The Damnation of Pythos

by David Annandale

  Galba found it difficult now to look at the daemon. Madail was advancing behind a shield of damaged materium. The daemon appeared as through a crack-riddled mirror. Its image broke into overlapping segments, and the fractured lines brought tears to Galba’s eyes. The tears ran down his face. When he tasted them, he realised they were blood.

  ‘Brother-captain,’ he voxed. He could see each move of the coming seconds, and what the endgame would be. If he could warn Atticus, perhaps those seconds would not be futile. But there was only static on the vox network. He could barely make out the transmissions of his own squad members.

  ‘Brother Galba,’ Khi’dem said. ‘Forgive me. I was wrong.’

  ‘We all were,’ Galba snarled. But if this was his end, he thought, he would meet it as was worthy of the X Legion. He switched to his chainsword and charged the daemon. The blade roared at his side. He prepared a two-handed swing. At the periphery of his tunnel vision, he was aware of his brothers storming forwards with him. He could hear the growls of the manoeuvring Vindicators. From somewhere above came the rage of the Thunderhawks. The Iron Hands were closing on the monster, and the machine would hurl this absurdity from the rational world. This was Galba’s vow.

  It was not his hope. He did not hope for anything, not any longer.

  The daemon was two steps away. Galba was the point of the attack. The distortion would not stop him. The cracks in the real were too small. He was a juggernaut. He was sheer mass propelled by righteous vengeance. He was not flesh. He was force itself.

  Madail struck first. The daemon shot its trident forward, its full, monstrous reach concealed by the collapse of vision. The weapon glowed darkly and plunged through Galba’s armour. It shattered his black carapace and reinforced ribcage. It punctured his hearts. The sudden pain and shock were eclipsed by something worse: a terminal letting go. His body loosened itself from his will. His extremities went numb. His useless fingers dropped his chainsword. Madail laughed and hoisted him into the air. Galba’s helmet readout flashed a cascade of critical red runes, then went dark.

  The dark stretched out from the wound, wrapping its fist around his body. It was cold. It was strong. Stronger than he.

  He was flesh after all.

  Kanshell saw Madail raise the skewered Galba high. He saw the Space Marine’s struggles diminish, then stop. The daemon did not pause. It moved with speed and grace. It was a dancer at last performing its great work upon the stage. Its spear arm took out the sergeant, and its left hand made a sweeping gesture. Its claws opened ragged tears in the fabric of the world. It made a fist, drawing the real into a tight knot. The rest of the Iron Hands squad closed with the daemon, and they seemed to rush faster as Madail drew its fingers together. They rained blows upon it, and the monster staggered. Its arms shook with strain. But its blind head laughed, and its many eyes looked down upon the legionaries with a cold, knowing indifference. The movements of the Iron Hands were odd. They jerked, and rushed, as if moments of time were missing, or they were moving through a compacted, folded universe.

  Madail opened its fist, releasing the real.

  The materium snapped back. A shock wave of brutalised physics travelled a dozen metres from the epicentre of the daemon. The Space Marines were caught on the folds, and as the world righted, they were suddenly in several places at once. They flew into pieces, severed by impossibility as if by wire. There was a fog of blood. The legionaries fell, sectioned like logs.

  Kanshell wanted to close his eyes. He wanted to shut out the sight of the demigods being cut down. The stalker of the Pythos nights had arrived, and its reality was worse than all of its dark promises. Nothing lay ahead but the fulfilment of a terrible dream.

  He did not close his eyes. He saw the Space Marines fall, and he knew that if he surrendered, he dishonoured the Legion to which he was devoted. He saw his fellow serfs engage the cultists, and knew what he must do. Though he and every other mortal would be destroyed the instant Madail’s attention fell their way, that did not absolve him of his duty.

  And he had his faith. It was with him more than ever. He had before him the proof of divine powers. If the dark ones walked in forms of flesh and bone, then how could he have ever doubted the divinity of the Emperor and His light? Kanshell’s Lectitio Divinitatus was lost. He did not need it. He had sworn his oath. He had a duty twice over. He had been shown an example, and he would follow it.

