Honour Among Fiends - Dylan Owen Read online

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  Honour Among Fiends - Dylan Owen

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  Honour Among Fiends

  Dylan Owen

  'Contact zero-thirty!'

  'You sure, Scaevolla? I see nothing.'

  'Trust me, Larsus!'

  Scaevolla stroked the trigger of his bolter. A dozen rounds barked into the obscuring green fog, and screams wailed from the soupy atmosphere ahead. He and his men pounded towards the cries, eight hulking warriors in black power armour trimmed with gold. A blazing eye was superimposed on the eight-pronged star of Chaos emblazoned on their right shoulder pads: the heraldry of the Black Legion.

  The warriors whooped feral cries of joy. It had been a long journey through the void to this barren, mist-swathed planet, but now they could let off steam against the minions of the False Emperor ahead. Scaevolla almost felt sorry for the enemy. He needed one alive, to learn where fate had directed him, and to discover the name of the man he had sought since the visions made him leave the Eye of Terror a year ago.

  It was always a nightmare that would inspire Scaevolla to lead his men on another hunt. A year ago he had woken screaming from such a dream: silver, unblinking eyes penetrating his sleep. Instinct had led him to navigate his battle frigate, Talon of the Ezzelite, out of the shifting spheres of the Eye of Terror into the reality of Imperial space. A series of portents had led him to this world of lethal mists. Dozens of battleships emblazoned with symbols of the Ruinous Powers blockaded the planet, the wreckage of Imperial vessels drifting amongst them. The Talon had evaded these and landed undetected among low, mist-shrouded hills on a continent wracked by war. A kilometre away was a sprawling city under siege, towards which Scaevolla's esoteric senses tugged. Whenever he closed his eyes, the image of a crowned skull seared his mind's vision, and he knew that the man he had to kill commanded the defenders here.

  Las-rounds whined past or pattered harmlessly off the warriors' armour. Scaevolla felt one brush his temple, but felt no pain. He pumped off another dozen rounds into the fog, each shot followed by a scream, closer this time. At his left, Opus, the bull of the squad, howled a tuneless battle-dirge accompanied by the roar of his autocannon.

  Lines of men in grey battle uniform emerged wraithlike from the mist, their masked helmets lending them an alien appearance - wide black eyes and metal snouts. The troopers' helmets depicted a silver double-headed eagle, the insignia of the Imperial Guard. The front rank of the platoon knelt and the second rank stood upright, lasguns at the ready while the fallen curled on the floor. Ethereal green tentacles probed the living and caressed the dead. A sergeant bellowed and another volley was unleashed, but the shrill hail washed over the attackers' power armour with no effect. Scaevolla calmly loosed a bolt and watched as the sergeant's head exploded into meat and bone. He had not expected to encounter any of the planet's defenders so soon after leaving the Talon.

  Perhaps this platoon of troopers was as lost in the mists as his squad was.

  Scaevolla and his men smashed into the enemy lines. When a man enters combat, his experience of time slows. For Scaevolla, the first second of the skirmish froze completely. He observed the tableau of impending destruction. Opus was mouthing a song, no doubt accompanying the infernal choir that sang ceaselessly inside his skull, his eyes rolled up into the sockets of his bald head, the death spitting from his autocannon hanging in mid-air. To Opus's left was Sharn, his helmet featureless, devoid even of eye-slits, his flamer bathing the troopers with liquid fire. Further away was Ferox, head flipped back at an unnatural angle as a smooth shaft of glistening muscle with a muzzle of snapping teeth began to emerge from his mouth. Ahead was Icaris, his face contorted with anguish, tears of blood frozen on his cheeks, the air patterned crimson where his chainaxe lopped his opponents' limbs. Icaris wept for his victims, who would never know the joys of serving the true gods.

  Scaevolla glanced right. Lieutenant Larsus had bisected a Guardsman with his chainsword, and was caught in mid-laughter savouring the gore splashing his face. Beyond him was Surgit, towering over his foes, power sword scabbarded, pistol holstered, his horned helm scanning the platoon for a worthy foe. Finally came Manex, emptying a stream of ammunition from his two bolt pistols into the enemy line, mouth frothing and eyes bulging from the poisons that fed into his brain from the tubes within his armour. Pride swelled in Scaevolla's chest as he regarded his squad. Countless warzones had honed their battle skills, and none had ever failed him.

