Hammer and Bolter Year One

by Christian Dunn

  He landed on the eight hundred and fifty-seventh floor, his balance thrown by the tide of blood swirling into the hole. Something white came flashing in at his side; something sharp was pricking towards his eye. He swung his chainsword, shearing through the crab claw of the daemonette who bore down upon him. The white skinned woman hissed at him, her rusty hair plastered by blood to her bare shoulders.

  ‘Goolvar h’nurrgh!’ she spat, and made to draw something from behind her back. It was a feint! As Goedendag brought his chainsword up to parry the attack, she kicked out at him, a three-toed foot tipped in razor-sharp claws scratching across the armour on his sword arm. Goedendag made to chop at her leg, but she gripped him with her foot and held on, twisting the chainsword upwards.

  Now the daemonette smiled at him, her sweet, seductive body undulating as she brought the snake-fiend from behind her back. She hissed, and lashed the fiend forwards like a whip. Its eyes blazed, its mouth, surrounded by a ring of venom pierced needles, snapping towards Goedendag’s face. His chainsword-wielding hand was trapped by the daemonette’s foot.

  The betcher’s glands in Goedendag’s mouth had been working overtime, and he spat corrosive acid into the eyes of the lashing snake-fiend. The creature screamed and drew back in pain. Goedendag flicked the chainsword to his left hand, then brought the weapon up as if to parry quinte, slicing through the snake-fiend’s body. He carried on with the movement, circling down to cut through the daemonette’s leg. She screamed and jumped forward, needle teeth moving within her mouth, but Goedendag’s right hand now reached to his shoulder and took hold of one of the morning stars there. He brought the weapon forward in a circle, cracking it down on the daemonette’s skull as, simultaneously, his sword thrust into her body.

  She thrashed as she died, her bitter scream rippling the pools of blood gathered on the floor.

  ‘You took your time on that one,’ said Fastlinger, standing coolly nearby over the bodies of two more dead daemonettes. ‘And we saved her especially for you, too.’

  ‘You talk too much,’ said Telramund, three daemonettes to his credit.

  The other members of the squad were now entering the room, jumping up from below.

  ‘One hundred and forty-two floors to go,’ announced Ortrud, looking at the dead daemonettes.

  ‘There are many more above us,’ said Franosch, looking to the dripping ceiling, ‘yet still they hold back.’ He looked at Goedendag. ‘Do you think they know it is us? Are they waiting for us?’

  ‘Who cares?’ said Telramund. ‘We shall meet them soon enough.’

  The daemonettes had been fought to a standstill here as they descended the tower from the warp portal. As they had fought, they had ripped apart the thin walls that partitioned the human apartments crowded into the hive block. The ceiling above had been punctured in many places, and Goedendag and the other Iron Knights could now look up through several floors.

  Ortrud waded through ankle-deep blood, kicking aside yellow skulls, the flesh recently ripped from the bone.

  ‘They sealed this floor to keep the blood in,’ he said.

  ‘There is blood still dripping down upon us,’ said Telramund, ever impatient.

  Franosch was frowning, straining to understand.

  ‘They carry some of the living through the warp portal,’ he says. ‘I hear their screams. But the daemonettes grow bored. They torture and kill those who remain.’

  ‘Then let us make speed to meet them,’ said Telramund.

  ‘Telramund speaks well,’ said Goedendag. ‘Franosch, I see the stairs resume undamaged on the next floor. Is it meet that we should take them?’

  ‘For the moment.’

  They advanced in turns, running in pairs up flights of stairs whilst those behind covered them. As they climbed through the floors, the damage inflicted by the holding action lessened. The internal walls of the hive tower reasserted themselves, and Goedendag and the rest began to make out the tiny apartment spaces in which the civilians had lived.

  ‘What do they make here?’ asked Gottfried.

  ‘On Minea? Phosgene gas, mainly. They also export Banedox ore.’

  ‘Look,’ said Gottfried.

  Goedendag looked to the floor. A child’s toy lay there, a model Space Marine.

  ‘There were children here,’ said Fastlinger. He looked sick. Sometimes the jokes were not quite enough to shut out reality. ‘What did they do with them?’

  ‘Next floor up,’ said Ortrud. ‘You’ll see.’

  They climbed the stairs to the next level.

  ‘Nine hundredth floor,’ said Gottfried.

