Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘Pardon the interruption, lord and ladies, but if you want to eat I’d suggest you do so now. Inquisition or not, a Catachan’s stomach respects no higher authority,’ Brigstone said.

  ‘My thanks, commander. I’ll take mine in my tent,’ Dinalt replied.

  ‘As will I,’ added Brandd heading briskly in the direction of her tent. Brigstone and K’Cee parted to allow her by, but as she passed them her thigh struck the xenos sending him sprawling backwards into the mud. Brandd carried on, either ignorant or inconsiderate of her action.

  Brigstone offered K’Cee his hand and lifted the jokaero up onto his feet. Tzula puffed out her cheeks and pulled out her ears in imitation of Brandd’s facial features, to which K’Cee smiled.

  ‘Permission to speak freely, lady?’ Brigstone asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way, commander,’ Tzula replied. K’Cee wandered off to the edge of the clearing where the rain was coming down more heavily and began to wash out the mud that now matted his fur.

  ‘That woman has the manners of a grox. As mean as one too. If she pulled that crap back on Catachan she’d have gotten a boot right to her–’

  Tzula never did find out to which part of Brandd’s anatomy Brigstone would have applied his boot to, as at that moment two things happened simultaneously, both of which made the other redundant. The proximity alarms sounded and, felling trees as if they were matchsticks, the largest land creature on Pythos emerged from the jungle – a land dragon.

  Abandoning their meal, the Catachans reached for their weapons, and within moments the clearing was lit up red from a sustained barrage. Tzula drew her plasma pistol and added her firepower to that of the Catachans as did Dinalt and Brandd, emerging from their tents with weapons blazing.

  The land dragon roared as the shots hit its thick, leathery hide, more out of irritation than pain. Despite its mass and lack of legs, the thing moved quickly, leaving wide channels in its wake as it slithered across the muddy ground. Its gigantic head, the size of an ogryn, lashed forward and Mack pushed Liall out of the way before the snapping jaws could grab hold of him. The Catachan opened up with his heavy bolter and temporarily drove the land dragon back into the treeline, so ferocious was his assault.

  ‘It’s trying to get around the back of us!’ Brigstone yelled, tracking the land dragon’s movement through the treeline. ‘Mack, same again when it re-emerges but concentrate your fire on its head. Everybody else do likewise.’ Then he added, almost as an afterthought, ‘Where’s Furie?’

  The question soon became moot. Springing forth from the trees, the land dragon opened its fanged maw and lunged for Brigstone. Blood smeared its enormous pointed teeth and bits of meat and scraps of camouflage clothing nestled in its rancid gums. The Catachan commander scrambled backwards, struggling for purchase in the mud, but somehow he avoided being clamped in the beast’s jaws before finally toppling over backwards. The monster reared up ready to strike at Brigstone’s prone form, but Mack opened up at the land dragon’s head, supported by the combined plasma fire of Dinalt and Tzula. It slunk off back into the treeline, the smell of burning flesh trailing in its wake.

  ‘Does it have any weak points?’ Chao said, raising his voice to be heard above the din of battle and crash of falling trees. He was still sitting by the fireside chewing on a hunk of saurian meat.

  ‘The base of the skull where it meets the spine,’ Brigstone yelled back. ‘Why? Do you feel like helping?’ he added sarcastically.

  Chao discarded the piece of meat and wiped his hands on the front of his trousers. ‘Sure, why not. But first,’ he stood up and drew the bolt pistols from their holsters at each hip, ‘let’s even the odds a little.’

  Charging back into the clearing, the land dragon kept its head down as it headed for the lone figure standing by the fire. With less than ten metres between Chao and the beast, he loosed off a shot from each pistol, both of which found their mark. The bulbous orbs of the land dragon’s eyes exploded, showering those nearby in gore. For the first time its roar was one of pain. It thrashed wildly, narrowly avoiding crushing the panicked arbosaurs tethered to a tree, collapsing tents and extinguishing fires. The Catachans and Dinalt’s retinue made for the trees.

  Chao did likewise but rather than cowering behind a trunk like Liall, or using it as cover to fire from behind like everybody else, he holstered his pistols and began to climb. The sheer size of the trees caused a wide pattern to the bark, big enough for a man to place his hand or foot into, and Chao’s progress upwards was rapid. Reaching the lowest set of branches – still some ten metres above the jungle floor – he clambered onto one and, hanging upside down, ventured out using both his hands and feet so that he was suspended over the clearing.

