Seventh Retribution
Page 30
A claw snickered out and sliced off the Eversor’s gun hand. His pistol landed in the lava and disappeared. A second claw punched into the Eversor’s stomach and tore out a welter of entrails.
Lysander ran to the dying form of Karnikhal. He tore the obsidian blade out of the Traitor Marine’s body and drew it back, like a javelin.
The Eversor was dying, though he did not know it yet. He was all but disembowelled. Legienstrasse snared his claw hand and sliced off his arm with a bone scythe. The Eversor’s blood spattered up against Legienstrasse’s too-human face. Another blade speared through his throat, twisted, and tore out with another spray of blood.
Lysander had fought against agents of the Officio Assassinorum before. He knew what an Eversor Assassin was, and what it had been created to do. It was designed to kill, and nothing else, and even in death it did its duty.
Lysander hurled the blade. It speared through the air and punched into the dying Eversor’s back. The blade passed right through and into Legienstrasse, lodging in the tough, fibrous matter she had grown to shield her torso and head.
The Eversor was pinned to Legienstrasse, as every dispenser on the Eversor’s combat rig emptied into his veins. Legienstrasse knew what the Eversor could do, too, and she grew new limbs to try to force the Eversor off her and wrench out the obsidian blade. She pulled the blade halfway out when the Eversor put its head back and howled, forcing the last of the air from its shredded lungs.
Legienstrasse was a second too late. The volatile mix of chemicals in the Eversor’s body reached the point where his veins and heart could not contain it. In a final act of spite, the Eversor Assassin exploded in a bio-meltdown of orange flame and venom.
Lysander dived to one side as the burning form of Legienstrasse slammed onto the slab of flooring. The stone immediately began to sink, the lava creeping further over its surface.
Legienstrasse was alive. Her chitinous armour had been blasted away, her attacking limbs reduced to charred and splintered bone. Her face had been spared the worst. The obsidian blade still protruded from her central mass, where burned organs pulsed and bled.
Lysander tore the blade from her. He reached over the lava and grabbed the haft of the Fist of Dorn, pulling it out of the molten rock. Its head glowed brightly with the heat but the exotic alloys of its construction had held intact. Its power field leapt back into life as it came free of the lava.
‘You die, abomination,’ said Lysander, ‘not knowing what a blessing death is. You die not knowing what I do for you.’
For the first time, Legienstrasse’s face showed fear. Her eyes opened wide and she screamed.
Lysander swung the obsidian blade at her. It sliced through her neck and cut her head clean off, and it tumbled through the air.
Red tendrils of nerve fibre and muscle lashed out from around her head, seeking out the bloody ruin of her neck.
Lysander swung the Fist of Dorn in his other hand. The hammer slammed into Legienstrasse’s head. It was propelled across the chamber, smacking wetly into the side of the statue on which she and the Eversor had fought. Lysander watched as the head rolled down the statue, the same fear and shock on her face, until its skin blackened in the heat and her hair caught fire. A few seconds later and the head touched the surface of the lava. A few more and it was gone, turned to ash and swallowed up.
Lysander turned to the charred, broken hulk of Legienstrasse’s body. Her young still squirmed in the sacs bundled inside her armoured torso. Lysander put a shoulder against the corpse and he pushed, and felt it tip over into the lava. It did not take long for the body to be wreathed in flames and disappear.
Lysander limped on his wounded leg to where Ucalegon’s corpse lay beside that of Karnikhal. He picked up Ucalegon’s body and threw it over his shoulder.
‘Forgive me, brother, that you fell under my command,’ said Lysander. ‘By your own hand you are avenged. Your duty was done, my brother. Your duty was done.’
The shattered staircase led towards the upper levels of the Cacophonous Tower. Lysander could hear the gunfire from above, as the rest of the Imperial Fists strike force fended off the daemons native to the place.
As Lysander ascended from the pit of fire, the tolling bells quietened and fell silent.
K-Day +34 Days
Operation Requiem. Elimination of air defences prior to massed air assault on Khezal
Operation Catullus. Encirclement and destruction of enemy forces in Rekaba
Operation Starfall. Withdrawal from Starfall front
Operation Seismic. Reduction of enemy defences prior to invasion of Makoshaam
The trophy hall of the Wings of Dorn was not yet adorned with anything taken from Opis. Perhaps the head of Antiocha Wyraxx would find its way there, if it was ever released by Tchepikov’s intelligence corps, or a segment of Karnikhal’s armour. Those were decisions yet to be made. There were still fallen brothers to be honoured, their gene-seed extracted and their wargear reconsecrated for the recruits who would follow them into the Imperial Fists’ ranks.
