by Mark Clapham
The large cannon on board the Fist’s deck fired, a shell streaking across to the nearest Imperial ship. Valthex watched it cut through the air, knowing from his own instant, instinctive calculations that it would find its mark. The shell hit the hull of the Imperial ship just below deck level, an explosion throwing out water and debris.
The smaller weapons batteries on the deck of the Fist were also opening fire, and the nearest two galleons, Tireless Vengeance and Endless Fury, joined the salvo, lighting up the sea between the galleons and the Imperium ships. The Merciless Strike was out of sight, somewhere in the fog.
The Imperial ships were returning fire now, while making evasive manoeuvres. Bursts of heavy las-fire were superheating the air.
‘Bring us around to that ship we hit,’ called Huron Blackheart, ‘and prepare all guns to starboard.’
The order was relayed, and the Fist pursued the Imperial ship, which was now listing due to the smoking hole in its hull. The Fist moved out of range of heavy las-fire from the other ships, curving around so that the shelled ship was to the right of Huron’s flagship. The deck tilted as the Fist moved, and Valthex let himself tilt with it.
‘They’re targeting us!’ came a shout from across the deck.
‘Then bring them down first!’ bellowed Huron.
Any response the crew might have made was drowned out by the sound of every weapon on deck, and all the guns protruding from the side of the Fist, firing at once, a blaze of smoke trails and las-fire obscuring any sight of the enemy ship.
When the smoke cleared, the shattered ship was capsizing, taking on water at tremendous speed.
The crew of the Unyielding Fist roared in victory, a cheer that was only dampened by the sight of two more Imperial ships moving towards them at speed.
‘Sorcerer!’ Huron Blackheart bellowed. ‘Where are you?’
‘My lord,’ Anto replied. He moved across the deck of the Unyielding Fist with unhurried steps. While Huron valued obedience, he also despised signs of weakness. Any lack of confidence Anto displayed in his own abilities would fuel Huron’s doubts as to Anto’s usefulness.
‘Destroy these ships for me,’ ordered Huron, pointing the Tyrant’s Claw out to sea where two Imperial vessels were charting an intercept course with the Fist.
The Tyrant looked at Anto with a cruel leer. What he was asking was not easy; even sorcery had its limits, and to attack two such large targets individually, while compensating for the rising and falling waves…
‘As you will, my lord,’ said Anto, and he walked to the prow of the ship, then stared down into the turbulent waters below. He closed his eyes, and reached down beneath the deeps, stretching out with his powers. He muttered words of incantation, forming an unnatural storm, not in the sky but beneath the waves.
A cacophony of weapons fire broke out near him. He could feel the impact of shells and shot hitting the deck, the heating of the air round him as fire was given and returned. Huron was barking orders.
Anto kept his eyes closed, even as a bolt exploded against his armour. His focus was on the storm. It would not affect the two enemy ships directly, but then such a storm would do little direct damage to ships of their size. Instead, the storm was creating unnatural currents, changing the course of the waves.
‘Evasive manoeuvres,’ Huron shouted. ‘Turn to starboard.’
There was a brief moment before Valthex replied. ‘Bridge reporting we’re turning to port,’ said the Techmarine, a rare bafflement in his voice. ‘They’re saying they’ve lost control.’
Anto could feel the movement himself now. He was sure they all could. The Unyielding Fist turning to port, being forced to spin slowly.
‘The waters are rising!’ a mortal shouted over the continued gunfire.
Anto began to slowly raise his staff, and opened his eyes to see what he had wrought.
The Unyielding Fist was moving, spinning slowly as the rising waves pushed stern and prow, but it was a point of relative calm. The sea around the galleon was moving faster still, waters flowing around the ship in a circular motion, those waves rising higher. Anto could see the two Imperial ships caught in the rising waves, being pushed along with them. Las-fire and shells still rained down on and around the Fist, but as the Imperium ships were thrown sideways their aim was poor.
‘Cease fire,’ shouted Huron. ‘Cease fire and brace.’
