Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds

by Mark Clapham

  There was a low thump from within the box.

  ‘So I hear,’ said Huron, with a dryness that almost reminded Rotaka of the old Huron, the Lufgt Huron who had inspired worlds as well as terrified them. ‘Break the wards, sorcerer.’

  Anto raised his staff, and gabbled something in an unfamiliar tongue. Flames began to lick around the eye slits of Anto’s helmet, and energy crackled up the staff. As he spoke, the seals and symbols covering the crate burned away in wisps of acrid smoke. Locks on the chains binding the container sprung open of their own accord.

  ‘Be released,’ shouted Anto, slamming the base of his staff into the ground. ‘Be released and awaken, Kolsh of the Red Corsairs.’

  With that, Anto slumped, smoke rising from his armour. The ritual was done.

  Then, nothing happened. In spite of the sound of battle all around them, as the Red Corsairs tried to scale the Ironshore and the invisible defenders rained destruction from above, there was a strange pocket of silence around the great crate, a silence broken by Huron Blackheart himself.

  ‘Damn you, Kolsh,’ he bellowed, slamming his closed power fist into the side of the box. ‘Wake up.’

  When the crate exploded, it did so with a roar louder even than that issued by Huron, a booming howl of rage and despair. As fragments of shredded metal fell all around, a towering monstrosity was revealed, standing in the ruins of the crate – a helbrute, plates of reddened, scarred armour linked by both ancient, oil-weeping machinery and warped flesh. One of its arms ended in a multi-melta, the other a taloned power fist, while an oversized helmet sat low on its shoulders, almost at chest level, its eye slits burning with unnatural light.

  ‘I hear you, Lufgt,’ said the helbrute. ‘Kolsh of the Astral Claws, angel of the seven emperors, scythe of the dragon sister, hears your command.’

  Huron Blackheart tolerated neither use of his disavowed name, nor mention of the Astral Claws. By invoking both, and maintaining the delusion that those days had never ended, Kolsh was committing the most severe verbal treason. No Red Corsair, not Garreon nor Valthex nor any of the others, would be allowed to speak that way and live. But Kolsh would never understand that.

  Long ago, before Rotaka had been elevated to the ranks of the Astral Claws, Kolsh had fought alongside Lufgt Huron. He had fallen in battle, his damaged body entombed inside the colossal machine that stood before Rotaka now. Rotaka remembered him from those days: imposing, noble, terrifying.

  Then the Badab War had begun, and the Astral Claws had found themselves fighting against the Imperium they had once served. Most remained loyal to Lufgt Huron, now Chapter Master and Tyrant of Badab. A few had rebelled against their leader, and were either rapidly purged or fled the system to beg for mercy from the loyalist forces.

  Kolsh had taken neither path. Instead he had gone insane, his mind broken by the horror of divided loyalties. He had followed orders to the last, and continued to do so when Huron required his services, but his perception of reality was distorted beyond all recognition. He still fought, but as he did so he was not combating the enemy he actually faced, but imaginary foes his shattered mind could cope with. Kolsh’s reality was one of battles no one around him could comprehend, against foes drawn from his imagination.

  As an ally, Kolsh was a tremendous asset, but like all helbrutes more dangerous than the enemies the Red Corsairs faced, should rage overcome him.

  ‘Well?’ asked Kolsh, kicking aside the remains of the armoured container he had rested within for many years. Every step could be felt through Rotaka’s body like an earthquake. ‘What is your order?’

  The question was laden with threat. It was Kolsh’s unique madness that kept him from succumbing to the murderous fury that consumed other helbrutes, but he was not immune to it. He needed direction, and quickly.

  ‘We must take the wall, Kolsh,’ said Rotaka.

  ‘Take the wall?’ bellowed Kolsh, turning on Rotaka, the power claw flexing over his head. Rotaka was aware the helbrute could decapitate him with a pinch of those talons. ‘How can we trust we are even outside the wall when the below is up above?’

  The skies of Kerresh had cleared, and the seas were clearly visible behind the sun above them.

  ‘Noble Kolsh,’ said Huron, his voice taking a tone Rotaka had not heard in years. It was the voice of Lufgt Huron. ‘These illusions are simply xenos tricks. They send their lies from behind this barrier.’

