Blood of Asaheim

Chapter Twelve



Ahlja Yemue woke up. Her eyes opened lazily, bleary with mucus. It was hard to open her eyes. She would have preferred to sleep. Sleep was all she had wanted to do for a while. The pain was less when she slept, even though the dreams were bad.

But she couldn’t sleep. Not now. The itching compelled her. It made her limbs restive and her mind fractious. She needed to move. She had something to do.

Ahlja pushed her coverlet down. It smelled bad and was heavy with sweat. The mattress under her was damp and hot. The room around her was thick with flies.

That wasn’t good. She didn’t like flies. Why were they there? She should have cleaned up. She was a good cleaner, the most fastidious in her hab.

At some point the flies had got in and they hadn’t left. She didn’t remember when. Remembering anything was hard. Why was remembering anything hard?

She swung her feet over the edge of the bunk and tottered upright. She was thirsty. Her throat felt furry and baked. Swallowing was painful.

Ahlja looked at the window and winced. Strong sunlight burned away at the edges of the blinds. It looked like late afternoon outside. She shouldn’t have been sleeping in the day. There was work to be done. It was lazy.

Work to be done. Work to be done.

Her mind seemed to run in circles. Whenever she tried to think of something new, the same old thoughts would cycle around and around.

Get up. Get up. Get up. Work to be done.

Ahlja shambled into the washroom. Her feet ached. They looked swollen. She wouldn’t be able to squeeze them into her shoes. She’d have to go outside barefoot. That would be embarrassing. Helod would see her like that. She’d gossip about it. Hateful Helod. Why were her feet so swollen? Some misfortune must have occurred.

She reached the basin and stared into the cracked mirror above it. She didn’t remember it breaking. It looked as if someone had thrown something at the glass, trying to shatter it.

Ahlja looked at herself.

Holy Throne. I look…

Get up. Get up. Work to be done.

She looked away. It wasn’t nice, seeing all those things on her face. She rubbed her hands across her belly, feeling the flesh sway and bulge.

She was running to fat. Really, badly, running to fat.

She felt sick. She need to drink something. She needed to eat something.

She stumbled into the next room. No food there. Just her living area, tatty and smelly and buzzing with flies. The floor was covered in stains. One corner had a pile of drying, caking vomit in it. Other parts were worse.

I should clean this up. Very soon. Just need to find the time.

She kept walking, swaying heftily under her nightshirt, wincing as the material scraped across her lesions. Her feet trod through puddles of sticky liquid.

No time now. No time now. No time now.

She ran her hands over her hips. She felt the swollen curves there, pressing up against her nightshirt. So bloated, so uncomfortable, like something was trying to push its way out. How long had it been like that? She couldn’t remember.

She did remember the man, though, the one who’d been helping her. He’d been nice. What was his name?

It doesn’t matter. Work to be done.

She’d appreciated his kindness. He’d been very good to her, offering the balm that soothed the worst of the rashes and making the spiced tea that had cleared her head a little and patiently winding the bandages around her sores on her calves and arms and neck. He’d been there for her ever since she’d first got sick. He’d never left her. So attentive. So kind, even if he’d always smelled strange.

Perhaps that tea had made her stomach swell.

Ahlja pushed open the door and limped down the stairs. The air was cleaner outside her hab-unit. The communal corridor was free of all the muck on her floor. That was shameful. The others had got ahead of her. Helod would be gossiping already, holding her nose and pointing at her doorway with spiteful eyes.

It doesn’t matter. Work to be done. Work to be done.

She reached the outside door and pushed against it. Sunlight flooded over her, blinding her, making her head throb. She felt dizzy and leaned against the frame. She could hear people talking and jostling around her.

They were in the street, those people. She’d gone out into the street wearing her nightdress. Why was she doing that? It was indecent.

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

She kept walking. The sunlight hurt her eyes so she kept one hand over them. It was hard to walk. The stones in the street cut her skin. She felt the sores on her soles burst, popping open and spilling their fluids. She felt her belly sway. Throne, she really had got fat. It was embarrassing.

