The Raven Guard Astartes was harsh, but right. They’d been on the run for hours now, and had to be behind the advance of the fire warriors if not the human infantry and kroot shock troopers. Tam’s regiment had broken at the battle of the communications hub, and the Astartes had been retreating when Tam had climbed down from his sniper’s nest and met up with him.
“Sorry, my lord, it won’t happen again. We’re coming up on the farms. Maybe the farmers will give us shelter, or we can just take it.”
Tam knew he just had to stay close to the Space Marine. If there was one thing beyond the Emperor that he had faith in, it was of the holy vengeance that was the Adeptus Astartes. The Space Marines, living instruments of the Emperor of Humanity, would always see them through. Gesar would get him out alive. There was simply no other being that could stand against the Emperor’s angels of death.
“Farmers can sell out, corporal, or be forced to reveal our location. There were human soldiers with the tau forces this time, do not forget that.”
The Tau Empire was a collective of races, ruled over by the caste-based tau, who sent their own fire caste into battle alongside other races, including mercenary human traitors. This had been Tam’s first engagement with them and their member races. It was actually Tam’s first battle against any xenos, and he counted himself lucky that he had survived to find the Raven Guard already on the move and plotting to escape or strike back at the invading horde.
Gesar hooked a thumb and pointed beyond the dead Guardsman propped up against the tree.
“At least he did his duty at the end of things. A blood trail leads away. The colour and scent is not human.”
Gesar stepped over the corpse and the black bird flew off as he swung the boxy bolter at it. Tam knew it’d be back, but it was a nice gesture anyway. The Guardsman had been dead some time, as the deep furrows in his chest weren’t steaming in the brisk air, and his face had long gone purple in the cold.
“Kroot hound. One of the kroot’s creatures, they set these things on us at the front of the comm station. I saw four of your regiment go down to one of these before I put a bolt through the thing’s head.”
Gesar kicked at the corpse that he’d found. It was lightly dusted with snow, but Tam could see thick grey fur on the creature’s back. Dried blood covered the muzzle and the claws. It was a huge thing, easily bigger than a man, although the Astartes was larger still, and from the blood trail that Tam could make out it had crawled off to die after having a few rounds put through it by the Guardsman.
“We still haven’t come across any bodies from your regiment.” Gesar nodded back at the man’s body. They hadn’t found any of the other survivors who had broken and run when the line had collapsed at the uplink station. This was the first Imperial Guard corpse they had come across.
The Imperial Guardsman’s unit badge was Coruna Imperial Guard, and showed crossed rifles behind a lupine skull. Tam’s own badge showed a winged chainsword denoting the 3rd Tantulas Regiment.
“My lord, we’ve seen lots of skirmish sites, and everything from dead tau to dead kroot to dead traitors. Where the hell are our men?”
Gesar shook his head at the question and ran a hand through closely cropped white hair. The Astartes had the same albino skin and dark pebbles for eyes that all of the Raven Guard Tam had seen in paintings or on the pict-viewer possessed. At each battle site Gesar had done the same thing: surveyed the area, cursed under his breath and then exploded into motion again.
It was a struggle to keep up with the Astartes. Tam had even considered dropping his sniper rifle after the first hour of running, but he’d held on to it. It was a thing of beauty. Prayers to the Golden Throne and dirty poems inscribed in the stock, a telescopic sight he prayed over every night that he’d been chosen to carry in his role as a sniper, with a lovely bayonet for close-quarters work that his father had forged himself back on Tantulas.
“We need to move. If we make the farms we might find answers. The tau do not exterminate but turn those they can. If not willingly then they may use other methods to turn the population. We will either protect this world or cleanse it of traitors and xenos even if we must do it one at a time.”
Tam knew better than to question the Space Marine. The Astartes was not only his best bet of surviving this world, but he would also kill Tam himself if he thought the Guardsman faltered in his duty.
