Hellforged, p.12
Hellforged, page 12
The laboratory equipment dated back to the building of the Antithesis. Its surfaces were brushed steel glowing faintly over the low light. It was attended by a complement of servitors, silver-plated spidery creations with their once-human components hidden from view.
Archmagos Voar placed the wrecked necron warrior on the dissection slab in the centre of the laboratory. An autosurgeon unit swung into place overhead, and a thin beam of white light fell onto the necron, illuminating it in all the fine detail that Voar’s bionic eyes could discern.
A pair of mechadendrites uncoiled from Voar’s shoulders. They were thin and delicate, quite unlike the crude articulated cables that lower-ranked tech-priests used as additional limbs. Voar’s plucked a medical laser and power scalpel from their rack on the autosurgeon, a miniature field of disruptive energy flickering around the scalpel blade.
Voar had been a commander of the Adeptus Mechanicus forces in the field for a long time, too long, perhaps. The purity of pursuing knowledge in this way, information for its own sake and not as a means to a military end, was like a drug that focused his mind. There was no limit to what a magos could achieve with that focus and the blessing of the Omnissiah upon him. He concentrated on the machine and slowly slit the necron’s torso open, heating the alloy with the laser so that it could be slit open by the scalpel.
The vaporised metal did not smell right. It did not glow and deform in the way righteous metal should. Voar had to choke back the sense of disgust. The torso split open, and Voar carefully lifted the two halves apart.
A power core lay beneath, still glowing with unholy radiation with solid black surfaces inscribed with complex patterns in place of wires and circuits. It was nothing at all like the Machine, like the perfection of form as taught by the Omnissiah. Studying it would be taxing on the soul as well as the mind. That was why Voar had to keep it here, in his sealed lab, where it could not infect less well-prepared minds.
‘Archmagos,’ said a vox from the bridge. It was Magos Hepsebah on board the Constant, which was flying in formation ahead of the Antithesis.
Voar withdrew the implements from the innards of the dead machine. ‘I asked not to be disturbed.’
‘They were waiting for us,’ said Hepsebah. ‘It’s all over our scanners.’
‘Explain.’
‘The xenos. They knew our course before we did. They’re here.’
‘Anyone outside the fold of the Imperium of Man is an enemy, proven or otherwise, xenos or human. Anyone who lives without the light of Terra walks in darkness.’
Daenyathos, The Defence of Xall XIX
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sarpedon saw the city first as the lead Thunderhawk broke through the cloud cover. It was surrounded by a solid defence wall, with grand gates to the north and south, and the city itself was a great crown of decorative stonework contained within those walls. The towers of palaces and civic buildings reached up from sprawling estates and cramped winding streets. Poorer districts dominated the south, tumbledown tenement blocks built over the foundations of a once-prosperous district, devolving into ramshackle shanties along the south wall and spilling into the woodland beyond the south gate. The lands around it were carpeted with deciduous forests, rolling up towards a line of hills to the far north. A short distance from the city was the structure that Lygris had correctly identified as a space port, several rockcrete landing pads surrounding a control tower, all held within its own set of defensive walls studded with fire-points and watchtowers.
‘Commander,’ voxed Phol from the Thunderhawk’s cockpit. Phol was probably the only Soul Drinker Lygris trusted to fly a Thunderhawk as well as Lygris himself did. ‘The Raevenians have come out to greet us. Armed men, several thousand.’
The force had gathered outside the city’s south gate. Sarpedon could see them ranked up in regiments, thousands strong, with artillery and cavalry drawn up on the flanks. Banners fluttered in the wind.
‘Bring us in, brother,’ voxed Sarpedon.
The Soul Drinkers of Squad Luko were strapped into the grav-restraints around Sarpedon. Each one had a pre-battle ritual. Many of them recited passages from the Catechisms Martial, the Soul Drinkers’ philosophy of war as written by the Chapter’s legendary warrior Daenyathos. Others performed wargear rites to prepare the spirits of their weapons and armour, although in truth it was their souls they were preparing.
