by Ben Counter
Faraji could not see that hieroglyph among the carvings on the door. He put a hand against the wall again and traced out the shape of the hieroglyph in light.
The circle of stone shifted. Slowly it rolled aside, revealing a chamber beyond much larger than the confines of the passageway.
None of the Scouts spoke. Faraji moved through the doorway first, bolt pistol held warily high. Beyond was a vast structure held in an enormous hemispherical chamber. The structure formed a curved wall encompassing a circular space overlooked by a dozen statues. These were of the necrons in their fleshy form, with gnarled and scarred skin instead of the smooth lines of the tech-constructs. Faraji took this to mean this place was ancient, built before the necrons had abandoned their original bodies and become the machines they were now.
Lights sparked around the base of the wall as Faraji approached. They formed shapes in the air like a holographic projection. Necron hieroglyphs orbited glowing orbs that resolved into what Faraji recognised as a star system. A yellow orb in the centre was a star, and around it a number of many-coloured planets, each with hieroglyphs presumably naming each world.
The Scouts spread out, instinctively checking each angle for lurking enemies. The chamber was empty aside from the structure in the centre, and Faraji had the impression it had been empty for a long time. Brother Kazzin walked into the projection, and as the lights played across him Faraji realised the hologram was projected from the eyes of the necron statues.
‘Brothers, a test,’ said Faraji. ‘What do you see?’
‘Not the Varv system,’ said Nilhar. ‘That has eleven worlds, and no gas giants of that size.’
‘Then what?’
‘I do not recognise anything from the battle histories,’ said Palao.
‘No, it is not the history of our Chapter,’ said Kazzin, looking at the worlds slowly orbiting around him. ‘It is from the scriptures.’
A twining red line was curving around the room, forming a route approaching the system in the centre from slightly above. It was the path of an approaching spacecraft.
‘The scriptures?’ asked Samahl.
‘Nine planets,’ said Faraji. ‘With a mid-cycle star. Four gas giants. An icy rock at one extreme, barely a planet at all. A scorching ball of stone at the other, then a toxic orb, then a world every human knows well by instinct. Do you not see it, brothers?’
‘The Sol system,’ said Nilhar.
‘Sol,’ said Faraji.
Faraji walked to the third planet of the system. It had an unfamiliar look – it was shown in blue and green, a strange tessellation of land masses and oceans. But if the oceans were stripped away and the land blackened and scarred, if the great stain of a continent-sized structure were blistered up from it like the welts of a disease, it suddenly became appallingly familiar.
‘This is Terra,’ said Faraji. ‘Earth. And this, Mars.’ Faraji indicated the rust-red orb of the fourth planet. That, at least, was more recognisable from the illuminations of holy books, missing only the vast forge structures around Olympus Mons and the orbital docks that housed the Battlefleet Solar.
The starship route spiralled into the heart of the system and terminated at the red planet. Hieroglyphics blossomed around it.
‘They’re headed for Mars,’ said Kazzin.
‘Borsis?’ asked Samahl.
‘What else?’ said Faraji. ‘This is the tomb of Borsis’s lords. This is where they recorded their destiny. To take Borsis to Mars.’
‘And what will they do when they get there?’ asked Samahl.
‘They will do what Borsis was made for,’ replied Rahaza. ‘It has blown whole planets out of the sky and taken every weapon our fleets have thrown at it. If we do not stop it here and it reaches Sol, it will destroy Mars and probably take Terra with it for good measure.’
‘We must get to the surface,’ said Faraji. ‘This has to reach Amhrad.’ He turned to Brother Kazzin, whose face was lit by the holographic image of ancient Terra passing across him. ‘Can you lead us there?’
‘Get me out of this tomb,’ said Kazzin, ‘and I can.’
‘Find us a way out!’ ordered Faraji. ‘And not the way we came in.’
The squad spread out around the chamber, looking into every shadowed corner for a doorway or passage. Brother Rahaza clambered up the huge semicircular wall that encompassed the holographic image, which reset and showed the approach route of Borsis intersecting with the Martian orbit on a loop. The domed roof of the chamber was almost lost in darkness, as was Rahaza as he climbed.
