He cleared his throat. The atmosphere on the high plateau was thin.
*What is my name to you?" he asked.
*Damon Prytanis," the daemon replied.
*And knowing my true name gives you power over me?" he asked.
*Yes."
*You have me, then, child of the warp. You have me soundly. As I die, and as I accept my death, allow me one last boon."
*Speak it."
*Tell me, so I know the true name of my obliterator."
A chuckle rippled through uns.p.a.ce.
*Die forever knowing it," the voice said. *I am Ushpetkhar."
*I resign. Come and get me," he said.
The shadow of the void rose and rippled at him. It came at him across the snowfield like a black tsunami.
*By the way," Damon Prytanis said at the very last minute, *that is not my true name. Turns out, you have no power over me. But I know you now. I have your true name... Ushpetkhar!"
In his pocket, Damon had been frantically getting the vessel ready. He made the appropriate signs and cast the appropriate runes, just as he had been shown. He threw his magic into the onrushing face of the screaming daemon.
The daemon exited reals.p.a.ce in an explosion of fury and indignation. Damon was thrown to the ground.
When he opened his eyes, he realised he was soaked. He was covered in blood, and so was a vast area of the glacier shelf around him. None of the blood was his.
Slowly, badly broken, he got up. Macragge City was still a while away, a long trek down the mountain.
In this manner, the killer calling himself Damon Prytanis came to Macragge.
8.
First Among
Equals
*A man chooses his friends; fate chooses his brothers."
a attributed to Ondrin of Saramanth The ship came out of the darkness, and within its darkness, an endless hunt played out.
It was a human ship, an Imperial ship, a battleship, a flagship, but it was unnaturally propelled through the miasma of the warp by means whose origins and nature would have been deemed heretical to the machinesmiths and forgefathers of mankind.
Behind the battleship, following in its wake, came its fleet. Within those storm-battered hulls, twenty thousand warriors awaited word of a destination, a safe haven.
They were twenty thousand of the greatest warriors in the Imperium. They were the First, and the first among equals.
The ship came out of the darkness, and within its darkness, an endless hunt played out.
The huntsman waited in the darkness, listening to the eerie throb of the unhuman device directing the ship"s engines. The darkness was oily black, as black as the armour he wore.
The quarry was close, but then, the quarry was always close.
The quarry was supposed to be dead, or at the very least a prisoner, but through his innate guile and wickedness, he had evaded capture and was loose in the ship, haunting its dark s.p.a.ces and inaccessible extremities. Of course, the quarry was technically a prisoner, because the whole ship was his cell. There was no escape from the ship.
It galled the huntsman that the quarry was at liberty at all. The quarry should have been dead for his crimes long since. The huntsman should have made sure of that, blood or no blood. The quarry was not a sentient being deserving of any respect or mercy. The quarry was an insane animal that needed to be put down, a monster that deserved termination. All the while the wretched quarry was loose on the huntsman"s ship, the huntsman"s heart burned with rage.
The huntsman had sent warriors to locate the quarry and kill him, to section the ship, deck by deck, to smoke the monster out of hiding, and end his curse. But the quarry a the creature of darkness, the haunter of the eternal night that glowered in the unlit hold s.p.a.ces and hull structures that were a feature of any warp-capable ship a had killed the men, and killed the men sent after them, and the men sent after them. The quarry had trapped them, and murdered them, stalked them and tricked them, left their bodies swinging from hold spars as warnings, left their heads in void-locks as messages, left their butchered remains impaled on inter-deck stanchions and pipework as b.l.o.o.d.y promises.
The huntsman was a n.o.ble soul, though to those who met him in battle, he often appeared to be a monster too. Few, if any, knew the true workings of his mind. He kept his own counsel, and walked his own path. He was hard to know.
He was a n.o.ble soul, nevertheless.
He refused to send any more men into the darkness to their deaths. He refused to order any more men to do what he was not prepared to do. He had had all but the primary decks evacuated and sealed; then he had put on his armour, the black armour etched with Martian gold, and had become the hunter. Every day for sixteen weeks, he had entered the unregulated s.p.a.ces of his ship and hunted through the darkness for his quarry.
