KNIGHTS OF MACRAGGE

by Nick Kyme

  ‘You’re not from Farrodum,’ he said accusingly, and the others started to move towards her, splitting into pairs and coming in from the left and right.

  ‘She’s an outsider,’ said one of the spearmen, an elderly man with a white wispy beard and a tremor in his left hand that made the tip of the spear shake like a quill nib scratching out a frenzied letter.

  ‘What’s the punishment for breaking curfew in this town?’ said Reda, taking a step back, but the spearmen didn’t answer her and kept advancing. ‘A few lashes?’

  Kind of looks like it might be death, thought Reda, and realised she would have to fight them.

  ‘Please,’ she began, holding up her left hand as her right went to the maul at her belt, ‘I got lost. I know I shouldn’t be out here, but I am looking for someone.’

  ‘Two of them…’ she heard one of the other spearmen mutter to the leader. He was little older than a boy with bad scars across both cheeks.

  Reda’s fingers slowly wrapped around the well-worn leather grip.

  ‘I have no quarrel with any of you,’ she said, trying diplomacy one final time.

  ‘You shouldn’t be out here,’ was all the leader would say, and she realised then just how desperately scared they all were and that they were running away from the distant sounds of the warning horn.

  Deserters, then… Now she knew they would try to kill her.

  She shucked the maul loose, glad to feel the heft of the weapon in her hand, and was about to engage when something rushed across her field of vision. It took the leader with it, lantern and all, into an adjacent alleyway out of sight, and the street was suddenly plunged into darkness.

  A grunting sound followed, deep and porcine. Then tearing, as of rotted leather, then a horrible cracking and splintering, and finally a guttural slurping and chewing as the beast gorged itself.

  Something wet had flecked her face. Reda’s fingers glistened darkly as she brought them up to her eyes.

  ‘Throne of Terra…’

  She was already backing away as a second presence swept after the first. It grabbed one of the spearmen, the scarred boy, and he screamed in a high-pitched voice before he was silenced. The others ran. One dropped his spear. Something large and squat was scurrying over a rooftop; Reda saw its silhouette edged in the diffuse light of distant braziers before it slipped below the roof edge and was gone. She turned and fled, leaving the spearmen to their fate, her lungs and heart pumping despite her fatigue, and found another path up a different street. Skirmishes were breaking out everywhere, small knots of spear or pikemen bellowing and screaming as they fought against something that moved almost too quick to see. Whatever effort had been made to stymie the attack on the city had failed. The beasts were running amok. Reda caught the vaguest impression of dark green skin, so dark as to almost be black, and a muscular body loping on all fours. There was something simian about it, but she doubted these creatures were remotely descended from Terra’s long extinct species of ape.

  She wanted to cry out for Vanko, to find him and make sure he was safe, but she knew she would draw the creatures to her.

  They came anyway.

  Reda heard it, breathy and grunting as it lunged at her. It was so dark, she could barely make out its hulking shape and a pair of small red eyes regarding her with bestial hunger. She lashed out, maul still in her hand, and made a solid contact.

  It recoiled, squealing as it shrank back. Fortune smiled on her as a troop of spears and crossbowmen came out of a side street and engaged it. Reda did not wait for them to realise she was a foreign element too, and hurried on. She tried to move away from the fighting, ranging the city outskirts but gradually edging into its heart.

  She found the apothecary. Vanko had found it too, and was standing in a doorway, silently beckoning her. A faded caduceus, or some version of one, had been painted on a hanging sign above it.

  Reda was livid. ‘Emperor’s mercy, Vanko, what happened to you? What the hell are you doing?’

  He put his finger to his lips. ‘It’s here,’ he whispered, and gestured to the door.

  She paused at the threshold. ‘Vanko, are you alright…’ she began, but the words sounded ridiculous in her head, and she dared not voice them aloud. ‘Vanko, I’m worried,’ she settled for instead.

  Inhuman howling from farther up the street interrupted any potential reply and pushed Reda into moving. They couldn’t stay out here.

  ‘Come on,’ said Reda. She opened the door and plunged into the darkness beyond.

  Cwen looked out of her small window, trying to catch a sense of what was happening outside. Her fingers clenched against the stone sill, knuckles turning white on account of how hard she was holding on.

