[Tome of Fire 02] - Firedrake

by Nick Kyme - (ebook by Undead)

  She staggered, but recovered quickly as the Chaplain pressed. An overhead strike sliced air, the follow-up shoulder barge overbalancing him. Fresh agony in his chest was Elysius’ payment as Helspereth sank one of her blades deep.

  The Chaplain pulled away, using the heavier weight of his body to lever himself, and the sword shucked free with a welter of blood.

  There was a rattle in his throat, the faint gurgle of fluid. She’d nicked his lung in the last attack. It was slowly filling with Elysius’ own lifeblood.

  “Hag,” he spat, his sputum flecked with crimson, “stand still so I can choke you.”

  “An enticing offer.” Helspereth’s reply was half serious. She leapt through a flurry of Elysius’ blows, her acrobatics confounding the Chaplain’s rage, cutting him as she moved.

  “I will bleed you, my love,” she promised. “Like the Tyrant, I will take from you a thousand cuts until you lie empty on the arena floor, a husk like all the rest.”

  He fell, collapsing to his knees, and Elysius came face-to-face with a rictus grin. The skull was humanoid. It mocked the Chaplain.

  You’ll die here, it said. Lay down, brother. Lay down, you are tired. The darkness waits. It will take you. We will take you. Let us.

  Elysius forced himself to rise. The movements were painful but this was his cauldron. Pain was nothing, only a means of focussing the mind. His faith would provide the strength he needed.

  It is vigour when I am weak…

  “Not. Done. Yet,” he growled through gritted teeth and turned.

  “Oh, good,” said Helspereth. “I’ve only just begun.”

  She attacked again. This time, Elysius blocked the harder blows, letting the nicks and jabs fall where they might. Each left a jarring impact, but not so strong his power armour couldn’t absorb it. His riposte struck Helspereth across the midriff. The Chaplain had to time his attacks, wait for a moment when brute force could wound her. She gasped, the air exploding from her lungs. Elysius struck again, against her shoulder. Helspereth’s reply was lazy and he took it on his pauldron. He thrust an armoured knee into her stomach, a sideswipe to the neck drawing a yelp of pleasure from the wych.

  Unrelenting, the Chaplain came on again. He smashed Helspereth’s parry aside and punched a jab into her torso. She coughed, spitting blood. A second blow was intended to take off her head but she blocked and held it.

  Harsh, edged sparks spilled off the locked weapons in a cascade. Both combatants fought for dominance but neither had the beating of the other.

  “I enjoyed that,” Helspereth hissed when their faces closed during the straggle. She sucked at the blood of her lip and her eyelids fluttered lustily. “But I’m getting bored now,” she added. Shifting her stance, she suddenly overbalanced the Chaplain. In less than a second, Elysius was on the back foot, his single arm shaking with effort as Helspereth pressed down on him with her two.

  The bloodied blade of her sword was less than a handspan from his eye.

  “I shall keep your face when I am through with you,” she promised.

  “I have a confession to make,” Elysius said through a grimace.

  “Oh?”

  He whispered. “I was faking, too.” With a roar, he threw Helspereth off. She sprang back, quickly shifting from heel to toe.

  “Even with one arm,” the Chaplain boasted, “I can still beat you.”

  Apoplexy marred her cold beauty as a murderer’s visage took over. She flew at Elysius. It was to be the deathblow.

  “Vulkan, armour me…” he muttered, thrusting out the crozius arcanum. Impossibly, its mace-head and haft ignited into glorious energy-flame. Helspereth was struck by its power and faltered. Elysius used this distraction to stave in the wych’s skull. She fell, a look of dumbfoundment on her porcelain face. Shattered by the blow, the domino mask fragmented, exposing Helspereth’s face behind it. There was fear there in her twisted countenance. Even in death, she knew what fate awaited her. Ravening soul hunger was not the sole preserve of the dark eldar—other still more terrible beings craved too.

