by Braden Campbell, Mark Clapham, Ben Counter, Chris Dows, Peter Fehervari, Steve Lyons
Donatus knew that the Sternguard should lend fire from the back line, but he felt the fire that Cassius spoke of within himself too, now. The Chaplain was right – the loss of their idol had broken the will of the orks and they would never be more vulnerable. The Ultramarines had to hit them hard, relentlessly, breaking them and sweeping them from the spaceport before they could regroup and pin the strike force down again.
They had lost battle-brothers on this landing pad. Brother Adelmo had vanished in the bedlam of the collapse. He had not been the only one. The grief was like fuel on the fire.
Donatus saw in his mind the bodies of the Ultramarines cut down by the gargant’s cannon and the wounds dealt to his battle-brothers, and the burning towers of Skemarchus where thousands of the city’s inhabitants had died fighting for their home. He imagined Adelmo’s dusty body, perhaps still alive, sprawled on the rockcrete. He pictured the soldiers of the Astra Militarum who had died already on this world, and those who would die in the days to come.
And he saw the greenskin savages who existed solely to tear down the works that generations of mankind had sweated and bled to create.
It felt good to let the rage consume him. Donatus slammed home a whole magazine of Metal Storm shells.
A few moments ago he would have preserved every one of the precious rounds, and cursed himself for each that he failed to return to the Chapter’s armoury on Macragge at the campaign’s end. But now he would seek punishment for every one not buried in a greenskin’s body.
Donatus let the young Chaplain’s words take him over. He joined the charge, following Cassius’ lead as the Ultramarines ran past the enormous burning hole in the landing pad towards the bands of orks who had been strafing them with gunfire. He heard those orks crying out, bellowing panicked orders or simply jibbering nonsensically.
The strike force crashed into them, despatching greenskins with bolters and combat blades. Cassius was aided by Sergeant Senekus as he drenched one ork in flame from his combi-weapon and drove his crozius into the back of another’s skull. The Ultramarines moved on from each knot of orks, leaving the barricades and makeshift firepoints draped with ork corpses. Donatus hammered a volley of shredding shots into a trio of orks trying to flee, and they vanished in a mist of gore.
He let the rage drive him on, as the Ultramarines cut their way through a wall of greenskin flesh to open the doors of Skemarchus wide.
He would make the xenos pay.
A heavily modified Chimera drove a mass of smouldering wreckage towards the edge of the platform with its dozer blade and pushed it off, sending it raining towards the liquid fire several storeys below. It was gradually clearing an area large enough to land one of the Astra Militarum dropships, which would ferry hundreds-strong units of infantry into the centre of Skemarchus. It would be a long time before the spaceport could receive bulk landers with its primary landing pad in ruins, but it would soon serve as a makeshift airfield for the Astra Militarum.
Another Chimera, the roof removed from its passenger cabin, was serving as a corpse wagon. It was heaped high with ork bodies, likewise destined to be thrown over the edge. Field engineers were fixing makeshift fuel tanks and laying power cabling under the supervision of Adeptus Mechanicus enginseers.
The Ultramarines meanwhile held the picket, covering all ways in with overlapping fields of bolter fire. A few orks had ventured out of the shadows of the enormous foundry only to be trapped between the dead ends of burning forges and the guns of the Ultramarines. Those few greenskins that had shown their faces since had been shot down with precision fire from the Space Marines.
Donatus finished his post-battle wargear rites, strip-cleaning his bolter and taking a tally of his ammunition. He had fired off all of his Metal Storm shells and half his regular bolter rounds. His Dragonfire magazine was down a single shell. He looked up from the flak-weave barricade of the Ultramarines’ command post as Brother Otho’s Stormraven swooped overhead, banked to slow, and came down to rest on the surface of the platform. Chaplain Cassius, his leg shored up with a temporary bracing splint, limped over to the gunship as the cockpit door swung open. He was still as fresh-faced and unmarked as a novice, though the weight of perhaps a few more years seemed to darken his eyes.
