Deathwing (40 page)

Gunfire sounded, louder than before, as more covering fire raked the robed cultists. Kaelen fought and killed his way towards the temple doors, gore spattering his armour bright red. All around him, Squad Leuctra killed with a grim efficiency. Short dashes for cover combined with deadly accurate bolter fire had brought them to within eighty metres of the temple doors with no casualties. In their wake, more than two hundred cultists lay dead or dying.

Powerful blasts of gunfire spat from the smashed windows. Too heavy to charge through, even for power armour, Kaelen knew. He activated his vox-corn.

‘Brother Lucius.’

‘Yes, brother-sergeant?’

‘You have a good throwing arm on you. You think you can get a couple of grenades through those windows?’

Lucius risked a quick glance over the rim of the fountain he was using for cover and nodded curtly. ‘Yes, brother-sergeant. I believe I can, the Lion willing.’

‘Then do so,’ ordered Kaelen. ‘The Emperor guide your aim.’

Kaelen shifted position and spoke to the rest of his squad. ‘Be ready. We move on the grenade’s detonation.’

Each tiny rune on his visor that represented one of his men blinked once as they acknowledged receipt of the order. Kaelen glanced round to check that Chaplain Bareus was ready too. The hulking figure of the chaplain was methodically examining the dead cultists, pulling back their robes like a common looter. Kaelen’s lip curled in distaste before he quickly reprimanded himself for such disloyalty. But what was the chaplain doing?

‘Brother-chaplain?’ called Kaelen.

Bareus looked up, his helmeted face betraying nothing of his intent.

‘We are ready,’ Kaelen finished.

‘Brother-sergeant,’ began Bareus, moving to squat beside Kaelen. ‘When we find this Prophet, we must not kill him. I wish him taken alive.’

‘Alive? But our orders are to kill him.’

‘Your orders have been changed, sergeant,’ hissed the chaplain, his voice like cold flint. ‘I want him alive. You understand?’

‘Yes, brother-chaplain. I shall relay your orders.’

‘We must expect heavy resistance within the temple. I will tell you now that I do not expect many, if any, of your men to survive,’ advised Bareus, his voice laden with the promise of death.

‘Why did you not brief me on this earlier?’ snapped Kaelen. ‘If the forces we are to face are so strong then we should hold here for now and call in support.’

‘No,’ stated Bareus. ‘We do this alone or we die in the attempt.’ His voice brooked no disagreement and Kaelen suddenly understood that there was more at stake with this mission than simple assassination. Regardless of the chaplain’s true agenda, Kaelen was duty bound to obey.

He nodded, ‘As you wish, chaplain.’ He opened the vox-corn to Lucius again. ‘Now, Brother Lucius!’

Lucius stood, lithe as a jungle cat and powered a frag grenade through each of the windows either side of the cathedral doors. No sooner had the last grenade left his hand than the heavy blast of a lascannon disintegrated his torso. The heat of the laser blast flashed his super-oxygenated blood to a stinking red steam.

Twin thumps of detonation and screams. Flashing light and smoke poured from the cathedral windows like black tears.

‘Now!’ yelled Kaelen and the Marines rose from cover and sprinted towards the giant bronze doors. Scattered small arms fire impacted on their armour, but the Space Marines paid it no heed. To get inside was the only imperative.

Kaelen saw Brother Marius falter, a lucky shot blasting a chunk of armour and flesh from his upper thigh, staining the dark green of his armour bright red. Chaplain Bareus grabbed Marius as he staggered and dragged him on. Kaelen’s powerful legs covered the distance to the temple in seconds and he flattened his back into the marble of the cathedral wall. Automatically, he snapped off a pair of grenades from his belt and hurled them through the smoking windows. The shockwave of detonation shook the cathedral doors and he vaulted through the shattered window frame, snapping shots left and right from his bolt pistol.

Inside was a blackened hell of smoke, blood and cooked flesh. Bodies lay sprawled, limbs torn off, skeletons pulverised and organs melted. The wounded gunners shrieked horribly.

Kaelen felt no pity for them. They were heretics and had betrayed the Emperor. They deserved a death a hundred times worse. The Dark Angels poured inside, moving into defensive positions, clearing the room and despatching the wounded. The vestibule was secure, but Kaelen’s instincts told him that it wouldn’t remain that way for long.

