Corax- Lord of Shadows

by Guy Haley

  He could slaughter them forever and it would do no good. He turned quickly, hurling them from his back, and forced his way to the edge of the walkway.

  The cables holding up the catwalk prevented his escape. Corax shrugged a biting man off his shoulder and swept his claws through. Plasteel parted with melodic twangs. The walkway swayed, but did not fall. Corax plucked a ravening man from his back, using him as a bludgeon to swat away the afflicted. Setting his shoulders forward, he held both claws out sideways and launched himself at the side of the walkway again, cleaving dozens of hawsers in two. Red-hot ends whipped around, cutting limbs loose. The afflicted fought on until they bled out.

  Half-supported, the catwalk sagged under the combined weight of Corax and his attackers. Still he could not get free. He was a caged bird, trapped by a press of howling men and women. Limbs flailed at him weakly as their owners were crushed to death beneath Corax’s bulk and the push of those coming from behind. There were hundreds on the walk now, drawn by the sounds of conflict. In a few seconds he would be buried beneath a tide of mindless flesh.

  Corax slashed downwards with his claws. Metal and sparks tumbled into the open air as he sectioned the grill of the catwalk. Steam burst from ruptured pipes. The afflicted leapt onto him as quickly as he could toss them away. Hands attempted to wrench his helmet from his head. He flung out his arms, spun around to clear a space and, with a thought, spread the Korvidine Pinions, his marvellous mechanical wings. Plasteel feathers burst from the housings on his back to mince half a dozen of the afflicted. More took their place. His wings and claws switched about, their razored metal decapitating and maiming. Still they hurled themselves at him.

  Shouting his anger, Corax dragged his arms free of clumsy grasps and cut at the floor one last time.

  The catwalk lurched and fell, cables pinging as it peeled away from the roof. Conduits snapped with showers of sparks. Human bodies tumbled, teeth still snapping as they plummeted, until the moment of their impact and their second death.

  Corax hurled an afflicted from his face. His wings slashed, obliterating human bodies clinging to him. Finding some balance, he ignited the flightpack jets, incinerating those who raked at his legs. Corax went into a spiral, his flight upset by the human beasts still hanging on to him. He smote at them, and crushed them, until he was free and flying high. He swooped over the crowd of afflicted, who bayed and chased him though they could not catch him. Quickly, he assessed the situation. His warriors, those rare shadow lords, were surrounded. Not one was easy prey, but they were attacked, and many were dragged down, their armour torn free and their bodies clawed to pieces.

  One by one, the bark of boltguns fell silent.

  Corax saw a number escape, clambering high and fast up roof supports. The strength of their armour helped them. Once out of the crowds they were faster than the mind-wiped and outpaced them. But the afflicted were everywhere, and warriors who fought out of one group of shrieking people ran straight into another.

  Corax could carry his sons to safety one at a time, but which first? His eyes darted from warrior to warrior, calculating the order that would allow him to save the most. Screaming in frustration that he could not help them all, Corax dived hard towards Enkern.

  He pulled up hard before he impacted the ground, his jets blasting a dozen of the afflicted to ash. The sweep of his blades cut down a swathe more. Bodies burst under his boots as he landed. Claws out, he cut his way through to his son.

  ‘With me, Enkern!’ he bellowed.

  Enkern was out of bolt-rounds and his gun was jammed with gore from its use as a bludgeon. He slapped it to his thigh and lunged for Corax’s outstretched hand.

  Ceramite gripped ceramite. Corax blasted upwards. He scanned the area, seeking a place of safety. He found one on the highest terrace of a leisure palace. The Mor Deythan Ledennen had already reached the place.

  Corax deposited Enkern alongside his squad brother. Ledennen had locked the doors leading off the balcony into an entertainment area within. The delights of the building were overturned. Shattered furnishings and fine glassware were scattered among bodies felled by Ledennen. On the far side of the windows crowds of degenerates gathered. They pressed those at the front so hard they were pinned against the glass. These were truly dead, the air crushed out of them, but they remained upright.

  ‘There is strength in numbers,’ Corax said. ‘Fight together. I will bring the others here.’

