old decay came from its dead faces. ‘Put down your feeble weapon. You cannot harm me. Embrace my masters and know power unbound!’

  Previously unseen runes on the obelisk flared hotly. Brusc took a step back, feeling the heat even through his armour. The disfigured Guardsman held up his arm and burst into flame. He stood unhurriedly, and danced to a toneless song sung by the mocking voices until his entire body blazed. Abruptly, he fell. Even as the fire consumed him in a riot of unnatural pinks and blues, he twitched, jerking along to the daemon-song until he could move no more. Brusc shut off his air intakes, the smell of burning flesh and the daemon’s stink too much. It had no effect, and the smell somehow infiltrated the machinery of his battleplate, growing stronger, making his head swim. His altered body worked harder to clear his system of toxins to no avail. The daemon leaned in very close, putting its face close to his helmet visor. Brusc found he could not move. The smell of perfume and spoiled blood was overpowering.

  ‘Battle you have fought.’ A long black tongue, suckered like the arm of a squid, ran up the crack of his pauldron. ‘War comes ever to this world. I came for one such war, with the Primarch Angron and his daemon-legions. He has gone, but I remain.’

  ‘Liar,’ said Brusc through numb lips. He was salivating furiously, drool spilled down his chin.

  ‘And who was the First War fought against, oh most noble son of the corpse lord? It is a secret closely kept. Do you know? No rebellion was the first war, but glorious invasion.’ The head darted to one side, then the other, the daemon’s face twisted with wicked delight as it appraised him. ‘And all the wars before that.’

  Brusc raged inside at his easy subdual, powerless against the daemon’s sorcery.

  ‘I know you, Brusc, I know much. Honour and glory, glory and honour, these things are everything to you. To fight and to die in noble cause. Six centuries you have scurried from one end of the galaxy to the other on the errands of your false god. What a waste of your potential, such a squandering of devotion.’ The words hissed from the daemon’s mouth, becoming ever more snakelike.

  Images of Brusc’s life forced themselves into his mind. His elevation, his blooding, his time with Brother Adelard… Years and years of war and service, years of suffering.

  ‘So long it took for your accession to the Sword Brethren. They did not repay you easily for your efforts. So long to wait, and the victory so hollow when it came.’

  Brusc could no longer speak. He remembered the honour duels. Three times he had tried his hand in the Circle of Honour. Only on the third did he succeed. Five hundred years old then. So long to wait. He railed against the daemon’s words and was horrified to realise they were, in part, true. He had been overlooked. He had been neglected. Why, surely he was worthy of a Marshal’s badge?

  ‘All that faith and fire. And for what?’ the daemon said, its voice become seductive.

  A torrent of memories were unlocked in Brusc’s mind, all of them of Osric. Osric, his last neophyte. Osric, the finest friend he had had in all his long years. Osric as a boy, as neophyte, as an initiate.

  Osric dead, slain by the orks only days before. Osric brought low by the same desire f
or hollow honour.

  Brusc howled, a formless bellow of grief and anger. There had been no time to allow himself the luxury of mourning. There never was enough time.

  ‘Yes, you see, little soldier. The Emperor takes and takes and takes. What does He give you? Nothing. In a moment I will make you an offer. He has already stripped you of your precious humanity. What use to you is a soul?’

  Brusc saw it in his mind’s eye, the daemon leaning in intimately, its breath tickling his cheek somehow through the plasteel of his helmet.

  ‘This is what you will receive from your new gods.’

  Brusc walking through fire, his armour changed. Fanged maws decorating his backpack’s vents, spikes on his shoulders. His head bare and tattooed, his broken face a study in delight as he gunned down dozens of Imperial soldiers. Other battles crowded his thoughts, many triumphs.

  ‘In your might you will bestride worlds. In your honour you will be unmatched.’

  Great honour was bestowed upon him by raucous gatherings of others like him, renegades and the dispossessed. Men and demigods flocked to his banner. Above all was pleasure, pleasure at his power, to do as he would. This was his true potential.

  ‘There is no pleasure in your life. I can give you much. Others have come to me. Others have accepted. Others have prospered.’ Visions now of these men and women. Some drawn here in war, others in peace, all hungering for something more. Mutant, human, and post-human too. ‘They had their greatest desires fulfilled. And who can blame them? What does your corpse lord offer, but the ignominy of slow defeat, hellish suffering as your worlds burn, holding back the fires of the truth. Here is my offer.’

  The serpent leaned in as it had in the vision. As it had in the vision it spoke, words that Brusc could never remember, and yet which haunted him nightly for the rest of his days.

  The Emperor protects! The Emperor protects! thought Brusc. Release me that I might do my duty.

  ‘What is your response?’

  A million memories pounded through his mind, a new humiliation with every heartbeat. He had achieved nothing. He was nothing, but he could be something.

  Brusc was tempted, oh, he was tempted. He would spend many days and nights in contemplation, watched over by his Chaplains.

  But he did not succumb.

