Crusade & Other Stories - Dan Abnett Et Al. Read online

  Keritraeus raised one eyebrow, but made no comment.

  ‘Very good, brothers,’ said Cassian. ‘Muster will commence when we are six hours out.’

  ‘Until then,’ said Keritraeus.

  The Librarian and the Chaplain departed, leaving Lieutenant Cassian standing alone before the slowly revolving image of Kalides Prime. He stared hard at the hololith, as though he could force it to give up its secrets. There was much to be done, he thought. Strategic inloads of the planet’s topography, settlement maps, last-known military strengths and the like.

  Then construction of likely battlefield theoreticals and the practical solutions to them, as the primarch taught. A tour of the ship for the sake of morale, and

  then his own personal preparations: the rites of arming over his wargear, and meditations to centre himself.

  ‘But first,’ he murmured, ‘to stoke those fires of faith.’

  The ship-wide vox might still be crippled, but Space Marine armour was a marvel of arcane technology. Alongside the suites of auto-senses that sharpened their battlefield perceptions, and the servo-bundles that augmented their already prodigious strength, every Primaris battle-brother’s Mark X

  armour incorporated a hardened vox-emitter keyed to a set of coded command channels. This vox-net was impervious to all but the most devastating forms of disruption, and so as Cassian keyed his vox-bead to channel ultima, he knew that his address would reach every one of the seventy-two other Ultramarines aboard the Primarch’s Sword.

  ‘My brothers,’ began Cassian. Throughout the vessel, Primaris Space Marines ceased what they were doing and attended to their lieutenant’s words.

  ‘My brothers, on Knossa we crushed the heretic foe,’ he said. ‘We threw down the twisted idols of Chaos and we purged the degenerates that had fallen to their worship. We brought the light of the Indomitus Crusade to those benighted by heresy. We won victory in the primarch’s name.’

  Upon the ship’s firing ranges, Intercessor battle-brothers held up their bolt rifles in salute, while heavily armoured Aggressors clenched their power fists and raised them triumphantly.

  ‘Upon our departure from that system, the foul powers of the empyrean attempted to punish us for our victory,’ continued Cassian. ‘Yet even the fury of a warp storm could not hold us back from our duty. We escaped. We endured.’

  Knelt in meditation in the ship’s Reclusiam, the brothers of Sergeant Marcus’ Reiver squad let the lieutenant’s words echo through their minds, even as they prepared to don their sinister wargear and the terrifying personas that went with it.

  ‘Now, the Emperor has provided us with the means to contact the crusade forces again, and to repair our craft that we might rejoin our battle-brothers all the sooner. But the greatest gifts are not given freely. The Emperor’s beneficence must be earned, and there is every chance that we will find a world turned to madness and heresy by the malign influence of the Great

  Rift.’

  Upon the arming deck, the brothers of Sergeant Gallen’s Hellblaster squad looked up from their prayers over the bellicose machine-spirits of their plasma incinerators. They shared stern, stoic glances, the looks of warriors committed to giving everything – even their lives – if victory demanded it.

  ‘Perhaps we will find a world of faithful Imperial servants, ready to aid our cause,’ said Cassian. ‘But if not, then know this – we will crush anyone foolish enough to oppose us. We will lay low any heretic who dares stand between us and our return to the primarch’s side. We are the gene-sons of Roboute Guilliman, and we will prevail. For the Emperor!’

  ‘For the Emperor!’ cried Cassian’s warriors, their booming voices carrying along the ship’s corridors and through its cavernous chambers, filling their helot servants with pride and courage.

  ‘Muster begins at seventeen hundred hours shiptime,’ said Cassian. ‘Look to your wargear and ready yourselves for battle. If enemies await us, we shall make them rue their folly…’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘Generosity,’ said Lord Gurloch. The Lord of Contagion’s voice was deep and wet, bubbling with the rancid sweat that seeped through his body both inside and out. ‘Generosity is the watchword of Grandfather Nurgle. It is the first rule of our god, and we who worship him must follow his divine example. It is how we show our faith.’

  Gurloch stood amidst the mould-furred rubble of the Mons Aquilas counting house, addressing his followers. He wore fluid-streaked Terminator plate, his bloated flesh spilling through corroded rents, and though the warriors he addressed were hulking Plague Marines, he loomed over them all.

