Armour of Faith Read online

  ‘Brother-Chaplain, the attacking force consists of two fighters, conforming to the Hell Blade pattern used by traitor forces.’

  ‘Keep them off us, Isachaar. We’ll open the hatches and lend some fire.’ Sentina turned to the Centurions. ‘Two fighters attacking,’ he told them tersely.

  Aeroth looked over at him. ‘Orders, Brother-Chaplain?’

  ‘We will engage them and destroy them. Do what you can to help. Put the weapons on those oversized battle-suits to good use.’

  A thrill went through Oenomaus at the Chaplain’s order. This was far from his first taste of battle – a decade in the Scout company and five more years learning to use the many heavy weapons of the Devastators had seen him in plenty of combat situations – but using the Centurion warsuit was a new experience. He felt the thrill being echoed by the suit’s machine-spirit, and shivered at the sensation, a momentary burst of timeless, ageless hatred and fury. He let go of the bar above his head and stamped over to the portside hatch, steady and stable despite the rocking of the gunship as Isachaar dodged and weaved around the attacking fire.

  Over the squad vox, he heard Sentina order the pilot to open the side doors, and then everything was drowned out by the rushing of air as the hatch before him opened, pulling smoothly to one side. Outside was anarchy. A green mist wreathed the sky, limiting visibility, but through it he could just make out contrails from the engines of multiple flyers. He activated the targeting systems in his helm and a series of filters fell across his display, scrolling information about atmospheric conditions, wind speeds and potential targets. He mag-locked his feet to the floor of the cabin and brought up his arms, willing the lascannons slung below each huge fist to power up. He couldn’t hear the characteristic whine over the sound of the wind, but his display flashed up both weapons with full charge.

  Oenamaus looked around for a target. Something flew past at amazing speed, the velocity too high for even his armour’s enhanced auto-senses to track. He pivoted in the direction it had been flying, and there it was – through the ghostly emerald hue of the mist, he saw the distinctive shape of a Hell Blade, long and slender, twin wings jutting out from a small central core with an elongated spike on the rear. The fighter had a bank of vicious looking cannons mounted below the cockpit that were spitting rounds at the Aeonid’s Lament. He locked on the craft and prepared to fire.

  The Stormraven lurched and turned, and he almost lost the target, but his auto-senses compensated and he was rewarded with the ping of a confirmed target lock. Taking a deep breath, he opened fire.

  Twin beams of ruby light lanced out from the long cannons mounted beneath his arms and struck the Hell Blade on one outswept wing. It sparked and the craft juddered. He adjusted his aim and prepared to fire again, this time targeting the cockpit.

  But he had drawn the attention of the craft’s pilot. It swung towards him and pulled closer through the malefic fog, revealing the unmistakable forms of autocannons mounted in two banks of two.

  Isachaar had obviously noted the Hell Blade’s approach, as he banked steeply and pulled the Stormraven out of the smaller craft’s arc of vision. As it swept by, Oenomaus caught a glimpse of the cockpit.

  It was empty.

  ‘Brother-sergeant, Chaplain,’ he shouted over the squad vox. ‘There is no pilot in that fighter.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ cut in Lentulus, who was at the starboard hatch, heavy bolters blazing at another enemy flyer. ‘They can’t fly themselves.’

  ‘Nothing is impossible when we deal with the Archenemy,’ said Sentina, his voice sepulchral.

  As the Stormraven banked around once again, the Hell Blade came back into view, flying directly towards the Ultramarines vessel. A targeting solution crossed Oenomaus’s view and he opened fire, crimson lances spearing into the fighter’s prow as autocannon rounds impacted against the larger craft’s hull. One slammed into Oenomaus’s leg, but the warsuit’s thick plate was proof against the shot. As Isachaar accelerated the Stormraven out of the Hellblade’s path, Oenomaus noticed something else.

  Along the long, slender, spiked wing of the Chaos-tainted fighter were a cluster of grotesque, unlidded eyes. And they were staring at him.

  Aeroth gripped one of the rails above his head and fired another volley of shots from his grav-cannon out into the maelstrom. Iova stood to his side, back against the compartment wall, both heavy bolters blazing into the mist. They were at the rear hatch of the craft.