She heard people gagging around her. She opened her fingers a little, just a crack, to see what was going on. They were running away from her, or pointing at her with disgust on their faces, or laughing.

That almost made her stop. Why were they laughing? Why were they disgusted? Should she go back, clean herself up? Why was she even in the street in her nightshirt?

It doesn’t matter. You have work to do. You have important work to do. They do not matter. They do not matter.

She kept going. She didn’t like it when her mind cycled. If she just kept going, her mind cycled less.

Then she heard shouting. She heard a woman screaming, and she heard men crying something over and over again. She didn’t like that. It upset her. She broke into a run, which was difficult on her cut feet and with her sagging belly.

Do it now. Do it now. Do it now.

Do what? Why was her mind cycling again?

She picked up speed, bumping and jostling against the walls around her. She stumbled over a drain-cover, nearly pitching headfirst into the dust of the road. The sunlight made it so hard to see. She didn’t know where she was. Near the cathedral? She hoped so – she liked the cathedral. The priests had blessed her there, three times, maybe more. So hard to remember.

‘Stay where you are!’

The voice was like a woman’s, though horrifying; monstrously loud. Ahlja spun round, opening her fingers.

She saw a monster coming at her, running after her: a huge, tall monster, clad in black armour and wreathed in fire. She saw the monster carrying an enormous metal weapon that smoked and spat from its muzzle. She saw the people scattering away from the monster, breaking away from her, sprinting up the street, screaming and falling.

Do it now. Do it now.

Do what? She got very scared. The monster was almost on her. She dropped her hands from her face, squinting around her, trying to work out where she was.

She saw a holy brass aquila, hung up over the lintel of a doorway. She heard the hum of machinery behind rockcrete walls. She saw narrow, barred windows.

Then she knew where she was. She was outside the power plant, the substation that fed the district, no more than a hundred paces from her own little hab.

Do it now. Do it now.

The monster skidded to a halt in front of her. It was less than five metres away. Ahlja saw the horrific mask over its face, the swirling cloak, the cracked heart on its breast. It lowered its gun at her.

Suddenly, Ahlja knew what was going to happen. After so long being sick and bleary and muffled, she knew exactly what came next. She tried to swallow it down, but it was too late.

Well done.

Sister Honorata was thrown back as the subject exploded. The fat woman’s foul body, riddled with its diseases and unnatural tumours, blasted apart with horrifying speed and force. Bile-laced flames cascaded up and over the walls around her, shattering brickwork, cracking metal, hurling masonry in all directions. The streetscape briefly became a blizzard of debris and fractured rockcrete.

It took a few moments for the carnage to clear. Smoke billowed up from the blast-centre, fed by smouldering piles of rubble. Puddles of blood boiled and bubbled amid the destruction. The power plant wall remained intact, though only barely. A gouge ran across its length, exposing metal shielding within.

Honorata picked herself up from the floor, tasting blood in her mouth. Her vision cleared. She hefted her flamer in bruised hands and advanced carefully towards the charred crater-edge.

‘Notify,’ she voxed into the comm, sweeping the muzzle of her flamer across the blast site. At either end of the street, terrified civilians were already emerging from behind whatever cover they’d been able to find. ‘Another bomb-drone. Rejez-district power plant, intersection of Yemn main-route and south-west cathedral approach.’

‘Understood,’ same the reply from the Halicon. The comm-operator’s voice was clipped. She sounded stressed. ‘Damage report? Did you get it?’

‘Negative.’ Honorata stepped through the wreckage, listening and watching carefully. The equipment within the plant seemed to be working. The whine of the generators might have been a bit more strained than usual, but she was no expert. ‘Target managed to detonate. Minimal damage, but get a tech-team down here. If this thing blows, we do have a problem.’

‘Acknowledged. Support on its way. Remain in position, Sister.’

A fresh commotion broke out at the far end of the street. Honorata looked up. Some of the civilians had started moving again. Fresh shouting broke out.

Her eyes narrowed. She blink-activated her helm’s zoom-lens. A crowd was forming, spilling into the street from the mouth of a big hab-unit further down. One of the civilians was moving strangely, reeling unsteadily on bowed legs. His grey tongue lolled from an open mouth.

