Once, a lifetime ago, he had been Corporal Orton Merryk, an upstanding member of the 55th Almorian Grenadiers. Now, he was Gash. And the gods were cruel to him.
He sighed as he looked out the armaglass windows at the desolate wasteland around the observation post. The uplands of Larzac IV were nothing but twisted canyons, even more twisted rock formations, and never-ending dirt. An ugly posting in an ugly place.
‘Gods above, will you quit that?’ Stitches snarled alongside him. The man’s namesake adornments pulled the flesh of his face tight as he vigorously scratched at his crotch. ‘Damned grit gets everywhere.’
‘See, you’re complaining too,’ said Gash, not bothering to turn his head from the window, ‘We should have had one of those nice postings down in the capital. I hear you can do whatever you want there. Slaves and food aplenty.’ His comrade grunted noncommittally and started scratching at one of the ragged lines of stitched-together flesh that ran across his forearm.
‘I just thought,’ Gash continued, not particularly caring if Stitches was listening or not, ‘that we’d see something exciting, what with being brought in after the conquest and all. Fighting partisans or putting down revolts or the like. Instead, the masters have us acting like the damned Guard all over again.’
‘Hey now,’ Stitches replied, ‘we’ll get our turn. Honour the gods, serve the masters, and they’ll do right by you. That’s the way of it. Plus, if Sarge hears you moaning, he’ll flay your bloody hide.’ Gash nodded.
‘He has done that before.’
‘And then some,’ said Stitches, leaning his back against the armaglass. ‘Got to be rough to keep this lot in line.’
‘It’s not like there’s anything out there,’ Gash grumbled. He looked down at his arm and saw a crimson stain spreading across the dun-coloured fatigues. With another sigh, he rolled up his sleeve and looked. One of his stigmas was open and bleeding again. Another gash for Gash. That made him chuckle.
‘Poxfather’s teats, you’re a weird one,’ said Stitches, shaking his head.
‘Speak for yourself,’ Gash replied, ‘The gods just show me these favours. I’d never take a needle and thread to myself like some I know.’ Stitches snorted and looked ready to reply, but the clang of the hatch behind them interrupted the old argument before it could start again. A scaly, horned head poked up over the lip of the hatch.
‘You lot,’ growled Beast, his strange scale patches reflecting dully in the sepia light of the dust storm outside, ‘Sarge wants you in the control room.’ The mutated soldier hauled his significant bulk up into the observation deck as Stitches and Gash slung their autorifles. They had all changed after throwing off the Imperial yoke and discovering blessings of the gods, but Beast had changed the most. The heavy weapons operator had always been big, but now he was massive. His scales and strange, budding horns only seemed to accentuate that bulk. Gash hated him, though he could not quite say why.
‘Did he say what he wanted, Beast?’ The big man just shrugged.
‘Not my bloody business.’ Stitches rolled his eyes and made for the hatch with Gash close behind. They descended a short ladder and opened the next entryway, entering the control room.
The outpost had been an Imperial installation before the conquest, and its facilities were still functioning. Gash understood there was a string of these towers running along the highlands, ready to detect a ground invasion aimed at the capital. Not that it had worked the first time. The squad had been sent here for a month’s rotation, but since the storm had set in the day after they arrived, it had been a pointless, miserable posting. Sarge stood over an auspex machine, looking frustrated. Gurgler was seated next to him, staring intently into the monitor.
‘Warp-damned storm,’ Sarge grumbled. He turned and looked at the two men who had just entered.
‘Gash, Stitches, just the boys I was looking for.’ There was a venom in Sarge’s tone that Gash didn’t like, but he kept his mouth shut. The squad had adopted new names after breaking from the Imperium. It felt right. Gash, Stitches, Beast, and so on. Only Sarge had remained Sarge. That felt right, too. The fact that he had ripped out the lieutenant’s throat with his teeth during the uprising on Galdrona had sealed the deal. He was in charge, and they all knew it.
‘You need us, Sarge?’ Stitches asked as sweetly as he could. Sarge stared at the ugly little man in response. He withered under the gaze. The gods had blessed their leader with preternatural eyesight, and now his eyes constantly glowed like those of a cat caught in a lumen beam. Gash found it made it very hard to meet his gaze now, not that it was easy before.
‘Oh, I do, boys, I do. See this,’ Sarge jabbed a finger at the auspex screen. Gurgler didn’t flinch. ‘This thrice damned piece of corpse worshiper crap gave me a ping, a single ping out there in the storm, and then stopped.’ The two men leaned in to look, but the squiggles and sweeps meant nothing to them. ‘Now normally,’ Sarge continued, ‘I wouldn’t give a Nurglite turd about a single ping in the midst of this blowup, but we’re soldiers, and we’ve a job to do.’ He cracked his knuckles and fixed them both with his strange eyes. ‘I’m organising a little patrol. We’re going to take a look, see nothing, and then when this damned storm is over, I’m going to get the vox the capital and tell them what good, loyal boys and girls we’ve been out here. You two have volunteered to join me.’ Gash stifled a groan. The last thing he wanted to do was go out in the mess that currently surrounded the tower. Stitches sighed.
