The smile dropped from the envoy’s face. ‘We shall speak, you and I, once you are back in the fold.’
The daemon was staring at Khârn.
‘Why do you stare, daemon-spawn?’ said Khârn, returning its gaze. ‘What do you see?’
The Blood Father’s mark is upon you, Betrayer, said the daemon. Dreagher heard the daemon’s words in his mind. It made him want to spit.
Betrayer. It was spoken like a curse. Dreagher’s teeth ground together. The urge to kill was rising. He fought it down.
‘Betrayer,’ said Khârn, speaking the word slowly, as if weighing it up in his mind. ‘That is a title of ill-portent that you choose for me, creature.’
The daemon seemed unable to remain still. It constantly bobbed on the spot, its serpentine body acting like a spring. Its maw gaped and clacked.
The skeins of the future unravel before me, Betrayer, the daemon whispered in its hundred-layered voice.
‘You know the future, you say, creature?’
I see things that may yet come to be. Some threads are strong. Definite. Immutable. Others are slender and fragile, in constant flux. In all the myriad futures, you are there. Worlds will burn at your behest.
‘All threads can be cut,’ said Khârn.
Dreagher saw the daemon pause its incessant movement, eyes narrowing, as if trying to penetrate a thick fog. If the lord emissary noticed the daemon’s reaction, he gave no indication.
‘Why do we listen to this… thing?’ growled Solax, speaking across a closed circuit in Nagrakali. ‘It speaks nothing but poison.’
I speak the truth, son of Karanath, said the daemon in response, its head snapping around and locking on Solax. As I have to a thousand others so I speak the truth to you now.
‘Watch your tongues and guard your thoughts, brothers,’ said Dreagher. ‘It hears us.’
‘Enough,’ said the Emperor’s Children lord emissary, his voice taking on a harder edge. All the warmth in it had gone, leaving only ice. ‘Let us speak plainly. The Third Legion has claimed this system. Here, we shall rebuild. Here, we shall rise again. I want you and your rabble gone.’
Khârn stared at the lord emissary, not saying anything. Silence descended; even the wind quietened, as if holding its breath.
‘Well?’ said the lord emissary. ‘Will you leave on good terms, a friend to the Third Legion? Or will you force our hand?’
Dreagher saw Khârn’s fingers drum a pattern on the hilt of Gorechild.
‘Speak, you savage,’ spat the lord emissary, all semblance of civility slipping from him, like a shroud dropping. ‘Speak your piece now, or begone.’
‘Our Legions were never friends,’ said Khârn. ‘Not during the years of the Great Crusade, not when we had both pledged ourselves to the Warmaster’s cause. We are not friends now. And we will never be friends.’
‘The Third Legion does not wish there to be bloodshed between us,’ said the envoy. ‘Friend or no, we remain allies, or at the very least not foes. Our cause is as one. Let us reserve our hatred for Guilliman’s get, for the rigid sons of Dorn, for the hounds of Russ, and the Khan’s barbarians.’
‘The Fifth Legion always had our respect,’ said Khârn. ‘More than can be said for the Third.’
The Emperor’s Children envoy bristled, but Khârn turned away from him, his gaze seeking Dreagher. His eyes were burning.
‘You wish to see a unified Twelfth Legion, yes?’ he said in a low voice.
‘More than anything,’ Dreagher replied.
His back still to the lord emissary, Khârn loosened the grip on Gorechild. The haft ran through his fingers, its massive mica-dragon toothed blade slipping towards the ground. Before it hit, he tightened his hold, clasping it firmly around its leather-bound grip.
Immediately, the Emperor’s Children had weapons in hand, barrels and blades levelled at Khârn.
The three Palatine Blades that guarded the envoy had stepped smoothly forward, interposing themselves between their lord and Khârn, massive swords held ready. The blade Argentus sung from its scabbard as Galerius drew his own weapon, its tip aimed at Khârn’s neck.
The World Eaters responded automatically. Chainaxes roared throatily as they were urged to life, and bolters, plasma guns and autocannons were brought to bear.
Baruda had his gladius drawn at Galerius’s back, ready to drive it into his spine.
