Standing on the edge of the crater, Gabriel stared down at the altar, a spread of Blood Ravens lining the rim of the pit with their weapons trained. Gabriel had selected a small detachment to check out the reports about the altar-just the command squad, some scouts, and Matiel’s squad of Space Marines. In the end, he had decided against telling Brom about his scouts’ reports, and the team had slipped out of the makeshift camp in the valley before Toth could ask any questions. No doubt it would not take long for the inquisitor to realise that they were missing, but, hopefully, by then Gabriel would understand what was going on.
“So, the good inquisitor senses no taint of Chaos here. How fortunate for the Imperium that such keen-eyed eagles stand vigil over her gates,” said Gabriel, shaking his head and laying his hand onto Isador’s shoulder.
The decapitated body of an Imperial Guardsman still lay across the face of the altar, with his head visible in the swampy ground a stone’s throw away. As Matiel surveyed the territory surrounding the crater, casting his intricate and suspicious gaze over the mess of dead greenskins, Isador made his way down into the pit, letting the force of gravity ease his weight down the crater walls in a smooth landslide.
Satisfied that the pit was secure, the Marines broke away from their vigil around its lip and followed Matiel’s lead, stalking between the corpses of the orks and prodding them with blades and gun barrels. The orks might not be the smartest race in the galaxy, but even animals could play dead when it suited them. But these orks really were dead. Some of the them had been shredded by thousands of tiny projectiles, others had been felled by a single, precise shot through the soft tissue just below their jawline, and some had simply been sliced into pieces.
Stooping to pick up a fallen weapon, Matiel gasped audibly. It was a boltgun-the distinctive weapon of the Space Marines. But the designs etched into the material of the gun were not very clear-the ork had obviously tried to scratch them away in an attempt to make the weapon his. Deep grooves and scars were dug into the metalwork, wrought by claws or teeth, but they could not fully obscure the markings that were set into the weapon when it was first made. Wriggling out from under the clumsy marks of the ork were the points of a star, each at the end of an axis that bisected a smaller circle. The eight-pointed star, thought Matiel: the mark of the Traitor Legions and the forces of Chaos.
He turned the weapon in his hands; he was repulsed slightly by the touch of a weapon that had been twice damned: once by the unspeakable evils of the heretic Marines that had turned their backs on the Emperor himself during the galaxy-shattering horrors of the Horus Heresy, and once by the taint of grotesque xenos savagery.
The metal was cold, and it lay just out of reach of the ork that had fallen next to it. Inspecting it more closely, Matiel realised that the gun had not been fired. The trigger-happy orks had been slain almost instantaneously, and it looked like most of them had not managed to get off a single shot. Not even the Blood Ravens would hope to kill a pack of orks so efficiently, reflected Matiel, his opinion of the eldar teetering perilously close to admiration.
Meanwhile, Gabriel was watching Isador climb down into the pit and approach the altar. He turned as Matiel approached him from behind, and took the weapon held out in the sergeant’s hand.
“A boltgun,” said Gabriel with mild surprise. “So we were right about the presence of a Traitor Legion here on Tartarus,” he added, pressing his thumb against the markings on the weapon’s hilt, as though trying to divine their origin.
“It has not been fired, captain,” explained Matiel. “The eldar must have laid an ambush for the orks, and then slaughtered them like animals before they even had chance to react.” A mix of repulsion and admiration were evident in his voice.
“They are animals, sergeant, so that is only fitting. We would do the same,” said Gabriel, drawing an un-self-conscious comparison between the Blood Ravens and the eldar, “if we could.”
Matiel nodded, acknowledging Gabriel’s shared admiration for the mysterious aliens, realising that respecting the skills of another warrior, even an alien warrior, did not necessarily make you a heretic. “Perhaps there is something that we can learn from them,” ruminated the sergeant, almost to himself.
“Yes indeed,” replied Gabriel confidently “Knowledge is power-we must seek it out. From this,” he said, casting his hand around the remains of the ork mob, “we learn not to underestimate the potency of an eldar ambush.” There was a smile on the captain’s face as he turned back to watch Isador in the crater.
“What dark crafts have these eldar invoked?” asked Matiel, following Gabriel’s line of sight.
“I do not think that this is the work of the eldar, Gabriel,” said Isador, looking up from the remains of Guardsman Tavett. “I am reasonably sure that it was the eldar who removed the man’s head, but he had already been dead for some time by then. For one thing,” he added, “this man had already been shot through the brain with an Imperial issue laspistol.”
“So, did the Tartarans sacrifice this man themselves?” asked Gabriel, walking around the altar and inspecting Tavett’s remains for himself. Despite the evidence, Gabriel could not quite bring himself to believe so little of the Imperial Guardsmen of Tartarus. Most of them had fought valiantly at the side of the Blood Ravens, and some had died as heroes of the Imperium. In the main, the Tartarans were a credit to the spirit of the Undying Emperor, and this was such an epic betrayal that Gabriel refused to make the logical leap. Whatever his personal feelings about Brom and the smattering of cowards in his regiment, he should not prejudge them.
“No, I’m not sure that they did,” replied Isador thoughtfully. “It looks as though the shot was designed to kill this man before the sacrifice was complete. Perhaps the Guardsmen interrupted the ritual.”
Chaplain Prathios was stooped over the altar, staring into the stone where the Guardsman’s head should have been. He seemed transfixed, and almost motionless, as though watching something complicated and partially hidden.
“This man was not the first sacrifice on this altar today,” said Prathios, lifting his head and looking at Isador. “You should take a look at this.”
