Nemesis

by James Swallow

  The next sound he heard was the voice of the Callidus. Every word said was being simultaneously transmitted to Tariel and the Garantine. “Mission fail,” said Koyne, panting with the exertion of running. He could hear bolter shots and screaming in the background. “Confirming mission fail.”

  Kell was shaking his head. That could not be true; the last thing he had seen through the Exitus’ scope was the flash of radiation as the Lance ended the target’s life. Horus Lupercal was dead…

  “Broken Mirror,” said Koyne. “I repeat, Broken Mirror.”

  The code phrase hit Kell like a physical blow and he sagged against the crumbling wall. The words had only one meaning – a surrogate, a sacrificial proxy had replaced their target.

  A storm of questions rushed through his thoughts; how could Horus have known they would be waiting for them? Had the mission been compromised from the very start? Had they been betrayed?

  The warrior Kell had placed between his crosshairs could only have been the Warmaster! Only Horus, the liberator of Dagonet clad in his mantle, would have made his grand gesture of the single shot into the sky… It could not be true! It could not be…

  The moment of doubt and uncertainty flared bright, and then faded. Now was not the time to dwell on this turn of events. The first, most important directive was to exfiltrate the strike zone and regroup. To reevaluate. Kell nodded to himself. He would do that, he decided. He would extract his team from this mess and then determine a new course of action. As long as a single Officio Assassinorum operative was still alive, the mission could still be completed.

  And if along the way, a traitor came to light… He shrugged off the thought. First things first. The Vindicare keyed the general channel. “Acknowledged,” he said. “Extraction sites are now to be considered compromised. Proceed to city perimeter and await contact.”

  Kell secured the longrifle and fixed his descent pack to his back. “Go dark,” he ordered, ending the final command with the tap of a switch that deactivated his vox gear.

  An explosion made his head snap up and his spy mask’s optics located the thermal bloom in the corner of his vision, surrounding it with indicator icons. A vehicle had apparently been blown up by an exchange of gunfire. He wondered who would be foolish enough to shoot back at an Astartes just as a roar of engine noise swept over his head. Kell shrank into the cover of a partly-collapsed wall as a heavy, slate-coloured aircraft thundered around the habitat tower on bright rods of thruster flame – a Stormbird in the livery of the Sons of Horus.

  For a moment, he feared the Astartes had detected his firing hide; but the Stormbird swept on and down into the city, passing him by unnoticed. Kell looked up into the early morning sky and saw more raptor-shapes falling from the high clouds, trailing streamers of vapour from atmospheric re-entry. Whoever it was that Kell’s kill-shot had executed, the Warmaster’s warriors were coming in force to avenge him.

  When he was sure the Stormbird was gone, Kell backed off and then ran at the hole in the wall. He threw himself into the air and felt the rush of the wind as gravity claimed his body. For agonising seconds, the streets below rose up towards him; then there was a sharp jerk across his shoulders as the sensors in the descent pack triggered the release of the parafoil across his back. The iridescent curve of ballistic cloth billowed open and his fall slowed.

  Kell dropped into the sounds of terror and violence, searching for an escape.

  EVERY DECK OF the Vengeful Spirit shook with barely-restrained violence as drop-ship after drop-ship rocketed off the launch decks. They streamed away from the battleship in a long, unbroken chain, lethal carrion birds wheeling and turning in towards the surface of Dagonet, carrying fury with them.

  Nearby, system boats in service to the PDF’s space division were either turning to flee from the ships of the Warmaster’s fleet, or else they were already sinking into their home world’s gravity well as flames crawled down the length of them. The Vengeful Spirit’s gunnery crews had been sparing with the use of their megalaser batteries, striking the ships hard enough to cripple them but not enough to obliterate them. Now the PDF cruisers would burn up in the atmosphere, and the fires of their deaths would be seen the whole planet over. It was a most effective way to begin a punishment.

  The Vengeful Spirit and the rest of her flotilla encroached slowly on Dagonet’s orbital space, approaching the staging point where Luc Sedirae’s vessel, the Thanato, was waiting for them. Most of the Thanato’s complement of drop-ships had already been deployed, the men of the 13th Company falling onto the capital city in a tide of unfettered rage. The handsome and ruthless master of the 13th was beloved of his warriors; and they would avenge him with nothing less than rivers of blood.

