As they pressed on, he noticed that massive vein-like pipes, made from the same organic substance, began to run between the patches on the walls. From within he could hear the obscene gurgling of fluids. What was this, he wondered? Now it really seemed as if they were deep within the innards of some massive living creature.
And yet, if he looked closely, he could tell that whatever it was, it was unwell. There was a sense of sickness about the thing. There was a smell of rot, of corruption, of festering pus, in the air. It made him think of Nurgle, the Dark God dedicated to disease and decay. Whatever vast beast surrounded him was sick; this was not its natural condition. Thinking back to the genestealers they had fought earlier, he remembered their blotched carapaces and the sores on their flesh. They too had been sick. It was as if some dreadful power was at work here, one that could warp even the genestealers and that had created them to its own purposes.
“This does not look bloody good,” he heard Sven murmur. The words drew him from his reverie and forced him to consider his surroundings in more than the automatic manner he had been doing so. He instantly saw what Sven meant. In the distance he could see a mass of organic material that in some way suggested the components of a huge living machine. Overhead greenish lights burned above the organic machines. They reminded Ragnar of the phosphorescent algae that swam in the seas of Fenris, but much brighter and more concentrated.
He could see vast tubes inside which egg-shaped objects moved by peristaltic action. He could make out something that resembled a huge pulsing heart surmounted by what looked like an exposed brain. Enormous filaments stretched out in every direction, connecting to fleshy nodes that burrowed into the floor of the hulk. The whole thing glistened with fibrous green-white mucus. He knew at once that they had reached the centre of the corruption that he had sensed, that this was the heart of the darkness within this vessel.
In the centre of the thing’s mass of brain tissue something glittered, and Ragnar knew immediately that he was looking on the third and final part of the crystal they had sought.
Even as he watched, a horde of living creatures emerged from the centre of the fleshy mass, moving with an inhuman precision, as if they were all cells in one mighty organism. He could see huge insect-limbed creatures that bore what looked like guns made from living flesh. There were smaller fleeter creatures, all legs and jaws and lashing tails. There were genestealers, chittering and snarling as they sprang. And something else — something massive and monstrous with enormous mandibles that looked as if they could chop a man in two by simply closing. He knew at once what they faced.
“Tyranids,” he heard Sergeant Hakon say, his voice full of both dread and wonder.
Ragnar shuddered. These were the feared warriors of the swarms which had menaced humanity on several occasions in the past and which he knew, from the Chapter records, had slain many Space Wolves in their passing. What were these? Some remnant of one of the great hive fleets that had swept through the human realm? Or were they secret infiltrators, harbingers of a new tyranid invasion to come?
And in the instant that they began their swarming charge, he could see that some sickness was at work here too. They looked flawed, ill made, as if the process that created them had not quite worked properly. They did not accord with any of the artificial memories. They looked like sick distorted parodies. Limbs hung loosely from their sides. Boils and warts erupted from their flesh. Thin yellow mucus wept from their mouths and breathing membranes. It was as if they had been infected by some terrible plague. Even their movements were sick and limping.
This was something new, he thought. In all the records, there were no references to diseased tyranids. They sometimes infected whole worlds with their biomechanical spores, but there was never any reference to them suffering illness. Not that it meant anything, Ragnar thought after a moment’s reflection. There were many gaps in the old records, and who really knew much about these heretical aliens?
Perhaps there was a connection of some sort between the disease here and the plague on Aerius. Then the time for all wondering was past, as the tyranids attacked.
They swept forward in a huge wave. The giant hive warriors bellowed eerie alien challenges. The smaller things chittered and aimed small, organic looking guns. Their chitin gleamed greenly in the half-light.
“Watch out!” Sven bellowed. There was a grinding sound, and then the bizarre organic guns began to spit a hail of projectiles towards them. He threw himself flat, letting the shells pass overhead. Groans of agony from behind him told him that others had not been so swift or so lucky.
