Red Fury

by James Swallow

  “I have something here,” Roan, Sergeant Noxx’s second, called out from the starboard side of the Thunderhawk. Rafen ducked under the wing of the transport, ignoring the ticking and clicking of the cooling fuselage, coming to the Flesh Tearer’s side.

  Noxx was already there. “What is it?”

  Roan turned his shoulder lamp upon the prow of a parked Arvus lighter. The slope-faced cockpit of the craft was wide open, the angular metal frame peeled back where it had been torn open. Jagged pieces of green armourglass lay about it on the decking. In the dimness, the craft’s running lights were soft yellow dots, blinking every few seconds. The glow of the cockpit instruments was also visible.

  Rafen led with his bolter, peering down the length of the gun into the ragged hole where the windscreen had been. Inside, there was a mess of shorn mechadendrites lying like slaughtered snakes across the active control console. Oily residue and processor fluids speckled the cockpit walls. Where another craft might have had a command couch, there was nothing but a stubby metal podium ending in pipes that gave off the smell of ozone and human effluent.

  “There should be a pilot-servitor in there,” said Roan.

  “Yes,” noted Noxx. “There should be.”

  Rafen studied the twisted metal frame and ran his gauntlet along it. He found a set of curious indentations that seemed to have no pattern, until he realised they matched the spread of fingers on a human hand. “Someone removed the pilot and killed it.”

  “Caecus, perhaps,” offered Captain Gorn as he approached them. “He wanted to ensure no one left after he landed.”

  Puluo indicated the ranks of other shuttles. “This is not the only aircraft in the hangar.”

  “I imagine we will find them similarly gutted, then.”

  Rafen was half-listening, peering hard into the dark corners of the landing bay. His helmet’s optical array set to preysight mode, he searched and found no heat sources save for the thermal exchanger pipes across the walls and ceiling. He returned his vision to normal, noticing from the corner of his eye that Sergeant Noxx had been doing the same.

  “Why would the majoris do such a thing?” said Puluo. “Would he even have the strength?”

  Gorn shrugged. “He killed an Angel Sanguine. He fled like a coward. He is one of your kindred. Tell me, in your opinion, are those the actions of a brother still rational in mind?”

  Across the hangar, in a pool of dull biolume light, a hatch ground open and a figure in hooded Apothecary’s robes entered the chamber. The new arrival approached with steady, careful steps, apparently undeterred by the array of guns that were immediately trained upon him.

  The captain of the Flesh Tearers did not wait for Rafen to speak. He rocked off his stance and strode forward, through the line of his men around the Thunderhawk. “You,” he demanded. “Halt and be recognised.” Gorn placed one hand on the hilt of the falchion at his waist, drawing a length of the barbed short sword in order to indicate his willingness to use it.

  The figure slowed to a halt and then bowed low.

  “Speak up,” Gorn demanded. “That’s an order.”

  “Brother-Captain!” warned Rafen.

  The Flesh Tearer glared at him across the glossy black ceramite of his shoulder plates. “Sergeant—”

  In the instant his eyes left the hooded figure, the attack came. It was a blur of action, almost too swift for the Astartes to catch the full motion of it. The robes burst open and a taloned hand of deep red-purple flesh shot forth. Palm flat and fingers in a blade, it extended beyond normal reach and caressed the skin of Gorn’s neck where the Flesh Tearer’s throat was bare.

  A gout of crimson fluid arced into the air, steaming in the cold. The captain’s hand’s swept up to clutch at the wound, a strangled cry escaping him; but only for a moment. On the back-stroke the talons twisted and tore into the cut they had just made and opened it wider.

  Gorn stumbled toward the hooded figure and it leapt upon him, the two of them crashing to the deck.

  A ripple of hesitation shot through the men, none of them willing to fire the first shot for fear of hitting Captain Gorn. Noxx bounded forward, his flaying knife hissing from its scabbard.

  There was a grinding, crunching noise and Gorn’s head separated from his body, rolling away across the blast plating. Blood spat in pulsing fountains as the hooded killer nuzzled into the stump of the captain’s neck.

