4. Value?

Brother Zil sat up too fast in his convalescent bed as Prophet Zicarios entered the infirmary. Pain ripped through his side as his wounds tore open. Zicarios spared only a brief glance at the crimson flowers blooming on his dirty bandage before addressing Zil.

“Report, brother.” Elders Jerefusah and Jerabulous, the twins, each with a third arm mirroring the other, filed in behind Zicarios, eyes sweeping side to side in this isolated and perilous outpost of the Church, taking in the lone med-servitor standing in an unsanitary corner.

Zil gulped, pain forgotten in the face of Prophet Zicarios, Holiest of Holies, Saint’s Counsellor, originator of the Great Plan, greatest hope of the Church of the Amethyst Emperor, idol to all amongst the Good News Brood. “Ghilabrious was killed, lord! I was going to shoot Vokran, but I was shot in the b-“

“Not about that worm Vokran, brother. And especially not how that liability Ghilabrious died. I want to know about the beast, brother. The ambull.”

“L-lord Prophet, where should I start?”

“At the beginning, brother.” The Prophet stepped in close to Zil, concern appearing in his eyes for the first time. “How did Ghilabrious learn of it?”

“Ghilabrious, he was raving, after the fight with the Hellhounds. He’d been hit on the head. More than once!” Zil’s eyes widened slightly. “Just during the fight though. Nothing afterwards."

Prophet Zicarios nodded his understanding. “Head wounds are complicated brother. You shouldn’t worry yourself about it.” 

Zil visibly relaxed. He continued speaking, calmly now. “Ghilabrious was screaming in his private chamber. At first it was just screams and howls, but it started to sound like words. After a while, he went quiet. We looke- I mean, um… Brother Cos looked inside, but he seemed to be sleeping. He had his arms wrapped around his head. We- I mean Brother Cos decided to let him sleep-“

Zicarios offered a reassuring smile. “You were afraid to wake him brother?”

“Yes, lord.” Zil smiled in response. “But when he awoke, he seemed better. Calm. He said he knew how regain your favour, lord. To make up for what happened… what happened with the Hellhounds.” A cloud passed over Zil’s face.

“Look at me brother,” said Zicarios, and Zil did just that. “Don’t worry about the little skirmish with the Hellhounds, brother. It isn’t important.” Zicarios gave another smile. The cloud passed from Zil’s face, and a smile replaced it - a glassy-eyed mirror of Zicarios’s own.

“Ghilabrious told us we would be going hunting. Kor and Cos wanted to come, but he said they needed to stay and keep Jocastum safe. And to feed Krug whilst he recovered. Ghilabrious seemed to trust me after…” The cloud started to return, but Zil blinked and a hint of the smile returned, “because I brought him home that time.”

“On the way, he said there was a creature. Nostrox would want it, he said. For his experiments. It had come from downhive. He said we would kill it. And Vokran too. He wanted to please you, lord. He wanted to be Valued.”

Zicarios gave the gentlest of snorts, then coughed. “If only Ghilabrious had the wisdom to come to me instead of running off without more support.”

“Sorry, my lord.

“No, no, Brother Zil. I am sure the information you can give me will prove most… Valuable. I am glad you were there.”

Zil sat up straighter and his hand fell away from the bloody bandages at his side. “Ghilabrious charged the thing… The beast struck at him, but Ofghil distracted it and Ghilabrious dodged the blow.” Zil’s eyes widened. “It was glorious, Lord Prophet! Ghilabrious struck at the beast and it recoiled. It feared him, as all should fear us, and I thought for a moment that I saw a vision of our inevitable victory. I knew it wasn’t happening then, my lord, but it was like a beacon, showing the way to the success of your Great Plan!”

Zicarios frowned. “Calm your excitement, brother, you wouldn’t want to strain your wound."

Zil flinched, and his hand shot back this side. “It was no use, Lord. One of the vat-grown lumps threw a fire-bomb. Our suits protected us from the flames, but still the explosion drive us to the floor with the other hivers. Ghilabrious stood again, ready to fight, but a shot from a ganger I couldn’t even recognise took The Chosen in his forehead.”

Zicarios spoke again, a hint of impatience creeping into his voice. “The ambull, brother.”

Zil spoke rapidly. “A juve, lord. A juve shot it.”

Zicarios raised one eyebrow. “A juve?”

“Yes lord, but then he was shot too. Killed in an instant. I was barely looking, but I think it was an energy weapon. By then, the things that had come with the ambull were dead. I tried to shoot Vokran, but that was when-” Zil gestured at his wounded side.

Zicarios stared impassively.

“The um.. the ambull… It’s body was pretty badly charred, and it was pretty chopped up.”

Zicarios’s lips narrowed.

“But, but… I think there were some bits left that still had fresh blood in?”

Zicarios nodded once, slowly.

“I picked up its hand? I saved it for Doctor Nostrox?” Zil pointed to a box in the corner of the infirmary.

Zicarios smiled widely. “Well done, Brother Zil." Zicarios turned to the servitor. "Get this brother clean bandages. He may be of Value one day."

Brother Zil slipped into oblivion, a smile upon his face.

3. Ghilabrious's vision

Ghilabrious sat with his head hung low between his legs. Not from the pain of the migraine assailing him, though it would have been reason enough, but from the knowledge of his failure. He had not seen Sebastophon's death, but Brother Kor spoke of it with a haunted look in his eye. The huge saw-handed abomination had taken delight in its work as it hacked Sebastophon to pieces. A poor end for an Elder of the Church. The death of Lum and Nok would have bothered him little - mere Brothers, neophytes to be expended as necessary to further the Great Plan of Prophet Zicarios - but with Sebastophon dead and the embarrassment of Reticulus's capture he needed them. 

