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The High Kâhl’s Oath – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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CHAPTER ONE

Friends in Bad Places

Immense detonations wracked the carapace-like hull of the bioship as another fusillade from the Grand Endeavour’s gun batteries thundered into its crater-pocked flank. Almost twice as large as the Kin Pioneer ship, the gigantic living vessel spilled globules of freezing ichor into the void amid a shower of carapace fragments left trailing in the wounded void-beast’s wake. Among the organic debris ejected by explosive decompression were the corpses of smaller creatures, spinning and turning on their haphazard courses through the vacuum.

Observing the destruction from the piloting compartment of a gunship was Myrtun Dammergot of the Kindred of the Eternal Starforge. She had earned many titles in her long life: Scion of the Trans-Hyperian Alliance, Gatemistress of the Ebon Channel, Voidmaiden of the Nêrn Straits. The one she prized the most was Commander of the Grand Endeavour. Myrtun knew that the damage was mostly superficial. Given time the bioship would heal, the majority of its deadly cargo kept secure within armoured gut-vaults deep within layers of flesh and chitin. Which was sort of the point – as soon as the ship died, the most useful parts of it would start to wither and lose value.

For millennia, the deepest hatred of the Kin had been reserved for the ork savages that had bedevilled their worlds and expeditions since the time of the first Votann. Yet these ancestral enemies paled in comparison to the genekillers that had swept into Kin territories of late. Voracious, single-minded world hunters, the genekillers didn’t just slay Kin; they stole their skein-data to create more hyper-evolved monstrosities. To be slain by the genekillers was to have everything taken away – memories, Votann-ordained genes – denied the chance to become one with the vastness of the Votann after death. This was why there was another name for them.

The Bane.

Rarely did profit and pleasure come together so neatly as when dismantling a bioship. Myrtun had manoeuvred the Grand Endeavour into position without the shields being overloaded by the huge biocannons studding the recessed lateral weapons integumentary tracts that ran two-thirds of the alien ship’s length. Now a complex dance of bioship and prospector continued, with the latter burning thrusters to remain in the blind spot for as long as possible while the gunships carrying the boarding teams covered the void between.

Like the rest of the boarding party, the expedition leader wore a heavy void suit of black and orange, capped by a dome helmet. Inside the transparent hemisphere Myrtun looked as though she might have been formed of cooled lava, dark of skin and heavily etched with age. Her white hair was much thinned and worn in a long scalp lock. Her eyes were dark brown, bloodshot but piercing, a short stare from which was more than enough to unsettle all but the most strong-willed. Her left ear was missing, replaced with a bionic device wired down to her jawline that acted as a hearing device and transmitter-receiver.

A notification blinked on her wristpanel, indicating a transmission on her private frequency. She already knew who it would be as she pressed the assent button.

‘The messenger, the one from the Hold ship, is almost here,’ said Lutar, her Wayfinder and, more importantly, her lifelong aide and companion. Myrtun imagined the Ironkin back on the bridge of the Grand Endeavour checking and rechecking the bioscans, the lights of the panels reflected on the glassy dome of his armoured form. ‘Are you sure you want to proceed?’

‘Sure enough,’ she replied, keeping a sigh from her voice. ‘Also sure Fyrtor’s message means we’re just a watch or less from being ordered back to the Hold ship.’

There was no reply, but Myrtun could read as much from Lutar’s silences as she could from the spoken word.

‘You want to know what’s wrong? Why I’m dodging Fyrtor?’

‘So there is something wrong?’

‘No, not wrong.’ Myrtun looked up at the dark bulk of the bioship blotting the stars. ‘Distracting. You know the Hold ship has been nagging on at me for a while.’

‘Jôrdiki told me that you are ignoring them. Not even reading their messages.’

‘Jôrdiki should know better than to gossip,’ growled Myrtun. ‘It’s my business alone.’

‘She did not confide the contents of the missives, which she does not know. Only their existence. And her concern.’

‘Concerned that she can’t get me to do their bidding?’

A slight pause, the vocal equivalent of a frown.

‘Concern for you. The bidding of whom? The High Kâhl? The Votann?’

‘Of course not! I always listen to the Votann.’ Myrtun’s shoulders hunched at the thought, and she flexed the metal fingers of her artificial left arm within her void suit. ‘I don’t… I’m not a tamed hound, to come running back at a call.’

‘Or to be collared and leashed. I understand, my jewel-star.’ Lutar’s use of his personal term for Myrtun softened her demeanour.

‘Yes, you do understand me, my star-guide.’ She smiled as she uttered the last words. ‘Like nobody else does.’

‘More than a hundred orbits have passed since you last returned to the Kindred. Longer than ever before. And we have been further from the Hold ship than any Prospect has ever been. Perhaps it is time that you allowed some of the Hernkyn to return, and brought in fresh recruits. There are some here that should be leading their own Prospects, or pursuing their lives in other ways.’

‘I can’t go back, not until I’m all settled with Orthônar. He sponsored this ship and I’m still owing. And now he’s reeling me back in to the Hold ship.’

