Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds Read online

  He reacted perfectly, without fear or hesitation, yet it did him no good.

  The power fist smashed into Capulo’s face, denting the front of his helmet and breaking his nose. The words he was about to speak into the vox were cut off as the interior of his own helmet hit him in the mouth. As the blow made contact, Capulo was knocked backwards, a single bolter round firing wide, missing any targets.

  Capulo didn’t fall; he spun on his heels, bringing his own gauntleted fist around to punch under his attacker’s power fist, ceramite smashing into ceramite as his armoured knuckles hit the other’s power armour just below the ribs. It was enough of a blow to knock Capulo’s assailant back a step, allowing the Red Corsair to raise his bolter once more. At this range, one shot from a bolter would stop even a Space Marine in his tracks, if not cause serious damage to the Space Wolf’s armour.

  That shot never happened, as before Capulo could squeeze the trigger, the blade of a power claw dug into his wrist, slipping between the plate of his power armour to cut into muscle, wedging between the bones of Capulo’s wrist. The pain, searing as it was, could not stop Capulo, but the muscles in his hand involuntarily released their grip on his bolter.

  The bolter fell to the snowy ground, and as the second assailant removed his blade from Capulo’s wrist, a third kicked the Red Corsair in the back of one knee, bringing him crashing down to his knees. His bolter was kicked away before he could reach for it with his good hand, and a second blow from the red power fist left his senses swimming and warning runes flashing across his helmet display.

  As his helmet was pulled away, Capulo looked out through bleary vision, his head swimming through the pain of the blows. Three attackers encircled him, prowling around as he slumped, trying to regain the focus to stand, to fight back. Behind those three, he could see more of the Space Wolves, figures as large as himself but with a feral gait alien to the Red Corsairs, their shoulders hunched and draped in furs, yellow eyes glowing in faces cast into darkness as the blizzard blurred his vision further.

  This was not combat, this was a massacre. The Space Wolves had come in great numbers to tear apart Capulo and the others at this waypoint.

  When they were done with him, and the last of his long life was draining from his body, Capulo was left face down in the snow of Hacasta, the blizzard beginning to cover his prone form before he was even truly dead.

  Capulo’s last thought, as he dimly heard his assailants stalk away to kill anyone else they found, was that, yes, the mortals had been right: it was cold here.

  The Space Wolves came from all directions, wielding claws and chainswords and their bare hands, and they descended upon every living thing on that site with wordless fury. They all had names, but those names were irrelevant. They hunted as a pack and were of one mind as they hunted.

  Like any pack, they knew that the strongest threats should be eliminated first. With one Corsair already dead, they sought to kill the others quietly and stealthily with the caution required to deal with Adeptus Astartes, even corrupted ones.

  They pursued the Corsair who had been speaking to the traitor they had already killed. Three Space Wolves ran through the blizzard, as light on the ground as a breeze, noiseless in spite of their heavy armour. Two grabbed the Corsair by the arms, while the third jumped on his back. His bolter was out of his hand as they forced him face down into the snow. The snow muffled the shot to the back of the head that finished him off.

  Three more. Another was keeping watch on the wall of the semi-constructed bunker. Two of the pack sidled around the wall, clambering up to pounce and drag him down. Another heard the disturbance, and found a knife in his throat.

  Which left one. He stood at the centre of the construction site, surrounded by slaves and servitors working on the waypoint. At the sight of the Space Wolves looking down on him from the half-built walls, the sight of their yellow eyes and bared fangs, the renegade raised his bolter, only to have it knocked from his hand with a well thrown axe.

  The pack jumped down to surround the last Red Corsair. He drew a knife, and defended himself. As the Space Wolves lashed out at him with claws and blades, he slashed back, he drew blood. He fought with the ferocity of all his kind, but it was not enough. Blows slipped past his defences, raining down on him. He continued to fight as he fell to his knees, his armour stripped away by the pack, his attempts to block their blows increasingly sluggish, until he too died, cut down by the Space Wolves.

