Shield of Baal: Deathstorm

by Josh Reynolds

  Alphaeus said nothing. Karlaen did not look at him. ‘Come. We still have a governor to find,’ he said, placing the head back on his belt and hefting the Hammer of Baal. Then, weapon in hand, he led his brothers down into the dark.

  The Spawn of Cryptus watched its enemies descend into the depths of the undercity. It clung to the dome of the Tribune Chamber’s roof, hidden by the shadows and its psychic abilities. The enemy ranks had swelled, but its carefully laid out ambushes had thinned the herd, as it hoped. It did not wish them dead. Not yet.

  Not until they had found its quarry for it.

  The broodlord crawled along the curve of the dome, its eyes on the open access hatch. It had known of its existence, but had been unable to breach it, even with the aid of the larger bio-beasts the Hive Mind had provided. A lesser creature, one whose will was completely subsumed in the shadow of the Leviathan, would simply have allowed the ripper swarms and feeder-beasts to ferret out what openings they could find, and left the cowering remnants of the Flaxian Dynasty to a stifling death in the depths of their self-made tomb.

  But its will was not a lesser one. It never had been, and though the broodlord could not defy the Leviathan, it could subvert and distract it. It had kept back the swarms of tunnelling horrors and crushing beasts, shielding the palace with its will as it set its children the task of ferreting out a way into the depths.

  It had been enraged, at first, when it learned the reason for the presence of the invaders. That they had come to take that which it had sought for so long had driven it into a murderous frenzy. But when the frenzy abated, its mind had begun to work. It was not a beast, and it had once had teachers who had tutored it to the limits of their ability. It knew so many things that its mind sometimes ached with the weight of that knowledge.

  It paused in its descent, waiting patiently for the last glimmer of light from its enemies to fade into the darkness. That there were depths which even it had not known of was frustrating, to say the least. But then, its quarry had always been more cunning than it seemed; cunning and treacherous. A stab of anger elicited a gurgling snarl, and its muscles tensed. Rockcrete crumbled beneath its talons as it pushed away from the wall and dropped to the floor of the chamber.

  It rose to its full height, arms dangling, and looked around the chamber. Its eyes scanned the great murals – now ruined by blood, ash and impact craters – which covered the walls. It could remember them, how they had been before. On more than one night, its belly bloated with the meat of its prey, it had come here, creeping through the shadows, to sit and study them. They were its history, as much as that of its quarry. The history of Phodia, of Asphodex, of Cryptus and the Flaxian Dynasty.

  The broodlord went to the closest wall, talons extended, and traced the faces painted there. It had been told the names that went with those faces, once upon a time, but it could not recall them. It could not recall many things now. The weight of the Leviathan’s shadow pressed down on its mind more each day, erasing those things which the Hive Mind had no use for. Soon, it would not be what it was, save in form. Its mind would be smoother and less complex. It would be at peace.

  It traced the faces on the mural and tried to remember just one name. Just one, to satisfy itself that it was still what it had been. Its claws dug deeper and deeper into the painted, blood-spattered surface, destroying what remained as it tried to remember.

  It did not fear the song of the Leviathan, or the complete sublimation of its will and individual impulses into the gestalt of the Hive Mind. But it did fear that it would occur too soon, and take with it the dreams which had driven it for so many years. The desire which had kept it alive in the dank, dark access tunnels below Phodia, after it had been betrayed and after…

  The broodlord’s eyes closed. Faces, voices, scents all rose up in its mind, like ashes stirred from a dying fire. It heard snatches of music, and felt the comforting touch of one who had adored it. It heard the echo of booming laughter, and the stroke of a cloth across its muzzle, as blood and offal were wiped from jaws not yet dextrous enough to chew unaided. The fire in its head was no longer dying, and the song of the Leviathan faded into a comforting background hum as its rage was stoked.

  It swung back from the wall, spreading its claws, and screamed. The scream was at once a summons and a warning, full of heat and demand. Its claws looped forwards, striking the wall, striking the faces it would soon forget, and tore great gouges in them, obliterating them.

