Corax: Soulforge

by Gav Thorpe

  Leaping across shattered rooftops with his jump pack, Agapito rejoined his warriors as they gathered in the buildings surrounding a massive wreckage-filled crater. Overhead the Shadowhawks blurred past, remaining concealed once more until they were needed to strike. By the commander’s reckoning, nearly six thousand troops and at least a hundred battle-engines were now preparing to launch an all-out frontal attack. The Raven Guard would withdraw in the face of the first assault and circle back to grid one at the plaza, dragging the enemy closer to the most advanced prong of the Atlas assault and away from the Archmagos’s temple.

  To confirm the rationale of his plan he took another look through the artificial eyes of the Whispercutters, watching for any detail that he had missed. He saw nothing unexpected and was about to cut the link when a blur of colour caught his eye - dark red against the grey shroud of smog. He sent a signal up to the armoured glider, turning it in a tight circle to come from the other direction.

  It revealed red-armoured figures advancing through shattered buildings a kilometre away, slightly apart from the main body of defenders. Switching to the thermal view, he counted more than fifty signals; the distinctive heat plumes of legionaries at a fast run.

  The Word Bearers had come to deal with the Raven Guard. They were trying to outflank them.

  The rage started as a swelling of heat in his gut, spreading through his body as the thought of vengeance took hold in the commanders mind. As with the discovery of the Kamiel, providence was offering an opportunity to avenge his fallen brothers on Isstvan. In the Whispercutter display fluttered a banner, ragged and soiled, but unmistakably covered in golden script surrounding a bright red laurel on a white field.

  Agapito had seen that same banner amongst the ranks of Lorgar’s whelps at the Isstvan dropsite, held proudly aloft as the Word Bearers had turned their guns upon their cousins in the Raven Guard. In the weeks that followed the massacre, a brutal XVII Legion Chapter commander named Elexis had been dogged in his persecution of the surviving Raven Guard. Despite Agapito’s entreaties to the primarch, every opportunity to strike back had slipped away... But now, Elexis had come to Constanix. Memories crowded into the commander’s thoughts, each a tableau of destruction and death clamouring for his attention. His battle-brothers’ cries grew louder in his ears, the smell of blood and burnt ceramite strengthened in his nostrils.

  He gripped the hilt of his power sword tightly, his breath coming in short, rasping gasps. This was a second chance: Agapito would slay the bearer of that banner and see the colours cast down and trodden underfoot; Elexis crushed as his own Legion had once been crushed.

  ‘Commander?’ Lieutenant Caderil’s voice was loud across the vox, filled with concern. ‘Commander, the enemy are moving within range.’

  Every fibre of Agapito called out for him to order the attack and he knew that the Talons would gladly obey once they saw the target. His hearts hammered and blood throbbed through his body, flushing him with rage.

  A detonation rocked the building across the street as the first of the skitarii war engines clanked into range, sending an avalanche of smashed masonry onto the road.

  Agapito barely noticed the explosion.

  He was here to avenge; to punish; to kill.

  Yet at the burning heart of his anger there was a cold core, formed of pure hatred. It did not fuel his rage but cut through it, gifting him with clarity, shredding the fugue of ire that clouded his thoughts.

  ‘Victory is vengeance,’ the commander muttered.

  ‘Please repeat, commander, what are your orders?’

  ‘Victory is vengeance,’ Agapito said, louder and more confidently. He could see the traitors with his own eyes now, a few hundred metres away, cutting through a bombarded district temple. Beyond them he spied larger shapes moving through the gloom of the smoke; Mechanicum reinforcements. If the Raven Guard attacked, then they would certainly be surrounded, even if they destroyed the Word Bearers.

  Cold, rational hatred won over blind fury.

  ‘Withdraw to grid one, at speed.’ He issued the order through gritted teeth, as though the words were forcing themselves from his throat under protest.

  ‘Affirmative, commander’, replied Caderil, sounding relieved. The Raven Guard ran and bounded away into the darkness, leaving Agapito to stare at the Word Bearers in the distance, their banner to the fore.

