Speculum Enigmate Chapter 36
An Intercessor lay face down in the water, blood oozing from the ragged hole in his chest where his hearts had been. His death had been swift and unexpected, and it looked like he would not be the only one to die this day. Around the corpse fighting raged, filling the underground viaduct with the bedlam of battle. Knives cut Chitin as claws smote Ceramite, bolt rounds flashed as shotguns roared. Hellgun fire peppered alien faces as rending claws spilled blood freely. All was madness and carnage and death, indiscriminate and uncaring. Righteous zeal and Xeno ferocity were evenly matched and none could say which would win the day.
In the tight press of filthy flesh and chitin, Manaar hacked and slashed with his phase-blades. The Warp Spider was surrounded by foes on all sides, pouring into the viaduct from numerous dark tunnels lining the route. Manaar has no time to wonder how the Genestealers had found the Imperial party, nor how many of them were closing, all he could do was fight against the rising tide of foes. Each second brought another threat and with every moment the danger multiplied exponentially.
A Hybrid came at Manaar with a whirring pneumatic drill and tried to rip his guts out. Manaar saw the spinning bit coming but he did not retreat, he took a single step and leapt over the point, somersaulting over the Hybrid's dumbfounded head. His phase-blade flickered and the foe's scalp fell off, perfectly bisecting its brain as it collapsed. He landed in a low crouch only to be confronted by a rushing mob of enemies. They came at him in a pack, trying to overwhelm him with sheer numbers. A moment of hesitation would have cost Manaar his life but he knew he would not die at this scum's hands. Fluidly his Deathspinners rose and fired, disgorging packets of mono-molecular threads. A cloud of razor-sharp filaments washed through the mob and they fell in showers of gore, reduced to piles of stinking offal.
He rose and spied the white-clad Apothecary. He was firing a flamer into one of the tunnels, filling it with burning Promethium. He was blocking an entry point, but only one and more enemies were emerging from the others with every second. Manaar watched as a Purestrain tried to sneak up on him but an Intercessor leapt to intervene. His knife struck for the creature's heart but its claws flashed for his neck in return and the pair went down, grappling to the death. The Apothecary spun on his heel and bathed the Purestrain in flames but it was too late, his kinsman was dead already.
Further along the viaduct Eirk was blasting more foes with his Hellgun as he yelled, "There's too many of them!"
Inquisitor Vevara racked a Hybrid with a purple beam from her pistol as she barked, "Keep fighting, we have to break through!"
Mortula swept the head off a burly Hybrid as she barked, "Where the hell are they all coming from?"
Manaar leapt into the fray, his phase-blades tearing and gouging. He tore out eyes and opened arteries with perfect blows, his every motion a display of perfect grace. A heavy pick was swung at his back but he dropped low and it passed over his head, then he rose and opened the wielder from groin to larynx. A bayonet stabbed for his heart but he spun and grabbed the rifle behind the lug, pulling the Hybrid into another, gutting its comrade instead of the Eldar. A pistol was shoved into his face but he backflipped, bringing his boot up to catch the Hybrid under the chin and snap its head back so violently the neck broke. Manaar's display of lethal artistry was a ballet of death, his killing beautiful to behold.
He moved through the throng and found himself next to Sergeant Yones. The towering Primaris was firing his bolt rifle into the crowd as he yelled, "Hold the line, we must break them!"
Manaar fired his Deathspinners into the mass as he cried, "They will not break, it is not in their nature."
Yones smashed a Hybrid down with a roundhouse blow and resumed firing as he snarled, "Neither is it mine. By the Omnissiah if we must slay every last one of them we will!"
Manaar killed relentlessly, scything down an ever-increasing number of enemies. The Imperials were being overwhelmed, no matter how many they put down they could not kill them all. Then Manaar saw an Intercessor, one carrying the heavy sack of demolition charges, get stabbed in the back. Manaar expected him to fall to his knees but the Marine screamed in a mad frenzy, throwing himself into the packed mass of foes in a berserk charge. He put his head down and rammed himself into the crowded enemies, bowling them over with his massive bulk. He disappeared into the scrum, drowning in enemies but his last act had knocked the enemy back a pace, leaving them reeling.
"This is our chance," Yones declaimed, "Give them everything you've got!" He let rip with his bolt rifle, blasting enemies with relentless fury. The rest of them joined him, energy, las, bolts and flames decimating everything in sight.
Manaar added his wroth, blowing Hybrids into chunks with a succession of quick shots as he declared, "Khaine's fury take them!"
The Apothecary advanced step by step, swathing the enemy in flames as he bellowed, "No mercy!"
Vevara racked a Purestrain with ravening energy as she shouted, "For the Golden Throne!"
The Hybrids reeled before the onslaught, falling in droves before the Imperial's fury. Righteous fury set against alien aggression. The battle hung on a knife's edge and Manaar knew the slightest thing could turn it either way. For a moment it looked as if the tide might turn but then there was an almighty roar, the sound of a hundred throats crying out in feral rage and a second wave of Genestealers came racing down the length of the viaduct. They came in a wave of scaled flesh and black eyes, charging with angry roars and spittle flying from their lips. Burly Hybrids ran in coarse leathers, clutching mining picks and pneumatic drills in their filthy hands while Purestrains raced along like mastiffs, using all six limbs to bound ahead of their lesser kin.
