Manflayer - Josh Reynolds Read online

  She ran, knowing that they would catch her. As they had caught her every time before. It was inevitable, like the turning of a wheel.

  And when they caught her, they would strip away a little more of who she was and replace it with something else. They wanted her to be like them. But she had to earn it. In pain and in pleasure. Her pain, their pleasure.

  Still she ran, on and on, until they caught her and the game began again.

  Igori blinked, her eyes wet. Melusine released her and stepped back, her expression at once sly and confused.

  ‘Remember. Ignore your instincts, sister.’ She turned, as if to go.

  ‘Wait,’ Igori said. She touched her eyes and rubbed her fingers. Were these tears? If so, who were they for? The creature before her, or the girl she had been?

  Melusine paused, and glanced over her shoulder. ‘Ask, sister. And I will tell no lies.’

  ‘Why did you leave him?’

  Melusine was silent. Then, ‘For the same reason you did.’

  She stepped into the shadows and was gone a moment later, leaving only the echoes of her voice to mark her passing.

  ‘It was time.’

  Chapter Three

  Monstrous Efficiency

  Mayshana watched the shriekers spiral up into the air, their distinctive cries echoing over the ruined streets below. They nested in the high places of the ruins – ugly, bat-like things whose ancestors had been aeldari, a hundred generations ago.

  ‘About time,’ she murmured, sitting up, a narc-stick hanging from her lips. She’d been waiting for them to take to the air for hours. A normal human would have been a mass of aches and pains from crouching atop the ruined tower that long.

  Thankfully, she was anything but normal. The Benefactor had made her folk strong and durable, better able to survive in places like this. Places where the sky was the colour of fire and the air tasted of soot. She stubbed out the narc-stick on her tongue, crumpling it into her mouth and chewing the gluey leaves. Then she retrieved her long-las and checked the power pack. Satisfied that it was at full charge, she crawled to the edge of the roof.

  She raised the weapon, and peered through the scope. A rooftop several blocks away leapt into focus. She caught a hint of movement. A moment later she realised it wasn’t a shrieker. It wasn’t any sort of mutant she recognised at all. It was pale and thin and it danced across the edge of the roof with great leaping bounds and wild pirouettes. The motion was purposeful – structured. There was a pattern, though her eyes began to water before she could discern it. She blinked the tears away, and suddenly, the pale dancer was closer – close enough that Mayshana could almost make out a face. A lavender gaze met her own, and she felt something akin to an electric shock.

  She jerked back, heart thudding with sudden unease.

  She lifted her rifle again, but the pale thing was gone. Perhaps it had never been there. She swallowed, uncertain, but pushed the thought aside. She concentrated on the shriekers, and focused the targeting scope on the largest of the beasts. It was old, its patchy fur gone white and its frame rail-thin. But it was still strong – and smart, besides.

  The other Gland-hounds called the creature One-Eye, for obvious reasons. It had led raids on storehouses throughout the city, and attacked even the most heavily armed gunships and landers with spiteful regu­larity. It had made itself a nuisance, in other words. She let out a slow breath, tracking it.

  ‘You’re aiming too low.’

  Mayshana lowered the long-las and turned. ‘You are quiet, for such an old woman.’

  Igori snorted and dropped to the roof. ‘You weren’t paying attention, granddaughter. A whole flock of them could have crept up on you while you were watching that old monster.’ The older Gland-hound lifted a battered rangefinder and peered through it. ‘Something has stirred them up.’

  ‘Arrian.’

  Igori looked at her. ‘What’s he doing out here?’

  ‘He took the young ones out hunting.’ Mayshana sat up and set her rifle aside. She was almost a century younger than her grandmother, but the resemblance was unmistakable. ‘What are you doing out here? This isn’t your territory.’

  Igori grinned. ‘Any territory I stand in is mine, granddaughter. You’d do well to remember that.’ She let her hand fall to her knife, for emphasis. Mayshana studied her grandmother, unconcerned by the threat. They’d fought before, and though Igori had won, Mayshana had survived. That alone proved that the Hound-Queen had lost her edge.