  He was away again, swooping like a hawk into the howling mass. Another of his sons he rescued, then a third. The fourth he could not save, but watched in anger as he was dragged under a writhing forest of limbs.

  Corax blasted upwards, screaming as loudly as his jets. On his faceplate the signum runes of his sons blinked out. Of the twelve Mor Deythan who had accompanied him into the city’s heart, nine remained. Five had made their way from the parklands on their own, three together, the other two alone. The four on the terrace were trapped. He returned to aid them.

  The primarch’s landing cracked the paving.

  The four Mor Deythan stood ready, their bolters aimed at the glass. Enkern had field-stripped and cleaned his weapon. Between them they had maybe three hundred rounds.

  ‘That glass will not hold,’ said Ledennen.

  Corax stared at the mindless herd massing indoors.

  ‘My lord,’ Enkern said. ‘As far as I can ascertain all exits are blocked by afflicted pursuing our brothers. I suggest you depart. We will hold here and wait to be relieved.’

  The glass creaked. Thousands of the afflicted were pouring into the building, pressing into those already there. At the front of the crowd, one of them split open along his belly. He was only the first.

  ‘No,’ said Corax. ‘You will die. I will not allow you to waste yourselves like this. There is a way out.’ He looked upwards to the arcade roof. ‘Into the void.’ He flung himself skyward, claws outstretched, and crashed into one of the transparent domes.

  Diamond-hard glass met monomolecular claws sheathed in lighting. Spears of energy discharge skittered over the glass, earthing themselves in the plasteel muntins separating the giant, triangular panes from each other.

  Corax drew back. The pane was pitted. He dropped towards the ground, arresting his plummet with a rush of exhaust and spread wings. He twisted, and boosted his jets into rapid ascent. He slammed into the dome, his claws unerringly finding the weakness in the glass.

  Corax punched through in a spray of shards, which escaped Zenith-312’s weak gravity and wheeled off into the void.

  A gushing, white curl of escaping atmosphere followed him.

  Over the roar of escaping atmosphere, it was hard to hear his sons’ vox messages.

  ‘My lord! The afflicted have broken through the glass.’

  Bolt fire followed.

  Corax fought his way down through the hurricane. Violent currents tossed him about as he flew back to the terrace. A single sheet in the run of windows on the terrace had fallen to pieces. The afflicted forced their way through, shredding themselves on the jagged edges. Enkern, Ledennen and the rest pumped their remaining bolts into the advancing horde with admirable parsimony, each shot delivered only when ­necessary. Torsos burst. Heads exploded. The afflicted slipped in the spilled guts of their fellows, but the Space Marines might as well have cast pebbles to stop an avalanche.

  Corax grabbed the first of his sons by his backpack and bore him to the breach leading to the void. He threw him bodily into the rush of air, and dived back down. The second he took moments later. By then the afflicted were fanning out, coming at Corax’s warriors from all sides. With the volume of fire coming at them reduced, the horde pressed the Mor Deythan hard. Corax took Enkern as the third, just as the afflicted’s grasping hands were reaching for black armour. Ledennen was left alone.

  ‘Stay alive, my son,’ Corax shouted.

  Ledennen responded with a sp
ray of fully automatic fire.

  With Enkern thrown through the storm and into the safety of the void, Corax plunged again. Ledennen was lost under a seethe of once-men.

  ‘Father…’ Ledennen’s vox crackled in Corax’s ear.

  The primarch swept over the pile, breaking it apart with wing and claw as he flew past, and wheeled back around. There was nowhere to land. The terrace was packed. Ledennen pushed out from the slop of dismembered bodies, and cast himself from the balcony edge before the afflicted could catch him again.

  Corax dived after his falling son, wings shrieking through the vanishing air. He lurched as he caught Ledennen. The legionary’s weight dragged them both groundwards. From the parkland, a forest of hands reached for them.

  Firing his flightpack jets on full burn, Corax brought their plummet under control. The primarch hauled his son away mere centimetres before his feet were snatched by the afflicted.

  He accelerated away from the howling mob.

