Apocalypse - Josh Reynolds

by Warhammer 40K

  Suboden felt the deck shudder as the battle-barge began the slow process of turning back. He gripped his sheathed tulwar, and felt his hearts speed up their rhythm. Perhaps this was for the best. Running had not suited him. ‘Scramble assault craft,’ he said. Around him, the command crew snapped into action. ‘I want their fighters intercepted. Concentrate macro-cannon fire on the lead cruiser. Target the rest with the bombardment cannons. Let us see if we can break up their formation.’

  Kanim grunted. ‘What?’ he murmured.

  Suboden looked up at him. ‘What is it, shaman?’

  ‘Something…’ Kanim shook his head. ‘The wind is blowing in the wrong direction.’

  ‘We are in the void. There is no wind.’

  ‘Even so. It feels as if all the spirits are screaming. As if something is coming…’

  ‘My lord, the lead enemy cruiser is launching boarding torpedoes,’ a serf called out.

  Suboden tore his gaze from the Stormseer and turned. ‘Target?’

  ‘Everywhere, my lord.’

  The air inside of the boarding torpedo was thick with the smell of blood and incense. Markus idly tested the chains that bound him to the inside hull. He was one of thirteen volunteers aboard this vessel, and he could hear the others murmuring, praying or singing softly. Like theirs, his flesh was cut into more pleasing shapes, and marked with ash and holy oils. Infection had already crept in, leaving the wounds livid and weeping.

  His bones moved within him, snapped by the force of the torpedo’s launch. The vessel was meant for the blessed ones, not mere mortals. A sign of their favour. Every jolt and judder sent new paroxysms of agony through him.

  It was a good pain. A gift, even. He grimaced as something stirred in his guts. The cold radiated by the hull bit into his back, numbing his shoulders and hips. But there was a fire in his belly, stretching up through him. The fire whispered to him. Sang to him. Soon, child, soon, it rumbled. Even at a whisper, it was akin to the roar of a conflagration. A hungry, grasping sound that tugged at every nerve in his body. Soon, you will split like the sweetest fruit, and give way before me. I will wear your skull to war, and carry it with me to his throne. Khorne sees you, child. Khorne waits for you, little brother.

  ‘Yes,’ Markus whispered. ‘Oh yes. Take my bones and meat, and make of them a glorious ruin, O prince of fire and shadow.’

  The presence within him growled in satisfaction. I will, little brother. Your fat will oil my blade. Your bones will be my chest-plate and your scalp, my loincloth. I will eat of you, and spit your blood upon my path, to mark it. Rejoice.

  Its growl thrummed through him, and he stiffened in delight. To be torn asunder by a prince of murder was all that he had ever desired. To cast himself into the fires of blood and slaughter was a gift greater than any a man might receive.

  And well deserved, little brother, for did you not take the skulls of the worthy, and spill seas of wine-dark blood? Did you not commit slaughter in our father’s name? Rejoice. Call out to him, so that he might witness this moment…

  ‘Rejoice, brothers and sisters,’ Markus said. The harsh croak of his voice echoed, silencing the others, save for the singers. ‘Rejoice. For we are blessed beyond all others.’ Chains clinked as heads turned towards him. Stiffly, and painfully. Once, Markus had led such a congregation to war. They had daubed themselves in blood and ash, and bared their flesh to the weapons of the foe – all so that the Blood God might look upon them with a moment’s favour. And now, here was his reward at last.

  Another thrum of pain reverberated through the hollows of him. He could feel the presence within growing larger. Stronger. The closer they drew to their target, the more powerful it became. But though the key was in the lock, it had yet to be turned. Only through blood sacrifice could the sons of Khorne frenzy forth in all their crimson glory.

  We are here, little brother. We crouch at the threshold, waiting for you to throw wide the gate. You shall be the spark which births a glorious conflagration. Rejoice!

  ‘The Allslaughter descends, brothers and sisters – and we are its red edge,’ Markus intoned. ‘Chosen by the blessed ones, who carried his word to us on cosmic winds. They give us this glory, my friends – they sacrifice their own joys, for us. So that we might know the joys of the abattoir, such as none have known them.’

