The Last Hunt

by Robbie MacNiven

  He would return for them, he swore. He would return, and the xenos would burn.

  Tashagari Barracks, Heavenfall

  Qui’sin entered the barrack complex with the türüch of the two tactical squads detailed to assisting the city’s preparations, Jeddah and Zabeg. The parade square at the blocky building’s heart resounded with the crash of thousands of combat boots as the regiment assembled on the warm flagstones came to attention. Qui’sin halted, Kemich perched and hooded on his outstretched gauntlet, as a gaggle of men in brocaded officers’ uniforms approached.

  ‘Lord, we are honoured by your presence,’ said the foremost, a shaven-headed man with the tanned, hardened look of the steppes about him. He bowed low, an affectation that was hurriedly mirrored by the subalterns at his back.

  ‘I am Colonel Uygar Tchek, officer in command of the First regiment, Pinnacle Guard,’ the man went on, straightening. ‘My men are present and ready for inspection, great hetman.’

  ‘Very good, colonel. I am Qui’sin, Stormseer and White Scar, attached to the Fourth Brotherhood. Your men honour me with their readiness.’

  Such humility from the white-armoured giant clearly caught the humans by surprise. Uygar blinked and bowed again hurriedly.

  ‘The honour is all ours, great hetman. We await your inspection.’

  Qui’sin smiled inwardly as he reached up to unhood Kemich. Too often the Adeptus Astartes allowed their obvious superiority to breed fear and intimidation among those who would be their allies. He had no doubt Joghaten would have simply brushed by the pleasantries with Uygar and conducted a brisk review of his men, likely followed by some speech about gathering xenos skulls that was ill-suited to soldiers who had never fired their weapons in anger. That was the key difference between Qui’sin and Joghaten, despite the latter’s greater age and experience: as a seer who read men’s minds every day, Qui’sin appreciated tact.

  The hood slipped from Kemich and, with a cry, the psyber-hawk took wing. Qui’sin could sense the mental effort required by the soldiers around him to continue facing front and not follow the berkut’s flight as it slipped into the hot thermals above the city, circling slowly.

  ‘Carry on, colonel,’ Qui’sin said, allowing Uygar to lead him to the first company, ranked two deep along the barracks’ armoury wall. The Space Marines checked their stride to match that of their human counterparts, Qui’sin’s gaze falling on Heavenfall’s defenders. They were clad in black fatigues and ochre flak-plate, their lascarbines slung across their chests. Their equipment was uniformly well maintained, but likewise bore the marks of fresh issue – machine stamps unblemished by repeated cleanings, mega­thule nodes and power packs clips clearly not worn by intensive use. Nor did the faces of the soldiers imply any degree of experience. They were young, the vast majority of them bearing the lighter skin tone and greater height of Heavenfall natives, as opposed to the swarthy, stocky pedigree of the steppes. None seemed to have been visibly marked by combat.

  Such observations came easily to all three Spaces Marines as their great shadows passed along the silent ranks. Even more apparent to Qui’sin, however, were the emotional echoes reverberating from the close-packed mortal soldiers. They were amplified by Kemich, the psyber-hawk’s keen senses probing the thoughts far below as it soared through Darkand’s cloudless skies. Qui’sin let the invisible psychic manifestations wash over him as he went down the line, filtering through the strongest reactions.

  The overriding imperative was fear. It was present on two levels – immediate fear at the sight of the three White Scars and their silent appraisal, and a deeper-seated terror of the events that had befallen their home world over the last day. They had heard rumours, it was clear, about what was coming. Their imaginations were burdened with the most terrible ideas they could conceive of. Even their darkest guesses didn’t come close to the true horror that Qui’sin knew was approaching. When the tyranids arrived he feared few of these boys would stand.

  There was hope as well, though, hope inspired by the sight of the towering White Scars. That was the key, Qui’sin knew. It was the shard of hope he had to grasp and craft into a weapon that could yet be used to hold back the coming darkness.

