Nostramo

[Pavement Artist]

Hello. This is something ive been working on in my spare time. After the excellent "Soul Hunter rekindled my love for the Night lords, i went back and devoured everything fluff wise that i had to hand about the sons of Nostramo. With all that grim dark nonsense rattling around in my brain, i had the urge to write out my own sort of love letter to the Night lords. "Nostramo" was originally intended to be a heresy style novel involving the legion out and about delivering their own brand of warfare to the galaxy. As i started to write, it became more of a Ragnar Blackmane sort of tale about a young Nostraman, initiated into the Legion at a time when it's ranks are becoming inundated with Thieves and rapists. I think it works as a dark parallel to the ingrained notions of honour that was steeped in Fenrisian life in the Space Wolf novels.

 

Anyway, here is part one, its still a bit rough in my opinion so sorry in advance about the quality. Comments and criticism helpful.

 

PART ONE- Night song

 

In the dark, the city spoke to him. Sometimes it was the clamouring of life in motion, the raised voices of a million people as they laughed and loved and worked amongst each other, he even fancied at times he could pick out the light refrains of children laughing, though he was sure this was nothing more than a half remembered memory. More often than not the city was awash in a crescendo of desperate screams, a discordant chorus of pain and suffering, of families wrenched apart in the long nights.

 

Tonight however, it hissed. Like a clutch of serpent’s coiled around a dank rotting heart, the ever present rain drenched the weakly lit lamp strips that lined the crossways and streets of the city, sputtering and crackling as the water crept down through cracked casing, shorting out more than a few of the least maintained strips. He watched as they guttered and slowly died, blinking out in the distance. The city wore this veneer of malevolence like a finely woven kaftan, comfortable in it’s own aspect of dread.

 

He watched with a grim smile as the citizens of Nostramo Quintus fled the streets, making a futile effort to shield themselves from the rain with upheld papers or bags. They milled below him, grey inconsequential smudges in the rain slicked streets. He ghosted a cracked approximation of a chuckle as he noticed not one of the people dared cross past the sections of street where the lamp strips had failed. Thick pockets of night had swallowed up those areas and the citizens were Impelled away by a mix of instinct and years of hard truths of life on the night world.

Human existence was replete with stories of creatures that stalked the world once light had failed. Like a membrane running through the consciousness of mankind, humans had learned to fear what lay in the shadows. Even when the world’s of mankind’s first intergalactic voyage were torn and isolated from each other, man never forgot to fear the dark.

 

Nostramo was a world positively birthed from this fear. The planet had never known the kiss of sunlight to warm it’s blackened skin. The very fabric of life on it’s surface was steeped in creeping dread, furtive glances over ones shoulder, looking for the glint of moonlight off of a blade’s edge. The people of this planet bore out their existence with the threat of death hanging bearing down on them, slow and inevitable. Nostramans lived in the shadows and forever died in them.

 

Jai S’lisk looked down upon his home and laughed in spite of the rain. Nostramo Secundus was the only place he had ever known in his twenty three years of existence and the old crone of a city had seeped into his bones like no other could. The wind lashed rain abated for a moment and he caught a keening wail carried on the night air, a woman’s cry. The bird song of Nostramo. He thought with a grim smile as he lit his Lho stick.

 

 

Despite the perpetual downpour, the market was a teeming hub of people. Citizens pressed against each other, bartering and selling, pushing and navigating past stalls and vendors wheeling heavy three wheeled carts of wares. Heavy cloaks held tight against their bodies, the people of Nostramo turned their ink black eyes up towards the hanging lanterns of the market vendors and muttered hurried prayers of thanks to no one in particular. The world that they knew was one of only blackness and life on it’s surface demanded that they saw through even the deepest shadow. The jet orbs of their eyes attested to this and yet the market goers were careful to stick to the scant cordon of orange light afforded by the lanterns. They were no fools, they knew what lurked beyond.

 

The package felt cold and heavy in his jacket pocket. Wrapped in a thin film of plas sheet and cushioned by several delicate folds of tissue, S`lisk cursed aloud every time he was jarred by the crowd. Deliberately leaning his shoulder away from any incoming market goers, he slowly attempted to manoeuvre his way through the crowd. He saw a break in the press and cut left past a vendor frying ragged slabs of grey meat on a wire stove and headed for an alleyway off of the market place.

Behind him, he heard the stifled gasps of surprise mixed with murmurs of disapproval from the crowd as he slipped from the lamplight and ghosted into the alleyway. Nothing good will come of that. Some whispered.

How right they were. Thought Jai with a wry smile.

 

He dared to break into a jog as he navigated the rain soaked detritus of the pitch dark alleyway, the package in his pocket bouncing lightly. Slum-born and raised in the shadow streets as he was, Jai could still feel the sibilant air of the city press down upon him, heavy and oppressive like a weight on his chest. Continuing to run, he stepped lightly over the slumped body of a dock worker. He didn’t know if the man was dead or simply insensate with drink, he didn’t care either way.

His head flashed with sudden sunspots of pain as he emerged from the alleyway onto the boardwalk of Cutter’s marina. The marina throbbed with life, hundreds of patrons spilling out from the many bars and Lho cafes that lined the boardwalk, their signage casting a sickly neon pall. The Nostraman felt the shadow-born inside him rebel at the illumination and he let out a quite involuntary hiss at the luminescence.

 

Picking his way past the lurching slum workers, all Lhoed up to their eyeballs, Jai gripped the handrail of the boardwalk and deftly vaulted over, landing gracefully on the sodden jetty below. The din of the Nostraman nightlife was lessened here and he allowed himself to exhale in relief. He focussed on the gently crashing of the black water against the jetty as he cast his eyes over the marina.

Luxury hydro foils and battered channel tugs alike, all strained at their moorings as they were thrown restlessly against the ropes restraining them. The air held a sharp and acrid tang, metallic and sour. It assaulted Jai’s nostrils, carried on the heavy sea breeze.

 

His feet padded lightly on the soaked woodwork of the jetty, his liquid black eyes darting over the bobbing craft as he sort his target. Catching a brief glimmer of a gleaming prow, he jogged across the jetty, halting at a sleek chrome luxury cutter. Jakarta’s Run Was the name stencilled on her hull in thick blocky industrial lettering. She was a luxury hydro foil of unsurpassed design, a floating bastion for the criminally rich members of Nostraman society.

For all it’s cancerous charm, Nostramo contained a backbone of pure wealth. Beneath the pollution saturated skies and the acid rain soaked streets, lay at it’s core- a crust of adamantium. The precious near unbreakable metal grew in abundance under the planet‘s skin and trade was strong, wealth breeding attention and influence as it ever has. Power flowed to the mining guilds and corporations like tributaries and streams of a great river.

 

As he approached the ship, two heavy coated thugs intercepted him. They flashed Snub nosed shotguns-old Arbites models, their serial numbers filed flat. Putting their not inconsiderable frames between Jai and the cutter the Stockier ganger grunted at the youth. Jai spread his arms wide in mock prostration. He knew how this game played out.

“Not the night to be skulking around, shadow rat.” The shorter of the two grunted.

“I come bearing gifts.” Jai replied as he allowed the men to search his coat for any concealed weapons. Relatively satisfied, they stood aside to let him step onto the deck.

“Take me to your leader.” He quipped, flashing them a wicked grin as he stepped on to the boat.