Crusaders of Dorn

by Guy Haley

  Osric raised his bolt pistol and took aim. The orks were a way off yet, well out of range of his pistol, yet he picked a target, locked his arm, held it steady and waited.

  It was an inevitability that the orks would come over the line. They were many, and the men of Jopal of insufficient numbers to keep them back by weight of fire alone.

  Nevertheless, many greenskins fell, burned by lasfire before the orks breached the walls. They came through in three places more or less simultaneously. The indentured men of Jopal reeled from this assault, shocked by the orks’ brutality and their cunningly coordinated attack.

  Brusc found little new. He had fought the orks many times. There were not the unthinking brutes propaganda would have the men of the Astra Militarum believe. He and his brothers separated and went to the breaches, engaging the orks hand to hand. Relieved, the lesser men fell back to barricades in the streets. For a time, Brusc fought alone. Orks roared and hurled themselves at him. The power of their blows rocked him on his feet, but he found tranquillity there in the heat of the melee, and he attained a higher level of intimacy with the Lord of Man through these most holy rites of battle.

  He dispatched an opponent with a backwards thrust through the neck. The ork’s head juddered as his chainsword’s teeth ground their way through its spine. A twisting jerk freed the blade from the neck. The ork’s head came with it. The body collapsed to its knees, fountaining dark red blood all over Brusc. Then the Jopali had their position and new firing solutions. They opened up, felling the last of the orks at Brusc’s breach. He searched for new targets, but found none.

  Brusc barely had time to draw breath when a desperate cry went up over the vox, a signifier in Brusc’s helm indicating it came from one of the human officers. If it was Ghaskar, he could not tell for its panicked thickness.

  ‘Keep them away from the transports! Keep them away!’

  He turned his back on the defence wall, where the next wave of screaming xenos savages was being gunned down by disciplined lasfire, and looked to the centre of the compound.

  Half a dozen leader-orks had forced their way to the very heart of the hospital; giants clad in hissing suits of armour. Fifteen, perhaps more, of the lesser kind loped alongside them, their huge rifles spitting fire. In the midst of them all went one even greater, a mighty ork-king, half Brusc’s height again. Bright yellow patterned with black showed through the dust and ash caking its suit. The armour encased it almost completely, covering its head, its eyes protected by thick lenses of green glass and the jaw hidden behind a serrated metal bevoir cast in the shape of a jaw. Only the joints were their weakness. Brusc’s heart soared at the sight of it.

  ‘Here is a foe! Here is honour! Black Templars, to me!’

  Without waiting for his men, Brusc ran down the avenue toward the leader orks as they advanced on the trucks. The orks did not fire upon the vehicles, slaughtering only the men. Providence was with humanity – plunder was the orks’ intent. As orks approached the silent Cataphraxes, the black knights of Dorn crashed into the guard with a noise like thunder. Coming from three directions, they barged their way through the lesser creatures by dint of strength alone, crushing and slashing them down. Their bolt pistols sang the clamorous hymns of death until their ammunition was spent and the weapons were dropped to swing by their lanyards, trailing smoke like censers from glowing barrels.

  This was prayer for the Black Templars. War was their worship, the battlefield their temple. Hymns ringing from their vox-grilles, they gripped their chainswords two handed and hewed at the foe. Sunno accounted for two of the guard creatures, ducking below their ponderously swinging arms to despatch them one after the other with artful blows – the first to the neck, the second gutted and beheaded as it fell forward. The snap of Marcomar’s sniper rifle was the call of retribution upon the wind – pure and clean it cut through the brutish barks of orkish gunfire, felling one after another of the lighter armoured creatures. Brusc found himself duelling with a pair of giants. Both his hearts pumped hard, flooding his system with the blessings of the Emperor. Time slowed, and he sang the Hymn of Hate to the beat of his blows.

  Soon the majority of the orks lay dead, leaking blood and machine fluids into the greedy ash. Over their slumped forms Brusc caught sight of Osric. Alone he had gone to fight with the ork-king. Alone, he had fallen into peril. The ork had Osric in one massive claw, the scissor blades crushing the armour of his forearm. Osric dangled, his battleplate breached in three places. He swung his legs in fruitless kicks at the ork, his curses loud in Brusc’s ear pieces.

