by Guy Haley
Layak pointed skywards, to the churning air and the fleet that waited beyond for Terra’s answer. Raldoron’s wall captains reported in, sending target locks for verification. He blink-clicked and thought-approved them all. They were as good targets as they could be, straight shots, but every beam of energy and solid round passed through the island.
‘I am a prophet of the gods. I am Horus’ servant,’ said Zardu Layak, ‘and I say to you, rejoice! The gods are coming here, to this world. They will bestow their power and their wisdom to any person strong and faithful enough to take it. Look upon me, and witness one of their champions. I swear to you that they will treat mercifully those who turn their backs upon the False Emperor. They will be kind to those who kneel to the righteous powers of this universe! This is my pledge! You will survive, you will prosper. You will know mastery of this realm, and glory in the next. This is their compact with me, and through me, with you.’
Again the figure paused. Again thunder rolled its drums.
‘As I come to you with these joyous tidings, I must also convey a warning. If you do not embrace the true faith, if you do not acknowledge the true gods, if you do not pay obeisance to Khorne, God of War…’ The sky shook at the speaking of the name. Men cried out. ‘To Nurgle, God of Endless Life…’ The sky shook again, and again as he spoke the names of the other powers. ‘To Tzeentch, God of Knowledge, and to Slaanesh, God of Pleasure… then you will be slain by them and their servants, and your souls will be cast into the warp, there to be devoured. Only then, in the life that comes after this as surely as night follows day, will you know the magnitude of your mistake. There you will see through the Emperor’s tissue of lies in despair. In the warp you will beg without hope for the chance to change your actions. There is but one choice!’ Zardu Layak boomed. The island of bone had passed hundreds of kilometres to the south by now.
Through the automata’s eyes, Raldoron witnessed the thrall-priests of Layak cast back their hoods, rip open their robes and expose their torsos. They were eyeless, every one, bloody sockets in their faces, and their bodies cruelly cut with ritual scars and burned with brands. In their right hands they held daggers of dull metal.
‘This is the end!’ Layak roared.
The priests lifted their daggers to the sky and howled praise with tongueless mouths.
‘Grovel before the gods and beg for their mercy!’ Layak demanded.
The knives plunged into the breasts of the priests. They fell as one, their blood rushing from their opened hearts and pouring through the gaps in the bone to sluice the land below.
‘Now is the time, now is the moment! The way is clear! The doors open! Turn on the slaves of the False Emperor, repent before it is too late and liberate yourselves from His tyranny!’
The island rose up, rapidly vanishing into the crowds, chased all the way by a tempest of ineffectual gunfire.
Drops of rain plinked off Raldoron’s battleplate, the few turning rapidly to many. It ran over his eye-lenses, smearing the view.
‘What is happening?’ asked Thane. He held up a cupped palm.
Only then did Raldoron see that the drops of rain ran bright and crimson on Thane’s yellow armour.
‘A rain of blood,’ Raldoron said.
A great howling split the sky, then another, then a third. Three streaks of lurid energy shot down from above, each displaying brief glimpses of howling faces. One by one they slammed down. More thunder rumbled.
On the horizon, screeching horns blew.
Physical movement pushed through the line of shimmering energy fields guarding the contravallation. Constructs so large they were visible from the wall top across scores of kilometres of broken land emerged from the battlesmoke. Three huge siege towers pushed their way through the landing craft wrecks, taller even than the broken ships, and big enough to grind the smaller of them flat.
Sirens rose up from the city. Still the enemy fleet did not re-engage with their cannons, but across the land between siege line and wall sped the fire of more conventional weaponry as enemy artillery opened fire again. These hit the weakened shields, with many passing through to strike the wall itself.
‘This is it,’ said Thane. ‘The circling is over. The duel begins in earnest.’
‘There will be a landing soon,’ said Raldoron, looking up into the bloody rain.
‘Let us strike blood together, brother,’ said Thane. He held up his yellow gauntlet. Raldoron crashed his forearm against the Imperial Fist’s.
