Shroud of Night

by Andy Clark

  Dysorian opened fire, raking Khordas’ chest. It was as though he had shot the hull plating of a tank.

  Khordas laughed, and swept his axes down to meet the charging Terminators. His first blow hacked through one of Squad Alydo’s storm shields, shearing the adamantium in half like parchment. Hellish flames leapt across the Terminator’s armour and he reeled back, yelling in agony as he was burned alive. Khordas’ second swing slammed into the chest of Terminator Sergeant Dethyan and hurled him through the air. Dethyan hit the front of the Hammer hard enough to leave a deep dent, his armour also burning.

  ‘Caution, brothers,’ barked Dysorian, ducking under the swing of Khordas’ left axe. ‘Beware the flames!’

  ‘You cannot save them,’ laughed Khordas, his voice so deep it reverberated through Dysorian’s chest. Kicking the captain aside, Khordas waded into Dysorian’s men. Another two Terminators died in as many seconds, helmed heads hacked off and bodies left burning. Brother Phylon opened fire with his assault cannon, punching a string of bloody wounds into Khordas’ flank. His reward was to be split in two from the head down, his paired halves crumpling to the floor aflame.

  ‘No!’ roared Dysorian, pushing himself back to his feet. ‘Brothers, fall back, get clear! Land Raiders, blast him.’

  The surviving Terminators backed away, lashing out with lightning claws and thunder hammers to drive the daemonic lord back. Those with storm bolters fired them, peppering Khordas with shots. Another of the Terminators died as his legs were hacked away and his body burned to ash.

  The Land Raiders fired, bright lascannon beams converging upon Khordas. One shot punched right through his torso, leaving a smoking hole. Khordas stormed forward, burying his axes in the front of Hammer with such force that the tank’s rear end left the ground. Hellish fires leapt across the tank’s hull, surging through its systems. There was a deafening boom, and the venerable Hammer, survivor and victor of three millennia of war, exploded from within.

  ‘Enough!’ roared Dysorian. He ran at Khordas, firing his bolt pistol into the back of the huge warrior’s skull. Shells burst and exploded, ripping scads from Khordas’ scalp. The daemonic lord turned with a snarl, looming over Dysorian. The captain threw himself into a dive, rolling between Khordas’ armoured legs. He lashed out with his power sword as he did, and felt a bone-jarring connection.

  Rolling to his feet, Dysorian spun, blade raised. Khordas tried to turn with him, and left the severed half of his right leg behind. With a roar of shock and fury, Khordas overbalanced and crashed down on his face.

  He pushed himself back up as best he could. Face a mask of fury, he hacked at Dysorian. The captain threw himself backwards, almost evading the blades. One clipped him, hurling him onto his back and shattering his back carapace. He cursed as he felt the hellfire take hold, but it slowly sputtered out. Khordas was sorely wounded, and with the hymnals of the Battle Sisters swelling on all sides, his power was fading.

  ‘Everything,’ gasped Dysorian, lungs labouring. ‘Fire everything.’

  The world lit up as lascannon beams, heavy bolter shells and multi-melta blasts converged upon Lord Khordas. The Inceptors leapt in again, guns thundering, perforating his disintegrating body.

  Levering himself up on one elbow, Dysorian levelled his bolt pistol and added his fire to the cauldron, slamming a shell right between Khordas’ blazing eyes. This time the shot penetrated, as the daemon lord’s powers evaporated. The shell burst within Khordas’ skull, deforming his head from within and then blowing it apart in a meaty spray.

  Beheaded, torso ravaged, one leg hacked off at the knee, the great Lord Khordas toppled forward and thumped into the mud, dead. A lingering scream accompanied his death, the sound of a wild beast being dragged down into the darkest hells.

  ‘Levinia,’ croaked Dysorian, spitting a mouthful of blood. ‘We did it. The beast is slain.’

  ‘Indeed!’ voxed the canoness. ‘A truly heroic victory, captain, and one that has torn the heart from the foe. The Emperor thanks you, as do I from the bottom of my heart. The Khornate forces are wavering. My Sisters have thinned their numbers, and with their leader so visibly slain we stand upon the cusp of victory. We shall protect the beacon yet.’