The Librarian stepped over to the position indicated by Prathios and looked down into the slick pool of blood. Tiny little stalagmites of red poked up through the blood and, for a moment, Isador thought that they were merely small spikes designed to prevent the victim from slipping off the tablet during its agonies. But then he saw them move. They vibrated and pulsed microscopically, swaying like a miniscule forest.
Looking back along the stricken figure of the Guardsman, he could see that these tiny tendrils had worked their way into his flesh. They appeared to be dragging him down into the stone itself, drawing him bodily into the material of the altar. In a sudden moment of understanding, Isador realised why the Guardsman looked so odd-he was not all there. Crouching down to look at the side elevation, Isador could see that the prostrate trooper, lying on his stomach, was half absorbed into the altar-his chest had already been assimilated, as had his thighs and feet.
In horror, Isador drove his staff under the body of the man and levered him off the tablet, ripping the tendrils free of his body as it slipped from the altar and squelched to the ground in a bloody heap. The man’s body looked as though it had been sliced roughly in two, parted lengthways to separate front from back. All that was left was the bloody pulp of his headless back.
The tendrils on the altar shot out after the falling body, questing blindly for the source of their sustenance before shrinking and slurping back into the surface of the tablet. Where the threads of blood touched it, Isador’s staff flared with power, spitting sparks of blue fire into the coagulating pool on the altar. The pool hissed and steamed as the righteous energy spilled into it, but Isador pulled his staff clear and peered into the fizzing surface.
Beneath the sheen of slick rock, Isador could see the suggestion of a face wracked with agony, a flock of swirling daemonic forms tearing at it from all sides. A number of the curdling images seemed to be reaching for the surface with immaterial claws, scraping at the substance of the altar from within, as though swimming through an impossibly dense medium. The face pulsed and oscillated, thrashing from side to side in death pains, or birth pains. Then it stopped abruptly, spinning round and resolving into focus in an instant, staring straight into Isador’s soul.
With an audible gasp, the Librarian drew back from the altar, pushing his staff into the ground to support himself. Prathios and Gabriel reached for their battle-brother, steadying him with their powerful arms, and watching the colour gradually return to his face.
“Brother Isador, you have one hour to study the altar. Document everything-let us see whether we can fill in some of the gaps in the history of this planet for ourselves.” With concern amounting to worry, Gabriel was watching the pale expression on his old friend’s face. “Then we will destroy it, lest its vile taint infect us all.”
The Librarian’s face was still white and his blue eyes were wide and icy. “Gabriel, we must not destroy this artefact. We are Blood Ravens, and we must not turn our backs on the search for knowledge, no matter how distasteful it may seem.”
“You had better not let Toth hear you saying such things, Isador. He views our Chapter with suspicion enough already, without you giving him the idea that we covet the knowledge of heretics.” Gabriel’s voice was only half mocking, for his point was serious. “Learn what you can, brother, but then we will destroy it. There are boundaries between research and complicity, and we must be careful to stay on the right side of them.”
With that, Gabriel turned and started to climb back up the earthworks towards Matiel and the Space Marines that stood sentry over the distasteful scene, leaving Isador and Prathios with the altar. “One hour, then we move on,” he called over his shoulder, as though worried that Isador might have already forgotten.
The carvings and etchings were buried beneath a thick treacle of congealed blood, and Isador struggled to make out the runes. He pulled his gauntlet off and pushed his fingers into the cracks in the stone, scooping out gobbets of viscous ichor and tracing the unfamiliar lines. His fingers scraped against the rough surface of the stone, catching on the pointed nicks and grooves, drawing tiny beads of his own blood into the mix. But he worked methodically, struggling to uncover the ancient engravings in time to give them the attention that they deserved.
The runes seemed dead under his touch, cold and hard like inanimate stone, and Isador lamented that he had been so hasty to rip the Guardsman from its diabolical embrace. Without the flow of new, rich blood, the altar was nothing more than a monument, albeit a monument covered with ancient, runic script.
Here and there, Isador could just about make out some of the words, but the language of the runes was old and unfamiliar to him, and many of the symbols were still obscured under a thick coating of blood. The characters seemed to tell a story about a quest, a heroic mission to uncover the key to salvation for Tartarus and the surrounding worlds. There was an icon representing a mountain and then the phonetic symbols for Korath. There was some mention of the Blood God and the appearance of his messengers, but Isador had seen enough of these artefacts before to know that all of them contained such slogans. He was unimpressed.
One rune struck his eyes and drew his attention, pulling him in with its own gravity. Treraum-storm. It was an ancient rune, and for a moment Isador did not recognise it. Not since his years in the Blood Ravens’ great librarium sanatorium had he seen this style of rune-ornate and twisted, as though it strove to hide its own meaning from the prying eyes of men. The characters next to it were even more obscure and intricate. They sounded little bells in Isador’s memory, but he could not quite place them. He had seen them before, he thought.
“Isador!” called Gabriel from the top of the earthworks. “Time to leave. Do you have what you need?”
The Librarian looked from the altar to his captain and then back again, thinking of what he could say to waylay their departure. But Gabriel saw his movements and assumed that he was shaking his head.
“Isador-I said one hour, and I meant it,” he said, waving his arm to Matiel. “Sergeant, rig that monstrosity for destruction, and then let’s get out of this Emperor-forsaken place.”
Matiel kicked in the burner on his jump pack and rose noisily, if gracefully, into the air. Behind him, two other members of his squad of Marines did the same, each carrying clusters of melta bombs. And the three of them descended rapidly into the pit, like red angels carrying the promise of redemption.
