The Devastation of Baal

by Guy Haley

  ‘Order the men to the walls,’ commanded Dante with an air of icy calm. ‘The enemy are at our gates. We shall repulse them.’

  The invasion of Baal had begun.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Moat of Tears

  The thick black streak of smoke on the horizon was a poor grave marker for so mighty a ship as the Blade of Vengeance. The sight of it stirred the wrath of Chaplain Ordamael to towering heights.

  Ordamael was stationed on the third line, overseeing some of the hordes of mortals drafted from the Baalian moons. The prefabricated sections of defence line they manned surrounded the curtain wall of the Arx like the teeth of a gargantuan mantrap, and it was a trap. There was a smooth area of sand a hundred feet in front of the line. The sand appeared to be a part of the desert, but was only a couple of inches thick, concealing a rockcrete channel, fifty feet across, that ran all the way around the Arx and its two walls.

  Inside the channel was thirstwater.

  Ordamael had learned to fear thirstwater when he was a boy. Nobody really knew what it was. Incarael said it was a vicious weapon from the Long Ago War, although there were the possibilities that it was native to Baal Secundus, or a thing of xenos origin.

  Thirstwater looked like water, but it was alive, possessed a rudimentary intelligence, and it hunted, lying in wait to lure the thirsty towards it. No refreshment was held in its liquid, only death, for it desiccated whatever it came into contact with, adding their moisture to itself. Its properties prevented proper study. However, the Blood Angels knew enough about it to find it, catch it, and to contain it. As much as could be found had been gathered on Baal Secundus.

  It would have escaped if it could, draining itself away into the sand, dividing into hundreds of separate organisms and flowing off to lurk.

  Dante had contaminated Baal with the system’s deadliest substance. The Chapter world would never be free of it.

  Desperate times led to unthinkable strategy.

  Even hidden under the sand, the thirstwater affected the environment around it. It dried the air so much it ­crackled. Ordamael’s sensorium sensed something amiss and flagged up this unusual dryness. He was not completely safe in his battleplate. To approach the moat would have been death for the mortals fighting alongside the Space Marines, and so they were terrified. Ordamael strode among them as they lay cowering behind the defence lines, exhorting them to greater efforts, scaring them into taking up their guns and firing at the enemy. They could hardly hear him, though he bellowed with his voxmitter at full amplification. Many were startled as his massive armoured black hand descended upon them unnoticed to pluck up discarded guns – child-size in his grip – and gesturing for them to shoot.

  ‘In the name of the Great Angel, for the greater glory of the Emperor, for the preservation of Baal, keep firing!’ he roared. He brandished his crozius arcanum over his head. Tyranid microorganisms flashed to nothing in its disruption field. ‘Keep them back! Keep them back from the moat!’

  Baal had thrown off its desert silence and gave voice to Sanguinius’ rage. All along the third and second lines guns barked, while the Arx Angelicum hurled an endless barrage into the heavens, obliterating hive ships and their effusions of landing craft. But there were always more, no matter how many were rent to pieces by shrapnel or energy blast.

  A wall of furious noise thundered behind Ordamael. From the reconstructed curtain wall thousands of heavy weapons banged and howled, sending out such a quantity of plasma and las-fire the environment around the Arx Angelicum stirred with unnatural heat. The mortal men on the defence line shone with sweat. Missiles rushed overhead. Sand erupted in drifting fountains in a display to shame a potentate’s gardens. Autocannons blasted long lines of puffed sand. Heavy shells blew up geysered plumes. The audio dampers of Orda­mael’s vox-beads strained against the thundering of the Arx Angelicum’s main guns. Defence lasers spat out columns of blinding light that tortured the air into storm fronts. Macrocannons intended to sweep the void free of enemy ships were turned to face the earth, and the wounds they inflicted were huge. The tremors from their impacts shook Ordamael in his armour. The very air shouted. Such was the atmospheric disturbance caused by the Arx ­Angelicum’s outpouring of fire that the sky was charged with energy. Lightning storms blasted all around the fortress monastery and static ­crackled over Ordamael’s battleplate.

