The Damnation of Pythos

by David Annandale

  The Iron Hands were relentless. Atticus was surrounded by a brotherhood of destruction. He and his legionaries were confronted with the naked truth of the flesh. It was a taint upon the galaxy, upon reality itself, and now it was the time for the Iron Hands to smash it, shred it, burn it. Annihilate it.

  The flesh grappled with Atticus. A thing reared up over him. It was like a monstrous slug, an excrescence of muscle and teeth. Its skin rippled. Pustules oozed and dripped. It was rot, it was disease, and it would consume him. As it dropped over him, he lifted the axe. It plunged into the centre of the creature’s mass. Rubbery filth parted. Atticus forced the weapon higher, bisecting the daemon. It howled idiot pain. Its blood, if blood this was, gushed forth in a torrent that was thick, viscous, translucent and streaked with green. It was illness in liquid form. Atticus felt it tug at his boots. His armour was slick with the effluence of rendered monsters. It was a badge of honour. He raised his axe all the way. When it pulled free, the daemon stopped screaming and fell away on two sides.

  Over its twitching corpse came more horrors, always more, floods upon floods of the enemy. Atticus swung and punched, swung and kicked. He killed and smashed. With every move, with every step, he sent another daemon out of the physical realm. He commanded but a splinter of what had been the X Legion, but even one warrior of the Legiones Astartes could destroy armies. The Iron Hands pushed hard against the wave of daemons. They halted its advance. The enemy would not pass. It would not reach the surface by going through the Space Marines.

  It was a meaningless victory. His forces were only blocking one exit. There were three others, and the gates were all open. Through a momentary gap in the wall of monstrosities, Atticus saw the streams of the mob stampeding through the other openings with raging abandon. In the ceiling of the dome, where the sigil had been, was a huge aperture, and the creatures with wings were flapping up through it and to the shaft.

  ‘Captain,’ Camnus’s voice came over the vox. Atticus was surrounded again by the clawing, slashing horde, and he could not see the Techmarine. He could not see any of his brothers.

  ‘Yes, brother.’

  A grunt of effort on the vox, then a large, wet crack to Atticus’s right. Camnus was nearby, slaying well.

  ‘What is our goal?’

  And there, with the question before him, Atticus had no answer at first. He had been so focused on locating the enemy that he had not thought through the implications now that he had found it. There was no victory to be had here. The company could fight until the inevitable, and that would be nothing more than another kind of futility.

  What is our goal?

  To stop this warp-fuelled machine. And if that were not possible, to somehow use its power against itself. We read the warp through it before, he thought. It is vulnerable to us. We will find a weakness. And for that, Rhydia Erephren was key.

  ‘We make for the surface,’ Atticus told the company. He whirled with the axe, slicing through a massive tentacle that had wrapped around him like a python. ‘We make for the base.’

  They would not be retreating. And he vowed that he would yet tear a victory from the throat of this monstrous planet.

  Doom marched in on a heavy, echoing beat, the shout of volcanoes forced into a regular metre. It was as much a spectacle as dark music. Darras watched the rise of the monument. Even at this distance, it was clearly higher than the promontory, and it changed the shade of the day. That was the first beat. And then the great boom, the greatest beat, as the light struck downwards, and Darras knew that something fatal had been destroyed.

  He knew this because he now saw death take the day. The black beyond night, the black of ending, spread out from the direction of the settlement. It swarmed up into the clouds and swallowed them. It rippled outwards, eating the sky and leaving the great and endless nothing behind.

  But then, as the black overhead was complete, something appeared in the empty vault. Pure void pulled back to reveal a sun. It sat in the sky directly above the monument. It was in the position that the Pandorax star would have held, had it ever been visible through the cloud cover. There was no doubt that it was a sun.

  But it was stone.

  Darras felt the foundations of all certainty crumble away beneath him. The celestial body seemed close enough to touch, the details of its rough, cracked surface as clear as if it were a planetoid no more than few hundred kilometres in diameter. Yet it was a star. It filled a third of the sky. It radiated a cold, grey light. It hung over Pythos, a mass heavy with infernal judgement. It was without sense, without logic. It had no meaning, and for that very reason was dreadful in its significance. It was madness given immense, implacable form. It was a stone against which any semblance of reality and sanity would shatter.

