The Last Hunt

by Robbie MacNiven

  The killing blow was a las-bolt to the head. It struck the dying monster in its right eye, blasting its thick skull out of the back of its head. The beast finally collapsed with earth-shuddering force, the last of its minions crunched beneath its weight. A congratulatory cheer went up over the vox at the las-shot’s precision.

  ‘Lucky,’ Timchet grunted. Hagai laughed.

  ‘Jealously does not become you, brother.’

  ‘I will keep my heavy bolter, thank you. Suhtar’s lascannon takes too long to recharge.’

  ‘Move down onto the plain,’ crackled Chokda’s voice. ‘Slaughter the wounded and start burning pods that have yet to burst. Yes, even you, Suhtar. You can boast to the khan-commander all you want when we rejoin the rest of the brotherhood.’

  Chokda and his bikes had ridden around the freshly opened gorge and were now rejoining the battlefield. The infantry had begun to move down amidst the bodies, crushing the skulls of twitching aliens beneath their boots. A combat squad moved immediately to retrieve the bodies of Karro’sai and his pilot from the remains of Spear of the Khagan, along with those bikers who had fallen in the initial charge. Emperor willing, their gene-seed was unharmed. Hagai pulled Wind Tamer up, circling the battlefield and providing overwatch.

  ‘Word from the khan-commander,’ the pilot said to Timchet, listening in over the open command frequency. ‘He too has triumphed.’

  ‘When does he not?’ Timchet replied, but Hagai wasn’t listening. The gunner twisted in his harness to regard his co-pilot.

  ‘A distress sigil,’ Hagai said, indicating a rune that had lit up on the dashboard’s long-range auspex viewscreen.

  ‘To the north-west?’ Timchet said, frowning. ‘The are no squads out in that direction, certainly not that far from the Founding Wall.’

  Hagai didn’t respond immediately, checking the location beacons of the rest of the brotherhood in-between visual scans of the surrounding airspace.

  ‘Red Berkut is with the khan-commander, and Fury, Lord of the Sky and Lightning Death are both clearing up a stray flock of flying beasts to the south-east,’ the pilot said, identifying the location of the brotherhood’s Stormhawks and Stormtalon.

  ‘What about Emtich and Rondai?’ Timchet asked, referring to the pilots of the brotherhood’s third Land Speeder, Tulwar of the Wind.

  ‘Protecting the main migration route to the Founding Wall from xenos stragglers,’ Hagai said, consulting the auspex again. ‘Wait, I think I have it.’

  The pilot was silent for a moment before cursing.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘That haunted fool Feng. He’s still with one of the nomad tribes trying to reach the wall. They’ve been spotted by a secondary swarm. Some place listed as Juben’s Gorge.’

  ‘He’s alone?’

  ‘His squadron are here riding with Chokda. He was supposed to report back over an hour ago.’

  ‘Wind Tamer, come in,’ clicked a voice over the vox. It was the khan-commander’s. Hagai and Timchet exchanged a glance.

  ‘Here, khan-commander,’ Hagai responded.

  ‘I am reading a distress sigil north-west of your position. You are the closest unengaged flyer.’

  ‘Yes, khan-commander,’ Hagai said, bringing Wind Tamer around. ‘We’re already on our way.’

  Juben’s Gorge, Darkand

  For a few minutes, the bolters kept them at bay. Feng kept both firing studs depressed, the bike linked to his auto-senses. The twin bolters mounted on the shield screen could only be moved left or right with a turn of the front wheel, but in the narrowness of the canyon it didn’t matter. The gaunts coming at Feng had no room to manoeuvre, channelled by the rough yellow Darkand stone either side of them. The steady stream of bolts punched through black exoskeletons and skulls, blasting great chunks of flesh and chitin from the onrushing swarm.

  The thunder of the two weapons echoed back relentlessly from the sides of the gorge, drowning the hissing and scrabbling of the swarm and making the dirt and stones underfoot leap with every double discharge. At Feng’s advice the tribesmen beside and behind him had torn strips from their undershirts and stuffed them in their ears, but still their faces were creased with discomfort. Feng had simply removed the sound from his Lyman’s ear.

