The Eternal Crusader - Guy Haley Read online

  His throne dais rotated smoothly, pistons hissing and bolts clunking as its transit carriage engaged. Before the Acies Horrens slid closed, his throne was already descending, multiple shields of metal and energy shutting over his head. He sat in his throne for the first time in days, closed his aching warp eye, undid his blindfold and retied it around his forehead. He opened his prosaic eyes. The quotidian colours of reality made him blink, and he shut his eyes again. He allowed the strain of staring into the warp to affect him. The pain of it was both physical and spiritual, not simply the tiredness of prolonged concentration. His muscles ached and his stomach was as nauseous as if he were suffering from rad-poisoning victim’s. He closed his eyes and allowed the carriage to take him away, back to the armoured quarters of his palace, where he would recover, and wait out the engagement with his wines and his concubines.

  Until the High Marshal called upon him again to part the veil of reality, his role was finished.

  Upon the bridge of His Will, alarms rang. Augur servitors moaned with half-remembered panic.

  ‘Admiral!’ called His Will’s augur chief. ‘Incoming warp signature, opening up between us and Ork Flotilla Secundus.’

  A patch of space highlighted on the oculus became bruised by unnatural energies. Vortices of light appeared and a massive ship rushed through them.

  ‘They’re friendly, sir!’ relayed the officer joyfully. ‘All broadcasting Imperial recognition cyphers. It’s the Black Templars!’

  His Will grumbled under another series of punishing salvos. Parol grabbed at the rail around his command platform. ‘Excellent!’ he said excitedly.

  ‘More ships coming in, sir.’

  Parol counted the vessels. Helbrecht had returned with more ships than he had departed with; that was good.

  ‘They’re moving in to engage with Ork Flotilla Secundus, my lord,’ said Quarist.

  ‘On primary display!’ demanded Parol.

  ‘Sir, the battle…’ said Quarist.

  ‘On primary display!’ he barked.

  ‘Primary display. Compliance,’ droned a bank of servitors.

  The main oculus blinked out, replaced by a tactical placement map.

  Parol squinted at the Black Templars fleet, his augmetic eye overlaying multiple informational light-screeds upon its position. He adjusted them.

  ‘Target, sir?’ asked Quarist.

  ‘Main oculus, return to battleview.’

  ‘Aye, sir!’ replied his augur officer. The true-pict view of the battle returned.

  ‘Ignore the Malevolent Dread. We shall leave that to our Adeptus Astartes friends. Maintain positions. All fleet, resume attack on the Harbinger of Disaster.’

  ‘Aye, sir!’

  Orders were shouted into vox-tubes. Parol’s task force continued their bombardment of the Harbinger. It had limped away from them a little, but its engines had been shattered; it coasted on inertia alone. It could accelerate no more.

  Helbrecht’s vessels crowded the other space hulks, cutting off their interception of Battlefleet Armageddon. Fresh into the fight, they punished the ork ships mercilessly. Parol watched for a few more moments on a secondary holo table, until the Harbinger brought his attentions back to his own battle.

  Jushol lay on his couch, watching the gyrations of a score of dancing girls. A steady stream of rare dishes were brought to his side, and he ate from them mechanically and without tasting them. He was rake thin, but he consumed enough food for a man four times his weight; the energy demands of navigating the warp were onerous. He was untroubled by the rocking of the ship, the rumble of its cannon and the distant shudder of impacts on the surface. Battle was not his concern. His slaves’ dance was coming to a crescendo, their oiled, scantily clad bodies writhing against one another. Soon they would abandon their dance and entertain him in more direct ways.

  I will regret losing this, he thought, when I become pair-bonded.

  A buzz sounded from the corner, discordant with the music. Jushol raised himself to a sitting position and looked over. Nothing appeared amiss to his normal eyesight. His warp eye, sensitive to things beyond the mundane, saw just as well covered as it did uncovered, and through it he saw a glowing square, as light around an ill-fitting door.

  Green lightning burst all over the room, earthing itself in flesh and liquid. His wine glass exploded, as did three of his dancing girls. The rest ran shrieking.

  Jushol scrambled off his couch and was already heading for the door, his laspistol drawn in anger for the first time in his long career, when a crowd of orks teleported right into his sanctum.