  The Red Corsairs all dead, the mortal slaves were left as easy prey. Having watched one of their masters slaughtered before their eyes, they were gripped by frenzy. Some of them begged, or prayed to either old gods or the Red Corsairs themselves to save their lives. Some even sought redemption, asking forgiveness from the Emperor.

  Such entreaties were wasted. All were tainted, so none were spared. As the winds howled, screams emanated from the site of the Red Corsairs’ waypoint, echoing across the wastes, unheard by any living soul.

  When their blood had been spilt, the Space Wolves destroyed the parts of the waypoint that had already been built, demolishing and setting ablaze the entire site.

  Nothing was left when they had finished, nothing but scorched rubble and corpses, black smoke tainting the endless white snow.

  The Space Wolves, their work done without a word spoken, moved as one pack back into the icy hold of the blizzard, into the hostile cold that was their home and protection, moving away from the site of their slaughter, towards their next target.

  To the Archway.

  To Kerresh.

  Eighteen

  It was a world of sea and storms.

  Whether by ancient design or a failure of the artificial atmosphere, Karstveil was gripped by never-ending storms. Rain, thunder and lightning crashed down on the turbulent seas that consumed most of the planet’s interior, and hammered the few clumps of rugged land.

  Those few, brutish landmasses that dared rise above sea level had blunt, descriptive names, simple compounds that told their whole story in a name:

  Archrock.

  Strongwall.

  Ironshore.

  It was towards that final, fortified island that the black galleons of Huron Blackheart set out, sliding off the shores of Archrock and plunging into the rough waters of the ocean. Those galleons had rolled through the nearby Archway to Hacasta on great oily wheeled tracks, but as they approached the water those tracks disappeared into each galleon’s hull as if they had never been, the rusty, riveted metal sealing behind them like a healing wound.

  While they had travelled a long way on land, the daemonic galleons were creatures of the water, and even in those unforgiving waters the great, hulking vessels took on a kind of grace as they left land behind, leaning perilously as the waves rose and fell but never capsizing, always moving with the tidal flow. Even travelling through toxic fog, the seas polluted with scum and flotsam, they cut through the filth smoothly.

  As the rains of Karstveil dampened the embers of burning Archrock, razed by the Red Corsairs as they passed through on their way to the sea, the galleons of Huron Blackheart disappeared into the distance, setting sail across an ocean as big as the world.

  Since the death of his commanding officer, Colonel Ruthger, Lieutenant Nistal of the Cadian 301st had drunk deep from the poisoned chalice of spontaneous field promotion, and was sick of it.

  While he would not have wished to change places with the late colonel – self-pity was not a Cadian trait – Nistal did not relish the legacy Ruthger had left him with. While he was comfortable enough leading men on the battlefield, making decisions that meant life or death for those under his command, Nistal was less prepared to take command of a regiment reduced to a third of its original numbers, fighting a defensive war across a system of inside-out planets.

  Since Ruthger’s death, all Nistal could do was make the big decisions for his regiment in the same manner he would make
snap decisions on the battlefield – prioritise targets and defensive positions based on incoming intelligence.

  The order supplied by one of the system governor’s corvids was that whatever lay behind the fortifications of Ironshore needed defending. Having established defences and traps on Kerresh to welcome the Red Corsairs once they reopened the Archway, Nistal had led his men to Karstveil, and to Ironshore.

  What lay within the mountain at the heart of the rocky island of Ironshore, behind apparently impassable gates, Nistal had not been made privy.

  Fine – Nistal had his objective to defend, that was all that mattered, and he didn’t need to know any more. The jagged mountain, the top of which disappeared into the relentless cloud and fog, would only be reached once every Cadian under Nistal’s command had laid down his or her life in its defence.

  Grim thoughts came naturally on Karstveil. The peak sat at the centre of the Ironshore, and the island was rimmed by the towering defensive wall that gave the island its name. That outer wall was made of an iron-like material of unidentified source, and was completely unbroken and impenetrable, to the extent the Cadians had been forced to cross over the wall to get in, a complex device of connected ladders lowering down to allow them access. On the inside of the wall generations of defenders had built scaffolding to access the top of the wall, but there were no firing slits or fixed weapons on the wall itself.

