Epimetheus did not hesitate. ‘Go,’ he said.
Shira broke the holding pattern and pointed the shuttle south, speeding Epimetheus to a meeting that he had hoped to avoid.
157961.M41 / The Emerald Cave. Atika, Pythos
The plan, though it involved the movement and participation of tens of thousands of troops not to mention Titans, tanks and flyers, was a deceptively simple one and, in principle, Draigo agreed with it.
With the Grey Knights unable to get close enough to the gargantuan daemon to banish it, Azrael had decided to use that to their advantage. Instead of leading the assault on the beast, Draigo and his men would provide a diversion, drawing the bulk of the daemon forces away while Azrael and the Deathwing vanquished the Prisoner from the Emerald Cave. It would also require the Titans and tanks to distract the beast, and the combined forces of the Imperial Guard to keep the smaller daemons at bay while the Dark Angels got close enough.
‘And what makes you think you can slay this daemon, Azrael?’ Draigo said when the Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angels had finished outlining his plan. ‘It would take the Emperor himself to best it in personal combat.’
‘Then if that’s what it takes,’ he said drawing the Sword of Secrets from his hip and pointing the diamond-sharp tip at Gabriel’s shoulder. ‘My apologies, brother. I do this out of necessity and mean you no disrespect.’ He stabbed into the Master of the Deathwing’s already cracked Crux Terminatus and broke it open, catching the tiny sliver of bright metal that fell from it. He took a bolt round from a pouch at his waist and raised it to his lips. For a moment it looked to those around him as if he was kissing the shell, but when he lowered it they could see that his acidic saliva had melted away some of the casing. Taking the fragment of shimmering metal from his other hand, he pushed it onto the shell with his thumb, fusing the two together.
‘Brother Gabriel’s armour is the most ancient of all the Deathwing’s suits, forged upon the anvils of the Rock in the days when the Emperor was already interred upon his throne, but the Legions had not yet been divided. From Terra came a gift to all those Legions who had remained loyal in the face of Horus’s perfidy, a section of the Emperor’s own armour so that it may be incorporated into the newly forged Terminator suits of his true sons. The Dark Angels took delivery of the Emperor’s right gauntlet, and over the coming decades over a thousand suits of armour were fashioned incorporating metal from his battle plate in the pauldrons. Many of those suits were gifted to our noble successors when Lords Dorn and Guilliman broke the Space Marines down into smaller Chapters, and though most have been lost down the millennia, some of our brothers still go to battle in armour bearing those original Crux Terminatus.’
Draigo did not think it would be appropriate to point out to his Dark Angels counterpart that all Grey Knight Cruxes held a shard of the One True Armour. Nor did he think the time right to challenge Azrael’s use of the word ‘brother’ rather than ‘cousin’ when referring to the Dark Angels successors.
Azrael held the shell between his thumb and forefinger and held it up. ‘This shell is bound with a portion of the gauntlet that struck down Horus. Just as it laid low the arch-traitor so too will it eradicate this putrid scion of the Plague God.’
Awe and reverence passed across the faces of the crowd listening to Azrael’s briefing. The remaining Deathwing – now numbering barely seventy – were all in attendance along with eight Dark Angels company masters, Dashiel of the Ninth having succumbed to grievous wounds earlier in the battle. Draigo, Strike and Tzula rounded out the impromptu war council.
‘Even if you could get close enough, how do you plan to fire that shell inside it? That thing can absorb tank shells in its flesh and spit them back out,’ Draigo challenged.
Azrael redrew his sword, its blade as dark as midnight. ‘The Heavenfall Blades can part stone as if it were wood. Daemon hide will be no match for it.’ Flanking the Supreme Grand Master, Gabriel and the eight green armoured company masters placed their hands on the pommels of their own swords.
Draigo failed to look impressed. ‘Stone is one thing, daemon flesh is another entirely. The beast is clad in the stuff of the warp. Those swords will be no better than an Apothecary’s needle against it.’
‘And what would you suggest, Grey Knight?’ Azrael said rounding on Draigo. ‘Trapping it down here again so that somebody else can deal with the problem in ten thousand years’ time?’
