Knightsblade Read online

  Who was he to deny his steed?

  With a thought, Luk fed power to his motive actuators, stepping Sword of Heroes over the battered loyalists in a single stride. He clenched his haptic gauntlets, mindful of the green rune that showed the loyalist scout still staggering towards safety. The traitors were almost on top of him.

  ‘No you don’t, recidivist scum,’ muttered Luk. He willed his weapons into action. His Knight’s heavy stubbers engaged, raking bullets into the clansmen. Bodies disintegrated in sprays of blood. The scout kept running, but almost fell as he gawped up at the war engine that had saved him.

  With his field of fire clear, Luk clenched one haptic gauntlet and unleashed the might of his thermal cannon. Prickling heat crawled across his skin, sympathetic feedback as the weapon fired. Searing energies burst amidst the onrushing traitors, turning a swathe of them to vapour and gouging a glassy crater in the bedrock. A cheer rose from the Imperial lines, and Luk allowed himself a tight smile.

  ‘Always nice to know my efforts are appreciated,’ he said.

  To Luk’s left advanced Void, the pitch-black Knight of Ranulf Vo-Geiss, its avenger gatling cannons screaming as they ploughed twin furrows through the charging cultists. Vo-Geiss’ sombre chant carried across the vox, an ominous counterpoint to the slaughter.

  ‘Concentrate your fire on their iron engines,’ voxed Luk, striding Sword of Heroes towards the enemy.

  ‘Iron engines,’ replied J’madus Hw’ss, pilot of Crimson Death. His strange Knight’s rangy frame was reminiscent of the old Heresy-era Cerastus Atropos. Clad in a bastardised version of House Krast’s fiery raiment, the Knight bore weird energy weapons on its arms, and carried a bulky shield generator like a hump upon its back ‘Oilspit. They are barely worthy of the name.’

  Crimson Death’s positron driver screamed as it charged, then let fly with a shocking flash of light. A trio of iron engines detonated as they emerged from the Maze, blown apart by Hw’ss’ weapon.

  A ruby beam of energy spat from another iron engine, splashing against Luk’s ion shield and staggering his steed.

  ‘Don’t underestimate them,’ he said. ‘This quarry has claws.’

  He returned fire, annihilating his attacker and the luckless heretics surrounding it, then turned his stubbers on another cluster of foes.

  ‘There are more here,’ voxed Lady Ekhaterina Hespar, the aristocratic former herald of House Hawkshroud. ‘Allow me to remind you what the wrath of Hawkshroud looks like, Luk.’ Her Knight was Duty Unending, clad in panoply of rich yellow and purple. Its rapid-fire battlecannon loosed a tight salvo of shells, each punching through the hull of an enemy tank. Iron engines exploded, rolling to a stop as burning hulks.

  ‘I’ve seen it enough times, my lady,’ said Luk. ‘Though as demonstrations go, that was impressive.’

  ‘You talk too much,’ voxed Maia Kastarada, striding Wrath Inescapable into the enemy lines. Her steed was a sleek Errant, clad in midnight blue and ice white. Its thermal cannon roared as Maia advanced, crushing clansmen to pulp with her ironclad footfalls. ‘All of you. Your chatter dishonours the deed of killing.’

  ‘Freeblades fight as they will, Maia,’ said J’madus. ‘Our comrade the Void chants all battle long, ignores half the orders Luk gives him, and still his slaughter remains optimised.’ The former Krast Knight cursed in binharic as a lucky shot pierced his energy shield and blasted a crater in his steed’s torso. A spindly servitor unfolded itself from its charging port in the side of Crimson Death’s iron hump, and went to work repairing the damage.

  ‘She’s right,’ said Luk. ‘We’re here for a reason, and the longer we tarry against this unworthy foe, the longer it will take us to attend to our real duties. Exiles, obliterate these heathens so we can be about the hunt.’

  D’atsub watched the slaughter with wide eyes. From the instant the Knights joined the battle, he and his fellows had become irrelevant. The Faithful Sons still fired into the enemy ranks all the same, whooping with the adrenaline rush of vengeance long sought.

  Pho’mada stood beside him, leaning on D’atsub as a wiseman bandaged his burns.

  ‘They are magnificent,’ breathed the chieftain. ‘Iron angels of the Emperor.’

  ‘They are terrible engines of death,’ said D’atsub, nodding. ‘In this dark age, we need such things to survive.’

