Servants of the imperium, p.33
Servants of the Imperium, page 33
No. No.
Hakaron roared his defiance, the noise swallowed by the blood. The scarlet sea thinned around him fractionally, drawing back from his fury. He began to hear the faintest thrum of engines.
Hakaron seethed. His outrage gave him clarity. He would not fall to the daemon within the machine. He would not become another puppet. He would not serve the daemon; it would serve him.
As the blood melted back from him, Hakaron arched his back, loosing a scream of primal rage until his throat tore and the blood shattered into dust. A veil ripped away, and the traitor Space Marine’s vision returned to the cabin of the Land Raider, just as the tank smashed into the silent form of an Imperial Leman Russ tank, swathed in camouflage within a courtyard square.
Trip wires and remote detonators triggered as the Chaos tank crashed into the decoy of Butcher’s Block. The husk of the Leman Russ, packed with shrapnel and improvised explosives, vanished in a searing explosion. A chain of detonations tore up the face of the hab block behind the crash in a wave of fire and smoke. The entire wall of the massive structure detached, raining tonnes of rubble and rockcrete masonry onto the Chaos war engine and filling the square with dust.
Imperial Son and Morningstar roared out from their concealed positions, smoke and dust streaming from their hulls as they brought their turrets around. The square filled with the roar of high-velocity shells as the main guns of the Leman Russ tanks spoke, hurling explosives at the site of the enemy tank through the swirling veil of destruction. The Cadian tanks hammered the obscured target, their main guns firing again and again, until Crown gave the order to cease fire.
The expanding cloud of grit washed over the Imperial tanks, filling the square with a grinding industrial fog. The crews waited nervous seconds for the sight of the target to clear, eyes pressed anxiously to scopes and auspex readouts. Heit blinked away the sting of dirty sweat from his eyes as he desperately scanned the area through the narrow slit of his gunsight.
A mound of broken rubble resolved itself from the haze, still shifting as crumbling stone and masonry continued to fall from the shattered hab block. The deafening din of explosions and blasting cannons was replaced by an eerie silence, more stark than the fire of the guns and bombs as the tankers waited, waited.
A low, mechanical growl cut through the silence. The mound of ruins began to stir, small chunks shaking and rattling loose. Red-tinged smoke curled out from beneath the rockcrete.
A blurred shape of dark scarlet exploded from the heap, throwing chunks of wreckage in all directions. With a terrifyingly organic roar, the Chaos Land Raider spun around to face the Cadians. Blood and viscous black oil streamed from its glistening hull, and the barrels of its lascannons writhed with coruscating chains of dark energy as they tracked like a predator’s talons towards its enemies.
Morningstar fired its main gun, the high-explosive shell streaking low to ricochet harmlessly off the ground beside the steel daemon and up into the hab block. The Leman Russ rocked back, its treads grinding over the tortured pavement as a fusillade of las-bolts lanced through its hull. More energy blasts slashed through its armour, striking its power plant and shattering the tank in a deafening explosion. Crown winced as the wreckage of Morningstar smashed against the hull of Imperial Son, the sounds of rattling crashes amplified within the cabin.
‘Gavron,’ barked Crown into her headset. ‘Get your men in the fight!’
A short burst of static came through the Cadian’s vox in affirmation. Thin black lines criss-crossed over the steel daemon, their hooked ends crunching into the ground on either side of the tank and pulling taut. Leaping from the windows of the surrounding hab blocks, Tempestus Scions zip-lined to the street, hellguns blazing as they hurtled down towards the steel daemon.
The Tempestus shock troops disengaged from their zip-lines as they hit the Land Raider’s hull. Their boots thudded down, sinking into the spongy skin of the corrupted tank. Blood and ichor welled up as they fired down with their hellguns.
The steel daemon spun, tracks screaming in opposite directions. The Scions stumbled, crouching and grabbing hold of the tank to steady themselves as they drew krak grenades and readied melta bombs.
