“I want to know every Webway Gate, path and such in the sector,” I said, staring at the gathered Eldar challengingly.
“Why?” The antagonistic Aspect Warrior from Biel-Tan asked, still wearing that stupid long helmet, but I could hear the suspicion in his gravelly voice. I raised an eyebrow, glancing at the Warlock who usually would have been in charge by default in a situation like this, from what I knew of how Eldar hierarchy worked. Was this guy some high-ranking Aspect Warrior? I wasn’t really familiar with Eldar lore, to be honest, so I would have had to dig up old memories to check if my assumption was correct, if those memories even existed at all. Eldar lore kinda sucked, after all. “Have you made an enemy of a Craftworld while we were held captive? Will you use this knowledge against the Aeldari people?”
“No, quite the opposite.” I rolled my eyes. “Not that it matters for this conversation. I’ve kept myself far and away from your asinine Craftworlds. No, the enemy I made is the same one I’ve rescued you from: the Necron Suhbekhar Dynasty. Their Crownworld cannot be invaded the usual way, and its extensive anti-teleportation countermeasures make that option … difficult. However, they have a Dolmen Gate which they keep open at all times to access their small slice of the local Webway. I want to find a way inside using that Gate as an entry point. Now then, no more questions. I’ll give new life to a sack of spirit stones, and you will all put your heads together to give me the most accurate starmap of the Webway you can make. Deal or no deal?”
The Aspect Warrior from Biel-Tan bristled along with most of the others and went to speak again. I could already sense from the intent and emotions radiating off of him that it wasn’t going to be the agreement I’d all but demanded. Which in turn would have forced me to get mean. Heck, I was feeling some rather intense killing intent from a few of them.
I mean, sure, I’d been pretty genial as far as kidnappers went; I hadn’t tortured them at all or even violated their minds yet. After all, Val would probably get pissy if I bullied the first group of Eldar I ran into.
But thankfully, that interesting woman I’d noticed spoke up from the back before the Aspect Warrior could sign himself up for some behavioural correction lessons.
“Even if they don’t accept, I’d like to take that deal,” she said, stunning the rest of her kin silent as a few turned to give her incredulous looks or murderous glares for ‘speaking out’. “I am a Pathfinder. I doubt the others can pool together a well of knowledge about Webway paths and Gates more thorough than my own. I can promise you, if there is an open path leading to that Necron Crownworld, I will find it for you.”
“A Pathfinder?” I hummed, then made an idle pinching motion in the air with my right hand, which silenced the other Eldar before they could make a ruckus. I dug up what I knew about Pathfinders, and found myself looking at the somewhat diminutive — by Eldar standards — woman wearing only the simple clothes I’d made her after healing her up.
I gave her a nod and continued, “I see. Very well, your offer is accepted … which means the cooperation of the rest of you is no longer a requirement, though it would be helpful. You might know something she doesn’t, after all. Hmmm. How about this? If you have any information I find useful, I will promise to resurrect ten more Eldar whose spirit stones you bring to me for every nugget of useful information. No time limit. Alternatively, I can put you to sleep and figure out what to do with you later.”
The Drukhari lab rats Ozkan had kept were still in my freezer, and unlike with the humans and the other Eldar, I felt no need to let them go or be courteous with them. They’d remain lab rats, just mine instead of the Cryptek’s. If there ever was a group of beings so abhorrent that they made me want to see whether I could give them a fate worse than getting their souls fed to Slaanesh, then it was the Dark Eldar. Absolute disgusting shitheels, those ones.
“And we are supposed to trust your ‘promise’?” The same antagonistic Eldar asked.
“You can choose not to,” I said mildly, my eyes narrowing at him. “I don’t care overly much. I have a guide now, and a handful of Drukhari my pesky morals don’t require me to be so considerate towards. Any information the lot of you would have might be useful, but hardly crucial. I don’t care whether you take my offer or not.”
“And what will happen if we don’t?” The Warlock said, having to visibly restrain herself from glaring at my new guide who was weathering her kin’s collective animosity without a single twitch of her placid expression.
“Then I will probably put you all back to sleep and drop you off wherever.” I shrugged. “I have an Eldar Warlock working for me; he could sort you all out, probably. If not, I’ll just drop you off at the nearest Craftworld … Iyanden is supposed to be skulking around these parts somewhere. So! Any takers? A single useful nugget of information and ten of your elders can live again! I’m sure a lot of you have relatives still stuck in spirit stones and not merged with an Infinity Circuit or World Soul.”
I could immediately sense that some of them were desperately wanting to take me up on my offer, their barely protected minds — they were probably Exodite civilians — focusing on one or more relatives they’d lost over the years. Unfortunately, they had no information to give me.