Drawing a bead with his bolter he opened fire himself, concentrating on the genestealers and the huge hive warriors. He knew that soon they would be upon him and that he was going to have to rise into a fighting crouch or be butchered where he lay, but right at this moment he wanted to thin out their numbers a little.
Shouted orders from behind told him that others had had the same idea. Las beams pulsed over his head as the remnants of the inquisitor’s bodyguards returned fire. The thunder of bolt pistols told him that his battle-brothers were joining in the combat. He saw some small circular objects go whistling overhead, and a Shockwave of death ripped through the onrushing tyranid line. Someone had enough sense to lob grenades into the tightly packed mass, he thought. Good idea! He thumbed his grenade dispenser. One of me small circular microgrenades dropped into his cupped hand. He squeezed twice to set the timer and then threw.
It arced away and landed among the tyranid attackers. The first few passed over it without harm, but an instant later the explosion smashed into a tall hive warrior and some of the smaller brood. Great chunks of the beast’s carapace blasted outwards, then the huge creature toppled like a felled tree. Its smaller kin were shredded instantly. Cold satisfaction filled Ragnar as he reached for another grenade.
Some of the alien shells chewed into the ground near him. He could see them shatter and smelled an acrid acidic stink as greenish fluid bubbled forth. He knew it was a form of corrosive that would eat flesh as well as armour. The stench was appalling. He was glad none of it had splashed his flesh.
He rolled to one side so that the beasts could not get a bead on him, snatching his pistol as he went. Something sprayed on his hand, and he smelled a scent like burning from his gauntlet. Knowing there was nothing he could do about it right now, he sprang to his feet and unloaded shot after shot into the tyranid horde.
There were so many of them he could not miss. Each shell smashed into a victim. Heads flew apart, flesh tore, and alien body fluids oozed forth to splatter the deck. Any human force would have broken under the relentless fire the Marines and their allies spewed forth. The tyranids kept on coming, oblivious to any casualties. It was quite terrifying to see the way they maintained their advance and Ragnar could smell the barely suppressed fear of the men all around him. Only the Space Wolves, the two inquisitors and Gul seemed immune. He could hear Sternberg shouting encouragement to his men, and Gul bellowing orders for the troops to hold steady. He sensed Karah mustering her psychic powers.
It was as if a river of pure light passed all around him now. The guards’ fire was steady despite their panic. They had obviously realised that their best hope of survival lay in obeying their commanders, and inflicting as many casualties as possible. The whole front rank of the tyranid onslaught was scythed down. For a moment, a brief moment, it appeared that their relentless advance might halt. They wavered, their ranks thinned by human fire and a torrent of grenades. The cohesion of the whole group seemed to fail, and it looked like they might actually turn tail and run. But then the wavering stopped, and they picked up momentum again, leaping over the corpses of their fallen, determined to get to grips with their enemies.
Ragnar steeled himself for the shock of impact, knowing that in the next few heartbeats he might die. This time he was determined that come what may, he would not freeze, and that, if he were to die, he was going to take some of these inhuman monsters to hell with hi
m. Sven let out a long howl and charged forward. Ragnar watched him plough into the monstrous mass, cleaving about him as he went. The savage teeth of his chainsword ripped through chitin like it was paper and exposed pulpy innards. Weapons of flesh and bone were chopped in two. They fell to pieces, leaking blood and pus just like the monsters that carried them.
The Wolf watched for a moment, and then decided that Sven had the right idea. He leapt forward and felt the shock of impact as his chainsword smashed through organic armour. It was like being a swimmer diving into a sea of flesh. All around him monstrous things bellowed. Distorted alien faces, twisted in unreadable expressions that might have been hatred or hunger, surrounded him. Unnatural eyes glittered with hatred and malice. The stink of the tyranids was all but overwhelming, and goaded the beast within him to savage excess. He lashed out, clearing a path to Sven’s side, and they stood back to back against the horde.
