by Andy Hoare
The officer, however, did see, and his eyes widened in utter horror as the Raven Guard descended upon pillars of fire to bring death from the blazing morning skies above Quintus.
As he descended, Shrike activated his talons, their gleaming blades coming alive with seething blue energies. The man’s face turned white with terror and his mouth flapped like a sucking chest wound.
And still, the platoon of defenders had no inkling of their fate.
And then, the Raven Guard were upon them. Shrike swooped in to land behind the officer. For an instant, the militia troopers were frozen in shock at the sight of the black-armoured warrior appearing from above. Then Shrike broke the spell, cutting the officer in half with a brutal swipe of a talon.
Before any could react, Shrike’s Command squad was in amongst the defenders, their own talons slashing out in every direction. The militia troopers were not at all prepared for action and were paralysed by fear. The Raven Guard made short work of the militia, none even managing to get a shot off so sudden was the attack. Within seconds, the stretch of the wall was slick with blood and gore, the effect of lightning claws on human flesh a startling lesson to behold, even for those well used to the sight.
But Shrike was already progressing to the next phase of the assault. A shout went up from a bastion along an adjacent stretch of the wall and moments later the sound of men running up steps was clearly audible. Now the attack would begin in earnest.
Shrike activated his jump pack and boosted into the courtyard below. Behind him, the other Assault squads were already spreading out along the wall. His armoured boots hit the rockcrete ground and Shrike scanned the area for enemies as an armoured hatch opened outwards in the side of a squat bunker.
His Command squad at his side, Shrike ran towards the hatch. As it opened fully a militia trooper rushed out, impaling himself upon Shrike’s talon before he even saw the attackers. Even as the eviscerated corpse slid from one talon, Shrike used the other to rip the hatch open fully. He expected more troopers to emerge, but there was a pause followed by an angry shout. Shrike sensed danger and ducked back. A second later a fusillade of heavy stubber fire ripped through the open hatchway. One of the defenders had set up a heavy weapon in the hope of dissuading the Raven Guard from entering the bunker through the hatch.
An angry grunt sounded from nearby, accompanied by the sudden flashing of an icon in the display that Shrike’s armour superimposed over his vision. The sound told him instantly that one of his warriors had been injured, and the flashing rune told him it was serious.
Brother Dhantin was lying on the ground, having been caught in the burst of stubber fire. Shrike cursed, for the Space Marine’s power armour should have been proof against such a weapon. A single round had caught the battle-brother in the neck, penetrating the less well-armoured joint and severing his carotid artery. Even the superhuman physiology of a Space Marine could be wounded and Shrike had seen dozens of brave warriors fall to every type of weapon known to the universe.
Another member of the Command squad, Brother Keed, was rushing towards the fallen battle-brother. More stubber rounds were exploding from Keed’s armour, sending up a shower of sparks from the ceramite.
‘Keed,’ Shrike growled into the vox. Dhantin’s rune was extinguished. ‘We shall avenge him, but not like this.’
A combination of genuine respect and underlying psycho-conditioning made it all but impossible for a Space Marine to disobey a direct order, even to aid a fallen battle-brother. The warrior turned back and a moment later was at his captain’s side.
‘Grenade,’ Shrike ordered coldly. Brother Keed retracted a lightning claw and plucked a heavy fragmentation grenade from his belt.
Shrike nodded and Keed tossed the grenade through the open hatch. A second later the opening erupted with flame and smoke, body parts blown outwards across the courtyard by the blast.
‘Avenge your fallen brother,’ said Shrike, allowing Keed to charge through the hatchway first.
‘You must inform him, mistress equerry,’ Lord Colonel Morkis insisted. ‘That is your duty, is it not?’
Malya stood beside a tall, leaded window that afforded a view of the city beyond. Her mind raced and her heart thundered, but she would not allow the traitorous planetary defence leader to get the better of her.
‘And what would you have me report, lord colonel?’ Malya replied.
