Atlas Infernal

by Rob Sanders

  ‘Holy throne!’ Klute blurted.

  ‘Yes, I rather think it is,’ Czevak agreed.

  ‘Some grotesque parody,’ Klute said, ‘of our very own God-Emperor?’

  ‘No,’ Czevak told him. ‘But this is a god, have no doubt of that. This is an incarnation of Khaine the Bloody Handed – the eldar god of war.’

  The Deathwatch would have tensed, but their fat blood vessels were already torrents of adrenaline. Quesada nodded to his team, who moved in unison and with purpose. The Excoriator took the archway, bringing the heavy bolter up to cover the gaping corridor. The Scythes of the Emperor Space Marine jabbed two bionic fingers at his faceplate, then proceeded to do the same at his Crimson Consul brother and then up at the inverse helmet of the immense presence that was beaming a frozen mask of baleful wrath down upon them. The huge Astral Fist fell in behind the High Inquisitor like a guardian angel of death.

  ‘This is a god?’ Klute hissed.

  ‘According to eldar mythology,’ Czevak told him, ‘Khaine fought the Chaos god Slaanesh and lost. The eldar believe that the essence of their god was smashed and disseminated, the divine fragments of its being now fuelling wraith artefacts at the heart of their craftworlds, like the one you see before you–’

  ‘My lord,’ Klute cut in.

  ‘If we could retro-engineer the soul-transference technology–’

  ‘Retro-engineer, my lord? This is ancient, alien technol–’ Klute said, then caught himself, ‘alien mythology.’

  ‘If nothing else, it demonstrates that it can be done.’

  ‘We don’t know that. Also, I fear the Grand Master will not approve researches into this warp-sired thing,’ Klute said.

  ‘The hell with Specht and ghost-livered cowards like him,’ Czevak growled. ‘I will leave this galaxy a better place than the spiritual cesspool into which I was born, percolating in its own self-righteous stagnation.’

  ‘Sir, would it not be wise–’

  ‘You are going to tell me what would be wise are you, Raimus, with your forty standard?’

  Klute felt Czevak’s ancient eyes burn into him like two suns, magnified though the plastek lens of his blister-helmet.

  The High Inquisitor’s railings continued. ‘Our triumphs are built upon the accomplishments of others. We stand on the Emperor’s shoulders, Interrogator Klute, and our gaze is far. On such shoulders, is it not our very responsibility to reach further?’

  ‘Praise be,’ the Idolatress echoed.

  Czevak thrust his ferrouswood cane at the dreadful visage of the eldar war god. ‘I understand your uncertainties – who wouldn’t question themselves when faced with such an abominate prospect? But ask yourself this. Who would you rather listen to? The men who interpret the words of the divine – the Puritans with their selective hearing and the Amalathians who hear everything but do nothing – or divine words themselves? To hear such words from the living, breathing lips of our beloved Emperor, I would face a thousand abominate prospects.’

  ‘I’m sorry, my lord,’ Klute admitted. ‘I just found the image of this alien barbarism unsettling.’

  ‘That is undoubtedly the effect that it was attempting to project,’ Czevak said, admiring the dimensions of the daemonic avatar. ‘No matter, my acolyte. The right path is not always the easy path.’

  ‘The path is less easy than you think, inquisitor,’ Quesada thundered dangerously across the chamber.

  The muzzle of the Astral Fist’s bolter dropped from covering the alien effigy and came to rest on the shoulder of Czevak’s Fenrisian mastodon-hair coat.

  ‘Of course it is,’ the High Inquisitor said with irritated resignation, ‘haven’t you been listening, captain?’

  ‘Treachery!’ Klute exploded but fell short of actually turning his weapon on the Adeptus Astartes warriors.

  ‘Treachery indeed,’ the Space Marine agreed. He put an armoured finger to his vox-bead. ‘Anatoly Ascendant this is Captain Quesada. You may begin your manoeuvres. I’m placing the marker now.’ The Aurora Chapter battle-brother unclipped the targeting aid and activating its magnetic base, allowed the marker to fly horizontally across the chamber at the Bloody-Handed god and latch onto the side of its colossal helmet. ‘Once my kill team, Inquisitor Czevak and Imperial forces are clear, you may commence orbital bombardment.’

  ‘I didn’t know the Deathwatch issued Inquisitorial Cartas,’ Czevak said icily.

