Fire Warrior

V 13.30 HRS (SYS. LOCAL — DOLUMAR IV, Ultima Seg. #4356/E)

Kor’vesa 66.G#77 (Orbsat Surveillance) chattered to itself, complex energistic movements inside its shell shuttling packages of information from data stream to memory core. A sequence of algorithms interrogated all incoming data for security breaches or hidden frequencies and wordlessly deposited the filtered remains into a carrier package reserved for the por’hui media. These developments would be considered high priority, the little AI quickly established, and sought to edit them into some sort of intelligible sequence.

The guns had stopped. The fighters and Barracudas had pulled back, redocking to fuel and make repairs. The fleets had regrouped: two shoals of sullen, scarred predators, called off by their respective alpha males.

Damaged hulls gaped and vented into the starlit void, scattered wreckage tumbling thickly in the nothingness.

A withering selection of message bands and tight-beam commstreams threaded from ship to ship within each fleet; to 66.G’s multifarious senses they were rendered as vivid as glowing plasma cords or superheated cables — a network of pulsing channels that conspired to drown each pack of vessels beneath luminous gossamer threads.

The largest commstream of them all, visible to three of the drone’s filter optics as a conical blast of green light, hung suspended between the Or’es Tash’var and the Enduring Blade.

A personnel shuttle left the tau fleet, enveloped in a solid phalanx of fighters. 66.G ran a routine scan, detecting seventeen distinct lifesigns aboard the central craft. One bore the unique energy signature of an ethereal, and in immediate response the drone’s stabilisers began to charge in anticipation of movement.

The Tash’var’s AI released a quick databurst to the various drones and computer controlled craft lurking at the periphery of the scene: negating directives designed to protect Auns at any cost, their guardianship uncalled for in this instant. 66.G’s engines returned to inertia without having fully powered up and, along with the silent swarms of other drones, returned to its lonely vigil.

Its various optic clusters tracked the personnel carrier carefully, internal processors exploring routes of action and possibility, until the bulbous vessel scooped itself inside the Enduring Blade’s cavernous forward hangar and the fighters broke away. The Aun’s lifesigns, thus shielded beyond the black vessel’s hull, blinked out.

Kais slept.

He dreamed, a little. It was not pleasant.

Constantine stood amongst the wreckage of his bridge and glared sullenly at a stack of viewscreens, distorted images jumping and crackling.

“Can’t you make them any clearer?” he snarled, venting his frustration upon the tech-priest manning the monitors. The robed figure scowled and shook its head.

The first screen showed a door, sliding open. They came aboard in a gaggle, different sizes and shapes and uniforms making them seem, from a distance, disordered and cluttered. Only when they began to walk, guided by a white-faced ensign in a singed, torn uniform, did their rigid efficiency become apparent.

The warriors, tan armour spotless and domed, asymmetrical helmets glaring beadily through emotionless optics, fanned out cautiously on either side. There were twelve in all, four on each phalanx wing and four others — sporting bulkier armour and longer, multi-barrelled weapons — who walked silently at the head and the rear of the group. Despite the polished hoof claws in the place of booted feet, their footsteps made little, if any, noise upon the slatted grating of the deck.

Following behind them came an extraordinary group. Walking with an easy, relaxed gait, peering around at the devastated innards of the Enduring Blade with undisguised interest, the next four specimens were taller and thinner than the warriors. Constantine watched their nonchalant progress with a frown, suspicious at their confidence. More even than their galling coolness, their bizarre clothing snagged at his attention. Had they not been xenogens, contaminating his ship with every step, he might even have laughed.

The fabric of their garments was unmistakably alien: strange two-tone material that caught the light with a subtle iridescence, revealing hidden colours and patterns with every new movement. The cut of the robes was stranger still: it was as though the makers had seen images of human Navy uniforms and attempted to emulate them, without fully understanding the significance of individual parts. One xenogen wore an exquisitely hung greatcoat with floral lapels, another a stylish silver jerkin with purple braids festooning the shoulders. One even sported a decorous face mask upon its brachycephalic brow, vaguely similar to a storm-trooper’s gas mask. The tallest of them (a female, he guessed, noting her narrow shoulders and slender legs), who walked with a confident stride and wore a domed hat above her grey face, was dressed tightly in a gaudy imitation of an officer’s jacket, complete with dangling jewels upon the left breast (easily mistakable for medals, from a distance) and diamond pips in the collar. Constantine shook his head, not sure whether to be revolted or amused at the inaccurate replication.

But behind them came the most astonishing figure of all.

Taller still, robes so white they seemed to glow, honour blade tapping out a steady rhythm as he walked, came the ethereal.

Constantine glanced to his side briefly, hoping to catch some indication of the Ultramarine captain’s reaction to these alien interlopers. The Marine’s grizzled features bent their full concentration upon the image, leaving Constantine unable to tell whether Ardias was impressed or disgusted or indifferent: he seemed to wear a perpetual grimace of disapproval that was as apparent now as ever.

The admiral had felt a small surge of terror and panic, at first, when he found himself in the presence of Space Marines, but professionalism was ingrained into his very mind and he’d quickly reminded himself that, technically, he out-ranked Ardias. Provided that the gargantuan warrior couldn’t see inside his chest at the racing heart therein, he was confident he’d preserved his aloof dignity. The Space Marine’s scowl of superiority, of course, wasn’t helping.

Constantine looked back at the screen. A delicate tracery of silver chains adorned the ethereal’s narrow neck, looping around his shoulders until they became part of the fabric of his robes, a sparkling pattern too fine for the clumsy monitors to represent. A decorous hybrid, somewhere between a bandana and tiara, covered the figure’s elegant forehead, leaving its dark eyes peering from beneath a glittering constellation of jewels and patterns.

“Bloody peacocks...” Constantine muttered, but his heart wasn’t in it.

The tech-priest grunted, motioning towards a second monitor. “They’ve reached the tertiary adjunct.”

Constantine watched the group in silence for a moment, impatience growing steadily. “You’re sure this is wise?” he blurted, finally, not entirely able to disguise the doubt in his voice. Ardias raised an eyebrow.

“There’s a new threat.” He returned, obviously in no mood to justify himself. “I told you that. We need every resource we have.” He nodded at the screen. “These xenogens are of little importance, in the grand scheme of things. Until we’ve identified what we’re dealing with I want this sordid little confrontation stopped.”

“But—”

“No arguments.”

Constantine fumed, unable to restrain his indignation. He cleared his throat noisily and grumbled, “It’s not right, you know... Inviting them aboard like warp-damned dignitaries. They’re scum, not royalty.”

“I don’t recall any ‘inviting’, admiral. Consider the situation logically. Their forces are superior to our own, their units are dispersed across your vessel, their ships outnumber us two to one — and they appear unencumbered by the inadequacies of command that you appear to have demonstrated.” The admiral’s hiss of anger at the insult went unnoticed, the Marine continuing his tirade with finality. “Just be grateful they were eager to parley. They could have finished us if they’d chosen to, and you know it.”

A bubble of aggression burst in Constantine’s mind. “Is it not better to die in service to the Emperor,” he hissed, “than to consort with abominations?”

The Marine’s glare bored into him, his voice suddenly cold. “Do not presume to lecture me on ethics, lord admiral. The tau’s time will come, on that you may rely.”

“And in the meantime th—”

“You would do well to moderate your tone of address! I have seen the true face of our enemy, Guilliman’s oath! These tau are nothing in comparison.”

The room descended into a furious silence, both men turning to watch the strange procession of aliens move from monitor to monitor. Constantine stroked his moustache irritably.

“Any word from Governor Severus?” he barked at the tech-priest, losing patience. The robed figured shook its head, concentrating on the camera controls.

“Perhaps he’s already dead. One can but hope.”

The silence dragged on. The admiral fidgeted.

“It’s time,” the tech-priest intoned, artificial eyes glowing. They will reach the concilium chamber shortly.”

Constantine nodded and threw a sidelong glare at Ardias. “Are you joining us for the negotiations?”

“I think not.”

“Oh?”

“Talking is not my strong point.” He fingered the bolt pistol at his huge waist absently. “I shall monitor events from the Observarius. Our mutual acquaintance is already there.”

“Mutual acquaintance?”

Ardias smiled grimly and pointed towards Constantine’s throat, leaving him self-consciously adjusting the ruffle he’d employed to conceal the ugly wounds on his neck. The admiral remembered the firm alien grip on his shoulder, its accented voice in his ear. He shuddered.

“I thought you killed it,” he muttered.

“You thought incorrectly.”

“It almost murdered me. It slaughtered the bridge personnel, by the throne!”

“Indeed. It is a great warrior.”

“You’re impressed!” Constantine regretted opening his mouth instantly. For a second he really thought Ardias was going to kill him, eyes flashing dangerously, fist clenching with a metal-on-metal groan.

“No,” the Marine said eventually, visibly controlling himself, i am not. “But one does not open a peace negotiation by slaying the enemy’s finest soldiers.”

