Warhammer - Ultramarines 03 - Dead Sky, Black Sun (McNeill, Graham)

by Graham McNeill

  'Come on.' said Uriel. 'We have work to do.'

  Vaanes said nothing, but nodded and followed Uriel from the car, climbing up past the platform and unsheathing the crackling claws from his gauntlet.

  'What are you doing?' called Uriel.

  'Funicular cars work on the principle of counterbalancing one another.' explained Vaanes, slicing his claws clean through the thick cables that held the car.

  The platform groaned and the cable snapped with a metallic twang, whipping around and sending the car plummeting back downhill through the smoke. The sound of screeching metal and showers of fat orange sparks followed it down.

  'No one will be coming up here in a while.' said Vaanes, climbing back to join Uriel.

  'Clever.' said Uriel.

  The two Space Marines jogged over to where the rest of the warrior band had sequestered themselves, hidden in a fold in the rock below an overhanging bastion where they could observe the battle in relative safety. Missiles and shells crisscrossed the air, and the noise of explosions and gunfire was deafening. The mountain trembled to the footsteps of the Titans, both of which lurched heedlessly through the battle as they grappled and struck at one another. Snarling daemon heads slammed together and massive blades tore at each other's armour as whipping, barbed tails brought down whole swathes of the wall.

  'Now what?' shouted Pasanius, barely audible over the cacophony.

  'Now we have to get in!' said Uriel.

  'You mean we join the assault?' asked Vaanes. 'Impossible!'

  'What choice do we have?' yelled Uriel.

  'We can get the hell off this mountain! I told you I'd help you get in, Ventris, but I also told you I wasn't going to get killed for your death oath!'

  'Damn it, Vaanes, we're here now! We have to keep going!'

  Vaanes looked set to reply when a salvo of shells streaked overhead and struck the lip of the overhanging bastion directly above them. Dust and debris showered them, rocks tumbling down the slopes as it split from the mountain with a splintering crack.

  'Look out!' shouted Uriel as the bastion crumbled and toppled, falling towards them in an avalanche of rubble and blocks of sundered stone.

  Honsou felt rocks pummelling him as he fell, battering him and threatening to crush him utterly. He tumbled end over end, his senses whirling in a kaleidoscopic flurry of noise and light. The breath was driven from him as he landed, and he rolled aside as huge, tank-sized blocks of rubble smashed down around him. Choking clouds of black dust and smoke billowed, and though he felt painfully battered by the fall, he didn't feel any broken bones or ruptured organs.

  'Onyx!' he yelled hoarsely. 'Zakayo!'

  'Here!' coughed Zakayo. 'I am alive!'

  'As am I.' said Onyx, 'but I require assistance.'

  Honsou struggled over to where his champion lay almost completely buried beneath a pile of jagged lumps of rockcrete with twisted iron bars protruding from them. Onyx's torso and lower body were trapped beneath a volume of rubble that would have crushed even a power-armoured warrior flat, but immaterial energies had saturated the daemonic symbiote's flesh and it was proof against such things.

  Honsou gripped the debris and strained against its massive weight, but it was too great even for one as enhanced as he. Obax Zakayo joined him, the hissing mechanical arms sprouting from the armature of his back to grip the reinforcement bars.

  Iron Warriors began picking themselves up from the rubble, those who hadn't been crushed beneath falling masonry or otherwise killed in the bastion's collapse lending their strength to freeing Onyx.

  Honsou moved out of the way and looked around him as glowing afterimages of the battle flashed on his visor. He shook his head to clear it and get a better idea of where their fall from the fortress had brought them.

  More rubble had been dislodged from above by the thunderous battle of the nearby Titans and Honsou saw that they would have little difficulty in getting back to the fortress. The lucky artillery strike had collapsed a good portion of the wall beneath the bastion that now formed a ready-made slope that led straight to the walls.

  That was if they survived to get back to the fortress, he thought, watching as blurry shapes approached through the swirling clouds of dust and smoke.

