by Guy Haley
‘Nothing in war is wise. Violence is not wisdom. Do you believe I went over the wall merely for glory?’
‘It had crossed my mind you might be bored.’
‘Hold them back.’ The Khan’s laughter turned into coughing.
‘Something ails you, brother?’
‘A poisoned knife,’ he said.
‘They poisoned you?’
‘Sorcery brought the sickness. Do not fear, the effect is dwindling, but I trust you to strike off my head should my loyalty appear to waver.’
The Khan reached the wreck of his machine and heaved it over. Lights still shone on the instrument panel, and he punched them rapidly. A status bar appeared on the main display.
‘They are returning! Hurry!’ said Sanguinius. He raised his spear. A cone of noiseless light snapped out, taking the lives of three Death Guard who approached. More were behind, and Sanguinius leapt at them, sword whirling.
A Thunderhawk set down close by. Others whooshed by overhead, their boltguns swivelling as they tracked priority targets in the murk.
‘Exload complete,’ the jetbike’s cogitator intoned.
‘It is done,’ said the Khan. ‘I have what we need.’ He stumbled. His wounded leg was still weak.
‘Then we go!’ Sanguinius shouted over the howl of the engines. He plunged his sword through the chest of a traitor, kicked another back and reached out to steady his brother. Together, their armour dulled by rotting blood and mud, the pair of them boarded the Thunderhawk as Blood Angels fired from the ramp, blasting back the enemy. The Khan limped inside while Sanguinius stood on the ramp and loosed a pair of final blasts from his marvellous spear.
Surrounded by explosions, the gunship took off into a sky crowded with ships. They were harried all the way back over the wall, where a combination of the aegis and the defensive guns drove off their pursuers.
Sanguinius turned away from the open ramp only when they were over the city. ‘Did you see what has happened to them?’ he said. ‘Mortarion’s sons are diseased. Were it not for all I have witnessed, I would not have thought it possible for a legionary to become so afflicted.’
‘Despite that, brother, they are more resilient than ever.’ The seated Khan dragged off his helmet, revealing a pale face drenched with sweat. ‘They have sold themselves to the so-called gods of the warp,’ he said. ‘Mortarion has fallen far. Once the staunchest opponent of sorcery, he embraces it fully. Truly these gods play with us. They love irony very much.’
Sanguinius arched an eyebrow at the Khan. ‘You do not look your best, brother.’
The Khan shivered. ‘I do not feel it, but now we return within the walls, the disease appears to be withdrawing quickly. See the blade that infected me.’
He held up his left hand. Still clasped in his fist from when he had torn it from his knee was the Death Guard’s combat knife. Beneath its coating of primarch’s blood it was pitted with rust, and the edge was dull, yet it exuded a sense of peril. Black venom dribbled from the blade over the Khan’s fist, evaporating in the air before it hit the ground.
‘An evil thing,’ said Sanguinius.
They passed some threshold over the Palace, and the knife blade suddenly crumbled into dust, and the venom boiled away, leaving only the filthy hilt, toylike in the Khan’s immense palm.
The brothers shared a look.
‘Curious,’ said Sanguinius.
‘Our father’s doing, surely,’ said the Khan, marvelling as the hilt collapsed into nothing. A smear of his drying blood gritted with grains of rust was all that remained of the weapon. ‘His protection is strongest over the Palace. That is the only explanation. This is a blade of the warp, and He is proof against its witchcraft. The toxin, too, has gone from my blood. I feel His presence, as a cool wind soothes a burn.’ He looked up at his brother. ‘My equilibrium returns.’
He fell silent for a moment, then said, ‘On Prospero, Mortarion tried to sway me to Horus’ cause. He spoke of the truth and of Horus’ rightness, and of our father’s lies.’ He clenched his fist. ‘I was the most critical of father’s designs, but now I see the truth, and it forgives all mistakes on His part. The warp is nothing but madness and corruption. Our brothers lose their minds one by one. When we face Mortarion again, we will fight a facet of a greater evil, a puppet, and not the proud warlord he once was. This troubles me greatly.’
Sanguinius’ wings twitched.
‘I cannot recall a time I did not feel troubled, my brother,’ he said.