  ‘We don’t,’ the Space Marine captain corrected him with disinterest. ‘That will be for someone else to decide. Grand Master Specht just wanted to make sure that you didn’t bring the ordo into disrepute with your radical ways.’

  ‘He thought I’d succeed,’ Czevak nodded to himself. ‘Well, that is something from a man who has the imagination of a mootch fly.’

  ‘You haven’t succeeded, inquisitor. We have orders to take you from here and place you under arrest for shipment back to Heigel Prime and then on to Our Lady of Sorrows. This archaeological find of yours will be erased from the face of the planet – almost as though it never existed – which it didn’t, because this never happened and we were never here.’

  ‘And yet we are,’ Czevak challenged.

  ‘Have I given you the impression that the Adeptus Astartes appreciate the common wit of less than ordinary men?’ Quesada stung back. ‘Jest not, good inquisitor. I take your unconditional compliance as a given, or my orders extend to destroying you and your people along with this damnable artefact you’ve discovered.’

  Klute’s head began to drop. Czevak had a perverted sense of humour and delighted in taunting those that held power over him. The interrogator had believed that this came from the High Inquisitor’s age and the assumption that his heart would let out at any moment, regardless of threats issued to him by his enemies. Those who had known Czevak longer had told Klute that the inquisitor had just been born that way. The interrogator fully expected Czevak to drive Quesada to the point of killing him, probably on the erroneous assumption that a member of the Deathwatch – a simple, fighting Space Marine – would not really want to be embroiled in the death of an Ordo Xenos inquisitor – especially one that as the two men had identified, hadn’t even officially been designated Carta Extremis. Czevak’s response surprised the interrogator, however.

  ‘I see your point,’ the venerable inquisitor conceded. He nodded to Klute and Joaqhuine. ‘Your weapons.’

  Without hesitation, the interrogator tossed the Lucius-pattern lasgun to the floor and unbuckled his belt, allowed his brace of needle guns to drop. Klute’s hands drifted back skyward as he noticed the yawning barrels of the Scythes of the Emperor and Crimson Consul’s bolters silently tracking his movements.

  Joaqhuine was less inclined to part with her weapon.

  ‘Over my dead body,’ the haemovore announced darkly through her adamantium teeth.

  The reaction was instantaneous. No perceivable communication had passed between the hulking Astral Fist and his Deathwatch captain, but there undoubtedly had been. The Space Marine simply pivoted, bringing his bolter off Czevak’s shoulder and hammering a shaft of armour piercing shot through the Idolatress. With the Death Korps coat still flapping in the gust of the bolt-rounds that had passed straight through her, Joaqhuine Desdemondra tumbled.

  Klute dashed towards the fallen figure, but the Space Marine fixed him in his unswerving sights, bringing the interrogator to a full stop. Stepping forward, the silent colossus forced both Klute and Czevak back towards the archway. Klute retreated but put himself squarely between the Astral Fist and his ancient master.

  Quesada moved towards the archway and joined the Excoriator, leaving the Scythes of the Emperor and Crimson Consuls warriors to cover their armoured backs. The lightest scuff of the canvas coat on the wraithbone floor made itself known to the Astral Fist’s super-sensitive hearing and he turned immediately.

  The Idolatress had come unsteadily to her feet and was swaying in shock. The Deathwatch weaponry came up once again but their trigger fingers were giv
en pause for thought by the way the gaping wound in her chest seemed to be knitting itself back to health. Joaqhuine’s lip wrinkled in silent agonies, flashing one of her adamantium fangs at the Space Marines. The primed meltagun rumbled its readiness, dangling loosely from two dazed fingertips.

  The brothers from the Astral Fists and the Scythes of the Emperor were roaring at Joaqhuine to drop the weapon, while the Crimson Consul had thrust his bolter back in Czevak’s face.

  ‘Order her!’ the Crimson Consul barked.

  The chamber fell to uneasy silence.

  Czevak extended one gloved hand. ‘Sister,’ he chided imploringly. ‘Your weapon – let them have it…’

  In a blur of motion the meltagun came up. The righteous fury of the Adeptus Astartes’ bolters flew at Joaqhuine once again, but not before the sub-atomic inferno of the meltagun had vaporised the Astral Fist’s helmet clean off his towering shoulders. As Joaqhuine’s body was subject to further explosive-tip molestation – her arms and sausage curls thrown this way and that – the battle-brother’s hulking body hovered and then crashed to its knees. Both Saint and Space Marine hit the floor simultaneously and lay still.

