The Plagues of Orath Read online

  It was the very embodiment of Chaos, or so it seemed, until something else appeared that made Aeroth revise that estimation.

  There was an almighty crack, like thunder, only magnified a thousand fold. For a split-second, Aeroth could have sworn that he saw in negative, light and dark switching places. And then it was there. A towering figure, hovering above the daemonic hordes, held aloft by immense fly-wings. It wore what looked like an immense and broken suit of power armour, in a sickly shade of green. The armour was swollen and cracked, and the flesh that extruded from it was pale and clammy-looking.

  The daemon prince looked down at the carnage being wrought, and it laughed.

  ‘More sons of Macragge to kill,’ it said, and though its mouth didn’t open, Aeroth heard the words echoing inside his head. ‘And not a tank in sight this time. This will be fun.’

  It swept down, a great blade in hand, and a burst of lascannon fire smashed into its flank. Aeroth looked up in amazement to see the form of a Stormraven gunship flashing overhead to the other side of the fort. As he watched, four bulky shapes dropped from it, beyond the wall, out in the fields that seethed with daemons and dead men.

  ‘Combat Squad Beta reporting for duty, sergeant,’ crackled a voice through the vox. Aeroth smiled, feeling the first genuine happiness he had experienced for days. ‘Carolus!’ he voxed. ‘It is good to hear your voice, brother.’

  Whatever reply came was drowned out by a titanic angry bellow. A shadow fell over Aeroth and he turned to gaze up at the immense, bloated bulk of the daemon prince.

  ‘You cannot stop the designs of the Plaguefather,’ it boomed, its voice slow and thick with corruption. ‘I have turned this world to the service of my dark master, and soon I will rule it in His name. So says Naracoth!’

  ‘Not today, daemon,’ growled Aeroth, firing his grav-cannon. The daemon rocked back as the blast of gravitic energy washed over it, but then took a step forward, shaking the ground.

  ‘Die now, servant of the Corpse God,’ it intoned.

  ‘Sergeant Aeroth, step to your right.’ The voice in his ear was that of Techmarine Kaelus, pilot of the Aeonid’s Lament. Aeroth didn’t question, throwing himself to the side as hard as he could within the Centurion warsuit. He felt the machine-spirit protest and a line of red warning lights lit up in his display. He looked back towards the daemon. Behind it, hovering in midair was the Stormraven. The daemon turned slowly, in time to see the two stormstrike missiles that were speeding towards it. Then the world was shaken by an almighty explosion that whited out Aeroth’s vision. When he could see again, the daemon was gone. The Stormraven roared upwards and sped away again.

  ‘What was that?’ voxed Oenomaus.

  ‘The daemon mentioned in the report from Fort Kerberos, I’d venture,’ said Lentulus.

  ‘Indeed,’ replied Aeroth. ‘And it will return. Good shooting, Kaelus, but keep your eyes open for it coming back.’

  ‘I think we’ll notice,’ said Iova. ‘Hard to miss.’

  With that, the Centurions returned to their bloody work, and Aeroth dearly hoped that whatever was happening below, Chaplain Sentina would be able to engineer a victory. If not, it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed and Orath doomed.

  Alia almost cheered when she saw the huge, boxy flying machine fire missiles at the… the horror. It was impossible to describe, something that made her very soul sick, and she dearly wished that she had never seen it. She knew it would haunt her nightmares, if she survived long enough to sleep again. She shouldn’t be out here, she knew. She had slipped out of the serfs’ quarters. If this was going to be the end of her world, she wanted to fight. She gripped her autogun and made her way towards the entrance of the keep. Chaplain Sentina would be in there, and that’s where she wanted to be as well.

  Netesh emerged once more from the rift into the cavern below the Space Marine fortress. He could feel his master’s presence above, warping the very ground on which Fort Garm stood. Change was in the air. Change, and Chaos.

  To the Plague Marine’s delight, the Ultramarines Chaplain stood before him, his eagle-headed weapon held loosely in one hand. The eyes on the Space Marine’s skull mask blazed with fury. Killing this one and taking his helm was going to be a joy.

  ‘Hello again,’ he said, gripping his scythe in both hands and stepping forward. ‘Have you been waiting for me to come and kill you, little Ultramarine?’

  The Chaplain said nothing. Instead he activated the power field on his weapon and took up a defensive stance.

