The Beast Must Die

by Gav Thorpe

  ‘It is a wise commander tha–’

  ‘By my word, Bohemond, this matter is not concluded. You are subject to my command and specific orders will be forthcoming.’

  The vox-hiss was almost overwhelming.

  ‘Affirmative, Lord Commander. For the Emperor!’

  Any reply Koorland might have made was lost in the surge of static. Bohemond turned to Eudes and smiled.

  ‘Justice prevails. The Emperor provides, brother.’ He switched the vox to general address, his words carrying to the hundred Black Templars of the strike force. ‘We are dark vengeance clad in light. We are the purging of the weak. We are the irresistible ending. Glory to the sons of Sigismund, for the Emperor has seen fit to deliver us in righteousness to the heart of the cause.

  ‘What happy tidings, that we be so blessed by the Emperor to stand upon the brink of His vengeful storm, the lightning that shall strike His foes asunder. He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, will stand taller when this day is named, and rouse him at the name of Ullanor. He that shall live this day, and see old age, will yearly on the vigil toast his companions, and say “Tomorrow is the Remembrance of Ullanor.” Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, and say “These wounds I had on Ullanor.” And all will rejoice in his glory. The Emperor watches us, brothers. No fear. No pity. No remorse!’

  Kilometres above, the drop bays of a dozen Black Templars battle-barges and strike cruisers opened. They coughed forth the second assault wave and the battle for Ullanor began.

  Koorland pounded his fist on the plasteel of the door, the blows echoing down the corridor, resounding within the chamber.

  ‘Lord Vulkan!’ He slammed his hand against the door again, already irritated by the primarch’s lack of response to his vox-hails. ‘Lord Vulkan!’

  Gears wheezed and the door cranked open, revealing the primarch standing at the threshold with one hand on the controls, towering over the Lord Commander. Koorland stepped back, his agitation suddenly cowed by the dominating presence.

  ‘There is a reason I have not answered your communications, Lord Commander Koorland,’ growled the primarch. He turned away and Koorland relaxed slightly, as though released from an invisible grip. Vulkan waved towards his work bench where his hammer lay on the top, the innards of its head splayed across the surface. ‘I have my own labours to attend to. What is so urgent that it demands my personal attention?’

  ‘The attack on Ullanor has begun.’

  ‘That seems… precipitous. I have monitored the data-channels, I saw no indication that the location of the Great Beast has been identified. Where are you attacking?’

  ‘Bohemond has launched an assault on the planet.’ Koorland uttered the words as calmly as possible, not wishing to show discomfort in front of the primarch. He swallowed hard, his annoyance at Bohemond’s challenge to his authority overtaking his vexation at Vulkan’s self-imposed solitude.

  ‘A reconnaissance-in-force, Lord Vulkan,’ he continued. ‘Adeptus Astartes companies will secure ground and then we will establish the location of the Great Beast from intelligence gathered on the surface. The Adeptus Mechanicus and Astra Militarum will commit their forces when the primary target is located.’

  Vulkan raised his eyebrows as he looked back, leaning over the table. His fingers continued to work at the exposed cables of his weapon, pushing them back into the head of Doomtremor.

  ‘You are making a landing without exact knowledge of the Great Beast’s whereabouts?’

  ‘I…’ Koorland had nothing to offer. He shook his head and looked away, unable to meet the primarch’s inquiring look. ‘The initiative was Bohemond’s, not mine, lord primarch.’

  ‘I see.’ Vulkan finished his work quickly and set his hammer aside. He pulled forward a screen on an articulated arm and his fingers danced over the runepad below. Without looking at him, Vulkan gestured for Koorland to approach. ‘These are the findings from the Adeptus Mechanicus flights, yes?’

  Koorland looked at the screen and nodded.

  ‘There are still three possible sites,’ he said. ‘Nothing pinpoints a specific location. All we have from the psychic scan is a name. Gorkogrod. The landing is blind, to all intents. Interference is still wreaking havoc with surveyors and communications. The only option is to seek out what we want on the ground. We can take prisoners, find out where Gorkogrod is located.’

