Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 121
Damchak was drowning in foes, the weight of them smothering and their mass blocking all light. He lost his balance and toppled over, pulled down in the scrum. He thrashed about, breaking bones and tossing aside enemies but they just kept coming. Vexation gnawed at the root of his soul, vengeance lay just within his reach but he was denied. Abizil's murder would go unavenged, and his Blood-brother's spirit would hound him in the shadowlands beyond death. The shame of failure would follow him into eternity, Damchak could not bear it but was powerless to prevent it.
A flash of light, shaded red by the layers of flesh above. Screams arose, piercing and shrill. Damchak did not know from whence it came, but then another burst cut through and gobbets of boiling fat splattered his helm. Nizca, the First realised, his Prowlmate was firing into the scrum, searing enemies off him. A third blast and dissected chunks of enemies fell upon him, but the load on his limbs lightened. Damchak wasted not a moment to kick out, finally freeing his lightning claw. He swept it upwards and two men came apart, torsos severed as neatly as logs on the lumberjacks saw.
Damchak managed to get his feet under him and rose. He was surrounded by enemies but they were reeling, many bearing vicious burn marks across their faces and backs. Others were macabre pictures of horror, their flesh bubbling from the touch of fusion fire, skin and bone melted into rivulets. They would not last long, but Damchak was more concerned with still-living foes, who still outnumbered him many times over.
His left hand snatched his Obsidian Blade and awakened it with the flick of a rune. He held it point-down as he planted his feet and readied to meet the charge. A burly man with an enormous wrench came at him with an overhead swing. Damchak lifted his left arm and blocked the strike with his vambrace as his right-hand thrust low, stabbing into the guts with a swift strike. When he withdrew his arm the man collapsed, entrails spilling from vicious wounds. Another, this one a woman, coming at him with a sparking arc-welder. She tried to stab him in the hip where Ceramite plates left a gap, but Damchak was faster. His right elbow closed over her wrist, stopping the blow as his left hand slashed across her throat, leaving her head hanging half-off.
Two down but the fight was far from over. A whirring drill bit slammed into his side, carried by a man in both hands. Ceramite splinters flew free and blood poured down his flank. Damchak gritted his teeth as pain blossomed but he wrenched himself right and the open palm of his right hand struck the man in the back, propelling him into a knot of comrades. They went down as a pile of bodies; the whirring drill bit spinning even as they fell upon it. Churlish screams arose as the bit tore through them, dicing heathens upon the point of their own weapon. Damchak would have smiled were his side not on fire.
He'd bought a morsel of space and turned to find a more cautious enemy facing him. A woman with an elongated pincer-claw, its jaws lined by spinning chainteeth. She was trying to find an angle of attack, thinking to exploit his injury. Damchak didn't give her the chance, he feinted low with the claw, then when she tried to defend he extended over her reach, plunging the point of his dagger into her eye. A blur in the corner of his vision, another foe, coming at him from the right, trying to exploit his overextension. Damchak moved as a blur, lifting his claw across his face. The back of his talons caught a Vibroknife mid-strike, the sparking of the disruption field sending actinic motes into the foe's eyes. He blinked in pain and Damchak's knife opened him from navel to neck, splitting ribs and spilling vital organs onto the floor.
Damchak was losing track of the fight, enemies were coming at him from all directions. He was bleeding profusely, his strikes were slowing, and yet he did not relent. He was a warrior of the Smoke Jaguars, a leal servant of the Sun-Emperor. He feared no darkness, he walked proudly in the shadowed places, sure and certain that the most dangerous thing in the vast sweep of the galaxy was himself. Terror was in his hands, dread in his voice and his footsteps rang with horror.
"We come for your souls!" Damchak roared as he slashed his knife across the eyes of a man to the left.
"Death is the wages of sin!" he bellowed his claw tore the head off another.
"Your sins rebound upon you!" he hollered as he struck his knife into the ear of a woman.
"The Sun-Emperor abhors thee!" he thundered as his claw tore out a spine.
Damchak became more than a Space Marine, he became a howling revenant of woe. His blows were deadly but his exhortations struck at the hearts of the heathens. Deluded fanatics, sure in their conviction that they served their God in all things. Now one of His angels was upon them, denouncing them for their wicked ways. The battle had become more than physical, it was a challenge of conviction and faith, and theirs proved hollow. The dread figure was too great a terror for any man to face, their courage broke, shattered into nothingness by the spell of fear he wove. Three-dozen men broke and ran, fleeing for the far door, leaving only one behind.