  The Stormseer completed his tour and took post at the centre of the parade ground, arm outstretched for Kemich. The great raptor swooped back down to alight on his gauntlet with unerring precision, ruffling its golden feathers, and let out a cry that ­echoed shrilly around the sweltering, sun-baked enclosure.

  Qui’sin spoke.

  ‘Soldiers of the Emperor, defenders of Darkand, heroes of the Imperium. Hear my words, and heed them, for I speak the Emperor’s truth. In a matter of days you will face two terrible trials at once – the height of the Furnace Season, and a xenos invasion the likes of which none of you have ever seen, or likely will ever see again. The former is a hardship you will be forced to endure, but it will be of little concern when weighed against the ravenous, alien hunger that is approaching. You have heard stories, I am sure. Perhaps you have even been briefed in full. I am here to tell you that everything you have been told so far is as nothing compared to the true terror of the tyranids.’

  The ranks before Qui’sin remained unmoving, sweating into their flak-plate and fatigues, but the Stormseer could sense their fear spiking. He went on.

  ‘They are monsters bred for one single purpose – to wipe us out. Not only us, but life itself. They would leave our galaxy a graveyard of a billion barren, dead worlds. We are a morsel to them, a single stalk of grass before the reaper’s scythe. And when I say these words, I truly mean “we”.’

  He paused for a moment, allowing the suggestion to settle in the minds of the humans.

  ‘I am a Stormseer of the White Scars,’ he reiterated. ‘An adept of the Lightning Tower. The elements themselves obey my command. I commune with ancient powers, and read the hearts and minds of men. I know that you, Lieutenant Senga–’ he gestured at one of the Pinnacle Guard officers, who broke his eyes-forward stance in shock ‘–are worried about your sister, due to give birth any time now. I know that you, Trooper Chakta–’ his gaze swept round to meet that of another wide-eyed soldier ‘–regret lying about your age to enlist. I know also that your commander, Colonel Uygar, is an honest man and a brave officer, and that you respect him greatly. All this I know, and even more have I seen. I have battled yaksha and greenskins and vile heretics, from the open steppes to the void between the stars. I have even faced the Great Devourer before, and defeated it.’

  He paused once more. The clack of Kemich’s beak echoed over the flagstones. She was hungry. Qui’sin went on.

  ‘I know your thoughts. You think I am something akin to a god, a saviour, though a fearful one at that. But I am a warrior-servant as much as the rest of you, a bondsman for the Great Khan and the Emperor. Were I to face the tyranids alone, I would die. I could not stem their ravenous tide for a moment. Nor could the two warriors behind me, my brothers in a hundred wars. Nor even could our entire brotherhood, a hundred such champions of Chogoris, who have torn down alien empires and slain false gods. When the Great Devourer comes, in a day or two, every Space Marine on this world will die. Without you.’

  Qui’sin didn’t need his abilities to sense the shock that rippled through the assembled ranks.

  ‘The Adeptus Astartes are the greatest warriors the galaxy has ever known,’ he continued. ‘Yet without the unaugmented men and women in the ranks I see standing here, humanity would long ago have been hounded to extinction. Mankind is borne up not on the shoulders of genetically enhanced warriors like myself, but on the bent backs of those who volunteer to do as you have done, to defend your homes and your families from creatures with no concept of mercy. None of you have ever encountered xenos before, let alone a species as supremely deadly as those that approach, yet when you do I know that you will stand your ground, and you will kill, as a billion others have done before you. So, look t
o your leaders, to men like Colonel Uygar and Lieutenant Senga. They will stand with you, and you must stand with them. Chakta, no matter what comes at you, remember your fire drills, and stay with the man to your left and your right. The enemy is a terrible one to face, but soldiers just like you have defeated them a thousand times before. And when it is all over, and the last filthy alien is purged from the surface of this world, we shall still stand side by side, as true battle-brothers. For the Khagan and the Emperor. For Chogoris and Darkand.’

  Qui’sin finished. Silence settled across the square, before the three White Scars turned and departed. As they reached the square’s gateway, someone began to cheer. Within seconds the sound had been taken up on all four sides, ringing out through the hot Darkand air. As they passed through the gateway, Jeddah triggered his helm’s internal vox-link, addressing his two brothers privately.

