by Various
‘I see,’ said Eres, tapping the fingers of one hand on his arm as he looked again at the huge tower. ‘I thought it was supposed to be some kind of teleporter.’
Eliphas cringed inwardly at the simplistic nature of Eres’ worldview, but managed a smile. ‘Aye. In a very distant way, it is.’
‘Why do we need one?’ asked Eres. He opened his arms and gestured towards their surroundings. Typhaedes was a desolate ruin for five kilometres in every direction. ‘You have two hundred warriors. I have five times that number. The people of Kronus are broken. What need do we have of a giant, mystical teleporter?’
‘Kronus is a step, a means to a greater end. When the Abyssal Situlate comes before us, we shall be ushered into the new dawn. Forget the petty ambitions of simple conquest, Eres. Not just the fiefdoms of Guilliman, but all of the Emperor’s domains shall be ours for the taking. Our goal is not the defeat of a single people – it is the avenging of the Emperor’s betrayal of our Legion. No more will we be taken as fools, the lives of our brethren expended for the grandeur of an uncaring god. Not again shall we suffer the ignominy of serving lesser mortals.’
‘And your tower will do that, will it?’ Eres shrugged. ‘How do you turn it on?’
‘In all bargains there is a price. It is paid in blood, sweat and toil.’
‘I see plenty of sweat and toil,’ said Eres. He grinned savagely. ‘When do you need more blood?’
‘So, their plan has worked?’ asked Khordal Arukka.
Eres’ second-in-command did not look convinced as the two of them studied the orbital sensor sweeps at the control station in the back of the Achilles-pattern Land Raider transport. A prized headquarters vehicle, gifted to him by none other than Amandus Tyr of the Imperial Fists fourteen years and an age ago when they had fought together at Varleth Gorge. Arukka had slain Captain Nordas Vyre out of hand when he had tried to insist that Eres left the transport behind when departing with Eliphas.
It had been a good signal of loyalty on his part.
‘Perhaps,’ Eres conceded. He looped back the data readings as he continued. ‘I admit, I was confused at first when Eliphas had insisted that we allow a few of the Ultramarines garrison to escape Kronus on that commandeered warp-trawler. It seemed folly to spare them in itself, and doubly so because they would doubtless take word of what occurred back to their commanders. I argued that the Ultramarines would surely respond and that we lacked the resources for a swift conclusion to the planetary occupation.’
Arukka nodded. ‘I thought it oddly diplomatic of you at the time. You should have just taken the idiot’s head.’
‘The will of Angron was most specific, my brother. We were to extend our full co-operation to the sons of Lorgar. That we were saddled with this foam-mouthed disciple of madness doesn’t alter anything.’
‘He was exceptionally patronising, captain. He talked to us as though we were simpletons.’
‘He was and he did, and but for the demands of the primarch I would have ended him there and then. But you must remember, my brother, that words and deeds are not the same.’ Eres tapped a finger to his implant. ‘Rage begets rage – that is the pit that awaits us. I have warned you before that we should not waste the gifts of the Butcher’s Nails on inconsequential matters. In most concerns, we must kill cold and kill clean. Show no remorse but also feel no pleasure. Overuse of the implants reduces their effect with time, I believe.’
‘You are most peculiar for a World Eater, captain. There are few that share your view on the Nails.’
‘Which explains why I have been attached to these mumbling Word Bearer morons rather than fighting alongside our Lord Angron.’
Eres paused, and checked the chrono-mark on the orbital readings. Four hours old.
Why had Eliphas not released them sooner?
‘Many have thought me a fool, my brother. Their corpses have been forgotten. Eliphas courts disaster when his tongue runs away from him, but he knows that he needs me. It matters not whether I believe his great temple will bring their deliverer or not. He believes it, and that makes him beholden to us.’
‘Look at these time codes,’ said Arukka. ‘The Ultramarines response force must already be in range of the defence stations, but we receive no word that they have opened fire. It seems foolish to allow them to land without contest.’
