Corax: Soulforge

by Gav Thorpe

  ‘The powers entreated by the Word Bearers keep watch on the system. They will block you. They know the Kamiel, this ship, and I can take you through their wards.’ She drew in a long, ragged breath. ‘I will endure for a while longer to see the works of my tormentors ended; the malice their abuse of me has brought forth thwarted by your efforts. The Emperor would expect nothing less.’

  ‘I will have my Apothecaries tend to you, as best they can.’

  ‘The wounds of my body are the least severe injuries I have suffered. They can do nothing for the agonies heaped upon my soul. Only death will cleanse the taint.’ The Navigator straightened further, giving a glimpse of the poise and elegance she must have once Possessed before the cruel attentions of the traitors had debased her. I am Sagitha Alons Neortallin, and I will serve the lord of the Raven Guard as my last act.’

  Corax withdrew his lightning claw and stood up. Stepping back, he bowed his head in acknowledgement of Sagitha’s sacrifice.

  ‘By such spirit and courage as yours will Horus be defeated. You will be honoured.’

  The tramp of boots on the deck above caught Corax’s attention and he turned to see Branne and Agapito at the rail of the balcony. He gestured to Soukhounou to accompany him as he made his way up the steps. The Raven Guard who stood sentry by the strategium’s portal needed no instruction to depart, silently moving away to leave their commanders free to talk.

  ‘The Word Bearers have some link to the forge world of ConstanixTwo,’ Corax told the others. ‘For the moment we can only guess what fresh nightmares they concoct there.’

  ‘A dilemma,’ said Soukhounou. He looked at Branne and Agapito, whose silence betrayed fresh tension between them. ‘The fleet is ready to attack the traitors on Euesa, but it will not be a swift campaign. Whatever the Word Bearers plan for Constanix may come to fruition while we wage war on Fulgrim’s disciples.’

  ‘Commander Aloni and the Therions will be expecting us to reinforce their assault on Euesa, we cannot leave them unsupported,’ countered Branne. ‘All manner of trouble could await us at this forge world and substantially delay our arrival.’

  ‘The greater obvious victory is on Euesa,’ said Corax, ‘for if we can rid that world of the traitors’ influence the whole Vandreggan Reach will likely remain loyal to the Emperor. But I do not like the Word Bearers’ machinations. Constanix is strategically insignificant, a minor forge world in the scheme of the Imperium. Had the world been more prominent their purpose would be clearer, but the seizing of Constanix will do little to aid Horus’s war effort. I do not like mysteries.’

  ‘Any mission that sees more traitors dead is a worthwhile mission,’ said Agapito. ‘Lord Corax, we do not need all of our forces at Euesa. Let me lead some of my Talons to Constanix and the Word Bearers’ plans will be halted for certain.’

  ‘Our Legion is small enough,’ Branne argued, shaking his head. ‘Dividing our forces now would weaken us further.’

  ‘So it’s your plan to allow the Word Bearers free rein to wreak more destruction?’ snapped Agapito. He mastered his anger and turned to Corax, his tone almost pleading. ‘Lord, the traitors must be faced down at every turn and the damage inflicted to the Emperor’s cause by the Word Bearers could be considerable if left unchecked. They spread hatred of Terra as surely as they once proclaimed their loyalty. Constanix will not be the last world they try to corrupt if we allow them to escape.’

  ‘I have no intention of ignoring the Word Bearers,’ replied the primarch.

  ‘But the attack on Euesa-’

  Corax’s raised hand silenced Branne’s protest. ‘Soukhounou, what is your appraisal?’

  ‘Forgive me, Lord Corax, but I am sure you have already made a decision,’ Soukhounou said with a shrug. ‘I do not think my counsel will sway you to another course.’

  ‘You do not have an opinion?’

  ‘I believe it is still your intent that we should bring punishment to the rebels wherever they are encountered, lord. We should attack the foe both at Euesa and at Constanix. Or at the least, the Word Bearers’ activities should be investigated and assessed.’

  Although Agapito may have a different motivation for wishing to pursue the Word Bearers, I approve of his strategy,’ said the primarch. He turned away from his commanders and looked across the strategium. They came up beside him, remaining silent for his orders. ‘The enemy at Euesa are well-scouted and well-known. Branne, Soukhounou, you are more than capable of leading the campaign with Aloni. I have every confidence that you will earn another victory for the Legion.’

