On Wings of Blood

by Warhammer 40K

Another few shots, and the beast cried, its mouth wide. Kodachi shot into the tunnel at maximum speed. The Heldrake didn’t have time to realise its error, and it slammed hard into the cavern wall, erupting in a storm of fire. The flames that entered the tunnel lapped harmlessly against the wards of the Stormraven’s hull.

  Images flooded Aegir’s mind from the remaining pilots – all witnessing the demise of Heldrakes in a similar fashion. He smiled.

  The gunnery servitors and their pilots made short work of the fast but cumbersome Heldrakes, hitting them and retreating back through the tunnels, only to emerge in another part of the cavern to strike again. The daemons could not keep up with the Grey Knights. Once the gigantic Heldrakes had fallen, the rotflies came next. The Stormravens unseated the rotfly riders and destroyed them with multi-melta, bolter and cannon.

  Daemon after daemon fell to the guns of the Grey Knights Stormravens, their corpses falling from the sky.

  Now, brothers,+ Aegir communed. +Let us aid those on the ground.+

  Pelenas was into the Sixth Canticle. As the battle overhead shifted, he could feel his own rage adding to that of his brothers. Pure, unadulterated rage. He felt its power in him, its purity coursing through him, sending new energy through tired muscles and his aching sword arm. The wards inside his armour felt warm against his skin.

  He channelled the emotion towards the Grand Master, as Vardan Kai intoned a counter-chant. Pelenas recognised it at once. The potential in each syllable resounded in every chest and every throat. The battle-brothers opened their souls to the collective, feeling each emotion as richly as their first, willing it towards their locus.

  The Grand Master drank deeply from it. He reformed it around the words he sang, shaping it into something angular and sharp: a blade made of emotion and power, a seething mass of energy.

  As he reached the final couplet, the Grand Master released the energy as a brilliant dagger aimed at the daemon’s heart. It lodged in the daemon’s chest. Anahk’hir staggered back a few paces, bent over at the waist.

  ‘I name you, Anahk’hir Terrigassimal Yarnick,’ Vardan Kai thundered. ‘Back to your birth realm. I banish you by the rites of the Emperor of Mankind.’

  The daemon laughed, a sound that started in his belly and worked its way through his chest.

  ‘You should know that only a daemon’s true name holds any kind of power over them,’ he said.

  Pelenas glanced at his Grand Master, catching a glimmer of uncertainty.

  ‘I sense perplexity in you, Grand Master. Perhaps Nicodaemus sold you a falsehood.’

  Pelenas’ sword flashed, bisecting the daemon’s arm. As fast as the blow landed, ichor and muscle reknitted the wound. Kai’s own blade lashed out, only to be blocked by the rusting edge of the daemon’s weapon. Behind him, the ranks of the Grey Knights engaged in their own battles with the ranks of the Lords of Decay and the daemonkin.

  Nicodaemus?+ Pelenas pulsed to his superior.

  Focus on the canticles, brother-captain,+ came the clipped, steely reply.

  Pelenas channelled his hate into every blow. Grand Master Kai ducked and weaved, firing bolts of coruscating energy from his fingers as the psychic might of the Grey Knights First Brotherhood coursed through them both.

  As fast as Pelenas could land blows, Anahk’hir countered with his blade, blocking their swords and slicing at the two warriors. With each blow they landed, the daemon prince healed to strike back with greater speed. His plague cannon streamed disease and filth over the Grey Knights, engulfing warriors and consuming their sacred silver armour.

  Pelenas could feel their psyches being snuffed out like candles in a windstorm. And with each light that dwindled, there came a distracting barb of loss and pain.

  Grand Master Kai ducked under an arcing blow of the daemon’s sword. Pelenas took the opening to ram his sword deep into the daemon prince’s putrescent flesh, and ignited the psychic blade with a fragment of his energy. As Anahk’hir stumbled, Grand Master Kai drove his blade into the beast’s abdomen.

  The daemon prince lurched backwards. A trio of Storm­ravens zipped past, strafing gunfire across the cavern floor and into Anahk’hir’s body.

  The sounds of a thousand books being torn asunder accompanied Anahk’hir unfurling his wings. He beat the air with a sickening sound of pallid flesh tearing. The daemon lifted into the air, and a horde of his minions charged into the Grey Knights.

