“Defensive formation. I am the rock,” he ordered. The Firedrakes responded as one, closing around their veteran sergeant and moving with him as he advanced. The mutant beasts couldn’t get close. Between sustained bolter fire and up-close chainblade attacks, the grotesques were kept at bay. It wasn’t long before a sea of bloody, dismembered body parts littered the gallery floor.
It wasn’t merely fury that drove Praetor, though; he was too experienced a warrior and a leader for that. He had a plan. They were outnumbered and the dark eldar had them engaged on two fronts. The conclusion was simple. They needed reinforcements.
The circle of chained Salamanders, the survivors of Squads Ba’ken and Iagon, were just ahead. None held their heads low now. They saw Herculon Praetor coming for them, calling them to the fires of battle.
A dense throng of dark eldar stood between He’stan and his quarry. The haemonculus was marshalling his forces to him. The tremble of fear affecting his skeletal frame seemed to invigorate him. The carnage only fascinated and engrossed him further. Slowly, he was drawn from the vaults and down into the melee.
No wych or hellion could stand before the wrath of He’stan’s entourage; no scourge or jetbiker could deter them. This was fury untempered. It was anger unleashed with all thoughts of stoicism abandoned. Fire reigned and in it the violent potential of the Firedrakes was laid bare.
Dark eldar were spun away from the juggernaut of green ceramite, their bodies broken and sundered. It was as if a rolling flamestorm had been let slip in their midst. It was moving inexorably towards the haemonculus. Nothing could stop this fire-tempest. It would blaze until its rage was burned out.
The cadaver creature appeared to sense the inevitability of his fate.
Tsu’gan thought he saw the haemonculus clip a finger end from his left hand. The severed digit went into a small iron box that disappeared beneath the creature’s tattered robes. The foul rite was lost on the Salamander but then the mores of aliens were not a thing to be understood, rather to be abhorred.
A second artefact replaced the first in the haemonculus’ bloodstained claw. This one was pentagrammic, flat but also fashioned from dark metal. It spun wildly in the flat of the dark eldar’s palm, tiny ripples of lightning playing over its sharp edges.
Behind the haemonculus, reality itself seemed to change.
It began as a pinprick of darkness, an insignificant blot against the canvas of the actual world. It grew steadily, from something the size of a coin, to then a tank hatch and finally a sprawling, circular void.
“He is opening a portal to the webway,” said He’stan urgently. The Forgefather quickened again, incredibly outstripping the others for pace.
The gateway shimmered like watery night. The ripples of its rapid creation ebbed, and it became a quiescent pool of still, utter black. Electricity crackled around its perimeter. The fabric of reality had been wholly torn and this gaping, unholy firmament was the thing that lingered between its skeins. Faces seemed to dwell in the darkening pool, too—tortured, hellish faces.
Even as the battle to reach the portal raged, something was emerging from within it. A bladed prow cut through the blackness first, followed by a ridged nose of angled plates. The long fuselage was that of a dark eldar skimmer-machine, the insectoid engines they used during their slave raids. It was much larger than the vehicles the Salamanders had encountered so far. Three long-nosed cannons, their dark metal glinting in the half-light, bristled in their armoured gun-ports.
The fighting was too dense to unleash the cannonade. The skimmer-machine had come for the haemonculus.
Realisation crept upon Tsu’gan like a silent thief, even as he killed the creature’s kabal warriors, even as he witnessed He’stan arch his back and pull his arm for a spear throw.
This was how the dark eldar had surprised their brothers. It was obvious. The portal had allowed the xenos to infiltrate Elysius’ defences. And now the cadaver creature was trying to escape by the same means.
The dark eldar got as far as turning his foul body towards the portal, the skimmer hovering close before the Spear of Vulkan sheared through his torso and pinned him squealing to the warehouse wall.
He’stan’s reaction was exultant.
“Rally to me, brothers,” he cried, “and turn this xenos scum to ash!” The Gauntlet of the Forge spoke next and its words were fire and death. He strafed the skimmer, bathing its crew in liquid promethium. The machine sank quickly after that, hitting the ground hard. Smoke exuded off the hull and some of the deck plating was bent, but it was otherwise operational.
