Damocles

by Various

  Their knives grated against one another. She longed to kill him, to cut his heart out with her blade and her hands. But that was not the way of it, not today. She shoved him back and withdrew, her armour carrying her speedily away from him. He stumbled momentarily off balance. She scooped up her fusion blaster and spun, levelling it at him before he could reach her. He felt a moment of sadness, both for her sake and his own. She was a cunning creature, locked in chains that she didn’t even see. She deserved a clean death, a warrior’s death, if nothing else. Instead, he would die here, and his men would die, and it would all be for nothing.

  ‘He’s here,’ Tolui said, ‘he’s coming.’ He looked up from the vox. ‘The Khwarezmian rides, my khan.’ The vox in his hands crackled, and Khorchin curses spattered the air in erratic fashion. That was Gharchai all right, Cemakar thought. No one else in the ordu had as wide or as sulphurous a vocabulary as the Khwarezmian.

  Cemakar backhanded a fire warrior that got too close and stomped on the downed xenos’s chest. He fired his bolt pistol, emptying the clip. Shadowsun had brought more troops than he’d thought. The tau had unpleasantly accurate fire, and his armour was scorched and marked by the evidence of that accuracy, as well as his position as Tolui’s breathing shield. ‘Well, it’s about time,’ he growled. He tossed aside the empty pistol and scooped up a chunk of still-smouldering wreckage, to block the firepower coming his way.

  They were in a stand-off. There weren’t enough White Scars to break the enemy, but the enemy weren’t determined enough to push through. The tau were squeamish, for which he was thankful. They spared concern for their wounded, and refused to commit suicide. It made them harder to kill in bulk, but kept them from mounting an effective assault. ‘Contact the others. We need to regroup and hit them as one, so that the Khwarezmian can sweep them from the ridge. Where is the Stormseer?’ Lightning crackled, and tau screamed as something exploded. Cemakar shook his head. ‘Never mind, there he is. Leave him to it. But contact Jebe and that dark armoured nitwit with the axe. Get them back here.’

  Tolui bent to obey. Cemakar scanned the battlefield. It was as disorganised a mess as any warrior of the ordu could hope for, and he took a certain pride in the general air of confusion which lingered over things. This was how war should be waged, a riot of colour and noise, eventually subsumed in silence. Shots struck the chunk of wreckage he was using as a shield. Every vibration that shook the twisted metal in his hands shook a bit more blood from the wound in his side. He was dying. The fact did not frighten him. He had come close many times over his long life, and when he met it, it would be as a friend.

  That said he didn’t intend to make it easy on whoever killed him. The fire warriors were getting closer, trying to pound him flat with sheer volume of fire. He lunged forward and crashed into the group, treading them under or sending them flying. He used the chunk of wreckage like a club, swatting them from their feet. When it became too unwieldy, he tossed it aside and hefted a dazed tau over his head and sent him flying into his fellows with bone shattering force. Pain tore through him, as one of the alien soldiers rammed a knife into his open wound. Cemakar caught his opponent’s arm and jerked the fire warrior forward, dropping his elbow on top of the smooth curve of the alien’s helmet. Metal buckled, and the tau dropped insensate. ‘Where is the khan?’ he shouted to Tolui, plucking the knife from his side. He upended the blade and sent it spinning into the barrel of a tau rifle. The weapon exploded as its owner tried to fire. ‘If he knows that Gharchai is on the way, maybe he won’t do anything stupid.’

  ‘I saw him head that way, in pursuit of the xenos witch,’ Tolui said. He cracked a tau in the head with the vox. ‘Go find him, old man, we’ll hold here.’

  Cemakar hesitated and then nodded. Stiffly, one hand pressed to his side, he moved across the ridge. Bikes roared past, guns blazing. The tau were trying to regroup, but seemed confused, as if their commander was otherwise occupied. Cemakar grunted. He had a feeling that he knew why that might be. Something cold clutched at his hearts, as if a shadow had passed over him. Maybe Ambaghai wasn’t the only one the spirits spoke to. He began to run, despite the pain, despite the ache in his side and the red fog that nearly blinded him. Wherever Shadowsun was, that was where Kor’sarro would be.