  Aegir saw the daemon take off. Kodachi looped around, gathering Iocaste and the remaining pilots. They approached on a high-pass vector, all weapons firing. The daemon bellowed battle cries as cannons ripped fresh holes in his wings. Rounds were absorbed into his flesh without harm.

  It incensed Aegir that such a being dared to exist. This particular specimen, and its legion, had robbed him of three of his squadron. It could not be suffered to live.

  Aegir,+ Iocaste pulsed, seeing the daemon alter his course to follow Aegir’s craft. But Aegir was too far gone. His emotion boiled over. Blue lightning played across the surface of Kodachi, and it caught fire.

  Aegir willed the machine-spirit for just a fraction more power. It complied, pushing itself beyond normal operational tolerances. Kodachi, aflame with indigo fire, barrelled towards Anahk’hir. It collided with the daemon in mid-air.

  Brother-captain, do you feel that?+

  How can I not, Grand Master?+ Pelenas replied.

  Begin the Cleansing,+ he urged.

  Where?+

  On that Stormraven. Now, brother-captain!+

  A pillar of pure white light crashed through the cavern, enveloping the fallen daemon. The cyclonic wind blasted Anahk’hir, and his form shrivelled. The cannon fell free from his atrophying body and fluids leaked from every pore. Lice, maggots and worms scuttled into the light, only to be vaporised.

  Vardan Kai took out a small cube from a belt pouch and hurled it at the fallen daemon.

  ‘I’ll gift you anything,’ Anahk’hir said. ‘A life without dying. Without the burden of duty to an unseen spectre. Without service to masters with agendas and schemes. Without politicking or fear–’

  The Grand Master did not hesitate. In a flash of unlight and unknowing, Anahk’hir disappeared. Grand Master Vardan Kai strode over to the cube; he stared at it where it lay on the ground. He picked it up in a gauntleted hand and brought it to eye level.

  ‘We are the Emperor’s might, and we know no fear.’

  Iocaste landed on the cavern floor as the last of the Lords of Decay were dispatched. To treaty with daemons was heresy, and heresy begat death. As their patron vanished, so did their will to fight. Captain Roga’s corpse was incinerated, along with those of his traitor brethren.

  Iocaste watched with a heavy heart as the reclaimators picked across the battlefield, salvaging armour and weapons from the dead, and eased the mighty Stormraven carcasses from the twisted wreckage of their crash sites. Every trace of the incursion was scoured from Sturmhex Prime.

  Talwar and the remaining Stormravens flew repeated sorties back to the Castigator until what remained of the First Brotherhood was back aboard.

  His task finally complete, Iocaste made his way through arterial walkways and connecting corridors, heading direct to the medicae. The salt tang, once tasted, had never left his mouth. He entered the observation gantry. The bitter stench of counterseptics and astringents dug through the filtration systems of his armour.

  Aegir lay on a steel slab, his armour being carefully removed by a team of red-cloaked adepts and laid on a cot lined with sapphire silk. They removed a vambrace, revealing seared skin, patchworked in the brilliant red colour of regrowth. His armour sockets were ringed with black, charred callouses.

  Aegir,+ he pulsed, doubting he would even get a reply.

  I live, Iocaste.+

  How?+ Iocaste’s system flooded with relief.

  The Emperor protects, brother.+
>
  Aegir opened up his mind, allowing Iocaste to see what he’d seen in the last moments leading up to the crash.

  The pillar of light. The cube of xenos design in the Grand Master’s hand. The betrayal deep within Aegir’s soul. Aegir raised his head and stared at Iocaste.

  Iocaste removed his helm, making direct eye contact with his squadron leader. For a fraction of a second, without speech or thought, they agreed and sealed a pact with a brief nod.

  Eighteen decks below, in a sealed section of the Castigator’s foredecks known to only two, Vardan Kai strode on sandalled feet, having long since removed his armour. The grey robe he now wore swept along the ground.

  ‘Grand Master.’ Inquisitor Nicodaemus Quixos’ voice was cold as iron, but mesmeric. ‘You have the device.’ It sounded as if it should have been a question, but it felt more like a statement.

