Scorched Earth

by Nick Kyme

  'Like an ambush?' I asked.

  'No,' Haukspeer said. 'Something else, something I can't quite identify.'

  'We could go wide of the valley, risk the fringes of the Urgall Hills?'

  Haukspeer shook his head, already turning to make his descent a second time. 'Too dangerous,' he said. 'We head down, eyes and ears open.' He looked over his shoulder, over the silent power generator that fed his armour. 'I will lead.'

  Usabius shrugged to me, and we followed the Raven Guard into the shadows.

  WE LOST SIGHT of Haukspeer almost immediately after we reached the foot of the valley. It was a deep basin, angular and narrow like a jagged blade but more than wide enough to accommodate three legionary warriors.

  Within minutes I felt the same intangible sensation that had unsettled Haukspeer. With less than a hundred metres in my wake, a strange harrowing feeling stole over me. Like razors in my mouth, though there was no blood, or grit beneath my fingernails despite the fact that my hands were encased in ceramite. An itch was the only way I could think to describe it, like a gunsight at the back of my head or knife a hair's-breadth from my exposed throat.

  'Do you feel that?' I asked Usabius in a whisper.

  'Like chewing on rusty nails or walking on glass.'

  'Yes,' I said, realising that we had stopped. I checked the retinal display in my battle-helm. The distance reading since we had set foot in the valley was eighty-eight point eight eight metres.

  Precisely.

  'Strange…' I muttered.

  The vox crackled in my ear.

  'I've found something.' Haukspeer's voice sounded strained.

  'Are you all right, brother? You don't sound your—'

  'Come quickly, and quietly. Follow the route to my ident-icon exactly, no deviations,' he said, adding, 'I can't believe I didn't see this before,' then cut the link.

  Haukspeer was not far. He crouched down by a mound of stones, examining each one with the tips of his lightning claw.

  As soon as we reached his position I checked my retinal display: five hundred and twelve metres. Again, it was an exact reading, the dial ending on zero the moment I had stopped moving.

  'Eight times eight times eight…' I breathed.

  Haukspeer turned sharply. 'What did you say?'

  'I don't know why I said that.' I gestured to the mound. 'What are you looking at?'

  It was twice the height of a legionary, with a wide base that tapered up to a point. Veiled in the black volcanic dust and ash of Isstvan, it was hard to make out what it was.

  Tentatively, Haukspeer brushed away the worst of the dust and I saw a skull underneath.

  My heart lurched as I fought down the bile rising in my stomach, doused the hot rage warming my face and body.

  'Are they who I think they are?'

  Haukspeer could only nod. He clenched his fist, releasing an energy flurry across his talons.

  Usabius was similarly dumbstruck at first.

  It was a mound of skulls, the heads of our Legion brothers. I balked at just how many.

  'There will be vengeance for this,' Usabius hissed.

  'Look around us,' said Haukspeer, lost in a pit of his own private despair.

  I did.

  Unnoticed until that moment, we were surrounded by pillars of skulls like the skeletal remains of some vast and ancient ruin. Cloaked in volcanic black, they varied in size and form. Some were columnar, others were flat plains of bone or winding ossuary roads fashioned from the deaths of our brothers.

  Underfoot, the ground crunched like shale or the shelled bank of some beachhead. It was neither; we walked upon the skeletons of our slain kin, grinding them down to dust with every booted step.

  Wrath, inchoate but rising, filled me. Like someone had turned a switch in my mind, I was suddenly possessed of the urge to kill the ones responsible for this. Hateful red hazed my vision, and I welcomed it. I heard the beat of my own angry hearts in my head - after a while it sounded like a chant.

  No, wait… It was a chant.

  'Do you hear that too?' I asked, speaking through clenched teeth. My jaw was wired so tight, I thought it would snap.

  Usabius nodded.

  'I hear it,' Haukspeer gurgled through saliva foaming at the corners of his mouth.

  It foamed at mine too, and tasted like blood.

  'That way,' said Usabius, and I followed his outstretched, trembling finger.

