Soul Drinker

by Ben Counter

  It was as if die black coral had been alive and then infected by something so terrible that it had flared up into this immense tumor. Even from here, the Soul Drinkers could see the columns of men marching out of it - armoured warriors such as Graevus's men had faced, shambling monstrous things, bent-backed slaves, daemons with flesh of pure dis­ease.

  Sergeant Dreo had been on lookout when the fortress was sighted, and had summoned Sarpedon right away. Sarpedon looked upon the fortress and wondered how they could assault such a place. It was not just a huge and well-defended strongpoint, but it would be alive - malevolent and deadly, more an enemy than a battlefield. He decided to keep it sim­ple - beach the ships, pour out, and use all the speed and hitting power of the Soul Drinkers to break into the fortress and storm through it until they found Ve'Mefh.

  Simple. Like all the best plans. Of course, Ve'Meth's plan would be simpler still - throw waves of Chaos troops at the attacking Soul Drinkers until every one was dead.

  Sarpedon voxed down to the Hellblade's hull. 'Varuk? Gun the engines. We're making our approach.'

  'Yes sir!' The refitted Thunderhawk engines growled beneath Sarpedon's feet and the Lakonia darted forward, dri­ving an arrowhead of rippling water in its wake. The Lakonia took the lead, sweeping fast through the waters, peeling off to one side as the approach began. The Marines on the deck scuttled into the hull to make the final battle-rites, leaving a couple of lookouts to spot the forces that would oppose the landing.

  The two ships would land close together, but far enough apart so they wouldn't get in each other's way. The Marines from each one would act as an independent force, meeting up in the fortress if all went well but not relying on it. Sarpedon would be in command of the Hellblade's complement - Karraidin had command over the Lakonia, but he would be as aware as anyone that Tellos and Graevus would be leading the assault.

  Sarpedon checked the mechanism of his bolter, letting the well-practiced motion act as a trigger to shut out the rest of his thoughts so he could think only of war. It was a trick he had learned when only a novice, when the universe had been much simpler. He switched on the aegis circuit and felt the old power spiralling around him, through the same armour that had clad his body every day of battle for seventy years.

  Then he went below deck, to see that his battle-brothers had readied themselves for the fight.

  'ONE MINUTE THIRTY!' called Graevus from the prow. The one hundred and seventy-odd Soul Drinkers in the hold of the Lakonia would be making their final entreaties to Rogal Dorn, that he might keep his gaze upon them and see the valour they would display.

  The Lakonia was really moving now, carving towards the broad beach of black coral sand that stretched in broad cres­cent, beneath the shadow of the fortress-mountain above. The fortifications were crude - chunks of black crystal and sharpened bone jutting from bunkers of piled-up rocks - but they would be effective enough against a force without heavy weaponry or artillery to break them open.

  But that wasn't the worst.

  The worst was that there must have been five thousand of the enemy waiting on the shore, waiting for the Lakonia. In front were slaves, pale-skinned, sickly and chained. Behind the slaves were ranks of huge man-beasts using pikes and hal­berds to herd them forwards into the surf. Even at this distance Graevus could hear the screams of the dragged slaves and bellowing of the beastmen that drove them on.

  'Thirty seconds!' yelled Graevus over the vox. He heard the reassuring sound of one hundred and seventy bolters cocked in unison.

  The Lakonia's hull scraped the sea floor as the shore swept closer. Graevus could see the slave-soldiers herded into a defensive line - they were chained together by their collars, and had crude clubs in their hands. Their mouths lolled and their eyes were half-dead and hooded - the beastmen held spear-points at their backs and pressed them forward into the surf. A sick and cowardly tactic, but it would work - the Soul Drinkers would be mired in slave-fodder troops, giving the defenders more time to redeploy and fall upon the attacking Marines.

  The solution was obvious. They would just have to kill them all.

  'Ten seconds!'

  The Lakonia ground deep into the broken coral sea bed, jar­ring to a halt a pistol shot from the shore. This close the ranks of slave-things seemed without number, and Graevus could see them drooling. They had been mind-wiped, or simply bred for idiocy and kept for food.

  Close enough.

