Fist of Demetrius

Chapter Six

We moved squad by squad through the corridors. In the distance I could hear screams and the sounds of weapons being fired. I caught the scent of burning flesh and an odd spicy odour that I did not recognise at all. I saw no pattern. There was nothing I could grasp, only the random-seeming ebb and flow of combat.

Macharius kept giving out instructions, shooting and chopping as he went. Another wave of eldar came at us, more numerous and ferocious than the last.

‘Hold your ground,’ he shouted. ‘Reinforcements will soon be with us.’

I prayed he was correct. The eldar fought like daemons, slicing through companies of green-tunicked Guardsmen. These ones were different, even faster and more deadly than the previous bunch and possibly even more degenerately cruel.

I dreaded getting to grips with them. My wound still gave me a little pain, enough to slow me at a critical moment. If Macharius felt the same fear he gave no sign. He spoke calmly and, as if from nowhere, more squads threw themselves into the combat, catching the eldar in crossfires, pulling them down by sheer weight of numbers, for in the confined space their superior agility counted for less.

Something dropped from above me. I threw myself backwards and heard a scream as a blade pierced the chest of one of the other guards. Something blurred past me, hit the floor and bounced into an upright position, bringing a gun to bear on Macharius. Drake raised his hand and the air between the xenos and Macharius shimmered. The shots were deflected somehow. The xenos made an odd trilling sound that might have indicated frustration or perhaps some utterly alien emotion I would never grasp. I aimed the shotgun and pulled the trigger.

I would not have hit if the creature had not, for a heartbeat, stood frozen in place. Normally it would have been too eye-blurringly swift for me to draw a bead. The shotgun blast caught it on the back-plate of its armour, shattering it. Alien blood emerged from the cracks. The creature still would not die, though. It flipped backwards, moving towards me, as though it knew who shot it and was determined to get revenge. I pumped the shotgun and tried to get a fix on it.

Another shot clipped the eldar as it twisted through the air. It landed awkwardly. I saw Macharius standing behind it, still giving commands even as he squeezed off another shot. It caught the eldar in the back and sent it spinning. I could see Macharius had hit the weakened armour and torn through it. The eldar kept coming, slower now but still seemingly determined to kill me. I stepped to one side, hoping to be able to shoot from an angle where there was no danger of hitting Macharius or anybody on our side. It was almost at a distance to use its blade on me.

Ivan came barrelling towards it. It slashed at him but he deflected the blade with a sweep of his mechanical arm. Sparks flickered. Ivan twisted and caught the weapon between the bicep and forearm of his bionic limb. I stepped forwards and smashed the eldar on its helmet with the butt of the shotgun. It somehow sensed my presence and tried to twist to avoid being hit, but Ivan partially pinned it. There was a terrible crunch as my weapon connected with its helmet. The helmet did not break but the eldar flopped to the ground. I had broken its neck with the force of impact.

I was glad.

I bound along a corridor, cutting down another human. I peel away part of its cheek with my finger-blades then throw it into its companions, blood spouting to blind them. As they howl with rage and despair, I move among them, killing the ones I choose, crippling others, letting some live to wonder why they were spared. They do not wonder long as my personal guard overwhelms them. They lack my artistry, caring only for the pain they can inflict and devour. In a way they are as feeble-minded as the humans. What can they find to feast upon in the petty gobbets of pain they cause here? Granted, create sufficient havoc and you have a banquet of agonies, but it is chaotic and unrefined and lacks savour. My followers are gluttons not gourmands. Of course, that is why they are my followers.

I pass through an open bulkhead door into chambers that are luxuriously furnished in a primitive human fashion. I sense the Space Marine is close. The aura is stranger now that I can catch more of it, ancient and unliving. I glance around and locate the source. It comes from a gauntlet, pinned to a marble slab by some sort of restraining clamps, displayed as if deserving of reverence.

It is an ancient object, curiously fascinating. Unlike so much human work, there is a sense of craftsmanship about it, primitive but functional. There is a trace of the aura of ancient battles, of old bloodshed and pain, a tang unlike anything I have savoured before.

What is it doing here? It seems there are no Space Marines aboard this ship, after all. It has been guarded like a treasure and presumably it is worth something to the humans. More to the point, it may be worth something to me. I lift it and take it, passing it to one of my guard. As I do so I hear a warning come in over our comm-channels. It is from Jalmek, the pilot of my boarding craft.

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Is there a hint of gloating in Jalmek’s voice? I feel a sudden lurch in my stomach. The humans are mad enough to travel through the realm of the soul devourers. If I am still aboard the vessel when it makes the jump, all that I am will be lost to the ancient enemy of our kind.

For a moment, I picture Jalmek giving the order to pull away, leaving the attack force stranded in this most terrible of all predicaments. If that is the case, there is only one way to forestall such a fate: cripple the human ship’s engines before it can make the jump or take over its bridge and force the conclusion of the jump attempt that way.