Some others were reluctant to give away information they believed had worth, information they thought could endanger their people if given to a strange human psyker, even if they dearly wanted to have me resurrect someone close to them.
But some accepted, having both the information and a yearning to see a dead loved one back to life deep enough to overwrite their paranoia. Those ones stayed, while the rest I knocked unconscious with a superfluous snap of my fingers, then teleported away, much to the muted disquiet of those who remained.
By the way, I even got their names, and chief among them were the Pathfinder Kaylith, the Aspect Warrior from Iyanden called Aloysious, and the sole Warlock of the group, Aralyth. The other five that stayed behind and felt confident in having actionable intel were Rangers or other younger Aspect Warriors from other Craftworlds. We even had one from Malan’tai … who was unfortunately unaware of what became of his Craftworld. Not that I was going to tell him, I had a bunch of new soon-to-be Eldar minions who I could effortlessly shift that responsibility onto. Yay for minions! Everyone should get some.
*****
Ciaphas Cain, lauded Hero of the Imperium, occasional supremely reluctant Agent of His Majesty’s Most Holy Inquisition, and lately a ‘minion’ to a crazy prehistoric witch, felt strangely detached as his arm snapped out, the blade held in his grasp striking out like an extension of his very self. It was fast, impossibly fast; he could hear the air being cut, and while his eyes could follow the trajectory of that incredibly sharp blade, he knew that wouldn’t have been the case just a month ago.
Lord Octavian’s Guardian Spear met Cain’s ‘bio-sword’ and deflected it to the side with expert ease and inhuman precision. Then the Custodian stepped forward, and Cain found himself staring at the rapidly approaching golden fist covered in a Power Gauntlet. His own arm snapped up to block, but he was still sent flying, rolling on the floor a few times before he managed to reorient himself and jump back to his feet.
A month ago, that punch would have turned his head, or maybe his entire body from the waist up into a vaporous cloud of blood. Now? Now his forearm was merely broken and out of action until he had a nice long nap.
It was jarring, so much so that his subconscious still struggled to truly believe everything all his senses were telling him was true. He was sparring with a member of the Adeptus Custodes. He hadn’t even met a single one before that horrible mission that first took him out into this backwater sector. He could never even win against Astartes in duels, despite his skill with the blade, much less a Custodes.
By the Emperor’s hanging, withered nutsack, he was sure any one of his Astartes sparring partners could have taken his head off with little effort if they didn’t want the trouble that came with accidentally beheading the supposed ‘Hero of the Imperium’. Even Space Marines wanted to avoid the bad reputation that would have come of that, especially since anyone he’d sparred with were largely responsible for his continued well-being since he was the Imperial Guard liaison to their Chapter.
Octavian was surely holding back too, but not that much. The Custodian had backhanded him so hard during their first bout that those auramite gauntlets shredded his trusty chainsword, which he’d attempted to block the blow with, putting an end to the old weapon’s centuries of dependable service. Which was how he ended up wielding one of these strange, surely super-heretical organic swords. Not that he was in any state to complain, or even worry about the sanctity of his soul anymore. Not after two weeks of daily sparring with Lord Octavian. He was just happy to be alive by this point, although living had become distinctly uncomfortable ever since the Custodian first stepped foot aboard the Sovereign on that fateful day when the organic ship reached the Iron Halo. Amberley must have alerted him to the events that had come to pass during their latest suicidal trip, considering the undue swiftness of his arrival.
“Can you still fight?” Octavian asked impassively, his deep voice echoing strangely through his helmet’s vox-speaker.
Cain grimaced, and it wasn’t faked either, as his probably broken forearm hurt something fierce. He dearly wanted to flop back, play up the injury and go off to spend a week in the medbay. Of course it was just a fantasy; Echidna could heal him up with a tap, and it wouldn’t do to disappoint Lord Octavian even more after giving such a horrible showing in their spar. So Cain nodded, grunted, and clambered back onto his feet even as his arm sent fresh spikes of liquid agony rippling across his nerves.
Strange as it was, it felt easier to ignore the pain. Perhaps another benefit of his new physique, or maybe just a side effect of his veins being so full of adrenaline at having to spar one of the Emperor’s very own guards.
This man in front of him stood before the Golden Throne and laid eyes on the God-Emperor’s mortal form. It felt unreal, like everything these last few weeks.
“You have the physique, though writ small, but not the skill,” Octavian mused as he took a step back and visibly readied himself for another round that was fated to last a second or two at best. “You lack experience, and even the training. Nonetheless, had it been a freshly-induced Astartes standing in my place, you would have handily defeated them. You have a skill for battle and bladework … I can work with this.”
