Scythes of the Emperor, page 13
The serf comm-operators coaxed a pair of crackling helmet feeds up onto the main display, from the warriors under Agaitas’ command. Thorcyra cursed under his breath, but Culmonios found that he had no words for the sight that greeted him.
The jungle was burning, as far as the eye could see. The xenos hulk Heloth had torn a great rift in the surface of the world with its descent, some fifty kilometres long. It lay now, broken and half-buried, with its charred innards just visible through the inferno that surrounded it, opened up like a shattered hand clawing at the dawn sky.
The chamber was silent, except for the hiss of the open vox-channel.
‘Coffin, stand by. My advance teams report enemy movement.’
Culmonios spun to the hololith. Sure enough, fresh contacts moved amidst the wreckage of the hive ship. He switched channels on the vox. ‘Recon wings, I need a high-altitude pass over Heloth. Full tactical scanner sweep.’
Confirmation came back, estimating sixty seconds to contact, but Culmonios found that he could not take his eyes from the hololithic sensor blips.
He called up to Master Thorcyra, who was still transfixed by the feed images.
‘My lord, we should order First Company to stand down from their transports. We cannot afford to have them mount a combat insertion into that wreck. We must fortify the Giant’s Coffin.’
One of the honour guard stepped forwards. ‘All squads are already cleared to leave the bastion. Those assigned to the aerial transports have already left, in fact.’
Culmonios watched the slowly spreading blips.
‘Recall them,’ he ordered. ‘Now.’
Thorcyra came to his side. ‘Do as he says.’
The stern voice of Captain Agaitas cut in over the vox. ‘Recon wing sighted, fifteen seconds to target.’
Relayed feeds from the reconnaissance gunships replaced those from the ground. As they swept in over the burning jungle, thick palls of black smoke began to obscure the displayed view. Even so, the silhouette of the downed hive ship was visible against the raging flames.
The hulk was moving. Or, at least, something was moving within it.
Or many lesser somethings…
Master Thorcyra magnified the image, revealing great, bladed forelimbs carving out through the burned meat of the hull. Grand and terrible, colossal beasts that were neither entirely hunched scorpion nor horned spider heaved themselves free of their lifeless parent-vessel, howling the pain of their birth to the heavens. Countless others, their less fortunate kin, had not survived the impact; their chewed remains were left as nothing more than fodder for the smaller tyranids that followed in their wake. The whole scene was rendered in the mute, detached perspective of a visual feed at extreme range.
Culmonios brought the master-vox back to his lips. ‘Captain Agaitas, withdraw your forces now! Fall back to your transports and prepare for aerial strike!’
‘Coffin, please confirm. I have no visual on enemy forces.’
‘They’re titan-forms! Bio-titans! Fall back now!’
The hololith lit up with fresh threat icons just as the feed became a mass of flared weapons fire, down amidst the haze of smoke and flames. Sprays of incandescent bio-plasma and other alien projectiles consumed swathes of what little jungle remained.
The vox-adept spoke up, with a trembling voice. ‘My lords, we’ve lost Captain Agaitas’ signal. Second Company is reporting squad-level engagements breaking out across the area.’
Culmonios looked to Master Thorcyra, his weary face underlit by the red glower of the hololith.
‘This is only the first of nine hive ships in the splinter fleet,’ he said grimly, ‘and we are already taking losses. I would urge you to reconsider a full evacuation, before it’s too late.’
Thorcyra gritted his teeth. ‘I will not surrender the Giant’s Coffin. By your command, we have the Terminators and veteran squads of First Company returning to the bastion even now, instead of striking at these already crippled xenos bastards.’
He took up his helm from an armourer-serf, and pulled it over his head with a snap-hiss of internal pressurisation. It was a stylised iron skull, the mask worn by every Warden of the Pharos since the Chapter’s founding – the death’s head, the reaper’s grin. Seeing this relic donned now for battle, Thorcyra’s honour guard readied their power-scythes and took their places at his side. His voice became an augmitter’s filtered growl.
