The Last Son of Dorn Read online

  The gunship groaned as its back end swung away and its nose came back around. Kjarvik could see Atherias and Bohr through the armourglass, locked into restraint harnesses, fighting with the guide sticks. Penitent Wrath whipped around on its sole functioning turbofan and swept further out. Metres from the rooftop. Centimetres from the edge. Kjarvik twisted bodily, and smacked face-first into the roof. He rolled sideways a way, bled off his momentum, and came up on all fours with the exception of the one hand that hovered over his mag-holster. The sheet metal gave a crumping wobble where his weight had depressed it. His long hair and pelt whipped about in the high-altitude wind.

  He sniffed. Dead orks. Engine oil. Burning.

  A massive thump rumpled through the metal as Zarrael impacted like a drop pod without retros. The Flesh Tearer crunched two-footed into the roof, right boot breaking through to the greave. Actuators and suspensors responded after a second’s delay, dispersed the impact throughout his armour, plate to plate, servos whirring like dynamos as he violently kicked his leg free. Phareous hit a moment later, a few metres off, then Baldarich, coming in on the tips of his toes with a swordsman’s poise.

  Penitent Wrath convulsed as her rear end swept over the parapet, attitude control jets burning blue to white, hot enough to hold her shuddering in place while two dozen Inquisitorial storm troopers poured out. They held a perimeter with lasguns aimed up and out as Inquisitor Wienand and her bodyguard, Raznick, hurriedly dropped out after them. Raznick supported Urquidex under one arm even as he marked threat angles with his laspistol.

  The last few storm troopers were following up at the end of the ramp when the Thunderhawk’s last turbofan blew out. The engine housing vomited oily yellow flames and rotor shards, and the unresisted control thrusters suddenly hammered the gunship sideways.

  Men fell, screaming, rolled across the roof like bones tossed from a cup or flailed over the edge. Others were thrown back into the troop bay or hung onto the now upside-down ramp by the fingers. Shorn of any uplift, Penitent Wrath crashed into the roof, bowing it permanently, and shrieked back on thrusters until it crashed into the soaring stretch of curtain wall that rose from that side.

  Kjarvik had memorised the cartoliths, as they all had. If they were accurate and he remembered truthfully, then this was the south face of the palace’s innermost defences, an iron ring of brute firepower and hypertechnology that defended the Beast’s throne room against attack from the ground and from the air.

  Penitent Wrath’s machine-spirit finally expired and she fell quiet. Steam rose from the tracked tears she had left in the roof. Smoke gouted from her blasted engine.

  Phareous lowered his shield and ran for the downed gunship, voxing Atherias and Bohr. A few greenskins littered his path but their threads had been well cut and hard, mown down by the Thunderhawks’ anti-personnel guns or dispatched by the sons of Dorn.

  ‘We have located an access ramp down into the palace, and from there, with luck, to the throne room of the Beast.’ Maximus Thane’s war-plate boosted his voice over the thunder of flak guns and the shrapnel rain. Kjarvik knew of him from the Deathwatch’s very first missions. He was good. He spoke plainly. Kjarvik respected him enormously, and he was not alone in doing so.

  Half a dozen Fists Exemplar and an Apothecary of the Excoriators followed Thane from his Thunderhawk, Zarrael and even Baldarich falling in behind the Chapter Master as he neared.

  ‘How far?’ asked Kjarvik.

  Thane shrugged, a whine of servos. ‘Less than two hundred metres.’ He pointed over the fortress wall, the guns still spitting fire and energy bolts at the Deathwatch gunships trying to land closer. ‘Koorland’s teleport coordinates are just on the other side of that.’

  ‘Does his teleport homer still signal?’

  ‘I cannot raise the fleet to find out.’

  ‘On the bright side, the Beast will be distracted by Koorland and–’ Kjarvik waved a gauntlet vaguely in the direction that most of the muted booms were coming from ‘–and whoever it is now in charge down there. He will not be expecting us.’

  As he spoke, another black gunship set down on landing struts, and another, just as a hellstrike missile from a third whistled through the air and obliterated a gun-nest, crowning the main source of flak with fire and scattering the neighbouring roofs with debris. More Deathwatch deployed from their open assault ramps: black-armoured, elite, packing combi-weapons and wargear for any occasion. He recognised several of the sergeants from the mission briefing.

