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Cover
Beneath the Flesh - Andy Smillie
Gilead's Curse - Nik Vincent and Dan Abnett
The Shadow in the Glass - Steve Lyons
Redeemed - James Swallow
An Extract from Know No Fear - Dan Abnett
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Beneath the Flesh
Part II
Andy Smillie
The mutilated corpses of eight Flesh Tearers decorated the curved walls of the chapel. Fixed in place by the blades of their chainswords, they hung like nightmare visages of the saints that decorated Cretacia’s Reclusiasms. Their armour was pitted and dented from numerous impacts and lacerations; their helms had been torn from their locking mounts, mangling their gorgets; all that remained of their faces were sunken husks, matted with bloodied hair.
‘Blood of Sanguinius,’ Nisroc fell to one knee, the desecration of his brother’s flesh staggering him.
‘Blood will bring blood,’ with a grunt of effort, Harahel pulled the blade from the nearest of corpses. The dead Flesh Tearer’s remains made a dull thud as they dropped to the ground. Harahel stared at the deep hole in the chapel wall; the blade had been driven through the outer rock into the metal support behind. ‘It took great strength to do this.’
Nisroc nodded, and cast his gaze around the chamber. The plaster finish and faux-brickwork of the walls was undamaged. The flagstones that paved the way to the raised, wooden alter were unblemished save for a single dark spot left behind by an errant blood droplet. ‘They weren’t killed here,’ Nisroc pushed himself to his feet. ‘There’s no sign of battle. Someone brought them here.’ The Apothecary struggled to talk, grinding his teeth in rage ‘After.’
Harahel snarled. ‘Brother-sergeant,’ he summoned Barbelo over the vox. Static filled his ear as he waited for a response. ‘Emperor damn this storm,’ the Flesh Tearer punched the wall, cracking it in a cloud of plaster-dust.
‘Report,’ Barbelo’s voice crackled back.
‘We have cleared the chapel annex.’ Harahel paused as another burst of static shot across the vox-link, ‘Eight of our brothers lie here.’
‘Status?’
‘Dead. All of them.’ Harahel turned his eyes from the corpses, his fists bunching in restrained fury as he glared at the aquila etched on the floor.
‘Show me.’
Harahel closed his eyes. He had no wish to look upon the massacre a second time. Activating his helmet’s visual feed, he panned his head around the room, streaming what his optics registered to the others.
For a long moment, the vox-link fell silent.
‘Nisroc, get what you came for. Harahel, meet us at the Stormraven.’ Barbelo’s voice rasped through another bout of static.
Six minutes. Time continued to count down at the edge of Maion’s peripheral display. The Archenemy’s army was almost at their door. ‘Let them come,’ he snarled, affixing the last of the melta-charges to the crossbeam that supported the ceiling. The charge was directional, and he’d taken care to make sure that the blast would travel down the corridor away from where he and Micos would be positioned.
‘Brother,’ Harahel’s voice rasped over a secure channel, ‘Back in the armoury, we gutted the traitors without incident. The ones in the command centre put up no more of a fight.’
Maion knew where Harahel was headed. ‘Yes, I had the same thought.’
‘How could such, such filth,’ Harahel spat the word, ‘have overcome our brethren? Those weaklings could scarcely have lifted a chainsword, let alone driven it into solid rock.’
Maion brought the percentile counter that recorded the progress of the data-stack download to the forefront of his helmet’s display. It ticked down slow and deliberate, like a dying man’s laboured breath. ‘Emperor willing, we’ll live long enough to find out.’ Maion sighed and blinked the counter away.
‘Jetpack assault troops. Bearing down on the courtyard,’ Amaru’s voice cut across on the main channel, interrupting Harahel’s reply. The Techmarine was still jacked into the compound’s data banks in the inner sanctum and was observing the Archenemy’s advance through a remote-link with the Stormraven’s sensors. The Archenemy’s jetpack squad appeared as solid red blips that drifted over the landscape and grew in size as they neared. ‘I count six of them…’ Amaru’s voice trailed off as he worked a calculation. ‘Harahel, you will not clear the courtyard before they descend.’
