[Dawn of War 01] - Dawn of War Read online

  Isador was overwhelmed by his captain’s confession and he fell to his knees before him, bowing his head. “Thank you, my lord,” he said, adding the epithet that he had never before used with Gabriel.

  Captain Angelos of the Blood Ravens returned the bow formally, and then dragged his friend back to his feet. “What is it, Isador? There is something else?” he said, gazing directly into his blue eyes.

  “Nothing. There’s nothing, Gabriel,” replied Isador, his fingers rubbing involuntarily against the altar fragment in his belt as he spoke. “When do we get to kill some eldar?”

  As the morning sun broke the horizon, the summit of Mount Korath was already speckled with light. Torches adorned the great menhir and circled it in a gradually expanding spiral. Strewn over the mountain top were the dead bodies of Biel-Tan eldar and the Alpha Legionaries. The eldar dead stood out gloriously in the dawn, as a single, blue flame licked out of the heart of each, picking them out like candles in the faint morning light.

  After the battle, Macha had moved through the eldar corpses one by one, kneeling silently at the side of each and muttering in an ancient tongue. She had carefully removed the waystone from the breastplate of each warrior, storing them in an elaborate crystalline matrix—a fragment of the infinity circuit of the Biel-Tan craftworld. The waystone contained the very soul of the warrior, sealed into an impenetrable gemstone that kept the eldar safe from the ravenous clutches of the daemon Slaanesh, that roamed the warp in a perpetual search for their souls.

  If their waystones were lost, so too would be the precious soul of this ancient, dwindling race. When Macha returned to the Biel-Tan craftworld, their giant space-born home, she would return the crystalline fragment to the craft’s own spirit pool—the infinity circuit in which the souls of deceased eldar could swim until they were called on again.

  Having removed their waystone, Macha had reached out with her long forefinger and delicately touched the tiny crater left in their armour. As she had done so, a burst of blue fire had leapt from her fingertip and settled into a single, perfect flame on the fallen warrior’s chest. The Chaos Marines she left as they lay.

  By the time the morning light had pushed the darkness down into the valley below, the bodies of the slain eldar were a blaze of glory on the mountaintop. The surviving warriors knelt onto one knee and bowed their white and green elliptical helmets to the rising sun, welcoming the new day and giving thanks that Tartarus had not stolen the souls of their brethren.

  As the eldar climbed to their feet and broke free of the observances of the ceremony, they set about readying themselves for the short journey to Lloovre Marr. The path down into the valley on the north side of the mountain was steep, and the valley floor itself was shrouded in tree cover. Macha was certain that the Alpha Legion was laying in wait to exact their vengeance on the Biel-Tan, and she wanted to ensure that her warriors were ready. The fate of Tartarus was in their hands—and it was a fate just as precarious as that of the souls of the eldar themselves. Macha had a responsibility, and she would be damned if she was going to fail to live up to it.

  The farseer stood on the far side of the menhir, gazing out across the valley below while her warriors busied themselves. It looked so peaceful in the gentle light of dawn, and the deep shadows seemed to languish sleepily.

  “Farseer. May I speak with you?” asked Jaerielle, stopping a respectful distance from Macha and touching his left knee to the ground.

  Macha turned and smiled weakly at the Storm Guardian. “Of course, Jaerielle. I was expecting to see you this morning. You want to ask me about the eldar path, do you not?”

  “Yes, farseer,” replied Jaerielle, unsurprised by the precise question. “I fear that I may be straying from it.”

  “You are a warrior, Jaerielle, and have been one for many centuries. I wonder whether you can even remember a time when you trod any of the other paths of our ancient culture,” said Macha, explaining how he was feeling, rather than asking. “The Path of the Eldar was put in place to guard us against ourselves, Jaerielle. We are a passionate people, and easily fixated. The path allows us to cycle through various arts and explore all aspects of ourselves, not only the warrior within. It does sometimes happen,” she continued, “that an eldar becomes trapped in one path or another. His soul becomes unable to make the transition into another part of itself, and the eldar becomes consumed by the art that has chosen him. In your case, Jaerielle, you have been chosen by the Path of the Warrior, and it seems that you may never leave it.”

