Shadow Captain - David Annandale Read online

  On the vox’s company channel, Caeligus spoke. ‘The eldar are moving towards the bridge.’

  Krevaan thought for a moment before answering. The flames cast deeper shadows over his face. ‘Let them cross,’ he said. ‘Help them cross. Then blow the bridge.’

  Behrasi blinked in surprise. Caeligus said, ‘Shadow Captain?’

  ‘We will be with you before long.’

  After Caeligus signed off, Behrasi said nothing. Krevaan heard him all the same. ‘You have a question for me, brother-sergeant?’

  ‘Why are we helping the eldar? Why not force the two races to finish their war? The orks would be weakened, and that is useful.’

  ‘Because of what we were saying a moment ago. I wish to know what is happening on this planet.’ Then he smiled. That was never a simple expression of pleasure with Krevaan. It was more like the arming of a weapon. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘I believe the eldar can be more usefully deployed.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Looking across the bridge, Havran said, ‘They won’t make it.’

  Caeligus thought he might be right. The fight in the woods, followed by a huge surge from the orks, had broken the coherence of the eldar lines. The vehicles had little room to manoeuvre. The orks were immobilising them and bringing them down with the force of a mob as much as they were with the fire from their tanks and their walking cans. A number of the eldar were on foot now, and even more vulnerable. Almost all of them were engaged in individual battles. They were trying to support one another, but the disorder brought by the orks was only growing worse. The eldar were drowning in the green tide. They had waited too long to retreat.

  Help them cross. Krevaan’s order. It would take more than covering fire to do that now. Caeligus would have to engage the orks with his squad directly. To take the field in direct support of a xenos race revolted him. The Shadow Captain had his reasons. He always did. But not knowing what they were grated. Caeligus believed in the power of information too. He believed in being able to judge the value of decisions. And of orders.

  He did not, however, believe in disobeying orders. ‘The eldar seem bent on losing,’ he said to Havran. ‘That would not be to our advantage.’ Or so I gather, he thought. ‘Brothers,’ he called to the squad, ‘the orks have been ignoring us. That is an insult. I will not tolerate it. Will you?’

  They answered by joining him in formation at the bridge. ‘They do not look to the skies,’ Vaanis said.

  ‘They should,’ Caeligus snarled.

  The jump packs of the assault squad flared. The ten Space Marines rose over the gorge. At the apex of their arc, Caeligus’s discontent evaporated. The reasons for the action became insignificant. He was airborne. His talons were extended. He was a raptor streaking down on prey.

  ‘Victorus aut mortis!’ he yelled in the same moment as the rest of the squad. The war cry froze the orks with surprise. They looked up, confused. Caeligus relished the stupid look on the greenskin’s face below him in the second before he hit the ground, driving his lightning talons all the way through the ork’s skull.

  Squad Caeligus struck in a wedge formation. Vaanis and Harvan anchored the two ends, on either side of the bridge access. The sergeant was at the head. They cut into the ork horde. The greenskins within the angle suddenly found themselves isolated from their brothers. Their confusion and rage did not last long. The Raven Guard killed them within seconds. Even as the rest of the mob began to react, the squad took to the skies again.

  The orks started firing upwards. They were disorganised. Their attention was torn between the eldar on the ground and the airborne Space Marines. The eldar seized the opportunity. A brace of the larger skimmers broke through the tide and took up position in the space the Raven Guard had cleared at the bridge. Their turrets fired in a rotating, interlocking pattern, holding the ground, expanding the territory.

  ‘The tank,’ Caeligus ordered.

  A battlewagon had emerged from the forest. Its side guns were tracking one of the smaller skimmers. Its cannon was turning towards the bridge. The squad came down on all sides of it. Caeligus and Kyremun took the roof. Kyremun butchered the greenskins riding on top of the tank, while Caeligus balanced on top of the main gun. He walked its length as it swung to the left, acquiring its firing targets. At the end, he dropped to all fours and threw a krak grenade into its mouth. On the flanks, the other gunners were silenced by bolter shots directly into the firing windows.

