Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1

by Warhammer 40K

  Malya dared gaze up as she was marched towards the council mansion, seeing the massive form of the daemon prince turning its back upon the grand square and disappearing into the building. The officers followed, Lord Colonel Morkis taking one last, scornful look across the square before departing. Soon, she too was approaching the blasted edifice. At her back the slaughter was beginning.

  The Baneblade’s cannons opened fire, its many heavy bolters chattering. The sound of flesh and blood and bone being ground beneath the tank’s huge treads assailed Malya’s ears. And then, the screaming began.

  Chapter 5

  Insertion

  Scout-Sergeant Kholka grimaced as he gazed down at yet another ruined body. Like the dozens of others the White Scars Scouts had encountered as they had ranged across the black, rock-strewn landscape of Quintus the last twelve hours, the corpse was a civilian. The sight disgusted Kholka, whose own people afforded great respect to the dead and would never allow a corpse to lie untended in such a way. Where were this man’s people, Kholka wondered, and why had they not given him a fitting burial?

  The reason was clear. The man’s people had been killed too. All of them. None remained to bury the dead, to afford the honour a man was due at the outset of his long journey to the Emperor’s side.

  ‘Brother-sergeant,’ a voice called out from over a small rise of jagged black rock. ‘There are two more here.’

  It was Scout Borchu, a promising neophyte Kholka knew would do well when fully initiated into the ranks of the White Scars. Borchu had served in the Scout Company with great honour and skill for several years. Perhaps the liberation of Quintus would be the proving of Borchu, if only he could learn to control his bouts of mirth. Quintus was seeing to that it seemed – with every body the Scouts discovered their mood darkened.

  Kholka followed Borchu’s voice, skirting the rise lest he reveal himself to any enemy keeping watch across the barren wastes. He had ordered vox-silence, knowing that the Alpha Legion were amongst the most cunning of foes and well able to detect even the most heavily shielded inter-squad signal. He found Borchu near the blackened wreck of a tracked cargo hauler. Its contents, evidently the sum possessions of its owners, were strewn all about.

  ‘They were slain like the others,’ Borchu said, looking up as his sergeant approached. ‘But they tried to fight.’

  Kholka saw that Borchu was correct. The two bodies wore the tattered remains of the local reserve militia’s uniform. His eyes sought the insignia that had brought the White Scars to Quintus, but found no sign of it. No matter. It was likely that only the elite palace guard wore the device. Dozens of empty brass shell casings were scattered all around the two bodies, though the weapons that had fired them were nowhere to be seen. Evidently, the weapons had been looted by the Alpha Legion, or perhaps taken by other refugees.

  ‘Get ready to move out,’ Kholka ordered. ‘There’s nothing to be done here.’

  ‘Yes, brother-sergeant,’ Borchu replied. But Kholka could detect uncertainty in the Scout’s tone.

  ‘What is it, neophyte?’ Kholka pressed. As commander, mentor and warden of the trainee Space Marines, one of his many responsibilities was the monitoring of the Scouts’ ongoing psycho-conditioning. The questioning of a direct order could be a sign that the conditioning had not fully taken effect.

  ‘Should we not…’ Borchu nodded towards the corpses.

  Kholka read the meaning of the gesture. ‘We should, but we cannot. Prepare to move out.’

  The Scouts were making their way across a region of Quintus’s primary continent having been inserted by Thunderhawk during the night. In common with much of the planet’s surface, the area was a barren waste of black volcanic rock and grey sand. It was sparsely covered by coarse grass and the occasional wind-blasted tree. To the south lay the agri-settlements that fed the capital city of Mankarra. Further south still was the city itself.

  Kholka’s task was to reconnoitre the city’s outer defences and to guide the Master of the Hunt’s strike force in.

  So far, the Scouts had discovered untold evidence that the planet was firmly in the hands of Voldorius and his Alpha Legion forces. They had passed the wrecks of refugee convoys the traitors had fallen on like voracious predators on defenceless prey. Although they had found evidence that the refugees had at least mounted a defence, Kholka knew that many more must have been taken prisoner. The fate of the captives was unknown, but the veteran had faced the servants of the Ruinous Powers enough times to know their cruel ways. He had little doubt that none of those taken prisoner still lived.

