Silver Skulls: Portents

by S P Cawkwell

  ‘Do you find something amusing about this, lady?’ Daviks turned to the woman, studying her face. Her eyes were wide, staring and anxious, betraying her worry and disgust at what she had seen – and she had seen much today.

  ‘No. I am simply relieved,’ she said. ‘They were overconfident. You and your men will soon cleanse them. I anticipate that we will celebrate a great victory, captain.’ Her voice trembled and some of the terror began to seep from her face.

  ‘I trust you are right in that assumption,’ murmured the siege captain. He was not so sure. He had an extraordinarily bad feeling about the entire situation.

  ‘Charge is counting.’ Reuben’s voice came across the airways. ‘Detonation in fifteen seconds. Assault squad breaking clear of the gatehouse. Rendezvous inside.’

  ‘Received and understood, brother.’ Daviks fixed his eyes on the gatehouse. It was a vast structure, but given the height and breadth of the walls around the city that was not particularly surprising. What was bothering him right now was the fact that no further counterattacks had been launched. That something waited for them was not in doubt.

  What Daviks did not realise was that the ‘something’ would turn out to be far more unexpected than he had first considered.

  ‘The silver tide has broken.’

  He was named Garduul the First. An age ago, before Volkstein, during the lost years, he had been the Chapter’s very first true oracle. Struck down by the piercing blades of the eldar and left for dead, Garduul’s physical body had been beyond saving. Entombed within the sarcophagus of the Dreadnought, severed from the constraints of the physical world, Garduul’s eyes had been fully opened by the Great Deceiver to the infinite skein of fate.

  It was doubtful that Garduul remembered any of his former glories. Such knowledge was not meant for mortal minds, even genetically enhanced minds, and he experienced reality now only in terms of what could be rather than what was. He babbled incoherently about the outcomes and probabilities of those around him, usually whilst he was cutting them down. But his prophetic ravings had proven themselves true over and over again and the warband treasured every word he spoke as though they were jewels of wisdom.

  The voice was metallic and interspersed with binary white noise. The suddenness and clarity of its words heralded deep, low rumbling and the clanking of the restraining chains. Deep in the heart of the palace, something was stirring.

  As the noise began, a group of miserable thralls armed with an array of scrivener’s tools scurried to be closer to the vast figure. When the creature spoke, it was their job to record his endless words of madness. For somewhere in those ramblings, the Oracles of Change believed all truths existed. Every utterance was recorded by the slave legion that attended him. Every phrase was parroted in the writings and scoured for omens and prophecies.

  The slaves surrounded the ancient like an army of filthy children, swaddled in rags. They had no tongues, for they had only to listen, to record, to remember everything that was said. They communicated through sign language, their gnarled hands flashing in fluid motions, or via the tools they carried with them at all times.

  A further barrage of unintelligible words came from the heart of the chained monstrosity. His massive bulk, thrown into sharp relief by the dim lighting of his prison, shook and strained as he spoke.

  ‘The silver tide comes,’ said Garduul, his voice a cracked, vox-distorted growl. ‘The tide breaks, withdraws and breaks again. Now, it has broken. But the tide can be turned. It has turned, will be turned. It can be broken, can be split asunder. It flows, it winds, it turns in upon itself.’ He rotated his massive body and the chains across the sarcophagus screeched against it with aching volume. An unblinking slit of fiery crimson stared down at the pack of scribes swarming like ants around its recumbent form. The words were gibberish, without context or form.

  ‘The tide can be turned. The tide can be broken.’

  Any sense of lucidity dissolved after this point and the madness took him once again. He began speaking in assorted languages that the scribes would painstakingly translate during one of his more subdued periods. One of the thralls peeled away from the group to deliver Garduul’s words to Karteitja. It was not always a job that the slaves were willing to perform. At times, Garduul had predicted less than favourable outcomes for impending battle. These messages invariably ended in the death of the unfortunate slave delivering the news. But it didn’t matter to Karteitja. There would always be slaves as long as there were humans to subvert. Garduul’s scribes were sent out onto the battlefield with their master. If they fell, more would be found to take their place.

