Hammer and Bolter 7

by Christian Dunn

  No one knew exactly when it had started. The first signs had been small ones – increased workload at the medicae stations, reports of infection in the scholae, power-loss in the deep hive and rioting across the semi-policed hinterlands running out to the ore-plains.

  The authorities hadn’t been slow to act. Tralmo was sharp, and had never been negligent. There had been quarantines, shipments of antibiotics, blockades of crime-controlled sectors and curfews across the Ghorgonspire.

  But by the time the 1324th lostari ‘greyshirt’ Imperial Guard had been mobilised to restore order, it was already out of hand. The situation had changed from a public health problem to a fight for survival, and so it had stayed for months.

  They never got to the bottom of what had caused it. The originator was, presumably, buried far down in the depths, squatting in the dark places under Ghorgonspire that had long been lost to the contagion. The Holy Emperor alone knew what was down there, pumping bile and energy into the ruined bodies of those it had corrupted.

  Such speculation was useless. The Iron Hands moved with purpose. They punched through the ragged columns of mutants like a blade through rusty armour, tearing and burning and hacking and blasting. They never sped up, never slowed down. Step by step, metre by metre, they reclaimed lost ground, operating like silent golems of myth.

  In their wake came the mortal troops, reinvigorated by the example they had in front of them. Exhausted lostari found the will to take the fight to the mutants. Volleys of lasfire suddenly found their marks more often. Objectives were isolated, taken and consolidated. With the indomitable example of the Space Marines in front of them, the 1324th lostari of Helaj V stood up, and found they were stronger than their desperation had made them believe.

  They descended from level to level in orderly bursts of activity, clearing out connecting chambers of filth and pressing on into the tunnels beyond. Flamers came next, boiling off the stinking layers of slime and acid and charring the metal beneath. Obscene sigils were scored from the walls. Power was restored. The mark of the Imperium was reinstated.

  At the forefront, as ever, were the Iron Hands, the Emperor’s holy Angels of Death.

  And as they killed in those terrible, industrial quantities, never had a moniker seemed so apt.

  The eyes came out of the darkness as if swimming up from the frigid abyss. They swarmed, flocking at the invaders, locked into snarls and yells of utter mindless hatred. As they neared, limbs became visible. Limbs with hooks run through them, or stitches running down them, or iron pins shoved up under the necrotic skin and bulging like parasites.

  Khamed shrugged off his tiredness and shouldered his lasgun. He moved smoothly, aping the frictionless methods of the Iron Hands who fought ahead of him, and drew a bead on the lead mutant.

  He fired, and his las-beam cracked off, impacting between a pair of staring green eyes and cracking the skull into hemispheres.

  Another kill.

  And then he was moving again, marshalling his squad and pushing them forward. He swept his muzzle round, looking for mutants crawling across the roof or punching their way through sewer outlets.

  They were deep down and the air was hot and seamy. No light existed save for the mess of helmet lumen beams, and every trooper was now on full infrared. The chamber was just like a hundred they’d already cleansed – close, claustrophobic, stuffed with a crawling mass of suppurating terror.

  It had ceased to matter. Khamed had begun to forget his life had ever involved anything different. The undead poured towards him, snapping fangs and loping on all fours into contact. He reacted passionlessly, efficiently, optimising his shots and taking time over the targeting. He could rely on the Iron Hands to take out the mass of them – he was there to mop up the stragglers and the outriders.

  He swung round just as three skinny mutants, their bulbous heads bobbing on scrawny necks, bolted from cover and out toward the leftmost Space Marine of the Iron Hands squad. Each one was carrying heavy projectile weapons and let off a flurry of lead as they splashed through the ankle-deep lake of effluvium.

  Khamed got his aim and fired, missing the lead mutant by a finger’s width. In the time it took him to curse, wipe his eyes and re-aim, it was over.

  The Iron Hand didn’t seem to move fast. He seemed to move with the same unearthly, ponderous manner as his brothers. But, somehow, he got his weapon up and fired off a round before the mutants had taken another step. The bolt crashed through the neck of the first, tearing the muscles open and leaving the head lolling on stretched sinews like an amulet. It exploded in the chest of the second, blowing open a ravaged ribcage into splayed splinters.

