[Space Marine Battles 01] - Rynn's World Read online

  Half an hour later, the three had become nine. An hour after that, sixteen. Though they continued to scour the area, killing any greenskins that stumbled onto their path, their number rose no higher.

  Sixteen Crimson Fists had survived from a force of over six hundred. Of most of those who had perished, there were no remains to be found. The explosion that had destroyed their ancient home had obliterated all trace of them. So it was with the thousands of Chosen who had believed themselves relatively safe within the fortress-monastery’s walls.

  A few of the Chapter’s serfs lay here on the slopes among the Astartes and the aliens, but not many. Their twisted, broken forms would have been hard to recognise but for the distinctive robes in which they’d died. Every last one he passed made Kantor think of his loyal Ordinator. The knowledge that the old man would never again bring him spiced fruits and fresh water in his chambers, nor stay a while to share in the joys of friendly discussion, was like a knife in his side. He would miss Savales’ honest, open face and his kind ways.

  It soon became clear that any further searching was futile. It was time to think about setting some objectives. There was only one place to go, Kantor knew - New Rynn City. Thank the Emperor and the primarch that a good number of the Crimson Fists had been there when the missile struck.

  “Weapons,” he told the somewhat battered-looking Astartes that stood in front of him. “We will need supplies. Grenades, ammunition, water, nutricaps, blades, anything you can find. Strap on as much as you can. We’ve a long and difficult path ahead of us.”

  Cortez came in close, and said in an undertone, “What of our fallen? We can’t just leave them out here like carrion.”

  Kantor knew exactly how the orks would treat the dead. They would strip the sacred armour from them and bastardise it to suit their own ends. Then they would defile the corpses, hacking off heads and hands to wear as sickening trophies.

  He shook his head, as much to rid himself of that image as to reject what Cortez was suggesting.

  “I wish we could honour our brothers properly, Alessio, but we have lingered here long enough. More orks will be coming, and in force. They will want to gloat over this. There is no time to bury anyone.”

  “If I may, lord,” said a brother called Galica, a member of 5th Company, “We could perhaps burn them. Some of the dead xenos were carrying crude flamers. A pyre would deny them their sacrilege.”

  Kantor felt fifteen pairs of eyes on him, awaiting his pronouncement. He could read their faces. If he denied them this, he was sure, they would follow him, but none would be happy about leaving the dead this way. In his heart of hearts, he knew he wouldn’t be, either.

  “Very well,” he told them. “Galica, Olvero and Teves will gather the xenos flamers. Look for fuel canisters, too. The orks may have been carrying extra ammunition for them. The rest of us will gather our dead. Work quickly.”

  So they did, and soon there was a mound of figures in dark blue armour. Among them were other colour in lesser number—Chaplains in black, Rhava among them, Techmarines in red, Apothecaries in white.

  Kantor particularly lamented the fact that none of the latter had survived. An Apothecary could have recovered priceless gene-seed from the dead. That gene-seed was needed now more than ever, a critical resource in bringing the Chapter back up to strength in the future… if the Chapter was to have a future.

  The work of ensuring it did, Kantor knew, fell squarely on his shoulders.

  He prayed to Pollux that he was equal to the task.

  Brothers Galica, Teves and Olvero lit the pyre, white fire gushing and spitting from the nozzles of the alien weapons. Then, when the fuel canisters were spent, they threw the weapons aside and joined the others in a final salute.

  As the fire claimed the bodies of the dead, Kantor found himself wishing that High Chaplain Tomasi were here, for his spiritual strength as much as for his knowledge of the appropriate rites. He offered words of his own as the flames crackled and snapped, but, though his brothers appeared moved by them, he felt them were a poor substitute.

  Tomasi had been ministering to the souls of his fellow Crimson Fists since long before either Kantor or Cortez were even born—almost five hundred years of unswerving loyalty and honour. And then, in an eye-blink, he had been wiped from existence. One of the largest, most forceful personalities Kantor had ever known, snuffed out in an instant with those he tended, another legend cut short without fitting glory to punctuate it. It had been Tomasi who had overseen the Rites of Succession that saw ultimate authority pass from the late Chapter Master Visidar to Kantor. Who would oversee those rites now? Who among the Chaplains in the capital was fit to take Tomasi’s place?