  It was not considered a fortunate destiny.

  Daviks had been right to feel concern. Fifteen seconds after Reuben’s announcement, the melta bombs on both inner and outer doors detonated with a howl of tortured thermals. The roof of the gatehouse sagged in the heat and then ran molten as the armour-breaching charges did their work. Then the titanic hinges of the gates groaned, buckled and fell outwards with a rush of hot air. A cloud of dust and vapour billowed out ahead of the falling doors, eclipsing the waiting Silver Skulls, and then began to settle. Incredibly, most of the superstructure remained largely intact, with only the slightest evidence of wall collapse on either side. Daviks looked into the darkness of the gatehouse, and the darkness looked right back at him.

  Two scarlet pin-pricks of light grew gradually larger and larger. Whatever had been ensconced within the gatehouse stepped forward with a hiss of hydraulics and a foul slithering of daemon flesh. The ground beneath Daviks’s feet began to shake with the power of the thing’s tread.

  It was huge. It would have dwarfed even the Chapter’s oldest relic Dreadnoughts. He had also seen such things before and knew all too well how much trouble they were in. All further thoughts of advance or careful manoeuvre fled in the face of the new enemy that roared its challenge to the rain-washed skies. Daviks’s targeters locked on to the monstrous creation and illuminated it for the entire company.

  ‘Daemon engine,’ he bellowed. ‘All squads, all support, fire on my mark! Bring it down! Gileas – we need the Talriktug down here now.’

  There was no reply from the sergeant, whose vox had been compromised during his battle with the sorcerer, but Reuben answered on his commander’s behalf.

  ‘The beacon is in place, Captain Daviks. Support imminent. Your orders?’

  ‘You heard me, brother. All support.’ There was grim determination in the tone. Reuben hesitated for a long moment, his eyes drawn to the hissing, steaming rear of the daemonic machine, still partly shrouded by the haze of detonation as it pushed its way out of the gatehouse. Its attention was on the warriors outside the walls, not turned inwards to where the Assault Marines waited.

  ‘Received and understood,’ came the reluctant reply. Reuben turned to Gileas, who was kneeling before the device conducting the rites of appeasement and speaking the incantations of activation, and gave him a curt nod. It was the only cue that the sergeant needed. He murmured a final prayer to the machine-spirit housed within the beacon and activated it.

  A slow, red light on the side began to wink regularly like a malevolent eye. Gileas took a few steps backwards and watched intently. He had used beacons before, of course, but they could not always be relied upon. On this occasion, however, he must have pleased the machine-spirits. The air and light around the beacon bent and distorted, folded inwards, and then without any further preamble, the five warriors simply were.

  Even garbed as they were in their Terminator armour, Gileas knew one from the other. Each suit was a relic, handed down across the years, and the warrior spirits imbued within were ancient and fierce. The legacies of the Terminator suits were painstakingly etched in silver on every surface, and there were certain characteristics that made the hulking veterans unique. Djul in particular was distinguishable by the trailing skulls that he wore hanging from his belt.

/>   ‘Brother-sergeant.’ Kerelan already had his two-handed relic blade drawn and ready. ‘Make your report swift and pertinent.’

  Beneath Kerelan’s words, like the constant thrum of a power generator, Djul’s voice rumbled a constant litany. His words were largely indecipherable, but the tone and inflection of what could be heard were stirring the passions of the warriors even without them consciously being aware of it.

  ‘The gates are breached, but their fall has released a daemon engine hidden within.’ Gileas nodded a head towards the sagging ruin of the gatehouse. The noise of heavy weapon fire crashed from beyond. ‘In addition…’ He indicated the numerous earthworks and fortifications lining the highway. The trenches and redoubts bristled with guns in anticipation of the coming assault.

