Sons of Corax

by George Mann

  Grayvus eyed the creature warily. It was huge, towering at least three times his height, with a flared crest of blood-red chitin atop its massive head. Its lower jaw was wide and pink, splayed like a shovel and connected to two mandibles that twitched ominously from side to side as it regarded him. Its fangs were as big as his forearms and coated in dripping venom. Its body was long and snake-like and – Grayvus realised – disappeared into the ground, from where the monster had evidently burrowed its way into the generatorium, digging its way in from beneath the city. Three huge pairs of limbs terminated in scything talons, with two sets of smaller, more human arms bursting out from its chest. It filled the reactor room utterly.

  The creature emitted a shrill chirp and shifted its bulk, lowering its head to show them its fangs. Its foetid breath smelled of moist earth and decay. It couldn’t twist itself around enough to reach them with its talons.

  Once again, Grayvus was taken aback by the intelligence displayed by the xenos. Had they known the Scouts were coming? Was that why the biomorph had burrowed its way here? Or worse, had they planned to use the same trick? Were the tyranids actually intending to use the power station for the same purpose as the captain, to detonate it at a time when it would prove most devastating to the Imperial forces? Either way, they had been out manoeuvred.

  ‘What is it?’ Corbis was standing beside him, staring up at the monstrous thing.

  ‘It’s between us and the reactor,’ was Grayvus’s only response.

  Tyrus stepped forwards, brandishing his chainsword. ‘This time, sergeant, I think we’re going to have to cut our way through,’ His slurred voice was barely recognisable.

  The Scout was right. There was little else they could do. ‘Corbis. Get to that reactor. Tyrus and I will keep it occupied.’ Grayvus raised his bolt pistol. ‘We don’t have to kill it, Tyrus, just keep it busy. The reactor will do our job for us if we can get to it.’

  Tyrus nodded, but Grayvus wasn’t clear whether it was in understanding or something else entirely. The injured Scout seemed distant, distracted.

  Corbis approached the creature tentatively, trying to search out the best route to the reactor. He moved left and it howled like a baying wolf, slamming its talons down into the churned earth, trying its best to reach him. The bony blades scratched the walls in frustration. Corbis fell back, raising his shotgun and loosing a handful of shots. They pierced its flesh but did little more than anger it.

  Tyrus fired up his chainsword. He extended his arm and placed something in Grayvus’s hand. It was a tiny bundle of bird skulls. ‘Honour me, sergeant, in the fields of Kiavahr.’

  ‘Tyrus!’

  The Scout charged forwards towards the beast, his bolt pistol flaring as he fired round after round into the creature’s open maw. It screeched in fury and lashed out with its scything talons, one of them catching him full in the chest, bursting out of his back and spattering Adeptus Astartes blood across the room.

  Tyrus growled in agony as he was lifted fully from the ground. His chain-sword roared, biting deep into the monster’s flesh, as it pulled him closer to its slavering jaws.

  ‘Corbis. Get to that reactor, now!’ Grayvus swung his bolt pistol around and fired into the alien’s wide mouth, satisfied to see the bolt-rounds flashing inside its head as they exploded brightly, cracking its teeth. The creature reared its head and thrashed alarmingly, swinging Tyrus violently from side to side. Tyrus was still alive, barely, speared on an outstretched claw. With one hand he was firing his bolt pistol into its face, with the other he was driving his chainsword repeatedly into the thick hide of its torso, searching for any vital organs.

  Grayvus moved back and forth in a wide semi-circle, keeping his weapon trained on the monster, firing clip after clip at its head, desperate to keep it from realising that Corbis had now passed it and was working on the reactor controls behind it. He reappeared a moment later, scrambling over the mound of earth and rushing towards Grayvus.

  Too late, Grayvus saw the arcing talon as it swung down from above, catching Corbis square between the shoulders and pitching him forwards. The Scout stumbled and dropped. The talon raised again, ready to finish the prone Corbis.

