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Deathwatch 8: The Silence

Steve Lyons

The xenos died without ever seeing its killer.

It was lying on its stomach in the long grass at the lip of an escarpment, overlooking a natural forest path: an eldar scout with pale skin, dark eyes and sculpted cheekbones. It wore a hooded cloak of animal hide, and had decorated its arms and face with tattoos and bone jewellery. It carried only a simple recurve bow.

Up close, it turned out that the bow was sculpted from wraithbone, while the arrows were tipped with explosives.

The scout hadn’t moved, hadn’t made a sound, for as long as Setorax had been watching. It had cloaked itself in silence – but it didn’t know the silence like he did.

He approached it on his elbows, inch by painstaking inch. With each movement, he settled into position carefully, so as not to snap any twigs or crunch any leaves beneath him. Not once had his prey so much as glanced in his direction. It probably thought it impossible for anyone to sneak up on it – least of all a fully armoured Space Marine – through foliage so dense.

Its mistake.

Setorax waited for the breeze to waft by him again, carrying with it the sounds of the distant battle. He used those sounds to cover him as he had pounced.

The first the eldar knew of his presence was when he seized it in a chokehold with his left arm, driving a knife through its back and into its heart with his right. It expired without a sound, just as he had intended.

He left the lifeless body where it lay, overlooking the path, its bow wedged against its shoulder, eyes open and staring. From a distance, anyone would think that it was still on sentry duty. No one would know that Edryc Setorax had ever been here.

There were two more sentries in the nearby trees.

Setorax had scouted their positions earlier, before dealing with their fellow on the ground. He had to be sure they wouldn’t see him, or hear him, as he did what had to be done. He was deep in enemy territory. He was alone. He knew that the moment his presence here was detected, it would be the end for him.

And the eldar were famed for their keen hearing.

He slipped into the shelter of a sprawling, thorny bush, and dropped into a crouch behind it. He raised his bolt pistol and sighted along its barrel. He had a clear head shot at one of the scouts, lying across a low branch. The other was more difficult to target, higher up and nestled in the crook of a broad, gnarled trunk.

He preferred not to use the gun anyway – not until he had to. Even suppressed, it would make too loud a noise out here.

He circled his prey, using the trees for cover. He worked his way closer, ever closer, towards their positions. It was a meticulous process, almost painfully slow, but Edryc Setorax had learned how to be patient.

At last, he made the tree in which the first scout – the one closer to the ground – lurked. He eased himself into a hollow between the tree’s roots. The scout was immediately above him now. He couldn’t see the xenos – it was perfectly hidden from him at this angle, as he was from it – but he knew it was there.

In a flash, he uncoiled himself to his full eight-foot height. He reached up and snatched the eldar scout from its perch. Taken by surprise, it fell backwards into his arms, and he twisted its neck until the bone snapped.

He heard a rustle in the larger tree beside him. He cast the first scout’s body aside to round on the second, above him. It was just beginning to react to his sudden appearance: too slow, as he had hoped. It had nocked an explosive-tipped arrow.

Setorax fired his jump pack. He winced at its engine roar, but that could not be helped. A rapid burst was enough to propel him twenty feet up in an instant. He cannoned into the second eldar scout, splintering its arrow. He overbalanced it, and they plummeted into the soft bed of the undergrowth together.

He landed on top of his enemy, his fingers locked around its throat. It was stronger than it looked, but still utterly helpless beneath the crushing weight of Setorax’s genetically enhanced bulk and heavy power armour. He crumpled the xenos’ windpipe, and held it down firmly while it choked.

Like the other eldar before it, it died in silence.

Setorax listened for approaching footsteps. He heard nothing. He concealed the bodies of the scouts in a nearby bush, piling leaves on top of them for additional camouflage. As long as nobody stumbled across them, it would likely be some time before they were missed. Just like the others.

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