Fall of Damnos

by Nick Kyme

  It was close, the void blanketing his thoughts, that which had almost destroyed him with its malice when he had ridden the Sea of Souls as a psychic avatar. The hulking silhouettes of the pylons and massive gauss-cannons loomed here and there in the ice-fog, rising above the artificial white tide. In part of his mind, that which was largely committed to his subconscious for now, he was aware of his battle-brothers closing swiftly on the structures. Before they committed fully to the attack, he needed to find the one called ‘Voidbringer’.

  Emotions were easy things for a psyker to detect, even a nascent one. Hatred bled off this monster, as hot and acerbic as acid. Tigurius followed it, a jagged trail of red in his mind. At the end of it he knew he’d find his nemesis.

  Without any Scouts, the attack force’s best chance of making stealth an effective option was through the Thunderbolts. Scipio had drilled his warriors in the arts of subterfuge and operating behind enemy lines, much of his skill imparted by Torias Telion. They were not even close to matching the Master Scout’s abilities but the blizzard and the fog were useful tools he could exploit, as was the fact the necrons seemed uncharacteristically sluggish.

  Hugging close to the ground and sticking to the channels where the ice-fog was thickest, Scipio and his battle-brothers had crossed almost half the distance to their target without raising an alarm. The stillness of the necron defenders, eerie as it was, made the task of avoiding them easier. If they possessed some kind of sensors or form of auspex that didn’t require visual confirmation they were either fouled by the weather or simply not attuned to the presence of the Space Marines.

  A strange, preternatural darkness lapped at the edges of the artillery zone. Tigurius had described it as the ‘Night Shroud’, some piece of necron technology and part of the reason for his psychic blindness. Scipio tried not to look at the darkness too long. They’d penetrated it easily enough at the perimeter and once through the veil, it was just the ice-fog in front of them.

  The Thunderbolts’ target was a pylon, situated at the farthest apex of the diamond. He checked the melta bombs mag-locked to his armour. Upon returning to the encampment after the encounter with the flayed ones, they’d re-equipped and resupplied. The original plan was a lightning attack, spearheaded by the assault squads and supported by tactical squads, but without Ixion and Strabo that strategy was no longer viable. They’d stealth their way to the objectives instead, attach incendiaries and ignite them at once in a single hammer-strike. Whatever the explosives only managed to cripple, the heavy weapons would finish.

  For their part, the guerrilla fighters were well tooled. Carrying improvised bombs and grenades, as well as some of the magnetic foiling devices they’d used to prevent necron phase-out, they were capable of delivering a significant punch of their own. It was insanely dangerous, but Scipio had no compunction about throwing them into the battle just like his brothers.

  He stopped a second to interrogate his retinal display. A series of runic indicators were making their way across his plane of vision. Distance notifiers expressed formation and proximity to the targets. All were making solid progress but a further engagement was nearing.

  Each of the artillery pieces, pylon or heavy gauss-cannon, were manned by a small group of raider constructs. Scipio doubted the machineries needed crew to function. He didn’t understand necron technology but he had discerned enough to realise that much of it was autonomous or controlled by the lords. Whatever their role, the raiders would need to be dispatched first before incendiaries could be deployed. The attack also had to be simultaneous. Wits dulled as they appeared to be, the necrons would still activate with defensive protocols as soon as they realised their perimeter was breached and were under fire.

  A rune flashed silently on Scipio’s retinal display. Vandar was already in position. He judged Octavian wasn’t far either. Casting caution aside he increased the pace, not realising he’d attracted the attention of something dwelling in the Night Shroud.

  As the force rod grew hot in his gauntleted fist, Tigurius knew he was getting close to his prey. The crimson energies he’d been following sparked and forked with almost palpable expression. Briefly, he portioned out a small part of his mind to check on the situation of his battle-brothers – they were nearing final positions.

  Perfect synchronicity was needed, but the slow-returning threads of his prescience told him that would be so. Satisfied, Tigurius shut them out and focussed all of his thought on finding the Voidbringer. Though he didn’t know why, the veil was thinning. Visions swirled in his psychic eye, the fragments of those he’d tried to grasp before slowly coming together.