  ‘You will not be coming with us?’ Branne was taken aback by the pronouncement.

  ‘My presence will be more useful with Agapito at Constanix. We shall take three hundred warriors only. Judging by the remnants of the Word Bearers that were left on this ship, we should not expect a large contingent of them to be waiting for us.’

  ‘And if Constanix has fallen to our enemies?’ said Soukhounou. ‘It may be a minor forge world but they will still have many thousands of Mechanicum soldiers and war machines.’

  ‘If opposition proves insurmountable, we shall do what we always do.’

  ‘Attack, withdraw and attack again,’ chorused the commanders after a moment’s pause.

  ‘Just so,’ Corax told them with a smile. He paused, retrieving what he knew of the forge world from the depths of his mind. ‘I shall take this vessel, recrewed from our own ships, to ensure our arrival goes unseen. Agapito, detail two hundred legionaries to accompany us. Soukhounou, I will need one hundred more of your auxiliary vehicle crews, armed as assault troops. Constanix is dominated by acidic oceans, with few sizeable land masses. There are eight major atmospheric cities kept aloft by anti-grav technologies, so we will need to think aerially. I need warriors trained with flight and jump packs, plus a full complement of Thunderhawks, Shadowhawks, Stormbirds, Fire Raptor gunships and whatever smaller assault craft the fleet can spare and will fit into the launch bays. And a team from the armoury. The Kamiel’s warp engines and other major systems need to be repaired quickly if our strike is to be timely. If we can defeat the Word Bearers with this force, all will be well. If not... Well, the Legion will have its next target.’

  The commanders nodded and agreed. With a gesture, Corax despatched them to their duties but called out as they reached the main doors.

  ‘And Agapito, it is at least seven days’ journey to Constanix. You and I will have plenty of time to discuss your actions today.’

  The Talons’ commander seemed to sag inside his armour.

  ‘Yes, Lord Corax,’ Agapito replied.

  II

  THE SHADOWHAWK SLID silently down through the night, its black hull almost invisible against the thick clouds that blotted out the light of moons and stars. Thermal dampening vanes jutted from its cunningly-faceted, oily black canopy, the drop-craft looking like a huge, broad-winged spiny beetle. Just a few dozen metres below foam flecked the acidic seas of Constanix, lit by the bioluminescence of indigenous bacteria. In the distance, several kilometres from the Shadowhawk’s glide path, the navigation lights of multi-hull trawlers glinted and strobed; red and green flashes almost lost in the deluge of rain that pattered from the drop-ship’s hull, . Bright wakes churned behind the ships as they ploughed back and forth, their reinforced scoop keels dredging thousands of tonnes rich organic material for the Mechanicum’s processors and bio-laboratories.

  Two kilometres ahead, floating half a kilometre above the ocean, the barge-city of Atlas drifted through the downpour, smoke and steam from its furnace-houses and foundries leaving a ruddy trail in its wake. A red glare from scores of manufactories and smelteries illuminated the heart of the seventeen-kilometres-wide edifice. Cranes and booms with amber lamps arrayed along their length sprawled from the wharfs that ringed Atlas, their orange glows little more than pinpricks in the darkness.

  Between the light of the docks and the fiery aura of the city’s centre lay a gloom of smog and lightlessness. It was towards thi
s that the Shadowhawk glided, with only the breeze whispering from its wingtips to betray its presence. The pilot guided the craft into a steep climb that turned into a swift dive, bypassing the bright quaysides and seeking the shelter of the shrouded city streets.

  The quiet hum of anti-grav motors rose as the stealth lander pitched towards an area of waste ground strewn with slag heaps and the acid-scarred skeletons of ancient machines. The smog swirled heavily as it landed, the Shadowhawk nestling neatly between a great pile of discarded engine parts and a slope of rubble-littered spoil.

