Battle for The Abyss (41 page)

Where, captain, do we start with you?’

Cestus looked down over the edge of the precipice. The true heart of hell was there. Something enormous roiled down, barely visible against the darkness. A vast maw ground traitors between its teeth. Thousands of eyes accused them with every flash of pain.

‘None of this is real,’ said Cestus.

The Ultramarine smiled despite his surroundings as the clarity of understanding washed away all doubt like blue water.

‘I am not dead and this is not hell,’ he affirmed.

‘How can you be sure?’ asked the taskmaster.

‘Because I may be guilty of everything you have said. I have led men to their deaths, and killed and maimed, and turned on fellow Astartes, but I am no traitor.’

Cestus stepped off the ledge, and fell into the last hell.

PAIN, REAL TANGIBLE pain, slammed into Cestus as he hit the ground. He had escaped. Somehow, through resolve and belief in himself, he had shrugged off the psychic glamour, the cage of his own mind, and emerged intact.

The booming of the big guns hammered at him through the floor and recollection returned.

He was on the
Furious Abyss
. Cynically, he wondered if it might have been more prudent to stay in hell.

Cestus’s body ached and he tested himself for injuries. He was bruised and rattled, but otherwise fine and he still had his armour. Getting to his feet, he saw Excelinor beside him. In his fever dream, he must have dragged his battle-brother along with him, although, the Ultramarine captain had no idea where he actually was.

Cestus felt a pang of grief in his heart. Excelinor was dead. It was possible that under the psychic assault the Astartes’s sus-an
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membrane had shut his body down into stasis. It hardly mattered; there would be no waking him.

Cestus crouched over his fallen battle-brother and rested his arms across his chest, placing the short-blade in his grasp in a death salute. The Ultramarine captain could do little more. He stood up again and backed up against a wall, ignoring the throbbing in his head. He felt his armour dispensing painkillers into his system and detected his altered physiognomy at work, enabl-ing him to move and fight.

Scanning his surroundings, Cestus gathered that he was no longer outside the ordnance decks. He had no idea how he had got to this place and assumed that he had staggered through the tunnels of the
Furious Abyss
in a psychic-induced delirium, some innate survival instinct carrying him from immediate danger. It looked like a barracks. He dredged flashes of schematic implanted in his mind by Mhotep. Several dormitories made up the deck and there was a temple at the far end. It was the only exit.

Treading cautiously, assuming that the deck must be largely unoccupied or he would’ve been discovered already, Cestus made for the temple.

The chamber was anathema to everything the Emperor had taught them to believe. It opposed the era of enlightenment that the Great Crusade was meant to usher in for mankind, the banishment of barbarian customs and the value of the empirical over the superstitious. The temple flouted everything the Astartes stood for.

It was a place of worship, but of what craven deities Cestus did not know. An altar sat against one wall and there were pews arranged for prayer. The chamber was dressed with deep scarlet banners with crimson embroidery. The Ultramarine tried to focus on the designs, but found he couldn’t as they appeared to squirm and congeal before his eyes.

Several small bloodstained objects stood on the altar. Cestus realised that they were severed fingers, hundreds of them. An image of the
Furious
’s crewmen lining up to mutilate themselves in the name of Lorgar filled his mind. Cestus shook it away and
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forced himself to focus. His mind was still reeling. He had been to hell. The aftertaste of it was in his mouth and his body remembered the feeling of being wrenched apart.

The sound of footsteps snapped his attention to the present.

They were approaching fast: voices barked orders and armoured bodies clattered through a doorway nearby.

Though it rankled to hide, Cestus moved swiftly to the far end of the room where he could disappear into a shadowy alcove. It stank of old blood and decaying flesh. For the span of the
Furious
’s short life, the crew had used it constantly for their devo-tions. Books were piled up behind the altar nearby, each one with the rune of an eight-pointed star on the cover. Cestus averted his gaze, unwilling to learn of the myriad forms of damnation that awaited him within those pages.

‘There! The blood trail’s in here. Guns up and execute!’ It came from inside the room.

