Warriors of the Imperium - Andy Hoare & S P Cawkwell

by Warhammer 40K

  Voldorius lingered a moment longer, before passing to the last of the officers that had dared step before him.

  ‘Elenritch,’ Voldorius addressed the lord colonel. ‘Your sin has caused this.’

  Elenritch glanced sidelong towards the huge screen and the scene of utter devastation it relayed. Slowly, he shook his shaven head, the eldritch tattoos etched across his temples seeming to writhe with the movement.

  ‘You gainsay my word, mortal?’ Voldorius said, bringing himself to his full height.

  ‘I…’ the lord colonel said, his control remarkable given the circumstances. ‘I cannot take sole blame, my lord.’

  ‘That much is true,’ the daemon prince replied. ‘But the Ironsoul was your responsibility.’

  ‘I could not have…’ Elenritch started.

  ‘The seals were clearly insufficient!’ Voldorius bellowed, causing the officers before him and everyone in the command chamber to cringe before the force of his voice. ‘All were insufficient!’

  Though Malya’s mind reeled before the psychic backwash of the daemon’s wrath, she forced herself to key her message into the terminal while she had the chance. She would not have much time to compose a detailed communication, so she committed only the bare facts to her transmission. The tertiary gate in wall section twelve, minimal fortification…

  Risking the extra few seconds it would take to input, Malya confirmed that Voldorius had the prisoner the Space Marines had demanded to know of, and described his location in the holding cells adjacent to the Cathedral of the Emperor’s Wisdom.

  Malya was interrupted as Voldorius growled, ‘Morkis.’

  The chamber fell to shocking silence once more, the only sound that of the banks of cogitators churning in the background. Malya looked around to see that all heads were turned towards Lord Colonel Morkis. A cold dread settled across the assembled staff.

  ‘My lord?’ Morkis replied.

  ‘Why,’ Voldorius rumbled, ‘do you not take your place amongst these fools?’

  ‘I was not…’ Morkis began, glancing across at Malya then stammering to a halt. Clearly, there was no answer he could give that would exonerate any of them.

  ‘Who then?’ Voldorius replied, his voice low and dangerous.

  ‘My lord?’ said Morkis.

  ‘Who then,’ Voldorius growled, ‘is responsible?’

  ‘My lord,’ Morkis replied, casting a hateful stare at Malya. ‘I do not…’

  ‘Name he who is responsible!’ Voldorius roared. Several of the staff officers looking on collapsed to the floor before the torrent of rage that assailed all in the chamber. Malya decided that the message she had composed would have to be sufficient, for she might not have any longer to finish it. It remained only for her to direct the machine-spirit to ready the message for transmission.

  Now Lord Colonel Morkis brought himself to his full height, his eyes narrowing and his face taking on a hateful scowl. As Voldorius waited, Morkis scanned the line of officers drawn up before their master.

  Quartermaster General Ackenvol took a step forwards, before General Orson’s hand grabbed his elbow and restrained him with a sharp gesture. ‘Filth!’ Ackenvol spat at Morkis. ‘Nothing but a highborn dilettante with delusions of glory!’

  Morkis sneered at Malya, then turned his attentions fully towards the Quartermaster General. Morkis stepped forwards, falteringly at first but, when Voldorius made no reply, with more purpose. Then he stood before Ackenvol, who scowled down at the lord colonel with utter contempt writ large across his face.

  ‘I name Quartermaster General Ackenvol,’ Morkis announced to the entire chamber. ‘He is responsible.’

  ‘Then kill him.’ Voldorius said.

  ‘What?’ Lord Colonel Morkis uttered.

  ‘Kill him,’ Voldorius repeated. ‘Or die in his place.’

  Malya could barely tear her eyes away from the scene unfolding before her, but she forced herself to glance furtively down at the vox-terminal. The machine was processing her message, applying the blessed ciphers and readying it for transmission. Part of her could scarcely believe that with the Space Marines closing on the walls of Mankarra, Voldorius would divert his attentions in such a manner. Another part of her accepted it as entirely typical of the fell being’s heinous demeanour. She was thankful she could not comprehend the ways of the daemon prince. It confirmed to her that she was still human, and an innocent.

