Flesh of Cretacia Read online

  The beast let out a rumbling breath, turning its head back towards the Scouts, its single remaining eye fixed on Melechk.

  ‘Sanguinius feast on your heart!’ Melechk had just enough time to spit a curse before the beast’s tail whipped round and slammed into him. The blow shattered the heavy bolter, smashed Melechk’s breastplate and hurled him thirty metres backwards through a tree.

  ‘Fall back!’ Asmodel unhooked a clutch of grenades and tossed them at the beast. The explosives detonated in front of its face, drawing a roar as its skin blistered. ‘Go, now!’

  The blast had disorientated the beast but Cassiel knew the flesh wounds would do little to slow it. Breaking into a run, he tried to raise the wounded Scout on the vox.

  ‘Melechk?’

  ‘There’s blood in me yet, neophyte,’ Melechk rasped, clearly injured. ‘But I might need some help getting out of here.’

  ‘I have you,’ Hamied’s voice cut in over the vox.

  ‘The gorge to the south-east... The beast won’t find footing,’ said Melechk as Hamied hauled him up.

  ‘Agreed. We must draw it out.’ Asmodel’s voice was like steel. Even a tactical retreat did not sit well with the sergeant.

  Cassiel kept running. He had not trained for this. Absent were the staggered fields of covering fire, the ordered displacement and the possibility of counter-attack. This was a flat-out sprint, driven by instinct and a primal need to survive. Wide leaves and whip-like branches slapped against his face as he drove through the forest. He could hear Melechk to his left. The other Scout’s breath was coming in rasping, irregular bursts. The beast’s tail must have smashed his ribs, collapsing a lung. He had lost sight of Asmodel, the sergeant’s greater experience allowing him to maintain an enviable pace, even over such uneven ground. Hamied was just behind him, though he suspected the other Scout’s progress was slowed by his desire to stay and fight rather than fatigue.

  Cassiel picked up his pace, pushing his muscles beyond the searing acid that made them beg for rest as the beast drew closer. It felt as if it was almost on top of them. He could smell its pungent breath, hear the dull boom of its monstrous heart. He stumbled a moment, breaking stride as he realised it was his own heart he was hearing, beating in his chest with all the power Sanguinius had gifted him. Like the beast, Cassiel hungered for the kill. He shared with it a thirst that could only be sated with the blood of others.

  Cassiel risked a glance over his shoulder.

  ‘Damn it,’ he swore, slipping on a patch of wet leaves and falling off an embankment. The steep gradient stole his footing. He slid down through wet mud that pooled through his fingers and defied his attempts to find purchase. Striking out with his knife, Cassiel tried to arrest his fall but the ground came away and he continued to tumble. Head over heels he fell, spinning down through scree and loose foliage. Pain lanced into his ribs as he collided with a protruding rock. He felt his leg go numb as a thick branch broke against it. Something hit his head. He snarled, registering a flash of movement before darkness took him.

  Banks of luminators sunk into the earthworks and the lamps studding the wings of the corralled gunships burned on full beam, piercing the darkness with harsh blades of light. Zophal stood in the shadows of the Mortis Wrath’s doorway and stared into the dawn-bright night. Like all members of the Adeptus Astartes, he had no need of artificial light. Even if his augmented eyes had not enabled him to see in complete darkness, the auto-senses built into his helm would have been more than sufficient. The illumination of the camp was not about seeing, it was about being seen. Amit wanted the orks, and whatever else lurked in the forest, to know where they were.

  Depressing the locking stud, the Chaplain stepped down the assault ramp. The jet-black door hissed closed behind him, sealing the eleven members of his Death Company inside the Storm Eagle’s hull. The eleven were further secured by heavy mag-harnesses, the type normally used to shackle Dreadnoughts during transit. Stimm injectors fed their veins an elaborate mix of specially engineered muscle relaxants that would help keep them sedated until they were needed. The Death Company were a blade without a sheath. They were of no use in defence. It was a concept as alien to them as the world whose sodden earth Zophal stood on. The frenzied cadre of black-armoured warriors would sooner kill their brethren than occupy a trench line.

  Zophal removed his skull helm, turning it over to regard its ebon features. Two blood drops had been worked into it below the left eye, one for each of its previous wearers. The moist night air was refreshing on his skin after the recycled atmosphere of his armour. He stood for a moment, watching as stray raindrops filled the recesses of his helm.