  “War for its own sake, farseer? You are talking about the Way of the Exarch?” asked Jaerielle in whispered tones, hardly daring to speak the name of the most feared of all eldar warrior castes. The exarch is completely lost to himself, enveloped by a passion for war, and utterly dedicated to the arts of one of the eldar aspect shrines. Over time, he will gradually be assimilated into his armour, which will never be taken off. And when he is finally slain, there will be nothing left but the armour itself, a testament to the dedication and sacrifice of this most lonely path.

  “Yes, Jaerielle. You have felt it. I saw it in your soul as you battled the Chaos Marines last night. There was delight in your heart, and joy in your abilities. Your memory is already awash with images of blood, drowning out the dances and poetry of your youth. Soon there will be nothing but battle for you,” said Macha with solemnity.

  “Then I am lost?” asked Jaerielle, a hint of panic sounding in his voice.

  “You are lost to yourself, child, but not to Biel-Tan. Your path is a glorious one, and we will rejoice in your majesty. The blood you spill will be for the Biel-Tan and for Khaine, the Bloody-Handed God. You will be a hero amongst the eldar, but you will be utterly alone,” explained the farseer.

  “I am not ready, farseer,” said Jaerielle, denying the shouts in his soul.

  “You came to me, Jaerielle. You are ready. And we need you to be ready. I will talk with the Shrine of the Striking Scorpions, your old aspect temple, and the ritual of transition will be performed before the sun reaches its third quadrant,” concluded Macha, as though this were the most natural thing in the world. She looked down at the kneeling eldar at her feet and shivered slightly—he was about to step into a place where even she could not see.

  The column of Blood Ravens roared up the mountain side, dazzling in shimmering reds in the morning sunshine. At the head of the line was the command Rhino, with Gabriel and Isador shoulder to shoulder, leaning out of the side hatch. The Rhino was flanked on both sides by the remaining Typhoons, and a squadron of assault bikes sat in behind, ready to be deployed when required. Following behind the bikes were two more Rhinos, one carrying Matiel’s Marines and the other a squad of Devastators. A Land Raider tank brought up the rear, stuffed full of Tanthius and his Terminators.

  The route to the top of the mountain was littered with debris and bodies. Chunks of eldar jetbikes and the ruins of a Vyper still smoked vaguely, but there were also burnt-out assault bikes bearing the markings of the Alpha Legion, and smatterings of corpses, both eldar and Chaos Marine.

  The Blood Ravens ploughed on undaunted. The roar of their engines and the sight of the detachment deployed in such formidable force filled their hearts with pride. At the head of the column, heroically silhouetted against the red sun as he gazed out of the side of his Rhino, was Gabriel, his chainsword already drawn in readiness, and the image swelled the confidence of every Marine in the line, as they drew their weapons to honour their captain.

  As the summit approached, the Marines could see bursts of blue flame jousting out of the mountain top towards the heavens, but the angle of the slope blocked their view of the ground up there.

  Gabriel waved his chainsword, and two clutches of bikes peeled away from the convoy, drawing up along side the Typhoons on either side of his Rhino. He wanted to make sure that the eldar saw an imposing front line as they crested the summit. He gazed proudly across the line, and could think of few sights more splendid than a solid bank of Blood Raven
s roaring over the crest of a mountain pass.

  As the Rhino rolled up onto the mountain top, bringing the whole of the summit into view, Gabriel was surprised to see the extent of the killing field that unfolded before him. He raised his fist into the air, bringing the Blood Ravens to a halt, as he swept his gaze over the vista and tried to take it in.

  There were dozens of Alpha Legionaries lying where they had died, riddled with holes and oozing with blood, their armour shattered beyond repair by the strange alien weapons. Their bodies gave the rocky mountain top an aura of acidic green. Intermixed amongst them were the bodies of the fallen eldar, each was a blaze of blue fire, with flames reaching seven metres into the air as the supernatural fire consumed their bodies.

  Beyond them, on the very peak of Mount Korath, was an unusual-looking menhir, roughly elliptical in shape and covered with an indescribable array of blue torches. But, as far as Gabriel could see, there was no eldar army lying in wait. The scene was eerily silent.

