Dark Hunters: Umbra Sumus

by Paul Kearney

  All his centuries of training and experience drew together in him and kindled a prowess his foes could not hope to match; he shot the enemy, stabbed him, punched him aside, crushed skulls with the butt of the heavy bolt pistol, lifted his adversaries bodily and hurled them aside. His feet were sinking in a growing mire of muck and blood and other nameless things, and he trod on the bodies of his own brethren unknowing in the thick press of the fight.

  He watched the sigils that signified his brothers fighting around him wink out one by one on his helm display. And still the survivors fought on, and kept to their feet, and somehow held the line.

  Two massive explosions went off behind him, so close together that they merged into one. For a second his auto-senses shut down entirely to protect him. He was momentarily deaf and blind. The shockwave staggered him, and he felt the heavy blow of metal shards thump his armour.

  Then his auto-senses were back online, and he heard Brother Heinos.

  ‘Charges have been detonated. The guns have been spiked.’

  He turned around and saw the Techmarine standing behind him. The servo-arm had been ripped from his back, and loose wires were fizzing and sparking on Heinos’s spine.

  ‘It is accomplished, captain,’ Heinos said calmly. And then a bolter round smashed into the Techmarine’s head, blasting out the back of his helm. Heinos went to his knees, and then fell onto his side in the bloody muck.

  ‘Mortai!’ Kerne called out across that deadly space. ‘On me – close on me!’

  There were perhaps seven or eight of them still standing. Fornix was there, and Finn March, and Elijah Kass. They fought back to back, grunting with effort, a tiny island in a sea of foes. Kerne was beaten to his knees by a power hammer wielded two-handed, and Fornix broke the shaft of the weapon with a sweep of his power fist and punched its owner into ruin. He helped Kerne to his feet again.

  ‘Hard work, eh, Jonah? But we’ll rest soon enough.’

  Once again, Elijah Kass punched out his fist, and the bright light flickered out of it, a flash that hurled several of the foe backwards. Then he swung his chainsword at them. But slower now; the Librarian seemed almost exhausted.

  ‘Hold!’

  The voice rang out clear across the battlefield, as loud as a clap of thunder.

  The ranks of Punishers seemed to shudder. They stopped, and their insane yowling died down to a low rancid muttering.

  Incredibly, the mob that surrounded the Space Marines lowered their arms, and the pressure slackened – they backed away. The ring about the Dark Hunters opened up.

  The battlefield fell almost silent.

  ‘What new trick is this?’ Kerne said quietly to Brother Kass.

  The Librarian was stooped, breathing hard. ‘He’s here, the leader. He has come.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Fornix said. ‘Things were becoming a little tedious.’

  ‘Reload, brothers,’ Jonah Kerne told them. ‘Whatever happens next, we must be ready.’

  They changed magazines in their bolt pistols. One of them, Brother Galen of Novus Company, picked up the heavy bolter from the ground and checked the belt. Finn March scavenged for ammunition, and Brother Kass bent slowly and lifted a flamer from the hands of the dead.

  The ranks of the Punishers parted in two waves, the warriors jostling each other, still muttering in that low insane tone. There was fear in the noise, but also a kind of expectation, as though they were children about to witness a marvel.

  And what came striding up through their opened ranks was, in its own way, a marvel indeed.

  It was a Space Marine in shining white, red-chased armour, taller than Jonah Kerne. The armour was of ancient design, a Mark V suit such as had been used during the Great Heresy thousands of years before. It was covered in molecular bonding studs, and the chest of the wearer was ringed with cabling.

  The approaching warrior wore no helm. His face was stern, even noble, and his head was shaved save for a single scalp-lock which fell over one ear. As he drew close, they saw upon his cheeks the ritual scars of Mundus Planus, home of the White Scars.

  But noble though his countenance was, as the newcomer halted before them, Kerne and his brethren saw that his eyes were entirely black, filled with the darkness of the warp.

  ‘My brothers,’ he said, and he held out his hands as though to welcome them, ‘how did it come to this?’ His voice was low, melodic, and beguiling.

  Elijah Kass gripped the flamer he held until the metal of the weapon creaked in his fists.