The man frowned and leaned sideways towards his aide, who whispered a brief report in his ear. Morkis cleared his throat and straightened the jacket of his dress uniform before answering. ‘Defence installation South Nine is under attack, mistress equerry. As I said, Lord Voldorius must be informed immediately.’
‘Under attack by whom?’ asked Malya, suppressing a glimmer of hope even as she spoke. She had long ago abandoned the hope that the Space Marines she had briefly spoken with before being swept up in her new master’s insanity might still be out there.
‘That, at this point, is unknown,’ Morkis replied.
Malya sighed in frustration. She was well aware what the man wanted of her. He wanted her to pass the news on to Lord Voldorius, so that she rather than he would have to face the daemon prince’s wrath. ‘In what strength, then?’ she pressed.
The lord colonel consulted with his aide a second time. As the pair whispered, she imagined she caught sight of a distant flash through the window. Perhaps it was an orbital bombardment, a precursor to a full planetary assault. Perhaps it was merely the glow of dawn reflecting on a smashed window pane.
‘A small force only, mistress,’ the lord colonel replied.
‘The resistance?’ She doubted it of course, for it appeared that her erstwhile fellows in the underground had either been rounded up and killed or been cowed into submission by the atrocity in the grand square. No word of their activities had been heard for many days.
The lord colonel raised an eyebrow, for he too doubted the involvement of the resistance in this matter. But that knowledge clearly made him scared.
‘You wish me to pass your report on to Lord Voldorius?’ said Malya, allowing a hint of danger to enter her voice. Inside, she held utter contempt for this man. He was one of the many amongst the upper echelons of the planetary militia who had welcomed the coming of the Alpha Legion to Quintus. He had colluded with the invaders and undermined what little resistance the forces of Quintus might have been able to mount if it were not for the treacherous actions of the high command. In return, the lord colonel and his cronies had been granted the command of a rapidly expanding army and their heads had been filled with visions of power, glory and conquest none would otherwise have been able to realise.
‘My report, mistress equerry?’ Morkis replied.
‘Yes, lord colonel. I shall tell the Lord Voldorius that you, Lord Colonel Morkis of the 12th Grand Brigade of the Quintus planetary guard, report that an unknown enemy is attacking in unknown strength, to unknown effect, for an unknown reason. Is that correct?’
The thin veneer of propriety evaporated from the lord colonel’s face. ‘Don’t play games with me, bitch,’ he spat, all decorum now abandoned. ‘You may be his equerry, but your position does not make you invulnerable.’
Malya knew that, and cursed once more her fate and the insane game Voldorius was playing with her.
‘To be frank, my dear lord colonel,’ Malya replied, ‘I agree. But it is far less vulnerable than your own will be once I have passed on your message.’
The lord colonel fixed Malya with a cold stare of utter contempt, as if he was adding her name to a long list of enemies destined for the extermination cell. Malya knew that thousands had already died at this man’s hands, many simply to prove his loyalty to Lord Voldorius. Lord Colonel Morkis was a dangerous man to make an enemy of, yet the rage of Lord Voldorius was an order of magnitude more lethal, in the short term at least.
Before either could speak further, the lo
rd colonel’s aide leaned in and whispered to his master. Morkis listened, nodding, then addressed Malya once more. ‘I shall return within the hour,’ he said, straightening his dress uniform as he spoke. ‘I shall have the information you require, which you shall pass on to our lord.’
Malya bowed her head ever so slightly, silently grateful for the reprieve, however brief it might yet prove to be. ‘I shall await your return,’ she replied. ‘Good day.’
Lord Colonel Morkis clicked his heels and inclined his head, though he quite deliberately did not offer a formal salute. Then he was gone, leaving Malya standing alone in the centre of the audience chamber.
What now, she thought? Surely, it could not be remnants of the resistance attacking the orbital defence complex. That would make no sense, even if they had the strength and the will to try it. There had been no sign of the resistance since the atrocity at the grand square, the thousands of corpses left there to rot serving to stifle any further disobedience. It could only be the Space Marines.
