by Andy Clark
‘Charge primed, Gorrvan,’ he voxed. ‘Returning.’ The wind screamed, its ferocity increasing with each moment. As he watched, several gretchin were plucked from the nearest gantry and sent spinning away into the storm with reedy shrieks of terror.
Steeling himself, Kordus took a running leap into the maelstrom, jump pack roaring as it propelled him past a knot of greenskins and into the darkness. He landed with a clang, steadied himself, leapt again, and again. His auto-senses warned him the wind speed and temperature were becoming untenable for flight. A storm of ice chipped and scratched at his armour. Yet just a couple more jumps would carry him up onto the bridge’s surface.
At that moment, his vox coughed static in his ear, along with Cantos’s ragged, distorted voice.
‘…rothers, if any of you… hear this… plete the mission… can’t… hold…’
Kordus was little given to displays of emotion, but he had fought with Cantos on a dozen battlefields, and he swore as he heard the pain and defiance in his sergeant’s voice. Desperate urgency gripped the Raven Guard, and he took a running leap before firing his jump pack once more. Heavy with accumulating ice, the engines burned hard for a moment, sputtered, then cut out. Kordus stretched desperately for the nearest strut, just grasping the frozen metal. Behind his faceplate, Kordus’s black eyes widened with horror as his fingers slithered off the rime of ice, then he fell wordlessly towards the roaring river below.
Sor’khal pounded through the snow. Behind him, hidden amid the snowstorm, his plasma charge was primed. Ahead, even over the wind, he could hear roars and gunfire. The snow parted, and the White Scar cursed. Cantos was on his knees in the snow, blood running freely from his rent armour. The wreck of a ramshackle ork transport burned nearby, as did several blasted bikes. Orks were piled high around the heroic Ultramarine, yet more still surrounded him. Sor’khal ran faster, drawing his power sword from its sheathe. A massive, armoured ork with a roaring chain-cleaver loomed over the sergeant, its face split in a hideous leer. Then it raised its weapon to deliver the killing blow.
‘Cantos!’
The cleaver swept down, only to slam against a chainsword inches above Cantos’s head. Sparks flew, and the huge ork roared its outrage. Lothar Redfang surged forward, driving the greenskin back with a series of lightning-fast cuts. The ork punched the Space Wolf in the face, denting his face-plate and shattering one eyepiece. Rallying, Lothar feinted high then swung low and hacked off his foe’s leg. The ork leader crashed down, only to sink its tusks into Redfang’s thigh. Blood jetted as ceramite parted under the immense pressure of the ork’s jaws. With a roar of pain the Space Wolf rammed his whirring blade through the ork’s eye socket, causing its head to come apart with gratifying violence. By this time, Sor’khal had reached his brothers, impaling another ork, then pounding bolt shells into several more.
‘Get the sergeant up,’ voxed Lothar, parrying a whirltoothed axe. Sor’khal nodded, only to be sent staggering as another huge, armoured ork shoulder-charged him. The White Scar and the greenskin exchanged a vicious flurry of blows, and Sor’khal roared in pain as his opponent managed to ram its rusted blade through the armoured cables protecting his midriff. Blood welled through the wound and the ork roared its victory, pushing the blade deeper. Its eyes widened as Sor’khal bellowed a curse of his own. The Apothecary slammed his armoured fist repeatedly into his attacker’s face until bone broke and blood spurted. As his foe leaned desperately away from the punches, Sor’khal jammed his narthecium up, under its jaw. Drills whined, armour separators cracked out through bone and sinew, and the White Scar messily tore off the ork’s jaw.
Showered in greenskin blood, Sor’khal kicked his gagging, dying attacker into the snow. He wrenched the beast’s blade from his stomach and hurled it contemptuously away.
‘Are you alive, brother?’ Sor’khal answered Lothar’s question with a pained nod, before sliding one shoulder under Cantos’s arm and hauling the sergeant to his feet. Already, Sor’khal’s gene-enhanced metabolism was at work, clotting the flow of blood from his wound and beginning to heal the catastrophic damage that would have killed a lesser man thrice over. Cantos, however, was more sorely wounded. Blood dribbled in ropes through the cracked vox-grill of his helm, and welled slowly from a dozen savage rents in his armour. He grunted in pain, but managed to get his feet under him all the same.
‘Lothar,’ growled Sor’khal. ‘We need to fall back, now!’
