Lords of Blood, page 78
‘They do not like light,’ said Dante. ‘I shall see how they enjoy my axe.’
He ignited his jump pack and thrust upwards, lofting himself close to the apex of the dome, then came down in a perfectly controlled descent to the aid of one of the battle-brothers. His Sanguinary Guard followed him, slicing into the streams of darkness in the air.
Dante aimed a blow at the thing wrapping itself around his warrior.
The Axe Mortalis cleaved the shadow. There was no resistance to the blade, but the power field reacted as if the mass were solid, and the shadow screamed. It recoiled from the Chapter Master, coming free from the battle-brother as it did so, then lunged for him with whipping pseudopods. Where they lashed Dante’s armour, the golden ceramite smoked.
Dante leapt backwards on twin blades of flame. The Perdition Pistol gave a roaring cough. The shadow took the hit, and spread wide, then drew itself back together and flew at Dante.
The rest of the force emerged into the chamber, filling it with their fury. Rhacelus and Mephiston came forth, casting bolts of psychic power at the things attacking them.
Everywhere the shadows dived down onto the Space Marines. Bolt weapons roared, but the micro missiles they fired passed harmlessly through the beings. Shadows wrapped around Space Marines in deadly embraces, lifting them off the ground and smothering them in darkness. Plasma did a little better, the intense light the Hellblaster guns gave out driving back the shadows.
But the might of the Librarius was of a different order, and where the ruby light of their psychic bolts went, shadows died.
‘Dante!’ Rhacelus shouted. He raised a hand glowing with the power of the warp.
Dante dove out of the way. A lancing red light struck the shadow squarely in its middle. It wailed and fell, hitting the floor with real weight.
Dante landed, his golden boots ringing on the floor. He approached the shadow writhing on the ground. It was taking form, becoming something else.
Black wetness split like a birthing sac. A pale-skinned daemon rose from the steaming mess, black, pupilless eyes full of longing hatred fixed on the Chapter Master, and it screeched through a lamprey-toothed maw, before launching itself at Dante with a serrated claw held out to decapitate him. It was supernaturally fast, beyond the reflexes of even the Adeptus Astartes to follow.
But Dante was the greatest of them, with a millennium and more of combat experience. He fired before the outreached pincers could end his life.
A roaring hit from the Perdition Pistol annihilated the creature’s upper half. Backward-jointed legs tumbled to the ground. The remains bubbled, hissing vapours, sinking into the gaps between the deck plating.
‘Daemonettes,’ he said. ‘The creatures of the Dark Prince.’
Polyphonic screaming came from all over the chamber as daemonettes shed their shadowed skin. They moved so fast, running along the walls, vaulting over the heads of their foes. Chitinous claws snapped at blood-red giants, carving furrows into armour and flesh, bringing wet vitae to stain the ceramite and make it glisten. Trails of bolts chased the creatures around the room, blowing holes in the walls and floor.
A daemonette advanced on an Intercessor. It danced through the stream of bolts coming at it, seeming to skip through space in horrible, jerking movements that contrived, somehow, to appear graceful. The Intercessor’s gun ran dry, and he cast it aside, simultaneously drawing his combat knife. Few warriors could hope to beat the daemon’s speed. It crossed the eight feet separating them in a flash of pale skin, skewering the warrior through his midriff and ripping upwards, opening armour and hardened ribcage. Glistening ropes of viscera spilled out. Still the Space Marine fought as the creature rode him down, its clawed feet in his guts.
Rhacelus was surrounded by the creatures, fending them off with a glittering golden shield conjured around the end of his force staff. His warp-touched eyes blazed through his eye lenses, shining with undeniable power on the creatures. The light caressed smooth curves and soft leathers, highlighting the daemons’ savage beauty, and arresting Dante’s gaze.
‘The beasts of Slaanesh cloud the mind,’ Dante said to himself. He shook off their allure, leaping into the air with a burst from his jump pack. The sudden lurch as he took to the air tugged hard at his wounds, but he bit back the pain. ‘I fear no daemon glamour,’ he shouted. ‘I am a son of the Great Angel. Look upon my face and see the wrath of Sanguinius live again!’
