Octavian Gaius“Brother Octavian.”

  Octavian snapped out of his thought in a moment, gaze fog on the usually silent and forever stoic Fvius of the Aquilian Shield-host. Octavian heard the man speak only a handful of times, and all of those instances were of utmost importance.

  The man didn’t even make a sound when the Lent ordered the in-system -Jump, despite the rge probability of mankind's rgest fleet sihe Emperor walked the stars being annihited if anythi wrong.

  Octavian himself was … he didn’t know how to feel. The Regent endahe entire fleet based on an Eldar’s visions. He wouldn’t go against the Emperor’s chosen son, but his trust in the Xeno was something Octavian found a touch ing.

  Still, Octavian knew he only had pieces of this puzzle and he wasn’t going to bother searg for the ones o uand when it didn’t his mission. The Regent was a smart man with a strategid, if he ordered the -Jump with the present dangers of it in mind, he had to have had a solid reason to do so.

  14 days of travel saved. Two more remained, and then they would finally touch down on the homeworld of the Blood Angles.

  “Yes, Brother Octavian?” He gave Fvius his undivided attention.

  “The Shadowkeeper is gone.”

  Even with his superhuman mind turning at speeds inprehensible to the normal human and with a fluidity the ten thousand imagihat took a moment to sink in.

  “Gone.” He said, not asking, but reaffirming that he indeed heard it right. They were on a voidship after all. Being ‘gone’ meant the Shadowkeeper — who never gave them his real name — had a way of crossing the darkness of space faster than one of the fi ships mankind ever built.

  Octavian held no doubt in his heart that if the Shadowkeeper was gone, he’d have to be on Baal already. Octavian told both him and Fvius about his certainty that their target — whoever or whatever they may be — was on Baal.

  A part of him wao believe that the reason his elevated Brother raced ahead of them was to secure the safe pletion of their mission, but he was blessed with a mind that hardly ever fell to delusion. This wasn't one of those. He knew why the Shadowkeeper was gone.

  Octavia out a mournful sigh, from now on he could fet a perfectly executed mission, it went from uo an impossibility.

  He had another mission it seems, one tradig my own. Octavian thought he khe Lockwarden posed to the sensus they reached, but the Captain-General himself gave his blessing to the decision to think the Lockwarden would go against his authority was … sad.

  It would be brainst brother now, and Octaviahat even if it meant striking his respected elder brother down, he would aplish his Emperiven task. The Shadowkeeper would act the same, mission before emotions. Mission above all else.

  “You are the more experienced batant of the two of us, Brother Fvius,” Octavian g the stoi. “What do you think? Is it possible to aplish our mission without shedding our brother’s blood?”

  “No,” Fvius spoke simply. “I fear the two of us won’t be enough to keep a Shadowkeeper from his target.”

  Octavian hose were his thoughts exactly, but it was good to have it reaffirmed by an Aquilian Shield. If need be, Octaviahe two of them would give their lives to aplish the mission, but he also khat the two of them dying could just as much mean total failure. It would leave their target unprotected, and the Shadowkeeper would hardly have mercy.

  They couldn’t die. Dyi failing the Emperor. It was inexcusable.

  Octavian backtracked. The first step would be reag the p as fast as possible, whatever aeology dug out from the dark cells the Shadowkeeper used to transport himself from the ship to the phe two of them had no way of doing the same.

  Despite his sourness of the fact, all they could do was wait until the fleet reached the phey might be able to shave off a few hours by taking a smaller vessel and running its engine on overdrive to cross the st leg of the journey.

  came the problem of actually stopping a Shadowkeeper. The bck-cd custodian might be of the same stock as the two of them, but only the most elite and most profit of the ten thousand ever mao bee a Shadowkeeper.

  Even then, he wasn’t ting the forbidden ons and teology they were allowed to use.

  That was where the true power of the Shadowkeepers’ lied. They wielded ons and tools fotten by history and forbidden to use by the Emperor himself. These were his personal tools, ons or research material that he didn’t trust anyone, but the most elite among even his most favoured creations.

  For all Octaviahe Shadowkeeper might just have a on he’d used to send the entire p into a bck hole if he doubted his own ability to aplish his mission otherwise. There was no way of knowing what eous, mind-bending teology he was hiding in his power-armour.