And if it was, they would need to know of the daemon prince’s prisoner, for they had asked about one early on. She would have to find a way of getting another message to the Space Marines, telling them that the prisoner they sought was being kept in a holding cell adjacent to the Cathedral of the Emperor’s Wisdom.
Malya crossed to the tall, leaded window and gazed out. The city was still bathed in the indistinct, hazy orange light of a Quintus dawn. The blocky, squat buildings cast deep, angular shadows across the roads and precincts. A distant column of smoke was rising slowly into the air from somewhere beyond the city wall. Somewhere in the direction of the South Nine installation.
A spark of something akin to hope flared in Malya’s breast. Perhaps the attackers were indeed the Space Marines. Perhaps they had not been discovered or intercepted by the Alpha Legion after all. Perhaps, she dared to dream, they had come to deliver Quintus from the evil tyranny of the Alpha Legion and of Lord Voldorius.
A plan resolving itself in her mind, Malya began to think of how she might contact the Space Marines without her daemon master discovering her duplicity.
The bunker exploded into a billion shards of rockcrete as flames erupted upwards and Shrike and his Assault squads pressed on into the compound. The blast wave decimated the courtyard, debris and the ragged body parts of a score of fallen traitor militia scattering across the entire sector of the South Nine orbital defence installation.
‘Sergeant Indis,’ Captain Shrike spoke into the vox-net as he advanced between squat grey bunkers. ‘First wave clear, sub-objective primus achieved. Report.’
The channel crackled for a moment before the machine-spirits established their communion, the sound of gunfire bursting from the churning static. ‘Stand by,’ came the clipped reply, followed by another burst of angry gunfire and a gurgling scream. ‘This is Sergeant Indis. Acknowledge your transmission. Second wave inbound, twenty seconds.’
‘Understood,’ Shrike replied. ‘What is your situation?’
‘Receiving effective direct fire from wall sections adjacent to sub-objective omega.’ Another staccato boltgun burst filled the channel, the sound of the bolts impacting and then exploding within the flesh of their targets clearly audible over the link. ‘Squads Rhenesi and Ayaan are flanking, Squads Kerrania and Pallisan are suppressing.’
Shrike advanced through the fortified installation, a stream of bullets stitching the wall behind him and peppering his black armour with shards of broken rockcrete. He indicated the firer and a nearby Raven Guard despatched the target with a single bolt pistol round to the head. ‘You have your orders. The wall must be held until relieved.’
Shrike trusted Indis to hold the wall. The man bore more scars than some of Kor’sarro’s warriors, most of them earned during his decade-long secondment to the alien-hunting Deathwatch. The White Scars might be delayed or, worse, distracted in their counterattack against the reinforcements that could be mustering to assault the Raven Guard already. Veteran Sergeant Indis and his Tactical and Devastator squads would have to hold the line while the Assault squads under Captain Shrike extricated themselves.
Hopefully, it would not come to that, but the Raven Guard knew the value of planning for all eventualities well enough.
Ahead were the inner fortifications of the defence installation, the huge central missile batteries pointed upwards towards the orange skies. The batteries would be destroyed to convince Voldorius that an orbital strike was imminent. Between Shrike’s Assault squads and those batteries lay dozens more bunkers however, and a garrison of militia amounting to as many as a thousand enemy troopers.
As Shrike led his squads across the open ground a heavy bolter in a nearby bunker opened fire. The earth churned as dozens of large-calibre shells exploded at the Raven Guards’ feet. Shrike activated his jump pack and, followed by his Command squad, leapt through the air towards the heavy bolter position.
The airborne charge took only seconds, but in that brief interval the captain located his target and fixed all his attentions upon it. As he closed, suppressive fire from other Raven Guard units exploded across the heavy weapon’s gun shield, causing the traitor militia trooper manning it to duck down at the very instant he should have been firing.
Captain Shrike raised his glittering talons high as he came in to land, slashing downwards and cutting the heavy bolter in two. Then he was on the fortified upper deck of the bunker and the gunner was scrabbling away from him. The man’s face was contorted in terror, his dark grey fatigues soiled where he had voided his bowels in panic. Shrike had no inclination to show mercy, but the man was less of a threat than the dozen or so of his fellow traitors spilling from a hatch in the deck.
