by Guy Haley
He presented his sword, saluted them and prepared to die.
‘A rush into the jaws of death, snatched free, to plunge therein again at will,’ he said. ‘I greet death with a smile on my face.’
Sanguinius’ voice sliced through the muffling fog as if it were not there.
‘My brother, my brother! To the aid of my brother!’
Katsuhiro snapped off shot after shot. Leaving the Traitor Space Marines to the attentions of the Blood Angels, he downed mutants, sickly men and turncoat army soldiers. When the call went out, the Blood Angels looked out into the gas, following something he could not see. They stood from the wall as one, and leapt over the sloping rampart.
‘Drive them back!’ roared their sergeants. ‘Into them, for the Emperor! For Sanguinius!’
Caught up in their bloodlust, the Nagandan conscripts rose alongside the Blood Angels and charged after them. Katsuhiro ran behind a line trooper of the IX Legion, snapping off opportunistic shots and jabbing with his bayonet. The Blood Angel smashed his way through the lesser humans of the enemy, his fists alone enough to slay the rabble with single blows. He saved his bolts for his traitor kin.
‘The primarch! I see the Khan!’ someone called.
Horus’ wretches parted for a moment, and Katsuhiro saw a line of Death Guard forming up ahead. Raised above them on a pile of corpses was a giant in white, another primarch, the Warhawk himself.
The Khan was utterly different to his brother Sanguinius, yet fundamentally the same. Like the Great Angel, he was forged of high science and lost arts. Like Sanguinius, he inspired dread and awe in Katsuhiro in equal measure. But where Sanguinius recalled higher, more refined creatures than men, and so inspired humanity to excel, the Khan was a being of caged lightning. He was a storm’s fury poured into the shape of man. Where calmness and a near-holy beauty radiated from the Angel, the Warhawk was a restless wind that filled Katsuhiro with the need to rush forwards, to charge through the enemy, to ride them down and never stop moving, to doubt all, to know all, to laugh and live fully through the best of times and the worst of times, and then at the last to greet death with a defiant smile.
‘To the Khan! To the Khan! For the Emperor!’ the Blood Angels shouted.
They pressed forwards again, the poison fog and the swirl of combat obscuring the fate of Jaghatai Khan. Katsuhiro speared a man covered in weeping sores through the throat with his bayonet, and hurled back another diseased specimen with a shot to the chest. Many of the enemy had no protection against the gas and were dying as they fought. The traitorous soldiers of the earlier landings had been replaced by wild-eyed lunatics with sigils of their evil religion burned into their skin. There were people of every desperate sort, hive-dregs, mutants, abhumans and others of the lowest positions in Imperial society. Katsuhiro had wondered how anyone could turn on the Emperor, but confronted with the hatred he saw in the eyes of these savages, he gained an inkling that the dream of Imperium was a nightmare for some.
The damned came at them in large numbers, forming a buffer between the Death Guard’s line and the Blood Angels. The IX Legion fought with terrifying ferocity, but their way was blocked no matter how many they slew. Katsuhiro’s world closed to a few square metres delineated by the faces of the foe, time measured not in seconds but in kills. He saw but barely registered light blazing through the gas. The Blood Angels roared the name of their primarch, ‘Sanguinius!’ and pushed the enemy harder. Katsuhiro and his fellow mortals were sucked deeper into the horde in their wake, embattled, sure to die, until the last line parted, and the enemy dregs fled back into the fog. In reward for his courage, Katsuhiro was privileged to glimpse two of the Emperor’s warrior-sons fighting side by side.
Light shone through the gas, and Sanguinius was there; bright and devastating as a cometary impact, he dived from the heavens into the enemy’s midst. In one hand shone his golden sword, in the other he wielded the Spear of Telesto. The sword felled traitors with every blow, but the spear’s arcane technology was particularly deadly to the tainted Death Guard. With each blast from its gilded head, the Death Guard writhed and gave inhuman squeals, and melted in its rays.
‘For the Emperor!’ Sanguinius called, and saluted his brother.
