03 - Savage Scars (19 page)

Sarik burst out from the cover of the boulder, his squad close at his heels.
The ground churned in front of him as debris rained down from the skies. The
hilltop was now capped by a plume of black smoke rising ever higher into the air
and blossoming outwards as it rose. Sarik pounded the ground, determined that
any tau still alive on or near the hill would soon be struck down by his blade.
Sarik’s heart pounded and his blood rushed in his ears. He tore his helmet off
and cast it to the ground without thinking, and unleashed a fearsome Chogoran
war cry in the tongue of his people.

As he closed on the foot of the hill, the black cloud rearing high overhead,
the ground became jagged and uneven with huge chunks of rock torn up by the
explosion. Soon Sarik was climbing up the base of the hill, clambering over the
uneven ground and shoving boulders aside as he powered upwards.

The cloud began to clear and the hill in front of Sarik became visible.
Pausing in his climb, Sarik craned his neck to look upwards, to locate the foe
he would soon be rending limb from limb.

Then it struck him. There were no enemies. They had been disintegrated. The
entire crest of the hill had been disintegrated.

“They’re gone, brother-sergeant,” Brother Qaja said as he came up beside
Sarik, his voice ragged as he regained his breath. Qaja had kept pace with his
sergeant as he had closed on the hill, despite the fact that he was bearing a
weapon that weighed nearly as much as he did.

“No,” Sarik growled. “There’ll be more nearby. We take the hill.”

Qaja held Sarik’s gaze for a moment, before nodding. “By your command,
brother-sergeant,” he said, bowing slightly as he spoke. As Sarik turned back to
gaze up the rubble strewn slope, he heard Qaja bellowing commands as he strode
off to muster the squads closing on the hill.

Leaving Qaja to organise the battle-brothers, Sarik unlimbered his boltgun
and set off up the broken slope. His blood was still up, but he was thinking
clearer now, and he scanned the skies for any sign of the surviving Thunderbolts
or the stealthed tau fighter that had engaged and destroyed Silver Eagle leader.
There was none; the jade skies were clear of all but the plume of smoke towering
overhead.

It did not take Sarik long to reach the top of Hill 3003, for so much of its
crest had been destroyed that it had lost half its height. As Sarik dragged
himself up over the last chunk of debris, he found himself looking down,
straight into a huge, smoking crater more resembling a semi-dormant volcano than
a hill.

As Qaja led the Space Marines up behind him, Sarik started out around the
crater rim, the view beyond it towards the river still obscured by thick smoke
and drifting clouds of dust. Sarik pressed on, eager to gain the opposite side
of the crater and the commanding view it would afford of the river and the city
of Gel’bryn beyond. It took him another five minutes to work his way around the
rim, and by the time he had reached the other side Qaja had directed the
tactical squads to split into two groups and press around the rim.

Finally, Sarik stood on the opposite edge of the smoking crater, looking down
at the opposite slope. Though it was as broken and jagged as the slope he had
climbed, it was also wreathed in smoke and dust, and the view of the terrain
leading down to the river was all but obscured.

“Your orders, brother-sergeant?” Brother Qaja said as he appeared at Sarik’s
side. “Devastators are working their way around the base, they’ll be in position
to cover an advance towards the river within five. And, brother-sergeant?” he
added.

“Yes, Brother Qaja?” Sarik said.

“You may have need of this,” Qaja said as he proffered Sarik the helmet he
had discarded as he had charged across the open ground in the wake of the air
strike. There was a note of reproach in the other’s voice, and not without
justification. Sarik nodded his thanks, knowing that he had committed a failing
that a neophyte would have been punished severely for. Brother Qaja was an old
friend, and only fate had placed Sarik as his senior; it could so easily have
been the other way around. Qaja’s unvoiced reproach was punishment enough for
Sarik, but he would mount a vigil of prayer after the battle was over, and ask
the primarch, honoured be his name, for guidance.

“Thank you, brother,” Sarik said as he took the helmet and clipped it to his
belt. “I’m not sure I would have…” Sarik stopped, turning his head sharply
towards the smoke-wreathed downward slope. Qaja followed his glance, instantly
alert.

“You hear it?” Sarik whispered low.

