Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds

by Mark Clapham

  ‘Warmaster, surely it would be better to send a message rather than forces required for the Crusade? We have no need of this so-called Chosen of Khorne. Our own–’

  Urkanthos stopped talking a split second after Abaddon came to an abrupt halt. The Warmaster did not turn to look around. He did not need to.

  ‘You dare to question my orders?’

  The Chaos Lord did not move. Slowly, Abaddon turned and stared down at Urkanthos, his eyes burning with undisguised disdain.

  ‘Be mindful – the favours I bestow upon my chosen, I can also take away.’

  Urkanthos bowed his head, and while he had no features to reveal such an emotion, Locq could tell he was seething with anger. Casting his own eyes down, Locq could still see Abaddon’s hand tighten on the grip of his legendary sword. It pleased him that Urkanthos was taking the force of Abaddon’s fury rather than him. Locq could still not quite believe the way in which his Warmaster had treated him.

  The Lord Purgator kept his head bowed. Locq felt his reply was delivered with considerable delicacy.

  ‘I… do not seek to question my liege. Your orders will be obeyed.’

  Locq chanced an upward glance towards Abaddon to observe his reaction. Could Urkanthos’ clumsiness present a new opportunity for him? With the Lord Purgator gone, Locq could take his place as one of the Warmaster’s favourites – particularly if he succeeded in this honourless mission. Abaddon kept his eyes fixed on Urkanthos for a few threatening seconds longer, then turned and strode off towards the remaining drop-ships without another word. Locq waited until Abaddon had reached his transport and the ramp had closed before approaching Urkanthos, giving the Lord Purgator enough time to recover his composure. Only when Abaddon was airborne did they speak.

  ‘The Warmaster insults me with such a task.’

  Urkanthos spat the words and Locq grunted in agreement. They had both been humiliated and reprimanded in equal measure, and the nature of the mission burned both of their Chaos-warped senses of honour and pride. Locq’s anger boiled inside him and he turned to Urkanthos. After all, it was not the Chaos Lord who had been given the mission to undertake.

  ‘Insults us, Lord Urkanthos. I am the one who is given the role of lackey, not you.’

  Locq felt suddenly encouraged now that Abaddon had departed. Urkanthos stared into the broiling sky, and Locq’s gaze fell to his hand, which rested on his chainsword in exactly the same fashion as Abaddon’s had done earlier. Urkanthos was displeased. Perhaps he had said too much – again.

  ‘There will be good reason for him wanting Khârn. It is not our place to question why. We just do.’

  Locq’s gaze followed Abaddon’s drop-ship skywards until it disappeared into a huge grey-brown cloud. He felt his old confidence surging through him, and rage burned within his chest. Perhaps it was time he showed the Lord Purgator that Talomar Locq had become a force to be reckoned with and was not frightened by his threatening tone.

  ‘But what of the glories I will miss while playing this childish game? This so-called mission is an insult. I have fought for this position, my lord, and I will have no one take it from me in my absence.’

  The Chaos Lord moved quickly, wheeling around and activating his chainsword before Locq could react. The weapon growled menacingly in front of Locq’s exposed face, and Urkanthos’ words bit as deep as might the teeth of his weapon.

  ‘Remember it is I whom you serve first, Locq. You will not fail me.’

  Locq looked into the expressionless face of the Chaos Lord for a long moment. No, the time was not yet right for him to make his move. He needed to reinforce his position, to build his warband and make Abaddon realise he was a great warrior and true follower of the Blood God. In that way, he could not fail to be chosen. Locq relaxed his grip on his bolter and nodded. The chainsword receded from his face, and Urkanthos withdrew a couple of paces.

  ‘Assemble your cohort. And make sure you pick them with care – regardless of what you might have heard about Khârn and his berzerkers being an undisciplined rabble, they are not to be underestimated.’

  Urkanthos kept the weapon drawn for another heartbeat, then powered it down. As the Lord Purgator turned towards the final remaining drop-ship, Locq swallowed down his fury and called after him.

  ‘My lord, where will I find Khârn?’