  ‘Hammer a nail into the wall,’ said one of the Lastrati who greeted them, ‘and the wall will push it out again.’

  Between the wall and the mountain at the island’s centre there was little but grey rock, grey fortifications made from the grey rock, and grey buildings built from grey rock and mostly built into the grey fortifications.

  Then there was the sky, a mass of different cloud types, illuminated by lightning and soundtracked by thunder, and forever spilling forth rain. Ironshore was built to cope with the rain but it gathered in every dip in the rocky land nonetheless, becoming filthy with mud and the oily residue of the work that took place in Ironshore’s maintenance yards.

  ‘Lovely weather we’re having,’ said Sergeant Murso as Nistal approached, the rain hammering against his waterproof cloak.

  ‘Sir,’ Nistal snapped back. ‘This place might not help morale, but rank still applies.’

  ‘Apologies, lieutenant-sir,’ said Murso, blurring rank and honorific into one word. She was smoking a lho-stick in the sheltered porch area outside the door to a barracks hut. Nistal joined her, took the lho-stick without asking, had a drag on it then handed it back.

  ‘That showed me, sir,’ said Murso, a crooked grin breaking across her scarred features. Nistal had known Murso for years, although not so long as to have seen the sergeant get those three vicious scars on her face. They had been the same rank together, once, but taken different paths. In some sense, they would always be equals, regardless of what rank dictated.

  ‘And me,’ replied Nistal, leaning against the wall and coughing fiercely. ‘That stuff is foul. How are the defences?’

  ‘The Lastrati keep their gun batteries in good shape,’ said Murso. ‘The enemy will need to get in close.’

  ‘We need to know when they’re coming,’ said Nistal.

  ‘That’s the bad news,’ said Murso, exhaling lho-smoke. ‘These storms interfere with every means of detection equipment we have apart from these.’ She pointed two fingers at her own eyes.

  ‘How is that even possible?’ asked Nistal.

  ‘No one knows,’ said Murso. ‘But the locals have their suspicions.’ She nodded towards the centre of the island, the mountain and those great, closed doors.

  ‘That which we defend interferes with our defence,’ said Nistal. ‘Great. How’s morale?’

  Murso hesitated.

  ‘That bad?’ said Nistal. ‘I never thought I’d have to order you to speak freely, Murso. Spit it out.’

  ‘They have snipers here to take out people who try to kill themselves by climbing the lightning conductors,’ said Murso. ‘It’s a full-time job. The ones who throw themselves into the sea are less of a problem, as they won’t damage any Imperial property on the way down.’

  She looked seriously at Nistal.

  ‘That’s what this planet does. It’s not a death world but it strips you of the will to live. Losing Ruthger took its toll, and this place doesn’t help,’ said Murso. ‘But they’re still the Three Hundred and First, and there isn’t one amongst them who wouldn’t follow you when the time comes. Ignore their bloody moaning – everyone will have your back when the enemy gets here.’

  Murso leaned out, looking up into the rain. Fat raindrops spattered her face, but she stared unblinking.

  ‘Most of us just wish the sods would hurry up and get here before we drown.’

  In the belly of the galleon Merciless Strike, Rotaka had found himself prowling the depths of the ship with his servo-skull for company, staying out of the way of both the crew and other Red Corsairs. He preferred his own thoughts to the company of others.

  The cargo holds were the best place. The Strike carried mainly siege equipment, as well as artefacts the Red Corsairs had brought with them in case they were needed, weapons of the warp sealed in lead containers daubed in wards and symbols to calm their restless, daemonic spirits. Then there was the crate, although ‘crate’ barely covered its huge scale. A box made from multiple layers of armour plate, encircled in chains and sealed with powerful wards and symbols, it towered over Rotaka.

