Hammer and Bolter 11 Page 6

  He smiled grimly as he heard the strident ululation of the coronets of the Order of the Blazing Sun. When his men had reported that the knights had arrived, smashing into the rear of the army intent on breaching his gates, he’d scarcely credited it. Now he could hear battle being joined all around him as beast met man in the tangled streets before the palace, even as the walls crumbled beneath the onslaught of the giants.

  The arrival of the knights was a sign that he’d been right. That Sigmar had wanted him to hold this place, to keep it from the claws of Chaos. His god had tasked him, and he fulfilled that task, though he’d been opposed at every turn. And now… now came the reward. He grinned and rotated his wrist, loosening up his sword-arm. He’d have the beast’s head on a pike, and toast to it every year on the anniversary of Aric’s death. His cousin would appreciate that, he was sure.

  ‘Of course you would. Least you could do for betraying me,’ he said, looking at the Butcher’s Blade again. It felt wrong to hold it in his hand, but he was determined that it should shed some blood. He needed his cousin’s sword at his side now more than ever. Aric had always been there for him in life, and it was only fitting he be there in death as well.

  ‘Plus, you’d hate to miss out on a fight like this, eh?’ he said out loud. If he noticed the looks some of his men gave him, he gave no sign. They hated him now, if they hadn’t before. But they loved him too. Better a ruthless man than a weak one, in times like these. Better a madman than a coward, that’s what they whispered in the ranks when they thought he wasn’t listening.

  Beasts bounded through the shattered North Wall, bugling cries of challenge. He’d known they’d get in one way or another, and had fortified the inner keep with whatever had been available. Spearmen and handgunners crouched behind overturned wagons and at a shouted command men rolled uncorked barrels of black powder towards the shattered walls. Trails of fire followed them. Explosions rocked the courtyard, filling the air with smoke, rock and bloody body parts. A giant howled in agony as its legs disintegrated in an explosion and it toppled into the courtyard. It squirmed, trying to push itself upright until a dozen spears pierced its skull.

  Ludendorf laughed as the stink of roasting beast-flesh reached him. He would take back his city, or wipe it off the map in the attempt, no matter the cost. His laughter faded as he looked down at the Butcher’s Blade. Frowning, he tightened his grip on the hilt. ‘No pity. No remorse,’ he grunted. He clashed his swords together. ‘Kill them all!’ he roared, and his men hastened to do the deed.

  Handguns barked and arrows hissed, thudding into hairy flesh. Creatures howled and screamed as they slipped on their own blood in their haste to close with their foes. His remaining soldiers attacked with renewed courage, yelling out praises to the Emperor and Sigmar. And if no one shouted his name, Ludendorf didn’t care. So long as they fought, he was satisfied.

  Beastmen, having managed to avoid his troops, charged up the stairs of the palace towards him. The Butcher’s Blade caught one on the side of the head, killing it instantly. He blocked a spear-point with Goblin-Bane and buried his cousin’s sword in the beastman’s belly, pinning it to one of the ornamental pillars that lined the doors to the palace. Pulling it loose, he met the next, blocking its axe with both swords.

  With a grunt he swept his blades apart, cutting the head off of the axe. As the beastman reeled back in shock, Ludendorf kicked it down the stairs where several spearmen were waiting. ‘Finish it off and join the others,’ he said, shaking blood off of his sword. The spears rose and fell, cutting off the creature’s squalls.

  He stepped down the stairs and strode through the smoke after his troops, eager to get to grips with the beasts. A moment later, his eagerness was swept aside by surprise as a spear took the man nearest him, pinning the unfortunate soldier to a wall in a shower of brick dust and blood. Ludendorf turned and saw a familiar shape and his lips skinned back from his teeth in a fierce snarl.

  Gorthor jerked his spear loose from the brick and swung it over his head like an axe. ‘Ludendorf!’ Gorthor bellowed.

  ‘Gorthor!’ Ludendorf barked, gesturing with his swords. ‘We were interrupted earlier, animal! Decided to fight the dead after all?’