Work with what? Cain thought inwardly, having a foreboding feeling about this. He could practically see his dreams of continuing on with his dream-like lifestyle on board the Sovereign crumble right in front of his eyes. Sure, there had been stressful excursions and the oppressive shadow of Echidna, or the threat of her dying in while attempting her latest stunt and leaving him to starve on her organic ship that nobody but her could command. But other than that? These last few weeks had been surprisingly relaxing, considering Echidna’s cooking and collection of alcohol easily rivalled that of Lord General Zyvan’s, which Cain had had the good fortune of sampling on a good few occasions on account of his cordial relationship with the man.
All that was likely going down the drain, not that he could continue focusing on that, or bemoan his fate as his entire focus was suddenly occupied trying to fend off a renewed wave of attacks coming from the Custodian. Nothing that large, covered in armour that heavy, had any right to move anywhere near as fast as Octavian was moving. Cain’s perception and reflexes were superhuman; his arm came up, interposing his own blade to deflect and parry on pure instinct, but Octavian was faster, and he never gave Cain the time to think, to plan. He kept the retired Commissar on the back foot, his body running on pure instinct with no room left for conscious thought in their high-speed clash. It left him scrambling to block, parry and evade more often than not, and every opportunity he got to slip in a riposte felt fake, like Octavian allowed them to happen. Half of them were traps, a third of which Cain walked right into, his body acting on instinct before his conscious mind recognised the feint. Octavian punished them all.
It reminded Cain of that time he’d had the misfortune to find himself facing down a Traitor Astartes. Although back then the enemy was, relative to himself, much faster, stronger and more menacing. Despite supposedly having the same physique as Cain, Octavian made him feel that the difference in power between the two of them was even wider. That was skill. The Traitor Astartes had been a barely coherent feral beast in the shape of a man, while Octavian was a stoic master of combat in all its forms, while also being armed with a physique easily eclipsing that of an Astartes. It was almost unfair that such beings existed, but Cain was glad they did. If creatures like Echidna existed as well, the Imperium of Man needed monsters of its own if it wanted to survive.
The sparring blessedly came to a close after an indeterminate amount of time, with Octavian stepping away and holstering his spear with a sense of finality. He gave Cain, who was barely able to breathe, much less stand under his own power by this point, a severe nod that might have contained notes of acknowledgement. Then he turned and left, leaving him alone in the-
A slow clap reached his ears, and he slowly, torturously turned his head to face the side of the room, only to blink. Jurgen was there, already hurrying over to him and looking like he wasn’t sure what to do, which was expected, even though Cain had completely forgotten about his presence while lost in the frantic pace of the battle.
Behind him was Echidna, the source of the clap, and next to her was Amberley, arms crossed, a deep frown marring her face. Her eyes, however … well, the promise they held suddenly made the thousand aches plaguing his body feel fully worth it.
“Well, that was impressive,” his enigmatic host chirped as she hopped over to him and poked his side with the tip of her boot. Cain winced as she touched a nasty bruise, and probably moved a broken rib, but then a wave of icy cold relief washed over him, banishing the pain. “There ya’ go, some flash-healing for a nice showing. We’re setting off tomorrow, so be ready… but you can enjoy yourselves tonight and relax for a few more days. The trip to our destination will take a while.”
“Destination?” Amberley asked, stepping up next to Echidna as Jurgen fussed about him, helping him up despite Cain feeling not a hint of his aches or exhaustion. His hands shook, but that was just a shadow of the adrenaline and other organic stims his new body had been pumping into his body for hours now. “Is … whatever you were doing here done?”
“Yep, this was the last occupied planet in the Iron Halo,” Echidna said. “We will be taking a trip back towards Vallia, taking stops at every world in the way, and then we will continue on for a little trip. The most promising Webway Gate just so happens to be near that region of space.”
“Webway Gate?” Amberley asked, sounding faintly surprised, and Echidna aimed an amused look her way.
“Yep, a Webway Gate, did you think I gave up on conquering the Necron Crownworld? No, I just want an easier way in,” Echidna said with a huff. “You have some experience with the Webway, so your help might be useful, even if I got myself some Eldar minions to help with it. So yeah! Get ready, I heard that a specific region of the Webway we are going to be visiting has a smaller Drukhari settlement inside it, which we are going to have to kindly convince to stop existing. It’ll be a good way to test your neat new physique too, so you’re welcome for the opportunity.”
Cain didn’t feel like thanking her, but fortunately she didn’t seem like she wanted a verbal thanks anyway, nodding to herself and then strutting out of the room having said what she wanted. Cain slowly turned towards Amberly, unsure what to think and saw that she seemed to feel the same way. Oh well. What was the worst that could happen?