  Huron’s voice was unusually free of anger, but Rotaka could see that the Tyrant’s Claw was clenched in controlled rage behind his back.

  ‘Very well, son of light,’ boomed Kolsh. ‘I will conquer the barriers behind which this alien filth cowers.’

  Without further word the helbrute was moving, and Rotaka and the others had to swerve aside as the giant crashed past them, crushing mortal soldiers beneath his metallic tread, charging straight at the wall.

  As Kolsh approached the wall, the helbrute mounted a fallen siege tower, the frame of the tower creaking as his enormous weight crunched up its length to reach a point halfway up the wall. Reaching the end of the tower, he swung back the power fist and brought it crashing back. The arm came down, and where it hit the wall it dug deep into the sheer surface, the barb lodging firmly.

  ‘To the parapet, my brothers,’ said Kolsh, bracing his huge legs against the wall, pushing upwards and bringing the other arm down to lodge higher up.

  Then he pulled the first limb free, and repeated the process, piercing the wall a little higher.

  Rotaka realised he was watching a helbrute climb.

  From above, the fire and grenades began to concentrate on Kolsh as he climbed, but he was utterly unscathed by the attacks.

  As the defenders of the Ironshore desperately tried to fire on Kolsh, only able to use hand-held weapons at such a steep angle, they leaned over the parapet to do so, at last exposing themselves. Rotaka found a target and fired, the first loyalist body dropping from the Ironshore to cheers from below.

  Within seconds, the weapons on the decks of the galleons were bombarding the parapets, obliterating anyone else who exposed their position.

  Beneath Kolsh, shielded by his huge bulk, Red Corsairs were beginning to climb where he had gouged handholes into the wall. Siege towers were being righted, reinforcements flowing up the beach. Grapple launchers were fired, the hooks beginning to find purchase now.

  The scaling of the wall began in earnest, with Kolsh in the lead. Rotaka shouted to his squad to follow and ran to catch up.

  ‘Great Russ, what I would not give for a Rhino right now,’ said Hoenir, wrestling with the steering controls of the mortal vehicle they had commandeered. ‘This thing handles like a wild beast.’

  After a pause Gulbrandr responded. ‘Then you should concentrate on taming it,’ he replied. ‘And silence your complaints.’

  Anvindr listened, but remained silent. He could not bring himself to speak. Sat in the open-topped back of the halftrack vehicle, his bolter on his lap, he looked out across the blasted landscape of Kerresh as the vehicle bumped and swerved on the pitted road running alongside the ridge. Their mission was to scout ahead, to locate where the Corsairs had withdrawn to in their ridge runner, presuming that they weren’t half a world away already.

  All they had seen so far was death and destruction, evidence of the Corsairs’ influence. The smoking buildings and unburied corpses were an affront to his fresh grief.

  They drove for another hour before anyone spoke again.

  ‘Here they are, damn them,’ said Gulbrandr, and Anvindr turned to see what his brother was talking about. Hoenir brought them to a halt.

  Ahead was a factorum, built close to the ridge, and atop that ridge they could just see the Corsairs’ ridge runner halted at a station similar to the one they had recently found destroyed. The factorum was dominated by a central tower, and a huge, ragged banner hung down the centre, the aquila
still visible beneath a crudely painted red saltire, the mark of the Red Corsairs. Anvindr made a low snarl at the sight of such desecration.

  ‘Should we report back now?’ asked Hoenir.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Anvindr. ‘I want to know their numbers.’

  He stood up in the back of the halftrack, the vehicle creaking as he shifted in his armoured weight. A short distance away he could see a taller tower amongst the ruins.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘That should give us the vantage we need.’

  They went on foot, running across the ruins, beams and bricks crunching beneath their boots. The stench was terrible to Anvindr’s sensitive sense of smell – bodies were buried somewhere under the wreckage.

  They climbed the tower, the purpose of which seemed lost to time. It was only six storeys tall, but it gave them a view of the factorum and the surrounding area. Around the factorum was a small town, crude workers’ habs, and even from a distance heretical markings were clearly visible on buildings and banners. Anvindr watched the mortals walk their streets, and could see the same manic gait in their movements that he had seen in the corrupted mortals elsewhere in the Hollow Worlds, the signs of minds twisted by the influence of Chaos.