  He caught sight of the familiar flash of Moonfang, in the light of the nearing dawn. Something in him tore and he coughed blood. He saw them strain against one another, his khan and the alien commander, saw them break apart, saw the weapon rising in her hand, and he knew what was coming next and without a second thought, he leapt.

  Kor’sarro tensed, ready to make his final lunge. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

  Cemakar crashed into him as the fusion blaster roared. Kor’sarro scrambled to his feet. He looked down into the old man’s upturned face. ‘They’re… here,’ he wheezed, smoke rising from between his lips. ‘The Khwarezmian has come.’

  Kor’sarro turned and saw shadows sweeping across Rime Crag, as the Stormbringer Squadron entered the fray. Land Speeders and Land Speeder Storms raced through the air, weapons firing as they weaved over and between the tau transports. The remaining battlesuit turned about and fired, plucking one of the Land Speeders from the air, but it was forced to hunker behind its shields as more swarmed it, circling it and firing at it from every angle. The battlesuit was fast, but the Land Speeders were faster.

  A Land Speeder Typhoon turned sharply, its lethal payload erupting from the twin pods mounted on its upper hull. Missiles streaked towards the battlesuit, consuming its shield-drones and rocking the heavy battlesuit. It refused to fall or retreat however, and it raised its weapon, pursuing the Typhoon with a barrage of its own. More Land Speeders circled it, cutting tight turns and engaging in a dazzling display of aeronautic acrobatics such as only the White Scars could conceive of. Multi-meltas seared the air, and heavy bolters bellowed. The battlesuit reeled as smoke erupted from the craters that now pockmarked its frame.

  With the battlesuit thus occupied, the rest of the squadron peeled off, homing in on the transponders carried by every White Scar biker. Missiles streaked from the Typhoons, corkscrewing into the open compartments of the tau transports as the fire warriors began to retreat. Land Speeders hunted the xenos, chewing up the ground around them with heavy bolter fire in an effort to herd them away from the surviving White Scars.

  Other Land Speeders hurtled down the line of the ridge, assault cannons roaring a red greeting. Shadowsun turned, her smooth features wrinkling in consternation. She lifted her fusion blaster, and then lowered it with a shake of her head.

  Kor’sarro still knelt beside Cemakar. Old Shatterhand was dying, red bubbles forming at the corners of his mouth as he tried to speak, to breathe. He’d been cut in two by the blast, and Kor’sarro shifted slightly, so that Cemakar couldn’t see his own legs lying some distance away. ‘T-told you so,’ the old man hissed. His fist tapped weakly against Kor’sarro’s leg. ‘Stupid,’ he gurgled.

  ‘Easy old man, the Khwarezmian is here. You’ll be fine. You’ve survived worse,’ Kor’sarro said, knowing it was a lie even as he said it. ‘You’ll survive this.’ He looked up. The sound of engines shook the ridge. Hasik and his bikers had made it through and come back. The khamar were making a fighting withdrawal. Their ambush had been ambushed, and they knew when they were beaten. They wouldn’t stay gone long, however. He knew that they would have a long, hard ride ahead of them, back to their own lines. The old man gripped his wrist, and Kor’sarro looked down.

  ‘My tanks are dead,’ Cemakar said, staring up at the lightening sky. ‘Now so am I.’ His gaze sharpened, just for a moment. ‘They’ll make me a Ghost Warrior, boy,’ he rasped, and there was real fear in his words. For the first time, in his final moments, Old Shatterhand was frightened. The thought of being interred within the armoured sarcophagus of a Dreadnought caused even the staunchest warrior of the ordu to quail. To be made one of the Ghost Warriors meant an etern
ity of sterile slaughter, never to feel the wind or taste the blood of the enemy. Bloody fingers dug into Kor’sarro’s arm. ‘Don’t let them.’ He coughed. His eyes were wide. Blood spattered into his beard. Then with a querulous sigh, his face went slack, and his hands flopped limply to the snow.

  Kor’sarro hesitated. There was an Apothecary with Gharchai, he knew. Cemakar would be stabilised, kept hovering between the land of blood and the land of ghosts until such time as he could be encased in an adamantine bio-coffin and join the ranks of the living dead. He was too valuable to lose to such a shallow death. Old Shatterhand was a legend – a god-killer and a master of war. The seers would oversee his return and they would awaken him to fight anew.

