Hammer and Bolter 17

by Christian Dunn

  Bronn blinked away afterimages of crackling detonations, strobing flashes of secondary explosions and crackling ammo fires.

  He knew he was dying, but to die for this?

  To be nothing more than… what, a distraction for a mission that had clearly failed?

  That was galling for a warrior of his heritage.

  He felt the earth shake again, and his eyes flicked towards the roof of the cavern. Dust fell in a dry rain, and spalling flakes of glassy stone sounded like sand trickling through an hourglass as it slowly coated the battlefield. Though the cavern’s structure was sound, Bronn wished for the cave to collapse, to bury this moment of infamy beneath millions of tonnes of rock and deny his foes any succour in triumph.

  The ground shook again, but this was no aftershock of his final solution, this was a tremor of something moving beneath the earth. Bronn knew rock well enough to know the difference, and he pressed his palm to the ground, letting it speak to him as it had on countless occasions before. He felt the seismic communication, the echoes and the gnawing bite of melta-bladed cutters as they clove the rock like a pack of subterranean borer-ambulls.

  Beyond the mangled remains of a trio of Basilisk artillery pieces, the earth heaved upwards, and a geyser of spraying stone and mud exploded into the air as something iron and yellow heaved its bulk into the cavern. Bronn instantly recognised the conical snout and flared rock scoops of a Hellbore drilling rig.

  ‘Careful, you idiot…’ he hissed. ‘The soil is always thinner nearer the surface.’

  Whoever was driving the Hellbore was unskilled in the finer points of its operation, handling it like a runaway Land Raider instead of a precision tunnelling device. Sparks flew as its drill cogs tore through a wrecked chassis of a smouldering battle tank. Metal shavings flew like glittering decoy chaff ejected from the defence pod of a Thunderhawk.

  The Hellbore vanished from sight as it lurched past its centre of gravity and crashed down onto its side. An explosion ripped up from the mangled tank as an ammo cache exploded. More than likely, the occupants of the Hellbore were now trapped within. If the Ultramarines didn’t kill them, the lack of oxygen would eventually see them dead.

  Whoever had brought the machine back to Four Valleys Gorge had returned to defeat and death, and Bronn dismissed the tunneller as he heard the voices of Ultramarines, curt orders barked in a battle cant that had not changed in ten thousand years.

  Such a span of time was almost incomprehensible. To Bronn, those days of gods and heroes were a past he had lived in the span of a single lifetime, but these warriors had only half-remembered myths to tell them of such long ago days. They could not remember what was a recent memory for him…

  I was there when the walls of the Imperial Palace fell.

  Bronn turned his head, searching for a weapon to hold as he died. A bolter lay within easy reach, but beyond it he caught sight of Earthbreaker, the weapon that had cast unnumbered fortresses down and raised myriad others to the skies. His gauntlet closed on the T-shaped pommel, and he dragged it over the broken ground with his fingertips. The blade scraped over the black stone brought down from the cavern’s ceiling, high-density igneous rock laid down in volcanic eruptions before men had set foot on this world.

  ‘Fused metamorphic stone from close to the surface,’ he said with a wheezing, frothed breath that told him his lungs had finally collapsed. With only his secondary organ dragging oxygen to his broken body, it was only a matter of time until hypoxia killed him.

  ‘Aurelian’s sons were thorough in their spite,’ he noted, seeing fragments of irradiated flakes mixed in with the rock.

  ‘Yet still they were defeated,’ said a cultured, perfectly enunciated voice above him.

  A foot stamped down on Earthbreaker’s haft, snapping the weapon in two. Anger engulfed Bronn, and he rolled onto his back, ignoring the shooting spikes of searing pain that engulfed his chest, yet left his body below untouched. He looked up at a broad-shouldered warrior in the azure battle plate of the Ultramarines. A golden eagle glittered at his chest and star-bleached emerald trim lined the notched edges of his shoulder guards.

  ‘Things might have been different had the Iron Warriors been with them,’ hissed Bronn, clutching the broken handle of Earthbreaker to his chest. The warrior shook his head and removed his laurel-wreathed helm, revealing a face of classic patrician proportions, symmetrical and with high cheekbones, a strong chin and close-cropped blond hair that framed eyes of milky blue. Every inch an Ultramarine.

  ‘You are defeated here,’ said the warrior, sliding a fresh magazine into his pistol. ‘I do not think the outcome then would have been much different had a wretch like you been there.’

