‘This armour, brothers, was worn by one of the soldiers accompanying the traitors.’ Several of those present nodded in recognition as memories of the confrontation with the Alpha Legion and their human followers came to mind. ‘I have asked Brother Qan’karro to identify it.’
All heads turned towards the strike force’s most senior psychic warrior, a Space Marine Librarian. The White Scars knew them as Stormseers. Brother Qan’karro stood, his gnarled force staff in hand, and scanned the chamber. The Stormseer’s face was lined with age and honour scars, his skin having the texture and hue of old oak. Though he was ancient, Brother Qan’karro was counted amongst the Chapter’s most fearsome warriors, his rank and seniority broadly equal to the Master of the Hunt’s. Though Kor’sarro held command of the Third Company, there were few matters in which he would not welcome the counsel of the old Stormseer.
‘The armour bears a device, four stars on a red field,’ Qan’karro said. ‘We have consulted the archives, and found three hundred and nine instances of this device in current use in this Segmentum alone’. Kor’sarro saw several of his officers make eye contact with one another, evidently believing the odds too long. But the Master of the Hunt felt wry amusement as the Stormseer continued.
‘Many we can ignore,’ Qan’karro said, ‘for they represent only mercantile concerns of one sort or another. One more we can most certainly eliminate, for the device was used as the standard of Rogue Trader Huss, emblazoning every vessel in the disastrous Magellanic Expedition.’
Several of Kor’sarro’s officers nodded at the mention of that cursed venture, which several Space Marine Chapter Masters had spoken out against to little avail.
‘In another case, the kin-slavers of the Alcaak Dystopia used the device to brand their victims, but we all know what befell those cruel bastards.’ Many of those slavers were now themselves enslaved. They deserved every torture the dark eldar had inflicted on them.
‘Of the dozen or so uses of the device that remain, one stands out. Having meditated long on the matter, my brothers and I are in agreement.’ The Space Marines waited for Qan’karro to expound on his deduction, and Kor’sarro knew that the old warrior was now fully in his element, even enjoying himself, if such a thing were possible.
‘Go on please, honoured seer,’ Kor’sarro said, bowing his head slightly towards Qan’karro, the faintest of smiles touching his lips. ‘We await your wisdom with great anticipation.’
The Stormseer’s glance told Kor’sarro that he was well aware that he was being made sport of, if only in a friendly manner. Qan’karro got to the point. ‘The household guard of the governor of a world called Quintus,’ the Stormseer announced. ‘A world a mere five light years distant, and on the same secondary conduit as Cernis.’
Kor’sarro delved into his memories of nearby space, calling to mind the endless charts and maps he and his senior commanders had gone over time and again in their hunt for Voldorius. Yes, the Quintus system came to him.
‘The bulwark-world?’ Kor’sarro said.
‘Aye, huntsman,’ the Stormseer replied, before expounding. ‘But Quintus has of late been afflicted by a warp storm, codified Argenta. It is only in the last months that Argenta has quietened to an unprecedented degree, allowing free passage to and from the system for the first time in months.’
‘You believe this significant?’ asked Kor’sarro.
‘Indeed I do,’ the Stormseer replied, looking around at the gathered Space Marines before his gaze settled on the slowly revolving image of the blood-splattered armour. ‘Quintus represents a convergence, in more ways than one. For a start, it is a warp nexus, a point at which several dozen conduits meet. Whoever controls the system can extend his influence to a score of others and dominate the entire region.’
Kor’sarro nodded, picturing the stellar maps. Quintus did indeed sit at a strategically desirable meeting of warp routes. For centuries, the world had stood guard against alien incursions from nearby wilderness space. Until, that is, warp storm Argenta had caused the world to fall from power. With the warp storm receding, the balance of powers would shift once more. But in whose favour?
Even as the thought came to him, another of those present spoke up. ‘Something tells me this convergence of which you speak is not merely a strategic matter, Brother Qan’karro.’ The speaker was the Third Company’s senior Chaplain, a black-clad veteran by the name of Xia’ghan. ‘Other forces are at work here, are they not?’