Constantine didn’t dare reply. The clutching gauntlet looked as though it could mash his head in a second.

“Just leave it,” Ardias snarled, perhaps unconvinced by his own explanation. “I have my reasons. Now get going.”

The Ultramarine turned his huge back and stomped away towards the observation galleries. Constantine watched him go, summoning the shreds of his dignity. He rearranged his dress uniform meticulously and stepped through into the concilium boardroom to await his guests.

Shadows curled claws and tentacles around his face.

Someone, far distant, said “Welcome.”

He was falling, perhaps. Tumbling head-over-hooves into an endless pit.

Someone said, “Please accept the returned greetings of his Eminence Aun’el T’au Ko’vash, who trusts his noble host is well.”

The words made sense, possibly. He struggled to turn over, to stare upwards to the top of the hole as it receded into a distant, impossible point.

Someone said, falteringly, “Many thanks... I am Benedil Constantine — admiral of the fleet. Won’t you... Won’t you take a seat?”

There was light up there, at the entrance to the pit. He thought he could see something moving.

Someone said, uncertain, “Take a seat? A gift, admiral?”

Someone said, “Oh, no... I mean, would you like to sit?”

Behind him, deep in the abyss, something rustled and giggled and hissed.

Someone said, “His eminence prefers to stand, but is grateful for the offer.”

Someone replied, a little too sharply, “I wonder if his Eminence is able to speak for himself?”

The thing behind him, the Mont’au devil (he knew it!), stretched out a scaly hand for him, scythe-like claws grasping upwards.

Someone said, “His eminence prefers to speak through me. I am his tongue and his hand, in this circumstance.”

Someone said, angrily, “And you are?”

He concentrated on looking upwards, willing himself to rise, praying for the world to return to him, for his cascading form to levitate into the light.

Someone said, “I am Por’el T’au Yis’ten.”

The words made sense. They were important, he knew.

Someone said, “Fine, fine. Uh. As you wish. Allow me to begin proceedings, then, by protesting in the strongest terms at the unprovoked hostility demonstrated by your people, that has brought us to this poi—”

Someone said, “Admiral, perhaps you are confused. Our hostilities were the result of provocation.”

You’re asleep, Kais. You need to wake up now.

Someone said, “Well, I disagr—”

Someone said, “Admiral, his eminence is unconcerned whether you agree or not. Let us not mince words. We are in a position of superiority. We have all but seized your flagship and possess the ability to cripple your fleet further still. Let us not waste our time with protests and accusations.”

He could see, now, in the light at the pit’s head. Something opening, breaking apart like mighty doors in the sky.

He could see...

Someone said, voice thick with indignation, “If you’re so convinced that you can defeat us, why are you even here, begging for peace?”

Someone said, “Admiral, we have no great fondness for genocide. A withdrawal is all we desire.”

He could see...

Oh, by the One Path, it was eyes. Great, dark, bottomless eyes; his father’s scowling face filling the sky. Filling the world. Filling his mind with expectation and disappointment.

Flawed, the eyes said. Useless.

The devil behind him cackled and warbled and giggled, and its claws closed around his waist.

Kais lurched awake with a hiss, hands clawing at the air to ward off the nightmares. Cool air brushed across his skin with a bizarre freshness: a sensation of newborn helplessness. He realised slowly that his helmet was gone, his gun had disappeared and he lay in—

He blinked.

The room was gue’la, unmistakably. All the usual ugliness was apparent: a tumbling intestine of tubes and pipes infesting the ceiling, grille-striated walls of bleak gunmetal, stone block recesses surrounded him on three sides and the usual damp, musty smell of humanity (now unfiltered by the helmet’s breathing systems) hit his senses like a fist.

But there was something different about this place. As he levered himself upright his hooves made contact with a soft, spongy floor covering, momentarily unset-ding him as he ascertained its solidity. Here and there plush crimson tapestries and drapes decorated the bulkheads, spiderlike icons of meaningless heraldry blistering their surfaces. The chamber was better lit than any he’d seen aboard the Enduring Blade thus far, giving it a sense of cleanliness and regality that was out of place in such grim surroundings.

There was a conversation going on, somewhere.

Someone said, “I see... so... You expect us to retreat, is that it?”

Kais turned his head towards the sound, still shaking off the torpor. The fourth wall of the room was a window. Bathed in the light from whatever luminous chamber lay beyond, standing with colossal hands on hips, a Space Marine stood and stared. Kais felt the panic rising in his belly.

He straightened with a hiss, frantic sleep clouded thoughts racing, eyes seeking out a weapon, a hiding place, anything!

“Relax.”

The Marine was staring at him, helmetless features grizzled and scarred. It cocked an eyebrow and gave what, to Kais, seemed an insincere, unimpressed grimace.

“I thought you might appreciate seeing this.” The figure jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the window and turned away. A disembodied voice, relayed through a small speaker set above the window, said: “In essence, admiral, yes. His Eminence feels there’s little to be gained from continuing our hostilities.” Kais, staying alert and wary of traps, edged towards the window, curiosity piqued. “Our resources,” the voice continued, “are more than enough to overcome your own, highly effective though they undoubtedly are. We feel, nonetheless, that even in victory there would be great cost to all concerned. We’ve demonstrated our seriousness, and offer our gratitude that you agreed to negotiate... despite the initial delay.”

The window looked out onto a wide circular room full of standing figures. Kais crept closer, expecting a trap, throwing furtive glances at the Marine. The figure, clad in blue armour with inverted hoof-arch icons on its shoulder guards, maintained its appearance of dismissive nonchalance.

The voice went on after a pause, its pleasant pitch undoubtedly tau in origin. Kais clung to the certainty that others of his race were nearby, letting the words themselves — disguised behind a friendly, trustworthy tonality — wash over him. “His Eminence wishes to make it clear that breaches of the Dal’yth treaty and other hostilities will no longer be tolerated, and that the mercy we have demonstrated this rotaa will not be repeated in future.”

“This is your idea of mercy, is it? Seizing my vessel and demanding my surre—”

“We would remind you that the attempted seizure of our vessel preceded yours, and his eminence suspects that, had you succeeded, a surrender on our behalf would have fallen on deaf ears. You should consider yourselves lucky, he believes.”

The figures beyond the glass began to resolve as Kais drew nearer. He spotted a domed pol-hat — characteristic of water caste diplomats — and began to understand.

“They’re negotiating for peace?” he murmured, more to himself than the scowling Space Marine. The figure turned his way nonetheless and fixed him with another imperious glare.

“That’s the idea. Your diplomats are to be congratulated, alien. They posture and make threats, all the while managing to sound as friendly as you like. The Codex approves of shows of strength — when properly executed.”

Kais felt utterly bewildered. To be so close to one of these vast killing machines, unarmed and unprepared... he ought to be dead, not standing discussing morality like a lecture-hall por’el.

The wall speaker said, “Lucky? Ha!”

“What’s going on?” Kais muttered. “What’s happened?”

The Space Marine gave him an appraising stare, pursing his scarred lips. “Just watch.”

Kais crept closer to the window, fighting the screaming nerves. The wide chamber on the other side of the window was packed with figures, divided along a central line into human and tau groups. The gue’la looked angry, various officers hissing into one another’s ears, waving their hands expressively. A row of storm-troopers waited silently along one wall. At the table was the same tall, grey-haired man he’d almost garrotted earlier, frowning in distaste.

He turned to the Marine quickly. “How long since...?”

“Since you wrecked the bridge? About an hour.”

A didactic memory at the base of Kais’s mind chipped in efficiently, identifying an hour as two thirds of a dec. Things had moved quickly since he was knocked out.

“Who are you?”

“Ardias. Captain Ardias of his Imperial Majesty’s Ultramarines.”

“Why didn’t you... Why aren’t I dead?”

“Call it a sign of goodwill.” The assurance was not convincing. Ardias turned away.

Kais returned his eyes to the window, staring down at the tau group. At its head, dressed in gue’la-imitation robes, a phalanx of water caste diplomats led by Por’el Yis’ten stood and whispered to each other calmly. Kais had seen El’Yis’ten once or twice aboard the Or’es Tash’var before the rotaa’s madness began: if anything the grim angular surroundings of the gue’la vessel exacerbated her already stunning looks. Shas’las and shas’uis were arranged carefully against the wall behind them, watching their human counterparts suspiciously.

Kais wanted to beat his fists on the window and scream: “Don’t trust them! Get out! Get out!”

Ardias glanced at him shrewdly, as if reading his thoughts. Kais frowned at him, uncowed by the human’s stare. They returned their attention to the assembly simultaneously.

Aun’el Ko’vash stood in thought, eyes wide with ancient wisdom, leaning on his honour blade. In Kais’s eyes he wore a corona of power and focus, a halo of intellect that eclipsed the brightness of the room’s artificial lights. He leaned down gracefully to whisper something to the por’el. El’Yis’ten turned to the admiral, smiling.

