Warriors of the Imperium - Andy Hoare & S P Cawkwell Read online

  And one of those fell individuals stood nearby, his back to the fighters as they peered out of the tunnel.

  The rogue tech-priest was unnaturally tall, as if the limbs beneath his ragged crimson robe were attenuated and disjointed. Despite his height, the priest’s back was bent and he stooped almost double, bending down to attend to a machine console. A dozen mechanical tentacles writhed from the grotesque hump on the priest’s back, each with an implement, tool or weapon at its end. Some of those tentacles worked the levers and dials of the console, while others moved about seemingly of their own accord like snakes waiting for unwary prey to wander near.

  Tech-priests had always made Makaal uneasy, for their affinity with machines was far beyond the ken of ordinary men. That the individual in the chamber was an outcast of his sinister order made Makaal’s skin crawl. Technology was a thing to be respected, revered and even feared, yet this vile servant of Voldorius had reneged on his oaths to the Cult Mechanicus to use technology only as prescribed by the Emperor. The reasons for killing the renegade were legion, and Makaal was pleased to be the instrument of the Emperor’s justice.

  Makaal raised his hellgun, lining up the iron sights with the back of the tech-priest’s hood. Even as he did so, the machinery lining the chamber walls began to whine, white lightning spitting at the periphery of his vision.

  ‘I think someone’s…’ hissed Rund.

  Makaal’s finger closed gently on the trigger and one of the mechanical tentacles at the tech-priest’s back whipped around, a green glowing lens at its tip staring directly at Makaal. Disgust welled up inside him as he realised that the lens was an eye. Through it, the renegade was looking directly at the fighter, somehow entrancing him with fell power.

  In a second the spell passed and Makaal got a grip of his thoughts, but still the malignant green eye floated before him, filling his vision. But the tech-priest had already turned, and was advancing across the chamber towards the resistance fighters.

  ‘Kill it!’ Makaal bellowed, and all four of the resistance fighters opened fire as one.

  Makaal’s aim was true, but the blast of his weapon was halted before it struck the tech-priest. Waves of blue energy rippled out from a point in the air a metre in front of the renegade, settling to nothing after a second. A squeal of harsh machine gibberish screamed from a grille mounted where the priest’s mouth should have been. Three more green lenses glowed from under his hood above the grille.

  Makaal gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to drop his weapon and cover his ears lest they burst under the hideous sonic assault.

  ‘Again!’ he shouted. This time only three shots rang out, telling Makaal that either Rund or Bys must have been incapacitated by the machine howl. Two of the shots were stopped by the energy field, but one – Makaal could not tell whose – passed through, and struck the renegade’s left arm.

  The shot blasted a ragged flaming hole through a crimson sleeve and a shower of sparks went up. The priest staggered under the impact and a second machine squeal sounded. This time however, it was a scream of pain and rage.

  ‘Full auto!’ Makaal ordered, thumbing the selector switch above his weapon’s grip. He braced the hellgun against his shoulder, drawing a bead on the renegade’s chest as the roaring figure bore down upon him.

  Squeezing the trigger tight and holding it down, Makaal unleashed a torrent of blinding shots. The field absorbed half, but the remainder slammed through, stitching the renegade’s torso. The priest stumbled back, but now he was close. The writhing mechanical tentacles whipped forwards, one striking Makaal across the side of his body. Pain flooded his senses as he felt several ribs crack sickeningly and he was propelled through the air to crash ten metres away on the rocky floor.

  Fighting to remain conscious, Makaal looked up in time to see Bys wrestling with the tentacles, one gripped in each hand. In that split second, Cytha stepped inside the tech-priest’s reach and her stiletto flashed upwards, catching the renegade’s throat and sinking up to its hilt. The machine-howl was abruptly silenced and the tentacles fell limp in Bys’s massive hands. Both fighters stepped backwards and the renegade tech-priest fell forwards. The sound the body made as it struck the rock floor was not flesh hitting rock, but ironwork shattering into a hundred pieces.

  Rund was at the console the tech-priest had been manning. ‘Someone’s coming through!’ he shouted, an edge of panic rising in his voice.