‘You best not have just sighed, boy,’ growled Sarge. Stitches shook his head vigorously. ‘Good,’ the commander continued, ‘I’d hate to have to give you another reason to sew yourself up.’ Sarge was a bad liar, Gash decided.
‘Gurgler,’ Sarge said, looking down at the man who still hadn’t turned away from the screen, ‘Keep your eyes on this and holler out if you see anything.’ Gurgler gurgled in reply but did not look up. Sarge turned away and made for the stairs down to the bunkroom. Stitches and Gash shared a tired look and then followed the man towards the duty chamber door.
Zul was lying on one of the bunks. She ignored the group as they moved by. Gash hated her, too. Her name had been Agnis once, a recon specialist and a stone cold killer. But after the turn, she insisted on being called Zul. It was a stupid name. Other than that, she hadn’t changed much at all. Stitches and Gash often made fun of her for being a frigid bitch, but never where she could hear. That would have been a mistake.
Inside the duty chamber, Fingers and Smiler were already suited up and waiting. Gash was happy Smiler had his rebreather mask on. The man’s permanent grin made him deeply uncomfortable. Why devotion to the dark gods had driven Smiler to slice off his own lips, Gash never would know. And he was alright with that.
Fingers blinked nervously at them from behind her massive dust goggles. The fidgety little thief had been even more jittery than usual since they had come up to the outpost. It was harder for her to follow her compulsions here in such an isolated location. Sarge had already reinforced her nickname by flaying the skin on her fingers every time she stole something. Gash had no desire to watch that again. It got boring after the fourth time.
‘Alright, listen up, you lot,’ said Sarge, tightening up the straps on his flak armour and putting on his dust goggles. ‘It’s a simple sweep, nothing fancy. We all know there’s nothing out there in that damn storm. Stay in vox range, stay in sight if you can. 15 minutes in and out, and we’ve done our bit for the pantheon today. Understood?’ They all nodded as they finished cinching up their gear, then Sarge smacked the door release, and the outer portal opened. Together, they moved out into the jaws of the dust storm.
Gash had experienced his fair share of miserable moments since he had become a soldier. Even more since he had pledged to the masters, if he was being honest. Moving through the storm stood out from the rest, though. Buried under a cloying rebreather and scratched-up dust goggles, it was hard to see, hard to breathe, hard to hear. The dust and grit got into every crevice in his uniform. Each gust of wind was staggering and the way they blew the dust around made any kind of visibility a difficult game. Sometimes, you could look clearly for twenty, even thirty feet. Then a gust hit, and suddenly, you could barely see the hand in front of your face. You were bound to run into rocks and lucky if you could avoid falling into some shallow crevasse or little canyon. That was how they lost that weasel Stinker on the second day out here. He just disappeared into a hole in the rocks. Sarge hadn’t even bothered trying to recover his body to salvage equipment.
And if all that wasn’t enough, thought Gash as he started to trudge into the winds, the storm played havoc with the vox. Every transmission was a staticky, jarring mess. It gave him a headache.
‘Sound off,’ Sarge’s voice rattled unpleasantly in Gash’s ear. The rest of the patrol scratched out their acknowledgement. ‘Alright,’ Sarge said, ‘move out. Let’s make this quick.’
Gash was left alone in the storm then, the wheeze of his breath through his mask his only company. He looked around vaguely, but his heart wasn’t in it. Sarge was clever and tough, all that was true, but there wasn’t anything out here. With a hurried prayer to the Poxfather for fortitude, Gash continued along his patrol route, moving slowly to avoid any unpleasant surprises in the terrain.
‘Stitches here,’ his friend’s words crackled across the net, ‘I think I saw something moving.’
‘What kind of something?’ Sarge responded.
‘Couldn’t tell you, Sarge. Probably just the wind. I haven’t seen it again.’ The vox fell silent again for a few moments before Smiler piped up.
‘I saw something too,’ the man hissed.
‘Confirm contact?’ Sarge said, his voice tight. Gash realised then that he had raised his autorifle to his shoulder. We’re jumping at ghosts out here, he thought, but he kept the gun up anyway, sweeping the rocks around him that he could see. The tower was out of sight now, lost in the dust.
‘No Sarge, no confirmed contact. Just thought I saw something.’
