Anguish

Chapter 1

Volesus saw Anir stop in his tracks.  He turned to see what stopped him.  Volesus' vision was the bright green of a night vision filter.  No lights remained active in the many kilometers of this estate, after the killings.  Volesus saw Anir lift a hand to his neck, and grasped something.  Something that wasn't there.  His head was forced backwards, his mouth opened, and then his tongue began to deform.  Volesus rushed to save him, but he was not fast enough.  He saw Anir’s tongue stretch and violently rip from the root, making him retch along with the blood that flowed out.  In the same instant, as the bile ran from Anir’s mouth, he was dragged away at a speed that would take Volesus precious seconds to match, slamming him into the ornate furniture around them.  Volesus ran through every visual spectra he had in less than a second, trying to find a way to see what was taking him.  Nothing came back.  Just empty space and darkness. 

Anir’s hound let out a single fierce bark and began to give chase.  The lights on his vest burst into life, and Volesus’ lenses compensated.  He saw something.  Just for a second, the light touched a figure that was dragging Anir behind it, before the light's strobing pattern left it in shadow again.  The hound had seen it too, and changed the light to a steady glare.  Volesus ran after them, followed by the rest of his cell.  They ran down a long well decorated room.  It must have been an art gallery.

Volesus could see Anir again, but somehow he was much further down the chamber than he was before, at least fifty meters away, in the shadows that the hounds light had not yet eliminated.  The hound was gaining on them faster than the rest of them could.  Anir’s life signs were consumed by the darkness again.  He reappeared, this time easily a hundred meters away.  It was going too fast. He disappeared again, and this time did not reappear.  The hound continued to run down the hall, intent on a passage at its end. 

As a shadow grew long with the hounds approach, something stepped out of it.  A humanoid figure that dragged the shadows with it, bearing a peculiar blazing ghostly blue along its extremities.  The light that shone from the hounds vest lost potency upon touching the creature, becoming faint.  The figure stood in front of the hound as it pounced.  In one strong motion the figure ducked to the side, grabbed it by the back of the neck, and yanked out its mechanical spinal cord, killing it and the lights instantly. 

Volesus stopped running.  He ran through every available spectra.  There was nothing here.  Nothing that he could see.  He couldn't see the thing that took Anir earlier either.  The only thing that had worked was actual light.

“Lights on.  As many as we have, but conserve disposable sources.”  Volesus said to his cell.

They had barely managed to keep up with him, but they followed orders without hesitation or delay.  They swept the entire room with lights and found nothing.

“What was that?” Namar was the first to speak.

“I do not know.” replied Volesus.

“But I imagine it is the thing we are here to kill.”

There were three other cells active in the estate at the moment.  None of them knew what they were hunting, nor how many there were.  They only knew that everyone within the estates walls had been found dead days before, and people had begun to vanish from the hive, most commonly near the estate.  No one has returned from the property since the killings, no matter their business.

“Lut, Relay the situation to the other cells.”  Volesus ordered.

Lut turned from the group and began speaking into his vox, but stopped mid sentence as he heard something.  Volesus heard it too.  Someone screaming a horrible guttural scream.  A scream that one might make without a tongue.  Volesus located the sound's supposed point of origin and began to run towards it.  It was the chamber at the end of the room. 

“Let's move!” he ordered.  He could hear the cell’s auto injectors activate en masse in anticipation of a chase. 

They ran to the end of the chamber as a unit.  Volesus would outpace them, but they were augmented, lighter and nimbler than him.  Every small sidestep Volesus was forced to make gave the cell five strides to keep pace.  The screaming did not stop.  It was moving while he wailed.

They followed the screams into the many passages of the estate, moving at a relentless, steady pace.  Anir screamed with the same fervor.  Callsign Anir, real name Tobias Andreon, was an exceptional member of the Vigilia, and had been with him the longest.  Over forty years, a track record un-thinkable in the Astra Militarum, both due to the Vigilias extensive life extending augmetics, and the exceptional mettle displayed by Anir himself.  He served as tracker and scout.  He had many hounds that he worked with for different purposes.  He had been Volesus' second for so long, it felt strange to not be communicating with him at this moment.  Volesus felt short of a pair of eyes and an incomparable sense of smell, though those were traits he borrowed.

