Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds Read online

  The axe strained, threatening to break, but it was a weapon forged by weaponsmiths of the warp, and had unnatural strength. The hatch cranked open, just a small amount.

  Then it slammed back open, nearly knocking Taemar off the top of the tank. The Space Wolf who climbed out was fully armoured, but Taemar could tell from his movements that he was old, a warrior of great experience, purposeful in his attacks.

  ‘You boarded the wrong tank, traitor,’ said the old Space Wolf through an unusual grille in his helmet. He carried a hammer of his own, swinging it back and forth in one hand.

  ‘You command this vehicle?’ asked Taemar. He was already concentrating psychic energy into his axe, but it would take a few moments to build.

  ‘I command all these tanks,’ said the Space Wolf, swinging his hammer.

  Taemar ducked back, making sure not to move too quickly. The hammer clipped the chestplate of his armour with a clank. ‘I am Folkvar.’

  Taemar ducked under the next blow, letting himself be driven back, once more feeling the power building in his axe, drawing Folkvar in closer. Let the old Space Wolf’s bloodlust get the better of him.

  Folkvar went for another swing, and this time Taemar rolled under the blow with great agility, causing Folkvar to stumble.

  Taemar raised his axe, and brought it down and across in a two-handed swing. ‘I am Taemar,’ he replied. ‘And I command this axe.’

  The blow Taemar delivered was loaded with psychic energy, which tore into Folkvar’s chestplate, the surge of power crackling over his armoured form. He screamed through the grille on his helmet, a guttural gurgle. Blood dripped from where a long gash had ripped through his upper body.

  ‘You will die here,’ said Taemar. ‘But you will watch all you command be destroyed before you do.’

  He slammed the flat side of his axe into Folkvar’s body, knocking him off the Land Raider, and the old Space Wolf disappeared into the snow.

  Taemar had a crude bag slung over one shoulder. He dropped the bag so he was holding it by the strap, then used his other hand to grasp a cord protruding from its mouth. He pulled the cord from the bag, bringing with it a small cluster of firing pins. Then he swung the bag into the open hatch on the Land Raider’s roof.

  Taemar rolled off the top of the Land Raider, landing next to his axe on the icy ground below.

  As the muted sound of an explosion came from the Land Raider, and it veered away with smoke pouring out of it, Taemar got to his feet and locked his axe to the back of his armour. Then he ran to reboard the Unyielding Fist.

  Rotaka was one of the last Corsairs to survey the Valley of Blades before Huron’s convoy of vehicles moved on. He and his squad made one last circle of the battlefield, but found no signs of further life to extinguish, just burning tanks and scorched bodies. The Predator tanks and Huron’s mighty land galleons had ravaged the last remnants of the enemy forces as they swept through the valley. The unending white of the Valley of Blades was blemished by smoke, craters and twisted metal, the burned-out corpses of both loyalist and traitor vehicles scattered across the valley.

  It had not been without cost, and as he drove back on board the galleon Merciless Strike, Rotaka took one last look back at the wreck of the Implacable Stalker, an ancient vessel destroyed to confuse and bewilder the enemy. Rotaka thought nothing of the mortals who had crewed the vehicle, but to cast aside such a large number of them in one blow had been a risk.

  Yet it had worked, and while sacrificing vehicles and mortals Huron had not lost a single Red Corsair at the Valley of Blades. They had emerged from their first encounter with the Space Wolves without casualties, leaving nothing but ruin behind them.

  Nothing would stop them reaching Karstveil.

  Seventeen

  The blind monks of the sunken monastery swore to live their lives away from a light they could never see. Underground, in a series of catacombs beneath one of Hacasta’s many mountain ranges, one hundred brothers prayed to a distant Emperor they could hardly envisage, spending their days in total darkness.

  The blind monks did not miss the light, not because they were blind, but because they believed the only light worth contemplation was that of the Emperor Himself.

  Nonetheless, repellent though it was to feel the touch of daylight on their pallid skin, someone had to be present at the monastery’s three cave entrances to receive supplies, or to receive rare visitors.

