Hammer and Bolter 14 Page 8

  ‘Well, it seems you’ve claimed a famous victory here, Barrabas. Congratulations.’

  There was no malice in Abdiel’s voice, no sarcasm or insinuation as he calmly walked towards the exhausted captain and levelled the pistol between his eyes, faint wisps of smoke tracking behind the charred muzzle. Eutychus looked up at Abdiel from his bent position and shook his head disbelievingly. On the redoubt, the surviving men watched anxiously.

  Without taking his eyes from the barrel of the bolt pistol, Barrabas wiped his blade on his trousers, sheathed it and threw his laspistol to the ground.

  ‘You’ve saved us all,’ continued the commissar. ‘But I must dispense the Emperor’s justice. It’s time for you to die.’

  Flicking his gaze to meet Abdiel’s, Barrabas shrugged. ‘Get on with it then.’

  Abdiel’s finger tightened on the trigger, but the grim smile on his face disappeared along with the ground beneath him. Barrabas caught a glimpse of total astonishment on the commissar’s face before a crashing rumble filled the air and the edge of the platform dropped away. Eutychus pitched over a fraction of a second later. Reaching out instinctively, Eutychus’s arms fell heavily onto the newly-exposed edge of the platform but, with nothing to grab on to, he began to slide. Throwing himself forwards, Barrabas clutched at both retreating hands and felt the sinews pop in the younger man’s wrists. Despite having a good grip, the sub-lieutenant seemed very heavy and Barrabas struggled with the weight. Behind him, the captain could hear the remaining crew running to help, but the whole forward section of the rock pillar was giving way now that its precarious support from the bridge had disappeared.

  ‘Eutychus… Try to… pull yourself up if you can…’

  Eutychus’s eyes bulged with naked panic. ‘I’ve got… Abdiel hanging on to me… He’s trying to climb–’

  Sure enough, Barrabas could hear the breathless, cursing voice of the old man as he wildly tried to pull himself up Eutychus’s shaking body. All three slid forwards, dragging Barrabas until his arms dangled over the crumbling ledge, taking the full weight of Eutychus and Abdiel. He couldn’t hold on much longer and shouted in desperation.

  ‘Abdiel, you’re going to kill us all! Let go, man!’

  ‘I… am the Emperor’s servant… the… architect of His wrath…’

  The old man’s free hand shook with the effort of pulling up the bolt pistol, levelling it at Barrabas. The captain wasn’t looking, distracted by a fast-moving shape in the sky. It swooped downwards like a dart then, metres away from the dangling shapes, unfolded its wings and thrust out its talons. The bony points punctured Abdiel’s arm and side, punching through his chest plate and violently jolting him free of Eutychus. Carried up and away in a graceful curve, Abdiel fired into the creature, which abruptly released its grip. The commissar’s fading scream ended abruptly and the banshee took its time to descend, safe in the knowledge that its feast was ready to devour on the ground.

  Barrabas desperately heaved Eutychus over the ledge and the two staggered upwards towards the rocky rear and the waiting survivors as large sections of the platform randomly dropped out of sight. The entire column pitched forwards violently as it disintegrated below them, but the noise was drowned out by the sudden roar of engines directly above and the hot wash of exhaust fumes from two Valkyries, their cargo hatches open and hovering as close to the surface as the pilots dared. The men threw themselves inside the ships while Barrabas pushed Eutychus up the nearest ramp just as the ground rose, clanging on the drop-ship’s underside. With all the strength he could muster, Barrabas leaped into the grasping hands of his crew and the column crashed spectacularly downwards, burying Abdiel, the orks and Barrabas’s redoubt under tonnes of rock and dirt.

  As the drop-ship climbed steeply, Barrabas looked down through the open hatchway at the teeming orks who bellowed furiously up at them. Eutychus and the other survivors breathed heavily, nursing their wounds. They had an air about them that he hadn’t seen for the longest time, one of achievement, of victory. But at what cost?

  Eutychus stared at his boots with fixed, dark eyes, a new, grim set to his jaw that signalled the end of the man’s youthful verve and optimism. Many of the crew had told him that in the Emperor’s service, there was only war, and now he knew it to be true. Looking to the others, the sheer scale of it all knotted the aching muscles in Barrabas’s stomach and he quickly turned his gaze back to the exposed hatch, the loss of his ship and crew sweeping over him like a wave.

