"Dawn of War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goto C. S.)

CHAPTER TWO

In the distance there was a constant rumble of thunder as artillery fire and pockets of fighting continued. But the spaceport was secure and, tucked into the cliffs behind, the city of Magna Bonum remained relatively unscathed by the ravages of war. Its gleaming white buildings shimmered with bursts of red as the setting sun turned to orange and bounced the dying light off the bloody battlefield. Nothing moved in the streets, and an eerie calm had descended on the city.

The Blood Ravens were making preparations for their pursuit of the orks, overseeing the fortification of the spaceport in case the greenskins returned while they were away. Gabriel had already dispatched a squad of scouts into the wilderness to locate the rallying point of the foul aliens, and he was awaiting the return of Sergeant Corallis with impatience. He was certain that the warboss would be regrouping his forces for another assault, and was eager to thwart it before it began. The best way to beat orks was to prevent them from forming their forces in the first place.

“Prathios, my old friend,” said Gabriel as the Chaplain walked into the spaceport’s Imperial shrine. “It is good to see you.” The two Marines bowed slightly to each other, showing a respect suitable to a holy place.

“It is good to be here, Gabriel. It has been a long time since I saw planetfall. How can I serve you, captain?” The huge, old Marine looked down at Gabriel with compassionate eyes. “Why are you so troubled?” he asked.

Gabriel turned away from the Chaplain to face the altar, dropping to his knees before the image of the Emperor’s Golden Throne. It was encircled by a ring of silver angels, their wings tipped with blood. Facing away from the throne in the middle, their mouths were open and their heads thrown back, as though they were singing to the whole galaxy.

“I just need to be calm before the battle. I am impatient to deal with these orks, and impatience does not become me. I would not like to err in my judgment,” said Gabriel, admitting more than he would to anyone else.

“Your concern does you credit, captain,” answered Prathios, kneeling into prayer beside Gabriel, gazing at the images on the altar. “It is a beautiful sight, is it not?”

For a moment or two Gabriel said nothing; he just stared straight ahead, as though his gaze was trapped in the icon. “Yes, indeed it is. But tell me, Brother Prathios, haven’t you ever wondered what it might sound like?”

The Chaplain continued to look at the image, considering the question. “I wonder every day, Gabriel, but I will hear it soon enough, when the Emperor finally calls my soul to him.”

Colonel Brom looked over his men in the remains of the spaceport. They were tired. Exhausted. The ork invasion had taken them by surprise and it had been more severe than any of the previous incursions into the Tartarus system. The Tartarans’ small space-bound force had been virtually annihilated in the orks’ attack run, and then the giant, clumsy kill kroozer had plunged into the planet’s atmosphere, spewing an invasion force of orks onto the surface. The greenskins had no need for the spaceport, which the Tartarans had defended so desperately. They had just attacked Magna Bonum because that was where the Tartarans’ Fifth Regiment had dug in-so that was where the good fighting was to be found. Brom shook his head at the irony: if they hadn’t tried to defend the city, perhaps the orks would have just ignored it.

“Colonel Brom,” said Trooper Ckrius, flicking a sharp salute as he snapped to attention.

“Yes, trooper. What can I do for you?” Brom was getting a little tired of Ckrius’ enthusiasm. The young Guardsman had fought bravely against the orks, standing his ground with Brom himself, albeit after attempting to desert the battle. This was as much as Brom could ask of any of his men, but Ckrius seemed to think that he owed more than any of the others. As though his moment of hesitation had condemned him to a lifetime of penitence and of service to the officer who had made him see the light.

“I have brought you some recaff, colonel,” said Ckrius, thrusting a battered, tin cup towards his commanding officer.

Despite himself, Brom was grateful. It had been a long day and, although the sun was setting in a dazzling array of golds and reds, he knew that there would be no sleep for them tonight. Perhaps never again.

“Thank you, Trooper Ckrius,” he replied wearily, reaching out and taking the hot cup from the young man, who was still saluting. “You can relax, soldier.”

“We can sleep when we’re dead, right colonel?” said Ckrius eagerly, excited that Brom had remembered his name. He nodded his head energetically towards the recaff cup as though it contained the elixir of life.

Brom glanced down at the steaming liquid and raised it to his lips. It was so hot that it burnt his throat as he swallowed a large mouthful. He didn’t care. If that was the worst pain he would feel today, he would have no complaints.

“Let’s hope that we don’t have to wait that long,” replied the colonel, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and looking levelly at the young trooper. The young man looked terrible, running on hysteria and nervous energy. “You fought well today, son. Get some sleep, and you will also fight well tomorrow.”

“But there is no time for sleep,” protested Ckrius, twitching his head excitedly from side to side, taking in the flurry of activity around the spaceport. “There is so much to do.”

“The orks will not be back for a while yet. Captain Gabriel tells me that they will have to regroup at a safe distance and then reorganise before they will return to face the Tartarans again. Evidently, the reorganisation of a mob of orks can take a long time. We will be ready for them,” said Brom, hoping that the Blood Raven was right.

