Fall of Macharius

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I went up through the hatch, unslinging my shotgun, feeling the warmed metal of the hull vibrate beneath my feet. I risked a glance around and saw more and more Leman Russ emerge at the top of the stairs. There were so many of them now that the entranceway was all but blocked. Behind the tanks, towers of flame leapt and danced, and clouds of oily smoke spiralled upwards towards the roof of the hive.

I looked around and saw that the ornamental pool held scummy, stagnant, diseased-looking water. It was greenish and clogged with algae. Obscenely fat, whitish, slug-like bodies floated in it. Most of them bore the exploded-from-the-inside look that I associated with bolter shells.

There were corpses everywhere. Every single one of them either had its head torn off or its skull destroyed by bolter fire. The Space Wolves were taking no chances of having their foes return from death to trouble them again. I suspected it was less because the thought bothered them than because they did not want to waste the time.

The palace might have been beautiful once. There was a lot of marble and a lot of statuary but the place was contaminated. That was the only word I could think of to describe it. Things were blotched by mould and covered in curtains of mucus. A statue raised both hands to the sky, a bolter held between them. Yellowish slime dripped from under its arms. Paintings on the walls were covered in a fur of whitish mould. Small things scuttled everywhere. They might have been rats, they might have been beetles or they might have been some unholy hybrid of both.

Who could dwell amid all of this, I wondered? No one sane.

Macharius jumped from the side of the tank and landed on the edge of the pool. He kept his balance like a great cat. I dropped after him, and my boots slipped on the slimy lip at the water’s edge and I almost tumbled in. I flailed my arms to keep my balance, somehow pulled myself upright and let myself drop to the ground. The thought of touching the polluted liquid made me shudder. Ivan dropped down from the side of the tank directly to the ground, which struck me as entirely more sensible.

Drake and the two members of his guard joined us. More troops moved up all around, taking cover where they could find it. Macharius moved over to one of the pillars to join Grimnar and his honour guard. The Space Wolf grinned at us, revealing his sharp fangs. He was not wearing a helmet or a rebreather here and seemed to feel no need for one.

‘Glad you could finally join us,’ he said. ‘These unbelievers are most unwelcoming towards the Allfather’s Chosen.’

‘This is where the traitor Richter is,’ Macharius said. ‘We shall find him.’

‘Of course, Lord High Commander,’ said the Space Wolf. ‘It will take more than a few thousand of these heretics to stop us.’

‘What have you found out so far?’

The Space Wolf indicated the mould on the wall with one armoured finger. With no squeamishness whatsoever he drew a swift map of the entrance hall and the surrounding area using his finger. Once he tilted his head to one side as if listening to something and then drew a swift correction. He was obviously picking up reports from his scouts still.

I studied the diagram. It was large and covered a score of rooms radiating out from our position. One large corridor ran ahead and it had chambers running off it. An x marked rooms that had been cleared; a large number of them marked the map.

Grimnar started another map, indicating the levels above us. He sketched in the balconies on which the heavy weapons were mounted and swiftly marked those destroyed as well. It looked like he had cleared the area overlooking the route we had taken into the palace even as we advanced. It was an astonishing feat considering how few warriors he had compared to the defenders.

‘The majority of the heretics were hardly fit to be counted as foes, more like target practice,’ he said and laughed. It was an eerie sound. I could not detect anything like human mirth in it although his face showed something of the expression of a man making a joke. ‘There are some present who appear much tougher than others. They have been changed.’

‘Changed?’ Drake asked.

‘They look diseased but in their cases their illness makes them stronger and faster and feel pain less. They show signs of mutation.’

‘Suffer not a mutant to live,’ said Drake.

‘Indeed. Though the stigmata these ones bear may be signs of their disease.’

‘You mean the plague within them causes mutation.’

‘It may be. I have encountered such things before among the worshippers of the Ruinous Powers. They shout the name of Nurgle as they fight and claim they are blessed even as we slay them.’

I saw Drake give a small shudder when the name Nurgle was mentioned. I knew why. The sound had the same effect on me. ‘The Father of Pestilence has this world in its grip.’

Grimnar tilted his head to one side, gestured extravagantly and showed the inquisitor a sardonic grin. ‘What gave it away?’

Drake stood up primly. He was not used to being mocked, but for all his power he was not fool enough to challenge one of the Emperor’s Chosen.

‘This is invaluable information,’ said Macharius. ‘What else can you tell us?’

‘Monsters roam the corridors deeper in the building. More mutant creatures like great plague-riddled slugs. Our most advanced scouts report encountering alchemical laboratories with tank-grown abominations. They have cleansed those with fire and chainsword.’

