Fire Caste

by Peter Fehervari

  The xenos tilted its head to one side in an unmistakably avian gesture and spoke in a near perfect imitation of the commissar’s voice: ‘This place isn’t a tomb. It’s a lardeeeeer!’ The words trailed off into squawking laughter and a crest of quills flared out behind the beast’s head in mockery. Recognising the deception, Iverson felt rage rising within him like a living thing. Or a long dead thing butchered by this foul species…

  Suddenly Detlef Niemand was at his shoulder. ‘Cleanse the xenos!’ the mutilated commissar demanded, jabbing at the shaper with a raw stump.

  Iverson and Vaskó opened fire at the same time, but both were too slow. Dodging ahead of their attacks with unnatural speed, the creature back-flipped from its perch and latched onto the ceiling with its talons. Chased by their fire it skittered away upside-down and disappeared among the rafters.

  ‘Bring this charnel house down, Modine!’ Iverson shouted.

  The pyrotrooper’s flamer burst into life, bathing the roundhouse in angry red light. A moment later a tide of purifying fire drenched the unclean bones. Iverson added his own salvo, punching round after round into the chest cavity of the infested battlesuit, ripping apart the fruiting body pulsing within. The dangling corpses of the Letheans dropped into the bonfire and Modine brushed them gently with promethium.

  ‘Burn bitch, burn…’ the diseased man muttered repeatedly and Iverson knew he was cursing Phaedra Herself.

  The conflagration soon took on a life of its own and the intruders backed away. Except for Modine. The pyrotrooper kept up a steady stream of fire and hate, seemingly untroubled by the advancing flames. His ruined face looked rapturous.

  ‘We’re done here, soldier,’ Iverson called, but the man paid him no heed. ‘Modine, we’re done!’

  There was a warbling cry from outside, followed by a chorus of angry hoots and squeals, then a thunderous squawk that sounded mercifully distant.

  ‘Time to go!’ Iverson yelled. For a moment he thought Modine planned on burning alive, but the Badlander nodded and turned his back on the inferno. Outside, the raindrops sizzled and popped against his cooling flamer like insects lured into an electric trap.

  ‘Damn, that felt good,’ Modine said.

  ‘Felt good…gooood…gooooood!’ His voice yodelled back from above.

  They looked up and saw the shaper framed against the roiling sky, leering at them from the roof of the roundhouse. Its words spiralled up into a high war cry. A Corsair answered with a gurgling shriek as a spearhead erupted from his chest in a shower of blood and shattered flak plate. A kroot warrior sprang up behind him, hooting victoriously. It lifted the impaled man effortlessly by the haft of its spear and flung him over its shoulder. More of the monsters dived from the rooftops, landing amongst the away team like twisted angels of death. One ripped away a Mariner’s face with its talons as it came down. Another was torn to ribbons by Vaskó’s hellgun before it even touched the ground.

  ‘Purge the unclean!’ the zabaton roared. He leapt into the fray like a whirling dervish, lashing about with his whip as he fired his rifle one-handed.

  ‘Sounds like a plan!’ Modine hollered cheerily. He flicked his flamer back into life as Iverson backhanded a charging kroot with his metal fist. The xenos reeled away and Modine sent a chaser of flames after it, turning it into a wailing, flailing pyre of steam. The Badlander arched backwards, catching another savage in midair then spinning to intercept a pair of loping kroot hounds.

  The booming squawk came again, much closer now.

  ‘Fall back to the river!’ Iverson shouted, ignoring dead Niemand’s scowl.

  This isn’t worth dying for, he thought fiercely. Only Wintertide matters. Wintertide and maybe the Sky Marshall. If there’s still any difference between the two.

  Standing watch in the wheelhouse, Ysabel Reve saw the fire start up. It was only an orange smear against the darkness, but she knew it was the beginning. Scant seconds later her prediction was confirmed by the rattle of hellguns and the distant, desperate cries of dying men. It was the moment she had been waiting for.

  ‘Lower the treads,’ she said. ‘We’re going in.’

  ‘Commissar, this we cannot do!’ Gergo, the lanky helmsman protested.

  ‘This is an amphibious vehicle is it not?’ Reve said, giving him a withering look. ‘We shall prove this.’

