Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds

by Mark Clapham

  Then the engine roar built to a brief, shattering crescendo as something rode past at terrifying speed, a thing of wheels and armour and spikes and skulls. An arm swept past wielding a roaring chainblade that cut straight through Ejad, and the top half of his body was flung out of her field of vision. Badya was still trapped, but now with two dying horses on top of her rather than just one.

  Rotaka sheathed his chainsword as the bike roared out across a valley consumed with battle. With the Predators and mortals at their back, Rotaka’s squad could cut loose. The enemy’s attention was divided.

  The Tallarn rider hadn’t even seen Rotaka before the bike’s guns shot him down and Rotaka’s chainsword finished the job. It was unlike an Imperial Guardsman to be so conspicuously vulnerable, and Rotaka could only credit this to Lord Huron’s plan, to hold fast until his ploy had drawn the enemy close and sent them spiralling into confusion.

  The Red Corsairs had the advantage, but driving across the battlefield with his squad, their bike guns releasing bursts of gunfire to take down riders and foot-soldiers, Rotaka could see that there was still much to be done.

  Space Wolves, the Emperor’s rabid executioners. Rotaka had never fought them before, but he’d heard the tales, and knew that, for all their apparent savagery, the Vlka Fenryka should never be underestimated.

  The Space Wolves were regrouping now, their tanks attempting to encircle the Predators as they rolled out into the valley. Rotaka could see a Land Raider simultaneously firing on the Corsairs tank Limitless Hatred with its main lascannons, while smaller guns struck out against the mortal vehicles.

  ‘What now?’ asked Verbin, whose bike had survived the earlier tumble.

  Rotaka was about to answer when the vox squawked in his ear.

  ‘How goes the Stalker?’ hissed Garreon.

  Rotaka realised that in the confusion he had lost track of the galleon. He looked across to see it had stopped halfway through the valley, a smoking wreck. ‘It’s stalled,’ he said. ‘No signs of life.’

  ‘Then draw the enemy close to it,’ said Garreon.

  Tothsen had given in to the fumes filling the bridge of the Implacable Stalker, and would have died on the floor if vox-speakers had not started making noise.

  The voice that emerged from the speakers made Tothsen’s eyes snap open in panic. It was the voice of the Corpsemaster.

  ‘This is the Unyielding Fist,’ said Garreon’s aloof, cruel voice over the vox. ‘Implacable Stalker, know that you sacrifice yourself for Lord Huron, in service to his greater victory.’

  There was no concern in the demigod’s voice for the plight of the Implacable Stalker and its crew, and Tothsen knew this was right and true. They lived only to serve. He forced himself up to his knees, head bowed even though Garreon could not see him, supplicating himself.

  On board the Shattered Tooth, Hagen and his crew had felt the death of Broken Claw, a great grief and colossal rage echoing through the machine itself, and that rage had infected them all with a fearsome bloodlust. On Folkvar’s order the Tooth had engaged one of the Corsairs Predator tanks, only to find themselves pursued by an enemy Rhino.

  Hagen would not let this new pursuer stop him taking out his pain over Broken Claw’s demise on one of the enemy Predators. Through the tracks of the tank he could feel the slipperiness of the snow, the manoeuvrability it would allow.

  ‘On my mark, brake and turn away,’ ordered Hagen. ‘Now.’

  Shattered Tooth steered sharply to the left, and Hagen felt his considerable mass swinging violently. For a second it felt as if the Tooth would turn over altogether, but it stayed level, spinning around to face its pursuer.

  ‘Forward and ram!’ yelled Hagen, and as the more manoeuvrable Rhino swerved around to fire on Shattered Tooth, the Vindicator charged it. The Rhino fired its melta gun, but the siege shield at the front of the tank was strong enough to withstand the assault. The Tooth was nearly upon the Rhino.

  At the last second, a smaller vehicle – a slave-driven halftrack with crude armoured sides – attempted to insert itself between its masters’ Rhino and the Space Wolves tank, but such an attempt at defence was useless. Shattered Tooth scooped up the mortal vehicle as if it were a toy, ramming it into the Rhino and causing both enemy vehicles to roll over in a tumble of twisted metal.

  ‘Find me a bigger target,’ snapped Hagen. ‘Then get me in close.’

