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The Abyssal Edge – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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The Abyssal Edge

Aaron Dembski-Bowden

I

‘Whatever the officers of the Eighth Legion are recording in their own archives at this moment is a matter for their own black consciences. I am a legionary of the Thousand Sons. I deal only in truth.’

II

‘Part of me wonders if my primarch will soften his own accounting so as not to speak ill of his brother, the barbarian Curze. I do not believe for a moment he will be anything but honest, but honesty can be naked, or it can be dressed in veils of mercy. Lord Magnus is a forgiving man – wise, where his brother is spiteful. Beneficent, where Curze is bitter.’

III

‘The Devastation of Zoah marks only the second time I have stood by my primarch’s side in battle. I am not blind to the honour done to me during this compliance, when I was in the presence of not one but two of the Emperor’s sons. Nor am I blind to the mistakes made that led to the campaign’s catastrophic failure.

I seek not to shift blame according to subjective whim. I intend instead to assign fault, objectively and thoroughly, where it belongs. The Night Lords have already disengaged, leaving us alone. Doubtless they go to take their moronic viciousness elsewhere, parading their ignorance as the ultimate virtue, claiming they did only what had to be done.’

IV

‘And so it comes to be that we stand here in the ashes, sifting through the powdery remains of revelation. It is too late to change a thing. Too late to do anything but mourn what was lost.

Everything is gone. All is dust.’

Ulatal lowered the data-slate. For a time there was silence, or at least something close to it. The sound of his own laboured breathing was wet and tidal, punctuated by occasional draws on his aspirator. Beyond the gentle, unhealthy sounds of his own continuing life, the chamber had fallen entirely quiet.

‘What do I do with this?’ He tossed the data-slate onto his work desk, feeling the fluid in his respiratory tract shift as he leaned forward. Ulatal was more than a little weary of that liquid gurgle in his chest.

‘Forgive me,’ said the servitor standing in the corner. ‘I am having trouble parsing your query. To what are you referring?’

Ulatal looked over at the dead-eyed, monotone creature, and waved a hand in the vague direction of the data-slate.

‘This. What exactly am I supposed to do with this?’

‘Forgive me, I am having trouble parsing your query. You appear to have indicated the chamber wall. Is this accurate?’

Ulatal resisted the urge to scream. Instead he jabbed his finger against the data-slate’s screen, hammering it half a dozen times with his fingertip. ‘No, you piece of… This. This. The report. What do I do with the report?’

The servitor didn’t move, didn’t even blink. ‘Reports are to be organised, notarised and filed for pre-archival secondary processing.’

‘Why did they assign you to me?’ This wasn’t the first time Ulatal had asked the question. ‘You’re as much use as a rock in a game of regicide. How do I deal with a report like this?’

‘Reports are to be organised, notarised and filed for secondary processing.’

‘Shut up,’ Ulatal said with dangerous calm.

‘Compliance,’ the servitor replied obediently, and entered silent running.

‘And if you speak again in the next day cycle, I’ll shoot you. That’s not just a promise, it’s a solemn vow.’

He could do it, too. They’d not taken his sidearm away. Admittedly, he was never likely to use it in an occupational capacity again, but its familiar weight on his hip did a little to counterbalance the feeling of helplessness from the bloody fluid in his lungs and guts.

The servitor stared at him, caught between conflicting imperatives. ‘I must remind you that destruction of Expeditionary Fleet resources and materiel is prohibited under the codes of cond–’

A needle-thin beam of concentrated energy speared through the servitor’s chest. There was no dramatic impact, no bodily momentum crashing the cyborg back against the wall, just a scorched hole about the size of a thumbnail directly through the servitor’s heart. It tried valiantly (or irritatingly, from Ulatal’s perspective) to finish its sentence, then slumped down where it had stood. The bionic plate of its skull clanked almost tenderly back against the wall.

Ulatal lowered the laspistol, cursing softly. Another thing the damn crash had taken from him: he’d been aiming for the bastard’s head.

Annoyed, and using that annoyance to mask his unease, he holstered his sidearm and rubbed his temples.

‘Now shut up,’ he said to the twitching servitor.

It said, ‘Compliance…’ on the third attempt. Then with blood bubbling from its mouth, the servitor obeyed its final order.

Perdita came to see him later that day. A maintenance crew had cleaned the servitor away by the time she arrived. Ulatal’s gaze flicked to where Perdita wore her new rank insignia on her shoulders and chest – and damn if that didn’t hurt a little. She picked her way through the tumbledown chaos of his chamber, glancing at the las-burn scorch in the wall.

‘Don’t,’ Ulatal warned her. ‘Maintenance already lectured me.’ He gave a nasty little smile that only lifted one side of his face. ‘I told them it was an accidental weapon discharge.’

‘I wasn’t going to say a word, sir.’ After a moment, she wrinkled her nose. ‘Except that it smells like something died in here.’

Ulatal took that judgement in the spirit it was intended. Bathing hadn’t been all that high on his priorities since the crash. Bathing took three times longer than it used to, and hurt an order of magnitude above that. He could’ve taken the nerve-suppressors allotted to him by the medicae, but they left him dazed and exhausted.

‘It’s not sir any more,’ he pointed out.

She could have flinched at his bladed tone, and he was surprised she didn’t. It probably would’ve been better if she had; then he’d have been spared the gentleness in her reply.

‘It will always be sir,’ she said.

‘Don’t patronise me, Dita.’ Ulatal practically grunted the words. ‘How’s the squadron?’

‘Adjusting. Did you see we’re flying fleet patrol again?’

Of course he’d seen. She was still sending him the bloody duty roster every week. He didn’t know how he felt about that. Was it charity? Sympathy? Pity?

He nodded to her question, not trusting his voice for a moment. Perdita straightened her uniform as she looked around the room again, not meeting his eyes. Throne, if Dita was coming in here and looking awkward, things really were bad.

‘You forgot to say I’m looking better,’ he goaded her.

As easily as that, the tension vanished. She grinned. ‘You look no different from a week ago.’

‘Yeah, I’m a prince these days. I hear they’re going to put my face on the two-credit coin.’

She stood at sudden attention. ‘Permission to lie, sir.’

Now that was more like it. Ulatal found himself smiling too. ‘Permission denied, commander.’

‘Yes, sir. Then it’s with regret that I inform you that you look like shit, sir.’

Ulatal chuckled. The slime in his lungs and guts chuckled with him, and he could’ve lived without that, but it still felt good to laugh.

‘At ease, commander.’

Perdita stood at ease, then wordlessly used the edge of her boot to scuff some of his smallclothes under the bed. In her eyes, he read the disapproval she was too polite to speak aloud. His officer’s quarters, once so ordered and pristine, were becoming a little… domestic.

‘So why am I here?’ she asked.

‘Because I need a new archival servitor. The last one died in an accidental weapons discharge.’

She raised an eyebrow and hiked a thumb at the door. ‘I can just leave, you know.’

Ulatal smoothed his palm down his unshaven face and, with the awkward gait of the newly-mutilated, he limped forwards on the bionic limb that replaced his lost leg. He had to suck on his aspirator, and after that wonderful indignity, what was left of his face twisted into a half smile amidst the burn scarring.

‘You’re here because I think I’m in trouble, Dita.’ He handed her the data-slate. ‘Look at this.’

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in Sons of the Emperor in 2018.
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