  ‘Take our enemies,’ Gurloch said, stomping forwards. His brothers parted to let him through, their armour joints seeping and respirators gurgling. ‘They show no generosity of spirit. No magnanimity, and though we bring them plentiful gifts, they offer nothing in return. And thus, they suffer.’

  Gurloch halted at the edge of the ruins and stared up the processional roadway, to where the astropathic fortress stood beneath skies clotted with sluggish clouds. The structure was vast and imposing, yet it cowered behind its flickering banks of void shields. It stood silent and alone amidst the war-torn remains of Kalides Prime’s capital city, a vast and now ruined sprawl named Dustrious.

  ‘I hate them, of course,’ said Gurloch. ‘For their ignorance, their worship of the Corpse-Emperor. For their blinkered refusal to accept the true might of the Dark Gods, and the glory of Nurgle above all. But I pity them, also.’

  ‘What is there… to pity… my lord?’ asked Thrax, Gurloch’s favoured lieutenant. Thrax was a Biologis Putrifier, a plague alchemist whose armour was festooned with clinking alembics and experimental blight grenades. His

  voice escaped his helm’s respirator like that of a drowning man, snatches of words gasped through the fluids that bubbled in his lungs.

  ‘Thrax, these wretches have been deprived,’ said Gurloch with an expansive gesture. ‘They refuse to share the psychic bounty of their astropaths only because their God-Emperor has taught them to be grasping, cruel and selfish.

  He has taught them that only through suffering can their lives have meaning, that freedom and empowerment are just clever names for damnation. I pity them that their faith is built upon weakness, upon clinging to what little they have and refusing to give or receive the gifts that could be theirs. We must set an example, and show them a better way.’

  As he spoke, the boom of artillery fire rolled through the air. Gurloch raised his horned helm and watched as shells sailed up from behind the counting house and arced down to burst against the fortress’ shields. Dirty flame blossomed and the void shields flickered, their efforts becoming more frenetic as thick clouds of black spores spilled from the blasts and whirled across their glowing surface.

  ‘We still cannot… breach their shields… at range… my lord,’ said Thrax.

  ‘And… Imperial forces survive… in the Temple District. They continue to…

  harass our flanks. If Plaguelord Morbidius… returns before we secure this…

  sanctum… then he will… punish us for our failure.’

  ‘Patience, Thrax,’ replied Gurloch in a tone of genuine good cheer. ‘Battle should be steady, drawn out, savoured to the last dribbles of blood and pus.

  Entropy is our ally. Suffering is our gift. Starvation, despair, the inevitability of disease – these are the vectors by which our god’s power spreads. So Mortarion teaches us.’

  ‘Dark praises upon… the primarch,’ gurgled Thrax.

  ‘Dark praises upon the primarch,’ echoed Gurloch before continuing.

  ‘Eventually, our enemies will concede defeat, Thrax. And as for the Imperial Guardsmen lurking in the Temple District, let them try to fight us! Let them pit their paltry strength against the indomitable might of the Death Guard! I applaud their tenacity, and relish the utter hopelessness of their cause. Let us give them suffering and sickness that they might, in their turn, aid our true purpose here. Let us be… generous.’

>   Gurloch turned to the assembled Plague Marines, hefting his massive plaguereaper axe high.

  ‘We are the sons of Mortarion!’ he roared, clotted matter spraying from his

  vox-grille. ‘We are the warriors of the Third Plague Company of Mortarion’s Anvil, blessed with the Everseep, the Endless Suppuration, the Weeping Gift of Nurgle himself!’

  His brothers waved bolters, blades, heavy maces and rot-nozzled plague spewers. Their cheer was ghastly, a gurgling drone that sounded like a herd of grox drowning in swamp water.

  ‘We are entropy personified!’ cried Gurloch. ‘We are the death inevitable, the inexorable wasting, and we will grind these heathens down until they give us what we want.’

  His warriors gave another mighty cry, almost drowning out the roar of their Plagueburst Crawlers lobbing another volley of shells towards the fortress.

  ‘Ready your weapons, and bring up another batch of cages,’ ordered Gurloch. ‘Let us offer them our gifts again.’