  ‘You shall not pass while I live,’ said the Ultramarine quietly, his voice like stones scraping together.

  ‘Brave. Foolish. Just what I would expect of Guilliman’s sons.’

  The Chaplain inclined his head. ‘Brave and foolish of you to come alone, traitor,’ he said.

  ‘I knew you would be waiting. And I so want to kill you myself and take that delightful mask of yours.’

  He leapt forward, and his manreaper fell to take the Space Marine’s head.

  Sentina pulled his crozius up and blocked the blade of the scythe. The weapons sparked and hissed as their energy fields duelled, then they broke apart with a crack of discharge. The Plague Marine took a step back and began to circle. Sentina echoed him, crozius raised in a guard position, watching for a tell that the diseased warrior was about to attack. It came without warning, a low sweep of the weapon that the Chaplain jumped over, striking down with his maul. The Plague Marine twisted away and went back to circling.

  ‘Are you going to defend, or attack, Ultramarine? No war was ever won by sitting back and doing nothing.’

  Sentina said nothing. He wouldn’t be distracted. He continued to move, eyes on the Plague Marine, gauging his stance, his movements, the way he gripped the haft of his scythe. All of it was information he could use to find a weakness. Frustratingly, he couldn’t see one. Yet.

  The Chaos Space Marine feinted forward, trying to draw Sentina out, but he didn’t take the bait. The corrupted warrior laughed, a sickening gurgle that brought bile up in Sentina’s throat.

  ‘You have some skill, I’ll give you that. But I have fought the Long War for ten thousand years. Do you really think you can defeat me?’

  ‘I have killed greater than you, traitor.’

  More laughter, and with it another attack, a slow roundhouse that would have split the Chaplain in twain had it connected. He jinked back, then forward again, swinging his crozius around to strike a blow to the Plague Marine’s arm. His vambrace split, filth oozing out from the rent. They circled again. This time, the Chaos Space Marine was silent.

  Sentina took the initiative now. He had scored a hit and had the advantage. He pushed left, darting the maul out at the Plague Marine’s leg. The traitor reacted, the scythe blocking the blow, but Sentina had been ready for that. He continued on, placing one armoured boot on the haft of his enemy’s scythe and pushing down. The reinforced length of the weapon strained against the force, and for a moment that seemed to stretch into infinity, warp-forged alloys fought against the power of gene-forged muscle and holy ceramite.

  And held.

  The Plague Marine pulled the scythe up with all his strength, and suddenly Sentina was airborne. His crozius flew from his grip and clattered against the Doom Eagles’ makeshift barricade. He landed on his back, and then the Chaos Space Marine was upon him, one rusted and corroded boot pressing down on Sentina’s chest. He heard the crack of ceramite and felt pressure on the fused bones of his rib cage. His hearts raced and adrenaline flooded him, but he knew that it was too late.

  The Chaos Space Marine reached up to his helm and pulled it free, throwing it away to lie next to Sentina’s crozius. Beneath, his face was a mask of rotten flesh. Worms and maggots crawled over the ruined visage, and a twisted and misshapen skull, yellowed like rotting teeth, could be seen through suppurating wounds.

  ‘A new helmet. A new skull,’ he rasped, his voice strangely high and tremulous without the vox-filters of his
helm. He knelt, putting more weight on Sentina’s chest, and reached down to remove the Chaplain’s helmet.

  A gunshot cracked, the Plague Marine wailed, and the paralysing force was gone. Sentina was moving in an instant, pulling his gladius from its sheath at his hip, vaguely registering that as the corrupted warrior fell, the rift itself recoiled, shrinking and waning. He rolled and, without pause, drove the weapon through one of the traitor’s wide, staring eyes and into his brain. The Chaos Space Marine thrashed in agony, and Sentina pulled himself away.

  He stood up and looked round. In front of the barricade stood Alia, rifle in her shaking hands. She looked up at the Chaplain.

  ‘I used my bullet. He was going to kill you,’ she said simply. ‘You’ll save us. I know it. So I–’

  Her remaining words died as an explosive round blasted her chest apart in a shower of viscera. Sentina twisted and saw the Plague Marine lying in a pool of blood and less savoury fluids, pistol in his hand.

