Hammer and Bolter 14

by Christian Dunn

  Gilead pointed at a fallen weapon, a long, wooden handle with a blade strapped to one end with greasy twine and rags. It had belonged to a skaven rat, but Gilead indicated the boy might find it useful. The kid shook his head and rotated his hoe over his hands, showing how well-balanced the tool was.

  ‘No,’ said the boy.

  Gilead was left in no doubt what he was being told ‘No’ to. The boy had no intention of fleeing and none of giving up the hoe he was using as a weapon.

  A high-pitched war cry emanated from one of the tunnels, echoing around the hub, causing the skaven to stop fighting, and giving the few remaining live humans another opportunity to leave the scene.

  The cry sounded again, closer and more urgent, the shriek a mixture of fear and loathing, distress and zeal.

  Gilead cocked his head for a moment, assessing where the noise was coming from and at what distance. Then he nodded his head very slightly towards two of the tunnels to his left and one opposite. When they came, and they would come very soon, they would emerge from those three tunnels, and they would attack in their dozens or scores.

  ‘Flee!’ Gilead said again, but he knew that he was giving the order too late. He also knew that the brave boy would choose to stand his ground.

  Gilead shrugged. He wanted to confront the knight, but he had no choice but to deal with the ratmen.

  Then, at the edges of his hearing, Gilead detected the ping of tempered steel sparking off stone, and the swish of a deftly controlled blade cutting air. Perhaps the skaven were fighting alongside the undead knight after all, for Gilead knew in his heart that his enemy was bringing up the rear of the rat horde, careering down the dank tunnel towards him.

  The first of the skaven emerged from the tunnel opposite Gilead’s position. They were smaller but firmer than many of the others, younger perhaps, less diseased, faster and more eager to defile the humans. They carried bladed weapons with long handles, and wore improvised armour, spiked headpieces and cuffs. Several of them also carried more of the torches, which glowed green and gave off a sickly sweet smell. The waxes and oils they used were neither fresh nor free from impurities.

  As the skaven surged into the hub, they looked this way and that, and acted hastily rather than in concert. They touched their torches to anything that would burn. Soon, many of the corpses on the earth floor, both human and skaven, were burning slowly, flames licking lethargically through fur and cloth. One of the rats even managed to set fire to itself as it lowered its torch too close to the filthy rags that wrapped its backwards jointed legs. Gilead last saw it hopping and skipping about as if trying to escape the flames, but, instead, setting its twitching, frantic tail on fire.

  Gilead watched for what felt like long moments as he counted the skaven pouring out of the tunnels, and assessed what damage they could do and what danger they were to him and to the humans still caught in the hub. He counted the torches, too, and worked out how long they might burn for and at what temperatures. He assessed how many of the humans would die or suffer lasting injuries, and decided that the figures were too high to be bourn.

  Gilead had not been shadow-fast for many years, and had almost forgotten what it felt like. By turns it was liberating and tedious, exhausting and exhilarating. The elf had all the time he needed to prepare to fight the skaven, and all the time he needed to achieve the desired outcome of the battle. His sword and dagger moved faster than the eye could detect, even the flitting, nervous eye of the skaven. He cut them down as if they were nothing. He thrust and swung, lunged and flicked both weapons, never needing to parry, since none of the skaven were able to detect the movement of the blades in time to see them, let alone with time to mount a defence.

  As Gilead worked his magic, and the few remaining humans did their best to keep out of his way, the skaven began to turn, feebly looking for an escape route back the way they had come. Ratmen began to push and shove their brethren into Gilead’s path in order to avoid the elf and his scything, invisible weapons.

  Then he saw him.

  High over the heads of the skaven, standing tall and lean and menacing, his eyes glowing in the low, green-tinged light shed by the skaven torches, stood the undead knight, fully armed and armoured.

  Gilead spun out of the path of a pair of skaven, turning and barreling into a mass of clawing limbs and piercing squeals, and cut down two more of the ratmen who were trying to flee. His head came up for a moment, and he breathed deeply, steadying his senses as he harnessed his shadow-fast capabilities to home-in on the knight and his actions.