  The frozen scene melted, the motionless fighters slamming back to life. Bodies piled around the feet of Icaris and Larsus, both a blur of whirring chainblades, and Ferox's monstrous tongue lashed among the troopers, flensing flesh, his hands erupting into vicious, slashing claws. Manex ripped torsos apart with the ferocity of his gunfire, and Opus howled aloud an incomprehensible opera, chorused by the deadly riff of his autocannon, while Sharn burned a hole in the enemy lines. Although outnumbered, the warriors of the Black Legion were carving bloody chunks in the ranks of the Imperial Guard, whose bayonets stabbed feebly at their power armour. The troopers' attempts at swamping their attackers through sheer weight of numbers were like the ocean lashing in vain at a tidal wall.

  A commissar in a leering skull mask rushed into the fray, power sword raised, haranguing the troopers to fight to the bitter end, cutting down those who dared take a step backwards. Surgit, ignoring the las-fire zipping around him, cackled in triumph, drew his power sword and ploughed through the troopers to meet the officer blow for blow.

  A bayonet stabbed at Scaevolla, who opened a hole in its owner's skull with a shot from his boltgun. More bayonets bit into his armour. Scaevolla stepped back, firing indiscriminately, and the bayonets fell away into the fog. A single trooper stood his ground, clutching his ruined arm. Scaevolla reached out with his left hand and gently traced the leather of the man's mask with a claw of his armoured glove. He spoke softly. 'What year is this? What planet? Who leads your foes?'

  The words choked weakly from behind the gas mask.

  'Pl… planet? Zincali VI. We fight the Traitor-Lord H'raxor. The year? W… why…?'

  'Who commands your defences?'

  'Captain Demetros… of the Imperial Fists… he will cleanse your filth. The Emperor protects…'

  With a flick of Scaevolla's clawed fingers, the material of the gas mask fell away, revealing a pale face, eyes dazed. The soldier took a deep breath and winced. He clamped his uninjured hand to his neck, his mouth gaping wide, throat gurgling, and as Scaevolla watched, dark green, fleshy shoots pushed their way out of the soldier's mouth, bulging his neck. The man sank to his knees, tiny vines growing from his nostrils. With a strangled groan, he toppled to his side, eyes glazed, and within seconds his corpse was wrapped in a vegetal embrace, roots snaking into the black earth, pinning the body to the ground.

  Scaevolla breathed deeply, the spore-rich air bitter to the taste. He smiled at the frailty of lesser men.

  The sounds of battle trailed away. The few Imperial Guard who had survived the onslaught had vanished like ghosts into the green mist. Where once had stood an ordered line of determined soldiers there now lay piles of broken corpses, green shoots sprouting from bloody wounds where the minute spores in the mist had seeded in flesh. The ground flared where Sham's flamer incinerated the bodies of the half-dead, and in the fire's glow, Icaris mumbled the Litany of Execration over the corpses. Manex snuggled in Opus's iron grip, pinned down until his frenzy subsided. Ferox was metamorphosing back, his hands already human, his eel-like appendage vomiting gobbets of half-digested meat as it shrank back into
his distended mouth. For his outstanding valour, Ferox had been blessed by the gods with these mutations, which burst forth from his flesh under duress. While his comrades regarded Ferox with awe, Scaevolla did not share their admiration. He remembered the old Ferox that these gifts had consumed, who had bolstered the squad's morale with his easy manner and ready wit, now long disappeared.

  There was no sign of Surgit. Scaevolla called out his name.

  'Here!' The horns of the warrior's helmet lent him a daemonic appearance as he emerged from the clinging fog carrying the commissar's head. He sniffed. 'A disappointing match. His hatred made him clumsy. My blade feels sullied.'

  'A fine fight you've led us to, captain.' Larsus approached, grinning through a mask of drying blood at Scaevolla. 'You never disappoint. Is our quarry here?'

  'His name is Demetros. The visions were true. He commands the Corpse-Emperor's forces.' Scaevolla's voice became heavy. 'Lieutenant, do you ever tire of the chase?'

  Larsus rapped the image of the Eye of Horus on Scaevolla's right shoulder pad. 'Never. So long as we fight, the legacy of the Warmaster lives on.'

