Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

Clearing out the entire underhive cost Lin no small amount of time.

The final conversion of the earlier sacrificial ritual had claimed the souls of every Nurgle cultist within the eye of the circle — but that only accounted for those inside the eye of the circle. The Nurgle cultists who had run rampant throughout the underhive under cover of the ork invasion were far more numerous than that.

A great many Nurgle cultists had been dispatched by the Bishop to "preach" among the underhive settlements, and only upon returning did they realize that the Cult of Life had already been destroyed by Lin and the Astartes.

Some among them wished to resist; others wished to swear their loyalty anew to Lin. But their wishes were beside the point. For the vast majority of mortals — those with pitifully low resistance — once the corruption of Chaos began, there was no turning back.

Lin treated them all the same. With his flamer, he brought both waves of them a true and genuine mercy.

But such mercy would plainly never be understood by the followers of the Grandfather. Realizing they could never be taken back in, these Nurgle cultists began to resist ferociously.

With no more rituals to absorb the profane force of Nurgle that leaked from them upon death, their corruption and contagion had begun to fall in line with that of ordinary Nurgle cultists. This forced Lin, in the course of purging them, to also purge several settlements that had already been infected.

The whole affair took a full two and a half days before it was more or less concluded.

But those two and a half days were not spent solely on clearing the underhive — after discovering that the Inquisitor's diary explicitly identified the Ayash steward as a Chaos Cultist, Lin had already sent people ahead to move the supplies stockpiled at their main hive garrison down into the underhive.

The three cruisers had also found a pretext to leave port, while keeping their distance from the Imperial fleet and Port Sanctus alike.

He had also contacted Inquisitor Vladilena, asking her to send someone to probe whether the planetary governor was likewise a Chaos Cultist.

That governor's earlier speech had been rousing indeed. But once it became known that the traitor Inquisitor was an Isstvaanian, the planetary governor's grand and stirring words began to look extremely suspicious.

It bore repeating: it was not only the underhive — the whole of Port Sanctus was positively teeming with "talent."

Inquisitor Vladilena had not yet replied, and Lin was not one to sit idle, staring blankly, waiting on word. Whether the planetary governor was a Chaos Cultist might introduce some small variables, but what Lin intended to do would not change.

"We're returning to the apex hive to slaughter Chaos's confederates down to the last man!"

Naturally, no one objected to this proposal. In fact, ever since Lin had banished the greater daemon before their very eyes, his ideas always earned even greater respect from the Astartes.

This respect burned most fervently in Lancelot of the Black Templars, who told everyone he met, "The God-Emperor must surely have possessed this sage's body!"

The Astartes of other Chapters might disagree with the Black Templars on other matters, but on this one point alone they shared a strange and uncanny consensus.

Still, any operation had to observe a certain reason. Though in his day Fulgrim had boasted that he needed but a single squad to reclaim an entire world, the age of the Primarchs had long since passed. Forget a whole world — even a single hive city was beyond the power of three hundred-odd Astartes lacking heavy weapons support.

They would have to bring more force to bear.

Lin intended to tie this matter together with the elimination of the last of the Nurgle cultists.

With the Nurgle cultists in the underhive now essentially swept clean, the Cult of Life's final stronghold lay among those cultists laying siege to the Planetary Defence Force's line.

They had originally been assigned by the Bishop to lead the mortals who followed the Cult of Life in besieging the line where the Planetary Defence Force was garrisoned, so as to prevent the Defence Force from reinforcing the Astartes against the lower-ranking cultists. But after the Bishop, who had sought to defeat the Astartes with sorcery, went down in bitter defeat, this pack of Nurgle cultists driving the mortals before them had instead become the last survivors.

These cultists of no great rank, upon spotting signs of the Astartes, realized that the Bishop had failed. With the underhive now turned by the Astartes into a slaughterhouse for cultists, the underhive denizens under their command became their last remaining leverage.

They directed these mortals to assault the Planetary Defence Force's positions, attempting to break through the line and flee to the midhive and lower hive in hopes of a sliver of survival. But the line, constructed by the Imperial Fists, was impregnable. Even though the ones garrisoning it were not Space Marines, these underhive denizens with their crude weapons could not breach the line.

After several fruitless assaults, the underhive denizens — leaving the ground strewn with corpses — began to grow afraid.

