Void Stalker Read online

  ‘This is Talos,’ he voxed. ‘How long has the Navigator been at rest?’

  A servitor’s voice replied after a seven-second delay. ‘Thirty-two hours, fift–’

  ‘That’s long enough. Ready the ship to leave the system.’

  The next voice was Cyrion’s, still on the bridge where Talos had left him in command.

  ‘Brother, even Variel said we shouldn’t risk pushing her for a week or more.’

  Talos heard a howl behind Cyrion’s voice – strangely feral and feminine all at once. It was too clear to be vox corruption, but couldn’t possibly be real.

  Yet the howl unlocked another memory, granting it like an unwanted gift. Rainfall. Talos closed his eyes to focus. A murderess in the rain. Somewhere… Beneath a storm…

  No, no, no. It was starting to make a sick sense now. He’d avoided taking them to the Eye, unwilling to face the eldar of Ulthwé, refusing to bow to the fate that his brothers would die at their hands. When Xarl had fallen at Tsagualsa, he’d dared to believe the prophecy broken. Surely, once broken, it could be ignored as another false dream.

  Surely, his own thoughts mocked him. Surely we’re safe now.

  ‘Ready the ship to sail the warp,’ Talos ordered. ‘We need to leave immediately.’

  ‘It will take hours just to prepare the–’

  Talos ignored whatever Cyrion was saying. He was already out of First Claw’s arming chamber, vaulting the slumped body of the archregent and running through the twisting corridors, sprinting towards the prow.

  No, no, no…

  ‘I do not care about the preparations,’ he voxed. ‘We’ll sail blind if we have to.’

  ‘Are you insane?’ Cyrion spat back. ‘What are you thinking?’

  Just a little more time, his racing mind begged. We have to get away from here.

  He was halfway to Octavia’s chambers when the sirens began their careening wail.

  ‘All hands,’ came Cyrion’s voice over the shipwide address system. ‘All hands to battle stations. Eldar warships inbound.’

  An Imperial cruiser doesn’t merely slip back into reality from passage through the warp; it breaks back into the material universe from a wound in the void, trailing the smoky tides of madness still clinging to its hull. Their passage through the Sea of Souls was a storm of colour, sound, and screaming devilry.

  Cyrion had to admit, for all the violence and trauma of such travel, it was at least familiar.

  The eldar warships played their own games with the warp. They showed no contrails of clinging ethereal energy, nor did they herald their arrival by vicious detonations in the fabric of space and time. One moment he saw stars. The next, eldar vessels shimmered into being, shadows ghosting out of other shadows, gliding towards the drifting Echo of Damnation.

  Cyrion knew next to nothing about the metaphysics of eldar void travel, nor was he of a mind to care. He’d heard, at some point, the word ‘webway’ spoken of in regards to their eerie interstellar wanderings, but the concept meant nothing to him. Meeting the eldar in the past had rarely ended well, and he loathed them even more than he loathed most of his brothers, which made it a very rich hatred indeed. They repulsed him, and it was not a discomfort that he cherished, even perversely.

  He saw the warships coming on the occulus, as if space itself had breathed them into being, and he acted on instinct. Being Cyrion, the first thing he did was to swear, loudly and with feeling. The second thing he did was to order the crew to battle stations. The third thing he did was to swear again; a long river of curses that might’ve made even the primarch blink.

  They came on in grand, sweeping arcs, never sailing straight. Each one was forever banking and weaving through the void in dramatic arcs that would have been impressive – as well as impossible – for an Imperial vessel. As he watched the eldar warships dancing with such foul grace, he felt a raw, stale taste on the tongue. Even his acidic saliva glands instinctively reacted to his disgust, for mankind’s technology, even flavoured by the taint of Chaos, could never emulate that alien swooping. It was difficult to reconcile what his senses were seeing with what was physically possible in the depths of space.

  ‘You there,’ he said to one of the crew. ‘Yes, you. Ready the ship for a warp run.’

  ‘Under way, lord. We heard Lord Talos’s orders.’

  ‘Good,’ said Cyrion, already ignoring the man. ‘Activate void shields, run out the guns… All the usual furore, if you please.’