  ‘Up!’ Caeligus warned.

  The squad lifted off. The gun fired at the same moment as the shaped charge of the grenade blasted inward. The top half of the tank exploded. The twisted gun flipped forward to crush the orks who had been rushing in to repel the attackers.

  Many of the orks were losing interest in the eldar. They collided with each other as they tried to follow the flights of the Raven Guard. The disorder in their ranks grew with the rising casualties. Granted breathing space, the eldar gathered their force together. Their grip on the land before the bridge became more assured. Vehicles and foot soldiers converged on that point.

  The orks raged. Their attacks became more frenzied. They did not become more accurate. They killed each other in their efforts to take down Caeligus and his brothers. And so they added to their own confusion.

  The Raven Guard angled down to a point where the orks were spilling out of the forest, in a direct line with the bridge. As they came in, a huge shape emerged from the woods. The ork wore armour plating thick enough for a tank. It raised a huge, twin-linked gun. It moved with greater speed and precision than anything should beneath that much metal. It fired. The rounds weren’t simple bullets. They were a meteor storm. Kyremun took the full impact of the volley. It smashed into him with such force it seemed that it might arrest his plunge. Instead, his descent became a tumble, shedding chunks of armour. Caeligus took several rounds to the shoulder. The brute mass of the projectiles sent him into a rapid spin. He was still spinning when he hit the ground on his back.

  He was on his feet in an instant. Kyremun had landed in front of the giant ork. His helmet had been shot away, so had one of his legs, but he had his bolter out and was firing at the monster. His shells penetrated the armour, but did not slow the ork. Its left hand was a giant power claw. It clamped its grip around Kyremun’s head and squeezed.

  The wet snaps and cracks cut through the rumble of the war.

  Kyremun’s corpse fell backwards, blood flooding from the headless neck. Around the giant, a group of orks in welding masks trained flamers on the rest of Caeligus’s squad. He hissed a curse for his own ears. He would not give the giant ork the satisfaction of seeing anything from him other than cold rage, and the arrival of merciless death.

  He leaned forward and used a short burst from the jump pack. The angle was perfect. His flight took him straight at the ork’s head. He shot over the huge plate beneath the ork’s lower jaw. He stabbed down with his talons as he flew by. Adamantium punched through the top of the ork’s skull and severed its brain in two.

  His descent pulverised one of the flamer orks. The greenskin’s reservoir burst, splashing burning promethium over its kin further back. Caeligus turned from the screams to face the armoured giant. It was still upright, still moving, still dangerous, but its actions were agonised and mindless. It stumbled in random directions. It flailed with its power claw. Convulsions pulled the trigger on its weapon. Bullets thudded into anything before it. Orks scrambled out of the way of its footsteps. Those not fast enough were trampled to death. Those in the way of its lunatic fire exploded when the bullets hit. The rounds were large enough to shatter ceramite. They turned flesh into mist.

  The bulk of eldar survivors had reached the bridge. They were crossing now, those on foot first.

  ‘We are done here,’ Caeligus voxed.

  The Space Marines took off once more, dropping frag grenades behind them, giving the orks still more reason to fear the
sky. Riding flame, they flew back across the gorge. The first of the eldar had reached the other side of the bridge. Squad Caeligus provided further covering fire, sending bolter shells into the orks that tried to follow. The lance turrets of the skimmers sterilised the approach to the bridge of greenskins. The horde bayed in frustration, but didn’t stop running forwards, firing all the while. They died. More came. More died. But the advance was relentless, the embodied violence always reaching forward, their bullets finding targets, and then another tank was smashing its way out of the trees.

  The last of the jetbikes crossed the bridge. The first of the larger skimmers backed onto the span, still firing. As the second moved into position, it was struck by the tank’s cannon shell. The eldar vehicle exploded. The ruptured lance released a burst of energy that brought day to the battlefield and wiped out the leading cluster of orks. Its death bought the other skimmer the time it needed. It picked up speed, gaining distance from the orks.

