by Various
‘Do you see, Space Marine?’ Pestilan jeered. ‘Do you see Lord Naracoth’s victory?’
Vabion couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even remember his name. No. It would not end this way. He was an Ultramarine. Courage and Honour. That was his creed. Nothing could take that away from him. Not Pestilan. Not the Champion. Not Nurgle himself.
‘What did you call him?’ he wheezed, desperate to find a fixed point in the midst of the delirium. ‘What did you call your Champion?’
‘Naracoth,’ came the rapturous response.
‘Naracoth,’ Vabion repeated, rolling the word around his tongue.
Names were power. Names could bind.
Names could kill.
‘Remember it,’ the sorcerer gloated, ‘for it will be your doom.’
In front of them, Naracoth raised his Scythe, viscous slime dripping from its twisted handle, and brought the weapon down, cleaving the very air in two. Vabion could only scream as the daemons of the warp rushed out of the rift, creatures no words could describe, no eyes should ever see.
‘No!’ he yelled, pushing against the gnarled back of the tree.
‘Now you feel it,’ Pestilan shrieked in his ear. ‘Now you feel fear.’
But Vabion wasn’t finished yet. His scream hadn’t been of terror, but of defiance.
‘I am an Ultramarine,’ he bellowed, shoving back, not in the vision, but in the shrine. ‘I feel no fear.’
Pestilan’s mistake had been linking minds. He had sought to dominate, to mentally cripple, but all he had done was provide an anchor.
The sorcerer wasn’t prepared for Vabion to act in the real world, but the Librarian had used the vision as an opportunity to steady his cramped limbs, to prepare. He thrust back, pushing himself along the length of the spear, ignoring the explosion of pain in his chest. The back of his skull smashed into Pestilan’s helm, causing the sorcerer to stumble, out of surprise rather than pain.
Not that it mattered. The result was the same. Vabion grabbed the shaft of the weapon and pulled it clear of his chest. In as fluid a movement as he could muster, the Ultramarine twisted, shoving the spearhead into the neck of one of the Plague Marines that had held him, before jabbing the pole-arm back into the exposed chest of the other. The foot of the staff sank deep into the traitor’s peccant flesh, bursting out of its back.
Out of the corner of his eye, Vabion saw Naracoth’s War Scythe flashing down towards him. He twisted the spear, throwing the Chaos Marine into the weapon’s path. The Scythe’s blade sliced into the brute, but Vabion didn’t have the chance to celebrate. Behind him, Pestilan pulled his shattered helm away with one hand, throwing the other into the air. Eldritch energy blasted from his splayed fingers, slamming into Vabion. The Librarian bellowed in pain and crashed to the floor, his body writhing under the unholy onslaught.
Never had he felt such pain. Every cell in his body boiled, the power of the immaterium flowed freely through his mind. Convulsing, Vabion bit clear through his tongue, his limbs caught in a macabre dance.
‘That’s enough,’ Naracoth ordered, Pestilan obeying immediately. Vabion moaned as his body continued thrashing of its own accord. Choking, he could only watch as Naracoth and his Marines loomed over him. The Plague Marine that had received the blow from the Scythe kicked him in the side, causing him to spit blood over the polished floor.
‘I said enough,’ Naracoth boomed, smashing the Marine across its helm with the back of a spiked gauntlet, drawing another peel of insane laughter from the Nurgling.
Vabion rolled onto his back and stared up at them, unable to speak.
‘By Mortarion, Pestilan,’ the Champion rumbled, ‘this one is strong-willed. He will make a fine sacrifice, don’t you think?’
The sorcerer merely nodded, tumescent maggots dropping down from a face the like of which Vabion had ever seen. Pestilan’s countenance was a mangled knot of gnashing teeth and flashing eyes, set in a bed of rotting muscle. The grubs showered down on the Librarian, wriggling into his mouth and gnawing at his eyes.
‘Bring him,’ Naracoth commanded, and the Plague Marines grabbed Vabion’s armour. Pestilan stepped aside to let them drag the Librarian up the steps to the Key, his head smacking painfully against the crystal he had studied for so long.
