by Braden Campbell, Mark Clapham, Ben Counter, Chris Dows, Peter Fehervari, Steve Lyons
‘They brought down the Emperor here,’ Malvoisin said quietly.
Branatar glanced at his friend. The Angel Resplendent was studying the severed head of the colossus. It was tilted towards them, its regal features frozen in the moment of judgement. The statue was crudely rendered – doubtless the product of a servitor-carved manufactory line – but there was no mistaking its subject.
Yes, Branatar decided, it is Him.
‘Such desecration damns us all,’ Sevastin said darkly.
‘Perhaps true damnation lies in raising the monuments that invite such desecration,’ Malvoisin mused. There was a remote intensity in his voice that Branatar didn’t like at all. ‘Perhaps we condemn ourselves.’
His words were drowned by a wail of static. Simultaneously, the readouts on Branatar’s helmet auspex began to flicker wildly.
Vulkan’s blood! Branatar cursed, assuming this was another consequence of his fall until Sevastin looked at him sharply and tapped his own helmet. Disturbed, Branatar focussed on the white noise and his transhuman physiology began to compensate, his Lyman’s Ear filtering the cacophony to a low hum.
Some kind of interference, he guessed. Where’s the damn Techmarine when we have need of him?
He froze. There was something moving on the far side of the atrium, near the building’s splintered entrance: twin orbs hanging in the darkness like spectral baubles. Another pair resolved to their right, another to their left. Branatar squinted to calibrate his night vision and the silhouette of a hooded figure resolved behind each pair.
Eyes…
‘Beware!’ Sevastin yelled as something leapt from the Emperor’s granite brow. It was like a skeleton forged from metal, with spindly reverse-jointed legs and overlong arms that brandished a pair of shimmering blades. The thing’s head was sheathed in a tight leather mask with bulging goggles set above a breather pipe that looked like an insect’s proboscis.
‘Divided we endure,’ Sevastin whispered as he opened fire with his storm bolter. The mass-reactive rounds caught his attacker in mid-air, shredding its torso and throwing it back against the stone head. The creature slid to the ground and scrabbled about like a broken puppet searching for its own strings. The Black Wing spun and caught a second attacker’s blade in the tines of his claw, creating a flash of opposing energies. Despite its augmetic limbs, his foe couldn’t match a Terminator’s strength and Sevastin shoved it away, twisting the sword from its grasp in the same movement. The creature crashed to the ground, but flipped back onto its feet and skittered towards him again, spinning its remaining blade like a rotor. He decapitated it with a rapid-fire burst to the skull and it stumbled into the arc of Malvoisin’s power sword, which sliced clean through its thorax.
‘Skitarii assassins,’ Anzahl-M636 advised over the vox-channel. ‘The Xenarites have registered our incursion.’
Branatar realised that the absent Techmarine had accessed his optic feed, something that only the squad leader was authorised to do. He didn’t like it, but this wasn’t the time to argue.
‘Into the fires of battle!’ the Salamander bellowed as he thumbed the trigger of his heavy flamer and unleashed a torrent of fire upon a pair of charging skitarii. Their masks were scorched away instantly, along with the leprous flesh beneath, revealing skulls that looked almost entirely human. The cyborgs’ hyper-alloy bodies withstood the heat, but the fibre bundles at their joints melted and they slumped into each other, becoming a single pyre of twisted metal.
Something ricocheted off his right pauldron. Another projectile shattered against his weapon’s casing.
The eyes! He swung round, looking for the hooded figures he’d spotted earlier. They’d kept their distance, but there were five now. Standing rigid from the waist down, they tracked his squad with long rifles, firing precision bursts that slipped between the whirling assassins.
‘Skitarii snipers,’ Anzahl-M636 identified. ‘Tactical proposition: advance.’
‘Where are you, One-Thousand?’ Branatar asked, irritated by the outsider’s presumption.
‘Closing on your position now. My path suffered significant impedance.’
‘Then why didn’t you jump like the rest of us?’ Branatar snapped as another round struck him. He doubted that the Techmarine’s lighter armour would have weathered the fall so well, but that prospect didn’t trouble him greatly.
