by C. S. Goto
As one, the rangers opened up with their shuriken catapults, transforming the clearing into a mist of tiny, hissing projectiles. The air was perforated by the rattles of rapid impacts against the power armour of a clutch of Chaos Marines, who dived for cover behind the hatch of the drop-ship. But there was no cover, because the eldar had the clearing surrounded.
“Orks?” bellowed a rumbling voice from inside the drop-ship, and thunderous footfalls could be heard storming back down the ramp.
“No, my lord,” hissed Sindri, who was still on the ground. He turned his head slowly, taking in every shadow in the tree-line, apparently oblivious to the hail of lethal molecules that were hurtling about the glade.
“How many?” asked Bale as he leapt from the top of the ramp and thumped into the ground next to the sorcerer, his huge scythe glowing with thirst.
“Two, I think,” replied Sindri as his eyes settled on those of the invisible Flaetriu. “Two eldar.”
The sorcerer stabbed his force staff into the turf and sent an arc of purple energy sizzling through the canopy. It smashed into a tree, which burst into incandescence instantly. But the ranger was already gone.
“Two? Where are they?” asked Bale, his head snapping from side to side as the incessant shuriken bounced and ricocheted off the armoured plating on the drop-ship, giving the impression that the eldar were everywhere at once. He couldn’t see them.
Sindri ignored Lord Bale and lashed out with another bolt of lightning that incinerated another tree and brought a scream of frustration from the mouth of the sorcerer.
A wail of pain made them turn, just in time to see one of their Marines shredded by a focussed barrage of shuriken projectiles. He was riddled with tiny holes all across his abdomen, as though each of his major organs and both of his hearts had been shot through. He had fallen forwards onto his knees and blood was pouring out of the joints in his armour, from around the edges of his shattered helmet, and from the hundreds of tiny wounds all over his body.
Bale took a step towards him and swung his scythe cleanly through the Marine’s neck, taking his head off with a single strike. “Silence!” he yelled, still searching the tree-line for signs of movement.
A series of heavier impacts suddenly strafed across the ground towards Bale’s feet, coughing up little divots with each strike. They weren’t shuriken hits, it was bolter fire. Bale spun to face the other side of the clearing and saw a squad of Blood Ravens scouts burst through the thicket with their boltguns blazing.
The Alpha Legionaries responded instantly, turning their guns onto these new targets and rolling for positions of cover behind rocks and the ramp of the drop-ship. Bale howled with relief-at last he had enemies that he could see-enemies he could kill. Without any regard for the torrent of bolter shells that whistled and streaked past him in both directions, Bale broke into a run, charging through the crossfire at the Blood Ravens scouts with his scythe whirling round his head.
Sergeant Mikaelus rallied his men with a battle cry, knowing full well that his scout squad, formidable though it was, was no match for a full battle squad of Chaos Marines. “For the Great Father and the Emperor!” he yelled, receiving an echo from his men. The scouts were relatively new initiates into the Chapter, but even they knew of the Alpha Legion and the particular hatred felt towards them by the Blood Ravens. None of them would have thought twice about launching this attack, despite the probability of death.
Lord Bale was on top of the line of Blood Ravens in an instant, his scythe flashing with vile energies as he brayed bestially. The scouts fought valiantly, sending disciplined salvoes of bolter fire sleeting across the glade and punching into the cover of the Alpha Legionaries. But their cover held, and the scouts had only trees and foliage to protect their armour from the onslaught that burst back across the clearing.
Two scouts were already pierced with fatal wounds when Bale hacked through their necks with a majestic sweep of his blade, and three more had been brought down in a hail of fire as they had charged towards the drop-ship with their own guns blazing with honour.
Mikaelus placed a careful shot straight into the eye-socket of a Chaos Marine who poked his head over the ship’s ramp to make his own shot.
The Blood Ravens would take some of these traitors with them. As he drew his combat knife and charged towards the Chaos Lord who was scything through his squad, Mikaelus sprayed a spread of automatic fire towards the muttering sorcerer in the centre of the glade.
