They mag-locked their boots to the floor and tensed as the Blackstar made a vertical take-off, banking round for one last look at the tau camp. The White Scars had raised two great piles of heads. One was of flesh, the other a hundred and one Stormsurge heads, in a great mound of mixed sept colours. The field where they had fought was broken with craters and smoking ruins, many of them of Imperial design. At the edge of the battlefield, while a Stormtalon patrolled, a last White Scars Thunderhawk was loading the dead as servitors reclaimed an immobilised Predator. ‘How many did they lose?’
‘Twenty-seven,’ Leonas said.
‘I wonder what will happen with yours,’ Konrad said. ‘You know. When your last battle has been fought.’
Leonas nodded. He had often wondered the same thing.
‘The Administratum will have a place for it. The last Black Consul. It could go in a museum,’ said Konrad.
‘I’ll look after it until then,’ Leonas said.
Jotunn usually took his own Blackstar, but this time he waited while Nergui made one last effort to speak to Batbayar.
‘The khan is busy,’ Khulan told him, after he had pushed to the very door of Batbayar’s Thunderhawk. His bike lay by the side of the gunship, carefully loaded onto a stretcher crate.
‘I would like to see him,’ Nergui said.
‘I know,’ Khulan said. ‘But he does not want to see you, Nergui of the Chaoge. And he is khan, and you are not.’
Nergui nodded. This was the way of the White Scars. He held out an offering. ‘I brought him this.’
He held out a head.
Khulan looked at it. ‘Is that Shadowsun?’
Nergui shook his head.
‘Why would we want this ethereal’s head, Nergui?’
‘It is an offering.’
‘Of what?’
‘Regret,’ Nergui said.
‘There is no way back to the past. It is vain to regret and to wish. All there is, is now.’
Nergui nodded. He dropped the ethereal’s head at Khulan’s feet, and then turned and walked away. The Lone Wolf was waiting for him in the dark corner of the Blackstar.
It had been a long time since Nergui had seen the albino warrior in the light of day. The Space Wolf’s pink eyes were tired and bloodshot. ‘Did they take it?’ he growled.
‘No.’
‘I said they would not.’
‘And you were right. I knew it myself, but I still had to try. They were my brothers once. And may be again.’
Jotunn wiped the blood from his gauntlets and glanced at the pile of Stormsurge heads. ‘So we killed them all.‘
‘All of them,’ he said.
‘You know there must be more of these sites scattered through the Damocles Gulf. Places where our enemies are planning treachery and violence against us.’
‘Well,’ Nergui nodded, ‘there is one less now.’
About the Author
Justin D Hill is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 short stories ‘Last Step Backwards’, ‘Lost Hope’ and ‘The Battle of Tyrok Fields’, following the adventures of Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed, as well as ‘Truth Is My Weapon’, and the Warhammer tales ‘Golgfag’s Revenge’ and ‘The Battle of Whitestone’. Storm of Damocles is his first Warhammer 40,000 novel for Black Library.
An extract from Blades of Damocles.
Jorus Numitor grinned fiercely as the Thunderhawk’s metal door pistoned open. The gunship’s interior filled with blazing violet light, and a gale force wind punched into him, but it only got his blood up all the more. Leaning forward, the sergeant ran into the hurricane and leaped, triggering his jump pack and boosting away with his assault squad close behind.
The Sword of Calth banked as it roared overhead, its wingtip passing inches from Numitor’s jump pack. He turned as he flew, now falling backwards, and counted his brothers off as they hurtled through the sky in his wake. All present and correct, nine runes flashing green in his peripherals.
‘Atheus will pounce on that one day, sergeant,’ voxed Aordus. ‘Supposed to debark from the tailgate into dead air on a drop like this.’
‘Captain Atheus can tuck himself in an evil-smelling drop pod,’ shouted Numitor, mirth bubbling through his words as he turned back into a leaning dive. ‘Orbital insertion’s a waste of a good view!’
Aordus laughed, and even over the crackling vox Numitor heard the frustration and boredom of their two-month transit sloughing away. He felt it too; the ice around his soul was melting, turned to liquid anticipation by the prospect of battle and the breathtaking vista below.