  ‘This is useless, brother,’ grumbled Iova over a closed channel. ‘All we’re doing is scratching the paint.’

  ‘Do you have any better suggestions?’

  ‘Not really. But complaining makes me feel better.’

  ‘I’m so happy for you,’ said Aeroth through gritted teeth as he let go of the rail and leaned out to follow the path of a Hell Blade, sending a pulse of gravitational energy in its direction. He saw the craft’s engine casing crumple with the impact, and it seemed to pause for a moment as one thruster ceased working.

  ‘I’ve killed the starboard engine on one of them,’ he put across the general vox.

  ‘I see it,’ answered Isachaar. ‘Tracking.’

  Isachaar slewed the Fury around sharply, following the damaged Hell Blade. It was slower, its movements easier to track, but even then the targeting cogitator was struggling to keep up. He hammered las-fire towards the stricken craft, scoring deep gouges in the hull. Absently, he noted that they looked like cuts in flesh, red-rimmed and leaking a fluid that might have been blood. The true horror of Chaos, he had often thought, was that it could take something with the purity of the machine and imbue it with organic weakness. Well, he would put the machine-spirit of this craft out of whatever misery it was trapped in.

  The targeting systems finally caught up and Isachaar released the safety on one of the stormstrike missiles slung beneath the Fury’s wings. It flew straight and true, and obliterated the corrupted vessel in a storm of fire. Isachaar allowed himself the organic indulgence of a smile.

  It would be the last time he would ever do so.

  Sentina stood in the middle of the passenger cabin, mag-locked to the floor, turning to observe each of the Centurions as they continued to track the foe. It made him proud to call them brothers. Though their effectiveness against the enemy would be slight, and the danger they faced by exposing themselves at the hatches was great, not one of them flinched. It was not quite true that Space Marines knew no fear. They knew it, but at their best they mastered it and used it to propel them forward. That was what Aeroth, Iova, Lentulus and Oenomaus did now. And through their efforts, one of their attackers was already destroyed.

  ‘By your efforts shall we defeat this foe,’ he intoned across the vox.

  The rest of what Chaplain Sentina had been going to say was lost when a third Chaos fighter, that had been hiding lower in the mist, emerged vertically and fired a slew of autocannon rounds straight through the Fury of Gallicus’s cockpit.

  A few seconds later, the Stormraven gunship exploded.

  ‘Incoming!’

  Alia’s voice rang through the central area of the small town, and the group of men and women clustered in small groups around the large, open area snapped to attention. She skidded to a halt and shouted again. ‘Dead incoming!’

  A figure pushed his way through the crowd that began to develop around her, a small man, portly, wearing ragged green robes, his ruddy face crowned by a greying tonsure of dark hair.

  ‘Are you all right, child?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘There are dead following, father. At least three, but maybe more. There were others, but we lost them.’ She was breathless, and babbling, she knew.

  ‘Rose, Bragg.’ The priest nodded to a pair of men who stood clutching makeshift spears, grim expressions on their faces. One was tall, his hair long and dirty blond, the other short, a ragged beard emphasising his balding crown. They shared a first name, and so were referred to by their surnames. ‘Did you hear young Alia?’ Fa
ther Andronicus continued.

  ‘Aye. We’ll set up a perimeter in the direction she came from, and keep an eye on the other exits to the square,’ said the shorter one.

  They nodded and set to it, looking faintly ridiculous next to one another as they started to organise a cordon.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call me “young Alia”,’ she muttered as the priest returned his attention to her.

  ‘Ah, but you are, child,’ he said, pulling a battered canteen from within his robes and offering it to her.

  ‘I’m older than at least ten other people here,’ she protested, grabbing the canteen and unscrewing the top. She took a swig and nearly spat it back out. The liquor was strong, burning her throat. She coughed.

  ‘Oops.’ Andronicus smiled broadly. ‘Wrong drink.’ He rummaged in his robes again, and Alia shook her head.

