Let The Galaxy Burn Read online

  The Space Marines strode across the burning, bloodstained road, killing anything that still lived, until there was nothing there but death.

  ‘Sir?’ Valerian’s voice, full of hidden tension. ‘What now, sir?’

  ‘We fall back.’ replied Athellenas. ‘Kytellias, cover our retreat and look out for enemy stragglers. Retreat to the spaceport—’

  ‘Sir.’ said Valerian, ‘I cannot follow such an order.’

  ‘Sergeant, fall back and maintain a defensive position.’

  ‘I can see what you are trying to do, commander. If we fall back and destroy the cultists a wave at a time then they would be finished, but their objective is the spaceport. We cannot absorb one wave and then fall back again, or the spaceport will be taken. We must destroy them all, at once, immediately, and that objective can only be achieved if we stand and fight.’

  There was silence. Athellenas could hear the gunsmoke coiling in the air and the blood running down the walls, the last licks of flame playing over the charred bodies of the cultists.

  ‘That is why you object?’ asked Athellenas carefully. ‘Because you believe the tactic will fail?’

  Silence.

  ‘No, sir. That is not why I object. Perhaps we can defeat this army, commander. But if we cannot, then we must sell our lives for as many heathen souls as we can.’

  Valerian was almost lost, realised Athellenas. He was trying to hide it, but his whole belief system was breaking down. Everything he had been taught, as a child, and as a Marine, had told him that to retreat was to die a million deaths, to give up his honour as well as his life, to betray his Emperor, his primarch, his very species.

  ‘Either way, we must stand and fight, commander.’ Valerian continued. ‘It is both our duty and our privilege.’

  ‘Fall back, Valerian.’

  ‘Damnation, commander, this is madness! Does this Chapter mean nothing to you? Have you no duty to the souls of your lost brothers? Already we have lost men here, do you wish to defile their memories with your cowardice? This is madness, sir, nothing but madness! I will not retreat, not ever, not for anyone or anything! I will not turn away from the fight, I will die by fire and by the sword, for if the only other option is to run like a child alongside you then I have no choice to make.’

  This was where the battle was won. Athellenas knew he was right. He knew he would win. It was required of him. The enemy was nothing, he told himself. But his own men, they were the dangerous ones. They could break the back of this whole operation. If he ever had to be a leader of men, it was now.

  ‘Valerian, you will fall back and maintain a defensive line at the spaceport. If you do not you will be shot and your name will be struck from the Liber Honarium. Your soul will have no mention at the Feast of the Departed. Your gene-seed will not be taken and given to a new initiate, because you will not be fit to have a Marine follow you into this. The faces of Rogal Dorn and of the eternal Emperor will be turned from you forever. You will not be in the Emperor’s army at the end of time when the final battle is fought.

  ‘You fear dishonour, Sergeant Valerian? If you disobey me now, if you place duty to yourself above duties to your Chapter and your Imperium, then I will show you truly what dishonour is.’

  Silence again. And through the silence, Athellenas could hear the echoes of that power – the words of the Manskinner, rallying his troops. The cultists knew they had to strike as one to break through the Marine line. This wave had been a dissident group, enraged at being denied their battle.

  If Athellenas could only hold his own force together in the face of the enemy of dishonour, then the Templars would win. He knew it, with every part of his soul. If he could just hold them together.

  ‘I do this under protest, sir.’ came Valerian’s voice. ‘When we return to Terra, if we return, I shall bring a Protest Iudicarum to the Chapter Master in person. I shall see you tried and excommunicated. But for now, I retreat.’

  Even as the power of the Manskinner’s heresy built up in the air, Athellenas led his Marines back through the abandoned streets of Empyrion IX, towards the spaceport. Above them hovered unseen the traitor ship, always a reminder of what would happen if the Manskinner took the spaceport.

  How many would die? Billions?

  Athellenas wiped the question from his mind. Not one cultist would escape into orbit while a Black Templar still lived.

  ‘RECOBA IS DEAD!’ yelled Kireeah, his Guryan troops gathered around him. ‘No more of this! The Marines may cower and deceive us, but nothing can survive us! We are still four thousand strong, and they are but a handful! Now, Lord Manskinner, now we must strike!’