The Fist was in a faster spin now, lurching in its rotation, but it was nothing compared to the two ships at the edge of the vortex. The churning waters were frothing white, rising higher than the deck of the Fist, the roar of the unnatural waves drowning out any other sound. The two Imperium ships circled the Fist five times, thrown closer and closer together, capsizing as ferocious water consumed them.
On the sixth turn they collided, the force of the sorcerous waves smashing the two vessels together. An explosion erupted in the wall of white water encircling the Fist, shattered fragments of the two ships dragged away by the waves.
As the ships were destroyed, Anto dropped to one knee and slammed his palm against the deck, whispering an incantation to dismiss the storm deep below the waves.
The Fist stopped spinning, the wall of water around it collapsing straight down, the normal tidal forces reasserting their control.
Anto bowed his head, the exertion of what he had just achieved rattling his every nerve ending.
‘Well, sorcerer,’ said Huron Blackheart, looking out at the wreckage of the enemy ships floating past. ‘You may prove to be of some use after all.’
Briefly, for a matter of a few minutes, the storm ceased. A freak moment of calm, it allowed the clouds to part and the sun to shine down upon the seas, which settled.
Valthex looked briefly at Huron Blackheart, and wondered if this was some new manifestation of Huron’s pact with his gods, and whether it was related to the Tyrant’s increasing daemonic aspect.
Then he looked back out to sea. As clouds raced away across the sky, visibility was total. One of the Red Corsairs galleons, the Tireless Vengeance, had sunk, but the rest survived. The Imperium vessels had not been so fortunate, and aside from a single ship, retreating into the distance, the sea around them was dotted with smoking and broken vessels, most of which were leaning at an unhealthy angle as they began to take on water and sink beneath the waves.
‘Main gun,’ Huron shouted. ‘Target that ship. I will have no survivors crawling away from here.’
The crew scrambled on deck, and with a grinding of gears and chains the barrel of the great cannon was cranked into position, its shadow now cast across the floor. When the great gun fired the noise shook everything, and after the blast there was a brief silence. The shell streaked through the air, trailing smoke.
The shell hit the distant ship, which began to sink.
As it sank, something could be seen on the horizon.
Land, or something built on it. A solid strip above the waves, shining in the unexpected sun.
‘Ironshore,’ hissed Huron, so quietly only Valthex could hear him. Then Blackheart turned to shout orders and abuse at the galleon’s mortal captain, demanding they set a course directly for that distant land.
The raindrops began to fall once more, the wind picking up. Within seconds the brief calm was over, and they were deep in the storm once more.
It didn’t matter. They had sighted land, and the fleet that protected it was now gone. No storm could stop them now.
Nistal took his eye away from the scope as the storm descended once more. It was a hugely oversized device, mounted on an extendable tripod that reached out over the wall of the Ironshore.
Even through such a scope, he had seen enough in those moments of clear visibility.
The traitors were coming, and only the Ironshore stood between them and the Orrery.
Nineteen
‘I had almost forgotten what it was to be a
god,’ said Kruvan.
‘What was that?’ shouted Skarrow from the other end of the ridge runner carriage.
Kruvan had not realised he had spoken out loud. He shrugged his wide shoulders in Skarrow’s direction, and Skarrow took this as a sign that no conversation needed to happen. The other Red Corsair returned to polishing his bolter as the ridge runner continued its progress across Kerresh. From high on the ridge Kruvan looked down on an endless stretch of factorums and refineries, smokestacks and outlets spewing smog into the air, making it hard to see the planet curving up on the horizon. As Kruvan looked out, he saw the saltire of the Red Corsairs splattered across a tower.
It had been many years since Kruvan had known a population bow down before him and his ilk.
On the worlds of the Badab System, the Astral Claws had been tyrant deities, Huron demanding total subjugation from the mortals. Kruvan had walked amongst mortal men, and seen their terror and awe. Sometimes, they bowed, or presented tribute.
It was all worthless, of course. The Adeptus Astartes had no need or desire for mortal comforts, for their treasures or their currency. But to be looked up to in such a way, that had been good.
