that split all his remaining molars. Spitting out flakes of iron and fragments of his own teeth, Barsabbas tore his way out of his restraints and began to recouple the power cables to his reactor pack.
The throbbing pain of shredded nerves was forgotten as his power armour hummed to life. Suddenly elevated by euphoria and the surging strength in his limbs, Barsabbas ran his tongue along the jagged rubble of his teeth.
SINDUL CLIMBED THE stairs to the palace through the darkest of routes. Humans were hostile to aliens as a rule, and the sight of a dark eldar, especially the mercenary guest of their new overlords, would not invite good intention. He shied away from the lighted puddles of street lanterns and glided along the narrow side lanes. Gumede followed a respectful distance behind, as befitted a slave. He too carried a weighty medallion of Nurgle to display his favour.
With his body swathed in a hooded cloak of steel thread, Sindul passed the palace sentries with a wave of his copper crest of Nurgle.
151
The servants and house boys averted their gaze as he passed them by, frightened by the spectre that brandished the favour of their Nurgle overlords. They knew of stories, passed through hushed whispers in the kitchens and launderettes, that the dark eldar slaver had single‐handedly captured a great beast of Chaos. A Space Marine.
Finally, Sindul came to the asylum of Ur, a fortified wing of the palace itself. It was connected to the spires of the palace by means of a narrow sky bridge, but it seemed distant and forlorn, a finger of clay balanced on a low tier that overlooked the gas and chemical plants of the lower stack. Even from a distance, Sindul could see the asylum had no windows and despite its proportions, the only entrance was a remarkably ordinary door of very ordinary height. It almost seemed like the door had been added as an afterthought, as if the asylum had never been intended to have any windows or entrances.
A pair of sentries stood guard. They were largely ceremonial, if all that Sindul had heard of the asylum were true. The Barons of Ur, paranoid as they were, incarcerated many.
Political dissidents, illegitimate noble births, heretics – any who might threaten the stability of their cloistered, pocketed existence.
But the asylum’s reputation had been built upon its most dangerous inmates – psykers, mutants and killers of men. Ur was an unwholesome place and it bred strangely unwholesome deviants. If these were to escape, the pair of sentries, Sindul reckoned, could do little. But then, where would the inmates flee? Into the thirsty death of the desert sands?
Sindul waved Gumede ahead and the chief played the part of slave well, bowing subserviently. He scampered forwards and brandished his emblem of Nurgle at the door.
Overbright sodium lamps mounted overhead shone directly into his eyes.
The guards studied him before shaking their heads.
‘No,’ one said shaking his head dismissively. The man was the younger of the pair, with a pugnaciously set jawline.
Gumede thrust the emblem before him again.
‘No, the emblem does not allow,’ snapped the sentry in his stilted, idiomatic tongue. His older companion nodded sleepily.
Sindul gritted his teeth. His left hand, hidden within his cloak, closed around the hilt of his needle blade. He stepped out of the shadows and waved Gumede aside. ‘I am a guest of Opsarus the Crow. His captains host my stay.’
‘Are you stupid?’ snapped the sentry. ‘Opsarus cannot be pleased by entry here. No one.
No one ever enters. If you enter, you do not leave. This is your last home.’
Sindul still held out his hand with the emblem. But he was no longer showing them. He was distracting them. The guards stared at the emblem, then back to Sindul, before returning their gaze to the emblem again.
Suddenly frustrated, the younger sentry tapped Sindul’s forehead. ‘No access!’ he said.
He poked Sindul’s forehead again. ‘No access.’
Upon seeing this, the older sentry took several quick steps backwards. He was wiser with age and did not have the ego of a younger man. He knew when to be quiet.
As the younger sentry continued to harass Sindul, the dark eldar clenched his jaw. The needle blade flicked out four times. It punctured pressure points and the sentries stiffened and died, their hearts stopped by poison, yet they remained standing. The young man died while pointing pugnaciously at Sindul.
The older sentry, for all his wisdom, died with his face to the wall, the dark eldar knife finding his back