  Predicting what he was attempting to do, the others took up positions so that the beast was completely surrounded and used their fire to force the blinded creature into position below Chao. With the beast directly beneath him, Chao let go of the branch and, spinning in mid-air, landed on the land dragon’s neck. Ignoring the pain from where several of the barbs that ran along the beast’s back had pierced his flesh, Chao hung on with one hand while drawing a bolt pistol with the other. Sensing that some parasite had attached itself, the land dragon thrashed and bucked erratically, trying to dislodge its unwanted passenger. Chao held firm to one of the barbs and, once the thrashing had abated, placed the muzzle of his weapon at the apex of the land dragon’s spine and discharged three rounds into its brain. Instantly, the beast stilled, crashing to the floor of the clearing with a wet thud.

  ‘Well, look at that,’ Chao said, jumping down from the dead thing’s back. He winced upon landing, obviously aggravating his numerous wounds. ‘I just bagged the biggest living land predator on this whole dirtball.’ The last part was aimed at Zens in a transparent attempt to impress her. She, along with the others, came out from the trees to examine Chao’s trophy.

  ‘Come back and see me when you’ve killed its mother or father,’ she said to Chao as she turned away to see what she could salvage of the camp. ‘This one was only a baby.’

  830959.M41 / The Deathglades. One hundred and nineteen kilometres south-east of Atika, Pythos

  The heat of the morning sun roared furnace-hot, turning the pooled rainwater into steam, which in turn formed a mist that reached right up to the jungle canopy overhead. Visibility was almost zero and so Tzula rode at the head of the pack with the other riders in tight formation behind her, the auspex guiding her where eyes could not. None of them spoke. Though they had been fortunate the land dragon had only caused one fatality, the Catachans were still smarting from the loss of one of their own. Brigstone’s recovery of Furie’s knife from the jungle had helped matters, but Brandd’s subsequent petulance upon discovering that just two of the tents were salvageable and she would have to share was insensitive even by her standards. At one point during her outburst, Tzula was certain that if any of the Catachans had moved to strike Brandd, Dinalt wouldn’t have done a thing about it.

  ‘How much further?’ Dinalt said quietly as Brigstone pulled their shared arbosaur alongside Tzula’s. His whisper was more out of respect than at not wanting to be overheard.

  ‘We should be right on top of it according to the auspex, but I think this moisture is playing havoc with our equipment,’ Tzula said. Right on cue the screen of the handhold device flickered as it recalculated their position. ‘If we split up we’d be able to cover more of the area.’

  Dinalt looked to Brigstone.

  ‘Splitting up’s not a good idea, lady. With visibility this poor we’d be relying on our ears for signs of approaching predators and not all of them are as noisy as a land dragon,’ Brigstone said. He looked up at the leaf cover high above. ‘We can maybe think about splitting up in another couple of hours once this mist has burned off. Unless we’ve already found what you’re looking for by then,’ he added leadingly.

  ‘Give it another hour, then we’ll dismount and search the area on foot,’ Dinalt said igno
ring both Brigstone’s advice and his attempt to fish for information.

  ‘Hey, boss?’ Chao called out from somewhere in the humid fog. ‘We got time for a quick stop?’

  The inquisitor sighed and motioned for Brigstone to draw their mount to a halt. ‘Don’t be long,’ Dinalt said. Behind him, Chao, and a couple of the Catachans taking advantage of the break, dismounted and headed into the trees, their feet splashing in the quagmire underfoot as they went.

  Only a few seconds passed before the wet footsteps came back in the opposite direction.

  ‘Boss,’ said Chao, peeling out of the mist flanked by Zens and Kotcheff. ‘I think we’ve found it.’

  830959.M41 / Atika Hive, Pythos

  Colonel Strike was signing off on the latest batch of paperwork to cross his desk when Major Thorne entered the command centre. Instead of the formal attire he’d worn to greet the inquisitor and his retinue the previous week, Thorne now wore the more familiar olive drab vest and bright red bandana of a death world veteran. He approached the colonel without a salute.

