Maledicti Venator Chapter4

IXth squad ran hard through the jungle, bounding leaps of power armoured legs hurling them forward at a relentless pace. Leaves and vines slapped across their plate as they ran, leaving long green trails of sap across blue plates, smearing their honoured colours, but this was no moment for vanity. In any other force, the words retreat and rout would have been appropriate but these were Space Marines and they fell back in good order covering each other in staggered waves.

The Codex Astartes had much to say on matters of meaningless heroics and useless vainglory. Roboute Guilliman had never believed in prideful last stands without purpose and had written that if a position presented no strategic or tactical advantage then it should be abandoned for better ones. So IXth squad scanned the jungle as they fell back, looking for any feature of terrain that would give them the smallest advantage, sadly there were none.

Behind them came the crashing roars and booming noises of the Defiler chasing after them, uprooting trees and crushing vegetation with every step. Small animals and birds ran before it, fleeing its Warp tainted stench as much as its noise and mass. IXth squad fell back in waves, keeping one step ahead of it but the terrain worked against them and the Defiler could simply crush and smash what they need to negotiate around.

They dodged around boulders and hacked through dense vegetation with their combat blades, keeping just ahead of the Daemon Engine but unable to lose it. Unable to get them in its massive claws the monstrosity bellowed its rage and rocked back on its claws, elevating its battlecanon ready to fire.

In that moment Toran snagged his foot on an ancient gnarled root, it was one of those moments of misfortune that could only occur in the insanity of combat and it caused him to stumble off balance. Seeing his distress Pylos diverted to help him, catching his young comrade under the arm before he fell. Pylos shoved Toran before him and thus was standing directly between the youth and the Defiler when it fired its battlecanon.

One second Pylos was running and the next there was a colossal explosion, the ground erupting in a fountain of dirt and fire as a shell hit right under his heels. Even shielded from the worst of the blast Toran was blown forwards, his autosenses unable to dampen the power of the explosion. He crashed head over heels into the ground and lay there dazed, the world blurring and spinning around his head. In seconds his enhanced physiology went to work restoring his equilibrium and the trees came back into sharp focus.

He sat up and found himself covered in pieces of armour and gore; desperately he grabbed at his legs and was relieved to find them still attached to his body as were his arms and shoulders. It took a long second for the truth to penetrate but slowly he understood that if these pieces of armour weren't his then they must be someone else's. He picked out a shard from his side and then he realised the sickening truth: Pylos was just gone.

There was the pounding of armoured feet approaching and Mylos leapt towards him shouting, "What happened?! Where is Pylos!". Desperately he cast his gaze around trying to hold back the awful moment of realisation, then he saw the pieces of bloody ceramite laying everywhere and something snapped within him. "He can't be dead!" the bereft twin shouted, "He just can't be!" For a mortal man the grief and denial would have frozen him into immobility but Mylos was a Space Marine and his psyche had been resculpted and honed to guarantee only one reaction: fury.

Mylos hurled himself at the closest target which was Toran, armoured gauntlets grabbing at pauldrons, shaking hard as he yelled, "This is your fault he was only there because of your clumsiness!. Toran was shocked by this loss of control but knew they had no time to waste on such matters, the Defiler was almost upon them. He drew back his fist and hit Mylos hard in the faceplate, rocking him back, they stood there for an instant then Toran yelled "Get back into formation Marine! Move, move move!"

Decades of ingrained training and hypno-indoctrination kicked in and without conscious thought Mylos began running. His movements had none of their former grace or power, more resembling a novice on an assault course, but at least he was moving. Toran ran in front of him, crushing a path through the vegetation for his comrade, trying to keep up with the rest of the squad.

Suddenly he felt the ground giving way beneath his feet and pulled up sharply before he fell, he looked down and saw a narrow plant filled gorge dropping away before him. Beneath his boots was a steep crumbling slope of loose gravel, far too unstable for a Rhino APC or a bike… or a Defiler.

"To me!" Toran shouted loudly, "This way, down here!" IXth squad redirection instantly, charging past Toran one by one to drop into the gorge, skidding and sliding down its perilous slopes as they kicked loose stones and soil. Toran was the last to go, watching Mylos tumble and roll down the slope in a cloud of dislodged shale, then he too dropped over the edge. His last sight was the trees being uprooted as the Defiler chased after them but then he fell into the valley and lost sight of it.

At the bottom the squad gathered themselves together and took stock, they could hear the Daemon Engine above them roaring in frustration at their escape. Yet it could not descend the crumbling scree or depress its canons enough to target the bottom. It was left impotently behind as its prey escaped. Eventually the sounds faded as it turned and stamped away in vexation.

The squad gathered together, brushing off dirt and gravel from their plate and taking stock of their situation, Furion was the first to speak asking, "Can we raise Captain Phalros or Ninth Company?"

Persion shook his head and stated, "Vox signals are being blocked, perhaps by the environment perhaps by Daemonic interference."

Hevostan said, "We are lost, cut off from the Chapter and practically unarmed… What now?"

"We can't just wait here for it to find a way into the gorge," said Toran, "We have to move."

"You are not in command runt!" growled Mylos, "Pylos is dead because of you."

Toran turned to face him saying "I never asked him to intervene."

Mylos ripped off his helm revealing a face torn between grief, sorrow and rage as he snarled, "I will not dishonour by twin by fighting alongside the cur who got him killed!"

Furion stepped between them hold his hands up in an attempt to diffuse the situation as he calmly said, "Pylos accepted he would die in battle when he joined the Chapter, we all did. If it were anyone other than your twin who died you would know this to be true. You have seen friends and comrades die before, as have I, this is not how Space Marines revere their dead."

"Do not talk to me of acceptance and reverence" growled Mylos, "Pylos deserved better than that, we swore we would die together in glory not be swatted like bugs!"

"We do not have time to argue!" exclaimed Furion, "Your brother died in service to the Emperor, his name will be entered in the scrolls of honour, it is you who dishonour his memory with this outburst."

Hevostan stepped in and said, "There is only one way out of this gorge and the enemy probably knows it, if we don't move now it will cut us off and delete us with ease."

Everybody looked at each other knowing this argument was far from over then Persion put one boot in front of the other and took point. Mylos followed him but as he pushed past Toran he whispered, "This isn't over runt".

The others followed on, Toran falling into the rearguard, wondering how everything had gone so wrong.