  So, each monk spent a month at a time on one of the gates. The fortunate ones never had to open the heavy wooden doors, and remained untouched by the dreaded daylight.

  Brother Perrit was on his last day of such a silent, dark vigil when the knocker slammed into the door, three times. He sighed wearily, stood up, and shuffled towards the door, the weighted hem of his robes rubbing against the flagstones. Wearily, he hauled out an aged flintlock, a relic of some long ago battle, and dragged it over to the door. There was a small hatch at head height for the monks to speak to visitors, but beneath that was a smaller, round hatch, invisible from the outside. Perrit lined the flintlock up with the small hatch, quietly moving a slider to open it, and slid in the barrel. He deactivated the safety on the flintlock, then opened the hatch, wincing as light touched his skin for the first time in decades.

  Before Perrit could ask who was there, a voice from outside spoke. It was a deep, inhuman voice, metallic but with a pained, bubbling undertone. It was like no voice the monk had ever heard before.

  ‘Open this door,’ boomed the voice. ‘And stop pointing that gun at me, mortal.’

  The voice rang with such fierce authority that Perrit dropped the gun, and his hand was halfway to opening the door when he realised he had no idea who was speaking to him.

  ‘Who–’ Perrit began, and was instantly cut off.

  ‘I am Folkvar of the Vlka Fenryka, loyal Chapter of the Emperor’s Adeptus Astartes,’ snarled the voice. ‘I have wounded with me. Now open this door before I kick it down.’

  Brother Perrit considered the relative merits of the situation, and opened the door.

  Anju Badya woke in a narrow cavern carved from rock. Crammed into the rest of the chamber, almost doubled up, was Folkvar, holding a flickering oil lamp in one hand, the gentle light flickering over the shovel-shaped grille of his helmet.

  Badya licked her dry lips, preparing to speak. A naive person might have thanked Folkvar for saving her life, but Anju Badya had fought alongside the Space Wolves long enough to know that they had no interest in, or desire for, the gratitude of mortals; that they acted upon their own impulses and instincts, and anything else was irrelevant.

  No, she didn’t need to thank Folkvar. He hadn’t dragged her out of the wreckage in the Valley of Blades and all the way to wherever they were now so she would thank him. He must have his own reasons, and as Badya couldn’t begin to guess what those were, she wanted to know. So she asked him, her voice a low croak.

  ‘I saved your life,’ Folkvar said, his deep, metallic growl reverberating in the rocky chamber. ‘Because you had survived.’

  This seemed the wrong way around to Anju – surely she had survived because he had saved her life? She wondered if the Space Wolf had suffered some injury to the brain in the battle.

  ‘I survived because you saved my life,’ she said.

  ‘Fenrys Holdja! Do not presume to correct me,’ snarled Folkvar. ‘I know what I said, and I know what I meant. I saved you because you had already survived the battle when no one else had.’

  After his earlier rebuke, Anju dared not speak again, instead waiting for Folkvar to elaborate:

  ‘You had clung on to life where so many of your kind, and so many of mine, had not. Great warriors, my brothers, died, the machine-spirits of our tanks snuffed out. Legends cut short.’

  Folkvar raised a finger, pointing it at Anju. Whether in accusation, she did not know.

  ‘Yet you survived wh
ere they did not. And not for cowardice – you were closer to the heart of the battle than most. Yet here you live.’

  There was no rancour in Folkvar’s voice, just a statement of fact. He lowered his hand. ‘To survive such a battle is exceptional,’ he said. ‘It would have been a waste to let such a thread be cut by the cold. Your wyrd has further battles to come.’

  ‘Badya,’ Anju said. It had not occurred to her before that Folkvar, who all in her squad had known and recognised, had brought her so far without knowing her name. ‘Sergeant Anju Badya.’

  Folkvar nodded, and partially stood, placing the oil lamp on a low stone bench. He remained stooped – this underground world wasn’t built for the likes of his kind.

  ‘Well, Sergeant Badya,’ said Folkvar. ‘Rest well, recover. We still have battles ahead of us. I will go now to send word to our generals of the defeat we have suffered, but will return within two days. Then you and I will set out to find our next battle, and redress the balance, yes?’

