The Flesh Tithe - Miles A Drake Read online

  All around, men and women staggered about. Lucia found Sera lying amidst a slick pile of crimson in the midst of three eviscerated corpses, and felt a brief moment of heart-stopping panic as she thought the girl was dead. But Sera rose to her feet, terror in her eyes, clutching the autopistol in both hands and repeatedly squeezing the trigger of her empty weapon at the fallen xenos.

  ‘Calm, now,’ Lucia gasped, putting a hand on Sera’s shoulder, accidentally putting far more weight on it than she had intended, as the girl almost buckled. ‘It’s over. The Emperor’s angels have come.’

  It was only then that Sera seemed to notice the Space Marines, and her eyes widened even further. For a brief instant, Lucia thought she saw hope. It rapidly turned to dread as one of the Space Marines advanced towards them.

  In his left hand, he clutched a bulky plasma pistol, its cooling coils glowing a searing, hissing indigo. In his right, he clutched a blue, crackling power axe, the open-mandibled skull of a Togoran Bloodreek worked over the top of the weapon’s narrow wedge-like blade.

  While there was nothing overtly threatening about his motions, the sheer size of the warrior, and the sinister air about him, made her involuntarily step back and sent Sera skittering off towards the convent’s doors. After a moment, he maglocked his weapons to his belt.

  ‘Survivors,’ the giant spoke. His voice was the deep, dull crackle of a distant thunderstorm. ‘Intriguing.’

  Lucia did not know how to respond. She’d encountered Space Marines before; she’d seen the Novamarines in their quartered blue-and-white war-plate on Tysseris, and she’d seen others in the heraldry of those before her prior to the Imperial counter-attack on that Emperor- forsaken world. But she’d never seen them this close.

  ‘Death Spectres,’ she whispered, still in shock.

  ‘Yes. Sergeant Nevekarion, Seventh Squad, Eighth Company,’ the Space Marine responded.

  ‘Thank you,’ Lucia said, her voice somehow muffled. ‘Your timing is… divine. The xenos almost had us overrun.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, turning to survey the area. ‘Almost.’

  The sergeant muttered a series of sub-vocal vox orders and the other Space Marines acknowledged with clicks of their helmets’ vox-grilles. The momentary calm was broken by the roar of one Space Marine’s jump pack as he rocketed onto the roof of the convent. He landed upon the vantage point of its shattered steeple, dislodging shingles and debris as he gained his footing. The others spread out to secure the alleys converging on the plaza.

  There was a brief pause as the sergeant listened to the reports of his warriors, all the while affixing her with his unblinking, lifeless gaze.

  Lucia had so many questions, and Nevekarion seemed to read that.

  ‘Our strike cruiser Somnium Nihilo was silenced in orbit,’ he said flatly, and Lucia realised just how hopeless their situation was. She understood now how the enemy was so quickly able to dispatch the garrison fleet overhead. If they could destroy a Space Marine strike cruiser, then there would be little else to stop them from razing or reaving the rest of the city, or the world.

  ‘We made our escape via Thunderhawk, but were shot down by enemy interceptors. We were swept out of the hold.’

  ‘And then you landed here,’ Lucia finished, finally understanding where the Space Marines had descended from.

  ‘Correct. How many survivors are there inside?’

  ‘Thirty, forty perhaps. No more,’ Lucia replied with uncertainty.

  The Space Marine made another sub-vocal vox-communication to his warriors.

  After a few moments, he spoke. ‘We can bring you and your survivors to potential safety.’

  Lucia looked up in surprise.

  ‘Our Thunderhawk is down, but its status reads as still being intact. Our Techmarine was able to guide it safely to the ground.’

  Lucia nodded, taken aback at Nevekarion’s sudden offer. ‘Would the enemy vessels not simply shoot you down again?’

  ‘Negative. The enemy craft have mostly returned to orbit to hunt the saviour pods and escape craft from the destroyed fleet,’ he growled.

  ‘And where would we go?’ If there was no way off-world, then escape from the city seemed only a temporary solution.

  ‘The outlands of Sygera,’ the sergeant responded. ‘We have documented the aftermaths of similar xenos incursions, and it would appear that they devote most of their attentions to densely populated urban centres, not outlying regions.’

