Morg waved a gauntlet. ‘Enough of your master,’ he said, puffi ng out his chest. ‘I would hear more about this mighty warlord.’
The messenger bowed so low that the cowl of his robe left a greasy residue on the gantry. ‘You are surely a master of War, oh great one,’ he gurgled in a voice like treacle. ‘An armoured titan. The ground must surely shake beneath your f-’
Azaena ahemed pointedly. ‘I think you’ll fi nd,’
he said testily, ‘that this is my ship?’
‘Ah yes,’ hissed the crawling hunchback, turning deftly towards the Eldar without missing a beat.
‘My Lord is a being of unsurpassed grandeur and elegance – a magnificent bird whose gleaming plumage turns all else to grey ash.’
The Warlock made a gesture of dismissal, but tossed his golden hair extravagantly nevertheless. ‘Oh, get away,’ he giggled lightly.
‘My unworthy eyes burn with the glorious colours of your robe, Lord,’ said the repellent hunchback, holding his fi sh-belly hand over his face.
‘What, this old thing?’ asked Azaena, fl aring his cape and turning on the spot. ‘It’s just something I had lying around. Do you really like it?’
‘A wonder to behold, Lord. My Patriarch would be equally astounded to see such beauty.’
‘Oh, I’m certain of it,’ nodded the Warlock, enthused now. ‘I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to see
this Patriarch of yours – I’d like to outline some sort of rental agreement, certainly.’
‘It would be a privilege to lead you to him, my Lords.’
Hink tugged his companion’s cape. ‘I think Morg was right, Azaena,’ he murmured. ‘Something about this creepy guy doesn’t sit right.’
‘My Lord is wise to be cautious,’ acknowledged the hunchback, bowing and grovelling again.
‘Many dangers lie in wait for the unwary, though my Lord has no need of such a warning, having survived countless wars.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say that exactly,’ said Hink sheepishly.
‘My Lord is too modest,’ the hunchback oozed.
‘I see from his smart and well-fi tting uniform that he occupies a lofty post within the Imperial Guard.’
‘Lofty? Not exactly,’ stammered the guardsman, smoothing the creases on his baggy fatigues.
‘I’m just a corporal.’
The creature scraped and flapped with abandon. ‘Then my Lord must command armies,’ it gushed shamelessly. ‘The brave victor of a thousand battlefi elds.’
Hink coloured, shuffl ing his boots. ‘Oh no, I usually just went round the trenches with the tea trolley before evening role-call.’
For the fi rst time, the fawning thing seemed at a loss. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was ‘Errr…’
‘Tea trolley??’ exploded Morg, roaring with laughter. ‘Tea trolley??’
‘Well, it was important for troop morale,’ said Hink, sounding defensive.
The Chaos Warrior drew his chain-axe – a massive, fearsome thing notched and dented from millennia of killing and maiming. ‘This is the mark of a true warrior,’ he said, holding the saw-toothed axe under Hink’s nose. ‘Not some rickety trolley full of hot beverages and tea-cakes.’
‘Caramel wafers, actually,’ the guardsman muttered.
‘That’s enough out of you two,’ interrupted Azaena. ‘We’re supposed to be showing his master my lovely cape, remember?’
‘I assure you he waits with baited breath, Lords,’
said the hunchback. ‘Follow, please.’
*****
The interior of the ship turned out to be an ugly lattice of perished rubber tubing, raw wires and rusted plumbing. Corridors branched in all directions into a foreboding darkness, each blistered and sweating tunnel looking much like the next. They followed the hunchback through this metal warren with some trepidation.
‘Is it much farther?’ asked Azaena eventually as they clambered in single fi le up yet another a narrow metal stair.
‘The chamber of my Master lies just beyond,’
the hunchback replied.
‘Can anyone hear a sort of crackling sound?’
Hink asked, near the back of the small procession.
‘You hear it too?’ Azaena sounded relieved. ‘I thought for a minute I was getting static build-up from these new nylon leggings.’
‘Behold, great Lords,’ interrupted the hunchback in an attempt to regain some sense of occasion. ‘My Master, the Patriarch Gorulax.’
