The Flesh Tithe - Miles A Drake Read online

  ‘Moldevar…’ Lucia managed.

  ‘Look around you, Sister. Moldevar is already dead.’

  She could see the truth. Death was everywhere, and the sounds of fighting were all but gone. She could believe that her group was the only life left in the city.

  ‘The bomb. Where is it?’

  ‘In our Thunderhawk,’ he replied, confirming her suspicion.

  ‘And it survived the crash?’

  ‘It did. The life signs of Techmarine Hyrkannen persisted until well after landing. The Thunderhawk is damaged, but it landed successfully. The bomb is intact, and ready for priming.’

  ‘Then why did you abandon it?’

  ‘Not by choice,’ he growled. ‘As I said, the xenos fighter disintegrated a portion of our vessel’s hull. Three of my brothers died, and we were swept out of the hold.’

  Shaking her head in resignation, she finally understood what was coming.

  ‘Then why bring us? Why drag my people along to their doom?’

  He did not answer immediately. ‘Because we will be descending into the slaughterhouse. The xenos are there in force, and before we reach this device to activate its self-detonation sequence, we will be swarmed. Each body will be an obstacle. Everyone in the path of the xenos will be a distraction to their madness. If we were five, we would be overwhelmed, and our chances of success would be minimal. With greater numbers, we may be able to reach the gunship and activate the device inside.’

  Lucia’s eyes widened with horror and disgust as she understood the depth of the Space Marines’ deception. ‘You mean to buy time with our blood?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They walked on in silence for several more minutes, and Lucia shook her head, unwilling to accept Nevekarion’s words. He slowed to match her pace, evidently aware of her anguish.

  Lucia had sworn to protect these people, both in taking her oath to the Order of the Ebon Chalice, and when the invasion began. Now duty seemed to require her to sacrifice all of those who had come to her for protection. She had promised them salvation, and all she had brought them was a gruesome end in the name of the greater Imperium.

  The Sister realised that even if she attempted to make for the countryside now, they could not survive. Almost a third of the survivors were already dead, and that was under the ‘protection’ of the Space Marines. What chance did they have without them? Even if they did survive, the probability of outrunning the atomic blast, should the Death Spectres succeed without her, was negligible.

  ‘A life given unto the anvil of His holy work is a life brought to the Emperor’s side in death,’ she managed, the scriptures giving her courage to do what was necessary.

  ‘It brings me no pleasure to have deceived you in this manner.’

  ‘I know…’ she answered, acknowledging the sacrifice of honour that the Space Marines had made in this deception. She realised she would sacrifice her own, and her vows, to uphold the lie.

  ‘We are beings of honour,’ he said, looking directly at her, his face sorrowed in a manner even she could see. ‘This trickery is anathema to our code. But it was necessary until we knew the strength of your resolve.’

  There was almost an admiration in his voice, and were it not for the circumstances, Lucia would have felt bolstered by that praise. Instead, she felt only despair.

  She also understood the burden the Death Spectres carried, and understood why the others could never be told. With that terrible knowledge, she hardened her heart to what was coming. There would be no rescue this time. ‘Those who give their lives unto His service shall meet again by His side,’ she muttered to herself as she took position among the survivors again. And with grim determination, she continued leading the refugees along in their solemn death march, accepting that the only salvation they would find would be by the Emperor’s side.

  The silence continued for another two hours into the predawn hours, made all the more terrible by the secret she carried. The wan purple glow of Moldevar’s last dawn began to seep between the high-buttressed structures of the city’s central district. The xenos aircraft were gone, and even the corpse-piles became more infrequent, although blood spatters still coated many of the alley walls, and pools of congealed gore marred the cobbled streets. And yet, the stench of death and viscera only seemed to grow. A foul hint steadily grew to an unbearable, choking miasma. When the band finally reached the Ecclesiarchal Plaza at Moldevar’s heart, they learned why. Emerging from a wide street, the coughing, almost suffocating refugees followed the Space Marines and Lucia to the edge of the Great Plaza of Saint Cybele.

  And they beheld its horror.

