‘I bring you illumination,’ Kurtha Sedd intoned as he immobilised the legionary. Then he began the real work of pain.
The cultists and his squad rampaged through the connected caverns. None of the deaths were hurried. The tortures were strategic. The most vulnerable suffered the worst horrors. The Word Bearers destroyed the medicae tables. In their place, they constructed altars. The building materials were bone and shattered bodies.
The altars were still breathing when they were completed. From the mouths of the bent, twisted, agonised bodies, new rivers of darkness flowed.
The dark was stronger, and not just because of the work of Kurtha Sedd. He sensed it feeding elsewhere. The confusion and fear it summoned when it descended on the civilian populations was its fuel. It was self-sustaining now. He could return his attention to the military side of the campaign.
He must do so.
He sent his orders out on the imperfect relay. ‘Brothers,’ he said, ‘we must seize this chance. Destroy the command nexus. Kill Aethon. Clear the way for our greater task.’ He listened through static to his words being repeated.
Screams followed his squad into the tunnels as he headed upwards once more. He steeled himself for the conflict he did not desire, but could not avoid.
The Bull left a wake of blood. Moving up behind the Dreadnought, Toc Derenoth found little to mop up. Sor Gharax destroyed any enemy force he encountered, and did not move on until every living thing in his range was blasted to unrecognisable pulp. Sometimes, a few Ultramarines managed to slip behind the Bull. They were caught between the Word Bearers squad and the raging wall of Sor Gharax.
The struggles were fierce, but brief.
Toc Derenoth pulled his chainsaw out of an Ultramarine’s chest. Sor Gharax was ten metres ahead, about to disappear around a bend in the tunnel. The walls were slick with blood. The air smelled of fyceline and burned flesh. The darkness trembled with joy. The voices laughed.
As he moved to catch up, Kurtha Sedd’s orders reached him.
Marching beside him, Khuzhun said, ‘Given our position, that falls to us.’
‘Agreed.’ This was why he had wanted to follow Sor Gharax. The Dreadnought would have to travel the larger arteries. Toc Derenoth counted on that path leading back to the site of his humiliation. Kurtha Sedd had granted him absolution. Toc Derenoth had not given it to himself. And though he believed in the Chaplain’s quest, he had not turned from the importance of tactical victories against the Ultramarines. He sought renewal, and the squad had reached the level of the command nexus. Sor Gharax’s headlong rush up the main corridors had returned them to within striking distance of the Ultramarines stronghold.
The passageways bore the scars of the hypercoolant flood. The sea had drained away, leaving scoured and cracked stone in its wake, further weakening many of the caverns. The geography of the arcology network had changed. Toc Derenoth looked for a way of turning the alterations to the Word Bearers’ advantage. There was more than pragmatism in his search. He wanted to turn the cause of the Ultramarines’ victory into the means of their defeat. He was leading Ulughar Squad now. With Sergeant Ghulun Vaad dead, he was the senior legionary, and the squad had been reconstituted with some of the other survivors Fifth Company had picked up on its journey.
‘We need to get closer,’ Khuzhun said.
‘I know, but not head on.’ He had found nothing yet. They hadn’t encountered the enemy’s main line of defence, but that wouldn’t be long in coming. Sor Gharax would hit it eventually as he barrelled on. Powerful as the Bull was, Toc Derenoth did not want him slamming into a strongpoint. That would be granting the Ultramarines every advantage.
They hurried to catch up with the Bull. They rounded the bend with the rest of the squad, and saw Sor Gharax approaching a large junction. Toc Derenoth recognised it from the bas-relief on the archway. The flood had defaced it badly, but the design was still just visible. Guilliman’s strength, embodied in rays, reached to the sky and descended to the underworld.
Your strength has been blocked, Toc Derenoth thought. The darkness had killed Guilliman’s light.
He sped up. ‘We have to get past the Bull,’ he said. ‘If he turns right and keeps going, he’ll be heading for the same approach we took before.’
‘How do you propose to stop him?’ Khuzhun asked.