  Burning debris drew black lines from the sky. Metal and meat showered down for five hundred miles around the Arx from the continuing void war. The remnants of the fleets performed lightning raids and surgical thrusts into the swarm where they could, their weapons sheeting out the sky with white actinic flashes. Cosmic thunders rolled around the horizon. An avalanche of biomunitions hurtled at the fortress from space. All were annihilated. The very skin of reality quivered as missiles and creatures were destroyed by the void shield, shunted by its arcane technology into the warp.

  And yet, the sound of guns was not the loudest noise. The swarm’s voice suppressed it all. A sinister susurrus of hissing and the click of chitinous plate on plate, punctuated by the pained shrieks of discharging bioweapons. The sound was weirdly reminiscent of strong wind in trees, were those trees full of predatory desire, and the wind a horrific scream.

  The tyranids were an adaptive race, but their invasion pattern never changed, having been honed by millions of planetary attacks to unimprovable perfection.

  First came the release of billions of airborne microbes that went to war with a world’s unseen biome of bacteria, viruses and microscopic creatures. Some of this organic soup was designed to foul weapons or destroy mechanisms, most of it initiated the consumption of the world even as it fought to survive. Macro-scaled, explosive spores followed by the million, throwing out more microspores along with their scything bursts of shrapnel when they detonated, making flight perilous for the defenders and disrupting ground formations. Then came the aerial swarms, winged horrors of all sizes, some deployed directly from orbit, others leaping from burning drop cysts as they plunged thoughtlessly to their destruction.

  Only when the skies were full to bursting with their own kind did the tyranids begin their ground assault, dropping hundreds of thousands of assault spores around primary military targets. The lesser types fell at killing speed, splashing open like rotting fruit, sending out a seed of swift monsters who gathered together in great hordes and attacked anything they could find. The smaller constructs came down first. Always.

  ‘Keep them back from the moat!’ yelled Ordamael.

  As yet the tyranids were disorganised. Their larger leader beasts had not come down in any number, and as soon as they were spotted they were targeted and destroyed by fire on the walls. Thousands of ’gaunts attacked in ragged waves, pounding towards the defence line in mass, uncoordinated assaults. It was distraction behaviour, meant to tie down defenders with uncountable numbers while the greater strains landed. Back from the front, a thick rain of tyrannocytes landed hordes of these bigger bioconstructs. Chitinous airbrakes deployed at the last moment slowed their descent enough to protect their cargo. The pods themselves burst on impact, throwing out sprays of thick mucous. Creatures poured from the dying innards, dripping with shock-absorbing liquids, to join the waves advancing on the defence line that formed the outer perimeter of the Arx Angelicum.

  The Space Marines had seen it a thousand times. They swept the creatures away with small arms fire while their big guns remained firmly targeted upon the falling spores. The larger the spores were, the more fire they attracted.

  There was an added complication to the battle. It was imperative the probing attacks not be allowed to come into contact with the moat.

  Dante kept most of the Space Marines behind the curtain wall. The unarmoured mortals baited the trap, watched over by a handful of veterans and Chaplains. Ordamael pitied the Chapter Master. It was not in his nature to be so cavalier with the lives of common humanity. This war cost
him part of his soul.

  ‘Keep firing! The Emperor is watching you!’ roared Ordamael. ‘He judges you, he condemns anyone who will not fight!’

  The men and women of the moons struggled under Baal’s heavier gravity. Their movements were sluggish. But though impeded they gave good account of themselves. The moons were violent worlds. Most of them could fight.

  ‘Destroy them! Destroy them! Permit not the alien to live!’ he shouted.

  Chaplains of a score of Chapters prowled the deadly ground before the curtain wall. Their armour was all black and bone. They could have been of the same brotherhood; they were, in the most important respects. The bonds of the bone and the blood united Sanguinary priests and Chaplains across the Chapters of the Blood, regardless of all other considerations.