  Corax rode the decompression gale through the hole and into the void. Hundreds of vox messages bombarded him from all quarters. The attack had been thrown into disarray.

  No more did the void dance with war. Weapons fire had ceased from virtually all quadrants of Zenith-312. Like the Imperium, the Carinaeans utilised servitor technology. In every cyborg dwelled a human brain, and though most were sorry, pruned things, they were as susceptible to the anima-phage’s aggressive rewiring as a normal being’s. The battle was now confined within the city halls. Corax’s plans to take Zenith-312 quickly and intact were in ruins.

  The rescued Shadowmasters were caught in the city’s weak gravity well and drifting back, controlling their approach with bursts of their stabilisation jets.

  Corax’s wings furled. His jets powered down. Automated emergency systems in the grand arcade were closing off the exits to contain the breach and save the rest of the city. The flow of air slackened. Soon the mindless citizens would begin to die for want of oxygen.

  The primarch brought himself to a floating halt and set his armour vox to broadcast on all channels.

  ‘Hear me, Agarth of Zenith-Three-One-Two,’ he said. Such rage infused his words that all who heard it trembled. ‘This atrocity you have perpetrated upon your people will not go unpunished. You cannot hide. You cannot run. I shall find you and make you suffer for your deeds today.’

  Static hiss greeted Corax’s pronouncement. Agarth had no response.

  He turned to face his ships.

  ‘Bring yourselves to the surface,’ he told the Mor Deythan. ‘Maintain constant broadcast of your signum beacons. You will be retrieved. I must return without you.’

  He reset his jets to vacuum burn. Angling himself towards the fleet, he flew as fast as he could to the Saviour in Shadow.

  Fourteen

  dead rising

  Caius Valerius was busy attempting to contact his regimental officers, so at first did not notice the fighting had stopped. He was absorbed by the hissing quiet of open vox-channels that carried no words. The chatter of his regiment shifted quickly from the organised relays of report and command to panic, screams, then nothing. At Caius’ command, the vox-master tuned the company nuncio set up and down the frequencies.

  ‘What has happened? Any word?’ asked Valerius.

  The vox-master, his face set with concentration, shook his head. They tried their own ships first. They too could not make contact with the cohort.

  Caius listened as the vox-master tried each company command, then each section command, of the Therion cohort on Zenith-Three-One-Two. The vox-master repeated the same words to every section before moving on to the next, ‘Section eight-nine-two, this is Therion command, give status,’ he would say, before the brittle click of the nuncio set moved him to the next section, then the next.

  Click. ‘Section eight-nine-three, this is Therion command, give status.’ A million serpents hissed.

  Click. ‘Section eight-nine-four, this is Therion command, give status.’ Static, soporific yet sinister.

  ‘The viral agent. It’s killed them all,’ said the surgeon general. ‘I have never seen anything like it.’

  Click. ‘Section eight-nine-five, this is Therion command, give status.’

  ‘Be quiet, Cordellus,’ said Caius, more harshly than he intended. He was intent on the vox, hoping that others had survived.

  The vox-master moved the dial on. Click. ‘Section eight-nine-six, this is Therion command, give status.’ The vox-master’s face became grimmer with each repetition.

  ‘My advice to you, praefector, is that we immediately withdraw,’ said the surgeon general. ‘If the agent gets in here…’

  ‘Not until we are ordered to by the primarch,’ said Caius.

  ‘Did he sanction the release? Could this be our weapon?’ asked the surgeon general.

  Caius shook his head. ‘Phospex, rad and viral weapons have little favour with Lord Corax. They are too indiscriminate.’

  A final click, the final section. ‘Section nine hundred, this is ­Therion command, give status.’ The vox-master pulled his vox-phones from his ears and looked up wearily. ‘That’s it, sir. All of them. No response.’

  Caius nodded. The vox-master flicked the nuncio to receive. Silent channels shushed them.

  ‘They’re all dead then,’ said Cordellus.

  It was then the command unit noticed an ominous stillness, all together, as if they had been entranced by the vox-master’s calls and had to listen to a set number of repetitions before being released.

  ‘Sir…’ said his ensign.