‘You fought well,’ the Champion admitted. ‘As I knew you would. I suspect you even believed you could win.’
The Nurgling nearly fell from Naracoth’s shoulder in excitement.
‘That was necessary. Despair can only prosper once hope is extinguished – and now all hope is gone.’
Naracoth raised his Scythe, bringing the foot of the staff over Vabion’s eye. The Librarian tried to wriggle away, but was paralysed, staring up at the sigil of Nurgle carved into the bottom of the corroded metal.
‘One final sacrifice,’ Naracoth roared as he brought the staff crashing down through Vabion’s eye.
As he died, Vabion couldn’t feel the staff crack through the back of his skull. He couldn’t see the blood running freely around the seal or hear the Key begin to crack. He wasn’t even aware of the hymns of praise Naracoth and his traitorous band sang to their Lord.
But he did experience something he had never known during his long life.
Vabion felt fear.
Twelve
To the east of Kerberos, The Heart of Sorrow banked, its assault cannons carving up the Plague Zombies that scrambled towards the fort. Inside the cockpit, Kerna watched in grim satisfaction as his guns did their work, tearing apart the rotting attackers.
‘That’s it,’ he coaxed, pulling back on the stick, ‘hold it together.’
Up to now the pilot’s prayers had been answered. The Heart’s engines, though sluggish, had cleared themselves, the gunship turning as he climbed. And not before time.
Kerna’s eyes rested on the horizon.
‘More of you,’ he said, taking in the shambling figures closing in from all four points of the compass. ‘Has no one on this planet escaped infection?’
As the Stormtalon came about, his eyes rested on the nearest cloud of deathbottles.
‘By the Emperor…’
The swarms were behaving differently now, the insects flying around and around as one. He checked his auspex.
‘In the same direction,’ he muttered, fascinated. ‘They’re moving in the same direction. Like a formation.’
He gunned the Heart towards the cloud, trying to get a closer look at the vortex the flies were forming.
‘No. Not a vortex. It’s a gateway!’
The Heart of Sorrow slewed to the left as, without warning, daemons flocked out of the portal the deathbottles had formed.
‘Rot Flies,’ Kerna hissed, pulling the Stormtalon into their path and opening up his cannons, cutting down the first of the daemonic attackers.
Kerna had heard tales of Rot Flies, although the reality was worse than he had imagined. The monstrous insects were enormous, their bodies distended by foul gases, coarse hairs erupting around deep gashes that exposed their slick innards to the elements. Two sets of ragged, decomposing wings propelled them forwards and each carried one of Nurgle’s foot soldiers – a Plaguebearer – on their hunched backs. The infernal riders hung onto chitinous saddles, waving corroded plague knives and glaring at Kerna through his canopy with frenzied, cyclopean eyes.
He weaved expertly through the swarm, cheering as two more of the nightmarish steeds erupted in bursts of emerald slime, the Plaguebearers tumbling screaming to the ground.
‘That’s the best you can do?’
A Rot Fly dropped down from above, spewing digestive juices from its long, pus-covered proboscis. The stuff splashed against the cockpit, hissing alarmingly. The canopy itself frothed, bubbling where the foul concoction of juices had made contact.
‘Like acid,’ Kerna grunted, glancing to his lascannon stack. The silver
ceramite was boiling there too.
‘So, deadlier than I gave you credit for. No matter. The Heart has never let me down yet.’
He glanced at the rear display, finding more Rot Flies gaining fast. He counted ten at least, their tattered wings blurring as they bore down on him.
‘Fast too,’ the pilot commented. ‘But how quickly can you react?’
He slammed on the airbrakes, the Rot Flies streaking past, not expecting the sudden deceleration.
‘Thought so,’ he grinned, targeting the lascannons. Three more of the daemons dissolved into flames as his shots found their mark. But the celebrations were short lived. Suddenly, Rot Flies were everywhere, not just behind or in front, but coming from the sides as well. They may not have had artillery but they could manoeuvre faster than the Stormtalon, the purulence they spat from their snouts scarring the Heart’s armour with every pass. Warning runes flashed across his helm, as the acid reached vital systems, the acrid stench of electric fires filling the cockpit.