They had joined the Cult of Life in the first place only to secure the food and water to keep themselves alive. But if the price of obtaining those things was their own lives, then did that not run counter to the very purpose they had started with?

But the cultists would accept no retreat. They devised a still harsher system of rationing, and even began using their meager profane force in an attempt to reanimate the dead into walking corpses.

Though doing so caused no small unrest among the underhive denizens, compared to starving to death or being turned into the walking dead, most of the residents once again, under coercion, mounted an assault against the line.

"Forward, attack!" the Nurgle cultists loudly egged on these underhive denizens. "This time it's different from before — the Grandfather's blessing shields us!"

Whatever credibility such words might have had long ago evaporated the moment the Nurgle cultists tore away their hypocritical masks.

The underhive denizens, gripping their ragged weapons, trembled as they stepped onto the battlefield. They used warped scrap-metal barrels for shields, warily eyeing the line, where machine-gun fire could blanket them at any moment.

But they soon realized this time truly was different from before.

Along the Planetary Defence Force's line, only a scattered handful of logging guns were firing back at them — and every one of those shots was hopelessly off the mark.

Colonel Wilhelm von Effiris of the Planetary Defence Force slumped in the trench, feeling as though his lungs had been packed with shattered glass.

Just half a day earlier, men in his regiment had begun, one after another, to run high fevers and fall to coughing. Because the Planetary Defence Force's sense of caution was weak, in the span of only half a day this waterborne disease had spread to every last soldier.

"Sir..." A hoarse groan came from beside the Colonel. He turned his head and saw Corporal Faraday, the man who served as his vox-operator.

Once he had moved with a spring in his step; now he could only curl up beside the Colonel, shivering.

"Those lord angels... when will they arrive?"

"Hold on, vox-operator." The Colonel fed him his last mouthful of clean water. "The lord angels will be here soon."

"Before those rebels break through and cut us down?"

"Of course they will. The angels will save us all — the story always goes that way."

So the Colonel comforted him, even though he himself did not believe a word of it.

Hemmed in and holding the line, they were far less informed than that band of cultists outside. As far as they could tell, the Astartes who had departed the line had gone three days now without any word.

The Planetary Defence Force had never been a disciplined outfit — the Colonel himself was no more than the son of a local noble who had spent a few years reading at a military academy.

In days past, he reckoned he would have pulled his men out and withdrawn outright. But the glory of having fought shoulder to shoulder with the Astartes had kindled in his heart a will and courage he had never possessed before, and this had let him hold the line the Imperial Fists left behind for three days running.

He had thought he could keep enduring, but this sudden plague seemed poised to write the final chapter of his efforts.

He drew a deep, ragged breath, forced himself to his feet, and rallied them: "If we lose to this rabble, what will become of our Planetary Defence Force's honor! Soldiers — for the Emperor, hold the line!"

But the scattered gunfire from the trench only stoked the ferocity of the underhive denizens. With no retreat under the Nurgle cultists' threats, they realized this might just be their best chance.

The refugees threw everything into pressing the attack, straining to break through the line. Behind them, the Nurgle cultists, seeing success within reach, wore satisfied smiles.

But the Thunderhawk gunships that came screaming past slammed a pause button down over the entire battlefield.

The underhive denizens had of course seen this thing before — when the Space Marines had butchered the Nurgle cultists in the plaza, it was this great flying machine that had come to carry them away. Realizing what kind of foe they were about to face, the once fearless underhive denizens were instantly thrown into panic.

"Keep order! Do not stop the attack!" the Nurgle cultists shrieked shrilly, viciously cursing this mob of underhive denizens for squandering the golden opportunity the Grandfather had bestowed. "You lot aren't worth as much as toads — I said attack!"

But their commands were plainly no match for the mortals' innate dread of the Astartes. The underhive denizens held their breath, gazing in awe at the Thunderhawk gunship surveying the battlefield, terrified it would open up with lascannon or heavy bolt rounds.

Fortunately, the Thunderhawk gunship did not attack. After circling in the air for a time, it set down on the landing pad within the line, and a group of Astartes filed out, gathered around Lin.

The instant he stepped from the hold, a peculiar stench — a mixture of disinfectant and excrement — began to assault Lin's olfactory analyzer. Realizing the line had fallen victim to the Nurgle cultists' foul work, the Astartes voluntarily set about the viral decontamination they had grown so familiar with over these past two days.