‘This is insanity,’ hissed Argus Brond.
‘You would lead our Legions to war, equerry?’ spat the Emperor’s Children envoy, his face twisted in a scowl. ‘I thought you were meant to be the rational one. Or have those repulsive implants in your head finally turned your brain to pulp, just as they did to your insane gene-father?’
Khârn stared at the envoy, unblinking. He did not answer immediately. He had made no further hostile move, but nor had he relinquished his grasp on Gorechild’s haft.
Dreagher knew how fast Khârn was. He knew that he could go from inaction to killing in a fraction of a heartbeat. Even unarmed he was dangerous; with the primarch’s weapon in hand, he was nigh unstoppable.
Everyone’s focus was on Khârn. Every eye watched him; every sense was honed upon him, waiting for him to make his move.
When finally he spoke, he did not raise his voice.
‘I will not be the one to start the war,’ he said. ‘But I will be the one to finish it.’
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, as if it were occurring underwater.
Dreagher’s bolt pistol was in his hand. He had it raised, levelled at the III Legion envoy’s head.
Everyone had been so focused on Khârn; they didn’t react quickly enough to the true threat.
Weapons that had been trained on Khârn swung towards Dreagher. The trio of Palatine Blades, in stepping forward to confront Khârn, had inadvertently given Dreagher a clear shot. He couldn’t miss. They turned, registering – too late – the imminent threat to their lord. None of them was going to be fast enough.
Galerius turned, Argentus swinging for Dreagher’s neck – but he also was too slow.
Dreagher squeezed the trigger, twice in quick succession.
Boom. Boom.
The envoy’s head exploded.
‘Nothing unifies like a war,’ he breathed.
Then everyone started shooting.
Chapter 15
The roar of gunfire was deafening. Scores died in those first, opening moments.
Argentus arced in for Dreagher’s throat – he had no possible chance of avoiding it – but it never landed. A massive armoured mitt caught the blade as it sang for his blood.
The curved chainfists slung beneath Ruokh’s immense powered gauntlets roared, but before he could ram them into Galerius’s body, heavy bolter fire struck him in the face. It was not enough to penetrate his angular helm, but he staggered back under the onslaught, relinquishing his grasp on Argentus.
He turned towards the source of the gunfire, and leapt into the fray. No doubt he was screaming and roaring like a beast, but his vox was still silenced.
Galerius swung again, but this time his blade met Dreagher’s wide-bladed gladius. The two were momentarily locked together, pitting their strength against one another. Dreagher was the larger and more powerful of the two, but even so he strained to hold back the crackling blade Argentus.
‘What have you done?’ Galerius said.
‘What… I… must,’ replied Dreagher.
Then both of them were struck, bolts and high-velocity autocannon rounds ripping into them, smashing them apart.
Amidst the thunderous exchange, Khârn stood miraculously untouched, and, for the moment, unmoving. So too did the serpentine daemon… at least for a moment.
Betrayer, it said, its voice heard by every warrior on the field, despite the deafening roar of weapons and blood. Then it disappeared in a
wet explosion of ichor and fire, ripped apart by high-calibre weapons fire.
Betrayer.
‘Skulls for the Skull Throne!’ roared the Blood Priest, Baruda, as he ran, closing the distance with the Emperor’s Children.
He had his heavy spiked power maul in his hands, though he didn’t recall drawing it. The killing had already begun; standing idle now was not an option. There was nothing else to be done but to go forward.
His armour was splattered with blood. A World Eater standing beside Baruda had been one of the first to die, mass reactives detonating within his brainpan in the first seconds.
Tracer fire spat back and forth between the two forces, though markedly more came from the III Legion ranks. The weight of fire was like a solid wall. Baruda was struck half a dozen times, making him stumble even while they did not penetrate, though the press of the World Eaters kept his momentum moving forward. A searing beam of white-blue energy – lascannon – lanced through the XII Legion ranks, taking down half a dozen warriors, and missiles chased by smoking contrails screamed across the rapidly diminishing gulf between the two Legions before detonating, sending bodies and limbs flying, fire billowing up into the low-pressure atmosphere.