  ‘They sealed the stairwell above,’ said Telramund, looking up.

  ‘Then we cut through with chainswords,’ said Goedendag.

  ‘We won’t need chainswords,’ replied Telramund bitterly.

  Goedendag moved forward to get a better look. A patchwork had been stitched over the stairwell. Shapes of brown, pink and yellow. Blood seeped through the stitches.

  ‘That’s children’s skin,’ said Goedendag.

  ‘That’s daemonettes amusing themselves, killing time,’ said Telramund.

  ‘It’s a warning line,’ said Franosch. ‘It will summon trouble.’

  ‘Then I will invite trouble to join me,’ said Goedendag, cutting through the patchwork of flesh with a knife. Blood spurted through, and amongst the curling currents and eddies slipped the writhing bodies of snake-fiends, pouring through the gaps, wriggling as they sought out their human prey. Chainswords buzzed into life once more, and the warriors began to swing at the prickling creatures.

  ‘They cannot penetrate our armour!’ shouted Fastlinger, cutting a snake-fiend in two in a spray of green ichor that steamed and sizzled on contact with the clotting blood.

  ‘They’re not trying to penetrate,’ called Ortrud. ‘They seek to entangle us.’

  As he spoke, a bundle of snake-fiends whipped their way out of the bloody stream and corkscrewed their way towards Goedendag’s sword arm, seeking to wrap it to his body. Goedendag feinted to the side and then brought his chainsword down on the mass of bodies, their scales dark and shining. The scream of the sword joined the splashing of blood and the hiss of ichor. Through the mass of moist movement he saw the white bodies of the daemonettes of Slaanesh dropping down to join the melee.

  ‘Too much blood,’ gasped Franosch, launching a coulé attack on a snake-fiend, grazing the chainsword down the side of its body before neatly flicking back to sever the head.

  ‘Less technique, Franosch,’ called Ortrud, ‘More slashing!’

  ‘There is too much blood,’ repeated Franosch, stamping down on a bundle of snake-fiends with his spiked boots. ‘Still it pours from the warp.’

  ‘‘Ware the daemonettes!’ called Gottfried, launching a fleche attack at the closest enemy. A white female staggered towards him, seemingly drunk on blood. Goedendag brought his chainsword up beneath Gottfried’s strike, parrying it.

  ‘Hold,’ called Goedendag, seeing the look of betrayal in his comrade’s eyes. ‘She’s human.’

  The Space Marines halted as one, the mocking laughter of daemonettes filling their ears. They took a moment to discern the situation: the followers of Slaanesh stood at the far side of the wide room, bending, taunting, snapping their crab-like claws at the Space Marines. Now Goedendag’s men realised just what the daemonettes had pushed towards them: human women, stripped naked and daubed with white paint, their hair tied up and stained with blood. Prisoners, sent forward to die on the Space Marine’s blades, for was it not a fact that the followers of Slaanesh delighted in killing their opponents in the most vile and tormenting ways?

  ‘More snake-fiends!’ called Goedendag, as the writhing creatures rose out of the rising tide of blood, circlets of needle teeth glistening with poison, redoubling their attack, this time on the human women as well as the Space Marines themselves.

  It was left to Gottfried and Hellstedt to dispatch the snake-fiends. Ortrud and Fastlinger launched themselves
at the daemonettes screaming with insane laughter at the other side of the room. They waited a moment as the Space Marines advanced and then retreated at a sedate pace back up the stairs to the next level, wriggling their bodies in an alluring fashion as they did so, taunting their pursuers.

  ‘Leave them,’ called Goedendag. ‘Look to the women first.’

  Reluctantly, Ortrud and Fastlinger returned to his side.

  The unceasing flow of blood continued from above, though the tide was diminishing. It swirled in whirlpools around the stairwells leading further down the tower. Seven human women stood weakly, buffeted by the dying tide. And now Goedendag saw why they had remained silent throughout their torment: their mouths had been sewn shut with thick, red thread. He took a knife from his combat armour and cut through the thread sealing the first woman’s mouth.

  ‘There are more of them above,’ she shouted, red thread piercing her lips in a grotesque moustache. ‘Hundreds, thousands. They’re waiting for you.’

  ‘Peace,’ said Goedendag Morningstar. ‘We have the advantage.’

  The woman’s eyes widened.

