The Eye of Ezekiel

by C Z Dunn

  ‘And why are you here, arch magos?’ Zadakiel asked. The lack of communication and cooperation from the Mechanicus in recent days had taken its toll. Zadakiel’s patience had worn parchment-thin.

  ‘The greenskins, of course,’ Diezen said, as if it was glaringly obvious. ‘We’re here to fight the greenskins alongside you.’

  ‘Your timely aid is most appreciated,’ said Zadakiel in a tone that balanced diplomacy with sarcasm. ‘Come, Brother Shadrach. Let us prepare for war.’ Zadakiel nodded respectfully to the tech-priest before leading the Dark Angels from the landing pad. Serpicus went to attend to the Thunderhawk and administer the Rites of Safe Passage before it took off again to ferry more Space Marines to the Tamhdu Gate. He had just daubed the first sigil onto the hull in holy oil when he felt and heard a mechadendrite tapping him on the pauldron. He turned to find a scowling Diezen staring dead into his artificial eyes.

  ‘Remember, Serpicus,’ Diezen hissed mechanically. ‘The turrets are not to fall into the hands of the orks. You and your brothers are to defend them at all costs. Do I make myself clear?’

  Unblinking, Serpicus held the arch magos’ gaze for uncomfortable seconds before turning his attention back to the idling flyer and continuing his ritual. Still glowering, Diezen led his own troops from the landing pad to join their fellow skitarii already positioned around the base of the defence turret.

  For a city under siege, the streets of Aurelianum were surprisingly calm.

  Its citizens bustled through the streets in an orderly fashion, factorum workers and small children making their way to the bunkers housed within the inner gates just as they had practised countless times during their lifetimes, and like their ancestors had done for millennia.

  Between the bursts of fire from the turrets high above him, Ladbon was struck by how quiet it was. Though the residents of the capital spoke to each other as they navigated the wide streets, it was with quiet urgency rather than panic. The entire world had spent ten thousand years preparing for war; now that war was here, the entire population simply took it in their stride.

  Moving against the flow of people, Ladbon caught sight of a familiar red uniform and fur hat. As he got nearer he could see that the Vostroyan trooper was directing the Honorians towards the inner sanctum. Moreover, he recognised the trooper as being from his own regiment.

  ‘Trooper Petrovich,’ Ladbon said as he approached. ‘I’ve been separated from my squad. Do you know where they are?’

  Petrovich eyed Ladbon with contempt, unslinging the lasrifle from his back and pointing it at the dishevelled captain. Ladbon realised that he was virtually unrecognisable, his face and moustache caked in filth and ork gore. Bereft of his tunic and greatcoat there was only one way he could confirm his identity to the nervous trooper.

  ‘Captain Antilov,’ Ladbon said, pointing to his augmetic eye. ‘We were on patrol in the steppes together not three weeks ago.’

  Petrovich flashed a set of yellowed teeth from beneath his thick blond moustache and lowered the rifle. ‘What in the name of the Throne happened to you, captain?’ he said, saluting as an afterthought.

  ‘An ork flyer crashed in the city. The pilot survived, but not for very long.’ Ladbon shivered, suddenly aware of the cold. ‘Do you know where my squad are?’

  ‘We were all billeted in a hab block in sector nineteen until yesterday. Then new orders came through and the regiment was dispersed around the gates. They could be anywhere by now. Might not even be in the city any more.’

  ‘Where is sector nineteen?’ Ladbon asked.

  ‘In that direction,’ Petrovich said, pointing over the heads of the constant stream of Honorians. ‘Follow the signs with this marking on them.’ Petrovich grabbed Ladbon’s hand and drew a symbol in the layer of grime on the back of the captain’s hand.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘It’s the Honorian numeral for nineteen. The translator taught it to me.’

  ‘Marita?’ Ladbon said.

  ‘I think that was her name. Did you know she’s the governor’s daughter?’

  ‘I do now…’ Ladbon muttered. ‘Was she with my squad when they were billeted in sector nineteen?’

  ‘I don’t know, captain,’ Petrovich said. ‘Everything has been so confused these past few weeks.’

