Inferno volume 5, p.4
Inferno! Volume 5, page 4
‘Emperor save us,’ Malvian whispered as he watched the ship plummeting downwards. Then he drew in a deep breath and roared, ‘Rebreathers on. Take cover!’ He reached down and grabbed hold of Maine and dragged them both over the remains of Benson and into the pit the plasma grenade had left behind.
Two seconds passed. Three. Then the earth shook violently. A moment later the shock wave hit, whipping earth and detritus all around them, shaking the trees down to their roots. A roar of flames washed overhead and the sound was deafening. Something hard struck the back of Malvian’s helmet and everything went dark.
Malvian woke to darkness and an ache that seemed to travel throughout his body. There was a pressure pushing down on him, crushing him. He tried to reach up to take his goggles off, but he couldn’t move. That was when it dawned on him. He’d been buried alive. He struggled, wriggling and scrabbling, pushing up against the loose dirt and detritus piled on top of him. When he broke free of the earth, Malvian found the forest had turned as grey as his hair. Dust and ash had blown in, coating the trees and fogging the air so thickly he could barely see a dozen yards in any direction. Without his rebreather, he was certain he’d be choking on the fog. Some trees had fallen, and others were leaning precariously, their roots ripped from the earth and exposed. Most of the leaves were gone, either incinerated by the wave of fire or blown off the branches by the shock wave. The crash had turned the forest from a place full of green vitality to a graveyard of skeletal husks.
Malvian staggered back a step, breathing heavily into his rebreather and fighting a wave of nausea. Whatever had hit him on the head had hit hard, and his helmet had the dent to prove it. He was lucky to be alive. He pressed the button on his vox-communicator. ‘Six hundred and thirteenth, sound off.’ Silence greeted him. Nothing but the sound of a fire burning in the distance somewhere and a few echoing shouts he tried desperately not to recognise.
He found a hand half buried at his feet and began digging Maine out of the earth. He was dead. He hadn’t managed to get his rebreather on in time and had suffocated as they were buried alive. One more Guardsman lost under his command. Malvian tried the vox again, but no one answered him. He found Kule underneath a fallen tree. The veteran had tried to take shelter behind its bulk, only for the trunk to splinter and collapse on top of him. He had survived the war on Armageddon with nothing but an ork-bitten arse by way of injury. He had held the line time and again, and fought tooth, nail and bayonet against the green-skinned menace, only to be killed by a tree that couldn’t hold its ground.
Malvian searched for survivors a while longer, ignoring the shouts getting closer, ignoring the silence greeting him on the vox. He couldn’t quite believe his whole squad was dead. Some of them had served with him at the battle for Infernus, lived through the hell of that brutal siege.
A mocking laugh drifted through the fog, brutish and full of scorn. Malvian recognised the sound, had heard its like time and again on Armageddon. He turned to see an ork lumbering towards him, thick with swollen muscle and covered in cuts dripping blood. It had a mouth full of rotting, misshapen fangs, and a snarl twisted its grotesque features. Rusted red metal, dented from weapons fire, was nailed onto its head, shoulders and chest, and it carried an axe that was little more than a wedge of jagged metal bolted to a haft of wood. It was the first of the monsters, probably fallen from the ship as it was crashing, but there would be many more behind it.
Malvian’s shoulders slumped and he staggered back a step. He hated the orks. He’d been born on Armageddon not long after their first invasion, and he’d lived and fought through their second attempt. He’d seen good men and women die at their monstrous green hands, and lost more friends than he cared to count. Hives reduced to nothing but bones and ash. Humans mutilated and taken as slaves. He hated the orks, and with good reason. All the men and women of the Steel Legion hated the orks. But he’d really hoped he’d left the monsters behind for good.
The ork laughed again. ‘Smells like roasted ’umie,’ it said as it walked past a body covered in mud and ash and charred long past recognition. The hole where its nose should have been twitched and its beady red eyes fixed on Malvian. It was a big monster and no mistake, but Malvian had one thing going for him at least; the ork was alone. For now.