‘Luko,’ said Sarpedon, ‘we are not going to war. The people down there will decide if our guns and blades are loosed.’
‘Is that why you chose my squad to ride along with you?’ asked Luko with a smile. ‘So you could make sure I stayed my trigger finger?’
‘Just make sure your battle-brothers have calm heads on their shoulders,’ said Sarpedon.
The Thunderhawk made its final descent, vertical engines grinding as they cushioned the craft into a landing. The trees lining the road leading from the city’s south gate shuddered in the choppy gale from the engines. The gunship settled onto the ground.
‘Deploy us, Brother Phol,’ voxed Sarpedon.
The Thunderhawk’s ramp swung down. Sarpedon breathed his first lungfuls of Raevenian air, clean and cool forest air tinged with gun oil and sweat.
The army arrayed outside the gates was huge and magnificent. Its soldiers wore iridescent body armour, gleaming like the carapaces of beetles. They were armed with rifles and machine guns, solid projectile weapons behind Imperial technology, but not by much. The regimental banners were embroidered in silver and gold, and below them stood drummers and trumpeters, and officers resplendent in gold brocade. Behind the army were dozens of artillery pieces manned by gun teams, and a regiment of cavalry armed with sabres as well as rifles.
At the head of the army, standing in the car of a gilded chariot, was a woman in the armour of a soldier and the robes of a monarch. Her black hair was tied back severely, and her strong, handsome face adorned many of the banners flying behind her. Her eyes were a sharp green.
Sarpedon could feel the troops withdraw when they saw him. A Space Marine was monstrous enough, huge compared to a normal man and wearing enough power armour to turn him into a walking tank, but Sarpedon was a literal monster. The spider legs replacing the lower half of his torso were an obscenity that would warrant immediate execution on most Imperial worlds. Any right-thinking, Emperor-fearing citizen would consider Sarpedon an abomination.
Squad Luko emerged from the Thunderhawk behind Sarpedon. The guns of his troops were not aimed at the army in front of them, but in a split second Luko’s battle-brothers could be ready to fight.
Sarpedon stood before the woman in the chariot. He was taller than her in her chariot, but even so she seemed able to look down on him with both curiosity and disdain. Sarpedon had seen many humans recoil before him, spitting curses or running in fear. The queen did not.
A soldier hurried forwards. He looked older than the men around him, the polished plates of his armour inscribed with flowing script in gold.
‘Her Majesty Queen Dyrmida of Astelok,’ he said in accented Low Gothic. Evidently introducing herself was a task beneath the queen. ‘Regent-general of Raevenia.’
‘Commander Sarpedon of the Soul Drinkers.’
For a moment, there was only the sound of banners flapping in the breeze, and the engines of the Thunderhawk warming down.
‘What are you?’ asked Queen Dyrmida. Her voice was as strident as the rest of her.
‘A Space Marine,’ said Sarpedon. ‘A warrior from the galaxy beyond, from the Imperium of Man.’
The men in the ranks were jostling nervously. Officers threw angry glances to quiet them down. Even the horses of the cavalry were disturbed by the sight of Sarpedon, straining at their reins.
‘The Imperium?’ asked the queen. ‘What manner of empire is this? One embattled, like our own? Brothers and sisters in this fight?’
‘They are no brothers to you, or to me,’ replied Sarpedon.
‘Then, no empire moves to assist us? In spite of our calls for help, our begging, we see nothing but you and your men? This is the deliverance we abandoned our pride to plead for? How many do you bring with you?’
‘Two hundred and fifty,’ said Sarpedon.
‘Two hundred and fifty! What difference can you make to us? The Undying are upon us. They will care nothing for your presence unless each of your men is worth a thousand of mine.’
‘They are,’ said Sarpedon levelly.
The silence was broken only by the sound of banners and trees in the wind.