  Dysorian pushed himself to his feet once more, ignoring the grinding agony in his chest. Khordas’ Stormlord had been reduced to a blazing wreck, and around him Dysorian could see the Khornate forces collapsing into utter disorder. Some, the mortals, fled. Some fought on, while others fell upon one another in the hopes of seizing Khordas’ mantle of leadership. One last push, he thought with grim satisfaction, and the Imperial forces would claim victory.

  Then his vox clicked again, and at Levinia’s words a cold weight of dread settled in Dysorian’s gut.

  ‘Emperor’s mercy, Captain Dysorian. There’s a crimson mist spilling across the park. Do you see it? Daemons! Holy throne, the daemons have come.’

  ‘What is that they’re chanting?’ voxed a Tsadrekhan commander. ‘It can’t be…’

  ‘It is,’ said Dysorian, weary beyond count. Suddenly, he felt all three hundred of his years. All the bloodshed, all the comrades slain, old and new. The desperate battle with Khordas. All for nothing. Bitterness and anger rose within him, drowning the glimmer of faith that the Saint had kindled in his heart. Dysorian’s hope could not survive the horror of what was upon them.

  Khârn! Khârn! Khârn!

  ‘That is our death knell,’ he voxed. ‘It is defeat.’

  ‘Captain Dysorian!’ said Levinia. ‘We cannot countenance defeat. The beacon is all that stands between the billions of souls we safeguard and the unclean darkness that seeks to devour them. Where is the famed stoicism of the Imperial Fists in this desperate hour? Where is your faith?’

  ‘You shall see our stoicism, canoness,’ said Dysorian angrily. ‘You shall see it in the holding action that we are about to fight. You shall see it in our butchered corpses, strewn here upon this soil so that you have time to get to the beacon and evacuate it. This is Khârn the Betrayer, the greatest murderer since Angron the Red, leading the daemons of the warp down upon us. There is no victory in battle here, canoness. Only in our sacrifice, and your flight.’

  Dysorian could see it now, spilling across the parkland, a terrible red fog rolling towards him. Unnatural shapes writhed in that miasmal fume, hundreds of them loping and snarling and hissing. Huge, bat-winged creatures moved overhead, their wingbeats booming like thunder. The Tsadrekhans were screaming in terror, while the prayers of the Battle Sisters rose defiantly to meet the onrushing horde. The surviving Khorne worshippers howled the praise of the red-armoured killer who ran towards them, chainaxe roaring as the crimson fog swept in his wake. They redoubled their murderous efforts, and the battle began to swing once again.

  ‘Don’t argue, canoness,’ barked Dysorian, motioning his surviving warriors to form up. ‘We must fight, and you must flee. Get to the Saint, and protect the beacon. In the Emperor’s name, Levinia, do it now.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the canoness, the desire to stay and fight strong in her voice. ‘The first through fourth chambers will remain, and stand with you to the end. The fifth shall accompany me, and see to the beacon’s safety.’

  ‘Good,’ said Dysorian. ‘Make this count.’

  ‘I shall, Paetrov,’ said the canoness. ‘And may we meet again at the Emperor’s table.’

  With that, the canoness and her bodyguards began their retreat, a fifth of the Adepta Sororitas forces peeling off and following in her wake. The rest steeled themselves as the crimson fog rolled closer, drawing up shoulder to shoulder against the onrushing Khornate horde.

  They would sell themselves dearly, Dysorian promised himself, and raised his blade once more. He owed his brothers that…

  Then the bloody mists surged over them, drowning the artificial daylight and reducing visibility to mere feet. Hideous faces swam through the murk, cac
kling and shrieking before breaking into vapour clouds again. Bloodthirsty howls echoed weirdly around them, carrying clear where the gunfire and hymnals of the Battle Sisters were rendered muffled and brittle.

  ‘Steady, brothers,’ said Dysorian. ‘Remember the primarch in this dark hour. Show him how his sons fight, no matter the odds.’

  A huge metal flail snaked out of the blood-mists, a segmented thing of brass links the size of Space Marine helms that clattered as it uncurled. It struck the Terminator standing beside Dysorian and smashed him backwards through the murk without so much as a death cry. The weapon clattered back out of sight, then lashed out again, crushing Sergeant Alydo’s helm in a spray of blood.

  ‘Fire!’ barked Dysorian, and his few remaining brothers let fly into the murk. The Inceptors bounded forward, assault bolters roaring, but a sheet of searing flame spat from the blood-fog and engulfed them. They crashed to the ground, blackened and writhing, and did not rise.

