Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1

by Warhammer 40K

  The tank-lines were exposed and unsupported. They would do well to last another hour. Two, at most. That was all the time they had.

  ‘Fire!’ Heriat shouted down the comm, spitting his defiance into the mouthpiece. ‘Throne of Earth, bring them down! I want to see them choke!’

  Rauth crashed upwards, lashing out through a whole swathe of clutching tendrils. Everything in the core of the Capitolis had been turned into a clinging, writhing forest of stone and flesh – columns flexed like lungs, taking in air and expelling it with soft breaths. Overhead lumen-banks burst open, revealing nests of worms that fell to the stairs with wet slaps. Wall-sections burst at the seams, vomiting clusters of writhing growths that spilled across the swimming floors; spiked creatures exploded out of suspended cogitator housings, thrusting out through broken valve-shafts and exploded bronze cages.

  Rauth swung his fist round, bludgeoning a swaying spawn as it shuddered away from him. He went after it, driving it to the edge of the sweeping Stair. It clung on, trembling even as its spiked tentacles flailed at him. He slammed out a final time with his blade, severing the horror’s flesh and sending it crashing through the stone railings and out into the void beyond. It tumbled away into oblivion, wailing as it went.

  Rauth powered on upwards, hearing the crunch and thud of his fellow warriors as they hacked their way along the endless Stair. As they went, screams followed them from the very structure of the spire’s core. Living humans had been buried inside the pillars of the hive, or melded with the marble flagstones underfoot, or hung from huge iron chains over the bottomless abyss.

  Rauth had seen such blasphemies before on other worlds and knew their purpose. Mortal agony echoed in the parallel realm of the aether, quickening spirits of ruin and weakening the bonds that held them distinct from the world of the senses. The Capitolis had been turned into a shrine of pain, an altar on which human suffering would be turned into debased glory.

  If he’d been capable of nausea, Rauth would have been sickened by it; as it was, his emotional range had been drilled down to a narrower spectrum. In the absence of shock, pity or terror he simply fought on, channelling his rage into physical destruction. Clad in the huge baroque edifice of Tactical Dreadnought armour, he became a demigod of devastation. When living barriers reared up at him he tore them down. Abominations flung themselves at him, tearing at the ever-moving plates of ceramite and scrabbling for purchase, and they died, cut apart by the crackling edge of his blade or ripped open by tight bursts of bolter rounds.

  Khatir remained close to him, striding with cold determination through the melee. Imanol was near too. Telach had forged ahead, accompanied by his Codiciers. The Librarian had been wreathed in a corona of ice-white fire, lighting up the paths of darkness in stark illumination and propelling him upwards with terrible, ferocious speed. Anything that got close to him, mutant or daemonic, exploded in tatters of charred flesh. He had passed on far ahead, out of reach of help, a lone bright star amid the filth and misery.

  Rauth forced himself to run harder, his boots cracking the floor beneath him. Terminator armour was enormous, prohibiting the lightning-quick movements of his battle-brothers, but it was still capable of driving him onwards at a furious pace.

  He knew the need for haste. Even though he had none of Telach’s gifts he could still sense the burgeoning horror waiting in the levels above. An ambient heartbeat was everywhere – shuddering down sinuous coolant tubes, reverberating up circulation shafts, thrumming across the steps they ascended. Its owner was coming quickly, fighting its way into consciousness like a foetus grappling through the fluids of the womb.

  He hadn’t been quick enough. Despite everything, despite the sacrifices, the relentless assaults, the focused attack on the centre of the contagion, he hadn’t been quick enough.

  Rauth had enough humanity left to feel guilt for that. He had enough humanity to feel shame, and frustration, and anger. He had none left for fear, for despair or for resignation: he would fight until the last moment, straining every muscle and overloading every bionic in his system to counteract the evil that had been birthed at the pinnacle.

  Aspire to the condition of the primarch. Aspire to the union with steel.

  He crashed onwards, decapitating a howling mutant that swung down from a thicket of cables with one hand while disembowelling another with a casual punch of his storm bolter barrels.