  'Move!' yelled Graevus, swinging his power axe out of its backpack holster. There were twin thunderclaps as the shaped charges in the hold blew a huge section of the hull outwards in a shower of splinters, and hollered battle-cries as the Soul Drinkers vaulted out into the surf. As the gunfire started Graevus jumped off the prow, drew his bolt pistol, and started firing.

  The slaves were like a wall of moaning flesh pressing all around him as soon as he hit the water, glazed-eyed and gib­bering, swinging makeshift weapons at the Soul Drinkers pouring in amongst them. Graevus put a dip of bolt pistol shells into the closest, saw them reel and still keep fighting as they died, and knew they must have been pumped full of Frenzon or combat drugs.

  'Forwards!' bellowed Karraidin over the vox, and the Soul Drinkers surged on, pistol shots and chainblades carving through the frenzied slaves as the surf around their knees turned frothy pink with blood. Karraidin's storm bolter chat­tered and the flash of the power field was like sheet lightning as he landed a blow into the press of bodies.

  Graevus didn't pause to reload - his altered hand swung the power axe in great arc through the attackers, shearing through limbs and bodies. Assault Marines were at his shoul­der, helping gouge through the slave ranks, forcing an opening through which the Soul Drinkers could charge onto the beach. A club rang off Graevus's shoulder pad and a heavy blade cut into the joint of his armoured knee but he stepped further into the fray knowing that his battle-brothers would be doing the same at his side. There were mounds of dead on the coral beneath his feet, and the water was thick with gore.

  'With me!' he voxed on the squad channel, swinging the shining power axe blade high so all could see it. 'Keep close and keep moving!' He risked a glance around and saw Kar­raidin's massively armoured form behind him, a walking bastion that sprayed storm bolter-fire into the baying hound pack being driven towards the rear of the Soul Drinkers. The half-rotted dogs bounded through the froth­ing waves but Karraidin was pumping volley after volley into them, then snapping off shots into the beastmen pack-masters.

  A good plan - mindless cannon fodder to the front to slow them down while fast-moving attack dogs surrounded them. Against any normal enemy, it might even have worked.

  Tellos. He couldn't see Tellos.

  Graevus tried the vox-channels and got the din of battle fil­tered through disciplined Space Marine comm-drills. Two Marines from Squad Hastis were down, trampled beneath the waves by a teeming mob of slaves who were cracking open their armour with chunks of coral. Squad Karvik was bogged down around Karraidin, shoulder-deep in the blood-choked water, trapped between the slaves and the hound packs. But most of the Soul Drinkers were bunched behind Graevus, jostling for a chance to get bolter muzzle and chainsword into contact with the mass of slaves, and that was what mat­tered now. Karvik and Hastis would have to fend for themselves - it was break out or die.

  Graevus couldn't pick out Tellos and had no time to search for him - he blocked the downswing of an outsized club and slammed the butt end of the power axe into the attacker, feel­ing the strength of his massively altered arm driving the axe through the upper chest of the slave. He pushed forward and the pull of the water was gone - his feet were on land, on the black coral sand of the beach, and the slave line broke around him.

  Tellos.

  Sergeant Graevus had charged into a thousand battles in a hundred warzones, but he had never seen anything like it. Tellos must have dived into the slave-pack and writhed through the wall of bodies, despising the crude tactic of using cannon-fodder and determined to get to grips wit
h the real enemy. He had reached the beach alone and been sur­rounded by the beastmen - for a soldier it was suicide, a quick and brutal death. But this was not just a soldier. This was Tellos.

  By the time Graevus had reached him, Tellos was high up on a mound of the dead, butchered bodies beneath his feet, howling beastmen jabbing at him with spears whose tips shone with venom. There must have been twenty or more able to get at him and he was duelling with them all, blades flashing too fast to see, turning aside spear shafts and lashing deep into mutated beastman flesh. Where he had been cut his pale skin puckered and closed before the wound could bleed.

  Sarpedon had his arachnoid legs. Givrillian had his multi­tude of eyes, Graevus his hand, and the other battle-brothers all manner of blessing the Emperor had bestowed on them in His role as the Architect of Fate. And His blessing to Tellos was to turn him into a man designed solely for war - reflexes like quicksilver, flesh that weapons could sail through with­out causing damage, a mind that yearned for one more fight.