  ‘We’ve lost contact with Mauscolca Primus,’ Thorne stated. ‘No communications in or out for the past two days and a Valkyrie due to carry out a squad rotation is hours overdue back from there.’

  ‘Sure it’s not just the weather? Those storms last night could have knocked out comms and any Valkyrie pilot worth his stripes isn’t going to try and land in that.’ Strike got up from his desk and moved to the viewport, looking out over a blanket of grey mist that stretched all the way to the horizon.

  ‘We’re unable to reach Krensulca Hive either and the watch stations at Sepulture and Hollowfal haven’t yet reported in this morning.’

  ‘The storms–’

  ‘I checked the meteorological reports and conditions were near-perfect at Sepulture and Hollowfal,’ interrupted the major.

  ‘Atmospherics? Solar activity is constantly affecting the vox-links.’

  ‘Why is ours still operational?’ Thorne gestured to the vox-array at the opposite end of the command centre where three operators sat busily adjusting gauges and dials.

  The gravity of what the major was implying was now apparent to Strike. ‘You think this is deliberate? That they’ve been targeted?’

  ‘Without the feeds from the long-range auspexes at Sepulture, we’re blind to anything moving in-system and if Hollowfal has gone too then we have no comms with anything in orbit.’ Thorne paused. ‘Do you think it’s greenskins, sir?’ His words were tinged with excitement.

  ‘Unlikely. If it was orks, they’d already be storming the base of the hive by now. Subterfuge and sabotage never was their thing. No, this is something different. I don’t know what yet but I’ll bet you a year’s rations that it’s got something to do with that inquisitor blowing through here.’

  ‘What are your orders, colonel?’

  Strike now addressed the personnel of the command centre, many of whom had already started listening in on his conversation with the major. ‘Move the entire hive to combat readiness and have Valkyries ready to be in the air as soon as the mist lifts. Prep three dozen Leman Russes and station them around the base of the hive. Get the astropaths to raise Battlefleet Demeter and put them on standby.’ Despite almost three years of inactivity, war was second nature to the colonel – as it was to all men and women of Catachan – and knowing what to do in a situation like this came as naturally as breathing to him.

  ‘Anything else, sir?’ Thorne asked, activity in the command centre already increasing.

  ‘Pray,’ he said simply. ‘If this isn’t the weather playing tricks on us then pray to the immortal God-Emperor for us all.’

  830959.M41 / The Deathglades. One hundred and nineteen kilometres south-east of Atika, Pythos

  Leaving the Catachans behind to guard the perimeter, Chao passed through the mist and out into the jungle clearing, Dinalt, Tzula and Brandd in lockstep behind him. One second they were enmeshed in the warm, clinging haze, the next visibility cleared as they stepped out into bright sunlight. Tzula looked around her at the wall of fog that terminated on the threshold of the treeline, as if the swamp vapour dare not encroach on this place, and directly up at the clear blue sky. Chao unfastened his holsters, wary of any unseen danger while Dinalt and Brandd fixated on the object in the centre of the tract.

  Twice the length of the average human and half as wide, a flat, grey stone no more than half a metre in height lay rooted in the muddy ground. No weeds or vegetation grew around it and no moss coated its rough surface, but other than that, the thing looked entirely normal. If it weren’t for the obviously unnatural condition of its surroundings, it could easily have been mistaken for a natural feature of the jungle floor. Brandd paced around the stone, studying it warily. Dinalt approached it slowly.

  ‘This is it?’ asked Tzula. ‘I expected something, well, scarier. You know, all spikes and pustules, burning with the unholy green flame of the warp and screaming blasphemous litanies from a thousand fanged maws.’

  Brandd scoffed. ‘Not all tools of the Archenemy are so obvious. The works of the Dark Powers can take many forms.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dinalt replied, seemingly mesmerised. ‘It’s exactly how I remember it.’ His gaze lingered on the stone for agonising moments before he snapped back to reality, suddenly aware of his surroundings again. ‘Commander Brigstone,’ he called.

  ‘Yes, my lord?’ came the reply from out of the mist.

  ‘Tether the beasts and have your men stand ready. Liall. K’Cee. You will remain there.’

