Eidolon: The Auric Hammer, page 9
He paused and sighed, rolling his shoulders and raising his own blade. ‘Perhaps not, captain.’
Perfection waits if you would but seize it. Surrender. Once your rival is gone, nothing shall stop your rise. Let this world burn and we shall rise together from the ashes!
The voice, the whisper, made his fingers clench around the hilt. She roared with anger and pain and threw herself forwards. He sidestepped her clumsy blow, feeling a strange uncertainty creep in. She spun and swiped at him, even as he flinched back and away. He brought his own sword round and down. Cerel turned her blade over and blocked the strike, but her limited skill could not blunt the transhuman strength behind the blow and she practically folded, forced down till her knees scraped at the ground and she let out a wretched howl of pain.
‘Up,’ he said, stepping back, drawing his blade away from hers. She forced herself up and spun around, slashing at him again. One great hand closed around her wrist. A flick of it and she screamed, the bones broken. He moved forward and brought his own sabre up to her neck.
‘Even the least of warriors deserves to die on their feet,’ he whispered, and then drove the charnabal steel through to the bone.
The walls were burning and falling, echoing about Til Plegua like a song.
The Ruin-singer shambled along the battlements, driving the mortal chattel before him in a fear-panicked herd. He grumbled and chanted as he did, the sound reverberating around the walls, ringing like the tolling of distant bells. Omens of doom, signifiers of the end that had come.
Many of the brothers of the III had been transformed, yet none to the extent of the Kakophoni. The Maraviglia’s poison song had found them, metastasising from the temple above Laeran to lodge in their souls, like a spiritual pestilence, a relentless carcinoma. Beyond that it was an addiction, born of the Dark Prince, cast out into an uncaring universe to ensnare those who possessed vision above all else.
When the voice spoke to him from the shadows in its many voices – as the thousand whispers of Slaanesh, as the primarch’s honeyed tones, in the voice of the Lord Commander Primus – he ignored it. It was nothing. Merely notes in the song. More voices in the Eternal Chorus.
They held no purchase upon him or his brothers.
They fought with graceless individuality, each one taking their own liberties and indulgences. Men were cast screaming from the walls or blown apart in the sonic refrain of their weapons. Their voices rose with the great instruments they wielded, just as capable of tearing their enemies apart. That was why they had been made – to kill their enemies, to bring a galaxy to heel. The difference was that now, in their freedom, they were able to savour it.
His fingers deftly worked over the dials and levers of his weapon, sliding to press keys and pull at trigger points. He coaxed another sonic blast from it, rending a Wallsman apart limb from limb. Blood and viscera rained off the wall, coating another tier of defenders in gore. His laughter now was sick, slick and booming.
Out on the verdant plains the artillery was finally finding its range, the booming reports adding to the symphony being born about Plegua and his men. Closer in, Legion Fellblades were opening fire, hewing into the outer walls till the flames climbed high, buoyed up by the melting stonework and running metal.
Around them a culture was dying, being ground down to nothing. They had reports, howling and whooping over the vox, of massed engagements across all the great Tatricalan cities. Spiralling their way towards this vast fortress in a war of annihilation, decimating them by degrees.
The screams of the dying were thick upon the air. Soldiers and civilians alike expired at the end of XVI Legion guns or came face to face with the atrocity offered by the III.
Every new addition to the song, each permutation of its melody, thrilled Plegua and drove him onwards to new heights of exaltation and atrocity.
He hesitated as he moved along the wall, looking down at the pinned form of a Wallsmen soldier. A stray blast of sonic purity had toppled a defensive alcove, crushing his legs beneath iron and masonry. Plegua tilted his head, savouring the moment that the man finally noticed him through the fog of agony and began to stir and scream.
Plegua reached down to his belt and unhooked a blade, a simple flensing knife. An instrument of artistry, just as treasured as his mighty instrument-weapon. He leant in, the charnel perfume of his breath close enough that the man could smell the death that had come for him.
Plegua ripped back the uniform with one immense hand, pressing down upon the pale, blood-streaked flesh below, like a sculptor evaluating a block of marble.