  Swathed by darkness, the ramp at the rear of the drop-ship eased open. There was no light from within and the black-clad figures that emerged made barely a sound. Morphic treads on their boots muted their footfalls as ten Raven Guard legionaries fanned out into a perimeter around their craft. Ducking through the opening, Corax followed, his armour the colour of raven feathers, the white skin of his face obscured behind a layer of black camouflage. In his youth he had hidden his flesh with the soot of Lycaeus’s furnaces; these days a more sophisticated compound he had developed with the Mechanicum of Kiavahr served even better.

  He spoke a few words, the syllables barely heard. Even had some casual observer been close enough to hear, they would have made no sense of what had been said. The primarch’s voice was a combination of wind-whispers and delicate sighs, almost indistinguishable from the keening of the breeze across the wasteland; the stalk-argot of the Legion, with which basic commands could be issued in total secrecy.

  Falling into pairs, the Raven Guard spread out further while Corax made his way towards the closest buildings. The wasteland, perhaps ten hectares broad, was surrounded on three sides by high tenements. Though taller and reinforced with plasteel columns, the buildings bore a resemblance to the work habitats of Kiavahr; but the razorwire-topped fences and barred windows reminded him more of the prison-complexes on Lycaeus, and the memory stirred distaste in the primarch. Feeble yellow light glowed from a handful of slit-like windows on the upper storeys, but they had chosen the darkest part of night to make their insertion - between midnight and dawn, when the work teams would be sound asleep in their exhaustion - and he could hear no sounds of activity.

  The fourth edge of the waste ground petered out into a ferrocrete yard adjoining the empty shell of a sprawling factory. The site appeared to have been stripped of anything useful but for the walls of the buildings themselves. It was easy to conclude that Constanix had been isolated, unable to ship in the raw materials needed for its manufactories due to the Ruinstorm and the other effects of the civil war spreading across the galaxy. The Mechanicum rulers had taken to cannibalising their own, though to what end Corax did not yet know. He was determined to find out.

  Issuing an order to his warriors to guard the landing zone, and to use non-lethal force against any intruders, if possible, the primarch set off alone towards the empty factory. Beyond the grey slab walls he could see the city’s central temple of the Mechanicum priesthood soaring up from the heart of the city, a three-hundred-metre-high structure. Secondary turrets and bastions broke its outline and curving accessways and lifting engines further crowded its stepped levels. At the summit burned a white flame surrounded by smaller fires, massive chimneys looking like ceremonial braziers from this distance.

  Clear of the wasteland, Corax headed directly through the abandoned manufactorum. The wind keened through empty windows and across half-collapsed mezzanines. The darkness was no obstacle to the primarch and he navigated across desolate spaces that had once been assembly chambers. Even the doors to the overseers’ offices had been taken, creating a vast, cavernous interior. Cracked ferrocrete separated the various work sheds, here and there covered with patches of lichen and stunted plants.

  Corax realised that the rain that had fallen on the Shadowhawk since breaching the cloud layer did not blanket the city as it did the seas. Looking up at the low clouds, he could see just the faintest blur of a weather-shield protecting Atlas from the elements. It was likely not the only energy defence possessed by the barge-cities. Even so, the air was thick with humidity, the acrid taste bringing to mind the chemical-tainted air of an ice refinery.

  The complex extended for about a kilometre - a distance quickly covered by the primarch’s long strides. Coming out of the other side of the buildings, he discovered a broad roadway that marked the inner perimeter of the factory site, potholes and wide welts in the surface showing that the poor maintenance extended beyond the manufactorum. There were no street lamps, but dim light trickled from the windows of the surrounding tenements, which rose up on either side like the walls of a ravine.

  The quiet was unlike any forge world he had ever seen. Normally the Mechanicum ran their production lines day and night, shift after shift of tech-priests and labourers toiling for the glory of their Machine-God. Atlas was almost silent, starved of the ore and other materials it needed, the only sound the background electrical buzz of generators feeding the worker habs.

  The primarch was here to gather intelligence, but he was at a loss for a moment regarding where to find the information he desired. The stealthy entry of the Shadowhawk had precluded any form of close-range scan that might have been picked up by the local sensor grid, so his first priority was to establish the general layout and strategic disposition of the city. Equally important was the need to find out whether the ruling elite of the Mechanicum were aligned to the Word Bearers, or if the forge world had simply suffered attack from the Kamiel.

