Space War City of Light

Chapter one

Thermia v

Six miles south of the Raumath Docks

Thermia was a world of ghosts and half-seen things; a vaporous corpse; shrouded in a winding sheet of fine black powder. Mariah had come here in search of a vision, in thrall to a prediction, but Thermia had seeped in to her mind, clouding her thoughts. What had seemed so clear in the Arx Angelicum now seemed absurd.

On Baal she had dreamed that her, and her alone could save Mephiston. She had seen them fighting together beside a vast, shattered fist- a ruin, surrounded by monsters. She had been sure that the Chief Librarian was on the brink of disaster, the idea seemed ridiculous now, but Mariah could not let it go. She had to know what it meant.

She came to a halt and peered through the billowing ash, staring at movement up ahead. At first she struggled to make out the shapes but then her augmented vision honed in on them, resolving the silhouettes into something recognisable: a group of human soldiers, heading towards her at a slow, exhausted plod. She flicked the safety off her bolt pistol and strode on to meet them. The dust worms had left half of Thermia's settlers insane. The evacuation force had spent almost as much time killing humans as rescuing them. They had escorted thousands to the Raumath docks, readying them for evacuation, but others where consumed by madness they had to be gunned down. As Mariah approached the men she was quite prepared for either eventuality.

It was a group of shock troopers. They staggered to a halt as Mariah loomed out of the soot clouds. The soldiers were clad in black fatigues and thick plates of flack armour. Their crested, iron helmets completely encased their heads, and their faces were hidden behind thermal imaging goggles and heavy, bulbous rebreathers. They looked like thick-jawed attack dogs, the best Thermia had to offer, but Mariah could see they were as burned out as the rest of the planet. These veterans of an unwinnable war had watched their home die and it showed in their posture as they stumbled through the ash and embers. Their heads where hung low on exhaustion-rounded shoulders and their lasguns trailed behind them through the fumes.

At the sight of Mariah they dropped into combat stances and raised their guns.

"Who's that?" growled the leader, trying to disguise his fear with a gruff yell. He looked up at Mariah's power armour, his eyes narrowing behind the filthy lenses of his goggles.

Mariah stared down at him with her icy blue eyes. She scoured the men's souls, searching for the scent of corruption, but found only grief and despair.

"I am Mariah" she replied, when she realised she might not have to kill them.

"I am a Blood Angel."

The soldier glanced at his men, clearly at a loss for words.

"Make for the docks" said Mariah. "The planet is lost."

"Lost?" The trooper could not hide the emotion in his voice. At first Mariah thought is was relief, but then, as the man looked at the ground, Mariah realised it was shame. "Then we really are defeated?"

"Nothing can defeat you" replied Mariah, "Apart from despair. Conquer that and the Emperor might reward you with a more worthy foe."

The soldier's eyes widened and Mariah thought that he might weep. Then her drew back his shoulders and stood upright, giving Mariah a stiff salute. "Forgive my manners, I'm lieutenant Myos of the Vharun Twelfth."

Mariah nodded. "My battle-brothers are surrounding your camp as we speak. Yours is the last manned outpost. We have evacuated everyone else. We all leave tonight."

The men paled. They clearly understood what she meant: Thermia was beyond saving and must be destroyed.

"We were checking the camp perimeter," said Myos, sounding dazed. "We saw gunfire to the east. I guessed it was a relief force, but..." He shook his head. "We were just returning to camp for a debriefing."

Mariah was no longer looking at the man. "The battle for Thermia is over. It is time to leave. I was sent to check for sentries such as yourself. We will not leave good men behind if we can help it."

What did you see? Demanded the daemonic shape, striding towards her through a storm of ghosts.

Mariah staggered. Shocked by the violence of the vision. It filled her mind with more force than ever before. The same crimson eyes. The same murderous rage. The same crumbling stone fist, reaching up from a scorched landscape. The same furious question.

What did you see?

She grasped her head, her cranium pounding. Then the vision faded and the voice was gone.

The men stared at her in confusion.

