Kantor lowered Dorn’s Arrow and flicked on the energy field of his power fist, feeling its lethal aura prick the skin of his arm as it crackled to life. All over the clearing, his Astartes were doing the same in a bid to conserve rounds. Cortez, Viejo and Segala each bore power fists of their own, and they employed them to deadly effect now, punching and ripping at anything that came within range. The other Fists carried long combat blades with monomolecular edges and cruel serrations. These they wielded with the cold efficiency that many decades of daily practice had given them. They slashed and stabbed at the arteries and vital organs of enemies who still could not see them.
The cover of the smoke wouldn’t last much longer. There was a slight breeze from the north-east and the veils of grey began to dissipate. How many of the orks had already fallen? Sixty? Seventy? Kantor didn’t know.
The nature of the battle changed. The smoke no longer offered adequate cover. Kantor cycled his visor back to standard vision mode and saw a huge, battle-scarred beast surging straight towards him with iron axes in both meaty hands. The beast roared as it came, mad red eyes burning with bloodlust. Kantor felt his centuries-honed combat instincts take over, moving him into position without conscious thought. He slipped the ork’s first whistling slash easily, stepped in, and caught the second on his left vambrace before it fell. For just an instant, he and the monster stood locked in that position, the creature’s breath sour and hot and utterly foul, reaching Kantor’s nose through the ducts in his faceplate. There were thick gobbets of brachiodont flesh lodged between the monster’s teeth, rotting remnants of its last meal.
‘Eat this instead,’ growled Kantor.
He threw his weight behind a deadly right uppercut, and heard the energy field of his power fist crack like a bolt of lightning. The blow caught the ork in the sternum and blew the entire contents of its torso out of a massive exit wound in its back. Red eyes rolled back in their sockets. Cored like an apple, the suddenly limp creature fell away from its killer, collapsing to the ground in a splash of wet gore.
Kantor stepped back and looked up. Close to the centre of the clearing, his battle-brothers were working together to exterminate the last of the ork fighters, cutting them down two- or three-to-one. Movement close to the jagged rent in the hull of the crashed ship caught Kantor’s eye. One squad, he saw, was about to go inside.
He didn’t have to check to know who was leading that squad.
‘Alessio,’ he said over the link.
The figure at the front of the squad turned for a moment. ‘Let me do this,’ said Cortez.
Kantor nodded. ‘Go.’
The squad disappeared inside the downed ship, and the Chapter Master turned to survey the rest of the camp. Many of the ork fires had been kicked over in the fighting. A few still burned. Two of those snapped and popped as they consumed the flesh of orks that had fallen on top of them.
Kantor turned his eyes to the cages in which the captured pilgrims were huddled. Some of those closest to the bars, he saw, had been caught in the firefight, their bodies perforated by stray shells from the ork stubbers. He heard the sound of sobbed denials as those close to them hugged the bodies close, desperately pleading with their fallen kin or spouses to hold on to life despite their wounds.
Kantor walked over to the nearest of the cages. The people inside shrunk back in fear, despite the fact that he had saved them and they surely knew what he was.
‘Stand back,’ he told them, though he hardly needed to.
He reached forward with his power fist, grabbed a hold of the spiked and rusty iron bars, and ripped the cage open.
This done, he looked down at the people he and his Astartes had just saved.
‘Exit the cage and gather in the centre of the clearing,’ he boomed at them. ‘I am Pedro Kantor, Lord Hellblade, Chapter Master of the Crimson Fists. Do as I say. You are safe now. I will free the others.’
The crashed ork craft was not all that large, but its corridors and chambers had been built to accommodate beings taller and broader than Alessio Cortez, and he and his squad moved easily along them, bolters up, clearing room after dimly lit room. Mostly, they found only gretchin working busily with wrenches and hammers on pieces of weird and inexplicable machinery. These they dispatched with knives or gauntleted hands, running them through or twisting their heads from their necks before they could scramble for shelter.