  A daemon hurtled towards him, bounding down the twisting stairs like a feline.

  Rauth winged it with the storm bolter, blowing a section of its trailing leg clean away. It shifted, slipping sideways with impossible speed. Rauth’s armour matched it, compensating for the sudden motion with a thousand tiny servo movements. He swung his blade round in a sparkling arc of ice-blue lightning.

  It tried to evade again, but misjudged. Rauth’s weapon bit deep, and its disruptor field exploded into a snaking, lashing orb of expelled energy. The daemon screamed, throwing its head back and baring lines of fangs. Rauth pushed deeper, working the blade hard, carving through the unholy flesh. He ignored its raking claws, even when they sliced through his own plate and bit down to the metal workings below. The two of them – beast and man – grappled together for a while longer, each gouging chunks out of the other, rocking back and forth and breaking open the wide marble steps beneath them.

  Then the light in the daemon’s eyes faded. Its broken body collapsed onto the floor. A rushing like storm winds built up, followed by a sharp snap. Rauth drew his sword back and kicked his left boot forwards. The heavy serrated sole crashed down on the creature’s head, cracking the bone.

  Rauth let himself look down at the vanquished daemon for a moment. Its lithe body was twisted into contortions, the lilac skin broken in a dozen places.

  He applied force, and his boot shattered the daemon’s skull, grinding the warp-woven bone into dust.

  Then he was moving again, lumbering up the winding path towards the uttermost summit. As he went, he saw more creatures of the dark heading towards him, each with an equal desire and capacity to slay. They clogged the way ahead, clawing and racing to be the first into contact with him, swarming down the corridors like insects. They threw themselves into his path, uncaring of their own debased lives, only concerned with slowing the progress of the Angels of Death for long enough. Simply pushing through the close-packed crowd of them took too long – there were too many, too many.

  We are running out of time.

  ‘Onwards!’ Rauth roared, his voice thick with frustration. ‘Break them!’

  Nethata watched the Capitolis burn. Out in the wasteland, he could see Heriat’s forces taking heavy punishment. Every time a Leman Russ was reduced to smouldering metal scrap by a las-beam, a pang of terrible shame stabbed at him.

  They are my men. They are my machines.

  He knew what the Commissar-General was doing. He had seen Valien’s dispatches, and saw where Heriat was aiming. Nethata admired his precision under fire. For all that he had been betrayed, for all that Heriat’s actions had destroyed his own position, he couldn’t muster much more than wry admiration in response.

  Heriat had been right. Nethata had always known, in his soul, that his actions had been folly. The Imperium never tolerated dissent. Its very being lay in the absence of dissent, the lack of mercy, the dispassionate application of discipline. It had been foolish, imbecilic, to think that he could have proved the exception.

  Nethata sat in the chassis of one of the few tanks left to him, commandeered from its Galamoth commander less than a hour ago. The tiny command space in comparison to Malevolentia made drawing up acceptable tactics difficult – he had poor control of the comm-network, and a number of commanders were still unable to speak directly to him on secure lines.

  The delay had given him time to think, at least. His initial response had been to go after Heriat, to aim his remaining guns at Malevolentia and try to disable it. In his initial fury, had been able to, he would have done it.

  Then the attack on
the spires had begun, and the carnage had escalated quickly. Even as Nethata had rushed to assert his control over the resources he still had left, wall defences had opened up and started destroying Heriat’s Basilisks.

  Nethata’s dreams of an orderly, measured attack lay in ruins. All loyalist forces save those under his immediate command – just over a hundred battle tanks with supporting troop carriers – were fully committed, locked into a death-grapple with an enemy that could no longer be withdrawn from.

  That presented him with two options: he could pull his own forces back, retreating ignominiously from the front in the hope that he’d be able to salvage something to use at some later point, or throw his lot in with the man who’d only just betrayed him.

  It didn’t take long to reach a decision.

  ‘We advance,’ he ordered, addressing the squadron commanders over the division-wide channel. ‘Take up positions alongside the Commissar-General. Follow his fire-pattern and take his orders. Emperor be with you. Emperor be with us all.’