  'It's coming from this direction,' said Haukspeer. Through the drumming of the blood in his head, I wondered if he had heard my brother.

  We would never find out. When he set off after the chanting sound, we followed.

  BLADE WOUNDS, BOTH old and raw, crosshatched the stooping warrior's skin, which was also pockmarked with scabbed-over bullet holes. Patches of what looked like entire continents of bruising fashioned a map of scarification that stretched across his broad back. He was over-muscled, even for a legionary, bulked out obscenely, sunk to his haunches and scratching incessantly at the cloven skull gripped by his meaty fingers. A great mane of black, wiry hair crawled from beneath his battle-helm and ran down his spine to the top of his greaves. Chains wrapped his wrists in place of vambraces and though he worked at the skull with a slaughterman's fervour, he also possessed a butcher's skill.

  We had descended into the dark valley, where once Haukspeer had set foot during better times. How they had changed that this brute overseer was now the valley's only occupant. And he was a brute. I knew the World Eaters were rabid dogs, but Angron's Legion had fallen far indeed if they were flensing the flesh of their brothers and displaying their efforts as macabre trophies.

  An axe was planted in the earth nearby, its blade stained rust-red. Next to it was a pile of bodies, stripped clean of armour and trappings, naked for the butcher's block. On the World Eater's opposite side was his incarnadine harvest, bones ready for the fresh mound he was building.

  It was ritual, any casual observer could see that, and it turned my very stomach to witness it. Revulsion quickly gave way to wrath, as I felt my blood stir in bizarre empathy with the red deeds before me.

  Haukspeer was already up from where we had hidden, igniting his lightning claw in a burst of azure energy.

  Sniffing, seemingly scenting the sudden wash of ozone, the World Eater arose. He was a head taller than me, which put him head and shoulders above Haukspeer and just above Usabius. The skull he had been working was discarded, clattering to the ground like forgotten offal, and the World Eater seized his ruddy axe instead. In the other hand, he still clutched his fat-bladed flensing knife.

  So fevered had the butcher been in his labours that his naked torso was painted red, so too his horned war-helm, the familiar white and blue legionary colours almost obliterated by blood. I saw marks etched on it, an eightfold tally on either temple and a strange device emblazoned upon the forehead. It was tribal, old beyond reckoning - a snarling, angular face.

  The bestial World Eater echoed the mark in his expression. He had ripped off the mouthpiece of his helm and I could see his sharpened teeth as they spread in a feral smile.

  It was uncharacteristic of Haukspeer to attack so brazenly; it went against the tactics of his Legion, but then nothing about this encounter was typical. Even as I embraced my own anger, I could not shake the sensation that we were being manipulated by something in this valley, something that had been bubbling beneath the surface and that was now awakened thanks to our presence. I did not know how I was aware of this, nor why my companions seemed ignorant of the fact, but I could not deny the nagging feeling.

  It did not matter. I just wanted to kill.

  Haukspeer attacked like a madman, springing at the World Eater with an avian curse screeching from his lips.

  The World Eater parried the lightning claw, an all-or-nothing strike that sheared the warrior's axe in two but left him unscathed. He replied with a heavy punch to Haukspeer's gut that doubled the Raven Guard over as it cracked his plastron, lifting him a few centimetres off the groun
d. He staggered back, gasping noisily through his beak-like mouth-grille.

  Stunned and winded, Haukspeer grunted and flew at the World Eater again but the heavy warrior moved with surprising speed, ducking the hasty blow and smashing his thick forearm across the Raven Guard's throat, flattening him.

  Before the World Eater could claim his kill, I leapt to aid Haukspeer, who had stayed prone and was fighting for breath.

  Close up, the World Eater stank. Blood, sweat, metal - it was a heady odour that sent black sparks spitting through my brain. Heat haze shimmered at the edge of my sight, red-hued and angry. I swung, making contact with the warrior's shoulder even as I felt the bite of his flensing knife under my ribs. He grunted as his clavicle collapsed beneath my attack, and I felt his left arm go limp. The right, in which he held the knife, sawed. The knife chewed through battle-plate, the burring teeth of the savage blade as hungry as the warrior wielding it.

