Silver Skulls: Portents

by S P Cawkwell

  The last gunship had made a pass over the entire city. The pilot had located the chapel that the Talriktug had flagged for investigation and found it crawling with mutants and crazed citizens. As the crumbling walls had been shorn away under the barrage of the gunship’s remaining firepower, something had shot back.

  Something had traced his passage with deadly accuracy and all but destroyed the Thunderhawk’s starboard engine and most of the wing. With the controls failing and losing altitude, the chances of making it to the ground in anything other than a crash dive were decreasing all the time.

  But he flew on, not looking back. The wounded ship’s systems were registering a cascade of failures as the central engine coughed, struggling to remain functional despite the best efforts of the surviving tech-adepts. He flew on and he crested the Governor’s Palace.

  And he saw. To his loss, he was also seen. A tall mast of aerials and antennae reached from the top of the palace, supported by a nest of cables and platforms. But it was not the communications array that drew his attention. Tiny figures moved slowly around the device, lit by flickering ethereal fires. As he soared above them one of the figures turned and fingers of crackling black lightning reached into the sky. The blast ripped into the starboard engine and blew it apart, scattering armour and debris into the air as the wing went spinning away. The pilot had just a few seconds to transmit what he had seen as his craft tumbled wildly out of control.

  The final words from the gunship as it plunged to its fiery death reached Kerelan at the same time as the words from Nicodemus.

  ‘The top of the palace. The traitors are on top of the palace.’

  The final transmission from the Thunderhawk and the separate report from the young psyker were heard by everyone both on the ground and in the palace. Every last Silver Skulls Space Marine sensed the urgency in both messages as they were broadcast simultaneously. Nicodemus’s voice was broken and distorted as it cracked across the vox, the syllables chopped and fuzzy with interference from whatever dark powers had this planet in their thrall.

  ‘We hear you, Nicodemus. Be more specific.’ Kerelan spoke, his own usually crystal-clear tones also juddering and otherworldly. ‘What is at the top of the palace? Sergeant Ur’ten, are you receiving this transmission? Respond to the Prognosticar. We cannot…’ The first captain’s voice died out and Gileas took up the situation without pause.

  ‘Receiving, if only barely. Go ahead, Nicodemus. What do you need from us? We are inside the palace.’

  ‘The source of these horrors we face,’ came the response. ‘It is above you.’

  ‘You are certain of this, lad?’ Gileas was cautious, but respectfully so. Nicodemus was young, certainly. But he was also a psyker, a budding Prognosticar, and as such, his word needed taking into consideration.

  ‘I guarantee it.’ The certainty was in his tone and Gileas nodded.

  ‘Then that is where we will go.’ He indicated that his battle-brothers should move out. Nicodemus’s voice came across the vox again.

  ‘I am coming up to join you. It feels like a machine and if that’s the case, I can be of assistance.’

  ‘Nicodemus will follow as soon as we have spoken about the matter.’ It was Bhehan’s voice this time. The Prognosticator’s youthful voice was so filled with command that it took a second or two for Gileas to recognise it. ‘Proceed, sergeant, but use your caution and discretion. Hold position pending my decision.’

  ‘Received and understood, Prognosticator.’ Bhehan was no longer the raw recruit that he had been only a year before and Gileas deferred to the warrior’s command without question. ‘Ur’ten out.’

  ‘On the roof of the palace. How they must be laughing at us.’ Tikaye spoke, which was a rare occurrence. Reuben had remained reticent and practically silent since the mirror chamber. Tikaye waved a hand indolently. ‘There is nothing above us but cogitators and antennae, the workings of the Mechanicus. What would the Oracles of Change want with such things?’ Such disdain was remarkably out of character for him.

  Gileas stared at him. Despite the unpleasant memories of what he had seen in those Chaos-tainted mirrors, he had come out the other side of the ordeal with his faith and belief intact. He was beginning to feel a knot of concern form in his stomach that the others had not fared so well. He steeled himself and addressed the matter as he always did – head on.