Isador turned back to the altar, a wave of desperation spilling into his mind. Those idiots were about to destroy one of the most valuable artefacts found in this sector in centuries. Gabriel was just too narrow-minded to see what he was doing. Cyrene had made him weak and paranoid. The path of the Blood Ravens was not supposed to be easy-the pursuit of knowledge required certain sacrifices, but its use could transform a Space Marine into a god. Who else but a god could command the lives of a planet’s entire population? Gabriel was too short-sighted, and his guilt threatened to wreck his judgment.
When Matiel touched down behind Isador, he found the Librarian muttering to himself, as though reading from a foreign text. He hardly seemed to notice the arrival of three Space Marines roaring down with their jump packs blazing.
“Librarian Akios, time’s up. The captain wants us to blow this place right now. And good riddance to it, I say,” said Matiel, gesturing for his men to fix their charges to the other side of the altar. “The stench of the xenos and the heretic is almost overpowering. It is an offence to the Emperor.”
“Just give me another minute,” hissed Isador, snapping his head round to face the sergeant and fixing him with narrowed, blue eyes. “I need just one more minute. Alone,” he added, as Matiel nodded but showed no signs of moving.
The sergeant nodded again and then turned smartly, walking round to the other side of the altar to check on the progress of his team. Turning his attention back to the runes, Isador produced a small combat knife from a holster on his belt. He muttered something inaudible as he ran his finger along its blade, and the sheen of the metal seemed to burst into effervescence. When he pressed the blade into the side of the altar, a trickle of blood seeped out of the stone, as though he were inflicting a wound. The blade hissed and vibrated under his touch as he cut through the altar, defining a neat rectangle around the constellation of runes that surrounded Treraum.
As Matiel came back round to set his mine on Isador’s side, the Librarian was tucking something into his belt and wiping blood off the blade of his knife on the grass.
“Matiel! Let’s blow this thing and get out of here,” yelled Gabriel, standing on the rim of the crater.
“Yes, captain,” replied Matiel. Then he dropped his voice and turned to Isador. “Time’s up, Librarian.” Isador was already on his feet. He nodded a quick acknowledgment, strode away from the altar, and started to climb up towards Gabriel.
What are you doing, Librarian! For a moment, Isador thought that the words were his own, swimming around inside his head as though they had always been there. But there was an unusual quality to them-something slippery and immaterial. Whenever he tried to grasp one of the thoughts, it eased clear of his mind, vacillating in and out of his memory like a ghost.
I know that you can hear me, Blood Raven, came the voiceless words again. What are you doing, hiding artefacts from the heroic captain… acting against his orders!
Isador did not break his stride as he climbed the banks of the crater. He doesn’t appreciate the value of this find, and I had no time to convince him. He will thank me for my vigilance, when the time comes.
I understand, Isador, just like you, said the voice, finding his name for the first time. And I am also able to thank you for your conscientiousness.
I do not want your thanks, sorcerer, replied Isador, realising the nature of the voice at last. And I will use the powers I glean from this ancient knowledge to destroy you.
Oh, Isador, you poor, misguided fool. I will be waiting for you on Mount Korath, and then we will see who will do the destroying… whispered the voice, trailing off into silence.
I’ll be there, sorcerer, thought Isador as he crested the rise. He nodded a greeting to Gabriel, without meeting his eyes, and turned back to the crater in time to see the three Space Marines blast into the air, flames pouring out of their jump packs as they distanced themselves from the altar. A sudden explosion shook the ground, sending a plume of smoke and sodden earth mushrooming into the sky, chasing the trails left by Matiel and his Marines.
After a slight delay, a second explosion sounded with a tremendous crack-flames and fragments of rock blew diagonally out of the crater, and the sides of the pit started to collapse. Isador and Gabriel took a step back as the ground subsided beneath their feet, and waves of earth slid down the banks to drown the shattered remains of the altar.
“Jaerielle’s storm squad have caught the tail end of the Chaos Marines’ column near the summit of the mountain, farseer. He has engaged them, but he is badly outnumbered. A ranger detachment is with him, but they are no match for the heavy firepower of the Marines,” reported Flaetriu as he swept into an elegant bow.
Seated in meditation upon a large, smooth rock which held her clear of the foliage in the forest, Macha opened her eyes and looked at the ranger. “Yes, Flaetriu, the Storm squadron will not be able to hold the Chaos forces on their own. They will need help, but it is not clear that we will be able to provide it.”
“Are you saying that all is lost, farseer?” asked Flaetriu, raising his head and staring at her, his eyes flashing with stung passion.
“Calm yourself, ranger. I am saying no such thing; we do not have it all to lose,” replied Macha cryptically. “And what of the other humans? The soldiers in red?”
“They have found the altar, farseer. One of them, a psyker I think, studied it briefly, but then they destroyed it. Those mon-keigh have no idea what they are doing, farseer. They just stumble on blindly, destroying everything that they do not understand,” said Flaetriu, his voice dripping with disgust.
“And yet they are coming this way.” Macha was talking to herself as much as to Flaetriu-pondering the role of the Space Marines in the larger picture. “Perhaps they are not as stupid as you think. This psyker, did he know that you were watching him?”
“No farseer, we were cloaked in the edge of the forest. There is no way that he could have seen us. And we made no contact with our minds. There was something…” Flaetriu trailed off, unsure of the words.
“Something else, ranger?” prompted Macha.
“I’m not sure. But it did seem that there was more than one psychic presence in the area,” replied Flaetriu, unconvincingly.
