[Battlefleet Gothic 02] - Shadow Point
Page 27
“What do you propose, Vual’en Sho,” asked Semper.
The answer he received made perfect sense, and flew in the face of everything he had been taught in his entire life regarding the well-known dangers of having any dealings with cunning xenos-creatures such as these eldar.
SEVENTEEN
It began with screaming. It would end with screaming too.
Sheltering in what little cover there was on offer in the ravine, Ulanti tried to snatch a few hours’ much-needed rest after the battle in the ruins and the desperate flight through the storm and across the barren surface of the planet. Minutes or hours later—he couldn’t tell, and the deadly, muscle-numbing weariness which had gripped him earlier seemed no less diminished—he was awakened by the sound of screaming.
With a shock, he realised that it was one of the eldar sentries screaming: Banshee warriors, Horst had called them. The sound seemed to start off as a scream of warning, or defiance, but at some swift point became transformed into a scream of pain, a long, ululating howl which could only have been caused by some awful abomination being inflicted upon living, vulnerable flesh. The scream ended, perhaps mercifully, in a dying, choking gurgle, horribly amplified by the vox-caster systems build into the eldar warrior’s helm.
Seconds later, the gunfire began. The harsh, dry hiss of dark eldar weaponry, answered seconds later by the quieter, different-toned sound of the eldar’s own armaments.
Ulanti was on his feet in moments, almost colliding with Maxim, who had armed himself with a shotcannon following the loss of his heavy bolter. The big hiveworlder’s eyes were red-rimmed, his pupils fixed and dilated. He had been chewing tajii root for hours, and was pumped up on aggression and pain from his wounds. Ulanti knew that if Maxim Borusa was going to die today, he wouldn’t die easily.
As Ulanti hurried off towards the sounds of battle, Maxim paused to recheck the load on his shotcannon; he wasn’t yet too narcoticised that he would forget to do what, for him, was so basic and elementary a survival precaution as to be second nature to him. He felt eyes on him, and looked up to see Commissar Kyogen nearby, propped up against the rock wall of the ravine. By all rights, Kyogen should be dead by now; one of Horst’s retinue was a qualified medic and had done what he could for the Ship’s Commissar, but the dark eldar round which had struck him down had been imbued with some kind of anti-coagulant poison, and the medic had been unable to staunch the flow of blood that seeped out from the deep wound in the man’s flesh.
Kyogen was big, as big as Borusa himself perhaps, but the hiveworlder had been amazed that even a body as large as that could contain so much blood. Kyogen’s uniform and thick felt coat were heavy with the stuff, and the dust of the ground around him stained dark by the creeping tide of blood still oozing out of him. He was still conscious—perhaps the medic had given him something to prevent him passing out, or perhaps, Maxim mused with a smile, a stickler for the rules such as Ship’s Commissar Koba Kyogen wasn’t allowed to pass out and die until he received the properly authenticated orders to do so. He gripped his bolt pistol tight in one hand, and a small book—probably something about naval regulations and discipline, Maxim supposed—in the other, holding it tightly to his chest, and glared at Maxim.
Maxim looked back, and laughed. “Don’t forget to save the last round for yourself, commissar. We can’t afford the likes of you falling into the hands of the xenos and spilling your guts about the precious secrets contained in all them regulation manuals and loyalty codices you’re so fond of.”
The only reply he got was a mute, hostile glare. Still laughing, Maxim turned his back on the dying man and ran off after Ulanti.
Kailasa moved forward with the first line of dark eldar warriors, keen to ensure that his orders were carried out. The Mandrakes who had gone on ahead of the rest of the dark eldar force and who had successfully tracked down and located the prey’s hiding place had been allowed to keep and do whatever they wanted with the enemy sentries, but Kailasa had ordered on pain of death that no one else would be allowed to kill any of the prey. It was vital that the farseer was taken alive, and the kabal commander did not want to risk any chance that his prize might be killed by mistake.