  Jumping down from the hatch of the Rhino, Gabriel strode off toward the menhir, picking his way between the corpses. Isador leapt down after him, and then the Rhino doors opened fully to let Prathios and Corallis join them. The four Marines fanned out and made their way towards the giant marker stone.

  Suddenly Corallis dropped down onto one knee, inspecting the ground at his feet. The others stopped, watching the sergeant carefully, trusting his eyes. Isador planted his staff against the rock and Prathios spun his crozius arcanum menacingly.

  “Something was here only moments ago,” crackled Corallis through the vox system. “But the tracks are strange. They just seem to appear and disappear, without leading anywhere.”

  Gabriel strode forward of the group, unwilling to be intimidated by the unusual ways of the eldar. As he approached the menhir, something flickered into his path and then vanished. He paused, scanning the scene for other signs of movement. Another flicker made him turn. A heavy-looking eldar warrior appeared suddenly to the side of the menhir. It planted its feet and let loose with a spray of writhing filament from some kind of rotary weapon.

  There were a series of cries from behind him, and Gabriel turned as he rolled clear of the gout of fire, and he saw three other eldar, similar to the first. They had appeared from nowhere, and were now arrayed against the rest of his team, cutting them off from him.

  As he came out of his roll, Gabriel squeezed off a rattle of shots from his bolt pistol back towards the alien in front of him, but the Warp Spider had already gone. It had simply vanished. Turning, he saw his battle-brothers snapping their weapons from side to side, impotently searching for their targets in the same way.

  “Warp Spiders, Gabriel,” hissed Isador’s voice through the vox. “This could be another trap.” A great flash of lightning jousted out of Isador’s staff, flashing towards the menhir. Just before the bolt reached the huge stone, there was a faint shimmer in its path and a Warp Spider chose that point to slip back into real space. Isador’s bolt crashed into the eldar, catching it full in the chest and lifting it off its feet, throwing it backwards against the menhir with a crack.

  Immediately, Gabriel and Prathios opened up with their bolters, riddling the alien with fire and shattering his thick armour, leaving nothing but splatters of blood against the marker stone behind it.

  Meanwhile, Corallis had stalked off to the other side of the menhir, keeping low to the ground as though tracking something. He stopped suddenly and rubbed his hand over the loose topsoil. As he looked up, back towards Gabriel and the others, the remaining Warp Spiders sprung into being before him, their death-spinners releasing a tirade of projectile-filaments from close range.

  “Corallis!” cried Gabriel, pounding across the summit of the mountain toward the besieged Marine, his boltgun spitting in his hand. Prathios was with him, matching his run stride for stride, strafing his fire back and forth across the backs of the Warp Spiders. Without moving, Isador planted his staff and muttered something inaudible, sending sheets of blue power coruscating through the ground, racing against the storming Marines.

  Isador’s bolts seared under the feet of Gabriel and Prathios as they ran, and then exploded into flames as they crashed into the stances of the Warp Spiders. The creatures shimmered slightly, trying to leap back into the webway, but Isador’s energy blast had done something to their warp jump generators. Before they could even turn to face the charging Marines, Gabriel and Prathios were upon them, riddling them with bolter shells.

  In the last stride before he reached them, Gabriel cast his bolter aside and drew his chainsword into both hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Prathios dropping his own gun, and swinging the crackling crozius into his fist. Gabriel launched himself at the Warp Spider in the middle, crashing into its back and flattening it against the ground. In one smooth movement, he flourished his chainsword into the air and drove it down through the alien’s spine. The creature twitched momentarily, and then fell still.

  A shower of fire speckled his armour as he sprang off the corpse and rounded on the last eldar, seeing that Prathios had already incinerated the other one in an inferno of power discharge from his crozius.

  Gabriel brought his sword down swiftly, but the Warp Spider was fast, dancing around his blow and punching a flurry of shots straight into the captain’s chest plate. His chainsword missed its target but hacked into the alien’s weapon, where it stuck, spluttering impotently. As one, Gabriel and the eldar discarded their chewed-up weapons and started to circle one another like animal predators, flexing their shoulders ready for the fight.

