Path of the Warrior (24 page)

He would be wearing his war-mask; he would feel no guilt and remember even less.

Korlandril followed Kenainath from the webway portal with chainsword and shuriken pistol ready. They found themselves inside a wide compound surrounded by wood-and-earth walls several times Korlandril’s height. The glimmer of other webway portals crackled in the night air, the shadowy figures of the Aspect Warriors emerging from the gloom. The air was bitterly cold, gentle snow falling from the dark clouds above; a carpet of frost on the cracked slabs that paved the courtyard; frozen rivulets on the brick walls around the open space.

Snaps of laser fire crackled down from the surrounding wall, targeting a squad of Dire Avengers advancing up an inner ramp. They responded with deadly bursts of fire from their shuriken catapults, cutting down several humans wearing thick grey coats and floppy fur-lined hats with flaps that hung over their ears.

The Striking Scorpions, supported by other Aspect Warriors, were to lead the assault against the human stronghold. While other troops secured the outer defences, the Deadly Shadow and others would strike at the central buildings, searching each until they had located the accursed artefact that was their goal. Though a great number of Alaitoc’s warriors were to stage the attack, there was to be no long engagement with the enemy; it was a human world and would be home to many times the eldar’s numbers. It was imperative that Alaitoc’s warhost did not get drawn into an extended battle, which would risk the extraction of the artefact.

Kenainath led the squad away from the walls, towards a complex of four buildings at the heart of the compound. Three were single storey, built of rough grey brick. The fourth was five storeys high, hexagonal in shape, windowless and made of a rock-like substance strengthened with a criss-cross of metallic girders. It towered over the compound, the hub around which everything else was built.

Battle felt different this time. Colder, not just in temperature but also in temperament. There was none of the burning anger Korlandril had felt before, no hatred brought on by the orks or the sweeping bloodthirst of the Avatar to distract him. He watched with detachment as Howling Banshees, bone-coloured and wailing, sprinted towards the nearest compound building, their gleaming power swords slicing effortlessly through the humans spilling from its large gateway.

The Deadly Shadow veered left, alongside the Dire Avengers from the Star of Justice shrine and Fire Dragons from the Rage of Khaine, heading towards the next closest warehouse. Heavy doors rolled together to close off the entrance, sporadic las-fire springing from the narrowing gap but finding no mark amongst the eldar.

With a loud clang, the doors shut. The Dire Avengers directed their weapons against the harsh lamps along the edge of the roof, bringing more darkness. Kenainath motioned the squad to take cover beside the wall of the building as the Fire Dragons closed on the doors with thermal charges in hand.

There was little fire coming from the walls now. A glance around the perimeter showed the Dire Avengers had scoured three-quarters of the wall of its defenders. Black-clad squads of Dark Reapers took up firing positions, their missile launchers directed outside the compound.

With blasts of white fire, the Fire Dragons’ thermal charges turned the warehouse doors into a river of cooling slag. The Aspect Warriors ducked through the holes created, the red glare of their weapons sending long shadows back into the compound.

“Strike without mercy, rejoice in Khaine’s bloody toll, leave nothing alive!” cried Kenainath, waving the squad forwards with his glowing power claw. Arhulesh was first into the breach, followed by the exarch. Korlandril followed Bechareth through the tangled metal, Elissanadrin at his back.

The inside of the warehouse was empty save for a few metal crates piled neatly to Korlandril’s left. A thin wall portioned a separate area to the right. Helmeted heads bobbed up and down at the narrow windows and two small doorways.

The Fire Dragons unleashed their fusion guns’ fury, blasts of energy tearing through the flimsy wall. Under the cover of this fire, the Deadly Shadow charged, the occasional las-bolt zinging past them or striking up small clouds of vapour from the floor.

At the closest door, three humans levelled their weapons at Arhulesh and Kenainath. Without thought or order from his exarch, Korlandril raised his shuriken pistol and spewed a hail of lethal discs into the doorway, his fire converging with that of the others. Two of the humans fell back, their chests and faces lacerated; the third fired his weapon, catching Kenainath a glancing blow across the right shoulder. Unbalanced, the exarch took a shortened step to right himself, allowing Bechareth to surge ahead. He and Arhulesh reached the door, chainswords simultaneously decapitating and eviscerating the human remaining there.

