Sons of Wrath - Andy Smillie Read online

  Amit considered the gore. He was not privy to the full details, but he knew that much had to be cut away so that a candidate could survive the rites. It was perhaps the gravest test a Flesh Tearer could ever undergo. His body and mind needed to be proven as strong as the adamantium he would receive. His blood had to be made to accept the machine as easily as it had accepted the flesh. ‘Is it done?’

  ‘Yes, Techmarine Naamah is finishing the rite of awakening now. He awaits you in the vault.’

  ‘Good.’ Amit moved past Pursun and stopped. ‘You decided to keep it?’ He turned, indicating the crude bionic replacing Pursun’s right eye. The Apothecary had lost the eye to grenade shrapnel. Barrack rumour held that he’d ripped the bionic from an ork and implanted it into his face whilst under heavy fire. Amit had never sought the truth of the tale. The Apothecary had more than once risked his life to come to his aid. He respected Pursun, and his secrets.

  The Apothecary touched a hand to the raw flesh that had been crudely sewn back in place around the device. ‘It will do until I have time to seek an alternative.’

  ‘That time is not now, brother. Fetch your war-plate and wait for us in the assault bay.’

  Pursun grinned. ‘It will be good to spill the blood of our enemies. I have spent too long steeped in that of our brothers.’

  Amit left him to his preparations and advanced to another set of blast doors. A burst of crimson light flashed from a servo-skull hovering by the door, enveloping the Flesh Tearer.

  ‘Ident confirmed. Access granted,’ said the skull, its wretched appearance at odds with the lyrical child’s voice sounding from its brass-gilded mouth. The door rumbled in response, edging open enough for Amit to enter.

  Inside, Techmarine Naamah clasped a fist to his breast in salute. ‘Lord Amit.’

  The flooring within the vault was badly mauled. Blood and amniotic fluid pooled in deep indentations and lacerations, and it was evident by the discolouration that several of the floor panels had been replaced.

  Amit bent to one knee and addressed the towering capsules stood in the corners of the hexagonal chamber. ‘You honour me with your sacrifice. May I never number among you.’

  Inside each of the armourglass capsules, held inanimate within a stasis field, was a Dreadnought. Towering war machines of crimson and ash. Armoured giants clad in adamantium and ceramite, fuelled by the rage of a Flesh Tearer. Unleashed, they were terrifying to behold. Yet here, stood in frozen display, they were as relics of an ancient war, trinkets held in an exotic museum.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘There.’ Naamah gestured to Amit’s left.

  Amit stepped to the capsule and wiped his hand across the soft ice coating the glass. Though he knew the foolishness of the thought, it surprised him that he did not recognise the Dreadnought within. ‘Leave us,’ Amit said, ushering Naamah away. He pressed his hand to the bio-reader set onto a console next to the capsule.

  ‘I would suggest you take a step back,’ said Naamah. ‘It takes a moment for their minds to adjust.’

  Amit nodded but ignored the Techmarine’s warning, standing in place as the thick cables feeding the pod disengaged and retracted with a wet hiss. Viscous blue-green fluid washed onto the floor as the petals of the capsule parted and the vault door sealed behind Naamah.

  Silence hung thick in the chamber for the brief moment it took the stasis field to spark and flicker inactive, before the Dreadnought awoke. Ripped from its slumber, the war machine roared. The harsh metallic sound distorted as it threatened to overload its vox-amplifiers. It stumbled and staggered from the capsule, landing hard on the deck, so that its feet cracked the flooring.

  ‘Calm yourself, Grigori.’ Amit held his ground, weaving to avoid decapitation as the Dreadnought struggled to control its limbs.

  The Dreadnought bunched its adamantium shoulders, tensing as it struggled against the pain of awakening. ‘Who…’ Grigori toppled forwards, thrusting one of the man-sized blades mounted under his arm into the floor to arrest his fall. Gargled static spat through his vox-amplifiers as his frame trembled, and his mind was forced to assimilate all that had happened since his first death. ‘The Legion?’ Grigori roared. Powering up his massive eviscerator, he tore it through the capsule behind him. ‘What happened?’ he snarled, stepping to within a hair’s breadth of Amit. His armoured footsteps sounded like thunderclaps in the confines of the sealed chamber.