  He reached out and put a hand on Cortez’s shoulder. “Enough,” he said. “We have done all we can here. New Rynn City is over a thousand kilometres away, and the land that separates us from our goal will be seething with the foe. Snagrod means to obliterate us entirely. He may think it a task already accomplished, but he will send forces to make sure. Get the others ready to leave.”

  Cortez didn’t move. He stood staring into the flames. “When I lay eyes on the vile bastard, Pedro…”

  There was a shout from the other side of the fire. Kantor left Cortez where he was and strode around it, already certain it would not be good news.

  He was right.

  Brother Alcador was staring out over the vast expanse of the Arcalan Basin to the west, eyes fixed on a point in the sky. “We have aircraft inbound, my lord,” he said. “And they are not ours!”

  Kantor followed the battle-brother’s gaze.

  He saw them now, a cluster of dark shapes in the distance, far away but moving swiftly. If they didn’t change vector, they would be on top of the Fists’ position in a matter of minutes.

  They flew in what could only loosely be called formation. The smaller craft rolled and swooped dangerously close to a knot of larger, bulkier machines.

  Their recklessness was unmistakeable.

  “Damn them,” spat Kantor.

  Cortez had followed him around the fire, and was now tracking the dark objects in the distance, too. “This is a gift, brother.” He lifted his boltpistol in front of his breastplate to emphasise his point. “We can begin our vengeance now!”

  “I will not risk the lives of the Fists I have left,” snapped Kantor. “How do you propose to fight their jets without anti-air weaponry?”

  The approaching ork aircraft might be carrying high-yield bombs, air-to-ground missiles and Throne-knew-what-else. To die here, bombed from the air by the filthy savages… No. Their chance for justice, for revenge, would vanish like smoke on the wind.

  “We pull out,” said Kantor. “Now!”

  Cortez glared at him as if he were mad.

  “Run, Pedro? You cannot mean that. Let them land. We can ambush them. If we allow ourselves to fear death now, we are not worthy to survive. Surely you see that. Honour will only be served by taking the fight to them. It is the Astartes way. It is the only way.”

  Kantor’s eyes bored into Cortez’s. “This is not about honour or pride, damn you. This is about the survival of our Chapter. Nothing else. New Rynn City is our only hope. We must reunite with Alvez’s force. Now move these battle-brothers out, captain. We will follow the Yanna Gorge. It will give us good cover until we reach the steppes.”

  Cortez cursed and spat on the ground, and, just for the briefest instant, Kantor found himself furious at his insolence. They were friends, yes, and he had always afforded Cortez certain liberties because of that. But he was taking them too far now. Rank superseded all else. The captain clearly needed reminding.

  Kantor’s voice was dangerously quiet as he said, “Understand me, Alessio. These are my orders. Orders, brother! You have debated them countless times before, but you have never disobeyed them. You will not do so now when I need your strength most.”

  Cortez’s eyes were wild. Missile malfunction or not, his soul burned with a need, a compulsion, to eviscerat
e those who had come to Rynn’s World with the intention of doing his brothers harm. His home was gone, his proud 4th Company obliterated with he the only member left. He struggled with himself, the effort plain on his scarred face. He was torn between doing as his master ordered and doing what his heart demanded. As Kantor watched him, he saw the psycho-conditioning win through. Cortez’s face became gradually less feral, the curled upper lip sliding back down over clenched teeth.

  “I will do as my lord asks,” Cortez growled at last, “but I don’t have to like it.”

  Kantor let that pass. Cortez would do as ordered. Despite their words in the corridor after judgement had been passed on Janus Kennon, he could not disobey. A true Astartes embraced his psychological augmentation utterly. Cortez’s mood would remain foul until his armour was slick with the blood of the foe, but that moment would come soon enough of its own accord.

  The black shapes in the sky were growing closer, visible in more detail.

