‘Profuse apologies, Brother Belial,’ Sapphon replied. ‘We have been taking some damage ourselves. A hit amidships has caused a targeting metriculator error with one of the macro-cannons.’
‘Shut it down,’ said Belial. ‘Concentrate all firepower on the secondary bridge and prow sections. We do not need to suffer casualties by our own hand.’
‘Shutting down the battery now, brother. The Lion guards us.’
The Grand Master increased his stride, powering towards the rebels that continued to fire at him from the left. Unlike those confronted by the Knight Master and his two warriors, these traitors held their ground, firing desperately with lasguns and shotguns. His energy field a shimmering aura of red around him, Belial fell upon the closest group with the Sword of Silence.
Belial was one of the foremost blademasters of the Chapter, and had defeated nearly all challengers since he had been inducted into the Dark Angels ranks. The ship’s crew were little more challenge to him than the straw-stuffed dummies he had, as a child, attacked on the training fields of Bregundia, when he had been a squire in the Society of the Ebon Star. The Sword of Silence parted raised rifle butts, arms and necks without hesitation or favour, rendering Belial’s victory a simple matter of mathematics and time.
A tech-priest held his ground before him, his left arm replaced with a scythe-fingered claw that gleamed with a power field. Beneath his hood, his face was masked with bronze and gold, a tear-like ruby studding the left cheek – a curiously emotional adornment for one who had been a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Though his weapon posed more of a threat than the daggers and bayonets of the crew, his skill was no greater. Belial parried the first swiping blow, the clash of weapons unleashing a miniature storm of lightning. Not wishing to waste any time in the conclusion of his mission, Belial turned his wrist and thrust, lancing the point of his blade into the throat of the tech-priest. He withdrew the sword and the dead adept slid to the ground, half-decapitated, artificial windpipe hissing air like a broken valve.
The tech-priests realised that if they retreated they would allow Belial free rein on the reactor deck. This was unacceptable, so they bellowed orders in metallic tones, physically restraining some of their warriors from retreating. Despite the crew’s bolstered enthusiasm, this resurgent offensive was no better than the defence, and Belial shot twenty or thirty foes over the following minute, dissuading any further assault.
Across the sensorium, he could see that Zandorael, Cragarion and Deralus had finally run their prey to ground, cornering several dozen crew against a trio of pipes, each higher than a man was tall, which cut across the surrounding causeway to aft, linking the reactors to the main engines. The green glow from their flail and maces gave the carnage an otherworldly air, clouds of emerald fumes swirling and twisting with each swing of a weapon.
The sensorium alerted Belial to the arrival of a conveyor a few metres ahead of him, descending from one of the upper decks. The telescoping doors rattled open. The tech-priests and their soldiers parted to reveal the occupants of the transport cage.
Two hulking figures almost filled the doorway. Belial recognised the monstrous ogryns they had once been, but little remained of the abhumans’ natural bodies. Pale blue flesh was ridged with subcutaneous bony implants and their veins stood out like cords, pulsing with near-toxic levels of stimulants and steroidal compounds. Their heads were encased in steel helms, just a slit left for them to see, their squinting red eyes visible within. Their hands had been removed, on the one replaced with circular chainblades, on the other a drill-like appendage and a power hammer.
In the small gap between their bulk, Belial saw their handler. She too was dressed in Adeptus Mechanicus robes, but there was armour beneath her vestments, pale grey and made up of overlapping scales. Belial glimpsed the blue glow of a plasma containment field – a pistol in the magos’s hand.
‘Finally,’ Belial said to his companions, lifting his blade with a flourish, ‘a foe that might test me.’
A Missing Brother
Under Tybalain’s control, the Land Speeder glided to a halt beside a tangle of wreckage that almost blocked one of Streisgant’s streets. Annael turned the heavy bolter to cover the upper storeys of a shell-pocked building to the left, then swung it to the right towards the main avenue. The area was deserted, but the instinct for alertness was ingrained into every cell of his body.