  ‘Tomorrow, Elexis - you gutless coward. Tomorrow, you find out how the Raven Guard fight when we don’t have our backs turned. Tomorrow, I’ll show you bastards the same mercy you showed us on Isstvan.’

  VI

  LIGHTNING CLAWS SPITTING SPARKS, Corax slashed the head from another cyborg praetorian and stepped over the twitching corpse to meet its companions. Flanking him, two squads of legionaries laid down a swathe of bolter and heavy bolter fire, explosive rounds cutting through more of the skitarii elite.

  The Iapetus central temple complex covered more than a square kilometre of the city, the main ziggurat surrounded by smaller forges and furnace-houses. While a pair of Shadowhawks conducted attack runs against the few remaining defence turrets on the boundary wall Corax and his warriors drove into the Mechanicum cultists. Las-fire, bullets and bolts criss-crossed through the fumes and smoke, the surrounding buildings ringing to the cacophony of battle. Higher up, amongst the plumes of smoke rising from the city, Fire Raptors patrolled, watchful for any shuttle or gunship that tried to escape from the Machine-God’s shrine.

  Amongst the praetorians moved squads of heavily armoured foes; soldiers whose armour had been bonded into their flesh, their bodies turned into weapons. Bolter fire sparked harmlessly from ferrous carapaces while the brutally augmented warriors returned fire with arcs of lightning and blasts of plasma. Thallaxii, they were called - more machines than men, nerves deadened to withstand the agony of the insertion into their armour, the lobes of their brains replaced with calculating machines, turning them into efficient, unfeeling slayers.

  Corax hurtled into the thallaxii as his Raven Guard pulled back, four black-armoured legionaries slain by the enemy’s devastating weapons. A plasma bolt smashed into Corax’s left shoulder, burning through the ceramite of his armour to set a fire of pain in his arm. He ignored it and took to the air, his flight pack flaring as he leapt skywards. Twisting, he dived into the midst of the thallaxii like a comet, claws scything to the left and right, armoured boots cracking open reinforced exoskeletons.

  Heartened by their primarch’s attack the Raven Guard followed in his wake, emptying magazines at full-automatic into the stricken Mechanicum warriors, pouring more and more firepower into those that managed to evade Corax’s assault. One by one the thallaxii were shredded by lightning claws and weapons fire, yet still they fought to the last warrior rather than retreating.

  The assault force was still coming under considerable fire from embrasures atop the temple and other buildings. Corax split the platoon, sending one squad towards a large forge-house to the right, taking the others with him as he headed directly for the main temple doors.

  ‘Primarch!’

  Corax turned at the shout of alarm, just in time to see three immense mechanical beasts issuing from the furnace chamber. Each was larger than a battle tank, standing on six mechanical limbs, a plethora of cannons and guns dotting their oddly-shaped hulls. What looked like muscle and sinew glistened between their ceramite-sheathed plates, slick with organic fluid. The war engines were armed with huge claws, spinning saw-discs and serrated, glowing blades. Worst of all, their armour was carved with strange icons, disturbing runes that writhed with a dark energy of their own. Corax had seen similar upon the battleplate of Lorgar and his legionaries, and knew immediately what the sigils were for: to bind the power of Chaos into mortal form.

  The Raven Guard stood transfixed by the half-daemon creations charging towards them. Corax took a breath - the warnings of the tech-priests did little justice to the horror of the raging behemoths themselves.

  The daemonically-powered engines iss
ued bizarre roars and howls as they fell upon the Raven Guard squad with blades and talons slashing. The legionaries stood no chance against the arachnoid giants, their bolts and blades ineffective against the inscribed armour of their attackers.

  Corax broke into a sprint, powering straight for the war engines, claws ready for the attack. He arrived too late - the last of the Raven Guard squad was hurled bodily through the air by a kick from one of the machines, to land several dozen metres away on the hard rockcrete.

  With a snarl of pure rage, Corax launched himself at the closest engine.

  It met his claws with its own. Lightning rippled over the mechanical beast’s segmented plating. Warp-powered servos contested against genhanced muscles, Corax gritting his teeth and the daemon engine letting forth a moaning cry that was more animal than machine.