  The stink of them hit him first, a raw, animal reek that blasted out with the hot breeze of their arrival. They arrived firing and roaring, and did not stop.

  ‘This is Jushol! Navigator Jushol!’ he shouted at his servo-skull. ‘I have orks in my inner chambers! I require aid!’

  Five doors slid up in the walls, revealing concealed cybernetic guards. His House Triarii jolted to life and thumped into position from their concealed alcoves, their weapons limbs tracking targets perfectly as they walked forwards to form a protective arc between their master and the invading creatures. Bonded armsmen hared into the room from the main entrance, responding to the alarms, rifles to their shoulders.

  ‘My lord, this way, this way!’ His master of arms pulled at Jushol’s sleeve. Jushol scrambled to his feet. Cerulean energy arced across the room from the arcane weapons of his Triarii, burning smoking holes in the chests of the orks.

  There was a tremendous clatter of arms as the orks assailed the Triarii. Power fields crackled to life as Jushol’s cyborgs brought their close-combat weapons to bear. His armsmen took aim with their carbines, letting off a disciplined series of volleys.

  Jushol knew that it would not be enough. He watched in horror as an ork wrenched out the weapons fittings of one of his augmetic warriors, dragging bloodied wires and metal-bound bones away. The construct gave a rattling metallic scream and fell dead, its operational lights going out. The ork stamped on the downed warrior, the grotesque rumbles coming from its mouth sounding uncomfortably like sadistic laughter.

  Stumbling from the horrific scene, Jushol went after his House armsman, heading for the grav-drop escape chute hidden in his bedchamber next door.

  They skidded on blood, Jushol going down. His man turned round to help him, his face a mask of controlled terror.

  Jushol reached out for the armsman’s outstretched arms as they disappeared in a blast of fire, flesh gobbets and blood. An ork shouted out its delight, cast its pistol aside and came rushing towards Jushol, its axe over its head, mouth gaping obscenely wide to display a forest of yellow tusks and fangs.

  Jushol raised his pistol and shot it three times rapidly in the head. He rolled out of the way as it crashed to the floor, sliding to a halt where he had been but a moment before.

  His Triarii were overwhelmed. His armsmen were locked in a bitter, uneven struggle with green monsters pouring in through the entrance to his dining chamber.

  Obviously, thought Jushol, they’ve teleported into more than one place.

  Their armour was primitive, but their warty hides seemed impervious to the blows of his protectors. He watched as his last Triarii was bludgeoned to the ground and hacked to pieces. His armsmen rallied around him, a dwindling number of brave men buying Jushol seconds with their lives. The orks shrugged off many of their las-shots, only direct hits to the eyes putting them down. They grabbed his men, hurling them out of the way as if they were woven of straw. One was shoved back into the Navigator, sending them both sprawling.

  Jushol realised he was going to die. He had avoided thinking about death. Most of his kind did. Too many of them knew what awaited their souls on the other side of night.

  Jushol scrambled to his feet. His way to the bedchamber and the escape chute was cut off. His men backed him into the corner. More Triarii came stamping into the room to fight the orks, but most of his armsmen were dead already. There were only six of them le
ft when the welcome sound of bolter fire put thoughts of the afterlife from Jushol’s mind.

  Praeses-Sword Brother Gulvein ran into the dining chamber, his sword buzzing with leashed lightning and a battle hymn on his lips. Six of the Chapter’s elite were behind him. To Jushol’s psychic senses, their ornate armour seemed to blaze with light as they marched in step into the room, blasting orks off their feet with shots from their bolt pistols. Mass reactives thudded into ork flesh at hypersonic velocities, detonating deep inside to tear chunks from their bodies. Incredibly, the orks did not all fall. Their robust frames contained the explosions, and some fought on, sporting wounds from weapons that would have smeared a man across the walls. The Black Templars let out a great shout and ran forwards to engage the enemy hand-to-hand. The din of battle intensified tenfold with the buzzing crack of disrupter fields smashing matter apart.

  Gulvein sang out a challenge cant. An ork moved to intercept him. Gulvein cut him in half without breaking his stride. More orks fell. Their enthusiasm to engage the Praeses-Sword Brother evaporated as it become deadly apparent that he was not a challenging foe, but death incarnate.