  She glanced back at the stranger, Pillium, but he was either asleep or unconscious. Perhaps he truly could heal himself, and this was part of that process. She longed to study him, his physik, but presently her mind was occupied with staying alive. She knew what the bestial howls meant and what the hunched figures loping through the darkness were.

  Something heavy landed on the roof, sending a raft of dust motes cascading downwards. Cwen threw the shutter closed on the window, though she doubted it was large enough for one of the beasts to get through. She then grasped the biggest knife she had and hurried towards the door. She stopped short when confronted with the woman on the other side.

  ‘Who are you?’ she demanded, brandishing her knife.

  ‘I mean you no harm,’ the woman replied. She was a warrior, Cwen could tell by the way she carried herself. A long scar down one side of her face and the strange mace in her hand confirmed this assumption. An older woman, but with perfect teeth. She had dark hair cut short above broad shoulders. Judging by her cloak and attire, she was also one of the strangers who had come to Farrodum with her patient.

  ‘Please…’ the woman went on, slowly putting away her mace, ‘we are with him.’ She gestured to Pillium. A second figure stepped out from the half-darkness beyond the door. He was younger, unshaven, and had a strange tattoo under one eye. They had come up the steps that led from the infirmary’s outer door on the street.

  Cwen lowered her knife, but only a little.

  ‘I am Reda,’ said the woman, eyeing the blade as she gestured to her friend, ‘and this is Gerrant. You have no reason to be afraid of us.’

  ‘It’s not you,’ said Cwen as whatever had landed on her roof began to claw at it furiously. From below, there was a loud bang and then sharp grunting began to echo up the stairs. She turned wide-eyed to Reda. ‘You didn’t seal the gate?’

  ‘It was already open.’

  Cwen cursed the craven guard.

  First he pisses on my floor and then he leaves the damn door open.

  ‘We have to barricade this one,’ she said, slamming the door shut and ramming a chair against it. Reda helped her drag a large chest over next. ‘Here,’ said Cwen, passing Reda an iron stake as something large and heavy barrelled up the stairs. ‘Hammer them in,’ she said, smacking one into the door frame to act as a jam. Reda nodded, doing the same as a massive weight smashed into the door, rocking it on its hinges.

  Cwen fell back on her behind, grimacing with the impact, as Reda’s stake came loose, clanging loudly on the floor.

  ‘Damn it,’ breathed Cwen, scrambling back to her feet. ‘Hammer harder,’ she snapped.

  Reda obeyed, and made a better job of it this time. The beast came again, and a split ran down the wood, right in the middle of the door.

  ‘What are these things?’

  ‘Bone-swine. Killers.’ Cwen’s face darkened. ‘They killed my husband.’ Then she noticed the one called Gerrant. He had barely moved, beyond stepping into the room, and stood staring. ‘Is he…?’

  Then he drew an object from beneath his cloak. It was spherical with small ridges on the outside like a shelled fruit.

  ‘I have to…’ he said, his face contorted with sorrow. ‘The eye demands…’

  Cwen knew something was wrong befor
e she felt Reda’s firm grip on her arm taking her away from Gerrant and behind one side of the barricade.

  ‘Down!’ Reda cried, before everything was burning daylight and deafening thunder.

  A BREACH ACROSS THE THRESHOLD

  Daceus heard the explosion and turned to Sicarius.

  ‘That was a grenade,’ he said. ‘I say we move.’

  They had congregated around the gate with blades drawn, listening to the battle unfolding outside the feast hall, but had yet to engage.

  Sicarius wanted to wait, to adhere to the wishes of the one who ruled here. They could not risk fear becoming hostility in the natives.

  ‘Suzerain,’ said Daceus when Sicarius gave no answer, his jaw tight as he fought every instinct not to act.

  ‘We cannot,’ he said. ‘Our first deed in this city cannot be to defy its ruler.’ He looked to Vedaeh, who lingered at the edge of the semicircle of Adeptus Astartes, an outsider to their brotherhood in every sense.

  ‘Their ruler cowers in his citadel,’ said Daceus. ‘He has no thought for these people.’

  Sicarius’ face grew stern. ‘I saw him too. But we are foreigners here, not guests. Not yet. Our presence in the streets could lead to bloodshed.’

