Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds Read online

  Krayk was near the Pit when the evacuees came through. He had served in the Jandarme all his adult life; he knew as much of the Hellward Gate’s operation as anyone, but this situation was unprecedented.

  ‘Lieutenant Roote, form a defensive line around the Pit,’ Krayk barked. ‘Adept Skrif, close the Iris. Beil, raise the alarm and spread the word – I don’t want a single Jandarme thinking this is a drill. I want them armed and ready. Dunt, begin evacuating civilians – they’ll just get in the way.’

  Krayk was already at the door when he turned to Mikal. If all else failed, there was one last option open to him, one that could only be activated from his command centre, and for that he needed hard intelligence, an accurate report of what exactly they were up against. Without comms, with every standard monitoring system and visual feed corrupted, he needed an eyewitness.

  Mikal was young, with barely six months on the job, but he had two vital skills: keen eyesight, and the ability to run like a maniac.

  ‘Mikal,’ Krayk ordered. ‘If these attackers breach the Iris, I want to know who they are. As soon as you see them, run to the control centre to tell me. Do not stop to fight or help – come straight to me even if it means leaving everyone else to die, understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ snapped Mikal with a hasty salute, but the commissioner was already gone.

  It was called the Iris because that was what it looked like, if you were in the Pit when it closed. More prosaically it could be described as a cap or a lid, a retracting barrier made of many curved, overlapping sections that emerged from the rim of the Pit to seal it, reducing the opening to a pinprick before locking altogether, forming a barrier metres thick. It was an ancient mechanism, part of the Pit’s original construction, the power source that sealed it and any control systems long lost to time. When the Iris was closed, as it was in drills twice a year, it had to be done manually, with brute force.

  As the Jandarme under Roote’s command erected makeshift fortifications around the Pit, the air was filled with the screaming of ancient, rusty chains and the gears of the closing Iris. Over a dozen adepts and servitors, supervised by Adept Skrif, operated the roaring generators and oily control panels that fed chains and pulleys into a deep trench by the side of the Pit, manipulating great gears beneath the ground. The adepts chanted as they worked, incense rising from burners and thickening the air, smoke gathering in the centre of the dome over their heads.

  Slowly, steadily, the Iris began to close. Roote let himself feel some small relief, but as solid a barrier as the Iris was, Roote was achingly aware that the threat they faced had unknown firepower. Kardon’s warning had been maddeningly non-specific, but she was not one to exaggerate.

  Whatever the threat, the Jandarme had trained their entire lives to combat it, and Roote felt a swell of pride as he watched the men and women under his command taking defensive positions around the chamber that surrounded the Pit. They were ready.

  Then he heard the gunfire, from the depths of the Pit, and Roote felt a lurch of uncertainty in his stomach. Was that the sound of defensive or offensive fire? Friend or enemy?

  The Iris was only half closed. The Pit was still open.

  ‘Skrif,’ Roote shouted, his grip tightening on his lasrifle. ‘We need the Iris closed now.’

  Rotaka had started to see a circle of light above some time ago, getting larger and larger as the Red Corsairs fought their way up the Pit, towards the interior of Laghast.

  Then, as the Lastrati defences within the Pit seemed to be petering out, Rotaka realised the circle of light was now getting smaller. Some form of shield or door was closing over the top of the shaft.

  Rotaka quickly assessed the situation in the Pit itself: of the Corsairs climbing the walls of the shaft, he was closest to the top, having abandoned the elevator when it reached its limit. It would be wise to storm the rim of the Pit in great numbers, as the Corsairs would be most vulnerable to an attack at that point. To leap into that killzone alone was near suicide. Even worse, it would require him to use a jump pack that was perilously low on fuel.

  That circle of light was getting narrower, though, and Rotaka’s jump pack could have enough juice in it to–

  Rotaka swore and fired the jump pack, speeding towards the light. As he roared upwards he heard Lord Huron screaming over the vox for the Corsairs to get out of the Pit and stop the mouth closing. Rotaka’s entire body shook as he pushed the jump pack to its limits, a barely controlled ascent that sent him hurtling towards a disc of light that seemed perilously small. At the speed he was going, Rotaka would smash into a solid surface hard enough to crush even power armour, then ricochet back down into the Pit.