“Captain Gabriel?” asked Ckrius, as though he had heard a secret password. “Is that the Space Marine captain?”

“Yes, Captain Gabriel is the Space Marine commander. He is here to help us with the ork problem,” explained Brom carefully, conscious of the excitement in the young trooper’s face.

“The boys… that is, we were wondering who they were, colonel,” said Ckrius self-consciously. He looked back over his shoulder to a group of troopers who sat around a small fire on the hard-deck, sipping recaff from mangled tins. They all pretended to be chatting casually or looking elsewhere when Brom followed his gaze.

“I see,” said Brom as the real motivation for bringing him the recaff dawned on him. He smiled-these troopers had probably never even seen a Space Marine before. “They are Blood Ravens, trooper. The Blood Ravens Third Company.”

Ckrius’ eyes lit up. “I’ve heard of them,” he blurted excitedly. Then he paused for a moment and a shadow fell over his face as his thoughts caught up with him. “Aren’t they-”

“Yes, I dare say you have, trooper. Their reputation precedes them wherever they go, I’m sure. The Adeptus Astartes are justly exalted throughout the Imperium. As I say, they are here to help us with the orks, and we should thank the Emperor for that.” Brom cut Ckrius off, aware of the rumours about the Cyrene affair but unsure of the facts himself. “Now I suggest that you get some sleep, trooper. Tomorrow will be a long day, and you will need all of your strength if you are to show the Blood Ravens the worth of the Tartaran Fifth.”

“Yes, colonel,” replied Ckrius, saluting weakly and turning away. Brom watched him walk back to his friends around the fire, and smiled to himself as they crowded around the trooper, pestering him with questions.

The Blood Ravens scouts swept back into the spaceport on their bikes, engines roaring with power. Against the setting red sun, the ruby bikes seemed to fluoresce with energy, and the heat haze from the exhaust vents blurred into the fading daylight. Brom watched them slide the huge machines to a halt, and shook his head in faint disbelief. Those assault bikes were faster than a Sentinel walker and packed an awesome amount of firepower. And just one Marine sat astride each of the awesome machines, throwing it around as though it were nothing.

The Marines climbed off their bikes and pulled off their helmets, apparently enjoying the last rays of sunlight on their faces. The air was cooling rapidly as the night drew in, and Brom could only imagine how hot the Marines must have been inside that heavy armour all day. But the faces of the scouts were even and unbothered. Their hair was not matted to their heads, and they looked perfectly comfortable. The colonel shook his head again, wondering what he could achieve with a squad of such soldiers.

There were mutterings and faint whistles from some of the Guardsmen as they saw the bikes roll onto the hard-deck. At the end of a day like this one, the sight of nine Blood Raven assault bikes riding out of the sunset was more than any of them could have expected, and they didn’t try too hard to hide their awe.

Brom cast his eyes over his men once again, still shaking his head. They certainly needed this kind of inspiration. It had been a bad day for the Tartarans. Hundreds of men had fallen-good men who had stood their ground in the face of the alien onslaught. Many bad men had fallen too; he had dispatched them himself with his own pistol as they had tried to run from their duty.

He had not known that the Tartaran Fifth boasted so many cowards. His men had stood defiantly in the face of many foes before today. They had confronted insurrections and rebellions. They had cleansed cities of perverted and mutated cultists. They had even met orks before, when greenskin raiders had tried to plunder the resources of Tartarus. And always his men had stood firm-fighting for their honour, for the Emperor, and for their homes.

Something was different about this invasion. Although the arrival of the Blood Ravens was welcome, and their timely intervention had been decisive, the Tartarans had dealt with orks before, even without the help of the Adeptus Astartes. This glut of greenskins was no bigger than any they had faced before. But something was different. The men were whispering amongst themselves, casting furtive glances at each other, muttering quiet suspicions around the campfires. Brom couldn’t help but wonder whether the presence of the Space Marines actually made the men more suspicious: if the Adeptus Astartes are here, this must be some serious shit.

And Captain Angelos didn’t help-his haughty attitude was almost insulting. He hadn’t even included the Tartarans in his plans for the fortification of the spaceport; the Blood Ravens were doing everything. In truth, most of Brom’s men were grateful for the chance to rest, but he had heard some of them grumbling about not being good enough for the Space Marines.

A shiver ran down his back as Brom realised what Angelos’ first impression of the Tartarans must have been. In his mind’s eye, he could still see those men laying face down on the ground with his pistol wounds in their backs.

Then a realisation struck him. Something had been different even before the Space Marines had arrived. Some of his men had been defeated even before the battle had started. He had heard them talking about the voices in the wind. Some of them had heard warnings whispered in the breeze ahead of the ork assault-whispering songs and choruses that echoed into their ears from everywhere at once. Even Brom had convinced himself that he had heard something.