  The teeth-track of Brusc’s sword was clogged with tough ork flesh. The motor whined dangerously, smoke issuing from its exhaust. He released its trigger before it burned out, unclipped its lanyard and flung the weapon aside with a prayer of apology. As he ran to Osric’s aid he slammed home a fresh magazine into his bolt pistol. By the time he had snatched his combat blade from its sheath, his armour-aided legs were pushing him speedily at the king.

  Osric gave up trying to free his arm and reached for a grenade. Brusc launched himself through the air, smashing into the scrap armour of the ork-king. The plangence of their meeting was the voice of a bell in some temple of belligerence. The ork staggered. With surprising speed it swung round, hurling Osric at Brusc’s head. The Sword Brother ducked, firing as he did. Osric hit a prefab’s wall, crumpling it and streaking it with his blood as he fell to the ground. Brusc’s bolts sparked off the ork-king’s armour or exploded without effect on the surface. One found an unprotected spot. When it blew, gobbets of flesh rained outwards, but the ork was not slowed. Whatever pain it felt only served to stoke its fury, and it came at Brusc fast, the crude pistons on its warsuit hissing gas.

  Brusc dodged a blow, the ork’s giant shears clanging shut inches from his helm’s muzzle. He riposted with his knife, driving it at the ork’s forearm, seeking the gap at the elbow where dirty green skin was visible. The ork was too agile, the knife hit the armour. The plating on the lord shamed a tank. Brusc’s thrust gouged a bright silver streak in the metal, peeling away a long curl of swarf, but no more than that. The ork backhanded him, swinging its claw-clad fist into his chest. Brusc flew backwards, alarm signals peeping in his helmet as he crashed to the floor. His visor display jumped, the static of it conspiring with the blood running down over his lenses to limit his vision. The ork was on him again, reaching for him. Then it had him, one shear about his neck, the other around his thighs. Roaring its triumph, the ork-king lofted him upwards, holding its trophy over its head for all his slaves to see.

  ‘Forgive me, Emperor, when we meet,’ shouted Brusc, ‘for I have spilled too little blood in your name.’

  The expected pressure, the crushing of metal and flesh, never came. The ork-king had stopped in his tracks. Brusc twisted around in its grasp, his battleplate squealing against the claw’s razored edges.

  The ork’s face was still twisted in triumph, the great bucket jaw of the armour swung open to roar, but behind the metal his tongue lolled from his teeth. A twist of white smoke rose coyly from its open mouth, the only sign of the sniper shot that had slain it. Its armour held its corpse in position. It toppled slowly over backwards with Brusc still trapped in its claws.

  ‘Forgive me, my lord,’ said Marcomar over the vox. ‘I had to wait until opportunity presented itself.’

  There was a steeliness in his voice that had been lacking before.

  ‘Then you have had your vengeance, novitiate,’ said Brusc.

  ‘Indeed. Praise be.’

  In that moment, Brusc knew Marcomar would not fail after all.

  By the time he had extricated himself from the dead warlord’s grasp, the orks were in flight. Their king slain and his cohorts fallen, the lesser orks broke and ran, leaving many of their dead upon the field. Bright laser light and heavy bolter shells slew more as the fled, the surviving men of Jopal jeering at their rout. The Black Templars stayed
with the haulers. Sunno and Doneal worked in tandem, despatching stragglers and wounded xenos. Doneal was savage and skilled. He would make a fine battle-brother.

  Only when he was sure that the battle was finished did Brusc go to Osric’s side.

  Osric lay with his legs out. He had managed to haul himself into a sitting position, so that his powerplant rested on the wall, but had got no further. The gashes in his armour sparked. Red meat was revealed beneath.

  ‘That was foolish, brother.’ Brusc switched his flickering helm display around, bringing up the vital signs of his ex-pupil and friend as he knelt at the younger Space Marine’s side. Both heartbeats were weak, and growing weaker. Osric’s armour was flooding his body with drugs from its pharmacopeia, but his wounds were deep and neither medicament nor his body’s innate gifts could stem the tide of blood. Bright crimson poured from the rents in Osric’s plate, staining the ground around him; far too much of it.