Every day for sixteen weeks.
The ship came out of the darkness, and within its darkness, an endless hunt played out.
The huntsman could smell the quarry. They had come close many times in the past sixteen weeks. There had been two brief scuffles, from which the quarry had fled when he had realised that the huntsman was hard to ambush. There had been times when the quarry"s brittle whisper of a voice had gusted out of the darkness to taunt the huntsman. There had been messages left in blood. There had been traps and counter-traps, hours of stalking, slow progress through the dark and juddering s.p.a.ces of the ship, testing every shadow for the one shadow that wasn"t a shadow at all.
The huntsman halted, crouched, balancing his dense but agile form on a cross-spar that ran like a rock bridge over the ravine of an exhaust shaft. A dark green blackness glowed far below. Thermal vents opened and a stream of hot air blew up the shaft like a desert wind. It stirred the huntsman"s long, golden hair. He paused, unclasped it, re-gathered it and tied it again to keep it out of his eyes.
There was a scent on the dry wind. One part in a billion, but the huntsman could smell it.
Old blood. Pain. Adrenaline. Hatred.
The quarry was close. He was hiding below, on one of the sub-level walkways that lined the throat of the exhaust shaft. In sixteen weeks, the huntsman had never got such a precise fix.
The hot air was venting from below, and the huntsman was downwind of the quarry. Doubtless, the quarry couldn"t hear him because of the machine noise echoing up the shaft s.p.a.ce.
Silently, the huntsman rose and leapt. He landed twenty metres away on another cross-spar, and ran along it like a tight-rope walker before clambering into the girder-work reinforcing the shaft wall. He descended. Every few metres, he stopped and scanned, hunting with his eyes, his ears, his sense of smell.
Close, so close...
There. The huntsman froze. He could see the quarry. He could see him for the first time. The quarry was hunched on a gantry about thirty metres below the huntsman"s position. He looked like a ragged hawk, roosting on a ledge. The quarry was looking down. For some reason, he was expecting the huntsman to approach from below. For once, his uncanny powers of augury and foresight had failed him. The quarry was waiting, hunched, silent, ready to strike.
The quarry had no idea the huntsman was above him.
The huntsman drew his sword, oil-damp and silent, from his scabbard. He lined up to make the leap a less a leap, in fact, more a pounce. It would be an impact kill. The huntsman"s weight and momentum would crush the quarry into the unyielding gantry, and the sword"s edge would finish it.
It would be quick, which was more than the quarry deserved, but long overdue.
The huntsman flexed his arms, loosened his neck, and made ready for the leap. There was no room for error. The quarry was not a creature to underestimate. The huntsman leaned forward, holding onto a girder with his left hand for support, tensing his legs, ready toa *My lord," his vox system woke up and crackled.
Below, the quarry looked up, his head snapping upright at the sound. The huntsman saw the quarry"s pale face: surprise, and delight.
*Close!" the quarry squealed up at the huntsman. *So close, but confounded!"
The quarry started to laugh. He darted off the gantry and dropped away into the shaft, arms spread, tattered cloak fluttering like ragged wings. He dropped into the darkness of the exhaust pit, leaving his scornful laughter in the hot wind behind him.
The huntsman rocked back. He bit down his rage. He activated his vox-link.
*Speak," he said, his voice low and seismic, *and for your sake, make the content worthwhile."
*My lord," said the vox. *There is a light."
*A light?" the huntsman growled.
*A beacon, my lord. We have detected a strong but unknown navigational beacon."
The huntsman hesitated.
*Have an a.s.sault squad waiting at the agreed exit hatch to meet me," he said. *I"m coming out. Let"s see this beacon."
First Master Auguston was waiting for him on a battlement of the Moneta Fortress overlooking the landing fields of the starport. The First Master was accompanied by several of his key subordinates and a number of officers of the city. They had finished delivering their latest reports and were silent. Auguston was gazing up at the light of the Pharos, the new and only star in the turbulent sky.
