Extremus Fors Chapter 35
Jubila pushed himself to the limit, striving with every fibre of his being to find a way to break through. He had Rebre in his sights at long last, the distant mote that was the bitch nearly at the foot of the Forgefane. Jubila could reach her at last, finally ending this miserable phase of his existence and reclaiming his glory. Sadly to do that he had to first hack his way through two armies.
From the edge of the cavern to the foot of the Forgefane roaring Technobarbarians lurked. They were many and well-armed, their implants crude but effective. Into their rear drove the Beastmen, charging with all their savage fury. Surprise was on their side and position, but the enemy was no feeble rabble. They were strong and dedicated as only a fanatic could be, the marks of Chaos upon their flesh obvious to one who knew the signs. It seemed Rebre had been busy.
Bellowing cybermantic warriors met mutated bersekers in a clash of flesh and steel that no man could predict. Claws ripped into muscle, steel fists drove through skulls, horned head slammed into chest while knives and guns made merry ruin of flesh. The weak and the feeble fell first, unable to match the ferocity of the melee, but that left the strong to be dealt with. Here a pierced warrior cleared room with a two-handed Warhammer, only to be bowled over by a trio of slathering Beastmen as soon as his guard opened. There a mutant with tentacles for mouths swallowed the head of a suffocating warrior maiden, only to be gunned down a second later. The conflict was all-consuming and carnage was everywhere.
Jubila sprinted through the melee, his steps as light and swift as ever. He spun around grappling warriors, side-stepped shots and ducked a slashing halberd. All the while his sword danced, opening veins and piercing hearts. His vision was keen, finding every weak point and his arm sure. Throats were slashed, limbs removed from bodies and scalps neatly bisected. He ran through the battle, barely noticing his kills. In truth this was automatic for him, lacking his customary artistry. He typically would have revelled in the killing, but not today. This scrum was slowing him down, when speed was more desperately needed than ever.
"Get out of the way!" Jubila snarled, "I have places to be!"
Varador was trailing in his wake and snarled, "I don't think they hear you."
"Hear me or not, just die faster!"
His advance was cut short as a looming giant rose in his path. This one was swollen with glanded-muscle and his legs were stilts made of pistons. He carried a wide-bored cannon over his shoulder, rimmed with ice and his back was heavy with chemical decelerants. Jubila saw the gun coming about and weaved aside, ducking behind a grappling pair of warriors. A moment later the cryo-cannon discharged, blasting both of them into frozen statues. Jubila felt the unearthly chill lick his face, so cold that ice formed in his eyelashes and his lips chapped in an instant. Runnels of frozen air streamed back from the entombed warriors, forming razor sharp spears of horizontal ice that reached for Jubila. One of them grew to within an inch of his eye and would surely have plucked it from the socket, had he been but a step closer.
"Varador," Jubila called, "Make yourself useful for once!"
"About time," Varador muttered as he hefted his gauntlets and let slip his wroth.
The Technobarbarian was doused in flames, his skin set alight head to foot. He threw back his head and roared in exultation, as the sensations elevated him to heights of experience beyond imagining. Flesh charred, eyes popped in his skull and his tongue withered as he spread his arms wide to embrace the infinite. A true zealot of Slaanesh if Jubila had ever seen one. Then the chemical tanks on his back cooked off. Infinite chill met blazing inferno, the frozen stillness of the void touching a sea of flame. Ice and fire at war and the only possible result was an explosion of clashing forces.
Jubila was lifted from his feet and thrown back, clearing ten metres in a moment. His ears rang with thunder and his lungs choked as air was sucked out of them by overpressure. He flew far and hit the churned dirt with his backpack, cracking his spine most painfully, and not in the good way. But a Space Marine was not so easily incapacitated.
Instantly he flipped over, coming to his feet to see the aftermath. Where the warrior had stood was a scorched crater, fuming with steam. For twenty metres in all directions people lay, mutant and savage bowled over by the shockwave. Hairy bodies lay alongside metal-imbued corpses, made equal in death. Jubila had just lost a hundred of his minions, but he cared nothing for their suffering, not when another force was advancing.
From the far side of the wasteland came a trio of figures with Daemonic aspects. Withered Ceramite, skeletal heads and flaming haloes did they bear. Jubila had never seen an Undying before but he recognised the Unholy when he saw it. The nightmarish Daemon-machines of the Dark Mechanicum were known to him and in these abominations he saw a similar hand. Whatever these things were they were powerful and dangerous, even to him.
Jubila sprang to his feet, sabre held in a guard position as he growled, "What god do you serve?"
A broiling hiss was his only answer as the things stumbled nearer, their gait slow yet inevitable.
"Name your master," Jubila barked, "Which pantheon of the warp owns your allegiance?!"
No answer was forthcoming yet Varador breathed, "Such power, such majesty."
"Varador," Jubila warned, "Get back."
"They bathe in fire, they are flame incarnate. Wondrous, magnificent. I must know how this is accomplished."
"You really don't want to know," Jubila hissed.
But Varador stepped forward, arms outraised to cry, "Brothers, I welcome you. Take me into your embrace, teach me your secrets! I will swear devotions eternal, if you make me as you are!"