The spongy hull of the Land Raider rippled. Snapping jaws and lamprey mouths formed in its crimson armour, tearing arms and legs from the howling Imperial shock troops. One soldier was swallowed whole, sucked slowly down and devoured as his comrades struggled in vain to pull him loose. Others were thrown clear of the tank, quickly shredded by its heavy bolters or crushed to pulp as the steel daemon brought its tracks over their bodies.
Crown glimpsed Gavron through her scope as he struggled against the tank’s living hull. Within moments it was consuming him, mouths forming beneath his boots to drag him down into rows of snapping fangs. She watched as he sank to his waist, bringing his hands to his chest where he carried a melta bomb. The charge detonated in a burst of smoke and flame. The steel daemon charged through it, bleeding from deep lacerations in its hull but its momentum unbroken.
Crown cursed as Gavron’s vox link was severed, and she hurled the headset off.
‘Vanquisher round, load and fire now!’
Brydl threw the shell into Imperial Son’s breech, and Zevsin traversed the turret to lock onto the steel daemon.
‘Sending!’
The Leman Russ jumped back as the main gun roared. The shell ripped past the target, grazing its hull and spilling a tide of corrupted engine fluids but failing to pierce its hide.
‘Repeat!’ shouted Crown. ‘Lochna, get us moving now!’
Lochna hauled back on the control sticks. Imperial Son slewed back to gain distance from the steel daemon. Blinding flashes filled the cabin from the driver’s vision slit as the Chaos tank fired its lascannons, the air within the tank spiking in temperature.
‘Crown,’ barked Lochna as his control console wailed with warning klaxons. ‘We can’t–’
Fire and smoke filled the front of the cabin as a las-beam pierced Imperial Son’s glacis plate. Bits of cooked blood and scorched meat spattered over Heit as the tank listed to a grinding halt.
‘We’ve lost drive function!’ shouted Jesh over the din. Another blinding flash came, and the young Cadian screamed as the right sponson was sheared away. Smoke leapt over the rest of the cabin in a suffocating pall, whipping free into the square through the ragged hole in the tank’s right flank where Jesh had been moments before.
Heit shouted a wordless cry of anger and pain, wildly firing his heavy bolter. The weapon rattled, loose and off-kilter in his hands as he blazed through his remaining ammunition. He glimpsed the enemy tank in half-moments through the morass of smoke and flame, his fire blasting hunks of metallic meat from the steel daemon but doing nothing to halt it.
‘Get that cannon loaded!’ roared Crown. She looked down and Heit followed her gaze, seeing Brydl slumped over his station, a spar of metal through his neck. Crown leapt down from her seat, pushing the dead loader to the deck and pulling the shell from his blood-slicked hands. She slammed the round home, locking the breech closed.
‘Fire!’
Zevsin blasted the steel daemon, striking a glancing blow on its side that sent a cloud of smoke and oily blood spraying into the air. The Chaos machine fired back, and Imperial Son was wrenched around as another las salvo tore through its failing armour.
Heit’s heavy bolter clicked dry as its ammunition was depleted. He snarled, kicking the ammo feed in frustration.
‘Get clear, choir boy,’ shouted Crown, grunting as she lifted another shell. ‘You don’t have to die here, but I’m killing this bastard before I do!’
Heit looked for a moment at the side hatch, then back to Crown and Zevsin. Gritting his teeth, he pushed past the Cadian commander, squeezing up through the turret and into the cupola.
The air was superheated outside the tank, filled with the stink of exhaust and burning blood. Heit blinked away tears from the acrid haze as he gripped the cupola’s storm bolter. He raged as he opened fire, sending streams of bolts at the rushing steel daemon.
Imperial Son’s main gun fired, nearly throwing Heit from the turret. He clung to the storm bolter as his legs braced under the cupola. Looking up, he watched as the tank-killing Vanquisher round struck a direct hit on the steel daemon. The Chaos war machine vanished in a cloud of bloody fire and spiralling smoke. A rain of twisted carapace and corrupted machinery spattered over the hull of Imperial Son, hissing and leaving patches of frost where it landed.
‘We got it!’ Heit cried, as a cheer rang up from the Cadians within the turret. ‘We killed the steel daemon!’
