Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 150
Tikal's weight lay heavy against Damchak's shoulder, his steps faltering and eyes bleary. Damchak held tight as they stumbled into the base, almost pulling his young Kinsman along. Transhuman blood dribbled down his flank, Larraman cells clotting along his hip and thigh, while a wet slurping noise told of a perforated lung. Tikal's wounding at the hand of the Dusk Prince was grievous indeed, and he would not last long without a Genewright.
"Be it this land shall witness my passing?" Tikal breathed as he stumbled along.
"The noonday sun has yet to crown," Damchak rebuked.
"Go greet the horizon and leave the dead to their rest," Tikal urged.
"A Seer you are not, to prophecy the hour of your death. Hold fast to me and deliverance will find us!"
The ruins of the base belied his words. Everywhere he looked calamity ruled, unbound by sanity or reason. Fires burned in all quadrants and buildings broke loose their foundations and moved on sprawls of fungal matter. Machines moved without pilots, animated by the boons of Chaos to spread their corruption and the very ground felt spongy underfoot. Bolters barked in the distance, telling of fighting yet raging but the vox-net was a mass of conflicting alarums. It was the death of reason and the ending of order, and Damchak was particularly worried about a rhythmic thumping, like enormous feet stomping not too far away.
Nizca pointed his Meltagun down a dark alley as they passed, "The devil-sons do not give chase?"
Damchak heaved Tikal along as he spat, "Vorshaan overplayed his hand, the taint of ruin runs amok. He is a victim of his hubris."
"Comfort small as a pebble," Nizca snorted.
"The hunter lays his plans well but the prey is not a tame beast to come and go on command. We shall fly this place and make our plans anew."
Their words were cut off as the sky was split by a lance of incandescent fire. It shot over their heads and plunged into the distance, spearing a target beyond their vision. Thunder followed, rolling over them as a great wave upon the ocean, forcing Damchak's knees to buckle. The awful silence that followed was more than the deafening of ears, it was the pregnant silence of dread. Damchak knew that sight well, Titan-grade weaponry at point-blank range. A terrifying rumble swept aside the silence, the blaring of vox-horns declaring dominance over the world, "Huuuuugggggglllll!"
Desperately Damchak tried his vox again, "First of firsts, the Carnodon is upon us, its fangs sharp, its eyes red!"
Q'umarkaj's cry was fierce, "Bold hearts shall not quiver when the arrow is nocked!"
"Into the maw we stride, our necks bared."
"Empex's life is a feast on the table and my hunger knows no bounds!"
Damchak snapped off the channel, frustrated beyond words. Their bold assault had stumbled into a deadly trap, but the Shade-lord was blind to the danger. He was fixated upon reckoning with the Dark Tusks, vengeance overcoming all sense. The Shade-lord's humours had ever been ill-balanced, prone to the wildest shifts and his wroth had only been stoked by recent betrayals. Q'umarkaj would not be turned from his course, and the Smoke Jaguars were trothed to his will.
Damchak bore right, heading deeper into the base. The First of Firsts was at the very centre of the base and there the Prowls would gather. Strength in numbers may be their only hope, or they would be swept away in sheets of burning Titan wroth. The ground squelched underfoot, soft moulds bursting as his weight sent spores drifting high. Nearby buildings were barely recognisable as stone and steel, their walls covered in drooping curtains of furry mould. Shapes moved between them, lumbering things that had once been machines but were now horrors from beyond. Damchak saw what must have been a personnel bus once, now a slimy length of wet muscle, oozing along on a trail of slime like a slug. Reaching hands pushed outwards from its skin, grasping at nothing as pleading faces surfaced at random, trying to break free. Damchak turned his face away, there was no hope for the damned.
Into the base Umbral Flame pressed, finding only decay multiplying. Again the thunder of Titan fire rocked the base, but there was nothing to be done save press on. Damchak heard the crack of bolters discharging and steered towards it, expecting to find his fellows. It was not them. Far down a long street a claw of Night Lords were firing at a spidery thing that might once have been a crane. They blasted chunks of its legs away, as pearl-black eyes opened in its mass and venomous fangs slid out of a gaping maw. Damchak froze, his Prowl was outnumbered and outgunned, if the Night Lords turned to engage he could not be sure of victory, but he didn't have to be.
A streak of light flew down the street and the world was upended. The ground shook and a hot wind nearly blew him off his feet, as the Night Lords and monster vanished in a massive fireball. An Apocalypse Missile, fired from far beyond his sight. Its course had been random, and Umbral Flame avoided annihilation only by sheer chance. They were insects crawling about the house of a grown man, expecting to be crushed by a stray boot, grace to be found in passing unnoticed alone. Still the effect shook his bones and the ear did tremble as Vox-horns blared, "Hzuuuuuuuuugralllll!"
Nizca leaned into the wind as he yelled, "Call for deliverance from the sky First!"
Damchak snapped back, "The Shade-lord has given no such command!"
"The seat of his reason crumbles!" Nizca barked, "We must fly!"
"We fly as one, or not at all!"
"Then call for heavenly wroth, then we fly!"