  Was this what the Corsairs had brought to all the worlds they occupied? Relentless corruption and creeping treachery? The Space Wolves had thought to inspire resistance from loyal subjects of the Emperor on Kerresh, to begin a process of liberating these worlds from the traitors, but if what Anvindr saw was typical, there might be little of these occupied worlds worth saving. Instead, a great scourging would be required once the traitors were driven out, to remove every last shred of their influence.

  Grim work, but the Space Wolves would not shrink from it. As many cords would be cut as needed to drive witchcraft from these worlds.

  ‘Hear that?’ said Gulbrandr, tilting his head. Anvindr concentrated, and could hear it too – a low mechanical rumbling, coming from the direction of the factorum.

  ‘Let’s see what new toys these traitors have been manufacturing,’ said Anvindr.

  ‘There,’ said Gulbrandr, pointing towards the base of the factorum’s central tower. Even from a distance he could see the huge double door two-thirds of the height of the factorum itself. He could see many tiny figures milling around the doors, both mortals and the larger shapes of the Red Corsairs.

  Hoenir’s shoulders were tense, his body leant forwards as if preparing to sprint straight towards the Corsairs. Anvindr understood his youthful eagerness, his bitter rage. Hoenir had not fought alongside Tormodr and Sindri as long as Anvindr had, but they had still been of the same pack for many years. He too sought blood vengeance, or at least to subsume his sorrows beneath the kill-urge.

  ‘Hold, Hoenir,’ ordered Anvindr. ‘Something comes.’

  Witnessed by the Red Corsairs and the concealed Space Wolves, the factorum’s latest creation rolled out of the door. The traitors cheered as it came into view, their guttural glee echoing across to the tower where the Space Wolves were concealed.

  Anvindr did not cheer. He could see immediately the Corsairs’ intent.

  ‘Vox the Archway,’ he told Gulbrandr. ‘Tell them the traitors are returning.’

  Twenty-One

  On Karstveil, Lieutenant Nistal knew well that the Lastrati were best experienced to defend the Ironshore’s single, impenetrable wall. The Lastrati had been preparing to defend the Ironshore for centuries, each generation training the next, and so the Cadians had left them to it, nimbly climbing the scaffolding against the wall, patrolling its ramparts and looking out to sea.

  Nistal’s men were there in case the first line of defence failed, in the event that the enemy traversed the wall.

  The area between the base of the mountain at the island’s centre and the wall of the Ironshore was a band a mile thick filled with low, fortified buildings, barracks, rough farmland, and even some patches of bleak woodland. Nistal didn’t have to worry about that entire area though, as there was only one target the enemy could be interested in on Ironshore.

  The door was embedded under a stone archway in the mountainside. It seemed to be made of the same iron-like but weirdly translucent material that the Ironshore wall was made of, but instead of being a solid single piece it was made from criss-crossed beams sealed at the centre by a great wheel. The wheel was wider than Nistal and its centre was at human head height, but the spokes that protruded from it did not look shaped for the grip of a human hand. The door itself was five times Nistal’s height and he didn’t like to look at it. He didn’t know what was behind the door and he didn’t want to, but he knew that it was the Cadians’ job to defend it.

  The first line of defence after the Ironshore’s sea wall consisted of three- and four-storey fort-like buildings linked to the scaffolding of the outer wall by bridges and ladders. Each had Cadians manning weapon emplacements on the rooftops, along with sharpshooters at the narrow windows. Between those buildings and the door were bunkers, barracks and warehouses, all barricaded with Cadians, the pathways between them sandbagged to slow the invaders as much as possible.

  Nistal had placed himself with the very last line of defence, almost under the shadow of the arch, immediately in front of the great door. From there, he had line of sight over all the defences using magnoculars, and he could see the top of the Ironshore itself.

  A short time ago the Lastrati had begun running back and forth firing on something below, on the other side of the wall. The attack had begun, Nistal watching from afar through his magnoculars. Even with that magnification the defenders looked tiny.