Dal’yth’s cloudbanks were truly magnificent. Violet and white, they stretched out like a realm of organic sky-castles, lit from within by strobing flashes of electricity. The Ultramarines straightened into close formation and plummeted headlong toward them.
This is what the Adeptus Astartes were made to do, thought Numitor. Not to meditate in silence, or to train endlessly in the dark bowels of a strike cruiser, but to bring death from above – sudden, loud, and in great measure. He took off his helm and mag-clamped it to his waist, revelling in the feeling of air blasting up into his face and tugging at the dense strip of hair that ran down his shaven scalp like a crest.
Nearby, Aordus shook his head at the flagrant breach of drop protocol.
Contrails scarred the skies ahead as the T-shaped aircraft of the tau duelled with box-nosed Thunderhawk and Stormraven gunships. Plummeting drop pods cut through their winding vapour trails, forming a lateral grid that cut the sky and gave shape to the squad’s otherwise abstract fall.
Here and there airbursts blossomed, fire-lit smoke spreading in the cold air wherever a missile or interceptor shot hit home. Even those distant signs of conflict made Numitor’s chest feel tight. Not long now, the sergeant told himself, as if comforting the beast rousing to wakefulness in his soul.
Not long.
Squad Numitor burst from the cloudbanks to witness the birth of a planetary war. Tessellating hex-zones each large enough to accommodate a hive city trammelled the indigo wilderness. Smoothly contoured buildings jutted from each junction point, lights glittering in their thousands wherever the ivory edifices reached up from the wider superstructures. The landscape of the tau sept world had been almost perverse in its order, but that was changing fast – the Imperium’s pre-invasion firestorm had torn ragged wounds across its surface. Megatonnes of ordnance were hurled from low orbit to break open the drop zones in the distance. Even those warheads detonated by tau flak were raining fire upon the cities below.
Numitor did not replace his helm. The chances of getting decapitated by sky-shrapnel were slim, and that was a gamble he was willing to take. It was worth it to drink in the spectacle of explosions blossoming below, to feel the blood-pounding rush of air hinting at the storm of violence to come. The tempestuous forces of the drop pulled at his skin, shook his bones and made his eyes and nose sting with sensation. He plunged through a high cloud and out again, needles of cold stinging his skin. It felt like a baptism.
The Ultramarines drop pod assault followed close behind the falling ordnance intended to clear a path for Operation Pluto. Livid fires billowed from shattered hexodomes and parallel plumes of dark smoke slanted into the skies from the black-rimmed craters that scarred the city’s alien symmetry. In his peripheral vision, Numitor could see dozens of gunships diving in near-vertical vectors, the throaty roars of their engines audible even over the thunder of freefall and the bass crump of ordnance.
The Imperial craft slammed through a thinly spread drone blockade to scatter enemy fighter craft like raptors slicing through a prey-flock. Coming out of their dives as they reached their drop coordinates, each gunship opened its doors and disgorged the Assault Marines inside. Numitor’s squad had been the first to make the drop, launching a good few seconds before Squad Sicarius, and even with the long freefall they would re
ach the planet first. He knew it was wrong to find joy in that, for it mattered little in truth. He smiled nonetheless.
‘Beachhead established in quadrant Zeta Tert, Gel’bryn City,’ said Aordus. ‘Good place to start.’
‘We’ll be fighting long before we get there,’ shouted Numitor. ‘Look sharp, brothers. Hunter-killers incoming. On my mark.’
A cluster of four wide, flat-bodied missiles blazed upwards from an intact hexodome.
‘Scatter!’ ordered Numitor. His men reacted a second before the seeker missiles reached their position. They triggered their jump packs simultaneously, blazing out in a ten-pointed star that saw the tau missiles sail harmlessly through the middle of their formation.
Three more of the xenotech warheads hurtled upwards. Numitor flipped and boosted straight down, swiping the fingertips of his power fist into the leading missile moments before it could strike Brother Duolor. It detonated with mind-numbing force as the other two shot past, missing their mark. The sergeant was flung outward, flailing and burning, but the flames found no purchase on his ceramite. He tucked into a somersault before righting his vector with a blast of his jump pack.
