In the Depths of Hades - Nick Kyme Read online

  The third ork racked the slide of its gun, a boxy-looking cannon with a perforated barrel and a wide, yawning muzzle. It was belt-fed with shells the size and thickness of Kastor’s fist. It was going for the prisoners, some rudimentary part of its base intelligence or instinct telling it that the enemies in its midst had come to rescue them, and that denying them victory was all that mattered.

  To their immense credit, three of the captured Imperial officers rose as one. With their hands still bound behind their backs, they barrelled into their captor in an attempt to buy their rescuers more time.

  Kastor saw one of the orks he had incapacitated at the entrance crawling on its belly and reaching up to escape and signal for help. He ignored it for now, running for the Imperial officers that had attacked the other guard.

  Two of them were down, and one was almost certainly dead with his neck bent at an awkward, unnatural angle. The other was prone but unmoving. Kastor hit the ork around the waist, using his momentum and sheer armoured bulk to tackle the beast to the ground and get it away from the prisoners.

  It struggled on its back, aiming a wild punch that glanced the side of Kastor’s helm. Ears ringing, Kastor brought the stock of his bolter down hard, breaking the beast’s nose. It roared, angry and in pain, but threw the Malevolent off and across the hangar floor.

  Heaving itself to its feet, the ork charged at him, just as Kastor had wanted it to.

  He left the bolter and came up swinging with the hammer instead. One blow, tight beneath the ork’s jutting chin, was enough to separate its head from its body. It ran on a few paces, arterial spray painting the ductwork above it a dark crimson, before it slumped to its knees and fell forwards.

  Kastor was breathing hard and his hearts were beating strongly, vitally. Hatred for the ork was slow to subside, but he forced a thin smile. War was good, he had decided long ago; it showed you who you were in the eyes of your enemies and the glorious countenance of the Emperor.

  Ballack had given his own demonstration. Two orks lay dead and dismembered at his feet. Unlike Kastor, he grinned wildly through a mask of blood.

  The sound of claws scraping against metal seized Kastor’s attention and he remembered the ork that was trying to escape.

  Two hard bangs rang out, echoing loudly in the vast hangar expanse.

  Ballack lowered his bolter, having cleared the jam and hefting it one-handed.

  Both orks by the entrance were dead, each killed by a headshot.

  ‘Still too slow?’ he asked, facing Kastor.

  Kastor had removed his helmet, glad to be free of its confines for a minute at least. He gestured to the blood oozing through the savage rents in Ballack’s armour.

  ‘Still slow, but you are more than deadly enough.’

  ‘I’ll take that,’ he conceded.

  The vox crackled.

  ‘You bastards.’

  It was Vathed.

  ‘If you’re angry, it means you’re alive and can still walk,’ answered Kastor.

  ‘Barely.’

  ‘Then regroup with the others. We have the objective and are making our extraction now.’

  Vathed grunted some expletive and cut the link.

  ‘He sounded far from sanguine,’ uttered Kastor, hitching his hammer before picking up his discarded bolter.

  ‘At least he lives.’

  Kastor raised an eyebrow.

  ‘You sure you’re glad about that?’

  Ballack sheathed his chainblade and checked his bolter’s ammunition gauge.

  ‘He knows the rules now. My kills are my kills. If he respects that, he will live longer.’

  ‘More than ruthless enough too, brother.’

  Ballack paused a beat before asking, ‘Were you goading me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kastor said honestly. ‘I found out you still have your edge and that Vathed is a worthy warrior for the Vilifiers.’

  ‘You knew I would do that to him.’

  ‘I hoped you wouldn’t kill him. The rest was open to your interpretation.’

  Satisfied, Ballack nodded as Kastor donned his helmet again. He turned to the prisoners.

  ‘Hadn’t we better take what we came for?’

  Kastor nodded, acknowledging the Imperial officers too. Four of the six were dead, killed during the fight or having already been slain.

  Of the two who remained, only one was still on his feet. He looked like a commissar, possibly another subordinate of Rauspeer whose headless corpse was busy putrefying slumped against the hangar wall.

  ‘Traeger,’ he said, by way of introduction. ‘Do you have a weapon?’ he asked, matter-of-factly.

  ‘Several,’ Kastor replied, looking down at the impudent man and taking an instant dislike to him.

  ‘One I can wield.’

  Traeger had been beaten, but was unbowed. The proud defiance of the Militarum Tempestus emanated from the man’s bearing and his frost-bright eyes.

  ‘What for?’ asked Ballack, noticing one of the man’s fingers was missing.

  ‘We’re getting you out of here, Commissar Traeger,’ Kastor told him. ‘You and…’

  The commissar glanced at the other Imperial survivor, unconscious on the floor.

