Hammer and Bolter 11 Page 3

  The gates opened just enough to let him back inside. The feedback blotted out the song, but wrapped itself around his brain like razor wire. He had lost his cap, and his uniform was in tatters. Still, he straightened his posture as he walked back through the stunned troops. Halfway across the grounds, a conscript confronted him. The man’s eyes were watering from the hours of mind-destroying feedback and his nose was bleeding. ‘Let us go,’ he pleaded. ‘Let us fight. We’ll resist as long as we can.’

  Corvus pushed him back. ‘Are you mad?’ he shouted over the whine. ‘Do you know what would happen to you?’

  The trooper nodded. ‘I was on the wall. I saw.’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘They look happy when they sing. At least that death isn’t pointless torture.’

  Corvus raised his pistol and shot the man through the eye. He turned in a full circle, glaring at his witnesses, making sure they understood the lesson. Then he stalked back to the command centre.

  A night and a day of the endless electronic wail. Then another night of watching with nerves scraped raw. Corvus plugged his ears with cloth, but the feedback stabbed its way through the pathetic barrier. His jaw worked, his cheek muscles twitched, and he saw the same strain in the taut, clenched faces of his men. The Rhinos came no closer, and there were no other enemy troop movements. Fort Goreck was besieged by absolute stillness, and that would be enough.

  The third day of the siege was a hell of sleeplessness and claustrophobic rage. Five Guardsmen attempted to desert. Corvus had them flogged, then shot.

  As the sun set, Corvus could see the end coming. There would be no holding out. The shield he had erected was torture, and madness would tear the base apart. The only thing left was a final, glorious charge that would deny the enemy the kind of triumph that he clearly desired. But how to make that attack if the troops would succumb to the anthem before they even reached the enemy front lines?

  Corvus covered his ears with his hands, trying to block the whine, trying to dampen it just enough so he could think. Silence would have been the greatest gift the Emperor could bestow upon him.

  Instead, he was granted the next greatest: inspiration.

  The medicae centre was on the ground floor of the command block. Corvus found the medic, and explained what was required. The man blanched and refused. Corvus ordered him to do as he said. Still the medic protested. Corvus put his laspistol to the man’s head, and that was convincing. Just.

  The process took all night. At least, for the most part, the men didn’t resist being rendered deaf. Some seemed almost relieved to be free of the feedback whine. Most submitted to the procedure with slack faces and dead looks. The men had become creatures of stoic despair held together and animated by the habits of discipline. Corvus watched yet another patient, blood pouring from his ears, contort on a gurney. At least, he thought, he was giving the soldiers back their pride for the endgame.

  There wasn’t time to inoculate the entire base contingent against the anthem, so Corvus settled on the best, most experienced squads. That would be enough. They were Imperial Guard, and they would give the traitor forces something to think about.

  Morning came. Though one more enemy gunship had landed during the night, the enemy’s disposition otherwise remained unchanged. His eyes rough as sand from sleeplessness, Corvus inspected his assembled force. The soldiers looked like the walking dead, unworthy of the glory they were about to find. Well, he would give it to them anyway, and they could thank him in the Emperor’s light. He glanced at the rest of the troops. He would be abandoning them to their fate. He shrugged. They were doomed regardless, and at least he had enforced loyalty up to the last. He could go to his grave knowing that he had permitted no defection to Chaos.

  He had done his duty.

  He had earned his glory.

  ‘Open the gates,’ he roared, and wished he could hear the strength of his shout over the shriek of the feedback. The sentries couldn’t hear him either, but his gesture was clear, and the wall of Fort Goreck opened for the last time.

  There are songs that have been written about the final charge of Colonel Corvus Parthamen. But they are not sung in the mess halls of the Imperial Guard, and they are not stirring battle hymns. They are mocking, obscene doggerel, and they are snarled, rather than sung, with venomous humour, in the corridors of dark ships that ply the warp like sharks. A few men of the Imperium do hear it, in their terminal moments, as their positions are overrun by the hordes of Chaos. They do not appreciate it any more than Corvus would have.

