Plague Harvest

by Cavan Scott

  The Nurgling nearly fell from Naracoth’s shoulder in excitement.

  ‘That was necessary. Despair can only prosper once hope is extinguished – and now all hope is gone.’

  Naracoth raised his Scythe, bringing the foot of the staff over Vabion’s eye. The Librarian tried to wriggle away, but was paralysed, staring up at the sigil of Nurgle carved into the bottom of the corroded metal.

  ‘One final sacrifice,’ Naracoth roared as he brought the staff crashing down through Vabion’s eye.

  As he died, Vabion couldn’t feel the staff crack through the back of his skull. He couldn’t see the blood running freely around the seal or hear the Key begin to crack. He wasn’t even aware of the hymns of praise Naracoth and his traitorous band sang to their Lord.

  But he did experience something he had never known during his long life.

  Vabion felt fear.

  TWELVE

  To the east of Kerberos, The Heart of Sorrow banked, its assault cannons carving up the Plague Zombies that scrambled towards the fort. Inside the cockpit, Kerna watched in grim satisfaction as his guns did their work, tearing apart the rotting attackers.

  ‘That’s it,’ he coaxed, pulling back on the stick, ‘hold it together.’

  Up to now the pilot’s prayers had been answered. The Heart’s engines, though sluggish, had cleared themselves, the gunship turning as he climbed. And not before time.

  Kerna’s eyes rested on the horizon.

  ‘More of you,’ he said, taking in the shambling figures closing in from all four points of the compass. ‘Has no one on this planet escaped infection?’

  As the Stormtalon came about, his eyes rested on the nearest cloud of deathbottles.

  ‘By the Emperor…’

  The swarms were behaving differently now, the insects flying around and around as one. He checked his auspex.

  ‘In the same direction,’ he muttered, fascinated. ‘They’re moving in the same direction. Like a formation.’

  He gunned the Heart towards the cloud, trying to get a closer look at the vortex the flies were forming.

  ‘No. Not a vortex. It’s a gateway!’

  The Heart of Sorrow slewed to the left as, without warning, daemons flocked out of the portal the deathbottles had formed.

  ‘Rot Flies,’ Kerna hissed, pulling the Stormtalon into their path and opening up his cannons, cutting down the first of the daemonic attackers.

  Kerna had heard tales of Rot Flies, although the reality was worse than he had imagined. The monstrous insects were enormous, their bodies distended by foul gases, coarse hairs erupting around deep gashes that exposed their slick innards to the elements. Two sets of ragged, decomposing wings propelled them forwards and each carried one of Nurgle’s foot soldiers – a Plaguebearer – on their hunched backs. The infernal riders hung onto chitinous saddles, waving corroded plague knives and glaring at Kerna through his canopy with frenzied, cyclopean eyes.

  He weaved expertly through the swarm, cheering as two more of the nightmarish steeds erupted in bursts of emerald slime, the Plaguebearers tumbling screaming to the ground.

  ‘That’s the best you can do?’

  A Rot Fly dropped down from above, spewing digestive juices from its long, pus-covered proboscis. The stuff splashed against the cockpit, hissing alarmingly. The canopy itself frothed, bubbling where the foul concoction of juices had made contact.

  ‘Like acid,’ Kerna grunted, glancing to his lascannon stack. The silver ceramite was boiling there too.

  ‘So, deadlier than I gave you credit for. No matter. The Heart has never let me down yet.’

  He glanced at the rear display, finding more Rot Flies gaining fast. He counted ten at least, their tattered wings blurring as they bore down on him.

  ‘Fast too,’ the pilot commented. ‘But how quickly can you react?’

  He slammed on the airbrakes, the Rot Flies streaking past, not expecting the sudden deceleration.

  ‘Thought so,’ he grinned, targeting the lascannons. Three more of the daemons dissolved into flames as his shots found their mark. But the celebrations were short lived. Suddenly, Rot Flies were everywhere, not just behind or in front, but coming from the sides as well. They may not have had artillery but they could manoeuvre faster than the Stormtalon, the purulence they spat from their snouts scarring the Heart’s armour with every pass. Warning runes flashed across his helm, as the acid reached vital systems, the acrid stench of electric fires filling the cockpit.