  The tanks started moving immediately. Despite the obvious danger, none of the commanders liked standing idly while their comrades were in action ahead of them. Columns of Leman Russes began to grind their way north, crashing through the maze of shattered buildings and breaking out onto potholed, cracked highways between them.

  Nethata watched them go through tiny viewports on the tank’s hull. As the tanks made their way towards the battle-front he felt his failure weigh heavily on his shoulders. Physical pain, deep-seated and acute, throbbed in his lower torso, but he resisted the urge to gland.

  I should feel pain for this. I should feel guilt, and I should feel shame.

  The tank’s commander, a man named Hiert Lerdian, turned to face him.

  ‘Are we going in, lord?’ he asked.

  The tone of his voice was reproachful. Just like the rest, he didn’t enjoy seeing other men charge into action ahead of him.

  Nethata checked the readings on his auspex again. The screen was filthy with ash.

  ‘Have you raised Princeps Lopi yet?’ he asked.

  ‘Negative. The comms protocols are complex. We are trying.’

  Neither of the Warlords had moved. They remained static, like ancient statues of a long-dead civilisation watching over the gradual destruction of the world around them. For all Nethata knew, the god-machines might have been in contact with Heriat, or Rauth even, but he no longer had the means to raise them himself.

  Nethata put the auspex down.

  ‘Keep trying,’ he said.

  ‘And us?’

  Nethata looked out of the viewport again, out to where the spires burned.

  He knew his life was forfeit. He was tempted to give the order to retreat south. He might have been able to get to the gates, then out across the Helat to the command bunkers. Shuttles would still be berthed there, ready to take him up into orbit and the safety of the fleet. Once aboard a Naval warship, even Rauth would not be able to get at him easily.

  ‘Lord, are we going in?’

  It would be difficult, but it could be done. Perhaps, despite all he had done to earn the clan commander’s wrath, something – his life at least – could still be salvaged. Maybe negotiations could be made.

  You cannot control the Iron Hands. It is dangerous to try.

  He smiled again; a hooked, wry gesture across his blunt face.

  ‘Yes, we are going in, commander,’ said Nethata, gripping the edges of his seat, ready for the lurch and roll of the tank’s movement. Everything on the northern horizon was aflame. For as long as he looked at the Capitolis, he felt like he was looking at the end of the world. ‘Seal us up, and bring us close. We’ll add our fire to theirs. Perhaps we can do some good out there.’

  He felt the engines start up. The hull of the tank shook violently, and smoke belched into the crew compartments.

  ‘Perhaps we can yet make amends,’ Nethata said quietly, speaking to himself as the crew busied themselves with their duties. ‘Perhaps there is still time.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Marivo had made his choice, and Khadi had made hers.

  When she’d left, scampering down the tunnels like a sewer rat, he’d felt a sharp and unexpected pang of regret. He’d wanted something a little more pronounced to mark their separation; an acknowledgement, however slight, that they had shared something of a strange bond over the terrible days of the insurrection on Shardenus.

  He had saved her life. She had saved his. They had both killed men in the name of the Emperor and lived to witness the Angels of Death in furious, terrifying action. He felt that was worth more than a weary nod, a quick look up, and a brief hand on his shoulder before she’d gone.

  That was what he’d got, though. Perhaps there had been no time for anything else. Or perhaps, as was more likely, Khadi had never felt more than a fleeting affinity for him. Any illusion that the two of them had begun to feel some shared sense of purpose, a bond of comradeship even, had been just that – an illusion.

  For all that, Marivo couldn’t quite shake the image of her tired, scared, dirty face. He held it in his mind as he ran, gripping his lasgun with white-knuckled fingers. Focusing on a picture of humanity in all its ordinariness helped stave off the imminent madness for a little longer.

  After she’d gone, he’d gone back to the front, just as he’d always known he would. He’d reported for duty and picked up recycled weapons and armour components. The visor he’d been given had been much better than the one he’d used before, save for the smell of sweat and blood inside.

