Sons of Corax

by George Mann

  It was an ambush. Koryn had lured the Helbrute into the ruins. He had shown himself in order to draw it closer, close enough for his brothers to ensnare it in their trap. That was why he had spoken with him. That was why he had left himself exposed in such a way. He’d counted on the arrogance of the creature, anticipated its desire to face him in hand-to-hand combat.

  The sound of their voices would have alerted the enemy to their presence. Sergei had been nothing but bait.

  He gave a wet, spluttering laugh as he watched the circle of Space Marines close in on their prey.

  The Helbrute screeched, twisting and turning, its tentacles whipping out in desperate frenzy as the black-armoured warriors danced around it, weapons barking. It was beautiful to watch – almost balletic – as the Raven Guard systematically showered the creature with bolt-rounds, whilst their captain kept it pinned in position with his flashing, sweeping talons. He saw a severed tentacle spin away, wriggling for a moment on the dusty ground nearby, before falling still. He saw the tiny mouths that encrusted the creature scream in unison as its belly was breached by rounds, spilling its foul, semi-organic innards across the flagstones. He saw Koryn step forward and wrench the thing’s head free with a single flick of his wrist, sending it spinning away into the corner of the ruins where it landed with a hollow thud.

  The Helbrute’s flamer issued a final spurt of burning promethium, and then it twisted half around, raised one leg as if to make a step, and pitched forward onto the flagstones. Its remaining tentacles gave two, twitching spasms, its left leg clawed at the ground, and then, with a hissing sigh, it was dead.

  For a moment, everything was still. There was no cry of victory from the Space Marines; they simply looked on in silence as one of them stepped forward and doused the fallen monster with his flamer. The hungry conflagration took hold almost instantly, and within seconds the downed Helbrute had been reduced to a smoking, crackling pyre.

  Sergei could feel the wall of heat from almost ten metres away, and the stench of burning meat was acrid in the back of his throat. He coughed, and more blood spilled from the corner of his lips.

  He glanced down at the gash in his belly, and when he looked up again, all but one of the black-armoured figures had gone. Only Koryn remained, silhouetted against the guttering flames.

  ‘Great deeds,’ Sergei whispered, his voice barely audible. He was tired. So very tired. The lasrifle had slipped from his grasp. ‘Great deeds.’

  He sensed the towering Space Marine standing over him and, with enormous effort, raised his head to look up at his faceplate.

  ‘Die well, soldier,’ said Koryn. For the first time, his voice seemed imbued with a sense of sorrow. ‘I will remember your tale.’

  And then he was gone, whisked away into the storm of the battle, and all that was left was the eerie silence of the ruined acropolis, the crackle of the fire and the distant thunder of bolt-rounds.

  Sergei closed his eyes, and sighed.

  07.13 HRS

  ‘Tell me of Karos, Pradeus. I understand you have walked upon its surface once before.’ Daed’s voice echoed around the chapel, deep and booming, like the low rumble of an oncoming storm.

  Pradeus thought his own voice seemed thin and inadequate by comparison. He sucked his teeth – a nervous habit he’d developed in childhood and been unable to shake. ‘A long time ago, when the twin suns still burned, bright and bloody red in the sky. It was a lush planet, covered in vast savannahs and soaring Imperial cities. Now it is a dead world, captain. Little can survive its harsh climate. What human population there is ekes out a paltry existence in vast thermal hives, a warren of tunnels and sunken conurbations deep below ground.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Daed. He placed his gleaming bronze vambrace upon the table beside its twin, flexing his shoulders. A thick, ropey scar described a snake across his back, its head upon his right shoulder, its body curling down across his spine so that the thin tip of its tail rested just above his left hip. The flesh was purple and puckered where it had healed imperfectly, the damaged halves of the wound reforming in an uneasy truce.

  Pradeus was glad the captain could not see the expression of awe on his face. The weapon that had inflicted such a grave wound must have been terrible indeed; the weapon’s bearer even more so. ‘Why?’ he echoed.

  ‘Yes. I want to understand. Why do the humans continue to inhabit such a blighted world?’

