Forge of Mars - Graham McNeill

by Warhammer 40K

  There could be beauty as well as terror in battle, a fluidly balletic poetry in the dance of combatants.

  The fight against the Tindalosi had none of that.

  Bielanna’s mind recoiled from the distilled hate weeping from their every metallic pore. Oceans of blood clung to them, a shroud of a hundred lifetimes of murder.

  The Tindalosi were too fast, too deadly and too ruthless to allow for any poetry. Their deaths demanded hard, quick stanzas, not the epic languor of laments.

  And what better warriors than Striking Scorpions and Howling Banshees for such a fight? This dance had no grace, just sublimely swift slashes of claw and sword. Teeth snapped and mandiblasters spat. Shuriken discs shattered on impact and the train sang with the howls of Morai-Heg’s favoured daughters.

  They matched the speed of the Tindalosi, hook-bladed horrors of spinning chrome and emerald fire. Crackling mandiblasters scorched the unnatural metal of their hides, and wraithbone blades were blurs of cleaving ivory.

  But as fast and hard as the eldar fought, every wound was undone moments later.

  ‘Not anymore,’ whispered Bielanna, drawing the power of the skein to her. It filled her with a strength she hadn’t felt in what seemed like a lifetime. The constricting metal walls of the Speranza had smothered her connection to the skein and Exnihlio had kept her from any anchor in the present.

  All such distractions fell away from her now.

  Bielanna hunted the beast upon the skein, sifting a thousand possible futures in the blink of an eye until she found its grubby thread of murder, reaching back into a long dead aeon.

  ‘The fate of Eldanesh be upon you,’ she said, pulling the weave of futures and cutting the beast’s thread with a snap of her fingers.

  And in that instant, every blade and every blast of killing energy found a way inside its armour, a confluence of fates willed into existence by Bielanna’s power. The regenerative heart of the monster was cloven into shards, destroyed so thoroughly that no power in the universe could remake it.

  Bielanna spun in with her runesword aimed at the Tindalosi’s head and drove the blade through its jaws. The beast’s skull was split in two and the dead light in its eyes was extinguished forever. It fell to the deck, an inanimate mass of metal and machinery.

  She turned on her heel as the press of futures poured into her.

  A thousand times a thousand duels played out before her, eldar and Space Marines moving to the future’s song, a hundred possibilities spawning a million possible outcomes, each in turn growing the web of futures at a geometric rate.

  Bielanna saw it all.

  The train’s fuselage buckled as the Tindalosi slammed Tanna against it. Its claws dug through his armour. Blood ran down the bodyglove within. Tanna drove his knee into its belly. Metal deformed, its grip released. He dropped and ducked a clawed swipe that tore parallel gouges in the metal skin behind him.

  It shoulder barged him, knocking him down.

  A clawed foot slammed. He rolled. Sword up, block and move.

  Don’t let it back him against the wall again.

  Tanna got his sword up, angling himself obliquely.

  His gaze met that of the beast. Empty of anything except the desire to see him dead. In that, at least, they were evenly matched.

  ‘Come on then,’ he snarled.

  The Tindalosi flew at him. He sidestepped, exhaling with a roar. The sword came down in a hard, economical arc. Its claws punched air. His blade took it high on the shoulder. Teeth tore into metal, spraying glittering slivers. Two-handed now, saw downwards.

  A hooked elbow slashed back. Rubberised seals at Tanna’s hip tore and he grunted as the blade scraped bone. He tore his sword free and brought it around in a recklessly wide stroke.

  It took the beast high on the neck. A decapitating strike.

  Notched teeth ripped through metal, cable and bio-organic polymers. Viscous black fluid gushed. Its howl triggered the cut-off on Tanna’s auto-senses. The Tindalosi’s head hung slack, not severed cleanly, but ruined nonetheless. Tanna’s heart sank as he saw a web of red and green wychfire crackling around the awful wound.

  He took the fractional pause to update his situational awareness. One Tindalosi was attacking Yael while Varda and Issur duelled with the pack leader. The eldar farseer stood over a fallen beast as her remaining warriors fought a second. Surcouf and Pavelka had withdrawn to the driver’s compartment with the Cadians, Kotov and his two skitarii.