  ‘You are wrong, whelp, iron is forever,’ said Bronn, letting his head loll to one side. ‘From iron cometh strength. From strength cometh will. From will cometh faith. From faith cometh honour. From honour cometh iron.’

  ‘What is that?’ asked the warrior, his voice dripping with contempt. ‘A prayer?’

  ‘It is the Unbreakable Litany,’ said Bronn, his strength fading. ‘And may it forever be so.’

  Through the dancing flames of defeat, Bronn saw a darting figure slip through the wreckage of the Basilisks crushed by the Hellbore, a half-glimpsed shadow with a limb that threw the firelight queerly from its mercurial surface. Though it should have been impossible, Bronn thought he saw a pale blue glow of an augmetic eye through the sheeting dust and ash.

  Your mission is complete, the eye seemed to say. But mine goes on…

  ‘Why did you come here?’ demanded the Ultramarine. ‘You must have know you could not defeat the true sons of Guilliman.’

  ‘Why did we come here?’ smiled Bronn, shaking his head as a weight lifted from his broken body. ‘Better you don’t know.’

  He loosened his grip on the iron will that held his life anchored to his flesh, staring up at the Ultramarines warrior with a last breath of defiance.

  ‘You think you have won a victory here?’ he said.

  ‘I know we have,’ said the warrior. ‘Your force is destroyed, and Calth is ours again. All across Ultramar, your master’s armies are being pushed from our worlds. Yes, I would say this is a victory.’

  ‘The years have not been kind to the Ultramarines,’ said Bronn. ‘Once they were the Battle Kings of Macragge, but you are just poor shadows of those giants.’

  The warrior levelled his pistol at Bronn.

  ‘I should leave you to suffer your pain, but it insults me to let you sully this world with your life a moment longer.’

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Bronn. ‘Tell me the name of the man who is going to kill me.’

  The warrior considered his request for a moment before nodding.

  ‘I am Learchus Abantes, sergeant of the Ultramarines Fourth Company.’

  Bronn smiled. ‘The Fourth, yes. Of course it would be one of you.’

  Learchus pulled the trigger, and Bronn died knowing yet more blood would be spilled before the Iron Warriors were done with Calth.

  Stromfel’s Teeth

  Josh Reynolds

  It was the afternoon of the eve of Mitterfruhl and the sound that rose from the streets was as deep and as black as the ocean bottom. Those who heard it first, mistook it for thunder. For the voice of the storm that had rolled in moments earlier from the Sea of Claws. The sound stalked beneath the celebratory ringing of the city’s bells like a sea-beast through the shallows and tore the holiday cheer from the hearts of every citizen who heard it. And as the last, dull echoes drifted out to sea, Marienburg erupted in blood and terror.

  Near the docklands, hooves struck sparks from rain-slick cobbles as the evening market crowd screamed and parted. A grocer flew into the air, conducting a lazy somersault, trailing red the entire way. A matron was slapped from Manann’s realm to Morr’s by a flick of inhuman claws. Something pearly grey and wet-skinned swam through the sea of humanity like a sword through flesh, leaving mangled wreckage in its wake. Saw-edged teeth slammed
home on an outthrust arm, tearing and masticating.

  The hooves thundered on, like an oncoming wave. Black, dead eyes rolled in tight sockets and the thing turned to face its pursuers as they burst out of the drover’s way, their mounts lathered and snorting. Steam rolled off of the animals in the rain. The horses were clad in emerald and turquoise barding and carrying men in heavy armour of similar hues. The knights carried tridents and their armour was engraved with piscine designs. At their head, a bulldog figure leaned over his horse’s neck and roared, ‘There’s the bugger!’

  Manann take me if he’s not a master of the obvious, Erkhart Dubnitz thought. The broad-shouldered knight grinned behind his visor as he looked at the stocky shape of Dietrich Ogg, Grandmaster of the most humble, and violent, Order of Manann galloping next to him. Ogg would spit him on a hook and use him for bait if he made such a crack out loud. Ogg’s temper wasn’t the best even when he hadn’t been pulled from a warm feast-hall to ride through a storm in full armour, in pursuit of something with entirely too many teeth.

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Dubnitz muttered as the creature rose to its full height, gill slits flaring and its wedge-shaped head swinging around. It wore the tattered trousers of a sailor, now stretched and torn. It had the form of a man, though much distorted by muscle, but its head was utterly inhuman. As it spread its arms, the horses skidded to a stop, issuing alarmed neighs as their hooves splashed in the rainwater.

