123020.fb2 Galaxy in Flames - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 27

Galaxy in Flames - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 27

He sat through the last few minutes while everyВ­thing around him was noise, unable to see the enemy he was about to fight and relinquishing conВ­trol over his fate until the drop-pod hit.

Nero had been right when he said he had preВ­ferred an assault delivered by stormbird, the precise, surgical nature of an airborne assault far preferable to a warrior than this hurtling descent from above.

But the Warmaster had decided that the speartip would be deployed by drop-pod, reasoning –rightly, Loken admitted – that thousands of Astartes smashing into the defenders' midst without warn­ing would be more psychologically devastating. Loken ran through the moment the drop-pod would hit in his mind, preparing himself for when the hatch charges would blow open.

He gripped his bolter tightly, and checked for the tenth time that his chainsword was in its scabbard at his side. Loken was ready.

'Ten seconds, Locasta,’ shouted Vipus.

Barely a second later, the drop-pod impacted with such force that Loken's head snapped back and sudВ­denly the noise was gone and everything went black.

sti

Lucius killed his first foe without even breaking stride.

The dead man's armour was like glass, shimmerВ­ing and iridescent, and his halberd's blade was fashioned from the same reflective substance. A mask of stained glass covered his face, the mouth represented by leading and filled with teeth of gemВ­like triangles.

Lucius slid his sword clear, blood smoking from its edge, as the soldier slumped to the floor. A curved arch of marble shone red in the dawn's early light above him and a swirl of dust and debris drifted around the drop-pod he had just leapt from.

The Precentor's Palace stood before him, vast and astonishing, a stone flower with the spire at its cenВ­tre like a spectacular twist of overlapping granite petals.

More drop-pods hammered into the ground behind him, the plaza around the palace's north entrances the main objective of the Emperor's ChilВ­dren. A nearby drop-pod blew open and Ancient Rylanor stepped from its red-lit interior, his assault cannon already cycling and tracking for targets. 'Nasicae!' yelled Lucius. To me!' Lucius saw a flash of coloured glass from inside the palace, movement beyond the sweeping stone panels of the entrance hall.

More palace guards reacted to the sudden, shockВ­ing assault, but contrary to what Lucius had been expecting, they weren't screaming or begging for

mercy. They weren't even fleeing, or standing stock still, numb with shock.

With a terrible war cry the palace guard charged and Lucius laughed, glad to be facing a foe with some backbone. He levelled his sword and ran towards them, Squad Nasicae following behind him, weapons at the ready.

A hundred palace guardians ran at them, resplenВ­dent in their glass armour. They formed a line before the Astartes, levelled their halberds, and opened fire.

Searing needles of silver filled the air around Lucius, gouging the armour of his shoulder guard and leg. Lucius lifted his sword arm to shield his head and the needles spat from the glowing blade of his sword. Where they hit the stone around the entrance it bubbled and hissed like acid.

One of Nasicae fell beside Lucius, one arm molten and his abdomen bubbling.

'Perfection and death!' cried Lucius, running through the white-hot silver needles. The Emperor's Children and the Palace Guard clashed with a sound like a million windows breaking the terrible screamВ­ing of the halberd-guns giving way to the clash of blade against armour and point-blank bolter fire

Lucius's first sword blow hacked through a halВ­berd shaft and tore through the throat of the man before him. Sightless glass eyes glared back at him, blood pumping from the guard's ruined throat, and Lucius tore the helm from his foe's head to better savour the sensation of his death.

A plasma pistol spat a tongue of liquid fire that wreathed an enemy soldier from head to foot, but the man kept fighting, sweeping his halberd down to cut deep into one of Lucius's men before another Astartes ripped off his head with a chainsword.

Lucius pivoted on one foot from a halberd strike and hammered the hilt of his sword into his oppoВ­nent's face, feeling a tight anger that the faceplate held. The guard staggered away from him and Lucius reversed his grip and thrust the blade through the gap between the glass plates at the guard's waist, feeling the blade's energy field burnВ­ing through abdomen and spine.

These guards were slowing the Emperor's ChilВ­dren down, buying precious moments with their lives for something deeper in the palace. As much as Lucius was revelling in the sensations of the slaughter, the smell of the blood, the searing stink of flesh as the heat of his blade scorched it and the pounding of blood in veins, he knew he could not afford to give the defenders such moments.

