The World Eaters claimed to be warriors, not soldiers. The Legio Audax, bound to the XII Legion for decades, claimed something similar. Their Titans weren’t war machines. Their Titans were hunters.
She pulled back both unlocking levers, gripped her control sticks and fired the ursus claw. Magnetic coils in the Warhound’s arm launched the spear, propelling it into the crater and sinking it home in Ardentor’s torso with a brutal crack of annihilated metal. Solostine gave a slow smile as he watched the Lysanda engine jerk with the impact.
‘Beautiful shot, Moderati Bly.’
‘My thanks, princeps. Magnetic bindings empowered.’
Ardentor rocked back and forth, its shoulder and cockpit holed through. The great impaling spear came active, magnetically sealing inside the lethal wound.
‘Walk, Toth.’
‘Aye, sire.’
The Audax Titan took three steps back from the crater’s rim, pulling the harpoon cable taut. Ardentor toppled backwards, crashing onto the ground, its reactor-heart still active but its command crew destroyed in the impaling.
Syrgalah kept walking backwards, retracting its harpoon and dragging the downed Titan’s corpse up the crater slope.
‘Cut them loose,’ said Solostine.
‘Cutting them loose, sire.’ Keeda deactivated the magnetic grapple on the harpoon’s body and let the spear pull free of the mangled metal.
The hunter, Syrgalah, left its slain foe on the avenue and turned in search of other prey, as the cheering cries of World Eaters warriors crackled over the vox.
He moved over to his brother, offering a skinned hand. The battle still raged above and around them, but incoming Word Bearers gunships and Audax Titans were finally pressing the Armaturan Guard back.
The two primarchs gripped wrists, and Angron pulled Lorgar to his feet. Apothecaries from both Legions were sprinting into the crater, voxing awed murmurs to the squads at their sides. Angron paid no heed. With the Titan’s weight off his shoulders, he had more than a moment to glance at Lorgar. Half of the Word Bearer’s face was sloughed almost to the bone, no different from wax trails down a half-spent candle.
‘Are you dying?’
Lorgar grinned, with a ghastly cadaverous leer. ‘I think I might be.’
‘You look like you are.’
Lorgar’s remaining eye fixed onto his brother’s gaze. He was still grinning because the ruination of his face left him no choice in the matter.
‘I sought to save you. To unearth you from that burial.’
Angron swallowed. He felt something in that moment – the uneasy threat of kinship. He sensed it, with one who was not one of his First Brothers, and felt suddenly unsure whether to retreat from it or embrace it. He’d always loathed Lorgar. Even seeing him fight after Isstvan, and how far he’d come from his years of cowardice, wasn’t enough to build any real bond.
‘Is that a lie?’ he asked. ‘You tried to dig me out?’
Lorgar’s grin was a rigor mortis smirk of bloodstains and burned gums. ‘You know it’s the truth.’
‘You weren’t needed.’
Lorgar turned away. ‘Be that as it may, I thank you, brother. Thank you for stopping the Titan.’
Another hesitation. For a moment, it seemed Angron would speak, but he said nothing.
Gunships were coming down around them now. The first Apothecary reached the primarchs; Angron dismissed him with a wave.
‘Away with you, Bloodspitter.’
‘But sire…’
‘I said away with you.’
The World Eaters backed away. Khârn was among them, with his closest kindred.
Angron met Esca’s eyes for a long, sterile moment, before nodding a grudging greeting. A thanks, perhaps. Of a sort. Esca returned it, though – as always – he kept his distance from the primarch.
Lorgar ceased his limping retreat to the closest Thunderhawk. He looked up at the dust-choked sky then turned his slagged face back to Angron.
‘There are so many people dying on this world, right now, as we speak, and muse, and breathe. It’s changing the song, brother. Every life ending in pain changes the tune. That’s why we’re here. That’s why Ultramar must die slowly, in pain, rather than in the rush of quick fire. The tune must be pitch perfect.’
Angron felt naked without his axes. Already, distraction set in, sending him casting about for a temporary replacement.
‘You babble, priest. Get back to the ships. We will speak when Armatura chokes beneath our Legions’ boots.’