  Gorthor shrieked like a wildcat and the Beastlord began to shake, his whole body rippling with spasms. The Butcher’s Blade looped out, only to be caught with a wet slap in the Beastlord’s palm. Gorthor jerked the weapon out of Ludendorf’s grip and backhanded him, sending him skidding across the cobbles. Ludendorf coughed as he rolled to a stop. He knew his ribs were likely broken and he felt like a punctured water-skin.

  ‘The gods demand your heart, man-chief!’ Gorthor said, stamping forward. His warriors made to surge towards the downed Count, and the Beastlord twisted, gutting the closest. ‘No! Gorthor’s prey!’ he snorted, glaring at his men. The beasts drew back, their weapons clattering against their shields in a dull rhythm. Gorthor shook himself, satisfied that none would interfere.

  Ludendorf coughed and pushed himself to his feet. He was the only man in the courtyard, surrounded by a ring of beasts. There were soldiers on the walls, but they were too far away to save him, if he had even wanted such. He braced himself on his Runefang and waited, grinning madly. ‘Gorthor’s prey, eh? Bit off more than you could chew this time, didn’t you?’ he spat, laughing. ‘You’re caught in a trap of your own making, you stupid animal. And now, like every other animal, you’re wasting time fighting instead of fleeing.’

  ‘Like you,’ Gorthor rumbled, eyes blazing. Ludendorf’s laughter choked off and the Elector raised his sword, stung.

  ‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘Shut up and fight, filth. Let the gods decide who’s the fool here.’

  Gorthor gave a howl and Impaler glided forward. Ludendorf spun around it, Goblin-Bane chopping through one of his opponent’s horns. Gorthor turned, roaring, and Impaler shot out, nearly taking the head off of his attacker. Ludendorf dodged to the side and his blade flickered out again, eliciting another agonised shriek from Gorthor.

  ‘This is my city! My territory! And it’s your death-ground, cur,’ Ludendorf said, lunging smoothly despite the ache in his chest. The tip of his blade burned like fire as it slid over Gorthor’s leg and the Beastlord stepped back instinctively. He backpedalled, weaving a wall between himself and that cursed sword. It dove at him like a snake, biting and ripping faster than he could see and its every touch caused him torment. ‘Hergig is mine! Hochland is mine! And I’ll kill any who try and take it from me!’ cried Ludendorf.

  Frenziedly, Gorthor lashed out, flailing at his opponent with Impaler, battering the warrior off of his feet. The man slipped on the bloody cobbles and lost his balance completely. Desperately, he tried to haul himself away from Gorthor, who drove one wide hoof into his chest, denting his cuirass and pinning him to the ground. Impaler’s blade swept to the side, cutting armour and flesh with a sizzle. Ludendorf screamed in agony as his belly split open like an overripe melon.

  ‘Gorthor’s now,’ the Beastlord grunted, kicking him and sending the dying man rolling across the courtyard. The beastmen set up a cacophony of triumphant screeches and barks and Gorthor, breathing heavily, raised his weapon in triumph.

  His eyes filled with blood, and his ears filled with the sound of his own heart stuttering, Ludendorf clambered to his feet. His intestines draped loose over the restraining arm he had clamped across his belly and his fingers tangled in the clasps of his armour. He barely had the strength to grip his sword as he stumbled towards the broad beast shape raising its hell-weapon over its head.

  With all his remaining strength, he swept his sword out across the beastman’s broad back. Bone blistered at the touch of the Runefang and Gorthor shrieked like a wounded goat. A hairy fist caught the Elector on the side of the head and the ground raced up to meet him. The beastman rose up over him, favouring his side, blood mingling with the foam dripping from his jaws. His body shuddered, as if gripped by fever.

  ‘Die!’ Gorthor growled. Impaler lived up
to its name, nailing Ludendorf to the ground. Muscles bulging, Gorthor jerked spear and man up and raised them up towards the sky. ‘Die for the gods!’ Gorthor howled.

  Ludendorf, his teeth stained red, grabbed the haft of the daemon-weapon even as it squirmed in his guts. ‘You first,’ he rasped, jerking himself down the weapon’s length. Agony clouded his vision and his sword-arm felt like lead as it dropped down.

  A moment later, Gorthor’s head flew free of his thick neck. Ludendorf fell, his sword sliding from his grip.

