Belisarius Cawl- the Great Work - Guy Haley Page 11

  Thracian loosed a single bolt as he dived aside. His unerring aim hit the gargoyle square in the chest. The bolt exploded deep inside, obliterating the torso. The flock sped around the explosion. Detached leathery wings spiralled down and came apart like quicktree seeds in the autumn.

  All along the battlement yellow-and-black-armoured Space Marines fired upwards, boltguns on full automatic shaking their arms. They crossed their fire with perfect discipline, covering each other when they had to reload. The rain of fluid and shattered flesh splattered men, fortifications and machines so all was slick with alien vitae. Bowed serfs ran along the ramparts, handing precious clips of bolt-rounds to their masters from the ammunition sleds they dragged. The sleds were getting lighter. The Chapter was running out of ammunition. At the start of the invasion, the armoury had brimmed with a brassy treasure of bullets. They had spent it quickly. If Thracian had had time to check the ammo counts for his men, he would have seen a bank of angry red digits blinking down to zero, but he had fewer seconds to spare than he had bolts.

  Mortis runes clamoured for his attention. His eyes darted across the walls to seek their sources. Brother Bastable carried down by three gaunts. Brother Genuous obliterated by a plasma blast. Brother Frodan thrashing under a flock of winged rippers. Everywhere he turned to watch, another warrior died on the wall. His Apothecaries dashed from place to place, trying to salvage precious geneseed. One was plucked off his feet and borne skywards. Another was forced back by the tide of the enemy from his brothers, whose writhing bodies were buried by swarms of tiny, toothed organisms.

  The Scythes of the Emperor were dying quickly. ‘Get back to the main wall! Abandon the outer defences!’ he roared from his voxmitter, simultaneously sending the message by company-wide vox-link. He pulsed urgent runes of retreat and consolidation to his men. The fortress-monastery’s curtain wall soared above them, seemingly indomitable.

  But it was not enough. It could never be enough.

  The carnifexes at the gates came forwards under heavy fire. Their footsteps shook the ground. Like a bullet easing from a wound in a surgeon’s tweezers, the first entered the courtyard, then the second, and a flood of death came behind them, red as blood.

  ‘Back to the main walls!’

  Doorways led into the main gatehouse towers from the bailey wall walk, offering a chance of continuing the fight, at least for a while. But his men were beleagured, and promised reinforcements from Sothopolis were slow in arriving.

  ‘Retreat!’ shouted Thracian.

  Those Scythes on the left wall walk, that part built into the cliff-face of Mount Pharos’ peak, were cutting their way through the flocks of gargoyles and making for the armoured portal. Thracian covered his men, waving them through, counting off each one safely inside the walls with paternal relief as they passed him.

  ‘Move move move!’ he yelled, slapping his warriors on their ­pauldrons, firing at the beasts trying to end them. A million monsters came for them, landing on the walls. Though the aerial tyranids were helpless on the ground, they were driven by their overlords to hurl themselves onto the battlements, where they flopped and screeched and bit. Boots smashed crested heads. Guns ended hundreds of xenos lives. Under Thracian’s guidance, the left wall emptied of Space Marines.

  On the right, the situation was hopeless. The walls there rose atop the cliffs, and looked down a sheer drop of thousands of feet onto the distant roofs of Sothopolis. The cliff was no protection. The enemy swarmed over the walls. The Scythes of the Emperor there were isolated from one another and split into twos or threes. Things with bony blades for limbs scrambled up the sheer face of the mountain and leapt over the crenellations. The warriors on the main wall were too preoccupied with the endless swarms to provide covering fire. Those on the left were intent on their own escape. Out there on the right, Thracian’s men were dying, close enough to see, too far away to help.

  The mortis alarms rang on. The fingernail pictograph display of his company pulsed with amber and red lights as his squads were annihilated.

  Something shook the fortress. Something from inside. A small tremor, significant nonetheless.

  The guns cut out.

  Thracian stared at the sky.

  The void shield flickered and died. The swarms poured down unhindered.

