Blood Gorgons

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE DECISION HAD been made for Barsabbas. There was no other option but to continue to Ur.

Try as he might, he could not turn back. Like the southward bird in winter, Barsabbas was drawn to his objective. It was the behavioural pattern of a Space Marine that he could not have stopped had he wanted to. The impulse to go north lingered over his every thought and action. The original objective was Ur, and until Barsabbas received express orders to desist, his mind would allow him to do nothing else but tread step after step in the direction of that cloistered, faraway place.

Strangely conscious of his mental conditioning, Barsabbas did not resist. The ability to execute their objectives until death made Space Marines the most effective military formation known to man. If Hauts Bassiq had a sea, he would walk along the ocean bed to reach his destination.

Behind him, the power facility burned. A high afternoon wind lifted the flames, taunting them higher and higher. None of that concerned him. In his mind, Barsabbas could only picture the city of Ur – a solid polygon at odds with its environment. Sealed, impervious and smooth‐walled, harshly artificial amongst the softly undulating clay plains.A segregated island of man amongst an oceanic spread of feral, uncultivated wilderness.

‘What now?’ Gumede asked, the roaring fire reflecting off his prominent cheekbones.

‘To Ur. It is what Sargaul would have done. Besides, there is little left for me. In Ur, I will find my death or my redemption.’

‘You cannot enter Ur. There is no way in,’ Gumede replied.

Perhaps not for a plainsman, Barsabbas accepted. Ever since the Blood Gorgons harvested the first plainsman stock to replenish their ranks, they had known of the existence of Ur. But even the Blood Gorgons had never entered the city. It was sealed, a hive world with no entrance nor exit; a ziggurat that could not be entered. In turn, the Blood Gorgons had plundered more vulnerable targets, content to claim the planet of Hauts Bassiq as their own and leave the insulated bastion to itself.

‘I have entered Ur,’ Sindul proclaimed smugly. Content with himself, the dark eldar lay in the dry grass. He flicked his blades playfully, tossing them and catching them.

Barsabbas remained impassive. ‘Tell me how you got in.’

‘It is not ruled by the Barons of Ur. The Imperial cult has fallen,’ Sindul laughed.

‘Don’t ignore my question,’ Barsabbas growled, shifting his weight menacingly. ‘How did you get in?’

‘I was in the retinue of my lord’s firstborn son. We were guests of the Ner’Gal warlord.’

‘Then we will not be welcome. You cannot enter Ur. Not in all of our stories has anyone entered Ur,’ Gumede concluded, shaking his head.

‘Then you have resigned yourself to following history,’ said Barsabbas. ‘But I have a plan.’

IT WAS NOT right for an emissary of the kabal to be treated like a pet hound. The humiliation sat like the cold edge of a rock in Sindul’s boot. Although the mon‐keigh’s thrall‐worm had 139

been excised from his flesh, it would leave a humiliating scar for the rest of his days.

Holding a shameful hand to his face, Sindul harboured the resentment deep in his belly.

The three had walked for six kilometres north and made camp in a high cave overlooking the alkali flats. When they looked south, black storm clouds had crept up behind them, promising a heavy afternoon downpour.

Barsabbas departed without explanation, disappearring into the storm as the curtains of rain fell over him.

It was the opportunity that Sindul had been waiting for since his capture. Only Gumede remained to watch over him, an arrow notched loosely inside his bow frame. The plainsman sat cross‐legged across from him, watching the sky swirl darker.

But Barsabbas had grown careless. By extracting the slave‐seed, he had removed the last reason for Sindul to stay.

The dark eldar was no longer trapped. Barsabbas had slain the survivors of their raiding party and with it, any trace or evidence of Sindul’s disgrace. Alone, Sindul could return home as the sole reminder and the events on Hauts Bassiq would be his words, and only his words. To his great fortune, the Blood Gorgon had, in a fit of human carelessness, even removed his thrall‐worm.

Seizing the narrow window of opportunity, Sindul wasted no time. Although Barsabbas had confiscated his hook swords, Sindul knew the plainsman would provide little sport.

Every dark eldar, no matter their status, spent considerable hours drilling on the atami mats of their kabal’s fighting master. Even without weapons, Sindul could use the barbs and edges of his armour to vicious effect.