  The boarding torpedo was shuddering. Dim lumens flickered, and he could hear the hiss of escaping air. Proximity alarms moaned. The enemy was firing upon them. But it did not matter. The blade descended and no power in the universe could halt it.

  He saw faces pressed against the bloody flesh of his fellow sacrifices. Eager and impatient, the sons of Khorne clawed at the skeins of meat that barred their path. The thing within Markus growled in pleasure, and he felt his wounds strain and split at the sound. Blood poured and pooled upon the deck, the heady reek of it thick in his nostrils.

  ‘Gloria Aeterna, brothers and sisters,’ he croaked. ‘Gloria Aeterna!’

  The others answered him in kind. ‘Gloria Aeterna!’

  The klaxons were louder now, the lumens impossibly bright. Blinding in their intensity.

  ‘Gloria Aeterna!’

  His heartbeat sped up, so fast that he thought it would burst. The torpedo was shaking fiercely, as if it might fly apart at any moment. Between the cracks in the hull, he saw a red glow, growing brighter and deeper and he heard the howl of the thing within him.

  ‘Gloria Aeterna!’

  Markus closed his eyes.

  ‘Gloria Aet–’

  ‘Impact,’ a tactical servitor droned.

  ‘Penetration?’ Suboden demanded. Sirens wailed, as crew shouted from their stations. The battle-barge had intercepted a few of the torpedoes, but not all. On the viewscreen, Stormhawk interceptors hurtled through the void, duelling with the enemy’s own attack craft.

  ‘Negative penetration,’ the servitor replied. ‘Scanning… scanning… secondary impact. Tertiary. Negative penetration.’

  ‘That’s something to be thankful for, at least.’ Suboden studied the tacticum overlay that flickered about his throne. Ident-runes moved in all directions. One of the enemy cruisers had managed to slide past the Silent Horseman and engage the Crassus. Communications were still out, and he could only watch as the two vessels spun in a slow, fiery gavotte.

  Broadsides lit up the void, as the two cruisers passed each other. Shields were of little use at such close quarters. It was down to endurance, and the Crassus had precious little of that left. She died in silence, her guns spitting fire at her killer. The cruiser that murdered her succumbed a moment later, caught by a lucky broadside from Orlanda’s Wrath. It whipsawed away, shedding fragments of hull plating. Its guns still blazed as it spun slowly away, the flickers of light punching into nearby frigates. One was consumed. Others reeled, coming to new headings, seeking escape, as the Silent Horseman raged towards them.

  The command deck trembled as the bombardment cannons roared again. While normally used to pound a planet flat, the dorsal-mounted cannons could be put to great effect in ship-to-ship combat. Frigates hung burning in the void as the high-powered warheads shredded their hulls like paper. The remaining enemy cruisers were standing off, launching boarding torpedoes and fighter craft.

  ‘They want our hides for their ger,’ Suboden muttered.

  Kanim nodded. The Stormseer leaned on his staff, watching the carnage with a flat gaze. Suboden couldn’t say what the shaman was searching for, but part of him hoped that Kanim didn’t find it. ‘A good ship is worth much. The Silent Horseman would be a mighty prize.’

  ‘And that gives us our opportunity. We can hold them – give Keel a chance to reach Almace.’ Suboden activated the command channel, hoping that at least a few of his remaining ships would hear it. ‘Orlanda’s Wrath, all escorts, reverse thrusters – retro-burn. Fall back to designated rallying point alpha-zeta–’


  His command was interrupted by a sound like the clashing of many cymbals, and the skirling of pipes. He hunched forward, hands clasped to his aching ears as the sound grew shrill. Through narrowed eyes, he saw the bridge serfs collapsing, their bodies convulsing in apparent agony. ‘What…?’ he croaked.

  ‘Witchery,’ Kanim hissed. The Stormseer leaned against his staff, blood leaking from the corners of his eyes. ‘Powerful. I…’ His words were lost in a sudden clamouring that came from everywhere and nowhere at once.

  The air pulsed with greasy light. It spun and danced across the deck in malign fashion. The vox spat a stream of gibberish – children’s voices, raised in song; a woman, weeping; animals snarling over a scrap of squealing meat; flies humming in their hundreds. The din grew unbearable, seeming to fill the entirety of the bridge.

