The Plagues of Orath Read online

  That was why Alia Blayke didn’t see the once-human flesh-eater loping from the alley behind her. She didn’t even have time to scream as it lunged towards her and its teeth closed on her neck.

  ‘Chaplain Sentina, there is a settlement ahead.’

  Sentina snapped out of his half-sleep at Iova’s words. He had engaged his catalepsean node as the Space Marines marched, falling into a state of semi-awareness that allowed his brain to rest while keeping him moving and functioning. He would need the scant rest it afforded later, he was sure. The Centurions did the same, one staying at full alertness while the others rested, switching every hour.

  ‘What sort of settlement?’ he asked.

  ‘A village, small. Perhaps two hundred buildings.’

  Sentina nodded, recalling the reports on Orath. ‘That is moderately large by the standards of this world,’ he said. ‘Most of the people live on farmsteads and agrarian collectives.’ They had passed a few such scattered dwellings on their brief journey. None had seemed inhabited. ‘What signs of life are there?’

  ‘Sounds, Brother-Chaplain. Sounds of battle.’

  ‘Then we make haste,’ ordered Sentina. ‘If there are Imperial citizens alive in that settlement, our duty is to deliver them from whatever terror assails them.’

  Sentina’s armour lacked the more sophisticated augury arrays of the Centurion warsuits, but it was only a few minutes before he too heard the distinctive sounds of combat. Gunfire – he could discern the crack-whine of lasguns and the sharp bark of autoguns and shotguns – echoed through the twisting streets of the small village, along with shouts and screams, and an eerie moan, almost rhythmic. For all the world, it sounded like a song, a wordless, tuneless dirge.

  He had heard its like before. It meant only one thing.

  Death walked.

  As they approached the source of the noise, Sentina ordered the small squad to disperse and approach from different angles. The strange green mist shrouded them from sight and dampened the sound of the Centurions’ heavy tread. Whatever unnatural horrors fought in the village wouldn’t hear the Ultramarines coming.

  Despite this advantage, the Chaplain advanced slowly and cautiously. Orath was in the grip of Chaos, and anything could be lurking in the infernal fog. As he edged forward, the mist parted before him and he beheld a scene of bedlam.

  People were running and screaming, climbing buildings and desperately trying to avoid the clutches of the dread creatures that assailed them. A few brave men and women waved flaming torches at the horrors, rotting corpses that lumbered towards their living counterparts. They were trying to hold the walking dead back, to stop them from getting to the knot of desperate survivors who were trying to climb to safety, but they were being driven back, step by step, as the flesh-eaters grabbed at them and snapped mouldering jaws.

  Several men crouched atop houses, firing at the beasts, but it wouldn’t be enough. Poorly aimed and from weapons of minimal power, they were dropping pitifully few of their attackers, who were swarming towards the sounds from every direction.

  Sentina opened a vox-channel.

  ‘Plague victims sighted, brothers. Attack at will. Put the afflicted out of their misery, in the Emperor’s name.’

  Aeroth acknowledged the Chaplain’s order and advanced. His warsuit was slow, but still faster than the walking dead, and his reactions were far quicker. He was on them before they could turn. He wouldn’t waste grav-fire on them, but the mighty fists beneath which the cannon and grav-amp were mounted were more than capable of crushing the frail, rotted bodies of the enemies. With each step, he lashed out, shattering skulls, breaking ribs and grinding fallen bodies to dust beneath his feet. He was death incarnate in the warsuit, and he knew that the chances of any of the dead penetrating the Centurion suit or his armour with their frail, subhuman nails and teeth were practically nonexistent. This wasn’t battle. It was slaughter.

  ‘People of Orath!’ he bellowed from his vox-caster. ‘Fall back. Let us deal with these creatures. Get yourselves to safety.’

  He saw humans scrambling to obey him, stepping backwards hastily, still waving their crude torches to ward off the enemy who had not yet turned to face the walking death that assailed them. He watched as one man fell, dropping his makeshift weapon, which was extinguished in the churning mud. The man scrambled back, but one of the beasts grabbed for him, holding on with preternatural strength. It fell upon him, and Aeroth heard the man’s screams. He hesitated for a moment, then pushed forward and stamped down, crushing both attacker and victim.

