Kingsblade

by Andy Clark

  ‘And Alicia,’ gasped Luk. ‘What in the Emperor’s name has she become?’

  ‘No time,’ urged Danial. ‘Shield fore and slay those traitors.’

  A moment later, the High King flinched as a lascannon beam slammed into his ion shield. More shots followed, plasma blasts and bolt shells impacting furiously as the traitors reacted to this sudden incursion.

  ‘Look at her,’ said Luk. ‘She’s gone mad or something... She could be just as dangerous as them!’

  ‘Deal with her, but make it swift,’ ordered Danial, conscious of the monstrous figure in the pulpit. Whatever evil ritual was occurring here, it had to be stopped. But first he had to kill the Word Bearers who were firing upon his steed.

  He opened fire, blasting three of the traitors into drifting ash. Danial cursed as the rest of his targets dived aside from the shot and came up with their guns blazing. His shield flared as the traitor with the lascannon hit it again.

  Danial stepped Oath sideways, firing a hail of stubber shells at a running Word Bearer. The traitor was plucked off his feet mid stride and flipped onto his back. He skidded to a stop and didn’t rise. Another two of the Chaos Space Marines were annihilated as Danial caught them in the sights of his thermal cannon, before a salvo of krak grenades exploded against his steed’s shin.

  His attackers fell back. Seizing the opportunity, Danial fired his thermal cannon at the data-pulpit. His shot was on target, but struck a shield of eldritch energies.

  The surviving Word Bearers had gained cover around the choristry pit and were firing on him again. He closed with them, cogitating firing solutions.

  Foolish, whispered his ghosts, a dead end – they will have nowhere to run. That thought alone gave Danial pause, for even in such dire straits he couldn’t imagine his enemies being so inept. A presentiment of danger flashed through his mind and he reined his steed back sharply. A second later, vast life-sign readings blossomed across his bio-imager manifold, and something huge and terrible burst up from the pit with a deafening scream.

  Luk had thought that he would feel anger when they met again. Instead he found himself horrified at the sight of Alicia. Where once had been memories of warmth and reassurance, now all he felt was revulsion at the screaming, flame-wreathed banshee that hovered high above the sanctum floor.

  ‘Mother,’ he breathed, and was surprised to hear such sorrow in his voice. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Impacts rippled his ion shield as the scattered cultists fired at him from the circuitpews. Slaving his heavy stubber to an auto-targeting data-spirit, the Freeblade let Sword of Heroes strafe the minor irritation. He centred his targeting reticule on Alicia for the clearest possible shot.

  ‘Quick and clean,’ he whispered to himself. ‘I won’t let her suffer.’

  Alicia looked down at him, her features hellish. Blue fire glowed from her eyes and mouth. Luk wasn’t sure what he had expected in that moment, perhaps some kind of recognition or softening. Maybe even for her to stop this madness. Instead he recoiled as Alicia’s face twisted into a daemonic scowl, and her voice spilled as overlapping whispers from his vox.

  ‘They killed your father,’ she said. ‘And yet still you fight for them? For their corpse god?’

  ‘Father turned traitor,’ Luk replied angrily. ‘And you tried to kill me. Who else should I fight for?’

  ‘Yourself,’ came Alicia’s voice, even as her mouth worked at other, darker words. Her power flared, as Varakh’Lorr’s curses hammered at Alicia’s sorcerous wards. ‘Fight for yourself. I knew you had the strength to survive the blackened tower. Join with me, Luk, and claim the rewards your father sought.’

  ‘After everything, you think you can win me back?’ asked Luk. ‘Heresy truly has driven you mad. Father received the only reward he deserved, and so shall you.’

  Alicia screamed in fury. Realising the danger, Luk hauled his shield up just as a column of blue and purple flame roared from Alicia’s hands. He cried out as heat warnings spiked, and Sword of Heroes staggered with the force of the attack. An image rose in his mind’s eye then, the horrific fate of Gustev Tan Minotos. His own mother was trying to do the same to him, and the thought broke his spirit all over again, even as it fuelled his resolve. Luk heard the surging roar of his steed’s machine-spirit around him, and he roared with it.

  ‘For the Emperor and Chimaeros!’