Mariah lowered her hand from her face and glared at them. She nodded back the way they had come. There was a line across the horizon, just visible through the ash clouds. "Did you travel near the forest?"

Myos nodded. "General Kruk did not realise things were as dire as you say, but he knew we were surrounded. He sent us this way to scout the perimeter. We followed the edge of the forest until half an hour ago. Why?"

"There is an old ruined statue," said Mariah. "A fist jutting from the ground. Somewhere near here. Surrounded by burned tree stumps."

Myos nodded. "I know the place, my lady. It's not far. Near the old pit."

Mariah tried to steady her pounding hearts. "Lead me there. I have to see it before I go. The fleet leaves at dawn." she was talking more to herself than the soldier. "tonight is my last chance."

The men exchanged glances, hut Myos ordered them to make for the docks. Then he trudged back the way he had come, signalling for Mariah to follow.

They waded on through the ash-drifts, the soldier struggling to keep pace with Mariah's broad, powerful strides. After a while Mariah spotted a building up ahead. It was a squat, pugnacious-looking tower, constructed of battle-scarred ferrocrete and bristling with guns. As they crested a hill the rest of the camp came into view: more watchtowers, surrounding rows of blockhouses, all of it circled by trenches and razorwire.

On the far side of the camp he could see a flicker of lumens tracing across the ground. Captain Vatrenus and his squad of Tactical Marines were making their final sweep towards the shattered defence lines, scouring the fumes for signs of the enemy as they ordered the few remaining Guardsmen towards the docks. Mariah frowned knowing she should be down there with them. She had done as ordered and found the only strays she could. Now she should go back, but the visions haunted her. They had filled her thoughts since the moment they landed on Thermia, growing more forceful with every day that passed. She must see the place before she returned to Baal.

"What's that?" said Myos, looking along the earthworks toward another group of Guardsmen, about a dozen of them, huddled together for safety, all wearing straps of grenades and armed oilcloth-shrouded lasrifles.

"Sergeant Athor's men," said Myos. "Why are they just sitting there?"

Mariah had seen Mephiston's tactics many times since they landed and she understood what was about to happen. "Bait," she said, waving for Myos to keep his head down.

Beyond the distant group of Guardsmen there was a black wall of fir trees, marking the edge of the forest that blanketed most of the planet. It was here beneath their branches that Thermia's vile parasites started to stir, smelling the brain matter of the stranded troopers. The Chief Librarian had named them Sepolcrali, long before the Blood Angels even landed on Thermia, using the ancient Baalite word for creatures of the grave. It was clear that the name was significant to him, but nobody had the courage to ask him why. Mariah could not see the Sepolcrali yet, but their hunting call was unmistakable: and eerie, metallic scraping, like blades being sharpened. After a few minutes the Sepolcrali emerged from the trees. They could almost have been mistaken for more flurries of ash flakes – pale, serpentine shapes, coiling through the grey drifts. But Mariah noticed how they would rise up at one end, tasting the air and searching for a scent. The had no face, or any other features for that matter. They where opalescent tubes, ten or eleven feet long, looping and undulating as they snaked across the ash mounds. Mariah was reminded of the sandy shapes that roll through the shallows of oceans – tubular, featureless, inhuman.

Myos some magnoculars and watched the Sepolcrali slip into view. Captain Vatrenus and his Tactical Marines were half a mile away and it was clear that they would not reach the Guardsmen before the Sepolcrali did. "We can't just leave them there," hissed Myos.

"Wait," said Mariah

The troopers on the ridge had seen them too. The sergeant barked an order and the men spread out along the earthworks, each dropping to one knee and shouldering his lasrifle. Mariah could see the xenos more clearly now, unfurling themselves across the ash with a gentle, rippling motion. They where grotesque –billowing spirits, glittering in the moonlight. She could understand the tails of supernatural beings that had littered the battle reports. The Sepolcrali looked like ghosts.

She felt Myos bristling with hatred for the creatures and concern for his brothers down below.

"Wait!" she repeated.

The Sepolcrali were still a hundred yards or so away from the Guardsmen when the massacre began.