Every member of cell 2511 was exceptional, to Volesus’ great pride.  But to be an Astartes of the Malum Vigilia was to embrace the loss of those you served with.  You will lose cell members.  They know this.  They place their lives in the Emperor's hands the same as an Astartes.  And they face it with no fear.  Volesus found this to be an exceptional quality, and endeavored at all times to repay his cell members' devotion, by raising them up, and protecting them.  There were cell members before Anir, who had met their end in service.  Volesus remembered and honored every one.

“The other cells will converge on us, but they are having trouble as well.  They say not to expect anything.”  came Lut's voice as they ran.

Anir’s screams always seemed to stay the same distance ahead of them.  Eventually they reached a nondescript passage to a lower level.  The screams bounced up at them atop the stone steps. 

“I loved that dog.  Lets kill this :cuss:ing thing.” Ukhna said as they rushed down the steps.




Chapter 2

Volesus adjusted his sight as they descended the stairs.  It would not do to see by lumen light, but evidently, that was the only way to see whatever they were hunting.  So he split his vision.  On the right a multi-spectra combination tuned to give him the clearest picture of the environment.  On the left, natural light and shadows.  He told the cell to do the same.  The five of them reached the bottom of the staircase and found themselves in a well stocked cellar.  The screams continued, always the same distance ahead, no matter what pace they were moving.  There were many hiding spaces and shadowed corners down here. 

“Move swiftly but with caution.  Illuminate any space before moving into it. Keep each other in the light.” Volesus told the cell.

They moved as a tight group, slower now, Volesus at the front.  They were able to create a formidable shell of illumination, and they advanced undisturbed for a time, scrutinizing every shadow, and jumping at every rat.  Still Anir screamed.  As they advanced Volesus began to notice greater trails of gore and viscera along the floor and shelves than there had been before.  The estate was the sight of a massacre, but the gore had been much more spread out above.  The stone floor down here was smeared over with a thickening, congealing mat of blood that stuck to their boots.  The screams led them along a massive and long stack of fire wood.  Volesus could see pale blue light in the distance.  It was the same color as had emanated from the creature.  It was past the end of the wood stack, there must be open space at its end.

Volesus did not see any life signs nearby.  Lumen light revealed nothing in the direction they moved.  The gore intensified, and the stack of firewood was beginning to look different at the end.  The temperature was shifting.  Some of it was colder.  Volesus looked closer with his natural eyes, and saw why.  Human limbs, stacked on top of the wood.  Where the wood pile began to fall, the limbs began to rise.  Hundreds of them stacked like kindling.  They were all very cold.  They approached the end of the stack and turned the corner prepared to destroy anything they found.

The limb pile terminated, revealing a recess with another staircase.  Two torches illuminated by a cold blue flame burned in sconces on its portal.  The limb pile continued on the other side of the staircase, as well as piled on top of the passage, and began tumbling down the stairs

Nobody spoke.  There was nothing to say.  They have all witnessed horror with regularity.  This was quite exceptional, yes, but not the worst any of them had seen.  What happened to Anir though.  That was very bad.  Volesus felt great pain on Anir’s behalf, only to crush it beneath his iron will.  They began to descend the stairs.  The temperature began to drop.  They weren't moving into a colder environment.  The environment was getting colder.  Emanating from the floor.  Nothing showed on multi spectra, somehow.  The temperature drop did not register on any auspex but they felt it.  When they shone their lumens on the floor, dark inky shadows persisted in trails that winded towards the ceiling.  They began to lazily lash out at the cell as they passed by.  They took care to not touch them, but they swayed and jerked erratically.  They managed to reach the bottom untouched.  Except for Ukhna.