Behind his filth-smeared mask, the Khan grinned and replied, ‘For the Emperor!’ and joined his brother’s slaughtering.
Battle cries went up, and through the gas a mixed group of Blood Angels, White Scars and human soldiers came, cutting through the crowds of men and mutants. Jetpacks howled, and golden, winged warriors thumped down behind the Khan, forming a perimeter. Together, back to back, the primarchs fought until the Death Guard were reduced to a tattered handful who slipped away into the gas clouds.
Gunship engines thundered from the direction of the Palace.
‘We must depart now,’ Sanguinius told his brother. ‘They will return.’ Already the shelling was picking up pace around them.
‘Not quite yet, my brother,’ said the Khan, pushing past his guardians.
‘What are you doing?’ yelled Sanguinius, but followed after the limping Khan.
‘My jetbike. I must go to it and inload the images I gathered. The haywire wiped my armour’s datacache.’
‘They are returning, my lords!’ a Blood Angel shouted. The crackle of boltgun fire began anew.
‘Then fight them off. I need only seconds,’ said the Khan. ‘With this we shall know our enemy better, and beat him all the more soundly.’
‘This is unwise, brother!’ Sanguinius shouted, loosing off a blast from the Spear of Telesto.
‘Nothing in war is wise. Violence is not wisdom. Do you believe I went over the wall merely for glory?’
‘It had crossed my mind you might be bored.’
‘Hold them back.’ The Khan’s laughter turned into coughing.
‘Something ails you, brother?’
‘A poisoned knife,’ he said.
‘They poisoned you?’
‘Sorcery brought the sickness. Do not fear, the effect is dwindling, but I trust you to strike off my head should my loyalty appear to waver.’
The Khan reached the wreck of his machine and heaved it over. Lights still shone on the instrument panel, and he punched them rapidly. A status bar appeared on the main display.
‘They are returning! Hurry!’ said Sanguinius. He raised his spear. A cone of noiseless light snapped out, taking the lives of three Death Guard who approached. More were behind, and Sanguinius leapt at them, sword whirling.
A Thunderhawk set down close by. Others whooshed by overhead, their boltguns swivelling as they tracked priority targets in the murk.
‘Exload complete,’ the jetbike’s cogitator intoned.
‘It is done,’ said the Khan. ‘I have what we need.’ He stumbled. His wounded leg was still weak.
‘Then we go!’ Sanguinius shouted over the howl of the engines. He plunged his sword through the chest of a traitor, kicked another back and reached out to steady his brother. Together, their armour dulled by rotting blood and mud, the pair of them boarded the Thunderhawk as Blood Angels fired from the ramp, blasting back the enemy. The Khan limped inside while Sanguinius stood on the ramp and loosed a pair of final blasts from his marvellous spear.
Surrounded by explosions, the gunship took off into a sky crowded with ships. They were harried all the way back over the wall, where a combination of the aegis and the defensive guns drove off their pursuers.
Sanguinius turned away from the open ramp only when they were over the city. ‘Did you see what has happened to them?’ he said. ‘Mortarion’s sons are diseased. Were it not for all I have witnessed, I would not have thought it possible for a legionary to become so afflicted.’
‘Despite that, brother, they are more resilient than ever.’ The seated Khan dragged off his helmet, revealing a pale face drenched with sweat. ‘They have sold themselves to the
so-called gods of the warp,’ he said. ‘Mortarion has fallen far. Once the staunchest opponent of sorcery, he embraces it fully. Truly these gods play with us. They love irony very much.’
Sanguinius arched an eyebrow at the Khan. ‘You do not look your best, brother.’
The Khan shivered. ‘I do not feel it, but now we return within the walls, the disease appears to be withdrawing quickly. See the blade that infected me.’
He held up his left hand. Still clasped in his fist from when he had torn it from his knee was the Death Guard’s combat knife. Beneath its coating of primarch’s blood it was pitted with rust, and the edge was dull, yet it exuded a sense of peril. Black venom dribbled from the blade over the Khan’s fist, evaporating in the air before it hit the ground.
‘An evil thing,’ said Sanguinius.