‘I don’t want to hear you being nervous, understand?’ Sarge growled. ‘Don’t speak up unless you have—’
‘Contact,’ Stitches screamed. Gash shook his head and swung around towards Stitches’ designated patrol route. The thud of autorifle fire was audible over the howl of the wind. He began to hustle, moving as quickly as he could, scrambling across rocks and stumbling through depressions. Gash staggered around a rock and nearly ran smack into the rest.
They were gathered around a formation of rocks that formed a narrow little gulch amidst the desolate landscape. Sarge was shaking his head. Smiler and Fingers had backed off, but Gash took a step forward and glanced past his commander’s shoulder.
Stitches’ body had been split apart from head to groin. Crimson viscera coated the walls of the box canyon like a madman’s mural. The two halves of his former comrade rested in a pile of gore. Gash felt the gorge rise up in his throat and hurled it back down. Fingers wasn’t as solid. The sound of her ripping off her rebreather and vomiting briefly cut across the mic before she flicked off her comm bead.
‘Blood god’s bones,’ swore Sarge as he looked down at the corpse. ‘What did this?’ His only answer was the moan of the storm’s endless wind as it whipped through the canyon. The party stood staring at the human wreckage until Fingers was done retching. Gash allowed himself a brief moment of sadness. Stitches had been an ugly, miserable bastard, but they had mustered in together, rebelled together, pledged themselves to the pantheon together. He had been a friend. Not a very good one, but a friend among traitors was a rare thing indeed. Now, he had died in a horrific way.
‘Demon,’ Fingers spat out. They all turned to look at her.
‘Ain’t no demons here, Fingers. Plus,’ Sarge shook his head, ‘they’re on our side now.’
‘I heard tell at camp that lots of things got loose during the invasion,’ Fingers continued, trying to avoid looking at the body of Stitches, ‘Nasty things, Sarge. Things that don’t care which side you’re on. They haunt the peaks; that’s what folks were saying.’
‘Warpspit,’ snarled Gash. ‘We say our prayers. The gods know us. There’s no demon stalking us.’ Despite himself, he looked around the edges of the canyon nervously.
‘What if it was in him?’ Smiler spoke softly, his lipless words moist across the vox, ‘You know, possession. I heard about that.’
‘Aye,’ Fingers picked up on the thread, ‘Aye, the masters said demons can inhabit the unworthy as punishment. Maybe it was inside Stitches and finally…got out.’
‘What if he’s not the only one?’ Smiler murmured.
‘Or if it’s out there now looking to take on a new host,’ Fingers said nervously.
‘Gods above,’ Sarge snapped, ‘Get a hold of yourselves this instant. Gash spoke right. We’re favoured by the gods, like all servants of the masters. Keep that in your hearts.’ He turned and jabbed an accusing finger at Smiler. ‘And I’ll have no more of that paranoia talk. Start creating suspicion, and we’ll all be at one another’s throats come dawn.’
‘Right you are, Sarge,’ Smiler slurped. Sarge grunted and turned back to survey the corpse again.
‘Something killed him, that’s for sure. But we don’t know what. We’ll fall back to the outpost, regroup, rethink this whole thing.’ He shook his head. ‘Patrol’s over. Gash, check to see if any of his gear is salvageable. You two watch the canyon entrance. We move out in one.’
Gash dutifully rifled through the mess that was left of his friend as the others waited. It was obvious there was nothing they could gain from the halved remains. Whatever had split Stitcher had ruined pretty much everything the man had been carrying. A sudden sensation of being watched made Gash pause at his work. A chill crept quickly up his spine and his head shot up, looking along the edges of the box canyon above him for signs of movement. There was nothing there, but he felt a deep sense of unease all the same.
‘Sarge, there’s something out there. I swear it.’
‘Blood god’s bones, not you too, Gash.’ Sarge sounded even more frustrated, but as they began to make their way back to the outpost, it was obvious the sergeant was picking up the pace. Sensing the mood, Fingers and Smiler cast nervous glances and swung their rifles around in wide arcs. The patrol said nothing, moving silently through the howling of the storm. Gash didn’t want to admit it, but he was afraid to make a noise. What if it heard them? He checked himself. There was an it now? He was as bad as Fingers. He shook his head to clear the thoughts and dismiss the uncomfortable sensation of being watched.
Favoured by the gods, he told himself. It was reassuring. Had he not sacrificed and prayed for protection and guidance? Had the stigmata of the Octed not arisen upon his own flesh? Whatever had killed Stitches, it would not come for him. Not for one as faithful as he was.