Trailing smoke, Numitor heaved in a great draught of air – not the stale, recycled air of a spaceship hold, but the cold, pure blast of freefall. He roared with the sheer catharsis of it. Elation flooded his body, despite the burning pain in the side of his face, despite the chemical tang of incendiaries in his multi-lung. His vox buzzed like a trapped insect, abruptly pulling him back to his senses.
‘Sergeant,’ said Aordus, ‘do we proceed to Zeta Tert?’
‘Hold course,’ called out Numitor, craning his head to look upward. ‘Zeta Tert, squad! Adjust vectors accordingly.’
High above, three remaining missiles looped around, doubling back in tight parabolas to close on the sergeant’s squad.
‘Ha!’ shouted Numitor triumphantly. ‘I thought as much. Ready pistols!’
The sergeant turned in mid-fall to face the night sky and the blunt-nosed missiles rocketing towards them. He unclamped his bolt pistol and snapped off three shots in close succession, his back to the ground even though his freefall was at terminal velocity. Numitor’s squad followed his lead. Mass-reactive bolts hurtled upwards, the last volley catching the incoming missiles a spear’s throw from their position. A canopy of fire bloomed above them, red and yellow against the darkening purple sky.
Nodding in satisfaction, Numitor turned back to his headlong descent.
From the hexodomes below tracer fire spat high, each stream stuttering phosphor-white. Black clouds of flak boomed as tau gunners intercepted the storm of Space Marine insertion craft hammering towards the xenos landscape. To their east flank, a cluster of hunter-missiles slammed into a plummeting drop pod. Numitor felt the blast wave of the explosion as it sent cherry-red metal scything in all directions.
Flailing Space Marines fell burning from the wreckage towards the planet’s surface.
They had fifteen seconds, if that.
‘Intercept that stricken squad!’ ordered Numitor, leaning into a diagonal vector and waving his squad to follow. He boosted hard, drawing his arms in close to streamline his body and angling his hands to fine-tune his path. His unit, close behind him, did likewise.
Nine seconds left.
A trio of falling Tactical Marines had righted themselves as best they could and were aiming their bolters downward, determined to take some kind of toll on the tau world before their deaths. The Tactical squad’s sergeant stretched out to catch one of his brothers by the arm as he pinwheeled past, yanking him in close. Numitor and his squad dived into their midst, each clamping an outstretched hand onto a falling battle-brother. There was no way Numitor and his squad could stop them entirely, pull them out of harm’s way, but they were still Assault Marines of the Eighth, the masters of the jump drop. This was their sky to rule.
‘Hard diagonal, due west!’ shouted Numitor.
With a burst of his jump pack engines at full yield, Numitor yanked the Tactical Marine’s descent into a sharp westward course. His squad did the same, their power armour preventing their arms from being ripped out of their sockets by the sudden weight. Slowly, agonisingly, their efforts bore fruit.
Three seconds.
‘Breakfall!’ shouted Numitor. ‘Ready!’
A bulbous white tower loomed suddenly upwards, its giant mushroom canopy studded with strange antennae. Numitor heaved hard, twisting his body so his jump pack bolstered the motion as he and his squad flung their battle-brothers sidelong towards the tau building’s upper slope.
The Tactical Marines struck it hard, but their armour took much of the impact. As they slid downward, they each drew their combat knives and drove them deep into the building’s curving roof, turning their skidding descent into a series of sharp halts.
By the time the Space Marines had mag-locked their boots onto the alloy of the building’s roof, Numitor had landed in their midst, and was already boosting back upwards. He caught a fifth falling battle-brother by the backpack and slowed his descent enough for him to hit the cream-coloured roof crumpled, but alive. The rest of Squad Numitor had touched down nearby, wispy circles of exhaust expanding around each of their landing sites. Pulse rounds shot from the balcony of a taller tau building to punch into their midst. The Tactical Marines turned their shoulders into the incoming fire, bolters aimed to launch a devastating counter-attack.
‘That was non-Codex drop procedure,’ said one of the rescued Space Marines.