I did not like the picture Grimnar was painting with his words but there was nothing I could do about it. We were going to have to fight our way deeper into the building – that seemed certain – and we were going to find horrors there. I consoled myself with the thought that it would not be the first time, but it came to me then that I had always had men there with me at the time, Anton and others, who had seemed in some ways immortal. Now even Macharius had lost his aura of invincibility. The shadow of mortality hung over him.

‘Also, we have found some interesting altars,’ Grimnar said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It would be best if I showed you.’

We moved forward from the main entrance hall. The firing had slackened off as the heretic counter-attack faltered. We kept to the walls, picking our way through more headless corpses until we found the entrance to another chamber. This one was heaped with bodies and it was clear that the heretics had fought hard to keep it from the Space Wolves.

In the centre of the room was a massive altar. Great pipes ran from it to the walls. They had an organic look, as if they were alive. On the altar itself were numerous skulls, gilded with metal. They reminded me of the servo-skulls of Cardinal Septimus. Light flickered within their eyes. As we entered they spoke, emitting what sounded like curses in a language I did not understand. I wondered why the Space Wolves had not destroyed this accursed object. It did not seem like them to spare any obscenity created by the enemies of man.

We advanced into the room and I noticed there were Adeptus Astartes keeping guard at all of the entrances. They had quite obviously been stationed here and told to hold their position. Given how outnumbered Grimnar’s men were they must have thought this thing important. Drake rubbed his hands together like a man well pleased.

He said something in what sounded like the language the skulls were speaking and they responded as if to a catechism. ‘What is it?’ Ivan asked. Drake shot him a look, warning him to be silent, and kept speaking. This went on for long minutes. The inquisitor’s hands danced over the altar moving dials and pushing sliders. All the while an aura of psychic fire played around his head.

Macharius and Grimnar watched him. Their expressions gave nothing away, but I sensed a tension in the Lord High Commander. The Space Wolf looked interested, as if watching a show put on for his amusement.

The skulls’ chanting took on an aspect of horrific plainsong. Some of their voices seemed to gurgle, some were so high as to sound like screams. Eventually Drake said, ‘I have the key to the thing now. Richter is indeed here and so is the traitor.’

He returned to chanting and the air over the altar swirled as a holo-sphere came into being. It displayed a complex array of lines that I realised were a map of the palace. A blue area represented our position. A red area much deeper in the three-dimensional structure represented what I presumed was our target. Even as I watched it started to flicker and disintegrate, coming apart in lightning-like flickers and the smell of ozone. The singing skulls’ voices changed until they were static screeches, howls of the damned.

‘It seems someone objected to my intrusion,’ said Drake. ‘Did you get it?’

He looked at one of his bodyguards who nodded. ‘Yes,’ said Macharius.

Grimnar growled. ‘I could find my way there.’

I doubted I could have from the brief glimpse of the map and the route, but it seemed I did not need to. All that was required was that I follow those who did.

‘As can I,’ said Macharius. ‘Let us go and settle our scores and then leave this accursed place.’

Macharius formed us up in companies. Ivan and Drake and Grimnar went with him, surrounding him. I was also part of that select crew. The Space Wolves moved along in advance of us, scouting the ways. They moved along parallel corridors too, making sure we were not flanked.

We passed an elevator going down. Macharius did not even look at it. In combat it would be madness to take such a thing. They could be turned into death traps with very little effort. Instead we pressed on towards the first stairway. From up ahead we could hear the sounds of fighting.

The enemy must have known from the images Drake had conjured out of their data grid where we were headed. Heretics held the head of the stairs, lying down where they met the landing, providing as small a target as was possible.

Grimnar snapped off a command as well as a shot, and the heretic heads exploded. Guns skittered from their suddenly loosened grips. A grenade came arcing up the corridor towards us. Grimnar stepped forward, snapped it from the air and returned it to where it came with one throw. The resulting explosion sent gobbets of flesh flying.

A greenish cloud rose above the site of the explosion. I wondered whether it was a by-product of the grenade or from the bodies it had hit. The plague-infected corpses of previous battlefields were still on my mind.

‘There are other routes,’ Macharius said. ‘We can easily be bottle-necked if we take only one approach.’ He gave orders to the company commanders and sent them moving in the direction of different stairwells.

We moved down the stairwell, passing through the hovering green cloud. Bloated flies with chemically coloured thoraxes buzzed against the visor of my rebreather. There was a horrible glow in their eyes and pus dripped from their tails as if they contained poisoned stingers.

I slapped at one as it landed on my arm. The thing squelched, leaving a greenish stain on the cloth of my tunic. I heard a man gasp and turned to see one of the Lion Guard clutching at his arm. He looked as if he had been stung.