The primarchs retreated into the gunship and it rose from the battle with furious noise, carrying the sons of the Emperor away from immediate danger. The golden guardians of Sanguinius rocketed after the ship, the jet turbines set between their metal wings screaming like fighting birds.
‘Fall back!’ A transhuman voice boomed from the fog. ‘Back to the defence line!’
Katsuhiro and the few conscripts still alive fled gratefully. The Space Marines let them run by, holding off the enemy with steady bursts of fire while they escaped.
Chaos ruled on both sides. The conscripts had gone into the fog of gas in poor order, and came out with none at all. But the Space Marines fought with incredible discipline. The swirl of battle had thrown them together. Red-armoured and white-armoured legionaries stood shoulder to shoulder. To an outsider, it would not have been apparent that most had never fought together before, but the ad hoc units worked smoothly, covering one another as they fell back, squad by squad, to the defence line.
The baying of barely human traitors mocked the retreat, but there was no doubt who was victorious. Hundreds, if not thousands, of lesser mortals blanketed the muddy field, with scores of giants in dirty white strewn among them. There were islands of bright red and cleaner white too, as well as swift contra-gravity mounts burning on the ground. Nevertheless the balance was in the loyalists’ favour.
It was a hollow triumph. They had come only a short way from the ramparts. Soon Katsuhiro found himself scrambling over broken chunks of rockcrete, only belatedly realising he had reached the third line. Amid the devastation he found an intact landmark, a numbered comms tower, its mast lights still blinking, and made his way back to his station.
Shells continued to scream down, all of the explosive variety, but he was too exhausted to duck, and left his fate in the hands of the universe. The adrenaline gone, his sickness returned with a vengeance, and his limbs shook. As he made it back to his company’s section the poison fogs began to part. He heard engines in the thinning mist, and saw armoured giants falling back. Tired warriors of his company slumped onto the few intact stretches of rampart left. There were more corpses than living men, and that included Runnecan.
Runnecan lay on his back staring up at the sky, not far from where he and Katsuhiro had begun the battle, not having made it off the wall. There was no sign of what had killed him. His gas mask was still in place. No claw or knife cut had opened his body. A mass-reactive would have left a spread of meat, but though he was unmistakably dead he looked unmarked.
Katsuhiro knelt by Runnecan’s side. He had never liked the man, and the loss he felt took him by surprise. For some reason he pulled off the other man’s mask, and wished he hadn’t. Runnecan’s ratty little face wore a disturbing expression of horrified surprise.
Footsteps crunched to a stop behind him.
‘Now that is a spot of terrible luck,’ said Doromek.
Katsuhiro twisted around. The effort required was immense. The mask he wore was poorly designed. His breath had fogged the lenses, and the front pulled to the side as he turned, cutting his vision down further.
Doromek peered down. He was unmasked, and munching on a piece of bread gripped in one bloodstained hand.
‘You can take that off now, you know,’ he said, nodding at Katsuhiro’s gas mask. ‘The air still stinks, but the gas is not concentrated enough to harm you any more.’
Hesitantly, Katsuhiro reached up, unclasped the gas mask and pulled it off over his head. It slithered on his sw
eat in a repulsive fashion. The cold of the mountain air was a punch in the face, and the smell of the gas nauseating, but he gulped it down gratefully, glad to be free of the hood.
‘Thank the Emperor,’ said Katsuhiro. ‘The Emperor protects.’
Doromek gave him a curious look. ‘You’re not one of them, are you? The worshippers?’
‘I…’ said Katsuhiro. ‘What? I just heard it somewhere.’
‘Well,’ said Doromek, ‘the Emperor had nothing to do with this. Space Marines and blind chance saved the day.’
‘Where have the enemy gone?’
‘Back,’ said Doromek. ‘They’ll reinforce the siege camps. They achieved what they set out to do, I expect. They brought up some artillery under the cover of the fighting, lobbed some shells over the walls.’
‘Why?’
‘Beats me,’ said Doromek with a shrug. ‘But they’ll have a reason, you can be sure of that. I never knew legionaries do anything without a reason.’ Doromek smiled at him. ‘You were pretty brave, weren’t you?’