They passed some threshold over the Palace, and the knife blade suddenly crumbled into dust, and the venom boiled away, leaving only the filthy hilt, toylike in the Khan’s immense palm.
The brothers shared a look.
‘Curious,’ said Sanguinius.
‘Our father’s doing, surely,’ said the Khan, marvelling as the hilt collapsed into nothing. A smear of his drying blood gritted with grains of rust was all that remained of the weapon. ‘His protection is strongest over the Palace. That is the only explanation. This is a blade of the warp, and He is proof against its witchcraft. The toxin, too, has gone from my blood. I feel His presence, as a cool wind soothes a burn.’ He looked up at his brother. ‘My equilibrium returns.’
He fell silent for a moment, then said, ‘On Prospero, Mortarion tried to sway me to Horus’ cause. He spoke of the truth and of Horus’ rightness, and of our father’s lies.’ He clenched his fist. ‘I was the most critical of father’s designs, but now I see the truth, and it forgives all mistakes on His part. The warp is nothing but madness and corruption. Our brothers lose their minds one by one. When we face Mortarion again, we will fight a facet of a greater evil, a puppet, and not the proud warlord he once was. This troubles me greatly.’
Sanguinius’ wings twitched.
‘I cannot recall a time I did not feel troubled, my brother,’ he said.
The primarchs retreated into the gunship and it rose from the battle with furious noise, carrying the sons of the Emperor away from immediate danger. The golden guardians of Sanguinius rocketed after the ship, the jet turbines set between their metal wings screaming like fighting birds.
‘Fall back!’ A transhuman voice boomed from the fog. ‘Back to the defence line!’
Katsuhiro and the few conscripts still alive fled gratefully. The Space Marines let them run by, holding off the enemy with steady bursts of fire while they escaped.
Chaos ruled on both sides. The conscripts had gone into the fog of gas in poor order, and came out with none at all. But the Space Marines fought with incredible discipline. The swirl of battle had thrown them together. Red-armoured and white-armoured legionaries stood shoulder to shoulder. To an outsider, it would not have been apparent that most had never fought together before, but the ad hoc units worked smoothly, covering one another as they fell back, squad by squad, to the defence line.
The baying of barely human traitors mocked the retreat, but there was no doubt who was victorious. Hundreds, if not thousands, of lesser mortals blanketed the muddy field, with scores of giants in dirty white strewn among them. There were islands of bright red and cleaner white too, as well as swift contra-gravity mounts burning on the ground. Nevertheless the balance was in the loyalists’ favour.
It was a hollow triumph. They had come only a short way from the ramparts. Soon Katsuhiro found himself scrambling over broken chunks of rockcrete, only belatedly realising he had reached the third line. Amid the devastation he found an intact landmark, a numbered comms tower, its mast lights still blinking, and made his way back to his station.
Shells continued to scream down, all of the explosive variety, but he was too exhausted to duck, and left his fate in the hands of the universe. The adrenaline gone, his sickness returned with a vengeance, and his limbs shook. As he made it back to his company’s section the poison fogs began to part. He heard engines in the thinning mist, and saw armoured giants falling back. Tired warriors of his company slumped onto the few intact stretches of rampart left. There were more corpses than living men, and that included Runnecan.
Runnecan lay on his back staring up at the sky, not far from where he and Katsuhiro had begun the battle, not having made it off the wall. There was no sign of what had killed him. His gas mask was still in place. No claw or knife cut had opened his body. A mass-reactive would have left a spread of meat, but though he was unmistakably dead he looked unmarked.
Katsuhiro knelt by Runnecan’s side. He had never liked the man, and the loss he felt took him by surprise. For some reason he pulled off the other man’s mask, and wished he hadn’t. Runnecan’s ratty little face wore a disturbing expression of horrified surprise.
Footsteps crunched to a stop behind him.
‘Now that is a spot of terrible luck,’ said Doromek.
Katsuhiro twisted around. The effort required was immense. The mask he wore was poorly designed. His breath had fogged the lenses, and the front pulled to the side as he turned, cutting his vision down further.