As Ukhna stepped off the final rung of the steps, a shadow jerked at her leg and tripped her.  Volesus turned in time to see her fall, and her lumen shifted to the side, leaving her to fall into a quickly coalescing pool of inky black shadow.  She fell completely into the darkness, and when the cell shined their lumens on the space she had fallen, she was gone.  They heard a scream from the top of the stairs, and they saw Ukhna slam into the stairs above them, falling out of the dark that covered the ceiling.  They were at least fifty meters away.  Volesus began to run, as he saw the pale blue markings define a hand on top of Ukhna’s helmet, and rip it off.

The cell charged with Volesus and illuminated the creature fully.  It looked like a man, but wrong.  Was this an aeldari?  Volesus thought.  He had never known an aeldari to do anything like this, but xenos are foul and full of tricks.  It mattered not.  The creature on the steps above them was the size of a large man, extremely well defined and dressed in ripped leathers, soaking with blood.  The blue fire traveled like veins over the creature's entire surface.  It did not cast a shadow.

It lifted Ukhna aloft by her hair, and raised its other arm, which seemed to extend like a blade.  They opened fire at the same second its arm came down, only to have each of their bullets snatched out of the air by the grasping tendrils of shadow.  Ukhna's arm fell away, as well as some portion of her rib cage. 

The creature twisted Ukhna in its grip, exposing her other limb to his sword arm.  Volesus' large single fire bolt pistol shells were easily taken by the darkness, but the rapid fire of the carbines from the rest of the cell broke through.  Four hit the creature in the sternum as he slammed the blade down again, severing Ukhna’s other arm.  The creature stumbled back from the force of the hits.

Ukhna was not screaming.  She must either be dead or unconscious.  The creature turned its face lit by cold blue flame towards them, and hurled her ragged body.  Arban ducked below the thrown corpse and continued firing into the creature. 

Volesus managed to catch the body, keeping it from sending them all down the stairs.  He dropped it, though it pained him immensely to treat her with no reverie.  She was dead.  He raised his bolt pistol and scanned the area.  The grasping tendrils on the ground were dissipating.  The creature had fallen.  Arban had brought it down.

Volesus regarded the rest of his cell. 

“The quarry is a coward.  Or a breed of them.  They will not meet us face to face, instead seeking to pull us apart from the shadows.  They are leading us somewhere.  We must advance through their plot, arrive at its end faster than they can prepare it for us.”

Anir’s screaming continued, down in the darkness.  His cell members nodded without hesitation.  Lut, Namar and Arban were still with him.  He looked down at Ukhnas' broken body.  Real name Leandra.  Over twenty years of service together.  She was a combat medic.  She had actually saved Volesus’ life on one particularly harrowing mission.  He conjured the most sincere prayer to the Emperor he could, and continued down the steps.  They did not stop to examine the mysterious creature's body.

When they reached the bottom a wall of shadows blocked the illumination of their lumens.  The light interacted with it, but was simply overwhelmed and diffused by the density of the shadow.  Anir screamed still, from beyond.  Volesus thrust his hand into the dark and held it there.  He looked at his cell, and asked if they were ready.

“All for one.  Malum Ruit.” Lut said, making Volesus proud.

They walked into the shadow as a unit. 




Chapter 3

Being in the shadow was like having your eyes closed.  Vision does not cease, but there is nothing to see.  The mind creates ephemeral figures, patterns of light.  Your own synapses, firing behind your eyes.  Volesus walked into the strange fleeting figures and they scattered under his focus.  He could feel movement.  Air was rushing past him, much faster than it should be.  He stopped walking, but he continued moving.  The shadow was moving him.  He turned back to his cell.

Volesus could not see, but his auspex systems were able to put the space around him into relative context by informing him of where his cell was.  Small markers on his visor with their approximate distance.  They were all being moved apart.  Volesus tried to yell out to them, but shadows swallowed his voice.  Fifteen meters between them now.  Arban was further from Lut and Namar.  Volesus attempted to run back but was slammed to the ground as the force pulling him gained strength, and tripped him.  Twenty five meters.

And then in an instant the shadows fell away, scattering like ink into an ocean.  They were somewhere else now.  A much wider space.  Volesus saw Lut and Namar. They were on the ground.  He got to his feet and was relieved to see they were moving, and unharmed.  Arban was moving to meet them as well. 

