The Resting Places

Book : Warhammer Horror

by Various

Genres: Horror; Fantasy Anthologies & Collections; Anthologies

Synopsis

Bolt the doors and windows as you jump in to this spine-chilling anthology of stories from Wahammer Horror.

An irascible veteran conceals a monstrous secret. A young victim of tragedy seeks the protection of their mysterious lord. On a feudal world, two men plot against a governor suspected of heresy. And in the pitch-dark skies, a malign entity preys upon a Navigator.

From the slaughterhouses of Imperial hive cities to the war-torn streets of the Mortal Realms, superstition and deceit runs rampant. Twisted sacrifices, beguiling foes, the lies we tell ourselves – these horrors drag their victims, blind or screaming, down sinister paths to a final place of rest.

This anthology features some of Black Library’s most gothic minds, including David Annandale, Richard Strachan and Jake Ozga, as well as the fresh voices of J H Archer, Chris Thursten and many more.

Release date: April 11, 2023

Publisher: Warhammer Horror

Print pages: 336

Sample

Geometry collapsed first. His surroundings were pulled apart like hot glass, re-melded and remoulded and cast in sharp relief against the infinite darkness. Then his senses collapsed, and the light became so brilliant he thought he’d swallowed a star.

A voice echoed across the bright, inky blackness, thin and yet resonant, young and yet old, and try as he might, he could not capture its meaning. Pressure built. His head burst like an aquafruit. The colours were unlike anything he’d seen before. The freedom was nauseating.

Then the words became clearer. Clear, and simple, like all terrible things. They said:

‘It’s good to exist. Oh, how good it is to finally exist.’

Then his lungs gave way and he passed out.

A deep breath, and then life. Navigator Aelfric Gorst opened his eyes, and reality came flooding back.

It wasn’t a pleasant return. His head buzzed like an overworked hydrocarbon engine, his throat felt as if it wouldn’t stop cramping, and as hard as he tried, he simply could not make sense of his surroundings. There was light and there was noise, but the two did not seem to match up. He clutched on to the nearest solid thing, screwed his eyes shut and waited for the pain to abate.

And finally, after an eternity, it did. Numbness followed, but with it, sense. He opened his eyes to a familiar scene.

He was in the sanctum aboard the Imperial Destroyer the Vivat Rex. He had two arms, two legs, an intact skull and as far as he could tell, his lungs were now functioning well enough to breathe. It was dim, unusually dim, and the hooded wall lights glowed a pale, lambent green. Little was illuminated except the key walkways, the main control area and the central staircase that connected the two levels of the sanctum, all of which were cut from the same dark wood. From floor to roof were carved endless reliefs depicting victories hard won by ancient ancestors of his noble house, and in the glow the figures took on a strange and unfamiliar ghoulishness. The architecture of the space all seemed to tend towards the centre, at which point was a small golden throne, on which he currently sat.

He tried to stand up but found that he could not. His legs didn’t want to move, his chest seemed to be paralysed and something tugged at the back of his skull. The effort of the attempted movement made his vision thrum and vibrate, and it was all he could do not to retch.

He breathed in. A pain shot through his head. He breathed out.

The nausea abated, and the nature of his entrapment quickly became clear. He was connected to the throne by a steel harness, the kind he employed when a warp jump was particularly turbulent. He tugged at the release catches on the left-hand side, just below his ribs, but they had become stiff and uncooperative, and he could not undo them. Besides, the cables that connected him to the nervous system of the ship remained attached to the back of his skull, and without help he would not be able to safely remove them.

‘Morgana? Swift? Where are you? I require assistance.’

No response.

‘Anyone? Damn it, I require assistance!’

Nothing but silence.

He was stuck. Gorst swallowed the panic and sought other means of escape.

His consoles were all dead, except one, which seemed to be working only intermittently. He jabbed it once, twice, but the feedback was minimal. A meagre data-stream entered his consciousness: he could see the exterior hull was barely holding, having suffered catastrophic damage across ninety-three per cent of its surface; the ship was running on reserve power, sustaining only the essential systems; the realspace navigation systems were down, along with any pict-feeds displaying the universe outside the ship.

They could be anywhere.