‘You’ve earned more than any other Hernkyn Prospect ever.’

‘And spent more getting out there. We were supposed to do more than break even this time. A good haul from the bioship puts us in good stead on the balance sheet.’

‘So why would the High Kâhl want to recall you?’

‘I don’t know… I just have this feeling.’

‘Paranoia?’

His subtle tone conveyed a smile that his synthetic body could not replicate, and Myrtun found herself feeling a little foolish.

‘Might be. But I can’t shake the idea that this is my last journey. I’m old, but these are my best days yet.’ As she spoke, Myrtun became more animated. It was as if the last hundred orbits had fallen from her. ‘I want to go beyond. Further than the charts. Maybe–’

She cut herself off, eyes glistening, breaths coming quickly.

‘I’m scared, my star-guide,’ she confessed. Her animation receded, time weighing down on her again. ‘Scared that if I go back to the Hold ship they will see this tired old ragbag of bones and skin, and they’ll not let me go again. They’ll give the Grand Endeavour to someone younger, better suited to this life. Maybe even Fyrtor will get it for his fleet. Perhaps that’s why he’s been dogging my heels these past three systems. Then what for me? Piddling about the Hold ship, boring the grit out of everyone with stories of my glory days.’

‘Or perhaps an esteemed retirement, advisor to the High Kâhl?’ suggested Lutar.

‘Esteemed retirement?’ Myrtun’s expression hardened. ‘Sitting around jabbering all day about nothing and everything? Like I said, I’d be pining for the old times and giving the High Kâhl an earful about how it was all better back then, like all the other greyheads. No! That’s not for me! Not for us.’

‘Us?’

She wanted to take the word back; it had slipped out of its own accord. But it was too late now.

‘Yes, us, of course. You’re a Wayfinder, meant to be out on a ship cruising the starways, guiding a Prospect or a Kinthrong across the warp sea. That’s what the Votann made you for.’

‘Made me?’ The hint of offence in his voice felt damning to Myrtun, who knew Lutar was rarely nonplussed by anything. ‘The Votann make us all, Myrtun. Your cloneskein and mine are different only in material. Synthetic circuitry for me, flesh and nerves for you. They had intentions for both of us, but the Votann are not gods or fate. You have fulfilled their intent a score of times and more. I could choose to stay with you. Would that be so bad?’

Myrtun thought about his question for a few moments, not saying anything. She disliked how most folks spoke first and let their brains catch up. She liked to weigh her responses.

‘Neither of us would be happy,’ she said at last.

Everything was ready for the final approach, and Myrtun knew the time had come to make her move. Before that, she needed to address the Prospect. Each of them would get their share from this adventure, and she liked to remind them of their duty.

‘Lutar, have me patched through to main comms.’

‘The galactic core has been beset by warp storms the like of which even the Votann have not seen for ten thousand years.’ As she spoke, Myrtun could feel the attention of hundreds of Kin across the transmission waves, in their void suits or listening at communal speakers back on the Prospector. Her voice was being carried from the engine rooms to the command bridge and everywhere in between. ‘Aliens, the Imperium, and slaves of the warp powers encroach everywhere on the territories of the Votann. War reigns supreme. Let us remember for a moment those no longer with us, who have been returned to the Votann.’

Silence fell upon the broadcast, lasting just a few heartbeats before Myrtun spoke again, her voice rising to a triumphant volume.

‘And let us all embrace this time of great opportunity!’

‘Opportunity!’ hundreds of voices roared back, dulled by the auto-senses of her bionic.

Taking her final words as a command, the crew on the Grand Endeavour fired the main cutting laser. A beam of flickering yellow and red, more commonly employed to dissect asteroids and drill into moons, now speared from the prow to slice open the exposed flank of the gene-killers’ vessel. Strata of muscle tissue and fat parted like a finely cooked bovi steak. Flanked by two smaller landers, the gunship sped towards the open wound.

‘Closing for final approach,’ the pilot announced to the void-armoured Kin aboard, her words simultaneously transmitted to Lutar on the Grand Endeavour.

‘Ready?’ Myrtun asked as she stepped back into the main compartment.

Twenty of her best warriors waited in two squads, two neutron charges floating just above the deck between them, glowing suspensor units built into their black cases. Brôkhyr Thôrdi stepped forward, a staff-like giant autowrench in one hand, his bristling grey whiskers pale in the helm lights of his suit. The Iron-master gave a thumbs up and motioned for the warriors to take up their burdens. Four came forward from each squad, lifting the charges like pall bearers at a funeral. At another command Thôrdi’s two E-COG units, far less complex cousins to Lutar and other Ironkin, floated up beside the Iron-master. The E-COGs were a little shorter than Thôrdi, resembling animated busts of Kin warriors held aloft by their suspensors, weapons ready as he turned towards the disembarkation hatch.

The communicator buzzed into life, Jôrdiki Ortdott’s voice sounding distorted within the dome of Myrtun’s helm.