  The knights had pursued the thing from the red ruins of a tavern deep in Marienburg’s bowels, and it had left a trail of death through the Narrows as it made its way towards the North Dock. Monsters of one sort or another weren’t uncommon in Marienburg; things with too many limbs or too few clustered beneath the docklands like barnacles and there were stories of rats of unusual size in the sewers. Not to mention those one-eyed devils in the marshes.

  But this was something else again. It stood in the rain, barrel torso heaving, as if it were having trouble breathing. To Dubnitz, it looked as if someone had sewn a shark onto a bear and then beaten it until it got angry.

  ‘Manann’s scaly nethers, Dubnitz,’ one of the knights breathed as he fought to control his agitated mount. ‘He’s a big one!’ Dubnitz glanced at him. Gunter was young. A merchant’s second son, his dreams of adventure in the great wide world had been sewn up tight and kicked out of reach by a handsome donation to the Order from his father. Still, once he’d come out of his pout, the boy had taken to the spurs quickly enough.

  ‘Bigger they are, Gunter,’ Dubnitz said, absently dropping his fist between his horse’s ears. The animal snorted and calmed. Dubnitz flipped up his visor and peered at the creature that waited for them at the other end of the market square. ‘Is that thing wearing trousers?’

  ‘I do believe it is,’ another knight said, cradling his trident in the crook of his arm as he lit a scrimshaw pipe. He sucked thoughtfully on the stem. ‘You don’t suppose it’s a modest beastie, do you?’

  ‘If it is, it’s doing a bad job of it, Ernst,’ Dubnitz snorted. ‘I can see it’s–’

  ‘Silence in the ranks.’ Ogg gestured towards the creature with the small trident that occupied the stump of his left hand. ‘If you’re quite finished mooning over it, would someone go and whack its bloody ugly head off?’ he snarled, his pudgy features bathed in rain, torchlight and sweat. ‘There’s a Mitterfruhl feast I’d like to get back to, thank you very much.’

  The half-dozen knights all looked at one another surreptitiously. One of the first rules you learned in the Order was never, ever, under any circumstances, volunteer for anything. Unfortunately, some took longer to learn that lesson than others.

  ‘Right, one spitted shark coming up,’ Gunter said, kicking his horse into motion before Dubnitz could stop him. The too-wide mouth gaped as the young knight drew close. It lunged and tackled his horse, wrapping grey arms around its neck and chest. As Gunter gave a yell and jabbed at it with its trident, the creature turned, yanking the whinnying horse off its feet and smashing both it and its hapless rider into the hard cobbles in a crash of metal. Black talons snatched at the tangled knight’s head. The ornate helmet burst, as did the skull within.

  ‘Manann gather his poor, stupid soul,’ Dubnitz snarled, slapping his visor down. He’d liked the lad. He dug his spurs into his horse’s flanks. The creature tore Gunter’s corpse free of the thrashing horse and swung it about before hurling it at the others. Horses reared as the body hit the street. The shark-thing did not pause, but dove on towards Ogg, jaws wide.

  The Grandmaster tried to sidestep the creature, but the square was too crowded and it was too quick. It was on him a moment later, its talons tangled in his horse’s barding. The jaws champed at him and Ogg cried out.

  Dubnitz jerked his horse’s reins, causing his mount to bump against Ogg’s and both horses stumbled. The shark-thing lost its grip and rolled beneath the stamping hooves. The other knights had gotten over their shock and they closed in, hemming the creature in from all sides.

  Tridents plunged towards it, driving it back before it could rise. It retreated, still silent; its eyes were empty of everything save raw, wild hunger. Its blunt snout rose and it audibly sniffed the salty air. Then it spun about and began to lope away.

  ‘It’s heading for the sea. Cut it off,’ Ogg said.

  ‘I’ll do more than that,’ Dubnitz said, urging his horse into a gallop. The crowded streets were rapidly emptying as the creature raced on. It had fallen onto all fours, its heavily muscled limbs pumping. It shouldered aside a fruit wagon and toppled a night soil cart, spilling dung across the street. Dubnitz cocked back his arm, hefting his trident as his horse leapt over the fallen cart. ‘Manann guide my aim,’ he muttered, blinking rain out of his eyes. With a grunt, he hurled the trident, catching the creature in the back. It stumbled and caromed off a wall. It twisted around, snapping at the weapon that had suddenly sprouted from its back.

