Scythes of the Emperor, page 26
Esau released his jump pack harness and rolled onto his hands and knees. Out beyond Nalyatov’s cramped cockpit space, he could see the flame-streaked blue sky darkening into the void ahead of them – and the first bio-ships of the tyranid swarm that hung against it. The shuttle bumped and struggled with the ascent, but Aratus, holding a communicator to his lips, was scanning the wide curve of Brakur IV’s planetary thermopause.
‘Calling strike cruiser Atreides, strike cruiser Atreides, please respond. This is Brother-Apothecary Aratus, for outbound Onager shuttle. We request immediate assistance. We have the gene-seed. Repeat, we have the gene-seed.’
The vox crackled. The tyranid assault was still interfering with their transmissions.
‘Repeat, strike cruiser Atreides, this is–’
A reply came through, strong and clear. ‘Onager shuttle, this is Atreides-actual. We have your signal, dispatching a ‘Talon escort to bring you in.’
Esau and Galerius both recognised the voice of Shipmistress Hannelore. Curiously, she sounded distracted. Fraught, even.
‘Be advised – we are engaging xenos vessels, to buy Sergeant Quintos more time. Keep back. Maintain safe distance.’
Galerius rose to his feet. ‘Look,’ he murmured. ‘It’s Daedalus.’
The monstrous hive ship had clawed its way closer to Brakur Dominus, taking the majority of its void-swarm with it. The Atreides grazed the upper edge, its guns forcing the more wary xenos back but having little effect on the larger and more determined bio-ships.
Esau gritted his teeth. He knew that the war against Hive Fleet Kraken was far from over.
Terminal Velocity
Wreckage. I am ensnared.
Kick free. Roll left.
Lateral spin. Ground, sky, ground, sky, ground, sky.
Arms spread. Steer with legs.
Ground, sky, ground, sky, sky, ground, ground, ground, ground.
Angle descent, adjusting trajectory. Altitude, fourteen thousand and seventy-two metres and falling.
Falling.
Falling.
My auto-senses dull the roar of the air to nothing more than faint white noise.
Problem. Visor display shows damage to left thruster. Fuel leaking like a comet tail behind me. Cannot fire my jump pack.
The Storm Eagle spirals downwards some fifteen hundred metres away. Its engines are burned out, its internal bays open to the atmosphere.
It’s shedding bodies. Ragged xenos and a handful of limp, armoured forms.
Emperor speed you on your way, brothers.
Comms are inoperative. Altitude, twelve thousand eight hundred and sixteen metres and falling.
Falling.
Recall emergency procedures. Disengage safeties. One, two. Check armament. Lost my blade. Bolt pistol mag-locked to right thigh.
Confirm final disengage. Deactivate fail-safe.
Release.
The jump pack snaps free, the trailing harness-web tugging me into a new half-spin.
Arms spread. Head back. Ground, sky, ground, ground.
The pack tumbles past me, still leaking wispy fuel as it falls. It looks much smaller now, whirling towards the infinite horizon.
Combat assessment: my transport has been attacked. My squad is unaccounted for, presumed killed-in-action. I am in freefall, two-point-eight kilometres from the designated drop-point.
Local geography: urban sprawl, ninety-four metres above relative sea level. Enemy-held territory.
Adjust altitude reading accordingly.
A bright flash. A concussion wave, and a booming detonation as the stricken Storm Eagle’s fuel tanks catch. The explosion sears the heavens, lighting up the cloud cover below and scattering the remains of her fuselage over a wide area.
One amongst many. Who knew that the tyranids could gain air-superiority over the mighty Imperium so effortlessly?
Sudden impact to my left shoulder.
Spinning. Spinning. Corrected.
It is a piece of the drop-rail. Brother Tolliver still hangs lifelessly from his pack, locked in position and ready for the jump that never came. He has lost his helm, and his short, white hair whips in the howling gale.
Another pack is locked two spaces behind him. The bisected remains of Brother Kenai dangle half out of the harness like a mangled puppet.
No, not remains.
Kenai claws at the rail with bloody gauntlets. His body has not yet realised the extent of the damage that has been inflicted upon it.