Then the Imperium crushed them. Badab was lost. The Astral Claws were no more. Amongst the forces of Chaos, the Red Corsairs were just one faction, regarding each other with fear and suspicion. It wasn’t the same.
Kruvan hadn’t realised how much he missed the old days until the Red Corsairs broke the population of Kerresh to their will.
To be a Red Corsair on Kerresh was to be the avatar of the new gods who had deposed the Emperor from His position as object of the people’s faith. When Garreon sent Kruvan, Skarrow and the rest of their squad out to the towns and factorums of Kerresh to gather slaves or resources, they had found themselves greeted with grovelling reverence. Weapons, fuel, food and drink, medical supplies: all were handed over without a shot being fired. The sigils of Chaos burned out from desecrated monuments to the old regime, the word of Chaos spreading to places the Red Corsairs had not previously visited.
It was not just the same as it had been on Badab, it was better, the authority of the Red Corsairs reinforced by the fire and fury of Chaos. From such a base, with the factorums of Kerresh and the population of the Hollow Worlds at their bidding, the Red Corsairs could expand, build a new empire, one the Imperium could not touch.
It was a dream, but one Kruvan knew he was not alone in having, a shared vision of a new Badab, of the Red Corsairs becoming conquerors of worlds once more.
It was a dangerous dream to speak of, even to a close comrade such as Skarrow. It echoed days officially struck from the memory of the warband, of the history of the Astral Claws that the Tyrant rejected in his new identity. Even with Huron Blackheart on the front lines elsewhere in the system, on Kerresh there remained Garreon the Corpsemaster, his loyal right hand, and dissent could never be spoken within his hearing.
But that hunger remained.
Kruvan and his squad’s last sojourn into the depths of Kerresh had taken a matter of days, and now they were returning to Garreon’s base of operations near the Archway to Hacasta. They came with a ridge runner loaded with supplies for the Red Corsairs war machine, with promethium and other resources for Garreon’s defence of the Archway.
While communication had been received from Huron Blackheart’s fleet of galleons before they departed Hacasta for Karstveil, other sorties into the heart of Hacasta had not returned, consumed by the blizzard with no trace. Expeditions to discover what had happened had not returned either.
Something was out there, picking off the Red Corsairs’ incursions into Hacasta. It could only be the Space Wolves, the Corpse-Emperor’s hated, bestial executioners. Kruvan did not fear the Space Wolves. None of the Corsairs did. And yet, the fact that the Fenrisians had yet to make a direct attack on the Corsairs’ position was… unnerving.
As the ridge runner slowed near the Archway, Kruvan could see that the portal to Hacasta was closed, the arch resembling nothing more than a stone structure, taller than even the ridges. This was a frequent occurrence: whatever alignment of Kerresh and Hacasta that allowed the Archway to work only lasted for a few short hours each day. The alignment was due to occur soon, as the area around the Archway was a hive of activity, mortals moving supply vehicles, fuel canisters and crates into position. Gun emplacements overlooked the work, barrels targeted at the Archway in case of incursion, and down among the workers walked Corsairs, towering over the mortals.
They looked busy, mortals and Corsairs, as the ridge runner came to a halt overlooking the loading area, the first carriage docking into a station built over the ridge. It was to that station that all who worked below would occasionally look up to. Nervously in the case of the mortals, with stoic reticence in the case of the Corsairs, because from the twisted tower that reached up from the station, Garreon the Corpsemaster commanded – and it did not do to displease him.
The Onyx Palace was visible from virtually anywhere on Ressial. So, when the towers of the palace began to fall, Kretschman saw it happen, even though he was standing on a mountain halfway across the continent.
The Mountains of Dyap was an area of vulnerability, should the Red Corsairs breach the Archway to Ressial and take the mountain route to avoid the coastal defences. Kretschman had been assigned to a Lastrati Guard platoon sent to establish traps, defences and outposts around the mountain passes.