  Luk Kar Chimaeros, Knight of Ashes, drove his haptic gauntlet forward, fist clenched. Energy cells and microwave impellers within his thermal cannon awoke, glowing bright as suns as they funnelled a column of destructive energies into being. The air ignited with a thunderous roar. At the last moment, the sorceress screamed and crossed her arms over her face, dragging a shield of empyric energy before her. Luk’s shot blasted Alicia backwards in a blazing explosion, driving her through the stone and metal of the shrine’s wall as she vanished from sight.

  Luk cursed; he was about to go after Alicia to make sure she was dead when he heard Danial’s voice.

  ‘Luk! Throne, help me!’

  Luk wheeled his steed towards Danial, and his eyes widened in horror.

  The monstrosity smashed bodily into Oath of Flame and drove it back with its weight and ferocity. Danial had an impression of surging, stitched-together flesh and muscle, slick with slime and busy with flailing appendages. He saw a fanged maw the size of a Sacristan Crawler, a freakish cherub mask, and crackling metal spikes, moving as fast as a speeding mag-train. Danial’s steed was rocked back on its heels, servo-motors howling and sparking as they strained to keep it upright. Frantically, Danial worked his controls, stepping back, giving ground. Metal groaned with pressure as hundreds of tons of flesh, muscle and flab pressed against it, while despite the data-wardings worked upon them, his systems flickered and spat gibberish.

  ‘What in Thro… name is… at thing?’ fuzzed Luk’s voice through the vox.

  ‘I don’t know,’ gasped Danial, revving his steed’s chainsword and swinging it into the monster’s flank. ‘But we need to kill it, now!’ A deafening scream erupted from the monster’s maw as Oath’s chainblade bit through its flesh. Ropey strings of gore splattered in all directions, and Danial winced as binharic feedback flooded his systems. The vast monster squirmed away from him, its body bunching and flowing like sludge as its myriad limbs skittered and flailed.

  ‘Luk, I think this thing is the source of the scrapcode,’ shouted Danial, but his vox spat nothing but static. Sparks were drizzling from his cockpit systems, and his auspex was full of gibberish. Fighting stuttering power surges, Danial tried to bring his thermal cannon to bear, but the limb wouldn’t respond.

  A thunderous impact rang against his steed’s hull, deforming the front of his cockpit and bursting rivets from their seams. Danial flinched as one of the metal projectiles rang from his throne, less than an inch from his head. Through his jerking optic feed the High King could see that the monster had slammed one of its huge, muscular limbs into his steed. It was drawing back a bunched fist formed from cartilage and intertwined human limbs, and was about to strike again.

  The blow didn’t land. A searing blast from Luk’s thermal cannon ripped past Oath of Flame, close enough to set alarms shrilling in Danial’s ears. The shot bored into the fleshy abomination, eliciting another shriek that caused Danial’s cockpit lights to flicker and his generator to cut out for one heart-stopping moment. The monster recoiled, a massive, crisped-black crater burned into its flesh.

  As Luk strode to his side, and the monster backed away, Danial saw some of his systems restoring themselves.

  ‘How do… kill it?’ asked Luk.

  ‘Keep firing,’ replied Danial, working furiously to reconsecrate the spirits of his own thermal cannon. As its runes lit green he loosed a shot that bored another hole in the monster’s flesh. Luk did the same, and the beast flailed and screamed, waves of scrapcode pulsing from the metallic spines on its back. The High King felt a flicker of satisfaction as he saw the thing roll over the last few Word Bearers, crush
ing the warriors with its immense bulk.

  Fleshy limbs lashed out, staggering Sword of Heroes. Luk sawed off one with his blade, only for three more to snake forward and batter at him.

  Danial stabbed at the monster again, driving his chainsword deep in a spray of ichor. He ripped it free as black lightning crackled down its length and stalled its whirring teeth.

  ‘We’re not doing… nough damage,’ said Luk.

  Danial shot another glance at the Dark Apostle. Streamers of fire were leaping from the pyre now, twining around the traitor as he grew bigger and more monstrous by the second. ‘I have an idea. Follow my lead.’

  Strafing the monster with stubber fire, Danial backed away as fast as he dared. Luk followed suit, and with an enraged roar it followed them. Fleshy tendrils and osseous fists crashed against their steeds, threatening to topple them, but the Knights kept up their fighting retreat.

  The huge pyre blazed at their backs, closer with every step.

