Forewarned, the others in the party swung their weapons round in the same direction. Maxim opened fire with the bolter weapon, spraying a non-stop stream of shots out in a generously wide arc, not even able to see what he was shooting at, but desperate to lay down a heavy field of fire in the path of the oncoming vehicles. A second later, the crash of shotcannons and crack of las-weapons signalled that the rest of the human group were following his lead.
Two dark eldar jetbikes roared out of the murk, spraying weapons fire into the midst of the Imperial troops. Maxim heard screams and the fearful whisper of the deadly alien projectiles passing close by, but the sounds were immediately drowned out by the chattering boom of the heavy bolter as he fired off a second long burst at the oncoming targets.
One of the vehicles targeted him directly, drawn in by the threat of the heavy bolter. Maxim’s second or third burst of fire blew apart its nose, bringing an end to the splinter rifle shots now hissing dangerously close to him. The bike, although damaged, still kept on coming. Its rider drew a pistol weapon and sprayed shots at two nearby armsmen who were drawing a bead on him with their shotcannons. The razor-edged alien projectiles took one of them off at the knees, effortlessly slicing through flesh and bone.
Cursing, Maxim readjusted his aim, zeroing in on the rider’s central body mass, and pressed the trigger again, but the bolter only fired off a handful of shells before its cyclic firing mechanism suddenly juddered to a halt.
Ammo jam.
The jetbike rider grinned, sensing its target’s predicament, and lowered its pistol, manoeuvring the bike to bring its blade points to bear on Maxim. Maxim judged the closing distance between him and his would-be slayer and compared that to how quickly he could draw, aim and fire any one of the several pistols he was carrying.
The likely answer to that equation was not encouraging, so he did the only thing he could, hefting the now useless bolter weapon and hurling it with all his considerable strength into the face of the oncoming alien vehicle.
It struck the rider with bone-crushing force, knocking him clear out of the saddle. The riderless craft spun past, its momentum carrying it forward, and Maxim still had to duck and twist gymnastically to avoid the fate the vehicle’s rider had intended for him. Nevertheless, the edge of one of the sweeping tail blades still clipped him, and he hissed in pain as he felt the chill alien metal slice through the meat of his shoulder.
Clutching at the wound with one hand while drawing an autopistol with the other, he instinctively scanned the area for any other threats, and was relieved to see that, for the moment at least, the danger was over. The other bike had been brought down by massed volleys of shotcannon and las-fire, but the cost to the Imperium force had been heavy: of Horst’s retinue, only the inquisitor himself and three of his bodyguards remained, while, of the party from the Macharius, only Maxim, Ulanti, a chief armsman and four of his troopers were left standing.
And Kyogen, although, from the looks of things, Maxim was delighted to note, the issue of the Ship’s Commissar would seemingly not be a problem for very much longer.
The big naval commissar officer had been struck low in the back by a shot from one of the alien weapons. There was a lot of blood soaking through the thick material of his commissar’s coat—probably a punctured kidney, and, under the current situation, almost certainly fatal, was Maxim’s expert judgement—and the skin of the man’s face was pale and waxy-looking from shock and blood loss, and tight with pain.
He was a goner, Maxim knew, so perhaps the situation wasn’t such a complete cluster-frag after all. Perhaps those prayer-droning bores in the Ecclesiarchy were right after all, the big hiveworlder thought, and that amongst even the darkest catastrophe there was a hidden blessing from the Emperor.
“We’ve got to keep on moving,” ordered Ulanti. “Gather up any spare weapons and especially ammo supplies from the corpses. Emperor knows, I imagine we’ll be needing every round we can lay our hands on, soon enough.”
He broke off, looking at the injured commissar. “Maxim, see to Commissar Kyogen. We’re taking him with us, and you’re the strongest back we’ve got.”
Maxim grinned as he bent down towards Kyogen, his grin spreading a little wider as he heard the sniffled grunt of pain from the man as he laid hands on him and roughly raised him to his feet.
“Come on then, commissar, sir, you heard what the lieutenant said. Time to be moving on. No need to worry though, old Maxim’s here to look after you.”
