Soul Drinkers 06 - Phalanx

by Ben Counter

  N’Kalo halted the strikeforce at the head of the forest gap. On the

  other side was a stretch of open marsh, tempting for any force making

  for the coastal strongholds with nowhere for the enemy to use as an

  ambush. N’Kalo imagined the Parliamentarian commanders who had

  fallen for such a trick, before Molikor had requested the assistance of

  Imperial forces, and how they must have decided that it was

  acceptable to risk this one ambush spot to ensure they had a clear

  run at the enemy. How many of them had the Eshkeen killed,

  moulding the landscape into their ally? How many cavalry forces had

  wheeled in panic on just such a path, stuck with thousands of arrows

  and, later, riddled with bullets from captured guns, fired from an enemy

  so well hidden it seemed the forest itself wanted them dead?

  ‘Salik, Tchwayo, take the fore,’ voxed N’Kalo. ‘K’Jinn, cover the rear.

  Borasi, up front with me.’

  The strikeforce took up position in the mouth of the trap. Borasi’s

  Devastators knelt, heavy bolters covering their front arc.

  To an observer unfamiliar with the Space Marines, it would seem the

  Iron Knights were pausing in trepidation, making up their minds

  whether to continue down the narrow path laid out for them.

  ‘Open fire!’ ordered N’Kalo.

  The heavy bolters hammered out a dreadful cacophony as their fire

  shredded the edge of the right-hand forest, splintering tree trunks and

  sending clouds of spinning shards through the air.

  ‘Advance!’ shouted N’Kalo, his voice just audible over the din.

  ‘Advance and engage!’

  As the Devastators reloaded, the three Tactical squads ran for the

  forest, bolters spitting fire as they headed onwards. N’Kalo had his

  power sword in one hand and his plasma pistol in the other, and as the

  last splinters of tree trunk fell he caught the first sight of the enemy.

  The Eshkeen were heavily scarified, and wore strips of coloured

  cloth and leather wrapped tight around them to ward off the spines and

  stingers of the forests. The ridges of scar tissue that ran across their

  faces and bodies were high enough to be pierced with bones and

  thorns, and spikes were implanted under the shorn skin of their

  scalps. They resembled the figures from some primitive world’s visions

  of hell. Perhaps they modelled themselves after Molikor’s own myths,

  delving into their images of damnation to put fear into Parliamentarian

  hearts.

  The Eshkeen returned fire as best they could as they dragged the

  wounded and dead from what remained of the treeline. Autogun and

  lasgun fire spattered down at the Iron Knights, hissing in the damp

  ground or ringing off ceramite. The Space Marines did not slow and

  headed straight for the enemy.

  The ambush plan relied on the Space Marines staying in the open,

  thinking themselves unable to make any headway through the forest.

  Unfortunately for the Eshkeen, that plan, which would work

  horrendously well against the armies of the Parliamentarians, fell apart

  when confronted with an armoured Space Marine whose weight and

  strength could force him through the forest as fast as he moved in the

  open. Squad Salik reached the trees first and they did not slow down,

  shouldering their way between the tree trunks, rotten wood crumbling

  under their weight. The Eshkeen screamed war-cries as the Iron

  Knights were among them, streams of bolter fire criss-crossing

  through the forest and slicing Eshkeen in half.

  N’Kalo felt, in spite of himself, a faint disappointment. None of the

  Eshkeen would get close enough for him to use his power sword.

  Already Squad Tchwayo were into the rapidly thinning forest. Men

  were dying among the twisted roots and falling tree trunks. N’Kalo

  would not take any heads today.

  N’Kalo himself had reached the trees. Bodies lay twisted and broken

  among the fallen branches. One was still alive, moaning as he tried to

  force himself to his feet, apparently ignorant of the fact he had lost one

  of his arms at the elbow. Others had huge ragged holes in their torsos,

  cut down by bolter fire aimed at the central mass. Another had the

  side of his head crushed by a bolter stock. N’Kalo stepped over them,

  glancing around for targets as Borasi and K’Jinn advanced behind him.