‘Negative,’ she snapped, thumbing the flamer back into life. ‘I’ve got another one. Just get that team down here.’

Then she broke into a run, screaming at the crowd to get out of her way, aiming the flamer carefully and judging when to fire.

She’d erred back then. She’d cared too much about collateral damage to open fire when she should have done. The time had passed for such sensitivity – things were getting out of hand. Plague-carriers were emerging from everywhere, bursting out of their stinking dens as if summoned by silent, coordinated commands.

So Sister Honorata ran harder this time, feeling the flamer weigh heavily in her gauntlets. Her jaw clenched, her finger rested easily over the trigger.

This time would be different. This one wouldn’t live long enough to swallow.

Ingvar heard the distant explosions go off before Bajola did. He stiffened immediately, gauging direction. As he did so, another one detonated, closer to the cathedral, near enough for her to pick up.

‘What is–’ she started, but Ingvar was already moving.

‘It’s started,’ he said grimly, striding over to the doorway.

Bajola came after him. She was out of her armour and carried no weapon.

‘Already?’ she asked. Her unguarded voice betrayed a note of unease. ‘Last report said they were days away.’

Ingvar paused before the lintel and shot her a dry smile.

‘Fought the plague-damned before, Sister?’ he asked.

Bajola shook her head.

‘They carry weapons other than cleavers,’ Ingvar said. ‘The contagion spreads. They’ll plant seeds of sickness here, hoping they’ll take root. They’ll pump toxins into the air and poison your water. They’ll recruit the slack-minded with whispered promises in the dark. They’ll reduce this place to infighting and disease before they come in sight of your walls.’ He reached for his helm. ‘I’ve seen it before. This is where the battle starts.’

He lifted his helm into place and secured the seals. He saw proximity markers scroll down his retinal display overlaid with moving pack runes. His brothers were already on the prowl.

Strange. Gunnlaugur hadn’t summoned him.

‘Then I’ll need my armour,’ said Bajola, her expression hardening. The uncertainty in her gestures faded quickly, replaced by a tight, disciplined resolve.

‘You will,’ said Ingvar, turning away from her and striding out of the chamber. The stairs wound down in their well, twisting into darkness. ‘You should seal the cathedral. You should clear those crowds too.’

Bajola followed him down.

‘If you wait, we could fight together,’ she said.

Ingvar halted. He turned to face her. Bajola looked suddenly self-conscious.

‘I mean, we…’ She trailed off. ‘My armour takes time to fit.’

Ingvar gazed down at her. In his battle-plate he towered over her. She was a slight, slim woman. In her robes she looked impossibly frail.

He felt a strange impulse then, the first stirrings of something like… protectiveness. He felt that if she should come to harm he would regret it.

Unusual, to think that. Possibly unworthy.

‘The fight has started,’ he said, turning back. ‘I cannot wait. If given leave, I will come back.’

Noises of running, of consternation and alarm, were already filtering up from the cathedral’s nave.

Bajola hurried after him.

‘We could use you here, Space Wolf.’

Ingvar winced. He was Fenryka, a Sky Warrior, a Son of Russ. Space Wolf was what off-worlders called them, transfixed by their totems and fang-tight jawlines and black-pinned eyes.

‘If Hjortur were alive to hear you say that,’ he said, ‘he’d knock you cold, mortal or no.’

‘Who?’

Of course. He’d not mentioned the name.

‘Hjortur Bloodfang. The one who used to lead us. The one I was telling you about.’

Bajola stopped walking. Ingvar glanced over his shoulder and caught the look of surprise frozen across her features. For a moment, her ebony face looked almost grey.

‘Mean something to you?’ he asked.

Bajola shook her head. As she did so, another explosion rang out. It felt like it came from just the other side of the cathedral walls. The stone around them shivered, and lines of dust trickled down from the ceiling.

‘You’re right,’ she said, pushing past him and hastening down the stairwell towards the doors at its base. ‘This thing has started. We’ve talked for long enough.’

Ingvar followed her. He wasn’t a fool. That had been recognition on her face. Such a thing was not quite impossible – Járnhamar had fought across hundreds of worlds and with dozens of allies – but it was almost vanishingly unlikely.

