Some even said that the tyrants were only a subgenus of something even larger and more intelligent; a cadre of tyranid capable of reasoning and independent thought. But no such being had ever been seen by human eyes—or if it had, those who had gazed upon it did not live to tell.
It was the hive ship’s tyrant that the Blood Angels sought as they entered the orb-like hibernacula, the tech-priest’s objective now ranked of lesser importance. If a tyrant was awake aboard this vessel, then none of them were safe.
“It’s not a tyranid,” husked Nord. “The thought-pattern I sensed… It wasn’t the same as the lictor’s.” He paused. “At least, not in whole.”
Kale eyed him. “Explain, brother. Your gift is a mystery to me. I do not understand.”
“The mind that touched my thoughts, that rallied the creatures who attacked us. It is neither human nor xenos.”
The sergeant halted. “A daemon?” He said the word like a curse.
Nord shook his head. “I do not sense the taint of Chaos here, sir. This is different…” Even as the words fell from his lips, the psyker felt the change in the air around them. The wet, damp atmosphere grew sullen and greasy, setting a sickly churn deep in his belly.
Kale felt it too, even without the Codicier’s preternatural senses. The sergeant drew his chainsword and brandished it before him, his thumb resting on the weapon’s activation stud.
A robed figure, there in the dimness. Perhaps a man, it advanced slowly towards them, feet dragging as if wounded. And then a voice, brittle and cracked.
“Me,” rasped the newcomer. “You sense me, Adeptus Astartes.” The figure moved at the very edge of the dull light from the lamp-beetles. Nord’s eyes narrowed; threads of clothing cables perhaps, seemed to trail behind the man, away into the dark.
Kale aimed his gun. “In the Emperor’s name, identify yourself or I will kill you where you stand.”
Hands opened in a gesture of concession. “I do not doubt you already know who I am.” He bowed slightly, and Nord saw cords snaking along his back. “My name is Heraklite Indus, adept and savant, former Magis Biologis Minoris of the Adeptus Mechanicus.”
“Former?” echoed Kale.
Indus’ shadowed head bobbed. “Oh, yes. I attend a new master now. Let me introduce you to him.”
The strange threads pulled taut and lifted Indus off his feet, to dangle as a marionette would hang from the hands of a puppeteer. A shape that dwarfed him lumbered out of the black, drawing into the pool of light.
White as bleached bone, crested with purple-black patches of armour shell, it bent to fit its bulk inside the close quarters of the hibernacula; a hive tyrant, in all its obscene glory.
Two of its four arms were withered and folded to its torso, the pearlescent surface of their claws cracked and fractured. The other arms ended in ropey whips of sinew that threaded across the floor and into the adept’s flayed spine, glittering wetly where bone was revealed beneath his torn robes.
And yet… The towering tyranid’s breathing was laboured and rough, and from its eye-spots, its great fanged jaws, its fleshy throat-sacs, thin yellow pus oozed over crusted scabs. For all the horror and scale, the tyrant seemed slack and drained, without the twitchy, insectile frenzy of its lessers. A stinking haze of necrotic decay issued from it; Nord had tasted the scent of death enough times to know that this alien beast was mortally wounded.
“What have you done, Indus?” demanded Kale, his face twisted in disgust. In all his years, the veteran sergeant had never seen the like.
“Neither human nor xenos.” Nord repeated his earlier statement, the words suddenly snapping into hard focus. With a whip-crack thought, he sent a savage mental probe towards the adept; Indus spun to face him with a glare and the telepathic feint was deflected easily.
The adept nodded slowly. “Yes, Blood Angel. We are the same. Both blessed with witchsight. Both psykers.” Indus cocked his head. “Xeren never told you. How like him.”
“No matter,” growled Kale. Without hesitation, the sergeant opened fire and Nord followed suit, both Space Marines turning their weapons on the ugly, abhorrent pairing.
The hive tyrant shifted, drawing Indus close in a gesture of protection, shielding the adept from the bolt-rounds that whined off its chitinous armour. Its head lolled back and a high screech issued from between its teeth; in reply there were hoots and howls from all around the Adeptus Astartes.
