Secret War Warhammer 40,000 part 5

As I moved through that maze of cramped, brightly lit corridors the closer I came to the area I guessed was Brutis Bones' quarters more and more a feeling of unease grew at the pit of my gut, that almost the very air disturbed my very being and with that feeling it became more and more evident the lack of any psychic activity around me. Only one thing off the top of my head could explain this phenomena, the presence of a blank. A person whos very existence nullifies the activities of the warp around them dissipating any and all psychic abilities at a certain radius This would explain alot, Taryst's apparent need of an army to track down this enemy even with the cadre of psykers at his beckon call. But there had to more to it than that even with the blank here making this place all but invisible why hadn't Taryst just captured a lowly Hammer and had one of the psyker's delve into their mind? Was Taryst so paranoid at having the activities of his psykers found buy the local authorities so frigging overwhelming?

That also begs the question how the hell could Taryst know my thoughts so well that he could tell of my doubts about my job, perhaps the answer lies in the "blocks" placed in mine and all my fellow mercenaries minds, perhaps they allow the psykers to read our thoughts without giving off any hint? Was that even possible? I really didn't know. But if it was true then it only confirms that Taryst really didn't want anyone outside of his organization knowing of this hunt and the complicated precautions he was prepared to take to keep it that way.

Then "paranoia" was a frigging understatement.

But this "answer" was just fuel for many more questions; why was Glaitis willing for her apprentice and many of her employees implanted with these things? Why would Glaitis have both Elandria and I along to this operation if Taryst could have his psykers read our minds? And I will not say that it was "because she didn't know" idiocy, she knows, she knows everything I can say that with an amount of conviction that I hadn't felt in ages. Perhaps she wanted to have Taryst reveal his organization by forcing his hand? But then why would she want Taryst to reveal himself in the first place? Could Garrakson actually know more than he lets on as well, he was our leader and a long time senior in Taryst's company?

But most importantly what was the cause behind all this paranoia and why the hell was so much effort going into tracking down this low life gang leader?

The answer to that I could hazard a myriad amount of guesses upon.

I reached the end of yet another corridor, stopping at the edge I pushed my back against the wall and glanced around the corner.

Two Hammers stood guard at the doorway situated half way down the next hall both were bulky men both held Auto Guns and both glanced about with nervous expressions.

Without hesitation I stepped out and vacated the nearest ganger's brains out the side of his skull with one auto pistol round. The other turned to me in almost admiral discipline, attempting to bring up his auto gun to fire.
He managed it half way before my Las shots killed him, one blew through his ribs and the other blew out his neck.

I ran on, unloading and reloading my smoking pistols on the move. Pushing my back against the wall next to the already open entrance. It was then I could not help but think to myself that perhaps this was a little too easy and you also maybe wondering, why I am doing this? Why it is simple and it is not what you may think, if it is that I bring in Brutis Bones finally Glaitis will see me worthy and promote me to full assassinhood? Well that would just be an added bonus, but no, I am and have never been a particularly ambitious person I have no dreams of ascending Glaitis and taking her blood soaked throne (the metaphorical one of course but at times I have wondered) No I just wanted to have this frigging job done, finished so we can move on to something else, I hated this crap and was frankly sick of it, that is why I am throwing myself blind into the Wolves den, killing anything and everything in my way like a Hitman on heat and the poor Hammers who had stood in my way were just the instruments for me to take my anger and agressions out on, almost like Vex was.

I physically winced at the thought and felt the guilt I had suppressed over the earlier hours boil back to the surface. I swallowed hard and forced it back down. I still had plenty more frustration to go around,
Now, with that finally explained I took in a huge breath and slipped through the doorway. My pistols raised and covering the interior. The room I emerged into was large at least eight metres in length and fifteen in width, a brightly lit rockcrete cave. Barren to an extreme and there were twelve thick, square pillars, six along the widths of the room. It was empty except for the one figure who stood in sight, right at the epi-centre, he stood with his back facing me but I could see the heavy carapace armour he wore.

"Brutis Bones I presume?" I said, covering him with my guns.

