Empire of Lies, page 29
Icons converged on Farsight’s command-and-control hex, those still in gold making haste for the designated rallying point. Many others were blinking red, ruddy grey, or even, in the case of Aun’Diemn and her veteran escort, the charcoal of an untimely death. Aun’Xa had been slain in the defence of the landing site, another senseless tragedy. Moata too had died, by his symbol readout, no doubt giving his last in the ethereals’ defence.
Farsight felt every loss like a spike to the heart. He had warned them all. But they had insisted, and now a precious jewel of the T’au Empire was shattered forever.
The giant Molochite was heading for a fountain in the middle distance. It dropped its barbed whip and reached out its hand towards the shimmering disc above the Great Star Dais. Strange jagged tendrils of red un-light stretched out towards it. The hellish energy coalesced into a weapon in the beast’s outstretched hand, the exact image of that same axe Farsight had destroyed mere moments before.
The axe shimmered into full corporeality, and the beast dived for the long-dry fountain on the far side of the square.
The muster point at which Aun’Los’ icon had been stationed for the whole of the battle.
Something died inside Farsight as he realised the creature’s intent. It was already too far away. In pausing to coordinate his battlegroup, he had let the creature escape.
The beast’s axe rose high, glinting in the foul light of the disc-portal, then came down on the fountain – and the t’au sheltering within – with force enough to crack the entire edifice. A chorus of t’au shouts pierced the air, anguish and denial mingled in heartbreaking protest at a loved one suddenly slain. They could only have come from Aun’Los’ escort detail.
Aun’Los’ icon turned grey. It was a sudden transition, so much so that the axe blow could only have landed true. The beast leapt high, massive wings snapping out to take the weight of its heavy-set physique, and climbed unsteadily into the skies.
Farsight leant forward sharply, his thrust-vector suite copying the movement to send him hurtling after it, but it was already away into the dark, oppressive clouds.
Had the Molochite beast known about the aun? And if so, how? Two ethereals dead, one under heavy attack and too far away to reinforce. One axe blow, one billow of flame away from losing all guidance. From the death of hope.
Farsight felt the fierce elation that had flooded his system cool and die away. He was alive, but he had failed. He had to see it with his own eyes, to gaze upon the legacy of his mistake. He leapt, a shallow parabola that took him over a storm of firepower and raging flame to the shattered fountain.
He felt his throat constrict as if an unseen hand was throttling him, some daemon residue that came not from a portal, but from within.
Aun’Los lay there, cut in two from crown to groin. The two halves of his corpse glistened in the wan light of the portal. As he watched, a saz’tral took off his cloak and draped it over the cadaver for the sake of decency, but it was too late. The sight was already burned into Farsight’s mind. One of the finest t’au minds alive, slain without anyone to stay the blow. It might as well have been by his own blade.
He felt his features crease in grief and confusion. Somewhere in the back of his mind, in the symphony of destruction around him, there was a wrong note. But he could not place it.
A column of flame rose in the west, and screams carried on the wind. The awful, keening noise of a t’au army that has lost its ethereals in battle rose up, first as a few mournful voices, then the entire cadre as their headsets relayed the news.
The arru’kuatha, it was called – the scream of a thousand souls.
And it was his fault. He had left too small a guard to escort them, left their side in order to prosecute his own war.
Farsight heard a mourning wail resounding in his control cocoon. It had come from his own throat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS
THE GREAT STAR DAIS
ARTHAS MOLOCH
‘Regroup at given sites,’ croaked Farsight. ‘Coordinates appended. I repeat, regroup immediately.’
The symbols of assent were slow to appear. His teams were still reeling from their loss. How could they not be?
Some blazed away at the nearest Molochites, insensible to his orders. He eye-flicked their icons, pushing their shas’ui leaders to acknowledge with the highest priority, and one by one they too turned gold as they moved into the designated strongpoints.