  The horde pursued. The greenskins ran through the burning wreckage. Some fell, covered in flames. The rest came on. The orks in the lead were a third of the way across when the skimmer reached the other side.

  ‘Now,’ Caeligus told Vaanis.

  The Raven Guard detonated the melta bombs. They ate through the span. It took a few seconds longer than Caeligus had anticipated; the material of the bridge was stronger than it should have been. But then it surrendered, and the middle half fell into the gorge.

  The orks had too much momentum to stop. They ran off the edge. More than a hundred orks plummeted before the rest managed to restrain their energy enough to slow down. Stymied, they roared their curses at the eldar and Raven Guard. Infantry and tanks kept firing. The shouts of the orks grew ever louder, as if their anger itself would close the distance between themselves and their prey.

  Caeligus would not have been surprised if it had.

  Krevaan stood at the melted edge of the bridge and looked into the depths of the gorge. Caeligus and Behrasi were beside him. The other sergeants were keeping the eldar under close watch. Battered as they had been, the eldar still boasted a small but extremely mobile force of two dozen jetbikes in addition to the large skimmer.

  The orks had abandoned the far side of the gorge. Krevaan knew they had not given up on Reclamation. They were seeking another road into the city. They would find it. They would have to travel many kilometres, but the land to the east was a gentle rise. The orks would have to be stopped before they entered the city, or Reclamation would die.

  Krevaan watched the scene in the gorge carefully. ‘There are a resilient race,’ he said.

  ‘But this is ridiculous,’ Caeligus protested.

  Improbable, certainly. Grotesque, very likely. Ridiculous, no. Krevaan held the orks in contempt, but they were not creatures of ridicule. To consider them as such was to underestimate them. Krevaan knew better than that. And the orks below were proof that they should be regarded as a very great threat. Many of them had survived the fall. Krevaan counted fifteen climbing back up the wall of the gorge.

  ‘That will have to be dealt with,’ he said.

  ‘Flamers?’ Behrasi suggested.

  Krevaan nodded. ‘Yes. Burn them as they near the top. All of them.’

  ‘How are any of them still alive after that fall?’ Caeligus was outraged.

  ‘Chance?’ said Behrasi.

  ‘No. Look at them.’ Krevaan pointed. ‘The survivors are all large specimens. The strongest of these orks are unusually strong. And the pattern is consistent. We are not dealing with random mutations or lucky accident. There is an increase in power and aggression across the entire greenskin force on Lepidus. Given what we have seen, the surprise would have been if the strongest of the brutes had not survived this fall. It was only gravity, brothers. Did you expect to crush this foe with so simple a weapon?’

  ‘But what is making them so formidable?’ Behrasi asked.

  ‘That is the question.’ Krevaan started back towards the gathered forces. ‘Abnormal orks. Eldar fighting to the death to save a human city. Two phenomena with no clear explanation. Is it possible that that these two mysteries are not linked? Frankly, no.’

  ‘But why keep one of those mysteries alive?’ Caeligus asked.

  Krevaan looked at both Caeligus and Behrasi before answering. He was sure that Caeligus knew better than his question suggested. The sergeant had a hunger for information that was laudable, but he was impatient, too. Krevaan wasn’t sure that, in his desire to know more, Caeligus had the wisdom to make proper use of the knowledge he had. Behrasi was no less curious, but more patient. He was willing to suspend judgement. Caeligus wanted an immediate verdict.

  And what of us? Krevaan wondered. How do we gauge the worth of our own judgement?

  By asking the question, he thought. By being aware of the gaps in information. By watching for his blind spots.

  The eldar force had suffered badly at the hands of the orks. Even so, it remained a power to be taken seriously. It was based on mobility and speed. Krevaan surmised that the few warriors on foot were ones whose vehicles had been destroyed. All the others were mounted on jetbikes, or the last turreted skimmer.

