by Ben Counter
A daemon whipped through the flames towards Lysander, fast and straight as an arrow. Lysander crunched the Fist of Dorn into its ribs, its own momentum driving the head of the hammer into its body. Lysander slammed his storm shield into the daemon and drove it into the floor with enough force to flatten its body.
‘Forward!’ yelled Lysander. ‘Forward!’
‘Pierce the heart!’ echoed Ucalegon, who was already kicking free of a daemon’s coils and pushing on through the walls of flame. The black sword reflected the fires so it glowed orange in his hands, like a shard of the sun.
Lysander and the Imperial Fists followed him deeper into the inferno. The Space Marines who fought with him were veterans of the First Company, the company of which Lysander was the captain. He had picked them from those who excelled in boarding actions or siegebreaking assaults, in the short-range combats sure to be plentiful in the opening gambits of the war for Opis. Brother Beros decapitated one of the slithering daemons with a slash of his lightning claw, shattering what was left with a rattle of fire from his bolt pistol. Sergeant Kirav was dragged down into the fires, and was pulled free by Apollonios and Stentor.
Between the columns of flame rose a chamber of black stone, its sides rising to a point overhead. Surrounded by heaps of gilded statues and grave goods had once reared a seated statue of a past king of Opis, carved from ivory and jade. Its upper half had been shattered and dozens of corpses heaped up on it, creating a throne of butchered meat. Upon that throne sat a creature with the head of a fly, segmented eyes rolling in a head covered in bristly black hair.
‘Only the strongest disease can suffer the flame and not be cleansed,’ it said. Its voice was a cloying, seductive sound, as different to its foul appearance as could be. Its hands, folded across its bulging, writhing belly, reached beside the throne and picked up one of the grave goods buried alongside the king – a jewelled scimitar with a blade of rose gold. ‘But you do not belong here.’
The flame daemons slithered among the heaps of treasure and sarcophagi. Lysander dropped to one knee and raised his shield as one of the daemons hammered into it, the impact almost throwing him onto his back. He ripped the hammer down through its head and crushed it flat onto the stone floor. Another coiled up over him, pinning his hammer-arm with the coils of its body. Lysander jammed the upper edge of his shield up under the daemon’s drooling jaw, holding it off as its teeth snapped wetly shut in front of his face.
Lysander could see Ucalegon vaulting a sarcophagus, sword in hand. In response, the fly-thing rose from its throne, and its abdomen unfolded from beneath it, a rubbery black mass that made up its lower body held up on six segmented legs. Fat white worms shuddered from the folds of its body. The emerald robes it wore could not cover up the abomination. Spindly wings fluttered from its back. Nests of black tendrils burst from the floor as the sticky pads of its feet touched the stone.
The challenge was unspoken. Ucalegon and the fly-thing were both champions: Ucalegon of the Emperor, the fly-thing of its dark god. Face death in single combat, each said without words, or die a coward.
A blue-white burst of energy flashed in front of Lysander’s eyes and the weight of the daemon was off him. Sergeant Kirav had punched the daemon off Lysander with his power fist, the power field discharging and throwing the daemon against the wall of the pyramidal chamber.
‘Close in!’ ordered Lysander. ‘Back to back, my brethren! Hold them off! Ucalegon, take the head!’
The Imperial Fists drove through the wreckage of the burial chamber and formed up like a firing squad. Bolters chattered and a plasma gun hissed. The daemons did not have to die now, not every one of them. They just had to be kept at a distance while the real fight was decided.
Ucalegon had reached the champion of Chaos. The fly-thing moved far too quickly for its corpulent bulk and the scimitar met Ucalegon’s blade in a shower of sparks. Snake-daemons converged on the two but the Imperial Fists shot them down or intercepted them with blade and fist.
The fly-thing gibbered a stream of madness, syllables ripped from the warp, and the floor liquefied underfoot. Ucalegon dragged his feet from the sucking bog, and jumped up onto a sarcophagus to keep him clear of the quagmire. Fat white eggs burst to the surface and split, and buzzing insects the size of a fist uncoiled in their thousands. The air turned dark with them and Lysander could barely make out Ucalegon through the haze of bodies and wings.
