by Various
‘Let us see if they can burn,’ snarled Ba’ken, unleashing a gout of promethium from his heavy flamer. The spectres dissipated against the glare of liquid fire coursing over them as Ba’ken set the killing fields ablaze, but returned almost as soon as the fires had died down, utterly unscathed.
He was about to douse them again when they evaporated like mist before his eyes.
An uncertain second or two passed, before the hulking Fire-born turned to his sergeant and shrugged.
‘I’ve fought tougher foes–’ he began, before crying out as his booted feet sank beneath the earth.
‘Name of Vulkan!’ Emek swore, scarcely believing his eyes.
‘Hold him!’ bellowed Dak’ir, seeing white talons snaring Ba’ken’s feet and ankles. Brothers Romulus and G’heb sprang to their fellow Salamander’s aid, each hooking their arms under Ba’ken’s. In moments, they were straining against the strength of the spectres.
‘Let me go, you’ll tear me in half,’ roared Ba’ken, part anger, part pain.
‘Hang on, brother,’ Dak’ir told him. He was about to call for reinforcements, noting Pyriel’s contact rune on his tac-display, when an apparition materialised in front of him. It was an old preacher, his grey face lined with age and malice, a belligerent light illuminating the sockets of his eyes. His mouth formed words Dak’ir could not discern and he raised an accusing finger.
‘Release him, hell-spawn!’ Dak’ir lashed out with his chainsword, but the preacher blinked out of existence and the blade passed on harmlessly to embed itself in the soft earth behind him. Dak’ir raised his plasma pistol to shoot when a terrible, numbing cold filled his body. Icy fire surged through him as his blood was chilled by something old and vengeful. It stole away the breath from his lungs and made them burn, as if he had plunged naked beneath the surface of an arctic river. It took Dak’ir a few moments to realise the crooked fingers of the preacher were penetrating his battle-plate. Worming beyond the aegis of ceramite, making a mockery of his power armour’s normally staunch defences, the grey preacher’s talons sought vital organs in their quest for vengeance.
Trying to cry out, Dak’ir found his larynx frozen, his tongue made leaden by the spectral assault. In his mind his intoned words of Promethean lore kept him from slipping into utter darkness.
Vulkan’s fire beats in my breast. With it I shall smite the foes of the Emperor.
A heavy pressure hammered at his thunderous hearts, pressing, pressing…
Dak’ir’s senses were ablaze and the smell of old, dank wood permeated through his battle-helm.
Then a bright flame engulfed him and the pressure eased. Cold withered, melted away by soothing heat, and as his darkening vision faded Dak’ir saw Pyriel standing amidst a pillar of fire. At the periphery, Ba’ken was being dragged free of the earth that had claimed him. Someone else was lifting Dak’ir. He felt strong hands hooking under his arms and pulling him. It was only then as his body became weightless and light that he realised he must’ve fallen. Semi-conscious, Dak’ir was aware of a fading voice addressing him.
‘Dragging your carcass out of the fire again, Ignean…’
Then the darkness claimed him.
The strategium was actually an old refectory inside the bastion compound that smelled strongly of tabac and stale sweat. A sturdy-looking cantina table had been commandeered to act as a tacticarium, and was strewn with oiled maps, geographical charts and data-slates. The vaulted ceiling leaked, and drips of water were constantly being wiped from the various scrolls and picts layering the table by aides and officers alike. Buzzing around the moderately sized room’s edges were Departmento Munitorum clerks and logisticians, counting up men and materiel with their styluses and exchanging dark glances with one another when they thought the Guard weren’t looking.
It was no secret that they’d lost a lot of troops in the last sortie to bring down the void shield. To compound matters, ammunition for the larger guns was running dangerously low, to ‘campaign-unviable’ levels. Almost an hour had passed since the disastrous assault, and the Imperial forces were no closer to forging a battle-plan.
Librarian Pyriel surveyed the tactical data before him and saw nothing new, no insightful strategy to alleviate the graveness of their situation. At least the spectres had given up pursuit when they’d entered the grounds of Mercy Rock, though it had taken a great deal of the Epistolary’s psychic prowess to fend them off and make retreat possible.