Branatar immolated another assassin and marched towards the skitarii marksmen, eager to bring them into his range, but they registered the threat and circled away, maintaining their formation as they retreated, matching him step for step. The damned things were walking backwards, yet neither their pace nor their rate of fire had wavered. It was as if their movements were guided by another mind entirely. Watching that inhuman rigour, it struck Branatar how little he knew about the armies of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
I’ve never had cause to see them as enemies before, he realised. He would rectify his ignorance after this mission. To the Deathwatch, everything was a potential enemy.
Another synchronised barrage hammered into him. This time every shot struck his breastplate and red icons blinked across his lenses, warning that the outer layer of his armour had been breached. Thus far it had proven equal to the snipers’ attacks, but if he didn’t catch up to them soon this wasn’t going to end well.
From somewhere above, a faint ray of red light sliced through the darkness and flitted towards the skitarii marksmen. Delicately, it played across the squad and settled on the warrior at the centre, marking the bulbous lens of its right eye. A heartbeat later, the glass shattered and the cyborg’s head snapped back. Its rifle slipped from lifeless fingers and it toppled over. As far as Branatar could tell, the killing shot had been silent.
It seems we have an ally, the Salamander judged. Our errant contact, perhaps?
He followed the beam back to its source and spied a figure crouched in the palm of the giant Emperor-statue’s hand. The stone fingers loomed above the atrium on the stalk of His right arm, looking like the splayed battlements of a surreal watchtower. By some fluke of physics the broken limb had fallen and balanced at an unlikely vertical angle.
Was it blind fortune or divine providence that made it fall just so? Branatar wondered. Did He foresee this moment?
The long barrel of the sniper’s rifle recoiled as he fired again and felled another cyborg. He ducked away as the skitarii spotted him and returned fire, blasting away chunks of granite.
The distraction was all Branatar needed. He steamed forwards, teasing his heavy flamer back to life as he bore down on the surviving marksmen. Realising their error, they began to back away again, chittering in curt binaric code as he lashed out with a tongue of flame. It licked the robes of the nearest and set the heavy fabric alight, the flames then leaping to the next. Within seconds all three were engulfed in burning shrouds, yet they kept moving, all the while trying to train their cumbersome rifles on him. Branatar would have respected their tenacity if it had sprung from courage, but he knew the skitarii had no choice in the matter. They were programmed to be fearless.
‘And what of the Adeptus Astartes?’ Athondar asked from the open grave in Branatar’s soul. ‘When did you last taste fear, my brother?’
Branatar crushed the voice, angered by such profanity. This benighted world was turning his shadows against him, as it had done with Malvoisin, but Branatar was a Salamander and guilt would never rule him. He sent a final burst of fire after the smouldering marksmen and turned his back on them.
‘We are nothing like these slaves,’ Branatar murmured. ‘We choose our wars.’
Abruptly the dormant white noise in his helmet surged up again, straining against the filters he’d erected. He scanned his suit’s sensors, but found no clue. Irritated, he dismissed the static and focussed on more urgent matters.
Malvoisin and Sevastin were duelling with the last of the assassins, a three-armed nightmare that danced between them on needle-like legs. This one was a skeletal giant that was almost as ta
ll as its foes, though only a fraction of their bulk. Its multiple swords were a whirlwind blur as it blocked and slashed, then leapt away before its enemies could use their superior strength to trap or unbalance it.
They aren’t working together, Branatar realised as he watched his comrades fight. Each of them wants the kill for himself.
The mysterious sniper joined the fray, his beam flitting around the assassin as he tried to secure a shot, but the cyborg’s frenzied gyrations were impossible to pin down.
‘Techmarine,’ Branatar demanded as he marched towards the skirmish, ‘what is that thing?’
‘Cross-referencing with data cache,’ Anzahl-M636 answered. He paused briefly. ‘Probable identification: Ruststalker, princeps configuration, however it displays significant augmetic and tactical enhancements. It is exemplary work.’ He paused again. ‘Caution: the interference on your vox wavelength suggests the proximity of a skitarii infiltrator unit.’
‘What?’ Branatar asked, confused.