The Undying didn't answer, merely lurching into his reach. One of them with elongated arms reached out to wrap Varador in a bear hug, gripping him tight. The renegade cried out in delight, then dismay, then his voice became a shriek of torment and horror. Unholy flames poured out of the Undying, bathing the Salamander head to toe. Armour proved no obstacle to the ethereal flames, penetrating his plate with no resistance. Varador bathed in a lake of flame, his body immolating as the Undying opened its arms to drop him. What hit the ground was no Space Marine, merely a pile of slagged Ceramite and blackened bones that tumbled out of his neck seal amid a river of ashes. Varador's obsessions proved his undoing, his love for fire scorching him to ashes. Brought low by the very forces he sought to embrace.
"So much for that cretin," Jubila muttered as the Undying turned their heads to him. Another of them with a barbed harpoon for a weapon came at him, thrusting for his hearts. The blow was slow to his eye, yet driven by those dread hands would surely had run him through. Jubila elected not to wait. He leapt upwards, letting the thrust pass under his body. He spun in the air and his boot lashed out, landing a kick squarely to the side of the head that would have imploded a man's skull. The Undying barely felt it, merely rocking slightly to the side, but Jubila wasn't' finished. His sabre flashed as he flew by, shearing the top of the skull off, neatly bisecting its head.
Jubila landed lightly and spun about, only to see the Undying lumbering about. Its skull had been opened to the air and yet it did not fall. Flames rose from inside its head, revealing no brain lurked within. There was nothing of mortal man about this thing, an intelligence born of profane ritual and forbidden science instead of the womb. Only flames unholy did it possess, driven by raw energy in place of muscle and neuron.
Jubila hastily backed up as the trio turned to face him and called, "Moragann! Where in the nine hundred and ninety-nine hells are you?!"
"Here!" a voice called from amid the raging battle.
"What are these things?!"
"No man, not machine, not even Daemonkind. They are something unseen in the realms of man."
"That no use at all," Jubila snarled as they charged him.
Jubila was beset on all sides. From the left came the harpoon, from the right swung a longsword and from the front the gangly creature tried to embrace him. Jubila was forced to contort to avoid all three attacks, twisting his frame in ways no Astartes ever should. He spun away from a lethal tip, wove around a razor edge and ducked a sweeping grab. His sword smeared light as he counter-attacked but he was having little effect. A thousand slices he cut into their withered armour, twice as many lashes did he make to their flaming joints and yet none of it was having any effect. His sword was lethally sharp, but light and thin, lacking the penetrating force of a broadsword. If he could not break the devices that sustained them then he could not end them, and he grew keenly aware he was poorly equipped for this fight.
He jumped left from a thrust, only to reverse direction as the sword nearly took out his leg. A momentary stumble, the tiniest imperfection but enough for a hand to shoot from nowhere and lock around his throat. "Gragh!" Jubila spat as a vice wrapped around his windpipe, holding him utterly still. His sword licked up, describing a line over a breastplate but making no difference. He looked into flaming eye sockets and saw doom coming, as the Undying opened its mouth and drank of his soul.
Jubila's hearts screamed as energy was torn from his frame, streaming through his veins as it was leeched away. His most vital essence was being tapped, sucked away to feed the hunger of the Undying. It was torment indescribable, his mind and spirit being ripped from his bones as it streamed into the foe and to its comrades. His soul was violated, drained like a las capacitor, emptying him of all that made him Jubila. Raw agony filled every cell of his body and his organs began shutting down yet Jubila's lips moved to whisper, "Mistakeā¦"
The Undying was drinking of Jubila's soul, his black and tainted essence. Steeped in the corruption of the warp, saturated in deeds so foul they wrought infernal marks on his spirit. Jubila bathed in the noxious mire of Chaos and his essence was bound to forces yet greater. Gods and Daemon-Primarchs had marked him as their own, sharing droplets of their power, the most raw and unspeakable filth of the Warp, now being drunk by the foe.
The Undying shuddered as its grip faltered, letting Jubila go. Hands flew to its neck, as a man choking on a bone and it shuddered in distress. The flames haloing its head went from red to scarlet to vermillion to black, as did its comrades'. All three of them convulsed as the tainted essence of Chaos filled them, energies as incompatible to their eldritch mechanisms as aircraft fuel would be to a ground-cab. They couldn't process this, they couldn't handle the filth of Chaos inside their bones and as one all three threw back their heads and spewed black flames into the air, before toppling over, cold and lifeless.
Jubila sniffed as he rubbed his neck and muttered, "Bit off more than you could chew there."
Moragann stumbled into the clear space and cried, "I felt them draining your soul! How did you survive that?!"
"This tickles, pah, I've had worse. Try having Daemonettes suck you off and you'll know how true defilement feels."
Moragann looked out of the crater, seeing the battle yet rage and said, "We still have a raging fight to get to and Varador is dead."
"Forget him," Jubila retorted, "I would only have to kill him when we reach the prize anyway."
"Then how do you suggest we get over there?"
"Simple," Jubila replied as he hefted his sword, "I propose we kill every last thing that gets in our way!"
