[Night Lords 01] - Soul Hunter

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden - (ebook by Undead)

  “Incoming transmission,” a servitor intoned from a wall console.

  The screen came alive again. This time, the face wasn’t Halasker’s, it was a dark helm with slanted eye lenses. The Astartes there inclined his head in greeting. Armour of black and gold shone in the flickering light of his own bridge.

  “Covenant of Blood. The Warmaster demands to know why you have still not recommitted your troops.”

  “Tell the Warmaster he will be losing this war without us, if he still aims to fight it. The Blood Angels have arrived, and more Imperial forces will be here soon.”

  “Silence, Dead One. Exalted, hear me. You know who I was, and who I am now. As the Eyes of the Warmaster, I speak with the Despoiler’s voice. Lord Abaddon cares nothing for the presence of the Sons of Sanguinius and their quaint fleet. He demands that the Covenant pull alongside the Vengeful Spirit in defensive formation.”

  “No.”

  “No? No? You will risk allowing them to board us?”

  The Exalted shook its horned head. “Ruven, you were once of the 10th yourself. So you know we will not comply. We are not enslaved to the Warmaster’s will. You know this as well as any other. Malcharion speaks the truth. Pull your own forces off Crythe before it’s too late.”

  “It is not that simple. We have committed much to the battle for Seventeen-Seventeen.”

  “Leave the mortals. Let them die. Who cares if they do not live to be slaughtered on another world in a later war? Recover your Astartes and be ready to engage the Blood Angels. Perhaps if we move quickly, we can decimate them before other Chapters fall out of the warp in support.”

  “We have Titans on that world. Thousands of Astartes. Hundreds of tanks. We are the Black Legion, not some shattered, impoverished horde weeping over its misfortunes and the memory of a martyred primarch.”

  The Exalted tongued its broken teeth again, feeling his veins ache with the need to see this bastard’s blood. Who was this wretch, this traitor, to speak of the Night Lords Legion in such a way…

  “If you will not comply,” Ruven said, “you will be fired upon for trying to flee.”

  “The Throne’s vengeance is here,” the Exalted spoke low. “My prophet insists more will arrive within hours. We will not be selling our lives to preserve yours. We will not be repeating our warnings again.”

  “Your prophet is unreliable. You have indicated as much yourself.”

  The Exalted grunted a breathy sigh. “That may be so. But he is my brother, and you are nothing more than a betrayer who fled to wear the black of Abaddon’s many failures. I trust his words, as I trusted my father’s.”

  With a too-long claw, the Exalted dragged a finger across its throat in the demand for silence. The servitor at the vox console killed the link.

  “Battle stations,” the Exalted said. “Be ready to disengage from the fleet.”

  The minutes passed with agonising slowness. More signifier runes appeared on the hololithic display as the minutes became hours. Vessels belonging to the Marines Errant, and the cousin Chapters of the Blood Angels—the Flesh Tearers and the Angels Vermillion—pulled alongside their fellows.

  The Exalted’s expert eyes roamed over the formation, seeing the possibilities playing out within his mind. Loose. Their formation was loose, as if the captains had no experience with one another, or any desire to work together. This may indeed have been true, for all the Exalted knew. Either way, it was an opening.

  They will come at us soon.

  He knew that because, had he commanded the gathering fleet, it would have been what he’d do. Strike hard, ramming the point of the lance through the heart of the Warmaster’s fleet. Such a gambit held grave risks and definite casualties. The Despoiler’s ships bristled with immense firepower, and still outnumbered the loyalist vessels.

  Strange, in truth. Not only had this approach been so masterfully masked, but the sense of opposition emerging between the two fleets was almost poetically startling. The advantage we hold is in the external force we can bring to hear against them. The advantage they hold is in the internal threat they bring. In a straight clash of vessels, the Throne’s Astartes would be annihilated. But no void war was ever so clearly defined. When boarding actions came into consideration, the Warmaster’s fleet would be lost.

  Distances within void conflict are matters of thousands and thousands of kilometres. As the runes depicting the enemy fleet began to blink and move, the Exalted rose to its full height and addressed Malcharion—the only other Astartes still in the room.

