Deathwing (6 page)

"It seemed as
if the
whole planet
had
turned
against
us,
and
that
was
more
or
less
what
had happened.
Two
hundred of us
fought
our way out
of
the
audience
room.
We
were
met
by
armed
men,
unarmed
children
and
their
mothers.
All threw themselves
against
us
with insane
ferocity. As
we cut
them down, they
showed
no fear
-
only
a
strange,
unholy joy. The whole world had
been
infected.

"Our
trip
to
the
surface
was
a
nightmare.
We
battled
along
dark
corridors,
crawled
up
access
ladders
and through narrow hatches
never
meant for Marines.
I saw Steel Fist tumble back headless
from one
hatchway.
Van
Dam
lobbed
a handful
of crack grenades through
and
we were spattered
with the
remains of a full-grown Stealer"

"My
brother
Red Sky was pulled down by a wave of feral children with explosives
in their hands.
They
detonated
them as
they
crawled over his body.
He did not
live.

"Twice
in
the endless
corridors,
we
were
almost
overrun.
It
came
to hand-to-hand
combat
with
purestrain
Stealers. Twenty
of our brothers
were cut
down before Two Heads
Talking's force axe and
Cloud
Runner's
power
sword
carried us
clear.

"It
was
while
guarding
the
final
hatchway
that
I
lost
the
use
of
my
leg.
A
Stealer
cut
right through
the
floor
and grabbed
me, trying to pull me down. I blasted
frantically at it. The last thing
I remember was its horrid,
leering
face
as
it pulled me down toward it. Around
it was a group
of' Thranxians who stroked
and
pushed
against
it fondly.

"The others
told
me
what
had happened
when
I
woke
up
in
the
medical
bay
of
the
ship
with
a
new
bionic
leg.
Two Heads
Talking
and
Cloud
Runner
had
pulled
me
clear
and
carried
me
to
the
roof
of
the
world.
where
the
dropship waited.

"There
was only one
thing
to do: order
the
Exterminatus.
The
whole
place
was
sterilised
from
orbit
with
virus
bombs. Later,
inquisitorial investigators
ascertained
that
the
whole
business had begun
only
sixty
years
before,
when
an unrecorded space
hulk had
swung through
the
system.

"It
had
taken
only
three generations
for
the
Stealers
to
infect
a
whole
world.
For
that
is
how
they
reproduce
-
by turning
people
into hosts
for their offspring.
Their victims endure
this
willingly, due
to the
Stealers' hypnotic
powers.

'Many nights
I
have
lain
awake
wondering
whether
we
could
have saved
the
world
if
only
we
had
arrived
sooner. Perhaps
if we had
been
able to eliminate the
Stealers before the
cancer
had
spread,
we would not
have
had
to
order
the Exterminatus.

Cloud Runner
could
see
that
the
warriors
had
been
swayed
and
angered
by
Lame
Bear's
tale.
He
could
tell
that
they were considering
the
assimilation of their People as
breeding
stock
and
the
possibility
that,
by swift
action,
they
might prevent
it.

"Let us
go."
said
Weasel-Fierce, leaping to his feet. "Let us
enter
the
city and
kill the
Stealers' spawn."

Several other
warriors made to accompany
him.

Wait,
"
said
Bloody Moon.
"The
gathering
is not
over and I would speak..."

Anger
and
impatience drove
Two Heads
Talking toward the
sound
of pain. By the
brink of the
river, in the
shadow
of a monstrous
factory,
he
saw
that
a
group
of bluecoats
had
pinned
an
old
man
against
the
wall
and
were
slowly
and surely
beating
him
to
death
with
their
truncheons.
One
of
their
number
held
a
lantern,
occasionally
giving
a
calm, precise
order.

"Talk seditious
nonsense,
would you?"
said
one
bravo.
His
stroke
ended
with
the
cracking
of
breaking
ribs.
The
old man groaned
and
fell to his knees.
The other bluecoats
laughed.

"Preach
heresy
against
the
Imperial
cult
and
the
warriors
from
the
sky,
eh?
What
makes
you
old
fools
do
it?
By
the

Emperor
. I thought
we had
got
the
last of you."

Their
victim
looked
up
at
them.
"You
are
deluded.
The
Warriors
from
the Sky
would
not
have
built
this
place
and herded
us
here the
way elks are herded
to the
slaughter.
Nor would they
have
broken the
burial mounds
of
our
people. Your masters
are evil spirits
summoned by the
Hill
Clans,
not
true
Sky
Warriors.
Deathwing
will
return
and
rend
them asunder."

"Silence
, blaspheming
no-name." said
the
leader of the
bluecoats.

"You
wish
to
prove
your
courage,
do
you?
Perhaps
we should
return
to
the
old
ways,
drunkard,
and
practise
the

Weasel
Claw ritual on you."

The old man coughed
blood.
"Do what you
will,
I
am
Morning
Star
of
the
line
of
Running
Deer
and
Silver
Elk.
I
have the
Witching
Sight. I tell you
that
the
spirits
walk. Ancient
powers
stalk the
land.
The
red
star burns
bright
in
the
sky. A time of trouble
is coming."

"Is
that
why
you chose
to
start
ranting
this
night?
I
had
thought
the
only
spirits
that
talked
to
you
came
from
a bottle,"
said
another
bluecoat,
kicking
Morning
Star
in
the
ribs.
The
old
man
groaned.
Two
Heads
Talking
made
his way forward through
the
mist, till he emerged into the
lantern light.

'The
bluecoat
leader
spoke
to
him.
"Go
away,
buck.
This
is
Warrior
Lodge
business.
If
you
don't
want
to
join
this drunkard
in the
river, you'll leave now."