His question was answered a moment later. Something clanged onto his back and locked spiny metal legs around his shoulders. Simultaneously the hiss in his helmet surged into a shriek and static gnawed at his optics. A memory of the ghoul that had vaulted onto Malvoisin’s shoulders flashed up, but he knew this interloper was infinitely more dangerous. He attempted a couple of punches, but his angle was too restricted and the thing twisted out of his reach. Furious, he clawed at one of its spindly legs, but couldn’t get a grip with his clumsy gauntlet. He mashed at the metal limb as the cacophony wormed into his skull.
‘–rIan InfiLTtraaTor…’ The Techmarine’s voice was garbled almost beyond recognition. ‘–neuRaalstATic aUUraAA–’
The rider struck Branatar’s helmet with an unseen weapon and his world exploded into dazzling light as a halo of energy coiled around his head. His nose ruptured and he tasted blood. To his horror, he felt his armour seize up as its systems were overwhelmed.
‘And so we are reunited, brother,’ Athondar’s shade mocked as Branatar watched the skirmish ahead, unable to move.
Blearily he saw the Ruststalker Princeps crouch and spring at Malvoisin. It hit his chest with both its needlepoint legs and thrust itself back into the air with heightened speed. The ricochet became an almost vertical dive at Sevastin, the velocity and angle impossible to evade. The Black Wing knew it and didn’t even try. With a howl he lunged into the assassin’s extended blades with his claw extended, meeting his fate with the frigid fury of his Chapter.
‘Tenebrae…’ Sevastin hissed with oblique hatred as every one of the Ruststalker’s swords pierced his breastplate. The blades keened in transonic harmony as they bit through deep and punched through his back in tripartite ruination. But in dying the Black Wing also brought death, his claw raking up through his killer’s torso and disintegrating the fleshy nub of its skull. His arm dropped, but his armour kept him on his feet.
Tenebrae? Branatar wondered hazily as static flooded his optics. The Black Wing’s last word had been delivered like a death curse. Was this the darkness that he–
With a screech, his tormentor was ripped away like a leech from its host. The toxic noise receded and Branatar’s armour surged back to life. He lurched round and saw that the Techmarine had finally caught up with the squad.
Anzahl-M636 stood motionless as he regarded the writhing skitarius held aloft in his servo claw. The creature’s skeletal frame mirrored that of the assassins, but its head was a saucer-like dome inset with a cluster of lenses and antennae that denied any trace of humanity. A torrent of furious static rippled from the cyborg as it tried to reach its captor with the crackling goad clutched in its right hand.
‘I advised a stealthy incursion, Salamander,’ Anzahl-M636 said, ‘but your squad’s errors have produced a positive tactical outcome.’
His mechadendrite lashed out and punched through the prisoner’s domed head. The skitarius went rigid and its sonic assault warbled into silence as the razor-tipped dataspike burrowed into its skull.
‘Accessing neural network,’ Anzahl-M636 reported.
Branatar left the Techmarine to his bizarre ritual.
‘Sevastin died well,’ Malvoisin said as Branatar approached their fallen comrade. The Angel Resplendent had discarded his damaged helmet and his long black hair was plastered to his scalp with sweat. ‘It was a hero’s death.’
‘It was a wasted death,’ Branatar corrected bleakly.
‘The Salamander is right,’ an unfamiliar voice said behind him. ‘If you’d fought as brothers, not rivals, the Black Wing would still live.’
Branatar turned to face the sniper who’d come to their aid, certain this was the squad’s elusive contact.
‘We who watch, atone alone,’ the Salamander said formally.
‘We who atone, watch as one.’ The stranger completed the agreed code-catechism. His voice was the hoarse whisper of a man who rarely spoke out loud.
‘If you’d held your post at the beacon both my brothers would be alive,’ Branatar challenged.
‘More likely I’d be dead along with them,’ the sniper said as he coiled his rappelling rope. ‘The ghouls smelled the translocation scars you made. You drew at least three different packs. As you can see, I’m not a walking tank, brother.’
It was true – the sniper wore the light armour of a Scout. Ceramite plates encased his chest, shoulders and knees, but the rest of his body was protected only by hardened leather.
‘So you ran,’ Malvoisin accused, his eyes glittering in the hollows of his finely chiselled face. His loathing was a tangible, terrible thing, not for what the sniper had done, but for what he was.
