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Lelith Hesperax: Queen of Knives – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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One

Lelith’s knives sang a song of silver and scarlet, and she danced to their tune.

They were on a world. They were always on one world or another, now; either that, or travelling through the webway. Lelith had stopped bothering to keep track of what name the worlds might have had. Kharavyxis always knew, in any case. The Hekatrix of Lelith’s Bloodbrides paid attention to that sort of thing; she believed in the cause of the Ynnari with a fervency nearly as sharp as the razorflails she wielded, and hung off every word uttered by Yvraine, the new religion’s high priestess and self-proclaimed saviour of the aeldari. Lelith wasn’t sure whether Kharavyxis had committed herself so fully to the God of the Dead because she was desperate to escape the claws of She Who Thirsts, which relentlessly tugged at the soul of every drukhari, or because Lelith herself had led the way.

It didn’t really matter. Yvraine had brought them here, to another flyspeck world with an unimportant name, adrift in the glittering whirl of stars that formed the galaxy, and Lelith was killing things. That was how life went now.

She spun and whirled, twisted and thrusted, revelling in the sensations: the air passing over her skin as she moved; the lingering caress of her blades as they danced crimson trails across her enemies’ flesh; the solid impact when she drove them home, seeking vital parts with the intimate knowledge of a lover. Everyone – everything – that fell before her came at her with the belief that they would be the one to end her life and cast her soul loose into the uncertain fate that awaited it, and she delighted in proving each individual wrong; only once each, but terminally so.

She cut her way through an entire mob of gibbering humans, who wailed and flailed and swung their weapons as though any of them could survive getting close to her. Then she was faced with three bipedal daemons, fair-faced and crab-clawed, shrouded in fumes of bitter musk, their forked tongues flickering as they sang songs of sweet sorrow and lustful disgust in attempts to ensnare her. Daemons were trickier; the infernal servants of She Who Thirsts did not live by the rules of the physical realm, and blows that should have struck limbs from bodies or heads from shoulders might glance off without effect, or pass through flesh as though it were mist. However, Lelith had trained in the arenas of Commorragh for millennia, and she had developed her body to the point where she could push the limits of the physical realm herself. These mewling wretches could not stand against her.

She toyed with them briefly, parrying unnatural chitin and warp-forged steel with equal ease and mocking laughs, but slowing her deadly dance enough to make the beasts think they had her. They closed in, offering up twisted hymns to their mistress and creator, singing of the death they would inflict and the endless torments Lelith would suffer once they shucked her soul from its meat husk. They were mere splinters of their patron, but Lelith could feel the hunger bleeding from them – the hunger and the hatred, but also the fear. She Who Thirsts had been born of the aeldari, and She Who Thirsts was the aeldari’s doom and bane, but few things in the galaxy or beyond ever went entirely one way. The aeldari could, perhaps, turn that fate on its head; that was what the Ynnari sought to achieve, and that was what She Who Thirsts feared. That was why the god’s servants pursued Yvraine and her followers wherever they journeyed, and that was why Lelith was here.

To fight.

She feinted a parry, then ducked under a razor-edged claw seeking to snare her wrist and break it. She slashed the weapon in her right hand across one enemy’s thighs, and drove her other knife into the stomach of the daemon on her left while its blow whistled harmlessly above her. She was rewarded by twin howls of inhuman agony, and launched upwards into a backflip in which she cracked the third beast’s head backwards with a blow from her right foot. She landed in a crouch, then sprang immediately back at her prey.

The daemons were screaming now. Lelith knew their kind: quicksilver fast, and arrogant with it. Insofar as they had any individuality beyond their patron’s will, they delighted in being the first to strike, then slipping beyond their enemies’ reach, again and again, until desperation set in. They would not kill with the first blow, or even the third, or the fifth, unless there was a pressing demand for it. Instead they sought to demonstrate their perfection, and in so doing gave worship to the god that had spawned them. Tonight, however, it was they who faced perfection under the wan light of twisted stars.

They were found wanting.

