by Mark Clapham
‘You are on borrowed time, yet there remains fleeting hope to live,’ said Garreon. ‘The Tyrant knows no mercy, but if your shame is rectified before he returns to this world, then that achievement will stand and the indignity of defeat will be forgotten. Drive these dogs through the Archway, keep them on that barren world of ice where beasts like them belong, and you may yet still be spared, and still be allowed to fight on as Red Corsairs for the glory of Huron Blackheart.’
There was a roar of agreement, which echoed off the dull metal walls around them, and was repeated on the other engines via vox.
‘Yet fail here,’ Garreon interrupted the cheers, his tone harsher than ever. ‘Show hesitancy or inattention, anything less than utter commitment to the orders you have been given, and the death Huron Blackheart will deliver to you as your rightful master will be a mere mercy compared to the horrors I will inflict on you first. Every agony I have learned in the realms of our gods will be visited on any who do not do their duty now, and each day will seem an eternity of pain, and when your misery is ended your names will be cursed by every Red Corsair for eternity.’
At this, the roar of courage and rage from the Corsairs grew louder. They had been coaxed, enraged and inspired. Now was the moment.
‘The servitors are set to ram these machines through the Archway,’ shouted Garreon. ‘Whether they are destroyed by the Space Wolves or roll on until they fall into a chasm matters not at all. For we know that battles are not won by machines or tricks, or armies of pitiful mortal slaves, but by warriors without fear or mercy, on the ground striking out with bolter and claw.’
Garreon could barely hear himself over the rapturous, raucous agreement all around.
‘Open the doors,’ he shouted. ‘Let us abandon these vehicles before the dogs have even scratched them and show these animals that Huron Blackheart’s Red Corsairs know how to bring beasts such as they to heel!’
And with those words the bolts were drawn back, and the Red Corsairs burst out of the demolition engines to take to the field of battle, and face the Space Wolves who had so effectively set them running only hours before.
To Anju’s horror, the giant demolition engines didn’t just crush buildings, they also spewed out a torrent of Traitor Marines.
The Space Wolves had held back as buildings fell beneath the rotating hammers of the demolition engines, wary of falling rubble, but as the Corsairs emerged the Space Wolves who had placed themselves to the sides of the Archway ran down to engage the enemy, screaming their own feral curses in response to the heresies of the Corsairs.
In the Valley of Blades, Anju Badya had mainly seen machine fight machine, the heaviest weapons wrecking metal in a roar of deafening, blinding explosions. Here, there were just two forces of demigods, brutal traitors and savage beast-men, running at each other with tremendous speed and incredible force.
When the lines met, weapons and armour clashing, it was like hearing a calamitous bell ringing, a metallic, discordant chime loud enough to wake sleeping gods. It wasn’t explosions or gunfire, but a single horrific note, the death knell for worlds.
Anju Badya had her gun in her hands, her shooting position well established, but as the two sets of Space Marines clashed, the weapon hung limp. What place did she have on a battlefield like this? She was just a mortal.
Then she remembered Folkvar speaking to her, as she recovered from her injuries in the underground monastery, about why he had dragged her, broken, from the Valley of Blades to safety.
They had spoken since, in their long journey, and though the towering Space Wolf did not say much, and certainly never repeated himself, she had gathered some more of his beliefs, which helped her understanding.
She could see it now, what the Space Wolves called the ‘wyrd’. The way the Space Wolves thought of the destinies of themselves and others, each life a thread, those threads woven together in a tapestry of history and fate. Folkvar considered her thread might be continued for a purpose. That purpose might very well be to take one useful shot on this new battlefield. Then her thread might be cut, but she would have contributed what she needed to, fulfilling her destiny.
Wyrd was usually spoken of in regard to the lives of great heroes and villains, leaders and warriors, but Folkvar believed that wyrd also governed the smallest of events and the lives of mortals.
Anju Badya was not sure she shared that belief. She was a Tallarn, from a very different world and culture to Fenris, and she had her own superstitions. But she owed Folkvar a great debt for the rescue his beliefs had inspired, and she needed to honour that.
She lifted her lasrifle, found an enemy target, and fired.