“Perhaps one of the other humans is also a psyker. It is of no concern to us,” dismissed Macha, her mind already on other things. “Let us set an ambush for these red Space Marines. Flaetriu, take a detachment of Falcon grav-tanks and a wraithguard squad back down to the Korath Pass-that is the perfect location for an ambush, especially if the mon-keigh are on their way to the summit of Mount Korath.”
“Excellent, farseer. The humans will walk straight into our trap,” replied Flaetriu, the passion of battle already beginning to flow into his temperamental soul.
“Yes, they will walk into the trap, Flaetriu, but they will not be unprepared; you can never ambush a Space Marine, for they expect treachery and war around every corner. However, we should be happy to validate their paranoia…” said Macha, already sliding off into meditation as she spoke.
“We will destroy the Space Marines, and then concentrate our wrath on the forces of Chaos,” said Flaetriu, flourishing his cloak into an ostentatious show of deference for the farseer.
“Perhaps, young ranger, perhaps,” said Macha, her eyes closed and her voice barely a whisper. “But just as we have locked the mon-keigh into their path, so they have surely locked us into ours. As we lay traps for the humans at our heels, they trap us between their own forces and the forces of Chaos that we chase. I do not trust the mon-keigh to understand their importance on Tartarus-they have already failed us once. But the future is hazy and confused, and I am not sure that we can do this on our own. Only time will reveal the full character of our respective paths. For now, we must fight everyone: war is not an end in itself, ranger, but it is the most powerful tool we have.”
Half way up the sparsely forested side of Mount Korath, two eldar Vypers skimmed out to the flanks of the Alpha Legion column, hissing through the evening air as their anti-gravitic engines propelled them up the mountain slope. Each skimmer was supported by a pack of jetbikes that spread out in wakes behind them. They were racing against the armoured column of Chaos assault bikes that roared with brutal power as they bounced and tore their way over the ground behind them.
The Vypers wove and slid gracefully between rocks, trees and the hail of fire that spasmed out of the horde of Chaos bikes. Their weapons-turrets spun smoothly, and their gunners released a constant tirade of shuriken fire from the heavy cannon fixtures. Behind them, the jetbikes bobbed and swerved with incredible manoeuvrability, darting between obstacles and cutting through the crossfire as they flew past the Vypers and pushed on towards the summit.
At the head of the Alpha Legion bikers, Krool screamed into the reddening dusk as the engines of his bike roared with passion and hunger. A splattering of shuriken projectiles clinked into the armour of his left leg, sending pins of pain darting through his nervous system as they penetrated his skin, parting his armour at the molecular level. His bike responded to his rage as though it were an extension of his body; it snarled and spat energy as the Chaos Marine struggled to direct the twin-linked bolters mounted on either side of the front wheel. He clicked the thumb-triggers, and parallel streams of bolter fire seared out of his bike, tracing the wake of a fluttering Vyper but finding no target.
Roaring in frustration, Krool demanded more speed from his bike and it let out a high pitched shriek as it strove to satisfy his bidding. He banked abruptly to one side, throwing his weight towards the ground to tighten his turn as he peeled off to the left of his comrades. Then, flipping the bike back over to the right and almost laying it on its side, Krool brought himself into the slipstream of the offending eldar vehicle. Nobody was going to flank a squadron of Alpha Legion bikers, and certainly not a delicate bunch of effete aliens.
Krool could see the gun-turret on the back of the Vyper spin round to face him, and he laughed out loud at the idea that the eldar would have time to get off even a single shot. Again he clicked the thumb-triggers, and a stuttering burst of fire flashed out of the twin boltguns. This time he found his target, and the bolter shells punched into the rear of the Vyper, shattering one of the stabiliser-fins and spinning the Vyper laterally. Its gun-turret spun wildly as it tried to compensate for the erratic motion of the vehicle, and a gout of shuriken sprayed out towards the rest of the Alpha Legion bikers.
As his bike closed on the hobbled Vyper, Krool drew his bolt pistol and placed the reticule directly onto the head of the rear gunner, clicking off a single round that cracked the eldar’s helmet and lifted him out of the turret. Before he hit the ground, Krool had riddled him with fire from his bike’s guns.
But the Vyper was not finished yet, and the pilot spun the destabilised vehicle around to face the charging figure of Krool. The nose-mounted shuriken catapults sputtered a sheet of projectiles into the path of the roaring biker, but Krool yelled his defiance into the storm and pushed his bike even harder.
The shuriken clinked, thudded and ricocheted off the front of the bike, shredding the tyre and ruining the huge suspension coils. The front of the bike dropped as the wheel rim ground into the dirt, and the boltguns dipped their fire short of the Vyper, strafing back through the earth.
Krool let out another yell, screaming into the onslaught of alien projectiles as they sliced and punched into his armour. His bike snarled with power and then bucked, pulling the front wheel out of the soil and pushing it into the air, presenting the undercarriage to the tirade of eldar fury.
In another second the bike smashed into the grounded Vyper, crunching into its thin armour with the full weight and force of the assault bike. The long spikes that adorned the frontal plates of the bike punched straight through the walls of the Vyper’s cockpit as the front of the bike crashed back down to earth. The pilot was killed instantly as a spike pushed unstoppably through his face. As the momentum of the bike was suddenly arrested, Krool was bucked over the wreckage of the two vehicles, landing in a crumpled heap on the other side of the Vyper.
Struggling to his feet, Krool turned to look at the ruin that he had wrought, and let out a howl of victory as the two vehicles convulsed and then exploded. He threw up his arms and yelled, watching the Alpha Legion bikers press on towards the summit of the mountain, now flanked on only one side by an eldar Vyper. He screamed after them, punching the air to will them on.