And what was worse was that Gorst couldn’t even remember how he got here.

Someone on the ship would know. He barked an order into his comm-bead, but all he got back was static. He tried once, twice, three times, but garnered no response. Maybe it was a problem with the power? Perhaps the vox signal was weak, and if he simply rerouted some of the emergency power to the sanctum… There!

The lights snapped back on, and for a moment the glare blinded him.

His eyes found the remains of his assistant first. Gorst could tell the man was dead from the reflective sheen which glinted off the trail of blood that extended across the ebony floor of the sanctum, a garish red path that seemed to stretch out forever. He could tell the man was dead from the marble complexion of his face, stuck in a pale grimace, one arm extended towards the alarm panel on the far door. Furthermore, Gorst observed him in two places at once – his torso being at one end of the bloody trail, by the central elevator, and the bottom half still strapped firmly into the assistant’s chair just to the left of Gorst’s own. In fact they were all dead, all twen

ty-seven of his staff, their insides now being their outsides, some of them so thoroughly disseminated throughout the sanctum that Gorst couldn’t tell where one began and one ended.

He didn’t know whether to scream or to laugh, so complete was the display of violence. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen real death before – being attached to the Imperial Navy for as long as he had been, death was as common as warp sickness. No, it was just that something about the scene felt wrong. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Something that stuck in the back of his throat.

But then, movement somewhere behind, and baser instincts prevailed.

Gorst grasped at a button on the arm of his throne, jabbing at it blindly, until within the body of the right arm was revealed a small, snub-nosed laspistol. He snatched at it with shaking hands and thumbed the safety rune, the weapon warming in his hand. He tried to activate the swivel of his chair, but the micro grav-engines did not respond. He tried to lean out to see what was coming, but his movement was hampered by the hundreds of wires still attached to his person. All he could do was wait.

‘Who’s there?’ he called.

‘Whoze ther?’ returned a thin voice.

‘Present yourself!’

‘Prez-ent yorzelf!’

‘I am armed! I will fire upon you if you do not show yourself immediately!’

‘I amarm! I will virepon y-y-y… y-y-y…’

The movement got closer and closer, until a soft whirring inhabited the space just behind Gorst’s throne. Something breathed. Gorst didn’t. A series of soft taps on the back of the chair. A gentle tugging at the wires that connected to his skull sockets. And finally, small footsteps.

When the child’s face finally came into view, things began to melt away, and darkness returned.

You found a path through the undergrowth and into my lands. You trod upon my precious flowers and trailed your mud through the hallways of my home. I’m not angry, though. You don’t have to worry. I’m not angry.

His skull was in a thousand pieces and his mind spread around the curvature of a small black hole. Time giggled in his ear. His soft pallet buzzed like an insect.

Thing is, now I’m here, I don’t want to go home. Or, I do, but I’m worried I won’t be able to find my way back out again. I like it out here. There’s so much to see.

In his hands he held something, but he knew he had to hide it. It was his, and he wouldn’t share it with anyone.

Help me, and I’ll help you.

He hid the thing in his hand. He clutched at it.

Show me how it all began.

The high admiral turned to Gorst and asked him a question, but Gorst didn’t hear it. He was too busy staring out of the command cruiser’s observation window.

They were above a small, cold moon, barely a hundred miles across from pole to pole. Its pockmarked surface reminded Gorst of a leper he once saw in the back alleys of Caustus VI, all scabby divots and crust. Docked in the moon’s fragile atmosphere was a splinter fleet of twenty or thirty ships, all mid-sized vessels, repurposed from whatever was left in the system. Most carried the scars of years of combat and were patched up as well as their limited resources could cover. The Imperium Nihilus was running low on Naval power, it seemed. In truth, they were running low on everything. But that wasn’t what caught his eye.

There was something in the reflection. Something that lurked in that copy of the briefing room which was projected back at Gorst. He could see himself, his retinue, the collection of captains and commanders and their followers, and at the head of the table, the high admiral himself. But there was something else. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He tried to focus, but–

The shipmaster coughed. Gorst came to his senses. What was wrong with him today? He was embarrassing himself in front of the whole fleet.

‘Apologies, high admiral, could you repeat that?’