  It had been during the false Emperor's Great Crusade that Scaevolla and his men had learned their battlecraft, and bonded in blood and violence. In those days they had been Lunar Wolves, their armour white; innocents blind to the Emperor's weakness. Then Horus, beloved Warmaster, had cast the scales from their eyes, and they had fought as his devoted Sons to free themselves from the false Emperor's coils. At the edge of victory, the Warmaster fell, and his Legion had fled to the protective shadows of the warp, where it became known as the Black Legion. To mark the Legion's sorrow and disgrace, its warriors' power armour was lacquered black, although the edges of the armour gleamed with gold, for even the darkest night is banished by the gleam of a new dawn. Scaevolla's men believed that every minion of the Corpse-Emperor they slew brought closer a new golden age for their Legion.

  Scaevolla's memory of those days was scarred by rage and betrayal. The past haunted him with the face of a murdered comrade. The pain had not dulled in… how many years? A hundred, a thousand… ten thousand? Time was exiled from the Eye of Terror, Scaevolla's life one long dream-like existence until he was spat out into reality to honour his oath.

  Larsus broke Scaevolla's reverie. 'Captain, why the grim face? Is our small victory not sweet enough?'

  'It's nothing,' Scaevolla shook his head to clear his mind. 'Gather the hounds, lieutenant. Let's see where the scent has led us to.'

  * * *

  Scaevolla hugged the brow of the hill. Piercing the sea of green fog that roiled in the valley below were uncountable battle standards, laden with gory trophies. The valley seemed to rumble under the advance of the obscured army. The bronze turrets of assault tanks and upper hulls of troop transports, crested with spikes, resembled an innumerable fleet of sea craft ploughing through ethereal waves. A score of monstrous war machines waded among them, each clanking on six steel legs like nightmarish metal spiders. The horde swept towards the horizon where a termites' nest of cyclopean buildings rose from the mist like an island. The city's ziggurats glittered with a million dots of light, their heights vanishing into red nimbus, and a thousand chimneys belched smoke into the sky. Circling the factory-city was a wall that dwarfed even the clanking war machines. Titanic bastions guarded the circuit, their cannons spitting plasma onto the advancing horde. Among the serried grey ranks of troopers manning the defences were phalanxes of power-armoured warriors, distinct in brilliant yellow, proud standards depicting a black clenched fist on a white field; Space Marines of the Imperial Fists Chapter defended in force.

  Larsus, crouched next to Scaevolla, gave a low whistle. 'A city of ten billion souls. H'raxor wants to build a mountain of skulls.'

  'No,' whispered Scaevolla. 'If he only desired trophies, he would have attacked a less well-defended target.'

  Blasts smacked the valley, yellow blossoms briefly parting the mists to reveal a circle of torn corpses, and a tank was hurled into the air ablaze, to land with a ripping explosion.

  Scaevolla licked the air. 'These mists are rich in protein. Perhaps this planet's manufactorums process the atmosphere into food. The destruction of this world may mean famine for those Imperial outposts it feeds. This is the opening gambit of a major invasion. H'raxor has great ambition. We'll let him enjoy his petty conquest, as long as he doesn't interfere with our mission. Our quarry is in the city. I feel it. We must reach him quickly, before the defenders are overrun.'

  'There.' Larsus pointed at a bronze-plated Land Raider battle tank, festooned with hooks and barbs, advancing at the foot of their hill in support of the army's reserve. 'We steal a ride.'

  Scaevolla nodded. 'Get to work, lieutenant.'

  While Larsus signalled orders to the squad waiting behind him, Scaevolla removed a small silver discus from his grenade belt and fingered a switch on its ornate shell. Raising the discus to his lips, he kissed it once then spun it at the vehicle below. There was a flash and the tank came to a halt with a squeal of engines, blue sparks rippling across its hull. Scaevolla and his squad pelted down the hill, penetrating the mist. The mutant soldiers hugging the vehicle for cover milled around in confusion, muffled curses escaping the crude respirators clamped around their mouths.

  'Out of the way, scum!' roared Larsus, felling soldiers who failed to yield. The mutants gibbered as they pushed each other to escape.

  Ferox and Icaris vaulted to the top of the vehicle, while the rest of the squad surrounded it. A crewman emerged from a hatch on the tank's upper hull, blue sparks playing across his brassy power armour. Icaris yanked him out and silenced him with a bolt. Ferox slid through the opening. There followed a muffled roar, then the portal closest to Manex slid open and another crewman toppled out, his bronze armour rent with gashes. Manex peppered him with bolts.