  ‘Bys, Rund,’ Makaal said as he crossed the chamber. ‘You know what to do. Make it fast.’

  There was little that Makaal or Cytha could do now, for their role in the mission had been to get the cell safely to the teleportarium. He watched as Bys unlimbered bandoliers full of explosives and followed Rund. The lay-technician took a moment to gather himself before indicating a dozen points around the chamber to the larger man. Nodding, Bys crossed to the first, a machine of copper coils, shafts and pipes, and got to work setting his explosives.

  Rund was soon back at the console. ‘I can’t stop it!’ he called over his shoulder to Makaal.

  ‘How long?’ the leader asked. ‘Do we have enough time?’

  The lay-technician’s hands turned a series of dials and after a moment he looked back at Makaal. ‘If we detonate the explosives manually, we might–’

  ‘Half set!’ Bys’s voice rang out. The man had placed six of his charges in the locations Rund had indicated and was almost done with the seventh.

  Makaal understood immediately what the lay-tech was saying. ‘Give me the detonator. This is my burden.’

  Rund hesitated, distracted by the flashing lights of the console and the reams of data scrolling across its screens. Then he reached into a belt pocket and took out the small, boxlike detonator. He tossed it to Makaal.

  The fighter caught the device in his raised hand. He crossed to the console facing the raised metal platform in the centre of the chamber. Cytha appeared at his side, her dark eyes glaring at the same point.

  Makaal checked his weapon’s status reader. The full auto blast had cost him a third of his remaining charge and the focusing ring had come dangerously close to overheating. It would never be enough. Their only hope of success was the charges that Bys was even now finishing setting.

  ‘Stand by!’ Rund called out.

  Even as the lay-technician shouted his warning the air in the chamber became so charged that Makaal felt every centimetre of his skin crawling as if a million insects skittered across his body. A sharp pain split his head, and his vision swam. The towering copper shafts around the chamber erupted with blinding white arcs of unknowable power and the air split like the centre of a thunderstorm.

  The once dark and shadowed chamber was now flooded with pulsating light emanating from a point in the centre of the raised platform. The illumination was diffuse at first, with no direct source. A blinding singularity blinked into being above the centre of the platform, arcs of ragged lightning splitting the air between it and the copper coils at the chamber’s edge.

  Makaal placed his thumb on the stud in the centre of the detonator box. Not yet, he told himself. Wait until you’re sure. The point of light expanded into a blazing orb, its base touching the metal of the platform. The orb flickered and then expanded still more, until it became a semicircular archway over the entire platform.

  So blinding was the light that Makaal made to raise his arm across his face, but found himself paralysed, his body refusing to respond to his will. He felt the crush of impossible energies, as if the very air of the chamber had become solid, trapping him as a fly in amber.

  And then, at the centre of the glare, three silhouettes appeared.

  The central figure was massive, tall and broad shouldered with wings folded at its back. The second was not quite so large, but still a giant compared to mere men. The third was stooped and crooked, the fabric of its robes flaring in an etheric wind.

  ‘Makaal.’ The fi
ghter heard Cytha speak his name, but could not turn his head to face her. ‘Do it, Makaal, now!’

  Makaal waited until the silhouettes had resolved in the middle of the blazing white light. Then, with a supreme effort of willpower, he pressed his thumb down hard on the detonator’s control stud.

  Nothing happened at first, for the chamber was already churning with the energies of the teleportation device. Then, the pure white light the three figures were silhouetted against flickered and stuttered. Time slowed for Makaal, even the beat of his heart becoming frozen in a single instant. The white orb collapsed in on itself, plunging the entire chamber into total blackness.

  Then, a dozen of the machines lining the chamber wall exploded as one. The light of the detonations illuminated three figures on the raised platform. Orange flames danced at their feet, before another light entirely sprang into being.

  A vertical, crimson-purple scar appeared behind the three figures, as if the air itself were splitting apart. The line became a wound etched in the surface of reality. Still unable to move, terror flooded Makaal’s soul. From the wound emanated a ghastly, pulsating light, the colour of blood and guts.