  He would die in a manner worthy of the X Legion, and fighting for the Emperor.

  He stood, his feet squelching in blood. His hands were slick, his hair matted, and his eyes gummed half-shut. He found his lasrifle beside the eviscerated body of a cultist. He clutched it, fired off a shot to see that it still worked, and then ran towards the other serfs.

  His path took him behind Madail’s back. The daemon was whispering something to the surviving Space Marines as they crawled along the ground. Kanshell did not listen. Even the sound of the creature’s voice ate away at his sanity. He saw the Vindicators rolling forwards. The gunships were overhead, but hidden behind Madail’s shield of darkness. They would have nothing on which to train their weapons. No matter. Engine of Fury and Medusan Strength had clear lines of sight, and only the presence of critically injured but still-living Space Marines delayed their barrage. In another instant, this section of the plateau would be obliterated by high explosives.

  The serfs were giving chase to the cultists. There was nothing to be gained by confronting Madail. But the Davinites had a mission, and they were mortal. Kanshell had plenty of evidence of that. A twisted miracle had spared their lives once, but there were no such miracles today. They could and did die. Find Ske Vris, Kanshell thought. The simplicity and need of the mission kept him focused on it, and not on the terrors around him. Find Ske Vris. Stop her.

  His duty would be his revenge. For a brief second, he allowed himself to think that he knew something more now of the heart of the X Legion. Then he pushed all thought away and did nothing but run, racing to stay ahead of his terror and catch up with his anger.

  He joined the rear ranks of the serfs as they went out beyond the walls, and emerged from the shield of darkness into a feral day. The cultists were racing over the blasted land towards the base. They were still chanting. The song was a riot of victory and abandon. It was also a summons to the predators. The saurians were closing in from both sides. They no longer feared the open ground. Perhaps they knew that the rival predators in ceramite were no longer present. Perhaps their numbers had reached the point that no threat could hold them back. The ground shook as the monsters stampeded towards the promise of easy kills. The horde was immense. But there were thousands of Davinites.

  A banquet of plenty.

  The serfs paused in their pursuit. Kanshell shared in the mass uncertainty. The cultists were running towards extinction. Any pound of flesh that the serfs exacted would be taken many times over moments later by the saurians. If they went forwards, they would become prey themselves.

  But at their back was a worse monstrosity.

  Death ahead. Damnation behind. Duty was reduced to a choice of dooms.

  Kanshell kept moving forwards on sheer momentum. He advanced to the front ranks. Further ahead, he saw Tanaura hold her rifle above her head. She shouted something. Her words were lost in the chaos of roars and the thunder of the Thunderhawks and Vindicators beginning their barrage. But her defiance and call to purpose were clear. Her eyes blazing with desperate rage, she pointed. Kanshell looked, and saw that the Davinites were not just throwing their lives away. There was an order to their sacrifice. They were forming lines facing the saurians. The people in those barriers linked arms and stood fast, still chanting, bracing themselves for the impact. Between the lines, the rush towards the base continued. The cultists were selling their lives so their fellow worshippers could reach the Iron Hands’ stronghold.

  At the centre of the worshippers, Kanshell saw Ske Vris. She h
ad claimed Tsi Rekh’s staff, and was leading the flock forward. Kanshell saw the mirror of Tanaura’s zeal. He vowed to smash the reflection. He ran forwards. Tanaura was right. If the Davinites still had a mission, so did the servants of the Iron Hands. If they could stop the cultists, their own deaths would have meaning.

  The saurians arrived as the serfs caught up to the first of the Davinite lines. Kanshell saw a multitude of spines and horns, shapes squat and elongated, bipeds and quadrupeds, necks like massive serpents, forelimbs with claws as long as his arm, and always the jaws: massive, savage, hungry. He was running a gauntlet of muscle and teeth.