The gangling, pinkish creatures that had taken the north-east of the plaza were cackling now, dancing in odd fits and spurts as they cast fire into the air in celebration and pulled at the faces of the smaller, blue incarnations to make false smiles of their downturned lips. Earlier in the battle, at the first sight of the jewellery and gemstones the creatures sported, he had offered them wealth by way of truce, hoping to bribe them or at least give them pause as the t’au forces rallied.
How foolish that attempt seemed now. The Molochites valued death, and death alone.
The pink-skinned daemons hurled their strange flames at the t’au nearby, but the fire-teams were wise to the danger now, and had taken position in defensible ruins that were mostly intact. Where the fire struck, the alabaster stone of the rubble was transmuted into something impossible, each lick of flame weakening the strongpoint with every caress of unnatural fire. But it was better than the alternative.
Farsight saw something strange about how and where the flames died out, eye-looping the relevant hex for future study. Just to the east of the dais, near the team designated La’rua Tsmyen Ka, the flames were guttering away in a circular radius around a tall, faceless statue. He felt a flash of suspicion, and zoomed on the area.
The statue was wearing a strange amulet around its neck, its shape a six-pointed star that was horribly familiar to him. It was the same symbol he had seen in his mind’s eye in the confrontation with the Water Spider, back on the Manifest Dream. That same symbol that he, in a flash of inspiration, had carved into the flesh of the false water caste dignitary as they were crossing the Damocles Gulf – or rather the creature that was wearing his skin.
The throbbing headache that had coloured his perception since leaving the healsphere seemed to subside a little every time he looked at it. Somehow, deep in his mind, the hexagram shape represented some manner of salvation.
‘Coldstar, scan for that six-pointed symbol at a radius of point five kilometres.’
‘Affirmative.’ A tiny circle appeared, filling with gold as the XV8’s intelligence suite parsed its own data and that of the VX1-0 dronenet. The icon flashed, and the command-and-control suite unfurled a hex to show an aerial view of the battle site.
Arthas Moloch’s nameless city had become a smoking hellscape. Charcoal-grey and black icons dotted the image like the grave-slabs of some morbid Imperial tombfield. As he had thought, amongst the ebb and flow of war there were areas where the daemons were conspicuously absent, each centred around similar statues – some broken, some intact – that ringed the portal at regular intervals.
All those statues that they avoided were adorned with some manner of jewellery, a platinum glint against the dull white of the stone. As Coldstar brought up a detailed view, Farsight saw that each of them incorporated that same six-pointed star. He watched a group of daemon cavalry wheel away from one of them mid-charge, taking a longer route to their prey instead of passing beneath the statue’s shadow. Even when they could have mounted flank attacks on t’au positions nearby, they kept a wide berth.
He’d missed the patterns the first time they had encountered the creatures, put such counter-intuitive behaviour down to the sheer otherness of the Molochite race. Now, it was all slotting into place.
‘The vision,’ said Farsight. His heart clenched, then, a knotted ball of pain that turned his sight black for one desperate, alarming second.
The med-suite flared red.
••• CARDIAC FAILURE IMMINENT ••• DISENGAGE AND SEEK EARTH CASTE SUPPORT IMMEDIATELY •••
‘High commander?’ said Coldstar.
‘Nothing,’ gasped Farsight. ‘Just… just link me to the nearest team to the robed statue, second battlegroup.’
‘Link open, commander.’
‘La’rua V’ral, retrieve the hexagram icon from the statue you are using to anchor your position. I am inbound.’
‘Affirmative,’ came Shas’ui V’ral’s reply. With one eye he watched her climb up the broken pedestal of the statue, but the medallion was out of reach. Borrowing a markerlight from a nearby comrade, she shone its beam onto the dull silver of the statue’s adornment. A moment later the team’s gun drone attendant flew up towards it, lifting the designated artefact delicately with its grav-field and transferring it back to its leader.
‘Carry the artefact against the flame-beasts, Shas’ui V’ral.’
‘High commander?’
‘Just do as I say!’ he roared, his temper suddenly flaring. His chest convulsed again, the pain making him grind his teeth. Microdecs left, perhaps. He had to make them count.