  Fighter-bombers and troop carriers, thought Kantor. The orks control our airspace. How easy it was for them. We were complacent. I was complacent, and it must never happen again.

  Raucous jet engines could be heard clearly now, their noise echoing up from the plains below. Kantor stepped past Cortez, intent on getting his party moving quickly.

  Wordlessly, Cortez fell in behind him.

  Do you think I want to punish the xenos any less than you do, Alessio, Kantor silently raged? I would slaughter every last one of them. I would look into their red eyes as I twisted my blade, and steep both my hands in their blood. But I will wait until the time is right, and so will you. My orders will be followed. We are Astartes. Space Marines. We are the shield against the darkness, yes. But without discipline, we are nothing at all.

  THREE

  The Cassar, New Rynn City

  Dawn at the capital brought no relief. In fact, with the coming of the light, it brought more horror and despair than the night could ever have. The extent of the invasion was revealed, and many who gazed out over a horizon literally filled with hostile alien monstrosities lost all hope. In that first morning, there were over four hundred suicides on the Gorrion Wall alone. Most of these were Rynnsguard, men who should have known better, men who should have been trained to sell their lives dear, who were expected to fight, no matter what, for the sake of all that depended on them. But most had joined up never expecting to see combat. They joined for the uniform, the attention of loose women, for the money to feed families.

  As they gazed out over what had once been teeming suburbs built to house the city’s cheap, uneducated labour force, all they saw was death.

  Death was green. Death carried strange, shoddy looking weaponry and roared around in noisy, fume-spewing junk-heaps. And death was everywhere, bellowing curses, promising slaughter, and trying to get inside the gates.

  Alvez had given temporary command of the Gorrion Wall to a veteran sergeant from 3rd Company, Dremir Soto, while he and Grimm sought out the most senior of the Librarians. All the reports listed the same phenomena—Librarians everywhere across the defensive line suddenly howling in pain and crashing to their knees. They had been either unable or unwilling to talk to anyone since. Alvez suspected a concentrated psychic assault of some kind, perpetrated by the ork shamans in Snagrod’s army.

  He was not prepared for the truth.

  He and Grimm found the senior Epistolary, Delevan Deguerro, kneeling in silence before the altar in the Cassar’s small but adequate Reclusiam. Images of Dorn and the Emperor gazed down impassively from the intricate stained-glass windows. Alvez could tell by the Librarian’s posture that something was gravely wrong. Deguerro had always cut such a powerful, confident figure. Now he looked, not like a mighty son of the greatest primarch who had ever lived, but beaten, stricken as if by an illness that robbed him of all strength.

  If Deguerro heard his two battle-brothers approach—and he could hardly have missed the floor-shuddering footfalls of the captain’s Terminator armour—he showed no sign. He did not look up from the cold stone floor.

  “Librarian,” said Alvez, his voice kept low out of respect for the sacred nature of the place. Deguerro did not turn.

  Alvez raised his voice further, “Deguerro, I am talking to you!”

  Again, there was no reaction. Huron Grimm stepped forward and laid a hand on the Librarian’s right pauldron, with just enough pressure to turn him slightly. “Brother,” he said. “This is no time for silence. We must know what ails you. Our entire Librarius contingent has been struck dumb. If you cannot speak, then show us in Astartes battle-sign.”

  Deguerro’s voice, when it sounded, was scratchy and low. “This is exactly the time for silence.”

  He turned to face them at last, and, when Alvez looked into his eyes, his first thought was of how hollow they seemed. No light glimmered there.

  “So much glory, so much nobility, bravery, pride… So much lost,” Deguerro murmured. “Lost forever, brothers.”

  Alvez and Grimm exchanged looks. “Elaborate,” said Alvez.

  “It was this tragedy,” said Deguerro, “this that we sensed drawing near. If only the portents had been clearer…”

  He turned back to the altar, apparently done with explanations, and Alvez let out a growl. Enough! How could he hope to address the problem if no one would tell him what it was? He grasped the Librarian and wrenched him back around, something few others would have dared. “I am in command here, Epistolary. The Chapter Master assigned you to my service, and you will respect that assignment. You will tell me in plain language what is wrong with you, or, so help me, Eustace Mendoza will hear of it.”