‘Urgent communication from Fyrtor,’ said the Prospect’s Grimnyr. ‘The Canny Wanderer has exited warp and is heading to our position. He is requesting an immediate audience.’

‘I’m busy here, Grimnyr.’

‘That was what I told him, but he says he’s been bound to speak to you as soon as possible.’

Myrtun looked back through the door of the control chamber and out to the greatness of the bioship that almost filled the view. She could see ice-encrusted lumps drifting past like a ruddy micro-asteroid field, and beyond that, the flaps of the wound in the creature’s side, already hazy with small organisms swarming over the tattered flesh, the glistening of secretions catching distant starlight as they started to weave a healing membrane across the cauterised layers. It would not be long before they started webbing across the gap into the interior.

‘Well then, tell him I’ll see him in the guts of this beast, and to bring his best warriors.’

‘I’ll be sure to pass on your regards.’ Jôrdiki sounded resigned more than anything else. ‘I’ll let you know his decision. Fight proud. The Ancestors are watching.’

The last comment brought a wry smile to Myrtun’s lips as the link severed with a click. Save for the Grimnyr, there were few Kin alive today who were closer to the Ancestors than Myrtun; some of the most recent Ancestors had been created and died within the span of her existence.

‘Scanners picking up larger life forms in the entry cavity,’ warned the co-pilot, Hengfr. Like everyone else, the flight crew wore void suits of the Kindred’s customary orange lined with black, but his visor was golden, shielded against starglow and plasma blindness. A screen on the console showed red blips amid a backwash of duller orange from the bioship. ‘Two dozen, increasing in number.’

Myrtun nodded, though inside the spacious dome of her helm the movement was hidden to all but the co-pilot, who could see through the faceplate. She tapped a control on the wristband of her suit to activate the comm.

‘Hostile landing. Fire-team to the front. Preparatory strafing and simultaneous alighting. No dallying about, we need to get deep enough for the charges to do their job before the enemy gather their numbers. Take too long and we’ll be neck-deep in the grit.’

The co-pilot activated the weapons controls and the gunship’s familiar harmony of vibrations changed to incorporate the motors of the dual HYLas beam cannons mounted in its nose. Glancing out to the left and right, Myrtun saw the lighters carrying the rest of the force coming alongside, their stubby wings heavy with rocket pods.

‘Beginning attack run in five… four…’ said Hengfr.

Myrtun turned her attention back to the bioship while the countdown continued.

‘…two… one… Open fire.’

Rockets streamed in pairs from the lighters, a score flaring out towards the enormous gash that was the landing site. A strange feeling of detachment came over Myrtun as she watched soundless explosions filling the wound. The whine of primed energy cells forewarned of the HYLas barrage, a moment before streaks of crimson pierced the fresh cloud of ichor and ruined alien flesh. Breaking her gaze away from the behemoth ahead, Myrtun checked the scan display, waiting for the data to refresh. When the screen flickered with the next sweep, more than half the returns had disappeared.

‘Landing run initiated,’ the pilot reported, easing the gunship into a slow roll with a short burst from the lateral thrusters and guiding them past the expanding cloud of organic debris. ‘Matching course and speed. Hatch locks disengaged.’

Myrtun moved to join her warriors in the transportation compartment, carried by a long, gravity-less stride. Ahead of her, Theyn Lordun activated the hatch controls. The door swung upwards to reveal a brief glimpse of starfield before the view filled with tattered fleshy nodules and cracked alien carapace thicker than the hull of a battleship. Burn marks scorched the edges of a severed transport artery, within which floated the las-mauled bodies of smaller creatures frosting in the void.

‘Assault group, on me,’ barked Lordun. Myrtun felt the judder of attitude thrusters bringing the gunship closer, and at the edges of her view through the hatch she caught a reflected gleam from the accompanying lighters.

Disengaging his mag-locks Lordun jumped through the hatchway, a small flare from his void armour’s propulsors carrying him forward. Nine other Hearthkyn followed, becoming a cluster of sparks in the distance, their positions marked out in Myrtun’s visor by ident-tags and artificial auras.

‘Charge bearers, it’s time.’ Myrtun pushed forwards against the drag of her boots, cutting off the mag-locks just as she felt she would fall forwards. Her momentum carried her clear of the opening, and she followed in the wake of the Hearthkyn. More dome-display data hinted at the flanking positions of her Pioneers – more lightly void-suited than the Hearthkyn. She was similarly aware of the remaining Hearthkyn following behind, the two neutron charges borne between them. Ahead, the flash of weapons fire announced contact with the surviving Bane.

With her comm-piece switched off, it almost felt as though she was watching a holo with no sound, the splashes of brightness that threw flares across her vision resembling interference static. If she concentrated on one thing for too long, Myrtun felt like she had come to a standstill and the whole universe was moving towards her, such was the lack of sensation. She wondered if this was anything close to the experience of the Votann – whether their timeless, formless intellect watched the turning of aeons with the same graceful serenity that she approached the firefight.

