by C. L. Werner
Nostraz rose to the Skylord’s challenge. ‘You are too concerned with damaging infrastructure and destroying resources,’ the admiral sneered. ‘You are too worried about preserving a non-existent production quota. You prosecute this war like an accountant, not a soldier!’
‘Enough,’ Andraaz snarled. ‘This bickering achieves nothing. If we are to drive back the invader, we must focus only on that task. Ambition, glory, hate, all of these are distraction!’ The Warsmith’s talons closed into a cage of crackling steel. ‘Destruction! Extermination! Annihilation! These are the only things which shall find a place in your hearts. These are the only pursuits worthy of an Iron Warrior.’ Andraaz gestured at the illuminated display of Vorago. ‘So long as we hold Vorago, we hold Castellax!’
‘Grim Lord,’ Skintaker Algol said, pulling away from the pallid slaves mending his grisly cloak. ‘The defence of Vorago will be difficult. We have supplies of food and water for the Flesh that will maintain them for six weeks. No more.’
Andraaz rounded on the slavemaster. ‘How many slaves have you taken into your calculations?’
The Skintaker’s eyes narrowed with understanding. ‘The full supply of Flesh available, the current population of Vorago. Fifty million.’ Algol paused, warming to the idea the Warsmith’s objection had aroused. ‘I will begin sending disposal crews to eliminate the excess and begin establishing protocols for the reduction of reserves. The useless eaters will be eliminated, Grim Lord.’
Morax’s eyes bulged as he heard the callous extermination of millions of slaves being bandied about. ‘It will take years to cultivate a new workforce from the embryo vaults!’ he cried. ‘Even when the orks are forced from Castellax, it will take us decades to resume production. We will fall behind in our tithe to Medrengard!’
Andraaz scowled at the angry Skylord. ‘Medrengard will not investigate our shipments for much longer than that,’ he declared. ‘Warp travel being what it is. By the time it becomes an immediate concern, my raider fleets will have collected fresh slaves for my factories.’ He waved his hand towards Admiral Nostraz. ‘That fleet is still available to us through the cautious tactics of your brother-captain.
‘No,’ Andraaz mused, pacing back towards his throne. ‘The question of supplies and Flesh is a concern for the future. For now, we must rid ourselves of the xenos menace. To do that, we must draw upon all resources that are available to us.’
As he made the last statement, the Warsmith fixed his gaze upon the ghoulish servitor acting as Fabricator Oriax’s surrogate. The half-machine folded its arms together in a gesture of genuflection.
‘All shall be in readiness, Grim Lord,’ the fleshless voice hissed from the servitor’s vox-caster.
Andraaz shifted his gaze to Over-Captain Vallax. ‘The loss of Captain Gamgin has impaired the prowess of the Third Grand Company. It compels me to commit the most extreme of the resources available to us.’ The Warsmith’s eyes became like chips of steel as they stared into Vallax’s face. ‘You will fetch Brother Merihem from the Oubliette,’ the Warsmith declared. ‘It is time he rejoined his brothers.’
Vallax’s hair turned an icy blue as he heard what the Warsmith asked of him, a visible manifestation of the repugnance boiling inside him. He hesitated before speaking, trying to conceal the distaste he felt. It would do no good to object, the orders of the Warsmith were not open to question.
‘It shall be done, Grim Lord,’ Vallax declared. As he spoke, he turned his head, staring across the table to where Captain Rhodaan stood. A frigid smile crawled across Vallax’s lips.
It was as well that Rhodaan had returned from Aboro. Vallax’s subordinate hadn’t quite outlived his usefulness, it seemed.
Chapter X
I-Day Plus Eighty-Seven
The howling violence of an ash-storm swirled about the lone assault boat as it sped above the desert wastes. The squadron of fighters which had started out as the transport’s escort had fallen back some time ago, unwilling to brave the ravages of the storm. The crew of the assault boat would have done the same but for the insistence of their passengers. Between the fury of the storm and the fury of the Iron Warriors, the men wisely chose to defy the elements.
Rhodaan stared from the window, the optics in his helm shifting through visual frequencies in an effort to pierce the clouds of toxic ash. It was an effort beyond even the artifices of pre-Heresy engineering.