  Pradeus nodded, although the gesture was redundant; Daed continued to remove his armour, his back to the Chapter serf. ‘The planet is nothing but a shadow of what it was, but once it was glorious. Rich mines seamed with precious metals and ores, spired cities stretching as far as the eye could see, all presided over by the Ecclesiarchy, high in their fortress-monastery. Now the people, I believe, cling to that former greatness, refusing to give up.’

  ‘I admire their tenacity,’ said Daed, flexing his shoulders. His thick, braided hair hung down between his shoulders. ‘So the surface is utterly inhospitable?’

  ‘Karos’s suns have grown pale and thin, with only the merest hint of warmth ever shining upon the surface. The entire world is now encased in a wintry glove of ammonia ice, which shrouds the ruins of the old cities. The people have been driven below ground, making what they can of the ancient mining tunnels that riddle the rocky crust beneath the ice.’ Pradeus glanced over his shoulder, looking to the door, where he had sensed movement. He saw nothing.

  ‘And now the greenskins have arrived,’ said Daed, darkly.

  ‘Yes, captain, although for what purpose, I do not know.’

  ‘Murder, pillaging, the sating of their foul appetites… They are not so difficult to understand,’ said Daed.

  ‘You have fought them before?’ ventured Pradeus.

  Daed laughed. ‘I have spilled their stinking blood on a hundred worlds, Pradeus, and will do so on a hundred more.’ He stooped to remove a leg brace and the scar on his back twisted and flushed.

  ‘And they have spilled yours, captain, lest you forget.’ The newcomer’s voice echoed from the doorway, close to where Pradeus had sensed movement just a few moments before. He turned to see Theseon, the Chief Librarian of the Brazen Minotaurs, standing in the open archway, resplendent in his azure armour. He glanced back at Daed, waiting to see his reaction.

  Daed turned towards his battle-brother. ‘And I still bear the scars to prove it,’ he said, levelly.

  ‘Old scars,’ said Theseon, walking into the room. ‘And yet they still trouble you.’

  Daed removed his second leg brace, but kept his eyes fixed firmly on the Librarian. ‘Karos is an Imperial world. The Guard cannot weather the climate, and so the greenskins, impervious to the cold, run riot upon its surface. What would you have me do, Theseon?’

  Theseon placed a gauntleted hand upon Daed’s shoulder. ‘Nothing but your duty, captain,’ he said, and Pradeus could sense the statement was loaded with a meaning he could not understand.

  Daed nodded. ‘Then we deploy within the hour. We shall liberate Karos from the xenos scum that have infected it.’

  Theseon nodded but did not speak. He lowered his hand.

  ‘Pradeus?’

  ‘Yes, captain?’ said Pradeus, stepping around the bulk of the Librarian so that his master could see him.

  ‘My armour is still ingrained with the blood of traitors. See that it is cleaned and prepared for battle.’

  Pradeus’s heart sank. Within the hour? ‘Yes, captain,’ he said, trying to keep the apprehension from his voice.

  ‘And Pradeus?’

  Pradeus nodded.

  ‘I want it to gleam as I fell the foul brutes with my axe. I want them to know the Brazen Minotaurs have arrived.’ He turned and stalked from the room, dressed only in his parchment-coloured loincloth.

  Theseon turned to look at Pradeus, his face impassive behind the faceplate of his helm. ‘You’d better get start
ed,’ he said, without a hint of irony.

  08.09 HRS

  The battle-barge Pride of Tauron disgorged its payload of Thunderhawks, Storm Eagles and Stormtalons into the upper atmosphere of Karos in muted silence, as if the orks below, so intent on subjugating the human population and seizing control of the underground hives, had not even considered looking to the skies above. If they were aware of the Space Marines’ presence, they did not show it. There was no bark of surface-to-air fire, no evidence of ork vessels hurriedly scrambling to launch. This, Daed considered, spoke of either their ignorance or their sheer, animalistic arrogance. Both would prove useful in their undoing.

  From the viewing port of the command ship, the barge hung in space like a vast whale, attended by a school of tiny fish. As Daed watched, the flotilla of landing vessels banked and fanned out in unison, swimming down towards the planet, their engines burning. These, however, were the deadliest of fish: they harboured teeth and claws. The orks would be destroyed, and the planet cleansed – no matter the inhospitable nature of the climate or the ferocity of the xenos. There were, as Theseon had intimated, old scores to settle.