I try to raise him on the vox, or even by battle-sign, but he is too far gone. He is being dragged down by Tolliver and the drop-rail, even though he will not likely survive all the way to the ground. Not with that level of blood loss.
In desperation, he fires his jump pack.
There is a bright flare and the rail begins to spin like a firework, driven by Kenai’s frantic thrust. I dive to the right, angling and slowing my fall to avoid them.
They spin faster, and faster still. I pray that Kenai blacks out before the end.
His pack detonates, taking most of the rail and Tolliver with it. Someone’s severed arm hits me solidly in the face.
Ground, sky, ground, sky.
Arms spread. Corrected.
Altitude, seven thousand, four hundred and eighty-one metres and falling.
In the moment, I struggle to recall my training. The correct procedures feel… counterintuitive. I draw my bolt pistol, and confirm the full magazine.
Be the blade, as well as the hand that wields it.
Everything blurs to white as I breach the cloud cover, moisture beading across my helmet’s retinal lenses. The visor display appears to hang against a murky, blank page before my eyes.
Suddenly, inexplicably, my armour’s systems manage to lock on to the local strategic network. My tactical readouts are updated.
The xenos are swarming into the Second Ward. They must have sniffed out our true intentions, and are converging upon all potential ground evacuation points.
They are millions-strong. Without air support, we will not prevail.
My vision clears. I see the cityscape below me, overlaid with the most recent mapping in friendly green and hostile red.
So much red.
Altitude, four thousand, one hundred and twenty-one metres and falling.
A murder-flock of winged beasts takes flight from the shattered upper levels of a ruined mega-hab to the south. They are the smaller, grotesque creatures, barking and shrieking their alien calls into the sky, though their sheer number casts a shadow upon the wide streets below.
Targeting. Lock. Fire.
Targeting. Lock. Fire.
I am upon them, and then through them. Leathery wings slap against me, startled yelps and the breaking of their wiry bodies piercing the white noise in my ears.
Turning with a twist of my armoured limbs, I loose two more shots back up into the brood before they even know what has hit them. They circle, confused and angry, before continuing on their way.
I roll over again. I can no longer see sky at the horizon.
The largest of the tyranid bio-constructs stalk the avenues and plazas of the city, surrounded by their smaller cousins. The perspective is confusing; for a moment, I feel like a model-maker surveying the miniature angles of a great tableau, with my perfect and imperfect creations arrayed for battle upon its surface.
Then the moment passes and the very real metropolis rises up to greet me.
Altitude, two thousand and eighty-nine metres and falling.
My visor locks onto the enemy at ground level. Not the larger constructs now, but those it classifies as ‘infantry’. Still technically out of bolt pistol range, my ever-optimistic battleplate nonetheless urges me to engage them.
With a flick of my pauldrons, I aim for the widest open space I can see, and raise my weapon to the horde below.
No lock. Fire.
No lock. Fire.
No lock. Fire.
Each shot means death for something, some as yet unseen beast at ground level. I fire indiscriminately, until the shape of a worthier target resolves in my vision.
It is a living tank. A loathsome screamer-killer.
I fire again and again, knowing full well that my bolt shells cannot pierce its chitinous hide.
Then the ratchet lever locks back, the pistol’s magazine spent.
No matter. My body is a weapon.
Be the blade.
Point-five-eight metric tonnes of genhanced flesh, smooth ceramite, cold plasteel and unyielding adamantium. I am like a living meteorite. My mass and velocity will be my final gifts to the Emperor.
Altitude, three hundred and forty-eight metres.
I make one last correction to my trajectory, and pull my arms in tight to my sides. My target is all that I can see.
Give me a smile, you unholy bast-
About the Author
L J Goulding is the author of the Horus Heresy audio drama The Heart of the Pharos, while for Space Marine Battles he has written the novel Slaughter at Giant’s Coffin and the audio drama Mortarion’s Heart. His audio drama Daedalus also features the Scythes of the Emperor, along with the short stories ‘The Aegidan Oath’, ‘Heloth’, ‘Reclamation’ and ‘Terminal Velocity’. His other Warhammer 40,000 short stories include ‘The Lords of Borsis’, ‘Kaldor Draigo: Knight of Titan’ and ‘Shield of Baal: The Word of the Silent King’. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
An extract from The Eye of Ezekiel.
