Tale of Apophis
Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 128
Death came from the skies, falling upon the singing city with merciless intent. Among the glass spires smoke and flames spread, charring the beautiful panes with filthy soot. Bestial cries echoed in resonance chambers, built to create the most harmonious melodies they now rang with wet snarls of rage and anger. The crystal walkways were piled high with dead and the lamentation of the living, drowned out by the harsh banging of primitive firearms. Death owned the city and the inhabitants could not understand how their end had come so suddenly.
Dashing along the streets Kikiri tried to go unnoticed. She clung to the base of the walls, skirting round the glass spires as she sought to escape the carnage. She had no real idea where she was going, there was no safe harbour to be found but that didn't matter. All that mattered was that she was heading away, fleeing the killers who came from the skies. 'From' was all important, 'to' was irrelevant.
Kikiri was short for a Choga, her four nimble legs thin and bowed. She ran with a galloping gait, hurrying as fast as she was able with her thorax low to the ground. Like all Choga her abdomen rose at the front, covered in flexible scales. She had four arms, two broad claws for shovelling and two smaller arms for dexterous crafting. Her head was a bulbous ball set atop her body, with large eyes adapted for underground digging and her mandibles clattered ceaselessly in fear. She knew she shouldn't be here, she was a digger and a miner, born to bring minerals into the Choga Conglomeration, not walk under the harsh light of the sun.
Kikiri scurried down a narrow side-street and fretted as she saw piles of bodies stacked along its length. Her mandibles clattered in terror but greater was her fear of what lay behind so she hurried over the top, her sharpened legs sinking into dead flesh with a disgusting slurp. The unity of her kind made her want to stop and look for the living but she had no time for mercy, her only thought being to live another minute. Instinct cried out to her that this was wrong but she continued, set upon escaping the horror, only to find herself running straight into it.
At the far end of the alley shadows moved, strange silhouettes that bore no resemblance to Choga lines, cast by the flickering fires beyond. Instantly Kikiri stooped low, spreading her legs to press her body into the dead. Revulsion filled her but she saw the shadows growing and pushed it down as she speared a corpse with her shovels and pulled it on top of her. Buried among dead kin she peered out and tried not to breathe as the invaders came nearer.
What she saw puzzled her, a bunch of upright beings walking on two legs. They were taller than she and bound by corded muscles with thick skin covered in scars and hair. Their bodies were sheathed in some form of protective shells, with random bits hanging off them. Beady eyes were set in flabby faces and rows of deadly teeth were evident in flat faces. They were strange and alien beings but what consumed her attention was the weapons in their hands, unmistakeably they were weapons, notched knives and wide-bored firearms that looked like they could blow her away with one shot.
Kikiri lurked under the pile of bodies as the aliens paused and spoke to each other. To Choga ears their speech was a mess of wet, guttural snarls and mushy barking, quite unlike the precise clicking of her race. To hear it was to think of savagery and feral rage, a bestial instinct buried under a veneer of intelligence. She hated it but could do nothing about it, save hide and hope they didn't spot her.
Finally the biggest beast barked something and the others mewled something in return. The biggest one turned and bawled some filthy tirade at the group, which seemed to cow them and they stomped off, surely looking for more prey. Kikiri didn't dare move though, she stayed where she was for long minutes, wary of deception. The fires grew and the smoke became acrid and still she didn't dare move, too scared to dare anything.
Suddenly there was a groan behind her and Kikiri nearly leapt out of her hide as the pile of dead shifted. She scurried to her feet and spun about, only to find another Choga stirring. This one was thinner than she, with nubile claws and elongated fingers on the lesser arms. The mandibles dripped resin, the base material of the Conglomeration's building, which mixed with sand to make their glass structures. This was a glass-spinner, a builder and constructor but she looked wounded and weak.
"Please help," came the cry in the clicking tongue of the Choga.
Kikiri almost left her for dead but the impulse of her race drove her to stoop down and say, "Who are you?"
"Liliri," came the response, "Help me."
Kikiri stooped and helped the spinner upright, noting the painful way her left claw was truncated halfway along. The spinner staggered on her legs, woozy from blood loss and unfocused. Kikiri cursed every second of delay as this Liliri gathered her senses and pulled her broken limb in tight. She swayed for a moment then turned to the pile and called, "Sisiri?!"
Kikiri instantly saw it was pointless, there was nobody else left alive and pulled at the spinner urging, "Come away."
"But Sisiri," she protested, "My bond-partner, I need her."
"You stay you die," Kikiri snapped, "I'm going, come with me or stay here alone."
Liliri submitted to the command and together the Choga turned and crept to the end of the alley. Kikiri was wary of ambushes but the aliens had moved on, leaving ruin in their wake. The miner swept the boulevard and saw the way was clear but the damage to the city was immense. The dead lay everywhere, torn and blasted by immense wounds and the glass spires were riddled with cracks. She hastily set off, following the older destruction in hopes of avoiding contact.
Behind her Liliri lamented, "Look at our city, the last haven of the Choga lies in ruins."