  By the gods, the Space Marine commander was clever, thought the Manskinner. Lying and cowardly, perhaps, but clever. The Manskinner was losing his cultists. The seeds of hatred he had sown in them with the words of blood were blossoming, and their bloodlust was drowning everything else in their minds. Without battle, deprived of the joy of facing this enemy who retreated constantly and destroyed his army piece by piece, the Manskinner’s men were devolving beyond his control.

  The Manskinner faced his underling. Kireeah had been dangerous even before the Manskinner had found him, a young, driven officer with a reputation for savagery amongst the rest of the Guard, who had done much of the Manskinner’s work beforehand in dismantling the humanity of his men. Of all the cultists, Kireeah would be feeling that seductive hatred most keenly.

  ‘Kireeah.’ said the Manskinner darkly, ‘this foe is like no other. We cannot simply charge them without a thought, for they will take us apart piece by piece. They have shown that well enough already.’

  Kireeah stepped closer. The Manskinner could see the veins standing out on the side of the Guryan officer’s shaven head, flecks of spittle flying as he spoke, undiluted rage filling up the darkness behind his eyes. ‘Lord Manskinner, many of us may die, but we will out! Even now they cower in the spaceport. If they retreat again we shall have won! They must stand or fall, and if they stand they cannot but die! No matter what, we will take the spaceport, and within the hour we shall be on our way to Macharia. If we should die, then our skulls shall honour the Blood God! If we hold back, and fight with shadows and lies, like our enemy, then he will be disgusted at our weakness!’

  The Manskinner knew he had only one choice. He had used the words of blood many times to turn men into animals, now they had to turn animals into men. He felt their power growing within him as he spoke, his voice speaking to the very souls of Kireeah and every cultist there.

  ‘Brothers! My brothers, this is the Blood God’s final test! For we fight now not to win, or to die, but for revenge! Revenge, for Diess and Recoba and all those slain by deceit! Revenge, for the violation of the Blood God’s holy rites of battle by a foe who will not face us! Revenge, like murder and massacre, is an aspect of His teaching – but unlike them, it is cold, fought by men purged of all emotion who fight not like animals thirsty for blood but as men acting as one, not charging blindly into the fray but marching side by side, a machine of destruction. This is the Blood God’s way, to show us all the joys that bloodshed can bring, the sane alongside the savage, the cold-blooded along—’

  Kireeah thrust his face close, his very breath like tongues of flame, teeth bared, heart pounding so strongly that a trickle of blood ran from one nostril and the vessels in one eye had burst into a crimson cloud spreading across the eyeball. ‘Lies!’ he screamed. ‘This is not the Blood God’s way! Now, when His worship needs him most, our lord has faltered! He has given way to cowardice! He is no better than the enemy, a coward who fights with lies instead of fists!’

  Kireeah turned to the cultists. ‘Charge with me, Brothers of the Blood God! Kill them! Kill them all!’

  And as one, the cultists changed. The hateful loyalty the words of blood created was unpicked in a moment and the soul of every man belonged to Khireeah, to the bloodstained madness that was bursting across their minds.

  The Manskinner didn’t think, he just
acted. He swung back the shears that hulked in place of his long-dead arm and brought them shrieking through the air, a hydraulic stab snapping the great blades shut around Khireeah’s neck, slicing his head from his shoulders so quickly that the officer’s mouth still moved as it fell to the ground.

  The body swayed, fountaining blood as it fell.

  It was too late. The men were already turning and breaking away, across the plain towards the city, yelling their homeworld’s battle-cries or just keening like animals if they were too enraged to speak, the blood on their skin gleaming in the sun.

  ‘Stop!’ yelled the Manskinner as his entire army began to plunge towards the ruined city. ‘Damn you, stop!’ The words of blood shook the very air as he spoke but it seemed to have no effect. These were men whose souls had been drowned by their bloodlust, and it was to the soul that the words spoke.

  The Manskinner’s claw lashed out and carved the nearest few cultists into pieces, but the others ignored him, clambering over one another to get out of the confines of the temple and join the mad stampede.

