There Is Only War

by Various

  ‘What about the Stormraven?’ Maion’s face hardened. ‘The courtyard is uncovered, even a glancing hit from a siege gun and– ’

  ‘We needn’t worry about artillery,’ Barbelo interrupted. ‘I have fought this enemy before. They are like us.’

  Maion glared at the sergeant, ‘You would liken us to the Archenemy?’

  ‘You have fought beside our Chapter’s Death Company?’

  Maion nodded, his unease growing at the mention of the Chapter’s damned warriors. The Black Rage was a genetic curse that threatened to overwhelm all of the sons of Sanguinius. Once afflicted, a Flesh Tearer would be lost to battle lust, his sanity replaced by a desperate need for violence. Those that succumbed to the madness where inducted into the ranks of the black-armoured Death Company where they’d soon find redemption in death.

  ‘Like our coal-armoured brethren, the enemy we face is lost to bloodlust. They are fuelled by an insatiable rage, ever hungry for battle. They will want to taste our blood when they kill us,’ Barbelo tested the weight of his chainsword. ‘They will not attack from range.’

  With the storm’s howl locked outside, silence permeated the chapel. Harahel moved ahead of Nisroc, his eyes adjusting to the change in light as a string of angular luminators hummed into life along the ceiling, filling the corridor with the hushed yellow glow the Imperial church reserved for religious buildings and the homes of cardinals.

  Harahel smelt blood. He touched his thumb to the activation stud on his eviscerator, ‘Stand ready.’

  Nisroc raised his bolt pistol, letting its scope feed targeting data to his helmet display. He knew better than to question Harahel’s instincts.

  From the reception chamber, they entered the Hall of Solace, a long corridor with single-occupant prayer cells joining it every few metres. The two Space Marines stopped. Dried blood and fleshy matter coated the metal floor ahead of them, paving the way like the regal carpet of some warp-spawned fiend.

  Nisroc knelt and extended a probe from his narthecium, using it to scrape away a fragment of gore. A line of genetic sequence flashed across his display as the probe finished its analysis. ‘Sanguinius gut them,’ the Apothecary slammed his fist into the ground, cracking the metal panelling. ‘This blood belongs to the Chapter.’

  Harahel tightened his grip on his weapon as his pulse began to quicken. He swallowed hard in an attempt to stop salivating. ‘Blood calls out to blood,’ Harahel recited the battle mantra as he fought down the urge to tear apart the walls.

  ‘The main chapel lies at the far end,’ Nisroc spoke as the chrono display flashed a warning in his display. ‘Time is–’

  ‘Advance behind me,’ Harahel activated his eviscerator, the weapon’s barbed blades impatiently churning the air as they search for something to rend. ‘If anyone emerges, shoot them.’ Harahel spat the words through a pool of saliva. He dropped his weight and flexed his knees.

  Nisroc nodded and slammed a fresh clip into his bolt pistol.

  ‘For the Chapter!’ Harahel broke into a run, the servos in his armour whirring as he picked up pace. The enhanced musculature of his thighs powered him forward at a speed that belied his bulk, an engine of ceramite and fury. ‘One, clear. Two, clear,’ Harahel looked left and right as he ran, updating Nisroc as his armour’s optical and audio sensors checked and recorded the disposition of each of the prayer cells in a heartbeat. ‘Three–’

  Las-rounds stabbed at Harahel from either side.

  ‘Contacts, five through nine,’ Harahel kept running, ignoring the smattering of fire coming from the cells. Most shots went wide, his powerful strides carrying him past the cell openings before his attackers could take aim. A handful of rounds grazed his armour, picking the paint from his war plate. Harahel growled. The combination of his helmet’s vox amplifier and the hall’s acoustics amplifying his annoyance until it filled the corridor like the roar of some terrible beast.

  ‘Keep moving,’ Nisroc opened fire. His bolt pistol bucked in his hand as he sent three traitors sprawling to the floor, their heads blasted from their malnourished shoulders. ‘Your rear is secure.’

  Harahel blinked an acknowledgement to Nisroc and pushed onwards. He was nearing the last cluster of prayer cells. His targeting overlay lit up with data, tracking the trajectory of the three fist-sized globes that rolled onto the corridor in front of him. ‘Grenades!’ Harahel bellowed a warning to the Apothecary, and threw himself into the nearest prayer cell as the devices exploded, avoiding the wash of flame and shrapnel that billowed out from them. He heard a muffled cry and a wrenching snap as the cell’s occupant’s bones broke under his immense bulk. Harahel snorted and picked the dead man up by his skull.