The feeling ended the moment she switched on the communicator. A flood of warnings, battle cries, and orders overlapped in her artificial ear. The thrum of ion weapons and the ejection coughs of bolters sounded in the background, muted behind the gruff, stark voices of her companions. Iyrdin Cabb’s sharp tones cut through the chatter with the arrival of the Pioneers. While the Hearthkyn set up a perimeter into which Myrtun drifted with the charge bearers, the Hernkyn Pioneers floated ahead, moving into the leftward stretches of artery, heading deeper into the bioship’s innards.

There was no decking for mag-locks here, and so a short burst of void-armour jets brought Myrtun to a relative standstill, just inside the severed end of the artery tunnel. The tunnel was six times her height, curving downwards and to the right, its walls ridged with cartilaginous growths. Her suit picked up atmospheric agitation as more air leaked from deeper within the genekillers’ vessel.

Sensor readings relayed back from the Pioneers appeared as a rough schematic in the corner of Myrtun’s vision – a swathe of interconnected pipeways running broadly prow to stern, branching into more complex structures towards the interior. The image shimmered and she saw a ripple pass along the tunnel, fresh drops of ichor expelled from the severed tissue around her.

She recognised what it was from previous encounters. It was a reminder that she was just a bug crawling into a cut – one organism of an invasive species intent upon laying explosive eggs.

A monstrous pulse.

‘Securing junction designate fourteen lateral. Second squad moving to dorsal promontory designate fifteen dorsal.’

Listening to the reports from Iyrdin Cabb gave Lutar little idea of the scene inside the bioship. He knew from past conversations with Myrtun and others what the innards would be like: aspiration chambers full of cloying fog, slick lubrication tubes and throbbing ichor pumps, hot hall-like exhaust ventricles expelling the accumulated heat of a creature that, by any Kin understanding of biology, should not be able to exist. Despite this, and holo-recordings of previous expeditions, he found it impossible to create a proxy simulation of an environment even more alien than a gas giant’s storms or the depths of a helium sea.

Fortunately, the scan data from the boarding party provided a better geo-topographical interpretation for him to work with. A holo of the triangulated readings hovered just above the sensor station, overlaid against a translucent rendering of previously encountered bioships stored in the Grand Endeavour’s Fane – at least those that Jôrdiki had been able to coax from its records. The similarities were clear. Even though this exact configuration – species? – of the Bane had not been encountered before, its internal layout formed equivalent, reasonably predictable patterns.

With this information Lutar was able to place a virtual marker in the displays of the assault teams, highlighting an area previously identified as the statocystic chambers. The best minds of the Leagues had studied captured bioships and determined much of their anatomy, but the exact functioning of many organs and systems was still conjecture rather than fact. Lutar knew that the statocystic chambers, typically four of them in symmetric organisation, affected the movement and sensory abilities of a bioship in a similar way to those of waterborne invertebrates found all over the galactic core. However, in the depths of space with minimal gravity to impart directionality, it was not known to what force the primary statocysts responded. Some thought they were potentially attuned to the warp plane in some way.

While the theory was very much up for debate, the practical application of this knowledge had been tested many times since the Bane had invaded the Leagues. Disruption – preferably destruction – of the statocystic chambers rendered a bioship unmanoeuvrable. Returning to its inter-system biostatic state, the ship was then an easy target as it drifted lifelessly across the void.

Destroying the organs was, however, a far from easy task. And even then, other creatures within the bioship had to be dealt with.

‘There should be a coil-route heading vertically up and down from fifteen dorsal,’ Lutar told Iyrdin. ‘You need to climb up through the aortic channel and then cut open a membrane across an opening on your left.’

‘Understood. Beginning ascent.’

Small pulsing runes moved on the display, clustered around the brighter rune of Myrtun. Lutar tried not to fixate on that particular symbol. He knew that every Kin fulfilled a life worthy of the animus given them by the Votann, from kâhl to reactor technician, Grimnyr to hydroponics farmer. He also knew that he was functionally incapable of the kind of emotion that other Kin might feel for a special individual. And yet…

His thoughts were interrupted by Duri at comms.

‘Receiving signal from the Canny Wanderer. It’s Fyrtor.’

Lutar gave a nod and the comm-speakers crackled as the inter-ship link was established.

‘I’m on? Right. This is Fyrtor, commanding the Canny Wanderer for the Hernkendersson Prospect. I seek audience with Myrtun, Gatemistress of the Ebon Channel, Voidmaiden of the–’

‘She isn’t here,’ Lutar cut in as he checked the scan of the bioship. The expedition were almost completely past fifteen dorsal and making their way through the cut membrane into the superior amphibowel. The quickest way to their objective was unfortunately through part of the immense creature’s digestive tract. ‘She’s busy, I’m afraid.’

‘Myrtun’s actually on that Bane monstrosity? Now? Did she not get the message?’

‘She received your missive, but judged this matter of higher priority. I am sure you would agree that securing such a valuable prize and preserving Kin life are our foremost concerns?’

