‘We’re almost out of shells,’ Brigstone called out to Strike, slotting a massive hellhammer round home with the aid of another Catachan before slamming shut the breech. Crates were stacked precariously around him but only two bore unopened seals.
‘Concentrate fire from the demolisher,’ Strike called back. The secondary gun was a far more common armament on Imperial tanks than the hellhammer cannon and over the course of the Battle for the Emerald Cave, Strike and his crew had been able to salvage a reasonable number of demolisher shells. ‘That should see us through the next few hours.’
Moments later, the ordnance situation became the least of their worries.
A nearby detonation rocked Traitor’s Bane with such violence that Brigstone, the other loaders and anybody else not seated slammed to the hard metal floor. Pulling back the slider of a viewslit, Strike witnessed the tail end of the explosion that had engulfed Tindalos, a plume of orange flame rising high from its blazing hull. Whether the lightly armoured promethium tank had taken a direct hit, a backdraught had fed flame back along the inferno cannon or daemons had somehow boarded it and detonated it from within was impossible to fathom and irrelevant. Tindalos was now a flaming wreck and Traitor’s Bane had lost its close support.
Like ocean-bound predators smelling blood in the water, shoals of the Neverborn started to circle the stricken tanks. The heavy flamers, heavy bolters and lascannons swung about to meet the new threat, any daemon caught within their arc of fire either eviscerated or evaporated, but there were too many for even Traitor’s Bane’s formidable weaponry to cope with. The ominous scraping of claws over armour echoed through the crew compartment and clawed footfalls tapped out like an agonised metronome counting down the time until the beasts would be within.
Strike mashed his fist onto the control that electrified the hull but nothing happened. K’Cee shrieked and gesticulated from the driver’s seat, and though Strike couldn’t understand exactly what the jokaero was trying to communicate, he got the gist: it no longer worked.
The xenos’s protestations took on a more urgent tone as the sound of tearing metal issued from the rear of tank, shortly followed by the grind of the Hellhammer coming abruptly to a halt. Despite the language barrier, it was perfectly clear to Strike what K’Cee was now trying to tell him: the daemons had taken out the engine.
Launching out of his seat, K’Cee tore away one of the panels below a control console and slid underneath it. He re-emerged moments later and gestured to Brigstone with all four elongated fingers of one hand in the universal gesture for ‘pass me a wrench’. Brigstone tossed the tool to the jokaero and took K’Cee’s place in the driver’s seat, vainly applying pressure to pedals and controls to coax some power out of the dormant war machine.
All the while, the sound of daemonic clawing and rending grew in intensity.
157961.M41 / Thirty kilometres north of Atika, Pythos
Despite lacking the manoeuvrability of a Kestrel, under Shira’s control the Inquisition shuttle was doing things she swore it was never designed for.
Hugging the canopies of the tall trees, she waited for a break in the blur of green rushing beneath her and dropped beneath the cover. She weaved the craft through the thick trunks, sometimes banking the craft onto its side to slip through the tighter gaps.
The jungle behind her lit up in a riot of blue flame, the chasing Heldrake’s impatience at finding an opening of its own forcing it to burn a point of egress. The shuttle’s auspex flashed repeatedly, alerting Shira that her pursuer was now within fifty metres of her and gaining. It opened its jaws, the promise of yet more balefire flickering across its maw, and sent a funnel of intense heat in the direction of the shuttle. At the last moment, the broad leaves above her gave way to clear skies and she burst out of the jungle, now ablaze with daemonic fire, and back out into the rain.
Behind her, the Heldrake wailed in frustration, its vast form erupting from the flame and steam, doggedly sticking to her tail.
For a craft designed to carry some of the Imperium’s finest and most loyal servants often into hostile environments, whoever had put the shuttle together had incorporated one major flaw – all of the weapons systems pointed forwards. At first glance, the sleek black-hulled craft could be mistaken for a civilian vessel, having no outward signs of offensive capability. On closer inspection it became apparent that the two recesses on the nose were both lascannons and the exhaust ports protruding from either side were flamers designed to protect the shuttle from interference on the ground. But the real pièce de résistance was the hellstrike missile concealed alongside the landing gear.
