The Devastation of Baal

by Guy Haley

  ‘You see no void,’ corrected Hajjin. He jerked his helm’s muzzle up at the flat mauve sky, where ribbons of gold moved in painful whorls.

  ‘Is it over then, Firstblood?’

  ‘No,’ said Hajjin. ‘It is not over. Something has changed.’

  ‘Heja,’ said Konoko. ‘You speak truthfully. When they attacked, they did so without sense. Have the Blood Angels won, do you think? Is this flatness in the sky their doing?’

  ‘They are strange but they are not sorcerers. Anyway, how could they have won? Could they truly accomplish that?’ said Hajjin. ‘No. The sky is not the sky. It is a window onto the spirit lands. The change in the sky broke the mind of the Devourer. Warpcraft. A sorcerer’s work.’ Hajjin would have asked his Librarians, they might have known, or the Techmarines, they had knowledge no ­others did, learned on the planet of the machine priests, but they were all dead. ‘That is not the end of something. It is a beginning. A bad one.’

  ‘For now we live, by the Angel’s will,’ said Konoko.

  They made fists, and bashed their wrists together.

  ‘By the Angel’s will.’

  ‘Then your orders, Firstblood.’ Konoko bowed. They were lodge-brothers, followers of the same totem. Konoko and he had jested with each other a great deal, until yesterday. There was no friendly mockery in his bow. Konoko had only respect for him. Hajjin felt a pang of regret that it should be so.

  ‘Have the men rest and repair their wargear as best they can. Go to the vox station and see if you can raise anyone.’

  ‘We have heard nothing from the other Chapters on this world,’ said Konoko. ‘I try every third hour.’

  ‘It does not follow they are all dead,’ said Hajjin. ‘Find out. And bring me the sky-talker, it is time they attempted their prayers again.’

  ‘I need not.’ Konoko pointed down the rampart. ‘He is coming to you.’

  Hajjin turned round. Master Leeter was indeed walking towards them. He was ailing. He staggered, his left shoulder hunched high.

  ‘Something is wrong,’ said Hajjin. He pushed past Konoko. His boots crunched on chunks of the tyranid dead.

  ‘Nggn,’ said Leeter. He held out a clawed hand towards Hajjin. ‘He… He is…’

  His eyes were alight with unnatural fire, and his arms squirmed bonelessly.

  ‘Tyranid evil,’ said Konoko. He raised his bolter. Hajjin put out a hand to stop him firing.

  ‘He is witch-touched.’ He glanced at the sky. ‘Did you make a prayer, astropath?’

  Leeter nodded. He fell forward. Hajjin caught him. The astropath’s face was crawling, reshaping itself.

  ‘He is a fool,’ said Konoko. ‘Something is trying to get out though his flesh. We should kill him now.’

  ‘Wait!’ commanded Hajjin. ‘Was there an answer?’

  Leeter nodded again. ‘He is…’ He swallowed hard. His jaws clicked. His eyes were swimming, changing colour. ‘He is coming!’ he said.

  ‘Who is coming, old man?’ said Hajjin, though he was at least three centuries older than the creature he held in his arms. Veins pulsed hard in the man’s neck. Hajjin struggled to concentrate on his words.

  The human frothed at his mouth, white foam spilled from between his lips.

  ‘G-G-G-G–’ he said. His back arched, his teeth clamped together. A monstrous growl issued from his throat. His flesh writhed under his robes.

  ‘Firstblood!’ said Konoko. He backed up, gun raised.

  ‘Emperor save you,’ Hajjin said. He slipped his knife from its scabbard into Leeter’s throat. Blood poured from his neck. Hajjin’s mouth watered.

  ‘Do not!’ warned Konoko. ‘It is unclean.’

  ‘I was not going to.’ Hajjin lowered Leeter’s corpse to the ground. ‘From respect.’ He looked at Leeter thoughtfully. ‘There is no more danger here.’

  ‘Who is coming?’ asked Konoko. He moved forward, gun still up, and prodded Leeter’s body with his foot.