Lasguns flashed in the darkness. Grenade explosions strobed across his sight. He smelled burning and blood and the sour stench of disease. The deck flexed beneath his feet, resonating to the blasts of the bombs. The air in his chest vibrated with the sounds of battle. He pulled the trigger of his bolt pistol, and shells cleaved a path of destruction through the aliens. They were so tightly packed that they could not dodge. Bolter fire blasted clean through the body of one and exploded in the chest of the tyranid behind. He ducked the sweep of a huge claw, and sheared it off with his return stroke. Greenish slime pumped forth to spray him. The rotating blades of the chainsword sent droplets of it spraying across the room.
For the next few seconds he was too busy to think, let alone notice what was happening all around him. Duck and strike, parry and thrust, move and lash out, that was all he could do. It was fighting at a pace too fast for thought. Instinctively he knew he would live or die according to the speed of his reflexes. He existed only in the moment, feeling nothing except his own movements, noticing nothing save the flickering motion of his foes. It was terrifying and exhilarating, he felt as if he were being carried along on some great wave of excitement and action and fear. This was what it meant to be alive. He felt perfectly poised and balanced, every sense was stretched to the maximum, and every sinew was tautened by the need to deal death, and avoid swift retribution.
He hacked out with the chainsword and disembowelled a nearby beast. He sensed something huge moving through the horde pushing things aside like an orca moving through a shoal offish. Suddenly he was face to face with one of the mighty hive warriors. It towered almost twice his height above him. In two of its four claws it held swords of razor-sharp chitin. In the other two it clutched one of the weird living guns. Its huge jaws opened and it bellowed a challenge even as the blades swept down from both sides.
Ragnar twisted, ducking to avoid the sweep of the right hand blade, raising his chainsword to block the swing of the left. The force of the impact almost tore the weapon from his hand, but he willed his fingers to stay closed and clench its hilt, and raised his pistol intending to put a shot through the creature’s eye. It read his intention clearly and brought its blade round swiftly, smiting the barrel of the bolt pistol, smashing it to one side so that the shell flashed outward and upward, instead of into its own flesh.
Ragnar howled his own battle cry and leapt forward, bringing his feet down on the creature’s huge legs and using them as a springboard to propel his leap to the level of the tyranid’s head. Before it could react this time, his chainsword swept out and ripped right through the thing’s neck, severing vertebrae and taking the head clean from its shoulders. Even as it began to tumble, he landed on its falling body and leapt once more, the force of his leap carrying him through into the mass of smaller creatures beyond.
He landed on top of one, flattening it to the ground, and kept moving, chopping and slashing, swinging and shooting, until he had left a ring of dead and dying monsters behind him. Two of the sick-looking genestealers moved in from each side. Their movements were far slower than the ones he had faced earlier and yet still much quicker than a normal man’s. As they closed, he dropped to one knee, allowing their claws to pass over his head, then he sent his chainsword arcing out to open both their bellies. He sprang back to avoid their instinctive strike and barrelled into Sven who had been coming up behind him. For an instant pure reflex action almost caused him to lash out at his fellow Blood Claw, but at the last second he brought himself under control, and redirected his strike at the falling stealers. This time he cleaved one of their heads clean in two. Before he could move Sven had hacked the other one into pieces. Suddenly there was no movement around them. Ragnar realised that they were in a calm spot on the battlefield, and had an instant’s respite from the fury of combat. He glanced around to see how the battle was going.
Looking back he could see the mass of tyranids had swept into the humans. The fighting had degenerated into a ruck in which all semblance of discipline and formation had been lost, and it was a battle which favoured the tyranid style of fighting more than that of the servants of the Imperium.
