Tower of Blood

by Tony Ballantyne

  Tower of Blood

  Tony Ballantyne

  The ceiling was dripping blood.

  It dripped on the bald head of Goedendag Morningstar, Adeptus Astartes of the Iron Knights Chapter, and the Space Marine made no move to wipe it away.

  ‘How many floors lie above us?’ he asked.

  Though the Imperial Guard trooper was a big woman, she would still have been dwarfed by Goedendag even had he not been wearing his power armour.

  ‘One hundred and forty-three floors,’ she managed to say, awestruck by this post-human demigod. She straightened up, despite her exhaustion. ‘Eight hundred and sixty-five lie below us. We met the horde in battle at the nine hundredth floor. They pushed us back to here. Many lives were lost in action, many more civilians were evacuated.’

  ‘But not all,’ said Ortrud. The Iron Knights had completed their survey of the eight hundred and fifty-sixth floor; now they clustered around their commander.

  ‘Not all,’ agreed the Guard, looking around the seven men now towering over her in their gunmetal and black armour, streaked red with dripping blood. Their unhelmed heads seemed so small, lost in the heart of the powerful machinery of their suits. ‘By no means all. There are thousands still trapped above us, all at the mercy of the warp fiends.’

  ‘The warp fiends do not understand the meaning of mercy,’ said Fastlinger. ‘Commander, may we now don our helmets?’ He drew his hand across his face.

  ‘No,’ said Goedendag. ‘We fight unhelmed. We do not want to lead civilians into areas where we are safe and they are not. What if we led them into a vacuum?’ He noticed the way the Imperial Guardswoman was looking at him. ‘Do you have a question?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was just wondering, why do you wear two morning stars on your back?’

  Goedendag smiled.

  ‘For weapons.’

  ‘You seem different to other Space Marines.’

  ‘Have you met many?’ asked Fastlinger.

  Goedendag flashed him a warning look. The Imperial Guard were an honoured force; they did not deserve to be ridiculed.

  ‘The Iron Knights are siege specialists,’ said Goedendag. ‘The warp fiends have sealed off the top floors and surrounded this tower with a warp instability that is spreading across the sky, threatening the neighbouring hives. This siege needs to be broken now.’

  The Guardswoman was torn between exhaustion and awe. Still, something caused her to speak.

  ‘Are you going to wait for the Ordo Malleus?’

  ‘The inquisition’s daemonhunters are not here,’ interrupted Telramund. ‘Goedendag, I grow weary. Let us join the fight!’

  ‘Peace, Telramund! This soldier stands alone in a room with seven Iron Knights in full armour–’

  ‘Save for their helms,’ muttered Fastlinger.

  ‘If things had been otherwise, we would have found nought here but corpses. She is brave indeed.’ Goedendag looked down at her.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Kelra.’

  ‘Then listen to me, Kelra. You and your troops have done well to hold back the daemons, but now it is our turn.’

  He waved a hand around the floor. It was empty save for the four lift shafts that ran to the top of the hive building. All the internal walls, all the possessions of those who had once lived here were vaporised, smashed, shattered, destroyed by the weapons of the Imperial Guard as they had fought to hold their ground. The wide, low space was filled with darkness, the stench of battle, the drip of blood. Even the stairs had broken away. The stairs; the last route of escape for those lucky civilians who had not taken the lifts. The shafts still creaked with the agony of those caught within.

  ‘Kelra, before we leave, you mentioned something about the origin of the warp rift?’

  Kelra nodded, pleased to help.

  ‘I have heard something. Escaping civilians have spoken about a Gutor Invareln who lived on the nine hundred and ninety-second floor. He was a bitter man, an outcast. He claimed he was a latent psyker, that he had been ignored by the Imperium. His neighbours laughed, they thought he was seeking attention. The children mocked him, asked him why he had not been taken to Terra, but Invareln would scowl in answer that he was deliberately forgotten.’

  ‘He was a psyker,’ said Franosch, concentrating. ‘His mind is now possessed by a daemon. A greater daemon. He is the portal by which the lesser daemons are entering this world.’