As if reinforcing his blessed status, the silhouette of the watchtower suddenly arose from the careening grit and grime. He nearly whispered a prayer in relief. Gash saw the slender form of Fingers sprint ahead towards the door and begin furtively fiddling with the lock panel. Smiler was close behind and by the time he caught up, the double doors, reinforced and sealed tight against the dust, slid open with an inaudible hiss. Both of them dashed into the locking chamber. Realising both he and Sarge were lagging behind, Gash darted for the yawning gateway. Fingers and Smiler were already punching in the access code for the second lock. Gash let out a sigh.
‘Apologies, Sir,’ he said as he turned back to Sarge, ‘weather got the better of me ba—’ He stopped mid-sentence. There was only a storm of dirt and sand behind him in the open mouth of the lock chamber.
Sarge was gone.
‘We have to go look for him.’ Gash looked around the bunkroom at his squadmates, but none of them met his eye. ‘What’s wrong with you all? It’s Sarge we’re talking about.’
‘I’m not going out there,’ murmured Fingers, ‘Something ripped Stitches in half.’
‘Smiler is looking at the auspex,’ Beast added, ‘If you think he got lost, that’ll pick him up.’
‘It won’t in this storm,’ Gash said, ‘we know it won’t. We have to go track him on foot.’
‘Track him,’ Zul laughed, ‘in this? You must be madder than you look.’
Gurgler just gurgled. To be fair, thought Gash, if there was one person in the room who didn’t want to look for Sarge, it was Gurgler. Private Rincon had been the only one who had resisted the rebellion in the squad. Sarge had turned him over to Captain McNeill to change his mind. Three months of constant torture had taken his tongue and broken his mind as well as his loyalty. He was at least somehow still a functional soldier, but if he was even remotely aware of what had been done to him, there was no love lost between Sarge and him.
‘Sarge wouldn’t leave one of us to die,’ Gash said pitifully. Beast laughed.
‘A month ago, he bashed Brick’s head in with a brick as a punishment,’ the hulking man said. ‘He would leave us all to die if he thought it was the smart thing to do. And it is.’
‘But—’
‘Are you so eager to die, Gash?’ said Fingers. ‘Look at what happened to Stitches. Do you want that to be you?’
Gash sat back down on his bunk. There was a moment of silence.
‘At the very least,’ Gash finally said, ‘something is wrong here. We must inform the capital and the masters.’
‘The vox is down,’ Zul stated firmly. ‘Are you going to walk three days back in this? With whatever it is waiting out there?’ Gash didn’t reply. He knew defeat. Fingers looked at him with a pained expression on her face.
‘What is it then?’ Beast asked, ‘This thing you’re all afraid of.’
‘We don’t know,’ sighed Gash. ‘We didn’t see it.’ Beast grunted dismissively. Zul shook her head. ‘It exists,’ Gash continued, ‘Something ripped Stitches apart.’
‘Yes,’ said Zul dispassionately, ‘probably one of you.’ Gash spat at her feet. The tracker didn’t even blink back.
‘He’s not lying,’ replied Fingers. She was sitting upright in her bunk, scrawny arms clutching her knees to her chest. Her eyes were wide. ‘I think it’s a demon.’ They all let that sink in for a moment, and Zul shook her head once more.
‘’More like some other bastards on the line. Those Court of Eyes freaks are probably stirring up problems again.’
‘Or it’s something from the planet, some kind of monster,’ Beast seemed to relish the idea of meeting a creature just like him. He had been much more aggressive ever since the uprising.
‘It was a clean cut, Beast,’ Gash said, ‘No monster could be that surgical.’ Beast snorted and sat back in his chair. It groaned in protest.
‘You’re all forgetting the obvious,’ Zul sneered. ‘Demon, man, monster, whatever. One of us could be working with it. Coordinating from the inside.’
‘Be serious, Zul,’ Gash sighed.
‘It played you for fools, didn’t it? Knew what you were about. Identified Sarge as leader and took him out.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ said Gash.
‘She’s right, you dolt,’ said Beast, ‘Someone could be telling it who to go for. Someone with an axe to grind.’ They all looked at one another. Slowly, their eyes turned towards Gurgler, who stared placidly into the middle distance, seemingly ignorant of the entire conversation.
‘Come on now,’ said Fingers, ‘he can’t even follow more than basic orders.’
‘Or that’s what he wants us to think,’ hissed Zul. ‘Maybe they didn’t quite ravage the Emperor-loving out of him.’ Her hand slid towards the grip of her pistol. Beast growled, shifting his weight. His overburdened chair creaked as if in pain. Gurgler said nothing. Gash felt himself tensing up.
‘This is ridiculous,’ Fingers continued, ‘There’s something out there stalking us, and you’re trying to kill another squamate.’ Zul and Beast ignored her. Their merciless gaze was fixed on Gurgler, who finally seemed to notice he was the centre of attention. Slowly, he smiled.