There was a tether connecting the two, and in the middle, tangled and broken, was the corpse of another one of the creatures. 

“I don't even know how I could tell he was coming for me, but I.. I managed to dodge him and get him tangled up…”  Lut said, out of breath, and exasperated.

Namar unhooked the tether from her harness.  The two stood and un tangled the corpse.  Its black skin looked peculiar under the light of the lumen.  Blue flames crisscrossed its body.  It had long white hair that was matte and filthy from the gore of its clothing, dripping in blood.  Volesus turned his back to it.

They were in a much less agreeable portion of the estate now, though they surely were still in the estate.  Chains hung from the ceiling, and cages lined the walls, filled with a multitude of devices designed to mutilate and maim.  Down here some oil lamps and torches still burned.  Volesus wondered why.  The creatures did not seem to need or enjoy the light.  But it did not seem to harm them either.

They could not hear Anir’s screaming, a first since he was taken.  They emerged from the shadows near a wall, with the torture chamber streching out in front of them.  Volesus took point and the four proceeded.  The torches on the walls cast long flickering shadows that aided little in illumination, simply adding another variable to the space marines sensitively attuned vision.  Bodies both fresh and old adorned the torture machines, and hung shackled in the cages.  Volesus’ auspex systems locked onto each one for a micro second before determining it deceased, and not a threat.  Except for one.

Volesus’ saw faint life signs coming off of a body, suspended by some contraption about twenty meters ahead.  He moved with urgency towards it.  The flickering torch light illuminated the figure as they grew closer.  It was dressed in black and grey, the colors of the Vigilia.  It bore the three leaves on its shoulder.  Anir?  Volesus focused his weapons light on the figure as he drew close.  He was suspended by spikes driven through his body, around a dozen of them.  She.  She was suspended.  Volesus looked at the figure's face to see it was Namar.  He turned behind him to see that Namar was no longer with them.  Had they taken her so deftly?

At the same moment the Volesus turned around two tall white haired figures, with black skin struck through with blue flame, brought their wicked swords of gleaming green metal to bear.  They ran through Lut and Arban, raising them high off the ground as they choked and died.

Volesus snapped his bolt pistol into position and put a round through both of the figures, the explosive shells obliterating the upper torso of both the damned xenos creatures.  Lut and Arban fell onto the floor, out of the light of the flames.  Volesus turned back to Namar, if he was quick enough maybe he could still save her.  But when he returned to the rack she was suspended from, she was gone. 

Volesus suspected xenos trickery at this moment, but was torn from his contemplations when he heard Lut screaming out his name in front of him.  He looked and saw Lut  being taken by the throat, and slammed onto a vicious looking table, screaming as its implements impaled him.  The creature above him looked at him with hunger.  He saw Namar and Arban run past him screaming

“What are you doing, Volesus?  Let's go!”  as they let loose concentrated volleys mid sprint.

Volesus joined them, bringing down the creature above the table easily, but on their approach saw Namar fall into a pit of spikes.  Arban regarded her with shock and sorrow as he passed, continuing to help Lut, but Volesus could see he was dead already.  As was Namar.  Again.  Arban was run through by a giant meethook by one of the creatures and pulled high into the air, screaming.  Volesus eliminated the creature with extreme brute force, and heard Lut by his side, telling him to calm down.

“He’s already dead, Volesus, let's go…” The dead man's voice said. 

Lut opened fire on another one of the creatures that came running at them, all three of them, together again.  More of them appeared out of the shadows when they eliminated one, and soon they fell on the group, slaughtering Lut, Namar, and Arban in horrific fashion, while Volesus destroyed them two and three at a time.  After long minutes, Volesus knelt with exhaustion in a pile of the dead.  He heard Arban screaming for him.  Namar too, from the other direction.  He chose one, he didn't know which at the moment he chose, just a direction and a sound, and began to run.