  'Good work, brothers.' Larsus peered through the open portal. Inside the gore-splattered interior of the tank, Ferox straddled a third crewman, his head snapped back and the fleshy eel extended from his mouth, sucking at the innards of his victim.

  'Inside,' urged Scaevolla. He followed his squad into the vehicle and pointed at the feeding Ferox. 'Calm him.' Larsus eased Ferox from his kill with gentle movements and a soft voice. Already, the eel was shrinking back into Ferox's throat, its recent meal sloshing onto the floor.

  Icaris positioned himself at the controls, the blue sparks that danced across the console sputtering like dying flames. He caressed the array of switches as they flashed back to life. 'Power returning. Yes, here she comes. I think she likes us; she finds our antics… amusing.'

  The portal and hatch clanged shut, the cabin shuddered as the engines roared, and the Land Raider lurched forward. Inside, its inner walls purred and blinked with myriad eyes at the new crew.

  The Land Raider careened across the battlefield, crushing mutant soldiers beneath its treads. Fog clouded the viewports, but the intelligence fettered within the vehicle's shell guided it towards its destination, a heavily defended gate in the city wall. Halfway across, a missile rocketed into the Land Raider's hull, and the daemon-spirit keened in agony, but the damage was superficial. Soon the gateway loomed out of the mist, its portcullis buckled and scorched. A semi-circle of twisted mutant corpses defined the killing ground around the base of the gate, into which H'raxor's soldiers marched, chanting defiantly as they soaked up the defenders' precious ammunition.

  As the Land Raider came into range of the gate's barbican it suffered sustained fire. Opus emerged head and shoulders from the vehicle's hatch to rake defenders off the battlements with the pintle-mounted gun, indifferent to the las-fire whining inches from his face and the explosions impacting off the hull. The Land Raider's las-cannon strobed at the weakened gate, but the portal absorbed the laser fire intact.

  'Ram the gates!' ordered Scaevolla desperately. Everyone in the troop compartment tensed. Manex inhaled deeply from his tox-tubes and Ferox began coughing strings of drool. Scaevolla knew they had to eva
cuate before the blood lust and the Dark Gods' gift took hold.

  'Ram them now!'

  The Land Raider rattled from a violent explosion and Opus dropped from the firing hatch, a face of burnt flesh, power armour embedded with shrapnel, his ruined lips mouthing demented lyrics.

  Icaris screamed from the controls, 'The gates are not going to give!'

  'Continue, Brother Icaris,' yelled Scaevolla. He braced himself. There was a crashing rip of torn metal, and every bone in his body seemed to jar from the impact. The keening of the daemon-spirit raked his eardrums. With a sharp crack, Ferox's head snapped back, his mutation probing from his throat.

  'We're through!' shouted Icaris. 'Seventy per cent damage to auxiliary reactor, firing systems all down—'

  'Open the hatches!'

  'Impossible… locking rune overridden… she doesn't like us anymore!'

  The eel snaked from Ferox's gullet. Then, with a feral roar, Manex gripped the rear hatch with both hands and wrenched it open. Green fronds of mist wisped into the cabin. With a single cry, Scaevolla and his squad bounded out of the vehicle.

  Scaevolla felt the flow of time cease once again. Manex was down, a shield for his companions, his armour punctured a dozen times. Larsus and Surgit were behind him, their bolters loosing a ribbon of shots as they charged the phalanx of Imperial Fists that opposed them. Sharn was licking the enemy with flesh-melting heat, while Ferox, fully deformed, stretched towards the enemy, yellow gore spurting from a hit to his pulsing eel-muscle.

  Scaevolla's sword was already in his hand, its blade long and slender, a single rune engraved at its tip. Scaevolla had been rewarded with the runeblade Fornax when he had laid the first skull before the floating Altar of the Four Gods on the daemon-world Sebaket. How long ago had that been? Now a pyramid of five hundred skulls marked his success in the hunt. He wondered what divine favour victory would win him this time?

  There was only one reward which Scaevolla desired: an end to this eternal chase. The gods drove him without rest to fulfil his vow. While his men fought for the sheer joy of killing, Scaevolla could no longer share their enthusiasm. The deaths blurred into one, dulling the emotion of the kill. His swordplay failed to thrill him, no longer a display of skill but mechanistic rote. He felt hollow. He had prayed to his masters for clemency, for release from his oath, which he had fulfilled five hundred times, but they would never grant him manumission. The only way out was escape.