  Lucia affirmed as another wave of pain washed over her. She couldn’t guess as to why the xenos invaders would leave the countryside untouched.

  ‘Given your position in the Orders Militant, I assume you have some knowledge of the enemy,’ the sergeant continued.

  ‘Rumours only. Distant reports from distant worlds of some buried, re-emerging threat.’

  ‘Necrons,’ Nevekarion confirmed, and Lucia mouthed the foul word in disgust. ‘An ancient enemy, calculating, insidious and highly technologically advanced.’ The Space Marine paused. ‘Except for this particular case. These necrons are of the Bone Kingdom of Drazak. A demesne forsaken to damnation and madness, even by the standards of their own kind. As you have likely noted, there is little logic or calculation to their behaviour.’

  Lucia finally understood the erratic aerial incursions. ‘The Bone Kingdom?’

  ‘A necron domain hidden deep within the Ghoul Stars. Over the last three centuries, their forces have emerged, attacking unpredictably into the Halo Sectors.’

  ‘How have I never heard of this?’

  ‘Knowledge of such is strictly sanctioned. You know by whom.’ His answer was clear enough. ‘There are few enough survivors to allow for mnemonic censure.’

  Lucia nodded after a few moments, understanding the need to keep such knowledge hidden, for the sake of the general population. ‘Has no one managed to stop them?’

  ‘No. The enemy is gone by the time we can answer any distress calls.’

  Lucia knew the solemn duty of the Space Marines before her. The Death Spectres had been created specifically to watch over the Ghoul Stars, and prevent its vile inhabitants from spilling forth into the neighbouring sectors. Against the Togoran Bloodreeks, the twisted eldar reavers, and the fearsome Chrinioids, they’d been successful. But not against this threat, it seemed.

  ‘Upon our arrival, all major population centres have been devoid of life. Only the smallest, isolated settlements are spared the harvest.’

  ‘Harvest?’ Lucia exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, we speculate that is what this is. This is no territorial conquest, no supply raid. The Bone Kingdom has use for neither. The only thing it seems to care about is you.’ When Lucia’s eyes betrayed her confusion at the Space Marine’s choice of words, he clarified. ‘Humans. Or more specifically, human remains.’

  ‘They harvest flesh…’ Lucia trailed off, revolted as she looked over the tattered remains of the necrons around them, seeing what they all wore.

  ‘To them, it is a tithe.’

  Lucia shook her head. There was no knowing the motives of the xenos, only denying them. She was about to say something when Nevekarion raised his hand. Lucia heard the clicking of a vox-transmission coming from his helmet.

  ‘We will depart for our transport shortly. More xenos are encroaching upon this area. My warriors and I aim to be under way before they reach the convent. If you stay here, you will die.’

  Lucia looked at the cobbles, seeing the blood of those she had fought so hard to save spattered across them. She knew that following the Death Spectres would be risky, dangerous, and that many of her people – the wounded, the infirm and the elderly – would die. Fighting to the heart of the city might be the end of them all, but the alternative meant certain death. They could not stay, that much was obvious.

  The Sister nodded, resigned to the decision she had to make. Satisfied she’d come to the only possible conclusion, Nevekarion turned and strode off towards his warriors, leaving Lucia alone for a few moments. Enforcer Raul s
trode over to her, apparently having overheard most of the conversation.

  ‘Glorious,’ he said, his face deadpan.

  ‘We’ll all die here if we stay,’ she stated.

  ‘That’s a fact.’

  Lucia grunted.

  The enforcer glanced down. ‘And you might want to tend to your own wounds.’

  Lucia looked down and saw three clean slashes through her cuirass, just above the hip. They didn’t bleed, thankfully. They smoked lightly. Looking at the wounds made the pain all the fiercer. ‘No,’ she grimaced, shaking her head. ‘There’s no time. And they’re cauterised.’ She gazed out over the carnage around. ‘Help me gather the rest of the people. They need to be ready to move.’

  He looked at her incredulously.

  ‘I’m fine!’ she exclaimed through gritted teeth, pushing away his helping arm, shoving the pain to the back of her mind as best she could.

