The World Engine

by Ben Counter

  The cityscape of Borsis hurtled by as the gunship swung down a canyon of towers and spires. It seemed the greater proportion of the planet was covered in the necron city, its districts connected by vast metallic roadways that crossed the rust wastes glimpsed in the distance. Even the wastelands were not natural – they seemed the oxidised remains of past cities, left to decay and be cannibalised to form new districts in an endless cycle of building and destruction.

  ‘Below us,’ voxed Brother Mhorn from the cockpit. ‘Captain, they’re on the move.’

  Zahiros made his way to one of the heavy bolter ports. The gunner, one of Squad Daharna, stepped aside. Zahiros leaned out of the gun port to get a good view of the city below.

  Between the towers and palaces ran a glittering river of necron warriors. Hundreds of ranks of them marched. The column snaked off through the city, too far for Zahiros to follow. An elaborate barge of bronze and steel moved at their head, with a trio of necron crewmen around a throne on which sat another necron in the golden headdress and bejewelled finery Zahiros had seen in the statues and pictograms all over the city. It was the first time Zahiros had seen any members of the necron aristocracy. The barge had a form of anti-grav propulsion and drifted over the heads of the necron ranks.

  Cannon-armed necrons, taller and bulkier than the rank and file, marched on the flanks. Metallic spiders crawled with their attendant scarab swarms. A massive war machine, bristling with weapons, walked on three legs into the heart of the army. Another aristocrat moved on foot surrounded by a phalanx of elite warriors carrying halberds or swords and energy shields, covered in gold and lacquered decoration.

  ‘They’re headed for Amhrad’s position,’ said Zahiros. ‘Get a message on the command vox. Warn the Chapter Master. The necrons might have been slow to mobilise but they have their strength moving now and the whole Chapter united could not stand before them in open battle for long.’

  This was why Amhrad had sent Zahiros on his mission. The Astral Knights could not fight all of Borsis at once. Even a thousand Space Marines could only defeat so many xenos. No, they had to do what the Space Marines did best – strike hardest and fastest at the most vulnerable point of the enemy, so with a vital strut broken the whole edifice of opposition collapsed. The Codex Astartes had described such a strategy in exhaustive detail. It was a part of the Codex that Zahiros could agree with.

  ‘You!’ said Zahiros, pointing at one of the slaves. ‘Come forward! Tell me what you see!’

  The slave clambered uncertainly to the gun port. He had the lean, well-worked look of all Borsis’s slaves, and wore the hieroglyph brand denoting which aristocrat owned him. All the slaves Zahiros had found wore the same brand – they were the property of Lord Hixos, whose position in Borsis’s society was granted by his ownership of tens of thousands of human captives. This slave’s name was Percicel, and he had been a frontier world preacher before the World Engine had darkened the skies over his planet. The others looked towards him for leadership, and before the gunship had departed he had led them in prayer.

  Percicel leaned as far as he dared out of the gun port, squinting in the wind. He had a leathery, bearded face, lined first by a lifetime on the frontier and then by the hardship of Borsis. The scars on his neck from the collar were dark and old. ‘The twin horns on the horizon!’ he yelled over the noise of the wind and the gunship’s engines. ‘That is the western tower, the Tower of Worms!’

  Zahiros could see the twin curved horns Percicel was pointing out. They topped a slender tower that seemed a part of a much larger complex sprawling across a good portion of the city. It was several minutes’ flight away. ‘Then we are on the right track.’

  ‘We are, Lord Zahiros! Look to the stained-glass roof of the central building. It will deliver us straight to the throne room!’

  Zahiros’s weapons were strapped to the ceiling of the passenger compartment – his power sword and storm shield emblazoned with the crossed blades of the Astral Knights. He wanted more than anything to have them in his hands again and tear into the foes of the Imperium. This was an honest fight. The whole of Borsis was the enemy and anything the necrons threw at him was a justified kill. No complications, no dilemmas, just the certainty of duty and the joy of destruction.