As he sprinted through the flickering shadows, he saw one of the creatures, just out of his reach.  It was hiding, that much was plain, but it was watching Volesus as he ran.  This one was different.  Volesus did not know how, but upon realizing there was something off about it, he changed his trajectory and slammed into the creature, catching it off guard.  He caught it in his grip and watched its feeble attempts to flee as he raised it high and smashed it deep into the rockcrete.  Volesus continued to bludgeon the creature beyond any recognition.  No one was screaming for him any more.  Were they all dead?  Volesus continued until there was nothing but a red pit beneath him.

He heard a quiet, stern voice behind him. 

“Volesus…” It was Arban. 

Volesus raised his head.  He did not know how he knew, but this was the real Arban.  The shadows have ceased their tricks, for the moment.  Volesus stood.  He swept the area with his auspex, and saw only two faint, fading life signs nearby.  The two went to Lut and Namar's bodies.  Luts skull had been crushed, and Namar had been cut in half.

Volesus and Arban entered a resigned state of grim determination, and said nothing.  They heard Anir, screaming, from the other room, again.




Chapter 4

Volesus and Arban followed the screaming to the room that surely held Anir.  The screams were close, echoing off the nearby walls.  There was a small passage, glowing with blue flame at its end.  They entered slowly.  The blue fire was in braziers all around them, and the chamber itself was freezing.  It was unfinished, the builders must have run into a natural cavern, and indeed a small channel of water was flowing through it.  Volesus did not look to see the chamber's bounds.  There were no life signs in the room, except for Anir.

Anir hung from a rocky outcropping that the small creek fell from.  He was chained by the wrists, naked, and screaming still.  They had taken his eyes, most of his face, and begun peeling away the flesh of his chest.  Volesus was tall enough to free him from here.  He ran to his old friend, Arban, following.

When Volesus was within arms reach of Anir, he was assaulted from the darkness below where he hung.  A massive gout of silent blue flame erupted from the shadows, and threw Volesus and Arban into the air.  They slammed into the far wall of the chamber.  Volesus hit it first as the blast was centered on him.  Less than a second later, Arban hit the wall, and to Volesus’ impotent rage, shattered into a million pieces that scattered around the room.

Volesus’ armor was frozen, and the flames remained fixed on him, blinding him with bright blue light.  His armor's internal systems were diverting power attempting to keep him warm.  His astartes physiology was burning at a rate that might kill him were he not about to freeze to death.  The flames assaulted him in silence, and he heard a voice.

“Quickly…” a deep, cut up voice whispered.

And then,

“I just need a second… Just a touch…” said another, similar voice.  Their words were being translated.

The flames stopped, and in front of Volesus stood two more of the vile xenos that had caused him so much pain.  Taken so much from him.  They stood drenched in skin and blood, with long white hair over black and blue bodies.  Volesus looked up to Anir.  He was dead.  Evidently expired from his wounds.  Volesus felt the pain touch his soul as he said goodbye to his old friend.  The creatures interrupted his prayers.

“The anguish of an Astartes…”  The one on the right said, as it walked towards him.

“A rare treasure indeed…”

Volesus’ armor was beginning to warm, and he could move an arm, just barely.  The creature on the left raised a hand, and created a rift in the air behind them that swelled with deep shadows until it was enough to walk through.  A portal.

The creature that came for Volesus put a hand on his chest plate, and tore his soul asunder.  A gaping maw emerged in his psyche, in his mind, in his soul, in his body, was how real it felt.  Every bit of his being flowed into the emptiness, expelled into the void like vomit.  The creature pulled its hand back slowly and Volesus' soul dragged with it, pulling his rage, his power, his love for his friends, and his sorrow at their passing with it.  It held Volesus’ Anguish in its hand, and closed its grip.

The turned and walked through the portal without sparing him another glance, focused only on its treasure.  The other one followed, and the portal closed. 

Volesus' armor thawed, and he crashed to the floor.  He activated his emergency transponder.  The rest of the response team would need to come here anyway.  Volesus took off his helm and vomited profusely, spitting up much blood. 

To his surprise, the response team arrived at his location after only minutes.  All eighteen of them.  Evidently, Volesus’ cell was the only one that came to harm.