02 - Blood Reaver

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden - (ebook by Undead)

  Tenacious dogs, these Marines Errant.

  Their sergeant was down, his legs stretched out slack and useless, while he used his own body to defend two of his men crouching behind him. The two warriors dragged him back as they fired over his shoulders, their gunfire adding to the meticulously clockwork crack, crack, crack of his pistol.

  One of them struck Huron. They all heard the thudding kick of a bolt shell hitting home, and the crumpling burst of the reactive shell exploding against armour. The warlord staggered back between the members of First Claw. He had a single moment to curse the Night Lords for their apparent cowardice, and the fact he sensed the truth was written in a sneer across his features: he knew full well each of them was smiling behind their skulled helms.

  The instant passed. Huron threw himself back into the relentless advance, raising his mechanical right arm as if to warn the Marines Errant away before they committed some grievous error. In the claw’s palm, the spokes of an eight-bladed star led to a gaping, charred flamer nozzle, dripping colourless promethium fuel in its crudest, stinking raw form.

  The Marines Errant broke ranks at last, only for their retreating forms to become statuesque silhouettes in the flooding wash of white fire. One of them unleashed a chemical torrent from his own flamer, dousing two of the Corsairs in corrosive splashes of liquid fire.

  Girded in the technological marvels that comprised each suit of Tactical Dreadnought Armour, the Terminators shrugged their way through the flames.

  But the Marines Errant burned. They roared as they died, fighting as they dissolved, lashing out with weapons fused to melting fists. With their armour joints liquefying, running under their ceramite plating as molten sludge, the last Marines Errant crashed to the ground.

  The Corsairs kicked the burning husks aside, and marched on.

  “We are close,” Huron growled between clenched steel teeth. “So close.”

  He turned to the Eighth Legion warriors, to berate them for their pathetic show of timidity, to encourage them to push on and fight harder, so that they might all earn this great victory together. But when he turned, the hallway was empty but for the Marines Errant he’d killed. Flames still licked at exposed patches of skin. Bolters were reduced to pools of grey slag, halfpuddled on the stone.

  The Night Lords were gone.

  An astral congregation came together in the skies above Vilamus. For some time, Variel was content to watch the gathering from the observation deck of the Corsair warship Misery’s Crown, likening the drifting cruisers to sharks, assembling at the first scent of blood in the black water.

  These were his brothers, and this mighty armada was the greatest embodiment of all they’d achieved together. Below them, powerless and unprotected, was their greatest prize yet.

  The Pride of Macragge drifted past, another stolen ship, its repainted hull proudly bedecked in blasphemous symbols of brass. Variel spent several minutes watching it sail by, observing the Pantheon Stars carved into the warship’s armour plating.

  The deck vibrated beneath his feet as the Crown shivered in the planet’s upper atmosphere, settling into a low orbit. He could make out the Venomous Birthright at the flotilla’s edge, orbited almost parasitically by its support fleet. The lesser cruisers burned their engines hard to keep up with the warship as it coasted around the Red Corsair cruisers, unleashing its formidable weapon batteries on the deactivated orbital defences. It was hardly alone in this spiteful act of aggression; several vessels followed their own flight paths, reducing the missile platforms and defence satellites to wreck and ruin.

  Debris flared briefly in the void as it crashed harmlessly against the Birthright’s shields, splashing gentle kaleidoscope ripples through the shimmering field of energy. Shoved by the momentum of their destruction, several of the large installations tumbled into the atmosphere in a slow motion that seemed almost graceful. Variel watched them burn and spin, dissolving in atmospheric fire as they fell to the planet below.

  He turned, finding what he sought almost immediately. Midnight against the nothingness, the Covenant of Blood was a long-bladed spear at the armada’s heart. The winged skull of Nostramo stared from its battlemented aftcastle, its eyeless gaze leering across the fleet to meet the Apothecary’s stare.

  Variel was still watching the Eighth Legion warship when the drop sirens started their industrial caterwauling. He turned from the observation portal, affixed his helm in place, and tuned into the melee of clashing, crashing voices.

