Bastion Wars

by Henry Zou

  ‘Shooting at your own warriors? I feel no loyalty to your Blood Gorgons, but you should.’

  ‘If we do not shoot, they will escape. We can’t afford such mistakes so early. It will weaken us in the eyes of our Chapters. We have to kill them all.’

  ‘That is Brother Hepsamon. Mine. He is a warrior with a good campaign record.’

  ‘Master…’

  ‘We spread lengthy misery, but Grandfather Nurgle is deeply caring towards his mortal and daemonic servants,’

  Muhr did not seem to understand.

  ‘That is where you and I differ, Muhr. Your warriors hate you, but they fear you. Mine...’ Opsarus did not finish, he simply gestured to the consoles.

  On the grainy pict screen, they saw Brother Hepsamon turn on his captors. There was a brief struggle. The hostage threw himself before the flashing boltguns of Squad Hezirah. He sacrificed himself, the black and white image falling jerkily to the ground. Waiting Plague Marines swept in for the kill.

  ‘Loyalty. Above the carnage, the slaughter, the violence and the lust, there must exist loyalty. The backbone of a fighting force, tasty marrow. You can’t make soup without marrow. Did you know that, Muhr?’

  Muhr watched the screen as the last of Squad Hezirah were chopped down by bolter fire. Executed. Had the Plague Marine not given up his life, then the plan might have succeeded.

  ‘If I give an order for my own warriors to kill their brethren, what sort of master would that make me?’ Opsarus asked. ‘A fat one without trust. No trust. No army,’ Opsarus said, blossoming his fingers as if a plume of dust had puffed up.

  ‘That’s your flaw, Muhr. You do not know how to foster your brethren,’ Opsarus said, chortling with delight.

  Muhr strode down the length of the dungeon cells, clattering the cage bars. ‘Who here does not swear allegiance to me?’

  He pounded the metal grates for emphasis. ‘Who?’

  Blood Gorgons he had known for decades, some for centuries, stared at him with hatred in their eyes. Muhr knew he was a traitor to them. He was their lord, but they would not follow him.

  ‘Who does not recognise my place within this Chapter? Who?’ Muhr repeated. He struck the cage bars with the back of his armoured fist, lashing out in his anger.

  None of the Blood Gorgons answered him. They seemed unified by their animosity towards him. The thought made Muhr angrier. Even imprisoned, stripped of their wargear, the Traitor Marines were resolute. They would not give up any ground.

  ‘I do not.’

  Muhr turned, finally finding a target for his wrath. It was Captain Zuthau, Commander of Fourth Company, a towering giant of a Chaos Space Marine, horned and plated from centuries of warp travel, the skin of his arms and torso pinched and ridged into chitin. Zuthau who had conquered the sea fleets of Shar. Zuthau, the very same who had orchestrated the capture and ransom of a tau caste leader. Zuthau who slew eleven Ultramarines at the Brine Delta Engagement.

  Muhr stalked towards Zuthau slowly. The captain stood at the front of his cell. He wore only a breechcloth, yet he stood proud, almost a full head taller than Muhr. Zuthau. A war hero.

  Muhr shot him in the belly and then the head. The gun-shots were so loud and so sudden that Zuthau never reacted. Muhr shot him three more times as he lay in a spreading pool of blood. Zuthau’s blood bond, Brother-Sergeant Arkaud, screamed in rage. He threw himself at the cage bars, spittle flying from his mouth. Muhr shot him too, emptying the rest of his bolt pistol.

  Arkaud was a veteran, but Muhr reasoned it was a small sacrifice to pay for the greater good of the Chapter.

  The dungeons remained quiet. No one shouted from their cells. Even those who could not see what had occurred, knew by the rusty scent of blood and the methane stink of gunsmoke.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As Barsabbas approached the dark eldar encampment, he could hear the bark of warp beasts. The creatures could scent his soul. They were restless, excited, their yaps and wails carrying across the darkness of the night.

  But Barsabbas could scent them too.

  ‘Warp hounds,’ Barsabbas said softly.

  ‘Illith-rauch,’ Sindul whispered. ‘Hounds of the Arenas. Slave-maulers.’

  ‘Tell me how to get in,’ Barsabbas said.

