Fist of Demetrius

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Men crunched stimm tabs and stood tense and ready. Macharius studied the terrain around the one surviving, untouched tower and gave orders for our approach. All around, the strange ruins loomed out of the darkness: broken buildings, defaced by the worshippers of daemons; broken remnants of temples to xenos gods, looted and defiled by their enemies; shattered stumps of starscrapers that once must have touched the stone skies of this odd place.

Squad by squad, fire team by fire team, we rolled forwards, each standing unit prepared to give covering fire to the ones moving around it. We were doing what we had been trained to do, and we were doing it under the eyes of our highest commander. It settled us down in that alien landscape surrounded by alien artefacts. I think it gave us a sense that we still somehow had some control over our own destiny.

Any soldier who has ever been in the chaos of battle will tell you how illusory that sense is, and yet it is important too. It is one of the things that make us human, this need to feel that somehow, in some way, we have some say in what happens to us, some feeling that we may have influence on our destiny.

No matter how illusory that proves to be.

It is both better and worse than I had hoped. The machine of the ancients stands before me. It is still functioning, but it looks as though it has been warped by the influence of Chaos. This means it may not function in the way it is supposed to, may be twisted to the purposes of She Who Thirsts.

I am faced with a maddening choice, to attempt to use the device and perhaps be destroyed or to turn my back on it and attempt to leave this place through the horde of waiting enemies.

Over the communications channels, I can hear the chatter that tells me how the battle is going. My warriors are selling their lives dearly but, one by one, they are falling to the superior numbers of our bestial enemies. I have not come all this way just to be slain by mon-keigh.

I lay my hands on the control altar and let them flicker over the complex runes of the initiation sequence. Now I will find out if those ancient books lied.

We pushed on deeper into the city, and every step of the way we came under attack. We were fired upon from the balconies overhead by foes who disappeared as swiftly as they attacked. At first we were unsure whether the attacks came from one eldar moving very swiftly or a group of them. It was hard to tell. Fear of the almost invisible foe multiplied their numbers. The advantage lay with them, for they attacked at will and vanished as they pleased, leaving us to count our casualties.

Macharius stood close to Drake, and Drake was surrounded by his bodyguard. They appeared all too willing to throw themselves between the inquisitor and certain death. I stayed as close as I could, and Anton and Ivan likewise. Being within the radius of the inquisitor’s shield seemed like the only slight protection available against our merciless foes.

Macharius frowned now. He was not a man who enjoyed the sensation of being powerless, of waiting for death to come to him, but there was very little he could do. We had the numbers, but our foes refused to meet us on terms where those would do any good.

Another burst of fire struck from balconies and side corners, and by the time anyone could react, the shooters were gone. With their superior reflexes and greater speed and mobility, the xenos were mocking us.

It began to get dark. In places the ever-burning gemstones of the eldar were dull. Their fire was gone. Either the xenos, with their greater understanding of the working of these things had dimmed them, or the systems were replicating the day/night cycle from before the cataclysm that had depopulated the city. In either case, the effect was the same. It gave the eldar more places to hide, made them more difficult to spot. The city was full of darkness, and in the darkness the eldar waited.

Sometimes we heard screams behind us, and reports filtered up the chain. They always signified the same thing. A man had gone missing. Always an outlier of the group. His comrades had turned their head for a moment, or he had lagged slightly behind, and the next moment he was gone, spirited away. Moments later the screams would begin. If squads were sent to investigate the screams receded away from them, as though the victim were being carried and tortured at the same time. The screams were the same hideous, pained yells that had haunted us back in the valley, signifiers that the xenos were feasting on human agony. Invariably, the teams sent to investigate would need to be recalled before they drifted out of sight and into the inevitable trap.

Macharius did what he could. Squads moved up to junctions and swept them carefully to make sure they were clear. Other squads moved by. The men were ordered to remain in close formation, not to let anyone get out of sight. Squads were left on overwatch in locations that commanded sweeping views of the surrounding streets. They saw nothing. It was as if the eldar knew where they were and how to avoid them.

In our long, slow progress towards the tower, it felt as though we were going to be picked off one by one, and dragged down into a hell of burning nerve ends and torture. I am sure that was on all our minds.

‘I wish the bastards would show themselves,’ said Anton. ‘Then we’d see how long they’d last.’ He slapped the barrel of the sniper rifle meaningfully.

