Chapter 105 - The Battle of Baal (2)
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The battlefield was never confined to a single place.
The entire Baal System had become a colossal meat grinder. Beyond the primary world, the defensive lines on both moons had been ground to the edge of collapse.
Baal Primus.
The chainsword's teeth bit into a Warrior's chitinous carapace and stuck fast.
Flesh Tearers Chapter Master Gabriel Seth drove both hands down with everything he had. Veins bulged and filled out his ceramite gauntlets. He forced the massive xenos downward through sheer weight, even as its razor limbs scraped across his breastplate and threw off cascading sparks.
"Stay down! Damned xenos!" Seth snarled.
The chainsword motor let out a piercing shriek and found a seam in the carapace, sawing straight through the Warrior's skull. Highly corrosive ichor splashed across his faceplate. White smoke curled up from his visor lenses.
Seth drove a boot into the headless corpse and sent it hurtling over the barricade.
No time to breathe.
Everywhere he looked: Tyranids. The reddish-brown sand was blanketed in layer upon layer of severed limbs and broken bodies.
The Flesh Tearers and the Blood Knights, the two mainline Chapters, were dug in here alongside six subordinate Chapters, holding the line to the last.
They had no idea what was happening on the primary world. The catastrophe unfolding there was beyond their knowledge. All they had was the endless tide in front of them, and that alone had already burned through every round of ammunition and every reserve of stamina they possessed.
Seth's heart rate was dangerously wrong.
Both hearts hammered inside his chest.
The relentless close-quarters fighting was stripping away his sanity, piece by piece.
Every Tyranid bioform he sawed apart sent the primal thirst for blood surging a notch higher, clawing up from somewhere deep in his genes.
But he had not gone under. Not yet.
He was holding on, forcing the beast back, keeping it locked behind the bars of his reason through sheer will.
The effort wracked his body with tremors. He did not dare ease up for even a second.
Then, mercifully, the wave broke.
The Tyranid organisms on the horizon turned. They left tens of thousands of corpses behind and retreated into the distant sandstorm.
"Don't pursue!"
Captain Kamien had already raised his boltgun, roaring, ready to lead his squad over the barricade, when Seth's hoarse voice detonated across the squad channel.
Kamien skidded to a halt. He turned his head, breathing hard beneath his faceplate.
Around him, the Flesh Tearers clutching their close-combat weapons stopped too.
Frustration.
The kind that blazes up to the top of your skull and has to be forced back down through gritted teeth.
But they obeyed.
Because they were Flesh Tearers, noble sons of the Sanguinary Blood. Their name might sound like a pack of mad dogs, but they would not become beasts without self-awareness. Restraining their instincts was their greatest honor.
"Status report! Captain Kamien!" Seth pressed the side of his helmet, his tone iron-hard.
"We made them pay, Chapter Master." Kamien was still catching his breath as he reported the losses. "But this is only a brief respite. A fleeting victory. They'll be back."
Seth shook the shredded flesh off his chainsword with a violent snap. "No defeatist talk! We're still standing. Not all dead. That is victory!"
He turned toward the flank, toward the defensive zone held by the Blood Knights.
The comm channel on that side was dead.
"Jor! Jor!" Seth opened a direct line to Blood Knights Chapter Master Jor. "What's your situation?!"
What answered him was not a battle report.
It was a howl. Pure, utterly mindless, the sound of something that had stopped being a man. Beneath it, the wet, hair-raising noise of flesh being torn apart.
Cold sweat broke out down Seth's spine.
Something had gone wrong.
"Kamien, hold the position! Honor Guard, with me!" Seth waved his hand and sprinted toward the ruins on the flank, chainsword in hand.
When they charged into the Blood Knights' encampment, the sight stopped Seth cold.
The bugs had retreated. These red-armored giants had not.
They had thrown down their weapons. They had turned on the mortal militia behind the lines, the men and women hauling ammunition.
The maddened Blood Knights rampaged through the ruins, chasing terrified civilians who scattered in every direction. Several desiccated corpses lay on the ground, throats torn to shreds.
