Flesh of Cretacia Read online

  An aged barbarian, the oldest Manakel had seen so far, stepped towards him. The elder knelt and made the sign of the aquila, before turning away and shouting in a guttural tongue. ‘Muk-da. Muk-da heti.’ The cry was echoed by a thousand barbarians who knelt in unison, raising up their arms and bowing their heads to the earth.

  For the first time since planetfall, Manakel was without anger. ‘Where one remains, wrath endures.’ He let the words strangle his grief; there would be time to reconcile the death of his squad later.

  Manakel cast a cold gaze over the thousand supplicant warriors. It was not unusual for less evolved civilisations to worship Space Marines as gods, yet the sentiment made him uneasy. Such admiration had given rise to a pride that birthed a civil war more terrible than any had dared contemplate. Even now, the full cost of Horus’s treachery was still being counted. The Emperor’s armies had won, but Manakel knew that for every world saved, a lifeless husk spun in shadow, entire generations consigned to spend their lives digging graves for the dead. Manakel hammered his fist against his chestplate, and folded his arms into the sign of the aquila.

  The barbarians let out a cheer.

  Manakel smiled. He was no more a god than any other Space Marine, but he would use the barbarians’ beliefs to his advantage. He looked again at the rows of bowed heads and wondered how long their faith would last when they realised he did not bring salvation, only death.

  ‘Uta.’ The elder turned to Manakel, interlocking his fingers and wriggling them as he cast his gaze to the stretchers.

  Fire.

  Destroyed by the ravages of battle or consumed by searing hate, all Flesh Tearers would burn. Manakel glanced at the funeral pyre and nodded.

  The elder mumbled what sounded like a prayer, striking a set of stones together to light a tight bunch of grass reeds. He rose, proffering the torch to Manakel.

  ‘Wait.’ Manakel held up a hand. Stepping into the middle of the pyre, he allowed his gaze to settle on each set of remains in turn. Seraph would have had him strip the dead Flesh Tearers of their weapons and ammunition but Manakel had never shared his mentor’s tactical coldness. He could not bring himself to dishonour his brothers in such a fashion. The weapons would survive what flesh did not, he could return for them later. He took the ammunition, though, saving it from the fire and the tribesmen from their own ignorance.

  ‘Your duty is at an end, brothers.’ Manakel drew his knife across his palm and flicked a measure of blood over each of his fallen charges. ‘Death sealed by the Blood shall be the final death, a lasting rest.’ It would have been more fitting for Zophal or one of the other Chaplains to perform the rite, their skill as orators far greater than his. Manakel touched his fist to his pauldron in salute and stepped from the pyre. He hoped his words would be enough.

  Taking the torch from the elder, Manakel set the bodies ablaze.

  The barbarians remained on their knees as the pyre burned, breathing in the smoke as it wafted over them. Manakel knew that in some primitive cultures, fire was said to free a warrior’s spirit, that those who inhaled the smoke welcomed the spirit inside themselves, allowing it to live on through them. In return, they would be granted a portion of the deceased’s strength.

  In spite of himself, Manakel drew in a long breath. ‘As the Blood is my shield, let my brothers be my sword.’

  Water lapped at the edge of Cassiel’s hearing, stirring him. He opened his eyes, squinting through pain and in reaction to the bright light that stabbed down at him. Clear of the forest canopy, his aching bones were glad of the sun’s warmth. He sat up, shielding his eyes as he tried to blink the stupor from them. He stopped as a shadow fell over him, a bulky outline that resolved in a flash of crimson. Cassiel was driven onto his back, powerful hands locked around his throat.

  Training took over where instinct would have failed him.

  Resisting the urge to pull away, Cassiel turned his head to the side, loosening the pressure on his carotid artery. The adjustment stopped him blacking out, buying him an extra few seconds to shirk his attacker. He reached up, grabbed hold of the attacker’s hands and tried to prise them from his neck. But the attacker was too strong and their entire weight was bearing down on him. Cassiel arched his back, driving his head into the ground and away from the attacker. Still, the hands remained fixed around his throat. He kicked out in desperation, splashing up water as his legs sought something to strike. He felt a sharp pain and smelled the copper tang of his own blood as his attacker’s fingers pierced the skin of his neck. A burning surge of adrenaline kept Cassiel focused as he realised his assailant didn’t mean to choke him to death. They were trying to rip his head off. He reached up, finding his attacker’s head. If he could just get enough leverage...