The scouts were striding over to the Blood Ravens’ encampment around the spaceport’s shrine, while a team of other Marines walked back towards their bikes, presumably to make the necessary offerings to their machine spirits before they would be ready to go out again.

Watching the scouts, Brom noticed a group of Blood Ravens emerge from the shrine to greet them. One of them caught his eye immediately-slightly taller than the others, his armour was the colour of a clear blue sky. He bore the insignia of the Blood Ravens on his auto-reactive shoulder guard, and his gleaming armour was studded with purity seals. In place of the grey raven that adorned the chests of his battle-brothers, the figure had a starburst of gold and, although he had no helmet, his face was obscured by an ornate hood that was somehow integrated into his armour. In his hand he held a long staff, crested with the wings of a raven with a glowing red droplet in its heart.

Brom made his way over to the Blood Ravens’ compound and presented himself to the unusual Marine. “I am Colonel Carus Brom of the Tartarus Planetary Defence Force. It is an honour to be in the presence of a Librarian of the Adeptus Astartes,” said Brom formally, after a short cough.

Isador turned. “Wait,” he said sharply, then turned back to the scouts that were about to enter the shrine to make their report to the captain. “Corallis-Captain Angelos should not be disturbed at the moment. He will be finished soon.”

The sergeant nodded his understanding to the Librarian and stood to the side of the doorway, as though on sentry duty, and Isador turned back to face Brom. “Yes?”

“I am Col-” began Brom.

“Yes, I know who you are Colonel Brom. What do you want?”

In the rapidly fading light, Brom could not see Isador’s face under the psychic hood, and the reddening sunset had transformed his pale blue armour into a disturbing purple. Brom swallowed hard, more cowed by this Librarian even than by the rampage of orks that he had encountered that afternoon.

He collected himself. “I wish to know how the Tartaran Fifth can be of service to you.”

Isador watched the man closely, noting how the fear in his voice competed with the fierce pride in his eyes. There was something unspoken in that stare-something both hopeful and desperate at the same time.

“I saw you fight today, colonel. You are a brave man.” Isador’s voice was calm and matter-of-fact.

“Thank you, my lord,” said Brom, genuinely proud.

“I am not your lord, colonel. We must all be watchful for false idols. I am a servant of the Emperor, just like you,” said Isador, watching Brom’s response with interest.

A voice seemed to be whispering into Brom’s mind and tugging at his consciousness. Without thinking about it, he flicked his eyes from side to side, looking for the source of the noise.

“Colonel?” inquired Isador, and Brom’s gaze snapped back to Isador’s shrouded face, where his eyes seemed to be glowing with a distant light. “Is there something else?”

“No. No, there is nothing else, Brother-Librarian,” replied Brom, picking his words carefully.

“You are a brave man, Colonel Brom, but it seems that your men are merely shadows of your resolve. Brother-Captain Angelos is doubtful about their efficacy in this theatre,” said Isador frankly.

Brom smarted. “I shall strengthen their resolve. You may rely on that.”

“See that you do, or we shall be forced to do it for you.”

Brom took a breath. “I should like to offer my assurances and the Tartarans’ services to Captain Angelos himself.”

The Librarian nodded slowly. “As you wish. But you will wait until the captain has finished his prayers.”

For a few moments the two men stood in silence, but then Isador spoke again. “You have something else that you wish to say. Say it, colonel.”

“I have no gift for words, Brother-Librarian,” said Brom, a little taken aback by Isador’s astute question, “so I will be blunt. Some of the men are talking about the fate of planet Cyrene, and I was hoping that you could set the rumours straight before they get out of hand.”

“What are the men saying?” asked Isador, checking that Gabriel had not yet emerged from the shrine behind them.

“They have heard that your company cleansed the planet of a terrible heresy,” explained Brom, hoping that the Librarian would finish the story for him. But there was silence, so he continued. “They have heard that you performed an exterminatus, down to the last man, woman and child.”

“Rumours are dangerous things, colonel,” said Isador, leaning down towards Brom. “Colonel Brom, your company and even your precious Tartarans are welcome, but such questions are not. You would do well not to ask the captain about Cyrene if you wish to retain what little good will he currently has towards you.”

The door to the shrine creaked open behind Isador, and Gabriel stepped out into the night air, stooping slightly as he passed under the mantel. He nodded a quick greeting to Isador and glanced down at Brom before turning swiftly to Sergeant Corallis, who stood crisply at the side of the doorway. Isador took a couple of steps towards Gabriel to join the briefing, leaving Brom standing on his own in the gathering dark.

“Sergeant, what news?” asked Gabriel.

“We found the trail of two mobs of retreating orks, captain. They appear to be heading on intersecting trajectories, presumably towards a rallying point deeper in the forest. If we leave now, we should be able to catch one of the mobs before it reaches that point.” reported Corallis.

“Understood,” said Gabriel. “But what of the other mob?”

Corallis looked slightly uneasy. “We caught up with it on our bikes, captain, or what was left of it.”