Lelith fought to kill now, her knives darting like glimmering serpents in the dim light. A daemon blocked her blade with the unnaturally hard armour of its claw, and Lelith spun smoothly past it to bury the other into its back. One of the daemon’s kin lunged for her with a shriek of rage, but Lelith twisted aside and the razor-tipped appendage sank into the flesh of the daemon she’d just wounded. Her spin sent her long hair lashing out, and the tiny blades embedded within took the eyes from the third daemon. The beast howled, now blinded, and Lelith gutted the one that had just struck its fellow, then sidestepped the thrashings of the blinded one and scissored her blades together to prise its head from its shoulders.

Within moments, she had gone from facing three adversaries to one. The bonds that tied two of the daemons into their physical forms were severed, and they dissolved into insubstantial ectoplasm as their true essence returned to the warp from which it had been spun. The last creature, bleeding ichor from the wounds Lelith had slashed across its thighs, attempted to rush her.

Even hurt, it was still fast. Many lesser fighters would have been overwhelmed by its speed and savagery, but then, many lesser fighters would not have survived long enough to slay two of its kindred. Lelith threw one of her knives overhand, and it burst clean through the daemon’s skull and out the other side. The creature staggered to a wavering halt, but its unnatural resilience kept it clinging to existence for a moment longer. Lelith did not allow it to succumb to death in its own time; she came to meet it and opened the smooth, pallid purple skin of its neck with her other weapon, then yanked her first blade out. Her final foe collapsed, disintegrating as it did so. With no other enemies within her blade’s reach, Lelith took a moment to assess the nature of the battle.

It was all but over. The forces sent against them by She Who Thirsts had never been enough to wipe the Ynnari out, but they did not need to be. The Ynnari were flesh and blood, despite serving the God of the Dead, and although the energy of the fallen could enervate their living comrades, Yvraine’s followers had a limited number of hands to wield weapons. Their adversary, on the other hand, had virtually infinite resources. It could spawn new daemons from the warp, especially now the galaxy’s reality was more unstable than ever, and there was never a shortage of sentient mortals that were willing to give themselves over to the service of the Dark Prince. The Ynnari’s foe might not have gathered enough strength in one place to spell their final destruction, but it could wear them down drip by drip, and death by death.

Besides which, Lelith knew well enough that there was only really one death that truly mattered, in terms of the Ynnari’s galactic importance.

Yvraine, the Emissary of Ynnead, wielder of the Crone Sword Kha-vir, which was carved – according to legend – from a finger bone of the goddess Morai-Heg. It was her rebirth in Commorragh that had announced the arrival of the Ynnari as a power, and it would take her death to truly end the Ynnari sect, for she was the one who inducted new members into their ways. It was Yvraine who had severed the craftworlders’ reliance on their waystones, and it was Yvraine who had lifted the burden of the soulthirst from the drukhari. Lelith had felt that sensation herself, when the nagging, lingering ache at the corners of her soul had finally yielded before the whispering power of the God of the Dead. She Who Thirsts was sucking at the edges of Lelith Hesperax’s mind no longer, and the Queen of Knives no longer needed to feed herself on the pain of others to stave off her soul’s gradual degradation.

It was almost amusing, Lelith reflected, watching Yvraine’s distant figure pirouette gracefully under the broad branches of a gigantic tree and sever the head of a four-armed monstrosity, just before its own blade could find her flesh. Yvraine had removed the part of Lelith’s being that required death and suffering to sustain itself, but in the process had recruited her as a bodyguard. It was just as well that Lelith Hesperax had never fought simply in order to feed her soul. She was the greatest gladiator in the galaxy, and it was not the pain of others for which she had always truly hungered, but a challenge. Yet here she was with the Ynnari, killing daemons and mortal pawns instead of seeking out the most dangerous foes in the galaxy to prove herself against them, with her only challenge being to keep a priestess alive until her desperate prophecy came true.

A flight of reaver jetbikes screamed past, their underslung splinter rifles spitting toxic shards and felling the last huddles of humans who had not yet thrown themselves on the weapons of the Ynnari. Lelith spun her blades in her hands to shake loose the remaining ichor, then replaced them in their sheaths and began to cross the field of carnage.

The Ynnari were disparate, but cohesive; diverse, but one. Every aeldari background was represented, from the traditionalist ascetics of the craftworlds to the hedonists of Commorragh; from the rustic recluses of the Exodite clans to the gregarious, mercurial corsairs; even the sinister mirth of the Harlequin troupes had a presence. Each brought their own histories, unified behind Yvraine and Ynnead.

