Warhammer 40K_ Fall Of Damnos Part 20

'I'll return as soon as Garrik and Auris are on their way,' promised Cator. The others were at the front of the column, scouting the way ahead, all except Herdantes who was only able to limp alongside the guerrillas. His wounds were healing but it would take time. A ready bolter filled his grasp and Scipio didn't doubt his purpose, only his combat effectiveness.

'See that you do,' said Scipio, clapping a hand on his brother's shoulder. 'We'll need all the bolters and blades we can get.'

Cator saluted and set off down the pa.s.s in search of the others.

'That leaves the three of us for now,' said Brakkius, somewhat redundantly. He checked the load of his weapon the ammunition count was low. Scipio saw it flash red in the darkness. He had a similar number of sh.e.l.ls remaining in his pistol.

Largo wasn't watching, but breathed deeply. 'The air is crisp and clean. I like it up here,' he added. 'I think I will be happy to lay my gladius down in this place.'

Scipio didn't bother to reprimand him. It wasn't fatalism. Largo had simply come to terms with his probable death and embraced it. If anything, Scipio admired him for it. He racked the slide of his bolt pistol. 'Hold them off for as long as you can,' he said, the whipping wind adding drama and sorrow to his words. 'Let's give our brothers every chance to reach the sanctuary of the camp.'

Brakkius nodded. His weapon was already primed.

'Brother-sergeant,' he said. 'It has been an honour to cross blades and shed blood with you.'

'I could not be prouder of the Thunderbolts,' Scipio replied. 'You are my warriors, my brothers.'

'Courage and honour,' added Largo in a level voice.

Brakkius echoed him.

'And to the h.e.l.ls of the warp if we fail in this task,' said Scipio at the end.

Shoulder-to-shoulder, bolters ready, they waited for the flayed lord to come. There'd be no precipice to send it over this time, no cunning ploy to trap or destroy it. Scipio was as proud as any warrior of Guilliman. He was one of his patrician sons, something a friend had told him long ago a shame it took his imminent demise to realise that. But he was not dragged down by hubris, either. He knew this creature had the beating of them. He avowed he would make it work for its feast. While there was blood still pumping in his veins and the veins of his brothers, there was hope. A keening cry split the rushing of the wind, giving it a sharp edge that felt as if it could shear steel. Death was coming.

It would reach them soon.

Anger and shame warred with excitement in the mind of the Enfleshed. Since his apotheosis, a need had arisen in his jagged psyche. It was a wholly unnatural hunger. He had railed against it at first, but now he embraced it and let it consume him.

If I am d.a.m.ned then so be it...

His slaves scurried on all fours like pack hounds on the hunt. He resisted the urge to prostrate himself like that; he was still a n.o.ble lord of the necrontyr despite how debased his form had become. He was not an animal yet, not quite.

He revelled in his agility, leaping rocks, darting around crags and racing down the icy slopes towards his prey. Flashes boomed in the darkness below, framing the genebred humans in orange, as they unleashed their weapons.

The Enfleshed felt no fear, only antic.i.p.ation of the kill, of the skinning to come. His talons clacked and sc.r.a.ped of their own volition at the prospect.

Flesh...

It was as if his mind was being pulled apart, stretched taut in many directions at once loathing, self-pity, feral abandon, ennui, self-satisfying sadism. He was Sahtah no longer; only the Enfleshed existed now.

One of the slaves was struck in the chest. The Enfleshed lost sight of it as it fell with a pseudo-scream. The storm of hot metal was intensifying the closer he came to the end of the slope. Something chipped his armoured shoulder, but he paid it no heed. To his left, another slave was destroyed. The Enfleshed smiled, or at least he did so in his mind his rictus jaw was incapable of such expression it meant more skin for him.

I shall devour you all...

He imagined hot blood coursing down his gullet, the succulence of ripe flesh rolling around in his mouth. It was intoxicating. A final thought penetrated the shattered remnants of his memory engrams as he leapt the final few metres to the kill, I am lost...