“Explain.”

“Something had already taken care of the bulk of the mob, and we had no problems cleaning up the remnants, captain,” explained the sergeant.

“‘Something?’ sergeant? What? Who? The Tartarans?” asked Gabriel.

“With all due respect,” said Corallis, flicking a glance towards the dim figure of Brom, “that is most unlikely. The attack was incredibly precise and the attackers left no trail at all. It is as though they just vanished after the battle. Not that there was much of a battle, it seems. More like a slaughter.”

“Marines?” asked Gabriel with some concern.

“No, captain. The wounds on the orks were too delicate to have been caused by bolter fire. It was as though they had been shredded by thousands of tiny projectiles. I’ve never seen anything like it. When we caught up with the stragglers, they were so dazed and confused that it was hardly worth wasting ammunition on them.” The report clearly disturbed Corallis as much as it did his captain.

“Very good, Corallis, thank you,” said Gabriel turning to face Isador. “Isador, what does the good colonel want?”

“Brother-Captain, the colonel wishes an audience with you,” replied Isador, stepping back and sweeping his arm to indicate that Brom should approach.

“Captain Angelos. I wish to place the Tartarans at the disposal of the Blood Ravens. As you know, we have suffered many casualties, but between the fifth and seventh we can offer an entire regiment. They stand ready to serve you in the protection of the city. I realise what you may have seen, but my men wish to make amends for-”

“The Tartarans will have many opportunities to prove themselves warriors worthy to serve the Emperor, colonel. The Blood Ravens are leaving the city, and we are leaving its protection in your hands,” said Gabriel, already on his way to organise the departure.

“Very good, captain,” said Brom with a slight bow. “I will ready my men. May I ask what your next course of action might be?”

Gabriel stopped walking and turned to face Brom directly. “Orks respect only strength,” he said deliberately, “and I intend to show them that we have it in ample supply. The Blood Ravens are going hunting.”

Hidden in the depths of the forest, a safe distance down the valley away from Magna Bonum, the orks had stopped their retreat. The clearing was already cluttered with spluttering machines and slicks of oil. A terrible stench filled the air and wafted up into the sky, forming dark, pungent clouds that obscured the moonlight. Groups of mekboyz pushed each other around, smashing their wrenches into wartrukks and warbikes, punching rivets through their armoured plates to keep them in place. Snivelling gretchin sat in packs, chained into little circles so that they couldn’t run off into the forest. Some of the stormboyz poked about at their jump packs experimentally, pretending that they were testing their components, while the flashgitz spat saliva onto their shootas and buffed them with the hair from decapitated heads.

In the centre of the clearing, Orkamungus was standing beside his crumpled trukk, yelling at the mekboyz who fussed around it nervously, trying to winch up the back wheels in order to fix a broken axle. The wartrukk was so huge and so badly damaged that it seemed an almost impossible task, and the mekboyz kept recruiting more and more orks into service-partly to help them lift the immense machine, and partly to share the blame when they failed to fix it.

The warboss himself was stomping up and down alongside his trukk, screeching and hollering, slapping the back of his hand across the heads of any boyz who looked like they weren’t trying hard enough.

Suddenly he sprang into the air and crashed down onto the back of the wartrukk, thinking to use its elevation to help him see where the rest of the mobs had gone. The thicket of mekboyz working on the rear axle were instantly squashed into the ground as the orks that were already struggling to support the weight of the massive truck collapsed under the additional weight of the monstrous warboss. The trukk jolted back down into the earth with a crash that made Orkamungus stumble. He roared in displeasure and spun the rickety shoota turret to face the cowering orks at the side of the vehicle. They looked up at him with a mixture of resignation and terror, but then Orkamungus merely cackled his throat, pretending to riddle them with shot, sputtering and whooping with the imaginary report from the gun.

The clearing was not even nearly full, although Orkamungus could see more and more of his orks spilling out of the forest around the perimeter, barging their way through the thinning trees as their noses caught the scent of cooking meat. Fires were blazing all around, and the orks were roasting various creatures in the flames. The burning flesh sent thick clouds of black smoke billowing into the sky, and the gretchin strained to breathe it in, as though it was the only food they would get that night.

The warboss scanned the scene with his tiny red eyes. Still not enough. Wait more. He spun the shoota turret round to face the growing crowd and angled the barrel up into the sky, spraying slugs in a barrage of fire and crying out into the night. “Waaaaaaaaagh!”

Only half an hour after leaving the spaceport, the Blood Ravens caught the scent of the orks. In the distance was the echo of gunfire, and Corallis could make out the faint haze of fires on the horizon. But that was not their target tonight. The sergeant was at the head of the hunting squad, guiding them along the path that he had taken with the scouts earlier that evening.