He looked up from the controls just a moment too late to react, and ploughed into a Rot Fly head on. The gunship shuddered with the impact, the fault locators immediately reporting that the communicator sensor array had been damaged. The burning smell intensified as the caustic ichor went to work, another Plaguebearer steering his mount in for a collision course. Kerna reacted initiatively, skidding the gunship to the side, avoiding contact – but only by a whisper.
‘You can’t shoot me down, so you’ll ram me, eh?’
Back on Gathis II, Kerna’s flight instructor had maintained that weaker guns could never win a fight. These obscene creatures were setting out to disprove that fact. He threw the stick to the right, narrowly missing another suicidal bombardment, but found himself blinded as the Heart smashed directly into a Rot Fly.
The bulging abdomen split, spilling its steaming viscera across the canopy. Kerna found himself staring at the face of one of the partly-digested victims, plastered against the already smoking screen. His view blocked, the Stormtalon bucked as it clipped another attacker. Kerna slammed his fist down on the canopy release control, expecting the reinforced glass to jettison, but was rewarded only with the clunk of jammed locks. Cursing, the Doom Eagle pounded the canopy frame, the stink of the Fly’s corpse breaking into the cockpit as the cover started to come away. Then, with the sound of squealing plasteel, the canopy was wrenched away, the sudden inrush shoving Kerna back into his harness.
The Doom Eagle sent the Heart into a sharp climb. A Rot Fly shrieked by, disgorging the contents of its stomach into the open cockpit. The sludge sizzled against his power armour, the unholy taint already starting to eat its way through, but Kerna barely noticed, bringing another Plague Drone into his sights and squeezing off a fresh salvo. If he was going to go down, he would take as many of the fiends with him as he could.
The Stormtalon inverted, looping around before levelling off. In front of him, a line of Rot Flies dropped down, converging on his position.
‘This is it, then.’ There was no way he could hit all four at once, but could beat them at their own game and knock them out of the sky. Kerna threw the Heart into a dizzying spin, guns and lascannons blazing, his yells of defiance lost in the wind.
All four daemons erupted into a mist of blood and guts. Pulling out of the spin, Kerna’s eyes followed the sound of engines. It was the Endurance, the last of the sun glinting off the gunship’s pitted silver hull.
Kerna thumbed the vox controls, switching from the Heart’s communication system to a local direct channel.
‘My comms relay is down,’ he called to Meleki, taking out another Rot Fly as they spoke. There was no need for thanks. His battle-brother would know he was grateful. ‘I need you to call all this in.’
‘As you command.’
Below them Rot Flies continued to belch out of the Deathbottle, the sky darkening at preternatural speed. The crops were all but gone now, the land carpeted in a grimy morass.
‘It’s no good,’ reported Meleki, the alarm noticeable in his voice. ‘No response from base.’
‘Then we need to return. Whatever is happening, the fort is at the centre of it.’
Meleki didn’t respond. Instead, he just followed Kerna’s lead, turning back to base. Glowering at the charging hordes, Kerna couldn’t help but recall his flippancy over the crops.
One field of cereal is much the same as the next for me.
And he’d thought Ritan naive. If he survived the day, he prayed the Emperor would forgive him.
Outside the serf’s barracks, the battle had gone the way Artorius had expected. Strong though the corrupted servants had become, they were still no match for superior Space Marine firepower. Artorius turned, gunning down the last deviant. His prayer of thanks was tempered by the realisation that greater challenges lay ahead.
A voice broke through his helm: ‘Garm to Artorius.’
‘I hear you, Hura.’
‘Sir,’ the Doom Eagle replied. ‘It’s our auguries. They’re going off the scale. Warp energies like I’ve never seen.’
‘In your location?’
‘No sir, yours. Our readings show massive psychic disruption in orbit.’
Artorius looked into the darkened skies. ‘Let me guess, directly above Kerberos.’
‘Affirmative, sir.’
‘The Key must be failing.’
‘Key, sir?’