  “Alert the Premonition. We have forty minutes before they reach us.”

  Orbital pict imagery was useful again with the ground forces in retreat. Talos watched on the bridge’s occulus as the blurry forms of Astartes and rolling tank armour sheared back from their attack on the city beneath the mountains. Individuals were impossible to make out and the images were rendered even hazier by the shroud of pollution across the world’s skies; but the stuttering, distorted picts still told their tale.

  Talos saw the Black Legion falling back to their troopships spread across the conquered plain. Behind them in a routed wave came a teeming mass of humanity. Titans and tanks seemed like pockets of calm in the swarm.

  “Will they be able to get more than a few hundred Astartes back into orbit before the Angels reach us?” he asked.

  The Exalted watched the same picts. “No. They will rely on the renegades that still have sizable forces on board their ships. The Purge, the Scourges of Quintus, the Violators… Here, look.” The Exalted gestured to other vessels in the fleet, their hololithic images flickering and sending streams of smaller craft between them.

  “Thunderhawks,” Talos said.

  “Exactly, my prophet. The Black Legion is begging its lesser allies for aid. Warriors from renegade Chapters are to be pressed into service, defending Abaddon’s own ships.”

  The Exalted shook its head as it sighed. “Once more, our Warmaster has grievously overcommitted his forces onto a battlefield. At least he was wise enough to leave many of his allies in orbit in the event of disaster.”

  Talos nodded to the creature on the throne. As much as it galled him to admit it, the Exalted was sinking into his element now. The myriad plays and ploys of void war lit up his eyes from within.

  “If this is the spearhead of the Throne’s force,” Talos said, “I would hate to see the relief fleet arrive in full.”

  “The odds still favour us.” The Exalted’s gaze only left the pict screen to glance at a miniature hololithic tactical display generated from the armrest of his throne. “Two battle-barges and six strike cruisers, with frigate support… We would survive, at crippling cost, should they be unable to board us.”

  The Exalted summoned a naval rating to the side of his command throne. “You. What’s the status of the Premonition’s withdrawal?”

  “The last report still has fifty Astartes and their transports on the surface, lord.”

  “Get me a link to Captain Halasker.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Halasker,” the Exalted said. “What is taking your men so long?”

  Pictureless, the vox-link crackled back. “I have five squads fighting through to the landing site now. This is madness, Vandred. The Black Legion is shooting down our Thunderhawks.”

  “I demand confirmation.”

  “This is not the time to argue over picts! I have the sworn oaths of fifty men on the surface that they are embattled with the Black Legion, and that they have seen Abaddon’s own forces tearing our gunships from the sky. They are led by some kind of warp-sorcerer… My men cannot kill him.”

  “Ease your choler, brother. Be aware that no more than twenty minutes remain before we’ll need to engage the Angels or break into the warp.”

  “No. I will not leave half a company to die in the dust of a world Abaddon failed to take.”

  “You are the commander of one of our Legion’s last remaining battle-barges,” the Exalted’s voice lowered to a dange
rous snarl. “If you are going to sell your lifeblood, do it in tearing down the Imperium, not a vainglorious last stand. I will recover your Astartes. I have Thunderhawks and transporters standing ready. We will rendezvous in the Great Eye as soon as we are able, where the dogs of the Throne will not follow.”

  “Brave, Vandred. Very courageous. You think your little Covenant will survive where the Premonition would not?”

  “Yes. It will.”

  “Because it’s a less tempting target, eh?”

  “No. Not because of that.”

  “I sense you have an idea, brother.”

  “Halasker,” the Exalted’s monstrous face lowered slightly, and its black eyes closed. “Enough of this. Just run while you still can. Abaddon’s mistake must not be allowed to kill us all. The Premonition, at the very least, must survive. Be ready to move the moment I give the word.”

  “Ave Dominus Nox, Vandred. Glory to the 10th. Die well, all of you.”

  The Exalted took a rattling, sticky breath. “We shall see.”

