AN : hello everyone. Here is another chapter. It really took forever to write, and as a consequence, I am not really satisfied with how it came out. It's something I need to avoid in the future, dragging things off like that to the point where I lose the initial momentum.
This chapter continues where the previous one ended, with the siege of Talexorn coming to an end. However, I have also chosen to use it to prepare for the events to come, by mixing scenes in the zombie-infected hive with others happening aboard the Hand of Ruin. Unlike in other chapters of this fic, the scenes aboard the Forsaken Sons' flagship are not following each other. Instead, each adresses a specific issue and prepares the ground for the next chapters. Sorry if they lack in action as a result, but I did my best so that the scenes in Talexorn balance that. Please give me pointers in your reviews about what could be enhanced.
As usual, I would like to thank all those of you who took the time to review the previous chapter. Please review this chapter as well.
Concerning what will be coming next, I do not yet now. I have several suggestions for short stories that interest me, and the next chapter of the Roboutian Heresy is already being written (currently at the stage of gathering all the ideas I can before actually writing them out). Or perhaps I will get started on the next chapter, where the servants of Slaanesh will finally get their turn to show just what they are capable of. I finally reached my summer vacation, so I should be able to spend more time on writing. Emphasis on should.
That's all for now. Let us return to the desperate situation of Talexorn. Enjoy !
I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.
When the first reports arrived that the storms that plagued the continent had shown signs of diminishing, more than a month had passed since the horde of the dead had broken into the so-called safe zone. Of the hundred Sons of Calth who had held their ground against the Zombies, only half that number remained, the rest lost slowly, one by one, to the endless pressure of the undead. Of the Astartes who had fallen, few had had their gene-seed recovered, as the Sons of Calth couldn't afford to launch counter-attacks into the Zombies' ranks to reclaim their bodies. The human survivors had fared even worse, with less than one in ten of the thousands of original survivors lost in the nightmare that had been the breach of the lines.
After the rotting army of the Plague God had broken their defenses, led by the corrupt Marines and their strange, equally tainted tech-priest, madness had descended onto the last untouched district of Talexorn. Captain Erasmos had done his best to marshal the defenders, leading as many of them as he could to one of the fall-back positions he had prepared, but the rest of them had been quickly surrounded and torn to pieces by the horde – those who were lucky, at least. Those who hadn't been were now part of the undead legions surrounding the loyalists' last fortress in Talexorn – where they would make their last stand against the forces of Ruin. The retreat had been a messy affair, and they had lost many good soldiers as they climbed up to the refuge.
The place where the few hundred survivors had barricaded themselves was a cathedral dedicated to the worship of the God-Emperor. It was built amongst the highest spires of the city, with only one path leading into it and its back at the top of a cliff several kilometers high. It had surprised Erasmos to learn that there was such a building in the hive-city – churches for the newly founded Ecclesiarchy were only beginning to be approved of in the rest of the Imperium when the Sons of Calth had been trapped by the Warp Storm. But this had been a memorial before the Heresy – not a temple, but a place of remembrance for all those who had suffered under the cruel rule of Parecxis' xenos masters before the Great Crusade had liberated them.
Back then, the building had been filled with depictions of the war against the inhuman monsters, and it had taken little work for it to be turned into the greatest house of faith in the hive-city. A few altars and icons of Him on Earth, images of the nine loyal Primarchs and demonized visions of the traitors, and the cathedral had been ready to serve. Each day, thousands of people had walked the long march up the spire in order to pray – the closest automated transportation still left the pilgrims several kilometers away and six hundred meters below the building. The importance of the Cathedral had grown, and in time a giant statue of the Emperor had been built in the center of the building, each block of stone dragged all the way up with nothing but mortal effort.
Now, the armies of the dead were gathering at the base of the spire, but they couldn't bring it down without collapsing the entire city – and they lacked both the intelligence and the means to do it. With the elevators and other transports disabled, the horde had to climb the kilometers that separated the cathedral from the hive's ground. Vast swathes of rubble and collapsed towers enabled even the clumsy zombies to do so, but for each one that reached the cathedral's level, three more fell on the way and turned into pulp or crushed another two of their kind massed below them. Even once they reached the cathedral, Erasmos had collapsed the only access – a bridge between spires leading straight to the entrance – and barred any opening, while placing his men on the cathedral's top. Even compared with those of the previous defensive setup, the kill ratios they were achieving were almost impossible to believe – but then again, every single zombie the put down was another loyal Imperial citizen who they had failed to save.
From a tactical point of view, it made sense to take refuge here, both because of the defensible position and of the effect the place seemed to have on the undead – they wailed in pain when they drew nearer, only actually attacking when driven to it by one of the Plague-Born, and notably slower and weaker than before. Lycaon had told the Captain that it was due to the belief of all the people that had lived in the hive – including those whose corpses were now opposing them – being channeled through the Warp and drawn to this place as a symbol of the Imperial Faith. Emotion was power in the Sea of Souls, and the Storm wasn't only bringing the Dark Gods closer to Parecxis. All emotions were bleeding into realspace, and there were even reports that angels had been sighted around the planet's Cardinal – though Erasmos wasn't quite certain this last one wasn't rumors blown out of proportion by a combination of subtle propaganda and natural exaggeration. For lack of a better term, the cathedral was holy ground, and the creatures of Chaos were harmed merely by approaching it.
From a more emotional perspective, it was also very appropriate. They stood atop a pillar of rockrete and human engineering, the last place of purity in the hive above a roiling sea of corruption. Apt. Very apt indeed. Here they would make their stand, under the Emperor's eyes, and prove themselves worthy of Him. If what the Librarian said was true, if they were actually fighting with His blessing, then they would make the traitors pay dearly for their victory. Hundreds of thousands of the dead had been butchered in the battles for the cathedral, their rotting flesh forming a giant wall in front of the building and piling up at the bottom of the spire, where the defenders tossed them.
Now, though, something Erasmos had both waited for and dreaded had come. The storms were dissipating, at least those which existed wholly on the right side of reality, and with that came the bitter hope that they would be rescued. The grim determination that had kept them going for thirty days risked being undermined by that most treacherous emotion.
Erasmos knew the value of hope. Both mortals and Astartes fought harder if they were hoping for something more than simply killing as many enemies as they could before they fell. It could be hope for anything – hope that their deaths would serve a greater purpose, hope that reinforcements would arrive, hope that by killing just one more enemy they would tip the balance of the war. Hope could make cowards into heroes. But every single man and woman in the cathedral was already a hero, and hope – especially false hope – was a two-edged blade that could also turn heroes into cowards. He had seen both of these happen on Calth. Men fighting against impossible odds while they thought they still could survive the madness around them, and others having renounced the idea and fighting for vengeance as much as courage and honor, only to break down after receiving a single transmission promising reinforcements that ended with the death of the sender in a Word Bearers' attack. Even Space Marines, who could endure pain and fear, could be broken by hope.
It was impossible to keep a secret in the confined, overcrowded spaces of the cathedral, so everyone knew that the blasted storms were dissipating. They also all knew that in the last communications with Chapter Master Menelas before the storms had reached the point where what little communication equipment they had saved couldn't reach him, the supreme commander of Parecxis Alpha's defense had promised to send evacuation teams as soon as it became possible.
And the simple truth was that evacuation would be a technical nightmare of such proportions that it would make Meridis' evacuation look like a frakking parade exercise. They were constantly under attack, pushing back the hordes with ever-increasing difficulty despite the advantage the cathedral granted them. Those who weren't on the front-lines were collapsed on the floor, trying to sleep despite the sounds of battle or eating the ration-packs Erasmos had stored in the cathedral as part of his contingency plans. Those who were either too stressed or scared – and he could smell their fear, despite the fact that they were all doing an admirable job of holding it in so far – were kneeling at the foot of the Emperor's image, praying for strength, the continuation of His protection, and, Erasmos suspected, a quick death.