  ‘Thank you, trooper,’ Ladbon called over his shoulder, already heading in the direction of sector nineteen.

  As Ladbon expected, the hab block was empty when he got there. Telltale signs of its recent occupants were everywhere, but as he went from dorm to dorm he could find no evidence of his squad, nor Marita, having been there.

  Thankfully, he found a discarded greatcoat – one of its pockets torn off, which would likely have earned its previous owner a reprimand should he have worn it in battle – and a Vostroyan fur hat, scorched down one side where it had come too close to the business end of a lasrifle.

  As he descended the stairs of the hab block and headed back out onto the streets of Aurelianum, flexing his arms and shoulders to stretch the slightly too snug greatcoat, he saw the two words scrawled on the wall beside the doorway. The handwriting was unmistakably Mute’s.

  SULARIAN GATE.

  A bitter wind howled through the battlements of the Tamhdu Gate bringing with it yet more snow. It settled on the stone walls of the tower and the ceramite plate of the Dark Angels’ power armour, but Ezekiel and his brothers paid it no heed.

  Out on the plains, the ork army waited impatiently for the order to attack. As was the greenskins’ wont, sporadic brawls had broken out as the assembled horde worked itself up into a battle frenzy and gunfire rang out over the din of war-cries as overenthusiastic orks discharged their weapons with no care for who or what they shot. Even the constant anti-personnel fire from the Tamhdu Gate’s turret did nothing to dampen their spirits, each shot that obliterated at least a hundred of their number greeted by loud cheers from the xenos throng.

  ‘What are they waiting for?’ Puriel spat. ‘Their forces have all landed. Delaying only grants us an advantage, a chance to whittle down their numbers.’ Another shot boomed out from the turret, another cheer rose up from the steppes.

  ‘It is sport to them,’ Rephial said. ‘They revel in battle for battle’s sake. This world, its resources mean nothing to them, likewise its people. Should they be victorious here, the spoils of war will be meaningless, aside from whatever they can loot. For the greenskins, battle is not a means to an end, it is a means without end, without purpose. Even this,’ Rephial gestured, open-palmed to the sea of green before them, ‘is part of it. The show of force, the pre-battle pageantry – it’s like oxygen to them. Without it, the species would just wither and die.’

  ‘A most intriguing hypothesis, Dark Angel,’ Diezen said, looking up from the skitarii he was tinkering with. ‘We should talk more when all this is over, you and I. I once knew a magos biologis who thought that the eldar reprod–‘

  ‘Something’s happening,’ Shadrach said. The noise of the horde changed, discordant cries and howls turning into a discordant approximation of singing or chanting.

  ‘The Land Raider is on the move,’ Ezekiel said. Black wisps of smoke rose into the air on the horizon as the looted vehicle sped towards the beleaguered gate.

  ‘The what?’ Diezen said, quickly forgetting any offence he had taken at being so rudely interrupted by Shadrach. He looked to where he saw movement on the steppes, artificial eyes irising wide in horror. ‘Blessed Omnissiah, what have they done? What have they done?’ He turned aside and vomited, thick black oil spilling over his dark robes and melting the snow at his feet. When he looked back at the Land Raider, he dry-heaved several times before muttering away to himself in incoherent binary.

  ‘What does it hope to achieve?’ Puriel said. ‘The trenches are designed to prevent vehicles from…’ The Chaplain went silent, coming to the same realisation as his brothers at
the exact same moment.

  The Land Raider sped inexorably on, mowing down anything in its path, its tracks crushing all beneath them. When it hit the edge of the trenchworks, it sped onwards, the corpses piled to the top of the gulley walls forming a road beneath it.

  ‘That’s what they were waiting for,’ Zadakiel said. ‘They needed enough corpses to dam the trenches and we helped them do it! Stop that turret from firing.’

  Diezen was still reeling from the sight of the defiled Land Raider, oblivious to all around him.

  ‘Serpicus,’ Zadakiel said, turning to the Techmarine.

  ‘Affirmative,’ he replied, already sprinting in the direction of the turret.

  Emboldened by their general’s bravado, other ork vehicles began to follow in the Land Raider’s wake. Behind them, tens of thousands of orks began to charge, their tuneless singing growing ever louder.