‘We will not abandon Miral, nor the legacy of Sotha that we hold in trust. With our noble mortal allies, the Scythes of the Emperor will stand as one against any void-spawned abominations that the tyranids deign to throw at us.’ He peered at Culmonios through the crimson lenses of his helm. ‘And above all else, brother, I need you with me upon the walls. Take up your shield, and let us take the measure of the vile Kraken, together.’
It was an offer that Culmonios found he could not refuse.
Chapter Eight
HONOUR’S DEATH
The sky over the Coffin was lit by dull flashes. It was not the strobe of death world lightning amidst the growing thunderheads that preceded almost every dawn, but weapons fire from the battle still raging in the void above.
The Honour’s Might had pulled away from near orbit, the chastened shipmaster having learned the lesson of Heloth’s plunge, and speared a second hive ship before it could approach Miral Prime. This new beast was slower, more ponderous, and it had shrugged off the kind of cannon-fire trauma that had holed its cousin to the vacuum. Nonetheless, even as it disgorged swarms of smaller ship-creatures and mycetic spores, the battle-barge pounded at it, over and over, with every weapon that the gunnery officers could bring to bear. Like a carcass hauled over the butcher’s slab, the xenos leviathan was blasted apart by the sheer weight of fire, and its void-brood fell into disarray.
Again, the great battle-barge had rolled away from its headlong charge. Mardelech intended to be more diligent, this time, in mopping up the dregs – he was aware that his every deed would form part of the Chapter’s history, for good or ill. They were, all of them, writing the legend of the Giant’s Coffin with their actions, and he had informed his crew in no uncertain terms that he’d be damned if his own portion of the tale would be allowed to end in defeat.
Ironic, it was, that this was when the tyranids seemed also to begin to learn from their previous follies.
With the flagship mired in combat, it was Culmonios’ auspex operators at the bastion who noticed it first: the remaining hive ships were dividing their strength. Four of them – the fastest, by the look of it – spread out to engage the Honour’s Might as one. The remaining three, the largest and certainly the most ravenous, fell into a far longer and more sinister heading.
They had scented prey in the fleet anchored at Miral II.
Striding at Thorcyra’s side along the bare passageway that led to the upper ramparts, Culmonios listened as the Chapter Master gave his orders over the comm.
‘Signal the Atreides to break picket and reinforce the flagship. Our strike cruisers vastly outpace the xenos vessels in the deep void, but the hive ships on course for Miral Prime are less than three hours from attack range. Break two of them before they arrive, and we’ll deal with the rest of these vermin on the ground.’
Though he kept it to himself, Culmonios knew that the numbers did not add up. Any one hive ship would be enough to overwhelm the local human defenders and devour an entire world within weeks, and yet Thorcyra spoke of four as though they were already as good as destroyed and the day won.
There was no way that this would become the glorious legend that Shipmaster Mardelech imagined. It would be a joyless grind at best.
And indeed, he guessed, at worst.
Before them, the armoured doors to the battlements opened and all such thoughts fell from his mind in an instant. As the honour guard strode out into that new and terrible dawn, Culmonios no longer saw the enemy through the abstraction of a hololith or pict-feed, but with his own two eyes.
On the horizon, a trio of bio-titans towered above the jungle canopy on long, spined legs, almost silhouetted against the roiling column of smoke that seemed to foul the whole sky. They stalked onwards, howling abominable cries and smashing the trees all to kindling, their great weapon analogues spitting torrents of destruction as they came. Their attention was fixed upon the ground before them, and Culmonios realised that they were driving the survivors of Second Company back to the Giant’s Coffin, with tooth and claw and fearsome bio-plasma. Native carrion birds circled and swooped around the monsters, unaware that once this banquet of death was over then they would likely be next.
Culmonios gritted his teeth in pure, unreserved hatred, and opened a vox-channel. ‘Approaching Chapter forces, this is the Coffin. Report your status. Who leads Second Company?’
The link crackled. Master Thorcyra glanced at him, his eyes wide behind the lenses of his iron mask. The other Scythes on the battlements took in the battle as it unfolded in the distance, cursing and naming the xenos for the bastard-get that they were. Down below, upon the mesa itself, the Astra Militarum artillery crews looked on with all-too-human dread in their eyes.
