With the keening sounds of atmospheric entry screaming through the hull, the Blood Ravens descended upon the jungle world.
TYPHON PRIMARIS WAS sparsely populated, no more than a few hundred thousand hardy souls who dwelt in the ruins of their former glory. The villages of the Typhonians were typically clustered around the bases of the massive stepped pyramids which dotted the landscape, their towering profiles softened by the millennia worth of creeping vines and lichens that covered them. The earliest origins of man on the jungle world had been lost, but were impossibly ancient, possibly dating back even to before the end of the Age of Strife, when man first ventured out into the void. Those first men on Typhon Primaris had built a grand civilization, far from the cradle of the human race, Holy Terra; a civilisation of monumental architecture, vast tracts of developed lands, populous cities, and a highly organised society. At least, such was the supposition based on what little evidence of them remained. For, as so often was the case in such ancient societies, the ancients of Typhon had been unable to keep their civilization from tumbling into decay, and in the end the jungles had reclaimed their cities, their farms, and their entire societies. Only the massive stepped pyramids remained, all but completely obliterated by century upon century of wild growth, as mute tombstones of the unknown ancients who had once lived and thrived there.
When the servants of the Emperor first arrived, on their crusade to unite the myriad worlds upon which the seed of mankind had taken root, they had found only primitive tribes of pale-skinned, green-eyed jungle-dwellers who - aside from a complex matrilocal kinship structure that completely baffled the missionaries of the Adeptus Ministorum who later came to instruct the natives in the proper belief in the Emperor's divinity - displayed none of the sophistication their ancestors must once have mastered and then, inevitably, lost.
Now, aside from irregular visits from agents of Governor Vandis, the nominal Imperial authority over the planet, and the once-a-generation recruiting expeditions of the Blood Ravens, Typhon Primaris was rarely visited at all and so remained much as those early crusaders and missionaries had found it, with the only marked change being that the Typhonians now revered the ''Sky-Father'', as they named the God-Emperor on distant Holy Terra, rather than the jungle spirits worshipped by their ancestors.
But it was a well-established fact, on many worlds reunited with the Imperium of Mankind during the Emperor's crusades, that folk beliefs were tenacious, and even after exposure to the light and truth of the God-Emperor, many such superstitions had a habit of persisting…
'YOU ARE WELCOME, Sons of the Sky-Father!'
The headman of the village held his arms wide in greeting as he called out to Sergeant Aramus and the others in heavily accented Low Gothic, standing in the deepening shadows at the edge of the village. He was ancient, his face lined with wrinkles, but his emerald-green eyes sparked with lively intelligence, and he was nimble on his feet for all that his legs were bowed and bent with age. His skin was as pale as that of his fellow villagers, but his was veined with age, rendered almost translucent. Was it his age, though, that gave a brittle tone to his words, and that slight twitch to the corner of his mouth?
'I am Sergeant Aramus of the Blood Ravens,' the sergeant answered, 'seeking aspirants for our Chapter.'
Aramus had decided it wisest not to announce outright that the Blood Ravens had come in search of tyranids, to forestall any panic that the news of a potential infestation might have on the Typhonian natives. Instead, they would operate under the pretext that they were merely searching for potendal candidates for the Blood Trials, and carry out their search for tyranids through the surrounding jungles without alarming the villagers. Sergeant Avitus had initially objected, saying he cared little for the fears and concerns of ignorant villagers, until Aramus explained that he, too, cared little for their fears, at least held in the balance against Captain Thule's life, but that their search through the jungle would be easier to carry out if they didn't have to contend with hundreds of terrified Typhonians tramping through the jungles in flight from a xenos threat that might not even exist.
The headman peered up at Aramus's face in puzzlement for a moment. 'Aspirants, you say?'
Aramus nodded. 'We seek young men and boys, strong in body and mind, to join us in the Blood Ravens, and in the service of… the service of the Sky-Father.'