Malvian looked around for a gun but could see none. He had given his own to Benson and it had vanished along with the half of him caught in the grenade. The ork advanced on him, gaining speed and swishing its axe from side to side. Malvian gritted his teeth, drew his monoknife, and lurched forward to meet the beast head-on with a bellow of rage.
Even with bright spots dancing across his vision, Malvian managed to strike first. He ducked away from an overhead smash and opened a wound on the ork’s unprotected legs. But orks never went down easily and the monster just laughed and smashed the blunt side of its axe into Malvian’s ribs. He went down onto one knee, struggling to draw breath, then rolled sideways just in time to avoid being cleaved in two. The ork kicked him in the chest, knocking Malvian down onto his back, and then it was on top of him. Malvian grabbed hold of the axe haft and screamed furious defiance at the brute as it bore down on the weapon, using its massive weight to drive the blade towards Malvian’s face.
A burst of shurikens buried themselves into the ork’s flesh, biting through its rusted armour and digging into its face. The ork stumbled away and roared, a clawed hand pawing at its bleeding mouth and cheek. It ripped one of the shurikens from its flesh in a gush of blood, stared at it for a moment, then roared again and charged past Malvian.
Malvian rolled over and saw the aeldari that Benson had shot, propped up and wedged between two large roots, its gun in an outstretched hand. The aeldari let out another burst of fire and the ork staggered from the impacts, blood spraying off to paint the forest floor crimson. Malvian pushed up to his feet and charged after the ork even as it waded forward against another burst of shuriken fire. The greenskin was almost on the aeldari when Malvian caught up to it and buried his knife in its unarmoured back. He stabbed it again and again, screaming in fury, each thrust punctuated by the sound of the aeldari’s pistol firing off bursts of shurikens. Eventually, Malvian staggered back and dropped to his knees, his knife loose in his grip. The ork swayed on its feet for a few moments longer, then toppled sideways in a puff of ash and loosely packed earth. Malvian looked up to see the aeldari pointing its pistol at him.
They stared at each other. Malvian shifted the grip on his knife a little and readied to launch himself at the aeldari. He knew the eldar would get a burst of fire off, but if he could cross the distance between them at least he could take the xenos with him. Then the aeldari’s arm dropped and she sighed. Her emerald-green armour was dented and scored and smudged with ash, and there was a dark lasgun burn in the leg plate. She’d be going nowhere in that state, and other than a few scrapes and the ringing in his ears, Malvian was fine. He had to get out of there before more orks arrived, and he knew more of them would be on the way. Orks never went anywhere alone, and it was clear now the crashing ship was greenskin. A suicidal but effective way to invade a world; he’d seen it before on Armageddon. There was no defence against orks mad enough to crash themselves onto a planet. And no other race in the galaxy tough enough to survive the strategy.
Malvian thrust his knife back into its belt sheath, stood, and walked a few steps away from the dead ork. He glanced about the forest, trying to find his bearings. The orks would be coming and they would be beyond counting. He needed to be away before they arrived. He needed to get out of the forest. Back to the Imperial outpost would be ideal. It was neither large nor well manned, but they had enough people and enough guns to hold out for a while at least, maybe even until reinforcements could arrive. At the very least they’d make the greenskins pay dearly for coming here. Of course, he wasn’t likely to make it that far on his own and with only a knife.
He glanced back to the aeldari. Her helmet was cracked, one of the eyepieces shattered, and she was fumbling at it, ignoring him as she struggled. She’d saved him, that much was undeniable. They’d been fighting just moments earlier, trying to kill each other, but still the eldar had saved him from the ork. She was finished, wounded, unable to move. She had nothing to gain from saving him, just trading one live enemy for another. But she had saved him. Honour demanded he repay that. That, and she’d make a good prisoner.
‘Damn it!’ Malvian cursed and turned around, stalking back towards the aeldari. She hadn’t moved, but upon seeing his approach she lifted her pistol from the ground again and pointed it roughly in his direction.
‘What are you doing, mon-keigh?’ Her voice was discordant but disturbingly beautiful.
