The soldier staggered backwards and pumped three shots into the daemon as it bore down on him. The first shots hit the monster in the chest and the gorget, ricocheting uselessly off its blood-red armour, but the third shot struck it in the cheek, shattering bone.
It fell with a roar of anger before the captain, and the soldier levelled his pistol at the back of its horned head. Before he could squeeze the trigger, the beast was up and moving, and one of its immense clawed hands closed around the captain’s arm. The pistol boomed, but its aim had been skewed, and the bullet glanced off the beast’s skull.
The captain screamed in pain and fell to his knees as the bones in his arm were shattered, and the beast loomed over him, its visage twisted in fury. Blood dripped from its wounds, bubbling and hissing as it struck the snow.
Opening its mouth impossibly wide, it lunged down, its jaws clamping around either side of the captain’s head.
His eyes wide with terror, Polio staggered backwards. His movements attracted the attention of the beast, and it swung its burning gaze towards him, the captain’s head still locked in its jaws. It clamped its mouth shut, and the soldier’s head cracked like a nut in vice.
It dropped its lifeless prey to the ground and leapt towards Polio, closing the distance with shocking swiftness, bounding towards him on all fours like an ape. Turning, Polio ran.
The engines of the Aquila lander were roaring, and for a moment he thought he would make it. He saw Leto at the top of the ramp, frantically urging him on with beckoning waves of his hands, and he scrambled up the ramp into the shuttle.
A stink akin to rotting meat and the acrid stench of electricity reached his nostrils, and a hand close around the back of his head. With a jerk, he was hurled backwards, skidding down the ramp to fall in a crumpled heap at its base.
One of his arms was broken, and he cried out as splinters of bone grated against each other. He saw Leto at the top of the ramp quaking before the immense daemon just before the adjutant was ripped in two by the beast.
Polio tried to rise to his feet, the muscles and tendons of his back protesting, but he fell in a crumpled heap once more in the blood-splattered snow.
The daemon turned back towards him and stalked down the ramp, and Polio scrambled back away from the monster, the heels of his boots slipping in the ice and snow.
Burias-Drak’shal felt the terror of the Imperial official wash over him like an intoxicating wave, and he relished the sensation. He wanted to kill the man, slowly and excruciatingly, but the rational side of his mind knew that such a thing would anger Marduk, for his order had been clear.
He grinned as the man scrambled back away from him, a pathetic and futile attempt to escape. With sheer force of will, he pushed Drak’shal back, and his features were once again his own, pristine and unmarred, the bullet wound on his cheek already healed. Blood caked his mouth and chin, and he smiled at the man as he stepped towards him.
The engines of the shuttle roared behind him and the ramp began to close, and Burias swung his head around, Drak’shal instantly rearing within him once more.
“Let none escape,” Marduk had ordered.
Burias-Drak’shal turned and leapt onto the shuttle, his talons biting deep into the reinforced hull. He hauled himself hand over hand onto its top, and bounded across its fuselage until he was positioned above the cockpit.
The shuttle began to lift just as the pilot registered the shadow looming above him, and Burias-Drak’shal punched his fist through the glass, grabbing the man around his throat. With one swift motion he ripped the man’s throat away.
The shuttle tilted suddenly to the side, its landing gear scraping against rock as the dying pilot fell across the controls. Burias-Drak’shal bounded across the top of the shuttle as it slid over the edge of the landing pad, its engines sending it into a death spin.
He hurled himself across the growing gap and landed in a crouch as the shuttle slammed into the body of the aquila eagle-structure thirty metres below, and empted into a ball of fire.
He shook his head as he saw the wounded Imperial commander frantically punching a code into the reinforced door that led back into the building, and bounded after the man.
The commander was slamming the door when Burias-Drak’shal reached it, and he smashed it open with the palm of his hand.
The man, all hope of escape lost, collapsed on the floor of the office, staring up fearfully at him.
“Emperor curse you,” breathed the terrified man.
“Too late for that,” remarked Burias, slamming the door closed behind him.