  To the mortals they were the personification of death itself, giants in grimacing helmets whose words could fell the most deadly of foes. Ordamael urged the humans to fight in the name of a god he did not see as divine, shouting prayers meant only for the ears of battle-brothers, all while judging the situation, and reacting to the chatter of orders sounding in his ears. It was crucial the ’gaunt hordes were kept back until they were ready to launch a major attack. If the Space Marines lost the element of surprise, they would lose the vital kill count the thirstwater could deliver.

  ‘By the purity of the chosen tribes have you survived to this day!’ shouted Ordamael. ‘You are of the Blood! Give your thanks in righteous violence! Destroy those that would consume you!’

  A cartolith interposed itself between his eyes and the outside world. The tyranids were represented as a thick red stain around the Arx Angelicum. Patterns were emerging where before had been confusion. More of the larger beasts were coming down, exerting the conscious control of the hive mind over the ’gaunts’ limited instincts. Exploratory fingers groped for weak points, whereupon they would be gathered together into a fist. Soon the tyranids would attack, and all at once. They had the numbers. They did not care for individual death. Rushing the prey from all sides prevented it from concentrating its fire. There was a horrible perfection to the foe, but perfection was limited in expression. The tyranids’ success had made them predictable.

  ‘Chaplains, prepare.’ Dante’s calm, pure voice rang in Ordamael’s vox-beads. ‘Critical mass in ’gaunt hordes predicted in four hundred seconds.’

  A counter imposed from outside ticked down over Ordamael’s left eye.

  Rippled ruby las-fire snapped out from the defence line. ’Gaunts screeched and tumbled to a dead stop, limbs tangled up.

  ‘The Great Angel’s home is at risk. You are at risk! And the Great Angel said “let not the hunger of the alien be sated upon human flesh!” Do not demean his words! Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!’

  Ordamael spotted a straggling group of ’gaunts racing close to the lip of the moat.

  ‘Sector nine-five-gamma,’ he said quickly into his vox. ‘Possible breakthrough. Neutralise.’ He sent the location to central command. The ’gaunts were within yards of the moat when a storm of heavy las-fire crashed down from the Arx Angelicum and cut them to pieces. Shrapnel pattered down over the defence line. The mortals there threw themselves flat. A few looked fearfully behind them, turned and fled.

  ‘Stand your ground!’ Ordamael shouted, striding among them. He swatted a man with his crozius, destroying his ribcage. Blood sprayed across the sand. Another fell to a single shot of his bolt pistol. ‘Return to the fray!’ If Ordamael must act as a common commissar then he would. The duty was unpleasant, but not dishonourable. A few of his brothers in the black were more enthusiastic in their efforts.

  The smell of blood stirred something inhuman in him. He shepherded the weeping fugitives back to the wall, and returned his eyes to the enemy.

  ‘Stand by all defence line sectors.’ Adanicio spoke this time. ‘Incoming heavy bombardment on my mark. Be ready. We provoke an attack. Targeting hive node creatures.’

  Out beyond the moat, arriving leader beasts exerted their influence and the hordes of ’gaunts were becoming more organised. They formed into solid ranks that were moving as one towards the perimeter, ignoring the massive casualties they sustained. Thousands fell to the Imperial guns. Their bodies were piling into a berm of shattered chitin and pulped flesh that the weight of the horde bulldozed forward towards the perimeter.

  All the while mycetic spores screamed down from orbit to disgorge yet more tyranids. In the distance the dripping shapes of larger and larger beasts were rising from their broken transports, the greatest command beasts, heavy assault constructs and brood mothers emerging behind the first expendable wave. Soon living artillery would set down, and the battle would commence in earnest.

  So many worlds were overwhelmed by this initial horde. Not Baal.

  ‘Bombardment commencing. Three, two, one. Mark.’

  The guns cut out for a brief moment. A second later a rippling wall of coordinated explosions arose from the sand. Tyranid bodies flew upward, shattered into fragments, riding sheets of dust and fire into the air. The leaders were targeted. Giant hive tyrants were cut down where they stood. Massive flying crones were downed by anti-aircraft fire. Warrior broods were obliterated in roiling storms of plasma that burned the faces of the mortals exposed to them.

  ‘Witness the fury of the Blood Angels!’ roared Ordamael, staring full into the inferno. ‘Witness your salvation!’