  Puluo’s heavy bolter sang, the cruciform muzzle flare backlighting the Space Marine. Gorn’s slaughterer was blown backward, the dense rounds ripping cloth and ruddy flesh alike. Incredibly, it skidded about and tried to stand up once more. Skin, talons and bony arches flexed beneath the shredding robes.

  “Movement!” called Ajir, shouting to be heard over the roar of the support weapon. “Above!”

  Rafen looked up, to the spaces overhead he had scrutinised only moments ago. Pieces of the roof detached and fell toward them, air snapping through cloaks as they dropped. But there was nothing up there… The preysight showed no heat sources…

  He pushed the thought away and bellowed a command. “Weapons free!”

  Lightning-flash discharges of yellow cordite exhaust flared all about him as a dozen bolters released their force all at once. He heard Corvus and Kayne shouting the Emperor’s reproach at their enemies, adding to the cacophony of the clash.

  Ajir fired a three-round burst into something fast and howling. He couldn’t be certain if the bolts found purchase; his attacker did not seem to slow. The mutant ploughed into him with a bone-shaking impact that threw them both against one of the Thunderhawk’s support legs. It pressed into him, shoving Ajir back so he could not bring his bolter to bear, scraping and clawing at his armour as if it wanted to climb inside with him. Eyes red as madness glared from a knotted and deformed head, and a hot slaughterhouse stink of foul breath washed over Ajir, disgusting him. He punched and butted the creature, but it was like striking a piece of leathery meat. No blow he landed seemed to make any difference to the hooting, spitting freak. Ajir tried to twist away as its neck extended grotesquely, jaws running wide to display the barbs of curved canine teeth. It went for the jugular vein on his neck, but Ajir struggled and instead the lamprey mouth bit a twist of skin and meat off his cheek.

  Holding him locked in its obscene embrace, the mutant probed into the wound it had just made, sucking at the rush of blood. The Space Marine kicked out and felt a bone break beneath the heel of his armoured boot. The creature spat and drew him fighter, the sinuous limbs distending into forms closer to tentacles than arms.

  The rattling snarl of a chainsword came closer and Ajir saw another armoured figure at the edge of his vision. The unmistakable sound of spinning blades meeting bare flesh reached his ears and the mutant howled, suddenly releasing him.

  Ajir’s rescuer pressed the weapon into his attacker’s spine and let the weight of his blow do the rest. The matrix of adamantium teeth churned the ruddy flesh into ragged gobbets and pierced the beast’s abdomen, opening it to the air. It fell away with a gargling screech, only hanks of sinew and bared white bone keeping the two halves of the torso together. It shuddered and bled out in surges, still clinging to life.

  Swearing, Ajir fumbled for his helmet where it hung upon his belt, cursing himself for being foolish enough to go without it. His comrade came closer, offering him a hand to steady himself. “That’ll scar well,” said Turcio.

  Ajir ignored the hand and got up, burning with annoyance.

  “Not even a thank you?” said the other Blood Angel. “Or is it beneath you to show gratitude to a penitent?”

  He said nothing and took a step toward the gasping mutant as it tried to drag itself away. Ajir touched his gun barrel to its head and pulled the trigger.

  Their attackers moved with a speed that seemed impossible for things of such density and bulk, propelling themselves with the sheer force of oversized bunches of muscles, or clawing from point to point, scrambling over gantries and across the fuselage of parked ships.


  Rafen heard a deep wail and spun in place as Noxx came closer, irritably reloading his weapon. The death-cry was from another of the Flesh Tearers; three mutants fell upon him and tore his limbs from his body, retreating into the shadows with their grisly prizes as bolt rounds snapped after them.

  “Warp-cursed things,” spat the veteran sergeant, “they soak up shots like they were rainfall!”

  Rafen fired into the dark at a hazy shape, and heard the thud of impacts. The creatures were retreating now, and silence descended, broken only by the moan of injured men and the rattle of spent shells rolling at their feet. With Noxx a step behind, he crossed the deck to where a mess of meat lay strewn over a metre’s length of flooring. The creatures had left little of Captain Gorn behind in their frenzied assault.

  He hesitated, a piece of clawed, fractured armour plate at his feet, the saw-tooth sigil of the Flesh Tearers staring up at him. “This is no way for an Astartes to perish,” he said quietly.