  ‘It already has. Cato,’ Daceus urged, his voice suddenly hoarse with emotion, ‘they are dying.’ He threw a one-eyed glare Vedaeh’s way but she did not react, though the grief she felt for the suffering outside was etched on her face.

  ‘We must not, Retius,’ said Sicarius, firmly. ‘Not until they cross this threshold, unless we are attacked and must defend ourselves…’ He paused, frozen in anger and frustration when a different expression crept over his face. An idea. ‘So, let’s encourage them.’ He nodded to Vandius who sheared the door in half across the diagonal in one blow.

  The two sides parted and crashed noisily to the ground.

  The city street outside was gloomy and echoed with the sound of distant battles.

  Sicarius rapped the hilt of the Tempest Blade against his chestplate. Then the others did the same, the Ultramarines ringing out a challenge to the monsters in the darkness. It wasn’t long before that challenge was met. A hunched thing, all dark skin and bunched muscle, came loping out of the night on all fours. It sniffed at the air, still covered in shadow but turning its head towards the light emanating from the feast hall, a moth lured to a lantern flame.

  Three more joined it, snorting and grunting in porcine attempts at language. Then another four. And another four. Sicarius’ enhanced olfaction detected the blood around their brutish mouths. He heard long claws scrape against the ground.

  ‘Close enough,’ he said, and the Ultramarines rushed them.

  Sicarius impaled the first beast as it reared up on its hindquarters to batter at him. The Tempest Blade was no ordinary sword. It had kept its edge and resisted the warp siphoning that had so enervated other power weapons. It slid through the beast’s thick hide with ease then tore upwards, sweeping through bone and muscle and out through the beast’s shoulder. Its two halves pulled apart as if hauled by an invisible thread in competing directions, spilling hot innards onto the street. He beheaded a second, a swift cut across the throat that severed the neck entire. A gout of dark blood plumed upwards as the arteries vented.

  Daceus killed another, ramming his gladius into its eye all the way to the hilt and bearing the beast down as it collapsed.

  Two precise cuts, one sagittal, the other axial, and Vandius claimed two more. His sharp thrust claimed a third.

  Fennion and Vorolanus slew another two for no reply.

  The Ultramarines were swift, methodical. Devastating. In less than thirty seconds they had killed or maimed every one of the beasts. The dead lay steaming, the injured mewling in agony until Vandius silenced them with a stab to the head.

  Sicarius burned off the blood from his blade with a burst of its disruptor field and brought it up-close to one of the dead. The flickering false lightning coursing over the sword lit the beast’s features and he saw it for what it truly was for the first time. They all did.

  ‘This must be the bone-swine,’ he said, his expression souring as he recognised an old enemy.

  ‘Orks…’ scowled Daceus and spat on one of the corpses.

  ‘Ever do the greenskins harry our steps,’ muttered Vorolanus.

  Vandius was cleaning his sword on one of the bodies when he asked, ‘What now?’

  Sicarius flourished the Tempest Blade, loosening his arm after so long without using it and now wearing dense, unpowered ceramite. It felt good to kill the orks again.

  He turned to Vorolanus, clapping his hand upon the warrior’s shoulder guard. ‘Scipio. Find the mortals. Find Pillium. I should never have sent them off alone.’

  Vorolanus nodded and hurried off ahead of the rest.

  ‘Am I to remain here then, as you wage war, Cato?’ asked Vedaeh.

  ‘I doubt you would stay even if I asked you to. You stay by my side at all times. I cannot vouch for your safety otherwise.’

  ‘And us?’ asked Vandius.

  Sicarius gestured to the shadows where the sounds of skirmishing warriors was loudest.

  ‘We hunt.’

  Dazed, Reda tried to blink back the flare of the explosion but all she got was blurred vision. She called out, first to Vanko and then to the healer or whatever she was. Her voice slurred, or it could have just been her hearing. A slowly fading tinnitus was impairing every sound.

  Something was dead. She could smell the blood as she struggled onto her hands and knees, searching the rubble and the detritus of the door for her maul. A splinter dug into her flesh like a needle and she cursed loudly.

  ‘Here…’ a voice came through the fog. A firm hand took her arm and helped her up. ‘It’s dead,’ said the voice, and Reda realised it was the medicus. Her vision crept back into focus. The woman was young, her red hair tossed all about as if frozen in the midst of a gale. Black streaks marked her pale skin and there were spots of blood on it.