‘I don’t. We have to try to direct him. Take him in the way we left.’ The Ultramarines had released them into a smaller tunnel on the side of the command nexus, to the right of the great hall and its abyssal moat. The corridor had been higher than the hypercoolant. Though narrow, it was still wide enough for Sor Gharax, and too narrow for the Ultramarines to bring large numbers to bear against the Dreadnought.
‘And how do we get there? You don’t think they’ve locked down that access point?’
The small tunnel gave on to a much larger one that appeared to circumnavigate the nexus. The enemy could respond in force there.
‘We have to find a way,’ Toc Derenoth said. That was not a real answer. It was also the truth.
Ulughar Squad caught up to Sor Gharax as he reached the junction. He turned right, as Toc Derenoth had thought. The tunnel ahead was empty. The next intersection, a few hundred twisting metres ahead, would lead to the hall. It would be a miracle if they did not run into an Ultramarines patrol before that. Toc Derenoth ran faster yet, putting a space between himself and the Bull, grabbing a few extra seconds.
This tunnel was even more heavily damaged. The lumen orbs were all gone, and the night would have been complete even without the tide of darkness. The clarity in black that was the gift to the Word Bearers outlined the passageway for Toc Derenoth. He saw the buckling roof. He saw the walls slumping towards the centre of the tunnel floor. Rubble everywhere, an ambush possibility every few metres. Toc Derenoth did not slow. There was no time for caution. He would find an alternative route or encounter another failure. The dark was an advantage. It was not a promise of victory.
There. On the right. Outlined in the shimmering black: a huge split in the wall. Toc Derenoth stopped and looked down its length. It stretched many metres through the rock before it twisted out of sight. There was no promise here, either. No promise that the other end of the cleft opened onto the perimeter tunnel. No promise there was another opening.
No promises at all. But great promise all the same.
‘Here,’ he told the squad, and he rushed back to Sor Gharax. As he did so, he contacted Vor Raennag. The sergeant’s Gurthuz Squad was the nearest to his own, and just within vox-range. ‘I have to speak with the Chaplain,’ he said. ‘Quickly. Sor Gharax must be made to wait.’ The connection was rough, but Vor Raennag appeared to understand.
Toc Derenoth stopped a few paces ahead of the Bull. He walked backwards and he tried to reach any trace at all of the rational in Sor Gharax’s mind while he waited for an answer. ‘Annunake,’ he said, ‘please stop. You were patient when the Chaplain called on you before. You must be so again.’
The Bull pounded on, his speed constant.
‘A short delay, Sor Gharax,’ Toc Derenoth said. ‘I do not ask this of you. Kurtha Sedd does.’ A lie, which he expected to become a truth at any moment.
The Dreadnought advanced. They were very close to the split in the wall.
Vor Raennag came back on the vox. ‘No guarantees, brother,’ he said. And he passed on what Kurtha Sedd had said.
‘The Chaplain speaks for the gods,’ Toc Derenoth said, repeating the truths the sergeant had conveyed to him. ‘You will wait, and in waiting, you will drown the Ultramarines in blood. Your wrath will have a victory.’
Toc Derenoth was shouting, but the Bull’s roar was louder. He didn’t know if Sor Gharax could even hear him, much less understand and obey.
The Dreadnought rumbled past the split. Toc Derenoth cursed. But then Sor Gharax paused. He turned his monstrous bulk around. His madness
glared through the emerald lenses of the sarcophagus’s skull. He looked past Toc Derenoth into the depths of the wall. Perhaps he did understand. His bellows diminished to rhythmic snarls that took the place of his breath.
‘Thank you, Annunake,’ Toc Derenoth said.
Vor Raennag spoke to him again. ‘Have you succeeded?’
‘I think so. For the moment.’
‘The Chaplain wants your report. What have you found?’
Kurtha Sedd commanded a forced march to rejoin Ulughar Squad. Fifth Company was to converge on Toc Derenoth’s position with all haste. It would take time for his orders to reach all the Word Bearers units under his control, and more time yet for them to reach the designated point. Even moving at this pace, he would be among the last.
He was frustrated, hopeful and relieved in equal, conflicting measures.
