“Riverdragon!” he almost shrieked as if everyone else were unaware of the threat. Ragnar laid a hand reassuringly on his shoulder.
“Don’t worry, we’ve seen it,” he said. “Use the bolt pistol. It fires explosive shells. More effective against a creature this size.”
If Tethys heard a word Ragnar said, he gave no sign of it. He reeked of panic. No, of terror. “Those things are dreadful, the scourge of the river. They pull you under and keep you there till you drown.”
Ragnar wondered if that was a less pleasant death than being torn apart by those huge fangs and then gobbled up. He shook his head. He doubted that there were any pleasant deaths. The creature swam closer. Ragnar could see that its tiny-seeming legs, out of proportion to that huge body, were working beneath the water, and occasionally the thing propelled itself forward with a swish of its huge tail. He was beginning to get a sense of quite how large it was, probably twice as long as this whole raft. He was aware of the tiny, intelligent-seeming eyes gazing at him from either side of the beast’s snout. It was a chilling sight, and sent cold fingers of fear running up and down his spine.
“By Russ, it’s bloody huge!” Sven said. “Wonder what it tastes like. I’m getting fed up with tree bark and cockroaches.”
“I’ve speared bigger orkas,” Ragnar said, levelling his bolter and aiming it directly at the riverdragon’s eye.
“Orkas don’t have teeth like that,” Sven said.
The riverdragon had opened its mouth and suddenly row upon row of yellowing tusk-like teeth, each as long as a dagger, became visible. Its features distorted and its eyes narrowed, making it hard to aim for them.
“It’s like you, Sven,” Nils said out of the corner of his mouth, drawing his bolt pistol and getting ready to shoot, never taking his eyes off the beast for a second.
“What do you damn well mean by that?”
“It opens its mouth and its head disappears.”
“Ha bloody ha! Another crack like that and you’ll be joining it for a swim.”
Ragnar heard further splashes from the riverbank and knew that more of the huge reptiles were dropping into the water. Suddenly the situation had become very threatening indeed, and he reckoned that his earlier confidence might have been a little misplaced. All the creature had to do was rear out of the water and it could smash the raft to flinders. He was reminded of the battle he had fought with the seadragon back on Fenris, what seemed half a lifetime and half the galaxy away.
“Shut up and shoot!” he said and opened fire. The roar of bolt pistols filled his ears as the Blood Claws joined in. Rocket contrails blazed towards the beast. Its flesh erupted where the shells bit into its leathery hide. The creature emitted a long, hissing screech but kept on coming. Ragnar wondered if the creature felt any pain or whether they had simply angered it. Looking at those jaws and the massive ropes of muscle on either side of them, he wasn’t so sure now that his armour could survive being bitten by them. He certainly had no great desire to find out.
The beast kept swimming on through the hail of fire. The Space Wolves on the other ship had joined in now. Huge chunks of flesh were being blown out of the beast and Ragnar was sure he could see the white of bone amidst the pale pink meat. Still the creature showed no sign of dying.
Ragnar pulled the trigger again and again, hoping in vain to put a shell through the beast’s eye and blow out its brain. But its head was thrashing from side to side and it was difficult to aim precisely. The Wolf pulled the trigger rapidly, sending bolter shell after bolter shell hurtling towards the beast. Its leathery skin was torn and shredded, but to Ragnar’s awe the massive skull endured the pounding. What was the beast made of?
He kept firing but risked a glance towards the riverbank. Three more of me huge beasts were coming ever closer, making no attempt at stealth. Their tails churned the water as they swept swiftly towards the fray. Ragnar wondered whether they were drawn to the commotion or by the smell of blood. He cursed under his breath. If one of the creatures was proving so hard to kill, he did not relish a conflict with four of them.
“It’s too dumb to die!” Nils shouted above the bolter blasts.
“Just like you then!” Sven snapped back.
The creature was less man twenty strides away and closing fast. Ragnar’s mind raced. Perhaps a change of tactic was called for. “Inquisitor! Can you use your powers on it?”
