by Various
‘Make all speed to the grand promenade!’ shouted Kor’sarro across the vox. He levelled a stream of storm bolter fire at a knot of tau infantry darting through the rubble in the shadow of the wall, only to be greeted by the serial click of his empty ammo cache running dry. No sooner had he swore in frustration than a new clip was passed up from inside the transport’s hull. The khan reloaded, watching the alien forces fan out as they loosed pulse beams in all directions. Their defensive firepower, formerly a spattering shower aimed only at those who got too close, was intensifying into a blistering hail.
In the shadow of the perimeter wall, the obsidian Knight blasted itself upright with a close-ranged volley to its fallen victim’s guts. Riding the recoil, it staggered drunkenly backwards in a half-circle, righting itself before clank-thumping another battle cannon shell towards the xenos warsuit hovering above. Its airborne foe twisted, letting the shell bounce from its torso with a dull thump. Its return fire blazed a stitching path of plasma bolts across the black walker’s hull, overloading its ion shield and burning deep holes into its carapace.
The Steelsteed swerved hard, banking around the obsidian walker’s legs to veer into the streets beyond. The khan whooped as the crenulated perimeter gave way to a triumphal parade ground with no less than five of House Terryn’s Knights stomping down it. Behind him the rest of the White Scars transports fanned out into arrowhead formation, the remains of their biker escort accelerating hard towards the evac zone.
The khan turned all the way around in the Steelsteed’s cupola, thudding explosive bolts into the ochre-armoured alien tanks swerving in pursuit. A score of streamlined gunships hovered into view, their rectangular cannons cracking hypervelocity rounds into the walkers on the boulevard beyond. The khan heard the fizz of ion shield discharge over and over again, punctuated by the occasional clang of a solid impact.
Suddenly, there she was – a flash of white blurring high along the grey rockcrete at their flank. The xenos war leader, speeding on plumes of fire like a statue of some graven tech-daemon given life. She arced elegantly upwards, disc-like drones trailing in her wake, and loosed lengthwise fusion blasts into the Raven Guard manning the walls. Three of Severax’s men burst into crackling cinders.
The khan plucked a krak grenade from his belt and flung it as hard as he could towards the xenos commander’s back. Somehow she saw it coming, and she twisted in mid-air, connecting a perfect toe-punt before turning back to her prey. Kor’sarro was forced to duck as the krak grenade came in hard, detonating against the Rhino’s roof with a deafening bang and a stink of fyceline.
Despite himself, Kor’sarro raised his eyebrows and nodded in grudging appreciation.
Engines growling, the White Scar transports gunned down the promenade until they passed through the iron wall of Terryn’s walkers. Djubali passed right underneath the lead walker, the rest of the bikes behind him. At the other end of the boulevard, tau tanks and heavy battlesuits smashed railgun fire into the massive bulk of the Imperial Knights. The walkers returned fire, their battle cannons spitting shells at a rate that would make a Cadian tanker sick with envy.
‘Captain Khan, glad you could make it,’ voxed Patriarch Tybalt, his tone dry even as he loosed a blast of superheated air from his thermal cannon. ‘Kindly board the drop-ship, or I fear that Master Severin will let neither of us forget it.’
Kor’sarro grunted his assent, waving his men up the yawning ramps of the drop-ships that awaited them in the triumphal plaza.
In the battle behind them, one of Terryn’s Knights fell slowly backwards with a creak of protesting metal. Its impact on the flagstones of the boulevard was so heavy that the khan could feel the Steelsteed jump as if it had taken a direct hit. Another of the looming walkers burst into a thick pillar of flame as its inner core gave out, the stress on its ion shields killing it from the inside out.
A thick worm of guilt writhed in Kor’sarro’s guts at the idea of leaving the planet to the mercy of the tau, but he had little choice. Agrellan Prime stood on the brink of collapse, and if the hive-voxes told true, every other defensive position had already fallen to the tau.
Sudabeh seemed to sense his old friend’s thoughts, and laid a gauntlet upon his pauldron as they debarked from the smoking hull of the Steelsteed into the shadow of the drop-ship’s cargo bay.
