False Gods (18 page)

L
OKEN
HACKED
HIS
sword through another corpse’s neck, dropping the mouldering revenant to the ground as still more pressed in behind it. He and Torgaddon fought back to back, their swords coated in the flesh of the dead things as they were pushed further and further up the slopes of metal that led inside the starship. Their warriors fought desperately, each blow leaden and exhausted. The Titans of the Legio Mortis crushed what they could and sporadically raked the base of the rubble with sprays of gunfire, but there was no stopping the horde.

Dozens of Astartes were dead, and there was still no word from the forces that had entered the
Glory of Terra
. Garbled vox transmissions from the Byzant Janizars seemed to indicate that they were finally moving forward, but no one could be sure as to where exactly they were moving.

Loken fought with robotic movements, his every blow struck with mechanical regularity rather than skill. His armour was dented and torn in a dozen places, but still he fought for victory, despite the utter desperation of their cause.

That was what Astartes did: they triumphed over insurmountable odds. Loken had lost track of how long they had been fighting, the brutal sensations of this combat having dulled his senses to all but his next attacker.

‘We’ll have to pull back into the ship!’ he shouted.

Torgaddon and Nero Vipus nodded, too busy with their own immediate situations to respond verbally, and Loken turned and began issuing orders across the inter-suit vox, receiving acknowledgements from all his surviving squad commanders.

He heard a cry of anger and, recognising it as belonging to Torgaddon, turned with his sword raised. A mob of stinking cadavers swamped the top of the slopes, overwhelming the Astartes gathered there in a frenzy of clawing hands and biting jaws. Torgaddon was borne to the ground, and the mouths of the corpses fastened on his neck and arms were dragging him down.

‘No!’ shouted Loken as he leapt towards the furious combat. He shoulder-charged in amongst them, sending bodies flying down the slopes. His fists crushed skulls and his sword hacked dead things in two. A gauntleted fist thrust up through grey flesh and he grabbed it, feeling the weight of an armoured Astartes behind it.

‘Hold on, Tarik!’ he ordered, hauling on his friend’s arm. Despite his strength, he couldn’t free Torgaddon and felt grasping limbs envelop his legs and waist. He clubbed with his free hand, but he couldn’t kill enough of them. Hands tore at his head, smearing blood across his visor and blinding him as he felt himself falling.

Loken thrashed in vain, breaking dead things apart, but unable to prevent himself and Torgaddon from being pulled apart. Claws tore at his armour, the unnatural strength of their enemies piercing his flesh and drawing his precious blood. A grinning, skull faced monster landed on his chest, face to face with him, and its jaws snapped shut on his visor. Unable to penetrate the armoured glass, rivulets of muddy saliva blurred his vision as its jaws worked up and down.

Loken head-butted the thing from his chest and rolled onto his front to gain some purchase. He lost his grip on his sword and bellowed in anger as he finally began to free himself from their intolerable grip. Loken fought with every ounce of his strength, finally gaining a respite and rising to his feet.

All around him, warriors of the Astartes struggled with the dead things, and he knew that they were undone.

Then, at a stroke, every one of the dead things dropped to the ground with a soft sigh of release.

Where seconds before the area around the starship had been a furious battlefield of warriors locked in life or death struggles, now it was an eerily silent graveyard. Bewildered Astartes picked themselves up and looked around at the inert, lifeless bodies surrounding them.

‘What just happened?’ asked Nero Vipus, disentangling himself from a pile of bludgeoned corpses. ‘Why have they stopped?’

Loken shook his head. He had no answer to give him. ‘I don’t know, Nero.’ ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’ ‘You’d rather they got back up?’ ‘No, don’t be dense. I just mean that if someone was animating these things, then why stop now? They had us,’

Loken shuddered. For someone to wield a power that could defeat the Astartes was a sobering thought. All the time they had crusaded through the galaxy there had been nothing that could stand against them for long – eventually the enemy’s will would break in the face of the overwhelming superiority of the Space Marines. Would this happen when they met a foe with a will as implacable as their own?

Shaking himself free of such gloomy thoughts, he began issuing orders to dispose of the dead things, and they began hurling them from the wreckage, hacking or tearing heads from shoulders lest they reanimate.

Eventually Aximand and Abaddon led their warriors from the wreckage, battered and bloody from the ship’s fall, but otherwise unharmed. Erebus too returned, his Word Bearers similarly abused, but also largely unharmed.