  Urkanthos’ voice boomed from the deep shadows consuming the surface of the ruined planet.

  ‘Look for the bloodiest trail of destruction in the sector. Then follow it.’

  Despite the eye lenses of his helmet shading him from the worst effects, Khârn still found himself squinting against the brilliant reflections from Haeleon’s glass-smooth surface. Of all the unforgiving balls of rock on which he had fought for the glory of the Blood God, this had to be one of the most forbidding. Its three suns ensured nothing could survive long on the lifeless shell without protection, and he could feel the searing heat on his exposed left arm as he hefted Gorechild in readiness for the approaching battle. Khârn had very little regard for most of the loyalist forces – or for any other – but during the days of Horus he had seen the White Scars’ prowess as hunters and masters of the lightning attack. The vast expanses of perfectly flat, baked ground would lend themselves well to the Chogorians’ way of fast, mobile warfare. They must have thought it a gift from their Emperor when Khârn had made planetfall here and their ship had miraculously managed to ‘evade’ Shipmaster Roderbar’s scanners to allow their attack.

  However, Haeleon hid a secret that could not be detected on scanners. Its outer crust was extremely fragile, and many of the plains had collapsed in on themselves to create elaborate networks of slick-walled chasms and translucent valleys. Some ran for hundreds of miles, others for barely a few yards, and it was into such a web that Khârn would draw the foe. While it was against his very nature to wait in ambush like a cowering animal, today the tactic would serve his purpose and that of the Blood God well. All he had to do was get their attention, and as he watched the line of glinting vehicles speeding towards him in the far distance, he raised Gorechild into the air and roared at the top of his voice.

  A few hundred yards ahead of his position, the smooth rock erupted in a hail of bolter fire. The destruction swept towards him in a broad wave, carving deep gouges and spinning dagger-sharp shards of silica into the air. Further out still, a hazy line of mounted White Scars roared towards him, sustaining a murderous barrage. His blood raged through his veins and it took all of his considerable willpower to remain static and not charge towards the enemy. The sheet of destruction narrowed as they sped towards him, and daggers of glass showered his body. Most of it rained onto his armour and broke apart, but some pieces sliced viciously into his exposed arm. The pain meant nothing in comparison to the murderous heat of the three suns. If anything, it helped him concentrate.

  From the second the fifty-strong formation of gleaming bikes had broken over the far horizon, Khârn had been counting down in his head, adjusting calculations of speed and trajectory as the White Scars had accelerated towards their prey. With no landmarks or features to work from, the task of assessing exactly when to open fire was made all the more difficult. Snapping his plasma pistol straight in front of him, he began to blast indiscriminately at the bikes roaring line-abreast towards him. As he did so, Khârn strode backwards, not as fast as the speeding bikes but quick enough to buy himself the extra three seconds he needed.

  While the White Scars’ auspexes would be next to useless due to the planet’s unusual geology, Khârn knew that their visual scans and augmented eyesight would have spotted the network of valleys towards which they roared. Khârn understood the Chogorians to be bold, but they were not stupid. However, in the same way Khârn wanted their skulls for the Blood God, he was counting on their desire to take him as a trophy. He needed them to keep charging at him until the very last second, so he gave them an easy target to aim for. Larger s
plinters of rock bounced and clanged off his power armour and cut deeper into his bare arm. The wave of decimation was intensifying around him. If it engulfed him fully, even with the protection of his armour he would not be able to withstand the combined fire from fifty twin bolters. Taking a few more steps backwards, Khârn raised Gorechild over his head and bellowed at the White Scars in defiance just as the maelstrom reached its apex.

  Stormseer Yaghterai knew of Khârn’s reputation as a berzerker, but he had no idea he was quite so suicidal. One minute he was standing a few hundred yards away from them, his malevolent scarlet figure blurred by the cloud of debris thrown up by their lethal bolter fire, and the next he was gone, having thrown himself into the closest of the chasms that snaked out for countless miles in all directions. Directly in front of him, Xin-Myang Khan reacted to Khârn’s disappearance with a raised chainsword, ordering the riders to cease fire and slow down. The parchment-dry air was filled with the squealing of brakes and scudding of over-sized tyres on Haeleon’s surface, and Yaghterai noted with irritation that some of the bikes pitched sideways, their over-zealous riders having to slam a leg down and force their mounts into a controlled power slide. Yaghterai had expected something unusual to happen, and now it had. This, however, was only the beginning – and he did not like it one bit.