“I don’t know if it has a mind to affect,” Isaan called back.
“Don’t say it, Nils,” shouted Sven. Then suddenly the beast was gone. A huge wave of water rippled towards them as it dived below the surface. For a moment only the massive tail was visible and then it, too, had vanished.
“Did we get it?” Ragnar shouted.
“Say what?” asked Nils in a tone of innocent confusion.
“I don’t think so!” bellowed Sven, looking all around them.
“I don’t like this at all,” said Nils.
Ragnar risked a glance towards the other beasts. They were less than a hundred strides away. Too close for comfort, Ragnar thought.
“Watch out!” Sergeant Hakon bellowed.
What does he mean, Ragnar thought — and then felt the whole raft lurch upwards. He frantically tried to regain his balance as he tumbled towards the water. It occurred to him in that moment, exactly what had happened. The cunning beast had erupted from the water underneath them, lifting the whole raft into the air. Ragnar watched the jungle wheel about below him and then he shut his mouth as the murky water engulfed him.
Desperately he fought to hold on to his bolt pistol. It was a terrible disgrace for a Space Marine to lose his weapon. The strangeness of that thought under the circumstances hit him. The water was a maelstrom of churning waves and bubbles. It was dark but nearby he could see the enormous shape of me riverdragon whirling to face them. When seen from the surface, the beast looked clumsy but once you were in the water with it, it suddenly seemed unbelievably sinuous, swift and agile. He glanced around and saw the others were also in the water, limbs fluttering as they tried to head towards the surface.
He bolstered his pistol and struck upwards himself. Keep calm, he told himself and prayed for the others to do the same. He knew that many brave seamen on Fenris had died in situations like this simply by making stupid mistakes. Sometimes in panic they swum downwards instead of up, pushing themselves ever deeper below the waters from which they were trying to escape. Ragnar wondered just how deep the river was here, then decided now was not the time to try and find out. His head broke the water. He saw some of the others bobbing to the surface near him.
He sensed the nearness of the riverdragon and felt a moment’s dread as he imagined those huge jaws opening up below him, and then taking him down in one gulp.
“Look out!” he heard Sergeant Hakon shouting again.
He glanced around and saw that the wounded beast had broken the surface and was coming towards him. Its jaws were open wide. It was like looking down a long, pink, tooth-filled tunnel. Ragnar could not remember ever seeing anything quite so fearsome. The oily, reptilian smell of the beast filled his nostrils, along with the scent of its blood, and the rotten meat trapped between its teeth and the flesh decomposing deep within its corrupt bowels. It seemed to him that, at any moment, he too might become just another bit of butchered meat in the creature’s stomach. He wondered for an instant whether his life was really over. Then, deep within his own brain, the beast that was part of him awoke, and responded to the threat with instinctive cunning. What the monster could do, he could do.
As it bore down upon him, he waited until the last second, until the jaws were almost closing upon him, then took a lungful of air and dived, kicking strongly. The riverdragon passed overhead, seeming as large as the hull of a great dragonship. Incongruously, in that moment, Ragnar’s memory had a flashback to the times when as a lad he had dived from his father’s ship and swum beneath it, purely out of bravado and to prove that he could do it to his watching friends.
He saw the great clawed paws thrashing the water, and the supple curve of the huge creature’s spine as it turned to try to catch him. Was it his imagination or did the thing actually seem slower? As it swam, it was leaving behind it a wake of oily black blood. Ragnar could taste it in the water. Perhaps all those bolter shells were taking effect after all. Watching the thing spin around, though, it seemed unlikely to save him. The huge jaws gaped once more as the beast came for him again. He kicked out, trying to evade it, but the river was the creature’s native habitat, not his own, and in its turgid waters it was far more agile than he, especially enclosed in his power armour.
