by Ben Counter
Ludmilla was an excellent markswoman. She would not miss, not now. Through her hate the Emperor guided her hand - she could feel His strength filling her, for He had listened to every prayer she had made throughout her whole life. Now He was rewarding His faithful with the honour of being the instrument of His vengeance.
The melta-coils burst into life. The barrel flared and a bolt of energy leapt from the weapon, carving through the air right towards the centre of Valinov's chest. A sudden flash of white light burst and Ludmilla felt heat wash over her. The after-image of Valinov was burned into her retina, framed in light as the conversion field around him dissipated the energy of the shot and crowned him with an outline of white fire.
An energy field. Expensive, rare, coveted. Probably taken from the Imperial Governor's armoury in Hive Superior, like the power sword. Ludmilla should have guessed, and the awful cold knowledge of failure was so strong it was like a punch to her stomach.
Ludmilla hit the marble steps hard. Valinov slashed his sword in a wide arc as she fell and sliced her arm off at the elbow, her hand still gripping the pistol as it spiralled away.
Ludmilla tried to scramble to her feet but as she rose, the inquisitor reversed his grip and plunged his sword straight through her midriff. She felt the blade shearing through her spine - red electric pain flared and dragged the breath from her lungs, and she even forgot her severed arm as pure freezing agony flooded right through her, cold as the blade in her guts, sharp as its edge. For a single endless moment, all she could think of was the pain. Las-bolts froze in the air. The screams became a blank wall of noise. The Emperor, her Sisters, the galaxy she had sworn to protect, were all gone, all replaced by agony.
When Valinov twisted the blade Ludmilla felt a great blackness open up in her mind as her life spilled out onto the steps. Valinov withdrew the sword and turned his attention back to the Sisters in front of the temple.
He didn't even bother to check if Ludmilla was really dead. He didn't need to. Ludmilla crashed back down onto the steps and knew that she was dead already -her senses just hadn't realised yet. She saw flak-armoured Guardsmen swarming over her as they charged, feet stamping down on her, warm blood flooding out of her and leaving only a huge black coldness that grew and grew.
Then it grew so big it swallowed her whole, and the tomb of St Evisser was left behind as Canoness Ludmilla died.
Chapter Twenty
ACROPOLIS
The city swarmed with cultists.
At least, they had once been cultists, followers of Ghargatuloth in one of his many forms. Now they were debased and devolved, infused with the filth of Lake Rapax and animated by the will of the Prince of a Thousand Faces. The city itself was just as much a servant of the Prince as they were - its walls were contorted into bloated biological shapes or wrought into daemonic faces, its streets treacherous slabs of shifting marble. It was outlined in the light from the sarcophagus and drowned in the deepest shadow.
Tentacles reached from between chunks of fallen masonry. Cultists leapt from gaping windows or sagging roofs, spewing corrosive venom, lashing out with tendrils to drag down and smother.
Tancred led the way, the sword of Mandulis cutting a cultist in half with every stroke, the massive bodies of his Terminators charging through the crumbling walls. Alaric's Marines followed, fending off the cultists that tried to force their way between the Grey Knights, trying to surround them and cut them off from one another. Alaric's halberd cut through slime-covered muscular bodies, sliced off foul gibbering heads. Dvorn's hammer smashed through walls and Genhain's psycannon Marines riddled fire through the cultists lurking behind them.
Somewhere in the slaughter Brother Vien died, dragged back down the slope by arms that snaked up from the ground and dissolved their way through his leg armour. Vien had been a part of Alaric's squad since Alaric had been chosen as a justicar - Alaric knew him as a Grey Knight whose personal prayers were brief and incisive, an intelligent and studious soldier who spent as much time immersed in Imperial history and philosophy as he did performing bolter and close combat drills. He would probably have become a justicar himself, and now, in a flash of shadow and a final bitter prayer spat through dying lips, he was gone.
The Grey Knights struggled up the slope, the city becoming a tight warren of stone with cultists around every corner. Faces began to leer from the walls. The marble sky overhead bowed and rippled as if reality itself only had a tenuous hold over the acropolis. Voices gibbered in the back of Alaric's mind, his psychic shield muffling them until he could not make out the words.