  Breaking cloud cover and banking to port, the Valkyrie’s compartment was flooded with scarlet sunlight just as the heavy metal door began to close, bathing them in brilliance for a few seconds, chasing away the shadows and immediately lifting his soul. The gleaming sun gave him a different perspective. Against all the odds, Jahath Barrabas had won. Glory was his, but far more important was the restoration of his self-belief, of honour for himself and his family. He’d struggled and fought to get off his belly and out of the shadows, to bathe in the light. Now he and his men could stand tall, radiant in the glow of their beloved Emperor.

  Barrabas smiled.

  THE TILEAN’S TALISMAN

  David Guymer

  From now on, Siskritt intended to do as he was told. No more, no less. He cowered beneath the table as the slaughter raged around him. Trembling, he risked a peek through the cage of his own claws. The room resembled the aftermath of a stampede: tables and chairs had been smashed to kindling and the floor rushes were thick with the blood of countless corpses, both skaven and man-thing.

  Heedless of the carpet of carrion, the melee swirled on through the same dense smoke that seared Siskritt’s snout. The roar of warpfire flooded his ears as the tavern’s frontage burned, fingers of green-black flame licking hungrily at the beamed ceiling, casting the whole orgy of bloodshed in an unearthly glare and exciting his whiskers with the tang of warpstone.

  A sudden crash above his head made him jump and he bit down hard on the pommel stone of his shiny new sword to keep from yelping out loud in terror. A dirty, gold-furred arm fell across his view, the battered wooden shield it bore sliding free and rolling to a halt at his feet. The Horned One’s sigil stared into him. Silently, he screamed into the precious stone. It was a sign. He was going to die here.

  Unconsciously, his paw moved to the talisman around his neck.

  It had been worth it, whatever happened. The talisman belonged to him now. It would protect him. The horrors of the room seemed to fade as the talisman’s magic seeped through his fur and flesh, flowing lazily up his arms and filling his mind with calm thoughts. He closed his eyes and could almost hear its whispering voice, reassuring him, encouraging him.

  He pulled the sword from his mouth and regarded the gleaming blade. This was ridiculous, now that he thought about it. It was just one dwarf.

  Siskritt snarled, shaking his head as the moment passed. This was not just any dwarf: it was like a warpstone-powered engine of death.

  The dwarf tore its axe from the belly of another skaven, its momentum carrying it through a low spin to take the legs from the next. An iron-shod boot across the struggling warrior’s windpipe put an end to his suffering.

  Siskritt watched as the dwarf took advantage of the momentary lull to wipe skaven blood from its good eye.

  In the far corner of the tavern, the few surviving man-things still hung on. Backs to the wall and side-by-side, they fought a losing battle against the endless tide.

  The dwarf hefted its axe with a sneer. It opened its mouth to speak and, though Siskritt could not make out every word, its joyful belligerence was plain to see. It hurled challenges at the swarming clanrats, cursing their cowardice as the axe bit deeply into their wiry bodies. In a furious panic, skaven warriors turned swords and teeth upon one another, but there was nowhere left to run. With a final roar of laughter, the dwarf barrelled forwards, tossing the survivors aside like grass. It burst through the press of furred bodies, bellowing a war cry as it swung its axe for a warrior that knelt acros
s a prone man-thing on the rush-covered floor.

  The skaven sprayed the struggling man-thing’s grimy red cloak with fear-musk and hurriedly raised his blade in defence, but the dwarf’s axe clove the rusted weapon in two like rotten matchwood. The tip skittered off into the darkness as the rune-encrusted axe buried itself in the skaven’s skull.

  The man-thing heaved the dead skaven away and clambered upright, suddenly wracked by a fit of coughing as it drew in a lungful of the acrid smoke. Siskritt could not clearly see its face through the haze, but the man-thing was tall, and its armour writhed with green shapes reflected from the spreading warpfire. He recognised it as the dwarf-thing’s companion, Feelicks. The man-thing gabbled something in Reikspiel, but the dwarf merely laughed as it sent another warrior flying with a swipe of its bare fist.