Explosions rippled over the aegis.
‘I will not let that sermon rest without reply,’ Raldoron said. He clambered up onto the firing step, and faced the mighty cannon. Framed by the fires of the enemy’s impotence boiling off the shields, he raised his bolter and demanded the attention of friend and foe alike.
‘Now! Now!’ Raldoron shouted. He opened his communications to all the men under his command: his company, his Chapter, the warriors of other Legions pledged to the Helios section of the Daylight Wall, Martian cyborgs, mortal humans, grizzled soldiers and terrified conscripts.
‘The oath! Take the oath!’ he commanded.
His men turned about, took to one knee and bowed their heads.
‘We are the sons of the blood of Sanguinius!’ Raldoron shouted over the howl of weaponry.
‘We are the sons of Dorn!’ Thane echoed.
‘In this moment we take our oath, solemnly to be upheld, that we defy these prophets. We deny their superstitions, their bloodthirsty idols, mumbled cantrip and fearful fetish. We deny these so-called gods. We deny their right to be. On this day, not one traitor shall pass this wall. Not one being who spits on the Emperor’s name. Not one with treachery in his heart. Not one in thrall to these false gods. We fight to the last of our blood, for the Emperor, for the Imperium, for Unity, for Terra!’
‘For the Emperor, for the Imperium, for Unity, for Terra!’ half a million voices, human and transhuman, roared back, loudly enough to be heard over the guns.
‘Let our defiance be our first blow!’ Raldoron shouted. ‘Let that be our oath!’
There were no parchments to be affixed by wax, or time to observe the proper rites, but in the gathering of warriors there was more solemnity than any official practice could contain. There was no distinction between man and superhuman, only brotherhood, and the shared will to prevail.
Raldoron rejoined Thane.
‘Well said, Blood Angel.’
‘Now I am ready to fight,’ said Raldoron.
Dorn himself spoke then, a message that went to every helm, vox-bead and address system in the Palace.
‘The time for speeches is done,’ said Dorn. ‘The first great test is here. My order to you all is simple, yet heed it well, and exert yourselves to see it done.
‘They are coming. Kill them all.’
Angels of Death
Angron freed
First on the wall
The Nightfall, Terran orbit, 15th of Quartus
A single note sang through Horus’ fleet, calling all to action. Upon the Nightfall it was greeted gladly.
‘That’s it. That’s the signal. All engines full ahead!’ bellowed Terror Master Thandamell, wild with excitement.
All mutual respect between the Legion and its servants was gone aboard the Nightfall. The bond had been failing for a long time, a process of erosion quickened since Skraivok had installed himself, and come thence to collapse. It was not so on every ship, but under the Painted Count’s overlordship, the crew were reduced to chattels. The slave masters moved among the thralls, laying their scourges across the backs of those deemed to be performing their duties too slowly. No Night Lord would lower himself to the tedious administration of day-to-day discipline. Every overseer was drawn from the thrall-stock of the ship. All were desperate men, and sadists. Their eagerness to perform their duties exhilarated Skraivok. He had never been a gentle man, but his character was changing under the influence of the sword, becoming more wanton in its cruelty – quickly enough that h
e could see it himself, invigorating enough that he did not care.
‘Thandamell!’ Skraivok crowed from the shipmaster’s dais. ‘What glories await us! What fine adventures we set ourselves upon. When the bards compose their sonnets of this war, come victory or defeat, the name of Gendor Skraivok will be remembered, and that is very fine. When the chroniclers of the future ask where Konrad Curze was at the moment the first assault crashed against the walls and find no answer, they will know that I, the Painted Count, was there in his stead! As Curze blunders his way across the cosmos whining for his father, it is I who bring the sons of the sunless world to glory, for power, for plunder and for pain! Onwards, sons of the night! Onwards to victory.’
Thandamell grinned savagely. ‘What a lovely speech,’ he said. ‘Are you all done now?’
