by Nick Kyme
‘On your order, brother,’ invited Va’lin, giving a last warning glance to Ky’dak. Something volatile ran through the Themian’s veins, hotter than the blood of Mount Deathfire. The truth behind it was hidden in whatever Ky’dak had seen in those flames at Sor’ad’s burning, but there was no time to address that now.
Naeb slammed a fist against his breastplate in salute.
‘Advance on my lead. We cleanse the nest of vermin then move on to the barricade. We’ll make that breach,’ said Naeb, feeding power to his turbine engines, ‘and open the way for Zantho’s line-breakers.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Nova-class frigate, Forge Hammer
The cell was empty, apart from one crucial detail.
‘This is no holding cell…’ said Urgaresh, his voice a rasp. He was crouching on one knee, surrounded by the ‘wrath’, a piece of broken metal clenched in his gauntleted hand. The rest of the armour was lying on the floor, discarded. It was almost identical to the armour worn by Urgaresh. Shell shrapnel peppered the outer ceramite, burns scorched its cuirass and greaves a deeper black. The clasps were broken, forcibly removed. Urgaresh held a face. It glared back at him through shattered eye lenses, a ragged scar across the scalp and cheek. Light blazed through this cleft from a brazier of coals glowing beneath. Urgaresh felt its heat next to him as he turned to his brothers. They were all armed, and not just with their bone blades. The armoury had been unguarded and provided bolters, sidearms and a chainsword the sergeant had taken for himself.
‘It’s a torture chamber,’ said Urgaresh and held up the ruined faceplate to the others, the separated battle-helm still lying at his feet. ‘This is his armour.’
Thorast held out a gauntleted hand. ‘Let me see it.’
Urgaresh handed the faceplate over to the Apothecary who examined it carefully, whilst Haakem and Skarh tried to marshal their anger at the discovery. Ghaan stood apart from the others, leaning heavily against the cell wall, half in light and half in shade from the open doorway.
They had met no resistance so far. No klaxons sounded. No boarder repulse-teams tramped down the corridors to meet them. After letting the mortals go, the Black Dragons had expected transhuman intervention. It was why they were here, after all. This latest discovery changed everything, though. Urgaresh felt the leash binding them all, the one he alone grasped, slipping. A growing part of him wanted to let it go.
‘Too quiet,’ Ghaan slurred, still feeling the effects of the Thallax’s lightning gun. As well as the wall, he leaned heavier on the only boarding shield they had found amongst the cache of weapons. His brothers would have disparaged him for claiming it, but everyone in the ‘wrath’ knew he was dying – so did Ghaan.
‘Where are they, brothers?’ snapped Haakem, fingers twitching. Despite the fact the armoury had been well-stocked, Haakem had refused any weapons. He was a silent killer, best deployed from the shadows. Bone blades were all he needed, or so he had declared with obvious disgust at the others, even though it was tactically sound to arm up.
‘Hiding behind their serfs,’ snarled Skarh. ‘Honourless dogs.’
‘Be calm, brother,’ Urgaresh told him, though he felt anything but himself. He turned to Thorast. ‘Well, Apothecary? Am I right?’
Thorast gently put the faceplate down. For a moment he stared into the broken lenses as if regarding the lifeless eyes of an old friend for the last time.
‘Yes,’ he breathed, voice choking with emotion. ‘It is definitely his. The wound patterns are grievous…’
Urgaresh arose, and stood next to the Apothecary.
‘Is he dead, Thorast?’ he demanded. ‘Can we be sure of that at least?’
Thorast bowed his head and all eyes from the ‘wrath’ went to him. Haakem and Skarh calmed their violent energy. Ghaan stood just a little straighter and with only the shield for support. Eyes wide, Urgaresh seized the Apothecary by the shoulder.
‘Brother, an answer!’
Thorast only had the strength to murmur. ‘Yes… he is dead.’ He raised his head and there was something in his eyes burning away the grief. Urgaresh chose to interpret it as anger and spoke to the ‘wrath’ himself.
‘Zartath is slain.’
He looked each of them in the eye, finding their rage enough to drown worlds.