Extraction in battle situations were always a delicate matter, and this was far from the best situation. There were different types of units amongst those who needed extraction, at varying states of exhaustion, with a wavering morale and under constant enemy pressure. Fortunately the undead didn't have any anti-aircraft weapons – at least, none Erasmos' men had seen – but unless Menelas was ready to deploy considerable resources in order to bomb the undead and push them back long enough, any attempt at evacuation would result in less than twenty percents of the survivors being rescued while the rest were overwhelmed by the horde. And if the Chapter Master chose to use this much aircraft to save Erasmos' survivors, the traitors would see it from orbit. They probably wouldn't use orbital bombardment – hitting flying targets from orbit was a lot more difficult than standing or walking ones, and there was always the danger of the entire planet collapsing in the Warp – but he doubted that the bastard Arken hadn't a plan to take advantage of that. So far, the traitors hadn't seemed to have much in the way of military aircraft, beyond Legion Thunderhawks and Stormbirds and a panoply of civilian carriers, but that didn't mean they hadn't something else hidden in that blasted ship of theirs.
If Erasmos had been among Menelas' command staff, he would have advised to abandon the evacuation altogether. Too many risks, for too little gain. Fifty Astartes and hundreds of hard-wired fighters were a valuable asset, but the Forsaken Sons had to know that the loyalists could try to rescue them now. They would have a plan for that. It would have torn his heart to do it, but he would have done it anyway. Such was the way of the Sons of Calth – practical in the service of the ideals of the Imperium, but these ideals couldn't be allowed to put in danger the practical greater goal. In this case, the greater goal was the defense of Parecxis, and if it involved letting Talexorn's defenders to die, then Erasmos knew what choice Menelas had to make. But if the humans realized it …
It wouldn't be pretty. It could even cause some of them to turn traitors in the misguided hope that the Forsaken Sons would spare them. Perhaps the traitors would have if this was a conventional siege (if only so that they would be able to corrupt the renegades and turn them into their tools) but here, they were surrounded by mindless hordes. Any betrayal would be short-lived indeed.
'Sir', called one of the mortals. He was monitoring their small communication center, receiving reports from the squads placed at the cathedral's few openings. Such was the size of the building that it was quicker – not to mention a lot safer – to use radio rather than messengers, despite the strain it placed on their already severely overworked power generators. 'Squad Fourteen reports a new group of undead approaching Entry Point Gamma-Three. There is a Plague-Born with them. ETA is at … forty minutes, at that speed.'
Entry Point Gamma-Three … that was the broken vitrail on the southern wall, the highest of several ones that had once depicted the story of the Unification of Terra. They had barred the openings, of course, but their defenses there were still thinner than the solid walls of the cathedral. If there was a Plague-Born, then the humans may need the help of Space Marines in case they didn't manage to shoot the abomination down before it reached them. Activating his own armor's vox-system, the commander of Talexorn's last resistance against the forces of Chaos called to his flying team. Forty minutes was plenty of time to get into position, but Gamma-Three required … specific preparations.
'Argus,' he began, 'I have another task for you …'
Mikail held his court on one of the Hand of Ruin's many empty decks. The walls still bore the traces of the Exodus, this long journey whose tales were quickly becoming legends amongst the crew. Traces of claws and bolt impacts formed a tapestry on the steel walls, telling the story of the battles that had taken part on this particular deck. Part of him wished that he had been here when the ship had sailed the tides of the Warp with no control while the Sea of Souls howled, for the battles fought then must have been as glorious as unique. But the greater part knew that he would have most likely been torn apart and his soul obliterated, and what an unseemly end that would have been for a champion of Slaanesh. Neverborn were far more dangerous foes that the thugs and Imperial soldiers he had fought so far.
One day, though, he would take part in such a battle. When he was powerful enough to stand on the same ground as the Astartes, he would claim glory such as no mortal had ever known. Already he was more than merely human, transformed by the craft of the Fleshmasters and the favor of the Dark Prince. He knew that amongst the many who had been taken for experimentation, he was a unique success. The blood of a god flowed through his veins, and when he closed his eyes he could hear the distant call of the source of his genetic alterations. A great creature of perfect beauty, waiting for its chosen sons on a world hidden from all but those found worthy. The Fleshmasters had infused him with the mortal essence of that divine entity, and he had been judged deserving of it. The mere thought of it sent shivers of withdrawal across his flesh as he imagined the reward of pleasure that would be bestowed upon him when he rose to the full height of his potential.
He was still far, far from the White Naga, however, both in the physical sense and in the metaphysical one. His dreams of the Dark Prince's greatest champion were dim, for his mind still lacked the ability to truly perceive the true glory of Slaanesh, and his body, while far above those of the human slaves that he had gathered around him, was still an age away from perfection. One day, though …
Mikail shook himself from his thoughts and looked at his surrounding again. He had to admit that his court was still lacking compared to what he had seen on the walls of Parecxis Beta's great temple, let alone the glorious images of the White Naga. A handful of survivors from the garrison world's rebels had formed the core of his group, with some even having belonged to the same cell as he. They had seen him talk with Lord Arken himself, and knew that he had the favor of Slaanesh. Others had come from the cannon fodder gathered by the Forsaken Sons on the worlds they had conquered, who had heard of his dealings with Jikaerus and of the elevated position he enjoyed among those who had undergone the Fleshmasters' experiments.
There were several dozens of them present in the room, and hundreds more across the rest of the ship. All of them wore the emblem of Slaanesh on their clothes or tattooed on their skin – a few had branded themselves with it through fire or blade. All of them were dirty, and rank of sweat, various drugs, and other scents that formed an atmosphere that was both intoxicating and repelling. About half of them were lying down, fallen into unconsciousness after whatever last thrill they had sought. Some would probably never rise again, dead in their slumber from the abuse of the substances they had consumed in search of yet more sensations. Mikail didn't care. Those who walked the path of Slaanesh risked death at every turn, and the risk itself only heightened the pleasure of the few who could reach its elusive end. The dead had proven their worthlessness to the Dark Prince, and would thus have been useless to him anyway.
A commotion near one of the entrances of the room draw his attention away from his examination. He looked up, and saw one silhouette stride through the open gate and into the space where those who wanted an audience with Mikail came, wishing to join his group. The newcomer, however, showed none of the humility and respect that characterized these supplicants. Despite the alien features that marked it as entirely separate from the human genome, the confidence its posture radiated was plain for all to see.
The xenos looked like an Eldar, and the others were reacting to it as such, but Mikail could see clearly that it wasn't one of the Soul-broken. With senses that he still didn't fully understand, he could feel the aura of Slaanesh's favor radiating from the humanoid, and the knowledge he had gleaned of the Dark Prince told him that no Eldar would – or, rather, could – follow the blessed path of She-Who-Thirsts. Any descendant of those who had turned from the glory of the Youngest God was marked with His eternal hatred, and would only ever be granted forgiveness when its death brought its soul to its rightful owner among the Chaos Gods.
He knew this creature's kind, but it was impossible for it to be there. He had seen the alien's like in the visions of the temple, on Parecxis Beta, and he knew well that they had been brought to extinction by the Imperium. Unless …
'I see that the efforts of lord Jikaerus have been successful,' he called out to the alien, voicing the most likely hypothesis.
The Fleshmaster hadn't told him why they had needed to go to the temple, only that their objective laid deep within its chambers. But since the only things they had taken back were the remains of the entombed xenos, it didn't take much thought to understand where the creature before him had come from. Still, that didn't explain the confidence in the creature's eyes. This wasn't a clone raised from the bones of a long-decayed corpse, fast-grown through either science or sorcery and let loose inside the ship, but a being of experience, used to power and domination over all it looked upon. It took him several heartbeats to guess an explanation, during which the alien simply stared at him, a slight smile on its thin lips.
'I must admit, though,' Mikail continued, 'that I am surprised he actually managed to return you from the dead.'