  The tall viewing windows of the Lupercal’s Court looked out over the bow of the Vengeful Spirit, the curve of Dagonet and the lone Thanato laid out before it. Maloghurst left the Warmaster where he stood at the windows and crossed the strategium towards the corridor outside. As he walked, he spoke in low tones to the troupe of chapter serfs who followed him everywhere he went. The equerry parsed Horus’ commands to his underlings and they in turn moved away to carry those orders about the fleet.

  Beyond the doorway there was a shadow. “Equerry,” it said.

  “First Chaplain,” Maloghurst replied. His disfigured face turned its perpetual scowl at the Word Bearer, dismissing the rest of the serfs with a flick of his clawed hand. “Do you wish to speak with me, Erebus? I had been told you were engaged in your… meditations.”

  Erebus did not appear to notice the mocking tone Maloghurst placed on his question. “I was disturbed.”

  “By what?”

  The Word Bearer’s face split in a thin smile. “A voice in the darkness.” Before Maloghurst could demand a less obtuse answer, Erebus nodded towards the far end of the chamber, where Horus stood observing the motions of his fleet.

  The lord of the Legion was magnificent in his full battle gear, his armour striped with shining gold and dark brass, hides of great beasts lying off his shoulder in a half-cloak. His face was hidden in the gloom, highlights made barely visible by the cold glow of the data consoles before him.

  “I would ask a question of the Warmaster,” said the other Astartes.

  Maloghurst did not move. “You may ask me.”

  “As you wish.” Erebus’ lip curled slightly. “We are suddenly at battle alert status. It was my understanding we were coming to this world to show the flag in passing, and little more.”

  “You haven’t heard?” Maloghurst feigned surprise, amused that for a change he knew something the Word Bearer did not. “Brother-Captain Sedirae was given the honour of standing as the Warmaster’s proxy on Dagonet. But there was an… incident. A trap, I believe. Sedirae was killed.”

  Erebus’ typically insouciant expression shaded dark for a moment. “How did this happen?”

  “That will be determined, in due time. For the moment, it is clear that the assurances claiming Dagonet City as a secure location were false. Through either subterfuge or inadequacy on the part of Dagonet’s ruling cadres, a Son of Horus lost his life down there.” Maloghurst inclined his head towards the Warmaster. “Horus has demanded reciprocity.”

  “The nobles will die, then?” The equerry nodded. “To begin with.” Erebus was silent for a few seconds. “Why was Sedirae sent?”

  “Are you questioning the orders of the Warmaster?”

  “I only seek to understand—” Erebus trailed off as Maloghurst took a step towards the Word Bearer, moving through the doorway and into the corridor.

  “You would do well, Chaplain, to remember that an honoured battle-brother was just murdered in cold blood. A decorated Astartes of great esteem whose loss will be keenly felt, not just by the 13th Company but by the entire Legion.”

  Erebus’ eyes narrowed, showing his doubts at the description of Sedirae’s great esteem. While it was true the man was a fine warrior, many considered him an outspoken braggart, the Word Bearer among them.
But as ever, the equerry kept his own opinions to himself.

  Maloghurst continued. “It would be best for the Warmaster to deal with this matter without the involvement of those from outside the Legion.” He nodded to a servitor in the lee of the doors, and the helot began to slide the towering panels closed. “I’m sure you appreciate that.”

  There was a moment when the Word Bearer seemed as if he were about to protest; but then he nodded. “Of course,” said Erebus. “I bow to your wisdom, equerry. Who knows the Warmaster’s moods better than you?” He threw a nod and walked away, back into the shadows of the corridor.

  THEY WERE KILLING everything that moved.

  The Sons of Horus began by firing on the crowds in Liberation Plaza, routing the civilians and turning the mob into a screaming tide of bodies that trampled each other in a desperate attempt to flee back down the roads and away from the great halls.