  Then the sword, the mad sword with its insane rotary blades, swept round in a heavy lash, whipping out sticky fluid from previous kills. The surviving mutant tried to dart under it, aiming to get close enough to use a rusty killing blade it held in its left hand.

  The Iron Hand adjusted the weapon’s descent and the sword whirred into the mutant’s leading shoulder. It burrowed down, carving its way through diseased muscle bunches and flinging out gouts of boiling, frothing blood. The mutant screamed for a fraction of a second, locked in agony as the juddering blades ate through its bony frame and minced what was left of it into a marrow-flecked broth of body fluids.

  The Space Marine hauled the sword free, breaking the ruined body of his prey into two pieces as it was withdrawn. Then he turned, implacable as ever, and kept on fighting.

  He’d never said a word. He’d not changed a thing. No hurry, no fuss.

  Nightmare machines.

  Khamed laughed.

  The Jenummari laughed as he brought his own weapon round and splashed through the filth, looking for new targets. It was a laugh of disbelief, a laugh of wonder that killers of such intensity existed in the universe. It was a laugh of fear, and of relief that they were on his side. He had last laughed six months ago, and the noise of it was unfamiliar in his parched throat.

  ‘Keep up, you dogs!’ he snapped over the comm.

  He wasn’t scared anymore. His body pumped with adrenaline. He was beginning to enjoy himself.

  That, of course, was his first mistake.

  It was fast as well as strong. Its hide was pale brown, like old leather. It had four heavy arms, perhaps grafted on to the torso by some demented chirurgeon. Its face was long, stretched by weights nailed to its distended chin. The skin of its cheeks was ripped and weeping and its clustered eyes bled witchlight.

  As it crashed through the slurry, it howled like a dog. Its hands clenched pairs of gouges, each dripping with virulent, glistening fluid. Long, lank hair flailed around it as it came, and trails of livid saliva hung down from a bloodstained jaw.

  It veered sharply, crashing its way through a knot of its own warped kin. They were crushed underfoot as it came, trampled into the mix of blood and mucus that bubbled underfoot.

  For once, the Space Marines missed the main target. They were all occupied, pinning back the tide of raging, screaming fury that hammered against them. Their guns slammed back into their armoured fists, spitting the surge of reactive rounds that cracked and boomed into the oncoming wall of corrupted flesh.

  Khamed saw the mutant come in his direction, and the laughter died in his mouth. One of his men got a shot, and a las-beam whipped across it.

  It didn’t drop. It launched itself into the close-packed press of lostari, limbs whirling, roaring a strangled cry of ecstasy and fury.

  Khamed tried to swivel round to get an angle, but slipped. He crashed back to the ground, bracing himself with his free arm, only to see three of his men taken out by the mutant. It went for their throats, biting through the neck armour and shaking their limp corpses. Las-beams seared into it, ripping away whole strips of skin, but that didn’t slow it down much. It rampaged through the knot of men, shrugging off anything that hit it, scattering the survivors. Then it turned and saw Kha
med.

  It smiled.

  The mutant leapt at him, all four arms extended. Khamed fired again, hitting it once in its massive chest. Then he was scrabbling back through the scummy fluid, desperately trying to clear some distance.

  The mutant stumbled from the las impact, then regained its feet. It lurched down and grabbed Khamed’s trailing boot. Khamed felt the vice close around his ankle and thrashed to escape, kicking wildly.

  He stood no chance. The mutant pulled him back savagely, gurgling, readying its blades for the plunge that would rip his stomach open. Khamed was wrenched back, dragged through the liquid and along the chamber floor. Frothy slime splashed across his helmet, running across the visor and clouding it in a film of brown.

  Khamed fired again, blindly, and heard the snap of the lasbeam as it shot harmlessly into the roof. Then the gun was knocked from his grasp. He tensed for the bite of the gouges, knowing that they would plunge low, right into his gut.

