Rynn's World (Space Marine Battles) by Steve Parker

Author:Steve Parker [Parker, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Nine

The Eastern Steppes, Hellestro Province

Few normal men ever realised just how much information was all around them. The air they breathed was filled with it, but their noses were not attuned to it in the way a canid’s was, or the olfactory senses of a million other kinds of creature.

Space Marines knew. Within their bodies, each of Kantor’s survivors carried an organ called the neuroglottis, or The Devourer, grown from the gene-seed of their fellow Astartes and implanted during the painful process that forever physically separated them from their fellow men. The primary function of the neuroglottis was to allow instant analysis of a substance by taste. Toxins could be easily detected. Organic compounds could be tested for nutritional content. And a single scent molecule on a breeze could give away a hidden foe or tell the direction in which it had travelled.

Cortez and his squad were once again on point, ranging a kilometre ahead of the rest of the group.

The captain breathed, and smelled death on the wind.

Night had fallen three hours ago, and the Chapter Master had ordered everyone to increase their pace. He hoped to cross as much distance in the dark as possible. Too slow and the daylight would find his party in the open with the sun glaring off their armour and weapons. Ork aircrews would be able to spot them from as far as the horizon.

They had to make the most of the darkness. Kantor was guiding them north-west to the place where the Eastern Steppes ended and the Azcalan, the Soroccan continent’s massive rainforest, began.

Once the Crimson Fists were in the cover of the trees, night and day would become irrelevant. They would move without rest, and make the capital that much sooner. Right now, all Cortez could think about was the familiar smell he had detected.

Every breath he took spoke to him of spilled blood, of wet viscera exposed to the air. There were other scents, too. One of the strongest was dung, neither human, nor ork.

Cattle, he thought. Kine. That’s what I’m smelling.

The planet’s closest moon, Dantienne, was high and almost full. Her surface rock contained cobalt, and the dim light she threw down on the plains was distinctly blue. To Cortez and the rest of the Fists, everything had a greenish tinge. Their helmet visors were set to low-light mode, further brightening the gloom.

As he marched his squad onwards, Cortez now noticed large dark objects slumped on the grassy plains. They were shapeless black things. As he and his battle-brothers drew closer to them, the smell became stronger and stronger.

Cortez opened a link to the Chapter Master.

‘Orks have been here, and recently.’

‘They killed all the kine,’ replied Kantor, pre-empting Cortez’s next words. ‘I can smell the blood.’

Cortez trod over to the nearest of the bodies. Dantienne’s light glistened on the piles of looping wet entrails that had spilled from a wound in its stomach.

Why didn’t they take the meat, he wondered?

If there was one thing orks were not, it was wasteful.

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