Lord of the Night

For a moment she looked as though she might cut her own throat. Sahaal found himself gratified by her discomfort.

'My apologies, lord. I did not mean offence...'

'These "vindictors". They are in the employ of the Imperium?'

'Y-yes my lord.'

'And they have no reason to come here?'

'No, my lord.'

The truth sagged into Sahaal's mind.

They are hunting me. They have my trail.

Something akin to nervousness passed through him, then, but seemed mixed perversely with a measure of excitement. After so long, after such care and secrecy, it was almost a pleasure to face enemies openly.

And in a moment of inspiration, slicing into his consciousness like a blade from the heavens, the solution came to him.

'They are corrupt,' he said, standing. Chianni staggered backwards, dwarfed.

'M-my lord?'

'Listen carefully. You will struggle to believe me.'

'I... I will believe what you tell me, my lo—'

'I was sent here at the Emperor's own command, condemnitor. Do you believe that?'

She sunk to her knees as if struck, mouth agape.

'Ave Imperator! ' she shrieked, overcome.

'Stand, child. We haven't much time.'

She glanced upward with the look of a drunkard.

'I was sent here because this world has fallen from the light of Terra. It is consumed by corruption. From tip to base, only impurity remains.'

'But... but this is...' She gasped for air, like a fish removed from water, and for a brief instant Sahaal found himself pitying her. Her entire universe must be crumbling around her.

'Equixus has fallen to Chaos, child, and there are few of the Emperor's faithful that remain.'

She vomited, clutching at her belly, moaning in horror.

'No...' she whispered, drool sagging from her lips. 'It's not true... it's not true... it's not true...'

'Stand!' Sahaal gripped her collar and yanked her upright like a heap of rags, leaving her tottering in a fugue of terror and misery.

'I don't understand, my lord! T-there was no war! No invasion!'

'You underestimate the ruinous powers. There was no invasion, only infection. The taint spreads like disease. The governor is corrupted. His house and barons are lost to the dark. And piece by piece the purity of this hive is sundered.'

'But... but...'

'I was sent to assess the extent of the corruption,' he said, lies pouring so easily from his mouth. 'I was sent to discover if any of the Emperor's faithful remained.'

'We do, lord! We do!' she almost sang the words, arms raised above her head, delirious with shock.

'You do,' Sahaal nodded, 'and I have found you. And now... now these false servants of the Emperor, these "vindictors", who make a mockery of all that was pure, have descended to crush us all. We must stop them. Do you understand, condemnitor? The Emperor Himself has spoken! We must stop them!'

The intruders' vehicles were familiar, at least. Coiling their way through the Steel Forest, they made light work of the debrisflows around the ducts' bases: Chimera-class chasses, albeit lacking the artillery mounts and dozer-scoops of their forebears. He had once orchestrated the advances of legions of their kind, savaging the enemy with his Raptor packs whilst the guns of the Chimerae battered their flanks. It seemed somehow ludicrous that he should now find himself opposing such familiar machines, accompanied only by a mob of zealots devoted to his enemy's worship.

This time his master's voice echoed almost whimsically through his memories, and he fought a brief surge of affront in its implied disapproval.

How the mighty are fallen, it said, over and over, like a mantra in his soul.

The intruders rounded the final corner in their approach to the Shadowkin lair and Sahaal returned his mind to the present: there was an ambush to oversee.

Forewarned, the Shadowkin attack was as devastating as any Sahaal had seen. Dressed for war, cloaked in tattered rags of black and red, with bones stitched to collars and stolen knuckles swinging on cords from sleeves, they were a grim sight: wraiths that slunk in the dark, skeletal trophies adorning their brows.

Sahaal waited until the first two vehicles had passed below before giving the signal to attack, a single swipe of his clawed fist, reflections flickering like a galaxy in the half-light.

The first hint of danger, a roiling pulse of electric sound and the shadow-stitching flare of a discharge, came far too late for the vindictors.

That first carefully gauged blast from the Shadowkin's solitary lascannon, positioned at the edge of a high balcony, punched through the trailing vehicle's tracks like a fiery blade, gobbets of molten metal sputtering from the wound. The pilot's attempt to brake was as doomed as the vehicle itself: its track peeled, thrashing at the hull as it sluiced away, whipping back on itself at the last instant to slice the vindictor riding shotgun into two ragged halves.

First blood. Time seemed to stop.

Then the Shadowkin howled, like wolves after a kill.