Shield of Baal: Deathstorm

by Josh Reynolds

  At first, he did not think that his words had had any effect on the beast. Then came a bubbling, liquid snarl of pure malice, and with it, a torturous flood of mental imagery. This stabbed into his mind, again and again, and he took a step back, almost overwhelmed by the sheer malignancy of it.

  The broodlord darted from concealment and pounced on him as he reeled. Its lower set of claws dug into his cheeks as it bent over him, its feet digging into his belly, its larger talons sunk into his armour like anchor-hooks. He staggered beneath its weight, as before, and as it lunged to sink its fangs into his face, he rammed the haft of his hammer between its teeth.

  Burning driblets of saliva hissed and smoked where they touched his armour as the beast struggled to bite through the weapon. Its eyes bulged obscenely in their sockets as it flung its thoughts at him. He closed his mind, throwing up mental walls, as he had been taught during his days as an aspirant. But as fast as he raised them, the beast knocked them down. It was more powerful than any such creature he had had the misfortune to encounter.

  ‘What are you?’ he grunted.

  Images flapped against his mind like the wings of insects against the bulb of a stab-light. He saw the Tribune Chamber, full of life and sound, and on the throne that had once stood at the far end, a man sat. No, not a man… something else. Disgust welled in him, as he began to understand. As if sensing his revulsion, the broodlord uttered a muffled shriek of rage around the haft of his weapon. A claw slid between the plates of his armour and he felt a stab of pain.

  His mind wavered as the creature’s thoughts rode the pain into the depths of him. But the discordant pulse of the Hive Mind was met by the red hum that crouched sealed away in his subconscious. It rose, like a crimson tide, filling him and driving all other thought before it. Anger flared in him, and more than anger. He wanted to smash this thing, to strike it until it was no more than pulp and memory.

  With a groan of servos, Karlaen forced the beast up, until it was barely holding onto him. Then, with a roar, he hurled the creature towards the statue it had been crouched upon. It struck the base of the plinth with a crack and tumbled down, limp and unmoving. The agony in his mind began to fade and he shook his head, trying to clear it. The world had gone red around him, and all he could see was the thing – his enemy – lying there, helpless.

  Karlaen swung his hammer up and charged. He would end it here and now. He would see his mission accomplished. No more of his brothers would die. The red hum filled his mind, carrying him forward. The Hammer of Baal snapped out, wreathed in snapping strands of blue lightning. The broodlord–

  –moved.

  At the last moment, just before his hammer struck home, the creature opened one eye and flung itself aside. Whether it had been playing dead, or had actually been stunned, he could not say. It rolled away from the blow, which continued on to strike the statue. The hammer smashed through the lower section of the statue in an explosion of dust and stone splinters, and Karlaen allowed the force of the blow to spin him around.

  He swung his storm bolter up as his targeting array locked onto the broodlord where it crouched, as if waiting for him. Karlaen heard the sound of stone grinding. His armour’s proximity sensors blared a warning, and he looked up, the fury draining from him as he realised his mistake. The statue crashed down atop him. Its immense weight knocked him flat and pinned him to the ground.

  Sensors blared warnings into his ears as his exoskeleton groaned and creaked. The plaza cracked beneath his hands as he tried to shove himself upright. Armour plates buckled at the point of impact, and the ancient suit of armour seemed to sag about him in defeat as he tried and failed to heave the statue off himself.

  A slow hiss of satisfaction escaped his opponent. The broodlord watched his struggles with a flat, red gaze, its long, sinuous tongue flickering out to taste the air. Then, when it was certain that he was not going to escape, it began to crawl towards him. Its eyes never left his as it drew closer and closer, and he knew it was taking pleasure from his predicament.

  Trapped, barely able to move, Karlaen could only watch as the broodlord crept towards him, its hideous face split into what could only be a leer of triumph.

  Eight

  The broodlord moved slowly, savouring its moment. Karlaen struggled against the statue’s weight, trying to pull his arm free. If he could just extricate his storm bolter, he might stand a chance. But he did not think the creature was going to give him the time to do so. The rage that had held him, the red fury that had driven him to rashness, had been snuffed out like a fire doused in water. Now he was left with only cold certainty – he had been foolhardy, and now he was paying the price.

