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Turn of the Adder – Extract

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Turn of the Adder

J C Stearns

‘The reward of treachery is victory.’

Thunderous cheers rolled through the drukhari fleet. Archon K’Shaic stood on the command dais of his battle-barque and held up a hand for silence. On hundreds of sleek-keeled Raiders, the archon’s holographic image – projected from each transport’s command relay or the hand-held unit of a dracon – towered over the kabalite foot-soldiers and gun crews. K’Shaic’s image was repeated so frequently that even the countless hired mercenaries from lower Commorragh, soaring between the Raiders on jetbikes and skyboards, could hear his proclamations.

‘The Dark City stands as an eternal monument to the power of betrayal!’ Another cheer, loud enough to be heard over the screaming jets as the massive fleet barrelled through the webway. ‘But,’ the archon said, holding one interjectory finger aloft, ‘what the Jade Labyrinth has done is no betrayal!’

All the fleet’s members booed as one. They followed the oratory lead of the great archon as surely as they followed the physical lead of his battle-barque. The triple-decked catamaran was larger even than the Razorwing jetfighters roaring overhead. Disintegrators and dark lances bristled along its long black decks. The graceful hull was the colour of oiled gunmetal, the sharp edges of its plates tinged violet, its sails boasting the insignia of the Bladed Lotus, in K’Shaic’s colours of purple on steel. Evaeline, the barque’s experienced pilot, commanded the ship from directly behind the command dais.

‘Had the hekatarii of the Cult of the Jade Labyrinth merely turned upon us, they would be role models, not criminals. No, the Labyrinthae have done something far worse than betraying us – they have chosen subservience. They’ve made themselves willing slaves, whoring themselves for the false promise of a non-existent deity!’

Leaning against a railing on the barque, Naeddre and his brother Qeine watched their father rousing the bloodlust of his troops. K’Shaic, Archon of the Kabal of the Bladed Lotus, was in rare form. Naeddre didn’t know how many slaves had been flayed to give his father such a youthful vigour, but the number had to be in the thousands. He’d never seen K’Shaic so energetic.

‘I say, if these Ynnari,’ K’Shaic snarled the word with undisguised contempt, ‘if these wyches and whatever craftworld scum have lured them astray want to court death so badly, then let’s give them exactly what they’re asking for!’

The archon keyed his command dais. Across the fleet, his mighty holographic images vanished.

‘Inspiring,’ said Qeine. Tall and broad of shoulder, Qeine was a peak physical specimen of his kind. He wore ridged ghostplate armour to add to his profile, which made him tower over every warrior on the ship.

‘Victory will give us our real inspiration,’ said K’Shaic. Even without his holographic enhancements, he was an imposing figure. His own ghostplate armour was exquisite, a custom-built relic, its form the template for the armour of every kabalite soldier in his employ. His long flowing mane of ebony hair normally struck Naeddre as a token of vanity, out of place in his father’s aging features. With the full glory of his youth restored, it suited the archon. His alabaster features could have been graven from purest marble, his cheekbones sharp enough to cut flesh. His ancient powerblade, the surgesabre, rested at his hip, silently hungering for murder.

‘All the inspiration in the galaxy will do us little good if we’re murdered from behind,’ said Naeddre. Both his father and older brother fixed him with hateful glares, although he could see Qeine struggling to keep the edges of a smile out of his sneer.

Slender where his brother was muscular, short where Qeine was tall, Naeddre had always been seen as the lesser brother. Nearly everyone with whom they interacted seemed to take his reduced stature as evidence of a reduced character. Qeine boasted the best equipment, while Naeddre went to war in a studded flight vest befitting a wealthy heliarch. The thin material made it easier to manoeuvre on a skyboard, sacrificing none of the wearer’s agility for added protection. In fact, while it looked as flimsy as the wychsuit of any hellion, it had been made by the same craftsmen as Qeine’s ghostplate, and could easily deflect a bolt shell or Commorrite splinter shard.

‘If you fear the forces at your back, then perhaps you’re better suited to guarding the Amaranth Spire,’ K’Shaic sneered.

‘It’s not our own forces that worry me,’ said Naeddre. ‘They’re far more interested in murdering the Jade Labyrinth.’ Which was true. When Kysthene and the wyches under her command had fled the Dark City, declaring allegiance to the Ynnari and seizing control of the Port of Widows, they’d done more than just betray their kabalite benefactors. They’d left the Bladed Lotus without their primary means of psychic sustenance. They’d cut off the kabal’s access to the port that provided a great deal of its material wealth. Most importantly, they’d made the Kabal of the Bladed Lotus, and by extension every member of it, look foolish and weak. Their destruction was not only in compliance with Vect’s edicts, but also a necessary step if the kabal was going to survive in the wake of Commorragh’s recent upheavals.

‘The garrisons?’ Qeine guessed.

‘The garrisons,’ Naeddre confirmed.