  Hajjin looked to the sky. ‘Who indeed?’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Penitent’s Due

  Ka’Bandha fell through the hidden spaces between worlds. The occulted gears of creation rushed by him. In the machineries of being were the inner secrets of the universe displayed to him. The daemonkin of Tzeentch would have damned a dozen eternities for a glimpse of what he saw, but Ka’Bandha did not care for knowledge. The things on display were valueless to him, and the wonders of infinity whirled by unappreciated.

  Ka’Bandha fell forever and for no time at all, until a wave of change rippled out through the multi-dimensional space he infected, upsetting the delicate workings of infinite, interleaved universes.

  Ka’Bandha howled in triumph. The promised storm had been unleashed.

  Far from Baal, at Cadia, Abaddon the Despoiler achieved goals he had pursued since the Horus Heresy. Reality split as faultlines closed millions of years ago were rent wide. Isolated warpstorms and anomalies spread their arms, reaching for the burning might of the warp. The Eye of Terror vomited its diabolical energies across the firmament. The raging storm it unleashed devoured tens of thousands of star systems. Millions of worlds were consumed. Races that had never known the wrath of man or the taint of Chaos were expunged in an instant. Imperial worlds fell by the score. Many thousands not destroyed outright were plagued by hordes of daemons, their psykers’ minds ripped open to allow the fell beings of the empyrean to walk among mortal populations. A warp storm of a size not seen since the Emperor took to the Golden Throne raged across the breadth of the galaxy. A billowing wave of madness engulfed space, travelling far faster than time and distance should have allowed. In the empyrean the Astronomican flickered and died. Rains of blood fell on terrified people on worlds thousands of light years from the Cadian Gate.

  All creation rocked. In the no-spaces between realities, the rift was felt. In places far distant to the reality of man, strange beings dreamed of fire and blood.

  Old Night, a source of hazy myth and fear to the peoples of the 41st millennium, was reborn.

  Ka’Bandha roared joyously at its return.

  The daemon recovered from his endless fall, beat his wings, and flew for a weakness in the fabric of all things. A single swipe of his axe split space-time, exploiting a faultline opened by the Cicatrix Maledictum. Ka’Bandha emerged into the material universe high over Baal Primus as the rift split the sky and the roiling energies of Chaos spread like a slick of burning promethium over the imperturbable depths of space.

  The red world of Baal was before him. His promised prize was so close, and yet he could not reach it.

  The storm was yet to engulf Baal. Without its vitalising power to sustain Ka’Bandha the void enforced its iron laws of cause and effect upon his body. His unreal being thrilled with electric agonies as the laws of physics sought to deny his existence. Mephiston could not prevent his entry to the world of dust and flesh, but he had damaged Ka’Bandha’s form in the attempt. The energies that made his corpus had not knitted correctly. He had a limited amount of time to exist in mundane reality.

  Gripped by hate for the Chief Librarian, he reached a clawed hand for Baal, howling soundlessly, for it lay frustratingly beyond his grasp and no exertion of will would bring it nearer. The storm was maddeningly close. Bathed in its energy, he might force a path to Baal. It was not to be. As the wavefront of the Cicatrix Maledictum rushed to engulf the Red Scar, Ka’Bandha was already falling.

  The void could not kill him, but nor did it care to bend its rules to suit his whim. Giant wings thrashing helplessly at airless space, Ka’Bandha fell with increasing speed down the gravity well of Baal Primus.

  The space between the three worlds was a glorious battleground. Ka’Bandha greatly approved of the slaughter he witnessed. Shattered tyranid ships filled the vacuum with spilled fluids. Space Marine craft burned in their own venting atmospheres. Her
e were blood and skulls aplenty for Lord Khorne.

  As Ka’Bandha fell closer to Baal Primus’ chilly surface, the Great Rift boiled in-system. An invisible psychic shockwave ran before it, disrupting the battle as it slammed into the monumental soul of the hive mind. Ka’Bandha laughed to hear the bio-ships screaming as their psychic web was shattered. He eyed them covetously. Such giant skulls the ships possessed, all worthy offerings for the Lord of Blood.

