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Forgotten – Dan Abnett

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Forgotten

Dan Abnett

‘Well,’ said Mad Larkin. ‘Tell it.’

Mkoll shook his head.

‘Spoilsport,’ Larks chuckled. He took a slug of sacra from the dirty glass he was cradling in his wiry hand.

‘Mkoll doesn’t tell stories,’ said Rawne, leaning back against a stack of pulse sacks. When the voidship Highness Ser Armaduke had set out on its mission, Aft Hold 134 had been piled to the ceiling with sacks of dried pulses for the mess hall. Now there were only a few heaps of them left, and what remained in the dank chamber had mildewed and spoiled. It had been a long tour, and supplies were low. Supplies of everything.

Rawne brushed a sack louse off his jacket and refilled his glass.

‘You don’t tell stories, do you, chief?’ he said. ‘Not often.’

‘Not often,’ Mkoll replied. He had a drink of his own in his powerful, life-scarred hands, but he had only taken a sip.

‘He said he had one,’ Larkin protested. ‘He should tell it. Make him tell it.’

‘I doubt I could make him do anything,’ replied Rawne quietly.

Mkoll smiled to himself, and looked down at his drink. Around them, the ancient, hulking starship throbbed and creaked. The warp played around its hull, stressing and squeezing it, and ice formed in the long walks of the companionways. It was cold.

‘Fire’s dying,’ said Rawne, reaching for some more dirty sacking to throw on it.

‘I’ll do it,’ said Brostin, sitting up.

‘Not with your flamer this time, eh?’ advised Rawne.

Brostin grinned, and held up his dirty palms in a ‘forgive me’ gesture. He was a big man, heavy, inked and hairy. He got to his feet, unsteady from drink, and fished around for combustibles in the trash at the back of the hold.

‘I told a story,’ Larkin sulked. ‘It was a good one too.’

‘Fething mad in the head, you are,’ Brostin called out from the rear. ‘As if a statue would talk to you.’

‘It was an angel,’ protested Larks. ‘Weren’t you listening?’

‘Listening to you being mad in the head,’ Brostin grumbled back.

‘It was a good story,’ Larkin insisted. ‘Wasn’t it good, Eli? Proper spooky. Proper chilling. A ghost story.’

‘Wasn’t bad,’ Rawne mused, thinking about something else.

‘And yours wasn’t bad either,’ Larkin acknowledged, raising his glass. ‘Decent and chilling.’

Rawne sighed. He’d made his up, just off the cuff. Larkin had delighted in the gory bits. They’d been in the field, on this tour, for so long, they’d used up all their stories. They’d heard them all a thousand times over. Especially Brostin’s story about the goat.

‘I told a story too,’ Brostin called out, still trying to find kindling. ‘It was about a goat.’

‘It was awful,’ said Larkin.

‘Least I told it,’ Brostin replied. He came back to the fireside with an armful of dubious litter and began to feed it, piece by piece, into the rusty fire cage, blowing on the sparks to get the fire going again. Despite the impoverished quality of his kindling, the fire grew quickly, until the flames were dancing and the orange light distorted shadows of them all around the galvanised walls. Brostin had a particular affinity with fire. It seemed to like him. It seemed to obey him.

‘There we go,’ he said, pleased with his efforts. He wiped his nose with the back of his paw, leaving a sooty mark, and sat down again. Rawne passed him a refill.

‘I could tell it again, if you like,’ he offered. ‘The one about the goat.’

‘No!’ Larkin and Rawne chorused.

‘Only saying,’ shrugged Brostin.

‘The chief should tell his story,’ Larkin said. ‘He should. Make him. It’s Candylmass and everything. Make him tell his story.’

‘I wish I’d never mentioned it,’ Mkoll said quietly.

‘Well, you did,’ said Rawne.

‘Make him fething tell it!’ Larkin cried out, his voice over-loud from sacra.

‘Yeah, tell it,’ said Brostin.

‘I’d prefer not to,’ Mkoll began.

‘Leave him be,’ said Rawne.

‘Is everything all right in here?’ a voice asked.