Lorgar didn’t reply. Word Bearers flocked around him, chanting and praying, some of them falling to their knees in reverence. He didn’t ignore them as Angron ignored his sons; Lorgar took the time to honour them, blessing their devotion with the touch of a hand on their helms, or pressing his bloody palm-print to their oath parchments. He honoured them in the ruins, baptising them with his own blood.
‘Lorgar,’ Angron called, as the Word Bearer reached the gunship. When his brother turned, the primarch of the World Eaters spat onto the blackened earth. ‘Try not to die before I return.’
Lorgar gave his mutilated smile again, and ascended into the Thunderhawk.
Angron turned back to his sons, their armour spattered red on white, their faces and snarling helms staring in mute shock.
‘Leave me,’ he growled.
Khârn wouldn’t let it lie. ‘Sire…’
‘Leave me, Khârn. Prattle at me later, when the Nails no longer sing.’
‘No.’
The World Eaters turned to the Eighth Captain, several of them shuffling nervously. Above them, Word Bearers gunships drove the Ultramarines running from Valika, after the cost already had run to hundreds of XII Legion lives.
Angron, in truth, looked little better than Lorgar. Both were miserable with near-terminal wounds. The Eater of Worlds’ armour was in fragments and his exposed skin was peeled raw from dragging himself from his rocky grave. Even weaponless and half-murdered, he could kill the half-dozen warriors before him without his heart rate increasing.
‘You have something to say, captain?’
Khârn was implacable. His powerless plasma pistol and broken chainaxe were both sheathed. To occupy his hands, he pointed at the rising Thunderhawk carrying the primarch of the XVII Legion.
‘Lord Aurelian tore rocks from the ground for almost half an hour to reach you, and slaughtered countless enemy warriors.’
Angron showed his shark’s rows of iron teeth. ‘And?’
‘And you owe him thanks. His act was noble, despite his Legion’s eternal cowardice, and he endured great horror to save you. I have never seen a warrior withstand such punishment, nor pull gunships from the sky by spite alone. This ingratitude is beneath you, sire. You are better than this.’
Kargos took an unsubtle step away from Khârn. Jeddek and Skane did the same. Khârn smiled coldly at their caution.
They’d expected anger. They’d expected to be sullenly ignored. What they hadn’t expected was laughter. Angron shattered the tension with a low, rueful laugh.
‘I’ll bear that in mind, Khârn.’ The primarch walked away, seeking a worthwhile weapon in the devastation that Valika Junction had become.
With the primarch gone, Khârn sank to the ground. For a few moments, he was content to just breathe, surrendering to the aches that populated his body after hours of remorseless fighting. A legionary could fight for days – weeks if he had to – but a capacity to endure misery didn’t offer complete immunity to mortal limitations.
And this, too, was a gesture repeated across the warring city. Soldiers stealing what rest they could – one of the realities of war that also never made it into the sagas. A Legion never fought alone; it marched with consistent trains of resupply and ammunition drops, or it halted and marched no further. Orbital assault played by the same rules. Once signific
ant ground was taken, it was reinforced from above and served as a point for immediate resupply.
Khârn listened to the vox-chatter of World Eaters landers en route to Valika and other nearby junctions, bringing ammunition, grenades and replacement chainaxe teeth-tracks that the Legion had needed hours before. He could hear Word Bearers commanders, as well, somehow only just making it to link-up points after the World Eaters had taken a hammering at front lines across the city.
Retinal runes nagged him about the damage to his armour, but that could wait. They also nagged him about the fact that his wound had broken open again, despite his body’s haemosealant capabilities. It was clotting as normal, to prevent blood loss, but kept re-tearing when he moved. He’d been bleeding on and off for over two hours. A human would have been dead in minutes.
‘Your vital signs are singing a merry tune,’ Kargos voxed. ‘Let me take a look.’
‘It just needs sealant,’ Khârn replied. ‘Leave it. It’ll bide.’
Kargos crashed down next to his captain, unlocking his helmet and pulling it free. ‘Armatura, eh? I’d rather have taken Calth. At least they had surprise on their side – almost enough to cancel out the enormous drag factor of fighting alongside these bastard Word Bearers.’