Lin, meanwhile, went straight to the Colonel. Wilhelm was terribly weakened by the plague, but seeing Lin and the Astartes, he could scarcely conceal his excitement.

By the Emperor's arse, His angels had truly come to save them!

He made to kneel in salute, but Lin caught him with a hand. "Never mind the formalities — tell me, what's the situation on the line right now?"

The Colonel's three days of holding the line had not been spent merely firing his weapon. He began from three days prior, when he first resisted the underhive denizens' assaults, going on to how he had deduced from the denizens' increasing reluctance that they were being coerced into the attack; and he finished with how they had been struck by some inexplicable plague — a systematic account of everything they had gone through over all these days.

Listening to his report, Lin nodded, and his logic-analyzer's estimate of the plan's feasibility rose by nearly another ten percentage points.

"You've done well, Colonel. But now, I still need you to make a trip out before these underhive denizens with me."

Wilhelm was stunned. "Shouldn't we just slaughter them all outright?"

"If that were necessary, I'd have had the Thunderhawk gunship do it just now."

He helped the Colonel up encouragingly. "Don't worry. So long as the method is right, they can become our strength. I'll mix up a targeted remedy for you all afterward — but for now, I still need you looking this wretched."

The defenders opened the line's gate, and several Astartes ringed themselves behind Lin. Together with Lin, they walked to a piece of high ground, so that all the underhive denizens could see them.

"Underhive denizens! Do you know why the firepower on this line is so feeble?"

Lin shouted, his voice amplified through the vox-array, drawing the attention of everyone present. He pushed the Colonel out before him, using projection equipment so that all could see the man's haggard face. "This is the reason!"

The underhive denizens did not know what Lin was selling in his gourd, but the Colonel's appearance stirred slight unrest among them all the same. That haggardness, identical to that of the mortals punished by the Nurgle cultists, instantly made them think of the Cult of Life adherents.

"It's exactly as you're thinking — it's those Cult of Life people working their mischief!" Lin's answer confirmed their suspicions. "But do not take comfort in it! Do you truly believe that if you break through this line, this pack of cultists will let you go?"

"Today the misfortune falls on them — tomorrow it will be your turn!"

The underhive denizens fell silent, chewing carefully over Lin's words. Quite a few of the quicker-witted Nurgle cultists had already grasped what Lin was doing, and these ones let out phlegm-thick, blaring cries: "Stop him! Don't let him keep talking!"

Several bolder Nurgle cultists launched an attack, but the bullets they fired were stopped by an energy shield. The Astartes precisely pinpointed the cultists who had opened fire and blew open their heads with bolt rounds.

The denizens began to panic at this sudden clash, but Lin, who held absolute command over the discourse by dint of his booming voice, quickly settled them: "Do not panic! We will not attack ordinary people who bear no hostility! All you need to do is stay away from those cultists!"

The Admidels moved through the crowd, precisely locating the cultists who had earlier been felled by the other Astartes. These cultists' bodies had been blasted open by bolt rounds, yet they had not died just like that. The Nurgle profane force roiling within them bound their pulped flesh together in some inconceivable manner, driving them to climb back up off the ground once more.

By the time they stood, their forms bore little resemblance to their original human appearance — swollen bodies burst through their robes, and the exposed organs were covered in breathing mold-blooms. When the Admidels sliced through one's flesh with a tachi, what sprayed from his ruptured organs was, astonishingly, living maggots.

The denizens erupted in an uproar.

They had not yet been "accepted" by the Grandfather, so their aesthetics had naturally not yet been twisted. These things, which in the eyes of the Nurgle cultists could be called the beauty of life, appeared to those who still held a normal moral compass as an indescribable revulsion. They could not believe they had, until now, been keeping company with cultists such as these.

They were nothing but monsters wearing human skin!

Lin watched the reactions of the underhive denizens. He had the Admidel hoist the still-struggling cultist up before him, so that everyone could see clearly his unmanly hideousness.

"This is the monster that has been urging you on to your deaths!" he barked sternly. "They are not human at all, yet they would incite you — incite one group of humans to attack another group of humans! Making you bleed for their ambitions!"

He held the cultist up in his hand, and the cultist, whose wounds had been mending, instantly began to scream. At Lin's touch, the profane force of Nurgle was banished, and the once-struggling cultist promptly withered and shriveled away.

Lin tossed the twisted, rotten thing aside. "In the eyes of these monsters, you are cannon fodder, you are tools, you are a great many other things — but the one thing you are not is human!"