Monstrous, Branatar agreed. There was no denying that the obsidian skin and burning eyes of his own bloodline lent the Salamanders a fearsome aspect, but this was offset by an ineffable nobility that elevated them. No such grace redeemed the sniper’s countenance. He was ancient, his face a hatchet skull sheathed in skin like grey leather. Scraps of white hair hung from his scalp in long strands, shadowing sunken eyes that were the lustreless black of an oceanic predator.
‘You deserted your post,’ Malvoisin said coldly.
‘I survived,’ the sniper said, hooking his rope to his utility belt. He grinned at the other’s disgust, revealing the curved yellow spines of his teeth. ‘Aye, we’re not so pretty, my Chapter. Our veins don’t run with angels’ blood.’
Branatar sensed no humour in the stranger’s mockery, nor indeed much malice. The newcomer was just going through the motions of conversation.
‘Evidently you take no pride in your own kin,’ Malvoisin said. ‘Or perhaps they took none in you, Black Shield?’
In place of a Chapter icon, the stranger’s right pauldron was painted black, signifying he had expunged his past and sworn himself entirely to the Deathwatch. Such an act was almost unthinkable to a Space Marine – those who took the ‘Black Oath’ were driven by the darkest of shadows.
‘Pride is a fool’s game,’ the Black Shield said, widening his shark’s-maw grin. ‘My brothers thought I was too soft, so we parted ways.’
‘You’ve worked with Inquisitor Escher before?’ Branatar asked, following an obscure intuition. The elusive inquisitor who’d sanctioned their mission hadn’t deigned to brief the kill team personally, but Branatar sensed the Black Shield’s connection with him – or her? – was altogether closer.
‘Since the day I was dead to my Chapter, Salamander.’ The sniper spat. It was the first honest gesture he’d made. ‘I’ve been tracking these Xenarite heretics since they split from the Stygies forges and went rogue. Been almost a year now – the last couple of months on this corpse world.’
‘What do you know of our target?’ Branatar pressed.
‘Nedezdha Lem?’ The Black Shield snorted. ‘She’s just another magos who got too hungry to stay on the right side of the Ordo. They’re all bloody Xenarites on Stygies, but most play the game and keep to the shadows.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe a xenos archeotech site gets s
tripped clean in the Halo Stars or a downed eldar ship vanishes before the clean-up detail arrives. Nobody looks too hard…’
Malvoisin was appalled. ‘You claim the Ordo Xenos turns a blind eye to heresy?’
‘You can’t declare Exterminatus on a cornerstone of the Imperium like Stygies.’ The Black Shield laughed without humour. ‘Even the Imperial Cult isn’t that deluded.’
‘Where is the heretic?’ Branatar asked coldly, unsettled by the exchange.
‘Old Arbites precinct, six blocks east of here,’ the sniper replied. ‘Lem has it locked down tight, but she’s short of cog-soldiers. Salvaging xenos tech is a dangerous business.’
Branatar studied the Black Shield, trying to see past his obvious ugliness.
‘You’re hiding something,’ he said.
The stranger met his gaze in silence, his black eyes as devoid of emotion as they were of irises.
‘I am ready,’ Anzahl-M636 signalled. ‘We must not delay. What the skitarii see, their masters also see. The Xenarites are aware of our presence.’
‘They woke up when you brought half this building down,’ the sniper suggested sardonically. He turned and stalked towards the portico. ‘Let’s get this done.’
‘Your name?’ Branatar asked.
‘Hauko.’
The Black Shield didn’t ask for theirs in return.
The Xenarite fortress was situated in a perimeter district of the hive’s lowest tier. A vast dome covered the entire precinct, yet it was only one of dozens that clustered at the base of the stacked metropolis, and those dozens were merely the outermost extremities of the hive. Judged on such a scale, the fortress was insignificant, yet in its own right it was formidable.
The bastion squatted at the centre of a barren plaza like a monolithic cube. Its walls were reinforced with riveted iron plates and buttressed with watchtowers at every corner. Twin blast doors were set into its facade, each bearing one half of the cog symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Virtually every other building under the dome had been levelled to segregate Nedezdha Lem’s stronghold from the rest of the hive.