  “The Emperor knows his name,” Noxx offered. “I always believed Captain Gorn’s overconfidence would be the death of him.”

  The two sergeants exchanged glances, in a rare moment of shared understanding. “The beast in the pit. The clone,” said Rafen. “These are the same.”

  Noxx shook his head. “Not the same. Stronger.”

  “Aye.” He paused, thinking. “They shirked the preysight. They were of a larger mass, but faster with it. How is that possible?”

  “The one we fought, it only mutated at the very end. Perhaps these…” He gestured at the wet streaks across the decking. “Perhaps they have evolved.”

  “It’s the blood,” Rafen grated, remembering the desperate hunger in the eyes of the creature in the arena. He saw Noxx’s hand drift to his shoulder, where the beast had bitten into him. “The more they ingest, the stronger they become.” He shook his head. “The one that killed Gorn… Nothing should be able to withstand the barrage from a heavy bolter.”

  “Like the old legends,” Noxx’s voice dropped to a whisper. “The blood-letters, the man-predators. The vampire.”

  The ancient curse-word drew a sharp look from the sergeant. “These things are malforms. Twisted mutations bred in some vial.” He looked up as the rest of the men approached, Blood Angel and Flesh Tearer alike. “Our mission remains the same. Execute them all.”

  “What about Brother Caecus?” asked Kayne, absently nursing his bandaged hand. “And the rest of the brethren in this place?”

  “The majoris is beyond our reach now.” Rafen’s face set in a grim mask. “Survivors are of a secondary consideration. We all saw what those things can do.” He cast around. “How many of us were there? And how many of them did we kill?”

  “We barely marked them,” said Turcio.

  Puluo nodded. “They cannot be allowed to leave the citadel.”

  Ajir was fuming. “Aye. Those creatures are an offence against our bloodline!”

  “This facility is as broad as it is deep,” said Roan, turning to Noxx. “It will take us days to sweep every tier.”

  “And we have no idea how many of those beasts await us down there, or how quickly they are changing. They fight with tooth and claw now, but how long until they take up guns and flamers?” Noxx watched Rafen steadily. “I believe a more immediate solution is required.”

  “We agree on something at last, then.” Rafen nodded and beckoned Corvus to him. “Brother. You studied the design of this place during the flight here. Where is the citadel’s terminatus chamber?”

  “You intend to obliterate the entire complex?” asked Turcio. “Lord, is that wise?”

  “The Vitalis Citadel is built upon a geothermal vent,” explained Corvus. “A mineral aquifer heated by a magma chamber kilometres below the surface.” He pointed at the exchanger pipes across the walls. “Channelled by the works of the Mechanicus, it provides warmth and power for the whole facility. The terminatus chamber contains a governance system that will disengage the vent’s regulator.”

  “Anything the Mechanicus create, an Astartes can destroy,” said Rafen. “And we are beyond the point of a surgical strike now.” He looked up. “We kill this place, and we kill those monstrous freaks with it.”

  None of the assembled men questioned the severe logic of the statement.

  Corvus produced his auspex and held it up. On the screen, a wire-frame map showed a skeletal model of the complex’s layout. “The terminatus chamber is below us, Lord. Ten tiers down.”

  Rafen nodded. “Kayne, Turcio. Remain here and guard the Thunderhawk. If you are overrun, get into the sky and stand off. Wait for my recall signal.”

  The two Blood Angels saluted. Noxx nodded at a pair of his men. “You and you, assist them.”

  There was a flurry of activity as the Space Marines took a moment to prepare themselves, reloading their weapons and checking the integrity of their armour. Rafen allowed a long, slow breath to escape his lips.

  “Into the arena once again,” said Noxx. “But a different one this time.”

  “Aye,” agreed the Blood Angel. “There’ll be no reprieves here.”

  Caecus had lost sensation in his right arm after he had fended off the fourth - or perhaps it was the fifth?—of the attacks. The useless limb dangled at his side, all purpled meat and white bone protruding from torn and sodden remains of his sleeve. A steady drip of blood fell from his nerveless fingers, dotting the floor as a measure of his passing. He was drawing a line across the heart of the madness, up along the spiralling stairs, down the corridors. He wondered what he would find at the end of it.