  The pauldrons of Rotaka’s armour screeched as they scraped through the closing circle, and he shot out into a domed chamber similar to the one at the other end of the Pit. He killed the thrust of his jump pack, his momentum carrying him close to the curved rockcrete before he plummeted downwards, gravity reasserting itself over his immensely heavy, power-armoured form.

  Mortals started shooting at Rotaka before he had even hit the ground, las-fire coming from all directions. He landed clumsily on all fours, the dead weight of the cooling, inactive jump pack pulling him over, disturbing his balance.

  A bolt shell exploded against the rockcrete floor near his right foot before he could stand, throwing him into a sideways roll. As he tumbled away from the blast, las-fire scorched his armour in multiple places.

  As he rolled, Rotaka took a breath, and assessed the situation. The chamber was wide, circular to match the vast Pit at its centre. Loading equipment and crates had been overturned and piled up to create cover for countless mortals, all of whom were presumably targeting Rotaka. He counted a dozen, two dozen muzzle flashes in his line of sight in a single second, glimpses of uniformed mortals smoothly exiting cover to fire, then disappearing again. Those were just the ones in his field of vision.

  Even power armour could not hold out against such a sustained attack for long.

  Rotaka looked harder, past the blur of las-fire, the smoke and shrapnel. Then he saw it, beyond a couple of adepts of the Adeptus Mechanicus, who were advancing towards Rotaka, guns raised and firing. Over their shoulders, a cluster of figures surrounding decrepit-looking mechanisms, huge chains disappearing into the floor.

  That had to be it. Rotaka slammed his left fist into the jump pack release on his chest, letting it fall away. He scooped up the bulky jump pack and disabled the failsafes. Pointing it towards the advancing adepts he punched the thrust sigil on the pack so hard the control was completely crushed. Set to permanent thrust, the jump pack shot out of Rotaka’s grip, knocking him backwards and scorching the chestplate of his power armour, flames licking at the muzzle of his helmet.

  The jump pack, designed to lift a fully armoured Space Marine, barely slowed as it crashed into one of the adepts, embedding itself in his chest and lifting him, limbs flailing, off the ground.

  As Rotaka fell back he took hold of the bolter magnetically locked to his thigh and raised it, targeting the jump pack as it, and the adept it had slammed into, flew towards those heavy, ancient chains.

  The air between Rotaka and the jump pack was criss-crossed with las-fire, blurred by smoke and activity.

  Rotaka squeezed the trigger.

  The bolt shell hit the jump pack and the fuel within – whatever precious traces were left – exploded with tremendous force. The adept was shredded, exploding into fragments of flesh and augmetics, and there was a huge crack that echoed around the entire chamber.

  As Rotaka skidded to a halt on his back, he could see that one of the great chains was broken, a link shattered by the explosion. The two parts of it disappeared in opposite directions, the tension broken. There was a fierce rattling, and further snaps and cracks as other parts of the mechanism broke under the increased pressure.

  Rotaka was on his feet, the gunfire in his direct
ion slightly abated for a second due to the carnage he had caused distracting his attackers, and he looked across at the mouth of the Pit.

  Soundlessly, the layered pieces that had slid together to close the mouth of the Pit disappeared back into the rim, the machinery that had crudely caused them to close now destroyed.

  ‘The Iris is open!’ a human shouted, and Rotaka allowed himself a twitch of a smile as, even under heavy fire, he knew these mortals were doomed.

  Roote barely managed to catch a glimpse of the creature that had emerged from the Pit as the Iris closed, just a brief impression of dark-red armour as a huge figure landed in the chamber. Then everyone within range, himself included, opened fire on the armoured giant. The air had filled with gunfire, and the creature seemed to dodge and weave, then throw something at the mechanism that closed the Iris, and then there was a roar of dying machinery and the Iris was open again.

  Roote was about to order his men to redirect some of their fire to the Pit when he emerged and Roote lost all ability to speak.