  ‘Come on then, beast,’ he spat. ‘Come on.’ He shifted, trying one last time to heave the statue aside. ‘Take your due, if you would, but it will be the last time, I swear to you.’

  The broodlord paused and examined him, as if in amusement. Then it started forwards again, eyes locked on his face. Karlaen continued to struggle. Even if it were hopeless, even if he died here, pinned beneath a statue, he would not give up. He would not resign himself to the monster that crawled ever closer. That, in the end, was what it meant to be of the blood of Sanguinius – even if your fate were woven into the universal skein, even if your doom was in your very blood, you would not surrender. Death in the name of duty was not defeat.

  ‘Come on,’ he rasped. ‘Come and have your taste, vermin. Come, hurry!’ If it got close enough, he might be able to blind it, with the help of the poison created by the Betcher’s gland implanted in his hard palate. It would not be much of a victory, but it would be satisfying.

  As if sensing his thoughts, it paused and eyed him suspiciously. It extended a claw, but hesitated. He felt its thoughts brush across his own, though without the urgency or ferocity of its earlier attempts. It was as if it were… curious.

  His gaze caught something over the creature’s hunched form. Beyond it, high in the red sky, which was beginning to lighten as dawn approached, dark shapes fell towards the city. At first, he thought that they were more spores, then he realised that they were drop pods. The warriors of the Chapter had arrived at last, beginning the final cleansing of Asphodex. As the drop pods drew closer, he could see that mingled among them were black-armoured warriors, riding on wings of flame. A chill coursed through him as he realised what had been unleashed upon the world.

  The Death Company had been loosed upon Phodia, and no tyranid would be able to stay their wrath. As if plucking the thought from his head, the broodlord tensed and twisted about to watch the invasion force descend through the roiling clouds. Orbital bombardment from the fleet above Asphodex struck the continent-spanning city, covering the Blood Angels in their descent. The newcomers hurtled closer, so close now that he could make out the red marks on their ebony power armour, and Karlaen winced as his vox spat a mangled flurry of gibberish. He glared defiantly at the broodlord. ‘Your death is coming, beast. If not by my hands, then by theirs. Scuttle back to whatever hole you crawled out of, if you would see another dawn.’

  It was a desperate gambit, but it worked all the same. The broodlord turned back to him, cocked its head, and then snorted. It had apparently understood him. It turned away, as if to leave. Karlaen seized the moment. He had been rerouting power to his exoskeleton for one last gamble, and now was the time. With a grinding roar, he forced himself up. Dust and debris cascaded over him as he forced his armour to the utter limits of its load capacity and shifted the statue just enough to cause it to roll aside. Servos whining, he lunged for the beast, even as it whirled to meet him.

  It avoided his awkward blow and slashed at him, driving him back against the statue. Before he could push away from it, the broodlord shot forwards, faster than his eyes, organic and bionic alike, could follow. A claw sank into his chest, puncturing an armour plate and digging into the meat within. Karlaen grunted in pain. The broodlord jerked its claw free and leapt back, out of range of any retaliatory strike. It eyed him as its long t
ongue flickered out to lick the blood from its claw. Then it was gone, vanished into the pre-dawn gloom.

  Karlaen staggered forward, pressing a hand to his wound, as he vainly sought some sign of the beast. His superhuman enhancements were already stemming the flow of blood and sealing the wound. The vox popped and crackled in his ear. He could hear the others, and knew from the tenor of their voices that they were on the cusp of being overrun. His gambit had failed, but disaster could still be averted.

  He pushed aside his pain and began to move back towards the battle, picking up speed as he went. ‘I am coming, brothers,’ he said, over the vox.

  ‘Did you kill it?’ Alphaeus asked over the crackling link.

  ‘No,’ Karlaen said, reluctantly. He did not elaborate, and Alphaeus did not press him. He caught sight of the squad as he made his way through the rubble. They had fallen back to the statue of the Emperor once more, putting their backs to it as the swarm of alien horrors sought to drag them down through sheer weight of numbers.