The Space Wolf rammed his chainsword through an ork’s throat, before backing towards his brothers.
‘Agreed. They’re thick as hook-tics on a kraken, eh?’
The Deathwatch retreated along the bridge, firing as they went. The enemy were all around, but the howling, snowy gale hampered the orks worse than the Space Marines. Though their ferocious resilience made them all but immune to the cold, the xenos still had to labour for every step. Meanwhile, the Deathwatch had servo-motors to help power their limbs, and gyroscopic stabilisers to keep them upright. Still, all three were hard-pressed and cursing the orks’ incredible tenacity by the time the silhouette of the stronghold rose through the snow.
‘Gorrvan,’ voxed Sor’khal. ‘Cover would be good!’
‘…oing what I can, Brother Sor’khal. The storm has compromised the servit… guns’ targeting augurs. I cannot risk triggering them at this time. They may hit you.’
‘Perfect,’ spat Sor’khal, blasting another ork as it loomed from the snowstorm. It took the round to its shoulder, staggering as blood and meat exploded from the wound before roaring its defiance and charging again. Sor’khal cursed and shot it square in the face, sending its headless body flopping back into the snow. Sergeant Cantos activated his vox.
‘Brother Kordus?’ he gasped, ‘Where are you? We need to go…’ Silence answered him, and Sor’khal swore again as his bolter clicked uselessly. An ork slammed into him and Cantos, spilling them all into the snow. Sor’khal’s helm hit ferrocrete as the greenskin landed atop him. The alien cracked one big green fist into his face-plate, breaking the ceramite and drawing blood.
Meanwhile, Lothar fought ever-increasing odds. He tried to reach his fallen brothers, but several huge orks hurled themselves at him all at once. He crushed in his first assailant’s skull and shot the next, but the third managed to hack its blade into his shoulder. Howling with pain, Lothar headbutted the greenskin, only to be knocked off his feet as an ork shell exploded nearby.
‘Sor’khal,’ he groaned, trying to crawl towards the Apothecary. He saw the White Scar’s assailant deliver another clubbing blow. Then a black shape hit the ork like a thunderbolt. Engines roaring, Kordus tackled the greenskin off his brother, snapping its neck as they tumbled to a stop. Standing, the Raven Guard rattled off a volley of shells, gunning down a pair of masked greenskins before they could fire their bulky flame-throwers.
‘My thanks, brother,’ voxed Sor’khal. ‘Thought I was dead.’
‘What happened?’ asked Lothar, as he staggered to join them. Kordus calmly shot another ork through the throat as it burst into view.
‘This storm,’ replied the Raven Guard. ‘Fell. Climbed. Not really the time for long explanations.’
‘I concur,’ cut in Gorrvan, ‘you need to exfiltrate. Augur shows ork tanks moving up the bridge in great force.’
‘Well let us in then, brother!’
‘Negative, Brother Redfang. There is a duct hatch beneath the snow about five metres to your left. Enter there, it will be quicker. I will finish setting the timer then catch you up.’
‘Understood,’ grated Cantos. ‘Get those guns firing the moment we’re clear.’
A rune flashed on their auto-senses, as Gorrvan showed his brothers their exit route. While Kordus laid down covering fire and Sor’khal busied himself with Cantos’s wounds, Lothar swiftly dug down and hauled open the heavy hatch. A dark tunnel lay below, and the Fenrisian winced.
‘Like crawling down a troll’s gullet,’ he muttered. Then he loudly announced, ‘Who’s first?’
‘Go,’ ordered Cantos, ‘Sor’khal and I will follow. Kordus, rearguard.’ Lothar nodded, then dropped into the hole. As he did so he saw Kordus blazing away while Sor’khal helped Cantos to his feet. This was his pack, he thought with a surprised surge of pride, these and Gorrvan. He heard his brothers drop down behind, heard the hatch clang down, then the sudden roar of the servitor guns opening fire at last. The tunnel shook and dust trickled with each heavy concussion.
‘Twenty minutes,’ voxed Gorrvan. ‘Move, brothers.’
Some minutes later, Lothar emerged from the tunnel’s exit amid a ruin that flanked the bridge on the eastern bank. The place had been gutted by fire, but it was cover, and there were no orks inside. He could hear them without, voices raised in warcries. The storm was lessening, and the servitor guns of the stronghold thundered in the distance as the orks poured across the bridge and into their fire.