  The raw power of the primarch prevailed over the warp’s artifice as Corax slashed through the engine’s arm, sending the claw clattering across the ground. Punching a fist into what might have been its chest, the primarch heaved up to his full height, turning the machine to the left. It flailed its good arm, a hissing blue blade passing within centimetres of Corax’s face, and its legs spasmed as it tried to stay upright.

  With a grunt, Corax hauled the creature onto its back and drove his other fist into its underbelly, parting armour plates with his claws. Bubbling green, oily fluid spurted from the wound as pneumatics wheezed and the mortally wounded creature emitted a piercing wail.

  As Corax pulled his hands free, something seized his right arm from behind. He was lifted into the air as another claw grabbed hold of his leg. Aloft, he had no purchase to fight against the second daemon engine’s grip. Armour buckled and cracked under the strain, pressure fractures splintering along the length of the primarch’s arm and leg.

  He twisted as best he could and lashed out with his free claw, slicing through trailing hydraulic cables. The claw holding his leg snapped open, leaving him dangling by one arm. Before he could repeat the move, the war engine swung the primarch groundwards, dashing him hard against the rockcrete. Stunned, Corax could do nothing as twice more he was slammed into the ground, his shoulder almost separating with each swing from the daemon engine.

  The third machine closed in, its circular blades spinning. But before it could attack, twin explosions rocked it from behind. The roar of plasma jets drowned out its pained cry as a Shadowhawk descended, heavy bolters spewing fire. Another missile streaked down, punching into a rent in the daemon-thing’s armour, detonating the ammunition stores inside its segmented carapace.

  Pain spearing into his chest from his injured shoulder, Corax bent his arm and swung both feet into the frontal hull of the daemon holding him. The impact thundered a deep dent into the red-painted metal, but more importantly it gave the primarch the leverage he needed.

  Firing his flight pack, he thrust away from the machine, his free lightning claw carving through the appendage holding him. The armature came away in a shower of black sparks, cabling and vile fluid spilling from the tear. Letting the twitching mechanical limb drop from his fingers, Corax climbed high into the air and then dropped like a stone, using his own bulk to slam into the top of the war machine.

  The daemonic construct exploded as if hit by shell, the fireball scattering machine parts and burning fuel. As the flames dissipated, Corax was left crouching in the ruin, scorched but alive, his pale skin blackened with oil and soot.

  Knowing that Delvere, and possibly Nathrakin, would not be far from their daemonic creations, he headed towards the forge from where the machines had emerged.

  THE BROAD GATES of the furnace-house were open, revealing a hellish scene within. Lit by a reddish-purple light was what seemed to be a monstrous assembly line for gigantic mechanical spiders. Limbs and curved armour plates hung from cranes and lifting chains, while beneath worked gangs of cowled labourers and servitors. Those capable of free thought threw down their tools and fled as Corax stalked into the horrific interior, while the more mindless drones continued with the tasks they were programmed to carry out, oblivious to the killer in their midst.

  A squad of Word Bearers charged out of the gloom, their bolters blazing. Impacts showered Corax but he shrugged off the detonations and lunged towards the traitor legionaries, spearing the first on the tip of his claw, and shearing the head and arm from a second. As he carved down the third, Corax could see over the heads of the renegades, into the depths of the infernal forge.

  The walls were lined with cages, inside which naked figures stared blankly out. Their bodies were smeared with grime and blood - blood from deep rune-wounds carved into their flesh. They moaned in desperation, pushing hands through the bars of their prisons, shorn heads gleaming in the unnatural light. The cages themselves were hung with long ropes of knotted cable that flared and sparked as if siphoning off their misery, and the cables trailed in chained loops towards the depths of the forge.

  At the far end had been raised a grotesque pedestal, an amalgam of metal, stone, bones and skulls, connected to the prison cages. Strangely-angled artificial stalagmites jutted from this pile, forming huge barbs whose lengths were carved with more of the damnable runes. Between them the air shimmered with unnatural energy, flooding the furnace hall with the pulsing un-light of the immaterium.

  A chainsword snapped against Corax’s thigh and he struck out with the back of his fist, launching a Word Bearer across the chamber to slam into a dangling engine block. A kick smashed in the chest of another traitor even as Corax’s claws swept down to eviscerate a third.

