‘We can argue about it all you like,’ said Drake. ‘But you are the one bound and treated like a beast.’
‘I will make you die a thousand painful, agonising deaths. You will beg for the sweet release of oblivion a thousand times, and I will say no.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Drake, an adult listening to the threats of a child. ‘Of course, you will. In the meantime, you will answer all the questions put to you truthfully and to the best of your ability, otherwise you will not live to carry out your threats.’
‘I do not fear death,’ Bael said.
‘No. You would welcome it now. Still, you will find it difficult to carry out threats with your limbs removed.’
It was the eldar’s turn to laugh, at least I assumed that was what the mad, random sound the translation engine emitted was. ‘Limbs can be regrown. Bodies can be rebuilt.’
A frown flickered across Drake’s face. ‘Yes. Of course, they can. Your haemonculi can do that.’
‘You can pick the image from my mind, human, but you have no idea what the reality of it is.’
Drake concentrated. ‘They could regrow you even from a simple cell, from the genetic helix if they could find it. Fascinating.’
Grimnar tilted his head to one side. ‘Is that true?’
‘This creature believes it is. More than that it believes, really believes, that the genetic sorcerers can restore its life and memories from as little as that.’
‘Then they must be very different from humanity,’ said Macharius. ‘Such a thing is not possible, memories stored in the genetic helix.’
‘We are different, human,’ said Bael. ‘Different and infinitely superior.’
‘Infinitely more arrogant perhaps,’ said Macharius. ‘Or infinitely more deluded.’
‘You will die in agony, human. You will see who is deluded then.’
‘Why are you here?’ Macharius asked.
‘I am here because I follow Lord Ashterioth.’
‘And why is he here?’
‘He does not tell me his plans.’
‘No,’ Drake said, ‘But you eavesdrop on him. I can see it in your mind. You eavesdrop on his conversations with your listening devices. You decrypt his personal journals. You spy.’ He sounded interested. ‘And not just for yourself or by yourself. Your lover spies as well. Lady Sileria.’
‘It does not sound as if they trust each other very much,’ said Macharius.
‘The eldar are treacherous creatures,’ said Drake.
‘We put our own interests first. As you would, if you had intelligence above the apes you are descended from.’
‘Why is this Lord Ashterioth here?’ Macharius asked. He clearly wanted to know very badly. Bael clamped his lips shut. He did not want to speak. Once again tendons stood out on his neck. His muscles spasmed. This time he succeeded, or so it appeared for a few long moments.
‘He seeks something,’ said Drake.
‘Get out of my head, mon-keigh. Your presence pollutes me.’
‘Where is the Fist of Demetrius?’
‘The what?’ There was a mocking tone in the eldar’s voice despite his pain.
‘You know it. You see its image in your mind. I have put it there.’
‘Ashterioth has it. It fascinates him.’
‘Why?’ Macharius asked. Grimnar leaned forwards, straining to hear. Given his senses, he did not need to. He was as keen as Macharius to learn the eldar’s purpose.
The eldar laughed. The sound was mechanical and insane, and there was something mocking in it.
‘What would they do with a relic of the primarch?’ Grimnar asked. ‘It can mean nothing to them.’
Drake frowned. Sweat ran down his forehead. Blood poured from his nose. The eldar made odd gurgling sounds. He was chewing on his tongue.
‘He tries to shield himself,’ Drake said. ‘He tries to escape into death.’
The nimbus of light around his head made his skin seem even more pale than usual. His lean face took on the aspect of a skull. The eldar screamed and went on screaming until his screams abruptly stopped.
‘It is dead,’ said Grimnar.
‘No matter,’ said Drake. ‘I have seen some of what he tried to hide.’
His voice sounded appalled.
‘What is it?’ Macharius asked.
‘They are not here for the Fist.’
‘It would not serve them. Its holy power would not aid the xenos. The Allfather would not allow it,’ said Grimnar.
‘They want the Fist because they think there will be samples of Russ’s tissue in it, part of his genetic rune structure, part of his helix.’