Sonic weaponry rippled the air, rupturing organs and bursting eardrums. Autocannons tore through tightly packed ranks, churning through power armour and meat. The thud of rapid-firing bolters was a constant staccato, like hail on an armoured rooftop. Gouts of plasma, burning with the heat of a sun’s core, spat into the World Eaters ranks, killing wherever they struck.
Less than twenty metres separated the Legions now, and the World Eaters would close that distance in two bounds. The enemy braced for the impact, some with blades at the ready, others firing on full auto to thin the tide in the moments before their lines met. Scores died in seconds. It was impossible not to hit something at this range. The warrior alongside Baruda fell face-first into the ground as if his legs had been cut from beneath him, a bolt blasting out of the back of his helmet.
A III Legion support squad stepped forward, raising the barrels of their flamers as one. There was no way to avoid what was to come, and so Baruda simply roared, even as the Emperor’s Children sent a wall of burning promethium crashing over the World Eaters ranks.
Searing, liquid flame engulfed him, blistering his armour and sending the temperature within sky-rocketing. His rubberised armour seals turned molten, and warning icons blinked in the corner of his visor as his plate’s integrity was compromised. His flesh began to burn, but he barely felt it; his system was flooding with stimms and pain repressors, and the Nails were starting to do their work.
For a second, Baruda couldn’t see anything, his vision obscured by the licking flames and acrid black smoke, but he didn’t need his eyes to know how close he was to his enemies.
He leapt, breaking free of the crackling fire, his power-sheathed maul raised high. He was still burning, flames licking along his arms and body, as he came down in front of one of the Emperor’s Children. He smashed his weapon down onto an enemy’s shoulder, driving him to the ground. Kicking the broken warrior away, Baruda launched himself forward, pushing deep into the Emperor’s Children ranks, laying about them.
The World Eaters smashed into the purple-armoured ranks like a tidal wave. The sound of plate crashing against plate was deafening. Chainaxes roared and power swords crackled, carving through armour and flesh. Blades met blades with sharp clashes of sparks, and pistols and bolters barked, punching warriors from their feet.
Baruda smashed his weapon into the face of an enemy – for the Emperor’s Children were now their enemies, there was no denying that – sending the legionary reeling. He followed up, ramming the butt of his weapon into the warrior’s throat, crushing his windpipe, then found himself facing one of the immense Terminator-armoured elite of the III Legion.
The point of a golden halberd thrust at his chest, humming with power. He deflected it with a downward chop, and stepped forward – always forward – to strike. His blow hit home, taking the Terminator in the side of his head, but it was like striking stone; the elite warrior didn’t so much as flinch.
The Terminator stepped to the side and brought the base of the halberd around, striking Baruda hard in the side of his helm. The force of the blow sent him smashing into one of his comrades, who was then dispatched, his head cleaved from crown to throat by a downward strike.
The World Eaters’ wild charge faltered as it struck the wall of Emperor’s Children Terminators. They broke up against them, like a tide against a cliff, blades and axes scarce able to penetrate their immense battleplate. Some fell, brought down by sheer weight of numbers and dispatched by blades slid between the plates of their armoured exoskeletons, but these were few. The Emperor’s Children had weathered the initial storm of blows against them and they struck back. Hard.
Dozens of the XII were slain, cut down by gleaming, golden halberds, their plate and bones crushed beneath the Terminators’ boots. They were taking a bloody toll on the World Eaters’ numbers, and had stalled their momentum.
Baruda swayed aside from the halberd’s axe head as it swung in for him, then darted forward, roaring with effort as he swung his maul around in a powerful arc. His strike met the halberd’s haft. There was no give in the Terminator at all, his already prodigious strength augmented by the monstrous servos and fibre-bundles of his armour. He pushed, throwing Baruda back into his kin.
A World Eater ran by him, bellowing as he swung a massive chain glaive at the Terminator. Before the blow could fall, however, he was impaled on the enemy’s weapon, and lifted bodily into the air, still roaring incoherently. Blood gushed from his punctured breastplate, but he was not yet done. He brought his glaive down on his foe, on one of the Terminator’s arms, sundering the armour encasing it and wrenching it out of shape.