  Throughout the ruins, the warriors of Gurloch’s vectorium trudged into position with their bolters ready. They would advance into range of the fortress’ shields and then lay down harassing fire, continuing to probe the enemy defences. They likely had the numbers and the fortitude to carry the day if they wished, but by Gurloch’s order, they would not push up the slopes to the fortress walls themselves.

  Not yet.

  That duty would fall instead to other, lesser beings. He saw them now, packed tightly into huge, rusting cages that ground through the ruins on industrial tracks. The creatures’ eyes stared mindlessly into the middle distance. Their rictus grins dripped with slime. Their rotting flesh and squirming tentacles stank of putrefaction, and their moans filled the air.

  ‘My poxwalkers,’ said Gurloch, his tone that of a proud parent.

  The tracked cages lurched to a halt, well out of range of the fortress’ guns.

  Locking bolts blew and the cage doors swung open with shuddering clangs.

  Groaning sorrowfully through their rotten smiles, the diseased former populace of Dustrious stumbled from their cages and shambled towards the fortress. Some clutched crude clubs and rusting tools. Others brandished firearms, though Gurloch knew that none of them had the wit to use them.

  They were not the first such attack wave unleashed upon the astropathic fortress. Many thousands of their fellows already formed gory mounds around its walls. The combined stench of their gas-bloated corpses was ghastly, and Gurloch breathed a deep draught as he watched his latest attack

  wave advance.

  Thousands of the mindless never-dead swarmed through the ruins and began the stumbling ascent towards the Imperial fortress. Gurloch’s brothers strode behind them like shepherds, while from the rear lines the Plagueburst Crawlers maintained their steady bombardment.

  The guns of the astropathic fortress came to life. Heavy bolters and autocannons roared, mowing down rank upon rank of plague-ridden mutants.

  Battle cannons hammered shells into their midst, raising geysers of foul fluids and spinning limbs, but the poxwalkers advanced undaunted, as incapable of fear as they were of escaping their own dreadful fate.

  ‘Shall we… join the attack… my lord?’ asked Thrax, caressing the brittle glass alembics that hung from his armour. ‘I have concoctions… I wish to perfect.’

  ‘Small chance at such a range,’ said Gurloch. ‘No, let the poxwalkers soak up our enemy’s fire and gnaw away at their munitions. Let them groan their fulsome dirge, that it might seep into the minds of unwary defenders and sow the seeds of sickness in their dreams. I have need of your concoctions elsewhere, Thrax.’

  ‘The… Imperial Guard?’ asked Thrax.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Gurloch, ‘but perhaps not. Blorthos has had a vision –

  something he believes worthy of my attention. Let us take his Witherlings and see for ourselves.’

  Gurloch turned away from the ongoing slaughter and stomped through the ruins, Thrax lumbering at his side.

  A half hour later, Gurloch led Thrax and the Witherlings down a deep drainage trench between rows of gargoyle-encrusted hab-blocks. He waded hip-deep through rancid sewage, clouds of fat flies droning around him.

  The Witherlings were almost as massive as their master, a band of five Blightlord Terminators whose hulking armour drizzled unclean fluids and crawled with corrosion. They were led by their grotesque champion, Blorthos, whose helm was little more than a rusted frame for a bulbous eye the size of a man’s head. The dripping orb was milky with cataracts and threaded through with burrowing worms, yet still it rolled back and forth in its setting, following movements only he could see.

  ‘Up ahead, my lord,’ rumbled the Terminator. ‘There is a tunnel, and

  beyond it–’

  ‘The munitions manufactorum,’ said Gurloch. ‘Yes, this is its primary run-off channel, is it not? Then your vision concerned Slaugh and his squad?’

  ‘The Grandfather gifts me fever dreams, my lord,’ replied Blorthos. ‘They are vivid, but rarely lucid. I saw this place, and a threat to our brothers –

  sharp needles digging through rotten flesh, but little more.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Gurloch. ‘It is not for such as us to question the glorious gifts of the Grandfather.’

  ‘What was… Slaugh… doing in this region?’ asked Thrax. ‘There have…

  been no reports of… Imperial activity here for… several weeks now. Not since… our initial… drop.’