No answer, the man just stood deathly still and stayed silent.

"Hmm right. I'm not going to bother to say for you to surrender. This place looking like it's been built specifically for a fire fight isn't coincidence is it?"

Again he replied with silence.

Something inside me snapped and I cocked my pistol, "don't you give me the frigging silent treatment you bastard! Do, you, have, any idea the crap, I have been through to find you!"

"I cant believe that so many of my guards killed single handedly by a kid," the man said abruptly, "a foolish kid playing at games far too large and complicated for him to even begin to comprehend."

I wasn't sure how to reply to that, what he had said had hit quite close to home.

"And nope, sorry kid I am not your Brutis Bones, he is, in another castle you could say."

I gritted my teeth, widened my eyes and tightened my hands on the grips of my pistols.

"How the hell do I know that you actually are him and not just lying?" I asked, struggling to keep my voice neutral, if this wasn't Brutis Bones then Glaitis' intel must have been misled, no I truly doubted that. If this was Bones or wasn't she would know and if this man who talked to me now isn't him, then it would just reinforce that this as one of her feints used to force Taryst to show his hand.

The man shrugged, "you can choose to believe or not to believe kid, either way its the truth, now I may not be him but that doesn't make me want to live any less so..."

Then he spun, as quick as lightning and he held a stub revolver which was raised and firing.

All I could do was lunge, diving behind the nearest pillar just in time. But I was not fast enough to dodge the one round which skimmed my left shoulder, sharp pain erupted up my arm and I yelped out as I hit the floor.

Getting into a crouch, I pushed my back against my pillar cursing savagely. I had his back completely covered and yet the bastard still got the drop on me!

A few more shots rang through the huge room, then there was silence, the only sound the ringing clatter of empty shell casings falling to the floor.

"You really are him aren't you?" I said.

"Maybe, maybe not," the man replied.

My own reply was me suddenly leaning out slightly and wailing off four shots in his general direction.

"Well either way you're fighting me now and either way you are going to pay the consequences!" I said as I lunged out into the open, my guns blazing.

I ran, sprinting sideways and fired my pistols at my opponent who ran with me horizontally along the opposite width of the floor. The bellowing, rudimentary consistent and combined sounds of our weapons discharging over and over echoed through out the interior with a horrible deafening cacophony and tore into the decor, which wrought in a new and far more interesting scenery of bullet holes in the rockcrete walls and pillars.

Making it to the next pillar and leaving the clatter of spent shell cases in my wake I pushed myself up against my cover. I lent out let off a few shots with my Las pistol then I spun to the other side rockcrete cover and neatly caught my enemy off guard as he attempted the same maneuver. The man barely made it behind his own colonnade as I opened fire. Then without hesitation I moved, running toward the other side in an attempt to bridge the gap while I wailed away with my pistols to keep the bastard pinned to prevent his reconciliation.

Without hindrance I found the other side of the same colonnade that my opponent cowered behind, pushed myself against the pillar then slid out, pistols raised and found the man had gone.

I snarled out a curse, turning just in time to catch him as he came around the other side of the pillar and desperately knock his raised Stub Revolver's aim off course. The round once meant to cave in my skull shot off, its fate only to create yet another smoking crater in the wall and I followed on, kicking out viscously at the man's groin. The man side stepped the attack with almost contemptuous ease and attempted to bring his gun to bare on me again. My inner-outer block smashed the shot aside after which I opened up with my own auto pistol.

Despite the shot being completely point blank the man still managed to almost dive out the way, instead of exploding his ribcage the round impacted against his shoulder guard, it's kinetic force caused him to turn in mid lunge and he hit the floor clumsily, I could clearly hear him gasp out his lungs ejected air with the impact.

I didn't hesitate, shooting once! Twice! Hitting him as he rolled across the floor but that was all I could muster before he made it behind the next pillar and my pistols clicked empty.

Sliding around the first colonnade I knelt down and began reloading my weapons, I had six clips left, four for my auto pistol and two for my las, along the way of my massacre I had pilfered them off the corpses of my many victims and I could also hear my opponent following suit along with his pained gasps and grunts as he performed the task.