On Karstveil, in the Orrery chamber, Wolf Lord Haakan led from the front, sword hacking through traitors, and he could feel in his old bones that his Space Wolves had the advantage. He had lived so long, through so many battles, that the ways of war had become instinct, an extra sense, and he could feel the confusion in the Corsairs’ ranks. Unlike the Rout, few of the Corsairs acted in defence of their comrades, and while for some this selfishness bore fruit, it resulted in a lacklustre defence.
The Orrery itself began to react with agitation at the activity below, and the crackling bolts of energy that flickered between the spheres and the pit below started to flail, catching the Space Marines in the chamber with coruscating arcs of raw power, burning through power armour and flesh alike. As the Corsairs and Space Wolves fought they dodged these bolts, trying to draw each other into the bursts of energy.
Haakan had hunted down and slaughtered many enemies of the Imperium over his long life, and intended to add Huron Blackheart to the list. As Blackheart slashed his way through his enemies with the Tyrant’s Claw, even knocking aside his own Corsairs as he crossed the chamber to reach the stairway that weaved up the chamber wall, allowing access to the Orrery directly, Haakan pursued him. He caught up to the Tyrant of Badab, drew his sword and let out a feral roar that even Huron Blackheart could not ignore, and his enemy turned to face him.
‘So you lead these beasts?’ sneered Blackheart, and there was a madness in his eyes Haakan recognised from those who had fallen to the deepest heresies.
‘And you lead nothing,’ snarled Haakan. ‘Broken ranks of undisciplined rabble.’
The Wolf Lord and the Tyrant clashed on the stairway, Haakan’s chainsword meeting Blackheart’s claw, flashes of energy discharging as metal met metal.
It seemed initially as if Haakan had the easy advantage, with Huron Blackheart being driven backwards, but it was nothing if not a strategic retreat, the Tyrant of Badab duelling defensively while letting the old Space Wolf push him exactly where he wanted to be – higher and higher.
When they were level with the Orrery, the Tyrant changed his style of fighting, from rapid defensive parries to something more aggressive. As Haakan brought his sword down in a two-handed blow, Huron didn’t defend himself, instead ducking back and out of the way, reeling aside and close to the wall. His back to the wall, he planted a solid kick into the side of Haakan’s leg, knocking him towards the edge of the stairway, close to a trail of wispy red energy leaking from the sphere representing Kerresh.
Haakan ducked under the trail of energy, the tendrils of which seemed to grasp towards him, and made to attack Blackheart again with an upwards thrust from his sword.
But Huron Blackheart was on the move, running three steps up and vaulting over the edge, landing on one of the floating platforms between the moving spheres. Although it looked ethereal, the jade-like stone translucent and glowing, it held as solidly as if it were planted on bedrock, even with the weight of Huron Blackheart upon it.
Haakan followed seconds later, landing with a roll on the narrow platform, coming up out of that roll with his sword raised, swinging it towards Huron once more.
The two warriors clashed again, but this time without subterfuge or restraint, the Tyrant’s bulky power claw mov
ing as fast as the slimmest blade, clashing with Haakan’s sword, trying to knock it to one side, while the Wolf Lord pressed the offence, swinging around with blows that Huron needed to raise his gauntlets to deflect, chips of ceramite flying as the ancient blade hit his armour with incredible force.
The sphere of Karstveil, the very planet they were standing within, spun between them and both Huron Blackheart and Haakan backed away from the other, allowing it to pass.
‘Traitorous filth,’ roared the Wolf Lord, the hairs of his white beard sticking out, charged with static in the midst of so much raw power.
The Tyrant, for his part, simply stood back, addressing not Haakan but some other presence in a low murmur, and as the Wolf Lord watched, something liquid and semi-visible moved from Huron’s shoulder, jumping not to attack Haakan but out onto the sphere of Karstveil, scampering weightlessly over its surface before leaping out into the Orrery, bouncing over the planets, its silhouette visible as the energies seeping out of the spheres crackled around it.
Then the Tyrant’s attention was back to Haakan, and he lunged forwards. The Wolf Lord deflected the blow, and then as Huron swept his power claw to deflect him Haakan ducked under his arm, bringing his sword up in a blow that drove into the Tyrant’s skull from below.