  Zarrael gave a twitching nod in the direction of Penitent Wrath, and Kjarvik looked that way. Wienand walked towards them, Raznick in close beside her, crowded by black-armoured mortal troopers – hreindýr displaying their antlers to a Fenrisian wolf. The inquisitor had changed out of her grey dress-suit during the flight, and into the same glossy black fatigues and hardened carapace worn by her storm troopers. She had a laspistol, but left it in its holster, content to cede her protection to the twenty-plus guns of her guards.

  ‘A neat fit,’ said Kjarvik, indicating her slighter frame relative to the muscular Inquisitorial storm troopers.

  ‘I came prepared.’

  Raznick pushed Urquidex ahead of him, and now the magos was close, Kjarvik saw that he was pulling a small equipment cart behind him. Its wheels rattled on the bent metal roof. Lights blinked in no particular sequence, and wires flounced between what looked like a specialist vox-set and the plug-in sockets in the back of Urquidex’s neck. His eyes twitched randomly. He muttered a guttural alien gibberish under his breath, as though something primordial whispered in his ear. Drool trickled down his chin as he mumbled, too intent on sharing the profundity of what he heard to remember to swallow.

  ‘What is wrong with him?’ said Baldarich, voice thick with distaste.

  ‘He is parsing the orks’ communications for an indication of the Beast’s location,’ said Wienand. ‘When Thane told me that he could pick out the Beast’s voice from the palace transmissions, I was reminded of the linguistic matrix developed by Magos Laurentis to translate the Beast’s attempts at communication on Ardamantua. Urquidex possessed the necessary cranial implants to access his language centres, and he kindly volunteered.’

  ‘I am sure he did,’ said Kjarvik.

  ‘It. Is. Curious,’ said Urquidex, the human words forced between the brutish alien sounds that spilled from his cortex. ‘Multiple. References. To. Beast.’ His eyes were screwed shut, eyelids flickering as if in a troubled dream. ‘Unsure. Where. It. Is.’

  ‘Deliberate misdirection?’ Thane suggested.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Then we split our forces,’ said Wienand quickly. ‘Hit them all. The Fists Exemplar and Excoriators take half, while I and the Deathwatch will take the other. If nothing else, splitting up will keep the orks off-balance, possibly give Koorland and Kavalanera a chance to deploy the psyker.’

  ‘You?’ said Thane. ‘Representative, I do not believe–’

  ‘Don’t “Representative” me, Maximus. You lead your men and I intend to lead mine.’

  Thane shot a glance at the Deathwatch. There were just under thirty of them, the finest warriors from nine different Chapters. The best that Kjarvik had ever fought beside.

  ‘I suppose I have little choice,’ said Thane.

  ‘Less than that. Now let’s go.’

  ‘Is one location more likely than another?’ said Thane, and turned to Urquidex.

  ‘Not. Significantly. But. One. Is. Source. Of. Most.’ He shuddered, jaw clenched over a truculent ‘Tra’ sound that apparently did not exist in the greenskin vocabulary. ‘Transmissions.’

  ‘Then I shall take that one. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Wienand. ‘Assign teams and Urquidex will instruct them on where to go.’

  Thane nodded and turned to order his men into combat squads. As soon as he was facing the other way, Wienand clasped Urquidex
’s shoulder and, under the pretence of helping him walk, whispered something in his ear. But none of the Space Marines on the rooftop had keener ears than the Space Wolf.

  ‘My team takes the most probable location.’

  Kjarvik shook his head and readied his wargear.

  Bad luck. It was a curse.

  Ullanor – Gorkogrod, throne room

  The ork psyker gave a roar of supplication as the heavy draught-servitors hauled the creature into the great throne room of the orks. Laurentis scuttled under the chain to stab another dose of sedative into its leg. It barked and tried to kick back at the magos, but the dumb servitors dragged it inexorably forward. Signing to her sisters to close in around their charge, Kavalanera drew in behind it, raised her arm up and placed her hand to the back of the psyker’s neck, where it joined its head. It shuddered in bleak horror, some combined effect of the paralytic in its bloodstream and the pariah gene that cored its subconscious like a frost blade to the soul. Even so, it continued to ramble and growl. It dropped to its knees as though begging forgiveness and had to be dragged the rest of the way by its wrists.

