by Guy Haley
The hyperacidic fluids within spattered across the black rock, instantly softening the surface into something waxy and frangible. Mortarion counted silently to seven and struck the weakened wall with the heavy pommel at the base of Silence’s shaft. The stone cracked like glass. He hit it again and again, until the blow had torn open a ragged gash large enough for two Dreadnoughts to walk through abreast.
‘Follow,’ growled Mortarion, and he advanced once more, his pace as careful and as steady as it had been during the march from the landing zone.
Morarg knew well enough to stay clear of the arc of Silence’s wicked reach, remaining near to his primarch but beyond the singing silver streaks of Mortarion’s murderous scythe. They plunged through the mass of common troopers crammed into the main atrium of the citadel and the Reaper of Men moved among them with an almost machine-like action, cutting them down in their hundreds with each back-and-forth sweep of the mighty sickle blade.
Morarg busied himself with killing any who survived the kiss of Silence’s edge, but he had sparse trade. Such was Mortarion’s unflinching aim and dogged advance that barely a handful of souls did not immediately die from contact with him, and those that endured the first blow did not live long. Meanwhile, the equerry and the Deathshroud mopped up whatever forces tried to flank them from the echoing arcades along the sides of the atrium, blasting them apart against the spindly, fluted columns that held up the vaulted roof far above.
Pulses of laser fire spat down in a crimson rain from balconies and glassed-in galleries hundreds of metres overhead, drawing his attention. Morarg fired back, then barked out orders to the Death Guard line legionaries pouring in through the breach their liege lord had made. He blink-clicked target icons to the vision blocks of the squad commanders and they answered by ranging their guns up. A screaming salvo of concentrated firepower obliterated the platforms where the Ynyx las-sniper battalion was concealed, and the bodies of the sharpshooters came raining down around him to crack against the marble floor, along with shattered bricks and shards of crystalflex.
The Lantern’s distinctive song keened its banshee wail, and Morarg picked his way through the dead to where Mortarion stood. The Reaper of Men used the energy weapon to burn off the thick hinges of a huge brass hatch set in a raised dais. As the metal turned molten and drooled away, the door slumped and slid back to reveal a descending passage. Searing, fume-laden air gushed out.
‘We go down,’ said the primarch. ‘The day’s work ends below.’
Morarg nodded, and turned back to the warriors behind him. ‘Secure the building and terminate all remaining targets!’ He paused, then turned back to Mortarion. ‘My lord, do you wish to–?’
But the Reaper of Men had not waited, and was already descending. His seven Deathshroud fell into formation behind and followed. Morarg nodded to himself, then went on.
‘Keep me apprised of any developments,’ he said into the vox-net, knowing that his orders would be relayed to Greenheart and from there to the Death Guard fleet in orbit. ‘Lord Mortarion wishes to conclude the battle by his own hand.’
Morarg took a moment to reload the sickle magazine in his bolter and jogged down the wide stairwell in the wake of the primarch’s praetorians. He suspected his presence would not be needed in the fight to come, but he had been in this circumstance before, reduced to standing back and acting as witness to the unchained maelstrom that was Mortarion’s cold wrath. If that was to be his function today, then so be it. He would take pride in the deed.
Caipha Morarg was a Pale Son, a Death Guard born of stock from the Legion’s home world of Barbarus and not, as some were, sired by tribes from Terra. For many among the brotherhood there would always be a schism, a rivalry in place between the ‘original’ warriors of the XIV Legion – the ones who had been known as the Dusk Raiders, who had come to Barbarus when the Emperor arrived there to find His lost son – and the common men whom Mortarion had uplifted from his ragged Death Guard into the Legion’s number, and in whose honour it had been renamed.
The memories of that auspicious day were hazy but they still existed in the equerry’s distant recall. He cut off the recollection, lest he lose his focus in a moment of reverie, and kept his attention on the descent.
Ahead, gunfire and screaming sounded off the curved walls of the wide stairwell as Mortarion and his personal guard dispatched all those who were too slow to flee the reach of their manreapers. Their pace did not slow as they went.