‘Spare no one,’ he rasped. ‘Everyone on this ship dies.’
Makato could hear them coming. By some miracle, he and Jedda had reached not only the deck three armoury but also a comms-station through which the lieutenant was able to gather reinforcements. Makato had cleared all noncombatants from the areas aft of deck three and assembled his armsmen at key points across the Forge Hammer. One hundred and thirty-two men and women stood ready, over fifty in this section alone. Makato would have preferred double that.
After the visit to the armoury, the lieutenant was wearing heavy-duty combat carapace. It came with a helmet and a bandolier of blinders. He still had his grandfather’s sword and father’s braid. The latter was wrapped around his fist in some vain attempt to curry the favour of the dead.
We that are soon to join them, he thought as he turned to Jedda and said, ‘Bring up that cannon.’
It ground noisily across the deck on thick, metal tracks. The weapon mount had a colourful designation, or so Makato thought: Rapier. Quad-heavy bolters cycled ammunition as the track-mount moved, arming up in preparation for whatever was coming down the corridor.
‘Save that idiot grin for when the ship is safe and we’re still alive,’ Makato warned his man-at-arms, prompting Jedda to adopt a more stoic demeanour. Like his lieutenant, Jedda was armoured in carapace. Whilst he carried the Rapier’s control unit, his combat shotgun was slung over his back. The corridor was long and narrow – he had the perfect arc of fire. It was dark, however. Despite being able to access most of the Forge Hammer’s on-board systems, shutting off bulkheads and conduits to force the aggressors into this bottleneck, the available power with the ship on silent running still only afforded limited illumination. Only Xarko had the authority and ability to change that, but currently the Salamanders Librarian was unreachable. His sanctum was impregnable to any means of breaching it Makato had at his disposal, and despite numerous attempts at contact, silence persisted between it and the rest of the ship. The lieutenant’s armsmen were all there was to defend the ship. They would just have to be enough.
Makato turned to the man behind him, but his words were intended for all fifty-something armsmen cramped in the small junction, backs pressed against walls, into alcoves and behind what little cover they had.
‘These warriors are not like ordinary boarders. We still do not know what they want, either. Be ready, for they’ll move quickly and savagely. Stay together, hold position and listen to my orders and you will have a much better chance of staying alive.’
Satisfied his speech had done all it could, Makato turned back to face the corridor.
‘Keep it close, Jedda,’ he said, referring to the track-mount and making sure only the man-at-arms could hear him. ‘I want every inch this corridor can offer. We stop them here or we don’t stop them at all.’
‘There are just five of them, sir.’
‘Five angry Renegade Astartes,’ Makato replied. ‘Even one would worry me, Jedda.’
‘You know this location is not secure,’ Jedda murmured.
‘Even so, I am staying here.’
‘There are too many maintenance ducts, tunnels, companionways… I cannot guarantee they haven’t infiltrated one or more of them.’
‘I have eyes watching every possible access. Even if we can’t lock them down, we will see them coming.’
‘I just wanted to make you aware, sir. No one would misjudge you if–’
Makato held up his hand. ‘You’re a fine soldier – none finer serve on this ship and I can say that even surrounded by all of these brave souls because they know it too, but don’t lessen my respect for you by saying what I think you were going to. They are on my ship. I will be
here, at this line, until that is no longer the case.’
Jedda nodded, and that was an end to it.
When the talking ceased, the sounds of the ship and its circadian rhythms took over as deafening as silence. Air-recyc hummed, the hull groaned, engine drone kept at its lowest impulse throbbed like a migraine. Surprising then that no one heard the dull clank of heavy boots against the deck, or even saw the bulky shadow of black-armoured warriors bearing down upon them until they were already halfway down the corridor.
The armsmen behind Makato spotted the danger first.
‘There!’ he cried just before a shell whined through the dark and blew his head apart like an egg. Bone, brain and blood were still raining down as Jedda triggered the heavy bolters. Four cannons lit up at once, muzzle flashes throwing harsh light down the corridor. Sparks cracked against a solid mass, as if the darkness itself was moving on them. And it was getting closer. A heavy boarding shield, a massive Adeptus Astartes-sized thing. It was almost broad enough to fill the width of the corridor. Without better firing angles, the armsmen would be forced to shoot right at it. What had started out as a sound tactical position had turned into a weak and predictable one. Rather than a quintet of armoured figures advancing upon them, it was a single mass.