  This wasn’t a fight that could be won by mortals.

  The train lurched on the maglev as it turned in a tight arc. Its precisely designed form had been ruined by the Tindalosi attack, and travelling at such enormous speeds, even the slightest deviation in aerodynamic profile could be disastrous. The turbulent air slamming through the train was hurricane-force and Tanna held to a taut cable as the wind direction changed with the train’s turn.

  The metalled floor of the train carriage buckled upwards, the sheet panelling of the walls billowing like sailcloth. In moments the magnetic connection between the train and track would be broken.

  Crackling webs of frost formed on the few remaining shards of glass in the frames and Tanna felt a bitter flavour fill his mouth. Part blood, part witchery.

  He saw Bielanna’s helm wreathed in shimmering flames of white fire, a pellucid halo of psychic energy. He had no idea what she was doing.

  The Tindalosi came at him again. Tanna swung his sword up. The beast’s head still lolled at its shoulder. The green light fizzed and spat at the wound, as if fighting to restore the damage his blade had wrought.

  But it wasn’t working.

  Sudden certainty filled Tanna.

  He saw the exact place his blade should strike, knew the precise power to deliver. The angle of his blade shifted a hair’s breadth. He drew in a full lungful of air and leapt to meet the Tindalosi. The chainsword swung in the arc he had already pictured. The sense of déjà vu was potent.

  The chainsword struck the Tindalosi just where he expected.

  The teeth sheared through the bio-mechanical meat and metal of its neck, cleaving down into its chest cavity. The beast’s arms spasmed and Tanna tore the sword loose, ripping out a vast swathe of ticking, whirring, crackling machinery. The green light veining its mechanical organs was now a deep red.

  The Tindalosi crumpled, the static of its eyes burning out as it died.

  ‘Thank you, Magos Pavelka,’ said Tanna.

  Yael put his sword through the heart of the beast before him. His blow struck precisely, as though guided by the hand of Dorn himself. The beast came apart as though a demo charge had been set off in its chest, screaming and howling as the torments of the damned destroyed it from the inside.

  Likewise the eldar fought with every blow landing at the perfect point to do the maximum damage. The Tindalosi were doomed, the techno-enchantments of Pavelka’s code taking away their regenerative abilities and the eldar’s psychic witchery clouding their speed and skill.

  Only Varda and Issur’s beast still fought. The swordsmen had landed numerous blows upon the pack-master, but the hideous power at its heart was orders of magnitude greater than that empowering the others. It backed away from them and the eldar as they came together.

  ‘We’ll take it en masse,’ said Varda, standing at Tanna’s side.

  ‘Thr… thr… three to one,’ said Issur through clenched teeth.

  ‘No,’ said Tanna as the train lurched once again. The last portion of the roof ripped clear, flying away with the force of the wind. The train was curving along the track again, harder this time, leaning into the turn. Tanna saw the length of the train begin to come loose from the tracks.

  First the rearmost carriage tore clear, falling from the rails in a haze of squalling magnetics and dragging the next with it. Both came apart in explosions of aluminium. Sheet metal tore like paper. A
nother carriage followed, dragging the next from the rails with its weight.

  ‘Everyone out!’ shouted Tanna. ‘Get into the driver’s compartment. Now!’

  Yael pushed into the link doorway towards the driver’s compartment. Bielanna and her surviving warriors slipped effortlessly through as the last Tindalosi turned its vast, serrated skull and saw what Tanna had seen.

  It bounded along the bucking carriage towards them.

  ‘Go!’ shouted Tanna, bracing himself. One leg squared off, the other bent forwards. Varda and Issur knew better than to argue. They followed their brother and the eldar.

  ‘Just me and thee,’ said Tanna.

  The Tindalosi leapt and Tanna went low. His sword swung in a tight arc, hewing its belly. Glittering shards of cut metal and oily liquid sprayed. Red-green light filled the wound. It turned back to him and its claws cut into his plastron. Tanna felt his feet leave the deck plates. He struggled like bait on a hook. He swung his blade. The beast’s jaws fastened on his sword arm and bit down hard.