The wards woven into his armour were freezing cold against his skin, reacting to the malice that infused the tomb. His breath was cold in his throat, and even with his Space Marine's metabolism it hurt him to draw breath. The place was sucking the life out of him. There was pure death at it centre.
The acropolis was just above the Grey Knights, a final encrustation of parasitic buildings between the Knights and the summit. The roofs of the buildings were edged in gold but all around the Grey Knights was deepest shadow. There were no roads between the looming buildings - the Grey Knights would have to make their own path up. One more row of buildings, and they would be there. One last place of shelter before they reached the top.
Alaric led the way into a tattered basilica, a domed building that seemed to ooze out of the steepening slope. Its steps crumbled beneath his feet and once inside the shadows swallowed him, turning his vision dark and grey. High above, indistinct writhing figures were carved, covering the dome in an illusion of movement. Words in a language Alaric couldn't read were inlaid into the floor and walls, and they squirmed as he watched. The place was a drained shell, devoid of life, but the hatred suffusing the tomb kept it alive. Alaric felt the floor recoiling as he stepped on it, his wards flaring in a cold spiral around his body, the carved figures turning their heads away in disgust at his piety.
His depleted squad followed him in, Tancred close behind. Alaric saw Tancred's armour was battered and scraped, and blood was running from one shoulder joint. Tancred himself was breathing heavily like an exhausted animal. His Terminators had born the brunt of the charge, battering through walls and stumbling into nests of cultists - only Tancred, Locath and Karlin with his incinerator remained. The use of the Holocaust had drained them, and Alaric knew they could not call on it again.
'We are close.' said Tancred. 'I can feel it. The sword knows it.' Impossibly, given how much toxic slime and gore it had carved through, the sword of Mandulis was still bright. Its mirror-polished surface reflected light where there should have been darkness.
'One more.' said Genhain, his Marines coming up the steps into the basilica. 'One more step.'
There was nowhere to hide in the basilica and for the moment the cultists were regrouping somewhere. The Grey Knights had a few seconds here to pause.
'If I were a proper brother-captain.' said Alaric as he caught his breath. 'I would know the prayer we are supposed to say. But I think you all know what we have to do. We do not know what our chances of survival are, so we fight as if they were zero. We do not know what we are facing, so we fight as if it was the dark gods themselves. No one will remember us now and we may never be buried beneath Titan, so we will build our own memorial here. The Chapter might lose us and the Imperium might never know we existed, but the Enemy - the Enemy will know. The Enemy will remember. We will hurt it so badly that it will never forget us until the stars burn out and the Emperor vanquishes it at the end of time. When Chaos is dying, its last thought will be of us. That is our memorial -carved into the heart of Chaos. We cannot lose, Grey Knights. We have already won.'
There was silence for a moment, broken only by the breathing of the Grey Knights, the psychic babble of the tomb far away beneath it.
Dvorn hefted his Nemesis hammer and walked across the basilica to the far wall, where faceless carved figures squirmed around each other to get away from him. Tancred followed, Locath and Karlin rea
dy for one final charge. Dvorn mouthed a silent prayer and swung the hammer.
The back wall came apart beneath the impact and light flooded in, silhouetting Dvorn and Squad Tancred in shocking brightness.
'You'll make a leader yet, Alaric!' called Tancred, and charged into the glare. Alaric and Genhain followed, their auto-senses straining to keep from burning out.
Alaric ran through the back wall, up the steep marble slope, and out onto the acropolis.
The psychic din was replaced by a single, strident note, like a vast choir singing. Light streamed down from above. Alaric glimpsed cherubim, such as those depicted attending on Imperial saints, fluttering above a huge block of white marble that shone so brightly to look at it was like staring at the sun.
There were no cultists up here. The light would have taken them apart.
Tancred walked across the smooth stone, Genhain and Alaric covering him. The sarcophagus was so huge it even dwarfed Tancred.
Tancred waved forward Karlin and Locath, who stomped up to the sarcophagus itself. They reached high above their head, digging their fingers into the stone seam between the body of the sarcophagus and its lid.