Harahel emerged from the chapel annex and growled up into the blackness of Arere’s starless sky, his enhanced eyes searching for the tell-tale flares of jetpacks. ‘I see no enemy.’
‘I assure you brother, they are coming.’
‘They’re a vanguard, nothing more.’ Barbelo growled over the vox-feed, his impatience evident in every syllable. ‘Harahel, ignore them and get to my position. The main force will hit us in less than five minutes. Amaru, cover his advance.’
The Techmarine blinked an acknowledgment icon to Barbelo and concentrated on communicating with the Stormraven’s machine-spirit. The gunship’s sentient mind was silent, almost dormant. It resisted Amaru’s gentle interrogation, blocking his attempts to rouse it.
‘My skin for yours.’ The Techmarine invited the machine-spirit into his armour as he probed deeper into the gunship. The connection sent a spasm through his muscles as he gained access to the Stormraven’s weapon systems. Amaru teased power into the gunship’s turret-mounted assault cannons.
‘Battle,’ the machine-spirit whispered in the Techmarine’s head as it stirred to readiness.
The red-blips pulsed on Amaru’s display as the enemy neared weapons range. He cycled the twin-assault cannons to firing speed, their multiple barrels whirring with a metallic hiss as the autoloader fed them rounds.
‘Enemy.’ The word growled from within the Stormraven’s machine soul, washing through Amaru’s mind like the strained rumble of thruster backwash. It was awake now, wearing the Stormraven like a suit of ceramite war plate, wielding its turret-mounted weapon with the same ease and precision that a Flesh Tearer hefted a blade.
A sound wave spiked across Amaru’s display as the Stormraven’s auditory sensors detected the roar of enemy jetpacks. The Chaos Space Marines were gunning their thrusters, slowing their descent.
‘Purge the heretics.’ the Techmarine urged the gunship to open fire.
The enraged machine-spirit obliged. The twin-assault cannon’s twelve barrels flared into life, lighting up the sky like miniature starbursts as they fired. Caught unaware, the Chaos Space Marines dived straight into the fusillade. The first three died in a heartbeat, their armour and flesh torn asunder by the unceasing hail of armour piercing rounds.
Harahel was two-thirds of the way across the courtyard when the assault cannons opened fire. He risked a glance skyward and saw the visceral red power armour of the Archenemy’s warriors. Their breastplates were shaped like cruel gargoyles and snarled at him from the darkness. A burst of rounds clipped the nearest of the Traitor Marines, blowing apart his thrusters in a shower of flame. The enemy warrior veered downwards towards Harahel, carried by what remained of his earlier momentum. The Flesh Tearer smiled and swung his eviscerator up through the stricken Chaos Space Marine’s ribcage, ripping him in two. Harahel kept moving, tearing his giant weapon through the body of another foe that slammed into the earth in front of him a moment later. The Flesh Tearer bit into his lip, relishing the taste of his own blood as he pounded towards Barbelo and the slaughter to come.
Amaru watched as the Stormraven continued to track and fire. He felt his pulse quicken to the hoarse wheeze of the assault cannon’s barrels as they spun. Several more of the red blips disappeared from his display, shredded by the gunshi
ps’ unerring fire. The Techmarine could feel the machine-spirit’s cold rage, its lust for violence and the gleeful abandon with which it massacred the enemy. He gasped, clutching the cables that linked him to the compound’s datastacks, and fought the urge to sever the link. He needed to be outside with the Stormraven, fighting, killing. His body began to tremble as he tried to restrain his urges. The download sequence was in its final stage, any interruption now would corrupt the data. Amaru dropped to one knee, screaming in rage as the machine-spirit’s emotions threatened to overcome him. ‘My work is iron, my will steel.’ The Techmarine held his clenched fist against the machine-cog on his left pauldron as he growled his way through the devotion, ‘I shall not falter, I shall not heel.’ Defend, he forced the order onto the machine spirit and drew his mind away, severing the link to the gunship and the violence outside.
Panting hard, Amaru focused on finishing the protocol. ‘There is no truth beyond the data, it is the muniment of the future. Guard it well.’ Download complete, Amaru unplugged from the datastacks and completed the rites of remembrance, secreting the data-keeper within his armour. The Techmarine let out a slow breath as the after-shadow of the Raven and the compound fell away, and the confines of his world reasserted themselves.