  Octavian had no way of terag such a on himself. Usually, he’d just disregard the possibility of his foe having such a on since he couldn’t do anything even if they did, … but there might be a way uhe circumstances he found himself in.

  It could also solve the issue of the two of them not being able to go toe to toe with a Shadowkeeper.

  It hurt his pride and more importantly, his honour, but honour had no p his heart when the mission’s success was at stake.

  He would have to cheat.

  He just hoped whoever their target was would still be alive by the time they got there.

  I stared at the frozen image; it was slightly distorted, the drone’s avian eyes not capable of perfectly rec the transhuman at the speeds it robably moving.

  A Shadowkeeper. Here. Fuck yeah- I mean FuO!

  I was both giddy and terrified. On one hand, Shadowkeepers were awesome and one of my favourite bits of lore. There was hardly anything known about them in the warhammer 40k lore, but what was known was badass.

  Oher hand, that badass, superhuman killing mae that could wrestle a Khornite demon into submission, chill around a Nurglite demon and not give a shit about both a Tzeet and Saneshi dem to twist his mind was NOT something I wanted FUG HUNTING ME.

  Why is it even hunting me? Is it even hunting Me or what? I waited, my fiapping on my armoured knee impatiently.

  Then another drone disappeared. I frowned deeply.

  I pulled up an illusion, a holographic image of the entire p with small dots showing all of my drones on it. I marked each; doves with white, vultures with grey and birds taining tendrils with a silver outline.

  I crossed out the ohat got destroyed.

  “How,” I murmured. Over the st few seds, a dozen drones got killed, but they were all over the p. Ohe south pole, one on the north pole, one on the equator and the rest all over the pce.

  Only silver outlined ones are gettiroyed. Both vultures and doves though. That would mean the Shadowkeeper had a way to track my eldritch flesh. it track drohat no longer have any ihough?

  I waited for a while more, Selearing worriedly at the p with glowing marks going dark and being crossed out oer the other.

  A dozen more drones died, but not a single ohat no longer had a tendril in them was among them. That meant it was safe to say it could only track the tendrils. Still, that prompted a rather pressing question.

  “Why isn’t it ing for us?” I mused. “All four of us have one more or less of my tendrils in us. It should be able to se.”

  With a thought, I ordered the ones in Zedev and Val te with their bodies. The two proved to be smart enough to know that betraying me would be a … suboptimal choice, so removing that kill switch shouldn’t be that much of a problem.

  Val would be safe if the Shadowkeeper didn’t have some fuckoff heretical tech that straight up obliterates the soul, but Zedev would be done and gone if he got killed.

  I might be able to yank his soul out of the , but I realized that was as dangerous as it was challenging. Yeah, I could extend down tendrils of psychic power and hope I could reach his soul floating around somewhere down there in the endless dark o where time and space became irrelevant, but that was also like sending a gilded invitation to every Greater Demon to head over and take a bite out of me.

  That was the main problem. When those demons that could decimate ps rose towards the surface, was the moment I always retreated. I might be able to kill ohin the Immaterium where my powers weren’t strained into a mortal vessel, but I might not.

  The Greater Demons might win, and that would be the End with a capital E. At least that’s how I decided to take it. I didn’t know how ‘ineffable’ my soul was when it came down to it. Maybe there was a limit to the amount of taint it could take.

  I’m spiraling. With a mental sp ay face, I put my mind ba track. I had a super custode on my hands, and by all appearances, it nning to kill me.

  “Sooo?” Selene asked, having stayed silent for the st dozen minutes.

  “It has a way of trag my flesh.”

  “Your ‘flesh’?”

  “The white one,” I said, transf my finger into a twisting cavalcade of tiny tendrils for a moment. “It is only killing drones in which I left some.”

  “Why would a custode even be hunting you?” she asked with her ay barely being veiled behind a thin film of forced ess.

  “That’s a Shadowkeeper,” I said. “Do you know what those are?”

  “No?” she said.

  “They are … the elite of the Custodian guard. The oasked with keeping things locked away that the Emperor didn’t even trust his regur Custodes with.”

  She had a thousand more questions, I could tell by the still fused look on her face, but that was enough for her to ask the question that’d been pguing me since my first drone died.

  “Why is he hunting you?”

  “That’s the question of the day, isn’t it?” I forced a grin. “Why ihough the how is just as much of a mystery.”