‘Do not worry, little mortal,’ he murmured, distracted as he began to cut – as he began to milk the man’s howls into the glory of the ever-louder song. ‘I am not here simply to make you suffer. I am here to make you sing.’
By the time he was done, the whispers were barely even that. They held no power over him. They found no purchase. There was only the glorious ruin of the Dark Prince’s aria.
TEN
the heart of all things
The command centre was already dying around him, wracked by the systemic shock of the invasion and the violent spear-tip assault of the XVI.
Black iron and rough stone had formed the walls and corridors, at first, in the earliest days of Strife. Time had sharpened the structure, shaping it until it had become a winding labyrinth, the only guides being the dull metal glyphs that crawled along the tops of the walls.
Gothic had replaced them in places, but it had been a hollow effort. Half-born and fleeting. Now to be shunted aside and burned clean.
Eidolon strode through the corridors as though he already owned them, the air thick with smoke and the stench of dying men. Around him the cogitators were failing, forcing out their last susurrus of binharic expressions. He let his fingers drift across them, displacing dust and ashes. The corridor was braced by plasteel beams, straining as the fortress died above them. He could already scent the weakness infecting them, the rigours that would bring them to ruin.
The heart of the Palace Militant, of the great fortress city, the heart of all things, was close around him. Its dimensions had not been fashioned for the Astartes physique, nor had conquest altered them to fit their liberators. Eidolon ducked his head, his augmented bulk filling doorways as he moved ever closer to his target. Crimson emergency lighting flooded the passageways as readily as the smoke, lending it a hellish light.
It reminded him of ships during void combat, ailing and lance-struck. Worlds died slower than ships, but just as intimately. Eidolon had fought in many different circumstances, across the galaxy’s span. Worlds of bitter cold and burning sand, dead worlds peopled only by ghosts and murdered dreams, stations and ships of the Imperium and its alien enemies. It was all the same, in the end. For all the variety the galaxy offered up, there was only the familiarity of war. The same refrain, played out over and over. From Terra to the edge of the known, and back again.
A senior Wallsman rounded the corner, streaked with soot and blood. Brocade glimmered dully on his shoulders, a mantle of authority. He started when he saw Eidolon, alone and monstrous, towering above him, head scraping at the ceiling. Eidolon hunched low, providing the man a better look in the low red light. His smile was bloodied in the gloom as he lurched forward, like a revenant or ghoul from out of legend.
The man fired. One bolt-round went wide and the other ricocheted harmlessly off one immense pauldron. The third and fourth hit him in the breastplate, and he staggered backwards momentarily. He laughed as the pain ebbed through him, warring with the flow of pleasure. He raised his gun and fired, barely even bothering to sight the shot.
The capricious weapon bathed the enemy soldier in a wave of garish green light. The rad-shot’s volatile atomics disintegrated his flesh with a crackling flash, searing his shadow onto the wall behind him. Eidolon moved onwards, past the bleak memorial, rounding the corner and striding into the beating heart of the command centre.
New klaxons were sounding at the rad-burst, harsh alarms shrilling while the hydraulics whined in the walls and the blast doors struggled to close in response to the toxic discharge. Denied power, contradictory messages flooding their systems, the great bastion’s defences were sluggish. He stopped and bent low, reaching up with a free hand to hold the ailing door up, pushing it back into place as he emerged into the command centre proper.
It was already mortally wounded. Bodies lay piecemeal, scattered about the chamber by furious chainsword swipes. Heads had been impaled upon the men’s own bayonets, thrusting up from the top of the cogitator consoles and hololith tables in a grim tableau. Those who had prepared such a display were still here, idling in the ruin they had crafted.
Six warriors of the Sons of Horus stood in a semicircle, their weapons held ready, with another at the centre of them, three paces ahead. He turned as Eidolon entered, removing his helm and tossing it casually onto one of the nearby benches. It knocked against a disembowelled body, making the entrails slip to the ground in a wet, unwinding rush.
Gherog Sharur looked at Eidolon with open disdain and spat to one side, letting the acidic saliva sizzle against the steel flooring.