  ‘Do you think they are ready?’ he asked.

  Qui’sin responded without hesitating.

  ‘No.’

  The Mountain Gateway, Heavenfall

  The Founding Wall. According to legend, the first colonists had constructed an earthen rampart to protect the settlement that would become Heavenfall from the predations of the steppe ­canids and reptors that hunted the plains. Three thousand years on and earth had become rockcrete and plasteel. The wall ran from the pinnacle of Heavenfall’s mountain down to the open steppe, encircling the slope-city in a ring of bastions and weapons turrets. Its reinforced parapets stood forty feet high, its sloping outer flanks snared with continuous coils of razor-wire and fixed caltrops. In all, it stretched for over twenty-five miles.

  Joghaten was unimpressed. He stood atop the main gatehouse at the end of the Slope Road, the primary thoroughfare running between Heavenfall’s government and temple districts. Beside him was the brotherhood’s Techmarine, Khödö, and the city’s Wallmaster, an officious and sallow-faced Heavenfall native named Gorri. A gaggle of gown-clad flunkies hung further back, taking stilo-notes on their data-slates and trying not to stare at the Space Marines. To their backs the slope-city rose, tier upon tier of red-tiled hab blocks, yellow stone collectives and cliff dwellings, clustering up towards the mountain’s jagged peak. Before them, beyond the edge of the wall’s black parapets, the steppe stretched, an undulating patchwork cast in shades of red and gold by the evening sun.

  The khan looked from the city to the open plains, and was displeased. He’d spent hours since the centrum dominus briefing on a tour of stretches of the wall. Now the sun was lowering towards the steppe horizon, the red flare of Fury’s Pillar glowing like a fiery lance, and the master of the Fourth Brotherhood was less confident of Heavenfall’s defences than he had been when he had started.

  ‘The Founding Wall has preserved us for three thousand years,’ Gorri was saying, his dull voice caught somewhere between fear at the Space Marine’s displeasure and anger at the fact that his ancient, august post was being called into question.

  ‘And how many times has the wall been attacked in those three millennia?’ Joghaten asked. Gorri dared let a frown cross his face.

  ‘Thrice, lord. In 891.M41. the hetman of the Bozari led a great uprising in which–’

  ‘How many times has the wall been subjected to an attack by xenos invaders?’ Joghaten snapped. ‘You are being wilfully dismissive of the weaknesses in your city’s defences. The artillery redoubts are understocked and the forward bastions are ill-maintained. The parapets between sectors five and eighteen are half-eroded. Resupplying protocols from the rear sections are inefficient, and the stockpiles you have ready will not be enough to last through more than three hours of full contact. The city will fall before the end of the first day.’

  ‘We have had no time–’ Gorri began to say, but Joghaten cut him off.

  ‘My Techmarine, Brother Khödö, will assume responsibility for preparations over the next day. He will reroute your supply runs and bring forward fresh stockpiles. I will have a new tactical layout downloaded to Pinnacle Guard protocol logs by tomorrow morning, outlining withdrawal zones and hold points. The White Scars will make this place defensible, wallmaster, and you shall defer to us in all things.’

  ‘As my lord wishes,’ Gorri said, his voice strained.

  ‘I will also be contacting city suppliers about bringing food stockpiles from the catacombs to the outer habitation areas, just within the wall. The victuals you have there are insufficient for supporting the nomad tribes, even for a few days.’

  ‘Nomad tribes, lord?’ Gorri said, his expression growing even darker. ‘They will not be a burden on us, I assure you. They remain beyond the wall.’

  There was a moment of silence before Joghaten responded.

  ‘And you imagine they will be left there, to be slaughtered when the xenos make planetfall? Why do you think my brotherhood have come to this world? Heavenfall means little to the Imperium, but the tribes of these steppes are of our blood. I would sooner sacrifice the city than see them wiped out.’