  Deguerro struck Alvez’s hand aside. “Eustace Mendoza is dead, captain! Is that plain enough for you? They all are. All who stayed to defend our home have perished. Arx Tyrannus is gone!”

  That made no sense. Arx Tyrannus, gone? Of course it wasn’t gone. It was impregnable, unassailable. It would be there atop its mountain seat until the planet itself melted from the heat of its dying suns fifteen billion years from now.

  “Not since the Siege of Barenthal have so many brothers fallen together,” muttered Deguerro. His anger melted had away again, the waters of his grief rising to submerge it.

  Alvez was having great difficulty processing what he had just heard. Deguerro was no fool, no deceiver. Surely, then, he was mistaken. But there was no denying the pain he was in, the sorrow carved in the flesh of his face.

  “You are confused,” Alvez insisted. “A trick of the ork psykers.”

  “I wish it were, brother,” said Deguerro without turning. “Last night, a catastrophe struck our home. Our brothers died in searing white flames. I heard it, felt it. We all did, as if we, too, were dying. The psychic Shockwave threatened to rip away our souls.”

  “What stopped it?” asked Sergeant Grimm, his voice kinder than the captain’s.

  Deguerro looked up and snorted, but it was an empty sound, without real humour. “The orks,” he said simply.

  Alvez look at Grimm, face betraying his confusion.

  “The orks?” he said dubiously.

  “The ork psykers,” said Deguerro. “They have been launching psychic assaults since they landed. Nothing we couldn’t handle, though there are a great many of them with the Waaagh. Combined, their power is such that we cannot broadcast messages through the warp. Not while they are here in such force. Their unfocused thoughts create a choking psychic fog. Be glad you cannot perceive it, brothers. It is a smothering, suffocating thing.”

  “I still do not understand,” said Grimm. “You said the presence of the ork psykers saved you?”

  “I did,” said Deguerro, nodding. “We are surrounded by them. They are among the hordes on every side, enough of them to buffer us against the full blast of the psychic death-scream. You see, like energy in all its forms, psychic energy dissipates over distance, and much faster where it meets resistance. The ork shamans struggled to survive the blast. Had they not, we may have lost every las
t Librarian in this city. In that, if nothing else, we were lucky.”

  Alvez stared up at the stylised glass image of Rogal Dorn, resplendent in armour of shimmering gold. “It cannot be,” he muttered to himself. “Arx Tyrannus? Pedro Kantor? I will not believe it until I see it with my own eyes. When we win this war, we will return to the Hellblades, and you will see for yourself, Deguerro.” He stared hard at the back of the Librarian’s head. “You will see that you are wrong.”

  The Librarian made no response.

  “Report to the walls within the hour,” the captain commanded, his voice harsh. “You and all your Librarius brothers. There will be no more of this. You are still a Crimson Fist, by Throne, and you will do your duty with honour, no matter the circumstances.”

  So saying, he turned and thundered from the Reclusiam, his steps shaking stands of devotional candles as he went.

  Grimm was left behind, looking down on a brother whose suffering he did not know how to ease. With no other choice, he turned and made his way to the doors of the small Reclusiam. Before he passed between them he turned and said, “I believe you, brother, though I wish I did not. Still, the captain is right. This despair, this hopelessness…” He shook his head. “You know as well as I that it is not our way. We are Astartes. Eustace Mendoza would expect you to fight.”

  Then Grimm, too, left the nave, and silence returned.

  A long minute later, Deguerro pushed himself to his feet. He looked up at the image of the Emperor, at His noble features cast in amber glass, and said quietly, “I am a Space Marine. Of course I will fight.”

  Captain Alvez was already beyond the walls of the Cassar when Grimm caught up to him. In fact, he had almost crossed the bridge between the Zona Regis and the Residentia Primaris. Even in his Terminator armour, the tireless captain covered ground quickly, and there was a new urgency in his stride. Grimm could see it clearly as he closed the distance. He fell into step with the captain just as they passed beneath the arch of the ornate Ocaro Gatehouse.