  ‘All right then,’ he nodded sceptically. ‘I’ll go and assemble who’s left.’

  The group of survivors readied themselves as quickly as possible. Lucia found Sera in the back of the convent, using the remaining holy water to wash away some of the gore covering her face and hands.

  ‘Come. The Emperor’s Angels will lead us to salvation.’

  ‘S-salvation…?’ Sera stuttered, and Lucia still saw panic in her eyes. She saw a trauma that might never leave those eyes, and in that moment, she thought she felt true sorrow. Sorrow that she had been unable to save the other orphaned children. Guilt that she had allowed the girl onto the front line.

  They were emotions she did not have time for.

  ‘Yes,’ Lucia returned, repressing her inner conflict so that her resolve might lend the girl strength. ‘They have a gunship, deeper in the city. They can get us out of Moldevar.’

  Sera nodded hesitantly, and Lucia guided her to where the refugees were gathering in front of the convent, carrying the wounded on stretchers. Lucia and Raul delivered the same message to the others, and she saw in their eyes that the promise of salvation just barely outweighed the fear of leaving the safetyof this holy place.

  As the Space Marines secured the perimeter, Nevekarion gave a signal, and the exodus of what might well have been Moldevar’s last survivors began.

  The beleaguered refugees struggled to keep up with the remorseless pace of the Space Marines. Winding through the labyrinthine alleys of Moldevar’s outer Ministoria district, they passed between dilapidated tenements with overhanging balconies fitted with leering gargoyles, and tall, arched windows. The windows were long since shattered by the sonic onslaught, and glass shards blanketed the cobbled street, reflecting the pale emerald shapes hovering high in the night sky. Pools of congealed blood welled up in the potholes, seeping from the piles of flayed corpses that were strewn haphazardly through the alleys.

  Seeing several people falling behind, mostly the wounded and those carrying the stretchers, Lucia begged the Space Marines to slow their pace. They did not, and Lucia began to wonder just how much they truly cared about saving the survivors.

  Four of the Death Spectres kept point, with Nevekarion leading. They were faceless in their corvid helms, pistols drawn, over-watching every crossing alley. The other Space Marine moved from rooftop to rooftop, observing from above and jumping the gaps between the buildings without using his jump pack.

  Suffering from the pain of her wounds, Sister Lucia kept the centre, her words calming the barely suppressed panic within most of the survivors.

  Raul led the militia in forming an outer perimeter around the refugees, even if they were nearly as frightened as the people they were trying to protect. The enforcer’s icy calm demeanour, the Sister’s benedictions and the transhuman presence of the Adeptus Astartes kept the battered band of survivors together.

  Three times in the first hour, the enemy emerged in ambush. Ear-splitting static wails preceded the sudden rise of pairs or trios of xenos as they erupted from the piles of the dismembered dead the group passed. These ambushes ended before Lucia could even act. Twice, the Death Spectres reacted quickly enough, cutting down the rising xenos before they could assail the group. Once, however, one of the abominations slipped past the Space Marines and scythed into the beleaguered crowd of survivors, hacking four to ribbons before being ended by a burst from Nevekarion’s plasma pistol.

  Lucia rallied most of the terrified people, but several fled into the dark alleys during the attacks. With Nevekarion and his Space Marines already moving on, ignoring the plight of the refugees, Lucia was forced to leave the dead and missing behind.

  It continued that way for several hours, the silence of the dead city pressing in upon them, broken only by bouts of frenzied terror when the nightmares materialised from their macabre ambush points. Lucia lost count of the fallen, but it was well over twenty. The Death Spectres seemed to be more focused on conserving their ammunition than stopping the xenos quickly. Several times, one that could have been shot to pieces before it could reach anybody was allowed to close in and reap its bloody harvest before being put down in melee by the Space Marines.

  Lucia fought as best as her battered body would allow, putting herself between the xenos and the refugees, and using her bolter to slow the loping monsters, outright felling the occasional one she managed to get a clear angle on. Raul fought as well, throwing himself into the path of one of the stalking horrors, and paying the price for that defiance with a raking wound that sheared clean through his carapaced pauldron.