  ‘But is not so easy, commissar,’ Gergo whined, gesticulating vaguely. ‘The machine spirit of the ship, it need much reverence for such big work.’

  ‘We will revere it later. Right now you will do as I ask or I shall kill you.’

  Gergo decided the machine spirit could wait after all.

  ‘Fall back!’ Iverson shouted as the Mariner beside him went down under a slavering kroot hound.

  ‘A zabaton does not run!’ Vaskó called back. The aquila tattooed across his face seemed to writhe with a life of its own in the dancing light of the inferno.

  ‘Ruuuuun!’ the shaper keened as it thudded down behind him.

  Vaskó ducked the slash of its serrated knife and whirled into a low spinning kick, but the xenos hopped over his counter-attack and hacked downwards. The Lethean swung his rifle up into a two-handed block that shattered both weapons and threw him to the ground. As the shaper reached for him Iverson charged forwards, pumping rounds into the alien’s chest as he came. The creature’s spongy mantle absorbed the bullets, but the impact sent it careening backwards. With inhuman reflexes it twisted the imbalance to its advantage, flipping onto its back and kicking out with both talons like a spring-loaded trap. The blow took Iverson in the chest with the force of a pneumatic sledgehammer and hurled him through the building opposite. He hit the ground so hard a wave of oblivion came rushing in.

  ‘On your feet!’ Niemand sneered, reeling the fallen commissar back from the brink. In the darkness he was a jagged electric spectre haunting the green snow of Iverson’s augmetic vision. ‘For Emperor and Imperium!’ Niemand demanded. For Hate and Vengeance, he meant, but right now either pair was just fine by Iverson.

  He sat up, fighting the agony of his bruised ribs. Through the rent he’d made in the igloo he saw the shaper lift the struggling form of Vaskó above its head. It flicked its head round and looked right at the commissar, finding him unerringly in the darkness. Iverson couldn’t read its expression, but he knew it was grinning in whatever way a kroot might grin. Then it hooted with mirth and cast its prize into the blazing roundhouse.

  ‘Purge the xenos!’ Iverson roared, stumbling back outside. The shaper waited for him, its mouldy quills rippling with excitement.

  ‘Purge the xenooooos…’ The alien’s mimicry turned into a yowl of surprise as a cord lashed out and wrapped around its throat. Iverson’s eyes snapped to the blazing roundhouse. A burning man swayed at the threshold like a damned soul teetering at the gates of hell. Before the shaper could move, Vaskó sent a full charge rippling along his smouldering shockwhip. The kroot jerked about in a nerve-shredding, muscle-twitching spasm and gibbered in agony. Its quills blistered and its eyeballs exploded into blood-streaked geysers of steam. As his muscles melted away Vaskó lurched backwards, hauling his catch into the inferno after him. Niemand howled with rapture and spread his stunted arms wide.

  ‘Like the man said, the Emperor condemns,’ Modine smirked as he staggered up alongside Iverson. The big man was bleeding badly, but there was a madcap grin on his face. ‘And sometimes He even gets it right!’

  Then they were running, backtracking along the path of destruction Modine had ploughed on their way in. Only three Corsairs and one Mariner had survived the assault and Iverson himself was in bad shape. Bierce was waiting for him at every turn, his expression thunderous with disapproval, but Iverson paid him no heed.

  It’s duty that drives me to flight old man.

  The kroot were relentless in their pursuit, taunting their prey with hoots and squawks as they sprang between t
he rooftops like manic acrobats. Iverson guessed they were enjoying the hunt too much to make a quick end of it.

  Wintertide must die... Kircher must answer for his crimes…

  The Corsair in the lead skidded to a halt and stumbled back with a frantic yell. Over his shoulder Iverson saw a hulking shape loping towards them on all fours, using its massive forearms to propel itself along like a hunched ape. Its head was a pugnacious caricature of a kroot, dominated by a slab-jawed beak jutting from beneath beady black eyes. A kroot warrior was perched between its shoulders, looking impossibly fragile beside its mount. Iverson had never seen one of the giants before, but he recognised it from the Tactica briefings. Like the hounds, the krootox was a dead-end branch of the kroot evolutionary tree. The creatures were dim-witted brutes, but their prodigious strength and resilience made them melee monsters on the battlefield. During his stint in the kroot-infested hell of Dolorosa Magenta he had been regaled with horror stories of the beasts. One veteran had sworn blind he’d seen a krootox tear a battle tank apart with its bare hands. Right now the commissar wasn’t inclined to doubt him.