  ‘Da,’ said Luk. ‘We’re getting awfully close to… e fire.’

  ‘Close enough,’ replied Danial, halting his steed. The monster was gathering itself for another lunge, rearing up to its full height and scraping the shrine’s ceiling with its spines.

  ‘It… oing to come down on us… ike an avalanche,’ shouted Luk. ‘We’ve got to kill it!’

  ‘Fire on my mark and be ready to step aside,’ said Danial, locking targeting runes at the point where Luk’s first shot had torn into the monster’s underbelly.

  Howling, the abomination surged towards them.

  ‘Mark,’ said Danial, and as one they loosed their thermal cannons.

  Twin streams of superheated energies converged. They tunnelled through flesh, turned ectoplasmic blood to super-heated steam, burst unnatural organs and melted metal and bone alike. The killing energies ripped into the immense creature and tore right through it, exploding from its hunched back in a rain of sizzling fat and glowing ash.

  Danial swung Oath away, gritting his teeth as a tide of flesh and muscle swept down on him. The thing’s metal spines struck sparks from his hull as it ploughed past and straight into the ritual pyre. Soulfires and black lightning leapt and merged, corrupting the energies flowing into the data-pulpit. The Dark Apostle and the dying abomination screamed in unison, shaking Danial’s Knight around him. A final pulse of scrapcode exploded from the monster like a shockwave, and the High King of Adrastapol was plunged into pitch darkness as Oath of Flame’s generator was extinguished like a candle flame.

  Danial fought to remain calm in the pitch black. He had only a limited amount of air before he would have to disconnect and release his steed’s carapace hatch. Assuming the locking bolts would even disengage without power. He had no idea what was happening outside. Had Luk evaded the monster’s fall? Was the Dark Apostle alive or dead? Had they stopped the ritual?

  Setting his panic aside, Danial shucked off his haptic gauntlets and pressed the cooling metal above his head. Going by touch alone, he tried to locate the pressure-seams of the emergency awakening hatch. Swathed in darkness, his breathing shallow and loud in his ears, Danial felt panic trying to smother him. He knew where the seams were, yet irrationally his mind tried to tell him that they had been damaged in battle. He felt a surge of relief as his little finger brushed the edge of the familiar groove, and he realised that he had been searching just a few inches too far to the left.

  Cursing himself for a fool, expecting a killing blow at any moment, Danial pressed and twisted as he had practised a hundred times. Air hissed and bearings squeaked as the panel rose and turned, then swung open. As it did so, blessed light shone out, a single, small candle bulb with its own auto-igniter meant for just such emergency situations. Blinking in the sudden glare, Danial located and folded out the igniter handles. He chanted the mantra of awakening as he did so, following the ritual steps printed in illuminated script beside the handles. Imploring the draconsfire to surge within his steed and bring it back to blessed wakefulness, Danial finished the chant, and twisted both of the heavy metal handles clockwise at the same moment. Wrenching metal clunks rang out as the handles turned, and a series of thrumming groans ran through his Knight. The cockpit lights flickered and died, flickered and died, and for a horrible moment Danial was sure that the damage was irreparable.

  Then, with a snort and a snarl, Oath of Flame awoke. The High King was glad that his subjects were not there to see him punch the air and shout in a thoroughly undignified victory display. Hurriedly, he pulled his gauntlets back on and performed the rites of reconsecration across his instrument panel.

  Danial’s sensorium lit up before him and he saw the hellish inner sanctum of the Word Bearers.

  The scrapcode beast was slain, its monstrous body ruptured and burning on the pyre. Danial’s eyes widened as he saw the Dark Apostle. Streaming up from the corpse of the beast were trails of ghostly energy, spirits with cherubic masks intertwined with the pyre’s unnatural flames. They whirled around the huge figure in the pulpit like a storm, screaming in hatred as the Chaos Space Marine struck out at them frantically with his mutated limbs. Varakh’Lorr was diminishing, shrinking like a receding mirage even as his flesh twisted with the gods’ displeasure.