  The saurians struck. The cultists laughed. They threw themselves into the jaws. The slaughter was enormous. The monsters ripped into the Davinites. They buried muzzles into ribcages and dragged out viscera. They gutted with claws. The largest beast Kanshell had yet seen, a quadruped ten metres high at the withers, lowered a huge boxy head almost the size of a Dreadnought. It bit the head off a cultist. It swallowed the skull whole, then, with a sudden downward lunge, snapped up the torso before the body hit the ground.

  There was blood everywhere. It streamed over the ground. It fell in showers from the victims that were hauled, wriggling, into the air. Kanshell had fled the site of a lake of blood only to find an ocean. And still the chanting did not stop. The victims screamed as they were devoured, but the shrieks had the ring of triumph. Kanshell was back in the lodge, witnessing another dark consecration. The saurians were performing the same ritualistic duty as the Iron Hands. The hand that butchered was unimportant. The spilling of blood was what mattered. The ceremony that had begun in the lodge was not complete. It had moved to a larger canvas. Kanshell could feel the weaving of something immense, and knew just how insignificant he and his efforts were, and how futile. Killing cultists would only feed the creation of the coming horror.

  But they would die anyway, and honour demanded some form of judgement.

  Kanshell focused on the sight of Tanaura running just ahead of him. Her face was taut with unwavering determination. She was firing from the hip. She could not miss, and she was felling cultists, searing them with lasfire. Ske Vris, deep in the centre of the crush, was as yet beyond reach.

  Stop her, Kanshell thought. Stop her. Stop it all. Perhaps the last of the priest caste was important. Perhaps that death, that bit of vengeance, might mean something. He chose to follow that flutter of hope. For the first time in his life, he pulled a trigger with the intent to kill. He found that Tanaura had been right. When the time came, it was not difficult. And he did not miss, either.

  The serfs burned away the rear ranks of the Davinites. They rushed up the avenue created by the willing sacrifices. But the barrier did not hold long, and the saurians pounced on the new influx of prey. The road to the base turned into a feeding frenzy.

  The last communication Darras had received from the settlement was over half an hour old. The sounds of battle were echoing in the distance, now half-obscured by the howling of the saurians. The lines of sight from the top of the wall were good. With the jungle gone, the plateau was just visible through the low-lying smoke and haze. The Iron Hands could see the madness of the running crowd and the feasting of the reptiles.

  All this was presented for Darras to witness. It was a tapestry of disaster.

  ‘Secure the base,’ he ordered. ‘Nothing gets in.’ He eyed the tide of animal rage heading up the slope. There were limits to what the walls could resist. ‘Saurian or colonist, kill anything that leads a charge our way.’

  He tried raising Atticus on the vox again, then Crevther in the Unbending. Nothing, but at least he could see that the Thunderhawks were still in the air. He switched channels. Within the base, the vox network functioned, though not well, not since the explosions had begun at the settlement. He could barely make out the reports from the wall on the opposite side of the base. At least he could reach Erephren in the command centre clearly enough. He did so now, and told her what he could see. ‘Have you detected any changes?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’ The word was spoken by a warrior in the midst of heavy combat. ‘The interference has lessened. The enemy is no longer attacking from the warp.’

  A billow of fire in the distance. Darras cursed under his breath. ‘The enemy is using more direct means,’ he said.

  ‘There is more,’ Erephren told him. ‘The anomaly is becoming much more powerful.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I’m not sure, sergeant. A dark energy is flowing into it and being stored.’

  ‘You have tried reading the anomaly?’

  ‘I have…’ She trailed off, sounding awed and drained.

  ‘And?’

  She whispered. ‘I had to pull away. I was about to see everything.’

  The mistress of the astropathic choir did not stoop to exaggeration. Darras took her at her word. ‘Your evaluation?’

  ‘I have little to offer, sergeant. But I can think of only one reason to store energy.’

  ‘To then release it,’ Darras said.

  ‘I have observed something else,’ Erephren said. ‘The energy level is building very quickly. It has been accelerating over the last few minutes.’ Her delivery was matter of fact, belying exhaustion and battle.