Draigo bit back a retort. Beside him Tzula was giving him a sideways look. He opened a psychic link with her.
+What is it, junior interrogator?+ he sent.
+The athame. If it can part reality surely it can carve through daemon flesh?+ she replied.
+The knife is attuned to the warp so in theory, yes it could do that.+
+Then we have to use it.+
+You would reveal it to the Dark Angels?+
+What choice do we have?+
Draigo paused, mulling things over. +Be wary. A man like Azrael could put an artefact like that to many uses.+ He broke off the link. Tzula gave him a solemn nod, her face a mask of confidence.
‘Lord Azrael. I believe I may have a weapon that may be of use,’ Tzula said, deftly sliding the athame from where it was tucked into her belt.
The Lord of the Dark Angels looked at her impassively. ‘Is this some sort of jest? If a Heavenfall Blade is incapable of doing the job, what use is that primitive tool?’
‘Please, Lord Azrael. Hear me out.’
Tzula explained to the Dark Angels how she and Dinalt had studied the weapon, sought it out and obtained it from the clutches of the upstart tau in the name of the Imperium. She told them of its purpose and how the enemy had sought it out when she brought it to Pythos, slaying her master and other loyal servants of the Ordos in their desire to obtain it for their own dark purposes. Through it all she was very careful to keep any mention of Epimetheus out of her tale, certain she had fathomed the root of his reticence to join up with the Space Marine contingent of the reconquest force.
When she had finished, Azrael eyed her intently. ‘And you chose to keep this a secret from us?’
‘Oh please, Azrael,’ Draigo interjected. ‘If I didn’t think my ribcage was already fractured, I’d laugh. Don’t you dare to presume to lecture anybody on guarding secrets.’
‘I am an inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus, Lord Azrael. Secrets are my stock in trade as much as they are yours,’ Tzula said.
‘Is there anything else regarding this campaign that you have been keeping from us, junior interrogator?’ Azrael replied. It was obvious to Draigo that the Dark Angel was trying to pry information from her about the elusive Grey Knight. Tzula was too canny to fall for this.
‘Other than the xenos life form I brought here with me that is currently driving Colonel Strike’s tank? No, I think I’ve told you everything.’
Strike shot her a nervous glance.
‘Please don’t mock me, girl. My patience is already worn parchment thin.’ He placed the shell back in its pouch and held out his hand. ‘Now, give me the knife.’
Draigo stepped forward, forming a barrier between the Dark Angel and Tzula. ‘The knife stays with Junior Interrogator Digriiz. Both of us will be accompanying you on the mission.’
The company masters’ hands reached once again for the hilts of their swords. Azrael held up his palm to stop them. ‘As you wish, Lord Draigo, but please, try not to get in our way.’
He dismissed the assembly, Tzula and Strike returning to Traitor’s Bane which had formed part of the ring of steel surrounding the war council, the Dark Angels back to the frontlines. As Azrael was about to join them, Draigo, who had hung back, addressed him.
‘A moment of your time, Lord Azrael.’ It was not a request. The Dark Angel approached him, coming to a halt just within what the Grey Knight would term his personal space.
‘Make this quick, Grey Knight. I have a daemon to slay.’
‘I feel it only fair that I deliver you a warning.’
/> ‘A warning,’ Azrael said, a full smile cracking his stern features. ‘What could you possibly want to warn me about?’
‘The knife,’ Draigo said, inching forward so that he was practically nose-to-nose with the Dark Angel. ‘I know of its value and now so do you. As a loyal servant of the Golden Throne, I know you will do all within your power to ensure that it is still in the junior interrogator’s grasp at the end of the battle and that no harm has come to her.’
‘That sounds more like an appeal than a warning.’ The Dark Angel was so close that Draigo could smell the tang of corroded metal still evident on his breath.
‘I’m getting to that part. If the blade goes missing, or the girl dies, I shall bypass Titan on my way back from here and head straight to Terra where I shall demand, and be granted, audience with the High Lords.’
‘I sincerely doubt that the High Lords of Terra would concern themselves over the misplacement of some museum piece,’ Azrael scoffed.