‘This is definitely the place,’ said Tybalain, dismounting from the hovering Land Speeder. On the Swiftclaw’s scanner flickered the tracer beacon of Sergeant Polemetus’s Tactical Dreadnought armour, indicating a point somewhere just behind the twisted metal and cables. ‘Casualty report has the sergeant failing to teleport back to orbit with his squad but none of them saw him fall.’
Tybalain pulled aside a jagged sheet of plasteel. A smoking engine block fell free. Annael could make out the shape of three walkers in the mangled ruin, each nearly twice the height of a Space Marine. Their frames bore holes from bolt detonations and the distinctive molten-edged folds where a power fist had torn at them. There were other signs of damage: the slash of a power sword, the blackened, sticky residue of burned promethium from a heavy flamer.
‘He’s here,’ announced Tybalain, shouldering aside one of the burned and broken war machines. A multi-barrelled laser like the one on Kamata’s transport flopped uselessly on its mounting as the Huntmaster heaved at the wrecked walker some more.
The bone-coloured armour of Polemetus was stark against the dark ferrocrete road. Annael could see the red of the Dark Angels insignia on his shoulder plate, and the golden winged skull on his chest. A piece of armoured leg lay across him, severed at the top with a neat blow from a powered blade. That blade was still in his hand. There was no sign of his head.
‘Definitely dead,’ said Annael. ‘May his shade be honoured for his valour.’
‘Honour his shade,’ Tybalain murmured in reply, stepping back from the corpse. ‘That leaves us with Sabrael and Orius to confirm.’
‘The closest is the position we last saw Sabrael,’ said Annael, scrolling the navigational display on the console in front of him. He studied the schematic data. ‘Some of the invading forces are still holding out between here and there. The Tharsians were outflanked when our brothers in the Deathwing pulled out with their prize. It looks like they’re content just to contain the enemy.’
‘That shall be our next objective,’ said Tybalain, climbing back aboard the Land Speeder.
The whine from the anti-grav engine increased as the Huntmaster took them above the pile of wreckage, joined by the throatier roar of the thrust engines. The Land Speeder darted forward, the gloss black of its armoured hull reflecting the sky. Smoke clouds were clearing above, leaving a vibrant indigo in their wake. It was late afternoon and the local sun was just over the tops of the buildings, gleaming from thousands of shattered windows.
Annael continued to track back and forth with the heavy bolter, one eye on the scanner, the other ahead. Tybalain steered the skimmer with the casual ease of several decades’ experience, flitting along alleys barely wide enough to accommodate them, turning at speed into broad marketplaces and racing across battle-scarred plazas.
They came across groups of civilians picking through the wreckage of their homes. Most stopped and stared as the Dark Angels sped past. Some cheered, a few waved, but many were just dumb with shock, staring with vacant eyes at the gods of war in their midst.
Annael noticed that most were young, less than thirty years old, except for a few womenfolk. The oldest men would have been youths when Astelan and his Sacred Bands interned and slaughtered millions as he ruled from the Slaughterkeep. A lot were younger still, fortunate not to remember those harrowing times in any detail.
Generations lost, Annael considered. Perverted to a barbaric cause by the Fallen or slain for their opposition, or even their apathy. Streisgant had been built anew
but the wounds of the turmoil were written deep into the people of Tharsis. They would take generations more to heal, and fresh wounds had been opened by this latest war.
‘Curse the traitors, curse all of them,’ growled Annael. ‘May their souls burn in eternal agony for the woes they have heaped upon these people.’
‘They will,’ Tybalain assured him. ‘As soon as our blades and bolts deliver them to that hell.’
A few moments later Annael detected the metronomic crash of an artillery piece not far away. It seemed to be firing point-blank, judging by the time between the crack of its fire and the thunder of the shell’s detonation. He looked around and saw a plume of wind-blown dust rising over the buildings ahead and to the left. Correlating this with his scanner data, he saw that the traitors were holed up in a habitation block ten storeys high, overlooking several manufactorums and workshops in which the Tharsians had made their stand.
