Hacklaw nodded. The Imperial preference for energy weapons, especially the las-form, had influenced the ritual evolution of the Qimurah. The ingeniants of the Heritor College had given earlier generations of their kind the ability to grow hardshell plates to absorb solid kinetic munitions. That had been back in the dim times of the First Human Wars. Now Qimurah were made to exude the resin coat that sloughed away energy fire. The ingeniants had developed the idea from the study of loxatl biomechanics.
Lasweapons were excellent tools against human flesh. But the Qimurah, while not invulnerable, were far more than that.
‘You remember the plan of the chamber?’ he asked.
The Qimurah nodded.
‘Hacklaw, take your warriors and scale the left side. Gehrent, yours to the right. Ekheer, charge the gulley.’
All the Qimurah hissed assent. They waited for a moment, neon light crisping in their eyes, as what once had been their sweat glands released more mucus to thicken the glistening coating of their flesh. Hacklaw, Gehrent and the warriors who would accompany them took off their boots. They focused with grimacing concentration, ignoring the pain, as they reworked to lengthen the talons on their fingers and toes. The chitin sprouted, cracking and growing, becoming ugly grey hooks.
Corrod settled the old, Guard-issue musette bag on his shoulder. It contained four of the stones. Ulraw had the other four secure in his satchel.
‘These get through,’ said Corrod. ‘That is all that matters. If I fall, if Ulraw falls, someone takes up the burden.’
‘Yes, magir,’ they whispered.
‘Now let us show this human filth how Qimurah fight,’ said Corrod. ‘For the Anarch, who is Sek, whose voice drowns out all others.’
It had been still and quiet for several minutes. The waiting tugged at Larkin’s nerves. He kept his eyes on the mouth of the duct, but had sighted his long-las at a rock in the channel bed some thirty metres in. That was a point nothing would cross without taking a headshot. His musette bag was open at his hip, restocks of over-charged cells ready to grab.
Come on then, let’s be having you…
Criid glanced at Obel. Sweat was running down his cheeks and neck, and it wasn’t just the merciless heat of the vent system.
‘Movement!’ Zhukova hissed.
Silently, without battle cry or howl, the Qimurah burst from the duct and came at them. The first glimpse of their enemy made the Ghosts flinch. They were inhuman. Tall as ogryn, thin as corpses, sprinting from the duct with astonishing stride-length, almost springing like bipedal game-bucks.
Their speed was the second shock. How could anything move so fast?
Criid felt fear flood through her. The enemy had flung themselves forwards to attack. They had known it was an ambush, a prepared position. Yet still they had charged.
The Qimurah bore in like a tide, like a cavalry charge, flowing down the channel, firing their lasweapons from the shoulder.
The first shots, the cracks echoing around the enclosed space, grazed and chipped the shoulders of the rockcrete revetment. Then the first two Ghosts dropped, knocked off their feet by inconceivably accurate strikes.
‘Fire!’ Obel yelled.
The Tanith guns began to blaze. A blizzard of las-fire ripped down the rockcrete ravine, countercut by fire from the overlooking ledges. Boaz opened up with the .20, pumping streams of rounds down the channel. The noise was painful.
The leading Qimurah buckled and fell. Those behind leapt over the fallen, firing. Some of the creatures struck down got up and began to run again.
‘Feth this,’ whispered Larkin. They’d outrun his pre-set sighting point before he’d even squeezed off a shot.
What the feth were they?
He fired, and the long-las barked. A Qimurah toppled as his skull exploded. His forward momentum kept his corpse tumbling and cartwheeling for several metres.
Larkin didn’t stop to enjoy his kill. He slammed in another cell and put a second hotshot into the face of another of the neon-eyed fiends. Okain had opened up too. The two snipers had dropped five of the creatures before the front of the charge had reached the rusted gates. The over-charged hotshots had true stopping power. Not even Qimurah bio-defences could block or soak up that kind of energy force.
The .20 was also taking a toll. The streams of heavy hard rounds were shattering limbs and shearing bodies apart.
They can’t get past this, Obel thought. Doesn’t matter what they are, doesn’t matter how fast they are, they can’t run this killbox. None of them are going to make it to us alive.
But the bulk of the Tanith firepower wasn’t the heavy crew-served or the two long-las weapons. It was standard lasrifles. Hits from them made Qimurah stumble and falter. Some fell, others took visible damage.
But they kept going. They soaked it up. Obel wondered how many times he’d have to hit the same target spot before he did any lethal damage.
The Qimurah came on. Their weapons were basic, but their supple, strong bodies allowed them to fire on the move with great accuracy.
And lasweapons were excellent tools against human flesh.
Four Ghosts were down. Five. Six. Boaz was hit in the throat and arm, and flopped back from the .20, which chattered into silence. Ifvan leapt in to take over, but the .20 had feed-jammed when Boaz lurched away from the tripod. He fought to unblock the receiver.
‘Clear it! Clear it!’ Obel yelled.
Larkin heard Okain scream out. Two more groups of the enemy were pouring up the revetments onto the ledge. They didn’t have to balance. Hooked claws on their feet and hands bit into the crumbling ’crete like pitons. Some were almost running along the wall on all fours like human spiders.
Larkin and Okain switched aim. They no longer had time to fire at the charging tide below. They began sighting over the gate mechanisms to fend off the horrors that were racing along the walls at their level.
Okain hit one, and the kill-shot hurled the scurrying scarecrow shape off the ledge, spinning and flailing. Larkin blew the head off the first one coming at him, then reloaded to greet the second.
On the far side, Okain missed with his third shot. Hacklaw vaulted over the corroded gears of the gate, and decapitated Okain with a slash of his fore-claws.
Down below, Maggs saw Okain perish.
‘On the walls! They’re up on the walls!’ he yelled. Several of the Ghosts at the duct mouth tried to angle up and fire at the Qimurah advancing along the edges. This further reduced the firepower concentrating on the main charge.
Hacklaw and two others had swept past Okain’s station, sending his corpse tumbling down the revetment, and fell into the Ghosts positioned on the ledge. The Ghosts tried to fight back, shooting point-blank at the unexpected attack, or trying to fend off the Qimurah with rifle butts or blades. The Qimurah killed some outright with their meat-hook claws, or simply threw the troopers off the ledge into the channel below, a drop that either killed or crippled them as they hit the rockcrete gulley below.
Ifvan got the .20 cleared, but the front end of the charge was already on them.
The Qimurah had left many of their kin dead and mangled in the rockcrete channel behind them. But with undimmed fury and unfaltering speed, the remainder of the reworked warriors swept into the Ghosts’ fragile line.
Seventeen: Flesh is Weak
There was no quarter, no room to move, no time to think. The twilit gallery shook with gunfire, stray las-rounds spitting through the fug of accumulated smoke. The leading Qimurah hit the line, taking shots point blank, shredding and dying, and soaking up damage for the warriors behind them. The Ghosts had fixed silver, and resorted to stabbing and thrusting as the Qimurah swept into them. Most were simply bowled backwards by the superior power and force of the Archenemy creatures. Even with bayonets driven deep into blistered neon flesh, they were carried over or dragged backwards.