  Something barrelled into his attacker, tearing them away.

  Cassiel gasped, clutching his neck and rolling into a protective position, arms covering his head. He waited for a heartbeat, tensing, expecting a strike from above, before rolling away and springing to his feet.

  Asmodel was wrestling with Melechk. The sergeant was snarling, saliva dripping from his mouth. His fingers were hooked like claws, his nails caked in blood. Cassiel touched a hand to his neck. ‘Brother-sergeant...?’ he said in disbelief.

  ‘Stop... staring... and help me.’ Melechk grimaced as he tried to subdue Asmodel, one muscled arm wrapped around the sergeant’s throat.

  Cassiel didn’t react. Asmodel’s treachery had done more damage than any blow ever could. Watching from the barbed towers above the aspirant fields, the sergeant had been a constant in Cassiel’s life since he had been inducted into the Chapter. It was almost unthinkable that Asmodel could have tried to kill him. Cassiel was transfixed, lost in memory.

  ‘In a universe of war, only the Chapter survives beyond the moment.’ Chaplain Zophal began the baptismal with sombre resonance as one of the seminarians pulled the branding iron from the Reclusiam’s brazier. ‘Brotherhood and adamantium, both bonds that can be broken. Victory as fleeting as pain.’

  Cassiel winced as the seminarian pressed the glowing iron into the meat of his chest.

  ‘But this...’ Zophal paused, touching his hand to the serrated blade-shaped scar on his breast. ‘This you will carry with you until death. It will outlast you. It will burn in the annals of history long after your bones have become dust, and the battle cries of war have faded to whispered echoes.’

  Asmodel growled and bit into Melechk’s forearm. Melechk spat a pained curse, his grip loosening enough for Asmodel to drive his elbow up into his nose. He staggered backwards, blood spilling over his chest. Asmodel stepped after him, pulling a knife and ramming into the side of the Scout’s throat. He tore it free, bellowing in triumph as blood fountained over his face.

  Melechk’s head flopped back on his neck like the cloth hood of a serf robe.

  Cassiel stared into Melechk’s eyes, his gaze drifting to the Chapter symbol on the dead Scout’s breastplate as his body slumped down.

  Cassiel’s cry of anguish ground into a hateful snarl as he drew his blade and lunged at Asmodel.

  The sergeant was too fast. Possessed of a frenzied speed, he caught Cassiel’s attack, clamping his hand around his forearm with bone crunching force, and thundered his head into his face. Cassiel dropped his knife, barely recovering quickly enough to jam his forearm into Asmodel’s, preventing the sergeant from stabbing him. He bent double as a knee drove into his chest, feeling his ribs break an instant before a hammer blow to his head sent him sprawling to the ground. Landing hard on the rocks of the riverbed, he folded his arms up over his head, defending against a stamping kick meant to kill him. Asmodel kicked again. And again. Each blow hammered into Cassiel’s forearms and the meat of his shoulders. He roared in defiance; he would not die in the dirt. He willed the Rage to claim him, to give him the strength to rip Asmodel open and feast on his heart.

  Hamied crept from the under
brush, clutching a thick branch. ‘Enough!’ Hamied swung the branch as Asmodel turned to face him. The waist-thick timber shattered as it connected with the sergeant’s head.

  The blow toppled Asmodel, breaking his cheekbone and eye socket. But the Rage would not let him yield to unconsciousness. Growling long and low, the sergeant pushed himself up onto all fours.

  Hamied allowed no respite, kicking him as he tried to stand. The blow snapped Asmodel’s head back, knocking him to the ground. His eyes remained wide, his body twitching as the bloodlust fuelling his veins willed him to rise. Hamied stamped on his knee, preventing it.

  It took Cassiel three attempts to stumble to his feet. His arms were bruised black by the sergeant’s assault. Hamied said something to him but he ignored it, staggering through the stream to where a bolt pistol glinted in the sun.

  ‘Cassiel,’ Hamied moved towards him, ‘Stop.’