  ‘Harahel?’ Nisroc’s voice crackled in Harahel’s ear.

  ‘I am unharmed,’ Harahel emerged from the cell carrying the head of the dead traitor by the spinal cord, his gauntlet slick with blood.

  ‘The way is clear brother.’

  ‘No, there is one left, there,’ Harahel tossed the dismembered head into the cell opposite. A man screamed, firing on reflex as the head landed with a wet mulch.

  Nisroc stepped into the cell, allowing his armour to filter out the smell of excrement. The man had the nose of his lasgun pressed inside his mouth. His eyes trembled as they looked up at the Flesh Tearer. The Apothecary growled. The man juddered, reflexively pulling the trigger. The single las-round blew apart his skull, painting the wall behind him with superheated brain matter. Nisroc turned from the corpse to find Harahel on bended knee, his helmet discarded at his side. The veins in the other Flesh Tearer’s forehead were threatening to push through his skin, his brow ran with sweat. Nisroc took a tentative step towards Harahel, his finger resting on the trigger of his bolt pistol.

  ‘Stay back!’ Harahel held a hand out to the Apothecary.

  Nisroc resisted the urge to fire, ‘Control yourself! Now is not the time. The Archenemy has taken the lives of our brothers.’ Nisroc gestured to the arched doors of the chapel, ‘We must know what lies behind those doors.’

  Harahel said nothing, saliva dripped from his mouth to burn away at the floor.

  ‘On your feet, Flesh Tearer! You can report to Appollus as soon as we return to the Victus, I’m sure he’ll welcome you into the Death Company. But right now, you need to get to your feet or, Emperor help me, I’ll put a bolt-round through that thick skull of yours.’

  Harahel titled his head to look up at the Apothecary, his eyes bloodshot.

  ‘On your feet.’ Nisroc proffered Harahel his helmet. ‘Use your rage for something useful, like getting through that door.’

  Harahel took the helmet and locked it in place. ‘Never threaten me again, brother.’ He regarded the fusion marks on the chapel doors. Someone had welded them shut from the outside. He took a step back and then drove forwards, slamming his armoured shoulder into the weld-line. The metal buckled. Harahel brought his knee up and kicked out, the doors snapped inwards. A bank of suspended luminators stuttered into life as he stepped into the chamber.

  ‘Emperor save us…’

  The mutilated corpses of eight Flesh Tearers decorated the curved walls of the chapel. Fixed in place by the blades of their chainswords, they hung like nightmare visages of the saints that decorated Cretacia’s Reclusiasms. Their armour was pitted and dented from numerous impacts and lacerations; their helms had been torn from their locking mounts, mangling their gorgets; all that remained of their faces were sunken husks, matted with bloodied hair.

  ‘Blood of Sanguinius,’ Nisroc fell to one knee, the desecration of his brother’s flesh staggering him.

  ‘Blood will bring blood,’ with a grunt of effort, Harahel pulled the blade from the nearest of corpses. The dead Flesh Tearer’s remains made a dull thud as they dropped to the ground. Harahel stared at the deep hole in the chapel wall; the blade had been driven through the outer rock into the metal support behind. ‘It t
ook great strength to do this.’

  Nisroc nodded, and cast his gaze around the chamber. The plaster finish and faux-brickwork of the walls was undamaged. The flagstones that paved the way to the raised, wooden alter were unblemished save for a single dark spot left behind by an errant blood droplet. ‘They weren’t killed here,’ Nisroc pushed himself to his feet. ‘There’s no sign of battle. Someone brought them here.’ The Apothecary struggled to talk, grinding his teeth in rage ‘After.’

  Harahel snarled. ‘Brother-sergeant,’ he summoned Barbelo over the vox. Static filled his ear as he waited for a response. ‘Emperor damn this storm,’ the Flesh Tearer punched the wall, cracking it in a cloud of plaster-dust.

  ‘Report,’ Barbelo’s voice crackled back.

  ‘We have cleared the chapel annex.’ Harahel paused as another burst of static shot across the vox-link, ‘Eight of our brothers lie here.’

  ‘Status?’

  ‘Dead. All of them.’ Harahel turned his eyes from the corpses, his fists bunching in restrained fury as he glared at the aquila etched on the floor.

