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The Child Foretold – Nicholas Kaufmann

About the Author

An Extract from ‘The House of Night and Chain’

A Black Library Publication Imprint

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The Child Foretold

Nicholas Kaufmann

Kavel Trake knelt between the rows of nafar plants and sighed when he saw the thick, blood-red vine that ran through the soil and had wrapped itself in a tight chokehold around the stems. Damn, he thought. It was just as he’d worried after seeing the limp, discoloured leaves on his crops.

‘Looks like the warrior weed finally found our little farm, Rahmiel,’ he said.

He looked up at Rahmiel, who stood silently in the middle of the field, his blind, metallic eyes staring past Kavel at the horizon. Kavel had built Rahmiel from spare bits of metal, wood and straw to keep away the packs of scavenging voraks that tried to eat his crops at night. He couldn’t remember exactly when he’d started talking to the scarecrow, or even when he’d given it a name, but he’d been doing it for long enough now that it didn’t seem strange any more. Besides, who else was there to talk to? Rahmiel was his only companion. There was no one else on the farm, which meant there was also no one to judge him for talking to a scarecrow like he’d lost his mind.

Although maybe he had. He suspected ten years of solitude and heavy drinking could do that to a man.

Kavel had known it was only a matter of time before the warrior weed infected his crops, but that didn’t temper his anger. The damned weed shouldn’t have been on Ballard’s Run in the first place. It was an invasive species whose spores had hitched a ride to this world on a supply ship, immediately found a foothold, and spread all over the planet, causing untold damage as it strangled crops and sucked the nutrients out of the ground for itself. The biologis had surely classified it using their own obscure terminology, but the farmers on Ballard’s Run called it warrior weed because when you tried to pull it up, it clung to the soil so tightly that it felt like the blasted thing was fighting back.

Kavel grabbed a handful of the weed and pulled with all his might. It took several minutes and all his strength to yank it free. Unfortunately, it took a chunk of nafar plant with it. He sighed and tossed the clump of vegetable matter aside. One down, but how many more to go? The warrior weed had likely spread over his entire farm already. It was that fast, and that voracious. Eventually, it would take over his fields and kill everything else. The only way to get rid of it would be to burn his fields and plant new crops, but he couldn’t afford to do that. His nafar harvests barely kept him in credits as it was.

A loud roar in the sky drew his attention as an enormous armed freighter took off from the space port to the west. He watched it push its way into the twilight sky on huge thrusters, its hold packed with food for the hungry bellies of a hundred Imperial worlds, and then disappear among the first stars that were beginning to show. Kavel had never been off-world, but he had no regrets about that. He’d heard stories about what was out there. Things a lot worse than warrior weed.

He stood, wobbling for a moment as he tried to find his balance, and then fell flat on his face in the dirt. After so many years, he thought he would be used to the cylindrical metal peg that had replaced his right leg below the knee, but he’d never quite got the hang of it. The stupid thing had tripped him up more times than he could count. It was yet another reason he supposed he should be thankful he lived alone – there was no one around to see him fall. No one but Rahmiel, anyway, and Rahmiel never said a word about it. The medicae who’d attached the prosthesis had assured him that living without his right leg was preferable to dying from gangrene, but sometimes Kavel wasn’t so sure.

He struggled to get up, but with nothing to hold onto and no one to help him he fell again. The fact that he had finished a whole bottle of amasec last night wasn’t helping, he conceded. He pushed hard against the ground, and this time he managed to get up. To the warp with this day, he thought, and staggered back to the small farmhouse he reluctantly called home.

Ballard’s Run was a small agri world on the outer rim of known space. Populated by approximately ten thousand farmers and produce workers, it was a major source of food production for the sector, generating everything from nafar to ploin fruit to grox meat. Kavel had never taken to farming the way the rest of his family had, so when he came of age he decided to pursue the only other job available to people on Ballard’s Run – he joined the militia. It wasn’t a hard job, mostly training and drills and helping out the farmers during natural disasters. But then, ten years ago, Ballard’s Run had the bad luck to find itself in the way of an ork migration. The orks outnumbered the militia twenty to one, and over the weeks of relentless fighting that followed, thousands of soldiers and civilians were killed. With the planet’s food production halted by the war and dozens of worlds in the sector at risk of starvation as a result, the Imperial Guard forces finally arrived and beat back the orks. But by then, Kavel had already lost his entire family – his parents, cousins, aunts and uncles, and most devastatingly, his younger brother, who’d also been his closest friend. A single soul in two bodies, their parents had called them. The two of them had talked about everything, shared everything, and now all Kavel had to remember his brother Rahmiel by was an effigy he’d named after him.

As if that weren’t enough, the war, like an insatiable beast, had taken even more from him, costing him his right leg below the knee. Without the credits to afford an advanced augmetic, he’d been forced to settle for a crude, metal prosthesis. It allowed him to walk again, but he was unable to continue in the militia. But on Ballard’s Run you were either a farmer or a soldier, so when they discharged him they gave him a few acres of isolated farmland. They called it compensation, but the truth was he didn’t have a choice.

He’d spent every day since then on the farm, alone, tending his nafar crops, bringing his harvests to the nearby processing plant, and waiting, impatiently, to die.

Sitting up in bed and cursing the warrior weed that had invaded his fields, Kavel reached for the fresh amasec bottle on the bedside table and, as he did every night, poured himself a big glass. He drank it in one, wincing as the high-proof alcohol burned its way down his oesophagus. It didn’t matter that he was still hungover from last night’s binge. He repeated the process until he had enough liquor in him to drift off into a dreamless sleep, secretly hoping he wouldn’t wake up again.