  ‘Command, the defence batteries have ceased firing,’ said Thracian. For the first time in a hundred years, he felt panic. ‘The shields are down! Advise immediate evacuation. Command, please advise!’

  He moved to the side to avoid a plummeting gargoyle. It smashed wetly on the wall walk where he had been standing. He shot down three more with his bolt pistol.

  Vox-comms from the citadel bleeped for his attention. A line of text on the helmplate spelled out Captain Mercyria’s name.

  ‘Main guns are off line. Down to lesser turrets. Get back from the walls. We will hold them at bay until the others return. Await reinforcement from the Sotharan defence force.’

  ‘We need to evacuate! There are no reinforcements!’ Thracian shouted. The hissing and shrieking of the tyranids was deafening despite the best efforts of his autosenses to dampen it. ‘Thorcyra would not want this! We will be destroyed. We must abandon Sotha!’

  ‘Thorcyra is not here. We must fall back. Hold the citadel until the rest of the Chapter responds to the recall.’

  ‘This is suicide,’ Thracian replied. ‘Sotha is lost. Our defences are gone.’

  ‘Our brothers are coming. The people of this world are coming. We cannot leave them to face this alone.’

  ‘Our brothers are dead. The message went out too late. Sotharan ground forces have likely been annihilated. We condemn the Chapter to extinction if we remain. You are dooming us, brother.’ Thracian shot four bolts one after the other, each one bringing a kill-sign clarion from his helm.

  ‘I am in command,’ Mercyria said. ‘Retreat to the citadel.’

  Thracian swore. The sky swarm was thinning. He was too well versed in the tactics of the hive mind to see this as a reprieve.

  The tyranids had seen the shields were gone.

  ‘Incoming spore drop!’ he bellowed. The last of his men that could were retreating through the tower portals. Seven were left isolated in a courtyard now crawling with xenos. He looked skywards. The gargoyles and shrikes were swirling around in a vortex that reached for the void, creating a clear space down to the ground. He saw the low bodies of huge hive ships in the sky, white and blue as a daytime moon in the sunlight. From them black shapes fell.

  ‘Anti-air wall guns, prioritise drop spores!’ he commanded. The last of his men was through the left door portal. It rotated shut, crushing a gargoyle scuttling after to paste. ‘Seal left wall gate!’ In the wall, mechanisms injected fast-setting ferrofoams into the door cavity. Thracian descended stairs into the courtyard, and ran towards the right portal to help the warriors retreating there. The huge reliefs of the main gates towered beside him. Two of his warriors ran to join him, taking it in turns to fire backwards and cover his advance. He raced to save another Scythe, only to see him transfixed on the sharp claws of a stooping shrike and carried off. Spores were hurtling towards the courtyard. The first was misjudged, slamming into the cliff, exploding fluids and dead gaunt strain attack beasts everywhere. The last of his men in the yard was sinking to his knees, moaning, his flesh melting under jets of hyper acid coming in from all sides.

  Thracian took careful aim and put a bolt through his head.

  Red outlines in his company schema chastened him. He had lost more than half his company.

  More spores came down. They had no braking mechanisms, but hit the ground at full speed, bursting on impact. Tyranid warriors struggled free dripping in shock-gels, opening fire as soon as their guns were clear of the flaccid skins of the spores.

  He ascended the right hand stairs to the door in the tower. He could see Sothopolis from there. Its streets we
re full of a churning mass of aliens.

  A few Space Marine stragglers were limping through the door.

  ‘All squads, prepare to reform.’ Thracian looked up to the citadel that enwrapped the peak of Mount Sotha, and the ancient tower at the very centre. Black swarms of tyranids raged around it, swirling and diving in eerily synchronised murmurations. He paused a moment, caught on the knife blade of decision.

  ‘All company Thunderhawks, prepare for immediate evacuation. Company, retreat to main hangar. We are leaving. May the Emperor guard us all,’ he said.

  He turned to go. Between him and the door, the Icarus quad cannon continued to shoot, its machine-spirit smoothly spinning the gun on its turntable to track the creatures in the sky. It banged death in four-shot bursts.

  Bang bang bang bang. Bang bang bang bang. Bang bang bang bang.

