The Devastation of Baal by Guy Haley

Author:Guy Haley
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2017-09-14T12:48:02+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Moat of Tears

The thick black streak of smoke on the horizon was a poor grave marker for so mighty a ship as the Blade of Vengeance. The sight of it stirred the wrath of Chaplain Ordamael to towering heights.

Ordamael was stationed on the third line, overseeing some of the hordes of mortals drafted from the Baalian moons. The prefabricated sections of defence line they manned surrounded the curtain wall of the Arx like the teeth of a gargantuan mantrap, and it was a trap. There was a smooth area of sand a hundred feet in front of the line. The sand appeared to be a part of the desert, but was only a couple of inches thick, concealing a rockcrete channel, fifty feet across, that ran all the way around the Arx and its two walls.

Inside the channel was thirstwater.

Ordamael had learned to fear thirstwater when he was a boy. Nobody really knew what it was. Incarael said it was a vicious weapon from the Long Ago War, although there were the possibilities that it was native to Baal Secundus, or a thing of xenos origin.

Thirstwater looked like water, but it was alive, possessed a rudimentary intelligence, and it hunted, lying in wait to lure the thirsty towards it. No refreshment was held in its liquid, only death, for it desiccated whatever it came into contact with, adding their moisture to itself. Its properties prevented proper study. However, the Blood Angels knew enough about it to find it, catch it, and to contain it. As much as could be found had been gathered on Baal Secundus.

It would have escaped if it could, draining itself away into the sand, dividing into hundreds of separate organisms and flowing off to lurk.

Dante had contaminated Baal with the system’s deadliest substance. The Chapter world would never be free of it.

Desperate times led to unthinkable strategy.

Even hidden under the sand, the thirstwater affected the environment around it. It dried the air so much it ­crackled. Ordamael’s sensorium sensed something amiss and flagged up this unusual dryness. He was not completely safe in his battleplate. To approach the moat would have been death for the mortals fighting alongside the Space Marines, and so they were terrified. Ordamael strode among them as they lay cowering behind the defence lines, exhorting them to greater efforts, scaring them into taking up their guns and firing at the enemy. They could hardly hear him, though he bellowed with his voxmitter at full amplification. Many were startled as his massive armoured black hand descended upon them unnoticed to pluck up discarded guns – child-size in his grip – and gesturing for them to shoot.

‘In the name of the Great Angel, for the greater glory of the Emperor, for the preservation of Baal, keep firing!’ he roared. He brandished his crozius arcanum over his head. Tyranid microorganisms flashed to nothing in its disruption field. ‘Keep them back! Keep them back from the moat!’

Baal had thrown off its desert silence and gave voice to Sanguinius’ rage.

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