‘They’re working on our nerves,’ I said. ‘Trying to demoralise us and slow us down.’

‘Why would they do that?’ Anton asked.

‘Because they have not found what they are looking for yet, and are trying to keep us away, most likely.’

Macharius tilted his head to one side as if I had just worked out something he had not expected me to be able to. Encouraged, I continued to speak. ‘They know that if we get there, we have the numbers to overpower them and keep them from what they want.’

‘The Fist is in there,’ said Drake, pointing to the tower. It was directly ahead of us now.

Macharius nodded. We began to move towards the tower, across the plaza surrounding it. The hundred strides across open ground felt like the longest of my life. Every moment, I expected eldar weapons to send death scything my way. It took an effort of will to keep my pace down to that of the squad, and I suspected it was the same way for every man there. It was probably easier for me than many of them since I was with Macharius and Drake and had little option but to stay with them. The others might have been tempted to lengthen their strides and shorten the distance.

The entrance to the tower loomed before us like the gaping maw of a daemon-god, ready to swallow anyone who went in. I could not help but feel that there was something wicked waiting inside for us, that we had been allowed to cross the open ground and enter the building because it was a well-prepared trap.

Nonetheless, I went through the door first, shotgun held ready. I was in a massive atrium, at the centre of which was what appeared to be a fountain. At its heart was something that had once been some sort of water spirit but was now reshaped with crab-like claws and the leering face of a lascivious daemon. Dangling from one of those claws was an eldar. I looked up. Balcony after balcony rose within the atrium. I could see one of those had been shattered, and it looked perfectly possible that the eldar corpse had fallen through it at the break point and dropped into the daemon woman’s outstretched claw. Indeed it looked almost deliberate.

‘Grimnar has been here,’ said Drake. Macharius narrowed his eyes.

‘Down!’ he roared, throwing himself to one side. A hail of fire slashed through the air where he had stood and took out one of Drake’s storm trooper bodyguards. Another of them screamed in agony. The inquisitor stood in the centre of the hail of shots untouched, a nimbus of light playing around him. Prompted by instinct I rolled over to where he stood. A faint tingling flickered across my skin as I entered the globe of his sphere of protection.

Something dropped from a balcony above us. I had just time to catch sight of the eldar. It had a blade in each hand. It had realised that Drake was immune to its ranged weapons and it intended to finish him close up. It had probably decided, quite correctly under the circumstances, that he was the greatest threat among its enemies.

I raised the shotgun and snapped off a shot at almost point-blank range. The force of the blast sent the eldar bobbing upwards. Most of its weight must have been neutralised by some sort of suspensor system. Either that or the eldar and its armour were both much lighter than they looked. Still, even wounded, the xenos sent one of its blades flashing towards me. Instinctively, I raised the shotgun and the blade clattered off its barrel. The eldar, wounded, was already arching its back and flipping down into a new landing position. It had a pistol of a strange, long-barrelled sort in its hand.

Another shot rang out. Anton fired his sniper rifle. By all rights he should have hit the eldar, but it was no longer where he had aimed. It was somersaulting away, back through one of the entrances to the chamber, too fast for any of us to catch. A storm of las-bolts and pistol fire erupted around it, but it jinked and weaved so swiftly that I would take oath that nothing hit it. By the time we reached the entrance to the chamber into which it had vanished, it was gone.

Three men were already dead. Another two died soon afterwards of their poisoned wounds. From somewhere in the distance we heard what sounded like mocking laughter but might just have been random static generated by a translation engine.

More and more of our men filtered into the building. They stepped around the corpses and glanced warily into the shadows. Like me, they could see now how it was going to be. We would seek the eldar through this haunted building, unsure who was hunter and who was prey.

Suddenly, close by, I heard a distinctive sound: the explosive impact of a bolter shell on armour. I heard a scream that was not human, and from the shadows Grimnar emerged. He looked like hell. His armour was chipped and dented, and the paintwork had flaked away. Fresh blood had splattered on his face and gauntlets and chestplate. None of it belonged to him. In his hand, he held the severed head of a female eldar. His face looked savage and feral and inhuman. His eyes were slitted. His mouth was twisted in a mirthless grin that was terrifying to see, and yet, from his manner, I had the sense that he was enjoying himself, was doing the thing he had been born to do, performing his duties in the service of his Allfather.

‘Well met,’ he said.

‘Well met,’ said Macharius. The Space Wolf lifted the head.