  Marshal your thoughts.

  Now was not the time to seek out the elusive truth and uncover the forbidding threat that had dogged him since the mission began; now was destruction and the unleashing of his psychic might. At last, he caught his prey, surrounded by a hot corona of red light. It was standing alone on a desolate ridge, surveying its majesty.

  Inside his mind, Tigurius coaxed a ball of lightning into being.

  Scipio became aware they were under attack when Densk was lifted off his feet as if a set of invisible hooks had caught him and begun reeling the guerrilla fighter in.

  Jynn screamed, swinging her gun around to try and draw a bead on his attacker, but it was as if the fog had come alive to take him. Blood was spewing down Densk’s beard, his cries of pain muffled by the fact he had no tongue. It was an odd, discordant sound. When a slash of crimson washed the ground like the insouciant sweep of a painter’s brush, Densk fell apart. His body disintegrated into shreds as his assailant revealed itself through the red haze.

  Serpentine, with a necron’s torso and a set of wicked talon-blades on each hand, it was a wraith. Only partially corporeal, the thing was half-blended into the ice-fog. Its eyes blazed with a yearning for further carnage.

  Jynn’s snap-shot went wild. She half-fell, backing up because the monster was so close. Scipio pushed her down as the necron’s tail whipped out and the barbed tip missed her head by the smallest margin. He roared, weighing in with his chainsword. Like an adder, the wraith jinked aside and the blade-teeth bit ice-frozen earth. It flicked out a talon, which Scipio fended off with his forearm. Gouges raked down his vambrace but they weren’t deep enough to penetrate.

  Cator appeared behind it and thrust his gladius between its neck and collarbone. The wraith emitted a sort of part-scream, part machine-whine and twisted to slash at the Ultramarine. Scipio took his chance and cut off the monster’s head with his chainsword. Critically damaged, it phased out, leaving only blood in its wake.

  Jynn knelt by Densk’s remains, sobbing. Scipio seized her by the shoulder and pulled her up. Their subterfuge was exposed. They had to act.

  Furious at his impatience, for sealing Densk’s death warrant on account of it, Scipio snarled down the comm-feed. ‘All Ultramarines, attack now!’

  Psychic lightning arced from Tigurius’s force rod. It struck Voidbringer’s staff as he turned, breaking his strange torpor. A serpent of light and energy, the discharged psychics roiled down the haft of the weapon. He wrestled with it, trapping the force as it coursed across the staff and asserting dominance.

  Tigurius’s eyes widened. That bolt should have ripped the creature apart.

  Energies dissipating from the psychic attack, Voidbringer turned his attention to the Librarian facing off against him on the ridge. A nimbus of power was playing across the psychic hood the Ultramarine wore and his eyes were alive with actinic force. He held the rod out in front of him, so it formed a cross with his body as the spine.

  ‘Fell creature of the void, oblivion awaits you.’

  Unmoved by the threat, Voidbringer only glared. The necron lord appeared… curious.

  Again, Tigurius was surprised and horrified at the ancient intelligence in that gaze. It was like the mechanoid was appraising a laboratorium specimen. The sensation was unsettli
ng. Tigurius knew enough of the galaxy and its species to realise mankind’s pre-eminence was far from assured. Alien races clamoured to devour, usurp or study humans. It was part of the reason the Emperor had created Space Marines. But the necrontyr were something different, something so old and enduring that even an Adeptus Astartes as powerful as Tigurius was given pause.

  Victory against this aeons-old culture with all their knowledge of the universe, their advanced technology, it was… impossible. They should give in now, submit to will of the necrons and accept annihilation. They should–

  Stop! The psychic echo was as much a command to his own subconscious as it was to the metal monster. Reasserting his composure, Tigurius smiled mirthlessly at the Voidbringer. ‘I thought the other one was the Herald of Dismay.’

  Though his rictus jaw didn’t move, a metallic voice, edged with the bitterness of millennia and abyssal deep, droned from the Voidbringer. ‘You are the one who tried to penetrate the veil.’