"It can be rebuilt," Kikiri chided, "So long as the Queen lives we can birth new generations, new builders and, singers and miners. Trust in the warrior-drones, they won't let anything happen to her."
Liliri wasn't reassured and wondered, "Who would do such a thing? We are peaceful, we never harmed anyone."
Kikiri hesitantly mused, "It could be… the Orks."
"No!" Liliri gasped, "Not them, are you sure. Did you see them?"
"I saw something," Kikiri answered, "But I don't know what an Ork looks like. Still the singer-tellers speak of bestial animals, filled with rage and violence. It seems likely. Truthfully we builders never paid much attention to old tales, what do the spinners say of them?"
Liliri shuddered, "Only that it's been centuries since they invaded. They laid waste to our world, destroyed every city save this one. We never recovered from their invasion… if they have come back it's over for us."
"Then let us trust that I'm wrong and the queen can drive off these interlopers."
As they walked on Liliri wondered, "Do you think the queen will call to the humans for aid?"
"Them?!" Kikiri spat, "They wouldn't help us, they hate us. The humans infested our world in the wake of the Ork invasion and stole our lands. They would cheer if the Orks wiped us out."
"Don't be hateful," Liliri corrected, "They don't like to mix true, but they trade for our glassware. My kind's creations bring in great riches for the Conglomeration. The Diplomat-envoys say they are stubborn but practical, they can be reasoned with. The Orks would be as dangerous to them as we, surely they would see sense and ally with us."
"Have you ever seen a human?" Kikiri asked.
"Well... no," Liliri confessed.
"Then trust not in their good nature," Kikiri admonished, "The Builder-miners tell a different tale, of tunnels collapsed and buildings torn down. The humans have set a line around the singing city and won't tolerate us to step outside. We are prisoners in our own city."
Suddenly the pair were brought up short as they heard the distinctive whine of a shrill-gun, the sonic weapon of the warrior-drones. Without saying a word the pair leapt into a gallop, hastening towards the sound. Hope surged in Kikiri's mind, a warrior-drone was born for battle, tough, resolute and deadly in every respect. If they were fighting back then there was yet hope. If the pair could reach them then they could shelter under their reinforced hides and trust in the shrill-guns to drive back the invaders. That hope was cruelly dashed.
They bounded around a corner and found a larva hatchery under assault. The glass front of the building was blown out, spilling bleeding larva and shattered eggs to the ground. It was a harrowing sight but worse was the half-dozen warrior-drones cooling in the rubble, their hides going grey in death. One warrior-drone yet fought on, his elongated claws lashing out in vicious sweeps while his lesser arms bore a shrill-gun. He was fighting tooth and nail but bleeding profusely, yellow blood cascading down his legs as the foe closed in.
That foe was like nothing Kikiri had ever seen before. They were bigger and broader than the ones she had witnessed earlier, covered in a thickened orange shell that encompassed every inch of them. They bore vicious gouges in those shells but seemed not weakened by their wounds, fighting on regardless. In their hands were long weapons with spinning blades that sprayed yellow blood everywhere. Even as Kikiri watched they closed in and hacked at the Warrior-drone, tearing him apart limb from limb.
"They're not Orks," Kikiri gasped.
"But then what are they?!" Liliri whined.
"I don't know!" Kikiri spat, "It doesn't matter we have got to go!"
She turned to flee but too late for they found a trio of invaders approaching from behind. These ones were covered in elaborate markings, with prideful icons stamped on their shells and the yellow blood of the Choga staining their limbs. Two bore crackling staves, sheathed in red energy but the leader carried a curved sweep of metal in one hand and it stalked closer with murderous intent.
"Please no!" Liliri cried in desperation. Yet the leader mewled something to the others and they stepped back as it stomped closer and raised its weapon. Kikiri couldn't close her eyes as the beast struck, cleaving the glass-spinner into two even halves that fell to the ground and oozed yellow blood. The beast didn't pause as it turned on her and the builder-miner knew it was pointless to resist, the end had come and there was no way to fight it. Kikiri sank low in defeat and whispered in her clicking tongue, "But why… we were peaceful. We meant no harm to anybody."
The question would never be answered, for a moment later a sweeping blade struck the head from her body and ended her life. The Choga collapsed into a heap as the killer turned to take in his handiwork. The conquest was proceeding apace, the city was falling and resistance was thinning. With bolt and blade and fire the invasion was breaking all before it, destroying and exterminating with merciless zeal. It was a fine display of Imperial might and Chapter Master Coluber was well pleased with his Brother's righteous slaughter. Truly the Amber Vipers were doing the Emperor's work this day, protecting the noble purity of mankind from the filthy denigrations of the alien.
Filled with pride Coluber opened his vox and cried in the tongue of men, "Drive on Brothers, take the fight to the heart of this infestation and purge it with cleansing fire! I have marked this filthy race for Xenocide and I want this entire species driven into extinction before the sun sets. No prisoners, no mercy. Ave Imperator!"