  ‘Back up!’ Iverson shouted, but the path behind them was swarming with kroot hounds.

  ‘Keep ’em off me!’ Modine snarled at the Corsairs behind him. As Mangled Helmet and his comrade raked the hounds with gunfire, Modine slammed a fist through the neighbouring igloo. Something lunged at him through the gap and he replied with a brief spurt of promethium. There was a howl from inside and a blazing kroot burst through the wall, groping blindly for him. He clubbed it aside and lashed out with a kick that sent it spinning into the baying hounds.

  ‘Go! Go!’ Iverson barked, firing vainly at the oncoming krootox as the others swept into the igloo. A heartbeat later he ducked under a lunging fist as the giant stampeded past. Moving too quickly to break its charge, it crashed headlong into the hounds and scattered them like yelping ninepins. Iverson saw that its hide was blotched with a lurid patchwork of toadstools and tendrils. The rider hung limp and shrivelled between its shoulder blades, seemingly welded to its mount in a cancerous saddle. The kroot turned at the waist, peering at him with cloudy white eyes.

  This is Phaedra’s heartland, Iverson realised. The restless blood of the kroot was easy prey for Her here.

  Braying with frustration, the krootox swung round and Iverson hurried after the others. Modine was already breaking into the next igloo when he caught up. Somewhere in the medley of wind, rain and thunder Iverson thought he heard another, deeper rumbling. He listened, trying to make sense of the sound, but then the hovel behind them collapsed as the krootox waded in after them and the rumble wasn’t important anymore.

  ‘Clear!’ Modine said as he peered through the rent he’d made.

  Everyone dived through into the darkness and raced for the far side. The surviving Mariner shrieked as a sinewy arm shot down from above and hooked him by the scruff of the neck. Iverson glimpsed terrified eyes and wildly kicking legs, then the man was gone, yanked through a hole in the roof. Mangled Helmet sent a blind salvo after him, more in the hope of granting him a quick release than catching his attacker.

  ‘Keep moving!’ Iverson shouted. He heard more krootox bellowing nearby, sniffing them out in the ramshackle maze. Bierce was waiting on the roof outside, his hand extended in mute accusation. A kroot leapt right through the phantom and Iverson almost laughed as he blasted the xenos out of the air.

  ‘Clear!’ Modine called again as he tore open the next hut.

  Halfway across the hovel one of the Corsairs tripped and clattered to the ground. Iverson turned to haul him up when their pursuer came barrelling through the wall. The commissar stumbled back as the beast lunged forward and snatched up the fallen Lethean. The man cursed in his native tongue as the krootox dangled him upside down and peered at him with dim curiosity. It rattled him about and pecked experimentally at his helmet, irritated by the noises he was making. The Corsair was still trying to level his hellgun when it grew bored and chewed off his head. It tossed the corpse aside, rose on its haunches and roared at Iverson. The challenge was cut short when a metal leviathan stormed over the hut and ground the beast into oblivion. Iverson dived back as a lethal wall of spinning wheels and churning treads passed just inches from his face.

  ‘Reve!’ Iverson shouted, but the gunboat’s clatter drowned him out as it rolled past. He saw its hull was swaddled in enormous caterpillar tracks that suspended the deck high above the ground, transforming the gunboat into a gargantuan tank. The sponson-mounted autocannons on either side were blazing away, deterring attacks, but with only a skeleton crew the Penance and Pain was appallingly vulnerable.

  She’s heading for the fire at the roundhouse, he guessed.

  ‘Back this way!’ Iverson called to his companions as he hurried after the gunboat. It was moving fast, but not so fast a running man couldn’t catch it.

  Even a man with a chest like broken glass…

  Iverson’s breath was coming in harsh gasps now and his mashed ribs threatened to crush his lungs, but he pushed on. He shouted until he was hoarse, even though he knew the gunboat crew high above couldn’t possibly hear him.