  It turned, as it heard and felt the arrival of its surviving children. They swarmed down the walls or loped across the floor, surrounding it. It felt their minds rise up below its own and it tilted its head, letting out a slow hiss of satisfaction. The way was open. Its quarry, trapped. There was nothing now, save the end.

  And then, it could forget, and lose itself forever in the shadow of something greater.

  Eleven

  The Undercity, Flaxian Palace, Phodia

  Karlaen held up the servitor’s head. The drone’s mouth twitched into motion, and a babble of binary whispers fled its vox-unit. The heavy plasteel blast door before Karlaen ground open with a groan of tortured metal. The turreted autocannons mounted to either side of the door lowered their barrels and slid back into their security-niches.

  It was the seventh such door the Blood Angels had come to since descending into the darkness of the undercity well over an hour before. The undercity was a mass of ruins, canals and tunnels beneath a roof of gridwork and pipes. Water dripped down constantly, somewhere out in the dark, striking metal. The sound of it echoed through the vast stretch of the undercity, bouncing from one hard surface to the next, until the point of origin was impossible to determine, even for one with the enhanced senses of a Space Marine.

  When the blast door had fully opened, Karlaen stepped aside, allowing the Death Company to enter beyond first. It galled him to do so, but Alphaeus was right. The black-armoured warriors were here for one reason and one reason only – so that by their death his mission might prove successful. Nonetheless, the thought of it tore at him, even as it drove him on. If he were successful, then Raphen and his warriors might be among the last such doomed berserkers. It was too late for them, and for Cassor, lurching in their wake, but not for the rest of the Chapter.

  He followed the Death Company through the blast door, along with the other Terminators. The vox was silent; noise discipline was being enforced now. Helmets had been retrieved and no flesh was visible, to guard against possible chemical attacks. The Terminators moved without speaking, their attentions fixed firmly on their sensors.

  The undercity was the sort of battlefield with which they were all painfully familiar – cramped and crowded, full of shadows and noise. The ground vibrated with the hum of the hidden generators which powered the undercity and kept the air circulating, and ruptured pipes spat steam into the damp air. Alien mould was already growing in the nooks and crannies, and in places the floor had buckled, allowing the first, pale shoots of newborn spore-chimneys to peek through into the dim, artificial light.

  The Death Company were waiting on the other side of the blast door when Karlaen passed over the threshold. They murmured to one another unintelligibly or stared ahead with fixed intensity, their powerful frames twitching with impatience. The reason for this was readily apparent – their path forward was blocked by a vast vacuum-lock portcullis, its cog-toothed blast door marked by the seal of the Flaxian Dynasty.

  There were no sentry-weapons on display or combat-servitors standing guard. Karlaen hesitated, considering. His armour’s sensors scanned the door and the immediate area, trying to discern some trap or pitfall. When none was forthcoming, he hefted the servitor’s head and stepped forwards as he had before. The servitor twitched in his grip, its jaws unhinging to a disturbing degree as multiple vox-units mounted in its throat sprang to life and spat duelling glossolalia of what might have been code, prayers or something else entirely.

  With a hiss of escaping air, the massive portcullis cycled open. Af
ter the gloom of the sub-city, it took Karlaen’s senses time to adjust to the splendour which was revealed behind the secondary blast door. Outside and above, the city of Phodia was a rain-soaked ruin, hunched beneath spore clouds, the streets thick with signs of alien infestation. The undercity was not much better – long-neglected areas collapsed in on themselves, while overhead, the dull glow of illuminators flickered and grew weaker with every passing hour.

  But here there was no sign of power failure or tyranid infestation. Empty buildings lined broken streets, beneath a humming solar illuminator that cast its radiance across the vaulted reaches of this protected enclave. Karlaen took in the faded grandeur of the city-within-a-city at a glance. The servitor head squawked and fell silent. Through his armour’s connection to the decapitated head, he could see that they had found the object of their search at last. He quickly unhooked the servitor and re-attached it to his belt. It still had some use left in it – specifically, plotting the quickest course out of the undercity.

  ‘What is this place?’ Alphaeus muttered.