Pure power commanded pure respect. The underhive denizens gazed in awe at Lin, who had banished the thing of evil. They watched Lin's every move — but the Nurgle cultists were still struggling in their death throes.

"Don't be bewitched by him! You worldly things, if you want to go on living, you need the food and water we provide!"

One Nurgle cultist roared, risking everything: "Kill him! The False Emperor's lapdogs can't kill every last one of you — but I can starve every last one of you to death!"

These words struck straight at the heart of the matter — a life with a full belly was a temptation no underhive denizen could refuse. To go on living, they truly did not care whom they toiled and died for.

The underhive denizens stirred once more, beginning to whisper among themselves. Lin did not stop any of it. He merely swept his gaze over these underhive denizens, quietly waiting for them to make their own choice.

At last, one man stepped forward. He walked out from the crowd and knelt before Lin.

He was a gaunt-faced middle-aged man with yellowish-brown skin and no trace of mutation anywhere on his body — he looked to be a standard human, a very rare thing in an underhive so teeming with "talent."

"My lord priest." His breadth of knowledge was plainly greater than the average underhive denizen's. "We only want to go on living."

"Then why did you step forward?"

The middle-aged man raised his head, a deep sorrow in his eyes. "I only want them to go on living — that is all."

"That is not something I can give." Lin replied calmly. Though the man's manner of speaking was a little strange, Lin had still made out his plea.

The eyes of the underhive denizens dimmed. They did not gather back toward the Nurgle cultists, but in every one of their eyes lay a confusion that would not dissolve.

Lin raised his hand, and an Astartes carried a large crate before him. Lin kicked the crate over with one foot, and the wooden box, striking the ground, split open to reveal the protein bars produced by the Forge Ship inside.

"But so long as you still consider yourselves human, I can grant you — with your bellies full and your thirst slaked — the glorious death of fighting for humanity!"

The crowd erupted at once.

They looked upon the delicacy before them, one they had never tasted, with craving eyes, yet not a single one dared step forward to scramble for it. Their earlier awe of Lin now transmuted into reverence. The denizens held their breath and fixed their gaze on Lin, awaiting his new instructions.

"Those who will not fight cannot survive on the charity of others alone!"

Lin clenched his hand into a fist and thrust it high, his voice gradually rising into a roar: "Go and fight those cultists! Go and prove you still have the courage that belongs to humans! Tell me that you will not die like rats in a gutter! Do not expect others to give you anything — for everything that humanity can possess must be seized with one's own two hands!"

The screams of the Nurgle cultists were drowned out by the crowd's jubilation. These lapdogs of the Grandfather stared in terror at the underhive denizens turning their gun barrels around: "You can't do this — how dare you turn on us...!"

The armed underhive denizens opened fire; those with crude melee weapons tried to run them through, and some with no weapons at all even used their own teeth as weapons. They swarmed in as one, drowning these Nurgle cultists who fancied themselves far above mortals.

"Grandfather, Grandfather save me!"

But the loving Father would hardly turn His gaze upon this place for the sake of a mere few of them. Their bodies were dismembered by the mortals a thousand times over, and though the profane force of Nurgle had granted them extraordinary recuperative power, it availed nothing beneath such frenzied trampling.

The mortals ground them to pulp, reducing them to a meat-paste no longer recognizable.

The Nurgle cultists had once controlled these lowly mortals with food and fear — only when that very power turned back upon them did they experience, firsthand, just how great a force these mortals they had so despised could unleash.

The underhive denizens' revelry did not end with the death of the Nurgle cultists; they vented to their hearts' content all the pent-up grievance of their earlier coercion. Fortunately, Lin sent the Astartes out to keep them in order. With the Emperor's angels present, the revelry was kept within tolerable bounds.

"Without firing a single shot, this victory is far greater than anything we've achieved on this world before," sighed Admidel at Lin's side.

"That, though, is inseparable from the fearsome name we forged earlier." Lin did not entirely agree with Admidel's assessment. He shifted his gaze to the mortal who had been first to step forward. "As well as the discernment of a man of insight."

He helped the mortal to his feet and placed the full crate of protein bars into his hands: "Come, help us distribute the protein bars — this is the reward every person here deserves. By the way, what is your name?"

The man who took the protein bars lifted his eyes and met Lin's gaze.

"My name is Neos, my lord," he answered. "Neos."

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