  Cannons crashed. Missiles streaked through the air to detonate amongst the heretic lines. The Knights took long steps, their legs swinging through the air like those of mythical desert beasts, before crashing down with pile-driver force. Blood sprayed with every footfall, heretics bursting like gore-filled lanka bladders.

  Packs of frenzied clansmen screamed as they charged, battering at the joints and cabling of the Knights’ feet and ankles to no avail. Some fired crude pistols and firelock muskets while others hurled fizzing potash bombs that detonated uselessly against the Knights’ armoured hides.

  ‘Even the guns of the iron engines cannot hurt them,’ said Pho’mada, as another volley of shots splashed blue against the shield of the nearest Knight. ‘See, their fury cannot overcome the blessings of the Emperor.’

  ‘I am glad that they fight on our side of this war, kin-of-my-kin,’ said D’atsub. ‘Imagine if such a weapon was to be wielded by the blood worshippers.’

  Pho’mada scoffed. ‘These are divine engines of the Emperor’s will, D’atsub. Their purity could never be sullied by the hands of heretics. Be careful what you say, lest you stray into heresy yourself.’

  D’atsub nodded, taking the occasional shots at the enemy as he watched the slaughter. Some amongst the Faithful Sons cheered rapturously and fired along with him. Others were silent, wide-eyed at the sheer ferocity of the Emperor’s judgement.

  Soon enough, it was over. The last of the Gha’tna clansmen, their fervour finally spent, tried to flee into what remained of the Maze. The Knights’ fire brought stone columns tumbling down on them.

  ‘It is victory,’ said D’atsub as the rocks toppled and fires rose. The Knights stopped firing at last, and the sudden quiet was almost as deafening as the fury that preceded it.

  ‘None survive!’ said D’atsub, louder, turning towards his clansmen. He grinned fiercely as the realisation of victory struck him. ‘None survive!’ he bellowed, and his comrades took up the cry. ‘Praise the Emperor! Death to the heretics!’

  Their cries rang out over the Circle’s butchered corpse-piles and by the shattered remains of the Maze to echo across the dune sea.

  The Knights had defeated the minions of Chaos in this final battle.

  Kandakkha was saved.

  Luk walked Sword of Heroes across the dunes to compensate for the treacherous terrain. He followed D’atsub, who loped over the hissing sands on a fresh lanka.

  Beware your flanks, lad, lest any have survived that massacre, whispered a ghost from his throne.

  Better to mind the sand betwixt your toes, murmured another. A fall on sand’s more likely to kill you on this world than any backwards heretic…

  ‘Neither is going to kill me, old scullsmaids,’ said Luk as he watched his auspex and instruments. His steed rumbled, as though in agreement.

  ‘The clansman rides quickly,’ observed Lady Hespar from her position thirty yards behind Sword of Heroes. The rest of the Exiles were strung out behind her, the Knights spaced to watch one another’s flanks.

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’ asked Ranulf Vo-Geiss. ‘If iron gods strode at your heels?’

  ‘We are not gods,’ said Lady Kastarada. ‘Never allow such conceit into your thoughts.’

  ‘A turn of phrase,’ replied Vo-Geiss gruffly. ‘Just words.’

  ‘Words have power,’ said Maia. ‘Oaths are forged from words.’

  ‘You will not win with this one, Ranulf,’ said Hw’ss. ‘I hail from a world aligned with the Adeptus Mechanicus, brought up in the Forgecastles of House Krast
, and still I am less dogmatic and literal than she.’

  ‘No wonder they exiled you then, Cogs,’ said Ekhaterina.

  Luk checked his manifold.

  ‘Mind your duties, Exiles,’ he said, slowing Sword of Heroes to a standstill. ‘The lanka’s stopped.’

  ‘Finally,’ said Vo-Geiss. ‘An end to this time-wasting.’

  Luk scowled but said nothing. Now was not the time to engage in yet another battle of wills with the Void.

  The foothills of a volcano loomed through the swirling veils of grit. High on its slopes, Luk’s magnified vision picked out fresh lava trails crawling slowly downwards, glowing amidst the wind-blown sands. The lanka rider motioned towards a defile between two basalt outcroppings. They framed a pathway leading into darkness.

  ‘Inviting,’ said Luk. He sighed. ‘But we haven’t come all this way to balk now. Duty Unending?’

  ‘Yes, Knight of Ashes?’

  ‘You have the lance until I return.’

  ‘Understood – we will be vigilant. And Luk?’

