[Dawn of War 02] - Ascension

by C. S. Goto - (ebook by Undead)

  “Krayem—check that the geller-field is operational and reinforce its phase variance over the prow,” snapped the sergeant, wondering whether the unusual enemy was really using pulses of the warp as weapons.

  “Give me torpedoes. Give me all the torpedoes!” he yelled.

  The corridor in front of the Implantation Chamber was alive with purple fire and the crackling energy discharge that lashed out of the librarians. Zhapel was an inferno of motion, sweeping his force-axe into spins and arcs, slicing through the reaching tentacles of warp that quested for purchase around his limbs. Meanwhile, Korinth spun his staff above his head, spilling gouts of flame and power through the corridor like a critical centrifuge—where the shards of loose energy sunk into the warp tendrils, they shrivelled and withdrew back into the walls. And Rhamah remained implacable in front of the heavy, armoured doors to the chamber itself, blue fire dancing across the nodules in his psychic hood and lashes of flame leaping from his fingertips.

  The daemonic energies in the walls were struggling to reach resolution, aspiring into congealed pools in the metal structure of the passageway, screaming and cackling with the frustrated desire to find birth in the material confines of the Litany of Fury. But the librarians shattered and dispersed the energies, ruining their patterns before they could resolve themselves properly. Ghostly shapes reached into the corridor, covering the walls in the suggestions of faces and limbs, as though daemonic souls were fighting each other for a place in the light.

  Nothing shall pass! Yelled the voice of Zhaphel, directly into the minds of the Marines as the Devastator squad took up firing positions along the middle of the corridor itself, facing the walls on both sides and dousing them with flames.

  As they fought, tendrils of power started to course through the floor, like burning, purple veins. They flowed down the passageway under the boots of the Marines, heading for the doors at the end of the corridor, before which stood the magnificent figure of Rhamah, alive with psychic power of his own.

  By the time the Devastators noticed the daemonic flow under their feet, the veins had already started to wrap and mesh around their boots, rooting them into the deck. Meanwhile, great sheets of energy poured out of Rhamah’s psychic hood and his fingertips, gushing down onto the floor and forming a pool of power that checked the advance of the daemonic flows, flooding the end of the corridor with his own energy.

  After a few seconds, Korinth and Zhaphel realised that the tendrils in the middle of the corridor were getting weaker and fewer, as though their power was being drained by efforts elsewhere. Looking back down the passageway, they saw the veins coruscating through the floor, enwrapping the feet of the Devastators and questing forward towards Rhamah and the Implantation Chamber beyond. In an instant they understood what was happening, and they broke into a run, storming back down the corridor towards their librarian brother, hacking and slicing through the tendrils that dragged at their armour, seeking to slow their progress.

  But the pool of warp energy that was collecting in front of Rhamah was already too big. It was drawing in all the tendrils from the corridor, concentrating them and mixing them into a single, nauseating reservoir of warp. It was flooding out over the floor, sheening like an oil slick, and from its heart there reached arms and talons, as though it were a doorway into the warp itself.

  Like an inevitable tide, the waves of the pool lapped out towards the feet of Rhamah, who still stood unmoving on its coast, a breakwater barring its progress towards the Implantation Chamber, psychic lashes flashing out from the amplifier arrays in his hood, holding back the waves with sheer will power. But the pool was growing and edging closer with each second.

  By now, the Devastator squad had also realised that their enemy was slipping away from them, oozing along the floor under their feet. As Korinth and Zhaphel stormed past them, they turned together and saw what was happening at the end of the corridor: Rhamah was ablaze with psychic brilliance, like a human angel standing guardian before the great doors of the Implantation Chamber. His arms were held out to his sides and his eyes burned with unearthly power, as blinding blue energy flowed out of his embrace, crashing down into the daemonic pool at his feet. As far as they could tell, the librarian had still not moved his boots.

