Nemesis

His attention is not on this, however. One wall of the chamber in which the master’s warriors placed him is not there. Instead, there is only fire. Burning madness. He is aware that a thin membrane of energy separates that inferno from him. How this is possible he cannot know; such science-sorcery is beyond him.

He knows only that he is looking into the warp itself, and by turns the warp looks back into him.

He howls and pulls at the chain. The runes and glyphs drawn all over his naked body are itching and inflamed, cold-hot and torturing him. The warp is pulling at the monstrous, unknowable words etched into him. He howls again, and this time the master answers.

‘Be afraid,’ Erebus tells him. ‘The fear will smooth the bonding. It will give it something to sink its teeth into.’

He can’t tell where the voice is coming from. Like so many times before, ever since the opening of the cage, Erebus seems to be inside his thoughts whenever he wishes to be. Sometimes the master comes in there and leaves things – knowledge, ability, thirsts – and sometimes he takes things instead. Memories, perhaps. It’s not easy to be certain.

He has questions; but they die in his throat when he sees the thing coming from the deeps of the warp. It moves like mercury, shimmering and poisonous. It sees him.

Erebus anticipates his words. ‘A minor phylum of warp creature,’ explains the master. ‘A predator. Dangerous but less than intelligent. Cunning, in a fashion.’

It is coming. The gauzy veil of energy trembles. Soon it will pucker and open, just for the tiniest of moments. Enough to let it in.

‘It can be domesticated,’ says the Word Bearer. ‘If one has the will to control it. Do you have the will, Spear?’

‘Yes, master–’

He does not finish his words. The predator-daemon finds the gap and streams through it, into the opened bay of the starship. It smothers him, skirling and shrieking its joy at finding a rich, easy kill.

This is the moment when Erebus allows himself a noise of amusement; this is the moment when the daemon, in its limited way, realises that everywhere it has touched Spear’s flesh, across every rune and sigil, it cannot release. It cannot consume.

And he collapses to the deck, writhing in agony as it tries to break free, fails, struggles, and finally merges.

As the hatch closes off the compartment from the red hell outside, Spear hears the master’s voice receding.

‘It will take you days of agony to dominate it, and failure will mean you both die. The magicks etched into you cannot be broken. You are bonded now. It is your skin. You will master it, as I have mastered you.’

The words echo and fade, and then there is only his screaming, and the daemon’s screaming.

And the fire and the pain.

6

A thin and cold drizzle had come in with the veil of night, and all across the star-port, the rain hissed off the cracked, battle-damaged runways and landing pads in a constant rush of sound. Water streamed off the folded wingtips of the Ultio’s forward module, down through the broken roof of the hangar, spattering against the patch of dry ferrocrete beneath the vessel where it crouched low to the ground. It resembled an avian predator, ready to throw itself into the sky; but for now the ship’s systems were running in dark mode, with nothing to betray its operable state to the infrequent patrols that passed by.

The star-port had remained largely abandoned since the start of the insurrection. It was still a long way down the clanner government’s long list of important infrastructure repairs. Rebel strikes against power stations and communications towers made sure of that, although Capra had been careful that lines of supply were kept open so that the native populace would not starve. He was winning hearts and minds, for all the good that would do him in the long run.

Kell stood at the foot of the Ultio’s landing ramp and peered into the rain through the eye band of his spy mask, letting the built-in sensors do their work, considering the freedom fighters once more. How would they react when they found the members of Kell’s team gone? Would they think they had been betrayed? Perhaps so. After all, they had been, in a way. And when the mission reached its endpoint, Capra would know full well who had been behind it.

‘Any sign?’ Tariel’s voice filtered down from above him. ‘The pilot-brain reports that the passive sensors registered a blip a short time ago, but since then, nothing.’

Kell didn’t look up at him. ‘Status?’

Tariel gave a sigh. ‘The Garantine has sharpened his knives so much he could slice the raindrops in two. I am monitoring the public and military vox-nets, and I have prepared and loaded all my data phages and blackouts. Koyne is in the process of mimicking the form of the troop commander we captured. I take it the Culexus and the Venenum have still yet to arrive?’

‘Your powers of perception are as sharp as ever.’