The War for Rynn's World - Steve Parker & Mike Lee

by Warhammer 40K

  Kantor turned to Diaz. 'And you said that the labourers were under light guard?'

  The Sternguard nodded. 'Six to eight orks from the big camp. No more. And they're paying no attention to the tunnel approaches. We could sweep in and wipe out the lot of them in less than a minute.'

  'A very inviting target,' the Chapter Master agreed.

  Phrenotas caught the tone in Kantor's voice. 'You think it's an ambush,' he said.

  'I think this ork leader is smart,' Kantor replied. 'I suspect it's been working in the background for some time now, gaining its strength and waiting for an opportunity to assert itself. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if this is the ork that is responsible for these tunnels, for surrounding us during the attack on the main camp, and for the change in tactics back on the hilltop, weeks ago. It's been advising the warbosses all along. Fortunately for us, the bosses only listened when things became desperate.'

  Phrenotas considered this, and nodded slowly. 'I'm looking for­ward to meeting this ork.' he said grimly.

  'What shall we do?'

  'We wait until the end of the work shift,' Kantor said. 'Then we break out the barrels.'

  FOUR HOURS LATER, the work on tunnel five came to a halt. Ork guards bellowed at their starving labourers, chivvying them along with curses and kicks as they were lined up and led back to camp for the day.

  Mumbling and grunting, the labourers shuffled down the long tunnel, exhausted from hours of frustrating, impossible work. The guards were bored and none too hungry themselves, looking for­ward to returning to camp and filling their bellies with whatever was roasting on the spit that evening.

  None of them saw the ambush coming.

  The Crimson Fists knew the exact route the orks would take back to the labourers' camp, and chose their ambush point well. As the work party passed through the same large cave where the Space Marines had sealed off tunnel five weeks before, Sergeant Daecor and his reduced squad attacked the group from two sides. Bundles stick bombs were tossed from the side tunnels, filling the cave with storm of razor-edged shrapnel; then the Space Marines raked the stunned and wounded orks with savage bursts of automatic fire. The staccato roar of gunshots echoed down the connecting tunnels, punctuated by orkish screams of rage.

  The sounds of battle travelled far, funnelled by the winding pas­sageways to the primary ork camp. The mob was on its feet at once and racing towards the noise. Few had believed their new boss's suspicions of hard-shells hiding inside the tunnels, but now there was no doubt. It was time to spring the trap!

  The camp emptied out in less than a minute. Kantor and the Sternguard waited another minute more, then crept into the cavern from a side tunnel and went to work.

  THE ORK AMBUSHERS reached the site of Daecor's attack within minutes, coining upon a cavern choked with smoke from grenade blasts and gunfire. They waded into the murk, guns blazing, only to discover that their foes had long since broken off their attack and withdrawn into the maze of tunnels. They left behind fifteen dead orks and ten more injured, a number that increased to almost twenty when the would-be ambushers accidentally traded shots with the labour crew in the smoke and the confusion.

  The new warboss restored order quickly, however, ordering the surviving labourers to take their dead and badly wounded back to their camp. Then small groups of orks were sent off into the tunnels in hopes of catching the attackers, but to no avail. After two hours of fruitless pursuit, the warboss ordered its warriors back to camp.

  THE CAVERN HAD been in use by one ork mob or another for some time. High-ceilinged and roughly thirty metres across, its stone floor was covered in refuse and bits of discarded rubbish. A trio of smoul­dering cook fires in the centre of the cavern filled the space with a thin haze of greasy, bitter smoke. Patches of luminescent mould splashed across the walls and ceiling lent the cavern an eerie yellow-green glow.

  There were a total of four passageways connecting the cavern with the rest of the tunnel network. Kantor and the Sternguard chose to make their stand in front of one that lay nearly opposite the entrance that led to tunnel number five.

  The first orks that came stomping into the cavern were cut down in a storm of full-auto fire. Bellows of shock and rage erupted from the rest of the mob; they surged towards the sound of the guns, shouldering the bodies of the dead aside in their eagerness to get at the Space Marines.

  Scores of greenskins poured into the cavern, filling the space and blazing away with their guns as they charged at the eight Crimson Fists. Kantor and the Sternguard held their ground, dropping one xenos after another with short, rattling bursts.