The unspeaking Deathshroud mimicked the primarch in some aspects, not just with the design of their modified Terminator armour and the war-scythes they wielded, but with their shadowed reaper’s hoods, dark cloaks and the heavy plasteel helmets that covered their faces and aped the impassive aspect of Mortarion’s own portcullis mask. The Deathshroud never uttered a word, communicating only through battle-sign or audial break codes on the rare occasions they were required to transmit a message via vox. There were always seven of them at the primarch’s hand, never straying more than seven by seven paces from his side at all times. The repeated number was said to be an auspicious one, an old belief dating back to before the seeding of human colonies on Barbarus, but it had lost its superstitious taint over the years and was now seen as a simple tactical nicety.
Morarg had never given it much thought, at least not until recent times. Some of the warriors he conversed with in the Davinite Lodges talked about the number with reverence; they spoke of the power of such symbols and how they could affect things in the real world. The equerry found these notions intriguing, but little more. He was, and always had been, a man of uncomplicated paths. The numinous and the uncanny were anathema to him, an ingrained reaction born of a taught hate for the creatures who embodied such ideas. He had lived to kill such things, back on Barbarus, back when he had been just a man. But like the tale of the numbers and their powers, the longer Morarg lived, the more that too seemed like a story he had once been told and not something he had actually experienced.
One of the Deathshroud glanced back towards him, then away. It was difficult to tell them apart at the best of times. Morarg had no idea what faces were concealed behind those sealed masks. The Reaper of Men himself personally chose the legionaries who were granted the shroud and told no other of his selections. When one of Mortarion’s praetorians fell in battle, the armour was said to consume the body within. The warrior then picked to replace the lost would himself be declared dead on the field of battle, and entered into the lists as if he had fallen to enemy action – but in reality, he would strip himself of all identity and become Deathshroud, there to carry the honour of standing at Mortarion’s side, as close as any Death Guard could ever come to being considered a confidante of their liege lord.
Would I ever be worthy of such a tribute? Morarg entertained the thought briefly, then shook it off. He already carried a high accolade of his own. The primarch had plucked him from his posting in the Breachers and made him his factotum.
His witness, Morarg amended. There had never been any lore keepers or remembrancers in the Death Guard, only those like him – battle-brothers with keen memories and sharp eyes. If I am to document all that befalls my Legion and my master, then so be it. That is as good a calling as any.
Ahead, the stairwell widened still further to deposit them in a chamber dominated by two semicircular doors in the far wall. The sheer amount of visible opulence, from the rich carpets and thick tapestries adorning the support columns to the gilded objects and artworks in every alcove, spoke of this place as the domain of an aggrandised ruler. Morarg’s trigger finger twitched. He saw the lavish, self-indulgent affluence of it all and immediately wanted to destroy it.
Pillars of toxin-laced steam and damp, oppressive heat climbed through ventilation grilles in the floor, and a sullen orange illumination channelled up along vast light traps gave everything an infernal glow. Morarg heard a strange echo behind the march of his boots and tensed. The chamber had the feel of an arena, despite all attempts to make it seem
otherwise.
The Deathshroud appeared to sense the same portent, and they moved into a protective formation around Mortarion’s flanks. Only the Reaper of Men was unmoved by the air of ready threat in the chamber. He gave Silence a shake, flicking off the blood of those it had cut down, and kneaded the haft.
Morarg heard the clacking of great metal claws on the marble then, a scraping and clashing noise like a hundred swords being dragged across the tiles. His auto-senses picked out two hulking forms as they burst through searing walls of steam, man-shaped things that stormed across the floor towards Mortarion, each bearing an orchard of blades and buzzing beam emitters where they should have had arms. A jangling disharmony of bell tones sounded from thousands of rattling injector ampoules jammed into the bare flesh of their torsos and thighs. The hulking forms were some kind of altered human, ogre-like with their chemically forced gigantism. It struck the Death Guard that they were what someone inexpert might have created had they tried to duplicate a warrior of the Legiones Astartes. Twinned freaks powered by cocktails of metatropic drugs, set loose to act as gate guardians for whoever waited in the chamber beyond this one.