Brother Qaja nodded slowly, his eyes scanning the drifting smoke below.
“Sounds like…”

A dark shape appeared in the smoke. Qaja hefted his plasma cannon and engaged
its charge cycle. The rapidly rising whine of the plasma coils energising was
shockingly loud.

“Get the squads forward, quickly!” Sarik said, now uncaring whether his voice
was heard or not. He limbered his boltgun and drew his chainsword, thumbing it
to life so that the monomolecular-edged teeth growled with sudden violence.

The shape in the smoke solidified as Brother Qaja beckoned the tactical
squads forwards, and two more appeared at its side. It was tall, at least half
as tall again as a Space Marine, and broad across the blocky, armoured
shoulders. The first parts of the shape to become fully visible were the tips of
the two long, rectangular hyper-velocity cannons mounted on its shoulders.

As the battle suit trod ponderously out of the drifting smoke, the cannons
levelled out to point directly towards the crater rim where the White Scars,
Scythes of the Emperor and Ultramarines tactical squads were taking position.

“No time,” Sarik growled. “Cut them down!”

Brandishing his chainsword high, Sarik leaped from the crater rim onto the
rubble-strewn slope below. The cannons tracked him, but he was moving too fast
for the battle suit’s targeting systems to get a solid lock.

As Sarik powered down the slope, small boulders cascading all around him, the
sound of armoured boots striking the ground behind filled the air. Another three
battle suits emerged from the smoke, and a detached part of Sarik’s mind
understood that the force that had held the crest of Hill 3003 must have been
just a vanguard of a far larger group.

As Sarik closed to within thirty metres of the first of the battle suits, the
air was turned livid violet as Brother Qaja unleashed a blast from his plasma
cannon. The roiling ball of pure energy spat downwards, its backwash burning a
channel clear through the smoke before it engulfed its target.

The solid matter of the battle suit was consumed in an instant, its very
stuff feeding the plasma ball. The energies expanded briefly, the heat so
intense that the armour from the nearest battle suit was reduced to wax-like
liquid. The entire roiling mass exploded outwards, burning the dusty ground and
turning loose rocks into a liquid lava rain.

The heat and blast wave of the explosion struck Sarik as he closed on his
target, and it felt for an instant as if he was running into the open hatch of a
starship’s plasma furnace. Then the energies disappeared and Sarik was upon his
foe.

The battle suit Sarik had fought on Sy’l’kell came to mind again. That
opponent had been similar in form, but equipped with lighter weaponry and
short-burn jump jets similar to those used by the lighter stealthers. The enemy
Sarik now faced was heavy and ponderous, made slow by the weight of additional
armour and its heavy weaponry.

Knowing that the battle suit could not make use of its weapons at such short
range, Sarik circled around it, chainsword raised in a two-handed guard
position, looking for a weak spot in the tau’s formidable armour.

The battle suit began to back away, its heavy tread crushing boulders to
dust. Space Marines appeared all around Sarik, each following his example as
they closed in on an opponent.

“Not so deadly now, are you…” Sarik growled as he pressed forwards. Locating
what he judged to be a weak joint between leg and torso, Sarik feinted left,
then swept his chainsword in low as the battle suit sought to avoid him.

The teeth of Sarik’s blade howled as they struck the impossibly hard metal,
grinding across the ball joint. The tau raised an arm terminating in a large
multiple missile pod in an attempt to fend off another strike, and as it did so
took a heavy step backwards. The damaged ball joint locked and the battle suit
staggered as it fought for balance. Sarik pressed his advantage.

Sarik’s blade lashed out and tore a ragged scar across the battle suit’s
torso, but the armour there was too heavy and solid to penetrate. Sarik bared
his teeth in a feral snarl and brought the blade in a horizontal sweep that
smashed the lens in the centre of the sensor block mounted atop the torso.
Evidently blinded, the pilot of the battle suit tried to back away again, and
toppled backwards as the ball joint failed entirely.

As the battle suit slammed into the ground, Sarik leaped forwards, his feet
pinning his opponent’s arms. He reversed his grip on his chainsword and raised
it high.

The battlefield resounded with war cries and angry shouts, and the screaming
of chainswords and the reports of bolt pistols fired at point-blank range. The
Space Marines were laying into the battle suits, which were desperately
outmatched and seeking to break away. But their enemies’ armour was holding firm
and the fight was far from won.