Myos cried out in surprise as Mephiston knifed down from the ash clouds. He was like a raptor, silent and lethal. He fell feet first, chin raised and eyes closed. He had the handle of his sword, Vitarus, pressed to his chest, as though he were a figure carved into a sarcophagus.

If the Sepolcrali sensed his coming, they had no chance to react. Mephiston landed with an explosion of ash and immediately began to kill. He whirled through the pre-dawn glow, gliding easily amongst his foes as though clad in silk rather than heavy, ancient battleplate.

The Sepolcrali recoiled and tried to flee but it was useless. Mephiston's sword sliced through their translucent flesh like smoke. The blade shone with the force of Mephiston's mind, blazing and flashing as it tore the ash worms apart. They died in spectacular fashion, bursting into glittering clouds that whipped away on the wind. Mariah had seen similar scenes several times since the start of the campaign, but she still watched with unabashed awe. Mephiston looked like a terrible deity, fallen from the heavens to mete out the Emperor's wrath. As Mephiston whirled and parried, Mariah muttered a prayer, thanking the Emperor for showing her the glory of this divine retribution. Then she noticed ranks of colossal figures emerging from the banks of ash – Captain Vatrenus' battle-brothers had reached the earthworks storming through the darkness, bolters raised. Like the shock troopers, the Blood Angels had no need to fire. Only a few seconds had passed since Mephiston appeared, but he had already destroyed most of the Sepolcrali.

"Wait," hissed Myos. "Prion!"

A wounded Guardsman had emerged from the tree line. He was much closer to the swarms of Sepolcrali than Mephiston or any of the other Blood Angels.

Mephiston had his back to the trooper as he sliced open another of the monsters but Captain Vatrenus saw him and must have voxed the Chief Librarian, because he whirled around.

"Too late," muttered Mariah. She strode forwards and raised her force sword. Mephiston saw the danger too and summoned wings from the darkness, but the white shape had already reached the injured soldier.

The man saw the Sepolcrali rushing towards him through the ash blizzard. He opened his mouth to scream and the creature formed into a narrow, dart-like shape that plunged straight down Prion's throat. It was a revolting sight, but Mariah could not look away. It looked like Prion was vomiting in reverse. A quivering column of ash thundered down his throat, causing him to judder and spasm. He collapsed onto the ground dead.

Mephiston swooped through the air, firing his pistol. Gouts of incandescent plasma thudded into the corpse, blasting chunks of flesh from the body and jolting it back across the moonlit hillside. There were dozens more Sepolcrali to kill but Mephiston was now far more concerned with Prion's corpse.

A second wave of the things erupted from the ash in front of Mephiston blocking his way. He killed them without raising a weapon – blasting them aside with a wave of his hand. They disintegrated in to a cloud of embers, but hundreds more swirled into view, determined to keep Mephiston away from the corpse. He quickly became mired in a wall of glittering shapes.

The hillside lit up as a fusillade of bolter shots tore through the night. Captain Vatrenus' squads had dropped to their knees and opened fire, attempting to cut a path through the Sepolcrali so that Mephiston could reach the body.

"Damn it," muttered Mariah, frustrated by the delay. She looked at Myos. "Wait here. We may still have time when this is finished."

"Finished," gasped Myos. "My lady, do you understand what the dust worms do?"

Mariah gave no reply and waded down the slope.

As the Tactical Marines' firestorm lit up the scene, it revealed something grotesque: Prion's corpse had began to quiver and mutate. Mariah hissed in disgust as it lurched to its feet, already starting to bulge and tear. White light spilled from holes in the dead man's flesh and his head lolled backwards at a hideous angle, swinging from side to side as he began to run down the slope. The Guardsmen on the earthworks opened fire, howling curses. Flashes of las-fire slammed into the animated corpse, but the impact just made it swell and mutate all the more. It blossomed into a misshapen giant, thundering through the ash as the Guardsmen's shots grew wilder and more panicked.