The defenders carried a motley assortment of weapons, from locally manufactured autoguns to large-bore shotguns. The traitors opened fire as they piled out of the hatch, sparks flying from the advancing Space Marines’ armour. Desperation filled the defenders’ eyes, as if they were compelled to fight even though they would surely fall. Bitterness tugged at Shrike’s heart, for the militia troopers should have given up their very lives rather than allow themselves to be turned against the God-Emperor. In killing them, he was doing the work of the Master of Mankind.
In seconds, Shrike and his Command squad stood amidst a scene of bloody ruin, the traitor militia reduced to ragged chunks of meat by their lightning claws. But the Raven Guard did not have the luxury of time, and even as Shrike was giving voice to his next command, a searing blast of blinding white light lanced outwards from another of the bastions. The blast struck the bunker the Raven Guard were stood upon, penetrating its metre-thick rockcrete shell and touching off an explosion somewhere inside its depths.
Shrike activated his jump pack again, and the Raven Guard leapt twenty metres straight upwards. A second explosion sounded from within the bunker and an instant later, a third ripped it apart. Roiling black smoke, lit from deep within by flickering orange flame, expanded outwards in every direction, enshrouding all in darkness.
‘Engage filters,’ Shrike ordered as his vision was shut down by the banks of smoke rushing up to engulf him. He engaged the imaging systems in his helmet, the black before him replaced an instant later by the grainy thermal vista. The burning bunker raged below him, its internal ammunition stores detonating in angry secondary explosions. Scanning the scene, Shrike judged that the lascannon blast that had so effectively destroyed the bunker, and very nearly killed the Raven Guard, had come from a tall bastion not a hundred metres distant.
‘Squads Enriso and Sohen, follow me,’ Shrike ordered, turning in the air as he began his descent. ‘Remaining first wave squads, follow up and secure,’ he continued as he touched down on the rubble-strewn ground. With another burst of his jump pack, Shrike was powering upwards and forwards once more, closely followed by more than two dozen of his Space Marines.
As they screamed through the air, the Raven Guard were sh
ielded from the defenders’ gun sights by the roiling clouds of black smoke. Nonetheless, a torrent of fire met them, albeit unaimed and largely ineffectual. Still relying on his helmet’s thermal imaging, Shrike was momentarily blinded when a ball of superheated plasma boiled towards him. Though his vision was enhanced by superhuman genetics, his armour’s thermal vista was overloaded. His vision swimming with pulsating nerve lights, Shrike threw his body to one side and an instant later felt the searing heat of the plasma blast as it passed by centimetres from his right side. Within seconds, his vision was clearing. And not a moment too soon, for the Raven Guard were emerging from the bank of churning black smoke.
The weight of fire intensified as the enemy were finally able to draw a bead on the advancing Raven Guard. Autogun rounds pattered from Shrike’s armour, scoring the paintwork but inflicting no actual damage. Las-bolts lanced out from a defence line twenty metres away, yet it was the plasma gun that Shrike was concerned about. The unmistakable sound of the weapon’s capacitor reaching optimal power wailed. The high-pitched whine rose into the ultrasonic, and Shrike located the gunner.
The gunner was manning a sandbagged gun pit on the Raven Guard’s left flank, and he was lining up his tripod-mounted weapon for another shot. This trooper obviously knew what he was doing, for he calmly tracked one of Shrike’s men, adjusting his aim as the Space Marine rushed forwards. The gunner fired, and a miniature sun exploded from the barrel of his weapon. Shrike knew instantly where the shot would hit but had no time to shout a warning. The boiling mass of plasma struck an Assault Marine full in the chest. The warrior’s torso was evaporated in an instant, his arms, legs, helmet and jump pack crashing to the ground. The armour smoked as the flesh within boiled off, and the gunner’s face was split by a triumphant snarl.
An instant later, that face was split by an exploding bolter round.
