Blood Gorgons

CHAPTER TWENTY‐TWO

ANKO MUHR HAD not expected the influence of Grandfather Nurgle to pervade so quickly. The God of Decay was generous to those who gave worship. The Cauldron Born was ailing, its ventilation wheezing like great bellows. Even the Witchlord’s own brothers would one day succumb to the persistent corruption of Nurgle when their wills were sufficiently broken.

Muhr, however, had welcomed the Lord of Decay openly.

Had his hand always been so black? He was certain it had not.

For as long as he could remember, Muhr’s ungloved hand had been that of a Blood Gorgon: pale white and deeply striated, with thick bones and the wiry muscle that bound them. It was not like that any more.

Muhr’s hand, when he held it up to his face, was entirely black. The skin itself was so dark it was almost waxen, but not the smooth beautiful black of ebony, it was the black of rot. He had not even noticed the change in colour until his fingernails had slid off his fingertips. Now his hand pulsated, the veins engorged with tarrish blood and swelling the walls of his skin. The changes Muhr had undergone were mesmerising. The gifts of Father Nurgle, the beautification of decay, were endlessly fascinating…

‘My sorcerer advisor. That has a measure of dignity to it, does it not?

Sorcerer.Advisor.The second of the Crow.’

Muhr turned to see Opsarus standing in his chambers without announcement. The Crow had a habit of doing so.

‘Nurgle favours you,’ Opsarus continued. ‘See the attention he invests in you?’

‘Yes,’ Muhr replied, hypnotised by his own hand.

‘Behold the floral magnificence of Nurgle. Budding flowers of flesh growth, the tessellating landscapes of mould spore. There is no beauty to the unadorned,’ Opsarus declared. ‘Nurgle is first and foremost an artist. Tzeentch, he is a mere mischief‐maker, and young Slaanesh no more than a libertine. Let us not even begin with the linear, narrow-minded aggression of Khorne.’

‘Nurgle nurtures,’ Muhr said. ‘But I do not know how openly my bonded brethren will appreciate the artistic mutations of Nurgle.’

Opsarus’s delighted tone changed suddenly. His voice lowered. ‘What do you mean?’

Muhr shook his head quickly. ‘I did not mean anything by it,’ he stammered. ‘But the Blood Gorgon companies. They may not be impressed by the physical changes that Nurgle has planned for them.’

Opsarus rose to his full height, his voice a slavering growl. ‘Of course they will. You would like it. Soon they will become like you. Like me. We are one. Nurgle will take the Blood Gorgons into the fold, whether they choose it or not.’

Muhr nodded. He stared at his black hand. Nurgle was claiming him because he had allowed Nurgle into his soul. But sooner or later, whether the Blood Gorgons wished it or not, the deathly presence of the Plague Marines would change them. The spores would spread into recycled air, the viruses would consume the space hulk. The very presence of Nurgle himself would eventually change them all.

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Opsarus appeared to calm down, his breath slowing to a rasp. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘We can be brothers in Nurgle together. You, I and all your brethren. There will be peace then.’

‘Of course, lord,’ Muhr agreed. ‘Of course.’

THE MOONS OF Hauts Bassiq were not distant beasts. They lingered shyly on the fringes of the sky, sulking behind the fiery light of their solar cousins. Small, brown and fretful, the half-dozen moons fussed across the sky, attempting to find any space, any gap that was not dominated by the harsh glare of day just so they could be seen.

It did not take long for the Harvester to locate the secondary moon of Hauspax once they left Bassiq’s toxic atmosphere behind. The moon was a slow‐moving orbiter, a fat disc that crawled across the sky when viewed from below. What could not be seen from below, however, but became clearly visible on the Harvester’s sensor, was the leviathan bulk of the Cauldron Born hiding behind the moon’s unseen side. Its massive energy output and warp engines lit up its presence like a miniature star. Even lurking behind the dark side of the moon, its energy signature was so radiant that it could have been picked up almost a subsector away by any armada scan.

It was a slow, steady affair to navigate the vessel by sensor scans alone. The ship’s glare shutters and void shields locked them in a cabin of low blue lighting. Cocooned by insulation, it shielded them from the boiling temperature and the retina‐scalding brightness of the proximate suns.

Despite their blind flight, Sindul proved to be a pilot of finesse. They circumvented the locust swarms of micrometeors that obstructed them. The xenos ship was light and comparatively fragile. Its void shields were not the thick‐skinned energy‐draining monsters favoured by human technology. It floated and spiralled away from oncoming high‐velocity rock fragments rather than meeting them head‐on, its shield shuddering briefly from hypersonic impacts with dust particles.

As they crested the moon’s hemisphere, the Cauldron Born’s shadow eclipsed the sky.

Here, even amongst the depthless expanse of space, the term ‘space hulk’ was entirely apt.