  He looked up from the controls just a moment too late to react, and ploughed into a Rot Fly head on. The gunship shuddered with the impact, the fault locators immediately reporting that the communicator sensor array had been damaged. The burning smell intensified as the caustic ichor went to work, another Plaguebearer steering his mount in for a collision course. Kerna reacted initiatively, skidding the gunship to the side, avoiding contact – but only by a whisper.

  ‘You can’t shoot me down, so you’ll ram me, eh?’

  Back on Gathis II, Kerna’s flight instructor had maintained that weaker guns could never win a fight. These obscene creatures were setting out to disprove that fact. He threw the stick to the right, narrowly missing another suicidal bombardment, but found himself blinded as the Heart smashed directly into a Rot Fly.

  The bulging abdomen split, spilling its steaming viscera across the canopy. Kerna found himself staring at the face of one of the partly-digested victims, plastered against the already smoking screen. His view blocked, the Stormtalon bucked as it clipped another attacker. Kerna slammed his fist down on the canopy release control, expecting the reinforced glass to jettison, but was rewarded only with the clunk of jammed locks. Cursing, the Doom Eagle pounded the canopy frame, the stink of the Fly’s corpse breaking into the cockpit as the cover started to come away. Then, with the sound of squealing plasteel, the canopy was wrenched away, the sudden inrush shoving Kerna back into his harness.

  The Doom Eagle sent the Heart into a sharp climb. A Rot Fly shrieked by, disgorging the contents of its stomach into the open cockpit. The sludge sizzled against his power armour, the unholy taint already starting to eat its way through, but Kerna barely noticed, bringing another Plague Drone into his sights and squeezing off a fresh salvo. If he was going to go down, he would take as many of the fiends with him as he could.

  The Stormtalon inverted, looping around before levelling off. In front of him, a line of Rot Flies dropped down, converging on his position.

  ‘This is it, then.’ There was no way he could hit all four at once, but could beat them at their own game and knock them out of the sky. Kerna threw the Heart into a dizzying spin, guns and lascannons blazing, his yells of defiance lost in the wind.

  All four daemons erupted into a mist of blood and guts. Pulling out of the spin, Kerna’s eyes followed the sound of engines. It was the Endurance, the last of the sun glinting off the gunship’s pitted silver hull.

  Kerna thumbed the vox controls, switching from the Heart’s communication system to a local direct channel.

  ‘My comms relay is down,’ he called to Meleki, taking out another Rot Fly as they spoke. There was no need for thanks. His battle-brother would know he was grateful. ‘I need you to call all this in.’

  ‘As you command.’

  Below them Rot Flies continued to belch out of the Deathbottle, the sky darkening at preternatural speed. The crops were all but gone now, the land carpeted in a grimy morass.

  ‘It’s no good,’ reported Meleki, the alarm noticeable in his voice. ‘No response from base.’

  ‘Then we need to return. Whatever is happening, the fort is at the centre of it.’

  Meleki didn’t respond. Instead, he just followed Kerna’s lead, turning back to base. Glowering at the charging hordes, Kerna couldn’t help but recall his flippancy over the crops.

  One field of cereal is much the same
as the next for me.

  And he’d thought Ritan naive. If he survived the day, he prayed the Emperor would forgive him.

  Outside the serf’s barracks, the battle had gone the way Artorius had expected. Strong though the corrupted servants had become, they were still no match for superior Space Marine firepower. Artorius turned, gunning down the last deviant. His prayer of thanks was tempered by the realisation that greater challenges lay ahead.

  A voice broke through his helm: ‘Garm to Artorius.’

  ‘I hear you, Hura.’

  ‘Sir,’ the Doom Eagle replied. ‘It’s our auguries. They’re going off the scale. Warp energies like I’ve never seen.’

  ‘In your location?’

  ‘No sir, yours. Our readings show massive psychic disruption in orbit.’

  Artorius looked into the darkened skies. ‘Let me guess, directly above Kerberos.’

  ‘Affirmative, sir.’

  ‘The Key must be failing.’

  ‘Key, sir?’

