Sicarius nodded. ‘Yes, and I trust that you know. I trust that you can wield bolter and blade, that you can lead your men and inspire them to greatness.’ He put his hands on Praxor’s shoulders like a father to a son. He sheathed the Tempest Blade to do so. The weapon was still humming eagerly despite the ferocious tally it and its wielder had reaped. ‘So too must you trust me.’
Praxor bowed his head. ‘I meant no offence, Lord Sicarius.’
‘Chapter Master Calgar is your lord, I am your captain. That is all the loyalty and deference you need afford me. Remember the gladius?’ He nodded as Praxor did, their eyes meeting. Sicarius let the sergeant go and mimicked a thrust with his hand. ‘We are that gladius, driving at the heart of our enemy.’
‘But the mechanoids have no heart, brother-captain,’ chimed Daceus, to facilitate his leader’s point.
‘And so they must be fought another way. The necrons respond to one thing, and one thing alone,’ Sicarius said. ‘Punishment. If we hurt them enough, they will yield. To do that we must bring their masters out into the open. They are the heart. Spear that and the machine will fail. I want these creatures to notice me. I want them to recognise my wrath as a threat to their existence. Achieve that and Damnos has a chance.’
So moved, Praxor fell to one knee, his power sword held across his body. ‘I am honoured to serve by your side, Grand Duke of Talassar.’
‘Then you had better stand, for we shall press on, find the command node and bring glory to our Chapter.’
The Lions roared with their captain. So did Praxor, but as he was getting to his feet he noticed that Agrippen stayed silent. The time for reflection was over. A large necron war cell was resolving out of the mist and heading for them.
Sicarius grinned ferally. ‘In Guilliman’s name, and for Talassar. War calls us, brothers…’
As one they replied, ‘We shall answer!’
Falka was second through the western gate after Sergeant Muhrne, running on pure adrenaline. Most of the Ark Guard behind him didn’t want to die, nor did they want to fight. If anything, it was fear and mad fatalism that drove them into the wasteland. A part of Falka hoped it was the cobalt-blue angels that had suddenly arrived in their midst compelling the men, a smaller vestige of him dared to believe that some spark of bravery and pride still burned within Damnos.
‘We shall not surrender!’ he heard Sergeant Muhrne bellow. ‘On, on, on!’ he roared.
As they closed on the battlefront, Falka was glad he would meet his death head-on and not trapped behind a gate waiting to be crushed by fallen masonry or vaporised by a faceless necron artillery barrage. At least this way he could be proud when reunited with his ancestors, he could look Jynn in the eye and say, ‘I died with honour, defending our world.’ He hoped he would see her again soon, but was determined not to waste his life. It would be worth something to these mechanised bastards.
The Ark Guard were four hundred strong when they left the Courtyard of Thor, just under two battalions. Ominously, the western gate was closed behind them. The resonant din of it being sealed broke some of the men who turned and ran back, pounding against the metal impotently with their fists. The commissars on the battlements put them out of their misery with precise pistol shots and the wailing ceased. Not that the rest of the Ark Guard could have heard it. The shattered plaza drowned out the noise with the cacophony of war. Not just any conflict, though – this was Space Marine warfare, and it was brutal.
Falka marvelled and balked at the Angels of Death. They were as resolute and indefatigable as the necrons. When he and the rest of the Guardsmen had managed to get two hundred metres from the gate unscathed, he dared to hope that with the Space Marines’ help they might yet save Damnos. Necron warriors, turning their baleful gaze upon the humans at some proximity warning within their machine brains, crushed that assumption quickly.
Muhrne was the first one Falka noticed. The pugnacious sergeant couldn’t even scream as the gauss-beam flayed him. Metal and cloth became particles, skin and flesh turned to dust, organs liquefied until there was nothing left of Muhrne but a charred skeleton. Even that cracked apart when it hit the ground.