But he did, much to his disappointment. When he opened his eyes, it was still dark. A sound from outside had woken him. He heard it again – the rustle of leaves, as though something were moving through the rows of nafar plants. The voraks, he thought. They were back to eat his crops.

‘Damn it, Rahmiel,’ he muttered as he got out of bed. What was the point of the damned thing if it didn’t keep the voraks away?

The room tilted and dipped, and his vision swam. The alcohol was still in his system. As soon as the room stabilised, he pulled on some trousers, went to the chest that sat in the back of the room, and opened it. Inside was his shotgun. He pumped one of its eight loaded rounds into the chamber, and threw open the front door. He lifted the shotgun and scanned his fields, but he didn’t see the voraks’ barbed spines moving among the plants. He waited a moment to be certain there were no animals in his fields, then closed the door. He leaned the shotgun against the doorframe and went back to bed.

His eyes were only closed for a few minutes before a loud banging on his front door forced them open again. He shook his head. He was hearing things. No one came to his farm. No one ever came. But then he heard more banging, frantic and insistent. He got out of bed and picked up the shotgun. Holding it in one hand, ready to use it if he had to, he carefully opened the door.

The young woman who stood there looked to be about twenty years old. She clutched a cloth bundle in her arms. Her face was bruised, scraped and crusted with dried blood. Fresh blood dripped from her nose and the corner of her mouth. She stared at him, and then her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed. Kavel dropped the shotgun and caught her before she hit the floor, which tipped him perilously forward on his prosthesis. He shifted his weight to his good leg in time to stop himself from falling, then pulled her inside and sat her up against the wall. Her breath was shallow and ragged, but at least she was still breathing. That was a good sign. Her blood-streaked hands held the cloth bundle tightly to her chest. He reached for it, but the bundle moved suddenly and he yanked his hand back. Something was alive in there!

The young woman’s eyes fluttered open. He could see the fatigue in them, the dimming light. He knew that look well. He’d seen it in the eyes of many during the war. He’d seen it in the eyes of his own brother. She was close to death.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘My name…’ She coughed, and a trickle of blood dripped from the corner of her mouth. ‘My name is Gwynedes Lucolis. Please, you have to help.’

‘Let me get something to treat your wounds.’

‘There’s no time.’ She wiped the blood from her lips with the back of one hand. ‘You… you have to keep her safe.’

‘Keep who safe?’

Gwynedes held the cloth bundle out towards him. ‘The baby. Oshi. Her mother was my sister–’ She winced, her body stiffening in pain. ‘Please, help her.’

‘A baby?’ Kavel stared at the bundle, sobering up fast. ‘Wait, what happened?’

‘Villagers… killed her mother,’ Gwynedes said. She winced again, gritting her teeth against the pain. He could tell she didn’t have much time left. ‘Now they’re… after the baby. I tried to keep her safe. Now you have to. There’s… no one else.’

He stared at the bundle. It was wrapped so tightly he couldn’t see anything of the baby inside, but beneath the cloth a shape squirmed.

‘Take her,’ Gwynedes said again, her voice just a whisper. ‘Help her. Please.’

Her eyelids drooped. Her arms started to go limp. Kavel snatched the bundle from her before she dropped it, then watched in horror as she slumped over onto her side, dead.

He looked at the bundle in his hands, felt body heat through the cloth and something moving inside. A baby. Oshi, Gwynedes had called her. She’d begged him to keep Oshi safe, but why? Why had villagers killed the baby’s mother? Why were they after the baby too?

There was only one explanation he could think of, but it was almost too horrific to contemplate – the baby was a mutant. When the villagers came to kill her, the mother had tried to save her child’s life and died in the process.

Slowly, nervously, he began to unwrap the cloth from around the infant, bracing himself for whatever grotesque mutations he would find. But when he uncovered her head and freed her tiny hands to reach up and touch his weathered face, she didn’t look any different from a normal human child. It was only when he looked closer that he spotted it – a small series of bumpy ridges along her forehead. They were barely noticeable. Was this all it took for the villagers to become bloodthirsty butchers, so eager to murder a mutant they killed anyone who stood in their way? Were these the same people he’d fought the orks to protect? The same people he’d lost his leg for? The thought sickened him, and for once he was glad he lived apart from the rest of them.

Kavel inspected the wounds on Gwynedes’ body to try to get an idea of what had happened to her, but all he could tell was that she’d been stabbed half a dozen times. It was a testament to her strength and dedication that she’d survived as long as she had.

In the light of the double moons, he buried Gwynedes in a patch of open ground beside a grove of twisted, knotted snarltrees, and fashioned a marker for her grave from their thin, interwoven branches. Holding Oshi in one arm, he struggled to remember the prayer for the dead he’d been taught as a child. He hadn’t known Gwynedes in life, but it didn’t seem right not to say something. She’d been brave and strong and had protected the baby for as long as she could. She deserved that much. But in the end all he could remember were the last two lines of the prayer, so that was what he said:

‘May the light of the Emperor guide you and protect you from further harm. For the Eternal Emperor is the fire at the heart of all things, and comfort is only His to give.’