‘What good would that do them?’ Grimnar asked.
Macharius grasped it before any of us. ‘Because they believe they can rebuild a living being from a sample of its tissue.’
‘Recreate a primarch,’ Grimnar said. His voice held a note of wonder mingled with horror. He was obviously contemplating the possibility of the return of the founder of his Chapter. ‘That would be blasphemy. From the primarchs are all the Chapters descended, or so the skalds sing.’
‘It would be worse than blasphemy,’ said Drake. ‘They will sample his tissue and create abominations from it, add it to their own tissue, make monsters with semi-divine power.’
‘Why would they want to do that?’ I said. ‘They despise us.’
No one seemed inclined to take me to task for my outburst. Grimnar answered slowly and calmly.
‘The primarchs had more power than any living being save for the Emperor himself. They believe that they will be able to recreate the secret of that power and be able to graft it to themselves.’
‘Is such a thing possible?’ Macharius asked.
‘I do not know, but the eldar believed it was, and he knew more about their alien techniques than any of us.’
‘The eldar with the power of a primarch, even a fraction, would be terrible foes,’ said Grimnar.
I thought that was a remarkable understatement. The idea of the cruellest race in the galaxy wielding the power of the most powerful beings who had ever lived, beings powerful enough to awe a Space Marine, was an appalling one.
‘We cannot allow that to happen,’ said Macharius. ‘The Fist must not be allowed to remain in their grasp.’
‘Better to destroy it first,’ said Grimnar in the voice of a man forced to contemplate the most heinous blasphemy.
‘We must get rid of this body. Destroy it utterly,’ said Drake. ‘Bathe it in acid or burn it with lasguns until not the slightest trace remains.’
It sounded as if he feared the xenos’s return as much as he feared the eldar’s plan for the Fist. Given what he had done, and given the nature of the creatures that was understandable.
‘You said the eldar were not here for the Fist,’ said Macharius. He was not one to allow himself to be distracted even by so horrible a prospect.
‘No, they are here for the gate that exists beneath the temple complex. They are waiting for it to open.’
‘Why?’ Macharius asked.
‘Beyond it lies some relic of their ancestors, a device of enormous power.’
‘A weapon?’
‘I fear so.’
‘Can they really recreate a saint?’ Anton asked. We were alone in our chamber now. Macharius had retired with Drake and Grimnar and his senior officers to plot. We had done our duty for the day.
‘Drake seems to think so,’ I said.
‘Surely the Emperor would not allow it.’
‘Who knows what the Emperor would allow. The galaxy is strange.’
‘But surely Russ would never serve them,’ Anton said.
‘Perhaps they could change him during the process of rebuilding,’ I said. ‘You heard what the inquisitor said, who knows what they are capable of.’
‘It is blasphemy, the Space Wolf is right,’ said Ivan.
Anton looked excited. ‘Who would ever have thought when we signed on with the Imperial Guard we would end up among the relics of t
he time when the Emperor walked among men.’
‘Let’s hope we don’t end up as relics ourselves,’ I said. The words were no sooner out of my mouth when alarms sounded. Drake and Macharius and the others emerged from the command room.
‘Ready yourself,’ Drake said. ‘The gate is opening.’
Another alarm sounded. ‘And the eldar are attacking,’ Macharius said. ‘They will be here soon.’
‘The timing is not a coincidence,’ Drake said.
I did not need him to tell me that.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I stood on the side of the Baneblade, leaning out from behind the turret, and studied the heights surrounding the valley. It had been a long night. The eldar mounted one attack after another: swift, subtle, constantly probing. There were feints within feints, swift strikes from one side of the valley followed by sudden retreats which coincided with advances from the other.
They never let up their attacks. A strike was always incoming from somewhere. It seemed to be their intention to never let us rest. It was a war of nerves, which they were well equipped to win because they enjoyed it, like cats playing with mice.