Katsuhiro dropped his eyes, letting his gaze settle on Runnecan. ‘Leave me alone.’
’Suit yourself,’ said Doromek. He dropped a packet of bread by Katsuhiro’s side and left. ‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ he called. ‘The third line’s had it. We’ll be pulling back behind the second soon.’
Katsuhiro watched until Doromek had gone. When he was out of sight, he grabbed Runnecan. Rolling him over made him grunt with effort. The dead were always heavier than he expected, and in his weakened state shifting the body was almost too much for him. Runnecan’s open eyes disturbed him, and he was gladder than he should have been to pitch him over face down into the mud.
What he saw next was worse.
He remained staring at Runnecan’s back for a long time.
The wound that had killed him was a las-burn, neatly placed in his back, right over his heart.
Bloodhunt
The price of glory
An unworthy son
The Conqueror, Terran near orbit, 7th of Quartus
Khârn’s presence terrified the bridge crew. Lotara’s armsmen stiffened when he entered, holding their weapons down but ready. The sound of his tread clanging slowly off the deck made the deck officers cower. They could smell the blood caked onto his weapons. They shivered at the clink of the chains that bound them to his armour. Let them tremble, he thought. Let them fear me.
Lotara Sarrin feared him too, but she was brave enough to face him. The ship and crew were ragged. Maintenance went undone. Whole areas of the command deck were dark. Machines spilled cabled entrails onto the deck. The smell of blood was ever-present. Dust lay thickly on abandoned stations. The crew’s uniforms were filthy, and there were far too few of them on the bridge. Murder whittled them away. Sarrin too was dirty and unkempt. The blood print honour she bore on her uniform was lost beneath a hundred other stains but she, unlike her ship, was still proud.
She had been waiting impatiently for him and got up to speak to Khârn as soon as he approached her command throne. ‘We have a big problem,’ she said, as he reached her.
Khârn swallowed thickly. ‘Hnnnh,’ he grunted. He forced his panting breath into the patterns of speech. ‘No greeting, Lotara, no inquiry after my health?’ His voice was an intoxicated slur. Controlling his urge to violence took all of his concentration. The longer they were in orbit, the harder the Nails pounded, and the louder the whispered demands in his head were that he spill blood. Command was an unwelcome distraction. He had to fight.
‘I don’t have time for your attempts at humour, neither do you – not if you want to see this war out and not die at the hands of your own father,’ she said. She was rake-thin, worn out by the struggle to impose some order on her ship. ‘Do it,’ she ordered one of her officers. ‘Put it on the hololith.’
Khârn’s hands flexed impatiently around the haft of Gorechild. The axe was never away from his hands. He’d rather lay aside his limbs. ‘I do not have time for, hrrrrnh… for this… for this either.’
‘Make time. Look, listen, damn you, Khârn. Wake up! Look at what you have done.’
A cylindrical projection sprang on. Blood red from top to bottom, it appeared to be malfunctioning. It was not. An awful roaring emanated from the audio projectors, accompanied by screams so thin they were barely audible. A huge, inhuman hand swept by, taloned fingers spread, slashing downwards. A tumble of limbs and gore spread across the floor.
‘And?’ said Khârn. The Nails thumped softly in his skull at the display, tempting him to indulge in a similar slaughter on the bridge. The crew left were below half-strength. All of them knew what he was capable of. They expected him to kill them. Why should he disappoint? His forefinger twitched towards the switch that would send the mica dragon’s teeth into a blur. He estimated he could cut down twenty of the bridge crew before they raised a single gun against him. ‘The mortals die. The legionaries do not.’
‘Angron is rampaging through the thrall decks!’ Lotara said. ‘We’ve too few men left. We can’t afford losses. Not like this.’
He imagined taking her skull. She was physically weak, but her efforts had sent millions of men to their deaths. She would be a worthy offering to the brass throne.
The idea horrified him, only a little, but enough to make him force his thoughts back under control.
‘He’ll kill them all, I’m sure, and we have a more pressing problem.’
‘Explain,’ breathed Khârn, a dangerous, throaty whisper.
‘Since you shut him down there, Angron has been butchering his way through the ship. He is getting dangerously close to the enginarium. If he gets in there and slaughters the transmechanic clades the whole ship could go up. Or he’ll get bored and find his way up here, then you’ll have to fight him.’