  ‘Pursuing,’ said Onora, the Tooth’s driver. ‘They seem to be retreating into the shadow of the galleon.’

  ‘Then let’s show them how much good that shelter will do them.’

  ‘Something is wrong,’ said Folkvar. The kill urge rose strong in him, flowing through his crew and the Burning Frost as if their spirits were one, and it was hard for him to identify the feeling at first. Burning Frost was in pursuit of one of the enemy Predators, which had engaged the Frost then withdrawn. The two tanks had circled each other briefly, shots going wide, and then the enemy was in flight and the Frost followed.

  ‘Witchcraft, it taints everything,’ spat Garik. ‘These heretics cannot even fight straight without collapsing into disorder.’

  ‘No,’ said Folkvar. ‘It is more than that.’

  The Godhammers spat las-fire as a halftrack loaded with mutated mortals crossed their path, the foul beings opening fire with handweapons. These petty assaults were useless against the Frost’s armour, and the Godhammers chewed their vehicle to pieces, reducing it to molten metal and burning fragments to be pressed into the snow by the Land Raider’s tracks. The intervention had done nothing but delay the Frost, the mortals sacrificing themselves for a few seconds’ advantage, which the enemy Predator had used to swerve close to the smoking wreck of the Red Corsairs galleon. Frustration was building in Folkvar – the Space Wolves cut through the mortals easily enough, but the vehicles of the Red Corsairs themselves, the Rhinos and Predators, proved more elusive.

  That feeling, that unease, rose in Folkvar’s throat like bile, bringing realisation. This was not disorder – it was strategy. The mortals were being thrown around the valley like disposable pawns, while the Predators… they were bait. Bait that was drawing them closer to the wrecked galleon.

  ‘Pull back,’ Folkvar barked into the vox. Garik, sensitive to his commander’s instincts, was already reversing.

  ‘Now,’ said Rotaka in Garreon’s ear. ‘It has to be now.’

  ‘My lord,’ said Garreon, nodding to Huron Blackheart on the deck of the Unyielding Fist, which had swept through the last section of the mountain pass at a speed the Implacable Stalker, damaged in an earlier conflict, had not been able to attain.

  Now Huron Blackheart stood at the prow of his personal galleon, looking out across the Valley of Blades. The scene was one of carnage – tanks, Rhinos and other vehicles swarming around the ruin of the Stalker, while from the edge of the valley the Space Wolves Whirlwinds continued to fire missiles down into the valley below.

  ‘Valthex, do it now,’ said Huron.

  ‘My lord,’ said Valthex, pressing a rune.

  Garreon had been present when Huron Blackheart had salvaged the Implacable Stalker in the warp, and he now watched its demise. The galleon had been loaded with explosives, and at the press of Valthex’s rune the ship’s core was detonated, the hull blasted to blackened, burning fragments that rolled and tumbled across the Valley of Blades, destroying everything in their path. At the heart of the explosion, the Stalker was utterly destroyed. No Red Corsair had boarded the vessel since they reached the Hollow Worlds – it had always been marked for sacrifice, when required – and the loss of the mortal crew was nothing to Garreon. But to see an ancient vessel, so drenched in Chaos from its time in the warp, sacrificed in such a way was ruthless even by the standards of Huron Blackheart.

  Huron Blackheart himself paid its demise no mind, turning to the crew of the Fist and barking out orders.

  ‘All
engines full ahead,’ the Tyrant shouted. ‘Gunners, bring down those Whirlwinds. Shipmaster, hail the Strike and order it to set out to starboard, and order the Tireless Vengeance to turn to port. We sweep through this valley and leave nothing alive, or I’ll send you to the same fate the crew of the Stalker met, do I hear aye?’

  The ‘aye’ that echoed out across the deck of the Unyielding Fist was nearly as loud as the Stalker’s fiery demise.

  Folkvar could do nothing as Frozen Blade was caught in the blast from the exploding galleon, a noble tank of countless generations of service destroyed, its burning carcass rolling across the snow, crushing Tallarns and traitors alike. Further away, two enemy Predators were circling Ice Storm with murderous purpose, while a Vindicator lay on its side, the Chaos bikers moving in to engage the Space Wolves climbing out of the tank. Across the valley burning debris was falling from the sky, changing the shape of the battlefield, cutting off one tank from another. The scene was one of carnage, and the Red Corsairs were taking advantage, moving in with lethal intent.