  ‘Pull yourself together, Tikaye. What has happened cannot be changed, but what is to come may yet be altered by our actions. Not our inactivity and bitterness.’

  Tikaye nodded reluctantly, but Gileas sensed the shift in his mood from dark and inward-turning to tuned in to the situation once more. ‘Their plan is strategically brilliant, I suppose,’ he said, admitting it aloud. ‘Unnoticed from below and unassailable from above without a passing ship. We should proceed with all haste.’

  ‘Hold position before the final ascent. We must wait for Nicodemus. If there is some sort of machine… you know where his talent lies, brother. His knowledge may be necessary. Curb your impatience if you can. Just for a little longer.’ Gileas hoped that his brothers fighting far below had a little longer. From what fragments he could extract from the vox-chatter, the battle below was increasingly becoming a nightmare. The Terminators were failing to reach the Prevision of Victory. They needed reinforcements or an extraction and the latter was looking increasingly unlikely.

  The three Space Marines began moving to the access corridors that would take them to the roof-space generators and ultimately out onto the roof of the Governor’s Palace where communications arrays and further emergency systems were installed.

  ‘Gileas?’ Reuben’s voice was subdued and the sergeant moved to stand beside his friend.

  ‘Speak your mind, Reuben.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘It is of no importance,’ Gileas forced command into his tone. ‘Calm yourself. I need you by my side for this battle, Reuben. With the Talriktug otherwise engaged, it falls to us to confront the evil that waits for us up there. You must cast out any doubts that witch may have fostered in you. You and Tikaye have been my battle-brothers for many years and neither of you have ever had any hesitation in your duty.’

  ‘I…’ Although he couldn’t see the other warrior’s face, Gileas knew that Reuben had closed his eyes. He knew the way his friend composed himself. ‘You are right, of course. Forgive me.’

  ‘Nothing to forgive, Reuben. We will speak of this later. I promise you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Reuben, but Gileas could hear his despondency. ‘Later.’

  ‘If it’s a machine, then I can deal with it, Brother-Prognosticator. You know that. It’s my talent. Let me handle it.’ Nicodemus’s insistence was beginning to try Bhehan’s already tested patience.

  ‘Nicodemus…’ Bhehan and Nicodemus continued to battle the mutated horrors that swarmed around them. They had begun to move across the jagged, broken paving to join up with another row of Silver Skulls who were cutting down line after line of the living and dead in equal measure. ‘Your arrogance in assuming you can do this is foolhardy.’

  ‘You need to trust me, Prognosticator. I swear to you that I am not being foolish. I trust my instincts. If you cannot trust in those, what can you trust in? Have you not said those words to me many times before?’

  ‘Yes.’ The response was instant and there was no doubt in the voice. ‘I have. Then I trust you, Nicodemus. I can provide a temporary window of opportunity for you to get to the palace. Make your contribution to this effort count, brother.’

  ‘I will, Prognosticator.’ There was a heartbeat’s pause. ‘Thank you, brother.’

  Bhehan nodded once and then he held his force axe in front of him, one hand stacked atop the other, holding it close to his chest. His shoulders rose up as he drew a deep breath and with all the remaining power at his command, he unleashed a psychic shriek that rippled out in a shockwa
ve around him. For twenty metres in every direction around the psyker, assailants fell like corn beneath a scythe, their minds and senses blasted by the assault. Nicodemus took his chance and ran.

  The psyker ran harder than he had ever done before. His jump pack carried him to the doors of the palace in a few bounds and he rushed inside. While his brothers had slowly made their way up the structure, searching for the inquisitor, Nicodemus knew precisely where he was going. He made directly for the transit elevators that would carry him to the roof and the waiting enemy.

  ‘First Captain Kerelan, this is the Prevision of Victory. We… interference. There is… send a gunship down… repeat, do you… assistance?’

  The message was garbled and distorted but its meaning was clear and its very presence greatly welcomed. There had been a momentary break in the tumult that had interfered with their communications off-world and fortune had favoured them.