Damchak could not argue and switched vox-channels, "The hungry beast, spears of dawn, Ninety-eight days, the gloaming!"
He'd just called for an airstrike by circling Shadowhawks, then a swift evac. It might save them, but to escape they had to reach the centre of the base. Only there could they hope to find salvation. Damchak pulled Tikal even closer as they stumbled on, racing to find their brethren. Sights to unman the boldest soul came and went, slithering horrors and death piled high. He saw bodies consumed by rot, towers ripping free their roots to walk and in one corner a flensed skeleton sitting primly on a throne of staked crates, idle as a man taking his leisure.
Damchak urged his Kinsmen on, then he saw the gleaming light of hope. Packs of Smoke Jaguars, falling back, bolters flaring and flamers blasting plumes of heat back the way they came. Prowls withdrew in tandem, moving and firing, while Living-dead marched backwards, laying down sheets of assault cannon rounds. Seers wove deceptions to fool the eye and Terminators stomped backwards, storm bolters thundering. They were fighting desperately, trying to deny the Dark Tusks' advance. At their head strode Empex, transfigured into a spectre of death, his eyes burning green in a face of macabre horror. Yet what stole Damchak's breath was the sight of Q'umarkaj, hanging between the arms of two of Hounds Sinister Prowl, half his guts hanging between his legs.
"First of firsts!" Damchak called.
"Dam..." Q'umarkaj groaned.
"Whose hand did this to you?!" Damchak called as his Prowl linked up.
"Empex, proved too mighty, I am undone... we all are... my stubborn pride damned us all..."
"Take heart old friend," Damchak urged, "I have yet tricks to play."
As if summoned a hail of missiles fell from the sky, blasting across the end of the road. Dark Tusks vanished in rippling explosions, followed by hails of Heavy Bolter fire as Shadowhawks shot overhead. Damchak yearned to see Empex's broken body with his own eyes but knew it would not be so. One such as Empex would not fall to a missile or bullet, the whims of Chaos were too melodramatic for so banal a death.
The Shadowhawks curved about and braked, extending landing claws as they slammed down amid piled rubble. Ramps yawned wide and Smoke Jaguars piled inside, making way for the Living-dead. Heavy bolters were firing all the while, laying down covering fire for the evacuation, confirming to Damchak that the Dark Tusks were not dead. Time was slipping away so they hastened into the hold, Umbral Flame following Hounds Sinister Prowl with the body of their Shade-Lord. Barely had the last stepped within when the whine of engines taking off cut the ear, and the gunship lurched into the air.
Open skies beckoned but then a spear of fire came from nowhere. A gunship to the right was struck and came apart, sheared in two by a Turbolaser. All those within were killed in an instant, brave Smoke Jaguars culled mercilessly from afar. The roar of a Titan in victory carried over the noise of the engines, and in that cry was a name, foul and vile, "Chzugral!"
The ramp slammed closed as the Smoke Jaguars fled, shooting into the sky in defeat. Damchak shrugged Tikal's unconscious form off to his Kinsmen as he knelt by his Shade-lord. Q'umarkaj's face was exposed, his helm torn free. Bloodless were his lips and his breath was shallow. Many wounds could an Astartes suffer and live, but not this, not today. The Shade-lord's saga was ended, his final hunt was brought to an end.
"Faster..." Q'umarkaj urged, "Be faster..."
"We are beyond their guns," Damchak reassured him.
"Not devil-sons... Fire Lords... Jorrim knows of the taint, he summons his fleet to scour the world bare."
"We are yet too close!"
"He cares not, fire shall cleanse this ground, whether we are gone or not."
Damchak hastily signalled the pilots to increase speed then said, "Save your strength, the Genewrights shall salve your wounds."
But Q'umarkaj snorted weakly, "You lie poorly. The sun sets on me, and it is my foolishness that made it so. Kinsmen lie dead for my heedless haste... the mantle of shame shall I bear beyond the veil of death."
"Not so," Damchak refuted, "Your boldness shall ring for ten B'ak'tun. The Stair Abyssal shall echo forever with your name."
Q'umarkaj's eyes grew distant as he gasped, "Damchak... ever wiser in spirit than I... you saw clear when I did not. More sagacious yet must you be. In the hearing of all I mark my favour upon your brow... it is my will that all Firsts shall name Damchak to bear the Mantle of Command after me... But that must abide... for I Q'umarkaj lay a geas upon you. Empex has murdered me, this cannot stand. My shade shall know no rest... till his head is claimed. This is my last command... avenge me Damchak."
Damchak felt the burden laid upon his shoulder, onerous and terrible. Fierce had been his rage before, but now it burned cold as ice. Empex would die by his hand, there was no other fate imaginable. Damchak would claim the Dark Tusk's head, not in a raging clash of blood but with icy resolve and grim spirit. The stars would see him balance the scales of justice, a Troth as binding as any he had ever sworn. He reached out and closed his friend's unseeing eyes, as behind the heavens spilt open with orbital lance fire. The tainted base and all it contained would be burned clean, including Silentio Gravis. The Traitors though would escape, destiny commanded it be so. There was a reckoning to be made, and Damchak would not be turned away by any man.