  Gilead watched as the knight brought his sword around past his shoulder, giving his swing enough momentum for the blade to cut down two skaven at once, slicing across one belly and one back, severing a spine and gouging a gut, disabling both of the ratmen.

  The knight fixed Gilead’s eyes with his own, and, shadow-fast, the elf looked deeply into the warrior’s glowing orbs for what felt like several minutes. He saw there fierce determination and the will to kill, but he also saw a kind of nobility, compassion even. Despite everything, despite the nature of the creature and his legacy, somehow, the undead knight felt like nothing so much as his ally.

  The skaven were caught between two deadly foes, falling to the knight and the elf in roughly equal numbers, both warriors showing unheard-of prowess in the field of combat.

  The young man stood by and watched in awe, raising his fist once or twice in celebration at some particularly powerful or subtle strike or blow, and filling the echoing chamber with calls to Sigmar.

  Short minutes later, large numbers of skaven littered the hub and the entrances to all of the tunnels and corridors that led away from it. Some had managed to stagger away injured and dying, and one or two even showed some bravery, or perhaps foolishness, as they fought to the death, regardless of being seriously outclassed by their opponents.

  The last of the skaven dealt with, Gilead turned his back on the small group of humans that remained underground, guarding them, his dagger and sword raised and ready before the knight.

  The elf and the knight locked eyes once more as Gilead eased out of his shadow-fast state. He did not need the skill now, the very thing that would have surely overcome the knight in the glade those many days ago, and which he was now able to harness with ease, was no longer needed. It was for the best.

  The knight raised his sword vertically in front of him, the hilt at his abdomen, the tip reaching beyond the top of his helm, in salute to Gilead. The elf sheathed his dagger and raised his own sword in a mirror image of his opponent. The knight closed his eyes and then opened them again slowly, and the elf nodded slightly, keeping his eyes on the warrior. The salute complete, Gilead sheathed his sword and turned to the boy.

  ‘You should have fled,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the boy.

  ‘Go now,’ said Gilead, and turned down the tunnel up which he had come.

  ‘It was the skaven,’ the boy called after him. ‘By Sigmar’s beard, it was always the skaven.’

  THE BURNING

  Nick Kyme

  The following events take place between Salamander and Firedrake, the first two novels of the Tome of Fire trilogy. This series follows the Salamander Space Marines as they attempt to unravel the mysteries surrounding the Chapter.

  First there was heat, then a sense of dislocation and a curious weightlessness as his body was propelled through humid air. It lathered his skin in a feverish steam-sweat that condensed into vapour as he moved. Pain followed swiftly, focussed in pins of agony impaled into his face, setting every nerve aflame. Reality was a series of flashes: light then dark, then hot and red.

  Groggy, he lolled on his back. Ash, kicked up from the hard fall, billowed up in a grey pall. Coughing, he tried not to choke on it. Fire, fire in the eyes. Cinder flecks made them itch and sting. Scratch it out. Muffled voices spoke without meaning. The smell was potent, though. It was…

  Burning.

  A stark moment of revelation, and he realise
d it was his own flesh. His fingers…

  They don’t feel like my own… smaller, not as strong.

  …were just millimetres from the charred edges of his skin when a strong hand seized him.

  ‘Don’t…’ a voice warned. The faded quality dampened the sense of urgency it tried to convey. The accent was deep, thick. It had a silken tone that was instantly recognisable yet somehow incongruous.

  ‘What– what happened?’

  My voice… strange, as if from someone else’s throat. No power, no resonance.

  ‘Dusk-wraiths,’ the other replied – he still couldn’t see him, his eyes registered only blurs of light and heat – as if that was explanation enough. ‘We must move. Come on, get up.’

  ‘I can’t see.’

  So craven, so weak and… and… mortal. This is not my voice.

  ‘You will. Give it a moment.’

  Strong hands gripped him again, hooking under the arms and hoisting him up. Sulphur tanged the breeze, acrid on his tongue. Sight returned slowly.

  On the horizon stood a mountain of fire, its peaks wreathed in pyroclastic cloud as it spoke with a voice from the depths of the earth.