  The Thunderhawk banked, sliding easily through the thin air. Daed reached for the stabilising bar above his head, holding firm as the vessel accelerated towards the planet.

  He could hear nothing but the sharp whine of the engines, as if the sound itself filled his head, drowning out everything, muffling his very thoughts. He focused on the fact that soon he would once again be in the thick of battle, bloodying his axe on the fresh corpses of his enemy.

  He glanced at Theseon, who sat immobile in webbing close by, his head bowed, his gauntleted hands folded upon his lap. Something was troubling the Librarian, and it was more than simple concern over Daed’s order to deploy to the planet below. Daed decided he would speak with Theseon upon planetfall.

  The Thunderhawk bucked suddenly and banked to the left, the engines stuttering as the pilot fought to maintain control. Daed maintained his grip on the stabilising bar as the vessel went into freefall, spiralling around as it dove nose-first towards the frozen planet, like water circling a drain.

  He opened a vox-channel, shouting over the noise of the screeching engines. ‘Report!’

  ‘We’re under fire!’ came the immediate reply from Caedus, the pilot. ‘We took a direct hit to the primary engine.’

  ‘Get this vessel under control, Caedus,’ replied Daed, firmly. He released his left hand from the bar, holding on with the right, and allowed himself to fall against the side of the ship, his power armour clanging loudly against the plasteel. He peered out of the viewing port, fighting the momentum as the Thunderhawk continued to spin. Bright tracer fire scratched at the sky, indiscriminately showering Daed’s small flotilla as they emerged from the cover of the clouds. As he watched, one of the Stormtalons detonated in a shower of burning shards, while a second Thunderhawk streamed out of the heavens on a wild trajectory, trailing black, oily smoke.

  So, the orks had woken up. Daed couldn’t suppress a grin. They were going to have a fight on their hands.

  The metal footplates buckled slightly beneath his feet, the plasteel screaming with the stress, and he wondered for a moment whether the vessel would maintain its integrity as they spun towards the ground. Then Daed felt the nose coming up once again, the ship levelling off. A quick glance out of the window told him they were only a few hundred metres from the ground: a pallid landscape punctuated with eccentric hulking shapes – the remains of an ancient city, now entirely encased in ice.

  ‘We need to set down.’ Caedus’s voice burred over the vox. ‘We’re losing altitude.’

  ‘Then get us as close to the rendezvous point as you can,’ replied Daed. Through the viewing port, he watched as his brothers broke through the clouds, dropping beneath the cover of the ruined city, picking their way through the valleys and channels formed by the ice. Around them, burning rain scattered across the white expanse, showering down in glittering fragments: the remains of the fallen, taken out by the ork batteries.

  ‘Now we all have something to avenge,’ said Theseon, quietly, from behind him.

  10.34 HRS

  The rendezvous point was, it transpired, a ramshackle structure erected by the Guard in an attempt to raise a defensible position on the ice. It was on the outskirts of the frozen city, and Daed, Theseon, Caedus, Aramus and Throle had been forced to cover the last five kilometres on foot, running through the frozen streets, their helms fogging with crystallised moisture from the air. There was little evidence of the xenos here, other than the heaped remains of dead humans, dragged from their warrens and left to the vagaries of the extreme weather. Judging by the expressions on their frigid faces, many of them had still been alive when the ice and thin air had done its work.

  The Guard’s stronghold had been spliced together from plasteel sheeting and chunks of masonry excavated from the ruins. As Daed drew closer he could make out the remains of at least two Baneblade tanks, too, shoring up the barricade. Steam curled from small venting pillars that had been sunk into the ice, and he could feel the vibrating whirr of machinery deep beneath his boots. There was no sign of any actual Guardsmen, leaving Daed to conclude that the bulk of the human forces were either dead, or cowering beneath the surface, drawing what heat and sustenance they still could from the planet’s core.

  He was relieved to find some evidence of industry, however; the small Brazen Minotaurs contingent was out on the ice, working to strengthen the perimeter, unloading the transport vessels and unlashing the tanks and ground vehicles.