  It was a mercy.

  The Emperor’s mercy, he thought ruefully.

  The flesh-eaters were easy prey. Sentina scythed through them like a farmer in the field, the energy-shrouded head of his crozius arcanum returning them to blessed oblivion with every heavy stroke. It was a mechanical act, the beasts unable to stand against him. He passed through a horde of them with barely a scratch to the paint of his armour and came out at the end of a wide avenue.

  It was clear of the dead. At the far end, a group of humans were helping one another up to the roof of a sturdy-looking dwelling. As Sentina watched, one woman, tall and broad, handed a crying child to a relieved-looking man before looking around. Evidently, she’d spotted something in the churned-up mud of the street, because she dashed out. As she did so, one of the rotting creatures lurched from an alley. The woman didn’t see it, her head down as she reached for whatever she sought. She was on a collision course with the dead thing. If it so much as scratched her, she would be infected, doomed to die and rise again as one of the keening creatures, driven only by the desperate need for human flesh.

  Sentina reacted in a heartbeat, pulling his bolt pistol from the leather holster at his hip, priming it and firing a single shot. The bark of the weapon firing rang out, and it seemed that everything and everyone on the street froze and silence fell.

  The creature’s head exploded even as its rancid jaws closed on the woman’s neck. It fell, its body jerking.

  The human fell as well, crashing down into the muck. Sentina started towards her, hoping that the powerful explosive blast of the bolt-round hadn’t killed her too.

  He had sixty-seven needless deaths on his conscience already. He didn’t need or want another.

  Alia looked up through pain-filled eyes into a visage of death. Staring down at her was a skull-faced spectre, huge and black, adorned with bones and gold filigree. Where its face should have been was a skull, red light glowing from the eye sockets. In one enormous hand it gripped a rod of black metal with a golden eagle at the head, wings spread, both heads seeming to stare right at her. The other hand clutched what looked like an oversized pistol, boxy and smoking from the barrel.

  ‘Are you wounded?’ it asked, the words blaring mechanically from a grille beneath the skull.

  ‘Am… Am I dead? Have you come to take me?’

  She knew it was a stupid question, but it was all she could think of. The red eyes bored into her and she couldn’t look away.

  ‘You are not dead,’ boomed the grating voice. It looked down at her. ‘You were hit by shrapnel. A superficial injury.’

  ‘What are you?’ she asked.

  The immense figure slid the pistol it was carrying into a leather holster at its waist and reached up to its skull-head. With a long hissing sound, it twisted the skull free and lifted it. Beneath it was a broad face with skin the colour of mahogany, a face that was scarred and pitted and looked as if it had never smiled and wouldn’t know how.

  ‘What am I? I am a Space Marine.’

  A Space Marine! One of the legendary defenders of the Imperium, the Emperor’s angels, so the tales said. For the first time in many long months, Alia allowed herself to feel emotion, because for the first time there was an emotion to feel other than terror.

  ‘Are you here to save us?’ she asked, relief flooding her.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Space Marine simply.

  Sentina stared down at the girl for a moment.r />
  ‘Mortals,’ came Lentulus’s voice over the vox.

  ‘She was brave,’ said Sentina absently. ‘She was retrieving something. Something someone had lost.’ He bent down and picked up the mud-caked object she had dropped. It was small in his palm, some sort of child’s plaything. He dropped it again and looked up at the other people who were gaping at him, open-mouthed.

  ‘Take me to whomever is in command here,’ he said. The words seemed to break the mortal from her stupor. Two men, one tall and rangy and the other short and stout, ran forward to help her, but she brushed them off. Sentina nodded to them and they followed her towards the knot of civilians.

  ‘Let me through,’ came a voice from the crowd. It sounded old, wheezing and soft. An elderly man pushed his way out of the throng and stamped through the mud towards Sentina. He stood in front of the Space Marine and stared up at him. The man wore tattered robes the colour of Talassar’s oceans in summer, covered in long flowing parchments and icons. His hair was tonsured and greying, his ruddy face streaked with mud and blood. A chainsword was slung across his back, and around his neck a book hung on a frayed string. He was no more than half Sentina’s height, but his eyes blazed with fervour.

