Shield of Baal: Tempestus

by Braden Campbell

  ‘Inquisitor?’ she said. ‘We’re not alone.’

  Ulrich looked down the strand. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Locals, I would presume, sir. Should we do something about them?’

  Before he could answer, Chavis approached. ‘We’re ready, inquisitor,’ he said.

  ‘Turn it on, then.’

  Chavis gave a signal to one of his men, and the searchlight flared to life. Its blinding beam cut a wide swath down the beach and far out into the ocean. Another wave crashed over the rocks, dousing everyone with droplets of freezing water. The searchlight crackled and hissed.

  Chavis frowned. ‘Sir,’ he asked Ulrich, ‘are you certain that we’re high enough above the water line?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Margene did not share the inquisitor’s confidence, especially not after yet another wave crested the rocks and travelled far enough up the shore to wet their boots. Green tendrils like fine seaweed, embedded with flecks of silver, glittered on the ground. Droplets popped loudly as they landed on the light and then vaporised.

  Scion Cato was the first to notice that the torch bearers had altered their course and were now moving towards them. ‘Tempestor!’ he shouted.

  ‘Byrdgon, Savdra!’ Chavis ordered. The two Scions quickly left the searchlight to stand by Erdon. From their backs, the three men unhooked bulky lasguns with top-mounted scopes and thick barrels.

  The group of torch bearers came to a halt a short distance from the Scions. They were led by a woman in her late thirties. She wore a blue, patchwork robe and tall boots. She carried a staff that seemed to be made from some kind of white stone. Her skin was burnt and wrinkled from a lifetime under the twin suns of Lysios.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here!’ she shouted. ‘Whoever you are, you must leave.’

  Ulrich put his hands on his hips. ‘Do you have any idea who I am?’

  The woman stopped and planted the end of her staff in the rocky soil. Something about the gnarled white pole stuck a familiar chord with Margene. It wasn’t stone, she realised, but a huge rod of coral.

  ‘This night is sacred, off-worlder. You will not defile it.’

  ‘What did you call me?’

  ‘Off-worlder,’ she drawled in a thick accent. ‘Like the Murderess.’

  The crowd behind her murmured.

  Ulrich seemed slightly amused. ‘I’m sorry, who is the Murderess?’

  ‘The one who leads the women in white.’

  ‘You mean the Canoness? Does she know you call her that?’

  The ocean roared. The Lysites turned, to see the crest of an enormous wave rolling towards them in a spray of water and foam. Strange creatures began to tumble out of it. Fish the size of small children flopped about. More of the glittering seaweed covered the shore. Margene unslung her bolter.

  ‘You must douse this light!’ cried the woman in the blue robe. ‘Only Ixoi may shine this night!’

  Ulrich neither knew nor cared what she was talking about. He was about to order the Scions to chase the Lysites off with a volley of las-fire, when another wave pounded the nearby rocks. A large boulder rolled up onto the shore, and sprouted four pairs of stocky, segmented legs. A head shaped like a hammer uncurled from somewhere beneath it. Two antennae emerged from its neck and twitched as they took in the night-time air.

  One of the old Lysite men broke from the group and ran towards it with all the speed he could muster. ‘Me first, take me!’ he shouted as he went.

  ‘Orders, sir?’ Chavis asked.

  The boulder-thing pounced forward. Margene caught a glimpse of a fanged mouth on its underside.

  Ulrich dug furiously into his coat pocket, and whipped out a hand-held auspex. He pointed it towards the creature. When it made a short, sharp buzz, he scowled. ‘It’s not what we’re after. Kill it.’

  Chavis barked to two of his men. ‘Thieus, Brandt, directed firestorm.’

  The pair’s hot-shot lasguns lit up the stony beach with searing beams. The creature was struck, and a section of its rocky shell melted inward. It gave a high pitched squeal, and fell over dead. Its insides were on fire.

  The old man who had been running skidded to a halt and fell to his knees before the carcass. He stared in disbelief. There was no sound for a moment except the pounding of the surf. The Lysites were slack-jawed and silent. Then the old man lifted his arms out towards the worldwave and began to wail.

  ‘I was prepared!’ he cried.