  “This is Variel.”

  “Flayer, this is Castallian.”

  “Hail, Champion.”

  “I have been trying to reach you, brother. Lord Huron has succeeded.” Bootsteps, clashes and clanks in the background. “Where are you?”

  “The… The gene-seed vaults are still exhibiting signs of terminal flux in the cryogenic process. We cannot receive and store plunder from the surface with them in this condition.”

  “What do you mean, ‘still’? I don’t understand.”

  No, Variel thought. Of course you don’t.

  “I have recorded no fewer than thirteen specific notations in the last month, citing that our ship’s vault is unacceptably temperamental.”

  “Apothecary, I need a solution immediately. The Chapter is deploying as we speak. Vilamus’ defences are broken, and we are needed on the surface.”

  Variel let the silence run for ten long, long seconds. He could almost hear his captain squirming.

  “Flayer?”

  “I have destroyed the servitors responsible for the improper rites of maintenance, Champion. You have nothing to fear; the Tyrant will assign no blame to you.”

  There was a pause. “I… am grateful, Variel.”

  “I need time, Castallian. We are one of the only vessels capable of transporting what we steal, and I have no desire to stand before Lord Huron with the confession that we allowed laxity to destroy a quarter of the genetic treasure harvested from the world below.”

  Another pause. “I am placing my trust and my life in your hands.”

  “Not for the first time, brother. I will join you in the second wave. Good hunting.”

  Variel waited for exactly one minute, counting the seconds in his head. Vox-channels scrambled as he tuned through several frequencies.

  “This is the Flayer,” he said at last. “Do you know that name?”

  “My… my lord,” the voice replied. “All know that name.”

  “Very well. Secure an Arvus shuttle to be launched the moment the starboard docking bay is clear. I need transport to the Venomous Birthright.”

  “As you command, Flayer.” Variel heard the officer speaking off-vox, making arrangements. The transfer of personnel from ship to ship during such an operation was hardly an anomaly, but it required some creative planning with the gunship fleet launching and the hangars so crowded by crew.

  “Deck commander?” Variel interrupted the man’s organising.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I perform this duty for Lord Huron himself. If you fail me, you will be failing our master.”

  “I will not fail, sir.”

  Variel killed the link, and started walking.

  “The Corsair fleet is moving into drop formation, my lord.”

  The Exalted said nothing. It merely watched.

  Malek of the Atramentar followed his master’s gaze. “Talos was right. The first phase was laughably easy.”

  Garadon replied, the other Terminator clutching his massive warhammer in both hands, as if ready for a more immediate threat.

  “Easy for us. I’m sure if he’d entrusted his Red Corsairs to infiltrate the fortress, they’d have wasted hours on uncoordinated killing sprees. Do you underestimate our Claws’ finesse, brother?”

  Malek just grunted for an answer.

  The Exalted snarled its first order in some time, sending mortal bridge officers moving to obey. “Launch Thunderhawks to retrieve the Claws.”

  With a smile, or as close as the Exalted’s twi
sted jaws ever came to one, it looked at its bodyguards. “See what we have done here,” it murmured. The creature exhaled slowly, the sound a mimic of a dying man’s last, difficult breath. “See how we brought a storm to a weatherless world. Underbellies of dark-hulled warships form the clouds. The rain is the burning hail of a hundred drop-pods.”

  “It begins,” the creature said.

  XXI

  DEFIANCE

  They came to another four-way junction.

  “I hate this place,” grumbled Mercutian.

  “You hate everything,” Cyrion replied. He thudded a fist against the side of his head, trying to restart his failing retinal display. “My hololith is still stuttering.”

  Talos levelled his Blood Angel blade towards the eastern corridor. “This way.”

  The walls were shaking now. Huron had surely succeeded, stripping Vilamus of the power it needed to activate its last outer defences. The tremors in the air could only be the first wave of drop-ships coming down, and drop-pods hammering through brittle stonework.

  “Huron will be heading for the gene-vaults,” Mercutian voxed. “That won’t be a fast fight, but we’re still not exactly blessed with an abundance of time.”