  I struck again, hammering the World Eater with my fist, the blow hard enough to crush bone and split several fused ribs.

  Still the World Eater sawed and I could smell my meat cooking with the frenzied action of his knife.

  'Usabius!' I cried out, not knowing what had happened to my brother but catching a glimpse in my peripheral vision of the Salamander on his knees, holding on to his head and screaming.

  That confirmed it - something dark had a hold of us here in this valley and we needed to get away from it as soon as possible.

  I rained blow after blow against the World Eater, pummelling his body, mashing his torso to paste. At last the pressure eased, the knife stopped churning and I was able to sag down to my knees, my enemy lying dead before me.

  No, not just dead… Destroyed.

  So much blood, the World Eater was barely humanoid any more. His face and upper body were gone, reduced to fragments of gore-spattered bone. I had killed many times, sometimes brutally, but never like this. I scarcely recognised the damage inflicted as caused by my own hand and looked down at my bloodied fingers in sheer disbelief.

  'He's de—' I began to say when Haukspeer smashed me off my feet.

  Snarling incoherently, the Raven Guard bore me down. Even one-handed, he was ferocious and I felt the sting of his lightning claw as it caressed my right flank. I twisted as we fell, using my superior weight to turn us and throw Haukspeer clear as we landed.

  He scrambled to his feet first. I had barely got to one knee, his claw casting lightning arcs as it flailed.

  'Desist!' I shouted at him, barely dodging a thrust and only able to because the Raven Guard's usual finesse had been usurped by frenzy. That, and he was also still dazed from the World Eater's savage assault. He seemed to want to continue the brawl but with me as his opponent.

  And for a few seconds, I wanted that too. I wanted to gut the Raven Guard, to snap his fragile wings and feed them to him, to crush his bird-like skull in my fist, to pulp his limbs, to—

  I shook it off. Literally, shook it off. The angry haze did not dissipate, but it lessened so I could see without looking through a red-rimmed lens.

  'You are not yourself!' I cried, adopting a defensive stance and trying to find Usabius.

  Haukspeer screamed, crafting a wild swing with the intention of removing my head.

  I countered, pushed into the blow and used my arm to break the attack. With my off-hand, I cuffed him, denting one side of his battle-helm and smacking him sideways across the ground.

  'Haukspeer,' I bellowed, 'you are fighting an ally. It is me. It is Ra'stan,' I pleaded. Not because I was afraid he would kill me, but because I did not want to kill him.

  But the Raven Guard was not listening. He tore off his damaged helm, optics fizzing and useless on the right side, to reveal a mask of pure anger over his alabaster face.

  'Merciful Vulkan…' I breathed as he came at me.

  If I could not bring him back from this rage, I would have to kill him.

  This time he jabbed, using his claw like a quartet of gladius blades. I shifted my weight, stepping aside at the last moment, taking a flesh wound because of how late I left it to move, and smashed my elbow into his exposed back. The power generator crumpled. With a second blow I ripped away some of its housing, and took a clump of cables with it. The effect was instantaneous, as Haukspeer's armour was no longer buoyed up by this external power source. The sudden mass dragged him down, slowed him down, as it exerted pressure and hard gravity.

  I used my weight to bring him to the ground, used my knee to hold down his claw arm, my forearm across his throat.

  'Usabius!' I cried out again, calling for help but also wary that my brother might have succumbed to a similar violent affliction. There was no answer and I could not see him, nor look around properly to find out what had happened to him either.

  Now incapacitated, Haukspeer was calming. With the end of battle, his biology was slowing again, returning him to the ''ready position'' all us legionaries remain poised at when not in combat.

  'Cease,' I said, trying to soothe with my tone and cadence.

  His chest was not heaving so rapidly any more, the spittle on his mouth was draining away, his eyes were not so wide and narrowed by the second.

  'Cease,' I repeated, easing up a fraction to gauge whether Haukspeer could be trusted.

  Breathing slowly, he gave a small nod, licked his dry lips and swallowed back a mouthful of saliva to moisten his razor-raw throat.