He was only a couple of strides away when the burst of power smashed into his back, sending Mikaelus sprawling to the ground at the Chaos lord’s feet, his combat knife falling just out of reach. Something was forcing its way through his armour and infusing into his blood. He could feel fire pulsing through his veins, as though his body had been injected with raw warp taint. The scream of another scout brought sudden silence to the forest, and Mikaelus felt the burning certainty that he was the last of his squadron.
“That was pathetic, Marine,” spat Bale, rolling Mikaelus onto his back with a prod from his barbed boots. “I have come to expect better from the Blood Ravens over the years. But I suppose that you are not what you once were.” Bale stooped down and picked up Mikaelus’ knife, flipping it playfully in his hand. “I had heard, in fact, that some of you might show enough promise for me to welcome you into the Alpha Legion.”
The sorcerous energies pulsing in his blood racked Mikaelus with agonies of paralysis, depriving him of his last wish-to spit his hatred into the face of this Chaos lord.
“I suppose that I must have heard wrongly,” said Bale, catching the combat knife and plunging it down through the chest of the Blood Raven at his feet.
“The forces of Chaos have revealed their hand, farseer,” reported Flaetriu, bowing deeply to the seated figure in the trees.
“Yes, Flaetriu. They too have a role to play in this affair, although the presence of the Alpha Legion changes the balance of power here. You were right to attack them, ranger, even if you were too hasty.” A look of deep concern glided across Macha’s beautiful face. “How did the other humans fare against their dark brethren?”
“Not well, farseer. Not well at all.”
The convoy rumbled on through the valley, with the wide treads of Rhinos, Razorbacks and Predator tanks flattening everything before them. The Whirlwind missile launchers had already ground to a halt as they came into range, and the sky above the convoy was streaked with vapour trails from the flurry of rockets that were being loosed over the horizon. At the head of the column were a spread of assault bikes and the hovering forms of land speeders, which darted ahead and then dropped back into line on reconnaissance sorties. The bulk of the Blood Ravens’ force, however, was led by the massive weight of the Predators and Vindicators. Flanking them were the remnants of the Tartarans’ heavy weaponry: some spluttering Leman Russ tanks, a squadron of Hellhounds, and a couple of Basilisks, both of which were starting to pull off to the side to start their barrage of earthshaker artillery from long range.
The impacts of the ranged ordnance could already be felt on the ground. As the distant thuds drew nearer, rockslides started to cascade down the steep valley walls and the water in the river jumped with kinetic energy. In their hearts, many of the Tartarans hoped that the bombardment would be enough, and that the ork army would already be shattered by the time they arrived. But, as they rounded a bend in the meandering valley, the thunderous wailing of orks ready for battle rolled over the convoy, squashing any thoughts of an easy victory.
The valley was overflowing with ugly, snarling jaws, huge jagged teeth and massive green muscles. The greenskins were erratically spread across the river basin, randomly bunched into growling mobs, each ork jostling for position at the front of their groups. There were craters in the valley floor where the Whirlwind rockets had done their damage, each carpeted with broken green bodies. But for every ork that had fallen under the rain of rocket-fire, twenty more snarled with defiant thirst as the Blood Ravens swept around the
meander in the valley. And when they caught sight of the humans, every greenskin throat was opened into a terrible keening for war: “Waaagh!”
Ordnance started to fall onto the Imperium’s forces as the range closed and the ork mortars began to hurl stikkbombz. By the time the Rhinos and Chimeras screeched to a halt, spewing Marines and Tartarans onto the valley floor, the Imperial column was caught in the eye of a pungent, smoky storm.
As battle was joined across the whole valley floor, with rockets and artillery shells pounding the ork position and a flood of troops firing hails of bullets into their disorganised lines, a Thunderhawk roared through the sky over the Imperial forces, its guns ablaze in salute to the Emperor and His Blood Ravens. The soldiers on the ground raised their weapons and cheered as they saw Captain Angelos’ personal heraldry fluttering from the roof of the vessel.