The dark eldar advanced into the face of sporadic, scattered fire from the craftworld eldar and their mon-keigh allies sheltering in the scant cover of the rockfall at the mouth of the ravine. They had no heavy weapons, and not enough ranged ones to count.
Given time, Kailasa knew it would be a simple matter to surround them and pick them off at leisure with massed volleys of splinter rifle fire, backed up by covering fire from the several heavy weapons still possessed by what remained of his force, but time was something the dark eldar lord no longer had. He had received word that the ships belonging to the craftworld eldar and the mon-keigh had not only failed to destroy each other, but had united together and were in the process of driving off his own vessels. Soon, they would send shuttles to rescue their kin trapped here, but it was Kailasa’s intent that all these would-be rescuers would find would be dust and a pile of corpses, with the dark eldar long ago escaped through a webway portal, taking their captive prizes with them.
And besides, he still wanted to take as many captives alive as possible. His losses so far had been higher than expected. Added to this, the loss of an entire Torture-class cruiser, as now seemed highly likely, would not carry much favour back in Commorragh, and so, in order to help assuage his Archon’s potentially lethal displeasure and save face, it was now in his interests to bring back as many prize captives as possible.
One of the warriors in front of him cried out and fell, struck down by a well-aimed shot from a shuriken catapult. His companion instinctively raised his splinter rifle and returned fire, sending out a hail of deadly, poison-coated splinter shots towards the rocks. Just as instinctively, Kailasa raised his own splinter pistol and shot the warrior in the back.
“Agoniser rounds only,” he commanded. “I want live flesh, not corpses.”
Mindful of the brutal lesson just displayed, the rest of his troops took greater care in firing upon their enemies. Although agoniser shots could still kill, they were intended to subdue their targets and render them incapable of escaping, inflicting mainly minor superficial wounds, but introducing a nerve toxin into the target’s bloodstream which would subject them to the most horrific agonies for a short time, but leave them still alive afterwards. Living targets struck by agoniser rounds would frequently break their bones and wrench apart joints and muscle, so severe were the spasms and contortions caused by the toxin. Kailasa had seen victims chew through their own tongues on occasion, paralysed by pain and choking to death on their own blood, but it was still his most favoured and amusing method of taking captives.
Laughing in anticipation of the glory that would soon be his, he ran on into the battle.
The dark eldar were in amongst them now, overrunning the defenders at the entrance to the ravine and falling upon those behind. An armsman in front of Ulanti cried out and fell to the ground, screaming shrilly and writhing in agony, although the only wound Ulanti could see on him was a tearing flesh wound to his shoulder from a passing shot from one of the dark eldar weapons. This was the third time Ulanti had seen one of his men or the eldar so struck down, and he swiftly realised that they had just discovered yet another form of the maliciously perverse warfare favoured by these dark eldar creatures.
The dark eldar warrior who had just picked off the armsman sighted Ulanti and swung its pistol weapon round to fire at him. Ulanti ducked, hearing the sinister hiss of the crystalline shot as it skimmed past him.
He came up firing, sending two las-shots into the target’s central body mass. It went down hissing in pain, its armour partially protecting it from the worst of the damage. Ulanti kept on firing, sending more las-shots into the thrashing body of the dark eldar, only stopping when he had completely depleted what remained of his weapon’s power charge. When he had finished, all that was left of the dark eldar was scatt
ered pieces of charred flesh and fused armour.
He was still reloading when another dark eldar warrior charged down the side of the ravine towards him, brandishing a sword and a crackling whip-like weapon. The roar of a shotcannon lifted the warrior off its feet, smashing its body ragdoll-like against the rocky wall of the ravine.
Ulanti looked round to see Maxim nearby, the shotcannon in his hands firing off more volleys of explosive scatter shells into the ranks of dark eldar following on behind the first.