The World Eater was dropped unceremoniously to the ground, though he was pinned in place by the halberd still impaling him. Releasing his grip on his glaive, the warrior grabbed hold of the halberd’s haft, holding it fast.
‘Take him,’ the legionary spat. ‘Claim his skull!’
Baruda was already moving, closing in on the Terminator. Another Emperor’s Children legionary swung at him, but he deflected the attack, pushing it high. He darted past the first Terminator, who was still struggling to regain control of its weapon, and dropping to one knee, smashed a heavy blow into the side of the warrior’s knee.
The joint gave way beneath a shower of sparks, and the Terminator crashed to the ground, making the earth shake. Baruda was on him in an instant, drawing his gladius. The tip of the blade found the gap behind the Terminator’s gorget. Without ceremony he used his weight to drive it down into the warrior’s body.
Baruda rose to his feet. He made to voice his thanks, but the legionary impaled on the halberd was dead. Two more Terminators advanced on Baruda, halberds lowered. He tightened his grip on his weapon and advanced to meet them.
A massive, red-armoured form crashed through the wild melee, smashing Baruda aside. The Blood Priest was knocked to one knee, and he snarled in anger.
‘Ruokh,’ he spat. Another World Eater was swept aside by the Caedere’s charge, condemning him; unbalanced, he was cut down by the enemy, first losing an arm to a scything blow, then being hurled backwards as an autocannon unleashed its fury at point-blank range, ripping him apart.
Uncaring of the mayhem left in his wake, Ruokh hurled himself at the enemy. He caught one of the halberds in a massive armoured mitt as it was thrust towards him, and ripped it from his enemy’s grasp, pulling the Terminator off balance. He ignored the second strike completely. The tip of a halberd embedded in his side, but did nothing to slow him; the wielder himself was pushed a metre backwards, his heavy boots carving deep furrows in the salt plains.
Ruokh threw himself on the first Terminator, tackling him to the ground. Kneeling on him, he punched one of the whirring chain
blades slung beneath his fists into his enemy’s chest, again and again. The teeth of his madly whirring blades screamed as they carved through his enemy’s breastplate and fused ribcage, rendering his flesh and organs within to bloody pulp.
Ruokh’s anvil-shaped helmet snapped up, covered in dripping gore, and his gaze locked on the other Terminator. That one swung at him, but he was too slow; moving with a speed that belied the bulk of his cataphractii tomb, Ruokh leapt at this new foe, ripping him apart with wild blows of his chainfists.
Fist-sized craters appeared on Ruokh’s hulking shoulders as the enemy turned their guns on him. In an instant, the Caedere butcher was up, launching himself off his latest kill and into the press of the enemy, who were desperately back pedalling, trying to put as much distance between them and the crazed killer as possible.
Hating the insane berserker but acknowledging the effectiveness of his primal fury and power, Baruda and the World Eaters around him surged into the breach in the enemy’s line that Ruokh had created.
‘Cut them down!’ he roared. ‘Blood for the Blood God!’
Galerius was alone in the midst of the World Eaters. He stood over the fallen Lord Anteus, envoy and lord emissary. He would not let the enemy defile him.
He’d crossed blades with Dreagher, but had lost him in the press. He was still reeling from the shock of Dreagher’s betrayal.
They surrounded him, attacking in one wild, uncontrolled mass, chainblades and axes roaring. It forced everything else aside.
He would dwell on this betrayal and its consequences later. For now, there was only the dance of blades.
His armour was cratered and smoking in a dozen places. Two rounds had punched through him, collapsing one lung, but it mattered not. He was among them now; they’d crashed over him in a wave as they surged towards the ranks of his brethren. This was where he was meant to be.
He had no need to consider who was friend and foe around him – everyone surrounding him was an enemy to be killed. His golden-hilted falchion sang as it cut the air.
A chainblade came in for him, teeth a jagged, screaming blur. Galerius swayed to the side and took the World Eater’s arm, shearing it off at the elbow. Blood spurted.
Khârn: Eater of Worlds Page 16