  Gaining speed as it went, the looted Space Marine vehicle headed straight for the base of the weapons tower. When it was little more than half a mile away, the ork general leapt from the top hatch, landing roughly among a pile of dead xenos.

  The Land Raider kept on going.

  ‘Brace!’ Zadakiel yelled.

  Down below, reaching speeds far in excess of what it had been designed to achieve, the Land Raider impacted against the base of the gate, detonating violently. Flames spewed high into the air, thick plumes of smoke chasing the fire skywards. Two hundred and fifty feet above, the battlements shook under the force of the blast, dropping some of the ordinary human soldiery to their knees.

  The vox erupted with noise as Astra Militarum forces reported in, all confirming that the base of the gate had been breached. Snapping out of his trance-like state, Diezen and the skitarii headed towards the defence turret without a word to the Dark Angels.

  As the Space Marines looked on, countless orks flooded towards the breach, some of them ablaze from the Land Raider’s detonation. In the heart of the chaos, surrounded by a bodyguard of thickset greenskins, the ork general threw back its head in raucous laughter, content at the carnage already wrought, giddy at the prospect of slaughter yet to come. It held both hands out in front of it, palms upwards, and gestured goadingly to the Dark Angels.

  Here I am. Come and get me.

  ‘Now is our chance to finish this,’ Puriel said. ‘If we eliminate their general, the orks will resort to infighting and our war is all but won.’

  ‘This is all part of its plan,’ Rephial said. ‘It intends to do to us what we intend for it. Just as we want to remove the head from the body of the ork army, it knows it has drawn the Dark Angels commanders here and seeks to vanquish us.’

  ‘You give the xenos too much credit, Apothecary,’ Puriel scoffed. ‘It is merely an ork, and seeks only combat for combat’s sake. You said as much yourself.’

  ‘The patience it has shown in both amassing its forces for the invasion and preparing for this assault was by design rather than accident,’ said Rephial. ‘I think you are underestimating it, Brother Puriel.’

  Zadakiel was pensive. ‘What say you, Brother Ezekiel? Does the warp reveal to us the optimum course of action?’

  Ezekiel closed his eyes, inclining his head forwards so that his psychic hood bathed his face in shadow. When he opened them again, he turned to Turmiel. The Lexicanium shook his head.

  ‘The future is occluded to both Brother Turmiel and ,’ Ezekiel said.

  The vox-traffic became ever more frantic, Vostroyan and Mordian voices appealing for reinforcements to counter the ork forces now within the walls.

  ‘This ends now,’ Zadakiel said defiantly. ‘Ezekiel, get us down there.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The hundred or so orks were caught so unawares by the five Dark Angels materialising in front of them that not a single one had time to react. Each of them lay dead or dying in the blood-drenched snow in a matter of seconds.

  Those further away from the point of teleportation had time enough to at least muster a defence, but lived only marginally longer. Heavenfall blade, chainsword and power fist separated heads from shoulders and showered limbs to the cold ground, while the psychic might of the two Librarians fried the brains and froze the blood of any greenskin that evaded the Dark Angels’ weapons. The aetheric onslaught’s effects were twofold, not only killing the xenos but striking fear into their surviving kin. Wary of the Space Marine witch-mind, many of the orks hung back, some fleeing altogether rather than succumb to such strange magicks.

  ‘It seems your reputation among the greenskins is well earned, Brother Librarian,’ said Puriel. ‘Perhaps it was you causing them to linger in orbit all along, rather than some grand plan.’

  If Rephial heard the Chaplain’s barb he ignored it, running his chainsword through ork torsos with the same precision he displayed in the medicae. Often drawn away from the field of battle to tend to his wounded brothers, the Apothecary relished every opportunity to prove his martial prowess.

  The supply of greenskins to murder was unending, but the Dark Angels’ application to the business of killing them was unstinting. Taking advantage of his status among the enemy, Ezekiel had drawn his force sword, his weapon now used to slay orks while his mind conjured forth images of great horrors to keep the weak-minded aliens at bay. Each sweep of the Space Marines’ blades brought them closer to their quarry, but the ork general, cutting down retreating cowards with its double-headed axe, was determined to meet its foe more than halfway.