  She Who Thirsts awaited Helspereth. Several lifetimes of torment were her fate now.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I

  Victory and Retreat

  A scream, horrific and piercing the veil separating the realms, ripped from her throat. Elysius had never heard such a desolate sound. Her blood was touching his boots when he struck again… and again. All the pent-up aggression and nerves released in a cathartic flood as the Chaplain turned Helspereth’s head into a red paste. Her skull cracked beneath the third blow and he bludgeoned it to fragments before he was done. Even then, Helspereth’s headless form quivered with the jolts of energy from the crozius.

  How Elysius had known to thumb the activation rune then, he would never learn. How it had burned into life at all when it was supposed to be broken and spent was another mystery. Did a lingering kernel of energy in the weapon’s power cell impel it to life at the crucial moment? Or was another power at work, one governed by faith?

  The Chaplain was wise enough to know that some miracles should simply be, and not be subject to questioning.

  Appalled at their queen’s death, the wyches staggered forwards to regard her corpse, not even realising they had let their prey loose.

  Zartath was quick to exploit their shock. His bone-blades sheared the razor-wire bonds and as he was still rising he cut down one of the wyches. A second fell to a gut wound from Tonnhauser’s knife. The Guardsmen stabbed several times to be sure the creature was dead. The third sprang away and was about to throw its spear at the human when a green-clad giant rose up behind it and crushed its frail frame in a brutal grapple hold.

  Like wrestling the leo’nid of the plains.

  The bones snapped audibly before the wretch expired.

  “Just catching my breath,” gasped Ba’ken, his face greying and his eyes dim. “What did I miss?”

  The sound of clapping, echoing across the lonely arena floor, forestalled Elysius’ reply.

  All eyes turned on the slowly rising raider as it cleared the walls and descended into the deep basin of the coliseum.

  The skimmer was unlike any other Elysius had seen. It was huge, replete with banners, hellish pennants of flesh and other macabre panoply. Chains swung lazily from its segmented armour plates. The plates were daubed in red and black, layered and spiked like an insectoid horn. Skulls and other grisly totems hung from the chains. Corpses rattled against the metal flanks.

  In the centre of the machine, towering over its long fuselage and situated at the rearmost deckplate, was a throne. Two further deckplates, expansive and shielded by more layered armour like that at the prow, harboured warriors clad in black and bone. Their faces were covered by heavy helms, their armour thicker than that of the lesser kabal warriors. Each carried a bladed polearm not unlike a halberd, except all along the edge fell energy crackled.

  “Incubi…” Elysius knew of these creatures. They were a lord’s trusted retainers, his bodyguards and executioners without peer. In all his skirmishes against the dusk-wraiths, he had never fought them.

  Upon the throne their master reclined. He was every bit the titanic statue that cast its shadow over the Coliseum of Blades.

  “And you are An’scur,” Elysius concluded.

  The archon nodded. He was helmed, his expression hidden behind a daemon’s face wrought in metal.

  Behind him, the Parched squirmed and spasmed in their stalls, part in ecstasy at the gruesome killing display they’d been treated to, part in undisguised terror at the presence of their lord and master.

  An’scur turned and hissed at them in his native tongue, making the creatures scatter from sight.

  “Slayer!” roared Zartath as he recognised the dark eldar lord and rushed at him across the arena.

  The Black Dragon was only a few metres away when An’scur faced him and nonchalantly extended a finger. A thin line of barely visible mono-wire sprang from a tight brass ring. When the hooked ba
rb at the end struck Zartath’s body the Black Dragon collapsed, wracked by convulsive agony.

  “Sit…” said An’scur, the concession to use a heathen tongue not a light one.

  The point was well made. The archon had dominion here. His incubi saw to that, as did the long-nosed cannons trained on the Salamanders and their human charge.

  “So you are Helspereth’s pet,” he said, lifting off his helm to reveal a white-pallored face and eyes like slivers of jet. His long, alabaster hair was bound in silver scalp locks and fell back over his head and neck in a shower of tight braids.

  “Amusing,” he added. An’scur’s gaze went to the prone form of Helspereth.

  As the drone of the hovering skimmer-machine filled the silence, Elysius thought he saw a tremor of regret in the archon’s face.

  “Poor, bloodied Helspereth,” An’scur said. “I will miss your tender mercies.” He added something more in an alien dialect Elysius didn’t know.

  “She won many victories here,” An’scur told him.

