‘Is your squad with you?’
‘No.’ He winced, this time in psychic pain. Their runes had faded at the moment of the explosion. He had not consciously taken in that sight until he had woken on the ground. His battle-brothers were dead. ‘They are lost.’
‘What of Castellan Crowe and the other squads? We cannot reach anyone within the palace walls.’
‘I do not know.’
‘I am coming for you,’ said Berinon. ‘We are running out of time.’
The pilot’s words forced Sendrax further out of the blindness of his pain. His eyes cleared. He could see the world again, and what was coming for it. Lightning from the other tower flashed with madness. It had struck Desma again. One of the broken planet’s halves had shattered into a swarm of asteroids. A cloud of stone spread over the firmament. Fragments moved to the command of the daemonic song. Others careened away from the centre of the mass. Planetoids collided. The fragments of Desma warred with each other. The cloud was a storm, and portions of it reached for Angriff Primus.
Sendrax witnessed the first of the asteroids to hit the atmosphere. The flame of its descent lit the night. It fell beyond the southern horizon. The hammer blow of its impact disrupted the unholy rhythm. The sun rose in the south, an immense fireball filling Sendrax’s sight. The earth shook, and the broken towers of Algidus fell. The city’s remains crumbled. Silhouettes against the new sun disappeared, dropping into final ruin.
Movement crept back into Sendrax’s body. He turned his head away from the holocaust. The fire and the brilliance of the lightning flashes hid the sky from him now. He could not see the next piece of Desma to fall. There was only the red and silver of raging destruction.
Crowe, Sendrax thought, what have you done? What have you done to us all?
The daemon music beat on and on and on.
Build new walls, Crowe thought. As his body convulsed to the commands of the Masque’s dance, and Antwyr howled in triumph, he pulled his mind away from the maelstrom of torment.
The warden is prisoner! Antwyr gloated. The warden is prisoner! Here it ends, it ends, it ends!
New walls, Crowe thought. New walls. The Emperor protects. I serve him still. My watch is not ended.
His body was not his, but his mind was. He had held the gates against the assaults of Antwyr for decade after decade. The gates did not fall now. His arms and legs tried to wrench themselves out of their sockets. He and Drake jerked across the floor of the orrery, new planetoids in orbit around the star of the Masque. Soon he would hear the first snaps of his bones. But he retained the will to fight back. Drake’s armour smoked from the impact of bolter shells. His force sword cut ever deeper gouges in the ceramite of his left arm. The movements of the dance called for Crowe to turn his weapons against himself as well. He managed to resist for a few more seconds, though the Black Blade twisted in his grip, eager to exact its vengeance.
Use these moments. Fight back. Break this sorcery.
‘Emperor take your accursed being!’ Drake roared at the Masque as the daemon curled a finger, and the dance forced his bolter arm up again. This time, he pressed the muzzle of the weapon against his helmet. To Crowe, he said, ‘Forgive my weakness, castellan.’
Drake was only a few feet away from Crowe. In their prisons of movement, he might as well have been on the other side of the palace. Crowe could not reach for him. He could not take any action not commanded by the Masque.
The dance jolted Crowe to the right. He did not resist but threw himself into the movement. His sudden energy exaggerated the gesture. He flew across the gap and collided with Drake, knocking his arm up as the bolter fired. The shells exploded against the ceiling, shattering crystal, marring the perfection of the Masque’s work.
The daemon hissed. Its anger added a new sinuosity to the melody of the dread song. It sank the music’s claws deeper into Crowe’s being. A great punishment would be the price for the moments of life he had gained for Drake.
The hiss became a snarl and then a scream of anger. Cacophony overtook the melody. The orrery trembled, shaken by a force outside the daemon’s control. The Masque’s scream rose higher as half of Desma exploded into fragments. The monster reached out as if it would force the pieces back together. It failed. The shrapnel tore through the eldritch machine, destroying a balance as delicate as it was powerful.
