Path of the Outcast

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Warhammer 40,000

  Prologue

  Part One: Steersman

  Friendship

  Dislocation

  Fate

  Part Two: Ranger

  Freedom

  Discovery

  Beginnings

  Adventure

  Peril

  Cravings

  Part Three: Pirate

  Alliances

  Ascension

  Theft

  Escape

  Resolution

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  An extract from Path of the Renegade

  Legal

  eBook license

  Warhammer 40,000

  It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

  Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.

  To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

  Life is to us as the Maze of Linnian was to Ulthanesh, its mysterious corridors leading to wondrous vistas and nightmarish encounters in equal measure. Each of us must walk the maze alone, treading in the footsteps of those who came before but also forging new routes through the labyrinth of existence.

  In times past we were drawn to the darkest secrets and ran wild about the maze, seeking to experience all that it had to offer. As individuals and as a civilisation, we lost our way, and in doing so created the means for our doom, our unfettered exploration leading to the darkness of the Fall.

  In the emptiness that followed, a new way was revealed to us: the Path. Through the wisdom of the Path we spend our lives exploring the meaning of existence, moving from one part of the maze to another with discipline and guidance so that we never become lost again. On the Path we experience the full potential of love and hate, joy and woe, lust and purity, filling our lives with experience and fulfilment but never succumbing to the shadows that lurk within our thoughts.

  But like all journeys, the Path is different for each of us. Some wander for a long while in one place; some spread their travels wide and visit many places for a short time while others remain for a long time to explore every nook and turn; some of us lose our way and leave the Path for a time or forever; and some of us find dead ends and become trapped.

  Kysaduras the Anchorite, foreword to Introspections upon Perfection

  Prologue

  Death and rebirth played out across the heavens, every star a furnace of creation and an inferno of destruction. They stretched out in every direction, spiralling around the galactic core, seemingly timeless yet ultimately as mortal as any creature. Birth and demise, all of it cycling again and again, giving rise to life and civilisations, and destroying them as quickly as they appeared. Stability was an illusion. There was no stasis, just an everlasting dance of elements that would outlast any mind capable of comprehending it.

  Opening his eyes, Aradryan surfaced slowly from the dream, feeling the weight of air upon him, the press of darkness on flesh as he lay still on the thin mattress of his bed, the silence suffusing every fibre of his being. It was utterly black in his chambers; not the least glimmer of light existed to intrude upon his thoughts.

  The cosmic nature of the dream continued to spiral slowly in his thoughts as unconsciousness gave way to waking. Responding to his state, Aradryan’s chambers suffused him with the barest glow of light, slowly brightening to bring him out of his mental submersion. Limbs tingling, the dreamer twitched his fingers and wriggled his toes, the first of several exercises that would enable him to lock his thoughts back to his physical body.

  Aradryan sat up, his breathing becoming faster and shallower, his body reacting to the sudden influx of soft stimuli. Half sleeping, latched on to the core essence of the dream, Aradryan stood up slowly. He clothed himself without conscious effort, drawing on a long robe of dark blues and purples. Slipping his slender feet into a pair of knee-high boots, he left the dreaming room and went into the main chamber. Here the light was brighter still, though a fraction of its normal intensity, causing Aradryan to squint for a few moments while his eyes adjusted.

  The after-images of the dream lingered still and he felt small and unimportant. The dream had shown him the vastness of the universe, and against that he was nothing, a tiny conglomeration of cells and thoughts that would be extinguished.

  The chambers felt too constricting, so Aradryan left quickly, his heart yearning for something that would recapture the soaring majesty of the galaxy. Without conscious regard, he made his way to a skyrunner. Placing his hand upon the activation jewel, he let his desire pass into the machine’s matrix, which in turn drew power from the infinity circuit: the psychic network of Alaitoc Craftworld.

  The skyrunner interpreted his will as best it could, rising swiftly from the balcony-like docking bay to skim across the white grass fields that covered the floor of the Dome of Swift Longings. Realising that the skyrunner was taking him towards the dock towers on the craftworld rim, Aradryan chuckled to himself. The semi-sentient craft had felt his yearning for the wide galaxy and was taking him to the berths of the starships.

  Aradryan’s quiet laughter stilled. Perhaps the skyrunner was more intelligent than he was. He had experienced many dreams, but none had left an impression as strong as the one he had just woken from. Part of him was glad for that fact. The Path of Dreaming existed to tap into the power of the unconscious and subconscious, bringing forth fears and desires that it was impossible to recognise while awake. For nearly two passes he had trodden the Path of the Dreamer, alongside his friend Korlandril, and they had shared many special moments of pleasure and regret, their dream-bonds tighter than any ordinary friendship. Was this dream the Moment of Realisation? Had the dizzying vistas of the galaxy been the culmination of his searching for purpose?