  The gunship swung away from the columns of necrons and weaved between a series of lower towers. Everywhere were the faces of Borsis’s lords, rendered in hieroglyphs on the sides of buildings or standing as statues lining the streets. The necrons depicted themselves as god-kings ruling as divine beings over Borsis, but the slaves had not been fooled. They hated the necrons not just for the suffering they had undergone, but for the fact that the necrons dared set themselves up as such gods. The slaves were citizens of the Imperium, and the only god they knelt to among the stars was the Emperor.

  ‘Contacts on the sensors!’ came a vox from the cockpit. ‘In the air and moving fast!’

  ‘Brace!’ ordered Zahiros. Panic passed among the slaves. Percicel went to them and told them to pray. Zahiros stood aside as the gunners swung out the heavy bolters. He glimpsed a darting black shape rocketing through the sky parallel to the Damoclean, banking sharply to avoid the structures between them.

  The gunship flew lower, the underside of the hull threatening to clip the statues of necron aristocrats. Another craft arrowed in from overhead – it was crescent-shaped, the curves of its wings swept forward, made of segments of dark overlapping steel. It was necron in design, no doubt. Bolts of fizzing green energy ripped down from its wingtip cannon, tearing holes in the street and buildings around the Damoclean.

  Sarakos had transmitted the few details he possessed about the gauss weapons of the necrons. They used something akin to teleporter technology, but far more precise and refined, to strip away the layers of a target atom by atom. The Imperium had no technology that came close. The gauss principles of necron weaponry were pure witchcraft to the most learned of magi. The only real intelligence they had was the effect gauss weaponry could have on flesh, armour and fortifications alike. With sufficient weight of firepower, a target simply ceased to be.

  The gunner beside Zahiros rattled off a chain of fire into the sky, the tracer rounds darting around the wings of the necron fighter as it spiralled out of range.

  ‘Get us to the target!’ voxed Zahiros to the cockpit. ‘You need not return, my brothers. This craft need not survive. Just get us to the target!’

  The second fighter slewed in around a junction up ahead, heading right for the Damoclean. The gunship shuddered as its nose weaponry opened fire. Streaks of crimson las sliced down the street into the necron’s left wing. The fire from the fighter burst against the starboard wing and engine of the gunship even as the fighter dipped suddenly to one side and slammed into one of the buildings. Multicoloured flame burst out from it and hundreds of layers of material were flashed away from the surrounding steel, as if a century’s worth of corrosion ate through the building in a split second.

  The Damoclean turned its nose to the sky and climbed. The wounded engine barked and coughed alarmingly. The gunship was struggling to maintain height and stay on course.

  ‘Thirty seconds out!’ came the vox from Mhorn in the cockpit.

  ‘Prepare to disembark!’ ordered Zahiros. ‘To arms, my brothers! We will not have the luxury of a comfortable landing, but our enemies will not have the luxury of a warning! Show the pride and show the fury, and this battle will be done before the enemy know we are there!’

  Squads Daharna and Ehranth were drawing their chainswords from the stowage overhead and checking the load of their bolt pistols. They undid the grav-harnesses holding them in, for the risk of being thrown from the gunship in a crash was less than the risk of spending precious seconds undoing the restraints under fire. Daharna inserted his hands into the twin lightning claw gauntlets strapped to the ceiling above him. Ehranth had his power maul in his hands. It was not a weapon favoured by m
ost Astral Knights, who were raised to fight with swords and all but worshipped the elegance of fine bladework, but it suited Ehranth perfectly. Ehranth had been almost the height and bulk of a Space Marine before he was recruited into the Chapter, and grew up battering his opponents into submission.

  The second fighter swept down from above. It passed in front of the twin horns of the Tower of Worms, which were just a few seconds away now. A glittering cascade of fire rained down, and among it a sliver of dark metal.

  A bomb. The gunship was flying low to cut down the angles of fire, but that meant it was low enough to be caught in the blast.

  The gunship rose again, but too late and the shockwave of the explosion slammed into the underside. Astral Knights and slaves were thrown against the ceiling of the passenger compartment. Zahiros was knocked senseless for a moment and so it seemed the explosion hit without sound, except for the jangling in his ears as he was thrown back against the floor as the gunship lurched.