Drake raised his arms. An aura of fearsome power crackled around his head. He gestured and a wave of force erupted from his fists. Suddenly small orbs of greenish-yellow light blazed in the air. The flies burst and splattered with a strange frying sound.

‘Who was stung?’ Drake asked. Half a dozen Guardsmen replied in the affirmative. Drake’s eyes narrowed and he stepped over to the nearest. He gestured to one of his guards, who produced a blade and sliced at the man’s tunic. The man’s pale skin was blotched and where the insect had stung him was already starting to swell. Drake indicated again and his bodyguard sliced at the swelling. A small amount of yellowish pus bled out. ‘Dress it,’ he told the affected soldier and moved along the line. ‘Anyone else who was affected should do the same thing.’

There was something about his voice that brooked no argument. I saw men begin to slice at their own flesh through their tunics.

‘What is it?’ Macharius asked. He kept his voice low but I was close enough to hear.

‘Those flies were contaminated and their venom was too. Draining it may help.’

I did not like the way he said it. His tone made it sound as if he thought the victims were already dead. His bodyguards studied the wounded as if considering killing them. I am sure if Drake had given the command they would have.

We followed the stairs down. Grimnar went in the lead. I followed him and then Ivan. Macharius, Drake and his bodyguards remained close behind. My skin crawled as we went down. One grenade might take out all of us. Perhaps Grimnar with his superhuman reflexes and his ceramite armour might survive. I was pretty certain the rest of us would not.

My heart thumped against my ribs as we reached the foot of the stairs. We looked out into a hall, at least a kilometre on either side and with a ceiling perhaps twenty metres high. Glass tanks lined the walls and in each, attached to the walls by an umbilical, floated bodies. They were not corpses. Each was the size of a full-grown adult man. Some had no skins, and flesh and muscle were visible for all to see. Some were still growing stomachs or hearts or internal organs.

It looked as if this was the place where Richter was growing his soldiers.

The floor of the hall was covered in more huge tanks, all filled with greenish fluids. The aisles between them were as wide as roads. In the tanks more bodies floated. These ones looked nearer completion. They had skin and features and as we walked by them their heads turned and their pinkish eyes followed us. I was reminded of the soldiers we had fought on the battlefields near Skeleton Ridge, but these warriors were larger and their faces were more wicked. There was a malign intelligence in their eyes, as if something ancient and evil looked out through them. I told myself I was imagining things but it was hard not to feel a shiver of suppressed nervousness when I passed them.

Hands reached out as I did so. White palms pressed flat against armourglass and I knew that, if they could, those floating figures would gladly have grabbed me and strangled me. As it was their hands and feet made constant slow bumping sounds as we passed them.

I felt the urge to turn the shotgun on the tank and shoot but I resisted. The pellets might not be able to break the armourglass and we would all be caught in the ricochet. And something whispered in my mind that being touched by that greenish fluid would be very unwise should the glass break.

The company spread out, moving along the aisles between the tanks. I kept close to the Lord High Commander. I made sure the shotgun was always pointing more or less directly along the aisles, not wanting to risk the consequences of me being right about the tanks.

Over each tank were metal pipes that obviously fed chemical supplies into the fluid. Walkways ran along the side of the pipes and every so often ladders led up to them. I kept looking upwards, fearing that they would make a good site for an ambush.

We passed a junction between aisles still following the route Macharius had mapped out for us in his head. Grimnar sniffed the air and looked up. I followed his glance and saw a heretic lift himself up from the top of the overhead pipes and raise something in his hand. He got no further before Grimnar shot him.

Warned by some instinct I turned my head to the walkway on the other side. More figures were rising there. Most of them held bolt pistols or autoguns but one of them had raised his arm as if about to throw a grenade. I lifted the shotgun and pulled the trigger, sending him tumbling backwards. Screaming and kicking he splashed down into one of the tanks. There was a muffled explosion and green liquid gouted upwards into the air. The pressure of the blast cracked and splintered the glass. Snot-coloured fluid spilled forth onto the floor.

I raced to the nearest ladder, slung the shotgun and pulled myself up towards the pipes.

A hail of fire descended from above and was met by a response from the Lion Guard. It all sounded incredibly loud in my ears. I clambered upwards, rung by rung, hoping that everyone else was too focused on the firefight to notice me.

The people on the pipes I was climbing towards could not see me in my current position, but all it would take would be for one of them to lean outwards. The heretics on the opposite side had a clear shot at my back. I felt a constant crawling sense of anticipation between my shoulders. At any moment I expected to feel a surge of pain in my back and then experience a swift fall into oblivion.