Like the hand of a god it reared its fingers across the moon’s horizon. Four thousand metres away, the cityscapes of twinkling lance batteries, torpedo banks and gun turrets welcomed them with a taut, breathless tension.

Although the broadsides were capable of dismantling continents, they were far too ponderous to harm the Harvester. Cloaked by refraction, the dark eldar ship pierced the Cauldron Born’s scans, registering as nothing more than tiny space debris.

As they approached the tectonic flanks of the Cauldron Born, Sindul sped up. Launch tubes that clustered the vast underbelly closed rapidly. The raiding craft darted into a tube like a mosquito, swallowed up by the enormous metal hide of the floating fortress.

IT WAS TOO fast to fly by sight.

The inner launch tube of the Cauldron Born’s flight passages became a blur, interrupted only by the strobe of overhead lights. Constructed to catapult raider craft from within the docking hangars, the tube’s guide markers were not clearly visible as the dark eldar vessel reduced speed to subsonic. Sindul navigated only by the sonar projection of his Impaler, guiding the craft with whisper‐soft touches.

By Barsabbas’s estimate, the Harvester was still going too fast. It was not meant to fly at such speeds. The wingtips barely cleared the tight confines of the entry valves. They 163

banked hard, swerving as they flew deeper into the Cauldron Born’s sealed hangars. A human craft could never have matched the sharp brakes and switches in air pressure.

Impressively, Sindul guided the craft in blind within the pitch‐black chute. As Barsabbas watched, he realised that perhaps the folklore was true. Perhaps all eldarkind, to some extent, were possessed of psychic abilities. Even looking two or three seconds into the future would allow Sindul to pre‐empt each turn, bend and elevation in their flight.

A gas main flashed over the cockpit. The overhead ceiling skimmed so close that it felt like they had hit an oil slick.

It seemed as if Sindul was fading. The dark eldar was shaking uncontrollably in his pilot’s sheath. As a Traitor Marine, Barsabbas had overlooked the physical and psychological ordeal he had forced upon his captive.

Yet still Sindul laboured on.

The Harvester finally slowed as it neared the Cauldron Born’s first atmospheric seal. It crashed then, as if entirely spent. It dropped, steadied and dropped again like an injured bird. Sindul only just managed to level out before the Harvester collided belly‐down. It bounced once and skidded, wings sheared by a wall as the ship spun axially on its underside.

Finally, with its rearward engines trailing flame, the ship came to a final, shuddering stop.

Barsabbas pushed the side hatch open and manoeuvred his shoulders out from the frame. Gammadin strode out after him, his ceramite‐fused body entirely unaffected by the landing. Without a word, the Ascendant Champion disappeared into the darkness of the launch tube’s hangar seal.

Pausing briefly, Brother Barsabbas stole one last look into the Harvester’s interior.

Under the flickering cabin glow, he could see Sindul’s body slumped in its cradle. As much as the creature had irked him, the dark eldar’s instinct to survive had impressed him. The utter lack of social conditioning, much like that of a Traitor Marine, meant the dark eldar could operate ruthlessly and without inhibition. That much at least was to be admired.

Giving Sindul an almost imperceptible little nod, Barsabbas left, following Gammadin into the dark.

SINDUL BREATHED UNSTEADILY.

If he could see himself now, Sindul imagined he would not be the handsome creature he had once been. His pared‐open face was smeared with a synthetic gel. Dried blood aproned the front of his chest and thighs. His hair framed wiry strands across his shoulders.

He did not want to look down. He already knew his legs were a mess. The grating pain in his femurs had dulled now, one of the last feelings he would remember.

Shaking uncontrollably, Sindul powered down the Harvester’s systems. Interior lights dimmed. Resting his head against the pilot’s cradle, he fought to stay awake.

THE SEPTIC INFANTRY squad clattered down the lightless launch tube, unmasking the shadows with clumsy floodlight. Striding ahead of the human infantry came Brother Pelgan, a shambling, rusting behemoth of Nurgle. Despite the calls and clicks of animals that lurked in the subterranean depths, Pelgan was by far the most fearsome thing in the region.

They made their way down into the abandoned extremities of the floating fortress. It was too dark to see what purpose these corridors once served, or where they led. In many 164

parts the ceiling had collapsed or the mesh decking simply fell away like a cliff‐face. Men stumbled often, sometimes a mere step away from some bottomless drop. It was difficult to imagine how large the Cauldron Born appeared from orbit, but within, Pelgan had learned to hate the enormity of its landscape. It was so easy to get lost.

It was for that same reason Pelgan had bemoaned his ill‐fortune when his squad sergeant forced him to investigate a foreign object that had breached the ship. It was likely no more than a small meteorite, attracted by the gravitational pull of the floating fortress.

Nonetheless, the Septic subordinates could not be entrusted to such a task. With the recent riots in the dungeons, Opsarus had become even more wary, ever more alert.

‘Bring that floodlight over here,’ Pelgan snapped impatiently. The Septic hauled the heavy lamp over to where Pelgan indicated and began to pan the light back and forth.