  Uriel tore off his helmet, its visor cracked and useless: the pressure seals that clamped it to his gorget smashed and irreparable. He muttered a prayer of unction for the helmet's spirit and placed it on the ground. Without his auto-senses, he could only see hazy outlines through the smoke and debris of the bastion's fall, but blinking away motes of dust from his eyes, he saw that the Emperor had blessed them once more.

  'There!' he shouted, pointing to the great gash torn in the side of the fortress where the bastion had fallen. A steep but practicable slope of rubble and rebar-laced rockcrete led upwards towards the ramparts. Uriel knew they would never get a better chance than this to penetrate the fortress.

  Leading the way, he picked his way upwards, seeing indistinct, power-armoured forms also clambering to their feet. At first he assumed that these were the Space Marines of the warrior band, but as the dust began to settle, he saw they were not.

  They were Iron Warriors.

  Honsou watched a Space Marine emerge from the smoke, his blue armour dust covered and battered. His heart lurched as the warrior snarled and drew a shimmering blade. One of the False Emperor's warriors? Here? His surprise almost cost him his life as the blade sang for his neck and he was barely able to parry it with his axe, dodging away from the return stroke of the Space Marine's blade.

  His axe screamed as its warrior soul roared to life and Honsou saw that the attacking warrior's blue armour was devoid of all insignia or markings. A renegade? A mercenary?

  Was this Toramino's doing? Rallying the renegade scum that skulked in the mountains to his cause? But he had no more time to wonder at the warrior's origins as his blade stabbed for him once more. 'Iron Warriors!' he bellowed. 'With me!'

  Uriel slashed at the Iron Warrior again, but his every stroke was parried by a huge war-axe with a glossy, black-toothed blade. His foe shouted to his warriors and more shapes emerged from the dust, swords and axes raised and bolters piercing the smoke with barking muzzle flashes.

  'Emperor guide my blade!' he shouted as he attacked again.

  'He has no power here.' retorted the Iron Warrior as he spun his axe and attacked.

  Uriel sidestepped and brought his sword around in a beheading stroke, but his opponent was not there, rolling beneath the blow and swinging his axe for his back. Uriel hurled himself flat, the screaming axe blade slashing centimetres from his armour. He rolled aside as the axe hammered down, the earth shaking in fury at its impact.

  Uriel kicked out, driving the Iron Warrior to his knees and slicing his sword in a wide arc towards his head. The tip of his blade caught the Iron Warrior's helm and sent him tumbling down the slope. He scrambled to his feet as more Space Marines joined the fray and the vast shadow of the battling Titans engulfed them. The fury of the devil machines' combat dwarfed this one, but for all that, it was equally brutal and merciless. Vicious, short-range firefights and melees broke out, bolters roaring and grunts of pain and anger sounding as explosive shells cracked open armour and blades tore at flesh. He drew back his sword to gut an Iron Warrior, but a lashing coil of energy snaked out and ensnared his arm.

  Pain roared up his arm and it was all he could do to keep hold of his sword as flaring bursts of agony coursed along the length of the energy coil. Uriel dropped to his knees as a giant, wide shouldered Iron Warrior drew near, massive mechanised arms snapping from his shoulders and the snaking whip of energy attached to yet another of his hunched claws.

  'You dare attack the master of Khalan-Ghol! You will die!' roared the warrior, his voice ugly and crackling. A wash of flame shot through the combat and Uriel caught the sickening stench of cooked meat. Once again the earth heaved and a gargantuan foot slammed down against the mountainside not three metres from Uriel, leaving a deep crater i
n its wake.

  He saw the massive Titans towering above them as he fought against the crippling pain lashing in waves from the energy whip. While the whip-armed claw held him immobile with agony, the lumbering Iron Warrior's free hands unsheathed a crude, brutal, but no doubt effective chainsaw-bladed axe.

  'Obax Zakayo!' screamed a voice, but Uriel could not see who shouted through the pain screeching around his nervous system. Gunshots burst against the Iron Warrior's armour and he lashed out with his axe.

  'You?' laughed the Iron Warrior. 'You were under my blade once, slave, and escaped. You will not do so again.'