A burst of fire punched into his back, shredding his organs, and the bladed prow of a Wave Serpent transport sliced him neatly in two. The armoured panels on the sleek, green and white sides bore the runic symbols of the Guardian Storm squad, and Jaerielle stood dramatically on the roof, directing the anti-gravitic transport after the speeding column of Chaos Marines, determined to prevent them from reaching the marker on the summit.
Standing on top of a majestic but stationary Blood Ravens’ Rhino transport to improve his line of sight, his red armour resplendent in the reddening light of the dusk, Gabriel peered through a set of image-enhancers, studying the narrow mountain path before them. Purpling in the sunset, Isador stood stoutly next to his captain, his blue power armour shimmering in the dying light.
The mountain rose from the edge of the river valley, sheer and imposing, bursting out of the tree-line and casting a deep shadow across the oranging landscape. Deep in the valley below, a rough circle of burnt out forest marked the location of the altar, and gentle wisps of smoke still floated into the air from the smouldering remnants of the forest fire caused by the explosions.
Gabriel took the binocs away from his eyes and shook his head. “Are you certain, Isador?”
“Yes. The Pass of Korath-the only traversable route to the summit of Mount Korath. This is where the inscriptions on the altar said that we must go,” said Isador firmly, as a gust of dusty wind brushed across their faces, whispering inaudibly. “Do you question my findings?” he added, as though giving voice to another’s doubts.
Yyessisador, hedoubtsssyou. The wind blew stronger, whipping up the sand from the ground and blowing it into clouds.
“I do not question your abilities, brother, but I wonder about the tactical sense of this move. That mountain pass is the perfect location for an ambush-see how the crags reach over the path at its narrowest point? There are too many enemies of the Emperor on Tartarus for us to be complacent,” replied Gabriel, surprised that Isador required an explanation.
Ssseeisador, sseee how he doubtss you, the whispers in the wind were beginning to resolve themselves more clearly. He fearss your powerss, Librarian. He calls you mutant behind your back. You must placate the child for now. Lead him, but let him lead.
“I do not deny that this is likely to be a trap, Gabriel,” responded Isador, narrowing his eyes as though disturbed. “But a trap would at least be proof that we are going in the right direction. If the Blood Ravens were being pursued, you would take them through this pass, would you not?”
“You are right, old friend,” said Gabriel warmly, with a faint, weary smile. “We will follow this path. Stay alert, and follow my lead. I want no mistakes here.”
“Agreed,” replied Isador, nodding his confirmation.
“Corallis!” called Gabriel, crouching down to talk to the sergeant as he approached the side of the Rhino. “Send a scout squadron ahead into the pass. Tell them to be careful, and to keep off the main path-I suspect that we are expected. We will follow in force with Brother Tanthius’ Terminators and Matiel’s assault squad. The tanks will be too slow and may clog the pass, so the assault bikes and a squadron of Typhoon land speeders will provide support.”
“Understood,” nodded Corallis as he turned to distribute the captain’s orders.
“What about the Tartarans?” asked Isador. “Shouldn’t we send word back to the camp to summon Brom and a detachment of Guardsmen? We should make use of their numbers-and we could push them through the pass first, to spring whatever trap might be waiting for us.”
“There is no time to send for the Tartarans,” said Gabriel, regarding his friend closely, “and no need. The pass is narrow, and greater numbers would not help. In any case, their numbers are dwindling, Isador. Besides, the Blood Ravens do not require anyone else to do their fighting for them. We will take swift death to the enemies of the Emperor, as we have done for millennia. Brom and Inquisitor Toth can relax in the soft comfort of the camp for a little while longer-their times to fight will come soon enough.”
The column of warbikes split in two as it hit the eldar defences, peeling left and right to encircle the Wave Serpents and warriors that had ringed the strange menhir on the summit of Mount Korath. The eldar had got there first, as their anti-gravitic vehicles had skimmed over the rough terrain as though it were a perfectly surfaced road. The Chaos bikes had bounced and powered their way across the rubble, skidding over the loose sand and smashing through the increasingly sparse foliage.
Eldar jetbikes seared around the ring, their engines whining as they pursued the circling Chaos bikes in a lethal spiral. Bursts of bolter fire and sleets of shuriken sizzled through the air, gyroscoping around the menhir and the eldar emplacements that surrounded it. Jaerielle watched the dogfights impatiently, taking the occasional pot-shot at a warbike as it roared by, waiting for the melee to begin when the rest of the Chaos Marines arrived. He waved his Storm squad into a fan formation, facing down the mountain side towards the rumble of the Alpha Legion’s Rhino transports, shielding the menhir behind them.
A screeching sound made him look round to the left, and he saw one of the Biel-Tan jetbikes burst into flames, spinning on its axis as its stabilisers failed. A hulking warbike ploughed after it, its boltguns flaring with firepower as it continued to pound the spluttering eldar. The jet-bike could no longer hold the curve around the menhir and it broke away from the circle, rolling and spinning like a drill, whistling down the slope towards the advancing forces of Chaos.
Just as the first Chaos Rhino crested the rise at the summit of the mountain, its fore-guns blazing with fire and with two horned Chaos Marines dousing the field with flamers from the hatch in its roof, the jet-bike reached the ridge from the top, drilling straight into the front of it. A huge explosion shook the ground as the jetbike detonated like a warhead, blowing open the front of the Rhino and enveloping its occupants in superheated chemicals.