  ‘No one… will be saving… her,’ he gurgled. In one move, the Chaplain surged forward and kicked the traitor, pulverising what remained of his misshapen skull.

  He knelt by Alia, but it was too late. She was gone.

  Fury blazed through Manet Sentina. He took his crozius from the ground and activated it, smashing it down on the cracked and corrupted skull mask of the Chaos Space Marine again and again.

  Aeroth fired a volley of missiles from his chest launchers, turning before he saw if they reached their target, a towering insectile fusion of metalwork and twisted daemonic flesh. He aimed his grav-cannon at a knot of plague daemons and fired a salvo at them, then blocked a blow from an ornate blade wielded by a blood-soaked, horned monstrosity that fought from the back of a hulking brass steed. The weapon bit into the ceramite of his battlesuit and Aeroth wrenched his arm back, pulling the sword from the daemon’s grasp. It bellowed in rage and leapt from its steed, landing on the sergeant’s shoulder plate and grabbing for the handle of the blade.

  ‘Sergeant,’ shouted Iova from a few metres away, ‘remain still!’

  The battle-brother lumbered forward, pushing his warsuit to its limits, and grabbed the daemon from atop Aeroth, squeezing it until it burst in his gigantic fist.

  ‘Really, sergeant, you should be more caref–’

  The sentence was cut off as a great blade, dark as night, emerged from the Centurion’s chest. Behind him rose the hulking figure of the daemon prince. It pulled the sword free and extended its other hand, wrapping fingers the size of human torsos around the power-armoured body of Iova and tearing him from the warsuit. Iova screamed, physical pain and the psychic trauma of being forcibly removed from the link with the machine-spirit of the Centurion suit combining.

  ‘You get what you give, Ultramarine,’ the daemon rumbled, and it squeezed. Even the ceramite battleplate was not proof against its warp-enhanced strength. The armour crumpled, the soft seals between plates splitting and a vile flesh soup spilling out. Aeroth turned ponderously and stomped towards the daemon.

  ‘I will destroy you for that, fiend,’ he shouted.

  ‘You? No. Not you,’ it said. ‘I am Naracoth, and my destiny lies elsewhere.’ It gestured lazily and a great cloud of flies materialised from the air and swarmed towards Aeroth. There were thousands of them, crowding around him. He loosed more missiles and fired salvo after salvo from his grav-cannon. By the time he cleared enough of the flies to see, the daemon was gone.

  ‘Where did it go?’ he voxed. ‘Did you see?’

  ‘Into the fortress,’ said Lentulus. ‘It’s going for the rift down there.’

  Aeroth considered going after it, even as he blocked the swing of a plague-encrusted sword and punched through the stomach of its wielder. He opened a vox-link to Sentina. The Chaplain needed to know what was coming.

  ‘Manet, something is coming. Something big. A daemon prince. It killed Iova without breaking a sweat.’

  ‘I will be ready for it,’ growled Sentina, looking down at Alia’s broken body. ‘We have lost enough this day. It is time for a victory.’

  ‘I will join you, brother. Between us, we can deal with the beast.’

  ‘No, Aeroth,’ said Sentina. ‘Lead your squad. Keep the daemons at bay above. What happens down here is for me.’

  ‘It is too powerful for any one man to fight. You will be destroyed.’

  ‘I have faith, Brother Aeroth,’ Sentina said, and to his surprise, he realised that he meant it. ‘I will prevail. And I think that if I kill this fiend, the architect of the horror we face, it will close the rift.’

  ‘How did you come to this conclusion?’ asked the sergeant, disbelief tingeing his voice. ‘I don’t see–’

  ‘It had something to do with the other rift, at Fort Kerberos. That seems clear, as it was there. And killing the servants of the Dark Gods seems to affect the waxing and waning. It may be a long shot, but it’s the only one we have. And so I will prevail, because I must.’

  Aeroth was silent for a time, and Sentina knew what he was thinking. ‘Don’t come down here, Darin,’ he cautioned. ‘Don’t make the same mistake again. Follow orders, do your duty. For the Emperor.’

  ‘…for the Emperor,’ echoed Aeroth. ‘Good hunting, Manet. Or goodbye.’