‘Any sign of the fallen?’ he asked gravely.
Otho swung himself out of the cockpit. ‘None, Chaplain.’ He stepped through the heat haze rising off the lower hull of the gunship. ‘I took the squadron on three passes but there is precious little that hasn’t sunk into the lava. We surveyed what we could before the heat and silicates became too much for the engines. They are not there. We have lost them.’
‘I see,’ said Cassius. ‘My thanks, brother.’
‘They are gone?’ asked Donatus as Cassius turned away from the gunship.
‘They are.’
The Codex Astartes required the battle-brothers killed in the battle for the spaceport to be recovered so their wargear and the geneseed that controlled their augmentations could be returned to the Chapter. But the bodies of many had fallen into the hole in the landing pad that swallowed the ork gargant, and had been incinerated in the lava.
Donatus had not known all of those Space Marines well, but an injury to one was an injury to all. Each Space Marine was the culmination of years of training and the distillation of millennia of battle-lore, a rare individual hand-picked by the Chaplains to carry out the will of the Emperor. Each one that fell could never truly be replaced.
And Adelmo had been more than a mere battle-brother to Donatus.
The veteran of the Deathwatch had been his friend – an inspiration, reliable and relentless in battle yet somehow still light-hearted enough to remind Donatus of the reasons why the Ultramarines fought. It would be fitting, thought Donatus, if he could one day do his fallen brother the honour of following in his footsteps by entering the Deathwatch. Adelmo’s geneseed might be lost, but his legacy was not.
‘We will mourn them,’ said Donatus. The words were not nearly enough to sum up what was inside him, but he had never been the most garrulous soul and he could think of no more to say.
‘They will serve us still, in memory,’ replied Cassius. ‘They helped stoke the rage in you, did they not? In all of us. Those fallen brethren killed their share of greenskins this day. And they will tomorrow, too.’
‘I felt the anger you spoke of,’ said Donatus, ‘and I followed it. In all my decades I have not ridden the wave of my rage as I did today.’
‘And in all mine,’ replied Cassius, ‘I have not seen one bullet fell so many.’ He paused. ‘The same Codex leads us both. The primarch was a master of all forms of war, and so must we strive to be. I have my way and you have yours – so long as neither dies out, the Chapter will have a use for us both.’
An Astra Militarum staff shuttle descended onto an area just cleared by the engineers. It bore the laurels of a regimental commander, and carried the officers who would orchestrate the next stage of the campaign to retake Skemarchus. The opening moves of the battle had been made. Now the next stage was about to commence, and the Ultramarines would be at the leading edge of the advance. Soldiers rushed to secure the shuttle as it touched down and the ramps lowered, allowing a gaggle of ornamented and uniformed officers to emerge, heavy with medals and brocade, in the uniforms of several regiments.
‘I must direct them,’ said Cassius. ‘They will ask much of us. I must ensure they play their part, too. We will have much to speak of when this city is won, Brother Donatus. For now, pray with your brethren.’
‘I shall, my Chaplain.’
‘And thank your bolter for me.’ Cassius gave a smile, the first Donatus had ever seen on his face, and walked away to join the officers.
Deathwatch 2: Bad Blood
Steve Lyons
They dropped out of the warp.
Antor heard the pitch of the ship’s engines changing, felt a shudder passing through its hull. His eyes snapped open.
The shutter over his single
viewport retracted, and he could see realspace again. It had been too long. At the same time, it was too soon.
The strike cruiser Incontrovertible Truth would shortly reach its destination: two hours, maybe longer, depending on how accurate its jump had been. He wasn’t ready. His blood was running hot today and his mind was unsettled. He needed more time to cleanse himself.
He closed his eyes again and breathed deeply, sitting cross-legged on his utilitarian bunk. He tuned out all other sounds but for those of the machinery, clicking and ticking in time with his dual heartbeats. He tried not to think about the suit of power armour looming over him, its blank-eyed helm accusing.