Cestus slid his bolt pistol from his holster and risked a glance around the altar. A squad of five Word Bearers had entered the room and were sweeping every corner with bolters. One wore an open book worked into the breastplate of his armour, words upon it inscribed in gold intaglio. Cestus assumed that he was a Legion veteran given command of the squad.

‘Check the barrack rooms,’ growled the veteran, with a voice like churning gravel. The Word Bearer cradled a low-slung melta-gun, a short-range weapon that burned through armour and flesh like parchment. It was an Astartes killer, the perfect hunting weapon.

The veteran and two others were left in the temple. The squad fanned out at a silent battle-sign from their leader and were working their way through the pews.

Cestus needed to act, while he still maintained the element of surprise. Unclipping a pair of frag grenades from his belt, he thumbed the activation icon on each and rolled them slowly across the ground.

One of the Word Bearers reacted to the sound and swung his bolter around to fire. Frag exploded in his face before he could
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pull the trigger, ripping off part of his helmet. A secondary detonation erupted beneath the other Astartes, the impact accentuated in the close confines, and took off his leg at the armour joint.

Spits of flame and a storm of splinters still clouding the air, Cestus was up and drilled a shot through the first Word Bearer, exploiting the fact that his head armour was compromised. A puff of red mist came from the back of the Word Bearer’s head before he died.

The Ultramarine heard the telltale whine of the melta-gun powering up and threw himself aside as the Word Bearer veteran discharged the deadly weapon. His sight line was cluttered with debris and the shot burned through the still falling, one-legged Word Bearer, who slumped to the ground with a smoking crater through his torso.

Cestus was up in moments, leaping over the pews and pumping rounds from his bolt pistol. The veteran, the last Word Bearer standing in the temple, saw the Ultramarine, but reacted too slowly. Before he could swing his melta-gun around for a second shot, bolt-rounds punched him in the arm and torso. The veteran spun and bucked with the impacts. As Cestus reached him, he had already drawn his power sword and lopped off the falling veteran’s head with a grunt of effort. Ignoring the sanguine gore pouring from the veteran’s neck, Cestus pushed on and regained the corridor outside the temple that led to the barrack rooms. A surprised Word Bearer, alerted by the gunfire, emerged from one of the chambers. Cestus shot him through the lens in his battle-helm and the enemy Astartes crumpled with a muffled cry.

A second Word Bearer sensibly employed more caution, using the extended grip of his bolter so that he could reach around the doorway and blindly strafe the corridor. Cestus hugged the wall as the shots streamed past, muzzle flash blazing. An errant bolt-round struck his pauldron armour, sending a chip spinning into Cestus’s face. He was without his battle-helm and fought the urge to cry out when the shard cut into his flesh and embedded there. Instead, he rolled his body over the wall, descending into a
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crouching stance and squeezed his bolt pistol trigger in an attempt to force his aggressor back into the chamber.

The weapon clicked in his grasp. It seemed so loud and final, despite the roar of battle filling Cestus’s ears.

The Ultramarine’s mouth formed an oath as the Word Bearer, who must have heard the dry shot, came out from his hiding place, laughing.

Instinctively, Cestus hurled his power sword. The blade spun end over end and
thunked
hard through the shocked Word Bearer’s gorget, impaling him through the neck. The Astartes staggered, arms splayed at first as he struggled to comprehend what had just happened to him, dark fluid leaking down his breastplate like a flood. Cestus followed the sword’s path at a run, smacking the boltgun out of the stricken traitor’s hand and wrenching the power sword free, taking the Word Bearer’s head with it.

‘My brother, my enemy,’ Cestus breathed after he took a moment to take stock, regarding the carnage of the dead Word Bearers around him.

Five Astartes slain, albeit traitors, by his hand; a temple devoted to heathen gods; enlightenment and the pragmatism of science and reason abandoned for superstition. Cestus felt the galaxy darkening even as he sheathed his power sword and discarded the Word Bearer’s unusable bolter clips. Grimacing, he tugged the ceramite chip from his face and then he pushed on.

Somewhere ahead, he knew, was an armoury.

BRYNNGAR LEAPT ASIDE as the power hammer crashed down onto the deck. Rolling to his feet, the Space Wolf could only watch as Baelanos, awesome in his dreadnought armour, wrenched the weapon free from a crater filled with sparking wires and torn metal. Cables ripped out with the hammer head were snarled around the weapon’s spikes like intestines.

