‘Keep going,’ Karlaen snarled, trying to fight his way to his feet. He tore the servitor head from his belt and sent it sailing after Flax. ‘Take this – go, brother. I will join you when I can.’
Alphaeus did not protest. He caught the head and shoved it into Flax’s trembling hands. Then, with a grimace of frustration, he turned and began making for the exit. Karlaen saw the closest Terminators form up around him like a phalanx, cordoning him off. Then they were lost from sight as genestealers closed in around him. Karlaen rammed the haft of his hammer into one’s gut and flung it off him. He surged to his feet as the others closed in, his storm bolter rising. The weapon roared, and alien bodies burst like overripe fruit as he swept the storm bolter in a line.
Suddenly, there was a shriek, and a bulky form slid through the water, smashing aside genestealers. Karlaen sidestepped the bleeding, reeking hulk as it slowed and came to a stop. The carnifex whined deep in its mangled throat as it sought to heave itself upright to continue the fray, but its limbs were nothing but dead weight now, broken and pulled out of shape. A heavy shape stomped towards it, and with a grumbling hiss, Cassor’s meltagun carved a blackened tunnel through the beast’s head for a second time.
The Dreadnought was covered in ichor and battle scars. Hoses flapped free as Cassor spun back and forth, firing his weapons in a wide arc. Something sparked inside his chassis, and Karlaen could smell burning promethium and scorched metal. The Dreadnought’s limbs groaned and wheezed, but he fought on. ‘Come, come and meet death, traitors. Come and feel the bite of my blade.’
Cassor twisted, backhanding a genestealer in mid-leap and sending it flying into a nearby building with enough force to pulverise the beast. More leapt and clawed at the Dreadnought, scrambling over him in a wave of talons and teeth. Cassor roared and slashed at the living wave, killing genestealers with every flick of his talons. But there were always more, and soon the Dreadnought was lost to sight, enveloped in a tide of chitin.
Karlaen swept his hammer out in a wide arc, sending the closest of the Dreadnought’s attackers flying. He fired his storm bolter at those that got past him, and almost paid the price for his inattentiveness. Only the screech of his armour’s sensors and his own combat-honed instincts warned him in time to avoid having his skull split like a melon. A tyranid warrior sprang out of the streaming water, its bone swords slicing at him. He avoided the first blow, but the second caught him high on the shoulder. The force of it staggered him, and he nearly fell. The tyranid seized the opportunity and came at him, all four blades hammering down in a cruel rhythm.
He stumbled back, caught off balance and unable to retaliate. The tyranid continued its attack, driving him steadily back. Genestealers scuttled out of reach, like wolves waiting for their prey to tire itself out. The tyranid shrieked and blocked his awkward attempt to push it away. Karlaen cursed himself for a fool and tried to regain his footing. A genestealer darted in, and he felt a slash of pain crawl up the back of his leg. Momentarily weakened, he sank down to one knee. The tyranid kicked out with one bony hoof and caught him in the side, knocking him onto his back in the rising water.
Karlaen floundered for a moment which seemed to stretch for an eternity. Better warriors than him had died in worse ways, and more foolish, but that was small comfort. If he died, the failure of his mission was almost certain. Rage built in him, and his thoughts were drowned in a persistent hum of red. The tyranid stabbed down at him, four blades angled to pierce two hearts. It had seemed so fast before, but now, in the red, it was slow. He could see the droplets of water crawling along the length of the blades, and hear the sound they made as they pierced the air in their descent.
The Hammer of Baal rose from the water and whipped out. Four bone blades shattered. The tyranid warrior, over-extended, leaned forward. Karlaen’s hand shot up, catching its lower mandible. Servos hissed and he wrenched the creature’s jaw from its skull. It reared back in pain and surprise, and he shoved himself to his feet, clasping his hammer in both hands as he brought it around for another blow. There was no thought of tactics or strategy now, only a boiling need to see the ichor of his foe spill into the murky waters that rose around them.
Karlaen battered the creature, knocking it one way and then the next, until finally it sank to its knees, its carapace covered in scorched craters and spider-webbed cracks. He raised his hammer and brought it down with a snarl, caving in the tyranid’s skull. As it fell, he turned, rage not yet sated, to look for new enemies.