In moments, sphinctered rents in the hibernacula walls drew open, spilling dozens of mucus-slicked hormagaunts into the chamber. The chattering beasts rose up in a wave and the Blood Angels went to their blades. Kale’s chainsword brayed as it chewed through bone; Nord’s force axe cut lightning-flash arcs into meat, as barbed grasping claws dragged them down.
Nord caught a telepathic spark as blood from a cut gummed his right eye shut; he drew up his mental shields just as the hive tyrant released a scream of psychic energy upon them.
The wave of pain blasted across the chamber and the Codicier saw his battle-brother stumble, clutching his hands to his head in agony. Nord fared little better, the tyranid’s telepathic onslaught sending him spinning. For long moments he waited for death to fall upon him, for the mass of hormagaunts to take the opportunity to rip him apart—but they did not.
Instead, the hissing monsters retreated, forming into a wall before the Space Marines, shielding Indus and the tyrant.
Nord went to Kale and helped him to his feet. The sergeant had lost his bolter in the melee, and he still shook from the after-effect of the psychic scream.
“We could have killed you,” said Indus. “We chose not to.”
“You speak for the xenos now?” spat Nord.
Indus gave a crooked smile. “A soldier’s limited mindset. I had hoped for better from one with the sight.” He came forwards, the shuffling tyrant at his back. “I found this creature near death, you understand? Too weak to fight me. I pushed in, touched its thoughts…” The adept gave a gasp of pleasure. “And what I saw there. Such riches. The knowledge of flesh and bone, nerve and blood, an understanding! More than the scribes of the Magis Biologis could ever hope to learn. Race memory, Adeptus Astartes. Millions of years of it, to drink in…”
* * *
“Fool,” replied the Blood Angel. “Can you not see what you have done? The creature is near death! It used what strength it had to lure you in, place you in its thrall! It uses you like it uses these mindless predators!” He gestured at the hormagaunts. “When it is healed, it will reawaken every horror that walks or crawls within this hive, and turn again to the killing of men!”
“You are wrong,” Indus retorted. “I have control here! I spared your lives!”
“I?” snapped Kale. “A moment ago you said ‘we’. Which is it?”
“The hive answers to me!” he shouted, the warrior creatures howling in empathy. “I gave myself to the merging, and now see what I have at my hands…” Indus drew in a rattling breath. “That is why Xeren sent you here. He is like you. Afraid. Jealous of what we are.”
“The priest knew of this?” hissed Kale.
Indus chuckled. “Xeren saw it happen. He fled! He sent you to find us, praying you would destroy us so his cadre could take this hive for itself.”
Nord nodded to himself. “Aboard a ship filled with killing machines, a deed only an Astartes could do.”
“You’ve seen the power of these creatures,” said the adept. “This is only a tiny measure of what the swarm is capable of.” He extended a skeletal cybernetic arm towards the psyker. “There is such majesty here, red in tooth and claw, Blood Angel. Come see it. Join me.” New, fang-mouthed tentacles issued forth from the tyrant’s stunted arms, questing towards the Codicier. “Our union is vast and giving, for those with the gift…”
His eyes narrowed, and with one sweeping blow, Brother Nord sliced down with his axe, severing the probing limbs in a welter of acidic blood. The tyrant screamed and rocked backwards.
“A grave mistake,” snarled Indu
s. “You have no idea what you have denied yourself.”
“I know full well,” came the reply. “My blood stays pure, by the Emperor’s grace and the might of Sanguinis! You have willingly defiled yourself, debased your humanity… For that there can be no forgiveness.”
“We are not monsters!” shouted Indus, amid his howling chorus. “You are the destroyers, the disunited, the infection! You are the hate! The rage and the thirst!”
Too late, Nord’s mind sensed the build of warp energy once more, resonating between the tyrant and the Mechanicum psyker. Too late, the cold understanding reached him. “No…” he breathed, staggering backwards. “No!”
“Nord?” The question on Brother Kale’s lips was suddenly ripped away by a new, thunderous shock-wave of dark power.
Perhaps it was the hive tyrant, with its hate for all things alien to it, perhaps it was Indus in his crazed fury. Whatever the origin, the burning blade of madness swept across the Blood Angels and ripped open their minds.