  Kai held out the cube to the inquisitor, keen to distance himself from the xenos device and the daemon it contained.

  ‘The tesseract labyrinth is such an elegant device, do you not think?’ Nicodaemus Quixos spun the cube between his fingers as he spoke.

  ‘I do not, inquisitor. That daemon,’ he said, pointing at the inquisitor’s hand, ‘should have been purged, not captured.’

  ‘But those were not your orders, Grand Master.’

  Grand Master Kai turned to leave the chamber. He thought of the warriors he’d lost in the battle, and the decades it would take them to return to their former strength. He knew that Quixos would be skimming his thoughts, and paused by the bulkhead hatch.

  ‘I hope the ends truly justify the means, inquisitor.’

  When I felt the lodestone pull once more, it was many years later. Quixos had been declared traitor by then, sentenced to be captured, tortured for confession, and killed. His part in the demise of my brothers can never be forgotten, and will never be forgiven – even when he stands before the Golden Throne, and weeps.

  – Extract from the personal journal of Aegir,

  Techmarine of the First Brotherhood.

  Long may he stand at the Emperor’s side.

  WRAITHBOUND

  J C Stearns

  ‘Prince Eidear has begun his attack run.’ Liosa’s voice echoed in Seoci’s head. Even the crystalline earpiece could not filter out the harsh, aggressive tone. All around them, engines whined hot. Seoci’s fingers tapped, and his interceptor’s voice joined the chorus.

  ‘Have you ever done this before?’ asked Padruic. There was apprehension in his voice. ‘Do we wait for her to accelerate first?’

  Seoci sighed and gazed to his right. He couldn’t see Padruic, of course. The canopy of his companion’s fighter was shrouded from the outside, as was his own. The two of them hovered in the misty expanse of the webway, flanking and slightly trailing Liosa. It was good Padruic was speaking with him privately, for Liosa would have been displeased by the communication. Empathy was an emotion the exarch had left behind long ago.

  ‘War mask,’ Seoci replied. ‘It is time, brother. Focus yourself. There is time enough for thoughts of worries and fears. Let Khaine’s hot breath stir your blood, and carry such apprehension far away.’ Padruic had only recently come to their shrine after a long and successful walk on the Path of the Healer, and his relative inexperience still showed. That was the reason he was matched with pilots as experienced as Seoci and Liosa. Outside, in the cerulean fog, the roar of engines grew to a crescendo. They were not the only squadron, nor were the Crimson Hunters alone. Vypers hung in the air, along with clusters of Falcons and Fire Prisms. He could even make out a few Venom attack craft, clad in the vivid purple of Princess Isbeil, amid the sea of Lugganath orange. Around all of them hovered the Windriders in their dozens, motionless, engines straining to tear loose. So loud, the vibrations of the cacophony thrummed against Seoci’s ribs, even within the sound-dampened cockpit. Above it all, as if this section of the webway had been constructed with a sky, the massive curving keel of Isbeil’s personal void barque, its projected gravity anchor the only reason the assembly below did not crash into one another.

  It would have been easier if Isbeil and Eidear could work as allies. The intricate carved spars of the portal they swarmed before were titanic in the scope they encompassed, their furthest reaches lost to sight amid the swirling mists of the webway. The Helheart Gate was large enough to accommodate not only the massed throng surrounding it, but the equally large force that was even now beginning its assault from orbit. The two arrogant Corsair leaders had petulantly refused to join battle on the same side, although they had eventually agreed to allow the craftworlders to split their efforts between both avenues of attack and to coordinate that.

  ‘But yes,’ said Seoci. ‘To answer your question, many times. From the webway and its thoughtless, formless oblivion to a world of screaming sensation the next. It’s much like being born, I imagine.’

  Padruic’s only response was a grunt, and Seoci nodded in approval. The slight of having his turn of phrase snubbed was a small price to pay for the relief of knowing his companion had centred himself.

  ‘One,’ said Liosa. Seoci took a breath. It was time for the war mask.