  ‘Yes,’ bellowed the first captain. ‘Yes. On my coordinates.’ He transmitted his current position to the Prevision of Victory. There was nothing more he could do. They were too few, their enemies too many. They were losing the battle.

  ‘Message… understood… erelan. Backup in…’

  Varlen and Kerelan had fought their way across the square to join the rest of the Terminator squad and the Talriktug as a complete unit had crunched booted feet over those who had been disabled by Bhehan’s shriek. They stood together with Daviks and his surviving warriors while the tattered survivors of the Imperial Guard commended their souls to the Emperor. The defenders had been pushed back in a tightening ring around the palace, a thin line of armour and soldiers anchored by islands of bloodstained silver.

  Even as he fought, the young Prognosticator reached into his pouch and withdrew a single rune. He stared down at it, dreading another moment of denial from the Emperor. That the Deep Dark should have settled upon him at such a critical moment was galling.

  The sight of the rune marked with the Aquila Ascendant made his heart sing. The Emperor was with them.

  The singing turned to a discordant note the moment he raised his head again and saw a building tumble into ruins under the onslaught of something huge. It emerged from the debris dripping chains, its crimson armour streaked with dust and gore and surrounded by a swarm of ragged creatures that fluttered with hateful scripture. Flanking the Dreadnought monster was a force of Oracles led by a sorcerer whose armour seethed with living flames. The traitors roared their fury at the Silver Skulls and advanced as a well-structured unit towards the defenders.

  ‘Brothers,’ said Kerelan in a grim voice. ‘Emperor’s grace go with you.’ He raised his sword above his head and the Silver Skulls advanced to meet them. Around them, the chaotic swirl of the horrors continued to boil and churn as the walls of reality groaned under the strain. He suspected it would not be long before Valoria was nothing more than an open portal to the powers of Chaos; a daemon world. It would see the end of all life on the planet and should the Prevision of Victory be unable to extract the warriors, Kerelan knew well what would happen.

  Best, he thought as they came within range of the enemy, to focus on the present and worry about Exterminatus later.

  ‘Weapons free,’ he bellowed. ‘In the name of the Emperor, destroy them all!’

  Nineteen

  Falling Star

  The roof of the Governor’s Palace was a veritable forest of communications equipment; antennae and generators that thrummed with life and activity. There were several elevated platforms piled atop each other in a maddeningly complex array. These were interconnected via steel-reinforced gantries strung from platform to platform. They created a series of swooping arcs where they remained intact, a direct if precarious way to access the higher reaches of the towering mass of aerials, dishes and masts.

  Emerging from the stairwell onto the roof, Gileas’s first thoughts were that they had walked into a hurricane. The winds whipped around them, intent on hurling these newcomers from the palace, and unnatural lightning crackled around the tower top. Fell voices howled and gibbered in the gale and reality stretched thin as the storm intensified. Gileas adjusted his weight to bear the brunt of the relentless battering and looked around. From far below he could hear the faint sounds of the battle that raged; a potent and heady drug. Gileas felt the welcoming shot of stimulants from his armour, preparing his muscles and his whole being for the battle to come.

  He growled softly, the noise echoing around the interior of his helm. The odds were not good. They were massively outnumbered on the ground and they were going up to this encounter without any tactical information. But these were the kind of odds that Gileas Ur’ten had always lived for; the kind of challenge that brought his every sense to life. The churning world around him seemed to fade into obscurity and all that mattered, all that was in sharp focus, were the antennae ahead of him. Behind him were his battle-brothers. Before him…

  Before him was whatever fate had placed there to test him. They would each face it with the stoic determination that drove every last one of them. The aberrant storm lashed at the platform, clawing at the warriors with savage ferocity and battering at their minds with infernal promises. A storm that would grow to swallow the world.

  ‘I can feel the nature of it,’ murmured Nicodemus. The psyker had caught up at the rear of the group and had said very little as they had approached the communications platform. ‘There is a great evil at work here, something the Oracles have brought with them or bound to this place. And it is mechanical, but it is alive. I can end this thing.’

  ‘Are you telling me or reassuring yourself, brother?’