  ‘Why are you here, grandmother?’

  Igori shrugged. ‘I caught your scent on the wind and came to investigate. Can a grandmother not occasionally check on her grandchild?’

  ‘No.’

  Igori was silent for a moment. ‘You have new scars.’

  ‘So do you.’ Mayshana shifted her weight and sniffed the air. She smelled gun-oil and sweat. Igori hadn’t come alone. She gave no sign she’d noticed, however. To do so would be rude, and possibly considered provocation by her grandmother’s followers. She wondered what they were doing this far out of their territory. Clashes between exile and loyalist packs weren’t uncommon, though by tacit agreement both sides kept such encounters quiet. The Benefactor would be upset if he knew they were killing each other.

  ‘Not so many as I might once have had. I have few challengers these days.’ Igori sounded disappointed by that fact. Mayshana understood. Challenge was the lifeblood of their kind. They had been made to confront and overcome every obstacle the galaxy could throw in their path. A world without challenges was one that did not bear thinking about. Igori looked at her. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Some. The Benefactor has forbidden open challenges.’

  Igori snorted. ‘That sounds like him.’ She looked up at the sky. ‘We were not made for places such as this, you know. He did not make us to hide in ruins on dead worlds. And yet here we are. Seeds planted in sour soil.’

  ‘Grandmother?’ Mayshana asked. Those words did not sound like the Igori she remembered. They sounded more like the Benefactor. Maybe that wasn’t so strange; there was something of him in all of them.

  Igori shook herself. ‘I must speak with Arrian. Where is he?’

  Mayshana was silent for a moment. Then, ‘Three kilometres north. Be careful around the younglings. They get… overexcited.’

  Igori smiled and leaned forward, kissing Mayshana atop her head. ‘I remember.’

  Mayshana hesitated, and then forced the words out. ‘Why did you never come back, grandmother? He would have forgiven you.’

  Igori looked out over the city. ‘I did not require his forgiveness.’ She raised her rangefinder. ‘You were using Arrian as bait, to draw the shriekers out. Clever. Does he know?’

  ‘No. He would not approve.’

  ‘Our cousin is soft-hearted,’ Igori said, with no small amount of affection. ‘He is a warrior, not a killer.’ She peered at Mayshana. ‘How are your pups? Are they with him?’

  Mayshana nodded. Glaive and Spar had been children during the schism. They only barely recalled Igori and those who’d left. ‘They are killers grown now. They serve the Benefactor as I once did. As you once did.’

  Igori frowned. ‘You encouraged this?’

  Mayshana shrugged. ‘They wished to fight at his side. As we all do.’ She heard a distant cry and turned. The shriekers were fleeing. They would find new roosts, new hiding spots. She sighed and sat back. ‘One-Eye lives for another day,’ she said. She looked at Igori. ‘Why are you here, grandmother? Truly.’

  Igori sat back on her heels. ‘Do you dream, child?’ she asked, after a moment.

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘I dream,’ Igori said. ‘I dream of a garden with silver grasses, and a serpent with lavender eyes. I see the Benefactor kneeling before the serpent, as it rears as if to strike.’ Igori leaned close. ‘And strike it does. I awaken then, but the d
ream is always waiting for me. Do you know what it means?’

  Mayshana felt a prickle of confusion and something else, something she had not felt in a long time – fear.

  ‘No.’

  ‘There is a bit of old verse the Benefactor once shared with me… Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.’ Igori looked away. ‘He is the centre, and he cannot hold.’ She pushed herself to her feet with a muffled groan. ‘The time is coming when we must seek our own way, granddaughter. All of us.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mayshana made to rise, but by the time she got to her feet, Igori was gone. She sniffed the air, but could not detect the scent of her grandmother’s followers. Instead, she smelled a peculiar odour… musky and somehow familiar.

  She caught sight of something pale out of the corner of her eye and whirled. But there was nothing there. And only the fading echo of a woman’s laugh to convince her she wasn’t imagining things.