  As if taking a cue from his outburst, the body of the dead creature shuddered. From somewhere inside it there came a tearing sound. A swarm of tiny things flooded out from underneath its burning shell, each a copy of the parent creature in miniature. They surged over the wailing man and began biting into his flesh. He collapsed beneath them.

  Margene could have sworn that his cries had changed from sorrow to gratitude.

  Ulrich took a step back in disgust. Another titanic wave arched over the boulders and came crashing down, soaking everyone and leaving more creatures in its wake. They dragged themselves up the shore on a pair of rubbery fins, while behind them a flat tail wagged. Their backs were covered in long spines that faced forward. They shook themselves off, sending a cloud of quills into the crowd.

  One of the darts caught Ulrich in the temple, leaving a long scratch that oozed dark ichor. He drew his pistol with impressive speed and sent a bolt of energy into the thing that had dared to wound him.

  Two more of the boulder-spiders dropped into the mass of Lysites, sending bodies flying in all directions. With terrible grunts, they disgorged their young, who began to bite and gnaw on everything around them. Down the beach, a varied collection of creatures were being cast ashore. A ball of gelatinous material rolled a short distance, and then collapsed into a pile of seaweed and fleshy slugs with ridged fins. They began crawling with alarming speed towards the searchlight and everyone who was gathered around it.

  A memory flashed through Margene’s mind of a time years ago when a moth had somehow found its way into the scriptorium. Again and again, it flew into her candelabra, until it had finally caught fire and died. It had been heedless of pain or any wounds it suffered, because it had been driven mad; mad by the bright light of her candles.

  ‘Inquisitor, I think your beacon is working a little too well,’ she said.

  Chavis pointed to the two Taurox. ‘Cato, Erdon, get in the turrets and prepare to give us fire support.’

  As the two men ran for the transports, the pack of quilled beasts turned their attention to the Scions’ firing line. Their faces were covered with the blood and gore of the Lysites they had just finished feasting on. The monsters shook violently as they ran forward. Byrdgon’s right arm became covered in quills. He fired his weapon and one of the creatures exploded into flaming chunks. The other Scions followed suit, lighting up the stony beach with las-fire.

  ‘Keep them back,’ Chavis yelled. ‘Don’t let them get close enough to fire those barbs at you.’ He glanced at his monitor. The countdown timer was almost at zero. ‘Inquisitor, we’re nearing peak tide. Which of these is the specimen?’

  Ulrich waved his auspex back and forth. ‘I’m not… it’s not any of these,’ he shouted.

  Byrdgon stumbled backwards, and fell face first to the ground. On either side of him, the Scions continued pouring las-fire into the quill creatures, but it seemed that every one they killed was replaced by two more.

  Chavis dashed to Byrdgon and rolled him over. His right arm was swelling visibly. Black gel was seeping out from the base of every quill. He tried to say something, but could only produce choking sounds.

  The tide came upon them with a deafening crash. Water flooded around the base of the searchlight and the treads of the nearest Taurox. The pack of quill creatures seemed to be invigorated by it, and surged ahead. They leapt upon the Scions and unleashed a flurry of biting, scratching attacks.

  Chavis pulled a serrated combat knife from his belt and filled the hole in the line. To his left and right, the Scions we
re beating at the monsters with their rifles until they went down, and then stamping their heads flat to ensure they stayed that way. There were a lot of them, he admitted, but their main threat seemed to be their poisonous quills, which were rendered useless in close quarters. He was quite confident that, so long as they weren’t allowed to get too close, he and his men would quickly emerge as the victors in this fight.

  Then, by the searchlight’s glare, Chavis saw that larger creatures were emerging from the surf. They were slightly taller than a man, and dragged themselves forward on a pair of fat, chitin-plated claws. Their bodies were vaguely serpentine. Small bolts of electricity crackled around them.

  They charged in an odd, scrabbling motion, bowling through the remaining quill creatures and impacting against the Scions. Chavis felt his whole body shiver uncontrollably as the things discharged a massive electrical shock. His muscles refused to obey him for a moment, and he dropped his knife. The next thing he knew he was on his back, claws trying to tear away his armour. There was a sharp and terrible pain in his thigh.