  What was once a space of devotional fervour was now a mass grave on a scale Lucia could barely comprehend. A quarter of a mile wide and half a mile long, the plaza had brimmed with tens of thousands each day, gathering for the holy ministrations of the Ecclesiarchy. Now it was dotted with the remains of a slaughter so absolute that even Lucia’s resolve threatened to shatter.

  The pontiff’s palace, far to the left, once a gilded cathedral of the Emperor’s splendour, was a burning remnant of its former self. All six spires lay toppled, and its crumbling architecture revealed the skeletal framework of its innards and inferno roiling within. The beautiful statue of Saint Cybele standing at the heart of the plaza’s vast fountain, winged and white, was now a tattered angel clad in rags of flayed flesh.

  The true horror lay scattered across the vastness of the plaza’s flagstoned surface.

  The flensed remains of most of the city’s population were strewn across it: a grisly mantle of stinking red that blanketed the entire cityscape from the pontiff’s palace all the way to the Boulevard of Saints nearly half a mile away. Amidst the carnage were the hulked remains of dozens of local militia and Arbites vehicles, as well as an entire swathe of civitas groundcars and Ecclesiarchy transports.

  Lucia stood, mouth agape, as she took in the horror. For that moment, the sobbing of the miserable survivors stopped. Everyone, even the Death Spectres, was stunned by the scale of the atrocity before them.

  She saw the flesh-clad things stalking about the plaza, picking over the dead, dragging them about, seemingly at random. But there was intent, purpose, in their erratic movements, rows of corpses were stacked in walls, and channels were carved out through the viscera. It was as if the entire landscape of carnage was being sculpted into a particular shape or form. Lucia blinked the growing image away in her mind, and did not dare analyse it further, for the sake of her own sanity.

  Thankfully, most of the refugees were staring upwards, gawking at the massive xenos vessel hanging in low orbit. It was suspended directly overhead, at least three miles long, and elongated, insectile in form. Its stretched abdominal stern, thoracic wings and reversed crescent prow were illuminated in a faint column of emerald light that shone down from it onto the plaza below.

  Lucia didn’t know how long they stood there, transfixed by the nightmare-scape slowly worming its way into their minds. Nevekarion, standing helmetless beside her, was the first to speak. ‘We need to move.’

  ‘Where?’ she managed, after a moment of gathering herself.

  He pointed towards one of the many accumulations of wrecked vehicles in the plaza, and Lucia saw what he was showing her. The sturdy hull of a midnight-black Thunderhawk lay at the heart of the carnage, not three hundred feet from the grotesquely defiled statue of Saint Cybele.

  ‘We make our final push,’ he said, before turning to his warriors. ‘Brothers. The Black River calls us again. And we will rise to meet it. You know our purpose. Let nothing stand before it!’

  The Death Spectres did not respond. Their silence was all the affirmation Nevekarion needed.

  Lucia turned to her flock. She did not know what to say to them. Any words of encouragement would be hollow. All those terrified faces – men, women and children – she had promised them salvation. And where had she led them?

  She almost couldn’t look at them, and she certainly couldn’t meet S
era’s gaze. Facing down xenos abominations was one thing, and talking down a Space Marine something else entirely, but standing before her ragged band of survivors, knowing what she knew, was far harder.

  She opened her mouth to speak, and the words finally came. ‘That,’ she pointed at the Thunderhawk, ‘that is our salvation.’ She swallowed the lie, however bitter it tasted. ‘The Emperor’s angels of death will guide us there… across this horror. Stay together, and stay strong in faith. Do not let panic overcome you, and do not become separated.’

  Nevekarion’s vox-grille crackled as he spoke. ‘The xenos might appear to be spread out, but they are able to move unseen amongst the dead. Be ever on your guard, and keep pace. We will not wait.’

  Lucia exhaled, steeling herself, glancing at last at Sera. Unexpectedly, the girl seemed to have regained some of her composure, and somehow, that made it all the worse. Taking in a deep breath, Lucia spoke, hoping she might bring some bravery to those around her, hoping that through her words, they might find some consolation before death claimed them. ‘In the face of death, one can only stare into it with valour and zeal. The darkness of the unknown stands in our way, and the candles of courage within our hearts must be lit to burn as bright as bonfires to stave off that darkness. We go in the wake of beings who can know no fear, so let us march alongside them, alongside the Emperor’s angels of death, and meet whatever fate awaits. Let that courage burn so bright that the Emperor Himself will take notice, and bring us forever to His side, should we fall!’