  Folkvar didn’t wait for an answer, but nodded and left, stooping even further to leave via a short wooden door.

  It was good that he didn’t wait, as Anju had no answer to give. Two days it was, then.

  Closing her eyes, she began to move her limbs, and test how close to recovery she was.

  In the Gatehouse on Ressial, Dumas Cheng had almost become used to the presence of a member of the Inquisition. What he was not prepared for was finding Inquisitor Pranix seated on the system governor’s throne – Cheng’s throne.

  This raised a difficult question of etiquette. Normally, Cheng would not have hesitated to respond to such insolence by having the offender killed. However, this was a holy inquisitor, who would doubtless respond to any such threat by killing Cheng with his bare hands.

  So instead of summoning guards, Cheng approached his own throne slowly, as a supplicant. Pranix was still, sitting in the throne with his chin on one hand, but with the other hand moving, dangling a short strip of vellum and waving it back and forth.

  ‘A few corvids survive, system governor,’ said Pranix. ‘One such bird still lived, in a high hermitage on Hacasta, and has brought news.’

  The inquisitor held out the vellum to Cheng, and impatiently gestured for the governor to take it.

  Cheng looked at the vellum, then frowned. ‘This is nonsense,’ he said.

  Pranix snatched the vellum back and stared at it.

  ‘Apologies, system governor,’ said Pranix. ‘I forgot that some people can’t sight decode a forty-three cycle cipher. Let me explain – this is a message from Folkvar.’

  Pranix tossed the vellum into the air, and it fluttered down to the flagstones like a ribbon on reconstitution day.

  If that dismissive gesture confirmed that Folkvar’s tanks had been defeated, then it was no surprise to Cheng. Communication with Folkvar had ceased many days ago, when the Space Wolves had assembled their tanks at the Valley of Blades.

  ‘The Space Wolves were defeated on Hacasta,’ said Pranix, redundantly. ‘Two survivors, Folkvar and one of the Tallarns. Our only significant armoured divisions have been obliterated, and only a few exhausted Cadians and the Ironshore stand between the traitors and the Orrery.’

  ‘The Ironshore has considerable defences–’ began Cheng wearily, before the entirely expected interruption.

  ‘Doubtless. But I have underestimated Huron Blackheart once already – I am loathe to do so again,’ said Pranix.

  ‘I should have committed my entire force to Hacasta,’ said Pranix, barely addressing the system governor now. ‘What use are these Space Wolves, dug in here?’ He waved one hand in an airy gesture, indicating the Space Wolves who had fortified the Gatehouse.

  Dug in, thought Cheng. Dug in. He looked out of the window. It was a quiet morning outside, pallid light filtering down through the high, narrow windows into the throne room. The twisted spires of the Onyx Palace, the Emperor’s never-occupied Lastrati residence, dominated the skyline.

  ‘Perhaps they’ve just been digging in the wrong place, inquisitor,’ said Cheng.

  ‘Now that is a cypher I cannot translate, system governor,’ said Pranix, whose sarcasm had become more withering the longer he resided in the Gatehouse. ‘So please humour me with a clearer explanation.’

  ‘There is a legend concerning the Onyx Palace,’ said Cheng, still looking at the spires. ‘I always thought it was simply that, a legend, but under these dire circumstances even a faint hope from myth might be–’

  ‘Tell me the story,’ said Pranix.

  Cheng turned to see that the inquisitor was sitting forwards on the system governor’s throne, fingers steepled, attentive.

  So Cheng told him the legend, and Pranix became more attentive still.

  ‘Find it,’ he said, when Cheng had finished.

  ‘It could be anywhere under the Onyx Palace,’ said Cheng. ‘And we have no–’

  ‘Then we tear the palace apart until we find a clue, and wherever that clue points to we start digging. Multiple teams, heavy movers, every servant and servitor we can find. Raze the palace with explosives if that helps.’

  ‘Lord inquisitor,’ cautioned Cheng, ‘the Onyx Palace is the Emperor’s residence – to damage it would be considered heresy.’