There were no longer eight planetary bodies in motion. The Masque’s art depended on a twisted, Chaos-corrupted form of order, and now that order unravelled. Crowe felt the Masque’s grip slip. The floor heaved, and the mechanism of the orrery ground against itself. The orbits of the planets went out of control. Contritus hurtled across the system, a world missile launched free. It collided with Angriff Tertius, crushing the smaller sphere. Seizing the chance of the disruption, Crowe pulled against the Masque’s spell. He could not move as he chose, but he arrested his motion.
Drake could not escape. His movements became even more frenetic. They were jagged, too, and erratic, as he fought the Masque’s control and the daemon struggled to rein in the upheaval of its cosmic design. From the most profound core of his faith in the Emperor, Drake found the strength to turn one of his enforced actions against the Masque. The daemon commanded that he spin, and he spun. He threw himself into the turn. He came out of it facing the Masque. ‘We are the hammer!’ he cried. He fired his storm bolter at the same time that he threw all his psychic strength into banishing the great daemon.
It was as if Drake’s very soul roared past Crowe, rippling the air, searing the veil. Shells and anathema struck the Masque together. The physical and psychic explosion staggered the daemon and it missed a step of its dance. Chasms split the floor of the orrery, radiating from the Masque’s dais. The chamber rose and fell with vertiginous speed.
The mesmeric grip on Crowe loosened yet more, and he wrenched himself free. Drake stood still, not free, but for a moment uncompelled. He looked at Crowe. ‘Strike hard, castellan,’ he said. ‘Fight on, brother.’
They had fought side by side for more than a century. Every instinct of comradeship pushed Crowe to use his freedom to rush to Drake’s side. Reason and duty forced him away. ‘I shall,’ he said, the promise all the sole tribute to their friendship the struggle allowed. He ran towards the Masque.
What will you do? the sword asked. You rush to the futile end, it answered. This is the uselessness of sacrifice, the emptiness of nobility. Run on, warden. Run quickly. Amuse me with the gesture.
Antwyr laughed again, and kept laughing as the Masque took hold of the orrery once more. The daemon’s eternal dance had been the doom of billions. It held a star system in its grip. It would not be broken now, not by one warrior. The Masque’s art fell upon Drake with the daemon’s fury. Crowe did not look back. Though Drake’s roar of pain was suddenly choked off, he did not look back. Though he heard a monstrous tearing, the sound of ceramite ripped apart as though it were parchment, he kept moving. The sundered remains of Drake’s armour hit the floor of the orrery. The sound of the impact had the finality of the slamming of a tomb door, and Crowe did not look back. There was nothing but silence now from Drake. Crowe honoured his sacrifice, and fuelled by towering grief, he charged across the broken floor, leaping over fissures, weaving between the careening clockwork, racing to bring judgement on the abomination.
He did not think how he would do so. He knew only that he must seize the moments he had to make an attempt.
The sword laughed and laughed and laughed.
The Masque danced, and spun. It turned its eyes on Crowe, and the chains of the song seized him once more.
Chapter Seventeen
The Dancer and the Blade
Setheno’s head rang and her vision blurred from the concussion. Her clarity of perception was undiminished. Diotian had stopped and was turning the blastmaster on Furia. Setheno could not distract him with pointless fire clanging against his hull. Instea
d, she trained her pistol on the huge claw that conducted the lightning to the stage. She fired into the intricate weaving of iron. The lightning flashed, vaporising shells. But some hit the iron, and they damaged it. It would take too long for Setheno to try to shoot down the massive structure. Furia’s blade was faster and more precise in slicing through the supports. As a distraction, though, her attack worked. The injury she inflicted on the structure was enough.
Diotian turned away from Furia. The Dreadnought howled. The sound of his distress smashed pews between him and Setheno. Above, chains cracked like glass, dropping in a hail of black fragments onto Diotian’s hull. He marched down the slope of the Cruciatorium. Setheno backed up, edging closer to the runic circle. At her back, the lightning struck again, always on the beat of the song. It was so close to her that the residual warp energy tried to overload the circuitry of her power armour. The thunder was so loud, her eardrums would have burst if she had not been wearing her helmet.
Diotian’s weapons were trained on Setheno, but he did not fire. She was too close to the claw. He could not avoid doing more damage to the claw than she did, even if he hit her directly. Without taking her eyes off the Dreadnought, Setheno sent more bursts of shells backwards and up, hitting the claw again.