  Graevus was at Tellos's side and lent his axe to the slaugh­ter, the grotesque equine faces of the beastmen grimacing in pain and hatred, cloven-hoofed legs and claw-fingered hands flailing. Gunfire whipped into the beastmen who tried to run as the ferocity of the Soul Drinkers' assault slammed into the Chaos line, throwing the beastmen onto the back foot and grinding them into the blood-slicked coral.

  The momentum of the assault bought Graevus a couple of seconds to glance up the beach towards Sarpedon and the Hellblade. The Hellblade was still some distance from the shore, and Graevus knew for the moment the Marines from the Lakonia were alone on the beach.

  There was room to move now, time to stop and take stock. Karraidin was still somewhere behind, fighting hard to link up with the beachhead, but most of the Soul Drinkers had made it to the shore. Losses were in double figures. A good start, thought Graevus, but through the murk and shadows beneath the immense fortress he could see the coral slopes teeming with Chaos reinforcements.

  'Fire point!' he called over the vox, sprinting to a set of abandoned rock fortifications. 'Regroup on me, now!' They had to move with speed but there was no point in running headlong into a counter-attacking force flooding down from the fortress slopes. They would have to hop from one strong-point to another, overwhelm one set of fortifications, regroup on it and strike out to the next until they reached the fortress, ran out of enemies or were all dead.

  No problem. It was what they had been trained, engi­neered, and educated to do. What they had been born to do.

  Soul Drinkers were forming fire arcs to cover those still straggling through the surf, bolters and bolt pistols barking at the darting packs of beastmen retreating in disarray. Grae­vus could see the goat-headed beastmen and black-armoured warriors swarming down the fortress slopes - even now the Soul Drinkers were snapping off ranging bolter-shots at them, ready to open up when they were within range. A minute or two, and then the killing would begin again.

  Graevus loaded a fresh clip into his bolter. He had never been one to hold with visions and portent, relying instead on the gut instincts built up over a long campaigning career. But even he could feel the pure malice that boiled wimin the fortress high above him. He had heard that everyone saw Ve'Meth differently in his dreams - Graevus couldn't avoid getting the image of an immense parasitic insect, squatting on a throne, with bristly black skin and huge segmented eyes, mandibles filthy with blood.

  He shook the picture out of his head. If they were here to kill that thing, then he would be proud to have a part in it.

  THE STENCH WAS almost too much - dank, mossy, a reek of decay and death, rolling from the shore over the stricken Hellblade. A hundred metres beyond was the beach, obscured with noisome mist, through which Sarpedon could just glimpse half-human figures scurrying, eager to fight the invading Soul Drinkers.

  The ship lurched as it tried to power over the obstacle, the engines screaming, the water behind foaming. Sarpedon ignored the stench and voxes below deck. 'What's the hold­up, Tech-Marine?'

  'Hit a rock, lord!' came the short-breathed reply. 'We're tak­ing on water. I'm sending everyone topside.'

  The hatches were opening and the Soul Drinkers were clambering out as the Hellblade began to list. Sarpedon glanced below deck and saw the water foaming up around a massive black stone spike that had punched through the hull. Varak was straggling through the waist-deep and quickly ris­ing water - Sarpedon reached down and grabbed the Tech-Marine's hand, hauling him up onto the deck.

  If they stayed, they would be trapped, and the defenders would doubtless have some way of reaching them given time - ships of their own, or those gargantuan sea monsters they had glimpsed during the voyage. Maybe something that flew. There was only one choice.

  'Soul Drinkers, over the side!' he voxed. 'Stay together and keep moving!' With that he vaulted over the side of the Hellblade.

  The water was about two metres deep - drowning point for a normal man, but a Space Marine could keep his head above water as he moved. Sarpedon's many legs helped keep his footing on the uneven coral rock underfoot but Marines around him were stumbling beneath the waves as they landed, helped back up by their battle-brothers. The Hellblade lurched brokenly and rolled onto its side as the last few Marines jumped into the water.

  The sea was warm. Somehow, that made it far worse.