‘Er, yes, of course. I saw that she had sent over a boarding action, but figured that perhaps she wouldn’t have gone herself.’

The juxtaposition of this assumption with everything Lutar had stored on Myrtun in his databanks set off a short cascade of processor reactions, culminating in a brief but loud laugh.

‘You haven’t met Myrtun?’

‘Once, when I was much younger.’

Lutar had been left strict instructions for this eventuality.

‘I assure you that Myrtun will attend to your message the moment she has returned to the Grand Endeavour,’ he said.

‘She really would rather hide herself in the guts of a Bane monster than hear what I have to say? This is ridiculous!’

‘Your comms appear to be working well, I do not understand the problem.’

‘I have to guarantee that she has received the message. There can’t be any room for doubt.’

‘Then I am afraid you’ll have to wait.’

‘You don’t understand,’ answered Fyrtor, his frustration growing. ‘I have to deliver this message in person, as soon as possible. I was tasked with this by the Hearthspake.’

‘And if they hear that you did not do your utmost to fulfil their wishes, you think they might withhold payment?’

Silence was the only answer Lutar needed. He rapidly assessed the situation and surmised that Fyrtor was intent on joining the boarding action. It was in everybody’s interest that the two forces were coordinated in their efforts.

‘I can share our tactical data with the Canny Wanderer if you wish?’

‘No need, I’ve been tracking the attack since we came within range. Going for the shut-down-and-loot approach?’

‘That’s the plan, yes.’ Lutar ran a quick evaluation through the scanners. He was not programmed for combat leadership, but tactical thinking was mostly a matter of informed pathfinding anyway. And he had quite a wealth of data to use.

‘A dorsal entry would divert a considerable proportion of the mounting opposition,’ he suggested.

There was no reply for a short while. Haeven at the scanner reported that the Canny Wanderer was manoeuvring into position above the bioship, their trajectory taking them close to a cluster of spiracles just under the rim of the forward edge of the main shell.

‘Let Myrtun know we’re on our way. Fyrtor out.’

Kin had only a residual natural sense of the warp and its tenuous connection to mortals, but Grimnyr Jôrdiki Ortdott had been clonewrought to have a fraction more psychic sensitivity. This was aided by the empyric runes carved into her staff and studding the charms and amulets that adorned her. Like the lenses of a microscope bending light waves, the runes magnified her rudimentary connection, and through their arcane technology she could feel the immense yet blunt consciousness of the bioship itself.

More and more of the Bane were waking.

Against the backdrop of its dull presence were pinpricks of other awareness. Each was an individual, each signature possessing no more psychic potency than the mighty ship, but a part of a more nebulous and powerful whole. Where scanners were blocked by cartilage, muscle and bone, Jôrdiki’s mindsense gave a less accurate but further-reaching warning of the emerging threat. With every waking organism the shadow-cloud of awareness grew darker and sharper, guiding more creatures towards the intruders.

So far they had encountered the least potent organisms – worker things and minor battle constructs that had either fled or attacked on instinct, neither proving much of a threat. Even in the swarms that gathered about organs and nerve clusters like nesting beasts they were uncoordinated and ineffective, either dying to the bolters of the Kin in disjointed wave attacks or cut down where they cowered in the folds of flesh and bone-vaulted chambers.

But that was changing.

Jôrdiki pushed forward to catch up with the Prospect’s leader. She did not wear bulky void armour like her companions, its mass too much of an interference to the subtle empyric waves that her runes needed to operate. Instead, she wore her robes as normal, safe within a complex weave of wards projected by her runic gear. It was enough even to shield her against the potentially corrosive atmosphere of the bioship’s innards as they moved through digestion slurry with long zero-gravity leaps, bounding from fleshy wall to fleshy wall.

She was flanked by two CORVs – basic thinking machines that looked like elaborate E-COGs, each with an extravagant crest that arced up from the back and over the blank dome of the head, containing empyric resonators. They were equipped with bolters to guard the Grimnyr. The guns were a precaution against physical threat, but the CORVs’ primary means of protecting her were the complex empyric circuits housed inside their rounded shells. Synced with her runic talismans, the constructs acted like psychic fuses, placing a breaker mechanism between Jôrdiki and the warp, from which she drew her powers.

‘Myrtun, trouble’s coming,’ the Grimnyr warned.

‘When isn’t it?’ Myrtun replied. Her armour was marked by ichor and gore, the livery partly hidden beneath smeared viscera, but otherwise not a dint nor scratch marked it.

‘The Bane groupmind is strengthening. Nexus beasts are waking. You know what that means.’

Myrtun’s grunt confirmed that she did indeed know what that signalled – more coordinated attacks and the imminent arrival of more dangerous warriors.

‘We’re almost at the valveway to the target. Our guns and blades will handle whatever’s in front, I need your wards to shield our backsides.’

‘It’s as good as done,’ Jôrdiki assured her.

‘Kinna, you’re on rearguard with Jôrdiki.’