'It had been months since the Firstborn was returned to the world, mon-keigh,' said the xenos in a voice that was both sweet as wine and filled with contempt. It spoke in Gothic, but with an obvious reluctance and a thick accent. 'I would have thought that even one such as you, dwelling in the bowels of this ship alongside the vermin, would have heard about my kind by now.'
Mikail kept his irritation at the barb hidden. That was true – he should have known that Jikaerus had done it. In fact, now that he thought about it, he remembered hearing rumors about some alien being brought before Arken on the ship's very bridge, in the sight of hundreds of crew. But he had been busy these last weeks gathering the army that he both desired for himself and had been ordered by Arken to assemble. He had forgotten to keep an eye and an ear out for any change in the bigger picture, and now it seemed that this mistake was going to cost him.
'But never mind that. I am Lurackas,' declared the xenos without waiting for the renegade soldier's reply. 'And I have come to demand that you and yours submit to the authority of my kind.'
There was a moment of complete silence as the assembled cultists waited for their leader's reply to this challenge of his authority. Mikail wasn't certain he had heard right. Something within him was refusing the mere possibility that he had actually heard correctly – that, somehow, everything he had claimed as his own was going to be taken away from him just like this. It was a sensation he had never felt before, and yet it didn't trigger the rush of pleasure such things were supposed to cause in his altered brain.
'These are my men,' Mikail protested at last.'I lead them.'
Lurackas looked at the cultists and slaves that he had gathered around him, and sneered.
'Oh, you can continue leading them. We only want you to join our assault on one of the cities of the world below. It is the will of Arken himself that you do so, for he apparently believes that you are, like us, blessed by the Goddess, and that your help will be of use to us. I find both of these claims difficult to believe, but my kind owes a great debt to him, and it would be … ungrateful … not to listen to his words.'
'But first,' said the xenos while holding up a hand, 'I think that we need to ensure you understand your place in this little operation. The Marines who will fight with us will do as they please, but not you. You will do as we command. Your forces will deploy as we see fit.'
'I abide to the will of the Awakened One, of course,' answered Mikail, internally seething at the creature's arrogance.
'Then show it.'
'What do you mean ?'
Lurackas was smiling now, the sight utterly alien and unsettling. It was a smile that brought black lips several centimeters too far to be human, and the teeth it showed were pointed and razor-sharp.
'Kneel.'
Grinding his teeth, Mikail knelt before the Sha'eilat. He loathed having to prostrate before any other being, but the alien was clearly higher than him in both Slaanesh's and Arken's esteem, and he wasn't even sure that his servants would side with him if he tried to refuse the order. Having his leadership over the cult stolen from him like this grated his pride, but he swore to himself that one day, he would not only take it back, but wipe the arrogant smirk off Lurackas' face.
Argus and his brothers were fighting the undead atop a chasm several kilometers deep, held aloft by thick cables bound around their torsos and linked to the cathedral's strongest pillars. They were standing perpendicularly to the wall, so that from their point of view the Zombies appeared to be crawling along the wall toward them, seeking to reach the entrance above the Space Marines – or, from their own perspective, behind their line. He would much rather stand alongside the mortals who manned the opening, but the small platform behind the broken vitrail was too fragile for Astartes to stand upon for a prolonged period of time – they had had to walk one by one through it and let themselves be bound by the humans.
'We look ridiculous,' voxed Alek, while crushing one more undead under his ceramite boot. 'This is no way to fight, brothers. If we still had remembrancers I would force them to vow never to mention that particular detail when they wrote the tale of our exploits here.'
The sergeant was forced to admit that he agreed with his brother. Fighting in a gravity-variable environment wasn't new to the Astartes – the situation was actually quite close to a handful of boarding actions he had been part of, when the gravity engine of the ship had started to malfunction and only his magnetic boots had prevented him from falling down a corridor that, a few seconds earlier, had been perfectly horizontal. But being suspended like they were, locked in place and with the knowledge that a drop of several minutes followed by a most undignified death awaited them if the cables failed was still a novel experience. It also made them look quite ridiculous as well, like some demented puppets suspended over the void, butchering anything that reached them.
'It's also most definitely not something written within the Codex,' the Son of Calth continued. 'I am not certain whether if our beloved Primarch ever learn of this, he would laugh and congratulate us, or be furious for ignoring his teachings in favor of such a tactic.'
'It is an effective way to dispose of our foes,' he answered his battle-brother while kicking a Plague Zombie off the wall, watching it fall for a second, flailing around uselessly. 'How we look while doing so is irrelevant. Guilliman would approve, brother.'
And it was true, in both cases. The Plague Zombies had absolutely no way of fighting back the Astartes as they crushed and kicked them. The only risk was that one of them could manage to get a hold of a Son of Calth, and that if enough did it, the unfortunate Astartes would be torn apart by their hands, armor or not. But with the squadmates covering each other, they could easily do this all day and not expend a single shot of their precious ammunition stores. Even the humans, mostly armed with las-rifles, needed to spare their shots, for they had been able to salvage precious little of their reserves beyond what Erasmos had stocked in the cathedral in advance. There was still a group of humans at their back – or rather, some twenty meters above them – to take down any undead who somehow managed to slip past the Sons of Calth, as they could hardly turn to destroy it.
The undead who reached the Astartes were crushed under ceramite boots and fists – they had left their chainswords in the Cathedral along with the rest of their weapons safe for the combat knife they all carried. It was both gruesome, repetitive and, to be honest, disgusting. But it worked, and even the Plague-Born, the loathsome leaders of the undead, couldn't do much to defend themselves in that situation.
'I see the target,' voxed another of Argus' squadmates. 'One hundred meters below us.'
The Plague-Born looked different from the Zombies. Its body appeared to be female – Argus wasn't as ignorant of normal human biology as many of his brothers, but the decay made it hard to be sure – and unlike the mindless undead, its face still showed an expression. In this instance, it was filled with hatred as it glared at the Space Marines above it. It was rising faster than the undead following it, its limbs filled with unholy strength and its mind capable of finding the best holds in the wall. When it reached Argus, however, the sergeant was more than ready for it.
'Die,' he snarled, bringing down his foot on the abomination's skull. 'Just die already !'
Ceramite met bone, and the superior strength of Argus' leg muscles cracked the skull apart between the boot and the stone wall. As soon as the creature's brain was destroyed, the undead it had led started slowing down, several of them falling from their climbing positions. The Sons of Calth kicked a few more of them down, before starting to haul themselves up in order to return inside the Cathedral.
Scraping the Plague-Born's remains from his boot on the wall, Argus took a look down the wall. There were more undead coming up – there always were. But it didn't look like they were led by a Plague-Born – just more mindless corpses trying to climb up with broken limbs and shattered bones, pushed by the unfathomable will that held them enslaved. His brothers would have already checked it, of course, but he wanted to make sure himself.
'Argus,' came Erasmos' voice, crackling over the vox. Despite the short distance separating the sergeant from his captain, the Warp storm above was playing havoc on their communication equipment. 'We have established communication with the rest of the Chapter. They are sending evacuation crafts as we speak.'
'Despite your advice to the contrary ?'
'Yes. Menelas claims that the impact abandoning us would have on morale would be more damaging than the potential losses in trying to save us, but I think we both know his true reasons. He is too sentimental.'
'Though I agree with you, he may be right nonetheless, Captain. There is a reason he is Chapter Master and we aren't.'
' … Perhaps. Your task on Gamma-Three is done. Return inside the Cathedral, Argus. We …'
Erasmos suddenly went silent. The vox-link was still open, and Argus hadn't heard any of the telltale signs that the Legionary he had been talking to had been brutally killed (something which had occurred all too often in his life).
'Captain ? Sir ? Erasmos, what's wrong ?'
In his meditation cell aboard the Hand of Ruin, Asim was experiencing a rare moment of peace. He was still in his armor, though he had removed his helmet, breathing the recycled air of the ship without his armor's filters. It reeked of cleaning chemicals and the faint scent of Warp-corruption. Right now, he had no bargain to honor, no ritual to perform, no duty placed upon him by the Awakened One. His performance during the battle for Meridis had been less than stellar, but he had learned from the trick the Sons of Calth's Librarians had used there, and next time, the Coven would be prepared for it – not that the loyalists would use it again. They knew that the Forsaken Sons wouldn't fall for it twice.