  He sat in the command throne – Talos’s throne, if he was being perfectly honest – and watched the occulus with a wary eye.

  ‘Should we engage, lord?’ one of the uniformed crew asked.

  ‘Tempting. We outsize them both by a measure of magnitudes. But they’re likely outriders – hold back for now, focus on getting ready to break into the warp when the Navigator decides to grace us with her attention.’

  On the occulus, a distant image resolved behind the first two. This one was much larger, sporting great angled wings of bone and shimmering scales. The glassy serpent-skin sails flashed as they reflected the sun, and the warship gathered speed.

  ‘Another eldar warship entering long range scanning,’ the scrymaster called out. ‘Capital class.’

  ‘So I see. And we don’t outsize that one quite so convincingly,’ Cyrion admitted. ‘How long until they reach us?’

  The hunchbacked Master of Auspex shook his burn-scarred head. ‘Difficult to say, lord. A projection based on conventional thrust would be almost thirty minutes. If they keep dancing through the void like this, it could be five, it could be twenty.’

  Cyrion reclined, putting his boots up on the throne’s armrest. ‘Well then, my dear and loyal crew. We have a short while to enjoy each other’s company before we die. Isn’t that delightful?’

  Talos came through the bulkhead in a blur of blue ceramite and a roar of armour joints. Octavia’s attendants scattered before him, bolting with all the haste of rats fleeing a hunting cat. Even Vularai flinched back, unsurprised that her query of ‘My lord?’ went unanswered.

  Octavia was already coming around, awoken by the emergency sirens. She jumped in her seat as Talos thudded to a halt, boots hammering into the deck hard enough to shake her throne.

  She looked almost dizzy with exhaustion. Despite sleeping for hours on end and having her nutrient feeds tailored to her specific needs, the ordeal of the murders he’d forced her to commit mere days ago still played out in dark patches across her features, as did the long flight to reach this point at the Imperium’s edge. Weary circles noosed her eyes, and her clammy skin looked greasy in the chamber’s dull light.

  She looked up at Talos, the sway of her head on sore neck muscles betraying the migraine going on behind her face.

  ‘Eldar?’ she asked, confused. ‘Did I hear that correctly?’

  ‘Jump the ship,’ he demanded. ‘Do it now.’

  ‘I… What?’

  ‘Listen to me,’ he growled. ‘The eldar are here. They sensed the psychic scream we made – or worse, their witches predicted it beforehand, and they had a fleet lying in wait. More will come, Octavia. Jump the ship now, or we all die.’

  She swallowed, reaching for the first of her throne-union link cables. Weakness left her hands shaking, but her voice was firm and clear.

  ‘Where? Where should we go? The Eye?’

  ‘Anywhere but here or there, Octavia. You have a whole galaxy. Just find us somewhere to hide.’

  XX

  FLIGHT

  The warship ran, again and again and again.

  Two days after its initial flight, it sailed back into the true void only to find a blockade of eldar cruisers hanging silently in space, lying in wait. The Echo of Damnation came about in a wrenching arc, diving as it rolled, and thrust its way back beyond the physical universe and into the relative safety of the warp.

>   Three days later, it dropped from its interstellar journeying to drift closer to the world Vanahym, only to find five eldar cruisers already orbiting the world. The alien ships angled their reflective sails as the Night Lord vessel came closer, cutting out of orbit to intercept the Eighth Legion warship.

  Again, the Echo ran.

  The third time it left the warp, it didn’t slow down for the eldar blockade. The Echo of Damnation surged through the cold tides of real space, broadsides singing into the dark, railing at the alien vessels as it screamed between them. The eldar ships banked and turned with impossible grace, even those with their solar sails shattered by Eighth Legion weapons batteries. The Echo outran a fight it couldn’t win, concentrating all of its retaliatory fire on holding the xenos warships at bay long enough for a return to the warp.

  The fourth, the fifth, the sixth – each successive emergence met with greater resistance, the farther they flew from their point of origin.

  ‘They’re herding us,’ Cyrion said after the eighth re-entry and subsequent flight.