‘Perhaps not,’ Draigo replied, his pauldron brushing against the Dark Angel’s as he barged his way past him. ‘But I’m certain they’d like to know what you have locked in those dungeons beneath the Rock.’
As he strode away, he didn’t need to call upon his psychic abilities to know exactly what Azrael was thinking.
Chapter Seventeen
157961.M41 / The Emerald Cave. Atika, Pythos
The sound of mighty warhorns echoing through the Emerald Cave signalled the start of the final phase of the battle.
Behind the bass fanfare marched the six Warhound Titans in the black and white of Legio Crucius, spreading out across the enormous cavern to attack the beast at its heart from multiple angles. Even stacked one on top of another, the towering war engines would not have reached the gem-encrusted ceiling, and the air above them was thick with Valkyries flying patrols to prevent winged daemons getting too close to the ancient Titans.
Beneath their feet, the super-heavy tanks of the Imperial Guard rumbled into position flanked by a complement of Hellhounds and Demolishers to ensure that their larger cousins did not get overrun. Foot soldiers maintained tight formations marshalled by the green armoured giants of the Dark Angels, picking off targets of opportunity as curiosity got the better of some of the lesser daemons and they ventured too far from their own lines.
Their armour almost the same colour as the Dark Angels under the reflected light of the emeralds, the Grey Knights took up their own position apart from the main bulk of the Imperial Army. Already packs of the Neverborn were prowling towards them, hackles up in response to the presence of the psychic daemon hunters.
At their head marched Azrael, accompanied by an honour guard of his Chapter Masters and First Company, blades already drawn to face the inevitable onslaught. In among them, two other figures walked, one clad in the silver Terminator plate of the Grey Knights, the other a dark-skinned human woman, dwarfed by the armoured figures around her.
The warhorns ceased and, as one, the Imperial guns opened fire.
The opening barrage was immense. Large calibre weapons sought out the Prisoner from the Emerald Cave, those shells not subsumed into its body knocking away huge gobbets of flesh that turned into daemons before they hit the ground. Mouths formed spontaneously over its hide, some swallowing inbound artillery before spitting it back in the direction it had come from, others forming macabre grins to emote the thing’s enjoyment of the punishment being meted out upon it.
In response, those daemons already within the chamber charged the Imperial lines, many of them singling out the Grey Knights, their presence in the warp a shining beacon to those from the other side of reality. From behind the silver armoured figures, tanks rolled, Leman Russ and their myriad variants assigned to augment the psychic Space Marines presenting such a tempting target to the daemonic horde. Their main guns blasted huge gaps in the ranks of the Neverborn, and those that survived the bombardment ended up crushed beneath tracks or impaled on the spikes of dozer blades. A few made it through the wall of steel only to run into a wall of psychic energy erected by the combined minds of Grey Knights squads. Fewer still made it past the warp barrier, those that did find their brief existence in the materium ended by the blade of a force sword or halberd.
Tens of thousands of Imperial Guard surged forward to meet the army of lesser daemons head-on, their numbers swelled by the monstrosities raining down from above as the big guns continued to pound away at their master. The men and women of Catachan, Cadia, Krieg, Mordian and many other worlds besides turned their fear into anger, filling the air with the sound of las-fire and the stench of scorched daemon flesh.
From the flanks of the battle, Corpulax looked on with increasing concern. The lesser daemons meant nothing to him, and as long as the Prisoner from the Emerald Cave could keep supplying an endless stream of them, the Imperial Guard would succumb in the end. The Grey Knights had been neutered, so small a force struggling to contend with the increased attention from the Neverborn and was not able to mount any form of attack on the blessed of Nurgle. Even the Titans and the tanks presented no more than an inconvenience to it and would run out of ammunition eventually, making them easy prey.
But there was one element of the enemy they faced that was starting to pose a real threat. Singular in their purpose, the ivory figures of the Deathwing cut a swathe through the sea of daemons, intent on reaching the Prisoner from the Emerald Cave. Corpulax doubted that even warriors as formidable as the Dark Angels’ elite could do the daemon any true harm, but he could not take the risk. He had fought so hard to do his patron’s bidding in freeing it and had been promised so much in return. Nothing would deny him his just reward, and if it meant that he had to despatch these Dark Angels personally because the Prisoner’s minions were unable to, so be it.