The queen looked past Sarpedon to the Soul Drinkers of Squad Luko behind him, and the landed Thunderhawk beyond. Two more Thunderhawks were circling overhead. Sarpedon couldn’t imagine what she must make of the Soul Drinkers with their mutant leader, their massive statures and purple armour, their exotic wargear like Luko’s claws and Sarpedon’s force axe. The fear was clear in the eyes of her soldiers, for they must have thought they were looking on creatures of legend. The armies of many non-Imperial worlds had crumbled at the sight of Space Marines in the past, civilisations, who thought themselves enlightened and advanced, bowing down to worship the terrifying warriors that dropped into their midst from the sky. Whole worlds had fallen to Imperial tyranny in the past by exactly this method.
Queen Dyrmida was made of sterner stuff. Without her, the army might well have melted away, there and then, without a shot being fired, or they would have attacked the Soul Drinkers at the first sight of Sarpedon. Instead, they followed their queen’s lead, and stood firm.
‘You are not here to help us,’ said the queen. ‘If you are as mighty as you claim then you would think my world beneath you. Why are you here?’
Sarpedon settled back onto his back legs. The queen was right. If the Brokenback had not been crippled, his Chapter would probably have bypassed Raevenia completely, and ignored their pleas for help. ‘We can depart, your majesty, and leave you to these Undying. Or we can give you the chance for survival that you currently lack.’
‘My city will soon be under siege by the Undying. If you wish to fight, fight. Otherwise, leave. There is no more to be discussed.’ Dyrmida turned to he charioteer. ‘To the gates!’ she ordered. The chariot wheeled around, and the troops parted as it was driven towards the city.
‘All squads,’ voxed Sarpedon to the Soul Drinkers in the Thunderhawks overhead. ‘Come in to land. Do not open fire on the Raevenians. All weapons silent.’
The troops were falling back, rank by rank, to accompany their queen into the city. Captain Luko held his position behind Sarpedon as the banners receded.
‘Perhaps we should have come armed with a diplomat,’ said Luko.
Sarpedon turned to him. ‘Next time you sharpen your claws, captain, try dulling your wit as well. Take command of the squads as they land and set up a position closer to the walls.’
‘Where will you be, commander?’
‘In the city,’ said Sarpedon.
Lygris reached the bridge just as Brother Feynin was shutting off the alarms. Feynin was one of the Soul Drinkers left on the Brokenback while Sarpedon led the rest to Raevenia. Lygris knew that, while they would not say so, they all wanted to be at Sarpedon’s side, fighting whatever battle the planet might throw at them.
‘What is it?’ asked Lygris.
Feynin looked around from the bridge cogitator. A couple of other Soul Drinkers were on the bridge, examining pict screens or spools of printouts. Warning lights were flashing and the klaxons still echoed through the deck.
‘Contacts,’ said Feynin. ‘In-system.’
‘Contacts? From the warp?’
‘There’s no warp breach. I don’t know where they came from.’
Lygris took over Feynin’s position at the cogitator. If the bridge viewscreen had been repaired he could have had an overview of Raevenia’s system in seconds, but had to make do with the streams of figures flickering down the pict screen in front of him. He stopped them and flicked through a few different screens.
‘They were hiding in Raevenia’s rings,’ said Lygris.
‘The rings?’ asked Feynin.
‘They’re made of chunks of ice and rock. A ship could easily hide in them.’
‘But they’d have to be stone cold to avoid any sensors. If it’s the Mechanicus then they–’
‘It’s not the Mechanicus,’ said Lygris, leafing through printouts. ‘It’s the machines. Here, the energy spikes are well out of any Imperial engine’s tolerance. That’s alien tech.’
Lygris switched to Sarpedon’s vox-channel. ‘Commander?’
‘Lygris?’ said Sarpedon’s. ‘What news from orbit?’
‘The machines are here with us. At least six craft, escort-sized but powerful. They just broke cover from the planet’s rings.’
‘They’re here?’
‘In force, commander,’ said Lygris.
‘Then Raevenia doesn’t have long.’ Over the vox, Sarpedon’s voice was broken up by static. ‘What of the Brokenback? Can it support us on the ground?’
