Sepulturum - Nick Kyme Read online

  She relented but asked in a quiet, almost fearful voice, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing we need be a part of,’ he said, and gently turned her away.

  No father would want his daughter to see this, assuming he could even say for certain what he had actually seen.

  They pushed on, Karina flashing nervous glances in her father’s direction, Cristo doing his best not to look shaken. His head hurt all of a sudden, like he’d been squinting under the labour-pit’s lumens for too long, a dull ache that pressed in at his temples like insistent, probing fingers. It couldn’t erase the image from his mind, though, as he and Karina reached the shadow of the overhang.

  Of what he had seen in the gully.

  They were eating each other.

  Chapter III

  Fog

  Morgravia took a maglev to the other side of Low Sink.

  The mag-trans was about the only thing in low-hive that still functioned with moderate dependability. It served as a public shuttle for the labourers, scriveners and other menials required for the hive to function, and Blackgheist’s ‘overmen’, the nobles, oligarchs and plutocrats that ran the city, had a financial interest in its continued reliability. The world’s industrial output, the raw materials extracted and mined from her bedrock, had made the overmen rich and powerful. Ostensibly, they served the Imperium, meeting their tithes and observing their duties in the furtherance of the great war machine; actually, they served themselves, their ivory towers built on the blood and bones of less privileged men, shielding them from the worst of the lower city’s depravities. The mag-trans kept those towers lofty, shipping goods as well as labour and ferrying it to the high-docks where it was packaged, sealed and assigned for usage off-world.

  The train ran the edge of the natural basin into which the settlement of Low Sink had agglomerated over time, the name having sprung from its concave geography. Magnetic repulsion kept the heavy metal carriages a few inches above the rail, though the commute was far from smooth. A rattling coffin box with slits for windows and standing room only was a less than inviting environment in which to take a long journey. Morgravia shared air, space and body odour with a sweaty press of dirty fact­orum workers, dockhands and other sundry folk. Few spoke, their minds on whatever toil lay ahead, though the quiet shaking of the carriage was broken up by religious sermons piped through vox-emitters.

  Maintain your vigilance.

  Fear the witch.

  Mutation is heresy.

  Corruption lies in apathy.

  She knew the words by rote; she had spoken them enough times, though recalling any specific instance was currently beyond her reach. That’s why she needed the Broker. Instincts remained – how to fight, how to move covertly, how to interrogate – but actual, solid memories did not. She knew the extent of her influence, the power it granted her, but she dared not risk employing it, not when the face of the enemy was still hidden. They had tried to kill her, whoever her quarry was. This she knew with instinctive certainty too. For now, they either thought she was dead or had stopped looking for her. That anonymity had to remain intact. It meant receiving no help beyond what she already had, and no transport that would attract attention. Ships, even junkers, were out. And so she favoured the maglev. Public, nondescript; no self-respecting inquisitor would deign to traverse in that cattle barge. It served her well as a perfect disguise and a place to marshal her thoughts.

  Morgravia supposed that Hallow’s End had been chosen as a venue for the meeting with the Broker on account of its relative obscurity. Situated at the very western fringe of the basin just inside the border of a settlement called Meagre, it had one foot in the badlands, the territory of the gangs. This did not concern her. The red dream on the other hand… It had manifested after her liberation from her captors, and the natural assumption was one had caused the other. The dream must be tied to her fragmented memories, but the kaleidoscope of images and the sensations that accompanied them defied rationalisation. To piece herself back together, she needed a witch.

  A sudden jerk arrested those thoughts as the maglev slowed to a stop. The carriage lowered itself down onto the guide rail beneath it as its repulsion engines cycled down. With a hiss of released hydraulic pressure, the doors lumbered open on screeching casters to let in the reek of Meagre. In the distance, a bell tolled. The last of the passengers pulled on rebreather masks or tied scarves as they left the carriage. Morgravia shuffled along with them, attaching her own mask as she ventured out.

