Fulgrim (32 page)

With a speed that shocked him, the wraithlord loped towards him, its agility terrifying. He stepped to meet it and ducked beneath a scything blow of its crackling blade, rising again to hack his sword into its slender arm. The blade bit a fingerbreadth before sliding clear, and Fulgrim felt the jarring vibration of the impact along the entire length of his body. The wraithlord’s fist slammed into his chest and punched him from his feet, the eagle stamped breastplate cracking under the thunderous blow. Fulgrim grunted in pain, tasting blood on his lips.

The pain was enormous, but instead of laying him low it energised him, and he leapt to his feet with a wild cry of exultation. His wreath hung broken over his face and he ripped it clear, tearing out his plaits and smearing the powder and oils across his face.

Looking more like a feral savage than the Primarch of the Emperor’s Children, Fulgrim once again launched himself at the wraithlord. Its huge sword slashed towards him, but he raised his own blade and the two met in a ferocious thunder of metal and fire. The purple gem in the pommel of Fulgrim’s sword flared, and the wraithlord’s blade exploded in a shower of bone fragments.

Fulgrim pressed his attack as the wraithlord reeled, and swung his sword in a murderous, two-handed swing at its legs. He roared as the blade smashed into its knee and tore through the joint with a shrieking howl of pleasure. Rippling coils of energy whipped from the wound as the great war machine swayed for the briefest moment before crashing to the ground.

Now finish it! Destroy what lies within its head and it will suffer a fate beyond death!

Fulgrim leapt on top of the straggling machine, smashing his fist into the smooth sheen of its golden face with a deafening war cry. The surface cracked and split under the force of his blow and he felt blood spring from his hand. He ignored the pain and hammered his fist against its head again and again, feeling the surface of the machine’s carapace-like skull yield to his furious assault. It tried to reach up and hurl him from its body, but he lashed out with his sword, the blade hacking off its huge fist with an ease that had seemed impossible only moments before.

At last the golden helm cracked and Fulgrim tore the wraithlord’s head open, revealing a smooth ceramic faceplate, pierced and woven with gold wire and engraved with silver runes. Its surface was studded with gleaming gems, and at the centre of this arrangement sat a pulsing red stone. Fulgrim could sense the fear emanating from this stone and reached down to pluck it from its mounting, a rising shriek of panic felt in the soul rather than heard. The stone was hot to the touch, and fiery lines danced within its depths, haunted shapes and alien features writhing within it.

He felt its anger and hatred towards him, but most of all he felt its dreadful, all-consuming fear of oblivion.

Fulgrim laughed as he crushed the stone in his fist, hearing a shrieking howl of anguish flee its destruction. He felt his sword grow warm, and looked down to see the gem at its pommel burn like an amethyst star, as though feeding on the spirit released from the stone.

How he knew this he did not know, but next to the elation he felt in victory, it seemed a minor mystery, and no sooner had the realisation surfaced than it was gone.

As the wondrous feeling of power faded, Fulgrim turned his face towards the battle being fought by his captains. They struggled against the shrieking warriors in bone armour, their swords fencing in a deadly ballet with these supremely skilled warriors. Behind them, the remaining enemy tank waited to support its fellow eldar, its guns useless while the combat raged.

Fulgrim raised his sword and charged.

E
LDRAD CRIED OUT
as he felt the soul of Khiraen Goldhelm torn from its spirit stone and cast into the void, alone and unprotected. He felt the great and terrible hunger of the Great Enemy devour the mighty soul of the warrior, and wept bitter tears of recrimination at his folly in attempting to parlay with the barbarous mon-keigh. Never again would he trust that their intentions could be anything other than hostile, and he vowed to remember forever the lesson Khiraen Goldhelm’s loss had taught him.

The air still shimmered around him after his transit through the webway portal from the surface of Tarsus, and he could feel the psychic roar of violence running through the naked ribs of the craftworld’s wraithbone skeleton. He could feel the lust for aggression from every eldar aboard and the racing, molten heartbeat of the Avatar of the Bloody-Handed God as it roused itself from the sealed wraithbone chamber at the heart of the craftworld.