  Cassiel spat a gobbet of blood from his mouth and checked the clip on the bolt pistol.

  ‘Brother, his life is not yours to take.’

  Shaking with anger and exhaustion, Cassiel aimed the pistol at Asmodel’s head.

  ‘This is not his fault, brother.’ Hamied put himself between the gun and Asmodel, spreading his hands in a gesture of calm. ‘It is the Curse. We must honour the warrior Asmodel was. He will die, brother, but not by your hand. He deserves to die as he has lived, in service to the Chapter. You will not deny him that.’

  ‘And what of Melechk?’ Cassiel snarled. ‘What of his honour?’

  ‘He died performing his duty. He died to protect his brothers. To protect you.’ Hamied advanced on Cassiel, his temper on its last nerve. ‘Melechk’s honour is intact. We must take Asmodel to Chaplain Zophal.’ Hamied took a further half-step, careful not to make any sudden movements as he drew his knife. ‘Emperor willing, Zophal will clad Asmodel in the armour of death and allow him to shed the blood of our enemies one final time.’

  Cassiel didn’t move, his finger poised on the trigger.

  ‘Brother...’ Hamied reversed the grip on his knife. ‘I will not let you take his life.’

  ‘Blood!’ Cassiel screamed in rage, and hurled the gun away. He fell to his knees, balling his fists and punching the earth until his knuckles flattened under the relentless impacts. He sought peace through pain, but his anger didn’t abate. He wanted to kill. He had to. He needed to. ‘Sanguinius shape my being, redress my temperament, render me a reflection of your perfect form.’ Cassiel muttered the prayer, his lips shivering. He repeated it again and again, letting the words slow his breathing and bring his trembling body to rest.

  Hamied rested a hand on Cassiel’s shoulder. ‘Now, brother. Now you know what it is to seek vengeance.’

  With thunderous staccato, the Flesh Tearers guns lit up the night.

  The attack came from all sides. But instead of the green-skinned orks, the Flesh Tearers found themselves faced with a horde of savage creatures. Countless hundreds of beasts swept into the Flesh Tearers encampment as the planet sought to rid itself of the intruders. The Space Marines were like a thorn in the flesh of the world that needed to be excised, ripped out. With snarling, snapping jaws and crushing limbs, it would expunge their taint.

  A herd of bipedal beasts swarmed in from the north, their elongated heads snapping ferociously as they closed on the forward firing pits. The creatures died in droves, blown apart by disciplined bursts of bolter fire and vaporised by the shrill snap of lascannons. Still they poured towards the Flesh Tearers, loping over piles of their dead kin without pause, driven by instinct away from the lumbering beasts that followed at their backs. Each twice the height of a Space Marine, the larger beasts were all muscle and sinew. Agile, their hairless skin rippled as they pounced from the treeline to land among the firing pits, their faces fixed in a snarl as they killed with clubbing swipes of their clawed forelimbs.

  ‘Status?’ Amit barked into the comm as he eviscerated a heavy-set creature whose jaw ended in two oversized horns. The beasts’ leathered skin offered no protection from the Chapter Master’s chainfists, its weight and momentum driving it onto the churning blades, aiding its demise.

  ‘We’re surrounded,’ Mendel’s voice crackled back from inside the Vengeance. Amit had left the sergeant overseeing the defence. ‘All squads engaged and taking casualties but the line’s holding.’

  Amit dropped to one knee as a warning sigil flashed on his display. Behind him, a repurposed heavy bolter stripped from one of the Storm Eagles opened fire, blasting apart a pair of the horned beasts. Amit felt his pulse quicken in time with the bark of the weapon. Pressing his fists into the earth, he fought the urge to rise up until the remote gun fell silent, its targeting laser returning negative contacts.

  Flightless birds cloaked in mottled feathers assaulted the western defences. Sergeant Bieil and his assault squad met them with a wall of blazing promethium. Screeching, bald survivors ran on through the flames, their pinkish skin dripping from their bones. A second burst at close range incinerated them.

  ‘Back. Drive them back!’ Bieil bellowed over the roar of his flamer.