‘Apollonios!’ shouted Lysander. ‘Bring the flame!’
Brother Apollonios slung his bolter and took from his back the flamer, which had been useless in the cathedral of fire he had just fought through. Now, though, the spray of fire cut through the mass of flies billowing over the Imperial Fists. Hundreds of burning bodies fell.
The lids of the sarcophagi shattered and the foul things inside reared up, their flesh liquefying and yet still clinging to their bones. Rubbery black tentacles unfolded from their innards. Lysander smashed one aside with the Fist of Dorn and another fell, shredded with bolter fire. Tendrils snagged the Imperial Fists as they tried to fight on.
And still, Ucalegon and the champion of Chaos fought. Ucalegon had been selected as the Emperor’s Champion because of his skill with the sword, but he was young for his role – when the previous Champion had fallen three months before, Ucalegon had surprised many by duelling for the honour with the Chapter’s finest warriors. But as the fly-headed thing slashed at the Imperial Fist with the scimitar, and Ucalegon parried every blow into a rapid thrust or slash of his own, Lysander realised the Chapter had made the right choice.
The walls of the pyramidal chamber were melting away now, the black stone suddenly transformed into corpse liquor that ran down to reveal heaving structures of bone and rancid muscle. Lysander forged his way through the gore and filth gathering around his feet to rip the head off one of the ancient corpses with a swipe of his shield. It fought on, yanking the shield from his hands with a bundle of animated entrails, so he plunged his fist into its chest and tore out the nest of mummified organs inside.
Time. They needed time. Just a few moments. Ucalegon would win or die, but either way, he needed just a few moments more.
The champion of Chaos shattered its scimitar against Ucalegon’s shoulder guard. In response it heaved its bulk into the air to slam down on top of Ucalegon, its many legs wriggling as if eager to burrow through armour and tear at the meat inside. It crashed down on top of the Emperor’s Champion, and Ucalegon disappeared from Lysander’s sight as he fell.
Lysander tried to extricate himself from the mass of muscle and filth that was bubbling up from the sarcophagus underneath him. Mouths were opening in the structure above now, yawing down as they forced the chamber out of shape in their hunger. Lysander fought to get closer to Ucalegon, but the fat flies descended thicker and all but blinded him. Spears of bone slammed down from overhead, like the bars of a cage cutting Lysander off from where Ucalegon might be lying dead, or might be fighting on. He shattered them with a swipe of his hammer but more fell, like a rain of bony spikes.
‘Ucalegon!’ yelled Lysander. ‘My brother! Feel the strength of Dorn! Shine in the light of the Emperor!’
Sergeant Kirav was beside Lysander, ripping a bundle of tentacles away from him.
‘Apollonios is down,’ he shouted over the din of gunfire and buzzing wings. ‘We hold!’
From up ahead reared a dark form, visible through a break in the cloud of flies. It was the champion of Chaos, hands held high as if delivering a sermon.
Beneath it was Ucalegon, sword held close to his chest, the point of the blade jutting upwards and impaling the champion through the abdomen.
Ucalegon twisted the blade, and the wound opened. Entrails, black and filthy, spilled out, the slithering brine of its blood flooding over Ucalegon. Ucalegon drew the blade down the champion’s abdomen, ripping it open. Pulsing hearts and stomachs tumbled out.
Almost split in two by the sword, the champion of Chaos flopped backwards, draping wetly over th
e pile of corpses on its throne. Ucalegon pulled the blade free and swung a final overhead blow into the champion’s head, bisecting it between two of its segmented eyes.
The walls were screaming. The daemons were writhing, tying their long wriggling bodies in knots. The grip on Lysander slackened and he was free.
Lysander ran up to Ucalegon. Ucalegon’s armour was slick with slime that hissed as its acid ate through the black paint, showing patches of gold beneath. The smell was awful. Even the filters of Lysander’s armour couldn’t mask it.
‘We are done here, Champion of Dorn,’ said Lysander.
‘This must burn,’ said Ucalegon. ‘All of it.’
‘It will,’ said Lysander. ‘Let the Imperial Guard see to it.’