Makato saw the danger and bellowed to shock his men into action.
‘Take out that bloody shield!’
A fusillade of shotgun bursts and lasgun cracks filled the air, adding to the Rapier’s louder boom. Aim was poor with barely half the armsmen managing to hit the target, in spite of its size and singular nature. For many, this was the first time they had fought against Space Marines. Makato knew Jedda had drilled them hard, but no amount of training could have prepared them. Hands were shaking, hearts failing.
Frustrated, Jedda pushed the control panel into the hands of a rookie armsman and hefted his combat shotgun.
‘Aim and fire,’ he roared, showing how by example. Burn scars and pellet marks cratered the boarding shield but it was made to withstand sterner punishment and the warriors behind it to weather fiercer opposition – it just kept on coming.
Ghaan was feeling the pressure. Two thirds of the way down the corridor, and he slipped. Thorast was there to hold him up.
‘Almost there, vexilliary,’ the Apothecary told him.
‘Need… a moment,’ he said, gasping for air smack in the middle of the fire storm as the others took snap shots from behind the boarding shield. Ghaan grasped the side of his battle-helm, struggling to release the clasps. ‘Help me get this off.’
‘We need to move,’ said Thorast, but Ghaan’s hand upon his arm cooled his urgency. There was something about the way he did it, the manner of his grip.
‘Brother…’ Ghaan insisted, ‘I can barely breathe.’
Hunkered down, Thorast released the locking clamps to help Ghaan take his battle-helm off. It clanged loudly as it hit the floor, the sound all but drowned out by the fusillade hitting the shield.
‘Better?’ asked the Apothecary. ‘Now can we move forward?’
‘Do I look better, brother?’
‘Like death, Ghaan.’
Ghaan chuckled ruefully. ‘Good.’ He licked his lips – there was blood on them. His armour glistened with it. ‘A pity we have no banner…’
‘Don’t you know yet, vexilliary,’ said Thorast. ‘It was you, not the banner, that we followed.’
Ghaan laughed again, but the Apothecary was not finished.
‘We owe a debt of blood,’ he said, grimacing at the blistering fire just above his head. ‘We cannot stop.’
Ghaan nodded wearily, pushing the shield with the Apothecary’s help, grinding it against the deck for a few feet until the vexilliary had lifted it again.
‘Then I rest,’ Ghaan breathed, coughing up frothy, blood-flecked sputum.
‘Then you rest,’ echoed Thorast, knowing exactly what the vexilliary meant.
It wasn’t working. The shield was too robust, their weapons ineffective. Armsmen were intended for the security of a ship, its internal security principally. Against deck ratings, unruly overseers and bondsmen, they were the very best. Even in a limited boarder repulsion role, they could be extremely useful, but this was the Forge Hammer – its complement of Adeptus Astartes was supposed to defend it. The one that had been left behind was absent. As a result, Makato felt distinctly outgunned. He considered falling back. There were junctions and chambers deeper into the ship that would afford better arcs of fire, and present an enfilading position to reduce the effectiveness of the boarding shield. Slow the advance of the renegades might be but, against small-arms fire and even the track-mount, it was inexorable.
Close up, even behind their mobile barricade, Makato got a better look at the Black Dragons. He recognised their leader, the one with the excessive bone growths. They had shown mercy earlier, expressing a desire to fight with the Chapter warriors aboard this ship. Makato had sensed some honour in them. What had happened to drive them into such a berserk rage?
‘Hold fast,’ he shouted to the others, having drawn a bolt pistol and firing it single-handed like a naval officer of old. ‘We can break them. We can break them.’
‘Munitions are running low, sir,’ said the rookie who was manning the Rapier.
Jedda had advanced to the forward line, just to the side of the chugging track-mount, a grimace etched onto his face from the retort of the heavy bolters.
‘Stop and reload,’ replied Makato, reaching for his bandolier. ‘I’ll buy you some time.’