  That display alone would have been enough to convince Koorland that he was in the right place. But he knew this room. Krule had described it perfectly.

  In the centre of the stupefyingly vast space was a circular dais, much like the centrepiece of the Great Chamber of Terra, though this example of the form was larger again, grander again. Six enormous thrones faced outwards in a ring, so that the one immediately opposite Koorland was out of view. And the one that faced him…

  ‘Stop!’ he roared, and, cued to his voice, command the servitors halted.

  The ork psyker writhed on the floor.

  ‘This is the chamber,’ said Krule.

  Behind the Assassin, Alpha 13-Jzzal and the ogryns held the doors with thumps of meat and fiery blasts of plasma. Kill-Team Stalker spread out, taking positions in the crop-circle patterns of pits surrounding the podium that might have been analogous to rows of seating.

  Koorland clumped forward to join Bohemond and Asger.

  Like him, they were staring up at the dais.

  Enthroned in its titanic chair was a gigantic, armoured ork, nearer in size to a gargant than any common greenskin. No plate was of the same material or colour as the next, but all were threaded together with an intricate web of alien designs. Its head was bare: flesh, dark green, ridged like tree bark, and swirled nightshade blue with tattoos. Gauntlets the size of Koorland’s plastron clasped the throne’s arms. Calloused lips and painted tusks parted in a grin.

  It had been waiting for them.

  Koorland felt a chill in his soul.

  With a clanking of armour, the Beast rose from its throne.

  ‘Emperor preserve us,’ cried Commissar Goss, turning from the mob at the door and lowering his plasma pistol in horror. The commissar was a last-minute addition. He would not have been briefed on events on the temple-gargant of the Beast.

  Koorland became aware of jeering from above. He turned his faceplate to look up over his right pauldron.

  The walls of the throne room were stone, black and white, made of large blocks carved with ork glyphs. Scores of iron-railed galleries jutted out. They were identified with glyph plates and a quick glance was enough to tell Koorland that there were only six unique pictograms in total. An iron-tusked ork on a disc of red; a red sun with an ork’s face; a crooked yellow half-moon; an angular serpent; a skull crossed by bloody axes; a horned blue ork’s head backed by bones. The galleries marked by that last symbol were lined with bellowing orks. The aliens were all as big or bigger than any Koorland had yet encountered beside the Beast itself. They were heavily armed and armoured, their gear a dull blue bearing the blazon of the death’s skull.

  War machines flanked the galleries, great gargants, symbols of status as much as sentinels. Their enormous rivet-iron frames boasted only the largest and most complicated weapon mounts. The paint daubed across their bodywork and the jewels that studded their armour matched the glyph art of the chamber. None was smaller than a Reaver Titan, and most were considerably larger. In some cases the ork engineers had resorted to extending their machine outwards to outdo a rival engine. They were fortress walls on spiked tracks.

  Koorland’s mind flashed back to Ardamantua and the powerful warrior forms that had torn from the ground in swarms when their principal nests had been threatened.

  These orks were their warrior forms. Their Daylight Wall.

  Their Adeptus Custodes.

  The mosaic floor shuddered as the Beast took a step off the dais. It was titanic, three times Koorland’s size, and Asger and Bohemond seemed to shrink in accordance with its bulk. Koorland’s biology had passed far beyond the grasp of fear, but he comprehended the enormity of his task.

  Here was the Great Beast. The ork that had contested Vulkan in single combat and survived the primarch’s end.

  What chance did Koorland have?

  The Beast grunted something orkish to the bound psyker, then passed its gaze over the three Terminators. It settled on Koorland, the instinctual recognition of one apex beast for another. Its eyes were like red suns caged. Its voice was the shattering of worlds.

  ‘Slaughter.’

  Seventeen

  Ullanor – Gorkogrod, throne room

  Koorland stepped forward. An uncommon thrill of anticipation passed through him, an electric shiver, as if his body had been conditioning itself these past weeks and months to the cocktail of emotions that the moment of triumph would bring. Koorland’s gene-heritage would not let his face show it. He could not in fact remember the last time he had truly laughed or even smiled from his heart, though he assumed that he had, once. Even on frozen death worlds, mortal children still laughed. And as the Emperor’s distant light was his judge and witness, they always would.