  Captain Quesada wasn’t taking any chances. He slid a frag grenade across the wraithbone, which slipped into the folds of her bolt-shredded coat before exploding.

  ‘Joaqhuine!’ the High Inquisitor called but by the time the smoke cleared, the Crimson Consul had both Czevak and Klute on their knees, with the kill team Space Marine pointing his bolter at their heads from above in an executioner’s pose. Joaqhuine’s body was a blood-soaked, ragged mess. The detonation had ripped up the wraithbone floor and dark shards of the alien structural material projected through the Idolatress’s body.

  The kill team held their positions, as still as the woman’s impaled form as they waited for further surprises. That was until her chest did move, violently sucking in a gurgling breath. The Deathwatch wouldn’t underestimate her again and watched as the Living Saint simultaneously demonstrated both immortality and futility. Her wounds were indeed closing, but a shaft of wraithbone, ripped up from the floor by the explosion, had erupted through her spine. Without her spine, the Idolatress could not extricate herself from the deathtrap; without extricating herself from the wraithbone stakes, her miraculous powers could not repair her spine.

  The shrine chamber crashed with noise again as the Excoriator at the archway unleashed his heavy bolter into the darkness beyond.

  ‘Targets!’ he hollered over the clamour of the weapon, as he man-handled the bulk of the belt-fed monster around. The Deathwatch Space Marine’s lamps and the flare of the explosive rounds gushing from the barrel did little to illuminate the corridor beyond and it was impossible to tell who or what the targets were.

  ‘Is it the Death Korps?’ Quesada bawled, assuming – not unreasonably – that the wily inquisitor had found a way to alert the platoon garrisoning the derelict or that they had simply entered at the sound of gunfire on their own initiative.

  ‘Xenos!’ the Excoriator called, struggling, even with the displacers and counterweights on his armour, to bring the heavy bolter round swiftly enough to defend against multiple targets.

  Klute had been staring at the struggling Joaqhuine, wondering what he could do for her without getting himself killed. He turned to Czevak. He mouthed, ‘Eurypterids?’ at the inquisitor, thanking the Emperor that the alien organisms had chosen to nest in the wraithbone ruins. Czevak was lost in thought, however, his rheumy eyes glazed with a concentration that dissuaded the interrogator from disturbing him. Suddenly, the two of them were back on their feet and thrown towards the wall by the Crimson Consul Space Marine.

  The Scythes of the Emperor battle brother and the captain fell to their knees, Quesada’s arc of fire covering the Excoriator. Meanwhile, the Scythes of the Emperor Space Marine moved his bolter sights rapidly between the archway and the prone form of the crippled immortal.

  The belt feed on the heavy bolter chugged to a sudden halt, empty shell casings rattling to the floor for a few moments longer. The kill team Space Marine darted the fat barrel of the weapon around the gloom of the corridor.

  ‘Report!’ Quesada snarled.

  ‘I could have sworn by the primarchs, I saw–’ the Excoriator began, but he got no further.

  ‘Brother Loomis! Report!’ Quesada shouted again, moving up on his position.

  The chamber echoed with a sickening crunch, which the heavy weapons Space Marine seemed to feel as a physical sensation. The Excoriator’s screams followed swiftly after, their reverberations bouncing around the open space. On a squealing note that Klute could hardly have imagined the deep, barrel chest of an Adeptus Astartes could achieve, the Excoriator dropped the heavy bolter and crumbled backwards onto his pack. By the time the view-obscuring bulk of the Space Marine fell, however, the enemy responsible for his felling had gone.

  ‘Brother Loomis!’ Quesada called once more, letting loose a horizontal stream of bolter fire down the corridor as he skidded to a stop at the collapsed Space Marine’s side. ‘Brother Aldwin. Door,’ the captain called back at the Crimson Consul.

  Dragging the High Inquisitor along the chamber wall, the Crimson Consul pinned Czevak’s blister-helmet to the dark wraithbone with his bolter, giving him a privileged view of the inside of the weapon’s barrel.

  ‘Close it,’ Brother Aldwin commanded. His battle-brothers were falling around him; he would not ask twice.