  Then something huge exploded above him, throwing the slime up in waves. The grip on his ankle released. Khamed pulled himself out of the grime and shook the screen of filth from his visor.

  The mutant was gone. Its lifeless body was crumpled up against the metal wall, pumping black blood solidly. In front of Khamed loomed an Iron Hand, filling his field of vision, vast, black and indomitable.

  ‘Can you fight?’ came the voice from behind the visor.

  It wasn’t Morvox. The tone wasn’t as metallic, not as heavily filtered. It almost sounded human, albeit far more daunting and resonant than any human Khamed had ever encountered.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, shaking himself down and bending to retrieve his lasgun. ‘Yes, I can.’

  ‘Then do so,’ replied the Space Marine, turning away from him and striding back to the main fighting. The chamber was still full of the sounds of combat. Fresh lostari were piling in to replace those felled by the mutant, but there was no sign yet of the horde of bloated horrors relinquishing the chamber. The clamour of bolter detonations, howls and screams just kept on going.

  Khamed watched the Iron Hand go, his heart thumping hard. He realised his hands were shaking, and clenched his fists to stop it.

  Then do so.

  He hefted his lasgun again, checking to see if the fluids had interfered with the mechanism. The simple things helped.

  ‘Very well,’ he muttered, still trembling. He braced himself and looked for a target. ‘I will.’

  The noise of the assault died away. The Iron Hands began to move on, wading their way toward a long access shaft. They maintained the same pace as before, never speeding up, never slowing down.

  The same punishing pace wasn’t possible for the mortal troops. They needed rotations, rest periods, resupply and medicae treatment. After hours of fighting, almost without respite, Khamed’s turn had finally come.

  Namogh’s force-signal flashed across his helmet display, indicating that he was moving into position to relieve him. Khamed turned to the Space Marine who had rescued him, still the closest to hand of the quintet. For some reason, it felt more natural to address that one than Morvox, who in any case had already stalked off into the dark ahead.

  ‘My deputy will provide fire support beyond this node,’ Khamed announced. His voice gave away his extreme fatigue. The adrenaline from the last encounter had drained away, leaving him feeling empty. ‘This detachment needs to rotate.’

  The Space Marine turned to face him. His facemask was streaked with blood and bile, making him look even more grotesque than normal. There was a pause, possibly due to some internal comms between the squad.

  ‘We will maintain the assault,’ the Iron Hand replied. ‘Order relief forces to follow us down when they get here.’

  The Space Marine turned to move off, then stopped. He looked Khamed up and down.

  ‘How long have you been on your feet?’

  ‘Fifteen hours, lord. The same as you.’

  The Space Marine nodded slowly.

  ‘Fifteen hours.’ There was a strange noise from the vox grille. On a human, it might have been a laugh – a strange, attenuated snort. From one of the giants, Khamed wasn’t willing to assume anything.

  ‘We forget where we come from, sometimes,’ said the Iron Hand. The tone of voice was almost reflective. ‘You fought well, human. Tell the others they fought well.’

  Khamed didn’t reply at once, stunned by the unexpected compliment. Then suddenly, from nowhere, encouraged by the unlikely candour from the Angel of Death, he dared to ask for more.

  ‘I will, lord,’ he said. ‘But I have no name to give them.’

  Again, the noise. Perhaps irritation. Perhaps amusement. Perhaps warning.

  ‘Ralech,’ came the reply, before the Space Marine strode off to join his brother warriors. ‘Ralech Grond, Clan Raukaan, Medusa. Tell them that.’

  ‘He said that?’

  Khamed nodded between gulps of stimm-laced water. He was enjoying Namogh’s expression – a cross between disbelief, horror and disapproval.

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  Khamed put the canteen down. He was sitting on an old iron crate, shoulders hunched and head low. He could already feel oncoming sleep crowding out his thoughts. The chamber was full of men, exhausted ones from his command being replaced with fresher ones under Namogh’s.

  ‘He was almost… normal.’

  ‘Crap.’

  ‘I’m telling you.’

