by Marc
Luckily neither had fallen against the Warlord. Princeps Gaerius breathed a sigh.
‘Well done, Knifesmith!’ He turned to the Chief Engineer. ‘Moriens, effect repairs immediately.’
Muffled by the mask-like neural interface, Moriens replied. ‘Yes, princeps.’
Imperial Guard units were already attacking the fleeing tribesmen, causing terrible carnage. Guardsman Osmin Leche, having fainted with terror, had died without feeling anything. And no one had heard the death-scream of Colour Sergeant Hangist as he was carried falling to the ground.
THE FIRES IN the village burned low that night. Women keened for their lost men, children cried for their fathers and brothers. The new hetman spoke gravely.
‘We have acted with honour.’ he said. ‘We sent only two Defenders to fight two Giant Shining Warriors. Now here is only one other course of action. We must use the whole herd.’
‘But that is dishonour!’ protested a young warrior, one of the few to survive.
‘When we fight another tribe, then there is honour.’ the hetman pronounced. ‘Beast is pitted against beast. The vanquished grants the victor tribute of grazing, tools and women, and offers battle the following year. Here there is no honour. The Giant Shining Warriors from the sky have come to take our world. They must know they cannot.’
The men pondered his words, and could find no fault with them.
THE FLICKERING DAWN had come, and repairs to the Lex et Annihilate were complete, when the herd came loping over the horizon. Princeps Gaerius stared aghast. He had assumed from yesterday’s battle that the archaeosaurs were rare. Yet here were a hundred animals at least. And they were running straight for the Imperial Guard camp.
He looked stony-faced at Knifesmith, Viridens and Moriens. Stricken, they glared back at him.
Using the conning magnifier, he saw that the onrushing animals were bare of artificial structures. They were not under anyone’s direct control – except for four or five ‘managed’ beasts at the back, and these were driving the others on. The herd was being stampeded.
There was nothing for it but to go down fighting. No officer trained by the Collegio Titanicus would do anything else. Gaerius clenched his fists. ‘Battle stations!’
His order went unquestioned. All three bridge officers pulled down their interfaces. Klaxons sounded in the body of the Titan. The ground was shaking. An enormous pounding, as though the planet was breaking up, could be heard even here in the bridge.
The Warlord strode out to its doom, lasgun zipping, shoulder cannon roaring until all magazines were empty. Not a single archaeosaur was downed, but the lasgun, powered by the fission reactor, kept firing until it was destroyed. When the Warlord was caught in the onrush, the press of the creature’s steely flesh was so hard that it could not even fall but was instead ground between numerous immense bodies. By the time the herd had passed, the Lex et Annihilate was smashed to fragments. Only the cranium was still intact.
TWENTY LIGHT YEARS distant, the destruction of the third expedition to Planet ABL 1034 was evaluated almost immediately. A visual account of the initial battle, in which one Titan was destroyed, had been retrieved. In the final hour, Colonel Costos of the Fifth Helvetian, showing great bravery, had managed to send a shaky record of the final dreadful events.
The commission was broad-ranging. Imperial Guard Tactical Staff officers accompanied by the obligatory commissar, Collegio Titanicus staff officers, and a priest of the Adeptus Terra, sat round a varnished teak table. They had watched the visual records, including the bridge logs from the Lex et Annihilate and the Principio non Tactica. All had been shocked to see what a people who did not even know how to smelt metal could do.
‘The planet cannot be abandoned.’ the Adeptus Terra dignitary pronounced. ‘It must be occupied, even if only to deny it to others. What are the options?’
The Collegio Titanicus officer spoke sadly. ‘We should not send more of our Titans against those monsters. We cannot afford such losses.’
The commissar, present as a representative of the Ministorum, stirred. ‘The Cult of the Emperor has succeeded in worse places. We can take the long approach. Infiltrate trained missionaries into the local culture. Given time, they will create a religion favourable to the Imperium. We can then move in and take over a friendly population.’
‘No! We cannot risk it!’