Sindul coiled himself into a crouch, tentatively watching the slopes for Barsabbas’s return. He waited until the rain was thick and nothing could be heard except for the hollow roar of droplets hammering the clay.

That was when he attacked Gumede. The plainsman fought back gamely with clumsy fists and ill‐balanced kicks, but Sindul side‐sauntered and slipped them almost lazily. He struck Gumede unconscious with a flurry of pinpoint elbow strikes. Briefly, he considered killing the human for sport, but there was no time. Barsabbas could return at any moment.

As the rain began to cease, Sindul skidded down the slope. He knew the location of the kabal’s lander was not far. If he recalled correctly, and his memory did not fail him, the vessel would still be docked at the power facility, hidden by now beneath metres of ash and ember.

Retracing the steps he took, slim boots churning in the clay‐turned‐mud, Sindul fled the way he had come.

A BROKEN NOSE was a painful thing. It obstructed breathing, forcing Gumede to take in jagged mouthfuls of air. Blood and snot simmered in his sinuses, bubbling forth to drool in thick strands down his face. Worst of all was the humiliation, a bleeding, unavoidable token of his failing. An abasement of Chief Gumede’s pride.

When he heard Barsabbas crunching up the rock slope, Gumede tried to wipe the blood off his face with his wrists. There were abrasions on his chin and forehead too but his nose was still dribbling blood.

‘What happened here?’ Barsabbas asked as he ducked underneath the cave entrance.

Gumede backed away, apprehensive of the punishment that would be inflicted upon him. ‘He escaped,’ the chief admitted.

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The Chaos Space Marine stood at the cave mouth, his shoulders barricading the entrance from edge to edge.

‘I fought back but I couldn’t hit him,’ Gumede stammered, reaching for his recurve bow.

Barsabbas seemed to rumble with a throaty hum of satisfaction. ‘I know, I saw him run,’

he said finally. ‘We can follow him now.’

‘You let him escape?’ Gumede asked, deeply concerned.

‘Of course,’ said Barsabbas. ‘Where would the dark eldar go?’

Gumede shrugged, uncertain of whether it was a trick question. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Sindul came here by ship. It means Sindul must leave the same way,’ Barsabbas said, speaking slowly as if the chief were particularly dim. ‘When I track him, he will lead me to that ship.’

‘You will use it to enter Ur!’ Gumede said, his eyes widening with revelation.

‘The dark eldar ship. Guests of Ner’Gal,’ Barsabbas purred. ‘Sindul is a vindictive and deceitful creature, but predictable.’

‘Then this was planned,’ Gumede said, pinching the bridge of his nose to stem the blood.

‘He could have killed me.’

The Chaos Space Marine chortled as he strode out into the rain, already checking the wet clay for prints. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t,’ Barsabbas said.

SINDUL WAS BREATHLESS. He sucked in deep lungfuls of air to introduce some oxygen back into his burning arms. The sprint from the cave had wearied him but he could not afford to rest.

Digging with his bare hands, Sindul was frantic, spurred on by the ever‐present threat of discovery.

Despite the rain, the ashes were hot. As the water hit the charred framework, it hissed with steam. Sindul scooped with his palms, scraping at the ashes with his fingers. Like coals, it burnt through his kidskin gloves, but Sindul didn’t feel it. He was running out of time.

Pushing aside a burnt sheet of ply‐wall, Sindul uncovered a trapdoor in the ground. The metal hatch had withstood the inferno but the lock had warped and buckled in the heat.

Tearing at the trapdoor in his haste, Sindul scrambled down below.

He almost fell directly onto the hull of a ship beneath. Scrambling for purchase he swore and then began to laugh.

The Harvester.

An Impaler‐class assault ship. Thin and spear‐shaped, barbed and tapering, the ship could carry an entire crew of raiders through atmospheric entry. The thin, bat‐shaped wings were underslung with pods of shardnets and a trio of dark lances jutted pugnaciously from beneath its needle prow.

It would also be Sindul’s only way home.

The ship was berthed in a low, underground hangar. It had probably once been the storage cellar for the power facility, centuries ago. Sagging shelves loaded with dusty tools and pipe ends filled the surrounding walls. Empty slave cages were stacked in along the far wall, ready to be loaded into the Harvester’s yawning rear ramp.