  Khamed watched the survivors of his platoon limp back up toward the transit shafts at the rear end of the chamber. Their armour was caked in filth and blood. Some couldn’t walk unaided and hung like sides of meat from the shoulders of their comrades. He’d be joining them soon.

  ‘I think they change,’ said Khamed thoughtfully. ‘The leader – Morvox – he’s further down the road than the others. They forget.’

  Namogh spat into the floor-slurry, and the spittle spun gently away toward the drain meshing.

  ‘You’ve taken a hit, Jen,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘They don’t feel nothing. They’d throw us into the grinder without a blink.’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘They ain’t human.’

  ‘Not now, no.’

  ‘We’re nothing to them. Just spare parts.’

  Khamed looked up at his deputy. Namogh was as adamant as ever. His ugly face was twisted with distaste. There was anger there, to be sure, but also fear. Khamed couldn’t blame him for that. The Iron Hands scared everyone, even the mutants.

  ‘I don’t want to believe that, Orfen,’ said Khamed quietly. ‘They are sons of the Emperor, just as we are. We fight together.’

  ‘Crap. You’re delusional.’

  ‘But what changes them?’ asked Khamed, ignoring Namogh. He remembered the way Grond’s voice had sounded. ‘Why do they change? I’d like to know that.’

  IV

  The knife went in, moving across the flesh of the arm, tracing a thin line of blood.

  Morvox watched it. He had an almost uncontrollable urge to seize the nearest medicae servitor by its desiccated throat and slam it against the walls of the apothecarion.

  That had been predicted. He fought the urge down. The hormones in his body, the ones introduced during the changes, made him belligerent in the face of injury.

  The servitors carried on, heedless of the turmoil in their patient. They moved on tank tracks around the metal chair Morvox had been clamped into. Their faces were shiny curves of steel, dotted with sensoria. Their limbs were entirely augmetic and terminated in a dozen different surgical devices. They chattered to one another in a basic form of binaric. It was a soft, low clicking backdrop to their grisly work.

  The skin was peeled back, exposing raw muscle. The ligatures below the bicep tensed. The knives went in again, parting the muscle mass.

  Morvox watched it happen. He watched the r
otary saw whine through the bone. It had only just finished growing into its new, improved form. Amputating it seemed wasteful.

  They broke the bones. He watched his hand fall away, clutched in the claws of a metal servitor. He watched the blood run out of the wrist, steaming as it cooled in its steel bowl. He watched sutures run across his severed forearm, rebinding the muscles and stabilising them. He watched the drills go in and the pre-augmetic bindings lock on to his broken bones.

  There was hours of work to come. Rods would be implanted, running nearly up to his elbow. Braces would encircle the pronator, studding through the skin of his forearm. Neural relays would be dropped into place, and nerve-sockets, and tendon housings. And then, finally, they would drill in the new hand, the mark of his Chapter, the sign of fealty to the primarch and to the ideals of Medusa.

  He would watch it all. The procedure was the mark of passage, the signal of his transition from mortal to superhuman. When it was complete, it would make him stronger. He knew this. It was fact, as revealed by Iron Father Arven Rauth, and so could not be doubted.

  But, even though he knew it to be true, even as he watched the rods go in, bisecting the muscles that had kept him alive out on the ash plains, he did not yet believe it.

  One day, like the Iron Father who had retrieved him from the trials, Morvox would not remember anything but the aesthetic imperative, the desire to purge the machine of the flesh that impeded it. One day, Morvox would no doubt pass on the ways of Manus to another, believing it with both hearts, no longer regretting the loss of a part of himself.

  But not yet.

  For now, he still felt it.

  There were more trials. Long years as a neophyte, learning the ways of the Adeptus Astartes. A hundred worlds, all different, all the same.

  He saw them first as a Scout, learning to use his enhanced body without the full protection of power armour. He enjoyed feeling his augmented muscles flex. He revelled in the strength of his new sinews. He could run for hours without fatigue, or lay in wait for days without the need for sustenance. He was a miracle, a scion of demigods.