As with most of the craft’s systems, Shira had discovered it through trial and error on those missions where Epimetheus had deemed it too dangerous for her to accompany him. Fortunately, the button she had pressed just deployed the missile and neither activated nor launched it. It was a simple process of elimination that had led her to find that particular switch.
She briefly considered turning the shuttle around and ramming the hellstrike straight down Ragwing’s throat, but quickly ruled it out. Not only would she be putting herself directly into the path and range of its flame weapon, but if she missed she would have blown her one chance at bringing the Heldrake down.
But that didn’t mean she was entirely without hope or options.
Veering off in a north-easterly direction, Shira flew for all she was worth towards the nearest mountain range. With a snort of warpfire, Ragwing followed.
157961.M41 / The Underhive. Atika, Pythos
The combination of total recall and enhanced vision made navigating the benighted tunnels beneath Atika a simple task for Epimetheus. He had already walked this way twice, once ten thousand years ago at the head of a hundred Grey Knights, the second time very recently as part of a much smaller group. If he was not familiar with the route or his eidetic memory had somehow failed him, the advanced light-capturing capabilities of his occulobe were revealing the path to him as if it were merely twilight rather than pitch black.
He came to a halt at a flat section where the shaft widened and knelt down, dipping his fingers in a stream of dark liquid running across the stone floor and sniffing them. Blood. Following the trail back to behind a boulder against one of the walls, he found a Cadian in the same uniform as those dead up above, almost split in two from a wound that ran from groin to throat, ran down by Abaddon and his Black Legionnaires as he tried to raise the alarm. Rising from a crouch, Epimetheus swore to himself that this would be the last servant of the Emperor the Warmaster slew on Pythos.
Reaching his full height, a sudden bout of vertigo afflicted the Grey Knight forcing him to thrust out an arm to steady himself. His head ached in a way that his pain suppressors were unable to deal with and a sickening buzzing and tingling lashed across his temporal lobe. Not since the days before the Emperor came to his home world and he swore his first oaths as a Space Marine had he felt pain of this magnitude and had never expected to feel its like again. He pulled off his helmet in case his ancient Terminator suit was malfunctioning, but the pain and dizziness did not abate. He regulated his breathing but to no avail, the pain intensifying rather than dissipating.
Gas, he thought. Either some build-up of subterranean fumes so toxic it affected even a Space Marine’s genhanced physiology or an Archenemy trap.
It was a trap, just not the kind Epimetheus suspected.
Turning to head back to the surface, the Grey Knight had only taken a few steps when a shape detached itself threateningly from the darkness. Instinctively, Epimetheus drew upon his gifts but the well was dry, his link to the warp severed. Without flinching, he raised his bolter and put three rounds through the head of his concealed would-be assassin. Two more figures resolved out of the black, one of whom Epimetheus put down immediately, but the other was able to get off a shot before meeting with the same fate as his comrade. The bolt round struck Epimetheus in the knee, shattering armour and bone, dropping him to a crouch once again. More figur
es shifted in the gloom but there was another enemy he was fighting against. It felt as if his own powers had turned against him, killing him instead of saving him. The closer the shadows got, the more severe the pain became.
Epimetheus squeezed off two more shots, the heavy thud of power armour against rock signifying both were fatal. He was lining up a third when he was struck on the wrist, the shot not penetrating all the way through his Cataphractii plate but enough to send his bolter skidding away down the tunnel. He tried to rise, desperate to retrieve it, but was assailed by more gunfire, two rounds finding their way through his armour at the chest and shoulder, another to devastating effect on his other knee. His secondary heart kicked in and his system flushed with pain-killing agents, calming his physical wounds but doing nothing to intervene in the war within his mind. His brain felt like it was made of glass, every burst of gunfire shattering it.
