Trial by Blood Page 10

  ‘Cowards,’ he snarled, throwing the twitching body into the press of traitors as they scrambled away.

  Five muzzle flashes winked at Maion from behind the barricade. The disorientated traitors’ shots flew wide. He sighted on the nearest of them.

  ‘Save your ammo,’ Barbelo held his arm out, blocking the shot. ‘We are almost upon them,’ he growled as a las-round ricocheted off of his rerebrace. ‘Sanguinius!’ Barbelo broke into a run, enraged by the pitiful attempts to kill him.

  Maion stopped firing. Barbelo was lost for the moment, lost to a part of the rage they all shared. Chainsword roaring, he followed the sergeant into the press of traitors.

  Barbelo dived over the barricade to land on top of a blood-caked traitor. Ribs broke under the impact, splintering into internal organs with a crunch. Barbelo drove his knee into the man’s face as he rose, crushing the traitor’s skull into the deck.

  Maion went straight through the barricade, chopping his chainsword down through a scorched supply crate before reversing the motion and eviscerating the traitor that was using it for cover. Blood and viscera splashed across his helmet. His ocular sensors adjusted, allowing him to see through the flesh-mire. To his right, a stick-thin traitor turned to run. Maion threw his combat knife. The blade shot pierced the traitor’s back and went through his chest. The man pitched forwards as the blade clattered to the floor. Maion grinned ferally. He turned, searching for someone to kill, but Barbelo had beaten him to it. The sergeant punched his fist through a screaming man’s chest before stamping his boot down on the head of another, pulping it. Maion retrieved his knife as Barbelo stalked past him towards the armoury chamber, vines of intestine and bloody matter hanging from his gauntlet.

  Nisroc listened to the exchange of weapons fire over the open vox-channel. With each broken retort he became more envious of his brothers. To be a Flesh Tearer was to be at the vanguard of the assault, to be elbow-deep in the enemy’s bloody remains, not holding the rear like some Imperial Fist strategist. His muscles swelled with blood and adrenaline as his body willed him to engage the enemy. Targeting reticules swam over his display as his helmet translated his mind’s unconscious need to fight. ‘Reclothe my mind, that it may temper the needs of my soul,’ Nisroc took a calming breath. Ascertain why Brother-Sergeant Paschar had not answered the summons to exfiltrate Arere. Locate and secure the squad or retrieve their gene-seed. Rendezvous with the fleet. Nisroc ran through the mission objectives, focusing his thoughts. He could not afford to lose control, too many had been lost to the Rage persecuting the campaign already. He cast a fleeting glance up towards the barren sky; there was something about this sector of space that left him ill at ease, something malevolent that hung in the darkness where the stars should be. Nisroc bit down another burst of adrenaline, he would not allow himself to succumb to the Thirst. He was a Sanguinary Priest; duty demanded he control his rage. To be lost in the throes of battle was to lose sight of the future. He lived to maintain the gene-seed and through it the Chapter. For without that precious link to their progenitor father, the Flesh Tearers had no future. ‘For the Chapter,’ Nisroc exhaled, emptying the last of the tension from his body – battle would find him soon enough.

  Barbelo entered the armoury. Maion was about to follow but stopped as weapons fire erupted from within.

  A noise like the birth of thunder filled the corridor as a heavy weapon roared. The sergeant jerked backwards as high-calibre rounds slammed into his armour, pitting the ceramite. His own shot went wide as a round clipped his gauntlet, the plasma blast scorching the ceiling. Barbelo dropped his chin and raised his shoulder as another torrent of rounds hammered him. Even as his pauldron cracked, the icon of the Chapter blasted from his shoulder in a shower of splintered ceramite, the sergeant took a step forward.

  Maion recognised the harsh bark of an autocannon as the traitors poured fire onto Barbelo – the sergeant’s armour would not hold. Maion lunged forward, tossed a frag grenade into the room, grabbed Barbelo’s gorget, and pulled him back into the corridor.

  ‘You dare!’ The sergeant snarled at Maion, back-fisting him across the helm.

  Maion staggered, cursing. With disciplined restraint he quashed the rage boiling up inside him. ‘Calm yourself, brother. To proceed would have been folly.’ Maion kept his voice level, but lifted his gaze to stare Barbelo in the eyes. He steeled his jaw, ready to receive another blow. But Barbelo’s posture shifted, and Maion relaxed as the sergeant regained control of his emotions. The traitors continued to fire, their shots spitting into the corridor to impact on the wall opposite.