The lascannons on the gunship flared and pulsed, sending streams of las-fire slicing into the orks as it descended onto the valley floor, burning gaggles of orks as it came down straight on top of them. The vessel dove into the middle of the ocean of green, cut off from the Imperial troops, but providing them with a rallying point in the heart of the enemy lines. With a clunk and a hiss, the hatch popped open and Gabriel leapt clear of the ramp with a single bound, his chainsword already a blur of motion and his bolt pistol coughing. Close behind him was Isador, dropping to the ground below the Thunderhawk and calmly surveying his surroundings before lashing out with his force staff, sending a ring of energy pulsing out into the pressing perimeter of orks that encircled the gunship.
Then came Tanthius, crunching into the rocky ground with the full weight of his Terminator armour, his squad thudding down around him. A huge eruption of firepower burst out of the vanguard group, with the Terminators towering over the orks and unleashing waves of auto-cannon fire and sleets of bolter shells from their storm bolters. Jets of chemical flame doused the charging orks, sending them wailing and screaming into the river for relief, only to be cut down by the Thunderhawk’s gun-servitors.
The unexpected penetration into the heart of the orks’ position took the greenskins by surprise, and some of the forces that were charging towards the Imperial convoy broke off in confusion. Turning, they started charging back through their own brethren, knocking each other aside in the frantic scramble to engage their enemies. For a while, it looked as though they would start fighting amongst themselves, and the Imperial column took advantage of the confusion to press forward into the sea of green, pushing an incursion through it like a lance into the heart of the ork infantry.
Meanwhile, the Thunderhawk was back in the sky, hovering over the battlefield and employing its lascannons to great effect in the confined space of the valley floor. Beneath it, the Terminators stood immovably against the tide of orks that rushed, dived, and charged at them, ploughing through their number with a combination of continuous bursts of heavy fire and simple, brute force from their power fists. In amongst the throng, standing back to back in their own pocket of resistance, Gabriel and Isador fought off the mob with incredible ferocity and skill. Gabriel’s bolt pistol had jammed, leaving him with only his chainsword and his combat knife to dispense the Emperor’s benevolence. And Isador was alight with divine grace, slicing and searing with his staff as though guided by the hand of the Emperor himself.
Gabriel felt more alive than he had felt in years. It was almost like dancing, as he parried a cleaver chop with one hand and spun his combat knife in the other, plunging it up to its hilt into the ear of the offending ork. The screams and inhuman shrieks of combat gradually faded out of his hearing, only to be replaced by a single searing note of unbelievable beauty. The voice multiplied into a choir, filling his soul with light and washing over the action around him, making it seem clumsy and slow in comparison. Gabriel ducked and swirled with unprecedented grace, slicing cleanly through limbs with his chainsword and pushing his short combat knife into all the soft, vulnerable places of ork anatomy.
The explosions of ordnance fire boomed in the background, and Gabriel was vaguely aware of it as his knife stuck in the neck of a greenskin. He kicked the beast clear of his blade before turning and throwing it into the snarling, open mouth of another. With only his chainsword left, he clasped it in both hands and swung it powerfully around in an arc, slicing through the guts of six orks as they tried to close him down from three sides. Behind him, Gabriel could feel the motion of Isador as the Librarian flared with power, dispatching orks three at a time with blasts from his staff or fingertips. The pair were gradually cutting a path further and further into the ork forces, moving away from the Terminators on their own.
Whispering voices quested for their ears as they fought onwards into the orks. Kill. Kill. Bleed them dry. It is your responsibility. We all look to you. Drench the soil with their blood. Kill. Kill. Suddenly the silvery voices of the heavenly choir were shattered again by the screams of tortured souls, and Gabriel shrieked with pain as Isador’s staff scraped across his chest before cracking into the ork that was about to plant its cleaver in his head.