Auguston"s suit system registered the approach of another, and he turned to regard Alexis Polux as he came along the battlement to join them. Auguston was used to being one of the largest beings in any given place, excepting the Avenging Son. There was something dismaying to him about the Imperial Fists captain"s size.
*Lord Auguston," Polux said, with a respectful bow of his head. *My apologies that I was prevented from joining you sooner."
Auguston acknowledged him.
*It was suggested to me that you might a.s.sist with your expertise, captain. You have three days" worth of security inspections and protocol reviews to catch up on."
*Again, I apologise," said Polux. His wargear had been cleaned and mended, and his damaged arm was strapped across his chest in a juvenat sling. *The Master of Ultramar ordered me to heal and make ready for the coming war. I have been two days in the grafting suites."
Auguston glanced at the repairs to Polux"s arm. Instead of a simple augmetic replacement, the Apothecaries had elected to fix a flesh graft grown from seeded organics, vat-cultured. Inside the semi-transparent sleeve of the sling, beneath the layers of nutrient wrap and growth hormone gel, Polux wore a new hand and arm of living flesh which had been bio-typed to his own. It was still growing, still forming, the new bones still knitting. Flooded with oxygenated blood, the hand was almost crimson.
*Will it take?" asked Auguston.
*The prognosis is good," said Polux. *Another two days and rejection can be ruled out. It should be serviceable within a week."
Auguston nodded. He gestured for one of his aides.
*As I said, we"ve been conducting the review for three days. I have had a summary prepared."
The aide handed Polux a data-slate.
*How fares the primarch?" Polux asked.
*Hea" Auguston began. *He fares well, I understand. Given that it has been merely three days, he shows remarkable signs of recovery."
Polux didn"t do more than quickly scan the data-slate. He turned and looked out over the port fields, then eyed the shadows of ships at high anchor far above, and the cloud-bank shapes of the orbitals.
*I don"t believe it"s a simple matter of protocol reviews," he said.
*You haven"t even begun to look at the slatea" Auguston started to say.
*I can study the close detail later. Believe me, First Master, I have been considering Macragge"s security all the while the Apothecaries worked on my limb. This is a magnificent port facility, but it is not secure."
*What?"
Polux looked at Auguston.
*I said, it is not secure."
*Are you trying to anger me, Captain Polux?" asked Auguston, stepping forward. Polux noticed that most of the aides and juniors escorting him took a step backwards. They did not want to get caught in the First Master"s wrath.
*No, lord," replied Polux calmly. *I am trying to help. I took very seriously your great primarch"s request."
*Then look before you speak!" Auguston spat. *Since the crime that was Calth we have fortified the system, the planetary approaches, set guards and defences, launched new platforms, and fortified the city, especially the starport areas anda"
*You have done all of these things," Polux agreed. *But you have done them all while preserving the original nature of this world and this port. Macragge is a capital world, sir, and this port is its great harbour. Macragge rules an empire of five hundred worlds, sir a the realm of Ultramar. It may even come to rule over the Imperium. It has a port that reflects that role, a port built for trade and commerce, a port built to serve the mercantile needs of peace. Yes, you have fortified it. But it is still not secure. It may withstand an a.s.sault, but can it filter out the illegal entry of our enemies? I believe it is reasonable to expect that those killers who meant to take the life of your primarch are not the only intruders currently here on Macragge."
*Is this how your kind would protect Terra?" asked Auguston scornfully. *To cast away all of its original purposes and make it nothing more than a razor-wired rampart?"
Polux nodded.
*I fully expect that my primarch will have encased Terra in armour. I fully expect that the Imperial Palace is no longer a palace but the greatest fortress in the galaxy. This is a war like none we have ever contested, sir. It will make casualties of us all if we do not respect it, or if we are too precious about our possessions."
*So what? We stop trying to fortify and preserve what we have, and instead simply rebuild it?"
*Yes. In times like this, it is not enough to bar or board up a window, my lord. You must brick it shut so that the window no longer exists. The reconstruction work needed on the city, and especially the port, will be costly and time consuming. You must begin work on the construction of a fortified military port. There are remedial actions that can be made while construction is planned and executed."
*Such as?" asked Auguston.
Polux gestured at the ships at anchor overhead.