  There was no hesitation in Kerelan’s reply. His battle plan was formed swiftly and without preamble. He delivered it across the company vox-channel so that Daviks would receive the orders as well. ‘You take your men and deal with the human threat. All available units not presently engaged converge on this position in support. Death from above.’ He gripped the sergeant’s forearm in a brief gesture of camaraderie. ‘May the battle be relentless. Let death come to these rebels. Pray that they find swift end and that we deliver them with due diligence to the hereafter. There can be no room in this world for heretics. They must burn, brother. By the Emperor’s Grace, let us bring this insurrection to an end.’

  ‘Burn the heretic,’ responded Gileas, returning the grip. ‘Purge the unclean.’ The two squad commanders remained locked together for a moment and then without turning his head, Kerelan issued a single order, pointing his relic blade at the waiting enemy.

  ‘Attack,’ was all he said.

  On a day of increasing horrors, Isara Gall had not expected to encounter anything more terrible than the atrocious acts of war that had seen men shredded before her eyes.

  She could not have been more wrong.

  The vile daemonic creature that stood before her ripped away at her crumbling reserves and it took everything she had not to turn and flee. In her time with the inquisitor, she had faced mutants, witches and debased cults, but had never been confronted by the vile reality of the warp given form. She didn’t know whether the fear was of her own making or if it was some sort of projection put out by the thing. Whatever it was, she wanted nothing more than to run; to flee from the creature and put as much distance between them as she could humanly manage.

  But there was no opportunity to retreat. Gunfire, missiles and shells sawed across the open ground, rattling off the monster’s armour and turning the area into a killing ground. If she broke from the protective embrace of the Devastator squad she would certainly be cut down by the raging maelstrom.

  Isara felt a scream boiling up inside her and fought to stay in control. She wanted to run and hide; to curl up and weep at the vileness of what she was witnessing. Even as a blank, the raw evil of the monster still leeched the strength from her bones. It walked upright on two massive legs of knotted cabling and twisted daemon-meat, the knees hinged backwards like something lupine. Its massive weight shook the earth every time its segmented feet came down and it loped towards the Space Marines with terrifying speed. A vaguely humanoid mask hung between its colossal shoulders, not dissimilar to the design of Terminator armour such as she had seen before. But its eyes burned with a malevolent fire, not the benign righteousness of the Adeptus Astartes.

  Thick, oily smoke coiled from the gaps between the thick plates that covered most of its bulk and living sinews writhed amongst the armour like purple worms. From what little Isara knew of such things, the monster was driven from within by a shackled daemon, bound to the machine by arcane sorcery too hideous to contemplate.

  Her eyes were inescapably drawn to the terribly humanoid faces that screamed from the depths of its armour. They were etched or frozen in a state of permanent horror, their mouths stretched wide in screams of voiceless torment.

  Finally, her eyes found its monstrous pincer-claw and she watched, helpless to act or even truly react as it lunged forward, its aura of terror making her want to empty the contents of her stomach. As it closed the distance she finally turned to run but Curt grabbed her around the waist and held her firm. The Devastator squad were firing, the roar of their weapons drowning out his shouted words. She screamed at him to let her run, but he would not release her.

  The daemon engine lowered its massive shoulders and accelerated its pace towards the group of Silver Skulls. Shells hammered into it, dappling its armour with detonations but doing little to halt its wild charge. Spent casings clattered in a steady stream onto the ground at her feet and she watched, unable to so much as scream, as the vile thing crashed into the line of warriors before her. The Silver Skulls tumbled in all directions and the beast snapped up one of the fallen Space Marines in its killing claw.

  Defiant even in the face of his certain demise, the warrior continued firing his bolter until the thing sheared him into two jagged pieces, slicing through his power armour like scissors through paper. The Silver Skull’s body, now two uneven hunks of meat, thudded uselessly to the ground and was trampled beneath the daemon engine’s mighty tread.

  Isara thrashed in Curt’s grip and faced with the carnage happening a few feet away the bounty hunter released her and turned his attention to the monstrosity. The Space Marines were attempting to rally, to bring their heavy weapons to bear again, but the thing was too close. Bolter shells pattered harmlessly from its hide and it swatted the Silver Skulls as if they were little more than irritating bugs. Daviks managed to roll beneath its thrashing arms and ram his power sword into its side and for a brief moment the daemon machine reared back in surprise and fury. Curt seized the opportunity as it was presented and shot it in the face with his melta.