CHAPTER SIX
Like a slowly rolling fortress of steel, the ice crawler moved across the ice flow, unaffected by the gale force winds ripping across the desolate landscape. Temperature gauges read that it was minus forty standard, though with wind chill it was closer to minus seventy. Banks of spotlights lit up the ice directly in front of the colossal vehicle. Fog rose from the moon’s surface and the wind sent eddies of snow and ice particles ripping across the flows, rendering visibility almost non-existent.
The crawler was immense, over fifty metres long and almost twenty metres high. Its wedge-shaped hull sat upon eight sets of tracks, each more than five metres wide and powered by massive engines.
High up within the control booth of the crawler, Foreman Primaris Solon Marcabus reclined on his well-worn padded seat, his heavy boots up on the dash. He sucked in a long drag on his lho stick and closed his eyes.
“I’ve decided I don’t much like people,” Cholos said, from the steering rig. “Too much damn trouble. I’ll take transporting ore yields over people any day.”
Solon grunted in response, exhaling a cloud of smoke. The expansive cargo holds below were filled to the brim with desperate evacuees. Perdus Skylla was being abandoned in the face of imminent xenos invasion, and it had fallen to the crews of the ice crawlers to aid in the evacuation. In return, they would receive double pay for this ran. Small comfort, thought Solon, if they didn’t manage to secure a berth off-world.
The cabin was small and stuffy, and the stink of Solon’s ashtray, brimming with lho stubs, was strong. He was jolted back and forth as the crawler continued to make its way through the darkness, but he was well used to that. Rosary beads hung above Cholos, and they swung back and forth wildly as the crawler drove slowly over an embankment.
“Guilders,” spat Cholos with a shake of his head, “think they are so much better than us. Treat us like shit all these years, but who is it that comes to bail them out? Us. And do we get a word of thanks? Nope. Just complaints. “It’s too cold, it’s too hot, there’s not enough room, the water tastes funny’. You’d think the bastards would be thankful. Makes me sick.”
Solon grunted again.
“That sergeant, Folches, is the worst of ’em,” said Cholos. “Left those people back there to die. That is one cold son of a bitch.”
“Nice to hear I made an impression,” said a voice.
Cholos visibly jumped. Solon sighed and slowly opened his eyes. He dropped his feet from the console dash and spun his chair around towards the door to the cabin, though he remained slouched. He blew out a puff of smoke.
Sergeant Folches stood in the doorway, big and imposing in his black and white Interdiction body plate. He had removed his helmet, and his thick-featured face glared down at Solon.
“This is a restricted area, sergeant. Rig personnel only,” said Solon. “Be so kind as to get the hell out.”
“How long till we get to the Phorcys spaceport?” asked Folches.
“In this storm? Two and a half days, minimum,” said Solon. The sergeant swore.
“The storm won’t lift before then?” he asked.
“You haven’t spent much time on the surface, have you?” asked Solon, taking another drag on his lho stick.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Once a storm like this has set in, it might not clear for a month, maybe two,” said Solon, stubbing out
his lho stick.
“You can’t make this heap of crap go any faster?”
“No, sergeant, I can’t.”
Folches swore and rubbed a hand across his head.
“Why don’t you and your boys just settle down and enjoy the ride,” he said, “and try to stop the guilders killing each other. They’re only women and children, right?”
“Boss,” said Cholos. Solon felt the crawler begin to slow, but he didn’t take his eyes of the sergeant.
“You ought to watch your tongue, you whoreson bastard,” said Folches, putting one hand on the autopistol bolstered prominently at his hip.
“Easy, big fella,” said Solon. “All I’m saying is that we are moving as quick as we can, and you coming up here to throw your weight around ain’t gonna make us go any faster.”
Folches let out a tense breath and took his hand off his gun.
“What’s the problem, anyway?” asked Solon. “Three days and we’ll be off this moon.”
“Something hit the access tunnels leading from Antithon guild to the spaceport.”
Solon frowned.