They all looked around. There was a tall shadow standing in the hold doorway, looking in. They started to get to their feet in a hurry.

‘As you were,’ said Gaunt, stepping into the firelight. ‘I was passing. Just doing my rounds. I heard voices.’

‘Larks was being noisy, sir,’ said Rawne. ‘My apologies.’

‘Settle back,’ said Gaunt. ‘No standing on my account.’

‘I wasn’t being rowdy, sir,’ said Larkin, sitting down again. ‘It’s just that we was telling stories, and the chief here has one and he won’t tell.’

‘Stories?’ asked Gaunt.

‘Ghost stories,’ said Larkin. ‘Fireside stories. Chillers to keep you warm on a cold night like this.’

‘I see,’ said Gaunt.

‘I told a story,’ said Brostin.

‘You did?’ asked Gaunt.

‘It was about a goat,’ Brostin nodded. ‘Do you want to hear it?’

‘You really don’t,’ said Rawne.

‘We need some new stories,’ said Larkin. ‘You got any, sir?’

Gaunt hesitated.

‘Not so much,’ he said.

‘Shame,’ said Larkin. ‘There ought to be stories. It’s Candylmass after all. We always tell stories on Candylmass night.’

‘Candylmass?’ Gaunt asked. He hadn’t realised. It made him feel out of touch. ‘It is a tradition,’ he added.

‘Exactly,’ said Larkin, as if that proved everything. He looked pointedly at Mkoll.

‘Give it a rest, Larks,’ said Mkoll.

‘You want a drink, sir?’ asked Brostin.

Gaunt glanced at Rawne. Rawne nodded slightly.

‘Just the one, then,’ Gaunt said. ‘For Candylmass.’

Brostin beamed, and scrabbled around for a spare cup. Gaunt pulled up a sack and sat down by the fire. He noticed the state of the cups Brostin was appraising.

‘I tell you what,’ Gaunt said. ‘Have a drink on me.’ He produced a hip flask and held it out.

‘Amasec, is it?’ Larkin asked. ‘From the officer’s mess?’

‘Sacra,’ replied Gaunt. ‘Bragg’s own. From my stash.’

‘Feth me,’ said Brostin. ‘I’m down to me last of that. Special occasions only.’

‘This is a special occasion,’ said Larkin. ‘It’s Candylmass, and Mkoll’s going to spin a yarn.’

‘Oh feth,’ said Mkoll quietly. ‘I wish I’d never mentioned it.’

‘You gotta tell it now,’ said Larkin. ‘In return for sir’s kind gift of a drink.’

They all filled their glasses and returned the flask to Gaunt who raised it.

‘First and Only,’ he said.

‘First and Only,’ they replied.

They all sipped. They all sighed. Bragg, the Emperor rest him, had brewed his infamous sacra from the finest ingredients, including old memories and lost hopes.

‘Make him tell the story, sir,’ Larkin said.

‘I don’t think I can make Mkoll do anything,’ Gaunt replied, ‘but I can ask him. Chief?’

Mkoll let out a deep breath. He took another sip of his drink.

‘All right,’ he said.

Larkin leaned in eagerly.

‘There was this fiend,’ Mkoll began, the firelight flickering across his craggy face.

‘Where was this?’ asked Larkin immediately.

‘You wanted to hear it,’ Rawne said. ‘Let him tell it.’

‘There was this fiend,’ Mkoll repeated. ‘This was Ancreon Sextus, right at the end there. The last days. This fiend, he was Blood Pact, so they said. I think he was more than that. Well, they’re all more than that, aren’t they? Not human, I mean. Touched by the stain of the Eight-mark. But this one, he was worse. Even less than a man by their standards. Less, and more. Made of darkness. Woven from it. A man woven from daemon shadows.’

‘What was his name?’ asked Larkin.

‘Fething shut up!’ Rawne snapped.

‘Let him tell the story, Larks,’ said Gaunt quietly.

‘Right ho,’ nodded Larkin.