  ‘Ready yourself Hura. We face a major daemonic incursion.’ Out of the corner of his eye he could see Blasius and Sedeca glance at each other. This couldn’t have been a surprise to them. ‘We must stop the forces of Chaos, whatever the cost.’

  ‘We are dead already.’ The response was automatic, as training dictated.

  ‘The Emperor will protect us as we protect him.’ Artorius killed the channel and turned to Jerius.

  ‘This Key?’ the Techmarine prompted.

  Artorius checked his bolter. ‘It holds the rift at bay. There is another beneath Garm. Vabion was their custodian.’

  ‘Was?’ Blasius picked up.

  ‘Is,’ Artorius corrected himself, although he had no way of knowing for sure.

  He felt a surge of anger. None of this would have been happening if the truth about Orath hadn’t been hidden away. If they had known, they could have prepared. They would have seen the corruption in the serfs. Noticed the signs. Could this have been what the Ruinous Powers had planned all along? Tricking good people into believing they were doing the right thing. From the farmer who explored the sinkhole to Vabion and the Ultramarine hierarchy. They’d all been deceived.

  ‘The Key is located in a chamber beneath the keep,’ Artorius explained. ‘We must assume we’ll encounter opposition.’

  ‘Sergeant?’ It was Sedeca, looking out towards the west walls. ‘Listen.’

  Artorius followed the Space Marine’s gaze. Sedeca was right. There was something there, a low keening hum, but not just one voice.

  There were hundreds.

  ‘With me.’

  The Doom Eagles sprinted over to the battlements, Artorius sucking air through his teeth when he saw what was approaching. The plains were teeming with Nurgle’s decaying followers, what little sorghum remained trampled into sludge beneath the relentless march of the baying horde.

  ‘Sir,’ Jerius cut in, servo-arms swivelling around to point out small blots in the sky. ‘They’re not alone.’

  ‘Plague Drones,’ Artorius sneered. ‘Distance?’

  ‘First wave, half a kilometre at best,’ the Techmarine estimated.

  ‘But what is that noise?’ Sedeca asked.

  ‘They’re singing,’ Blasius replied in disbelief.

  ‘If that’s what you can call it.’ Jerius strode over to the heavy-duty lascannon mounted on a nearby bulwark. He crouched down, his artificial legs hissing, and revealed a screen. Tapping the controls, he reported what Artorius had already guessed.

  ‘Scanners show that we are being approached from all sides. The damned number in the thousands.’

  ‘The entire population of the northern hemisphere,’ Blasius commented flatly.

  ‘Against four of us,’ added Sedeca.

  Jerius rose to his feet. ‘Sounds like good odds to me.’

  Artorius allowed himself a grim smile. ‘Careful Jerius, that almost sounds like a joke.’

  The Techmarine cocked his head as if such a thing would never do. ‘Sir, I do have a suggestion.’

  ‘I thought you might.’

  ‘If I can slave the other gun-turrets to this cogitator…’

  ‘You can defend the battlements alone?’ Artorius saw where his Techmarine was going with this.

  Jerius nodded. ‘Leaving the three of you to secure the Key.’

  Artorius placed a hand on the Techmarine’s shoulder, half expecting him to shrug it off.

  ‘Do your duty,’ the sergeant said, indicating for Blasius and Sedeca to follow him. ‘For Gathis II.’

  ‘For the Imperium,’ the Techmarine responded as his battle-brothers sprinted away. Without giving the approaching hordes another glance, Jerius got to work.

  THIRTEEN

  An experienced Space Marine didn’t need to be a psyker to develop a sixth sense. Artorius had no idea what was happening in the shrine, but knew they shouldn’t just barge straight into the keep. It wasn’t hesitation – just prudence.

  Scouting around the serf’s barracks he indicated for Sedeca and Blasius to continue over the courtyard.

  ‘Sedeca, take up position behind the armoury,’ the sergeant breathed over a closed vox-channel. ‘Blasius, you loop around and wait at the east wall of the keep.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ the Doom Eagles replied in unison, following his orders without question.