  Beside the swirling miasma of the warp rift stood two figures. The first Corax recognised from the descriptions Loriark had given him - it was clearly Delvere. The Archmagos was robed in red, like his fellows, his face hidden in the shadow of his hood. From his back splayed half a dozen writhing mechadendrites, each tipped with some sparking, whirring device or hooked, serrated blade.

  The other figure could only be Nathrakin, clad in thick Terminator armour painted in the livery of the Word Bearers and chased with golden runes and lines of cuneiform script. He wore no helm, and his scalp and neck were pierced with snaking coils of wires and cables that pulsed under the flesh, glowing with psychic power. A former Librarian, no doubt, now turned sorcerer.

  As the last of the Word Bearers fell to Corax, the primarch raised a claw towards the pair and shouted his challenge.

  ‘Ask for swift deaths and I will grant them.’ He stalked between the lines of mechanical parts and imprisoned human suffering.

  ‘Too late to ask for clemency?’ Nathrakin called back.

  ‘No mercy,’ snarled Corax, breaking into a run.

  The pair of renegades split. Delvere stood his ground, raising his bionic arms to lift an oversized rotor cannon towards the onrushing primarch. Nathrakin strode up the mound of the Chaos altar and with a contemptuous glance back at Corax thrust his hand into the whirling vortex.

  Delvere’s first salvo screamed down the hall, forcing Corax to his left as wicked shells flickered towards him. The prisoners let out great howls of agony as the stray shots ripped into them, punching through flesh where the infernal shells set dark fires in their bodies, burning swiftly until they were all but consumed.

  Changing his route, Corax leapt up amongst the hanging machine parts, steering his flight pack between the swinging chains and swaying carapaces. Delvere’s next volley tore into the rafters above, splitting metal links and cutting through armoured plates.

  Corax landed next to the Archmagos as burning rounds seared past the primarch’s head, his lightning claw slashing through the spinning barrels of the cannon with a single blow. Delvere’s mechadendrite tentacles lashed forwards like a nest of serpents, striking a flurry of hits across Corax’s chest and shoulder, their combined strength enough to hurl him back several metres. The primarch swept out with a lightning claw, cutting the ends from half of the tendrils and eliciting a snarl of pain from the Archmagos.

  As Delvere reeled back, the remaining
mechadendrites undulating wildly, Corax struck. He pounced forwards, left claw held out like a lance, blades and taloned fingers punching into the chest of the Archmagos. Digits like steel ripped through plates of metal and mechanical organs, tore through a plasteel-ribbed spine to erupt from Delvere’s back. The Archmagos screeched in staccato lingua-technis as Corax lifted him up.

  ‘The punishment for traitors is death,’ the primarch growled.

  He swept his other claw across the head of Delvere, severing vertebrae and shearing away the top of his scalp. Letting the decapitated corpse drop to the ground, Corax rounded on Nathrakin.

  The Word Bearer stood in front of the pulsing warp portal, red and purple flames flickering along his arm. Tendrils of unnatural power lashed at him from the sphere of glowing energy, seeming to pass into his body, leaving pulsating trails beneath his skin. His face was locked in a rictus grimace, eyes burning with fire.

  The plates of his Terminator armour slewed and melted, bubbling like scalded flesh, expanding and merging. As more warp power flowed into him, Nathrakin grew in stature, limbs lengthening, torso widening. Claws like steel erupted from his fingertips and three curling horns sprouted from his brow, each tipped with a golden rune. The backplate and power pack of his armour extended, extrusions of ceramite and adamantium forming a serrated arch above his head like a deformed halo.

  Corax took a step towards the traitor but stopped, wary of coming too close to the ravening energies spewing from the warp rift. Violet and green shadows danced around the Word Bearer’s feet.

  Wrenching his hand from the pulsating globe of energy, Nathrakin took several paces towards the primarch. Where his boots touched the melded skulls and bones, they left pools of black flame. He lifted his arms and smiled, as four adamantium-edged bone-blades erupted from each of his wrists, in a twisted parody of Corax’s own talons.