The headman blinked a few times, and then his puzzled look faded as a smile stretched across his face. He brought his hand together in a clap, and motioned for his people to come forward. 'Aspirants! Yes, of course! Come, libations and gifts for the mighty Sons of the Sky-Father!'
Aramus glanced over at Sergeants Thaddeus and Tarkus, each of them already studying his auspex, searching for any sign of xenos activity in the area, and of tyranids in particular.
The headman capered back and forth before them, singing greetings to each of the Blood Ravens in turn, as the villagers struggled to reach high enough to drape wreaths of jungle flowers around the Astartes' necks.
Watching the headman, and remembering the puzzled look he had worn, for just a moment, Aramus began to suspect that, in fact, the headman had been surprised to hear that the Blood Ravens had come seeking aspirants. But if the headman hadn't expected that they had come on a recruiting mission, what had he thought was the purpose of their visit?
ON THE COMMAND deck of the Sword of Hadrian, the air filled with the sound of her officers carrying out their duties and the high binary squeal of servitors at work. Fleet Admiral Laren Forbes studied a data-slate distractedly, sitting cross-legged in the captain's chair, while a steaming cup of caffeine at her elbow gradually cooled to room temperature, untouched.
'Admiral?' The light cruiser's first officer ascended the command dais, carrying a data-slate of his own.
'Yes, Commander Mitchels?' She looked up, taking him in at a glance.
The first officer was fair-haired, and fair-complexioned. Under normal circumstances, with his close-cropped hair neatly trimmed and his uniform jacket buttoned to the neck, he appeared some spectral vision crammed into the suit of a man, a ghost in the clothing of the living. But when worries or anxieties plagued him, a blush would rise in his cheek, growing redder as his anxieties mounted, until finally he was crimson, fringed by the halo of his white hair.
Mitchels was not quite the reddest he'd ever gotten, but he was definitely pinker than the norm, which suggested that there was something troubling him.
'What's bothering you, commander?' the admiral asked, musing that it paid to have a subordinate who carried around a barometer of their internal moods on their epidermis.
'I've received word from the ship's lead astropath, ma'am.'
He paused, glancing again at his data-slate as though to confirm what he'd already read there before ever approaching the dais, as though the information might have changed as he mounted the steps.
'Yes, Mitchels?'
'Well, ma'am, it appears that since we transitioned back to normal space, the astropaths are having difficulty making contact with the rest of the Aurelia Battlegroup. Or with Meridian, for that matter.'
'Mmmm,' Forbes hummed, thoughtfully. She picked up her cup of caffeine, and almost spat out the now lukewarm contents on the deck. Setting the cup back down on the arm of the captain's chair, she reached out to accept the data-slate the first officer proffered. She looked it over, seeing in detail the report that Mitchels had just relayed in brief. 'Very well.' She handed the data-slate back, and stood up. 'Keep me informed. This bears watching, Mitchels.'
'Yes, ma'am,' the commander responded with a quick salute, and then descended the dais back to the base of the command deck.
Forbes looked up at the wide forward viewports before her, at the emerald disc of the jungle world spinning beneath them. The only word from the Armageddon had been a curt transmission from a techmarine that the landing parties had reached the planet's surface successfully and had begun their search. No word yet about any xenos presence, tyranid or otherwise
.
The admiral only hoped that the difficulty in astropathic communication was due merely to some sort of vagary in warp topography - perhaps the empyrean equivalent of a seasonal squall if such a thing existed - and might pass quickly.
Because if that was not the case, and the interference did not pass, then it was highly suggestive of only one other cause that Forbes knew, one other circumstance that affected all astropathic communications.
But Forbes did not dwell on that particular circumstance. She merely offered a prayer to the Emperor and the souls of all of the admirals and captains of the Sword of Hadrian who had preceded her that she was wrong. Because if it was what she feared, then matters were about to become far, far more complicated.