The staircase opened into a wide, gloomy chamber lit by the glow of superheated pipes overhead. In this red glaze could be seen dozens of hunched robed creatures that milled restlessly in the dark corners.
Seated at the far end of the chamber on a crude throne was the Patriarch – a giant bowed shape, robed and hooded like the others.
‘Come closer, brave travellers,’ said a slow, resonant voice. ‘Do not be afraid.’
There was a derisive snort from Morg.
‘Such a rich selection of treats you have brought me, Mallachi,’ the voice continued. ‘A delicious variety.’
The hunchback bowed and scraped.
Hink fi ngered his fl ak helmet nervously. ‘Does anyone else fi nd delicious kind of an unusual way to describe house guests?’ he asked.
It was becoming easier to see in the gloom and unpleasant details were coming to the fore;
not least among them the fact that the twisted
hands gripping the Patriarch’s throne were actually curved yellow claws, and that many of the hissing, bobbing subjects looked less than human.
There was a tense moment when nobody spoke, and all ears became aware of a distant crackling.
‘I think we might have erred here,’ Azaena murmured.
‘Spineless wretch,’ chided the Chaos Marine.
‘Only the frail Eldar could be intimidated by these lumpy, ball-headed oafs.’
‘A warrior,’ approved Gorulax from his throne, his glinting coal eyes taking in Morg’s broad frame. ‘Do no be disappointed in the appearance of my brethren. They are caught between two worlds – reaching for a higher plateau of evolution, yet anchored down by their weak humanity.’ The Patriarch stretched a long bladed arm towards the chamber ceiling, his shadowy face lit with evangelic anticipation.
‘But fear not, brave soul – a challenge worthy of your martial skill awaits you.’
Morg chuckled from deep within his helmet.
‘You?’ he asked, gloating. ‘By all means step forward.’
‘Tact, Morg,’ hissed Azaena, elbowing him. ‘At least show him some resp–’
‘I have no compunction in bursting a sagging bag of guts and bluster,’ Morg continued.
‘Doing it in front of your mutant inbred family would give me additional pleasure.’
Azaena rolled his eyes. ‘The Ambassador for the Eye of Terror plumbs a new depth of diplomacy,’ he remarked dryly.
Contrary to an explosion of outrage, the Patriarch rolled slowly back in his throne and emitted a long, gurgling laugh. ‘Such ferocious courage,’ he said. ‘Admirable. Your genes must be strong.’
‘Indeed,’ preened the Chaos Warrior. ‘As you will shortly discover.’
‘I am no match for your talents,’ Gorulax said.
‘A hundred years ago, perhaps, I would have relished the battle but I have become old and twisted. I would be poor sport.’
‘Then who among this sad collection of freaks will challenge me?’ Morg boomed, resting his fi sts on his hips.
‘I assure you, Mr Gorulax, that’s not necessary,’
Azaena gabbled. ‘My friend here is just a little high-spirited. Really, we’ve taken up far too much of your time. We’ll just…’
‘Oh no,’ said the Patriarch with a small, wicked smile. ‘Such wonderful specimens must not be allowed to escape. It would be remiss of me to deny the brood such virile genes. My family’s treasures will be all the richer once we have absorbed your three bright gems.’
‘Three..?’ echoed Hink, glancing around.
‘Where’d Gusha go?’
‘I have no patience for this endless bleating,’
grumbled Morg, hefting his chain-axe. ‘Time to sharpen my blade on your ugly face.’
‘Such confi dence, warrior,’ gurgled Gorulax.
‘Your step would falter, I think, if you knew the foes you were about to face.’
‘Hah! Let him step forward – I shall crush him to jelly.’
‘From this cowering band?’ Gorulax made a gesture of dismissal with his talons. ‘You fl atter yourself in thinking I have nothing to throw at you but serfs and attendants. In a moment you will face our pureblood warriors – the pinnacle of our genetic evolution.’
The massive Chaos Warrior was unmoved. ‘Warriors, you say? Have them form a line before me – best you step back unless you want your robes stained with their innards.’
‘Bucket-headed fool,’ spat the Patriarch, showing real anger for the fi rst time.
‘I shall enjoy watching you being pulled limb from limb. My children are the deadliest warriors in the galaxy – perfectly engineered killing machines!