  Still the beats came. Still the doom, doom, doom march of catastrophe. These newest beats were softer. They were not globe-ringing strikes as the unleashing of the monument’s energy had been. They were less metaphysical. They were concrete, a true sound. Something in the distance was striking the ground again and again with slow, relentless regularity.

  Coming closer.

  The sounds came from the north and south. Darras knew the promontory was caught in a pincer movement before he saw what approached. Then, bathed in the frozen, corpse-light of the stone sun, the threats appeared over the horizon.

  Darras heard the serfs on the wall whimper in terror. He had no patience for their weakness, but he would have been surprised if they responded otherwise. Mortals were weak. They had brittle limits to their courage. What had been summoned broke those limits. The thing in the sky was a terror, but it was also distant. It was not an immediate threat.

  The animals that lumbered towards the base were.

  Pythos had held back the worst of its horrors until now. Perhaps, Darras thought, these monsters would not appear until there was a sufficient concentration of prey. They would need unimaginable quantities of meat to live. He remembered Ptero’s refusal to accept as natural the carnivorous ecology of the planet.

  ‘You are vindicated, Raven Guard,’ Darras muttered. There was nothing natural on this planet. The Iron Hands, of all Legions, should have recognised technology when they encountered it. Everything, from vegetation to animal life to monstrous artefacts, had been created for a purpose, and that purpose was at last being fulfilled.

  The creatures now approaching were immense. They were the size of Battle Titans. They were at least fifty metres tall, perhaps more. Their heads were long, crocodilian, with forward-pointing tusks at the hinge of the jaws. Conical spikes the height of missiles lined their spines and clustered at the end of their tails, forming flails that would smash a tank flat. They walked on their hind legs, but their forelimbs were huge, reaching down almost to the ground from shoulders as wide as weapons platforms. Now and then, they would lean forwards and use their arms to propel themselves a bit faster through the jungle. Trees splintered and fell before their advance. Then they were crossing the burned land, rumbling over it, as big as hills, terrible as myths.

  Catigernus said, ‘They’ll knock the wall down.’

  ‘They won’t have to,’ Darras told him. ‘They’ll step over it. I doubt they’ll even notice it.’

  The great beasts descended on the feast. Their smaller brethren were still devouring the colonists. There were enough mortals left to keep the air filled with shrieks and song. The giants reached down with their colossal claws and scooped up handfuls of struggling prey. Their jaws clamped down on humans and saurians alike. The air filled with the sound of cracking bones. The monsters advanced to a beat of earthquakes. They were only a few strides from the base. They towered into the empty night, the light of stone washing over their scales, transforming them into gargoyles larger than cathedrals. They devoured all life from the land, and soon would turn their hunger on the Legion emplacement.

  ‘Here is why we conserved our ammunition,’ Darra
s voxed to the base’s forces. ‘Open fire.’

  A storm burst from the walls. It was a hurricane wind of mass-reactive destruction, the lightning of las-fire and the thunder of rocket launches. The storm smashed into the nearest giant. Its flank was lit by flame and tiny geysers of blood. It turned slowly, as if barely aware of the attack, to face the base head-on. It growled in building anger. The night shook with the rumble of its threat.

  ‘Eyes!’ Darras commanded.

  The beast ducked its head forwards, jaw opening to swallow its attackers whole. How very cooperative, Darras thought. His shells found the monster’s left eye. The saurian shrieked as a jellied explosion erupted over its face. The other eye burst a moment later. The monster thrashed, arms sweeping in huge arcs.

  ‘Throat!’ Darras shouted.