The cry had come from the Collegio Titanicus officer. His face was pained. ‘Don’t you see? The archaeosaurs are a direct danger to us! Our Dark Age Titans constantly decrease in number, even though slowly. None that are vanquished can be replaced. But these archaeosaurs are animals! They breed! If they get loose into the galaxy, they can be bred without limit! What if the orks get hold of them?’
It must have been hard for a senior officer of the Adeptus Titanicus to speak so. His voice was anguished. ‘With respect, the commissar’s plan will take too long to execute. Meantime, there is always the risk of an alien race – such as the orks – stepping in, learning from the natives, and eventually deploying these beasts against us!’
‘We could do the same.’ the commissar pointed out smoothly.
The suggestion that archaeosaurs might supplant the Adeptus Titanicus plainly horrified the Collegio officer. He shook his head vigorously. ‘It is far too dangerous. There is only one real option. Exterminatus!’
‘That will deny us the use of the planet, too, for centuries to come.’ the commissar said. ‘I advocate the gentler course.’
They pondered. And then a shivering stillness seemed to come upon them. It was as though a ghostly presence had passed through the assembly. Several of those present looked up, softly murmuring the same word.
‘Exterminatus.’
TIGHTLY BOUND TO an X-beam far above the ground, on the swaying head of a giant beast, Princeps Gaerius raged with shame and frustration. Colonel Costos had been right. Primitive peoples were not stupid. They were bright. How, by the Emperor, had they ever learned to bend the archaeosaurs to their will? Could the Adeptus Mechanicus have done any better? Could it have done as well?
Gaerius was forced to admit the natives’ cleverness and courage. But they had destroyed his beloved Annihilate! They had humiliated the Adeptus Titanicus! For that, only hatred!
Half a kilometre to his right, Weapons Moderati Knifesmith swayed atop a second battle beast. Tactical Officer Viridens was on a third beast to his left. Chief Engineer Moriens was luckier. He had not survived the final fall of the Lex et Annihilate’s cranium.
Gaerius raised his face to the sky and cried out with all his soul, as though he could cast his cry through the warp. ‘Exterminatus!’ he pleaded. ‘Exterminatus!’
THE WRATH OF KHARN
William King
‘BLOOD FOR THE Blood God!’ bellowed Kharn the Betrayer, charging forward through the hail of bolter fire, towards the Temple of Superlative Indulgence. The bolter shells ricocheting off his breastplate did not even slow him down. The Chaos Space Marine smiled to himself. The ancient ceramite of his armour had protected him for over ten thousand years. He felt certain it would not let him down today. All around him warriors fell, clutching their wounds, crying in pain and fear.
More souls offered up on the altar of battle to the Supreme Lord of Carnage, Kharn thought and grinned maniacally. Surely the Blood God would be pleased this day.
Ahead of him, Kharn saw one of his fellow berzerkers fall, his body riddled with shells, his armour cracked and melted by plasma fire. The berzerker howled with rage and frustration, knowing that he was not going to be in at the kill, that he would give Khorne no more offerings on this or any other day. In frustration, the dying warrior set his chainsword to maximum power and took off his own head with one swift stroke. His blood rose in a red fountain to slake Khorne’s thirst.
As he passed, Kharn kicked the fallen warrior’s head, sending it flying over the defenders’ parapet. At least this way his fallen comrade would witness Kharn slaughter the Slaanesh worshippers in the few de
licious moments before he died. Under the circumstances, it was the least reward Kharn could grant such a devout warrior.
The Betrayer leapt over a pile of corpses, snapping off a shot with his plasma pistol. One of the Slaanesh cultists fell, clutching the ruins of his melted face. Gorechild, Kharn’s daemonic axe, howled in his hands.
Kharn brandished it above his head and bellowed his challenge to the sick, yellow sky of the daemon world.
‘Skulls for the skull throne!’ Kharn howled. On every side, frothing Berzerkers echoed his cry. More shells whined all around him. He ignored them the way he would ignore the buzz of annoying insects. More of his fellows fell but Kharn stood untouched, secure in the blessing of the Blood God, knowing that it would not be his turn today.