How long before the wraiths attacked? Perhaps this chamber was forbidden to them, or they were, as Samahl had sulkily predicted, waiting for thirst or hunger to weaken the Scouts. It would take weeks, but Faraji imagined the wraiths were supremely patient creatures. And that was assuming other constructs did not find their way down to them. Perhaps the flayed ones were approaching that very moment through a hidden passageway.
Despair was an enemy. It was one that had to be overcome before a man could call himself an Astral Knight. But down here, with the appalling truth of Borsis’s purpose revealed and the whole of the planet seemingly between them and getting that truth out, it loomed larger than Faraji had ever felt it.
Faraji’s hand went unconsciously to the wound in his side. It came away sticky with rapidly congealing blood.
‘There’s an opening up here,’ voxed Rahaza. ‘It looks like maintenance access.’
‘Secure it, brother. We will join you. Samahl, help Palao.’
Faraji ignored the pain throbbing from the wound as he followed Rahaza’s path upwards, the carvings affording enough handholds to clamber up to the top. From here he could see the nine planets of the Sol system orbiting around the sun. From that tiny blue-green orb, surrounded by grander planets, humanity had spread across the stars in the vast and tragic era of the Scattering. Then came the Dark Age of Technology, and the inevitable Age of Strife when wars threatened to exterminate the whole species. The Emperor arose and reconquered Terra, and used it as the foundation for the Great Crusade and the Space Marine Legions that spearheaded it. All that from a single world, one of a million in the galaxy. How much of that had been an accident? What if Borsis had awoken a million years earlier, barely any time at all against the age of the galaxy? Would there be a humankind, an Emperor, an Imperium?
The loss of blood must have been making Faraji light-headed to think of such a ridiculous heresy.
Rahaza had found a ring of openings around the apex of the dome. Through them ran a tangle of cables and conduits, wreathed in wisps of frozen vapour, the gaps around them perhaps just large enough for a Space Marine Scout to make it through.
‘Go ahead of me,’ said Faraji. The Scouts had not yet completed their transformation into full Space Marines, and their muscle mass had still to reach its final bulk. Faraji was larger. If any of them got stuck, it would be him.
Rahaza led the way. Faraji followed the Scouts, hauling himself through the opening. He had to drag himself through, feeling the cabling tear free around him. The steel below him was freezing and ruptured conduits sprayed chill vapour into the narrow space.
‘There’s a loose panel overhead,’ said Rahaza. ‘I’m going through.’
The squad left a trail of smeared blood in their path. Faraji was sure he added to it as he moved. He could hear the clatter as the Scouts forced their way through to the floor above.
Palao reached down from the hole in front of Faraji and helped the sergeant through. Rahaza had brought them to a long gallery overlooked by scores of tombs. They were crowded into walls of sarcophagi reaching up hundreds of metres into the darkness.
‘Looks like this was the cheap option,’ said Samahl. ‘If you can’t afford a proper tomb, this is where you end up.’
‘Well, that decides it,’ said Nilhar. ‘I’m not dying here with all the plebs.’
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‘Kazzin?’ said Faraji.
Kazzin walked a short distance away, head tilted upwards. ‘This way,’ he said. ‘We’re close. I can hear the city settling above us. It is raining on the surface.’
The Scouts followed Kazzin through the walls of tombs. They were in a ragged state, Faraji saw. Only Rahaza and Samahl were unhurt. Palao could barely walk.
‘Ammunition count,’ ordered Faraji.
The squad were running low on ammunition as well as blood. Kazzin still had enough sniper rifle ammo for a good battle, but in the confines of the necropolis it wasn’t the most practical weapon. The shotguns had little more than a full reload left each. Nilhar’s bolter had half a magazine. Between them the squad had just over a magazine left per bolt pistol.
Faraji didn’t have to tell the Scouts to conserve their ammunition. They all had combat knives and Faraji had his chainblade. If they faced a protracted fight, blades and bare hands would have to do.