  Beneath the cacophony, Suboden heard the voices of his crew raised in alarm. Requests for assistance echoed through the vox, all but drowned out by the malignant noises. Something was aboard the ship. He could hear it crawling between the deck plates, and tramping on the outer hull. Sensor-feeds began to flicker and go black.

  Quickly, despite the pain radiating through his skull, he cycled through the remaining feeds, searching for the cause of it all. He spotted one of the crashed ships, crumpled atop the Silent Horseman’s dorsal section, amid the forest of turrets and sensor relays. It was a small thing – barely a fighter craft. There had been people aboard – he could see what was left of them smeared across the hull, or tangled in the wreckage. But there was something wrong with the corpses. They were moving. Twitching. As if something were trapped within them, fighting to be free.

  ‘Kanim – shaman, look,’ he growled, magnifying the image.

  Kanim shook his head and peered at the images. He spat a single word in Khorchin. Suboden nodded. ‘We have been tricked,’ he said, his voice harsh.

  On the feed, the convulsing bodies had begun to bubble and steam, despite the lack of atmosphere and heat. The raw flesh split like overripe fruit, and something forced its way free, something too large to fit in such a small space, something larger than a man or Space Marine, something with great wings that snapped out to their full extent, even as the feed went black. Suboden cycled through, and saw similar scenes repeated across the hull – a great legion of nightmare shapes was now clinging to his ship.

  There was a sound from above, like the clangour of a great bell. He knew what it was, even if he couldn’t see it. It was the sound of a monstrous axe, striking the hull. Again and again and again. Hacking itself a path right to the bridge – not just through the physical substance of the vessel, but through the very idea of its solidity.

  ‘Impossible,’ he muttered.

  ‘Witchery,’ Kanim said again, his voice hoarse.

  Suboden snarled and shoved himself to his feet. Rage and helplessness thrummed through him – the latter was a feeling he was not used to. He looked at Kanim, hoping that the Stormseer had some suggestion, but the other White Scar simply shook his head. There was nothing to be done, save endure.

  The sound grew louder. Suboden drew his tulwar, and cast aside the sheath.

  The chill air turned treacle-thick, and the coolant mist billowing from the cycle-vents turned an ugly shade of crimson. Suboden heard the crash of blades and the stamp of hooves. The mist thickened and rose, like a serpent readying itself to strike.

  And then something made of rage and fire stepped from it. A face like an open wound twisted into something that might have been a smile. Teeth like knives gleamed in the light. Wings stretched, filling the command deck, end to end. Beneath these wings, red shapes took form – lean and thirsty, they prowled about like hounds at the feet of their master.

  ‘Yaksha,’ Kanim spat. Lightning crawled across his armour as he slammed the ferrule of his staff down. Suboden raised his tulwar, igniting the artificer powercells within it.

  With a roar, the Neverborn charged.

  ‘It worked, Kelim,’ Kespu said. Kelim could hear the anticipation in his voice. ‘I can hear the Neverborn singing from here. We should make the kill now. Take them, while they’re preoccupied.’

  ‘By all means, Kespu. Which would you prefer? The cruiser perhaps? Take care, lest you wind up like Gorham.’ The Skullhound was dying, its communications severed. In its death throes, its guns blindly chewed the flanks of its allies. Kelim gestured to Timp. ‘Tell our main batteries to target the Skullhound, before they accidentally destroy one of us.’

  Timp hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. He snapped to, robes swirling. Kelim turned back to the holo-screen, and Kespu. ‘Any communications from the Thessalonian?’ As he spoke, the Skullhound met its end, blazing away into ragged tatters of hull and endo-structure. Lorgar’s Word purred in pleasure. The death cry of another ship was its favourite sound.

  ‘None, of course. He is not one of us, Kelim. And he is eager, besides.’

  ‘So I see.’ Kelim watched as Dagmar’s Penitence closed with the enemy’s remaining heavy cruiser. The two ships traded fire with almost stately aplomb. Ordinarily, void-war was a thing of cold, distant calculus. A game of numbers and calculations. This close, it was more like a brawl, and every vessel a punch-drunk fighter, swinging blind and hoping to connect. That was why he’d decided to invoke the Neverborn. There was an old Terran axiom – the odds weren’t even, unless they were on your side.