Nord held on to the ragged edge of the abyss, as once more the red and black clouds enveloped him. The dream! The vision in his roaring heart was upon him! His moment of foresight damning and terrifyingly real.
The strength of the psychic blast tore away any self-control, burning down to the basest, most monstrous instincts a man could conceal; and for an Adeptus Astartes of the Blood Angels Chapter, the fall to such madness was damning.
The gene-curse. The flaw. The Red Thirst’s wild and insatiable desire for blood, the Black Rage’s uncontrollable berserker insanity. These were the twin banes Nord fought to endure. Fought and held against. Fought… And finally… resisted.
But Brother-Sergeant Brenin Kale had none of the Codicier’s psychic bulwarks. His naked mind absorbed the power of the tyrant’s fury… and fell.
The man that Nord’s comrade had been was gone; in his place was a beast clothed in his flesh.
Kale threw himself at the Codicier, his chainsword discarded and forgotten, hands in claws, his mouth wide to release a bellow of pure anger. The Blood Angel’s fangs glittered in the light, and darkness filled his vision.
Nord collided with Kale with a concussion that sounded across the chamber, scattering dithering hormagaunts, crushing others with the impact. Kale’s mailed fists rained blow after blow upon Nord’s battle armour, the crimson tint of fury in the sergeant’s aura stifling him.
He cried out the other man’s name, desperately trying to reach through the fog of madness, but to no avail. Nord fought to block the impacts as they struggled against one another, locked in close combat; he could not bring himself to hit back.
His skull rang with each strike, his vision blurring. There was no doubt that Kale could kill him. He was no match for the old veteran’s strength and prowess, even in such a state. Kale’s frightening speed and instinctive combat skills would overwhelm him. He had little choice. If he could not end this madness quickly, Kale would tear open his throat and drink deep.
He glimpsed a rent in Kale’s armour, a deep gouge that had penetrated the ceramite sheath. “Brother,” he whispered, “Forgive me.”
Nord’s hand closed around the hilt of his combat blade, turning the fractal-edged knife about. Without pause, he buried it deep in his old friend’s chest, down to the hilt. The blade penetrated plasteel, flesh and muscle; it punctured Kale’s primary heart and the veteran’s back arched in a spasm of agony.
Nord let him fall, and the other man dropped to the bony deck, pain wracking him, robbing him of his rage.
A different kind of fury burned in the psyker. One pure and controlled, as bright as the core of a star. Blue sparks gathering around the crystal matrix of his psychic hood, Nord turned and found his force axe, sweeping it up to aim at Indus.
“You will pay in kind for this, adept,” he snarled. “Know that. In the name of Holy Terra, you will pay.”
Nord closed his eyes and let the power flow into him. Blazing actinic flares of warp energy sputtered and flew around the Blood Angel’s head as the hormagaunts shook off their pause and came at him.
Channelling the might of heroes though his bones, through his very soul itself, he unleashed his telepathic might through the force axe.
The blast turned the air into smoke and battered away the xenos beasts, sending them shrieking into the dark. Indus bellowed in pain as his flesh was wracked with agony, and the tyrant hooted in synchrony with him.
It took unbearable minutes for the psychic blast to dissipate, for the adept’s crooked mind to shake off the aftershock.
Finally, through the myriad senses of the howling, confused tyranids, he saw only the scorched bone deck of the hibernacula.
The Adeptus Astartes were gone.
With Kale’s body across his shoulder, Brother Nord ran as swiftly as the bulk of his battle armour would allow, always onwards, never looking back. His storm bolter ran hot in his hand as the Codicier placed shots into any tyranid that crossed his path. He did not stop to engage them, did not pause in his headlong flight.
Nord could feel Indus reaching out, probing the hive ship for him, drawing more and more of the sleeping xenos from their hibernation with each passing moment. He crossed the high bone bridge above the pits and saw the carnifex stirring, moaning as it rose towards wakefulness.
The psyker understood a measure of what had transpired here; Indus or the hive tyrant—or whatever unholy fusion of the two now existed—must have sensed him for the very first time as the Emuthia made its approach. Hungry for another thrall, the hive mind allowed Nord and Kale to approach the core of the ship, while dispatching Dane and the other battle-brothers. He suppressed a shudder; it wanted him. It wanted to engulf him, subsume him into that same horrific unity.