  Grayvus dived forwards, grabbing at his brother and flinging him across the reactor room. The talon sliced down, puncturing his shoulder and opening his chest, bursting a lung. Grayvus slumped to the floor. The world was spinning. The creature pulled Tyrus’s now unconscious body towards its mouth and chewed off his head.

  Behind it, the reactor was reaching critical levels, warning sirens blaring.

  Grayvus saw only darkness.

  Koryn heard the explosion from almost four kilometres away, even above the clamour of the raging battle, even above the screams of the dying aliens and the screeching of their claws across his power armour. He heard it, and he knew they were victorious.

  The ground rumbled and groaned, knocking him from his feet. He heard the vox-bead buzz in his ear but made no sense of the words as, all of a sudden, the planet seemed to lurch violently to one side. He heard a sound like rending stone and scrambled to his knees in time to see the city walls give way, crumbling to the ground as titanic forces rent the earth apart. All around him, the tyranids were scrabbling for solid ground, their animal minds unable to comprehend what was happening.

  Koryn caught sight of the hive tyrant, its head thrust back, bellowing insanely at the sky. He watched as the ground cracked open beneath it, sucking the creature down into its rocky depths, pulling it into the canyon opened by Grayvus’s destruction of the power station. It was as if the planet itself was enacting its revenge against these insidious invaders, swallowing them whole, crushing them with its immense power. The Raven Guard had executed their plan to precision: the fault line had opened right beneath the heart of the tyranid army, exactly where the Space Marines had pinned it in place.

  Scores of aliens spilled into the newly opened crevasse like a tide, unable to prevent themselves from falling. Their screams were a violent cacophony, a tortured howl that Koryn would never forget. That was the sound of triumph. That was the sound of the Emperor’s might.

  Those aliens that still swarmed around Koryn himself seemed suddenly to lose direction, their psychic link with the hive mind interrupted by the death of their tyrant. They pressed on with their attack, but they had lost their cohesion, their underlying purpose, and were now fighting on instinct alone. It would be a simple matter for the remaining Raven Guard forces to mop up what was left of the alien brood.

  Koryn sliced another alien in two with his talons. He was covered in xenos blood and his leg wound was still causing warning sigils to flare incessantly inside his helm. He watched as a group of hormagaunts turned and fled from an approaching assault squad, who showed no mercy, mowing down the retreating aliens with their bolt pistols.

  He turned to see Argis approaching from behind, striding across the battlefield towards him, his power armour rent open across the chest in a wide gash, his bolter hanging by his side. Clusters of corvia hung from his belt, signifying the losses his squad had sustained during the thick of the battle. The veteran stopped beside Koryn, surveying the scene across the battlefield. After a moment, he spoke. ‘Faith, you said, captain.’

  Koryn nodded. His voice was subdued. ‘Faith.’

  Argis put his hand on Koryn’s pauldron. ‘That is most definitely our way.’

  Grayvus sucked noisily at the air and winced at the lancing pain it caused in his chest. He peeled open his eyes. He was outside, slumped against a wall. The meteor storm had abated and the sun was perforating the clouds. His mouth was full of gritty blood and he was gripping something tightly in his fist. He glanced down. It was Tyrus’s corvia. He allowed his hand to drop to his lap. He would take them back to Kiavahr, bury them in the soil from whence they came.

  Corbis was standing over him. When he saw Grayvus was awake, his pale face cracked into a wide
grin. ‘Sergeant.’

  Grayvus spat blood. ‘Corbis. You should have left me.’

  Corbis didn’t answer.

  Grayvus stared over at the enormous cavity that had opened in the ground behind them. The power station had been completely subsumed. What remained of it after the explosion had slid noisily into the hungry earth, tumbling down into the depths of the fractured landmass. Its destruction had opened a canyon across the face of Idos like a long, puckered scar, a fault line stemming from the site of the explosion and stretching for kilometres in both directions. Much of the city had been swallowed in the ensuing devastation. And the biomorph, too, along with most of the tyranid brood.

  Corbis dropped to his haunches beside the wounded sergeant. ‘What now, sergeant?’

