Ahriman: Exile (20 page)

No, it was flying in the airless void. The buzzing beat of its wings flooded her sensors. She readied to fire again, feeling the thrum of charging capacitors and vibration as breeches closed on macro-shells.

With a shower of void-pitted metal another creature broke through the back of the station and leapt into the void, then another, and another.

Carmenta fired.
The creatures vanished as plasma-tipped shells exploded in a spread of overlapping fire-spheres. The release of each shot was hot, filled with a scream of molten fury.

The creatures came through the inferno, red with heat, mouths wide. Carmenta felt cold, the cold of dead iron spinning through an endless night. She fired once more before the wave of burning creatures passed through her shields and sank their claws into her hull.

Ahriman’s mind buckled as his thoughts slurred. They were tumbling now rather than flying through the station, banging off walls, floors and ceilings. Ahriman’s helmet display cut out, returned and cut out again. He could hear air hissing from rents in his armour. He had no idea how much further they had to go, or even if he had guided them back the way they had come.

The frame of an open blast door slammed into his helm. Sparks ignited behind his eyes. Part of his awareness fell away, as a portion of his brain blacked out. He hurtled on unguided, momentum spinning him on as his telekinetic projection died.

Astraeos caught him, grabbing him as he tumbled past. The Librarian had clamped his boots to a wall and reached out to hook Ahriman’s arm. He tried to speak, but his teeth were loose in his mouth and his tongue was thick with blood. A sickly luminous haze crept across his vision.

+Which way?+ sent Astraeos. Ahriman tried to answer, then shook his head. Astraeos pulled him closer, his face looming in Ahriman’s blurred vision. +Which way should we take?+ sent Astraeos again. Ahriman tried to understand what the Librarian meant. +They are coming.+

Ahriman turned his head, and tried to focus through the fog of colour and popping stars of light. Three doorways looked back at him, three blank openings leading to darkness. They had come this way; of course. Or had they? His thoughts flowed like treacle. He could not remember and he could not have been sure which door led to the gunship even if he had. Astraeos was shaking him harder and harder. He moved his hand to push him away, but his movement was sluggish and weak. He tried to grip Astraeos’s shoulder. The ceramite was vibrating as he touched it. Ahriman stopped moving back down the passage they had flown down. The walls were shaking as if in rhythm to a rising tide.

+Which one?+

+I don’t know,+ sent Ahriman.

The end of the passage glowed as walls bent and flexed like the inside of an arching snake. Astraeos let go of Ahriman, and raised his bolt pistol. Light spilled forwards, clawed and horned shadows reaching down the walls. Ahriman found he still had his sword in his hand. He tried to raise the blade but the movement made him roll in the zero gravity.

A stuttering streak of flame sprang from behind them. The daemons vanished behind a wall of phosphor-bright detonations. Ahriman turned. Another burst of flame split the passage. A figure in armour the colour of dull copper was advancing from behind them, firing as he moved, his feet locking to the floor with each step. The vox spat to life in Ahriman’s ear.

‘Take the central door. One hundred metres, then left turn fifty metres.’ Thidias’s voice was emotionless, but Ahriman could taste the focus in the warrior’s mind.

‘Where is Kadin?’ shouted Astraeos. Thidias gave the smallest twitch of his head in reply, took a step towards the daemons and fired a broad burst. Ahriman could see that the fire pattern was taking all of the warrior’s focus.

‘I do not know,’ said Thidias. The last round coughed from Thidias’s bolter. He stepped forwards, pulled the clip from the weapon, loaded, and fired again in the space of a breath. The passage in front of him was ablaze, phosphex and oxygen gel burning white-hot on the walls and floor. Beyond the glare Ahriman could see the daemons recoil like wolves on the edge of torchlight. ‘Last contact was before the station…’ Words failed Thidias, but he needed to say nothing more.

Ahriman looked towards the central of the three doorways, and then back to Astraeos.

‘Go,’ said Thidias. ‘I will hold.’

For how long?
thought Ahriman, but he kicked off towards the central doorway.

‘Go,’ said Thidias again, and Ahriman glanced back. Astraeos had not moved from beside his brother. ‘Go, brother.’

‘We stand as one,’ growled Astraeos. Pale lightning was playing around his fists, and Ahriman could feel the Librarian trying to draw power from the warp.

