The eldar sprang, moving above the blast with one easy, fluid movement. It seemed to be moving more slowly than previously, and it came to me that perhaps it was wounded, or perhaps the disconnection from whatever had allowed it to summon armies had done something to its brain. Nonetheless, I knew it would be more than a match for me if it got within striking distance.
I kept firing, hoping to distract it and prevent it from summoning more eldar to its aid. It came ever closer, holding its blade at the ready. Strange mechanical laughter spilled from the headpiece of its armour.
‘I shall feast on your agony, mortal,’ it said.
The eldar moved towards me so fast I barely had time to raise the shotgun. It made no difference. A fist blurred past it and hit me somewhere over the heart. It was like a blow from a sledgehammer. I felt as though I could be catapulted backwards, but something restrained me: the arm of the xenos, it was holding me in place. I heard something click and blades extruded from its gloves. I flinched as I felt cloth and flesh tear. A flap of skin lifted from my back as it was flayed by multiple scalpels. A searing heat flared around the wound. Briefly, I wondered whether it was shock or poison, and then realised it did not matter. I tried to pull myself free but the xenos held me in place. At first skin and flesh ripped in response to my movement, but then the alien moved to compensate.
I let the shotgun fall forwards and I pulled the trigger. The blast came at an odd angle. The kick broke my wrist. Somehow the eldar swayed backwards and away, but it had been forced to let me go. The blades came clear of my flesh with an odd sucking sound. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to move. I heard that flat, machine-generated laughter behind me.
Something blurred overhead. The eldar was now in front of me as I tried to scramble away. It had somersaulted over me. It held up its gauntlet. I saw my blood on the scalpel blades emerging from its fingertips. It mingled with gobbets of pink stuff which had been attached to my innards not a few moments before. I reached for a grenade left handed. I thought if I could arm it, I could simply hold it and let the explosion get both of us. I knew I was a dead man and that given the slightest opportunity the eldar would torture me. At any moment I expected to feel the nerve-searing pain of neuro-toxins anyway. A quick death seemed preferable to that.
The eldar reached out and batted the grenade away. The action was casual and contemptuous. Behind it, I saw something that made me laugh. It paused for a moment.
Macharius stood there, pistol raised, aiming. He pulled the trigger. The eldar was already in motion, diving to one side. The shell took it in the shoulder and sent it reeling. It rolled over, regaining its feet, twisting to bring its own long-barrelled weapon to bear. Macharius shot again, caught the eldar in the chest. Macharius pulled the trigger again. The shell exploded within the chest cavity exposed by the power of the previous shot. Macharius kept firing shell after shell until his magazine was emptied. Clearly he was taking no chances.
I mumbled my thanks, and then I noticed Macharius’s face, and how strange his expression was. Something about it reminded me of the Undertaker. His features held the look of a man who had seen too much. He stood there for a long time, looking at the dead eldar. Drake entered and behind him came Anton and Ivan and the Undertaker, along with a few surviving Lion Guard.
My old comrades raced over and began to treat my wounds. They slapped synthi-flesh on the ripped skin and applied adhesive bandages. ‘Go look at Grimnar.’ I barely managed to force the words out from between my mangled lips.
Grimnar had already started to rise. His awesome powers of recovery were starting to assert themselves. He was functional again despite having taken a beating that would have killed a normal man. Together he and Macharius and Drake moved towards the altar on which lay the Fist of Russ.
I limped along behind them, determined to witness what came next. I had come a long way and I was not going to miss out on it now.
All three of them stood at the altar looking down on the ancient relic. It was indeed a gauntlet, and it looked like it has been made to fit Space Marine armour. If anything it was bigger than Grimnar’s. It had similar runes inscribed on it too.
I saw Grimnar and Drake and Macharius exchange looks.
‘This is not the Fist of Russ,’ said Grimnar, ‘It is ancient and it belonged to the Wolves, but not to our primarch.’
‘But…’ I heard Anton say. All three of those deadly men looked at him, and even he had the wit to fall silent
‘I will see that this is properly disposed of,’ said Grimnar, picking up the Fist.
All looked bleak, their faces frozen as if their features had been carved from immutable rock.
‘We are done here,’ said Macharius. ‘There is nothing for us.’
His voice had an odd quality to it, the sound of massive boulders grinding together within the cold ice of a glacier. ‘Let us go,’ he said.
With the Space Wolf loping along ahead of us, we departed.
We emerged from the portal. It had taken us what seemed like days to march to it, but when we stepped back into the Valley of the Ancients, it looked like only minutes had passed. The officer set to watch it looked up and blinked in amazement. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘we did not expect you back so soon.’
His eyes ran over us again, and I could see he was adding up the discrepancies between our appearance and what he had expected to see. We were unshaven, our uniforms were torn, we were red-eyed from marching on stimms; some were wounded, including myself. Many casualties would not be returning at all.
‘Show me your chronometer,’ Macharius said. The officer complied. Macharius shook his head. ‘Sixteen minutes,’ he said to Drake. ‘We’ve been gone sixteen minutes.’
Drake looked haunted, as he had done ever since we saw the Fist of Demetrius. He nodded as though Macharius had simply confirmed what he had suspected. ‘At least we made it out,’ he said.
Macharius nodded grimly. ‘And it means I have returned in time to ensure the slaughter of the xenos.’
He began to speak into the comm-net with rasping authority, getting reports as to how the situation stood, then rapping out orders for dealing with remnants of the eldar attack. As he did so he kept walking, and we kept moving with him, emerging from the labyrinthine temple into a night scarred by the blaze of battle.
Macharius launched himself into the conflict with the zeal and fury of a true servant of the Emperor. We strode by his side, weapons blazing, striving as always to keep him from harm.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William King is the author of the Tyrion & Teclis trilogy and the Macharian Crusade, as well as the much-loved Gotrek & Felix series and the Space Wolf novels. His short stories have appeared in many magazines and compilations, including White Dwarf and Inferno!. Bill was born in Stranraer, Scotland, in 1959 and currently lives in Prague.