  Just as the eyes of the entire squad fell on him, Rhamah looked up to check on the proximity of his librarian-brothers, the burning light in his eyes flickering for a moment; they were charging towards him, but were still a few seconds away. As though making up his mind in that instant, Rhamah lowered his left hand and pointed a great blast of energy down into the pool. At the same time, he lifted his right arm above his head and grasped the hilt of his ornate force-sword, lifting it slowly and deliberately out of its holster on his back. He flipped it in his hand until its point faced vertically down in front of him.

  “No!” yelled the storming figure of Zhaphel as he saw what Rhamah was about to do.

  With a flicker, the enormous power of Rhamah’s psychic onslaught faltered and blinked out, as he clasped the hilt of his force-sword into both hands. Immediately, the waves of warp from the pool at his feet started to wash forwards, lapping at the toes of his boots.

  “No!” cried Korinth as he charged forwards, knowing that he could not reach his battle-brother in time.

  With a flash and a cry, Rhamah drove his blade down into the deck in front of him, pushing it through the pool of warp energy and plunging its length into the metal panels below.

  A tremendous, blinding explosion of light blasted through the corridor, knocking Korinth and Zhaphel off their feet as they ran, and forcing the Devastators to lean into the torrent. Then, as the light faded, they saw the radiant figure of Rhamah on one knee, his hands still clasped around the hilt of his sword, the end of which was still submerged in the deck. The daemonic pool raged and bubbled around him, spitting fragments of purple fire into the air as grotesque arms reached out and grasped at the librarian’s limbs.

  The daemonic forces keened and shrieked in a final effort, flinging tentacles and tendrils around the dramatic form of Rhamah, enveloping him in lashes of purple flame. Finally, he stood to his feet and pulled his sword clear of the pool, holding it up in front of him, touching its blade to his forehead in a salute to his battle-brothers. Then he vanished, yanked down through the pool-portal itself, dragging the tendrils and reaching limbs of the daemonic forces with him. As he disappeared from view, the warp pool and the veins of power seemed to be sucked after him, like matter into a vacuum, leaving the corridor suddenly quiet and immaculately clean once again.

  Korinth and Zhaphel climbed back to their feet and stared at the last few metres that separated them from the doors to the Implantation Chamber. The space was completely empty, and they bowed their heads in despair and pride as an awed silence coursed through the passageway.

  Pain spiked through his shoulder as he reeled backwards. The mon-keigh’s weapon was clumsy and slow, but it packed a real punch, realised Laeresh, as he let the force of the impact turn him and knock him off his feet. There was no point in trying to resist such force: he dropped his other shoulder and rolled with the blast.

  As he returned to his feet, Laeresh caught a glimpse of red out of the corner of his eye and he dived instantly into another roll, tugging his power-sword out of its holster as he turned head over heels. The instant his feet hit the ground, he pivoted on the spot, spinning with his sword held out horizontally, defining an elegant killing zone around him. But the sword found no target.

  The huge shape of the Blood Ravens Terminator stood just out of range of his sword, its spluttering gun held forward in an approximate aim. As he watched, Laeresh saw the pistol cough and a single shell flash out of its barrel towards him. Instinctively, the exarch twitched his shoulder to twist his body aside and to bring his own reaper cannon back into play but a sharp pain reminded him that his shoulder was already shredded. As he winced, the shell punched into the body of his own weapon, detonating against the metallic material of his ca
nnon and shattering it into a spray of black shards. The impact knocked him back, pushing him off balance and sending him crashing to the ground on his back.

  Rolling backwards, Laeresh pushed his legs over his head and flipped back up onto his feet, his blade held out in front of him to keep the massive Terminator at bay. But the huge, human machine-warrior was already charging forward. It stepped inside Laeresh’s killing zone and swatted his blade aside with a crackling powerfist, snatching its gun-barrel up into Laeresh’s face and squeezing the trigger from point-blank rage.

  But Laeresh was not finished yet. Rather than retreating under the onslaught, the exarch dropped and dived forward, letting the bolter shell sizzle over his head as he lanced his sword into the heavily armoured leg of the Terminator. The blade dragged over the surface of the armour, scoring through the outer layers but failing to dig in. Nonetheless, the diving weight of Laeresh’s body smashed into the mon-keigh’s knees and knocked its legs out from beneath it.