They found only a few full-grown orks. Most of the larger brutes had been outside when the assault took place. Those left within were strapped to gurneys, apparently recovering from some kind of bizarre surgery. It explained why they hadn’t rushed out to join the battle. One of these had a second grotesque head grafted to its left shoulder, the crude stitching clearly visible even in the low light. It appeared to be unconscious. Cortez jammed his knife between its vertebrae, severing the critical nerves, making sure it never woke up. Another of the orks, not quite unconscious but still groggy, had an extra pair of thick, muscular arms grafted onto its hips. The appearance of the Crimson Fists roused it, and it struggled against its bonds to rise and engage them. Brother Benizar stepped in and plunged his knife into its throat. Brother Rapala joined him and, together, they cut the beast to pieces.
Soon, the corridor they were following ended in a broad archway through which bright light could be seen. Cortez, out in front as usual, held up a hand, and his squad halted. ‘Listen,’ he told them over the link.
There was a strange sound coming from the well-lit chamber up ahead. It was a sound that didn’t belong here, almost a human sound, but issuing from inhuman lips. There was something else, too – the sound of muffled crying, as if someone was sobbing through a gag. Cortez crept forward as quietly as possible and, from the cover of the archway, peered into the chamber beyond.
Cables and pipes hung from overhead in great tangles. The floor, which had been the ceiling before the craft landed on its back, was littered with broken sections of pipe, metal plates, snapped stanchions and a collection of instruments, the purpose of which Cortez couldn’t begin to guess at. And there, in the centre of all this, he saw a bizarre and terrible scene.
There was a single ork in the middle of the room, and it was humming a tuneless melody to itself as it sharpened a large scalpel on a whetstone. It wore a long tunic which had perhaps once been white, but which was now so soaked and stained with blood that it wasn’t easy to be sure anymore.
The beast looked like a twisted parody of an Imperial medicae. Perhaps it had seen members of the medicae on its travels through the galaxy and had realised that their attire symbolised their profession. Had it sought to emulate them? Perhaps it had simply picked the tunic up somewhere and had donned it arbitrarily. Whatever the reason, it was clear that this monster was responsible for the two-headed ork Cortez and his squad had found earlier, not to mention the other monstrosities.
It was also clear that this beast was responsible for the faceless human corpses that hung from the branches of the trees outside. Cortez could tell this immediately from looking at the ork’s face. Where an Imperial medicae would have worn a surgical mask to do his work, this creature wore the facial flesh of its last victim. The effect was horrifying. The fleshy mask was still wet with the victim’s blood.
The muffled whimper sounded again, and Cortez turned his eyes to the source. Strapped tight to a table in front of the strange ork surgeon, a human male of about twenty years old struggled against his restraints. His mouth was indeed gagged, but his eyes were wide as the ork turned, scalpel in hand, and approached him.
Cortez turned from the scene and handed his bolt pistol to the battle-brother behind him. It was Fenestra. ‘Hold this,’ he said. ‘I won’t be needing it for now.’
Fenestra took the pistol and looked back at Cortez. ‘What are you going to do?’
Cortez moved out from the shadow of the archway and stepped into the chamber, letting the bright electric light show him in all his lethal glory.
The ork had been about to make its f
irst incision in the trapped human’s face. But, with Cortez making his presence known, it looked up from its work and gave a snarl of fury. It abandoned the scalpel for a nasty looking buzzsaw and moved around the operating table towards Cortez, its intentions clear.
Cortez dropped into a combat stance.
‘I’m going to rip this filth limb from limb,’ he told Fenestra.
And that was exactly what he did.
Cortez emerged from the hull of the ork transport and strode over to Kantor’s side where he stood talking to the leader of the pilgrims they had rescued from the cages.
The haggard refugees looked up at Cortez in horror. Drenched as he was in the blood of his enemies, he looked like some kind of death god fresh from the pit, and he would have terrified almost anyone.
‘The craft has been cleared,’ he reported to the Chapter Master coolly.
Kantor glanced over at his old friend, noting the state of his armour, then merely nodded.