  ‘This is Tempest,’ said a voice over the vox. ‘Firing on galleons but they’re coming in fa–’

  The signal cut off with a hiss.

  ‘Bring us around, Garik,’ ordered Folkvar, and the Frost turned towards the mountain pass, where a galleon had swept out at three times the speed of its predecessor.

  ‘Witchcraft,’ spat Folkvar. This galleon moved with unnatural grace for a hulking ship dragging itself across the land. It bristled with cannons at either side, as well as a plentiful array of weaponry on deck, all of which peppered the walls of the valley with explosive ordnance. Avalanches were sweeping down both sides of the valley, the Whirlwinds either destroyed already or crushed as they tumbled to the ice.

  ‘Damn these traitors,’ said Folkvar. He knew now the galleon that had first entered the valley had been a sacrificial offering, durable to assault but far from being at the height of its powers. What he saw now was a galleon at full strength, a monstrous engine of destruction.

  He was also sure from the smooth motion of the galleon, the commanding way it had swept into the valley, that this was the flagship. On board would be Huron Blackheart himself.

  ‘All Space Wolves and Tallarns, this is Folkvar,’ he commanded over the vox. ‘The enemy’s tricks are done with. Even if it was their intent that it should fall, they have shown us that these galleons can be stopped. So let us stop this one, board it, and spill the blood of our enemies.’

  ‘You heard Folkvar,’ said Hagen. ‘We take that galleon.’

  ‘I am not sure how much thread the Tooth has left,’ said Onora. Shattered Tooth had been caught at the edge of the explosion, and while runes flashed all around the cabin, each representing a part of the Vindicator that was badly damaged, the tank still functioned.

  ‘Then we make each moment of life count,’ snarled Hagen. ‘We fight as we have always fought, ’til the very end, and strike in memory of the Claw and all our fallen brothers.’

  ‘Aye, for the Claw,’ said Onora. While systems were failing, the Vindicator still had its speed, and the galleon ahead was moving fast across the valley. As the space between the two vehicles, the tank and the galleon, closed, gun batteries on the galleon began to open fire on them. The interior of the tank rattled and boomed with the fire from above.

  ‘Prepare to fire,’ snapped Hagen. ‘Take us around to the right. I want one of those wheels.’

  With mortar and gunfire raining down from above, the Vindicator steered around the giant hulk. In most combat situations, the Vindicator was considered a brute of the battlefield, as its demolition of the Rhino had demonstrated. But compared to the vehicle towering over it, Hagen thought it must seem like a gnat, a tiny speck beneath the bulk of the Chaos ship.

  However, thought Hagen as they pulled in close, it was a gnat with a powerful bite.

  ‘We’re falling apart,’ shouted Onora. The tank was filled with smoke, and light was entering its interior through holes blasted in it shell.

  ‘Bring us around,’ Hagen shouted back. ‘Charge that wheel.’

  Onora steered sharply and put everything into one last burst of momentum, the tank hurtling towards one giant wheeled track of the galleon in its final moments.

  ‘Fire!’ screamed Hagen, and Shattered Tooth unleashed the full power of its demolisher shell the second before it hit the hull of its enemy.

  At point-blank range, the explosion tore through one wheel and a large section of the galleon’s prow. The blast fed back on Shattered Tooth, ripping into the Vindicator and shredding its armour.

  ‘Hold steady,’ screamed Hagen as the blazing Vindicator kept moving towards the great ship. ‘We will see our brothers soon.’

  On the deck of the Unyielding Fist, Garreon felt the entire ship shake beneath him, and the Fist begin to slow.

  ‘What was that?’ demanded Huron Blackheart, swinging the Tyrant’s Claw around, searching for an underling to impale.

  ‘We have the remains of a tank lodged in one wheel,’ said Valthex coolly. ‘More power to the rear wheels should shake loose the obstruction.’

  Garreon looked out across the valley. Space Wolves tanks were convening on the Unyielding Fist.

  ‘They seek to halt our advance,’ snarled Huron. ‘All guns, all cannons, every crew member who can reach a portal – show them that Huron Blackheart cannot be so easily stopped.’