  The thing lashed out from within the expanding cloud of vapour and sent the siege captain sprawling, his breastplate cracked. Then the hideous, melted visage loomed out of the steam and it thrust its claw towards the other creature that had dared to injure it. The blades punched right through the bounty hunter with a crunch of armour and bone and flipped his body several metres through the air. Curt Helbron landed in a broken heap several feet behind Isara and suddenly all the fear went out of her to be replaced with a cold rage.

  She screamed in fury as the monster peeled open the brutal pincer to reveal a maw dripping with greenish flames. Several Silver Skulls raced to her side, but the torrent of warp-fire immolated them in an instant. Her ‘gift’ held the holocaust at bay and Isara Gall remained unharmed, but she knew abrupt despair. How useless her ability seemed to her now. How useless and pointless, that she had failed to protect those around her. A cold hatred gripped her soul.

  The fire subsided and she stared up into the hellish visage with terror that was tempered with utter contempt. Curt’s body had been close enough for her to shield it and that small fact seemed somehow important, somehow redeemed her own sense of failure. She had been able to preserve him in death as she had been unable to do in life.

  The daemon engine brought its other arm to bear with a rattle of autoloaders. The huge, double-barrelled cannon whined as the shells fed into it. Isara noticed that the muzzles were decorated with howling maws and that the darkness inside seemed to go on forever.

  In the few seconds between realising she was going to die and the first salvo tearing into her, Isara found a peace she had never known. Her final thoughts, as she was ripped apart, were of her brother.

  ‘Nathaniel…’

  That was the moment at which the hulking forms of the Talriktug burst from the smoke of the gatehouse. They opened fire with their storm bolters, Asterios sawing at the monster with a stream of fire from his assault cannon, and the creature screamed in rage before turning its attention on them.

  Gileas turned away from the Terminator squad as they opened fire, feeling a moment’s regret that he would not be engaging
so mighty a foe. Not when the way to the palace was still thick with enemies.

  A detonation in the east drew the sergeant’s attention and he watched as a huge plume of dust billowed into the sky. A few moments later massive shells began raining down on the rebel fortifications, blowing them apart in great geysers of dirt and broken bodies. The Vindicator company crashed onto the plaza, their stubby cannons roaring as they demolished the eastern flank of the defenders. When Siege Captain Daviks ordered his men to assault a defended position, he did not do things in small measures.

  As if prompted by the arrival of the heavy tanks, there was an overhead scream of engines and a further two squads of Daviks’s company deployed from a Thunderhawk gunship. With the wall defences disabled the craft were able to deploy troops directly. None of Ninth Company wore jump packs, but they were low enough that the drop was little more than a minor inconvenience. With a succession of heavy thuds, they landed and grouped immediately with Gileas and his squad. Together, the warriors from Eighth and Ninth Companies joined as one and formed up to face the enemy. Warriors on both sides raised their weapons in defiance of each other and a short and bloody battle ensued.

  The air filled with the staccato sound of bolters as the Silver Skulls gunned down the first line of rebels in a spray of mist and gore. Leaping forward into the fray, the melee fighters gunned their blades and the massacre continued without pause. Harild de Corso had joined in the fight from his hidden position – wherever it might have been – and more than one of the rebels was picked off by the sniper’s incredible skill.

  A few bold souls hurtled towards the Silver Skulls, waving their guns as though they believed without question that they were somehow capable of inflicting damage. Impact blows from their pistols and lasguns did little more than cause a brief hiatus in the advance of the Space Marines, who strode ever forwards with slow, steady purpose. Their chainswords sang with the promise of death and the enthusiastic charge of the rebels began to falter as the horror of what they faced dawned. They could only shift their gazes between the end of the bolt pistols and the cold, glaring reality of the approaching Silver Skulls. Every pair of blood-red lenses was keenly fixed on the targets the silver-clad giants were honour-bound to exterminate.