‘What a piece of work is a man.’
The warden…paused. Auramite boots scuffed ash and detritus, tiny dust storms billowed into the dark, unseen, unremarked. It took Hera a moment to notice her companion was no longer walking in lockstep with her. The red glow of the warden’s lenses flashed as Hera turned back. The prey sight projected from the portcullis grill, sketching the warden in harsh green lines.
Hera raised her hand, waving her index finger from side to side.
<What?>
The warden nestled the haft of the guardian spear into an elbow to free their hands and made a series of precise, rapid movements in thoughtmark.
<Words carried on a carrion breath. Continue.>
The warden lifted the spear and stalked into the dark.
The hive was dead. It had been dead for centuries. Even the retched scum that had scraped survival from its corpse had eventually succumbed. The mutants were gone, the deep sump dwellers perished. Even the rats, mankind’s unwelcome partner in its millennia old diaspora, were all bones now. A husk of stone and metal was all that remained. A kilometres-high monument to industrial might and human misery. The dead hive pierced the memory thin atmosphere of the dead world, a blackened nail clawing at the void. Silence reigned.
Why, then, did it speak?
They were deep now. Hera had maintained her bearings for a time after the inertial navigation system of her armour failed. Twists and turns had broken the trail of breadcrumbs in her mind. Too many switchbacks to follow. Too little light to mark waypoints. Too little variation in the tunnels for landmarks. She had felt the pressure change in her eardrums, the subtle deafening releasing in an instant with a rush of noise. The silence given brief form. It was warmer too. The planet may be denuded of life, but the core still turned, its lazy molten motion heating the crust. Her battle plate no longer cooled her sufficiently, another function lost to whatever malignancy permeated this place. She had begun to sweat into her bodyglove.
‘How infinite in faculty…’
Hera saw the warden flinch, a tiny movement disturbing their rhythmic gait. She raised her hand to ask once more.
<More whispers in the dark. They are of no importance, sister> replied the warden with quick darting movements.
<If I cannot hear them…>
<I understand the implications of that. The nature of our foe reveals itself. Come>
They had been an army once. The Sol fleets sent to counter the Tyranid threat had been mighty. Astartes, Sororitas, Knight households. The best the Imperium had to offer. Even among these elites the Talons of the Emperor stood apart. The burnished gold plate and crimson cloth denoting greatness even within this gathering of heroes.
Slaughter had worn them down. Slaughter and mission creep. Orders and pleas peeling away strength. They were stretched so thin now. Spun gold, pulled and pulled until the line was almost too fine to behold. Battalions to units, to squads, to scratch groupings of five. Of three. Of two.
Two to investigate a world. Two to identify a threat and destroy it. It was not enough. It must be enough.
‘…how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.’
The dark gave way. Slowly, so very slowly. The enveloping black faded to grey, details picked out in silver where the weak light caught their edges. Hera’s preysight adjusted, dialing back as her own eyes took the strain until just system and armour data remained. They passed a barricade of such rough construction that it could be mistaken for an accident of architectural collapse if not for the runes carved into its broken face. There was blood here, old and dry, but still plentiful enough that Hera’s auto senses could still detect it.
Beyond the barrier was a space. Too vast to be called something so prosaic as a room or hall. The distant walls were lost in shadow but rose up to meet as a great dome many hundreds of metres above them.
‘paragon of animals…’
The centre of the cauldron swirled with eldritch energies, black lightning arced and shorted itself against the dome. The warden began to jog, their speed measured so as to let Hera keep pace. She drew her great sword from the scabbard on her back as she ran.
‘…what is this quintessence of dust?’
The warden leapt into the storm of the unreal, trusting in Hera’s nature to protect them both. The warp peeled away from them, forced back by the vacuum that occupied the space meant for Heras soul. They plunged into madness. Creatures of fury threw themselves at their bubble of reality, others pleaded to be allowed in, promising such delights as could be imagined. Still they charged. Insanity tore as they reached the centre and beheld their prey at last.
It towered above them, twin beaked heads snapped back and forth on long feathered necks, great wings spread above its shoulders. In one gnarled claw, it held a staff of twisted iron, while the other clutched a book that burned with purple flame.
They did not hesitate. The warden snapped the spear around in a glittering arc, the blessed power field striking the daemon in the chest. Hera stabbed out with her sword, taking the arm that held the book above the wrist. The creature screamed, lashing out with flame and claw only to be rebuffed by blank and blade.
They took it apart.
As its essence dissolved into the emperean, its one remaining eye glared at its destroyers.
‘Man delights not me.’
‘No,’ replied Custodian Warden Emmaline as she removed her golden helm, ‘nor woman neither.’