  ‘A justification, after the event,’ Vulkan said quietly. ‘Bohemond has forced you into premature action. He has already chosen your “only option”.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ conceded Koorland. He clenched a fist. ‘We cannot afford the luxury of blame at this moment. What has happened cannot be changed. The consequences have to be dealt with. Bohemond has a point, lord primarch. Time is not our ally. We must commit to action sooner rather than later. We do not know how long until the orks attack Terra again. Perhaps even now the Throneworld is assaulted.’

  Vulkan held his hand up to the flickering screen, as if communing with it, fingers not quite touching its surface. His brow knotted in thought and relaxed.

  ‘Here,’ he declared. ‘This is Gorkogrod. Here you will find the Great Beast.’

  Koorland looked. Vulkan had chosen one of the cities approached by the Adeptus Mechanicus flights. By coincidence, it was the closest to Bohemond’s impending planetfall.

  ‘Are you sure, Lord Vulkan? Why this one?’

  Vulkan looked sharply at him and he flinched, fearing he had angered the primarch.

  ‘Is my word not enough, Lord Commander Koorland?’

  ‘Should it be?’ Koorland asked cautiously. He had no desire to anger the primarch further, quite the opposite, but Vulkan’s manner and actions since his return had been erratic. ‘I do not mean to doubt your word, Lord Vulkan. There is so much at stake, I need to be certain. How can you know that this is the place?’

  ‘You must learn to show a little faith, Koorland.’ Vulkan pushed away the screen and folded his arms. ‘And you must also learn that certain things happen in a certain way. War has a pattern, a form. It follows specific paths to known ends. We seek confrontation with the Great Beast. That confrontation will occur. The narrative of war demands it.’

  ‘I still don’t understand. What narrative? War is not a story, Lord Vulkan.’

  ‘War is always a story, Koorland, told by the victors, shaped by the survivors.’ The primarch sighed, not in frustration but resignation. ‘The orks respect only power. To defeat the orks requires a greater power. Our presence here, our attack, is a challenge to the Great Beast. Never forget that it is an ork, nothing more. It must prove itself, it can do nothing but show its dominance over a foe. It can no more resist the lure of battle than a predator can resist the urge to pounce for the kill.’

  ‘That does not explain how you can know that this city is Gorkogrod, Lord Vulkan.’

  ‘More than fifteen hundred years ago, the Great Crusade of the Emperor came to this world. Horus himself bested the warlord that ruled here, and a great triumph was held in honour of the victory. On this world, the orks were broken. On this world, humans proved their dominance.’

  ‘And the orks have reclaimed it…’ Koorland moved past the primarch and looked at the conglomeration of lines and figures that denoted the ork city. ‘This world was lost again generations ago, but nobody noticed. The orks have taken it back. But there is something more. Zhokuv’s tech-priests posit that this latest expansion is a new phase of war. The cities have cannibalised smaller settlements to grow.’

  ‘A catalyst, a signal,’ said Vulkan. ‘Symbols matter, Koorland, especially to the primitive minds of the orks. The narrative, the story of Ullanor. One rises, others follow, greater than any for fifteen hundred years. Where would such a creature build its capital?’

  Koorland considered the question, trying to imagine the thought processes of an ork. To prove it was the most powerful, it had
to overcome the biggest foe, be the most important thing on the planet.

  ‘The Triumph…’ Koorland looked at the screen again. ‘This is where the Triumph ended?’

  Vulkan nodded.

  ‘Here the Emperor stood, greatest warlord of all time. Here nine of His sons stood, lauding their father. Here He named Horus as Warmaster. We know what happened next.’ Vulkan tapped the screen, the sound like a normal man’s fist thudding against a window. ‘Places remember such events. Worlds are marked by the passing of such beings. Where the Emperor treads, legends follow. Where else would an ork civilisation start? Where else but at the very place where it ended?’

  ‘Yes, I see it,’ said Koorland. He activated a vox-link to the command bridge. ‘Thane, Gorkogrod has been located. Inform the fleet, we have a target point.’

  The narrative of war. The story of the orks. He looked at Vulkan, marvelling at the primarch’s perception. It seemed obvious in reflection, as most great insights did.

  Where would the tale of Ullanor move next? What other chapters would unfold before a new legend had been created?

