‘It’s always the way,’ the soldier went on, fruit juices staining his mouth and unshaven chin. ‘They send in the sacrificial meat first. And a few of us to give them spine.’ He slapped the length of his lasrifle. ‘But always the meat first.’ He chewed noisily. ‘Say it sanctifies the ground. Makes it so they can walk on it without offending the gods.’
‘You worship their gods?’ It was a stupid question, given the man’s uniform.
The soldier shrugged. ‘Got to worship something.’ His flat gaze took in the cultists as they forced the wrought-iron gates of the garden, using the broken remnants of a marble bench as a battering ram. Ganor saw other soldiers, clad similarly to his companion, marching down the boarding ramps, dragging heavy equipment behind them.
‘It’s like a fire,’ the soldier said. ‘That’s what I’ve decided.’
‘What?’
‘This. All of it. It’s a fire.’ He ate another piece of fruit, chewing wetly. ‘It’s going to burn the galaxy clean, so that we can start over.’
Ganor stared at him. The soldier grinned, and Ganor thought something was moving behind the man’s eyes. He looked away quickly. He felt sick.
‘If we all burn, who’s left to start over.’
The soldier chuckled and shrugged. ‘That’s for the gods to say.’ He dropped what was left of the fruit to the grass and wiped his mouth. ‘I’m just a spark in the fire.’ He looked at Ganor and winked. ‘And now, so are you.’
Ganor considered shooting him as he strode towards the other soldiers, assembling before the cutter, but he resisted the impulse. He turned back to the tree, suddenly hungry for another taste of fruit. But at some point, the fire had spread.
So instead, he watched the garden burn.
Chapter Twenty-Two
93:30:30
Almace, Primaris-grade cardinal world
Low Town had been hammered flat.
Fire had fallen from the sky as troop barges and gunships cleared landing zones. Pirate skiffs had joined the fun, less for strategic reasons than the pleasure of simple destruction. Now, the occupants of those vessels hunted the ruins they’d made, rounding up survivors and plundering at will.
And they, in their turn, were hunted.
Rukn moved silently through the industrial jungle, his Scouts padding in his wake. And spread out around them, the dregs of Low Town scuttled through the forest of girders and conduits. The mortals moved with commendable silence for their sort, though to Rukn’s discerning ears they were too loud. They were criminals, mostly, clad in bartered or stolen combat rigs and flak armour, carrying a variety of weapons. Autoguns, slug-throwers, lascarbines and a few things that even Rukn didn’t recognise.
Like the White Scars, they showed their affiliations openly – tattoos and gang-brands on their flesh, clan colours and sigils on their clothing. They stank of industrial grime, of processed ore and sour water. Their pores sweated narcotics. But they were hunters born, and had proved it more than once since the enemy had flooded the cramped streets of Low Town. Knives in the dark, garrottes, muffled stub pistol shots and monofilament nooses – all had been put to good use. The mortal slaves of the foe died in droves, barely aware of what had killed them.
Rukn had led his motley huntsmen through the slums and drainage tunnels. They had set traps and cut fuel lines. They had even poisoned a water filtration cistern, killing almost a hundred cultists.
It was satisfying work, this. The enemy were preoccupied with reaching the cathedral-palace, and paid little attention to the shadow war being waged around them. Then, that was often the way. Though he would never voice such thoughts openly, Rukn saw many similarities between the traitors and their loyalist opposites. Both were often blind to anything not related to the battle at hand. For them, there was only war. An incessant drumbeat, guiding them and lulling them. A sad thing, when there was so much else to see.
Rukn stopped as the wind turned, bringing with it the smell of unguents and incense. He gestured, and his Scouts dropped prone, slithering into whatever cover was available. The gangers did the same, save for the one named Belloq, who crawled forward to join Rukn. The man was bald and his eyes were hidden behind welder’s lenses. He wore battered fatigues beneath a threadbare silk jacket studded with good-luck charms, and held a heavily modified combat shotgun close to his barrel chest. ‘What is it?’ he grunted.
Rukn tapped his nose. ‘Smell that?’
Belloq sniffed and spat. ‘Close then. Quiet or loud?’