Despite himself, Khârn chuckled. Kargos had that effect on his brothers. The Apothecary wasn’t done, though. ‘I saw you strangle that Ultramarine Evocatus with your weapon chain. That was beautiful.’
Even seated, Khârn offered a theatrical, mocking bow. ‘Not one of my more honourable duels.’
‘I can’t think of a single fight in Twelfth Legion history that could be described as honourable.’
Khârn hung his head, hoping against reason that the ceaseless pressure in the back of his mind would ease for just a few minutes. But the Nails wanted him up. They wanted him killing, or they’d bleach his brain of all other feeling.
‘There was one,’ he said. ‘One honourable fight.’
‘Ah.’ Kargos grinned, showing metal teeth of his own. ‘The Night of the Wolf doesn’t count. We both know Russ will never have let that reach any Imperial records. Couldn’t have his precious war-dogs’ defeat entered into the archives, could he? Not by us. Not by a worthless Legion with fire in their minds.’
Dust swirled around them both. Khârn breathed it in, tasting the char on the wind. The smell of a city ripped open to the bone.
‘Any word of Argel Tal?’ he asked.
‘None. Perhaps it’s good news. Perhaps he died, rather than choosing to abandon us.’
Khârn didn’t chuckle that time. He did, however, feel a little guilty for his smile. The Nails rewrote his emotions, but they couldn’t steal the joy from everything. Not yet, at least. He’d not worn them as long as some. He’d seen enough of the oldest veterans, like Jeddek, who felt nothing outside of slaughter. No smiles, no tears, no nothing. Dead-eyed glares and monotone murmurs, until they were turned loose on the enemy. Only then could they feel. Only then could they experience a palette of emotions beyond staring at everything and nothing with their faces twitching in pained distraction.
‘A worthless Legion,’ Khârn said. ‘Do they still say that about us, I wonder.’ It wasn’t quite a question. And if it was, it wasn’t one he expected an answer to.
Kargos spat onto the obsidian that served as earth in the wake of the plasma unleashments.
‘That alpha Wolf you killed,’ he said. ‘The hero. I forget his name.’
Khârn felt the edge of his lips pulled in another smile. Two in as many minutes. How rare. When he spoke, he put on a thick, halting accent of elongated vowels and rough consonants.
‘Aevalryff,’ he almost growled, imitating the dead Wolf’s voice. ‘Baresark of Tra. Bearer of Serpentfang.’ Khârn even beat a fist against his chestplate, as the Wolf had done.
Kargos grinned. ‘That was it. So proud, he was! He died badly.’
‘Everyone dies badly. We lead violent lives, and we die as we live.’ Khârn rose to his feet, reaching for the helm he’d discarded moments ago. Kargos followed, replacing his helm at the same time.
‘How are you so unscarred?’ Kargos asked. ‘It’s uncanny. You still wear the face you were born with.’ The Apothecary waved a hand over his own features, which – like most World Eaters’ – was a map of thick stitching and overlapping scars.
‘Skill.’
‘Ha! If you say so.’ Kargos started making his way to the closest pack of servitors, as supply crates and heavy armour were finally being unloaded from the gunships and landers. ‘Khârn?’ he called back. ‘Centurion?’
Khârn walked to where an axe lay on the ground. Not his axe. Not an axe that belonged to any legionary. It was a toothless relic, scratched and scraped and worn from too long carving rock rather than flesh.
‘Khârn?’ Kargos voxed again.
‘A moment,’ he replied. ‘Give me a moment.’
He crouched to pick it up, but his fingers closed into a fist before they touched the black haft. Was this sacrilege? Was this sure to anger his volatile primarch?
Khârn clutched the haft and lifted the weapon with one hand. It was heavy, heavier than he’d been expecting, and would need both hands to swing with any artistry. But then, if he cared for artistry, he’d have been a swordsman.
‘I’ve found Gorechild,’ he said.
It was Skane’s voice that crackled back. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Sir, don’t. You know his traditions.’ Other voices joined in, all referring to the primarch’s superstition of inherited weapons bringing ill luck. A gladiatorial conceit, from his homeworld.
