Kor’sarro shielded his face from the silver flames, but he refused to retreat. He was here, and so too was Voldorius. Only one of them, he vowed, would leave.
After a moment the leaping flames had died down, ghostly wisps of unnatural fire licking across the stone floor. An explosion sounded nearby as the flames reached one of the tech-adepts’ machines. Though the central conflagration was quieting, smaller, secondary fires were being touched off all around.
‘It is ended,’ Kor’sarro growled. ‘I am come for your head.’
Lord Voldorius studied Kor’sarro’s face, his head cocked as if he were listening to something that no mortal could possibly hear. Then the daemon shook his head and snapped his mighty black wings.
‘I have not failed,’ Voldorius suddenly roared, drawing his huge black sword. ‘Not if your broken body is cast before me!’
‘He has failed!’ came the voice of the woman on the surgical table. ‘The Bloodtide is destroyed…’ her voice trailed out with a note of madness.
Voldorius turned to face the woman, and took a step towards her, his sword raised.
‘The Bloodtide?’ Kor’sarro repeated. All-but-forbidden lore imparted to him by the Stormseers came to his mind. The legends of Voldorius bringing about the death of entire sectors, slaughtering billions in a single night…
‘You sought to resurrect the Bloodtide?’ he spat. ‘No.’
Voldorius paused, flames licking around his feet. Another of the ritual machines exploded, showering the woman’s body with sparks.
‘He’s failed…’ the woman called, her voice now shrill with madness. ‘He’s failed…’
Voldorius exploded into violent motion. He raised his black sword high, shadow radiating from it as light shines from a lantern. He brought the huge blade down, but not upon the figure restrained on the surgical table. He brought it instead into a mighty horizontal sweep that struck the base of the statue of the Emperor Triumphant with a titanic impact.
Stone exploded in every direction and a crack cut across the statue’s base. Voldorius turned on Kor’sarro and raised his blade above his head to strike the White Scar down.
Kor’sarro raised Moonfang as he moved to avoid the worst of the blow. The sacred blade turned the daemon’s strike, though only barely, the black sword scything the air scant millimetres from Kor’sarro’s face.
The black blade struck the stone floor, jagged cracks spreading out from the impact. The entire platform shook, forcing the combatants to brace their feet.
Kor’sarro saw his opportunity, and took it. He lunged inside the daemon’s reach and put every ounce of his strength into a mighty upwards thrust.
Moonfang sank into the daemon’s midriff, a flood of black ichor spilling out around its grip and staining Kor’sarro’s armour. He twisted the blade savagely, then withdrew it, leaping back, raising the sword high and preparing to strike the deathblow.
The entire cathedral shook as the sound of tortured stone filled the air.
Kor’sarro made ready to strike again, but the deep wound he had just inflicted was healing before his very eyes. The bestial face of the daemon prince was split by a leering grin of triumph.
‘You cannot slay me, scarred one!’ Voldorius bellowed over the ever-increasing sound of crumbling rock.
Kor’sarro drew breath to reply, but his words stuck in his throat. The towering stature of the Emperor Triumphant was collapsing downwards in a shower of masonry.
‘Maybe I cannot,’ Kor’sarro growled, ‘but there are higher powers than me…’
A huge splinter of rock detached from the statue’s flank and slid downwards as if in slow motion, falling directly towards the daemon prince.
But the falling splinter of statue would crush the woman too.
As swiftly as Kor’sarro discerned her fate, he determined to avert it. As a hundred tonnes of rock descended upon Voldorius, Kor’sarro dived forwards. In three steps, he was at the surgical table. With no time to spare, Kor’sarro tore apart the restraints, cast his arm about the woman’s waist and threw himself forwards as the splinter crashed down.
In that instant, the entire world exploded. The splinter shattered into a million smaller fragments and the ground trembled as if a starship had crashed to earth. The entire cathedral was suddenly filled with the dust of a hundred tonnes of rock pulverised by the impact. Instinctively, Kor’sarro used his armoured body to protect the exposed form cradled in his arms, for the rock shrapnel sent up by the impact would have slain her as surely as if he had left her to die upon the table.