‘Lord Commander Primus,’ he shouted. ‘I’m surprised you made it through without all your pretty little captains.’
‘Always pleased to surprise you, captain,’ Eidolon replied, resting his hammer against the edge of one of the last working cogitators. He pressed down, indenting the metal of the machine, milking frenzied data-screams from its suffering machine spirits. He looked around at the slaughter. ‘Efficiently done,’ he said with a smile, ‘though it lacks a certain artistry, I find.’
‘We’ve seen what passes for your art,’ hissed one of the Cthonians. He wore the markings of a chieftain and, even helmed, palpable loathing bled from him. Ornamental fangs glimmered on the faceplate of his helm, forming a wolfish snarl. Mirror coins hung from chains about his pauldrons, amidst the carved kill-marks. Gangish scrawls had been beaten, etched and painted into the metal, rendering it in almost Damascene sworls of brazenly displayed allegiance. He was a living talisman, a totem of distant and besieged Cthonia.
‘I would know the name of the one who questions me,’ Eidolon sighed.
‘Annungal,’ the man growled. ‘Chieftain and champion of the Sixteenth. Beloved of the Warmaster.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ Eidolon drawled. ‘As beloved as I am by my own primarch.’
‘Stop taunting my men, monster,’ Gherog said, glowering at Eidolon. ‘I won’t be able to stop them if they decide to put you in your place.’
‘Any warrior of yours that raises a hand against me shall lose it,’ Eidolon promised. ‘I have no compunction against reducing any of your fine soldiers to red mist and entrails. There won’t be enough left to make sport of, let alone art.’
‘Pretty threats, from one of Fulgrim’s dandies,’ Annungal spat. ‘The Warmaster–’
‘The Warmaster is not here,’ Eidolon said. ‘Neither is the Phoenician. We are simply abandoned sons, stranded by circumstance. What comes next is our own affair.’ He threw his arms wide. ‘And behold, the initial thrust of the spear, claiming the enemy’s heart while I can only look on.’ He paused. ‘While my men cleanse the cities and take their spoils. Slaves, materiel, enough to propel us onwards to Terra itself.’
‘Spoils we will all share in,’ Gherog said carefully.
‘But of course,’ Eidolon agreed with a slack smile. ‘All shall be needed by the bitter end. Our fathers shall not fight alone. All strength shall be required. It is my honour, and my privilege, to bear the Third Millennial towards our final confrontation. That is what good leadership exists for.’ He turned the hammer over again, tapping it against the cogitators. ‘Already my favoured warriors are gutting the enemy’s defences and breaking their resistance.’ He made a show of looking around. ‘I had hoped to take their surrender personally, but you seem to have made that decision for them.’
Gherog shrugged. ‘Didn’t seem worth the words.’
‘It rarely is with you bold Cthonians,’ Eidolon tittered. ‘Do you think your Warmaster will love you more for your untrammelled violence?’
‘It doesn’t matter if he does,’ Gherog said. ‘We will go to him blooded and unbowed. His warriors. His champions. We’ – he struck his gauntlet against his breastplate – ‘are the elite. The Warmaster’s own. I would scour this world to ashes and piss on what remained if it pleased him.’
‘You still think yourselves so mighty?’ Eidolon asked with genuine interest. ‘That you stand above the rest of us? Loyal, traitor, all subordinate to the ascendant Horus and his Sons?’
‘He is the Warmaster,’ Gherog growled. ‘He will be Emperor.’
‘Shall he? I hadn’t guessed,’ Eidolon trilled, bemused. It was enjoyable to toy with the Sons of Horus so. There were many braggarts and jokers among their number. So enamoured with their own coarse wit. There was room there for many a humbling, pride aplenty before the fall. Eidolon’s blue tongue lapped at his lips, savouring the thought.
Rabble… The thought breathed from nowhere. Mongrels.
Yes, they are, he agreed, and then caught himself. He had become complacent. The whispers had become so ubiquitous, so ever-present, that he could almost mistake them for his own, rather than the poison promises of the Shattered King.