  'I'm all right,' he rasped. 'Let me up.'

  I needed to be sure.

  'Who is your primarch?' I asked, maintaining pressure.

  'Corax.'

  'And where is your home world?'

  'Deliverance.'

  'And who are you?'

  'Morvax Haukspeer, Apothecary, Eighteenth Company Raven Guard.'

  'Good enough.'

  I let him up, Haukspeer refusing my proffered hand out of pride. He struggled with his malfunctioning power generator. It sputtered, a vibrating hum clearly audible where once it was cloaked and silent. I had robbed him of that, taken away his advantage.

  'I'm sorry, brother.'

  'You had no choice,' the Raven Guard replied, but I could tell he was bitter at the loss of his stealth and saw how he grimaced when he tried to move in his armour. 'Feels like lead,' he muttered, grunting with effort.

  I caught a glimpse of Usabius in my eyeline, also recovered, when Haukspeer asked, 'Help me remove some of this. It's just dead weight now.'

  Malfunctioning generator, vambrace and pauldron were all removed. He did not go back for his helmet either, content to take a fistful of the dark earth and rub it into his pale features to obscure them.

  After it was done, I watched Haukspeer test his new range of motion and encumbrance. Incredibly, he was still swift and as quiet as the grave.

  'You have a gift,' I told him, meeting Usabius's gaze as he approached from behind the Raven Guard. My brother gave me a look that said all was well, but that the experience had drained him. I decided that my questions could wait.

  'Then let's not waste it,' Haukspeer replied.

  Before we pressed on, knowing we could not linger, I stooped to regard the skull that the World Eater had been inscribing. I did not pick it up or touch it - some innate sense of self-preservation, some primal warning instinct stopped me - but I saw the mark scrimshawed into the bone. It was the same one the dead traitor wore upon his helm: that angular, snarling face.

  'Destroy it,' Usabius hissed in my ear.

  I stood up and brought my boot down, rendering the skull into fragments.

  Nascent rage dogged my thoughts and demeanour. Even this act of simple, emotionless destruction brought with it a burgeoning desire to do more harm.

  'We should leave,' said Usabius.

  'Yes, let's be gone from this place,' I replied.

  Haukspeer nodded. 'I never want to see it again.'

  There was only death here now, seeped into the earth; death and hate and rage.

  Gratefully, hastily, we left the valley of
bones behind.

  * * *

  I CROUCHED ATOP a pillar of rock, watching Haukspeer approach the edge of the crash site in the distance. From my vantage, I had an excellent view of the Urgall region including its hills, volcanic ash plains and the Depression itself.

  I could also see the warbands to the west, for I can think of no other way to describe them; of traitors migrating outwards in a horde. Something had roused their interest and when they appeared to be headed north, I wondered if Sulnar had put his sacrificial plan into action.

  'Our encounters on this journey have been mercifully light, brother,' said Usabius, sitting on his haunches next to me. It was as if he could read my thoughts, and I nodded at his remark.

  'But at what cost? How many legionary lives will be lost to this cause?'

  Across the plains, like ants forming a colony, the traitors began to converge. Some strode silently, purposefully; others chanted or rode on the backs of armoured columns. It was a massive force, one brutally capable of destroying any lingering loyalist resistance hiding out in the mountains. Mercifully the Dies Irae had long since quit the planet, doubtless slaved to another of the Warmaster's fell causes, but the Titan's absence would provide no stay of execution for our brothers.

  Usabius took on a conciliatory tone, as if he could sense the guilt and anguish I felt at leaving our allies to their deaths. 'Those lives were already lost, Ra'stan. They were lost the moment the traitors turned their guns on us and started shooting.'

  I knew Usabius was right but it did not make the sight of my brothers' gleeful killers any easier to take.

  Averting my gaze, I concentrated back on the crash site.

  Without his armour, the Raven Guard was not quite the wraith he used to be but he still moved with incredible stealth, and I lost track of him on several occasions as he picked his way through the wreckage.

  'Like a ghost,' I said to the air.

  'Isn't that almost literally what they've become, what all the shattered Legions have become?' said Usabius.