  ‘You waste your time, brother,’ Barbelo motioned towards the doorway as more rounds zipped into the corridor. ‘They are entrenched behind a barrier. Your grenade will have done little more than chip the–’

  Maion held up his hand, the firing had stopped. His enhanced hearing had heard the bark of every round as it tore from the autocannon’s barrel. His eidetic memory had catalogued every shell casing that struck the ground. The weapon’s magazine was still half full. The traitors weren’t reloading, they were baiting them.

  Barbelo knew it, too. Incensed by their obvious ploy, the sergeant took a step towards the doorway. Maion grabbed his vambrace.

  ‘Brother…’ Maion knew that behind the red lenses of his helmet, the sergeant’s eyes were redder still, his pupils alight with rage. ‘You will die.’

  Harahel knelt among the corpses, blood dripping from his armour, his weapon humming on idle, and watched the last of the traitors run for the doorway. The cowards would not make it. Micos’s ident-tag flashed on Harahel’s helmet display as the other Flesh Tearer approached the entrance from outside. Harahel saw the pilot light of Micos’s flamer as it shone in the gloom. Some of the traitors caught sight of the other Flesh Tearer and stopped running; they slumped to the ground in abject defeat. The others kept running, too lost in panic for rational thought. Harahel smelled their fear as Micos fired, blanketing the traitors in a sheet of burning promethium that washed away flesh and dissolved bone to ash. He watched them burn, frail wicks eaten up by a ravenous flame. The meek and the brave, they all died.

  ‘Are you injured?’ Micos asked Harahel over a closed channel. He knew his friend would not have wanted his condition shared with anyone save perhaps the Apothecary.

  Harahel didn’t respond, his gaze remained fixed on the dying embers of the traitors. His twin hearts hammered in his chest like the pistons of a giant engine, fuelled by the tang of spilt blood that filled his senses. A boiling darkness cloyed at his mind, threatening to overwhelm his restraint. He tore his helmet off and roared, driving his eviscerator into the armoured floor. Gripping the hilt with both hands, he rested his head on the blade and prayed, ‘Emperor bless me with your temperament. Fill me with a righteousness inferno that I may burn away my bloodlust. Emperor keep me from the darkness of my soul.’

  ‘Outer room pacified, proceeding to your position,’ Micos’s voice came through the comm-feed in Maion’s helmet.

  ‘The corridor is clear. Move to our position and assist,’ Maion voxed Micos and turned to Barbelo. ‘Micos is on his way.’ The sergeant nodded, his comm-link still powered off.

  The traitors’ weapons had fallen silent as the two Flesh Tearers waited out of sight, their backs pressed against the wall of the corridor. But there was no peace for Maion. His pulse filled his head like the tribal drum his villagers used to attract the roaming karcasaur at High Feast. His hands trembled like the ground beneath the giant reptile as it loped through the jungle. Every genetically-enhanced cell in Maion’s body wanted to rush into the room and tear the traitors limb from limb, to bask in their death throes and drink deep of their blood. Maion clenched his fist and struck the aquila sigil on his breast plate. ‘What nourishes you also destroys you. Either conquer your gift or die,’ Chaplain Appollus had spoken those words to Maion when he was but a novitiate. He focused on his battle gear as the Chaplain had taught him, testing the weight of his bolt pistol, the ba
lance of his blade. Maion needed to be as they were: furious and unyielding in battle, cold and impassive in respite. He glanced at Barbelo. The sergeant would be struggling with his own blood-rage. Over his centuries of service, Barbelo had slain more enemies of the Throne than Maion and the rest of the squad had tallied between them. For Barbelo, the call to violence would be stronger, harder to deny. Maion considered what he would do if the sergeant gave in to his desires, if he–

  ‘I stand ready brothers.’ Micos’s voice drew Maion’s attention. The other Flesh Tearer glanced at Barbelo’s smashed shoulder guard but knew better than to ask after his sergeant’s wellbeing.

  Barbelo nodded towards the doorway.

  Maion thumbed the selector on his bolt pistol, switching it to full-auto. He stuck the barrel of the weapon into the room and opened fire. A man cried out as the explosive rounds tore across the chamber.