‘Hear that?’ said Rahaza as the Scouts rounded a corner to reveal a long slope heading slightly upwards, flanked by tombs shaped like starships and palaces.
‘Scarabs,’ agreed Kazzin.
A moment later the sound reached Faraji, too – thousands of scuttling metallic legs. ‘Double time,’ he said, and the squad picked up the pace as they continued upwards.
Now even Faraji could taste the change in the air. The ancient, dead atmosphere of the necropolis was diluted here, as what passed for fresh air on Borsis seeped in from above. Shafts of filmy light found their way down from the surface. They were close.
A single flayed one lept onto the top of a tomb flanking the route out of the necropolis. Fresh blood ran down its steel face as it peered at the squad. Kazzin raised his rifle and let a single shot punch through the necron’s skull. It clattered down from the tomb, leaving a smear of blood on the black marble.
Behind the squad came the clanking step of dozens of necron feet. They scattered into cover as the legion from the crossroads appeared, led by the elite warrior-constructs, the immortals. The flayed ones cowered behind them – they had failed to butcher the squad in their first meeting and now they moved like whipped dogs as the immortals took on the task in person. The spyder drifted behind them, joined by a second which lacked the energy weapon and instead sported twin claws with a crackling power field winding around them.
Among them moved the pack of wraiths, also reinforced. Five of them now hunted Faraji’s squad, phasing through the tombs as they closed in.
A pair of necron nobles now led them, taking up the rearmost rank as they directed their minions to advance. One was flanked by a phalanx of warrior-constructs, and yet was clearly visible as it stood head and shoulders above them. It did not share their hunched gait but stood proud and upright, and its carapace was clad in sea green and crimson. It carried a tall golden staff topped with the image of a sun, and white fire played around it. The necron’s headdress, with twin curving spires like the mandibles of a scarab, echoed those on the statues and reliefs throughout the tombs.
The second noble had a bulky anti-grav unit in place of legs and hovered two metres above the floor. The unit was hung with banners of segmented metal and its broad chest was inset with a fat ruby the size of a man’s head. Its arm was a gauss cannon bleeding greenish energy and its eyes were bright points of scarlet in the gloom.
‘Strangers,’ said the upright noble, amplifying its voice and speaking in haughtily accented Low Gothic. ‘Know that you are prey to a finer breed of necron. Where the vermin of these tombs have failed we have been tasked with succeeding. To hunt in the necropolis is a lowly and foul thing, but your trespass has compelled us to pursue you in person. For this insult done to us you will be punished. For the desecration of our tombs, you will be punished. For your denial of the sovereignty of Overlord Heqiroth, you will be punished. Would that we could kill you a hundred times over for each violation, aliens. But once will have to suffice.’
The immortals were marching along the parallel passageways, flanking the group. The constructs lined up like firing squads ready to wither away any squad member who broke cover.
‘Move and fire,’ said Faraji. ‘Their numbers will be their enemy. In the crossfire they will…’
‘Sergeant,’ said Brother Kazzin. ‘Go.’
‘Get to the surface, sergeant,’ agreed Samahl. ‘We can’t beat them but we can slow them down. And one of us has to make it topside.’
‘We fight and die together,’ said Faraji.
‘My brothers are correct,’ said Rahaza. ‘Our mission is not to die down here together. Perhaps it was before, but not now. You have to tell Amhrad what we found down here. You have decades of experience on us, you will make it. It has to be you. We will keep the necrons here. It the confusion, you can escape.’
‘It is our duty,’ said Nilhar. ‘And it’s yours.’
‘And even Samahl agrees with us,’ added Palao. ‘It’s that obvious.’
Faraji looked from one face to another. These were his brothers, but more than that – they were his responsibility. His task was to lead them and to teach them, and foremost to never abandon them.
But what had he been teaching them? Above all, their duty and what it meant. And perhaps here, they were showing him they had learned that lesson.
Perhaps Faraji’s duty to them was fulfilled. And a far greater duty had to take over.
‘Decide what you will,’ said Samahl. ‘But for Throne’s sake make it quick.’
‘You will be remembered,’ said Faraji. ‘And I will mourn you all.’