Bajola reached the doors and shoved them open. Just as she was about to go through, out into the body of the cathedral, she swivelled to face Ingvar.

‘You got here just in time,’ she said. Her voice had a strange, sardonic edge to it. ‘Just before the fighting started. Strange, eh?’

Ingvar drew dausvjer. He could hear growing commotion from beyond the cathedral confines.

‘It was my wyrd to be here,’ he said. ‘Just as it was yours.’

Bajola smiled dryly. ‘Maybe you’re right.’ She looked squarely up at him. Her expression was an odd mix of defiance and amusement. ‘I do need more faith.’

The smell of burning rose up into Ingvar’s nostrils then, barely filtered by his helm’s intake grille. Screaming broke through the bustling tumult of the crowds outside. He felt his heart-rate begin to pick up, already preparing for the exertions to come.

Her manner had become strange. There was no time now, but he would need to speak to Bajola again.

‘When I am gone, seal everything,’ he said. ‘Begin your siege preparations. Kill any among you who show signs of plague. And clear those damn crowds.’

He pushed past her, out of the doors and into the nave beyond. Already his helm-display was giving him targets.

‘And you’ll come back?’ Bajola called out after him.

‘Count on it,’ he growled, kicking dausvjer’s disruptor into life and breaking into a run.

Váltyr paused for a moment, driving the tip of holdbítr into the soft earth and leaning on it. The sun began to dip over the roofs of Hjec Aleja, presaging the end of the long, hot afternoon.

For all the sweat and grime that caked his exposed skin, he wasn’t tired. He wasn’t close to being tired. With the steady lessening of the heat the streets had become good hunting grounds. The contagion was in its first stages – still sporadic, still isolated – and its victims hadn’t succeeded in grouping together in any numbers.

Still, the process had only just started. Parts of the lower city were already burning, sending dirty columns of smoke into the clear sky. Plenty of plague-nests still existed, fomenting filth and pestilence in forgotten corners. Váltyr knew, just as they all knew, that they were ready to burst, scattering their foul incubated contents into the seamy air.

Ahead of him stretched a series of tumbledown, metal-framed warehouses, all in various states of disrepair, all huge and blunt against the deepening sky. The streets between them were sunk in shadows and thick with brown dust. Their walls were caked with a scouring patina of drifting sand that lodged in the detail of the metalwork. Váltyr had already uncovered one cluster of plague-carriers nestled within the district; he was sure there were more. In such semi-derelict, barely patrolled parts of the lower city the conditions were ideal for the incubation of proto-mutancy.

He inclined his head a little, stilling his breathing, letting his armour-hum die down with inactivity, listening.

He didn’t pick it up immediately. The noise was just on the edge of detection, buried deep, muffled by walls and hanging dust and distance.

But his ears, like those of all his brothers, were sharp. He smiled, bringing holdbítr back into guard, watching the metal glint as the blade whirled into position. Then he started, silently, to move.

He slipped along the narrow alleyway between two warehouses, and the shadows slid over him like liquid. Twenty paces ahead to his left a wall section was broken. He saw a corrugated metal panel peeled away from its housings, hanging like a flap of skin from a wound and shivering in the cooling air. The noise became clearer as he neared the source – rattling breath, irregular and rheumy, the soft brush of clammy skin against cloth. More than one pair of lungs was working. Bodies were huddled together, clustered tightly on the far side of the damaged wall.

Váltyr paused and sniffed, flaring his nostrils. The note of honeyed decay was unmistakable. Mortal sickness did not have that stench, not even when gangrene had set in or the flesh had turned rotten. The sufferers of such unnatural illness learned to love the sweetness. They no longer wanted to be cured. They would caress their own lesions and pustules, squeezing them gently and watching the bile ooze thickly between their fingers. Once that stage was reached, all they really feared was death. Death brought the end of the blissful pain, the suffering they’d come to love. Even in the misery of plague-raddled weakness they would fight to stay alive, just to stretch the odorous agony a little longer, just to revel in it for a moment more.