A foul sucking sound alerted Lysander before he saw the movement. The limbs of the Chaos champion were moving, with more purpose and coordination than a post-mortem spasm. The ruined head lolled up, the eyes glittering as their many facets tried to focus.
‘It lives!’ said Ucalegon.
‘It will wish it did not,’ replied Lysander. He raised a massive booted foot, and slammed it down on the Chaos champion’s face. The thing fell still again.
‘Kirav!’ yelled Lysander. ‘How do we stand?’
‘Apollonios is dead,’ said Kirav. As the flies dissipated, Lysander could see where Apollonios lay, with two of the squad standing over him reading his lifesigns off his armour. They rolled him over, revealing that Apollonios’s left side was almost completely melted away.
‘He will be avenged over again,’ said Lysander, looking down at the unconscious champion of Chaos. ‘We must leave this place. And bring the prisoner with us.’
‘Captain!’ called Brother Beros. He shoved a sarcophagus lid aside with his boot, lightning claw held up ready to impale whatever emerged. ‘This one is alive!’
Inside the sarcophagus was a woman. Filthy hair clung to her face. She wore scraps of a green dress so ragged she covered her modesty with the funeral shroud of the body she had lain beside in the stone coffin. Her skin was streaked with grime.
‘I am not an enemy,’ she said. Her voice had a tremor to it – but considering where she had been held and the violence that had finished moments ago, she should have been insensible or incoherent. ‘That thing held me here. I do not know why.’
‘Who are you?’ demanded Lysander.
‘Serrick,’ the woman replied. ‘My name is Serrick. In service to Lord Inquisitor Kekrops of the Ordo Hereticus. Please, take me with you. I don’t care where. I know things that must be passed on.’
‘I am sure you do,’ said Lysander. ‘Imperial Fists, take up our fallen brother and move out! We have two prisoners to deliver.’
K-Day –10 hours
Intelligence acquisition and collation prior to Operation Requiem
Lord Commander Tchepikov believed in leading from as close to the front as was sensible for a man of his rank. The first assaults on Khezal had been accompanied by the dropping from orbit of the Merciless, an ocean-going command vessel from which Tchepikov could command the battle’s opening stages beyond the range of Khezal’s defences. The Merciless was one of the most advanced vessels of its kind in the segmentum, being festooned with sensor-baffling and defensive systems, and a comms and tactical cogitator suite that allowed Tchepikov’s staff to coordinate the whole assault. At that moment it knifed through the ocean’s swell, surrounded by a buzzing halo of scout aircraft scouring the surface for threats.
Inside, the controlled atmosphere was kept calm and chill. Everywhere was dark, pools of light around cogitator screens and map tables serving to focus attention where it was needed. The labyrinth of corridors and sub-decks concealed the ship’s most sensitive areas, such as the brig where a single prisoner squatted in the middle of its cell.
Six cells made up this block of the brig. Each cell was devoid of doors or windows, with the only way in or out a trapdoor built into the transparent ceiling. A walkway crossed above the cells, and it was on this that Lord Commander Tchepikov of the Imperial Guard stood to get a look at the first high-value captive of the war for Opis.
Three officers of the Battlefleet Obscurus Naval Intelligence Regiment accompanied Tchepikov, in their almost featureless dark-blue uniforms. Tchepikov had once been one of them in a long-distant career, and still entrusted to them the intelligence functions of his command.
‘It calls itself Janeak Filthammer,’ said one of the officers.
‘Is that all we know?’ said Tchepikov. He was a tall man who had once been well built, but who had lost the muscle of his youth. The aged fatigues of his old Naval regiment hung on him, as did the black greatcoat he wore over them. Countless medals were attached to his chest, or to the lapels of his coat, a jumble of colours and shapes from many ships and campaigns. Later medals were honorary, awarded for service and victories as a commander over whole Imperial armies. Over his long, lined face was the peaked cap of a Naval officer.
‘We have not conducted a thorough interrogation,’ came the reply from another officer. ‘It was not thought sensible to question a moral threat such as this without your authorisation. Such courses of action have unpredictable consequences.’