  The charge was a rout. The men ran into las-fire and bolter shells. They were blown to pieces by cannon barrage. They were shredded by chainswords and pulped by armoured fists. Still, they made it further down the hill then even Corvus could have hoped. A coherent force actually hit the Chaos front lines and did some damage before being annihilated. Their action might have seemed like the glorious heroism of nothing-to-lose desperation. But the fact that not a single man took cover, not a one did anything but run straight ahead, weapon firing indiscriminately, revealed the truth: they were running to their deaths, and glad of the relief.

  Corvus was the last. It took him a moment to notice that he was alone, what with the joy of battle and the ecstasy of being free of the whine. He was still running forward, running to his glory, but he wondered now why there didn’t seem to be any shots aimed at him. Or why the squad of Chaos Space Marines ahead parted to let him pass. He faltered, and then he saw who was waiting for him.

  The monster bulked huge in what had once been Terminator armour, but was now a buzzing, festering exoskeleton. Flies swarmed from the funnels above his shoulders and the lesions in the corrupted ceramite. His single-horned helmet transformed the being’s final human traces into the purely daemonic. His grip on his giant scythe was relaxed.

  Corvus saw just how powerful disease made flesh could be. He charged anyway, draining his laspistol, then pulling his chainsword. He swung at the Herald of Nurgle. Typhus whipped the Manreaper around. The movement was as rapid as it was casual and contemptuous. He hit Corvus with the shaft and shattered his hip. Corvus collapsed in the dirt. He bit down on his scream. Typhus loomed over him.

  ‘Kill me,’ Corvus spat. ‘But know that I fought you to the end. I have my own victory.’

  Typhus made a sound that was the rumble of giant hives. Corvus realized he had just heard laughter. ‘Kill you?’ Typhus asked. His voice was deep. It was smooth as a deliquescent corpse. ‘I haven’t come to kill you. I have come to teach you my anthem.’

  Through his pain, Corvus managed his own laugh. ‘I will never sing it.’

  ‘Really? But you have already. You believe you serve order and light, but, like your carrion emperor, everything you do blasts hope and rushes towards entropy. Look what you did to your men. You have served me well, my son. You and your brother, both.’

  Corvus fought against the epiphany, but it burst over his consciousness with sickly green light. The truth took him, and infected him. He saw his actions, he saw their consequences, and he saw whose glory he had truly been serving. And as the pattern took shape for him, so did a sound. He heard the anthem, and he heard its music. There was melody there, and he was part of it. Surrender flooded his system, and the triumphant shape of Typhus filled his dying vision. Corvus’s jaw snapped open. His throat contorted with ecstatic agony, and he became one with Ligeta’s final choir.

  THE GODS DEMAND

  Josh Reynolds

  The gates burst open with a thunderous groan and Hergig’s doom was sealed. For twenty-two days the capitol of Hochland had stood firm against its besiegers, but no more. The gates fell, ripped from their dwarf-forged hinges by the mutated strength of the immense porcine nightmares that had crashed into them. Squealing and snorting, the barn-sized monsters charged into the city, their claws striking sparks from cobbled streets which shuddered beneath their heavy tread, and behind them came the warherd of Gorthor the Beastlord.

  Braying and howling, the
beastmen poured into the city like a living tide of filth. Of shapes and hues that only a madman could conceive of, they hefted rust-riddled weapons and slammed them against crude shields daubed in the blood and fluids of defeated foes. The heads of orcs and men hung from their savage standards and they hurled themselves forward like a force of nature, hard and wild and unstoppable. As they entered the foregate square, however, the men of Hochland were waiting for them with lowered spears.

  The first rank of beasts impaled themselves on the spears, weighing the weapons down enough for the ranks behind to pounce with undiminished vigour upon the spearmen. Soldiers died as the creatures fell upon them and the survivors were slowly pushed back along the square.

  ‘Hold! Hold position!’ Mikael Ludendorf, Elector of Hochland, bellowed as he brained a beastman with his Runefang, Goblin-Bane. Wrenching the strangely humming weapon loose of the pulped bovine skull, he grabbed the nearest soldier and shook the bloody sword beneath the man’s nose. ‘I said stay where you are, damn you!’

  The spearman blanched and scrambled backwards, joining the rest of his unit as they retreated in ragged order in defiance of Ludendorf’s order. Ludendorf turned even as another gor bounded towards him on swift hooves, a crude polearm clutched in its claws. Shrieking like a dying horse, it sprang at him. The Elector Count bent out of the path of the weapon and chopped the creature near in half, dropping it to the blood-soaked ground, where it twitched pitifully for a moment before going stiff.