Damchak found the chamber emptying, his endless foes reduced to one. A woman with an Aquila tattoo upon her brow and a juddering circular saw in her hands. A believer beyond the touch of doubt, who knew only one response to any question of her faith: violence. She faced him, feet planted wide on the sloping floor, lips curled in disgust.
Damchak brandished his claw, "Death comes and your god scorns thee."
"You lie," She growled.
"Often," Damchak admitted.
"I shall kill you, in His name!"
"Doubtful," Damchak scoffed.
"For Him on Terra!" she screamed as she threw herself at him.
Were she accompanied by braver men she might have struck Damchak but the Smoke Jaguar was Transhuman and she was not. He reached over her thrust and wrapped his enormous claw over her forearms. He did not need the disruption field, for his mighty strength stopped her attack dead, leaving the spinning saw inches from his plate. Her eyes bulged in dismay but Damchak casually rotated his wrist one hundred and eighty degrees, forcing her arms into unnatural positions. The popping of both Humerus, Ulna and Radius told of shattered bones, causing the saw to drop and her eyes to whelm up with tears.
"What…" she wept, "What are you?"
"Justice," Damchak growled.
"Mercy…"
"There is no mercy for the sinner, only punishment."
Damchak pulled her towards him and she let out a thin scream. He sheathed his knife and grabbed a hanging chain, then deftly wrapped it about her throat. The heathen's eyes bulged as she realised what was to come, but her broken arms could not make even a feeble protest. Damchak gripped the chain and heaved upwards, bodily fitting the rebel off the floor. Her weight was nothing to a Space Marine and he held her aloft, watching her feeble thrashings. Her legs kicked and her spine bucked, but nothing could ease the choke on her windpipe. Slowly her twitching became still, then with a final spasm life fled her body and she was no more.
Nizca was firing his melta down a corridor but warned, "Many fled our wroth."
"Good," Damchak affirmed, "Let them spread the word of our coming."
"The evening shadows grow long," Nizca urged.
Damchak neatly clipped the chain to a hook upon the wall, leaving the dead body for any to find, "Be the arrow sprung from the bow, Marcher has an appointment with destiny."
They pressed on, leaving the scene of battle behind. Quickly they strode, negotiating the slanted passages with a hurried step. Damchak allowed Nizca to take point, for his wounds were many. The gushing wound to his flank had clotted over with Larraman cells, but the pull of muscles told of numerous lacerations beneath. His side was on fire and his arm trembled, a fearful state of weakness for any Space Marine. Hours it would take to recover, but time he did not have. The hunt was nearing its apex and he must be there to claim the kill. He touched Abizil's shrunken head for reassurance and the memory of his slain kinsman lent him strength. He would not falter at the last hurdle, it was not permissible. The light of justice made his steps light and vengeance seethed in his blood, not allowing him to falter.
They ducked through a narrow hatch and found a leaning corridor, with many small doors. Weapon blisters, gun chambers yet firing downwards, trying to keep Marcher at bay. For the Lord Militant to enter the trap Damchak needed these guns silenced and he stepped to the nearest and ducked within, making sure the men within screamed to the top of their lungs as they died. The noise sent alarm running the entire length of the guns and crew spilled out to see what was occurring. They were met by beams of Melta-fire, punching through their bodies and the next man's with no more difficulty than walking through a cobweb. Three short bursts and the heathens were reduced to boiling offal, steaming upon the metal floor.
Damchak nodded at the grizzly scene, "My greatest esteem."
"It was poor sport," Nizca sighed.
"The snare is set, that is what counts," Damchak affirmed then switched to vox, "Guns are silenced, how fares my bold Kinsmen?"
Various reports called back from the Prowls, "The heathens flee, great was our slaughter, justice sounds in the deep places."
Last of all Aapo voxed, "The vehicle bay is a templum of the dead, their tanks are rusting in peace."
Damchak grinned, "Then there is only one place the heathens can flee to; the Ornithopter pad. Marcher yearns for the laurels of victory, he will surely give chase. We shall meet him there and justice will be done."
Aapo cautioned, "Move with haste, for the Raven's Headman Bulvok seeks entry. If they see us then all of this was for naught."
Damchak agreed, "Swift as nightfall we shall be, Umbral Flame Prowl, Bone Gnawer Prowl and Eldest meet us on the roof and let this hunt be ended."