Vex Chronicles 3: Hunt

More death

Unknown freighter, docked to Grandclose

Armegore looked at the surviving hellions. One had the decency to at least be injured. He had survived the grenade not unscathed. He had received his punishment. And the other had at least claimed blood with his glaive.

The remains of the hellion ripped to shreds by the grenade would be dragged in shame back to Commorragh. But the sorry soul that had caused the death of their farseer guide would remain in Armegore's service for quite some time. His skull would serve as his goblet and his spine as a back scratcher. And the freshly flayed skin was draped over the solarite's chair for his comfort.

And the last of the five was still missing. But it barely mattered if she would return or not. She was dead either way – even if Armegore had to end her personally.

But not everything was lost. It was as if luck was still on Armegore's side. The farseer had seen two artifacts converging. And the very same dead mon-keigh that had killed his hellions was an ally of the man that had come to claim the broken puzzle piece.

The armored man's annoying rifle had reached for Armegore like a necron energy weapon. That could only mean one thing. The man had access to the data archives. Archives that Armegore hunted for. Archives that contained fragmented data the solarite had come to assemble.

The treasure hunt wasn't over. It had just become more complicated. Armegore would hunt them, find out where they went, where they came from. And then he would claim his price and redeem his own shame to underestimate a single mon-keigh.

Armegore knew at least one place he had to raid. He knew the ship the treasure hunters had come with. And all he needed to do was spread his wings and observe.

"Vraesha? Any progress?"

The unique woman rose from her place. Vraesha was an odd one. She was every fiber a true connoisseur of pain. But she didn't drew her enjoyment from a bloody raid but the bloodshed she created in her lab.

Two of Vraesha's tools stood beside her. Wretched and naked, their body more scar than flesh. Arms ended in arrays of tools drilled into their bones. One had been another dark eldar. But the other was something priceless. A tau slave turned into obedience slave. And Vraesha had once told him that it was a female. Armegore however couldn't really tell.

"My bait array is still operational," Vraesha said coldly. "We never needed the farseer. Cubbrath should have given him to me from the beginning."

Armegore sneered as he berated her. "What we need are the pieces the mon-keigh have. And your flesh machines only tells were the puzzle pieces had been when they were made. But they are beyond ancient. And your machine can't tell if someone has dragged them off."

The wretched woman seemed to be delighted that she no longer had to deal with Cubbrath. The former raid leader had never given the female haemonculus much attention, sometimes not even answering her.

One of the man choices that had revealed Cubbrath's inability to lead. Vraesha followed a discipline that dedicated her to seek new ways of transcend the thirst of their people. And she saw technology as their way out of the dark eldar's struggles. A good example was her bait array. Armegore had seen it working. But Cubbrath had chosen to trust the farseer's predictions more that that twisted machine.

With the recaptured crew of the freighter and a few grabbed civilians, the array had grown powerful. Their pained screams filled Vraesha's workshop like a fine wine. She would use the bodies as a bait tied to the artifacts. A massive interconnected array of mon-keigh brains and bodies that was like a honeypot for the always learning pile of necron artifacts. And when the necron programs reached out to taste the memories, Vraesha's machines could analyze the program outside of its protective shell.