  Hazy fog lingered low to the ground, clinging in a creeping veil. Jaundiced with toxins, where it met structures it lapped at their sides like an ethereal sea. Its tendrils gently tugged around Morgravia’s ankles and reduced the departing passengers to muddied silhouettes. It obscured much of the cityscape but even with this generous softening of detail, the impoverished nature of the place was all too apparent. The faces of beggars loomed out of the morass like unquiet spirits desperate for exorcism. Sickly children huddled together for warmth, taking shelter in the shells of dilapidated buildings. Feral dogs scurried through ruins, barking mournfully, only kept at bay by grim-faced proctors who travelled in packs.

  Morgravia took side streets, following signs of flickering neon until she came upon a pugnacious blockhouse, barely visible through the fog. It squatted between larger industrial structures, its stout frontage flanked by ferrocrete buttresses and jutting like a pugilist’s chin. A shed stood appended to one side, slabbed by plate and bolted tight. Armoured shutters sheathed the windows, yielding to a single dingy aperture that served as the entrance of the establishment.

  A light flickered in the mouth of the doorway, not exactly an invitation but neither was it unwelcoming. The faint strains of music echoed from within. Morgravia followed them.

  Hallow’s End beckoned.

  It was as warm and dark as a womb inside. Old sodium lanterns threw off a weak, bluish glow that described a large room flanked around three sides with private booths. A communal area lay in the middle, a roughly carpeted expanse that led to a raised bar protected by a cage of wire mesh, with drinks served through narrow gaps like arrow slits. To one side of the bar a small stage played host to a female singer in a long dark dress that went beyond incongruous all the way to appropriate in the eclectic setting. She sang of sorrow, of dead men heading off to war and the loved ones they left behind. A wizened theremin player provided accompaniment, plying the invisible strings of his instrument in a beautiful lament. His green velveteen suit matched the gemstones on his ringed fingers. The musicians appeared indifferent to the seedy surroundings, lost in the reverie of their song, and Morgravia found she envied them.

  She delved deeper, and plunged into a cloud of obscura smoke. It floated in purple ribbons, giving off the scent of spice and lavender, and coiled around the patrons like an eager lover. The colourful pall emanated from a fat man supping on a hookah pipe, chortling at his own indolence as he pawed at a bevy of languid, dull-eyed courtesans attending him. His considerable bulk nearly filled a private booth, and he sweated in the heat under saffron-hued silks and gilded finery. A merchant, trade-rich and morality-poor. His shadow was in considerably better physical shape, and exotically armed. He wore a flechette pistol tucked in a visible shoulder holster that wrapped around the hired gun’s bodyglove like it was a part of his genhanced musculature.

  The Broker was exactly as his or her name suggested. A trafficker, a very exclusive purveyor of goods, introductions and favours. Finding them had been difficult, getting a meeting even more so. Hel’s red sword would testify to that. The initial business had been conducted through factotums and underworld intermediaries and now it came to it at last, Morgravia realised she had no idea how to identify the Broker.

  Wealth, she assumed, was as good a barometer as any, and so she made for the fat man’s orbit, but stopped when she felt a light touch on the arm. She turned sharply, slipping a hand beneath her longcoat, s
liding fingers around the hilt of the combat knife tucked behind her back.

  Even in the dingy light, she saw the hard living in the scars of the man in front of her. He had swarthy skin with a soldier’s cut, hair shorn short around the temples and a little longer on the crown, and wore hardy travelling fatigues. A duster coat was swept over the back of the seat he had vacated, along with a gun belt that holstered a pair of ivory-handled autopistols. A ruddy, ragged scarf looped round his neck and there were small plates of armour stitched into his jerkin.

  Catching Morgravia’s gaze, he lifted his hand to show her both palms in a placatory gesture.

  ‘No trouble here,’ he said in a low drawl. He had the look of a badlands drover, a cattleman. Either that or he was ex-Militarum.

  ‘Not for me, anyway,’ she warned him, relaxing her grip but not letting go of the knife.

  ‘So long as you stay away from Fharkoum, then sure.’

  Something in Morgravia’s expression must have suggested confusion because the drover, or whatever he was, decided to elaborate.

  ‘The fat man draped in gold with his own harem. You don’t want anything from him.’

  She stepped in closer, so barely half an arm length stood between them. ‘And how do you know what I want?’

  The drover rubbed the bristles on his chin, as if appraising something. ‘I know he ain’t it.’