Diotian screamed. He charged, chainfist roaring and crackling with energy.
Setheno waited for the last second before she moved. She saw the blow come in, tracked its angle of descent. She saw precisely where and what Diotian could not afford to strike. The meteor arrived, and she leapt to the side. Diotian slammed the chainfist into granite. He formed a crater in the stage, sending up a cloud of dust. The lightning glowed eerily inside the cloud. Setheno moved in it, grey within the grey, to the other side of the claw.
‘You will stop! You must stop!’ Diotian shouted. ‘You cannot break the fate! You will not, you must not, must not, must not, MUST NOT!’
He chased Setheno. She kept just out of reach of the chainfist. It hit the stage again and again. Soon, Setheno had to climb over the smashed rock. The destroyed surface slowed down Diotian as he moved through the craters and ridges of the ruin he had wrought. The Dreadnought wailed in frustration. His heavy flamer and blastmaster waved back and forth. The fury of his madness pushed him to fire. His awe of the power he served held him back.
‘Let me fire! Let me destroy her!’ he pleaded to the force that compelled him. ‘You cannot be here!’ he shouted at Setheno. ‘You cannot harm the art! Where is sensation? Where is pain? FEEEEEEEEEEED!’
At the top of the Cruciatorium, Furia was on her feet. She climbed again. Setheno divided her attention between watching her progress and keeping Diotian’s attention on her. The tactic was working, but it was unsustainable. She had to take the Dreadnought down.
Furia reached another support and sliced into it with her power blade. Even before she had cut through, the conducting network trembled, a nervous system recoiling from the source of injury. Diotian stopped with his chainfist in mid-air. He turned again, and fired in Furia’s direction. The shot was too urgent, without aim. He missed, shearing away low-hanging chains and collapsing a portion of the far wall.
Setheno seized her chance. She rushed Diotian, and slashed at the cables and joints of his legs with her power sword. Diotian moved back. He snarled down at her, the blast from his vox-casters hitting her with physical force. She staggered. He brought the chainfist down. She sprinted forward. The blow missed her by inches. The shockwave of its impact knocked her down, underneath the Dreadnought.
‘FEEEEEEED!’ Diotian screamed. He raised a foot to crush her into the broken granite.
Setheno rolled and cut upwards. She severed the conduit running from the right leg to the hull. Electrical fires exploded around her. The Dreadnought slewed to one side and its foot stamped down past her, crashing through six inches of granite. Setheno stood and ran out behind Diotian. He turned to follow, dragging the right leg. She had not immobilised him, but his gait was uneven. His wails became incoherent screams. They drove wider fissures into the deck. Weakened iron fell from the ceiling, entire nets of chain and razor wire dropping on to the stage. The walls split, and shook free of their cladding.
The lightning struck the circle. The thunder drowned out Diotian’s screams. Furia cut through another support, and the claw swung back and forth. The Cruciatorium flashed with blasts of undirected energy. The soul-festering colours of the warp flowed over the chamber. The reality of the ship softened. A storm of madness was building, hungry to consume the heart of the Catharsis.
Diotian’s hull rotated back and forth, torn between the targets.
Take him down, Setheno thought. Find the chance and finish him. She circled the Dreadnought, slashing with her blade, forcing his choice. She crossed in front of him and closed with the runic circle. Diotian moaned his denial. His immensity lurched after her. Create the chance, she thought. She stopped just short of the circle and lunged back as the claw swung her way. The lightning surged, reaching beyond the runes. The trailing end of warp energy caught her. The flames of the empyrean engulfed her armour. A corrupt fire reached through it and tried to consume her soul. She kept moving, blind with agony, but she had seen where she must go and what she must do. There was a grinding explosion to her left and behind, and another shockwave. That was the chainfist, overshooting. She struck to her right, though the fires of Ruin raged along her arm. Her sword hit resistance, then sliced through.
There was an explosion. She rolled and regained her feet as her vision cleared and the corrupting flame, unable to find purchase on her soul, died away.