  ‘It’s about time,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting forever for reinforcements.’

  ‘Reinforcements?’ repeated Sentina, bemused.

  ‘Yes. As possibly the last remaining Imperial authority on Orath, I have been waiting for the forces to arrive that will deliver the world back into the bosom of the God-Emperor.’

  ‘And what Imperial authority do you represent?’ asked Sentina.

  ‘What are you, simple?’ said the old man. ‘Look at me. I’m a missionary of the Adeptus Ministorum, charged with bringing the God-Emperor’s light to worlds without a permanent church presence. Worlds like…’ he spread his arms wide, ‘this delightful place.’ He paused, then looked over his shoulder before lowering his voice. ‘It’s a bit of a backwater, but it’s home to them, of course. Don’t want to offend them. That would be… what’s the word? Impolitic. Might cause a nasty incident. That’s one of the tenets of the Missionaria Galaxia, you know. Keep the locals happy. Unless they’re mutants or worshipping something unsavoury.’

  Sentina stared impassively down at the babbling old fool. ‘What is your name, missionary?’

  ‘Oh, you can call me Andronicus. And you, Brother-Chaplain?’

  ‘I am Sentina. You know my rank, missionary?’

  ‘I’ve been around,’ said the priest. ‘I’ve seen a Space Marine or two. And we’re told all about you lot in the seminary. About how you’re actually heathens, not believing that the Emperor is a god, all that. Technically, I could denounce you as a heretic, you know.’

  ‘That would be impolitic,’ said Sentina. ‘Especially if you want us to save this world.’

  ‘Yes, about that,’ said Andronicus. ‘Orath is being overrun by Chaos, Chaplain Sentina. It’s going to require a hell of a leap of faith to save it. Are you the man to make that leap?’

  The priest peered up at Sentina in a way that made the Chaplain feel quite uncomfortable. He turned and looked around at the hulking shapes of the Centurions. ‘We shall see,’ he said. ‘But first, we need to get to Fort Garm.’

  ‘What a coincidence,’ said the priest. ‘Just where we were going. You can come with us if you like.’ He leaned in closer to Sentina and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Between you and me, you’ll probably be safer with us by your side.’

  Five

  Between the ponderous pace of the Centurions and the dawdling of the half-starved and terrorised civilians, the journey to Fort Garm was painfully slow. More than thirty of the humans had survived the attack in the village, and in the two days since, they had shown remarkably good spirits, despite crossing the rotting fields of their home.

  The warsuit-clad Ultramarines marched in pairs on either flank of the group, keeping watch for the enemy. Twice, they saw small groups of the walking dead in the distance, but never close enough to be a threat. Of the daemons, there was no sign. And in the sky, far above the mist-shrouded plains of Orath, the great rift seemed to wink, visibly waning.

  Aeroth and Lentulus travelled together, and the latter spent the journey making plain his objections to his sergeant’s actions bailing out of the Stormraven. In frustration, Aeroth left his battle-brother to walk alone and stamped to the front of the group, scared-looking civilians moving hurriedly out of his path as he clanked through their huddles.

  ‘Brother-Chaplain,’ he said as he pulled close to Sentina. The Chaplain walked alone at the head of the party. ‘I tire of Lentulus’s censure. Would you care for company?’

  ‘I’ve not long managed to get that irritating priest to leave my side and tend his flock,’ replied Sentina. ‘But your company is more welcome, Darin.’

  Aeroth fell into step beside the Chaplain and the pair walked together in silence for a time.

  ‘What troubles Lentulus?’ asked Sentina eventually.

  ‘My use of the grav-cannon to cushion our fall,’ said Aeroth.

  ‘He would have preferred that we were killed?’

  ‘I think he would consider that preferable to breaking the tenets of the Codex, yes.’

  Sentina shook his head. ‘He knows as well as any that the Codex is but a guideline.’

  ‘Not something I expect to hear from a Chaplain. Isn’t your role to enforce discipline?’

  ‘I am not a commissar of the Astra Militarum, Darin. My role is to ensure the spiritual wellbeing of the company. I leave decisions of doctrine to those more qualified.’