‘Aye, as you say,’ replied the veteran squad leader.

Ten Kin peeled away from the others and joined the Grimnyr, bringing up the rear of the advancing expedition. One of them carried a portable scanner and checked its glowing screen while they pulled themselves up the incline of the slickly floored tunnel and floated through drifting post-digestion particles. Though her mindsense was not as precise as the scanner, Jôrdiki knew they were in no immediate danger. The closest of the Bane nexus beasts was still some way behind, at the centre of a coalescing mass of other organisms.

Several others were more distant still, one of them far sharper and stronger than the rest. As though she was looking through a heavy veil, the Grimnyr could broadly sense the psychic channels between the nodes of awareness – hardlines in a biological comm-network, connecting transmitters that rebroadcast a pulsing signal over their local areas. It was always unnerving to feel the consciousness of aliens in this way. The Bane filled her with an empty dread – an emotionless groupmind not even hating its foes, driven on by a single uniting predatory need. A hunger that entire galaxies could not sate.

Pulling herself back to her surrounds, Jôrdiki watched as the lead squad used cutting lasers to slash an exit out of the tract into a fatty, foamy layer of cells. The first of them pushed their way in as liquid and oval globules slumped out of the wound.

‘This is the tissue around the statocystic chambers – cushions them against impact,’ reported Iyrdin Cabb, passing on the information being fed to her from the Grand Endeavour by Lutar. ‘Nearly there.’

Moving through the protective layer was more like swimming than anything else, visibility reduced to the wake left by the warrior in front. Jôrdiki became aware of a sense of alertness close at hand just a moment before the scanner in Kinna’s hand started to ping violently.

‘Something in here with us!’ the squad leader warned.

Sinuous shapes moved effortlessly through the globules, eyeless and sheathed with chitinous plates. They brushed past the Kin, unaware of them until they touched something solid. At this, they spasmed, coiling instinctively around whatever they had discovered. The calls of entrapped Kin bounced back and forth over the comm-net, while sporadic barks of bolters vibrated dully through the oily morass. For a few heartbeats confusion reigned, and Jôrdiki found herself alone but for the domed shapes of the CORVs cutting through the cells to either side of her.

A suited figure emerged from the slick, their horrified face illuminated by her suit lamps – an old-timer called Vargn. One of the creatures was wrapped around her right arm, its tail whipping back and forth as it tried to find something else to ensnare.

‘Get it off me!’ Her expression was becoming more and more panicked. ‘It’s cracking open my armour!’

Jôrdiki saw that where the creature’s plated armour rasped against Vargn’s void suit, splinters were breaking away. The snake-thing coiled tighter and tighter, sending stress fractures creeping along the warrior’s arm. Jôrdiki’s CORVs pivoted left and right, responding to thrashing movements elsewhere in the mass of cells.

+Target detected. Firing solution unavailable.+

Jôrdiki dragged herself forward, reaching out her hand to grab the tail of the creature. She missed and the barbed tip whipped towards her, sending a flare of ward power sparking outwards just a finger’s breadth from her face. Trying again, she flailed and twisted, finding no purchase in the oozing semi-liquid.

The endosymbiote renewed its attention on Vargn, slamming its tail repeatedly against her chest and faceplate. Vargn gasped with every impact, the pitch of her exhalations increasing with each blow. In desperation, she grabbed the worm with her other hand and immediately its remaining length coiled around her wrist, binding her like shackles. The creature flexed and Vargn screamed, her forearm protruding from the creature’s coils perpendicular to its natural angle.

Vargn’s predicament was also her salvation. Jôrdiki was able to grasp the undulating attacker, her wards like a layer of electricity between her and the organism. Through this she summoned empyric power, channelling energy via the circuitry of the CORVs. Sparks danced in her eyes and rivulets of flame flowed along her arm, the energy coursing into the defence organism. White fire rippled along its length, bursting free from within, consuming the creature in a series of detonations that sent shock waves bulging out through the bioship’s fatty tissue.

‘Is your suit intact?’ the Grimnyr demanded. Vargn’s eyes were looking everywhere but at Jôrdiki, fixed in disbelief at her freed arms, and then fixated on her broken wrist.

It took several more attempts to get Vargn to focus, but at last some clarity entered her dull gaze. She nodded and allowed Jôrdiki to grab the front of her armour and drag her forwards. After a couple of moments, Jôrdiki felt Vargn kicking alongside her and let go, her companion almost returned to her full faculties. She still held her bolter in her good hand, the left cradled protectively against her midriff.

They came across others in the fleshy morass. Most living, but spooked. A few dead. Cracked faceplates seemed to be the common cause, though a couple had missing arms or legs where the snake-things had constricted tightly enough that they had ripped off limbs. Their corpses were tied together in a grisly caravan and towed through the fatty sludge. In time they would be returned to the Votann, not abandoned to the genekillers. Dozens of the immune-system creatures floated in the gunk, hacked apart by blades or torn asunder by bolts.

