[Tome of Fire 02] - Firedrake

by Nick Kyme - (ebook by Undead)

  “Fall back!” he heard Elysius cry, “Deeper into the ruins, fall back!”

  The Chaplain’s crozius was drenched in blood and matter from where he’d bludgeoned the third hound to death. But more were coming, the skiff and the hunters too. The dark eldar had but one cannon. Judging by the blackened scar and the shorn ceramite of Ba’ken’s shoulder pad, it was a deadly one. He barely registered the pain. Suppressors in his bloodstream filtered it out, nulled it, but kept him alert. He left G’heb, mouthing a silent prayer to the primarch as he did so. The Salamander was dead. With no Apothecary in their ranks, G’heb’s legacy to the Chapter was sadly ended.

  “Brother-sergeant, move now!”

  Elysius was calling him. Ba’ken was the last of them. He stooped as he made to retreat, finding the fallen human who had come to his aid, and hoisting him up onto his back.

  “Tonnhauser,” he said, reading the boy’s ident-tag on his uniform. “I fought with another man who shared your name. He was brave too.”

  Tonnhauser’s eyes widened in realisation before he passed out.

  Elysius had arranged them into a circle, chunks of cracked stone from the upper tiers forming makeshift barricades in its arc.

  They’d lost more of the humans when the hounds had broken through. Ba’ken counted four left, not including Tonnhauser. Dead or lost to the dark, he didn’t know. They were no use now, anyway. Those who remained cowered like children, unmanned by the nightmare they were living.

  “Hell has come, hell has come,” one was saying, before L’sen cuffed him into unconsciousness.

  “Weak links,” he reminded Ba’ken, as he joined them in the circle.

  “No so weak, brother,” he replied, setting Tonnhauser down within the protective circle.

  L’sen grunted, though it came out as a rasp. His eyes narrowed and Ba’ken followed their gaze.

  Four more hounds entered the amphitheatre. They moved with a slow yet perverse grace, like the muscled leo’nid of the Tharken Delta and ash-adders from the Themian ridges in one. Ba’ken had hunted both of these creatures. Their pelts adorned his cave in the mountains. It was a place of peace and solitude. Like many Salamanders, when on Nocturne, Ba’ken was a loner. Only through isolation could a warrior learn self-reliance and endurance. The cave seemed very far away now but the lessons learned in its confines gave him strength.

  Like the inexorable tightening of the executioner’s noose, the hounds began to circle them. Ba’ken lost sight of one when it loped up a ruined stairway to the higher levels. Suddenly, the protective cordon didn’t feel quite as impregnable.

  Weak links… The words of L’sen came back to him. Except now, the chain was flawed because it no longer defended all angles of attack.

  “In the higher echelons,” he said.

  “Eyes on the enemy around our perimeter,” Elysius replied, holding back on another sermon for now. They would have need of them when battle was joined.

  Ba’ken nodded then looked sidelong at Iagon. The other sergeant was cut up badly but had managed to retrieve his sword.

  “Don’t concern yourself with me,” he snapped, reading his brother’s expression. “Look to your own protection.” The snarl quickly faded, despite Iagon’s facial injury, and he nodded back.

  “A shame we understand each other now, only to die in a last stand,” Ba’ken remarked.

  “It’s not over yet.”

  The hounds closed again, still circling. Three of the beasts rotated between the cardinal points of the Salamanders cordon, a fourth unseen and waiting to pounce.

  Instinctively, the Fire-born moved back a step and tightened the wall.

  Elysius was standing on a chunk of fallen column in the middle of the circle. His vantage point gave him a commanding view. He could watch for cracks in the line. He tracked the beasts as they moved into his eye-line but never once shifted position. Instead, he used his other senses to stay aware of their stalking pattern and trusted in his brother Salamanders to remain vigilant where he could not. They all did.

  Again, he thought of Vulkan’s teachings, of the crucible of fire and the need for his will to be tested. He resolved not to fail and felt a palpable hum of approval emanate from the Sigil. It was unexpected. Had he imagined it?

  When the narrow cleft they’d used to enter the amphitheatre was torn apart by cannon fire, the Chaplain abandoned all thoughts but one: Fight or die.

