Lord of the Night

As she left the room, feeling sick, a servitor twitched at her side and fixed its dead eyes on her face, a telescopic array of circuitry and shattered bone creaking forwards from its shoulder, pushing a miniature hivelink headset towards her.

'A call,' it announced, lugubrious mouth hanging slack around a voicebox embedded upon its long-dead tongue. 'The inquisitor requests y—'

'I'm not here,' Mita said, hurrying past. 'He's missed me.'

She left the chambers with bile in her throat, and tried to ignore the sounds of cheering from the viewspex gather-halls she passed as she went.

PART THREE EXODUS

Give me a child to teach with abacus and chalk and I shall give you a scholar. None but knowledge is his master.

Give me a child to mould with scripture and incense, and I shall give you a priest. For him divinity alone is worthy.

Give me a child to train with sword and shield, and I shall give you a warrior. His obedience is as fickle as his courage.

But give me a child to form as I see fit, with dagger and blade, with the blood of strangers upon his hand, and I shall give you a slave who will ask not for food nor wealth nor glory, and remain at your side throughout all his life.

Nothing forges loyalty like guilt and complicit bloodshed.

Extract from Inquis Tiros

Zso Sahaal

The underhive bared its necrotic breast to the knives that assaulted it, and poured its blood out onto cold stone streets.

The scouts were abroad, creeping in stealthy corners with eyes peeled and curiosity piqued, regarding each act of terror, each fiery calamity, each bloody attack, with insect fascination. And then one by one, slinking though soot-brick wastes, sliding silent feet along rusted ducts where no Preafect could see or hear, they turned back to their deep, dark terrain to make report to their dark lord.

The pogrom had not yet reached the Shadowkin's lair. Ensconced within their frail homes, casting bright eyes at the vaulted roof of their watery island-cavern, they listened as the lightless territories of the underworld tore themselves apart, bone by brittle bone. The pulses of remote explosions — like the roar of avalanches in the night, echoing from peak to peak — filtered in waves of dislodged dust and shrapnel. The Shadowkin shivered and prayed, and threw stricken glances at their dreadful lord, cloaked upon his throne once more.

Sahaal had not troubled himself to clean his armour. Where once a host of slaves would undress and bathe him — now he was left to fester. He could demand such a service from his tribe, of course, but in truth he did not care for cleanliness in this place. In this anarchy, in the depths of the depression that gripped him, to adopt a feral countenance seemed a fitting response. The tentacles of failure had returned, the bright pincer-teeth of hopelessness. How could he ever know if his ruse with the astropath had succeeded? How would he ever find the Corona now — whether it be through Slake, or Pahvulti, or by chance alone?

How could he ever resume his vengeful crusade?

Such thoughts robbed him of all energy, imbuing his flesh with a brooding indolence. Far easier to sit and burn in self-hatred, to consume his own mind with reproach and guilt, than to stir to activity.

What else, ultimately, could he do?

He was, he knew, terrible to behold. The swirls of decoration on his helm's swept-back crest were speckled now by a frieze of gore. The astropath's fluids coated him head to foot, and where blood had pooled in the gulleys and joints of his armour it clotted to a dirty brown powder, like an iron giant beset by rust.

The scouts came one by one, ferried across the swamp in makeshift barges, flicking away questing tentacles when they crept too close. The rest of the tribe gathered to hear their testimonies from the worlds above, and with every fresh report they murmured and bit their lips. Their concerns were as palpable in their eyes as had they spoken them aloud, and Sahaal regarded them from the shadows of his helm with a shrewd eye.

How far would the Preafects descend their faces asked? How deep would the massacres cut?

Had they not suffered enough beneath their master's frenzied rule?

Guilt upon shame upon failure upon horror. Sahaal couldn't begrudge them their fear.