  Talos vaulted a wall of bodies, no doubt left by an eager Corsair Terminator team on their march to the primary generatorum.

  “He’ll have to smash through a hundred Marines Errant,” the prophet said. “They know why that scarred bastard is here now, and they’ll be massing to stop him.”

  First Claw was doing what they did best whenever a fair fight threatened to engulf them: they were running in the opposite direction. Talos led the pack in their headlong sprint.

  “He’ll divide his forces to split the remaining defenders. If the Marines Errant are in this subdistrict, the Red Corsairs will be bleeding for every step they take. Some enemies need to be divided before they can be conquered.”

  Xarl laughed. “When did you start paying attention to battle briefings?”

  “When there was a chance I’d be caught up in something as foolish as this.”

  A squad of serfs spilled into the hall from a side chamber ahead. Their tabards displayed the falling star of the Marines Errant, and by Talos’ reckoning, you didn’t need to be a prophet to see that was a bad omen.

  Las-fire slashed past them, into them, leaving ugly charcoal marks on their armour. First Claw didn’t even slow down—they blew through the troops like a winter wind, leaving tumbling bodies and severed limbs in their wake.

  The Angel blade hissed and spat, its power field incinerating the smears of blood along its length. Each died in a flicker of smoky flame, evaporating to leave the weapon cleansed only seconds after it last took life.

  Uzas stumbled, slowed, and broke ranks.

  Talos cursed, looking over his shoulder. “Leave the skulls,” he voxed.

  “Skulls. Skulls for the Skull Throne. Blood for the—”

  “Leave the damn skulls.”

  Uzas complied, dragging himself away from the bodies and sprinting to catch up with his brothers. Perhaps the sense of urgency broke through his maddened perceptions, because Talos doubted his brother had obeyed out of a sudden ability to actually obey orders.

  Septimus couldn’t help it. He could never help it when he sat in this seat, always finding himself grinning like he had as a child—the boy who wanted to be a pilot.

  Maruc checked his buckles in the co-pilot’s throne. He was having a great deal less fun.

  “You can fly this, right?”

  Septimus spoke a smooth flow of Nostraman through his boyish smile.

  “Is that a yes or a no?” Maruc buckled the last strap.

  Septimus didn’t answer. He reached a hand to his earpiece. “Blackened, primed for launch. Requesting clearance.”

  The short-range vox snapped back a crackling reply.

  Meanwhile, the gunship started to shake in sympathy with its own howling engines. Outside the reinforced window, the hangar was immersed in a concert of commotion, half-blanketed in rippling waves of heat exhaust. Maruc saw servitors staggering clear of the launch deck, loading trucks with empty claws retreating from the grounded flyers, and several Thunderhawks shivering with the whining build-up of their rear boosters. Each of the gunships seemed aggressively avian, unnecessarily so, with their sloping wings and leering noses. Each of them had a beast’s wings painted on their hull armour, following the lines of their mechanical pinions. Septimus’ craft, Blackened, had a crow’s skeletal wingspan painted along the sloping metal, reaching to the wingtip gun turrets.

  In all his life, despite working around finger-chopping, limb-mauling, eardrum-breaking industrial death traps, he’d never seen an angrier looking machine than a Thunderhawk gunship.

  “I’m not in love with flying,” he admitted.

  Septimus had one gloved hand on the flight stick, and the other on one of the many levers spread across the console.

  “A strange thing for you to only mention now.”

  The first gunship rose on a crest of polluted heat-shimmer. To Maruc’s eyes, it was a graceless thing, a metal beast that wobbled in the air, its engines howling too loud.

  Then came the sonic boom. A flare of white fire left him blinking; a bang that resonated like thunder in a cavern had him flinching; and the gunship tore forwards into the visible slit of space at the hangar’s far end.

  Not graceless at all, he thought. Throne, these things could move when they wanted.

  “Blackened,” crackled the vox. “Good hunting.”

  Septimus grinned again.