  ‘This is my city,’ he said, spitting on the body. ‘Mine!’ Then he turned to face the rest of the horde as it closed in. He shook his sword. ‘Mine!’ he yelled. Fully-armoured and covered in the blood of his enemies, as well as some of his own, Ludendorf stood between his retreating troops and the invaders and pointed at the closest of the approaching beastmen with his brain-encrusted sword. Like all Runefangs, it was not an elegant weapon, being instead the truest essence of a sword and in that it suited its wielder well. ‘Who’s first?’ he roared.

  The beastmen hesitated. Snarls ripped across the ten-foot space between them, and spears jabbed the oppressive air. Red eyes glared at him as hooves pawed at the ground. The closest beast shifted awkwardly, coming closer then sidling back. For a moment, just a moment, the Elector held them at bay with only his own stubborn refusal to give ground.

  He locked eyes with one of the larger gors. It had antlers a stag would have been proud of and teeth that were the envy of panthers everywhere. ‘You, you look like a likely brute. You first,’ he said eagerly.

  The big beast charged towards him with a snort. It had an old sword, the tip long since sheared off, and it swung it with more enthusiasm than skill. Ludendorf’s battered shield came up, deflecting the blow, and he jabbed his sword into the creature’s protruding belly hard enough to pierce a kidney. It screamed and reared back, leaving itself open for his follow-through. His blow caught it in the throat and it toppled backwards, gagging.

  Standing over his dying opponent, Ludendorf slammed his sword into the face of his shield, fighting to hide a wince. His arm had gone numb from the force of his opponent’s blow. At the sound, the beastmen shrank back. At the rear of the crowd, he heard the snarls of the chieftains as they tried to restore the wild momentum of moments before.

  ‘Hergig is mine!’ he roared. ‘This city – this province – is mine!’

  ‘No,’ a deep voice snarled. ‘It is Gorthor’s.’ A heavy shape shoved through the ranks of beasts, sending them sprawling as it moved to face Ludendorf. The Elector Count took an unconscious step back as the being known as the Beastlord stepped into view.

  The creature made for an impressive sight. As big as any three of the largest members of his warherd, he was a creature of slab-like muscle and bloated girth, with hands like spades and hooves like anvils. Tattoos and intricate brands covered his hairy flesh, creating a pattern that seemed to shift with every movement. In one huge hand was the daemon-weapon known as Impaler – a spear with a head of black iron wrought with screaming sigils.

  ‘It is all Gorthor’s,’ the Beastlord said, eyes alight with un-beastlike intelligence. ‘Every scrap of ground, every chunk of stone; it is all mine. The gods have sworn it.’

  ‘Your gods, not mine, animal,’ Ludendorf spat. He motioned with his sword. ‘Come on then; dance with me, you overgrown mooncalf.’

  Gorthor chuckled wetly, the sound echoing oddly from the creature’s malformed throat. ‘Why? You are dead, and Gorthor does not fight the dead.’

  Ludendorf grimaced, his face twisting with hate. ‘I’m not dead. Not by a long shot.’ He cast a hot-eyed glare at the rabble behind Gorthor. ‘I’ll kill all of you. I’ll choke with your own blood. I’ll take your heads and mount them on my ramparts!’ Flecks of foam gathered at the corners of his mouth as he cursed them. Some of the creatures cringed at the raw fury in the man’s voice. Gorthor, however, was unimpressed.

  The Beastlord struck the street with the butt of his spear. ‘What ramparts, man-chief? Do you mean these ramparts here?’ He swung his brawny arms out to indicate the walls behind him. ‘These ramparts are Gorthor’s!’ As if to emphasise his point, flocks of shrieking harpies landed on the walls and more spun lazily through the smoke-filled air, drawn by the scent of blood and slaughter. ‘This city belongs to the gods now, man-chief. We will raze it stone by stone and crush your skulls beneath our hooves as we dance in celebration.’ Gorthor made a fist. ‘Bow to the will of the gods, man-chief. Gorthor has no mercy, but they might.’