The heavy sh.e.l.ls burst hot and hard against his chest as the prey tried in vain to stop him, but the Enfleshed was not to be denied. His talons fanned in a killing arc, eager to eviscerate...

...when another figure emerged through the storm.

The light surrounding him was painful to the Enfleshed's dead eyes. The aura seemed to expand, washing over the others in a wave of azure. It was fringed by crackling bolts of power, coursing over a growing energy dome like vipers. It struck the Enfleshed mid-flight and threw him back.

A scream tore from the Enfleshed's throat and was echoed by his slaves who felt it sympathetically. Pain snapped at his nerves, some real, some imagined though he couldn't tell one from the other. Blood, dried hard by the frost, cooked off his joints and servos in a ruddy haze. He tried to stand, poised to attack this newcomer and rend his face from his skull, but another bolt arced from the figure's fingertips his eyes were alive with power and now the Enfleshed felt fear.

His chest was torn apart, his living metal body sloughing into slag. Sahtah, the Enfleshed his head was so scrambled, he couldn't tell who or what he was any more felt his memory engrams exploding one by one. Though he grasped at it with his melted talons, he could not seize his fading ident.i.ty. Sentience shrivelled and turned to dust like bones upon a pyre. Slumping to his knees, Sahtah felt oblivion approaching. It stirred a final thought in his destroyed conscious, one that would echo for aeons.

Peace...

Tigurius regarded the steaming remains of the necron lord with contempt as it phased out. His storm had vanquished the other flayed ones too and the mountainside was disturbingly empty barring where his psychic lightning had scorched it.

He allowed the aura around him to fade and with the absence of the light, darkness swarmed in around them again.

'Your intervention is timely and most welcome, Lord Tigurius.'

The Chief Librarian turned at the sound of Scipio's voice. As he nodded, it took a moment longer for the fire in his eyes to die.

'I was travelling the Sea of Souls when I witnessed you in peril, Sergeant Vorola.n.u.s,' he said, motes of power still drifting from his lips and an unearthly resonance in his timbre.

Scipio bowed. 'We are glad of it.'

Tigurius looked beyond the brother-sergeant and his warriors. 'Who are these people?'

Drawn by the lightning storm, the human guerrillas and their Ultramarine escorts were standing a little farther down the path.

Scipio glanced over his shoulder where the humans had sunk to their knees before the Librarian.

'They are our saviours, Brother-Librarian.'

Tigurius eyed them curiously, unconvinced. 'Get up, all of you.' He turned back to Scipio. 'How so?'

'One amongst them can lead us through the mountains, bypa.s.sing the necron picket lines.'

Tigurius considered this for a moment, before answering, 'Bring the scout with us, the others we must leave behind.'

Scipio opened his mouth to protest, but the Librarian's steady gaze, latent with psychic power, stopped him. He nodded then gestured to the humans. 'Captain Evvers.'

A woman, the farthest forward in the group, who had now all got to their feet, looked up.

'You're with us. The others'

'Are coming with me,' she said firmly, shaking her head. 'I won't leave them, not now.'

Tigurius glowered at her impudence. He released a little of his power into his eyes, which crackled with tiny lightning sparks. 'You will obey. This is not a negotiation.'

The one Scipio had called Evvers cowered a little but stood her ground. 'I need them. To get through the mountains. I need their skill. So do you.'

Tigurius didn't like it. Being beholden to one human was bad enough, to be argued down as well bordered on intolerable. 'I am tempted to ignite you like a flare, little human,' he said. Evvers looked like she might shrink from the threat but stayed steady. Despite her obvious frailty, she impressed the Librarian.

He laughed, as alien and unusual a sound as Varro Tigurius was ever likely to make. 'You have some courage in you.' He slammed his staff into the ground, 'Stay close. None of the Ultramarines here will be responsible if you fall behind.'

Evvers nodded. He could tell she was shaking and eager to be away from his penetrating gaze. 'Same goes for you,' she said, by way of rejoinder and went to marshal her troops.