Arken's plans continued to advance, but for now it fell to others to prosecute them. Asim's orders were to keep his strength for the final battle, whenever that was supposed to happen. To that end, he had retreated to his chamber, and sat down inside the ritual circle that kept his mind safe from the predations of the Neverborn. It was probably a needless precaution – since the Herald of Blood had begun to haunt him, the minor manifestations of the Warp had left him alone – but some habits were hard to break, and it would be foolish to rely on the implied protection of a daemon, even if that one was bound to him. Here in the circle, even the tempting daemon of Khorne – and by the Eye of Magnus, he still had difficulty accepting that a creature as subtle had ever been born among the Blood God's choirs – couldn't disturb him.
There was a knock on his door. Isolated as he was by the circle, Asim couldn't use his psychic sight to determinate who it was, but he didn't need to. His other senses were enough to identify his visitor. The sound of a single heartbeat indicated that it was a human, various pheromones that it was a male, and the vague but unmistakable scent of blood that clung to his every spore despite all attempts at decontamination gave away the last piece of his identity.
'Enter, Balthazar.'
The door slid open, and the former inmate of Parecxis Gamma entered the Sorcerer's lair. He still wore the same patchwork armor that he had when Asim had met him in Hive Anaster, and his daemon-possessed lasgun was hung on his back. Even within the circle, Asim could taste the weapon's hunger in the very air. It longed to be used, to kill – but at the same time, it was intelligent enough to realize that if its carrier used it now, he would die immediately. Idly, the Sorcerer wondered how many of its owners had died before it had understood that there were times when it was better not to shoot. A great many, he suspected, each one feeding their death to the weapon's daemon-spirit.
'My lord,' said Balthazar, bowing before Asim sitting form. Politeness and respect were rare things amongst criminals, but Asim knew that Balthazar had been both a smart criminal and a successful one before his luck had gone sour.
'You have questions,' noted Asim, seeing the hesitation in the hitman's posture.
'I … yes, my lord,' admitted the human.
'Feel free to ask them. Ever has illuminating others been the pleasure of my bloodline. I think it's the pride of our father in us.'
Wisely, Balthazar chose not to comment on that. Even if he was still new to the Forsaken Sons and the different gene-lines that formed them, he knew that the Thousand Sons had more reason to claim the warband's name than most. Instead, he asked what he had been wondering since the Sorcerer had brought him to the ship, after the battle for Meridis had settled down :
'Why am I here, lord ?'
Asim raised an eyebrow.
'Are you discontent to be here, Balthazar ?'
'Of course not, lord. It is an honor, and this place is far more interesting than staying in the ruins of another hive, but … I wonder why it is you decided to bring me here after we both survived the battle.'
The Astartes was silent for a moment. When he answered, it was with another question of his own :
'Tell, me Balthazar : who am I ? From where you stand, what do I appear to be ?'
'You … are Lord Asim of the Forsaken Sons,' answered the human, uneasy. He had talked with mob bosses before being caught and dragged to Parecxis Gamma, and various psychos when the world had fallen to rebellion, but he knew without a shadow of doubt that the Sorcerer was far more dangerous than any of them. That kind of question was just loaded with potentially deadly mistakes, but trying to lie would only make things worse. Besides, he wanted an answer to his question.
'You are the master of the Coven, those of the Forsaken Sons who can call upon the powers of the Warp. Lord Arken considers you to be one of his … I suppose it would be inner circle. You are the one who send me and the others from Parecxis Gamma to the capital world, through means I would rather not dwell upon. And from what I have heard when we were in Anaster, you can make bargains with daemons and bind them into the flesh of other Astartes.'
'You are … powerful, my lord. Very, very powerful, in a different way than the Awakened One. His power comes from those who will obey him, whereas your power comes from within yourself.'
Asim chuckled.
'That's flattering, but it would be better for you to forget your foolish ideas about Arken. His command of the warband is his main asset in the war against the False Emperor, but do not believe him to be individually weak for a moment. It is his name that echoes through the Sea of Souls, not mine. His is the will that drives the warband, that forged us into brothers in hate while before we were only comrades in defeat.'
'I will bear that in mind, my lord. But you haven't answered my question. Why bring me here ? There are thousands of mortal fighters on this ship already. I will admit to being stronger than all the unmodified ones and many of those who passed under the Fleshmasters' scalpels, but still, you have no need of me here.'
'Indeed, I don't,' confirmed the Sorcerer. 'Answer me this : do you know of the four Gods of Chaos ?'
Balthazar shrugged.
'I have heard about them. Some of the Word Bearers have come down to the human decks to search for converts. Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh, right ? They sung their names and titles, to see if one of us reacted to it.'
Asim snorted. Like all Thousand Sons, he disliked the blind worship that the sons of Lorgar showed for the Ruinous Powers. The Dark Gods were abominations, tumors of hatred born in the Sea of Souls as reflections of the sins of every sentient life to have ever existed in the galaxy. Worshiping them reeked of ignorance, but even then the Sorcerer Lord had to admit that the warriors of the Seventeenth knew much about what they called the 'Primordial Truth'.
'Then I do not need to tell you of them, and can answer your real question. It is … curiosity that guided my hand, Balthazar. You, like all those I warped across space on the penal world, bear the mark of Khorne on your soul. Not the one given to the Blood God's champions, but your very essence has been altered by the powers that held this now shattered world in their grasp. But where most of the others have been consumed by the bloodlust, or barely capable of controlling it, you appear to be unchanged. You were already a killer and a borderline sociopath before the scions of the Blood God began to reshape your soul in their blunt, effective way, so perhaps it protected your capacity for reason. You are a contradiction, Balthazar, a living paradox of Chaos. I … am afflicted by something similar, and I thought that by studying you, I may be able to shed some light on my own situation.'
Asim saw the tension rising in the former hitman's body as his mind processed what the Astartes had just told him. He didn't move – he didn't need to. If the mortal was foolish enough to draw his weapon, there were a hundred different ways the Sorcerer could neutralize him before he shot – several of them weren't even deadly. But he didn't think it would come to that.
'You brought me here as an experiment subject ?' he asked, very carefully.
'Not really. More as someone deserving to be observed. The Warp has a myriad plans, Balthazar, plans stretching into eternity and involving all souls in the galaxy, but even the Architect of Fate re-uses the same plots sometimes. It is rare enough for Khorne and Tzeentch to work in concert, and for the same thing to happen twice in the same theater of the Great Game ? There has to be a link between your condition and mine.'
'I am not marked by the God of Change,' Balthazar almost hissed, his temper artificially agitated by his rifle in answer to Asim's words. The Dark Gods were ever so possessing of their pawns, and their servants, as insignificant shards of their consciousness, shared that trait – but the weapon wasn't the only reason for his reaction. Even if the hitman didn't realize the source of his sudden ire, he was still instinctively rejecting the claim that another god that the one he had sworn his soul to – consciously or not – may have interfered with his existence.
'But I am, no matter that I have renounced my father. And it was I that cast you from your prison to Parecxis Alpha. Like it or not, the Architect of Fate had a hand in your current situation. All of us,' he gestured with his hand to designate the walls of the room, implying that he was talking about the entire warband and not just the two of them, 'were made into what we are by the Great Game. I know that I cannot escape from it, but I will understand what part in it the Dark Gods intend for me.'
'And you think that I can help you in that,' deduced Balthazar, the tension in him diminishing slightly.
'I think that by observing you, by seeing how the Warp acts around you and shapes you, I can learn about the Great Game. I am privy to secret knowledge of considerable might, human. I can barter with the Neverborn, and bind them to the service of my lord. As the representative of Arken in the aetheric planes, I can make bargains with the scions of the Dark Gods in his name. It is therefore important that I understand the ebbs and flows of the Great Game, for it is one that involves every single daemon in the Warp.'