  Unless there was nothing left to awaken.

  He looked up at Shadowsun, who was shouting orders to her troops. She met his eyes as he rose to his feet. ‘He was my commander, once,’ he said, softly. He knew she could hear him. ‘He was never my friend, for he had none. But he was my brother, and my teacher and he did not deserve this death. And he does not deserve what will happen next.’

  They stared at one another, as the battle swept on around them. She had faced Dreadnoughts before, he knew. Even as she likely knew, after all this time studying the warriors of the ordu what such a fate meant to them. Then, just as he began to fear that he’d misjudged her, Shadowsun inclined her head slightly and he stepped back. Her fusion blaster vomited plasma and Cemakar’s body was enveloped in a pyrrhic shroud. Kor’sarro expelled a breath and looked at her. ‘Your days are numbered. Count them one by one, and cherish them. You have earned this one, but our dance is not yet finished, huntress. Wherever you go, wherever you wage war, I will pursue you, and when the appointed day dawns, your head will join the others on the White Road.’

  Shadowsun held his gaze for a moment. ‘We could have been great friends, huntsman,’ she said, finally. Her armour wavered and a moment later, she was gone, lost to his sight. The sounds of bolterfire trickled off as the tau retreated, leaving Rime Crag to the battered remnants of the Third Company.

  Kor’sarro looked down at the char-stain that marked Cemakar’s passing and nodded to himself. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I rather think we could have.’ He sheathed Moonfang and trudged up towards the summit of the ridge. The survivors had fallen back to join the new arrivals.

  He could see the Khwarezmian among them, his armour wreathed in silks and furs, and his beaked helmet painted to resemble a wolf’s skull. Gharchai clasped forearms with him when Kor’sarro reached them a few moments later. ‘My khan, I’m glad to see that you haven’t killed them all. I was worried when we couldn’t find them on our sweep,’ the Khwarezmian said, one hand resting on the pommel of the heavy-blade tulwar sheathed on his hip. He cocked his head. ‘The old man,’ he asked.

  Kor’sarro gestured to the sky. ‘His spirit rides with the storms. As do those of our brothers who enabled us to escape the trap we were led into. As all of ours may do, before this day is done.’ He slapped a hand against Gharchai’s arm. ‘But we’re not dead yet. Mount up, brothers. We must be quick. The enemy will regroup and seek to harry us,’ he said, as he looked around. ‘A new day is upon us, and we still have a war to wage.’ He paused. ‘Our hunt is over. We ride for Agrellan Prime.’

  About the Authors

  Phil Kelly has been a devotee of myths, monsters and magic for three decades, the last of which has been spent working as a games developer in Games Workshop’s Design Studio. Over the years, Phil has pursued various exotic careers but since meeting his future wife at a Los Angeles beach party, he has settled down a bit. He now leads a nice normal life writing about fantastical armies, undead pirates and gribblies from outer space.

  Guy Haley is the author of the Space Marine Battles novel The Death of Integrity, as well as Skarsnik and Baneblade. He worked for many years on magazines, including Games Workshop’s White Dwarf. Since 2009 he has been a wandering writer, working in both magazines and novels. He lives in Somerset with his wife and son.

  Ben Counter is the author of the Imperial Fists sagas Malodrax, Seventh Retribution and Endeavour of Will. He has also written the Horus Heresy novels Galaxy in Flames and Battle for the Abyss, along with Warhammer 40,000 series featuring the Soul Drinkers and Grey Knights. He is a fanatical painter of miniatures, a pursuit which has won him his most prized possession: a prestigious Golden Demon award. He lives in Portsmouth, England.

  Josh Reynolds has blazed a trail across the Warhammer World with the novels Master of Death, Neferata and Knight of the Blazing Sun, along with the Gotrek and Felix tales Charnel Congress, Road of Skulls and The Serpent Queen. As well as numerous short stories, he has also written the Warhammer 40,000 audio drama Master of the Hunt and contributed to the Apocalypse anthology Damocles with the novella Hunter's Snare. He lives and works in Sheffield.

  A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

  First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

  Cover illustration by Kai Lim of Imaginary Friends Studios.

  Internal illustrations by Neil Hodgson, Nuala Kinrade and Sam Lamont.

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