The blade sunk into Huron Blackheart’s chin, black ooze dripping down the blade, a glassiness entering Huron’s single organic eye. A guttural sound began to emerge from the Tyrant’s throat, a hacking, doomed splutter.
‘You think yourself a tyrant, a master of worlds,’ snarled Haakan through his fangs. ‘Yet you die like any other traitor, broken.’
The hacking cough continued, and Huron’s face contorted in spasms that rocked his entire body. Haakan held the blade tight as Blackheart jerked in his grasp.
Then Huron’s eye focused on him, and his mouth opened in a hideous grin, the metal of Haakan’s blade visible from behind rows of blackened teeth, the guttural sound echoing behind it.
Huron Blackheart wasn’t coughing his last breath.
He was laughing.
One blade on the Tyrant’s Claw slid between the plates of Haakan’s armour, unimpeded by the arms gripping the sword. It pierced one of the old Space Wolf’s hearts, and Haakan felt a blast of blinding pain in his chest, enough to cause him to temporarily release his grip on his sword.
The sword came free and fell to the platform, bouncing off and tumbling down into the chamber below. Huron Blackheart cricked his neck and rolled his tongue around his teeth, drool dripping out of the wound on his chin.
Haakan, body wracked with pain as it adjusted to the loss of one heart, clenched his fists, about to strike back at Huron Blackheart, to tear him apart with his bare hands, to rip that damn claw off him and cut his thread with it.
But Huron Blackheart didn’t attack with the claw; he spun around and kicked Haakan in the chest, knocking him off the platform.
For a brief moment, in mid-fall, Haakan believed that Huron had conceded the duel, that he was being cast out of the way to fall a survivable distance to the cavern floor below, just to remove him from the Tyrant’s path.
Haakan believed this for the last second of life, before his huge, armoured body collided with the sphere of Hacasta, smashing through the brass orb and unleashing the wild energies within.
There was a second of intense agony for the Wolf Lord as raw power surged through every cell of his body, then Haakan and the representation of Hacasta both exploded, particles of organic matter and fragments of burned ceramite scattering in all directions.
Huron Blackheart showed no satisfaction at his victory over the Wolf Lord – he had other concerns. At his unspoken command, the Hamadrya, his familiar, was leaping through the Orrery, seizing strands cut loose by the destruction of the representation of Hacasta, moving them around the Orrery, re-connecting flows of power between worlds.
Opening a path, a trail between worlds, which would take Huron Blackheart straight to the centre of the Hollow Worlds, to the forbidden sphere at the centre of the system.
To Exultance.
On the very boundary between the real worlds of Hacasta and Kerresh, Anju Badya had found herself drawn into the heart of the battle between immortals.
The front line between the Space Wolves and the Red Corsairs had become fluid, pushing back and forth. The Corsairs had abandoned their unwieldy vehicles, leaving them to roll through the Archway and bury themselves in the Hacastan snow, but had proven reluctant to follow, pressing their advantage to drive the Space Wolves back to Hacasta but frequently dropping back, holding a line somewhere at the Archway’s edge on Kerresh.
In the face of the Space Wolves, such hesitancy was potentially fatal, and the Space Wolves hammered this wavering line, throwing the Corsairs into confusion.
Her own position compromised by mortar fire, Anju found herself fighting alongside a small group of Space Wolves, although ‘alongside’ might be a misnomer as she ducked around them at elbow level, trying not to get accidentally decapitated by her towering allies.
As the Space Wolves descended on two isolated Red Corsairs with claws and other melee weapons, Anju looked around for a target to fire on with her lasrifle. She couldn’t hope to do serious damage to a Traitor Marine, and to get too close to one would be fatal, but she could prove a nuisance, distracting them with her shots and allowing a Space Wolf to pounce.
The snowstorms on Hacasta had briefly died down, and the view between worlds was clear through the Archway. Looking through the gate, Badya saw Folkvar fighting three of the Traitor Marines at once. While he wielded a shortsword to each side, using his gauntlets to block their blows, there were too many of them, and savage attacks from their axes and chainswords began to chip away at his armour, hitting the vulnerable joints.