  A second massive bombardment blasted the xenos, this one a few hundred yards back from the first. Two concentric rings were briefly cut into the horde. The bombardment ceased, and the guns resumed firing at targets of opportunity.

  The ’gaunts roared and hissed as loudly as a tempestuous sea. Their leader beasts felled at the moment of attack, their behaviour changed again. What had been a flock-like movement once more became individualistic, chaotic. Fights broke out between the creatures in places. They rocked forward suddenly as the gaps in their lines were filled in by onrushing beasts, knocking those at the fore towards the moat. It was important that the horde’s own impetus could not be halted. Timing was everything. They must be goaded.

  ‘Stand ready,’ voxed Adanicio. All down the line Chaplains turned to face the horde.

  Ordamael continued his commands to fire. The ’gaunts halted a few yards from the edge of the moat. Their blood was seeping towards the thirstwater. As soon as moisture touched it, it would be revealed. The ’gaunts’ native instincts would demand they halt to await further direction.

  ‘My lords,’ he voxed. ‘It must be now.’

  ‘Withdraw,’ said Adanicio.

  ‘Warriors of the Imperium!’ roared Ordamael. ‘Back to the wall!’

  Similar commands issued from a hundred skull-masked faces.

  Malnourished faces looked up at Ordamael in a moment of bewilderment.

  ‘But they’re stopping,’ said one. ‘We’re winning.’

  Ordamael strode towards the wretch, picked him up by his clothes and tossed him towards the curtain wall as easily as if he were a rag. ‘Back!’ he shouted. ‘Back!’

  The men and women of Baal needed no more encouragement. They turned and fled, many throwing down their weapons. They staggered under the heavier gravity, fleeing like dreamers in a nightmare unable to outpace their pursuers.

  The shouts as they ran were lost to the thunder of war.

  The ’gaunts did not follow. They ceased their milling. A ripple of movement passed down the front rank as they turned to face the wall. Order returned to their ranks.

  ‘Strategium, something is wrong,’ voxed Ordamael. ‘They do not pursue.’

  The first ’gaunts had reached within feet of the moat. Their ranks were so tightly packed it was hard to tell individual creatures apart. In the distance hulking monsters screeched and roared, raging without proper direction. That would not last. More leader strains were inbound. They did not have much time.

 
‘They are not taking the bait,’ said Ordamael. He pushed his way through the humans struggling away from the defence line, and stepped over the metal.

  ‘Xenos!’ he shouted. ‘I am Ordamael, Paternis Sanguis of the Blood Angels, second only to beloved Astorath the Grim. Fight me! By the Blood, come to my crozius and accept my blessing!’

  The monsters were barely three hundred feet away. They stood motionless, unblinking, their hooves ploughing up the sand as the weight of the tyranid swarm at their back pressed them forward. The bright slick of xenos blood was rolling towards the concealed moat. A solitary ’gaunt watched the slow spread of this sticky river suspiciously, and then it looked up at Ordamael.

  Ordamael had stared into the dead black eyes of countless ’gaunts. This one was different. There were subtle variations to its cranium, a difference in the way its heat vents were arranged. Small, but crucial. Something rode this creature, something so ancient and powerful that at a hundred yards away, looking out from one of a thousand near identical beasts, its presence pressed at the Chaplain and made him reel.

  Ordamael stared into the face of the hive mind. How it looked out from this simple beast he did not know. All he knew was that it must be killed.

  It could not cow him. He was a Space Marine. A Blood Angel.

  Ordamael knew no fear.

  He raised his gun.

  A single shot obliterated the mutant skull of the ’gaunt. The horde froze a second, then broke forward. The death of the ’gaunt was the pebble taken from the dam. The ’gaunts fell forward in screeching thousands, pushed on by their need to kill and the weight of thousands more behind them. It was uncanny to see the change from total organisation. Simple instincts intended to make them effective should the hive mind be disrupted worked against them.

  The blood slick trickled into the moat and sank through the sand. A soft crackling sounded as it came into contact with the thirstwater. It was a warning any son of Baal Secundus knew well.