Khârn stared at the image. Angron’s daemonic face swung into view. A yellow eye squinted into the vid augur. A giant fist followed, punching it into nothing and sending the projection cylinder into a fuzz of static. He would fight Angron. He could.
‘Cut the feed,’ Lotara said. The projection cylinder winked out. ‘Can’t you stop him? We have come this far. I don’t want it to end before we have the chance to fight.’
‘My father is doing what he wants,’ said Khârn, swallowing a mouthful of coppery saliva. ‘Nothing can restrain him. He will not go back into the vault. He has become too strong to contain. I… I…’
Blood. Angron spilled blood. A voice in his head demanded to know why Khârn did not.
Lotara took a step closer to him.
‘Khârn? Khârn! Listen to me!’ she snapped.
‘I am listening,’ he said, with difficulty.
‘Khârn, I know this is hard for you,’ she said gently. ‘But I know you can hear me and that you understand. Angron has to be stopped.’
Khârn looked down on her. His pulse thundered in his brain, each beat of his hearts a terrible agony. ‘You were his favourite. He gave you the blood mark himself, and you want to lock him away. Our father wished to be first on Terra. He was on the verge of rage anyway. Seeing Mortarion’s Legion sent in before ours is an insult. We are fortunate he did not leave the Conqueror to attack the Death Guard.’
‘This is not a good situation,’ she said.
‘He is contained. You sealed him in as I ordered. Let him alone. He can do little harm where he is.’
‘That is little harm?’ she said. Her face wrinkled in disbelief. ‘Little harm does not encompass the slaughtering of our tech cadre and the resulting reactor death.’
‘What do you suggest?’ said Khârn. He looked at her through a red haze. Sarrin was renowned for her cool head, but she too was feeling the effects of Angron’s influence. The crew had suffered the attentions of the Legion for a long time. He thought it likely they would soon turn on each other as the legionaries had. ‘We are changed, Lotara. This ship is a crucible of rage. The pull to violence in my mind is so strong that the slightest faltering of concentration will see a
scene on this command deck similar to the one below.’ He moved. The chain binding his weapon to his wrist clinked. Lotara’s gaze flicked to the head of the great axe. ‘I think now of how much pressure would be required for me to crush your skull, how many shots your armsmen will have time to fire before I cut them down. Let Angron vent his fury on the thralls, better them than more legionaries. I can spare no more thought for the matter.’
She shook her head. ‘No, no, if this is allowed to go on, we are all dead. We have to either confine him or get him off the ship. Only you can do that. You have to pull yourself together. Snap out of your bloodlust, Khârn. Help me!’
‘If he attempts to land on Terra, he will die,’ said Khârn. ‘So say Magnus, and Layak and the other mystics. Insufficient blood has been offered to the lords in the warp. The Emperor denies the Neverborn access. Not until Terra’s soil is damp with vitae will the gates open for their kind.’
‘Daemons,’ she said harshly. ‘How has it come to this?’ She looked at him fiercely. ‘How did this happen to you?’
‘They are our allies,’ he said. ‘Angron is blessed by the gods in the warp, and he is still my genesire.’
She nodded and massaged her forehead. ‘He is still Angron, I know. He is in there.’ She snapped her gaze back up to his face. ‘Do you wish him to die?’ Privation and time had aged her so much while he remained strong. She would be dead in not so many years, he thought, if she managed to survive the war. A poor end for such an accomplished killer. Better to die a warrior’s death, in battle. He could offer her that honour.
‘He might survive the detonation,’ she said. She was speaking quickly, aware Khârn’s thoughts were drifting. ‘Will he survive an attempt to reach Terra? Do you want to find out?’
Khârn shook his head slowly.
‘Then I have an idea. The Nightfall.’ She was gabbling now. She had a limited period while Khârn would remain calm.
‘The Night Lords,’ he said dismissively.
‘A few weeks ago, I received some intelligence,’ she said. ‘From the Twentieth Legion. They told me there is some kind of prison made for a primarch on the Nightfall. If we can get them to take Angron, it will keep him occupied for a while. Long enough until the time comes for him to land.’