Apex Predator - Gavin G Smith Read online

  As Sethana kicked over an enemy Chimera, her mind returned to the death of Lady Isabella. She wondered why had she been shown that particular memory, as she stamped on the traitor Astra Militarum that spilled from the armoured transport like ants. The obvious thought was that Isabella’s ghost wanted to show her unorthodox tactics for taking on super-heavy Knights, such as the Death of Hope. Despite his arrogance, however, Ivandar had been right. Such tactics didn’t work on the battlefield. Particularly not when you were low on resources with no real hope of resupply. And why show the murder? she wondered, as she felt the vibration of the underarm heavy stubber through the superstructure. The rounds from the anti-personnel weapon tore apart the fleeing traitors, splattering them all over the blackened rubble. She wondered what had happened to House Lucaris, why she had never heard of them, though she felt faint glimmers of recognition through her connection to the Throne Mechanicum and some of the older ghosts that resided there within.

  The vox crackled to life, interrupting her tired thoughts.

  ‘They’re here!’ She could hear the panic in Melodia’s voice, all pretence of vox discipline forgotten. Then the vox-channels were filled with screaming.

  Sethana checked Green Hell’s position. She was closest.

  ‘All Knights, converge on Green Hell, now!’

  Heartsbane started to move, but Sethana knew they would never make it in time.

  Green Hell was on the ground, the hunched, spiked, heavily armoured form of the Knight Tyrant Death of Hope kneeling on her chest. Twin hooked Reaper chainswords were peeling the Paladin’s armour back, layer by layer. The rest of the heretic lance consisted of five Knights, each one a mutated hulk of warped armour, a twisted parody of an Imperial Knight, their existence a mockery of their brethren untouched by Chaos. The Heretic Knights surrounded the ongoing mutilation. They were looking away from the Death of Hope’s work, providing three hundred and sixty-degree cover with overlapping fields of fire.

  Heartsbane was hidden behind an old mulch silo. Sethana was watching Green Hell’s murder through a crack in the rockcrete, utterly helpless, torn, knowing she couldn’t help. Whatever else, the pilots of the heretic lance knew their business. To try and save Green Hell meant death, even if Harvan and Dugness got there in time, which they wouldn’t. Melodia was still screaming in terror over the vox. Sethana knew those screams of terror would soon turn to agony when they cut through into her cockpit.

  ‘We will corrupt her throne! Her ancestors will fall to torment! They will serve Chaos in their agony! We will warp metal, mutate armour, turn your Knight to the service of true power! The woman will know a daemon implanted into her very flesh, her very soul, and she will help to hunt you down!’

  The words were broadcast from the Death of Hope. It left Sethana wondering if he knew she was there. Auspex was unreliable amongst the broken towers of the city, however, and it was just as likely the pilot of the Knight Tyrant enjoyed the sound of their own voice.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Sethana whispered. She had to deny Green Hell to the heretics, but more than that she had to end Melodia’s suffering. She leaned Heartsbane around the edge of the mulch silo, trying to leave as much of the Warden in cover as possible, using the narrow arc of her ion shield to protect that which was exposed, and opened up with the Avenger gatling cannon. There was a ripping noise as one report merged with another from the rapid-fire weapon. She sent round after round into Green Hell as the heretic lance started to move. The cannon wasn’t meant for targets as heavily armoured as a Knight, but Sethana knew where to aim her shots and Green Hell was already badly damaged. The cannon fire forced two of the Heretic Knights to interpose themselves between her and Green Hell, using their own ion shields to protect their victim. It was the distraction Sethana needed. She sent two Ironstorm missiles arcing over the Heretic Knights and into Green Hell’s adamantium carcass, and Melodia’s screaming stopped. Then she angled her ion shield behind her and fled in a hail of cannon, laser, plasma and melta fire, accompanied by the sound of incoherent rage screamed over a vox-horn. A torturer denied its victim.

  ‘You killed Green Hell? Melodia?’ Harvan demanded.

  He had been a rock, he had never before questioned her orders, but everyone had their breaking point. Sethana had just killed a member of her own house and destroyed a Knight that had been old before the Imperium had been founded. She had murdered its machine-spirit and the ghosts of her ancestors that had resided within.