‘Depends. Come.’ Rukn began to creep forward. Belloq slung his shotgun across his back and followed, though more slowly. They moved past the walls of ruptured hab-units and through curtains of torn wiring and moisture netting, following the scent. The trail led them to what had once been a market square.
Rubble had been cleared away by labour gangs, and something that might have been an altar erected at the centre of the square. A crowd occupied the space, many of them clad in tattered robes and battered flak armour. Others were naked, save for the filth that smeared their forms. Men and women were dragged screaming through the crowd, their hands bound, their faces bloody and bruised. The crowd bayed and struck at them as they passed on their way to the makeshift altar, where a tall figure in the filthy remnants of once-rich robes and a moon-shaped, grinning mask stood waiting. Moon-face raised a sickle-shaped blade and beckoned the prisoners on. Their captors hauled them forwards.
Belloq fired.
Moon-face – the high priest – toppled back across the makeshift altar.
Rukn looked at the ganger. ‘Probably not wise,’ he said. Belloq replied with an obscenity and rose to his feet. As he did so, Rukn heard a hum, as of many tiny wings. Flies boiled up out of the crowd as they turned towards Rukn and Belloq.
The flies surged and swarmed about them, biting and stinging. Rukn bellowed in fury and slashed out with his tulwar, trying to break up the swarm. He saw Belloq fire again and again, pumping shots into the clamouring ranks of cultists. Despite the buzzing in his ears he heard the thump of bolt pistols and autoguns as his Scouts and the gangers opened up from their positions of concealment.
The square was soon awash in blood, as cultists fell twitching. But the rest continued to chant and clang their tocsins, even as they fired back at the surrounding buildings. Belloq advanced into their ranks, his men following him. On the lumpen altar, the high priest’s body had begun to twitch and jerk, as if he might rise up despite his lack of head. The droning chant reached a febrile pitch, and the air felt greasy and foul. Rukn tasted something bitter on his tongue and turned towards the altar, a warning on his lips. But too late.
The high priest’s body burst open, and a long, gangling arm covered in mottled flesh reached up from within. The arm fell with a splat, and a horned head appeared, forcing its way up through the dead man’s belly. A face like a squeezed pustule, with one urine-coloured eye, gazed about as the daemon forced its narrow shoulders through the dead man’s ribcage. When it braced a knobbly foot on the altar, it dragged a rust-eaten blade from the body with a lingering hiss.
Time seemed to slow, as the daemon surveyed the realm it had been birthed into. Its mouth worked soundlessly, chewing the air. Then, half-formed and losing cohesion with every passing moment, it lunged, faster and farther than it should have been able to. Its wormy blade made an awful keening sound as it passed through Belloq’s shoulder and chest. As the daemon ripped its weapon free, the ganger collapsed. Pale maggots sprouted from the blackening wound, gnawing at his rapidly liquefying flesh. Belloq’s body twitched and jumped as the maggots devoured him and grew fat.
Belloq’s men scattered, some fleeing, others shooting at the creature. But to no avail. As the creature closed in on those too stubborn to retreat, Rukn bellowed wordlessly, trying to catch its attention. He ducked aside as the daemon whirled towards him. It chortled something in glottal tones, but he ignored it. His tulwar d
anced across its tattered hide, rending it like soggy paper. Steaming ichor splattered his white armour and stung his bare arms. He backed away, pulling his bolt pistol. The daemon lurched after him, losing pieces of itself with every step.
‘The worm crawls in, the worm crawls out, the worm squirms all about,’ it grunted in a wet, ugly voice as it pursued him. ‘The worm goes up, the worm goes down, the worm–’
‘Quiet,’ Rukn snarled, and shot it in the head. Its cyclopean eye burst like a boil, spattering the ground with pus. Its skull deflated with a feculent wheeze and the body unravelled, tumbling to the ground in bits and pieces.
The cloud of flies shuddered and dissipated, leaving Rukn’s head and vision clear. The plaza was full of bodies and the stink of death was strong in the air. He looked at one of the surviving gangers. ‘Promethium. Burn everything. Just like the last time.’