“Four demi-legions were gone, like that,” said the sergeant, clicking his fingers. “And Emperor knows how many guilders.”
“Four demi-legions?”
“Four hundred soldiers. The enemy is not on its way to Perdus Skylla,” said the sergeant. “It is already here.” Solon bit his lip.
“Boss,” said Cholos, breaking the silence.
“What?” asked Solon in exasperation, turning to face his second in command.
“You better take a look at this.”
Solon spun his chair around, turning his back on the sergeant, and peered out of the small, ice-encased cabin window.
The wind was whipping across the landscape at over a hundred kilometres an hour, and virtually nothing could be seen except the glare of the crawler’s spotlight reflected back at them by the snow and ice in the air.
“I don’t see a damned thing, Cholos.”
Sergeant Folches leant down at Solon’s side, looking out into the storm, and Solon felt his irritation rise.
“Damn it Cholos, what am I looking at?”
“Wait for the wind to drop,” said Cholos.
He slowed the crawler further and the three men looked intently out into the storm. At last the wind fell momentarily and Solon could see a dark, shadowy shape up ahead. It was another crawler, motionless and dark. Then it was hidden as the winds picked up again with a vengeance.
“That’s Markham’s rig,” said Solon.
“Looks like it, boss,” said Cholos.
“Hail them,” said Solon.
“You recognise it?” asked Folches as Cholos tried to make voice contact with the stationary crawler with the short-ranged vox-caster built into the dash console.
“Yeah,” said Solon. “It should be at the starport by now. What the hell is it doing out here?”
“There’s no response, boss,” said Cholos. The sound of static was hissing from the vox-caster. “Might be the storm’s interference though.”
Solon swore.
“Right, take us alongside it. If it still doesn’t respond, then it looks like we’ll be getting cold.”
“My squad will come with you,” said Folches.
“That would be appreciated,” said Solon.
The lift halted its ascent and drew to a shuddering halt.
“Restricted access. Band XK privilege required,” croaked the robotic voice of the servitor built into one of the interior walls of the lift.
Marduk sighed in impatience.
A panel on one wall bore the symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the First Acolyte ripped it clear, his gauntlet wrenching the metal out of shape as if it were paper. Wires and cables spilt behind the panel like intestines, sparking and buzzing.
“Open it,” he ordered impatiently.
A mechadendrite tentacle stabbed into the open panel, and Darioq twisted it left and right.
“Access granted,” croaked the servitor as the magos retracted his metallic tentacle, and the lift doors hissed open.
Kol Badar stepped out of the lift in front of Marduk, swinging his combi-bolter from side to side. The lift rose a few centimetres as the Coryphaus’s immense weight was removed from the straining winch mechanics.
“Clear,” the towering Coryphaus growled, raising his combi-bolter into a vertical position. Kol Badar held the sacred icon of the Host in the power talons of his left hand, the snarling daemon face of the Latros Sacrum in its centre, slamming the butt of the staff into the ground as Marduk stepped from the lift.
The First Acolyte took a moment to get his bearings before marching into the guildmaster’s office.
“Stay, Darioq-Grendh’al,” he said over his shoulder, exerting the force of his will into his intonation, forcibly commanding the daemon within the corrupted magos.
Burias was leaning casually against a wall, drinking from a bottle that had had its neck smashed off. His mouth and chin were covered in blood, and a man lay shivering on the floor before him.
The icon bearer drained the fiery liquid from the bottle and smiled at Marduk, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand.
“Stand to attention when your seniors are present, warrior,” barked Kol Badar, the vox-amplifiers built into his quad-tusked helmet making his voice even more of an animalistic growl than usual.
Making no attempt to hurry, Burias languidly rose from his slouch and tossed the empty bottle away. It shattered on the floor.
“Consumption of all but necessary sustenance is a sin that leads to weakness, icon bearer,” snapped Marduk. “You will submit yourself to three months of fasting and flagellation once we return to the Infidus Diabolus.”