  The young psyker tipped his head thoughtfully to one side. ‘A little of both, Sergeant Ur’ten,’ he admitted in a regretful voice.

  The last rite had begun but Karteitja knew that they were forced into completing the incantations in a limited time frame. The machine, fed by the hearts of the sacrificed and his own sorcery, had done the majority of the work, but the ritual to tear the fabric of reality fully open, to allow the true invasion to begin, took more than machinery. It took skill and dedication. Arcane sigils surrounded the device in spiralling, eightfold patterns that circled the platform before converging at its centre. Tainted light pulsed from the runes, casting weird shadows from the chanting sorcerers as they invoked the names of the Great Deceiver.

  Karteitja heard the small group of enemies exit onto the roof above the Governor’s Palace before his psychic senses found them but he paid them no heed. He could not afford to let this ritual fail. It would spell disaster for the Oracles of Change and particularly it would spell disaster for him. The arrival of the small Silver Skulls force was a hindrance that he did not need at this critical juncture. He had invested too much time and effort into this plan to see it all fail at the last.

  Karteitja, his machine and four other Oracles of Change were firmly settled on one of the satellite platforms a few gantries away. The five of them were arranged in exact points around the device, knelt with their heads bowed. The arrangement for the ritual was perfect and Karteitja craved perfection in this. He chose perfection. In another lifetime he had always been meticulous and his attention to detail had often been lauded. Such habits had always stayed with him. Through service to the Changer of Ways, he had learned that fate could be changed by the smallest of differences. Such had been his plan for powering the machine.

  The heart of an Imperial citizen was one thing, but the heart of a fanatical Imperial inquisitor would have been another. As it was, it barely mattered now. He had only to raise his head to the skies, see the boiling clouds and feel the power of the warp whipping around him, to know his success was assured.

  He would not fail. He could not fail. It was simply impossible.

  His plans for the devastation of this Imperial planet should have been executed without the interference of the Imperium. Breed enough discontent and chaos and the human populace w
ould resort to their most basic instincts. Small cells hidden among the menials would plant the seeds of discord. Mistrust would grow. Out of that would grow resentment and finally rebellion, violence and anarchy, the psychic fuel for the glorious transformation. It had all worked according to his plan.

  He should have been exultant. The process had reached a point of no return. The machine was channelling the anguish and suffering of the world and was tearing a great hole deeper and deeper into the warp. With the success of this ritual, hurried though it must necessarily be, the Great Deceiver would reach out and snatch Valoria from the heavens and make it eternally His. It would be a world steeped in the power of sorcery. A world to rival even that of the Cyclops.

  His four warriors knelt in supplication, their voices raised in discordant harmony, and Karteitja joined them, his stentorian tones thundering into the tumultuous sky. Aetheric energies began to crawl up and down the cluster of masts and antennae as the power of the spell took effect. Arcs of cerulean energy and purple-pink fire danced from the spars and gathered at the tips of the aerials as the sorcerer’s chant built to a dreadful climax.

  Then Karteitja roared an ancient and terrible name to the heavens. The gathered power leapt from the array like a spear, a column of corrupted light reaching into the storm and ripping open a gateway into the realm of madness, spilling its vile contents out onto the world of Valoria below.

  Lord Commander Meer was dead. The hulking Helbrute had burst from the ruins of the city and was charging its way through the press of mutants in the Celebrant’s Square, crushing them with its stride and tearing into the Imperial Guard position. The loss of their commander had had the expected effect of causing momentary lack of cohesion amongst the troops. To their credit, they pulled themselves together with impressive speed, but the damage was done.

  Kerelan stared at the machine. It had a Dreadnought’s shape and form, but the clean lines of its hull had long since been erased by snaking cables of daemonic meat, loops of chain and writhing brass iconography. One of its arms terminated in a double-barrelled cannon which was barking a torrent of shells at a tremendous rate, turning the Guardsmen into puffs of gore and ragged flesh, while its other arm was a knotted mass of barbed tendrils, lashing at everything within reach.