  Both warriors crashed to the ground, stunned by the impacts and by the sudden change in the duel’s range. Laeresh was first back on his feet, but his poise was off and his shredded shoulder had been completely ruined by the impact against the Terminator’s legs. He held his sword out in one hand, pointing its blade at the struggling form of the massive machine-warrior that was trying to clamber back onto its feet. Its huge bulk was to its detriment in the soft sand.

  This is no time for pity, realised Laeresh as he watched the travails of his worthy opponent. “War is my master,” he hissed, staggering forward towards the vulnerable mon-keigh. “Death is my mistress,” he cried, raising his sword above his head for the deathblow.

  His elevated blade glinted with a burst of crimson as it caught the desert sun, just before it flashed down towards the neck of the struggling human warrior, leaving an arc of red light in its wake.

  As the blade dropped, Laeresh grinned, turning his top lip into a snarl. Perhaps this mon-keigh monstrosity was not such a threat to him after all: death is my mistress.

  The blade bit down into the Terminator’s armour, sparking and spitting with power. But it did not cut through the ancient panels. At the same time, the human warrior abandoned his fight to stand up and let himself fall back into the sand, turning over onto its back as it fell. In one smooth movement, he reached up with its powerfist and grasped Laeresh’s blade, tugging him down towards the ground. Simultaneously, it brought up its gun, pushing it into Laeresh’s face and clicking the trigger.

  As his eyes opened wide and flashed with glorious defeat, the last thing that Laeresh heard was the warcry of his human foe: “For the Great Father and the Emperor!”

  The Astartes cruiser had pitched away from the Avenging Sword, presumably to bring its frontal arrays to bear against the wraithship, Eternal Star, which pulsed and flowed with energy on the other side of the human vessel. Uldreth had been confident that they had caught the mon-keigh in their crossfire, and for a few moments he struggled to understand the purpose of the alien cruiser’s manoeuvre. Then he saw the swooping shape of the Dark Reaper Void Dragon speeding in from out of the sun, and he understood: the humans were resigned to their deaths, and they were determined to take as many sacred eldar souls with them as they could.

  Despite his revulsion at the thought of losing precious waystones at the hands of the mon-keigh, Uldreth felt a tinge of admiration for the valour of the human fighters. He stamped it out quickly, as though it were a naked flame in the dark and dry forests of his soul.

  Las-fire poured out of the frontal lances of the Avenging Sword, now bursting into explosions and punching into the armour around the engine vents at the rear of the Astartes cruiser. All he had to do was wait for the Reaper’s Blade to scythe into the side of the human vessel, and that would mean the end of both the strike cruiser and the irritating Dark Reaper Void Dragon. Uldreth smiled uneasily at the prospect of ending so many problems so efficiently.

  As he watched, he saw the side batteries of the Space Marine cruiser open up against the sleek, incoming shape of the Reaper’s Blade, loosing torrents of torpedoes and las-fire directly into the speeding Dragon’s path, even as its frontal arrays unleashed an inferno of fire against the Eternal Star. At exactly the same moment, he saw the image of the second Astartes cruiser leering into view behind the Blade, spraying its engines with fire and strafing lines of explosions.

  The already-wounded black Dragon was slowing rapidly, as though its engines had virtually failed, and the second mon-keigh vessel was closing on it quickly. From his vantage point, Uldreth could see a line of explosions racing through the rear of the Dark Reapers’ ancient ship, and he suddenly realised that its death-charge might not reach the trapped mon-keigh cruiser.

  Checking the status of the Eternal Star one last time, Uldreth cursed the Dark Reapers and tore his own Avenging Sword away from the confrontation with the rear of the Space Marine cruiser. He had to shake the second vessel off the tail of the Reaper’s Blade so that its sacrifice would not be in vain—it had to be given the chance to charge into glorious death against the side of the mon-keigh warship.

  “Death is their mistress,” he muttered cynically as the Avenging Sword banked round and flashed off to intercept the predator on the Blade’s tail.