Guided by flashing beacon signals, the expedition gathered again around an opening cut into the wall of the nearest statocystic chamber. Myrtun was waiting there, assessing each follower as they pulled themselves out of the protective tissue.

‘That was new,’ Jôrdiki said as she came up on her leader. ‘Nothing in the records about snake beasts there.’

Myrtun hid her concern well, but Jôrdiki saw the telltale flexing of the crow’s feet beside her eyes and the slight deepening of the lines around her mouth. Not only that, in such close quarters the Grimnyr’s empyric sense was just about sharp enough to detect an aura of uncharacteristic uncertainty emanating from Myrtun.

‘I think they’ve been learning,’ the old Kin replied after a moment’s consideration. ‘You tell me there’s a great big mind links them all up, yes?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Seems to me that we, the Kin, have pulled this trick enough times the Bane have caught on. Started growing defence measures against us.’

‘I’m not sure how I feel about that,’ admitted Jôrdiki. She floated to one side as Kinna and the remaining warriors of her squads dragged themselves into the chamber. They had another body between them, its domed helm cracked like an egg, the lifeless face of the Kin within almost unrecognisable, a mass of blood and crushed bone. The Grimnyr returned her attention to Myrtun. ‘It’s horrifying that they can evolve like that. But… that’s quite a reaction we’ve forced.’

‘Makes it feel like we’ve hurt them?’ Myrtun had already reverted to her normal attentive, confident demeanour. There was a ghost of a smile on her lips that was infectious.

‘Aye, something like that,’ said Jôrdiki.

‘Right, let’s get this sorted out and get about our business,’ said Myrtun, her words now carried to everyone on the comm-feed. ‘Iyrdin, form up the squads and reorganise. These filth are getting wise to our intent, and you can be sure as stars sparkle that worms aren’t the worst of their tricks. Keep a watch like the Ancestors themselves.’

War has casualties because no profit comes without first incurring cost, Myrtun thought as she watched the deceased being strapped together into an unceremonious but practical spherical mass that would be taken back to the Grand Endeavour. It was a truth that she had learned early in her life in the hardest way possible. A Kin that was created, lived, and then returned to the Votann had partaken in a productive – some would dare say profitable – existence. Their matter would live again and their experiences had become immortalised. The Votann in their wisdom had never eradicated fear from the Kin. As a biological drive it was exceptionally motivating, and as long as it was honed with training and discipline, it was absolutely essential. Self-preservation, when under control, brought all decisions into sharp focus.

Yet the Votann had gifted the Kin a lack of existential dread. Not for them questions of the afterlife, whether souls existed, how to live a good life. Every Kin knew where they came from – the gene databanks and Crucibles in the Holds of the League – and that they would, if returned home, end up in the bio-recyclers with their consciousness uploaded to the Ancestor Cores. There was no mystery to confuse, no questions that might bring doubt.

Which was why Myrtun had never allowed herself to become wholly comfortable with death. It was to be accepted, but Kin lives were not simply existence tokens to be expended for gain. Each was a potentiality for further experience, with the ability to exploit new opportunities for the Leagues, and live new experiences for the Votann. So disparate were all the Kin, even within just her Prospect, that every death altered the future trajectory of her people – most in minor ways, but some Kin might have gone on to greatness that would never be realised. Each of the bodies bundled up with mag-belts might have been a future Prospect commander, a future kâhl, or even High Kâhl. The cloneskein in each of them may have pushed them in a direction, be it Hernkyn or Brôkhyr, Cthonian miner or Grimnyr, but it was not a preordained fate.

Death was transformative, though. She had led her people here to turn the threat of a bioship attack into a profitable source of materials. It was not lost on her that some who had started that journey were no longer going to benefit from their share. But they knew that the life of the Hernkyn was one of greater risks than most. And usually, until a couple of disastrous near-misses, Myrtun capitalised on that. But now that she felt the grip of the Hold ship dragging her back, she had to push those risks a little more. She did not need her crew’s permission to make such decisions. None of them had signed up to return empty-handed.

She looked past the floating corpse mound to where Jôrdiki and the rearguard waited at the edge of the chamber, bolters ready for any monstrosity that emerged from the sea of goop, the crackle of ward runes occasionally flaring around the Grimnyr. Myrtun wondered what Jôrdiki thought of life and death, how she saw the servants of the Votann.

The Prospect commander had always shared her thoughts with Lutar but guarded them from others. Now it seemed natural to her that she would unburden herself to an Ironkin that might understand her but did not risk becoming weighed down by her baggage, yet as she knew the evening of her life was firmly moving into the night-time, a closer connection to the Votann and the heart of her people would not be amiss. Was there some worth in spending more time with her Grimnyr? Learning more about her than was spoken at the council?

‘Found it!’ Iyrdin’s triumphant call shattered Myrtun’s chain of thought, bringing her smartly back to the present. ‘Bring the charges up.’