  Aiming was difficult. The target was big enough, but the animal was convulsed in pain and rage. Its movements had gone from majestic to frenzied. But a missile struck it in the throat. The blast ripped through the flesh and unleashed a torrent of blood. The howls became raking, choking gurgles. The beast tried to retreat. It turned its back on the wall, but fell to its knees. As it pitched forwards, its tail swept over the parapet. Plasteel crunched and folded and shattered. Serfs were reduced to bloody smears. Three of Darras’s battle-brothers died, their ribcages crushed, hearts punctured, as they were struck by a spiked battering ram the size of a Land Raider. Darras threw himself flat. The flail smashed down on the parapet a few metres from him, punching a huge gap in the wall, then bounced up, flying just over him to come down again an arm’s length further on. Catigernus had to leap to the ground to avoid being pulped. Darras stood again as the beast collapsed. The earth shook with its death.

  The others looked at their fallen kin. Two of them began to feast on its body. The others advanced upon the source of the threat.

  ‘Sergeant Darras,’ Erephren voxed.

  ‘Is this urgent?’ Darras asked as he started firing again. Perhaps they might bring one more beast down before the rest of them marched over the base. Perhaps.

  ‘I believe I can use the anomaly,’ Erephren said.

  ‘Then do so now,’ Darras told her. ‘Our time is brief.’ His sight of the lifeless sun was blotted out by the approaching monsters. The Iron Hands’ fire was unabating, but the targets were on their guard and attacking in unison. He was shooting at a mountain chain.

  Arms greater than trees rose and struck at the wall. Jaws gaped like hangar doors. There was nothing weak about this flesh. The mountains slouched forward, and the defences of the base collapsed like eggshells. A leg clipped Darras and sent him flying. He landed a dozen metres from where the wall had been. There was nothing left but ruin and savagery now. Very few of the serfs were still alive, but they fought on, loyalty to duty and Legion winning out over the instinct for futile flight.

  The Iron Hands had been scattered by the blows. They fought back, the unalterable discipline of the machine coordinating their fire even now. But the monsters had broken the formation, and it was no longer possible to concentrate all the shots at a single target. A clawed foot came down and crushed the serf barracks. Venerable Atrax poured the full anger of his twin-linked heavy bolters into the monstrous ankle. He blew away bone and muscle, and the saurian fell. The immense frame collapsed across the camp, levelling still more structures. The avalanche narrowly missed the command unit. Atrax had foreseen the trajectory of the fall, and had a clear shot of the skull. Before the animal could lash out, the Dreadnought hammered it with a stream of fist-sized, armour-piercing shells. He smashed the creature’s brain. The body twitched and writhed, spreading more ruin, then stilled.

  Two dead. The end delayed by a few more seconds. Perhaps Erephren would have time to do whatever she had in mind.

  In between the deafening roars, through the unceasing pounding of bolter fire, Darras realised the astropath was speaking to him. ‘Sergeant,’ she said. ‘I have tried. I cannot act here.’

  ‘What?’ He changed a clip and resumed shooting with barely a break in rhythm. He kept moving. Claws almost as large as he was raked furrows in the ground where he had been a moment before.

  ‘The connection must be total.’ There was a calm in her tone that spoke of a terrible decision. Even through the fracas of devastation, her voice was chilling. ‘I must be in physical contact with the source of the anomaly.’

  Darras grunted, staggering backwards as a colossus reached for him, his death glaring from its eyes. He blasted a finger off the hand, forcing a moment of recoil. ‘Do you understand our situation? And what the anomaly has become?’ He wondered if her blindness was shielding her from the full scope of their fate.

  ‘Better even than you, sergeant,’ she answered. There was no hope in her words. Only the determination of war.

  ‘Then wait for me,’ Darras said. The run was impossible. It was also imperative.

  ‘I will meet you at the ship,’ she answered.

  ‘What?’ Disbelieving, but then he saw her. She was already halfway from the command centre to the landing pad. She moved with the same determined assurance as ever, but more quickly than he had ever seen. She held her staff as though she were a banner bearer. Her cane barely touched the ground. She did not run, but she avoided the gigantic, trampling steps of the monsters with ease, changing direction in anticipation of every movement. The Salamanders’ second ship, Cindara, had been crushed, but the Iron Flame was still intact. Erephren was making for it in as direct a line as the dance of destruction would permit.