  Koyne fought through the mass, catching sight of some of the killings along the way. Kell’s emergency command echoed through the vox-bead hidden in the Callidus’ ear.

  The Astartes walked, slow and steady, across the plaza with their bolters at their hips, firing single shot after single shot into the people. The missile-like bolt shells could not fail to find targets, and for each person they hit and instantly killed, others fell dead or near to it from the shared force of impact. The blasts rippled out through flesh and bone, the crowds were so closely packed together. And although Koyne never saw it, the assassin heard the hiss and crackle of a flamer being used. The smell of burned flesh was familiar.

  The panic was as much a weapon as the guns of the Astartes. People running and pushing, drowning in animal fear; they trampled one another blindly as they tried to escape along the radial streets leading from the plaza. Some transformed their fear into violence, brandishing weapons of their own in vain attempts to cut a path through the madness.

  Koyne rode the terrified mob as one might have floated on a turbulent sea, not fighting it, letting the frenzied currents of push and pull shove a body here and there. As the roads opened up into wider boulevards, the crush lessened and people broke into an open run; some of them were met by strafing fire from the first of the Stormbirds that swooped in low between the buildings.

  The Callidus was carried to the edge of the street and found passage through a storefront damaged in the early days of the insurrection. Hidden for a moment from the screaming throng outside, Koyne dared to consult a small holo-map of the city; any one of the avenues would take the assassin straight out of the metropolis to the city perimeter, but down each street the Astartes were advancing in small groups, coldly pacing their kills into those who ran and those who surrendered alike.

  After a moment, Koyne peered over the lip of a shattered window and saw that the leading edge of the crowds had passed by. Stragglers were still running past, heading southwards. Behind them, walking as if it were nothing more than a morning stroll, the Callidus spotted a single Astartes in grey ceramite, moving with a bolter at his shoulder. Sighting down the weapon as he went, he was picking targets at random and ending them.

  This was not a military exercise; this was a castigation.

  “This is your fault!” The voice was full of terror and fury.

  Koyne spun and found a man, his clothes freshly torn and a new cut staining his forehead with blood. He stood across the rubble-strewn shop floor, glaring at the Callidus, pointing a shaky finger.

  It was the uniform he was indicating. The dun-coloured tunic of the Dagonet Planetary Defence Force, in disarray now, but still a part of the false identity Koyne was operating under.

  The man shambled through the glass, kicking it aside without a care for the noise he was making. “You brought them here!” He stabbed a finger at the street. “That’s not Horus! I don’t know what those things are! Why did you let them come to kill us?”

  Koyne realised that the man had no idea what had happened; perhaps he hadn’t seen the Shield-Breaker and the Lance. All he saw was a monstrous killing machine in armour the colour of storms.

  “Stop talking,” said Koyne, pulling open the PDF tunic and feeling for a fleshpocket holster. With a gasp, the Callidus tabbed the seam. Koyne’s weapon was in there, but the assassin’s muscles were tight with tension and it was proving difficult to relax and ease the skin-matter open. “Just be silent.”

  There was movement outside. Someone on a higher floor in the building across the street, probably some bold member of Capra’s rebellion or just a Dagoneti sick of being a victim, tossed a makeshift firebomb that shattered wetly over the warrior’s helmet and right shoulder. The Son of Horus halted and swiped at the flames where they licked over the ceramite, patting them out with the flat of his gauntlet. As Koyne watched, the Astartes was still dotted with little patches of orange flame as he pivoted on his heel and aimed upward.

  A heavy thunderclap shot rang out, and the bolter blew a divot of brick from the third floor. A body, trailing threads of blood, came spiralling out with it, killed instantly by the proximity of the impact.

  “They… they want you!” snarled the man in the shop, oblivious to what was taking place outside. “Maybe they should have you!”

  “No,” Koyne said, fingers at last touching the butt of the pistol nestling inside the false-flesh gut over the Callidus’ stomach. “I told you to—”

  Stone crunched into powder and suddenly the warrior was there in the doorway of the gutted shop, too big to fit through the wood-lined threshold. The emotionless eyes of the fearsome helmet scanned them both and then the figure advanced, its bolter dropping onto a sling. Koyne stumbled backwards as the Son of Horus tore through the splintering remains of the doorway, drawing his combat blade as he came. The knife was the size of a short sword, and the fractal edge gave off a dull gleam.