Sarik plunged his chainsword directly down into the centre of the battle
suit’s torso. The teeth ground against the hard armour, shrieking like some
spirit from Chogoran legend. The blade slipped, gouging a wound across the face
of the armour, and lodged in a recess between the plates. Redoubling his
efforts, Sarik took advantage of the purchase he had found and put his whole
weight into forcing the howling blade downwards. Smoke poured from the wound,
the chainblade’s teeth began to glow red, but the blade finally began to sink
into the battle suit’s torso.

Then the blade was through the outer armour, and it suddenly sank halfway up
its length. Sarik growled and hacked the blade downwards, tearing off an entire
panel of armour. He withdrew the blackened, smoking blade and cast it aside.

Consumed by battle rage, Sarik took a two-handed grip on the red hot edge of
the wound he had torn, and forced it wide with his armoured gauntlets. A part of
him was astonished at the armour’s resilience, for rarely had he seen such
strength on anything less than an armoured vehicle. Then the armoured plate gave
and Sarik stumbled backwards as it came free in his hands.

Breathing heavily, Sarik looked down on the ruined battle suit. With the
entire front torso armour torn away the pilot was visible within. The tau was
compressed into an impossibly small, padded cockpit in an almost foetal position
facing forwards. He wore a jump suit that resembled a glossy second skin, and
numerous sensory pickups snaked from points on his body to terminals inside the
suit. The pilot’s face, spattered with his own purple blood, stared back at
Sarik with unmistakable hatred.

“You fought with honour, foeman,” Sarik said, stepping forwards again to
deliver the killing blow.

“Ko’vash,”
the pilot coughed as he raised his fist out of the hole in
the suit’s torso. The pilot was holding some form of control device, and its
thumb was raised above a flashing red stud.
“Tau’va. Y’he…”

Even as Sarik brought his chainsword down, the dying pilot depressed his
thumb on the control stud. Sarik’s blade ground through the pilot’s body as if
it were not even there, a geyser of purple blood gushing upwards to stain
Sarik’s arms up to his shoulder plates.

“Brother-sergeant!” Qaja’s voice penetrated Sarik’s battle fury. “The enemy
are breaking off!”

But Sarik did not reply, for his gaze was fixed firmly on the blinking red
control stud held in the pilot’s death grip. The blinks were getting faster, and
a sharp, electronic tone was sounding from within the gore-spattered cockpit.

Sarik’s berserker rage lifted entirely and realisation dawned. “Fall back!”
he bellowed. “Everyone back up the slope, now!”

Sarik’s tone brooked no argument, and even if any of the Space Marines had
sought to pursue the remaining battle suits as they backed into the smoke bank,
their conditioning was such that it was all but impossible for them to ignore an
order from a superior. Sarik turned, retrieving his chainsword, and pounded back
up the slope, ensuring that his battle-brothers were all heading for cover.

As he climbed the last few metres Sarik overtook Brother Qaja, who despite
his nigh legendary strength and the load-bearing mechanisms of his armour was
impeded by the bulk of his massive plasma cannon. As he came alongside his
battle-brother, Sarik hefted the weapon’s snub barrel to share its weight and
the two White Scars climbed the last few metres together and threw themselves
over the crater rim.

For a moment, Sarik and Qaja were face to face. Sarik’s battle-brother opened
his mouth to ask the inevitable question, before it was answered for him.

The sky beyond the crater rim was consumed by a blinding white light and a
staggering blast wave slammed into the crater rim behind which the Space Marines
sheltered. The rim edge disintegrated, showering Sarik and Qaja with hot stone.
The air burned and Sarik’s multi-lung clamped its secondary trachea tightly shut
so that he did not breathe in the searing atmosphere. Without his helmet’s
auto-senses to protect his eyes, Sarik was forced to screw them shut lest he be
blinded. Even with his eyes tightly closed Sarik’s vision boiled red as the
light burned through.

Then all fell silent, and Sarik opened his eyes. Brother Qaja was on all
fours, spitting blood from his mouth from a wound caused by flying debris.
Further away, other battle-brothers were struggling to their feet, stunned by
the sheer devastation of the explosion. The sergeants were restoring order,
ordering battle-brothers to the crater rim and to cover all approaches an enemy
might take.