by Gav Thorpe
Heartened by their primarch’s attack the Raven Guard followed in his wake, emptying magazines at full-automatic into the stricken Mechanicum warriors, pouring more and more firepower into those that managed to evade Corax’s assault. One by one the thallaxii were shredded by lightning claws and weapons fire, yet still they fought to the last warrior rather than retreating.
The assault force was still coming under considerable fire from embrasures atop the temple and other buildings. Corax split the platoon, sending one squad towards a large forge-house to the right, taking the others with him as he headed directly for the main temple doors.
‘Primarch!’
Corax turned at the shout of alarm, just in time to see three immense mechanical beasts issuing from the furnace chamber. Each was larger than a battle tank, standing on six mechanical limbs, a plethora of cannons and guns dotting their oddly shaped hulls. What looked like muscle and sinew glistened between their ceramite-sheathed plates, slick with organic fluid. The war engines were armed with huge claws, spinning saw discs and serrated, glowing blades. Worst of all, their armour was carved with strange icons, disturbing runes that writhed with a dark energy of their own. Corax had seen similar upon the battleplate of Lorgar and his legionaries, and knew immediately what the sigils were for: to bind the power of Chaos into mortal form.
The Raven Guard stood transfixed by the half-daemon creations charging towards them. Corax took a breath – the warnings of the tech-priests did little justice to the horror of the raging behemoths themselves.
The daemonically powered engines issued bizarre roars and howls as they fell upon the Raven Guard squad with blades and talons slashing. The legionaries stood no chance against the arachnoid giants, their bolts and blades ineffective against the inscribed armour of their attackers.
Corax broke into a sprint, powering straight for the war engines, claws ready for the attack. He arrived too late – the last of the Raven Guard squad was hurled bodily through the air by a kick from one of the machines, to land several dozen metres away on the hard rockcrete.
With a snarl of pure rage, Corax launched himself at the closest engine.
It met his claws with its own. Lightning rippled over the mechanical beast’s segmented plating. Warp-powered servos contested against genhanced muscles, Corax gritting his teeth and the daemon engine letting forth a moaning cry that was more animal than machine.
The raw power of the primarch prevailed over the warp’s artifice as Corax slashed through the engine’s arm, sending the claw clattering across the ground. Punching a fist into what might have been its chest, the primarch heaved up to his full height, turning the machine to the left. It flailed its good arm, a hissing blue blade passing within centimetres of Corax’s face, and its legs spasmed as it tried to stay upright.
With a grunt, Corax hauled the creature onto its back and drove his other fist into its underbelly, parting armour plates with his claws. Bubbling green, oily fluid spurted from the wound as pneumatics wheezed and the mortally wounded creature emitted a piercing wail.
As Corax pulled his hands free, something seized his right arm from behind. He was lifted into the air as another claw grabbed hold of his leg. Aloft, he had no purchase to fight against the second daemon engine’s grip. Armour buckled and cracked under the strain, pressure fractures splintering along the length of the primarch’s arm and leg.
He twisted as best he could and lashed out with his free claw, slicing through trailing hydraulic cables. The claw holding his leg snapped open, leaving him dangling by one arm. Before he could repeat the move, the war engine swung the primarch groundwards, dashing him hard against the rockcrete. Stunned, Corax could do nothing as twice more he was slammed into the ground, his shoulder almost separating with each swing from the daemon engine.
The third machine closed in, its circular blades spinning. But before it could attack, twin explosions rocked it from behind. The roar of plasma jets drowned out its pained cry as a Shadowhawk descended, heavy bolters spewing fire. Another missile streaked down, punching into a rent in the daemon-thing’s armour, detonating the ammunition stores inside its segmented carapace.
Pain spearing into his chest from his injured shoulder, Corax bent his arm and swung both feet into the frontal hull of the daemon holding him. The impact thundered a deep dent into the red-painted metal, but more importantly it gave the primarch the leverage he needed.