Their enhanced musculature and the servo-assisted Terminator armour gave them even greater strength than a power-armoured Grey Knight. Slowly, as they heaved, the lid broke free.
Squad Tancred helped lift the lid and pushed it to one side. It fell with a crash onto the stone of the acropolis, shattering into fragments.
The light cut out instantly. The sound of the choir turned into a scream.
Something stirred within the open sarcophagus. Squad Tancred opened fire with storm bolters, Genhain followed suit. The bursts of bolter fire were drowned out by the howl blaring down from overhead. Alaric lifted up his arm to take aim and fire but he knew, deep within him, that bolter shells wouldn't make any difference.
A skeletal hand, each finger as long as a Marine's arm, reached blindly out of the sarcophagus. A huge dark shape shifted and the head of St Evisser emerged, huge and decayed, its face stretched, tattered skin over dark bone, the remains of its death shroud clinging to it in rot-coloured tatters. Blind, dripping orbs seethed in its eye sockets. Gnarled teeth grinned. The hand planted itself on the ground and St Evisser rose from the sarcophagus, an enormous, twisted monster, his once-human form saturated with corruption.
The mouth opened and St Evisser bellowed, the sound sending cracks through the marble sarcophagus. Bolter fire spattered off its face - teeth shattered, fragments of bone flew. Its other hand reached out and grabbed Brother Locath, picking up the Terminator and, with a screech, dashing him against the stone ground so hard he impacted in a shattered crater and his armour split open. St Evisser lifted what remained and threw it to the ground again, and this time blood spattered across the ground.
Tancred charged, as Alaric knew he would - St Evisser swung an arm and Tancred was sent flying. Alaric watched as the justicar was hurled through the air and straight through the wall of the basilica below. Karlin, the last member of Squad Tancred, drenched St Evisser with fire from his incinerator but the fallen saint ignored the flames.
St Evisser stepped out of the sarcophagus. At full height it was four of five times as tall as a Grey Knight. Its foot slammed down and a chasm ripped across the whole acropolis, the stone tipping inwards. Squad Alaric and Squad Genhain fought to keep their footing, scrambling as they slid towards the creature. It picked up a man-sized shard of marble and, with a bestial shriek, hurled it into Squad Genhain - Alaric saw Brother Grenn sliced in two and Brother Salkin's severed arm go cartwheeling away.
Alaric couldn't hear them yelling in defiance as they died. He couldn't hear Genhain ordering his Marines to fire, or even hear himself calling for vengeance and holy anger from his own squad. Alaric regained his footing and, his senses close to overloading, charged down the shifting slope at St Evisser. The saint swung a hand at him but Alaric ducked it, coming up swiftly to slash with the blade of his halberd.
The blade passed between mouldering ribs, glancing off bone, cutting through dried tattered organs and death robes. Alaric withdrew the halberd and stabbed, the blade passing through St Evisser's body and lodging in its spine.
Alaric twisted the halberd to get his blade free. St Evisser's enormous hand closed over his head and he felt himself lifted - he lashed out with the halberd, hoping to sever the skeletal wrist, but all he could see between St Evisser's fingers were those revolting liquid eyes, pale pools of malevolence, full of madness and Chaos.
His wards were overloading, blazing with cold fire inside his armour and cutting into his skin. It was only the pain that reminded him he was still alive. He squeezed down on the firing stud in his bolter hand, knowing that the volley would do no good, but knowing that he had to fight on as he died.
A flash burst just beyond Alaric's vision and St Evisser's head snapped to the side, bone shards flying. The hand let go and Alaric thudded onto the ground to see St Evisser throwing Justicar Santoro off its back, where the justicar had just landed a massive blow with his Nemesis mace. The side of St Evisser's skull was coming apart and Alaric could see the reddish fibrous mess inside that had once been the brain of an Imperial saint.
Fire rippled up St Evisser's torso - Sister Lachryma, her faced streaked with blood and grime, her jaw swollen and bleeding, was clambering through the shattered stone of the acropolis as her Seraphim attacked. One Sister with twin hand flamers was pouring fire up into the fallen saint, drawing his attention as bolt pistol fire from the other Seraphim thudded into its head.