Manaar looked upon the enemy and knew this was an attack they could not withstand, not with their diminished band and to confront this wave was to die. It seemed the Mon-Keigh shared his revelation, for Yones yelled, "Fallback! Everybody fallback!" He matched deeds to words, diving towards one of the few tunnels that enemies weren't blocking as he fired his bolt rifle into the oncoming wave. Manaar instantly saw the Sergeant was cut off from the rest of the retinue by the mass of enemies, as was the Aspect Warrior. Immediately the Warp Spider threw himself after the Sergeant, vaulting over his head in a graceful leap to land in the tunnel beyond. He spun about and saw the Inquisitorial retinue falling back into another tunnel, accompanied by one lone surviving Intercessor. They were walking backwards, firing into a wall of flesh and chitin that chased them. There would be no help coming from that direction.
One soul had not retreated, the white-clad Apothecary. He was holding the line, bathing the foe in gouts of burning Promethium as he roared his fury. Manaar saw he could have turned and run with his kin, but had elected not to, standing his ground to delay the enemy for a few precious seconds. He refused to retreat, even in the face of utter defeat, selling his life to buy time for his comrades to escape.
"Memnos!" Yones bellowed as he unhooked a melta bomb from his hip.
"Go you fools!" Memnos shouted as he swept his flamer across the oncoming enemy, "Go now!"
Manaar sensed Yones' reluctance to leave but he threw the melta bomb anyway and the flat disc slapped to the tunnel roof and began to beep. Immediately the pair of them turned to run, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the imminent collapse. Scores of Genestealers chased them, seeking to prevent their escape. Four, five, six steps they took then the charge detonated with a dull crump, melting the roof with sub-fusion fire. Ferrocrete glowed and ran like wax, then it fell in a shower of red-hot rock. Thunder rumbled and a cloud of dust enveloped Manaar, blinding him utterly. He ran through the dark, hearing rocks slam down behind him, burying the enemy in tons of debris.
Through the cloying fog he ran, then suddenly burst out into clear air. Finding Yones standing with his bolt rifle pointed back the way they had come. The thin beam of the stablight on the rifle illuminated gritty particles hanging in the air, showing how thick the debris had been. Manaar spun about and presented his Deathspinners but all he found was a pile of rubble blocking the tunnel. Nothing could come through that, but equally they could not return that way either.
Yones lowered his rifle and snarled, "Grit in the Cog, we won't be going back that way."
Manaar cocked his head and asked, "We retreat?"
Yones shook his head and said, "No, we still have a mission to complete."
"Yes," Manaar agreed, "We must continue."
Yones turned to face the darkness of the tunnel and began to march away. Manaar followed him, feeling the ground start to drop beneath his feet as they walked. The Space Marine set a furious pace but the Aspect Warrior easily kept up, feeling water splashing under his feet as they moved. The smell grew more rancid as they descended, filled with manure and animal scents, making his nose wrinkle. The Space Marine didn't notice, or chose not to admit his discomfort, as he walked proudly onwards.
Manaar glanced up at him and commented, "Your comrades are dead."
Yones sighed, "I barely knew them, they had only just been taken from their stasis tubes. By the Red Sands I swear they shall be avenged, I owe them that at least."
Manaar cared not for his bluster so questioned, "The others, will they find us?"
"Doubtful," Yones admitted, "It's just you and me. Unbelievable: a Space Marine and an Eldar working together. On Mars they'd have converted us into servitors for merely suggesting such a thing."
"Yes," Manaar agreed, "We are on our own."
Their conversation was brought to a halt as the tunnel abruptly ended. They emerged into a vast underground space, echoing with the volume of the interior. It was hundreds of metres long and almost as wide, with a roof one would have to crane backwards to see. Lit by the single beam of Yones' stablight the interior was revealed to be filled with pillars, each thrice as wide as an Eldar was tall and they soared up to the roof, bearing its immense weight. The floor was covered knee-deep by fetid water, and the walls dripped with moisture. There was something else, a sense of watchful threat lurking in the darkness, the hungry gleam of a predator.
"What is this?" Manaar asked.
"A storm-drain chamber," Yones explained, "To catch excess floodwater."
"We're not alone," Manaar sniffed, "Animals watch us."
Yones took a step forward and stated, "Crotalids, we were warned they were down here. We have to be careful, they can be dangerous…"
He didn't get to finish speaking for suddenly and without warning Manaar brought up his Deathspinners and fired them at the Primaris' back. Mono-molecular packets of thread disgorged from the weapons, unspooling in the air to form clouds of razor-sharp filaments. Were he only human Yones would have died instantly, but he was not, he was Transhuman and from the corner of his eye he saw the movement and threw himself aside with impossible speed. The clouds merely clipped Yones' flank, tearing through Ceramite to leave a bleeding but non-lethal wound.
The Intercessor roared in outrage and swung his fist about, trying to smash Manaar's head in but the Warp Spider had already displaced. He leapt vertically, making the water splash high as he flew to a pillar and clung to its surface. A click of a bolt rifle heralded a shot at his back but Manaar had already hurled himself away, flying to the next pillar as the round blew a crater into the column he had just been perched on. He wasted not a second to scuttle round the column, using its bulk for cover as he vanished into the dark.
Yones was left bleeding in the water, jerking his rifle back and forth as he cried, "What are you doing?! We are allies!"
From the darkness Manaar's voice echoed, "You were never my ally. You are the prey I came to this world to kill."