  The bolters had reaped a high tally, but they would not be enough to stop the swarm. Feng had deliberately left the lictor’s head lashed to the front of his bike, hoping its pheromones would channel the xenos down the gorge rather than allow them to go around and cut them off at the other end of the pass. It seemed the ploy had worked a little too well – the swarm was numerous. Every xenos that went down, cut open by bolter shells, was a step closer, the sheer mass meaning that the corpses of those gunned down absorbed more bolts before they were finally dragged under and trampled by those behind. The gaunts rose like an onrushing flood, skittering and scrambling over one another and scraping along the sides of the gorge, their only thoughts to rend and tear the flesh of the prey trapped ahead.

  Eventually, the swarm only a few more lunges away, Feng dismounted and triggered his guan dao.

  ‘With me,’ he shouted over the thunder of the coming xenos, and gestured at the two tribesmen either side of him, Gochet and Torman. Together, the three warriors stepped past Feng’s bike and met the rolling tide.

  When he had first seen the Sky Warrior kill, Gochet had imagined he would never live to see something more terrifying, or more majestic. He knew now that he had been wrong. He and Torman hung two paces back from the giant in white, as he had instructed them. Gochet saw why – with a single, vast blow of his magic-wreathed glaive, the giant cut the space before him from one cliff face to the other, slicing half a dozen leaping fanged void-yaksha in half. Stinking, steaming purple blood immediately painted the giant and the dust under his huge boots.

  The things behind the first row of bisected void-yaksha came on regardless. They seemed to possess no fear for the god that had just cut down a whole clutch of their brood kin. Cholek, the Beged’s wizened shaman, had described them as relatives to the reptors that had once dragged away Gochet’s grandmother. Certainly the single-mindedness and eerie coordination of these monsters were not unlike the discipline displayed by the terrible steppe lizards.

  Such thoughts had occupied the tribesman’s mind since he had first seen the half-invisible monster by the light of the campfires the night before. The eternal battle in the heavens, where the Sky Warriors fought the void-daemons and stopped them from devouring the world, had finally come down to the steppes. Now all reasoning fled as the first monster lunged at him.

  It was wounded. It had been clipped by a stroke of the Sky Warrior’s huge, crackling weapon, and half its head was a mangled, oozing mess. That it was still moving was a testament to the power of whatever hungry god was driving these things. It used its vast talons to haul itself forward, passing unnoticed beneath the white giant’s guard as he slashed and stabbed the things in front of him. Then, with a burst of frenzied speed that belied its wounded state, it leapt up at Gochet.

  Suddenly, the horror of what he was fighting faded. There was no more time for fear or confusion. His instincts – the natural reflexes of a warrior who had been fighting for his tribe on horse and on foot for nearly three decades – took over completely. His spear came up in time to meet the lunging beast, catching it in the gullet just below its distended maw. The thing’s own momentum drove it onto the weapon’s honed tip, and Gochet braced his feet, side on to it, absorbing the force of the leap and holding his weapon firm as it twitched and scrabbled. Its great, hideous talons sliced the air impotently until finally its soulless black eyes glazed over. It slumped, slipping back off the spear.

  He had no time for elation, or even relief. Beside him Torman was fighting for his life. Another of the void-yaksha had managed to slide past the Sky Warrior’s glaive and almost had Torman down on his knees. The Beged tribesman
had dropped his spear and now held both the beast’s forearms by the flesh just below its talons, the wicked lengths of hardened bone gleaming inches from Torman’s throat. It was snapping at his straining face with its fangs as well, driven wild by the desire to rip apart the tribesman’s flesh.

  With a bellow of effort, Gochet ploughed his spear into the void-yaksha’s flank. The blade jarred off a rib before finding leathery, purple flesh. Gochet snarled and forced the weapon deeper, puncturing unnatural organs and causing the thing to drag away from Torman. The sudden motion pulled Gochet off balance, and he had to yank hard at his weapon to free it.

