Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds Read online

  That left the squad manning the grenade launcher to Verbin. As he ran at them, two Cadians managed to twist the launcher around from its tripod and aim it right at the Red Corsair. They fired, but at such close quarters the grenade bounced off Verbin’s armour and ricocheted high into the air. Verbin grabbed the barrel of the launcher with both hands and swung it back and forth, shaking off the Cadians, who scrambled for their lasrifles. Rotaka shot one of the Cadians in the shoulder, while Hulpin dealt with the others.

  ‘What should I do with thi–’ said Verbin, ducking down mid-sentence as the balustrade exploded under the white-hot impact of high-intensity las-fire.

  Rotaka and Hulpin did the same, las-shots and chunks of masonry flying overhead. Rotaka glanced through a crack in the balustrade to see a quad-barrelled lascannon mounted on a rooftop at the other end of the square. He turned to Verbin. ‘Now you know what to do.’

  Verbin nodded and started prepping the grenade launcher.

  Rotaka dragged one of the dying men up by the collar with one hand, and grabbed on to his belt with the other.

  ‘Let’s clear a path through that minefield,’ he said, and with one swing threw the dying man over the parapet. Hulpin grabbed a dead man and did the same.

  One of the bodies set off a mine when it landed, the other didn’t.

  Verbin fired the grenade launcher, and a couple of seconds later there was an explosion and the lascannon ceased firing.

  ‘Wuhrsk, Malinko, follow the trail of intact bodies,’ Rotaka said into the vox, and he and Hulpin threw another couple of bodies over the edge, keeping their heads down, casting each one a little further than the last.

  Kretschman had held his position throughout the entire conflict at roof level. His orders were clear – maintain a line of fire on the entrance to the square; only fire once the mines, traps and lascannons had done their work. His assigned rooftop was at the side of the square, and from his position behind the balustrade he was invisible to both the grenade launcher crew and those Cadians manning the lascannon.

  His eyes still focusing on the entrance to the square, he had to try to ignore the carnage at rooftop level, only glancing up quickly to ensure he wasn’t discovered. As much as anger and honour demanded he target the Corsairs on the rooftops as they killed his fellow Cadians, throwing the bodies off the roof and destroying the lascannons opposite with a grenade launcher, Kretschman had his orders. He watched the entrance to the square, blinking beads of sweat from his eyes.

  Then they came, when the Cadian weapons were silenced, two Corsairs dashing out into the square, following a trail of mortal corpses to cross the minefield safely.

  Not safely enough, thought Kretschman, and it was with a feeling of righteous fury that he fired a rocket right at them.

  Wuhrsk scanned the rooftops and the windows for possible snipers as he and Malinko dashed across the square, following the trail Rotaka and the others had made for them. Malinko was charging forwards without restraint, making a target of himself, which gave Wuhrsk a certain comfort in their exposed position, the comfort that at least he was unlikely to be targeted first, and that if there were any undetonated mines in their path Malinko was likely to stand on them.

  When he heard the rocket cutting through the air towards them, Wuhrsk was already turning, searching for the point of origin. As the rocket hit the ground and exploded between Malinko and Wuhrsk, both Red Corsairs were thrown off their feet, but Wuhrsk was raising his bolter, tracing the trail of smoke back to a high point on a rooftop.

  Before the explosion consumed him, Wuhrsk fired.

  The bolter shell would have hit Kretschman square in the head, if he hadn’t been partially hidden behind one of the crenellations of the parapet. Instead, it hit rockcrete and exploded next to him, fragments flying and smashing into the side of his helmet.

  Veteran Sergeant Kretschman was knocked off his feet, and his helmeted head slammed backwards into the floor, hard. His vision blurred, and he lost consciousness, the sound of gunfire down below the last thing he remembered.

  Rotaka dropped to ground level, ran over to the prone and scorched Malinko, and kicked his armour. Malinko groaned.

  ‘If you’re alive, you can get up,’ said Rotaka. ‘We need to get to the Archway – I can hear them approaching.’

  ‘The enemy?’ asked Wuhrsk, Hulpin helping him back to his feet.