'What about what you did in the underhive of Anaster ?' the human asked again, after a pause to consider what the Sorcerer had just told him. 'With that daemon of shadows that looked like the Warmaster. That was a … bargain, was it not ?'
'It was. I granted the wish of Illarion, foolish as it may be, for it was the will of the Dark Gods. In return for this service, they restored me from the damage I had endured when performing the ritual that sent you and the others to Parecxis Alpha.'
'Foolish ? I have seen him fight at Meredis. Even if he ended up losing, he still did much damage to the bastards in blue and green.'
'You didn't see him fight. You saw the Shadow fight. His mind was completely overpowered by the daemon from the moment he approached the Sons of Calth. Even with the barrier in position to keep me from the Warp, I heard his psychic cry when he was relegated to the backseat of his own body. He might have recovered from it, but his soul will bear the scars of that loss of control until he dies, and since the Shadow is still within him, it probably won't be the last ones. He thought he knew the risks, but every time he loses control, the hold of the daemon on his flesh will grow stronger, until the mortal soul within him is snuffed out by the Neverborn. From the moment he accepted the deal, there were only two fates possible for him : death in battle, or complete destruction at the claws of the daemon sharing his body. Now tell me : how isn't that foolish ?'
Balthazar remained silent. Not only did he not have an answer to the Sorcerer's query, he could hear the bitterness in the Astartes' voice. This wasn't just about Illarion, at least not for Asim.
'I think that's the lesson you and I, and probably the rest of the warband too, should all learn from that,' Asim finished, looking straight into Balthazar's eyes. 'In this galaxy, shortcuts to power are rarely worth the risk.'
'We …' began the Captain, before trailing off. Despite all his training and experience, what he was seeing was giving him pause.
For several hours now, thousands and thousands of undead had gathered on one of the spires near the Cathedral. They had massed on its shattered peak like a flood, filling every corner of space available to the point that many had burst apart under the pressure. The Cathedral's defenders had kept watch over the gathering, unsure of what their enemies were planning. Now, the plan of the enemy was becoming clear – but no less unbelievable. Atop the spire, on a slab of rockrete that reached above the teeming mass of walking corpses, stood the rotten tech-priest that had been noticed leading the assault on the 'safe zone' weeks ago.
The animated corpses were massing at the top of the ruined spire like a single, blasphemous mass that was beginning to reach out toward the cathedral. Like some unholy, nightmarish construct, the bodies linked with one another to form the structure of a bridge between the two buildings. It was as thick as the one the loyalists had detonated, and grossly following the same form, but was made of rotten flesh instead of stone. Arks of Warp energy were dancing between the growing bridge and the silhouette of the corrupt magos, fusing bones together to add stability to the structure.
'Blood of the Emperor …' whispered Erasmos, unable to believe what his armor's display was showing him.
He wasn't the only one. All across the sections of the cathedral where the fighters could watch the unfolding madness, there was a pause, as incredulity battled against what their own senses were telling them. The Plague-Born stopped in awe, amazed at the power at the control of the one who had lifted them above their weak humanity, and the undead accompanying them reacted to their emotions and stopped moving, several dozens of them freezing mid-climb and falling down. The rational minds of the cathedral's defenders had been painfully stretched by what life had thrown their way so far, but this still made them doubt their senses for a second before their survival instincts reasserted themselves and told them that yes, this is real and it can kill you.
'Erasmos ! What's happening ?'
Argus' frantic voice was what drew his own attention back to the present. Everything snapped back into place inside his mind, the sheer impossibility of what he was beholding forgotten. It was happening right now. The how wasn't important. What mattered – what was practical – was what he could do to resolve the situation they now found themselves in, with its new parameters. First, he had to get all the firepower he could at his immediate disposal, for when the undead broke inside.
'The enemy is … making a bridge between spires with the undead. Get back there, now !'
Ignoring his sergeant's shocked reply, the Captain of the Sons of Calth focused all of his attention on the threat. The 'bridge' was blatantly ignoring several laws of physics that should have made its existence impossible. Obviously, there was warp-craft at work here – and, just as obviously, it emanated from the traitor of the Mechanicum that directed the whole thing like some demented orchestra conductor.
'Can we shoot it down ?' shouted Erasmos over the vox. 'Wait, forget that. They would just pull up more … material, and we don't have the ammo to waste.' He quickly switched channels. 'Squad Five, can you get a shot on that bastard tech-priest ?'
'Negative, Captain,' came the reply of his few remaining Scouts, stationed atop one of the cathedral's towers. 'The air currents are swirling around him – there is some sorcery at work here, protecting the creature's existence.'
Erasmos swore violently, before calling for a general report from all fronts. The answers he got didn't please him in the slightest. The undead were still climbing on all other fronts. If Erasmos redirected his troops to hold the gate, they would simply strike at them from behind. Could the holy ground prevent the Zombies from entering ? No way to check without taking considerable risk. He had to consider it couldn't. So, he could only count on himself, Argus' flying squad and whatever forces he could force to stand from those currently resting. It wouldn't be enough. Perhaps if all they had to face were undead and Plague-Born, but there were corrupt Marines behind these doors. They were a threat, for all that the ruin had claimed them.
The doors of the Cathedral were closed, heavy panels of wood, behind which the survivors had piled every piece of rubble and furniture they had found. Atop it, a dozen humans had been firing down at the undead trying to break it open. They were now directing their weapons at the bridge but, obeying Erasmos' orders with admirable restraint, they weren't opening fire.
'Argus,' said Erasmos as the sergeant and his squad approached him. 'They will break the door soon – don't ask me how, they must have something prepared. Get into position.'
As soon as he had finished his sentence, there was a great sound, like rotten meat hitting something hard. The 'bridge' had made contact with the extremity of the Cathedral's spire, and now Talexorn's survivors knew they had entered the endgame of their resistance. Erasmos made his decision, and opened a wide vox-channel to all of them.
'Hear my words, brothers and sisters. The enemy is closing in on us, using sorcery most foul to reach this sacred ground. But do not despair ! For not only do we fight under the Emperor's eyes, but our allies are even now drawing closer, bringing with them our deliverance ! We will hold till they arrive, and with their help bring words of our defiance to the others who yet fight against the hated ones !'
'Stand your ground and fight ! Come death and ruin, we shall not be defeated ! Our souls are under the Emperor's protection ! Let the enemy know the true meaning of defiance as they come !'
There was a cheer in reply to his words, and the captain of the Sons of Calth couldn't help but feel proud of them all – mortals and Astartes alike.
Rot spread across the wooden gates at an alarming speed. In less that ten seconds, they began to fall apart, and the pile of rubble that had been pressing on them collapsed onto the bridge of decaying flesh. The impact broke the structure's extremity, throwing hundreds of corpses into the abyss, but it wasn't nearly enough. More arcs of Warp lightning struck the remainder of the bridge, and a new influx of rotten bodies replaced those who had been cast down, linking the ruined spire with the edge of the Cathedral once more.
At the other extremity of the bridge, the undead began to advance, crushing the flesh of their kindred under their foot as they did so. For now, only the Plague Zombies were advancing, the corrupt Marines remaining where they stood, in a grotesque mirror of the loyalists' own defensive line. The walking corpses moved past them, instinctively detecting their presence and avoiding them, like water flowing around rocks.
'Come then, you miserable hell-spawns,' spat Argus as his squad gathered at his side, forming a barrier of ceramite against the tide of rotting, wailing flesh. 'Come and find the salvation you deserve !'