He was frustrated because of the time it would take to reinforce Toc Derenoth. Too long a delay would cost the Word Bearers this chance. Toc Derenoth and his squad would not be able to hold Sor Gharax for long. ‘Ulughar Squad,’ he sent out to the vox-chain. ‘Begin your attack as soon as the first of our squads arrives. To whoever reaches Ulughar first, draw the Ultramarines with a frontal assault.’
He was hopeful for victory. The chance was a good one. The elements were aligning on the side of the Word Bearers. Aethon’s strongpoint would go down.
He was relieved because his squad was the furthest from Ulughar’s position. He was sure the most critical point of the battle would have been decided by the time he arrived. Aethon must die, but he would not be the one to do the killing.
Even giving the order pained him. ‘To all of Fifth Company – find the Ultramarines captain and kill him. Decapitate the leadership.’
The jolt he felt was of an old chain yanking itself free of his soul.
It was not enough. He ran faster in defiance of the burdens of old friendship. He strained against his bonds, racing towards the duty that felt like a crime.
NINE
Blindness and insight
Rejoice in violence
Offering
Vor Raennag arrived. He took his squad forwards, making for the main entrance to the command nexus. The Bull’s growls were turning into frustrated howls. He was still waiting, but wouldn’t for much longer. Toc Derenoth told him, ‘Let me find the way.’ Without waiting to see if Sor Gharax had understood or not, he entered the wall.
The split narrowed in several places as it wound. To eyes unopened by faith, unaided by the flow of the gods’ darkness, it would have appeared blocked. Toc Derenoth squeezed through the pinched sections. He glanced up at the ceiling. It was still high enough for the Dreadnought, and he would be able to punch through the restricting rock. It was mostly rubble, and the obstacles were quick to get by.
The huge crack through the rock jinked left and right several times. Smaller fissures led off it, going nowhere. It came to an end as Toc Derenoth had hoped, opening onto the passage that ran around three sides of the command nexus. The fissure narrowed again at its terminus, but not enough to stop what was coming.
From behind, Toc Derenoth heard the sounds of a heavy tread, splintering stone and rock scraping against metal. Sor Gharax was no longer waiting. His bellow echoed through the dark.
Toc Derenoth looked out of the fissure. The entrance to the passageway he sought was less than ten metres to the left. There was an Ultramarines guard post there, and a patrol had just passed his position. The Word Bearers would emerge between the two enemy forces. The risk was manageable. The critical moment was now. If the Ultramarines detected the Word Bearers’ approach, they could shut the assault down while Ulughar Squad was still in the fissure.
The Bull’s charge was loud. Rock smashed. The roar filled the tunnels. And the dark echoed it. The Ultramarines’ movements were uncertain. Waves of dark descended on them, thick with blindness, smothering helm lights. Voices rattled along the passageway. They snarled, they laughed, they taunted, they cried out. Many of the voices wore human disguises, like flesh draped over xenos skeletons. They were disguises known to the Ultramarines. Toc Derenoth saw the enemy warriors jerk in response to shouts for help.
‘That was Nicander,’ one said.
‘No,’ said another. ‘I saw him fall.’
‘You did not see him dead.’
The patrol had stopped in its tracks. Bolters turned one way, then another, searching for targets in the blackness.
The voices picked up Sor Gharax’s roar. They echoed and redoubled it. It became the boom of an avalanche. There was no way to tell its direction, no way to determine if its origin was sentient or the thunder of collapsing caverns.
The Ultramarines were drowning in darkness and auditory overload. Sor Gharax was only a few metres behind Toc Derenoth.
Vor Raennag voxed, ‘In position.’
Now, Toc Derenoth thought. ‘Now,’ he said to his squad and to Vor Raennag. He burst out of the fissure and charged to the left. A moment later, the Bull exploded through the wall. His wrath, held back by a supreme, agonised effort, erupted. The Ultramarines at both positions opened fire at the mass of wrathful darkness. The assault cannon blazed, its muzzle flare illuminating flashes of the armour’s crimson.
Ulughar Squad spilled out of the tunnel in the wake of the Dreadnought. Toc Derenoth’s brothers caught up with him as he stormed the guard post. The Ultramarines were firing over their heads, aiming for the colossal threat filling the tunnel. Toc Derenoth laughed. In the beautiful dark, he beheld a doomed enemy unable to see the most immediate threat.