  Across the horizon, a field of spined, xerophytic grasses sprawled out for many hundreds of metres, bald patches of clay interspersed with coarse continents of low brush. Beyond that, the chimney stacks of the facility could be seen against a purple sky.

  ‘You can’t. My kabal dispatched a large raiding force here to claim our rights of plunder from the Ner’Gal. Dozens of them. My people are vigilant when slaves are involved.’

  Barsabbas narrowed his eyes at the xenos. ‘Remember not to run.’ The Traitor Marine rubbed his thumb across the scarred bump on Sindul’s cheek.

  ‘Watch him,’ he told Gumede. Bobbing his head obediently, the chief slid a long arrow from his quiver and notched his recurve bow. Barsabbas doubted the human was any match for the dark eldar in combat, but that didn’t matter. Although the dark eldar’s capacity for treachery was well known, they were almost painfully predictable.

  As Barsabbas turned to go, Sindul seemed to have a change of heart. ‘There is one way,’ he began.

  ‘Speak. Quickly.’

  ‘Warp beasts are blind. Or at least they do not see in the way that humans see. They sense fear, even the slightest quaver of the heart. My people use them to run down escaped slaves. It doesn’t matter when the slave escapes. If you have fear, or doubt, or hesitation, they will find you.’

  ‘So I must not regard them with any measure of emotion.’

  ‘Yes. If you can look upon a warp beast without emotion, then they will not attack you. The warp feeds on emotion.’

  Barsabbas was not sure how he could do this. A warp beast was a daemonic creation from another plane of existence. He had never seen one before, but to look upon them and feel nothing seemed an obscure challenge.

  ‘Sindul will guide me in. Gumede, stay here,’ Barsabbas ordered.

  The plainsman looked hurt, as if his courage had been questioned, but Barsabbas did not care. Humans felt too much emotion, it seemed they were predisposed to hysteria just from being left in the dark. Petty things quailed the human spirit too much. Gumede would definitely be a liability.

  ‘Stay,’ he repeated to the plainsman, as if humans were particularly dull.

  Barsabbas set off at a low crouch, trying to muffle his heavy footfalls in the clay soil. Sindul ghosted nearby, sliding through dry grass and saltbush without noise. The xenos could move shockingly quietly. Barsabbas had to rely on tactical training: rolling on the soles of his feet, tight control of his muscles, controlled breathing. Sindul seemed effortless. There was a springiness to his movement. The dark eldar was in total control of his body. When he needed to leap from one grass patch to another, he did it, flashing, bobbing and weaving. He moved so effortlessly it was difficult for Barsabbas to understand how it happened. If it were not for the metronome sweep of his auspex, he would have lost the dark eldar in the shadows.

  As they neared the facility, Barsabbas pulled them to a halt. Ahead, prowling in front of the power station, were three warp beasts. They circled the perimeter of the main station block, guarding the drawn roller shutters. Another four drifted in and out of the shadows, guarding the fleet of dark eldar grav-tanks parked in the open. They prowled low like dogs, but shared few other canine traits. Their shoulders were thick and almost humanoid, loping arms connected to round deltoids.

  ‘Remember what I said,’ Sindul whispered.

  ‘You are distracting me. Be quiet,’ Barsabbas said flatly. He focused himself. Traitor Marines did not easily suffer from fear, but they were no emotionless servitors. The canine creatures made him tense. Although they posed no physical threat to him, they could raise the alarm and that
gave him doubt. Breathing deeply, he suppressed it. He felt his heart rate and pulse dull, drawing out to a slow cadence.

  Without hesitation, Barsabbas strode out into the open.

  The warp beasts started and craned their muzzles skywards, snuffling the air. Barsabbas saw them up close. They were wet, skinless creatures, pulsating with exposed arteries and ridged muscle. As he stole closer, he could smell warp sulphur on their hides. It reminded him of Yetsugei, and he felt his heart rate spike. As if catching a sudden scent, the warp beasts sniffed the air in his direction. Their milk-white eyes saw nothing but their muzzles curled back in a growl, unsheathing strong sets of teeth.

  Sindul slid past him, shaking his head with a haughty manner. He walked past the warp beasts, even putting out a hand to skim the muzzle of one, almost touching them. The hounds did not react. Emboldened by Sindul’s manner, Barsabbas reached the armoured shutters without acknowledging them. Once there he turned and saw the three warp beasts licking their paws and gazing out across the horizon.