  A javelin of power flashed over his shoulder from Isador. It seared past Gabriel’s face, punching into the stomach of the eldar and blowing a hole clear through. The alien staggered for a few more steps and then sunk to its knees facing Gabriel—it seemed to be staring at him with the alien eyes hidden behind its elongated helmet. Then Prathios stepped up and swung at the Warp Spider with his hissing crozius, striking it cleanly and knocking the creature’s head crisply off its shoulders as its body slumped to the ground at Gabriel’s feet.

  “Corallis?” asked Gabriel urgently. The sergeant was lying on his back in a pool of blood, his armour punctured by numberless holes, and Gabriel knelt swiftly by his side. “Corallis?”

  “The others have gone on ahead, captain,” replied Corallis, coughing as a trickle of blood seeped out of the corner of his mouth. “They have rigged this marker to explode. It was a trap.” As he spoke, he lifted his hand from the ground, revealing what he had found before the battle started. A small, blinking device was buried just beneath the surface.

  It was a mine.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “There are Eldar explosives and demolition charges all around the menhir, captain,” reported Matiel. His squad of Space Marines were working their way around the great stone marker, studying the ground and noting the relays clamped into the stone itself. “We dare not move them—the trip mechanisms are unknown to us, and we would risk destroying the stone… and us.”

  “I understand,” said Gabriel, his attention still distracted by the scouts who were carrying their sergeant into the back of one of the Rhinos. Corallis was not quite dead—it took more than a few bullet wounds to kill a Space Marine—but he was as near as it was possible to get.

  “What about the triggers?” he asked, collecting himself again.

  “I think that we can replace the triggering devices, but that is all I would care to do with this xeno-tech,” replied Matiel, somewhat reluctantly.

  “See that it is done, Matiel. We would not want the eldar to pay us a surprise visit and blow us all into the warp,” said Gabriel, a characteristic smile drifting across his face, in an attempt to lift the mood.

  “Was this a trap?” asked Isador, striding over from the Rhino, into which Sergeant Corallis had just been loaded. The Librarian looked resolute, as though the ruin of Corallis might have been the last straw.

  “No, I don’t think so,” replied Matiel, noddin
g a swift greeting to the Librarian as he joined the group. “Judging by the placement of the charges, it seems likely that they planned to collapse this area of the summit—burying the menhir, and anyone else who happened to be nearby.”

  “Corallis did say that the eldar left in a hurry, so perhaps we disturbed them before they could finish the job? Maybe the Warp Spiders were left to complete the demolition?” suggested Gabriel, looking to the others for their opinions.

  “Or perhaps they left the summit to lure us in, leaving this stone as bait, planning to use the Warp Spiders to blow it when we arrived?” said Isador, more suspicious than his captain. “We should not give these aliens the benefit of the doubt, Gabriel. Just because they are the enemy of our enemy doesn’t mean that they are our friends. Look at what they did to Corallis.”

  “Either way,” said Gabriel, nodding at the plausibility of Isador’s version, “the eldar clearly thought that we would want to take a look at this stone, and it also appears that they were keen to ensure that the Alpha Legion did not get the chance to look at it.” Gabriel flicked his head towards the killing field behind them.

  “We should certainly see what is so special about it. Isador, please take a look at the stone… Take as much time as you need.”

  Isador nodded and made his way over to the menhir, carefully stepping between the Space Marines that ringed it. He raised his hand and touched the smooth, featureless surface of the stone, closing his eyes in concentration. Somewhere deep inside the rock, there was a faint, rhythmical pulse, as though it was breathing. He leant in closer, pressing his ear against the rock, straining with his mind to discern the hint of sound within. It was a whisper.

  The roar of a Rhino engine starting up made Matiel and Gabriel turn away from the menhir. One of the Rhinos started to roll down the mountain side, heading back towards the field-station in the Pass of Korath. An escort of scout bikes ran alongside it, as Corallis’ squadron refused to abandon their sergeant. The banner of the Blood Ravens was held by the company standard bearer, who stood solidly on the back of an open-topped armoured transport, marking the passage of an honoured warrior. It fluttered in the strong winds that blew across the mountain top, beating the wings of the black raven and making the scarlet drop of blood in the centre of the emblem pulse like a heart.