Twenty-four menials had lost their lives in the last weeks, forcing Pareneffer to call for a more reliable kind of assistant. His work still couldn't be revealed to the rest of the Fleshmasters, for it was still incomplete and liable to cause turmoil even amongst the ranks of the amoral Apothecaries. But even if he couldn't ask his colleagues for help, he still needed assistance with the more mundane aspects of his craft, and the Servant was exactly what he needed. He had recalled the creature from Santorius, where one of the other Fleshmasters had dragged it to assist in his own experiments with the various mutants found amongst their mortal allies there. His colleague down there had the magos of the Cult of Mutability to assist him. He could spare one lowly minion, even if the Servant was, somehow, unique. All attempts made by Pareneffer to find the data about its creation had failed, and he couldn't remember the name of the Fleshmaster who had performed them – which meant that he had never known it, as he possessed an eidetic memory.
That was a shame, because he could definitely use more of its kind, despite its unassuming appearance. It was capable of understanding almost any instruction and never failed to complete the tasks it was given. Unlike the human serfs, so far the Servant had managed to survive both the dangers of the lab, those of the Hand of Ruin, and the temper of its master, which always grew hot when he encountered yet another setback in his great work. Those of Magnus' bloodline were usually calm, collected souls, searching for illumination even if it could only be found in the darkest places. But what Pareneffer was working on was slowly grinding even the legendary Prosperine patience to dust. Still, since the Servant had begun to work for him, he hadn't run into any hurdle that a few minutes of thinking hadn't solved, even if he had to admit to himself that he couldn't remember where he had read some of the notions that had involved. Part of him was worried that his eidetic memory may, in fact, be deteriorating through prolonged exposition to the Warp.
He dismissed the worry, though. The past didn't matter, for it held nothing but the burn of failure and the bitterness of loss. It was the future that mattered, and in this room he was crafting the weapons that would shape that of the Forsaken Sons. Nine tanks were held on the walls of his lab, far from the eyes of the rest of the Fleshmasters. Each was filled with life-support liquid, that could be breathed and sustain whatever form of life was kept within. The Sorcerer had taken these pods from the ship's Apothecarions, where they were once used to keep wounded warriors in a state of suspended animation while their bodies healed. With a few modifications, they also made perfect artificial wombs within which his creations could form and grow.
Only five of the tanks were used at the moment. The other four were being cleaned of the remnants of their previous occupants, after a small unbalance in the cocktail of arcane energies and growth stimulants fed into them had caused them to dissolve into primordial goo. An annoying setback, but now Pareneffer was fairly confident that he knew exactly the dosage of Warp energy he could pump into his creations without the rampant mutations overwhelming their metabolism. His knowledge of the flesh-change that had plagued his Legion before Ahriman's spell had, according to Arken, preserved them from the attentions of the God of Change, had provided the bases for his work. But for all their flaws, his creations were a step above Astartes genetics.
The DNA Pareneffer had collected from his samples hadn't been enough to clone the Primarchs correctly, so he had resorted to his other training and replaced the missing sequences with what passed for genes in incarnated daemonkind, gathered from the flesh of several daemonhosts he had created as an experiment during the Heresy. As a result of their dual origins, the clones could endure far more random and not-so-random alterations to their genotype before breaking down. Trial-and-error was the only way to discover just how much raw Warp energy was too much for them, and how much was too little for the twisted parodies of life to continue their existence. The creatures needed the Chaotic energy – they were too far from any stable living pattern to exist in pure reality. They weren't exactly daemons, but neither were they creatures of flesh; instead, they existed somewhere between these two states, and it was Pareneffer's work to keep them that way until their growth was complete.
Right now, the five creations were kept in a state of suspended animation by both mundane and sorcerous means, their brains locked in stasis. The Sorcerer wasn't sure that they had the potential for sentience, but he wasn't about to risk discovering if the soulless husks he had created were aware of their condition. He might have been dabbling in powers beyond the comprehension of mortals and creating blasphemies against every single moral principle of the Imperium, but he wasn't stupid. When he finally completed his work, the creatures would be unleashed in the middle of the enemy, with any thing or personnel the Forsaken Sons cared about as far from them as possible.
Apart from their size, which was still only at a human level since their growth wasn't yet complete, each of the warped clones was different from the others, displaying their own variations of their originals' traits. One, whose base gene-code had come from the Ninth Legion's martyred Primarch, showed the bone structure of a pair of wings, barely more than a forearm's length and devoid of any feathers. Another, created from a drop of blood of Vulkan, had black scales instead of skin, and a crest of bone emerged from its spine like some saurus of Terra's long gone past. A third – the one Pareneffer, in a quite inappropriate show of irony, was most fond of – had been born out of Sixth Legion's gene-seed, and was a monstrous beast, covered in fur, with claws that left marks on the pod when they drifted too close and fangs that forced its jaw to remain perpetually open. The fourth was almost lost to mutation, little more than an ever-changing mass of flesh and limbs and faces, but it still lived, and so Pareneffer preferred to keep it as an observation sample. In contrast, the last clone looked utterly normal, with its dimension being the only thing distinguishing it from a normal human infant. But Pareneffer could feel the corruption writhing beneath its skin, the organs and blood vessels reconfiguring themselves continually under the touch of Chaos. This one was the hardest to keep sedated, as its biology kept evolving and developing immunity to the cocktails employed to this effect. An entire cogitator was dedicated to altering its pod's chemicals, analyzing and interpreting the changes in the creature's body and responding to them in real time.
Looking at them together, Pareneffer noted another trait they shared : the peaceful expression on their misshapen visages. Kept asleep by the chemicals flowing through their bloodstream and their memory empty, they knew nothing of their own monstrosity or of the cruelty of the galaxy that had spawned them. In all the years of his life, the Sorcerer had seen almost all the Primarchs, during the Great Crusade or the Heresy that had followed. He had seen them talk as they decided the fate of entire worlds, and witnessed their rage in the heat of battle. But he had never seen any of them with such an expression.
'Great One,' said the Servant, its voice dragging Pareneffer's attention away from the life-pods for a moment. To his surprise, there was actual curiosity in the tone of the creature – it was hard to tell, but spending time in its company had allowed the Fleshmaster to understand its mind's workings rather well.
'These beings,' it said, gesturing toward the five monstrous godlings, sleeping in their cradles of forbidden science and mad genius. 'Master's children. They are not like the master, or like the other Great Ones. What will you call them ? What should I call them, when they awake ?'
Pareneffer took a moment to look at his creations again. Here were weapons of unthinkable potential, forged from the stolen lore of a living god and refashioned through the power of the Warp and the insanity of the Dark Mechanicum's forbidden sciences. Not even he knew just what they would be capable of once they were complete – he knew they would never be the equals of the Primarchs, but his mind still boggled with possibilities. It was all too likely that the current batch wouldn't survive, that some flaw in his work would reveal itself and force him to start all over again. So far, he hadn't thought about the matter raised by the Servant, for despite all his confidence in his own abilities he still wasn't certain that was he was attempting would really succeed in the end. And yet … names were important, that much was known to any Sorcerer. Names were the basis of a self, the foundation for the identities that formed both in the Materium and in the Sea of Souls. Hold the true name of any daemon and you could control it, though it would resent such control and do its best to destroy you and all you held dear.
Could it be that the fact his creations hadn't a name disturbed the balance of aetheric energies he was trying to achieve within their cloned flesh ? It seemed absurd, but Pareneffer had learned not to underestimate the importance of symbolism when dealing with the Warp. It was irritating how it forced Sorcerers to act overly dramatically and consider the implications of every little detail, often to the point of seeing portents in meaningless details, but it was the price for their power.
'I will call them the Children of Woe,' he decided out loud. Yes, that name would do. It would reflect the reaction that would no doubt be that of the loyal Astartes if they ever learned of the clones' nature – quickly followed by a terrible rage, of course. 'And as for what you should call them … it would be better if you never have an opportunity to do so, little one. I doubt they will be the kind to enjoy conversation.'
'If you say so, Master,' answered the Servant, lowering its head in servile deference.