  'Get ready!' Kantor called over the vox when the orks were half­way across the cavern. 'Phrenotas?'

  The veteran sergeant stood to Kantor's left. Firing one-handed, he pulled out his auspex unit. 'Ready!'

  Ork rounds buzzed and snapped through the air around the Space Marines. Several of the veterans staggered under multiple hits; other shots passed by and ricocheted from the cavern walls Kantor let out a grunt as one shot struck him in the chest and punched through a weak point in his breastplate. He coughed, tasting blood.

  When the orks were three-quarters of the way across the cavern, the Chapter Master called out, 'Back! Fall back!'

  At once, the Space Marine line contracted upon itself. One at a time, the Crimson Fists would loose a burst at the orks, then duck into the passageway behind them. Kantor and Phrenotas were the last. The fire around them intensified as the orks ran out of other targets to shoot at.

  Kantor felt shots hit him twice more: once in the leg, and then in the side of his helmet. Then sparks flew around Phrenotas as a half-dozen rounds struck home. One shot punched cleanly through the sergeant's left knee. He let out a sharp cry and collapsed onto his side.

  The Chapter Master emptied his gun and threw it at the greenskins for good measure. The orks were almost on top of them. He bent down and seized Phrenotas's backpack and dragged him back­wards, into the tunnel. 'Now, sergeant!' he ordered.

  Phrenotas obeyed without thinking. Still firing, his left thumb stabbed down on the unit's blinking, red button.

  The five fuel drums that the Crimson Fists had carried with them into the tunnels had been laid on their sides and arrayed in a wide arc against the back wall of the cavern. The orks were so intent on catching their foes that they did not realise their danger until the packed explosives inside each drum detonated. In addition to the explosives, each container had been filled with pounds of jagged metal and stones, transforming them into mas­sive grenades.

  The blasts shook the cavern like hammer blows. Clouds of dust and grit poured into the tunnel, until Kantor feared that the ceil­ing might cave in. But the tremors passed within moments, leaving behind a smoke-wrought stillness that reminded Kantor of the seconds after a devastating artillery barrage.

  Now was the time to strike, while the enemy was stunned and reeling. Kantor activated his power fist. 'Follow me, brothers!' he said to the Sternguard, and rushed back into the cavern.

  Inside was a scene from some ancient, human hell. The floor of the cavern in a wide arc beyond the tunnel was carpeted in torn flesh and shattered bone. Blood splashed the rock walls as far as ten metres from the blast area, and streamers of gore hung from the arched ceiling. The first few ranks of greenskins had simply been obliterated by the blast, transformed instantly into shreds of scorched meat.

  Further back, there were bodies heaped upon the stone floor, rid­dled by the hail of high-velocity shrapnel. The only survivors of the mob had been at the very rear of the crowd, shielded from most of the concussion and the fragments by the bodies of their mates. No more than a dozen of the seventy orks who had entered the cavern were still on their feet, clustered in a loose group just a few metres from the opposite passageway.

  Deafened and concussed as they were, the orks still tried to put up a fight. The Space Marines crashed into them at a full run, slashing and stabbing with their combat knives. Kantor decapi­tated one greenskin wi
th a sweep of his power fist, then shattered the chest of another. One of the Sternguard let out a roar of pain and fell to his knees with an ork axe buried in his chest, even as the Space Marine spilled his enemy's guts with a sweep of his knife. The last two greenskins, overwhelmed by the Space Marines' furious assault, threw down their weapons and tried to run, but scarcely made it to the mouth of the tunnel before the Sternguard cut them down.

  The fight had lasted scarcely a minute. Kantor turned about, sur­veying the devastation. Where in all this was the ork warboss?

  He turned back to the orks he and the veterans had just killed. They had been surrounding a small pile of bodies. Frowning thoughtfully, he bent and began dragging the corpses apart.

  Near the bottom of the pile was a greenskin of notable size. The brute lay spread-eagled on its back, eyes wide, with a neat, round hole in his forehead. Kantor grabbed the xenos by his armoured jacket and dragged him aside.

  A smaller ork lay beneath the brute. Kantor caught a flash of curved, steel skull-plate and the red glint of an augmetic eye, then found himself staring into the cavernous bore of a xenos blaster.