  ‘Something troubling you, Chaplain?’

  Zophal raised his head. ‘Trouble is the curse of my order, captain. And you? What dark thoughts bid you seek me out?’

  Barakiel grinned. ‘I see the air has done nothing for your humour, Zophal.’

  ‘Without my mask,’ the Chaplain began, ‘you look upon the face of a brother and so you take me to be one. But I have walked in madness’s shadow for too long, captain. So this too is just another mask.’

  Barakiel stared into the coals of Zophal’s eyes and bit back a reply. He was in no mood for the Chaplain’s obtuse sermons. ‘We should not be here, Zophal.’

  ‘That is for Amit to decide.’

  Barakiel sighed. ‘I have spoken with him. But he will not listen. He is hellbent on driving the orks from this world.’

  ‘You would allow them to gain a foothold here?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Barakiel growled, and took a breath, letting the ire drain from his face before continuing. ‘But this planet is a death world.’ He motioned with upturned palms. ‘Even the air is toxic. There are countless thousands of worlds of more use to the Imperium. Better we blast this accursed place from orbit and be done with it than bleed the company further.’

  ‘Perhaps. But perhaps we, of all the Emperor’s servants, should be less willing to cast judgement based on savage appearances.’

  Barakiel ignored the remark. ‘Even Grigori has counselled Amit against this stubbornness. Will you not speak with him?’

  ‘If the Blood wills it. Otherwise...’ Zophal turned from Barakiel, locking his helm back over his head. ‘I shall not.’

  The Chaplain left Barakiel by the side of the Storm Eagle and walked to the forward firing pits. Flesh Tearers were warriors, butchers all. Even under normal circumstances, they made poor custodians and watch was not an easy discipline for them to maintain. But having lost so many of their brothers during planetfall, and without a target, something to kill in return, the company was struggling to stay focused. Clipped readiness reports and snarled vox exchanges hinted at the tension that assailed the camp like an invisible foe. The sooner battle was joined, the sooner such anxiety could be washed away, cleansed by the purity of combat. Zophal coiled his rosarius beads around his fist. Until then, it fell to him to ensure the disquiet in their minds did not grow, that the Rage was not allowed room to breathe in their thoughts.

  He walked the defensive line in measured strides, neither quick enough to draw attention nor slow enough to seem without purpose. In battle, he would have focused his ministrations on captains and first sergeants, giving them the fortitude of faith needed to lead. But under the cruel lash of peace, all the Flesh Tearers were in need of his guidance. Zophal stopped by every dugout and barricade, checking the battle readiness of every warrior. He led each of them in turn through the catechism of observance and the rite of temperance, ensuring their strength of mind and purity of spirit.

  Zophal finished his rounds in the shadow of the Serrated Angel. Underneath its port-side wing sat a fire-blackened patch of earth, a dozen upended chainswords marking the perimeter of a crude duelling arena. ‘Words are but chaff, blown away in the whirlwind of fury, forgotten in anger’s thrall.’ The Chaplain tightened his grip on his rosarius as he approa
ched the arena. There would always be Flesh Tearers who needed more than prayer to temper their bloodlust.

  Gabriel from Third Tactical and Anael from Seventh Assault stood in the centre of the circle. Their chainswords sparked in the gloom as they crashed against one another, the roar of the weapons’ adamantium teeth barely audible over the guttural snarls coming from the two combatants. Gabriel loomed over Anael, using his size and weight advantage to deliver a series of hammering strikes. But what the Assault Marine lacked in stature, he made up for with experience. He parried each of Gabriel’s blows in quick order, turning aside the larger warrior’s blade with ease, before thrusting through with a sharp counter-attack.

  Zophal smiled darkly as Anael’s blade scored across Gabriel’s pauldron. The Assault Marine’s technique was near perfect. Yet he would still lose. The arena was no place for finesse. Enraged, Gabriel was tireless. His thunderous attacks would eventually find a way through Anael’s defence, and a glancing blow would be all it would take to shatter Anael’s calm. Driven into a fury, the Assault Marine’s poise would fall away. He would meet Gabriel head-on and the larger warrior would bludgeon him into submission.