  Dubnitz circled it and his horse snorted and shied as the thing snapped blindly at it. The shark-thing shook its head and darted forward. Dubnitz’s horse reared and he was almost thrown from the saddle. The knight reached out and grabbed the haft of his trident, hoping to pin the creature down. Instead, he was ripped off his horse as the creature began to thrash.

  Dubnitz hit the ground hard, his armour scraping on the cobbles. A clawed foot stomped down, nearly doing for his head the way it had done for poor Gunter’s. Dubnitz rolled awkwardly to his feet even as the shark-thing loomed over him. Foul breath washed over him and he swept his sword from its sheath in a wild, wide arc. Blood sprayed the far side of the street and the monster staggered, clutching at its split, hopefully useless jaw. Dubnitz didn’t give it a chance to recover. He sprang past it and grabbed for the trident, kicking it in the back of its leg as he did so.

  It toppled with a wheeze. He shoved on the trident, knocking the thing flat. It squirmed beneath him, gnawing at the cobbles. A sharp elbow hit his cuirass hard enough to put a dent in it. Dubnitz staggered, wheezing. The creature yanked itself off the street and whirled towards him. He swung his sword at it, but it caught his wrist in an unyielding grip. He dug his free hand into its throat, but it didn’t seem to notice, so intent was it on getting its teeth into him. Its weight drove him back and began to bend him double as it leaned against him. It stank of the deep places of the sea.

  Dubnitz glared through the eye-slits in his faceplate, meeting the thing’s eyes. For an instant, just an instant, he thought he caught sight of something in them other than hunger. Then its bloody, shattered jaws spread wide and it bent its head towards him.

  A moment later, its skull ruptured like an overripe fruit, splattering him with cold blood. He tore himself free of its grip and let the body slump. As it fell, it revealed a tall, one-eyed man who thrust a smoking Hochland hunting rifle into the hands of one of the soldiers behind him. The latter were clad in the uniforms of the Marsh Watch, and bore the insignia of Manann’s golden trident on their uniforms.

  ‘Dubnitz,’
the one-eyed man said, stripping off his gloves as he approached the body of the shark-thing. One of the men accompanying him trotted close behind with an upraised shield to keep the rain off of his master. Dubnitz stood and saluted with his sword.

  ‘Lord Justicar,’ Dubnitz said. ‘It is, as ever, a delight and a joy to see you.’

  Aloysious Ambrosius, Master of the Marsh Watch and Lord Justicar of Marienburg, grunted and squatted, looking at the dead creature. Dubnitz turned as Ogg and the other knights rode up. Ogg’s face went through a number of contortions as he caught sight of Ambrosius before settling on what he likely thought was an expression of pleasure. ‘Aloysious,’ Ogg grated.

  ‘Dietrich. Lovely weather we’re having,’ Ambrosius said as he examined the creature.

  ‘At least it’s not raining cuttlefish again,’ Ogg said. ‘What are you doing?’

  Ambrosius didn’t answer. ‘What have we here?’ he said as he reached beneath the creature and jerked loose something small. Holding it up to the rain to clean the blood off, it was revealed to be a shark’s tooth on a thin cord.

  ‘A shark with a shark-tooth amulet,’ Dubnitz said. ‘That’s not odd at all, is it?’

  ‘Coincidence is the bugbear of lazy minds,’ Ambrosius said, rising to his feet. He rubbed his eye-patch with the heel of his hand. ‘One of these things just attacked me in the opera house, Dietrich.’

  ‘And it escaped?’ Ogg demanded. He turned in his saddle. ‘Mount up! We’ll–’

  ‘Calm down,’ Ambrosius snorted. ‘Of course it didn’t escape; I dispatched it. Cost me a cape of fine Cathayan silk though,’ he added regretfully. ‘And it ruined my evening.’

  ‘Manann forfend,’ Dubnitz said. Ogg and Ambrosius looked at him. The latter snorted and kicked the creature’s body.

  ‘Indeed. I–’

  The sound was as deep and as solid as a punch to the gut, and it interrupted the Lord Justicar just as effectively. The first toll shuddered through those gathered in the square and lumbered on towards the docks. Dubnitz staggered, feeling ill. It tolled again, and the street seemed to shiver. Distant screams erupted, and an alarm bell began to ring. ‘What was that?’ Dubnitz said, looking around. More alarm bells began to sound, ranging from the silvery peal of the fire bell on the Street of Mercy to the deep, grim boom of the Mourners’ Bell in the Garden of Morr near the Marsh Gate. And then, finally, the long, low melodious sound of the ship’s bell mounted above the doors of Manann’s own temple.