  ‘What choice did I have?’ Sethana asked.

  Harvan had no answer.

  They stood once more in the ruins of their ad hoc sanctum, in the shadow of the three remaining Knights. Even in the dim light Sethana could see just how bloodshot Harvan’s eyes were, and he was swaying a little.

  Dugness was just staring at her. His eyes were empty, devoid of hope.

  ‘For all we know Tears of the Golem and The Harvester now walk with the Death of Hope,’ she told them.

  ‘They would never–’ Harvan started.

  ‘Of course they would!’ Sethana shouted at him. She rubbed her eyes. The after-effects of the stimm she’d used to get through the last patrol were exacerbating her exhaustion. She knew that Harvan was trying to remain loyal to the memory of fallen comrades. ‘Everyone breaks, or dies. Even if our fallen Knights do not walk with them now, they may lie on some dark forge-shrine in the immaterium where they are broken and remade in a form more pleasing to the Ruinous Powers. I would not see that fate befall Heartsbane, and I know Melodia would not have wanted it for Green Hell.’

  ‘But if you’d just waited!’ Harvan protested.

  ‘Even if you had both been there,’ Sethana told them, ‘they would have outnumbered us two to one.’

  ‘Then we split them and take them down,’ Harvan cried.

  ‘They hunt in a pack,’ Dugness said, then spat. ‘Like we do with the abhumans back on Raisa.’

  More than anything it just brought home to Sethana that defeat was inevitable. She was sure that the next time she climbed into Heartsbane it would be her last. She had no tears left; this ashen planet had taken them all.

  She could hear screams and gunfire within the camp. It was one of the fallback points for the routed northern forces. As such, they’d had their fair share of infiltrators. Harvan and Dugness were watching her as though waiting for something. She was in command, after all. The smile on her lips was utterly devoid of humour. The possibility of death seemed like a well-earned rest. The possibility of being turned to the Ruinous Powers, less so.

  ‘I want to find a way to deny the thrones and our Knights to the enemy. I need to speak with Malachi,’ she told them. ‘We need to find a way to poison their meat.’

  Sethana was unsurprised by the look of distaste on Harvan’s face. Leaving poisoned food for the abhuman tribes they hunted back on Raisa was one of the more-frowned upon tactics used by lesser hunters.

  Loading Heartsbane’s cockpit with all the demolition charges that Malachi had been able to scavenge did not feel right. It made sound strategic sense. She had to deny her Knights to the Ruinous Powers and, if possible, damage the heretics in the process, but it was a violation of the bond that existed between her and Heartsbane.

  Sethana sat forward on the throne. She was missing something. There had to have been a message in the vision of the past that she had been shown. She was too tired to think, however. Even if she stimmed again it wouldn’t help. She sighed and lay back in the throne. The interface jacks snaked into her plugs and another memory was waiting for her.

  ‘Repeat, we are under attack by–’ the message was broken by the sound of bolter fire, ‘Renegade Knights, taking heavy losses and request immediate reinforcements.’ Despite the sounds of battle the Angels Revenant sergeant sounded perfectly calm.

  Heartsbane crashed through the managed woodland, the spinning Reaper chainsword held out in front of her turning thick branches i
nto clouds of splinters. Sethana found herself the passenger again. She could feel Lady Maria of House Cadmus’ thoughts, the adrenaline surging through her body, the excitement, the fear repressed by her link to the throne and an eagerness to do her duty. Sethana could hear her ancestor wondering where the enemy Knights had come from, particularly as Lady Maria had never heard tell of Knights in the service of the Ruinous Powers.

  Heartsbane’s auspex reached out towards the ambush site. Maria read the story straight away. A convoy of three Rhino transports supported by a Land Raider had been hit by the enemy Knights. The Land Raider had been destroyed, and one of the Rhinos had been overturned. The surviving Angels Revenant Space Marines had disembarked from their vehicles. Maria had seen the Adeptus Astartes in action; their arrogance notwithstanding they were superb warriors. They were, however, horribly outgunned. She checked the position of the rest of her lance. The others were fast approaching, but she would close with the enemy first.