‘Of course, Thandamell.’ Skraivok gripped the hilt of his sheathed sword and gestured to a slave to bring him his helm. ‘If you would be so good as to release the primarch, I have a ship to board. Order the Raptors to depart immediately. Take the enemy by surprise, clear a safe zone. I wouldn’t want my crowning achievement to be spoiled by my death.’
‘How do we get him out?’ said Thandamell.
Skraivok, on his way to the nearest lifter, stopped.
‘Who, terror master?’
‘Angron. How do we get him off the ship?’
Skraivok waved a hand around dismissively.
‘I shall let you decide on that. I’ve other prey to hunt.’
The Nightfall shuddered from stem to stern with the push of its engines. Terra’s tortured orb swelled. Klaxons alerted all aboard to imminent planetfall. On decks below, warriors readied themselves for the drop.
‘You, serf!’ Thandamell barked. ‘Prepare to cut power to the labyrinth.’
Angron blundered from a smoking chamber. Delicate crystalline pain engines lay broken on the ground. The daemon primarch panted with effort, his red skin crossed with a thousand welts. The pain engines could keep a normal man occupied with an eternity of torments – yet another trap in Perturabo’s maze. Under Angron’s fury, they had lasted four minutes. Behind him stretched a trail of destruction through the intricate workings, a road of smashed priceless technologies, caved-in walls, ruptured conduits and broken machinery.
The next room came alive. A labyrinth of screaming faces trapped in mirrors, all pleading to be saved, all in peril, shouting endlessly.
There was perhaps a way through. Once, Angron had possessed a mind sharp enough to best the challenge by intellect alone. Now, he did not need to think. Brute force served him better. His wings were tattered, one eye blinded. Las-burns, rad-burns, cuts and bullet holes covered him. The labyrinth had tested him, but it could never, ever stop him.
Angron heaved in a wheezing breath and spat it out as a blood-curdling roar. He was not done with the maze.
He ignored the faces pleading for mercy. He passed by the slaughter of innocents without care.
‘Blood!’ howled Angron. ‘Blood and skulls!’
The black sword sliced. A mirror burst. The face within screamed. Blood spattered the primarch, followed by a burst of tinkling clockwork. Perturabo had put all his artistry into the creation of the maze. It was lost on Angron.
‘Blood!’ he roared. ‘Skulls!’ Furious at his captivity, he was reduced to a vocabulary of two words. A fist, the skinned knuckles shockingly white against his red skin, caved in another mirror artwork, crushing the weeping mortal trapped inside.
‘Skulls!’ he howled. The black sword fell, umbral flames roaring along the killing edges. It melted as much as cut through the next mirror. Arcane energy fields exploded with a crisp bang. Powdered glass burst everywhere.
Angron was in the thick of slaughter, and there alone could he find a scintilla of peace. As he smashed apart the machines and the beings within, his fury blotted out all thought, removing the troublesome weight of sentience. He did not stop to contemplate whether the people were real, and if so, how they had come to be trapped. He was as unaware as an earthquake, and as destructive. He battered his way through every mirror, silencing the screams, then smashed in the door at the end of the chamber with three blows that dented it and sent it clattering over the floor of the next room.
Flashing lights lit figures juddering into life. Dragging footsteps approached Angron. Bladed fists whirred. Mindless voices moaned. Each one was a Salamander of Vulkan’s Legion, their bodies violated by cruel cybernetics. Insanity blazed from their red Nocturnean eyes. Hints of sentience lurked there. More torments for their father, but Angron did not notice nor would he have cared. He saw skulls and blood for the harvest, and charged without thought.
They cut him. Black blood ran from his wounds and fizzed on the deck as it dissipated, taking his essence back to the warp. Buzz saws and power shears gouged at him. The enslaved Space Marines could harm him. They could kill him. He would not stop fighting until he was hacked apart.
A cut nearly chopped his wing from his back. With his sword gripped in both hands, he spun around in a deadly circle, wrecking every slave-cyborg within reach. Yet still there were more.