  ‘A hideaway,’ Karlaen said. ‘A home away from home, in the event of a planetary disaster. Or so our friend told me.’ He patted the servitor’s head.

  ‘Big for a hideaway,’ Alphaeus said.

  ‘It’s meant to house a significant portion of Phodia’s necessary population. I wondered why so many of them sought sanctuary in the Tribune Chamber.’ Karlaen looked around. ‘The tyranids breached the palace’s defences before they had a chance to evacuate, I expect.’

  ‘Or he left them to die,’ Alphaeus said.

  Karlaen made to reply, but fell silent. That was all too likely. Different men reacted differently in moments of danger and loss. Some found wellsprings of courage undreamt of, while others cowered beneath the bodies of braver men and hoped to ride out the storm. Was Flax hidden away down here, he wondered, while above, his people fought to the last against an indefatigable enemy? Whatever the answer was, Karlaen did not intend to leave until he found out. He made to order the advance, but was beaten to the punch.

  ‘The city is silent, brothers. The traitors await. Let us hunt,’ Cassor rumbled, and started forwards, claws snapping together in barely restrained fury. The Death Company fell in around the Dreadnought, loping through the winding streets, their rasping mutters and unintelligible cries spreading through the stale air. Karlaen held the Terminators back, just for a moment. In the open now, some of the Death Company had begun to hack and hew at imaginary enemies. He knew, with sickening certainty, it would not do to get too close to them, not now.

  ‘Eyes open, brothers. Sensors to full extension, with geosynchronous positioning. I want this hideaway of Flax’s mapped and recorded, just in case a hasty exit is called for.’ Karlaen started forwards, Alphaeus, Leonos and Damaris fanning out around him. The other squads did the same, until a rough line of crimson-armoured giants was moving steadily through the seemingly abandoned city.

  Before they had moved very far, however, Karlaen saw Raphen stop. The Death Company sergeant trembled like a dog catching a scent, his head cocked. Then, with a shout, he began to bound through the ruins. His warriors followed, and Cassor lumbered in their wake, pistons wheezing as he picked up speed.

  ‘What did they–’ Alphaeus began.

  Karlaen held up a hand.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Music.’ He recognised the haunting melody which had attracted the attention of the Death Company. It had been part of the initial briefing on Asphodex and the Cryptus System. The Blood Angels always included such items of cultural relevance in briefings; a people’s culture was a window into the way they thought. The song was an ode to the glories of the Flaxian Dynasty, a hymn to their wisdom, forbearance and courage. Karlaen did not find it strange that it should be playing here and now; humans often sought comfort in the past when the future proved too frightening. Indeed, the music gave him heart – if it were still playing, there was a good chance that Flax, or one of his family, still lived.

  He moved quickly, following the Death Company. If the maddened Space Marines reached the source of the music first, there was no telling what might happen. Alphaeus and the others followed. The Terminators trudged through the tight, winding streets until they reached a central plaza, wider than the Plaza of the Emperor Ascendant, and filled with life and sound. The plaza was occupied by a massive garden. Wilted alien flowers gave off a riot of strange, cloying scents which did little to mask the odour of excess rising from the occupants of the plaza.

  Everywhere, noble men and women, the scions of Asphodex’s greatest noble houses, lay senseless, or as good as, in the grass. Bottles of rare intoxicants, some banned by Imperial law, lay strewn about, and billowing obscura censers pumped hazy vapours into the perfumed air. In the centre of this scene of decadence, surrounded by attentive slave-servitors, an ancient man reclined feebly on a floating bed of silks and cushions. As Karlaen looked at the old man, a warning light flashed in his helmet, alerting him to the proximity of the genetic sequence he had been sent to claim.

  Before he could act, however, there was a creak from the network of pipes, grates and illuminators above. Proximity warnings flashed and he looked up, expecting to see genestealers crawling along the roof of the hidden city. Instead, he caught a flash of metal, as a number of combat-servitors dropped from the roof to interpose themselves between the newcomers and the aristocratic loungers.