‘You bastard,’ roared Beast, flinging himself out of the chair and across the mess. Zul leapt away as a table and chairs flipped and toppled. Fingers started forward, but Gash grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
Gurgler reacted to the hulking man’s charge like a monster himself. Hiss-gurgling, he flung his chair low to the ground with one arm, sending Beast toppling forward. The brute lashed out, grappling with Gurgler’s ragged service coat. Growling and gurgling, the two flailed on the floor.
‘Idiots,’ screamed Fingers, but she didn’t try to intervene. Gash kept a tight grip on her arm. Zul just watched. There was a flash of steel in between the pair. A table smashed to the ground, its legs broken. The two brawlers rolled into a supply locker, knocking its doors open and sending ration packs and water cans clattering to the floor around them.
A pained gurgle rang out suddenly.
Beast slumped onto his back, a combat knife buried to the hilt in his chest. Gurgler rose, his face and hands covered in blood. His eyes, usually so vacant, were wild and dangerous. For a moment, he looked ready to throw himself at the next of them like some sort of rabid animal. Then he froze. Gash held the barrel of his auto-rifle aimed directly at Gurgler’s forehead.
‘You know,’ he said calmly, ‘I think I have a plan.’
Smiler had missed the fight, but he accepted the outcome and Gash’s idea with his usual careless cruelty. He had come down from the observation deck to inform them that he could see Sarge’s body lying out in the dirt. Whether the man was alive or dead, he couldn’t tell. Regardless, it fit well into Gash’s plan.
Minutes later, the five remaining squad members stood in the locking chamber as the doors slowly opened.
‘Remember,’ Gash whispered over the vox, though he was not entirely certain why he felt the need to be quiet again, ‘let Gurgler go first. Then spread out and stay low.’ The others nodded and checked their armaments. Beast had been the squad’s heavy weapons man, but Smiler was bulky enough that he could carry the dead mutant’s melta in a pinch. The rest had their autorifles at the ready. Even Gurgler had a rifle, though his was not loaded. In truth, Gash doubted the broken man was in league with whatever was out there in the storm, but he couldn’t trust him not to kill them all out of spite. He jabbed the barrel of his own gun into Gurgler’s back.
‘Get moving,’ Gash said forcefully, ‘punishment detail for that murder you did. Finish the job, you can come back in.’ Gurgler gave him a hateful look and then stepped out into the swirling dust. The prone form of Nails’ body lay not far away from the door in a small depression surrounded by rocks.
Gurgler began to walk, then began to slink. Whatever the state of his mind, the man was still a soldier at some instinctive level. Gash nodded to the others, and they all adopted a similar style of movement, sliding into the storm and moving towards pre-arranged positions.
Gash felt confident. It was a simple plan. A hunter’s plan. Whatever was out there had left Sarge’s body as a snare. Gurgler would trigger it, and when he did, the rest would ambush the ambusher. They had even picked their spots surrounding the depression from the armaglass observation ports. Whatever this thing was, it couldn’t survive the combined firepower of three autorifles and a melta.
It felt damn good to be soldiering again, Gash thought, as he sidled up behind a rock. He kept his eyes on Gurgler’s back as the man shuffled into the depression. Distorted clicks across his vox bead confirmed the other members of the squad were in position. Gash settled his rifle into a nook in the rock and tightened his finger on the trigger. The wind howled around him, disturbing the dirt. He sent a silent prayer to Tchar so that the trickster god might favour his scheme.
Just down from him, Gurgler’s service coat was flapping in the wind as he approached Sarge’s prone form. Gash watched the broken man cast one look back towards the watchtower, as if wishing he was there. Then, Gurgler shrugged and rolled his leader’s body over.
There was a dull crump as the grenades attached to Sarge’s bandolier detonated. In an instant, Gurgler and the corpse were shredded in a fearsome gale of metal fragments. Gash blinked once in disbelief. The shockwave of the explosion sent the dust around it swirling like a tornado, obscuring the aftermath of the booby trap.
‘Contact,’ screamed Smiler. Gash saw a bright flash like a sudden sunbeam lighting up the rocks across from him. It knew where they were! Panic was welling up inside him. This was all wrong.
‘I see movement,’ Fingers yelled into the vox, her voice staticky and wavering as it fought through the interference of the storm. The thudding of auto rifle shots cut through the storm. Gash furiously scanned the dust storm, looking for a target. He finally noticed it then. Just a glimpse. A ragged shape, large and hulking, moving impossibly fast through the rocks and winds. Even as he raised his weapon to fire, the thing evaporated into the grit.