After digging the grave, he was exhausted. He had a few more hours before the sun came up, so Kavel decided to go back to bed and get what rest he could. He pulled the covers over his legs and, by habit, reached for the amasec bottle on the bedside table. But Oshi cooed at him from the other side of the bed, where he’d put her on top of her bundle, and he stopped to turn and look at her. Her big eyes blinked at him under the tiny ridges on her forehead. She smiled toothlessly, and then giggled when he patted her belly, and for the first time in years Kavel fell asleep without drinking a drop.

Oshi woke him with hungry cries several hours later, when the sun was already high. Kavel stumbled out of bed to find her something to eat, but he didn’t know what to give her. There was a bottle of siltberry juice in the cold storage unit, made from berries that grew in the sediment of Ballard’s Run’s rivers. They looked disgusting, like shrivelled, shrunken heads, but they tasted sweet and were rich in nutrients and vitamins. Would that stop the baby from crying? He put some on the tips of his fingers and let her drink it that way. The siltberry juice quieted her, thankfully. When Kavel caught his reflection in a mirror on the wall, he was surprised to see that he was smiling. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled.

She fell asleep again in his arms, and he gently placed her back on the bed. His smile faded. What was he doing? What did he know about raising a child? He was a farmer. An ex-soldier. A cripple and a drunk. He’d never taken care of a baby. He didn’t know the first thing about it. Who was he kidding? He had a farm to operate and Oshi would only get in the way.

And what about Gwynedes? He didn’t actually know her, did he? How could he be sure she was telling the truth? For all he knew, she might have stolen Oshi from the baby’s rightful mother. But even if she was telling the truth, wasn’t he putting himself in danger by harbouring a mutant?

He couldn’t keep her. He would be a fool to try. Tomorrow he would bring Oshi back to the village, he decided, and let them do with her as they saw fit. Maybe the villagers would take pity on her or maybe they would kill her, but whichever way it went, at least he wouldn’t be responsible.

Today, however, he still had work to do. The warrior weed wasn’t going to pull itself, and he needed to salvage as much nafar as he could before his crops withered and died. Not wanting to leave Oshi in the house alone, he fashioned a wheeled cart from some wood he’d piled behind the farmhouse and lined it with soft blankets so he could take her out into the fields with him.

Oshi watched him intently as he struggled to pull up weed after weed, each one more stubborn than the last. When he took a break to rest, he picked up a fallen nafar leaf and tickled her chin with it. She giggled, so he did it again, enjoying the high, easy sound of her laughter. Finally, he let the leaf fall to the ground and got back to work. But a breeze must have caught the leaf, because it lifted off the ground and fluttered through the air into Oshi’s hand. She poked her own chin with it and laughed again. Kavel chuckled, shook his head, and thought nothing of it.

That night, he put Oshi down on her side of the bed and crawled into his own. The baby smiled at him and cooed, and the heaviness in Kavel’s chest – a heaviness he’d got so used to he couldn’t remember life without it – seemed to lighten. As much as it surprised him to admit it, he’d enjoyed having her with him today. He hadn’t felt lonely, and when he’d taken breaks to feed her more siltberry juice and some of his own nutrient paste, he’d felt a sense of purpose he hadn’t felt in a long time – not since he’d been with the militia, tasked with protecting his people.

He decided there was no rush to take her back to the village. He yawned and lay back on his pillow. Maybe tomorrow he would build a crib for her.

A moment later he was asleep, only vaguely aware that for the second night in a row he hadn’t wanted to drink himself into oblivion.

Kavel woke in the middle of the night, certain he’d heard someone call his name. He blinked and looked over at Oshi. The baby was sound asleep. He was on the verge of dismissing it as a dream when he heard the voice again.

‘Kavel Trake!’

It was coming from outside. He wiped the sleep from his eyes, got out of bed, and pulled on yesterday’s dirty clothes. He looked out the window by the front door, and in the dark he saw five figures standing outside his house.

‘Who’s there?’ he called.

The clouds parted in the night sky, revealing both moons and bringing light to the darkness. Now that he could see their faces, he recognised the five men outside. They were villagers he’d known all his life, people he’d seen at the supply store or the processing plant. In the centre stood a man Kavel knew right away as Algeros Stormhand, a soldier he’d fought beside when the orks came. Algeros was older now, just as Kavel was, but he was still big and heavily muscled.

‘Algeros, it’s been a long time,’ he called through the window. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘We’ve come for the child, Kavel,’ Algeros said. ‘Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.’

Kavel frowned. It hadn’t taken them long to follow Gwynedes’ trail to his farm. He’d been foolish to hope for more time.

‘She’s barely a mutant, Algeros,’ he said. ‘There’s no need for this. Just leave.’

Algeros ignored him. ‘Don’t make the same mistake the child’s mother did. Don’t try to stand in our way. She’s all we want, Kavel. Give her to us, and we’ll go. No more blood needs to be shed.’

He looked back at Oshi sleeping on the bed. It would be easy enough to hand her over. He’d only had her for a day, and she wasn’t even his child. But he couldn’t, because he knew what would happen if he did. Algeros and the others would kill her, probably right here, right in front of him. Just the thought of it made him angry, made him want to fight.

‘No deal,’ Kavel called. ‘Now get off my farm before I call the captain of the militia!’

‘You’ve been out here too long, Kavel. You’re out of touch,’ Algeros smiled wolfishly. ‘I am the captain of the militia.’

Then he nodded to the others, and together the five men started towards the house.