  In the centre of the chamber Lord Colonel Morkis was drawing an ornate, gold-chased laspistol from a holster at his belt. Quartermaster General Ackenvol’s eyes never left the face of the lord colonel, even as the weapon was raised to point directly at his chest. The Quartermaster General might have been a traitor, but he faced death if not with honour then with nobility at least.

  ‘Morkis,’ interjected Lannus as Morkis’s finger tightened on the trigger of his pistol. ‘You needn’t–’

  Morkis jerked the laspistol towards Lannus and a searing white blast spat out. The shot caught the other man in the side of the head, vaporising half of his skull in an instant.

  Lannus’s body crashed backwards into a group of staff officers, who stumbled away from it in disgust as blood and gore splattered their uniforms.

  Morkis was warming to his new role as Voldorius’s executioner, a wicked sneer creasing his sly face. The sound of Voldorius’s low, grating chuckle filled the command chamber.

  Even before Lannus’s body had hit the floor, Morkis had snapped the laspistol back to bear on the Quartermaster General. Ackenvol had not moved. He was too proud to squirm before the vengeful Morkis.

  ‘Would not that weapon be put to better use blowing your own sorry excuse for a brain to atoms?’ said the Quartermaster General.

  The laspistol quivered in Morkis’s hand and his face twisted into an animalistic sneer. ‘My dear Quartermaster General,’ said Morkis. ‘I’m going to save you…’

  The laspistol swung rapidly to the left and a second blast filled the chamber. The shot took Lord Colonel Elenritch square in the chest, punching a hole straight through his torso. The officer stood for a moment, his face displaying an expression not of shock, but of outrage. Then the lord colonel crumpled to a heap upon the chamber floor and the laspistol swung around to point at Lord Kline, the Marshal-in-Chief of the Muster.

  ‘…until last,’ Morkis finished, his eyes now shining with cold madness.

  Malya dared risk a glance at the vox-terminal, and saw with relief that the machine-spirit had completed its ministrations and was ready to transmit her message. She would have to judge the moment of transmission carefully, lest she be discovered at the very last.

  Kline stood as erect as Ackenvol, prepared to face his death and stoically refusing to cower before his executioner. General Orson however, made a sudden dash towards one of the chamber portals. He was dead, a smoking hole in his back, before he had gone three steps.

  Still Malya’s finger hovered over the transmission rune.

  ‘If Ackenvol is last,’ Morkis sneered at Lord Kline, ‘then you must be next, my lord marshal.’

  ‘Whichever of us you kill,’ said Ackenvol, ‘the other shall have vengeance.’

  ‘Oh really?’ sneered Morkis, levelling his weapon at the Quartermaster General’s head. ‘Then it’ll have to be you!’

  Morkis fired, and Ackenvol’s head snapped backwards, a searing hole burned between his eyes. At the very same instant, Lord Kline threw himself forwards, closing the gap before Morkis could bring his pistol to bear on him. Malya saw her chance and depressed the transmission rune, instructing the vox-terminal to send her message.

  Kline barrelled into Lord Colonel Morkis, bellowing an incoherent roar of anger and vengeance. The two men crashed to the floor and as one the assembled staff officers sprang backwards. The daemon prince had turned his back on the spectacle and was making for the exit as a shot rang out in t
he centre of the command chamber. Lord Kline was astride Morkis, his hands gripped around the other’s throat. Lord Colonel Morkis, Malya saw with not a little pleasure, had been throttled to death. But Morkis had unleashed a final blast of his laspistol, blowing Kline’s stomach away, its contents spilling across the lord colonel even as he died.

  Then, the body of Lord Kline collapsed atop that of Lord Colonel Morkis. Three dozen terrified faces turned towards Lord Voldorius as he halted at the chamber door and turned to face the command staff.

  ‘All here have failed me,’ Voldorius growled. His fell gaze swept the entire chamber and then alighted upon Malya. ‘Or betrayed me.’

  Malya knew in that moment that she would soon die. She welcomed it. Her soul yearned to flee her body, to be rid of the vile taint of the warp that Voldorius exuded. She shed her despair and stood proud and tall before her tormentor, awaiting the death she knew must be at hand.

  Voldorius stepped forwards, his gaze locked upon Malya, his nostrils flaring as he breathed hard.