Sometimes they fled or appeared to, and our troops followed them from our lines, only to have the eldar turn on them and cut them down. Other times they retreated slowly, inviting pursuit all the way to the surrounding hills. Macharius forbade it, of course, not wishing our forces to be drawn into a trap, but sometimes his orders were disobeyed in the excitement of the moment, or obeyed too late, and casualties ensued. And worse than casualties…
The sun rose above the mountains. The attacks had suddenly ceased, and we had just enough time to breathe a sigh of relief when the screaming started. It drifted down from the heights, the sound of men begging and pleading for mercy, amplified by some unnatural means so that we could make out every mutter, wheeze and prayer. The strangest thing was that we never heard the voices of the victims’ tormentors. Whatever alien technology broadcast our comrades’ agony to us, it did not pick up the eldar’s words at all.
‘They don’t have much of a sense of humour, do they?’ said Ivan. He was trying to make a joke about it, but there was tension in his voice.
‘They are trying to break our morale,’ said Anton. ‘To make us doubt ourselves and our commanders.’
‘Maybe,’ I said.
‘Maybe?’
‘Maybe they just enjoy doing this. Maybe it’s how they amuse themselves between fights. Maybe they just want to frighten us. They feed on fear and pain. You heard what Bael said.’
‘I am starting to wonder why we came here,’ said Anton. He was trying too hard to sound casual. His face was pale and he kept licking his lips. He scanned the slopes with the sniper rifle. He caught sight of something and nodded; he stopped swivelling the barrel, licked his lips and squeezed the trigger ever so gently. Somewhere on the slope, a figure dropped. Anton grunted in satisfaction.
‘Got the bastard.’ I wondered how he had done it. After all, one of those helmets had almost withstood a direct hit at close range.
I hadn’t realised I had spoken aloud until Anton replied. ‘You don’t aim for the head. There are weak spots in the armour at the joints, at the armpits, at the throat. If you hit them there you hurt them. I’m not saying you’ll kill them this way, mind, but you will hurt them. Let’s see how they like a taste of their own medicine.’
There was a viciousness in his voice I had never heard before, and a fear greater than anything I had ever seen in him before, although it was still under control. Like any veteran soldier, Anton was used to being scared. He just would not let it get the better of him. It was the viciousness that was worrying me, though. It seemed the longer we faced the eldar, the more they brought out elements of their character in us. I wondered if it were some sort of evil magic, but then I realised it was simply that as fear begets fear, cruelty begets cruelty. The eldar were easy to hate as well as fear.
Was it possible that if we stayed here long enough and survived we would become like them? You hear stories of such things whispered sometimes, of troops who face Chaos worshippers becoming Chaos worshippers in the end. Perhaps evil is contagious, like a disease. If it were so, the eldar across there would definitely be plague carriers.
Well if that were the case, Macharius was a surgeon, I thought. I hoped he was getting ready to carry out an operation.
The defensive perimeter had been reconfigured. It formed a wedge now, centred on the main temple, which Macharius had chosen to use as his base. Units were being moved within it, to counter the threat of any eldar emerging from the depths. The men moved decisively to obey their instructions, but there was a nervousness to them.
We stood on the roof of the temple and watched the action. Lightning strike fighters raced overhead to strafe the eldar position. Strange bat-winged eldar vehicles rose to meet them, and a dogfight erupted overhead as some of the Imperial fighters peeled off to defend the ground attack planes and the eldar sought to get on their tails. We cheered as the fighter-bombers delivered their payloads of death.
One by one, the fights broke up into individual duels as the craft raced out of sight along the mountain valleys, leaving only jet contrails and the thunderous roar of their engines as evidence they had passed.
At least we had some air cover, I thought, and they were making sorties. One by one, the eldar vehicles returned to their base, wherever that was. No human planes came into sight, and I had no idea whether they survived or not. Such is the soldier’s eye view of war. You catch fragments of a bigger picture, but not enough to comprehend it all. See things that pose questions that are never answered. Witness deaths that may be meaningless or heroic, but you never know at the time.