  ‘Abomination,’ he hissed. ‘I know you. I know what you are.’

  ‘You know nothing, little Elijah. I have tracked your mind since first you came to this world, and I have mapped out every vestige of mediocrity within it. Hold your tongue and let your betters speak.’

  Kass swayed. ‘Captain – it is a daemon–’ And then he ground his teeth and shut his eyes.

  ‘He is mistaken,’ the strange Space Marine said. ‘I am no daemon, captain Jonah Kerne, oh my brother. I am one of you. I was born a White Scar. I fought with my Legion for years uncounted. I was there when that Legion was made into Chapters, and when the Dark Hunters were born I was already old. The genes of mighty Jaghatai are buried in me, as they are in you. We are brethren, captain.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Kerne asked.

  ‘I was once called Gull Khan. I have other names now, but there was a time when I, too, commanded a company of Legiones Astartes. Back before my children called to me–’ he spread his arms, smiling, and around him the vast host of the Punishers growled like beasts.

  ‘And now I am come here to this system, to claim a home for myself and my orphans…’ He looked up at the sky, almost as though he had lost the thread of his thought, and a frown creased the calm imperturbability of that face.

  ‘He is false,’ Kass rasped, as though every word he uttered were an agony. ‘Do not listen to him, captain…’

  ‘I applaud your broad thinking, Jonah Kerne,’ Gull Khan went on. ‘There are not many of our kind who would have indulged the machinations of the eldar to the degree you have. Did you know that it was they who were jamming all your vox transmissions? We tried also of course, but they are so much better at it. And I take it they exacted a price for relaying your messages back to Phobian… how very clever of them – and how obtuse of you.’

  Kerne said nothing. He did not know if this thing uttered truth or falsehood or a blend of the two, but something in him flared up in outrage all the same.

  ‘You were fooled twice, captain,’ Gull Khan went on. ‘Once by us, and once by the eldar witch who is now safe in the fortress at your back.’ He looked up at the smoking ruins of the colossus cannons, their barrels bent back like the petals of shattered flowers.

  ‘But you are certainly enterprising, all the same. I did not expect this move.’ Something in his face flickered just for a moment – it was a kind of doubt. Once again, he looked at the bright morning sky, as though he expected something to appear in it.

  ‘I give you a choice, now, brother.’ He came closer, and the Dark Hunters raised their weapons.

  ‘Join us,’ he said simply. ‘Just you, Jonah Kerne – join us now – walk across that line, and I will spare your remaining brethren, and whosoever else you wish to save. They can walk out of Askai with their weapons and their lives, and go whither they wish. I have no use for them, and no need to kill any more of your prized Mortai Company.

  ‘Take my hand now, and I swear by the Ruinous Gods that you shall have the highest of ranks in my armies, and you shall be treated with honour and respect.’

  Jonah Kerne laughed, a genuine laugh of surprise. ‘Do you take me for a fool?’

  Gull Khan’s eyes narrowed. ‘You must know that you have no hope. Even if by some miracle you were to prevail on this world, do you think that your Imperium would then forgive and forget? You allowed the eldar to spirit away a priceless relic of their race, one which, if delivered to your Administratum, might have held the key to their eradication. In
fact, you handed it over to them freely, when it was in your actual possession. You will not be forgiven for that, captain. They will break you for it.’

  ‘Then let them break me when I’m dead,’ Kerne told him with contempt. ‘You mean to kill us all – get on with it. I have had enough of this pantomime.’ And he meant it. He was ready. Gull Khan had not told him anything he did not already suspect in his hearts. It was why he had led this forlorn hope. Brother Malchai had known that.

  Gull Khan shook his head sadly.

  ‘You refuse my offer then.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Such a waste, captain.’ The tall, pale-armoured warlord drew a sword, a bright, wicked blade that sprang into crackling life as it rose in his hand.

  ‘I will indulge you with death at my own hands then, Dark Hunter. My children will hold back, if yours will. We shall engage blade to blade with honour.’

  ‘Very well.’ Kerne raised his battered chainsword and thumbed the power so that the engine coughed into life.

  ‘He is lying to you, captain,’ Elijah Kass said. ‘There is something else he is concealing from us – he is parrying every attempt I make to reach out.’