‘Gods no,’ Smiler howled desperately, ‘It’s on top of me!’ Gash winced as the distortion further twisted the man’s panicked words. There was another flash of actinic light. Smiler let out a wet, high-pitched scream that cut off abruptly. With a grunt of effort, Gash tumbled out of his cover and swung his autorifle towards Smiler’s position. To his left, Zul rolled out from behind a rock, her weapon up and tracking for targets. There was no sign of Fingers, though he heard the blast of her gun again.
‘Smiler,’ Gash yelled into the vox, ‘Smiler, drop back to us.’ He did not know why he bothered. His mind was whirling. The plan had been shredded, just like Gurgler. The thing had read them like a book. Something hurtled out of the dust clouds and smacked him heavily in the chest with a wet thump. He stumbled backwards as the object tumbled to the ground.
It was Smiler’s head. It had been cleanly severed from the man’s body with all the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. The man’s mask had been torn off, revealing a lipless rictus grin still plastered across his terrified face. Gash felt his stomach lurch.
With a desperate roar, he opened fire, scouring the rock formations where Smiler had hidden with a careless hail of rounds. Alongside him, Zul did the same, unloading her magazine into the wind. Fingers stumbled out from behind a nearby set of boulders, her movements panicky, her gun muzzle red hot from firing. She opened up as well, all three of them firing relentlessly as they scurried back towards the locking door. If whatever it was was still out there, it did not pursue them this time. Within moments, they stood in the locking chamber, panting into their rebreathers. The outer door began to slowly close. Fingers was desperately pounding on the keypad as if it would make the mechanism go faster. Zul was tucked into the corner, her weapon held tight to her chest, ready to swing into the outer doorway if need be. Gash, still dazed, just stared into the storm.
Then he saw it again.
It stood unmoving, a dim figure amidst the endless gusts of grit. Gash felt his heart pounding like a drum in his chest and realising the muzzle of his weapon was wobbling like a rubber hose. It didn’t matter that they had dumped hundreds of rounds into the storm. It hadn’t mattered that Smiler had fired two melta blasts, weapons meant to kill tanks, mind, before he had died. The thing was still alive. Worse, it was taunting them. Fear was coursing through his veins like ice water. Casually, as if completely uninterested in the ruination it left in its wake, the shadowy silhouette withdrew into the storm.
‘Gods preserve us,’ Gash said dully as the locking door rolled shut in front of him, ‘What do we do now?’
They stood together on the observation deck, scanning the storm for signs of movement. No one had suggested it. In their panic, they had instinctually sought the high ground. Guard training died hard, thought Gash, as he looked out into the hazy, ill-defined landscape around them. Guard training and basic human nature.
Fingers was muttering to herself. The failure of the ambush had left her rattled almost to the point of insanity. Gash couldn’t understand the word she was whispering, but the barely heard noise made him feel even more uneasy. He wanted to tell her to shut up, but he wasn’t sure if she’d turn on him.
In contrast to them both, Zul stood languidly at her own observation window. Her poise reminded Gash of the great cats that stalked the Almorian savannah. The thought made him even more uneasy.
He kept turning over the failed ambush in his head. How had it known what they were going to do? That was the real question. Maybe it was just that clever, Gash thought, or maybe there really was someone in the outpost aiding it. Considering there were only three of them left now, he had a relatively good idea who the traitor among traitors would be. He cast a surreptitious glance at Zul. His breath caught in his throat. She was looking right at him. He snarled slightly, showing his rotten teeth like some sort of animal. She didn’t even blink. Slowly, his hand slid towards the las-pistol he kept holstered on his hip. Zul just watched.
‘Hey,’ Fingers whispered. Zul and Gash both snapped round to look at her. The little thief was trembling, pointing her finger at something through the armaglass. Gash shifted over to her side of the tower and looked out. There was a small shape propped up against a rock, well in view of the tower and barely visible through the grit.
‘It wasn’t there a second ago,’ Fingers said, ‘I swear.’ Gash didn’t reply. Zul sidled over to look as well, and Gash made a point of keeping his hand close to the butt of his pistol even as he shifted to make room at the viewport. A sudden gust of strong winds rattled the windows and blew away the dust, obscuring the figure for just a moment.
‘That’s Smiler,’ grunted Gash. Whatever it was out there had left their squadmate’s body propped up against the rocks. The head that had been thrown at Gash earlier was now sitting in the corpse’s lap, staring back up at the outpost. ‘It’s mocking us again.’
‘Should we,’ Fingers stuttered, ‘Should we do something?’
‘Do what, you idiot?’ snapped Zul. ‘Remember what happened last time we did something?’ Fingers shrunk in on herself and started muttering again.
‘Ease off her,’ Gash said, still looking at the corpse even as the grit rolled back in. ‘By the Eight, we’re in this together, and we best act like it.’