He fancied he could see the thing, drifting through the chamber, idling at the backs of each of the Cthonians. Broken and burning. Whispering forever. Eidolon watched claws of black glass and pale fire close on Gherog’s shoulders, poised and waiting. Like a servant, ready to crown their master.
The repeated click of active vox broke him from his thoughts, and he turned his gaze back to the Sons of Horus. They had suddenly gone tense, backs straight, weapons up. Gherog’s stance bled frustration and sudden violence. He had already scooped up an axe from where he had laid it, beside the ruined torso of an Imperial commander. His other hand went suddenly to the bolt pistol at his belt. His arm came round, aiming directly at Eidolon.
‘Treacherous bastard,’ Gherog hissed, as all around him, his men began to fire.
ELEVEN
broken brotherhoods
Bolter fire filled the air as Eidolon threw himself to one side, slamming onto the ground behind one of the chamber’s support pillars. Masonry exploded around him, showering him with stone fragments and dust. The faces of long-dead Tatricalans burst apart, history erased by simple, direct malice.
He lunged up and fired, a magnetic kill-ray searing into the wall past one of the warriors’ heads. Embedded machinery cooked off and the wall detonated, filling the room with more smoke and debris.
The Sons strode through the fug of war as though they owned it. Their bolters panned, seeking their target. Eidolon was already moving. He vaulted over the central row of consoles and was amongst them. Gods but he felt alive once more. His body had not known such physical and spiritual cohesion since he had sought to bring the Scars to heel and killed their false Khan. He bore his new strength and gifts, yet they responded as his flesh once had, before Fulgrim had taken his head.
He was the Lord Commander Primus once more. A prince of war. Never more complete than when dispatching those lesser than himself.
He spun through the smoke, hammer already engaged, driving the crackling head into the chestplate of the first warrior. The others were already turning in surprise, weapons raised. A fielded sword crackled live and swung out of the gloom, catching on his armour. He grunted with pain and weaved away.
Eidolon’s throat thrummed and swelled. His windpipe expanded, forcing the arteries tight against his straining neck. Sacs pulsed and the scream built, finally ready to be unleashed.
The great polyphonic howl radiated from him, barely directed by his yawning mouth. It surged from his body, pulsing outwards and driving the Cthonians back. Eidolon’s head snapped this way and that, forcing the enemy to confront him in his broken glory.
The nearest two were shattered in a single scream, their armour rent and cracked. Blood flowed across the sea-green plate in a mocking tide, as broken bones forced their way through the new gaps.
Gherog hurled himself at Eidolon, snarling with barbarian hate as he did. The axe gouged at the Lord Commander Primus’ plate, driving him back step by step, turning his unleashed scream into a reverberating nightmare of booming joy.
‘Not just for show then, is it?’ Eidolon rumbled. ‘Neither the weapon nor the rank. Not one of his frontrunners, not even a true son. But you fight as though he was breathing down your neck. Does it make you feel strong?’
Eidolon slid back as he mocked and taunted, letting Gherog’s reckless swings chase him. He brought the hammer up and the weapons locked together, lightning rippling across each competing field. Eidolon’s twisted features contorted ghoulishly in the flickering light as he leant forward and hissed.
‘Such brave little soldiers, aren’t you? Dragged up from the dirt and ashes of your bastard little world, to strive to impress him. The Warmaster is not here, and he cannot save you from the folly of your choices.’
‘You think you can attack us without answer? I’ll skin you, you gutter rabble!’ Gherog growled.
‘Did I do that?’ Eidolon asked scornfully. ‘I must have missed that.’
‘Don’t play the fool, Eidolon! I already know what your men are about.’
Eidolon blinked slowly and Gherog forced the conjoined weapons forwards, driving him back step by step. The Lord Commander Primus snarled and yanked Glory Aeterna away, overbalancing the Son of Horus. Stone was crushed to dust beneath their iron tread as the weary dance of war drove them both across the central dais, lighting the blackness and the smoke with thunder and fire.
‘Then I applaud them for their initiative!’ Eidolon chuckled dryly. ‘You must have known this was coming, cousin. I did not speak the words, but I will stand by the actions.’