  Soon the remainder of the Scout squad was gathered, each looking silently to Kholka while awaiting his orders.

  ‘Borchu,’ Kholka said. ‘You have point duty. We hunt, as the dawn-bat soars over the mountain.’

  Even whilst undergoing a perilous mission the Scouts were being tested. The sergeant’s use of the White Scars battle-cant even though no enemy was near enough to overhear was deliberate. He was pleased when the Scouts assumed the formation he had ordered, a long column with each member covering his own sector, neophyte Borchu at its head.

  Taking his own position in the line, Kholka gestured the order to move out.

  Nullus stood on the bunker’s open-topped observation deck, staring out into the bleak wastes. At his side were five of his fellow Alpha Legion warriors, and behind them several dozen black- and grey-clad palace guards.

  The air reeked of the men’s fear. And well they should be fearful, for the so-called elite of Quintus’s soldiery had failed in their avowed task. A resistance cell had penetrated into the deepest regions of the palace and Voldorius himself had almost fallen. Only Nullus’s actions in shattering the teleportation coils had averted a full-scale warp bleed, and the lives of Nullus and his master had been saved. Voldorius had already exacted his vengeance on the people of Mankarra, and now Nullus had his own justice to enact.

  He would make an example of them, and teach them the true meaning of obedience.

  Nullus had mustered the palace guard platoon whose negligence had given rise to the unforgivable breach. Their commanding officer had already killed himself by the time the platoon had gathered. The remainder had been transported north in the sub-zero hold of a meat-hauler to one of the bunkers that guarded against incursion into the agri-zones from the wastes beyond. The guards all feared that they would die, and to Nullus that sensation was quite exquisite.

  But Nullus had something quite specific in mind.

  ‘All of you,’ the warrior spoke, without taking his black eyes from the northern horizon, ‘should be dead.’

  The palace guards remained motionless, stoic in the face of the traitor Space Marine’s pronouncement. Nullus turned his scarred face towards the men, and continued.

  ‘But I am a practical man, and have use for you yet.’

  Nullus watched as the guards stood as still as statues, not one of them daring to look at him. His scar-traced features split into a vile and savage grin.

  Nullus reached to his back and unlimbered his black-hafted halberd. ‘So you need not die. Not all of you.’

  A cold wind rose out of the wastes. Still, none of the guards responded. Nullus brought the halberd in front of him in one hand and set the base of its haft resting on the deck at his feet.

  ‘Whichever of you will face me, he will die. But the remainder, I will allow to live.’

  Now the guards showed signs of reaction. Several of them glanced sidelong at their fellows, before one of their number answered.

  ‘I will face you,’ came the response, and one of the troopers stepped forwards.

  ‘Name yourself, so that the gods might have notice of your coming, and prepare you a special place in damnation,’ Nullus replied, bringing the halberd across his chest in both hands.

  ‘My name is Ghalan,’ the man proclaimed, addressing his statement to the powers of the warp as much as to Nullus. ‘Warrant Officer Primus,’ he added with pride, turning to salute his men.

/>   The assembled guard returned the salute, and Nullus prepared to deliver his lesson.

  ‘Three kilometres south, brother-sergeant’, Scout Telluk whispered. ‘A bunker, right on the border of the agri-zone.’

  Kholka felt a stab of disappointment, but determined to give the neophyte a second chance. It was after all only the boy’s second operational deployment. ‘Again. Properly this time.’

  The neophyte paused, his face reddening almost imperceptibly as he cast his eyes to the ground. ‘My apologies, brother-sergeant,’ he said.

  ‘Never mind that,’ Kholka replied, the veteran’s patience growing thin. ‘Deliver your report.’

  ‘The beast in stone, as the third moon slumbers, bestriding the steppe,’ Telluk reported.

  ‘Better,’ Kholka responded. ‘Though “Ghan’s last march” would have gotten the point over more elegantly.’ By its very nature, the White Scars battle-cant was subjective and varied enormously by speaker and context. The veteran gifted the youngster with a wry smile. ‘Now pass me the magnoculars.’