  The sound thumped into Thracian’s head. The battle’s noise receded. He found he could not move. Slowly, he lowered his weapons. There was something behind him. Something vast and cold.

  He turned slowly, and looked up into the dead black eyes of a shrike. It towered over him, the upper wing limbs furled, its biocannon throbbing with the expectation of release.

  It did not fire; instead it leaned down, mouth hissing. Something looked out from behind its eyes that was immeasurably ancient and evil.

  The thing there in the blackness of its soul touched his mind. It judged him. It pinned him in place. Thracian found he could not move, such was the potency of its regard.

  A spray of yellow blood erupted from the thing’s gut. Bolt explosions ripped it in half. The top fell away, the legs folded into themselves. The spell was broken.

  Brother Scaedus of the third tactical squad marched forwards, the ammo feeds on his heavy bolter clunking as they drew fresh rounds from his backpack hopper, and grabbed Thracian’s pauldron.

  ‘My lord!’ he said. ‘Through the wall! Back behind the main defences!’

  A warrior lacking his legs was dragged through the door by his brothers. Ceramite clanged from adamantium, blood leaked onto the ground.

  ‘I…’ said Thracian.

  ‘You ordered us to retreat! Thracian!’

  ‘I…’

  Now

  ‘Chapter Master,’ said Felix.

  Thracian blinked. He was on the wall. The quad cannon was silent at his back. Not then but now. The dead were gone. The tyranids absent. Cold stars burned in place of the stolen sky. The tetrarch stood in front of him with the Archmagos Dominus Cawl.

  ‘What did you see?’ Felix demanded urgently. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘I saw the end of the world,’ said Thracian numbly.

  ‘I saw the day I was made,’ said Felix.

  ‘I am not alone?’

  ‘We all saw something,’ said Felix. ‘But you were entranced the longest. You ran up here. None of us could stop you.’

  ‘What about my warriors?’

  ‘Safe, though all experienced visions.’

  ‘There were stories,’ Thracian began. ‘Stories about the mountain…’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Cawl.

  ‘You saw something? What did you see?’ Thracian asked.

  Belisarius Cawl smiled.

  ‘Something almost as interesting as that.’

  He pointed at the wall gun, and the bright silver threads connecting it to the black rock of the mountain.

  Chapter Nine

  Beacon

  ‘This metal here connects the gun to the xenos device in the mountain,’ said Cawl. His bionic fingers tapped all along the length of the connection while other limbs tasted it with sensing apparatus. The metal made an organic-looking ridge, peaked and forked like a tree root, that wrapped around the gun’s podium and penetrated it in several places. ‘You see here how the rock of the Pharos extrudes through the local basalt? Close enough to the surface to put out these tendrils to the wall gun.’ A small plasma torch emerged from an aperture on Cawl’s side and ignited with a soft hiss. The magos sectioned part of the silver metal. It bled green light, then flowed back together. ‘Fascinating,’ said Cawl.

  ‘You said there were stories,’ Felix said to Thracian.

  The Chapter Master nodded. ‘Traditions. Myths. Talk of something under the mountain that our first Chapter Master, Oberdeii, was commanded to watch over. There are other stories, older still, of the mountain being alive. It was always assumed that they were fanciful, originating because of the strange properties of the rock. There were those who held it affected the human mind, and brought strange dreams. We thought nothing of it.’

  ‘There are many caves,’ said Felix. ‘Did your Chapter never investigate?’

  ‘The main apertures were filled with ferrocrete before the Chapter was founded. Inside the peak, only the uppermost tunnels are clear. They are where we interred our dead. It was our solemn duty to ensure no cave was ever opened, and to keep the people of Sotha from the mountain. These duties were part of our Chapter cult, never questioned, obediently upheld. But it went no further than that. This galaxy is full of wonders. What notice should we have paid to a mountain of stoppered holes? It barred scans. What of it? I have seen many odder things during my service.’

  ‘Have there been any visions noted in your records?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Thracian. ‘Not in nine thousand years.’

  ‘Any tremors?’

