As the two halves of the collar fell away, Baldr’s power erupted into life. Fulguration screamed out from him, roaring like an unleashed avalanche. The throne exploded around him, breaking into a thousand pieces. His bonds were hurled aside, burning with silver-edged fire. He rose into the air, his arms outstretched, surrounded by a halo of pure, devastating power.
Baldr swept his gaze across the horde of undead. He clenched his fists, and they blew apart in a rippling wave of torn flesh and bone. The ghosts screamed out of existence, howling as they were banished back to the underverse.
He surged then towards the Mycelite, who was already backing away. Baldr opened up his clenched gauntlet, and a column of raging silver coruscation lanced out, slamming into the sorcerer and hurling him across the bridge. The Mycelite tried to respond, to fight back against the deluge, but Baldr’s fury was unstoppable. The power flooded out of him, wild and feral, vomiting out of his soul from where it had been confined for too long. The fires broke open the Mycelite’s armour, revealing a hunchbacked, milk-fleshed body beneath. The sorcerer screamed, locked in the thundering aegis of silver fire, and his staff shattered.
Baldr swooped down on him, both fists blazing. The Mycelite cowered. Gouts of black smoke roiled up his broken armour as the exposed skin was consumed in the fire.
Baldr drew his right fist back, coiling up yet more power in his clenched gauntlet. The Mycelite tried to raise his arms in some kind of defence, but Baldr punched straight through them, breaking the creature’s wrists and driving the bone-fragments deep into his age-withered face.
He kept on punching, pouring out his wrath on the one who had imprisoned him. He remembered killing his own kind while lost in the warp-dream, and his cry of anguish echoed around the bridge. The blows rained down, smashing and cracking in a hail of anger-driven strikes.
With a wet snap, the Mycelite’s neck broke. A huge explosion boomed out, and the entire chamber was consumed in a driving wind, flickering with ghoulish lights like the flashing eyes of the dead.
Then the tempest died. Baldr’s own fires went out, leaving him standing on the decking amid the last echoes of the horrific outpouring. He swayed on his feet, suddenly feeling hollow. Black stars crowded his vision, and he felt his awareness sliding away.
Njal, his armour still coated in the last of the foul warp-bile, staggered to his feet. The remains of the Mycelite lay before them both, a blackened husk of scorched flesh. For a moment, it was all Baldr could do just to look on it. The hatred did not diminish. He felt sick, dragged back into the corruption he had worked so hard to fight off.
The two pieces of his null-collar lay behind him, lifeless and inert. With dreadful realisation, Baldr saw how completely he had damned himself. There could be no doubt now.
I am awakened, he thought, just as the wave of blackness rose up to engulf him.
The deck rippled like a wave, breaking open into fire-edged plates. A flash of deep red flame briefly surged up, swiftly doused. More booms rang out from a long way down, growing far louder. Hafloí heard secondary sounds follow in their wake – a sustained roar, like the tide coming in.
The pack tore through the remaining resistance and reached the Caestus. Embarkation ramps slammed down, whining on impact-stressed pistons. Gunnlaugur clanged up the interior towards the cockpit.
‘Five seconds,’ he ordered.
Hafloí was the last one in before the ramp pulled closed again. It bolted shut and the brace-clamps slotted into place. From outside, a great, sighing snap heralded the bifurcation of the chamber’s structural underpinning, followed by a rain of dislodged rubble from the roof.
The Caestus pushed off clumsily, buoyed by a surge from its retro-thrusters. Metal debris slewed from its outer hull as it turned on a cushion of superheated exhaust. A supporting column collapsed close by, shattering as it hit the undulating floor.
Then the main engines kicked in. Hafloí had barely reached for the restraint harness when the motive force hit, throwing him hard against the vessel’s metal interior. A booming growl of thruster-fire filled the space, and the assault ram powered for the open void again.
By instinct, Hafloí routed his helm-feed to the craft’s anterior real-viewer. At first, the feed showed nothing but fire and static. Then, as the Caestus picked up speed and raced beyond the hull perimeter, the colours and shapes fell into cohesion.