Alone in his armour, he took reassurance from the cold, impassive touch of the bionics and augmetics that punctuated his body. Perfect where he was flawed, the machine components of the Techmarine would continue to function long after The Rage drove his flesh to destruction. ‘Download complete,’ Amaru voxed the update to the rest of the squad and pushed himself to his feet.
‘Nisroc, status?’ Barbelo’s voice crackled over the vox.
‘I need three minutes,’ Maion listened to the Apothecary’s reply as the chrono-counter on his display blinked down to one.
He stood immobile in the darkness. His gaze fixed on the heavy blast doors at the far end of the corridor, as the chrono display floating at the edge of his peripheral vision blinked down to zero. The attack had begun. If Barbelo was right and this enemy did indeed wage war like the Flesh Tearers, then they would have fallen upon the outer walls with all the fury of a scorned god. Maion imagined the scene outside, picturing the Archenemy’s forces as they descended on the compound. Vindicator siege tanks would have lead an armoured charge, unleashing a devastating bombardment as accompanying Rhinos and Razorbacks disgorged frothing assault squads. With the siege shells exploding overhead, the assault troops would use melta weapons and crackling thunder hammers to finish the job, smashing an entry hole into the compound. Right now, the Archenemy would be tearing towards him and the others like a swarm of berserker locusts.
Yet the scene ahead remained unchanged, the blast door intact. The only sound Maion could hear was the gentle purr of his armour and the wash of his rebreather. His muscles twitched. The urge to break from his defensive posture and meet the enemy head on was almost overwhelming.
‘The longer you stand, the more blood you can spill,’ Micos placed a calming hand on Maion’s shoulder guard, reading the other Flesh Tearer’s mood. ‘Save your fury, we’ll be steeped in their entrails soon enough.’ Micos thrust his chainaxe towards the blast door as a trio of sparks dripped to the floor.
Maion nodded, allowing Micos’s words to soften the call to violence that rang in his mind like the summoning gong of an ancient arena. The other Flesh Tearer looked odd in Atoc’s helm. Atoc, Maion’s anger returned in force as he thought of his brother’s death. His knuckles turning bone white inside his gauntlets as he squeezed his weapons, desperate for something to rend. Another burst of super-heated metal flared in the gloom. He blinked away a myriad of tactical icons from his display; he was going to kill whatever came through the blast doors, nothing else mattered.
The drizzle of sparks tumbled into a downpour as the Archenemy intensified their assault on the door. A pulsing, amber line resolved into focus, bisecting the door from floor to ceiling.
‘Here they come,’ Maion crouched down, motioning for Micos to do the same.
The cutting stopped. The weld-line hung in the gloom, glowing and raw like a fresh scar. Silence filled the corridor, threatening to steal the last of Maion’s restraint.
An immense, metallic hand punched through the centre of the blast door. Pneumatic pistons hissed and spat as elongated fingers flexed in search of something to rend. The audio dampeners in Maion’s helmet worked to filter out the torturous screech of metal as the hand reached backwards, gripped the door, tore it from its hinges and dragged it backwards into the darkness. An instant later, the hand and the lumbering body it was attached to, bolted into view.
‘Dreadnought, corridor one,’ Maion warned, resisting the urge to open fire with his boltgun. He couldn’t afford to waste the ammo and even the weapon’s mass-reactive rounds would do little more than scratch the paint from the armoured behemoth bearing down on him. A dread fusion of Space Marine and technology, the Dreadnought was more foe than he and Micos could stop unaided. The towering walker stomped over the wreckage of the door, emerging into the corridor proper, and opened fire.
Maion threw himself flat. ‘For the Chapter!’ he roared, thumbing the control stick Amaru had fashioned for him. On the ceiling above him, one of the missile tubes stripped from the Stormraven’s wings screamed into life, sending its payload burning on a plume of fire towards the walker.
The first of the missiles slammed into the Dreadnought’s sarcophagus and exploded, splintering its armoured hide. The missile’s secondary booster ignited a moment later, driving a tertiary charge in through the weakened armour plating to detonate in the Dreadnought’s core. Flame engulfed the walker, wreathing it like a burial wrap. Autocannon rounds tore across the walls and ceiling as the Dreadnought continued to fire.