  Taking the device from the neophyte, Kholka raised it to his eyes and looked out across the wastes. From the squad’s concealed position high atop a jagged, black rock spire, Kholka had a panoramic view of the region where the barren wastelands gave way to the agri-zone. Scanning the near field first, the sergeant took in the terrain, the last of the rock-strewn plain his squad had marched through.

  Adjusting the viewfinder’s settings, Kholka focused on the middle ground, where it was obvious that many of the larger rock formations had been blasted flat so that any crossing it would be detected and cut down in a hail of defensive fire. Panning first left, and then right, locating the point that Scout Telluk had identified, Kholka saw the squat, grey bunker.

  ‘Well observed, neophyte,’ Kholka said quietly as he magnified the scene. The bunker had been placed by a defender who knew his business well, and lesser foes than the Space Marines might have missed it amongst the volcanic rocks and outcroppings of the region.

  ‘One primary,’ Kholka reeled off his observations, adding a commentary to the data that the sensorium-core built into his armour was recording. Even if the sergeant and his charges were slain, there would be a chance that others of the White Scars would recover the data and act upon it. He zoomed in on the figure standing on the bunker’s observation deck, looking out across the wastes. The warrior’s armour was the distinctive blue-green of the traitor Alpha Legion, and across its back was slung a black halberd. Increasing the magnification still further, Kholka brought the figure’s head into focus, revealing a face that was a mass of fine scar tissue, traced by the hand of a madman. ‘We know you…’

  ‘Four… no, five, secondaries.’ Kholka watched as a group of figures, each wearing the same armour as the first, came into his vision. Their faces were hidden beneath helmets surmounted by twisting horns, and each carried a boltgun adorned with fell runes. ‘Alpha Legionnaires.’

  As he panned downwards, Kholka’s field of vision was eclipsed by the rear of a black helmet. He zoomed out, the viewfinder showing a man dressed in grey fatigues and black body armour facing the primary. The briefings of the last few strike force councils came to the sergeant’s mind. The black and grey armour. Kholka zoomed out still further, seeking confirmation.

  ‘Approximately thirty tertiaries,’ Kholka sub-vocalised. The wind had changed direction and he could not take the risk of being overheard. ‘Subjects appear at first glance to be a platoon-sized multiple of Mankarra household guard.’

  The sergeant watched, scanning the figures for any sign of the four-starred insignia that would positively confirm the troopers’ identity and their link with the action on Cernis Four. He could see, although not hear, that the primary was addressing them. After a moment, one of the troopers stepped forwards to stand before the primary, and then turned and saluted the others.

  At that moment, Kholka saw clearly the insignia on the man’s shoulder armour.

  ‘Confirmed,’ the sergeant said, the thrill of the hunt rising in him. ‘We have them now.’

  Nullus watched with barely contained disdain as Ghalan turned back to face him. His black eyes flitted to the weapons at the guard’s belt, seeing that the man was armed with a power sword of archaic pattern and a heavy pistol. The guard’s face was set in a mask of grim determination. Clearly, the man knew he would die. But alone amongst the platoon, he had chosen to face his death with dignity.

  The guard reached for the ornate basket hilt of his power sword and drew it slowly, his eyes never leaving his opponent. As the blade cleared the scabbard, a flick of the thumb activated its power core. Veins of searing light crept along its length, coalescing at its monomolecular edge. Ghalan set his feet wide, assuming a fighter’s stance. Yet still, Nullus looked on with contempt.

  ‘Do you hope for a quick death?’ Nullus growled, his lipless mouth sneering.

  In answer, Ghalan raised his power sword into the guard position.

  ‘Or do you perhaps imagine you have some chance against me?’

  Ghalan remained tight-lipped, refusing to play along with the traitor Space Marine’s cruel game. His only answer was to bare his teeth in anger, a gesture which brought another sneer from his opponent.

  ‘I think you want to die,’ Nullus crowed. ‘I think you know the extent of your failure beneath the palace, and think you can avoid vengeance by way of a clean death.’ Nullus cast a withering glance at the other guards. ‘I think that you wish to avoid the fate I have in store for them.’