  The world disappeared in a flash of bright red and a brutal crack of thunder. Kantor felt a jolt run through his armour, and a bright blue icon flared in his helmet display. The iron halo, one of his Chapter's few remaining relics, had activated a split-second before he was struck. The momentary energy field deflected the blaster bolt, sparing him from certain death.

  The hand of Dorn the primarch was upon him! Kantor felt a rush of righteous joy. He leapt forwards, smashing the blaster into pieces with a swipe of his power fist. His left hand closed about the ork's throat.

  Kantor stared down at his foe. The greenskin was small for a typi­cal ork - far smaller than a warboss had any right to be. The ork glared back at him, baring its teeth in a snarl, and Kantor saw the hateful intellect burning in the depths of its living eye.

  Was this a future Snagrod, Kantor thought? Another Arch-Arsonist of Charadon, who would dream of putting Rynn's World to the torch in years to come?

  In fifty of your years a shadow of their making will rise to envelop this area of space which, unopposed, shall be the doom of your people and mine.

  Kantor drew back his power fist. He wondered what new future the eldar would see when he was done.

  THERE WAS A muffled clap of thunder, and a shower of rock and dirt burst from the mouth of the tunnel. Moments later, Pedro Kantor emerged into the hazy sunlight, bits of molten stone dripping from his fingertips.

  'It is done,' Sethyr said. She stood upon a shadowy ledge high upon Darkridge, surrounded by Shaniel and her rangers. 'Kantor has triumphed. Alaitoc has escaped its tragic fate.'

  Sighs of gladness rose from the assembled rangers. Shaniel knelt, smiling, and raised her long rifle to her shoulder. She laid the aiming point onto Kantor's forehead.

  She was forestalled by a light touch upon her shoulder.

  'Stay your hand, pathfinder.'

  The ranger frowned. 'Why, farseer? A common foe does not make us friends. Kantor is a fearsome warrior. Better he die here than face us on a battlefield in years to come.'

  Sethyr leaned lightly upon her spear. She could feel the threads of fate shifting about her, the weft and weave altering to account for the severing of the ork leader's thread. A new web was woven in place of the old.

  'Kantor's end lies elsewhere,' the farseer said. Her fists tightened about the haft of her witchblade. 'He will die at the hands of another, and his foe will perish with him. I have foreseen it.' She turned to the rangers, her expression hidden behind her inscrutable war-mask. 'Our task here is done. The craftworld beckons, o saviours. Let us depart.'

  Shaniel stared at Kantor down the scope of her long rifle for a moment longer, then acquiesced with a gentle sigh. Sure-footed and silent, the rangers withdrew. Sethyr Tuannan remained until the last, watching the Crimson Fists making their way slowly down the gorge. Kantor had removed his battered helm, his care-worn face turned up to the sky. For the moment, the haggard warrior seemed to be at peace.

  As the Space Marines passed below her, she raised her spear in a silent farewell.

  'Until we meet again,' the farseer said.

  And then she was gone.

  FOR THE FALLEN

  by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  The necronomer walked in silence through the city of the dead – spiritual capital of a worthless world. His aide walked behind him, trudging at the programmed three paces, muttering to itself as it panned left and right with the imagifier built into one eye. The servitor’s murmurs were disrespectful but unavoidable. Its propensity to mutter was one of many behavioural tics it had picked up in the thirty-nine years since Esca first purchased it from a junk trader on his homeworld.

  Its limp was another. It walked in a ragged un-rhythm, its bionic leg never quite bending enough for fully agreeable perambulation. Instead, Esca was forced to listen to it thud on the stone as it dragged its augmetic leg in an ungainly half-stride.

  ‘Adjusting to compensate for light saturation,’ the servitor mumbled. Esca heard the mechanical purrs in its neck as it tilted its head. ‘Angle adjustment complete. Secondary memory spools at forty-seven per cent capacity. ‘

  ‘Yes,’ Esca replied beneath his breath. ‘Whatever you say, Solus.’

  Solus had been the name given to him by the trader, to use when commanding the servitor. Esca could have paid to reprogram it at some point down the years – it wasn’t as if the lobotomised bionic slave was going to object – but he felt strangely guilty about the idea.

  The necronomer pulled his hood up against the bitter wind. Even the breeze smelled of ash on this world. Some stains needed more than a handful of years to fade.