‘Mourn the rest,’ said Samahl, ‘but I was never going to fight as a full Astral Knight. We all knew that. This way I get the death my house dreamed of.’
‘Then keep to cover, check targets, and lead them into crossfires,’ said Faraji. ‘Kazzin, do not keep too great a distance. Nilhar, tight shots to the central mass. Samahl, do not be so quick to empty your gun. Palao, cover your brethren and watch their backs. Rahaza, you’re in charge. Lead them well.’
‘Understood,’ said Rahaza. ‘Now go.’
Rahaza led the squad out of cover. Faraji broke a moment later, running from tomb to tomb up the slope towards sunlight. Gauss fire streaked across the tombs, filling the necropolis with painful strobing light.
‘Immortals left!’ Rahaza yelled over the vox. Faraji could hear bolter and shotgun fire.
‘Down!’ came a strangled cry from Palao.
Faraji ran. He glanced back, just once, but he could make out nothing coherent in the storm of light and flying debris.
‘Still you defy!’ boomed the voice of the necron noble. ‘Still you…’
The metallic voice was cut off by the report of Kazzin’s rifle.
Faraji kept moving. Stray gauss blasts stripped layers off the statues lining the promenade leading upwards. Shafts of light fell more frequently among the tombs and Faraji could see the rows of sepulchres stretching off in their thousands. The squad’s vox-net was a mess, nothing more than snatches of words and gunfire.
A cold wind blew. Ahead a section of the tombs had fallen in, blocking the way. Faraji clambered up the sundered stone, over the fragments of grand statues and fallen lintels. He saw a corroded necron skull staring up at him from the rubble. Faraji reached the crest of the collapse and saw, ahead of him, the surface.
The tombs opened up into a district of ruin, with drifts of debris spilling down into the lowly tombs nearest the surface. Malformed steel predators picked their way through the rubbish. The surrounding buildings were spindly iron skeletons with their substance stripped away. If Borsis had a slum, this was it. Faraji emerged from the shadow of the tombs into the pit of rust and decay.
A scavenger-construct scuttled across the wreckage nearby. It looked like it had been assembled from random necron parts. It was a spindly quadruped with asymmetrical limbs, and it was sifting
through the debris for new parts with which to repair itself. It fixed Faraji with a single offset eye-lens. Faraji took a step closer and the scavenger clattered off.
Faraji opened up the squad channel on the vox. He heard the ripping sound of gauss fire through the static, and the stutter of bolters.
‘Palao!’ cried Nilhar, his voice barely audible through the distortion of the vox-net. ‘Palao’s down! Brothers! Speak to me, brothers!’
More gunfire. The sound of blades against ceramite.
The vox went dead.
Faraji switched to the Astral Knights command channel.
More static. Faraji leaned against an outcrop of rusted steel, suddenly exhausted. The wound in his side throbbed angrily and the pain in his lacerated ankle was fighting through painkillers dispensed from his Scout armour. He took stock of his surroundings, expecting ranks of necron warrior-constructs to appear around the edge of the pit with their gauss blasters all trained on him. But he was alone here, save for the malformed scavengers. The only sound was the thin whistle of the cold wind and the low rumble of the debris settling.
‘…pulling back from the forum,’ came a voice over the vox. The static resolved into the sound of bolter fire and the voice of Captain Ifriqi of the Seventh Company. ‘They’re approaching from the north and west. We can hold the second ridge and draw them into a crossfire.’
‘Acknowledged,’ came the reply, and Faraji recognised Chapter Master Amhrad. ‘Do not become too strung out. Rendezvous at the second fall-back point.’
‘Brothers,’ said Faraji. ‘Chapter Master. Faraji here.’
‘Faraji!’ exclaimed Amhrad. ‘Report your position.’
‘I do not know,’ said Faraji. ‘We were separated in the crash. My squad is lost. I alone survive. I have failed them, Chapter Master. I left them behind. But I had to make it to the surface to tell you.’
‘Compose yourself, Scout-sergeant,’ said Amhrad. ‘Tell us what?’