He felt the jaws close around him. He felt the pressure on his chest plate as the teeth started to clamp down. The riverdragon gave a swift flick of its head, like a dog with a rat in its mouth. If Ragnar had been an ordinary man, he knew his neck would have broken in that moment. But he was not a normal man, he was a Space Marine, and his body had been reconstructed to withstand far more stress than any normal human beings’. The whiplash threatened to drive the air from his lungs. Sparks flickered in his field of vision. He felt vertebrae grind as his neck muscles took the strain. Ragnar prayed to Russ and refused to black out. He fought to retain consciousness.
There was a sense of increased pressure. He realised that the beast was taking him down, trying to drown him as it would its normal prey. No, maybe not. It was swimming away from the rafts. Ragnar could see them on the surface, shimmering in a patch of sunlight. Perhaps it was carrying him to its lair, to feed its young. Perhaps it was doing something else entirely. He had no idea and no time to speculate. His armour had switched into oxygen recycling mode. He was in no danger of drowning for the time being. Systems designed to keep him alive in the depths of space would have no trouble doing so here. The major problem was that the jaws were still closing. He could hear the ceramite creaking, feel armoured plates grinding against each other. Prickles of pain from his sensory systems told him that at certain stress points there was a danger of the armour giving way. If that happened, other systems might fail, and then indeed he might drown.
Looking up he could see a new danger threatened. The other riverdragons were diving downwards, coming for him — or perhaps they were coming for their wounded brother.
Could it be that the smell of blood was driving them into a frenzy and attracting them towards their prey, the way it did with sharks in the Worldsea of Fenris?
Ragnar could see that his supposition was right. The largest riverdragon was coming for his captor. Another two were circling around them, looking for an opening. Suddenly bubbles of air and billows of blood surrounded Ragnar as the two giants closed for battle. Out of the corner of his eye, Ragnar saw a massive claw sweep towards him. The force of the blow was immense. His head reeled with pain. Blackness filled his field of vision. Just as suddenly the pressure on his chest relented. His monstrous captor had let him go in order to use its own jaws to fight with.
Not that it would necessarily do him any good. One of the other beasts might scoop him up, just another tasty morsel. He fumbled with the utility belt on his waist, and felt his fingers close on the grenade he sought. Through the water he saw another beast coming at him, a nightmare vision of massive teeth and mighty jaws, tiny eyes glittering with ancient malice and hunger. Limbs working as if in slow motion in the water, he pushed the grenade into its mouth and kicked out, heading for the surface, wondering what would happen next.
For an instant, nothing occurred. He looked down at the riverdragon and saw it arching its back as it prepared to come up after him. Then its whole body seemed to inflate from within. Its stomach expanded, as if the creature had swallowed something much too big for it. Its jaws distended, and even here under the water Ragnar was aware of its roar of pain. Then the flesh of the creature’s belly parted, and its innards blew out into the water. It had swallowed the grenade, and then it had been blown apart through its soft unarmoured innards. Even as he watched, the other river-dragons hurtled towards it, determined to get at this huge easy meal.
Ragnar’s head broke surface. He saw that the others had managed to pull themselves onto the raft and were watching anxiously. They grinned in relief as they saw him swimming towards them. Ragnar flopped up onto the raft, water running from his dented armour. He turned his head and gazed back. The water churned and turned dark with blood. It was the only evidence he could see of the titanic struggle taking place in the gloomy depths, and it faded from view behind them, as the raft drifted around a bend in the river.
“Say that I’m mindless just like that bloody beast!” he heard Sven say, before lying back and shutting his eyes.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The jungle began to thin out. The river became wider and darker. Ragnar handled the pole easily, keeping the raft on the left bank under the outlying branches. Ahead of them were all the signs of war. Huge smoke clouds billowed darkly into the sky, reaching upwards like the stretching fingers of giants. Great tracts had been ripped from the nearby jungle by the movement of huge machines. Ork warplanes roared overhead, flashing across the sky to deliver their freight-loads of bombs. In the distance, he could make out their target: the massive walled city of Gait Prime.