  ‘Two,’ the exarch continued. Behind Seoci’s eyes, he could feel the change. So much further along the path than Padruic, Seoci could don his war mask as easily as slipping on a glove. The hot wind coursed through his mind, cleansing his thoughts. In the wake of Khaine’s breath, there was no room for trivial thoughts like fear, worry, or especially mercy. Replacing them came the memories of all the previous times he had slipped on the mask. Memories of bloodshed and lives extinguished. A parade of experiences that might have broken Seoci if he hadn’t forgotten them each time he cast the mask aside.

  ‘Now,’ hissed Liosa.

  The gravity anchor flickered even as the webway parted before them, the titanic arching spars of the Helheart Gate flaring to life with brilliant violet energy to create a rippling portal, their entry to true space. Liosa howled in their earpieces as the Crimson Hunters burst forth, carrying wispy blue contrails behind them. Padruic howled as well, and Seoci became aware that he was screaming with them.

  Florid or not, his description had been apt. If they had not trained for webway insertions just such as this, he might have been lost in confusion. The webway had been dark, but the planet was lit by a harsh white noonday sun, mitigated somewhat by a cover of toxic smog high in the atmosphere. The mass of eldar craft that had hung suspended around him in the mists of the webway was nothing compared to the clutter of the city they emerged into, with rickety buildings crammed together in cramped lines. Although the municipal square the portal opened onto was large by the standards of a being on foot, the supersonic interceptors could impact the palisade of rusted structures at its far border in less time than it took to blink. Even the ethereal grace and reactions that every eldar possessed would not have been enough to help them make the turn; only the razor-sharp training of the Hunters enabled their squadron to pull up in time, the thunderous force of their sharp ascent buckling the street beneath them.

  Targeting sensors and tracking systems registered the enemy before Seoci even saw them. Pinpoint flares projected on the crystal canopy showed him the foe: a handful of slow, filthy ork aircraft, littering the skies only to compete against one another in pointless death races, or to fire their weapons into the air for the sheer thrill of it.

  The white stabs of laser fire from the interceptors tore through the ork planes like tissue paper, the pilots and crew immolated in mid-air before they were even aware of the eldar attackers. Seoci didn’t need to hear the words to know that a cry went up among the greenskins below, who scrambled to meet the enemy suddenly upon them.

  Liosa banked sharply, scanning the ground for optimal targets. There were many to choose from. It had only been a single orbital cycle since the orks had conquered the planet from the mon-keigh, but they had wasted no time in ex
ploiting what resources it had. The primitive humans had long since stripped away any natural wealth, leaving the planet to serve them solely as a cluster of factory-cities separated by vast dry wastelands, good only for producing the components for their crude aircraft and laughable skimmer technology. Not that the planet had been without resources when the orks arrived; there would have been stockpiles of raw materials brought in from desolate mining worlds or asteroid extraction operations across the sector. Of course, the industrial resources were far more useful to the orks – the huge cities were filled from edge to edge with billions of machines, which could be disassembled and repurposed for whatever crude vision the orkish mind could concoct.

  ‘Sighted,’ said Liosa. Responding to the merest flick of his eye, the secondary visual display projected onto the canopy to show Seoci the ground below. They soared above the rooftops, high enough to avoid collision but still close enough to read the foul orkish graffiti on their banners, if any of them had ever wasted enough time learning orkish scrawl. Relaying data from Liosa’s instructions, the scores of highlighted targets beneath them began showing informative runes, one glowing brightly to command their attention.

  Embedded in the top of a squat, square-edged building, the battery of guns was crewed not by full-grown orks but instead by the tiny, squabbling vermin known as gretchin. Seoci sneered in disgust. The enemy might be pitiful, but their guns were not.

  ‘Attend, brother,’ said Seoci, calling for Padruic’s attention, ‘those weapons are a particular danger. We’ve encountered their like before.’ The spitting capacitors attached to the artillery pieces were still building a charge, but once they reached capacity they could direct a powerful magnetic beam, capable of dashing aircraft against the ground with destructive force.

  ‘Confirmed.’ Padruic’s voice was calm, assured, economically answering both his brother and his exarch with a single word. His pulse laser hit the building first, followed a split second later by his companions’ fire. The thrum of their lasers was the rich, deep-throated growl of the great cat, confident and laconic, effortless in their destruction. Before them brick, mortar and plasteel vanished amid clouds of fire and superheated dust.