  The Stormseer had been trying to counsel caution since they had first detected Khârn’s ship, but he might as well have shouted to the howling winds of the Chogorian plains. Of course he shared the burning desire to avenge the Brotherhood of Khajog Khan, slain at the hands of Abaddon the Despoiler, but his own brothers had been consumed by what they had seen as great fortune to detect the traitor vessel Sku lltaker in the first place. It was an opportunity too good to miss; they would have the honour of exacting revenge on the forces of Chaos in a daring attack against superior forces. Songs would be sung of them long into the cold Chogorian nights.

  Yaghterai’s had been a lone voice questioning what the berzerkers might want on such a barren rock as Haeleon, and his khan had dismissed it as irrelevant. Shipmaster Adarek had carefully sailed their strike cruiser Wings of the Eagle out and around Haeleon to avoid detection, using the impenetrable structure of the planet to mask their approach and landing from the larger, more powerful enemy vessel. And now they were here, facing an enemy that was no longer in sight. Yaghterai readied his force staff and decelerated carefully, his greater experience showing in the deft control of his steed. Xin-Myang braked late as they rumbled ever closer to the network of jagged cracks in the ground, allowing himself to be absorbed into the line of bikes. Opening his vox, he called his riders to readiness and they came to a full stop twenty yards from the nearest gorge, engines close to overheating, weapons drawn. Watching him, the Stormseer took in a deep breath of hot, stale air. He wanted to insist they undertake a full reconnaissance of the area, to try and at least map the territory into which they were heading and to judge its suitability for their bikes. He wanted to, but knew it would be a waste of his breath. On a planet such as this, it was easy to be blinded.

  Khârn shifted his weight slightly, trying his best not to cast a shadow into the wide, flat-bottomed valley to his right and below him. There was absolutely no indication the White Scars had followed him down as he had hoped they would. Frustration boiled in his veins. Hiding in wait was as alien to him as it was the rest of his warband. Jumping down onto the glass-smooth floor with a crunch, he looked up into the bleached sky to see if there was any movement along the ledge of the chasm. There was none, and Khârn muttered an oath to the Blood God. His body felt as if it was going to explode with the anticipation of combat. Movement caught his eye, and he saw a number of red-clad figures squirming inside narrow fissures to his left and right. It was clear several of them were in peril of losing the fight against their bloodlust – particularly Samzar. Immediately identifiable from the broken horn on his berzerker helmet, he was physically shaking with the effort of self-control. As if sensing his gaze, Samzar looked over and gave Khârn an imperceptible nod, then forced himself back impatiently into the narrow crevasse that would hide him from the bikes’ approach. If the enemy did not present themselves soon, the warband would likely turn on each other.

  That was of no consequence. All that mattered to Khorne was that the blood flowed.

  A flicker of darkness flashed across Haeleon’s highest sun directly above. A second later, the walls of the gorge exploded all around. Something crashed to the ground yards away, and the roar of bolters echoed from the high, sheer walls. Khârn spun around to see a White Scars bike bearing down on him, its tyres screeching in protest on the smooth surface and its front end juddering uncontrollably. Its bolts exploded wide, and Khârn seized the opportunity to dodge the fire. Running further into the valley, he ducked around a sharp turn as more fire streaked past him. Realising the bike would be on him in seconds, Khârn jumped up into a crack a couple of yards off the ground and waited for it to slow as it navigated the corner. Ignoring the chattering of its guns, he swung Gorechild horizontally, taking the head from the White Scar in a single clean blow. The bike continued onwards down the valley without a rider, jamming between the rapidly narrowing walls.