“His eminence wonders why you chose to parley so abruptly, when all our previous attempts to communicate met with failure.”

Kais could see the admiral was frustrated at having to converse with the ethereal via El’Yis’ten, tired eyes flicking from one to the other as he prepared his answer. Kais wondered vaguely whether such conduit conferencing was normal, or carefully designed to distract and disorient. The water caste were as notorious for their cunning as their diplomacy.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” the admiral barked, caught off guard.

“Merely a matter of interest.” El’Yis’ten purred, her grasp of the human tongue far in advance of Kais’s, smiling in a remarkable impression of a cheerful gue’la. “His eminence would be disappointed to discover this little conference was a pretext to bring him aboard. He is aware of his value to your... ah... ‘tech-priests’.”

The admiral, Kais thought, looked furious. The Marine beside him grunted. “Tell me — is paranoia prevalent throughout your race?”

Kais didn’t answer.

“How dare you!” the admiral neighed in the boardroom, indignant. “The very suggestion is—”

“We suggest nothing, admiral. We merely wish to forewarn you of the repercussions of such... entrapment. His eminence’s failure to return to the Or’es Tash’var will, of course, result in immediate retaliation.”

“Of course,” the admiral hissed with poor grace, knowing he was beaten.

“The question,” El’Yis’ten continued, “remains pertinent.” She sounded like she was enjoying herself. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

Kais watched the admiral’s face closely, trying to decipher the strange emotions playing across it. A sidelong glance at Ko’vash told him the ethereal was doing the same — penetrative glare fixed firmly on the old gue’la’s features. The admiral looked up directly at the window. Kais swivelled in his spot, confused.

The Marine nodded once, almost imperceptibly.

“We have a problem,” the admiral said, “that requires us to... reprioritise.”

“Go on...”

Another glance at Ardias. Another half nod.

“A secondary threat. Already aboard this ship.”

The admiral’s decorum left him in a long drawn-out sigh. He seemed to deflate, suddenly seeming old and tired. El’Yis’ten shared an alarmed glance with the ethereal. “You know as well as I,” the admiral growled, “that under normal circumstances we’d rather die than consort with fr— with your kind. But we have reason to believe these circumstances are far from normal, and until we’re certain of what we’re—”

The boardroom doors opened with a fierce clang, eliciting a wave of instinctive head twists. The figure that stalked in had donned a vast fur coat since Kais had last seen him, an impressive mantle of tawny and blood red markings that widened his already substantial frame. His face was unchanged, twisted in a petulant sneer.

It was the man from the viewing gallery in the prison torture chamber, and Ko’vash watched him enter with admirable calm.

The shas’las lowered their guns slowly, satisfied that the unarmed figure was no threat. Kais’s quick impressions of the situation were manifold: the Space Marine grunting angrily, the admiral hissing in fury, the newcomer grinning hungrily...

“What’s the meaning of this, Severus?” the admiral roared.

“Admiral — so good to see you again. I feared you lost in the invasion.”

“You’re not supposed to b—”

“And, look...” the newcomer bowed to Ko’vash sarcastically, feral grin widening further. “My old friend Ko-vaj. How are you? It’s been so long.”

“Severu—!”

“Oh, hush, Benedil — do. You know I have all the authority I need to be here.”

Ardias shook his head, muttering under his breath.

Down in the chamber, El’Yis’ten recovered from her shock superbly.

“His eminence extends his greetings to — I assume you to be — Governor Severus, and hopes his late arrival will not disturb these proceedings further.”

Severus fixed the por’el with an amused grin and nodded cheerfully. “Ah yes... One breed to fight, one breed to labour, one breed to talk...” He returned his stare to the Aun. “...and one breed to stand about looking smug. How’s the head, old chap? Not too sore, I hope.”

Ko’vash ignored him.

“If we might return to the subject in hand?” El’Yis’ten persisted doggedly, looking pointedly at Admiral Constantine. The grey-haired man was glaring at the preening new arrival with barely restrained hatred. The por’el coughed politely; another subtle gue’la mannerism. “Admiral?”

“Yes.” Constantine turned back to the conference. “Yes, of course. As I was say—”

“This is a sham,” Severus declared, crossing his arms. “In all my years I’ve never seen anything so shameful.”

“Severus!” Constantine’s face was bright red, like an unplucked greh’li-berry. “You will be silent or you will get o—”

“Humans greetings xenogens aboard like old friends? For an admiral to have sunk so low...” He spat on the floor, face creased with disgust. “You should be ashamed, Constantine.”

“There are circumstances you’re not famil—”

“No circumstance warrants infection, admiral. Isn’t that what they say?”

“I will not tolera—”

“Noble sirs...” El’Yis’ten sung, voice somehow conspiring to be soft and penetrative at once. “His eminence grows impatient. We have attended this meeting in good faith with the aim of preventing further hostilities. We did not come to watch you argue amongst yourselves.”

Constantine was about to speak, Kais could see, pompous apologies forming behind his ruddy face. But Severus got there first, eyebrows arching disdainfully.

“You will hold your tongue, alien!” he growled, talking over the admiral’s garbled protests. “How dare you speak to us in that manner?”

“His eminence has de—”

“His eminence is not worthy to even share our air. There will be no resolution here. This conflict will be resolved in blood, not in words!”

Kais frowned. Something was changing in the tall gue’la’s manner, a deeper resonance in his voice, a certain... enlargement. Without appearing to grow at all somehow he was looming, radiating a sense of presence and importance impossible to ignore. There was a whispering at the back of Kais’s mind, just beyond his ability to discern. The air was thick suddenly, greasy with a hidden charge.

“Emperor’s blood...” the Marine growled, fingers curling around the weapon in its holster.

And Governor Severus spoke three words: ugly syllables that made no sense to Kais’s ears but somehow inflamed his thoughts, crackling in the air with vile potency and appearing to cast a shadow across the world. If they could have been given form, Kais thought, the words would be maggots, coated in a slick of blood and writhing from the man’s mouth in a haze of crimson power.

Severus smiled and slipped a manicured hand into his coat pocket, withdrawing something with a flicker of light.

The insanity began.

Trooper Moyles was an uncomplicated individual.

When the brightly garbed commissars had toured the cities of his homeworld, Gilreh, he hadn’t even paused for thought, so taken was he by the plush uniforms, the rousing tales of heroism and bravery and the prospect of promotion and sliding scales of payment. He’d signed up without hesitation.

The uniform, upon reflection, had been a poor reason to join the Imperial Guard. It had changed, since then, five times.

On the Adeptus Munitorium standard enrolment forms, his IQ was marked down as 75. He had never, ever succeeded in anything in his life.

But the Guard accepted him, showed him which direction to point his gun, trained him until his muscles showed through the flesh on his arms and chest and made him worth something. He had never been so happy in his entire life.

And then quite out of the blue, during a routine guard duty in the boardroom of the Enduring Blade (during which he’d seen his first real xenogen), a tall man from the planet below pulled a knife out of his fur coat pocket and opened up Trooper Moyles’s jugular vein like a ration pack of synth-et being punctured.

He wondered, vaguely, why everything was going dark.

The Marine ran, drawing its weapon in a fluid arc of articulating armour.

Kais swivelled at the sound of its clattering steps, mind spinning, breath short. The memory of the trooper’s blood, thrashing into the air, was fresh in his eyes. The audio speaker hooked to the other room exploded in a cacophony of shouts and exclamations. Kais called out to the hurrying Marine.

“Ardias! What’s—?”

“Your gear’s through there,” the hulk roared, not slowing, massive fingers pointing to one side. “Stay out of my way.”

The sapphire figure vanished through a door. An alarm began to ring, hurting Kais’s ears. He turned back to the boardroom to be confronted with a scene of riotous reactions: the gue’la shouting all at once, the tau backing away in confusion, the nameless trooper at the centre of the hubbub sinking to his knees, fingers clutching at his throat.

The blood drizzle didn’t fall. Where the chaotic splatter effervesced into the air it hung immobile, as if spraying across some invisible shape suspended above the ground. Like water falling on glass.

—woop-woop-woop-woop—

The lights went orange then yellow, flickering on and off with a dizzy, oscillating rhythm. A cold voice, piped mechanically throughout the vessel, declared:

“Anomalous energy readings detected, all decks...”

The pulsing lights were an angry heartbeat, a palpitating gut, a crumpling lung. Kais fought to see into the adjoining room. The blood cascaded down, long tentacular rivulets dragging at his attention with some sensory gravity: forcing him to watch. The slit-throated trooper was dead now. Mostly.

A grisly rectangle of blood fluid formed over his corpse, red-black sheen taking on some sinister internal light, agitating and bubbling as it began to glow a deep, angry crimson.

The governor was laughing, long, dry whoops of air splitting his face, bloodslick knife brandished like a trophy. The glowing rectangle shimmered once, twice, three times.

El’Yis’ten, voice recognisable above the terrified groans and moans of the gue’la, said: “What’s—”

Then something came out of the rectangle and cleaved off her head. Time did its slowing-down jig.

