Planetfall, Plus Seven Hundred Eighty-Two Hours Terran Sidereal
Escape.
Evade.
Kaedes Nex wasn't sure how long he'd been prowling the Isstvan wastes. At last count, his retinal display had shown four-hundred thirty-three hours since mission commencement. That was before a powered dagger had sheared into his helmet, taking out the left lens and nearly his eye with it. The close encounter with the matter-disruptive field had left ghost images dancing in his vision long afterwards. They'd looked strangely like Raven Guard Legionaries jerking and falling as mass-reactives punched into their armor and flesh. He'd returned the favor to the Alpha Legionnaire with the traitor's own dagger, only he got the eye – and the brain behind. He'd kept the power dagger.
The skies were still a mass of roiling dark clouds, angry like the world itself had taken offense at the carnage upon its surface. Helmetless, the Isstvan air smelled of blood and fyceline, of decay held back by the harsh cold, and burning petrochemicals and munitions. Flames still dotted the Urgall Depression; some from chemical weapons employed in the hours of massacre, others more recently started. Sporadic gunfire echoed across the valley, skirmishes as those few who'd managed to break from the encirclement continued to fight for survival – no, for vengeance.
Despite the overwhelming numerical advantage, despite the crushing surprise and the traitors' knife through the back, the three Legions had died hard. Remnants fought on still, like the mega-predators of the Borostran Sector that fought on in a wild frenzy even after taking mortal wounds dozens of times over.
Most of Horus' forces had moved on. Though the massacre at the dropsite hadn't been total, it had accomplished its strategic purpose. In one fell swoop the Warmaster had swept the galactic board of three Astartes Legions loyal to the Emperor. Now the bulk of them had departed, opening gambit played out successfully.
Nex slipped into a shadowed gulch underneath one of the countless Urgall cliffs. Good, more corpses. He moved in, scavenged recycled nutrient supplies from backpack feeds and bolt pistol ammunition. The Fulcrums had long used all their ammunition, but he never thought to discard them. He'd just have soon have thought about discarding an arm or a hand.
More gunfire sounded close by. He froze, listened. Two bursts, nothing else. Not a skirmish then. Probably more executions. Direly wounded Astartes slipped into suspended animation comas, and the Warmaster's hunters were being thorough in their checks. The gunfire probably meant… Iron Warriors. The World Eaters inevitably sawed heads off, collecting skulls for some reason. The Alpha Legion and Word Bearers too disdained battlefield execution by bolter. From what Nex had seen they were collecting bodies in the case of the former, gene-seed in the latter. Neither seemed to care if the ones they harvested were dead or alive.
Heavy footsteps approached. Definitely Iron Warriors. Nex waited, one with the shadows, as a quartet of Legionaries in dirty metal plate tromped past. The Marine on rear point glanced into the gulch, panned a light over the corpses within.
"Fulgrim's peacocks. Freaks."
Another joined him, looked down at the ruptured armor. "These look normal enough. Keep moving: the sooner we finish this the sooner we can get back to the real war."
"Did you see them during the encirclement? I'm tempted to put some rounds into them, just to be sure."
A sigh. "Just don't waste too much ammo," the other Iron Warrior said, walking away.
Nex reached down and gripped his appropriated dagger. He waited until he heard the crunch and shift of the Iron Warrior's boots in the dirt turning away, and pulled himself up over the lip of the gulch silently.
The first stroke sliced through the neck joint, severed vocal cords. The second stroke parted armor power connections. Nex flipped the power dagger into a reverse grip and drove it down through the crown of his victim's helm in a hammer blow. The Iron Warrior twitched and kicked as the matter disrupting field burst his brain – and fired a burst into the ground as his fingers clenched in one final reflex.
The others didn't react, inured to sudden short outbreaks of gunfire by the execution duty. Nex seized the bolter arm and turned it on the other three Iron Warriors, stitching them with rounds until the bolter locked empty.
That got their attention. One fell facedown, back generator a ruined, sparking mass leaking blood from nearly a dozen punctures. The other two whirled and brought their own bolters up with transhuman speed and returned fire, perforating the upright corpse of their battle-brother. They moved, spreading in opposite directions as the body collapsed. One skirted the gulch lip as he approached the corpse, smoking bolter raised. He glanced down into the-
Eyes of pure black staring over a bolt pistol muzzle. Kaedes lunged straight up, caught hold of the Iron Warrior's collar, and pressed the looted pistol up into the Mk II helmet's underside. He squeezed the trigger and leaned back, letting his weight pull the body over the edge into the gulch.
He moved, dashing along the length of the gulch as he unfastened his cloak. The time on Isstvan had taught him that the Fourth Legion liked their explosives in all shapes, sizes, and situations. A frag grenade clattered down from above, right atop the downed Iron Warrior. Predictable. The explosion was still deafening, channeled by the ditch in the ground.
Bolter fire hosed down the gulch. Nex was still moving, pulling himself up rocky handholds. He threw his cloak up over the edge, directed away from himself. Bolt rounds hissed through to detonate in the cliff wall beyond. He came over the edge and slammed into the Iron Warrior two meters away, bowling him over. Nex drove one fist repeatedly into the other Legionary's faceplate, landed three blows before they hit the ground.
The Iron Warrior curled and kicked both feet into Nex's chest with a crash like groundcars colliding; the blow knocked the Raven Guard off and away. He leapt to his feet, pulling a saw-toothed combat knife as he did so.
Nex was gone.
"Fly away, little raven! There's no-" He paused, looked down at the row of krak grenades clipped to his waist.
Krak grenades missing their ignition levers.
"Shi-"
The implosion charges detonated in a resounding cascade of the cracks they were named for. In the deepening shadows Nex smiled, opened his fist, and let the bundle of little metal pieces fall to the ground.
Planetfall, Plus Seven Hundred Eighty Six Hours Terran Sidereal
He found Thayon Melchar some hours later. Somehow, nobody had looted or desecrated his corpse yet. Kaedes examined the scene; Melchar lay near the base of a slope, jump pack shattered. His armor bore so many punctures there seemed to be more air than ceramite encasing his bloody limbs. One last, unused melta bomb hung from his hip. He still gripped his modified plasma pistols in death, cowl shrouds crusted with dirt and blood. The slope behind Melchar was a churned morass. Footprints, Kaedes realized. Melchar had fallen covering some massed retreat.
Nex looked at the clearing before Melchar. Corpses covered the black ground. Word Bearers, Night Lords, and World Eaters. All alike in death, the distinctive deep burns of plasma wounds through hearts and heads. On any other field, in any other battle, this would have been a deed of legend.
Here, it was just one more act of desperate defiance against the inevitable.
Kaedes crouched down over Melchar's body. He reached down, detached the remarkably intact helmet. The flesh beneath was unexpectedly whole, too. The Moritat-Secundus had fallen recently – another one of the scattered skirmishes in the massacre site. Melchar stared sightlessly into the sky, a last bitter smile fixed on his face. Nex cocked his head; he'd seen countless beings die up close, many of them at his hand. So very few did so while smiling.
Strange.
Kaedes pried the customized plasma pistols from Melchar's death grips, unbuckled the spare hydrogen canisters that fed the energy weapons, and slung them into place around himself. He remembered what Melchar had said, hours before they'd all thrown themselves unwittingly to the slaughter.
"You died well."
Was there more he was supposed to say? Nex shrugged, donned Melchar's helmet, and started walking away. He halted twenty paces away, thought about what he'd seen the traitor Legions doing to the corpses of the fallen. He turned back.
He walked away again a minute later. Behind him, the melta bomb detonated with a sizzling roar and immolated Melchar's remains.