The Ultramarines Omnibus

by Graham McNeill

  ‘But you defeated it?’

  ‘After a fashion. We drove it away and lived to tell the tale, though what became of it, I do not know.’

  ‘You are haunted by the things it showed you,’ stated Joaniel.

  ‘Aye,’ nodded Uriel, placing his head in his hands. ‘I close my eyes and all I see is blood, death and mutilation. When I fight, I can barely hold back the killing rages born from the taint of the Bringer of Darkness.’

  ‘I do not pretend to understand the nature of this monstrous being, but I feel you are tormenting yourself needlessly, Uriel. ‘To have your mind touched, however briefly, by something of such power is bound to leave scars. To believe otherwise is folly.’

  Joaniel reached out and took Uriel’s hand. ‘Every injury, whether physical or psychological, leaves behind its mark and sometimes they come tumbling out like daemons in the dark. Scars heal, Uriel, but only if you let them.’

  ‘You do not think I am tainted?’

  Joaniel smiled. ‘No, I do not, Uriel. The power of this Bringer of Darkness must have been prodigious, but you defeated it. Yes, it showed you the depths to which man can sully himself with blood and death, but such barbarity is in all of us. You must accept that aspect of yourself and understand that part of the Bringer of Darkness will always be with you. With acceptance will come release. That you feel such pain tells me you are not tainted.’

  Uriel nodded, already feeling the shadow within him recede at Joaniel’s words. The two sat in companionable silence for many minutes until the vox bead in his ear crackled into life and the clipped tones of Learchus said, ‘Brother-Captain, your presence is required at the main wall.’

  He stood, acknowledging the message and bowed to the seated woman. ‘My thanks for your understanding, Sister Joaniel,’ said Uriel. ‘But I must go now.’

  Joaniel pushed herself from the pew and offered him her hand. Uriel shook it, his gauntlet swallowing her delicate hand utterly.

  ‘I am always here, Uriel, should you feel the need to talk some more.’

  ‘Thank you, I should like that,’ said Uriel, bowing once more and marching quickly from the chapel.

  MOVING THOUSANDS OF men and machines along with their attendant supplies, munitions and vehicles was potentially a nightmare, but with the well-drilled provosts of Erebus directing the soldiers of the Imperial Guard, there were precious few snarl-ups on the roads leading back to the city.

  A thousand men of the Krieg regiment manned the second line of trenches as the Logres regiment and the Erebus Defence Legion pulled out. Those supplies that could not be brought back within the city walls were torched, bright pyres burning in the late afternoon sun. Supply trucks ferried troops back to barracks within Erebus at an admirable speed, and high in his Capitol Imperialis, Colonel Rabelaq was satisfied that the evacuation of the trenches was proceeding about as well as could be expected.

  But random chance and misfortune have always played a part in any military operation and two things were to happen that would cost the Imperial defenders greatly.

  On the high road to the northern gate, tracks laden with ordnance for the tanks bounced along a road which had become heavily ratted due to the immense volume of traffic passing along it and a supply truck loaded with this volatile payload dropped into a pothole, bouncing out with a teeth rattling jolt. Whether one or more shells had a faulty fuse mechanism or a careless soldier had accidentally removed one of the arming pins would never be known, but as the shells clattered around inside, the track suddenly exploded in a devastating fireball. Secondary blasts ripped apart what little remained of the track as the full complement of ordnance cooked off in the heat and detonated in a string of concussive booms that obliterated the road and everything within a hundred and fifty metres. Those vehicles spared the horror of the blast halted, backed up for half a kilometre and trapped on a narrow road with little room to turn around and head for another gate.

  As the provosts attempted to sort out the logjam of vehicles, a swirling black cloud, fully a kilometre wide, appeared on the horizon far to the east, swooping and screeching low over the peaks of the high valley. Warning sirens blared and the city’s guns opened fire. Fearing they were under attack, many of the Imperial units immediately adopted a defensive posture, slamming down the hatches of their tanks and readying their weapons to fire.

  In many cases, this undoubtedly saved their lives.

  From the ridges of the northern mountain slopes, hundreds of tyranid organisms poured down the treacherous, rocky slopes to fall upon the strung-out Imperial forces.