  After the link was silent, it spoke again. “Transmit the following message to the Warmaster’s flagship: ‘The Covenant of Blood is reengaging.’ Then bring us alongside the Vengeful Spirit, as the Warmaster ordered.”

  The vox-officer nodded, and did as he was told. The helmsman did the same. The vessel shuddered as its drive engines awoke.

  “Vandred—” Talos began.

  “All is not as it seems, my prophet.” He fixed Talos with a haunted, fierce look. The web-like veins splitting his cheeks curled as he smiled. “Trust me.”

  In the infinitely slow ballet of void movement, the Covenant of Blood drifted through the scattered fleet, coming alongside the Warmaster’s flagship. A blue-black and bronze blade of a ship, it reached barely half the size of the Vengeful Spirit.

  “Launch Thunderhawks,” the Exalted said, reclining once more in its command throne.

  “Thunderhawks launching,” an officer called back.

  “Report the moment they’re clear of the fleet.”

  It took less than a minute. “Thunderhawks clear. All five are in the upper atmosphere.”

  “Drift to the following heading.” The Exalted’s claws hit keys embedded in his throne’s console. “Engines cold. That is imperative. Drift. Use attitude thrusters, and no greater duration than two seconds from each. Keep all thrust emissions untraceable by casual auspex sweeps.”

  The Covenant obeyed. The Exalted watched the images displayed by the external picters, seeing the skin of the flagship edging closer to the hull of his own vessel. He was reminded briefly, as he always was in these dark and silent moments, of two sharks passing one another in the open ocean.

  “Open a one-way channel to the Premonition. Do not allow a reply.”

  “Done, lord.”

  “Halasker, this is the Exalted. Run.”

  Engines burned into angry life, propelling the Hunter’s Premonition from its position in the invasion fleet. The Exalted watched the hololithic display and the sensor readings of his focused auspex scans, but spared no attention for the disengaging Night Lords battle-barge. His focus was on the rest of the fleet. Several cruisers showed their weapons going live.

  “Incoming message, lord.”

  “From the Vengeful Spirit, I imagine,” the Exalted said.

  “Yes, lord. They request we move, immediately, to a station at their starboard.”

  “Oh, woe,” the Exalted grinned. “Are we accidentally within their firing solution? My, however will they open fire on the Premonition before it breaks into the warp?”

  Several of the bridge crew shared self-satisfied smiles.

  “They’ve repeated the demand for immediate compliance,” the officer said.

  “Inform the flagship we require confirmation of that order. Only a short while ago, we were ordered to this position. Now we are required to move? With the Blood Angels inbound?” The Exalted’s smirk was as ugly and inhuman as the creature itself.

  While the vox-officer sent the message, the Exalted watched the hololith again. Three other cruisers were powering up their lances to rip the Premonition apart for its betrayal. These, he disregarded. They would either be too slow to inflict more than minimal damage, or too late to do anything except watch the battle-barge escape.

  Pride uncurled within his stomach, hot and welcome. Perhaps some nobility could be salvaged from this night after all.

  “Orders confirmed,” the vox-officer called.

  “Do as the flagship orders,” the creature nodded to the helm. “They won’t even be able to come about in time.”

  As the Covenant shuddered in obedience, the Exalted opened a vox-link to every speaker on the ship.

  “This is the Exalted. We are remaining within the fleet until the recovery of our brothers on the surface. We must buy our Thunderhawks time, during which we will endure assault from our former brethren, the Blood Angels. Seal all bulkheads. Atramentar, to the bridge. Claws, to your posts. All hands, to battle stations. Stand by to repel boarders.”

  XX

  THE ANGEL’S SONS

  The fleets met only briefly.

  “These battles are won and lost in the opening manoeuvres,” the Exalted said as it stared at the Astartes fleet bearing down upon them. “If one side is in a strong enough position, the other—commanded by intelligent souls—would do better to retreat rather than be annihilated in a hopeless engagement.”

  Garadon regarded the three-dimensional hololithic performance as a dull mystery. “They will not back down, my prince.”

  “No. They will not. Another opportunity lost. Helm, be ready to break orbit on my mark.”