‘Are we now, bleeder?’ Zul replied, catching his eye with her predator stare, ‘And who died and made you warlord?’ Gash rose up to his full height, towering over the slender woman, but she seemed entirely nonplussed.
‘I reckon I was a corporal once, and you were a private, right, Agnis?’
‘That’s not my name,’ Zul spat. ‘Call me by my damn name.’ Her hand dropped to the wicked combat knife sheathed at her waist as Gash began to draw his las-pistol. Fingers cowered away from both of them, her muttering reaching a fever pitch.
Something thunked against the observation window behind them. They all turned at once. It was a melta. Smiler’s melta. Somehow, the thing outside had hefted it all the way up to the third floor, where it had caught on the lip of the viewport. Its power pack was glowing like the sun.
‘Down!’ shouted Gash. There was a concussive boom as he hit the floor. A wave of blistering heat washed over his back, and superheated armaglass pattered off his coat and helmet. His ears were ringing, but there was no mistaking the howling of the wind outside as it rushed in, filling the observation deck with a cloud of sand and dirt. Higher up off the ground like this, the storm winds were ferocious, buffeting him even as he lay on the deck. A shard of glass, blown madly in a sudden gust, lashed across his cheek and elicited a snarl of pain. Without a mask, dust was clogging his mouth and nose, and he resisted the urge to cough or clear his throat. That would only make it worse.
Slowly, he crawled over to the hatch leading down to the control floor and wrenched it open. He gave no thought to the other two. All that mattered was getting out of the observation room. With a grunt, he tumbled down into the tower through the hatch, landing awkwardly on the floor. Already sand was starting to rain in, but it stopped momentarily as first Zul and then Fingers spilled through as well. The three of them lay in silence for a moment, with the wind howling above them and dirt trickling down onto their heaving forms. Eventually, Gash rose unsteadily to his feet and reached up, pressing the hatch closure button and slamming it shut.
‘How does it know?’ moaned Fingers, ‘How does it always know?’ Her face was bleeding from flying glass and coated in grime. Gash imagined he didn’t look much better. Zul seemed unharmed, but her killer’s eyes were bright amidst a mask of blown dirt. Without answering, Gash left the room, walking past the auspex, which was still blinking wildly and ignoring the hissing crackle that could be heard coming from the voxset.
He descended to the bunk hall on the first floor, where Beast’s cold corpse lay, Gurgler’s knife still buried in its chest. Quietly, he washed the dirt off his face at the cistern and sat down on a bunk. He felt fresh blood leaking into his fatigues from the gashes on his arms and chest. Eventually, both Fingers and Zul joined him, each taking their own spot on a bunk.
Together, they sat in silence, occasionally glancing at the doors that led to the duty room and then to the outside. Quietly, Gash hefted his autorifle from where it rested on his bunk and began to clean it with a rag from his kit. Zul watched him suspiciously. Fingers was lost in her own world. She lay on her bank, her face turned to the wall. Every once in a while, she laughed in a sharp, lunatic pitch. Then she sobbed.
Gash tried to block it out. He thought about the Guard. About being a traitor. He wondered idly if he had got it all wrong and his previous loyalty to the Corpse-Emperor had left him permanently cursed by the gods. They loved a convert, or so the masters had told them, but maybe that had been a lie. Stitches, Sarge, even damned Gurgler, they’d all been dedicated converts. And here they were. Alone. Hunted. Waiting for death. Unless, of course, one of them wasn’t. Maybe that’s why the gods were punishing them. A faithless soldier right in their midst.
‘It was you, wasn’t it, Agnis?’ He heard himself say. The woman looked up sharply and snarled again.
‘That’s not my name, bleeder,’ she said.
‘Oh, of course,’ he said, ‘it’s Zul. A special new name. Unless that was just a cover. Unless you’re still an Imperial. Working with whoever or whatever’s outside. Getting us all killed.’ Gash felt his voice straining as the stress of the day began to flood into it. He knew now. Knew beyond a doubt. Zul. Frigid bitch. She was a traitor among traitors—the worst of the worst.
‘Be serious, bleeder,’ Zul said. Her insolence spiked his rage. He felt his heart pounding in his chest like a bass drum on parade.
‘You’re the only one that didn’t change,’ Gash yelled. He rose to his feet. ‘The rest of us changed.’ He ripped off his glove, revealing another suppurating gouge on the back of his hand. ‘I changed, Beast changed, warpspit, even Fingers changed. But not you. You stayed pure, didn’t you… Zul?’
‘Don’t talk about what you don’t understand, fool.’ Zul growled. ‘Just because I handle my devotion better than you insolent mutants doesn’t mean—’ Gash’s autorifle came up in a flash. But Zul moved faster. Faster than he would have believed. As her combat knife slammed through his shoulder, pinning him to the bunk and causing him to drop his gun to the floor with a clatter, some part of him began to consider whether he had miscalculated the nature of Zul’s change.