  The vox popped and he heard familiar voices. He turned, and saw Zachreal on the steps that led into the palace, the storm bolters of his surviving squad-mates opening a path in the horde. Karlaen saw Melos and Joses as well, though they, like Zachreal, were leading the depleted remnants of their squads to the aid of Alphaeus and the others. Of the twenty Terminators who had teleported to the surface, barely half that number remained, and the survivors looked as if they had waded through the rivers of damnation. Karlaen’s gut twisted at the thought. Just like last time, he thought. He forced the memory aside and kept moving. There would be time for self-recrimination later.

  A tyranid warrior rose up before him, its bone swords swinging down towards him. The creature was riddled with wounds, leaking ichor from every joint, but even half-dead it was dangerous. He blocked the blow, grimacing as the movement caused his wound to pull painfully, and shot one of its legs off. The creature fell with a scream, which he cut short with a swift blow from his hammer.

  The plaza was full of hissing, clawed shapes. There were genestealers clinging to every surface, perched on every statue and tumbled column. They swarmed up the fallen length of the statue of the Emperor Ascendant, surrounding the embattled remnants of Squad Alphaeus on all sides. Fire discipline had kept the horde at bay for a brief time, but now it was the wet work of sword and fists. Karlaen heard the crackle of Zachreal’s voice in his ear and he said, ‘All units, converge on Squad Alphaeus’s transponder signal. We must push the creatures back. We must not fail–’

  ‘–the Emperor!’ A new voice, harsh and raw, intruded on the vox-link. The air was filled with the sound of thrusters and the grinding howl of chainswords. Black shapes, daubed in red, hurtled through the air over the plaza on wings of flame. ‘Take heart, brothers. We shall show these traitors how the Sons of Sanguinius deal with those who would defile Terra.’

  A genestealer’s head was sent spinning from its neck to bounce off Karlaen’s armour with a wet thump as the Death Company sped past. Where the black-armoured berserkers passed, xenos died. Karlaen was frozen with shock, and some revulsion, as he watched the newcomers descend on the plaza with eager cries. They spoke gibberish, challenging invisible foes and calling out to friends who lived only in memory. They were the Death Company, and they were irretrievably mad – victims of the Black Rage that lurked in the heart of each and every Blood Angel. Karlaen had felt it himself more than once, riding the edge of his anger, though he had never succumbed.

  The Death Company was the doom of their Chapter made manifest. It was the savagery of the Red Thirst, mingled with the inescapable madness that came upon some warriors when they were consumed by the fires of an ancient struggle and became lost in the shadow of great wings, only to be reborn in a world of rage, hatred and nothing else.

  Karlaen had heard that those who were so consumed were overcome by visions and ancient memories, and could not tell the past from the present. They fought the shadows of enemies past, and believed themselves to be on Holy Terra, fighting the forces of the Arch-Traitor. Despite this, they were warriors without equal; it was as if, in their madness, they had been gifted with some small part of Sanguinius’s own strength. The warriors of the Death Company would fight until they died, and only death could quiet their rage.

  Corbulo wished to eradicate the scourge of the Black Rage from the Chapter, and Karlaen knew that his mission here was tied in to that desire. But seeing the enraged Space Marines in action only pushed home the importance of finding Augustus Flax as soon as possible. More and more brothers fell to the Black Rage with every passing century, and if it were not checked, the Blood Angels might vanish into madness and despair, leaving only the echoes of what might have been to mark their passing.

  Karlaen caught sight of the leader of the Death Company squad – or so he guessed by the markings on the warrior’s armour – wielding a wide-headed thunder hammer. The newcomer banked and circled the fallen statue of the Emperor. The Space Marine’s body shuddered and twitched as he dropped from the air. The paving stones of the plaza cracked beneath him as he landed, and the head of his hammer was surrounded by a nimbus of crackling energy as he swept it out, driving the genestealers back.

  The rest of the Death Company followed suit, dropping from the air to crash down among the genestealers like the wrath of the Emperor given form. Even as they landed, they attacked, filling the air with gore wherever they moved. The adamantium teeth of chainswords gnawed apart chitin as fists and hammers pulverised the alien bone. The brutality of the genestealers paled in comparison to the fury of the battle-maddened Blood Angels.