Kavel looked desperately around him for something he could use to keep them back. His eyes found the amasec bottle on the bedside table. He grabbed it and unscrewed the top, then picked up an old rag from the floor and quickly stuffed it into the mouth of the bottle. He struck a match and set it to the rag. He ran to the door, yanked it open, and threw the burning bottle at the approaching men. It broke on the ground and the fire spread outwards with a roar, catching three of the men and a row of Kavel’s nafar plants. The three men went up in flames, but to Kavel’s horror they didn’t scream or flail or even stop walking. All five of them continued marching towards the farmhouse until finally the three burning men collapsed to the ground, dead. Algeros and the one remaining villager didn’t look frightened or concerned. They didn’t so much as blink.

Kavel slammed the door and locked it, but he knew that wouldn’t hold off the two remaining men for long. He ran to the chest at the back of the house, passing Oshi, who by some miracle was still sleeping soundly on the bed. Unfortunately, that was about to change. With a loud bang, the door shook in its frame as the men put their shoulders into it. Kavel threw open the chest and pulled out his shotgun. There was more banging against the door. Part of the doorframe splintered, and then the door burst open. Awakened by the noise, Oshi began to mewl and squeal.

The two men stormed inside. Algeros dashed for Oshi while the other villager ran at Kavel. Remembering he’d already pumped a round into the chamber last night when he thought voraks were eating his crops, Kavel didn’t waste a moment before firing off a shot. It struck the villager in the arm, shredding his skin to a pulpy mess, but the man didn’t cry out. He didn’t even flinch. Kavel pumped another round into the chamber, but the man was upon him before he could pull the trigger.

The man spun and hit Kavel in the face with his elbow, knocking him backwards. Kavel tripped over his metal prosthesis and fell on his back. The man loomed over him. Kavel swung the shotgun up and pulled the trigger. The blast hit the villager in the chest, punching a red hole through his torso and blowing him across the room. He didn’t get back up.

Kavel saw Algeros moving towards the door, carrying Oshi. He got up and started after him, but his haste made him clumsy. He tripped over his prosthesis again and fell to the floor. By the time he got back up and hurried outside, he didn’t see Algeros anywhere. He scanned the edge of his fields, shielding his eyes from the fire as a section of his crops and the three dead bodies burned. He listened for Oshi’s cries, but for some reason the baby had decided now was the perfect time to be quiet. Something heavy struck him in the back of his good leg, and the next thing he knew he was on his belly with a mouthful of dirt. Algeros came around from behind him, cradling Oshi in one arm, and kicked the shotgun away from him.

‘You should have handed over the child when you had a chance,’ he said. ‘I was seriously considering letting you live, for old times’ sake.’

‘Mighty nice of you,’ Kavel said.

Algeros shook his head. ‘Being a farmer all these years has made you soft and weak.’

‘Give her back to me.’ He struggled to stand, but the metal prosthesis swung out from under him and he fell into the dirt again.

‘Or what?’ Algeros asked. ‘Look at you. You’re pathetic.’

‘Or I’ll take her back.’ This time, Kavel managed to stand.

‘I see.’ Algeros put Oshi down on the ground. ‘If you insist on going to your grave tonight, Kavel, so be it.’

Kavel started towards him, ready to beat Algeros to a pulp with his bare hands if he had to, but Algeros was ready for him. Before Kavel had a chance to take a swing, Algeros bent and rammed his shoulder into Kavel’s gut. Kavel fell back with the wind knocked out of him. Before he could catch his breath, Algeros spun and kicked him square in the chest. The blow sent him tumbling across the ground to land sprawled out near a pile of farming tools.

Kavel fought to catch his breath. The pain in his side was sharp and intense. He wondered if he’d broken any ribs. Before he could get up, Algeros appeared in front of him, silhouetted by the fire. He straddled Kavel and put his hands around his throat. Kavel struggled for breath and batted at him with his fists, but it was no use. Algeros squeezed harder, gritting his teeth, choking him.

Kavel reached into the pile of tools, desperate to find anything he could use as a weapon. His fingers closed around the handle of something he couldn’t see, but which he hoped would be good enough. He hefted it, saw it was a trowel, and with the last of his strength drove its flat, pointed blade into the side of Algeros’ head. The trowel pierced deep into his skull, and Algeros fell to the ground.

Kavel rolled over onto his uninjured side, coughing and sucking in air until he was strong enough to stand. He ran over to Oshi and picked her up. He looked her over for any injuries, then breathed a sigh of relief when he saw she was unharmed.

She started to wail as he carried her back inside.

Kavel gathered everything he needed from the farmhouse: his shotgun, which he reloaded back up to eight rounds using the last of his shells; a change of clothes; the few credits he had squirrelled away to buy amasec; and as many tubes of nutrient paste as he could fit in his bag. More people would come soon. If Algeros Stormhand really was the captain of the militia, there was no way his disappearance would go unnoticed. More would follow, searching for Algeros and his men, and most likely looking to finish what they’d started.

His only chance was to run. Take Oshi and leave the farm before they came. But run where? His mind worked through the options quickly. To the north and south of him were rivers too wide to cross without a boat. If he went east, he would be entering the heart of the village, but if the captain himself had come for Oshi it meant nobody there could be trusted. To the west was the space port. That was his best bet. If he could pay someone for passage on their freighter, he and Oshi could get lost among the stars where no one would find them. But it was a risky plan. There was no way to know if anyone he approached at the space port could be trusted not to try to kill Oshi. On top of that, he’d never gone off-world, and his head swam with the stories he’d heard of the horrors that waited out there, things that made even the orks seem tame by comparison. But to stay on the farm was too great a risk. He had to take the chance.

