C. Goto - Dawn of War

A line of ranger jetbikes hissed through the gates, and Flaetriu vaulted off the leading machine before it slid to a halt. He swept into a bow before the farseer.

“Farseer, the Chaos Marines are regrouping in a cave in the valley wall. They are several hours’ march from here. We have time to refortify the city before they arrive,” reported the ranger, his concentration suddenly broken by the sight of Jaerielle further inside the courtyard.

“Thank you, Flaetriu. In the meantime, take your rangers through the city, and find those cowardly mon-keigh that fled their positions at the wall. We want no surprises today,” said Macha gravely. Even as she spoke, she could feel that surprises were on their way.

As the column of Blood Ravens thundered down the north side of Mount Korath, Gabriel clicked the detonator-trigger that Matiel had given to him. Behind them, the summit of the mountain erupted like a volcano as the eldar charges exploded. The mountain top was vaporised and a huge cloud of debris and smoke blasted into the air, obscuring the sun. The rocks around the summit were instantly rendered into flows of molten lava that sprayed outwards from the mountain in a superheated fountain. Great sheets of molten rock started to ooze down the mountain side, chasing the heels of the Blood Ravens as they roared down into the valley towards Lloovre Marr.

C.S. Goto (ebook by Undead)

01 – Dawn of War

The grand streets of Lloovre Marr were quiet and deserted. Vehicles and market stalls had been abandoned by the sides of the roads, and the doors to buildings had been left swinging in the breeze. The population had left in a hurry, and it looked as though they had not anticipated returning. Lights still burned behind some of the windows, but Macha was certain that these had simply been left burning when the occupants left-there were few signs that anyone remained in the capital.

The eldar convoy moved along the central boulevard with swift urgency, heading for the very heart of the city. Jetbikes flashed through the adjoining streets, running parallel to the convoy to ensure that it was left unchallenged. The boulevard itself was lined with tall, white statues. Each depicted a human figure, usually a warrior, presumably from the history of the city. Their heads were all turned towards the centre of the city, as though gazing up towards the great palace of the governor that dominated the administrative core of the capital.

To Macha’s eldar eyes, the statues looked clumsy and ugly-not merely because they depicted the disproportionate features of the mon-keigh, but also because the artisans had been poor. In general, reflected the farseer, this was true of all human art-it all seemed so rushed and underdeveloped. It was almost as though art were a hobby, rather than the highest expression of the soul. It would be inconceivable that the Biel-Tan would grant a commission of the magnitude of a public statue to an artisan who had not been walking the Path of the Artist for many centuries, perhaps even millennia. The commission itself might take decades to fulfil. But these pathetic lumps of stone looked as though they had been turned out in a matter of months, by artisans barely old enough to hold the tools.

Shaking her head in disbelief and pity, Macha took a moment to consider what these statues said about the soul of the mon-keigh. Each of them represented a warrior, and each was gazing on the buildings of the Administratum, fierce with pride. It is not the art itself that these humans exalt, realised Macha, but power and war. Art is merely a means to praise the warriors-and combat is the highest expression of their souls. She nodded to herself in satisfaction, as she thought about the dedication of the mon-keigh’s Space Marines, and compared their abilities to wreak destruction with the mon-keigh’s pathetic attempts at the construction of art. For the eldar, war was embraced as a artistic path-the most feared of many equal paths to truth and glory. For the humans, it seemed, the whole society was subordinated to war-only in war did the human soul find itself. They were only slightly more civilised than orks.

Behind the statues, running along both sides of the boulevard, were grand stone buildings, each rendered in the same white stone. The structures grew larger and more imposing as the eldar moved further and further into the city-as though the heart of the city warranted the most glorious architecture. All of the structures showed signs of age and decay, giving the street the aura of an ancient capital of culture, resting on the strong arms of thousands of warriors that had died for its glory.

The last time Macha had been on Tartarus, Lloovre Marr did not even exist. This end of the valley had been nothing but thick forest, huddled in the basin of the valley’s flood plain, where the soil was richest and most fertile. She had known, of course, even then, that the mon-keigh would recover their strength and rebuild their cities on Tartarus. She had even seen that they would build here-away from the sites of the destruction of their other cities, starting afresh, carving their new capital into the cliffs with their very hands.

That had been why she had picked this site, where her secrets would be buried beneath the cheap grandeur of the Imperium of Man. The mon-keigh would never think to look right under their noses. And, sure enough, the whole population had left at the first rumblings of a problem, never even pausing to see what they were leaving behind.

As the eldar convoy neared the end of the boulevard, Macha let a faint smile float across her lips: this grand capital city was nothing more than a tiny blip in a war that had begun countless millennia before mankind had even made its first leap into space; for the sake of Khaine, she had been a farseer for longer than these buildings had stood against the elements of Tartarus. And now she was being chased across the planet by two bumbling platoons of children-one carried with them the doom of Tartarus and its surrounding systems, and the other brought hope with them, like a delicate, flickering candle. She had never thought that the once mighty eldar would be reduced to playing nanny for the younger races of the galaxy-but here she was.

The end of the boulevard opened up into a wide plaza, in the centre of which was the focus of the gazes of the all the statues along the way. A huge figure rose out of the pristine white flagstones-a statue taller and more magnificent than any of the others. It was the figure of Lloovre Marr himself, the founder of the city, acclaimed as the first governor general to rule Tartarus in the Emperor’s name. The official historical record recounted stories of his valour and strategic genius, organising the planet’s defences against the incursions of ork raiders and the uprisings of cultists.

In one hand, Lloovre Marr was holding his sword, pointing up into the heavens, as though redirecting the admiration of his people towards the Emperor himself. In the other, a great slab of white stone represented a scroll, on which Lloovre Marr was reputed to have written the constitution of Tartarus, pledging its future to the cult of the undying God-Emperor, and vowing never to permit the seeds of heresy to take hold in this fertile soil.

Macha smiled to herself at the constellation of ironies as she realised that the monument had been constructed directly upon the site that she was looking for.

Just before they broke the tree-line, the Blood Ravens’ convoy drew to a halt. The co-ordinates that Isador had deciphered from the eldar menhir on Mount Korath, before they had blown it up, seemed to refer to a point in the middle of Tartarus’ capital city. On their way down into the valley, the Blood Ravens had seen hints of an eldar trail, as well as tracks of Chaos assault bikes, so Gabriel was certain that they were on the right track. All sign of the Alpha Legion had vanished half way through the valley, but Gabriel had pressed on after the eldar, fearing what might happen if they reached their goal. He disliked such games of cat and mouse, but he took some solace in the fact that he was the cat. At least, he hoped that he was the cat.