‘Idiot little bleeder,’ Zul said, her words strangely overlaid, as if multiple voices were emerging from her mouth at once, ‘Playing at being a follower of the Dark Gods.’ She slowly picked up her rifle and sidled across the chamber towards him with feline grace, casually kicking aside Beast’s corpse on the way. The hulking corpse tumbled into a nearby bunk, and Gash gasped at the strength of the blow. ‘You were a terrible corporal, and you’re a terrible traitor, but I hope you’ll be a good sacrifice.’ Gash’s free hand went for his las-pistol. Zul’s rifle barked, and he howled in pain as a bullet ripped through his arm, shattering bone. His hand fell limply alongside the undrawn gun, and he sagged against the bunk.
‘Too slow, little bleeder,’ Zul approached closer and closer, a predatory smile on her face. ‘I don’t know what’s out there, but I’ll tell you one thing: When it gets in here, I’ll make sure it’s shocked by what I’ve done to you.’ There was another bark of an autogun. For a moment, Gash thought he’d been shot again. Then Zul’s smile dropped, and blood started to seep out of her mouth. A red stain began to spread through the centre of her fatigues. Behind her, Fingers stood shivering; a pistol gripped loosely in her shaky hands.
‘Got you,’ Fingers said triumphantly, laughing madly, ‘Got you got you got-’ Zul swung around lightning fast, even as her body collapsed to the floor. Her gun snorted, and Fingers was thrown back against one of the bunks. Both women toppled to the ground with wet thuds. Gash blinked. The reek of fyceline and blood dominated the bunkroom.
‘Warpspit,’ Gash moaned. He reached up with his left hand and pulled the knife out of his shoulder with an agonised groan. Slowly, painfully, he slid to the floor. Thanks to his stigma, Gash was no stranger to losing blood, but he realised now that he was losing far too much, far too fast. There was a medkit in the outpost, but he knew it was empty. Somebody, probably Fingers, had rummaged through it the first day they had got to this godsforsaken place.
Even if it had been full, he didn’t feel much like moving.
Some part of him, the Guard part that could never truly die, knew it was his duty to drag himself to the control room and try and send some sort of message out. If this tower were destroyed, there would be a gap in the defensive line. Not a big gap, but enough of one. Absent-mindedly, Gash wondered if that’s what this was all about. Then he passed out.
Gash came to and couldn’t tell how long he’d been unconscious. Not long, he imagined. Blood was still leaking from his body. He knew he had to try and reach the vox. It was an imperative. The masters’ will… no, the gods’ will. Gash might be a traitor to those ignorant Imperials, but Poxfather take his soul if he wasn’t a bloody soldier. He gritted his teeth and prepared to make the agonising crawl upstairs.
Then he heard the keypad of the door lock beeping and stopped.
For a moment, hope fluttered in his heart. Tchar had a sick sense of humour, after all. Then, his fuzzy mind went through the actual truths of his situation. Nobody knew there was a problem at the outpost. Nobody could move through the storm. Nobody was due to relieve them for weeks. All that could only mean one thing. Tchar had a sick sense of humour, after all.
Gash’s feverish mind thought of all the times that one of them had entered the outer door code in full view of their surroundings. He remembered Fingers’ desperately scrambling to get back in after Stitches died.
‘Warpspit,’ he groaned again as he felt himself shiver. The damned thing could have come inside at any time.
The door to the duty chamber slid open with a hiss, and a figure emerged from the shadows. Gash recognised its silhouette from the storm. It was massive, shaped like a man, but much larger. He knew what it was. Much like the masters, it wore heavy grey armour, but unlike the chosen of the gods, it was bedecked in pelts and trinkets and had a ragged cloak tossed across its shoulders. In one hand, it carried a massive axe, its head glittering and crackling in the dust that was now wafting into the bunkroom. Gash tried to reach for his gun, any gun, but his hand simply fumbled at the autorifle lying next to him. The monster wasn’t wearing a helmet. Two eyes, slit like those of a wolf, stood out in its too-large pale face. It smiled at him then, a cruel, predatory grin that revealed massive fangs. It was different from Zul’s smile.
It was far, far worse.
Gash began to scream.
About the Author
Raised in the grimbrightness of Orange County, Tristan managed to win a fan fiction competition for Bretonnian army collectors at the age of 16 and has been writing Warhammer stories ever since. When not doing work work, he enjoys reading books, saving Helmgart from the predations of Skaven, and trying to build up the courage to tackle his ever-expanding pile of unpainted miniatures.