“—intruder detection — intruder detection — all decks — intruder al—”

Blast shields closed on the viewing gallery windows and Kais hammered his fists impotently against them, adrenaline short-circuiting his mind.

He’d seen it. Whatever came out. Black, like oil. Like cancer. As big as the blue-toned captain, Ardias, but rust-pied and metal toned. Spines and chains and skulls. Red eyes. Red eyes like a desert reptile, but glowing from within. Hot embers in a cold fire grate.

He wished the screaming through the audio speaker would stop.

Without really thinking, he spun around and sprinted for the side door to collect his wargear. All he could think, all he could see in his mind, was a glowing pair of embers and a word: Mont’au.

The weight of the world surprised him, at first. He’d been too long without gravity, too long a shade of a shade, a wraith lost inside eggshell prisons of smoke and light.

A single splatter of blood, that was all it had taken, eventually. The final sacrament to bring the walls crumbling down. Three words of power to undo the ancient curse and a drizzle of red fluids to open the doors. There had been cracks already, of course. Imperfections growing by the moment, allowing his brothers brief forays into the blocky, unfamiliar solidity of the “real”.

For those lucky few, freedom had been short-lived, but they returned with tales of blood and carnage, with immateria-axes stained gore-red, with words of violence and hunger for killing. It fortified the rest of the prisoners, giving them hope and anticipation.

He’d howled away his bloodlust into the warp prison, watching as second by second his release grew nearer. Three millennia had been a long time to wait.

This Severus, this pawn of the Master, this small thing with its books and its incantations, this fur-hung fool: it gashed apart the throat of a single man-thing and the prison collapsed, the walls splintered with warpfire fury, the inchoate empyrean beyond wafted and grasped and—

Keraz the Violator was born into reality with a roar and a shriek and a neck-splitting lunge that pulverised in an instant the years and years of inactivity. The blood flowed and the world screamed and he laughed and laughed and laughed.

There were xenogens here: grey-faced things that cowered and shivered in his shadow. It didn’t matter. Blood is blood is blood. Red or grey or green or black, he didn’t care; it gushed and gouted, its rain splatter a cherished baptism against his armour, its slick ebbings hanging in matted chords from the chains wrapping his gauntlets. There was gunfire, somewhere. More of his brothers, emerging behind him. Less devoted, undoubtedly. Theirs was a service of command and obedience, an undivided gaggle of beliefs controlling their actions. They lacked Keraz’s devotion to a single aspect of their dark pantheon.

Blood for the Blood God!

Skulls for the Throne of Bone!

As inescapable as the night, the madness came upon him. Gunfire couldn’t hurt. Plasma orbs and pulse shots were a background staccato, rattling on his armour ineffectually. Only the killing was real.

A figure stepped into his path; a shape shrouded in a torus of energy and protective power that stayed his bloody hand, forcing a bellow of fury from his ancient guts. He recognised through the red haze the pinched features of Severus, his liberator, and tried to turn away to find a new plaything to crush, a new morsel to dissect.

“Stop,” the man said, and unbidden his feet obeyed. He had no choice. His roar of anger quaked through the world. Severus smiled, enjoying himself. “Take these ones. Take them to the planet surface.” He pointed to a dark recess, blood-splattered walls shadowing a pair of figures, and then he was gone, stepping lightly through the shimmering portal.

Keraz hefted his axe, chain edge shrieking, arrow wedge shadow falling across the cringing shapes. One was human, he saw without caring, old features open in terror, grey moustache quivering in a silent moan. The other was xeno, standing rigid and tense but betraying not a hint of fear.

It didn’t matter. Terror wasn’t compulsory — only blood mattered.

But the axe never came down — at its zenith the words of power gripped his body and Severus’s command overcame him. As meek as a lamb, but raging and boiling within, he dragged the two figures into the portal and vanished in a gust of energy and heat.

Kais was too late.

His mind still couldn’t be operating properly, surely. Surely he was too overwhelmed by this sudden escalation of events, this inexplicable horror. Surely that was why nothing was making any sense.

Figures appearing from nowhere, fluttering creatures cackling and gibbering, everywhere was blood and fire and hate. He thought, am I going mad?

Perhaps.

Whispers like cobwebs, like dessicated corpse talk, like the papery rustling of a million inserts, filled his mind. Perhaps this was a gue’la trick? Some hitherto unknown technology and resource they’d concealed from tau intelligence until it was needed? Yes — yes, that must be it.

A hidden army of berserk monstrosities, waiting to be unleashed; a cunning deceit they’d arranged to ensnare the Aun and crush the tau... He wondered briefly if El’Lusha and the others, still aboard the Or’es Tash’var, would concur. This was the remit of Auns and shas’os, not of flawed shas’las.

But...

But that wasn’t right... As he stumbled through twisted corridors, humans were screaming and dying, black monstrosities sweeping from glowing portals to murder the terrified paleskins, dragging them away to Aun-knows-where. And things, vermin with red-scale skin and spiny thorns, fluttered and swooped, scavenging amongst the bodies for flesh. They left trails of slime and pus as they crawled, chattering and giggling like infants.

Reaching the concilium was a blur. Had he slept? Was he, perhaps, dreaming? Where was the scowling blue-armoured Space Marine? In all this bedlam Kais would have welcomed a familiar face, even one so threatening as Ardias’s.

Towering devils. Black-on-red-on-rust armour. Eyes like volcanoes. Axes and guns and blades and claws. Spines and chains and leering skulls. Shadow Marines. Hate Marines. Pain Marines.

The voice in his brain, hissing and whispering, fluctuated and diminished — a poison echo like a ringing in his ear. He wondered if everyone could hear it, or if this was some awful new symptom of his madness.

The Enduring Blade had become distilled insanity, everywhere the clamour of screams and blood and gunfire. Even encased once again in the comforting envelope of his helmet, even cradling the blocky meltagun he’d found decs before, the fear bubbled up in him and refused to cave in to an assault of meditation and litany. He was running scared.

Portals like great sucking lips opened on every side, smacking together wetly and disgorging their cackling cargo, ghost trails of warp and plasmic splatter following them.

Oh, he was scared of death, that much was true. Scared of pain and oblivion. Scared of the laughing black-armoured devils with their glowing eyes — so like the Space Marines yet so different. Scared of insanity and madness and rage. Scared of failure.

But more than that, scared of himself.

In his darkest dreams, in his soul, this was how he imagined the Mont’au. As he ran for the boardroom, hooves clamouring on the deck, wounded leg forgotten in the rush, he saw the ember-eyed hulks twisting to face him, pausing in their bloody carnage, weapons raised, and each time there came a hesitation: a split-raik’an pause in which, he knew, the armoured creatures were staring at his battered form, his blood encrusted wargear, his crater-dented helmet, wondering—

Which side is he on?

But he was gone and sprinting before the hesitation was over, and the gunfire was just a distant chatter at his back.

Ignore the screams.

Ignore the whispering.

Get to the ethereal. Save the ethereal. Focus. Concentrate.

The door to the boardroom wouldn’t open. Stomping footsteps closed in behind him. Something cackled nearby. Moving without thinking, he opened fire with the meltagun, dragging its slipstream of boiling air across the immovable bulkhead beside the door. A ruddy glow appeared wherever it touched, oxidising treatments skittering across the metal in a ballet of blue fire circlets. It was too thick to succumb to the assault.

A wide pipe above the sealed doorway clicked and clattered, bruised metal protesting at the conflicting expansion and contraction of its heating and cooling surfaces. Kais shrugged mentally and turned the gun on the conduit directly, its searing melta stream puckering and flaying the metal.

The thing behind him came around the corner.

The pipe ruptured and a flare of promethium flashed across his vision. The explosion hurled him off his feet, toppling him backwards. Everything tumbled downwards in his helmet display, a blur of metal and flame. His back found the deck with a breath-exploding thump, curling him over in a ball. A sheet of fire vomited overhead: a horizontal geyser of burning vapours sprouting from the ruptured pipe. The black-metal monster behind him shrieked as the fire lance struck it head-on, mashing it against the corridor wall like a swatted beetle.

Kais didn’t look.

Smoke and dust circulated all around, an opaque fog bisected neatly by the burning gas. He scrabbled beneath the flamespout on all fours, patting out the glowing speckles of singed fabric on his arms and legs. The door, absorbing the full force of the detonation, had ceased to exist.

Kais’s triumph was short-lived; he leaped into the boardroom with a shout, gun brandished hungrily before him, to find blood. Nothing but blood. Limbs off, heads removed, bodies slumped. Goggle eyes and gaping mouths, like fish.

El’Yis’ten stared at him reproachfully from a heap of flesh in one corner. Her body was on the other side of the room. Gue’la and tau, so scattered together that the bloodslick was a pale violet, a swirling galaxy of red and cyan running together. Here a tau arm lay, knuckles clenched, beside a de-limbed human corpse.