There would be no escape for the haemonculus now. He’stan had declared his wrath upon him. For the justice demanded by the dead, it would be meted out in full.
The hammer blow shattered the dark iron chains and they fell away from the captured Salamanders under their own weight.
“To arms, brothers,” said Praetor, tossing one warrior his storm shield, “Unto the anvil of war.”
Honorious took the weapon eagerly and surged forwards to smash down a grotesque. He used the shield like a bludgeon at first, before decapitating the creature with its hard edge. Spitting on the corpse, he searched for another enemy.
The surviving Salamanders of Squads Ba’ken and Iagon roared as one. Handed spare weapons by their 1st Company kin, they laid into what was left of the grotesques with relentless violence.
Let them vent, thought Praetor, taking a moment to watch his freed brothers unleash hell. Like the terrible anger of Mount Deathfire, their fury had been laid dormant by the xenos. Now, he had unfettered it and it was erupting amongst the mutants in a tide of blood.
“Back to the door,” he ordered, voice booming. The carnage in the gallery was nearly over. The grotesques were almost slain to a beast.
He felt the fires within ebbing. The battle was all but done. It was well met. Only two Firedrakes down, one maybe permanently, though. But a thought niggled at the forefront of Praetor’s mind as he followed the others. Chaplain Elysius had not been amongst the survivors. Neither had he been one of the dead. Several of their battle-brothers were unaccounted for, Sergeants Ba’ken and Iagon amongst them.
So where are you, brothers? What have the xenos done with you?
CHAPTER NINE
I
The Razored Vale
There was no way back. Elysius’ grenade belt had seen to that. The dust from the explosion was only just settling. Tiny motes and fragments of debris drifted from the ceiling of the sewer in a dark pall. The warriors penetrated the veil easily with their enhanced vision. Elysius revelled in his newfound strength and abilities. Upon his apotheosis to Scout, he felt empowered, invincible.
“We have the creature now,” he said to the darkness around him. Elysius marvelled at the Lyman’s ear implant. He could pick out the exact positions of his two other squad brothers with ease.
“Aye, and Master Zen’de will laud us when it takes us to its lair,” offered M’kett. Elysius heard the chunk-chank of his heavy bolter as G’ord panned it across the corridor. It was tight in the sewer but there was enough room for the weapon to make a pass.
“The blood trail leads this way,” said Elysius. He’d snapped on a luminator attached to his bolter and used an ultraviolet spectrum to illuminate a ragged line on the sewer floor. At least it was just dank and they weren’t knee deep in effluence. Xenos hunting would be markedly more difficult in those conditions.
“We should exercise caution, brother,” said another voice, the rearguard.
Elysius turned. It had been his idea to trap the creature in the first place.
“You concern yourself too much, Argos. It is but one genestealer.”
“They are pack creatures,” Argos returned, “seldom alone. How can we be sure this one is isolated? We should be careful, that’s all.”
Elysius had not deigned to reply. Argos overthought everything. Ever since they had met on the training fields of the Cindara Plateau he had always calculated, and exercised caut
ion and logic to all of his dealings. To Elysius, he was more of a machine than a man.
He led them onwards, strafing the way ahead with his bolter lamp and checking on the blood trail.
After a few more minutes, Elysius broke into a run.
“Increase pace,” he said, “the trail is thinning. We are losing it!”
The dense footfalls of G’ord echoed behind them as he struggled to match Elysius’ strides with the encumbrance of the heavy bolter slung across his body.
“Stay together!” snapped Argos, moving ahead of G’ord in an attempt to try and rein Elysius in.
“I can tag the beast alone,” Elysius muttered, slipping the tracker bolt into his weapon’s breech. The explosive tip had been removed by the Chapter’s Techmarines and replaced with a tiny beacon that would transmit to the rest of the Salamander battle group. It would hurt, but it wouldn’t kill.
The plan was for the ’stealer to reveal the site of the nest when it returned to it. Find the nest, they could burn it and end the infestation.