‘Do you see anything, captain?’ The question came from Brother Gomorie. Like Rhodaan, the Raptor was leaning against one of the windows trying to see through the howling storm.
‘The impurities in the ash are confounding the optic filters,’ Rhodaan said. ‘They don’t present a unified visual frequency for exclusion.’ He shrugged, the gesture exaggerated by his unimpeded shoulders. After days of continuously bearing the weight of a jump pack, it would take time to adjust to that burden’s absence. By then, of course, they would probably be redeployed in their capacity as Raptors and wearing the heavy packs once more.
‘The storm will confine itself to the hot air over the desert,’ Rhodaan told Gomorie. ‘Once we drop down into the crevasse, the air will clear.’ He stared hard at the other Space Marine, reading the agitation in his posture. ‘We will be able to see the Oubliette before we land.’
Rhodaan saw the way Gomorie’s infected hand twitched in a spasm of bio-steel at the very mention of the prison-hermitage. A journey to the Oubliette was distasteful enough for the rest of them, but he could appreciate how much worse it must be for Gomorie. For Rhodaan and the majority of his brothers, the state of Brother Merihem was repugnant, but at the same time distant. His corruption was like the rumble of artillery on the horizon, menacing but not immediate.
To Gomorie, however, the fallen Iron Warrior’s fate was deeply personal. The same contagion that had overwhelmed and consumed Merihem had set its foul seed in his flesh. It was a daily struggle to restrain it, to force the infection into abeyance, to prevent it from raging through his mind and soul. So far, Gomorie’s force of will had been strong enough, his sense of identity proud enough to resist. Yet always, at the back of his mind, lurked the knowledge that one day the virus would win out. One day he would become like Merihem, all the gifts of the Legion devoured by the warp-taint until the superhuman degenerated into the subhuman.
‘Do you think any good will come of seeking out the abomination?’ Uzraal asked. Like the rest of Squad Kyrith, he was visibly anxious. Before leaving Vorago, the Raptor had removed a meltagun from the stores. He was now stripping it down and cleaning its components for the sixteenth time.
Rhodaan considered the question for a moment before answering. ‘Whatever else he is, Brother Merihem is an Iron Warrior. Warsmith Andraaz believes that will be enough to bind him to our cause.’
‘But what do you believe, lord captain?’ Gomorie asked.
Unconsciously, Rhodaan reached down to his left leg. Despite the heavy layers of ceramite and plasteel, the neurofibres and servo-motors, the mesh of insulation and padding, he imagined he could feel the ugly scars beneath his fingers. Merihem had given him those scars when he was being subdued and entombed within the Oubliette.
He shook his head and returned his gaze to the window. ‘I would not question the Warsmith,’ Rhodaan said. ‘Even if I did believe him wrong,’ he added in a bitter undertone.
The long, jagged crevasse marked the easternmost limit of the Ossuarium, the vast desert which dominated Castellax’s eastern continent. Hundreds of metres deep, its floor choked with a slurry of ore waste and acidic runoff from the strip mines pitting the walls of the canyon, the trench was dark and shadowy, all sunlight smothered by the ash-storm raging above it. Frost, brown from the polluted air, began to gather on the windows in defiance of the assault boat’s heat shield.
Before the frost could completely obscure his view, Rhodaan saw an immense shape rising from the sludge of the canyon floor, a monstrous tower of stone and plasteel. Its sides bristled with gun turrets and sentinel relays, flood lamp
s and vigil monitors. As the assault boat neared the tower, the weapon emplacements rotated, locking the craft in their aiming reticules.
‘Approaching aircraft,’ a stern voice growled across the boat’s vox-channel. ‘Identify or be destroyed.’
‘Assault boat delta-nine-seven, Castellax Air Cohort,’ one of the pilots stammered, his voice quaking with fear.
Rhodaan switched over his vox-bead to transmit across the localised frequency. ‘We are Iron Warriors,’ he snarled. ‘You have been warned to expect our arrival. Fire on us at your peril.’
There was a moment of silence. Rhodaan could almost see the human officer at the other end of the transmission trying to make his courage equal to his duty. ‘What… Give the code word.’