  Vyper, he thought, reviewing his store of knowledge about the eldar. They call it a Vyper. And these are the Saim-Hann. Xenos soldiers obsessed with speed. It occurred to Krevaan that the presence of one of the White Scars might have been useful for the conversation he was about to have. He gave a mental shrug and tossed the idea away. It did him no good, and so was not worth his time.

  He knew what he had to accomplish. The task was distasteful. It would involve a measure of trust. It would be provisional, minimal, and fragile. It would also be necessary.

  He eyed the eldar as he approached. They were a race that embodied mystery, but not, he thought, because of their mastery of the shadows. He did not believe that their motivations were shrouded. They were, as far as he was able to tell, perverse. That fact did not warrant his respect. It did demand his caution.

  On the other side of the gorge, there was no road to the bridge. There were barely any paths through the forest. On this side, though, paving travelled east from the bridge, becoming a wide square after the first cluster of buildings. It was more than enough space for both the eldar and Eighth Company. They faced each other across the square, eldar to the north, Raven Guard to the south. The weapons of both forces were at the ready, though not quite pointing at each other. The fiction was that it would take either group as much as a second to rain death on the other.

  Krevaan walked to the middle of the square, then stopped. He folded his arms and waited. An eldar carrying what appeared to be a sniper rifle over his shoulder walked forward to meet him. The xenos wore a cloak that had some sort of active camouflage, and Krevaan found it difficult to track his movements. On instinct, he reached for the shadows around him. He noted their location, their density, how they linked to each other. The lumen globes of Reclamation’s streets were harsh, and the shadows they cast were edged like blades. He decided how best he would kill the eldar walking towards him. He felt the impulse to clench his fist and slash with his talons.

  He held himself back.

  The eldar stopped a few paces from him, and made a respectful nod. ‘I am Alathannas,’ he said.

  ‘Do you lead?’ Krevaan asked.

  ‘No. I speak your language. Will you talk with me?’ His accent in Gothic was odd. It seemed to slip from system to system, sector to sector. It was made of layers, and beneath them was a core that belonged to no human planet at all.

  ‘I will listen to what you have to say.’

  ‘That is well. We can work together. We must. I am glad you are here, human. I hoped for your arrival.’

  Krevaan gave Alathannas a hard look. The eldar’s face was unshadowed. It had the length and elegance typical of his race, and an openness that appeared to Krevaan to be unfeigned. It w
as a form of curiosity, an energetic inquisitiveness that was present even in the midst of war. Krevaan recognised and understood the hunger for knowledge that he saw in the eldar’s eyes. But he also saw before him a being who was eager to experience the new. That was an impulse he distrusted.

  Alathannas had stopped with a lumen globe shining directly onto him. He had thrown back the hood of his cloak. He was inviting Krevaan’s scrutiny. He wanted the Shadow Captain’s trust. That made Krevaan even more suspicious. ‘Why would you hope that we would come?’ he asked.

  ‘We cannot stop the orks on our own. And they must be stopped. We must protect the city.’

  Krevaan kept his surprise at the vehemence to himself. ‘The city,’ he said, ‘is already well defended.’ He lied to see how the eldar would respond.

  ‘Not well enough,’ Alathannas said. ‘I believe we both know what route the orks are taking at this moment.’

  Krevaan could see strain on his face. That was unusual. When he had served in the Deathwatch, Krevaan had had dealings with the eldar. Violent ones. He had needed to acquire a certain familiarity with the enemy, insofar as it was possible for any human to fathom their alien minds. Alathannas was on the verge of pleading.

  We must protect the city. What did he mean by that? Was that the eldar mission on Lepidus? Why? It defied all logic. He did not ask why Reclamation was so important to the Saim-Hann. He would have no faith in the veracity of the answer. He would have to find it himself. He would have to observe the eldar, and see how best to strike. In order to observe them, he would have to offer the simulacrum of trust.

  ‘The orks must be destroyed,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Alathannas said. ‘Above all things, yes.’

  More strain. Desperation perhaps.

  Krevaan nodded. ‘Then cooperation between our forces would be to our mutual advantage.’