Finally, the rain of stone subsided and the dust began to clear. The once glorious statue lay broken and shattered. It was split into many pieces, some huge and still recognisable, others reduced to rough boulders. Upon the platform lay the fragment that had once been the Emperor’s upraised arm. Upon the stairs lay a portion of a leg, and along a fifty-metre stretch of the nave was scattered the remainder of the statue.
The combatants who had been fighting one another the length of the nave stirred, casting about for dropped weapons and blades. The slaughter would begin anew.
Kor’sarro set the fragile form held in his arms down, and stepped forwards, looking around for Moonfang.
The dust stirred.
The mighty form of Lord Voldorius reared from the billowing cloud, his wings, now tattered and ragged, unfolding overhead. Voldorius raised his black sword high above his head, his snarling face a mask of savage, daemonic fury.
A second figure rose from the dust behind Voldorius. Arcs of blue lightning spat to life and the air crackled.
The daemon prince faltered, his back arching. Searing blue light appeared at the centre of his chest, followed a second later by the tips of four razor-sharp talons. Voldorius made to turn to face his assailant, twisting his body to free himself from the talons.
At Kor’sarro’s feet, the woman lifted Moonfang from amongst the dust and rubble. Straightening, she raised the sword high.
Kor’sarro grasped the sword and turned towards Voldorius. As he did so, Voldorius was thrown backwards to fall face down across the fragment of the statue that had been the Emperor’s right arm. The black-armoured figure of Kayvaan Shrike rose behind him, his talon buried in the daemon’s back. The Raven Guard drove his talon even deeper into the body of his foe. An explosion of sparks went up as the blade piercing the daemon’s chest dug into the statue, pinning the daemon against it.
Kor’sarro raised Moonfang high in a two-handed grip. ‘Kernax Voldorius,’ he spat through bloody lips. ‘I claim your head in the name of the Emperor, and of the primarch.’
The sacred blade fell, cleaving the daemon’s head from his shoulders in a single strike.
‘Honoured be his name.’
By the time the fighting was done and the last of the daemon prince’s followers routed or slain, Kayvaan Shrike was gone. Kor’sarro had made to order his warriors to find the captain of the Raven Guard Third Company, for he demanded answers, but the Stormseer Qan’karro had simply shaken his head. That was all the counsel the Master of the Hunt needed.
‘Where is he?’ Kor’sarro raged as he paced the debris-strewn nave of the Cathedral of the Emperor’s Wisdom. ‘And where are his men?’
‘Gone, huntsman,’ the Stormseer said. ‘His mission here is done.’
‘What mission?’ Kor’sarro said, rounding on his old friend. ‘We shared objectives. At the last, we stood as brothers.’
‘Aye,’ Qan’karro replied. ‘But only so far as you shared the field of battle. Shrike was not simply here to liberate Quintus. He was not here for that at all.’
Kor’sarro halted in his pacing. ‘And you knew of this?’
‘I know of many things, huntsman,’ the Stormseer replied, his heavily wrinkled brow furrowing as he regarded the Master of the Hunt. ‘But some knowledge is not to be shared. Other wisdom is only to
be imparted when the time is right.’
‘He came for the Bloodtide,’ Kor’sarro said. ‘He knew Voldorius was attempting to awaken it. How?’
‘I told you that the sons of Corax walk their own path. That they bear the weight of ages upon their shoulders, did I not, Kor’sarro?’
‘You did,’ Kor’sarro nodded. ‘What of it?’
‘As we of the White Scars write the names of our foes in our epics, as the Great Khan names those who shall be hunted, so the Raven Guard etch the names of their foes upon their own souls. Each nurtures his hatred, cleaves to it above all else, so that one day, when he comes face to face with an enemy of his Chapter, he might unleash it, and strike that enemy down.’
‘I saw it,’ Kor’sarro said. ‘All of the daemon’s power fled at that moment.’
‘Aye,’ the Stormseer replied, laying a hand on Kor’sarro’s battered shoulder guard. ‘But there was more. Voldorius was pinned against a fragment of the statue of the Emperor. His powers were naught compared to that.’