  Amit reached up and placed a hand on Grigori’s sarcophagus. Dwarfed by the Dreadnought, the Chapter Master was like a child trying to pacify a wrathful god. ‘The Legion is gone. Our father dead. Our mission the same.’

  ‘No. You should have let me die.’ Grigori turned away.

  ‘Do not turn your back on me!’ Amit countered, and thrust a finger at Grigori. ‘I let Varl die so that you could live. Do not dishonour his death with cowardice.’

  ‘I am no coward!’ Grigori rounded on Amit, his weapons poised to kill.

  Threatened, it took all of Amit’s restraint not to attack. The muscles in his legs tightened, urging him to drive forwards, to slip behind the Dreadnought and destroy its power core. He clenched his fists in an effort to stop them accessing the melta bomb clamped to his hip. His hearts quickened, rising in his chest until they sounded in his ears like the relentless howl of his eviscerator. He saw himself cut apart the Dreadnought’s shell and rip what remained of Grigori’s mortal form from its sarcophagus. He felt flesh pulp between his fingers and tasted the chemical-rich tang of augmented blood as it sprayed over his face.

  On the edge of fury, Amit turned away.

  Forcing a series of slow, deep breaths, he quieted the drumming of his hearts. ‘Do you think we will ever know silence, brother?’ He turned back to Grigori, his features softened.

  ‘What?’ The incongruity of Amit’s question drew Grigori from his rage.

  ‘Listen.’ Amit gestured up and around them.

  Housed at the opposite end of the Victus from the battle-barge’s engines and insulated against the thrum of the main capacitors, the mortorium was devoid of the usual background noise audible throughout most of the rest of the ship. Only the muffled whine of atmo-scrubbers punctuated the silence.

  ‘I hear nothing,’ said Grigori.

  ‘You know as well as I do that death is never quiet, brother. Its architects are warriors such as we, soldiers and murderers who revel in the noise of our work. Even those who die in their beds do so rasping for air or choked by the sound of their own heart as it bursts in their chest. And those of us who live on, we are deafened by the screams of the long dead and the roar of our souls as they beg us to kill again. We erect tombs such as this not out of deference for the dead, but to fool ourselves that someday there will be silence for us too.’ Amit paused and turned from Grigori. ‘But there will never be silence.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Grigori flexed his eviscerators and strode past him. ‘Perhaps you have yet to shed enough blood to drown out the noise.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Amit grinned and fell into step behind the Dreadnought. ‘Let us find out.’

  Flame and molten metal dripped from the ceiling to scar the muster deck. The four columns that supported the deck’s weight, holding it aloft over the assault bays below, shuddered as the Victus bucked under another assault. Barakiel ground his teeth impatiently. He was the only Flesh Tearer still on deck, the others having long since secured themselves in drop pods and Thunderhawks ready for deployment. He stood there, statue-still amid the anarchy, waiting. Around him, a throng of serfs worked ceaselessly to prevent a collapse. Strapped and harnessed, the serfs hung from the support columns, welding and reinforcing the cracks that snaked across the plating with lascutters and melta-lamps. On the deck itself, teams of servitors outfitted with water cannons fought to bring the fires under control.

  A chorus of screams drew Barakiel’s attention towards the centre of the deck, as a dozen serfs
were crushed under a falling beam. A pair of cargo-servitors, with hydraulic forks that sat in place of their arms, trundled forwards to lift away the flaming length of metal. The nearest work crew of serfs followed in their wake, rushing to clear away the bodies and mop the blood from the Flesh Tearers Chapter symbol emblazoned on the deck. Barakiel watched them work, regarding the charred bodies as they were dragged away. His thoughts turned to the frozen serf he’d seen outside Amit’s cell. Serfs died all the time. It was the way of things. They died because duty demanded it. They died because they were weak. And they died because fear kept them from action. Barakiel grunted as he realised the serfs before him now had died for no such reasons. They had died through choice in an effort to maintain the sanctity of the Chapter symbol. Barakiel considered it a moment. It was a pointless, needless task that would not stop the Victus crumbling around them, and yet… Barakiel tightened his jaw and gave a nod of his head in approval. The serfs had given their lives for an ideal larger than they or even he. For the first time, admiration replaced Barakiel’s feeling of pity for the humans.