  Mostly, the crate remained silent. But every now and then it would jerk to one side with a thump, as if something inside were having a nightmare, lashing out in its sleep.

  Rotaka leaned in, and listened to the sound within the box, sounds inaudible to mortal ears. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I had almost forgotten.’

  Then he barked a laugh at some re-emerging memory. ‘Iltz, do you remember when…’

  He trailed off. Iltz was dead. The thing floating next to him was just Iltz’s skull.

  The thing in the box wouldn’t remember either. Only Rotaka remembered, and he should forget. Those days were long gone. The Astral Claws were a part of the past, and Rotaka needed to remember that. What was he now?

  Such thoughts were uncomfortable for a Space Marine, forged for waging single-purposed war, without hesitation or restraint.

  It was with great relief that his thoughts were interrupted by an explosion that rocked the entire ship, followed by the ringing of alarm klaxons.

  They were under attack.

  From the deck of the Unyielding Fist, Valthex knew exactly the nature of the attack. He had seen it himself, the explosion from the water level, the brief plume of flame against the hull of the Strike. It meant only one thing, and looking out to sea confirmed it.

  ‘Mines,’ he told Huron Blackheart, who bestrode the deck relaying orders to his crew and, via vox, the rest of his fleet.

  ‘If there are mines,’ Huron Blackheart said. ‘Then we are close. Still all engines and bring to.’

  The Fist stopped its engines, and although momentum carried them a little forwards, and the heavy waves dragged the galleons back and forth, there were no reports of another galleon striking a mine.

  ‘Garreon, bring out the mine hunters,’ Huron told the Corpsemaster. ‘Prepare flares for first detonation, and ready main guns.’

  A group of mortals were brought on deck. Their bodies had been bound in lightweight, insulated material so that they would not die of hypothermia before serving their purpose. The scars on their bodies, and their dead-eyed expressions spoke to Garreon’s work on them in his dungeons. Grenades hung on straps around their torsos.

  ‘You have all failed your master,’ said Garreon. ‘Now you will redeem yourself in death. Swim out, find the mines. If they do not detonate at your embrace, use grenades.’

  The mortals did not acknowledge the order but ran and fearlessly
jumped off the deck. Valthex could see the other mortal crewmembers on deck shifting restlessly.

  ‘This honour awaits all who fail Huron Blackheart,’ shouted Garreon. Valthex had known the Corpsemaster for centuries, and Garreon could measure human fear with the same precision Valthex’s equipment monitored radiation. Not that Valthex’s instruments could measure much in the fog of Karstveil, which disrupted all augurs.

  ‘Eyes on the horizon,’ Huron hissed. ‘These are their seas – they won’t be far. Valthex, the arrays.’

  ‘Still nothing, my lord,’ replied Valthex. ‘These storms…’

  ‘The Orrery infuses this world with disruptive power,’ said Huron, his naked lust for a treasure nearby overriding any rage at the equipment failure. ‘It defeats even my sorcerers. Such power.’

  Valthex watched Blackheart. A dead man walking, tainted with madness and in danger of losing his self entirely, yet the call of battle always revived him. Here, out in hostile seas, rain lashing the dead grey flesh of his face, Huron Blackheart seemed strangely alive.

  There were a string of explosions out at sea. The mortals had found the mines.

  ‘The enemy will be close, just beyond the mines,’ said Huron. ‘Light the sky so we might see them.’

  A dozen flares were launched from the deck of the Fist, matched by more from the others in the Red Corsairs fleet. The flares arced high into the air, red streaks of smoke trailing behind them in the darkness, flying far out over the sea, well beyond where the mines had exploded. Sputtering in the relentless rain, the flares fell, dozens of points of red light illuminating the sea far beyond the normal visibility.

  And there they were, warships of the Imperium, at least half a dozen. Brutish gunmetal-grey vessels with lascannons, heavy bolters and other weaponry on deck.

  ‘Target and fire,’ raged Huron, spitting out the words. ‘Before they can react, before those flares go out, target and fire damn you.’