  Before the Callidus could react the Astartes struck out with the pommel and hit the assassin in the chest. Koyne felt bones snap and spun away, landing hard. In a perverse way, the assassin was pleased; Koyne’s cover was clearly still intact. If the Astartes had known what he was facing, the kill would have come immediately.

  The man was pointing and shouting; the Son of Horus, having decided to preserve his ammunition for the moment, advanced on the survivor, the top of his helmet knocking light fittings down from the patterned ceiling. A sweep of the combat blade silenced the man by taking his head from his shoulders; the body gave a peculiar little dance as nerves misfired, and fell in a heap.

  Koyne had the gun but the twitching of the muscles and the flesh-pocket would not let it go; pain from the impact injury robbed the Callidus of the usual concentration and control needed at a moment like this.

  The Son of Horus changed his grip on the knife, holding it by the blade, ready to throw it; in the next second a crash of bolter fire echoed and impact points appeared in a line of silver blooms across the chest plate and left shoulder pauldron of the Astartes.

  Through blurry vision, Koyne saw a man-shape moving faster than anything human should have; and a face, a mask, a fanged skull made of discoloured gunmetal.

  Scrambling backwards, the assassin watched as the Garantine sprinted around the Astartes in a tight arc, rolling over fallen counters and leaping from pillar to wall. As he moved, his Executor pistol was snarling, spitting out low-gauge bolt shells that clattered and sparked off the towering warrior’s armour.

  The Astartes let the combat blade drop and brought up his bolter; the weapon was of a far larger calibre than the Executor. A single direct hit at the ranges these close quarters forced upon the combatants would mean death for the Eversor; but to kill him, first the Astartes had to hit him.

  Koyne moaned in pain as the gun slowly eased out of the stress-tensed flesh pocket, watching as the two combatants tried to end each other. In the confined space of the destroyed store the bray of bolt shells was deafening, and the air filled with the stench of cordite and the heavy, choking dust from atomised flakboard. A support pillar exploded, raining plaster and wood from
the broken flooring above. The Callidus could hear the animalistic panting of the Eversor as he moved like lightning back and forth across the Space Marine’s line of sight, goading the Astartes into firing after him. Stimm-glands chugged and injectors hissed as the Garantine’s bloodstream was flooded with bio-chemicals and cocktails of drugs that pushed him beyond the speed of even an Astartes’ enhanced reflexes.

  Koyne’s gun, slick with mucus and fluids, finally vomited itself out of the assassin’s stomach and on to the floor. The Callidus clutched at it and released a shot in the direction of the grey-armoured hulk. The neural shredder projected a spreading plume of sickly energetic discharge around the Son of Horus and the warrior staggered with the hit, one hand coming up to clutch at his helmet.

  The Garantine roared past, sprinting over Koyne where the Callidus lay propped up against a wall. “My kill!” he was shouting, the words repeating and coming so fast they became a single stream of noise. “My killmykillmykillmykill—”

  He was a blur of claws and gun, too fast for the eye to process the images. Sparks flew as the Eversor assassin collided bodily with the Astartes and knocked him down, the Garantine firing his Executor into the impact holes in the warrior’s chest at point-blank range, clawing wildly at his helmet with the spiked talon of his neuro-gauntlet. Koyne could hear the Astartes snarling, angrily fighting back, but the Eversor was like mercury, slipping through his clumsy armoured fingers.

  Then dark, arterial blood spurted as the armour was cracked and the Garantine dug into the meat he found inside. His bolter dry, the Astartes punched and bludgeoned the Eversor, but if any pain impulses reached the Garantine’s mind, the brew of rage-enhancers and sense-inhibitors swimming through his bloodstream deadened them to nothing.

  With a croaking, wet rattle, the Astartes sank back and collapsed. Chattering with coarse laughter, the Garantine swept up the fallen combat blade and pressed all his weight behind it. The weapon sank through sparking power cables and myomer muscles until it pierced flesh and cut bone.