  The damhing was somehow telep all over the p, goiween drones seemingly at random.

  ‘Run a pattern reition on his targets.’ I sent the and to my mind-cores, pushing it onto the task list as a priority zero task which boiled down to ‘drop everything, I want this doerday.’

  They didn’t disappoint; I had the answer ihan a sed.

  [Subsequent targets are always the closest drones taining eldritch flesh.]

  [clusion: The ‘Shadowkeeper’ only track the closest instance of eldritch flesh to himself.]

  I rubbed my . So he has something like a pass that points at my endril as if it was the north pole?

  juring up another holographic representation of Baal, I started from when it — He, I should call it ‘he’ — killed the first ever drone. I went over it again, drawing red lines between his targets.

  “Weird,” I mused.

  “ you enlighten me?” asked Seleh a touch of irritation in her voice. Oops.

  “You see this?” I gestured at the p with red lines criss-crossing it. I held the image frozen somewhere midway through.

  It was a frozen image the moment one of the drones died. I drew a dotted red liowards the silver mark already, which would be his arget. What was iing though, made itself evident when I marked our current position on the hologram.

  We were closer to his st target than the one he would go for.

  “Yes,” she said. I gave her a few seds to take in the map.

  “He didn’t e for us,” I said. “Even though all his previous targets show that he is targeting the closest signal of eldritch flesh. He either ighe signal ing from here, or he couldn’t se.”

  “I suppose the Marines would have some psychic shielding that could disrupt whatever he is using to track those things.” Selene said thoughtfully.

  “I doubt anything they have could stand up to arotech the Shadowkeeper pulled out of his ass,” I shook my head. “Though … Mephiston might have something. Hmmmm, I didn’t feel it though.”

  “What … is this ‘arotech’ you are talking about?”

  “Are Teology, it was the Thing during the tter parts of the ‘Dark age of Teology’ as far as I know.” I said with a roll of my eye that threateo send my eyeballs rolling out of their sockets.

  I always thought it was stupid, but almost everything was stupid in Warhammer. The whole setting was an over-exaggerated satire.

  [Satire: the use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particurly in the text of porary politid other topical issues.]

  Thank you. Budget stoogle. I rolled my eyes, but sure, they were correct. And the Dark age of Teology obviously made fun of people’s irrational fear of AI taking over the world that ran rampant for decades by the time I died.

  It art of why I felt so damned alone and alienated in this world. It was like everyone was just some poor mirror held up to reflect humanity’s idiocy back at them. Some people here were the personified representations of the worst parts of humanity.

  “And he has something like that?” Selene asked, a frown marring her face as she stared at the frozen frame showing the dark giant.

  “Oh, of course he does,” I smiled despite myself. “I would be surprised if he isn’t loaded up to his ne teology the Inquisition would have a stroke just hearing the name of. Shadowkeepers are allowed to use some ons that sent humanity bato the Age of Strife. Probably one of those is a personal teleporter, which should be how he is moving around so quickly.”

  “Should we run?” Selene asked, and I whirled on her with eyes wide. “What?” she asked defensively.

  “… I didn’t think of that,” I admitted, then frowned. “It never even crossed my mind.”

  “Ah,” she blinked. “I see? Well … if there is ohing you should run from, it’s that thing.”

  “Hmmm,” I thought it over. “You are right … but to run would be wrong.”

  “Yrowing stronger by the day, Ea,” she said as she shuffled up o me. “Custodians don’t grow strohat Shadowkeeper might learn some new skills, but I bet he is only marginally strohan he was a tury or two ago.”

  “A strategic retreat, is it?” I mused. “We will see.”

  I narrowed my eyes as I felt another drone flicker and die, the st image it captured showing the Shadowkeeper lunging to impale it. That primal side of me rotesting at the very idea of running. There it was, an hoo Emperor Custodian in full glory, carrying the biggest no-no te existence.

  To turn and run would be to give up on all that, to give up on seeing how I measure up to one of the deadliest warriors in the gaxy, to give up on the power I could gain just from getting a bite out of him.

  Running would be the rational thing to do, the smart thing to do even. Maybe I was stupid, or my monstrous nature had finally caught up to me, but I just had to try and see whether I could actually beat that man before I could decide to retreat.

  “We will see.”

  P3t1