  ‘I suspect you know very little. What do you want?’

  Morgravia wondered if Hel might put in an appearance, but it wouldn’t have been the first time she had let her fend for herself.

  The drover smiled but she cut his charm to the quick when the knife pricked at his throat.

  ‘This is a monomolecular cleaving blade,’ she told him. They were close enough to kiss, but Morgravia had something much deadlier in mind. ‘It can cut through carapace like parchment. Push hard enough…’ she said, leaning in so the tip nicked the drover’s skin to let a crimson bead roll gently down the blade, ‘and it can even penetrate adamantium and ceramite. Do you know what kind of warriors wear armour like that?’

  ‘I most certainly do,’ replied the drover, maintaining his easy charm despite the knife held to his neck. ‘I can see you are a serious woman and I have no wish to incur your ire further, but I believe we may be at cross purposes.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me why I shouldn’t push ten inches of monomolecular plasteel through your larynx or shall I just begin?’

  ‘A very serious woman,’ said the drover and took a slow, backwards step and then another to the side. A booth had opened up behind him, one that hadn’t been there before. He smiled again, gesturing to the booth like a major-domo shepherding a guest of his master’s household.

  ‘The Broker will see you now.’

  They entered the fog bank east of town, having gained the ridge and hurried past the shadow of Wrecker’s Curve. The old bridge was still visible behind them, its broken edge sagging into the gully like a flaccid tongue.

  ‘Saints’ blood, this came in fast,’ Karina remarked as the yellow morass closed in around them, and she began to think they weren’t moving fast enough. Something had happened in the gully; her father had seen it and wasn’t talking.

  She had no desire to return to Meagre. That place hadn’t been home for a long time, but her choices were limited. Even still, she recognised the shacks made from scavenged metal and the grain silos raised up on stalks that marked the border. She had crossed it enough times. Broken agri-servitors paced the fields of hard earth, digging irrigation channels with their shovel-like hands. She hated them, with their idiot expressions and pallid skin. A red-scaled raptor alighted onto the head of one of the creatures and began pecking out the soft jelly of its eyes. Karina’s lip curled in disgust. Such toil to gain so little. A few of the servitors had collapsed, left to disrepair, their joints rusted through. Rot tainted the air. Blind to the strangers in their midst, they paid them no heed.

  ‘You hear that?’ Cristo had stopped part way through one of the fields and turned his head, frowning as he tried to listen.

  Karina couldn’t hear anything beyond the misery and industrial churn of Meagre.

  ‘If you mean the soulless, beating heart of this shit heap, then yeah, I hear it.’

  Cristo appeared not to acknowledge her but kept turning his head, first west then east. The fog thickened by the moment, and soon it would be difficult to tell one direction from another.

  ‘What is it?’ He was scaring her, though she wasn’t about to admit that. Something haunted him, like an old ghost hungry for his blood.

  Then she heard it, muffled by the fog. Footsteps, coming fast. Lots of them. Then heavy, rabid breathing. Karina felt a bead of sweat trickle down the small of her back. Her heartbeat felt like a storm battering her chest. She understood what was wrong with a sickening and despairing clarity.

  He was afraid. Desperately afraid.

  Though they were at odds, she had always respected his fearlessness. He had fought to keep them alive in Meagre. No daughter should ever see her father scared. It went against nature, but with a profound feeling of unease, she realised that whatever was out there in the fog went against nature too.

  She gripped his hand, hers still bound in the bandages from the fight.

  ‘Father…’

  He turned to face her, his expression confused, as if he couldn’t remember who she was. Then he squeezed her hand back and, together, they ran.

  The agri-servitors toiled in their wake, solemn as mourners and oblivious to what came after.

  Chapter IV

  Riot

  Sirens wailed throughout Meagre. Proctors marched the streets, a veritable army of the bastards, bellowing through loudhailers and herding the scared populace like cattle. Curfew had been ordered. Citizens ran for their domiciles with the fervour of rats fleeing fire. Mothers clutched babes to their chests. Weak and fearful men looked to their own safety. Families huddled close, desperate to stay together. The churn of humanity ploughed ahead in a nervous mob, obeying the blaring of the horns, willingly ignor­ant of the false protection the proctors offered. As they made for their own hab, Cristo and Karina had little choice but to be swept up in the mayhem.