  Soon, fierce battles were raging before the city walls as a tide of alien killers, having traversed the supposedly impassable mountains, fell upon the unsuspecting Guardsmen.

  Alien and human blood flowed in rivers as the two forces clashed.

  But there was worse to come.

  ‘OH, SWEET EMPEROR, no…’ moaned Colonel Rabelaq as the images on the holo-map suddenly leapt forwards. Fresh enemy icons appeared on the northern mountains and he realised that Captain Ventris had been right to doubt Fabricator Montante’s word regarding their impassability. Fear settled in his belly and the blood drained from his face. The tyranids had fooled them all. The calculus-logi of the Capitol Imperialis had projected the speed of the advancing swarms and assumed that they were moving at optimum speed. Naively, he had fallen to thinking the same thing, but as he watched the icons of the three swarms closing rapidly with Erebus, he realised that he had fatally underestimated the cunning of these aliens.

  He rushed towards the vox-station, and grabbed the carved nalwood handset from the console.

  ‘All Krieg units, be advised that the tyranids will be on you imminently! I repeat, the tyranids will be attacking your position within minutes! Get out of there now!’

  ‘WHAT THE HELL are you talking about?’ snapped Lieutenant Konarski, grabbing the headphones from the vox-operator and jamming them to his ear. His eyes widened as he heard the panicked voice of Colonel Rabelaq screaming for them to evacuate the trenches.

  He tossed back the handset and ran to the trench periscope, pressing his face to the viewing plate. Biting back a curse he swung the scope from left to right and felt a cold band of iron close around his chest as he saw a tide of alien monsters hurtling towards their position.

  ‘Shit,’ said Konarski and unslung his lasgun from his shoulder.

  He ran along the trench, shouting at his men to stand to.

  ‘Sir!’ called his vox-operator. ‘We’re not evacuating?’

  Casting his gaze along the line of the trench and seeing other Krieg officers pushing their men onto the trench’s firing step, he said, ‘No, son, we’re not.’

  ‘But Colonel Rabelaq’s orders…’

  ‘Damn Rabelaq!’ snapped Konarski. ‘We’re the Death Korp of Krieg, son. Did you think that was just a pretty name? We never retreat. We fight and we die, that’s the Krieg way.’

  As TERRIFYING AS the first attacks on the trenches had been, they were but a shadow of this assault. A massive, multi-limbed beast stamped forwards, smashing giant craters in the ice as it charged. Steaming jets of scalding acids sprayed from grotesque organic tubes slung beneath its massive jaws, dissolving snow, ice and flesh in smoking conflagrations.

  Hundreds of spines fired with monstrous muscular contractions hammered the trenches, punching through metres of snow to skewer both men and tanks.

  A boiling tide of creatures swarmed around the legs of the gargantuan beast. Chitin-clad organisms with bony prows and curled forelimbs hurled fleshy pods which burst in lethal sprays of razor-sharp bone and bio acids. Slow moving, each creature excreted another organic missile as it slithered across the ice.

  Similarly bulky creatures, with fused, bony forelimbs that resembled long, organic cannons spat crackling chitin shells that hammered the retreating tanks with sprays of corrosive viruses and acids. Crackling electric energy leapt from the giant claws of thick, serpentine creatures that hurtled across the ice, their
rasping armoured hides throwing up clouds of ice crystals in their wake.

  But leading the charge, faster even than the multitude of ravening organisms that made up the bulk of the tyranid swarm, was a clutch of enormous creatures that smashed their way forwards on gigantic claws that dragged their bloated bodies across the ice with terrifying rapidity. Brood nests pulsed with a grotesque peristaltic motion between the bony plates of their hides and rippling muscle contractions hurled razor-edged spines towards the trenches.

  A dark cloud of gargoyles massed above the attacking aliens, a massive black brood-mother moving amongst them, its monstrous wings flapping ponderously as it descended towards the men of Krieg.

  LIEUTENANT KONARSKI RETCHED as he pushed the dissolving remains of his vox-operator from his legs to fall into a pool of smoking acids that melted its way through the trench’s duck-boards. He tried to stand, but the acrid stink of seared flesh doubled him in up with a fierce coughing fit. Blood and smoke filled the trench as tyranid missiles burst around their shattered defences. Here and there shots were returned, but it was a drop in the ocean compared to the fire they were receiving.