"You dishonour
the
idea
of
the
Warrior
Lodge,"
said
Two
Heads
Talking
quietly.
"Depart
now,
and
I
will
spare
you. Remain a heartbeat
longer, and
I will surely
grant
you death."

The old man looked up
at
him.
awe-struck.
Two
Heads
Talking
could
see
the
winged
skull tattoo
of
a
Shaman
on
his forehead.
A few bravos
laughed.
Some, the
wiser ones,
heard
the
soft
menace in the
Marine's
voice and
backed
away.

The leader gestured
for the bluecoats
to attack. "Take him!"

Two
Heads
Talking
parried
the
swipe
of
a truncheon
with
his
forearm.
There
was
a
metallic
ring
as
the bludgeon snapped.
He
broke
the
bravo's nose
against
the
butt
of
his
force
axe
then
lashed
out with
his
foot,
driving it
into another
bluecoat's
stomach
with
inhuman
force.
As
the
man
bent
double
the
Librarian chopped
down
on
his
neck. breaking it.

The bluecoats
swarmed over him now. Their truncheons
were as
ineffective as
twigs against
a bear. A few tried to grab his arms and
immobilise
him.
He
shrugged
them
off
easily,
swinging
killing
blows
with
weapon
and
elbow.
Where
he struck,
men died.

As
the
battle
lust
swept
over him, he felt the bound
spirits
slip away. He
knew
that
he
stood
revealed
in
his
true
form. The last of the bluecoats
turned
to ran. Two
Heads
Talking
hooked
an
arm
around
his
neck
and
twisted.
There
was
a

crunch
of shattering
vertebrae.

The old man gazed on him with religious intensity.
"The
spirits
spoke
truthfully,"
he said, as
if he
did
not
quite
believe it. He reached
out
and touched
him. making sure
he was real.

"You
have
come
at
last
to
free
the
People
from
their bondage
to
the
false
Emperor
and
lead
them
back
to
the
plains. What
is your
name, Sky Warrior?"

"In my youth,
it was Two Heads
Talking, apprentice
to Spirit
Hawk.
When
I
entered
the
service
of
the
true
Emperor,
I

took the
name Lucian." He could
see
tears
running
down the
old man's scarred
cheeks.

"Tell me, old man, what has happened
to our folk? How did they
come to fall so
low?"

"It began
when I was a buck."
said
Morning
Star, wiping his face. "One summer night,
the
sky burned,
and
there
was
a great
roaring. A trail of fire raced across
the
sky, and
there
was an explosion. Where
we are now
was
a vast
crater,
and in the
centre,
where the
Temple of the
Four-armed Emperor stands,
was a great, red-hot
pile of metal.

"Some
people
thought
the
Sky
Warriors
had
returned,
that
the
roaring
was
the
voice
of
their
thunderbird.
The Shamans
knew that
this
could
not
be so,
for Deathwing returns
only
once
every
hundred
years,
in
autumn,
and
it
had been
only fifty years
since
the
red star
was last visible."

"We
were
pleased because
we
thought
that
we
might
ride
Deathwing. Most
of
us
had
reckoned
on
being
old
men when the
Sky Warriors came again.

"Those
who met our chiefs were not
the
armoured warriors of legend.
They
were feeble, pale-skinned
men who
claimed that
they
had
come
from
the
Emperor
to
show
us
the
way
to
build
an
earthly
paradise.
They
preached
the
virtues
of tolerance
and
brotherly
love
and
an
end
to
warfare.
The
chiefs sent
them
packing,
which
was
a
mistake,
for
when honeyed
words
did not succeed,
they
tried
force
of
arms.
They
allied
with
the
Hill
Clans
and
gave
them
metal
blades which our weapons
could
not
withstand.

"Eventually
,
clans
were
forced
to
trade
for
the
new weapons
in
order
to
withstand
their
enemies.
Tales
were
told
of how
witching
spirits
with
four
arms
and
terrible
claws
destroyed
our
warriors.
Soon,
the pretenders
ruled
the
Plains, taking slaves
and destroying
utterly
those
who opposed
them.

"Then
came the
building of this
great
city, using
slave
labour and
paying
the
freemen in trade tokens."

Suddenly
,
the
old man's eyes
went wide with horror. He
was
looking past
Two
Heads
Talking
and
into
the
night.
The

Librarian turned,
and
from the
mist, shapes
emerged.

One
was
the
fat
man
who
earlier
had
been
riding
in
the
palanquin.
Flanking
him
were
two
huge
four-armed
figures. Their carapaces
glistened
like oil. They
raised large claws which glittered in the
moonlight.

"We
would have
told you
all this
if only you
had
asked."
said
the
fat man, gazing at
Two
Heads
Talking
with
his
dark, magnetic eyes.

The Librarian flexed his fingers, and
his force axe hummed a song
of death
in his hand.

"It
was in
the
time
of
Commander
Aradiel, a
hundred
summers
gone,"
said
Bloody
Moon.
"We
were
aboard
the battlebarge Angelus
Morte
on sector
edge
patrol when the
alarms went off. Sensor probes
indicated
that
a space
hulk had
dropped
from warp space
near us.
Deep scanning
revealed
nothing.
We were ordered
to investigate.

"We
crouched within
the
boarding
torpedoes
and
were
fired
at
the
hulk.
It
was
unpowered
and
dark
when
we disembarked,
so helmet
lights
on,
we
moved
to
secure
the
perimeter.
We
met
no
resistance,
but
as
per standard operational
procedures,
we proceeded
with extreme caution.