He saw the flanks of the Festerax rear up behind them, stretching away in every direction. The outer shell had been dark and mottled on the way in, like a clenched fist of rotten iron. Now it burned and flared like the surface of a star.
As he watched, whole sections of fused starship-carcasses were consumed by vast, silent explosions. Rivers of magma spontaneously burst from cracks in the plague-hulk’s flanks. The vista reeled, collapsing and expanding as colossal reservoirs of toxic gases at the ship’s heart ignited. Voidships that had remained lodged tight for centuries were suddenly blasted loose, before disintegrating in spiralling orgies of destruction.
Hafloí watched it in silence, slumped against the shuddering sides of the Caestus. He watched the Festerax slowly shrink in the viewers as the Caestus shot away from the impact site. He watched the chain reactions pick up force, blasting massive chunks of matter out into the void. He registered the phenomenal build-up of heat and pressure within the heart of the hulk.
The Festerax was dying, carved apart by the insanely rapid reactions boiling away in its bowels. A vessel of such magnitude would still take a while to die, but die it would, condemned by its own internal, infernal chemistry.
‘Heimdall,’ came Gunnlaugur’s voice over the pack-comm. ‘Hunt is complete. We are out, running hot. Loc-reading needed.’
There was a crackle, and then the link solidified. ‘We detect two Caestus rams outbound, lord. Can you confirm?’
A pause. ‘Scan for a third. Hulk void-weapons are disabled. Come in and get us.’
‘Understood, lord. Do you have the Stormcaller among you?’
Another pause. ‘No. You detect his loc-reading?’
‘Negative.’
Hafloí heard Gunnlaugur’s curse over the shared comm-loop. It sounded bone-weary, as if all his strength had been left behind on the battlefield.
‘Keep scanning,’ he ordered.
Then the link cut.
Njal limped over to Baldr, catching him before he crashed to the deck. The Hunter’s face was as pale as death, his eyes rimmed with blood. The destruction of the collar had left a bloody weal around his neck.
Baldr looked blearily around him. The command bridge was shaking, rocked by titanic movements. The sound of vast, echoing booms roiled up from below them.
‘The charges…’ he rasped.
Njal dragged him back to his feet. A badly damaged Nightwing flapped heavily on to his shoulder.
‘Heimdall,’ the Rune Priest said, running rapid checks on his Terminator teleport homer.
‘Too… far,’ gasped Baldr.
More echoing crashes sounded. Cracks suddenly jagged across the bridge decking, opening up flame-filled fissures. The remnants of ancient armourglass shattered, sending crystal rain showering across the dust.
‘You forget who you are with,’ growled Njal, preparing his mind for the trial.
More spars fell from the roof of the grotto, disintegrating into heaps of glowing ash as they hit the floor.
A gout of pure magma suddenly shot up through the ruined decking, less than a metre away, foaming and raging. More booms resounded, making the whole chamber shake.
Njal activated the teleport mechanism. A sphere of warp-frosted silver burned out, enclosing them both in a perfect orb of glittering iridescence.
The floor of the Frostaxe’s bridge gave way entirely, dissolving into a steaming, frothing sea of molten plasma. More magma-streamers jutted upwards, crashing into the chamber’s roof and slicing clea
n through it. The entire bridge tottered, slewed, then imploded, buoyed up only by the glowing swell of liquid energy beneath.
For a few seconds, the ruined body of the Mycelite was the only thing to resist it, remaining intact amid the orange tide like a cork bobbing on the waves. Flames scorched across the ancient ceramite, stripped clear the layers of filth that a lifetime of corruption had generated. The emblem of Mortarion’s proud Legion flashed clean again – a death’s head enclosed in a dark star-pattern.
Then the sweep of destruction overtook it all, subsuming the chamber in molten ruin. The residual fungus crackled and crisped. The ancient corpses blazed like torches, accompanied by the impotent screams of their maddened souls.