The dark forest was littered with mutilated human corpses and the burnt out remains of woodsmen’s huts. Not even these wilds had been spared the ravages of the ork invasion-although Gabriel could not imagine that the greenskins had found much satisfaction in the slaughter of these defenceless farmers. They were probably just venting their frustration and hatred after being repelled by the Blood Ravens at the spaceport. Orks in retreat were just as destructive as orks on the advance-they are always on the rampage. War for its own sake, thought Gabriel with a heavy heart.

The Marines moved swiftly and quietly through the shadows, pausing occasionally for Corallis to pick up the trail. It was not hard to follow. Scattered along the ground were discarded plates of armour, broken machine parts that must have fallen from rumbling wartrukks, pools of blood and slicks of oil. The Marines could have followed the stench even in perfect darkness-even without their enhanced night-vision.

With an abrupt motion, Corallis brought the group to a halt, raising his fist into the air as he stooped to the ground. The moonlight dappled his armour through the canopy, making his image swim and shift before Gabriel’s eyes.

There was silence as the Marines waited for the sergeant to draw his conclusions. He was tracing a pattern on the ground with his hand and staring out into the darkness of the thick forest off to the side of the vulgar trail of debris and destruction. It seemed pretty obvious where the orks had gone, so Gabriel was concerned. He made his way up along side Corallis and rested his hand on the sergeant’s shoulder. “Corallis. What is it?”

“I’m not sure, captain,” whispered Corallis in response. “There are some faint markings here, running alongside the ork trail. They are hardly here at all, as though made by feet that barely touch the ground. But there is definitely something-something swifter and stealthier than we are.”

“Were they following the orks?” asked Gabriel, as the significance of Corallis’ last words sunk in. “Or are they following us?”

“I’m not sure, captain. The marks are too vague to render much information about when they were made.” But the sergeant was staring out into the forest again, making it clear that he suspected that whatever had made the marks was still out there. Gabriel followed his gaze, scanning the moon-dappled foliage for signs of movement.

“The moonlight and shadows would hide anything tonight-even an ork,” said Corallis, shaking his head.

“Yes, sergeant-or even us,” replied Gabriel with half a smile, pressing down on Corallis’ shoulder as he stood and waved a signal to the hunting party. He clicked the vox-channel in his armour and whispered his directions to the squad. “Let’s take it off road. Keep to the thick foliage and trace this ork trail in a parallel motion. Silence, understood.”

Without a word, the squad of Blood Ravens dispersed into the trees, slipping into the shadows and the natural camouflage provided by the broken pools of moonlight.

Hidden in the shadows and the foliage, the Blood Ravens pressed on through the forest. “There is something else in these woods, Gabriel,” said Isador, leaning closely to the captain’s ear as they slipped through the undergrowth. “Something unpleasant.”

“Besides us, you mean?” asked Gabriel with a faint smile, as he dropped to one knee and levelled his bolt pistol. The rest of the Blood Ravens followed suit, each bracing their weapons and falling into motionlessness. There was a fire burning in a small clearing about one hundred metres ahead of them, and the smell of burning flesh was beginning to become overpowering. Gabriel signalled to Corallis to go and check it out, and then turned back to Isador.

“What do you mean, brother?”

“I’m not sure, captain. But there are voices in these woods. Silent voices that press in at my mind so sweetly…” The Librarian trailed off, as though remembering something beautiful. “They are evil and heretical voices, Gabriel. But I do not know where they are from.”

Gabriel looked at his friend with concern, not knowing what to say. He simply nodded. “We will be careful.”

“I do not care for all this sneaking about,” continued Isador, as though that might explain everything.

“I know, old friend. You have always preferred the direct approach,” replied Gabriel, trying to lift the mood.

“What about the Tartarans? Why not send them after the orks, instead of treating them like glorified baby-sitters? Better still, why not take the entire regiment and meet the main ork force head-on? It could not possibly stand before us.” Isador’s voice was full of sudden venom.

“We have fought the orks a hundred times, Isador. And you told me yourself, they thrive on war. Nothing would please them more than a direct assault on their warboss. They would fight with greater passion than we have yet seen. Our casualties would be unacceptably high,” said Gabriel, explaining what Isador already knew.

“But what are the Imperial Guard for, if not to die for the Emperor?” He almost spat the words into the dirt. “At the very least, we should have brought a few squads with us on this hunt-we would not want to be remembered for our carelessness, would we?”

The words were laced with disgust, and Gabriel was momentarily stunned by Isador’s speech. There was more to this than a revulsion towards the cowardliness of some of the Tartarans. The Librarian was holding something back about Gabriel himself, as though not quite daring to challenge the judgement of his old friend.

“We, Isador? We, or me?” Gabriel was staring straight into the eyes of the Librarian, fierce with repressed pain. Isador stared back, meeting the captain’s bright eyes and immediately seeing his mistake. With a quiet sigh, he responded.

“I am sorry, Gabriel. I am not quite myself today,” said Isador, looking around into the forest as if expecting to see someone watching them. “I am not accusing you of anything, captain. And when I said ‘we’, I meant it-we are the Blood Ravens, battle-brothers until the end.”