  ‘Enough,’ snarled Dysorian and, ignoring the pain of his wounds, he began to limp towards the unseen threat. Sensing his challenge, something huge moved amidst the murk. Dysorian saw dark wings spread wide, and glowing red eyes pierced him like blades. Huge hooves pounded the ground as an immense Khornate daemon surged from the murk, an axe in one fist and the long, segmented lash in the other. It loomed over him, more than thrice his height.

  Without breaking stride, Dysorian shot the abomination in the face, once, twice, again. Even as his shells burst in its gnarled flesh, he broke into a lurching charge, drawing back his blade and ramming it as hard as he could into the daemon’s armoured midriff.

  The sword sank home, but as it did its crackling energies flickered and died. Molten ichor squirted from the wound, melting the blade and eating into the captain’s armour. Before Dysorian could wrench his ravaged weapon free for another strike, the daemon drove its knee into his faceplate, staving it in and hurling the captain onto his back.

  Groaning, Dysorian wrenched the wrecked helm off, ignoring the agony of the broken bones in his face. His vision swam with black spots, and his lungs filled with sulphurous smoke as the daemon loomed over him, a vast black presence with fire for eyes.

  ‘For Dorn…’ croaked Dysorian, ‘and the Emperor. May you rot in the warp forever, you filthy–’

  The monster’s axe swung down and sank through flesh, bone and soil with a meaty thwock, cutting off Dysorian’s last curse as it severed his head. Coiling its lash, the daemon reached down and lifted its trophy, breathing fire upon it in waves that crisped Dysorian’s flesh and blew it away in ashen clouds. Finally, all that remained was a blackened skull, three service studs driven into its forehead and glowing with heat.

  The daemon chuckled, a rumble of fell thunder, and rammed the skull onto a spike atop its axe. It spread its shadowy wings and leapt away into the blood-fog to continue its slaughter. So fell Paetrov Dysorian, heroic captain of the Imperial Fists Fourth Company, and with him the last, faint hope for victory.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Choral alarms echoed through the convent prioris. Squads of Battle Sisters hastened down marble-floored corridors, their hymns echoing before them. Macabre cherub servitors winged their way through arched chambers and up spiralling stairwells, bearing gilded order-scrolls in their talons. Their incense trails hung in the air, lit like volcanic fume by strobing electro-candles. Everywhere there was a sense of controlled panic, of defiance in the face of impending doom.

  All eyes were turned outwards, towards the threats encroaching upon the spire from all sides. Foes rained down from on high, breaking through the failing void shields and faltering flak batteries of the hive spire. They hammered at the Sacrosanct Arch, even as unnatural terrors scaled the convent’s external walls and hacked their way in through armoured bulkheads. Few had attention to spare for the ancient and forgotten chambers that lay in the convent’s deepest crypts…

  The servo-lift juddered to a halt, a single bell tolling forlornly at its arrival. A cage door rattled back with a wheeze of ancient spring-coils, and a metal shutter slid up and out of sight. Inside the elevator car, Kassar and his Unsung had their bolters up and aimed, though they saw nothing before them but a dark, empty chamber.

  ‘Advance and secure,’ said Kassar. ‘Shroud protocol paramount.’

  The Alpha Legionnaires exited the lift into the undercrypts of the convent prioris, armour whispering on half power to minimise noise. They spread out across dusty flagstones, between old tombs and stone pillars. Rusty electro-sconces provided flickers of light, illuminating scuttling salt-spiders lurking in their saline webs. A single archway led out of the chamber, electrical light spilling over the worn steps that rose beyond.

  ‘Looks clear,’ said Skaryth.

  ‘This place hasn’t seen footfall in a long while,’ said A’khassor. ‘The dust must be three inches thick.’

  ‘Good,’ said Kassar. ‘Haltheus, see if you can find an old dataport or terminal anywhere in here to set your data daemons loose. Thelgh, Skarle, cover the stairs beyond the arch. The rest of you, analysis and suggestions.’

  The Unsung gathered on their leader. Krowl loomed to one side, Phaek’or’s unconscious form slung easily over one shoulder.

  ‘We are almost at our objective,’ said D’sakh. ‘But we are in the heart of the enemy’s greatest fortress. We won’t succeed here through brute force alone.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Makhor. ‘We need to evade the Sisters of Battle, locate the beacon, have the cultist perform his ritual, and then exfiltrate safely.’