‘Saving your arse,’ Malvian said gruffly. ‘Repaying the favour. Taking you prisoner. Pick one, I don’t care. Just point that little pistol somewhere useful and don’t fight me.’
The aeldari scoffed. ‘Your people don’t take prisoners.’
Malvian shrugged. ‘Sure we do,’ he said, though he couldn’t remember a time they had. Then again he’d spent his entire life fighting orks and there simply wasn’t any point in taking a greenskin prisoner.
He arrived at her side and bent down, only to find the barrel of her pistol pressed against his throat.
‘Why?’ There was anger along with the pain in the aeldari’s voice. ‘Why not just run and leave me?’
Malvian shrugged. ‘You saved me first. Besides, there’s two rules I’ve always tried to live by. First is never to leave the barracks without a fresh pair of socks. Very important that one. Second is when it comes to guns, bigger is always better. Well, right now I don’t even have a gun, so your little shredder there will have to do.’
The pistol dropped from his throat. The aeldari was breathing heavily and each breath seemed to bring more pain. Malvian couldn’t say he knew a damned thing about their physiology, he knew little enough about his own, but he doubted the fall from the forest canopy had done her much good. She reached up and flipped the final catches on her helmet so it fell free. Then she gasped in a deep breath and coughed. She had pointed ears, fine features, and skin that seemed a little too tight and smooth; but in truth, she did not seem so different from a human. Not so different at all, now Malvian looked at her. He’d expected something more… alien.
‘I don’t understand,’ the aeldari said, her voice clearer now.
The howls and shouts were drawing closer. More orks were on their way. ‘Why did you save me?’ Malvian asked.
The aeldari stared at him in a way that made him feel small and insignificant. ‘I killed the more dangerous enemy,’ she said eventually. ‘After that, there seemed little point in killing you too.’
A sting to his pride, but there was no sense in taking offence. ‘Well there’s plenty more of those more dangerous enemies on the way, and we stand a better chance of getting out of here together, I reckon. So up you get and let’s go.’
‘Go where?’
‘Anywhere but here,’ Malvian growled. ‘I’ve seen what happens to people taken by these monsters.’ He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. So right now, let’s just get up and get moving.’ He slid an arm behind her back and lifted the aeldari onto her feet. She hissed in pain and Malvian was certain he was carrying more of her weight than she was, but at least they were moving.
‘That thing was an ork,’ the aeldari said as they passed the body. The way she said it sounded almost like a question.
‘Aye. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen one before?’ Malvian asked. He had no idea which way was back to the outpost, only that the trees had fallen away from the crash site and so that was the direction he was going. He needed to get them out of the forest and hope his vox started working again.
The aeldari was silent for a few moments. ‘It was difficult to kill,’ she said.
Malvian let out a bitter chuckle as he half-carried, half-dragged the aeldari along. ‘Aye, tough buggers.’ Malvian stepped over a fallen tree and grunted as he lifted the aeldari over it too. She was lighter than he had expected, her armour seeming to weigh almost nothing at all, but still an extra burden to carry. ‘They can survive just about anything,’ he continued. He wasn’t even sure why he was talking to her, but some conversation seemed better than none, helped steady his nerves. ‘However much you think is enough to put one down for good, it will take more. Always more. The trick is to shoot them first and keep shooting until they go down. Then shoot them a bit more for good measure.’
‘Why would you keep shooting them once they’re dead?’ the aeldari said, sounding disgusted.
Malvian let out a grim smile. ‘It’s cathartic.’
‘It’s barbaric.’ A scream of pain erupted from far behind them, echoing through the forest, and the aeldari turned her head towards the sound. She let out a mournful sigh and Malvian guessed the orks had found a surviving aeldari. ‘You hate them,’ she said.
‘Aye,’ Malvian said. He helped her over another fallen tree and winced as she hissed in pain. ‘Been fighting the greenskins my whole life, it seems. I’ve seen the worst of what they’re capable of. Lived through it. Hordes of the monsters beyond counting, all baying for blood and screaming for war. A green tide without end, threatening to wash away civilisation in a sea of blood.’ He shook his head, trying to clear the maudlin thoughts. ‘They’re hateful creatures with no purpose but killing. So, I hate them right back. There’s nothing I’d like more than to never see an ork ever again.’
