As the tentacle rose again, Kor’sarro reopened the vox-channel. ‘All Hunters, whoever can hear me, converge on my position!’
The vast tentacle slammed down into the ground again, the force of the impact almost throwing several of the White Scars from their bikes. But it is said that the sons of Chogoris are born in the saddle, and they all maintained control of their machines. This time, the ice sheet cracked, and a nearby defence bastion was swallowed whole as a vast chasm opened up.
‘Does anyone read me?’ Kor’sarro called again, steering wildly to avoid a massive shard of ice flung across his path by the tentacle’s flailing. The animal lowing continued, so loud now that even with his helmet systems engaged Kor’sarro was almost deafened.
‘Hunter One,’ the response came over the vox. ‘This is Hunter Three, inbound on your position. Stand by.’
‘Hunter Three?’ Kor’sarro replied, uncaring that his voice was tinged with incredulity. He heard a savage roar of joy from his companions, which was drowned out seconds later by the sound of a trio of hellstrike missiles streaking overhead from Hunter Three’s undamaged wing, before slamming into the writhing tentacle.
The monstrous organ was consumed in fire, two hundred metres of it tearing away under the missiles’ barrage. The separated appendage reared hideously into the air, standing upright for a moment before crashing down. The ice cracked, and the obscene tentacle collapsed through the wound it had made.
But the beast would not be killed simply by severing its limbs. Whatever lay at the heart of the writhing mass was still protected in the ground beneath the promethium plant.
‘Hunters,’ Kor’sarro said. ‘We shall draw the beast from its lair. When its body is exposed, strike it down.’
The bikers powered on across the icebound plains, the jagged crystal formations becoming denser as the ruined promethium plant was left far behind. The White Scars’ skills were tested to the full as they swerved around crystals as sharp as diamonds. A shadow passed over Kor’sarro’s band, and an instant later a rearing crystal stack shattered into a billion pieces, showering the White Scars with razor-sharp fragments.
The tentacle slammed down behind the racing bikers, its leathery hide pierced with countless shards of crystalline shrapnel. The tentacle reared and thrashed as it bled the clear liquid that must have served it as blood across the ice. Another tentacle arched high into the air and came down with a ground-shaking impact in a great loop in front of the White Scars, trapping their escape.
But the beast had overextended itself. Its vast, globular body had emerged from the smoking crater at the heart of the promethium plant as it had stretched itself further and further in pursuit of its prey. A pulsating mountain of unformed flesh rolled out of the chasm to flatten the buildings of the plant. Processing stacks toppled and machinery exploded as the creature tore down the works of man in its eagerness to catch those who fled it.
‘Now!’ Kor’sarro said. ‘All Hunters, strike for its heart!’
The skies were split by the sonic boom of the Thunderhawks soaring high overhead. Every weapon of every gunship was fired as one, hellstrike missiles, cannon shells and las-beams lancing out across the sky.
The pulsating core of the beast erupted in a fountain of vile ichor and was consumed in flames. The tentacles arched and thrashed, looping high as if to shield the beast from its attackers. As the last of the tentacles sank into the banks of black smoke, Hunters One and Five came in to land near Kor’sarro and his warriors and the Master of the Hunt led his retinue up the access ramp of his command gunship and into the waiting bay. What remained of the plant was fully ablaze, a column of black smoke rising many kilometres into the atmosphere.
Just what vile sorceries Voldorius had enacted here Kor’sarro had no way of knowing, but it seemed to him that some creature from this world’s pre-history that slumbered beneath the ice sheet had been awakened by seismic charges. The act had been timed so that the beast would arise at the very moment Kor’sarro was facing the mutant atop the city’s highest peak.
As the ramp closed behind him and the Thunderhawk lifted into the air, Kor’sarro vowed he would not allow Voldorius a moment’s respite. The image of the insignia on the dead soldier’s armour came to mind once more. The four stars on the crimson shield. If he could discover the source of that insignia, the hunt would be back under way.
Kor’sarro swore that Voldorius would pay for the crimes he had enacted on Cernis IV. They would be added to the millennia-long litany. Justice would be done, by Kor’sarro’s own hand. This was his oath, on his very life.