“Perhaps you are right, old friend. Perhaps I have grown careless. We are battle-brothers, Isador, but I am the captain. Responsibility is mine,” said Gabriel, dropping his gaze from Isador’s face and shaking his head faintly. “I also have not been myself lately.”

“I have seen how you have changed since Cyrene, Gabriel. But there was nothing that you could have done to save it. You did what had to be done.” Isador’s tone was gentle again.

“Do not mention that place again, Isador!” One or two of the other squad members turned their heads as Gabriel raised his voice. He brought himself under control quickly and continued. “Cyrene was my homeworld… it was my responsibility,” he said, his voice dropping to a barely audible whisper.

“Captain.” It was Corallis, stooped under the cover of giant fern fronds just in front of them. Gabriel looked up and wondered how long the sergeant had been there. By his side, Isador was doing the same thing. They shared a quick glance and then Gabriel answered.

“What news, sergeant?”

“The orks have established a camp at an old pumping station in the forest. There is good cover around the perimeter, and they are unprepared for our assault.”

“Excellent,” said Gabriel, relieved and enthusiastic at the thought of combat at last. Nothing cleared his mind better than a righteous cleansing. “Then let us show these orks how Blood Ravens bring death to the enemies of the Emperor.”

The spaceport was shrouded in darkness as the thick black clouds rolled across the sky, obscuring the stars and filtering the moonlight into a dirty grey. A thin drizzle of rain fell continuously, coating everything in a slick, oily ichor as the smoky clouds spat their residue to the ground. campfires were scattered reassuringly over the deck, with groups of Guardsmen huddled around them for warmth and companionship. Others were hard at work on the port’s fortifications, tugging the ruins of Sentinels and Leman Russ tanks into banks around the perimeter that faced out into the wilderness. Auto-cannon, heavy bolter and lascannon emplacements were being dug into the barricades at regular intervals, facing out across the plain. That is where the orks would come from, if Captain Angelos had been right about their renewed offensive.

Colonel Brom stood on the tracks of a Leman Russ that had been slid into the barricade on its side. He was scanning the horizon for signs of movement, but there was nothing except the faint orange glow of distant fires. That’s where the warboss must be, he thought. Captain Angelos was right after all. They’re regrouping, out of range of our gun emplacements. But somehow the hazy glow was reassuring; if the orks were playing by their campfires, then they were not about to launch their second attack tonight.

The dull, misted moonlight bathed the afternoon’s battlefield in monochrome, and Brom slouched down onto the side of the tank to sit and consider it. He sighed deeply and shook his head, patting each of his pockets in turn in a quest for a lho-stick. Finding one in his left breast pocket, he tapped it methodically against the armour of the Leman Russ and then flicked it into life.

Taking a long draw and letting the smoke blossom into his lungs, Brom tried to get the events of the day into some kind of perspective.

Behind him, he could hear the industry of his Tartarans. Most of them had recovered from the shocks of the day already, and they were struggling to prepare for tomorrow. There were whispers of excitement about the arrival of the Space Marines and occasional shouts of awe as stories were shared about the incredible feats they had accomplished on the battlefields of a thousand planets. Rumours and legends flooded the camp like a contagious disease, inflecting everyone with a new vigour and a thrill of excitement.

Not everyone. Brom sat on his own, staring out across the silvering corpses of his Guardsmen as they lay unrecovered where they fell, intermingled with the ork-dead, their blood mixing in the soaked earth. Hundreds of them. Almost half the Fifth and more than half the Seventh had been killed in one afternoon. And these were his men. Good men with whom he had fought on numberless occasions in the past.

And the Blood Ravens had called them cowards.

Taking another draw on his lho-stick, Brom blew a wispy thread of cloud out into the night air. It was a good weed-locally grown in the rich, fertile soil of Tartarus. For a moment, he thought that he could taste the blood-drenched soil seeping into the smoke, but he shut out the thought in a wave of nausea.

Cowards. The word stuck in his mind and cycled through his thoughts like a hot coal, scorching at his soul. Something had happened. Some of his men had turned and run. He had dealt with many of them himself-executing men who had saved his own life countless times. The guilt gnawed at his conscience, making his head hurt from within.

Glancing up and down the line of the barricade, Brom could see little pockets of men sitting in silence. They had obviously moved away from their comrades to be alone with their thoughts, gazing out over the carnage of the day. Not for them the naive excitement about the Space Marines. Tiny little embers of fire marked them out as smokers, speckling the imposing weight of the barricade with the touches of fireflies.

Brom didn’t have the heart to bust them for skipping work. The fortifications were going up quickly, as the most enthusiastic of the men laboured under a haze of optimism. He was happy to let his men deal with the events of the day in their own ways-the last thing they needed now was their commanding officer to yell at them about treachery and cowardice. Everyone knew what had happened. Some were trying to forget, to make the approaching battle less horrifying. Others had fallen into themselves, searching for their last scraps of resolve. But some, suspected Brom, would simply find the terrible truth-they were cowards after all.