“Best fall back, sir,” the big hiveworlder shouted. “I’ll cover you. The inquisitor and that alien magician are back there. If we’re going to die then we should at least make sure we die in the best company. Arriving before the Golden Throne alongside a senior inquisitor might help when the Emperor makes his judgement on our immortal souls. Mind you, I’m not too sure what he’ll have to say about all these aliens we’ll have brought with us.”
Ulanti did as commanded, the distinctions between first lieutenant and chief petty officer blurring in the heat of battle. Maxim swung his shotcannon round, searching for more targets amongst the shadows of the ravine, when one of those shadows suddenly detached itself from amongst a cluster of nearby rocks and leapt upon him, knocking him off his perch and sending both him and his attacker hurtling down the slope of a steep side gully.
Maxim had fought many tenacious opponents hand to hand before, but nothing like this creature. It was one of the dark eldar things, but unlike any that Maxim had seen so far. Its naked flesh was pierced by hooks and barbs, many of which seemed to be holding parts of it together, with the glistening red of raw viscera clearly visible through the splits in its flesh.
As they rolled down the slope, Maxim’s hands scrabbled for purchase on the creature’s slime-coated flesh, one hand finally finding purchase round its throat, piercing himself on the blades set in its flesh as he tried to throttle the life out of the thing. The creature giggled as Maxim’s powerful grip crushed its windpipe, grinding together the bones of its throat. It cackled as the sharp rocks of the gully tore and bruised both their bodies as they rolled over them.
The two of them were momentarily thrown apart by the bone-jarring impact of their landing at the foot of the gully. Maxim felt some of his ribs break under the impact, and coughed up blood as he tried to shout in pain.
The creature was on him again in an instant, tearing at the skin of his chest and face with the metal blades hammered into the tips of its malformed fingers. Maxim’s grasping hand found a fist-sized rock, and, roaring in pain and anger, he swung it up into the creature’s face, repeatedly smashing it into its nose and teeth. The creature sniggered to itself through the ragged hole of its mouth. Its fingers were round Maxim’s throat now, not so much strangling him as working their way into the flesh of his neck, leisurely searching for the arteries and veins.
Maxim felt himself starting to black out, part of him grateful that he probably wouldn’t feel anything when the creature’s questing fingers finally found his jugular. Dimly, from far away, he heard a familiar voice calling distantly out to him.
“Up! Get its head up, Borusa, damn you, so I can get a clear shot at it!”
There was something in the voice which compelled obedience. With the last of his strength, Maxim’s fingers found the creature’s throat and jaw. Pushing upwards, he forced it to raise its head.
The bolter round caught the creature in the centre of the face, blowing away most of its skull and throwing it several metres back. Groggily, Maxim watched as, incredibly, the thing began to rise to its feet again. Another bolter round blew it backwards again, followed by another and another.
The detonations rang out in quick succession, until the shredded remains of the dark eldar Grotesque fell to the ground in a ragged, bloody heap.
Maxim heard the sound of another body falling to the ground nearby, behind him. Before he passed out, he just had time to glimpse the prone figure of Commissar Kyogen, the man somehow having dragged or staggered his way down here from further along the ravine. The now empty bolt pistol was still clasped in his bloodless hand.
Kailasa knew the prize was close now. The craftworld weaklings and what remained of their mon-keigh allies had fallen back as far as they could and attacked what remained of his own forces with desperate fury.
A female Striking Scorpion—one of Arhra’s cowardly brood, who had refused to follow their Fallen Phoenix lord father into the dark embrace of Chaos—leapt forward, cleaving in the skull of the retinue bodyguard beside him, spitting another warrior on the point of her blade with her return blow. Kailasa stepped over the tumbling bodies of his two dead followers, and casually swept aside the Scorpion warrior’s attack upon him. His own blow severed her weapon arm at the shoulder. Numbly, in shock, she fell to her knees as the dark eldar lord swept past her.
A mon-keigh in the uniform of the second-in-command of one of their warships—Kailasa had seized enough slave-fodder in successful raids along the mon-keigh shipping lanes to know something of the hierarchy of their rankings—brandished a laspistol weapon at him. Kailasa stepped aside, dodging the mon-keigh’s shot, and felled him with a single agoniser round from his splinter pistol.