He held his fire until the squad was almost at the fortified position. Then he led a barrage that slammed through Ultramarines at near-point-blank range. Then the charge hit, and the Word Bearers were a battering ram striking out of the darkness. Toc Derenoth’s chainsword cut through an Ultramarine’s gorget and neck before the first legionary he’d shot hit the ground. Surprise was total. Ulughar Squad tore the guards apart.
Left again, into the smaller tunnel, towards the blast door that guarded the enemy’s territory. And the Bull was on the squad’s heels. He had smashed the patrol, and needed murder on a grander scale.
Toc Derenoth stood aside for the monster. Sor Gharax barrelled ahead, shaking floor and walls. He raised his power fist and battered the blast door. With each blow the door withstood, the rage of the Dreadnought mounted. The roars were so loud, Toc Derenoth felt their vibrations through his armour.
He waited for the barrier to fall. Redemption was seconds away.
Gurthuz Tactical Squad raced across the site of the Word Bearers’ defeat. The Ultramarines had left the hall empty after the hypercoolant had drained into the abyss. Most of the support pillars had fallen in the flood, bringing the ceiling down with them. The hall was less than a quarter of its original size, a compressed chaos of rubble. Its defence was neither practical nor needed. Only one of the ramps still existed. From the windows of the command nexus, the Ultramarines could sweep away any enemy who dared to attempt a crossing.
But only if they could see him.
Gurthuz Squad’s role was a diversion, but when he saw the terrain, Vor Raennag decided to make a play for greater impact. ‘No weapons fire until we know they’ve heard us,’ he ordered.
The enemy started shooting as he climbed the ramp. The Ultramarines were blind, but adapting. The bolter storm was withering, albeit without precision. Vor Raennag lost two men, and then they were on the ledge outside the nexus.
‘Explosives!’ Arathrax called. The Ultramarines had mined the ramp.
‘Neutralise them!’ Vor Raennag shouted. He hurled frag grenades through the window over his head and followed them up with a bolter spray. He took out the nearest turret and its gunner.
He led the squad along the platform to the entrance. The Word Bearers raked the interior with shells, giving Arathrax the cover to kill the explosives. If
the ramp went, they would be cut off from reinforcements.
Through the windows, he saw a control room. The Ultramarines were scrambling to respond, but they were a beat behind as they tracked sound, deprived of sight. Two of them turned their guns on the doorway, anticipating foes. Vor Raennag ducked low and rolled through the door, under the fire. He came up on one knee and sent a stream of bolter shells through the chest of the nearest foe.
The darkness had pooled in the confined quarters of the room. It clutched at the enemy with tendrils thick as coiling tree limbs. The flashes of guns and grenades were failed illumination. Vor Raennag’s world was black and grey, as if etched in the ink from the Book of Lorgar itself. He saw his foes strike out with blind fury. Serpentine black, thicker yet than the deep pitch in the room, wrapped itself around the eyes of the enemy.
The departure of the Word Bearers fleet had been a blow for the sergeant. He had found it hard to believe Kurtha Sedd’s promise of their brothers’ return. At this moment, his doubts vanished. The Chaplain’s work was turning the tide. What he saw was the Ultramarines being overwhelmed by the blindness of the lies they followed, and he rejoiced.
He rejoiced with violence.
Gurthuz Squad poured shells into one enemy, then another. The Ultramarines had no clear target before them and their response was diffuse. As they dropped, Vor Raennag directed fire into the banks of control surfaces. Klaxons sounded, then died. Electricity arced across the chamber. Vor Raennag thought he could feel power and communications dying across the territory the Ultramarines had seized.
The control room blazed with billowing flames of grey. A chain reaction of destruction took hold of it. Exposed cables ignited ruptured pipes of coolant and promethium. He ran through a firestorm towards the rear doors.
His vox sprang to life. More squads of Words Bearers had arrived. He called to them in triumph and welcome as he kicked the plasteel doors off their frame.
The Unburdened Page 10