  He’d followed the Iron Hands in with the rest of the mortal troops. He’d watched the gates open, and had felt the cold waves of horror sweep across him again. He’d seen the Space Marines charge through the gap, and he’d heard them shout their battle-cry.

  The sound of that had jolted him out of his fear-struck stupor. Before then, even when the daemons had been among them, the Iron Hands had fought in silence. Hearing them roar their defiance in metal-edged unison had daunted him rather than inspired him. It had reminded him just how much he was an insignificant part of all that was unfolding – a mere speck of humanity thrown between the contests of gods and daemons.

  Then the orders from the sergeants had broken out, and the remnants of the mortal forces sent into the spires alongside the Iron Hands had begun to shuffle forwards. A mix of uniforms – pearl-grey, olive, black – had jostled alongside one another, a product of hastily reconstituted units and regiments. Marivo had broken into a tumbling run along with the others, trying to keep his feet as he’d passed under the enormous lintel of the gates, trying to keep his senses as the thunderous crash and echo of warfare broke out around him once again.

  Now past the gates and still climbing, he couldn’t remember what had made him give up the chance to escape. It hadn’t been fear of being discovered. It hadn’t been faith in the inevitable success of the Imperial Guard – events in the tunnels had shattered any beliefs he’d once had in that respect.

  Perhaps it had been nothing more than stubbornness; an inability to change his essential nature even in the face of such extremity.

  Marivo charged up the enormous stairwell alongside the others. He only had fleeting glimpses of the vast chasm around him – huge, arching roofs covered with hanging growths and throbbing tumours, pillars soaring away in the muzzle-flash-lit dark, gothic arches framing furnaces beyond. Snatched fragments of screams rang out, some of them human, some of them unearthly and bestial. Violent bursts of gunfire hammered out from further up the Great Stair, matched by the roar and growl of flame weapons igniting.

  Marivo felt his lungs burn. The air was hot and bitter, like ashes drifting above a bonfire. Las-fire flickered in the dark, angling in all directions. His boots crunched through what felt like body parts lying on the ground – broken ribcages, crunched torsos, fractured skulls. He nearly pitched onto his face, but was held up and driven onwards by the press of bodies around him.

  Just as before, the Iron H
ands advanced faster than the mortals could. They had their own objectives, ones that had not been communicated to him or anyone else. That was fine by him; he knew his role. Every man around him knew his role – to do as much damage to the enemy as he could before the end came. If that end drew just one blade away from the Angels of Death then it had achieved its purpose.

  Mutants began to crash in amongst them then, howling and shrieking as they careered down the many spans that bridged the gulf between the spiral stairway and the inner walls of the hive. Some still carried ranged weapons; most used improvised blades or the distorted growths bursting from their ruined frames.

  Marivo saw one come at him – a burly horror with round black plates in place of skin – and fired. His first shot went wide, but the second connected. The mutant stumbled, and another las-blast finished him.

  He kept running. Men alongside him fell and were left behind, choking in the bloody murk that ran ankle-deep and rolling down into oblivion. He kept firing. Two more mutants went down to his shots.

  He’d always been a good marksman. He’d been proud of that, back when his life had consisted of training drills and off-world exercises. He could shoot.

  Another one came charging across to the stairway, sprinting along a slender connecting bridge and leaping over the stone railing.

  The creature’s face was stretched obscenely. Its teeth punched through its own cheeks, extending out and up like the tusks of an ork. It pounced at Marivo from the shadows, thrashing a dirty-looking goad at his stomach.

  Marivo swung his lasgun round, squeezing off a single shot. It glanced against the creature’s oncoming arm but didn’t stop the goad. The blunt blade slipped under his armoured breastplate and burrowed deep into his stomach.

  Marivo gasped, but kept moving. He ripped the blade free and smashed the stock of his weapon into the mutant’s face. It staggered backwards, lurching towards the edge of the stairway. Marivo limped after it, swinging his gun like a club and bludgeoning it closer to the drop.