The genestealers which had been harrying him were only too happy to oblige. They came in a rush, darting in at him from all sides, moving too fast for him to follow, distracted as he was. Claws punctured his armour in places, opening fresh wounds, and he roared. As he fought, he struggled to swim free of the crimson murk which had settled over his mind. He was not yet lost to the Red Thirst, and he forced himself to concentrate on the pain, using it to centre himself once more. To lose himself now would be to lose everything.
As if sensing his new focus, the genestealers redoubled their attack, piling onto him without heed to casualties. For every one he swatted from him, two more clawed at him, trying to pull him down off his feet again, where he would be easy prey.
Through the haze of battle and the spray of murky water, he saw that Alphaeus had reached the gate at last, Damaris and Leonos to either side of him. The barrels of the twins’ storm bolters glowed white-hot as they held back the tide. The rest of the Terminators were equally beset, fighting for their lives against tyranids and genestealers alike. Nonetheless, Alphaeus had reached the gate. Relief flooded through him, only to be stolen in a moment.
As Alphaeus lifted the servitor head to open the blast doors, a shape darted down the great stone wall which housed the exit. Karlaen voxed a warning and raised his storm bolter. He fired, his targeting array fighting to keep a lock on the shape. Bolter rounds chewed the wall around the beast as it moved. A band of light caught it and Karlaen felt a chill as he recognised the broodlord. It had been waiting for them. It had allowed its kin to harry them, drive them to distraction, so that it might claim its prize.
As he watched, the broodlord dropped down among the Terminators, its claws flashing out to vivisect one unlucky warrior. Ancient armour, a relic of a golden age, tore like paper beneath its claws, and blood filled the air. The Terminator fell, and the broodlord vaulted over the tumbling body to reach Alphaeus.
Karlaen charged forwards, bowling over a hissing genestealer, knowing that as he did so he would not be in time. Joses moved to intercept the creature, his blade flashing out, carving sparks from the wall as the broodlord weaved beneath the blow. Four talons shot forwards and punched through the Terminator’s chestplate. Joses coughed blood and sagged against his killer. The broodlord heaved the dying Blood Angel backwards, slamming his dead weight into Alphaeus.
The sergeant staggered, and the broodlord was on him a moment later. The creature plucked a screaming Flax from Alphaeus’s grip and bounded into the darkness on the other side of the blast doors as they cycled open at last. Even as the broodlord vanished, its children took its place, boiling through the open blast doors and washing over the Terminators. Storm bolters fired and power weapons hummed, but the Blood Angels were pinned in place by their attackers, unable to follow the broodlord.
Karlaen, still charging towards the exit, paid no heed to the creatures which pursued him, and he was knocked to the ground by them just before he reached the others. The genestealers swarmed over him, pinning his arms and tearing at his armour. He thrashed, trying to hurl them off, but there were too many. One raised a claw over his head, ready to end him. The Red Thirst pounded in his skull, and his thoughts jangled incoherently as he faced his death.
‘No, brother. Thy doom is not writ this day. No son of Baal shall perish so ingloriously, not as long as Cassor stands.’
Cassor loomed over him, scattering genestealers with a gesture. The Dreadnought’s claws snapped out and sank into a genestealer’s body. The cr
eature screeched in agony as Cassor plucked it from Karlaen’s chest and lifted it into the air. ‘Heed my words, ye traitors. Thy cause is dust and Cassor shall cast down thy champions.’
The Dreadnought spun, hurling the genestealer at a knot of its fellows and bowling them over. The storm bolter mounted beneath Cassor’s claw roared, and the stunned xenos were reduced to bloody tatters. Cassor turned back to Karlaen. ‘Up, brother. Cassor shall hold the enemy. Finish thy mission. Cassor shall see to the slaughter here.’
Karlaen pushed himself to his feet, his rage fading. He picked up his hammer and, with one last glance at the Dreadnought, charged towards the gate. He had cleared himself a path in moments, as his brothers formed a cordon around him, holding back snarling, hissing would-be obstacles. The blast doors had begun to cycle closed as he reached them, but he plunged through the steadily shrinking gap without hesitation.
As the blast doors clanged shut behind him, Karlaen followed his enemy into the dark.