With no need for Myrtun’s supervision, the Hernkyn and Hearthkyn fell into position, the small attitude jets in their suits manoeuvring them into place as they moved the charge coffins forward. Theyn Lordun and the bodyguard warriors kept close to Myrtun, but from long experience knew better than to crowd her. It was time to press on.

‘Jôrdiki, come with me. Rearguard, keep close.’

Myrtun did not wait to see if her command was obeyed; she simply turned and pushed herself away from the slicked cartilage of the floor and floated after the others. Glowing slightly as her wards filled in for armour thrusters, Jôrdiki came alongside. Myrtun looked across to the Grimnyr.

‘What’s your mindsense telling you?’

‘Nothing unusual. Waking sentience. Growing alertness. One of the greater node beasts is moving towards us, gathering forces.’

Myrtun cocked a glance towards the Grimnyr. ‘You should lead with that sort of information!’

‘It’s already on Iyrdin’s scanners.’

‘Of course,’ said Myrtun, though she wondered how she could have missed the Hernkyn theyn’s report. Getting distracted by the nearness of Fyrtor, the recall looming like a shadow over her. She connected her comm to the Grand Endeavour.

‘Lutar, how long before the genekillers reach us?’

There was a delay before the reply came through, and the signal seemed muffled, as though the mass of the creature between her and the Ironkin physically blocked the noise.

‘It would seem that the main transport artery does not run directly towards the statocystic cluster. I suspect the Bane will need to cut their way through to you, as you are doing to reach the statocysts. I can’t say how long, it would just be a guess.’

‘If you guessed, would it be longer or shorter than the time needed to place and prime the charges?’

There was another pause. Myrtun wasn’t sure if it was a communications delay or simply the Wayfinder making the necessary calculations.

‘I would project that the Bane will take longer, but not by much of a margin. Avoid any delays.’

‘Thank you. And how is Fyrtor doing?’

This time the reply was almost instant.

‘Very well. His Prospect is attacking perpendicular to your line of advance and will shortly be within tactical communications range. The Bane have responded in part, but it seems they are treating you as a priority threat. I can use a relay to put you in touch with him, if you’d like?’

‘No, but if you could ask that he push a bit closer, that’d be nice. Maybe try and get that big node beast to pay him some attention.’

‘I’ll pass on your suggestion. I will also remind you that as the genekillers approach and merge with your heat and movement signatures, and given the general scanning diffraction caused by the mass of the bioship on our life signals trackers, your localised scanners will be more useful than what I can see here.’

‘You’re saying to keep an eye out? You think we’re just wandering about, sightseeing?’

Another pause.

‘Just… be careful.’

Myrtun suppressed the urge to throw back something glib. Lutar was entitled to his concern, and she respected that.

‘Myrtun out.’

They carried on across the space of the outer statocystic chamber, its darkness only broken by the beams of suit lamps shining from particles and myriad tiny organisms suspended in the air, dancing into whorls at the passage of the Kin like plankton in a deep sea. It was not so vast as even the council hall of the Grand Endeavour, but its space seemed to swallow the light, the limits of its volume only sporadically revealed as a beam passed over the wall of the roughly ovoid space.

‘Everyone, hold position.’ Iyrdin’s sharp command brought a flurry of thruster flares gleaming across the chamber. Suit lamps turned in all directions as each squad moved to cover its quarter, weapons at the ready. A pencil-thin stab of light picked out one of the Hearthkyn advancing close to the wall. The warrior rotated amid a puff of motive gas, the irregular ovals of lamplight distorting across the chamber surface. ‘Who’s that over there, just in front of Gârnr Hammerbrow? Durskor? Pan your lamps along the wall, just to your right.’

The warrior stopped, lamp beams gleaming on a growth in the wall, like a scar but too regular to be the result of an injury.

‘There!’

Calls from some of the others, all around the chamber, reported that similar lesions were dotted at regular intervals across the whole surface. Myrtun felt a twinge of revulsion, reminded that she was inside another living creature.

‘Don’t remember seeing these before,’ said Iyrdin. ‘Anyone know what they are? Lutar?’

Negative responses filled the comm until Lutar’s transmission broke across the local links.

‘There’s nothing like them in the datacores. As best we can tell from here, they seem to be attachment points for some kind of denser ligament tissue in the surrounding flesh. They run off directly away from the chamber. Purpose unclear.’

‘Stay alert, but keep going,’ Myrtun announced, unsure what to make of this development. She was usually excited by novelty, but the worms that had already killed seven of her Kin and injured a few others warned that anything new here couldn’t be trusted. ‘Pick up the pace if you can – I want those charges placed and prepped as soon as we can manage it.’

With light beams tracing back and forth more frequently, the Kin ascended, following the narrowing sides of the chamber towards an opening above. With a stutter of vector thrust Myrtun spun whilst still travelling in the same direction. Behind her the rearguard were also ascending backwards, bolters pointing down into the gloom, their lamplight swallowed by the depth. Myrtun expected to see fanged maws and dead eyes lunging into the spread of lights, swarming up from below, but all seemed clear.

Turning to face forward again, she wondered what was making her so jittery.

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