There was still no sign of Sedirae’s men or the Warmaster.

‘We’re going back in there for the Warmaster,’ said Abaddon. ‘I’ll lead.’

Loken was about to protest, but nodded as he saw the unshakable resolve in Ezekyle’s face.

‘We’ll all go,’ he said.

T
HEY
FOUND
L
UC
Sedirae and his men trapped in one of the lower decks, hemmed in by fallen bulkheads and tonnes of debris. It took the better part of an hour to move enough of it to grant Luc’s assaulters their freedom. On pulling Sedirae from his prison, all he could say was, ‘They were here. Monsters with one eye… came out of nowhere, but we killed them, all of them. Now they’re gone.’

Luc had suffered casualties; seven of his men were dead and his perpetual grin was replaced by a vengeful expression that reminded Loken of a defiant young boy’s. Black, stinking residue coated the walls, and Sedirae had a haunted look to him that Loken did not like at all. It reminded him of Euphrati Keeler in the moments after the warp thing that had taken Jubal almost killed her.

With Sedirae and his warriors in tow, the Mournival pressed on with Loken leading the way, finding signs of battle scattered throughout the ship, bolter impacts and sword cuts that led inexorably towards the ship’s bridge.

‘Loken,’ whispered Aximand. ‘I fear what we may find ahead. You should prepare yourself.’

‘No,’ said Loken. ‘I know what you are suggesting, but I won’t think of that. I can’t.’

‘We have to be prepared for the worst.’

‘No,’ said Loken, louder than he had intended. ‘We would know if—’

‘If what?’ asked Torgaddon.

‘If the Warmaster was dead,’ said Loken finally.

Thick silence enveloped them as they struggled to come to terms with such a hideous idea.

‘Loken’s right,’ said Abaddon. ‘We would know if the Warmaster was dead. You know we would. You of all of us would feel it, Little Horus.’

‘I hope you’re right, Ezekyle.’

‘Enough of this damned misery,’ said Torgaddon. ‘All this talk of death and we haven’t found hide nor hair of the Warmaster yet. Save your gloomy thoughts for the dead that we already know about. Besides, we all know that if the Warmaster was dead, the sky would have fallen, eh?’

That lightened their mood a little and they pressed on, making their way along the central spine of the ship, passing through juddering bulkheads and along corridors with flickering lights, until they reached the blast doors that led to the bridge.

Loken and Abaddon led the way, with Aximand, Torgaddon and Sedirae bringing up the rear.

Inside it was almost dark, only a soft light from raptured consoles providing any illumination.

The Warmaster sat with his back to them, his glorious plate armour dented and filthy, cradling something vast and bloated in his lap.

Loken drew level with the Warmaster, grimacing as he saw a grotesquely swollen human head in his commander’s lap. A great puncture wound pierced the Warmaster’s breastplate and a bloody stab wound on his shoulder leaked blood down the armour of his arm.

‘Sir?’ said Loken. ‘Are you alright?’

The Warmaster didn’t answer, instead cradling the head of what Loken could only assume was Eugan Temba. His bulk was immense, and Loken wondered how such a monstrously fat creature could possibly have moved under his own strength.

The Mournival joined Loken, shocked and horrified at the Warmaster’s appearance, and at this terrible place. They looked at one another with a growing unease, none quite knowing what to make of this bizarre scene.

‘Sir?’ said Aximand, kneeling before the weeping Warmaster.

‘I failed him,’ said Horus. ‘I failed them all. I should have listened, but I didn’t and now they’re all dead. It’s too much.’

‘Sir, we’re going to get you out of here. The dead things have stopped attacking. We don’t know how long that’s going to last, so we need to get out of this place and regroup.’

Horus shook his head slowly. ‘They won’t be attacking again. Temba’s dead and I cut the vox signal. I don’t know how exactly, but I think it was part of what was animating those poor souls.’

Abaddon pulled Loken aside and hissed, ‘We need to get him out of here, and we can’t let anyone see the state he’s in.’

Loken knew that Abaddon was right. To see the Warmaster like this would break the spirit of every Astartes who saw him. The Warmaster was an invincible god of war, a towering figure of legend that could never be brought low.

To see him humbled so would be a blow to morale that the 63rd Expedition might never recover from.