  ‘There are other factors,’ said Kyphas. ‘According to Imperial vox reports, Khârn has overrun the defenders beyond the Sacrosanct Arch. He and his followers are beating at the gates. In response, the corpse worshippers are looking to evacuate the beacon and its attendant tech-priests.’

  ‘If Khârn reaches the beacon before us, or the Imperials take it beyond our reach, then we’ve lost,’ said Kassar. ‘Speed is key.’

  ‘What of the exfiltration plans?’ asked Makhor. ‘It was a dark miracle that we survived that crash. I’ve no desire to be spared a fiery death only for some Slaaneshi cataclysm to consume me when Excrucias doesn’t uphold his end of the bargain.’

  ‘Excrucias assured me before we deployed that his fleet would be lurking, ready to pounce the moment his sorcerers sense the ritual’s completion,’ said Kassar. ‘He provided me with a teleport homer, and his oath that he would send Terminators to aid in our exfiltration.’

  ‘You trust him?’ asked Makhor.

  ‘He saw what we can do, on Bloodforge,’ said Kassar. ‘He’d be a fool to make enemies of us. But prior to this point, I was obliged to trust him because of the circumstances. We needed a way off Bloodforge. We couldn’t board a Khornate warship in orbit, no matter what Phalk’ir believed; we possessed neither the numbers to conquer nor the leverage to bargain.’

  ‘But now?’ asked A’khassor.

  ‘Now we are in a position to shape our own destiny,’ said Kassar. He took a biomechanical device from an equipment pouch on his belt. It tingled with empyric resonance in his grip. Kassar dropped the device and crushed it under his boot. Its winking runes went out.

  ‘No Terminators, then?’ asked Haltheus as he worked at a dust-furred data-lectern.

  ‘No,’ said Kassar. ‘As soon as the beacon is compromised, we make for the closest landing pad and acquire a trans-atmospheric craft. We’ll return to him on our terms, not under armed guard.’

  ‘We could still be walking into a trap,’ said Makhor. ‘Slaanesh worshippers aren’t noted for their forgiving nature. We killed a lot of his warriors on Bloodforge.’

  ‘True,’ agreed Kassar. ‘But Kyphas has bought us insurance on that front. Kyphas?’

  The former spymaster was silent for a moment.

  ‘Before we deployed,’ he said eventually. ‘While we were still in transit. You remember I sub
vocalised to those serfs, used hypnotic interrogation upon them? I also provided them with subconscious instruction.’

  ‘Saboteurs?’ asked A’khassor.

  ‘Assuming they were not discovered, Kyphas’ agents will by now have prepared a dozen acts of sabotage throughout Excrucias’ ship,’ said Kassar. ‘Magazines mined and ready to blow. Charges laced through the warp core coolant engines. Explosives located so as to depressurise the bridge at the press of a rune.’

  ‘And if Excrucias threatens us, or tries to renege, we trigger them,’ said Kyphas.

  ‘Then either exfiltrate in the confusion or, ideally, take Excrucias hostage and leverage passage elsewhere with his life,’ said Kassar.

  ‘Risky, but better than anything else we’ve got,’ said Makhor.

  ‘If it gets me access to a proper apothecarian where I can see to Phaek’or, I’ll take it,’ said A’khassor. ‘His healing coma will help, but that wound needs proper attention, soon, or a bionic will be impossible to graft.’

  ‘Just another reason for speed,’ said Makhor. ‘We should move.’

  ‘And we will,’ said Haltheus. ‘In just… one… there, got it.’

  The data-lectern sputtered to life, autoscripture scrolling across its glowing screen. Haltheus uncoupled the Coffer from below his backpack and set it down, running wires from the device to the lectern. He quickly removed a gauntlet and ran his knife across his bared palm, drizzling blood into the Coffer’s metal slits while muttering incantations.

  Crimson runes flared along the box’s flanks, and sulphurous smoke seeped from within.

  ‘Thelgh, Skarle,’ said Haltheus. ‘When it comes, let it pass.’

  A cyber-cherub hovered down the stairway, eyes glowing the same blood-red as the runes on the Coffer.

  Haltheus uncoupled the Coffer from the data-lectern, whose screen was now snowy with static and flaring, unholy runes. He mag-locked the device back in place, bearing its weight as he coiled one of its wires up and attached it to his helm.