‘Of course,’ said Shas’ui V’ral, making a one-handed gesture of the admonished supplicant. She walked towards the flame-hurling Molochites, the amulet held out in both hands as if it were a gift. Farsight saw that the heat coming from the creatures was so intense her armour was darkening, wisps of smoke coming from her fingers, but she pressed onwards. As she did so, the creatures recoiled, and the flames the Molochites had spread to the alabaster flagstones recoiled with them, leaving pristine white stone behind.
‘High commander,’ said Shas’ui V’ral, her voice filled with awe. ‘It repels the foe.’
To secure victory, the wise adapt.
‘Open the cadrenet, full spectrum,’ he said. ‘All fire caste personnel, this is High Commander Farsight. Muster at the designated points. All three groups converge in support of lead elements. Each highlighted team’s shas’ui is to effect a method of recovering the hexagrammatic artefact from each statue, image appended. Then bring them to my position east of the dais. Do so immediately, in the name of the T’au’va.’
Battered, confused and desperate for an end to their ordeal, his teams did not hesitate. They converged upon the sites, glad to have a concrete goal other than survival, some of their number fighting their way through fire and brimstone to reach them and suffering horrendous losses in the process. But they would rather die than fail him.
Several hexes, each a relay from an observation drone, were arrayed around Farsight’s command suite. Each showed one of the statues he had marked as critical. He made for the closest, east of the Great Star Dais. He would reach it before the fire warrior strike team picking its way through the rubble, but not by much.
A cascade of assent symbols lit his screens. The howling of the daemons grew more intense as the t’au withdrew, and their foes realised what they intended. Streams of multicoloured fire roared out from the pink-skinned daemons that had been cavorting in glee mere moments before, but now they attacked with a deadly focus. Crimson bladesmen pulled themselves from stringy pools of clotted blood under the light of the dais and hurled themselves, screeching, at the t’au lines, only to be cut down by the overlapping fields of fire of the cadre’s fighting withdrawal. A retreat in good order was as sure a weapon as advancing fire; perhaps better.
The overconfident enemy can be drawn, like poison from a wound.
More of Puretide’s wisdom, and a tenet that had been used against him, to his shame, on Atari Vo. Yet these Molochites were more heedless of caution than any other race Farsight had encountered – even compared to the orks, still charging the t’au wherever they could at the edge of the dais. They would be obliterated in the open field of war.
‘Strike teams, breacher teams, form perimeters around each statue. Overlap fire. Expend ammunition at will.’
Again, the shas’ui sent symbols of assent. The withdrawal was proving costly, with more symbols turning black and grey on his hex-displays every microdec, but it was working. His teams were racing across the plaza, their gun drones laying down covering fire as they concentrated on pushing a few metres ahead.
‘Crisis teams only to engage the foe on the perimeter of the portal,’ said Farsight. A howling daemon bladesman came for him; he put it down with a pinpoint thrust of his relic sword. ‘Use flamer and fusion weapons only. I want all wounds cauterised, be they ork or Molochite. These creatures take power from vital fluids, and we and the orks are providing all they need. Not a drop of blood is to be spilt upon the dais. All fire-teams to enact extreme defence, all wounded Crisis assets to withdraw immediately, reserve committed to replace when needed. On my lead.’
The rash of gold symbols upon his hex informationals was almost immediate. Farsight smiled. Who could stand before the unity of the T’au’va?
A team of fire warriors hustled over to his position, their shas’ui staggering under a vicious hip wound. Supported by one of her la rankers, V’ral held out the oversized amulet in the shielded gesture of the gift-given-in-the-storm.
Farsight bowed a fraction, pushing the tip of his relic blade delicately through the string of platinum beads that formed the amulet’s necklace. He raised the sword in salute, sending the medallion sliding down to the hilt with a swift hiss of metal on metal.
‘My thanks, honoured V’ral.’