‘This is one of the ones who have been dogging your steps. There is only one left now.’

So few, I thought. So few of them had pinned down our entire force and caused ten times that number of casualties. It was a terrifying thought. At least there was one less of them now.

‘Where are the rest?’ Macharius asked.

‘In the tower. Their leader is there.’

‘I am surprised you are not,’ said Macharius.

‘They are tough,’ Grimnar said. The tone of his voice was grudging. He did not like making that admission. I realised that the xenos must be truly superhuman for him to describe them in such a way. ‘You are here now. We have a better chance together. Some of us must survive to take back the Fist.’

I could see that too was an admission that went against the grain. In my mind’s eye, I had seen the Space Wolves as snarling, berserker warriors, throwing themselves into battle with a howled war cry and a reckless disregard for their lives. Odd as it may sound I had not expected anything like this realistic tactical assessment. I don’t know why – even astonishingly powerful as they were, Space Marines would not be useful to the Emperor if they were not capable of reading a battlefield.

‘You’ve been inside,’ Macharius said. It was not a question. Grimnar nodded.

‘There is a vault, and around it are a series of chambers laid out in a spiral pattern, like the interior of the shell of a nautilus.’

I had no idea what he meant but clearly Macharius did. His eyes narrowed. His grip tightened on the hilt of his chainsword. ‘Traps? Deadfalls? Ambush sites?’

‘There are many balconies and alcoves, many statues and devices of incomprehensible purpose. There are places where they could lurk and take us by surprise.’

Macharius did not like the sound of that. There would be no room for the subtlety of the complex patterns of manoeuvres he favoured. It was going to be a straight rush into the vault, with the enemy waiting for us. They knew we were coming.

Macharius said, ‘It works to our advantage as well. To stop us the eldar must face our numbers.’

‘I will scout ahead,’ said Grimnar.

We moved into the tower. It was as Grimnar had said. As soon as we passed through the entrance the corridor sloped downwards to the left in a long curve. Almost immediately it widened into another huge chamber. The ceiling above us was curved and the walls of the chamber were the same. I immediately thought of the bowels of a huge beast. It was as if we were being digested by the building and passed through its interior.

There were the same great pools of shadowy darkness as outside, the same dim illumination that seemed to come from nowhere in particular. The walls were marked with glowing eldar runes.

There were fountains and mutated statues and things that might have been altars, although it was difficult to tell. We moved forwards and down, following the interior curve of the building. Once again, I felt the alienness of our surroundings. I had no idea of the purpose of many of the things we saw. I had no idea why the interior was laid out this way. Vague hints rose from the half-remembered memories of my dreams – the shape was geomantic, it affected the flows of mystical energy. Or it had done once. If that were true, surely all these alterations would have affected that. Maybe that’s why the lights were dimmer and the place had a strange, fusty atmosphere.

I entered the vault through the doorway and immediately had a sensation of falling. I felt dizzy, and I struggled to understand the reality of my surroundings. It was as if we were emerging from a trapdoor in the floor of the chamber, which was a vast sphere. Gravity seemed to twist through ninety degrees and the walls of the chamber into which we had emerged became the floor. After the brief sensation of falling, I stood upright, dizzy and nauseous, and flexed my knees as I struggled to regain my balance. I walked a little and followed the curve of the floor. I had to fight down the crazed feeling that if I kept walking I would describe a complete circle around the wall of the chamber and return to my starting point, even though that would involve traversing what was currently the ceiling far, far above my head.

Overhead was a dome of translucent stone, through which was visible the shimmering, multicoloured lights of whatever lay beyond this sub-realm of reality. A wisp of light played in the air. It swirled like water in a whirlpool and appeared to drain away even as it spun. We were in a space where the laws of gravity appeared to have been suspended, where cables of crystal, glimmering with light and shadows, rose from each wall towards a central point. Not only that, lateral cables ran amid them, forming a lattice, a web of light and shadow and colour. I reached out and touched one of the cables, and my hand tingled. It was not an unpleasant sensation, a mild shock that made the hair on my head and neck lift. Looking up along it I could see a humanoid figure, a long way above us, climbing along the cables towards a distant point, which would most likely be the central spot in the chamber.

Macharius had already begun to climb, Drake as well. Grimnar was moving ahead of us. I looked around and saw Anton and Ivan. We looked at each other, slung our weapons over our shoulders and started to climb using both hands to pull ourselves up.