  ‘Stop! The Blood God commands you!’

  The Manskinner strode amongst his frenzied men, butchering any within range, taking off heads, limbs, shearing torsos in two, his skin and the metal of the shears slick with blood. It had come to this, raged his thoughts. They had abandoned him. The words had abandoned him. If he could murder every single one of them, he would, if he could bring together every single living human being and put their necks between the blades of his claw, if he could climb to the top of the Throne of Skulls itself and face the God who had betrayed him…

  The army was gone now, and the Manskinner was alone in the temple, with only the bodies of the dead left under his command.

  No. His men were not the ones he hated. The enemy…

  The Space Marines. They had done this. They had hidden like children and denied his men the bloodletting they lived for. Their trickery had broken even the power of the words, defiled the authority of the Manskinner, and of the Blood God above him.

  ‘Kill them!’ yelled the words, speaking to him as clearly as they had to any of his men. ‘Kill them all!’

  Suddenly he was running in the thick of his men, surrounded by the bare torsos and tattered uniforms of his cultists, back with the men who owed him everything. He knew now what he must do. He must strike like a thunderbolt into the Marines, tear them limb from limb, and give him a taste of the slaughter to come.

  Beyond it all, beyond the baying of his men and the thunder of their feet, the clouds of dust billowing around them and the stench of sweat and fire, drowning everything out, were the words of blood.

  ‘Blood!’ they called. ‘Blood for the Blood God!’

  THEY POURED THROUGH the streets, sweeping through the town like a flash flood across a plain, bringing with them the stench of sweat and blood and the din of four thousand men driven to insanity.

  The cavernous, decaying spaceport loomed all around the Marines, but the vast series of half-collapsed domes offered few defensive positions amongst the debris and abandoned docking equipment. The devastator squad had set up as best it could, shielded by a set of docking clamps corroded to lumps of rust, while Kytellias’s battered Assault Marines were high up amongst the support struts of the nearest dome, looking down at the horde that charged headlong towards them. Athellenas and the tactical squad were effectively in the open, positioned at the edge of the great open expanse of smooth plascrete on which the cultists’ ship would land if they took the spaceport.

  This was the end, thought Athellenas. Even if I tried to retreat, Valerian wouldn’t go, and neither would most of the others. It is by our actions here that we will be judged.

  Or remembered, if we fail.

  ‘Take aim.’ Though the cultists were still out of range, the Black Templars took aim as one, ready to loose their firepower as soon as the heathens charged too close. Through the scope of his bolter, Athellenas could see the Manskinner himself, at the front of the horde, the massive industrial shears swinging heavily as he ran, eyes no longer those of a leader, but of a fanatical follower. That was the key. No one led this horde any more.

  The scream grew louder as the cultists scrambled over the remains of fallen buildings and streamed down the main road towards the spaceport, blood running from thousands of abrasions caused by their headlong, heedless charge. They had no sense of pain. They were blind and deaf to anything other than battle. They were the true children of their god, insane and self-destructive.

  ‘Ready to go, sir.’ came Valerian’s voice over the communicator.

  ‘Hold, sergeant.’ replied Athellenas. ‘We wait.’

  ‘BLOOD!’ SCREAMED THE voice, over and over again, as the Manskinner’s untiring limbs carried him closer and closer to where the domes of the spaceport rose above the residential blocks. There was a savage joy on the faces of his men, and in that moment he was happy, knowing that there would be a twofold slaughter ahead: the Marines first, then across the stars to Macharia.

  The Manskinner was happy at last. This was why he had been born. This was why the Blood God had picked him out. To kill, to shed blood in his name.

  He was at the head of the horde as it crossed the threshold of the spaceport, roaring towards the Marine lines.

  ‘Nothing lives!’ he yelled. He could see the black-armoured figures crouching amongst the debris, trying to hide, but no one could hide from the Blood God’s chosen. ‘No quarter! No mercy! Blood for the Blood God!’