A squad of Chaos Marines spilt out of the rupture in the front, thrown by the force of the impact and the arrested momentum of the Rhino. They tumbled through the flames, diving and rolling to control their falls. And then they were on their feet, their bolters braced and coughing at once, spraying the first salvo of fire directly into the eldar defences, clipping at the circling jetbikes and riddling Jaerielle’s line with venom.
The Storm squad reacted instantly, moving into new formations like a fluid organism and releasing disciplined volleys of shuriken fire back into the face of the advancing Chaos Marines. Jaerielle watched as two giant warriors strode out of the blazing remains of the Rhino, stepping through the chemical fire as though it were a cool river. One of them must have been over two metres tall. He was bare-headed and carried a huge scythe, its blade easily the length of a human. The other was slightly shorter, but the ornate blades on his helmet thrust viciously into the sky, making him seem even bigger. In his hand he carried a long, dual-pronged force staff, which sizzled and hissed with purple energy, repelling the flames effortlessly.
Behind the two huge warriors, two more Rhinos crested the summit of the mountain, skidding to a halt and spilling two more squadrons of Alpha Legionaries into the fight. As they did so, the circling warbikes broke off from their ring and arced back round to provide flanks for their battle-brothers-forming a single, wide line of fire that advanced steadily towards Jaerielle’s small unit.
The eldar may have made it to the menhir before the Chaos Marines, but they had sacrificed power for speed. Jaerielle’s Storm squadron contained ten eldar warriors. He had one Vyper left at his disposal, and three jetbikes. Looking down the slope from the menhir, with the last red rays of the sun flooding down the mountain face from behind him, casting his own deep shadow right up to the feet of the enemy, Jaerielle could count five bristling bikes, two hulking armoured transports, and nearly twenty-five mammoth Chaos Marines. For the first time in his long life, even the supreme arrogance of the eldar could not convince him that victory was certain.
The pass of Korath was little more than a narrow path cut through the cliffs, providing a hazardous route from the Lloovre Valley to the summit of the ancient mountain. On both sides of the rough path were steep cliffs, sheer and unforgiving, and in the half light of dusk the pass was cast into near darkness by their shadows.
Up ahead, already at the narrowest point of the pathway, barely wide enough for a Rhino to pass through, Gabriel could see his scouts. They had paused momentarily, and he could see them looking from side to side, scanning the rock faces for signs of trigger mechanisms or mines. So far, there had been nothing, and Gabriel was beginning to feel uneasy.
The makeshift road had been chewed up by the passage of a number of heavy vehicles. The scouts had noted the wide tracks of Rhinos and the bouncing intermittent marks of assault bikes in the dust. But the eldar seemed to have left no trail at all, if indeed they had even passed this way.
Corallis raised his arm, indicating that the pass was secure. The sergeant had insisted that he should lead the scouting party despite the loss of his arm. He was determined that no other Marine should suffer the fate of Mikaelus in his place, and Gabriel had not the heart to argue with him. Besides, Corallis was the best scout in the entire Third Company, and Gabriel was pleased to have his eyes to survey the pass.
With a sudden cutting motion, Corallis changed his signal, pulling his arm down in a swipe across his body and drawing his bolt pistol. The other scouts dived for cover at the edges of the path, rolling behind boulders and bracing their weapons against them. Gabriel could see the movement from his vantage point on top of the stationary command Rhino further back down the pathway, but it took a fraction of a second for the sound to reach him, echoing back and forth through the sheer crevice.
All at once, he could see flickers of green catching the last rays of sunlight, high in the cliff face; and there, through the eye of the narrowest point of the pass, he could see a group of sleek, green grav-tanks slide into place. So this was the trap, thought Gabriel calmly. This we can deal with.
“Corallis,” he hissed into his armour’s vox-unit. “Keep in the cover at the edges of the pass-the Typhoons are coming through. Tanthius-get the Terminators into the breach behind the Typhoons. And Matiel-see what you can do about those snipers up on the cliff face.”
As he finished talking, everything happened at once. The Typhoon land speeders roared into life, accelerating to attack speed almost instantaneously and flashing through the pass amidst a hail of fire, engaging the Falcon tanks on the other side. The jump packs of the Space Marines erupted, pushing the squadron into the air as they traced their bolter fire against the cliff faces, splintering the stone and sending avalanches of rock tumbling down into the pass.
Sergeant Tanthius broke into a loping run, waving his arm to the rest of the Terminators to follow him into the breach. As he passed the scouts, who were stabbing out rapid volleys of fire and then ducking back into cover, Tanthius saw that the pass opened up into a wider valley on the other side. There were three Falcon tanks arrayed across the space and at least two squads of wraithguard lying in wait. The Blood Ravens’ Typhoons were skidding and darting under heavy fire, trailing threads of smoke from their engines.
The Terminators fanned out into a firing line and braced their feet into the rocky ground. As one, they opened up with storm bolters and assault cannons, strafing a line of fire across the wraithguard squads as they started to run towards the Marines. Tanthius levelled a careful shot into the elongated headpiece of one of the alien warriors, cracking the helmet but not stopping its charge. Another three shots smashed into its head, shattering the strange carapace completely, but still it ran, as though its head had been mere ornamentation.
One of the Typhoons banked sharply to avoid overshooting the Falcon tanks, but as it turned it presented its thin undercarriage to the eldar line and they punished it with a volley of las-fire that blew it immediately into a tumbling fireball. A second Typhoon burst through the burning wreckage of the first, its heavy bolter sputtering, spitting a typhoon missile directly into the sloping prow of the offending tank. The missile skidded across the sleek armoured panels and slid off into the air, spiralling harmlessly into an explosion against the cliff face beyond.
