Secret War: Warhammer 40,000 by Ben Agar (reading eggs books TXT) 📖

knew we were advancing along the port side, through the fifth level. There was going to be a staircase in another two turns about eighty-five metres away. The stairway zigzagged up to the tenth level. The bridge was a level above that; we had separated and scouted ahead of Enandra's main push, taking a long way around, the path least tried. They'd know we were here after that first ambush, there would be more of them coming our way, but the vast majority were distracted. Another kill team, led by Arlathan Karkin, was advancing along the starboard side; we were to converge together on the tenth level at 1800 hours.

I glanced at my wrist chron; it was only fifteen thirty-two. Until then, we were to sow Chaos and confusion in their rear echelons.

This was my type of fighting; she'd chosen me well. I felt Arlathan was vastly under-qualified, but he'd seemed to have found great favour with Enandra. It was quite rare to see the pair not together over the past few months though both Darrance and Hayden were with him, so if he followed their advice, they should do pretty well.

We moved down the corridor unmolested, but we never lost our disciplined, zigzagging advance, checking every inch and every corner with our green hazed, low light gazes.

As we reached the next turn, I heard more footfalls; they were light but quick and disciplined. Quickly, I calculated they were walking down the stairs, about eighteen metres down, although I couldn't tell how many exactly.

I ordered us to fan out with deliberate hands, Adelana, Helma, and I to the left. Torris, Verenth and Vark, right. I signalled to let them past, then we wrapped our cameleoline cloaks around us again and waited.

It only took a few minutes for them to come around the corner, but it felt like forever; there were ten of them peering through a slight gap in my cloak. They had no lamps on their assortment of weapons, indicating they too had low light vision contacts. One of them carried an auspex, and I couldn't help but smile. We'd all gone light, wearing synskin bodygloves.

They were good, very good I figured they might've been some of Torathe's entourage, sent to stop whatever infiltrators had moved so far into their midst.

With bated breath, I watched as they walked right by us, expecting in any second for one of them to notice something, anything that'd give us away. One of them, a towering brute in carapace armour, even seemed to look right at me, but he saw nothing and moved on with the rest of his mates.

I changed my mind; these bastards were too good; they could wreak havoc on the main force. I indicated this with a tap of my vox link, and in an instant, we were up and firing into their backs at a practically point-blank range. Four of them were cut down, but the remaining six reacted with impressive speed, starting to spread out into cover a few, even managing to turn and fire back; one-shot winged Verenth causing him to cry out and spin away. One clipped Vark's thigh, and he was forced back into cover, clutching at his wound with a pained growl.

I activated my sword in a blaze of blue and dashed in, decapitating one and kicked another in the ribs sending him smashing hard into his comrade and against the wall.

Another tried to swing out at me with the butt of his autogun, but I weaved away the kicked it from his hands so abruptly it took him a second to realise it'd gone allowing Adelana to bash in his face with the swing of her hellgun. The next tried to bring his gun upon us, but a point-blank shotgun shot from Torris exploded the side of his skull, then Helma converged on the last, taking out his legs with a sweeping kick, stamped on his face; which connected with a sickening, crunch! Then finished him by stabbing the tip of her knife into his neck.

I killed the last who was starting to get to his feet, cutting him horizontally across his chest.

I turned to the others and nodded my approval, especially at Adelana, genuinely impressed.

"They will be missed," hissed Helma, whipping the blood from her knife on her thigh.

I shrugged. "We'll worry about that later, check on Verenth and Vark, please," I said.

Torris and Helma nodded, then turned to help the injured.

"I am alright," said Vark, limping into view, gripping his thigh.

"You'd better head back," I said. "You're in no condition for-"

A flicker of movement caught my eye. The slightest thing but still made me slide to the side, so the slashing sword from the darkness at my back instead cut across my lower bicep.

With a cry of pain, I struggled to keep my balance. The dark corridor was suddenly alight with hellgun fire. Only a little more than a shadow, the figure laughed and, with breathtaking speed and agility, dodged and weaved through it.

Then his sword's power field came into life, a thin curved blade; I could see him now. He wore carapace armour and a storm coat. His sharp-featured face half-covered in a fringe and was smirking almost psychotically; how the hell he'd almost got the drop on me was beyond me. Then he dashed straight at Adelana, thrusting at her.

Clenching my teeth against the pain, I snarled and smashed aside his thrust, throwing a sidekick that sent him spinning back.

I charged forward, cutting out at his thighs diagonally. He parried and reposted with a high horizontal slash at my skull. I ducked. He was forced to backpedal from the counter cut.

"Ahh!" breathed the attacker, his voice hoarse and whispering, like a desert wind. "Attelus Kaltos! I have heard so much about you!"

I grimaced; seriously, does everyone know me?

"Who are you?" I demanded.

"I am Interrogator Leonard Rodyille," he said with a deep bow. "Inquisitor Etuarq sends his regards."

I waved everyone back. "You're Etuarq's Interrogator?"

"No," said Rodyille. "I am Torathe's Interrogator, but I am truly working for Etuarq."

Suddenly came screams, hideous, blood-freezing screams that seemed to erupt from Rodyille.