  ‘Captain, we are loaded and ready for launch.’ His Stormraven’s pilot’s voice sounded over the comm-link in Barakiel’s helm.

  ‘Understood. I will be there as soon as I confirm our deployment coordinates.’

  ‘Captain, we have those. Librarian Nuriel–’

  ‘I will be there soon.’ Barakiel cut him off, his eyes fixed on the pall of smoke obscuring the doorway opposite him. ‘Where are you?’ Barakiel said to himself. He was tired of waiting.

  It was another ten long heartbeats, during which the deck shook twice more, before Amit emerged through the doorway and strode onto the deck. Barakiel moved to meet him.

  ‘You cannot ask me to accompany Nuriel. My place is with the main assault,’ said Barakiel.

  ‘We do not have time for this, captain,’ said Amit as the deck reverberated under them. ‘Your place is wherever my orders take you.’ Amit kept walking, moving past Barakiel, down the ramp to the assault bay and the Thunderhawk waiting to carry him to Zurcon Primus.

  Barakiel went after him. ‘I am captain of your First Company. You cannot deny me the honour of the attack.’

  ‘This is not about honour – it is about vengeance. We have lost many of our brothers today and their deaths will not go unanswered.’ Amit stopped walking and turned to face Barakiel. ‘We must ensure every one of the Zurconian psykers has been killed.’

  ‘They are dead. Nuriel is certain,’ said Barakiel.

  ‘He cannot be certain until he has seen it with his own eyes, his real eyes.’ Amit’s jaw twitched in irritation.

  ‘Then let him go. He is capable enough on his own.’

  ‘Nuriel is not himself. He needs watching,’ said Amit.

  ‘Have Ismeriel watch him, then. He has more patience than I.’

  ‘Barakiel,’ Amit growled, his eyes flashing with anger. He took a breath, letting the ire drain from his face. ‘I need your strength, Barakiel. If Nuriel has another outburst like before, he must be put down. Can I trust you with that, brother?’

  Barakiel was silent a moment, caught off-guard by Amit’s words. ‘By the Blood, it shall be so,’ he finally said.

  Amit nodded. ‘When the area around the target site is secure, look for Lior and any survivors from the Bleeding Fist, then join up with the main force.’

  Barakiel nodded and held his arm out towards Amit. ‘I will meet you on the ground.’

  Amit clutched Barakiel’s arm, gripping it vambrace to vambrace in a warrior’s salute. ‘Sanguinius go with you.’

  Barakiel started towards his Stormraven and stopped, calling back to Amit over his shoulder. ‘You woke Grigori?’

  ‘I did,’ said Amit.

  ‘Where is he deploying?’

  Amit smiled. ‘Nowhere yet.’

  It took three minutes for The Claw to reach the Zurconian System’s second sun, and another to pass through the halo of burning gas surrounding it. Solar flares billowed out in waves of broiling fire as they broke against the strike cruiser’s shields.

  Despite himself, Nikon tensed as another tendril of super-heated particles whipped across The Claw’s flank. There was no reason for concern. His course had been exact and the shields remained stalwart, shuddering azure as they repelled the fire’s advance.

  ‘We are clear, thirty seconds to comms range,’ Lycus reported, his voice rasping in Nikon’s ear.

  The captain had left the bridge in the sergeant’s care and was stood on the forward observation deck. A cathedral-like spire, it jutted up from The Claw’s prow, and at its peak was an armourglass pod. At the centre of the glassed chamber, a brass void-scope stood fixed to a bipod. The viewing device was ancient, and though Nikon knew many of his brother-captains thought it a trite indulgence, he never took to war without it. To view space combat through the detached reports of hololiths and data-slates was to forget the thousands who died on his every order. The void-scope’s shifting lenses allowed him to glimpse the space around him in a raw detail that no sensorium could ever provide him with. Nikon adjusted the device’s height until it stood level with his eyes and depressed the activation stud. ‘In the Emperor’s name…’

  The space above Primus was alive with fire. A pair of Zurconian warships burned and tumbled from orbit. Three others had been reduced to twisted, drifting wrecks, left to bleed plasma into the void. Amid the carnage, the Flesh Tearers vessels continued to fire, blasting apart transports, refuelling craft and escape pods. The Zurconians were being butchered, eradicated in a halo of exploding magma.