‘He didn’t have a name,’ said Mkoll. He paused, thinking about it. As ever, the chief of scouts was just a shadow in the darkness. Light avoided him, even the bright, jumping glow of the brazier. From his darkness came a quiet story of greater darkness.

‘He had a reputation,’ said Mkoll. ‘He was preying on the units I was with. Picking off men in the night. Sometimes a shot, long distance, sometimes a man just gone from his post or billet. Most often, butchered. Pieces of missing men were found on the wire as dawn came each day. Stuck up like trophies. Like markers. Some had tooth marks on them.’

He paused again.

‘This fiend was a ghoul, but he was good. There were whispers of him. He was a squad leader. Story was, death had forgotten him.’

‘Come again? What?’ asked Brostin.

‘Death had forgotten him,’ said Mkoll. ‘That’s what they said. He’d lived an age, and then another age, and then another. Lifetimes beyond a number you can imagine. Death has forgotten me, that’s what they claimed he said. So the stories went. Whenever death did its tally and marked its stick, as it does regular for all our lives, somehow it always left him off. It missed him. He was never in the headcount. He was never brought to account. Death forgot him and passed him by.

‘I went out, three nights in a row, over the wire and into the zone. I went out to hunt him. Bring him down. He was too dangerous. He’d taken too many lives, too many liberties. It was killing morale too. The men were all spooked. Who would be next? Who’s turn would it be to end up in pieces on the wire come morning? The fiend, he was in the darkness, in all of it. He moved, and the night moved with him, to hide him as if it was ashamed of him and didn’t want the light to see him. The fiend and the night, they were in cahoots. Accomplices in murder. One watched and covered while the other killed. This fiend, he was a night-thing. He was a ghost.’

Mkoll looked at Gaunt.

‘In the old sense of the word, sir,’ he explained.

‘I get it,’ said Gaunt.

‘So I went out, three nights in a row. Into the blackness of the zone, in among the tumble wire and the corpses left to rot, the stink pools and the waterlogged trenches. There was no one out there. No sound except the shelling faraway, the fire on the horizon. No movement. A dead zone. Abandoned. Churned up and left raw. Smelled of blood and mud and maggots. You all know the smell. But for this fiend, there was no spore. No prints, no tracks, no traces. No sounds, no smells in the night. I knew he was out there, but I couldn’t find him.’

He took another sip.

‘Third night, I was out a long way. Zone mortalis, land of the dead. Pitch black and wet as feth. I was quiet, you know me. I was quiet and I was hunting, and still there was no trace. But I knew, I just knew, back of my neck, hairs on my arms, the fiend was there. He was covered up by his friend, the night. He was watching me, stalking me. I had no trace of him, but he had my track. Don’t know how. I think the night had told him where I was and how to find me.’

‘You don’t make no noise,’ Larkin objected.

‘I don’t, and I didn’t then,’ said Mkoll. ‘I’ve never been so careful. Slow steady, cape around me, skin dabbed down, gun-shine smudged back with muck. I kept low, sectioning the area. I thought to myself, Oan, sooner or later you’ll catch him. Sooner for later he’ll get bold or stupid and make a move, and you’ll have him. You’ll hear a sound, or see a twitch. You’ll have him and he’ll be gone. But nothing. Then I knew.’

‘Knew what?’ asked Larkin.

‘The fiend had me. He was stalking me all right, and, somehow, maybe thanks to the complicity of the night, he had me. When I moved, he came with me, closer and closer. Every step I took in the dark, every move I made, he matched. He was toying with me. He was playing. He was making me suffer before he came in to close the deal.’

Mkoll sat back, and thought for a moment, remembering.

‘So I decided that I was out of choices. I wanted him and he wanted me. I couldn’t find him, but sure as feth he could find me. So I let him find me.’

‘You what?’ asked Brostin.

‘It was the only thing I could think of,’ said Mkoll. ‘I knew that if I just turned back, he’d pick me off on my way back to the lines. He had me, so I played that. I became the bait. On purpose. I made myself the bait. I waited. I walked around. I made myself clumsy. I made noises.’

He smiled softly, amused by the memory.