Oshi hadn’t stopped crying since he’d brought her inside. Kavel took his bag and shotgun in one hand and Oshi with the other, and ran outside to where his truck was parked. Its hold was empty; he’d brought his last harvest of nafar leaves to the processing plant a couple of days ago. This was a good thing: with an empty hold the truck would move faster. He tossed his bag and shotgun into the cab, then placed Oshi in the passenger seat. He tried to get her to stop crying, but nothing seemed to work. After what she’d been through, he couldn’t blame her. He only hoped she would cry herself to sleep soon. He settled into the driver’s seat and hit the ignition switch. Nothing happened. He hit it again, and a third time, but the engine remained silent.

‘Throne,’ he cursed. He hopped out of the cab and opened the engine covering. Inside was a mess of cut wires and smashed gears. Kavel cursed himself. Before they’d come to the farmhouse, Algeros and his men had made sure to disable his only vehicle. He should have known.

He would have to walk. It meant being exposed and vulnerable. It meant trusting he could keep his balance on his metal prosthesis for an extended period of time while travelling over rough terrain. But what other choice did he have?

He took Oshi out of the cab. She squirmed and fought him, trying to break out of his grasp, but he kept a tight grip on her. What was wrong with her? He’d never seen her like this before. There was no way he could carry her and the bag, so he stuffed a tube of nutrient paste in one pocket, his credits in the other, and took the shotgun. He started walking west towards the space port as quickly and carefully as he could. The last thing he needed now was to trip over his damned peg leg. Without the truck he couldn’t take the road, but that was just as well. It was easier to hide in the fields and forests.

When he reached the edge of his farm, he turned to look back. The fire was growing. The amasec that had acted as an accelerant had burned off, and all that remained of the three villagers who’d caught fire were smouldering bones, but the flames were spreading through his crops, devouring them. Soon everything would be gone – the nafar, the warrior weed, maybe even the farmhouse. Not that he cared. He wasn’t planning on coming back. He’d grown to hate this place over the past ten years. He wasn’t going to miss it. It had been as much a prison as a farm, and his only regret was that he didn’t have time to watch it burn.

He felt a pang of regret about leaving Rahmiel behind to burn with the crops, but that was all. He ducked into the woods. He travelled slowly, making sure to find his footing on the uneven forest floor so he didn’t fall, and cradling Oshi close to his chest. She wailed and screamed, tears and mucus wetting her face. Kavel gritted his teeth. If she didn’t shut up, she would lead the others right to them. But nothing calmed her – not humming to her, not rocking her, not changing the way he held her. She was like a blaring siren in the night, a noisy homing beacon, and all he could do was pray no one heard.

There was only one building between his farm and the spaceport, and that was the processing plant – a massive industrial structure that covered two hundred thousand square feet. When he came out of the woods, the ferrocrete and plasteel facility towered over him. Small lumens illuminated the perimeter of the plant like tiny stars.

They were waiting for him on the grounds of the plant, silhouetted in the lights, a group much bigger than the one that had come to his farmhouse. Kavel stopped in his tracks, his heart jackhammering against his ribs. They stood as still as statues, but he knew if he turned and ran he wouldn’t make it far. There were just too many of them. He counted more than thirty men and women in the crowd before he gave up.

A cloaked man stepped forward, his features hidden in the darkness of a hood. Kavel assumed this was their leader. ‘Give us the child.’

Kavel put Oshi down on the ground at his feet, then pumped a shell into the chamber of his shotgun. ‘Come and get her. I killed the last bunch who tried. I’ll kill you, too.’

But he only had eight rounds in the shotgun, and there were more than eight of them. A lot more. If he fought, it was doubtful he would win or even survive. But at least he would die a soldier. At least he would die serving a noble purpose, protecting an innocent child from those who would do her harm, rather than wasting away on some damned farm from boredom and loneliness.

The villagers started towards him. Kavel levelled his shotgun and fired off a round, hitting one man in the chest. The man fell, but the others kept coming, so focused on Kavel that they trampled right over their fallen comrade’s body. He shot into the crowd again and again. Some fell and were stepped over, while others just kept coming, as if the pain didn’t matter. It was as though the whole village had gone insane and wouldn’t rest until they’d murdered Oshi.

There was only a single round left in the shotgun. As the villagers closed the distance between them, Kavel found he had a clear shot at their leader. Maybe he was the one responsible for all this; maybe if he took the leader down the others would stop. He aimed the shotgun at the hooded man, praying he wouldn’t miss. His finger tightened on the trigger, but suddenly the weapon flew out of his hands, wrenched from his grasp by an unseen force. It spun through the air to land thirty feet away, well out of reach. Kavel stared after it in wide-eyed confusion and terror. What in the warp…?

The villagers poured over him in a swarm. He tried to fight back, swinging his fists wildly, but he was overpowered quickly. A crush of bodies brought him to the ground. He watched helplessly as an elderly woman picked up Oshi and carried the baby to the hooded man.

‘No!’ Kavel cried. ‘Leave her alone!’

The villagers lifted him off the ground and dragged him forward. They threw him down in front of the hooded man, who cradled Oshi in the crook of one arm.

‘Don’t hurt her,’ Kavel begged. ‘She’s just a child.’