  ‘Show me.’

  Harahel closed his eyes. He had no wish to look upon the massacre a second time. Activating his helmet’s visual feed, he panned his head around the room, streaming what his optics registered to the others.

  For a long moment, the vox-link fell silent.

  ‘Nisroc, get what you came for. Harahel, meet us at the Stormraven.’ Barbelo’s voice rasped through another bout of static.

  Six minutes. Time continued to count down at the edge of Maion’s peripheral display. The Archenemy’s army was almost at their door. ‘Let them come,’ he snarled, affixing the last of the melta-charges to the crossbeam that supported the ceiling. The charge was directional, and he’d taken care to make sure that the blast would travel down the corridor away from where he and Micos would be positioned.

  ‘Brother,’ Harahel’s voice rasped over a secure channel, ‘Back in the armoury, we gutted the traitors without incident. The ones in the command centre put up no more of a fight.’

  Maion knew where Harahel was headed. ‘Yes, I had the same thought.’

  ‘How could such, such filth,’ Harahel spat the word, ‘have overcome our brethren? Those weaklings could scarcely have lifted a chainsword, let alone driven it into solid rock.’

  Maion brought the percentile counter that recorded the progress of the data-stack download to the forefront of his helmet’s display. It ticked down slow and deliberate, like a dying man’s laboured breath. ‘Emperor willing, we’ll live long enough to find out.’ Maion sighed and blinked the counter away.

  ‘Jetpack assault troops. Bearing down on the courtyard,’ Amaru’s voice cut across on the main channel, interrupting Harahel’s reply. The Techmarine was still jacked into the compound’s data banks in the inner sanctum and was observing the Archenemy’s advance through a remote-link with the Stormraven’s sensors. The Archenemy’s jetpack squad appeared as solid red blips that drifted over the landscape and grew in size as they neared. ‘I count six of them…’ Amaru’s voice trailed off as he worked a calculation. ‘Harahel, you will not clear the courtyard before they descend.’

  Harahel emerged from the chapel annex and growled up into the blackness of Arere’s starless sky, his enhanced eyes searching for the tell-tale flares of jetpacks. ‘I see no enemy.’

  ‘I assure you brother, they are coming.’

  ‘They’re a vanguard, nothing more.’ Barbelo growled over the vox-feed, his impatience evident in every syllable. ‘Harahel, ignore them and get to my position. The main force will hit us in less than five minutes. Amaru, cover his advance.’

  The Techmarine blinked an acknowledgment icon to Barbelo and concentrated on communicating with the Stormraven’s machine-spirit. The gunship’s sentient mind was silent, almost dormant. It resisted Amaru’s gentle interrogation, blocking his attempts to rouse it.

  ‘My skin for yours.’ The Techmarine invited the machine-spirit into his armour as he probed deeper into the gunship. The connection sent a spasm through his muscles as he gained access to the Stormraven’s weapon systems. Amaru teased power into the gunship’s turret-mounted assault cannons.

  ‘Battle,’ the machine-spirit whispered in the Techmarine’s head as it stirred to readiness.

  The red-blips pulsed on Amaru’s display as the enemy neared weapons range. He cycled the twin-assault cannons to firing speed, their multiple barrels whirring with a metallic hiss as the autoloader fed them rounds.

  ‘Enemy.’ The word growled from within the Stormraven’s machine soul, washing through Amaru’s mind like the strained rumble of thruster backwash. It was awake now, wearing the Stormraven like a suit of ceramite war plate, wielding its turret-mounted weapon with the same ease and precision that a Flesh Tearer hefted a blade.

  A sound wave spiked across Amaru’s display as the Stormraven’s auditory sensors detected the roar of enemy jetpacks. The Chaos Space Marines were gunning their thrusters, slowing their descent.

  ‘Purge the heretics.’ the Techmarine urged the gunship to open fire.

  The enraged machine-spirit obliged. The twin-assault cannon’s twelve barrels flared into life, lighting up the sky like miniature starbursts as they fired. Caught unaware, the Chaos Space Marines dived straight into the fusillade. The first three died in a heartbeat, their armour and flesh torn asunder by the unceasing hail of armour piercing rounds.