  ‘Do it!’ Malya said, feeling suddenly free. She had done her duty, sent the message that would bring about the deliverance of her people. Now, she could die.

  Voldorius loomed over Malya, pressing as close as he had to any of the senior officers whose bodies were now scattered across the floor. His face closed on hers, every bestial detail filling her vision. Still, Malya refused to cower, knowing only the grace of the Emperor, at whose table she would soon be seated.

  ‘Do you believe,’ said Voldorius, his breath a caustic gale in Malya’s face, ‘that I would cast you aside so casually?’

  Malya closed her eyes, blocking out the sight of the daemon prince’s terrible visage. She felt Voldorius stir before her, and screwed her eyes tighter shut.

  ‘Well you may fall silent, equerry’ said Voldorius. ‘But you shall continue to serve. Of that you can be certain.’

  Then Malya’s soul was assailed by a tide of force, and she was cast violently to the floor. She could not open her eyes, so powerful was the torrent, which she knew in that moment was the very stuff of Voldorius’s rage and evil pouring from him in palpable waves. Screams echoed around her, accompanied by the sickening crack of splintering bones and the wet impact of chunks of bloody flesh being scattered across the chamber.

  She felt her own body being torn in multiple directions at once by the unadulterated evil of Lord Voldorius. But she resisted the onslaught, drawing on impossibly deep wells of faith.

  Then all fell silent. Malya found herself prostrate upon a blood-slick floor, panting for breath. She was stunned but to her amazement she was still alive.

  Malya opened her eyes to find Lord Voldorius looming over her. She was drenched in blood, her black equerry’s robe tattered and torn to shreds.

  A drop of liquid fell upon her face and Malya looked upwards towards the chamber ceiling. It took her eyes a moment to focus, but when they did, Malya realised that the liquid was blood. The entire ceiling was coated in a glistening sheen of crimson. Congealing rivulets dripped down to the floor of the chamber.

  Every surface of the command chamber had been turned dark red. She gasped as the full enormity of what had occurred struck her. Aside from the blood, there was no sign of the dozens of staff officers that had occupied the chamber scant moments before. Not even a shard of broken bone remained.

  ‘Now, equerry, your true service begins’ said Voldorius. ‘You shall know the truth, and it shall set you free.’

  ‘I will not–’ she began.

  ‘You have not the choice,’ Voldorius interjected. ‘The Bloodtide refuses to serve, and so you shall do so in its stead.’

  Voldorius studied Malya, his eyes narrowing to black slits. His nostrils flared as he breathed and his mouth split into a feral grin, razor-sharp teeth glinting in the red light. ‘The prisoner defied me, and refused to unleash the power of the Bloodtide in my name.’

  Malya’s head swam as her mind was filled with frozen, staccato images and fragments of forbidden knowledge. The silver-bodied prisoner treading a landscape of flensed bones. Voldorius as a mortal ordering the prisoner to unleash the Bloodtide. A city drowning as every one of its citizens bled out. The skies above a feral world burning as an entire Imperial Navy Fleet plummeted through the atmosphere. A forge world of the Adeptus Mechanicus, its population dead, but its machineries grinding on for centuries before anyone noticed. Voldorius again, his mortal body changing to his daemonic form as the powers of the warp granted him his reward. The prisoner set within the brass orb that was its cell, to sleep until its powers were restored and the Bloodtide would rise again…

  Then the images ceased and realisation came to Malya. ‘The prisoner defies you…’

  ‘But you,’ said Voldorius, his face lowering to the level of Malya’s, ‘shall not.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You shall take the Bloodtide into you,’ Voldorius pressed. ‘You shall be the contaminator hive, the angelic host. You have shown by your resistance and fortitude that you can withstand the Bloodtide, as I knew when first I saw you in the grand square.’

  ‘No,’ Malya repeated.

  ‘Your faith shall be your undoing, Malya L’nor,’ said Voldorius. ‘Within you is a flame that refuses to be quenched. You have burned, but you have not been consumed. And so you prove to me your worthiness to host the Bloodtide!

  ‘Now sleep,’ said Voldorius, and Malya’s world grew dark before his fell influence. ‘When you awaken, you shall be mine.’