  Ludendorf made an animal sound in his throat and he started forward, murder in his eyes. Gorthor bared sharp fangs and raised Impaler. Before either warrior could do much more, however, a rifle shot rang out, shattering the stillness of the square. Gorthor stumbled back, roaring in consternation as a bullet from a long-rifle kissed the skin on his snout, drawing a bead of blood to mark its wake. His warriors set up an enraged cacophony and stormed forward, swirling around Ludendorf as harpies sought out the hidden marksman and pulled him from his perch. The unfortunate man’s screams turned shrill as the winged beasts tore him apart and showered the square with his blood and the broken remains of his weapon. Below, the Elector Count hewed about him with Goblin-Bane, and after a few tense seconds, managed to cut his way free and stumble away from the beasts that had sought to pull him down.

  Blood in his eyes, ears ringing with the sounds of steel on steel and the stamping and shrieking of his enemies, Ludendorf raised his sword. Beneath his feet, the street trembled as something heavy approached. ‘Rally to me! Up Hochland!’ he shouted. ‘Count’s Own, to me!’

  ‘Here, my Count,’ shouted a welcome voice. Ludendorf swiped at his eyes and saw the familiar figure of Aric Krumholtz, the Elector’s Hound, and Ludendorf’s cousin. He was a lean, lupine shape swathed in red and green livery and intricately engraved armour of the best manufacture. One gauntleted hand was clasped around the hilt of the Butcher’s Blade, the weapon that came with the title. It was a brutal thing, a sword forged in Sigmar’s time, or just before. There was no subtlety to the blade; it was meant to chop and tear flesh and little else. Behind him came the Count’s Own; the heavily armoured swordsmen, clad in half-plate and perfumed clothing, with the hard eyes of veteran soldiers. Each carried a two-handed sword that was worth more than the entirety of a common militia-man’s wage. The phalanx of Greatswords trotted forward and surrounded their Count even as the street began to shake beneath the hooves of the oncoming beastmen.

  ‘You took your time,’ Ludendorf said, chuckling harshly as Krumholtz stepped around him and blocked a blow that would have brought the Count to his knees. The Butcher’s Blade sang out, its saw-edged length gutting the bulge-bellied beastman and hurling it back into its fellows.

  ‘Couldn’t let you have all the fun, now could I, Mikael?’ Krumholtz said. ‘Besides, if you hadn’t decided to take them all on yourself, I wouldn’t have had to come pull your fat out of the fire.’

  ‘Rank impertinence,’ Ludendorf said, using Krumholt
z’s half-cape to wipe the blood out of his face. ‘Remind me to execute you after this is over.’

  ‘You mean if we win?’ Krumholtz said, taking off a gor’s head with a looping cut. Even as it fell, more pressed forward, driven into the narrow street by their chieftains’ exhortations.

  ‘There’s no if. I’ll not be driven from my city by a band of animals. Not after all this,’ Ludendorf growled. ‘Form up you lazy bastards!’ he continued, glaring at the Greatswords, who were pressed close and finding it hard to wield their weapons in the packed confines of the melee. ‘Prepare to scythe this city clean of those cloven-footed barbarians…’

  ‘You should fall back, Mikael,’ Krumholtz said. ‘Get to safety. We’ll handle this.’

  ‘Fall back? You mean retreat?’ Ludendorf grimaced. ‘No. Ludendorfs don’t retreat.’

  ‘Then make a strategic advance to the rear,’ Krumholtz said tersely. He grunted as a crude axe shaved a ribbon of merit from his cuirass. Ludendorf grabbed his cousin’s sleeve and yanked him back, impaling his attacker on Goblin-Bane.

  ‘Maybe you should be the one to go, eh?’ Ludendorf said, yanking his weapon free. ‘Not me though. I want that beast’s head on my wall!’ he growled, gesturing towards where he’d last seen Gorthor. ‘I want his horns for drinking cups and his teeth to adorn my daughter’s necklace! And Sigmar curse me if I won’t have them!’ He started forward, but stopped dead as the street’s trembling became a shudder. ‘What in the name of–’

  The Minotaurs tore through the ranks of beastmen, scattering their smaller cousins or trampling them underfoot entirely as they hacked at friends, foes and even the city itself with their great axes. They were massive brutes; each one was a veritable ambulatory hill of muscle, hair, fangs and horns.