  For the briefest second, his attention shifted from Uriel and it was all the distraction he needed. He swept up his sword, hacking through the energy whip, and the pain vanished, leaving him drained, but free of its incapacitating agony. Uriel pushed himself to his feet, seeing Colonel Leonid and Sergeant Ellard facing off against the Iron Warrior.

  Lasbolts hammered his bulky body, but his debased power armour could withstand such trifles and he roared, swinging his axe for Leonid's midriff. The colonel jumped back, stumbling on loose rubble, and fell to the ground. Obax Zakayo closed for the kill, but Ellard leapt upon the Iron Warrior, pummelling his fists against his head.

  Ellard was a big man, but next to the Iron Warrior he was a child, and Obax Zakayo ripped him from his back and hurled him away. Uriel stepped in and hammered his sword across the Iron Warrior's shoulders. The blade crackled as it hacked though the ceramite plates of his armour, but slid free before connecting with flesh.

  Obax Zakayo swung his axe in a vicious arc at Uriel's groin, but the blow never landed as the ground shook and cracked, molten metal spewing up as the crashing footsteps of the battling Titans finally split the mountain. White hot metal hissed and spat as it spilled out onto the rocks, rendering them down to slag in seconds. Uriel scrambled away from the widening crack in the ground, sheathing his sword as he saw that there was no way his opponent could reach him across the gulf of liquid metal.

  Roiling clouds of bitter smoke gusted from the river of molten metal and Uriel scrambled away from its intolerable heat, Leonid and Ellard clambering over the rocks to join him.

  'This is Uriel Ventris!' he shouted, hoping that the vox-bead attached to his larynx was still functioning. 'If anyone can still hear me, make for the breach above us now!'

  Bolters roared behind him and the crash of explosions almost drowned his order, but as he climbed through the blinding clouds of steam and smoke, he could see the shadowy forms of the warrior band climbing towards him.

  The breach was above them, barely thirty metres away, the rubble-strewn sides of the fortress a beacon that called him onwards.

  They had done it. They had found a way in.

  Blood blinded him and a grating static filled his senses. Honsou removed his helmet, tossing it aside in anger, and wiped blood from his eyes. Banks of hot steam sent runnels of moisture down his face and he pushed himself upright as the thunder of battle returned to him with all its fury.

  'What in the name of the Dark Gods is happening?' he shouted to no one in particular.

  'My lord!' returned Obax Zakayo, picking his way carefully through the rocks. Moisture and blood ran from his armour, his energy whip crackling with sparks where it had been severed. 'The-'

  'Renegades!' roared Honsou. 'Is this what Toramino has been reduced to?'

  'Aye, renegades.' agreed Obax Zakayo. 'Renegades and runaway slaves, they-'

  'I was wrong to fear him, Obax Zakayo.' said Honsou, a measure of calm returning to him. 'They are all dead?'

  'No, my lord. The mountain sundered and we were separated.'

  Honsou looked up sharply. 'Then where are they?'

  'That is what I am trying to tell you. They broke past us and made for the breach!'

  'Damn!' cursed Honsou. 'Then why in the name of Chaos are you still standing here?'

  'My lord, a river of molten metal' separates us. 'For now, there is no way across.'

  'For you, perhaps.' sneered Honsou, striding through the battle to where he had left his trapped champion. 'Onyx!'

  Iron Warriors still struggled with the debris that buried the symbiote, but seeing their master's fury and urgency, redoubled their efforts. Within minutes, they had shifted enough of the rubble to allow Onyx to pull himself free of the debris. Lithe, supple and showing no signs of having been almost crushed to death, Onyx made his way gracefully towards Honsou. His black armour bore not a single scratch and Honsou saw Onyx's daemonic powers rippling just below the surface of his crawling, silver-etched skin. His eyes blazed with deadlights as Honsou pointed to the breach.

  'Find the renegades.' he ordered Onyx. 'Find them and bring them to me.'

  The daemon creature nodded and set off up the slopes of the mountain.

  The shattered remnants of this part of the ramparts were eerily deserted, the noise of battle muted from here, as Uriel pulled himself over the tattered lip of stone with the aid of the orange-steel rebars. He rolled to his feet, alert for danger, but finding none. The brooding presence of the fortress still towered above him, but he kept his eyes averted from its monstrous geometries for now, turning and helping the remainder of their force onto the battlements.