“I am duly castigated, my master,” said Burias, bowing his head in a show of obeisance and mock remorse. Marduk’s eyes narrowed.
Burias held a hand out to Kol Badar. “My icon?” he said.
The Coryphaus flicked the heavy icon at the smaller Astartes warrior with far more force than was needed, but Burias caught it deftly in his hand.
“Enough,” said Marduk. “This is the commander?” He motioned with his chin towards the man shivering on the ground.
“It is, my master,” said Burias, running his hands lovingly over the spiked length of his icon, as if he had been separated from it for years and was savouring being reunited. “Alive, as you wished.”
Marduk knelt down before the man, who stared up at him fearfully, his face waxy and pale.
“You have something that I want, little man,” said Marduk, removing his skull-faced helmet and handing it to Burias, “and you are going to tell me where it is.”
“Wha… wha… what is it you want?” managed the man, gritting his teeth in pain, gingerly cradling his left arm in his hand. He stared up at Marduk, a mixture of fear and defiance in his eyes.
“A person, if you could call it that,” said Marduk. “Someone who was posted here, at this very facility: an adept of the weakling Machine-God.”
“What do you want with them?”
Marduk reached out towards the man, his movements slow and almost caring. The guildmaster recoiled from his grasp, but there was nowhere for him to run.
“You are injured, I see,” said Marduk, taking the man’s arm carefully in his hands. “This must hurt.”
With a slow twisting motion, Marduk turned the man’s hand over, making the shattered bones grind against one another. The man screamed in agony and Marduk twisted it again. Then he stopped.
“Do not question me again, little man. This was punishment for doing so. Now, tell me, where is… What was its name?”
Marduk turned his head around, looking back towards the adjoining room and the lift.
“Darioq-Grendh’al,” he barked. “Come.”
Like a hound coming to its master’s call, Magos Darioq entered the room, his steps slow and mechanical. Having been allowed to reconstruct his servo-harness, four massive robotic arms emer
ged from his back, two coming around his sides, and two over his shoulders, like the stabbing tails of an insect. Black veins pulsed within the servo-arms as the lines between organic, mechanical and daemonic were increasingly blurred, and one of the arms twitched awkwardly as he walked.
The guildmaster’s agonised eyes were locked on the magos, who wore a robe of black in place of his red Mechanicus garb. The red glow of Darioq’s augmented left eye gleamed malignly from within his deep cowl.
“What is the name of the target?” Marduk asked.
“Explorator First Class Daenae,” said Magos Darioq in his monotone voice, “originally of the Konor Adeptus Mechanicus research world of UL01.02, assigned to cl4.8.87.i, Perdus Skylla, for recon/salvage of the Dvorak-class interstellar freighter Flames of Perdition, which reappeared within Segmentum Tempestus in 942.M41 and crashed onto the surface of cl4.8.87.i, Perdus Skylla, in 944.M41 after being missing presumed lost in warp storm anomaly xi.024.396 in 432.M35.”
Marduk turned back towards the guildmaster with the hint of a smile on his face.
“How foolish of me to have forgotten its name,” he said. The smile dropped from his face. “Where is this Explorator Daenae? Tell me now, or you shall be further punished. And I promise you, the pain you have already experienced will be but a fraction of what you will come to know should you displease me further.”
“I don’t know who you mean,” hissed the man.
Marduk sighed.
“You are lying to me,” he said, and gave the man’s arm a further twist. This time he did not relent quickly, and he ground the broken bones of the guildmaster’s arm against each other with vigour.
Behind Marduk, Burias grinned at the man’s pain.
“The explorator was assigned to this facility,” said Marduk over the guildmaster’s screams of torment, “therefore you know where it is. Tell me now, or your death will not be swift in coming to you.”
The guildmaster’s eyes were shut tightly against the pain, and he passed out suddenly, going limp in Marduk’s arms. The First Acolyte threw the man’s arm down in disgust, the bones of the forearm bent almost at right angles.
[Word Bearers 02] - Dark Disciple Page 10