Doromek peered down. He was unmasked, and munching on a piece of bread gripped in one bloodstained hand.
‘You can take that off now, you know,’ he said, nodding at Katsuhiro’s gas mask. ‘The air still stinks, but the gas is not concentrated enough to harm you any more.’
Hesitantly, Katsuhiro reached up, unclasped the gas mask and pulled it off over his head. It slithered on his sweat in a repulsive fashion. The cold of the mountain air was a punch in the face, and the smell of the gas nauseating, but he gulped it down gratefully, glad to be free of the hood.
‘Thank the Emperor,’ said Katsuhiro. ‘The Emperor protects.’
Doromek gave him a curious look. ‘You’re not one of them, are you? The worshippers?’
‘I…’ said Katsuhiro. ‘What? I just heard it somewhere.’
‘Well,’ said Doromek, ‘the Emperor had nothing to do with this. Space Marines and blind chance saved the day.’
‘Where have the enemy gone?’
‘Back,’ said Doromek. ‘They’ll reinforce the siege camps. They achieved what they set out to do, I expect. They brought up some artillery under the cover of the fighting, lobbed some shells over the walls.’
‘Why?’
‘Beats me,’ said Doromek with a shrug. ‘But they’ll have a reason, you can be sure of that. I never knew legionaries do anything without a reason.’ Doromek smiled at him. ‘You were pretty brave, weren’t you?’
Katsuhiro dropped his eyes, letting his gaze settle on Runnecan. ‘Leave me alone.’
’Suit yourself,’ said Doromek. He dropped a packet of bread by Katsuhiro’s side and left. ‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ he called. ‘The third line’s had it. We’ll be pulling back behind the second soon.’
Katsuhiro watched until Doromek had gone. When he was out of sight, he grabbed Runnecan. Rolling him over made him grunt with effort. The dead were always heavier than he expected, and in his weakened state shifting the body was almost too much for him. Runnecan’s open eyes disturbed him, and he was gladder than he should have been to pitch him over face down into the mud.
What he saw next was worse.
He remained staring at Runnecan’s back for a long time.
The wound that had killed him was a las-burn, neatly placed in his back, right over his heart.
Bloodhunt
The price of glory
An unworthy son
The Conqueror, Terran near orbit, 7th of Quartus
Khârn’s presence terrified the bridge crew. Lotara’s armsmen stiffened when he entered, holding their weapons down but ready. The sound
of his tread clanging slowly off the deck made the deck officers cower. They could smell the blood caked onto his weapons. They shivered at the clink of the chains that bound them to his armour. Let them tremble, he thought. Let them fear me.
Lotara Sarrin feared him too, but she was brave enough to face him. The ship and crew were ragged. Maintenance went undone. Whole areas of the command deck were dark. Machines spilled cabled entrails onto the deck. The smell of blood was ever-present. Dust lay thickly on abandoned stations. The crew’s uniforms were filthy, and there were far too few of them on the bridge. Murder whittled them away. Sarrin too was dirty and unkempt. The blood print honour she bore on her uniform was lost beneath a hundred other stains but she, unlike her ship, was still proud.
She had been waiting impatiently for him and got up to speak to Khârn as soon as he approached her command throne. ‘We have a big problem,’ she said, as he reached her.
Khârn swallowed thickly. ‘Hnnnh,’ he grunted. He forced his panting breath into the patterns of speech. ‘No greeting, Lotara, no inquiry after my health?’ His voice was an intoxicated slur. Controlling his urge to violence took all of his concentration. The longer they were in orbit, the harder the Nails pounded, and the louder the whispered demands in his head were that he spill blood. Command was an unwelcome distraction. He had to fight.
‘I don’t have time for your attempts at humour, neither do you – not if you want to see this war out and not die at the hands of your own father,’ she said. She was rake-thin, worn out by the struggle to impose some order on her ship. ‘Do it,’ she ordered one of her officers. ‘Put it on the hololith.’
Khârn’s hands flexed impatiently around the haft of Gorechild. The axe was never away from his hands. He’d rather lay aside his limbs. ‘I do not have time for, hrrrrnh… for this… for this either.’