  With great effort, Chavis dug his fingers into the thing’s side, grabbed a fistful of blubber, and pulled. A gristly hole opened up, dumping reeking fluids all over him. The creature gave a high squeal and collapsed.

  Chavis shoved its dead weight off him and scrambled back to his feet, ignoring the pain in his upper leg where he’d been wounded. His monitor started flashing a variety of telltales; yellow for Scions who were injured but recoverable, red for those who were beyond saving. He also noted that Margene had thrown herself into the fray. She had attached an oversized bayonet to the end of her boltgun, and was using it to chop through the bodies of the attacking creatures.

  Ulrich fired his pistol into yet another group of aquatic horrors that were shambling and slithering their way towards the searchlight. It seemed as if every living thing in the worldwave were coming ashore with the intent to feast on them.

  ‘Fire support on the water line!’ Chavis yelled into his vox.

  Atop both of the Taurox were cannons designed to blow apart light vehicles and heavily armoured infantry. Erdon and Cato began to shell the beach with them. With each explosion, a cone of gravel and water rocketed upwards. Chunks of shell and fatty tissue rained down.

  Another of the clawed creatures leapt towards Chavis. He drew his pistol and shot the thing dead before it could shock him. The ocean was all around them now, completely covering the fallen and drenching those still standing almost to their waists. Sparks shot from the searchlight, and in an instant, it went out. The ruddy light of Ixoi came flooding back.

  Ulrich’s sword glinted in the moonlight as he slashed and thrust. His coat was torn at the shoulder and one side of his face was distorted. The bodies of dead things floated all around him.

  Margene was the first to see it. She had just finished chopping one of the quill creatures in half, and was standing back to back with one of the Scions. His helmet was gone and one of his hands had been badly mangled. A shadow fell across them, and she looked up to see where it had come from.

  Out of the worldwave rose a tree. At least, that was her initial impression: a tree whose vast trunk was sheathed in bark the colour of dried scabs. Its hundreds of cream-coloured branches curled and twitched as they stretched across the face of the moon. Some of them were tipped with claws as large as the Taurox.

  Her body shook involuntarily as the truth dawned on her. It wasn’t a tree. It was an enormous tentacle. In fact, it was a tentacle that was sprouting a myriad of other tentacles.

  One by one, Chavis, Ulrich and the remaining Scions caught a glimpse of it, and despite their varied backgrounds, all of them were struck dumb. The Scions paused for only a fraction of a second before regaining their focus and continuing to fight off their attackers.

  Ulrich however, despite his training and experience, found himself standing slack-jawed and speechless. This is Shelse, he thought dimly. No, worse: this is only a portion of Shelse. His preconceptions crumbled within him, and were supplanted by sheer terror. Gone was any notion he might have once held that the creature would be captured in its entirety. All he cared about for the moment was surviving.

  A rushing sound filled the air, and the full extent of the tidal swell came upon them. A wave, larger than any that had come before it, was curling up from the body of Lysios’s ocean. The water looked purple in Ixoi’s red glare. White caps glinted along its edge.

  ‘Emperor, save us,’ Margene whispered.

  The wave reached its peak, and began to crumble. It struck the boulders along the shoreline with hurricane force, submerging them easily. A wall of water rolled towards them, and from its foaming crest came a monster. It was a thing dragged up from the deepest depths, with rubbery, ghostly-white skin. Its head was shaped like that of some gigantic fish. Its mouth was filled with teeth the size of swords. Its eyes glowed bright yellow, and a ridge of spines ran down the length of its back. Where it ended, no one could tell; the thing’s body trailed back into the churning ocean.

  ‘All Scions,’ Chavis yelled into his vox, ‘elimination protocol!’

  Erdon and Cato continued to rain shells upon the shoreline. The giant thing bellowed as it was struck. One of its eyes exploded, showering the landscape in jelly. Wriggling the spines on its back, it swam forwards with the force of a runaway train. It swallowed two Scions whole, and knocked the searchlight into the water before it finally rammed its bulbous head into the side of Cato’s Taurox. The side door caved in completely. The vehicle rocked, but did not tip over.