  ‘Our wrath shall know no end, our swords no peace.’ Zophal mouthed the axiom as Gabriel knocked Anael to the ground. The Rage would win out, it always did.

  ‘Brother-sergeant.’ Zophal turned to Menadel. The sergeant stood to the side of the arena, a storm shield locked to one gauntlet, a power sword grasped in the other. A thin line of fulgurant energy pulsed along the blade’s length. Like its wielder, the weapon was ever ready. Menadel was an excellent swordsman, a master of personal combat. If any warrior lost control or succumbed to the Rage, then he would intervene. Only one Flesh Tearer had ever died in the arena under Menadel’s stewardship.

  ‘Chaplain.’ Menadel dipped his head in acknowledgment, his eyes never leaving Anael and Gabriel.

  ‘Apothecary Iezalel has been required to administer treatment to five of our brothers in the last two hours,’ said Zophal.

  ‘They remain combat ready.’ Menadel’s voice was even but the tension in his jaw told of the emotion suppressed beneath the sergeant’s measured exterior. ‘You doubt my diligence?’

  ‘If I did, brother-sergeant, you would know.’

  Menadel smiled and rubbed his jaw, remembering the last time he and Zophal had come to blows. ‘Many died in the descent, Chaplain. Our brothers are angry.’

  ‘Yet that is what it means to be a Space Marine. To fall from the heavens as fire and wrath. To bring death or to greet it.’

  ‘But we are without a foe. There is no enemy to take our vengeance upon, nothing upon which to bloody our blades.’

  ‘Take solace in the fact you yet live, Menadel. For you, vengeance is only a matter of when. The fallen were not so fortunate.’

  ‘Sanguinius honour them.’ Menadel pressed his fist against his breastplate in salute.

  Zophal glanced at the ragged scars covering Menadel’s armour. There were few within the Chapter who could have inflicted such a battering on the sergeant. ‘How long since Master Amit left?’ he asked.

  The deep furrows and ragged crevices covering Amit’s armour appeared like the fanged maws of beasts in the flickering light of the trench’s luminator. A skilled remembrancer could have retold Amit’s entire history from the battle scars adorning his warplate. Zophal slowed his pace as he approached from behind the Chapter Master.

  ‘I am still here, Chaplain, and my anger remains in check.’ Amit spoke without turning around, his gaze fixed forward on the forest’s edge.

  ‘Yes. It seems we have Menadel to thank for that.’ Zophal crested a mound of compacted earth to step level with the Chapter Master.

  ‘He’ll make Captain of the Blade one day.’

  ‘If you don’t kill him first.’

  Amit grinned.

  The pair stood a moment in silence.

  ‘You have spoken to Barakiel?’ Amit asked.

  ‘I have.’

  Amit grunted, well aware of Barakiel’s position. ‘The war in the Sakkara sector will still be there when we are finished here.’

  ‘There will always be war, brother. It falls to you to ensure that we will always be able to fight.’

  Amit fixed his gaze on the middle-distance. ‘There is violence in this world, Chaplain.’

  ‘Those of the Blood flow to violence...’

  ‘As rain runs to a stream,’ Amit concluded.

  Manakel knelt by Lahhel’s remains and sank his teeth into another barbarian corpse. Blood flooded his mouth and cooled the itching at the back of his throat. The battle had brought him release. The slaughter had been a glorious expression of the anger burning in his veins. But he had come close to the darkness, too close, almost losing himself to the Rage. Manakel shivered as a line of blood spilled over his lips. It was all he could do to keep its shadow from his mind. It hovered at the edge of his consciousness, whispering promises of absolution. It would steal away his pain, his doubt. It would armour him in wrath and lend him the strength to kill any who stood in his way. Manakel felt his pulse slow and the blood-lust inch away as he took another mouthful from the dead barbarian’s veins. He would resist the urge to embrace the Rage, but there was no denying the Thirst everything it wanted.

  Tamir grimaced as the scent of filth and rotten flesh assailed his nostrils. Even the great wind that passed through the valleys and stirred the lakes from their beds could not have lifted the stench of death from the air. He watched the crimson giant as it feasted on Ra’d’s war party. The grim spectacle reminded him of the Hunt’s End ceremony, a rite he had undertaken more than a dozen times. When a great beast was slain, his tribe would gather to feast on its flesh and drink of its blood. In doing so, they honoured its spirit and added its strength to their own. Tamir grunted in approval, satisfied that Ra’d’s warriors were being shown such respect.