‘Before the rise of the Imperium of Man, the greatest, most deranged minds created machines so small they could invade the very blood and make war upon their creators’ enemies from within. Once released, those machines replicated, until they had invaded the blood of an entire planetary population. And then, at a single word, they arose. Ten billion bled as one, and an entire world drowned in the blood.
But something went wrong, as ever it will when man dabbles with such powers. The weapon escaped the shackles of its own being, and would not obey its masters. And so it came to pass that the world which the weapon had destroyed so spectacularly was set apart from the greater realm of man.
The Emperor came, and in time that world knew the tread of man once more. Yet, the weapon remained hidden for cold millennia, until a servant of the Machine discovered it, waiting, in the dust and ashes beneath his very feet. And that servant, who had been cast out by his brethren, brought his discovery to the vile one, his true master. At his word, the weapon was resurrected, and at his word, it was set free across not one world, but a thousand. Only when the weapon had invaded the bodies of countless billions did the vile one order it to rise up and turn upon its carriers. Such glorious slaughter was achieved that night that the vile one was granted apotheosis. He cast off his mortal heritage and became as a god. But he would be yet more.
The weapon was expended, reduced once more to a core of a trillion nanytes. These the vile one bound into the form of the prisoner, and held captive, until the time came to unleash the power upon the galaxy once more.
The sons of man sought to destroy all knowledge of the weapon, to deny its existence, as if by locking facts away they could starve reality and undo that which had been done. But there are those who move in the shadows, who see what others do not. These benighted souls with eyes of black harbour such knowledge, and they wait, biding their time. Soon. That time is soon.’
– The Heretic Archivist of the Gethsemane Reclusiam,
Third Book of Quothes (redacted)
Chapter 3
Quintus
Ekit Skarl, equerry to Lord Voldorius, paused in the vestibule before stepping onto the bridge of The Ninth Eye. He took a deep breath, steeling himself to face his infernal master, to enter the baleful presence of the daemon prince that had ravaged the hated Imperium for so many long centuries. Skarl was but the latest in a long line of mortals Voldorius had employed to deal with the tiresome and mundane realities of administration, logistics and politics. He had not chosen the role for himself, though he accepted that he had certainly invited it by his dabbling in the forbidden doctrines of the Ruinous Powers. The equerry’s continued existence relied solely on his fulfilling his master’s needs, without doubt or hesitation. He could afford to show not a single iota of weakness.
Beyond the shadows in which the equerry lurked sprawled the bridge of the Desolator-class battleship that had served as Voldorius’s flagship for three millennia, since the daemon prince had wrested it from the fleet of his rival Lord Commander Amexon of the Alpha Legion. A raised central walkway stretched a hundred metres forwards, terminating in armoured viewports ten metres tall. Below the level of the walkway were the bridge crew stations, in which hundreds of hard-wired crew-serfs spent every moment of their tortured existence tending to the operation of the vessel’s ancient systems.
Straightening his black robes and assuming a suitably meek stoop, Skarl
stepped out from the vestibule’s shadows and onto the decking plate of the bridge. Two dozen crew-serfs glanced upwards in his direction, their jealousy at his freedoms and privileges writ large across their scabrous faces. Fools, Skarl thought, all of them. They should count themselves blessed that they lived such uncomplicated lives, he mused bitterly as he stalked past.
As he walked the length of the walkway, Skarl reviewed in his mind the news he had come to deliver to his master. The Ninth Eye was closing on the world of Quintus, a planet that Lord Voldorius had invested much in subjugating, for it was the perfect base for his forthcoming plans. The daemon prince’s followers had fought a month-long war to crush the planet’s militias, crippling its contacts with the greater Imperium in short order so that no outside interference would be forthcoming. Now, that conquest was largely complete, allowing the next phase of his master’s plans to begin.
The equerry bore other news too.
