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Redemption on Dal’yth – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Redemption on Dal’yth

By Phil Kelly

CORE ASSEMBLY HOUSE, GEL’BRYN
DAL’YTH (T’AU SEPT WORLD)

‘These are no mere statues, dear cadets, but rival lords of war.’

Magister Por’klai made the gesture of the unveiling hand, his slender fingers stretched towards the spherical force field the Dal’ythans called the Clash of Empires. Its duelling inhabitants, a fire caste hero in a vintage XV8 battlesuit and a monstrous Imperial Space Marine with his crackling broadsword raised high, stood frozen in the act of killing one another.

The dynamism of the t’au battlesuit’s posture, twinned with the roaring, hideous visage of the human grotesque, spoke volumes. The two warriors stood upon a thin section of tunnel, its underpiping exposed by the faint shimmering sphere delineating the tableau.

‘These adversaries live on, held in stasis, immortal and unchanging. They have inspired generations of the fire caste for over three hundred tau’cyr. A living monument to our victory over the Imperium here upon Dal’yth, they show the Hero’s Mantle in action, and the bravery of those who wear it.’

Por’klai’s audience, a tight knot of fire caste cadets no more than twelve short tau’cyr of age, stared up at the piece with rapt attention. It would be the high point of their day, a fitting reward for their excellent results in training and a thrill they would remember for the rest of their short lives.

‘The monument does not merely commemorate the sacrifice of Sha’kanthas, one of the Second Sphere’s most lauded heroes. It contains him. It is him, in fact.’

This time, there was a murmur of appreciation; Por’klai considered it sufficient enough to continue. His legs were already aching, and he had given the same speech hundreds of times to bright new cadet classes over the span of several tau’cyr. He would give the raconteur’s craft his all, of course; he always did. But already the air shimmered with intense heat – a record year, if the earth caste were to be believed. He would be glad to move further into the mushroom-like domes of the muster complex and take his rest in the refreshment zone that overlapped its southern edge. His usual vice, an ice-cool dzincta, would be more than welcome.

‘Is it true that Monat Sha’kanthas once served the Traitor?’ asked Kha’lithra, making the cupped hands of the inquiring student. A fierce young cadet, since entering the muster complex she had let her war face gradually be replaced by wide-eyed awe.

‘He did indeed,’ said Por’klai, his expression darkening. ‘Sha’kanthas was Farsight’s first tutor, and during the Battle of Gel’bryn City, it was the Traitor that gave him his war name. Yet the rot spread not from his teachings. Before Dal’yth, Tutor Sha’kanthas went on record many times as to the rebel’s true nature. His servitude was an artefact of its time. It does not diminish his sacrifice as a Monat assassin, nor his victory in stopping the so-called “Scar Lords” in their subterranean strike on Shas’ar’tol High Command.’

‘The Imperial war leader uses blade and shield,’ said Cadet Tsh’varian, mystified by the anachronism. ‘With such a primitive mindset, how can they hope to deny us?’

‘A good question, young Tsh’varian. The humans are great in number, and they have a callous disrespect for their own lives. That can sometimes make them dangerous.’

‘Can the warriors hear us?’ said Kha’lithra.

Por’klai chuckled. ‘No, cautious one, they cannot. They are caught in a single moment that they cannot escape.’

‘Oh,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘Is it human war-tech that holds them so still?’

‘As the glacier holds the ancient skeleton in its wintery grip, this gue’la force field holds both hero and villain in place,’ said Por’klai. ‘The stasis field is a fluke of technology, a brute’s little-understood weapon triggered as a last resort. By seeking safe haven in timelessness, the Imperial savage has unwittingly left us with a work of art.’

‘But how do we know they cannot hear us, honoured por?’ asked Kha’lithra, the olfactory chasm running down the front of her face puckering in consternation. ‘The class before us said there was a flicker in–’

Por’klai scowled, making the cutting hand. ‘The earth caste have assured us of the field’s integrity, ever since the day they scooped these warriors from their mutual tomb and elevated them to the glory you see before you. The Imperial stasis field has held unchanging for eight generations. Do you doubt the expertise of the earth caste?’