  Chapter Six

  Ullanor – low orbit

  The main flight deck of the cruiser Divine Right thrummed with idling engines and echoed to the clatter of ratchet cranks and the whine of loader servitors fitting hellstrike missiles to the wings of six Lightning air superiority fighters. Tech-priests performed their final chants and benedictions, activating the machine-spirits of the aircraft in turn. They formed into two lines flanking the path from the pilots’ quarters – a guard of honour, censers spilling fragrant smoke, oil-tipped rods raised in salute to those that would guide the machines down to Ullanor.

  Six silver-masked figures emerged from the ruddy gloom of the suiting chamber. Their dark-blue flight suits bulged with pressure lines and reinforcement studs. Two acolytes of the Cult Mechanicus fell in step behind each of the anointed air-warriors, murmuring the blessings of the Machine-God upon their life support systems, daubing the holy oils of Mars onto the rubberised skin of their suits.

  Thus consecrated to guide the vessels of the Omnissiah, the pilots climbed up the ladders of their machines while the engines of the Lightnings were fired by ignition rods. The idling of motors intensified to a growl. Final rites were grated by vocalisers and modulated tongues, praising the artifice of man and the beneficence of the Machine-God. Armoured canopies whined closed, sealed with elongated hisses.

  The tech-priests and their semi-aware attendants rapidly left the flight deck, vacuum-proof heavy doors sealing the bay behind them. Red lights flashed in warning as the outer portal opened like a castle portcullis rising, the trapped air evacuating into the void in a gale.

  Jets flaring, the Lightnings sped out one after the other, dipping towards the orb of Ullanor. From other ships across the fleet more scatters of plasma-jets were emerging, hundreds of craft speeding towards the planet.

  A few dozen kilometres from atmospheric entry one of the Lightnings peeled away, guidance jets spitting fire as it veered towards the northern pole.

  ‘Hiedricks? What are you doing?’ demanded the squadron commander, Corbrus. ‘Return to formation immediately!’

  There was no response.

  ‘I don’t know how you conducted business aboard the Impregnable, Hiedricks, but in my squadron you obey immediately! Return to formation or we will shoot you down!’

  The rogue Lightning’s engines burned brighter as it accelerated. Corbrus’ long-range vox crackled into life.

  ‘Hawk squadron, report status,’ came the inquiry from the Divine Right. ‘We are monitoring an unauthorised manoeuvre.’

  ‘The new pilot that came over from the Impregnable, Hiedricks, just broke formation, command. Permission to pursue and engage.’

  ‘Negative, mission takes precedence. Continue to allocated patrol coordinates and provide additional interception cover for Adeptus Astartes forces on the surface.’

  ‘Understood,’ replied Corbrus, reluctantly. He watched the last spark of the Lightning dipping towards atmospheric entry and consulted his nav-pad. At that trajectory, Hiedricks seemed to be heading directly for the major ork city, the one called Gorkogrod. If Hiedricks was deserting, he was picking the worst place possible to do it.

  Twenty-two minutes later, Hawk Four swooped into the outskirts of Gorkogrod. A kilometre above the surface, the pilot ejected, leaving his aircraft to spear into the ork shanty surrounding the main city. Ammunition and hellstrike missiles detonated with a blast that levelled buildings for eighty metres, sending a pall of smoke and dust boiling into the thick air.

  Deftly manipulated grav-chute suspensors carried the pilot away from the burning wreckage of his Lightning. He landed amongst a tangle of scrap and broken masonry where a cluster of buildings had recently been torn down. Several small greenskins that had been scavenging the debris snarled and spat at him as he landed, brandishing lengths of pipe and improvised daggers.

  The pilot pulled free a needle pistol and opened fire, every shot putting a toxin-laden shard into the eye of each of the five gretchin. They spasmed as they fell, shrieks stifled by the blood bubbling from their lungs.

  The man took off his helm and stripped off the flight suit, revealing muscle-cladding synskin. It rippled as he activated its cameleoline coating, the surface becoming a blur of metallic shades and dark brown. He gathered up the corpses of the dead aliens and thrust them beneath a sheet of corrugated steel.