It was a city on a scale that did not exist on Fenris. Skyscraper towers loomed over the massive plascrete walls, each as huge as one of the islands that erupted from the World-sea. And there were other things, monstrous war engines, large as the huge buildings, that moved towards the human city. Ragnar knew these were gargants, mighty metal death machines built in the form of primitive effigies of the orks’ dreadful deities. They bristled with massive weapons. From where he was, Ragnar could hear the frightful roar as they lobbed giant shells into the crumbling city walls. Ragnar knew that the illusion of war was untrue. The city had already surrendered. The orks were merely indulging their appetite for destruction.
“Russ take us! It looks like we arrived just in time to save the bloody city,” said Sven, his lips twisting in a bitter ironic smile. Ragnar glanced over at him.
“Do you want to do it yourself, or shall I give you a hand?”
“I’m feeling generous so I’ll let you share in my glory. You can have a couple of verses in the Saga of Sven.”
“As ever, you are too generous.” Ragnar was suddenly glad that Sven was there. For all his childish jokes and nasty moods, he could think of no one better to have at his back if they really were going to infiltrate this ork army.
“The best thing about this is that we’ll have the element of surprise,” he said with a smile. “They’ll never expect us to come out of the jungle and completely overwhelm them like this. Inquisitor Sternberg is a master tactician.”
“I almost feel sorry for those orks,” added Sven. “Almost.”
Ragnar knew the humour covered a very real tension. For the past few days, as they had drifted downriver, they had come upon ever more evidence of the orks’ savagery. They had passed riverside villages burned to the ground and seen huge areas of the rainforest burning. As far as he could tell there was no reason for it other than sheer wanton destructiveness. It had been arson on a huge scale, the product of a mindless rage that Ragnar could not understand. This was hardly surprising: orks did not think like humans. They were, after all, a very alien race.
In the skirmishes they had fought and the ambushes they had laid for the orks, he had come to respect their brute savagery and battlelust. They were fearless foes, hardy beyond belief. He had seen one continue to fight after its arm had been blown off by bolter shells. When it ran out of ammo it had actually picked up its own severed arm to use as a club. The creature had seemed almost impervious to pain.
At first Ragnar thought the small groups they had encountered were patrols but then he realised that no such strategy was at work. They were merely stragglers who had got separated from the main ork force, either through sheer negligence or out of a cunning desire to find fresh places to pillage. Either the orks had no concept of effective strategy
or they were overconfident and felt they did not need it. If the latter was the case, Ragnar could understand it. As far as he could see the human defenders of Gait had mounted little effective resistance.
And that, too, was hardly surprising. Most of them were not warriors. They were farmers and foresters and traders who had lived for too long under the great shield of the Imperium’s influence. They had not expected such a savage invasion. And according to Inquisitor Sternberg, there must have been corruption too on a huge scale. The Imperial Governor was supposed to maintain a powerful standing army but they had found no sign of it. During their late night discussions around the campfire, Sternberg claimed that the money had most likely been misappropriated, used to swell the Governor’s private treasure chest. He also claimed that if the man were still alive, the Imperium would extract such a vengeance on him that he would wish the orks had killed him. The thought of the Governor’s folly and mismanagement drove the inquisitor into a quiet rage the like of which Ragnar had never seen before.
They had monitored the comm-net and listened in horror to reports from the human towns and fortresses as one by one they fell before the invaders’ superior numbers and weaponry. It seemed as if the entire embattled human civilisation was going down into darkness. The only cheering news was that the Imperial relief force was preparing to make a counter-attack as soon as the spaceways above Gait were cleared by the human fleet. It appeared such a decisive victory was but days away, but it had left them with a dilemma. Should they await the coming of the Imperial battle force and hide in the jungle? Or should they press on with their original plan and seize the fragment of the talisman? Ragnar had heard the arguments for both cases and had been unable to make up his own mind. If they remained in the jungle there was always the chance they would be discovered by ork forces and slain. Further, there was the chance that the bearer of the talisman would slip away in the fighting or that the artefact itself might be destroyed. The inquisitors were not sure if this were possible but if there was even the slightest chance of it then they did not want to take the risk. On the other hand, what were their chances of working their way into the very heart of this huge invading army without being discovered? There were times when it seemed reckless to the point of folly.