The Emperor's Legion (Watchers of the Throne #1) - Chris Wraight Page 0,94
already given it, but it was pushed into its weight-bearing leg, just above its huge ankle bone, and even for a warp-forged horror, that was a bad place to take a skewer. I extended all my null-energy into that strike, willing the warp-spun flesh to part and implode. My blade did the rest, blazing with blue flame as it burned within the wound.
The entire limb twisted and buckled, and the shaitainn missed its target, slamming the axe-head down a fraction to the right of the prone Valerian and crashing, overbalanced, to the earth. The shock was massive, smashing the already blown asphalt and sending clods of it careening. Its mighty head thumped to the ground, for the first time down at our level, and its wings sagged into crumpled tangles of tattered leather.
That was all Valerian needed. I saw him sweep up from the wreckage of the creature’s fall, haul his blade over and spin it in a single movement. Crying out loud from the pain and exertion, he drove the spear point-first through the daemon’s throat, powering it with both arms until it almost disappeared into a mire of burning, bubbling ichor.
Alcuin was only a fraction of a second behind, leaping high before slamming his daemonhammer into the creature’s ribs, and then the rest caught up. We forgot ourselves entirely then in that orgy of slaughter, piling into the enormous, stricken frame as if it were so much meat, knowing that it could still come back from the most incredible wounds and determined to stop that happening.
At the end, we stood, all of us, drenched in foul fluids, panting hard, dotted amid the ruins of its cyclopean corpse. Valerian limped towards me, and only then could I see the damage he’d taken. I marvelled that he could stand at all, let alone still wield that spear.
‘That was well done, Sister,’ he said, the first time I ever heard him speak. It was like hearing something out of a devotional vid, the voice of a martyr sent to comfort the masses, and I instantly found it annoying.
There was no respite. The Neverborn still came at us, leaping over the corpse of their lord, as hungry as ever to rip out our throats. The sky was lit with the criss-cross of las-beams and mortar trails. The daemon army was still enormous, still assaulting the walls, still raving and bellowing and tearing. The entire Palace was half obscured by the dust they kicked up, and we were isolated, set on an island amid that sea of wrath.
And yet I could see that the momentum had shifted. Heavy aircraft had been launched and were pummelling the ground-locked daemons with punishing volleys of incendiaries. The Ten Thousand were making ground, driving into the enemy and encircling the great shaitainn. The air still burned and crackled, the ground still trembled, but I could see an end to this. Something had happened to break the daemons’ advance, though even now the matter remained poised.
But we were still alone, and still surrounded.
Back to it, I signed wearily, taking up my blade once more.
Tieron
Once I would have been killed for witnessing what I witnessed then. No matter my rank, no matter the situation, I would have been dragged into an eyeless gaol by the Inquisition’s henchmen and ended quietly in the dark. I’d seen old warrants, copies of orders signed by commanders on distant worlds cloaked in euphemistic terms referring to sterilisations and clearances, but really signifying, I knew, death camps and mind-wipes. That was the penalty for looking upon the true face of our greatest Enemy, and for millennia there had been good reasons for the sanction.
We had to deny what we were facing, or the fate that had befallen Terra over the past months would have befallen all worlds many years ago. We had to lie to ourselves, to the trillions spread across the void, lest we all went mad with fear. The people could not be allowed to know what was waiting for them on the other side of the barrier between life and death. Even the best of us could not be allowed to know. That precept extended to the greatest military figures of our ages, the most powerful cardinals, and, yes, even the High Lords themselves.
For those like me, gifted with influence and resources and access to secrets, there was always speculation. We spoke of the ‘Great Enemy’, and we had all heard rumours of what that truly meant. As I have said,