Marius propped himself up against the walls. The bleeding had already stopped, the wound already sealed. He would fight on, Kaelen knew. It took more than a shattered pelvis to stop a Dark Angel.

‘We have to keep moving,’ he snapped. Movement meant life.

Chaplain Bareus nodded, reloading his pistol and turned to face Kaelen’s squad.

‘Brothers,’ he began, ‘we are now in the fight of our lives. Within this desecrated temple you shall see such sights as you have never witnessed in your darkest nightmares. Degradation and heresy now make their home in our beloved Emperor’s vastness and you must shield your souls against it.’

Bareus lifted his chaplain’s symbol of office, the crozius arcanum, high. The blood red gem at its centre sparkled like a miniature ruby sun. ‘Remember our primarch and the Emperor shall watch over you!’

Kaelen muttered a brief prayer to the Emperor and they pressed on.

‘T
HEY ARE WITHIN
your sanctuary, my lord!’ said Casta, worry plain in every syllable. ‘What would you have us do to destroy them?’

‘Nothing more than you are already, Casta.’

‘Are you sure, lord? I do not doubt your wisdom, but they are the Adeptus Astartes. They will not give up easily.’

‘I know. I am counting on it. Do you trust me, Casta?’

‘Absolutely, lord. Without question.’

‘Then trust me now. I shall permit the Angel of Blades to kill all the Marines, but I want their chaplain.’

‘It will be as you say, lord,’ replied Casta turning to leave.

The Prophet nodded and rose from his prayers to his full, towering height. He turned quickly, exposing a sliver of dark green beneath his voluminous robes.

‘And Casta…’ he hissed. ‘I want him alive.’

C
HAPLAIN
B
AREUS SWUNG
the crozius in a brutal arc, crushing bone and brain. Fighting their way along a reliquary studded cloister, the Marines battled against more followers of the Prophet.

The Dark Angels fought in pairs, each warrior protecting the other’s back. Kaelen fought alongside Bareus, chopping and firing. The slide on the bolt pistol racked back empty. He slammed the butt of the pistol across his opponent’s neck, shattering his spine.

Bareus slew his foes with a deadly grace, ducking, kicking and stabbing. The true genius of a warrior was to create space, to flow between the blades where skill and instinct merged in lethal harmony. Enemy weapons sailed past him and Kaelen knew that Bareus was a warrior born. Kaelen felt as clumsy as a new recruit next to the exquisite skill of the interrogator chaplain.

Brother Marius fell, a power maul smashing into his injured hip. Hands held him down and an axe split his skull in two. Yet even though his head had been destroyed, he shot his killer dead.

Then it was over. The last heretic fell, his blood spilt across the tiled floor. As Kaelen slammed a new magazine into his pistol, Bareus knelt beside the corpse of Brother Marius and intoned the Prayer for the Fallen.

‘You will be avenged, brother. Your sacrifice has brought us closer to expunging the darkness of the past. I thank you for it.’

Kaelen frowned. What did the chaplain mean by that? Bareus stood and pulled out a data slate, displaying the floor plans of the cathedral. While the chaplain confirmed their location, Kaelen surveyed his surroundings in more detail.

The walls were dressed stone, the fine carvings hacked off and replaced with crude etchings depicting worlds destroyed, angels on fire and a recurring motif of a broken sword. And a dying lion. The rendering was crude, but the origins of the imagery was unmistakable.

‘What is this place?’ he asked aloud. ‘This is our Chapter’s history on these walls. Lion El’Jonson, dead Caliban. The heretics daub their halls with mockeries of our past.’ He turned to Bareus. ‘Why?’

Bareus looked up from the data slate. Before he could answer, roaring gunfire hammered through the cloisters. Brother Caiyne and Brother Guias fell, heavy calibre shells tearing through their breastplates and exploding within their chest cavities. Brother Septimus staggered, most of his shoulder torn away by a glancing hit, his arm hanging by gory threads of bone and sinew. He fired back with his good arm until another shot took his head off.

Kaelen snapped off a flurry of shots, diving into the cover of a fluted pillar. The concealed guns were pinning them in position and it would only be a matter of time until more cultists were sent against them. As if in answer to his thoughts, a studded timber door at the end of the cloister burst open and a mob of screaming warriors charged towards them. Kaelen’s jaw hung open in disgust at the sight of the enemy.