  ‘No indeed,’ replied Gurloch. ‘A hearty bombardment of slitherpox and churning lung put paid to any who took refuge, and the Imperials have not dared to set foot here since, lest they feel the touch of Nurgle upon their flesh.

  No, Thrax, this was not intended to be a combat mission. I merely sent Slaugh to hunt out any munitions stockpiles that we could turn to our use should our constant generosity lead our own guns to feel the pinch of famine.’

  ‘Seems Slaugh may have felt the pinch of something else,’ chuckled Blorthos. There was no love lost between Gurloch’s champions, who were forever locked in competition.

  ‘We shall see soon enough,’ said Gurloch, as he waded on into the shadow of the cavernous inflow pipe. The flanks of the manufactorum reared overhead, and for a moment it felt to Gurloch as though he were advancing into the maw of some immense beast. He grinned at the thought – anything foolish enough to devour him would soon find itself poisoned beyond words – and led the way into the darkness.

  ‘Here is… another one,’ called Thrax. Gurloch looked up from the sprawled body of Slaugh and grunted in irritation.

  ‘All of them, then,’ he said.

  He and his followers stood amidst the massive labour-belts and rusting machinery of the manufactorum. The work-floor was carpeted with the contorted remains of the hundreds of labour serfs who had died here weeks earlier. Amongst them, Gurloch had found the corpses of Slaugh’s squad.

  Their armoured forms had not been difficult to locate.

  ‘They died without firing a shot,’ said Blorthos contemptuously. ‘They sent no message.’ His Terminators stood in a rough ring around their leaders, facing outwards with their guns raised.

  ‘It must… have been swift,’ said Thrax, glancing at the deep shadows wreathing the manufactorum. ‘An ambush…’

  Gurloch switched through his helm’s visual filters, each one a noxious shade of rust, rot or poison, and began cogitating ballistic trajectories and assessing impact points.

  ‘Accurate,’ he mused. ‘And deadly. These shots hit eyes, armour joints, corroded plates. They punched right through the blessed flesh of our brothers and killed them as though they were flimsy loyalists.’

  ‘The Astra Militarum must have sent snipers,’ said Blorthos, but he sounded doubtful.

  ‘Our enemies have neither the marksmanship nor the weapons to achieve this,’ replied Gurloch. ‘No, brothers, Grandfather Nurgle has blessed us with a warning. Some other power is at work here, and we must be wary. Thrax –<
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  vox Phlegorius, if you would. Let us have our plague surgeon cut these corpses up and inspect the rounds that killed them. Besides, he will need to reclaim their gene-seed for the Legion before it becomes too flyblown to be of use. I–’

  Gurloch was interrupted by the dull tolling of his helm vox. He activated it, and heard the voice of Ruptus, one of his Plague Marine champions.

  ‘My lords, the assault upon the astropathic sanctum has reached the third firing line,’ gargled Ruptus, ‘but the Astra Militarum have launched another attack. They are pushing tanks and infantry out of the Temple District into sectors six and seven.’

  ‘They timed their strike well,’ said Gurloch. ‘We are extended on the attack, and I am at a remove from the battle.’

  ‘Perhaps… this was their… work… after all?’ asked Thrax. ‘A… ruse to…

  pull you away?’

  ‘The Imperials could not have sent me my vision,’ snorted Blorthos.

  ‘No,’ said Gurloch. ‘Yet still the timing is fortuitous, is it not? Ah well, the heavier the rain, the swifter the crops rot, and we cannot win Nurgle’s blessings without opportunities to excel. Ruptus, spread the word – all vectorium forces are to pull back and reinforce against the Imperial Guard.

  Leave the poxwalkers to press their attack. They will not last much longer

  anyway.’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said Ruptus over the vox.

  ‘You shall oversee the defence until I return, Ruptus,’ continued Gurloch.

  ‘Give ground slowly – concentrate on exhausting their forces and eliminating their armour wherever possible. And send Pustulus’ and Thrombox’s squads to sector nine. Have them bring a couple of bloat-drones, hmm? We will congeal with his forces on our way back and hit the Imperial flank, severing the spear tip of their advance.’

  ‘In Mortarion’s name, my lord,’ said Ruptus, cutting the vox-link.

  ‘It seems Phlegorius has been saved a walk,’ said Gurloch.

  ‘Lord?’ asked Thrax.