I resisted the temptation to take a look over my shoulder. It would do me no good and I needed to put all my effort into the climb. I counted rungs. Nine, ten, eleven. The itch between my shoulders became almost unbearable.

Twelve, thirteen. I was almost at the top. A shot clattered off the pipe near me. I felt something sting the skin of my arm but I did not let it distract me. I pulled myself up once more, looked over the edge of the pipe and found myself exchanging glances with a green-faced corpse. Its skin was marked with boils and blotches. Pus leaked from its eyeballs, oddly discoloured blood from a sucking wound in its chest. I glanced along the walkway and saw nothing but corpses there. They had tumbled from the pipe above.

I pulled myself onto the walkway and my boot squelched on the dead body that had first met my gaze.

I kept my head down and tried to keep out of the line of fire of my comrades on the ground. I unslung the shotgun, took a deep breath, tried to calm my racing heart and sprung upright, half expecting to get my head blown off. I saw more cultists along the top of the pipe. Some had fallen. Some of them were crouching. Some were snapping off shots.

They were ugly men with strange reddish eyes. They wore no rebreathers or protective masks and their skin was covered in abscesses, warts and boils. They bore the marks of a dozen different diseases and yet appeared to feel no ill effects from most of them.

One or two of them moved oddly, like men whose coordination was impaired. Some of them bled from large wounds, but that did not seem to slow them down.

One of them had lost the fingers of one hand, not to our gunfire but to what looked like para-leprosy. His nose was gone too, leaving an empty crater in the middle of his face. From the way he shouted orders, he seemed to be the leader. That made him an instant and obvious target.

I lifted the shotgun and pulled the trigger. Half-hand threw himself off the pipe and into space. My shot missed him and cut through the heretics standing behind. I pumped the shotgun, pulled the trigger again and cut down a few more.

Half-hand landed below me. His legs gave way as if broken and still he gave no sign of feeling any pain. It was as if every nerve in his body were dead. He pulled himself up and swung his pistol to bear on Macharius. The general was faster and blew his head to smithereens with a single shot.

The rungs of the ladder creaked below me. Something massive catapulted overhead. Grimnar had joined me on the walkway. He ran along, shooting and cleaving with his chainsword. Nothing could stop him. Shots puffed up around his feet and pinged off his armour, threatening to overbalance him, and still he moved on.

I glanced around and saw enemies firing at him from the top of the facing pipe. I blasted them while their attention was distracted and I was glad it was. I did not have the Space Wolf’s armour or his eye-blurring speed to protect me, and the guard-rails of the walkway would provide me with no cover.

I was lucky. I managed to take out half a dozen of the enemy fighters while my comrades climbed up the ladder on the opposite side. I could see there were not more than twenty of the enemy there. Judging by the screams there were few of the heretics left on my side of things. Grimnar was seeing to that.

I looked down and saw a web of cracks had appeared in the armourglass of the great tank. Macharius was already clear, along with Drake and his guards, when the glass gave way. The greenish fluid and shards of crystal sprayed over our nearby troops.

Men screamed, flesh gouged by translucent shrapnel. Some of them shrieked oddly. Some of them tore off their masks. Viscous slime stained their faces and dripped from their rebreathers. It looked like the fluid had found its way in through badly adjusted mouthpieces or impaired filters and the side effects looked anything but pleasant.

I looked around for Ivan, hoping that he was not numbered among the fallen. I caught no sight of him until I looked up at the opposite ramp and saw him there. His bolt pistol was in his hand and he was snapping off shots. He looked as strange and ungainly as the cultists without his bionic arm but its absence did not slow him.

I heard more screams below and looking down saw that some of the white bodies that had been in the tank were flopping towards our troops. They moved with a malevolent mindfulness that suggested that they had been aware of what was going on the whole time. They clutched at men’s ankles, and slowed them down. When men fell, they went for the throat with their blotched teeth.

Grimnar had cleared my section of the piping now. I could not fire into the melee below with the shotgun, so I advanced along the walkway behind the Space Wolf, took aim at the enemy across the gap and pulled the trigger. The shotgun kicked and cultists died. I took another step and fired again. In short order the ambush site was cleared.

Below us were more casualties, from enemy fire, from the splintered tanks, from the newborn monsters. It did not stop us though. We continued our advance through the hall.

The place seemed endless, lit with a daemonic emerald glow, filled with the bubbling sound from the life-vats and the gurgling of chemicals through the pipes. There were more ambushes and more killing but we were ready for them now, and fell into the rhythm of clearing them.

As we neared the exit from the hall, I heard screaming again behind me.