  Harahel was two-thirds of the way across the courtyard when the assault cannons opened fire. He risked a glance skyward and saw the visceral red power armour of the Archenemy’s warriors. Their breastplates were shaped like cruel gargoyles and snarled at him from the darkness. A burst of rounds clipped the nearest of the Traitor Marines, blowing apart his thrusters in a shower of flame. The enemy warrior veered downwards towards Harahel, carried by what remained of his earlier momentum. The Flesh Tearer smiled and swung his eviscerator up through the stricken Chaos Space Marine’s ribcage, ripping him in two. Harahel kept moving, tearing his giant weapon through the body of another foe that slammed into the earth in front of him a moment later. The Flesh Tearer bit into his lip, relishing the taste of his own blood as he pounded towards Barbelo and the slaughter to come.

  Amaru watched as the Stormraven continued to track and fire. He felt his pulse quicken to the hoarse wheeze of the assault cannon’s barrels as they spun. Several more of the red blips disappeared from his display, shredded by the gunships’ unerring fire. The Techmarine could feel the machine-spirit’s cold rage, its lust for violence and the gleeful abandon with which it massacred the enemy. He gasped, clutching the cables that linked him to the compound’s datastacks, and fought the urge to sever the link. He needed to be outside with the Stormraven, fighting, killing. His body began to tremble as he tried to restrain his urges. The download sequence was in its final stage, any interruption now would corrupt the data. Amaru dropped to one knee, screaming in rage as the machine-spirit’s emotions threatened to overcome him. ‘My work is iron, my will steel.’ The Techmarine held his clenched fist against the machine-cog on his left pauldron as he growled his way through the devotion, ‘I shall not falter, I shall not heel.’ Defend, he forced the order onto the machine spirit and drew his mind away, severing the link to the gunship and the violence outside.

  Panting hard, Amaru focused on finishing the protocol. ‘There is no truth beyond the data, it is the muniment of the future. Guard it well.’ Download complete, Amaru unplugged from the datastacks and completed the rites of remembrance, secreting the data-keeper within his armour. The Techmarine let out a slow breath as the after-shadow of the Raven and the compound fell away, and the confines of his world reasserted themselves.

  Alone in his armour, he took reassurance from the cold, impassive touch of the bionics and augmetics that punctuated his body. Perfect where he was flawed, the machine components of the Techmarine would continue to
function long after The Rage drove his flesh to destruction. ‘Download complete,’ Amaru voxed the update to the rest of the squad and pushed himself to his feet.

  ‘Nisroc, status?’ Barbelo’s voice crackled over the vox.

  ‘I need three minutes,’ Maion listened to the Apothecary’s reply as the chrono-counter on his display blinked down to one.

  He stood immobile in the darkness. His gaze fixed on the heavy blast doors at the far end of the corridor, as the chrono display floating at the edge of his peripheral vision blinked down to zero. The attack had begun. If Barbelo was right and this enemy did indeed wage war like the Flesh Tearers, then they would have fallen upon the outer walls with all the fury of a scorned god. Maion imagined the scene outside, picturing the Archenemy’s forces as they descended on the compound. Vindicator siege tanks would have led an armoured charge, unleashing a devastating bombardment as accompanying Rhinos and Razorbacks disgorged frothing assault squads. With the siege shells exploding overhead, the assault troops would use melta weapons and crackling thunder hammers to finish the job, smashing an entry hole into the compound. Right now, the Archenemy would be tearing towards him and the others like a swarm of berserker locusts.

  Yet the scene ahead remained unchanged, the blast door intact. The only sound Maion could hear was the gentle purr of his armour and the wash of his rebreather. His muscles twitched. The urge to break from his defensive posture and meet the enemy head on was almost overwhelming.

  ‘The longer you stand, the more blood you can spill,’ Micos placed a calming hand on Maion’s shoulder guard, reading the other Flesh Tearer’s mood. ‘Save your fury, we’ll be steeped in their entrails soon enough.’ Micos thrust his chainaxe towards the blast door as a trio of sparks dripped to the floor.

  Maion nodded, allowing Micos’s words to soften the call to violence that rang in his mind like the summoning gong of an ancient arena. The other Flesh Tearer looked odd in Atoc’s helm. Atoc, Maion’s anger returned in force as he thought of his brother’s death. His knuckles turning bone white inside his gauntlets as he squeezed his weapons, desperate for something to rend. Another burst of super-heated metal flared in the gloom. He blinked away a myriad of tactical icons from his display; he was going to kill whatever came through the blast doors, nothing else mattered.