  Micos swung low, sending a stream of fire into the chamber. The burning promethium swarmed over the barricade to feast on the cowards behind it. The traitors screamed.

  Barbelo dived into the room. Maion heard him snap off three shots and the hungry growl of his chainsword as it cut into bone.

  ‘Armoury secure,’ Barbelo’s voice came over the comm-link a heartbeat later. ‘Apothecary, join us at once.’

  Nisroc bent over the Flesh Tearer’s corpse. A gaping hole dominated the fallen Space Marine’s scorched breastplate. The flesh around it was fused with armour, a dark stain billowing out from the wound like a web. ‘Melta weapon or fusion-based explosive,’ Nisroc spoke for the benefit of his helmet’s data recorder, documenting his findings. ‘The high level of penetration suggests close range detonation.’ Nisroc extended a needle-like probe from his narthecium and stabbed it into the wound. Brother Haamiah, Second Company. Lines of biometric and biological data scrolled across Nisroc’s helmet display as the probe analysed the Flesh Tearer’s blood. There were traces of human flesh too, melded to Haamiah’s; a traitor had given their life to plant the charge.

  ‘Maion, if you would.’ Nisroc stood to give the other Flesh Tearer space.

  ‘My honour, brother,’ Maion nodded and knelt next to Haamiah’s body. Maion was the closest thing the squad had to a Chaplain. He had studied under the revered Appollus. Most of the Chapter had expected Maion to follow in the High Chaplain’s footsteps. But he could not, not yet. He wasn’t ready to accept that the Flesh Tearers were beyond saving. Maion bowed his head, ‘Emperor, your servant’s duty is at an end. Grant him peace.’ He made the sign of the aquila over his breastplate and rose. ‘I’ll wait for you in the corridor.’

  Nisroc paused a moment. Of all the duties that were his to complete, this was the most important, the heaviest burden to bear. Only in death does duty end; the axiom may have been true for the soldiers of the Imperial Guard or the Sisters of the Adeptus Sororitas but not for a son of Sanguinius. In death, a Space Marine had one more thing to give. The transformative progenoids implanted in his body had to be returned to the Chapter, ready to be received by the next generation of aspirants. Only through the harvesting of the glands would the Flesh Tearers continue to survive. Without the precious gene-seed they would be unable to stand against the Emperor’s foes.

  The Apothecary extended his reductor and punched the bladed tube into Haamiah’s neck. A jolt of energy rippled along the blade’s length as the moulded end closed around the first progenoid gland. With a wet hiss, the gland was sucked up through the blade into the narthecium. A green icon blinked in the corner of Nisroc’s helmet display. The gland had been recovered safely, and was being frozen for transport to the gene-banks on the Flesh Tearers home world. Nisroc activated his bone-drill; the second gland was harder to reach.

  It had taken over thirty minutes to cut through the mag-seals on the strategium’s door and a further ten to fasten melta-charges to the piston hinges. Amaru had abandoned repairs on the Stormraven to oversee the work, directing Harahel as he wielded the industrial laser-cutter with the same ease as the others handled their bolters.

  ‘Ready to detonate, brother-sergeant.’ Amaru turned his back on the huge door and paced back towards the Stormraven. The Chaos forces were under an hour away and he still had much work to do.

  ‘Prepare yourselves,’ Barbelo’s order hissed in Maion’s ear as the storm continued to hamper vox communication. He checked the ammo-counter on his bolt pistol and activated his chainsword, its roar inaudible over the wind. To his left and right, his brothers were preparing their own wargear. Micos’s flamer hung by his side, its pilot flame would remain extinguished until they were inside. Maion shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, moving his weight forward.

  ‘Go!’ On Barbelo’s command Amaru blew the charges.

  The hinges detonated in rapid succession, like the quickening heartbeat of a colossal beast. The door fell from its housing, slamming into the earth an inch from Barbelo and his squad. Under his helmet, Amaru’s mouth twitched in an approximation of a smile. His calculations had been perfect.

  Maion was in motion before the doors had settled in the dirt. Adrenaline flooded his system as he powered into the strategium’s entrance chamber. A warning rune filled his helmet display. ‘Defence turrets.’ Maion’s warning came too late. Two automated weapons burst into life, pumping a stream of high-explosive rounds towards the Flesh Tearers.

  ‘Cover!’ Barbelo shouted the order even as he realised there was none. Whoever was cowering in the strategium had been waiting for them.