  The Space Marines never slowed, nor allowed for a pause to treat wounds. They simply kept their relentless pace, uncaring of those they claimed they were protecting.

  Lucia’s mind raced, a growing sense of unease and suspicion falling upon her. If the Space Marines wanted to save them, then why were they letting them die just to conserve ammunition? Why sacrifice them in the interest of time? Leaving Raul to staunch his own bleeding with a ripped piece of one of her black sleeves, Lucia marched towards Nevekarion. The other three Death Spectres had already disappeared around the next bend and she was determined to get answers.

  ‘Why do you not wait for them?’ she hissed, before realising what exactly she was doing. The thought alone of making demands of one of the Emperor’s angels of death might qualify as blasphemy, but at that moment, all such care was gone.

  He turned around, cocking his head to the side, perhaps confused that a mortal would dare challenge him in such a manner.

  ‘We must reach our gunship,’ he stated, his voice a hollow vox-crackle.

  Nevekarion turned away from her to rejoin his warriors, and Lucia felt a sudden flush of anger overcoming her. She moved to block his path, uncaring of how that could end poorly. Much to her surprise, the Death Spectre did not push through her, but stopped. After a few moments of tense silence, he reached up to release the seals on his helmet. It came off with a pneumatic hiss, and she found herself staring into eyes as black and empty as a starless void. His pupils were so wide that they almost entirely engulfed the whites of his eyes. Ghostly pale and hairless, utterly devoid of pigment of any kind, the Space Marine truly resembled an apparition of death. She fought the ephemeral urge to look away and kept his gaze, the anger boiling in her blood keeping her courage.

  The almost human gesture from a warrior that had long abandoned his humanity somehow calmed and humbled her. ‘You said you can save these people,’ Lucia stated, looking back over the ever-thinning crowd behind her.

  ‘I did.’ He looked away from her to his men, and ordered them to slow their pace, before turning back to her. ‘Walk with me.’

  Lucia did as he asked, closing her eyes for but a moment, knowing already what was coming. ‘You were never here to save us.’

  ‘I never said we were.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’ she demanded.

  ‘You know of us? You know what we were created to do?’

  Her reply was wary. ‘Yes, you watch over the Ghoul Stars.’ Most knew as much.

  The Space Marine no
dded. ‘The Ghoul Stars are immense. We are but one Chapter, and most of our companies guard the worlds deemed by Terra to be of paramount importance. The rest of us are spread thin across the border worlds,’ Nevekarion explained. ‘There were ten of us on board the Somnium Nihilo watching over Sygera. Two died when we were boarded. Three more died in our descent to the surface. We are all that remain.’

  ‘How can ten warriors defend a world against such an invasion?’ Lucia responded. She’d never known there were Death Spectres looming above her world, but she supposed that had been their intent.

  ‘We cannot,’ he said, his voice descending into a spiteful growl. ‘We were never meant to.’

  Several moments of terrible silence fell upon them, and Lucia felt what little hope had been sparked by the Space Marines’ arrival flicker away.

  He continued. ‘This necron incursion, this tithing fleet, is a threat we have yet to fully subdue. After the last incursions from the Bone Kingdom, the Mesazar, our Chief Librarian, has devised a new protocol to counteract this threat. We call it Protocol Praesignatio.’

  She paused, thinking for a moment. ‘Praesignatio. Forewarning,’ she repeated.

  He nodded. ‘We cannot know where this fleet will strike next, so we spread our reserve numbers. If the fleet arrives on a world under our vigilance, our numbers will not be enough to defend it, but it will be enough to enact the protocol.’

  ‘Which is?’ Lucia felt a growing chill creep through her.

  ‘An astropathic cry to all nearby systems,’ he replied, pausing, his face souring in an expression that Lucia could almost recognise to be regret, or whatever passed for such to his kind. ‘And the deployment of an atomic device into the population centre currently suffering the attention of the tithing fleet’s ground forces.’

  As the gravity of his words set in, Lucia was unable to respond.

  ‘With the majority of these ground forces positioned for the harvest, it will greatly weaken their numbers,’ he replied, reading the horror on Lucia’s face. ‘It will destroy the city and the xenos infesting it.’