Heit’s exhausted smile died as pinpricks of light grew from within the pall of smoke. Dark beams, thick as tree trunks and cored by silver lightning, slashed out from the cloud through Imperial Son’s broken hull.
A crushing wave of heat and pressure tore over Heit as once again he found himself falling. This time, he did not feel himself strike the ground.
Hakaron stepped from the assault ramp of The Hunger, his boots crunching down on the shattered rockcrete of the square. A viscous cocktail of blood, fuel and engine oil pooled beneath the Land Raider in a dozen places, oozing from craters of fractured armour plating and shorn vascular networks. The beast would need rest, repair, and the souls of dozens of slaves before it could take to battle again. The warpsmith within was near death, his pittance of remaining self slowly yielding to the suffocating influence of the daemon.
The traitor Space Marine looked back at the tank. Its brief usurpation over him was just the beginning. Soon the beast would be beyond even his control. Once Regallus burned to ashes, The Hunger would have to be subdued, and hauled back to the war fleet in chains. Like so much of the Crimson Slaughter, it would become savage, governed only by the rage of the Neverborn who had claimed it for its own. The Hunger would join countless other weapons of war, kept imprisoned and guarded with sorcerous wards in the black depths of the warband’s dungeons, only to be unleashed when the shedding of blood was needed.
It would never have long to wait.
Hakaron’s head turned, hearing the shot before he saw it. With instincts he knew in his soul were unnatural, even for a transhuman, he lifted his pauldron. The round smashed against his shoulder guard, ricocheting off in a burst of ceramite chips before exploding in the air. The dissipating shock of the impact jinked him back for a moment, but he remained standing.
A second shot hissed past Hakaron, wide by a good margin. His would-be assailant was either untrained or rapidly losing strength. He had seen the telltale spark of a boltgun’s muzzle flash this time, and with long strides he threw his power-armoured form ahead.
Another shot rang out, the bolt falling short and detonating in a burst of gravel beside Hakaron. He leapt upon the shattered husk of the Imperial tank he had destroyed. The mortals within it had thought to ambush Hakaron, and bring low the daemon engine he had brought to drown this world in blood.
The mortals had been foolish to think such fantasies. Hakaron had torn their delusions away from them as surely as he had torn away their lives. For a warrior who straddled the realms of reality and unreality, Hakaron had always excelled at enforcing the cold truth of war.
Hakaron heard the click of a weapon hollow of its ammunition. He looked down, the icy sapphire lenses of his helm settling upon a ragged figure hanging from the turret.
It was a woman. Hakaron could hear the staggered rhythm of her heart fighting to push lifeblood through dying flesh. What paltry store of energy she had left was spent firing a bolt pistol starved of munitions, as the light began to drain from her bright violet eyes.
Cadian, though Hakaron. The little gatekeepers of their carrion god’s domain. Had she not been so close to death, Hakaron might have considered keeping her alive long enough to barter to one of the Black Legion. The Despoiler’s chieftains so delighted in the torment of those who watched the Cadian Gate.
She pulled the trigger once more, snarling at the pain unleashed by even that small exertion. Hakaron nearly smiled. The audacity of hope. He had never known of a greater farce. There would be no hope where she was going. The Chaos Space Marine looked out upon a burning city that spanned a continent, and turned back to his tank.
‘No…’
Hakaron looked down, seeing pale arms wrapped around his greave. The Cadian woman clutched feebly to him, the act pulling her out fully from the turret. There was nothing left of her below the waist as she sold her last moments scrabbling at Hakaron, one final defiance from a being too small to stop what was coming. The Crimson Slaughter were going to murder this world, as they would every world to fall beneath the Black Crusade until the Corpse-God was cast down from his throne of lies and his diseased kingdom was naught but ashes.
‘Heroic nonsense,’ whispered Hakaron, as he levelled his bolt pistol at her head, and fired.
Heit heard the shot boom across the broken square, jarring him into consciousness. He groped at the broken ground, trying to push himself to his feet. A marrow-deep agony drove the air from his lungs, and he collapsed. His leg throbbed with blinding tides of pain. Choking, he pulled himself forward, towards the edge of the square. If he could just make the edge of the hab block, he could get to safety. He dragged himself faster, clawing at the loose rubble.
