Kjalma’s Skull by Tom Horth

Author:Tom Horth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2022-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE OBSIDIAN DEPTHS

Magos Dominus Karrak led the procession through a labyrinth of tight, winding pathways, moving without hesitation through the labyrinthine heart of the necron tomb. Connected to a long, trailing metallic cable that emerged from beneath his robes, a servo-skull drifted in front of him, its red ocular unit scanning the walls and mapping their progress. Karrak had barely spoken since the skirmish with the necrons, and only paused to take energy readings, before continuing to lead the Sisters onwards. Martyna had little choice but to trust his judgement. He was a master of technology, and his methods of navigating these confounding depths were surely based upon logic rather than guesswork.

‘This place is a labyrinth. Have you managed to map its corridors, magos?’ Martyna asked.

‘I am a scion of Mars, and the diagnostic tools gifted to me by the Machine-God are without peer, Sister. As my warriors spread throughout the necron facility, they continued to feed me their observations and readings until they were isolated and destroyed. Their sacrifice has given me a relatively clear picture of the tomb’s layout. A small leap of logic was required in order to map the remainder of the necron structure, and some of my assumptions may prove incorrect, but I believe I have constructed a reasonable layout of the facility, based on the data harvested,’ the magos said.

By means of explanation, Karrak stopped, and his servo-skull turned slowly to face the Sisters, its red eye whirring and rotating within its left eye-socket. A holographic projection emanated from the device, forming in the air before it. It appeared to be an interior map of the necron structure, showing the corridors the Adeptus Mechanicus forces had traversed during their incursion into its depths. The magos dominus raised a bony hand, which still featured a small amount of human flesh, albeit pale and withered. In it he clasped a long, ornate cane, which he used to gesture at the holo-map of the necron tomb.

‘This section of the necron tomb complex,’ he explained, contains repair and stasis chambers for damaged necrons. The corridors are crawling with canoptek creatures. The tomb’s defenders have divided my forces and slain the majority of the skitarii. The scattered remnants won’t hold out much longer.’

‘And where is our objective?’

The Martian commander gestured to a chamber on the north-western face of the mountain. ‘Here. The Dolmen Gate which we seek lies just beyond the central nexus, an area of open ground in the centre of the structure. The approach to the gate chamber will be heavily defended. Breaching it with a frontal assault would be exceedingly difficult. Reaching the gate at all will be no easy task,’ he replied.

Martyna counted no more than twenty Adeptus Mechanicus soldiers, alongside herself, the magos, Isolde and her two remaining warriors. Karrak was right. They had inflicted countless casualties on the necron defenders, but the xenos had a near-limitless supply of soldiers to call upon, a luxury Martyna and her allies did not possess. However one looked at the situation, the chances of success were slim at best.

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