The Tactical Marine sergeant snapped off a shot with his bolter, and a distant explosion mingled with xenos screams. ‘We’re alive, ingrate,’ he growled to his squadmate, ‘so make it count.’ He turned to Numitor between shots. ‘My thanks, brother. Antelion of the Fifth.’
‘I’m Numitor, Eighth Company. But if your friend reports the drop deviation, I’m Sergeant Cato Sicarius.’
Antelion laughed. ‘Now him I’ve heard of.’
Numitor nodded, but in truth his focus was already on the battle below.
‘Right, let’s get to it,’ he said, replacing his helm and slamming a fresh clip into his bolt pistol. ‘Brothers, make ready to join the fray. Cato is likely ankle-deep in blood already.’
Sergeant Cato Sicarius bellowed a wordless war cry, gunning his jump pack as he blasted shoulder-first towards a squadron of glider-like xenocraft. Energy streams spat from the tail-mounted quad turret of each tau fighter. They detonated explosively amongst his squad, one lucky shot sending Brother Endrion spiralling from the sky in a spray of blood.
Two more of the incandescent beams punched into Sicarius’ pauldron, vaporising chunks of ceramite and knocking him off kilter. He righted his charge within heartbeats, lips pulled back into a grimace of contempt, but it was too late. The aircraft had already hurtled past, the whine of their engines rising as they turned back for another strafing run.
A hot ache bled through Sicarius’ shoulder socket. ‘You’ve no idea who you are dealing with,’ he snarled under his breath. ‘You’re all going to die.’
‘Well said, sergeant,’ said Glavius, Sicarius’ de facto second in command. The sergeant clicked impatiently over the vox in response. The pain in his shoulder was dulling, but in his eyes it was still a symptom of failure.
On some level, Cato Sicarius knew and appreciated what was at stake upon Dal’yth. The war they were fighting here was no conventional crusade, but a battle for knowledge, hard won in the crucible of war. Two advanced civilisations were pitted against one another, and the sky was already filling with the fires of conflict.
‘Vespertine was a skirmish compared to this,’ said Glavius.
‘Good,’ said Sicarius. ‘A true test of our mettle, then.’ Here, each force was seeking not only to overcome the foe, but also to learn their strengths – and more importantly, weaknesses – in the process. ‘This is a race, Glavius,’ s
aid Sicarius, ‘a race for understanding. Whoever wins it will secure victory not just here, but on a dozen worlds besides.’
With this site as the primary drop zone, there was every chance the battle for Gel’bryn City would determine the fate of the entire war. Taking the largest metropolis on the eastern seaboard would give them a commanding position, allowing them to dominate everything between the dropsite and the mountains to the north. As a sergeant, Sicarius was content to leave the wider campaign to the likes of Lord Calgar and Chief Librarian Tigurius, but here he was in his element. Drop invasions were his meat and drink.
He was made to conquer, and conquer he would.
The tau squadrons were coming back fast, veering around the tall antennae of a comms building for another pass. The two rearmost craft detached disc-like drones, machine intelligences much like those Sicarius had encountered on Vespertine. Their underslung ion guns thickened the firepower already searing the air.
Sicarius kept in the foremost pilot’s blind spot until the last moment, then launched up hard at top speed to catch its left wing and scrabble atop it. Gripping the front of the wing tight, he drew his Talassarian broadsword, thumbed the activation rune, and carved away the cockpit with a single broad sweep. Blood flew from the bisected head of the pilot inside. The fighter’s veering arc slowly turned into a dive.
‘Meagre creatures, these,’ said the sergeant, letting go of the wing and allowing himself to slide free. ‘Even weaker than the ground clades.’
‘Sergeant,’ came the vox from his squadmate Ionsian. ‘Inbound fighters.’
‘Mark them for me,’ said Sicarius, drawing his pistol as he fell. Energy weapon fire spat through the air towards him, but he twisted away from it.
‘Now, sergeant!’ said Ionsian, boosting past to draw the fire of the enemy pilot.
Sicarius’ target-runes flashed bright. He raised his plasma pistol and pulled the trigger, its grip painfully hot even through the ceramite banding of his gauntlet. His shot was true. It took a passing fighter under the nosecone, burning through its lightweight alien alloys to consume the tau inside.
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