THE HEADMAN HAD hastily arranged a reception in the Blood Ravens' honour, and though it was not in the Space Marines' habit to socialize amiably with common citizens, the headman had insisted, saying that he would gather together all of the young men and boys of the village at the fete, that the ''Sons of the Sky-Father'' might examine them each in turn. And though none of the Blood Ravens had any desire to spend any more time than was absolutely necessary being feted, and draped with garlands of jungle flowers, and hearing the endless choruses of praise and devotion sung by the villagers, the promise of a quick recruiting survey was too attractive to pass up and so Aramus had accepted the headman's invitation.
However, Aramus had stipulated that not all of their party would be joining the celebration. Aramus would be there, as would Sergeant Cyrus and his Scouts, and Librarian Niven and Chaplain Palmarius. But the rest of the Blood Ravens who had accompanied them to the surface would, he explained to the headman, be required to go out into the jungle on training exercises, and would not return until long after the celebration had finished.
The sun was already setting over the green-shrouded bulk of the stepped pyramid to the west of the village when Aramus and the others arrived at the village centre, where the headman had had his people construct a scaffold for them. Rising nearly half a metre from the jungle floor, the scaffold was little more than a wide wooden platform, on which were arranged woven blankets and cushions to make a place for each of the Blood Ravens in Aramus's party. But while Aramus had been willing to accept the headman's hospitality, however reluctantly, he was not prepared to clamber onto a rickety wooden platform and attempt to sit on a pile of pillows while wearing full power armour, and he was not about to order any of the others to do so, either. So the Blood Ravens instead simply arranged themselves in a single file before the platform, at parade rest, and waited for the headman to begin whatever ceremony he'd concocted.
'Praised be your name, Sky-Father!' the headman began in a loud, booming voice, turning in his hands a long wooden tube filled with rocks or seeds. As the tube reversed, the objects within tumbled from one to the other, sounding something like falling rain. 'Yours is the will!' A villager on the far side of the clearing beat a quick tattoo on a skin drum, sounding like distant thunder. 'Yours is the power!' Another villager struck a rudimentary gong fashioned from hull plating discarded by some earlier visiting vessel, sounding like lightning's thunderclap. 'Yours is the glory!'
Aramus exchanged a glance with the Blood Ravens standing nearest him. 'Don't worry,' he voxed privately to the others. 'This can't last long.'
'Now, Sky-Father,' the headman called out to the heavens, 'let us sing each of the Thousand Hymns of Praise, to thank you for the arrival of your mighty Sons!'
As the villagers began to intone the first of the thousand hymns, Aramus grimaced. He was wrong. This could last long.
OUT IN THE jungles of Typhon Primaris, the squads of Blood Ravens split up and fanned out, tracking the spoor of monsters, searching for any sign of tyranids. And they were not alone…
CHAPTER TEN
SERGEANT THADDEUS AND his battle-brothers of the Seventh Squad ghosted through the darkened jungle. With the canopy of trees overhead so tightly woven, their jump packs would have been of little use on Typhon Primaris, and had been left behind at the Thunderhawk. Unencumbered by the weight, the Space Marines of the Seventh Squad moved with even more ease than normal, and considering that they were all masters of the arts of infiltration, able to move through virtually any environment without being seen - even with their jump packs on - without the bulk and weight of their packs they were even stealthier.
Still, as they moved all but silently through the trees, the darkness surrounding them taxing even their enhanced vision, Thaddeus found himself wishing that he still had his jump pack, with the ability to leap great distances should trouble rear up before him. Or failing that, an armoured vehicle in which to ride. Thaddeus was an Adeptus Astartes, with the courage and fortitude that implied, but after the undertaking on Prosperon, and the heavy losses suffered by the Blood Ravens at the talons of the Great Devourer, he had learned caution at the mention of the word ''tyranid''. And while Blood Ravens did not make use of the heaviest equipment often employed by other Chapters, still Thaddeus knew that he would not complain were a Predator Destructor or two to be offered him. Several centimetres of forged adamantium between him and an onslaught of tyranids would not be something he would readily refuse.
So far, though, there had been no sign of tyranids, neither any spoor on the jungle tracks nor any positive readings on Thaddeus's auspex. But with the life of Captain Thule in the balance, the Space Marines of the Seventh Squad would continue to search until all hope was lost, and perhaps even beyond that.