  I know it. Was I born…?

  A great plain of ash spread before him, grey like a tomb, flaking like cremated skin. In the distance, the mountain, imperious over its smaller brothers and sisters, reached up with craggy fingers to rake the incarnadine sky. Hot clouds billowed in the visceral firmament like blots of dissolute blood. Veins of lava bled down the mountain face, trailing to a vast lake of fire many kilometres away.

  Ash, rock, flame – this was a hellish place, somewhere the damned came to suffer eternal torment. It was a red world, a world of magma rivers and razor-edged crags, of sulphuric seas and gorges of flame. It was beyond death.

  One foot went in front of the other.

  I used to be stronger than this…

  His legs worked of their own volition, rather than through an effort of will. They were running when he spoke again, though he didn’t know from what.

  ‘Am I dead?’

  Was I reborn?

  The other turned, resolving through a milky film of slowly regained sight. He was tanned, etched with tribal scars and carrying a long spear. Even with the scaled hide draped across his body and the rough sandals on his feet, the man had a feral but noble bearing.

  ‘No, Dak’ir,’ he replied, nonplussed. ‘This is Nocturne.’

  Home…

  Behind him, Dak’ir heard the scrape and whirr of the turbines slowly closing on them. He dared not look back. Half-glances, snatched during the panicked flight, had revealed dark weapons and a long droning engine. Its nose ended in a jagged barb, its flanks were bladed and it hovered as if held aloft by the very air hazing around it. A metal stink, wet and hot, followed it in a thick miasma. Platforms either side of its black fuselage carried… daemons, black-skinned daemons.

  The other had led them into a narrow gorge, scurrying down volcanic scree and through venting geysers of steam. It was hard going, even on foot, even unencumbered by armour or machineries…

  I remember my armour.

  …yet the turbine whirr followed.

  Dusk-wraiths were dogged hunters.

  I know them by another name.

  Dak’ir heard their shrieking – an unnatural, eldritch clamour – grow with anticipation of the kill.

  ‘Follow!’ the other cried. Dak’ir lost him briefly in the smoke rolling across the crags. He fought to maintain pace, heart hammering in his chest…

  Why do I only have one?

  …but the other was too swift. He knew this plain. Dak’ir felt he should know it too, but it seemed distant in his memory, as if the sights were not his own to recall.

  Keeping low, aware of the jagged bursts of displaced air overhead caused by weapons fire, Dak’ir barrelled around a twist in the rock.

  Reaching the other side, he found the other was gone. He’d entered a belt of smoke, exuded from some venting crater, and did not appear again. Dak’ir fought his panic, held it at bay.

  But I should know no fear…

  Panic now and he was dead. He’d not even seen his predators clearly, yet knew in his core the sharp tortures they’d visit on his flesh.

  I’ve seen their victims flayed alive, impaled on spikes…

  Crashing through the ring of smoke, Dak’ir closed his eyes. Rough hands dragged him aside and into the shadow of a deep and hidden spur.

  The other was there, a finger pressed tightly to his tanned lips.

  Something large and fleet skidded past them, impossibly aloft on the hot air, breaching the smoke bank like a serrated knife through skin.

  Three seconds lapsed before the whine of engines became the roar of explosions as the skimmer-machine was torn apart, its hellish riders thrown clear or devoured by fire.

  An ululating war cry ripped from the other’s lips as he hefted his long, hunting spear.

  Dak’ir found a recurve bow suddenly in his hands. He knew its contours well. This was his weapon.

  And yet, it isn’t.

  Nocking an arrow, he followed the other to the site of the wreckage.

  More tanned warriors were emerging from the smoke and displaced ash. Some carried finely-wrought swords. A number of them even had long rifles, braced to their shoulders and spitting shot.

  Dusk-wraiths lolled in the tortured remains of their skimmer-machine. Up close, it reminded Dak’ir of an Acerbian skiff but longer and infinitely more bladed. Skulls and other grotesque fetishes hung from spiked chains looped around its metal hull.