‘I said, Navigator, are you s

ure the Vivat Rex can handle it?’

All heads turned to him. Their eyes demanded an answer. How could Gorst respond, seeing as everyone was dead? And why couldn’t he get out of his chair? His head hurt and he wanted to lie down. He had a horrifying sense of having been here before. His assistant, Malvo, leant in and muttered in his ear.

‘Lord Navigator, is everything all right?’

‘Yes, Malvo, I’m fine. I’m just thinking.’

And then it all came back to him. The ship. The mission. The task at hand. The importance of their success. He found his words as if reading from a script. Why hadn’t they come before?

‘The Vivat Rex is the most suitable craft of all the ships I have inspected. We need something small, lightning-quick but also durable. Something that is capable of making a jump to the immaterium through such a… tenuous rift as the one I have detected.’

‘And you are sure that the rift remains?’

‘I am.’

‘And you are certain that you can make the journey?’

‘Certain? No. Do I have faith? Yes.’

A ripple of dissent whipped around the table, the room clearly caught between those who approved of the mission and those who thought it was folly. The noise slowly built as arguments that had previously simmered now boiled over. Voices were raised. It all hurt Gorst’s head. He wished for nothing more than to be back in his sanctum, where he could find peace.

The high admiral slammed his hand on the table, stood up sharply and projected his voice through a vox-caster built in to his greatcloak:

‘Be silent!’

And so they were.

‘It has been almost a hundred solar years since we had contact with the Imperium proper. With Terra. Gentlemen, we are running out of time.’

The high admiral took his seat. He rubbed his temples and smoothed the grey flecks of hair that had fallen across his face.

‘We thought that the Cicatrix Maledictum was impenetrable, but Navigator Gorst here claims to have found a route through. I say it is worth the risk, and my word is final. Gorst, how long until you are ready to leave?’

‘Whenever you wish, lord high admiral.’

‘And how many ships do you require to support the Vivat Rex?’

‘How many can you spare?’

At this, the argument began anew, as Gorst knew it would. But he didn’t mind, and the sudden noise became nothing to him but static.

Because Gorst had worked out what was wrong with the reflection in the observation deck’s window. There was one more person in it than was in the room, looming just behind Gorst’s right shoulder, a hand resting gently across it.

The figure smiled at him, and darkness came again.

Interesting! Very interesting. But you still haven’t given me an answer.

The star burned inside his head. He wanted the spinning to stop. He was losing himself, moment by moment by moment. He tried to resist.

No, no, no, child. Not like that. Don’t be awkward. Show me more.

The voice needled through his mind with savagery, a directionless supernova. He wept. It laughed. The beauty of the cosmos was overwhelming.

You’ll tell me eventually,

so you might as well tell me now.

He clasped the small thing in his hand. He couldn’t give it up. If he gave it up, he’d be tossed away like a piece of scrap paper.

So be it. I’ll keep playing, for the time being…

The high admiral poured himself a third tumbler of amasec and downed it in one.

‘Good medicine, Gorst. It’s all damn good medicine. Are you sure you don’t want one?’

Gorst turned around to look at the figure standing behind him, but no one was there. His head throbbed. He was no longer in the briefing room and found himself in the high admiral’s personal quarters aboard the Crown of Cadia instead. He checked the chronometer on his wrist and discovered that a full thirteen hours had passed.

‘Gorst? A drink?’

‘No. No, thank you, high admiral.’

‘You should, you know. “Don’t trust a man who doesn’t drink,” my father told me. “In this galaxy, every man should drink.”’

And with that, the high admiral poured himself a fourth, and a fifth for Gorst, downing the acrid liquid in one gulp and slamming the glass on the desk. The high admiral’s office was quiet, unusually quiet, soundproofed with thick walls of plush cashmere. There were no windows and only a single door, meaning the air was stifled and stale. Slightly raised by the naturally raked floor plan, the high admiral was half slumped in his high-backed chair, cheeks glowing with alcohol. He rubbed his temples and let out a small, dissatisfied groan.

‘It’s a miracle you survived, Gorst. When we detected your ship on the outskirts of the system we thought it might have been someone playing a cruel trick on us.’