  Then, he could just make out the scream of the failing engine. The rear ramp swung open and the ground hurtled past. The gunship was bucking and falling as Brother Mhorn tried to gain height – the engines were too far gone to land properly, and it was either keep going or fall out of the air.

  ‘We’re going down, brethren!’ voxed Mhorn.

  ‘Get us above the building!’ voxed Zahiros. ‘Brothers! Jump on my mark!’

  The gunship rose up once more, the cityscape of Borsis yawing sideways. The Tower of Worms passed by, its walls of blackened steel broken by small dark windows from which hung ribbed cabling like articulated serpents.

  Zahiros pulled his storm shield down and hooked it over his shoulder, then grabbed his power sword. With his free hand he caught up Percicel, who was light enough for Zahiros to carry under his free arm.

  The brothers were on their feet. With the bulk of their jump packs there was little room to manoeuvre in the compartment as they lined up ready to jump. Some of them followed Zahiros’s lead and grabbed the slaves, who were numbed by the din and terror into compliance.

  The buildings’ rooftops streaked by. Flights of metallic creatures were roused from their roosts by the roar of the gunship’s dying engines. Pitted expanses of steel bore endless rows of necron hieroglyphics.

  ‘Now!’ ordered Zahiros. With Percicel still under his arm, he jumped off the ramp.

  Zahiros’s jump pack fired and the twin jets fought to arrest his fall. He had made hundreds of combat jumps, but never from a wounded gunship that was moving so much faster than a safe jump speed. The rooftop rocketed towards him. He cut the jets at the last second and took the impact on his back, so he could cradle Percicel in front of him and protect him from the worst.

  The roof gave way beneath Zahiros. Darkness spun around him as he fell. He gunned the jets again and his reactions were enough to slow him down a little before he hit the floor below. A little, but not much.

  The floor hit Zahiros hard enough to black him out again for a second. He woke to find himself on his back with Percicel curled up on top of him. A shaft of grey light fell through the hole he had torn in the roof. Another Astral Knight punched through the roof, landing harder than Zahiros. Zahiros could hear the booms as other Astral Knights landed on sections of the roof that could support them. Another couple dropped through the holes, able to slow their fall properly with bursts from their jump packs.

  The body of a slave hit the roof and tumbled through one of the holes. From the way it fell, Zahiros could tell the slave was dead. Percicel rolled off him and moaned, holding his chest. He, at least, had survived.

  ‘Mhorn!’ voxed Zahiros. ‘Come in, Brother Mhorn!’

  There was no reply.

  ‘Sound off, sergeants!’ voxed Zahiros as he clambered to his feet. He turned over Percicel – the slave was conscious, holding his ribs but without apparent life-threatening injuries.

  ‘All eight down, captain,’ came the reply from Sergeant Daharna. ‘One broken arm, but we can all fight on.’

  ‘We’re down,’ said Ehranth.

  ‘Group on me,’ voxed Zahiros. He tried to take stock of his surroundings. He was in a chamber with fluted black steel walls that soared so high it was like lying at the bottom of a vast metal canyon. The only light came from the holes he and his brothers had torn in the roof. A film of filthy water dripped from the ceiling into grimy pools on the floor.

  A necron machine with an ungainly spherical body and several jointed limbs watched with glowing green eyes. It appeared to be an unarmed maintenance machine. It clambered slowly along the wall, spinning patches of metallic threads over areas of corrosion. Another couple of machines fluttered on thin steel wings. Perhaps they were maintenance or reconnaissance machines, or perhaps some form of machine-life native to Borsis.

  The Astral Knights dropped down from above, using their jump packs to land safely. The brother who had fallen just after Zahiros, from Ehranth’s squad, was helped to his feet by the sergeant himself. Zahiros counted ten slaves who had been grabbed by the Astral Knights and had survived the drop.

  ‘Percicel,’ said Zahiros. ‘Are you still with us?’

  ‘But barely,’ said Percicel. ‘I think I have broken a rib.’

  ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It may not be easy to keep up.’

  Percicel grinned weakly. There was blood on his teeth. ‘Fate did not bring me to Borsis so I would have things easy,’ he said.