Anger and confusion curdled together in Brom’s head. The Blood Ravens had treated him like a lackey, and they had cast a slur on the honour of the Tartarans. He was a colonel of the Emperor’s Imperial Guard, and should be treated as such. And it wasn’t as if the Blood Ravens were beyond reproach themselves: mighty though they may be in battle, inside those giant suits of power amour there was the heart and soul of a man. They could make mistakes too, just like the Tartarans. And they had. He knew that they had.

Brom was hissing and muttering to himself as his anger seethed inside him. A voice called out from behind the barricade.

“Colonel Brom? Is everything alright, sir?” It was Ckrius, again, probably carrying another cup of recaff and grinning inanely.

“Fine, trooper,” said Brom dismissively, suddenly aware that he had been mumbling and spitting with quiet rage. “Fine.”

“You need any more recaff, colonel?” asked the trooper hopefully.

Brom laughed. He knew it. “No, thank you Trooper Ckrius. I’m fine.”

As Ckrius climbed back down the barricade to rejoin his friends, Brom shook his head again. Where had all that anger come from? He threw his lho-stick to the ground and stamped it out with his boot. The Space Marines were a blessing from the Emperor himself. They were the finest warriors in the Imperium, selected from the most able hopefuls from thousands of different worlds and then cultivated for decades. Their honour and judgement was beyond reproach. Who was he to question them? And Captain Angelos was right-the Tartarans had collapsed, some troopers had turned in fear. Without the Blood Ravens, the spaceport would have fallen. Perhaps Angelos had been right to assign them construction duty while the Blood Ravens hunted the orks.

In the shadowy depths of the forest, the Blood Ravens were deployed in an arc around the perimeter of a compound. The old buildings around the pumping station were decrepit and barely stable, but they still seemed to be in use. Certainly they would not provide any significant cover for the mob of orks that lumbered and snorted their way between them.

The makeshift ork camp was a jumble of debris and filth. The green-skins had pulled down a couple of the old buildings and were using the wooden frames for their fires. Some of them bore deep flesh wounds on their limbs, but they still jostled and pushed each other about, trying to find their place in the food chain around the roasting meat. They snorted and snarled, spitting phlegm onto the ground as saliva ran between their jagged teeth.

In the centre of the compound was the largest of the mob, one of the so-called “nobz.” Gabriel was watching it carefully as it smashed its fist into the smaller greenskins that fussed around it. They cowered under the blows but then set about their business with renewed vigour, as though the violence were itself a kind of language between the savage creatures. The nob was inspecting the pumping station with a small team of mekboyz, who prodded and poked at the end of a pipeline with their clumsy tools.

“Corallis. Where do those pipes go?” asked Gabriel in a barely audible whisper.

“They carry the water supply into Magna Bonum, captain,” answered the sergeant, realising at once how important this pumping station was to the people of Tartarus.

Gabriel nodded, clicking open a vox-channel to the rest of the squad. “Focus on the largest of the creatures first-if we break their strongest warriors, then the others will flee. We can mop up the stragglers later.”

After a brief pause, the forest erupted into a blaze of bolter fire as the Blood Ravens opened up from their positions around the perimeter of the compound. The fire flashed into the centre of the offensive arc, defining a lethal killing zone in which the orks were instantly cut down. The Blood Ravens loosed another hail of fire, and then Gabriel was on his feet and charging into the chaotic mess of the ork camp, his chainsword whirring with serrated death.

The surviving orks scattered around the compound, diving for their weapons and colliding with each other with horrendous thumps. In the disarray, Gabriel hacked into the nearest knot of fumbling greenskins, thrusting his spluttering blade through bone and flesh, while his bolt pistol coughed shells from his other hand. In the heart of the mob, he could see the nob screaming commands at its bodyguard, sending the surrounding orks into a frenzy. The giant beast itself had tugged on a gleaming power claw, which still dripped with blood, and had drawn a huge gun into its other hand.

Gabriel ducked a viciously curving cleaver, using his own momentum to cut down with his chainsword, taking the legs off the offending greenskin next to him. Firing a rattle of bolter shells into a couple of shoota boyz that were fumbling with their guns in front of him, the Blood Ravens captain strode forward towards the nob. This kill was going to be his.

On the other side of the camp, Isador was a blaze of blue energy. He brought his force staff sweeping round in great crescents, smashing its power into gaggles of orks that shrieked and sizzled under the tirade. From his left hand pulsed javelins of blue lightning, which chased after the fleeing greenskins and incinerated them as they tried to dive for cover.

All around the compound, the Blood Ravens were laying into the broken camp of orks, capitalising on the confusion of the greenskins as the creatures struggled to mount a defence. Sergeant Corallis had lost his boltgun and was wrestling one of the beasts with his hands, pitting his power armour against the bunched musculature and the barbed teeth of the ork. In one smooth movement, Corallis rolled backwards onto the ground, carrying the greenskin with him and flipping it over his shoulder. As he rolled back up onto his feet, he snatched up a fallen cleaver from the dirt and smashed it down into the skull of the stunned ork before it could regain its feet. The cleaver dug deeply into the thick skull and the ork’s eyes bulged in surprise before the handle snapped clean away and the creature fell onto its face in the mud.