Maion fired again, sending another missile towards the metallic beast. A shrill cry resounded from the Dreadnought’s voice-casters as it raised its clawed arm in defence. The second missile’s primary warhead broke against the arm, blowing it apart in a shower of silver shrapnel. The remaining warhead burrowed into the Dreadnought’s flank, detonating with enough force to finish the job, destroying the Archenemy walker.
A blood-curdling roar filled the corridor as a tide of blood-armoured warriors swarmed over the Dreadnought’s corpse towards the Flesh Tearers. Micos roared back, pushing himself to his feet and striding forward to bathe the enemy in a jet of liquid fire. The Archenemy’s warriors ran through the flame, heedless of their bubbling armour and the flesh that ran from it like water.
Maion advanced to Micos’s right, his boltgun flashing in the darkness as he pumped a stream of rounds into the press of enemy. Each time Maion caught sight of a foe it forced a curse from his lips. Their red armour seemed in direct mockery of the sons of Sanguinius. Where Maion’s breastplate was adorned with the holy aquila and his shoulder guard carried the mark of his Chapter, the foe’s armour was inlaid with brass skulls and blasphemous runes.
‘We can’t hold here,’ Micos’s flamer stuttered and died, its fuel tank exhausted. Letting it hang on its sling, he drew his bolt pistol and continued to fire. In the close confines of the corridor he couldn’t miss, each round found its mark. He shot an enemy point-blank in the chest, then two more. At such close range, even power armour offered little protection, his bolt rounds punching out through their backs in a hail of gore.
Maion stood level to Micos’s right, firing his boltgun on full-auto until the round counter flashed zero. There was no time to reload the next enemy only ever a breath away. ‘Micos, down!’
Micos grabbed the nearest corpse as it fell to the ground and pulled it down on top of himself. Maion did likewise. Behind them, the hurricane bolter emplacement they’d fashioned from the Stormraven’s sponson weaponry opened fire. The noise was deafening as the three pairs of linked boltguns pumped a storm of shells into the corridor. Funnelled by the walls of the corridor, and pushed onwards by the press of warriors at their backs, the Archenemy were driven heedlessly into the salvo
. They died in droves, their torsos pulped and limbs severed by the vicious onslaught.
Maion lay under the twitching corpses of half a dozen enemy. His pulse was racing, his twin-hearts echoing to the call of the hurricane bolters. The smell of blood and burnt flesh was choking. He was lying in an expanding pool of blood that dripped from all around him, congealing into a puddle of thick, viscous fluid that threatened to swallow him.
‘Emperor, fashion my thirst to your unbending will.’ Maion focused on the data overlaid on his helmet display, turning his thoughts to the tactical challenges that an endless horde of berserker foe presented, and away from the bloodlust burning in his veins. The weapon emplacement’s ammo counter was racing towards zero. ‘Two seconds.’ Maion subvocalised the warning to Micos and slammed his last clip into his boltgun.
With a final thrum, the hurricane bolters racked empty. Maion shot upwards from beneath the corpse-cover. The Archenemy dead were heaped upon one-another like red-armoured sandbags. Yet still they came. He opened fire, sending two more abominations to join the pile of dead that choked the corridor. The smell of promethium and burnt flesh flooded towards Maion as the enemy turned their flamers on their dead, burning a path towards the Flesh Tearers. The damning clack of an empty firing chamber drew a curse from Maion’s lips as his boltgun spat its last round. He discarded the spent weapon and gripped his chainsword with both hands. ‘I am His vengeance!’
‘Harahel!’ Barbelo tore his chainsword from an enemy’s ribcage as he shouted for the giant Flesh Tearer.
Harahel wasn’t listening, his attention fixed on the dismembered bodies of the three Chaos Space Marines he’d just slain.
‘Harahel, fall back!’
Harahel ignored the sergeant, launching himself back into the press of enemy. Ducking a whirring chainaxe, he shouldered an enemy warrior into the wall, pulping his skull between rockcrete bulkhead and ceramite pauldron. Harahel smiled and swung his eviscerator around in a tight arc, hacking into the onrushing press of red armour with a cold fury.
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