‘It never ceases to amaze me, all the different reactions to the chemicals,’ said Papa Oskyr, looking down at Strang and Sister Caitriona. ‘Of course, there will always be some individuals more resistant to the soporifics, and, given your natural immunity to the blight, I really should have suspected you might not have succumbed. Sloppy of me. I blame the blow to the head.’
Oskyr reached down and Cor flinched as a needle punctured the meat of his upper arm. He cried out as Papa Oskyr lifted him from the ground and slung him over his shoulder. Even bloodily wounded and groggy, Cor was stunned at the old man’s strength.
‘Who…?’ managed Cor. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Papa Oskyr,’ said the old man brightly as he bent to drag Zara by her hair. He bore them both into the back dormitory, propping Cor up against a bed and lying Zara on the floor next to him. Cor tried to get up, but whatever Papa Oskyr had injected into him rendered his limbs leaden.
It was all he could do to turn his head.
Every bed in the back dormitory was occupied, each figure’s cheeks sunken and drained, their eyes fixed open and empty of life. A looping mass of rubber tubing ran from every bed to a pair of heavy tanks like a custom chem-lung rebreather rig. Viscous green fluid swirled in the tanks and brass-rimmed gauges were maxed out in the red.
‘Why are you doing this?’ said Cor. ‘You healed them all…’
‘Well, of course I healed them,’ said Papa Oskyr. ‘What good are sick people to me? Only fit and healthy specimens could provide what I needed to restore my physiology and memory.’
Papa Oskyr marched towards the rebreather tanks and checked the gauges. Satisfied by what he saw, he unhooked the pipes and slung the tanks onto his back. He fitted a fabric rebreather mask to the pipes and slipped it over the lower half of his face, leaving only his eyes exposed. Eyes Cor now saw were cold as napped flint.
‘It has been quite diverting spending time here, and you have my thanks for giving me a place to hide from Imperial sweep teams while I healed, but, alas, all good things must come to an end, and I have much to do.’
‘But… you wear the eagle…’ said Cor, raising a trembling, palsied hand to point at Papa Oskyr’s shoulder.
The old man glanced down at the pink flesh of his shoulder and the two-headed eagle tattoo there.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘Didn’t I tell you that history was important? You see, this eagle is special, Cor. This is the Palatine Aquila. My Legion was granted the honour of bearing this icon after we saved the life of the Emperor Himself during the Proximan Betrayal. In hindsight a foolish act, but we weren’t to know that at the time.’
Papa Oskyr marched back down the chamber towards Cor, and squatted next to him. He reached inside the pocket of a wet coat that looked like three coats sewn together, and withdrew a small mechanical dancer, the one Cor had placed in the cold hand of his brother. The old man closed Cor’s numb fingers over the toy and placed his other hand over his heart. His head cocked to the side as he listened.
‘Your heart flutters like a little bird, boy, it’s just aching to be free,’ said Papa Oskyr, reaching into another of his coat’s pockets. Cor tried to speak, but nothing came out.
Something sharp and metallic glinted at the corner of his eye.
‘This may hurt,’ warned Papa Oskyr.
Saint Karesine’s schola progenium burned with bright, promethium-rich flames as Papa Oskyr strode down the steps of its grand portico with the spry vigour of a young man.
Not only was his physique restored, but his memory also.
His name was not Oskyr, it was Scaeva, and he was of the lineage of Primarch Fulgrim, Lord of the Emperor’s Children. Long ago, he had served as an Apothecary, and – in a sense – he still did, albeit for a pallid master who scoured the depths of sensations possible in post-human flesh.
Scaeva paused at the bottom of the steps and watched as a crowd of sump-dwellers gathered to watch the growing inferno.
Imperial citizens liked novelty, and even the most macabre sights would draw a crowd. But he couldn’t linger, not when there was work to be done.
Fighting alongside Hellbreed’s Hounds of Abaddon on their failed invasion had been a terrible misstep, and he’d lingered too long in search of interesting flesh for his master’s surgeries. He’d been cornered by a squad of loyalist Adeptus Astartes, trapped and wounded, before being hurled from the highest levels of the hive by a vengeful Imperial Fist.
He’d fallen over a kilometre, careening from stanchion to rooftop to pipe. Such a fall would have killed almost anyone else, but his master had elevated his flesh and bone beyond mortality, to something akin to godhood. A mere fall was not enough to end him.
How long had he lain in that pool?
Months, most likely, his life sustained only by his inhuman physiology entering a low-level dormancy and cannibalising its own mass to stay alive.
Judging by the state of his skeletal frame and memory loss when the progena had found him, it had been a close run thing. But he was alive, and he had to contact his fellow legionaries.
And secure fresh test subjects.
His master’s great work must continue.
Scaeva adjusted the tanks on his back and took a deep breath of the sump level’s distinctive atmosphere. This was air with character, air that had been around the hive’s lungs more than a few times to acquire a texture all of its own.
He’d missed such flavours.
Only the toxin-laden air of Chemos, rich with the aroma of dying souls, possessed the same tang.
Yes, decided Scaeva, this tasted of home.
The battle began with snow, heavy and rushing from a late winter sky. It drifted high in the ancient ash groves where the soulpods grew. It shoved past evergreens and into the sylvaneth forest. It pummelled the vast field beyond, where the armies of Chaos and the Wargrove of Winterleaf collided.
Night fell.
Snow deepened.
Young dryads, too small to join the Wargrove, huddled at the edge of the forest, their arms and branches twined together for warmth. The Song of War pounded through them, but the rumble of charging soldiers, the sharp clamour of claw on metal, the screams and dying sounds, had faded into the distance. They could see and hear practically nothing, and Kalyth was impatient.
She untangled herself from her sisters and, hands on her hips, marched to the edge of the tree line. The wind stung her cheeks. Snow bit her eyes.
They had been ordered to wait in the forest, to tend their wounded brothers and sisters when the battle ended. They were the last line of defence against the servants of Chaos, should the Wargrove fail. But it had been an hour now since sunset and they knew nothing of what was going on, out there in the dark.