  Elysius kept his silence. In truth, he was bleeding badly and finding it hard to stand at all. Behind him, Ba’ken had slumped to one knee and Tonnhauser was doing his best to support him.

  “Strange that a one-armed mon-keigh would be her undoing,” the archon continued. He looked down at her broken body again, lingered on the crimson smear where her head had been. “Fascinating…”

  An’scur looked at Elysius once more and donned his helm. “Kill them,” he said.

  All Elysius could think to do was mutter one last supplication as the incubi lowered their long, bladed staves.

  “Vulkan, forgive me…”

  Then the thunder came, blazing from the shadows in a cluster of bright, burning muzzle flares.

  Salvation had arrived. The Firedrakes had found him. Not only that, they were led by the Forgefather.

  The Firedrakes attacked swiftly. A raft of bolter fire took apart a pair of incubi warriors, several others weathering the sudden fusillade on their superior armour before the throne-mounted archon gave the order to rise.

  Strafing dark lance fire ripped up the arena floor, churning flagstones and turning stone to dust.

  Tsu’gan veered aside from one burst, hauling on his combi-bolter’s trigger and clipping another incubus but not felling it before the raider lifted it from view. He advanced alongside Praetor, with Vo’kar and Persephion. The others, led by Halknarr, quickly surrounded the wounded and set about dragging them back from the battlefield.

  Tsu’gan’s eyes were on He’stan’s back as he led the charge, screaming Vulkan’s name like an invocation. A tongue of fire surged from the Gauntlet of the Forge, searing the underside of the archon’s raider-skiff and melting the metal. One of the engines died but the machine had enough power to achieve loft.

  The dark eldar lord was shrieking from his potentate’s perch. Several of his incubi dropped lithely from the deckplate, rushing to intercede against the Salamanders.

  “Firedrakes, assault as one!” roared He’stan. He slowed to let the others catch up, tearing out chain-blades and hammers as they moved. Together they crashed into the dark eldar elite.

  The Forgefather impaled one on the end of his spear. Praetor clashed with another, smashing aside its blade with his storm shield and crushing its skull with his thunder hammer.

  Persephion fell, his flank ripped out by one of the incubus power-glaives. He rolled and groaned before Vo’kar rushed in to shield him and hold the creature at bay.

  Tsu’gan ducked a savage jab. The blade’s energy flare sent warnings skimming across his retinal display. A reverse swipe cut a groove in his plastron, not deep enough to fully penetrate. His heart leapt with brutal joy when his chainblade met armour and then flesh. The incubus squealed as Tsu’gan drove the grinding teeth of the weapon further then twisted. As he tore the chainblade free, Tsu’gan’s opponent broke apart in a cascade of gore.

  “For my brothers,” he spat, ready to move on to the next target.

  There was to be none.

  “Fall back, form a barricade!” ordered Praetor. The incubi released by the raider were all dead. Even He’stan was retreating.

  Tsu’gan turned, initially dismayed, but saw the Forgefather had what he had come here for. Surrounded by Halknarr and his Fire-born, Chaplain Elysius was alive and carried the Sigil.

  Behind him, Tsu’gan heard the raider rise still further. Desultory blasts speared from its cannon-mountings now, no more than a deterrent to further attack. Horns were blowing too and there was the baying of beasts, the cackle of the hellion and the screeching of the scourge. The archon was amassing his warriors. The kabal was rousing to his banner. Interlopers had been found in the Razored Vale. They needed to be expunged.

  Vo’kar had Persephion. He was dragging him back towards the others. Tsu’gan rushed over to help him, gripping beneath the wounded warrior’s arm and pulling.

  Another of the Black Dragons, unconscious but not dead, was with Elysius and the others.

  “Kill, acquire and retreat,” said Vo’kar. “Now I know how the White Scars feel.” He laughed, utterly incongruously in the circumstances, and Tsu’gan smiled.

  He’stan’s voice came over the comm-feed in his battle-helm.

  ++The Sigil is ours once more++ he said, ++Glory to Vulkan!++

  Praetor’s strident tones followed. ++Engage homing beacons++

  A series of dull icons from the small wrist-mounted devices locked to each and every Firedrake lit up the gloom in pearlescent white.