  Such thoughts, only partially constructed in his semi-fugue state, occupied Aradryan until the sky-runner arrived at its destination, furling its guiding sail to slip into a mooring at the Tower of Winding Destiny. Aradryan stepped from the craft and followed the passageway that led up to the heights of the docking spire. The few eldar that he encountered immediately recognised the half-alert state of a Dreamer and stepped nimbly out of his path, allowing him to follow his whims unimpeded, until they brought Aradryan to a broad expanse alongside one of the main quays.

  It was hard to disass
ociate from the dream-images, but Aradryan was conscious of there being many other eldar around him. There was a ship docked at the quayside. It was massive, its hull towering above them, its stellar sail even higher still, stretching towards the glimmering force dome that held the ravening vacuum of space at bay.

  Looking up, Aradryan saw the stars, scattered across the outer sky like diamonds on black velvet, enticing and bewitching.

  Someone bumped into him, shaking him from the last vestiges of the dream’s grip. A little disconcerted, Aradryan looked around and found himself in a large crowd thronging the dockside. More eldar were coming down the ramps that led from the open gateways of the starship.

  Aradryan was aware of a solemn mood; he sensed it even before he heard the first sobs and saw the glistening tears in the eyes of those around him. He felt an emptiness, and when he looked again at the eldar disembarking from the ship he realised why.

  The first to alight were Aspect Warriors. A wave of grim anger and deep hatred washed over Aradryan as Khaine’s anointed killers strode down from the gangways, still armed and armoured. Striking Scorpions in heavily plated armour of greens and yellows bore three of their number amongst them, the corpses carried on floating biers, guided by the hands of the living. Dark Reapers in black and red followed, also accompanying their dead. And then came the Dire Avengers, so bright in their armour of blue, white and gold, yet so sinister with their faceless masks.

  Aradryan wanted to back away, but there was someone behind him. The Aspect Warriors were apparitions of death to his half-dreaming mind, each an incarnation of the part of Khaine they represented. Howling Banshees filled his thoughts with screaming images of flashing death; Fire Dragons set his mind ablaze with an inferno of destruction.

  It was almost too much to bear in his fragile state, but Aradryan stayed, morbid curiosity getting the better of him. From images glanced in the infinity circuit and snatches of conversation, he saw a blue sun and a yellow sun, gleaming down on a still lake. A white building, human-made, was wreathed in death and fire. The brightly-armoured Aspect Warriors stormed through doors and windows, cutting down the humans within without mercy.

  After the Aspect Warriors, others came from the ship: Guardians and seers. These were not the grim-faced fighters that had come before, and it was their grief that suffused the crowd around him. The feeling of lament grew stronger and stronger as more of the dead and wounded were carried down to the dockside, each a life lost or damaged.

  Aradryan stared at the blood-flecked blue and yellow armour of a Guardian. He could not say whether the blood was eldar or from their foes, but each glistening droplet, every ruddy stain, held within it some hidden secret of mortality.

  The dream and the current surroundings melded in Aradryan’s thoughts, forming a whole. Even the stars die, he thought.

  Yet the eldar who had fallen were not yet wholly dead. Upon the chest of each glowed a spirit stone, containing the essence of each slain warrior. From here the stones would be taken into the depths of Alaitoc and placed upon the nodes of the infinity circuit. The spirits would flow free from the stones and mingle with the psychic energy of generations who had come before, becoming both the lifeblood and the nervous system of the craftworld.

  The thought suddenly terrified Aradryan. To be trapped on Alaitoc for eternity, bodiless and voiceless, seemed to his dreaming mind a fate worse than death.

  He stopped short, for there truly was a fate worse than death that awaited all eldar: She Who Thirsts. The creation of the eldar’s depraved past hungered after their spirits, and would devour them all if given the chance. The spirit stones, the sanctuary of the infinity circuit, were the only defence against such a nightmare; the only bastion secure against an everlasting torment of spirit that terrified every eldar.

  Yet even that fear could not fully cut through the sense of entrapment that had seized Aradryan. With glassy eyes he stared at the corpses as they floated past, body after body after body. Questions crammed into his thoughts, of who the slain had been and how they had died. Had there been pain? Had their lives been happy and complete, or had death taken them before their ambitions had been fulfilled, their desires sated? Would they linger ever after in the infinity circuit regretting the missed opportunities, now denied to them as much as the utter silence of true death?

  ‘Save me...’ Aradryan whispered, falling to his knees. Alaitoc was a prison, keeping him from a life amongst the stars. Worse than that, he realised. The craftworld was a place of the dead, fuelled by the spirits of the deceased, consuming their life force with a hunger every bit as ravenous as the Great Enemy’s.

  Aradryan surged to his feet and grabbed the nearest person, a maiden a little younger then himself with auburn hair that fell to her knees, and eyes of violet. She wore the robes of a healer, the white of death marked by handprints of dried blood.