The rookie went to it, getting help from the nearest armsmen who had overheard the lieutenant, just as Makato primed a blind grenade.
‘Blinders out!’ he bellowed, prompting the men to turn and shield their eyes as he lobbed the flashbang in the renegade’s midst. It lit up the corridor in a flare of magnesium, so bright it seemed for a moment to bleach the walls white. Their shadows still receding along with the sudden light burst, Makato got a good look at the enemy.
Four warriors still stood. The shield still stood. It had hurt them, though. He heard curses and–
Four warriors…
The thought struck Makato like a blast of chill wind. There had been five on the ship initially and with no casualties that meant one was unaccounted for.
‘Jedda!’ cried Makato, just as the fusillade started up again, but he was already too late.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Nova-class frigate, Forge Hammer
Though it was tight, Haakem slipped through the maintenance shaft with the stealth of a viper. Using his bone-clawed elbows, he quickly dragged his armoured body across the floor of the tiny duct. Never stopping, he remained intent on his point of egress as dictated by Urgaresh. It was hard to think without his brother-sergeant’s instruction, the throbbing inside his cracked skull a constant distraction. It made him… wrathful.
Ahead, a light burned. It hurt his eyes – he much preferred the dark – but knew it meant the execution of the next phase of his mission was at hand. Execution was just what Urgaresh had charged him with. Encouraging the bone blades to slip a fraction from the flesh sleeves in his forearms then through the gaps in his armour, Haakem let the savagery that was ever at the edge of his thoughts take over.
Preceded by the clatter of a hatch hitting the deck as it was stripped off its hinges, something large and black burst from the maintenance duct and into the armsmen.
Makato was already turning as a solid armoured mass hit his men like a wrecking ball. Demolition did not accurately sum up what happened in the seconds that followed, however. Massacre did. Blood arced in fountains from suddenly screaming armsmen – so did their limbs and heads as the monster’s bone blades began to carve.
‘Take him down!’ Makato screamed, trying to bully his way through the press of bodies that were understandably retreating from the murderous whirlwind that had sprung up amongst them. A panicked scrum developed, between those men within reach of the monster and those trapping them. Makato had packed t
he corridor tight. He wanted overlapping fields of fire, a cannonade that would bring even Space Marines down. They were positioned at a junction with three exits, guns pointing towards aft, one exit to the side and the rest of the corridor behind. Death clad in black came from this direction, and unlike the slow inexorable force often recited in bleak poems and soliloquies, here death was swift and bloody.
Order was lost. Even if they could stop this one monster, they were utterly undone.
Ahead of the armsmen watching the corridor, the boarding shield moved aside and admitted a fresh band of deadly warriors. With the Rapier’s ammo-mags still half in, half out, Makato’s men were reduced to small arms fire. Shotgun bursts and lasgun beams smacked and ricocheted off the renegades’ armour, but the Black Dragons were undaunted. They came on like a tide, bolters crashing like the thunder of waves.
Makato froze, trapped in an island of indecision. One way, the monster threshing his men like crops on an agri-farm; the other, a rushing force tired of hiding and committed to the charge. For the first time since Yugeti Makato had given him his inaugural sword-fighting lesson, Kensai did not know what to do. Strike or fade?
Strong hands seized him by the shoulders, almost hauling Makato off his feet. Decision made, but not by him. Jedda rushed in front of him, taking charge and waving the two men who grabbed Makato away.
‘You can shoot me for insubordination later, lieutenant,’ he said to the thrashing form of Makato as he disappeared down the side corridor. ‘This is your ship. You have to live if you’re going to defend it, sir.’
‘Jedda!’ Makato screamed, remembering how he had screamed as Yugeti had dragged him away from his father’s body, Hiroshimo dead to a pirate’s blade. Though the household guard, the Bushiko, had repulsed the xenos raiders, Kensai Makato had become a man that day. He had made his first vow, to join the Imperial Navy and honour the legacy of Hiroshimo and Yugeti Makato. This was how it was supposed to end for him, embattled with weapon in hand. He railed against it, his cheated fate, but was powerless to stop it as Jedda vanished into the shadows.