  Fangs like daggers punched through ceramite and meat.

  Tanna roared in pain as the beast wrenched its head to the side and took his right hand with it. His sword went too, dangling from the monster’s teeth on snapped links of chain. The pack leader dropped him and Tanna rolled, clutching the stump of his arm to his chest. He pushed himself to his knees as the Tindalosi loomed over him, a gloating killer taking an instant to savour its kill.

  Its head swung around, seeing more of the train carriages pulling loose from the maglev. In moments the cascade of derailing carriages would reach this one, but it had no intention of still being here when that happened.

  Neither did Tanna.

  He dived towards the Tindalosi and grabbed for the dangling sword with his remaining hand. His fingers closed on its wire-wound hilt. No way to free the chain, its links stuck fast in the beast’s jaw.

  But Tanna had no intention of freeing his sword.

  He rammed the blade down hard into the deck plate, twisting it deep into the mechanisms beneath. The Tindalosi wrenched its head, but the chains binding the blade to its jaw pulled taut. Like a beast in a snare it twisted and writhed as it sought to free itself from Tanna’s weapon.

  ‘We die together, monster,’ said Tanna.

  ‘No,’ said Varda, hooking his arms under Tanna’s shoulders and dragging him away. ‘It dies alone.’

  Tanna looked up in surprise.

  The Emperor’s Champion hauled Tanna back through the door to the driver’s compartment. Behind them, the Tindalosi pack leader finally ripped its fangs clear of Tanna’s embedded sword. It fixed them with its pitiless stare, already picturing their deaths.

  ‘Now, Kotov! Cut it loose!’ shouted Varda as the beast bounded towards them. The train lurched as the derailments finally reached the carriage. Tanna heard a clatter of disengaging locking pins.

  The Tindalosi leapt as the carriage tumbled from the maglev.

  It spun end over end and exploded as it hit the ground.

  The speed and ferocity of impact destroyed the carriage instantly, reducing its once graceful form to a hurricane of spinning fragments and billowing debris.

  Tanna let out a breath as the maglev engine streaked away from the devastation.

  ‘I told you to go,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not leaving anyone else behind,’ said Varda.

  The tanks were moving, just not fast enough.

  Jahn Callins stalked the ready lines of Magos Turentek’s forge-temple, keeping to clearly marked pedestrian routes. All too easy to get run down by a speeding ammo gurney or fuel tanker by straying into the working areas of the deck.

  The forge was working to capacity: lifter-rigs hauling tanks down from stowage bays, fuel trucks in constant filling rotations and weapon carts being hauled up on chains from hardened magazines below decks. Hundreds of tech-priests moved through the deck, using hi-vis wands to direct the flow of a regiment’s worth of armoured vehicles.

  Chimeras and Hellhounds were mustering by squadron, moving out to assembly areas where they were loaded with fuel and ammunition. Dozens of tech-priests moved through the hosts of armoured vehicles like warrior-priests of old, each with an aspergillium of holy oils in their right hand. Chanting servitors with smoking braziers and relics borne upon silken cushions followed them.

  Callins dearly wished they would hurry the hell up.

  At the far end of the hangar, the engines of Legio Sirius billowed steam and groaning bellows from their war-horns. Gigantic weapons swung overhead in the claws of vast lifter-rigs, trailing steam and drizzling a fine mist of sacred oils to the deck. Each weapon was accompanied by swarms of servo-skulls and binaric plainsong. Like everything to do with the Mechanicus, the Legio was taking its own sweet time to do anything.

  Only one Warhound had moved from its stowage cradle.

  ‘The fight’ll be over before they’re ready,’ he muttered as his data-slate pinged with another readiness icon.

  Chimera squadron. Lima Tao Secundus.

  ‘Superheavies,’ he grumbled to the junior officers trailing him like obedient hounds. ‘I need the damn superheavies.’

  The Baneblades and Stormhammers were yet to move, delayed by the Mechanicus need to do things in the proper order. The 71st were a Mechanised Infantry regiment and as such, Mechanicus protocols gave priority to the APCs.