  “Break orbit?” Malek grunted. “But lord—”

  “We are not going away from Crythe, Malek. Quite the opposite.”

  The Exalted closed its eyes, breathing deep and slow. It remained in this state for several moments. Finally, it spoke, without opening its jet eyes. “The first lances will be firing… now.”

  The Atramentar, all seven of them in their Terminator plate, watched as the hololithic display began to add weapons fire to its projection.

  “The lead battle-barges, bearing the Blood Angels’ insignia, will be hit by lance fire from the first of our perimeter ships… now.”

  The Exalted opened its eyes, seeing its predictions confirmed. Officers and servitors at consoles started working frantically. “We have a Blood Angels strike cruiser inbound, do we not?” the Exalted asked.

  “Yes, lord!” called a rating.

  “How predictable. Sometimes, we do not even need Talos to see the future for us. Our foes’ grasp of tactical potential is so coarse.”

  Garadon granted acknowledgement, but said nothing.

  “Fire lances,” the Exalted ordered, even as the weapons officer was drawing breath to announce the Blood Angels cruiser had just entered lance range.

  “Firing lances, lord.”

  The Exalted went back to its hololithic staring even as the ship started shuddering with the first impacts.

  Shields holding. Six per cent drain.

  “Shields holding!” an officer called. “Seven per cent drain.”

  Close enough.

  “Weapon batteries, ready for my signal.”

  “Weapon batteries, aye.”

  Come on. Closer. Closer.

  The bridge shivered again. The rune depicting the Blood Angels strike cruiser Malevolence bore down like a spear. That was the one. It would release boarders onto both the Spirit and the Covenant. They were well within scanning distance now. They would know how vulnerable the Warmaster’s capital ships were. How empty the internal corridors stood without the Astartes to defend them.

  The bridge lights dimmed, then failed for a handful of seconds. The fleets, as they crossed each other, exchanged a ferocious volley of fire. The smaller capital ships like the Covenant had void shields far below the punishment capacity of battleships like the Vengeful Spirit.

  “Shields are down,” a rating c
alled out on cue. The tremors shaking the ship intensified tenfold.

  “My prince,” one of the weapons officers said. “They’re in weapon battery range.”

  Wait. Wait…

  “Lord, enemy cruiser Malevolence has fired boarding pods.”

  The Exalted burbled a sound that might have once been a chuckle. “All batteries fire.”

  Two of the eight pod-runes flickered out of existence from the hololithic display. The others streamed home into their target ships. Four impacted into the Covenant.

  The Exalted calmly demanded a vox-channel to the entire ship. A rating at the console nodded back.

  “All claws, this is the Exalted. Between twenty and forty Blood Angels have breached us with assault pods. Hull impact locations are routed to squad leaders. Find the loyalists, my brothers. Kill them.”

  The Exalted rose from its throne, dragging its armoured bulk to the dais railing. It stared into the occulus, at the greyish orb of Crythe below.

  “Damage report.”

  “Minor structural damage, primarily the starboard side.”

  “Order the enginarium to vent plasma from the reactors. Bleed power directly into the void.”

  “Sir?” his human bridge attendant stammered.

  “Do as I command, mortal.”

  “As you wish, lord.”

  “Vox-officer.”

  “Yes, my prince.”

  “Transmit emergency crash landing signals to the Vengeful Spirit. Inform them we’ve taken glancing damage that has managed to wound our reactor. Tell them we are losing our orbit due to the pull of the planet’s gravity, and our engines are locked at full power.”

  As the confused vox-officer obeyed, the Exalted turned to face the row of helmsmen.

  “Are we bleeding plasma? Self-scan the Covenant. Do we appear to be haemorrhaging from a reactor leakage?”

  The helm officers bent over their consoles. “Yes, lord,” one replied.

  “Then dive,” the Exalted grinned.

  “What?” Malek stepped forward. “Lord, are you insane?”

  “Dive!”

  Like a sword falling from the sky, the Covenant of Blood tilted downward and fired its engines. Flame wreathed the shieldless strike cruiser as it tore through the pollution-clogged atmosphere.