  Arrian Zorzi stalked through the ruins, his senses straining. He could hear the shriekers murmuring amongst themselves somewhere above him. He glanced at his companions and gestured. Spar nodded, and she and Glaive split up, leading their respective teams of packmates in opposite directions. Each of the Gland-hounds was armed with a shock-baton and a coil of tensile wire. They were here to capture, not kill.

  The shriekers made for poor test subjects. Their genetic code was degraded to the point of indecipherability. But that didn’t mean they didn’t have some use. With the proper augmentation, they could be made into serviceable weapons – something Arrian had discovered almost entirely by accident. Every member of the Consortium had their speciality. Arrian’s was this. His creations had prowled a million battlefields down the long centuries, and the best of them were retained by the Chief Apothecary for defensive purposes.

  Rubble cascaded down from above. Arrian didn’t bother to look up. Instead, he snatched a concussion grenade from his belt and thumbed the activation rune. He tossed the grenade up and reached for one of his blades. The resulting shock wave would have deafened a normal human. The shriekers lived up to their name, wailing in agony. Several fell from their perches to land writhing on the floor. Others scuttle-hopped towards him, knuckling forward on wing-stumps, driven into a frenzy by the pain. Their features were like those of a Terran bat mixed with an aeldari – elongated and twisted into something monstrous.

  The first of them leapt, jaws wide. Arrian swatted the creature aside with the flat of his blade and pinned it to the floor with a boot. He didn’t want to injure any of them, if possible. The less work he had to do on them, the better.

  Spar pounced, driving her shock-baton into the pinned creature’s skull, causing it to spasm and flail its wings. When it had passed out, she bound it with wire and dragged it out of the way, while Arrian covered her. The rest of her pack followed her example, stunning and binding the shriekers that had fallen to the floor.

  Arrian snatched another creature from the air and sent it tumbling into a pillar. Two of them leapt on him at once, driving him back a step. They broke their fangs on his armour as he tried to wrestle them to the ground. He heard Briaeus and the rest of his dead squadmates laugh at his foolishness as their skulls rattled against his chestplate.

  Is this what it’s come to, dog-brother? Eaten by degenerate eldar?

  ‘Hardly eaten, Briaeus,’ Arrian grunted. ‘A bit gnawed-on, perhaps.’ He flung one of the shriekers to the floor and headbutted the other, cracking its skull. The old, familiar fire flickered deep inside him. The heat of an artificial rage. The Nails sparked, but he felt nothing. He’d medicated himself into a pleasant apathy, and between that and the Chief Apothe­cary’s many surgical alterations to his cerebrum down the centuries, it would take more than a few mutants to stir him out of it.

  The shriekers were properly riled up now. They swarmed down through the holes in the walls and roof, screeching and gibbering. Arrian activated the picter unit built into his medicae harness, recording the attack for future study. The creatures were one of the few stable aeldari ab-strains, and he was curious to find out why.

  He saw Spar leap from a fallen pillar, her shock-baton held like a spear. She rode a thrashing shrieker to the ground and battered it senseless, grinning all the while. She and her brother, Glaive, were the heirs apparent to Mayshana – the current leader of the packs. He was fond of them both. They were eager to learn, and quick-witted.

  Nearby, Glaive roared and bore a shrieker to the ground, shocking it into submission. He glanced at Arrian, seeking approval, and Arrian nodded. He paused as he caught a new scent – familiar, but one he had not smelled in some time.

  He turned and went to the broken wall. Ducking his head out, he saw a figure crouched at the edge of the roof above. He left the Gland-hounds to their fun and began to scale the outside of the ruin. The figure waited for him. As he climbed, he glimpsed the glint of weapons trained on him from the surrounding rooftops and towers. Despite this, he did not fear an ambush. They would not have let him see them, if that were their intent.

  As he expected, Igori was waiting for him at the top. He hauled himself onto the roof, tensing as the ancient stonework shifted slightly beneath his weight.

  ‘Hello, cousin,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, Honoured Arrian,’ Igori replied. She did not look much different from the last time he’d seen her. Age had her in its claws, but hadn’t brought her down yet. He could smell the stimms on her sweat and hear the strain in her breathing. Her hand rested on her knife. As if she did not trust him. ‘It has been a long time.’