This was the deepest shame written into their bloodline. Ten thousand times worse than dying in battle.
Seth found Jor instantly.
The Chapter Master had thrown off his helmet. He held a mortal militiaman by the throat with one hand, lifting the man clean off the ground.
Jor opened his mouth. Two rows of fangs, sharpened by genetic mutation, caught the light. He drove them toward the struggling man's exposed neck.
"Stop!"
The fury in Seth's skull detonated and took his reason with it.
He drove his legs forward, power armor output systems slammed to their absolute limit. His entire body became a battering ram. He plowed straight through the low concrete wall in his path.
BOOM!
Jor's fangs were a hair from the civilian's artery when Seth dropped his shoulder and drove it into Jor's side.
The impact was dull and enormous. Jor's body flew sideways, more than a dozen meters, and crashed against the shell of a wrecked armored vehicle. The militiaman dropped into the mud and scrambled away on hands and knees.
That hit stirred up serious trouble.
The surrounding Blood Knights, already burning with battle-lust and bloodthirst, snapped their heads around. Their crimson eyes could no longer recognize brothers of the same gene-lineage. All they saw was an outsider who had just attacked their Chapter Master.
Several frenzied Astartes let out deafening war cries and lunged directly at Seth, intent on tearing him apart where he stood.
Seth did not draw his sword.
His hand shot to his waist and ripped free the top-secret trump card Commander Dante had personally placed in his keeping before departure: a pure black adamantium box.
Seth slammed the lid open.
A light erupted from inside. Gentle, yet with a penetrating quality that went straight through the chest. Pure white.
A single white feather, preserved within a stasis field.
A true feather from their gene-sire. From Sanguinius himself.
The light pulsed with something that had no name, something divine, and it washed over everything around them. The Blood Knights frozen mid-pounce went rigid.
The churning violence in their minds, the madness clawing at their thoughts, all of it was pressed down and held still by that warm, quiet force. The manic crimson drained from their eyes at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Jor, crumpled against the armored vehicle, came back.
He stared at the softly glowing feather in Seth's hand. Then he looked down at his own hands, slick with mortal blood. Reason flooded back in.
The shame hit him like a blade.
With a heavy thud, Jor dropped to both knees in the mud-soaked ruins.
The other Blood Knights, sanity returning, threw down their weapons and knelt with him.
Seth walked forward and stood over Jor, staring down.
"My brother." Seth's fist was clenched tight. "Do not continue down this path. You have completely lost yourself."
Jor kept his head bowed.
"This time, our gene-sire's relic was here to drag you back." Seth's words landed without mercy. "What about next time? Will there be something to quell the fury then?"
A Chapter adjutant ran over and offered Jor a hand up.
Jor took it. He rose, and he met Seth's eyes.
"There won't be a next time, Seth." His voice was hoarse and dry as ash.
He looked out across the shattered position. The Blood Knights had been ground down to a third of their fighting strength. After what had just happened, morale had bottomed out completely.
"Baal Primus cannot be held. The Tyranids are feeding on all fronts." Jor let out a bleak, hollow laugh, and there was nothing in it but the acceptance of death. "My Chapter and I will die here. That is the price we owe for this shame."
Seth's brow locked into a hard knot.
The darkest thoughts churned in the depths of his own heart. He felt the urge to draw his sword right now, duel Jor to the death, then lead everyone in one final senseless counter-charge. To hell with it. Let them all die clean and fast and together.
But he couldn't. He would not throw away this many Astartes on a moment of rage.
Seth drew a slow breath. He closed the black box and secured it back at his waist.
"Do not sink into that meaningless fury again, my brother." His tone softened. "For the Great Angel. For the Imperium."
He stepped back half a pace.
"Look at what I'm carrying. I gave Commander Dante my word that I would keep it safe. I've already signaled the surviving fleet elements to prepare for evacuation."
"Come with us. Return to Baal with us. There, we will have a truly glorious final battle."
He extended his hand toward Jor.
Jor stared at it.
A few seconds passed.
Then he gripped it.
"Agreed. Brother Seth."
➤ Next: The Battle of Baal (3)
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