Hammer Of Daemons Part 9

TEN.

THE DESPOILER OF Kolchadon, the b.l.o.o.d.y Hand of Skerentis Minor, the End of Empires, Arguthrax the Magnificent slid from his cauldron into the entrail pool that dominated his sanctum beneath Ghaal.

Human emotions did not trouble the mind of a daemon. No mortal could truly understand what went on in a daemon's head without going insane, for the rules of logic had no hold over them.

No human emotion could therefore be properly ascribed to a daemon. Nevertheless, Arguthrax was definitely angry.

'Filth!' the daemon bellowed as his bloated body sank into the tangle of entrails. 'Whelp! Weakling dog! He will pay! He and his slaves, and his... his natives! That filth will suffer!'

'My lord,' said Khuferan, the majordomo of Arguthrax's sanctum, 'something has vexed you.'

Arguthrax glared at him. Khuferan had been completely human before he had died and been drawn, in the form of a bone-dry mummified corpse, into Arguthrax's army as it marched across the ruins of his home world. Khuferan had been some kind of king or high priest thousands of years ago, but he had forsaken whatever he had in life to serve Chaos in death. The upstart, Venalitor. That near-human thing who calls himself a duke. He has sought to humiliate me... me!'

'It is the way of Drakaasi.'

'So is revenge,' snarled Arguthrax. 'Who do we have on the streets and on the plains? Who heeds the words of Arguthrax?'

Khuferan snapped his bony fingers, and lesser daemons, scurrying things like animated blobs of flesh with vestigial limbs, hurried away from him into the dark corners of the sanctum. The sanctum was a spherical cyst in the earth, half-filled with the entrails of thousands of sacrifices. A spur of rock held the sacrificial altar, black with generations of blood, as well as giving Arguthrax's mortal followers like Khuferan somewhere to stand when they addressed their master.

One of the daemons brought Khuferan a heavy book bound in strips of beaten bra.s.s. Khuferan leafed through its pages, on which were written the names of thousands of organisations and individuals loyal to Arguthrax. Every lord of Drakaasi had followers he could call upon, many of them hidden deep in the underbelly of Khorne's cities, waiting for the call to action.

'Lord Ebondrake's p.r.o.nouncement of the crusade has led to a great mobilisation,' said Khuferan. We have called upon the Legion of the Unhallowed to bring themselves forth from the jungles and march under your banner, Lord Arguthrax.'

'Savages,' said Arguthrax, 'primitives, but useful. Who else?'

The Thirteenth Hand are still off-world, but they are returning at your command. The warp shall deliver them to us in a few days.

They are battle-hardened, my lord, and have acquired many new members.'

'Hmm. That is good.' The Thirteenth Hand were a fanatical murder cult whose leaders had been ordained in the will of Khorne by Arguthrax himself. What of the warp?'

'Relations are... strained,' said Khuferan. 'Many have been lost.

The warp dislikes so many losses. Profligacy in the arenas has left us-'

'I am the Despoiler of Kolchadon!' spat Arguthrax. 'How many billions of gallons of blood have rained into the warp at my behest?

The daemon lords will heed one of their own, one such as I. I want hunter daemons on the streets, black as the void, and with Venalitor's scent. I want furies in the sky following every movement of his underlings. I want the Hecatomb under siege!'

'It will be done. The losses at the Void Eye will require greater recompense for the warp.'

Tell them they are having revenge. Venalitor had his pet Astartes kill my daemon champion to insult me. He even took its head for himself! It was an insult to all daemonkind, and the warp will have its due if Venalitor suffers. We will bring him low, and then we will kill him. Tell that to the warp. It will listen.'

Very well, my lord.'

'And the rest of them: the Haunters of the Nethermost Shadow, the mutant cults beneath Vel'Skan. Bring them all in.'

'And the watchers?'

Arguthrax paused. The lords of Drakaasi spied on one another. It was like a game, played with agents who went into deep cover among the coteries of the lords. No doubt other lords had eyes and ears among Arguthrax's followers. Arguthrax had uncovered and eaten more than a few of them. They were mortals and daemons with some talent to obscure their true selves, and they were pariahs.

It was not the way of Khorne to skulk in the shadows, and so Drakaasi's spies were a sort of undercla.s.s present at the very highest layers of the planet's society. Arguthrax had his own shape shifting daemons and old-fashioned human informers bound to him by contracts of blood.