  ‘You’ve found what you’ve been seeking, lord?’ No reply was forthcoming. ‘As you command,’ Brigstone acknowledged.

  ‘The knife, Tzula,’ Dinalt ordered, taking his eyes off the rock for the first time since entering the clearing and turning to his apprentice.

  ‘You don’t want to study it first, master?’ Tzula challenged, freeing the knife from its sheath.

  ‘I have spent a lifetime studying the Hellfire Stone and in all that time I have learned one thing above all others – it must be destroyed at any cost. Tzula, give me the knife.’

  Deftly gripping the tip of the blade between her thumb and forefinger, Tzula offered the small knife to her master, handle first. Dinalt reached out a hand to take it from her but a crash of falling trees from within the jungle distracted them both before he could take possession. Drawing their pistols, Chao and the three inquisitors stood back-to-back around the stone, peering out into the jungle for signs of the oncoming predator. Vague silhouettes of trunks tumbling to the ground were evident in the haze but, strangely, were not accompanied by the thudding footsteps of a saurian. The felling trees drew nearer.

  ‘Over there. It’s coming from that direction,’ Dinalt said, aiming his plasma pistol towards the opposite end of the clearing from where they entered. From out of the mist a tree fell into the copse, its blackened dead trunk shattering as it made contact with the ground. Seconds later power armoured figures became apparent in the mist.

  ‘Traitor Astartes!’ Dinalt yelled swinging his pistol around to draw a bead on the largest of the armoured forms. Before he could squeeze the firing stud, there was a loud bang and an intense pain struck him between the shoulder blades, dropping him to his knees. Blood flowed freely from a fist-sized wound, and his breathing became ragged from where a round had passed straight through a lung.

  Tzula turned, ready to shoot her master’s assailant but found that Brandd had an autopistol aimed at her head. ‘Give me an excuse.’

  Rage boiled inside Tzula. ‘I had you figured wrong, Brandd.’

  ‘Really? How so?’

  ‘I always thought you were just a bitch. Turns out you’re a traitorous bitch,’ Tzula spat.

  More figures hove into view from out of the jungle, weapons aimed at Chao, Tzula and the kneeling, bleeding figure of Dinalt. At their head was a bloated figure in ill-fitting Terminator armour that struggled to contain his corpulent bulk. Necrosis had taken hold of his features, rotting flesh hung fr
om his cheeks and his nose, bone and all, had rotted away completely. As he passed through the vegetation on the fringes of the clearing it shrivelled and died, leaving only desiccated husks in his wake. Flanking him were half a dozen equally pestilent figures each wearing standard power armour, albeit warped by the corruptions of the Plague God. Each one of them carried a bolter as ravaged as their armour.

  ‘It seems your agent did not let us down, Morphidae,’ the Terminator-armoured figure said. His voice had a thick, wet quality to it that sounded as if it was being spoken from the bottom of a swamp.

  An ancient, wrinkled figure in ragged brown robes drew alongside him. Small even by human standards, the newcomer was dwarfed by the Traitor Marines he stood amongst. He carried a gnarled stick that came up to his shoulder but his movement was fluid and unhampered, suggesting that it was not to aid his walking. ‘The Davinicus Lycae seldom fail our masters, Lord Corpulax.’ In contrast to the Plague Marine, the old man’s voice was like a dry wind blowing through a graveyard. He opened his mouth and directed a toothless smile at Brandd. ‘Isn’t that right, Tryphena?’

  ‘Master, there are four Imperial Guardsmen along with an astropath and a jokaero in the jungle back there. None of them pose a threat but they should be dealt with nonetheless.’ Brandd’s haughtiness had amplified, emboldened by her treachery.

  ‘Take care of it. Spare the astropath, he may be useful, but kill the rest,’ said Corpulax ordering away two of the Plague Marines with a wave of an ungauntleted skeletal hand. They did as they were ordered and disappeared into the trees, swallowed up by the cloying mist. The hulking figure then turned his attention to the mortally wounded Dinalt. ‘Do you know who I am, inquisitor?’

  ‘Corp… Corpulax,’ Dinalt ventured, blood flecking his lips with every syllable. ‘You used to be… of the Consecrators Chapter but now you’re nothing more… nothing more than an animated corpse. A shambling husk blindly carrying out the bidding of his… vile master.’