Approaching Lord Voldorius, Skarl assumed an even deeper bow, feeling the fell power that radiated from his master’s huge form in sickening waves. Some were so afflicted that they would vomit, void their bowels or collapse upon the floor bleeding from every orifice. Skarl knew how pathetic his master found such displays, and it was one of the equerry’s many tasks to ensure such weaklings were not allowed to enter the master’s presence or his service, unless of course it served the daemon’s own purposes to see his enemies reduced to vomiting, quivering wrecks at his feet.
Casting off such thoughts, Skarl sidled up to his master and assumed a posture of abject subservience. His forehead pressed to the corroded metal decking, he awaited his master’s acknowledgement.
‘You may stand, equerry,’ Voldorius said. The daemon prince had never once addressed Skarl by name.
Allowing himself to breathe, Skarl rose, though only to a low bow. He dared not stand fully erect in his master’s presence lest the action be taken for insubordination.
‘Speak, equerry,’ Lord Voldorius ordered, his voice laced with ancient menace that filled Skarl with cold dread no matter how many times he heard it.
‘My master, I bring word that the resistance on Quintus is all but crushed.’ He was mindful to phrase the missive in such a way that it was not his own assessment of the situation on the world below, but someone else’s. Someone who would bear responsibility were it proved incorrect.
Skarl awaited a response from his master, not daring to raise his gaze any higher than the daemon’s power armour-encased feet. It was long moments before Voldorius replied. ‘What of Nullus?’
‘My lord Nullus has come aboard this past hour, my master. He and his warriors are returned from Cernis Four in glory.’
A palpable wave of displeasure washed over Skarl as his master reacted to this last statement. Dread welled up inside the equerry. ‘Why then is he not before me, apprising his master of his great victory?’ Voldorius grated.
‘My master, I…’ Skarl stammered, dropping to the deck once more and pressing his face against the metal at his master’s feet. Then, another voice sounded from the far end of the bridge, and Skarl allowed himself to breathe a sigh a relief.
‘I came as soon as I was able, Voldorius.’ The voice belonged to Nullus, his master’s most trusted servant, if trust could be said to exist between such fell beings. Skarl remained prostrate as he listened to the metallic tread of Nullus’s armoured boots approaching along the walkway.
‘I had certain dedications to make,’ Nullus said. ‘In honour of my victory.’
‘What of Cernis?’ Voldorius growled. Skarl became aware that a tense hush had descended upon the bridge, as if all present knew that bad news would bring their master’s displeasure down upon them.
‘The spawn of Jaghatai took the bait,’ Nullus replied, relish obvious in his voice. ‘They thought they had us, but were disabused of that notion.’
‘Survivors?’ Voldorius enquired.
‘The beast ate its fill, Voldorius, of that I am quite sure.’
‘How sure?’ Voldorius snapped back.
‘None could have survived the destruction we unleashed upon the refinery. And I took the life of their champion with my own blade.’
‘And none could have followed?’ Voldorius growled, his voice low and tainted with menace.
‘None, my master,’ Nullus responded. ‘Their hunt is ended for good.’
Voldorius considered Nullus’s words for some time before he replied. ‘You have served well, as ever you do when facing the scarred ones, Nullus. You shall be rewarded.’ The daemon turned his mighty bulk towards the viewports, and raised a clawed hand to point into the void. ‘What of Quintus, Nullus? The equerry tells me the subjugation is all but complete.’
At the mention of his name, Skarl allowed himself to straighten up, knowing that he would be addressed again soon. As he did so, he saw that the scarred face of Nullus was upon him, those soulless eyes boring into his own.
‘The subjugation is entirely complete, Voldorius,’ Nullus said without turning his gaze from the equerry. ‘On that you have my word.’
Nullus broke eye contact with Skarl, and turned his black gaze towards the scene beyond the viewports. Skarl felt profound relief that he was no longer the subject of Nullus’s attentions, for the lieutenant was known as a capricious and callous individual ill-disposed towards rivals or those who gainsaid his word. Nullus was, after all, Alpha Legion, while Skarl was but a man, and his continued existence was entirely at the forbearance of his masters.
‘What of the resistance?’ Voldorius asked. The daemon prince spoke the last word as if describing the foulest of deeds, as if the notion that mere mortals might attempt to stand before his designs was the worst possible affront.