  ‘Do not fight him alone, Jonah,’ Fornix urged. ‘Let us all go into the dark together.’

  ‘Not this time, brother,’ Kerne said. He set a hand on the arm of his first sergeant, his brother, his friend.

  ‘Today, Fornix, I must go into the dark alone.’

  They walked towards one another, two Space Marines: one in beautifully made damascened armour which was marked by hard combat and painted crudely with cameleoline, the other in perfect white purity, unmarked by blade or bolter, armour as unsullied as the day it was made.

  As they drew closer, so their pace quickened, until they both broke into a run. A massive roar went up from the Punisher host which surrounded them as Jonah Kerne and Gull Khan came together in a ringing crash.

  Elijah Kass shut his darkening eyes and bent his head. His hood glowed with sapphire light. Fornix took a step forward, his power fist cocked as though he meant to punch something in the very air before him. But he stopped as the Punisher warriors around them levelled their weapons, a hundred bolters aimed at his chest.

  ‘Emperor, bright Lord of battle, help him now,’ he muttered, and stood stock-still, watching.

  The blades swung, Gull Khan’s power sword describing an arc of blinding light. It clinked off Kerne’s shoulder as he ducked, and left a smoking scar on the ancient pauldron.

  The Dark Hunter wheeled, his chainsword licking out to bite on empty air as his adversary jerked back.

  They circled each other.

  ‘I know you, Dark Hunter,’ Gull Khan said. ‘I know your kind better than they know themselves.’

  He parried a blow, side-stepped and kicked Kerne in the back of the knee. Jonah staggered, then threw himself backwards to avoid the bright blade which swept through the air inches from his head. For a second the chainsword churned through the muck of the ground, throwing it up in a brown spray that speckled Gull Khan’s pristine armour. The Punisher warlord stepped back, and let his opponent rise.

  ‘The Dark Hunters thought they knew better than their parent Legion – they evolved new tactics, found new ways to fight–’ Gull Khan lunged in close. His blade caught Jonah Kerne on the hip, sank into the ceramite and smoked there a half-second before he jerked it free. Kerne knocked it aside, the chainsword teeth scrabbling on the smooth supercharged metal. Smoke rose from the engine at his weapon’s hilt.

  ‘They sought to perfect the art of war as they saw it. They sought to survive, above all else.’ Gull Khan grunted as he leapt forward again. He feinted with the sword, and then punched Kerne on the side of his helm, a heavy blow that knocked the Dark Hunters captain sideways. Kerne rolled in the mud while the bellowing triumph of the Punisher hordes rose around him. With preternatural speed he found his feet in time to parry another blow, but it knocked him backwards. The Chaos warriors who ringed the struggling duo stepped back, raising their weapons above their heads and cheering madly, as though this were sport laid on for their amusement.

  Kerne rolled again as the power sword stabbed into the earth where he had been. Never had he moved so fast, and yet Gull Khan was faster still. He kicked Kerne in the back, so hard that a cable from his powerpack was dislodged. Red sigils sparked up on Kerne’s helmet-display. He rose to his feet, and charged forward again, launching a flurry of blows which drove his opponent back. The chainsword laboured and sparked – it scored a dark line in Gull Khan’s armour and carved off one of the shining studs which adorned it.

  ‘Your brothers sought to do no more than my children do,’ Gull Khan went on, backing away slowly, the power sword in front of him, mud sizzling off it, burning.

  ‘They sought to perfect themselves and their calling, to live and thrive in a terrible place–’ He dived in, his thrust parried, and he brought up the hilt of his sword to smash into Kerne’s helm, full in the pointed snout. The Corvus helm was smashed clear off Jonah’s head, the neck-joint cracked and broken. Kerne staggered, lashed out blindly with the chainsword, his head swimming.

  ‘To perfect one’s own abilities, to follow one’s calling with all the skill one can muster – that is a beautiful thing,’ Khan said. He watched as Kerne found his footing and shook his head clear.

  ‘It is the way of Slaanesh, who is my lord, and guardian. My god.’ Gull Khan advanced again. ‘Look what he has made of me, captain, and see what your Emperor has made of you.’