  Fire rained down on Burning Frost as it approached the Chaos galleon, which was slowing down after the sacrifice of Shattered Tooth. Grenades and cruder explosives had been launched at the Land Raider from the galleon, while the smaller vehicles that swarmed around the ship shot missiles and las-fire in their direction, but none had so much as shaken the ancient tank on its chassis, although flashing control runes indicated to Folkvar that a number of fluid lines had been compromised.

  Others in the pack had not been so lucky, and Folkvar had seen a Vindicator wrecked by suicidal, mutated mortals crashing a halftrack full of explosives into it.

  No, the Frost was built of sterner material. It would take more than this to destroy it.

  The Predator which was pursuing the Frost might just manage the kill. Covered in spikes and blasphemous sigils, it tried to dissuade the Frost from repeatedly firing on the slowed galleon. If not stopped quickly, Huron’s army would be out of the valley and beyond Folkvar’s reach.

  ‘Maintain fire on those tracks,’ Folkvar shouted as the Frost kept pace with the galleon while targeting it with both side-mounted lascannons.

  The kill-urge ran through them all now, flowing not just from the blood of Russ in their veins, but from the Frost’s very spirit. It was a machine, but a machine of Fenris, and it was enraged to see so many of its pack shattered across the valley.

  ‘Evade!’ shouted Folkvar as the Predator targeted the Frost with its lascannon, and the Land Raider swerved away from the galleon, causing the lascannons to fire wild, missing the wheeled tracks and leaving a pattern of burns up the side of the galleon’s hull. The Predator fired, but missed the Frost. As it moved to target the Frost again, the Frost fired on the Predator with the heavy bolter.

  It must have seemed to the crew of the Predator that the heavy bolt shell had fbeen poorly directed, as the shell didn’t hit the tank in the centre of its chassis but low near the tracks. It was only as the shell exploded that its purpose, and the precision of Folkvar’s targeting, became clear – the Predator was thrown off course by the blast, not enough to overturn the tank but enough to cause it to crash into another Predator just as it was about to fire.

  The two tanks were too heavily armoured to be destroyed by the impact, but the crash was enough to rob them of any momentum, and they were left behind as the Frost moved back towards the galleon, firing on it once more with its lascannons.

  ‘Enough,’ snarled Huron Blackheart, looking over the edge of the galleon at the Land Rai
der below.

  Three of the finest tanks in his command defeated, and one destroyed, by a single Land Raider. It was an insult that would not stand. No more.

  ‘My lord,’ said a voice from behind Huron. ‘Please allow me.’

  Small-arms fire from the portholes of the galleon rained down on the Burning Frost, but with little consequence. It was no mere tank, and even the grenades that clumsily bounced off its roof barely scratched it as they exploded.

  ‘It’s close to stalling,’ roared Folkvar, within the Frost.

  There was a solid clank from the roof of the Frost, presumably another shell or grenade thrown down, but no explosion followed.

  Folkvar bellowed in rage and frustration.

  ‘Malfunction, possible grenade damage’ snarled Folkvar, drawing his bolt pistol and opening the hatch above him. ‘Going up-top to check.’

  The Space Wolf who emerged from the hatch on top of the Land Raider was no fool, but then Taemar would have expected no less from the Vlka Fenryka. While the Red Corsair had some element of surprise, he knew it would only get him so far.

  As the hatch cautiously opened, Taemar was waiting, boots magnetically locked to the roof. His axe had torn through vital servos in the base of the Frost’s heavy bolter, and was held high as the hatch opened.

  The Space Wolf’s reactions were fluid and instantaneous, snapping off a round from the bolt pistol and then dropping back into the belly of the Land Raider, pulling the hatch behind him. The Space Wolves, for all their animal ferocity, never left themselves vulnerable unnecessarily, and would protect the pack within the machine rather than expose the vehicle’s interior by engaging the enemy directly.

  It was an entirely admirable defensive manoeuvre, Taemar thought, but also entirely predictable. He had anticipated such a defence, and was ready to react, rolling under the Space Wolf’s line of fire and swinging the twin-bladed axe low.

  The Space Wolf was too fast to be caught by Taemar’s axe, but then he was never the target. The blade of the axe jammed underneath the hatch as it closed, preventing it from fully locking. Taemar then lifted one boot from the roof of the Land Raider, and pressed his whole power-armour assisted body weight down onto the handle of the axe.