Danatheum brought up the psychic barrier just in time to absorb the burst of gauss that had been fired out of the darkness of the catacombs. Bright green energy clashed with a wall of purple aetheric unmatter, sickening pyrotechnics piercing the gloom.
The necron raised its weapon to fire a second time but a bolt shell was already clear of the Librarian’s pistol, racing unerringly towards the xenos’ metal skull. It impacted explosively, turning the thing’s ghoulish face into a void, and the necron fell backwards, attempting to regenerate. The Grand Master of the Librarius was on it in an instant, driving Traitor’s Bane down through its ribcage, twisting the blade and pulling it clear, entwined with sinew and circuit.
As he wiped the mechanical detritus from his sword, the hooded figure alongside him nodded in approval.
‘A fine kill, Grand Master. I look forward to rejoining the fray soon myself.’ The other Librarian’s voice was distant and reedy. Danatheum signalled and twenty black-armoured figures of the Ravenwing peeled themselves away from the dark and charged past him down the subterranean corridor. Moments later the catacombs lit up again with muzzle flare as the two squads engaged yet more necrons.
‘And soon you shall, Ezekiel, but not in the depths of Aryand. Your return to battle lies on a different field altogether.’
‘I do not understand, Grand Master. The Apothecaries have cleared me for combat and you yourself submitted me to psychic probing before you left on your mission, and declared me fully recovered.’ Ezekiel’s voice was noticeably raised, but it did not echo from the ancient stone tunnels, carved millennia before by the workers of the Nephrekh Dynasty.
‘None of that has changed. Rephial assures me that you have fully recovered from your wounds, and my assessment was sound. I believe you are fit to take your place alongside your brother Dark Angels, but you will not be joining me here.’
The two Librarians rounded a corner and Danatheum picked his way through the inert necrons carpeting the tunnel floor, burnished gold heads and limbs scattered around them, shorn off in the Ravenwing’s firestorm. Further ahead, the chorus of bolters struck up again as the brothers of the Second Company encountered yet more of the undead xenos.
‘Then I am to receive new orders?’
Unseen by either Librarian, one of the necron corpses they had passed by began to twitch, the gauss flayer in its hand glowing faintly as it powered up.
‘You are to take Fifth Company to a world called Honoria at the very fringes of Segmentum Obscuras. For millennia, the subsector it resides in has been cut off by warp storms, but now that they have abated a vast ork army threatens to overrun it. A score of worlds have already fallen to the greenskins, but Honoria must–’
Behind them, the darkness blossomed into green light as the necron discharged its weapon, the dank air of the tunnel crackling as it burned off under the immense heat. Danatheum reacted quickest, throwing himself against an immaculately hewn stone wall and bringing his bolt pistol to bear in a single, fluid movement. Ezekiel remained motionless, the necron’s shot passing harmlessly through his midriff before impacting against a wall further along the tunnel. The noise was swiftly drowned out by the report of Danatheum’s bolt pistol as it took the metal head from the xenos’ shoulders.
‘I do not understand, Grand Master,’ Ezekiel said, as if nothing had happened. ‘If the world has been cut off for so long then how did they know how to make contact with the Imperium?’
‘The request for aid came not from Honoria but Mars.’
‘The Adeptus Mechanicus? What interest do they have in this world?’
‘That I do not know, but it must be of the utmost import to them as they have invoked the Pact of Kulgotha to secure our aid.’
‘It has been less than a century since they last held us to our oath. Surely the sacrifices we made on Faze V released us from the Pact?’
‘I’m certain that we have repaid the Mechanicus tenfold in the eight thousand years since we made our bargain, but an oath is an oath and the sons of the Lion always pay their debts. I do not need your powers of foresight to see the darkness that lies ahead for humanity.’
Ezekiel blinked involuntarily.
