Nemesis

Koyne’s gun, slick with mucus and fluids, finally vomited itself out of the assassin’s stomach and on to the floor. The Callidus clutched at it and released a shot in the direction of the grey-armoured hulk. The neural shredder projected a spreading plume of sickly energetic discharge around the Son of Horus and the warrior staggered with the hit, one hand coming up to clutch at his helmet.

The Garantine roared past, sprinting over Koyne where the Callidus lay propped up against a wall. ‘My kill!’ he was shouting, the words repeating and coming so fast they became a single stream of noise. ‘My killmykillmykillmykill–’

He was a blur of claws and gun, too fast for the eye to process the images. Sparks flew as the Eversor assassin collided bodily with the Astartes and knocked him down, the Garantine firing his Executor into the impact holes in the warrior’s chest at point-blank range, clawing wildly at his helmet with the spiked talon of his neuro-gauntlet. Koyne could hear the Astartes snarling, angrily fighting back, but the Eversor was like mercury, slipping through his clumsy armoured fingers.

Then dark, arterial blood spurted as the armour was cracked and the Garantine dug into the meat he found inside. His bolter dry, the Astartes punched and bludgeoned the Eversor, but if any pain impulses reached the Garantine’s mind, the brew of rage-enhancers and sense-inhibitors swimming through his bloodstream deadened them to nothing.

With a croaking, wet rattle, the Astartes sank back and collapsed. Chattering with coarse laughter, the Garantine swept up the fallen combat blade and pressed all his weight behind it. The weapon sank through sparking power cables and myomer muscles until it pierced flesh and cut bone.

After a minute or so, the Eversor dropped to the floor, still shaking with the aftershock of his chemical frenzy. ‘Ss-so…’ he began, struggling to speak clearly, forcing himself to slow down with each panting gulp of breath. ‘Th-this is how it feels to k-kill one of them…’ He grinned widely behind the fanged mask. ‘I like it.’

The Callidus stood up. ‘We need to move, before more of his brethren arrive.’

‘Aren’t you… aren’t you going to th-thank me for saving your life, s-shape-changer?’

Without warning, the Astartes suddenly lurched forwards, gauntlets snapping open, savage anger fuelling a final surge of killing fury. Koyne’s neural shredder was at hand and the assassin fired a full-power discharge into the skull of the Son of Horus; the blast disintegrated tissue in an instant wave of brain-death.

The warrior lurched and fell again. Koyne gave the Garantine a sideways look. ‘Thank you.’

SIXTEEN Collision / The Choice / Forgiveness

1

A bombardment had begun, and the people of Dagonet’s capital feared it was the end of the world.

They knew so little of the reality of things, however. High above in orbit, it was only the warship Thanato that fired on the city, and even then it was not with the vessel’s most powerful cannons. The people did not know that a fleet of craft were poised in silence around their sister ship, watchful and waiting. Had all the vessels of the Warmaster’s flotilla unleashed their killpower, then indeed those fears would have come true; the planet’s crust cracked, the continents sliced open. Perhaps those things would happen, soon enough – but for now it was sufficient for the Thanato to hurl inert kinetic kill-rods down through the atmosphere, the sky-splitting shriek of their passage climaxed by a lowing thunder as the warshots obliterated power stations, military compounds and the vast mansion-houses of the noble clans. From the ground it seemed like wanton destruction; from orbit, it was a shrewd and surgical pattern of attack.

2

Koyne and the Garantine stayed off the main avenues and boulevards, avoiding the roadways where processions of frightened citizens streamed towards the city limits. Hours had passed now since the killing in the plaza, and the people had lost the will to run, numbed by their own terror. Now they stumbled, silently for the most part, some pushing carts piled high with whatever they could loot or carry, others clinging to overloaded ground vehicles. When people did speak, they did so in whispers, as if they were afraid the Adeptus Astartes would hear the sound of a voice at normal pitch from across the city.

Listening from the shadows of an alleyway across from a shuttered monorail halt, the Callidus heard people talking about the Sons of Horus. Some said they had set up a staging point in Liberation Plaza, that there were hordes of Stormbirds parked there disgorging more Astartes with each passing moment. Others mentioned seeing armoured vehicles in the streets, even Battle Titans and monstrous war creatures.