  Tigurius nodded slowly. He felt like an insect being studied beneath a slide, but his resolve was as steel now.

  ‘I am your doom, creature.’

  A tinny, grating sound rattled from the necron’s mouth. It was laughter, or what passed for it at least.

  Describing arcane sigils of warding that lingered in the air in fire, Tigurius beckoned the monster on.

  Voidbringer’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you a pyromancer, worm?’

  A flash of light burst from the staff before the Librarian could stop it and hit him square in the chest. Tigurius was spun off his feet and sent sprawling from the ridge.

  ‘Not a very good one,’ he heard the necron lord remark.

  Picking himself up, the Librarian scowled. ‘I think I loathed your race less when I assumed you were humourless machines.’ Fire sprang from his fingertips, reaching up towards the ridge line above and forcing the Voidbringer to retreat. Earth blackened and cracked as the flames lapped at the edge of the spur, spilling over the lip of rock rising higher and growing hotter. Snow condensed into steam in an eyeblink, scalding the air.

  The necron’s withdrawal didn’t last. A hazy silhouette resolved through the conflagration and the Voidbringer leapt through it, fire trailing on his ancient vestments.

  Ice cracked under the impact as the necron lord landed next to Tigurius. He threw out an arm, bodily catching the Librarian who was smashed aside and scraped across the ground. Blood was drooling down his lip as he rose; he could taste the tang of it in his mouth too.

  Voidbringer was strong, much more unyielding than the lesser constructs. And he possessed cunning beyond mere programmed response to attack and external stimulus. The necrons, especially these noble castes, were far from machines. Even artificial intelligence didn’t describe them accurately. They were something else, something vengeful and terrible. Spite, hatred, malice – the emotions were raw and tangible. Tigurius could feel them like tiny blades rubbing against his skin, like acid-edged pins in his mind.

  Though the creature was not a psyker – it bore no warp-aura that the Librarian could detect – the artefacts he wielded were formidable.

  As the Voidbringer rose, energy crackled the length of its arcane staff. It coruscated around the tip, a strange pronged sigil Tigurius had seen emblazoned on the carapace of some of the larger constructs. Darkness exuded from his body. Tendrils of night coiled around his limbs and weaved through the necron’s skeletal frame.

  The monster was well named. Casting about, the Voidbringer assessed the level of infiltration by the Ultramarines and acted accordingly. Shadows stirred in the mist around Tigurius as the necron constructs guarding the artillery began to animate.

  ‘You are no warp sorcerer,’ said the Librarian, his voice echoing with gathering power.

  The Voidbringer’s eye sockets flared emerald-bright and Tigurius was transported back to his narrow escape in the world-between-worlds. ‘I am more than you could ever comprehend, human. I am eternal!’ A cascade of magnesium fire coursed from the necron’s staff.

  Tigurius was ready for the attack and quickly fashioned a defensive sigil in the air. The arc of flame spilled against it, dispersing around the edges of a cerulean shield. It struck again, the necron throwing more force behind the blow. Staggered, Tigurius struggled to maintain his footing but repelled the energies. Sweat froze upon his brow as quickly as it formed, only to melt into hot steam a moment later. He needed to assert dominance in the duel and threw a bolt of chained lightning.

  Voidbringer’s body became as incorporeal as mist as the darkling mantle he wore engulfed him, rendering the psychic attack ineffective. The Night Shroud expanded, drawing strength from the blackness surrounding the artillery. Shreds of shadow became as hard as onyx as they wrapped themselves around Tigurius and all light was eclipsed. As the baleful gaze of the Voidbringer filled his vision, the Librarian felt his armour contract.

  Seals cracked, ancient parchments and votive charms tore and broke apart as the necron lord exerted his cruel will.

  ‘All is night. All is black at the end of days…’

  Tigurius was fading. His mind was awash with endless darkness. It filled his senses, overwhelmed his thoughts and in that moment of near-destruction he achieved a mote of clarity. The visions, those that had dogged the Librarian since he’d made landfall on Damnos, became as clear as crystal. Death, it was death that he saw. Not the death of a world but the death of a hero. At first he believed it was him and this was, now, the instant of his demise. But the visions sharpened, just as the real world dimmed, and became more lucid. The truth was opened to him, a final torment before the end.