  The servitors were repulsive things, made to order, and shaped more like the tyranids they were on guard against than the humans they were protecting. Jointed limbs stuck out from serpentine bodies composed of segmented, armoured sections, and human faces glared out from within cobra-hoods of ceramite. Karlaen snatched the servitor head from his belt, hoping that it could get them past the combat-servitors without violence.

  They were little threat to the Blood Angels, but there was every chance that the man they had come to find might be caught in the crossfire. Luckily, the drones did not seem to be armed with anything more than blades. They were a last line of defence, rather than proper weapons-servitors; bodyguards whose only goal was to see that their masters remained undisturbed in the final hours of their existence.

  Before he could present the head, Raphen gave a shout and the Death Company bounded forwards, weapons ready. The combat-servitors moved forward to meet them with eerie grace, bladed limbs whirring. Raphen ducked under the lunge of the lead servitor and rose up beneath it, catching it with his shoulder and flipping it over his back. As the servitor tried to right itself, Raphen snapped around and drove his hammer into the drone’s head, crushing it with one blow. The serpentine body spasmed and then fell still.

  The Death Company swarmed over the rest of the marble-fleshed drones like ants, hacking and shooting. The servitors fought with single-minded intensity, but they were no match for their attackers. The last of the brass-limbed monstrosities fell to Cassor, who crushed its skull in his claw and slung the twitching remains aside. They crashed down at Karlaen’s feet as he increased the volume of his vox-unit and roared out, ‘Hold!’

  Raphen, thunder hammer raised, ready to spill the brains of a prostrate noble, turned. Karlaen met his gaze and several tense moments passed before the sergeant lowered his weapon. His warriors followed suit, albeit reluctantly. The combat-servitors had raised the ire of the Death Company, and they were eager to shed blood in the name of the Emperor.

  ‘Why are we not killing these degenerate sybarites, brothers? What purpose do they serve? Cassor can smell the Phoenician’s stench on this place, and he would cleanse it.’ Cassor turned slowly, blades clicking impatiently.

  ‘Stay thy wrath, mighty Cassor. There will be time enough for killing before we are done here, I fear,’ Karlaen said calmly.

  The Dreadnought twisted to face him, and Karlaen forced himself to remain where he was. The blood-red optic lenses mounted on the black hull whirred and focused in on him. Cassor extended a talon towards him. The tip of one of the blades touched his chestplate wi
th a soft ting.

  ‘I know you.’

  Despite the emotionless basso rumble the words were delivered in, Karlaen could hear the uncertainty there. He steeled himself and said, ‘And I know you, mighty Cassor, hero of Lowfang and Demeter’s Fall. I know that you are a true son of Sanguinius.’

  ‘I… I am a true son. I hear the Angel’s voice, brother. I see his face, in yours. I… I will stay my wrath, brother. For now.’ Cassor lowered his claw and turned away. Karlaen let out a slow breath. He turned back to Alphaeus and motioned for his second-in-command to follow him.

  The intoxicated nobles had not reacted to the brief melee, and they did not react when Karlaen and Alphaeus moved through them towards Flax. The old man remained as insensate as his followers until Karlaen was looming over him. When Flax registered first the shadow and then the grizzled, golden-haired giant who cast it, his rheumy eyes widened in sudden panic. He began to babble in fear as Karlaen drew close.

  ‘Governor Flax, I presume,’ Karlaen said. ‘I am Captain Karlaen of the Blood Angels Chapter and the Baal Expeditionary Force. I have been ordered to see to your immediate evacuation. If you will come with us, we will get you to safety.’

  Flax’s eyes narrowed. The fear was gone, replaced by something else. Resignation, perhaps, or exhaustion. The old man shook his head and slumped back into his cushions. ‘I am Flax, aye. And your orders mean nothing to me, captain.’ The old man smiled mirthlessly. ‘You see, if you are here, then I am already damned.’

  Twelve

  ‘Damned?’ Karlaen said, slightly startled by the old man’s matter-of-fact dismissal. Humans, even politically powerful ones, were wont to be slightly in awe of the warriors of the Adeptus Astartes. They were the Emperor’s word given form, and few were the men brave enough to match their gaze and not quail back from them. Flax did not seem to be a brave man. Perhaps it was simply that fear had been burned out of him.