All was going according to plan. A tide of Khorne’s warriors flowed across the bomb-cratered plains towards the towering redoubt of the Slaanesh worshippers. Support fire from the Chaos Titan artillery had reduced most of the walls around the ancient temple complex to just so much rubble. The disgusting murals painted in fluorescent colours had been reduced to atoms. The obscene minarets that crowned the towers had been blasted into well-deserved oblivion. Lewd statues lay like colossal, limbless corpses, gazing at the sky with blank marble eyes.
Even as Kharn watched, missiles blazed down from the sky and smashed another section of the defensive wall to blood-covered fragments. Huge clouds of dust billowed. The ground shook. The explosions rumbled like distant thunder. Sick joy bubbled through Kharn’s veins at the prospect of imminent violence.
This was what he lived for, these moments of action where he could once again prove his superiority to all other warriors in the service of his exalted lord. In all his ten thousand year existence, Kharn had found no joy to touch the joy of battle, no lust greater than his lust for blood. Here on the field of mortal combat, he was more than in his element, he was at the site of his heart’s desire. It was the thing that had caused him to betray his oath of allegiance to the Emperor of Mankind, his genetic destiny as a Space Marine and even his old comrades in the World Eaters Legion. He had never regretted those decisions even for an instant. The bliss of battle was reward enough to stay any doubts.
He jumped the ditch before the parapet, ignoring the poisoned spikes which lined the pit bottom and promised an ecstatic death to any that fell upon them. He scrambled up the loose scree of the rock face and vaulted over the low wall, planting his boot firmly into the face of a defender as he did so. The man screamed and fell back, trying to stem the flow of blood from his broken nose. Kharn swung Gorechild and ended his whining forever.
‘Death is upon you!’ Kharn roared as he dived into a mass of depraved cultists. Gorechild lashed out. Its teeth bit into hardened ceramite, spraying sparks in all directions. The blow passed through the target’s armour, opening its victim from stomach to sternum. The wretch fell back, clutching at his ropy entrails. Kharn despatched him with a backhand swipe and fell upon his fellows, slaying right and left, killing with every blow.
Frantically the cultists’ leader bellowed orders, but it was too late. Kharn was among them, and no man had ever been able to boast of facing Kharn in close combat and living.
The numbers 2243, then 2244, blinked before his eyes. The ancient Gothic lettering of the digital death-counter, superimposed on Kharn’s field of vision, incremented quickly. Kharn was proud of this archaic device, presented by Warmaster Horus himself in ancient times. Its like could not be made in this degenerate age. Kharn grinned proudly as his tally of offerings for this campaign continued to rise. He still had a long way to go to match his personal best but that was not going to stop him trying.
Men screamed and howled as they died. Kharn roared with pleasure, killing everything within his reach, revelling in the crunch of bone and the spray of blood. The rest of the Khornate force took advantage of the destruction the Betrayer had caused. They swarmed over the walls in a howling mass and dismembered the Slaanesh worshippers. Already demoralised by the death of their leader, not even these fanatical worshippers of the Lord of Pleasure could stand their ground. Their morale broken, they panicked and fled.
Such pathetic oafs were barely worth the killing, Kharn decided, lashing out reflexively and killing those Slaanesh worshippers who passed too close him as they fled. 2246, 2247, 2248 went the death counter. It was time to get on with his mission. It was time to find the thing he had come here to destroy – the ancient daemonic artefact known as the Heart of Desire.
‘Attack!’ Kharn bellowed and charged through the gaping mouth of the leering stone head that was the entrance to the main temple building.
INSIDE IT WAS quiet, as if the roar of battle could not penetrate the walls. The air stank of strange perfumes. The walls had a porous, fleshy look. The pink-tinged light was odd; it shimmered all around, coming from no discernible source. Kharn switched to the auto-sensor systems within his helm, just in case there was some trickery here.
Leather-clad priestesses, their faces domino-masked, emerged from padded doorways. They lashed at Kharn with whips that sent surges of pain and pleasure through his body. Another man, one less hardened than Kharn, might have been overwhelmed by the sensation but Kharn had spent millennia in the service of his god, and what passed through him now was but a pale shadow compared to the battle lust that mastered him. He chopped through the snake-like flesh of the living lash. Poison blood spurted forth. The woman screamed as if he had cut her. Looking closer he saw that she and the whip were one. A leering daemonic head tipped the weapon’s handle and had buried its fangs into her wrist. Kharn’s interest was sated. He killed the priestess with one back-handed swipe of Gorechild.