Their father steepled his fingers, staring at his two sons. They needed no goading to know when he expected them to compete for his favour.

‘Ignore them,’ said Qeine. ‘They’re intended to reinforce the port in the event of sustained invasion, but the Port of Widows was never designed to repel invasion from the Commorragh side. We’ll overwhelm them, put the Labyrinthae to death and surround whatever forces remain in the garrisons before they have time to assault our rear lines.’ As ever, Qeine’s plan was raw, naked aggression, designed to win through bravado and brute force.

‘Take them one at a time,’ Naeddre countered. ‘We first overwhelm one of the rear garrisons, then the other, before moving on to the port itself. Let each enemy bastion that falls increase the terror of the next.’

‘If the corsair fleets arrive at the Port of Widows, the wych cult will barter all the goods they’ve stolen from the kabal for passage away from our reach,’ Qeine argued. ‘We can’t give them the time to escape.’ He stood, looming over his brother. Naeddre wondered if his sibling truly believed they needed to act with such urgency, or if he just didn’t want to return to the webway fortifications. Whenever K’Shaic wished to remove his sons from the Dark City, either as punishment or to curtail any sudden rises in influence, he often chose to send them to command the garrisons.

‘No one’s suggesting we do,’ Naeddre countered. He dropped his arms to his side and returned his brother’s aggressive posture, ignoring their height difference, their chests nearly touching, each close enough to feel the other’s angry breath. ‘The corsairs aren’t due to arrive until tomorrow. By then, there won’t even be a lock of wych hair remaining in the port.’

The brothers might have come to blows if Archon K’Shaic hadn’t raised his voice.

‘Enough,’ he said, waving his hand. ‘The kabal as a whole will bypass the garrisons entirely and assault the port. You’ll each take your personal forces, the kabalites loyal to you and the mercenaries you’ve hired, and assault one of the garrisons. Naeddre will take the Viscerean Garrison, and Qeine the Weeping Garden. Waste no time in your conquest – once whatever commanders you find have been slain, join me with all due haste. Claim your glory in the main assault.’ Their father gestured with his arm, and two of the Raiders flanking the barque drifted towards the rear. Each carried a trio of incubi, K’Shaic’s customary ‘gift’ to protect his sons as well as to guard against treachery.

Naeddre and Qeine turned as one and stalked towards the aft of the barque. They needed no further instruction. Their father had turned the brothers upon one another, then taken the best part of each of their offerings and left them with only veiled threats. Each second that passed before they reached the Port of Widows would be another that saw their own personal contribution to the legend that K’Shaic was constructing diminish.

The brothers each boarded their own personal craft, Qeine astride the gleaming onyx bike he’d named Razordirge, and Naeddre atop a broad-winged skyboard of his own design.

‘Watch your back, brother,’ Qeine laughed before fitting his helm. At some point he’d had his teeth extracted and replaced with triangular neoferrium razors, giving him the look of a grinning predatory beast. ‘I’d hate for one of your mercenary leaders to slay you for that fine toy of yours.’

Like all archons, each of the brothers was in charge of one of the kabal’s commodities. Qeine, as a young officer, had taken troops loyal to him and captured a large chemical manufactory, giving him control of a great supply of quality ammunition for the poisoned weapons of the line in the Dark City. His forces were full of gunboats filled with kabal troops, outfitted with the finest weapons.

It was Naeddre’s turn to laugh. ‘No need,’ he said. ‘I’ve promised the heliarch who brings me the most plundered hekatarii knives a Moonfoe of his very own.’ Naeddre’s own commodity was more niche. Creating exquisite skyboards and jetbikes was a highly specific task, one that required specialised labour. It took slaves with a discerning enough ear to attune the acoustic crystal lattices as well as the manual dexterity to string them. It was no easy job, but decades of scouring the galaxy for the perfect servants to assist his work had paid off. His creations were the pride of the wych cults. Entire gangs of hellions would fight to the death, just so the last gang scum standing could receive one of Naeddre’s cast-offs.

‘Good,’ said Qeine. He gunned Razordirge’s engine. ‘You should be on your guard. This far from Commorragh, and with his pet wyches in open revolt, father is uncharacteristically vulnerable. One of his servants might take such an opportunity to remove him from his position.’

‘How good of you to think of K’shaic in his time of need.’ Naeddre snapped shut his own ghostplate helm, which was both his connection to the command network and his badge of office. He shivered as micro needles bit into his scalp, locking the helm securely. ‘Take care to show the same caution with your own position.’

Qeine laughed, and his bike blazed away, leaving only a flare of pale energy behind him. This attack was what both brothers had been waiting decades for: an opportunity to assassinate their father while most of his forces were otherwise engaged. Which one of them took the mantle of leadership was open to speculation, but both of them would be willing to bleed that particular issue out after K’Shaic’s fate had been settled. First, however, Naeddre had to take the garrison.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Inferno! Volume 2 in Great Britain in 2019.
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