The Beast Arises

Instead, he had found this. A slaughter, a final, miserable slaughter. In the twilight shadow of a nightmare moon-that-should-not-be, in the freezing, pitiless rain, on the blood-soaked soil of a broken, unimportant backwater world, his ancient Chapter was being cut down to the very last man. The venerable order, the illustrious heritage, the bloodline of the Primarch-Progenitor, it was all about to be lost forever. It could never be brought back.

Terra’s greatest champions were about to be rendered extinct, and the gates and walls of Eternal Terra were to be left unguarded. The enemy was already inside, terrifyingly close to the core.

Stupidity had led to this. Strategic carelessness, the vain ambitions of High Lords and the complacency of veteran warriors who should have known better and had led to this. A calamity had been mistaken for a minor crisis. An ancient and so frequently dismissed enemy had been woefully, woefully underestimated.

What’s more, no one would learn from this dire mistake, because no one would live. Terra would burn.

There would be no glory.

The orks were upon them, bestial, roaring faces in the streaming rain. They swarmed across the lakeside in their thousands, raging and howling, blowing their dismal warhorns, slamming their weapons against their shields to beat out the final heartbeats of the last few human lives. Above, low and impossible, the face on the clockwork moon howled threats at the world it was killing.

Rainwater and blood streamed off the visor of Daylight’s helm. He tightened his grip on his gladius. His ammo was spent, so he had clamped his combat shield to his left forearm to meet the foe up close and force them to pay a bitter tithe for his lifeblood.

The orks rushed in, tusks bared, spit flying from snarling lips. Daylight met them, drove his sword blade through a head, severed a limb, gutted an armoured torso. Algerin was already gone, a butchered, headless corpse on the blood-black ground. The rain was a curtain, a veil of silver, like fine chainmail. Tranquility was at his left hand, Zarathustra at his right. Together, they formed as much of a wall as they were able, stabbing and hacking, ripping green flesh and brute armour. Zarathustra’s war-spear punched through plate and leather, flesh, bone and blood. Broken mail rings and shreds of leather flew up into the rain from the blows of Tranquility’s hammer. Blood squirted, jetted.

Daylight put the edge of his gladius through a jaw and a tusk. He back-swung to open a throat, blocked an axe with his shield and stepped in to kill the owner. Too many, now. Too many. Too many to strike at. Too many to fend off. Relentless, unending, like the noise bursts, the gut-shaking roars. Daylight felt the first of the wounds, blades reaching in under his defences, around his shield, from behind. Waistline. Hip. Lower back. Nape of the neck. Upper arm. Thigh. Armour splitting. Warning alarms in his helm. Pain in his limbs. Blood in his mouth. Red lights on his visor display. Teeth clenched, he turned in time to see Tranquility fall, head all but severed by a jagged cleaver, the greenskin whooping its triumph, drenched in Space Marine blood. He heard Zarathustra roar in rage and pain. Daylight staggered. He fought. He swung his sword, even though it was broken.

He said, ‘Daylight Wall stands forever. Daylight Wall stands forever. No wall stands against it. Bring them down.’

He said it as though it still meant something. He said it as though there was anyone other than the orks left alive to hear it.

He kept on saying it until the pack of beasts tore him apart.

Thirty-Three

Ardamantua

Ship deaths lit the sky. Bright fires flared across the face of the attack moon. Some were pale green ovals of expanding light, some messier smudges of flame, drive fuel and torched munitions. A few were massive detonations that spat out expanding hoops of burning gas.

Slaughter hoped that some of them were greenskin ships, slain by the batteries of the reinforcement fleet, but he had a grim suspicion that most were the grave-pyres of valiant, outnumbered Imperial warships.

The stockade was lost. Slaughter had lost sight of Woundmaker when the west wall caved under the ork body crush. Missiles hammered in from the sky.

He swung the ancient sword of Emetris, put it through two charging greenskins, and then headed for the nearest fractured outlets of the ruined blisternest, which jutted like broken drain pipes from the mire. The rain was still heavy. Every surface shone almost phosphorescently with rebounding rain splashes.

Another ork, its face dyed crimson, swung at him. Slaughter ducked the blow, got his sword in, and cut the creature wide open. It fell back into the wet, sheeting water up as it landed.

The Imperial Fist reached the blisternest outlets. He saw a man just inside, lying where he had fallen, cut through the spine and the hip.

‘Brother!’

The dying Fist looked up. Severance, of Lotus Gate Wall.

‘Slaughter,’ he wheezed.