The armour was black and silver, but for the right shoulder plate. This was a deep red and bore the image of a drop of blood with angel wings: a stark reminder of where Antor Delassio had come from, and what he still carried with him.
A reminder that he wasn’t worthy.
The Cursed Young Prince. That was what his brothers called him – at least, the handful who shared his secret, who knew of his shame. Antor had sworn to them that he could beat his curse, and indeed, he had kept it under control for months now, but it never entirely went away.
What would they say if they could see me now? he wondered.
There were needles in his veins. He could feel his blood being drawn through them into the machine: a half-rusted arcane box with switches and dials and blinking runes, and bubbling glass vials inside it. The machine was supposed to purify his blood, consecrate it and pump it back into him. He knew from experience, however, that it wouldn’t be sufficient. He also needed to meditate and pray.
He tried to clear his mind again, to meditate on the glory of the Emperor. But Antor couldn’t keep his thoughts from wandering. He couldn’t help but remember another day, four years ago. He had been aboard the Incontrovertible Truth then too, quartered in this very cabin.
The day the ship had been attacked.
The day the curse had blighted him for the very first time, and overwhelmed him.
Antor had been so proud, then.
Of course, he didn’t let it show. Such had never been his way. Many who had met him had remarked upon the contrast between this junior sergeant’s noble bearing and the quiet humility with which he unfailingly comported himself.
Still, when first he had clad himself in the black and silver, with no one but his attendant serfs to see it, he had allowed his chest to swell a little.
Chapter Master Dante himself had awarded him this great honour. Antor had been seconded to the Deathwatch for an indefinite tour of duty. He was one of the very few Blood Angels – at the time – to be welcomed into that august assemblage.
Quietly, he had thanked the Emperor for this opportunity to serve Him and had never really questioned why he, of all his battle-brothers, had been chosen. He had polished his new suit of artisan armour until it gleamed, and had always been the first of every kill team he had joined to report for muster.
He had distinguished himself in a dozen missions already, bringing down the wrath of the Emperor’s Inquisition upon the hated xenos across the galaxy.
But that day, he was roused from his sleep by the call to battle stations.
He had already begun to struggle into his armour when his cabin door flew open and a serf – a single serf – arrived to help him. He recited each invocation and performed each necessary ritual patiently. Lights flared outside his viewport. The ship shuddered with the impacts of missiles against its shields, but Antor didn’t allow that to distract him. He would have no use for his jump pack here in the ship’s narrow chambers and corridors. He inserted his vox-earpiece and sifted through the channels.
The time was an hour before morning prayers.
They had dropped out of the warp early, as Antor had slept. That meant they had probably arrived in the Erioch System of the Jericho Reach. Some of Antor’s brothers were to begin a tour of duty at the watch fortress there. Antor himself was bound for the planet Mariach, along with a new kill team, to push back the eldar raider incursions.
A vessel had been lying in wait for them. A grand cruiser.
It had likely been a proud member of the Imperial Navy, many centuries ago. The touch of Chaos had defiled it, warping its very shape. It was a bigger ship than theirs, and smaller escorts buzzed around it like flies.
Watch Captain Gharvil had launched the Thunderhawks. There had been four in the bays, a three-brother response team for each of them kept on standby at all times.
The Incontrovertible Truth carried forty-four Deathwatch Space Marines. There was little the remaining thirty-two could do, however, except prepare themselves and report for muster. Their immediate fate was in the hands of their pilots and gunners.
As Antor left his cabin, an explosion rocked the ship violently. He clung to a sconce, riveted to the wall, to keep his balance. More battle-brothers began to emerge from the doors around him.
‘That sounded close,’ said Brother Casella. He had come to the Deathwatch from the Crimson Fists; his shoulder plate bore their colours of blue and red. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if that–’
Another explosion cut him off. This time, the deck plates dropped out from underneath their feet. In the moment before the artificial gravity compensated, Antor judged that they had been thrown into a lateral spin. He drew his hand flamer Ignatus, presented to him in gratitude by the Ordo Xenos, though he had no target for it.