  ‘Are you injured?’ asked Reda, still groggy and not quite able to stand unaided. The medicus shook her head. Reda searched the room for Vanko and found his boots jutting out from beneath some rubble. ‘Holy Throne,’ she gasped, edging the other woman aside. ‘Please,’ she said, hefting a piece of wreckage where part of the roof had come down on Vanko, ‘help me.’

  Together, they heaved a wooden beam off Vanko, throwing aside smaller pieces of wood and stone from the shattered door where an ork lay on its back, its chest torn open and ruddy bone jutting up through the gap like little arches of ivory.

  It was definitely dead, but Reda’s gaze lingered on the beast for a few seconds to make sure before she returned her attention to Vanko. Mercifully, he was alive, but in a bad way.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ said the medicus. ‘They’re attracted to loud noises.’

  ‘Is there another way out?’ Reda asked.

  The medicus shook her head again.

  Reda glanced at Pillium, lying on the bench, reasoning that if she could somehow draw the greenskins away, then he might be overlooked. When she heard the grunting from down the stairs, she realised that wasn’t going to work.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘They’ve already found us.’ She dragged Vanko to the back of the room and stepped between him and the door frame that led to the stairs.

  ‘I’m sorry…’ said Reda.

  ‘I am Cwen,’ said the medicus.

  Reda nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Cwen. I regret our acquaintance will only be brief.’ And she whispered, ‘I’m sorry, Vanko… for everything.’

  The beast bellowed as it came through the shattered arch and into the light.

  Reda roared back, ‘We are Macragge!’ and swept out with the maul as Cwen threw herself at the beast with her knife.

  Their defiance, though brave, was short-lived. The greenskin, a hulking brute of a thing, laughed as Cwen’s knife sank into its hide, backhanding her across the room and into a heap from which she did no
t rise. It easily caught the haft of the maul, Reda’s blow imprecise and lacking in real strength. She found she could barely stand as the beast shoved her back and she went sprawling. Pain flared in her hip as she collided with a heavy bench. On her knees, doubled over, she spat up a wad of blood and looked to the medicus.

  ‘Cwen…’ she cried. The beast was taking its time as it sloped around the room. It reminded Reda of a dull-witted ape, its feral brain even less advanced than that of a common ork, as it picked up spilled jars and vials, lapping at spilled powders and serums but finding none to its liking. Just as Reda dared to believe that if the beast was distracted enough they might somehow slip away unnoticed, it turned on her and bared its teeth in an angry snarl. There was blood on its jutting mouth, small shreds of cloth and pale meat still snagged on its tusks. It wanted more.

  Cwen stirred, groaning, glass crunching underneath her body as she tried to get up. The ork turned, flinging thick, ropey saliva. Hurling aside the meagre wreckage in its way, its tiny porcine eyes glinted as they fell upon Cwen, and Reda thought she would be sick. She could barely move, teeth gritted against the pain in her hip. She could scarcely shout. She reached for Vanko’s hand, her fingers outstretched and touching his as the beast bore down on Cwen and after that surely Reda next.

  The ork took a fistful of Cwen’s hair and hauled her to her feet. She screamed, first in pain then disorientation. Finally, she screamed out of fear, forced to consciousness only to witness her own painful death as the ork ate her alive.

  Except it didn’t happen.

  Instead, the beast jerked, turning sharply, a spar of ragged metal jutting from its chest. Pillium was on his feet, pale and breathing hard, but about as vengeful an apparition as Reda could have wished for.

  He charged at the ork, smashing the bench aside with a roar as it dropped Cwen and rushed to meet him. As the beast flailed for his face and neck, Pillium ducked underneath and wrapped his massive arms around the ork’s torso, lifting it up off its feet and smashing it against the wall. It squealed, a thick string of bloody snot spraying from its nose. Pillium batted back the ork’s desperate swipe and, still pinning it against the wall, started pummelling with his fists. A tusk broke off, an eye swelled shut. Pillium hit the beast so hard that its nose caved and he punched his fist all the way through to the grimy matter underneath. When he wrenched his hand loose, it was slathered in blood and pieces of sticky bone. He leaned back, nearly staggering, and the ork slid down the wall, as limp as a scarecrow robbed of straw.