  He enhanced the visual feeds. Daemons crawled across the hull of the battle-barge – tearing up armour plates, swarming into the weapons batteries, or capering wildly atop sensor towers. Only a few of the boarding torpedoes had struck home – the rest tumbled broken amongst the battle-debris, their cargoes screeching in soundless frustration as they watched the carnage unfold about them, out of reach. The Neverborn would not last – even this close to the Great Rift, they could not maintain their hold on reality forever. So long as the blood ran, they would have sway.

  But that was good enough. The battle-barge would be easy prey. ‘Kespu – bring the Ucephalot into a flanking position. I want that battle-barge.’

  ‘Together, then?’

  ‘There is enough glory for the pair of us, brother. Let the Thessalonian have his fun. And Gorham gave us an opening. We may as well exploit it.’ Kelim glanced at Timp. ‘Take us in. All ahead full.’

  The axe swept down, crunching into the deck. Suboden staggered back, his hearts thundering. The Neverborn whirled, wrenching its weapon free in the process. It seemed to change shape from one moment to the next, like a plume of smoke caught in a charnel wind. One moment, it filled the deck. In the next, it was only slightly larger than him. Back and forth, as if it could not decide what it wished to be. Or perhaps it simply didn’t care.

  It roared again – a sound like no animal or man had ever made. Instead, it was the clangour of steel and the snapping of bones. Its voice was that of violence itself. Suboden cried out in pain as the noise assaulted his senses. A knotted, rust-coloured fist knocked him from his feet and sent him skidding across the deck.

  As he forced himself to his feet, he saw his crew fighting – dying. Klaxons screamed, and White Scars flooded the deck, attempting to stymie the daemonic intrusion. A white-armoured body was cast into the air, all but bisected by the slash of his opponent’s axe. Another warrior was pulled from his feet by one of the reptilian hounds that had accompanied the larger Neverborn, and shaken so fiercely that his spine snapped.

  Lightning seared the air, as Kanim shouted his defiance. Tulwar in one hand, staff in the other, the shaman was the living eye of the storm. Where he walked, daemons were cast screaming back into the realms between. But he could not be everywhere at once.

  The gigantic Neverborn fastened its white-hot gaze on the Stormseer, as if sensing that he posed the greatest threat to its existence. It turned from Suboden with a dismissive snort. Suboden stabbed his tulwar into the deck and levered himself to his feet. The servos
of his battleplate responded sluggishly as he started after the creature. ‘Kanim – behind you, shaman,’ he roared.

  Kanim turned, even as the axe descended. The Stormseer lashed out and the daemon stepped back, its body wrapped in lightning. It roared and its wings gave a great flap, knocking the Stormseer sprawling. A massive hoof slammed down, nearly crushing the life from him. Kanim scrambled aside, but was caught by a glancing blow from the axe. He crashed down hard, denting the deck. His staff rolled free of his limp grip.

  Suboden cried out and leapt, slashing his tulwar across the daemon’s back. A flood of steaming ichor spattered the deck. It spun, axe hissing out, doglike muzzle twisted in a snarl. Suboden felt the heat of the blade as it passed within a hair’s breadth of taking his head. A normal man would have died with the first blow. His enhanced reflexes and speed were the only things standing between him and death. He slashed out again and again, trying to lead the hulking Neverborn away from Kanim.

  Something struck him from the side, knocking him to the deck. One of the hound-things snapped its jaws shut on his forearm and began to worry at him, jerking its frilled skull back and forth with bone-rattling force. He’d dropped his blade and was forced to seize his combat knife. The thing’s teeth cracked the ceramite, and he could hear the hiss of acidic drool burning away white paint. He slammed the knife into the side of its malformed skull, piercing whatever passed for its brain.

  As he used the blade to lever open its jaws, Suboden felt the deck tremble. He managed to roll aside, even as the daemon’s axe sank into the already dissolving body of the hound-thing. The blade gashed his chest a moment later, knocking him backwards. His chest-plate smouldered, power cables leaking fluid. Something inside him had been broken, and he coughed blood. Another blow sheared part of his shoulder-plate off and numbed his arm. Desperate, he closed with the creature, knife held low.