  Manakel growled. Another of the Emperor-damned barbarians. This one was more muscled than the last, though he carried no weapon. A fresh scar shone pink across his breast. Too neat to be battle-won, the wound seemed ritualistic, a display of intent or badge of oath. He snorted in derision: scars should be earned, not gifted like decorative trinkets. Tearing the head from the corpse he was drinking, he hurled it at the barbarian. The man offered no defence, letting it strike him.

  Tamir felt his shoulder crack as the head struck him. The blow smashed him down. He groaned, spitting curses as he pushed himself up. Abbas had told him to remain still, to show courage and be unflinching. He glared at the giant, struck by its resemblance to a hunting dog, its lips and lower face stained pink by gore. If Abbas was wrong and this giant was nothing more than a savage, a beast, then he would haunt the elder’s dreams from the afterlife.

  Manakel bunched his fists, annoyed by the barbarian’s continued presence. ‘Emperor damn you. Leave me be.’ He advanced on the warrior, a contemptuous scowl etched on his face. A dark bruise had spread over the man’s shoulder and chest, and his left eye was swollen shut. Killing him was barely worth the effort. Yet there was something else, something that gnawed at Manakel. Something that was trying to make itself known through the fog clouding his mind.

  Tamir knew no fear. He had stared down a herd of ranalocx, and survived an encounter with the monstrous karnrous. Yet in the shadow of the crimson giant, it took all of his courage to remain calm. Every beat of his heart came as a welcome surprise as he listened to its laboured breathing. Keeping his head low, Tamir risked a glance up. A battered eagle stared down at him from the giant’s chest. Dried blood drifted like snowflakes from between its metallic feathers. The giant’s hide was not the smooth cowl he had expected. Deep grooves broke the surface into distinct parts, some ridged while others were studded with angular fastenings. Beneath the crimson of the giant’s hide, patches of grey and silver shone like fresh scars.

  Manakel stopped within str
iking distance of the barbarian. The man’s pulse was steady, his brow free from sweat. Manakel growled. He was a child of Sanguinius, death incarnate, and this man was arrogant enough to be unafraid. Manakel snarled, the urge to snap the man’s neck, to pull his head from his shoulders and bathe in warm arterial fluid rising in his gut like hot magma. The Flesh Tearer reached out to crush him…

  …then paused, for the first time noticing the metal talisman dangling from the man’s outstretched hand.

  Tamir let the giant take the talisman from him, and touched his head to the earth in respect.

  Manakel turned the piece of metal over in his hand. Its finish had been distorted by age and wear, but there was no mistaking the Imperial eagle, the sigil of the Emperor of Mankind. ‘Where did you find this?’ Manakel’s tone was even but demanded answer.

  The man looked up but said nothing.

  ‘Where did you find...’ Manakel trailed off as hundreds of barbarians emerged from the forest around him, their hands crossed over their chests in a crude approximation of the aquila. ‘What in the Emperor’s name?’

  Manakel’s mouth hung open as yet more barbarians came into view. This second wave marched in tight lines, four stretchers supported across their shoulders. Each stretcher was over four metres long, the struts made from a single waist-thick branch. Animal skins and wide leaves formed the beds of the stretchers, bound between the struts by knotted vines and bundles of rope-like plants.

  Manakel’s eye’s followed the procession. ‘Emperor...’ He stared in disbelief at what the stretcher bearers were carrying. Pauldrons, vambraces, breastplates, chainswords, bolt pistols: the remains, weapons and armour of his squad. Manakel continued to watch as the barbarians set the stretchers down next to him. Grief turned to rage as he cast his eyes over what was left of the Flesh Tearers. Like Lahhel, they had been partially devoured, feasted upon by beasts.

  At the beat of some unseen drum, the sea of barbarians parted, allowing a third group to move into the clearing. They brought with them bundles of wood and dried leaves, and began chanting in a soft murmur that grew to a crescendo, timed to peak as the drum was struck for a second time. Taking great care not to disturb the Flesh Tearers remains, they made a fire around the stretchers.