The psy-projectors in his mask amplified his voice so that it boomed like that of his demigod father. His shouts struck terror into mortal soldiers, deafening them physically and shocking them psychically. The daemonettes suffered a far greater effect. Dante’s righteous rage slammed into them as surely as a blow, sending them reeling and screeching from Rhacelus.
Dante clanged down next to the Epistolary. ‘The daemonkin are vulnerable to our weapons, but they are faster and deadlier in this form. We must get out of this chamber,’ he said. ‘That way.’ He pointed his axe towards the far door. ‘Masters of the Librarius, clear a path for us.’
Rhacelus nodded. ‘Aye, my lord.’ He passed his staff from one hand to the other. Ruby flames burned around his hands.
‘It shall be done,’ said Mephiston. His eye lenses glowed with psychic intensity.
‘Company, prepare to advance,’ Dante said. ‘Engage at distance. Resist the urge to fight with the foe at close quarters. Beware the thirst. Shoot them down where you can. Leave the rest to the Lords Mephiston and Rhacelus.’
The Intercessors formed up on Captain Antargo, his orders and warnings forging them into a fluid firing line even while the daemonettes tried to assail them. Disciplined volleys of fire drove the creatures back, but the Space Marines could not force a way through by martial might alone.
‘There are more of the foe incoming,’ Antargo voxed. His statement was undercut by evil laughter ringing in the Space Marine’s vox-beads.
‘Now,’ said Dante.
Mephiston and Rhacelus handled the destruction allotted them according to their preference. Rhacelus conjured up a storm of ruby lances that he flung at the daemonettes. Each one thrown looped about to chase its target down. When they hit, the creature impaled let out a dreadful shrieking as it was consumed by crimson fire, and exploded violently, showering the room with gore that evaporated into black smoke.
Mephiston moved into melee range, drawing his great sword, Vitarus. Ruby flames licked up the blade. Psychic power coursed over his limbs, shifting him beyond the run of time and granting him incredible speed. Daemonettes came at him in streaking blurs, but he was faster, evading their blows, channelling power from the warp into Vitarus and cleaving the daemons into nothing.
‘Forward!’ commanded Dante.
The Space Marines followed their Librarians, cutting a swathe through the creatures in the chamber as they advanced. Hundreds more shadows were pouring out of the tunnels leading into the way temple, and once within, split open, birthing further monsters. Creatures of hideous beauty rose from shadow-sacs, steaming with perfumed fluids.
Mephiston moved with a duellist’s grace, his sword never still, his aim never faltering. Every blow sent another daemonette screaming back into the warp, and was ready to be followed by another blow, and another, so that the Chief Librarian was hidden by a wall of crimson flame that flickered with each unlife taken.
Rhacelus followed close to Dante, hurling his spears into the tunnels as he advanced. They pierced dozens of creatures and shadows each before fizzling out. Their light caused the shadows to fly back from their passage, and the daemonettes to wail and cover their soulless eyes. Rhacelus’ powers opened up channels in the daemonic host that the Intercessors and Hellblasters were quick to exploit, switching their targets with incredible discipline, widening the lanes carved by the crimson lances, and felling the onrushing creatures.
‘They have poor purchase on this realm,’ Rhacelus said. ‘Their bodies dissipate as soon as they are slain. There is little of the warp to sustain them. The more we kill, the weaker they will become.’
Mephiston spun around, cleaving a dozen of the creatures down, then leapt high, borne aloft by a pair of wings edged with red light. Androgynous figures leapt at him, trying to claw him down, but he held out his sword, and called down a lightning strike of ruby blasts that slew them all.
Dante fought alongside the Third Captain. Antargo’s bolt pistol spat death. His sword cleaved limbs from bodies. Dante slew his share, using his armour’s weight and his jump pack’s thrust to bowl knots of the creatures down, finishing them with his axe and his pistol as they fought to untangle their claws from one another.
The white ceramite wings of the Sanguinary Guard cut though a rising mist of black vapours. The Blood Angels were most of the way across the chamber, but still in danger of being swamped. Mephiston charged on ahead, dragging with him veils of lightning and power, blasting aside the thin cordon of daemons barring their exit.