  He paused, halfway out of his throne.

  ‘Yes, Lady Hespar?’

  ‘Be careful, sir Knight. You’re no use to us dead.’

  ‘Understood, my lady.’

  Luk uncoupled his neural jacks and felt the familiar lessening as the ghosts of his throne left him. He folded his haptic gauntlets in his seat, smoothing their wires down carefully. Checking that his bolt pistols were holstered at his hips, he unhooked his sheathed chainsword from its equipment rack and slung it onto his back. Fixing a rebreather and sand goggles in place, Luk clambered up the ladder to his cockpit hatch and out into the wind.

  As Luk’s boots hit the sand, D’atsub guided the lanka over to him. The leathery beast honked and thrust its snout at Luk, sniffing him suspiciously.

  ‘Is that it, then?’ he asked over the moaning wind.

  ‘That is it, offworlder,’ said D’atsub, pointing reverently at the sulphurous defile. ‘The Path of Fire and Shadow wends between the Gnashing Rocks, unto Lorgukhu’s maw. There will you find the one you seek.’

  ‘Your people have a reassuring way with names,’ said Luk.

  ‘Ours is an unforgiving planet, offworlder,’ said D’atsub. ‘Everything here kills. Everything demands respect, and so our fathers’ fathers gave respectful names. We are reminded always to treat Kandakkha as it deserves. It helps us not to die.’

  Luk sketched a half bow.

  ‘I meant no disrespect. Your clan has honoured its half of the bargain, and you have my heartfelt thanks.’

  ‘You came with the wrath of the Emperor, in our hour of need, Knight of Ashes,’ said D’atsub. ‘You are our saviours, and it is we who thank you. Even your name is auspicious, for it bespeaks the breath of Lorgukhu.’

  ‘The Oracle,’ said Luk, squaring his shoulders. ‘No. She will not kill me. She will give me what I need to finish my hunt.’

  ‘I hope it is so,’ said D’atsub. ‘We will wait. If you do not return by the time the sands turn black, I will lead your comrades back to safety, and we shall sing songs of mourning in your honour.’

  Luk nodded wry thanks, then set off towards the shadowed cleft. As he went, the volcano, Great Lorgukhu, rumbled angrily.

  Passing between the craggy outcroppings, Luk entered chill shadow that was quite at odds with the fiery wrath far above. A veil of sulphur-smoke drifted before him. It parted at his advance. Sheltered from the wind, Luk could hear the hiss of his rebreather loud in his ears.

  The path wound and twisted, its walls jagged. Rock rose high overhead as Luk moved onwards, the sky becoming a narrow band of grey-white above him. Rounding a corner into deeper darkness, Luk flicked on the stablight strapped to his shoulder. He started as it illuminated bleached skulls, impaled upon thin spikes of stone. Beyond them, a cave mouth yawned in the volcano’s flank.

  ‘Throne! This planet,’ muttered Luk. He popped open his holsters and advanced. Passing between the macabre fetishes, Luk kept his breathing steady as he walked slowly into the cave mouth. His stablight pierced the darkness, revealing a rough stone floor scattered with rocks and fragments of bone. An old metal chest sat in the cave mouth, aquila-stamped and rusting. More bones dangled from the cave’s low ceiling, suspended on twists of wire.

  ‘Human,’ he whispered, moving carefully past the fetishes and taking care not to touch them.

  ‘Theatre,’ came a thin female voice from the darkness. ‘Designed to keep the locals from my door.’

  Luk froze, hands on his pistol grips.

  ‘Who speaks?’ he asked. ‘Do I address the Oracle of the Silver Eye?’

  A chuckle rose from the gloom.

  ‘You do, Knight of Ashes. Such is my dubious honour.’

  ‘You know who I am?’ asked Luk. Uncomfortable memories of sorcery and betrayal played through his mind.

  ‘I know who you once were, Luk Kar Chimaeros,’ chided the Oracle. ‘What kind of seer would I be, if I did not?’

  ‘That is not an answer,’ said Luk. ‘And that is no longer my name. If you know who I am, then perhaps you are acquainted with whom I hunt. It would be her way to set a trap with secrets as bait.’

  ‘They have poisoned you,’ came the voice, sad now. ‘The ones whose betrayal you seek to punish. They stole your trust. Your faith.’

  ‘They taught me the truth of people’s hearts,’ said Luk, voice tight. ‘But you still haven’t answered me. You could be her thrall. You could be her. Give me one reason not to draw my weapons.’