He started to run.
He came up short as he rounded the bend of an arterial passageway, to find a bulkhead grinding down in front of him. Casella came to a halt beside him.
‘The hull has been breached,’ Brother Lokar – a wiry young Space Wolf with red hair and teeth sharpened to points – growled, loping up behind them. ‘The starboard mid-sections of decks epsilon through theta have been sealed off.’
Antor was receiving the same information through his earpiece.
‘Throne forbid that we should die today without ever setting eyes upon our enemy,’ said Brother Sanctimus, seconded from the Ultramarines.
‘We won’t. We need to find a way around.’ Antor was already running several potential solutions through his mind, and he knew the others were too.
Eight of them had gathered in front of the bulkhead, in all. Eight Space Marines – none of whom had ever fought together before – from various Chapters. Lokar took charge, leading them back the way they had come. He was a veteran, a Wolf Guard, in his own Chapter.
Antor saw a flaming Thunderhawk reel past a viewport, and a larger shape – a dark shape, a profane shape – loom behind it. He only caught the briefest glimpse of the enemy cruiser.
He couldn’t have described it in any useful detail, nor begun to articulate why it disturbed him so much. He only knew that, in that moment, he felt an indefinable ache in his primary heart.
A chill ran up and down his spine, and he thought he must have bitten his tongue, although he hadn’t.
He was sure he could taste blood.
Antor had heard it called the Red Thirst, but in truth he had rarely heard it discussed at all. He had seen its effects, however.
He had seen brave and noble brothers overcome on the battlefield by an uncontrollable fury. He had seen their faces contorted with madness, seen their eyes ablaze with hatred, heard their screams of primal rage.
He had seen some consumed by it, mowed down as they charged the enemy’s guns and tanks, heedless of any risk. He had heard of others turning upon their allies, lashing out blindly. Some had been subdued and gradually brought back to their senses enough to fight another day, though this was becoming more rare. Each time it happened, an Apothecary or a Chaplain would blame it on something in the afflicted warrior’s blood – if anything was said at all.
Antor had looked at his fellow Blood Angels sometimes, wondering how many more of them might be containing the rage inside them. He had even wondered – but put the thought out of his mind, for that way led paranoia – if he could fully trust them.
Each time, they had buried their fallen brothers with full honours in the red dust of their primarch’s home world, Baal Secundus. They had mourned their dead, but rarely spoken of any of them again. Back then, whenever he prayed, Antor was thankful that he did not share their affliction. He had always kept a cool, clear head and an even temperament, no matter how he might have been provoked.
Perhaps his blood was pure.
Alarms were screaming, both inside his armour and outside of it.
Antor could barely hear them. The explosion had deadened his ears.
It had also blown a jagged hole in the Incontrovertible Truth’s hull, and one luckless brother had been caught in the blast, his armour shredded. Before he could react, before Antor or anyone else could reach him, he had been whipped out into space.
Antor magnetised his boots. He hauled himself forward, one laborious step at a time. A hurricane was blowing in his face, making his eyes tear up, but he couldn’t catch a breath of it. He jammed his helmet down over his head and sealed it, gasping in its recycled air reserves.
Brother Grennon was holding up a bulkhead hatch for him, motioning to him to hurry. Some of the others had already made it through. Antor dived for the narrowing gap, sliding through it on his stomach. Hands caught him by the wrists and hauled him the rest of the way. As he turned to help the brothers behind him, Grennon rolled out from underneath the hatch and let it slam down.
‘I could hear the machine-spirits in the shutter, screaming,’ he explained, his voice crackling over a short-range vox-channel. ‘Another second and this section would have been–’
A voice from behind the bulkhead interrupted. ‘Leave us. We’ll find another way around and join you later. May the Emperor be with you.’
‘And with you,’ Lokar voxed back. He addressed the others through his speaker grille, brusquely. ‘He’s right. We must keep going.’