What little Tam did know about this Raven Guard and his Chapter had been the company gossip that had filtered down through the ranks after the Astartes had appeared at their camp. Gesar had been cut off from his battle-brothers and diverted to help hold the uplink station. Then it had been a bloody morning battle between tau energy weapons and the rush of human infantry, and the time for questions and rumours had given way to pulse blasts and bolter rounds shattering the crisp air.
The humans serving with the tau had worn blue and gold, not very different from the colours the tau fire warriors had their armour kitted out in. Ges’vesa was what Tam had heard them called over the vox-casts the tau’s turncoat humans had made before landing. “Human Helpers” in the Tau language, and traitors who would find only death at the hands of those loyal to humanity and the Emperor’s Divine Grace.
The pulse rifles the fire warriors carried had better range than most of the Guardsman weapons. They had held off taking shots at the comm station from the depth of the forest. The Ges’vesa had come in first. Two waves that broke against the combined defence of the Imperial Guard and Gesar holding the line. Tam had heard Gesar’s voice, vox-casting at full strength, right up until the kroot shock troopers hit.
Taller even than Gesar, kitted out in animal pelts and hefting rifles they swung like clubs, the bipedal kroot were nasty close-quarter fighters. Tam had taken a few out, and not one had looked the same through his scope. The most he could say was that they were tall, lanky and fast.
The hounds had rushed in first. The howling that they raised sounded like wolves, and the things had crossed the clearing before Tam could sight in on any of them. Deadly-quick with long muzzles and nasty teeth, they were in among the squads before anyone could clear pistols or fix bayonets.
Tam knew Gesar had lost his helmet sometime around then. One moment Gesar had been at the head of the line, the next Tam had heard a chainsword rev and a cry to Corax, primarch of the Raven Guard, carry over the fighting.
Gesar had taken the time to clean the hound’s blood off his chainsword after the fight, but his white and black armour was still spotted with blood and scarred by claw marks.
The kroot themselves, bipedal and vicious, had come next. A hail of high-calibre rifle rounds broke the ranks, and the hounds that were among them spread them out even further, and then the kroot hit the line.
The things had muscles like whipcord, and they twirled their rifles like clubs, smashing aside any Guardsman in their way Tam hadn’t been able to get clear shots once they got in close. He’d earned a few kills, but often after a Guardsman had gone down from a rifle butt cracking open his helmet or a curved knife punching through a flak jacket.
Most of the kroot had looked somewhat avian. They had sharp, elongated features to their skulls, and while Tam had heard stories of xenos and what they looked like, the kroot unnerved him. A quick glace could confuse one for human. Right up until you saw the faces. Some of them were avian, some almost ape-like, and no two looked the same.
Tam had sworn most of them had black pools for eyes, but he knew he’d seen one look right towards his perch with the slit-eyes of a cat. Green flecks set against tan skin and black pupils.
He’d had to dive off the rock mound he’d been using as a position when the thing sent a volley of rifle fire his way. In this way he’d started his own, private retreat, from the battle of the comm station.
It wasn’t a thing he was proud of, but he could hear the lines below him falling apart. A commissar had been screaming for discipline and shouting that he’d shoot any man or woman who ran right up until his voice had
cut off with a scream and a hound’s howl.
The only thing Tam focussed on was the distinctive sound of Gesar’s bolter. It was unmistakable amongst the other sounds of the fight. He’d made his way down the ridge and past a few others running for cover. The kroot were circling the uplink building and the whole of the defence was breaking up and falling back.
He’d seen a kroot sweep a Guardsman’s legs out from under him and almost ran on. The man’s scream brought him back, and Tam drew his pistol and dropped into a firing stance he’d had drilled into him a hundred times during training. The double-tap dropped the first kroot, but two more were too close and he swore he felt the bullets pass by him in the chill air.
Bolter rounds had taken both of them from behind, and like that he and Gesar were in tactical retreat. There hadn’t been much tactical to it in Tam’s mind, but he wasn’t going to argue with an armoured-up and pissed-off Space Marine. The ranks had broken too badly to rally anyone, and before Tam knew it there were just the two of them crashing through the trees down the mountain’s slope.