  More shadows flitted overhead. Khârn looked back to see a dozen more bikes plunging from the sky, dropping thirty feet from the plateau above to land in the natural passageway. Khârn roared at the riders, who immediately spotted him and accelerated, firing wildly. Two of the lead bikes crashed into each other as the valley narrowed, and the bikers behind had to brake heavily to avoid collision with their brothers. With a roar that impressed even Khârn, berzerkers emerged from their hiding places, throwing themselves at the slowing machines. For a few seconds it looked to Khârn as if the battle would be over quickly, but then fire erupted from the other end of the valley. More bikes emerged around the tight corner, their riders using their hand weapons for fear of hitting their battle-brothers caught in the ambush. Khârn ducked back, but several berzerkers crashed to the ground, dead before they hit the floor under a withering salvo of close-range bolter fire.

  Khârn threw himself at the lead bike, jumping up on its front wheel and bringing Gorechild down into the helmet of its rider. The White Scar behind him opened fire immediately, but Khârn grabbed hold of the now-lifeless Chogorian and threw him at the bikes trapped before him. Khârn heard a cry from above and looked up to see a White Scar dropping towards him. The Space Marine crashed into Khârn and sent him tumbling off the top of the bike, the two of them rolling to the side as the other bikes roared past. Khârn was up first. Drawing his plasma pistol, he aimed it at the head of his attacker and discharged it into the White Scar’s helmet, evaporating its contents. The skull of such a feeble opponent was not a suitable offering for the Blood God. Khârn pursued the line of bikes, hoping to find a more worthy adversary.

  The ground shook behind Khârn as another bike landed heavily, and the surface gave way beneath his feet. Bouncing and skidding, the machine roared past him, its thick front tyre narrowly missing his head. Khârn threw Gorechild at the back of the rider, but the axe’s chains were swept up by the rear tyre and jammed into the wheel housing, dragging Khârn for several yards until the wheel locked up and the machine careened into the wall, crushing its rider as it flipped to one side. Khârn felt as if his left arm had been torn from its socket, and hauled himself to his feet by the chains. Pulling on them, he realised the chainaxe was stuck fast. Holstering his overheated pistol, he ran over to free his favoured weapon. White-armoured figures dropped around him from above, some of them landing well. Three made directly for Khârn and he dropped the chains, readying himself for the attack. From nowhere, Samzar and his comrade Lukosz charged the attacking Chogorians. Khârn picked up the chains again and strained at the crippled bike. This time Gorechild came free, and Khârn sank it deep into white ceramite. Having despatched the three White Scars, Lukosz and Samzar moved away in search of more skull trophies.

  Khârn k
new they would expect no acknowledgement from him, nor would they get any.

  He headed back towards the widest part of the chasm. Its centre was crowded with at least twenty abandoned bikes at various angles, their riders having left them in favour of close-quarters combat. The entire valley was filled with the flash of bolter fire and the whirr of chainswords, the sound of power-armoured warriors smashing into each other in a symphony of carnage. In the blink of an eye, a veteran Chogorian was vaulting over a burning attack bike towards him. Khârn did not have time to activate Gorechild before his adversary was upon him, chainsword in one hand and curved duelling tulwar in the other. Khârn laughed with the pleasure of the attack. This White Scar was no fool like the previous assailant. He twisted and rolled out of the way of Gorechild, stabbing and slicing at Khârn’s left arm with his short blade. Khârn ignored the pain and used the apparent weakness of his exposed arm to lure the Space Marine off balance. By the time the veteran had realised his mistake, Gorechild had smashed through his helmet and into his screaming face. The Chogorian staggered back, dropping his chainsword and trying to get some purchase on the massive handle, but Khârn yanked hard on the chain, pulling the weapon out and allowing the White Scar’s blood to spurt freely through his ruined vox grille. In one elegant, seamless movement, Khârn activated Gorechild, took a step forwards and slashed diagonally down, sawing the veteran from neck to armpit. As he peeled apart, blood and organs washed onto the glassy surface, sizzling like meat on a hot plate. Khârn bellowed to the skies. The blood was well and truly flowing now, and he wanted Khorne to witness his harvest.