Lycaon's eyes snapped open. He was the last Librarian amongst the survivors of Talexorn. All the others had died fighting the horde, each encountering a different doom. Kelis had been torn apart limbs from limbs after he exhausted his powers to save a hundred civilians from the ravenous dead. Ptoleus had shot himself when he had felt a daemon of plague dig into his soul and try to take over his body. Niras had fallen into the abyss around the Cathedral when he had underestimated the backlash of using his psychic powers to push down a grape of Plague-Born. Of the mortal psykers, none had survived the fall of Talexorn to the walking dead, some of them even succumbing to the dark lure of Chaos and joining the ranks of the Plague-Born, their mortal frames ravaged by the disease just as their souls were rotten from within.
He stood alone, but he wasn't without allies. For almost an entire day, Lycaon had meditated, gathering his strength under the Cathedral's spiritual protection. He could hear the whispers of angels, created from the hopes and devotion of the thousands who had prayed within these hallowed walls. For all that he personally didn't think of the Emperor as a god, it was a lot more difficult to hold to that belief when his soul was surrounded by the display of His power. He knew, within him, that it was almost certainly nothing more than the psychic resonance of the pilgrims' emotions in the Warp. But it was difficult to deny the sensation of divine that enveloped this place.
Now it was time for him to act in order to defend this place. He reached out with his mind, linking his very essence to the holy power contained within the building. At once, he felt the intrusion of the corrupt and the lost, the taint of their presence a blight upon the Cathedral's immaculate presence. With a ferocious snarl hidden behind his faceplate, he channeled the power of the Emperor's church, and a wave of pure white flame engulfed the first wave of the walking dead, burning them to nothingness.
More came behind those, and this time Lycaon didn't smite them. He needed to conserve the power for as long as he could. That first attack had been to make the Plague Marines and Plague-Born wary, to keep them away from the fight for as long as possible. If they thought he could unleash the purifying flame at will, they wouldn't risk their own fallen existences.
The first undead to reach pass the gate screeched as they burst into flame or came apart, the fell power animating them countered by the holy ground. Even the Plague Marines that came behind them hesitated at the threshold, their armor smoking as they advanced. For a moment, the defenders dared to hope that the scions of plague wouldn't be able to enter the Cathedral, that the Emperor had delivered onto them their salvation.
But then, the tide of the dead parted, revealing the corrupt tech-priest that had led the invasion of Talexorn. The creature stopped at the very edge of the sacred field, and held up its two natural arms – thin and wasted things, blackened by tumors and corruption – before pressing them on the very surface of the field. At once, smoke began to rise from its hands, and Warp energy poured forth from the exposed mechanical parts of his body. Several of the defenders tried to shoot at the creature, but it was in vain – every bolt and las-beam was blocked by some manner of force-field surrounding it.
Behind the defenders, Lycaon screamed in agony as he felt the power of Chaos spreading. Still he held on, reinforcing the Cathedral's holy ground with his own psychic power, making the icons and symbols all over the building flare with golden fire.
For several minutes, the two psychic entities remained in mutual lock-down. But Lycaon was only one Librarian, while Pharod was currently linked with the miasma of corruption that covered Talexorn entire. Nurgle's eyes had fallen on the unfortunate city, and the God of Plague was filling his champion with unholy energies. After a long and painful struggle, something ruptured in Lycaon's brain, and he fell, dead. At the same time, the base of the Emperor's statue cracked ominously, before collapsing and crashing into the Cathedral's wall opposite to the entrance. The stone was broken apart, and the entire wall collapsed, revealing the polluted skies and the other spires beyond.
The defenders remained immobile, utterly stunned by what had happened. Then, a voice came from the tech-priest, but also from many more mouths :
'This is the end for you, slaves of the Corpse-Emperor. His power over this ground is broken. His light cannot reach you.'
They were speaking, the defenders realized in horror. Every mouth in the horde was speaking the same words at the same time, directed by some malign intelligence. Most undead were too decomposed to do anything more than moan, but those whose tongue and teeth were still mostly intact were speaking as one, in a choir of the lost and the damned. Even the undead whose body formed the bridge were wailing, adding their own tormented voices to the unholy song. This wasn't the voice of the corrupt leader of the walking dead. This was the voice of their god, made manifest by the tremendous corruption writhing outside the Cathedral – and now that the holy ground had been so thoroughly desecrated, it would soon be within as well.
The defenders raised their weapons, prepared to fight to the last and take as many of the rotting things down with them as they could. As the horde was about to crash onto their line, however, the air was torn by the sound of heavy bolters and powerful engines.
The first wave of Zombies was blasted to shreds by a volley of heavy fire. Stunned, the humans turned, and saw the unmistakable shape of a Stormbird through the ruined wall, standing almost still as its weapons ripped the undead apart. Ladders began to fall through the opening, while the Stormbird which had just opened fire drew closer, opening its bay.
'Space Marines, hold the line !' shouted Erasmos. 'The rest of you, go :'
'Get back with the others, old man,' Argus managed to say in between two strokes of his blade to one of the few who had chosen to remain while the rest were evacuating. He recognized him – the priest that had been aboard the Lady of the Three Seas, and had kept the daemon away with his prayers. Father Colin, he had been called then. 'Leave this to us.'
'This is my flock, sergeant,' said the priest without turning his attention from the slaughter he was inflicting with his chainsword. He had picked up the weapon from one of the fallen Scouts – it was still far too big for him, but faith and adrenalin granted strength to his limbs, and the massacre of the undead didn't require any more skill with a blade that did the reaping of a field. His voice was utterly calm and entirely at odds with the situation – had Argus not been engaged in combat himself, he would probably have been unnerved by the old man's tranquility. 'To die so that they may live is my duty and my joy.'
That was apparently enough for the sergeant. They kept on fighting, while behind them the survivors and Sons of Calth who had been stationed away from the gates were being brought aboard the gunships. This wasn't a rout – the Astartes aboard the vessels had established contact with the survivors, and were coordinating the evacuation while Erasmos, Argus' squad and those who were either too wounded or too foolish – Colin wasn't fooling himself about what he was doing – were holding back the tide.
Father Colin saw Argus die. The sergeant's head was removed from his shoulders by a single blow from one of the Plague Marines, one that he hadn't been able to block or dodge as he was locked in place by a mass of undead. A second later, the corrupt Marine was slain by a strike of Captain Erasmos, his head cut in twain by the power blade of the Son of Calth. He in turn fell, not to another fallen son of Mortarion, but instead blasted out of existence by a discharge of green, sickly light that annihilated half of his body and turned the remaining half into a rapidly decaying husk.
And then, the old man found himself face to face with the abomination that had led the attack – the one that, in his dreams, he had seen as responsible for all the horrors that had befallen Talexorn. He had the time for a single strike with his chainblade, managing to cut into one of the exposed cables, before a blade fixed at the end of a half-metal, half-tentacle mechadendrite pierced right through him.
The pain … was overwhelming. He felt his consciousness threatening to black out, but clung to his awareness. He still had a chance to stop the monster that was responsible for the horrors that had befallen this city. He tried to lift his left hand, which was holding a plasma grenade he had taken from a fallen Son of Calth several days ago. He had thought to use it to take a few more of the dead with him, and deny the Great Enemy the use of his own corpse, but if he could activate it now, his death would be worth the destruction of the fallen magos.
He saw his arm move, and tried to press the activation rune on the grenade, only to realize that he could no longer feel the weapon. When his arm was high enough, he saw why : everything below his elbow was gone, having succumbed to rot and fallen on the ground. Glancing down, he saw the grenade amidst a small pile of rotten bio-matter. The same corruption was spreading through his other limbs. Already his legs were almost gone, and he was only kept standing by the blade that was piercing through his torso.
'You die in vain,' said the corrupt tech-priest through several vox-grills on its body, all of which dripped with poison, 'like all slaves of the False Emperor.'
'No life … given to the Emperor … is ever lost in vain,' riposted the priest, struggling to speak with his guts spilling from his body and the pain of his quickly decaying flesh.