  ‘Worse,’ said Rotaka. ‘Our comrades. I’m not letting Becaro get all the glory.’

  Kretschman was woken by shouting, someone leaning over him and shouting so loud they seemed to punch through into his unconscious mind, dragging him back to awareness of the external world.

  ‘Get up, Kretschman,’ Kulbard was shouting. ‘The Archway is lost.’

  ‘Lost?’ Kretschman said, forcing himself into a sitting position. There was a terrible pain in the back of his skull that crept down his spine and left him wanting to vomit.

  ‘Yes, lost,’ said Kulbard, not shaking or otherwise jostling Kretschman – for which Kretschman was grateful – but getting right in his face. ‘You need to evacuate, get through that damn Archway.’

  Kretschman struggled to remember what he’d been doing before he lost consciousness. Yes, there had been an attack; he had fired a rocket launcher… He could see around him that he was still on the rooftop.

  ‘Need to defend square,’ said Kretschman blearily.

  ‘There’s nothing to defend – the square is overrun,’ said Kulbard. ‘Come on, sergeant, this isn’t a rout, this is a strategic withdrawal. We can’t afford to lose you this early in the campaign, so get up.’

  ‘If the city is lost,’ said Kretschman, dragging himself to his feet, ‘how am I supposed to get to the Archway? One step at street level and they’ll tear me apart’

  ‘Think,’ said Kulbard. ‘Think what you saw earlier.’

  Kretschman staggered over to the other edge of the roof. Below, he could see the bundle of pipes, covered in a mesh cage that stretched away from the building and passed over the intervening buildings. The sound of fighting was harsh down there; clearly some final defence of the Archway was still ongoing.

  It was a long drop, but if he could land on top of that, and it held his weight, it could take him at least as far as where he could help with the last defence.

  ‘Never mind strategising, leave that to the officers,’ snapped Kulbard. ‘Now jump.’

  So Kretschman jumped. The drop was twice his height, and the impact was jolting. As he landed, he was nearly knocked straight off by an explosion nearby, which tore through an adjacent building and filled the air with smoke.

  Kretschman’s fingers sank between the mesh of the cage, and he held on tight as the tremor from the explosion subsided.

  ‘Kulbard?’ he shouted, but he couldn’t see whether the scout was with him or not.

  ‘Never mind me,’ he heard Kulbard shouting. ‘Get moving. I’ll follow.’

  Kretschman got moving, pulling himself and running along the caged pipes as fast as he felt he could while half-blinded by the smoke, the iridescent glow from the Archway ahead his main guide through the clogged air.

  ‘We will buy you as much time as we can,’ Ruthger had told his second, Lieutenant Nistal, before the younger man had saluted solemnly, silently and walked through the Archway without looking back.

  That had been less than an hour ago, Ruthger was sure of it. Alongside the rump of his regiment he had been fighting ever since, trying to hold the line while most of the men evacuated through the Archway, while also buying time for the equipment that controlled the portal to be rigged with explosives.

  Time was nearly up. The approach to the Archway was a long open courtyard, segmented by walls and barriers designed to control flows of people and traffic. The Cadians had locked gates, piled up barricades and otherwise blocked routes to the Archway, and once the Red Corsairs had come with
in firing range they had thrown everything at the enemy to slow them down – mortars, grenades, rockets. The city was finished; there was no need to hold back.

  Ruthger had realised the Corsairs were showing greater restraint, deploying only lasweapons and bolters, presumably to avoid damaging the Archway.

  Tough, thought Ruthger. You don’t get this prize intact.

  A short distance from Ruthger, a barricade was smashed down by a huge figure in blood-red armour. Cadians ran fearlessly to engage the monster, opening fire with their lasrifles but also getting in close, willing to let their bodies slow this atrocity down, if that was what it took.

  ‘Detonate now,’ Ruthger shouted into the vox. ‘I don’t care if it’s ready – blow it all now.’

  There was a hiss of static from the vox.