“Brother!” urged Argos.
Elysius snarled as he turned. “Wha—” he began and stopped short when he saw the creature descend from the tunnel ceiling where it had been hiding and shadowing them to fall upon G’ord.
The heavy-weapon Scout died when the genestealer tore out his throat and much of his face. The carapace armour he wore did little to protect his body either, which the beast gored with its fangs. A desultory burst from his heavy bolter lit the tunnel briefly but managed only to frame G’ord’s death in stark monochrome and send his brothers darting for cover.
A bark of bolter fire, triggered prematurely, saw the tracker bolt miss its target. Elysius cursed as he rolled. He came up ready to empty a clip into the ’stealer, in spite of the mission. What he saw froze his blood. It had moved, so quickly and silently that it was in front of him before his targeting instincts could kick in.
A flash of claw, and a deep red line of hot pain opened up along Elysius’ arm. He dropped the bolter and could only watch as the acid-sacs in the genestealer’s maw bulged and its venting glands expanded.
He was about to lose his face.
“Elysius!” Argos cried, and slammed into him…
He awoke to pain. It was a sharp burning sensation in his right leg, fuddled by the dull ache resonating along his temple.
The echoes of the nightmare faded in his consciousness like smoke tendrils carried on a faint wind. It had been a long time ago. He still bore the scar, its place on his body one of remembered shame amongst the other honour markings on his remaining arm.
Elysius looked up through blurred eyes and saw the gaping hole he’d made in the structure’s roof. The memories dwindled to ether and he became Elysius the Chaplain again; Elysius the Scout no longer. He’d been aiming for the flat ground but had been diverted when his body had struck the vent made by the two spires, and had crashed through the roof of some graven temple instead.
Dizziness subsiding, it was hard for Elysius to tell just what kind of structure it was he now found himself in. So much of this place was alien and incomprehensible. It was a ruin; that much he was sure of. His rough landing had only added to the destruction. Flakes of metal and glass slivers cascaded from above like black dust motes where the domed ceiling was open to the sky. They tinkled against the Chaplain’s power armour discordantly.
His leg was impaled by a dark iron spike. One of the structure’s spires had collapsed inwards with the Chaplain and its barbed tip was pinning him. Grimacing, Elysius ripped the spike out and tried to stand. He faltered at first, but found his strength quickly. Standing straight, the Chaplain went to his weapons belt out of instinct. He’d dropped the broken crozius.
Elysius cast about in the debris and the ruins but couldn’t see it anywhere. He suspected he’d lost it in the fall, or perhaps it had been dislodged when he’d crashed through the roof. The chemicals in his body, advanced combat drugs, were working hard to stultify the pain in his leg and heal the wound. At least now he could walk. Glass shards and a patina of grit fell off his armour as he moved. Elysius brushed off the worst of it with his hand. The absence of the other, even as a simulacrum in the form of the power fist, was… disconcerting. He thought briefly of Ohm, felt a pang of guilt and regret then quashed the remembrance under a hammer of pragmatism.
The dark eldar had not killed them for a reason. This was their arena, Elysius was certain of that. They meant to play with them before they died, draw all the agony and psychic sustenance they could from the Fire-born. But there was something more, something he could not fathom. His fingers traced the edge of another item shackled to his armour. It was old, having existed for many millennia. Even the merest touch of it brought hope him and inner strength. It was a sigil, Vulkan’s Sigil, and with it came the blessings of a primarch. In the darkness of the ruins, Elysius was drawn to the hammer-shaped icon. He did not know why, but believed that all would become clear.
I have been sent here, he thought. I am not as my Chapter needs me to be. This is my crucible of fire and within it I shall be reborn. My flesh, my purpose, as metal in the forge—remade strong, remade anew.