They moved off again, looking for refuge deeper within the heart of the storm, seeking another place of shelter somewhere amongst the planet’s inhospitable surface.
Behind them, back at the ruins, the sounds of distant combat could still be heard.
Black smoke from the burning dark eldar raider craft drifted in thick banks across the battlefield, mixing with the effects of the dust storm and further adding to the confusion. Darodayos, dropping his spent laspistol and taking up an almost fully-loaded shuriken catapult from the hand of a dead Dire Avenger warrior, gave up a silent mind-speech prayer of thanks for the favour of Asuryan, knowing that this confusion benefited him far more than his enemy.
It was Chiron who had sown the seeds of that confusion, moving swiftly and nimbly through the shifting dust storm eddies, firing off shots with his missile launcher, almost every shot striking its target without fail. After each shot, the cunning Dark Reaper warrior had vanished back into the cover of the storm again, leaving behind him only the sounds of blazing destruction and the angry, frustrated cries of his dark eldar hunters. Darodayos and the others had covered for him, drawing the hated druchii away from Chiron, even at the cost of their own lives, and allowing the veteran aspect warrior to accomplish his set task.
It had been minutes since Darodayos had heard the trademark roar of Chiron’s missile launcher speaking in anger, and he knew that the Dark Reaper warrior was dead now, since he had heard Chiron’s mind-speech death-cry as, finally hunted down and hacked apart by the talons and finger-blades of some of the druchii’s most twisted and mindless servant-things, Chiron had commended his soul to the safe keeping of his brethren and detonated his remaining stack of missiles, despatching his killers into the ever-hungry maw of the Great Enemy. Nevertheless, the burning wrecks of the three destroyed druchii raider craft were testimony to the effectiveness of Chiron’s tactics; if the druchii planned to pursue Kariadryl and the others, then they would surely now have to do so without the advantage of their deadly and lightning-fast skimmer craft.
Another sound tore through the noise of the storm: a terrible, wailing, screaming sound. The death-scream of a Howling Banshee; that of Alarriele, he knew. He had not known her well, for she was young and had only recently begun her journey on the path of the warrior aspect, but she had fought and died well, and her Aspect brethren amongst the warrior path shrines back on An-Iolsus would honour her spirit.
She was the last of those who had elected to stay behind with Darodayos, and now only the Aspect Lord remained. He knew now that his task was even more vital than ever. Every second he further delayed the druchii, every drop of extra blood he shed here increased the survival chances of Lord Farseer Kariadryl and the others.
The shapes of several dark eldar warriors loomed up before him, calling to each other in their own debased version of true eldar speech. To Darodayos, even the crude word-shapes made by the mouth of the mon-keigh inquisitor when he had endeavoured to speak the eldar tongue were more honest and acceptable than the sound of the maliciously twisted but still recognisable parody of eldar speech spoken by these druchii.
Forewarned by a prescience sense which he had become more and more aware of, the closer he drew to the level of true exarch, Darodayos raised and fired the shuriken catapult before his eyes had even properly picked out the silhouettes of the two approaching targets. Both of them crumpled silently, near decapitated by the expertly-directed hail of razor discs, neither of them even able to get out any kind of final mind-speech death-
cry that Darodayos could detect, if in fact fallen abominations such as the druchii still retained such abilities.
Nevertheless, no matter how swiftly and silently they had been executed, the deaths had still been detected, and others of their kind were already converging on him from all around.
Pain and death, that is what the druchii thrive upon, thought Darodayos as he despatched another over-eager dark eldar pursuer with a shot from his shuriken weapon. Perhaps that was what their vestigial psychic senses were attuned to now, and that was what drew them in.
More of them came at him. The shuriken catapult in his hand whispered once, twice, three times, and then he discarded it and drew his power sword in one smooth, quick reflex gesture as the next wave of them attacked.
Something screeching, with venom-dripping barbs where its hands had once been, threw itself at him. He cut it in half with one sweep of his power sword, leaping clear to avoid becoming entangled in the thing’s potentially lethal death flails. Another twisted abomination, another product of the pain-artistry of the druchii torture-masters, followed in close behind its sibling. It too died swiftly beneath the Aspect Lord’s blade.