‘I have no intention of hurting her,’ he said. With his free hand, he pushed back his hood, revealing a bald, bulbous head with ridges on his forehead that matched Oshi’s, although his were much more pronounced. His eyes were big and piercing, and his skin had a slight purplish tint to it. ‘My name is Drameon, and I’ve come for what’s rightfully mine. What’s rightfully ours.’

Kavel looked up at him in confusion. ‘Yours?’

Drameon smiled. Kavel found it a chilling sight. ‘A child belongs with her father, don’t you think?’

One of the villagers hit Kavel on the back of the head, and everything went black.

When Kavel came to, he was being carried by villagers through a dark tunnel lit by torches along both walls. From somewhere above them, he heard a familiar, muffled sound – the low thrum of a machine-automated harvester. He was underground, somewhere below the vast farmland of Ballard’s Run. How long had he been unconscious? How far had they carried him?

The back of his head flared with a sharp pain where he’d been struck. Why go through all the trouble of knocking him out and bringing him here? Why not just kill him? Drameon already had what he wanted. He had Oshi.

Drameon walked alongside him with Oshi in his arms. The baby looked content, sucking on her fingers and smiling her toothless, drooling smile at the villagers.

The tunnel opened onto a huge, subterranean cavern lit with more torches. In the flickering torchlight Kavel saw hundreds of figures scattered throughout the vast space; some gathered on rocky ledges while others watched from the side or clung to the massive stalagmites that rose from the ground like teeth. More shapes moved in the shadows, avoiding the torchlight altogether.

Kavel bit back a cry of terror. The occupants of the cavern weren’t human. Some were creatures the likes of which he’d never seen before – hideous, deformed beings with bulbous, inhuman heads and three or four arms sprouting from their crouched bodies. Some looked closer to human, hybrid abominations like Drameon that were less hunched and had human-like facial features, although a few of them still sported an extra arm, or hands in the shape of claws.

There were humans among them as well, more people Kavel recognised. Was the whole blasted village here? He looked up and saw a group of women standing on a ledge, their eyes glazed over, their pregnant bellies swollen.

‘You sick bastard!’ Kavel yelled, turning to Drameon. ‘What have you done to them?’

‘A family that does not grow will die,’ Drameon said. ‘There must always be new generations.’

A family? Kavel looked at the bizarre creatures again. This was Drameon’s family?

The villagers set him down. He tried to push through them and run back the way they’d come, but he was easily overpowered. They shoved him against a tall stalagmite and tied his hands together in front of him. Something hissed in his ear. He turned his head and saw one of the three-armed creatures staring at him with sinister, glaring eyes.

‘Long ago, one of my ancestors served the Imperium,’ Drameon said. ‘During that time, he had the great honour of encountering Grandsire Mordephus on a distant world. Grandsire bestowed upon him his sacred kiss, consecrating him with his exalted genetic code. When he returned home, he and his wife had children, and those children had children, and so on. Each generation inherited an echo of that sacred kiss, until finally… Oshi. The child foretold. The one we’ve been waiting for. She will be our prophet, her word will be law, a living extension of Grandsire Mordephus’ will. She is the culmination of a plan that spanned generations, the result of a union between our kind and a very special one of yours.’ He tickled the baby under her chin. Oshi laughed and smiled. ‘Now that we finally have her back, she will usher in a new age.’

The three-armed creature inched closer, hissing its hot breath across Kavel’s neck. He cringed as it opened its wide mouth. Its long, wriggling tongue lolled out like a snake from its den.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Kavel said. ‘Oshi’s not like you. She’s not like these things.’

‘Grandsire’s genetic code blesses her just as it blesses the rest of us,’ Drameon said. ‘Soon this whole planet will be blessed with it, and the broodmind will sweep across Ballard’s Run.’

The creature that had been inching closer to him backed away, and behind it Kavel saw again the hundreds of creatures, hybrids and villagers; the women who were carrying more of these monstrosities in their wombs. He found himself thinking of the warrior weed, the way it had come to Ballard’s Run from another world, found a foothold, and begun to spread. These creatures were no different. His village was already infested, but what about the rest of the planet? How far had they spread?

He shook his head. ‘We’ll fight you. We’ve fought worse than you before and won.’

‘How can you fight what is inevitable?’ Drameon said with a grin that chilled Kavel to the bone. ‘We really ought to thank you for keeping Oshi safe until she found her way back to us. You did us a great service, Kavel. We would like to return the favour. Come, it’s time for you to meet Grandsire Mordephus. He has great plans for you.’

The villagers grabbed him and pulled him forward. The creatures in the cavern hissed and cheered in rapturous exaltation. Kavel nearly stumbled on his metal prosthesis several times, but the sheer size of the crowd kept him upright. They pulled him through a huge, rough-hewn archway in the cavern wall.

Beyond was another large cavern, although this one was decorated like a shrine. Heavy cloth banners hung on the stone walls, adorned with strange, unrecognisable symbols. Fires burned in huge bronze braziers. At the far end of the cavern was an enormous dais, upon which squatted a giant, nightmarish statue. The villagers brought Kavel in front of it and threw him prostrate upon the ground. They knelt in reverence around him, bowing their heads before the monstrous statue. Kavel looked up at it. Its horrific features bore no resemblance to humanity whatsoever. Nor did its body, with four long-clawed arms, two squat legs and a spiny ridge down its hunched back.

Then the statue turned its head towards him.

Kavel scrambled away from it in terror and ran back towards the archway, but he tripped over his prosthesis and fell to the floor, banging his chin against the hard, compacted dirt. He rolled onto his back and tried to stand, but discovered he couldn’t move. It felt like an invisible weight was pressing him down into the ground.