  He could see their commander, lying in wait armed with a power fist he was too cowardly to use, trying to catch them in an ambush of fire as he had done with Recoba’s men. Up above them, an assault squad, under-strength, lurked – but they would drop down not onto confused weaklings but a boiling sea of men made godlike by rage. They would melt away. They all would. They were nothing.

  His claw blades held open ready for the kill, the words of blood screaming in his ears to match the pounding of his heart, the Manskinner led the final charge towards the spaceport.

  ‘No quarter! No mercy! Blood for the Blood God!’

  ‘HOLD, SERGEANT.’ THEY were so close that Athellenas could feel the heat coming off them even before his auto-senses registered it. A tidal wave of men was roaring towards them, a wall of incandescent hate that would destroy anything in its way, half-naked blood-stained animals of men, with a raging daemon at their head, around which played a halo of dark power.

  They were within range. He could order the devastators to open fire but he did not. There were two battles here. The cultists must die, and along with them the stain of rebellion amongst his men.

  ‘Hold your fire.’ he ordered again. He could feel the agitation of his men, the urge to open fire on the horde battling with their respect for his command. That respect might not last much longer if Athellenas did not do everything right.

  Then, it happened.

  The first men across the spaceport perimeter began to falter, losing direction, eyes wild as their focus was taken off the waiting Marines. One swung his makeshift club wildly as if wishing an enemy to appear next to him – full of lust for battle, he could no longer wait to reach the enemy and sought out his nearest comrade. He struck the man across the back of the head. The victim fought back with his teeth, lunging for the first man’s throat, dragging him to the ground. The violence spread like a flash fire and suddenly thrashing, kicking, biting bodies were piling up on the threshold, thick dark blood running across the plascrete, ankle-deep.

  The leader tried to drag his men apart and then joined them in their carnage, his flailing shears cutting men apart, two or three at a time. The noise was awesome. None of these men felt pain any more, and they screamed not with pain, but with rage at the violence done to their bodies and the wounds they inflicted with their own hands.

  This army, this river of liquid fire, foundered a pistol shot away from Athellenas’s Marines, its members tearing each other apart. Denied the taste of blood for so long, the
y sought it in the only place they could find it: in their fellow heretics.

  ‘BLOOD! BLOOD! NO mercy! No quarter!’ The Manskinner didn’t realise he was screaming. He felt nothing any more, just the thirst at the back of his throat and in the hollow at the centre of his soul, the hollow that could only be filled with death. The payment for the Blood God’s favour was that they must feel his thirst, the lust for battle, the intense and all-conquering desperation that madness brought.

  His claw sheared through the press of men around him. Weaklings! he thought. Idiots! To fail when they were this close! To deny the Blood God his final honour by wasting their lives! The Marines had won, their deceit denying his men battle for so long that they would butcher one another rather than wait a moment longer.

  The part of his mind that could still think was dwarfed by the boiling cauldron of rage that made up the rest of him. The Manskinner killed and killed and killed, each man slain a drop of relief in the chasm of thirst. Even as the writhing, screaming, bleeding bodies closed over him, he killed. When the press became too close for him to breathe, he killed. When night came down across his eyes and his heart finally gave up its frenzied beating, he still killed. The instinct to murder was not dulled by death alone, and the shears still snapped at the walls of flesh around him until every last scrap of the Manskinner’s energy was spent.

  As the life finally bled from the Manskinner, the Blood God turned his back on his champion.

  WHEN THE MADNESS was over, there were perhaps three dozen that still lived, wandering dazed and battered between mounds of broken bodies. The Manskinner’s army was nothing more than four thousand mangled corpses and a lake of blood that was slowly draining away between the cracks in the plascrete. Flies were beginning to descend and the heat of the cultists’ rage was dissipating as the bodies turned cold. The sky above began to darken as evening fell, the lumpen shadows cast by the corpses growing longer.

  ‘Templars, advance.’ ordered Athellenas. The assault squad dropped from high up in the dome, their landings cushioned by jets from their jump packs. Chainswords flashed and surviving cultists, blind and insensible, died without a straggle. Athellenas moved forward with his tactical squad, bolters picking off the stragglers wandering in twos and threes through the human wreckage. Athellenas levelled his bolt pistol and another heretic fell.