  ‘This is unheard of,’ Gorri spluttered, grasping the edges of his gown sleeves in distress. ‘The Wall has separated us from them since it was first built. To allow the tribes to migrate within en masse… There will be riots! We cannot hope to house them all in the catacombs once the Furnace Season reaches its peak. We will be fortunate if they do not attack us as soon as they pass through this very gate! The stench of them alone would turn your stomach, great hetman!’

  ‘The tribes have not sought to overthrow this city for centuries,’ Joghaten answered, struggling to keep his tone in check. ‘Any that disrupt it or take up arms against those already living here will face my wrath.’

  ‘And what of the problems of supplying them? Of overcrowding?’

  ‘The xenos invasion, when it comes, will be like a summer storm – swift and terrible. One way or another, it will have passed in a few days. We shall do what we can until then. The tyranids are no more able to resist the height of the Furnace Season than we are.’

  Gorri turned to his aides, seeking even the slightest hint of support, but they all fixed their eyes on their data-slates. Eventually the wallmaster bowed towards Joghaten and Khödö, his face red.

  ‘I await your instructions, great hetman,’ he said.

  ‘Khödö,’ Joghaten said, turning towards his red-armoured brother.

  ‘We will begin with the outer bastions,’ the Techmarine said to Gorri. ‘My servo-skull’s scanning has identified an unacceptable degree of weakness in section aleph-nineteen. Bring three of your work details with all possible speed.’

  Joghaten remained on the gatehouse as the others departed to their work. His gaze lingered on the steppes beyond the wall, bathed in the red of the dying sun. As much as he denied it, they reminded him of home. How many times had he watched a similar sunset – certainly more glorious, but related all the same – from the great towers of the Quan Zhou? Soon, he knew, the rolling red-and-gold plains before him would be a black morass of xenos bioforms, defiled with organic capillary towers and digestion pools. The thought alone made his fists clench around the hilts of his twin tulwars.

  Qui’sin’s vision had been clear enough. Stop the Great Devourer here, or the same fate would befall Chogoris.

  Near the Gates of Eternity, Darkand

  Darkness was falling. Feng carried on. He was out on the plains, somewhere south of the Gates of Eternity. His armour had logged their location – it remembered the coordinates from before. Nothing about Feng had been able to forget what had befallen the brotherhood in the battle around those ancient rocks. It was only natural that he should find himself drawn back. He had no doubt his fallen brothers would be waiting for him.

  His auspex was picking up traces, lonely and isolated, but there all the same. The Gates, listed on his visor’s cartographic display, were now less than five miles distant. The Beged had to be close.

  The steedmaster had travelled on fr
om the Ukit encampment, riding further out into the plains. He knew he should turn back. The plains were not to be underestimated, especially at night. Packs of steppe canids, dirt-dwelling reptor carnivores, treacherous karst uplands with rockfalls and sinkholes, and fech-fech sands that could drag a Space Marine bike down with ease. The constantly updating route mapped out on his display took him first westwards and then north, curving back round along the edge of an expanse of jagged canyons and rocks that disturbed the plain’s gently undulating grass sea. It didn’t take him further from Heaven­fall – if anything, the detour brought him in an arc back round towards the slope-city – but it still meant he would be overdue.

  His sense of urgency was heightened further when word came over the long-range vox from the khan, the clipped message transmitted to the entire brotherhood. Old Tzu Shen had yielded orbit to the xenos. Alien vanguard incursions upon the surface were now imminent, and were expected to be followed by a full-scale planetary invasion within the next six Terran hours.

  Feng auto-acknowledged the message, but didn’t respond. He stuck to the route map, gunning the engine. Overhead the coming dusk glittered, shot through by the thousand new stars that had recently appeared in Darkand’s skies. The Great Devourer had come.

  Feng’s auspex, set between his two throttle grips beneath the bike’s blast shield, pinged again. The returns were closer. The nearest hadn’t stirred. The topographic lines scrolling alongside the sigil representing his bike indicated a ridge line ahead. It was vaguely visible in the gathering dark, a black rise edged with silver starlight, and the merest crimson hint of firelight. Feng nudged his speeding mount towards the auspex return sited just below the ridge’s crest. The estimates put him less than a minute away from contact. He bared his teeth, and hunched low in the saddle.