'Give yourself to Nurgle,' pressed the abomination. 'Abandon your foolish belief in the Corpse-God. He cannot help you. He cannot help anyone, trapped on this throne of lies my former brethren have built for him. Only my lord can save you now …'
'Never,' breathed Father Colin. It was the last word he would ever speak. His body finally shut down, and his soul slipped free of its mortal frame, escaping the hold of the Plague God and vanishing in the tides of the Warp Storm.
Pharod roared in discontent, blasting the priest's remains apart with a shot from one of the many new weapons implanted within his frame – half-living and rotten biomatter, half rusted steel and exposed cables. He was about to curse the dead man's foolishness when several of his cogitator blocks realigned themselves, and an entirely new train of thought imposed itself upon his diseased mind. He looked before him, and saw that the last of the humans were reaching out toward the ladders of the evacuation vessels. One of them, a man wearing the tattered remnants of what appeared to have been high-quality clothing at some point, glared in the direction of the magos even as he kept climbing. Despite the distance separating them, Pharod could see the hatred in the man's eyes, and it was a pleasing sight to him. Hatred was a force that motivated people to fight, to resist death, to endure anything the cruel galaxy could hurl in their direction. At the same time, hatred was very similar to rot, consuming the soul and sapping the moral strength of the one who harbored it within his soul. It was normal that Nurgle's agents be hated by those they sought to free from the constraints of their limited, blighted existence – it was a sign that they were doing their self-assigned task well.
A name echoed through the Gardener's fractured mind, carried over the timeless tides of the Warp : Tarek. That was a significant name, one that had importance in Pharod's existence … or was it that it would have importance in the future ? It was always so difficult to keep tracks of such things. Beyond his own shattered mind, such things as past, present and future were all insignificant compared to the inexorable advance of decay that would inevitably one day usher the coming of Nurgle's true realm.
The ships began to climb, dragging the ladders beneath them like birds of prey carrying their latest kill to the nest. Pharod watched them, knowing that there was something he should do, a command he should issue through the links he shared with all of those who had been blessed by his work. Yet now, he hesitated. He could feel the will of the Plague God spreading through him, and suddenly, with another jolt of energy as two cogitators were put in contact, he knew exactly what he had to do :
Nothing.
'You didn't give the order,' remarked Petronicus to Pharod. 'Merchurion's minions spent several days warding these anti-air batteries so that we would be able to use them without them falling apart.'
The Plague Marine was referring to the heavy artillery that had been dragged from the empty fields where it had been deposited by transports – several dozens kilometers away from the hive, to prevent the crew from being infected. It had taken two weeks and hundreds of Plague Zombies, controlled by no less than twelve Plague-Born to ensure they didn't damage the things, to bring the weapons into position. It had been Arken's plans to shoot down the evacuation crafts with them after they had 'rescued' the last defenders – a deliberate insult to the loyalist forces, which would have done far more damage to their morale than to their actual fighting capabilities. But Pharod, who was supposed to send the order to the Plague-Born manning the weapons, had not done so, and the aircrafts were too far now.
Pharod's answer came in a buzzing voice, far from the emotionless vox-speak that other tech-priests affected. It was filled with zeal, warmth, and what Petronicus was fairly certain was admiration :
'They have fought well. They resisted against the inevitable with all of their strength, knowing that there would be no escape from it but determined to keep on going. Is that not worth something ? They will still fall against the unstoppable advance of decay. But today, I do believe that they have earned to live a little longer. Look at all the flesh they have broken, rendered down into brute components for Nurgle's scions ! The bottom of the tower supporting this dreadful place is surrounded by a veritable mound of corpses. Can't you feel the smile of the Plaguefather as He looks upon what we have done here, with the help of these blind, unfortunate souls ?'
He could. Petronicus heard the booming laughter of the God of Life and Death in his head, just as he could feel His favor dripping from the tumultuous skies and into his rotting flesh, both in the form of the poisonous rain that had begun shortly after the loyalists had escaped and in a more spiritual aspect. New diseases were forming inside his blood vessels, and he could feel the remaining skin on his body getting harder by the second. The corpses too damaged to be reanimated were dissolving into pools of putrefied liquid, from which countless daemons of Nurgle were emerging – some the size of a virus, others as big as his head. Nurgle was watching, and the God of Plague was rewarding him and the others for what had been done here in His name.
But while Nurgle may be pleased with the ultimate result, Petronicus wasn't so certain that Arken would be. The lord of the Forsaken Sons had wanted to crush the Talexorn defenders, deny them all salvation and send a message to the rest of the loyalists' commander : this is what will happen to you all. Behold your powerlessness. You cannot save any of them from me. Now, even though the hive-city had fallen, the survivors would be a tremendous boon to the moral of the other cities. The tale of their heroic resistance would inspire new heights of bravery. Definitely not what Arken had planned. They had lost several Plague Marines in the whole operation, and though Petronicus didn't feel any particular grief at their demise – death was all too familiar to the scions of the Fourteenth Legion – he knew that the Awakened One held the lives of all Astartes in his service in high regard, and wouldn't appreciate the value of their deaths being diminished in the slightest.
'You are in command of this operation, Pharod,' sighed the Plague Marine – expelling a blob of pus from his mouth as he did so. 'Do as you please … '
He walked away from the magos, approaching a group of Zombies that were chewing on and tearing apart the bodies of a handful of defenders, their empty minds unable to realize that their preys were already dead. Once he was sure that Pharod had moved on to other matters, he activated his armor's vox-link to the Hand of Ruin, thanking Nurgle that the equipment still worked despite his armor's state. He only had to wait a few seconds before the link was established – evidently Arken had been waiting for him to call, having probably already seen everything from orbit. He chose to anticipate the inevitable questions :
'Pharod chose to let them escape, lord Arken,' he gargled over the vox, feeling a new lump of putrescent liquid form in his throat. 'He felt that this would be a … way of honoring Nurgle. And it worked,' he quickly added, trying to lessen the damage. 'I can feel the power of Nurgle flowing through me and this city.'
For a moment, there was no answer, and he felt a twinge of worry that this time, the Awakened One was going to be angry. And when Arken spoke, Petronicus was fairly certain that indeed, his liege lord was containing his wrath, focusing on the silver lining of the situation rather than allow his temper to get the better of him. It was difficult to be sure, since Arken wasn't exactly an expressive soul at the best of times, and vox-corruption didn't help, but he could feel the tension in the Awakened One's voice.
'I see,' replied the master of the Forsaken Sons. 'Well, he would know about such things even better than you, I suppose. And these few warriors hardly matter. Their death was more a test of the new artillery than anything else. If such eccentricities are the price of the Reborn's alliance with us, I guess it is a reasonable one.'
'You won't … take action against him ?' Petronicus was surprised. Arken was usually more demanding of those under his command. He had proved that he was merciless with those who disobeyed his orders – though the former Death Guard didn't know if it was because he wouldn't tolerate dissension, or because anyone foolish enough to disobey him was useless anyway.
'I need him for the final stage of Parecxis' conquest. Besides, I think that this little stunt may actually serve our interests in the long term.'
Petronicus waited for a moment, before it was clear that Arken wasn't about to explain himself. Many things had changed since they had turned from the False Emperor, but the need to keep one's plans secret even from your own side had not. With a final salutation, he closed the link, and walked out of the cathedral, to stand on the edge of the precipice that surrounded the building. Behind him, he could hear the Plague-Born directing the unblessed into destroying all icons of the False Emperor and replacing them with symbols of Nurgle. It would take a long time to transform the building into a worthy temple of the Plague God, especially since none of the ascended souls were working together, but their enthusiasm would lead them through in the end.
He looked around him, watching what had become of Talexorn. The moving corpses were wandering aimlessly amidst the ruins, which already were being altered by the touch of the Warp. With the last of the False Emperor's faithful gone and the cursed church tainted, Nurgle was free to do as He pleased with the hive. The Plague Marine couldn't help but think of maggots emerging from a carcass. From the death of the city, something new would emerge, as was the way of the God of Decay. He didn't know what it would be.
But he knew that it would be glorious.