"You know," I said casually as I slammed home a fresh clip into my auto, "you would be dead if you weren't wearing that carapace."

"I know," he replied and I could not help but be surprised by the sadness in his words, "your good kid I'll give you that."

"I know," I echoed back.

"Perhaps even good enough to kill me," he went on, "and that I actually wouldn't mind, I have lived a long life kid, killed allot of people I really wouldn't mind. Going out with one final blaze of glory."

I grinned, "well if your so keen to die why don't you just step out and make this easy for me?"

The man sighed, "you and I know I can't do that, your boss, Taryst wants me alive doesn't he? There is more at stake here than one old man and his lowly life, my mission demands that I live amongst the populace of Omnartus to complete it so I can't give up, I can't let you kill me or anyone else."

It was my turn to sigh, "and what the hell is it that is exactly at stake?"

"More than you could imagine."

Something in those words made sudden indescribable fear crawl up my spine, fear even more potent than the presence of the blank, fear even more powerful than the psychic activity of earlier.

"W-what do you mean? Who the hell are you?" I managed.

"I'm nobody, no one. But I know who you are, you are what I said you were earlier, nothing but a kid, a kid caught up in games far to complex and adult for him. Just some poor, innocent kid who's been thrown into this mess and for what I am about to do I am truly sorry."

I gritted my teeth, somehow the fear was even more potent than before, my heart shuddered in my chest and my hands began to shake uncontrollably.

"Sorry? W-what the hell are you sorry for?" I demanded.

"For this."

I heard a beep, the brief simple sound of a press of a button, small non-descript but somehow it held more weight than any of his words.

I flinched in fright as I heard a nearby, small section of the wall slid open revealing the darkened room beyond and what stepped out from it's depths made my heart turn to ice.

"I am truly, truly sorry."

It stood at three metres tall, it's huge bulky body utterly corded with a musculature not at all possible for a normal human being, it was naked except for a torn old loin cloth, it's pink, swollen skin was covered all over with countless hideous scars, both it's hands had been severed at the wrists surgically replaced with two huge, razor sharp axes and it's teeth where filled into ugly insizors.

The Arco Flagellant didn't make a sound, no roar from it's smiling maw as one would expect from such a monster and that somehow made it even more terrifying, silently and with grace belying it's bulk it turned it's attention to me then lunged for the kill.


Despite my utter terror I still managed to dive out the way of the Arco Flagellent's charge, I landed and neatly rolled into a crouch turning in time to see it practically eviscerate a frigging three metre thick solid rockcrete pillar with just one swipe of it's huge Axe and then it shoulder barged straight through carrying on as though it was nothing. The wanton destruction showered the surroundings with chunks of rockcrete and an explosively ejected cloud of dust.

This was one enemy I couldn't defeat, this, this thing was so far out of my league that even if I was full equipment with armour everything I would be nothing but a spec to it, even less of a nothing than that damned pilaster it had just destroyed with naught but its forward momentum and its shoulder.

I crawled to my feet, a clumsy and hard action as my sweat slicked hands almost slid out from under me twice, the task of getting up must have taken me no more than a few seconds but felt like a life time, any second I expected the thing to bare down on me to deliver the killing blow but it never came and once up I turned and I ran. I ran like the coward I am.

My heart bet so fast my chest hurt, my whole body shook so hard I was in utter agony I sprinted as fast as my aching legs could go but still I never felt it was nearly enough.

I made it out the door and turned right, the way I had came and barely a millisecond afterwards the size of the entrance way was doubled as the Arco Flagellent crashed through to follow me.

I never looked back, I didn't dare to I just ran and ran as my arms flailed about like curtains in the wind, my breaths came out as agonizing rasps, every step I made felt like a million more and I never looked back but I could feel its presence behind me, tailing me, descending on me like a predator about to pounce upon its prey and with every step I took I expected to feel it's Axe cut through me like a hot knife through butter.

Those corridors seemed to go on forever these were the corridors which mere minutes ago I had slaughtered my way through and I now ran for my life through them. Terrifyingly I almost tripped over many of the dead Gangers I had killed. Even in my fear fueled state I was able to see the irony that falling over one of them meant falling to my own demise.