  Suddenly, N’Kalo could not hear the heavy footsteps and bolter fire

  of the battle-brothers behind him. He looked back, not wanting to slow

  his own advance, but he could not see them.

  ‘Squads report!’ said N’Kalo into the vox. Blank static was the only

  reply. ‘Report!’ he repeated, but got nothing.

  The forest was seething. It was alive. The Eshkeen were barely

  recognisable as humans now, slipping in and out of tree trunks, their

  flesh merging with the mossy wood. They slithered along the ground

  like snakes, limbs as flexible as liquid, and slid into the ground before

  N’Kalo could take aim. They flitted overhead, birds on the wing.

  ‘What witchcraft is this?’ demanded N’Kalo. His power sword

  hummed into life and he slashed about him, felling the trees on either

  side as he pushed on. ‘A Space Marine fears not such devilry! He

  knows no fear!’

  The forest warped around him. Trees bowed in and hands reached

  out of the earth to snare his ankles. N’Kalo fired at movement, his

  plasma pistol boring a glowing orange channel through the foliage, but

  he could not tell if he had hit anything. Everywhere he cut left and

  right, forging on through the path he hacked. He called for his battlebrothers,

  but there was no reply. Faces were leering from the trees

  now, blood welling up from the ground. The sky, where he glimpsed it

  through the writhing branches overhead, seemed blistered and burned,

  as if some malignant energy was forcing its way down towards him.

  N’Kalo slammed into an obstacle that did not give way to his weight.

  He stumbled back a pace and saw another horror. A Space Marine

  from the waist up, a mutated monstrosity below, insectoid legs tipped

  with vicious talons, reared up to spear N’Kalo’s torso. The Space

  Marine was no iron Knight – his armour was painted purple, with a

  gilded chalice on one shoulder pad, and the high aegis collar of a

  Librarian.

  N’Kalo slashed at the apparition with his sword. The mutant brought

  up the haft of an ornate axe to turn the blow aside. Without seeming to

  move the mutant was upon N’Kalo, its weight bearing down on him,

  legs forcing him back onto one knee. One insect leg snared his sword

  arm and the other batted his plasma pistol aside.

  The forest was shifting again, this time back to normal. N’Kalo could

  hear his battle-brothers’ voices filling the vox-net.

  ‘Fall back!’ came K’Jinn’s voice. ‘Regroup at the far side!’

  ‘I have brothers down!’ shouted Salik. ‘Forming defensive!’ Bolter fire

  hammered away over the vox-net, volley and counter-volley shearing

  through the trees.

  The mutant kicked N’Kalo’s sword aside.

  ‘What are you?’ gasped N’Kalo. He struggled to get free, but the
<
br />   mutant was stronger even than a Space Marine.

  ‘I am the truth,’ replied Sarpedon.

  The fortresses of the Eshkeen were cunningly wrought so as to be

  invisible from the air. The finest siege-wrights of the Imperium could not

  have strung out fortifications of wooden stakes and pit traps with such

  subtlety, seeding the approaches to the dense coastal forests so that

  attackers on foot would find their numbers thinned out well before they

  came within bowshot of the fortress walls. The fortresses themselves

  were built on two levels, the first hidden trenches and murder-holes on

  the ground, the second walkways and battlements in the trees

  overhead. The canopy was thick enough to hide them, and the short

  distances between them were made deadly with tangles of cured

  razorvine, layers of dried earth concealing stretches of sucking mud,

  and even nests of forest predators herded into position by the

  Eshkeen. Two Parliamentarian forces had driven this far into Eshkeen

  territory and none of them had been seen again, save for a couple of

  messengers permitted to live so they could explain that the Eshkeen

  were not impressed by the glittering cavalry regiments and sumptuous

  banners of the Parliamentarian armies.