‘Ready yourself Hura. We face a major daemonic incursion.’ Out of the corner of his eye he could see Blasius and Sedeca glance at each other. This couldn’t have been a surprise to them. ‘We must stop the forces of Chaos, whatever the cost.’
‘We are dead already.’ The response was automatic, as training dictated.
‘The Emperor will protect us as we protect him.’ Artorius killed the channel and turned to Jerius.
‘This Key?’ the Techmarine prompted.
Artorius checked his bolter. ‘It holds the rift at bay. There is another beneath Garm. Vabion was their custodian.’
‘Was?’ Blasius picked up.
‘Is,’ Artorius corrected himself, although he had no way of knowing for sure.
He felt a surge of anger. None of this would have been happening if the truth about Orath hadn’t been hidden away. If they had known, they could have prepared. They would have seen the corruption in the serfs. Noticed the signs. Could this have been what the Ruinous Powers had planned all along? Tricking good people into believing they were doing the right thing. From the farmer who explored the sinkhole to Vabion and the Ultramarine hierarchy. They’d all been deceived.
‘The Key is located in a chamber beneath the keep,’ Artorius explained. ‘We must assume we’ll encounter opposition.’
‘Sergeant?’ It was Sedeca, looking out towards the west walls. ‘Listen.’
Artorius followed the Space Marine’s gaze. Sedeca was right. There was something there, a low keening hum, but not just one voice.
There were hundreds.
‘With me.’
The Doom Eagles sprinted over to the battlements, Artorius sucking air through his teeth when he saw what was approaching. The plains were teeming with Nurgle’s decaying followers, what little sorghum remained trampled into sludge beneath the relentless march of the baying horde.
‘Sir,’ Jerius cut in, servo-arms swivelling around to point out small blots in the sky. ‘They’re not alone.’
‘Plague Drones,’ Artorius sneered. ‘Distance?’
‘First wave, half a kilometre at best,’ the Techmarine estimated.
‘But what is that noise?’ Sedeca asked.
‘They’re singing,’ Blasius replied in disbelief.
‘If that’s what you can call it.’ Jerius strode over to the heavy-duty lascannon mounted on a nearby bulwark. He crouched down, his artificial legs hissing, and revealed a screen. Tapping the controls,
he reported what Artorius had already guessed.
‘Scanners show that we are being approached from all sides. The damned number in the thousands.’
‘The entire population of the northern hemisphere,’ Blasius commented flatly.
‘Against four of us,’ added Sedeca.
Jerius rose to his feet. ‘Sounds like good odds to me.’
Artorius allowed himself a grim smile. ‘Careful Jerius, that almost sounds like a joke.’
The Techmarine cocked his head as if such a thing would never do. ‘Sir, I do have a suggestion.’
‘I thought you might.’
‘If I can slave the other gun-turrets to this cogitator…’
‘You can defend the battlements alone?’ Artorius saw where his Techmarine was going with this.
Jerius nodded. ‘Leaving the three of you to secure the Key.’
Artorius placed a hand on the Techmarine’s shoulder, half expecting him to shrug it off.
‘Do your duty,’ the sergeant said, indicating for Blasius and Sedeca to follow him. ‘For Gathis II.’
‘For the Imperium,’ the Techmarine responded as his battle-brothers sprinted away. Without giving the approaching hordes another glance, Jerius got to work.
Thirteen
An experienced Space Marine didn’t need to be a psyker to develop a sixth sense. Artorius had no idea what was happening in the shrine, but knew they shouldn’t just barge straight into the keep. It wasn’t hesitation – just prudence.
Scouting around the serf’s barracks he indicated for Sedeca and Blasius to continue over the courtyard.
‘Sedeca, take up position behind the armoury,’ the sergeant breathed over a closed vox-channel. ‘Blasius, you loop around and wait at the east wall of the keep.’
‘Yes sir,’ the Doom Eagles replied in unison, following his orders without question.
His men away, Artorius flattened himself against the barracks and peered around at the heavy tower doors. They were still shut. Excellent. He would have Blasius enter and check the area, covered by Sedeca and himself. Once they were sure it was clear, they would proceed inside the keep and find this Key. A simple manoeuvre.