  ‘Nothing out of the ordinary. Sotha is tectonically active, we have earthquakes and occasional vulcanism, but nothing strange.’

  Cawl was humming, peering closely at the metal link. Hair-fine probes drilled into it, and he fell silent a while.

  Felix shook his head. He attempted readings from the mountain and the fortress. Static rattled his autosenses.

  ‘This radiation is not helping,’ said Felix.

  Cawl straightened.

  ‘It is not my doing. The mountain is waking. Your devices are blinded by the energies from within. It has linked to the wall guns. It is too weak to reactivate all of your weaponry. Indeed, much of it might well be incompatible with the xenos technology, but we can be sure that it will be attempting to bring the main orbital batteries online, as a first line of defence.’ Cawl smiled behind the skin of energy holding in his air supply. ‘I recommend we stop it.’

  ‘How?’ said Thracian. ‘I am locked out. Can you get back into the Chapter noosphere? Perhaps we can deactivate the fortress weapons that way.’

  ‘I will do what I can, but it might not be so simple.’

  ‘You said first line of defence,’ said Felix.

  ‘I did. The mountain is waking, but has not yet woken. However, all activity of reanimated xenos facilities increases exponentially, especially where threat is involved. It will replace your guns with superior weaponry as soon as it can synthesise them.’

  ‘You speak of xenos,’ said Thracian. ‘You say their ancient toys are more powerful than the full arsenal of an Adeptus Astartes Chapter? Is that not heresy against your religion?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Cawl cheerily. Multiple small limbs were performing sample gathering operations from the metal while he spoke to them, as if his own augmetics had lives and minds of their own. ‘I’ve never been one to play by the rules. The builders of this mountain would find your guns extremely primitive. It may be heretical, but that does not stop it from being true.’

  ‘Can we stop it?’ said Felix. ‘Sotha is dead, and that is a terrible shame, but worse than that is a wakening xenos world on the edge of Lord Guilliman’s domain.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Cawl.

  ‘Do you even want to stop it?’ said Felix. ‘It is my guess, archmagos, that you are here for more than a survey.’

  ‘That is true,’ said Cawl. ‘I was not exaggerating when I said that this mountain could save us all, but in order for it to do so, I require it to wake up.’ />
  ‘I cannot possibly allow–’ said Felix, only to be interrupted again.

  ‘Do you have any inkling what lies under our feet, Decimus?’

  ‘Not much,’ said Felix. ‘But I am familiar with the work of the necrons. This metal, the green energy source. The blackstone. This is necron technology. A tomb world here would be a disaster. We must destroy it before it attains full reanimation.’

  ‘There have never been any sign of necrons here!’ said Thracian.

  ‘The unlikeliest of places have turned out to be tomb worlds,’ said Felix. ‘This is my command, should this be the first signs of a tomb world awakening. We will return from the surface. We will destroy Mount Pharos.’

  ‘Just a moment, Decimus,’ said Cawl. ‘Point the first, this is not a tomb world. Point the second, although this is a necron facility, ultimately it is the work of something older even than they,’ said Cawl. ‘Although the second point is me being merely pedantic, if I am completely honest.’

  Felix lost his temper. ‘You speak obtusely all the time, Cawl. You do it to demonstrate your superior intellect. In which case, I say bravo, we are all impressed, but I ask you to stop your games. Speak plainly. The fate of so much hangs on every passing minute.’

  ‘Very well. Here is plain history, plainly delivered.’ Cawl crossed some of his arms. His probes retreated back within his armoured torso. ‘There was, long ago, a War in Heaven,’ he said. ‘So the aeldari call it, and though it happened long before mankind evolved, and before the aeldari dominated the stars, it remains prominent in their myths. From what I have pieced together from not-always-willing informants, the necrons won this war, but in doing so their power was broken. They went to sleep. As we are all painfully aware, they are now waking up. This mountain has stood here since their days of greatness. Consider its shape. Consider its coating of basalt. Over the aeons, it must have been submerged under water. It must have been part of the seabed, and covered by volcanic eruption. Throughout this world’s geological history, it has moved, and shifted with the crawl of tectonic plates, yet it has always been adapting, always working.’