Váltyr crouched beside the breach in the wall, moving carefully, estimating numbers. A dozen, maybe, all close at hand, all unaware of his presence.

Easy prey.

With a sudden jolt from his armour, he pounced, bursting through the ragged gap and plunging into the cavernous interior. The clang of falling metal echoed as pieces bounced around him. He whirled around, catching sight of a cluster of plague-thick bodies huddled against the near wall, wrapped in filthy bandages and nuzzling against one another like a brood of rats. As soon as they saw him they broke, scampering and scuttling away on all-fours.

He was far, far quicker. The first one to die never made a sound – holdbítr cleaved her from head to waist in a single flashing stroke, carving through her ribcage and scattering it in a clatter of bones.

Another one darted across the floor at his feet, panting like a dog, frantic with fear. Váltyr twisted back to jab, and the mutant’s swollen head rolled into the dust, neatly cut from his bloated body.

He never stopped moving, switching from one stroke to the next in the space of a thought, lashing out smoothly as more of the plague-bearers scurried for cover. Every strike was perfectly aimed and weighted: cleaving necks, cutting muscle, going for the efficient kill, the swordsman’s deadly figures. The only sounds were his victim’s strangled cries, ringing out into the darkness in an overlapping mess of surprise and terror.

‘Nineteen,’ he breathed, adding to the tally of the day. ‘Twenty. Blood of Russ, more than I thought.’

The floor became sticky with blood. He slaughtered with ruthless speed, felling most before they’d got more than a few paces away from him. Only a few managed to break clear of the initial assault, racing off into the dark, squealing like startled swine.

He went after them, loping across the cracked rockcrete floor, holding his blade low. There was nowhere for them to go. Their shuffling, stuttering footfalls echoed into the open spaces, giving their location away. Váltyr swooped on the first runner, a man with weeping white eyes and a glowing rash around his obese neck. Holdbítr flickered and he collapsed to the ground, his sore-tight stomach carved open in a single gaping slash.

Váltyr swept across the warehouse interior like a vengeful spectre. He knew he was almost invisible to them in the dark, picked out only by his helm lenses, which hovered in the shadows, and the shimmer of his blade as it whirled.

He liked that. He liked to think of his enemies convulsing with terror even before he came into cutting range.

Three more were struck down in the next few seconds, their cries ended in sudden, gurgling coughs of blood-choked surprise. After that only one set of running feet still rang out across the floor towards the far walls. Váltyr sprinted after it, fixing his eyes on a lone, shambling mutant ahead.

He came within blade-range, hearing the plague-damned man wheeze with fear even as he drew his sword round for the killing blow. He could smell the man’s corruption, his fear, his desperation to escape.

He brought holdbítr down savagely, fast as ever, watching the monomolecular edge whistle towards its prey’s spine…

…and miss.

Unbelievably, the plague-ravaged man leapt clear at the last moment, scrambling away from the blade. The killing-edge snicked his robes, slicing free a scrap of dirty fabric, but didn’t cut into flesh.

Váltyr almost lost his footing. It was inexcusable. Embarrassing.

‘I would have killed you quickly, little man!’ he roared, thundering after his prey’s scuttling outline. ‘Now you suffer!’

The man moved incredibly quickly. His flesh looked wasted, all skin and bone under flapping robes. He reached the far wall of the warehouse and frantically scrabbled for a way out. He found one – a corroded metal door hanging by its hinges. He slammed into it and the lock broke open; then he tore through the gap and out into the alley beyond.

Váltyr spat a curse and followed him through. Once outside he swung around, expecting to see the man scampering down the narrow streets ahead of him. Instead the plague-bearer’s body lay at his feet, twisted in the dust, his robes dark with blood and filth. Standing over the corpse, towering into the darkening air, was a warrior in pearl-grey armour carrying a mighty warhammer one-handed.

‘Careless, brother,’ admonished Gunnlaugur, shaking the blood from the hammer’s head.

Váltyr bristled, his blood still pumping. ‘He was lucky.’

Gunnlaugur gestured towards the warehouse. ‘All cleansed in there?’

Váltyr nodded.