The first strike came in a flash of quick moves. Mortarion raised a hand, a simple order to the Deathshroud to stand back and not intervene, and then with a pivot so quick that Morarg barely registered it happening, the Reaper of Men spun Silence around to invert the great scythe and kiss the head of the blade across the marble floor. White sparks flew where the scythe touched the ground, and the primarch thundered forward to meet the leading guardian-creature. He closed the distance in the blink of an eye, and Silence rose in a spinning arc.
Morarg smiled behind his helmet as the curved blade opened the first of the guardians from crotch to throat. Momentum kept the chem-altered mutant stumbling forward as its body opened like an overripe fruit, belching ropes of intestine and organ matter onto the marble in a red gush. Silence was still moving, coming around, and the Death Guard heard the air sing as the blade cut again before the guardian could register that it had already been killed. The scythe took the creature’s head off at the neck, and it tumbled through the air to land with a wet thud.
The second guardian fired a sheeting wave of energy beams across the chamber, burning blue rods that melted stone where they touched and boiled off the grubby patina of the primarch’s battleplate.
Mortarion didn’t attempt to dodge the attack. With an arm across his face to protect himself from the beam-fire, he planted Silence in the ground, ramming it into the marble with enough force to keep it upright. Then he advanced directly into the assault, snatching at his own energy weapon. The Lantern almost leapt into his grip, and the primarch lit the gun, drawing a black trench down the distance to his attacker as the beam from the giant pistol melted marble and metal before finally reaching the guardian. He carved off a leg and an arm from the creature before releasing the trigger.
Morarg inhaled the stench of burned, spoiled meat, and his smile grew. It was always an education to watch the Reaper of Men at his art.
Mortarion went to the second guardian – it was still alive, but not for long – holstering the Lantern as he walked. He gathered a great knot of the fleshy wattles around the mutant’s throat and hauled it off the ground where it had fallen. With a grunt of sour disdain, the primarch pitched the creature into the sealed doors at the far end of the chamber. The collision was of such force that it shattered the guardian’s body and rammed open the doors to reveal the throne room beyond.
‘Who pretends to rule here?’ growled Mortarion, pitching the question into the ill-lit space ahead of them. ‘Present yourself.’ He retrieved Silence from where he had left it, made another small motion with his hand, and immediately the Deathshroud were moving again, coming up to trail him through the broken doors.
Morarg took a step forward, then hesitated as a data-feed spooled past his eyes, a line of text projected on the inside of his helmet’s lenses. It was an alert message, a high-priority code routed to him from an officer on board Greenheart. Several ships had been detected approaching Ynyx, angling to make orbit. But no arrivals were expected at this time, and to confuse the matter, the new craft were sporting the Death Guard’s aura-identifier pennants.
How is that possible? The whereabouts of all the Legion’s ships are known… The equerry stopped himself. Well, that isn’t exactly true. Not all our ships. Morarg didn’t dare to consider what the alternative might mean, but he did his duty and called out to his master, relaying the message.
For a moment, Morarg thought that the Reaper of Men had not heard him speak, but then his primarch gave him a sideways look. ‘One matter at a time.’
The throne room was a bowl of reinforced crystalflex built into the roof of a cavern, and far below it churned a shimmering lake of fire. Jets of steam spat from the turbulent magma field, and an observer could have picked out hundreds of machine-slave diggers in their protective suits, still working at drills or syphons in their endless labours to gather Ynyx’s mineral bounty.
That sight slipped past Mortarion’s gaze without register. It was the throne that brought him up short.
Placed in the centre of the room, at the bowl’s lowest point, the throne of the governor of Ynyx was a scaled-down representation of a great seat that Mortarion had once glimpsed before, in the days when his father had taken him back to Terra to see His Palace and look upon the works within it.