‘That is because we are merely ignorant warriors, my brother,’ said Eres. He wound the readings forward and pointed to a screen. ‘The drop assault is imminent. Their blood on our ground, that is what the Word Bearers desire. To slay them in orbit, to scatter their atoms to the void, serves no purpose to our incense-huffing companion.’
Eres turned and opened the assault ramp of the Achilles, flooding the interior with daylight. He strode out with Arukka at his heels, and looked up. There was a telltale glimmer in the upper skies – the first glint of descending drop pods would have been missed by any less experienced warrior.
About him were arrayed his one thousand warriors, stationed in and around the templum. Linked by artificial causeways to the tower and each other, eight bunker-like outbuildings guarded the approach to the main gatehouse, forming ‘an abyssal star’ as Yoth had termed it.
To Eres it was simply a convenient line of defence. World Eaters squads were positioned in the fortifications and amongst the ruins further out from the grotesque edifice.
He looked at it now. The construction had been completed five days ago, the third after receiving confirmation from Eliphas that the Ultramarines had returned, and that the incoming task force numbered only two warships of any size. Had the Ultramarines taken the threat at Kronus seriously, the Word Bearers and World Eaters might well have faced several thousand warriors rather than a mere demi-company.
‘They come,’ he warned his legionaries across the vox, drawing his chainsabres. ‘Remember the request of the Word Bearer. Slay only in the precinct of the templum. Allow some to enter.’
He lowered his voice and addressed Arukka. ‘A battle-barge and a strike cruiser. No more than five hundred warriors at most. It seems that Eliphas’ gambit has paid off. Concealing our presence has caused the enemy to underestimate the strength required to retake Kronus. Guilliman’s sons are about to receive a hot welcome.’
‘It feels counter to all of my instinct and training to willingly leave enemy to the rear,’ said Arukka.
‘We must trust the Word Bearers.’
‘Why?’
The inquiry took Eres by surprise, not because it was a bad question, but because it had not occurred to him before. It took him some time to think of an appropriate answer.
‘Because if we cannot, this entire endeavour has been a monument to Eliphas’ vanity and nothing else. If that is the case, I shall present his head to Angron myself.’
Arukka nodded, accepting his captain’s wisdom without comment. He pulled on his helm, its faceplate daubed with a red handprint across the snout and left eye. It had once been a bloody mark left by the first Raven Guard that Arukka had gutted at Isstvan, but the blood had dried and flaked away over time, and so he had decided to commemorate the moment in more permanent fashion.
He was not alone. There were other affectations, some far more disturbing, creeping in across the formal blue-and-white of the Legion.
Eres did not mind these slips in uniform discipline. There was little enough incentive for his warriors to band together as it was. They had heard nothing from their primarch in over forty days, nor from Legion command. The presence of Captain Vostigar Catacult Eres was all that reminded them that they were World Eaters at all, and he was not about to risk a mutiny by remarking on the daubed slogans and additions made by his warriors.
The burning lights of the incoming drop pods and landing craft grew brighter.
‘I wonder what it feels like,’ said Arukka.
‘What’s that?’
‘Making a dr
op assault without the Nails. I’ve always been too lost by the time I even stepped aboard to worry about the danger of plunging from orbit onto an enemy position. These sons of Macragge know exactly what they are doing. All the way down.’
Eres did not reply. His implants were starting to respond to the change in his physiology and brain activity as the prospect of battle approached. His adrenal surge was already boosted by his Space Marine augmentations. On top of that, the Butcher’s Nails were fizzing in the meat of his mind.
He shuddered and bared his teeth, suppressing a growl. It was too soon.
The key to using the Nails properly was not to become a mindless slayer, as much as many in his Legion allowed themselves. There was a technique, a pattern to follow, that allowed the implant to peak in its effect at just the right moment. The trick was to hold back on the rise to the top of the wave, and then allow oneself to succumb fully, riding it back down into oblivion.