They stopped moving. The lights went out, and he didn’t notice, hacking at the Salamanders until most were rent into slivers of metal. He was still battering away at the floor, shouting, ‘Blood! Blood! Blood!’
The last was slashed to bits, its flesh mashed to red pulp and its mechanisms broken.
Angron snuffled in confusion into the dark.
Something had changed. A door opened. He turned. No more tricks or foes. An empty corridor.
His rage ebbed. His mind cleared. He had wandered the maze for hours, fighting and destroying, only to be brought back every time to the central chamber, no matter which route he took.
Far off a klaxon blared, and the maze shook with the movement of heavy machinery. A breeze tugged at Angron’s legs.
‘Freedom,’ he grunted. ‘Blood.’
The breeze grew into a raging torrent of air, sucking at him. Door after door opened, drawing him through inactive rooms outwards, until the air howled, and he came to the end of the labyrinth, and passed out through vast, patched adamantine doors into a cavernous hold.
The maze filled most of the space, the iron mask of Perturabo stamped regularly along the exterior. Angron barely comprehended it, but followed the gale, turned a corner and was presented with the sight of giant loading doors open to the void. He ran to them, and stood upon the lip of the hold, buffeted by the gale. Terra was before him, its tortured atmosphere flashing and roiling, its orbits shoaling with a hundred thousand ships. From them fell drops of fire. Angron’s last remaining shreds of humanity dimly recognised a drop assault of a magnitude that dwarfed any unleashed during the Great Crusade.
The wind died to nothing. Angron stood unharmed in open space.
A little of his mind returned. He saw the white-and-blue ships of his own Legion shoot out their landing craft.
Sol rose around the globe, spreading its wide beam of golden light over Horus’ fleet, and silhouetting the Vengeful Spirit.
‘Horus! Horus!’ he shouted. Against the laws of nature, his voice was heard in the vacuum. ‘Give me my due!’
With that, he spread his wings, and leapt into the void.
Himalazian airspace, 15th of Quartus
Dropping at several hundred kilometres an hour into the most dangerous warzone in history, Lucoryphus of the Night Lords was preoccupied with one thing, and that was that his feet hurt.
He lifted up his right boot for the fifth time and stared at it.
The vox clicked.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Tashain.
Lucoryphus put his foot down.
‘My foot hurts,’ he said.
‘See an Apothecary then,’ Tashain said disdainfully.
He could have added that Lucoryphus shouldn’t need to see one. That his foot shouldn’t hurt. He was a legionary, and beyond the petty aches that plagued unmodified humanity. Lucoryphus could equally ha
ve responded that he had already consulted with their company medicae staff, but then he would have to tell Tashain that his foot was not as it should be.
He had been to Estus, because he could trust him. When so many Apothecaries abandoned their role or turned from healing to torture, Estus still did his job properly. Many standards had slipped in the Night Lords, but Estus could still be relied on. In his notes were annotated scans of Lucoryphus’ feet, arrows picking out metatarsals in the process of fusion, the calcaneus atrophying, phalanges lengthening, and smaller bones dissolving altogether.
‘A malfunction of the ossmodula,’ Estus had said, somewhat uncertainly, marking his comments down in a book of meticulous records. ‘There is not much I can do. I am busy with the wounded. I do not have time for your problem.’
He had given Lucoryphus a stabilising compound to add to his suit pharmocopia. It had not helped.
That was weeks ago. Lucoryphus’ foot had changed further since then. He was too canny to go back. The Night Lords were degenerating, but they still had only contempt for mutants.
The Thunderhawk bounced through a storm of turbulence. There was not a still pocket of air in all of Terra’s atmosphere. Crosswinds and pressure changes were violent enough to tear gunships from the sky and dash them on the ground without any help from the loyalist guns. But though the Night Lords had a reputation for cowardice it was undeserved. They were Space Marines; they knew no fear. Lucoryphus didn’t want to die, not one bit, but he did not fear death. The very idea of being afraid was slightly absurd. His disregard for danger was not down to conditioning, or bravery, but because of one simple fact.