  Pranix was silent for a few seconds, then spoke in a very low voice which nonetheless reverberated around the empty throne room. ‘I am the inquisitor here, Lord Cheng,’ he said. ‘And I decide what is heresy and what is necessity. This is necessity.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Cheng, with a brief bow of his head. ‘I will give the orders.’

  He paused, holding Pranix’s gaze. The inquisitor was dangerous; still, he had been brought low, and it was only by telling an old tale that Cheng had revived Pranix from his lethargy. For all his power, the inquisitor was not infallible.

  ‘I am glad to see you energised, lord inquisitor,’ said Cheng.

  ‘And I am glad you hold such concern for my humours, system governor,’ replied Pranix unblinking.

  Cheng gave another bow. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘In this new spirit of activity I will prepare a plan of exploratory demolition works.’ He paused, a smirk teasing the edge of his mouth. ‘While you can work on getting out of my throne, my lord inquisitor.’

  Then he turned and left before Pranix had time to reply.

  The waypoint was to be one of many, a series of secured bunkers across the wastes of Hacasta, a string of Red Corsairs bases between the Archway to Karstveil and the Archway to Kerresh. The work of construction was being done by servitors and mortal slaves, but the Corpsemaster did not trust any task to feeble mortals alone, no matter how terrified or fanatically loyal.

  So Capulo of the Red Corsairs, veteran of a thousand battles on a hundred worlds, found himself in the middle of faceless tundra, staring out into a blizzard as slaves struggled to work and survive in the hostile environment.

  To Capulo, such an environment was no danger, at worst a discomfort, and his power armour made it even less than that. He looked on the mortals dispassionately as another one died, keeling over into the snow.

  ‘Clear the body,’ he ordered two of the other slaves. ‘Get it out of the way and get back to work.’

  The slaves disappeared from Capulo’s vision, consumed by the blizzard. He waited for them to return, monitoring his surroundings for any threat, certain that none would come. The action was elsewhere. He and his squad would follow their orders, establish one waypoint after another, waiting for the day when they would see true combat again. Capulo resented being left behind as Huron’s fleet of land galleons rolled on to Karstveil – that was where the battle would be.

  He shouted out into the snowstorm for the slaves to get back to work.

  Capulo was a creature of violence, and in the absence of violent acts to commit, the Red Corsair waited impatiently, alert to his next target.
He had slaughtered the enemies of man, then the enemies of Huron. The enemies changed; war did not.

  ‘Shouting at the weather?’ boomed a nearby voice. Trantor, his second.

  Capulo didn’t even turn to look at him. ‘The mortals,’ spat Capulo. ‘They keep dying.’

  ‘Feeble,’ said Trantor, stomping through the snow towards his captain. ‘Do you remember that battle on Kerresh?’

  ‘Yes,’ Capulo replied. He did not mention that Kerresh had been so recent. An injury to the head had damaged Trantor’s memory, leaving the difference between yesterday and a decade ago indistinct.

  ‘That was true combat,’ Trantor said. ‘We took that factorum with steel and fury. Fighting hordes of skitarii while evading the gears and pistons of great machines. You were nearly crushed. Such times.’

  Trantor shook his head as if it had been years ago.

  ‘I emptied my bolter of ammunition, and had to fight on with my fists alone,’ said Capulo. ‘I ended the day with my armour crusted with dried blood, throwing mortals into a cauldron of liquid metal to be boiled alive.’

  ‘You remember it so well,’ exclaimed Trantor. ‘Such a battle, better than patrolling this desolate hole.’

  Trantor resumed his patrol, lost in distant memories of recent times, leaving Capulo to wonder why the slaves had taken so long disposing of the body. He raised his bolter. While it was entirely possible that the slaves had themselves frozen to death while dragging the corpse, Capulo took nothing for granted. Readiness was woven into his being.

  As such, when it came for him, charging out of the blizzard, Capulo was not taken by surprise or caught unawares. A power-armoured figure, draped with furs and wielding a power fist, emerged from the snow at high speed; Capulo simultaneously dropped back into a defensive position, raised his bolter and opened a vox-channel to alert the rest of his squad.