He knew that the desire to kill had to be burning through the nerves of his warriors, but they held back their fire. Not a single volkite beam or bolter shell leapt out to meet the descending enemy craft.
Unopposed, the Ultramarines crashed down onto the surface of Kronus, thirty drop pods packed with vengeful warriors, ten more unleashing clouds of missiles and blasts of plasma into the surrounding ruins. Gunships rained down fire as they circled, battering shells against the toppled walls and the reinforced ferrocrete of the bunkers.
‘The time is at hand, my proud Eaters of Worlds!’ declared Eres, opening fire with his bolter vambrace while the Achilles spat forth death from its thunderfire cannon and multi-meltas. ‘Let the enemy know our retort!’
The World Eaters surged from dozens of cover positions, bolters and pistols barking, covered by heavy weapons fire from Word Bearers stationed at murder holes in the lower levels of the templum.
Suddenly surrounded by a mass of foes, the Ultramarines tried to pull back into a defensive formation, the guns of the Thunderhawks overhead silenced by the short distance between both sides. Eres ran in, his chainsabres whirring as bolts from a charging Ultramarines sergeant sparked from his war-plate.
The sergeant had a short-bladed gladius in one hand, his pistol in the other. Diamond-edged chainblade teeth cut through his sword hand, scattering armoured fingers. Eres’ other weapon split the pistol’s barrel, detonating the bolt in the chamber. Reeling from this, the sergeant took a step back. Eres ripped both blades free and drove them into the Ultramarine’s chest, the spinning teeth chewing through the golden blazon and blue ceramite until they churned into bone and organs.
Eres felt a jolt as his Butcher’s Nails responded to the carnage unfolding around him. He snarled, taking in a short breath as he looked around.
Brother versus brother. It mattered not.
To fight his fellow legionaries was the ultimate test. If he was stronger than the best of them, then there was no other in the galaxy that could threaten him, save for the primarchs themselves.
He wove his blades in deadly arcs – sometimes together, sometimes apart – punctuating the moments of inactivity between foes with salvoes from his vambrace.
With each death the gorging of his warrior spirit grew and the Nails’ effect became more potent. His vision was turning red as combat stimms coursed through his body, threatening to burst his genhanced veins.
There was something else, alongside the well-known euphoria of battle. There was a sense of release with each foe he killed. Every Ultramarine that fell was accompanied by a surge of power. It lingered along his blades with the blood, a miasma on the edge of sensation.
The same was also true of every World Eater that died around him. Eres could almost feel something ephemeral, as though their very essence fled their cleaved bodies, trying to soar away but caught in the thrall of the Templum Daemonarchia. It occurred to him, as he struck the head from another foe, that perhaps Eliphas was trying to play him for a fool, luring him into sacrificing his warriors for some greater goal…
The implant reached its perfect pitch, raw sensation and intellectual understanding meeting at an infinitely small point of balance.
Everything was clear and pin-sharp. Each flying drop of blood, each tooth on his sword blades, every scratch upon his armour. He saw the detonation of bolts and the trails of propellant behind them, felt the thunder of the Achilles’ guns through his boots, smelled the blood and tasted the sweat on the air.
For an exquisite instant he teetered on the precipice, trying with every mote of will to hold on to his sanity, lifted up above all other creatures in his moment of ecstatic accomplishment.
And then he slipped over the summit and was dragged down into the mindless rage, all thought of grand plans and potential betrayal forgotten.
From a skewed window a few metres above the base of the tower, Eliphas heard Eres’ howl split the air. The World Eater was a blur of death, his armour sprayed with gore as he hacked his way into the heart of the Ultramarines’ ranks.
But as much as the XII Legion fell upon the sons of Guilliman with reckless abandon, Eres had been true to his plan. He had positioned his warriors in such a way that there was a path to the Templum Daemonarchia, and along this weakened axis the Ultramarines naturally moved, seeking both refuge from the berserk assault and also to silence the heavy guns of the Word Bearers in the higher reaches.