  Margene, Ulrich, and Chavis began shooting at it, but none of the weapons they carried seemed to have any effect. Erdon hit it with another shell from his battle cannon. A hole opened halfway down the length of its body, and greasy blood gushed out.

  In response, the monster raised itself up like a cobra preparing to strike, and then slammed its entire weight down onto the roof of Chavis’s transport. The driver’s section crumpled and the front tracks sagged in on themselves. Over the vox, the Scions could hear Cato screaming in agony.

  The monster raised itself up again. It clamped the entire front half of the transport in its mouth, and shook it wildly. Metal plating and bits of machinery flew in all directions. Then the monster, satisfied with its catch, began to retract itself back into the ocean, taking the flattened Taurox with it.

  ‘Kill it! Kill it!’ Chavis was screaming.

  In response, Erdon fired three more shells at the monster as it retreated. Two of them found their mark, and opened yet more gaping wounds in its hide. With a splash, it vanished back into the ocean.

  Scion Cato’s incoherent cries became the terrible sounds of a man drowning. Thankfully for all who could hear, his struggles were short lived.

  Margene and Chavis kicked aside a myriad of dead creatures. Four Scions got to their feet. The rest were either dead or gone, the bodies washed out to sea.

  Now that the beacon was destroyed, the number of creatures tumbling out of the ocean became greatly reduced. Waves continued to crest over the boulders, but these too were shrinking in magnitude. Still, it was not yet over.

  The remaining quill beasts launched another volley of poisoned barbs, which bounced harmlessly off the Scions’ armour. Chavis shot three of them. His last four men joined him at his side, and began firing their lasguns into the pack.

  Margene quickly inserted a fresh clip into her bolter, and fired. Two more of the clawed things blew apart into rubbery pieces. When a half-dead quill beast attempted to bite her leg, she stamped it to death beneath her heel.

  Erdon’s cannon shells had transformed the water line into a pockmarked moonscape. The craters filled with seawater and mangled pieces of meat. At last, he ceased firing, for there was nothing left on the beach to shoot at.

  Chavis watched his men torch the last of the quill creatures with las-fire. He holstered his bolt pistol and spoke into his vox. ‘Erdon, the area is clear. Grab a medi-kit and get out here.’

  Ulrich wa
s standing farther down the shore, where the water was still knee-high. He was staring out past the boulders. No more creatures were coming ashore. The cut on his face burned with a mixture of poison and salt. By his quick estimation, ten or eleven men had been killed, leaving him with only half a dozen Scions and the dialogus. They were down to one transport, and his equipment was all damaged, or utterly destroyed. But worse than all this, Shelse was nowhere to be seen. The worldwave was moving on, passing the plateau in its unstoppable circumnavigation of Lysios.

  Ulrich began to shake. His knuckles turned white as he gripped his sword. He let loose a scream that echoed off the rocks. ‘Ten years!’

  The tempestor trudged up behind the inquisitor. A wave broke over the rocks.

  ‘The worldwave won’t pass this plateau again for ten years. All my planning… this whole trip… It’s all been a waste!’ He stumbled a few steps towards the ocean.

  ‘A waste,’ Chavis repeated.

  Ulrich spun around. ‘This is not my fault!’

  ‘I never implied that it was, sir,’ Chavis said, ‘but what are your orders now?’

  Ulrich’s face twisted as he furiously tried to think of some means to salvage this operation. Nothing came. He sighed. ‘Return to the space port, and go home.’

  He gave the worldwave one final, longing look, and then started walking back up the beach.

  Chavis left to see to his men without saying another word.

  They heard Margene yelling. ‘Inquisitor! Tempestor! Over here!’

  The two men broke into a run, passing Erdon as he opened a medi-kit and began tending to the surviving Scions. They found Margene near the place where the Lysites had tried to confront them. One of the Taurox cannon shells had fallen here, littering the area with human body parts and dead sea creatures. In the middle of the scene was a wide, but shallow crater. At the bottom, submerged in salt water and pinned beneath the half-corpse of one of the boulder-spiders, lay the woman with the blue robe.

  ‘I heard someone calling,’ Margene said, ‘and I found this.’ She leapt down into the crater, and yanked back the woman’s tattered robe.