James Swallow - The Flight of the Eisenstein

Then, almost unexpectedly, he made the top, letting his bolter fall away around his hip on its sling. The battle-captain brought up Libertas in a firm, two-handed grip, and laid into the Warsinger. At his flank,

he was aware of Decius giving him covering fire, gri­macing as the bolt rounds whined away in ricochets from the sheer energy of the wall of music.

The Warsinger turned her notice to Garro, resent­ment forming on her face as his attacks invaded her sensorium. He saw her shift and turn, the long stream­ers of her hair drifting past her screaming face. Holding on to the fury from the cold murder of his subordinate, his sword swept across and connected with her song-shield, the noise of the impact like a knife point drawn down a sheet of glass. Effortlessly, the enemy cham­pion drew the sound in and threaded it into her cacophony, weaving it into the mad chorus.

In a flash of understanding, the nature of his foe was revealed to him. The Warsinger could not be brought down by the energy of light and heat. Only raw sound would be enough to kill her.

From the terrible mantra filling the dome space, the Warsinger teased out a single line of screaming clam­our and spun it into a fist of glowing resonance. Garro saw the blow coming and shoved Decius aside, dodging away from her. She moved at the speed of sound, and with a sonic boom shocking the air into white rings of vapour, the Warsinger hit Garro with a hammer made of hymnals.

Deafened. Falling. Pain.

Decius's mind reeled with the edges of the impact, clinging to the simplest of reactions, barely able to process the sudden violence wrought upon him. The dome spun around and he felt the rough surface of the ziggurat rise up and strike him as he fell back along the slope of it. Decius's power fist slapped down flat and open palmed on a jutting piece of aged gargoyle and the fingers closed around it with a snap.

The stone statuary chipped and cracked, but held, halting his ignominious descent. His head tolled like a struck bell, a strange fuzzy pressure crowding in on his eyes. Decius swore a guttural Barbarun oath under his breath and righted himself. His hyperaware senses told him of contusions and minor breaks in some of his bones, but nothing that would warrant more than passing notice. Garro… Captain Garro had saved his life up there, pushing him out to the edge of the Warsinger's attack.

Something sparked inside, an anxious flare of emo­tion that was as close to panic as an Astartes might ever get. Where was he? Where was the battle-captain? Decius came to his feet, pleased to find his bolter still at hand, the strap wrapped about his wrist guard, and batted away an Isstvanian's clumsy attack. He swept the flank of the pyramid and found his commander. Garro's marble-grey armour was stained with the rich red of Astartes blood. A warrior of the Emperor's Children was standing over him, Tarvitz, he remem­bered. Garro had spoken well of this man in the past. Still, a dart of offended pride rose in Decius's chest at the idea of a man from the III Legion coming to the aid of a Death Guard, honour brother or not.

Ignoring the grinding pain of bone on bone in his legs, Decius sprinted back up the ziggurat, regaining some of the ground he had lost in his headlong tum­ble. He caught a snatch of conversation between the two captains as he came closer.

'Hold on, brother/ Tarvitz was saying.

'Just kill it/ Garro coughed, blood on his lips, his head bare where the Warsinger's blow had sundered his battle helmet.

'I have him/ said Decius, stepping up. 'He'll be safe with me.'

Tarvitz threw him a nod and then began his ascent.

The Astartes turned back to his commander and his gut knotted as the stink of fresh blood filled his nos­trils. The smell was familiar and hateful to him. There were patterns of crushing damage to Garro's torso and his arm, and somewhere up there he had lost his bolter. But in his other hand, his good hand, the bat­tle-captain still gripped the hilt of Libertas with grim fury, clutching the sword like a talisman. Thin blades of shattered granite and obsidian punctured him, shock-gel pooling around the places where they had punched through the captain's ceramite weave like bullets, but the worst of the wounds was the leg.

Decius's face soured behind his breath mask and he was grateful that his commander could not see his expression. Less than a hand's span down Garro's thigh his right leg simply ended in a wet red scrap of fleshy rags, burnt bone and charred meat. It could only be the potent flood of coagulants, neuro-chemical agents and counter-shock dmgs from his gland implants that were keeping the captain conscious.

Contemplating the sheer agony of the wound took Decius's breath away. The Warsinger hadn't simply torn Garro's leg from its socket. She had sheared it off with a serrated blade of pure sound.

'How do I look, lad?' asked the captain. 'Not so pretty as the Emperor's Children?'

'It's not that bad.'

Garro spat out a pain-wracked chuckle. 'You're such a poor liar, boy.' He waved the Astartes forward. 'Help me up. Saul will finish what we started.'

'You're in no condition to fight, lord/ retorted Decius.

Garro dragged himself up to use the Astartes as a crutch. 'Damn you, Decius! As long as a Death Guard

draws breath, he's in a condition to fight!' He cast around, unsteady with the pain. 'Where's my bloody bolter?'

'Lost, sir/ Decius noted, guiding him downward.

The battle-captain spat. 'Terra curse it! Then help me into sword range and I'll cut these fools down instead!'

Together, leaving a trail of blood down the flank of the ragged pyramid, Decius and Garro hobbled to the floor of the dome and back into the thronging melee. Decius was aware that above them the Warsinger's song was shifting and changing, but his mind was narrowing to the controlled murder of the close bat­tle at hand. He became his captain's rock, feet spread and standing firm in the roil of combat, gunning down black hoods with his bolter in one hand and punishing those who strayed closer with his mailed fist encasing the other. Garro stood to his back, hold­ing himself up with his damaged arm and cutting shimmering arcs of death with his racing sword. Blood pooled at their feet, the captain's mingling with that of the Isstvan turncoats.

Decius yelled into his vox pick up for a medicae, but only scratches of static returned to him. The impact from the fall had probably damaged his com­munications gear, and even at the top of his lungs, his shouts could barely match the screaming of the Warsinger. Finally, Garro slumped, the Herculean effort and blood loss too much for even his Astartes physiology. Decius helped the battle-captain to the ground and propped him against the ziggurat wall. 'Sir, take this.' He slammed a full clip of ammunition into his bolter and laid it on Garro's lap.

'Where are you going?' his commander asked thickly. Garro was having trouble keeping focus.

'I'll be back, captain.' Decius turned and charged into the maelstrom, using the power fist to punch his way through the enemy ranks. Isstvanian fighters were thrown and gored as he barrelled through them, cutting a channel across the dome through the figures in dark cowls. They moved like water, churning around him and pooling back into the path he made.

At last Decius found what he sought and roared as loud as he could. Voyen! Hear me!'

The Death Guard Apothecary's head snapped up from the body of a brother who had been cut apart by laser fire. 'I can do no more for this one,' he said grimly.

'The Emperor knows his name/ shouted Decius, 'and the captain will join that roll of honour as well, unless you come with me now!'

'Garro?' Voyen sprang to his feet. 'Show me, boy, quickly! The captain of the Seventh won't perish if I can help it.'