Anju raised her lasrifle. She didn’t know whether it would even work when fired through the Archway; she doubted it could even scratch one of the Red Corsairs, but she owed it to Folkvar to try – he had carried her from the site of defeat and given her a second chance to redeem herself. For them to both redeem themselves. Even if she just irritated his attackers enough to distract one, to bring one of the Corsairs chasing after her, it would be worth it.
She fired, but the las-shot fizzled out when it hit the iridescent barrier of the Archway. When the ripple effect of the shot being absorbed dissipated, she could see that Folkvar was on his knees, and the Red Corsairs had taken his helmet off. His face was dominated by the shovel-shaped augmetics that covered where his mouth and nose had once been, but Folkvar’s eyes were still intact, still organic. Even across a distance, through the distorting lens of the Archway, Anju Badya could see those eyes looking back at her.
She ran. If the lasrifle wouldn’t work through the Archway, she would cross the threshold and attack the Red Corsairs in person. She would fight to the last breath, no matter how futile.
Then the ground beneath her feet seemed to jerk upwards, like a stalled elevator, and she was thrown off balance, falling forwards just an arm’s length from the Archway.
Through the Archway, she could see that whatever tremor she felt had also struck Hacasta. The three Red Corsairs had tumbled out of the way, leaving Folkvar where he was, more firmly planted to the ground while forced on his knees.
And behind him – and by the Emperor, Anju could not believe what she was seeing – the world itself seemed to be shaking apart, chunks of the ground rising into the sky, the whole curve of Hacasta folding in on itself. While the ground nearest to the Archway appeared relatively stable, the horizon seemed to be bending away, swirling towards an artificial sun which had turned black – not the absence of light but something deeper, a hole in the world.
Only a short distance and a world away, Folkvar looked up, his eyes locking with hers. He nodded, in some silent acknowledgement, and Anju remembered what he had said in the cave, that she had survived the battle in the Vall
ey of Blades, and that she would survive further.
Now she was surviving again. She returned Folkvar’s nod.
Then he was torn away, as was the whole of Hacasta, the iridescence of the Archway consuming itself and the stone of that great arch collapsing, falling down, and Anju Badya had to scramble to her feet and run before she was crushed, but as she ran she was less scared of what might happen to her, and more consumed by what she had seen.
Hacasta was gone, an entire world destroyed, torn out of the stable system of the Hollow Worlds. What did it mean? What would happen to the rest of these worlds, now one had gone?
Above her head, at the centre of Kerresh, the sun itself began to flicker and dim.
Part Three
The Fall of Badab, long ago
Badab Primaris was falling. From the parapets of the Palace of Thorns, Captain Rotaka of the Astral Claws Chapter could see the skyline crumbling before his eyes. The enemy had undermined the foundations of the very city somehow, their sabotage destabilising the capital of the entire Badab system.
Rotaka’s whole world was collapsing, everything the Astral Claws had fought for and created tumbling down before his eyes.
‘A sad sight, brother,’ said Librarian Iltz, standing beside him.
‘It is,’ said Rotaka, surprised by Iltz’s presence. The Librarian had disappeared into the Chapter’s vaults months ago, and Rotaka had barely seen him since. In the tumult of those months Rotaka had not registered this absence, but now he realised how unusual it was. Rotaka and Iltz had fought on battlefield after battlefield across so many worlds in the years since they were elevated to the Astral Claws, and yet had drifted apart without Rotaka even noticing.
‘They close in, the enemy,’ said Rotaka. ‘Soon they will come for us.’
‘“The enemy?”’ quoted Iltz. ‘Have you forgotten who it is we fight?’
Rotaka looked sideways at his old friend. They had saved each other’s lives so many times, and been the closest of brothers since their initiation. In the long years they had fought the many perils of the Maelstrom Zone, which the Astral Claws were sworn to protect from the horrors of the Maelstrom itself. They had crushed insurrection and dissent in the Badab System as their Chapter Master, Lufgt Huron, tightened his grip on the planets under their protection.