After the stifling political atmosphere of the Gatehouse, even the thin air up in the mountains was preferable, and Kretschman began to feel like a true Cadian again, marching alongside fellow soldiers in the wilderness, sleeping on rough ground and eating standard rations. Away from luxury, he became himself once more.
He wasn’t the only one to see it, and they slowed to a halt as a murmur of alarm passed up and down the line of Lastrati, with the obvious conclusions jumped to: that the throne world was already under attack, the enemy had reached the Gatehouse, and instead of being there to defend it these sons and daughters of the Hollow Worlds were stuck up a mountain, away from the action.
‘Stopped to admire the view, have we?’ bellowed an officer from further ahead, before being drowned out by belligerent chatter.
‘Controlled demolition, we were warned about it last night,’ said the officer. ‘Word-by-bird. We were also ordered to ignore it and stick to our mission. Seems they knew you idiots would want to run straight back the moment you saw the first big bang. Clever old command, huh? Now get marching before I have to drop one of you over the edge to encourage the rest.’
As they resumed marching, Kretschman returned his eyes to the path ahead. Word-by-bird the officer had said, a message from the system governor’s network. With only the Space Wolves having conventional communications, the birds took days to pass a message on, so this must have been well planned, presumably the inquisitor’s idea.
But what was the point of demolishing a palace dedicated to the Emperor in the middle of a war? Not only did it seem pointless, but such vandalism seemed like heresy.
Kretschman shook his head and concentrated on marching. It wasn’t his concern. It had never been his concern, really; he had just been dragged into the strategising of the inquisitor, the system governor, and all those other high-ups by an accident of fate. Now he was back amongst the ranks where he belonged, even if they weren’t the ranks of his own regiment, and he would probably never see Inquisitor Pranix again.
Even as Kretschman thought that, he had a horrible feeling it wasn’t true.
‘Prepare,’ said the voice of Garreon, coming from vox-casters around the loading area. ‘If the hounds run through, I want them cut down before they can bite.’
Kruvan looked up at the tower in which Garreon resided, giving out orders. There was a great clock on the tower, but its gargoyle-festooned dial did not tell conventional time, or divide the day and night cycle within Kerresh. Its sole purpose
was to count down to the periods when the Archway to Hacasta opened and closed.
The great hand, a long needle of rusted iron, was about to reach its zenith. The Archway would open soon.
Kruvan, Skarrow and the rest of their squad were dotted around the loading area, along with another two squads of Corsairs, some of whom were manning the gun emplacements at the rear of the yard. They had taken defensive positions near cover, as had the red-uniformed mortal infantry. If the Space Wolves had overrun the Red Corsairs on the other side of the Archway, the Corsairs on Kerresh were ready.
Up on the ridge, the ridge runner Kruvan had ridden in stood still, only partially unloaded. All activity ceased for these transitions, to seamlessly resume once the coast was clear.
‘This waiting bores me, Kruvan,’ said Skarrow. The two were both positioned by large plasteel containers loaded with non-volatile supplies, a short distance apart.
‘Then be bored no longer,’ said Kruvan. ‘It opens.’
Not all Archways could be seen through when open. Some manifested as walls of rippling energy, while the one before Kruvan allowed a view through to Hacasta – when it was open. Looking into the Archway from his position in cover, Kruvan saw the stone arch begin to glow on the inside, and the view of the other side of the loading area begin to mist over, as if white fog were filling the area immediately beneath the Archway. That whiteness had an inner luminescence, which reached a level of intense, bright light, only to fade back, revealing the dark outline of bulky figures, the same size and shape as the Corsairs on Kerresh.
‘Are they…?’ Skarrow muttered nearby, eager to know whether they were friend or foe. Kruvan’s finger rested on the trigger of his bolter, ready to fire.
Between the figures on the other side were dark lumps, taller even than the figures. Were they structures, or vehicles?
‘Cut the ropes!’ came a voice: hoarse, animalistic, echoing through the Archway, a whole world away.
‘Cut the what?’ said Skarrow, but Kruvan ignored him. He didn’t care what the voice said, only that it hadn’t been a Corsair’s voice.