Firing his flight pack, he thrust away from the machine, his free lightning claw carving through the appendage holding him. The armature came away in a shower of black sparks, cabling and vile fluid spilling from the tear. Letting the twitching mechanical limb drop from his fingers, Corax climbed high into the air and then dropped like a stone, using his own bulk to slam into the top of the war machine.
The daemonic construct exploded as if hit by a shell, the fireball scattering machine parts and burning fuel. As the flames dissipated, Corax was left crouching in the ruin, scorched but alive, his pale skin blackened with oil and soot.
Knowing that Delvere, and possibly Nathrakin, would not be far from their daemonic creations, he headed towards the forge from where the machines had emerged.
The broad gates of the furnace-house were open, revealing a hellish scene within. Lit by a reddish-purple light was what seemed to be a monstrous assembly line for gigantic mechanical spiders. Limbs and curved armour plates hung from cranes and lifting chains, while beneath worked gangs of cowled labourers and servitors. Those capable of free thought threw down their tools and fled as Corax stalked into the horrific interior, while the more mindless drones continued with the tasks they were programmed to carry out, oblivious to the killer in their midst.
A squad of Word Bearers charged out of the gloom, their bolters blazing. Impacts showered Corax but he shrugged off the detonations and lunged towards the traitor legionaries, spearing the first on the tip of his claw, and shearing the head and arm from a second. As he carved down the third, Corax could see over the heads of the renegades, into the depths of the infernal forge.
The walls were lined with cages, inside which naked figures stared blankly out. Their bodies were smeared with grime and blood – blood from deep rune-wounds carved into their flesh. They moaned in desperation, pushing hands through the bars of their prisons, shorn heads gleaming in the unnatural light. The cages themselves were hung with long ropes of knotted cable that flared and sparked as if siphoning off their misery, and the cables trailed in chained loops towards the depths of the forge.
At the far end had been raised a grotesque pedestal, an amalgam of metal, stone, bones and skulls, connected to the prison cages. Strangely angled artificial stalagmites jutted from this pile, forming huge barbs whose lengths were carved with more of the damnable runes. Between them the air shimmered with unnatural energy, flooding the furnace hall with the pulsing un-light of the immaterium.
A chainsword snapped against Corax’s thigh and he struck out with the back of his fist, launching a Word Bearer across the chamber to slam into a dangling engine block. A kick smashed in the chest of another traitor even as Corax’s claws swept down to eviscerate a third.
Beside the swirling miasma of the warp rift stood two figures. The first Corax recognised from the descriptions Loriark had given him – it was clearly Delvere. The archmagos was robed in red, like his fellows, his face hidden in the shadow of his hood. From his back splayed half a dozen writhing mechadendrites, each tipped with some sparking, whirring device or hooked, serrated blade.
The other figure could only be Nathrakin, clad in thick Terminator armour painted in the livery of the Word Bearers and chased with golden runes and lines of cuneiform script. He wore no helm, and his scalp and neck were pierced with snaking coils of wires and cables that pulsed under the flesh, glowing with psychic power. A former Librarian, no doubt, now turned sorcerer.
As the last of the Word Bearers fell to Corax, the primarch raised a cl
aw towards the pair and shouted his challenge.
‘Ask for swift deaths and I will grant them.’ He stalked between the lines of mechanical parts and imprisoned human suffering.
‘Too late to ask for clemency?’ Nathrakin called back.
‘No mercy,’ snarled Corax, breaking into a run.
The pair of renegades split. Delvere stood his ground, raising his bionic arms to lift an oversized rotor cannon towards the onrushing primarch. Nathrakin strode up the mound of the Chaos altar and with a contemptuous glance back at Corax thrust his hand into the whirling vortex.
Delvere’s first salvo screamed down the hall, forcing Corax to his left as wicked shells flickered towards him. The prisoners let out great howls of agony as the stray shots ripped into them, punching through flesh where the infernal shells set dark fires in their bodies, burning swiftly until they were all but consumed.
Changing his route, Corax leapt up amongst the hanging machine parts, steering his flight pack between the swinging chains and swaying carapaces. Delvere’s next volley tore into the rafters above, splitting metal links and cutting through armoured plates.