  ‘You sought me, Knight of Ashes,’ came the voice. ‘Not I you. You stand in the mouth of my cave, not I in yours.’

  ‘And yet…’ said Luk. His hands didn’t leave his weapons.

  From the darkness came a heavy sigh, followed by slow shuffling. The sound was dry, rasping, like snakeskin on stone. Luk stepped backwards and drew his pistols. But the figure that swam from the darkness in no way resembled Alicia Kar Manticos.

  Luk’s stepmother was tall, raven-haired and beautiful. This woman was ancient, hunched and rounded like a weathered rock. She wore a hessian robe embossed with faded aquilas, and an Imperial eagle topped her battered walking staff. Her skin was a leathery mass of wrinkles. Her eyes glinted from beneath drooping lids, their gaze sharp as flint. Yet it was the woman’s forehead that drew Luk’s attention, and the mouldering velvet blindfold that bound it.

  ‘A Navigator,’ he whispered.

  ‘What I was is no concern of yours, Knight of Ashes,’ said the old woman. ‘What I am is all you need to know. You’ve felt the taint of sorcery. You’ve witnessed the allure of Chaos. Tell me, am I she you seek and fear?’

  Luk could feel the power that radiated from the figure before him. It made the hairs on his arms stand on end and his heart thump. But there was nothing unclean about it.

  ‘It reminds me of the Shrine to the Emperor in the Draconspire,’ he said.

  ‘The Emperor? Yes, I am his instrument, praise be to Him in all His infinite might and wisdom,’ replied the Oracle, and Luk was surprised at the bitterness in her tone. ‘Now, if you have satisfied yourself that I am not a heretical sorceress, I’d appreciate it if you’d holster your weapons and ask what you came here to ask. These old bones do not enjoy prolonged periods of standing.’

  ‘I…’ began Luk, then shut his mouth and holstered his pistols. He bowed deeply and proffered the sign of the aquila.

  ‘I apologise, lady,’ he started again. ‘As you say, I have learned mistrust, but I meant no disrespect to one so blessed.’

  ‘Blessed?’ she scoffed. ‘Blessed, am I? I would tell you how old I am, young Knight, but you wouldn’t believe me. My only company on this barren world are local fools too fearful to even look me in the eye.’

  ‘I didn’t–’ said Luk, but the Oracle interrupted him.

  ‘That metal chest you se
e upon my threshold? They leave offerings in it. Food and drink, when I am lucky. Without them, I’d be dead within a week. Emperor only knows what I shall do the day I hurt myself, or sicken with something. Die, probably. Alone. My home is a rocky hole at the foot of an active volcano, and I haven’t tasted decent amasec in decades. Yet here the Emperor sent me, and so here I reside, until our lord and master has no more use for a withered old seer. So, if we’ve done with my blessings, I’ll ask you again. Speak your piece, and let me get back to my meditations, hm?’

  Luk rallied as best he could.

  ‘Lady,’ he said. ‘You know whom I seek. I would ask you where she is, so that I can end this hunt and reclaim my honour.’

  ‘You are honourable, sir Knight,’ said the old woman, her voice softening. ‘They could never take that from you. Without your honour, your nobility, you would not have assembled these Exiles that you lead. They follow you because they see your honour, even if you cannot.’

  ‘One of them, perhaps,’ said Luk. ‘Mostly they follow me because they are indebted, or because I give purpose to their hate.’

  ‘If you say so, then so it must be,’ said the Oracle, her voice knowing. ‘One way or another, Knight of Ashes, I hope this may prove an end to your long hunt.’

  The Oracle reached into her robes. Luk reached for his guns again, believing for a moment that he had been fooled after all. Yet the old woman withdrew a roll of parchment that looked scarcely less weathered than she. A bone-white ribbon kept it furled.

  The woman proffered the scroll, and Luk took it from her warily. She gestured, an impatient flick of shaking fingers.

  ‘Well? You’ve waited long enough for this information,’ she said. ‘Read it!’

  Luk unbound the ribbon from the scroll and unfurled it, careful not to tear the crumbling parchment. Carefully, he read the words inscribed in crabbed hand upon it.

  ‘She is there,’ said the Oracle. ‘This I saw long ago, before even you Became. That is where your once-mother lies in wait for you, and I warn you now that she knows you are coming. You are not the only one to gaze into the weave of fate.’