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The Devouring Void – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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THE DEVOURING VOID

Danie Ware

In the darkness, engines roared.

Used to the sinister quiet in which the Black Ship moved through the void, Inquisitor Xaime Benita turned, listening. Carefully, he scanned the cold, rusting metal of the almost lightless gantries, and the echoing space that surrounded this platform with the small cell at its centre.

The emptiness was filled with pain and whispers, and the creaking of the old ship’s spirit. There was nothing out there, only the engine, only the lingering dread.

In his heart, he prayed: Bless me, O Emperor. As your witness and as the agent of your justice, bless me to enact your will.

The sudden klaxon made him start, heart hammering. There was the distant flash of red, a circling, scarlet warning. It pulsed across his ceramite armour and his tied-back dark hair, washing over him like waves of blood.

‘We’re out of the warp!’ Captain Ebele’s voice spat from the voxmitter, the speaker wedged between a servo-skull’s open jaws. ‘All hands, armed and to muster points. The fleet is under attack. I say again, the fleet is under attack. The hold must be kept secure at all costs.’

‘My lord?’ Beside Xaime, Gana Munhir shot him a sharp glance, the red warning gleaming on his dark skin and on the gnarled burn-scar that used to be his chin. Ex-Militarum, his combats battered but carefully repaired, Munhir was a rock – a big man with short, greying hair and his lasrifle always in hand.

‘Watch the prisoner,’ Xaime said. ‘Whatever this attack is, we’re not losing him now.’

The platform was a half-circle, its flat side hard to the ship’s cold wall. Walking to its curved outer edge, Xaime drew his incinerator, though there was still nothing to see. From across the darkness, the cycling red lights touched the gantries’ filigree handrails. They shone from the ancient prayers carved into plaques and adorning the ebony metal.

‘He senses something,’ Munhir said quietly. ‘My lord, look.’

Xaime turned back. At the platform’s centre, behind the not-quite-visible shimmer of the psyfield, the small figure of Surkho was crouched in a ball. He was keening, a noise of acute mental pain. His filthy prison garments were tangled, his shaven head marked with old scars. He’d done these to himself, or so the rumours said, trying to gouge free his telekinetic ability, lest he be captured and offered up for the Emperor’s glory.

Xaime did not know the truth of this, and did not care – but he did know Surkho’s strength. Such was the little man’s focus, his sheer might and the threat he represented, that he was held here, high above the gunnery decks, in a cell all of his own.

He was absurdly powerful, and a risk to them all.

Somewhere, old fears rippled in the back of the inquisitor’s thoughts. You think you can win? You are not enough.

I always win, Xaime told them grimly.

‘’Ware,’ Munhir said. ‘Listen.’

Somewhere, out in the darkness, there were cries, shouts. The screech of rending metal. The bang of running boots. A single, massive crash. Protesting, the thundering engines rose to a scream. Familiar with the great ship’s moods and movements, Xaime thought that she was coming about.

‘Captain Ebele,’ he snapped at the voxmitter. ‘Explain. What dares attack the Emperor’s chosen?’

‘My lord inquisitor.’ From the skull’s jaws, Ebele’s voice seemed iron steady, yet there were complex layers of tension to his words. ‘We are assailed. Our Navigator has lost the Astronomican, and she screams–’

‘Answer the question.’

‘Xenos, my lord. They–’

The speaker crackled static, then voices shouting half-panicked orders. The snap and sizzle of las-fire.

In the depths of Xaime’s memory, the old fears continued, mocking and brutal. Do you remember? Remember everything you’ve done, the mistakes you’ve made? In the blood-light, recollections hovered like phantoms: civilian casualties, necessary losses as he tracked his prey. His Exterminatus order, the one that had slain Celadion Prime and her population of billions. The years of gibbering horrors, the insanities of the foe, all layering back and back, deep into his youth.

With a prayer, he silenced his past. He was the elite, the elect. He had hunted, and captured, and slain, for more than twenty years. Whatever he had done, it was for the Emperor. And he had no time for doubts. His own or anyone else’s.

‘Ebele! Report!’

The skull spat fragments. ‘Xen… hiv… fleet. Board… ubs. Attack craft… oyed.’

More static, bursts of commands. At the platform’s outer edge, Xaime could see little, though he could hear the rising sounds: colossal thumps as something huge hit the metal, far below. The roaring rattle that was the Black Ship’s batteries, firing on some unseen foe. The unmistakable bass boom of the bombardment cannon, something Xaime felt rather than heard.

Then another noise: whoops and jeers and cries. Across the voxmitter, the sound of a full-scale riot in the hold.

By the Throne! The thought of the ship’s cargo, loose!

And what would you do if they escaped? the old fears asked him.

Xaime bared his teeth. Such will not be permitted.

‘Munhir.’ Ignoring the noises, he snapped the command across his vox-bead, and his cadre’s private channel. ‘Find out what’s going on. Caspar, Chiara, my location. Now.’

‘My lord.’ Munhir turned away, one finger on his ear.

‘Incoming.’ Caspar Melgaard’s tone was calm, the interrogator as unruffled as ever. Chiara d’Ursel returned a screech of binharic, but the old tech-priest had been with Xaime a long time, and the inquisitor understood her well enough.

Moving to the psyfield’s shimmer, a feeling like a headache in the backs of his ears, Xaime said, ‘Tell me what’s out there.’

For a long moment, nothing happened. There was the heavy, distant slam of a bulkhead door. The gunnery was still thundering, and Ebele’s orders were being lost now, just more pieces tumbling in the dark.

‘Surkho,’ Xaime said, coming as close as he dared to the psyfield. ‘Tell me.’

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

This eBook edition published in 2023 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by John Michelbach.

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ISBN: 978-1-80407-712-2

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