  The figure that leapt out of the Pit was even taller than the first armoured giant, his armour blood red and one of his hands a gigantic armoured claw, each finger tapering to a wickedly sharp blade. In the other hand the creature swung an enormous axe. As the towering figure landed on the ground the axe lashed out, cutting through three of the Jandarme as if they were paper. Rather than slashing with its clawed hand, it opened the claw to reveal a palm that belched out fire, consuming two more of Roote’s men in flame. As it did so, the figure raised its head, a head haloed by a golden arch covered in gold spikes, and looked Roote straight in the eye.

  While Roote was at the far side of the chamber from where the creature landed, three dozen paces and two defensive lines of Jandarme between them, he still flinched. It was a face of inhuman cruelty, scarred and lifeless flesh stretched over the bone and peppered with wounds showing the skull beneath. A metal plate was drilled into the scalp, and one eye was a glowing red augmetic sphere connected to some unseen power source by a cable that trailed down into the thing’s armour from where its ear should have been. While the artificial eye glowed fiercely, the organic eye was more terrifying still, cataract-white but somehow intently staring at Roote as the creature’s ragged mouth opened into a cruel grin.

  While it had the shape of a human, this thing was too enormous, too grotesque to think of as a person.

  It was a monster, an atrocity on two legs. It had to be destroyed, however many lives it took.

  It took only a handful of horrified seconds for Roote to come to this conclusion, but in that time half a dozen of the Jandarme had already been killed.

  ‘Concentrate your fire!’ Roote shouted, raising his own lasrifle and aiming at the thing’s unarmoured head. ‘Bring their leader down.’

  Jandarme emerged from cover across the room, energised by Roote’s defiance and opening fire. Las-fire criss-crossed the chamber, focusing on the monstrous giant. Roote advanced on it, rapid firing his lasrifle in controlled bursts.

  Then his target was gone, leaping away from the crossfire with incredible speed, barrelling into a group of Jandarme and batting two aside with its gigantic claw, cleaving another in two with its axe, spinning between enemies too fast for Roote to aim at. There was an explosion near Roote, a young Jandarme falling back with a gaping wound in her chest, and Roote looked across to see that the first giant to emerge from the Pit was up on its feet, firing on every Jandarme in sight. Roote could see it better now, the curve of its reddened armour, the shape of its helmet, and even in the heat of battle Roote knew there was something familiar about it.

  ‘What are they?’ shouted Mikal nearby, sheltered behind a crate, and Roote remembered the commissioner’s orders, for Mikal to identify the enemy and report back.

  ‘I don’t know, damn you,’ snapped Roote, but he still had the feeling that he did know somehow, that he had seen that armour before.

  Then the rest of them came, not pulling themselves over the lip of the Pit, or rising gently on the elevators, but leaping over the edge en masse, firing before they even hit the ground, huge figures in tarnished, bloody armour decorated with skulls and other trophies, some horned, some fanged. A flood of armoured horror unleashing a torrent of bolter fire on the Jandarme. Roote nearly lost his senses in that moment, but his sense of duty overcame the wave of terror and despair he felt at these abominations, these grotesque distortions of…

  Roote remembered then. The crude representations of the Adeptus Astartes on friezes and tapestries, the heroes of the Imperium. But these were not heroes, not true creations of the Emperor, and Roote recalled whispered rumours of the most terrible treachery and–

  ‘Fight to the last man,’ he shouted, knowing that they were all doomed, that there was no hope in the face of enemies like this, but that the Jandarme would make them struggle for every step they took on Lastrati soil. And Mikal could still get to the commissioner, with news of what they faced.

  ‘Run,’ Roote bellowed at Mikal. ‘Tell the commissioner: Traitor Marines. These are Traitor Mari–’

  Lieutenant Roote died mid-sentence, a bolt shell hitting him in the shoulder and exploding, tearing through flesh and bone. The lieutenant was flung sideways by the impact. Mikal saw blood spill from his lips and his pupils widen glassily. He had never seen a man die like that, and felt a wave of nausea come over him as the body hit the floor.