Fourteen
Karlaen marched alone through the labyrinthine tunnels under the palace. The shadowy foundations rose up around him like a second city. It was a damp, dark reflection of the one above, and a fitting place for a beast such as the Spawn of Cryptus. He could hear water rushing all about him, through pipes and culverts, through the sewers of Phodia. Even now, this close to the end, the city’s servitors kept the water running, as they had been programmed to do. They would do their duty until the end. Karlaen smiled grimly. In some ways, there was no difference between himself and those mindless drones.
They were merely differently shaped cogs in the same great machine, programmed to fulfil a necessary function – theirs, to see to the sanitation network of Phodia, and his, to kill the enemies of mankind. It was a core truth, and one it had taken him decades to accept – decades of arrogance and hubris, of fiery war and bloody slaughter. Once he had thought himself special. A prince of war, bestowed with divine gifts to bring the galaxy to heel on behalf of his Chapter and the Emperor. But age had worn that purpose to a lethal, killing edge. Now, he knew that he was but one warrior among billions, all of them striving against the same hungry darkness.
As that darkness closed around him, one thought filled Karlaen’s mind, one repeated hammer blow of memory which he could neither escape nor bury any longer beneath thoughts of duty and necessity. He could hear them as he moved, like a ghost signal on an open vox-link – the voices of his dead brothers, murmuring softly to him in the dark.
He had failed them again. Alphaeus and the others would pay the price for his failure to consider all of the angles and to prepare for all possibilities. Once before, he had led his brothers into the dark, and they had died because his pragmatism and practicality had failed them. Now it was happening all over again. The memory of that last, doomed stand rose up in him again, through the red.
They had gone to meet the enemy, and they had triumphed, but at great cost. It had been a necessary thing, a thing which had to be done, but the doing of it had tarnished him. In his quiet moments of contemplation, which were thankfully few and far between, he knew that he was not worthy of the title Dante had bestowed on him – for what sort of shield could not protect those who stood behind it?
Karlaen saw faces swirl about him in the dark, and heard voices in the drip of water, or the scrape of chitin on stone. He heard the thunder of guns and the cries of the dying in his ears, as loudly as he had that day. Even now, the dead did not curse him. Even now, their understanding was more painful than any wound he had yet sustained. They had trusted him to lead them out of the dark, and he had allowed their light to be snuffed out.
He wondered whether Alphaeus still lived. Joses was dead, like Bartelo and the others. That they had died doing their duty was small comfort to him now, in this moment. Here, in the dark, he was alone with the weight of their lives pressing him down. He tried to recall some snippet of wisdom from leaders past of the Chapter, from Raldoron, Thoros and others that might alleviate that weight, but the words that came seemed hollow and unfitting.
Karlaen had done as he thought best, for the good of the Chapter, and men had died. Like Flax, he thought. Grim amusement flashed through him. Now both he and Flax were paying the price for bloody necessities past. Men had died under his aegis, and now he would make certain that their deaths were not in vain.
He keyed off his stab-lights. As the dark rushed in, he activated the augur-lens of his bionic eye. The lights would be of little use, save to mark his position for the enemy even now creeping about him. He was approaching the next in the line of blast doors, his armour’s sensors locked on Flax’s bio-signature. Wherever the broodlord took his captive, Karlaen would follow, even if it meant descending into the bowels of Asphodex. Somehow, he did not think that would be the case – no, the beast wanted a reckoning. Both with its brother, and with Karlaen himself.
He brushed his hand against the hole in his armour. He knew it was no idle theory on his part. The broodlord had as good as challenged him, and Karlaen thought he understood why. The creature wanted what it could never have, yet it was determined to best any who challenged its right to the throne of this dying world. Why else had the full might of the Hive Mind not yet descended on the palace? Why else would the creature endanger itself to get at Flax? It had a mission, just as Karlaen did.
Through the haze of the augur-lens, he saw ghostly shapes dancing and squirming at the edge of his vision. No guilt-bred figments these, but enemies. He paused, scanning his surroundings. The shapes seemed to flow across the foundations, staying just out of sight. He checked his storm bolter. Less than half a clip of ammunition remained, and he had no more replacements. He frowned and lowered the weapon. He hefted his hammer and swung it experimentally. It had seen him through thus far. He hoped it would not fail him now.