  Grayvus put his hand on Corbis’s shoulder pauldron. ‘Now, brother? Now you may call yourself Adeptus Astartes.’

  The corpse was staring at him from across the floor of the ruined acropolis. Its one remaining eye was yellowed and fixed, and Trooper Sergei Asdic thought he could still see the terror etched into the dead man’s expression, his mouth set in a rictus howl.

  Could the dead still judge? Perhaps they could. Sergei couldn’t help but feel his fallen comrade was somehow appraising him as he lay there, watching him die. Wondering how he had ended up dead, while he was still – just about – drawing breath. Perhaps that was just wishful thinking on his part, ascribing some modicum of continued existence to the deceased. He supposed he’d find out, soon enough.

  He was slumped against a heap of fallen masonry, his now-useless legs splayed out before him. He was beginning to feel light-headed, now, and everything had taken on a slightly unreal aspect. He coughed, and bubbles of bright blood burst on his lips. The movement made his belly spasm in pain, and his hands went involuntarily to the site of his suppurating wound. He moaned as he attempted to shift himself, in order to better prop himself up and minimise the bleeding. Not that it would do him much good. He knew he was beyond saving now, even if there had been anyone there to help.

  Around him, the acropolis was littered with the deceased. His corpse would soon be one among many – just another anonymous statistic, nameless in death. He almost wished the plague marine had finished him off swiftly, like the others. That way, at least he wouldn’t have to sit there awaiting the inevitable, wracked with pain and fear.

  Sergei surveyed the remains of his fallen comrades, a sea of limbs upon the broken flagstones. In their midst was the enormous, festering corpse of the plague marine, its outstretched fist still clutching the blade that had pierced his guts only a short while earlier. Its power armour was rusted and broken, its necrotic, bloated flesh pushing out through the cracks and seams like malleable, festering putty. Its helmet was half corroded where its acid breath had chewed large chunks in the vents. The head was lolling to one side, almost separated from the shoulders by a fortuitous, desperate shot from Sergei’s lasrifle. Strange circular symbols had been daubed on its shoulder plates in livid green paint, and maggots still picked their way through its exposed, blackened entrails. The stench was nauseating. Sergei averted his eyes.

  Behind the bloodied litter of the dead, above the jagged teeth of the shattered wall, the sky was the colour of burnished gunmetal, as if the war raging below had in some way scorched the very air itself.

  The distant howl of projectiles and the scream of rending plasteel told him that the battle still raged on outside the strange, tomblike atmosphere of the acropolis. He would not see it end, but he knew that he had done his duty, and that the drop pods which had fallen from the sky only a few hours earlier had brought not only reinforcements, but hope of salvation. The Emperor’s finest warriors had come amongst them, thundering out of the void itself, and they would drive the foul taint of Chaos from Andricor and the entire Sargassion Reach. He took comfort in that, at least. Andricor had not been forsaken.

  Sergei sensed movement and turned his head toward it, wincing as the motion set off another burst of pain in his guts.

  There was no one there. He fumbled by his side, his fingers searching out the barrel of his lasrifle. He snatched it up, placing it across his lap.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he asked. ‘Show yourself!’

  If it was an enemy hostile, he would try to take them down with another well-placed shot before he died – unless, of course, they finished him off first. In his present condition, that was a distinct possibility.

  He watched the entrance to the courtyard intently, blinking away the fog of weariness that threatened to overwhelm him. His ragged breath seemed as loud as a klaxon in his ears, despite the raging sounds of the battle from all sides.

  Movement again. He raised his weapon, gritting his teeth as his wound screamed in protest. He caught a glimpse of something black – something immense and black, lurking by the shattered pillar that marked one side of the entrance to the complex. His finger hovered on the trigger. He heard the crunch of a heavy footstep and readied himself, looking for his shot.

  ‘Hold your fire.’

  The voice was commanding and clipped. Sergei hesitated.

  ‘State your name and rank,’ said Sergei. ‘And show yourself.’