  A blow to the torso would have left most creatures weak and dying, yet the void-yaksha seemed almost unharmed. It went for Torman again as Gochet tried desperately to retrieve his spear. This time, it caught him. One of its long talons sliced through the tribesman’s abdomen as Gochet’s spear tip clattered off the monster’s hardened shell. Torman went down, impaled, blood flowing from his mouth and matting in his beard. Bellowing with fury and denial, Gochet thrust his spear again. This time he went for its throat, the way the Sky Warrior had told them to, angling the thrust down between the black plates protecting the thing’s back.

  The strike was a good one. Gochet felt a solid crunch as his weapon pierced bone, severing the point where the creature’s skull met its spine. The thing went immediately limp, slumping in the dirt. Torman slid free of its talon.

  ‘Gochet!’

  The shout came from Damur, old Kal-chi’s son. They had ­battled side by side for as long as Gochet could remember. Now his hunt-brother came to his rescue once more, leaping from the reserve to drive his spear through the eye of another void-yaksha. The thing had fought past the white giant while Gochet had been avenging Torman. Now it shuddered, impaled, its talons mere inches from Gochet’s leather hauberk. He dragged his spear from the dead void-yaksha at his feet and plunged it into the throat of the one caught by Damur.

  There was no time for thanks. One of the things battling the Sky Warrior had raised its forearms, fused together into a hideous, pulsing cone of flesh. As Gochet and Damur twisted their spears free from its brood kin’s corpse, the thing clenched and spat. A dozen black shapes were launched from the sucking orifices dotting the obscene growth. They hit Damur squarely, the impact sending him staggering.

  ‘Brother,’ Gochet said, snatching Damur’s shoulder to steady him. There was no visible sign of what the black pellets had done to him, at least for the first few seconds. Then the tribesman started to scream, and Gochet realised they weren’t pellets at all.

  They were insects. Black and glittering, not unlike one of the large, hooked steppe beetles the Yarri tribeswomen sold, cooked on sharpened sticks. These creatures, however, were altogether more vicious. As Gochet watched he saw one dig itself into the exposed flesh of Damur’s throat, driving its scuttling body directly into the tribesman and disappearing from sight. Others had bored through the leather of his hauberk and into his chest.

  ‘Get them off me!’ Damur was screaming, dropping his spear and clutching at his armour. For the first time in his life, Gochet found himself frozen with horror, unable to do anything but stare at the parts of Damur’s flesh that distended and writhed with the creatures’ subdermal burrowing. The Beged warrior collapsed to his knees, his screams choking out as blood burst from his mouth and nose. They were eating him alive, from the inside out.

  Too late, Gochet heard the thud of hooves. His instincts kicked in with enough time for him to turn, but not enough time to deflect the scything talon. It ploughed into his stomach, jarring off his spine and stabbing out from his back. At first, the impact drove him back a pace and forced the wind from his lungs. Then the pain hit.

  The snarling void-yaksha dragged its bone-blade free. Another Beged warrior, Hular, was rushing towards it, bellowing, spear levelled. For some reason, Gochet couldn’t hear the shout. The chaotic noise, confined by the rock walls either side, seemed to have faded. He didn’t even know if he was screaming.

  He realised he was on his knees. Both hands were clenched around the wound in his stomach, slippery and red, pressing hard as though by doing so they would squeeze out the agony. He’d been hurt before, a distant thought reminded him. Hurt before, but never like this.

  His strength had vanished. He hit the dirt, gasping for breath. Blood, coppery and thick, choked him. The detached part of his failing mind wondered whether Damur was dead yet. He hoped so. He hoped he would see him again soon, along with Torman.

  As he lay, bleeding to death, his last sight was of the Sky Warrior. Even as the Beged had struggled and died against the horrors from beyond the stars their champion had fought on, not giving an inch of ground, planted as surely as the Founding Wall that circled the slope-city. The great glaive was still in his hands, wreathed in the energies of the gods, every stroke cutting down two of three of the terrors Gochet and his brothers had fallen to. His white armour was befouled from helm to boot in the stinking, steaming viscera of the beasts, and talons and claws had scarred it in innumerable places, yet if he was hurt the giant showed no sign of it. He fought and killed, fought and killed, while those he had come down to protect died. Gochet knew he would not stop until every monster lay carved apart at his feet.