‘Now! Now! Hurry!’ Dante shouted, his psychic amplifiers roaring out his commands. He was becoming uneasy. Mephiston’s display of power tugged at something deep inside him. He could sense it in the others, the first stirrings of the Thirst, the first calling of the Rage.
The Space Marines ran. The Sanguinary Guard formed a rearguard, protecting the backs of their fellows until, in a tempest of witchfire, plasma streams and bolt explosions, the last of them had crossed the final yards of the chamber, and had begun the descent down the tunnel at the other side. A half-squad of Intercessors turned about, loosed a three-shot burst, then bowed down, allowing the Sanguinary Guard to swoop in over their heads to the centre of the group. The Intercessors then stood and fired backwards as the party moved downwards, obliterating daemons as they attempted to follow them into the tunnel.
Mephiston and Dante slew the last two daemonettes themselves, force sword and power axe sending them screaming back into their master’s exquisite hells. Mephiston slowed to human speeds, the lightning crackling from his armour fizzled out, and he extinguished the fire wreathing his sword.
‘We are close,’ he said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A GENEROUS OFFER
They moved at a steady pace towards the lifter nexus. The corridor was wide enough only for three men abreast. With the Intercessors standing shoulder to shoulder and putting out a solid wall of shot, it did not matter how fast the daemons were. Their every sortie failed. The corridor echoed with their dying screeches. They became unwilling to attack. The angels of death taught the daemons caution.
‘I feel the breach,’ said Rhacelus.
‘The locus is ahead,’ said Mephiston.
A hot wind blew up at the Blood Angels, carrying with it the sickly stench of rot inadequately masked by perfume. The choruses of whispers swelled in crescendo on the vox, dying away into fractured laughter.
‘It stinks of death,’ Antargo said. The Space Marines closed their breathing grilles in a brief burst of metallic scraping. ‘Throne, I can still smell it.’
The shrill hunting cries of daemonettes called after them, but the creatures came no closer and gunfire abated.
The Space Marines slowed. Stablights mounted under their guns played over walls running with mucus. A soft lilac glow crept up the corridor to meet them. The scent of musky perfume intensified. A gentle moaning came to them.
Antargo punched a sequence into the keys of his wrist auspex. ‘I do not know what you sense, Brother Epistolary, or you, Lord of Death, but I believe we have discovered the crew,’ he said. ‘I have a massive bio-sign ahead.’
‘What is it?’ said Dante. ‘Are they all there?’
‘It is unclear,’ said Antargo. ‘One reading gives me thousands of hearts beating. Another suggests none.’
‘Go carefully, fire only when sure of your targets. Our ammunition is dwindling,’ said Dante. ‘Isolated in time like this, we have no chance of resupply.’
The way became slippery with marbled slime. It had no obvious source, emerging from the metal itself. It reeked of heavy, florid perfumes. Music struck up ahead of them, sounding as if at a great distance that rapidly closed. Cymbals and drums played frantic percussion to a tune plucked out of screaming harps. Sighing songs halfway between ecstasy and pain played against them discordantly.
The light, music and perfume grew stronger, making the Blood Angels’ senses ache. By the time they emerged into the lifter nexus their auto-senses were struggling to compensate.
The rear third of the Dominance was a collection of towers that rose up together like a small city. The lifter nexus was situated on the ship’s spine at the base of the foremost tower. A number of converging ways came together there, and the nexus included a major stop for the vessel’s aft-to-prow transit lines. There were wide platforms that allowed the raising of stacks of containers from deep in the holds up to distribution hubs, and banks of smaller cars for the transportation of personnel. It was one of the great arteries of the Dominance, a place where men and supplies could quickly pass from one place to another, vital to the operation of the ship.
Designed as a large, vaulting space, the nexus was criss-crossed with raised walkways. Its ceilings were ribbed with steel vaults, and ornate buttresses reinforced the inner walls. A large part of this architecture was obscured.
A pillar of living flesh hundreds of feet tall occupied the centre of the shaft. Save where it intersected with bridges carrying roads over the nexus, it stood unsupported, holding itself up with hydraulic pressures that made it throb. Liquid slicked its sides, and the smell of perfume became almost overpowering, even through the Space Marines’ void-sealed armour.