The Typhoon flashed in between the tanks, clearing the eldar line and then banking into a tight turn to attack it again from the rear. Another missile jetted out of the land speeder. This time it punched into the thinner, oblique armour at the back of the tank, ripping through into the Falcon’s interior where it detonated ferociously. The tank bucked and spasmed before exploding outwards from within, scattering fragments of the chassis across the valley floor.
Meanwhile, Gabriel had ducked down into the roof-hatch and his Rhino was rolling through the narrow point of the pass with its storm bolters stripping a constant line of fire. It came to a halt in the midst of the line of Terminators, emptying the command squad onto the deck behind it. Gabriel drew his chainsword into his right hand and his bolt pistol into his left and called out to his men. “For the Great Father and the Emperor!”
A great chorus of voices echoed back through the narrow crevice. “For the Great Father and the Emperor!” And the small Blood Ravens’ strike force was now fully deployed, as gouts of flame, bolter fire and coruscating blue energy lanced out of the command squad towards the advancing wraithguard.
Above the fray, hovering on bursts of flame from their jump packs, Matiel’s Marines were spraying bolter shells against the rock faces as the eldar snipers leaped and danced from ledge to ledge, evading the lethal barrage but unable to return fire.
“Farseer,” said Flaetriu, hastening into a bow. “Jaerielle requests support. He fears that the Chaos Marines will soon overrun his position and occupy the site of the menhir.”
Macha nodded slowly. She knew that this would happen, and she was prepared for it. “Send a squad of Warp Spiders to assist Jaerielle. Instruct them to rig the menhir for detonation. If the defences fail, the forces of Chaos cannot be permitted to possess the knowledge hidden in that marker.”
The ranger nodded quickly. Warp Spiders carried warp jump generators in their armoured carapaces, enabling them to slip in and out of even the most secure locations, flitting in and out of the warp at will. A squadron could jump through the webway straight to the site of the menhir without having to penetrate the line of Chaos Marines assaulting it. But there were not many of them, and certainly not enough to turn the tide of the battle on the summit of Mount Korath.
“The Blood Ravens are being held down at the Pass of Korath, farseer, but the conflict is a bloody one on both sides. You were right that it would be hard to ambush these mon-keigh,” reported Flaetriu, as Macha turned her gaze away from the flashes of fire just visible up at the summit, and he stared down the mountain side where an explosion had just mushroomed into the air. The Biel-Tan were engaged on two fronts, and they could not win them both.
“Our priority must be the menhir, ranger. Withdraw the wraithguard through the webway portals and tell the Falcons to blow the pass. We need only delay the Blood Ravens long enough to ensure that the Chaos Marines cannot triumph,” ordered the farseer. “Our battle with the soldiers in red can wait for another time.”
Lord Bale swept his scythe in a powerful arc, but Skrekrea was faster than the Chaos Marine. She leapt clear of the swing, spinning into a pirouette as she kicked out at the ugly, misshapen face of the Chaos Lord. The kick made firm contact with his jaw, turning his head in a fountain of blood from his mouth. But he did not even stagger under the blow. Instead, he brought the scythe back round in a rapid back-swing as he yelled in fury. The butt of the scythe struck Skrekrea in the side of the head just as she landed, knocking her off her feet, and Bale roared with rage.
As the scythe fell for the death blow, Bale let out a scream. A bright flash flared next to him and a rush of warp power poured out onto the mountain side. A heavily armoured eldar warrior leapt out of the warp-tear with a rotary death-spinner churning out lethal micro-filament threads that rattled and whipped into Bale’s armour. The Chaos Lord stepped back under the onslaught, swinging his blade wildly in the direction of the Warp Spider, Skrekrea momentarily forgotten.
Sindri was at his shoulder, stabbing out with a spike of purple energy from his force staff. The blast sizzled and cracked against the eldar’s armour, which was warded against the forces of the warp to permit travel through it. Nonetheless, the Warp Spider was thrown back by the energy, flying off his feet and crashing to the ground in front of the menhir.
The Chaos Marines were pressing in now, closing their grip around the dwindling forces of the eldar defenders, and Sindri could taste the power of the menhir in the air as he spun and stabbed with his staff. Bale was a roaring monster of fury, scything and slicing with his man-reaper, defining a frenetic sphere of death around him as he strode forward. The air around him was thick with bolter shells, clouds of shuriken, and flashes of las-fire, but he ignored it, focussed exclusively on his blade and the menhir. It was almost in reach now.
A blue fireball exploded into the back of one of the Chaos Marines in front of Bale, opening up a hole in reality and punching the screaming Marine through it into the immaterium. He just vanished into the heart of the explosion.
Bale and Sindri turned together, tracing the path of the fireball. Behind them, advancing up the mountain side, just clearing the crest of the summit, was a line of eldar soldiers. They were different from the ones defending the menhir-taller and more mechanical-looking: wraithguard. Interspersed in the line were three warlocks, each with crackling staffs of power that flared and jousted with energy, firing strips of blue lightning into the rear of the Alpha Legion’s forces. In the centre of the line was a female figure, bathed in an aura of light that seemed to hold her hovering above the ground. Her arms were outstretched to the heavens, and great balls of blue energy kept forming in front of her, then searing through the air into the Legionaries, picking off a different Marine with each blast.
“The farseer!” gasped Sindri, his voice cold with surprise as Bale’s Marines struggled to reorganise their deployment, striving to fight front and rear actions simultaneously.