There was a symbolism here, perhaps. A sense of unity, a sense of physical sameness. Given a talented enough por’hui journalist, this scene might mean something. “In death, we’re all the same”, perhaps.

But it didn’t.

All it meant to Kais was a furious scrabble to remove his helmet, a bulge-eyed moment of staring around, unshielded by the layer of artificiality his HUD provided, and then a bilious surge of nausea from his guts to his mouth. This time he couldn’t keep it down.

His mind tumbled upside down, the whispering clogged his senses like mud and reality shifted like a compass.

Ardias stared at the madness around him, acquainting himself with the extent of the situation. That things had gone catastrophically wrong was undeniable: the peace negotiations were ruined and the hidden evil, Delpheus’s “masked fiend”, was exposed. Still, despite it all, despite the horror and the death, despite the utter collapse of events, Ardias entered the fray with an air of professional relish. He had been born and moulded to fight, and in so doing he justified his existence. It was a strangely reassuring notion, and he could see no point in denying it.

With a chattering bolt pistol in his hand, with a snarling chainsword cleaving the skulls of his enemies, it was difficult to appreciate the wider calamity — the physical realities were too close at hand to ignore. Ardias killed and shouted orders, commanding a meticulous purge, flanked by his indomitable, unwavering brethren.

Governor Severus had invited Chaos onto the Enduring Blade.

Chaos. The antithesis of order. The “Great Terror”. To investigate too far into the whys and wherefores of the Dark Power was to become clouded and tainted by it, so great was its potency. The mysterious agents of the Inquisition’s Ordo Malleus spent centuries struggling to bind and purge the madness, fully aware of the futility of conventional sciences and technologies. Instead the Taint, the very concept of Chaos, was embroiled behind a paradigm of religion and occultism, a stringent galactic code that stated clearly: the Emperor’s light is pure. All else leads to Chaos.

It was bound to the warp. It was bound to the real and the unreal together, it was bound to those things invisible in the mundane colours and clamours of materiality: thoughts, feelings, spirits and souls and angels and devils.

Chaos was a thing of division and conflict and contrast, a thing of anarchy and insanity. It would pull down the structures of humanity; of the universe; of time itself. It would shatter the galaxy for the reward of a pretty noise or murder a million billion men just to appreciate the hue of their fluids. It came from nowhere and went to nowhere.

It was everything the Ultramarines were not. Ardias exploded a chittering daemon thing, fluttering at him with hooked teeth bared, and thanked the Emperor for this holy opportunity to cleanse the taint. There were mistakes to be rectified here.

Ten millennia ago the Emperor’s glorious crusades to reunite humanity faltered and crumbled. The Space Marine legions, deified avatars of retribution and human endeavour, infallible in their purity and steadfastness, shining icons of strength and wholeness, had rotted from within. Like a worm ceaselessly and blindly hunting for a vulnerable entry point, Chaos had writhed its way into the very heart of the Imperium. Half the Space Marine legions were seduced and corrupted. Humanity held its breath. The Emperor all but died, sacrificing himself to save his race.

The Dark Legions scattered.

Ancient history, of course. Whispered lessons from the Librium at the Fortress of Hera. Arcane heresies guarded and studied by lexicaniums and codiciers and epistolaries. A blot on the data sheet, a stain on the purity of mankind. But the Legions were still out there, biding their time, murdering their way closer and closer to the heart of the Imperium. Who knew where they lurked, where they would strike next, where their shadow would fall?

Ardias snarled and swiped at a horned helmet so hard it exploded, unable to restrain the unnatural hatred and fury that rose in his gut, guiltily aware of the deviation of his thoughts from the measured approach that the Codex counselled.

The shadow had fallen across the Enduring Blade and he vowed silently to grapple against it until the last of his energy was spent; a loyal servant of the Emperor could do no more, and was expected to do no less. These ancient warriors, blackened with evil, who had once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ardias’s ancestors, these fallen angels; they must be punished.

“Preserve your ammunition!” he voxed, firing off a short burst at one bellowing Chaos thing. A cackling daemon formed from a warp portal at his side and was efficiently cleaved in half by Sergeant Mallich’s chainsword. Ardias nodded gratefully and moved on.

“Brother-captain? This is Sergeant Larynz.”

“Report.”

“I have the third tactical squad, two decks above your position. There are incursions at all points. These portals, brother — have you ever seen their like?”

“Negative. Some dark sorcery lies at their heart, Larynz, you can be certain of that. Courage and honour!”

“Courage and honour!”

“Regroup on my signal, sergeant. I fear we must sacrifice this vessel.”

“Sir? You can’t mea—?”

“Regroup on me, Larynz. No questions.”

“Of course, brother.”

Ardias barged onwards along the corridor, swatting drooling daemonettes like flies. This far into the ship, the walls themselves seemed corrupted— structural damage and ancientness combining with some indefinable alteration to make everything seem organic and twisted. Not for the first time Ardias felt like he was walking in a peristaltic gut, wet walls shivering with hungry villi around him.

“Captain!” the vox chattered, urgently. “I’ve located a communications chamber.” The rust-red shape of Tech-marine Achellus waved to him along a side artery, prominent mechanical appendages emulating the movement of his arms. The figure beckoned into one of the innumerable chambers that lined every corridor, where Ardias could see lights blinking and brass-bound gauges fluttering. In a vessel as ancient and labyrinthine as an Emperor-class battlecruiser, subsidiary control rooms and communication hubs lurked in myriad corners. Given enough time, a seeker could locate any resource aboard a ship of such magnitude.

Ardias strode into the room, nodding at the cob-webbed controls.

“Can you operate them, Achellus?” he asked, perplexed by the endless arrays of meaningless switches and dials.

“By the grace of the Omnissiah,” the Tech-marine nodded, vaguely tracing the shape of the Holy Engine in the air, “I believe that I can.”

“Squad?” Ardias voxed, watching Achellus’s cyborg fingers dancing across the console. “Assume overwatch positions outside this chamber. In the name of the primarch, hold your ground!”

The bolters rattled and the daemons chattered and the hissing, whispering influence of Chaos filled the air with greasy nausea. Ardias bent over the controls, thinking hard, and ground his teeth against the cloying voices in his mind that made it so hard, almost impossible, to lower his bolter and lift a comm transmitter in its place.

“Shas’o? There’s something happening on the battle-cruiser...”

“Is the dropship returning?”

“No... it’s...”

“It’s what?”

“The drones are picking up energy signatures. Weaponsfire, maybe.”

“See if you can raise anyone.”

“Their communications shields are still operative.”

“We can’t reach any of them?”

O’Udas rubbed his temples wearily, feeling exhausted. The return to the primary bridge of the Or’es Tash’var had been accompanied not only with the unpleasant task of removing the smoking bodies scattered thereon, but with the realisation that, lacking a kor’o and having failed to persuade the Aun to remain aboard, responsibility for the vessel and its crew was resting firmly with him.

The kor’el with the unenviable task of filling O’Tyra’s shoes gave him a despairing look. “None, Shas’o. What action?”

None of them had been prepared for this rotaa’s madness.

“They’re taking too long...” he decided, glancing around at the anxious faces, tense bodies perched in ruined seats. “Power up the weapons. No more chances.”

Drones scurried to comply, exhausted air caste personnel tapping at mangled controls, struggling to maintain their professional calm. Udas shared a glance with El’Lusha, rubbing his hands together uncomfortably. The tension throughout the command deck was palpable.

“Shas’o?” a Kor’ui mumbled, frowning. “We’re getting a signal. Very faint but... it’s definitely directed at us.”

“T’au?”

“No. It’s gue’la.”

He nodded, pursing his lips. “Let’s hear it. Branch it to the rest of the fleet too.”

The kor’ui passed a long finger through a sense beam and abruptly a storm of white noise rippled across the bridge, high frequency squeals shifting in tone until a single voice — a gue’la voice — crackled through and resolved.

“—s the Enduring Blade, hailing the tau flotilla. I request acknowledgment... It’s not working, Achellus. Try a different frequency.”

The kor’ui gave Udas a plaintive look. “Shas’o?”

He scratched his chin, tapping a hoof thoughtfully against the deck. A series of tiny drones with flashing “message” icons circulated around his head — kor’os and shas’os throughout the flotilla hurrying to give their advice. He waved them away.

“Open a channel.”

What little white noise that remained on the communication channel resolved with a tinny pop. The ugly gue’la voice halted in surprise.

“Enduring Blade, this is the Or’es Tash’var. Identify yourself.”

“Captain Ardias of the Ultramarines. You must listen to—”

“Where is Aun’el T’au Ko’vash?”

“Never mind that, we—”

“Where is he? We are poised to strike. Return him now.”

“Stand down! You must listen! We face a mutual threat!”

“Lies. Cut the channel. All vessels prepare to engage.” His blood burned.

“Wait, Emperor damn you! The ethereal has been taken — most likely to the planet surface.”

“By who?”

“Chaos, warp take your eyes! Chaos!”