How had it even happened? The unholy ones had been surrounded. They had fallen backwards in front of the brood's onslaught and their timidity seemed certain to bring their end. First blood even came to Ofghil as he slashed open the throat of one of the damned. The wretch had been brought low by Ghilabrious’s own pistols, Blaze and Glory, earlier in the battle, and it had seemed that a strong message of Church supremacy would be delivered. 

Ghilabrious tried not to believe in luck, looking instead to the will of The Amethyst Emperor, his Saint who was father-to-them-all here on Necromunda, and The Great Plan of Prophet Zicarios. But he could not contemplate the idea that his gods and masters hated him enough to bring him this failure; the failure must be his own. Were it not for the neophytes, Zil, Cos and Kor, dragging away most of the survivors, things could have been worse still. Now though, with his kin Sebastophon, Jocastum and Reticulus dead, injured and captured, Ghilabrious knew his own authority was weakened. The cripple, Nostrox, would be looking to take advantage to undermine him further and elevate himself in the eyes of Prophet Zicarios.

A powerful image of the Prophet intruded on his thoughts, and his stomach knotted in pain. Ghilabrious knew both the shame of failure and fear of the Prophet's wrath. Hitching sounds started to come from Ghilabrious and he began to breathe unevenly. He sat up, leaned back and gritted his teeth, his face curled up in a fierce snarl. Never had he more resembled the holy Saint, the primogenitor and strongest of them all, manifestation of the Amethyst Emperor's will upon Necromunda; Ghilabrious's face, normally close in colour to the baseline humans he despised, was swollen and bulbous. Purple, blue and black bruises merged into each other across his face, and barely closed scabs seeped yellow plasma as wounds healed. For the first time in his life, he felt tears run from his eyes.

Angry at this new weakness, Ghilabrious stood and roared over and over. Clouds swirled across his vision and his thoughts. Thunder boomed for only him to hear, louder than his own screams. Pain arced across his vision as lightning. Acid ran through his veins and flames burned every part of his skin. Still Ghilabrious howled, and slowly his screams of pain turned into bellows of defiance. His back arced, and head tilted upwards, arms spread in a challenge to the world. The lightning began to coalesce, and take a form in his mind, limbs surrounded by a nimbus of light and thunder becoming animals growls. An ambull was coming, bringing other denizens of the depths. A monstrous beast, and a worthy foe to slay. If its corpse were given to Doctor Nostrox, it would be a gift that could never be matched, and show Prophet Zicarios which of them was the more valuable servant. Ghilabrious saw redemption in his vision. The ambull would fall to him, Nostrox would work for him, and the rival factions in Sector H8 would know who to fear. His howls subsided, and he lapsed into a fitful sleep, hands wrapped around his tender head. 

He was going on an Ambull Hunt

2. Aftermath

Brother Zil wheezed from exertion as he hauled Chosen Ghilabrious, breathing but otherwise a dead weight, along narrow tunnels. He released Ghilabrious to open a maintenance hatch and winced as his leader's head clanged off the deck with a resounding thud. As he dragged Ghilabrious into the even tighter vent, feelings of guilt over the fresh injury he had just inflicted warred with feelings of relief; both Ghilabrious and Doctor Nostrox would assume these bruises also came from Ghilabrious being knocked unconscious during the skirmish with the Hellhounds.

Zil gave a high-pitched laugh as he realised that responsibility for getting Ghilabrious to safety at least took his mind off the bloodbath they had just escaped. Despite already knowing he was not being watched, he paused in his furtive movements to look around and check no-one had heard that laugh. He wasn't sure it sounded quite sane. Zil pushed aside more loops of tubing and insulated wiring and continued to drag Ghilabrious.

As his journey continued, Zil entertained the notion that maybe he would be Valued for saving Ghilabrious. But no, there would be no Value attached to a debacle such as this. He wasn't sure Prophet Zicarios would even be grateful for Ghilabrious's life. And it had all started so promisingly. The tainted ones had fallen back in the face of the brood's advance. One of them had even fallen to Ghilabrious's pistols, Blaze and Glory. As Zil passed the body, he noticed smoke rising from the eightfold mark upon the man's face, as if his gods were punishing him for his failure. Zil had taken it is a good omen, a sign from the Amethyst Emperor that victory would soon be theirs. The enemy were surrounded, and doomed. It was a nonsense that everything then went so wrong.

By the time the screams stopped and the smoke cleared, Zil could see prone kin from the Good News Brood sprawled at impossible angles across the battlefield of corridors and storage bays. He regretted leaving Brother Lum as he choked on his own blood, but the safety of Chosen Ghilabrious took priority. Only Kor and Cos looked healthy as they helped a limping Sebastophon and a dazed Krug shuffle away.

Zil's mind returned to the present. He crossed one final major traffic artery without incident. Only a half-starved mongrel watched him as he dragged Ghilabrious across from one hatch to the next and into the dark safety. The mutt made no sound, a sense self-preservation keeping it quiet, but it pinched its nose at their scent. 

Through the hatch, the network of crawl-spaces and voids led to home; The Church of the Amethyst Emperor. With his task almost over, Zil began to feel a different kind of fear. Not the urgent fear of flight, but the gut-deep dread of a perilous future. Nostrox would not be happy, and worse, with so few surviving Brothers and Elders, other gangs would see the Church as vulnerable.