  ‘No,’ said Brusc.

  His defiance freed him. Brusc’s limbs were his own to command. He raised his bolter. His armour thrummed in anticipation.

  ‘Fool, you cannot harm me,’ said the daemon. Its eyes glowed dangerously. ‘No mortal weapon can pierce my skin. You will die, and I will remain. I always remain.’

  Brusc opened fire, not upon the daemon, but upon the obelisk.

  The creature told the truth regarding its flesh. Where Brusc’s bolt-rounds hit they detonated harmlessly on the scales. But the majority of his shots smashed into the stone, knocking chips free as they exploded.

  ‘Stop!’ hissed the snake, and the sunken eyes of its mummified face opened and their mouths began to scream. It dived at him, spitting pinkish venom that smoked upon his armour. Brusc rolled under its head, bolter always firing, concentrating his rounds upon the weaker section of the obelisk towards the base. Sparks flew from it. With each shot, the daemon keened louder, and the voices in the air wailed.

  His gun ran empty, and Brusc ran at the obelisk. Again its inner fire blazed. His battleplate trilled alarms at him, his coolant system struggling to prevent him being cooked alive.

  Brusc dodged the daemon’s weaving body, and aimed a kick at the upper part of the stone. He hit it with both feet and fell onto his back. The weakened neck of the obelisk splintered. It turned on the fracturing stump, and fell sideways.

  ‘Fool! Fool! Free! I am freeeeeeeee!’ howled the daemon.

  There was a burst of light and a hateful snarl, and then all was dark.

  Time passed. It could have been an age. Brusc was disoriented, his armour inactive. It took him some time to realise he had been buried alive.

  His limbs were immovable. He was trapped.

  A lesser man in such straits would have panicked, or fought his fate. Brusc did not. Even with his armour barely functioning he would not die for some time. After trying to mentally impel it to awaken, he gave up and lay there in silent prayer, thinking on what he had seen, trying to deny that he had been tempted. He could not.

  Scraping reverberated in his helm. Something grabbed his arm. An armoured hand. Then there were more hands grasping him, slipped under his limbs, pulling at him. His plate rang with the blows of entrenching tools digging.

  ‘Brother, brother!’ said Sunno urgently. ‘Do you live?’

  Brusc spoke weakly; without amplification his voice was muffled.

  ‘Yes. I am alive.’

  ‘Praise be!’ shouted Sunno joyously, and was joined by the neophytes. The faces of Jopali Indentured crowded round him.

  Readouts flickered in Brusc’s helmplate. A building whine saw his power plant restart, and strength returned to his battleplate’s limbs. He pushed himself up, ash and sand running off his armour in rivulets, and was hauled by eager hands from the hole he had been in. He expected to be deep in the rock, and so it took him a moment to place himself. He was not underground, not in the facility, not even close – the roofs of the building he could see half a kilometre away. He was instead in a square excavation pit in the greater body of the mine delvings. He was outside, exactly opposite to the direction he had gone.

  ‘What happened?’ said Sunno, taking in the acid-pitting of his armour. He reached out to touch the damage. Brusc caught his wrist.

  ‘Another time brother. There are too many watching.’ He nodded at the Guardsmen around them.

  ‘Did you find Srinergee?’ asked Ghaskar.

  ‘I am sorry to report that he is dead, lieutenant.’

  ‘How?’

  Brusc ignored the question. He examined the delving. He could not be sure, but there was an irregularity to the sides at the bottom that spoke to him of a broken stone dome, and that if they dug downwards they would find the toppled obelisk and the remains of Srinergee.

  The day was clear for Armageddon, with yellow skies and a weak sun. The only ash remaining was high in the stratosphere. The rest had fallen, or been blown further on. He listened intently, searching for that seductive voice, but all he heard were the sounds of the men shifting uneasily around him, all eyes on him. Noises came from the camp. Shouts, the sounds of engines being tested, made weak by distance – sounds comforting in their prosaic nature.

  His sense of unease, however, had not deserted him. A gust of wind stirred the sand. The last of the day. The last, he always remembered it, of the Season of Fire. Carried upon this breeze, he thought he heard a chilling laugh.

  ‘We must leave this place,’ he said. ‘We must leave immediately, and we must never return.’

  About The Author

  A prolific freelance author and journalist, Guy Haley is the author of Space Marine Battles: Death of Integrity, the Warhammer 40,000 novels Valedor and Baneblade, and the novellas The Last Days of Ector and Broken Sword, for Damocles. His enthusiasm for all things greenskin has also led him to pen the eponymous Warhammer novel Skarsnik. He lives in Somerset with his wife and son.

  Newly raised to the rank of High Marshal of the Black Templars, lord of the Eternal Crusade, Helbrecht has led his brethren into the Ghoul Stars, to wage war on worlds where reality itself is in question and the laws of physics do not apply.

  A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

  Published in 2014 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

  Cover illustration by Paul Dainton.

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  ISBN: 978-1-78251-520-3

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