Mephiston ripped through the enemy lines and was hurtling towards the giant, but he was too late. As the bloated corpse reached the earthworks, the men on the counterscarp tried to flee but the giant moved with shocking speed and grabbed two of them in its enormous hands. It rocked back on its heels and threw them up the hill towards the rolling mass of Sepolcrali.

The dust worms shot out to catch them, slicing into their bodies like spears.

Even before the men died, they began to tear and reform. Within seconds their animated corpses where thundering down the hill after the fleeting Guardsmen. The first of the giant revenants was still hurling other Guardsmen towards the storm of sepolcrali and, by the time Mephiston reached the earthworks, there were half a dozen of the lurching colossi. With every moment that passed they grew even larger. The one that had been Prion was already nearly twenty feet tall and still growing. It towered over even the largest buildings in the camp, swaying as though drunk. It swung its lolling head around, trying to spy other victims to toss to the dust worms.

Klaxons blared, summoning Guardsmen from the blockhouses. Las-fire began lacerating the darkness, slicing chunks from the revenants, but the shots only seemed to add to their ghastly vigour. Mariah was still hundreds of yards away, but she raised her power sword and summoned a blast of psychic fire from its charmed metal, hurling it into the sepolcrali as she ran.

Mephiston looked back at the Blood Angels and must have voxed them a command because they stopped rushing towards Mephiston and turned to face the storm of dust worms at the edge of the forest. They raced up the slope, closed on their foe and attacked with flamers, spewing columns of promethium at the sepolcrali. The flames enveloped the ranks of xenos, creating a blinding wall of fire that drove them back into the dead trees.

As Captain Vatrenus pushed back the ash worms, Mephiston placed himself directly in the path of the massive revenants. Six of the twitching behemoths where pounding towards the rows of blockhouses. Some of them where now thirty feet tall and the ground shuddered as they advanced. Mephiston look tiny in comparison, but he waved away the Guardsmen that had approached until he stood alone. He shimmered wit power, as though his body were a window onto an inferno. The light burned brightest in his sword and as he held the blade aloft it shone like a beacon, causing the revenants to stagger and shield their deformed faces.

Mariah had never been so near to the Chief Librarian in combat before and she saw that, even now, dwarfed by these monstrous corpses, Mephiston was utterly cold.

Mariah's thoughts where interrupted by a sound from behind her. She whirled round, sword blazing, and saw Myos stumbling after her through the ash, refusing to sit by as others fought his foes. She muttered a curse, then turned back to the fight.

The first of the giants had nearly reached Mephiston when the Chief Librarian calmly raised one hand and clenched it in a fist. The monsters head detonated. Ash, blood and brain matter poured down its chest as it dropped to its knees. The impact of its fall shattered windows and shook doors from their hinges. Without a brain, undead became simply dead. Mephiston stepped aside as it crashed onto its chest.

After the first giant hit the ground, Mephiston leapt onto its back and launched himself at the second. The revenant reached for him with broken, deformed arms, but Mephiston summoned wings, swooping around the blow and plunging Vitarus into the giant's neck. The revenant staggered back and tried to shake him off, but Mephiston wrenched his blade through skin, bone and cartilage, decapitating the giant with one precise slash of his sword. Soldiers bolted for safety as the head crashed down, flattening a storehouse in an explosion of wood and roof tiles.

The third of the giants collapsed into a molten heap as Mephiston boiled its blood from within and the next two went the way of the first, their heads imploding as though hit by heavy artillery.

Mephiston fought calmly and with precision, his eyes half-lidded as he sliced the corpse giants apart.

As the fifth giant crashed to the ground, Mephiston saw that the sixth had taken its stolen body and fled for the forest. It was almost at the tree line, but Mariah knew the vile thing would never make the trees.

Captain Vatrenus and his men had penned in most of the other worms and Mariah saw her chance. "The fight is over," she said, turning to face the dazed-looking Guardsman. "Lead me to the ruin."

"What of you brothers, my lady," asked Myos, nodding to the Blood Angels. Mariah shook her head. She knew the she was meant to seek this place alone. Vatrenus and the others were not part of the visions that had driven her here. She had seen the moment so many times. There was Mephiston, the daemonic foe and her – no one else.