  ‘I was trying to impress you, brother,’ said Osric. He attempted a laugh, but it gurgled horribly and became a bubbling cough. It took a moment for him to recover. ‘Perhaps if I had taken his head,’ he gasped, ‘then you would not have hesitated to present me in the Circle of Honour.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Brusc. ‘But his death bought honour for Marcomar instead.’

  ‘All is not lost then,’ said Osric. ‘You must give him further chance. I would take him to squire myself, if I do not die.’

  ‘Lie still, do not speak. You have been grievously wounded.’ Brusc spoke softly. He rested his hand on Osric’s helm, an echo of a parent touching the brow of a sick child. The brothers were all the family any of them would ever know, the only blood.

  Osric raised a wavering hand and gripped Brusc’s forearm. ‘I fought well, do not deny me that.’

  ‘You fought well, my friend.’

  Brusc stood, and Osric’s enfeebled hand skidded from his battleplate to lie curled on the stained earth. His head lolled. Orderlies and sisters from Sister Rosa’s station were running to the fallen Space Marine. They openly wept to see an angel of their god thusly cast down.

  Sister Rosa was with them, bloodied, but still whole. ‘We shall do what we can for him, brother,’ she said.

  Brusc shrugged as if it mattered not if they did or did not, although it mattered to him a great deal. He pointed at the spreading pool beneath Osric. The sand was saturated. ‘Witness, sister! It is as you said – there is only blood. We all bleed it, mighty and meek, high and lowly. The blood of the faithful waters the earth of every Imperial world, as is only right. Remember him. Remember the blood he has shed for you.’

  The orderlies struggled to move Osric’s armoured body onto a stretcher that was far too short for his height. Brusc watched dispassionately. Losing patience with them, Rosa snapped and sent for medical servitors. ‘Quickly now! He is dying!’

  In Brusc’s helmet, Osric’s vital signs became erratic. It would not be long now.

  ‘Do not leave his body. He has one more service to render.’

  ‘Yes, brother,’ said Sister Rosa.

  He stared down at his dying brother. ‘See that you are ready to depart, sister. The orks will return. We leave in ten minutes.’

  Without looking back, he strode toward Cataphraxes.

  Season of Shadows

  The Season of Fire abated. The last plumes of ash coughed from Armageddon’s volcanoes. Dying winds hurried the season’s final storms to stillness. Searing heat gave way as the world was plunged into a short, volcanic winter. At Armageddon’s poles, dirty snow fell.

  The Season of Shadows had begun.

  In peaceful times this cessation of the storms was a respite for men. The season was well named, for the land was dark and cool. It was a time for quiet doings, although thunderous industry never ceased. This year was different; the choking ash would be missed. As soon as the skies began to clear, the fires of war rekindled. Orks came out from their hiding places and marched upon the hives of Armageddon once more.

  ‘Another charge brother! Quickly!’

  In a twilight-noon born of ash the shrouded sun smouldered upon a field-hospital, recently attacked and soon to be abandoned. Within its broken confines Black Templars Space Marines worked with haste.

  Sword Brother Brusc, the leader of this much depleted reconnaissance group not long on Armageddon, tossed a bulky demo pack at Brother Sunno as easily as a normal man might throw an egg. Sunno grabbed it from the air and slapped it onto the leg of the comms tower. Made redundant by the shattering of the world’s data network, the tower was to be felled just the same, as insisted upon by Adeptus Astartes thoroughness.

  A fitful wind moaned through tension cables, wrapping short-lived veils of dust around support struts. Brusc glanced skyward. The sun was a round circle, a hole punched in dark cloth. Brighter than in the storms of the previous day, still it could be stared at with unshielded eyes.

  Sunno’s neophyte, Doneal, signalled from a roof on the other side of the compound, hand in the air and fore­finger describing a circle.

  ‘That’s the last, brother,’ Sunno said, dragging Brusc’s attention from the dark skies. ‘Doneal and Marcomar are done.’

  ‘Good. We shall leave nothing for the orks,’ said Brusc, his voice projecting from his helmet’s vox-grille.

  ‘To Cataphraxes then,’ said Sunno.