Steered by instinct, Korlandril cut to the right of the doorway and hurtled through the shattered remains of a window. The humans within had turned towards Arhulesh and Bechareth, leaving their backs exposed. Korlandril’s whirring blade opened the first along the spine from neck to waist, showering the Aspect Warrior with blood and fragments of vertebrae, creating a harmony of wet spatters and bony pattering. He hamstrung a second human, drawing the chainsword swiftly across the back of both knees.

Korlandril turned his gaze on another human and activated his mandiblasters. A flurry of shards spat from the pods on either side of his helm and arcs of blue energy lanced out, earthing through his prey’s left eye to send azure coruscations across the blackening skin of the man’s face. He collapsed with smoke trailing from his open mouth and ruined eye socket. Almost as an afterthought, the Aspect Warrior turned and drove the point of his weapon into the throat of a fourth human.

Korlandril finished with a flourish, flicking blood from his blade into the eyes of another enemy, blinding him momentarily. In the heartbeat the human flailed at his face, Korlandril slid sideways and brought his sword up and under his target’s left arm, chopping through the side of his ribcage and cutting into heart and lungs. The chainsword stuck for a moment, juddering angrily in Korlandril’s grasp before he wrenched it free.

Korlandril heard panicked shouts to his right and turned to see three more humans trying to clamber out of the window behind him. One fell to a burst of pistol fire from Korlandril, the other two exploded into ruddy clouds of super-heated matter as the Fire Dragons opened fire from the main floor of the warehouse.

Korlandril paused, eyes and ears searching for prey. There was a groan and he remembered the human he had hamstrung. He turned back to the crippled soldier; he was crawling towards the doorway leaving a smeared trail of blood. Korlandril watched him for a moment, the Artist part of him intrigued by the swirls of red painted on the floor by the human’s desperate scrambling. The Aspect Warrior saw himself dimly reflected in the life fluid of his enemies, a distorted portrait in blood.

The moment passed and Korlandril stepped after his wounded foe, only to be beaten to the kill by Bechareth. The Striking Scorpion let his pistol drop to hang from its feed-lanyard and grabbed the human’s hair, yanking him up to his ravaged knees. A swift cut separated head from neck, the body flopping into the blood pooling at Bechareth’s feet.

Still holding the severed head, Bechareth looked up and saw Korlandril. They could see nothing of each other’s expressions, but each realised Bechareth had taken a kill that was rightfully Korlandril’s. Bechareth gave a florid bow of apology—face averted, legs crossed—and presented the head to Korlandril.

“There are more than enough foes to spread around,” said Korlandril. “I do not begrudge you this one.”

Bechareth straightened, nonchalantly tossing the head out of the doorway. He nodded in appreciation.

“The building is clear, Khaine’s wrath still waxes strongly, onwards to more death,” announced Kenainath, waving them forward with his claw.

A quick search revealed two back doors to the warehouse, both leading out into a small walled courtyard at one side of the compound’s central tower. A metal door set into the side of the tower proved little obstacle; Kenainath’s power claw tore through it with two strikes.

Inside was a mess of rooms and corridors. Humans scurried to cover as the Star of Justice squad arrived, salvoes from their shuriken catapults ripping along the olive-coloured walls, cutting down a score of great-coated humans caught in the open. The Striking Scorpions followed behind, despatching any foe that had survived the deadly hail from the Dire Avengers. Room-by-room, the two squads worked methodically across the bottom storey in a circle, leaving nothing alive. Behind them, other squads raced into the tower and up the stairwells.

Detonations sent showers of dust from the pipe-lined ceiling above, indicating stiffer resistance in the upper floors. Korlandril switched to his thermal vision to watch the motes of debris settling on the cooling bodies of his slain foes, the dust draping over them like shrouds.

They found an enclosed spiral stairwell and Kenainath took the lead, the Striking Scorpions surging past the Dire Avengers to take advantage of the close confines. They were only a few strides up the steps when four small objects clattered from the wall above and bounced down the stairs.