  ‘Not as I judge such things. Is this a social call – or something else?’ His armour’s sensor-net chimed, alerting him to the weapons currently trained on him. Too many to dodge, though he doubted they would pierce his armour. It was somewhat disconcerting to be targeted by so many warriors he’d helped train. He couldn’t help but feel a flush of pride at their skill, however.

  ‘I have a message for him.’

  Arrian turned. As far as he was aware, Igori and the Chief Apothecary had not spoken since her voluntary exile. ‘Can you not deliver it yourself?’

  She didn’t look at him. ‘You know I cannot.’

  She is ashamed, dog-brother, Briaeus said. And angry.

  ‘I know,’ Arrian said. He could not say which of them he was answering.

  From below came a howl, as Spar, Glaive and the others voiced their triumph. Igori shook her head. ‘Fools. Now they’ve alerted the rest of their prey.’

  ‘We’ve captured enough for today,’ Arrian said. ‘Let them howl.’

  ‘You spoil them.’

  ‘Little victories must be celebrated.’

  ‘They are young. And stupid.’

  ‘You were young once,’ Arrian said.

  ‘And stupid?’

  Arrian smiled thinly.

  Igori chuckled. ‘I miss you, cousin.’

  ‘And I you.’ Arrian looked at her. ‘It has been too long since we sparred.’

  Igori looked away. ‘I am not the fighter I once was.’ She flexed her hands. ‘The ache in them is worse these days. And in my hips, and back.’

  ‘I am not surprised. You are well over two centuries old. Most of that was spent in combat. Without regular rejuvenat treatments you are nearing the end of your life. Frankly, I am surprised that you still live.’

  Igori laughed. ‘Blunt as ever.’

  ‘I have never lied to you.’

  ‘No.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘You are the only one.’ Another pause. ‘Even the Benefactor lied.’

  Arrian could think of no reply. She was not wrong, and he could not bring himself to disagree. The Chief Apothecary had made a mistake, going to Commorragh. Arrian had seen it at the time, but had lacked the courage to say as much.

  Was it cowardice, dog-brother? Briaeus asked. Or opportunism?

  Arrian ignored the dead man
. He rested his hands on his sheathed blades and looked out over the city. ‘What is the message you wish me to relay?’

  ‘She came to me again.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Melusine.’

  Arrian froze. Just for a moment. An instant of uncertainty. He felt a chill creep through him and he looked around, half-expecting to see her. ‘The dreams again?’ he asked. After he and Fabius had left the crèche, Fabius had ordered him to say nothing of what Zargad had told them about the children’s dreams.

  Igori shook her head. ‘Not a dream. Not this time.’

  ‘She was here?’ Arrian asked. ‘When? Why?’

  ‘She brought me a warning.’ Igori hesitated. ‘I thought he should know.’

  ‘Another warning.’ Melusine often brought warnings. Vague, cryptic warnings of events that hadn’t happened yet or would never happen. He theorised that she was somehow perceiving alternate timelines – or was perhaps even unstuck in time herself.

  ‘It was different this time. She was different. As if she were more herself, if that makes sense.’

  Igori looked at him, and for a moment he saw the child she had been, rather than the matriarch she was.

  ‘She said the end is coming.’ She gestured about them. ‘That all of this is going away. The story is ending – and the worst is yet to come.’

  Arrian sighed. ‘This is the Eye, cousin. There is always something worse yet to come. There is always a storm, an ending, a tragedy. Saqqara says that the gods traffic in these things, but I do not know how much of that I believe.’

  ‘And if she is right? If, this time, her warnings are true?’

  ‘Then we will meet fate head-on as we have always done, and the stronger warrior will prevail.’ Arrian looked at her. ‘Do not lose faith in him, cousin. Whatever else you have lost, do not lose that.’ He looked away. ‘He needs it now, more than ever, I think.’

  The Neverborn howled as the syringe went in.

  The sound was one of agony, raw and bestial. The Neverborn had no true shape, only the vaguest resemblance to something humanoid. It was as much serpent and hound as it was man, with pulsing toxin sacs lining the underside of its throat.