  They were, as yet, out of reach. As the baleful light of the warp rubbed out the stars, reality became more amenable to Ka’Bandha’s being, but still he could not fly. He was sucked down through a raging maelstrom of combat that turned still as the rift opened. Space Marine ships firing on living craft were suddenly silenced. Huge, slug-like hive ships convulsed, pulping their internal structures. Kraken ships driven mad tore out their own eyes with thrashing tentacles. Bioplasmic drives winked out. Hunter-killers turned on each other in a frenzy of bloodletting. The agony of the hive mind was an exquisite pleasure to the daemon; battling it would have been finer. Both war and pain were denied him as the monumental intellect driving the hive fleet shattered and went dark.

  Ka’Bandha fell unnoticed, his huge form a speck amid the giant ships of the warring fleets. He raged at both sides as he plummeted, furious he could attack neither. Tyranid craft wallowed helplessly as he rushed by, ignorant of him while the hive mind underwent its small death.

  Baal was denied to him. The war in the void was not his to fight. Raging, he turned his attention upon the onrushing moon. Fury turned to amusement as he spied the battle upon the surface.

  Trailing the fires of atmospheric re-entry, Ka’Bandha rushed towards the ground, a furious comet heralding the opening of the Great Rift and the beginning of the Noctis Aeterna.

  ‘Thunderhawks are en route to your position and will extract you within twenty minutes, Chapter Master.’

  Seth fought with redoubled fury. His men and the Knights of Blood warred side by side. Arranging the evacuation had taken too long. Fighting free of the swarm around Baal and sailing for Baal Secundus had taken the Victus several hours. Precious time bled away with the blood of his men.

  He and Jool held out in the fortress of Wrathful Vigilance. On the metallic mountain spur opposite, Furious Sentinel burned.

  The tyranids scaled the Necklace, numerous as the extinct ants of ancient Earth. They poured into the cavities of the downed orbitals. The ground already vibrated to the drumming of a million alien hooves pounding through the passages.

  Nothing was left. Only tyranids and Seth remained. The giant filaments of feeding tubes rose up to the sky all around their position. The swarms attacking them were reinforced by others diverted from battles won. There was such order to their armies. They marched in perfect patterns. Like a vortex described by grains of sand, they circled around the last fortress of Baal Primus, queues of xenos waiting patiently to die stretched from the horizon to the fort.

  The big guns were silent. Their armour was all lost. A handful of Dreadnoughts fought alongside a few hundred Space Marines. Makeshift walls of salvaged ancient scrap collapsed under the weight of the alien dead. ’Gaunts, genestealers and warriors poured through multiple breaches. The hive mind held back its larger creatures in a show of biological parsimony. Seth would have seen contempt in the move were it any other species, but behind it was merely simple, brute economics. The larger strains cost more in resources and time to grow. The smaller beasts would do the job just as well.

  If the hive mind thought the Flesh Tearers were finished, Gabriel Seth would show it otherwise.

  ‘Fall back to the tower,’ he voxed. He dodged a swooping shrike, gunning it down as it flapped its leathery wings and rose up and away. He wielded his eviscerator one-handed, spinning the heavy weapon around with practised expertise. With every pass the limbs of tyranids fell bleeding. He did not linger to finish those he maimed, but pressed onward to the centre point of the fortress from where his remaining warriors would be evacuated.

  The forts were constructed around ancient bastions of the fallen orbital. His Techmarines had found the two virtually intact under layers of accreted soil and debris. Patched up, surrounded by a perimeter wall, they had performed well as strongpoints until now.

  Seth barrelled through a knot of ’gaunts, slashing and shooting a dozen to death as he tore up the inclined ramp leading to the fort.

  ‘Follow me! By the Blood, follow me! To Baal! To Baal! All here is lost!’ he roared.

  As he went, his men abandoned their positions to fall in behind him, firing as they ran. He left the last mortals to their fate on the walls. Some fled. Some remained and bravely manned the guns, others ran, screaming. Nobody would remember either their bravery or their cowardice.

  Major breaches peppered the walls behind Seth, more being forced as they ran. The ten yards between wall and bastion was filling with alien warbeasts. Guns ran dry, hundreds of creatures were blasted to pieces. There were so many of them, Seth could have dropped a lance strike on the site and watched the crater fill in seconds with alien monsters to replace the dead.

  Some of his men did not follow in his wake. The thirst was on them all, driving them insane. Only those around Seth and the sacred reliquary kept their minds. Too many of them plunged headlong into the Black Rage. They remained where they were, abandoning their weapons to batter creatures to death with their fists.