I ask for reports from my sub-commanders. They are making progress towards their objectives but very slowly; too slowly. I consider ordering them all to concentrate on driving towards a single objective.

It might work – but then again the human commander has shown himself perfectly capable of understanding and responding to our attacks. He will merely regroup and concentrate his forces to prevent us from achieving our objective. He could slow us long enough to ensure we are trapped aboard the vessel while he makes the insane leap into the forbidden. Pure terror at that prospect begins to flare in my mind, the unreasoning fear that all eldar have of confronting She Who Thirsts.

We don’t have time. We don’t have time. The panic beats on my brain in waves. I am filled with the nauseating fear that we will be trapped aboard this primitive vessel as it makes its leap into the realm of madness; that our beacon-bright souls will attract the attention of the devourers.

The prospect of abandoning some of my bodyguard on the ship to achieve exactly this saunters into my mind. I imagine the fear of the stranded eldar and the fate of the humans as their vessel is warp-lost. It is a prospect not without appeal but I would not be there to enjoy it, and nothing would be more likely to spark a mutiny among my troops than the suspicion I had done this.

I bark out orders to begin the withdrawal. We will return to our ship and destroy this vessel at our leisure.

I sense disappointment among the stupider of my followers who wish to continue to fight and feast. The wiser heads understand the reason for my decision. I sketch an ironic farewell to the human commander in the air. Enjoy your petty victory while you can. It will be short-lived.

I take the gauntlet with me. It will be an interesting souvenir of this encounter.

I saw the body of one man, partially flayed, skin stripped away from his flesh to reveal muscle and vein. He was still alive, paralysed by poison but in terrible agony as the venom slowly destroyed his nervous system in the most painful way. In the heat of combat, amid the fury of battle, what sort of sentient being takes time out to torture a victim, to peel them like an epicure consuming a drugged black grape?

There were too many examples of that sort of thing for me to imagine that the first was simply an accident. The eldar killed in an unclean fashion, caused pain for the pure pleasure of it, showed no more regard for life than a small boy tormenting a garbage scuttler. There were times when it seemed they would rather torture than fight. No – it did not seem that way, it was that way. For the eldar, pain was like a drug to which they were addicted. They craved it the way a dried-out boozehound craves his next drink.

In the midst of chopping their way through a company of men, they would suddenly pause, stand stock-still save for their helmeted heads, which would swivel from side to side, surveying everything as serenely as a man inspecting a garden.

At such moments, if you glanced around, it appeared that there might even be a pattern in the way the corpses had fallen, some strange symmetry in the lie of the severed limbs on the floor and blood spatters on the walls. It sounds bizarre, but that’s the way it seemed to me; that if I looked long enough I might discern some sort of structure underlying the flow of carnage. I strongly suspected that I would no longer be sane as humans measure sanity if I did.

I race through the corridors, listening to the chatter of small pockets of our troops who have been cut off. They are surprised to find the tables turned on them. They are having difficulty in understanding that they are no longer the hunters but the hunted. They pay for their lack of swift understanding with their lives.

I bound along the corridor, using ceiling and walls as easily as floor, scouting ahead of my own troops, keen to get off the ship and begin cleansing the universe of these human vermin.

Even as I do so, I sense the presence of humans ahead of me, moving to close the gap. I smile. The human commander misses nothing. He must be supervising the battle as closely as I. He realises that things have turned, although I wonder if he realises why.

Up ahead I suddenly see a massive wall of armed men. It looks like I underestimated my foe. The force we had been fighting had been merely there to slow us down, while he assembled a small army to cut us off. The humans are flooding into the area where our ship had penetrated theirs. We are going to have to battle our way through. I speed forwards into the fray.

I aim a shot at the approaching humans, killing one. I dive into their midst, cartwheeling, kicking, slashing and shooting. The human leader may have planned for victory but he could not have planned for me. I unleash the full fury of my attack, in a way I so seldom do. A smile twists my lips as I bound among my targets, slaying every one with a stroke. Now is no time for artistry. We are mere minutes away from this ship making its jump. If we are to get away we must do so soon.

The remnants of my bodyguard smash into the human lines behind me. I have left very little for them to do. They merely have to kill the few humans that somehow squirmed beyond my reach. They do this with pleasure. Some of them are laughing. I wonder whether it is mirth or simply relief that they think we will be able to escape this craft before it makes the leap into the forbidden realms.

We fit ourselves into place as the boarding craft pulls away. Through the portholes I can see bodies being blown out into space as the air rushes into the vacuum, flesh already chilling. Some of the humans are still alive although not for much longer. I glance around and notice that we have some human faces among us. It seems some of my warriors have taken captives after all.

I am not as displeased as I ought to be. I am curious about the human who led this army. I have a few questions for them before they die.