The crack of broken glass intruded on his benediction, and the Chaplain dropped into a crouch. He took up position behind the fallen spire, using its bulk to shield him from view. Lit by the ephemeral flare of the lightning strikes above, Elysius became aware of two shadows closing in on him and he edged around to the split end of the shattered spire. Instinctively, he reached for the crozius. Only when his hand grasped air did he remember it was gone. The sigil was a relic, despite its hammer-like form. Elysius would not sully it in combat. He made a fist instead, bringing to mind all of the unarmed combat drills of Master Prebian.
With only one arm, he’d need to adjust his tactics. Elysius made the mental and physical adjustments in an eyeblink.
“Vulkan, hone my fury to the dagger’s point,” he hissed.
One of the shadows shifted suddenly.
They have heard me…
The other one paused then followed the first who was heading in the direction of the spire, heavy-footed and cautious. They were searching for him.
Come to me then…
The pair advanced another few metres, sniffing around in the dark. They were close enough to strike.
Legs pumping like piston-hammers, Elysius exploded from his hiding place. He brought his fist around, intending to shatter the first assailant’s jaw. A headbutt into the bridge of the nose would incapacitate the second.
“Lord Chap—!” G’heb managed to blurt before the blow to the side of his head felled him.
Seeing a friend not a foe, Elysius pulled the punch at the last moment, diverting the force away and glancing the side of G’heb’s face instead. Even still, the blow was powerful enough to put him down.
Ba’ken smiled ruefully. The big warrior was a head and a half taller than Elysius but still looked small compared to the formidable Chaplain. The sergeant’s bald head was like a piece of squared granite, hewn from the raw material of Nocturne itself. The smile, like a fissure in the rock of his countenance, softened it.
“I see you’re in no need of rescue, my lord.”
Elysius kept to the shadows. Ever since he’d taken the black power armour, none amongst the Chapter save Tu’Shan and the other members of the Chaplaincy had ever seen his face. Unhooded, he was reminded of that fact starkly as Ba’ken watched him.
G’heb was picking himself up, rubbing his jaw painfully, as Elysius answered.
“We are all in need of rescue, brother-sergeant,” he said. “This place is both prison and execution chamber.”
Ba’ken fell silent, having forgotten the Chaplain’s sense of humour had been removed along with his fear. Elysius had heard it whispered often when they thought he wasn’t listening—the fact amused him greatly.
His thoughts were abandoned when the temple started to move. It began as a slow trickle of dust shards dislodged from the roof and stan
ding columns, building to a cascade of larger debris. Underfoot, the ground trembled as if an armoured column was rolling past nearby.
“In Vulkan’s na—”
The words were punched from Ba’ken’s chest in a blast of air as Elysius tackled him and bore him to the ground.
“Move!”
A vast chunk of spire wrenched loose by the quake split off and smashed down into the temple. Upon impact it shattered like a fragmentation grenade, showering the three Salamanders with razor-edge slivers.
G’heb hissed as a shard cut his face.
Elysius and Ba’ken missed being crashed by the spire itself by an arm’s length.
A low bass ramble resonated through the temple structure, a raucous announcement from some alien instrument. The sound reminded Elysius of a dying sauroch herd left to bake in the Nocturnean sun, only deeper and more plaintive. Beneath the long mewling note, he also detected something else—a shifting of servos and gears, the scrape and whine of metal.
“What in Deathfire’s blood is that?” asked Ba’ken above the growing din.
The entire temple was shaking now. The ground shuddered violently as if in seizure. Chunks of cracked columns tumbled into the middle of the chamber, adding to its ruination. Great slabs of stone and dark iron sheared away, sliding off their foundations with slow finality, only to strike the ground and break into pieces.
“Stay back,” Elysius told his brothers. They’d scattered after narrowly avoiding being crushed by the fallen spire. All three were braced against the walls, backs pressed against it as they rode out the quake, but Elysius was estranged from the others, shrouded by the darkness a few metres away. “Hold here,” the Chaplain added, showing his outstretched palm in case he hadn’t been heard.
Like the passing of a sudden storm, the tremors ebbed into extinction as quickly as they’d arrived and silence resumed.
As soon as it was over, Ba’ken activated the comm-stud on his gorget.
++Fire-born, report++
[Tome of Fire 02] - Firedrake Page 17