  Barrelling through a mass of its own troops, transfixed into inaction by an apparition of one of their gods, the massive ork charged Rephial, seeking to split the Apothecary in two with a single blow from its fearsome axe. Spinning away from the sweep of the ork’s weapon, Rephial clicked the ignition stud of his chainsword and swung the whirring blade towards the warboss’ flank. With speed belying its bulk, the warboss threw out an arm, the teeth of the Space Marine’s weapon biting into the thick band of metal around its wrist, sparks flying as they fought vainly to carve through to flesh and bone. Struggling to free the axe from where it had become embedded deep in the top of a trench wall, the ork kicked out at Rephial, connecting so hard with his midriff that the blow shattered power armour and sent the Apothecary sprawling atop the pile of greenskin corpses that covered the battlefield. With a supreme effort, it tugged the axe free and swung it over its head in the same movement, the prone Dark Angel helpless to move out of its deadly arc.

  The killing blow never landed.

  Bursting from the warboss’ blindside, Puriel’s power fist struck the beast on the side of the temple. It was a strike hard enough to take the head from a lesser ork, and it forced the warboss off balance, the xenos’ weapon embedding itself in the corpses of slain greenskins rather than the body of the Dark Angels Apothecary. Enraged, the warboss raised the axe again, intent on ending the life of its new target, but at the apex of its swing, Zadakiel emerged as if from nowhere to drive his Heavenfall blade into the ork’s side. The sword bit but scored only a glancing hit, its blade wetted but not drenched with xenos blood.

  An impromptu arena had sprung up around the ork general and the Dark Angels, the greenskin army forming a circle around the duel, either out of fear of the Librarians or fear of reprisal from their leader should they interfere in the combat. Rather than become embroiled in the already one-sided fight, Ezekiel and Turmiel ran crowd control, holding back the horde with terrifying visions or driving psychic daggers into the minds of any tempted to involve themselves.

  Blood seeping from its flank, the warboss swung its axe at Zadakiel, but the company master anticipated the attack, bringing his sword up to counter the blow. It connected just beneath the axehead, sparks spraying over both combatants, and the two weapons locked, ork and Space Marine alike forcing every ounce of their strength into keeping their opponent’s weapon neutralised.

  It was a test that Zadakiel could never win.

&
nbsp; Finding it difficult to gain purchase on the corpses underfoot, Zadakiel was driven backwards, the ork’s muscle power too much even for his genetically enhanced might. But just when it looked as if the warboss would drive him to the floor, the Dark Angel turned the situation to his advantage, quickly withdrawing his blade from the stalemate and sidestepping, causing the warboss to stumble forwards. In the same motion, Zadakiel brought the sword back around, its red-tinged edge seeking out the ork’s exposed back.

  Alert to the danger, the huge greenskin lashed out, Zadakiel’s blade connecting with the same metal band that had countered Rephial’s chainsword. Sensing what was about to happen next, the company master tried vainly to reverse the momentum of his weapon, to bring it back around to block the ork’s counter-attack, but he was fractionally too slow, the massive axe passing under the Heavenfall blade and carving through ceramite. Zadakiel gritted his teeth as the sharp edge bit deep into his flesh, delivering a wound that mirrored the one he had administered to the warboss.

  Twisting the head as he pulled it free, the ork brought the axe up again, intent on finishing his stricken foe. Thick red blood spilled from the gouge in Zadakiel’s armour, but he still had the presence of mind to raise his sword, blocking what would have been a killing strike. The two weapons interlocked once again. Rather than pushing the Dark Angel back this time, the warboss kicked out, the force of the impact cracking armour and driving Zadakiel onto one knee. Weakened and losing blood at a prodigious rate, the Dark Angel could do nothing to prevent the ork from ripping the sword from his grasp with a forceful flick of the axe.

  Its mouth opening wide in a sadistic grin, the warboss raised its axe again to separate the company master’s head from his shoulders.

  For the second time in the battle, Puriel came to the aid of one of his battle-brothers at the very last moment, a blow from his crozius arcanum to the ork’s midriff swiftly followed by a power fist to the xenos’ metal jaw.