And then suddenly it reached a climax. We advanced on the enemy. A horde of howling Guardsmen emerged from the side corridors, killing as they came. The eldar were suddenly caught between the hammer and the anvil.

Macharius had deployed our troops in such a way as to cut most of the eldar off from the hull breach they had been retreating towards. The corridors were packed with armed men, bristling with a density of weapons that was too much even for the xenos. Fast as they were they could not dodge every las-beam, there were simply too many of them; as well to try to dodge drops of rain in a typhoon. I think that then, at last, the eldar realised what had happened. I am not sure that even then they believed it. They seemed baffled.

Not that it mattered.

When they saw they could not escape they turned on us with a redoubled fury. Something had driven them to a frenzy of suicidal ferocity. The surviving eldar punched backwards towards us with the fury of daemons who know they are going to be destroyed and are determined to take as many victims to hell with them as they can. They came at us in great leaping bounds, weapons blasting, killing or crippling a man with every shot. Even then, at the last extremity, some of them could not resist causing pain rather than killing.

They charged across a junction, got caught in crossfire from both sides as well as from behind and from our position. It was a density of fire that Macharius had arranged. There was no way they could move through that blizzard of las-bolts without being hit. Their armour blistered and peeled and ran. They kept moving anyway, slowed perhaps by pain, but still determined to rampage and kill.

One reached us, slashing out with its long circular blades. It was shot in a dozen places, its beautiful, chitinous armour cracked and blistered. Its movements were slower than they had been but still almost too swift to follow. Macharius killed it with a blow and met its companion chainsword to blade. The teeth of his weapon screeched on the eldar’s carapace and one of those long inhuman limbs flew in a different direction from the body it had been attached to. The fallen eldar still stabbed a Guardsman, the reflexive killing stroke of a dying sand-scorpion. The man went down. I stepped away. It kept trying to roll closer, all grace gone, just a furious daemonic engine of death.

Anton blasted it with his sniper rifle, sending a heavy calibre slug right through the visor of the helmet. Even then it did not stop flailing its limbs until heartbeats later. Even in death it tried to claim another victim.

More eldar slammed into us, close combat weapons slashing at our men. Again blood spurted, bone was revealed, part of a lung flopped out from a ribcage that had been somehow sheared in two. I aimed the shotgun and pulled the trigger but my target simply was not there. In the time it had taken me to aim and pull the trigger it had sprung out of my line of fire and my shell passed beneath. A moment later it was poised in front of me. All I saw of its strike was a blur. I knew in that moment my death was on me.

I flinched, but the blow never connected. Macharius’s blade intercepted it. The eldar sprang back too fast for me to react but not too fast for the general. He followed it with a spring just as swift, and the xenos desperately tried to defend itself from a predator even more lethal than itself.

A second eldar was cleaving its way through our ranks when suddenly a bolt of strange lightning struck it, melting its helmet. A second later, Macharius had stepped forwards, chainsword in hand. There was a raucous screeching as the xenos’s armour gave way under the force of the impact. I noticed that Drake was standing behind Macharius then; it had been his psionic bolt that had taken the eldar down.

I took a quick glance around, looking for the last surviving eldar. It had realised what was going on now and was fleeing as fast as it could, moving swiftly through a glittering net of las-bolts, somehow managing to avoid the bulk of them while its armour shimmered and ran from the effects of the few that connected. Anton raised his sniper-rifle and sighted. His shot smashed into the eldar and it tumbled, still graceful, but hurt now. When it rose to its feet, some of its eerie grace had been leached away. Anton fired again and this time his shot hammered into its head. It fell flat. Some of us ran towards it.

‘Wait,’ said Macharius, his words coming out somewhere between a snarl and a shout. The men who had been moving forwards, led by Ivan, stopped and the Lord High Commander advanced. Once he was within reach the eldar struck, still almost too swift for the eye to follow. Macharius stepped to one side and decapitated it. I realised that the xenos, heavily wounded as it was, had been playing dead, hoping for some of us to come within reach so that it could take more victims with it. It would most likely have succeeded if Macharius had not been there.

I think they were overconfident those eldar, or we would have taken more casualties than we did. It seemed that not one of the Guardsmen wounded, no matter how lightly they were scratched, had survived. Macharius inspected the sword. A look of contempt flickered across his face.

‘Neurotoxins on the weapons,’ Macharius said. ‘Kill you painfully. Very painfully.’

I looked around and suddenly it was silent, one of those eerie moments you sometimes get on all battlefields, when just for an instant, by some strange coincidence, there are no weapons being fired, no screams echoing, no battle-cries pounding in your ears. The silence itself hisses and you are aware of your heart pounding and the taste of bile in your mouth, and you look around at your companions and you realise that they are all as pale-faced and wide-eyed as you, with that strange unblinking stare that the survivors always get when the thunder of battle has passed overhead and is gone.

It lasted only a few seconds and then everyone started to cheer, a release of tension that went on until we started to count the cost.