The aeldari was silent for a moment. ‘I have been fighting your people my whole life, mon-keigh. Do you really think yourself so different from these creatures? There are hordes of you and war is all you know. Hate and killing is all you know.’
Malvian pulled them to a stop. He considered dropping the aeldari, going on without her. After all, she’d compared him to an ork and he couldn’t think of a worse insult. But like it or not, he knew they had a better chance of surviving together. He started forward again, dragging her with him so roughly she let out a little cry of pain. Besides, what better way to prove her wrong than to save her life?
They continued in silence for a while, listening to the noise of orks drawing nearer. The thick fog distorted sounds, confused direction, but Malvian knew what he was hearing all the same. Greenskins grunting to each other, shouting orders or taunts. Their machines clomping through the forest, saw blades chopping through trees. The occasional burst of their primitive shoota fire. Either the brutes were finding enemies to fight, or they were fighting amongst themselves. Malvian hoped it was the latter. He hoped they all killed each other.
The aeldari seemed to be getting stronger, or perhaps just coping with her injury better. Malvian was still half-carrying her, with one of her arms over his shoulders, but he was dragging her less now. She limped with gasps of pain and growls of determination. The orks were monsters, and no doubt about it. Green nightmares given horrible form. He had thought the aeldari no different, but she looked almost human and sounded it too.
‘We’re being stalked,’ the aeldari said as they rounded a large tree that dwarfed any of the others Malvian had seen. This far from the crash site, the forest was less affected by the shock wave, but the fog of ash and dust was still so thick he could barely see a dozen paces in front of him.
Malvian glanced about. ‘I don’t see anything.’
‘Not surprising,’ the aeldari said, her voice mocking. ‘Your technology is as rudimentary as your biology. Regardless, there are two of them to our left. They are both smaller than the last one but carry primitive firearms.’
Malvian looked left. The aeldari was right. He caught glimpses of dark shapes moving through the fog, but he couldn’t make out much else. He pulled them behind a large tree and stopped, glancing around its bulk. ‘We can’t outrun them. We need a plan.’
‘Don’t all your mon-keigh plans just involve mindlessly charging towards the enemy?’ the aeldari said, grimacing in distaste.
Malvian bristled at the insult. ‘Well I don’t think either of us are dancing through the trees like you and yours did earlier. So I guess we’re going with my mindless charge idea. I’ll make some noise, draw their fire, and give you a chance to fill ’em full of metal.’
‘Why would you do that?’ the aeldari asked with narrowed eyes. ‘Willingly risk your life to distract them.’
‘Standard tactics,’ Malvian said with a grimace. ‘Sometimes it seems a Guardsman’s primary job is to distract the enemy away from the bigger guns.’ He glanced around the tree again. The orks were in view now, picking their way between the trees, searching for their prey.
‘You mon-keigh have such odd tactics. Do your lives really mean so little to you?’
Malvian shrugged. He had more important things to do than explain the Guard’s methods. ‘Are you ready? Take the shot as soon as you can. Aim for the head or neck. Body shots are nothing but wasted ammo.’
The aeldari was silent but fixed him with a hostile stare.
‘Right then,’ Malvian said.
He took a couple of deep breaths, then sprinted out from behind the tree. ‘Look at me, you ugly green bastards!’ he shouted. The orks opened fire immediately, their shootas tearing up the nearby ground and eating chunks out of the trees. Orks tended to make up for inferior tactics with superior numbers, and they made up for inferior aim with a relentless storm of bullets. Malvian headed away from the aeldari, keeping his head down and running between trees as often as possible. The distraction worked. He knew the first ork had gone down when its companion let out a roar and the bullets stopped. Malvian turned to see the ork advancing on the aeldari’s cover, ripping the tree to shreds with a hail of gunfire.