‘To linger here would be to sacrifice more lives on the altar of wounded pride, my khan,’ said the Stormseer. ‘Nothing more.’
Kor’sarro spat in frustration as his vehicles mounted the ramps of the evac zone, the surviving Catachans close on their tracks. Even the Knights of House Terryn that had been blocking the promenade had turned their mighty war machines around, ion shields flaring at their rears as they stamped towards the hangar bays of the drop-ships.
At the far end of the triumphal road, the giant tau warsuits that had blasted open Agrellan’s defences hovered high. Speaker arrays slid out from their torsos to blare a message in accented but precise Imperial Gothic. As the piston ramps of the drop-ships closed with a hiss, the rumble of their engines slowly drowned out the broadcasts of the alien invaders.
Not quickly enough, for the khan’s liking. The tau’s message would ring in his ears for weeks to come.
‘People of Agrellan Prime!’ the speaker arrays called. ‘Your protectors have abandoned you! Watch as your Emperor’s finest warriors flee, leaving you to your fate. Yet that fate is kinder than you suspect! Throw down your arms, and the killing will cease immediately. We bring enlightenment, peace, and freedom from tyranny – yes, even freedom, blessed freedom from an Emperor that would bleed you white! We bring safety for you and your families, safety and boundless prosperity. Citizens, lay down your arms and listen, listen to the undeniable truth of the Greater Good…’
Interlude 2-0
At the heart of the Raven Guard battle-barge Wings of Deliverance, the Sphere of Councils hung suspended by a thousand clanking chains. Built into the arched windows of the armoured sphere were baffles and dampeners that prevented the slightest whisper from getting out of its lead-lined walls.
Inside the strange construction was a toroid loop of polished bone. The names of the Chapter’s heroes were inscribed upon it in tiny, spidery script. Ten figures stood around it, united in silence if not appearance. Each of their faces was cast in shadow by the candelabras dangling above. The atmosphere was thick with trails of verity-incense that wound around power-armoured Space Marine and uniformed human alike. The figures had been standing around the bone toroid inside the sphere for the best part of six hours.
‘This is futile!’ blurted Kor’sarro Khan, throwing his hands up for what seemed like the tenth time that day. ‘There is simply no time for the waiting game. We must strike back at these upstart tau, finish what we started on Agrellan. Sever the head and the body will die.’
His words were met only with a stony absence of reply. Up in the dome above, a perched corvid cawed its ill omens.
‘Perhaps…’ said Chapter Master Severax, his sonorous tones resonating around the chamber, ‘perhaps it is that same haste that has led us to this point, Captain Khan. A foe with the power of flight is not easily slain by an earthbound blade. We must strike unseen.’
‘But even should we find a location for this ambush,’ protested the khan, ‘what guarantee is there that she will take the bait? That xenos b… the tau war-leader is highly intelligent. I want her head silvered and spiked on the walls of Quan Zhou, more than any other warrior in the Imperium. I swore an oath to do so. But she will not fall so easily to a base ploy. We must strike hard and true, before she has a chance to prepare. I favour aggressive warp translation, then a killing strike.’
‘Even if it were successful, khan, that would doom us all,’ said Patriarch Tybalt, twisting his long goatee beard around a beringed finger. ‘We cannot engage the tau armada in fleet-to-fleet combat and hope to prevail. Our best hope is to use their overconfiden
ce against them. A warrior with a newly-forged sword is always keen to test the blade.’
‘The old tortoise has a point,’ drawled Colonel Straken, drawing cold daggers from the patriarch opposite. ‘We’re on the edge of their empire, here. That means their nearest strongholds are a good sight closer than ours.’
‘So?’ put in Sudabeh, his dislike of the Catachan plain.
‘So we hit them hard, they hit us back even harder. This time they do it for keeps. They got old Agrellan sewn up good and tight, took the whole planet down in the space of a day. You’re a fool if you think they didn’t let us evacuate, all the better for their propaganda vids. You can bet your straggly beard on that. But if we lure them further into the Imperium, goad them into a trap, well… they won’t be able to resist rolling out those shiny new suits for the pict-thieves. Spread them thin enough, cover the skies, and we can close them down.’