‘Very well,’ said Tchepikov. ‘You have my permission. It is time to see what gift the Imperial Fists have brought us. Ensure the first stages are handled by someone who will not be gravely missed. Extracting intelligence from such a thing is rarely without casualties.’
‘Yes, commander.’
The thing in the cell looked up at Tchepikov as if it could hear him, though the cell was soundproofed. It was half-man, half-fly, with several extra limbs, a fat pendulous abdomen and segmented eyes. A hastily sutured wound split its face in two, with another running from its sternum down the whole underside of its body. A cursory medical examination had shown it had suffered injuries too severe to survive, but it was kept alive by something more malevolent than the integrity of its body. It was chained to the floor with links of gold and silver, inscribed with anti-psychic wards that dampened whatever mental powers Janeak Filthammer might still possess. Even so, the polished steel of its cell was discoloured and rusted around it, the thing’s aura of decay bleeding through the psychic defences built into the brig of the Merciless.
Mandibles flickered from between its torn lips. Its mouth opened, revealing a long, parched tunnel of a throat. Whatever the Chaos creature ate, it was being starved of it in the brig.
Heavy footsteps caught Tchepikov’s attention. Into the brig had walked a man who was not a man. He was enormous, his head brushing the ceiling of the brig more than two and a half metres above the floor. His armour was polished blue, with the yellow shoulder pads emblazoned with the symbol of the clenched fist. The intelligence officers looked at the newcomer with apprehension but Tchepikov did not flinch.
‘Commander,’ said the Space Marine. ‘I have come to see that the moral threat you hold here is properly contained and interrogated. I am Deiphobus, Librarian of the Imperial Fists, and I am here under the orders of First Captain Lysander.’
Deiphobus emerged into the better light that shone down into the cells. His smooth, dark skin was interrupted by the band of silver around his brow, with circuits and interfaces leading off from it. The collar of his armour rose up into a hood, arching over his head with the inner surface studded with purple crystals. He carried a long staff of gnarled wood, topped with the gilded, horned skull that was the symbol of a Librarian’s office.
‘My officers have the means to extract whatever this creature has to tell us,’ said Tchepikov. ‘I thank you for you offer, Librarian, but Filthammer is to be dealt with under my orders.’
‘I doubt very much, commander,’ replied Deiphobus, ‘that you have on your staff a psyker as powerful as I, much less one who has dealt with such moral threats many times in the past. Furthermore, the Imperial Fists are under no orders from you, and are here to fulfil their honourable duty to the Throne of Earth. It is an act of goodwill th
at saw Janeak Filthammer delivered to you at all. This war is in far too early a stage to begin taking that goodwill lightly.’
Lord Commander Tchepikov considered this for a moment. Then he looked down at the thing in the cell and held his arms wide. ‘All yours,’ he said. ‘Good luck.’
A ladder was reeled down from above, down through the trapdoor in the transparent ceiling, and Deiphobus descended into the presence of Janeak Filthammer.
Previously, Filthammer had been a horror. His full height was greater than that of a Space Marine and his sorcerous powers had given him an aura of terror that had cowed lesser minds that approached him. The sheer implications of his shape were bad enough – he must have entered into some awful pacts with the powers he served to grant him the aspects of a disease-bloated fly, or perhaps he was the result of some cross-breeding project pursued by the cultists hidden in Opis’s society. Nothing about him was natural, and in any other situation everything about him would have been horrific.
But he was chained and imprisoned. His wounds were barely dressed and they wept yellowish gore down the matted bristles that covered his hide. He was bent and constrained, unable to reach his full height or unfurl his many limbs. His head was forced down by a chain around his neck so he could barely lift his faceted eyes to look at the Space Marine who now stood before him.
‘My kind are legion,’ Janeak Filthammer lisped through his torn mouthparts. ‘We will–’
‘Your kind will be rounded up, shot and incinerated. The ashes will be mixed with psyk-nulling acid and fired into the nearest star,’ replied Deiphobus. ‘Do not waste my time, or your rapidly shortening life, with threats. I have been threatened by far more dangerous creatures than you and none of them have yet outlived me.’