  ‘No pity! No remorse! No fear!’ he roared. A giant ork, half as tall as the Space Marine again, rushed him. Gulvein deflected two of its blows with lightning parries, a third turning into a cutting riposte that sliced through the ork’s armour and ribcage alike. The ork howled, stumbled backwards and collapsed to its knees. Gulvein struck off its head with his blade.

  ‘So die all who would sully the halls of the Eternal Crusader!’ He spat upon the dead xenos. ‘No xenos has defiled Sigismund’s shrine for centuries. None shall do so now!’ He raised his sword and his men cheered.

  A solitary bolt shot rang out. The quiet that followed was oddly disquieting after the fury of battle. Jushol’s chambers reeked of ork blood and their piggish odour. Fycellum smoke drifted, curling into eddies near atmospheric rejuvenator vents.

  ‘Navigator Jushol Ja-Sha-Eng,’ said Gulvein. He saluted the Navigator with his great sword to his forehead, then slid its bloodied blade uncleaned into its scabbard.

  ‘You got here quickly, Brother Gulvein.’

  ‘We had warning from the astropaths. You are fortunate we were close by dealing with another incursion when you were attacked.’

  With a wail close to the screech of vox feedback, House Mistress Talifera stormed into the room, a coterie of terrified concubines behind her. They rushed to Jushol’s side, weeping to see him so cruelly treated.

  ‘This is a gross abuse of the treaty between the Chapter Astartes Black Templars and House Ju-Sha-Eng!’ shouted Talifera. ‘Your actions will be reported to the–’

  Jushol held up a shaking hand, silencing his house mistress. Dust caked itself into his sweat, making him appear even more ghoulish than usual. He coughed, his lungs burning with the smoke of burned ork flesh, weapons discharge and fire suppressants.

  ‘Your insistence on protocol is entirely admirable, house mistress, but I think, Talifera, under the circumstances we can allow the Sword Brother this one lapse, don’t you?’

  ‘Navigator,’ she said, and turned her anger on the servants. Those who weren’t dead were rousted out from their hiding places. They skirted the corpses of the giant aliens as if they would be tainted by contact then rushed, partly chased by the house mistress, back to their positions. Gingerly, his concubines helped Jushol to his feet.

  Jushol holstered his laspistol and wiped away the blood trickling from his sodden blindfold. ‘Make yourself useful and fetch me a fresh blindfold, Talifera. If it comes away, Gulvein, do not look into my eye.’

  ‘Of course, holy Navigator,’ said Gulvein, respectfully dropping his gaze.

  The Black Templars veneration of him always put Jushol on edge; he attempted to push it aside with levity. ‘To be the focus of our enemy’s direct attention was… invigorating,’ he said.

  ‘The orks know of your value,’ said Gulvein.

  ‘So it appears,’ said Jushol in a breezy way entirely at odds with the hammering of his heart. He cleared his throat. ‘Seeing as this is my final tour, Sword Brother, I see no reason to spend it languishing in luxury here. Perhaps I might join you on the command deck for a change?’

  Gulvein laughed gruffly. ‘Lord Navigator, I advise it.’

  ‘High Marshal, we have orks aboard, repeat, we have orks aboard the Eternal Crusader.’

  ‘Hold them! Destroy them, Ceonulf. By the Emperor, to battle!’

  ‘It will be done, my liege.’

  The vox clicked off.

  Helbrecht ducked back into the chamber. Weapons fire strobed through the dark corridors of the Malevolent Dread. The cacophony of shrapnel and ricochets against bulkheads was like the foundry of a mad god. Initiates covering the doors of the generator room were engaged in a fierce firefight with orks crowding outside. Soon the aliens would amass enough strength to rush the handful of Black Templars. Helbrecht turned to the Techmarine kneeling beside the heavy thermic charge teleported in with the boarding party.

  ‘How much longer, Brother Hexil?’ he shouted over the roar of weapons.

  Techmarine Hexil continued making fine adjustments, but interrupted his prayers to reply. ‘The weapon’s spirit was offended by the rough treatment it suffered on arrival, High Marshal. If its containment loop is not realigned by the proper supplication, it will fail to consume itself and the reaction will not grow to the correct size for full devastation.’

  ‘Hurry, brother.’