Lucius ran onwards, slicing his blade through limbs and throats as he ran. He fought as though following the steps of an elaborate dance, a dance where he played the part of the victor and the enemy were there only to die. The Palace Guard were dying around him and his armour was drenched with their blood. He laughed in sheer joy. Warriors still fought behind him, but Lucius had to press on before the palace guard was able to stall their advance with more men in front of them.

'Squad Quemondil! Rethaerin! Kill these and then follow me!'

Fire sawed from every direction as the Emperor's Children forced their way towards the junction Lucius had reached. The swordsman darted his head past the corner, seeing a vast indoor seascape. A plume of water cascaded through a hole in the centre of a colossal granite dome, and a shaft of pink light fell alongside the water, sending brilliant rainbows of colour between the arches formed by the petals of the dome's surface.

Islands rose from the indoor sea that took up most of the dome, each topped by picturesque folВ­lies of white and gold.

Thousands of palace guards massed in the dome, splashing towards them through the waist-deep sea and taking up positions among the follies. Most wore the glassy armour of the men still dying behind Lucius, but many others were clad in far more elaborate suits of bright silver. Others still were wrapped in long streamers of silk that rippled behind them like smoke as they

moved.

Rylanor emerged into the dome behind Lucius, his assault cannon smoking and the chisel-like grips of his power fist thick with blood.

'They're massing,' spat Lucius. 'Where are the damned World Eaters?'

'We shall have to win the palace by ourselves,' replied Rylanor, his voice grating from deep within his sarcophagus.

Lucius nodded, pleased that they would be able to shame the World Eaters. 'Ancient, cover us. Emperor's Children, break and cover fire! Nasicae, keep up this time!'

Ancient Rylanor stepped out from the junction and a spectacular wave of fire sheared through the air around him, a storm of heavy calibre shell casВ­ings and oil-soaked fumes streaming from the cannon mounted on his shoulder.

His explosive fire shredded the stone of the foreВ­most island's follies, broken and bloodied bodies tumbling from the shattered wreckage.

'Go!' shouted Lucius, but the Emperor's Children were already charging, their training so thorough that ever>' warrior already knew his place in the complex pattern of overlapping fire and movement that sent the strike force sweeping into the dome.

Savage joy lit up Lucius's face as he charged, the thrill of battle and the sensations of killing stimuВ­lating his body with wondrous excess.

In a swirling cacophony of noise, the perfection of death had come to the Choral City.

On the southern side of the palace, a strange organically formed building clung to the side of the palace like a parasite, its bulging, liquid shape more akin to something that had been grown than someВ­thing built. Its pale marble was threaded with dark veins and the masses of its battlements hung like ripened fruit. From the expanse of marble monuВ­ment slabs marking the passing of the city's finest

and most powerful citizens, it was clear that this was a sacred place.

Known as the Temple of the Song, it was a memoВ­rial to the music that Father Isstvan had sung to bring all things into existence. It was also the objective of the World Eaters. The word that the invasion had begun was already out by the time the first World Eaters' drop-pods crashed into the plaza, shattering gravestones and throwing slabs of marble into the air. Strange music keened through the morning air, calling the people of the Choral City from their homes and demanding that they take up arms. The soldiers from the nearby city barracks grabbed their guns as the Warsingers appeared on the battlements of the Temple to sing the song of death for the invaders.

Called by the Warsingers' laments, the people of the city gathered in the streets and streamed towards the battle.

The World Eaters' strike force was led by Captain Ehrlen, and as he emerged from his drop-pod, he was expecting the trained soldiers that Angron had briefed them on, not thousands of screaming citiВ­zens swarming onto the plaza. They came in a tide, armed with anything and everything they had in their homes, but it was not the weapons they carВ­ried but their sheer numbers and the terrible song that spoke of killing and murder that made them

deadly.

World Eaters, to me!' yelled Ehrlen, hefting his bolter and aiming it into the mass of charging people

The white-armoured warriors of the World Eaters formed a firing line around him, turning their bolters outwards.

'Fire!' shouted Ehrlen and the first ranks of the Choral City's inhabitants were cut down by the deadly volley, but the oncoming mass rose up like a spring tide as they clambered over the bodies of the dead.

As the gap between the two forces closed, the World Eaters put up their bolters and drew their chainswords.

Ehreln saw the unreasoning hatred in the eyes of his enemies and knew that this battle was soon to turn into a massacre.

If there was one thing at which the World Eaters excelled, it was massacre.