  Its riders were armoured in a sort of black carapace reminiscent of an insect’s segmented outer shell. Not daemons at all, but still daemonic in their own depraved way. They were tall and lithe, cruelly barbed like their ship. Murderous coals burned in their eyes, like the embers of trapped hate.

  I know these creatures, and yet they are not…

  Several were dead, even before the spears, bolts and blades cut down the rest. The slain rotted and festered before Dak’ir’s eyes, their armour corroding on the arid breeze like metal rusting impossibly quickly until flaking almost to nothing. Their bodies became ash, meeting the grey patina of the plain and disappearing. By the end, there was nothing to suggest they’d ever been there.

  Dak’ir lowered his bow, too stupefied to loose. The slaughter was over anyway.

  The other approached him, wiping black ash and rust from his spear, and frowned.

  ‘Brother…’

  Yes, I have many brothers, but you are not they.

  ‘Are you all right?’ The other came closer. Dak’ir felt the other’s hand upon his shoulder and only just realised he himself was similarly attired in sash and sandals.

  ‘I– I don’t…’

  This is not my armour.

  The other gestured for him to sit on a nearby rock. ‘Still dazed from the blast,’ he said mainly to himself. ‘It’s me, N’bel.’

  I’ve heard that name before. It’s very old.

  Dak’ir looked up, his eyes and senses suddenly sharp. The name resonated but he didn’t know why.

  ‘Brother…’ he echoed, and clasped N’bel’s arm in a warrior’s greeting. ‘I know you.’

  It was called a drygnirr, a fire-lizard, one of many that stalked the volcanic plains of Nocturne. It was a kind of salamander, the lesser kin of the monstrous firedrakes that dwelled deep in the mountains near to the magma’s warmth. Dak’ir remembered this much of his surroundings as he awaited the metal-shaper.

  Scurrying over the scattered rocks, the creature regarded him intently. A fire burned in its eyes, casting a glow about its onyx face. Barring a thin spine of blue, its scales were utterly black.

  ‘What do you want, little lizard?’

  ‘Don’t let the others hear you talking to yourself.’ N’bel appeared, carrying something in his hands. ‘They already doubt an Ignean’s mettle in battle.’ N’bel leaned in close and clapped a strong palm on Dak’ir’s shou
lder. ‘Not I though, brother.’

  Dak’ir nodded at the other Nocturnean’s camaraderie, so familiar and yet so strange to him at the same time. He had felt the prejudice at his Ignean heritage before, too.

  That was another time, spoken by another’s lips.

  When he glanced back towards the rocks, the drygnirr was gone. Perhaps it was just a figment of his imagination, and he wondered briefly if his doubters might be right.

  ‘Here.’ N’bel proffered a silver mask. ‘Pyrkinn flesh,’ he explained as Dak’ir took the mask. ‘It’ll quicken healing.’

  The metal-shaper, a bald-headed, broad-shouldered warrior with folded arms like bands of iron, nodded sagely behind him. Unlike the other tribal warriors, the metal-shaper carried a stout hammer across his back. White ash marked his body in sigils representing the anvil and the tools of the forge. His skin was even darker than N’bel’s and his glossy eyes captured the fire of the overhead sun and blazed.

  Eyes of fire… Skin as black as onyx…

  Dak’ir put on the mask. It only covered half of his face, the wounded part, but he felt the pain ease immediately.

  My face was burning when I heard them cry out his name.

  ‘My skin…’ he said, realising for the first time that it was much lighter than N’bel’s.

  ‘Ha! Ignean-ash. A cave-dweller sees less of the Nocturnean sun, Dak’ir.’ N’bel looked concerned. ‘Are you sure you’re well?’

  ‘Just a little disorientated. What happened to the wraiths?’

  N’bel became pensive. ‘Gone.’ He gestured to the plain beyond where several warriors assembled. One of them wore scaled robes and a snarling lizard mask. He waved a crooked staff, threaded with curving fangs and desiccated reptilian tails. A chest-plate of saurian bones armoured his muscled torso. The others watched him intently as he padded the earth: taking up handfuls, tasting, scenting, releasing and finally repeating all over again.