  Trying to explain that Hawkins needed fighting vehicles to the tech-priests was like pulling teeth. No amount of shouting or talk about losing the ship had persuaded the deck commanders to alter their manifest procedures. As a logistics officer, Callins gave all due reverence to the power of lists and standard operating procedures, but this was taking that reverence to the extreme.

  Another icon flashed up on his slate. A retasking order, together with a location marker.

  ‘What the hell?’

  He tapped the icon and looked over to the location indicated.

  ‘You have got to be kidding me,’ he said, watching as a trio of Baneblades were swung back onto their reinforced storage rails and locked into place. ‘They’re putting them back?’

  Callins ran towards the rigs, ignoring the safety lines on the floor and setting off a dozen alarms as he crossed transit routes deemed unsafe for foot-traffic. Red-robed tech-priests waved directions to the crews of the lifter-rigs, assigning them to bulbous, spider-legged vehicles.

  Callins spotted a high-ranking magos directing operations.

  ‘Atrean,’ he said. ‘Might have known.’

  This particular tech-priest was a rules-lawyer of the worst sort, a man to whom common sense was a regretfully organic notion. They’d butted heads before, but this time promised to be their best yet.

  ‘Atrean!’ barked Callins. ‘Are you trying to lose the ship?’

  The magos turned and Callins wished there was some organic part of his face to punch.

  ‘Boarding protocols are in effect, Major Callins,’ said Atrean. ‘Skitarii vehicles take precedence over passenger vehicles.’

  Callins pointed to the Baneblades. ‘Captain Hawkins needs those tanks. He doesn’t get them, the training deck falls. The training deck falls, the ship falls. Do you understand that?’

  ‘I understand that I have orders to follow. As do you.’

  ‘Your orders make no damn sense,’ said Callins, staring at the scrolling lines of text on his slate. ‘These are going to the ventral decks, perimeter defence duties. I need superheavies in the battle line right now!’

  ‘Mechanicus forge-temples take precedence over lower-rated structures within the Speranza,’ said Atrean, turning away as though the matter were settled.

  Before Callins could reply, more alarms screeched through the deck as a fire-blackened Chimera came roaring into view. Its hull was scorched and pitted with impacts. It angled its course towards them, narrowly av
oiding a pair of gurneys laden with promethium drums for a waiting squadron of Hellhounds.

  The driver threw the Chimera into a skid, halting it at the edge of the stowage bays. Its rear assault ramp slammed down moments later and two figures emerged, a woman with a gnarled knot of augmetics on her scalp in iron cornrows and a cocksure peacock who looked like he’d never spent a day in a firing line.

  The man took one look at the Legio Sirius engines and sprinted off towards them without a word. The woman carried a data-slate and wore a battered uniform jacket sewn with a Cadian enginseer’s patch.

  ‘You Callins?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, who are you?’

  ‘Kayrn Sylkwood, lately of the Renard,’ she said, tapping the patch. ‘But in a previous life I was with the Eighth.’

  Callins was impressed. Every Cadian knew the pedigree of the Eighth and its illustrious commander.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Captain Hawkins sent me,’ said Sylkwood, drawing a bulky hell-pistol, a Triplex-Phall hotshot variant with an overcharger wired to its powercell.

  She aimed her gun at Atrean’s head and said, ‘You in charge?’

  ‘I am,’ he said.

  Sylkwood looked down at her slate. ‘So you’re the one putting those Baneblades back in the stowage rails?’

  ‘Yes. Mechanicus protocols clearly dictate that–’

  Kayrn Sylkwood shot Magos Atrean in the chest and Jahn Callins fell a little bit in love with her. The wound was carefully placed not to be mortal, but Atrean would be out of commission for a while. She aimed her pistol at the gaggle of tech-priests carrying out Atrean’s orders.

  ‘Who’s in charge now?’ she asked, racking the recharge lever of the hotshot pack.

  One by one, they pointed at Jahn Callins.

  ‘Is the right answer,’ said Sylkwood.

  The maglev came to a halt at a raised way-station, pausing just long enough for the battered survivors of the landing expedition to debark on the edge of the open plaza where Telok had first led them below the planet’s surface.