Brother Benizar brought the man Cortez had rescued from the operating table forward, and a woman rose from the ground and raced towards him to embrace him, calling his name between great sobs of relief.
The Space Marines ignored the joyful reunion, but the grateful woman insisted on throwing herself before Benizar and kissing the back of his right gauntlet. Fenestra and Rapala, who were just behind him, laughed out loud, and Benizar pulled his hand from the woman’s grasp, saying, ‘It is the captain you should thank, woman.’
He gestured at Cortez, and the woman turned eagerly to lavish her gratitude on the one who had saved her husband. But, when she saw the gore-splashed figure to which Benizar was referring, she balked and knelt where she was, muttering her thanks over and over, not daring to lift her eyes.
Cortez paid her no heed whatsoever.
‘This,’ said Kantor, addressing him, ‘is Menaleos Dasat, the leader of this group.’ The Chapter Master gestured to a skinny old man in stained brown robes. Despite all the man had clearly been through, there was something strong about his bearing, if not his body. ‘Dasat was guiding them to the shrine of Saint Ivestra,’ continued Kantor, ‘following the old path on foot, when the orks ambushed them. Dasat, this is Captain Alessio Cortez, Master of the Charge, commander of the Crimson Fists Fourth Company.’
Dasat pressed his forehead to the ground, then sat back on his calves and said, ‘I am unworthy even to kneel before you, my lord.’
Cortez gave only the briefest of nods by way of greeting, then turned his eyes back to Kantor. ‘We should be away from here. There is still a long way to go.’
At that moment, Sergeant Viejo appeared from the clearing’s eastern edge, leading Jilenne with her children in tow. Prior to the assault on the camp, Kantor had ordered the woman to remain behind, sheltering beneath the roots of an ebonwood tree. He hadn’t needed to tell her twice. She knew the moment she saw the Astartes readying their weapons that there were orks in the vicinity. She and her children had waited, scarcely daring to breath until someone came back to fetch them. Viejo carried the two smallest children in his arms.
The Chapter Master turned Dasat’s attention towards them and said, ‘This woman and her children were also rescued from the xenos. They are not pilgrims, but you will show them the depths of your kindness. They have suffered much as you have.’
Dasat bowed again. ‘All the faithful are one under the Imperial creed,’ he said. ‘We will embrace them as if they were our own, my lord. To think that children so young…’
He let the words hang.
‘How long will it take your people to get ready, Dasat?’ Kantor asked. ‘We can waste no time. Other ork parties may have heard the gunfire.’
The mention of this possibility seemed to put fresh energy into the tired-looking refugees. ‘We have nothing, lord,’ said Dasat. ‘We are ready to follow at your command. But we have not eaten since our capture, and the water they gave us was foul with their waste. We could not drink it. I’m afraid we are very weak.’
Kantor called Sergeant Segala over to his side.
‘Sergeant, how long would it take you to find something these people could eat?’
Segala barely thought about it for an instant. ‘There are fruiting trees nearby. Ground pears and aberloc.’
‘Good,’ said Kantor. ‘Dasat, send some of your people with Sergeant Segala here. He will lead them to food. They must bring back enough for everyone, and extra for the journey ahead.’
To Segala he said, ‘We can spare only minutes for this, sergeant. Make haste.’
Segala clashed a fist on his breastplate. ‘By your command, lord.’ Then he turned and began striding towards the edge of the clearing. Dasat called out several names, and figures hurried from the group to follow the massive Space Marine.
Jilenne and her children had joined the group now, and the female pilgrims were making a great fuss over them. Dasat smiled as he watched.
‘I will leave you to become acquainted,’ said Kantor, turning from the little man. He gestured for Cortez to walk with him.
Behind them, Dasat pressed his head to the ground again, then turned and rose to introduce himself to Jilenne.
‘Did you see it?’ Kantor asked Cortez. ‘It is quite remarkable, yes?’
Cortez detected unexpected pain in the Chapter Master’s voice. ‘I’m sorry, Pedro,’ he said. ‘Did I see what?’