O’Udas frowned. The gue’la’s voice was full of certainty and conviction, as if he was expected to recognise the name of this alleged enemy. The word was delivered with terrible resonance.

“‘Chaos’?” he repeated, unfamiliar syllables sitting awkwardly on his tongue.

The voice replied with heavy exasperation: “Oh, you don’t... I haven’t time to explain. The dark powers! The warp taint! Evil!”

“This is ridiculous. I won’t listen to another w—”

“They’ve taken him and the admiral. We can’t determine how they’re travelling but... listen to me, they are beyond our reach, for now. Attack this vessel and you will waste time and blood that would be better spent purging this threat! We’re under assault.”

O’Udas shook his head, lips curling. “Gue’la lies. Delaying tactics.”

The voice almost roared, a venomous litany of frustration and abuse that pushed O’Udas’s patience over the edge.

“Cut the line,” he growled, directing a pointed look at the kor’ui manning the comms. The channel closed with a sedate peal.

“Shas’o,” El’Lusha muttered from his alcove at the rear of the bridge. “What if he’s telling the truth?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“But if there is a third party involved—”

“We’d know about it. An army doesn’t just spring from nowhere.”

“Agreed but... Shas’o, isn’t it worth investigating? ‘Caution in the face of threat’—is that not the teaching of the Yie’rla’rettan meditation?”

O’Udas breathed out, reluctantly conceding. All this talking exhausted him: his nominal grasp of the gue’la language, coupled with his natural impatience for diplomacy, made him re-evaluate his feelings towards the water caste. He began to wish sincerely that El’Yis’ten hadn’t taken all of her por’ui assistants with her to the human ship.

He waved a weary hand at the Kor’ui and the channel reopened.

“Human... Convince me of this threat.”

“Contact your own units. There are still plenty of tau aboard — ask any of them for an appraisal. Space Marines do not lie.”

O’Udas shuffled his feet. To reveal the shortcomings of their technology was unthinkable but... Without the Aun, they had nothing left to lose.

“We can’t contact our units,” he said, neutralising his voice to dampen the significance of the admission. “There’s a signal-retardant field around your vessel.”

“Stand by” Was there a hint of smugness in the voice, he wondered? A triumphant lilt to its tone at having identified a weakness? A muffled conversation filtered dully through the speakers, another gue’la voice joining Ardias’s. He thought he could make out a sonorous chant, like a prayer, then the clicking reports of switches being flipped. After what seemed like an age the clipped tones of the Marine returned to the comm. “External comms have been opened, xenogen,” it said. “Now see for yourself.”

A few lights on the bridge’s wall screens flickered. Green icons began to appear on the display schematic of the Enduring Blade. The Kor’ui at the comms turned in his seat.

“We have contact, Shas’o... At least two cadres of line warriors still active aboard the vessel.”

O’Udas nodded, turning to Lusha. He still lurked with a thoughtful expression at the rear of the bridge.

“Shas’el? A name, please. Someone reliable.”

The grizzled tau responded without hesitation. “La’Kais. Contact La’Kais.”

“Ah yes, the hero...” He nodded at the kor’ui. “Open a channel to La’Kais.”

The bridge systems chimed. The anxious personnel gathered held their collective breath and stared at the innocuous speaker drones.

“Shas’la?” Udas said.

“W-what—?” the return signal was weak, made tinny by the distance and distortion it faced. Udas thought the voice sounded drained. Tired. Traumatised. Hysterical, even. “Who’s that?” it quailed. “Who... oh... I thought the contact was down. Wh—?”

“This is Shas’o Sa’cea Udas, La’Kais. I’m aboard the Enduring Blade.”

“...thank the tau’va... oh, bloodfire... thought I was alone...”

Udas exchanged a raised-eyebrow glance with El’Lusha.

“Kais... I need a status report. Have you seen the Aun’el?”

“Gone... gone, by the path... eaten up by the blood door... It’s the terror. The terror, Shas’o. Do you hear me? It’s the terror!” The excess of emotion was palpable in his voice, breaking through the facade of dignity and calmness inherent to taukind. Udas placed a hand over the drone hovering at his side, covering the microphone array. He turned back to El’Lusha. “He’s gone mad.”

Lusha didn’t look convinced. “Shas’o... May I?”

“Of course.” Udas waved the drone towards the veteran.

“Kais? Kais — this is El’Lusha.”

“El’Lusha? I blew the engines. I did that. For the machine, Shas’el. I cleared the bridge. M-me. That was right, wasn’t it? ‘For the machine’, you said.”

The voice sounded like an infant, timid and querulous, clinging to certainties to displace whatever madness was gripping it. O’Udas thought: iur’tae’mont. Burnout. War madness. Shellshock. It happened.

El’Lusha, concern etched on his face, spoke with a soothing cadence. “That’s it, child, for the machine... Kais: listen to me... I want you to tell me what’s going on in there. I want you to tell me what’s happened to the Aun.”

The response was a long time coming. Nervous kor’uis exchanged worried glances. Udas rubbed his chin.

When it came, the voice was little more than a whisper.

“Kais? Kais, we can’t hear you.”

“M-m...”

“Kais?”

“Mont’au!”

The bridge filled with the murmured litanies and meditations of dozens of personnel, all warding off the connotations of Kais’s pronouncement. O’Udas ground his teeth together and shook his head. The youth had lost his mind.

“There are things...” the comm said, voice growing in strength. “They came out of the walls, they came out of thin air. I thought it was a trick at first but... oh... the blood...”

“Kais—”

“Black. Black things. And red. Like devils. Like Mont’au devils with their eyes on fire and their guns... oh...”

One or two of the kor’uis moaned quietly, terrified by the monotone description. Lusha tried again.

“Kais, that’s enough...”

“They took the ethereal. And a gue’la, I think.”

“Took them whe—”

“But it’s okay. It’s all fine now, because... because, you see, I know. I understand. It’s a nightmare. El’Lusha? I’m dreaming, aren’t I? This isn’t real...”

Udas thought El’Lusha looked sick, grizzled features closing in on themselves.

“Kais, you... You’re awake.”

“...and you... hah...” the voice sounded sleepy, fogged behind a cloud of unreality, “...you’re just part of the dream...”

“Kais...”

“There’s something coming.”

“Kais? Kais, you have to fight th—”

“I have to go now. Respect and Unity, tau’fann.”

“Kais!”

Silence hit the bridge like a weapon strike, shaking every tau to his or her foundation. The kor’ui at the comm swallowed and shook his head. El’Lusha deflated, face pale.

“Well,” mumbled O’Udas, not sure what else to say. “well...”

“The gue’la is hailing us again, Shas’o.”

“Right. Yes. Open the channel.”

Click.

“—ill there? Xeno?”

“I am here, gue’la. We...”

“You contacted one of your units, yes? I take it that I have earned your trust?”

“Perhaps...”

“Good. No attacks on the Enduring Blade. Not yet, at any rate.”

“You say the Aun is on the planet?”

“I said ‘probably’.”

Udas could hear gunfire and shouting voices across the comm. He swallowed, hardening his resolve. “Then we shall free him.”

“You are welcome to try, xenogen. This ship is overrun. I’m taking my men planetside as soon as I can; we shall clean this mess or die trying.”

“Commendable br—”

“I neither expect nor desire your commendation, alien. I contacted you to suspend hostilities, that’s all. Let us not waste time with pleasantries. Your troops will stay out of my way. That is all.”

“Is this... is this a truce, then?”

“Call it what you want. You’re on borrowed time.”

Udas felt the blood heat again. These were words he understood; military, fighting words. The desire to rise and outstrip the human’s arrogant threats was powerful indeed... but... The Aun must come first. Always.

“As you say, human. For now.”

The channel went dead, El’Lusha clenched his fists, the Kor’uis cleared their throats and fidgeted in anxiety, and O’Udas anticipated another ground war. Suddenly he felt much more at home.

127.22]. Priority-1. (1/630.q) Datastream transmission only.>

++ All ships, attention.++

++This is the Enduring Blade.++

[Purgatus here... Constantine! What the blazes is going on over there!]

[Sir! Baleful Gaze. You’ve been out of contact for an hour!]

[Troubador— Is it the xenos? What action, sir?]

[My telepaths are having fits. One of them clawed his own face off, by the throne! What’s happening?]

++Be silent, all of you. Constantine is gone. Maybe dead.++

[What the devil?]

[Who is th—?]

++This is Captain Ardias of the Adeptus Astartes Ultramarines. I want you all to listen very closely.++

[What th—?]

++Listen.++

++There has been an incursion. The tau are no longer our priority.++

[I demand an expla—]

++No more interruptions!++

++Governor Meyloch Severus of Dolumar IV. There’s a photo ident on the carrier frequency.++

++He’s been tainted.++

[...]

[Tainted? What do you mean?]

++You know what I mean.++

++Chaos, gentlemen.++

++The Enduring Blade is overrun.++

[This is...]

[I mean... Living-god...]

[...Chaos?...]

[...came out of nowhere...]