The sea of Ynnari around Yvraine parted in front of Lelith in the same way that fish shoaled away from a predator, and she swaggered through them with all the poise and confidence she had worn when striding out onto the sands of the Crucibael, the combat arena of her Cult of Strife back in Commorragh. Lelith was not Ynnari, not truly, and everyone present sensed that. The majority accepted it because they had no choice in the matter, and who Yvraine chose to keep close to her was the Emissary’s own business. The few who might have some sway raised no objection because only a fool would drive away a fighter of Lelith’s quality without an excellent reason. They considered her a tool to be used for their purposes, and they were not the first. The rest, however, just made sure they got out of her way.

Lelith’s Bloodbrides fell in behind her – two dozen of her most skilled wyches, who had followed her from Commorragh in search of the promised refuge from the attentions of She Who Thirsts, or the same sort of challenges that had drawn Lelith herself here, or even out of whatever passed for loyalty amongst the drukhari. Lelith was one of the brightest stars of their race, after all, and there was plenty of glory to be found from standing in her light, so long as one was not foolish enough to seek to depose her.

‘Lelith,’ Yvraine greeted her, turning to her as she arrived. The Emissary of Ynnead was dressed in rich robes and an ornate, half-sun headdress, and carried with her all the weight of her god. She was a far cry from the vicious and reckless warrior who had challenged Lelith in the Crucibael on that fateful night in Commorragh, and whom Lelith had left to die following a knife-thrust to the chest. That had been a calculated insult on Lelith’s part – to wound her enemy mortally, but not to end her life then and there, so that a lesser combatant would be the one to finish the job. Lelith had wondered many times what might have happened had she killed Yvraine cleanly; many times, but never for long. If she paused to consider what might have happened had she killed all her victims in a different manner, let alone not killed them at all, then she would be stationary for centuries.

‘Yvraine,’ Lelith replied. ‘I see we have been found again.’ She did not try to hide her sneer. ‘I assume we are fleeing once more.’

‘Continuing a search is not fleeing,’ Yvraine corrected her.

‘Then what is it?’ Lelith demanded. ‘When will you admit that this “search” is fruitless?’ she added, although she stepped closer and lowered her voice a little; other aeldari considered Commorraghans to be cruel and callous – not without good reason – but that did not mean that the denizens of the Dark City did not understand the delicate balance of social interaction. Indeed, it was critically important to know how not to give offence in a place where being slowly skinned alive was not just an object lesson, but provided nourishment to your tormentors. ‘We know what we need, and we know where it is, and we know we cannot get to it.’

‘You should mind your tone,’ the Visarch said, his voice emerging hollowly from his helmet. Lelith glanced at him and snorted. He was fearsome with his blade – Asu-var, another of the five Crone Swords – but although he had previously held the rank of exarch and klaivex, Lelith had faced both before and triumphed.

‘We know that our adversary claims that the final Crone Sword is beyond our reach,’ Yvraine replied levelly, showing no more reaction to the Visarch’s words than Lelith had, for she had long outgrown her former teacher. ‘I am not prepared to believe it until I have exhausted all my options. Our people have lived for a hundred lifetimes with the threat of She Who Thirsts hanging over our heads – we can afford to wait a little longer before we surrender all hope.’

Lelith bristled. ‘I do not surrender, but nor will I persist in folly. You promised freedom from She Who Thirsts–’

‘And I have given it to you,’ Yvraine interrupted. Lelith smiled crookedly at her.

‘You have taken the soulthirst. All you have given me is the promise of a grey nothingness when I die, of time trapped in service to you and your dead god until such time as you die. What happens then, Emissary?’ She cocked an eyebrow. ‘Can Ynnead protect us from She Who Thirsts if you have died before you have properly awakened him?’

Yvraine did not answer her, but the gyrinx lurking by her legs mewed mournfully. Lelith eyed the creature with disdain, and not a little distrust; a lifetime in Commorragh had bred in her a loathing of anything connected to the realm of the psychic. Such foolishness was a sure way to attract the attention of She Who Thirsts into the webway where the drukhari hid their souls. Asdrubael Vect, Supreme Overlord of the Dark City, would enact his swiftest, most vicious sanctions against anyone even suspected of engaging in such activity, because if there was anything he valued more than his power, it was stability.