The ship reacted to Sindul’s presence, display consoles becoming suffused by soft purple, blue and white lights. Hololithic displays were projected into the air, displaying the ship’s status in rolling eldar script.

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With deliberate, practiced movements, Sindul delicately placed receptor fibres. The thin threads interfaced directly with his fingertips, trailing translucent optic thread from each of his fingers. He contorted his fingers like an orchestral maestro and the ship responded with an agonisingly slow whine, the Impaler’s thrust engines building power.

Then an object whistled past his ear, hard and fluid‐quick. Sindul flinched, thinking something on board had malfunctioned. But when he glanced sidelong he realised it was not a malfunction at all. An arrow had thudded into his pilot cradle. A wooden shaft protruded out of the soft polyfibre headrest, a shaft fletched with a red and black feather.

Shrieking with rage, Sindul saw Gumede drop from the hatch and behind him, Barsabbas.

Wretched Barsabbas. The Blood Gorgon crashed through the hatch and landed on the thin prow. His weight made the large ship dip forwards. Steadily, hand‐over‐hand, Barsabbas began to climb towards the cockpit.

Sliding back the Impaler’s windshield like an eyelid, Sindul drew a splinter pistol from beneath the seat. He loosed a volley of choppy shots at the Traitor Marine, the splinter fire dancing off his ceramite like solid rain. He did not manage more than six shots before Barsabbas reached him.

Barsabbas tore away the canopy and his hand shot for Sindul’s throat, clamping tight and dragging him out, tearing him out of the seat restraints. He shook the eldar, knocking his limbs loosely about the air, shaking the pistol out of his hand.

‘Look how senseless that was!’ Barsabbas shouted through his vox‐grille.

‘Don’t kill me!’ Sindul managed to gasp in‐between his head lashing back and forth upon his neck.

Maintaining the chokehold, Barsabbas unhooked the lotus‐head mace from his girdle and he looped it back like a loaded catapult. ‘You knew escape would be your death, but you took that choice. I see no other way.’

‘You need me to fly the ship!’ wailed Sindul.

Barsabbas lowered his mace. ‘Why?’

‘To take you to Ur.’

Barsabbas let Sindul drop bonelessly back into the pilot seat. ‘I’m glad you understand.

Fly well, and perhaps next time I will let you escape for real.’

‘You allowed me to escape?’

‘To lead me to your ship – yes. Ask yourself this, would you have ever told me? No, yours is a patient race. As frail as your physical bodies may be, the eldar have always been patient. You could have waited for years before you tried to escape to this ship. You work differently from the short‐lived races.’

The dark eldar allowed himself a gloating smirk.

Barsabbas crouched down and peered closely at Sindul, his helmet almost level with the dark eldar’s face. ‘I may be of the Chaos flock, but I am not an irrational man. You cannot coerce me through fear alone. Take me to Ur. Do so without delay or deception. In return, when I leave Hauts Bassiq, you will be free to go.’

‘ If you leave Hauts Bassiq,’ Sindul corrected.

‘If I die, then you die. Can you not see that our fates are intertwined? The gods have made it so.’

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THE HARVESTER CLIMBED in altitude rapidly, angled against the land below at a nauseating slant and rapidly leaving it behind. They pierced the atmospheric clouds at mach speeds.

Except for the gloss of sun reflecting from the craft’s nose, the world around blurred like wet paint: the brown earth, white sky and grey clouds streaking together into a tunnel of streaming colours.

Barsabbas had utilised the most destructive human war machines, but the dark eldar technology left him in a state of jealous awe. The soldier within him could not deny that the vessel was a dangerous beast. It floated, spiralled and levelled out with a dexterity that was weightless. It could change directions without the hauling, air‐dragging lunges of an Imperial fighter. Most impressive of all, grav‐dampeners seemed to change the interior air pressure and speed. It felt as if they were not moving at all; there was no hint of velocity or momentum. Even standing in the fluted cockpit, unable to fit into any of the seats, Barsabbas did not budge as the Impaler soared.

According to his helmet’s onboard display, the craft was travelling at supersonic speeds of Mach four‐point‐five, but Barsabbas estimated they were going hypersonic; his power armour simply did not register faster momentum.

Gumede, terrified of the ordeal, was splayed out on the decking in the craft’s bottom.