  If, he thought, they ever fade at all.

  He walked to the first of the grave markers lining the next avenue. The warrior depicted here was yet another towering god, carved from black stone, rendered faceless by a neutral, noble helm. The statue stood atop a plinth of white-veined black marble, quarried off-world and brought here for the holiest of purposes. Twenty such statues lined every avenue in the city of the dead. A memoriam site for the Adeptus Astartes and, occasionally, a place of pilgrimage for scholars such as himself.

  Esca knelt down before the bronze plaque, pressing a page of parchment over the inscribed letters. Solus was tasked to record every name and citation, but Esca liked to take his own notes from time to time. It gave him something of substance to present to his peers. A necronomer’s duty was easy enough, but difficult to do well. It was all about remembering what mattered. Emotional truth, that was what mattered. Not just names in a list.

  He started rubbing the charcoal stick over the warrior’s written deeds, tracing them onto the parchment and trying to ignore the ache in his knees. As usual, he found himself pretending he was still young enough to kneel down without making the same grunts and sighs his father used to make doing the very same thing.

  That was when he first heard the footsteps.

  Esca looked up, forcing weak eyes to stare down the avenue. Five figures, five statues come to life, were stalking towards him. Their strides ate the distance in a matter of moments.

  ‘Hail,’ said the first of them, the one dressed in black. His helmet’s facemask was a sculpted skull, red-eyed and grinning with the secrets of the grave.

  ‘I… I…’ Esca’s throat wobbled as he tried to speak and swallow at the same time. ‘I… I…’

  ‘A gifted conversationalist,’ said one of the others – the one with the bandolier of malformed xenos-breed skulls. The giant warriors shared a chuckle that left their helms’ mouth grilles as a vox-crackling rumble.

  ‘I…’ Esca said again. ‘I have a permit. A permit to be here.’

  Only one of the figures wore black armour. The others were clad in ceramite plating the colour of deep oceans on other, better, untainted worlds. One of them, the one whose armour was draped in a robed toga of rich red, leaned on a massive axe.<
br />
  ‘He has a permit,’ the axe-wielder said.

  ‘Impressive,’ voxed one of the others. His helm was white, and he wore a bulky gauntlet on one arm, complete with a clicking scanner and several tools that looked like flesh-drills and bonesaws. Esca had to tear his eyes away from the torture device. His hands trembled as he reached for his carrybag, fumbling for his printed-paper permit.

  ‘Enough,’ the warrior in black said. He had brutal, ornate war maul over one shoulder, inlaid with Gothic scripture. ‘My brothers meant no offence with their taunting words. This is Sergeant Demetrian, Brother Imrich, Brother Toma and Apothecary Vayne. And you are?’

  ‘Esca,’ he replied. ‘Esca of Teresh. A necronomer, lord. I came here for my order. I record the–’

  ‘I am aware of a necronomer’s duties, Esca of Teresh.’

  The old man’s hands were still trembling as he held out the permit. He hadn’t risen. He wasn’t sure his knees would allow it.

  ‘Here, lord. My permit. See.’

  ‘You do not need to show me any permit, Esca. And I am no lord. My rank is Chaplain. My name is Argo. Use either when addressing me. What brings you here?’

  The old man swallowed again, and gestured to the statue rising above him. ‘I record the fallen. Their names. Their deeds.’

  ‘That is not what I meant.’ The Chaplain reached up to his armoured collar, disengaging the seals there. Air pressure released in a sighing hiss, and he pulled the helm free. He was… young. Esca could scarcely believe it. Despite the warrior’s immense bulk, he seemed scarcely older than twenty or thirty.

  His eyes were pale blue, and curiously kind. ‘I mean,’ the Chaplain continued, his deep voice clear without the vox-crackle, ‘why have you come to Rynn’s World? Our fallen are recorded. They’ve been recorded many times over, in hundreds of archives.’

  Esca felt something like a blush taking hold. ‘This was as much a pilgrimage as a duty. I’ve always wanted to walk here, in the Necropolis, and see it with my own eyes. My order seeks out places of great mortis-resonance, of great emotion and memory. We… We collect memories of the dead. Iconic images. Untold lore. The moments that get forgotten, that never get recorded in traditional, sterile archives.’