‘No,’ said Thidias. ‘You always were bad at judging character.’ He was firing in short controlled bursts, stepping forwards to change the angle of his shots. With every explosive splash of fire the daemons were closer, their bodies flickering between impressions of limbs, eyes, hands and teeth. Thidias turned his head for a second to look at Astraeos.

‘You will go, and I will stand alone. It is my choice.’ The Librarian was silent for a second then kicked off in a leaping bound towards the door. Ahriman crossed the threshold just in front of him. They scrambled towards the waiting dark, while behind them muzzle flashes strobed on.

Half blind with fatigue they moved with heedless speed, spiralling and crashing, until they spilled from the door into the cavern and saw the gunship waiting. The muzzles of the wing-mounted heavy bolters glowed dark red. Something had already come for the gunship. Globular flesh, scraps of metal and spent cases formed an expanding cloud. Ahriman pushed off from the door frame. The cooling mouths of the guns swivelled to face him. Sensor discs sent identification signals, and his battered armour answered. The guns went still. Unable to slow or steer his flight, Ahriman hit the craft’s blunt wing with a bone-jarring clang. He grasped the wing before he spun into the vast darkness of the cavern. Astraeos hit the tail fin an instant later, and almost lost his grip.

Slowly Ahriman pulled himself down the wing. The ramp was still open, and dim red light diluted the gloom of the crew compartment. Ahriman had begun to climb the ramp when he saw the figure waiting within.

Thidias stopped firing. His clip was empty. Light filled the passage in front of him, the bright white of phosphex dancing in the blackness of the daemons’ eyes. He let go of the bolter, and his last touch sent it gliding into the narrowing space between him and his foe. He drew his knife and pistol. The daemons came on without pause. Red target runes spread across his eyes as he aimed the bolt pistol. He began to fire, switching from target to target without thinking. Daemons fell. Bodies burst like bloated sacks of skin. A smell of rotting meat and spice filled his mouth and nose. He pushed the sensation away, and kept firing. The round counter ticked towards zero in the corner of his eye.

The bolt pistol went silent. The daemons were ten paces away, their flesh quivering as they swung and flew closer. He began to run towards them. His knife was a reassuring weight in his hand, like a memory held close.

He had broken his oaths to the Imperium. Others, now long dead, had disputed that fact, but Thidias had always known the truth in his soul. They were falling, and would fall further. Better that he ended now, as a warrior who could still remember what honour was.

A daemon broke away from the swarm, and spiralled towards Thidias. Long arms waved around its stump of a body, and hundreds of tiny mouths covered its bloody-pink flesh. Thidias took another stride, dropped low and rammed his knife upwards. Black liquid drooled out in weightless cords as he sawed up through the deflating bag of the daemon’s corpse. Something was scrabbling at his legs with long talons. He kicked blindly, felt an impact and kicked again. Something he could not see stabbed into his left ribs. Alarms began to ring in his ears. Acid was spreading down the inside of his armour. He cut at a creature with a wide mouth and rolling eyes. The blow split it in two. The alarms were a constant whine in his ears. He took a breath, felt liquid rise in his throat. He raised his knife and cut again, before a hooked talon darted out and spilled his guts into the cold vacuum.

Ahriman went still. The figure was half sprawled against a flight bench. Red crystals of blood hung around its crumpled form. It wore armour, its pitted bronze surface gleaming dull in dim light. Even half hidden by shadow it was clear that its body was not whole: its arms and legs were bloody stumps. Something had ripped chunks from its chest. He could see white ribs poking from the sides of its wounds. Ahriman stepped forwards. He began to reach out with his senses to feel for the pulse of life in the slumped figure. As soon as he tried his mind filled with a chorus of cries and a heat-haze sickness.

Astraeos swung down into the hold, not seeing the figure. +Come on,+ he sent. Ahriman made to reply, but a voice stopped him.

‘Brother?’ said the voice, scraping across the vox. The figure on the floor moved, turning its head with drunken slowness. It still wore its helm, but the eye-lenses were blank and unlit. Astraeos had frozen where he was. ‘Is that you, Astraeos?’