‘I can keep us in a stationary orbit,’ replied Lygris, ‘but the machine-spirits of the last reactors departed an hour ago. Without fuel we are dead in the void. I can bring few weapons to bear. I fear the Brokenback is not much use to you. The best I can do is keep us running cold so the aliens do not register us as a worthwhile target.’
‘Very well, Lygris,’ said Sarpedon. ‘I will get you your fuel, Techmarine, and then we can be on our way. Until then, do the Emperor’s work.’
‘Do the Emperor’s work, commander.’
Sarpedon cut the vox-link.
Lygris looked again at the figures being spewed out by the bridge cogitators. Enormous reserves of power, technology both vastly different and far advanced compared to the Imperial.
Xenos, he thought. One more foe to face before the Soul Drinkers could break out of the chains that still held them. And after then, would there be another foe? Another war to fight?
It did not matter. For a Space Marine, for a Soul Drinker, doing the Emperor’s work was its own reward. Lygris turned back to the bridge controls and the task of keeping the space hulk in orbit.
The war room was dominated by a relief map of Astelok. Newly added to the map were the districts of shanties and refugee camps housing the people who had fled to Astelok from the rest of Raevenia, moving before the tide of the Undying. The generals of Dyrmida’s armies sat around it, their complements of support officers behind them. Many of them had laid out documents on the tabletop around the map: intelligence reports, maps, plans of attack, statistics.
For all the finery of their uniforms, there was a desperation about them. There was none of the pageantry and self-congratulation of peacetime. These were old soldiers, and they were here to fight a war.
Queen Dyrmida entered the war room. The generals saluted as she took up her place at the map table. She had been disrobed of her armour, and wore simple blue-green fatigues with a sidearm holstered at her hip. Her long dark hair hung loose. She looked as much a soldier as any of the generals.
‘Your reports,’ she said.
General Heynan cleared his throat. A thin and spiky-looking man with a face as sharp as a hatchet, his uniform bore the embroidered ringed planet that symbolised Astelok’s intelligence force.
‘The last few reports have come in,’ he said. ‘None is less than three days old.’
‘Do any agents still live elsewhere on Raevenia?’ asked Dyrmida.
‘It seems unlikely, your majesty. The last information we have is from one of our scouts near Fornow Harbour. He reports the Undying there in great numbers, and war machines converging on the city. Undying scouts were closing on his position when he transmitted. Quite possibly, he fell to them.’
‘That puts them within a few days of Astelok,’ said the jowly, powerfully built Damask, a general of the army, who had ridden with the cavalry in the wars that had been fought decades ago between Astelok and her fellow city-states of Raevenia. ‘With Fornow fallen there won’t be anything to stop them forcing one of the mountain passes.’
‘What of elsewhere?’ asked Dyrmida. ‘The Lovinian Principalities? Krassus City?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Heynan, ‘not since the Principalities reported the invaders coming from the sky.’
‘I see,’ said Dyrmida. ‘Then the last of Raevenia’s cities have fallen. We are alone. We, the people of this city, are what remains of the Selaacan Empire.’
A few of the less tactful generals exchanged looks.
‘Do not pretend,’ said Dyrmida, ‘that we have not known this all along. When Selaaca fell silent, we knew it could come to this. We know that many worlds have fallen and we cannot assume any others have been spared. Much as it pains us to accept it, much as the death toll must be beyond our understanding, it is the truth. The empire’s last stand will fall upon us. The Undying have exterminated all the rest.’
Damask banged a fist on the map table. ‘Then we will give these aliens the battle of their lives! The Undying will pay for every brick and cobble of Astelok! I will man the barricades myself and fight them until the last breath! I and my men will–’
‘You will give us all glorious deaths, general?’ interrupted Dyrmida. ‘You accept the loss of Astelok and all who dwell in her?’
Damask did not answer. He glanced around the table for support, but none of his fellow officers spoke up.
‘I intend,’ said Dyrmida, ‘to fight the Undying here, but, unlike General Damask, I do not intend to lose. I am willing to sacrifice Astelok, but not her people. We must evacuate the population to the space port and get them off the planet.’