‘Sabrael fell on the boulevard on the opposite side of that hab-block,’ he told Tybalain. ‘If we continue on this road and swing–’
‘No need for a lengthy detour,’ said Tybalain, slinging the Land Speeder into a tight climbing turn over the roofs flanking the street they were following. They continued to ascend, flitting through billows of steam escaping from a sprawling laundry works, churning vortices in their wake as the Huntmaster accelerated.
A warning sounded from the auspex, detecting an incoming projectile. Tybalain was already jerking the control column to the right as Annael looked up to see a missile streaking down at them from the upper storeys of the hab-block. The projectile whistled past a few metres to their left and detonated on the roof of the laundry.
Annael traced back the trajectory in a second and swung the heavy bolter around. He opened fire, steady bursts of four rounds each. The explosive-tipped bolts punched into the ferrocrete wall around the window from which the missile had been fired and exploded in the room within.
The artillery piece, somewhere off to the right, fired again and a chunk of the building’s corner three storeys up fell away into the street. Exposed pipes gushed water and severed power lines hurled sparks after the debris.
Now that they were closer, Annael could see the criss-cross of las and tracer fire between the lower levels and the Tharsian troopers holding ground in the surrounding complexes. Tybalain steered the Land Speeder down to ground level, barely a metre clearance beneath them as they screamed along the main road past the hab-complex. From here Annael saw the piles of dead by the doors into the hab-building, dressed in the fatigues of the Tharsian militia, the casualties of failed assaults.
‘What are you waiting for?’ snapped Tybalain. ‘Targets of opportunity, open fire!’
Snapped out of his reverie, ashamed at the momentary loss of focus, Annael let his embarrassment become ire. He unleashed a long salvo of fire from the heavy bolter, tearing along the second-floor windows with a storm of bolts. He saw flashes of pale, pain-wracked faces in some of the windows, the bricks and frames spattered with blood.
With the buzz of a gigantic hornet, the assault cannon opened fire under Tybalain’s control. Annael felt the shock of the sudden recoil slowing the speeder in midair, such was the torrent of projectiles unleashed by the rotary cannon. A cluster of stained-glass windows on the ground floor – the local chapel, it seemed – disappeared in a welter of flying coloured glass and spinning masonry shards.
Tybalain reversed the jet flow hard, swinging the Land Speeder around in a tight u-turn. They had come to a hover opposite one of the hab-block’s entrances. The short flight of steps was red with dried blood, three bodies sprawled by the thick wooden doors.
‘Suppression fire, second floor,’ Tybalain snapped. He switched his vox-unit to external address. ‘Warriors of Tharsis, reclaim your lands from the traitor filth! We of the Dark Angels stand proud to be counted amongst your allies.’
Annael opened fire again, short bursts into each window above the entrance, quickly moving from one to the next and back again. Tybalain turned the doors to matchwood with a burst from the assault cannon and then churned a few thousand rounds into the surrounding rooms, the armour-piercing ammunition tearing holes through the ferrocrete.
A Tharsian officer had taken the lead, confidence buoyed by the presence of the Angels of Death. A platoon of militia followed the sword-waving Tharsian across the road, plunging up the steps with bayonets fitted to their lasguns. Renewed fire sprang up around the Land Speeder as the Tharsians poured on everything they had, covering the attack of two more platoons dashing across the road.
Not all made it. Bullets and lasbeams sprang out from the upper floors, cutting down a quarter of the Tharsians in the open. Annael did his best to return fire with the heavy bolter, as Tybalain manoeuvred from one group to the next.
The attack warning sounded again, but this time Tybalain did not have time to evade the incoming missile. It struck the Swiftclaw on the engine pod just behind Annael’s head. His armour blared alerts as shrapnel and fire engulfed him.
The Swiftclaw spun sharply to the left, turning three full circles before Tybalain was able to equalise the thruster outputs. Annael leaned sideways and looked back so he could evaluate the damage. Smoke leaked out of cracked ceramite and the buckled armour plate beneath. The fire soon sputtered out, doused by internal regulator systems. There was a speckling of frost along one side of the jagged gash.
‘Coolant system pierced. We won’t be able to achieve maximum speed without overheating.’