He looked up as a shadow flickered across the plaza. Gunships. No way to tell whose.
‘They’re ours.’
Rukn spun, tulwar extended. Solaro raised an eyebrow as the blade came to rest against the edge of his neck. The Reiver stepped back respectfully. He looked past Rukn. ‘Trouble?’
‘No. You?’
The Reiver laughed. Rukn smiled thinly. He liked the Raven Guard, despite his abnormal height. They’d worked well together since the siege had begun. Solaro had his own contingent of mortals to shepherd, and Rukn saw them picking their way through the carnage. ‘We heard the shooting.’
‘Cultists,’ Rukn said, and spat. ‘More of them since yesterday, though.’ He sheathed his blade. Every day brought more of them, in landing craft, or crawling over the mountains. And that was just Low Town.
‘Yes.’ Solaro indicated the upper reaches of the city. ‘All heading that way. Siege weapons too. Tanks and artillery.’
Rukn turned. ‘Best to contact the lieutenant, then.’
‘Think he’ll want us to go?’
Rukn spat again.
‘Doesn’t matter. That’s where I’m going.’
Almace, Primus asteroid facilities
Karros leaned over the flickering schematic, frowning. ‘They’re pulling back to the ore-processors.’ He traced the image with a finger, causing it to hum softly. As it flickered, it cast sharp shadows on the dingy walls of the chamber. Originally, it had been an ore-vein, but as the shaft had been stripped bare, the miners had reinforced it and made it an extension of the facility, turning it into a catch-all chamber – a storage area, or a place for the swing-shift to sleep. Thousands of similar sites dotted the asteroid’s insides.
At the moment, it was Karros’ headquarters. Enforcers and miners moved about, stacking supplies or studying maps, planning future operations. Women and children huddled in the corners, cooking or loading weapons. An elderly missionary – Zebus, that was his name – read haltingly from the Lectitio Divinitatus to an attentive crowd. Raven Guard moved about the chamber, overseeing the preparations. Sometimes they stopped to advise or comment, but mostly they watched. That was as it should be, Karros thought.
Space Marines were powerful, worth a hundred lesser souls, but they were finite. With the proper training, the miners could continue to resist the enemy after the last Raven Guard had perished. That they would all perish was an unspoken certainty among them. The enemy outnumbered them, despite the heavy losses the traitors had taken in the initial ambush. There would be no reinforcements from Almace. The Raven Guard would fight and die, one by one. But the miners might live. Might survive. That was enough.
Karros glanced at Deron. ‘Any word from Spiros?’
The other Raven Guard shook his head. ‘Can’t even patch into his picter-feed. His armour’s offline.’ Karros’ frown deepened. There was only one conclusion to draw from that. ‘He’s lost to us,’ Deron said. It wasn’t a question.
Karros shook his head. Spiros wasn’t the first of their number to fall, but something felt off about it. ‘Maybe not. They’re planning something. The assaults here and here – they were more like raids, wouldn’t you say?’ He looked over at Reyes and Desh. The enforcer had his helmet off as well, and his features were haggard and bloody. Reyes handed him a cup of steaming recaff, and he thanked her with a brusque nod.
Desh nodded as he sipped his drink. ‘I don’t have much experience with it, but yes. Smash-and-grab, rather than trying to take ground.’ He looked at Reyes. ‘How many did they take?’
She looked away. ‘We don’t know. They hit one of the secure hab-areas. At least, we thought it was secure.’ She concentrated on her recaff. Desh hesitated, and then reached out, as if to comfort her. She twitched away from him, and he let his hand fall.
Karros watched this interplay with mild interest before turning his attention back to the problem at hand. ‘Why take prisoners?’ he said out loud. He looked at Deron. ‘If you were one of them, why burden yourself with captives?’
‘Hostages.’
‘No. They know we will not bargain.’ Reyes stiffened at that, but said nothing. Karros met her gaze and she looked away. ‘A ritual,’ he said.
Deron grunted. Like Karros, he knew how the Word Bearers fought. ‘Makes sense. They’re running short of chaff. And the traitors probably aren’t eager to waste their own lives. Not when they can…’ He trailed off. Something that might have been a shudder ran through him.