‘We’ve been over this,’ said Kayvaan Shrike, his fingers planted in the corners of his eyes. Wax dripped from one of the candelabras above him, but the shadow captain pivoted fast, and the trickle missed his power armour by a finger’s breadth. ‘All this strategy is of no use without a battlefield to enact it,’ he said, setting his feet once more as the gloom surrounded him like a funeral shroud.
Severax stared hard at Tybalt, though only Shrike caught the meaning of the glare.
‘Very well,’ said the patriarch, testily. ‘We shall use Voltoris herself as our castle, much as it pains me to suggest it. She is shielded from sight by the Damocles Gulf, though we can lead the foe there easily enough. With our fleet on the coreward side of the planet, we will give the impression that our portcullis is unbarred.’
The room lapsed into silence once more. Any world that stood in the path of the tau empire’s relentless expansion would bear heavy scars indeed.
‘But how will we know where the tau will strike, even if they do take the bait?’ said Kor’sarro, his tone full of polite respect.
‘Voltoris has but one city, Captain Khan,’ Tybalt sighed. ‘Furion Peak, seat of my throne, abode of my sons and grandsons and the pride of House Terryn. The rest of the land is either forest or desolate mountain range. Put simply, the planet has nothing else of consequence to conquer.’
There were murmurs from around the toroid. The khan shared a glance with Sudabeh before nodding his assent.
‘We set a snare at the peak, and wait for them to wander into it,’ said Kor’sarro. ‘I suppose that could work.’
‘Quite so,’ continued Tybalt. ‘Patience is the key. If we use Voltoris as bait, and we shall know the exact location of where they will aim their blade. The skies will tell us of the timing.’
Corvin Severax’s lips curled, the tiniest hint of gratitude tingeing his ashen features. Tybalt smiled back, though there was no mirth in it, and plenty of bitter steel.
‘Thank you for your offer, Patriarch Tybalt,’ said Severax. ‘On behalf of the Imperium, we recognise the sacrifice to come, and thank House Terryn for every life it gives.’
‘Thousands of my people will die, no doubt,’ said Tybalt, sighing heavily. ‘I suppose at least it’ll liven the place up a bit.’
Commander Shadowsun shut the iris door to her quarters behind her, glad of a moment’s respite. She splashed water on her face, rubbing her eyes hard before shuffling over to the concave egg of her bed. She was too tired to even take off her armoured bodyglove. She’d do it in a moment, she thought, lulled by the soft purr of the ship’s engines. Just a few minutes of rest first.
It had been so long.
Suddenly the side door that led into her war room hissed open. The Supreme Ethereal drifted through on a cushion of anti-grav, his robes of state billowing around him. Shadowsun shot out of her bed only to fall down once more into a skidding kneel, her head bowed as her mind scrambled to full alert.
‘O’Shaserra,’ boomed Aun’Va, the Supreme Ethereal every bit as real as the pooling hydration fluids that Shadowsun had spilled across the floor. ‘I find you ill-prepared for war.’
‘I offer contrition, master,’ she blurted, ‘I merely sought to meditate on a military phenomenon that disturbs me.’
‘Indeed. I have another matter for you to consider.’
‘Master?’ she said, eyes cast low.
‘The progress of our expansion throughout the Dovar System is on track once more, despite the setbacks you placed in its path. Our enaction of Mont’ka upon Agrellan was a resounding success. For this the empire thanks you. Scenes from the breaching of Agrellan Prime have been… optimised, and subsequently broadcast to every screen in the empire.’
‘I am honoured, master.’
‘Yet your work is far from done.’
‘I… I realise that to be the case, O Supreme One.’
‘You do not!’ said Aun’Va, his eyes wide. ‘You do not.’
He hovered over to Shadowsun’s meagre possessions and picked out a holosphere from amongst them, gazing idly at the images of himself that were projected from its faceted core. ‘I sense that my magnanimous decision to allow our foes to leave Agrellan gnaws at your warrior heart, my child. You wish to bring death to the barbarian war-leader you encountered there.’
‘You are as wise and perspicacious as ever, Supreme One.’
‘It is a matter to which I have given much thought.’ The Supreme Ethereal turned to Shadowsun, drifting over to where she knelt on the floor to loom above her. He spread his arms out at his sides, his robes of state floating around him. Though Shadowsun was still kneeling on the floor, she could feel his majesty filling the room.
