Flame and Damnation (Warhammer 40,000) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: azw3, pdf
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2015-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

Animus Malorum

L J Goulding

The vaults shook with the ferocity of the conflict raging on the surface. Even here, beneath more than fifty metres of reinforced rockcrete and plasteel, the xenos’ assault sent tremors running through to the very foundations of the basilicae.

Brother Marco knew that it would not be long, now. He had to work quickly.

Each muffled impact brought a fresh rain of debris and masonry dust from the tortured stonework over his head. Beneath the gaze of shrouded saints and the lifeless eyes of uncounted Imperial heroes, he retraced his path with an artisan’s care, and considered whether what he was about to do might be remembered as anything other than sacrilege, once this war was done.

His suit-lamps cast a pair of twin spotlights before him; although the augmented systems of his battleplate could run diagnostics on the circuit before it went live, there was no substitute for one last visual confirmation that the line itself remained unbroken. Stooping low in the cramped confines of the tunnel, he brushed away handfuls of dusty, shattered bone with his gauntleted fingers and slowly, delicately, checked the connections to the forty-sixth demolition charge. In that moment, it would have been difficult to imagine anything else existing in the almost oppressive darkness beyond.

He almost started at the sudden burst of static over the vox-bead in his ear.

Steady…

There were a few seconds of filtered battle din before any voice came. The identi-rune displayed upon his vambrace readout showed that the link had been opened by Captain Erices himself, but it appeared that he was somewhat preoccupied. Marco heard the staccato bark of boltgun fire, the war cries of the greenskins, and the shriek of chainswords hewing xenos flesh.

‘Marco, report.’

The captain’s tone was curt, and spoke of desperation and exhaustion in equal measure. This glorious endeavour had become nothing more than a forlorn hope.

‘It is almost done, my lord,’ Marco replied, one hand cupped over the side of his head as another tremor shook the catacombs. ‘I have sealed off the access tunnels at points nineteen, twenty-six and twenty-seven. The charges are set around all of the primary junctions, and under the foundations of the main shrine complex. I await your command.’

There was another pause. A particularly loud detonation clipped out the vox-channel from Erices’s end, and Marco even felt it reverberate through the gritty flagstones beneath his feet. A greenskin’s roar was cut short by a fresh flurry of bolter fire, and the captain grunted in pain.

‘You are prepared to remain in position, when the order is given?’

‘Of course, my lord. If this holy ground is to be denied to the enemy advance, then we cannot risk a technical failure. This is my true calling, as a Techmarine – my worthy sacrifice will be to ensure that the demolition–’

Fresh static began to creep into the channel, rising in faint pulses like an erratic heartbeat. Marco realised that the identi-rune had flickered out, though Erices’s vital signs remained strong.

‘My lord. My lord, can you hear

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