  ‘No, that’ll do,’ she gasped. She heard a shout and turned her attention to the group of men Rose and Bragg were organising. They stood in a rough line, spears pointed at the group of three walking corpses Alia had exhorted to follow her. As she watched, the trio of creatures pounced, desperate to get between the wall of spears and tear into warm human flesh. All three were impaled, but seemed not to notice, continuing to pull themselves forward even as their innards unravelled, smearing the shafts of the weapons with blood and pus.

  The three men whose spears had caught the creatures – Rose and Bragg amongst them – shifted apart to allow another group through. These were armed with axes, and Alia looked away as they set to hacking the heads from the monsters. She didn’t want to watch. Monsters or no, they had been human once.

  ‘You said there were more?’

  ‘There are. Lots more.’ Keevan pushed his way through the group of blood-spattered men who were dragging the corpses of the undead away. ‘At least a hundred. And they’re acting as a pack. And coming this–’

  He was cut off by an immense explosion that echoed around the square and beyond. It seemed to come from all about Alia, and above. She looked up to see, in the distance, the aftermath of a great flash blazing fiercely through the greenish mist.

  ‘Ah…’ breathed the priest, his head also turned skyward. ‘At last.’ Then he turned and raised his voice. ‘Everyone, gather together and prepare to move on.’ He offered no further explanation.

  ‘Again?’ groaned a voice from somewhere in the crowd of bodies. Alia recognised it as belonging to Pieta, a lad from a village they had passed through the month before. They had found him hiding in the basement of his family home. Of his parents and brothers, there was no sign. He was eight years old, and had lived in relative luxury, the son of a scholam instructor and a nurse at the local medicae. He hadn’t adjusted to life on the run yet, and every time they found a new settlement, he was the first to voice the hope that this might be a clear town, that they might be able to settle here.

  It was a fool’s hope, Alia knew. She had dared to express it herself in the early days, but cynicism had soon set in. Part of her hoped it would do so in Pieta as well. His constant hope annoyed her. But then she saw him, so like little Felip, and she hoped that his dreams stayed alive. Maybe they would even come true, if the priest was right and they found help at the distant edifice of Fort Garm.

  ‘Again, Pieta,’ boomed the priest. ‘I know, I had hoped for longer here as well, but we must accept that the God-Emperor is pushing us onwards to Fort Garm, where salvation awaits.’

  A general grumbling met the priest’s words. No one really believed that there would be anything at the ancient fortress other than more death. Andronicus was an outsider. He didn’t know the stories of Fort Garm, and its counterpart on the northern continent, Fort Kerberos.

  ‘Come on now!’ bellowed Keevan. ‘Gather everything together. Are we missing anyone?’

  People started moving with purpose, Keevan amongst them. Alia caught his arm.

  ‘Did you find a gun?’ she asked.

  Keevan grimaced. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Empty. Looks like he used his final round on himself.’ He pulled away and delved into the crowd, shouting orders. Crestfallen, Alia clutched the leather pouch around her neck, squeezing it and feeling the solid shape within. Her fingers brushed the crude wooden eagle as well. She looked into the crowd and caught a glimpse of Pieta. For a moment, he looked just like Felip. Just like her brother.

  Thirteen thousand years ago

  The tide of monsters stretched to the horizon, and beyond. From his vantage point atop the Hill of Beginnings, Kharanath could see little but a roiling mass of ever-changing flesh, the raw stuff of the otherrealm become real. Everywhere he looked, it formed bodies that looked wrong, with too many joints, impossibly rippling muscles and bone-like blades that jutted directly from skin. When they were struck by one of the eldar in the small – and shrinking – knots of defenders, the flesh split, deformed, then reknitted, sometimes the same, sometimes in a completely different configuration. The things couldn’t die. The warriors of Meldaen had held out against them for weeks now, awaiting reinforcements in vain. Now only one hope remained.

  ‘The mon-keigh have a word for them,’ whispered a voice in his mind. ‘A name from their most ancient myths. Daemon.’

  Kharanath snorted in amusement. ‘We have words for them as well, Elthaenneath. Neverborn, soul thieves, darktide, bloodwights. A million names, for the million or more forms they take.’