How could he not have seen this? Fulgrim was already on a dark path, his soul embroiled in a secret war he did not even realise it was fighting. A dark and terrible force sought to dominate him, and though Fulgrim was resisting, Eldrad knew there was only one way such a battle could end. He knew now that this dark presence had been what shielded Fulgrim from his sight, jealously keeping its victim veiled so that none might unmask its designs.

The sword… he should have felt it the moment he laid eyes upon it, but the deceits of the Great Enemy had ensnared him with subtle illusions and rendered him blind to its presence. Eldrad knew that the essence of a powerful creature from beyond the gates of the empyrean lay bound within the sword, and that its influence was inexorably tainting the consciousness of the Primarch of the Emperor’s Children.

Eldrad knew there was only one path open to him, and shouted, ‘To battle!’

Fulgrim had to be destroyed before he could escape Tarsus.

An answering roar of war lust pulsed along the very bones of the craftworld.

Blood runs… anger rises… death wakes… war calls!

T
HE LAST OF
the shrieking eldar were dead, hacked down by mighty sweeps of Fulgrim’s sword, and Lucius felt the exhilaration of the fight still pounding within him like music. His sword hissed with alien blood and his muscles were alive with the skill it had taken to best them. The megarachnid had been terrifyingly swift, lethal killers who fought with blind, instinctual skill, but these howling warriors, many of whom Lucius now saw were female, were almost as skillful as he.

Their bladework had been exquisite. One of them, a female who had fought with axe and sword had actually managed to land several blows upon him. His armour was cut open in several places and but for his inhuman speed, he knew that he would be lying as dead as the warrior woman at his feet.

He reached down and lifted one of their swords, testing it for balance and weight. It was lighter than he’d expected and its grip was too small, but its edge was true and it was exquisitely made.

‘Didn’t you learn anything on Murder?’ asked Saul Tarvitz. ‘Get rid of that weapon before Eidolon sees you with it.’

Lucius turned and said, ‘I was just looking at it, Saul. I’m not going to start using it.’

‘Just as well,’ said Tarvitz. Lucius saw that his fellow captain was almost spent, his breath ragged and his armour stained with his own and alien blood, but despite Saul’s words, he held onto the alien woman’s sword.

‘Everyone still alive?’ asked Fulgrim with a laugh. Blood caked the primarch’s breastplate, where the wraithlord had struck him, and his appearance was a far cry from the regal splendour Lucius was used to seeing. Though ragged and filthy, Fulgrim had never looked more alive, his dark eyes shining with the excitement of the battle, his sword still clutched firmly in his fist.

Lucius looked around the battlefield, only now checking to see who else had survived. Both lord commanders were still alive, as were Julius Kaesoron, Marius Vairosean and that smug bastard, Solomon Demeter. Of the Phoenix Guard there were no survivors, their skill and strength no match for the power of the wraithlord.

‘Looks like it,’ said Vespasian, cleaning his sword on the helmet crest of one of the fallen eldar. ‘We should get out of here before they return in greater numbers. That tank’s keeping its distance after what happened to the other one, but it won’t be long before the pilot finds his courage again.’

‘Leave?’ said Julius Kaesoron. ‘I say we take the fight to that tank and destroy it! These aliens have betrayed the truce of a parlay, and honour demands we make them pay in blood!’

‘You’re not thinking, Julius,’ said Solomon. ‘We have no weapons to take out a tank and, after what happened to his friend, this one’s unlikely to let us get close. We have to go.’

Lucius sneered. How like Solomon Demeter to run from a fight! He could see Eidolon was itching to stay and fight, but Marius Vairosean kept his counsel, awaiting the primarch’s decision before undoubtedly supporting it. Silently he urged Fulgrim to order them to attack the tank.

Fulgrim’s eyes homed in on him, as though sensing his need to inflict more violence. He smiled, his teeth bright against the smudged inks on his face.

‘I think the decision has been taken out of our hands,’ said Solomon as a bright light once again built at the base of the curved structure where the farseer had vanished.

‘This can’t be good,’ said Tarvitz.

‘Stormbird One!’ shouted Vespasian into the vox. ‘Spool up the engines, we’re coming to you right now. My lord, we have to go.’

‘Go,’ said Fulgrim, his voice sounding as though he had just woken from a deep slumber. ‘Go where?’

‘Off this planet, my lord,’ urged Vespasian. ‘The eldar are returning and they would not do so unless they had overwhelming force.’