  He was having trouble holding the barrel of the lasrifle straight, but he was determined not to falter in his duty now.

  Another footstep crunched on the broken masonry, and then the figure emerged into the light, and Sergei was unable to withhold a gasp.

  It was a Space Marine, sheathed entirely in resplendent black power armour. Even from a few metres away he towered over him, and he had to crane his neck in order to see the front of his helm, his face hidden behind the unusual flared respirator. Both of his fists terminated in massive, arcing claws, which spat and hissed with electrical charge. His shoulder pads were emblazoned with un­familiar white symbols, and bundles of what looked like bleached bird skulls dangled on thin chains from his belt. The Space Marine stepped towards him, and he tried to scuttle back, but his legs were unable to respond and his back was already against the wall. He tried to make himself smaller, as if that would somehow protect him from the giant.

  As he came closer he could see that his armour was finely engraved with hundreds of strange runes; names, he decided, although for what purpose he could not guess. They seemed to cover almost every inch of the worn, pitted surface; a record, a list.

  He searched the immediate area for others of the Space Marine’s kind, but he was alone, and he was utterly terrifying. He felt himself trembling in his presence.

  The Space Marine came to a stop, looking down at him.

  ‘I am Captain Koryn of the Raven Guard Fourth Company,’ he said. ‘Lower your weapon.’

  Sergei found himself doing as the Space Marine commanded. He placed his lasrifle back on his lap, although he kept his finger curled around the trigger, just in case he needed to defend himself quickly.

  The giant cocked his head to one side, regarding him. The faceplate of his helmet remained impassive, making it impossible for him to work out what he was thinking.

  ‘You’re dying, trooper.’

  It was a statement of fact, nothing more. The Raven Guard’s voice echoed loudly amongst the broken spurs of the building, deep and soft.

  Sergei expelled a wheezing, gasping laugh, air hissing out between his clenched teeth. He glanced down at the puddle of blood that was spreading on the stone tiles beneath him.

  ‘I’d noticed,’ he said.

  ‘What is your name?’

  Sergei frowned. He’d never encountered a Space Marine before, other than the traitorous monsters who had descended on his world in order to tear it apart – but he had heard tales; stories of the giants who walked amongst men, who fought shoulder to shoulder with humans in order to protect the realms of the Emperor from the deadly reach of Chaos, or the ever-present threat of xenos. But never had he heard of a Space Marine who had spoken in
such a manner to a member of the Guard. He wondered what he had done to invite such interest from such a terrifying thing.

  ‘Trooper Sergei Asdic,’ he said. ‘Deceased.’

  He smiled at his own grim joke.

  The Space Marine was regarding the sea of corpses by his feet. He stooped low to examine the remains of the plague marine, as if anxious to ensure it was actually dead.

  ‘What happened here?’

  ‘Why?’ Sergei spoke before he’d had time to consider his words.

  The Space Marine stood again and he flinched, expecting a harsh rebuttal for his question, but his shoulders heaved in an approximation of what might have been a shrug.

  ‘We live on through our legends. Our stories define us. Those who have committed great deeds should have their stories heard.’

  Sergei laughed, and then winced at the sudden agony it caused. He glanced at the corpse of the plague marine.

  ‘Great deeds? It took twenty of us to bring down one of them. You might have done the same in a moment.’

  Koryn seemed to consider this.

  ‘Yet you were victorious, and you sacrificed your lives in the name of the Emperor. You did so in the face of overwhelming odds. It is true that to one such as I, felling a single enemy might be nothing more than a moment’s work, but for you and your brethren, it took courage and the lives of twenty men and women. I see the greatness in this. I see sacrifice and honour. Tell your tale, trooper. Have it heard before you die.’

  Sergei nodded.

  ‘Very well.’

  He closed his eyes, summoning up the memories. They seemed like dreams to him now. It was as if years had passed, as if there had never been anything else but the battlefield, the howl of the enemy weapons, the tortured screams of the dying and the deep, throbbing pain in his belly. As if the events of just a few hours earlier had happened in another lifetime. And so he told his tale.