  His men away, Artorius flattened himself against the barracks and peered around at the heavy tower doors. They were still shut. Excellent. He would have Blasius enter and check the area, covered by Sedeca and himself. Once they were sure it was clear, they would proceed inside the keep and find this Key. A simple manoeuvre.

  ‘Sir, the doors.’

  Sedeca’s warning changed matters immediately. As Artorius watched, the entrance to the keep swung open. He balled his fist, waiting to see who would appear through the opening gap, that same sixth sense telling him that neither Vabion nor Ritan would step into the light.

  ‘Emperor’s teeth,’ Sedeca cursed quietly in his ear. Artorius shared the sentiment, his scowl increasing as a heinous figure lumbered from the tower. Its filthy armour was eaten away both by rust and the juices that ran freely from ulcerous growths that squeezed through every chink. Even from this distance, the sergeant could see a haze of insects buzzing around the solitary black horn that jutted up from its grimy helm.

  The mark of the Death Guard.

  The traitor wasn’t alone. Three more Plague Marines swaggered into the light, the largest wielding a War Scythe nearly twice its height, a severed head impaled on the weapon’s long spike. The discoloured skin was covered in welts and a bloody hole gaped where an eye should have been, but there was no mistaking the slack features.

  Vabion.

  Artorius vowed he would bring the Chaos Champion down himself.

  The sound of las-fire cut through the air, first from Jerius’s direction on the wall and then around the fort as the other gun-turrets automatically began to fire. The Techmarine had done it.

  In front of them, the Champion turned to a sorcerer with a devilish mass of teeth and eyes for a face. Artorius watched as the Plague Lord jabbed a finger towards the western ramparts. The sorcerer bowed low, before stalking off towards the sound of Jerius’s guns. Another command from the Champion sent the other two Plague Marines trudging off in the direction of the Eastern turrets.

  That’s it, thought Artorius. Go and look for the Doom Eagles you expect to find behind the guns. Leave your master standing alone.

  Power armour glinted across the other side of the courtyard. Perfect. Blasius was now in position, pressed flat against the wall of the keep. Artorius watched with satisfaction as the Doom Eagle expertly tracked one of the trudging Plague Marines with his bolter, waiting for the word.

  ‘Hold your position,’ the sergeant instructed into the vox. ‘Wait for the enemy
to separate. Jerius, you’re about to have company.’

  ‘Understood,’ came the Techmarine’s level reply, accompanied by regular blasts of las-fire.

  Artorius regarded the Champion, standing alone by the keep doors, scythe in hand.

  What about you? Artorius wondered, his eyes narrowing. What are you waiting for? Defending the shrine?

  Something splashed across Artorius’s vision, a foul stench pervading his helm. He glanced up, cursing as he locked eyes with a Nurgling that was peering down at him from the barracks roof, bile dripping down from its giggling maw. The fleshy demon tumbled forwards, dropping down onto Artorius’s face before the sergeant could even raise his bolter. It clawed at the Space Marine, stupidly trying to gnaw its way through his helm, needle-like teeth snapping off in the process. If any of those fangs found naked flesh they would deliver a multitude of poxes, but were thankfully no match for ceramite.

  Artorius grabbed the foul creature’s flabby back, his armoured fingers sinking into its soft flesh, and smashed it against the wall. The second blow splattered the thing’s internal organs across the brickwork, but the demon’s shrieks had already betrayed him. Artorius heard Naracoth bark an order and the wall of the barracks began to disintegrate under an onslaught of plague-infused bolts. Shaking steaming blood from his fingers, Artorius waited for a break in the volley before dropping around the corner to return fire. His bolts found their target, fragments of corroded power armour and lumps of mouldering flesh leaping from the Plague Marine. The traitorous scum didn’t even slow. Impervious to pain, it merely lumbered forward, death blazing from the ancient-looking bolter pistols it held in both hands.

  Across the courtyard, Sedeca had engaged another of the Death Guards, but to similar effect. The Marine spouted endless gouts of flame from a plasma-blaster, seemingly unaware that it was under fire from the Doom Eagle. No matter how many times it was hit, the traitor continued tramping towards Sedeca, horny scabs appearing over its wounds mere seconds after they’d been inflicted. This was impossible. How did you fight an enemy that didn’t feel pain?