'If they can fight,' said Arguthrax. 'Punishing Venalitor is a higher priority than anything else. The games, Ebondrake's crusade, everything can wait until he has been brought low.'

'If it is your wish, Lord Arguthrax,' said Khuferan. He bowed his ancient death shrouded body before his master, and turned to walk back down the spur of rock and begin organising his lord's slaves.

The light in the sanctum dimmed. Arguthrax sank into the great cauldron of entrails, deep in thought.

'I REMEMBER,' SAID Kelhedros, 'when I learned of the Fall.'

Kelhedros's cell was relatively clean. The other slaves on the Hecatomb knew better than to invade the place. Kelhedros had painted complex rune patterns on the walls in paint mixed from blood and sand. His green metallic armour lay against the wall. The eldar was picking the blood from between the teeth of his chainsword. The sea serpent's blood had been particularly viscous and it was a job to work it out of the mechanism.

The Fall?' asked Alaric.

'I forget, human, that you are not well versed in our ways. Some of you have studied us, I understand: the biologists of your Inquisition. The better to kill us, of course. But not you.'

'I know that you are aliens.'

'Strange. That is all I once knew of you.'

The journey back from the Void Eye had been deeply strained.

Venalitor had stood glowering at them from the helm of the Hecatomb, the head of Arguthrax's daemon champion in his hand.

Many slaves had been lost, and Haggard had been unable to keep up with the wounded. The orks, forced to wait until last for treatment since they healed so well, were squabbling with each other in their barred enclave. Alaric had sought out Kelhedros. It had become apparent to him early in his career as a Grey Knight that having his life saved at least deserved a few words of thanks, and the possibility of an ally on Drakaasi, even an alien, could not be ignored.

'Long ago, my kind ruled the galaxy,' continued Kelhedros, 'much as your kind claim to rule it now. We were artists and aesthetes, while you are soldiers. We took worlds and made them beautiful instead of merely inhabiting them like insects in a nest.'

'None taken,' said Alaric.

Kelhedros gave him a quizzical look. 'Quite, but we were arrogant, prideful. Some of what I see in your kind, my kind must have seen in themselves. They indulged their base delights. The warp took heed. From the sinful pride of my people was born... one of the great powers of the warp. I cannot speak of it. It plagues us still and reaps its toll among humankind, too.'

'I imagine this is not something an alien would normally speak of to a human.'

'Indeed it is not. Many would think me a traitor for saying it, but then I am a traitor for surviving here amongst such... pollution.'

Then why tell me?'

'Because I see it on this world, too, and in your Imperium.'

Kelhedros looked up from his chain-blade. The Fall killed the better part of my species. Only those who saw it coming escaped it in their world ships. My kind, so far advanced compared to yours, was almost wiped out. Think what another Fall would do to you. Do not think that you will see it coming, or that it has not already begun.

You are living through the death of your species at this very moment and you do not realise it.'

'I cannot believe that,' said Alaric. There must be hope.'

Kelhedros arched an eyebrow. "Why?'

'Because without it we are lost.'

'You are lost anyway. Whether you truly believe in salvation or not is irrelevant. Death is death.'

'Perhaps everything you say is true and these are the death throes of the human race, but even if that was true, I would not lose faith.

There must be hope, and I must fight for my Emperor against Chaos and its servants. That is just the way it is.'

'That is insanity.'

'Wrong, it's being human.'

'That's it? That is why you have managed to spread to the stars and found this Imperium, in spite of all the obvious primitivism of your minds?'

'That's right,' said Alaric. We believe. I suppose that's it.'

'There are such strange things in the galaxy,' said Kelhedros. 'Now there we can agree.'

Kelhedros put his chainsword to one side and began on his armour. Like the weapon, it was old and battered but well-maintained. Beneath the armour, Kelhedros's body was slim but muscular, quite the opposite of Alaric's own oversized frame. He was scarred, too, and like Alaric not all of them were war wounds.

Runes were scored into the eldar's torso. They were symbols with half-glimpsed meaning: half a face without a mouth, a hand, a stylised blade, all twining together in th.o.r.n.y knot work.

'I do not think, Grey Knight, that you are here to discuss the state of the universe,' said Kelhedros.

