Blood Gorgons - By Henry Zou Page 0,90
helmet gave way under the pincer, crunching wetly. Yet even headless, the Plague Marine stumbled, muscles twitching. He brought up his boltgun as if to shoot, stumbled again, lashed out with a desperate fist and then toppled.
‘Leave that,’ Volsinii urged. ‘Follow me and stay close behind.’
They forged their way up the final flight of steps towards the control room. No alarm had been raised yet. Through the glass viewing blister, they could see the control room was empty. The Plague Marines had responded to the diversion as they’d hoped, leaving their posts to deal with the threat of a mass‐scale riot.
Hazareth pushed open the ironclad door and stormed inside reaching for the intricate gilded console. He could hear the distant, muffled shouts and hammering in the dungeon cells. He pulled the accordion‐lever to unlock the entire cell‐block.
Nothing. Not even a click.
‘I had no choice,’ Volsinii said knowingly from behind Hazareth. ‘I had no choice, Captain Hazareth.’
Desperately, Hazareth pulled again but the lever had no resistance, as if connected to nothing. It came away loosely in his hand.
‘He apologises profusely, but if he truly meant it, why do it at all?’ chortled a low voice.
Opsarus. Hazareth saw him ascend the stairs. His footfalls were death knells upon the metal steps. The deathmask seemed to smile at him with a tranquil serenity. In his left gauntlet, he grasped an autocannon as a man might hold a rifle.
‘Why would he warn us of your escape if he is sorry? He’s not sorry,’ said Opsarus.
Hazareth hammered his claw across the console. Volsinii would not look at him.
Staggering back, Hazareth slumped down. Trust was not a concept between the minions of Chaos, but Volsinii had been his blood bond, an extension of himself. It was the foundation of unity between an otherwise dissident Chapter of raiders. Hazareth bayed like a wounded bull, shaking his head unsteadily.
‘Perhaps the blood bond is a mere placebo. You give it more meaning than it truly holds,’ Opsarus laughed. It sounded forced, garbled and sudden behind his reinforced helmet.
Hazareth attacked without warning, spearing through the air at Opsarus. His claw bounced off the unyielding plasteel of Crusade‐era armour.
Opsarus did not even move. There was a low whir as the autocannon rose into place, traversing like a linear siege battery. Hulking down behind the thick walls of his plating, Opsarus braced himself. He fired.
The blast in the confined space of the console blister was like a firestorm. A wash of flame engulfed the room. Tearing through the foundations of the room, the shell blew out the ceiling, disintegrated the cell‐block console and atomised the glass viewing bubble. The expanding pressure pulled Captain Hazareth apart, and what remained was swept away by the whirling flame.
Volsinii, too, was caught in the backblast. His reward, although Opsarus had not intended it, was a death that would not be remembered. Behind the external bulwark of his suit, Opsarus breathed cooled, internal air as ambient temperatures lingered at the high six hundreds.
134
The room was now a blackened hole in the high, vertical bulkhead. Scraps of fire still flickering against his external layers, Opsarus made his way down the stairs.
BARSABBAS CROSSED THE room, emptying two bolt clips within the span of ten seconds. His sole focus was to destroy everything in the room that stood between himself and Sargaul.
Everything.
The dark eldar warriors, however, did not give ground. They were different from the raiders: they were incubi, proper soldiers with good firing discipline and martial bearing.
They wore heavier form‐fitting armour that hugged their slender frames like the black‐blue of an angry hornet, and formed a solid protective block around the prize slaves.
Barsabbas had not been hurt in a long time, but his attackers hurt him now. They punished him with electrified halberds, pivoting and striking with precise, practiced strokes. Static shocks wracked his body, threatening to seize his hearts. Warning sigils and power overload warnings flashed across his visor in urgent amber. His blood began to boil.
His muscles spasmed.
But his eyes were fixed on Sargaul and his finger glued to the trigger. The bolter bucked like a jackhammer, ripping out the entire clip in one continuous and sudden belch. But the incubi were too many, too hardened. A halberd bounced off Barsabbas’s thigh plate, shocking his femoral nerves. Grunting, the bond‐brother fell to a knee as his leg cramped and spasmed violently. Another strike chopped into his boltgun, denting its brass finish and almost wrenching the weapon from his grip.
Vomiting into his helmet as his pain receptors fired,