He started forwards again, water splashing across his armour as he walked. The whole sub-section would soon be flooded. When he reached the blast doors, he realised that they were not going to open. Gene-locked as they had been, he needed a sample of Flaxian DNA or a suitable substitute, like the servitor’s head, to open them. He cursed. He had not thought to grab the head, nor had the foresight to take a blood sample from Flax. Karlaen closed his eye and pushed through the tide of self-recrimination.
His eye opened, and fixed on the door’s control panel. His bionic eye whirred, focusing in. The blast doors had been old when Phodia was young. They were simple things. The genetic signature activated the electro-pneumatic impulses which controlled the door’s functions. He stepped back, and readied his hammer. If he could identify a weak point, he might be able to open a hole. It was not much of a plan, but it was all he had.
Before he could so much as swing his weapon, however, he heard a hiss from his left. He turned, and saw the shapes which had kept pace with him down the corridor spring into motion. There were two of them, he saw now, moving to either side of him. Karlaen smiled as a thought occurred to him. The creatures were the broodlord’s children, created by it; an army raised in secret. There was a reason that the broodlord could pass through the blast doors without help – it was as much a part of the Flaxian Dynasty as the governor himself, though it was a monstrous, degenerate part. And that meant that its children were as well.
The genestealers reached him a moment later, coursing down the length of the wall with inhuman speed. He set his storm bolter onto its grav-clamp holster on his hip, and stretched the fingers of his free hand. He would need to be quick.
He sent his hammer shooting out, letting the haft slide through his grip with a precision honed in hundreds of close-set, cramped corridors. The head smashed into the skull of the first of the genestealers, dropping the stunned creature to the ground. The second lunged for him, and he flung up his free hand, catching it by the throat. It struggled in his grip, its claws drawing sparks from his armour. He swung it around and slammed it head first into the door’s gene-lock. The lock flashed as it read the struggling alien’s genetic code, and th
e door began to cycle open. Karlaen grunted in satisfaction. Behind him, he heard the first creature scramble to its feet.
He spun, smashing its fellow into it, knocking it down again. Before it could rise for a second time, he brought his hammer down on its chest, pulverising it in a wet crackle of energy. Karlaen looked at the genestealer he still held. The creature’s thrashing became more agitated as his servo-assisted grip on its throat slowly tightened. Then, with a wet crunch, it went limp. Carefully, he twisted its head off. He would need a key, in case of further blast doors.
As the door opened, he heard the telltale clatter of chitin echoing from the other side. He glanced at the bloody head in his hand and dropped it. It appeared as if he would not need it after all. There would be plenty more where it came from.
Hammer in hand, the Shield of Baal stepped through, into the dark.
Augustus Flax looked around, bleary-eyed, and then gave a bitter laugh. ‘Oh, Tiberius – really? Is this the sort of thing that whatever passes for your mind thinks is meaningful?’ He lay prone on the surface of the intersection of the four great bridges which met above the main artery of the Phodian sewers, just beneath the palace gardens. Below him, water roared into the dark, converging on the great drain from dozens of sluice gates. Above him loomed the towering foundations of the palace he had claimed in blood and deceit.
That was the legacy of the Flaxian Dynasty, was it not? He almost smiled at the thought. He had won his throne with plenty of both, to be sure. He had turned his people over to criminal overlords and brutal manufactorum bosses, and enriched himself at their expense – all in an effort to stymie a hidden foe. It had been necessary. Or so he had convinced himself. Much good as it had done him, in the end.
The creature had dragged him through the dark, ignoring his screams, only to deposit him here. Now it sat, seemingly content merely to – what? Flax looked up at his brother, where it crouched on one of the shattered statues which lined the four bridges. Very big on statues, the Flaxian Dynasty. Even now, Flax was unable to name who half of them represented. Statues in a sewer. Excess, thy name is Flax, he thought bitterly. Even the creature could not escape that particular familial flaw. ‘A crossroads, Tiberius. A turning point, meant to be symbolic of our situation, perhaps? I thought you ate your literary theory tutor,’ he spat, glaring up at the creature.
Shield of Baal: Deathstorm Page 11