As he thought back to the last moments of the battle, Kor’sarro looked around for the woman who had passed Moonfang to him at that crucial moment. He had not had the chance to thank her, or to ensure her well-being.
‘She too is gone,’ Qan’karro said. ‘He took her.’
‘To what end?’ Kor’sarro spat, bitterness welling inside him. Had he been a fool to trust the Raven Guard? Was there more to the friction between the two Chapters than mere misunderstanding and hubris?
‘I cannot say, huntsman,’ the Stormseer replied darkly.
‘Cannot?’ Kor’sarro said. ‘Or will not?’
‘I suggest you look to the future, huntsman,’ Qan’karro said, turning his back on the Master of the Hunt. As he stalked off along the nave, he turned at the base of the steps leading up to the altar. ‘Your hunt is done, and there will be much rejoicing. Other hunts will be declared, and yet more honour will be yours.’
Qan’karro raised his voice so all the survivors of the Third Company who were in the cathedral could hear. ‘This hunt, the hunt for Voldorius, is over!’ he bellowed, his voice echoing the entire length of the Cathedral of the Emperor’s Wisdom.
‘All hail Kor’sarro Khan,’ the White Scars bellowed as one.
‘Master of the Hunt!’
‘Thus was the head of Kernax Voldorius taken from that defiled place, and set before Kyublai Khan, Master of the White Scars Chapter, and his name struck from the hunt. As Kor’sarro Khan had sworn, the daemon’s skull was encased in silver by the High Chaplain, and mounted upon a proud lance. At the next Rites of Howling, the prize was set upon the road to Khum Karta, and Kor’sarro’s name was engraved upon the Great Tablet of Honour, so that it might endure for all time.
The deeds of Scout-Sergeant Kholka were sung by his neophytes throughout the Long Night of the Fallen, as they would be upon the anniversary of his death for a thousand centuries to come, so long as a single White Scar lived to recall his name.
So too was the name of Brother Kergis, at whose hand the wicked Nullus was slain, graven upon the marble tablet. A great convocation of Stormseers was held, at which Qan’karro declared the evil of Nullus was still at large in the galaxy. Despite the bodily death of that daemon-kin, all knew that his evil was not yet done, and his name too was added to the list of the enemies of the Chapter, so a future hunt might bring him to justice.
Quintus was in time restored to the Imperium. The Space Marines surrendered its care to the Imperial Guard, and a great purging of the daemon prince’s followers was instigated. All who had entered the presence of the vile one were judged, and all were cleansed, their remains scattered to the winds. The statue of the Emperor Triumphant was restored, the sisters of the Orders Pronatus piecing it together, one fragment at a time, over the course of a decade until it stood once more in all its former glory.
But the greatest legacy of the hunt for Voldorius was, it was said, that White Scars and Raven Guard, so long estranged, had stood side by side as brothers. Though it may still be many centuries before old wounds are entirely healed and old wrongs entirely forgotten, the warriors of the Third Company of both Chapters called one another brother, for a short time at least.
Little did Kor’sarro or Shrike know that the names of Nullus and Voldorius would one day return to haunt the nightmares of men. But that is another tale, yet to be told…’
– Omniscenti Bithisarea, Deeds of the Adeptus Astartes, Volume IX,
Chapter LV, M.40 recension (suppressed)
The Gildar Rift
1
Into the rift
The emptiness of space buckled and bulged just for an instant as though it were being sucked into a vacuum. Stars wheeled and distorted and then the endless night shimmered, disgorging a single vessel back into real space. Its engines burned white-hot for a few moments, the internally-generated field that had cocooned it on its journey through the warp flared briefly and flickered out. Then gradually, the thrusters began to cool, slowly making their way down through the spectrum to standard operating levels.
Space around the ship rippled as cycling shield generators doubled their output to compensate for the dense clouds of particulate debris, then the scene returned to normal as though the ship had always been there.