Drameon loomed over him, still holding Oshi. ‘She doesn’t want you to leave. She wants you to join us.’

‘No,’ Kavel groaned. ‘It’s not her doing this. It’s you, or that creature up there!’

Drameon shook his head. ‘Poor Kavel, too closed-minded to see what’s right in front of his face.’

Oshi squealed, and a long shred of nafar leaf peeled itself off the bottom of Kavel’s boot. It floated through the air up to Kavel’s face, then rubbed itself against his chin in a clumsy imitation of the way he’d tickled her chin on the farm with a similar leaf. Oshi laughed as the leaf dropped to the ground, but Kavel went cold.

Gods above, it was her! She was exactly what Drameon said she was – a psyker. He thought back to the way the shotgun had torn itself out of his hands before he could kill Drameon. That had been Oshi’s doing. She’d wanted Drameon to live, because he was her father. Because she’d wanted him to bring her home.

‘No,’ he said again, but he knew it was true.

Oshi refused to let him get up. She wouldn’t even let him move as the hulking monstrosity leapt off the dais, its heavy footfalls shaking the ground beneath him. It took another thudding step, its great size allowing it to cross the space between them in a single stride. It loomed over him. Kavel stared up at it, desperate to run, to crawl, to get away any way he could, but he couldn’t move an inch. Its long tongue snaked out of its mouth, slithering towards his face. He saw a strange, pronged hole at the tip of its tongue, and he struggled again, trying to force himself to move, but it was no use. Oshi held him fast.

‘Receive Grandsire’s kiss and be sanctified,’ Drameon said. ‘There’s nothing to fear. It is the kiss of life in a galaxy teeming with death. It is the kiss of peace in an age of endless war. It is the kiss of painless belonging in an existence that knows only suffering and misery.’

The creature’s tongue lowered towards Kavel’s mouth. He turned his head, shutting his jaw tight, but a force much stronger than him turned his head back and prised his mouth open. As the creature’s tongue slid into his mouth, he heard Oshi squeal with delight. The tongue tasted like old, slimy leather, and Kavel gagged in disgust. But it kept moving, forcing its way into Kavel’s throat and down his gullet. He felt it slide like a worm into his stomach and deposit something there, something as cold and sharp as a shard of glass.

When the creature pulled its tongue out of him, retracting it into its toothy maw, Oshi finally released him. Kavel rolled over onto his hands and knees, and vomited.

‘Tell me, Kavel, what has the Imperium of Man ever done for you?’ Drameon asked.

Kavel heaved and spat, but he could still feel it inside him.

‘You sacrificed your leg for them, and they don’t even know your name,’ Drameon said. ‘You toiled in the fields for them, and all they did was take your bounty for themselves.’

It spread through him like a fever, growing stronger by the second.

‘You owe them nothing, Kavel. Not your loyalty, and certainly not your life.’

Kavel shook his head, trying to clear away the encroaching clouds that threatened to smother his thoughts.

‘There is another way,’ Drameon said. ‘Our way.’

Kavel rose from the ground, the pain and confusion gone. Where a gigantic, hideous monstrosity had stood before, he saw only a benevolent and godly figure beaming down at him. He looked around himself at Drameon and the villagers and the waves of creatures flowing into the shrine, and his heart lifted. After all these years, he wasn’t alone any more. He thought he’d lost the last of his family to the orks, but he had a new family now, one that was much bigger than any he’d known before. And with his new family came a new purpose, one that was much more worthwhile and fulfilling than being a nafar farmer.

Because now he understood why he’d been kept alive, why Oshi wanted him to join them. He was her protector. He’d already been her protector, proving to her that he could keep her safe from anyone who meant her harm, and now he could continue to do that for her.

His new family gathered around him, welcoming him. Drameon handed Oshi to him, and he held her, the child Grandsire Mordephus and the rest of the broodcoven had waited so long for. She was beautiful, and one day she would be the leader of their congregation, speaking on behalf of their grandsire. But until then, Kavel would protect her – he would protect all their children, until they grew big enough to fulfil their destiny of domination.

On this world and every other.

About the Author

Nicholas Kaufmann is the critically acclaimed author of numerous works. Professionally immersed in books his whole life, he’s been the Publicity Manager for a small literary press, a pitchman for a PR firm specialising in TV and radio author appearances, a bookstore clerk and an independent bookstore owner. Nick lives in Brooklyn, NY.

An extract from The House of Night and Chain.

‘It’s haunted,’ Katrin said the first time she saw Malveil. She spoke with the adamantine assurance of an eight-year-old, and Zander, who was four, began to cry.

‘It is not,’ Eliana said. She crouched beside our daughter and gave her a hug, but her face showed alarm at Katrin’s blasphemy. ‘Never say that.’

I lifted Zander in my arms. He rested his face against my shoulder, wetting my uniform with his tears. He did not turn his eyes from the house, though. He stared at it, terrified, his sister’s statement confirmation of what he had already decided for himself.

We were standing at the gates to the grounds of Malveil. The house was some distance away, brooding at the top of its hill. From this vantage point, under the leaden sky, the great mansion was a dark shape, the silhouette of its towers jutting up from the walls. The details of the facade were invisible. Malveil was a hard mass of black, and I could understand the children’s reaction, even as I regretted it. The grounds were rugged and broken, gnawed apart by the generations of mining. The industry that had burrowed into the stony hill was the foundation of the Strock family’s wealth and power, though much of the machinery was quiet now. The seams were almost exhausted. We would not be drawing much more wealth out of the ground. We no longer needed to. With enough accumulation, wealth and all that flows from it is self-sustaining.