  Talos had simply nodded. ‘I know.’

  ‘We’re not going to reach the Great Eye, brother. They won’t let us. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I know.’

  A week passed. Two weeks. Three.

  On its fourteenth exit from the warp, the Echo of Damnation broke the peace of a silent sky. It tore its way back into the material realm, riding a storm of violet lightning and carnelian smoke. This time, there was no rupturing re-entry to the depths of clean space; no pause to gather their bearings and scan for enemies.

  This time, the Echo ripped into reality and kept running, engines flaring hot. The warship powered its way through the psychotic hues of the Praxis Nebula, diving ever deeper into the immense gaseous cloud. Talos let the engines rage on, powering the ship ahead at hull-rattling speed.

  ‘No eldar,’ Cyrion observed.

  ‘No eldar yet,’ Talos replied. ‘All ahead full. Bury the ship in the nebula, as deep as she’ll go.’

  The scrymaster called out as his servitors began to chatter. ‘Lord Talos, the–’

  ‘The scanner interference,’ Talos calmly interrupted, ‘is why we’re here. I am aware of it, scrymaster.’

  First Claw gathered around the central throne, maintaining vigil with their leader. One by one, the other surviving Night Lords walked onto the command deck, their eyes lifted to the occulus, watching in silent unity.

  The hours passed.

  Talos occasionally let his gaze leave the stars to glance again at the tactical hololithic. Like the viewscreen, the hololithic projection showed stars, a world turning in the void, and nothing else.

  ‘How long?’ he asked.

  ‘Four hours,’ said Cyrion. He walked by the prow weapons console, looking over the shoulders of the seven uniformed officers stationed there. ‘Four hours and thirty-seven minutes.’

  ‘The longest yet,’ Talos observed.

  ‘By far.’

  The prophet leaned forward in the ornate command throne. The golden Blood Angels blade rested against one of the throne’s arms, the prophet’s bolter rested on the other. A great high seat of fire-blackened bronze, the throne itself loomed above the rest of the command deck from its central dais.

  Talos had always known the Exalted relished being in such a position, lifted above his brethren on the Covenant of Blood. The prophet didn’t share the sentiment. If anything, he felt detached from his kindred, and the thought wasn’t a comfortable one.

  ‘I believe we’re clear,’ Cyrion ventured.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ replied Talos. ‘Don’t even think it.’

  Cyrion listened to the sounds of the command deck, which had a melody all its own: the grind of levers, the mumble of servitors, the thump of boots. A soothing sound.

  ‘You should rest,’ he said to Talos. ‘When did you last sleep?’

  ‘I still haven’t slept.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  Talos turned to Cyrion, his white face drawn, his dark eyes dulled by sleeplessness. ‘Do I look as though I’m joking?’

  ‘No, you look as though you died and forgot to stop moving. It’s been three weeks now. You’re being foolish, Talos. Go. Rest.’

  The prophet turned back to the occulus. ‘Not yet. Not until we’ve escaped.’

  ‘And if I summon the Flayer to give you a lecture?’

  ‘Variel has already lectured me on the matter.’ Talos gave a rueful sigh. ‘He had charts and everything. In meticulous detail, he noted the strain I was putting on my mind, citing the catalepsean node’s operational limit of keeping a Legionary awake for two weeks.’

  ‘A physiology lecture. I sometimes think he forgets you were once an Apothecary.’

  Talos didn’t answer. He kept watching the stars on the occulus.

  Three weeks, the prophet thought. He’d not slept since the endless chase began, when the eldar ghosted out of the void mere hours after he’d murdered the astropaths. How many times had they ripped their way in and out of the warp since then? How many times had they emerged back into real space, only to find yet another eldar squadron waiting for them?

  Three weeks.

  ‘We can’t keep running, Cyrion. Octavia will die. We’ll be stranded.’

  Cyrion looked up at Ruven’s crucified bones, hanging in state. ‘I almost regret the fact you killed the sorcerer. His powers would be a boon now.’

  Talos turned weary eyes to his brother. Something akin to amusement gleamed in those black depths.

  ‘Perhaps so,’ Talos allowed. ‘But then we’d have to suffer through his endless conversation.’