  The vox clicked off. Sentina took a deep breath and pressed the activation stud on his crozius. He heard a rumble of stone cracking and breaking. It came closer, and he realised that whatever the daemon was that was approaching, it was big. So big, and so strong, that it was warping the structure of the narrow tunnel to heave its bulk through. He gripped his weapon tightly, and in moments, he saw his opponent.

  The daemon prince entered the chamber and pulled itself up to its full height. It towered over the Chaplain, its great bloated form fully thrice his height and many times his mass.

  ‘Is this it?’ it thundered, its words worming their way directly into Sentina’s brain. ‘Are you all that stands in my way?’

  ‘I am enough,’ said Sentina. He took a step forward. ‘I am a warrior of the Emperor.’ Another step. ‘I am His force in this universe.’ Another. He stood directly before the daemon now. ‘I am His weapon, and His shield, and I will be your doom, creature of the abyss.’ He raised his crozius arcanum and pulled it back, preparing to strike. The daemon did nothing.

  ‘For the Emperor!’ Sentina roared, and swung one-handed, putting all his strength, all his anger and all his hatred into the blow. The eagle head of the mace smashed into the daemon’s armour above its knee and pulped flesh, passing straight through. Almost immediately, the wound began to knit.

  ‘Is that your best shot, Ultramarine?’ the daemon hissed.

  ‘No,’ replied Sentina, revealing the krak grenade he had been priming with his other hand as he struck. ‘That was just creating somewhere to put this.’ He punched the grenade into the healing wound and threw himself back as it detonated. The daemon’s leg exploded and it toppled. Sentina rolled to avoid being crushed beneath its bulk. The daemon swung out with its blade and caught him a glancing blow. He was thrown back against the wall. The daemon pulled itself up on one massive arm and looked down at its leg. A combination of blood, pus and dark, immaterial energy flowed from the wound, but it was already healing.

  ‘Nothing you do can kill Naracoth, mortal,’ it said. ‘I have been blessed by my master for my faithful service. I am forever.’

  ‘You are a tool of darkness,’ said Sentina. ‘And I am the Emperor’s light.’

  The sword lashed out again, and Sentina stepped into the strike. The dark energy of the blade met the rosarius that the Chaplain wore on his chest, and the conversion field inside the arcane device activated, turning the force of the attack into a great blast of light. The dark sword shattered as the light hit it, a thousand pieces melting into thin air as if it had never existed.

  ‘Impossible,’ Naracoth screamed, and the word was like snakes writhing in Sentina’s head. He felt his nose bleed again and struggled to stay upright as the creature’s corru
ption assailed him.

  ‘Nothing is impossible for men of faith,’ said Sentina. ‘And you do not have faith, fiend.’

  ‘What need have I of faith?’ spat the daemon. ‘My gods are real. Yours is a cripple on a world half the galaxy away.’

  ‘The Emperor is no god, fool. My faith is in myself. And that is why I.’ Sentina swung his crozius again, and the daemon was thrown back. ‘Have.’ Another swing, another few metres. ‘Won,’ he finished, and with one final titanic blow, he pushed the daemon prince into the rift. It screamed – the universe screamed – and Sentina was thrown from his feet. He heard the daemon inside his head again and knew without a doubt that its soul, what remained of it, was being devoured by its master for its failure.

  Then it was gone, and all was silence. He picked himself up, aching all over, and looked at the rift.

  It was growing. In moments, it was the biggest he had seen it. And it kept getting bigger. Sentina backed away, and horror filled him.

  ‘Thank you…’ He heard the daemon’s voice, weak and distant, echoing in his head. ‘My first death broke the first seal and opened the rift. My second death opened the other and ensured my master’s victory. Victory…’ It faded away to nothingness, and Sentina’s world turned upside down. He had done what the daemon wanted. He had not defeated it. He had aided it.

  He had failed. Orath was doomed.

  Nine

  The rift was expanding.

  Sentina lifted Alia’s body from the ground and stepped backwards, away from the growing unlight. He could see things forming in the event horizon of the portal, the impossible forms of daemons, in infinite variety. All the forces of Chaos waited behind there, ready to unleash themselves not only on Orath, but on the entire sector. He looked down at the dead girl in his arms and felt the shame of failure, and grief. Pure grief, such as he had not felt since the deaths of his brothers at the talons of the tyranids. Alia had been brave and strong. She had saved his life, and it would be for naught. Her faith in him had been misplaced. He couldn’t save her world.