Falka ducked instinctively, though it was really just luck that spared him during that first headlong charge. Charred skeletons were exploding all around him as the necrons exposed the weakness of the human form so horrifically. He was shouting, incoherent and wordlessly, but it kept the fear down. He also realised he had yet to fire his gun, so intent was he on running the length of the plaza. Falka checked the load and hauled the trigger. His first shots went wide and too fast. He was still running and needed to conserve his ammunition. Keep going at that rate and he’d be out in a few seconds. The barrel flash, though ineffective so far, brought attention. He dived behind a rubble pile, thanking his saints as the gauss-beam careened away without killing him. Falka took a second to realign himself and was moving again. He had about twenty others with him. Judging by their shoulder patches, they were from several different squads. The gauss barrage had scattered them; the Ark Guard’s discipline and coherency broken in seconds.
‘What do we do?’ one man asked.
It took Falka a few moments to realise he was talking to him. He wished Jynn was there, fighting by his side. She was a warrior; at least her natural instincts suggested it. She would have been an asset to the Ark Guard.
‘A hit, even glancing, from those flayers and we’re dead men,’ said Falka. He tried not to let the fact that so many were hanging on his words disturb him. He slapped the hard flank of the ruin they were hiding in. It wasn’t much, just the worn-down footprint of a defensive barrier. Each man was crouched low, keeping out of the gauss-beams streaking above them.
One man, Falka didn’t know his name – he was a professional soldier, not a conscript from the mines like himself – rose a fraction to wipe his brow. An emerald flash filled the ruins and the nameless man slumped down without his head, the ragged neck stump cauterised. Two of the others had to be restrained from fleeing before Falka could continue.
He looked down at the decapitated corpse grimly. That’s the fate that awaits us all.
‘Stick to the cover, what little there is. And make for the Angels. The Space Marines will protect us.’
‘We’ve been sent to our deaths,’ one lad sobbed. His helmet didn’t really fit him. Falka took off his and gave it to the boy. It wasn’t a much better fit but it seemed to galvanise the lad.
‘Aye, and we’ll meet it on our feet, defending our people like heroes of Damnos.’ He reached over and patted the boy on the shoulder. ‘All right, son?’
The lad nodded. The lasgun looked awkward in his hands. Falka turned away, unwilling to see his fear any longer.
Crawling to the edge of the barrier, he waited until the whine of gauss-beams diminished and then risked a look over the top. Through the mist and carnage, he saw a squad of Space Marines giving battle. They’d abandoned the sanctuary of their landing vessel – it looked like an inverted spear-tip with its sides split open and laid flat on the ground. A black scar surrounded it, slowly obscured by falling snow.
Warriors from heaven, indeed.
Falka tried to turn that realisation into hope.
‘Come on,’ he shouted to the men. ‘With me!’
Chapter Five
It was cold in the ice cave, but it came from more than just the temperature. There was a chill that emanated from inside, a hollowing of spirit and resolve that would kill her far quicker than a drift or even being crushed beneath an avalanche of compacted snow. It pressed against her body. She felt its weight against her torso and her left shoulder. Her legs she could no longer feel. Her bored-out heart was simply numb.
I am dead, she realised. I am dead – my body simply doesn’t know it yet.
It was black inside, not white at all, underneath the snow. She knew it must be a cave that she’d broken through to, because of the quiet. No screaming, no weeping or mewling. The moaning had stopped too. It had starte
d out as belligerent anger at their situation and a refusal to accept it. Then it became doleful. In the end it just was. She was ashamed to admit that she missed it.
I am dead and that’s why I am cold.
Then she saw a light, a tiny pinhole that turned her black world into powdery grey. Noise followed, a sort of shuffling then a scuffing. Finally, she realised it was digging. Something was digging her out.
She panicked, but she couldn’t move. Vaguely, she remembered snapping on the distress beacon and how stupid that decision had been, even born of desperation as it was, given what stalked the drifts.
I wish I was dead. The digging sound was getting closer, it became a wet scrape and a hard rasp of metal chipping into ice as the hole widened and her world lightened with every stroke.
Why can’t I will my body to accept that I am dead?
Her fingers trembled, and she realised she could move them. They seized the pick half-frozen to her belt and leg.
If I am alive, then I will fight…
The edges of the hole collapsed as they were torn away by sharp metal blades and her dark world expanded exponentially.