Alaric dragged himself away from St Evisser. Brother Mykros, the Marine who carried Squad Santoro's incinerator, slammed into the ground beside him, one side of his armour caved in by the impact. Alaric rolled to the side as Santoro hit the ground beside him - Santoro was battered but alive, his mace smouldering with the unholy flesh that clung to it.
Alaric grabbed Santoro and the two helped each other to their feet, moving as quickly as they could up the broken slope as St Evisser lashed this way and that, trying to scatter the Sisters and Grey Knights. Sister Lachryma narrowly dodged a blow that shattered the arm of one of her Seraphim, and Brother Marl was trying to crawl away, his leg clearly broken.
Suddenly, the huge shape of Justicar Tancred appeared at the edge of the crater St Evisser had formed. His armour was battered and the ceramite plates were bent out of shape - sparks spat from ruptured servos and blood leaked from a dozen rents. The whites of his eyes were tiny glints in a mask of blood. The storm bolter on the back of his wrist had been wrecked by the impact as he smashed through the basilica wall but in his other hand was the sword of Mandulis.
St Evisser kicked out and another Seraphim went flying, her shattered jump pack spurting burning fuel. The fallen saint turned back towards Alaric and Santoro, and beyond them Squad Genhain was still trying to pin it down with a constant stream of fire.
Alaric knew what had to be done. Santoro, too.
Alaric ignored the pain and the screaming in his head and charged once again. St Evisser knocked the blade of his halberd aside and Alaric barely kept his footing, but Santoro was behind him, smashing Evisser's hand away with his mace. Alaric stabbed upwards again and felt monstrous ribs turning the blow away, but he wasn't trying to kill St Evisser this time.
St Evisser reached down and Alaric rolled out of the way of the gigantic fist that slammed into the rock behind him. He heard the impact of Santoro's mace against the saint's ribcage and knew the creature would be reeling - Alaric cut down at Evisser's leg and was rewarded with a shower of bone.
'I am the hammer...' intoned Tancred, his deep level voice somehow cutting through the din. 'I am the sword in His hand, I am the point of His spear...'
Tancred was walking carefully towards St Evisser, judging its every movement. Alaric and Santoro had to keep it busy. They had to stay alive for a few moments more, because St Evisser was the vessel through which Ghargatuloth would be born and on
ly Tancred could kill it now.
St Evisser ripped a slab of marble up from the ground, straight and pointed like a blade. It swung it like a two-handed sword - Alaric pivoted to one side to avoid it and Santoro met the blade with his Nemesis mace, shattering the marble into a thousand stone splinters.
Evisser bent down to pick up Santoro and tear him apart, but Alaric was quicker - he dived at the fallen saint, both hands on the haft of his halberd, and planted the blade through one of Evisser's seething eyes.
Evisser shrieked so loudly Alaric thought his auto-senses would short out against the white wall of noise. Evisser flicked its head and Alaric was thrown hard against the broken marble slope, the bruised sky of the tomb reeling around him. The saint kicked out and Santoro hurtled through the air, cracking against the lip of the crater, his body cartwheeling brokenly out of sight.
'I am the gauntlet about His fist! I am the bane of His foes and the woes of the treacherous! I am the end!'
Tancred was the best swordsman Alaric had ever fought alongside. It had taken Brother-Captain Stern to best him. St Evisser was brimming with Chaotic strength but Tancred was a wily and merciless attacker. The sword of Mandulis flashed and Evisser's hand was sheared clean off its massive skeletal arm, falling to the ground in a spray of bone, light streamed from the wound. Tancred slashed again and the mirror-bright blade plunged into Evisser's torso, gouging again and again, hacking through ribs. Splinters of bone showered Tancred, chunks of vertebrae flew like bullets.
St Evisser was on its knees, Justicar Tancred battering it back with every strike. Evisser lifted its head to howl and the sword of Mandulis lashed out in a bright crescent, shearing right through the neck of the fallen saint.
St Evisser's head, its face twisted in the shock of a second death, toppled to the side. From the stump of the neck a shaft of pure light leap upwards, piercing the dark sky.
The screaming rose to a shriek almost too high-pitched to hear, spearing right down into Alaric's soul.