A strange, strangled cry of rage and hate warned him of a new threat. He turned and saw that one of the other Berzerkers, less spiritually pure than himself, had been overcome by the whip’s evil. The man had torn off his helmet and his face was distorted by a sick and dreamy smile that had no place on the features of one chosen by Khorne. Like a sleepwalker he advanced on Kharn and lashed out with his chainsword. Kharn laughed as he parried the blow and killed the man with his return stroke.
A quick glance told him that all the priestesses were dead and that most of his followers had slain their drugged brethren. Good, thought Kharn, but part of him was disappointed. He had hoped that more of his fellows would be overcome by treachery. It was good to measure himself against true warriors, not these decadent worshippers of an effete god. Gorechild howled with frustrated bloodlust, writhing in his hand as if it would turn on him if he did not feed it more blood and sinew soon. Kharn knew how the axe felt. He turned, gestured for his companions to follow him and raced off down the corridor.
‘Follow me.’ he shouted. ‘To the slaughter!’
Passing through a huge arch, the former Space Marines entered the inner sanctum of the temple and Kharn knew that they had found what they had come for. Light poured in through the stained glass ceiling. As he watched, Kharn realised that the light was not coming through the glass, but from the glass itself. The illustrations glowed with an eerie internal light and they moved. A riotous assembly of men and women, mutants and daemons enacted every foul deed that the depraved followers of a debauched god could imagine. And, Kharn noted, they could imagine quite a lot.
Kharn raised his pistol and opened fire, but the glass merely absorbed the weapon’s energy. Something like a faint moan of pleasure filled the chamber and mocking laughter drew Kharn’s attention to the throne which dominated the far end of the huge chamber. It was carved from a single gem that pulsed and changed colour, going from amber to lavender to pink to lime and then back through a flickering, random assortment of iridescent colours that made no sense and hurt the eye. Kharn knew without having to be told that this throne was the Heart of Desire. Senses honed by thousands of years of exposure to the stuff of Chaos told him that the thing fairly radiated power. Inside was the trapped essence of a daemon prince, held forever at the whim of Slaanesh as punishment for some a
ncient treachery. The man sitting so regally on the throne was merely a puppet and barely worth Kharn’s notice, save as something to be squashed like a bug.
The man looked down on Kharn as if he had the temerity to feel the same way about Khorne’s most devoted follower. His left hand stroked the hair of the leashed and naked woman who crouched like a pet at his feet. His right hand held an obscenely shaped runesword, which glowed with a blasphemous light.
Kharn strode forward to confront his new foe. The clatter of ceramite-encased feet on marble told him that his fellow berzerkers followed. In a matter of a hundred strides, Kharn found himself at the foot of the dais, and some odd, mystical force compelled him to stop and stare.
Kharn did not doubt that he was face-to-face with the cult leader. The man had the foul, debauched look of an ancient and immortal devotee of Slaanesh. His face was pale and gaunt; make-up concealed the dark shadows under his eyes. An obscene helmet covered the top of his head. As he stood, his pink and lime cloak billowed out behind him. Tight bands of studded leather armour girdled his naked chest, revealing lurid and disturbing tattoos.
‘Welcome to the Heart of Desire,’ the Slaanesh worshipper said in a soft, insinuating voice which somehow carried clearly across the chamber and compelled immediate, respectful attention. Kharn was instantly on his guard, sensing the magic within that voice, the persuasive power which could twist mortals to its owner’s will. He struggled to keep the fury that burned eternally in his breast from subsiding under the influence of those slyly enthralling tones. ‘What do you wish?’
‘Your death!’ the Betrayer roared, yet he felt his bloodlust being subdued by that oddly comforting voice.
The cult leader sighed. ‘You worshippers of Khorne are so drearily predictable. Always the same tedious, unimaginative retort. I suppose it comes from following that mono-maniacal deity of yours. Still, you are hardly to be blamed for your god’s dullness, I suppose.’