  He had to admit that the word did fit though. ‘Daemon,’ he repeated softly. It was a surprisingly simple word to encompass such complex creatures with their seemingly infinite variety, but it had a good weight to it.

  ‘They believed that creatures such as these were the servants of evil gods, that they existed to steal souls and put them to eternal torture.’

  The psychic conversation with his brother helped to keep Kharanath focused. His arms ached, his body protesting after days of near-constant battle. His spear was harnessed on his back now, his pistol long since discarded for want of ammunition. Further down the slope, his Seventeen Swords – or ‘Nine Knives’ as Kotris, the eternal joker, had dubbed them, with regard to their remaining number – fought against the front-line troops of the foe, tall and rangy beasts with crested and horned heads, and backwards-jointed legs. They gripped great brass blades in their claws, and their lean bodies seemed soaked in gore. The smell of them infused the battlefield.

  ‘Battlefield,’ he said ruefully. ‘All of Meldaen is a battlefield now.’

  ‘Not for too much longer, my brother,’ came Elthaenneath’s voice, whispering through his senses. ‘The ritual nears completion. The seals take shape.’

  Elthaenneath stood far beneath Kharanath’s feet, deep in the tunnels beneath Meldaen. He was no warrior, his brother. While Kharanath had studied the arts of battle, the way of the blade, his twin had toiled to become an artisan, learning how to sing wraithbone into shape.

  That was what he was doing in that chamber far below, crafting a wraithbone capstone with which to seal the rift in the otherrealm that had opened in the heart of their world. Another bonesinger was doing the same on the other side of Meldaen. When their work was complete, the horde of monsters – daemons – that surged across the world would be banished. Or so they hoped.

  Of course, that assumed that the eldar lasted long enough to complete the seals and end the incursion. The death toll had been horrendous, the damage to the population of the previously idyllic world incalculable.

  ‘I wonder if the doomsayers in the coreworlds have a point, my brother,’ he said.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You have heard the tales of the excesses in the heart of the empire, the orgies of bloodletting, the festivals of indulgence. What if they are disturbing the fabric of the otherrealm? What if those who claim farsight are right, and a blade is coming through the darkness for us? What if this is its leading edge?’

  Elthaenneath had no response.

  Kharanath returned his attention to the battle below. The knots of eldar warriors – brave
men and women who had taken up blade and rifle to save their world, though they had lived long lives of peace and luxury – were getting smaller, and the enemy host was undiminished. He sighed, and began the climb down the steep hill, picking his way sure-footedly through clusters of loose stones and skipping across the eldar dead from the last time the daemons had broken through the lines of the Seventeen Swords and made it partway up the hill.

  ‘We can’t even bury our dead,’ he muttered bitterly. The creatures were relentless, their assaults ferocious, and each time they pushed forward, they came closer to overwhelming the exhausted eldar entirely.

  ‘And the living cannot hold out much longer,’ said a voice from behind him, soft and feminine.

  ‘No, we can’t,’ Kharanath agreed, not turning. Althyra was his shadow, his protector, the only one of his Seventeen Swords not guarding the slopes below. She was sworn to keep any threats from reaching Kharanath. Ultimately, he knew, she would fail, unless Elthaenneath and his fellow bonesinger completed their work. ‘But if we fall, we fall as heroes, Althyra. It is time for our last stand.’

  Drawing his tall spear from its harness on his back, Kharanath stepped forward and thrust the weapon into the air. It sang as it sliced, a long, low keening that would have pierced the souls of his foes, had they souls to affect.

  ‘Seventeen Swords! To me!’ he bellowed, his voice carrying across the clash of blades and bestial sounds of the unnatural monsters below. He broke into a run, feeling Althyra following, and leapt into the fray. Allowing his training and deadly instinct to take over, Kharanath started to kill.

  As his blade cleaved through infernal unflesh, spilling corrosive black blood that stained the soil, he cast his mind back to his brother.

  ‘Elthaenneath, how goes the ritual?’

  He was vaguely aware of his remaining guards gathering around him, each performing mighty deeds that would be commemorated in song and story, should any who saw them survive long enough to record them.