A sensation of emptiness, of futility came over him. His people, his village had gone.
‘As you wish, lord-shaman. Speak to the spirits and seek their aid,’ he said, giving the ancient ritual answer. ‘Bloody Moon’s squad will remain here to watch over you. The rest of us will take Deathwing and seek out any surviving lodgetowns.’
N
IGHT FELL AS
Two Heads Talking completed his preparations. He laid the four rune-etched skulls of his predecessors on the ground about him. Each faced one of the cardinal points of the compass and watched over an approach from the spirit realm.
He lit a small bonfire in the deep hollow, cast a handful of herbs on the fire and breathed in deeply. He touched the ceremonial winged skull on his chest-piece and then the death’s head inlaid on his belt. Lastly, he prayed to the Emperor, tamer of thunderbirds and beacon of the soul path, to watch over him as he made magic. Then he began to chant.
The fumes from the herbs filled his lungs. He seemed to rise above his body and look down upon it. The other Terminators backed away from the spirit circle. A chill stole over him, and life leeched away until he was close to the edge of death. Great sobs wracked his body, but he mastered himself and continued with the ritual.
He stood in a cold shadowy place. He sensed chill white presences at the edge of his perception, clammy as mist and cold as the gravemound. Above him he could hear the beating of mighty pinions from where Deathwing, the Emperor’s steed and bearer of the souls of the slain, hovered.
The shaman talked with the presences, made pacts that bound them to his service and rewarded them with a portion of his strength. He sensed the hungry spirits surge around him, ready to shield him from sight, to cloud the eyes of any who might look upon him, causing them to see only a friendly being.
He walked from the circle, past the watching Marines. As he crested the brow of the hill, he saw the distant city. Even at night, its fires burned, lighting the sky and turning the metropolis into a giant shadow cast upon the land.
A
BOVE THEM, THROUGH
the gloom, loomed the Mountains of Storm. Cloud Runner wondered how Lame Bear was taking it. The big man’s face was a blank mask. He was not allowing himself to think about what might have happened to his people.
The Hunting Bear village was the last they had visited: the most remote, built in caves beneath Cloud-Girt Peak. Lame Bear limped up the narrow pathway in the cliff-face.
Cloud Runner tried not to think of the other lodgetowns they had seen. They had found nothing but desolation and desecrated graves. No living soul except the Marines walked among the fallen totems. They had buried the bodies they had found and offered prayers to the Emperor for the safety of their slain kin.
Cloud Runner could see Weasel-Fierce pause. The gaunt man’s hand played with the feathered hilt of his ceremonial dagger. He studied the ledges above the paths and seemed to sniff the air.
‘No sentries,’ he said. ‘As a buck, I raided these mountains. The Hunting Bears always had the keenest watchers. If anyone was alive, we would have been challenged by now.’
‘No!’ Lame Bear shouted and ran across the lodgetown’s threshold and into the caverns.
‘Squad Paulo, overwatch!’ Cloud Runner ordered. Five Terminators froze in position, guarding the entrance.
‘The rest of you, follow me. Helmets on. Keep your eyes peeled. Weasel-Fierce, establish a fix on Lame Bear. Don’t lose him.’
Night-lights cut in as they entered the cave mouth. Dozens of tunnels led from the place. Cluttering things flapped away from their lights. For a moment, Cloud Runner allowed himself to feel hopeful. If they were to find any survivors of the plains people, it would be here. In this huge night-black maze Lame Bear’s people could have hidden out for years, dodging any pursuit.
As they followed Lame Bear’s locator signal through the warren of tunnels, despair filled Cloud Runner. They passed hallways where the dead lay. Sometimes the bodies were marred by the mark of spear and axe; sometimes they were crashed and mangled by inhuman force. Some had been ripped asunder. Cloud Runner had seen bodies butchered like that before but told himself that it was not possible here. Such a thing could not happen on his homeworld – in vast hulks that lay cold in space, perhaps, but not here.
They found Lame Bear standing in the largest cave of all. Bones littered the floor. Scuttlers fled from their lights. Lame Bear sobbed and pointed to the walls. Paintings dating from the earliest times covered the caveside, but it was the last and highest-situated representation that drew Cloud Runner’s attention. There was no mistaking the four-armed, malevolent form. Hatred and fear chased each other through his mind.
