Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 102
Down the stairs they flew, crossing five at a time. Fast as the wind, fast as any Space Marine had ever run, they hurtled back the way they had come, desperate to escape the coming doom. Space Marines of any stripe did not abandon a mission, but the objective had just become irrelevant. The Shrine's destruction was certain, the only question that remained was if the Astartes would join it in death, and so they ran.
Damchak's boot hit hard ground and he bounded away. With him ran Umbral Flame, Bone Gnawer, Night Caller and Ghost Cry Prowls. At their side Nemkir and his Brothers ran, equally eager to depart. Damchak pressed himself harder, setting the pace. By his reckoning it would be a few minutes only to reach the Crassus transports, but that was time they didn't have. The Terran air armada was closing at hundreds of kilometres an hour, and no man's land was a painfully short distance to cross.
Abizil grunted as they ran, "Surely they would not bomb their own allies?!"
Damchak's arms swung hard as his legs jackhammered, "They would if so ordered, and Lord Marcher bears no love for our kind."
"I miss the Boscage, where mortals show proper respect."
"For once your truth is undeniable!"
Damchak redoubled his efforts but it was no good. Hundreds of dark spots moved against the night sky, as clear to Transhuman eyes as if they soared in daylight. Damchak counted the seconds remaining but came up short, the entire area would be saturated before they escaped. Yet he had not counted on the rebel's defiance. From behind the parking range a streak of light shot upwards, followed by a dozen more, then scores. Pilum missiles, launching from surface-to-air batteries embedded around the perimeter of the Shrine. The Space Marines had deemed them no threat to their ground assault, but they proved a mighty defence against slow-moving Marauders.
High flying bombers ejected flares, lighting up the heavens but all it achieved was to illuminate their deaths. The sky was split as missiles soared to greet them, then pilots began to die. Explosions bloomed far above, the ringing peals of destruction sounding like the greatest thunderstorm that ever occurred. Snarled wreckage plummeted to the dirt, crashing short of the trenches, adding their bulk to the twisted fields of no-man's-land. More Marauders fell, drawing a line in the night, then from the rear shot waves of Thunderbolt fighters, racing to intercept the bomber wave. Terran Thunderbolts broke formation and dove to meet them, pitting identical craft against each other in a swirling dogfight.
Nizca spat, "I cannot tell friend from foe!"
"There are no friends to be found here!" Abizil cried.
"Shut up and run!" Aapo barked as he lumbered along, metal feet clomping as they passed him.
"Eldest, can you match our fleetness?!" Damchak called in worry.,
"Tend to your own woes," Aapo admonished, "Life slips through our fingers like water!"
The frantic dogfight above had become a swirling morass of bravery and death, Terran and Tellarite pilots tearing each other to shreds, and yet from that confusion dove new threats. Gull-winged craft with turbofan engines behind the cockpits, Vulture gunships, laden with missiles. Hundreds of them dove under the dogfight and crossed the line of Tellarite trenches, then their missiles flew free. Damchak was smacked across the helm as blast waves washed over the Space Marines, Hellstrike missiles detonating all around. Idling machines were torn to shreds, filling the air with shrapnel and his armour rang like hail as it pattered off his plate. He stumbled, feeling the air grew hot and his teeth rattling in his skull. Brilliant light blinded him, and every step was taken in faith the ground would still be there to greet his boot. When the light faded the world had been transfigured into a vision of hell.
Burning wrecks lay everywhere, their spines torn out to leave skeletal ruins. Lakes of ignited fuel spread far and wide, rivers of fire joining together to form pools of conflagration. His armour's seals grew hot as the temperatures soared, scalding his skin even through the protective layers and his multi-lung cut in as oxygen plummeted all around. The Space Marines walked through a hellscape but the Heathens suffered worse. Dead bodies charred everywhere, more of them than had been slain previously. Those who had hid from the Astartes' wrath found no salvation in cowardice, the spreading flames sought out every sanctuary, every hiding hole and made them into cauldrons of horror. Damchak saw flailing mortals thrashing everywhere, falling to their faces and rolling in agony. From the sundered wreck of an Olyphant emerged a man seemingly spared, save the truncated arm on his left. He carried the shorn limb under his other arm as a highborn lady would her clutch-purse. The man stepped into a lake of fire and carried on as if nothing was wrong, too shocked to feel the pain of his legs burning. Six steps later he fell over and died, his flesh charred black from head to toe.
Damchak was already past, hastening his Kinsmen on as Vulture gunships shot overhead, chin guns booming. Nizca snarled, "Have they not tasted blood enough from our veins?!"
Nemkir hollered, "They aren't going for us, they're targeting the missile launchers!"
"If they fall we are doomed!" Abizil lamented.
"Then make haste as you have never hastened before!" Damchak spat.
The transports were ahead, already inching out of the vehicle park. Rear hatches opened, beckoning the Space Marines to safety, but it was too late. The missile batteries fell silent and the defences crumbled. Vulture gunships tore off, leaving dozens of wrecks behind, but high above the Marauders were unchained. With the missile threat ended they punched through the Tellarite fighter screen with sheer numbers, broad-winged planes grinding forward like an Ambull in heat. Nothing would stay their wrath, no matter the cost in blood. They were selling thousands of pilot lives for a chance to strike, but it was a price their masters were willing to pay.