  Bohemond moved across his path, a pace ahead, sword raised as if to bar Koorland from the Beast and vice versa with his body and with his blade.

  ‘You would be my champion now as well?’ said Koorland on a private channel. ‘I am Lord Commander. It is my right to face the Beast alone.’

  With a gruff murmur of assent, Bohemond ponderously backed up and lowered his blade until the tip scraped the mosaic tiles in front of him. Koorland watched him go, nodded his gratitude though no one could see it behind his fixed helm and gorget, and caught Kavalanera’s gesture.

  ‘Now?’

  Koorland could guess that the Beast had some understanding of Low Gothic, but he doubted the greenskins were familiar with Adeptus Astartes battle-sign. He moved his hugely armoured fingers in reply.

  ‘Not yet.’

  It was as complex a message as sign language could convey while wearing Terminator armour, but the knight abyssal signalled her understanding. She gestured to Laurentis. The ork psyker thrashed against the armoury servitors as Laurentis scuttled warily through with a stimm dose slurping into a hypodermic appendage.

  At the door, Alpha 13-Jzzal and the ogryns were still battling to hold the orks back.

  The harder we hit them, Koorland thought, the stronger the psychic field becomes.

  The harder we hit them…

  ‘I am Slaughter,’ said Koorland, turning to the Beast. ‘I am the Lord Commander of the Imperium of Man, and I have come to kill you.’

  The Beast did not laugh. It should have done, but it did not.

  It swung up its arm.

  An impossible array of firepower had been assembled into a triple-tiered gantry around its wrist. Two bolted-together battlecannons formed the mainstay. That twin-link was surrounded by autocannons, heavy flamers, rocket launchers, and multi-barrelled weapons of ork make that Koorland had never seen on any battlefield and could not identify. Ammo-belts and power hoses swung side to side as it took aim. It barely had to. In its open gauntlet was a pulsing trigger switch, onmi-linked to that
awesome battery.

  It clenched its fist.

  Thunder struck. A star was born. Worlds collided.

  Asger’s emergency vox blinked up an unnecessary warning on Koorland’s helm display, the same moment he felt Bohemond’s shoulder guard barge him out of the way.

  The firestorm that engulfed the Black Templar would have rivalled a super-heavy tank squadron. Koorland did not see it fall. He was already stumbling away under Bohemond’s shove, the blast that struck still mighty enough to throw him down and shatter the lens of his right eye. Power failed to numerous systems and was rerouted. Servos whirred as Fidus Bellator aided its wearer in driving their mammoth weight back up. He looked back.

  Bohemond was broken, leaking sealant. The mosaic he covered was pulverised. His rune in Koorland’s fractured visor was a warning amber.

  The orks looking on bellowed thunderous approval, stamped their feet, beat their fists on the iron handrails. The galleries trembled, but the engineering expertise on display was sound and there was no danger of their stanchions buckling.

  Asger flourished his lightning claws and howled back at them. Krule was more forthright. The Assassin lifted his executioner pistol and drilled a mass-reactive round through an ork’s head. The explosive bolt burst through the back of its skull, and the ork pitched over the rail and thumped into the floor.

  For half a second the jeering stopped.

  Then the Beast gave a roar that could have cracked armourglass and, as though it were the blow that shattered the dam, the ork elites began pounding down the stairs.

  Koorland gave a tight little smile.

  Yes. Hit them harder.

  The Beast clanked through the pall of its own almighty weapons discharge. Auto-loaders clicked and whirred. Barrels spun off heat. Drum hoppers chewed through belts. Little hatches opened up in the brute’s armour, rubber conveyors porting heavier ordnance towards the battlecannons and rocket launchers. Koorland emptied his storm bolter’s clip into the gantry, seeing a weak spot in the array of loader mechanisms, but the mass-reactive explosions rippled purple-green across an energy field about a metre ahead of the great ork’s armour. The effect rose diagonally along the Beast’s chest as Koorland traversed his aim and moved ponderously aside.