‘Good,’ said Gunnlaugur, sounding satisfied. ‘I’ll summon a burn-team.’

He pressed his boot to the man’s sore-mottled skull, and pressed down. The bone caved in with a limp crack, splattering white-flecked gore across the dust.

‘Walk with me, sverdhjera,’ he said, moving off down the alleyway.

Váltyr followed him. The two of them strode back through the warren of dusty streets around the warehouses. Ahead of them, golden in the failing light, reared the outcrop of the mountainous upper city.

‘Outbreaks everywhere,’ said Gunnlaugur grimly. His armour bore the evidence of fighting – streaks of wind-dried pus and slime across his gauntlets and breastplate. ‘It’ll get worse once night falls.’

‘The Sisters can cope,’ said Váltyr.

‘I’m sure they can.’

Gunnlaugur stopped walking and lowered his head.

‘Have you spoken to the Gyrfalkon since we made planetfall?’ he asked.

Váltyr shrugged. ‘Not much.’

‘What do you make of him?’

Váltyr hesitated before replying. Since the practice-duel on the Undrider he’d not given much thought to Ingvar.

‘He fights like he used to,’ he said.

‘You think so?’ asked Gunnlaugur. ‘That’s not what I saw.’

Váltyr sighed. ‘What do you want me to say? If he’s changed, we all have.’

Gunnlaugur remained motionless. It was impossible to read the expression behind his bloody helm mask.

‘I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d spoken against him. Yours was the only rune-sword in Járnhamar. Now there are two. You need to know this, though: you are my blademaster, my right arm of vengeance. That has not changed.’

Váltyr didn’t know what to make of that. He hadn’t asked for reassurance. The fact that it was being offered at all gave him pause.

‘Glad to hear it,’ he said.

Gunnlaugur started walking again.

‘We’ve got to get out of this city,’ he muttered. ‘Hunting this scum is weary work.’

‘Just say the word, vaerangi,’ said Váltyr, following him. ‘We’ll all follow you out.’

‘No.’ The finality in Gunnlaugur’s voice was sudden. ‘Not all of you. I don’t want Ingvar with us. I don’t want him questioning orders. I don’t want him slowing us down. Skítja, I don’t want him there at all.’

Váltyr didn’t like hearing that. It was not the way of the pack: Ingvar had behaved strangely since his return, sure, but he had been back only a few short weeks. There was time for that to change, for his old self to re-emerge.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked. Gunnlaugur answered him with a snarl.

‘It is my judgement,’ he said. ‘You, me, Olgeir, Baldr and the whelp – we’ll conduct this raid. Ingvar can stay here with Jorundur and stiffen the resolve of the Sisters. Russ knows there’s plenty to keep them busy.’

Váltyr shook his head. ‘He won’t like it,’ he said.

‘He doesn’t have to.’ Gunnlaugur swung his hammer menacingly as he walked. The head of it rolled like a pendulum in the gloom. ‘But I need you to support me. I have your word?’

Váltyr didn’t like that either. In fifty-seven years Gunnlaugur had never asked him to support anything. He’d just gone ahead and acted – that was the way of things. Now, without warning, that seemed to have changed. It was as if all Gunnlaugur’s certainty, his famed pride and justified battle-arrogance, was eroding before his eyes.

For a moment, Váltyr felt like protesting, arguing Ingvar’s case, standing up for the unity of a broken brotherhood.

But he didn’t. He looked across at Gunnlaugur, noticing the pent-up frustration in the warrior’s shoulder-roll, the over-tight grip on the warhammer, the almost imperceptible stiffness in his long stride, and thought better of it.

Perhaps it was for the best. A hunt – a clean hunt with no dissension – would clear the air.

‘You always have my support,’ said Váltyr, haltingly, trying to inject more certainty into his voice than he felt.

‘Good,’ said Gunnlaugur bluntly, sounding like he’d been given what he needed. ‘Then let’s get it over with. We meet at the Ighala Gate.’

‘And then?’ asked Váltyr.

Gunnlaugur let slip a low, snagging growl.

‘Then we break out of this shithole,’ he said, ‘and bring Hel to the enemy.’