  It spoke slowly, in the usual manner of the dwarfs, but Siskritt still struggled to puzzle out their conversation. He cursed bitterly as the exchange passed over his head.

  A shrill note from the doorway grabbed the man-thing’s attention as a fresh wave of skaven warriors spilled through the blazing portal. Charging ahead of the rest, a wicked halberd held high in both paws, was a massive, black-furred brute in armour the colour of malachite, a challenge shrieking from his throat.

  The dwarf grinned. Its man-thing friend sagged.

  Siskritt leapt from his hiding place, sword in paw. He was saved. Nobody was stronger than Krizzak. He rushed to join the battle, already picturing how the grateful chieftain would reward his bravery.

  The dwarf lumbered forwards to meet Krizzak’s mighty charge, swinging its axe in a killing arc. At the last instant the giant skaven checked his run and the axe instead tore out the ribcage from one of his more slow-witted brethren. Taking advantage of the mis-strike, Krizzak threw his weight against the dwarf, pinning its weapon and burying his teeth into its neck.

  The dwarf bellowed like an enraged bull, and with a strength that defied reason, it ripped the skaven’s jaws clear with its free hand. The dwarf compressed its grip around the huge skaven’s throat, and Krizzak thrashed and squealed – a pathetic, mewling sound that seemed unreal coming from the jaws of the giant warrior – and sank his claws deeply into the dwarf’s bicep. Blood ran freely down the dwarf’s arm, but its hold didn’t loosen. Instead, the dwarf roared and hauled down hard, smashing the skaven’s snout with a brutal headbutt, splattering its own tattooed hide with its foe’s blood and sputum. Krizzak staggered back a pace, shaking his head to clear it before the dwarf’s axe parted it from his shoulders.

  Too late, Siskritt realised he was alone, and face-to-face with a monstrosity: the vivid orange mohawk, the skaven gore smeared across the fearsome patterns on its brutish face, the axe wielded with unnatural strength that dripped with the still-warm blood of his kin. He sprayed himself with fear scent.

  A faint tinkling skirted the boundaries of his perception, vaguely registering as the sound of his sword clattering to the floor from his trembling fingers.

  He was thrown back into his senses by a body bowling into him. He looked up into a familiar face twisted with fear.

  ‘Crassik?’ he squeaked in surprise. With no time for any further thought, he spun his litter-brother around and shoved him into the dwarf’s path. ‘Fight, Crassik-brother. Kill-kill!’

  Whirling away, Siskritt dashed for freedom. He had only to make it to the cellar and from there he could easily lose the dwarf in the tunnels. The cellar, he thought with black despair, why had he not just stayed down in that cellar?

  Siskritt stumbled through the shattered furniture away from the rampaging dwarf. Frantically he threw his gaze left and right but could see nothing through the smoke. He forced himself to be calm. Yes! The cellar was to his right; even through the fire he could detect the rancid ale smell. He dashed in that direction, vaulting the bar, only to blunder straight into the man-thing Feelicks. This time he saw its frightful face, blackened with ash and its pale hair pasted to the skin with spatters of blood.

  Only their mutual surprise spared Siskritt’s life.

  His paws twitched instinctively for his weapon, but too late he recalled how he had dropped it. The man-thing’s eyes widened, and it raised its sword above its head for the killing blow.

  Siskritt scrunched his eyes tight and waited for death.

  The talisman vibrated on its chain, a muffled bell tolling inside his skull, and for an instant he was enveloped by an incandescent shield of light. The man-thing cried out in alarm as the sword was wrenched from its grip and fired into the ceiling like a missile from a bolt thrower.

  Hesitantly, expecting his head to split like a cracked nut if he moved too hastily, Siskritt opened one eye. The man-thing’s sword was buried to the hilt in the rough wooden beams, the owner’s knuckles whitening around the grip as its feet kicked ineffectually at the empty air, trying to turn its own weight and straining muscles to tug the weapon free.

  Siskritt tittered and scooped up a fallen blade. It wasn’t his nice new one, but there’d be other swords. The man-thing dropped to the floor empty-handed and spun into a fighting crouch in front of him, raising its fists as he approached. Siskritt rejoiced. Just one unarmed man-thing and he would be free!