  Ruthger swore. More Traitor Marines were bursting through the line, opening fire on his men, getting in close to bat them aside with incredible strength, or cut them down with bloodied blades. Every instinct of Ruthger’s being told him to stand with his men, to make his last stand here. But that stand would mean nothing if the Archway was left open.

  So instead Ruthger ran, firing off a couple of shots from his bolt pistol as he made for the stairwell that led to the control gallery overlooking the courtyard.

  Rotaka and his squad had just broken through the barriers and were fighting the last few steps to the Archway when the bolt-round exploded against his pauldron. Smashing the head of a Cadian soldier with his spare fist, Rotaka looked across to see a mortal in officer’s uniform dashing across open space towards a building at one corner of the Archway. Rotaka raised his bolter and let out a shot, but the man ducked into the building and the bolt exploded harmlessly against a wall.

  He cursed, then turned his attention to the fight at hand, opening fire on another Cadian. They were so close to Lord Huron’s prize.

  Running up the stairs to the gallery, lungs burning and legs aching, Ruthger had a few seconds to reflect on his life. All Cadians dreamed that their deaths would be in moments of glorious combat. But dreams of honour and glory were not always compatible with the demands of duty and the practicalities of the battlefield.

  Ruthger wouldn’t get the death he wanted. But it was the death he needed to have.

  ‘Blow it all now!’ he shouted as he burst into the gallery.

  The men preparing the explosives hesitated for a second, aware that they were being ordered to their deaths. But only a second – they were Cadians after all.

  Someone pressed the detonator. Ruthger didn’t see who; he just saw the light that tore through him. Then nothing more.

  Kretschman felt the explosion as much as he heard it. He had followed the caged pipes around the edge of several buildings, hearing but not seeing the firefight going on below. Running out of pipe, he had climbed down to a narrow maintenance gantry that took him most of the way to the Archway.

  The explosion knocked Kretschman off his feet, and he nearly rolled off the edge of the gantry. He had no real idea what the source of the explosion was – it was near, flame pouring around the next corner of the wall the gantry clung to.

  Kretschman pulled himself up and looked ahead. The end of the gantry was a short distance away, and from there only a few metres of empty space lay between the safety rail and the glistening surface of the Archway itself.

  There was a sound of thunder, and Kretschman looked up. The sky was clear, the seas of Laghast visible above, but something else was happening. The luminescent fringe around the stone of the Archway was pulling itself away, as the unnatural surface began to contract.

  The Archway was closing.

  Rotaka too had seen that the Archway was closing. Across the other side of the courtyard he could see Red Corsairs pouring into the space, charging towards the shimmering portal, but it was shrinking faster than they could run. At the centre of that group was Huron Blackheart, towering over the remaining mortals as he pushed through them, and although Rotaka was far away from them, he could hear Huron’s screams over the vox.

  Kretschman ran, not sure exactly why he was so keen to make an undignified leap to his own death, rather than at least staying to die with honour, fighting the enemy.

  Perhaps it was the concussion. Kretschman felt as if he could hear Kulbard speaking to him, not in words but with an expression of pure will, urging him on, whispering a desire for survival.

  Or maybe it was just that he was a Cadian, and he would do any stupid thing for the chance to fight another day.

  Kretschman didn’t slow down as he reached the end of the gantry but took a single running step off the safety rail, propelling himself upwards and forwards, off the rail and towards the collapsing portal.

  Portal. That was what it was now that it had detached itself from the Archway and started to contract, a hole in the fabric of the world, shrinking with every second. Kretschman fell, his forward momentum carrying him towards that hole, but then his downward descent was stronger than his forward momentum. He was going to go under the closing portal, passing under the Archway to what was now just another part of Rubicon, to land broken at the feet of his fellow Cadians as they fought for the last second and–

  –and–

  …and he was back on course; whether from a freak wind or some twitch of reality, he was up again. Kretschman hit the last small, frayed circle in the world just as it closed and he was sinking, sinking into infinity, and the portal closed and both he and it were gone.

  Elsewhere on Laghast, due north of the city of Rubicon, Lord Inquisitor Pranix braced himself against the wall of the escape pod he had boarded as it hurtled down a tunnel that dug through the very surface of Laghast itself, from a mountain on the planet’s inhabitable interior to a hidden exit hatch on the exterior of the world.