“I thought you had arranged for her to be tied up elsewhere, sorcerer,” hissed Bale as his blade swept through the legs of a charging eldar warrior, sending his two halves tumbling to the ground in twitching heaps. The Chaos Lord was in the thick of the close-range melee, and he was enjoying himself. The eldar were suitable opponents, and the ground was slick with the blood of his Marines and eldar both. Blood for the Blood God, he thought with satisfaction. But he had no intention of dying on this mountain, and he was not fool enough to believe that even he could survive the crossfire of these deadly aliens.
Sindri planted his staff into the rock and started to mutter indistinctly to himself, letting a field of energy build around him, shielding him from the blasts of the eldar warlocks. “It is of no consequence, Lord Bale. We should retire from this theatre and let the Blood Ravens deal with the eldar. They will lead us to our goal in the end, and in the meantime they will bleed in our place.”
“You’d better be right about this, sorcerer,” said Bale, shooting a hate-filled glance at Sindri, as a pulse of las-fire flashed past his shoulder, singeing the acid-green paint from his armour. “I grow tired of your faltering schemes. These are not orks, and they will not be so easily manipulated.”
Bale took another look around and realised that he had no choice. The eldar defending the menhir had received reinforcements from somewhere, and they were all fighting with renewed spirit now that the farseer had come into view. And the wraithguard were advancing relentlessly from the rear, rapidly closing down Bale’s scope for movement. If they were going to get out of here, they had to go now.
With a tremendous leap, Jaerielle vaulted over the head of a Chaos Marine, dragging his blade across his throat under the helmet seal and slicing the head free. He landed lightly, pulling his sword clear and spinning it in a low arc towards the feet of another. His blade was met by a great curved scythe that shattered his sword with one sweep. But as Jaerielle discarded his blade and rolled for his gun, the giant Marine turned his back on him and strode away, shuriken ricocheting off his massive armour. Looking around, Jaerielle could see that the other Chaos Marines were also disengaging-their remaining assault bikes were already streaking off down the other side of the mountain.
Jaerielle, you will not pursue these forces. It was the farseer, speaking directly into his mind. Let them go. We have more pressing objectives to achieve. Remember, Jaerielle, war is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Let them go.
In his soul Jaerielle could feel the fire of combat burning, and he longed to pursue the disgusting mon-keigh-to cleanse the galaxy of their vile presence. The Biel-Tan may hate the bestial orks more than anything else in the galaxy, but the mon-keigh were a close second.
As you wish, farseer, he replied, fighting to control his urges, realising for the first time that he was thoroughly ensnared by the Path of the Warrior, unable to suppress his desire for combat and riddled with desperation to shed blood for Khaine, the Bloody-Handed God.
“Where did they go?” asked Matiel as he crunched to the ground at Gabriel’s side, his jump pack spluttering into silence. The snipers had all been killed, or had vanished, and the rest of the eldar force seemed to have fled. They had suddenly disengaged and turned tail, as though conceding defeat. But they had not been beaten, reflected Gabriel uneasily. “What were those portals?” asked Gabriel, turning to Isador. The fighting had simply ceased, and the Blood Ravens had been left unsure about how to proceed. Gabriel had ordered caution, and his Marines had taken up tactical positions but had held their fire. They had refrained from pursuing the eldar; Gabriel suspected that their real fight was not with these mysterious aliens. He was simply pleased to see them leave.
The Falcon tanks had turned their guns on the cliff walls of the pass itself, causing a huge avalanche that blocked the crevice completely sealing the Blood Ravens on one side and most of the eldar force on the other. The wraithguard that had been trapped with the Space Marines had charged into a series of circular, stone portals and vanished-the portals exploding into fragments behind them. It had all happened in an instant.
“They are webway portals-temporary doorways from one point in space to another,” answered Isador. “They are a unique eldar technology, captain, and incredibly unstable. Stepping through throws you instantaneously into the warp and then drags you out again into another place, where another portal is open. An unshielded soul would go insane,” he added, shaking his head at the apparent recklessness of the aliens.
The sudden silence in the valley was eerie, as the chatter of falling rocks and the dull echoes of footfalls gradually ceased. Gabriel looked around carefully at the scattering of dead and wounded Marines on the valley floor, together with the remains of ruined equipment and the broken figures of wraithguard.
“Get a dreadnought up here to clear away this rock-fall,” said Gabriel as Corallis hastened to report to his captain. “In the meantime, this is a good location to establish a field base. Get hold of Brom and tell him to bring a detachment of Tartarans to defend this pass. And make sure that those web-portals have really been destroyed-it would not do to have our eldar friends popping up in the middle of our base.”
“What about Toth?” asked Isador carefully.
“What about him? I’m sure that he will make his own way here in good time, but I am equally sure that I am not going to help him interfere with our purpose here,” replied Gabriel gruffly.
“And what exactly is our purpose here, Gabriel?” asked Isador.
“You were correct, Isador,” said Gabriel wryly. “The fact that the eldar laid a trap for us does suggest that we are on the right path. We will follow the aliens to the summit of this mountain, and we will discover what they are so keen to hide from us. There is a bigger picture here, Isador, although we cannot yet see what it is. There are still two days before the warp storm arrives, and before then we will find out why Tartarus is so important to these aliens, and to our old foes, the Alpha Legion. And we will do it with or without the blessing of Inquisitor Toth,” said Gabriel firmly. “Corallis. Where is Prathios? I must pray,” he added, turning away from the Librarian.
A whisper of wind gusted through the mountain pass as the red sun finally set, and Isador breathed it in like a breath of fresh air.
C.S. Goto (ebook by Undead)
01 – Dawn of War