Baelanos grunted as he righted himself, confusion still warring within him, and charged again.

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Brynngar ducked beneath the wild sweep of the hammer this time, the solid metal face whistling past his head like a death knell. The Space Wolf moved in with Felltooth and landed a fearsome blow to Baelanos’s armoured flank. The rune axe
spanged
against the reinforced ceramite frame and bit deep, but the Word Bearer dreadnought didn’t slow. Baelanos’s momentum carried him thundering into the Space Wolf, his machine bulk like a battering ram. Brynngar was smashed aside and lost his grip on Felltooth. He skidded on his front across the deck, friction sparks kicked up from his armour spitting in the Space Wolf’s face.

Brynngar grimaced and got up, drawing a knife from his belt.

The monomolecular blade was honed to beyond razor sharpness and could scythe open power armour with the proper amount of pressure. The only downside was its appalling reach, and Brynngar doubted whether a thrown blade would even irritate his goliath enemy.

Roaring a battle-cry, the old wolf launched himself at Baelanos, who was still turning, flashing in and out of lucidity. With every attack from the Space Wolf, though, the dreadnought’s memory was renewed.

Clinging to the Word Bearer machine’s weapon arm, Brynngar rammed his knife blade into the armour joint that sealed the sarcophagus in an attempt to prize it open. Baelanos spun hard, armoured feet stomping up and down, and his torso twisting as he sought to dislodge his opponent. Brynngar dug in, wrapping his legs around the dreadnought’s shoulder as he pushed the blade two-handed until it reached the hilt.

Baelanos, realising that he couldn’t shake the Space Wolf loose, decided to ram the Astartes into the armoury wall and charged headlong into it. Brynngar saw the empty dreadnought suits coming towards him at speed and realised that he was about to be crushed. He swung aside at the last moment, violently thrown clear as Baelanos careered into the dormant armour with a deafening
clang
. Dislodging himself quickly, the Word Bearer turned and stomped towards the prone Space Wolf, still dazed from his hurried dismount, intending to crush him beneath his feet.

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With a groan of pain, Brynngar rolled aside, but Baelanos was getting quicker and caught him a glancing blow with the power hammer as the Space Wolf struggled to rise. White fury filled Brynngar’s body and for a moment he was back at Fenris, though now a man, standing upon the shores of the silver-grey ocean.

Brynngar ducked a second swipe of the giant hammer that would have shattered his skull and ended the duel then and there. He saw Felltooth in flashes, but couldn’t reach the weapon’s haft to wrench it free. Brynngar also saw that the sarcophagus had sprung open, the collision forcing it loose with the Space Wolf’s knife lodged in the joint. The amniotic blister lay unprotected. Brynngar went for his bolt pistol, but found it wasn’t there. He cursed loudly. He must have lost it during the crash or at some point in the psychic fever dream.

Blood drooled from the Space Wolf’s mouth and nose, matting in the hair of his beard. His leg felt leaden and unresponsive. His body ached as if stuck with red-hot pins. This was the end. Unarmed and injured, even a warrior of Brynngar’s prowess could not hope to hold out against a dreadnought. Baelanos seemed to sense that inevitability and moved in slowly, as if savouring the kill.

The Space Wolf realised that he was laughing. The action of it hurt his chest. The shadow of the dreadnought eclipsed him completely and Brynngar closed his eyes, imaging the ocean.

‘Fenris,’
he whispered.

A bolter shot, stark and hollow, resounded in the armoury.

Brynngar’s eyes snapped open to see a smoking hole in the blister, fracture lines emanating outwards from the puncture crater.

Baelanos was rocked backwards, a gurgling sound emanating from his vox-emitter. Viscous, amniotic fluid spilled out from the crack like brine.

The Space Wolf ran forward, despite a new pain flaring in his leg, and ripped Felltooth free from the dreadnought’s bulk. He carved a line down the blister as Baelanos flailed in desperation and it cracked apart. The fluid gushed out, taking the incumbent Astartes inside with it. Baelanos flopped out of the shattered blis-301