  The assembled palace guards looked to one another, some raising angry curses.

  ‘Kill him!’ one shouted.

  The man’s head exploded in a welter of blood and gore, and one of Nullus’s fellow Alpha Legion warriors lowered his boltgun, smoke wafting from its gaping barrel. Several of the man’s fellow guards were showered with tissue, yet they refused to flee in the face of the sudden outbreak of violence. As the man’s decapitated body hit the deck, Ghalan growled and lunged forwards, his power sword raised to deliver a two-handed, downward blow.

  Nullus merely sidestepped the attack, his massive armoured form belying his speed. Ghalan should have been killed as the force he had channelled into his attack met only air and he was thrown off-balance, stumbling against the bunker’s parapet. The guard paused there for several seconds, his back turned to his opponent, waiting for the killing blow to strike him down.

  But the blow did not come.

  Ghalan turned slowly, to find that Nullus was facing him five metres away, his halberd resting contemptuously across one shoulder.

  ‘Did you think it would be so easy?’ Nullus sneered. ‘If you desire death by my hand, you’ll have to earn it.’

  Once more, Ghalan raised his power sword. The man’s face was now a mask of barely-controlled rage. He knew he was being made sport of and was in an impossible position. He had little chance of besting the traitor, yet his opponent was intent upon humiliating him.

  Ghalan began to move in a wide circle, and Nullus obliged by moving with him, so that the two stalked one another across the bunker’s observation deck. Nullus’s fellow Alpha Legion warriors looked on, their masks impassive but their bolters raised menacingly to ensure the remaining guards did not intervene.

  ‘You know what I’ll do with your skull, once you’re dead?’ Nullus said, his tone at once coldly matter-of-fact and supremely mocking.

  Ghalan threw himself forwards, his power sword cutting a glittering arc through the air towards his opponent’s head. The attack was well aimed, but Nullus merely shifted his stance but a fraction, scornfully allowing the searing blade to pass within centimetres of his scarred face.

  This time, Ghalan did not allow himself to become unbalanced. Instead, he allowed the momentum of his attack to carry his body around to his opponent’s left hand side. Turning the blade in his hand, Ghalan brought it upwards to strike at Nullus’s midriff.

  But Nullus was prepared too, and Ghalan’s power swor
d struck the black blade of his enemy’s halberd. Dark light flared where the two weapons clashed, casting a pall of shadow across both fighters. Ghalan was shrouded in unnatural night. Unable to see Nullus clearly, he instinctively threw his body backwards to avoid the inevitable riposte.

  Ghalan struck the ground hard at the feet of one of Nullus’s warriors. The Alpha Legionnaire made no effort to intervene in the combat, however, and Ghalan leapt to his feet, bringing his blade up.

  It was only when Nullus’s scarred mouth formed into a wide, mocking grin that Ghalan looked down at his blade. The weapon’s edge no longer danced with the energy that had powered it before. The once lethal weapon was now reduced to a crude, blunted sword no more effective than a club wielded by a savage. Nullus’s own, unnatural weapon had somehow drained its power and rendered it all but useless.

  Snarling in frustration, Ghalan threw his broken weapon to the ground and snatched the heavy pistol from his belt. In a single movement, the weapon was held out before him, aimed squarely at Nullus’s head.

  ‘Better make it count,’ Nullus growled. ‘You won’t get a second shot.’

  The pistol shook in Ghalan’s hands as he fought with all his might to control his rage. His glance flicked briefly to the other palace guards, but they stood powerless to intervene, covered by the boltguns of the Alpha Legionnaires.

  Ghalan’s finger closed on the trigger and the weapon barked a single shot. The bullet struck Nullus just below the thick collar of his power armour, barely leaving a scratch in the blue-green livery.

  Before Ghalan could fire a second shot, Nullus exploded into violent movement. The black halberd lashed forwards, leaping across the space between the two combatants in the blink of an eye. The weapon struck Ghalan in the shoulder, propelling him across the decking and pinning him against the inner wall as its point sank into the rockcrete.