‘It was a close-run thing, high admiral.’

‘Indeed it was. And the corsairs?’

‘Destroyed, to a ship. No survivors. They tried to follow us, but were engulfed by the Great Scar.’

‘Appropriate revenge for your sister, I understand.’

Gorst clenched his jaw. How had the high admiral found that out? Who had told him? Gorst made a mental note to have his staff interrogated and then their minds cleansed. The high admiral leaned back in his chair and gave Gorst a knowing grin.

‘And a path through the Maledictum?’

‘Yes.’

The high admiral stopped smiling, then. His face became serious and he leaned forward, lowering his voice as if engaged in something conspiratorial.

‘This is the breakthrough that we have been praying for, Gorst. This is it. The mark we leave on history. You have the data stored safely, yes?’

Gorst reached up to the small metal slot that had been implanted behind his ear. The flesh around the wound had long scarred over, but it still hurt when jumping to warp travel, and Gorst swore he could feel it rattle when solar turbulence jolted his ship.

‘I have it here, high admiral.’

‘And it is the only copy?’

‘Yes, high admiral.’

‘I wish to see it, Gorst, before I finally green-light the mission. As a precaution, you understand. I like to be thorough.’

The high admiral tapped the desk with impatience. Gorst took a breath. He hesitated.

Wait. Wait a second.

‘Gorst?’

I’ve been here before. This wasn’t how this moment went. This is going off-script. The high admiral wished me luck and then–

‘Now, if you will.’

I remember this moment. This is wrong. This is all wrong.

‘With all due respect, high admiral, this is a matter for the Navis Nobilite. Our secrets are our own.’

‘Really, Gorst?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Don’t be silly. I’ve seen intelligence that would make an inquisitor blush. This data is safe with me, I can tell you.’

‘With respect, sir–’

A bright, burning pain cut through Gorst’s head, like someone was tugging the bio-input straight from his skull

. It made him want to vomit. The world started to spin, and things seemed to fade in and out of solidity. There was something strange about this moment, like he was looking at it through someone else’s eyes.

‘The data, Gorst.’

Gorst looked up to see the high admiral’s face had changed. Something dark hid behind his eyes. His features had become sharp, gaunt and intensely focused.

‘The data is mine, high admiral. I will not give it to you.’

‘We’ll see, Gorst. We’ll see.’

The high admiral laughed, and everything faded.

You’re stubborn. I’d admire that about you, if I were capable of such things.

The voice had only just begun to sift through everything he was. It had a keen eye for detail, and dexterity to match. It was brutal. He was still floating in the blackness, entirely unable to move. It was both blissful and pure agony. The voice was unlike anything he’d ever heard, and he’d heard much that he’d rather forget.

It’s surprisingly empty in here. So fragile and empty. I’m happy to play this game, for now. Being is still a novelty for me. I’m so used to un-being, I’m almost giddy!

It laughed. It sounded like reality tearing itself apart.

Don’t keep me waiting, Gorst.

Another jolt, and Gorst woke again.

He was back in the sanctum. Back on the Vivat Rex, still locked into his throne. Back to the present moment. He reached up to the back of his head and found the bio-input still there.

It hadn’t been taken. Thank the Throne, it hadn’t been taken. But then there was something else, some weight–

Something was sitting on his lap.

The child-thing looked up with dead, bloodshot eyes. Out of its back – for this child was an it – sprouted two synthetic wings, one of which seemed to be damaged beyond function. It had no jaw, and spoke through a vox-caster that had been surgically implanted in its throat.

A cherub, ashen-skinned and emaciated.

‘Navigator?’ it said.

‘What’s going on?’ said Gorst. ‘Where is the high admiral?’

‘Unknown,’ came the reply.

‘I don’t understand what’s going on.’

‘Unknown,’ it repeated, attempting to flutter what remained of its wings. A short sharp snap of electricity spurted out of the wing stump, the force of which propelled the cherub up into the air for a brief moment, and then, with a fleshy thump, it fell back down to the floor.

Gorst shook his head and regained his composure.

‘Stop! Stop it. I need your help.’

The cherub dragged itself up onto all fours, and then to its unsteady feet.