'She is... forthright forthright, brother-sergeant.'

Scipio nodded in agreement. 'I have never met a human like her.'

The drifts were lessening. Winds still howled around the peaks, chill and desolate. The storm wasn't done, it would come again.

Tigurius watched Evvers leading her troops down the slope. 'I saw into her mind. She carries much grief and anger, but believes she can master it and do what is asked of her.' He turned his gaze on Scipio. 'Do you believe it, too, Brother Vorola.n.u.s?'

Scipio's eyes narrowed. 'Do I believe what, my lord?'

'Exactly as I asked.'

'She will do her duty, as will I.'

Tigurius's expression was neutral, he gave nothing away. 'Then that is all any of us can be asked to do.'

'What else did you see, my lord, in the Sea of Souls?'

Scipio had been there when Tigurius had tried and failed to identify the darkness plucking at the edges of his prescience. He knew it had disturbed the sergeant and now he wanted a.s.surances. But the Librarian couldn't provide them.

'Nothing.'

'There is no doom in our future then?'

'No, there is a tragedy to come but I cannot see it. A terrible will is blocking my prescience. For now, my eyes are blind, Scipio.'

The expression of the sergeant's face told Tigurius he had only enhanced his misgivings. That could not be helped. A lie would not serve him, either.

They left the slopes after that. The valley where the rest of the Ultramarines waited was not far. If what Scipio said was true and the humans could indeed find a way through the mountains and the necron defence line then victory was possible. The artillery could be destroyed and a foothold gained on d.a.m.nos all in the same move. Tigurius only wished he could grasp the thread of his disquiet. A sense of foreboding weighed upon him still. His psychic flight had done nothing to dispel it. The dark shroud over his thoughts was heavy and obscuring. Perhaps when the mission was done and the Voidbringer vanquished that veil would be lifted. He only hoped that by then it wouldn't be too late.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

After months of continuous bombardment Adanar Sonne was used to the sound of the necron guns. They were a constant throb against the inside of his skull, a heavy-handed pa.s.senger demanding his attention. At the moment, the artillery was silent and it was the absence of their din that was unsettling him.

'It's like a lullaby, don't you think?'

Corporal Humis frowned. Not long after the Ultramarines had defeated the necron vanguard, a curious stillness had descended on Kellenport. The silence of the guns in the Thanatos Hills could mean anything. Perhaps the Emperor's Angels had destroyed them somehow and salvation would come from the stars in the form of an evacuation boat, or perhaps the necrons were merely preparing to unleash some greater horror. For now, the air was quiet... except for the screams.

'I don't understand, sir.'

'Of course you don't,' Adanar replied. He was using the lull to tour the battlements, to check on their defences. Even if they were fated to die and Adanar was certain this was the case he would ensure they would go down fighting, in blood and fire. 'You haven't been on the wall as long as I have.' He turned to look at him. 'You don't come from Kellenport, do you, Humis?'

'I was stationed at the Zephyr Monastery, sir.'

Adanar smiled thinly. 'Ah, protecting the priests and their relics.' He carried on down the wall, saluting the officers blindly as he went. Humis followed in lockstep with his commander. 'Well your piety has got you this far, I suppose.'

Humis had no reply to that.

'So, what's left?' Adanar was all business again as he regarded the fire-blackened remains of the Kellenport artillery.

Consulting a data-slate, Humis said, 'Three uber- uber-mortars and three long-nosed cannon, sir.'

'Earthshakers?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And what of the Hel-handed Hel-handed?'

'Still functional.'

Adanar nodded, satisfied. He already knew that the rail guns, cannon nests and emplacements were below thirty-five per cent. They were useful against infantry, but it was the really big guns that mattered and they didn't come much bigger than the Hel-handed Hel-handed.

'Raise Sergeant Letzger on the vox,' he said. 'I want to see through the eyes of his G.o.d-engine.'