  ‘They cannot stay here!’ snapped Aradryan. ‘There is no more room. The dead, they are so many, we cannot have any more.’

  ‘You are dream-touched,’ said the healer, gently removing Aradryan’s grasp. ‘Leave me be.’

  Aradryan staggered away, but wherever he looked there were more dead eldar. Each was a meaningless mote snuffed out of existence, and the thought threatened to tip him from his teetering state into the darkest abyss of madness.

  A hand fell upon his shoulder, turning him. Aradryan looked into a pair of wise grey eyes and heard a soft voice.

  ‘What is wrong?’ said the other eldar, his face full of concern.

  ‘I do not want to die here,’ Aradryan replied simply. ‘The stars call to me, and I do not want to die before I have seen them.’

  ‘Then do not stay.’ The eldar smiled and stroked his hand down Aradryan’s arm, bringing a sense of stability and calm. ‘This ship, she is called Lacontiran. She will leave again in four cycles’ time, why not come aboard with me?’

  ‘Come aboard?’ Aradryan turned to look at the starship. Amongst all the blood and ugliness she was beautiful; sleek and purposeful.

  ‘I am Nairnith, a steersman,’ said the other eldar. ‘It seems that you have dreamed enough. If you wish to see the stars, I will take you to them.’

  ‘Yes, to see the stars,’ said Aradryan, his panic fading into memory.

  Friendship

  The Endless Valley – There is a place, on the distant rim of the galaxy, where the darkness between stars stretches further than anywhere else. Beyond lies the gulf that separates galaxies, where the cold blackness seems to spread for eternity. It is here, in the Endless Valley, that the webway fades and the light of stars is nought but a glimmer. The Endless Valley is home to many secrets, of eldar and other, more sinister creatures, and empty save for the relics and ghosts of the distant past.

  An aura of shimmering gold enveloped the Lacontiran as the starship passed out of the webway portal. The curving, spired mass of Alaitoc appeared in the spectral display that hovered in front of Aradryan, filling the steersman with mixed emotions. It was almost impossible to believe that twenty passes had turned since he had last seen the craftworld, but he had felt no homesickness on the long journey and seeing Alaitoc filled him with trepidation as much as familiarity.

  Sitting in the rainbow glow of the pod-like steering chamber Aradryan moved his fingers lightly across the jewelled panel in front of him, trimming the aft sail to better catch the dying light of Mirianathir: the ruddy star about which Alaitoc slowly orbited, drinking in the rays of the huge orb. The star and the craftworld could be seen via a holo-projection that surrounded the steersmen, so that it seemed they floated in space, the unending firmament stretching out beneath and behind them even as Alaitoc grew larger beyond the undulating console of the controls. In a small sub-display at the heart of each eldar’s controls the Lacontiran’s position was shown by a gleaming rune amidst an ever-changing web of four-dimensional telemetry. Beside Aradryan, Nairnith and Faethrunin adjusted the course of the Lacontiran, the three steersmen working in concert without spoken word, th
eir minds subtly connected by the psychic skeleton of the starship.

  The three of them guided the Lacontiran along the rim of Alaitoc, passing gracefully between arcing bridges and over glistening force domes through which could be seen vast plains and ranges of hills, artificial seas and twilit forest glades. Swarms of smaller craft moved aside for the starship as it glided down towards the docking spear of the Tower of Eternal Welcomes. Aradryan smiled at the name, and his unease dissipated a little; news of the vessel’s arrival had been heralded for some time and he had received contact from Thirianna that she would be there to greet him. To see her again, and his dream-companion Korlandril, would ease the hurt that nestled deep in his heart. Part of him still felt as though he was returning to a prison, but the terror that had accompanied his departure had been assuaged by the voyage, with the aid of Faethrunin and Nairnith.

  Passing through the rainbow field surrounding the dock, the Lacontiran slid alongside a curving quay, effortlessly coming to a halt under the urging of Aradryan and his companions. The stellar sails were furling themselves and already there was much activity aboard the ship: passengers moving to the gateways to disembark, the handful of crew ushering their charges through the passageways.

  ‘We are back,’ said Nairnith, the chief steersman, veteran of more than a score of voyages.

  Aradryan met the old eldar’s gaze and they shared a moment, their thoughts connecting across the membrane of the Lacontiran. Memories flashed past, of sights seen and encounters shared. There was something else present too: the vast psychic power of Alaitoc’s infinity circuit merging with the spirit of the starship, drawing in its experiences, updating its semi-conscious essence of all that had transpired in its absence.

  Aradryan ignored the influx of information and turned to Faethrunin. The other steersman extended a hand and the two of them lightly touched fingers in a gesture of parting. Almost immediately Aradryan felt a sense of loss as he drew his fingers away, knowing that he would miss Faethrunin’s dry wit and easy words of encouragement.