  After a lifetime of war and conflict, Gochet spent his final few moments at peace, knowing that the gods themselves now fought on the side of the Beged.

  The tribesmen fought on against the monsters flooding the gorge. They did so with the fury and bravery of warriors protecting their mothers, wives and daughters, each one stepping forward through the narrow canyon to take the place of a fallen brother. Ultimately, though, they were just men, and poorly armed and armoured ones at that. They managed to kill perhaps a little over a dozen hormagaunts and termagants before the last tribesman finally died, run through and then stabbed violently to death by a pack of half a dozen frenzied swarm creatures.

  After that, Feng was alone. Still he fought. He’d stopped looking at the kill tally in his visor’s top left display. His muscles burned with exertion and his servos were whirring and clicking, the friction of his constant movement heating the under layers of his power armour despite its coolant systems. Despite the reactive grip and automatic clamping of his gauntlet, it was becoming difficult to keep a firm grasp of his guan dao. The whole weapon, from haft tassel to the disruptor field node just below the crossguard, was slick with alien ichor.

  They’d caught him in three places – right hip joint, right elbow, and a talon that had struck with such force it had managed to penetrate his breastplate. None of the wounds were serious and all had clotted already, his Larraman cells more than a match for the injuries. Nonetheless, he didn’t need the vital signs blinking on the edges of his display to tell him he was starting to falter. It had been half an hour since the first creature had fallen beneath his lance. He could not resist the tide for much longer – the wall of xenos dead he’d heaped up was now almost as tall as him, even while it was being continuously crushed and broken by the wild motions of those pushing in from behind. The physical weight of the swarm pressing in against him was pushing both his body and his armour to their limits. Even the gulley seemed to be suffering – the fury of the combat was shaking loose stones from its flanks, bouncing and clattering from gnarled xenos carapace.

  Help was still at least fifteen minutes away. An automated scrawl had told him that Wind Tamer had been dispatched from an engagement to the south-east, and was on its way. If those ever-quarrelling fools Hagai and Timchet managed to put aside their discourse long enough to reach him in the next quarter of an hour, all estimates said he’d be dead by then anyway.

  And in a way, that realisation did not distress Feng. Even now he was not alone, not truly. In the snatches between each kill he caught glimpses of his squad – his old squad, his brothers. They stood together, all four of them, watching him fight in silence from the top of the cliff to his
right. Where normally their presence brought him a chilling dislocation, now, for the first time, knowing they were near gave him a deep sensation of harmony. Soon he would join them, and they would hunt together once more, as they had done on the endless Plain Zhou so many years before.

  Feng snatched a lunging hormagaunt by the throat, his reflexes a match for the alien’s lightning-swift strike. He snapped its neck with a twist of his wrist and flung it back into its brood kin. He had hoped the second’s respite earned by the thrashing xenos would give him long enough to adjust his stance before they came at him again. As it was, he needn’t have worried.

  The swarm had stopped. Those gaunts nearest to him stood perfectly still, sinuous tongues lolling from between wicked fangs, their black eyes glazed. There was suddenly no sound other than the rasping of alien breaths and the occasional clatter of dislodged stone. The silence and the stillness was unnerving.

  After a moment, the reason for the unnatural pause became apparent. The leader of the swarm was approaching. Not leader, Feng realised. Leaders.

  It was not some monstrosity, but a trio of tyranid warriors. They were the least powerful of the synapse creatures that coordinated any tyranid attack, but they were still deadly beasts, standing head and shoulders above a Space Marine. Their shrieks, deeper than the gaunts surrounding them, had quelled the swarm. Now they pushed their way past their minion-beasts, glittering black eyes locked on the lone warrior that dared bar their passage to the prey.

  Feng smiled as they approached, not the mirthful look of a White Scar standing triumphant over his foes, but a cold, tight-lipped expression of hatred. He had resisted the swarm for so long, and killed so much of it, that its leaders were now prepared to face him personally. That the brotherhood would never know of the honour his defiance had won was not important – his brothers, Ajai, Tenjin, Oyuun and long-lost Tayang, would see him. They would know. They would welcome him, now that his time had finally come.