Still more of them charged, and Darodayos slew them all in turn. These things were nothing more than pets, he realised, grotesques created in the laboratories and torture gardens of the druchii’s hidden fastness for the Dark Ones’ own amusement and hunger for cruelly and pain. They were using them now to wear him down, he knew, to test his strength and speed without risk to themselves. They were out there somewhere in the gloom, watching and studying him, circling round as they waited for the right moment to attack and take him unaware.
Well, let them come, he thought to himself. No matter how many of their pets they sent against him, they would find him ready.
His power sword rose and fell, the energy current running in a glowing sheen across the surface of its rune-decorated blade, almost singing as it cleaved through druchii-altered flesh and bone, bringing a merciful end to the existences of things which may once have been living, sentient beings before they fell into the hands of the Dark Ones.
As he fought, Darodayos felt his psychic senses and martial skills merge together and become heightened to a degree he had never before experienced or suspected could be possible. Every blow he struck unerringly found its target, every move his opponents made, even their death spasms, had been anticipated by him seconds earlier. He felt parts of his life—whole centuries of experience, memories of valued friends and precious-remembered lovers—slewing away. All that mattered was the here and now, and the joy of combat and killing. In his mind’s eye, he saw the lonely, final pinnacle at the end of the path of the warrior, and he knew that he was now ascending to that place, now on the cusp of becoming a true exarch, of abandoning all he once had been and could still be, instead giving himself over wholly and completely to the warrior aspect. Some rational part within him mourned the loss of self, but the greater part of all that remained now rejoiced in the freedom of combat and slaughter, so different from the paths followed by many of his kinsmen.
He fought and killed with wanton abandon. His enemies died around him, and, as they died, so too did the mind and spirit of the being once known as Darodayos. He was an empty shell now, hollow and spiritless, living only for combat and killing the enemies of his race.
And then, suddenly, there were no more druchii things to kill, and the druchii lord and his retinue were making their assault. Despite his anticipation of the attack, though, Darodayos was still almost fatally caught by surprise.
There were five of them, the druchii lord and four of his squires. They moved swiftly and with lethal intent, but little of the ill-cautioned eagerness which seemed to be a mark of many of their kind. The lord led the attack, but Darodayos’s exarch-elevated senses saw him as little more than a dark, shifting blur. Darodayos could see the squires and their intent with perfect clarity, could see ahead to what they would be doing vital moments in the future, but to Darodayos’s prescience sense, the druchii lord was a blind spot, his actions taking place in so many different, unknowable futures.
It was the fhaisorr’ko, the shadow point, Darodayos realised with a shock. Part of it was centred around this druchii lord, concealing him and his actions from the perceptions of those blessed with the gift of future-sight. Suddenly, the druchii commander was transformed into a far more dangerous and ominous opponent than he had seemed just seconds ago.
The druchii lord came on. Darodayos stood ready to meet him. Then suddenly, at the last moment, the dark eldar drew back, allowing the henchman to his left and right to launch their own simultaneous attacks on the Aspect Lord. Darodayos had not seen the move coming—the forces of the fhaisorr’ko that surrounded the druchii lord had left him blind to the ploy—and was almost skewered on the blade of the henchman to his left, while only the quickest parrying thrust with the point of his power sword saved him from a similar attack from the enemy on his right.
Darodayos leapt up and back, avoiding his two opponents’ lightning-quick follow-up attacks, all the time aware that the third druchii was circling round towards his unprotected back.
His leap brought him down on top of this third enemy, his power sword cleaving through the druchii’s body from shoulder to sternum before the druchii had even registered the manoeuvre. Still in mid-air, before his feet had touched the ground, Darodayos brought the sword round in a tight sweep, sending a fine mist of dark eldar blood flying from its crackling blade, and struck down one of the other squires with a single, disembowelling thrust.
His feet touched the ground and he brought the sword up to meet the already pre-determined attack from the last remaining squire and, then, shockingly, the druchii lord was upon him.