The Stormseer nodded to his comrade, a dour expression falling across his features. ‘Indeed, honoured one,’ he replied. ‘All of the signs point to something being unleashed upon Quintus. Something from the dark times. Something terrible.’
Silence fell across the strategium as the Stormseer’s message sank in. After long moments, Kor’sarro looked around at his senior officers, and spoke.
‘If what our brother tells us is true, and I have no reason to doubt that it is, then Voldorius must be stopped before he can bring about whatever calamity he has planned. I am pledged to bring the head of the vile one to the Hall of Skies, this I have promised to the Great Khan himself. I will not allow the daemon to entrap us again, or to escape our grasp, and I expect every one of you and your men to stand with me on this. Much rides upon it.
‘Brothers, we go to Quintus, for there our hunt must end, for our honour, for the Great Khan’s, and for our primarch’s.’
Every Space Marine in the strategium responded as one. ‘Honoured be his name!’
Skarl bowed deeply as he stepped aside to allow Voldorius and Nullus by. In front of the equerry was a pair of mighty iron doors, deeply corroded and encrusted with the forbidden runes of the Chaos Gods. Skarl had spent most of his life in the presence of such fell sigils, but even he was cowed by the sheer malignance that radiated from this particular combination.
With a deep rumble, the doors slid apart, a hellish, flickering glow filling the widening gap. Before the entrance was even fully open, Voldorius stepped through into the cell. Skarl waited as Nullus followed his master, cowering despite himself as the lieutenant cast a threatening glance his way.
Only when both warriors were through the portal did the equerry follow in their wake.
Skarl had never entered the cell before. What it held inside was so valuable to his master that few were ever allowed to do so, upon pain of torture or, if lucky, death. As he passed through, he took in the unfamiliar surroundings. The cell was in fact a large, round chamber, its vaults lost in darkness far overhead. The walls were of brass, stained by centuries of runoff from dozens of corroded grilles. Other stains were in evidence too, great arcs of long-dried blood and other bodily fluids lending the walls a mottled finish. Sconces were mounted all around the chamber, their flickering flames casting the illumination Skarl had seen from outside.
Voldorius stopped in the centre of the huge chamber, and Nullus came to stand beside him. Skarl followed a respectful distance behind them, still bowing, eventually coming to stand behind Voldorius. Before the three stood a pair of cell-masters. They were massive brutes, clad in heavy leather aprons encrusted with filth. The bare skin of their arms and upper chests glistened with sweat in the flickering light of the torches, and the face of each was obscured by a heavy mask, piggish eyes just visible behind the thin visor. At their belts the cell-masters carried an assortment of crude tools, their general purpose clearly evident to the equerry. In his hand, each held a long electro-prod. The two implements crossed in between the two men. At Voldorius’s approach, the cell-masters raised the prods, a brief arc of electricity spitting between the tips before they were brought upright, revealing what they guarded.
Behind the two cell-masters was a brass orb, perhaps two metres in diameter, its entire polished surface carved with impossibly intricate lines and devices. Skarl’s gaze was drawn into the unnatural patterns, and it took a formidable effort to turn his eyes away from them. Any not promised to the Ruinous Powers were likely to become entrapped by the sigils and forms, the
ir soul forfeited by the very act of looking upon them. It was only when he tore his glance away from the orb’s surface that Skarl realised that the entire construction was floating above the deck, held aloft by invisible lines of arcane force. Powerful sorceries were at work, for no mere anti-grav generator was being utilised.
A preternatural quiet descended on the cell as Voldorius stepped between the two attendants. Even the flickering torches mounted upon the wall fell silent, though their flames still danced.
The daemon prince halted in front of the orb and laid a clawed hand upon its surface. Red and orange energies played between claw and brass. No mere mortal could have survived that contact, for only Voldorius had power over what lay before him. The daemon prince closed his eyes, his bestial face becoming unusually still for a moment. Then he opened them once again and spoke, his voice shattering the silence of the chamber.
‘Awaken, prisoner,’ Voldorius grated. ‘And know your fate!’