The Endless Horizon, a lone trader vessel, decelerated dramatically as soon as it was able; a hot blast of plasma drives stalling its headlong flight from the empyrean to a crawl. Within the ship’s interior, countless system checks and re-calibrations were taking place. Several of its crew murmured thanks to the God-Emperor and to the ship’s machine spirit for a safe trip through the warp.
They had gotten this far intact, but whether they would survive their trip through this sector remained to be seen. They had translated into the fringe of the Gildar Rift.
‘We’re definitely alone, sir.’
Silence followed this ominous pronouncement as the bridge crew of the Endless Horizon exchanged glances. There was concern in those looks; a deep anxiety that was almost palpable. Luka Abramov frowned, running a hand across his jaw as he considered the situation. His eyes passed over the unfortunate young man who had delivered this worrying report and his grey eyes steadily narrowed in obvious disapproval. It was not the news he had wanted to hear.
The youth shifted uncomfortably under the captain’s gaze, aware instinctively that more was expected of him. A slow, creeping realisation that every pair of eyes on the bridge was riveted on him began to seep unpleasantly through his body and he cleared his throat, tapping at the data-slate in his hand. Before he could speak however, Abramov leaned forward.
‘Let’s try basics. Our coordinates are correct, yes?’
‘Y… yes, sir. Captain.’ The youth offered up the data-slate and Abramov took it without even bothering to look down at it. The lumen-strips on the bridge were still dimmed, not yet back to full power after their trip through the warp and in the dull half-light, Abramov’s hawkish face was unreadable.
‘Then the words “We’re definitely alone” are, as I’m sure you appreciate, Kaman, completely unacceptable.’ Abramov rose from his control throne and stepped down from the dais so that he was on a level with the other man. ‘Are we so very early? Or even late?’ Abramov silently cursed the inconveniences of warp travel. Its time dilation effects were generally considered the very least of the problems a ship could encounter; but they were a frequently irritating side-effect nonetheless.
‘Ship’s chronometers put us approximately four hours ahead of schedule,’ came the answer from somewhere over to Abramov’s right. The captain glanced across and nodded curtly. When he spoke, it was with an outward confidence that he wasn’t feeling inside.
‘Then we keep going. We may as well continue onwards to our destination.’
‘But, sir...’ Kaman hesitated, biting back the words that rose to his lips. He used the honorific withou
t even thinking. It was a sure sign he was nervous and Abramov noted it. He liked to encourage an element of informality amongst his crew. Some of them had come to him from spells in the Naval service. Sticklers for tradition and formality to a man. It seemed that some old habits died hard.
Kaman rubbed the bridge of his nose with a thoughtful finger. He did not wish to appear patronising or condescending, but every member of the bridge crew was thinking what he was rather clumsily attempting to put into words. ‘But, sir. The dangers...’
‘The dangers of the Gildar Rift are well known to me, Kaman. I would be most grateful if you did not presume to lecture me on that of which I am well aware.’ A look of shame coloured the youth’s features and Abramov softened his attitude slightly. ‘For now, concentrate on assessing all available data so that our helmswoman can get us safely through the belt and to Gildar Secundus. I’m prepared to compromise. We’ll wait a while for our escort. I’m sure that they will show up soon enough.’ Or perhaps, he added mentally, not at all. ‘You all know just as well as I do that we’re on a tight schedule.’
This was not the first time he had commanded a vessel through the treacherous straits of the system and he sincerely hoped that it would not be the last. But without the safety net of their intended escort he could not help but feel an anxiety that would not settle. A knot of discomfort began to twist in his stomach, but he retained a stoic expression. There was little point in displaying uncertainty to his crew.
‘Yes, sir, straight away.’ Kaman crossed his hands over his chest and returned to his station. Abramov nodded. They were a good crew, reliable and trustworthy. There were a number whose experience was lacking but they would learn in time. Kaman was a case in point. But Abramov had very carefully cherry-picked his crew over the years. There was enough combined expertise on board to ensure that their journey to Gildar Secundus should have presented no major difficulties. He believed he had taken all the factors into consideration. Indeed, he was completely confident in that knowledge.
Warriors of the Imperium - Andy Hoare & S P Cawkwell Page 31