They had held up as long as they could in a culvert at the base of the mountain. Rifle cracks and the hiss of energy weapons vaporising air carried on the wind, but they only found the scenes of fighting, and the only bodies were in tau colours.
Gesar was getting edgier as they moved through the forest. It didn’t help that night was coming on, and the forest was starting to thin. They’d be out of cover and into the first of the farmlands that covered Coruna. With the frost on, there wasn’t a lot of crop cover, and that meant a hike across open terrain with an enemy that had much better auspex devices than a helmetless Space Marine and an Imperial Guard sniper.
“My scope is kitted out for NV, if it comes to that.”
Gesar nodded and was moving with long strides again. Tam could tell the man was thinking hard on the scenes they’d found, and the distinct lack of Imperial bodies.
“My lord, excuse the question, but you don’t think our people made it out, do you? You think they’re prisoners or surrendered, is that it?” Tam was having nine hells’ worth of trouble keeping up with the Space Marine, and he had no idea how the man, with that much armour on, could move so fast or quiet. It wasn’t a natural thing, any more than the Astartes not stopping once for food or water. Tam had caught a drink from his canteen and a ration bar eaten between stops at battle sites. Gesar seemed to keep moving on pure spite.
“Blood all over the place. Human blood, even where there’s not bodies, and too much for a normal man to walk away from. Your regiment is good, for Imperial Guard, but no one is that good. No blood trails from wounded either.”
It was the truth of the matter. Tam had thought that maybe the Imperials had carried their wounded off with them after the first couple of skirmish sites they found. There was just no way they could or would have been able to carry every wounded man off the field while under retreat from an enemy that was fielding things like the kroot hounds though.
“Your regiment was broken up on the opposite ridge and at the uplink station. The Coruna Regiment was supposed to be down in the farm land. If we got cut off we should have run into more tau by now. I need to find out where they went.”
Gesar was slowing down as they broke into more open ground. There was less and less cover with every step. They’d be hitting the edge of the forest in moments, and the sun was only just starting to go down.
“Hold up here.” Gesar stopped almost faster than Tam could register. One moment the man was in motion, a mass of armour plates and determination, and the next he was still as death and twice as ugly.
“We can’t cross open fields during dusk. We’ll wait an hour or two and you can employ the night scope to see if we’re clear.”
“My lord, despite the strength of spirit that blesses this rifle, I’m afraid it’s not as powerful as the auspex devices of your lost helmet or of the tau forces. If they have thermal viewers or anything fancy they’ll pick us out immediately.”
Slate-black eyes caught him and Tam thought the Space Marine was death itself. The only colour on the man was the cut along his jaw that broke open in a thin red line, much smaller now than the open wound had been, against the white alabaster of his skin as he ground his teeth in frustration.
“You will follow your orders, Guardsman, and you will not make me repeat myself.”
Tam nodded quickly. The last thing he needed was an enraged Astartes on his hands. It was a rare thing to find one so willing to talk to a lesser soldier such as Tam, but for the Astartes to let Tam keep pace, to let him talk to the Space Marine as he had… Tam intended on staying either behind or beside the Astartes until they hooked up with wherever his regiment was or until they could find a way off this planet. He would also do his best to stay on the good side of the man’s humour.
“Yes, lord. Do you think there are still Imperial forces in this sector?”
“Our only way to find out is to find a farm and see if they have any communication with the larger world. This is a farm planet: there isn’t much but animal shit and crops most of the year. The cold season only lasts a few weeks standard. Most of the farmers will be sitting it out and waiting for the next planting cycle. The tau absorb their enemies into their empire, they will not simply kill but will find those who are willing to turn traitor and anyone who doesn’t join willingly will be made to join their cause, their crusade for their Greater Good.”
“They were broadcasting that before they landed. Is it a religion?”