  Suddenly the man-thing relaxed, a smile splitting its ugly face. Siskritt’s nose twitched at this puzzling behaviour, but the heavy footsteps behind him sent cold dread marching up his spine, scattering all thoughts of the man-thing in its wake.

  He spun on his heel as the dwarf approached.

  The fighting was over. His kin were all gone and the tavern was a dead place. The only sounds that remained were the crackling of the wooden structure as it was consumed by warpfire, the heaving breaths of the man-thing, and the footfalls of the dwarf that seemed to echo the frantic hammering of his own heart.

  ‘You!’ he hissed in broken Reikspiel. ‘How you still live-breathe?’

  The dwarf raised its axe. ‘Because nothing has killed me yet.’

  Siskritt snarled. His talisman would spare him. He lived with the Horned One’s blessing. He sprang forwards, ducking under the dwarf’s swing to stab at its belly. The dwarf swatted aside the flat of his blade on its wrist and, with a deftness of foot that would not have been misplaced on an Eshin assassin, shifted its balance to bring the axe backhanded between Siskritt’s shoulder blades.

  As it had before, the talisman flared into life. It caught the axe in mid-swing.

  The dwarf roared as the talisman held its weapon in a supernatural grip, the axe’s runes glowing hot as it burrowed into the flickering barrier. The talisman’s song became a scream, filling Siskritt’s ears with pain. Just as he felt he could endure no more, the light fled before the dwarf’s axe, drawing back into the talisman and leaving him deafened and in darkness. He stared at it in disbelief as the dwarf’s axe punched into his spine.

  His sword slithered free from nerveless paws and he sank to his knees, crumpling over onto his side. His face struck the floor but he barely felt it, his nose filling with the scent of blood, wood dust and mouldering straw.

  The talisman lay before him, amidst the corpses, as far away as its chain would allow, almost as though it were trying to escape him. Siskritt tried to stretch out a paw to reclaim it but his arms no longer obeyed. Sound and colour bled from his world as his vision closed in around the talisman.

  Why had it left him? Why could he no longer hear its whispering voice? Why had it betrayed its new master at the moment of his greatest need?

  It was the last thing he saw as the darkness claimed him.

  Siskritt watched his litter-brother work as the blood ran in tiny rivulets between the flagstones, relishing the fleeting warmth as it moved languidly between his toes. Drawing his sword, he padded over to where the dead man-thing lay, the notched and rusted weapon reflecting nothing of the cellar’s dim torchlight.

  He prodded the corpse with the blunted tip of his blade. ‘Fool! Can’t you see, is not the one!’

  Crassik sniffed. ‘You sure, Siskri
tt-brother? Man-things look all same-same to me.’

  Siskritt snarled, treasured notions of skaven supremacy offended by his litter-brother’s slack-jawed idiocy. ‘This one doesn’t have it. Is just a child-thing. Look how small it is! And is too pale. The man-things of Tilea have darker hides. You spend more time watching man-things back home, then you not be so stupid-slow.’

  He sighed. Perhaps it had been too much to hope that their target should fall so invitingly into their lap; Siskritt had never been overly burdened with the Horned One’s favour.

  Vaguely, he realised his litter-brother was still speaking.

  ‘We must be going-gone. Lesskreep kill-feed for rats if missed.’

  ‘Fool!’ Siskritt resisted the impulse to lash out. Crassik was nearly twice his size, and not too beholden to his litter-brother’s wits to administer a beating of his own. ‘None will miss us. Who will miss two from so many? None. None will care.’

  ‘But–’

  ‘Graaah!’ With a cry of exasperation, Siskritt ignored his better judgement and cuffed the other skaven across the snout. ‘Sneak into man-thing town is what Lesskreep said, and sneak-sneak is what we do. If no other skaven knows this tunnel then is because they are not half so smart as Siskritt. Lesskreep will be pleased.’

  And besides, he thought, when he found this man-thing merchant, this Ambrosio Vento, and took the talisman it wore for himself, maybe he would feed Lesskreep to the rats instead…

  Siskritt chewed his weapon nervously. If any of that was going to happen, then it had to happen soon. At best, he had an hour before the attack began. When that happened, his opportunity would be lost and the Tilean’s talisman would be looted from its corpse as a pretty bauble by whoever found it first and was strong enough to keep it longest.