She had damaged both of Diotian’s legs. The left jerked, its mechanism misfiring. At the moment the Dreadnought was leaning forward with the momentum of the chainfist strike. He toppled over, a monument of madness falling from its plinth, and crashed into the runic circle.
There was time between the beats for Diotian to howl again. His flamer turned, unleashing a firestorm across the Cruciatorium. It swept over the ruins of the stage and the pews. The stark outlines of fallen iron stood out like the bones of a great beast. It engulfed Setheno, but it was mere fire. She stood her ground, and waited for the next beat.
It came. The lightning flashed down the length of the claw and struck Diotian. A double explosion filled Setheno’s sight. The massive charge of warp energy blew up the Dreadnought’s power plant. The plasma fireball and the eruption of the blocked warp lightning interwove, the materium and the immaterium burning together. Setheno leaned into the blast as if into a hurricane. The fires scoured the Cruciatorium, and when they faded the claw was a twisted mass. Where Diotian had lain, there was a huge new crater.
Suspended above the carbonised chamber, Furia cut through another support. The framework of the conductor lost what was left of its strength. The entire structure collapsed, and Setheno moved now, evading the crushing drop of girders. The fall short-circuited the gathering of the lightning, and the final storm broke in the Cruciatorium. Warp lightning lashed out in every direction. It seethed above the stage. Vortices formed and collided, destroyed each other and formed again. The ceiling split and bowed inwards. The fissure in the deck cracked wider and raced up the walls.
The storm grew in rage. Thunder bellowed, but the third beat of the music had ceased. The lightning no longer left the Catharsis for Angriff Primus. And the other, more distant portions of the rhythm were wrong, too. They had turned into the erratic, staggering beats of a failing heart. The daemonic song screamed as it destroyed itself.
Setheno ran back up the slope of the Cruciatorium, racing the growing chaos. Furia had dropped from the ceiling chains. She was covered in burns, and there were hitches in the movement of her bionic limbs. Setheno extended a hand as she reached her, but Furia shook her head. ‘I can run,’ she said, and she did, keeping pace with Setheno as they charged for the exit.
Just past the threshold of the Cruciatorium, two of Furia’s vetera
ns were still alive. Klas Brauner and Yira Rozh had crawled out from under the bodies of their comrades. They were both badly burned and their legs were broken. Furia lifted Brauner over her shoulder without hesitation. In the act, Setheno perceived the acknowledgment of a debt of honour. She picked up Rozh, and they ran down the corridor, heading for the assault ram, leaving the spiralling chaos of the Catharsis behind them.
The lightning ceased. The inverted dome of the palace was still. There were no longer any blasts descending to the gate. The portal itself still blazed with coruscating light. Its interior swirled with destructive force. Gorvenal stared at it for a moment, mentally praying that in the next moment, or the one after that, the castellan and Drake would return from the other side. They did not. The opening in the floor now seemed more like a barrier than a portal.
When the lightning did not come, and the daemonic beat dissolved into chaotic hammering from the north tower, the legion of daemons froze. After a moment of no movement at all, there were hesitant half-steps of confusion. The power that had governed the actions of the abominations had suddenly abandoned them. The song had been their motivating force. It had directed the flow of their attacks and shaped their revels. Now it was gone. Fiends howled. Daemonettes sang plaintively, their melodies clashing with each other as they sought to conjure the music that was gone forever. They had failed to defend the gate from the Grey Knights, and now they were bereft.
The Purifiers did not stand idle. While disorder gripped the enemy, they cut down more clusters of abominations.
‘Has the castellan triumphed?’ Venrik asked.
‘If he and Knight of the Flame Drake have not returned,’ Destrian said, ‘then they are fighting still.’
Gorvenal noticed he offered no other explanation for their absence.
‘They must travel this passage again,’ said Carac. ‘This position is ours, now, and we shall hold it for them.’
He had barely finished speaking when the daemons started moving again. They stampeded towards the portal. They were not attacking the Purifiers directly. They barely seemed to be aware of them, except as obstacles to their goal. They were intent on throwing themselves into the gate.
Castellan Page 24