Space Marines knew no fear. That was the assumed wisdom, at any rate. But they could be unsettled – made uneasy by things outside of their comprehension. Daemons were such a thing. They were elements of wrongness imposed on reality.
Karros had fought them more than once, even before the Indomitus Crusade. Some Chapters mind-wiped those battle-brothers unfortunate enough to encounter such creatures, but the Raven Guard were wiser than most. Experience with such opponents was worth more than any potential harm such knowledge brought. Too, with the opening of the Great Rift, such knowledge had become sadly undeniable. The damned had set foot on Holy Terra, and nothing would ever be the same.
‘If they are preparing for such a thing, we must stop it. Like as not, we are already out of time. But even so, we must try.’ He expanded the schematic. ‘There are four main routes to the ore-processors.’
‘Six,’ Reyes corrected. Karros looked at her and she pointed to the schematic. ‘Processing chutes. Ore goes in, gets melted down and fed into the refineries on the next level. It’s a clear climb, if you’ve got the strength for it. They’re still firing, though. No way to get through them without cutting the power.’
‘Unless you’re wearing power armour,’ Deron murmured. Karros nodded, after a quick calculation.
‘We’d have to be quick. Even our battleplate isn’t going to withstand those temperatures for long.’
‘Doable, though. With luck.’
‘I didn’t realise Space Marines believed in luck,’ Desh said. His eyes widened, as he realised that he’d spoken out loud. Hastily, he looked down at his cup.
Karros smiled. ‘Luck is as keen a blade as this one on my hip.’ He indicated his combat knife for emphasis. ‘But you must be careful, lest it turns in your hand.’ He looked at Deron. ‘Coming up through those chutes, we’ll be right in the middle of them. And with no time to analyse the situation beforehand.’
‘Bad for an assault,’ Deron said.
‘Good for a distraction, though.’ Karros looked at Reyes and Desh. The humans glanced at one another, and then at him.
Karros smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I have a plan.’
Almace, Primaris-grade cardinal world
Explosions rocked the reliquary boulevard. A building groaned and slumped on its foundations, as its broken walls spilled across the side street, erasing it from sight. ‘That’s the last of them,’ Canoness Lorr said. ‘The fire-corridor is finished.’
‘Good,’ Calder replied. They stood upon the steps leading up to the distant shape of the Cardinal
’s Gate, overseeing the final defensive preparations. The steps were wide, slabbed things that rose steeply upwards for several leagues. Landings jutted from them at points, connected to causeways that led elsewhere in the city. At the very top of the steps was the gate itself, a towering edifice of bronze and iron, hung with bells and censers. Bulwarks had been erected on the landing before it, providing a final redoubt.
Despite the best efforts of Torag and the city’s defences, the enemy had managed to land assault-cutters and drop-ships throughout Almacia. Thousands of troops had spilled into the streets. Mostly in Low Town, but there were determined pockets elsewhere, and more arriving with every hour. The ships in orbit were emptying their guts over the planet. He knew the scene would be the same in the other cities, though most of the enemy’s efforts were concentrated here.
That was fine by Calder. Below him, Battle Sisters and Imperial Fists alike made ready for the arrival of the enemy. More squads of both were scattered throughout the upper reaches of the city, concentrated around the Processional Way.
That thoroughfare was the main artery of the city, connecting the depths of Low Town to the spires of High, and the most likely route of the enemy advance. It had seen the passage of millions of pilgrims over the centuries since Almacia’s founding. Great statues of saints and ecumenical personages overlooked the wide boulevard from columned plinths strung with great webs of electrical lighting and a canopy of hanging censers that filled the air with the sweet stink of incense.
The censers swayed in the breeze, and ribbons of smoke drifted down from above, briefly interfering with Calder’s auto-senses before they automatically compensated. Statues had been toppled at designated locations, creating a makeshift choke point. The relic-keeper responsible for taking care of them had gone into frenzied convulsions even as the first had been forced from its plinth, wailing imprecations upon the heads of the desecrators. Luckily, Canoness Lorr had been on hand to see to the matter.
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