Lord of the Night

Little wonder that the vindictor precinct owed more in its architecture to some medieval fortress than to the industrial anarchy surrounding it. A perfect cube, it bristled with obvious and massive ordnance, much of it trained on the largest of the cavernous openings into the underworld that dotted the Cuspseal's boundaries: a portal its builders had shrewdly positioned it beside. Tramlines and suspended walkways ringed it on every side, rising in metallic layers that thronged with heavily-cloaked workers.

It had taken Mita three hours to descend this far from the upper spire, riding a succession of increasingly decrepit elevators reserved for authorised personnel. Such was the reality of hive life: the sequential tiers represented not only a geographical strata but a division of status — the princely affluence of the upper tiers supported itself on a gallery of decreasing wealth. At its base the hive was a pit of destitution.

Arriving in the centre of Cuspseal's noxious sprawl hot and irritated by the constant checking of papers, Mita was not in the mood to suffer further indignity.

'This,' she snapped, when finally Commander Orodai entered the anteroom in which she'd been waiting, shadowed by a pair of vindictor sergeants and an aide, 'is intolerable.'

Orodai had the look of a man who had resigned himself to receiving an earbattering. 'Yes,' he said wearily. 'I'm sure it is.'

He was an old man, if indeed his face accurately reflected his age. Where others in his position might have opted for rejuve treatments or augmetic components, his features betrayed the sort of leathered erosion rarely glimpsed in high-ranking personnel. As a member of the Adeptus Arbitus, and therefore operating entirely exclusively of the hive's administration, his command was arguably second only — if not equal — to that of the governor himself. For all that, he was a small man in bland clothing, whose psychic emissions betrayed no sense of self-importance. Mita's overriding impression from his warp-presence was of an impressive dedication to his vocation. Still, decorum must be observed.

'I've been waiting two hours!' she barked, stabbing at the air with a finger. 'The inquisitor will hear of this!'

Orodai arched an eyebrow. 'I dare say he hears of everything else.' He offered her a bundle of parchments, which she snatched with bad grace. 'In any case, it couldn't be helped. Your documents required confirmation and your companion was... unhelpful.'

Ah yes, she thought, my companion...

'Your men called him an ogryn.'

'And?'

'And that wasn't a good idea.'

'No?'

'No. Last time he met an ogryn it kept calling him Tiny.'

Orodai had the look of a man clutching at straws. 'And that was a problem?'

'Not really. It stopped when he pulled off its arms. I demand that you release him.'

Orodai's expression contrived to suggest that she was in no position to be making ''demands'' but he nodded thoughtfully and gestured to the aide. The man scurried away, oozing reluctance. Mita could well imagine why.

'Under normal circumstances we wouldn't allow his... kind in the city,' Orodai said, stroking his grey beard. Though perhaps circumstances are not "normal"'

'You forget,' Mita retorted, 'that it was you who invited the Inquisition's assista—'

'Actually, we invited the inquisitor's assistance, not that of his lackey and her pet, but let's not split hairs.'

Mita's outraged rebuff was spectacularly postponed.

The door parted with its hinges and her companion entered.

Loudly.

His name was Cog, and he was human — broadly speaking. Whatever feral world had sired him had been isolated for millennia, denied the purifying light of the Emperor's influence, and its sparse population had stagnated in a downward spiral of inbreeding and corruption.

Still human, if only just.

Cog and his kin had grown massive. Shunning the need for higher thought, rapid evolution had seen their skins grow thick, their brows brachiate, their chests barrel. Over long centuries of clambering through forests their arms had elongated and formed secondary elbows, their legs had shortened and their hands had grown massive.

Kaustus had found Cog in the slaughterpits of Tourelli Planis, where he was goaded by his captives with energised spears and electroflails, forced to grapple a succession of beasts and automata for the crowd's amusement. His hands had been taken from him, replaced with crude bionics. Watching the giant enter the ring with a tribal prayersong to the Emperor, Kaustus had been impressed with his piety as well as his physique, and had purchased him from the slavers for a princely sum.