Ordering his cadre of Plague Marines to follow him, Corpulax waded into the battle.
157961.M41 / Approaching the Mouth of the Underhive.Atika, Pythos
Unlike Vortras Hold, the approach to Atika presented numerous clear landing spots, the previously steep and foreboding terrain now vitrified by the orbital assault. Through the torrential rain streaming over the shuttle’s front viewport, Shira could pick out immobile dark shapes on the ground, some of them glowing with the red-orange of a recently extinguished blaze. Sheet lightning panned across the sky, illuminating the scene below and Shira briefly saw that the shapes were in fact the burned-out shells of tanks or personnel carriers. Scores and scores of them.
‘Put us down near the cave mouth,’ Epimetheus ordered.
Shira banked the craft right and was preparing to deploy the landing gear when the console in front of her lit up with flashing lights. An alarm wailed insistently.
‘What’s wrong?’ Epimetheus asked, his level tones in stark contrast to the panic Shira felt rising within her.
‘There’s something coming up behind us,’ she said checking an auspex. ‘Something quick.’
‘Missile?’
‘I don’t think so. A shuttle like this should have automatic countermeasures.’ She checked the auspex again. ‘Besides, this is too big to be a missile.’
‘Can you outrun it?’
‘Judging by the speed it’s gaining on us, no.’ Shira tugged back on the steering controls. ‘But I can outmanoeuvre it.’ The shuttle veered steeply upwards and Shira frantically strapped herself in with one hand while using the other to loop the craft over in a wide arc. Epimetheus didn’t move, the boots of his armour maglocked to the floor of the crew compartment.
Pulling out of the flip, Shira levelled the controls, positioning the shuttle above and behind the craft that had been stalking them. The pursuer was now the pursued. The next flash of lightning revealed the exact nature of what they were chasing.
Irregular gold lattice lay atop a serpentine body of dark metal, a head like that of a dragon at one end, a short tail at the other. Beneath its snaking torso sat two sets of wicked claws, tipped with talons the size of a normal human. From its flanks, three
pairs of reversed wings protruded, pulling back in rhythm and propelling it through the air like an oared boat through water. One of those wings – the foremost on the beast’s right – had an ugly hole torn through it, a wound Shira herself had caused.
‘Ragwing,’ she mouthed under her breath.
As if responding to the pilot’s sobriquet for it, the Heldrake curved its prehensile body and tucked in one set of wings, gliding back around itself with much greater finesse than Shira had managed with her stunt. Facing the onrushing shuttle, it opened its jaws, the early promise of balefire lapping at its metal jaws. It exhaled before Shira had time to react, the narrow jet of flame heading straight for the Inquisition craft.
More alarms sounded in the crew compartment as the warp-born fire licked over the hull, but Shira entered a steep dive before it could entirely engulf the craft, zipping under the Heldrake. Steam rose from the exterior as the monsoon extinguished the small fires that had attempted to take hold. Her manoeuvre had spared them catastrophic damage but it had placed the daemon engine behind them again.
‘I’m going to pass back around again, low to the ground,’ Shira called back to the Grey Knight. ‘You’re going to have to bail out when I’m near to the entrance.’
‘But what about Ragwing? This thing is barely armed and we can’t compete with it for speed,’ Epimetheus said.
Shira grinned at his use of the name she had given the beast. Perhaps he had been listening all those times she had regaled him with the tale of how she outran and outwitted it. ‘I survived against this thing the last time I went up against it; this time I mean to bring it down. Unless your psychic gifts extend to sprouting wings, you’re no use to me up here.’
Epimetheus nodded. ‘You don’t have to go in too low,’ he said, clamping his helmet in place. ‘I may not know how to fly, but I do know how to land.’
‘Oh, that’s priceless,’ Shira laughed, pulling the controls from side to side erratically, weaving the craft in an irregular pattern. ‘Our touching farewell and you finally develop a sense of humour.’ She stabbed at the control for the rear hatch. Warm air and rain blew into the crew compartment seconds later.
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 345