  ‘Lycus,’ Nikon said as he withdrew from the void-scope and started back towards the bridge.

  ‘Lord?’

  ‘Mark targets for firing, closest vessels first. Consider everyone hostile. Have the company assemble for immediate planetary assault. Brace for impact and have the serfs armed.’

  Soft static filtered back over the comm before Lycus’s voice sounded in reply, ‘It is done, we are… Lord, the Zurconians are hailing us.’

  ‘Which ship?’

  ‘None. The signal is coming from the planet.’

  ‘Put it through to my helm.’

  On Nikon’s command, an image of an ageing man hunched over a console resolved onto his tactical overlay. The man had the rich, creased skin and dark eyes of one used to long summers. He was dressed in a long green robe and wore a thick golden medallion shaped like an eye around his neck. Behind him, toppled pillars and broken stonework littered the remains of what appeared to be a vast hall.

  ‘This is Governor Syriu Malston of Zurcon…’ The man trailed off, his attention shifting to something behind him as another part of the chamber collapsed. A thick cloud of debris obscured Nikon’s view as the man continued. ‘We are in need of aid and–’

  ‘Lycus, get him back,’ Nikon snapped as the comm fell silent.

  ‘I can’t, we’ve lost the originator signal,’ said Lycus. ‘Captain, the Flesh Tearers are hailing us. It’s the Victus.’

  Nikon steeled himself, unsure of whom or what he’d be speaking with.

  ‘This is Shipmistress Ronja Nokkan of the Flesh Tearers battle-barge Victus. State your intentions.’

  The woman’s voice crackled in Nikon’s ear as an overlay of her face settled on the left portion of his helm display. He regarded the image of the female. Her eyes were cold, and she bore the Chapter symbol of the Flesh Tearers as a scar on her left cheek.

  ‘I am Captain Nikon Pelahius of the Eagle Warriors Second Company. We are responding to a distress call from the surface of the near planet. The Zurconians have requested our aid.’

  ‘When?’ Ronja’s voice hardened, as if by a growing sense of foreboding.

  ‘We detected the signal months ago,’ said Nikon.

  ‘You have been taken for a fool, brother-captain. We arrived here no more than an hour
ago.’

  ‘Then who attacked this world?’ asked Nikon.

  ‘If the Zurconians were under attack, we have seen no sign of it. Their fleet looked to be unmolested when they attacked us,’ Ronja sneered.

  ‘They attacked first?’

  ‘They fired upon us the minute we translated in-system.’

  Nikon was silent a moment as he considered her answer. ‘If that is true, then your actions are well justified, shipmistress. However, you have crippled their fleet. The Zurconians no longer pose an immediate threat. Cease fire and let us get to the bottom of this together.’

  ‘With respect, lord captain, until Master Amit gives me the order to disengage, I will persecute the Zurconians until they are removed from my auspexes.’

  Nikon suppressed a growl. ‘Where is Master Amit?’

  ‘He is on the surface.’

  ‘Confirm.’ Nikon subvocalised the request.

  ‘Surveyors confirm. Amit’s forces are in the northern hemisphere.’ Lycus’s voice cut across the secure channel.

  ‘Very well, shipmistress. Let your lord know that I will soon be joining him.’ Nikon cut the feed and addressed Lycus. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘We’ve detected multiple landing sites. This one is closest to the source of the transmission.’ Details of the landing site appeared on Nikon’s helm display as Lycus spoke.

  Nikon made to exit the bridge. ‘Lycus, the ship is yours.’ He quickened his pace. ‘Order squads Aiaxis and Diynor to meet me in assault bay two.’

  ‘Captain, if–’ Lycus began.

  ‘If you lose contact, make for Ultramar.’ Nikon’s voice was heavy with the weight of grim possibility. ‘There is much we do not know about this situation. The Flesh Tearers have a murderous reputation, but for now we must hope they are still loyal.’

  ‘And if they are not?’ asked Lycus.

  Nikon stopped walking. ‘My order stands. If the Flesh Tearers have truly turned their backs on the Emperor’s light, if Amit has fallen from grace, then we will need all of the sons of Guilliman to stop them.’