  A dozen, two dozen, a hundred. Still the birds came, seemingly heedless of the death toll. The balance shifted as the flamers spat their last, their fuel tanks exhausted. With swift ferocity, the flock took its revenge. Long, dagger-beaks driven by piston-like necks shot forward to pierce the Flesh Tearers armour and pluck the blood-rich organs from their bodies.

  To the south and east a stampede of squat creatures had barrelled their way past the outer perimeter, forcing Menadel to detonate the minefield. Those directly above the frag mines exploded, their bulbous bodies coming apart in a shower of cooked meat. Others collapsed and died, their innards torn out by lethal payloads of shrapnel. The least fortunate of the creatures had been at the fringes of the minefield. Clipped by the hail of adamantium pellets released by the mines, their legs were ruined, leaving them to suffer and die on the ground.

  ‘Lord.’ Barakiel’s voice sounded strained over the vox.

  Amit called up the feed from one of the pict-recorders studded around the encampment. A grainy image of the northern defences resolved and settled into the corner of his helmet display. Barakiel was attempting to hold the line. The remaining smaller beasts had sped past him, dropping into the trench line behind, leaving him embroiled in a bitter assault with several of the larger creatures.

  ‘Speak,’ Amit barked as he drove his chainfists into the abdomen of a snapping beast whose atrophied forelimbs pawed at his breastplate.

  ‘Asmodel’s squad have crossed into comms range.’

  Amit relished the quickening sound of his pulse as his weapon churned through the beast’s innards, showering him in gore. Kicking its corpse from his blade, he sprinted towards another of the creatures and opened a channel to the Scouts. ‘Asmodel, report.’

  ‘Lord...’ Sustained las-fire had ionised the air, distorting the comms signal, leaving Cassiel’s voice to crackle over the vox in distorted snatches. ‘We located the orks... all dead... bring warning... beasts.’

  Amit laughed, though his tone held no humour. ‘You have been blessed with understatement, Scout. How many are you?’

  ‘Brother Hamied and I are combat ready.’ The vox signal cleared up as Cassiel closed on Amit’s position. ‘Asmodel is in need of Zophal’s ministrations.’

  Amit paused before replying, taking no notice of the dying creature at his feet. Asmodel had a will of iron. He was a bulwark of the Chapter, who had taught five decades of neophytes what it meant to control their bloodlust. Yet it seemed even he could not outlive the Curse. ‘The rite will have to wait,’ Amit’s voice was neutral. ‘Approach from our west. Assist Sergeant Bieil’s squad where you can.’

  ‘Understood. The Blood protects.’

  Amit cut the vox feed and slammed his fist through the skull of another beast. He was in need of no protection. He was
master of a thousand of the most savage warriors the universe had ever known. The fate of entire worlds rested in his hands. He would not surrender his Chapter to madness.

  ‘Blood begets blood,’ Amit roared as he ripped the jaw from a creature that had intended to devour him.

  Anger burned through him, his limbs powered by a furnace of hatred, a dire self-loathing that could never be described with words. If death or madness were to be his only options he would make this world beg for his death. His wrath would know no master. He turned, presenting his front to a charging beast whose brow ended in a plate of reinforced bone. Slipping left an instant before the beast made impact, Amit grabbed its crenellated brow. The servos in his armour whined in protest as he tore the plate from the beast’s skull. The creature spasmed and died. Spitting a curse, Amit slammed his hands together, crushing it. He stared at his gauntlets, watching as the chunks of bone fell away. From beneath the crimson of his armour, the stain of history glared back at him, a wolf’s snarl ringing in his ears. Amit bunched his fists and roared again. He was vengeance and he was death, nothing more.

  ‘By Sanguinius’s might, you will hold!’ Zophal bellowed over the roar of bolter fire. He could feel the warriors around him straining against the Rage. Their desire to charge forward, to take the fight to the foe, was as tangible as the pistol barking in his hand. But they were all that stood between the herd of beasts and Barakiel’s squad. If forced to turn and deal with this new threat, the banner bearer would be overrun and the perimeter lost. ‘Hold!’ Zophal would not allow that to happen.

  ‘What about the damned?’ asked Tilonas. The Terminator’s power fist was thick with blood and viscera, a severed spine clasped between his fingers. ‘Why not release them?’

  ‘No. Their rage cannot be marshalled to defence,’ Zophal replied. ‘We must hold his line without them.’