  The Death Company fought without discipline, each warrior a whirlwind of death, but despite this, the genestealers began to waver before them. With the absence of the broodlord, Karlaen knew the genestealers were prey to their own instincts. They were not creatures of open battle, like the tyranid warrior-broods, but beasts of shadows and cramped spaces. It was in their nature to retreat in such situations.

  Karlaen whirled as his vox crackled in warning, and he smashed a leaping genestealer out of the air. He saw Zachreal and the others hurrying towards him. The Terminators were like a blood-red wedge driven into the mass of alien bodies, Zachreal, Melos and Joses in the lead. The black-haired Joses was bloody faced, the left side of his jaw bare of flesh, bone showing through. One eye was a red ruin, but he still fought on, his storm bolter hammering. Melos’s armour was blackened and stained, with only the skull set into its front free of charring, and Zachreal’s armour was covered in hundreds of deep score marks.

  ‘Captain, I have made a successful investigation of the upper decks,’ Zachreal rumbled as he blew a hole in the centre of a genestealer’s torso.

  ‘And your report?’ Karlaen said, smashing a xenos to the ground.

  ‘Full of genestealers,’ Zachreal said. He laughed, a great booming noise that echoed over the tumult of battle.

  Joses ignored his fellow sergeant’s mirth. A genestealer leapt towards him, and he caught the creature around the chest. As it snapped at him, Joses’s head snapped forwards, catching the creature full in the face. Bone crunched, and Joses let the dead creature fall. Ichor stained his features, but Karlaen could see that he was grinning mirthlessly. Joses had always been something of a savage, he recalled. While most Blood Angels sought to distance themselves from their brute origins by refining their aesthetic senses, a few remained true to the primitive codes of the pure-blooded tribes of Baal and its moons.

  ‘Zachreal’s dubious attempts at jocularity aside, captain, we are at a disadvantage,’ Melos said. ‘We are facing nothing less than an army.’ He pivoted, firing at the genestealers that sought to pull him down. Slowly but surely, the Terminators were pushing their way to Squad Alphaeus’s side.

  ‘Yes, but that army is, for the moment, leaderless and disorganised,’ Karlaen said. He made no mention of how he knew this, and to their credit, they did not ask him. ‘We must reach the others. Together, we can drive them back.’
>
  He joined them, taking the point of the wedge. Together, they moved towards the fallen statue of the Emperor. Alphaeus and the twins were like an island chain in a swirling sea, just barely holding themselves above the waterline. As Karlaen and the others drew closer, however, the genestealers began to scuttle away, fleeing the plaza.

  Alphaeus hacked down one of the slower xenos, and his seamed face twisted in a smile as he caught sight of Karlaen. He extended his arm, and Karlaen caught his forearm in a warrior’s clasp. ‘I was worried you weren’t coming back. I would hate to have to explain to Commander Dante how I let you get yourself killed,’ he said.

  ‘You might still have to. This mission isn’t over yet,’ Karlaen said.

  ‘At least we’ve got reinforcements,’ Alphaeus said, gesturing with his sword. Karlaen turned, and saw that the Death Company had formed up around their nominal leader in a rough approximation of unit formation. They bounded across the plaza, hurdling piles of dead xenos, their chainswords licking out to lop off limbs and snarling heads as bolt pistols barked.

  The black-armoured warriors were driving the bulk of the genestealers before them. The scuttling beasts scrambled up the steps and into the palace, seemingly fleeing before the Death Company. The hammer-wielding sergeant leapt over a dying genestealer, activating his jump pack as he did so, and careened towards a shrieking tyranid warrior. The beast spread its arms wide, as if in invitation, and the Space Marine smashed into it – then on through it, tearing the creature in half at the point of impact.

  ‘Very effective reinforcements,’ Karlaen murmured. He marvelled at the sudden change in their situation. Only a short time ago, the Blood Angels had been set to make a final stand. Now it was the tyranids who were being pushed back into the ruins.

  ‘But uncontrollable,’ Melos murmured gravely. ‘Why would Dante send them here, unless…’ He fell silent. Karlaen knew what he meant, but said nothing. If Dante had sent the Death Company to reinforce them, it had been because they were expendable. Only death could end their torment, and the ruins of the palace held plenty of that.