‘Genestealers,’ he spat. Behind him, Lame Bear moaned. Weasel-Fierce gave his short, barking laugh. The sound chilled Cloud Runner to the bone.
T
WO
H
EADS
T
ALKING
stalked past the city’s open gates. The stench assailed his nostrils. His concentration faltered, and he could feel the spirits straggling to escape. He exerted his iron will, and the spell of protection fell into place.
Studying his surroundings, he realised that he had no need to worry. There were no guards, only a toll-house where a pasty-faced clerk sat, ticking off accounts. In its own way this was ominous: the city’s builders obviously did not feel threatened enough to post sentries.
Two Heads Talking studied the scribe. He sat at a little window, poring over a ledger. In his hand was a quill pen. He was writing by the light of a small lantern. Momentarily, he seemed to sense the librarian’s presence and looked up. He had the high cheek-bones and ruddy skin of the plains people, but there the resemblance ended.
His limbs seemed stunted and weak. His features had an unhealthy pallor. He gave a hacking cough and returned to his work. His face showed no sign of manhood scars. His clothes were made of some coarse-woven cloth, not elk learner. No weapon sat near at hand, and he showed no resentment at being cooped up in the tiny office rather than being under the open sky. Two Heads Talking found it hard to believe that this was a descendant of his warrior culture.
He pushed on into the city, picking his way fastidiously through the narrow, dirty streets that ran between the enormous buildings. The place was laid out with no rhyme or reason. Vast squares lay between the great factories, but there was no apparent plan. The city had grown uncontrolled, like a cancer.
There were no sewers, and the roads were full of filth. The smell of human waste mingled with the odour of frying food and the sharp tang of cheap alcohol. Low shadowy doors of inns and food booths rimmed each square.
Unwashed children scuttled everywhere. Now and again, huge, well-fed men in long, blue coats pushed their way through the throng. They had facial scar-tattoos and they walked with an air of swaggering pride. If anyone got in their way, they lashed out at them with wooden batons. To Two Heads Talking’s surprise, no one hit back. They seemed too weak-spirited to fight.
As he wandered, the librarian noticed something even more horrible. All the members of the crowd, except the urchins and the bluecoats, were maimed. Men and women both had mangled limbs or scorched faces. Some hobbled on wooden crutches, swinging the stumps of legs before them. Others were blind and were led about by children. A dwarf with no legs waddled past, using his arms for motion, walking on the palms of his hands.
They all seemed to be the accidental victims of some huge, industrial process.
In the darkness, by the light dancing from the hellish chimneys, they moved like shadows, scrabbling about crying for alms, for succour, for deliverance. They called on the heavenly father, the four-armed Emperor, to save them. They cursed and raved and pleaded under a polluted sky. Two Heads Talking watched the poor steal from the poor and wondered how his people had come to be laid so low.
He remembered the tall, strong warriors who had dwelled in the lodgetowns and asked nothing of any man. What malign magic could have transformed the people of the plains into these pathetic creatures?
He felt a shock as a child tugged at his arm. ‘Tokens, elder. Tokens for food.’
Two Heads Talking sighed with relief. His spell still held. The child saw only a safe, unobtrusive figure. He could feel the strain of binding the spirits gnawing away at him subconsciously, but they had not yet slipped his grasp.
‘I have nothing for you, boy,’ he said.
The urchin ran off, mouthing obscenities.
D
EPRESSED AND ANGRY
, the Space Marines left the cave village. Cloud Runner noticed that Lame Bear’s face was white. He gestured for the big man and Weasel-Fierce to follow him. The two squad leaders fell in beside him. They marched up to a great spur of rock and looked down into a long valley.
‘Stealers,’ he said. ‘We must inform the Imperium.’
Weasel-fierce spat over the edge of the cliff.
‘The dark city is theirs,’ Lame Bear said. There was a depth of hatred in his quiet voice that Cloud Runner understood. ‘They must have conquered the people and herded them within.’
‘Some clans resisted,’ Cloud Runner said. He was proud of that. The fact that his clan had chosen to continue a hopeless struggle rather than surrender gave him some comfort.