  A Flesh Tearer’s Black Rage was terrible to behold, more savage and devastating than that of their brother Chapters, quicker to rise, harder to fight off. Seth left his warriors to their fate. They would die as they had lived, in service to the Emperor of Mankind. That was enough.

  Biomunitions screamed through the air, in some cases literally so, their vestigial mouths shrieking out inconceivable pain. Something the size of a man’s head exploded on the bastion’s wall close by Seth’s running band. Thrashing vines speared out from the impact site, ripping two Flesh Tearers and a Knight of Blood off their feet and shredding them, armour and all, upon wickedly sharp thorns.

  The central tower was in sight.

  ‘Open the gate!’ Seth voxed.

  The bastion’s armoured airlocks were long gone. In their place were rough but sturdy gates made from scavenged plates of plasteel. They swung back on reinforced hinges, primitive as a feudal world’s castle portal.

  A second group of Flesh Tearers came running up the walkway from the other side of the gate house. Merging with Seth’s band, they hurled themselves up the ramp towards the gate.

  Heavy weapons opened fire from makeshift battlements, sweeping the gate ramp clear of pursuing beasts. Seth and his warriors rushed through. He turned to look back as the others pounded within the bastion. A handful of his men and Knights of Blood were still coming. Tyranids raced after them, engulfing them as surely as a racing avalanche swallows a building.

  ‘Close the gates,’ he ordered.

  ‘There are still warriors outside, my lord.’

  ‘Then they are lost,’ said Seth. ‘Close the gates.’

  ‘Extraction craft inbound. Prepare to depart. Estimated time of arrival ten minutes.’

  Seth looked upward, searching without result for the bright shape of the Victus moving across the morning sky. The atmosphere was clearing of aerial organisms, but their swirling flocks still obscured the horizon. The bastion’s anti-aircraft weapons chugged out shots in short bursts. Seth had ordered them to conserve their ammunition. It appeared they would not need it.

  A strong wind blew directly towards the capillary towers. The air was thinning. The final stages of consumption were under way. Through his battle fury Seth struggled to think, but he could see it was only a matter of hours before the air became too thin to support atmospheric flight.

  From the top of the bastion he had a fine view of the end of the world. Away from his small island of defiance, consumption vessels jostled for space. The b
right jewels of digestion pools winked at the base of huge bone towers. His enhanced eyes allowed him to see bloated eater beasts dragging themselves into them to be dissolved and their essences sucked up the tubes to the waiting fleet. For several miles around the last fortress, the tyranid horde seethed. Beyond it, the landscape had become almost tidy, scraped clean of all useful biological and mineral resources by the swarm. It appalled him how quickly it was accomplished. Baal Primus was being eaten alive.

  A priority vox request impinged on his thinking. Seth accepted it.

  ‘Belthiel,’ he said.

  ‘My lord, there is something happening,’ said the Librarian. He was having difficulty speaking. ‘There are ripples in the warp, a…’ Belthiel’s words became a pained grunt.

  ‘Belthiel? Belthiel!’ said Seth.

  ‘The sky!’ someone shouted.

  Seth looked heavenward.

  A burning meteor plummeted through the thinning aerial swarm. Seth mistook it for a weapon of some kind, for it did not follow the curve of the world as debris should, but fell in a straight line as if fired. It slammed into the ground with a dull crump, sending up a mushroom cloud of dust. He would have thought nothing more of it, had the sky not changed.

  ‘The sky! The sky!’ More Space Marines were shouting, pointing upwards. A tremor ran through the tyranid horde. Its well-ordered patterns shifted, breaking apart for a second, reforming, then breaking down again. Pressure built behind Seth’s eyes; a metallic taste filled his mouth.

  Sentor Jool came onto the battlement, his armour filthy with alien viscera.

  ‘What is happening?’ he said. He grunted his words, forcing them out through a jaw clamped tight with the thirst.

  ‘Warpcraft,’ Seth said. ‘I can feel it.’

  It was more than the work of a witch.

  Where the meteor had pierced the swarm a red stain appeared, spreading rapidly, until the dome of the sky was a deep and ugly red. A bloody night fell as the rim of the horizon went from pale pink to deep red.