  The walls swept around the mountain, curving and angled, seemingly at random, hordes of human soldiers and mutants firing from the embattled ramparts into the masses of attackers below. Thousands of warriors fought in the breach, looking from here like some great serpent that heaved and convulsed as it pushed its way, metre by metre, up the rubble slopes.

  Pasanius and Vaanes climbed up, followed by Leonid and Ellard and the rest of the warrior band. Uriel could scarce believe it. They were within the walls of the fortress!

  'Throne of Terra.' breathed Pasanius. 'That was bloody work!'

  'It's not over yet.' cautioned Uriel, turning and more fully surveying their surroundings. A row of great archways led deeper into the fortress, each one as tall as a battle Titan and ringed with grotesque carvings that squirmed within the rock, as though the unquiet matter of the blocks was reshaping itself as they watched.

  'Which way?' asked Vaanes as the last of the Space Marines climbed to the ramparts.

  'I don't know.' admitted Uriel. There is nothing to choose between them.'

  'Then we've nothing to lose, whichever one we take.' pointed out Vaanes, heading towards the middle archway.

  'I suppose.' said Uriel, though a gut feeling told him that there was something different about this archway. He could not put his finger on what, but since he had no better idea of which one to take, he set off after Vaanes. The Space Marines followed him, bolters levelled in cautious apprehension.

  Vaanes waited for him at the entrance to the archway, and as Uriel passed beneath its Stygian immensity, he sketched the sign of the aquila across his chest, hearing a distant pounding, like the slow heartbeat of a sleeping monster.

  'We are in the belly of the beast once more, Uriel.' said Pasanius, the guttering blue tip of his flamer throwing their faces into stark relief and causing the carvings on the inner faces of the archway to leer and dance across the walls.

  'I know.' nodded Uriel, praying that the white cloak he had put over his soul would protect it from the vile things they were sure to see in the heart of the Enemy's lair.

  Onyx ghosted over the lip of the ruined bastion, his bronze claws sliding slowly from his flesh. His silver eyes scanned the battlements for any sign of the renegades, but they were nowhere to be seen. Moving like a shadow, Onyx tasted the air, the crawling silver veins beneath his skin burning brighter as he channelled the daemonic energy within him into tracking the intruders.

  His vision shifted into realms of sight beyond the ken of mortal men, where that which had already come to pass could be seen by listening to the echoes in the air. He watched as shadowy forms climbed over the ramparts, in much the same way as he had just done: many warriors, led by one whose soul burned brightly with purpose and another whos
e soul was withered and dead.

  As though formed from swirling particles of smoke, their forms were ethereal and insubstantial, but Onyx could see them as clearly as though he had been here to watch them arrive. They had passed this way but minutes ago, their phantasmal echoes walking from the battlements and heading in the direction of the monstrous archways carved into the mountainside.

  Onyx watched as the ghostly figures were swallowed up by the whispering darkness of the archways and sheathed his claws. He would need to take another route into the fortress to hunt the intruders, for if Khalan-Ghol had lured them into the bedlam portals, there was a good chance they were already dead.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The journey through the darkened archway was one that Uriel knew he would never forget. The sensation of being spied upon by every square centimetre of wall was intolerable and he was sure he could hear a susurration of whispered voices, just on the threshold of hearing. Their words, if such they were, were unintelligible, but on some primal level, Uriel knew that they whispered of vile, terrible things.

  .. .dishonour, disgrace and failure...

  This at least he felt he could bear, having already seen the most terrible things imaginable in the presence of the Nightbringer, but still...

  The twilit darkness seemed to go on forever and Uriel soon lost track of how long they had been travelling along the damnable tunnel.

  ...it doesn't ever stop, it goes on and on...

  'Imperator! Does this ever end?' growled Vaanes as they delved further and further into the never-ending darkness.

  'I know.' said Uriel. 'I get the feeling that we do not travel normal paths here. We can trust nothing, not even the evidence of our own senses.'

  'Then how will we find what we're looking for?'

  ...you won't...