  Daed thumbed his vox. ‘Sharus?’

  ‘Captain? It’s about time…’ came the response. ‘Much longer and there wouldn’t have been any greenskins left for you.’

  Daed laughed for the first time that day. ‘Have you located the commander of the human forces?’

  ‘Yes, captain,’ said Sharus. ‘In the sinkhole, over by the venting pillars. Lieutenant Ariseth is his name. He claims there are very few of them left, that the greenskins have slowly eroded their forces over recent months.’

  ‘I do not doubt it,’ said Daed. ‘The conditions favour the thick-skinned xenos. The humans are too weak to withstand the ice and the thin air of this dying world.’

  ‘And yet we are here to protect them, all the same,’ said Theseon.

  ‘We will do what they cannot, in the name of the Emperor,’ said Daed, firmly. ‘We will scorch these foul greenskins from the face of this world.’

  ‘The auspex readings suggest the xenos are many in number, captain,’ said Throle.

  ‘Then it will be necessary to hit them hardest where the most damage will be done,’ replied Daed. ‘To strike when they least expect it. In this I must take counsel from Lieutenant Ariseth, who knows the movements and proclivities of the enemy.’

  11.42 HRS

  The underground warren was comprised of nothing but the lined tunnels of an old mine, filled with coiled cables and dim electric lumen-strips, which were strung up at intervals along the low ceiling. They cast a sickly, yellow pall upon proceedings as Daed was led purposefully deeper into the structure, towards the command centre where Lieutenant Ariseth awaited him. The walls and ceilings ran with melting ice as the thermal cables fought a constant battle with the encroaching planetary winter, corrosive ammonia gas seeping out into the stale atmosphere. He’d noticed on the way down that the humans hid their faces behind gas masks in order to survive.

  Daed glanced from side to side as he walked, taking it all in. If this was representative of the manner in which the human population now lived, the invasion was barely worth the orks’ trouble. Small chambers, many of them formed from passages that had been widened or simply collapsed together, branched off like satellites from the main tunnels, and in these Guardsmen trained, rested or simply sat around waiting to be given orders.

  Ariseth was waiting in one such chamber, h
unched over a hand-drawn map as if attempting to divine a new stratagem simply by staring at the contours of the ice fields. He looked up when Daed entered the room, and immediately got to his feet. ‘Most welcome, Captain Daed,’ he said, unable to suppress the nervousness in his voice.

  Daed stared down at him, weighing him up. The man looked grizzled and worn down by his experiences. His face was mostly hidden behind a respirator, and the flesh around it was black and peeling from too much exposure to the cold. He was wrapped in bundled animal furs and wore a fur hat pulled down low over his brow. One of his eyes had been replaced by a mechanical equivalent, and it turned and whirred as it attempted to focus on the Brazen Minotaur now.

  ‘Lieutenant,’ said Daed, his voice echoing and hollow-sounding in the small room. ‘The Brazen Minotaurs are here to assist in the removal of the xenos infestation from Karos.’

  Ariseth raised an eyebrow. ‘You make it sound as if we haven’t been trying to do that for months,’ he said, a modicum of bitterness creeping into his tone.

  Daed allowed him that. ‘You must tell me everything you know of the greenskins’ motives and strategies if we are to prove successful.’

  ‘Gladly,’ said Ariseth. ‘It’s as if the damn things are able to predict our every move, our every counterstrike. Whatever we do they are ready for us, and ready to hit back, hard, when we’re overextended and least prepared. We are few now, captain. Many thousands of us have been lost.’

  Daed nodded. ‘And their goal?’

  Ariseth shrugged. ‘Mayhem, destruction, cold-blooded murder… They seem only to relish the slaughter. They seize our vehicles and modify them, sending them back into battle, firing upon us with our own ammunition. They storm the hives, cutting the power to the thermal generators so that the populations freeze. They seem to find such things amusing. What’s more, they seem impervious to the damn cold.’

  ‘Have they established a base, a stronghold?’ said Daed. He’d seen readouts on the Pride of Tauron that suggested the ork army had been massing in one particular location, but Daed knew the knowledge of the men on the ground counted for ten of any such readouts.