Corax landed next to the archmagos as burning rounds seared past the primarch’s head, his lightning claw slashing through the spinning barrels of the cannon with a single blow. Delvere’s mechadendrite tentacles lashed forwards like a nest of serpents, striking a flurry of hits across Corax’s chest and shoulder, their combined strength enough to hurl him back several metres. The primarch swept out with a lightning claw, cutting the ends from half of the tendrils and eliciting a snarl of pain from the archmagos.
As Delvere reeled back, his remaining mechadendrites undulating wildly, Corax struck. He pounced forwards, left claw held out like a lance, blades and taloned fingers punching into the chest of the archmagos. Digits like steel ripped through plates of metal and mechanical organs, tearing through a plasteel-ribbed spine to erupt from Delvere’s back. The archmagos screeched in staccato lingua-technis as Corax lifted him up.
‘The punishment for traitors is death,’ the primarch growled.
He swept his other claw across the head of Delvere, severing vertebrae and shearing away the top of his scalp. Letting the decapitated corpse drop to the ground, Corax rounded on Nathrakin.
The Word Bearer stood in front of the pulsing warp portal, red and purple flames flickering along his arm. Tendrils of unnatural power lashed at him from the sphere of glowing energy, seeming to pass into his body, leaving pulsating trails beneath his skin. His face was locked in a rictus grimace, eyes burning with fire.
The plates of his Terminator armour slewed and melted, bubbling like scalded flesh, expanding and merging. As more warp power flowed into him, Nathrakin grew in stature, limbs lengthening, torso widening. Claws like steel erupted from his fingertips and three curling horns sprouted from his brow, each tipped with a golden rune. The backplate and power pack of his armour extended, extrusions of ceramite and adamantium forming a serrated arch above his head like a deformed halo.
Corax took a step towards the traitor but stopped, wary of coming too close to the ravening energies spewing from the warp rift. Violet and green shadows danced around the Word Bearer’s feet.
Wrenching his hand from the pulsating globe of energy, Nathrakin took several paces towards the primarch. Where his boots touched the melded skulls and bones, they left pools of black flame. He lifted his arms and smiled, as four adamantium-edged bone-blades erupted from each of his wrists, in a twisted parody of Corax’s own talons.
When he spoke, the warped traitor’s voice was deep, reverberating across the hall, resonant with echoes of power.
‘You have met your match, primarch,’ Nathrakin taunted. He let his arms drop, flames springing up from his fists, burning with black fire. ‘Nothing can withstand the power of Immortal Chaos.’
‘Let’s test that boast, traitor filth.’
All apprehension gone, Corax leapt at Nathrakin, claws extended. With a speed that nearly matched the primarch’s, the sorcerer stepped aside, striking out with his arm-blades to score a welt across Corax’s plackart. Without pause, Corax regained his balance and pivoted as Nathrakin slammed into him, driving the two of them down the pile of the unholy altar.
Corax rammed a knee up into his enemy’s gut, lifting Nathrakin from the ground and releasing his grip. A tenebrous vapour flowed from the warp portal, surrounding the sorcerer with a pulsing aura as he pushed himself back to his feet, flexing his talons, a slender tendril connecting him with the rift.
Nathrakin laughed.
‘You see? Any mortal, even a Space Marine, would have been slain by that blow alone. You have not even winded me, Corax. How does it feel to face your last battle?’
Corax struck as a blur, raining blows down upon the upstart champion of Chaos, claws raking and slashing in a frenzy against Nathrakin’s upraised arms, shredding armour and showering blood. The primarch’s attack drove him away from the portal step by step, but still the immaterial tether linking the Word Bearer to the source of his power remained.
‘Enough!’ Nathrakin’s roar almost deafened Corax. The sorcerer struck out with a straight punch that connected with the primarch’s jaw, hurling him back a dozen metres to crash into a hanging mechanical leg. Black flame crawled across the primarch’s face, trying to eat into his flesh, stinging his eyes.
‘Never enough,’ Corax replied grimly as the flames on his face guttered out. ‘You will never defeat me.’