They were clad in dark green mockeries of power armour, an abominable mirror of the Space Marines’ glory. Crude copies of the Dark Angels’ Chapter symbol, spread wings with a dagger through the centre, adorned their shoulder plates and Kaelen felt a terrible rage build in him at this heresy.

The Marines of Squad Leuctra screamed their battle cry and surged forward to tear these blasphemers apart and punish them for such effrontery. To mock the Dark Angels was to invite savage and terrible retribution. Fuelled by righteous anger, Squad Leuctra fought with savage skill. Blood, death and screams filled the air.

As the foes met in the centre of the cloister, the hidden guns opened fire again.

A storm of bullets and ricochets, cracked armour and smoke engulfed the combatants, striking Space Marines and their foes indiscriminately. A shell tore downwards through the side of Kaelen’s helmet. Redness, pain and metallic stink filled his senses, driving him to his knees. He gasped and hit the release catch of his ruined helmet, wrenching it clear. The bullet had torn a bloody furrow in the side of his head and blasted the back of the helmet clear. But he was alive. The Emperor and the Lion had spared him.

A booted foot thundered into the side of his head. He rolled, lashing out with his power fist and a cultist fell screaming, his leg destroyed below the knee. He pushed himself to his feet and lashed out again, blood splashing his face as another foe died. Kaelen sprinted for the cover of the cloister, realising they had been lured out of cover by the fraudulent Dark Angels. He cursed his lack of detachment, angrily wiping sticky redness from his eyes.

The tactical situation was clear, they could not go back the way they had come. To reach the main vestibule was not an option, the gunfire would shred them before they got halfway. The only option was onwards and Kaelen had a gnawing suspicion that their enemies knew this and were channelling them towards something even more fearsome.

Bareus shouted his name over the stuttering blasts of shooting, indicating the timber door the armoured cultists had emerged from.

‘I believe we have only one way out of this. Forwards, sergeant!’

Kaelen nodded, his face grim as the icon representing Brother Christos winked out. Another Space Marine dead for this mission. But Kaelen knew that they would all lay down their lives for the mission, no matter what it was. Chaplain Bareus had decided that it was worth all of them dying to achieve it and that was good enough for him.

Under cover of the cloisters, Bareus and the remaining five members of Squad Leuctra sprinted through the studded door that led out of this fire-trap. Sergeant Kaelen just hoped that they weren’t running into something worse.

‘I
S THE
A
NGEL
ready to administer the Evisceral Blessing, Casta?’ inquired the Prophet.

‘It is my lord,’ said Casta, his voice trembling with fear. The Prophet smiled, understanding the cause of his underling’s unease.

‘The Angel of Blades makes you uncomfortable, Casta?’

Casta fidgeted nervously, his bald head beaded with sweat. ‘It frightens me, my lord. I fear that we count such a thing as our ally. It slaughtered ten of my acolytes as we released it from the crypts. It was horrible.’

‘Horrible, Casta?’ soothed the Prophet, placing both hands on the priest’s shoulders, his gauntlets large enough to crush Casta’s head. ‘Was it any more horrible than what we did to take this world? Was it bloodier than the things we did when we stormed this temple? There is already blood on your hands, Casta, what matters a little more? Is what we do here not worthy of some spilt blood?’

‘I know, but to actually see it, to taste and smell it… it was terrible!’ The priest was shaking. The memory of the Angel had unmanned him completely.

‘I know, Casta, I know,’ acknowledged the Prophet. ‘But all great things must first wear terrible masks in order that they may inscribe themselves on the mind of the common man.’

The Prophet shook his head sadly, ‘It is the way of things.’

Casta nodded slowly, ‘Yes, my lord. I understand.’

The Prophet said, ‘We bring a new age of reason to this galaxy. The fire we begin here will ignite a thousand others that will engulf the False Emperor’s realm in the flames of revolution. We shall be remembered as heroes, Casta. Do not forget that. Your name shall shine amongst men as the brightest star in the firmament.’

Casta smiled, his vanity and ego overcoming his momentary squeamishness. Fresh determination shone in his zealous eyes.

The Prophet turned away.

It was almost too easy.

S
ERGEANT
K
AELEN STALKED
the darkened corridors of the cathedral like a feral world predator, eyes constantly on the move, hunting his prey. Flickering electro-flambeaux cast a dim glow that threw the carved walls into stark relief and he deliberately averted his gaze from them. Looking too carefully at the images carved into the walls left his eyes stinging and a nauseous rolling sensation in the pit of his stomach.