  Without astropathic guidance, he had set a manual course for the warzone he had found in the Inquisitorial reports. There was some irony in it being that company that Pranix was required to seek aid from, but Pranix did not let that concern him. Neither did he let any sign of disturbance show on his face as the movement of this crude vehicle, on which his survival and the rescue of the Hollow Worlds depended, rattled every bone and organ in his body.

  The pod burst out from the surface, boosters flaring to escape the planet’s low outer gravity and launch into space.

  Too small to activate either the guns of the Red Corsairs fleet or the automated defences of the Hollow Worlds, the pod flew past the enemy ships as they floated, docked around Laghast. The main danger to the pod was not that it would be targeted, but that its own pre-set course away from Laghast would cause it to crash into one of the docked ships.

  Pranix, impotent to change course once in flight, watched the outward scanners as the pod passed close to a great Murder-class cruiser, a monstrous vessel scabbed with weapons turrets and unholy, organic-looking outgrowths.

  But the pod passed by, narrowly missing the void shields of the great ship.

  Then it was out, out into space, leaving the Hollow Worlds behind.

  In those last seconds before the portal to Kerresh closed, Huron Blackheart fought with a ferocity even Rotaka had never seen before. The last Cadians refused to die easily, even as the closing Archway left them stranded to face their deaths, and clustered together, firing everything they had at the Tyrant. Blackheart ran into a dozen of them, taking las-shots at point-blank range, even batting aside a rocket with the Tyrant’s Claw. The blades of that claw crackled as they sliced through mortals, and the bayonets of Guardsmen shattered against Huron’s armour.

  This is madness, thought Rotaka, as if madness were somehow alien to Huron Blackheart. He ran forwards in his master’s wake, bolter firing on mortals aiming at his lord, but as he did so Rotaka thought – what if he succeeds? How does he think that will work? Huron Blackheart was a giant amongst even Space Marines, possessed of a titanic will, but even he couldn�
��t survive without allies with an entire planet and its armies set against him. Alone, on Kerresh, he would surely die.

  And yet Huron Blackheart fought off his assailants and tried to push on. Their attempts to cut him down were futile – Huron was as much machine as man, and both those parts were blessed with unholy power. They died, every one of his attackers, but they also succeeded in delaying Huron enough.

  The portal to Kerresh closed. Rotaka caught a glimpse of something impossible, a figure throwing themselves from above, through the last gasp of the portal, a dark speck against the swirling otherness – and then it was gone, and there was nothing but the empty Archway.

  And with it, the last will to defend themselves seemed to fall from the defenders of the Archway. Huron cast his assailants aside with ease, and those who did not die from the impact were cut down by the other Corsairs, who surged forwards unimpeded.

  Within seconds the mortal defenders of the Archway were all dead.

  But it was too late.

  Huron Blackheart stood, looking up at the empty Archway, silent and entirely still.

  Through the crowd of Corsairs, Garreon seemed to almost glide to his master’s side, unconcerned by anything around him.

  ‘My lord,’ Rotaka heard the Corpsemaster say. ‘This is nothing but a delay, Valth–’

  ‘I do not have time for delays,’ Huron shouted, the Tyrant’s Claw locking around Garreon’s neck, charging through the ranks of Red Corsairs who parted like a sea, slamming the Corpsemaster into a wall, which began to crack with the impact. Huron’s organic eye was manic, wider than usual, twitching, his mouth twisted into a quivering grimace.

  And, just for a second, Rotaka saw something else, something more than his master’s rage, a deeper distortion at work within Huron Blackheart. He saw Huron’s corpse-grey flesh bubble impossibly into scales and green, wet amphibious flesh and even a crop of purple feathers and a hard red carapace, and that mouth stretched down and split into tentacles and small claws that would scrape food down into an open cavernous mouth, and Huron’s eyes… Huron’s eyes were many and black and milky white, with vertical pupils and horizontal pupils and every colour of iris, and his limbs were many and sprouted into a great flower of blades and claws and tentacles and…