  Darras raced after her. ‘To all within reach,’ he voxed. ‘With me at Iron Flame. Brother Catigernus, we need a pilot.’

  ‘At your heels, brother-sergeant.’

  ‘Brother Atrax…’ Darras began.

  ‘Understood,’ the Dreadnought answered. ‘I will give you the time you need.’

  Darras rolled beneath the swing of a tail. It smashed through the wall of the command centre. ‘Thank you, venerable brother. You will be remembered.’

  A noise came over the vox, a laugh almost as divorced from the human as Atticus’s. ‘None of us shall be remembered. But swear to punish the enemy.’

  ‘I swear it.’

  Atrax lumbered towards the centre of the base. He fired his bolters in a circular pattern, striking the three saurians in the base, and one still feasting on victims beyond the wall. They turned on the small creature that had the temerity to injure them. The Iron Hands who were too far from Iron Flame converged on Atrax and added to his fire. A dark order coalesced out of the vortex of the base. Legionaries reduced to the size of ants beside the sky-high beasts ceased evasive manoeuvres. The carnivore gods zeroed in on them and ignored the few who boarded the Thunderhawk. The monsters did not look as the engines ignited with a roar.

  In the cockpit, Darras stood behind the seated Catigernus and watched the final curtain fall on the base. The saurians pounced. It was obscene that monstrosities so gargantuan could move with such vicious speed, yet they did. The battle was over in seconds, and even that length was a testament to the force of the Iron Hands’ assault. Greater glory yet came when another of the creatures fell. It crashed on top of the armoury, the impact of its tonnes setting off enough ammunition to trigger a chain reaction. The beast’s torso was consumed in a fireball that spread over half the base.

  One creature looked up as the flames washed partway up its back. The others paid no attention, consumed with destroying the Iron Hands. They crushed the legionaries beneath their feet, picked them up and tore them in half. As Iron Flame rose from the landing pad, one of the saurians twisted and smashed Atrax with its tail. The blow crushed the Dreadnought. Inside the chassis, the atomantic arc-reactor went critical. Catastrophic failure ensued. For a moment, everything vanished from Darras’s sight in a searing flash. When the light faded, Atrax had disintegrated, and the explosion of the reactor had blown apart the lower half of the saurian. The
monster lived a moment more, even as its viscera plunged to the ground. It raged mindlessly, still trying to devour its prey. Then it collapsed.

  It was a victory, of a kind. But then the remaining saurian was joined by its brother from beyond the wall, and there were still more on the promontory slope. For the Iron Hands on the base, the stolen seconds ran out. The battle ended. Hope disappeared beneath claws and between teeth.

  Catigernus took the gunship up in a steep climb. He pushed the engines hard. He fired all forward-facing weapons at the same time. Twin-linked heavy bolters on the fuselage, lascannons on the wings and the massive dorsal cannon opened up. The monster that rushed at them, eager to embrace the new prey, vanished in a tremendous eruption of fire and blood. Iron Flame rose through the thick cloud of vitae. Then it was clear, rising higher, flying faster.

  Not high enough. Not fast enough.

  A colossus reached up with both arms and struck home.

  Twenty-One

  The message

  The revel

  Juggernaut

  When the day fell into a tomb and the stone sun came to drench the land in the chill of dead marble, Kanshell looked to Tanaura. She did not respond, as transfixed as he was. But then the footsteps of the great saurians drew closer, and the island of calm vanished. The frenzy resumed. Tanaura hesitated, looking first towards the wall, then down the slope. Kanshell felt the panic of indecision. There was no clear path, and no clear duty, and in moments they would be trampled or devoured.

  The new monsters arrived, creatures so huge that Kanshell felt the touch of the sublime once again, and he wept that it could take on forms so dreadful.

  ‘Back,’ Tanaura decided, and ran down the slope, making for a brief gap between beasts. Luck, or the lingering aura of the final step of the ritual, was with them. They had not come to any of the reptiles’ notice. The beasts were consumed with savaging each other and the diminishing crowd of voluntary sacrifices.