Heit’s mind swam as he crawled. The pain forced his thoughts into a tight channel of instinct. He had to keep going. He had to survive.
Heit gasped as he pulled himself over the lip of a broken wall and out of the square. He forced his mind away from the pain in his leg. He had to find help.
They had wounded the beast. Maybe not killed it, but they had stopped it, for a time. Perhaps an entire regiment of the Astra Militarum was roaring towards them just this moment. Heit grinned with broken teeth as he indulged the fantasy. They had heard their vox chatter, and were sweeping forward in a devastating counterattack that would rout the forces of Chaos and kill the steel daemon.
That’s right, thought Heit. They are coming.
Heit pulled himself into the corner of a bombed-out hab block, propping himself up into a sitting position with his back against a crumbling stone wall. His head was swimming. He blinked, trying in vain to focus his eyes. He worked his jaw, feeling a crust of dried blood covering the side of his head crack loose. At least his leg had stopped hurting. He could not feel much of anything any longer. No more pain. Just a gentle… spreading… numbness.
They are coming, his thoughts insisted. They will find you and evacuate you to a field hospital. Yes. They have to. You were one of the soldiers who hurt the beast.
Heit bent forward, bringing his hands to his mouth to cover a hacking wet cough. He looked down at his hands, sticky with his own blood.
They might even call you a hero.
Heit’s head lolled forward, and he shook his head, throwing it back drunkenly against the wall behind him. He tried to focus on a small flame guttering in front of him in the rubble, though he could not feel its warmth. He was so very, very tired. His body was so heavy. Throne, more than anything in the world he wanted to just rest his eyes for a moment. He deserved a short rest before continuing on. The flame shrank, its shadows rippling over his waxen face.
A hero.
No, thought Heit. No, not me. The flame wavered, vanishing as his leaden eyelids slowly closed.
The real heroes are still in that tank.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Nick Kyme is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Old Earth, Deathfire, Vulkan Lives and Sons of the Forge, the novellas Promethean Sun and Scorched Earth, and the audio dramas Red-marked, Censure and Nightfane. His novella Feat of Iron was a New York Times bestseller in the Horus Heresy collection, The Primarchs. Nick is well known for his popular Salamanders novels, including Rebirth, the Sicarius novels Damnos and Knights of Macragge, and numerous short stories. He has also written fiction set in the world of Warhammer, most notably the Warhammer Chronicles novel The Great Betrayal and the Age of Sigmar story ‘Borne by the Storm’, included in the novel War Storm. More recently he has scripted the Age of Sigmar audio drama The Imprecations of Daemons. He lives and works in Nottingham.
Danie Ware is the author of the novella The Bloodied Rose and the short story ‘Mercy’, both featuring the Sisters of Battle. She lives in Carshalton, south London, with her son and two cats and has long-held interests in role-playing, re-enactment, vinyl art toys and personal fitness.
Ian St. Martin is the author of the Horus Heresy: Primarchs novel Angron: Slave of Nuceria and the audio drama Konrad Curze: A Lesson in Darkness. He has also written the Warhammer 40,000 novels Of Honour and Iron, Lucius: The Faultless Blade and Deathwatch: Kryptman’s War, along with the novella Steel Daemon and several short stories. He lives and works in Washington DC, caring for his cat and reading anything within reach.
An extract from Dawn of Fire: Avenging Son.
‘I was there at the Siege of Terra,’ Vitrian Messinius would say in his later years.
‘I was there…’ he would add to himself, his words never meant for ears but his own. ‘I was there the day the Imperium died.’
But that was yet to come.
‘To the walls! To the walls! The enemy is coming!’ Captain Messinius, as he was then, led his Space Marines across the Penitent’s Square high up on the Lion’s Gate. ‘Another attack! Repel them! Send them back to the warp!’
Thousands of red-skinned monsters born of fear and sin scaled the outer ramparts, fury and murder incarnate. The mortals they faced quailed. It took the heart of a Space Marine to stand against them without fear, and the Angels of Death were in short supply.