Then the last of the superstructure fell away, the brace-beams cut free of the shaft’s walls, and the Mycelite’s domain was finally overcome by the fiery death of the Festerax.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ingvar held his ground. From beyond the broken blast-doors, the Ecclesiarchy troops held theirs. He could sense their unwillingness to open fire, but neither were they going anywhere.
Jorundur radiated steady belligerence. The earlier combat seemed to have provoked the darker side of his nature, and Ingvar knew he would have no qualms about laying into any mortals daring to cross the threshold.
Ingvar could smell Klaive’s blood in the air. The confessor was still unconscious, his body stretched out on the deck. There were so many questions. What had he been doing on Ras Shakeh? What secrets had he swept up with him, lifting them into the sanctuary of Vindicatus and away from prying eyes? Surely he’d taken any sensitive material with him, the kind of thing Bajola had warned him about. Klaive was the link – the reason the Ecclesiarchy had come to the isolated world in such numbers.
He needed to get him away, a place where he could ask the questions directly and without fear of interruption.
Do you know the name Hjortur Bloodfang?
Why was he killed?
And the most pressing:
What is the Fulcrum?
Every second they waited there, locked in a stalemate of mutual suspicion, the window for action shrunk a little further. And yet, if the two of them forced their way out, the Ministorum would respond and Delvaux’s last order would be enacted.
The fate of an entire world, versus the truth of a lone murder. Not much of a choice.
Ingvar turned to Jorundur. ‘Any signal?’
‘Nothing.’
‘We are wasting time.’
‘Nothing’s wasted.’
Jorundur wasn’t going to move. Ingvar envied his certainties. ‘Hand me the comm-bead,’ he said. ‘I want to speak to her.’
Jorundur unclipped the device from his gorget and passed it over. As Ingvar held it in his hand, it snapped into life.
‘News, my lord,’ came Callia’s voice. ‘Your Rune Priest has done it. The hulk is breaking up.’
Ingvar felt a surge of raw relief. ‘My thanks, Sister. And you?’
‘We’re heading out of orbit. Heimdall is moving into range. We detected two boarding craft docking.’
Some survived, then.
‘Our place is there, Sister,’ he said.
‘Your gunship is where you left it, and I have ordered it not to be touched. I remember how… particular your brother is about that.’
Ingvar checked to see if his armour’s comm system backed her tidings up. Initially, his helm-display showed nothing. Then, with some distortion, a message flickered up on his retinal feed.
‘Hunt complete,’ came the burst, bearing Heimdall’s security mark. ‘All warriors to return to Heimdall. Repeat: all warriors to Heimdall.’
Ingvar found himself wondering who had authorised that message. Had Gunnlaugur got out alive? Had Njal?
Ahead of them, in the corridor beyond the broken doors, the soldiers stood down, holstering weapons and standing to attention. They looked relieved.
‘Can you get Vuokho moving again?’ Ingvar asked Jorundur.
The Old Dog issued a low warning growl, which was all the answer he was ever going to give, and stomped off.
Ingvar reached for the still unconscious Klaive and hauled him, one-handed, from the deck. As the confessor was dragged up from the floor, his eyes flickered open briefly.
‘Best you stay asleep,’ hissed Ingvar coldly. ‘When you next wake, things will look a lot worse.’
Annarovea was the first to receive the sensor readings. She pored over the pict screen, her face lit green by the runes flickering across it. As she took in the data, her grip on the console edge gradually relaxed. She pushed back in her chair and looked up at Olgeir.
‘They’re moving off,’ she said.
Olgeir studied the readings for himself. Vindicatus had changed course, pulling higher. The power build-up along its flanks reduced, indicating that the torpedo launches had been cancelled. Soon the ship would be out of launch-range.
In addition, the hulk’s trajectory had slowed radically. It no longer barrelled along on a direct course for the planet, but seemed to have blurred into a whole smear of indistinct sensor-ghosts.
‘Can we get a hololith of that?’ he asked.
Annarovea gave the order, and a cloud of red wireframes spun into life above the sensor station. The translucent edifice rippled for a while, struggling to latch on to an incoming feed, then started to rotate more surely.