  ++Even through the veil…++ Praetor’s voice was already fading as transition took hold, ++…they will find us…++

  Hot light filled Tsu’gan’s vision as a sense of dislocation swept over him. The ruins of the Volgorrah Reef faded as a new vista slowly resolved through the blaze of teleportation. It was dark and hard to see. He scented burning cinder, an acrid tang he recognised, and knew something had gone wrong.

  II

  Geviox Reclaimed

  Agatone’s forces swept the Ferron Straits in a tide. All across the dusty flatland, the dark eldar hordes were in full retreat. Whatever had kept them here, warring against their natural instincts by holding ground, was gone.

  The brother-captain of the 3rd Company and operational commander of the Gevion Cluster War stood proudly in the cupola hatch of a Land Raider battle tank and gave the order to advance.

  “Salamanders! Forward as one. Slow and steady.”

  A chorus of replies from his sergeants filled Agatone’s comm-feed as affirmation was given.

  From the rearline, Techmarines manning a battery of Thunderfire cannons ordered cluster fire into the panicked dark eldar ranks. They were little more than chaff now—most of the alien elite was either dead or had already fled into the webway. In the distance, hugging the horizon line, portals of dark liquid shimmered. One by one they vaporised out of existence, leaving a grimy fog that lingered on the breeze for a time like smoke before disappearing completely.

  The vanguard of the Salamanders brought more battle tanks. The armoured spear was to be led by Agatone in his Land Raider, Fire Anvil. It had once been N’keln’s and before him, Kadai’s. For the first time since his promotion to captain, Agatone felt worthy of its legacy. He sank below the cupola hatch, letting it slam with a dull clank as the engines roared and Fire Anvil’s tracks started to move.

  On the left flank, their vantage point a set of iron hills, Lok commanded the Devastators. Their salvos of missiles and plasma bursts took apart a rearguard of grotesques ferried out of the webway to stymie the Salamanders assault. Lascannons lanced the air, scything down raiders and other, more heavily armoured skimmer-machines, before their cult troops could ascend and flee.

  This planet, this entire cluster of worlds would be cleansed. Agatone had sworn it.

  Rhino transports followed in the wake of Fire Anvil. They carried what remained of the 3rd’s Tactical squads, armed and armoured for close engagement. It was the way of Vulkan.

&
nbsp; Look thine enemy in the eye, he had purportedly said, and let him see the fires in yours.

  Predators rolled between the armoured transports, the battle tanks sending punishing salvos from their autocannon and lascannon turret mounts.

  Overhead, Assault squads burned the air with contrails of fire from their jump packs. They kept pace with the tanks, protecting their flanks and seeking out isolated enemy targets.

  There was no great stratagem to it. None was needed. Agatone had fought the last of his enemies to this killing field and fashioned his force into a hammer. Now he meant to bring that crashing down upon the dark eldar, or what was left, and crush them in a decisive blow.

  Supporting the Astartes were the Night Devils. General Slayte had survived the war and meant to end his part in it on the frontline with the rest of his men. Who was Agatone to deny him?

  “For those who died and the glory of the 156th,” Slayte rallied his men.

  Inside the dusky confines of the Fire Anvil’s troop hold, Agatone smiled. Such courage.

  The Salamanders reached the last of the webway portals swiftly, impelled by stoic fury and their long historical enmity against the dark eldar. A final few raiders surged through the inky darkness of the portals, the last to be conveyed to Volgorrah before the sons of Vulkan brought the fire and the horizon burned.

  Dense explosions rocked the sky above, the conflagration unleashed by the Salamanders on the ground rising to reach it. The Vulkan’s Wrath, strike-cruiser of the 3rd, was tearing the fleeing ships of the enemy apart. In low orbit the broken vessels flashed with incendiary flare that looked like starbursts to the warriors below.

  And on the ground, amongst the carnage, a bright blaze of dislocation as the battle’s latest arrivals sought vindication and vengeance. The Firedrakes teleported into the heart of the stranded xenos troops from the frigate Firelord. Each of them fought silently. Praetor, unhooded, appeared grimmer than the rest.