Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 51
2nd B'ak'tun, year 106, season of Palanque.
The sky currents were tortured, tidal forces tearing across the putrid heavens of Xibalba, stirring the poisonous heavens into a frothing cauldron. Tornados of Hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, methane and Ethylene swept over the broken landscape, dragging poisons from the upper atmosphere to scour the ground bare. Green flashes of lightning swept from horizon to horizon, burning coronas blazing as they ignited combustible pockets of gas. Storms larger than nations gripped the world, making men shiver in fear.
In sinkhole cities, where precious oxygen gathered, families huddled together, praying that the rubberised seals around their windows and doors would hold. Factories closed as workers fled for home and even criminal scum sealed themselves away. For those on the surface shelter was more scarce. Vapour mills closed down, overwhelmed by storm fronts and gas reservoirs sealed their ports, fearful a stray lightning bolt would detonate the contents. The PDF donned gas masks and pulled rubber coats tight, many of them gazing longingly at Ferrocrete bunkers but were kept at their posts by shouting officers, lest an Ork raiding party take advantage of the confusion. It was not Orks they should be worried about.
Far from any inhabited city a jagged crack in the land concealed a fortress, grim and unwelcoming. Like all dwellings on Xibalba it was built upside down, the upper layers fortified with gun posts, bunkers and augur stations. Further down, where the toxic air of the surface was less likely to reach, hab blocks, workshops and laboritorums clung to the sides of the ravine. It was eternally dark in this underworld, but none could mistake the unwelcoming nature of the place. No one who should not be here would live to see the faint light of day again. But that did not deter Engar.
Silently the Lord Headsman made his way down a munitions shaft, moving slowly as he descended. His movements were silent, the humming of his Mark IV plate oddly muted by sciences few could understand. His weight should have bent the metal supports he clung to, but he distributed his mass expertly, while avoiding laser grids and motion auspexs with ease. His armour was dappled shades of dim hue, more concealing than plain black and on his pauldron was the darkened icon of a feline skull in profile. Smoke Jaguar it proclaimed him, though he wasn't only that, Lord Headsman they called him, founder and shadow master. He certainly lived up to his title.
Engar descended in silence, a mere flicker of black in the midnight gloom of the shaft. Engar was keenly aware of his surroundings, every mote of dust accounted for. If a speck was out of place he froze, but so light was his touch that barely a stir was made in the air. Engar's twin hearts were the loudest thing in his ears, eagerness urging him to make haste. He did not, Corax's axioms were ever his guide and he recited them in his mind as he penetrated his enemy's demesne.
Engar had long hunted this elusive enemy, but in five centuries had never come so close. A rumour at best, a ghost story told in hushed whispers. Many times he had thought he was chasing nothing but a myth, such keen evasion would have made Corax envious. Engar drew deeper on his wraith slip as he moved deeper. All Raven Guard were trained in the arts of concealment but few among them could lay claim to Corax's preternatural talent for stealth, the Mor Deythan, a select order who inherited his ability to slip his own shadow. Engar knew barely a handful of the hybrid Smoke Jaguars could wield that gift, and those that did were diluted and deviant facsimiles of his talent, too much of Konrad Curze in their blood, Engar reckoned.
Finally he reached the bottom of the shaft and crept through a small hatch for pallets of autocannon rounds. His boots touched the Ferrocrete corridor beyond and he drew Giant's Roar from his back. A Transonic axe of fearsome power, he had wielded it for centuries, but in his mind it would always belong to his late friend Damolos. He kept it deactivated as an enlarged ocular built over his right eye lens scoured the corridor, searching for traces of life. Thermal impressions were faint, no warm bodies had moved this way for an hour at least, but chemical stains on the floor told of dirty boots passing by frequently. This corridor wasn't abandoned, he best not linger.
Engar silently stole into the fortress, moving along passages he judged had the least traffic. He was a Space Marine but he was also alone. He could not fight all the inhabitants alone, this mission was recon, he must find proof their elusive enemy was indeed on Xibalba and depart. The rest of the Smoke Jaguars could purge this place in a storm of fire. Xavaar would no doubt take all the credit, the Chief Librarian had always been a glory-hog and swindler, must be his Night Lord blood.
Engar froze as the strangest feeling swept over him. His wraith-slip was gone. Engar had never truly understood from whence Corax's gifts flowed, but suddenly it was ripped away. Engar nearly stumbled as his mask of shadow dissolved, leaving him naked and exposed. Never had he experienced this and nearly he turned back. He wore armour honed for silent movement, he was trained for evasion and subtly, he had a Space Marines' prowess and the Axioms of Corax to guide him, but without his wraith-slip he felt as if he was illuminated by a floodlight.
The urge to turn and run gnawed at his spirit, but he refused. He was Mor Deythan, Lord Headsman and executioner of tyrants. He had slain Ork Warlords in the middle of their camps, culled corrupt governors and moved unseen through the Forge-fanes of Alar-Median, he would not falter at the first unexpected hurdle. He would find the proof he needed, no matter what.