"What the hell are you?" I hissed, recoiling back in horror.

"He said you would be here," said Rodyille, ignoring my question. "At this exact time, he sent me to kill you and your little friends. So he knew you'd be here; he must also know that I'd kill you."

I laughed despite myself. "You think that, do you? Feuilt thought the same thing too; then he died at my hand. I think he's sent you here because you've run your course; you're no longer useful to him. You're expendable."

Rodyille grimaced. "Your father taught me how to fight! How to kill! I am his best agent! His most loyal! I have been enhanced beyond normal human ken! I am too valuable to be expendable!"

"Enhanced?" I said, my eyes widening. "Best agent? So you're not the only one? You're the same as that assassin who attacked me on that thoroughfare, aren't you? I wonder how many of you Etuarq has out there in the sector; you're not special. Your master, Etuarq, just manipulated the death of an entire world, then he has sent you to be sacrificed at my blade. How can you be loyal to him? I just don't understand."

Rodyille's jaw clenched but said nothing.

"You seem to know much," I said. "Join us, Leonard Rodyille. Tell us what you know, and we can stop the bastard!"

Rodyille smiled and sniggered.

"Do you know why I've told you this?" he said.

"Because you're so sure you can kill me, it doesn't matter?" I said, and he frowned, indicating I was right; I couldn't help finding it amusing, knowing even he managed to, it wouldn't make any difference at all.

I smiled sadly. "No matter what I say, you won't see sense, will you?" I sighed.

Rodyille dashed at me with an enraged roar faster than thought, slashing out at my neck.

I blocked and reposted with an upward vertical slash, forcing him to sidestep. He spun into a hook kick which would've smashed knocked my legs out from underneath me if I hadn't backstepped.

He cut overhead, and I slid aside then stabbed at his head. He leaned back by a hair's breadth, and I followed with a darting horizontal strike at his stomach.

Rodyille barely managed to parry it and threw a front kick at my chest. I slid aside and countered with a kick with my bladed shoe at his shin. Rodyille threw himself back.

"Oh, for frig's sake!" I heard Torris' exclaim. "Are we just going to stand around and watch you fight? Frig! It's even happening so fast I can't even make out what's happening!"

I smiled and knocked away Rodyille's charging thrust. Throwing a roundhouse kick that crashed into his side, sending him stumbling, it would've shattered his ribs into oblivion if it wasn't for his armour, I was sure. Pain flared up my leg, but I ignored it, finding my feet in a blink, before sliding into a vertical, downward slash aimed at Rodyille's sword arm.

Rodyille managed to recover and pull his arm out the way by the barest of margins. I turned my blade and pivoted into a horizontal slash. Rodyille dropped into a kneel and sliced up at my groin.

I parried and kneed at his face; Rodyille leapt to his feet, ejecting himself out the way, arms out wide.

He went to stab at me, but I sidestepped, darted in then wrapped my free arm around his wrists. Too close to use my sword, I smashed an elbow hard into his jaw with a crack! Sending him reeling and crying out, then backfisted him in the side of the face. His back bashed against the wall, causing him to straighten. Then, with a strangled cry, he managed to tear his arms free and desperately chopped out, forcing me to dance blindingly fast backwards. But the tip still cut a painful gash across my chest.

I clenched my teeth and growled in pain but barely blanched.

"You bastard!" Rodyille slurred, indicating a broken jaw. "You frigging bastard!"

Then again, I heard the screams, and for a split second, Rodyille's face changed. It was a horrifyingly hollow-eyed, hollow mouthed, tortured monstrosity that seemed to writhe and struggle under his skin. Then his face was back to normal, healed, instantaneously.

"What the hell are you?" I gasped.

With a feral snarl, Rodyille turned and started sprinting back the way he came.

Now with clean shots, my comrades opened fire at his back, but he innately weaved side to side through it and disappeared around the next corner.

"You alright?" asked Adelana as she stepped to stand beside me.

"Yeah," I managed with a nod, not sounding at all convincing. He said he was enhanced as well. Was Etuarq using his power also to change his spies?

I blinked as suddenly memories flashed through my thoughts, but with new additions. I could now see the writhing, screaming faces in the skin of the daemons I'd fought with Castella.

I remembered the same screaming faces jutting from the sides of the conduit and in the streaming and swirling light that rose from its tip. I could see the faces now flowing through the air around the pews Edracian had lifted with his telekinesis like ghosts.

+This is hardly a surprise,+ said Faleaseen. +I should have known; no true daemons are alike, those things that had attacked you at Brutis Bones' hideout. Were not daemons of the four, it seems. I do not know how it had gone undetected so far, but that is not your problem now, now you must...+

"I know!" I growled through gritted teeth, causing everyone around to flinch in fright and started down the corridor without even a backward glance.

"Shit! Shit! Shit! After him!" I roared. "But we need him alive! Hurry! Hurry!"

Me, Helma, Torris and Adelana moved silently through the darkness with the utmost care; now I knew how skilled our quarry was at stealth. But I wasn't taking any chances. Vark and Verenth having gone back for medical treatment.

My