The two charged at each other, but at the last moment Corax jumped, igniting his pack to execute a twisting somersault over his opponent. Landing behind Nathrakin, Corax rammed both sets of claws into the traitor’s back. Lightning crackled across armour-flesh, blood boiling from the wound as steam.
Corax’s wings flattened as he bounded straight up, the flare of rockets propelling them both into the broad girders that held up the furnace hall’s roof. Turning and spinning, the primarch slammed Nathrakin against the rafters, smashing his head upon steel, ramming him bodily into the struts. The Chaos champion screamed, from frustration rather than pain, unable to bring his talons to bear against his attacker.
Turning groundwards, the primarch dived, driving himself and Nathrakin into the floor like a meteor. The shockwave of their impact set the chains and hanging engine components clanging and banging. Withdrawing his claws, Corax stood over the traitor and stomped on him, crashing his foot again and again into Nathrakin’s back, the bare rockcrete floor beneath him cracking and splintering.
The champion of Chaos lay still and Corax stepped back, breathing heavily. He listened. The faint beating of twin hearts still pulsed. Shallow rasps of breath still passed Nathrakin’s lips.
In the moment before Corax could strike again, Nathrakin rolled onto his back, fists thrust out. Ebon fire spewed from his hands, splashing across Corax’s face and chest, driving him back. Regaining his feet, Nathrakin laughed once more.
‘Is that all you can offer, Corax? To think that you almost bested Lord Aurelian.’
Corax looked at the Word Bearer. His armour was buckled and rent, blood streaming from dozens of wounds. His face was little more than mashed flesh – lips split, teeth broken, nose flattened. One of his horns had snapped.
‘You seem to be a poor judge of who is winning this fight,’ the primarch said. ‘I am only just getting started.’
The two charged at each other again, claws clashing against talons with a fountain of electricity and warp energy spraying into the air. Corax came face to face with his enemy, slowly pushing Nathrakin’s fists closer and closer, the primarch’s claws edging towards the traitor’s throat.
‘Let’s see you boast with no head, renegade scum. I will destroy every warp-spawned, Chaos-tainted creature in the galaxy before I die.’
Nathrakin’s ruby gaze flickered away from Corax’s for a moment, quickly glancing down at the crackling blades only mi
llimetres from his throat.
‘You should start your hunt a little closer to home, primarch.’
The sorcerer looked directly into Corax’s eyes, and the primarch saw himself reflected there: a giant with white skin and eyes like coal.
Nathrakin laughed. ‘Did you think the primarchs were something pure?’
In that moment Corax thought of the poor Raptors that had been mutated by his gene-seed tampering and suddenly feared just what it was that he had unleashed in them. Was their bestial appearance something to do with the raw primarch genes he had used?
Nathrakin sensed his hesitation and sneered.
‘How could the Emperor create such demigods with science alone? Warriors that can withstand tank shells? Leaders whose every word must be obeyed? Creatures with powers far beyond any Thunder Warrior or legionary? Why do you think the Emperor decided not to simply recreate his children when they were lost? What unique gifts of darkness did he pass to you?’
Corax’s moment of doubt was all Nathrakin needed. With a triumphant bellow, the Word Bearer threw back the primarch, revealing scorch marks across his throat. Droplets of black fire dripped from his bone-blades as he advanced.
‘Lorgar saw the truth! Time that you saw it too. Accept the nature of Chaos and join your brothers on the true path of righteousness.’
Corax had heard enough, and lashed out with astounding speed.
‘Silence!’
Caught up in his taunting, Nathrakin reacted too slowly. A lightning claw swept the Word Bearer’s head from his shoulders and sent it flying into the gloom.
Panting, Corax lowered into a crouch, shaking his head. The traitor had been lying, trying to save his skin. The Emperor was sworn to destroy Chaos – he had told Corax that himself. Flickers of memory from the Emperor pushed at Corax’s consciousness; images of his creator in his laboratory tending to the nascent zygotes that would become his immortal gene-sons.
‘No.’ Corax stood up, his doubts dissipating. The Emperor could not have lied, but he would have seen it. ‘I am no creature of Chaos.’