‘We would do well to placate what few allies we have left,’ Danatheum continued. ‘Master Serpicus travels with you, does he not?’
‘Master Serpicus forms part of the command squad, yes.’
‘Good. Perhaps his pleasant nature and boundless patience will help forge even stronger bonds between the Rock and Mars,’ Danatheum said dryly.
‘You have met Master Serpicus, haven’t you, Grand Master?’ Ezekiel replied with a smile.
Side by side, the two Librarians came to the end of the tunnel, where it opened into a high-ceilinged chamber. Bolter fire echoed from where the Ravenwing, reinforced by elements of the Fourth Company, who had taken a different route to the throne chamber, were now engaged with a host of Lychguard. Danatheum raised his bolt pistol and lent his firepower to the rapidly escalating battle. Ezekiel merely looked on.
‘There is another matter I would like you to attend to, Ezekiel,’ Danatheum said, drawing Traitor’s Bane and bifurcating a golden-armoured necron that had broken through the Dark Angels’ lines. The two halves clattered to the smooth stone floor, the Grand Master of the Librarius emptying an entire clip into the twitching corpse before it could repair and reanimate itself.
‘What is it, Grand Master?’
‘Seventh Squad of First Company is no longer at full strength,’ Danatheum said solemnly. ‘The time has come for another brother to ascend to the Deathwing.’
‘Brother Joadar…?’
‘Succumbed to his wounds three nights ago. The punishment his body endured on Korsh finally proved too much for him.’
Ezekiel closed his eyes briefly. He had led the mission to Korsh himself and barely escaped with his own life, and the lives of the Deathwing brothers he had taken into battle. The daemon he fought there had already taken so much from him personally and, nearly a year on, three Dark Angels still remained under the care of the Chapter Apothecaries.
‘Who does the Supreme Grand Master have in mind?’ Ezekiel said as he watched Danatheum carve through another necron.
‘Balthasar. He has an exemplary battle record and a keen mind. Azrael endorses him and he has already started asking questions.’
‘And is one of those questions, “Why do we tolerate psykers among our ranks?”’
‘We are all shaped by our past, Ezekiel. You know that better than most. Balthasar and the world he grew up on suffered at the hands of the warp-touched. It is up to the likes of you and I to show him that our Emperor-bestowed gifts can be used for the benefit of the Chapter.’ To emphasise his point, Danatheum raised a psychic shield in front of a Ravenwing brother who was about to be ripped apart by a Lychguard’s scythe. The weapon bounced harmlessly off the aetheric wall, spinning the necron around and exposing its flank. The grateful Dark Angel revved up his chainsword and carved through the robot-like xenos’ torso the instant Danatheum dropped the shield.
‘I shall do my best, Grand Master, though I would prefer we waited until Fifth Company returns to the Rock so that you could carry out the assessment yourself. You have been the one to judge the worthiness of Deathwing aspirants for centuries, whereas I–’
‘Whereas you are the best among us, Ezekiel,’ Danatheum interrupted. ‘Though ours is a Chapter that values its secrets, it is a truth universally acknowledged that you are the most powerful psyker to have worn Dark Angels armour since the time of the Lion.’
‘Grand Master, you flatter me.’
‘No, I do not, Ezekiel. I am merely Grand Master of the Librarius by default. When I ascended from the Scout Company to the rank of Epistolary, there were close to thirty Librarians among the Chapter’s numbers, and now there are barely ten.’
Two more Lychguard overwhelmed their Dark Angels attackers and charged Danatheum, swords raised. Both blades elicited a shower of sparks as they connected with his hastily erected shield, which he dropped as swiftly as it was raised, simultaneously shooting one necron in the face at point-blank range and impaling the other on the tip of Traitor’s Bane.
‘I can raise an aetheric shield or conjure fire in the palm of my hands as well as any other brother who wears the blue armour of the Librarius.’ Another tall golden figure rushed him, but he met the same fate as the previous assailants. ‘But that is the limit of my powers. The fact of the matter is I only ascended to the mantle of Grand Master of the Librarius because I outlived all of my contemporaries.’