'I came here to thank you.'

'It is not necessary. It does not benefit any of us to lose our best fighter.'

'You took a risk.'

'One can hardly survive on Drakaasi without taking risks. If we flee death, we only run into its waiting arms. My own chances of survival are increased if you are there by my side, so I took risks to prevent your death. Anyone understanding the reality of our situation would do the same thing. Likewise, you are taking a considerable risk by speaking willingly to an alien that your kind despises to the point of genocide, and so you have a reason to be here, too.'

Alaric leaned across the rail and looked down on the floor of the main chamber. Kelhedros's cell was one floor up, and gave him an excellent view of what was going on among the Hecatomb's slaves.

'Look down there,' he said.

Kelhedros stood by his side. 'At what?'

'The greenskins.'

'The animals? I sully my eyes with them as little as possible.'

'Then for the first time, try watching them.'

The orks, those who had survived the Void Eye relatively unscathed, were sc.r.a.pping with each other amid the filth of their enclosure. One-ear was standing aside, barking insults and grunting appreciation.

'They are just turning on each other,' said Kelhedros, 'for they know that the humans will ma.s.s against them if they do not. They are cowards.'

'Wrong,' said Alaric. 'Watch.'

One-ear dragged two fighting greenskins apart. He cuffed the loser around the back of the head, shoving him away. The winner he clapped on the back, much as he had congratulated Alaric for cutting the head off the daemon, and turned back to watch the other greenskins sc.r.a.pping.

That one,' said Kelhedros, 'he's in charge.'

'Exactly'

'But it is the way of the animal. The strongest rules.'

'And he is using that. He's training them, toughening them up.'

'He simply wants to survive.'

We all want to survive, eldar. One-ear has a plan, which is more than most of the humans here. Think about it, the best way for the orks to survive on Drakaasi is to make themselves essential. That way they can be sure that Venalitor won't throw their lives away.

The better they fight, the better a show they put on for the crowds, the longer they will live.'

'So the creature has a plan?' 'A plan, to survive.'

Kelhedros smiled, which was disconcerting to see since his alien face produced only expressions that looked fundamentally wrong to human eyes. 'I was under the impression that you humans and these greenskins once encountered each other in the early stages of exploring the galaxy, and took an instant dislike to one another that has never dimmed. It sounds as if you admire One-ear.'

'I hate the ork just like any other Emperor fearing citizen, but the fact remains that One-ear has a better grasp of the situation, and a sounder plan for surviving it, than most of the slaves here. I thought the same as you, Kelhedros, and a.s.sumed that an ork was just a fighting machine that couldn't even think. Then I took the time to watch, and I found I was wrong.'

'What is your plan?' asked Kelhedros bluntly.

'I haven't quite decided yet,' said Alaric, 'but I am not willing to wait in this d.a.m.ned ship to die, or to serve their G.o.d by fighting until someone kills me in the arenas. I'm getting out.'

'And you need me.'

This time Alaric smiled. 'Forgive my bluntness, eldar, but I did not seek you out in the name of inter-species relations. You are one of the Hecatomb's best fighters, and you have the run of the ship. I may well have a use for you. Be ready for that, Kelhedros, and try not to die in the meantime.'

'How do you know I will agree to your plan, human, whatever it is? That I do not have a way of my own to escape?'

'Because you are still here,' said Alaric, and walked away.

ELEVEN.

DUKE VENALITOR STOOD at the helm of the Hecatomb, watching as the war city of Gorgath rolled up onto the horizon.

The Hecatomb was a bulbous hulk, fat and groaning. Venalitor appreciated the impression the ship gave: it looked full to bursting with slaves or riches, or perhaps blood like a sated parasite. Its black timbers creaked as it sailed slowly along the blood ca.n.a.l that wound towards Gorgath. Above, the masts and rigging were like a ribcage of dark wood, its sails like funeral shrouds. Drakaasi's dawn was fighting to clamber above the horizon, but the night was putting up a stern resistance.

As Venalitor had known it would, the first of the shadows peeled off from the rigging and slid down the mast near the stern. It pooled on the deck, twin eyes flickering in its dark body. Another slid over the deck rail. Venalitor often had his scaephylyds stand to attention on the deck as an honour guard, but not tonight. He wanted to do this alone.