  The fortresses backed against the sea, although it was difficult to

  tell where the sea began. Mangroves formed layers of root canopy over

  the murky waters, infested with Eshkeen fishermen who found their

  harpoons were as adept at picking off soldiers wading out of landing

  boats as they were at spearing fish. The shallow waters and hidden

  reefs were enough to dissuade all but the most glory-hungry admiral

  from attempting a landing there. Unfortunately for the Parliamentarians

  they had once possessed such an admiral, whose ships now lay a few

  hundred metres from the shore where they had foundered, their men

  trapped there for months before starvation and Eshkeen snipers had

  seen to the last of them.

  These defences, as formidable as they were, would not have

  stopped a force of Space Marines determined to enact justice on the

  Eshkeen. The Iron Knights, however, had not been given that chance.

  The first N’Kalo saw of the Eshkeen stronghold was a ceiling of

  wooden planks and plaited vines. He struggled to move and found that

  he was not bound. He was high up in the air, the structure around him

  built into the thick, gnarled trunks of the mangroves. The humid air had

  a faint tang of decay, the smell of fallen plant matter turning to watery

  sludge, mixed in with the salt breeze off the sea. Eshkeen were

  everywhere at watch, eerily still as they scanned the approaches with

  their bows or guns to hand. N’Kalo saw, for the first time, their women

  and children. Some of the sentries were women, and a gaggle of

  children crouched in a doorway watching N’Kalo with a mix of

  fascination and fear. They were scrawny in a way that only growing up

  outside civilisation could explain, tough and sinewy, with painted skin

  echoing the scarring of their elders.

  N’Kalo sat up. The children squealed and scattered. He was in a

  barracks or communal living space, full of empty beds. He could not

  see his weapons, but his armour had been left on.

  He touched a gauntlet to his face as he realised his helmet had

  been removed. No wonder the children had fled. The burns he had

  suffered long ago, which he had chosen to hide under the knightly

  helm of his Chapter’s commanders, must have made him look even

  more of a monster than any other Space Marine.

  ‘Commander N’Kalo,’ said a too-familiar voice. N’Kalo jumped to his

  feet as the mutant from the forest entered.

  ‘Where am I? What of my brothers?’ demanded N’Kalo.

  ‘They are safe. I cannot permit them their liberty yet. They will go

  free soon, as will you.’

  The mutant Space Marine was armed with his power axe and a bolt

  pistol, and N’Kalo had not been a match for him when he had his

  power sword. Unarmed, he did not fancy his chances against the

  mutant. Better to talk and wait for the right time than to throw his life

  away trying to fight here, when he was bound to fail. ‘And you did not

  answer my question. What are you?’

  The mutant shrugged. It was seemingly too human a gesture for

  such a grotesque creature. ‘I am a Space Marine, like you. Well, not

  exactly like you.’

  ‘You are a witch.’

  ‘I am, if you prefer that term. I am Librarian and Chapter Master

  Sarpedon of the Soul Drinkers. And we are similar in more than just

  bearing the arms of the Adeptus Astartes. We are both, Commander

  N’Kalo, students of justice as much as of war.’

  ‘Justice? My brothers have fallen at your hand!’

  ‘Fallen, but not dead. My Apothecary is seeing to them. Two have

  bolter wounds and another was felled by a chainsword. Though they

  will not fight for a while, the three will survive. They are being held at

  ground level, below us, watched over by my battle-brothers. Sergeant

  Borasi gave us a great deal of trouble. He should be commended for

  his spirit, misplaced though it is. He owes us several broken bones.’

  N’Kalo had heard of the Soul Drinkers. Like the Iron Knights, they

  were successors to the Imperial Fists, with Rogal Dorn as their

  Primarch. N’Kalo had never met any of the Soul Drinkers but he

  recalled they were famed for their prowess in boarding actions and that

  they had won laurels during the battle for the Ecclesiarchal Palace

  during the Wars of Apostasy. N’Kalo and Sarpedon should have been

  brothers, not just as Space Marines but as sons of Dorn.