Nord spat in loathing. Perhaps a weakling mind, a man like the bio-adept, perhaps he might have fallen to such a thing… But Nord was a Blood Angel, an Adeptus Astartes—the finest warrior humanity had ever created. Whatever dark fate awaited him, his duty came before them all.
His duty…
“Brother…” He heard the voice as they came to the chamber where the boarding torpedo had made its breach.
Nord lowered his comrade to the ground and he saw the light of recognition in the sergeant’s eyes. The mental force Indus had turned on Kale was, at least for the moment, dispelled. “What… did I do?” Kale’s voice was a gasp, thick with blood and recrimination. “The xenos…”
“They are close,” he replied. “We have little time.”
Kale saw Nord’s dagger deep in his chest and gave a ragged chuckle. “Should… I thank you for this?”
The psyker dragged the injured warrior into the boarding capsule, ignoring the question. “You will heal, sir. Your body’s implants are already destroying infection, repairing your wounds.” He stood up and punched a series of commands into a control panel.
Kale’s pale face darkened. “Wait. What… are you doing?”
Nord didn’t meet his gaze. “Indus will find us again soon enough. He must be dealt with.” The psyker scowled at the vox-link and gave a low curse; the channel was laced with static, likely jammed by some freakish tyranid organism bred just for that task.
Kale tried to lift himself off the deck, ignoring the pain of his fresh, bloody scars, but the acid burn of tyranid venom in his flesh left him gasping, shaking with pain. “You can’t… go back. Not alone…”
The other warrior reached into a weapons locker, searching for something. “I beg to differ, sir. I am the only one who can go back. This enemy has already claimed the lives of three Blood Angels. There must be payment for that cost.” He glanced at the veteran. “And Xeren’s perfidy cannot stand unchallenged.”
Through his blurred vision, the sergeant saw the Codicier gather a gear pack to him, saw him slam a fresh clip of bolt shells into his weapon. “Nord,” he growled. “You will stand down!”
The psyker hesitated at the airlock, looking back into the gloom of the hive ship beyond. “I regret I cannot obey you, brother. F
orgive me.”
Without another word, Nord stepped through, letting the brass leaves of the hatch close behind him. Then the razor-cogs began to turn, the boarding torpedo drawing back into the void amid gushes of outgassing air.
Fuming, Kale dragged himself to the viewport, a trail of dark blood across the steel deck behind him, in time to see the hive ship’s hull falling away.
The capsule turned away to find the Emathia hanging in the blackness, and with a pulse of thrusters, it set upon a return course towards the frigate.
Nord threw himself into the melee, storm bolter crashing, his force axe a spinning cascade of psychic fury. “Indus!” He cried, “I am here! Face me if you dare!”
In the confines of the corridors, he fought with termagants and warriors, stamped ripper swarms into paste beneath his boots, killed and tore and blazed a path of destruction back through the hive. Nord became a whirlwind of blade and shell, deep in the mad glory of combat.
His body sang with pain from lacerations, toxins and impacts, but still he fought on, bolstering himself with the power of his own psionic quickening. The shadows of the Rage and the Thirst were there at his back, reaching for him, ready to take him, and he raced to stay one step ahead. He could not be consumed: not yet. His heavy burden rattled against his chest plate.
Soon, he told himself, sensing the red and the black. Very soon.
Crossing the bone bridge once more, he shouted his defiance—and the tyranids replied in kind.
Winged fiends and fluttering, gas-filled spores fell around him, the gargoyle broods tearing through the air, daring him to attack. He unloaded the storm bolter, tracer shells cutting magnesium-bright flashes in the dark; but for each he killed there were five more, ten more, twenty. The spores detonated in foetid coughs of combustion and without warning the bridge was severed.
Nord fell, his weapons lost, down into the pit where the carnifex lurked. Impact came hard and suffocating, as the Blood Angel sank into a drift of soft, doughy matter collecting around the hive’s egg sacs. Tearing the sticky strings of albumen from his armour, he tore free—
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