Lords of the Storm - Edoardo Albert by Warhammer 40K

Author:Warhammer 40K [40K, Warhammer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781789994841
Published: 2019-09-23T09:46:12+00:00

Chapter 12

‘By the gods, what are you doing?’ Captain Donatus screamed at the men streaming back past him. Their eyes were wide with terror and completely unseeing. They had come running past his command post, a human tide in full ebb.

Donatus swung his autogun, catching a fleeing trooper full in the face with the barrel. The man went down backwards, his nose exploding blood, but before he had chance to sit up, Donatus was on him, slapping him to one side then the other.

‘Why are you running?’ he screamed into the soldier’s face.

The man, his face red as raw meat, stared stupidly up into the eyes of his captain. The insignia on his shoulder told that he was a lieutenant: Donatus knew him by sight as one of his subalterns.

‘Th-the gods are coming,’ the man jabbered, ‘and the witch comes with them.’

Donatus slapped the subaltern again. The man tried to crawl past him. Captain Donatus put a shot through the back of his skull, splashing the lieutenant’s face on the ground beneath him. Running back to his command post, Donatus pushed the auspex operator aside to look at the screen.

The life traces showed his men falling back before an enemy attack. The signatures told that the attack was being led by the cursed Space Marines… and something else.

But beyond them, near the building that had been the focus of his first attack, was the heat signature of an aircraft, turbofans spinning, ready to take off. An exfiltration Valkyrie.

The enemy was trying to get the relics of their false saint to safety.

The counter-attack, Donatus realised, was a diversion. The Imperials were trying to clear a take-off window for the Valkyrie.

But even as he realised this, Donatus saw the aircraft signature shift. It was taking off.

He began shouting orders to the vox-operators for every missile unit to lock on to the rising Valkyrie.

None of the vox-operators relayed the message. They all sat back from their units, staring behind Donatus. The captain felt his skin crawl. He turned around.

‘My lord.’

The Word Bearer had come.

Pelagus’ glance took in everything at once. He looked to Donatus. ‘I take it we do not want that aircraft to escape?’

‘I-I’ve called up all our missile units…’ Donatus began.

‘Let me take care of it,’ said Pelagus. He stepped out of the command post and looked up into the sky. Some five hundred yards away, the Valkyrie was rising from the ground on a plume of downward thrust. As soon as it had attained sufficient altitude, the pilot would vector the engines to horizontal thrust and power away, flying low to avoid any overflying enemy fighters.

The Word Bearer raised the crozius arcanum he bore. Its interlinked armillary spheres began to rotate, slipping in and round each other in an eye-wrenching, stomach-voiding blur. Those men in the command post who did not look away fast enough found themselves hunching over, vomiting blood onto the ground.

Five hundred yards away, the pilot of the Valkyrie, setting his evacuation route, glanced up from his control panel to see a light in the distance.

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