The last desperate Tellarite fighters scrambled to hold them back, and more wrecks tumbled from the sky trailing smoke, but a dozen bombers survived long enough to open their bomb bay doors and drop their cargo. Huge droplets fell in stacked rows, each a high-explosive bomb capable of enormous destruction. They fell unguided, trusting weight of firepower over precision.
An explosion barely a few paces behind and Damchak was picked up bodily and thrown into the side of a ruined Crassus. His head smashed hard into the sheer wall of metal and one of his eye lenses broke. His vision crazed as the Machine Spirit flailed and he fell onto his back with the air driven from him. He felt blood coating his face, he must have cut his brow and a woozy sensation stole over him. His skull must have cracked with the impact, if he were mortal he'd be dead, but even his implants struggled to keep him conscious.
Damchak slapped his helm with his left hand and on the second attempt managed to tear it off. The sound of destruction battered at his poor skull like a grot pounding on skin-drum, each beat a needle of pain behind his eyeballs. A sickly feeling stole over him, purple spots danced in his vision and his tongue felt furry. Of all calamities that struck him as mirthful and he chuckled under his breath. Then rigid conditioning took control, he was giddy and delirious, laughing when he should be moving.
Ingrained instincts compelled him to roll over and spread his hands wide. He could barely see but his gauntlet found a wrist laying prone. Abizil, he too had been caught in the blast and wounded. His blood-brother did not move but Damchak gripped tight as he rose to his knees, stumbling pace bay pace, dragging his twin behind.
"The way is shut," Damchak hissed as he shielded his eyes with his claw's bulk, "The way is shut, the way is shut, the way is... open!" Ahead he spied the transports, already filling with escaping Space Marines. Raven Guard and Smoke jaguars piled in with no care for order, even Aapo was ducking into his specially modified Crassus, urged on by frantic Kinsmen. They had no time to wait for stragglers, Damchak either reached them or he died, so he forced his sick feeling aside and got his feet under him, struggling forward, sensing the sands of time running out.
The first wave of Marauders had been obliterated, not one surviving to return home, but the subsequent wave dwarfed the initial thrust. A thousand prows cut the air, four thousand engines growled and bomb bay doors yawned wide open, waiting to disgorge their cargoes. Damchak had until they reached the Shrine, a laughably short time. A step, dragging his brother long. Another, the world tilting about like an ocean swell. A third, futile surely, but taken to spite fate. Then Ceramite hands grabbed him and heaved the First into a Crassus.
Nizca's voice rang in his ear, "That's the last, flee!"
The transport jerked as the engine roared into life, propelling them away. Damchak swayed drunkenly, "Make greater haste."
Nizca's blurry outline turned about, "I lost you in the bedlam."
"Abizil needs a Genewright..."
"First?"
"Hold, I must see..."
Damchak sagged against the door jamb, the hatch slowly whinging closed. Behind the bombs began to fall in trailing lines. Blooming fireballs arose from horizon to horizon, destroying all in their path. Endless lines of Marauders flew overhead, pouring ever-increasing amounts of ordnance into the firestorm, carpet bombing the entire area. Damchak saw the Shrine folding inwards, its thick walls reduced to powered mortar, billowing out to be lost in the inferno. The symbol of Tellarite resistance was no more, smashed like a sandcastle trod upon by a careless foot.
Damchak sagged as the hatch slammed closed and the Crassus tore off, racing to escape the destruction. One lucky hit would see them dead, but with every second the distance increased and their likelihood of survival grew. They'd done it, they'd escaped despite all the odds being set against them.
"It is done Abizil," Damchak breathed, "It is done."
"First?" Nizca intruded into his thoughts.
"We must regroup," Damchak groaned, "A moment to recover, then we hit the heathens again."
"First, you must let go."
"I..." Damchak frowned.
"Let go, he's gone."
Damchak slowly turned his aching head and beheld what was left of Abizil. His blood brother had been shredded by the explosion, severed from intercostal muscle to the clavicle. The left arm was missing, as was everything below the diaphragm save a few trailing ropes of entrails. His head hung slack to one side, no hint of life left in him. He had died instantly, without a chance of reprieve. Damchak had dragged half a corpse behind him, too stunned to realise his twin was dead already.
Silence fell among Umbral Flame Prowl as Damchak dropped the arm he was holding. Slowly he knelt, removing the beaked helmet of his twin with reverent care. Abizil's slack features were exposed, his pale skin gaunt and his eyes unseeing. Damchak had no words, his chest was a block of ice, sheer impossibility silencing his tongue. Abizil the laughing fool was gone, and with him all the joy in the universe. No more would his irreverent voice goad Damchak, no more would he bring silent mirth among his Kinsmen. What a bleak and soulless place the galaxy would be without Abizil.
Nizca placed a hand on Damchak's pauldron, "His gene-seed will live on."
"There was no time to say goodbye..." Damchak whispered.
"First?"
"He was taken from me; the universe is unbalanced!" Damchak growled as the ice in his breast became raw heat.
"Prowlmaster, perhaps we should..."
Damchak shrugged off the hand as he snarled, "Betrayal and murder most foul, brought upon us by one who should be counted friend! Abizil lies dead, stabbed in the back, no fitting death for a child of Copan, but I shall not let his saga end in disgrace. They shall learn to fear the silence of the night, for the jaguar of smoke bears its fangs. By the axe of Damolos, by the blood of Sedaxus, I do swear Abizil shall be avenged!"