Fulgrim shook his head as if in pain and put a hand to his temple. The first eldar warriors emerged from a blazing ripple of light held suspended beneath the apex of the alien portal. The primarch looked up and saw the eldar sprint from the light, first in ones and twos, then in squads. Like the dead aliens at their feet, these eldar wore form-fitting armour of overlapping plates, though these warriors’ armour was clear blue, and they sported yellow crests on their helms. Each carried a short-barrelled rifle, and they advanced with cautious grace towards the Astartes. Behind them came a pair of the dark armoured eldar with long barrelled weapons aimed at the Stormbird above them.

Lucius twisted his neck and stretched his shoulder muscles in readiness for the fight, but Fulgrim shook his head once more and said, ‘We go. Everyone back to the Stormbird. We will return for our dead when we destroy their craftworld and leave them nowhere to retreat to.’

Lucius swallowed his disappointment and followed his primarch as they fell back towards the screaming aircraft, its engines building to a shrieking howl. He kept hold of the alien sword as he jogged back up the hill towards the vehicle.

Blinding streaks flashed overhead and Lucius was slammed into the ground by the pressure wave of a terrific explosion. More hissing streaks followed in quick succession and secondary blasts filled the air with debris and smoke. He spat dirt and looked up to see the ruins at the hill’s summit wreathed in fire. The blazing wreck of the Stormbird lay slumped like a downed bird, its wings smashed and a cluster of holes punched in its side.

‘Run!’ shouted Vespasian.

O
NCE MORE THE
eldar were hurled back from the top of the hill, leaving their dead piled at the foot of the ruins. Whickering gunfire rattled from the cover of the ruins with musical clangs, and slashing beams of incandescent energy lit up the purpling sky in bright streaks. The wreckage of the Stormbird still blazed behind them, secondary explosions of onboard ammunition popping and crackling in the heat.

Marius took a deep breath as he slotted another magazine home into his bolter and waited for the next assault. So far every one of them had come through the violence of the eldar attacks alive, though they all sported wounds from the hails of razor sharp discs fired by the eldar weapons. One of the discs lay on the ground next to him and he picked it up, turning it over in his hands. It seemed ridiculous that such a thing could cause injury, but its edges were lethally sharp and could penetrate even Mark IV plate if it struck a weak area such as a joint.

It had been a bloody battle, one that had seen desperate heroics and incredible feats of arms. Marius had watched Lucius fend off three of the howling warrior women at once. Fighting with two weapons, his own sword and an eldar blade, the swordsman had killed them in a dazzling display of unimaginable skill.

Vespasian had fought like one of the heroes from the Gallery of Swords, his perfection and purity shining like a beacon as he hurled back green armoured eldar with bulbous helmets that spat blue fire. Solomon and Julius had fought back-to-back, killing with brutal vigour, while Saul Tarvitz fought with mechanical precision, lending his sword arm to a multitude of combats.

But Eidolon… how had he fought?

In the thick of the fighting, Marius had heard an ululating howl of nerve shredding ferocity and turned, expecting to see more of the warrior women charging him. Instead, he had seen Lord Commander Eidolon with a trio of shrieking enemies scattered before him. Two were on their knees, clutching their ruptured helmets, while a third staggered as though in the grip of a powerful seizure. Eidolon stepped in to finish them, and Marius had been left with the impossible, but unshakeable sensation that the scream had, in fact, come from Lord Commander Eidolon.

‘How long before the damn
Firebird
gets here?’ asked Julius, crawling through the smouldering wreckage towards him, and shaking Marius from his thoughts of the battle.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Lord Fulgrim has tried to call it down, but I think the eldar must be jamming our vox-system.’

‘Filthy xenos bastards,’ swore Julius. ‘I knew we couldn’t trust them.’

Marius didn’t reply, remembering that Julius had been as vocal a supporter of the primarch’s decision to come down to Tarsus as he had. Only Solomon had spoken in opposition, and it looked as though he might be proved right after all.

‘We could all die down here,’ said Marius sourly.

‘Die?’ said Julius. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Even if we can’t get through to the fleet, it won’t be long before they send other ships. The eldar know that, it’s why they’re being so careless with their lives. A race on the edge of extinction are they? What say, you and I push them over that edge?’