  Most of the survivors still looked hesitant and broken, if not downright terrified, but some seemed more determined. Raul took up position alongside the Sister, his face as stern and unphased as those of the Death Spectres, his shotgun levelled in the direction of the scarecrow horrors stalking the visceral wasteland.

  The enforcer nodded. ‘Well, this is it then…’

  They were two-thirds of the way across the plaza before the first of the xenos noticed them. They’d stumbled in a half run through the nightmare landscape, winding between hills of flayed bodies and through ravines of mutilated remains. Their resolve plummeted like sand falling through an hourglass, and were it not for the ever-nearing shape of the massive gunship ahead, she knew the courage of the survivors would already have shattered.

  Several slipped and fell in their haste. Some of those did not rise again, overcome by fits of maddening sobs, and Lucia could do nothing to draw them back to their feet. She took Sera by the hand, realising that she could not help everyone, but she would do everything in her power to ensure that the girl’s end would be a quick one.

  A scream bade her to turn around. One of the creatures seemed to materialise from the congealed gore behind a fallen man, and impaled him with both its talons, pulling him apart in a shower of blood. Still running, she let go of Sera and fired her bolter from the hip, blasting the xenos horror back into the charnel pile from which it had emerged. She didn’t bother checking whether or not it was truly dead. The Death Spectres did not stop, merely turning and seeing that the threat was already dealt with.

  Lucia grabbed a woman who stood transfixed by horror, her foot momentarily stuck in the flensed chest cavity of one of the many dead they had trodden across, and dragged her along, before turning back to Sera. The girl began to fire with her autopistol at a cadaverous shape rising from a pile of gore, the panic in her eyes mixed with a desperate survival instinct.

  That was when the screaming began in earnest.

  Three of the things erupted from ‘hills’ ahead of them, and closed in on the ragged band. Two fell to carefully aimed bursts from the Space Marines’ weapons, but the third cut through three of the survivors, descending upon them with a frenzied abandon, flaying them in an instant. Lucia and the militia brought it down with the focused fire of their las and stub weapons and kept running to follow the massive strides of the transhuman giants.

  The Thunderhawk was so close, its lower hull gouged open.

  ‘Forward!’ Lucia yelled, letting her rage and disgust boil over the cloying touch of horror clawing at her mind. More shambling scarecrow shapes erupted from the mountains of dead and began to stalk towards them in great numbers. Death was coming for them now, and there would be no escape.

  ‘Fear not death, we who embody it in His name!’ Nevekarion shouted, his voice a hollow machine rasp beneath his helmet, unleashing his full genhanced fury upon the closest of the xenos. His warriors did likewise, all the while advancing towards their objective. As more of the horrors began ripping their way from the viscera around the Thunderhawk, two of the Death Spectres activated their jump packs and rocketed towards them, shoulder-slamming into the xenos to send them sprawling before descending upon them with their chainswords.

  Two strode to meet Nevekarion, driving in from the left flank. He ended one with the incandescent fire of his plasma pistol and bisected the other with his axe. Two more intercepted a trio of stragglers from Lucia’s band, ending them in seconds and ravenously descending upon their fallen forms.

  Lucia, Raul and what remained of the survivors followed in his wake, the pain of the Sister’s wounds and her fatigue lost in the adrenaline flood. More of the horrors closed in all around them as they reached the gunship. The first two Space Marines, having rocketed ahead, had already reached it, and easily slipped into the massive tear in its hull.

  A deafening bang turned Lucia around, and she saw one of the Space Marines die. It was not something she’d ever expected to see, and it almost halted her in her tracks. The rearguard fell to the stalking horde that was not twenty paces behind them, detonating all of his grenades as one as three of the flayed horrors dragged him down into the gore.