Still, a Predator Destructor might come in handy, were their search to prove successful.
ONCE THE SEEMINGLY interminable rounds of hymns had completed, and the headman had clapped for the next stage of the fete to begin, a few dozen boys and young men had been brought forward. Now, Chaplain Palmarius and Librarian Niven evaluated the potential aspirants by the flickering light of the torches set around the village centre, examining them one by one.
Sergeant Aramus kept watch from his station near the unused scaffolding and its unnecessary cushions, periodically required to refuse politely the offers of food, drink, and other comforts made by the villagers.
'Do our offerings offend, noble Son of the Sky-Father?' the headman asked, sidling near, after the most recent tray of food was being taken away.
'No.' Like all Space Marines, Aramus could subsist for long periods of time without sustenance, but more to the point, he simply wasn't in any mood to eat.
The headman smiled. 'Then perhaps you worry that our cuisine will not agree with your digestion?' He motioned to the retreating tray. 'I am informed that off-worlders often find the spices we employ… difficult to take on first eating.'
Aramus shook his head. 'Again, no.' As though a Space Marine had any need to fear such things. One of his implants, the preomnor, was a predigestive stomach capable of processing a wide variety of poisonous or otherwise indigestible material - if he so chose, Aramus could consume and digest the scaffolding and the cushions and all, without any concern but that he might receive a few splinters along the way. And if a Space Marine should happen to ingest something that the preomnor was incapable of processing, the neuroglottis implanted at the back of his mouth would allow him to detect the fact in time for him to spit it out before swallowing any of it. 'We don't wish to offer offence, headman. We merely eat in our own time.'
The headman raised his hands in a dismissive gesture. 'Then no offence is taken.' He came to stand at Aramus's side, and together the two looked at the ongoing evaluation of the village youth.
'It is a great honour that you do us,' the headman said. 'Our boys are raised with the promise that, if they are devout and dutiful, they might one day be allowed the chance to serve the Sky-Father as you do now.'
Aramus nodded. 'As you say.' He paused, and then added, 'But it appeared to me that, though you did not seem surprised or alarmed in any way by our unannounced arrival, you did seem surprised to learn we were here for just such a recruiting mission.'
The headman's alread
y pale face blanched somewhat, and his eyes found sudden interest in the hard-packed dirt at his feet.
'Tell me, headman,' Aramus continued, 'what was it that you supposed we were here to accomplish?'
The headman shuffled his feet for a moment before answering. 'Well, noble Son of the Sky-Father, we thought you had been sent by one of the vessels who have visited our jungle in these recent months.'
Aramus turned to regard the old man more closely, narrowing his gaze. 'Vessels? Imperial vessels?'
The headman shrugged. 'Perhaps. We did not know for certain.' He waved a hand towards the surrounding jungles. 'They landed out in the green, and did not venture into our villages. But when you descended from the sky, we assumed that the vessels had been from the Sky-Father, and that those on board might have seen…' He paused suddenly, glancing sidelong at Aramus before continuing. 'That they might have seen… things… which would lead to our being chastened.' He glanced around the village circle at the others gathered around, who even now that the hymns of praise had ceased were busying themselves in acts of contrition and worship. 'We had hoped that a renewed devotion on our part might spare us the Sky-Father's wrath, if the chastisement was still to follow your search for recruits.'
Aramus remained silent, studying the old man's face. What was it that the villagers had done that led them to expect chastisement?
'If you are not come to chastise us,' the old man went on, 'then perhaps the visitations of the jungle spirits themselves will serve as sufficient punishment in themselves.'
Aramus arched an eyebrow.
'Jungle spirits?'
SERGEANT AVITUS AND the rest of his Devastator squad smashed through the undergrowth, their heavy weapons loaded and ready for action. For hours they had made their way through the twilit jungle, and now that the sun had long since set, they continued on through the murky blackness of the jungle at night.
Dawn Of War II Page 13