  Helbrecht was distracted by a sudden increase in the firing at one of the doors. Howls and yells announced an ork charge was imminent. He ran to meet the aliens’ rush. A huge ork leader crashed through the doorway and eviscerated an Initiate with a powered claw. Helbrecht stepped in, parrying its next blow away from another of his men, and countered with a swing perfectly timed to catch his foe off balance. The glittering energy field of the Sword of the High Marshals slashed through the ork’s neck. Its great head tumbled to the floor with a thump, and the ork fell, its arms waving spasmodically.

  Helbrecht leapt forwards into the lesser orks behind, hacking and slashing with little finesse but horrible effectiveness. Limbs and heads flew apart. In seconds the doorway was filled with twitching corpses. An Initiate came up with his flamer and the surviving orks were driven back down the corridor by a wall of flames.

  ‘The charge is prepared!’ called Brother Hexil.

  Helbrecht switched vox-channels with a nerve impulse. ‘High Marshal to the Eternal Crusader, immediate teleport recovery.’

  The remaining Space Marines moved to the centre of the chamber and disappeared in a blinding flash of light and a clap of displaced air. Seconds later, the thermic charge blasted a new crater in the flank of the Malevolent Dread.

  Helbrecht marched straight out of the teleportation chamber, barging aside serfs and artisans performing the rituals of sanctity. Still dirtied by battle, he strode onto the command deck in time to see the Malevolent Dread pulling away from the fight, its mismatched twin hulls pockmarked with fresh scars, a particularly large one still venting atmosphere from where the thermic charge had exploded.

  ‘It flees before us, my liege,’ said his shipmaster. ‘Shall I order pursuit?’

  ‘No. It is wounded, but we cannot destroy it and the Paean. Chase the Malevolent Dread, and both will escape,’ said Helbrecht. ‘Join the others. Finish the Paean.’ He pointed to the oculus, where holograms showed a miniature light sculpture of the other hulk being pummelled by the remainder of the Black Templars fleet. ‘As soon as it dies, engage main drive and make all haste directly to Armageddon. Do not hide our destination. I want the Malevolent Dread to thirst for vengeance. We have offended its pride, and it will come to us. Ricard, Amalrich, you are to prepare your men for immediate deployment upon Armageddon. The Season of Fire is over, the Season of Shadows is here and you may land in relative safety. Once we have dropped you onto the surface, we shall spring our final trap for the Malevolent Dread. We shall ma
ke it pay for the destruction of Hades Hive. We shall make it pay for its tainting of the Eternal Crusader.’

  A febrile light was on him, and none would dare argue with him.

  His Will’s augurs registered the massive spikes of teleport energies gathering in the Black Templars fleet. An explosion sent a pillar of flame from the Malevolent Dread. Like a wounded animal, it lumbered away from its persecutors. The Eternal Crusader turned its attentions to the Paean to Discontent.

  Time passed. All the while, the Black Templars kept up their bombardment of the Paean. Finally, the Eternal Crusader finished its laborious repositioning and opened fire.

  ‘Steady, men!’ Parol shouted, anticipating with perfect accuracy what was about to occur.

  Parol laughed in relief as the Paean to Discontent burst apart. The cheers of his men were muted, occupied as they were with their own tasks.

  ‘Well done, High Marshal, well done. And now, my men, intensify fire!’ he barked. ‘Destroy! I will not have the Space Marines show me up, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  The shaking and rumbling of His Will increased as it hurled thousands of rounds of high-explosive shells and simple mass-blocks at the Harbinger of Disaster from its extensive gundecks. They had the Harbinger of Disaster trapped. The last of its cruiser escorts were attempting to flee. Bright flashes marked their deaths as swift destroyer groups chased them down and caught them in interlocking torpedo spreads.

  Parol’s cruisers and battleships pounded relentlessly at the ork hulk, but it would not yield. The hulk was massive, three times bigger than His Will, though most of it was stone and ablative layers of dirty cosmic ice. Chunks of it came away in fiery blasts, knocked free with such force they had to be shot down by Imperial interceptors and flak cannons before they slammed into His Will.

  Parol watched, and he waited, and then when he judged the moment right, he spoke. ‘All fleet,’ he ordered. ‘Withdraw to safe distance. Maintain fire!’