  ‘Emperor’s mercy,’ she said to herself as she turned, seeing Nevekarion and the enforcer reach the hull of the Thunderhawk. The former wheeled around and lobbed a grenade over her head, which exploded with a deafening crump, the shockwave knocking her forward. The enforcer caught her and dragged her into the entrance of the craft, before pulling Sera in too.

  Everyone behind her had been claimed by the tide of death that followed them.

  It was then that she saw how few people had survived. Less than a dozen were crowded in the hull, the rest having distracted the ravening horrors outside with their lives. She hadn’t even seen most of them fall, but heard several more screams echo from outside into the scorched hold. Two of the Death Spectres held the door, and she already heard the screeching of their chainswords, the thunder of their bolt pistols, and the grating, dead-static howls of the nightmares they held at bay.

  The insanity of their suicidal charge shifted to the muted despair of what was coming, the gloom of the Thunderhawk’s claustrophobic hold pressed upon them. Lucia pulled a gasping, and likely concussed, Sera to her feet as the stablights from the few remaining militia and the enforcer began to criss-cross through the hold. Two of the Death Spectres were already unlatching a sturdy crate from a compartment near the prow. One Space Marine’s helmet was sheared off, his bleached features raked by three deep red slashes. Nevekarion and the remaining Space Marine barred the entrance with their black-armoured bulk, and Lucia saw them hacking at the horde of taloned horrors outside, their revving chainswords and heavy pistols keeping the xenos at bay.

  ‘Hyrkannen?’ Nevekarion shouted over the din.

  ‘Dead, but his duty is done!’ the helmetless Space Marine returned. ‘It is active. Praesignatio is active!’ The two Death Spectres set the heavy crate down and opened it, reverently removing the atomic device within. It was a cylindrical thing, covered in a thick, gunmetal chasing emblazoned with the skull and cog of the Adeptus Mechanicus. A metre long and covered in hazard stripes, flashing red warning runes, and thick cables, there was very little disguising what it could be. A faint hum echoed through the chamber.

  The survivors gawked at it, either not knowing what it was, or perhaps realising its deadly intent and finally coming to the conclusion about what was to come. From one knee, Lucia breathed a
benediction.

  ‘Let Your light lead us to Your side at the Eternal Throne.’

  Nevekarion kicked away the creature he fought, and blasted it with an incandescent burst of his plasma pistol.

  ‘The gunship?’ the sergeant called to the wounded Death Spectre, his voice a crackle through his vox-grille.

  ‘Still operable,’ he responded.

  Lucia wasn’t sure if she’d heard correctly.

  Nevekarion glanced at the Sister, and turned back to his warrior. ‘Then pilot the craft out of here. Get these souls to the mountains. Keep them from the Black River for one more day. Find a way off this world and give word of our endings to the Throne of Glass.’

  The Space Marine paused, and Lucia guessed he might be disappointed in being denied the chance to die alongside his brothers. But then he nodded grimly. ‘I will carry out this task, my lord.’

  ‘Good. Then you have three minutes to leave this place.’ Nevekarion stepped back, letting the other Death Spectre hold the door, to assist the one carrying the bomb. ‘We will bestow the Gift of Oblivion upon these xenos. Walk once more from the Black River’s banks. Now is not your time, Brother Vairan!’

  Vairan neither saluted nor affirmed, but merely regarded Nevekarion and those still outside with his empty black eyes. ‘Drink deep from its current, brothers.’ And with that, he strode off towards the cockpit.

  Lucia watched with disbelief as Nevekarion and the other Space Marines left the hull with the primed atomic device. Three warriors against a tide of death. She saw Enforcer Raul, and made eye contact. ‘Good run, Sister. Maybe we’ll meet again at the Emperor’s side,’ he said, a cold smile on his face, before he joined the Death Spectres.

  ‘Walk at His side,’ Lucia breathed, tasting blood in her mouth. But he was already gone. Gone to the sound of gunfire, the howling dead static and the battle cries.

  Lucia looked to the others: ten terrified faces, perhaps broken by their experience, but glimmering with a hope she hadn’t realised was possible. She looked at Sera. Dazed as she was, Lucia saw hope aflame in those green eyes, burning away the trauma and the horror. For the first time since the incursion began, Lucia allowed herself the hint of a smile.