  Kelra’s eyes widened as she looked to Franosch.

  ‘He’s a psyker too?’ she asked.

  ‘Gamma level at best,’ answered Franosch. He turned to Goedendag. ‘Commander, there are daemonettes above us. Many, many daemonettes.’

  ‘Enough talk,’ said Telramund. ‘The instability is spreading.’

  Goedendag looked up at the ceiling, watched the clotting drops forming stalactites.

  ‘So much blood,’ he said. ‘Telramund is right. We move out. Draw your chainswords.’

  Telramund was already holding his meltagun. ‘This weapon will suit me fine, commander.’

  ‘And what of the civilians who stand above us? No meltaguns, no flamers, no frag grenades…’

  ‘How about missile launchers?’ said Fastlinger, innocently.

  ‘How about you take point, Fastlinger?’ replied Goedendag. He noted the look of disappointment on Telramund’s face. ‘Telramund, you accompany him.’

  Telramund smiled as he holstered his meltagun and drew his chainsword. An angry buzzing noise sounded as he set it in motion, a buzz that was immediately answered by Fastlinger’s weapon.

  The Iron Knights began to move apart, assuming combat positions.

  ‘Gottfried. The battle cry.’

  Gottfried looked down at the floor and clasped his hands together. In a low voice, he intoned the words: ‘Strike, death, as silent as the swan.’

  The rest of the group repeated the words.

  Now the other chainswords powered up, the angry screeching made all the louder as it echoed from the low ceiling. Low ceilings, the better to cram in more humans, ready to work on this manufactory world.

  The time for joking had passed, and Fastlinger looked to his comrades and saw they were all ready. He looked to Goedendag last. The commander nodded and Fastlinger raised his sword to the ceiling, the angry buzz rising to a scream as it cut through the thin metal. Immediately, there was a convulsive eruption of blood, dark blood rupturing through the widening crack. It spilled down over Fastlinger’s cutting arm and shoulder, running down the blue gunmetal and black of his powered armour. He shifted his position and his feet slipped on the pools that congealed around his feet. Retractable spikes sprang forth from the soles of his power armour, holding him in place.

  Kelra, the Imperial Guard trooper, backed away, dodging a second burst of blood as Telramund too began to cut into the ceiling. The tide of blood widened with the hole, and now smooth yellow shapes slipped through amongst the liquid. Rounded and polished, they splashed and knocked on the floor.

  ‘That’s a skull,’ said Kelra. Still, she stood her ground, noted Goedendag. Not for nothing had the Imperial Guard gained the respect of humanity.

  Goedendag gestured Franosch forward, and the psyker stood at the edge of the widening waterfall of blood.

  ‘They know we’re here,’ he said. ‘They are eager to meet us.’

  ‘Who? The daemonettes?’

  ‘Oh yes. They are filled with the bitter joy of battle, and yet… something is holding them back.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something at the top of the tower.’

 
‘Will this tide never end?’ called Telramund impatiently. He was itching to fight.

  ‘Surely this is more blood than all the humans of the hive would hold?’ said Kelra.

  ‘Some of it spills from the portal,’ said Franosch.

  ‘Enough of this,’ said Goedendag. ‘The gap is wide enough! Through it! Go!’

  Fastlinger crouched and then jumped upwards on leg muscles massively expanded by the biscopea implanted in his chest. He soared through the gap above him in a spray of ruby, followed closely by Telramund.

  Now Goedendag stepped forward. Despite the fact that he heard the buzzing of chainswords above him, the innate courtesy of the Iron Knights caused him to pause for a moment and turn to Kelra.

  ‘Thank you for your help,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be waiting here for your return.’

  Drips of blood bouncing from his bald head and matting his long white beard, Goedendag Morningstar jumped up into the space above.

  He landed on the eight hundred and fifty-seventh floor, his balance thrown by the tide of blood swirling into the hole. Something white came flashing in at his side; something sharp was pricking towards his eye. He swung his chainsword, shearing through the crab claw of the daemonette who bore down upon him. The white skinned woman hissed at him, her rusty hair plastered by blood to her bare shoulders.