Of course, both had been challenged by the rise of the Ynnari. Yvraine’s violent rebirth, fuelled by the power of a rousing god, sparked the latest disjunction to have rocked Commorragh, and there was little Vect hated more than any suggestion that he could not protect the city over which he claimed authority. Then too, there was the fact that the Ynnari’s seductive promise of a life free from the soulthirst had lured drukhari away from Vect’s dominion, including a drukhari as notable as Lelith Hesperax herself. There was a reason why She Who Thirsts was not the only one sending assassins after Yvraine. Oh yes, Asdrubael Vect might have offered Lelith’s Cult of Strife an alliance with his Kabal of the Black Heart, but Lelith saw it for what it was: a leash. A gift was not a gift if it could be taken away, and what could be taken away could not be relied upon without it becoming a weakness. Yvraine had offered Lelith – and indeed all aeldari – something that Vect could not, and that made her a threat to his power in both the short and long terms.

‘I came with you because you promised me freedom from our doom, and challenges worthy of my abilities,’ Lelith said, placing her hands on her hips and looking Yvraine up and down. ‘It seems that you cannot offer me the former, and the latter has proved to be flat and flavourless.’ She sighed. ‘Daemons do not even truly feel pain, and their anguish is short-lived.’

Yvraine’s face did not visibly move, yet the expression of disapproval was somehow impossible to miss. Had Lelith any of the latent psychic abilities of her non-Commorraghan kin, she could probably have bathed in the Emissary’s disgust.

‘I took the soulthirst from you,’ was all Yvraine said, a simple statement of truth, but laden with judgement nonetheless.

‘You do not have to be thirsty to enjoy a drink,’ Lelith said with a smile. ‘Spare me your simperings. It was not so long ago that you were carving up victims in Commorragh to feed the hollow in your own heart.’

‘I have changed my path since then,’ Yvraine said frostily.

‘You changed it before then, too,’ Lelith agreed. ‘Thrashing around as you tried to find your way. Who is to say you won’t change it again? I, however, have always known who I am. And I,’ she added, stepping closer than was required for confidential words, and well into the realm of physical imposition, ‘am growing bored.’

‘Bored,’ Yvraine repeated flatly.

‘I seem to recall that you fancied yourself my equal once, before I killed you,’ Lelith said. She reached out and began to wind a tress of hair from Yvraine’s topknot around her left forefinger. It was only hair, but it still felt flat and dead, as though the breath of Ynnead had sucked every semblance of life from his priestess.

‘I have changed since then, too,’ Yvraine said, her words now barely above a whisper.

‘Have you changed enough, I wonder?’ Lelith pressed. ‘You have a wonderful new blade, but we both know that the weapons do not make the warrior. If I can’t get what I want from you, perhaps I should take what I can.’

’It would be a shame for the Ynnari to lose a fighter of your ability,’ Yvraine said. There was no tremor in her voice, and no fear upon her face. She gave every appearance of believing that should she and Lelith fight again, the outcome would be different, and that was an intoxicating draught indeed. Lelith had fought plenty of fools who had no concept of how far she was beyond them, and plenty of those whose fear of her had defeated them before the fight had even begun. The notion of a worthy opponent who knew Lelith’s skill but was not cowed by that knowledge was a tempting one.

‘And it would be a shame for the aeldari to lose the one leading them to salvation,’ Lelith replied softly. ‘But it would only be a shame if she can do what she claims, rather than staggering around the galaxy in denial. Otherwise, I might be doing them a service by removing a cowardly charlatan.’

Yvraine sniffed. ‘I hear the whispers of the dead in every waking moment. If you think a few barbed words from you can drive me to act against my own better judgement, you are sorely mistaken.’

‘I don’t rely on words,’ Lelith said with a laugh. ‘Find a way to do what you promised, Emissary. Otherwise, we will cross blades again.’

She turned and walked away with her Bloodbrides at her back. Once more the crowd of Ynnari parted in front of her, and re-formed behind.

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A Black Library Publication

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