  To his fore, the power station seemed empty beyond its half-drawn shutters. Through the dim green of his visor display, Barsabbas made out ancient machinery trapped beneath the woven fabric of thick dust. There were ripples of disturbed dust on the rockcrete ground, kicked-up tufts of floss that showed recent activity. He nodded at Sindul, a meaningful nod that reminded him of their pact.

  With a soft click of his boltgun’s safety, Barsabbas ducked underneath the shutters. They shuffled through the dust carpet, dragging their feet along the woolly filth to muffle their entrance.

  They found themselves in some sort of workshop, dark and cavernous. Cogs, motors, pipes and power blocks were stacked like tetric sculptures, promising dark hiding places for the enemy.

  ‘This way,’ Sindul said, flitting up a short flight of metal steps that led into a porthole door. ‘The slaves are beyond there.’

  Wary of his captive but needing his guidance, Barsabbas rescanned the area with his auspex. Despite the high metal interference in the area, the dark eldar did not seem to be lying. The Blood Gorgon saw the distinct bumps of life signs overlaid with the contoured graphics of crowded machinery.

  ‘Stay within my view, or I will shoot you. Give me any reason to suspect deceit, I will kill all your comrades first and then I will bury you alive,’ Barsabbas promised.

  Sindul did not seem fazed. ‘Better a proud traitor than a shameful slave,’ he replied.

  Barsabbas’s knotwork mace flashed in the dark. ‘Then go.’

  Barsabbas climbed a low walkway above furnace vats. Corrugated iron and brittle board shored up gaps in the rusting mesh platform. Below, he could hear the delirious drone of voices, shrill from panic and distress.

  Four dark eldar raiders stood guard over the slaves. Close to two hundred prisoners slept on the rockcrete floors, miserable huddles of bodies swathed in rat’s-nest clothing. The dark eldar were taking their time to process the slaves, separating any with signs of the black wilt. Three squat furnaces were firing up for the first time in centuries. Barsabbas could imagine what the dark eldar did to dispose of the sick and infected. Further down the power station, separated by a chainlink fence, healthy slaves were being loaded into cubed shipping containers, ready to be shifted off-world.

  Barsabbas fired from his vantage point. One of the dark eldar fell away, his torso ruined. Another was chopped down at the shins. In one fluid movement, Barsabbas rolled off the gantry, firing as he went. Sindul followed, landing on his knees and spinning into a forward roll. At the sound of gun-shots, the slaves rose up in one panicked tide. Confused by the sudden chaos, the dark eldar guards fired randomly, spraying splinter fire into the oncoming crowd.

  Like a herder, Barsabbas fired his boltgun into the dense, mass of slaves. He switched his vox-casters to maximum amplitude and screamed so loud that the rafters rattled and the dirty-paned windows blew out. Terrified of the braying giant in armour, the captured plainsmen overran their guards. Hundreds of slaves ran amok. People began to shriek in terror.

  Barsabbas blasted his voice at Sindul. ‘Release the chainlinks, traitor.’

  Sindul made his way across the station floor. He knifed any slave that came too close, his pair of hook swords drizzling blood. Crossing over to the holding pens, he struck the greasy padlock with a downward stroke, cutting straight through the soft iron. As the cage door swung open, Sindul had to vault up on top of the chainlink roof in order to avoid the stampede of plainsmen gushing out.

  From the side doors and connective rooms, dark eldar raiders emerged from their sleep. Some were half-dressed in kimonos of dark silk. Bleary and dazed, they nonetheless began to lay down indiscriminate splinterfire.

  Snatching Sindul by the back of his cuirass, Barsabbas snapped at him, spitting behind his helmet. ‘Lead me to him,’ he shouted. ‘Lead me to him now.’

  Sargaul was close by. Barsabbas could feel the old pains returning, the familiar shared aches and throbs of blood binding. He was sure of it. Sargaul’s presence was a tangible thing.

  Almost irrational, Barsabbas began to wade through the rush of escaping slaves. Splinter shards drummed off his ceramite plates but he did not care. He fired his boltgun but his mind was not there; the targeting systems locked onto incoming muzzle flashes, framing them with triangular icons, and Barsabbas simply went through the motions. Years of incessant drilling had prepared him for such a moment.