‘Such arrogance,’ he breathed, as much to those in the chamber with him as to that faded memory of the Emperor’s studied magnificence. Mortarion peered into the shadows of the chamber, sensing other beings in there with the Death Guard, but nothing that appeared to be a threat. ‘Do not make me ask again. Where is your ruler?’
‘Here.’ The voice was artificial, broadcast from a vocoder module. It emanated from a cylindrical tank floating just above the seat of the ersatz throne. The object was the size of a man, made of faceted crystal framed in gold, inlaid with precious gemstones. It swayed gently on a throbbing suspensor module, held up by contra-gravity technology. ‘I will not surrender to you, rebel,’ it added.
Mortarion stood and watched as the tank drifted away from the throne, becoming better defined by the orange light thrown by the magma fires. Inside the tank was a bubbling potion of thick, clear oil. At its centre there was a clump of whorled grey matter adorned with delicate circuitry and feeder implants. Wires came at it from every angle, connecting the blob of organic material to the systems of the floating container.
‘I am Magister Greaterex Nalthusian the Forty-Fifth,’ it went on, in stentorian tones. ‘I own this system by order of the Emperor of Mankind–’
‘You are a few kilos of stale meat in a jar,’ Mortarion interrupted, a faint note of disgust entering his voice. ‘And your existence… such as it is… is forfeit.’ He rocked off his heels and strode forward. His irritation at this useless, waste of time of a mission bubbled to the surface, and the Reaper of Men reached out a hand. He would crush this thing and be done–
–Something there?
A wall of hurricane-hard force struck him from out of the darkness. Mortarion was lifted off his feet and blasted, along with the Deathshroud and his equerry, into the crystalflex panels of the throne room.
Mortarion reacted, using the crook of Silence’s blade to snag a support pillar, arresting his motion. Morarg and the seven Deathshroud were scattered about the chamber. Two of the praetorians took the brunt of the phantom blow and were blasted clear through the crystalflex, both of them spinning silently away to vanish into the magma lake below.
He scrambled back to his feet, and tasted a greasy, acidic tang in the air. Witchery. Mortarion knew that hated odour only too well.
A piece of the shadows behind the throne detached and a skein of darkness fell away, revealing a hollow-eyed youth whose face was half hidden behind a mess of long white hair. He grinned behind his bio-mask, unafraid of the legionaries or the primarch.
Somehow, the psyker had conc
ealed himself from all of them, but now he was revealed, Mortarion sensed the raw power crackling around his form. It was a pressure in his head, the feeling of a storm about to break. The Reaper of Men had faced this kind of kinetipath many times before, in the Overlord Wars on Barbarus and later in the battles of the Great Crusade.
He knew enough to be wary. Physically, the psyker was a skinny wretch, weak enough that Mortarion would have been able to break him in two without an iota of effort. But psionically, the youth was as dangerous as a melta bomb, a raw elemental power barely contained.
The witchkin called upon that vitality, conjuring a torrent of force that gathered up loose fragments of metal and crystalflex, throwing them at the Death Guard in a storm of shrapnel.
Mortarion grimaced and set himself in slow progress, one foot in front of the other, pushing against the barrage flooding from the youth’s outstretched hands. Frost formed around the psyker as he desperately drew in energy to oppose the primarch’s steps, growing more frantic by the moment as the Reaper of Men drew closer. The ripping, tearing wind burned at Mortarion’s armour.
He ignored everything else. They were in the teeth of the psychokinetic hurricane, witch and witch-killer, psyker and posthuman, enemy and enemy.
I have killed a hundred thousand of you. Mortarion let the declaration shine at the forefront of his thoughts. If the youth could read his mind, then he would hear this. You will perish at the hands of the Death Guard. He leaned forward, step after punishing step, almost close enough to strike. The hate I have for you is greater than any other.
‘That is not so.’
The ghostly reply was almost lost in the wind, and Mortarion hesitated for an instant, uncertain if he had truly heard it or if it was a trick of the mind. Then the moment broke as an emerald flash illuminated the throne room from the far side of the chamber.