‘That was hard. Deliberately making noises. Kicking up a stone, making a splash in a trench pool. Just enough not to be obvious. Like I was a newblood trooper, lost and alone, bumbling in the dark. Of course, I knew he could take me from a distance. Longshot… hotshot, maybe, like Larks would do it. One to the head from half a mile, and I’d never know anything about it. But I was counting on the fact that I knew how he liked to do it. I knew he liked to make his kills up close. Wet. That’s what the fiend liked best of all. That’s what got him off. Getting in close, to prove how invisible he was, getting in close and killing with his hands and teeth. I counted on that fact. It was his thing. He prided himself on it. He prided himself on the notion that he was so invisible, even death had forgotten him.

‘I moved along. It was so dark, I can’t tell you. I felt that night was right upon me, me in particular, like night had concentrated on me. A special night, blacker than anything. Unnatural. Anyway, he was close so I waited. I slung my rifle over my shoulder, and took out my silver. Kept it in my hand, blade down. The blackness was there more than ever, and I waited and waited.’

He took another sip.

‘And then the fiend was on me.’

Larkin gasped quietly. There was an odd silence in the hold space, no sound except the crackle of the flames.

‘Nothing there at first,’ said Mkoll very softly. ‘Nothing. Not a breath. Not even a hint of body heat. I was alone, I swear it. And then, then there was a hand on my throat. A cold, cold hand. Just like that. Just there.’

He put his right hand to his throat, and held it there, clasped.

‘I don’t know how he did that. I’ll never know. One minute, I was alone, the next, the fiend was right there, hand on my neck. Just a cold touch to let me know I was dead already. I couldn’t even see him.’

‘Feth!’ said Larkin.

‘He knew I was done for. That must have been the way with all his kills. Just that sudden, cold touch from nowhere, and the victim would freeze, not believing what was happening or how it could be happening. The fiend could take his time after that. He could enjoy his work. And they wouldn’t fight back.

‘I found my voice. From somewhere, I don’t know. I found my voice, and I asked, “what are you”? And this voice, worst voice I ever heard, wet and thick and old, it replied, “I am your end. Death has forgotten me”. I replied, “How does death forget anyone”? And the voice, Throne, it was a horrible sound, it said, “Death is careless. It makes mistakes. It lost sight of me in the night, and now it can’t find me again. It has forgotten me, and now I mock it with my life”. That’s what it said. Death has forgotten me.’

He looked at the other four men.

‘Then I saw its teeth in the darkness. I saw them open to bite. To tear out my throat. I thought my time was done, but I was ready.’

‘What happened?’ asked Larkin, his voice a whisper.

‘I had my war knife, remember?’ said Mkoll. ‘I had my straight silver. I told him something, just before his bite came snapping in, and then I used my knife.’

‘And it was done?’ Brostin breathed.

Mkoll nodded.

‘Closest I ever came,’ he said. ‘Closest I’ve ever been to death.’

He glanced at Larkin.

‘The end,’ he said. ‘You wanted the story. That was it.’

He raised his glass.

‘Candylmass,’ he said. ‘The Emperor protects, provided you’re armed and ready.’

They all drank.

‘What was it?’ asked Gaunt.

‘Sir?’ Mkoll replied.

‘You said you told him something,’ said Gaunt. ‘What did you tell him?’

Mkoll sighed.

‘I told him I remembered him after all,’ he said.

About the Author

Dan Abnett is the author of the Horus Heresy novels The Unremembered Empire, Know No Fear and Prospero Burns, the last two of which were both New York Times bestsellers. He has written almost fifty novels, including the acclaimed Gaunt’s Ghosts series, and the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies. He scripted Macragge’s Honour, the first Horus Heresy graphic novel, as well as numerous audio dramas and short stories set in the Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer universes. He lives and works in Maidstone, Kent.

Across the Sabbat Worlds, a bitter conflict is fought, a conflict that can only end in victory or annihilation.
This anthology opens the gateway to the Sabbat Worlds, featuring stories from some of Black Library’s best-known authors including Dan Abnett, Graham McNeill and Aaron Dembski-Bowden.

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