Just as those thoughts went through my mind, I saw another massive wave of eldar swarming over the ramparts, probing into our lines.
‘Time to get back inside,’ said Anton. ‘It looks like our services may soon be needed.’
‘Indeed.’
I heard the roar of heavy weapons outside the temple. The sound echoed down the chamber a fraction of a second after I heard the faint noise from Macharius’s headset. The battle seemed to have hit a new height of frenzy. Looking at the intricate patterns on the command tables it was impossible to tell who was winning. The eldar had penetrated our outer perimeter. Our lines were collapsing and our men were in retreat. Huge holes in our defences let them punch through. I wondered if, for the first time, I were about to witness Macharius lose a battle. Given the nature of our foes this would be a bad time for it.
Macharius gave clipped orders in response to reports from field commanders. I had no idea what was going on, but he clearly did. As ever he had the whole battlefield held in his mind and was able to build a clear picture of what was going on from mere fragments of information and supposition. The approach of danger did not faze him.
He looked up, glanced at us and said, ‘Hold yourself in readiness. The xenos are about to hit this section of the temple.’ I wondered how he could be so controlled under the circumstances.
Victory is mine. We have penetrated their lines. In orbit, my fleet is slowly overwhelming the enemy vessel. My forces sweep through the gaps they have punched in the enemy’s defences. They have almost reached the temple complex that this Macharius has made his headquarters. Hopefully they will capture him, and I will be able to have a few words before I feast upon his essence. All the signs point to the fact that the Gate of Ancients is about to open. I have timed everything to perfection, as ever.
Even as the joy of victory burns in my mind, a few small things niggle at me. Where are the Space Marines? Only hours ago they were hunting my force through the corridors, engaged in a bloody war of attrition. Now they are nowhere to be found. Could it be they have sensed the coming defeat and fled the field of battle?
No matter, I will hunt them down later. Now it is time to make my way to the gate. Later there will be time to celebrate this victory properly.
We checked o
ur weapons again. Anton’s throat bulged nervously as he swallowed. He was clearly not delighted by the prospect of getting to grips with the eldar again. I could not blame him for it.
Drake looked at us and said, ‘Stay close to me.’
‘As long as you stay close to him,’ Ivan said, nodding in the direction of Macharius. If his tone upset the inquisitor, Drake gave no sign. He merely smiled coldly.
At that moment something ricocheted across the room and took one of the Lion Guard in the throat. He fell gasping, his skin turning pale, his mouth open in a silent scream.
Macharius took one last look at the tactical display and gave a series of orders, with quick, clipped commands. Clearly he intended to go down fighting till the bitter end.
A group of xenos bounded in, with gravity-defying grace. Their shots took out a target every time they aimed. I tipped a table end over end and dived behind it, stuck my head up and aimed my shotgun at where I had last seen one of the eldar. It was not there. Looking up I saw it descending from above me. I rolled onto my back and pulled the trigger of the shotgun. The blast caught the eldar on the chest and lifted it upwards. It had not killed it, though. It swung its weapon to bear on me.
Anton’s rifle spoke from nearby and a heavy calibre shell put a huge dent in the xenos’s helmet. It did not penetrate it, but I doubted it had done the alien much good. The bullet must have driven part of the armour through the eldar’s skull. It twisted head over heels and landed in a sprawl across another map table.
Macharius strode through the carnage, firing his bolt pistol while giving orders into his mouthpiece. He did not let the swirl of melee around him distract him from taking charge of the battle. The screams of the dying, the muzzle-flare of weapons, the presence of death hovering at his shoulder did not break his concentration. If anything they seemed to make him more focused as if something in him drew strength from the carnage all around him.
I glanced around to make sure there were no eldar closing with him, then gave my attention back to my surroundings. The remaining eldar had gone down while I was looking elsewhere. Macharius stood over the corpse of one, blood covering his armour, brains splattering his shoulderguard. None of it belonged to him.