  The three figures attempted to move away from the horror that had appeared at their back, but they too must have been entrapped. Despite his terror, Makaal felt a moment of hope. Not for himself, for he knew now that he was doomed, but for his home world. Whatever process the destruction of the teleportarium had instigated, it looked like it would claim Voldorius and his servants as well as the fighters.

  The terror consuming Makaal’s soul was now tempered by vindication, the two emotions converging into something approaching madness. Though his lips would barely move, inside Makaal roared within with an unholy blend of joy and horror. He screamed his hatred at the daemon, raged his denial of his own death and shouted his joy at his victory. The wound grew larger still, a deep gash in the flesh of reality, bulging outwards as if tainted organs were at the point of bursting forth.

  And then, the wound ripped open.

  The chamber was suddenly filled with the sound of a trillion souls wailing their damnation as one. In an instant, Makaal’s soul was torn asunder, yet still the core of all he was looked on. The crimson scar split open, spilling writhing energies into the chamber. Thrashing coils of crimson ether quested outwards, wrapping themselves around the three figures on the platform as if to drag them back through the wound.

  More of the writhing coils spread outwards, snaking around the chamber until they came upon Makaal and his comrades. His mind now shattered into a thousand shards, Makaal was incapable of feeling the terror that had consumed him before. He merely looked on as ghostly intestine-shaped tentacles wrapped themselves around his fellow resistance fighters, lifted them into the air, and drew their bodies towards the ragged hole in the fabric of reality.

  Only then did what was left of Makaal realise that he too was being carried towards the impossible wound. What had been a jagged line was now a swollen, gaping maw, beyond which swam uncounted… things. Mouths and eyes formed from the boiling energies, then dissolved and dissipated to re-emerge elsewhere. The eyes radiated hunger and pain, while the mouths slobbered and gibbered and wailed in eternal anguish. Makaal knew that he would be joining that churning mass.

  Makaal was drawn closer to the three figures. Voldorius was braced against raging etheric winds seeking to suck him into the vortex. Vast coils were wrapped about his armoured legs and arms, yet he resisted with a strength that was entirely inhuman.

  Nearby, the second figure wrestled with more of the binds. This must have been one of Voldorius’s lieutenants, for he too wore the blue-green power armour of the Alpha Legion. The warrior was fast, dodging and weaving as he sought to escape the writhing intestines.

  The last of the figures was a robed human whom Makaal recognised as Voldorius’s equerry. The man stood no chance of resisting the thrashing coils and he was being dragged into the maw as inexorably as Makaal himself. As the equerry was dragged nearer to the wound, his flesh began to blister. Soon it was boiling off in great streams of red vapour, sucked away on impossible winds of damnation.

  Makaal felt his own skin blistering, but he did not care, for Voldorius too was being dragged down.

  The daemon’s batlike wings were torn to ragged scraps, the bones snapping and falling away into the screaming nothingness. Voldorius bellowed as the coils drew him closer to the mouth. The surface of his armour smoked and blistered as the blue-green finish dissolved into atoms. Soon the skin of the daemon’s face was peeling back, his savage teeth exposed as the muscles were flensed away. The daemon’s bellow was now so loud that it drowned out all other sounds, even the wailing of the damned from beyond the portal.

  What was left of Makaal knew that Voldorius would be cast back to the warp that had spawned him and Quintus would be saved. Makaal’s very soul was forfeit, for Voldorius himself would torment him for all eternity as vengeance for this deed.

  And then Voldorius’s lieutenant cast off the whiplash energies that sought to bind him and the armoured warrior moved fast towards the edge of the platform. Denial welling up inside him, Makaal could only look on helplessly as the figure gained speed the further it travelled from the raging maw of warp energy. In an instant it had escaped and was leaping from the platform to land heavily upon the rock floor of the teleportarium chamber. Now entirely free, the figure looked around the chamber and crossed to one of the rearing copper-shafted machines. Drawing a black-bladed halberd that was slung across its back, the figure lashed out, slicing the copper machinery in two. The power sustaining the machinery fled and secondary explosions erupted across the chamber.