Casting her gaze downwards, the cadet made the closing-book gesture of the matter settled. ‘No, magister.’

‘Perhaps you question the vigilance of the water caste?’

‘I… I offer contrition, magister.’

‘Excellent. Then let us make our way inside.’

Por’klai ushered the cadets onwards; they went in good order, as ever. A few of them nodded their thanks to him, eyes still shining and eager. The magister felt a subtle warmth within his chest. Maybe he could stand a few more tau’cyr of instruction duty after all.

Behind him, the force field atop the monument pillar flickered and spat.

There was a blur of light. Tutor Sha’kanthas gave a wordless cry as he triggered a kill shot. His battlesuit’s plasma rifle was inches from the gue’ron’sha war leader’s face. Nothing happened. The Imperial brute brought his sword down, cutting the rifle’s cylindrical barrel in half. Sha’kanthas raised his fusion blaster, eye-stabbing its crosshairs. It blipped in alarm. Readouts scrolled red text.

••• DATA DISCONTINUATION ••• TRANSMISSION UPDATE DENIED •••

Sha’kanthas felt a solid impact as the brute’s shield slammed into him. There was a moment of weightlessness as his suit fell away from some manner of ledge. For a moment he saw the violet-and-white sky of Dal’yth. Then the XV8 righted itself, putting distance between him and his assailant.

Where were the tunnels? How was he suddenly outside?

He opened a priority channel to the command cadrenet. ‘Commander Farsight,’ he said, ‘close strike abort. Primary target used teleport device. Still engaged, but weapons scrambled.’

There was no reply. The cadrenet was dead.

Sha’kanthas cast a glance at his battlefield disposition suite. His surroundings were some manner of urban inzone. Civilians scrambled away in all directions. His gaze darted back to the Space Marine king, who was gaining the edge of the high podium they had occupied moments before.

He tried his rifle again. Still unresponsive.

The Imperial brute landed with an audible crunch, the plaza cracking beneath the boots of its bulky powered armour. Raising his fist, the gue’ron’sha took a shot with the barrel-shaped weapon system on the back of his gauntlet. A pair of tiny self-detonating rockets hurtled out. Sha’kanthas turned his shoulder, and a shell gouged a crater from the multilayered alloy of his suit. The gue’ron’sha barked something unintelligible, then broke into a run.

Sha’kanthas called up more crosshairs, this time settling on the beast’s unhelmeted face. Why the Imperials were so ready to expose their most vulnerable locations, he would never know. To them, bravery and foolhardiness were one and the same. The monster had already been horrifically disfigured by some old wound, half of his chin missing to expose a row of yellow teeth jutting from a ropy bed of muscle and sinew. A flick of the eye, and the whole gnarled head would be no more than vapour.

He took the shot–

Nothing.

••• TRANSMISSION UPDATE DENIED ••• SYSTEM LOG UNTENABLE •••

‘T’au’va’s grace,’ cursed Sha’kanthas. ‘This is unacceptable! Commander Farsight, please reply!’

••• SIGNAL LINK DEFUNCT •••

The beast was nearly upon him. He leapt backward as its longblade came scything round, a killing diagonal swipe that would have opened his battlesuit a split second before. There was a clatter from behind as he collided with a cluster of hover-platforms. Civilians screamed as they hurried to clear the immediate surroundings. He boosted upwards out of reach, gaining a moment with which to catch his breath.

A knot of fire caste warriors, dipping into food cylinders a moment before, pulled their tables into a rough barricade. They hastily formed a two-tier gun line. Pulling pulse pistols from side holsters, they levelled a fusillade at the rampaging human warrior.

The monster raised his shield and charged towards them. Plasma shots that would have seared straight through an ork’s torso splashed from the ornate shield in a cascade of clashing energies. The gue’ron’sha’s stamping run gathered momentum to smash through the barricade, bowling over the warriors behind it.

One, two, three swings of that oversized broadsword. The first of the fire warriors lost a hand at the wrist, then half of his cranium an eye-blink later. Grey matter oozed out from a skull seeping blood. The second had his throat cut so deep his head hinged away from his chest like an open casket. The third, shouldered so hard he was taken from his feet, was cut bodily in half even as he flailed through the air. Blood arced, jetted, sprayed thick.