  Pain made it hard for him to think clearly. Claw wounds covered his body, the cuts both shallow and deep, singing with new jolts of agony each time he took a step. He could feel the fevered work of his Larraman implant as it struggled against the blood loss; it was a battle the Space Marine’s body would eventually lose.

  At first, Caecus could not understand why the bastard Fabius had not simply murdered him as he had Fenn, the other Apothecaries, even his servant Nyniq. It came to him in fits and starts as the mutant clone-Marines attacked, drove him out of the laboratorium and back through the reeking halls of the citadel. The Chaos renegade was amused by it. He was watching in some fashion, perhaps through the scrying monitors in the corridors, perhaps through the eyes of the mutants themselves. The creatures did not come at him all at once, and if they had he would have been dead in moments. No, they had chosen to end him slowly, through attrition. At intervals, the Bloodfiends dropped from the dark or thundered into him, cutting and beating, then fleeing into the shadows once again. Without a weapon, he was reduced to fighting barehanded, but they were so very fast and he was slowing with each step, bleeding out, struggling to place one foot in front of the other.

  He was dying by inches, and he had nothing to show for it.

  “No!” The shout escaped him with sudden vehemence. Caecus spat bloody spittle from his bruised lips. “I am not done, not as long as I have… I have it…” His good hand fumbled at the pockets of the matted, sodden robes, looking for the vial that he had carried back from the Chapel of the Red Grail. Dread rising in his gullet, Caecus pulled at the pocket and his hand emerged through a claw-rent torn in the material. “Empty…?” He felt as hollow as the word he spoke. “No.”

  The glass tube was gone. He turned in place, stumbling backward, searching the floor for it. The pain of the numberless cuts made him list on his thickset feet. The blood. The mingled blood of a hundred centuries of priests and the primarch himself, the raw vitae of his Chapter, lost. Caecus let out a moan, voicing an agony deeper than any other. “What have I done?”

  He thought he could hear mocking laughter in the distance, faint and scornful. Not lost, then. Taken. Taken by Fabius. Caecus’ good hand reached up to his face and he felt hot tears streaking his bruised cheeks. He stumbled and collapsed.

  He awoke with a start, an icy-cold sensation at his throat. Caecus blinked and found himself surrounded by towering shapes in red
and black ceramite. There was the hiss of a narthecium injector. The cold rushed into him and some clarity returned to his thoughts. The pain seemed distant and trivial.

  “It’s him,” said a low voice, close to his ear. “The majoris.”

  One of the giants bent low. Caecus saw a blurry face. Anger radiated from the dark-haired warrior like heat. “Is he alive?”

  “Barely.” The low voice came again, with hesitation. “If we get him back to the Thunderhawk, there’s a chance he might survive. The medicae-servitor on board can induce a sleep of stasis.”

  “Caecus,” said the angry one. “It’s Brother-Sergeant Rafen.”

  “Lord, did you—”

  Rafen looked in a direction where Caecus’ head could not turn. “I heard what you said. Now step away, Corvus.”

  He tried to speak. The first attempt was a thin wheeze. “It is much worse than you think,” he managed, at last. “They are loose. The Bloodfiends… The hand of Chaos is behind it.” Caecus’ breath caught in the words and he coughed up black blood. Something inside him was broken, he could feel it with every laboured breath he took. “Fabius Bile. He is here.”

  The Blood Angel snatched at his robes and pulled him up. “Here?” he snarled. “On the home world?” Some of the other Space Marines spat reflexively at the mention of the renegade’s name. Rafen’s face darkened as he struggled to control his anger. “This is your mistake, you self-absorbed fool! You opened the door to this.”

  “I gave him what he wanted…” He managed a nod. “I will be damned for my hubris. I will be damned…”

  Rafen released his grip and the Apothecae fell back against the wall. “So you will,” came the reply. The black maw of a bolter rose to fill his vision. “Caecus. In the Chapter’s name, I judge you and find you wanting. You will find no forgiveness in the Emperor’s light.”

  “So be it.” He managed another breath, a strange kind of calm coming over him as at last he embraced the truth of his failings. “I deserve nothing less.”