After a pause that felt like an hour, a whisper filled the chamber. ‘None can know their fate, Voldorius. Not even you.’
The voice seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere, from a million throats and from none. The voice was not a voice at all, but the mere echo of one, separated by impossible gulfs from its source. Even as the ghostly words faded, Voldorius replied.
‘You will obey me, prisoner, or you will know such pain as even you cannot imagine.’
Again, a long silence preceded the prisoner’s response, throughout which ancient thoughts formed and reformed in the ether before they coalesced into words.
‘We have felt the pain of billions, Voldorius, as well you know.’ An ethereal undertone spoke of anguish and despair, but also of resignation. ‘Nothing you can do can make us obey.’
Skarl shuddered as waves of fell anger radiated from his master before Voldorius spoke once more. ‘I have kept you for two thousand years, contained you, tempered you. Now I awaken you, and you shall do as I command. Of that you can be assured.’
A displeasure that few witnessed and survived was written across the daemon’s face. Through clenched teeth, Voldorius addressed his equerry.
‘Prepare the meat-casters,’ Voldorius growled. ‘Send word that the orb is to be unsealed, at last. The prisoner is to be broken, his will is to be destroyed, his mind is to be shattered, whatever the cost. I only order that no matter the ruin visited upon his flesh, life must remain, if only in a single, dry, quivering cell. Take the prisoner to Quintus, to the palace in Mankarra, render it unto the meat-casters, and then await my order.’
Skarl prostrated himself before his master, touching his forehead to the filth-encrusted floor. ‘I obey, my master,’ he mumbled.
As the footsteps of Voldorius and Nullus receded, Skarl repeated over and over, ‘I obey, my master. I obey.’
Chapter 4
Vengeance is Mine
‘Cytha,’ hissed Makaal as the resistance cell-leader peered through his spy-lens at the dark passageway up ahead. ‘You’re clear. Go!’
Covering the lithe, bodyglove-clad form of Cytha as she darted from the shadows to his left, Makaal offered up a brief, silent prayer to the Emperor of Mankind. Please, he beseeched, let us succeed, even if it costs us our lives. Let us end the terror unleashed upon Quintus by the vile one, once and for all.
‘In position,’ Cytha’s whisper came back a few seconds later. Makaal looked to the shadows where he knew his second in command was waiting, satisfied that he could not make her out. ‘Bys,’ he whispered. ‘Your turn. Go!’
Makaal raised his hellgun to cover the larger man as he ran past. Bys was nowhere near as nimble or stealthy as Cytha, or indeed any other member of the cell, but he was as strong as a bull grox. He had to be, to carry the weight of explosives he had stowed about him.
After twenty seconds, Makaal was satisfied that Bys was in position, and addressed the last member of the cell. ‘Rund, you’re up. Go!’
Rund dashed forwards. He was neither as stealthy as Cytha, nor as strong as Bys, but Rund was a certified lay-technician and had served in the capital city’s generatorium for a decade under his Adeptus Mechanicus overseers. His skills were critical to the success of the cell’s desperate mission.
And that mission, whether or not that bitch Malya L’nor and the other self-appointed ‘leaders’ of the pro-Imperium resistance on Quintus would sanction it, was to assassinate Voldorius whatever the cost. The resistance had received word from their contacts inside the palace of the deposed governor of Quintus that the vile one was returning to the world after some errand off-planet. The daemon would be arriving, so the contacts claimed, by way of the palace’s ancient teleportarium, and he would be doing so within the hour.
When Rund had taken position, Makaal took one last look behind to check that no sentries lurked in the dark service tunnel far beneath the palace. He darted forwards past his comrades, taking point. Pressing his back to the wall, Makaal made himself as small a target as possible, melting into the shadows that lined the passageway. He ordered his subordinates forwards, one at a time, covering them with his hellgun and scanning the tunnel up ahead through his spy-lens.