  Caius looked at his feet. The deck no longer shook to the beat of war’s drum.

  ‘The guns. They’ve stopped,’ said Milontius.

  ‘There’s nothing coming in from the outside either. The fleet has ceased firing on the city.’

  ‘Get me Legion command. Now,’ said Caius.

  ‘Who?’ asked the vox-master.

  ‘Anyone!’ snapped Caius.

  Anyone was easily found. The sleety whisper of dead channels was replaced abruptly with the crackle and bang of bolt weaponry. The sudden change made all the men in the observation deck jump.

  ‘This is Caius Valerius of the Therion Cohort. Who am I speaking with?’

  ‘Captain Effe Dellius.’ The response was terse. The captain had other things than conversation on his mind. ‘I am surprised you are alive.’

  ‘The ventilation systems are inactive in our section.’

  The captain grunted. Incoherent howling, muffled by a ceramite helm, broke apart under the hammer of bolt noise.

  ‘I thought the fighting had stopped,’ said Caius. ‘I require a status update.’

  ‘The city is a loss,’ said Captain Dellius. He was panting with effort. The sound of combat moved away from him a little. The noise of moving power armour stopped as he came to rest. ‘The tyrant Agarth released an anima-phage into the air systems. Everyone’s as good as dead, reduced to animals. The whole city’s turned against us. The Legion is scattered. We’re surrounded on all sides.’ A chilling scream cut across his voice, forcing him to shout.

  ‘The Imperial Army?’

  ‘You’re the last of it,’ said the captain. ‘My Apothecary says the phage will burn itself out if it hasn’t already, but those affected by it are every­where. Stay where you are. You will not be able to hold them back. There are too many.’ Another roaring, bubbling scream. A gunshot. ‘Good fortune, praefector.’

  Captain Effe Dellius severed the link.

  Several more connections were made. All told the same story, Raven Guard legionaries trapped by mobs of ravening citizens. Instead of an army of a few thousand disciplined soldiers, they were fighting a city of mindless creatures who knew no fear of death. The Legion was in uproar. The primarch was missing. There was no guidance for the Therions.

  ‘Terra’s
light,’ whispered Caius. ‘Anima-phage. I thought it was a myth. What kind of man uses such a thing?’

  ‘The one we are fighting,’ said Surgeon General Cordellus.

  Caius looked out of the broken windows to the hangar bay. Five of his drop-ships waited there, leaking coolant vapours from their engine vents. Four more landing pads were occupied with debris piled up by his men.

  ‘Shut down all access to this section,’ said Caius. ‘Post the boarding parties to major ingress points. Redouble effort to clear off those landing pads. Call in more gunships.’

  ‘You’ll be exposing more of our people to the phage if we go back to the fleet,’ said the surgeon general.

  ‘But we’re not infected, are we? And the captain said the virus had burned itself out,’ said Caius. He glanced at a ventilation duct. ‘I’ll not abandon the civilians. Prepare the drop-ships for launch. Begin plans for evacuation!’ He was still issuing orders as he marched out of the room.

  Caius had ordered the door to the warehouse gallery stairs left open. It was a small mercy to the people held within, but probably had next to no effect lowering the temperature. The heat of a thousand confined bodies generated a steady wind that buffeted Caius as he approached the doorway. A pair of elite Therion boarding troops in heavy carapace stood sentry. Caius was already sweating as he passed between them. The heat grew as he descended. The air blowing up was moist, scented with breath and sweat. He couldn’t shake the feeling he was creeping down a great beast’s throat.

  Another of his boarders stood watch from the companionway, a bulky atmospheric sensor unit hung by its recharging cord from his belt. His armour was void-proof and therefore outfitted with layered insulation. It was always hot in those armour sets, Caius remembered well from his days as a line officer, even though they had inbuilt cooling systems. Today, he was one of the lucky few. Hot as the suits were, its meagre cooling systems meant it was far hotter without one.

  Sweat burst out in a wet line across Caius’ forehead, and then like rain, one, two drops, it was flowing out of him everywhere, all at once. His shirt stuck to his back. His skin flushed. He was better off than the detainees sweltering in the warehouse below.