‘Our world is ended; our time is done,’ said Weasel-Fierce. His words tolled like great, sad bells within Cloud Runner’s skull. Weasel-Fierce was right. Their entire culture had been exterminated.
The only ones who could remember the world of the plains people were the Space Marines of the Dark Angels. When they died the clans would live only in the chapter fleet’s records. Unless the Dark Angels broke with tradition and recruited from other worlds, the chapter would end with the death of the present generation of Space Marines.
Cloud Runner felt hollow. He had returned home with such high hopes. He was going to walk once more among his people, see again his village before old age took him. Now he found his world was dead, had been for a long time.
‘And we never knew,’ he said softly. ‘Our clans have been dead for years, and we never knew. It was a cursed day when we rode the
Deathwing
back to our homeworld.’
The squad leaders stood silent. The moon broke through the clouds. Below them, in the valley, they saw the faded outline of a giant winged skull cut into the earth.
‘What is that?’ asked Weasel-Fierce. ‘It was not here when last I stalked in the valley.’
Lame Bear gave him an odd look. Cloud Runner knew that his old friend had never pictured the brave of an enemy clan walking in his people’s sacred valley.
Even after a century, the taciturn, skeletal man could still surprise them.
‘It was where our spirit talkers made magic,’ answered Lame Bear. ‘They must have tried to summon Deathwing, the bearer of the warriors from the sky. They must have been desperate to attempt such a summons. They trusted us to protect them. We never came.’
Cloud Runner heard Weasel-Fierce growl. ‘We will avenge them,’ he said.
Lame Bear nodded agreement. ‘We will go in and scour the city.’
‘We number only thirty, against possibly an entire city of stealers. The codex is quite clear on situations like this. We should virus bomb the planet from orbit,’ Cloud Runner said, listening to the silence settle. Lame Bear and Weasel-Fierce looked at him, appalled.
‘But what of our people? They may still survive,’ Lame Bear said, like a man without much hope. ‘We must at least consider that possibility before we cleanse our homeworld of life.’
Weasel-Fierce had gone pale. Cloud Runner had never seen him look so dismayed.
‘I cannot do it,’ he said softly. ‘Can you, brother captain? Can you give the order that will destroy our world – and our people – forever?’
Cloud Runner felt the weight of terrible responsibility settle on him. His duty was clear. Here on this world was a great threat to the Imperium. His word would condemn his entire people to oblivion. He tried not to consider that Lame Bear might be right, that the people might not yet be totally enslaved by the genestealer horde. But the thought nagged at him most of all because he hoped it was true.
He stood frozen for a moment, paralysed by the enormity of the decision.
‘The choice is not yours alone, Cloud Runner,’ said Weasel-Fierce. ‘It is a matter for all the warriors of the people.’
Cloud Runner looked into his burning eyes. Weasel-Fierce had invoked the ancient ritual; by rights, it should be answered. The Terminator captain looked at Lame Bear. The giant’s face was grim.
Cloud Runner nodded. ‘There must be a gathering,’ he said.
T
WO
H
EADS
T
ALKING
saw a commotion break out across the square. A squad of bluecoats forced the maimed beggars to one side. People were crushed underfoot as they pushed through the throng like a blade through flesh.
The librarian dropped back toward the entrance of a tavern. A surly bravo with fresh-scarred cheeks came too close. He raised his truncheon to strike Two Heads Talking, obviously perceiving him as one of the throng. It bounced off the carapace of his Terminator armour. The bluecoat squinted in astonishment at him, and then backed away.
A palanquin borne by two squat, shaven-headed men in brown uniforms moved through the path cleared by the bully-boys. Two Heads Talking looked at the sign of a four-armed man on its side and a thrill of fear passed through him. His worst suspicions were justified.
‘Alms, elder, give us alms,’ the crowd pleaded, voices merging into one mighty roar. Many had abased themselves and kneeled, stumps and grasping hands outstretched in supplication towards the palanquin.
A curtain in its side was pulled back, and a short, fat man stepped out. His pale skin had a bluish tint, and he was wearing a rich suit of black cloth, a white waistcoat and high, black leather boots. A four-armed pendant dangled from a chain hanging around his neck. His head was totally hairless, and he had piercing black eyes. He gazed out at the crowd and smiled gloatingly, great jowls rippling backward to give him a dozen small chins.