‘Approaching Chapter forces,’ Culmonios repeated, ‘report now. Tell us how to help you.’
A burst of filtered, alien shrieking cut through the vox, punctuated with the bark of bolter fire. The voice that answered him was unfamiliar, and ragged with exhaustion.
‘Coffin, we’re surrounded. The titans took out our air support, and chewed through the column in less than an hour. The jungle is already swarming with tyranid hatchlings from the Heloth wreck.’
‘How many of you remain? Can you make it to the outer walls?’
There was another pause, the sounds of distant battle unabating.
‘Unlikely. We’re down to– Pull back! Pull back, brothers! We’re down to less than two squads. They hit us hard. The captain is gone, although we’re rallied to the company standard. I don’t think we’re going anywhere, Coffin.’
Culmonios turned to see the Chapter banner still hanging proudly at his back, the noble Sothan horseman now bearing witness to the unthinkable: a second invasion by the Kraken. Then he looked to Thorcyra for approval of what they both knew had to be done.
The Chapter Master nodded, albeit with a clear and reluctant sorrow.
Culmonios spoke again. ‘Second Company. Hold position.’
‘Understood. For Sotha, brother.’
‘Aye. For Sotha.’
Moving to the edge of the battlements, Culmonios gripped the crenellated wall and bellowed down to the human gun crews.
‘Give me range on those horrors, you slack-jawed simpletons! Bring them down! Make my brothers’ deaths count for something!’
No warrior of the Chapter cheered or roared in defiance as the Imperial guns opened up. Not one of them dared even speak of the likely slaughter of Agaitas’ company, or attempt to justify it as a necessary sacrifice in order to drive the xenos back from sight of the Giant’s Coffin. After all that the Scythes of the Emperor had endured, this new loss left an even duller ache in their grieving souls.
As the horizon of Miral Prime was consumed by the guns’ barrage, the nearest of the bio-titans whirled around in anger as direct hits struck its armoured shoulders, its powerful forelimbs staggering beneath the force of the detonations. Another was slain instantly, decapitated, its body toppling into the unfolding firestorm.
The third made to bolt for safety, perhaps galloping for the distant reaches of the jungle where it might rally and try its hand again, but it crashed blindly into the first of its kin before it had taken even two steps. They sprawled together in the blaze, thrashing at the burning vegetation and the agony of each new ordnance impact like scorpions thrown into a campfire.
A long, broken alien limb blasted free, spinning slowly end over end against the fiery skyline before crashing down out of sight. It was easily the length of the largest Chapter gunship.
Culmonios spat in disgust. He waited ten heartbeats, then opened the vox-channel again.
‘Second Company. Report status.’
Nothing but the quiet hiss of static came back, almost inaudible beneath the thunder of the emplaced guns, and Culmonios knew with a grim certainty that this loss would not be the last that the Chapter would suffer.
The rough-hewn walls of the passageway trembled, loose debris pattering to the rocky floor. Apothecary Machaon’s hurried steps faltered, and he steadied himself. Hanging from simple cleats hammered into the ceiling, the lumens blinked out, plunging him into darkness as the rumble of artillery fire grew louder.
True darkness. The cloying, impenetrable darkness that could only be experienced underground. His transhuman eyes adjusted as best they could.
The darkness of the grave, inside the Coffin, he thought.
From further along the passageway, he heard the whimpering cries of human serfs as they cowered together. Machaon edged forwards, feeling the way with his outstretched hand.
‘Have no fear, honoured servants,’ he called out over the rising din. ‘I am with you.’
Then, just when he was certain that the very foundations of the mesa would shake themselves apart, the tremors began to subside. The lights flickered back on, casting fitful shadows before reaching full burn once more.
Machaon turned the corner to find two medicae adepts and a young-faced security officer crouched in a dark recess, dropped papers scattered around them and the stink of their mortal fear heavy in the air. The Apothecary regarded them for a moment, then reached for the officer’s dropped lascarbine.
