The Soul Drinkers Omnibus II (Warhammer 40,000) by Ben Counter

Author:Ben Counter [Counter, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2022-12-03T00:00:00+00:00

‘What is the alien? It is more than merely a creature of non-Terran origin. Such a thing would hold no holy disgust for us. The alien is an idea, a concept, deadly by virtue of its mere existence. The very possibility of the alien becoming a dominant force among the stars is corrosive to the human soul.’

– Daenyathos, A Thousand Foes

Chapter Fifteen

North of the space port gates, the advancing Undying crossed rifle range. The snipers yelled a warning, and the officers of the Raevenian army gave the order to fire.

Raevenian guns opened up in such numbers that the view from the walls was blurred, as if through heavy rain. The sound was appalling, like an earthquake, an endless exploding din.

Undying fell. Some were shredded beyond self-repair, smashed into shards of metal that phased out before they hit the ground. One of the lords, the tall, regal Undying with ornate carapaces, held up an onyx sphere that pulsed with black light, and the fallen Undying around him clambered to their feet, even scattered shreds of metal flowing back together like quicksilver to re-form into warriors.

One of the flying warriors crashed into the trees, a neat hole punched through its skull by a sniper’s bullet. A rocket battery opened up on the walls, and a chain of explosions ripped through the front ranks of the Undying, throwing shattered warriors into the air.

There were so many of them. A man could not count them, and the destruction around them did not slow them down.

Death meant nothing to them, because they were death.

The Undying broke the cover of the trees to the south of the space port and met a similar curtain of fire from the southern walls, where the Raevenians had set up most of their heavy weapons: machine-gun nests, missile launchers and vicious mortar-like devices, which fired clouds of razor wire that turned the approaches into near-impossible terrain. The Undying warriors were slowed down by the wire that draped over them like silver spiders’ webs, catching limbs and gun barrels. They tore their way through it with metallic hands, but they could only advance at a crawl, and the guns battered into them. The Undying nobles issued their silent commands, and the Undying broke formation, heading this way and that to make for less tempting targets. One noble was caught in a missile blast and was sheared in two, its lower half clattering to the ground, dead and useless. Its upper half was picked up and dragged along by the Undying around it.

Queen Dyrmida watched from the balcony of the space port’s control tower, from where she could just see the tops of the monoliths approaching behind the main Undying line, and the shuddering of the trees to the south as they were battered by stray fire. It sounded like the air itself was tearing.

‘You should take cover, your majesty,’ said Kavins.

‘I know,’ said Dyrmida, ‘but when they reach us, I will fight.’

‘As shall we all. But your part in this battle has been played.

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