The Survivor

[Andrew Benn]

The Survivor

 

Conciousness rose up slowly though a sea of pain. There was movement, and with each wrenching twist, conciousness jolted up slightly higher. When it broke the surface and the waking world returned with grim completeness to Soren, third Brother of Squad Arcturus, Fifth Company, Ultramarines Chapter, it was propelled by the scraping peel of his helmet being dragged from his head, ripping away the skin and tissues seared to its inner surface. His breath came in a long agonised gurgle, bringing up mouthfuls of dark blood which leaked from his twitching lips. Soren opened his eyes. Above him, leaning over him like a carrion crow picking through a carcass for the choicest morsels, he saw dimly the outline of an armoured figure. Its hulking form was silhouetted by the deep orange light from somewhere behind and below. From the horned shape of its head their pierced forth a cluster of bright red eye-lenses.

 

Soren tried to struggle, but his armour was a dead weight that pressed down on his wounded body, making him feel hatefully helpless. Each flexing of his superhuman muscles sent fresh paroxysms of pain lancing through his body as mechanical systems designed to numb him and flood him with stimulants sat inert and powerless. Through the intense agonies Soren willed his body to respond, willed his armour to move as it ought to. His spasming movement at last attracted the attention of the thing leaning over him. Its many eyes shifted from the charred helmet still leaking blood held aloft in its gauntleted hand down to the face of the dying Space Marine.

 

“It lives.” it cried with equal derision and glee, it’s voice a dull electrical growl, “Your armour is old. Uninteresting.” it tossed his helmet away. Soren heard the clatter of it with a shudder.

“It amazes me you and your foolish bretheren got this far. I assume it was luck.”

Memories wormed their way into Soren’s consciousness; images of his squad advancing through these hell-spawned tunnels of grinding gears and hissing pistons; of he and his brothers fighting the flesh-machines set upon them by the imperious commands of the heretic astartes; of the whirling melee of lashing blades and barbed talons the things had unleashed when at last they broke through the wall of bolter fire, clambering like animals over their fallen fellows; of seeing sergeant Rodgar borne down by five of the scuttling monstrosities, his armour rent open in a dozen places; of the thing that leaped on his back and with a roar from its gaping maw doused his head in burning red warpfire; of the blaring warning symbols of his armour; and of the pain that had eventually buried his concious mind and granted merciful oblivion.

 

“You fought with predictable tactics. However, our observations of your actions will be collated and incorporated into the design of the next generation of our creations. Thank you, Brother.”

 

The word, the insult, the twist of the knife in the wound which had festered for ten thousand years, awoke the fire in Soren. The memory of his brothers dying around him seared itself into his soul and quickened his broken body. Coughing and in defiance of the renewed pain Soren flailed at the creature above him. It retreated easily though, and his arm caught only empty air and as Soren struggled to overcome the weight of his armour and drag his limbs into action, the creature just laughed.

 

The laughter ended suddenly however. And then a heavy boot ended Soren’s continued struggles. The creature straightened up, ramming a metal clad foot into Soren’s gut as the creature spoke in a clear and reverent voice.

“My lord Foranax, welcome. The loyalist assault was turned back with ease. The creations performed as expected. We observed only a ten-percent disobedience rate, falling to zero when the enemy was sighted. Overall combat effectiveness was low; forty-seven percent, rising to fifty when multiple forms were employed simultaneously. We expect to raise that considerably with the data we collected from these fools.”

Another blow from the creatures boot reinforced the point, sending fresh clots of blood up into Soren’s throat. He coughed reflexively, then another voice spoke. Deep, rumbling and heavy with menace. It was a voice from another world, a dark and terrible world were metal nightmares grind deafeningly for all eternity.

“Do not underestimate them.”

The voice wrapped itself around these familiar and mortal syllables like a snake around some helpless mammal. It tripped sinister and eldritch power and Soren found even his laboured breathing stilled by its force.