  With the infinity circuit reactivated, the inquisitor didn’t find it difficult to activate the rudimentary runes that controlled the archway door, despite its upside down orientation. Wraithbone discs rolled back into place, the doorway jigsawing its way back together. Dragging the Excoriator’s body away from the sealed archway and across the smooth floor of the chamber, Captain Quesada deposited the Space Marine in front of Klute and pointed at the medicae symbol on his satchel.

  ‘You’re a medic?’ Quesada demanded, as the Scythes of the Emperor Space Marine left the motionless Joaqhuine and came forwards to cover the archway.

  ‘Chirurgeon,’ Klute informed him.

  ‘See to Brother Loomis,’ the Aurora Chapter captain ordered.

  Klute nodded reluctantly and came forward, squinting at the wound.

  ‘Singular puncture wound to the chest,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘Went straight through the armour…’

  ‘Speak up,’ Quesada growled, but Klute motioned the captain to move his Deathwatch comrade.

  ‘Get him on his side,’ Klute asked the Space Marine. There was no way the young interrogator could move the still, power-armoured form.

  Quesada grasped the ceramite plates of Loomis’s polished, black armour and turned him over.

  ‘Emperor’s wounds!’ Klute erupted as liquefied gore slushed from the puncture wound and slopped into a growing pool about Klute and the now apparently dead Space Marine. ‘A single entry wound but his torso has been pulped from inside the armour. I’ve no idea what kind of weapon could do that,’ Klute admitted.

  ‘I have,’ Czevak said grimly.

  Klute, Quesada and the Crimson Consul turned on the High Inquisitor.

  ‘And if it belongs to who I suspect it does, we’re dead,’ the inquisitor told them, his eyes and mind elsewhere.

  ‘Oh, now we’re dead,’ Klute muttered miserably.

  ‘No,’ Czevak corrected him. ‘All of us.’

  The inquisitor’s fatalism clearly angered Captain Quesada, who left Brother Loomis and got back to his feet. He picked up the heavy bolter and tossed the dead-weight of the object to the Scythes of the Emperor Space Marine, who began realigning the bolt-belt and checking the weapon for feed-jams.

  A single impact sang off the wraithbone of the wide archway door. It had originated from the other side and was cold and daring in both its power and restraint. The Scythes of the Emperor battle-brother hunkered down on one knee, resting the heavy bolter and putting his eye squarely behind its sights and along the chunky barrel of the weapon. Ques
ada took the opposite angle, expertly exchanging ends of the twin-crescent magazine he had taped together and slammed the full clip into the breach of his bolter. Czevak nodded at Klute and the two of them began to step back, away from the archway and the pool of gore still pouring out of the Excoriator Space Marine. The Deathwatch captain dipped his hand in his thigh holster and withdrew a chunky bolt pistol. He pointed the sidearm at the two men without even looking at them.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ he ordered. ‘Away from the wall. Now.’

  The inquisitor and his interrogator sidestepped. Klute assumed that the Aurora Chapter Marine was afraid that Czevak would activate some rune-secreted doorway and slip out. He hoped for his own sake that the captain was correct to suspect his master of such invention.

  Another single impact on the door echoed around the chamber. The Crimson Consul came forward, putting his gauntlet and the side of his helmet to the wraithbone entrance.

  ‘Here they come,’ Czevak whispered to Klute.

  A shower of colour appeared in the chamber like a kind of spectral revenant and streamed at the Crimson Consul from behind. It appeared as though a stained-glass window had materialised behind the battle-brother and had then been blasted out with a shotgun. The spectrum of fragments flew and then reformed into a humanoid visage that stood behind the Deathwatch Space Marine.

  The figure was tall and dressed in the eldritch fashions of the alien eldar, although Klute had never seen one of their kind garbed in such gaudy colours and outlandish patterns: kaleidoscopic chequers and stripes beside bold symbols and intense fabrics. Pipes protruded from a launcher pack on the eldar’s back – presumably for grenades, the interrogator hypothesised – that formed a crown behind the hood and featureless mirror-mask that the interloper wore. He held out a gloved and delicate hand, into which the impossible length of a leaf-shaped witchblade appeared, smoking with runes and the psychic power of it wielder.

  ‘Harlequins…’ Klute heard his master murmur in fear and amazement; he could only imagine that the High Inquisitor was familiar with the alien warriors from his time spent on the Iyanden craftworld.