  ‘A fine point,’ Cyrion replied. As soon as he finished the words, sirens started to cry out in ululating unity across the deck.

  ‘They’ve found us,’ Talos leaned back in the throne, his voice an exhausted whisper. ‘They’ve found us again. Octavia, this is the bridge.’

  Her voice sounded as weary as Talos looked. ‘I’m here,’ she said over the chamber’s vox-speakers.

  ‘So are the eldar,’ said Talos. ‘Ready the ship to run again.’

  ‘I can’t keep this up,’ she said. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t.’

  ‘They’ll be on us in twenty minutes at the most. Get us out of here.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You’ve been saying that for over a week.’

  ‘Talos, please, listen to what I’m saying. This will kill me. One more jump. Two more. It doesn’t matter. You’re killing me.’

  He rose from the command throne, walking to the dais rail and leaning down, watching the organised chaos of the bridge below. The hololithic table flickered with ghostly threats sailing closer: six eldar warships, their wing-sails lost in the mist of distortion.

  ‘Octavia,’ he said, softening his voice. ‘They can’t chase us forever. I need a little more from you. Please.’

  It took several seconds, but the ship itself gave the answer. Shaking gripped the deck as the warp drive began to amass the energy required to break through one reality into another.

  ‘Do you remember,’ her voice echoed across the command deck, ‘when I first took control of the Covenant?’ There was a curious duality in her tone as she bonded with the ship’s machine-spirit, an unwholesome unity that made Talos’s skin crawl.

  ‘I remember,’ he voxed back. ‘You said you could kill us all, for we were heretics.’

  ‘I was angrier then. And scared.’ He heard her take a breath. ‘All hands, brace for entry into the Sea of Souls.’

  ‘Thank you, Octavia.’

  ‘You shouldn’t thank slaves,’ she replied, her twinned voice resonating around the chamber. ‘They’ll get delusions of equality. And besides, this hasn’t worked yet. Save your thanks for when we’re sure we’ll survive. Are we running or hiding this time
?’

  ‘Neither,’ said Talos.

  Every eye on the bridge turned towards him. The Legion warriors still on the command deck watched keenest of all.

  ‘We’re not running,’ Talos voxed to Octavia, well aware that everyone was watching him, ‘and we’re not hiding. We’re making a stand.’

  Talos relayed the coordinates through the keypad on the arm of his throne. ‘Take us back there.’

  ‘Throne,’ Octavia swore, making half the bridge crew wince at the Imperial expletive. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘We don’t have the fuel to keep dancing to their song, and we can’t break their blockade. If we’re being herded like prey, then I’ll at least choose where we’ll fight back.’

  Cyrion came to the throne’s side again. ‘And if they’re waiting for us there?’

  Talos looked at his brother for a long moment. ‘What do you want me to say, Cyrion? We’ll do what we always do: we’ll kill them until they kill us.’

  With the ship in the warp, Talos walked to meet with the one soul he had every reason – yet no desire – to see once again. Sword in hand, he headed down the winding corridors, his thoughts dark and his options even darker. He was going to do something he should’ve done a long time ago.

  The immense doors leading into the Hall of Reflection rumbled open as he stood before them. Menial adepts turned to regard his entrance, while servitors went about their business.

  ‘Soul Hunter,’ said one of the robed Mechanicum priests in respectful greeting.

  ‘My name is Talos,’ the prophet replied, walking past the man. ‘Please use it.’

  He felt a hand grip his shoulder guard, and turned to face the one who dared touch him. Such a breach of decorum was most unlike any of the adepts.

  ‘Talos,’ said Deltrian, inclining the staring skull that served as his face. ‘Your presence, while not a violation of any behavioural code, is unexpected. Our last interaction ended with the agreement you would be summoned if there was any change in the subject.’

  The subject, thought Talos. Very quaint.

  ‘I am aware of our agreement, Deltrian.’

  The robed, chrome cadaver lifted his hand from the warrior’s pauldron. ‘Yet you come here armed, a blade drawn in this holy place. In processing your demeanour, only one outcome holds any significant probability.’