  ‘Colonel Egilson,’ he said. ‘And we can’t leave yet. There is another group of prisoners, held deeper into the pit. Your knife?’ he suggested.

  Kastor glanced at the monomolecular blade sheathed at his hip then met the commissar’s querying gaze.

  ‘You alone were our mission. There are no others.’

  The commissar was adamant. ‘There are six men still being held against their will.’

  ‘Those men are dead, commissar,’ Kastor told him.

  ‘They are alive,’ Traeger argued.

  Kastor took a forward step. They were running out of time. By now, the orks would have suspected what was going on and would be moving on the hangar.

  ‘No, you don’t understand. Those men are dead.’

  Traeger understood, but could not mask his disgust.

  ‘This is heresy.’

  ‘No it isn’t,’ said Kastor. ‘This is war, and you don’t survive it by engaging in foolish heroics. We cannot reach those men. Even now we are being surrounded. Time has run out for your comrades. Those men are already dead.’

  Commissar Traeger stood straight, chin raised imperiously towards the Vilifier. He was adamant. ‘We are not leaving without them.’

  Kastor sighed, lifting his gaze to Ballack as an unspoken agreement passed between them.

  Vinyar was waiting in the rain with Tuurok by his side. His command squad lurked in the background as still as statues.

  Behind them stood several armour columns and the serried infantry ranks of the Astra Militarum. Camp had been struck and emptied; men and materiel had been readied for war. Thousands of tanks and infantry, enough to breach even the depths of Hades.

  Wrathful, eager for vengeance, these men would tear down the hive city’s walls to get to the murderous greenskins. Arguably, the rage of the rank and file was more incandescent upon hearing of their officers’ deaths than it was when they had first learned of their capture.

  Only two had came back from the thirteen who had been taken. One, Colonel Egilson, would likely not survive the night. The other, Commissar Traegar, had apparently died during the desperate mission undertaken by the Vilifiers to extract the prisoners. It was sour news, but all who heard it could not help but applaud the heroic efforts of Brother-Sergeant Kastor and his squad.

  As the armoured columns rolled out and the long-ranged, heavy ordnance erupted with tectonic peals of plosive thunder, Vinyar found himself in the presence of the sergeant again.

  ‘You owe me a debt, brother-captain,’ Kastor said.

  Vinyar laughed. ‘For what?’

  ‘Conflict resolution.’

  ‘Emerging from that hellhole with barely a scratch…’

  Now it was Kastor’s turn to laugh. ‘I had hatred to sustain me.’

  Vinyar nodded at the vengeful Imperial Guard hordes surging past them.

  ‘Men can be savage when pushed.’

  ‘And savagery can be useful,’ Kastor replied. ‘Vengeance is a much better motivator than gratitude.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Vinyar turned to face him. ‘So, the debt I owe you…’

  Kastor was already walking away.

  ‘Let me think on it,’ he replied. ‘Have a good war, brother-captain.’

  Vinyar watched him go. The vainglorious cur. He wanted to kill Kastor where he stood, but he would not do it whilst the scales between them were unbalanced and Kastor knew that. Unscrupulous he might be, Vinyar still had a code of honour.

  Kastor was a student of conflict. He had a way of escaping danger, both physical and political. Not to say he was a coward; far from it. He was merely adept at reducing risk, and blunting his enemies’ knives before they had even thought to draw them. It was a talent, but Vinyar also had talents. He knew things: names, information. History. He might be impotent to move against Kastor whilst he was in the sergeant’s debt but trouble could still find him.

  ‘A good war,’ Vinyar murmured. ‘You too, brother-sergeant.’

  He turned to Tuurok. ‘I need to speak to the Templars, specifically a Sword Brethren named Vorda. He is here on Armageddon, in command of Tiamed’s old squad. I believe they used to fight together.’

  ‘Our relations with the Black Templars are still strained, sir,’ replied Tuurok. ‘Some of them hate us.’

  ‘Then we are kindred spirits, Tuurok. Besides,’ added Vinyar, a viper’s
smile creeping across his grizzled face, ‘I know someone they hate even more.’

  About The Author

  Nick Kyme is the author of the Horus Heresy novel Vulkan Lives, the novellas Promethean Sun and Scorched Earth, and the audio drama Censure. His novella Feat of Iron was a New York Times bestseller in the Horus Heresy collection, The Primarchs. For the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Nick is well known for his popular series of Salamanders novels and short stories, the Space Marine Battles novel Damnos, and numerous short stories. He has also written fiction set in the world of Warhammer, most notably the Time of Legends novel The Great Betrayal for the War of Vengeance series. He lives and works in Nottingham, and has a rabbit.

  More stories from the war-torn world of Armageddon

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  Warhammer 40K, In the Depths of Hades - Nick Kyme

 

 

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