As Gabriel walked through the forest, he could still hear pockets of fighting continuing amongst the trees. The bulk of the ork army had been broken, and most lay dead in the valley, with their pungent blood running red in the river. The thump of dreadnought footfalls and the rattles of their autocannons could still be heard as the last of the fleeing orks were mopped up by the Blood Ravens. Small groups of the greenskins were mustering for their last stands, desperate to make one more kill before they died.
Gabriel had been slightly concerned that they had not found any orks large enough to be the warboss of such a significant force, but he had other things to attend to and he let a squad of scouts disappear into the forest to hunt down the ork leader. He had also noticed that a number of the larger orks appeared to have Imperial weaponry, including the boltguns such as Space Marines used. It was not uncommon for a few of these scavenger creatures to have weapons from other races, but the numbers here were noticeably larger than he expected. He was increasingly suspicious that there was more to this ork invasion than a typical greenskin jaunt.
“Captain Angelos,” said Sergeant Corallis, hastening from a clearing in the trees ahead. Corallis’ face was crestfallen and he was obviously distraught. As he approached, Gabriel noticed that he was carrying something roughly hemispherical in his hands.
“It’s Kuros,” breathed the sergeant, pushing the object towards his captain.
Gabriel reached out and took the shoulder plate, nodding in understanding. The underside of the armoured panel was covered in a thick layer of carbon, as though it had been used as a bowl in which to overcook some meat. “What happened to this?” asked Gabriel, handing the shoulder guard over to Isador but addressing his question to Corallis.
“It was still attached to his body, captain,” explained Corallis, tremulous with anger and disgust. “He is burnt beyond recovery of his gene-seed. Something seems to have reached into his soul and burnt him from the inside out.”
“What about the others?” asked Isador.
Gabriel placed his hand on Corallis’ shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Brother Corallis.”
“They were my squad, captain. I should have been with them.” Corallis punched his right fist against his left shoulder, where his left arm should have been. “This is a pathetic excuse.”
“Corallis, this is not your fault. Sergeant Mikaelus was leading the squad. He is a fine Marine and a devoted servant of the Emperor. You could not have left your squad in better hands,” said Gabriel.
“Mikaelus is also dead, captain, along with the rest of the squad. Their bodies are up there in the clearing.” Corallis would not be consoled.
“Are they all burnt like this?” asked Isador with concerned tone.
“No, Librarian Akios. Only Kuros is like this. Mikaelus is worse. Most of the others died like warriors, and we will be able to recover their gene-seed,” answered Corallis, turning to lead them back to the cl
earing.
The little glade was a scene of carnage. The bodies of the scout squad were strewn over the rocks and grass, lying in ruined poses, in pools of blood that matched the deep reds of their armour. The trees around the edge of the clearing were battered and shredded with bolter holes, and patches of the ground were scorched into dry browns.
Mikaelus was lying on his back across a large rock in the centre of the glade. His face was contorted with pain and his skin was blistered, as though burnt on the inside. Protruding from his chest was the handle of his own combat knife, and the earth around the rock was sodden with blood, as though he had been slowly drained of his life.
“He was still alive when we found him, captain. But his mind had gone. His soul had already left this realm, and he was rambling like a conduit to hell itself,” said Corallis numbly.
Scratched into Mikaelus’ armour was a crude mark. It looked like it had been carved with the tip of a dagger, or gnawed with a claw. In a vulgar way, it resembled an eight-pointed star.
“This is not the work of orks, Gabriel,” said Isador, giving voice to the feelings of everyone. “This is a mark of the ruinous powers. It is a mark of Chaos.”
“He is right, captain,” added Corallis. “The others were killed by bolter fire, not by slugs or cleavers. Boltguns are the weapons of Marines, not aliens.”
“Perhaps, Corallis,” said Gabriel.
“And the burns, Gabriel. They are warp burns, of the kind unleashed by sorcerers of Chaos. This looks like the work of a squad of traitor Marines,” concluded Isador reluctantly.
“The documents you found about Tartarus, Isador, did they say anything about what happened to it during the Black Crusades? Is there any history of Champions of Chaos bringing war to this planet?” asked Gabriel, still unwilling to make the logical leap.