When I finally made it out of that maze my body almost physically ejected itself out the door, out into the club beyond and the relief that washed over me in reaching it here was completely and utterly unjustified.

But despite myself I slid to a stop and turned to look back and found the monster wasn't there, that somehow, someway I had lost that inhuman thing in the maze, as the corridor behind me was completely and utterly devoid of life.

Perhaps it wasn't as maneuverable as I was through those sharp turns so it had lost its way? And I was to busy mindless in my flight to ever notice?

I glanced around and to my complete horror found that the party goers hadn't moved an inch since my earlier exit, they all stood gaping and staring at me with terror milked eyes.

Something deep down inside me said that the Arco Flagellent would never be lost, that it would hound me until I was dead or it was, I knew soon, very soon that it would come down that corridor and massacre anyone and anything in its path, these people included. I could just leave them, run and run, leave them to be slaughtered delaying it further so I could have a slighter semblance of a chance to escape.

And why not? They were nothing! The sons and daughters of haughty, arrogant corrupt aristocrats and bureaucrats! Whatever the galaxy would never mourn them, they were nothing just dozens of lives in a galaxy of trillions more.

But yet they were innocent, these people, these men and women they had come here to dance to enjoy themselves, to forget their worries and find some slight joy in this Emperor forsaken universe, every day millions of people die whether killed by the numberless Xenos that ravage humanity on every front or those of our own petty species, the petty members of humanity like myself. Perhaps I could conquer my cowardice and work for once to prevent even just a few of those millions of souls instead of being a contributor. That if I died and even one of them survived, that they would remember the small skinny bastard who gave his life to protect them, that my sacrifice would mean something for someone.

I was wrong, I was the nothing I had died inside almost a decade ago when war had ravaged my world, my country, my home. When war separated me from my mother and forced me into a life of ruthless scavenging, a life toiling away for survival amongst the ruins among the rest of the beasts I-.

It was then that I noticed that despite everything I had kept hold of my pistols.

I smiled bowing my head and felt the tears abruptly swell in my eyes and roll down my cheeks, this was the first time I had cried in a very long time and boy did it feel good. I thanked the Emperor that I had my answer and seemingly almost on que I heard the repeating, quick fire plodding sound of the Arco Flagellent's running at the end of the corridor.

I raised my pistols and cocked back the hammer of my auto, perhaps this was the retribution for what I had done to Vex, perhaps this was my vindication for the my selfish cowardice.

The smile never left my face even as the creature bared down upon me and my shots fired ineffectually off of it's thick hide.


A voice, a womanly, low soft beautiful voice spoke in the impenetrable black, a familiar voice. One I felt I knew well but could not recall to who it belonged to. It came off somewhere distant, far, far out in the blackness.

Was this death? Was what the church of the Ecclesiarchy taught about death complete crap, was death just this black void of nothingness?

I had never believed. My mother was highly religious but I never was, we were opposites her and I. We were so similar in our personalities but completely different in our beliefs, we would clash countless times, verbal fights of sttunning ferocity on both sides and now I think back at it, it was a miracle that the Ministorum never found out about my Heretical words and had me killed for them, that my mother loved me enough to never tell them.

I believed that the Emperor was never the god that people proclaim him to be, but a great man who's wisdom and power were indeed God-like. But how could he ever have wanted this for us? All the suffering all the death? The rampart poverty, the chaos, the mindless religious fanaticism in his name, the millions of planets dedicated to the hives of organised chaos and the meek, brain washed bureaucrats who knew nothing but their small boxes and the Cogitators at their finger tips our whole encompassing bureaucracy?

If this was truly death I wouldn't mind, I felt safe here, I felt truly free just floating in this black, in this nothingness and that voice, that beautiful, beautiful soft voice oh I could listen to that voice forever.

Slowly though the voice came closer, closer and closer as if who ever the voice belonged to silently walked toward me through the black.