‘Throne,’ breathed Annarovea, rapt. ‘They killed it.’
The hololith showed the Festerax breaking into huge chunks. Mighty explosions rippled through the canyons between segments, showing up as patches of grainy white noise amid the glittering lith-lines. As the behemoth tore itself apart, its approach slowed, skewing it off-course. As the process continued, what was left of the ship would be eaten up before it reached orbit. The molten remains would tumble off into the deep void, the residual toxins freezing into inertness.
Annarovea stirred into action. With the threat of immediate annihilation averted, her earlier air of command returned.
‘Broadcast this signal on all channels,’ she ordered. ‘Report that the incoming anomaly has been destroyed before reaching orbit. Reassure all citizens that order will shortly be restored. Repeat earlier commands restricting movement, and remind the populace that any citizens participating in disorder will face the full sanction of emergency law.’
Her officials hurried to comply, and soon the city-wide vox-casters were blaring the message out, accompanied by images of the Festerax’s lingering death.
Annarovea turned to face Olgeir. ‘Your comrades…’
Olgeir continued staring at the hololith. For a moment, it looked as if the plague-hulk carcass was all that remained.
Then his helm-comm activated. ‘Hunt complete. All warriors to return to Heimdall. Repeat: all warriors to Heimdall.’
As the message completed, the ravaged outline of Stormcaller’s ship appeared within the sensor ambit, far behind Vindicatus but nonetheless moving under her own power.
Olgeir drew in a deep breath. Something remained to be salvaged, then.
‘You may recall your troops now, governor,’ he said, closing the comm-link.
‘The orders are already sent,’ said Annarovea. ‘The first carriers will make planetfall in a few hours.’
‘That should give you all you need to restore order.’
‘It will take a while.’
‘That it will.’
‘And you?’
‘I have my summons.’
Annarovea bowed. ‘Very well. You must attend to your duties. But…’ She paused, as if struggling to find the words. ‘My thanks, lord. When you arrived–’
‘Noted, governor,’ said Olgeir. He let a smile crack across his scarred face. ‘It is good to endure the storm.’
Heimdall’s bridge was a mess. Cables hung in loops fr
om the battered roof-arches, many sparking with unstaunched electrics. A whole section of the rear tactical area was in ruins, with both servitors and mortal crew trapped in the rubble. The command throne had survived relatively intact, as had the control stations ahead and below it, though the main forward viewscreen was scored deeply from repeated impacts.
Gunnlaugur stood on the rockcrete platform before the throne, his arms crossed, staring out at the scene before him. The surviving members of the kill-teams surrounded him – just fourteen, including himself, Hafloí and the two Thunderhawk pilots who’d remained on Heimdall. There was no sign of Njal.
‘Detect anything yet?’ he demanded of Derroth, Heimdall’s shipmaster.
The Festerax was gone. Its messy demise was clearly visible from the real-viewers. The burning remains looked like some huge asteroid being ripped apart by blood-red tectonic movements.
‘We are working, lord,’ said Derroth.
Gunnlaugur’s combat-euphoria ebbed slowly. The incoming flight on damaged Caestus rams had been nightmarish, contending with stuttering engines, a mauled landing stage and Heimdall’s own erratic movements through space. On reaching safety, Gunnlaugur and the others had made their way straight to the command level.
There was no sign of Stormcaller, and no reliable link to Kefa Primaris. The Festerax’s huge burning ruins stood between them and the planet, playing havoc with their surviving systems.
‘Then he is lost,’ said Gunnlaugur, his voice grim. ‘What news from Vindicatus?’
‘Moving to high anchor,’ replied Derroth, running a weary hand across his cropped hair. ‘Vuokho is inbound, and will dock soon.’
Gunnlaugur nodded. Ingvar had survived, so it seemed, and was bringing something with him. The Gyrfalkon had sounded animated over the comm, which boded well.
‘So be it,’ Gunnlaugur said, turning to his battle-brothers. ‘We have–’
His words died as soon as the first stab of warp-energy snaked out across the centre of the bridge decking.
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