It took a further eighteen minutes to cross the battlements and meet with Sergeant Letzger. They pa.s.sed strung-out squads of Ark Guard and conscripts on the way. All of d.a.m.nos, the remains of its entire population, had mustered in one last act of defence. The officers saluted, some even muttered greetings many were just silent, contemplative of their fates. It seemed to Adanar that the army had thinned greatly since he'd last been around the wall.

A broad-shouldered, stocky man, Letzger was one of the few original officers to have survived the siege of Kellenport thus far and was the city's, and the Ark Guard's, gunnery master. Sweat-stained breeches, a pitted helmet strung with webbing and a flak jacket riddled with cigar burns painted a dishevelled picture of a man that Adanar trusted with his life.

'Commander Sonne,' Letzger saluted when he saw Adanar approach. His bare arms were covered in wiry black hair that failed to stop the Guard tattoos from showing through. His leather gloves were cut off at the ends, revealing oil-stained fingers. It didn't stop Adanar from shaking the man's hand after he returned his salute.

He appraised the cannon. 'How does she fare?'

The Hel-handed Hel-handed was a ma.s.sive artillery piece. It was so big that it had to be built into the very foundations of the city wall and had immense recoil dampeners and impact compensators wrought into its leg stanchions. The column-like barrel was telescopic and segmented in four places. It required a crew of six men to fire it. A team of three was needed to rotate the barrel. Its firing platform was large enough for half a platoon of Ark Guard to stand on. Kill markings ran down the barrel, a source of pride as well as an ill.u.s.tration of Letzger's vengeance against the necrons that had invaded his world and murdered his friends. was a ma.s.sive artillery piece. It was so big that it had to be built into the very foundations of the city wall and had immense recoil dampeners and impact compensators wrought into its leg stanchions. The column-like barrel was telescopic and segmented in four places. It required a crew of six men to fire it. A team of three was needed to rotate the barrel. Its firing platform was large enough for half a platoon of Ark Guard to stand on. Kill markings ran down the barrel, a source of pride as well as an ill.u.s.tration of Letzger's vengeance against the necrons that had invaded his world and murdered his friends.

Such engines were described as 'Ordinatus' by the Adeptus Mechanicus. This one had been fashioned and anointed by Karnak, but the tech-priest was no longer able to perform the rites of the Machine he had died in the early weeks of the invasion. The fact that Hel-handed Hel-handed had kept firing without pause or complaint was a testament to the fort.i.tude of its machine-spirit. There was not a day went by that Letzger did not thank it for that. had kept firing without pause or complaint was a testament to the fort.i.tude of its machine-spirit. There was not a day went by that Letzger did not thank it for that.

'Still operational, sir. The break in the bombardment has given us a little time to effect some minor repairs.' Letzger nodded to the work crews halfway up the barrel reaffixing plates and the servitors welding sections back together. 'She's holding.'

There was a tang of ozone in the air. Adanar tasted it on the back of his tongue. The smell was in his nostrils. It was preferable to the stink of death, at least.

'And the shield?'

Letzger breathed in. He genuinely enjoyed the acrid taste in his mouth.

'Still burning out my nose hairs, commander.' He smiled and his entire face seemed to crease up like an old rag. The stubble on his face was patchy and clumped with the movement of his features. Letzger really was an ugly brute.

Because of its size and importance, the Hel-handed Hel-handed was protected by a void shield. Such measures were usually only afforded for t.i.tan G.o.d-machines but certain static installations like defence lasers and macro cannons also possessed them. With its sheer ma.s.s and destructive potential, the was protected by a void shield. Such measures were usually only afforded for t.i.tan G.o.d-machines but certain static installations like defence lasers and macro cannons also possessed them. With its sheer ma.s.s and destructive potential, the Hel-handed Hel-handed easily fell into that distinction. The void shield was the only reason it had not been rendered to sc.r.a.p by the necron guns months ago. easily fell into that distinction. The void shield was the only reason it had not been rendered to sc.r.a.p by the necron guns months ago.

'You've come to sample the view, I take it?' Letzger added.