  He charged in close again, knocked the chainsword aside with his armoured forearm, and sliced down with the power blade. The long shining length of it came down with shattering violence upon Jonah Kerne’s shoulder, burning through the ancient armour that Lukullus had once worn, slicing through ceramite and adamantium layers, finding the flesh within, carving the Dark Hunter’s arm from his body.

  Kerne fell to his knees, blood ribboning out from his severed stump. Around them, the Chaos host yowled and shrieked with pleasure, firing their bolters into the sky. Fornix howled with them, but in despair and grief. Finn March held him back as Mortai’s first sergeant tried to lunge forward.

  Kerne looked up at the Punisher warlord, and his eyes were clear. He smiled.

  ‘At least I die true to my Lord and my faith,’ he said, gasping. ‘You are nothing but traitorous scum, and your god is an abomination.’

  For the first time, Gull Khan’s face changed. Anger flooded it. His mouth opened in a snarl, and as it did it seemed his features altered, blurred, revealing something else behind them. There was a glimpse of a contorted, bestial countenance in which broken fangs sprouted and snapped. Then the Punisher closed in, sword raised.

  Kerne threw his chainsword at his adversary. It struck the power sword and knocked it askew even as Khan loomed in. Then he drew Biron Amadai’s bolt pistol from his side, and let himself fall flat. He rolled under Gull Khan’s legs, and raising the pistol he fired as fast as his failing strength could pull the trigger.

  The rounds pounded up into Gull Khan’s armour, and the Punisher warlord shuddered with their impact. He stumbled, lurched to one side, and as he did Kerne followed him with the muzzle of the ancient bolt pistol. He put the last three rounds of the magazine into Gull Khan’s head, the muzzle of the weapon so close to his foe’s skull that it blackened the skin.

  The Punisher’s skull disintegrated, blown apart. The black eyes were destroyed, blown from their sockets, and the lower jaw fell open with nothing above it but broken bone and mangled meat.

  Jonah Kerne collapsed, chest heaving, beside the white-armoured corpse of his enemy. He lay on his back, listening as the stunned, disbelieving silence of the Punishers gave way to a vast roar of baffled fury.

  He looked up at the sky. It is a good day to die, he thought.

  With his fading sight he watched the bright vault of Ras Hanem’s sky become ever brighter, as though there were other suns up there beyond the blue.

  And t
hings falling in that brightness, dark shapes plummeting to earth and trailing vivid streams of smoke in their wake, a dazzling sight, mystifying.

  ‘Jonah – Jonah, can you hear me?’

  The fighting was beginning again. The roar of bolter fire shook the air, and in it were larger echoing booms. He felt the very earth under his back tremble and shake.

  ‘Jonah, look at me.’

  It was Fornix, his helm off, his red eye gleaming. He was cradling his captain in his arms.

  Kerne could not speak. Even his enhanced biological systems could not cope with the massive loss of tissue. The power sword had taken off his arm at the shoulder and continued deep into the side of his chest, ruining a lung, clipping one of his two mighty hearts. He was drowning in his own blood.

  Fornix levered his captain into a sitting position.

  ‘Do you see them, Jonah? Watch with me, my brother. They have come – our brethren have come, and others with them. They’re dropping into the city in their thousands. Do you see them, Jonah?’

  He did. They were the last thing he saw, a glorious sight. Hundreds of drop pods were landing all around in the ruins, and out of them stormed a mighty host of the Adeptus Astartes, in Hunters blue and the livery of the other six Chapters. The Dark Sons were there, having left the Wendakhen campaign in obedience to their oath. And he could see the badges of the Brazen Fists, the Doomsayers, the Shadowhawks, and yet more.

  Hundreds of Space Marines were pouring across the ravaged face of the city, slaughtering the leaderless and bewildered foe. And in the skies above them, Thunderhawks appeared, dozens of squadrons spitting fire, burning the enemy into the ground.

  Thus did the Dark Hunters and their allies return to purge the world of Ras Hanem, in the Kargad system, in the nine hundred and eighty-second year of the fortieth millennium.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Valediction

  ‘He did not die,’ Kharne Al Murzim said, the sorrow heavy in his voice. ‘He should have died that day.’