  Through a miasma of dust and crumbling stone, the skiff emerged. Long and jagged, it reminded Elysius of a blade. Much like the raider which had dumped them here, this one was festooned with skulls and other trophies. It hovered low to the ground and agonisingly slowly, all to the whistles and crowing of its alien riders.

  Elysius counted six, hanging off the skimmer’s fuselage or languishing on its deckplates, males and females both—though the inherent androgyny of the dark eldar race made it difficult to tell—armed with tridents, barbed nets and whips. Sadism dripped from their every pore, from the bonded leather surplices, the leering hell-masks and spiked collars.

  “Why don’t they attack?” asked a dazed-looking Night Devil officer.

  Elysius glared down at him.

  “Because of you, human,” he said simply. “Look around at your men. They are huddled in fear. The xenos are feeding on that. They are feeding on you.”

  The officer grimaced but then looked up as a gargled yelp of pain resounded from the upper tier.

  Elysius followed his gaze. “Wha—” The carcass of one of the hounds came plummeting from on high and smashing into the skiff interrupted him. The heavy weight of vat-grown muscle and otherworldly sinew snapped the skimmer’s fuselage in two. Its occupants were sent sprawling. A moment later and something long and fast tore through the gloom, pinning one of the unseated riders before he could reach for his weapon. A thickly hafted spear transfixed him. A second rider collapsed, several hard black quarrels protruding from her neck and chest. The survivors screeched and wailed. Retaliatory fire whickered into the darkness above as they pulled out splinter rifles. Someone grunted and fell. Others were moving down to ground level. Elysius discerned maybe five ambushers, small-framed, humanoid. One in particular caught his interest, larger than the rest and using a familiar combat style. He caught a few slashes of movement then the figure was gone.

  Who are you? the Chaplain wondered, but more importantly, why are you helping us?

  “Break ranks!” Ba’ken gave the order. In the last few seconds, the hounds had faltered. He didn’t know who their allies were or what their plan was. He didn’t care. Kill the hounds, interrogate their newfound allies later. Bitter experience aboard the Archimedes Rex and the Chapter’s dealings with the Marines Malevolent had taught Ba’ken the importance of mistrust when confronted with unannounced “friends”.

  The circle broke apart, Ba’ken and Iagon fanning warriors left and right into a dispersed attack formation. All thoughts of a last stand were forgotten in the face of the tactical alternative provided by the unseen ambushers. For that, at least, the brother-sergeant was grateful.

  The hounds adapted and charged at the warriors coming for them. Without their handlers, who were still intent on punishing those who’d attacked them directly, they were savage but unfocussed. The Fire-born paired up swiftly. With G’heb slain, though, that left Ba’ken on his own until Tonnhauser and another Night Devil he didn’t know arrived at his side. Elysius, too, fought solo but then the Chaplain needed no assistance. Even with only one arm, he was a prodigious fighter.

  “Stay behind me,” Ba’ken told both his charges. “I’ll draw it out. When it comes for me, attack its blind side.”

  Tonnhauser and the other trooper nodded, their faces etched with determination. Both paled when the beast rushed them. Barrelling out of the darkness, clouds of grit and glass displaced in its wake, the hound was phantasmal. Horror piled on horror as its slitted eyes blazed and three fleshy flaps opened wide to reveal a grotesque tri-pronged maw. Lashing the air, its puckered tongue
slavered at the approach of the kill.

  Slowed by his earlier injury, Ba’ken failed to move quick enough and the hound raked his side as he tried to dodge it.

  “Hnnng!”

  Three deep grooves tore up the right flank of his ceramite. The inner mesh hung ragged and open like skin. Ba’ken staggered but kept his body between the beast and the humans.

  The Night Devils managed to stay clear, hurrying behind the Salamander as he angled to face the hound for another pass. It turned swiftly for such a brute and was on them again moments later. Ba’ken jabbed, using the spear haft’s full length, and caught it in the shoulder. The hound snarled in pain but the blow was weak and glanced off its muscled body, leaving an ichorous gash but nothing more. It swatted the Salamander, putting a fresh crack in his armour’s plastron and punching him onto his back. He held onto the spear and jabbed again. The beast evaded Ba’ken’s thrusts, pausing to rend the unknown Night Devil who’d rushed it with his bladed staff. The human died gurgling blood, his throat ripped out. Tonnhauser jumped over the trooper’s slowly crumpling form to hack at the beast with his sword. He got in close, taking a piece of ear, but was butted in the chest for his bravura. Ba’ken heard the crack of broken ribs. A strange wheeze escaped Tonnhauser’s lips as he sagged and fell, clutching his chest.