‘What were they, brother?’ said Tsu’gan in a low voice, trying not to alert the Guard officers and quartermaster who had joined them. Some things – Tsu’gan knew – it was best that humans stayed ignorant of. They could be weak-minded, all too susceptible to fear. Protecting humanity meant more than bolter and blade; it meant shielding them from the horrifying truths of the galaxy too, lest they be broken by them.
‘I am uncertain.’ Pyriel cast his gaze upwards, where his witch-sight turned timber and rockcrete as thin as gossamer, penetrating the material to soar into the shadow night where the firmament was drenched blood-red. ‘But I believe the warp storm and the spectres are connected.’
‘Slaves of Chaos?’ The word left a bitter taste, and Tsu’gan spat it out.
‘Lost and damned, perhaps,’ the Librarian mused. ‘Not vassals of the Ruinous Powers, though. I think they are… warp echoes, souls trapped between the empyrean and the mortal world. The red storm has thinned the veil of reality. I can feel the echoes pushing through. Only, I don’t know why. But as long as the storm persists, as long as Hell Night continues, they will be out there.’
Only a few metres away, oblivious to the Salamanders, the Guard officers were having a war council of their own.
‘The simple matter is, we cannot afford a protracted siege,’ stated Captain Mannheim. Since Tench’s execution and the commissar’s incapacitation, Mannheim was the highest ranking officer in the Phalanx. His sleeves were rolled up and he’d left his cap on the tacticarium table, summiting the charts.
‘We have perhaps enough munitions for one more sustained assault on the void shield.’ The quartermaster was surveying his materiel logs, a Departmento Munitorum aide feeding him data-slates with fresh information that he mentally recorded and handed back as he spoke. ‘After that, there is nothing we possess here that can crack it.’
Another officer, a second lieutenant, spoke up. His jacket front was unbuttoned and an ugly dark sweat stain created a dagger-shaped patch down his shirt.
‘Even if we did, what hope is there while those things haunt the darkness?’
A patched-up corporal, his left eye bandaged, blotched crimson under the medical gauze, stepped forward.
‘I am not leading my platoon out there to be butchered again. The secessionists consort with daemons. We have no defence against it.’
Fear, Tsu’gan sneered. Yes, humans were too weak for some truths.
The second lieutenant turned, scowling, to regard the Salamanders who dwelt in the shadows at the back of the room.
‘And what of the Emperor’s Angels? Were you not sent to deliver us and help end the siege? Are these foes, the spectres in the darkness, not allied to our faceless enemies at Aphium? We cannot break the city, if you cannot rid us of the daemons in our midst.’
Hot anger flared in Tsu’gan’s eyes, and the officer balked. The Salamander snarled with it, clenching a fist at the human’s impudence.
Pyriel’s warning glance made his brother stand down.
‘They are not daemons,’ Pyriel asserted, ‘but warp echoes. A resonance of the past that clings to our present.’
‘Daemons, echoes, what difference does it make?’ asked Mannheim. ‘We are being slaughtered all the same, and with no way to retaliate. Even if we could banish these… echoes,’ he corrected, ‘we cannot take on them and the void shield. It’s simple numbers, my lord. We are fighting a war of attrition which our depleted force canno
t win.’
Tsu’gan stepped forward, unable to abstain from comment any longer.
‘You are servants of the Emperor!’ he reminded Mannheim fiercely. ‘And you will do your part, hopeless or not, for the glory of Him on Earth.’
A few of the officers made the sign of the aquila, but Mannheim was not to be cowed.
‘I’ll step onto the sacrificial altar of war if that is what it takes, but I won’t do it blindly. Would you lead your men to certain death, knowing it would achieve nothing?’
Tsu’gan scowled. Grunting an unintelligible diatribe, he turned on his heel and stalked from the strategium.
Pyriel raised his eyebrows.
‘Forgive my brother,’ he said to the council. ‘Tsu’gan burns with a Nocturnean’s fire. He becomes agitated if he cannot slay anything.’
‘And that is the problem, isn’t it?’ returned Captain Mannheim. ‘The reason why your brother-sergeant was so frustrated. Save for you, Librarian, your Astartes have no weapons against these echoes. For all their strength of arms, their skill and courage, they are powerless against them.’