[How do we know this isn’t a tau trick?]

++Oh, of all the ridiculous...++

++Hhh++

++Stand by.++

127.22. Stream cont.>

----------------Override.>

<...>

<...Subcore priority-code recog. G#3.>

++There. Satisfied?++

[Emperor’s blood...]

[My comms servitor just died!]

[Throne’s mercy...]

+I’ll take that as affirmation.++

++That’s one of the highest priority edict codes you’ll ever see, gentlemen. Astartes Prioritus Level. This is real.++

++I’m initiating the evacuation of the Enduring Blade. I suspect some sort of Chaos operation on the planet surface. I suggest high-altitude surveys as soon as possible.++

++I’m taking my men down there.++

[I... I’ll dispatch ground troops immediately.]

[Yes. Yes, me too.]

[A full-scale attack, then. All hands.]

[Agreed.]

++Do what you want. The Ultramarines require no assistance.++

++Stay out of our way.++

[And the tau?]

++Ignore them.++

[What about the Enduring Blade?]

++...++

[Ardias?]

++On my command, destroy it.++

Kais slipped into insanity. A dec passed.

The first thread of rationality returned to him with the beautiful, ugly thought.

This. This is surrender.

The burstcannon was far more graceful than the blocky meltagun. He vaguely recalled prising it, sticky with blood, from the grasp of a fragmented shas’ui in the concilium. Its lines were smooth and crafted, its balance perfect. He thumbed the trigger and didn’t let go.

This is freedom.

It was a living thing in his hands. A barrelled lance that foomed breathlessly, churning out a strobefire-barrage of pulse drops. Like rain, he thought. Like a water stream, filled with iridescent impurities.

This is letting go.

Something went down, screaming. Smoke and sparks clawed at the air, a whalespout of light and vapour. Blood, somewhere. It hit the deck and moaned and shifted, going still, and Kais walked past without looking. Maybe, he thought, it was an enemy. Maybe not.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

This is release.

The thunder barrage of gunfire; the flash lightning drumbeat of contact; electric-blue energy dispersing and dissipating across armour and flesh, gouging liquid metal, splitting muscle and sinew. Something small and chittering exploded with ichor splendour, a damp detonation of black and purple fluids that hung viscously in strands from the surfaces of his gloves and helmet.

A grenade cracked open a black-suited devil like a cockroach, spilling its rotten guts across the floor. It died with its ancient viscera clutched in its claw-gauntleted grasp, trying to reassemble its disordered innards.

Had he killed any tau, rampaging out of control?

Probably. Does it matter?

And the lights. Yellow-orange-yellow-orange. Pulse-pulse-pulse.

Portals heaved opened and closed, like heart valves, he thought. Organic machinery inside a stomach vessel, digestive enzymes with boiling red eyes and roaring axes hungrily breaking down the daily intake.

Dead tau, everywhere. Dead gue’la, everywhere.

Dead fire warriors and guardsmen and Space Marines. Dead officers and sergeants, dead ratings and crewmen and engineers and tech-priests.

Dead everything.

Scattered and blasted. Hanging from walls and ceiling. Bulkheads painted red. Decks awash in cyan. A here-and-there abattoir. Bits.

The madness lasted a solid dec, at least. His mind closed up: ephemeral thoughts passing through, peripheral considerations and concerns lost in a barrage of violence and blood. A whirligig storm of horror. The Mont’au thing slithered its way into his brain and took over.

Took over — or set him free? He wasn’t sure.

At the end of it, running through the circular platforms of the evacuation shaft, he began to remember details: little things first, but growing in size and relevance. A single dec. One point five human “hours’. So little time and yet so many memories crammed-together, slowly uncoiling.

There had been a voice in his head. There had been commands, perhaps. An impatient growl in his mind describing routes and pathways, opening doors and slamming them shut, warning him of the black hulk terrors lurking in wait for him. It was uncanny. The voice called him “xeno” and sounded angry. It spoke in the gue’la language.

He wondered why his madness should take such a precise form.

The voice had said that “they”—whoever they were — had struggled with the tau communication frequencies. It said he should consider himself lucky. The voice said that thanks to the Grace of the Emperor, they’d been able to latch on to his helmet code to reach him.

Kais didn’t understand, of course, but reasoned that one wasn’t, perhaps, supposed to understand hallucinations. The voice had said things were dire. The voice said if the enemy succeeded in firing the ship’s weapons into the tau fleet, then truce or not the war would begin again. The voice said someone had to cripple the lance arrays.

Kais’s memories were soup. They curled and coiled and writhed away from him, borne aloft on a bed of yammering, yowling voices; of whispering evil in his ear. Still, he remembered the guns... The voice talked him through it, thank the path. He concentrated on killing and dousing the world in blood whilst his madness — his patient, human-speaking madness — crackled in his helmet and told him how to plant bombs in file-edged ammunition stores and run, run, run.

He remembered the explosions. And now what?

This. This is release!

He thumbed the trigger again, pressure pad tacky with half-dry blood. There was almost no recoil and he delighted in the churning stream of teardrop plasma, biting and gnawing through the smoke and haze that seemed to have filled every last corner of this infectious, ruined ship.

Yes, maybe things were getting clearer. A dec had passed, or thereabouts, and now the mindfog was diminishing. He remembered the munitions chambers exploding, the voice in his head reluctantly congratulating him, the panicked screams...

He remembered a cold, grating voice pumped through every corridor like oxygen from a vent, hissing: “All hands, evacuate vessel. All hands, evacua—”

And the voice had said, “Get to the drop pods, xeno, if you can.”

And the voice had gone.

He remembered following the crowds. Humans and tau avoiding eye contact, fighting together but never speaking, descending through the ship together but never touching, never tapping one another on the back or helping one another when wounded. The gue’la ran and shouted and screamed and died. The tau hurried in silence, fanned out efficiently, exchanged commands, kept their cool — and died just the same.

And they all steered clear of him. It was like... it was like they weren’t sure who or what he was. He remembered that he’d tried, twice, to comm-link with the hurrying tau troops. Perhaps his helmet was more damaged than he thought, because not one deigned to answer.

The Mont’au thing was out of him now, draped like a shroud, like wings, like a bloody black mantle. He remembered rust-red Marines howling and bellowing, oozing from walls and floors with impossible spontaneity, hacking off heads and disappearing in a wet slurp of warp immateria. He remembered the hissing, whispering evil that saturated the air flexing and growing, biting at his madness, inviting him to join it.

A dec had passed, more or less. There was clarity returning now, by degrees. He wondered why. Was it, perhaps, desperation?

There were no drop pods. The evac-bay was a great circular abyss, platforms on all sides ringed by drop pod archways, level after level of evacuation galleries overflowing with panicking individuals struggling for freedom. Fights broke out, of course.

Briefly he toyed with turning back, returning to the snaking corridors and slime pocked cloisters of the ship. Giving in to it would be so easy, so perfect; clutching in his hand a weapon, unburdened by fears and agendas. No objectives. No commands. No rationality. No focus. Just total surrender, smashing and breaking and shattering. Pouring himself out of himself, destroying for the sake of destroying, raging impotently against the bitterness inside.

See, father? See!

But... It was too easy. Too pointless. So he went down a level, and down again, and each time the madness cleared a little more. Something was jostling it in his brain, pushing aside the need to kill. Something much older than the rage, something stronger even than the Mont’au hunger.

Survival. The need to stay alive. Oh, maybe surviving to one day fight again. Maybe to achieve great and noble things. Maybe to live out his days in solitude and silence, pondering upon everything and nothing. There was no “why” to it. It didn’t matter what reason he gave himself for staying alive; the need to do so was all that mattered.

So a dec, more or less, passed. The insanity went away, piece by piece. He killed and fought and struggled. He descended past drop pods tumbling away into the void with gue’la or tau (but never both) cargo. He limped on a bloody, rotten leg, shut out the whispering madness in his skull and finally, mercifully-Clarity returned to him. Words from nowhere:

No expansion without equilibrium. No conquest without control. Pursue success in serenity And service to the tau’va.

Shas’la T’au Kais took a breath and shrugged off the horror. There was an unlaunched drop pod at the base of the shaft. He took a second, closing his eyes and allowing himself to reach equilibrium. He almost, almost managed it.

He was interrupted. Someone, nearby, shrieked.

The Blademaster Tikoloshe was mad. He knew it.

He concentrated and somewhere deep in his fractured, buzzing consciousness a command was dispatched. Ancient, rust-corrupted servos growled, tangled power cords tightening brutally.

His legs moved, a creaking werewolf cackle of protesting, unoiled joints and unnatural ossified growths shattering and grinding against one another.

His mind rolled over and lost itself, briefly.

Three thousand years ago: On an unnamed desertworld claimed by the Daemonlord Tarkh’ax he roars in silence, grappling his razor-talons against the shimmering wraith sword of a fiery Eldar monstrosity, its blazing eyes roaring with endless smoke—

The links of his upper left limb locked briefly, too long out of service. He snarled without making a sound and overpowered the motors, shattering whatever desiccated impediment blocked their progress and venting a stinking serpent of purple-blue smoke.