  Tigurius saw…

  Scipio hacked the last of the sentries apart. Its spinal column shattered and the necron phased out, but more were coming.

  ‘Attach explosives.’ He slammed the melta bomb against the base of the pylon, mag-locking to the strange metal. Cator and Herdantes provided covering fire. Bolt shells and incandescent plasma chopped into the ice-fog and the advancing silhouettes were blasted apart. Gauss-fire answered from the reinforcements coming in their wake as the damaged necrons reassembled and rejoined the attack.

  ‘Will this even work?’

  Scipio turned at Jynn’s voice. She was hunkered down with Sia, returning fire when they could. She looked afraid. Densk’s death had clearly rocked her, but she remained determined to fight.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Scipio. ‘That’s why we need to use everything.’ He glanced briefly at the tactical display in his retinal lens. All attack groups were in position. Then he saw Tigurius’s rune.

  It was amber. The Librarian’s vitals were weakening. Scipio looked across the ice-shrouded plateau and found Tigurius locked in battle with a necron lord. He was slowly being crushed, enveloped by a veil of darkness.

  ‘Cator, bring your plasma gun and follow me.’

  Scipio ran off towards the Librarian, his brother in tow.

  ‘Wait!’ shouted Jynn. ‘Don’t leave us!’

  Brakkius, Herdantes and the others were engaging the necrons closing on the pylon. They were stretched and more wraiths were moving sinuously on the undefended humans.

  Scipio paused, torn. He had brought them into this fight. After they’d penetrated the mountains, he could have left Jynn and her guerrilla fighters behind. They could have watched from a safe distance. But he wanted to destroy the necrons utterly, smash their artillery and grab glory for gaining the Thanatos Hills. It was too late to turn back. The humans had chosen their fate. He ran to Tigurius.

  ‘Scipio!’ Jynn’s impassioned cries followed him all the way like a curse.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ever since becoming a battle-brother, Sergeant Atavian had been in the Second Company Devastators. It was a full-fledged Ultramarine’s first calling in the Chapter proper – Maxima Atavian had simply never left. His squad were known as the Titan Slayers, a name wh
ich they’d earned for obvious reasons. As a heavy weapon trooper, Atavian had principally been responsible for the lascannon. It was his favoured weapon. Tank-killer it was also called. Atavian’s motto had always been, ‘Why stop at tanks?’

  The honour of carrying the Slayers’ lascannon went to Brothers Hektar and Ulius. Sergeant Atavian had to satisfy himself with guiding their destructive fury. During his century of service, he had seen many monsters and machineries felled by the hot beams of a lascannon. Tyranid bio-forms, daemonic engines of the Great Enemy, ramshackle ork battle-fortresses – Atavian had seen them all undone by this stalwart weapon. For a Space Marine on foot and at range, there was nothing so powerful. But here on Damnos, he had seen such technologies that he wondered if even a lascannon would prevail against them. Floating obelisks of living metal, skeletal warriors utterly destroyed only to rise as if unscathed, small beetle-like creatures capable of twisting a weapon’s machine-spirit and turning it on its wielder – this was what the Second were up against, the necrontyr.

  On bended knee and with their heads bowed, Atavian recited the litanies of accuracy and function with his brothers. They had formed a half-circle, heavies in the middle either side of their sergeant and bolters at the ends. A flattened column offered them little cover but a good vantage point to overlook the wasteland tundra between the edge of Arcona City and Kellenport.

  Across from the Titan Slayers were their brother Devastators, led by Sergeant Tirian. Atavian gave him a curt salute when he’d finished the litanies and was on his feet again, to which Tirian replied by holding his power fist aloft and giving a slow nod. His squad, Guilliman’s Hammer, occupied a staggered platform of rock. It might once have been the tiered steps of a temple but was all but obliterated now. Heavy bolters took the first level, the missile-launchers behind them crouched down and pointing eastwards towards the advancing necrons.