A hex flared, that of La’rua Bochan – exhausted but triumphant. ‘High commander,’ he said, ‘we have also achieved our objective.’
Farsight turned to see a tight-knit group of breachers picking their way towards him over the rubble, seven warriors in a circle with their backs to their shas’ui. Bochan held up the amulet he had won from the south of the dais, and Farsight extended the relic blade towards him, plucking the artefact from his hands with the tip of the relic sword as he had with V’ral, so that it too slid down to the hilt.
‘Coldstar, bring us in close. Does my new blade have any ferrous resonance?’
‘It has a magnetic signature, high commander, though the alloy of its construction is unknown.’
‘Can you put a mag-field through what is left of the shield?’
‘Affirmative.’
‘Excellent.’
Farsight turned the relic sword around, clamping it to the underside of his shield with a metallic clang so the amulets could not slide free. ‘Much as I would love to, I will not be using it in the engagement to come.’
‘High commander,’ said Coldstar. ‘With all ranged capability neutralised and the sword stowed, how do you intend to fight?’
‘With my mind. Trust me, faithful helper.’
‘I am still not sure as to your stratagem,’ said Coldstar, an edge of cold formality in her tone. ‘Please illuminate me as soon as you can as to your plans.’
‘A modified Kauyon. I will form the bait. The strike teams can hold the Molochites long enough for it to work.’
Farsight leapt high and came down with a bass thump at the edge of the Great Star Dais, his landing hard enough to send plumes of dust rising in all directions.
‘All near orkboya,’ he shouted. The be’gel language was something he had studied on Arkunasha, and he remembered its curt, growling phonemes well enough. ‘Krumpa warah, leader fight!’
A few of the be’gel in the ruins turned, their faces lit as grotesque masks as they tried to figure out whether to plunge into combat against the swirling melee of Molochites and t’au at the heart of the dais, or take down the one-armed red war machine that was shouting behind them. Several turned to him and snarled, one raising a gun to fire wildly in his direction, but with most of their kind shot dead in the streets, they did not charge.
Farsight searched his memory for orkoid invective. It was there, under the trauma of the red sands of old; the crude greenskin culture and the piecemeal syntax that typified it. He had broken it down through the means of glyphs, a cross-caste technique that had been part of his censure as vash’ya – for linguistics was the water caste’s concern. Nonetheless, it had seen a critical breakthrough in the long stalemate of that desert world.
‘Coldstar, drop my voice two octaves before the next projection.’
‘Affirmative.’
‘You are buncha-runtz!’ he boomed through the XV8’s speakers. The roar was loud enough to shake dust from the nearby ruins. ‘Fail to bash no-arm bigadredd! Weka-gitz!’
It was good enough. The nearest pack of greenskins gave a great war cry and ran towards him, bellowing as they brandished their engine-axes. He let the first ork come in close, a massively muscled brute with thick plates of metal covering its shoulders.
The XV8 stomped forward at full extension with its arm thrust out in a lunging punch. Its metal fist hit the ork in the face with bone-cracking force, sending the greenskin tumbling backwards with a roar of indignation.
That was a language the orks understood perfectly. Dozens more of the creatures stampeded from the ruins, converging on him from four separate directions. Farsight waited until they were almost upon him, and then leapt into the sky.
Bravestorm and Brightsword came from the shadow of a ruined Hammerhead behind, tearing forward on engine plumes of shimmering heat. Bravestorm’s shoulder-mounted flamer sent a whooshing plume of conflagration to consume the foremost ork warriors. Several greenskins came on through the fire, burning and blackened but still raging. They were cut in half with clinical precision by Brightsword’s slashing fusion blasters.
The scene was repeated nearby as the Crisis teams followed their commanders’ lead, the intense heat of their flamer volleys turning the orks to so much charred and stinking meat. In those rare places where skin split and blood fell, the backwash of heat quickly evaporated it, sizzling, to red-black stains upon the off-white stone. Not ones to shy from a fight, the orks charged anyway. Fear of fire was something the brutish race clearly had yet to learn.