  The great form of the Beastlord staggered four steps and sank to its knees, neck-stump spraying blood even as it toppled. The spear clattered away, the ugly runes decorating its surface dimming. Mikael Ludendorf crawled towards the head of the Beastlord and clutched it as somewhere, triumphant notes were blown from a hundred horns. The beasts ran then, leaving the two chieftains alone in the courtyard.

  Ludendorf, dying, stared into the glassy eyes of Gorthor. His lips moved, shaping one word, but no sound came out. Beneath his body, he felt the stones of Hergig tremble as the knights of the Blazing Sun drove the beasts from his city. He heard the cheers as his people celebrated.

  When he died, no one was watching.

  The Inquisition

  ++Open vox-net++

  My most esteemed Lord Inquisitor,

  At last, the heretic has broken before us. We have eked out answers from the darkest depths of his broken mind, and though the process has not left much of him, there will be sufficient for your purposes.

  Interrogator Kerstromm, Ordo Malleus

  What are you working on at the moment?

  Right this moment, I’m working on a short story called ‘The Iron Without>’, which will appear, unsurprisingly, in the Iron Warriors Omnibus. It’s got some favourite characters, some new faces and some revelations that will surprise people and shed hazy light on one character’s origins that will be further explored in my next Horus Heresy novel. Confused? No? You will be.

  What will you be working on next?

  After that, I’ll be working on another story for the Iron Warriors Omnibus entitled ‘The Beast of Calth’. Which, surprisingly, features almost no Iron Warriors. Go figure...

  Are there any areas of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 that you haven’t yet explored that you’d like to in the future?

  I’ve used inquisitors in a few books, but I’d love to do something more focused on them. But since the benchmark has been set so high, that might need to wait until folk have forgotten about Eisenhorn. I’ve always had a hankering to get into the nitty gritty of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and at the end of the year, I’m going to get a chance to scratch that itch with Priests of Mars. In fact, any bit of the background I haven’t yet explored is one I’d want to delve into sometime.

  What are you reading at the moment? Who are your favourite authors?

  I’ve just read The Stone of Destiny, which was a great read and made me want to paint my face blue. It’s a story that beggars belief in the many mishaps, coincidences and downright nonsense that went into the Stone of Scone’s return. If it was fiction, you’d never believe it. My favourite authors are, without a doubt, David Gemmell, Clive Barker and Stephen King. In terms of the stories that influenced me and shape me as a writer, it’d be hard to pick any others.

  Which book (either BL or non-BL) do you wish you’d written and why?

  Going back to a previous question, the Eisenhorn books are amongst my favourite BL books (Malleus especially), and to have established so much of the lore of inquisitors would have been great. Beyond the realms of Black Library, I wish I’d written The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, as it’s the book that launched me into the worlds of fantasy (as I suspect it did for many kids my age at the time) and made me want to write my own stories. I still have my thirty-one year old copy and had Steve Jackson sign it last year, which was a real high point for me.

  PHALANX

  Chapter Twelve

  Ben Counter

  The daemonic horde hit the Imperial Fists line in a tide of flesh.

  It broke against barricades and makeshift bunkers, concentrated bolter fire chewing through the daemons as quickly as they could advance.

  In other places it swept through in a flood, swamping Imperial Fists in a mass of limbs and bodies. Some defences were denuded by pink and azure flame, blasted from the orifices of misshapen creatures dragged along on the tide of Abraxes’s own incandescent daemons. Others were outflanked by lightning-fast monsters with purplish skin and lashing tongues that swept around firepoints to strike from behind. A massive red-winged daemon, axe in one hand and lash in the other, strode at the head of its bloodletters and with vicious strike cleaved one of the tanks brought up from the Phalanx’s hangars in two, spilling flaming promethium around its feet.

  The Imperial Fists line bent under the weight of the assault, Space Marines vaulting their barriers to take up new positions closer to the Tactica before they were overrun. Bolter fire competed with the shrieking of daemons in the din of the battle. The whole deck seemed to bow and buckle under the weight of it, as the monastic cells and chapels of the Imperial Fists disappeared under the flood of Abraxes’s assault.