At first they saw nothing. The walls were caked with a patina of organic decay. Like an ossuary, the oxidised metal was honeycombed with fossilised plant life. Yet if Pelgan looked closely he could see gouges in the walls – high‐impact damage to parts of the ceiling where flora and decay had been ripped away to reveal the raw metal of the ship’s infrastructure beneath.

‘Over there,’ Pelgan said, checking his auspex again.

The floodlight captured something reflective in its beam. A long and fluted silhouette three times the length of a battle tank, yet organic in its sweeping profile. Its skin was the colour of a fresh bruise, mottled purple and black.

It took Pelgan a moment to recognise the unfamiliar shape of an alien vessel. Lying tilted on its side, exposing its wounded stomach with one snapped wing saluting upwards, the craft looked severely vulnerable.

Pelgan chortled. Finally, he thought, something worthy of investigation. He beckoned for the Septic infantry to follow. ‘Hurry now,’ he said as he closed in on the stranded craft.

PELGAN ENTERED THE gaping spacecraft slowly and cautiously. Nurgle had a peculiar method of execution in all things, which was evident in Pelgan’s approach. The Plague Marines proceeded slowly, creeping through the xenos craft’s unlit interior. Entering through the rear cargo ramp, Pelgan sent his Septic infantry ahead to probe for traps.

Judging by the residual stink of excrement and musk, Pelgan guessed that the hold of the craft had once been used to transport prisoners of war, perhaps even slaves.

As Pelgan edged forwards, the interior was rendered by his thermal imaging into unsettling alien shapes. There was an organic feel to the ship, as if its composition had been grown naturally from bone. Sweeping arches, ridged framework and smooth floors. Pelgan saw no sign of the carving, chopping and bolting so unique to human and orkoid construction.

Boots clopping softly, Pelgan entered the cockpit.

‘I was counting how long it would take you.’

The voice came from the pilot cradle facing away from Pelgan. His finger hovered over the trigger of his boltgun.

Strapped into what appeared to be a command seat, Pelgan recognised the figure of a dark eldar. But not like any eldar that Pelgan had encountered in the field of war. This one was dishevelled – pale, weak, bloodied. He did not need to know much about xenos physiology to know that the eldar was in significant pain.

‘I can’t believe you were stupid enough to come in…’ the dark eldar wheezed.

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Pelgan stepped back. ‘Your employment is no longer required, mercenary. Your payment is to be claimed on Hauts Bassiq. Why are you here? Answer me well, or I shall cut you up.’

The dark eldar’s head lolled weakly. His chest heaved up and down with each laborious breath. ‘You have less time than I…’

Pelgan’s honed battle instinct made him take another step back. ‘I will shoot now, mercenary. State your business.’

Suddenly, the ship’s power systems hummed back into life. Consoles blinked and overhead lights fluttered brightly. Garbled alien words were emitted from the cockpit.

The dark eldar fixed his gaze on Pelgan. His pupils were enlarged, indicating severe concussion or psychic brain trauma. ‘Better to die a traitor than die a slave. The Blood Gorgons, I’m sure, share that sentiment with me.’

The realisation startled Pelgan with a jolt. As far as he knew, eldar guarded their technology with a sacred reverence. Many of their machines were inhabited by the spirit stones of ancestors, eternally bound to the machine’s circuitry. No eldar would die and leave their ancestors in human hands. There must be a rational reason for the creature to come here and die.

The command console displays changed rapidly. There was a sequential pattern to the display. Numbers. Numbers counting down.

Pelgan turned his enormous bulk to run.

The console’s display blanked out. It blinked three times.

THE ENSUING EXPLOSION made the Cauldron Born cry in distress. The iron skeleton of its frame gurgled with a sonorous, keening protest. The blood vessels and throbbing capillaries that wound around the cables and pipes squirmed in agony.

On a gangway high up in a venting shaft, Barsabbas looked down. He knew, without any doubt, that the explosion was the Harvester’s self‐destruction. Far below, he saw a tiny ball of flame puff up, brief and exhilarating, before burning down into a tiny, flickering speck.

Sindul had played his part, Barsabbas at least could give him respect for that. As strange as the dark eldar species were, they had principles. Sindul preferred death over the shame of returning home as a scarred, branded slave. There was never hesitation or doubt. Sindul knew he could never escape Barsabbas. In a strange sense, Barsabbas considered Sindul had simply given up hope and preferred suicide.

‘These fanatic Templars of Nurgle will respond in full ponderous strength, as they always do,’ Gammadin said. ‘Our one advantage is terrain and knowledge of our own home.

For once, I do not know if that will suffice. ’

Barsabbas counted thirteen shots left in his clip and an empty ammunition sling. Sliding out his knotwork mace, Barsabbas climbed the gantry after Gammadin, leaving the twinkling wreckage of the Harvester behind.

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