Sha’kanthas was already boosting in. In the space of time it took him to close the distance, three more t’au lives met a brutal end. One t’au warrior fired point-blank at the invader, but it passed straight through his heavy cloak to glance from the bulky power unit behind. The fire warrior caught a heavy elbow to the throat in return. The follow-up blow from the pommel of the human’s sword caved in his skull. The blade swept around in a three-quarter spin. Two more t’au went to their deaths, their mangled corpses falling amongst the ruin of their team.

His battlesuit’s jets roaring, Sha’kanthas smashed bodily into his heavily armoured foe. The human did not sprawl, as he had hoped, but instead staggered to one knee. Sha’kanthas kicked out, but the gue’ron’sha deflected the blow with his shield, righting himself with a deep growl of anger.

The last two fire warriors ran, disengaging as fast as possible. The human shot one of them in the back with his wrist-mounted gun. The shell pierced the fire warrior’s lumbar armour and detonated a moment later to end the poor infantryman’s life in an explosion of viscera, blood and fragments of spine.

The beast grinned, its ruined lip gaping. Sha’kanthas lined up a shot once more, but the weapon system yielded nothing.

‘– – YOUR GUNS – –’ spooled Sha’kanthas’ autotrans as it made sense of the creature’s guttural growls. ‘– – THEY DESERT YOU – – ALLOW ME TO DIVEST YOU OF THEM – –’

The broadsword came around hard. Sha’kanthas parried it with what was left of his plasma rifle, and the barrel was sheared through to the point it was nothing more than a smoking stub.

‘Die in flames, savage.’ Sha’kanthas jabbed forward with his fusion blaster, intending to physically smash the hulking thing’s face into the back of its skull. The human beast was fast despite its size. It turned, the blow glancing from the curvature of its massive shoulder pad. That lethal sword came around once more in a blur of ice blue, hacking a thick wedge from the midsection of the XV8 and crazing the left-hand screens of his control suite.

Pulse rifle fire shot in from above, slamming into the giant warrior as a group of student marksmen fired from a commanding position on the balcony. Their shots spun the brutish warrior away from Sha’kanthas to put a spear’s length between them. He boosted backwards, hastening for the building’s core structure where the comms antennae would be directly accessible. His suit was glitching badly – perhaps due to some scrambling element of the Imperial warrior’s teleport field – but he had to get word to his fellow commanders. If the gue’ron’sha war leader got loose amongst the civilians of the muster point, it would be a massacre.

Sha’kanthas saw the Imperial warrior turn his shield towards the marksmen on the balcony, covering his massive bulk with a canopy of inches-thick metal. Beyond the fire caste students, a loose group of earth caste civilians were hastening to get through the iris portal to the complex’s interior. The brute raised his gun-gauntlet over his shield and sent two shells winging towards them. One detonated amongst the fire warriors as another burst an earth caste civilian apart like a sack of wet offal. Two more, this time aimed at the balcony itself. They tore great chunks from the supporting structure, and with an ominous crack the entire platform gave way, sending the marksmen toppling down to break amongst a cascade of rubble on the floor below.

‘No!’ shouted Sha’kanthas, flick-sliding his autotrans to broadcast in Imperial Gothic. ‘Your fight is with me! Or have you no honour?’

At this, the brute turned.

‘– – THERE IS NO HONOUR IN CRUSHING AN INSECT – –’

The monstrosity came on, despite his words, to finish the job. Sha’kanthas fell back down an arterial corridor, leading the giant after him towards the comms hub. If he could keep its attention, keep that perfect distance between predator and prey, he could protect those around him without firing a single shot.

Just as well, given that his XV8 was a suit of armour without a blade.

Click here to buy Redemption on Dal'yth.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Alex Boyd (Tau battlesuit in combat with Space Marine) and John Michelback (Dal’yth planet).

Redemption on Dal’yth © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2020. Redemption on Dal’yth, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
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ISBN: 978-1-78999-840-5

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