So far, the infiltration had gone to plan and Makaal had allowed himself to feel a small measure of vindication. The mission was by necessity an improvised affair; a plan opposed by the bulk of the resistance leaders in Mankarra, the capital city of Quintus. The debate had been brief but bitter. In the end, Makaal had defied Malya L’nor, his immediate superior in the resistance, and rounded up whichever cell members he could find who were willing to follow him. His plan was almost certainly suicidal, but Makaal reasoned that his life was worth the prize – deliverance from the evil Voldorius had visited upon his world. L’nor and the others had argued that his failure would spell the doom of many more innocents. They believed Voldorius or any who survived him would never allow such a deed to go unpunished whether or not it succeeded.
Makaal hated Malya L’nor. He hated that she was so eager to save the lives of those who had already surrendered their very existence to the whim of the vile one, who had allowed themselves to be enslaved. He would prove her wrong, of that he was determined.
The smallest of movements up ahead caused Makaal to abandon his train of thought in an instant. He held up a hand and gave the silent signal that would warn his comrades of a possible enemy presence. Holding his breath and forcing every muscle in his body to stillness, Makaal scanned the tunnel through his spy-lens. The service tunnel ran another one hundred metres through the bedrock beneath the palace, densely clustered pipes and cables lining its walls and ceiling. The end of the tunnel was marked by a square of wan light, which Makaal zoomed the spy-lens in upon to examine in closer detail. As the magnification increased, the image became grainy, but Makaal was sure that he had seen movement and waited for the machine-spirit inside the device to confirm it.
There – crossing the square of light at the end of the passageway was a figure. It was gone in seconds, but Makaal had seen all he needed. It was one of the traitors of the Mankarra Household Guard, the former governor’s most trusted warriors. How ironic that they had been the first to turn and take up arms with Voldorius and the Alpha Legion. The grey- and black-armoured guards had gunned the governor down even as their former master had fled for the bunker beneath the palace. They had strung his ruined body from the highest of the palace’s spires.
Makaal waited until he was sure it was safe, and eased his body out of the shadows, his hellgun gripped tight. Checking the weapon’s status counter, Makaal confirmed that he had sufficient charge to face whatever might lie ahead.
Makaal and his team approached the light at the end of the tunnel, covering the one hundred metres of ground with extreme caution. It felt to Makaal that the approach was taking far too much time, and that he might miss this opportunity to attack Voldorius when the daemon was at his most vulnerable. Yet he knew that undue haste now would bring the mission to an abrupt and fatal end.
At length
, Makaal eased himself into the shadows five metres from the opening, and peered cautiously out. A chamber formed a junction between half a dozen other service tunnels. A hatch was set into one rock wall, which Makaal knew to be a cargo escalator that served the upper levels of the palace. Beside the hatch stood five troopers of the palace guard.
Forcing his body to complete stillness, Makaal watched the guards for several minutes until he was sure they were not merely passing through the area. Evidently, the traitorous bastards had been posted to the tunnel junction to guard against intruders. It made sense, for the resistance had been launching attacks across the entire city for weeks. The junction provided a base the guards could launch patrols from into the sprawling network of service tunnels beneath the palace. They would have to be dealt with before the cell could advance any further.
With a last hand signal, the cell leader counted down five seconds before he surged out of the tunnel.
The first of the palace guards went down before any had registered the attack. Makaal put a searing hellgun blast through his torso that flash-boiled his internal organs in an instant. Even before the guard had hit the ground, the other resistance fighters were out of the tunnel. Cytha darted to one side, rolling athletically as one of the guards brought his lascarbine up and blasted an unaimed shot in her direction. Cytha’s move took her halfway across the chamber, where she came up into a kneeling position and brought her compact laspistol to bear on the trooper nearest to her. The man tracked her as she took aim, but he was too slow. Cytha’s pistol spat and the guard was speared through the neck by a bright lance of lethal energy.
One of the remaining guards bellowed an order and all three dived for the cover of a crate near the escalator hatch. Knowing that his team would be caught in the open should the enemy find cover they could defend themselves from, Makaal called out his own instructions. Bys moved to the left while Rund darted to the right. Makaal moved towards Cytha, who was already working her way behind a cluster of barrels to outflank the enemy.
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 8