  ‘Where are we?’ asked Zahiros.

  Percicel looked around. ‘Mala,’ he called to another slave, a woman, who had reached the ground unharmed. ‘Do you recognise this place?’

  Mala had a long, lean face and body, and old tribal scars underneath her newer marks of slavery. ‘I did not come here often,’ she said. Zahiros detected a strange accent to her voice and guessed she was a native of Percicel’s frontier world, converted to the worship of the Emperor by his preaching. ‘The lord I attended did not stray out this far. But yes, I have been here before. Over there lies the Tower of Worms. The heart of the complex is that way.’

  ‘Good,’ said Percicel. ‘She can lead us, Lord Zahiros.’

  ‘Tenstan could do better,’ said Mala. ‘But he lies there.’ She pointed at the body which had fallen from above. It was a pale, crumpled heap of limbs. ‘So I will have to do.’

  ‘How far?’ asked Zahiros.

  ‘A walk of an hour, through the halls of the ancestors,’ said Mala. ‘They are well-guarded. But there are secret ways I know that will cut that time in half. We must move quickly, for the lychguard will be closing in on us even now.’

  ‘Then we move,’ said Zahiros. ‘Brothers, make speed and do not tarry! The necrons will try to slow us down but they will fail. On us lies the responsibility to begin the end of this battle. When Borsis burns, it will be us who set the fire!’

  Mala set off to a corroded alcove in the wall. She slid her body between two folds of jagged metal and activated a hidden catch. A segment of the wall swung open, just wide enough for a Space Marine. The Astral Knights followed her, and the surviving slaves kept pace as best they could.

  Zahiros unhooked his storm shield. His power sword was hungry – it had cut down necrons already on this world, but they had been rank and file warriors of whom he now knew there were uncountable numbers on Borsis. It wanted something more, a kill that would be memorialised in the mosaics and sermons of Obsidia.

  He remembered the voice of Sarakos, deadpan as ever, as if the Techmarine had no understanding of the glory hinted at by his words.

  They have a weakness.

  They have a leader.

  No slave had ever seen the Overlord of Borsis. Human eyes were not permitted to look on him. The necron leaders were creatures of infinite arrogance and they fancied themselves gods. Something long ago in their history had brought them low, and they compensated now
by dressing their construct-bodies in the garb of divine kings and dwelling in vast steel temples to themselves.

  No slave had ever looked on the king who styled himself a god on Borsis. His glory was such that the necrons boasted human eyes would be burned out to gaze on it, and slaves were not permitted to get close enough to prove them wrong. But a handful among the slaves, including Mala, had attended on lords who were regularly called into his presence.

  He was named Heqiroth.

  He was a hero on Borsis. Grand monuments commemorated his overthrow of a spineless incompetent named Turakhin, and the winnowing away of the weakling dynasties who had supported the previous lord of Borsis. Turakhin’s own Magadha dynasty had been obliterated from monuments and rolls of past rulers, the scars and broken statues as proudly displayed in their own way as images of Heqiroth himself. The Nephrekh dynasty, noblest and most ancient dynasty of Borsis, had taken up its rightful place at the top of the aristocracy with Heqiroth at its head.

  The slaves were brutalised and afraid, but they were not stupid. Many came from worlds dominated by the squabbling factions of the Imperial aristocracy, and had journeyed to the frontier worlds preyed on by the World Engine to escape such politicking. They knew that even xenos, with their alien minds and ambitions, would chafe when forced to bow down to a new ruler that many despised, or would look in fear at the dynasties cast down when Heqiroth came to power. Many nobles sought power for themselves. Many wanted to carve out their own petty empires or simply pursue their own goals without the intrusion of a higher authority. And when the necrons expressed such frustrations, they sometimes forgot about the human slaves that attended on them.

  Without Heqiroth, a period of stasis would ensue as the dynasties fought to fill the power vacuum. Borsis would be weaker than it had ever been, for Heqiroth and his dynasty were still consolidating their power over all of Borsis and plenty of would-be overlords were sharpening their blades to seize any opportunity Heqiroth’s fall would bring.