  Mikal couldn’t comprehend what the two words Roote had told him meant: Traitor Marines. His mind had ceased to fully understand what was happening since armoured giants had emerged from the Pit and started slaughtering his fellow Jandarme in a fury of blows and gunfire.

  But Mikal knew his orders. He scrambled to his feet, and ran for the door that led up and across the Inner Dock to the control centre.

  Traitor Marines. The words repeated in his mind – he had never heard them before, had never even been aware that such a thing could exist, but now those two words were all he could think as he ran.

  Traitor Marines.

  As reinforcements poured into the domed chamber, Red Corsairs flooding over the rim, their mortal opponents stood no chance. They fought well and held their ground, and they had been well prepared with cover and sound firing positions, but they were no match for the Corsairs and could do little but die. Having been attacked from all sides when he first entered the chamber, as the tide turned it was Rotaka who was on the attack. He leapt on a mortal who was targeting Huron Blackheart, crushing his enemy’s spine as he landed on him. Rotaka searched the chamber for a mortal target who was not already about to die at the hands of a Red Corsair.

  Looking to the far end of the domed chamber, something caught Rotaka’s eye, a slim figure running for the door. As he ran, none of the other mortals attempted to stop him or cut him down, so he wasn’t deserting. He was on a mission.

  Rotaka decided that whatever mission this enemy was on, whatever message he had been sent to deliver, he would not fulfil it.

  Mikal ran towards the exit that led to the Inner Dock’s control centre. While the large loading bay doors that allowed cargo and vehicles to be moved out of the dome had been locked down to slow the attackers’ advance, this smaller exit had not. He paused to press a sigil that opened the door, then ran through it into the simple, dark corridor that led to the Inner Dock control centre.

  His heart pounding in his chest, his lungs already burning, Mikal ran. He ran knowing the terrors that had set foot on Laghast, the sound of his fellow Jandarme dying ringing in his ears as he left the battle behind him. He could not allow himself guilt at leaving them behind; he had his orders, and the two-word message he needed to convey. Everything else was irrelevant, and so he ran.

  Rotaka also ran. Though unfathomably bulkier in his power armour than the human, his superhuman constitution also made him a lot faster. He smashed straight through the door his quarry had opened manually, and landed in
the long corridor. He raised his bolter and fired, but the mortal was already through the next door and the bolter shell exploded uselessly against the door frame.

  Mikal heard the crash and the sound of gunfire behind him but he didn’t look back; he just ran harder. His lungs were burning and the air felt thin and hot as he panted.

  He ran out of a corridor and into an atrium that linked the loading areas of the Inner Dock to the Jandarmerie. He had to swerve to the right to run around a gantry that curved around the interior wall of the atrium and led to the entrance to the next section. From the bottom of the atrium he could hear the roar of great machinery, and the air was hazy with steam.

  As Mikal reached the corridor at the other end of the atrium he glanced back to see a giant figure in red-tinted armour running at tremendous speed.

  Rotaka could see his target ahead, on the other side of some kind of shaft that the corridor opened out onto. The slim figure reached towards the wall, and Rotaka took a quick mental calculation of the distance between the gantries on either side of the shaft. It was hard to tell with the mist in the air, but…

  Mikal, his lungs burning, slammed the emergency button next to him, and before the security shutter even dropped behind him he was turning to keep running. At the end of the next corridor was the control centre, and Commissioner Krayk. He was nearly there.

  Rotaka didn’t hesitate or turn; he jumped forwards, one booted foot glancing off the handrail – his power-armoured weight buckling it with just a brief touch – to launch himself over the atrium.

  As Rotaka sailed through empty space, he could hear the sound of machinery beneath him, and glanced down to see rotating gears and pistons below. Not a good thing to fall into, even for a Space Marine.

  The security shutter between him and the next corridor was beginning to drop as Rotaka landed on the opposite gantry. Instead of stabilising himself to stand or run he simply let the momentum of his jump carry him into a crude forward roll, tumbling beneath the ten-inch-thick bulkhead, which scraped the ceramite on the back of his armour as he passed beneath it and rolled up into a crouch in the corridor.