His attackers revealed themselves, the black armour and gold livery of their battered armour denoting their allegiance to Abaddon and his Black Legion. Three of them held chains at the end of which were tethered beasts, feral things crawling on all fours. It pained him to do so but Epimetheus forced himself to look upon them. Only then did he realise that they were not animals at all, they were human, or, in the case of one of them, something approaching human.
One was female, completely naked and covered in filth, her hair and nails long and unkempt. Her face could be considered beautiful by human standards but Epimetheus found it difficult to look upon her, her very presence this close to him making him want to completely and utterly destroy her. The other two were both male, in a similar state of undress but whereas one of them had a primitive aspect to his features – as if he was a genetic throwback to an earlier stage of evolution – the other was something different, something not human.
Covered entirely in tough scaled hide, the thing skulked on four simian legs, straining on its leash to reach what it considered to be prey. Its humanoid face showed intelligence and a bulbous tongue ran across twin sets of needle-sharp teeth as if in anticipation of a feast. Its orange, glowing eyes were fixed on Epimetheus, but the Grey Knight could not hold its gaze, convulsions wracking his body the instant he made eye contact.
Blanks.
Though the pinnacle of human power is psychic ability married with the enhanced genetics of a Space Marine, even a being so mighty can be laid low by a blank, an aberration scarcer than a psyker upon the worlds of the Imperium. Able to negate the most potent of mental abilities, the blank – or blacksoul as the Grey Knights referred to them – was uncomfortable for even normal humans to be around, excruciatingly painful for those touched by the warp. At the time of Horus’s rebellion, the Emperor maintained an entire cadre of such beings – the Sisters of Silence – but to find more than one in the same planetary sector, let alone the same planet, was unheard of. This was no freak occurrence; somebody had engineered this. Somebody had brought three blanks to Pythos specifically to nullify Epimetheus.
The Black Legionnaires parted and Abaddon stepped out of the darkness.
Chapter Eighteen
157961.M41 / The Emerald Cave. Atika, Pythos
Steel fashioned on the anvils of Titan clashed against the serrated edge of a blade forged deep within the Eye of Terror, the strength of both wielders locking together the two swords that were anathema to each other. Like oppositely charged magnets each weapon fought to repel the other, the air around the duel heavy with electrical charge and the stink of ozone.
The two warriors broke from each other, Draigo swinging the Titansword around and clearing the surrounding area of plague zombies, Corpulax summoning yet more of his thralls to him. Nearby, Tzula lashed out with both combat knife and plasma pistol, keeping the horde at bay.
The din of combat had not subsided, but where the air had once been full of the boom of artillery fire and the discharge of heavy ordnance, now the ululating cries of daemons and low moan of the undead drowned it out. Many kilometres away, the Brotherhood of which Draigo had taken temporary command continued to engage the Neverborn, thousands of them converging on the Grey Knights’ position. His Space Marines fought with the same freshness and zeal as they had at the dawn of the battle, but the first inklings of concern were seeping into the psychic link the Supreme Grand Master maintained with his troops. Thankfully few Grey Knights had fallen thus far but the Imperial Guard tanks had borne the brunt of the daemons’ assault, leaving them virtually bereft of armoured support.
Azrael and his Dark Angels fared little better. Those in the immediate vicinity were now fighting on two fronts – up close and personal with the overwhelming press of plague zombies and at range with the Traitor Marines. Not a single Deathwing or company master remained unscathed and Azrael himself bled from a vicious claw wound to his torso. The squads scattered throughout the Emerald Cave found themselves hunkered down behind the cover of transport vehicles or rock formations, any daemons not able to get close enough to the Grey Knights seeking out the Sons of the Lion instead.
It was in the air where the most success had been made. With fewer of the winged daemons than those confined to the ground, air superiority had been established and Thunderhawks and Valkyries rained down death from above while Sammael pursued and eliminated any of the Neverborn with the temerity to challenge their aerial dominance. It had not come entirely without cost, as the smoking wrecks of more than a dozen Imperial flyers bore testimony to.