  The distraction was enough for the Salamander to regain his feet.

  “Come on, you ugly spawn,” he spat with a gobbet of his own blood.

  His mind went back to Themis. Just a boy then, he had faced a wounded leo’nid on the Arridian Plain. Ba’ken, or Sol as he was known when he was a child, had tracked the beast for days. His snare had injured it, slowed the creature so he could finally confront it. Sol had come from a large family—the memories of them were indistinct and hazy now, subjugated by his Astartes conditioning—the leo’nid had slain nearly half of them when it came upon their camp four nights previously. A mean, scarred brute, its scaled haunches were leathery with age and its tendril-mane ropey and thick. Sharp, yellow eyes spoke of cunning but they also contained malice. It was a killer. Ba’ken had faced death on the plain that day and triumphed. The leo’nid’s pelt was a trophy of special significance. In the xenos hound he fought a similar beast. The old instincts returned.

  As he rolled the spear in his grasp, Ba’ken became dimly aware of the other battles unfolding around him. The rest of the hounds were going down hard, too. He saw L’sen in his peripheral vision, unmoving on the ground. Somewhere, Elysius was raging with litanies of hate. The whelp creatures were fast, but so were his brothers. Several skirmishes played out at once with incredible pace and intensity.

  Ba’ken lunged as the hound charged again and tore into its chest this time. Momentum kept the beast going. Warp-fuelled muscle met genetically enhanced physique and one broke. For Ba’ken, it was like being hit by a Land Raider. Super-hardened bones broke with an audible crack as the big warrior was boosted off his feet and hoisted into the air.

  For a moment, the hot sun of the Arridian Plain bathed his face and the scent of the leo’nid filled his nostrils… Like smoke banished before the breeze, the sensations disintegrated and he was in the dusty amphitheatre again. He clutched his spear, twisting and yanking it to increase the damage, hoping to find a vital organ. Ba’ken landed hard. Searing agony crippled his wrist, and not from the fall. The beast’s jaws were clamped tight around it. The sheer strength of the hound lifted Ba’ken ferociously into the air again, his wrist the fulcrum about which he was being thrashed.

  Dark spots blossomed in front of his eyes and his pumping blood thundered in his ears. If he’d still worn his helmet the damage readouts on his retinal display would be flashing amber. Even the leo’nid hadn’t taken him this close. He was dying.

  Elysius caved in the monster’s skull with his crozius. An ignited mace would’ve made the task easier, but the weapon killed well enough. Breathing rapidly despite his superhuman physiology, he tried to get some bearing on the battle. His Fire-born were still engaged with the beasts, well dispersed around the amphitheatre but fighting hard. L’sen was dead—the Chaplain didn’t need a red rune in his absent retinal display to know that much. The anvil had broken many—Elysius mourned them all.

  Then he saw Ba’ken.

  Tossed into the air, his wrist a bloody ruin, the giant Salamander would not live out the fight. Elysius was running, shouting something he couldn’t make out even though it came from his own lips. Too many were dead, lost to this hell-place and so far from the mountain. He couldn’t lose another.

  Ba’ken hit the ground and rolled. He came up on his elbows, spitting blood. The beast landed on top of him before he could drag himself clear. A savage blow ripped a chunk out of his generator. The latent hum in Ba’ken’s power armour ebbed.

  Even with the aegis of his battle-plate intact, there was no way he could survive another attack.

  The Chaplain was still several metres away.

  He’ll be slain before I can reach him.

  One more sundered against the anvil.

  At least Elysius would have vengeance.

  A black shadow surging from the hound’s blind side denied both. It moved with power and purpose, slamming into the beast to dislodge it. Fists clenched, Ba’ken’s saviour punched the hound’s flank. Like a freight sentinel hauling a heavy load, the figure kept on moving. Legs driving like pistons, the black-armoured warrior upended the beast. With a shallow cry, he leapt on its back, fists stabbing though he had no visible weapons.