A Plasteel door was ahead, left slightly ajar. Carefully Engar moved to the frame and extended his Ocular with a silent tremble. He edged the eyestalk into the open, careful to keep his bulk concealed, and saw a strange sight indeed. A Laboritorum, filled with whirring cogitators and bubbling cryotubes. Strange figures floated in the sterile medium, but that was not what caught his attention, his eyes fixed upon a trio of figures within.
Halfway down the room a Tech-priest with his back to the door leaned over a medslab, examining a corpse opened up to the cold air. Magos Biologist, by the markings on his robe. Opposite a thin woman stood with arms crossed, a sneer upon her face. She had a thin sword at her hip and glossy black hair but her face was disturbing, in a way Engar struggled to articulate. It took a moment to realise her features were perfectly symmetrical, every feature duplicated without flaw or blemish, not a pore out of place. There was something inhuman about her, yet that paled in comparison to the third figure. A giant who loomed over the other two, clad in a thick brown robe. His face was hidden but his back was hunched and bulbous, even so he was taller than Engar and the bulky arms sticking out of his sleeves were corded with gene-bred muscle and import sockets. Transhuman, he could be nothing else, but not a Space Marine of the Smoke Jaguars… surely a Traitor Marine.
Engar bit down a surge of hatred as words of the Magos carried to his ear, "Genic deviation strayed too far from the template, this subject could never achieve maturity."
"You failed me," a dangerous growl from the Transhuman.
"It was an experimental subject only, my process is new and must be tested thoroughly. The next replicae will be more stable, the one after that even more so."
"I do not like having my time wasted."
The woman spoke up, "Take some blue father, you grow choleric."
"Of course my daughter," the Transhuman sighed, "I cannot risk losing my temper, you remain too exceptional to risk harming."
Engar was confused by the sight, but had what he needed. His armour's logs had stored this discovery, he had proof the Bronze Beast was on Xibalba, all he needed now was to exfiltrate and report to his kinsmen. But he was too late. The woman's head snapped to the door, despite his subtly she had seen him. It was impossible, but then losing his wraith slip was supposed to be impossible, and Engar knew he was discovered.
The woman's jaw opened to alert her companions, but Engar was already moving. He leapt into the room, eyepiece rotating home as Giant's Roar sprang into life. A deep Transonic hum filled the room as the twin heads of the axe blackened and Engar charged. He moved with Astartes' swiftness, crossing the room before the woman could scream. A Space Marine in motion was a shocking thing, Transhuman dread stunning any who beheld them. His mass was immense, his power undeniable and his speed would unman the sternest of foes. Engar made to strike before any could react to his presence, sure he would land the first blow, and so was shocked when the Transhuman spun about and backhanded the Lord Headsman with a roundhouse blow.
Engar was lifted bodily and thrown headlong into a wall. His helm dented as he crashed hard, leaving a crater deep as a man's fist in the wall. His head rang but greater was his shock at the Bronze Beast's strength. One blow had thrown a fully armoured Astartes away like a rag doll, and that was without power armour assist. No normal Space Marine owned strength like that, only the boons of Chaos could bestow such might.
Engar was enraged and pushed off the wall. He threw himself at the enemy, silent and deadly. No bellows of challenge, no cries of admonishment, such was not his way. He struck as the whisper in the night, the rising of hair on the neck the only warning of his strike, the humming of Giant's Roar exhortation enough. It was a good strike, fast and sure, but the Bronze Beast caught his wrist in a vice of a hand and closed tight.
"What…" Engar let slip in shock as his arm was pinned short of the target. A bare foot to the knee sent him crashing to the floor, his leg broken and armour mangled. A twist of a hand shattered his radius and ulna, leaving his right hand hanging at an eye-watering angle. His left went for a back-up Obsidian blade, but the foe's hand found his gauntlet and squeezed tight, mangling his fingers into a sickening mess of bone and blood. Pain, such pain as to make a grown man weep did not draw so much as a hiss, but the weakness that followed was unbearable. Engar could not stand, he could not fight, and his helm was ripped away to show his pale face and black eyes. Never had Engar been so effortlessly overpowered, he would not have believed anything short of a Primarch could best an Astartes so casually but reality cared nothing for his opinion.
"Chaos worshipping filth!" Engar spat as he glared upwards. The Bronze Beast leaned down and the robe shifted. What Engar had taken as a hunchback was revealed to be a clicking backpack of tubes and bubbling vials, pumps continually drawing blood, filtering and adding strange elixirs before injecting it back. Red veins marred a face as broad as an Ogyrn's but etched with cunning intelligence.
The foe hissed, "I am no lackey of the Dark Gods. Your kind may require otherworldy boons to elevate yourselves, I have no such limitations."
"My brothers will kill you," Engar threatened.
Sneering contempt answered, "Brittle little things, so slow and weak. I could take a dozen of you apart at the beginning, and I have grown so much greater since. Your maker designed your kind to be pliable, controllable... compliant."
"Who are you?" Engar breathed in dread.
A superior grin split that brutal face, "I am Methuselah and I have waited a long time for you to find me, Engar of the Smoke Jaguars."