  The first of the spirits plunged through the Word Bearer, ripping a ragged, bloody hole through armour and flesh alike. Another of the spectres arced high, its cherub mask staring down with idiot intensity, before ripping through the Dark Apostle’s chest and bursting out of his back in a spray of blood. Over and over again. Blood sprayed across the data-pulpit and sluiced down the steps to baptise the corpse of the Terminator at their feet. Varakh’Lorr gripped the side of the pulpit, screaming in agony and rage. He stretched one hand towards the column of flame, as though beseeching his dark gods. In response, the flame sputtered out, dying with unnatural suddenness and leaving churning smoke billowing in its place. The Word Bearer collapsed then, dropping to his knees as one of the spirits plunged through the back of his skull and tore through the other side, ripping the macabre mask he wore to shreds.

  ‘The wages of heresy,’ breathed Luk, and Danial nodded, relieved when he saw his friend’s Knight had survived the fight. There was no time to celebrate their victory, however. With the scrapcode eliminated, the Imperial Navy would be on their way to destroy the generatorums. The plasma blast wave would turn everything in the valle electrum to ashes.

  Bringing up his vox, Danial scrolled frantically through his channels, his cockpit flooding with clipped voices and the drone of distant engines.

  …adjust heading to coordinates one-one-seven-two, over….

  …understood, all squadrons, the lantern is green, repeat, lantern is green….

  …bloody hell, they actually killed the scrapcode….

  …that they did, Flight Lieutenant. Now we strike, before the enemy can rally…

  …understood, sir. Squadron, form on my tail and be prepared for flak and metal dragons and Throne knows what else…

  ‘Luk,’ voxed Danial urgently. ‘We need to leave. Now.’

  ‘Throne, the bombers,’ replied Luk. ‘They won’t wait, will they?’

  ‘No,’ said Danial, already hauling his steed around and feeding power into his motive impellers. ‘They can’t risk our enemies getting their air defences back in place, or one of the Word Bearers ships intervening.’

  ‘Come on then,’ urged Luk, accelerating Sword of Heroes back towards the ragged tunnel they had torn through the generatorum.

  ‘And may the Emperor protect us,’ said Danial, and followed his friend out.

  The column of fire blinked out with breath-taking suddenness and Jennika muttered a prayer of thanks to the Emperor. Eight Knights remained, including her own, and four Sacristan Crawlers, all loaded up with wounded. They could not have stood up to a serious fight, battered as they were, but fortunately they had seen not a single foe since the fall of the Porphyrion. The Word Bearers had gone, though she had no idea where. Fled, she hoped. None of the rebels had
been stupid enough to come within range, and to Jennika’s knowledge there wasn’t a single renegade Knight left alive within a hundred miles. All that remained was to wait for the High King and his closest friend to return to them, and then they could depart.

  That wait became increasingly trying, however. Every distant thump of an explosion, every twitch of a signal of Jennika’s auspex tested her patience almost to breaking point. When, less than three minutes earlier, a massive pulse of scrapcode had buffeted their systems and almost shut down Fire Defiant’s reactor, the Lady Tan Draconis had considered breaking ranks and plunging into the generatorum after her brother. She’d waited for him once already in this campaign, and had barely survived that time. Now, with her vox channels full of Imperial Navy communications and an air armada inbound, Jennika realised she had no choice. She couldn’t just leave her little brother to die. But neither could she defy his orders to get his warriors out alive.

  ‘Lady Eleanat,’ she voxed. ‘Sire Garath, I’m going in after the High King. I expect you to get everyone else to safety.’

  ‘My lady,’ began Sire Garath, but she cut him off.

  ‘I don’t want to hear your protestations, sire. Just your compliance. I will not leave Danial to die and take the line of Draconis to the grave with him. Now follow my orders.’

  ‘…Consider them countermanded, sister,’ came a voice across the vox, and Jennika felt something unlock in her chest.

  ‘Danial,’ she said, smiling and fighting back tears of relief. ‘You eliminated the scrapcode?’

  ‘It was both of us,’ came Luk’s voice, and she was glad to hear a little of his old cocksure grin behind it. ‘And a bloody great horror it was too!’

  ‘We stopped the ritual,’ said Danial. ‘The Dark Apostle is dead, and the horrors he wrought have died with him.’

  ‘And Alicia?’ asked Jennika.

  ‘Gone,’ replied Luk, the ghost of his bravado fled. ‘But I don’t know if I killed her.’

  ‘We’ll speak of it later,’ said Jennika. ‘Right at this moment the might of the Imperial Navy is on its way to fill this entire valley with fire. We would do well to be elsewhere when they strike.’