  Heartsbane burst into the clearing. This was no time for subtlety, sheer aggression was the only hope the Angels Revenant had. Even then, the form of the Heretic Knights gave her pause.

  A Knight with a face like an elongated metal skull, its endostructure bursting through its armoured carapace, fired strobing lines of light from its laser destructor as it strode amongst the Angels Revenant, turning the dirt to superheated glass and slicing open one of the Rhinos, silencing the transport’s storm bolter. Maria wasn’t sure if she was imagining it or not but she could have sworn the armoured ribcage structure below its dripping skull was rising and falling, as though the thing was breathing.

  The second Knight had a toothed maw. It snatched up one of the Angels Revenant in its Thunderstrike Gauntlet, silencing the Space Marine’s bolter, then the Knight squeezed, crushing ceramite, squirting pulped transhuman flesh through the rents in the Space Marine’s armour. The Knight smeared the body of the Space Marine against its own jagged armour. The remains snagged amongst the small forest of spiked corpses that already decorated the Knight’s carapace.

  It was the third Heretic Knight that got Maria’s attention, however. It was an ambulatory fortress, baleful green light flickering around its plasma exhausts. Its hunched form bristled with the kind of weapons normally used for assaulting fortifications. For a super-heavy Knight, it was oddly configured, however, as it was equipped with twin hooked Reaper chainswords. The super-heavy Knight was kneeling on the upturned Rhino, shrugging off fire from the Space Marines as it cut into the armoured transport with one of its Reapers. This configuration reminded Maria of something. A story of an ancestor, a tourney champion whose life had been cut short. She was aware of one of the ghosts trying to tell her something but she had to focus, drive out distractions. Sethana, however, was listening. Every instinct was telling her that the super-heavy Knight was the threat.

  All of this had taken but a moment to register.

  ‘Heartsbane to Angels Revenant, the rest of my lance is inbound, I’m going to try and draw the big one away,’ Maria said over the vox even as she was rapidly targeting her weapon systems. ‘Concentrate your fire on the others.’

  ‘Acknowledged,’ the Angels Revenant sergeant replied.

  What she didn’t understand was why the Heretic Knights hadn’t opened fire. Their auspex systems must have picked up her approach. Then the super-heavy Heretic Knight turned from the Rhino to look at her. The mass of pipes that covered the lower part of its face flexed briefly.

  ‘Your suffering is my reward!’ The words rang out across the farmed forest, the malice audible even through the vox-horn.

  Lady Maria didn’t even wonder why this abomination sounded as though it knew her. She just opened up. Moving to one side in a bid to bypass the enemy’s ion shields, she fired her Avenger gatling cannon at the Knight with the elongated skull. Contrails filled the air as Maria tried to angle her Stormspear rockets into the back of the super-heavy Knight, shrouding it in explosions.

  As the Heretic Knights angled their ion shields to face this new threat, Maria was aware of the Angels Revenant moving to take advantage. With superhuman speed, Space Marines bearing heavy weapons moved to fire on unshielded parts of the enemy war machines.

  Maria felt the earth shake and Heartsbane staggered back as cannon round after cannon round impacted into her ion shield. The super-heavy Knight, Reapers held high like the claws of a mantis, emerged from the blossoming explosions that had surrounded it, and charged her.

  Maria took a moment to check her auspex and then ran. She had thought she would have to work harder to draw the super-heavy Knight towards her. Its fury felt very personal.

  ‘Tears, Harvester, you need to go to those Space Marines now,’ she said over the vox. Both the Knights were some seven hundred feet east of her and closing fast.

  ‘Lady Maria, you are being pursued–’ Sir Varn started.

  ‘I am well aware of that! Do as I tell you!’ Sometimes Varn was too gallant for his own good, Maria thought as she angled Heartsbane’s ion shield to the rear. She remained surprised that the super-heavy Heretic Knight had given chase so easily. ‘Lady Rose, we’re coming to you.’

  ‘Understood,’ Rose replied. Green Hell, The Huntsman and Oakspear were further out but closing at speed as well. The pursuing Heretic Knight had to be aware of this but still he gave chase.