Serrick looked with curiosity at the head of an alien creature that hung on the wall, one of many trophies taken from defeated xenos. It hung among crystalline blades and strange firearms of polished stone. Its skull was elongated and plated with bony scales, and it had six eyepits arranged along its mandibled face.
‘I saw these in the flesh,’ she said. ‘Clinging to our ship. I had not thought the Imperium had encountered them before. Kekrops named it Cryptoxenos ferrox tertiam. We tried to get a sample to dissect but it was lost to the void.’
‘We called them Glassfangs,’ said Lysander. ‘The inhabitants of a feral world polished their bones and read fortunes from the reflections. They were destroyed.’
Serrick looked around at Lysander. It was strange to see him out of his armour – he had removed it so he could be attended to in the ship’s apothecarion. One leg was bandaged and braced. His face was still recovering, a new sheet of shiny artificial skin stretched across the side of his head. He wore the monastic robes of a Space Marine away from the battlefield. ‘The aliens,’ said Serrick, ‘or the natives?’
‘Both,’ said Lysander. ‘It was a world beyond hope.’
‘And Opis?’
‘The Imperial war machine will decide that,’ said Lysander. ‘There are still both moral threats and civilians down there. The Imperial Fists have no further part to play in the fate of either.’
‘Have you decided,’ said Serrick, ‘what you will do with me?’
‘I keep my word,’ replied Lysander. ‘An Inquisitorial fortress stands between us and our return to the Phalanx. You will be dropped off there. They need to hear what happened to Kekrops. And, Lady Serrick, I have one further task to request of you. It will cause you no risk and no great labour.’
Serrick considered this for a moment. ‘I owe you my life, Captain Lysander. One more favour should not use up all my good will.’
‘You are in a better position than us,’ said Lysander, ‘to deliver a message.’
‘To whom?’
‘To the Officio Assassinorum.’
Serrick raised an eyebrow. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘That should not be beyond my capabilities. What do you want to say to our Assassinorum cousins?’
‘That they have made a new enemy in the Imperial Fists,’ said Lysander. ‘I have heard it said by Space Marines of other Chapters that when the Adeptus Terra wills it, the Imperial Fists will act. That we are lapdogs of Earth. But the Officio Assassinorum have used us to wage a war of their making, against an enemy they created, to cover up the mistakes of their own past, and that is a wrong that cannot be forgotten. When next we cross paths, it will not be on friendly terms. And if the Assassinorum has more secrets like the Maerorus Temple, I shall see to it that they are rooted out. Such corruption cannot be permitted to exist at the heart of the Imperium. Tell them they can hide no longer, and that one day Lysander and the Imperial Fists will drag all their secrets out into the light.’
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‘Do you believe,’ said Serrick, ‘that the Imperial Fists do not yet have enough enemies, that you go out of your way to make another one?’
‘It was the Assassinorum who shot down Kekrops,’ said Lysander. ‘Do not pretend to me that you do not have your own grudge against them, too.’
‘Perhaps that is true,’ said Serrick. ‘I will keep my own motives to myself. But I will do as you ask. The Inquisition and the Assassinorum work often together and I have certain contacts. Your message will be delivered.’
‘My thanks,’ said Lysander. ‘Now, I have the funeral rites of my brothers to oversee. Opis has claimed far too many lives.’
Lysander left Serrick inspecting the skulls and captured weapons of the trophy hall. He touched the pendant he now wore around his neck – the bullet that killed Inquisitor Kekrops.
Once, he had known no limit to the sacrifices that should be made in the pursuit of victory. Life and death, right and wrong, even honour – the very identity of a Space Marine – could be abandoned if that was what it took to secure victory.
But now he knew. The Assassinorum had showed him that. There was a limit. Though he had taken the head of Legienstrasse, too much had been paid by the Assassinorum to give him the chance.
Perhaps he had always been searching for the answer to the question of how far was too far when seeking victory. Now he had that answer.
He closed his eyes, felt the cold metal of the bullet in his hand, and prayed to Dorn and the Emperor that he would never have to approach that decision himself.
Outside the Wings of Dorn, the great orb of Opis turned, and a million Imperial Guard marched across it as its cities continued to burn.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben Counter is the author of the Soul Drinkers and Grey Knights series, along with two Horus Heresy novels, and is one of Black Library’s most popular Warhammer 40,000 authors. He has written RPG supplements and comic books. He is a fanatical painter of miniatures, a pursuit which has won him his most prized possession: a prestigious Golden Demon award. He lives in Portsmouth, England.
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Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
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Cover illustration by Hardy Fowler
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