  ‘Have you ever seen so many?’ she asked, reckoning on about two hundred of the law keepers. Rank after rank of black carapace, helms and tower shields.

  They’re more afraid than we are…

  ‘Not since the grain riots,’ Cristo replied, and looked hounded by his thoughts.

  They were moving slowly through one of the main thoroughfares, hemmed in by bodies, the air tinged with fear but still short of outright panic. Karina dreaded to imagine the slaughter if the herd decided to stampede.

  ‘What did you see?’ she said as they were pressed close, whispering into his ear so they weren’t overheard. ‘In the gully… What was it?’

  Cristo shook his head, staring as if whatever he had witnessed replayed before his mind’s eye.

  ‘Not sure.’

  ‘Yes, you are. You know exactly what you saw, you just don’t want to say it.’

  Because that would make it real.

  Cristo had been about to answer when a shout came from behind them. One of the proctors was reacting to something. He gave a few curt orders and a section of their ranks peeled off to deal with an unseen threat. They headed east.

  ‘The fields…’ said Karina, meeting her father’s wild gaze.

  He grabbed her wrist. ‘I’m getting us out.’

  She let him pull her along as he pushed through the crowd. The shouting grew worse, and quickly turned into screaming. A proctor yelled through his loudhailer.

  ‘Disperse! Disperse!’

  Shotgun discharge thundered, the dull percussive booms overlaying each other in a desperate chorus. Now the cro
wd was running, scrambling… falling. Karina, half dragged by her father, saw a docker disappear into the mass of bodies. He didn’t rise again. She felt a sharp pain in her ribs, hands grasping at her hair and clothes, pulling her back like a human riptide. Lashing out, her elbow struck bone and the pulling eased. Cristo drove on like a battering ram, one hand clamped to his daughter, the other tearing at the undulating wall of bodies standing in their way. Blood flecked his face and hands. He roared, savage, driven.

  A grey canister spiralled into the air, and Karina just caught sight of as it descended, corkscrewing smoke, before detonating right in the midst of the throng. Tear gas spewed out in a dense cloud. More screaming followed, both pain and terror. Half a dozen more canisters arced towards the crowd, fired from grenade launchers.

  Karina watched their slow parabolas with increasing horror as one landed a few feet away.

  ‘Oh, Throne…’

  A surge of light and heat struck her, and she lost her father’s grip as the blast took her sideways. Dazed, prone, her ears ringing, it took Karina a few seconds to realise that it wasn’t tear gas. The proctors were hurling frag grenades. They were trying to decimate the crowd and remove it as an impediment.

  A factorum worker, face burnt black, overalls shredded and bleeding from a dozen shrapnel wounds, staggered and fell right in front of her. A mother in the robes of a low-level scrivener cast about for a missing child. Those caught in the explosion milled around, clutching the stumps of ruined limbs, searching for the pieces of them that were missing. Others wailed, blinded, bloodied and afraid. Stillness briefly reigned, the passing seconds abruptly stalled by the shock of the recent present. Then everything came crashing back, the fear and the agony, a river of it tearing through its banks and letting loose a flood.

  Karina sat up. And screamed.

  ‘Murdering bastards! You’re killing us! You’re killing us!’

  She tried to rise, and got struck by a flailing leg. The city spun, blurring. East became west as she stumbled and fell hard. Pain seared through her knee, burning needles piercing the bone, and she yelped. She rose again, unsteady, until a blow to her midriff put her on her back. Groaning, panic and desperation filling her gut with ice, Karina rolled over. Then she crawled, elbows dragging, blood fogging one eye and turning everything she looked at an ugly shade of crimson. She perceived legs, desperately ­scurrying, and the cold faces of the dead staring from the heaps of bloody bodies. A foot thudded into her back and she gasped as the breath was punched violently from her body. She kept crawling but got kicked in the chin. Starbursts erupted across her vision as a copper taste filled her mouth. Karina reached for her knife – at least she could die fighting – but grasped an empty scabbard.