Face to the padded flooring, nails digging into the soft polyfoam, the chief’s eyes were closed. Barsabbas guessed he had never seen an atmospheric flier before, let alone been on board one. His cowardice, in Barsabbas’s mind, was distracting and the Chaos Space Marine ignored him.

They crossed the northern badlands and overshot a narrow dust lake. From their vantage point, the pollution of Nurgle was revealed in its fullness. The intruders had poisoned, sickened and befouled everything.

The further northwards they flew, the more jaundiced the sky became. It was thick with a mustard smog that left threads of heavy pigmented vapour in the clouds. Sometimes it rained and when it did, the downpour was brown like water from a disused and rusting tap. Even with the air‐vents locked and the internal vacuum of the ship pressurised, Barsabbas could smell the faint odour of ageing, the sepulchral smell of organic matter falling apart prematurely, of rocks and plant life disintegrating to dust.

The ship’s hololith projection of the topography showed almost zero plant or animal life. The mass graves of talon squall and caprid were illuminated as ghost images of bones breaking the monotony of the plains. Surface radiation was detected by the ship’s atmospheric reports, a steep increase the closer they flew to Ur.

As the presence of the invaders grew stronger, Barsabbas felt increasingly disconnected with himself and his Chapter. He was on his own. The Traitor Marine let that thought seep in. He had hoped to find Sargaul, but with Sargaul gone, Barsabbas was entirely alone. He allowed the feeling to enrage him, to nurture the despondency into a vengeful rage.

Gammadin had preached about harnessing emotions as opposed to wasting them. He nurtured his hate and soon he forgot all about the dust and ageing and emptiness of the plains. Thinking only in terms of kill count and ammunition ratio, Barsabbas prepared himself to enter Ur.

THE CAULDRON BORN had been full of life. Its flank had twinkled with the ship lights of activity, from the release of gases, from the over‐venting of the engines, the hazard lights of ship dock, The daily test firing of batteries.

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But slowly, like an ailing man, the Cauldron Born was dying. Section by section, the ship’s lights became dark as the vessel trembled. As a living machine, the Cauldron Born was suffering. Its ventilation systems were blocked by mucus. The warp engines became weak and lethargic, consuming more and more power just to remain at anchor.

Like the ship, entire galleries of slaves, the backbone of the space hulk, were falling to disease. Their habitation warrens were heady with the muffled heat of illness. Little by little, the lights switched off and the corridors dimmed as sections of the ship fell into disuse. The slaves who lived there were no longer. Nurgle had entered the vessel like a virus, spreading disease and wasting it away.

Many slaves were reduced to eating scraps as the vast food stores rotted supernaturally fast. The ship’s hydroponic fungus farms, the mainstay of their diet, mutated, the edible mushrooms becoming pulsating, monstrous things. Stories were told of the vile, psychotropic poisons that affected victims who ate them.

Perhaps the greatest change was the deliberate dismantling of the Blood Gorgons as a functional fighting force. From the dungeons, in slow piecemeal fashion, the Blood Gorgons were released to crew their ship. Unfamiliar with the workings of the ship, Opsarus’s Legion allowed the Blood Gorgons back into the fold, not as masters but as crew.

The objective was to divide them, split them: segregate and neuter their ability to communicate, organise and unify. Companies were broken down into lonely squads, dispatched to crew distant peripheries of the ship.

Some squads were relegated to maintain the warp engines, overseen by armed Plague Marines. Many were forced to perform the menial tasks of crewing surveillance systems or maintaining the ship’s bridge.

When the Blood Gorgons were not utilising their combat‐honed bodies for menial slavery, they attended indoctrination sessions. The high priests of Nurgle delivered fiery rhetoric about the divinity of decay. They forced the Blood Gorgons to kneel and pray for the poxes and plague of the Old Grandfather.

Many outright refused, preferring to die than face the ignominy of slavery. The riots continued. There was an attempt by Squad Archeme to reach the weapon vaults via the air circulation ducts. Several minor resistances were attempted, but without organisational capacity, each was a needless casualty.

The Blood Gorgons were no longer caged, but they were just as imprisoned. Their proud fighting companies fragmented – disarmed, controlled and infiltrated. Under this assault, there were those among the Chapter who openly admitted that the Blood Gorgons were no more.

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