Meanwhile, Gabriel was striding through the camp towards the ork leader, dispatching the smaller orks with almost casual abandon as they charged at him with axes and clubs. Nothing would draw him off course now. The ork boss could see him coming, and it was blasting out rounds from its crude gun, cackling into the air with insanity burning in its tiny red eyes. The shots bounced off Gabriel’s armour, denting it and scratching away the brilliant red paintwork. One or two of the slugs buried themselves in the joints between the armoured plates, punching into his flesh and sending shafts of pain darting through his limbs. But the Space Marine’s augmented nervous system quickly shut down the pain receptors and his enhanced blood clotted the wounds almost as soon as they were made.

He cleared the last few strides with a running leap, throwing himself through the air towards the huge ork with his chainsword spluttering greenskin blood in an ichorous arc. The creature met Gabriel’s attack with a swipe from its power claw, dragging a clutch of deep gashes across the captain’s chest plate and throwing him aside, his bolt pistol falling into the dirt.

Gabriel hit the ground in a roll, flipping back up onto his feet and spinning his chainsword with a flourish. In an instant he was upon the ork again, his blade flashing and coughing in a relentless tirade of hacks and swipes. But the greenskin was just as fast, parrying the Blood Raven’s weapon with flicks of his power claw and countering with a series of vicious kicks and scratches.

In the depths of his mind, Gabriel could hear the silver choir flooding his soul with light once again, and he pressed his attack with righteous desperation, throwing all of his strength into each strike. The ork seemed to be lapsing into slow-motion, and Gabriel blocked its attacks with increasing ease.

The opening seemed to gape and beg for him to slaughter the vile greenskin. Gabriel watched the ork flail and thrash with its power claw, but it all seemed pathetically slow. And there, in the centre of the frenzy of claws was a gap which the ork had left completely unprotected-Gabriel could see it as clear as day, as though the light of the Astronomican itself was piercing it for him. But, as he stepped forward to run his chainsword through the enemy, the choir in his head started to wail and scream, and the beautiful silver light started to run with blood.

Gabriel screamed as he thrust his blade into the beast’s chest, and then he ground the whirring teeth of the chainsword deeper into the creature’s abdomen before ripping it free with a vicious upward swing. The nob was rent in two as it fell back under the strike, already dead before it hit the ground.

All around the camp, the remnants of the ork mob started to wail and shriek. They turned and tried to run, but were easily cut down by volleys of fire from the other Blood Ravens.

“Gabriel?” Isador was at his shoulder, his hand resting gently on his punctured and torn armour. “Gabriel, are you alright?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine,” answered Gabriel, wondering why Isador was making such a fuss. He had fallen to the ground after the battle with the ork boss, but now pulled himself to his feet to face the Librarian. “I’m fine, Isador.”

“Your scream had me worried, brother,” said Isador looking around the camp. “And I wasn’t the only one to notice it.” The rest of the squad were stalking around the compound, kicking each ork corpse in turn to make sure that the creatures were really dead, and firing a single shot into the heads of any that groaned.

“I’ll be fine, thank you Isador. Where is Prathios? I must give my praise to the Emperor for this victory,” said Gabriel, searching the scene for the company Chaplain.

“Prathios fought well, captain. He is over there with Corallis, who was injured in the fight,” replied Isador, pointing with his staff to one of the ruined buildings. “After you have seen Prathios, you should visit the Apothecarion to see about those wounds, Gabriel.”

Gabriel looked down at his armour and saw for the first time how much damage it had suffered. The paint was scratched and the plates were riddled with dents, gashes and holes. He couldn’t really remember suffering such an attack.

“Yes, Isador. I will do that. Thank you again,” he said as he turned and made his way over to Prathios and Corallis.

Standing alone in the centre of the compound, Isador surveyed the scene. Not a single Blood Raven had fallen in the attack, although Corallis had lost his left arm. All of the orks had been slain. It had been a good night for hunting after all.

From out of the darkness something cold tapped at the inside of Isador’s mind, and he snapped his head round to stare into the forest at the edge of the compound. There was something in the shadows, something that was not quite there. A wave of whispers seemed to emanate from the darkness, questing for a space in the Librarian’s head. Isador slammed shut the doors to his soul and sent a sharp, noiseless blast into the trees: I will suffer no trespass. At that, the voices seemed to die into silence. After concentrating his gaze on the forest for a few more moments, Isador turned his attention back to the camp. Squinting slightly at the sudden pain in his head, he made his way back towards Gabriel and Prathios, the sound of his captain’s scream resounding in his mind once again.

C.S. Goto (ebook by Undead)

01 – Dawn of War