“Not for nothing is it said of our former brothers that they know no fear. Even now this broken body before you would rise up and gut you, if you were only to give it the slightest chance. While they breath, while they live, in even the smallest degree, they are a worthy foe.”

 

Something stabbed into Soren’s leg, driving through a weakened joint at the back of his knee. He felt the solid sharpness, with its barbed edges being forced inch by inch deeper into his flesh. When it pulled those barbs caught on flesh, sinue and bone so that with blinding pain and another dull, blood clotted cry from Soren he was lifted bodily from the greasy, blood spattered ground.

 

Hanging upside down, the mechanical tendril in his leg slicing through more tissue to gain better purchase as it deftly hefted both his own body and the massive suit of armour. Through the haze of pain Soren saw the speaker.

 

It dwarfed the traitor marine which had taunted him. It dwarfed everything in the corridor. Its armour was dull silver, slick with oil and grease, and Soren could not have told, even in ideal circumstances where those burnished plates of warp forged metal ended and the pallid flesh of the daemon began. Worse by far was the swarm of mechanical tentacles protruding from its back. They seemed to move with their own minds, exploring blindly the piles of detritus piled haphazardly around the floor. All except the one which now held Soren at the thing’s eye level.

 

A face blackened by smoke and flames leered back at the helpless space marine. It’s eyes burned with internal flames and two curved horns framed a mouth full of pointed, soot crusted teeth. When it spoke again a lashing tongue was visible between the multiple rows flicking back and forward in echo of the tentacles of living metal which continued their probing of the piles of wreckage and broken bodies.

 

“Welcome, Space Marine, to my Forge.” Foranax, Daemonsmith, Master of Incaria and arch-prophet of the Fleshmetal Cult said with a wicked, mirthless grin, “Your bold attack, though laudable, has barely scratched the surface. I commend you for finding it at all, but that will not turn back the tide I have yet to unleash on you. The pitiful creatures you fought on the surface, even the creations that defeated you are nothing compared to what awaits. Your brothers, who are even now waiting for you to report, to tell them what lies here, under the polar ice, will be slaughtered soon enough. What you have seen, and what you are about to see, will not change that.”

 

As the creature spoke he had walked. Striding on bestial legs on down the corridor, away from the bodies of Soren’s brothers, to whom the Warpsmiths had already returned, and onward towards the deep dull orange light that was the only illumination, besides Foranax’ burning eyes. Now as he stopped and with the tendril which held Soren aloft, he let out another guttural laugh.

 

From where he hung, Soren could dimly see through the gathering internal darkness, the gantry on which the daemon stood, see how it was set high in the bare stone wall of a huge, cavernous hall. It stretched off into the dim smoke-filled darkness beyond sight. The stink of exhaust fumes was overpowering, as was the heat, and the blood which poured freely from Soren’s slowly numbing body and dripped from his upturned form, boiled and spattered when it landed on the gantry’s steaming metal platform. The orange glow was bright now, bright like the heart of a thousand forges. Which was exactly what bayed, barked, snarled and roared in assembled horde below Soren’s dangling body. Scores of metal monstrosities stamped around on hydraulic legs, jaws of warpforged iron snapped hungrily, eyes of searing fire eyed the morsel high above. Daemon engines, in myriad forms and shapes arrayed like war-hounds ready to be unleashed, or pets lovingly watched over by a proud master.

 

“Your god may live in your heart, brother, but our gods walk among us, and their hunger is great.”

The creature laughed a final time, raised his mechanical tentacle high out over the gantry’s edge, and almost lazily, tossed the limp, lifeless body of Soren, third Brother of Squad Arcturus, Fifth Company, Ultramarines Chapter, out and down. It fell in a slow arch, but well before it reached the crowded floor one of the monstrous engines had sprung on its powerful hind legs and snatched the armoured figure from the air. Foranax, Daemonsmith, Master of Incaria and arch-prophet of the Fleshmetal Cult grinned to hear the sound of metal on metal as iron teeth ground the plates and rivets of the Space Marine’s armour and another deluded soul was ripped apart and consumed by flaming mouths.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Andrew Benn