They will tear through your armour as if it were paper. They will…’
Gorulax turned his huge oval head, snapping his talons with irritation.
‘What is that infernal crunching noise?’
he complained, having lost his train of thought.
‘It’s coming from over there, Lord,’
hissed one of the acolytes.
‘Open that bulkhead,’ the Patriarch commanded.
‘But Lord, that is the Genestealer chamber,’ protested another.
‘Open it, I say!’ Gorulax was adamant. ‘My children will not harm their Patriarch.’
Quivering with fear, the hunched fi gure reached for the door release with some trepidation. There was an ear-splitting screech of metal and the long-disused door wrenched itself open in a spray of rust fragments and disturbed cockroaches.
All eyes looked into the dank, fetid chamber.
Gusha sat on the fl oor, surrounded by some sort of seafood detritus.
Long chitin limbs lay jumbled all about, cracked open and scoured of tender fl esh by practiced simian deftness. It was as though some intrepid gastronaut had munched his way through a batch of particularly huge and menacing spider crabs.
The Ork sucked his fi ngers and tossed aside an empty Genestealer skull, looking blankly out at his audience.
The brethren stared back, aghast.
‘Tastes like chicken,’ he said absently.
by David McGuire
The tormentor's mask was all that could be seen of him; wrought bands of dark metal with featureless pits where the eyes should be. His hoarse breathing resonated like iron on a whetstone in the gloom of the cell. If the bleeding man lying bound to the excruciform felt any fear as the mask loomed over him, he gave no sign.
“Show me your face,” spat the bound man, every word sending a spasm of pain through his tortured fl esh, “or are you coward like your kin?”
A rasp of laboured breath. “As you wish.”
Gloved hands undid the buckles and the mask disappeared from view. The bound man's body stiffened, bringing buzzsaw laughter from his tormentor.
“What are you?”
The tormentor smiled unsteadily, as if unfamiliar with the practice. Blood fell;
droplets thick and heavy. “I am the betrayer.
And you will help me.”
“No. Never.”
“You misunderstand me. No matter.”
“I will defy you,” the bound man gasped, “with my last breath.”
“How fortunate. That is all you have left.”
***
Part ship, part hollowed-out asteroid, the object designated H2328 Obs.Sca.M381154 drifted dead and alone in the limitless, wasteful void.
With no sun to light its battered, time-hewn visage, it was nothing more than a patch of darkness behind which distant stars vanished and reappeared. Only on long-range visnet were its secrets revealed; a misshapen body of pitted stone encrusted here and there with dust-scored engine cowlings, rotted docking ports and broken antennae arrays; a barnacled rock forever in search of a shore.
The object had dropped out of the warp nearly two thousand years ago. A former surveying vessel of the Mechanicus, ancient even before its loss to the empyrean, it had been spotted, catalogued, breached and cleansed by the Imperial Navy on its re-appearance, salvaged down to its bones and the hulk left to swim the eternal ocean between the stars.
It was, Captain Rojak Malln considered, an unusual place for a meeting. Still, he mused,
the Astartes of the Relictors Chapter ever found themselves in unusual places.
"The local navigators call it The Pandora, Captain." Librarian Morrar was shorter than his captain by a clear head, his once youthful features disappearing under a tired, chipped face, long, pale and angular beneath the psychic hood of his offi ce. The perils of a Librarian's calling took their toll, even on one as young as Morrar. "When the Imperial Navy cracked it open they say that Hell itself tried to escape.
The fi ght to banish the warp denizens on board was long and bloody, and now, like the box of legend, it lies empty." He paused. "The local navigators have education and a misplaced sense of humour, it would seem." He turned to face Captain Malln. "Now that our destination lies before us, I feel I should know why the Conclave has sent us here." The Librarian had been left out of the deliberations, and Malln heard clearly the wounded pride in his voice.
He knew the rumours onboard. Even if he hadn't heard them from the Chapter serfs, it did not take a great leap of imagination to know what his battle-brothers were thinking.
The rest of the Chapter were on their way to repel the orks on Armageddon, but not them.
When a squad of Relictors, even one as small as Malln had brought, went places remote and