  Steadily, Sarpedon strode towards the shore, the coral crumbling beneath his feet. He ordered the squads under him command to sound off as they made their way towards the beach. Givrillian, Dreo, Corvan, Karvik, Luko - there were a dozen squad sergeants and their men, plus the rem­nants of the squads who had survived the Ultima along with Tech-Marine Varuk, Chaplain Iktinos and Sarpedon himself.

  The mists were rolling back from the shore, exposing the open wound that was the waiting force. Pale ragged skin, dark rotting flesh, hunched shoulders and singly glowing yel­low eyes.

  Daemons. Ve'Meth's will made solid, living embodiments of Chaotic power. The sight of them was grainy with the haze of flies that clung to them as they gambolled along the black sand or lay crouched in wait.

  Would the Hell work here? They said daemons felt no fear. But then again, they had never met Sarpedon.

  'Something in here with us, commander.' came the gravelly voice of Sergeant Karliv, one of the sergeants who had not gone to the star fort but who had proved loyal enough in the Chapter war.

  'What do you mean, Karliv?'

  'There's something moving in the water.'

  'Kill it and keep moving.'

  Sarpedon glanced backwards in time to see something thrashing in the water in the midst of the advancing Space Marines, and heard the yells of one Marine as he was dragged under.

  'It's got Trass!'

  Gunfire stuttered as the members of Squad Karvik held their bolt pistols above the water and fired shells into the body of the thing that had already swallowed one of their number. Tentacles flailed wildly, something pale and mottled rolled in the water.

  There was a sudden flash and a cloud of steam rose with a hiss. The thrashing stopped, and Sarpedon could make out the slashes of light that were Sergeant Luko's lightning claws.

  'Got it.' voxed Luko calmly. His voice was still uncharacter­istically grim - he understood as well as any of them how little chance they could succeed here. But they had no choice. Ve'Mefh represented everything that the Architect of Fate stood against, and if there was a chance to kill him then that chance had to be taken no matter what the risk.

  They were close enough now to see the enemy lookouts staring at them, turning to gibber instructions to their brother daemons. Somewhere far along the shore gunfire flashed as Karraidin and Graevus's men stormed their section of the shore. Sarpedon listened in to the other force's vox for a second or two - bolter-fire, orders yelled, cries of pain and anger.

  Sarpedon didn't have time for any of that now. He heard a bolter shot, saw the head of something on the shore snapping back in a shower of dark green blood, and knew that D
reo had found his range.

  There was a roar from the beach and suddenly the dae­mons were charging as one, turning the water green-black with filth as they splashed into the surf, sharp lengths of iron wielded as swords. They weren't a random-willed pack, intent only on violence - something was leading them.

  'Mark targets and covering fire!' Sarpedon voxed to the tac­tical squads behind him as he strode into the shallower water. 'Assault squads on me!'

  Then he was close enough to see the loops of rotting entrails through the rips in the daemons' stomachs, the hideous leering single eyes glaring from their foreheads, their lolling mouths and stumps of rotting teeth. The reek was like a solid wall in front of him but he broke into a sprint and pressed on for the charge, firing into the advancing bodies as he strode within bolter range. Bolt pistol shots blazed in from around him, blowing lumps of putrescence out of the shambling bodies.

  He could feel Ve'Meth laughing at them, peering down from the rotting coral mountain above them. Ve'Meth wouldn't be laughing for long.

  The Soul Drinkers and the plague daemons clashed in the shallows, chainswords ringing sparks off ugly two-handed blades. Sarpedon whipped the force staff from his back to block a crude downward swipe, followed up with an upswing that ripped a leering daemon's head in two. The daemons were rotting and deformed but they were quick, with slack muscles unnaturally strong. The ruined face howled and the blade swung at Sarpedon's waist, smashing sideways into the ceramite breastplate and knocking Sarpe­don onto two of his knees. The blow had left the daemon wide open and Sarpedon lunged forward, hooking the staff round the back of its shattered head and pulling it onto the muzzle of the bolter in his other hand, so he could blast its torso apart at point-blank range with half a magazine of bolter shells.

  They had an utter contempt of pain. Their bodies were unnatural bags of disease which ignored injuries that would kill a mortal thing - to kill them you had to dismember them completely.