  ‘No! There are only seven of you. You have no advantage. They make ambushes, deadfalls.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Goedendag. ‘But they must fight us one floor at a time.’

  The other women now had their mouths cut free. Goedendag was impressed to see how they held themselves. Frightened, hurt, it was true, but they had not broken down. He remembered Kelra, the Imperial Guardswoman, and he realised that they bred them tough on Minea.

  Franosch stepped forward.

  ‘There is a warp portal near the top floor,’ he said. ‘Have you seen it?’

  ‘No,’ said the women in unison, but one of them stepped forward. She was rubbing white ichor from her body as she did so, exposing the dark skin underneath.

  ‘I have not seen the warp portal, but I have heard from one who has. One who fled down the stairs while the lift shafts filled with fire. He told me there is a daemon up there, a greater daemon.’

  ‘I knew it!’ exclaimed Franosch.

  ‘Yet why does it not attack?’ said Ortrud. ‘Why does its horde remain at the top of the tower?’

  ‘They’re waiting for something. It’s part of the deal.’

  ‘What deal?’

  ‘Gutor Invareln,’ said the woman. ‘There was phosgene leak, his body was badly scarred. He was a bitter enough man before his injuries, afterwards he blamed the world for his troubles. He turned upon all his fellow humans; he claimed he was a latent psyker and that he would have his revenge on us all.’

  ‘Surely this would have brought the inquisition down upon him,’ called Franosch. ‘Most latents try to avoid their attention.’

  ‘None of us thought anything of his words. Gutor had always sought any attention to make himself seem more important. To him, even the inquisition would have been welcome.’

  ‘You believe that Gutor made a deal with a daemon?’ said Goedendag.

  ‘Yes. He wanted to live to see the destruction of all those who lived around him. Only after that would he surrender to death and allow the portal to fully open! And after that…’

  ‘After the portal is fully open there will be daemons enough for all of Minea,’ said Franosch.

  ‘Then we must hurry to make the greater daemon’s acquaintance,’ said Goedendag.

  ‘Meltaguns?’ said Fastlinger.

  ‘What about the humans?’ said Ortrud.

  ‘Use them,’ said one of the women. ‘Better a quick death than what they plan.’

  ‘Chainswords,’ said Goedendag. ‘Telramund. Less than one hundred floors to go. Move out!’

  They splashed up the stairs of the tower. Globs of blood gathered in clumps on their boot spikes. They had to pause to shake them free.

  The corridors they passed through were empty; they looked into empty rooms where humans had once lived and saw signs of fighting – overturned chairs, broken tables, even food scattered across the pooled blood on the floor – but of bodies, living or dead, there was no sign.

  ‘Carried away,’ said Franosch, ‘sport for now or later.’

  They passed floor nine hundred and ten, then nine hundred and twenty.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Ortrud. The noise came again, a shrieking sound as of many voices crying in agony.

  ‘It’s coming from the elevator shaft,’ said Goedendag.

  The black metal wall of the elevator shafts wa their only constant as they climbed, that and the never ending flow of blood. Each set of doors had buckled and melted shut. Once more, the metal of the shafts seemed to hum with an unearthly music.

  ‘Like a trumpet call, blown from the warp,’ said Ortrud, darkly.

  ‘The bodies of those who fled,’ said Franosch. ‘Trapped, still living, in the shafts. Boiled in blood and feasted on by snake-fiends.’

  On they climbed. On the nine hundred and twenty-seventh floor, the rooms were filled with human feet. On floor nine hundred and twenty-nine, glistening hearts lay in pools, still beating. They pumped blood from pool to pool, from room to room.

  ‘This is sick even by Slaaneshi standards,’ said Fastlinger. Goedendag said nothing.

  Still they climbed.

  Franosch concentrated.

  ‘Next floor,’ he said. ‘Daemonettes. Hundreds of them. The humans lie beyond them. And then…’

  He paused, pushing his meagre psychic ability to its limit.

  ‘…and then nothing again. Nothing until the top of the building, and whatever awaits us there.’

  ‘It’s an invitation,’ said Goedendag, calmly. ‘Whatever is at the top is waiting for us. Waiting for me.’

  The Space Marines looked at each other. Each felt the guilt of their chapter, each felt the determination to atone for the sins of their fellow Iron Knights.

  ‘Tell us what to do, Goedendag.’