  Finally overcoming his nausea, he shouted, ‘For Krieg!’ and fired over the lip of the trench. A dark shadow blotted out the light from the sun and Konarski looked up in time to see a gigantic monstrosity with wings tens of metres wide swooping low towards the trenches. Scores of smaller beasts clung to its belly and a swirling fire built between its jaws.

  He risked a glance over his shoulder to see why no one was shooting the damn thing down. As he saw the nearest Hydra he realised why.

  Its frontal section was a molten, twisted mass, thick armour plating liquefied by corrosive viruses and acids. Gory slime oozed from the vehicle’s interior, the disintegrating flesh of its crew steaming in the cold air. But Konarski saw the Hydra’s gun section was still intact.

  He dropped his rifle and sprinted towards the quad-barrelled gun. He had to get it firing again. Huge, shrieking creatures with scything arms and horrific organic weapons poured over the trenches, tearing his men apart. Swarms of smaller creatures leapt and killed around them.

  Desperate hand-to-hand combat raged as troopers vainly attempted to stem the alien tide. Giant, fleshy monstrosities disgorged hordes of clawed monsters that he recognised as genestealers. Everywhere, they were being overrun.

  Konarski crouched low and held his gloved hand across his nose and mouth as the stench of melted human flesh assailed him. He scrambled across the stinking remains of the crew, sliding up into the gunner’s compartment.

  ‘Yes!’ he shouted as he saw that the guns were still powered up and fully loaded. Gripping the firing handles, he slewed the four-barrelled turret around to face the giant flapping monster. Konarski punched the firing studs and a four-metre tongue of flame roared from the muzzles to strafe the sky with fiery explosions. The gun rocked with powerful recoil, pumping out hundreds of shells every few seconds. Konarski screamed as he fired, the horror of the last few days washing from his body in a storm of adrenaline.

  Through the vision blocks he saw the flying beast torn apart as the close range blasts ripped through its bony armour plates to detonate within its vital organs. Screeching, it tumbled from the sky, rolling in a flurry of snow and alien blood to crush the broods it carried with its bulk. Explosions of coloured fumes erupted from its belly, noxious clouds of alien toxins blanketing the ground and green tendrils spilling into the trenches.

  Working the gun left and right, he shredded every alien he could see, keeping the firing studs depressed long after the ammunition had run out.

  COLONEL RABELAQ WATCHED through the viewing bay of the Capitol Imperialis and immediately saw that the Krieg rearguard was sure to be annihilated unless they were reinforced. Cries for help and desperate pleas for fire missions clogged the vox-circuits. The scale of the disaster staggered him.

  The elements ambushed on the road to the city were holding, and in many places driving the tyranids back. Given time, Rabelaq guessed they could probably fight their way behind the walls. But time was the one thing they did not have.

  The soldiers of Krieg could not hope to hold the tyranid advance long enough.

  There was only one thing to do.

  He marched to the centre of his command bridge and buttoned his frock coat, pulling the collar straight and brushing a piece of lint from his epaulettes.

  ‘General advance, ready main gun,’ he ordered.

  ‘Sir?’ queried his adjutant.

  ‘You heard me, damn you! General advance, I’ll not leave those brave lads to fight and die on their own. That’s not the Logres way. Now do as I order!’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ nodded the man, hurrying to obey.

  Colonel Octavius Rabelaq came to attention as he felt the rumbling vibrations of the gigantic tracks and the Capitol Imperialis began its ponderous advance.

  THE GROUND SHOOK, the charge of hundreds of alien monsters dislodging snow, ice and timber from the walls of the trenches. Konarski grabbed whatever men he could find through the stinking clouds of alien fumes, hauling them back towards the city wall. They had done as much as they could, and it was time to get his men to safety.

  Huge vibrations rumbled through the ground, and briefly he wondered if they were in the grip of an earthquake. A screeching roar behind him echoed with alien hunger and he turned to raise his lasgun in a final show of defiance.

  Suddenly the earth heaved and a thunderous string of explosions filled the world with noise. Bright light flared

  behind him and the crack of displaced air threatened to deafen him. He felt himself flying through the air as massive tremors split the ground before him. He hit hard and rolled, swallowing snow as stars burst before his eyes.