  Wintertide… Kircher… Wintertide… Kircher… The names chased each other round Iverson’s skull in a whirling mantra of loathing. He was riding high on hate the way some men soared on combat stimms. He felt a brief pang for the Glory he’d used against the Verzante deserters – so long ago now – but the narcotic was a tainted blessing. Her blessing. Hate was pure.

  …Wintertide…

  He looked back and saw his comrades behind him. There was a second krootox bounding after them, even bigger than the first. Blanking it out, Iverson locked his eyes on the receding stern of the boat and saw Bierce up there. The old man had his back to him, turning away in contempt as salvation raced away.

  … Kircher…

  Mangled Helmet hurtled past Iverson, twirling something around his head as he ran. The Corsair cast the grapple with a skill forged through years of ship-to-ship combat and it sailed over the gunwales like a guided missile and caught. The racing vessel yanked him forward violently, but he kept his balance and soared ahead. A moment later he was abseiling up the hull in leaps and bounds. Iverson heard the krootox squawking in fury at his escape.

  …Wintertide… We just need to stay ahead a little longer…Kircher…

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw the beast thrust itself into the air like a vaulting ape.

  ‘Down!’ he shouted, diving into the mud. Modine fell to his knees instantly, but the remaining Corsair made the mistake of looking back. The krootox tore through him like a cannonball, almost shearing him in half. It crashed down onto the path ahead, a rampaging barrier between its prey and the gunboat. The impact snapped its atrophied rider off at the waist like a dried twig, but the brute was unperturbed.

  Phaedra is its true rider now, Iverson thought as he raised his pistol. There was nothing left now except the last stand. Where are you Bierce? You should be here to see this, you old vulture!

  The krootox loomed over him, shrugging off the small calibre rounds like insect bites. Its beak snapped open as it reached out… and exploded into flames. Iverson dodged away from the squawking inferno as Modine advanced with his flamer. He was singing a bawdy Badlands ballad as he drove the beast back with a stream of fire.

  ‘…and Lady Soozie, she ain’t never looked so fine…’ He winked at Iverson. His flamer sputtered and ran dry. ‘Well shit...’

  The krootox charged him like a raging bull. Its hide was a charred ruin that hissed and smoked in the rain, but the fire hadn’t reached its muscles. A pile-driver punch sent Modine toppling to the ground. He kicked out but the brute caught him by the ankles and hoisted him into the air. Iverson opened fire as it began to whirl its catch round, but the bullets only irritated it further. At the corner of his eye he saw the gunboat brake to a halt and begin to crawl back.
/>   Too late…

  With a primal bellow the krootox smacked Modine against the ground like a human whip. The first impact shattered every bone in his body. The second left him hanging in its fist like a rag doll. By the time his legs came off he was a shapeless liquid ruin.

  Too bad…

  Iverson was already staggering for the gunboat when the beast came after him. He saw Mangled Helmet up on the deck, hollering for more speed. Reve appeared beside him, watching the chase through her magnoculars.

  Too far… Wintertide… Too slow… Kircher…

  He heard the krootox stomping just behind him. Felt its hot breath at his back. Felt his own breath tearing through him like razorwire. Some impulse told him to duck and he rolled away just as a claw swept over his head… and kept rolling as the beast pounded the ground with its fists, just one step behind him.

  Winter…tide… Kir…cher…

  Iverson’s blind roll brought him up against something solid. He looked up and saw a metal giant towering over him. The thunder of the Sentinel’s autocannon was deafening as it tore the krootox into steaming chunks of meat. The machine swivelled smoothly at the waist and raked the rooftops, obliterating a cluster of charging kroot. A second Sentinel clanked up alongside it, spewing fire from a gun that dwarfed Modine’s flamer. Iverson froze as he recognised the Seven Stars stencilled across its barrel.

  By Providence, they’ve found me!

  After it was over and the town was silent, Iverson went looking for Modine. The Badlander’s body was gone, but the rain hadn’t quite erased the blood-smeared trail he’d left behind when he crawled away. Iverson followed it to a small hut at the edge of town and found his quarry curled up in the shadows like a shredded slug. The man was legless and liquescent, but hideously alive. For all its ravages, Modine’s disease had turned him into one tough son-of-a-bitch.