  ‘Goolvar h’nurrgh!’ she spat, and made to draw something from behind her back. It was a feint! As Goedendag brought his chainsword up to parry the attack, she kicked out at him, a three-toed foot tipped in razor-sharp claws scratching across the armour on his sword arm. Goedendag made to chop at her leg, but she gripped him with her foot and held on, twisting the chainsword upwards.

  Now the daemonette smiled at him, her sweet, seductive body undulating as she brought the snake-fiend from behind her back. She hissed, and lashed the fiend forwards like a whip. Its eyes blazed, its mouth, surrounded by a ring of venom pierced needles, snapping towards Goedendag’s face. His chainsword-wielding hand was trapped by the daemonette’s foot.

  The betcher’s glands in Goedendag’s mouth had been working overtime, and he spat corrosive acid into the eyes of the lashing snake-fiend. The creature screamed and drew back in pain. Goedendag flicked the chainsword to his left hand, then brought the weapon up as if to parry quinte, slicing through the snake-fiend’s body. He carried on with the movement, circling down to cut through the daemonette’s leg. She screamed and jumped forward, needle teeth moving within her mouth, but Goedendag’s right hand now reached to his shoulder and took hold of one of the morning stars there. He brought the weapon forward in a circle, cracking it down on the daemonette’s skull as, simultaneously, his sword thrust into her body.

  She thrashed as she died, her bitter scream rippling the pools of blood gathered on the floor.

  ‘You took your time on that one,’ said Fastlinger, standing coolly nearby over the bodies of two more dead daemonettes. ‘And we saved her especially for you, too.’

  ‘You talk too much,’ said Telramund, three daemonettes to his credit.

  The other members of the squad were now entering the room, jumping up from below.

  ‘One hundred and forty-two floors to go,’ announced Ortrud, looking at the dead daemonettes.

  ‘There are many more above us,’ said Franosch, looking to the dripping ceiling, ‘yet still they hold back.’ He looked at Goedendag. ‘Do you think they know it is us? Are they waiting for us?’

  ‘Who cares?’ said Telramund. ‘We shall meet them soon enough.’

  The daemonettes had been fought to a standstill here as they descended the tower from the warp portal. As they had fought, they had ripped apart the thin walls that partitioned the human apartments crowded into the hive block. The ceiling above had been punctured in many places, and Goedendag and the other Iron Knights could now look up through several floors.

  Ortrud waded through ankle-deep blood, kicking aside yellow skulls, the flesh recently ripped from the bone.

  ‘They sealed this floor to keep the blood in,’ he said.

  ‘There is blood still dripping down upon us,’ said Telramund, ever impatient.

  Franosch was frowning, straining to understand.

  ‘They carry some of the living through the warp portal,’ he says. ‘I hear their screams. But the daemonettes grow bored. They torture and kill those who remain.’

  ‘Then let us make speed to meet them,’ said Telramund.

  ‘Telramund speaks well,’ said Goedendag. ‘Franosch, I see the stairs resume undamaged on the next floor. Is it meet that we should take them?’

  ‘For the moment.’

  They advanced in turns, running in pairs up flights of stairs whilst those behind covered them. As they climbed through the floors, the damage inflicted by the holding action lessened. The internal walls of the hive tower reasserted themselves, and Goedendag and the rest began to make out the tiny apartment spaces in which the civilians had lived.

  ‘What do they make here?’ asked Gottfried.

  ‘On Minea? Phosgene gas, mainly. They also export Banedox ore.’

  ‘Look,’ said Gottfried.

  Goedendag looked to the floor. A child’s toy lay there, a model Space Marine.

  ‘There were children here,’ said Fastlinger. He looked sick. Sometimes the jokes were not quite enough to shut out reality. ‘What did they do with them?’

  ‘Next floor up,’ said Ortrud. ‘You’ll see.’

  They climbed the stairs to the next level.

  ‘Nine hundredth floor,’ said Gottfried.

  ‘They sealed the stairwell above,’ said Telramund, looking up.

  ‘Then we cut through with chainswords,’ said Goedendag.

  ‘We won’t need chainswords,’ replied Telramund bitterly.

