Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds (Space Marine Battles) by Mark Clapham

Author:Mark Clapham [Clapham, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2016-10-06T11:58:06+00:00

Eighteen

It was a world of sea and storms.

Whether by ancient design or a failure of the artificial atmosphere, Karstveil was gripped by never-ending storms. Rain, thunder and lightning crashed down on the turbulent seas that consumed most of the planet’s interior, and hammered the few clumps of rugged land.

Those few, brutish landmasses that dared rise above sea level had blunt, descriptive names, simple compounds that told their whole story in a name:

Archrock.

Strongwall.

Ironshore.

It was towards that final, fortified island that the black galleons of Huron Blackheart set out, sliding off the shores of Archrock and plunging into the rough waters of the ocean. Those galleons had rolled through the nearby Archway to Hacasta on great oily wheeled tracks, but as they approached the water those tracks disappeared into each galleon’s hull as if they had never been, the rusty, riveted metal sealing behind them like a healing wound.

While they had travelled a long way on land, the daemonic galleons were creatures of the water, and even in those unforgiving waters the great, hulking vessels took on a kind of grace as they left land behind, leaning perilously as the waves rose and fell but never capsizing, always moving with the tidal flow. Even travelling through toxic fog, the seas polluted with scum and flotsam, they cut through the filth smoothly.

As the rains of Karstveil dampened the embers of burning Archrock, razed by the Red Corsairs as they passed through on their way to the sea, the galleons of Huron Blackheart disappeared into the distance, setting sail across an ocean as big as the world.

Since the death of his commanding officer, Colonel Ruthger, Lieutenant Nistal of the Cadian 301st had drunk deep from the poisoned chalice of spontaneous field promotion, and was sick of it.

While he would not have wished to change places with the late colonel – self-pity was not a Cadian trait – Nistal did not relish the legacy Ruthger had left him with. While he was comfortable enough leading men on the battlefield, making decisions that meant life or death for those under his command, Nistal was less prepared to take command of a regiment reduced to a third of its original numbers, fighting a defensive war across a system of inside-out planets.

Since Ruthger’s death, all Nistal could do was make the big decisions for his regiment in the same manner he would make snap decisions on the battlefield – prioritise targets and defensive positions based on incoming intelligence.

The order supplied by one of the system governor’s corvids was that whatever lay behind the fortifications of Ironshore needed defending. Having established defences and traps on Kerresh to welcome the Red Corsairs once they reopened the Archway, Nistal had led his men to Karstveil, and to Ironshore.

What lay within the mountain at the heart of the rocky island of Ironshore, behind apparently impassable gates, Nistal had not been made privy.

Fine – Nistal had his objective to defend, that was all that mattered, and he didn’t need to know any more.

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