  ‘I will turn your agony into music!’ Her pursuer screamed over the vox-horn. It was clear that this was somehow personal. It didn’t make any sense. She had no idea who they were, or where they had come from. Sethana was starting to see, however; starting to understand the lessons the ghosts were trying to teach.

  Trees exploded all around her as cannon shells slid off her ion shield. Her Knight Warden was much faster than the Heretic Knight, so she risked stopping to fire a long burst from the Avenger and loose a few more rockets. The pursuing Heretic Knight sprinted through the cannon fire and explosions as though they were not there, his twin Siegebreaker cannons firing relentlessly as he did so. Maria shifted her shield and started running again. She was aware of Tears of the Golem and The Harvester reaching the Space Marines and engaging with the skull- and maw-faced Heretic Knights.

  The pursuing Heretic Knight fired one of its Shieldbreakers. Corrupted empyric cascade micro-generators caused the missile to flicker in and out of reality, bypassing Heartsbane’s ion shield. The missiles exploded against the Knight Warden’s carapace. Maria screamed, feeling Heartsbane’s pain as her carapace was cracked open by the force of the explosion, and it took the Warden off her feet, sending her crashing through the thick trunks of trees. Suddenly the Heretic Knight was looming over her, the Reapers falling towards Heartsbane like twin guillotines. The mass of pipes that formed the Heretic Knight’s face seemed to be smiling. The twin Reapers bit into Heartsbane’s armoured metal superstructure and Maria screamed out as though it was her own flesh. Even as a passenger in a memory, Sethana found herself doing the same. Maria managed to roll Heartsbane onto her back and get a foot between her and the Heretic Knight, straightening one huge mechanical leg just far enough to bring the Avenger to bear. Then she started firing and didn’t stop. Ricochets tore the forest apart as the Heretic Knight used its ion shield to block incoming rounds from the gatling cannon. Maria jammed her own Reaper into the heretic’s metal flesh. Sparks cascaded from both Knights but Maria knew the heavier Knight’s twin Reapers would win this war of attrition. Through the dirt, corrosion and dried blood Maria could see that the Heretic Knight had once been blue in colour. Even through the agony of the twin chainswords eating into her flesh she could make out the red serpent painted on its carapace, though she did not recognise the symbol. Sethana, watching through Maria’s eyes, did recognise it, however.

  The grinning pipes of the Heretic Knight’s ‘mouth’ drooled some kind of ichor onto Heartsbane.

  ‘I am going to enjoy this!’ Even through the vox-horn the words were a cruel mockery of an inti
mate whisper.

  Then Maria was buffeted by explosions as Ironstorm missiles impacted into the Heretic Knight. Beams of thermal energy and cannon fire followed the missiles. It was too much for the Heretic Knight’s ion shield to protect it from, as Green Hell, The Huntsman and Oakspear closed with them. Howling curses from his vox-horns, the Heretic Knight fled.

  Sethana cursed herself for a fool. She knew she would have seen the connection earlier if it hadn’t been for the fatigue. The Death of Hope’s pilot had once been the pilot of Reign of Iron; the two Knights were the same. Perhaps arcane technology or Chaos sorcery had kept Ivandar alive for ten millennia – though from what little she understood of such matters, time moved differently within the immaterium. It all fit, however: the twin Reapers that aped Lady Isabella’s tourney configuration, the hatred for Heartsbane. She hadn’t got close enough to see the colours of the heretic lance that terrorised Turris’ battlefields but she was willing to bet that under all the soot, grime and dried blood she would find the red serpent of House Lucaris.

  ‘Sethana?’ Harvan asked from his Knight Crusader, Oakspear.

  Sethana opened her eyes. The machine runes and hologlyphics overlaid her view of the cramped cockpit packed with explosives.

  ‘Sethana?’ Harvan asked again. This time she could hear the concern under his weariness.

  She had known this was wrong. Poisoning the bait was a poor tactic for a hunter, but they weren’t hunting here. They had made themselves the prey.

  ‘Sethana, are you all right?’ this was from Dugness in his Knight Errant, The Huntsman.

  ‘Dismount,’ she told them both over the vox. Hunting abhumans had become too easy, made them soft, but it had not always been thus on Raisa.