  Goedendag moved forward to get a better look. A patchwork had been stitched over the stairwell. Shapes of brown, pink and yellow. Blood seeped through the stitches.

  ‘That’s children’s skin,’ said Goedendag.

  ‘That’s daemonettes amusing themselves, killing time,’ said Telramund.

  ‘It’s a warning line,’ said Franosch. ‘It will summon trouble.’

  ‘Then I will invite trouble to join me,’ said Goedendag, cutting through the patchwork of flesh with a knife. Blood spurted through, and amongst the curling currents and eddies slipped the writhing bodies of snake-fiends, pouring through the gaps, wriggling as they sought out their human prey. Chainswords buzzed into life once more, and the warriors began to swing at the prickling creatures.

  ‘They cannot penetrate our armour!’ shouted Fastlinger, cutting a snake-fiend in two in a spray of green ichor that steamed and sizzled on contact with the clotting blood.

  ‘They’re not trying to penetrate,’ called Ortrud. ‘They seek to entangle us.’

  As he spoke, a bundle of snake-fiends whipped their way out of the bloody stream and corkscrewed their way towards Goedendag’s sword arm, seeking to wrap it to his body. Goedendag feinted to the side and then brought his chainsword down on the mass of bodies, their scales dark and shining. The scream of the sword joined the splashing of blood and the hiss of ichor. Through the mass of moist movement he saw the white bodies of the daemonettes of Slaanesh dropping down to join the melee.

  ‘Too much blood,’ gasped Franosch, launching a coulé attack on a snake-fiend, grazing the chainsword down the side of its body before neatly flicking back to sever the head.

  ‘Less technique, Franosch,’ called Ortrud, ‘More slashing!’

  ‘There is too much blood,’ repeated Franosch, stamping down on a bundle of snake-fiends with his spiked boots. ‘Still it pours from the warp.’

  ‘‘Ware the daemonettes!’ called Gottfried, launching a fleche attack at the closest enemy. A white female staggered towards him, seemingly drunk on blood. Goedendag brought his chains
word up beneath Gottfried’s strike, parrying it.

  ‘Hold,’ called Goedendag, seeing the look of betrayal in his comrade’s eyes. ‘She’s human.’

  The Space Marines halted as one, the mocking laughter of daemonettes filling their ears. They took a moment to discern the situation: the followers of Slaanesh stood at the far side of the wide room, bending, taunting, snapping their crab-like claws at the Space Marines. Now Goedendag’s men realised just what the daemonettes had pushed towards them: human women, stripped naked and daubed with white paint, their hair tied up and stained with blood. Prisoners, sent forward to die on the Space Marine’s blades, for was it not a fact that the followers of Slaanesh delighted in killing their opponents in the most vile and tormenting ways?

  ‘More snake-fiends!’ called Goedendag, as the writhing creatures rose out of the rising tide of blood, circlets of needle teeth glistening with poison, redoubling their attack, this time on the human women as well as the Space Marines themselves.

  It was left to Gottfried and Hellstedt to dispatch the snake-fiends. Ortrud and Fastlinger launched themselves at the daemonettes screaming with insane laughter at the other side of the room. They waited a moment as the Space Marines advanced and then retreated at a sedate pace back up the stairs to the next level, wriggling their bodies in an alluring fashion as they did so, taunting their pursuers.

  ‘Leave them,’ called Goedendag. ‘Look to the women first.’ Reluctantly, Ortrud and Fastlinger returned to his side.

  The unceasing flow of blood continued from above, though the tide was diminishing. It swirled in whirlpools around the stairwells leading further down the tower. Seven human women stood weakly, buffeted by the dying tide. And now Goedendag saw why they had remained silent throughout their torment: their mouths had been sewn shut with thick, red thread. He took a knife from his combat armour and cut through the thread sealing the first woman’s mouth.

  ‘There are more of them above,’ she shouted, red thread piercing her lips in a grotesque moustache. ‘Hundreds, thousands. They’re waiting for you.’

  ‘Peace,’ said Goedendag Morningstar. ‘We have the advantage.’

  The woman’s eyes widened.