The statement lingered, like a blade dangling precariously over the thread of all their hopes.
‘Yes,’ Pyriel admitted in little more than a whisper.
Silent disbelief filled the room for a time as the officers fought to comprehend the direness of their plight on Vaporis.
‘There are no sanctioned psykers in the Phalanx,’ said the second lieutenant at last. ‘Can one individual, even an Astartes, turn the tide of this war?’
‘He cannot!’ chimed the corporal. ‘We need to signal for landers immediately. Request reinforcements,’ he suggested.
‘There will be none forthcoming,’ chided Mannheim. ‘Nor will the landers enter Vaporis space whilst Aphium is contested. We are alone in this.’
‘My brother was right in one thing,’ uttered Pyriel, his voice cutting through the rising clamour. ‘Your duty is to the Emperor. Trust in us, and we will deliver victory,’ he promised.
‘But how, my lord?’ asked Mannheim.
Pyriel’s gaze was penetrating.
‘Psychics are anathema to the warp echoes. With my power, I can protect your men by erecting a psy-shield. The spectres, as you call them, will not be able to pass through. If we can get close enough to the void shield, much closer than the original assault line, and apply sufficient pressure to breach it, my brothers will break through and shatter your enemies. Taking out the generatoria first, the shield will fail and with it the Aphium resistance once your long guns have pounded them.’
The second lieutenant scoffed, a little incredulous.
‘My lord, I don’t doubt the talents of the Astartes, nor your own skill, but can you really sustain a shield of sufficient magnitude and duration to make this plan work?’
The Librarian smiled thinly.
‘I am well schooled by my Master Vel’cona. As an Epistolary-level Librarian, my abilities are prodigious, lieutenant,’ he said without pride. ‘I can do what must be done.’
Mannheim nodded, though a hint of fatalism tainted his resolve.
‘Then you have my full support and the support of the Phalanx 135th,’ he said. ‘Tell me what you need, my lord, and it shall be yours.’
‘Stout hearts and steely resolve is all I ask, captain. It is all the Emperor will ever ask of you.’
Tsu’gan checked the load of his combi-bolter, re-securing the promethium canister on the flamer element of the weapon.
‘Seems pointless, when we cannot even kill our foes,’ he growled.
The bellicose sergeant was joined by the rest of his brothers at the threshold to Mercy Rock, in the inner courtyard before the bastion’s great gate.
Behind them, the Phalanx platoons were readying. In the vehicle yards, the Basilisks were churning into position on their tracks. Anticipation filled the air like an electric charge.
Only two Salamanders were missing, and one of those was hurrying to join them through the thronging Guardsmen from the makeshift medi-bay located in the bastion catacombs.
‘How is he, brother?’ Emek asked, racking the slide to his bolter.
‘Unconscious still,’ said Ba’ken. He’d ditched his heavy flamer and carried a bolter like most of his battle-brothers. Dak’ir had not recovered from the attack by the spectre and so, despite his protests, Ba’ken had been made de facto sergeant by Pyriel.
‘I wish he were with us,’ he muttered.
‘We all do, brother,’ said Pyriel. Detecting a mote of unease, he asked, ‘Something on your mind, Ba’ken?’
The question hung in the air like an unfired bolt-round, before the hulking trooper answered.
‘I heard Brother-Sergeant Tsu’gan over the comm-feed. Can these things even be fought, brother? Or are we merely drawing them off for the Guard?’
‘I saw the Ignean’s blade pass straight through one,’ Tsu’gan muttered. ‘And yet others seized upon Ba’ken as solid and intractable as a docking claw.’
Emek looked up from his auspex.
‘Before they attack, they corporealise; become flesh,’ he said, ‘Although it is flesh of iron with a grip as strong as a power fist.’
‘I had noticed it too,’ Pyriel replied. ‘Very observant, brother.’
Emek nodded humbly, before the Librarian outlined his strategy.