  No sooner had Uldreth pulled away than a cold wind blew through his soul, whispering faint agonies into his mind: death is my mistress. At first he thought it was merely a consequence of his own words. He had taken the sacred words of Maugan Ra in vain. But then he realised that the psychic voice was not his. Yet it was familiar to him, as though it spoke to something deep within his being, something lost, forgotten or misremembered.

  It was Laeresh. His cry resounded and echoed around Uldreth’s head, touching something profound and beautiful in his soul, sparking recollections of the times they had shared before they had ascended into the glorious visages of exarchs of Khaine. Before he could rationalise the unexpected wash of thoughts, Uldreth felt tears seeping out of his eyes. The Dark Reaper was dead. Somewhere down on the planet’s surface, Laeresh lay slain in the desert.

  As though sensing the abrupt flood of tragedy that pulsed out from the planet, the Reaper’s Blade seemed to slow even more, gradually falling to a stop, hanging in space between the frontal lances of the predator behind it and the side batteries of its own prey in front of it. The mon-keigh vessels, finding the dark Dragon unexpectedly prone and caught in their crossfire, loosed everything they had at the ancient and beautiful Void Dragon.

  No! thundered Uldreth’s thoughts. No! You know not what you do, humans!

  All at once, the shielding around the Blade collapsed, and the mon-keigh torpedoes tore into its hull, drilling their way in towards the power core. A series of smaller explosions shook the ship, sending plates of armour spiralling out into space. And then a colossal detonation blew the Reaper’s Blade in two, cracking it through the middle and breaking it like the branch of a tree.

  The physical explosion was immense, sending rings of shock waves and flame searing out through the star system. But the proportions of the psychic blast were incomparably terrible. The spirit pool of the ancient vessel contained the souls of thousands of eldar warriors, stored there in the hope that they would one day be reunited with their brethren in the infinity circuit of the lost craftworld of Altansar. Not for millennia had the Dark Reapers given their dark souls over to Biel-Tan, and for all those thousands of years they had collected themselves into their own spirit pool.

  Now those pristine souls were sent screaming out into the vacuum of space, skirting the abyss of the immaterium, clawing at the ledge of the material realm, desperately striving to keep themselves from the salivating jaws of the warp daemons that lay in wait on the other side, circling like sharks around a droplet of blood. The immense wave of shrieking and wailing souls crashed out of the wrecked ship and smashed across the planet below, smothering the atmosphere in psychic radiance, making the planet itself seem to shudder in horror.

&
nbsp; Gabriel leant into the boulder that blocked the tunnel and pushed it out into the sunlight beyond. It rolled freely for a few metres, dropping away down the slight incline that led into the arena of the grand Blood Ravens amphitheatre. The remaining members of the party squinted into the sudden flood of light as they walked out of the subterranean network at last.

  The Yngir lord is sleeping still, Gabriel, but we must all leave this place. Any further psychic disturbances may occasion their ascension, and we are no longer in a position to protect the galaxy from their icy wrath.

  The Blood Ravens captain turned to face the unspeakable, fragile beauty of the farseer once again. He looked into her eyes and saw the emerald fires burning with deep, passionate certainty. Ptolemea was by his side, and Jonas had already taken a few steps out into the arena. The surviving Celestians were glittering in glorious golds in the sunlight, one of them carrying their fallen Sister over her shoulder.

  Macha was weak and broken, slumped against the shoulder of one of her warlocks. Only one other warlock remained from her party, and Gabriel was fully aware of the favourable mathematics of the situation. If he wanted to, he could kill the aliens there and then, and Macha knew it. Was that why she now thought in such conciliatory tones? Was her present vulnerability the source of her apparent willingness to make an equal deal with the humans that she professed to despise? If she had really reset the psychic prison around the planet, why did they need to leave now? Gabriel’s mind raced with questions and suspicions, but he saw only sincerity and certainty in the farseer’s breathtaking eyes.

  As Gabriel considered his response, a flurry of movement in the rocks around the tunnel exit made him lift his bolter instinctively. Standing out of the rubble, partly concealed under the flickering camouflage of his cameleoline cloak, was the eldar ranger that Gabriel had captured last time he had been in the arena. He looked bruised and wounded, his armour was dirty and scratched and his cloak was ragged.