‘New directive,’ the cherub said. ‘Awaiting input.’

‘Yes. New directive, very good. Listen, I’ve got to get these wires out of my skull and this harness off my chest. I need to get this thing in my head to safety, do you understand?’

‘Yes. Directive accepted.’

‘I need you to get me out of this chair.’

‘New directive. Directive accepted,’ it repeated.

‘I know! I know.’

Gorst felt the room start to slip away from him again, the edges of his vision thrumming.

‘I don’t have much time. Can you do these things?’

The cherub’s eyes rolled back into its skull and its mouth lolled open, and out of it shone a small red light. Something whirred within its being. In a toneless voice it replied:

‘Mechanical maintenance sub

routines are corrupted. Tech-priest intervention required.’

‘Can you undo the latches on this harness?’

‘Subroutines are corrupted.’

‘Then get me the tools so I can do it myself!’

‘New directive,’ it said.

‘Tools! Find me tools!’

‘Yes, Navigator.’

His heart began to palpitate. He couldn’t hold on much longer.

‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then do it!’

‘New directive. Directive accepted,’ it said.

And again, all became dark.

Let’s go back, right the way back to the first time you travelled through my lands. I couldn’t follow you then, but that’s when you first opened the doorway to my gardens. I saw you. I poked my head out but I wasn’t brave enough to leave.

He floated in nothingness. The voice caressed his back like an anxious mother.

I was so worried for you, you know. I was afraid you’d never come back.

‘Lord Navigator, the captain is dead,’ said the ensign.

Everything shook, and his bones vibrated with such ferocity Gorst swore they began to sing. He was no longer locked into his chair, and was instead standing up over a set of flashing terminals. The ensign spoke again, but the words were engulfed in an explosion that ripped through some unknown lower deck.

‘What?’

‘The captain is dead, Lord Navigator! So is the lieutenant commander! We cannot regain contact with the bridge! What shall we do? What are your orders?’

Gorst laughed. Where was he now? Where had he been dropped? He was struggling to keep track of it all. Around him, people were scrambling for control. The walls were different here, not the usual darkened wood of his personal sanctum. This wasn’t the Vivat Rex. But he’d certainly been here before. He knew he’d been here before.

‘Where are we?’

‘We are somewhere in the coordinates of–’

‘No, what ship is this?’

Another soul-shaking impact. Someone started to scream.

‘The Plutarch’s Hammer, Lord Navigator!’

‘Of course it is. And we’re being hunted by corsairs, correct?’

‘Yes, sir! They’ve got us–’

‘Pinned between their advance and the edge of the Cicatrix Maledictum. I know.’

‘What are we to do?’

The surviving members of the crew had stopped what they were doing, knowing as they did that this was the moment for decision and looking to him to make it.

What did you do, Gorst? Show me what you did.

A hand placed itself on his shoulder. The pain in his head receded.

I cannot remember, he thought.

Yes, you can. Remember for me.

Gorst closed his eyes, and the light came again.

He’d been here before. This was a month before the meeting with the high admiral. Forty days before the Vivat Rex. This was when he found the path. He reached up to the slot behind his

ear and found it empty.

That’s it, Gorst. The path. The path to my home. Show me how you found it.

Another explosion, and the ship’s alarms seemed to shift in their pitch to new heights of urgency. He knew what he had to do. This was when he ordered the jump to warp space. When he found the scar through the scar.

This was what he knew he couldn’t do.

‘We scuttle the ship.’

No! Do as you did! Do as you did!

‘Sir?’

‘Scuttle the ship! Better to die by our own hand than by the hand of the enemy! Do it! Do it now!’

No!

Another explosion, and the lights failed. All around was darkness. When they came back on, the room was empty. The ensign stood in front of Gorst. The man had no face, and within that hollowness was oblivion.

‘You’ve made a mistake, Gorst. I was trying to be gentle, but now?’

And Gorst’s head erupted into a storm of sound and colour. Everything was brightness and darkness and forward and backward until–

Again.

‘Lord Navigator, the captain is dead,’ said the ensign.

An explosion. Flashing terminals. The sanctum of the Plutarch’s Hammer.

‘What?’ called Gorst. ...