Kenainath reacted first, throwing himself forward to get out of the grenades’ blasts, while the rest of the squad hastily retreated down the stairwell, using the central pillar as cover. Shrapnel and splinters of wall showered down the stairs, but the Striking Scorpions were left unharmed. The ring of las-bolts echoed from the walls and the squad leapt forwards to rejoin their exarch.

They found Kenainath with the remains of a dead human in the grip of his claw, the soldier’s left arm sheared clean off. A headless corpse lay crumpled on the stairs at Kenainath’s feet. A few las-impacts had left craters in the exarch’s armour, wisps of vapour drifted lazily around him.

Another las-volley shrieked down the stairs, sending the squad back a few paces. Korlandril joined Kenainath and the pair rounded the curve of the stairwell swiftly, shuriken pistols at the ready. A group of humans clustered on a landing above—Korlandril counted eight as he glanced around the turn before pulling back out of harm’s way.

“My wrath will go left, direct your fire to the right, and we will slay them,” ordered the exarch.

“As Khaine wills it,” replied Korlandril. He brought back the visual memory of the humans’ locations, fixing them in his mind as clearly as if he was standing in front of them. It was a moment’s thought to calculate the best sweep of fire to catch them in one burst.

“I am ready,” he told Kenainath.

The two of them sprang around the turn of the stairs, a blur of deadly discs hissing from their pistols. Korlandril’s burst struck two kneeling humans across their throats, killing them instantly. He continued to fire as he moved to his left, raising his aim to send a torrent of shots into the stomachs of those stood further back from the steps. They went down with ugly grunts, sprays of blood showing up as bright yellow in Korlandril’s thermal gaze.

Korlandril and Kenainath were stepping over the bodies, chainsword poised, before the last of the humans hit the ground.

The landing had two doorways, one to each side. With the tread of the others sounding close on the steps behind, Kenainath flicked his head to the left and signalled Korlandril to stay near at hand.

The open archway led to a series of small cell-like chambers sparsely furnished, with bare walls. Korlandril guessed them to be the quarters of menials; how like the humans to degrade their own kind in an attempt to prove superiority. The true demonstration of civilisation recognised all as individuals, equal and important. An eldar who chose to serve others did so as a means of developing their humility and sense of duty—something that as yet held no appeal for Korlandril.

He brushed aside the philosophic notion as a distraction and quickly scanned the doorways ahead, searching for any heat signature. He registered nothing. The subservient humans had most likely fled at the first sign of attack, perhaps hoping the guns of their masters would keep them safe. Their faith was misplaced. Any who had come into contact with the Chaos artefact were at risk of corruption, none could be left alive.

A more thorough search confirmed that this storey, complete with kitchens and storerooms, was devoid of foes. Sounds of fighting from above announced more squads advancing ahead of the Deadly Shadow and Star of Justice.

“We shall go higher, ascend to the very heights, catch our foes at bay,” announced Kenainath. Uriethial, exarch of the Star of Justice, was quick to agree. The two squads headed back to the stairwell and bypassed the next two storeys, where there was evidence of much heavier fighting. Human corpses littered the landing, but amongst them were broken eldar weapons, pieces of armour and the bright splashes of eldar blood.

Korlandril wondered absently whether he knew any of the fallen. Now was not the time to mourn.

Several more squads joined the attack on the upper level, converging from the third and fourth storeys. As Korlandril ascended the steps, he felt a growing sense of unease. Something tugged at the edge of his spirit and his waystone began to tingle upon his chest.

“Kill them cold and fast, take no joy in the slaying, She Who Thirsts looks on!” warned Kenainath as they reached the last turn of the stairs.

The upper storey was a single open chamber, lavishly panelled and furnished. Humans sniped from behind overturned couches and upended bookcases, tomes of simple human script lying ripped and scattered across the dark lacquered floor. Flares of blue energy criss-crossed the room, as Dire Avengers and Howling Banshees boiled up several stairways leading into the chamber.

One particular knot of humans hunkered down behind a large desk set on its side, scraps of paper, crude writing implements and scrawled ledgers piled on the floor where they had fallen. From here, something seeped across the room, touching upon Korlandril’s psyche. The thrum of las-fire resounded in his ears and the tight closeness of his armour was a lover’s embrace. The scent of the varnish and blood, the whickering of shuriken fire and cries of pain, all combined into a symphony for Korlandril’s senses.