It was Kadin, the warrior’s voice a crunching slur of clotting blood. Kadin tried to move, but what he achieved was a pitiful twitching. ‘Brother, I cannot see,’ said Kadin, a wet breath between each word. Astraeos took two strides and bent down.

‘It is I,’ said Astraeos. ‘We have you, brother, you will be well.’ Kadin coughed, and Ahriman heard the scraping of bones in the sound.

‘Liar,’ said Kadin. ‘Where is Thidias?’ Astraeos said nothing, and after a second Kadin nodded weakly.

‘We have to go now,’ growled Astraeos. As if in echo to the words the gunship’s weapons began to fire. Ahriman felt the craft’s frame shake with recoil. Beyond the open hatch, strobing muzzle flashes broke the blackness. He moved towards the front of the crew compartment, clicking the vox to transmit as he did.

‘Take off!’ He had no idea if the pilot servitor was still alive or if its mind was still functioning, but he shouted the command anyway. ‘Take off now!’ A blurt of machine code answered him. A second later the gunship’s internal gravity activated, and the ramp began to close. Through the narrowing gap Ahriman glimpsed the daemons, floating and bobbing towards them, caught in the flarelight of the firing guns. The gunship rocked as it unclamped from the platform. Air vented into the crew compartment in a cold fog. The guns were still firing, and the gunship shivered as its engines lit. Ahriman grabbed hold of an overhead rail.

The gunship shot across the cavern, accelerating on bright cones of fire. Behind it the daemons ran across the platform and leapt into the void after it. Bolts of corpse light and arcs of crackling power followed the gunship. Some hit, burrowing into metal, chewing into circuits and fuel lines. The heavy bolter mounts on the wings swivelled and fired.

Within the crew compartment Ahriman tried to reach for a point of serenity amidst his fatigue. Kadin’s wounds were thawing, oozing blood onto the decking. Astraeos was muttering something to the dying warrior, one hand supporting the back of Kadin’s helmet.

Something hit the gunship, sending sparks crawling across the inside of the hull. The stink of burning cables and hot metal filled the compartment. Ahriman pulled his thoughts away from the scene in front of him, and pushed his mind into the void beyond the hull. A thought the shape of ice and crystal formed in his mind, hardening over the gunship like a shell. Another bolt of lightning cracked across the gunship’s wing, and Ahriman felt his mental ward hold for a second and then break. He gasped, and blinked away blood-thick tears.

+Astraeos,+ he sent. The Librarian’s head snapped around. Ahriman could feel the rage fuming off him in hot waves. +I need your help.+

Astraeos said nothing but reached up and pulled his helm off. His skin was pale, and burn marks blistered his brow. He stared back at Ahriman, his true eye a pale orb with a pinprick of black beside the electric green of his augmetic.

+We will all die here if you do not help me,+ Ahriman sent. Astraeos looked back to the chewed remains of his brother. Fresh blood was seeping from the wounds. +We will die here, and any chance Kadin may have will die with us.+

Outside the hull, the heavy bolters fired their last shells. As if sensing the weakness the daemons spilled forwards. The gunship jinked and flipped, weaving amongst blasts of rainbow energy. Invisible blows ripped at its wings, sending it spinning. Ahriman heard the craft’s frame scream like a ripped girder. There was no time. He turned to look back at Astraeos.

+Now,+ he sent, and layered the command with all he had learned of the Librarian. Astraeos was a man with many names: the name granted to him by his Chapter, the name he had been born with and forgotten, the name that his mentor had called him, and the number the Black Ships had given him when they took him from his birth world. The command held all of these names, and it hit him like a physical blow. Astraeos half fell then came up fast, his face twisted with pain and rage. Ahriman remained still.

Astraeos stopped, his hands clenched in fists. The gunship bucked again. Astraeos opened his mouth, but never said what he was intending.

Kadin rose from the deck, floating into the air with a crack of bones that sounded like pistol shots. Frost spread across the walls and deck. In Kadin’s deep wounds, blood ice was forming. His head came up last. Black eyepieces looked at Ahriman.

Ahriman felt cold. In his mind the distant cries of the daemons suddenly sounded like laughter. He had misunderstood. He remembered the gunship’s weapons glowing red as he had approached it. He saw Kadin’s wounds and remembered the blood and meat hanging in the airless dark. The daemons were not chasing them, they were circling.