Sor’khal emerged behind him, still aiding Cantos, and Kordus jogged from the shadowed tunnel a moment later.
‘Gorrvan?’ asked Cantos. Lothar shook his head.
‘Brother Gorrvan,’ voxed Cantos. ‘Location?’
‘Stronghold command chamber, sergeant,’ came the reply. Sor’khal swore. Cantos closed his eyes. Lothar, meanwhile, lunged back towards the tunnel exit, only to be physically restrained by Kordus.
‘By the Allfather, Gorrvan, what’re you thinking?’ yelled Lothar.
‘It was the storm, brothers. Remote detonation was impossible while it persisted.’
‘So you stayed to do it manually.’ Sergeant Cantos’s tone was weary.
‘Confirmed. Meteorological augury indicated when the storm would abate. I simply fed that data to your helm chrons.’
‘So get out now!’ urged Sor’khal.
‘Negative, brother. Five servitor guns are dry.’ Gorrvan’s words were punctuated for a moment by the choppy roar of his bolter. ‘The greenskins have breached the east wing, and several have already reached this chamber. If I leave, detonation is uncertain. Logic dictates that I stay.’ For a moment, silence fell, then Cantos opened his vox again.
‘Your sacrifice will be remembered, Brother Gorrvan. Your Chapter will be notified.’
‘Thank you, sergeant. I calculate that you still possess an eighty-two per cent chance of mission success. Please prove me correct.’
‘We’ll kill him for you, brother,’ growled Lothar. ‘I swear it on the Fang.’
‘Again, Brother Lothar, my tha–’
And then, like a new sun dawning among the Atrophon snows, the plasma charges went up. A monstrous flash of light came first, followed by a thunderous roar that grew louder and louder. The blast wave rolled out, causing the ruin to shake violently and rubble to crash down around them. As one, the Space Marines were thrown from their feet, the earth shaking furiously beneath them. A vast fireball rose skyward, wreckage raining down around it. The brothers of the kill team clung to the juddering ground as their shelter came apart and toppled down upon them like an avalanche. For a while detonations continued, accompanied by the monolithic roar of the bridge collapsing into the Strakk.
Then it was finally over.
A short while later, rubble shifted on the east bank of the Strakk. With groans of exertion, the surviving brothers of the Deathwatch heaved fallen masonry off of themselves, clambering bloody and bruised into the smoky daylight. Blackened ork corpses lay everywhere, many crushed under chunks of ferrocrete or scrap metal. Here and there, flaming wreckage still blazed, and ash swirled thick in the midst of the snow. Lothar stared at the destruction they’d wrought.
‘Impressive…’ he breathed.
The span of the bridge still rose from the east bank, but it terminated a little way out across the river. Most of it had been vaporised, or devoured by the hungry Strakk. Now, two stubs of bridge jutted from opposite banks, severed cables swinging and creaking in the wind.
‘Not an ork left alive,’ noted Sor’khal. Cantos, his wounds patched for now, stepped painfully up next to him.
Lothar lowered his gaze for a moment. ‘Our brother shall have a seat in the Allfather’s feasting hall, eh?’
Cantos nodded grimly.
‘Indeed. There’ll be scattered survivors, but the Imperial lines are safe. Gorrvan would be pleased, may the Omnissiah keep him.’
Kordus tested his jump pack’s engines, nodding with satisfaction as they burned steady again.
‘More likely, Gorrvan would lecture us on the inefficiency of standing around talking.’
Lothar chuckled.
‘You’re right. Come on, brothers, we’ve an ork to kill, and only four hours left to do it in.’
‘And some glory to win?’ offered Cantos with a wry smile.
‘No, sergeant,’ replied Lothar, showing his fangs, ‘not glory. Revenge.’
Cantos nodded. ‘Revenge then. Brothers, for Gorrvan.’
Filled with new resolve, the brothers of the Deathwatch struck out into the snow, making for the outskirts of the factorum district. Somewhere ahead lay their quarry. At their backs, the falling flakes erased their footprints as they vanished into the white.
About the Author
‘Whiteout’ is Andy Clark’s first story for Black Library. Andy works as a background writer for Games Workshop, crafting the worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in Nottingham, UK.
A novel-length Deathwatch adventure – Talon Squad infiltrate a genestealer lair, but will any of the elite kill team make it out alive?
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Whiteout © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2015. Whiteout, Warhammer 40,000, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.
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ISBN: 978-1-78572-176-2
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
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