‘It’s working!’ crowed Yoth. ‘Can you feel it?’
‘I can,’ replied Eliphas. Like a rising flood, the immaterial energy was gathering in the foundations of the tower. It was drawn to the blood-soaked stones, built in ritual, arranged along the occult lines of confluence between realms. He slapped a hand to Yoth’s shoulder plate. ‘I can feel it, my learned friend. Your calculations are perfect!’
The first of the Ultramarines reached the gate below, staggering into the cold interior as they turned and fired their bolters at the pursuing World Eaters. Eliphas gestured to Achton, who was waiting by a crude stairway to the left, the great icon across his shoulder.
‘It is nearly time. With me, proud sacrificier.’
The Word Bearers commander raced down the steps and into the beleaguered Ultramarines. His mace left crimson trails of smoke as he smote left and right, cracking open armour and crushing helms.
For all that he had laboured to build the templum for the glory of the Abyssal Situlate, it felt good to smite his enemies in person.
The escaping soulstuff of the dead washed around him, the death cries and passing moans of the departed lingering in his hearing. As more legionaries died, the warp-fluid became a tangible thing, a half-present cloud of fog that was spiralling up to the pinnacle of the templum, guided by the swirl of dedicated corpses adorning the exterior, concentrating and solidifying as though light passing through successive lenses, becoming sharper and more distinct as it spun higher.
‘Now, Achton!’ he cried. ‘Immoria magisterius sanguinia!’
Eliphas’ icon bearer drove the sharpened heel of the stave through the chest of a dying Ultramarine, pinning the flailing legionary to the ground.
The skulls flared with black fire, hurling Achton half a dozen metres across the floor of the templum as if he had been struck by lightning. His smoking war-plate clattered to a stop against the far wall, cracked open as though something huge had burst out from within. Of the warrior that had worn the armour, nothing was visible.
Set into the corpse of the Ultramarine, the standard started to shine with a dirty golden light that caused even Eliphas to flinch, averting his eyes from its blazing light. When he had recovered, he saw that the head of the icon was slowly starting to spin. The circle described by the orbiting skulls darkened, becoming a black disc that bowed outwards.
Or perhaps inwards? The shining surface tricked the eye, making it seem both convex and concave at the same time.
A face formed in the fluid-like blackness.
A proud brow, and unflinching eyes. Lips pursed in agitation.
The Abyssal Situlate.
The Incarnate Entity of the All-Changing Ways. The Guide of the Blind.
Lorgar, Aurelian.
The Urizen. Primarch of the XVII Legion.
Eliphas and the other Word Bearers threw themselves to their knees, all except the Inheritor averting their eyes.
‘Lord, a thousand humble thanks for your appearance,’ Eliphas called, holding out his hands in supplication. ‘You bless us with this visitation. But I beg more. Why do you not walk the bridge we have built? Why would you not pass through the golden arch we have erected in your honour?’
The primarch’s lips moved, and as they did the skulls opened their jaws, mouthing in time to the words that issued from the icon, the voice bassy and distorted.
‘Eliphas. What cause brings you to disturb me in this awkward fashion?’
‘Kronus, revered lord. We beg your indulgence and your presence so that you might witness the holy slaughter. Bless us with your strong arm and sure command, I beseech you!’
‘Kronus? What of Kronus?’
‘The Five Hundred Worlds burn in your name, Father of Truth. Kronus shall be lit like a pyre in your honour.’
‘The Five Hundred Worlds are of no concern to me any longer, Eliphas. I have achieved that which I sought when we came east.’
Eliphas became aware that all had fallen quiet around him. He heard the tread of boots and glanced to his left to see Eres marching into the hall of the templum. The glazed look in his eyes was fading, his gaze slowly focussing on the Word Bearers. Eliphas ignored him.
‘But my lord… Monarchia?’ Eliphas spluttered. ‘What of our retribution against the sons of Guilliman? Are the Ultramarines to be spared the anguish that their callous betrayal deserves?’