‘Our forces will be strung out across the killing field, four combat squads as before. I can stretch my psychic influence to encompass the entire Phalanx battle line but it will be a comparatively narrow cordon, and some of the spectres may get through. Adopt defensive tactics and wait for them to attack, then strike. But know the best we can hope for is to repel them. Only I possess the craft to banish the creatures into the warp and that won’t be possible whilst I’m maintaining the psychic shield.’
‘Nor then will you be able to fight, Brother-Librarian,’ said Ba’ken.
Pyriel faced him, and there was an unspoken compact in his low voice. ‘No, I’ll be temporarily vulnerable.’
So you, brothers, will need to be my shield.
The severity of the mission weighed as heavy as the weather. Captain Mannheim had been correct when he’d spoken in the strategium: for all their strength of arms, their skill and courage, they were powerless against the spectres. Almost.
Pyriel addressed the group. ‘Fire-born: check helm-displays for updated mission parameters and objectives.’
A series of ‘affirmatives’ greeted the order.
‘Switching to tac-sight,’ added Tsu’gan. A data stream of time-codes, distances and troop dispositions filled his left occulobe lens. He turned to Pyriel just as the great gates to Mercy Rock were opening. ‘I hope you can do what you promised, Librarian, or we are all dead.’
Pyriel’s gaze was fixed ahead as he donned his battle-helm.
‘The warp storm is unpredictable, but it also augments my own powers,’ he said. ‘I can hold the shield for long enough.’
On a closed channel, he contacted Tsu’gan alone.
‘My psychic dampener will be low,’ he warned. ‘If at any moment I am compromised, you know what must be done.’
If I am daemonically possessed by the warp, Tsu’gan read between the Librarian’s words easily enough.
A sub-vocal ‘compliance’ flashed up as an icon on Pyriel’s display.
‘Brothers Emek, Iagon?’ the Librarian asked with the gates now yawning wide. The gap in the wall brought lashing rain and the stench of death.
Emek and Iagon were interrogating overlapping scan patterns on their auspexes in search of warp activity in the shadows of the killing field.
‘Negative, brother,’ Emek replied. Iagon nodded in agreement.
The way, for now at least, was clear.
Despite the rain, a curious stillness persisted in the darkness of He
ll Night. It was red and angry. And it was waiting for them. Pyriel was drawn again to the patch of wilderness, far off in the distance.
Just beyond my reach…
‘Into the fires of battle…’ he intoned, and led the Salamanders out.
Dak’ir awoke, startled and awash with cold sweat. He was acutely aware of his beating hearts and a dense throbbing in his skull. Disorientating visions were fading from his subconscious mind… An ashen world, of tombs and mausoleums lining a long, bone-grey road… The redolence of burning flesh and grave dust… Half-remembered screams of a brother in pain…
…Becoming one with the screams of many, across a dark and muddied field… The touch of rain, cold against his skin… and a bell tolling… ‘We are here…’ ‘We are here…’
The first was an old dream. He had seen it many times. But now new impressions had joined it, and Dak’ir knew they came from Vaporis. He tried to hold onto them, the visions and the sense memories, but it was like clutching smoke.
With the thinning of the unreal, the real became solid and Dak’ir realised he was flat on his back. A wire mattress with coarse sheets supported him. The cot groaned as he tried to move – so did Dak’ir when the daggers of pain pierced his body. He grimaced and sank back down, piecing together the immediate past. The attack by the spectral preacher came back to him. A remembered chill made him shiver.
‘You’re pretty well banged up,’ said a voice from the shadows. The sudden sound revealed just how quiet it was – the dull reply of heavy artillery was but a faint thudding in the walls. ‘I wouldn’t move so quickly,’ the voice advised.
‘Who are you?’ rasped Dak’ir, the dryness in his throat a surprise at first.
A high-pitched squeal grated against the Salamander’s skull as a Phalanx officer sitting in a wheelchair rolled into view.
‘Bahnhoff, my lord,’ he said. ‘You and your Astartes tried to save my men in the killing field, and I’m grateful to you for that.’
‘It’s my duty,’ Dak’ir replied, still groggy. He managed to sit up, despite the horrendous pain of his injuries and the numbness that lingered well after the preacher had relinquished his deathly grip. Dak’ir was gasping for breath for a time.