  ‘Captain Shrike,’ Techmarine Dyloss called over the roar that filled the interior of the Thunderhawk gunship. ‘Priority transmission, cipher delta delta nine.’

  ‘You are certain?’ Shrike replied, turning in his grav-couch to look the Techmarine in the eye. Dyloss simply nodded.

  ‘It’s a transmission from within the city, brother-captain. It’s her.’

  The cipher told Shrike that the message was genuine. He had supplied Malya L’nor several different ciphers, so that should she be compelled to betray the Space Marines she could indicate it by her choice of codes without her torturer’s knowledge.

  Shrike indicated that the Techmarine should continue.

  ‘The message indicates that the tertiary gate,’ he looked at a data-slate and went on, ‘gate sigma by our designation, is not fully fortified.’

  ‘Then that shall be our target,’ said Shrike.

  ‘There is more, Shadow Captain,’ the Techmarine continued. ‘The prisoner. It is there after all. She has transmitted its location.’

  Shrike nodded slowly, before answering. ‘Inform Kor’sarro of gate sigma.’

  ‘That is all?’ the Techmarine said.

  ‘That is all,’ Shrike answered. ‘Take us in.’

  Chapter 12

  The gates of mankarra

  Kor’sarro sped across the volcanic plain, closing on the towering walls of Mankarra. As the White Scars neared the walls, row upon row of severed heads became visible mounted on spikes along the summit, evidence, if any more were needed, of the evil of Lord Voldorius.

  The Master of the Hunt had deployed his force into a classic arrowhead formation with himself and his Command squad at the very tip. Dozens of White Scars bikers were arrayed to either side, and behind them came the armoured vehicles, clouds of black dust thrown up in their wake.

  Those squads that had been exfiltrated from the battlefield by Thunderhawk had soon rejoined their bike- and armoured-vehicle-borne brethren, while the Raven Guard’s gunships soared overhead. Both Chapters were closing on a single target – the gate Shrike’s informant had directed them to attack.

  The Raven Guard gunships swept overhead and banked as they came into range of the defence towers on either side of the gate. As the distance to the wall decreased the gate’s poor state and lack of maintenance became evident. Lengths of the massive wall had been strengthened by the additi
on of armour plating and gun positions. Those who enacted the will of Voldorius were ill-schooled in the arts of fortification. Or perhaps they simply lacked the resources and time to fully prepare for the assault that even now descended upon the walls of Mankarra.

  The gate was faced in cast bronze and glowed as if aflame as it reflected the orange light of Quintus’s sun. The twenty metre-tall portal displayed a devotional scene, heroic warriors of the Emperor fighting the barbaric greenskins. It was a reminder of the primary role of the planet as a bulwark against the xenos filth that swarmed across nearby systems. It was tragic that the defenders should have been turned to the service of the Great Enemy and must now be laid low by their erstwhile allies.

  As the range closed still further, the Raven Guard’s gunships banked as they swept around the defence towers. Las and autocannon fire spat upwards to engage the Thunderhawks. But the gunners were either panicked or so poorly trained and led that few shots came close enough to worry Shrike’s pilots.

  ‘Thunderheart!’ Kor’sarro called into the vox-net. The siege tank ground forwards, flanked protectively by the brotherhood’s Predator tanks. ‘To the fore!’

  Kor’sarro and his Command squad veered to the right and slowed to a halt before the walls. Within moments, the entire arrowhead was arrayed likewise and the armoured vehicles were pushing through the gap in the formation.

  With so many gun positions mounted on the walls, Kor’sarro felt terribly exposed in that moment. Even as the feeling sank in, they began to open fire on the now stationary White Scars. ‘Now would be good, Shrike,’ Kor’sarro growled.

  As if in answer, the skies overhead erupted as two-dozen hellstrike missiles were unleashed by the Raven Guard’s gunships. The missiles streaked through the air upon churning contrails and slammed into their targets. The summits of both defence towers burst into flame, showering the black plains all around with razor-sharp shards of rockcrete.

  ‘The beast roars,’ Kor’sarro spoke the command as the Thunderheart approached the mighty bronze gates. Desultory fire spat down upon the siege tank, but without the defence towers there was little the defenders could do to oppose Thunderheart’s approach.