  ‘Why do you oppose us?’ said N’Kalo. ‘We are here doing the

  Emperor’s will!’

  ‘The Imperium’s will,’ replied Sarpedon. ‘Not the Emperor’s.’

  ‘And I suppose you, a mutant, one who has raised arms against my

  brethren, is the one doing the Emperor’s will?’

  ‘Looking at it that way,’ said Sarpedon, ‘I can understand your

  doubts. I do not believe, however, that you know the full story of what

  is happening on Molikor.’

  ‘And you are going to tell me?’ spat N’Kalo.

  ‘No. I am going to show you.’

  N’Kalo saw his brothers guarded by a ring of Soul Drinkers. The Iron

  Knights had been disarmed but, as Sarpedon had said, few of them

  were hurt. A Soul Drinkers Apothecary was operating on the wounded

  leg of one sedated Iron Knight – all the rest were conscious and, led

  by Borasi, started up a chorus of plaudits for their commander and

  insults hurled at Sarpedon as soon as they saw N’Kalo. A couple of

  the other Soul Drinkers were mutants, although not as dramatically

  malformed as Sarpedon. One had an enormous mutated hand, and

  N’Kalo wondered what other mutations were hidden beneath their

  armour.

  It was a strange feeling to be led, not quite a captive and not quite

  an equal, through the Eshkeen forest by Sarpedon. N’Kalo’s soldierly

  mind sized up every chance to attack Sarpedon, drag him down to the

  ground or stab him in the back with a fortuitous
weapon snatched from

  a nearby Eshkeen, but Sarpedon had his own warrior instinct and

  every opportunity was gone before it began. If he had a weapon, N’Kalo

  thought, he could kill Sarpedon and, if not complete his mission, at

  least rid the Imperium of this enemy – but even with a bolter or a power

  sword in his hands, could he beat Sarpedon when he had been

  defeated before?

  The Eshkeen watched curiously as N’Kalo moved through their

  domain. They walked paths almost hidden in the forest, avoiding traps

  and dead ends sown liberally throughout the forest. In places N’Kalo

  could see the waters of the ocean between the roots underfoot, and

  glimpse Eshkeen walking there, too, wading through the waters to fish

  or keep watch over the coastal approaches. In other places the ground

  underfoot was solid, with tunnels and bunkers dug into it. The Eshkeen

  themselves wore patchworks of body armour and scraps of captured

  uniform, the most colourful belonging to those who looked the most

  experienced and deadly. The right to sport the captured garb of the

  enemy was evidently a privilege that had to be earned.

  In the heart of the stronghold was a fortification of stone instead of

  wood, concentric circles of jagged battlements forming a huge granite

  maw around a pit in the centre. Sarpedon followed a complex path

  through the fortifications, leading N’Kalo through them even though he

  could probably have scrambled over them with ease thanks to his

  arachnid limbs. The trees did not grow here so an artificial canopy had

  been stretched out overhead, a lattice of vines and ropes woven with

  leaves, to keep it hidden. There were no Eshkeen keeping watch

  among the fortifications, but many of them had gathered in the trees

  around the clearing to watch the two Space Marines descending to the

  pit.

  ‘Like you,’ said Sarpedon, ‘we heeded the distress call from the

  Parliaments of Molikor. But we have learned to be circumspect. A little

  more suspicious, perhaps, of our own Emperor-fearing citizens. We

  arrived here without informing the Parliaments of our presence, and

  spoke instead to the Eshkeen. When we hear only one side of the

  story, I find we inevitably miss out on the more interesting half.’

  The pit was a shaft lined with carved stones, forming a spiral frieze

  winding down into the darkness. The frieze depicted an endless tangle