Kantor angled his head to look at him while they walked. ‘The resemblance, Alessio. The resemblance. This man, this Dasat… he reminds me so much of Ramir that I had to look twice to be sure I wasn’t seeing things.’
Now Cortez understood the pain in his old friend’s voice.
‘I’m sorry, brother,’ he said, ‘but I don’t see it. The Ordinator was easily twice that man’s size.’ He paused. ‘And Ramir Savales would have died fighting with his bare hands rather than let the orks take him alive.’
Kantor was taken aback at the anger he detected in that last sentence. He stopped and faced the captain.
‘Do you detest them, Alessio?’ he asked. ‘Do you hate them because they cling to life so desperately?’
‘I do not hate them,’ said Cortez. ‘But they are another burden on us now. I admit that the woman and the children were my doing, Pedro. I wish it were otherwise. But now we are shepherding almost thirty people, none of whom are even armed. Where will you draw the line?’
Kantor answered through lips drawn tight. ‘There was a line, Alessio. Remember that. There was a line, and it was you who crossed it. Now we are responsible for these people, and you will protect them. You will honour the name Rogal Dorn, and you will honour me.’
As he turned and strode away from Cortez, he had one last thing to say.
‘Get your squad ready, captain. You are on point.’
Menaleos Dasat was awed and terrified at the same time, but he dared not show the latter for fear of insulting his saviours. All his life, he had preached the Imperial creed to any who would listen. He was no Ecclesiarch, just the son of a simple farmer, but his faith in the Emperor of Mankind was a powerful thing, and over the years he had drawn others about him, others who needed more in their lives, needed something to believe in, something to give their labours a grander purpose.
Dasat had grown up in a crop-harvesting settlement just north of Sagarro, on the provincial border between Inpharis and Rynnland. In his early years, he had often travelled to the towns and cities with his father. The trips were usually for the purpose of negotiating with buyers and exporters, but his father had always made time to give praise in the Imperial temples while they were there. In those days, it seemed that images and statuary of the Crimson Fists were everywhere, and the young Dasat had marvelled at them, finding it difficult to imagine what such beings would be like in life. Now he knew.
He had never imagined, not once in all his sixty-eight years, that he would speak to the Chapter Master, Lord Hellblade himself. He hoped he had covered the tremors he had felt on addressing that grim, austere giant. Perhaps the
Chapter Master had taken it as the palsied shudders of old age, rather than fear.
Such a face that one had! So hard and angular. And those deep-set, hard and cold like a mountain winter.
Dasat was unused to fear. He had always lived secure in the knowledge that the Emperor had a plan, and all men were a part of it. He had believed his part was to live and die as a farmer who, in his spare evenings, took the good word wherever it might be received. When he had been approached by a group of the faithful who wanted him to lead a pilgrimage to Ivesta’s Shrine, he had been flattered and had even seen the honour as his due in a way. The group looked up to him with such respect. No man could have walked away from that. It was the greatest feeling of his life… for a time.
Then the nightmare began. Beyond the treetops, the pilgrims had glimpsed snatches of the fires in the sky. They had heard the roar from the Hellblade Mountains, and had seen night turned to day by the flash in the east. The others had turned to Dasat for answers, their fear all too plain. But he had had no answers, so he told them they should continue. Had he been wrong? No. The pilgrimage had been a worthy endeavour. He could not have lived with himself to have come so far only to turn back for causes unknown. It was shortly after that, an hour before the party was due to strike camp, that the monsters had exploded from the forest, swarming on the group, butchering a score before anyone even realised what was going on.
Dasat had heard of orks, but his knowledge was limited to the content of the traditional cautionary tales his father had told him as a boy. Small children heard such tales and were afraid, and their parents would tell them, ‘Pray to the Emperor every night, work hard in His name, and he will protect you.’ As he had grown older, Dasat had made the mistake of taking such stories less seriously. No one he knew had ever seen a xenos of any kind. Without experience to contradict him, he had started to think man’s dominion over the galaxy absolute.
The War for Rynn's World - Steve Parker & Mike Lee Page 23