‘He threw it away for a reason,’ voxed Esca. ‘It’s ruined, captain. It’ll never function again.’
Khârn ignored his brothers’ protests. He walked to the closest tech-priest, who was busy overseeing the distribution of fresh ammunition crates to World Eaters battle tanks.
‘You. What’s your name?’
The robed priest made a sound not entirely unlike a child screeching binaric code. Khârn held up a hand when he saw the priest lacked a mouth; a vocabulator replaced it, sutured in place, forming an eternal ‘O’ where the man’s lips, teeth and a tongue had once been.
‘Enough. Your name isn’t important.’ He hefted the toothless Gorechild, but pulled it back when the priest made to take it. ‘This axe was toothed by the fangs of a mica-dragon. Do you recognise it?’
Again came a screech of code. Khârn assumed it meant yes – no Audax officer or minister could serve alongside the World Eaters and fail to have observed Gorefather and Gorechild at least once.
‘I want this area excavated, the moment it’s marked as secure. Find the chainsaw teeth to repair this axe. I imagine it will take days. I don’t care, take as long as you need. Is that understood?’
The priest’s eyes, still human, widened in alarm. He gave voice to another spurt of code, this one clearly a protest. Khârn blink-clicked a flashing icon in the upper left of his eye lens display, and waited for the translation runes to scroll across his vision.
‘If it’s not your area of jurisdiction, find someone in Audax I can rely on to do it.’
Another spurt. Another sighing wait for translation. The priest looked horrified, and the wide-mouthed speaker where his mouth should be only aided the impression.
‘If it takes two hundred servitors and a week of painstaking engineering, then it takes two hundred servitors and a week of painstaking engineering.’
Another blurt, longer this time. Another pause as it translated.
‘Khârn,’ said the World Eater. ‘Captain of the Eighth Company, most of whom are lying dead around us. Take note of that fact, when you excavate this junction. Treat their bodies with the necessary respect, until their gene-seed is harvested.’
The last screech was shortest of all. The priest bowed after vocalising it.
‘After that,
’ Khârn confirmed, ‘do with the corpses as you wish. Burn them or leave them to the carrion birds, for all I care.’ He grinned, showing teeth which were still all natural. ‘We aren’t a sentimental Legion.’
SEVEN
No One Runs
Unauthorised Planetfall
Shield Wall
Lotara didn’t mean to laugh, but she admired an enemy with a backbone. The War-Regent of Armatura was a captain in the Evocati, a silver-haired Ultramarines warrior with a regal sneer and eyes that suggested something hawkish in his blood and bearing. She liked him at once; he reminded her of her father, who was a spire-lord in his own right.
‘That’s very amusing,’ she replied to the hololithic image, at the heart of her busy bridge. ‘Considering your cities are overrun and your fleet is aflame.’
‘I take it,’ the Ultramarine said with kingly patience, ‘that you’re refusing to surrender?’
Lotara laughed again. ‘I like you, Captain Orfeo. I hope you receive a quick death down there, for it would grieve me to know you suffered. To that end, I hope the World Eaters catch you before the Word Bearers. The latter tend to treat their prisoners rather unwholesomely.’
Disbelief, albeit polite and reserved, marked the soldier’s face. ‘What can you hope to achieve, Flag-Captain Sarrin? Armatura is but one world – one world among the Five Hundred. Calth may die and Armatura may wither, but how much damage can you hope to inflict? What is the purpose of your war?’
‘My purpose here, my dear Evocatus, is to kill until my primarch tells me to stop killing.’ Her tone was saccharine enough that several of her bridge officers found themselves smiling at her mockery of the Ultramarine. ‘Look to the skies, Captain Orfeo. Your fleet lies in ruins. Their wreckage will shortly be raining upon your cities.’
No cutting retort. No bitter reply. He nodded once, as if dismissing a subordinate, and the hololithic image blinked out of being.
‘And yet,’ she said, turning her head to regard First Officer Ivar Tobin, ‘he has a point.’
‘Sympathy with the enemy, ma’am?’ He raised an aristocratic eyebrow. ‘An executable offence. I should draw my service pistol at once.’
Betrayer Page 10