  Flames leaped before him and he pushed himself dizzily to his knees.

  What the hell had just happened?

  Then the smoke parted and he saw a towering cliff of steel rising before him. Grinding forward on lumbering tracks that crushed the earth, it split the very bedrock with its mass, throwing up tank-sized chunks of ice and rock. The blessed sight of the aquila was emblazoned on the soaring leviathan, just below the gigantic, smoking barrel of the Behemoth cannon mounted on the Capitol Imperialis. Konarski laughed as the mammoth war-machine rumbled past him, his cry of exultation snatched away as its cannon fired again, the concussive force hurling him through the air once more.

  The landing knocked the breath out of his body, but fuelled by adrenalin, he quickly staggered to his feet and lurched off in the direction of the city.

  Colonel Rabelaq had bought them time and he wasn’t about to waste it.

  COLONEL STAGLER KEPT the compress bandage tight against his stomach, dizzy from blood loss, but unwilling to accept medical attention until he knew the fate of his men. Even from his vantage point on a snow-capped gun tower atop the main wall, billowing clouds of smoke and fumes obscured his view of the trenches. He could get nothing from the vox-caster, simply screams and alien howls. His men were probably lost, but they had died in the Krieg manner: fighting hard and dying well.

  The fool Rabelaq had surprised him, pushing his precious mobile command post into the alien mass. He’d bought the men fighting the ambushing aliens enough time to break free of the noose and escape to the transient safety of the city. Entire broods of aliens had circumvented the walls, dropping from the high cliffs and into the depths of the city, but he couldn’t worry about them right now.

  The Capitol Imperialis fired again and more snow tumbled from the highest peaks of the mountains. Hundreds of aliens

  swarmed up the flanks of the mighty vehicle, many more slamming their bulk into its tracks. Electrical discharges erupted around its hull and bright explosions surrounded it. Its close-in defences stripped away whole swathes of attacking aliens, but could not cope with the sheer volume of attackers.

  Stagier snapped his fingers in the direction of his vox-operator.

  ‘Get me Colonel Rabelaq,’ he ordere
d as he saw a sight that would stay with him until his dying day.

  ‘WHY ARE WE slowing, damn you?’ demanded Colonel Rabelaq.

  ‘Sir, the track units are jammed. We can’t move,’ came the reply.

  The commander of the Logres regiment rushed to the surveyor station, where dozens of small pict-slates displayed images from the external viewers. Flickering scenes of carnage filled every one, thousands of tyranid brood creatures swarming around the Capitol Imperialis. Hundreds of short-range bolters fired a continuous stream of explosive shells into the alien horde, but could not stop them all.

  He felt the recoil-dampened vibration of the main gun and even through the thick hull of his command vehicle, he could hear the shrieks of the deadly aliens as they fought to get at the humans inside his armoured behemoth.

  Hundreds, perhaps thousands of aliens had thrown themselves into the mighty tracks of the Capitol Imperialis to prevent it from escaping, and the scale of such unthinking devotion terrified Rabelaq to the soles of his boots. Not even the ruthlessly driven Macharius or the charismatic Slaydo had inspired such obedience from their warriors.

  A horrified intake of breath lifted him from his reverie and he looked up to see the gargantuan beast emerge from the billowing clouds of ice and poisonous clouds, crushing everything before it.

  Multiple mandibles slavered around a cavern-sized sphincter mouth ringed with thousands of thick fangs. Dripping ichor spilled from the orifice in thick ropes of corrosive drool. Chitinous legs, reverse jointed like a spider’s, dragged its bloated body across the ice, hundreds of scuttling organisms crawling across the thick bony plates of its upper armour.

  ‘Great saints,’ whispered Rabelaq. ‘All power to the auto loaders! Fire the main gun, for the Emperor’s sake. Now!’

  ‘Sir! Colonel Stagier on the vox!’

  ‘I don’t have time for that fanatic now,’ he snapped. ‘Fire the main gun!’

  Even through metres of adamantium deck and noise suppressors, he felt the thunderous recoil of the Behemoth cannon. The monster rocked under the impact and a huge cheer filled the command bridge. Huge chunks of excised flesh sailed through the air and parade-ground sized sheets of blood sprayed from a huge crater in the beast’s flank.