  ‘Where is he?’

  Sindul lifted a trembling finger to the metal balconies on the second storey. ‘They store personal slaves up there. Hand-picked ones.’

  Barsabbas climbed onto a hydraulic elevator and ascended to the mezzanine level. Dark eldar waited for him there in various states of undress, shooting him. The boltgun fired heavy-calibre, self-propelled explosive rounds into their frail naked flesh, a scattering of tiny detonations that misted the air with fine blood. Barsabbas surged past and ran shoulder-first into a locked metal door. It flipped off its hinges, buckled by the impact.

  In his rage, he found himself in the generator room. His rush to find Sargaul made him careless. He barely knew where he was. He only noticed fragmentary details, as if his mind was clouded. The room was well-appointed, for the derelict power facility. Dark eldar were purveyors of fine living, and satin sheets lined the wooden floor boards. Incense burned.

  He saw warlike dark eldar soldiers, not mere raiders but heavy infantry, in the periphery of his vision but he ignored them. He saw slaves: human females that others would consider facially attractive, robust warriors, a plainsman child with amber eyes. He saw all these, but none of it mattered.

  At the far end of the room, chained to the behemoth silos of coal generators, he saw Sargaul.

  The bone tablet was small. It was no bigger than a thumb, and upon it was carved a single ophidian coil. Even those within the Chapter who were prophetically obtuse understood the symbolism of the bone.

  It was an unsettling portent and one that could have only come from the coven. The bone had been passed through the dungeon cells, slipping into the tiny venting grates at the top of their cubicles.

  From there, the tablet had been passed between cells. Each receiver understood full well the meaning of the message. It was a rallying call, a message that reassured the fragmented brothers that there was still cohesion in their ranks.

  Reassurance of their cohesion was what the Blood Gorgons needed to spur them into action. Captain Hazareth was of the opinion that he could access the central security block if they could provide some form of distraction to occupy their guards. Baalbek was not sure how Hazareth could break free from his cell, but the captain was adamant he would be able to, and he had never been one to make claims he could not honour.

  Baalbek began to push the bone tablet through the venting grate.

  A Plague Marine strode past, peering closely through his bulbous goggles at the occupants of each cell. Hear
ing the rubberised clip of his boots, Baalbek wadded the bone tablet tightly into the meat of his palm.

  ‘What have you got there?’ the Plague Marine asked, stopping at the Blood Gorgons’ cell.

  Before Baalbek could answer, his bond, Brother Hybarus, cut in. ‘We’re bored, brother. Our bodies should not be bound like this. Let us out to stretch our limbs.’

  The Plague Marine ignored Hybarus. ‘What’s that in his hand?’ he asked, pointing at Baalbek.

  Baalbek was suddenly very conscious of the tablet clenched in his fist. They had no means of distraction yet, and now the plan would become undone. Baalbek’s face remained impassive, but he cursed fluently in his head.

  The cell door slid back and the Plague Marine squeezed his bulk through. ‘Show me your hand,’ he ordered, raising his boltgun.

  Stepping in-between them, Hybarus shoved the Plague Marine on the chest. ‘You dare threaten us in our own home?’ he growled.

  The Plague Marine struck Hybarus across the jaw with the pistol grip of his bolter. The clash of metal on bone was clearly audible. Reeling from the blow, Hybarus spat teeth. He could only turtle up, splaying his fingers across his head and keeping his forearms tight to his ribs as the Plague Marine struck him again and again with the pistol grip and solid, reverberating backfists.

  In the brief episode of violence, Baalbek slipped the shard under his tongue.

  ‘Show me your hands!’ the Plague Marine shouted, snapping his attention back to Baalbek.

  Freezing, Baalbek dared not swallow under the Plague Marine’s stare. The Plague Marine stood over Hybarus, pressing his boltgun to the back of his skull. Even the bob of Baalbek’s throat would likely admit their guilt. Slowly, deliberately he opened his hands and held them out before him.

  ‘Mouth!’ shouted the Plague Marine. ‘Open your mouth!’

  Baalbek hesitated. He opened his mouth slowly.

  ‘Under your tongue!’ the Plague Marine shouted.

  Baalbek lifted his tongue slowly in defiance. But bared for all to see, there was nothing hidden beneath. Hybarus snorted up at their tormentor through a mouthful of blood.