  When they failed, when the defences were breached, it was not a gradual erosion, but spectacular and horrific.

  The first thing to come over the wall was far taller than a man, and Nistal could make out a great bladed claw that swept out in precise, ferocious movements, Lastrati falling wherever it moved. The light caught a halo over its head as the creature moved with terrible speed, cutting the wall’s defenders to pieces.

  The thing that followed was worse – a monster, a huge mechanical beast that dragged itself over the lip of the wall, knocking aside the Lastrati defenders and unleashing its terrible firepower both across the length of the wall and down into the area within.

  ‘God-Emperor,’ said Nistal. ‘What are we facing?’

  As more traitors climbed the wall, the Cadians on the fortifications nearest the wall began to open fire.

  The battle had truly begun.

  Rotaka and his squad reached the top of the wall to find Huron Blackheart and Kolsh wreaking destruction, and the defenders of the Ironshore returning it in kind. Rotaka raised his bolter and returned fire as Lastrati troops shot at him with lasguns, and one fell screaming to his death on the beach below.

  ‘Ah, Lufgt, does this not remind you of the time we invaded the dream castles of Nyalhotep?’ said Kolsh, his multi-melta white hot, his power fist swinging back and forth.

  Huron ignored the helbrute.

  ‘Red Corsairs, press forwards,’ barked the Tyrant. ‘The wall is taken, we move to the mountain.’

  ‘To the mountain,’ said Kolsh, stepping off the wall onto the mortal-built structure on the inside. It immediately began to collapse under his weight, and Kolsh lashed out, screaming and raging at imaginary enemies, knocking out supports and causing further damage.

  On the roof of the nearest building mortals, were firing a heavy bolter on Rotaka’s position. Firing back, he jumped onto the scaffolding as it fell away from the sea wall, opening fire with his bolter as the boards beneath his feet shifted towards his target. Rotaka jumped off the scaffolding as it smashed into the building, landing on the rooftop and gunning down the troops manning the heavy bolter. On nearby rooftops similar emplacements were firing up at the Red Corsairs as they spread across the top of the wall, so Rotaka took hold of the heavy bolter and swung it around, unleashing a stream
of bolts at the nearest targets, tearing them to pieces.

  As Rotaka fired the heavy bolter, the rest of his squad reached the rooftop: Hulpin, Verbin, Wuhrsk and finally Malinko, limping slightly.

  The entire building began to shake, causing Rotaka to fire wide with heavy bolter, missing his target and shooting into the outer wall.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Rotaka. ‘Demolition charges?’

  Hulpin looked over the edge of the rooftop. ‘Near enough. Blessed Kolsh is fighting his way into the ground floor,’ he said.

  The building shook again.

  ‘How can he be blessed?’ snapped Wuhrsk. ‘He thinks we’re part of the Imperium.’

  ‘That confusion is a sign of the gods’ blessing,’ said Hulpin.

  The entire rooftop began to tilt sideways as further blows shook the building.

  ‘That confusion will bury us,’ said Rotaka. ‘We need to get to ground level.’

  He abandoned the heavy bolter and ran off the roof, dropping to the ground below. He landed among mortal soldiers, and as their guns turned on him he lashed out, one fist knocking a Guardsman’s head back with neck-snapping force. With his other hand he drew his dagger and lashed out in a wide arc, the blade tearing through the body armour and flesh of two more Guardsmen.

  Rotaka recognised the uniforms – Cadians, efficient fighters by mortal standards. As the rest of his squad dropped to the muddy ground the Cadians were pulling back smoothly, concentrating their fire on key points on the Corsairs armour and finding cover behind metallic barricades and piles of sandbags. Further blasts of las-fire and volleys of bolts were coming from firing slots in bunkers ahead of them, and Rotaka and his squad found themselves being pushed back towards the collapsing building by sheer force of firepower.

  Then Huron Blackheart was among the Cadians, crashing through a barricade and swiping two of them aside with the Tyrant’s Claw, then bisecting another with a swing of his axe. He was close to one of the bunkers embedded in the ground, and turned the palm of the Tyrant’s Claw towards the narrow firing slit, spewing burning promethium through the gap to burn the Cadians within to ashes.