Antargo’s auspex trilled the tinny hymns of bio-detection. He shut it off.
‘The crew,’ said Antargo. ‘By the Emperor, that thing is the crew!’
Arms and legs hung from the sides of the column like the cilia that crowd the human gut. Thousands of eyes blinked in rippled patterns, so many that when they moved to look upon the Blood Angels, it could be heard as a sticky rustling.
The music grew louder. The screeching and laughing of daemonettes came down at them from above and across the shaft. Hundreds of them appeared, lining every bridge and balcony. They stared at the Space Marines.
‘This is a trap,’ said Dante.
‘It is,’ said Mephiston, ‘but of what kind?’
The daemons hissed in unison, the noise rising and falling with no reference to the screaming tune. They rattled their claws, clacking them together or rapping them on the metal of the ship. The whispers on the vox merged with their chant.
‘Iii-isss. Iiii-isssssssss,’ they said.
The music grew in volume, agonised cries played as a tune, drums rumbled.
‘Kyyy-rrrrisssssss, Kyyyy-rissssssssss,’ they chanted. They began to dance, circling each other and crashing their claws together in strange courtship.
Mephiston looked up at the tower of flesh. The surface undulated with deep movement.
‘What are they saying?’ said Daeanatos.
‘Kyriss. One of the greater servants of the Dark Prince,’ Mephiston said. ‘It is coming. I sense it.’
‘We should never have come here,’ said Antargo. ‘Form a circle!’
The Space Marines faced outwards, guns pointing in every direction. Daemonettes emerged from the tunnels leading into the transit nexus. They were thin, insubstantial things, streaming dark vapours.
‘Look! We have a chance,’ said Rhacelus. ‘They are struggling to maintain themselves. Their hold on the materium is weakening further. They will be easy to kill.’
‘I am not sure,’ said Mephiston. ‘Their master feeds off them to manifest. Once it is through, they will become strong again.’
‘Kyriss! Kyriss! Kyriss!’ The chants of the daemons became louder, more exultant. Whole sections of the unholy congregation were dancing now, hurling themselves around with increasing abandon, leaping and whirling, claws crashing, all the while chanting, ‘Kyriss! Kyriss! Kyriss!’ They fell upon one another, disported with each other, killing in their ecstasy. ‘Kyriss! Kyriss! Kyriss!’
‘Let us fight our way out now, while they are enraptured,’ said Antargo.
‘We stand here. I will send this horror back to its lord in pieces,’ said Dante. ‘We do not run from daemon, xenos nor man.’
Rhacelus put up his hand to his helm and grunted in discomfort. The crystalline matrix of his psychic hood flared. ‘It arrives!’
A new voice crooned softly over the racket of the daemons.
‘KYRISSSSSSSSS,’ it moaned, soft as a lover, loud as a god.
The pillar of flesh convulsed and spasmed. Thousands of mouths opened in its towering flanks and screamed in perfect harmony. A point of red appeared halfway up the pillar’s length. Blood dribbled out, turning into a rivulet of crimson, then a fall. A huge black claw punched outwards and sawed down, opening the stolen, merged flesh of the crew. Blood gushed to the ground. The claw drew back within. Skin tented around its tip as it pushed out, before splitting again along the glossy black of its point. A second claw followed, opening up ragged slits a dozen feet high in the side of the column.
‘Kyriss! Kyriss! Kyriss!’
The daemonettes were slaughtering each other, crying with joy as they died upon each other’s claws. Their essences streamed upwards as smoke, and were sucked towards the quivering shaft of flesh.
The claws began a frenzied stabbing, ripping chunks out of the column. Long peels of skin and muscle rolled down the side. A pair of enormous hands scrabbled at the sagging lips of the wound, found purchase, and pulled.
A long, bovine head the size of a Space Marine and crowned with sweeping horns forced its way out. Shoulders struggled after, the claws stabbing and rending to make the hole bigger. The daemon pushed at the gap, its long tongue whipping about its muzzle. It lowed with the effort, until it reached a crucial point, squirmed free, and came out in a rush of blood and gore.