Nullus hesitated before making his reply. It seemed to Skarl that the lieutenant was gathering his thoughts, lest he give Voldorius cause to become displeased. Then, Nullus answered.
‘What little opposition to your rule still remained after the purges of the Klanik Peninsula and the Olsta Line is now entirely crushed, Voldorius. The processing sites are now fully operational, and those who do not display total loyalty to their new masters are being culled.’
‘At what rate?’ Voldorius interjected.
‘The example we made of the Fourth Division paid dividends, my master,’ Nullus continued. ‘Twenty thousand heads now adorn the walls of the capital. Since then, the cull rate has dropped to around ten thousand a day, and I expect it to drop further still as the point is driven home. For every act of defiance, a thousand die as punishment. Soon, the resistance shall be entirely spent.’
Voldorius considered his lieutenant’s words. ‘A shame that the offerings must cease. The warp resounds to the death of multitudes, singing our glory across light years.’
Skarl scarcely dared interrupt his master, but he had other news to deliver. ‘My master… I…’
The bridge fell deathly silent, and Skarl felt not only the eyes of a hundred crew-serfs upon him, but those of his master too. Nausea welled up inside him as Voldorius radiated anger. The equerry swallowed hard to avoid vomiting across his master’s boots, for his life, at this moment, hung in the balance.
‘Speak, equerry,’ Skarl heard his master say. Behind the voice he could hear the wailing of anguished souls, those of the many thousands that had displeased the daemon throughout the millennia and paid the terrible price for doing so.
‘My master,’ Skarl said, fighting desperately to keep his voice level. ‘I bring word that the prisoner is awakened at last. The cell-masters await your coming.’
‘Be seated, my brothers,’ said Kor’sarro as he entered the strategium of the Lord of Heavens. The Space Marines inside bowed their heads before seating themselves around the circular chamber. The Master of the Hunt took his own seat, a marble throne surmounted with the skull of a fearsome tusk-drake. The beast had been slain in combat by old Jamuka Khan, Kor’sarro’s honoured predecessor, teacher and greatly-missed friend.
A week had passed since
the destruction of the Cernis Four refinery, and the Master of the Hunt had been afforded plenty of time to brood upon the whole affair. He had gone over every single detail of the events leading up to the assault, as well as the battle itself. He had gathered the most senior of his officers to the strategium. In his endless poring over every detail of the action on Cernis Four, he had found something.
‘Brother Sang,’ Kor’sarro addressed the Techmarine seated opposite him across the chamber. ‘The sensorium upload, if you will.’
‘By your command, my khan,’ replied Brother Sang. A multi-jointed, mechanical limb at the Techmarine’s back reached forwards, a data-spike at its end plugging into a terminal set in the decking. The spike whirred and buzzed, and then the light in the chamber dimmed. For a moment, all was dark, before a bright shaft of light formed in the centre of the chamber. Within the glowing column danced tiny motes, slowly resolving into an image of a frozen scene from the closing stages of the battle at Cernis Four.
All eyes in the chamber were turned towards the slowly spinning scene, projected in a three-dimensional image by ancient holo-generators set in the floor and ceiling.
‘My brothers,’ Kor’sarro said, looking to each of the Space Marines, one at a time. ‘What you see before you is a single frame, taken from the sensorium-core of my own power armour.’
After a few seconds, Kor’sarro nodded towards the Techmarine, and the scene blurred, before resolving itself again.
‘And here is the same scene, from Brother To’ban’s perspective.’ He nodded again, and the scene cycled through five more frames, each showing the same patch of rubble-strewn ground from a different angle.
‘None of us took note at the time, as we were all otherwise engaged,’ Kor’sarro went on, a wry smile forming at his lips. ‘But I have reviewed every upload, and I believe we have him.’
Several of the officers present began to speak, but Kor’sarro raised a hand, forestalling their questions. At another nod, Brother Sang caused the image of the war torn scene to zoom in on a single patch of ground. At the centre of the strategium, as if suspended in the column of bright light, was projected the image of a blood-splattered segment of armour.
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 7