  ‘Immediately. Neophytes, rejoin us.’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ the two young Space Marines said in unison.

  The field hospital heaved with activity. Ork corpses from the recent assault lay along every road. Dying men screamed. Shouting squads of Jopal Indentured hurried about, stripping equipment from the prefabricatums and the dead, moving debris from the evacuation’s path. Machine noise roared high periodically, drowning out the voices of men. Earth movers grumbled, shunting aside squealing piles of metal. In the marshalling yard, tanks puttered as their drivers ran engines gently to clear them of dust.

  This lone subgroup of the Black Templars Ash Wastes Crusade gathered before their Rhino, Cataphraxes.

  ‘How long until they come, my lords?’ asked Doneal.

  ‘Not long, boy,’ said Sunno. ‘Not long.’

  ‘At least the clear skies are holding.’

  Brusc shot the boy a dark look. Ordinarily light of spirit, Brusc was not currently disposed to optimism. ‘The Season of Shadows is yet to begin in earnest. It might not last,’ he said. He looked up again, searching for something the others could not see. ‘In truth we are at the mercy of the weather, whatever it does.’

  Doneal wordlessly asked for clarification.

  ‘Ash storms might mask us as easily as they could kill us, neophyte,’ said Sunno. ‘When our dust plumes go skyward, the orks can see us from miles away.’

  Brusc acknowledged Sunno’s statement with a noise in his throat.

  The Black Templars Rhino Cataphraxes waited at the mouth of the complex’s central square, black armour rubbed down to its undercoat by the fury of Armageddon’s abrasive winds. A pintle-mounted storm bolter topped its front.

  Inside his blank-faced Crusader helm, Sunno smiled. ‘Cataphraxes’s engine is cold, but he is ready, brother. Can you feel his anticipation?’

  ‘I cannot,’ said Brusc. ‘I do not share your affinity for the machine’s soul.’

  ‘Such a shame, brother. His is a holy soul, vengeful. He hears news of Osric’s fall and wishes to avenge his brother.’

  Osric had fallen in battle with the orks. He had been Brusc’s last neophyte before he won through to the Sword Brethren. He had been Brusc’s friend.

  Seven large haulers were behind the tank, nose to tail in a convoy line wrapped round all sides of the hospital’s central square. Double-decker tractor units provided motive power. Their armoured cabs were equipped with stacked pairs of ball-mounted heavy stubbers. Each tractor unit was motivated by six double tyres
as tall as men. Massive, articulated trailers already loaded with a container apiece waited behind them. These were built to the same basic standard template construct pattern as the prefabricatums. Had they time to properly dismantle the hospital then the wards would have been stacked atop the containers, fitting together like child’s construction bricks, but there was no time, and the hospital was to be destroyed.

  Medicae orderlies and sisters hospitaller were coming out of the emptying wards, carrying the last, most seriously wounded patients aboard. Brusc wondered which truck carried Osric’s body.

  ‘Brother Sunno, go to Cataphraxes,’ he ordered. ‘Neophyte Doneal, you are to remain with your master. Man Cataphraxes’s armament. Keep your eyes sharp.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘Neophyte Marcomar, you have no master. Until you are chosen again you will remain with me.’

  The neophyte fell in behind him silently. He had lost his own knight several days before the squad had come upon the hospital, and remained withdrawn.

  ‘You have replaced your rifle’s dust cover,’ Brusc said approvingly.

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘Good. A warrior should guard his wargear with his life. Honour your weapons the way you honour the Emperor, and both will shield you.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  They went to the administration building, a prefabricatum identical to all the others, marked out only by the wind-scoured image of a cracked chalice emblazoned upon the side.

  The doors to the unit were open. Sister Rosa, administratrix of the hospital, directed her staff. She was framed in the building’s interior light, bright in the grim noon.

  ‘We are ready,’ said Brusc.

  ‘As are we,’ said Sister Rosa. Her rad-marked face was harried, features drawn with stress and lack of sleep. ‘There are seven we cannot move. They will suffer if we try.’

  ‘Do you wish us to administer mercy?’

  ‘We do not need you to perform our duties for us, brother. My sisters do so now.’