‘Ghosts do not exist,’ I told Zander and Katrin. ‘Do not offend the Emperor by believing in such nonsense.’ I spoke gently, but I needed them to know there were ideas no one should have. I  patted Zander’s shoulder and smiled at Katrin. ‘Anyway, you shouldn’t be frightened of Malveil. You should be proud. This is our family’s home. It is a great house. The greatest on Solus.’

‘If it is our house, why don’t we live there?’ Katrin asked. She did not sound eager to do so, but at least it was curiosity, rather than fear, that prompted her question.

‘My uncle Leonel lives there now. It is his home, because he is lord-governor of Solus.’ Over time, the line between family estate and governor’s palace had blurred. Though Malveil was not officially the seat of government, it had become so in practice since the rise of the Strocks to prominence. As long as a Strock was governor, Malveil would be the governor’s residence. Our line had had its share of travails, but there was still no sign that power might slip from our grasp. Even in the present circumstances.

‘But you’re governor,’ Katrin said.

‘Governor-regent,’ I said. ‘Just for a little while, until Leonel is better.’ He had been ill for some time now. The precise nature of his affliction was unclear, and he had become a recluse, never leaving the house and rarely admitting visitors. He was an absent ruler, and I had been recalled from my Astra Militarum service as captain in the Solus Nightmarch to act as governor until Leonel recovered or a proper regency could be established, one that would, naturally, both ensure stability on Solus and see off any political challenges to Strock supremacy.

This period lives, in my memory, as a golden time. I was home on Solus for most of a year, and had been given that rare opportunity for an officer – the chance to be a part of one’s family, even if only for a short while. I had left to do my duty to the Imperium while Eliana was still expecting Zander. That I had been able to see Katrin through her first years had itself been an unusual dispensation, a privilege granted by my family’s standing. I had not expected to return until – if I survived – late in life, by which time both children would be complete strangers to me, assuming they were still on Solus at all and not swept up in a subsequent Astra Militarum tithe themselves. So Leonel’s affliction had become my blessing.

That year was a glorious one. Its memories sustained me in the time that followed, whether I was facing the horrors of the battlefield or other, more personal griefs. But when I finally came back to Solus for good, it was this day that loomed over all the others, casting its shadow upon the entire year. Even before my return, it had begun to grow, metastasising, becoming the dominant image of that year, hauling my thoughts back to it with an irresistible gravitational pull. I should have been recalling my games with the children in the grounds of the family’s secondary residence, near the centre of Valgaast. I should have been picturing the two of them splashing in the fountains of the courtyard. I should have been thinking of Eliana, and her smiles as she watched them. I should have been thinking of her hand in mine.

Instead, I kept coming back to Katrin’s fearful pronouncement and Zander’s tears. And the moments that followed.

‘Will you ever be governing governor?’ Katrin asked.

I exchanged a glance with Eliana, and she pressed her lips tightly together, holding back a laugh. ‘That’s hard to say,’ I answered. ‘It depends on whether Leonel has any children.’ An unlikely prospect at his age, but not impossible. ‘If he does, then one of them will become governor, not me.’

‘Good,’ said Zander.

‘Oh?’ I teased. ‘You don’t think I’d make a good governor?’

Eliana had straightened up from hugging Katrin, but now our daughter pressed herself tightly against her mother’s waist. ‘We don’t want to go in that house,’ she said.

‘Please, papa,’ Zander sobbed. ‘No, papa.’

‘We’re not about to move there,’ Eliana said. She ruffled Katrin’s hair and gave me a sign that it was time to go. ‘We can’t even visit it, so stop your worrying.’

We started walking again, Zander quaking in my arms, Katrin clutching Eliana’s hand and snuffling through her tears. We put the high wall of the grounds behind us as we headed back down the Malveil Road, making our way through the industrial sector, back towards the residential quarters of Valgaast. I looked over my shoulder to get one last glimpse of the house before a curve in the road took it out of sight. I had never feared Malveil. It had always been a palace of dreams for me while I was growing up. It represented the highest summit a Strock could climb, the highest honour and, as my understanding matured, the noblest duty. I did not think of it as haunted. When I looked back at it at that moment, I felt pity for Leonel, gratitude for my time as regent and wistful longing to see again the halls that I had visited only once before.

I had no dark thoughts. I felt no presentiment of menace.

But when I turned back to my family, a wave of vertigo struck me. I stumbled, almost dropping Zander, as the ground turned treacherous beneath my feet. It seemed to be as thin as cobwebs, about to give way and throw us into a nightmare chasm. Zander was limp in my arms, his head a lolling dead weight, his neck broken. Eliana was dragging Katrin’s corpse, heedless of the blood pouring from our daughter’s open throat.

I gasped, struggling to find the air to scream. I was drowning, falling and suffocating all at once.

And then the moment passed. The horror receded, evaporating from my memory. The road was solid, my children unharmed. I had had a brief dizzy spell, that was all. My stride was sure, and within seconds, all that had happened was that I had looked forward too quickly and gone light-headed.

For years, that was all I would recall. Even when the memory of Katrin and Zander’s terror grew large, my terrible vision remained buried, hidden from my mind’s eye. It did not resurface.

Not until I returned to Solus. Not until I looked upon Malveil once more.

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