Then you’ll be the dead one.
She tried to shout, but her larynx was dry and frozen stiff, so all that came out was a choking rasp. In her mind, her fingers freed the pick and brought it down on the creature’s head, buried it in its skull. But her arm didn’t respond. All she could do was grip the haft, and that wasn’t nearly enough. She couldn’t even fight. She could only submit, and it was this that bothered her the most. When the blades were done, the shadows of them loomed over her, blotting out her newly-risen sun. Faced with the sheer terror of it she found her voice, and screamed.
Jynn awoke.
The chamber was bathed in a sickly emerald glow. The light came from channels and conduit lines describing esoteric runes, sigils from an elder age lost to history. It limned bulky sarcophagi and weather-grained tombs, rubbed to mirror sheen by the action of the elements. They had been underground for a long time. Sleeping. They didn’t know what imperative had woken them, what pre-programmed scenario had activated the resurrection protocols of the tomb spyders, but they were conscious again – the long dream was over and vermin were abroad in their dominion.
The Undying sighed, though he had no breath to expel from his mechaorgans, nor did his fleshless torso heave. It was affectation, a piece of extant learned behaviour that persisted in the cold existence of the now. He had trouble remembering that, differentiating between what is and what was. They all did. All except the Architect.
‘Your logic-engines are functioning without imparity.’
It was a statement of machine-fact, not a question. The Undying did not question, he did not need to. He was knowledge, aeons and aeons of it. He was pre-eminent but he was also still in a pseudo-torpor. The scarabs refashioned his beautiful mechaorganic body, re-attaching his limbs and re-energising his weapons, while the tomb spyders tended to his revivification casket.
The Architect made a slight bow. The sound of shifting servos and gears within his unseen workings testified to it. ‘You are still weak, my lord. Your strength is returning, though.’
‘The others are waking too.’ The Undying’s machine-voice was deep and resonant, but not on account of the resurrection chamber. His baleful eyes narrowed to fiery slits as they regarded each of the four portals that led to the upper echelons of the tomb in turn.
‘We live,’ said the Architect. ‘Do you remember me, master?’
The Undying nodded slowly. ‘So many lives,’ he muttered.
‘We have awoken to interlopers infesting our sacred realm.’
The Undying’s reply was a bellicose rumble. ‘Excise them.’
‘I am waking the rest of the royal house. We shall be one again soon.’
‘I desire to move, to command the legions. My sky-chariot–’
‘Has long since turned to dust and memory,’ the Architect interjected. He did not touch the Undying, for that was to invite his overlord’s wrath, but his tone was conciliatory. They had all lost so very much to gain so very little.
Our flesh for metal, our veins and blood for circuits, our very being sacrificed for the machine.
Some felt it more than others, which was the real reason why the Architect was in attendance. The Undying would not fully awaken for several hours, but other, lesser lords would.
A flash of translocation lit the grand tomb chamber. When it abated, the Architect was in a different room. Using his chronomancy, he had descended several levels in a nanosecond. The catacombs were dank and sealed. It was fear. Fear of contamination that drove the necrons to such lengths. And for good reason.
A shriek of anguish broke the silence in the catacombs but none of the insects toiling slowly and methodically gave it heed. The Architect merely looked towards the sound, his long lamellar cloak fashioned of bronze sigil-ingots clanking as he moved.
Another revivification casket had opened behind him. Now he faced it, he saw the awakened lord within. This one was ripe with putrefaction, the decaying flesh that swathed it long since turned to rot.
The Architect glared. His real name was Ankh the Herald of Dismay, a title self-appointed. He would need to cow this one. Rabid and disillusioned, he would need to direct him quickly and forcefully if he was to be of any use. Unlike the Undying and the other dynastic nobles, Ankh did not fear the flayer disease. He had many arcane items to protect him. Caution was still wise, though – he took a step back.
Ankh stretched to his full height, making the most of his cryptek’s skull panoply and brandishing his rod of office like a threat. His appearance was that of a skeletal, metal-skinned sorcerer. There were devices about his person, amulets and speculums, star-compasses and fathomless orbs. A vial of liquid adamantium attached to his belt by an ornate chain contained his predecessor; the mirror of the speculum trapped another of his would-be usurpers a nanosecond out of synch with the rest of reality.