  Elysius closed and he saw the bone-blades. Now he knew what manner of Space Marine it was who’d saved Ba’ken’s life.

  He beheld a monster before him. This was a savage, feral thing. Fangs filled the beast’s mouth, a calcified crest bifurcated his forehead. Swathed in gore, blood streaking his armour, he was an apparition, a nightmare made flesh. But then what else but nightmares and monsters could survive in a place such as this?

  The beast was long dead before the warrior stopped stabbing. He looked up, the efforts of his grisly labours sprayed across a snarling visage. Wild eyes regarded Elysius, and for a moment the Chaplain assumed a battle posture. Slowly, reluctantly, the fervour dulled and the battle ended.

  The hounds were dead. They were all dead.

  A circlet of Salamanders surrounded Ba’ken, the slain beast and his strange protector.

  “Brother…” said the big warrior, offering his hand.

  “Stand down!” The bone-blade was at Ba’ken’s throat in an eye-blink. Several of the Fire-born moved, but Elysius stayed them with a glance. The feral warrior was indeed a Space Marine, one who wore black armour. His Chapter signifier was so degraded as to be all but lost. Elysius knew his origins, though. It was why he made the others hold. A rash move here and Ba’ken’s life-blood would be washing the ground.

  The black-armoured warrior cast around him like an animal cornered by its hunters. He kept the bone-blade, protruding from his very flesh, at Ba’ken’s neck. An inching step forwards by Iagon made him press the edge closer and draw a bead of blood.

  “No closer,” he warned, his voice a deep-throated snarl with an almost saurian cadence. His yellow eyes glared at Ba’ken. “Name thyself! Do it now or suffer the same fate.” He gestured to the butchered hound.

  With the bone-blade pressing on Ba’ken’s gullet it was hard to speak without rasping. “Brother Ba’ken,” he said, “Of the Salamanders 3rd Company.”

  The feral warrior’s breath was like spoiled meat as he leaned in close. Chunks of gristle were wedged between his ruddy fangs.

  “You are far from home, sons of Vulkan. What are you doing here on the Volgorrah Reef? Answer swiftly!”

  “Not before you answer a question for me, brother,” Elysius interrupted. In his urgency to reach Ba’ken, he was closer than any of the other Fire-born. “Who are you?” His tone was stern, unyielding. He would show this Astartes iron, and he would respect him for it.

  Feral eyes narrowed. The bone-blade was kept close. Trust
was evidently not one of the warrior’s virtues.

  “Zartath,” he said, “of the Black Dragons.”

  A tremor of unease ran around the Fire-born at the mention of the Chapter. To some amongst the Astartes ranks, the name “Black Dragons” was a byword for “cursed” or “aberrant”. Certainly, with their onyx skin and eyes of fire, the Salamanders had their fair share of detractors. It was part of the reason why honour and humanity were such important tenets of their belief structure. But this black-armoured warrior before them, his face a mask of blood, barely restrained murder in his eyes, was… a mutant.

  “Zartath,” Elysius didn’t move and kept his tone level, “we are brothers here. Let him go.”

  The Chaplain knew something of the 21st Founding. It occurred before the Age of Apostasy, during the 36th millennium, and was the largest single tithe of Astartes since the glorious 2nd Founding so many years before. A “Cursed Founding”, some had said. Something was wrong with the Chapters created during its genesis. The reasons why were not known to him. He did know, however, that the Black Dragons were amongst those charged as aberrant. Their deviancies were obvious. Bony growths from the elbows, fists and forehead were monstrous and abhorred. If rumours were to be believed then the Apothecarion of the Black Dragons encouraged such mutancy, nurtured it. Correlation between the bone-growths and increased aggression and feral temperament amongst the Chapter’s battle-brothers had never been established. As a survivor in an alien dimension, doubtless having been hunted and tortured, Zartath was hardly a fitting subject for study to prove or disprove that theory.

  Elysius had fought with the Black Dragons before. He had known one of their number well. Ushorak had betrayed them. He had orchestrated the betrayal of others. It was long ago, but the wound was still fresh.