  Maion winced, dropping to one knee as a round clipped his thigh. Barbelo threw himself into a roll as the weapons stitched a line towards him. Nisroc spun on the spot, turning his back to shield the gene-seed stored in his narthecium. Explosive rounds slammed into his backpack, knocking him to the floor. Micos’s world went dark as a round tore through his pauldron and broke against his helmet. Atoc bucked, dropping his bolter as his breastplate was pulverised by a fusillade of explosions.

  Harahel ground his teeth as Atoc’s ident-tag disappeared from his peripheral display. ‘Forgive me, brother.’ He swung his eviscerator over his shoulder, mag-locking it to his back, and picked up Atoc’s body. ‘For the Chapter!’ Harahel raised the corpse-shield in front of him and ran flat out towards the guns. Anger drove him on as merciless shells hammered into Atoc’s corpse, the weapons ignoring the other Flesh Tearers to focus on the immediate threat of Harahel. Atoc’s armour broke like glass under the relentless assault, the dead Flesh Tearer’s head spinning from his body as his legs and arms were pulped.

  Harahel roared as he closed inside both turrets’ sensor ranges. Dropping the stump of Atoc’s corpse, he swung his eviscerator round to shear the barrel off the nearest weapon. The gun exploded as the round in its chamber detonated. Harahel ignored the hail of shrapnel that cascaded over his armour, oblivious to the pain warnings blinking over his left eye. Cursing, he brought his blade down on the other gun, cutting through its ammo feed. The weapon continued to fire, making a tortured grinding noise as it cried out for ammunition. Harahel kicked it over, stamping on it until he’d flattened the firing chamber. ‘Weapons neutralised.’

  Maion was on his feet, advancing with Barbelo towards Harahel and the stairwell that led to the inner sanctum.

  Nisroc pushed himself up off the deck. A damage alert scrolled across his display. The shots to his backpack had damaged his armour’s power source. He checked the output. It would last an hour, two at best. ‘Micos?’ Nisroc’s vox went unanswered. He turned to the other Flesh Tearer.

  ‘I am fine, Apothecary,’ Micos snarled, throwing his ruined helmet across the chamber. ‘A flesh wound. ’

  The Apothecary cast his gaze over Micos. A blackened hole sat where his right eye should have been and his face was a mess of dark scabs. ‘As you say, brother.’ Nisroc switched to his vox. ‘Orders, brother-sergeant?’

  ‘We advance on the inner sanctum. Secure the level beneath.’

  Lasgun fire stabbed at Maion as he crossed the threshold into the comm
and sanctum and peeled left. He raised his bolt pistol and shot two traitors in the chest. Their bodies snapped backwards, covering diode-encrusted consoles in blood and viscera. A third traitor opened fire, a bolter bucking in his hands and destroying a bank of data-screens as he struggled to adjust for the recoil. ‘The Emperor’s tools serve only his servants.’ Maion pumped two rounds into the man, plastering his innards across the wall.

  Harahel entered behind Maion and moved right. Three men blocked his path. He shouldered them aside, decapitating two with a single stroke of his blade, and killing the third with a thunderous head-butt. Ahead, a panicked traitor struggled with a grenade launcher. Harahel tore the skull from the nearest corpse and threw it at the man. The macabre projectile shot into the traitor’s chest, cracked his sternum and stopped his heart.

  Barbelo was the last to advance into the chamber. He moved straight forwards, sighting a traitor in a heavy overcoat wielding a plasma pistol. The man fired. The sergeant dropped his shoulder to avoid the shot. The plasma round burned through the air to melt the wall where his head had been an instant before.

  The man fired again. ‘In the name of–’

  Barbelo dodged left and fired, his round vaporising the man’s head and shoulders before the traitor could finish his sentence. ‘We will not hear the name of your heathen god, heretic.’ Barbelo fired again, his plasma round obliterating what remained of the treacherous commissar’s corpse in a crackle of blue energy. ‘Sanctum secure. Nisroc, status?’

  ‘They were keeping their wounded down here,’ Maion heard Nisroc’s report as it came over the comm-feed. ‘Resistance was minimal. Lower chambers cleansed.’

  Nisroc entered the inner sanctum to find Amaru poring over the main data console. The Techmarine had nano-wires and connective fibres plugged into every available data jack.