Another mon-keigh in elaborate robes of rank barred his way towards the prize. Kailasa brought his pistol up to bear again, but was made to stagger back by the invisible impact of a psychic blow emanating from the upstart mon-keigh. The blow was weak—the rune-wards carved into the dark lord’s armour were enough to protect him from the full force of it—but it was enough to knock him off-balance for a moment.
In that moment, Horst raised and fired the plasma pistol in his hand, but the shot missed, striking the ravine wall behind where Kailasa had been standing, turning the rock into molten slag. The dark eldar moved with preternatural speed, closing the distance between him and the human inquisitor and felling him with a stunning strike with the pommel of his sword.
At last Kailasa stood before his prize. The figure of the aged farseer cowered before him, frail and helpless. Kailasa doubted that this one would be able to withstand the ordeal which would soon be his for long, but there were haemonculi surgeons and skilled flesh-sculptors and pain-artists who knew ways of trapping life and sensation within the ravaged forms of their victims for longer than could ever be thought imaginable.
“Grandfather farseer,” the dark eldar lord sneered, affecting a mocking bow. “If only you knew what pleasures await you when I bring you back in triumph to Commorragh.”
Kariadryl stared in awe and dread at the figure before him. The dark eldar lord was everything he had ever imagined, a piece of black legend from his race’s darkest and most secret myths come to terrible life. More terrible still, with his mystic farsight, he was able to see the swirling black halo which surrounded the dark eldar like a living cloak of shadow.
This creature, this abomination standing before him, was the focal point of the shadow point, even if the dark eldar itself did not perceive it. All the elusive glimpses of possible futures, all the false prophecy images, all the tantalising hints of what might still come to pass, coalesced into this place and moment of time.
And then, like shadows retreating and shrinking before the rise of the dawn sun, the black light aura around the druchii warrior lord dwindled and shrivelled away, scorched by the light and heat of something far greater and more powerful.
Kariadryl looked, with his eyes, with his inner farsight. And then he laughed in genuine pleasure, for now he knew what was coming along the ravine towards them.
The burning god was here at last.
EIGHTEEN
The avatar advanced down the neck of the ravine, the stone of the walls glowing cherry-red in places as they were touched by the heat of his passing. Where he walked, dark eldar died before him.
Some ran, trying to flee his terrible wrath. Others stood and tried to fight, spitting blasphemous curses against his holy name. Flee or fight, it did not matter. They died, no matter what they tried to do.
Dark eldar warriors retreated before the avatar, shots from their splinter rifles vapourising against its glowing iron skin. Some it cut down with its black blade, or incinerated with fiery blasts of the blade’s arcane power, others it crushed into the dust beneath its iron feet, others it struck down with its terrible molten gaze.
It did not matter. Flee or fight, they all died, no matter what they tried to do.
A pack of warp beasts leapt snarling at the burning god. One creature it smashed aside with a blow from its glowing fist; another it spitted on the end of its wailing blade. The third managed to land and raked at it with its talons. Magma blood boiled up out of the rents torn in the burning god’s iron flesh.
The burning god seized the creature and ripped it away from its body, smashing it against the unyielding rock face of the ravine wall.
Kailasa charged at the burning god, screaming his hatred. His first blow cut deep into it, splattering the dust and rocks with burning blood.
One blow, however, was all the burning god would permit him.
As he swung again, aiming at the iron skin of its neck, the avatar reached up and simply caught the blow in its hand. Its great fist closed around the blade of the sword, melting through it. Magma blood welled up and fell in steaming drips to the ground from where the unnatural metal of the blade cut into its divine flesh.
In seconds, the dark eldar lord’s sword glowed red hot. Kailasa screamed as the heat seared the palm of his hand, and he released his grip on its pommel, just as the molten blade broke apart and fell uselessly to the ground.