‘We have done enough here,’ said Tybalain, aiming the Land Speeder down the street. ‘Let us see what has become of Sabrael.’
Annael fired a few more bursts into briefly-glimpsed figures on the third and fourth floors while Tybalain concentrated on keeping the Land Speeder moving straight, boosting the power on the anti-grav plate to compensate for the damaged engine. The Swiftclaw rocked slowly from side to side as though riding a wave, making it difficult for Annael to maintain any accuracy, but he poured what fire he could into the visible enemy before they broke away at the end of the main street.
A sharp left took them under a rail bridge and then they climbed over the peaked roof of the station terminus building, narrowly avoiding its clock tower. Beyond lay the long boulevard that would take them to Sabrael’s last known position.
Three hundred metres out, Annael knew they should have picked up his battle-brother’s telemetry signal. There was nothing on the scanner. On its own this meant nothing, as the beacon in their armour suits was often one of the first systems to cut out in the event of power loss or damage. However, in the context of the hostage situation, Annael felt a mixture of hope and annoyance. Hope that his brother – his friend, he admitted – might be alive, spoiled by the annoyance that Sabrael would dishonour them all by allowing himself to be captured.
They found the exact spot where the Black Knights had turned back from their attack on the orders of Asmodai, and Sabrael had continued on to confront an enemy transport on his own. Tybalain slowed as they turned the next corner. There was a small crater in the road, surrounded by pieces of black-enamelled armour. Four bodies, or pieces of bodies, were scattered further out, bloodied and burned.
‘It looks like he used the terminus protocol,’ said Annael.
‘Not so,’ said Tybalain, bringing the Land Speeder to a hover next to the site of the detonation.
The Huntmaster dismounted and picked through the wreckage for a couple of minutes. He returned, holding a broken piece of fuel tank.
‘It’s all from his steed, no pieces from his battleplate,’ Tybalain said, tossing the debris away. ‘The corpses are Tharsian youths. Sabrael must have been taken and his steed activated its anti-tamper terminus command. The Tharsians most likely thought they had found something worth looting and the bike detonated its plasma talon core.’
The Huntmaster pulled himself back into the driver’s position, but he laid
his hands on the console rather than taking hold of the controls. His head was dipped for some time, deep in thought. Eventually he straightened and grabbed the steering column.
‘It seems our wayward brother is alive, but possibly not for long.’
Blade Versus Beast
Belial moved to intercept the augmented ogryns before they could exit the confines of the conveyor cage. He fired his storm bolter at the closest monster, the rounds tearing chunks out of its rivet-pierced flesh. The damage was superficial, a thick layer of fat and slabs of muscle preventing the bolts penetrating to any depth.
There was a particular art to fighting in Terminator armour, using the impetus of attack to overcome the bulk of the war-plate. Belial was well-versed in this style of fighting and raised his blade to slash at the wounded ogryn as he passed. The Sword of Silence connected with the elbow of his target, severing the arm to send its whirring chainblade clattering to the deck.
The ogryn barely noticed, lunging with its other arm as it stepped out of the conveyor, the teeth of its circular saw screeching across Belial’s left shoulder pad and marring the crux terminatus displayed there. Belial’s attention was fixed on the next ogryn, which was struggling to get past its companion.
The Sword of Silence flashed towards the abhuman’s chest but deflected from the glowing head of the ogryn’s hastily-raised hammer-hand. Sparks flared across its pale chest and Belial’s plate. Its spinning drill met the Grand Master’s charge, the diamond-glinting point slamming into his abdominal armour.
The blow nearly stopped him on the spot, his next step faltering, leaving him vulnerable to the ogryn coming up from behind. Belial shifted his weight and twisted, the flat of his blade knocking aside the chainblade aimed for him. He fired his storm bolter into the gut of the ogryn with the drill embedded in his armour, shredding more flesh and the underlay of bionics and organic enhancements. He allowed himself to be pushed by the beast’s drill-fist rather than let it dig into his war-plate further, turning almost into the creature’s embrace to slash the Sword of Silence down its thigh.
The Unforgiven - Gav Thorpe Page 6