His thirteenth birthday, on far Cthonia: The Mountain Angels in their shining armour choose him above all others and take him away to their Summit fortress. In seven years he will be a Space Marine-@@ Light caught at the blades of his limbs in a wave of flashing reflection, a thousand razor edges to slice and de-tendon any unprotected meat. They pockmarked his shell like fish scales; ancient gobbets of carved flesh crumbling away in powdery necrosis.

Six thousand years ago: He awakes from centuries of blood-dream slumber to answer the call of Gilgalash the Carnator. For a century the hiveworlds surrounding the Kreel Nebula face the Black Crusade of Sicklefell. Before it is sundered, thirty-three worlds will be systematically murdered, one by one by one—

And the claws... ahh, the claws. Unoiled, untended, untreated by cunning artifice or ridiculous machine-god acquiescence. Their razor edges were maintained by a higher power, and they slid with a sorcerous glow from his vast energy-venting forelimb, emerging with a silken rasp that curled his dead features into a skeletal smile.

Ten thousand years ago: Terra. The great betrayal. Ripping apart the palace in unquenchable fury, hacking at every horrified loyalist that dared face him. Even then, before his internment, he preferred the slow, dragging edge of a blade to the inelegant thunder of a gun—

Some of his circuitry was fused, delicate tech abused and twisted by the centuries of heresy. He flicked through optical sensors hungrily, seeking prey, ignoring the shattered or flimsy niters that rendered him blind and focusing on the glowing points of light that meant: Enemy.

Back to his youth: Techs chant and pray and push their instruments into his brain, preparing him for the final biological manipulation before his graduation as a Marine. His mind is a hypnotically sealed crypt of Dogma and Imperial worship. This will change—

The machine tomb responded to his commands with growing success. The movement of its limbs became familiar once more, insanity applied crudely to sensitive thought stimuli, manipulating and articulating its extremities. Limbs and life support filters squealed in protest and again his dead lips, locked deep in the machine’s black core, curled in a sneer.

The first change he’d made to the dreadnought Skaarflax, all those millennia ago, had been to rip out its pain centres.

Back to the crusade: He murders sixteen of the false-Emperor’s Space Marines in a single day and witnesses firsthand the fiery cataclysm that claims Forgeworld Barnassus. Mortally wounded in the bloodswamps of I’Ycklahl, his internment is ordered by the Carnator himself within the Dreadnought-hulk Skaarflax. Its previous incumbent is torn from its guts before his eyes, atrophied muscles spasming, left to shriek and ooze its fluids from ruptured connectors into the scarlet marshes—

He took stock of his situation, finally convinced of his readiness. The warp portal had delivered him onto a gunmetal deck at the base of a tall circular abyss, O-shaped gantries rising up in successive levels above him. He watched scurrying meat-things run and shout and fight in three different spectrums, the basso roar of launching drop pods a constant background growl.

There would be much killing here. Yes.

Back to Terra: The defeat. The flight. The thirst for vengeance. Ten thousand years of rage and anger and bitterness. His fury could drive a dynamo—

They came at him in a gaggle — not even watching where they were going, too absorbed in the task of finding an evacuation craft. Two were locked in a running argument, shouting inconsequential rubbish in their inconsequential patois, waving their inconsequential weapons and making inconsequential threats. If they saw him at all from the corner of their eyes, perhaps they mistook him for a heap of piled crates. Cargo. Certainly not alive.

He timed himself, just for fun. It took him 4.78 seconds to remove their legs, at the hip. By 6.34 seconds only one of them had any hands left, and both were shorn of fingers — opposable thumbs wriggling like lonely maggots. By eight seconds on the dot they were mewling, dying, shellshocked mannequins, limbs detached, heads flexing and twisting in splattershriek pain. He could have beheaded them at any moment.

He left them to roll on the deck. It was more fun that way.

Back to the desert-world: Back to the eldar avatar, roaring and hissing and spitting its ember rage. Something’s wrong and the Chaos warhost knows it. There’s something in the air: a sound, perhaps, just beyond perception. The Daemonlord Tarkh’ax roars so loud that the skies go black and the Marines nearest to its vast hostbody clutch at their heads, and everything...

Everything vanishes—

The memory made him stop and flex his claws hungrily. Three thousand years of imprisonment was a scar worn heavily on his blistered, cancerous soul.

No more reminiscing, he decided, just as someone shot him.

Bright blue droplets rattled ineffectually on his chassis, lightning storm phosphorescence giving the circular chamber a ghastly strobelit animation. There was no pain. No damage, beyond a few more sooty chrysanthemums of plasma impact to be worn proudly on the dreadnought’s plating. Medals of honour, almost.

If he could have laughed, he would have.

The gun chattered again, as impotent as drizzle against a steel sheet. He raised his talons and flexed them slowly, one by one, letting the velvet remark of each metal-on-metal hiss echo softly around the room. The enemy was a white heat ghost in his eyes.

He rushed forwards in a storm of clattering footsteps and snick-snacking knives, reaching out in a lover’s embrace to welcome the petulant little creature to its end. Moments before the mantis claws closed on their prey, the figure bounded up the curling ramp to the next mezzanine level, sidestepping clumsily. The Blade-master’s talons lacerated the steel guide rail in a flurry of tube sections and hot-edged piping, leaving him roaring silently inside his mechanical tomb.

The Skaarflax was rotated elegantly towards the ramp, stepping forwards and upwards in a succession of deck-gouging clawsteps. Tikoloshe was in no mood to play cat and mouse.

He spoke to himself as he chased, words silent within his mind. “I will catch you and dejoint you, little thing,” he promised. “I’ll make boneless flesh sacks of your torso and cut out each eye, each ear, each fluid and gristle lump of offal in your guts — before I let you die.”

The figure scrabbled away from its hulking pursuer, rolling a grenade down the ramp. The Blademaster stamped on the bauble nonchalantly and barely even wobbled when it detonated beneath his ablative feet. He stalked onwards, implacable.

Like waves of goosebumps rising in shivery anticipation, the tiny blades covering every centimetre of the dreadnought’s chassis stood upright hungrily. In his mind, Tikoloshe saw giblet filth covering every planet, checkerboard slices on every skin surface. He’d eviscerate the world, dismember the galaxy, slice the universe! He reached the top of the ramp and swivelled again, following his prey.

The figure was hurt, he saw, limping badly on a wounded leg that left a spatter trail of white heat on his vision. It paused against a rail, slumping breathlessly, chest gulping for air. The Blademaster upped the sensitivity of Skaarflax’s audio sensors, perversely keen to hear the figure’s burning lungs pumping and heaving.

It was a dry rattle. A wondrous melody. Music to murder by.

He spread his upper limbs to their full span, mantis claws extended like flesh cleaving wings. And he charged.

It was the simplest thing in the world.

Breathe deep. Groan.

Kais put his weight on his good leg, exaggerating the feeble uselessness of the wounded one.

He craned his neck and gasped for air he didn’t need.

You’re exhausted, he told himself. You’re in pain. You’re ready to give up and you’re shaking. Yes, that’s it. You’re shaking in fear and madness.

And the monster charged.

Like a rampaging grazebeast. It pawed at the ground, articulated at its hips, displayed its glittering galaxy of knifeclaws and hurtled towards him. Every footstep shook the world.

He didn’t know what it was. Didn’t care. It was an obscenity: a hulking corruption of the Machine his father spoke of.

Its claws scissored against each other icily, grinding and hissing.

Not yet.

Highlights shimmered across it in waves, oscillating emergency lights distorted and shattered by each and every cutting edge.

Not yet—

Its spine-encrusted shoulders, vast chassis collar rolling and pistoning furiously, gouted a thick miasma of smoke and spent fuel.

Not yet!

Snick-snack-snick!

He dived aside and rolled and rolled and rolled.

Something slashed at his back distantly, slicing across his pack and flipping him over. It was a knife-tip cut, just beyond the metal monster’s reach, spilling ration packs and ammunition clips across the deck. The beast was moving too fast. It swivelled to follow his sideways movement, motors growling in protest, but it was too late. Its legs kicked effortlessly through the mezzanine-railing and for a second, for a perfect moment of stillness, it hung in the air over the drop to the deck below.

Then it was gone.

When it landed it cracked open like an egg, and when Kais examined the withered thing inside he thought of aborted reptiles and blind, nourishment-starved clonebeasts. It hissed a final protracted breath and was dead.

Was this Mont’au too? A facade of brutality, a sham-devil with razor flesh and bloody claws, concealing within itself a shrivelled thing no more deadly than a corpse. There were too many thoughts in his head, con-flirting and battering one another. A Brownian motion of consequence and consideration, fighting for dominance.

Weary with confusion, exhaustion hanging from every muscle and bone, Kais slumped into the one remaining drop pod and stabbed at the launch trigger.

He slept the whole way down.