  At the heart of the line, Chapter Master Vladimir stood with the Fangs of Dorn in his hands. One of the Librarium novices stood before him, holding up a huge tome normally bound closed by chains and psychic seals. It contained prayers of purity and strength of mind, of which a commander had to be mindful when facing the corruptive forces of Chaos. Ahead of him, Lysander marshalled the strongest defences, a handful of tanks and several squads of Imperial Fists along with Kolgo’s Battle Sisters, holding position as the daemon army grew closer with every moment.

  ‘What manner of foe is Chaos?’ mused Vladimir. Beside him stood Lord Inquisitor Kolgo, ready for battle with a power fist encasing one hand and a rotator cannon on the other, each weapon engraved with prayers and wards of destruction.

  ‘Better men than I have gone mad seeking the answer to that question,’ replied Kolgo. ‘The question of Chaos cannot be answered.’

  ‘And yet we must seek an answer,’ said Vladimir. ‘For we must fight it. In ignorance, we fight as if in the dark.’

  ‘Better that than be corrupted by what we see,’ said Kolgo. He flexed the mechanical fingers of his power fist, and they crackled as the power field sprung into life around them.

  ‘I trust in the strength of my soul, inquisitor,’ said Vladimir. Ahead, Imperial Fists were scrambling into cover beside the second line as the daemons galloped and shambled closer, multicoloured flames dancing over the battlefield. The pale, lithe shape of Abraxes himself was just visible in the rear ranks, watching and controlling his battle, using up the lesser daemons under his command to buy his victory one death at a time. ‘I shall not become one with the enemy by understanding it. The more I learn of Chaos, the more I hate it, and the fiercer I fight.’

  ‘Overestimating one’s resolve is a more dangerous form of ignorance than fighting in the dark.’ Kolgo span the barrels of his rotator cannon, jewel-encrusted hammers clicking down on gilded chambers.

  ‘Then let us put our theories into practice,’ said Vladimir.

  ‘I concur,’ said Kolgo. Shall we?’

  ‘Brothers!’ yelled Vladimir over the vox. ‘To the fore, my brothers, with me! Through hell and to victory, onwards!’

  At Vladimir’s words, the Imperial Fists broke cover and charged. The reserve force holding the Tactica ran from behind its map tables and the shelter of its archways. The Space Marines crouched behind their defences, muttered their prayers and leapt over the defences, bolters blazing and chainblades whirring. Vladimir led the counter-attack right into the face of the enemy.

  The twin blades of the Fangs of Dorn were not made for an elegant battle. They were not weapons for duelling or weaving a dance of feint and deception. They were made for this brutal and ugly fight, the press of bodies and the triumph of strength and resolve over skill, where they could rise and fal
l with every stab piercing a belly or driving up into a throat.

  Vladimir slew a dozen daemons in those first few seconds, and Abraxes’s horrors fell before him, opening up a gap in the daemonic lines. Imperial Fists charged in behind him and exploited the gap, forging in further.

  Kolgo stood atop a rampart and hammered volley after volley from his rotator cannon into the host. The Battle Sisters formed up around him, Sister Aescarion directing their fire with a gesture of her power axe. A pair of Predator tanks rumbled up from either side of the Tactica, each roar of an autocannon echoed by an explosion of flame and torn daemonflesh deep within Abraxes’s lines.

  Without warning the horrors seemed to melt away, dissolving into the rear ranks at a mental command from Abraxes. In the few seconds of respite, the Imperial Fists saw ranks of bloodletters marching out to replace them. In their centre was a greater daemon of the Blood God, allied to Abraxes’s cause by the raw slaughter that battle on the Phalanx promised. It stepped over the front rows of bloodletters and a massive cloven hoof slammed down among the Imperial Fists, crushing a battle-brother under its immense weight.

  ‘Onwards! Onwards! The warp fears us so, to place such horrors in our way!’ Vladimir’s voice, even amplified over the vox, was barely audible over the foul, shuddering gale of the greater daemon’s roar. Vladmir hacked through the first couple of bloodletters to reach him as he jumped up onto the half-fallen wall of a chapel, tumbled and scorched in the first assault, that brought him up above the level of the swirling combat around him.