‘On your feet, lad,’ Machaon said gently, handing the weapon back to him.
Throne. This one was practically a child.
As the sniffling youth darted away in the direction of the command centre, Machaon helped the two quaking adepts to their feet. ‘Come, quickly. The guns of our allies strike back at the xenos horrors. The bastion is well defended, though we will soon need to prepare the upper chambers to receive any wounded brothers from Captain Agaitas’ company.’
He thumbed the comm-link at his wrist, but all the channels were garbled or dead, this far below ground.
‘And plenty more wounded there will be, in the days ahead, if I know anything about our foe,’ he added.
Ushering them down through the hardpoint bulkhead doors and into the cryo-vaults, he found more serfs who had already been in the process of preparing triage gurneys before the lights went out. He encouraged them, praising their diligence and directing their efforts as he worked at their side. The task was useful, he knew – not only in the organisation of the defence as tasked by Master Thorcyra and Bastion Commander Culmonios, but also to keep the serfs’ hands and minds occupied.
It would be all too easy for panic to set in. They all knew what was coming.
Best to focus their attention on something else.
He realised, then, that he was also trying to distract himself.
Tearing open a sterilised container of pain-balm ampoules, Machaon let his eyes fall to the makeshift gene- seed repository that they had established only days earlier. Frost rimed the walls of the chamber around the brushed plasteel casings, green lights blinking in the cold vapour that hung low to the floor in the snaking mass of power cables and thermal drain conduits.
The chamber doors opened, and he heard the heavy tread of armoured boots entering the chamber behind him, stealing him away from his grim thoughts. He turned to see the last person that he would have expected, in this place, now.
He bowed his head. ‘Chief Librarian.’
Spiridonas was fully armoured, his pauldron bearing the freshly engraved sigil of the Master of the Librarius, though he still leaned upon his staff as if for support. Machaon noted with some concern the paleness of the psyker’s careworn features, and the shadows that ringed his eyes. He could not keep that concern from his voice.
‘My lord Spiridonas, should you be exerting yourself so? You do not yet seem ready to wear war-plate again, much less take to the field of battle.’
The Librarian smoothed his surcoat as he drew nearer, then held his gauntleted hand out before him, regarding it with those tired eyes. ‘I do not yet feel ready to take up the mantle of Lord Tormal’s office either, Brother-Apothecary, but needs must. Our glorious Chapter Master has decreed it so.’
For a moment Machaon almost replied with something less than complimentary, but thought the better of it.
Moving between the frantic medicae adepts, Spiridonas drew up next to him. He planted his staff into the gritty floor and gazed at the gene-seed containers with a kind of reverential sorrow.
‘Nonetheless,’ the Librarian continued, ‘I wanted to thank you.’
‘Thank me for what? There was nothing I could do to ease your pain, brother. Not really.’
‘No, but you have always tried to keep the shadows at bay. You deserve to know that you have my gratitude for that, at least.’
Machaon frowned. ‘I don’t understand. What did I do, other than put you out cold on the deck?’
Spiridonas was silent for a long while before he replied. When he finally did, his voice was barely a whisper. ‘It is nothing. Forgive me.’
Then the Librarian turned to leave, his staff held in both hands – no longer a crutch, but a weapon once more. ‘Farewell, Brother Machaon. Guard this chamber well. I do not think that we will see each other again, before the end.’
The heavy doors closed, but Spiridonas’ words had set a chill in the Apothecary that he knew was nothing to do with the ambient temperature of the cryo-vault.
Petrochem fumes fouled the morning air as the mobile armour divisions moved beyond the bastion gates. Taking up position on the mesa top, they formed a cordon in front of the Aegis lines and auto-turrets, with the three more heavily armed Predator tanks emplaced to the fore. Their main guns had been refitted by the Techmarine cadres to provide greater anti-infantry support, rather than armour-piercing – autocannons and heavy bolters were primed and sanctified, their ammunition hoppers and belt feeds checked thrice over for any hint of malignancy of spirit that might cause a jam at a critical moment.