As he watched he could see guards lash out with the butts of their lasguns and be cut down in return by the claws of alien monsters. Here and there small pockets of humans still held together and cleared the area around them with fans of firepower, but these small islands were being overwhelmed by the relentless tides of battle. Off to the right he could see the inquisitors and Gul and Sergeant Hakon were still holding their own. And in the distance chilling wolf-like howls told him that Strybjorn and Nils still fought on.
Looking closely he could see an aura of light flickering around the talisman on Karah’s breast. Searing beams of white-hot power lashed out from her hands to strike her foes. The glow underlit her face and blazed within her eye sockets, making her look positively daemonic. She was causing terrible casualties with her power, but even so, it was obvious to Ragnar that unless something were done, and quickly, the human forces would be overwhelmed and their quest would end in disaster and death. The tyranids still fought on as if they were all talons on one vast claw, exhibiting a co-ordination and a fury that was simply too much for the humans.
He glanced around to see if there was anything he could do. He saw that the way was clear to the vast organic machine and the talisman they had come to find. Perhaps he could make a grab for it, and the human force could make a fighting retreat. It seemed worth a try.
He raced forward over a carpet of living flesh towards the heart of a living engine made of flesh, and bone and gristle.
“I hope you know what you’re bloody well doing” he heard Sven shout, and immediately understood why. As if responding to a more pressing threat, the tyranids had wheeled away from the bulk of the human force, and were heading towards Ragnar and Sven in one unstoppable mass. Now why would they be doing that, he wondered? There had to be a reason.
Almost as quickly as he asked the question, the answer flashed into his head - they were protecting something important. They assumed that the two Blood Claws were threatening something vital to their own safety. The problem was that Ragnar had no idea what, and he did not have many seconds to find an answer to the riddle. There was only one thing he could think of, so he holstered his pistol and even as he moved lobbed a grenade into the mass of brain-like tissue. As one the tyranid horde let out a shriek of pain and near human horror. They milled around confused for a heartbeat before advancing once more.
Ragnar knew he was on to something. He kept moving forward and threw more and more grenades. The explosives threw up great gobbets of flesh where they tore through the mass of tissue. With every explosion the horde halted and howled. Ragnar knew this was not usual. Never in all the records had the creatures shown a weakness like this in the past. Was this some mutation brought on by their long stay in the hulk or was it a flaw created by the disease from which they so obviously suffered? He did not know; he was only grateful that it was so.
Sven had obviously understood what he was doing for he too was now sending grenade afte
r grenade flying into the organic machine. From behind him, Ragnar could hear the human force, freed from the close assault, reform and begin to send a torrent of fire into their alien enemies. The distraction had bought them the time they so desperately needed. Now they were scything down the tyranid scum as if they were grass.
“Keep it up!” Ragnar yelled. He was running now down the corridors in the machine, tossing grenades left and right, feeling a sense of triumph every time the horde of creatures shrieked their alien agony. In the avenues around him the tyranids moved, but their actions seemed slower now and less co-ordinated.
Suddenly, he realised that he was before the great central pillar. High up on it glittered the fragment of the talisman they had come to reclaim. He knew instantly what he must do. Leaping up, he lashed out with his blade. The intricately scalloped flesh of the tyranid bio-machine parted. Fluids leaked forth like tears. The talisman came free and dropped into Ragnar’s outstretched hand.
He grabbed it tight and landed beside Sven. Instantly there was silence, as if someone had thrown a switch and somehow turned the battle off. The horde stopped moving as if they had been animated only by the presence of the talisman in their midst. Somewhere in the distance, Ragnar sensed rather than heard a psychic shriek, as if something were in its death throes. Then as swiftly as they had stopped, the tyranids were in motion again — but this time there was little rhyme or reason to their actions. They moved in all directions, as if the guiding intelligence were gone. The smaller creatures seemed as insensate as beasts. The larger things appeared to straggle to control them. The relentless firing of their human opponents continued to take its toll, and this time, bereft of the unifying presence of whatever had dwelled within the machine, they turned and fled, scattering in all directions.