  Retrieving several other weapons he had concealed within the pilot’s gear, Esad Wire hid the uniform with the bodies and set off towards central Gorkogrod.

  Chapter Seven

  Ullanor – primary landing zones

  The crack of detonating missiles announced the arrival of the Black Templars. Lascannon beams and the bark of autocannons greeted the orks that scurried from their ugly barrack blocks, heading towards a ring of improvised anti-aircraft emplacements set about the edge of the huge crater.

  Three Storm Eagles descended, weapons scouring the aliens and buildings scattered on the waste ground surrounding the flat expanse. Above them a pair of Thunderhawk transporters swooped groundwards, each bearing a Predator tank in its grip.

  Thick dust and ash swirled as retro-thrusters fired, slowing the Thunderhawks over the last few metres of their landing. Before the extended hydraulic legs had touched down the assault ramps opened, spewing forth the warriors of Bohemond.

  The High Marshal bounded forward, every leap covering two dozen metres with the aid of bursts from his jump pack. His honour guard followed a few metres behind, chainswords whirring.

  Other squads fanned out across the crater, their bolters snapping as they gunned down greenskins skulking in the cover of revetments and trenches dug into the crater wall – fortifications that were poorly positioned, directed outwards to protect the crater.

  Their warrior cargo disgorged, the Storm Eagles lifted off in a fresh gale of grit and flame, their renewed storm of fire levelling several more bunkers and hovels. The transporters took their place, dropping their battle tanks, tracks already spinning, the last couple of metres. As the Predators landed they lurched forward in spumes of dust, turret and sponson locks disengaging to allow their gunners to open fire. Heavy bolter rounds and concentrated autocannon salvoes added to the storm of destruction tearing along the crater walls.

  Bohemond’s squad reached the incline just as a hellstrike missile streaked overhead to pierce an armoured gun turret turning in their direction. The detonation tore the emplacement apart from within, scattering burning metal and charred ork flesh over the bare rock of the crater edge.

  The High Marshal’s jump pack easily took him over a chest-high retaining wall. Plunging into the trench beyond, he landed on a greenskin, the impact shattering its skull beneath his armoured boots even as his sword cleaved through the neck of another.

  The rest of his honoured veterans
crashed into the fortifications, hewing through the aliens within. Snarling greenskins and black-armoured warriors turned the entrenchment into a boiling melee while more blasts and bolts screamed overhead.

  It took twenty seconds to clear the first stretch of trenchline.

  ‘Is that the best these scum can offer?’ roared Eddarin. The sergeant tore the head from an ork corpse and with a snarl threw it at the burning fortifications further up the slope. ‘We came seeking warriors and found juveniles and cripples!’

  Bohemond saw that it was true. Most of the bodies were of smaller greenskins, poorly armoured and armed. The few that seemed to have attained mature size and weight sported prosthetics and bionics, some so crude as to be simple hooks and plain metal peg legs.

  ‘Gun garrison, poor duty for an ork,’ said Bohemond.

  ‘Such is the number plaguing the Segmentum Solar, perhaps all of their true warriors have deserted this waste-hole,’ said Eddarin, sounding disappointed by the prospect.

  Bohemond pointed with his sword to the building-covered mountain reaching over the horizon, the city obscured by distance and the shimmer of its force field.

  ‘Foes enough await our righteous intentions, brothers,’ said the High Marshal. ‘The Great Beast lurks within that city and with the Emperor as my witness I declare the abomination will fall to the blade of a Black Templar. As Sigismund upon the bloodied fields of Terra, so we shall seek out the strongest foes and overcome them.’

  He moved his blade towards the sky, where the black dots of descending drop pods were visible against the low clouds. With them emerged bulkier shapes, more Thunderhawk transporters laden with Rhino armoured carriers and other vehicles.

  ‘We push on to Gorkogrod, High Marshal?’ asked Eddarin, moving to the edge of the trench.

  ‘Not yet. Temper your zeal, brother-sergeant,’ replied Bohemond. ‘We hold the landing zone until our allies in the Navy have deposited the regiments of the Astra Militarum. We are the sharp spearpoint, but the weight of the haft must follow us today.’