The druchii commander fought with two short, handheld, multi-bladed weapons which were part dagger, part scythe and part glaive. His manner of combat with these dangerously unfamiliar weapons was furious and lethally uncompromising. Darodayos, with the longer and more powerful weapon, was forced back on the defensive, his sword weaving a barrier before him to fend off the barrage of stabbing thrusts and sudden lunging sweeps from his opponent’s blades. Crystallised matter was smeared across the blade edges of both those weapons, and Darodayos had no doubt that death, slow and agonising, lurked there.
Forewarned by his prescience-sense, the Aspect Lord saw the last remaining squire unfurl some kind of long whip-like weapon. The tails of the weapon were woven together from black, glistening cord, which twitched, sinew-like, with grotesque life.
The druchii warrior lashed out with the weapon. Again warned by his prescience, Darodayos twisted away on instinct, out of reach of those twitching cord tails, just as his prescience vision screamed at him in warning, showing him the mistake he had just made.
The druchii lord was on him instantly, one of the poison-frosted blades in its hand flashing past the Aspect Lord’s parry to slash mercilessly through Darodayos’s fatally exposed throat.
Feeling the blade’s chill bite through his flesh, feeling the hot rush of blood from his severed jugular, feeling the first burning sting of the poison seeping through his flesh and veins, Darodayos followed the guidance shown to him by his dimming prescience vision, hurling his power sword out with the last of his failing strength.
The corpse of the last of the druchii squires, his body transfixed by the hurled blade, hit the ground even before that of Darodayos.
Kailasa of the Kabal of the Poison Heart stood over the corpse of his victim, dispassionately watching the tremors and convulsions run through the dead Aspect Lord’s body. The corpse would retain this grotesque semblance of life for hours, he knew, as the venom ate its way through its nervous system, firing off random pain signals amongst dead nerve endings and lifeless brain matter.
He lifted the blade with which he had dealt the final, masterful killing blow, licking its edge with his tongue and relishing the taste of the crystallised venom mixed with fresh blood. After a lifetime of patronage of the
many poison bars and venomfeast-houses of Commorragh, Kailasa was a connoisseur of all toxins and poisons, and was completely immune to many of the more mundane ones such as this.
Still, mixed with his victim’s blood, the effects of the venom gave him a pleasingly exhilarating sensation which helped offset his anger and impatience at the unexpectedly costly losses the craftworld weaklings had inflicted upon his force.
He reached down to the corpse of the defeated craft-world warrior, casually removing its helm and plucking out the small jewel set into its forehead. He ran it between the delicately talon-tipped fingers of his gauntlets, peering into its misty, opaque depths. He sniffed at it, and then licked it.
“Exarch,” he breathed to himself in pleasure, pleased that there should be such a fine soul-prize to show for his victory. He threw it over his shoulder, into the midst of the pack of warp beasts behind him. Immediately, the creatures began tearing and clawing at each other, fighting over the rare morsel. One of the haemonculi snickered in morbid pleasure as the creatures rabidly tore into each other.
Kailasa smiled. Afterwards, when this mission was over, he would lead a hunt for the victor of the battle, for the largest and most ferocious of the pack, and reclaim his soul-prize, ripping it out of the creature’s belly with his own hands.
He turned, sensing the lurking, expectant presence of the Mandrakes behind them. He looked at them for a long moment, holding them in his gaze. Four pairs of eyes, full of hungry malice, four dead, gaunt faces, stared back at him.
“Find the farseer,” he told them simply.
The storm was lifting now. Kariadryl sat at the entrance to the shallow gully where they had chosen to seek shelter and, most likely, he knew, make their last stand. The landscape of Stabia, revealed now under the lifting storm, was even bleaker than he had imagined.
From where he sat, though, everything seemed bleak at present.
Only moments ago, he had heard the psychic death-scream of Darodayos, and was still mourning the Aspect Lord’s loss. He had already foreseen the warrior’s death—had caught glimpses of it in amongst the shifting deceptions of the shadow point—but the inevitability of the moment made it no less sorrowful.
[Battlefleet Gothic 02] - Shadow Point Page 24