‘Do you remember who you are?’
This one gibbered, hunched as if broken, as it looked on with fervent eyes. For a second, Ankh thought the tomb spyders had revived him too early and that the scarabs would need to deactivate him again. The doubt passed when the lord spoke.
‘My robes,’ he said, holding up the flaps of skin draped about his metal frame, ‘they are wretched. Where is my tailor?’ He paused, staring at his bone-that-was-not-bone limbs and blood-stained torso. ‘Where is my flesh! My skin!’ He wailed, then just stopped.
Ankh glared, patient. Revivification was not easy.
‘Wait,’ said the other. ‘Wait…’ A deep melancholy affected his voice, though it was still the timbre of the mechaorganic. ‘Waaaaiiiit…’ he rasped, almost like a sigh. ‘Oh, how I miss the flesh.’ He caressed the putrefied skin layering his body, pulled down the flesh-mask over his rictal countenance. Emerald orbs of hateful desire burned through the ragged human sockets.
‘You are Sahtah, the Enfleshed,’ Ankh told him.
‘Am I a butcher, a skin-surgeon?’ Sahtah asked, looking up and brandishing the razored talons that replaced his fingers. Inadvertently, he’d snipped several pieces of skin from his grisly mantle and they hit the floor of the chamber with a soft thud.
Ankh’s eyes flared brighter. They were like fire-tempests of sudden excitement.
‘Yes.’
The forbidding tones of the Undying echoed inside his skull from the mind-link to the grand tomb chamber. ‘The fourth is due. The royal hierarchy is incomplete.’ He was saying it by mechanised rote, still not fully lucid, but even in his millennia-spanning dementia, the overlord was right.
Ankh shifted back. He arrived and scrutinised another part of the chamber where the shadows were darkest.
‘He comes…’
The darkness shifted, coalescing like the formation of a black hole into something of substance. It came with a susurrus of sound like air vacating the lungs of a corpse, only much longer and louder. Flaps of parchment, piece
s of old cloak materialised on an unfelt breeze. A figure stepped from the penumbra, whole and imperious. It clanged the butt of its staff against the metal floor and with each percussive blow stepped forward until a lord of metal and night-shrouds was revealed.
Where the Architect’s jaw was angular, almost pointed, this one’s was square. His brow was heavy and he bore an icon stamped to his forehead. Ankh could not recall its meaning. Though less than the others, he too had lost much during transition.
‘Why am I summoned?’ the arrival demanded. ‘The fleshed are reinforced with their armoured saviours, the genebred ones.’
‘Flesh cannot prevail against metal,’ droned the Undying in a moment of slow-returning lucidity. ‘Hearts and minds of mortals cannot endure against the machine.’
‘As you can see,’ said Ankh, gesturing to their overlord, ‘our master is waking. So too are the other cells. The royal house must form, Tahek.’
The shrouded lord snarled. ‘Address me as Voidbringer, cryptek.’
‘Tahek Voidbringer, you are summoned,’ said Ankh with unnecessary ceremony. He fed a crackle of power through his staff but failed to goad the other lord. ‘An enemy has arrived on our world. It fills our resurrection chambers with the plebeian and thins our scarab hive.’
‘They are in my midst?’ asked Voidbringer.
‘Plotting to eliminate our pylons and gauss-obliterators. I theorise they plan to deploy further reinforcements from the vessel we struck in orbit.’
‘I will slay them, then.’
Only the voice of the Undying stopped Voidbringer from turning and merging with the darkness. ‘No.’
Ankh took over again, herald in every way. ‘You will continue with your primary mission. Defend our artillery.’ His eyes narrowed, partly in pleasure at the rage emanating from Tahek, partly in anticipation of what was to come. ‘Sahtah the Enfleshed will hunt them down. He has need of a new skin.’
From a small black crystal attached to his body, Ankh projected an image of the lower catacombs where he’d been a few seconds ago.
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 108