‘I am allowing you a single chance to hunt down and destroy those who you allowed to escape, O’Shaserra. You will be given the necessary materiel to ensure their destruction. I have seconded half the fleet to the cause. The other half shall continue the pacification of the Dovar System under my guidance.’
‘Master, I swear to you that it shall be done,’ enthused Shadowsun, though inside of her something broke. ‘My thanks can never be sufficient.’
‘Indeed they cannot. You will repay my faith by destroying the gue’ron’sha and their allies as soon as they make planetfall, ending them one and all. Oe-ken-yon will accompany you. Once this is done, you may return to the expeditionary fleet and attend me once more.’
‘Of course, master. I shall send out far-ranging surveillance drones with immediate effect. I long to leave, to enact Mont’ka upon our foes so that I may sooner return to your side.’
‘Then make your preparations immediately. I expect you to have mustered your cadres and launched your fleet before the dec is out.’
‘It shall be so, Supreme One,’ said Shadowsun, her head bowed so low she could smell the faint antiseptic whiff of her master’s hemmed robes.
‘Farewell, then, and may the Greater Good guide you,’ said Aun’Va, turning with stately grace to drift out of the iris portal that led to the main corridor and the Ethereal Guard that now waited outside.
Shadowsun stayed kneeling in supplication until the iris door hissed closed. Once she was certain she was alone, she let her forehead slowly cover the last few centimetres to the cool, hard floor.
Spume glittered diamond-bright as Voltoris’s verdigris sea lapped softly onto the shoreline. Wavelets rich in photosynthetic algae swilled onto the wet sands, and as they receded once more, iridescent crabs darted sidelong to feed on the tiny shrimps. Barefooted children splashed and played near the waterline, laughing in joy as the crustaceans scuttled crazily between them. Far to the west, a kroktar hauled its tentacled bulk onto a shelf of flat stone, sunning itself in the infrared rays of the planet’s crimson sun. The children shrieked at the beast’s appearance, pointing and making finger-tentacles close to their faces.
The tallest of the children called out, his face stern as he pointed to his servo-skull’s chronometric. He motioned to the winding path that wou
nd back through the thick forest. The smaller youngsters reluctantly gathered their little nets and headed into the verdant eaves, inspecting the prizes they would show their parents upon their return. The path wound up and up, avoiding the howler-dens and quagmires that dotted the forest that led to the Furion plateau.
Several kilometres away, a massive fortress pushed its towers high from its perch atop the peak. Forbidding and terrible to most, but a safe haven to the children making their way towards it.
The little group passed underneath the thick canopy and into the verdant gloom. They swung sticks they had recovered from the jungle path as they went, telling each other tall tales of terrible monsters and brave knights.
In the skies high above, a cluster of distant spaceships burnt their way across the firmament. Shooting stars to most, but death itself to the people of Furion Peak.
Chapter Six
FURION DROPSITE
MOURNFALL JUNGLE
VOLTORIS
A dot appeared in front of the Voltorian sun, three smaller dots orbiting around it. This time, the commander and her drones shot from the heavens on contrails of fire, vengeful envoys from another world that bore only the message of death.
Shadowsun landed hard in the peaty earth of the Mournfall jungle. Mere seconds later her entire Firststrike cadre had mustered on her co-ordinates. Orca drop-ships lifted back up into low orbit, the fire warriors they disgorged forming up into disciplined phalanxes on the wide jungle road. Scores of Crisis suits hung in the air overhead, both of her Counterstrike cadres on sentinel duty as her ground forces deployed below.
Oe-ken-yon hovered in close, bobbing upward smugly.
‘Dataharvest complete, commander! Designation Imperial feudal world, human population approximate 7 million, apex…’
‘Be silent, Drone Commandant Oe-ken-yon,’ snapped Shadowsun. ‘I know what this world is, and I know where the foe have mustered. The gue’la clearly consider us so localised a threat they can skulk upon backwater worlds without fear of reprisal. They will pay a high price for their ignorance. We shall deliver the killing blow and leave before the sun is set.’