  ‘Such as?’ pressed the sergeant, looking down at Sentina from the cradle of his warsuit.

  ‘Such as the Masters of the Chapter.’

  ‘Men like Galenus?’ scoffed Aeroth. ‘He is a vainglorious fool, as this expedition shows. We should have a company at our backs, not a squad.’

  ‘That is not for us to decide, sergeant,’ cautioned Sentina, his voice hard. ‘Or have you learned nothing from your demotion?’

  Aeroth was stung by the comment, but held his tongue. Riling the Chaplain would serve no purpose. ‘What do you know of my shame?’ he asked.

  ‘That you angered the First Captain. A fool’s move, if ever there was one.’

  ‘You know what I did?’

  ‘No,’ said Sentina. ‘What was done matters not, only what resulted from it.’

  ‘It should matter,’ said Aeroth thoughtfully. ‘I refused a direct order from the First Captain.’

  ‘Not something Agemman would take kindly,’ said the Chaplain.

  ‘We were fighting rebels on Alakash,’ said Aeroth, remembering the events all too vividly. ‘The First Captain wanted to lead the assault on the enemy command post.’

  ‘And you deemed it too great a risk?’

  ‘I did, as is… was my right as the sergeant of his command squad. He… disagreed.’

  ‘He led the attack?’

  ‘No. By the time he knew that I had ordered Sergeant Caeros to spearhead the attack in his stead, it was already under way. Severus was… furious.’

  ‘I can only imagine. His temper is legendary. What happened in the attack?’

  ‘Heavy casualties. Caeros died. Had Agemman been in his place, he would have fallen. I am certain of that. And without him to strategise, the war would have been lost.’

  ‘You don’t doubt your decision, even given what resulted?’

  ‘I do not. I was demoted, but I serve still. And so does the First Captain. That is all that matters.’

  ‘And we survived the descent onto Orath,’ said Sentina. ‘That is all that matters. It might do for Lentulus to be reminded of that.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Aeroth. A thought struck him. ‘You asked if I had learned anything from my demotion. You did know what happened on Alakash.’

  ‘Of course I did,’ said Sentina. ‘But sometimes you need to come to a realisation by yourself.’

  Aeroth grunted and fell b
ack to return to Lentulus’s side. If the battle-brother began his harping again, Aeroth would consider the Chaplain’s advice.

  Another few hours brought them to the gates of Fort Garm. It was an imposing edifice, a central keep stretching into the murky sky, with a great ring of stone encircling it. There were no signs of life.

  ‘No enemy targets identified,’ reported Iova, who had been sent in close to get accurate augury readings.

  ‘And no other signs of life,’ chimed in Lentulus. ‘Wasn’t there supposed to be a garrison?’

  ‘Five battle-brothers of the Doom Eagles,’ said Aeroth. ‘Iova, any vox-traffic?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said the Centurion after a brief pause. ‘Fort Garm seems dead.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean what it should on this world,’ muttered Aeroth to himself.

  The four Centurions approached the fort first, marching in lockstep, weapon arms raised and primed. A lack of augury readings didn’t mean a lack of foes, especially with the thrice-damned fog potentially fouling the systems.

  Nothing marched out to meet them. No enemies stood upon the walls, weapons ready. And when Aeroth banged on the gate with a great ceramite fist, it opened easily.

  He was almost disappointed.

  Inside, Fort Garm was as empty as it appeared from the exterior. Silence blanketed its wide stone corridors, the heavy footfalls of the Centurions echoing loudly through the structure. Aeroth thought back to scant hours before when he had looked upon silences as an ideal. What he would give now for some good noisy enemies to kill.

  As well as the main keep, the complex contained a large hangar, which upon inspection contained several Rhinos and Stormtalon fighters, and a smaller building, constructed on a human scale, rather than the larger, wider, more open architecture of the buildings designed for transhuman Space Marines. Chaplain Sentina had taken a party from the civilian group into that building, while the Centurions searched the keep.

  Aeroth had passed several storerooms, in which were kept weapons, ammunition and ration packs, as well as replacement parts for power armour. For a distant listening post, the fort was certainly well stocked.