I wasn't scared, never was I scared and I could start to make out the words which became clearer as the voice came closer what was it that it said? It sounded like a prayer of some kind, the prayer like the voice felt familiar but I couldn't quite recall what it was.

Then it stopped, the voice was gone and my heart felt empty at it's absence, was I supposed to spend the rest of eternity without it's comforting words, without it's company?

Wait my heart? What?

"Attelus," whispered the voice in my ear, "open your eyes."

Without hesitation I did as told, and found myself alive, lying in one of the many beds in Taryst's medicae facility and that the voice had belonged Castella who sat at the end of my bed her hands clasped together in prayer and pushed against her forehead with her elbows leaning on my duvet.

She was so beautiful and to see her there filled me with such indescribable joy at being alive.

I tried to open my mouth to speak out to her through my dry, crack lips but all that I could manage was a pathetic rattle as though my body had forgotten how to talk.

She stopped her praying and looked to me, her eyes were red with tears and it hurt me to see such beauty marred. But her smile oh her smile it was a smile of indescribable happiness, one of great relief, a smile which showed the weight which had left her shoulders.

I tried to move my hand to beckon her closer but my whole world was racked with pain at the effort, utter agony which made me close my eyes and grunt out in response.

It took me until then to realize I was covered from head to toe in bandages and to see the drip cord which fed into my arm.

But she got the hint and leaned closer, nearing her ear toward my mouth for me to speak and I said, "Stop praying, I'm trying to sleep."

Castella threw back her head and laughed out loud, it was a nice sound a nice sound from a nice person who seemed to utter nothing but nice sounds.

She laughed so hard she had to wipe a tear from her eye and she sat back down on her chair.

"It's good to see that you are still yourself Attelus," she said.

I tried to smile but even that hurt.

"You have been out for along, long time my friend," she carried on.

"How...Long?" I fought to say.

Her eyes widened into a pained expression that told me I really didn't want to know.

"I...See."

Her perfect face suddenly curled up and tears ran down her cheeks the change in emotion was so fast that I didn't know how to react.

"Th-thank you," she squeaked.

I couldn't manage to ask what she was thankful for but she still answered.

"Thank you for proving to me that you still are a good person. Ever since I had first met you, I knew you weren't like the rest us, that you weren't evil, that you still cared for more than just yourself. Thank you for proving to me you still are human," she sniffed heavily and wiped away her tears with her forearm, "after-after what you did to Vex I began to doubt you, I had began to believe that you had devolved into the monster, but I see now that doubt was unfounded. You stood alone Attelus, against an impossible enemy, you willingly put yourself on the line for the good of others, you-you."

She couldn't continue her sentence as she teared back up again.

"And-and thank you that now I know no matter what happens, no matter how hard it is you will still be that good, kind compassionate person inside. I just regret that we couldn't have got there in time to save you earlier and for that I am sorry Attelus, I am truly, truly sorry."

Even if I had been able speak then, I couldn't have, I was taken aback at her emotional outburst, never in all my career that I would have ever suspected that Castella cared for me so much, never.

She was always a friend, the only person who I could talk to with humour and trust, who saw me as a person and not some know nothing apprentice.

But then I realised something, I couldn't recall at all what had happened in that club after the Arco Flagellent had charged me, how the hell had I survived? Had any of the club goers escaped? What exactly had happened?

Castella sniffed again and as if reading my mind she said, "you did it Attelus, you held off that monster for long enough that those people could escape, you went one on one with an Arco Flagellent long enough that Elandria, Hayden, Darrance and I could stop it before it could cause anymore damage, if you had died Attelus your sacrifice would not have been in vain and I swear I'm telling you the truth, I know you aren't the most trusting person in this world but believe me on this, be proud Attelus."

She sniffed again but this time it had humour in it, "when we took you to Taryst's medicae facility, they said there was no way you would survive, that you would die within hours but I knew you were stubborn and you held on, you lived and-and most importantly, thank you, thank you for living, thank you."

Oh how I dearly wished I could reach out and comfort her or even thank her but everything was so hard, so, so hard, couldn't keep my eyes open, anymore, anymore, I blinked, once then twice, then I embraced the sweetness of sleep.