Gesar had set himself down on a log and was checking his spare bolter clip, lips moving in silent litany, and making sure the action on the weapon was still smooth. His jaw muscles rolled in the way that Tam had come to recognise as the man grinding his teeth in suppressed anger.
“It seems to be their belief system. The blue-skinned xenos always vox-cast. They swear that they mean no harm, and they preach a kind of tolerance. They poison minds with xenos lies and try to turn those who are weak in their faith to the alien cause. Sometimes cowards and traitors do throw their lot in, and then my brothers and I simply have more targets to shoot.”
Gesar had a rag out and was wiping the bolter down. The man moved in a prayer for a steady hand and he absently clicked the magazine in and out a few times and cleared a round through the chamber.
Tam had to admit that he didn’t quite have Gesar’s fire for the Imperium, but then any selected for the Adeptus Astartes gave themselves to the Emperor gladly. Body, soul and everything in between was transfigured to create humanity’s angels of death. The look Gesar gave him seemed to see right through Tam’s every thought.
“The Raven Guard hollows you out; they hollow you out and fill you with the Emperor’s Will. They gave me certainty. These things speak our tongue, they field humans from dozens of worlds, and they hire xenos mercenaries to do their fighting.”
Tam started as the Space Marine snapped a round into the chamber and holstered his bolter. In the thin light the Space Marine bled into the background and was just another shadow among the trees.
“Stars are almost out, lord. Once the sun finishes going down I’ll be able to move up to the border and take a look.”
Tam might as well have been talking to a granite statue. The Space Marine was a study in patience and potential violence. He was looking past Tam, and whatever he saw in the dark places was not the sort of thing Tam wanted to be meeting.
“You have shown yourself to be a loyal servant of the Emperor. Gather your strength and honour about you. Do not allow the xenos to take you. If it should come to that, it is better we both die than to let ourselves fall into their hands.”
Tam would put up a fight if it came to it, but the tau had said anyone who laid down arms would be welcomed as soldiers in a greater fight.
“I can see you thinking. Even with hardly any light, I can see almost as good as that scope. Had I my helm I could see better than that scope. I know what’s in your head, and you do not want to throw down arms.”
“I’m not a coward, lord.”
Gesar’s teeth stood out in the low light. A waxy moon was rising over the mountains, and the yellow light only added to the death’s head ghost image of the pale Astartes.
“I’m not talking about courage; you have steel in your back, but you don’t know what these xenos do. The tau spread their lies, but I’ve heard what they pay the kroot off with. The humans among them are traitors, and the tau are vile as any alien, but the kroot are another thing.”
“With respect, they die like anything else. I don’t care if it’s their dogs they want to send after us or if they come their own ugly selves. I’ll shoot anything without Imperial colours on.”
“You still haven’t caught on, have you? It is not from fear that I spoke of self-destruction. There is no greater sin that I could think of, except for allowing yourself to fall to these creatures. You have no conception of what alien means. There is a reason we do not suffer them to live. They are not even remotely like us, they do not think like us, and for all the traitors that march with them they care not for anything human.”
Gesar kept his voice down as much as he could, but Tam had no trouble hearing the menace in his words. Gesar shook his head and sighed. The cold was creeping in even worse, and Tam wondered if the Space Marine’s armour was heated, or how well it protected him from the elements.
The Space Marines probably pumped coolant into Gesar’s veins when he joined up. Tam had heard plenty of stories of what went into the making of an Adeptus Astartes. They were the Emperor’s Will made manifest, and whatever the Apothecaries of their Chapters did to their bodies to make them into the protectors of mankind, it raised them to something greater than normal humanity.
The Space Marines held Chaos back from the Imperium. They faced down xenos and mutants and any traitor or madman who was stupid enough to defy the High Lords and the Emperor’s Will. Tam allowed that the Astartes probably didn’t think much of ground-pounding Imperial Guard snipers, but this Raven Guard didn’t really have a choice of companions on this armpit of a planet.
Fear the Alien Page 23