  Goedendag looked at his chainsword. His lyman’s ear was attuned to the noises from above now, the pitiful cries of the tortured.

  ‘We’ve climbed nine hundred and forty floors in search of a fight,’ said Goedendag. ‘Now we’ll have one. I have a plan.’ He smiled slowly. ‘And Fastlinger, it’s time for you to sheathe your chainsword for a while…’

  They fixed melta bombs to the ceiling, retreated to the floor below and waited for the explosion.

  Ortrud was an expert at demolition. The bombs broke the ceiling and nothing more. Or rather, he broke more than the ceiling, for the ceiling was a floor as well, and as the ground beneath their birdlike feet gave way, the daemonettes of Slaanesh found themselves falling, falling down in a rain of blood, of thrashing limbs, of dust and screams and noise, falling towards floor nine hundred and forty, falling in a tangled mass. And erupting from the centre of this confusion came Goedendag and his Iron Knights.

  Chainswords buzzed as they chopped at limbs and clove heads in two.

  The daemonettes recovered quickly, righting themselves and lunging towards the Space Marines, slashing their crab-like claws and kicking with clawed feet. The Iron Knights formed a circle; seven chainswords thrust, cut and parried with elegant precision. More daemonettes dropped down from the floors above and Goedendag withdrew to the centre of the circle, the better to take on this new attack. One daemonette dropped headfirst towards him, one clawed arm stretched out, pointing at his face. He sidestepped, took her arm and rammed the claw straight down into the floor, piercing the metal there. He pushed her forward, breaking her arm, but at that moment a second daemonette fell on his back and he felt the eldritch power of her claw pierce the shell of his armour, the shrieking pain transmitted to his body through his black carapace. He reached for one of the two morning stars strapped to his back and pulled it free, the spiked head of the ball scraping across the face of the daemonette. Now he swung the ball around, as if to hit his own back. He heard the sickening crunch as her body was crushed between the ball of the morning star and the ceramite of his suit.

  Still more daemonettes dropped into the
room. The space was filled with white flesh, the slash of clawsand the buzz and shriek of chainswords. Above him, Goedendag saw a space leading to the nine hundred and forty-second floor, two floors up.

  ‘Telramund, you’re in charge,’ he called. Summoning all of his enhanced strength, he leapt upwards, catching hold of the bottom-most step.

  A claw slashed down and he caught it, pulling the daemonette down to join her sisters below. Quickly, he scrambled up to the next floor.

  Daemonettes crowded towards him. Goedendag took a last look at his fellows fighting below, and then he raised his chainsword and charged forward, cutting his way through to the stairs.

  He fought his way upwards against the tide of daemonettes, against the tide of blood. All the while, he had the impression that they were playing with him, that they were allowing him to pass, allowing him to climb higher. The waves of daemonettes diminished, though one or two of them still launched themselves at his chainsword.

  Now he passed through the floors where the humans lay prisoner. Some were bound, some crawled on their knees, lacking feet, some lay half eviscerated, their shouts of pain weak in their throats, their tormentors called away to fight the Iron Knights.

  The humans called out to him for succour. Goedendag ignored them. He could better aid them by confronting whatever lay at the top of this tower.

  He pounded on up the flights of stairs, his anger acting as a buffer, pushing away all those that came before him. Now the daemonettes hung back as he passed; now they stood and watched as he climbed, or they turned and headed downwards to the fray with the remaining Iron Knights.

  Now he was certain something was waiting for him at the top of the tower. As he climbed higher, a feeling of anxiety prickled at his heels, and he began to understand the nature of what lay ahead.

  The sound of fighting faded to leave an eerie emptiness, a weariness that weighed down on his very soul.

  He reached the nine hundred and ninetieth floor, and glimpsed an open space above him.

  On floor nine hundred and ninety-two, he stepped out into a vast cavern. The last eight floors had been removed to leave a huge space at the very top of the hive tower. A nascent warp portal hung in the middle of the space, silver and black roiling in a halo on the boundary between this reality and the dreadful void of the otherworld. Blood flowed through the warp portal in a thin stream, splashing onto the mound of dead bodies below that lay folded up to look like pebbles. A mound of pink and brown and yellow pebbles, bound in red cord. And there, standing at the summit, surrounded by the dark halo of the nascent warp, bathed in the blood that ran from it, a shape within a shape.