  ‘I see. Thank you, mistress.’ Darras looked out at the massacre. It was drawing closer. The saurians and colonists would be within bolter range shortly. Darras was reluctant to pour precious rounds into targets that were about to die. There would no longer be any resupply. If he let matters take their course, the mortals would be obliterated within a very short time span. Without prey, the saurians would disperse.

  But Erephren’s words made him uneasy. Something was powering up the anomaly.

  ‘Brother-sergeant,’ Catigernus said, ‘they are singing.’

  Darras listened, finding the voices of the colonists between the roars of the saurians. The other legionary was correct. And the cries that grew louder with every moment were celebratory. Darras’s reason rejected a link between the spilling of blood and the anomaly. His instinct said otherwise.

  His options vanished. By tooth, by claw or by bolter, the colonists would die, as they intended. No other outcome was possible. He knew again the acidic taste of defeat, grown too familiar. ‘Hold your fire,’ he ordered, fury turning every syllable into a curse. ‘We must conserve our ammunition. There is worse to come.’

  So there was. With every beat of his hearts, worse came. The landscape filled with the rampage of death. The saurian numbers climbed beyond all logic. There were more of the monsters now than there were humans, and still they arrived, pounding across the tortured earth. Darras saw the reptiles now as part of some gigantic mechanism, a clockwork that was being wound turn by turn until it was ready, at last, to perform its great work.

  He knew that the final turns of the key had arrived.

  Kanshell had adopted tunnel vision. It was the only way he could stay sane long enough to do what he must. He was surrounded by howling monsters. The Davinite’s lines had collapsed. Their rush up the promontory had disintegrated into a pell-mell dash. Strategy had vanished. Not a single cultist would make it to the gates of the base, but perhaps, Kanshell thought, that had never been the goal. The wall was only a hundred metres away. The predators were everywhere. The cultists’ mission had been achieved.

  Tunnel vision. If he allowed himself to take in the full carnivorous maelstrom, the fear would take him again, and he would do nothing but cower and die. So he followed Tanaura, and he watched Ske Vris. He treated the massive legs that thrashed on all sides like a forest in storm. They were obstacles, and he looked at them only long enough to avoid them. The blood that fell on his face from victims lifted and ripped apart overhead was just rain, warm and salty. If death came for him, he would not know it. Tanaura was faith, Ske Vris was duty, and nothing else was useful to him.

  He weaved in and out of cr
ushing masses in pursuit. The afternoon light was dimmed by the press of giant bodies. The feeding frenzy was escalating, the predators turning on each other when they ran out of human meat. The ground was a mire of blood and muck. Kanshell slipped and fell. He slithered as he tried to rise. A three-toed foot, almost as long as he was, came down within centimetres of his face. He rolled away, choking on gore-drenched earth, and then was up and running again. He still held his lasrifle. He could still see Tanaura. And he could still see Ske Vris.

  He was catching up.

  He pulled the trigger again. His power pack was close to drained, but there were still half a dozen shots remaining.

  ‘Stop,’ Tanaura shouted, too late.

  Kanshell could not aim and run, and his shots went wild. Still, he could not miss, and he struck a beast ahead of him. The wounds were enough to make it stagger. Its defences were down for a moment, and it was set upon by two others. Tails thrashed. One ended in a knob of bone the size of a power fist. It struck Tanaura a glancing blow, and she went down. Kanshell stumbled back, and the tail mace blew by his chest. If it had hit, it would have caved in his ribs. Tanaura, stunned, tried to raise herself. Kanshell paused to help her up.

  ‘Go,’ Tanaura hissed. Ske Vris was putting more distance between them.

  Kanshell ran on through the meat grinder. Ske Vris moved as if engaged in a dance, dodging around the monsters with ritualistic grace. Kanshell gradually caught up, and realised that Ske Vris was dancing. There was a purpose to each movement. She was forming a sentence, one that no tongue could speak, but that every soul would hear.