‘The word is “Carnage”. If you would not learn the full meaning of that word, you will transmit landing instructions.’ Rhodaan watched the gun turrets rotate back into their original positions and a pattern of blinking lights blaze into brilliance on the flattened roof of the tower.
‘Brothers,’ he called out to his squad. ‘Welcome to the Oubliette.’
The assault boat was still settling onto the landing pad when Baelfegor swung open the door and lowered the boarding ramp. The edge of the titanium ramp scraped across the ferrocrete surface, gouging a long scratch across the ground. The Space Marines seemed oblivious to the precipice yawning to either side of them as they tromped down the trembling ramp.
A score of janissary troopers, their faces locked behind the insect-like frames of rebreathers, their bodies bulky beneath heavy flak armour, snapped to attention as the first of the Iron Warriors descended to the platform. Behind the goggles of their masks, their eyes were wide with awe. For most of them, this was their first view of a Space Marine. It was a moment of wonder and terror that would stay with them always.
Rhodaan marched between the columns of humans, towering over them as he passed. Ahead of him, a heavy-set woman stood at the end of the janissary ranks. Features accustomed to imperious command wilted into timid obedience as the armoured giant drew closer. Her gloved fingers closed a bit tighter about the grip of her rune-crusted command rod, as though trying to draw some measure of reassurance from the badge of her office.
‘Warden Geena Zhroah, at your command, my lord,’ the woman said, bowing her head as Rhodaan stood before her.
The Raptor turned his head, staring down at the warden as though noticing her for the first time. ‘We have come for our battle-brother,’ Rhodaan stated. ‘Bring him to us.’
The warden’s complexion became pale. ‘There have been… complications, my lord. The abom– Your brother-lord has failed to respond to the pacification vapours.’
Rhodaan’s tone hardened. ‘You have only one duty here,’ he warned, pointing at the baton clenched in her fist, reminding her that with her authority came responsibility. ‘Attend to it,’ he added in a low hiss before continuing his march down the landing pad, the rest of Squad Kyrith following behind him.
The warden’s body trembled as she stared after the Iron Warriors. Slowly, she raised the command rod to her lips, pressing the rune which would broadcast her voice to the tower control room. ‘This is Warden Zhroah,’ she announced. ‘The inmate is to be exhumed from the Reclusiam.’ She licked her lips, feeling sick as the next words formed in her mind. ‘Pacification protocols are suspended. Open the crypt. The masters will tolerate no delay.’
Grimly, the warden powered down the volume of her vox-unit. She didn’t want to hear the horrified protests from her officers. She knew what her orders meant but there was nothing that could be done.
Even so, she wondered how many men she had just sent to their deaths.
The lieutenant keyed the final runes into the control slate embedded in the crypt’s door. Before the first adamantine tumbler began cycling into its disengaged pattern, the officer was scrambling down the long corridor, dashing past the brigade of janissaries lining the hall. The soldiers closed ranks as the officer passed them, raising their shotguns and lasguns, aiming the weapons at the groaning door. Sweat dripped from each man’s brow as he listened to the tumblers rotate.
At the end of the hall, the major in command of the extraction struggled for composure. He might be the only man in the Oubliette who had any real understanding of what was behind that door. Aside from the warden herself, he didn’t think anyone had clearance to view the old holo-recordings of the entombed Iron Warrior. It was felt that ignorance of what they were guarding would be beneficial to the mental condition of the garrison. Being privy to the secret himself, the major had to sympathise with the logic behind such a decision.
‘Lasguns at full charge,’ the major reminded his troops, his voice crackling through the vox-casters lining the hall. He listened as the last of the tumblers cycled into its open phase, watched as a burst of steam gushed from the vents in the hydraulic locks. Three janissaries bearing enormous bronze keys advanced down the hall. They would need them to unlock the chains which restrained the captive. The major wasn’t especially looking forward to that moment. He felt it was better for all concerned if the Iron Warrior remained shackled. Even Merihem would be slowed down by a few tons of titanium lashed about his limbs.