  The writhing maw convulsed and Voldorius broke free even as the last vaporous remains of his human servant were sucked through. The daemon prince was now little more than a charred, blackened skeleton, his armour burned away and the last remnants of his flesh falling from him in smoking chunks.

  The other warrior smashed another copper shaft apart, and the energies coursing through the chamber spluttered. There was a single moment of perfect frozen clarity, before the ragged maw blinked out of existence and the chamber was plunged back into flame-lit shadow.

  At the last, what had been Makaal felt himself fading. His final vision was of Voldorius forcing himself to stand upright. Black bones reknitted, veins regrew. Glistening muscles swathed the bones and the daemon’s armour flowed like liquid metal across his regenerated form. The batlike wings regrew from his back and Voldorius bellowed a savage victory cry.

  As his soul was whipped away to join the lost, the true extent of Makaal’s failure was revealed to him. Voldorius lived, and Makaal was damned for all eternity.

  ‘Qan’karro,’ Kor’sarro said, looking directly across the strategium chamber at the old Stormseer. ‘Please go on. Tell us of your brothers’ efforts to establish contact with Quintus.’

  Qan’karro gathered his thoughts. The old man looked pale, as if the weight of his years weighed heavily upon his soul.

  ‘Gladly, huntsman,’ said Qan’karro, before lifting a cup of sour Chogoran wine to his lips and draining the vessel in a single draught.

  ‘Pooling our efforts with the astropaths, my brethren and I have used every possible means at our disposal to make contact. The astropaths have come to the conclusion that none of their order survives upon Quintus, or if they do, they have been subjugated, brutally.’

  Kor’sarro and the assembled officers considered this dire news before the Master of the Hunt pressed the Stormseer further. ‘And your own efforts, honoured seer?’

  ‘I have little to report, Kor’sarro. We have cast our minds far ahead of us, piercing the warp even as this vessel races upon its tides.’

  Kor’sarro knew little of the ways of the Stormseers, for their skills were born of their psyker inheritance and unfathomable to others. He did understand that the seers could not communicate directly
with others as the astropaths did, but he had an inkling that they had other abilities they could draw on.

  ‘All we can hope to do is plant visions, even mere notions, of our coming in the minds of those able to hear,’ Qan’karro went on. ‘If there are any such remaining, then I pray they hear our call.’

  ‘What of those on Quintus?’ Kor’sarro asked his comrade. ‘What of the portents?’

  ‘Codiciers Subas and Odakai have consulted every augur our people know, and several they do not,’ the Stormseer said, his eyes taking on a dark cast.

  Kor’sarro waited a moment before pressing further. ‘And?’

  ‘None are favourable, huntsman.’

  Kor’sarro clenched the arms of his stone throne as the assembled officers considered the Stormseer’s words. His eyes settled for a moment on Brother Kergis, who he had appointed to serve as company champion following the death of Brother Jhogai on Cernis IV. After the events on that world, neither he nor his officers needed to hear more bad tidings. Kor’sarro indicated that the old warrior should, indeed must, continue.

  ‘Thousands have perished, of that we can be sure. But if we are honest, we expected that. But fell powers have been unleashed, possible futures etched upon the surface of time. I cannot put it into words, my friends, but truly, the vile one stands at the precipice and untold power awaits him.’

  ‘Then we must stop him,’ Kor’sarro replied, an oath forming in his mind. ‘We must all pledge that on Quintus, Voldorius dies. There can be no alternative.’

  The assembled Space Marines – Stormseers, Techmarines, Apothecaries, Chaplains and sergeants – nodded their agreement, each steeling themselves to face whatever fate held in store. Kor’sarro looked each in the eye in turn, seeing in every one of his officers the cold determination to end the hunt for Voldorius on Quintus.

  Resolving to steer the discussion away from gloomy portents, Kor’sarro took a deep breath and leaned forwards in his throne. ‘Brother Kholka,’ he addressed the veteran Scout-sergeant. ‘You have prepared a report on the world of Quintus. Please, illuminate us,’