  The first would be a simple matter of navigating the city from one side to the other. Corax’s superior mind could catalogue everything he saw in minute detail, taking account of side routes, elevations, firing positions, choke points and everything else he needed to know. The second was a far more difficult proposition and would require either careful first-hand observation or interaction with some of the locals. For both, time was limited. He did not know when the morning labour shift would begin, but it would be within a few hours.

  Corax took a pace out onto the roadway and then stopped. Someone was watching him.

  He scanned the soaring blocks around him and spied a silhouette at one of the lighted windows. It was a woman, but her back was turned. She was holding a fussing child, patting him gently on the back as he gazed down wide-eyed at the giant warrior.

  I am not here, Corax thought, drawing on the inner power he had to cloud his presence from the perception of others. Just as it had worked on prison guards and traitors, his innate ability shifted him from the conscious thoughts of the child, who shook his head in confusion and then laid his cheek upon his mothers shoulder, content.

  Though powerful, his ability was not without limit. It would be better to seek a less observed route into the city. Still cloaked by his aura of misdirection, Corax activated his flight pack. Metal-feathered wings extended with a soft whirr. He took two steps and leapt into the air, the flight pack lifting him up into the smog that shrouded the rooftops of the tenements.

  Alighting on the flat summit of the closest, Corax broke into a run, eyes scanning left and right to take in the layout of the city as he sprinted along the wall at the roof’s edge. Another bound took him across the road, gliding silently through the darkness like a bat.

  From building to building he roamed, criss-crossing the tightly-packed worker blocks as he made his way towards the heart of Atlas. Amongst the run-down slums he noticed a patch of light smeared in the fumes that blanketed the city. On artificial wings, he steered his way towards the illumination, dropping down between the hab-blocks to settle on a metal walkway overlooking the scene.

  Below was a low, squat Mechanicum temple, much smaller than the main ziggurat. In shape it was a truncated pyramid, three storeys high, with yellow light spilling from arched windows casting shadows of the skull-cog sigil of the Machine-God into the haze. Girder-like iron columns ran up the walls, becoming a vaulted scaffolding above the summit of the temple. Here brass and silver icons hung from heavy chains, glinting in th
e glow of forge-fire cast up from skylights in the roof, half-hidden in the polluted swirl from a dozen short chimney stacks.

  The murmuring of voices, muted by thick walls, came to the primarch’s ears and from his vantage point he watched cowled figures moving past the windows on the upper storey. He left his perch and skimmed through the smog, aiming for the arched metalwork above one of the grand windows. Grasping hold of the pitted metal, he furled his wings and leaned closer.

  The storey was a single chamber; at its heart a furnace burned, its shutter doors wide open to spill heat and light across the gathered tech-priests. Corax counted five standing in a group to his right, while shovel-handed servitors plodded back and forth from a fuel chute to the left, feeding the sacred fires of the Omnissiah with pale fuel cubes.

  Corax looked for means of entry and exit, analysing the tactical situation. The engine and cage of a conveyor stood not far from the window and a spiral staircase on the far side of the chamber led up to the temple roof and down to the lower levels. The five tech-priests were close to each other, a single target group, and with the conveyor carriage already on this floor only the furnace-servitors offered any potential additional threat - and they looked like monotasks, incapable of performing any other action.

  The ruddy walls of the temple room were adorned with inlaid precious metals wrought into alchemical sigils and formulae, sprawling equations displayed as holy texts. Centred on the furnace, the tiled floor was inlaid with an obsidian-like stone in the shape of a large gear, diamonds fashioned as skulls set into the black material on each of the twelve lugs.

  Much of the room was filled with a clutter of ancient brass instruments on stands and altar-tables. Astrolabes and quadrants were set out on velvet cloths, alongside torquetums and complex orreries. Ornately etched theodolites stood in front of shelves full of alembics and spectrographs, barometers and microscopes, magnetographs and oscilloscopes, las-callipers and nanocouplers. Some Were clearly replicas of far more ancient technologies, others appeared to be in functioning order. There seemed to be no pattern to the collection; a random conglomeration of artefacts of no use to the tech-priests’ work but kept in this museum out of reverence as artifices of the Machine-God.