Like the segments of some metallic flower, the layers of the immense door peeled away. The janissaries in the hall shielded their eyes against the bright glare emanating from the tomb beyond the door. As their eyes adjusted to the light, their pulses quickened. Framed in the doorway was a gigantic shape, a figure of colossal proportions, immense beyond even the standards of the Space Marines. Three metres tall, at least half as wide across its hunched shoulders, the dark shape all but filled the entrance to the crypt.
For a long time, silence gripped the corridor. The janissaries barely dared to breathe, their eyes riveted to the hulking shape of the Oubliette’s lone prisoner. Framed by the glare of its cell, the shape was only a black shadow to the men in the hallway, utterly without detail or distinction. It was there – that was all the soldiers knew.
The major watched along with his troops as the shape contemplated them. The chains, those restraints the warden placed so much faith in, were still locked about the monster’s body. Immense coils of titanium, each link as big around as a man’s chest, the Iron Warrior was still restrained. Why then did the major’s heart quake in fear? His hand shook as though afflicted with palsy as he raised the vox-bead to his lips. ‘Lord Merihem,’ he said, his words echoing from the vox-casters. ‘We have been appointed your honour guard, to conduct you to your battle-brothers. They have…’
The officer’s voice faltered as the hulking shape began to move. With ponderous steps that sent a shudder through the floor, Merihem descended from his cell. As the Iron Warrior emerged from the light, moans of terror rose from the watching janissaries. They had suspected that the Oubliette’s inmate was something monstrous and horrible. In their worst nightmares, however, they had never imagined such a walking atrocity.
Veins of wire and cable rippled about Merihem’s huge body, pulsating and writhing with fecund gyrations. Slabs of metal oozed along his limbs, slithering and rippling with loathsome vitality. Plates of armour bubbled and boiled, shifting shape and substance with each step, flowing in a cascade of obscenity. Streams of raw, glistening meat burst from between the metallic chaos, exuding the charnel stink of putrescent decay. Amid the formless madness of his body, buried atop a steel stump of a neck, the face of Merihem contemplated the terror around him. Small and dwarfish beside the ghastly enormity of the body beneath it, the face was devoid of colour, almost transparent in its pallor. It was utterly perfect in its cast, almost ethereal in its terrible beauty. The black eyes set amid the pallid flesh gleamed with abhorrent wisdom and forbidden knowledge.
With another step, the chains wrapped about the monster grew taut, then fell away, crashing to the floor in a confusion of twisted metal. At some point, perhaps hundreds of years past, the Iron Warrior had burst his bonds all on his own, without the need for ru
ne-encrusted keys and the pardon of his Warsmith.
The major was gripped by the same horror that froze his men. It was one thing to observe such an abomination on a holo-recording. It was something else entirely to stand before it in the flesh, free and unfettered. His lips fluttered impotently as he tried to frame a command, an order that would arrest the monster’s advance.
An instant later, the opportunity was gone. One of the janissaries, unable to restrain his fear in the face of Merihem’s thunderous steps, opened fire with his lasgun. The beam seared down the hallway, sizzling against the oozing morass of the Iron Warrior’s breast. The monster paused, his black eyes fixing upon the soldier. Merihem’s mouth peeled back in a malicious grin, exposing a nest of glistening metal fangs.
All restraint collapsed. Fingers pulled at triggers and activation studs, loosing a withering hail of fire down the hallway. The walls trembled from the roar of guns, the air grew thick with smoke. A wave of energy beams and solid shot wailed along the corridor, one hundred guns all trained upon a single target. It should have been murder.
It was.
Screams reverberated along the hallway as janissaries pitched and fell, their bodies ripped and torn, organs burst and limbs exploded. Beneath the steady crack of guns, the thunderous steps of Merihem formed a ghoulish beat. Through the gun smoke the hideous giant loomed, his arm raised. The sludge of metal and meat which formed his body knitted itself into distinct shapes, flowing into the semblance of autocannons. More than a semblance, Merihem’s arm became the weapon itself, loosing shot after shot into the soldiers. Through the slush of ruined bodies, the Iron Warrior marched, almost oblivious to the havoc around him.
Almost, for sometimes the Space Marine would pause before a wounded man or linger over a trembling wretch who had somehow survived a burst from his guns. Then the monster’s pallid face would smile and the claws of his other arm would descend.