  The bulkhead opened to reveal three robed serfs. The clenched claw icon of the Red Corsairs stood out in expensive gold-thread weave upon their chests. Their hoods were up, but their heads were lowered, bobbing in obsequious respect.

  “Greetings, Flayer,” the first said. “Welcome to the Venomous Birthright.”

  Variel had forgone wearing his helm. Despite the innate intimidation it offered, he’d noticed over the years that humans reacted with greater discomfort to his bare face. He believed it was because of his eyes—eyes as light as polar ice often suggested some inhuman quality in mythological literature—but this was merely a guess. In truth, he’d never been bothered enough to ask.

  “Do you know why I am here?” he asked them.

  More obsequious bobbing of robed heads. “I believe so, lord. The vox message was corrupted by the storm, but it pertained to the gene-vaults, did it not?”

  “It did,” the Flayer nodded. “And time is a commodity I cannot afford to waste,” he added.

  “We will escort you to the gene-vaults.”

  “Thank you,” Variel smiled. It was a gesture no warmer than his eyes, but it got the slaves moving. As they walked through the arched corridors, he noticed how much additional lighting the Tyrant’s tech-adepts had installed since first claiming the Echo of Damnation. One of the most obvious aspects of its transformation into the Venomous Birthright was the profusion of lamp packs jury-rigged to the walls and ceilings, casting a harsher illumination than any Eighth Legion warship crew would tolerate.

  This would be one of the first things Talos would change, he was certain of it. Variel had visited Blackmarket once, out of idle curiosity. It was all too easy to imagine scavenger packs of those same Night Lord serfs stealing these lights for personal use, trading them, stealing power cells, or simply smashing them out of spite.

  The hallways were wretchedly filthy, which was no surprise. Variel was long-used to the myriad corruptions that took hold in a poorly-maintained vessel. The Red Corsairs had owned the Echo of Damnation for six years now, and given her plenty of time to fester and grow foul.

  After they’d been walking for several minutes, Variel calmly drew his bolt pistol and shot all three of his guides from behind. Their robes actually reduced the mess, keeping the exploded gore wrapped up, like wet gruel in a silk sack. He left what remained of the three slaves to twitch and bleed, their ruptured insides slowly soaking thro
ugh their clothing.

  A side door slid open, and a uniformed officer peered out. “My lord?” Her eyes were wide in alarm.

  “What is your rank?” he asked calmly.

  “What happened, lord? Are you harmed?”

  “What is your rank?” he asked again.

  She lifted her gaze from the burst bodies, standing fully in the doorway now. He saw her insignia as she began to answer.

  “Lieutenant Tertius, lor—”

  Variel’s bolt smacked into the woman’s face, blasting the inside of her skull back into the room behind. Her headless body folded with curious tidiness, crumpling in a neat heap, blocking the automated door from sealing closed again. It bumped her thigh repeatedly as Variel walked past.

  The bridge was a fair distance—and several decks—away, but reaching it would solve everything. What he needed was an officer of rank. These dregs simply wouldn’t do.

  No more than thirty seconds later, after ascending a crew ladder to the next level, he came face to face with an ageing man with his hood lowered. The elder’s skin was jaundiced, and he reeked of the cancer that was devouring him from within.

  But he had black eyes—all pupil, lacking an iris.

  “My lord?” the man asked, edging away from the staring warrior.

  “Ajisha?” said the Apothecary. “Ajisha Nostramo?”

  Ruven sent the attendants away with a curt dismissal. While he’d seen many degenerates in worse conditions during his years in service to the Warmaster, he’d always found Etrigius’ servants to be particularly unwholesome things, and their service to the new Navigator had changed nothing of his opinion.

  The chlorine reek of them offended his senses, the way it rose in a miasma from their antiseptic-soaked bandages, as if such trivial protections could ward against the changes of the warp.

  “The mistress’ chamber,” they whisper-hissed in some bizarre, sibilant choir. “Not for intruders. Not for you.”

  “Get out of my way or I will kill you all.” There. It couldn’t be stated in plainer terms, could it? He levelled his staff for emphasis. The curved xenos skull leered down at them.