The Plague Lord came at Draigo again, but the Grey Knight turned aside the blow with his own blade and drove his elbow into the back of Corpulax’s head. The Titansword flashed with reflected emerald light as it swept in a blur towards the traitor’s head but at the last moment Corpulax threw a plague zombie bodily in the way, which exploded in a shower of blood and innards as Draigo’s sword connected with it.
Lifting a gore-drenched arm, the Grey Knight opened up at close range with his storm bolter but with a flick of his hand, Corpulax put a putrid barrier between him and Draigo, another coat of stinking crimson atop silver armour the only outcome. Back and forth it went, Draigo countering every thrust and swipe aimed at him, the Plague Lord sacrificing his thralls to defend the Grey Knight’s attacks.
Eventually something had to give.
Unseen among the stack of limbs and severed body parts, a gruesome collage adorning the floor of the Emerald Cave, the upper half of a plague zombie continued its progress towards the Grey Knight. Unnoticed by Draigo, who was too preoccupied by the attentions of Corpulax and his other minions, it dragged itself along on decaying arms leaving bloody smears behind it as it pulled its body closer to its intended victim. Reaching one of Draigo’s massive armoured greaves, it raised itself up, biting and clawing at the weak point at the back of the Supreme Grand Master’s knee.
Draigo looked down for a split second, drawing his blade backwards and impaling the half-zombie on its tip, but this was the opening Corpulax had been seeking. Spinning his sword so it was point down, he stabbed at Draigo’s calf, the serrated edge biting through ceramite and into the huge muscle beneath. Hamstrung, the Grey Knight fell to one knee with a grunt of pain. Corpulax was upon him instantly, sword-tip pressed against Draigo’s throat.
‘A fine duel, Grey Knight, but there was only ever going to be one victor.’ Corpulax applied pressure to the hilt of his weapon, Draigo’s armour sizzling under its acidic touch. ‘Consider yourself fortunate that I will allow you to live on as one of my thralls.’
A call rang out from where the Dark Angels were engaging the Plague Marines. ‘Draigo!’ bellowed Azrael, futilely trying to carve his way to his stricken counterpart.
Corpulax’s grip on his sword relaxed slightly, grim realisation apparent on his face. ‘Draigo? No, this cannot be. The Four have such plans for you, such a role you have yet to play.’ He tightened his hold of the blade again. ‘No. I shall not be robbed of this. If you truly are part of a greater scheme then why–’
Draigo never got to find out why. With a crackle of
energy, a power sword slid through the air taking Corpulax’s other hand at the wrist, still gripping the sword as it fell to the ground with a clang. Behind the sword came a mass of stained ivory ceramite, crashing into the Plague Lord and knocking him to the ground. The Deathwing raised his sword for another attack but Corpulax had lost a hand, not his senses, and plague zombies flooded in to fill the space between them. Under cover of his thralls, Corpulax got to his feet and retreated through the ranks of the undead. Accepting Draigo’s nod of gratitude, Balthasar set off in pursuit.
Tzula came alongside Draigo again and the Space Marine lifted himself erect, his wound already knitting thanks to his accelerated healing process.
‘How bad is it?’ the junior interrogator asked, her plasma pistol finally having given out, forcing her to resort to a scavenged bolt pistol for defence.
‘The muscle feels like it’s almost completely shorn through and the blade was laced with toxins that are inhibiting its repair.’ He blazed away with the last few shots from his storm bolter until it returned a hollow clack signifying it was empty. ‘I can stand but I won’t be able to move freely until an Apothecary has taken a look at it.’
Despite Corpulax fleeing, neither the plague zombies nor his Traitor Marine cohort relented in their attack. A Dark Angels company master in tattered robes was hit in the side of the neck; the arterial flow was quickly stemmed but in his weakened state he was dragged down by undead hands, armour torn from him so they could feast on what lay inside it. Their superior armour no advantage, the Deathwing too fell under fire from the Plague Marines. In the space of as many seconds, three died, their breastplates and helmets giving in under a sustained barrage from a heavy bolter. It was only the psychic sanctuary Draigo had put back in place that prevented him and Tzula from sharing their doom.
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 347