Gently, they prised Eugan Temba’s massive body away from the Warmaster and lifted their commander to his feet. Loken slung the Warmaster’s arm over his shoulder, feeling a warm wetness against his face from the blood that still dripped from Horus’s arm.

Between them, he and Abaddon walked the Warmaster from the bridge.

‘Back,’ said the Warmaster, his voice weak and low. ‘I’ll walk out of this place on my own.’

Reluctantly, they let him go, and though he swayed a little, the Warmaster kept his feet, despite the ashen pallor of his face and the obvious pain he was in.

The Warmaster spared a last look at Eugan Temba and said, ‘Gather up Verulam and let’s get out of here, my sons.’

M
AGGARD
SLUMPED
AGAINST
the steel bulkhead of the
Glory of Terra
, his sword covered in black fluids from the dead things. Petronella fought to hold back tears at the thought of how close they had all come to death on this bleak, Emperor forsaken moon.

Sheltered behind the bulkhead where Maggard had thrust her, she had heard rather than seen the desperate conflict that raged outside – the war cries, the sound of motorised blades tearing into wet meat, the percussive booms and explosive flashes of light from the Titans’ weapons.

Her imagination filled in the blanks and though a gut-loosening terror filled her from head to toe, she pictured glorious combats and heroic duels between the towering Astartes giants and the corrupt foes that sought their destruction.

Her breathing came in short, convulsive gasps as she realised she had just survived her first battle, but with that realisation came a strange calm: her limbs stopped shaking and she wanted to smile and laugh. She wiped her hand across her eyes, smearing the kohl that lined them across her cheeks like tribal war paint.

Petronella looked over at Maggard, seeing him now for the great warrior he truly was, barbaric and bloody, and magnificent. She pushed herself to her feet and leaned out beyond her sheltering bulkhead to look at the battlefield below.

It was like a scene from one of Keland Roget’s landscapes, and the sublime vision took her breath away. The fog and mist had lifted and the sun was already breaking through to bathe the landscape in its ruddy red glow. The pools of swamp water glittered like shards of broken glass spread across the landscape. The three magnificent Titans of the Legio Mortis watched over squads of Astartes, armed with flamers, putting the corpses of the dead things to the torch, and pyres of the fallen monsters burned with a blue-green light.

She was already forming the metaphors and imagery she would use: the Emperor’s warriors taking his light into the dark places of the galaxy, or perhaps that the Astartes were his Angels of Death bringing his retribution to the unrighteous.

The words had the right epic tone, but she sensed that such imagery still lacked some fundamental truth, sounding more like propaganda slogans than anything else.

This was what the Great Crusade was all about and the fear of the last few hours was washed away in a swelling wave of admiration for the Astartes and the men and women of the 63rd Expedition.

She turned as she heard heavy footfalls. The officers of the Mournival were marching towards her, a plate-armoured body borne upon their shoulders, and the levity she had witnessed in them earlier now utterly absent. Each one’s face, even the joker Torgaddon’s, was serious and grim.

The cloaked figure of the Warmaster himself followed behind them, and she was shocked rigid at his beaten appearance. His armour was torn and gashed with foulness, and blood spatters matted his face and arm.

‘What happened?’ she asked as Captain Loken passed her. ‘Whose body is that?’ ‘Be silent,’ he snapped, ‘and be gone.’ ‘No,’ said the Warmaster. ‘She is my documentarist and if that is to mean anything then she must see us at our worst as well as our best.’ ‘Sir—’ began Abaddon, but Horus cut him off. ‘I’ll not be argued with on this, Ezekyle. She comes with us.’

Petronella felt her heart leap at this inclusion and fell into step with the Warmaster’s party as they began their descent to the ground.

‘The body is that of Verulam Moy, captain of my 19th Company,’ said Horus, his voice weary and filled with pain. ‘He fell in the line of duty and will be honoured as such.’

‘You have my deepest sorrows, my lord,’ said Petronella, her heart aching to see the Warmaster in such pain.

‘Was it Eugan Temba?’ she asked, fishing out her data-slate and memo-quill. ‘Did he kill Captain Moy?’ Horus nodded, too weary even to answer her. ‘And Temba is dead? You killed him?’ ‘Eugan Temba is dead,’ answered Horus. ‘I think he died a long time ago. I don’t know exactly what I killed in there, but it wasn’t him.’ ‘I don’t understand.’