The Fall of Eldritch V

The Fall of Eldritch V

8-116-987.M41

Directly after the Tyranid Invasion of Eldritch V

 

Shas’El Longstrider and his Fire Warriors trudged through the thigh-high mud of Eldritch V, a death world that more than lived up to it’s classification.  A skilled leader of the Fire Caste, he was, at this moment, despondent.  With his Crisis Suit destroyed, he felt defenseless, and with the memories of the previous night’s battle fresh in his mind, he could only wonder about the future that his sept had in store.  

Can we really be the last?

Every step was agony.  His bones creaked like the doors of a rusted out bunker, his eyes strained for signs of the enemy, but all he could see was the accursed hanging moss of the humid rainforest.  But that’s the issue, isn’t it?  No matter what I do, I can’t even glance this foe… he thought, a shudder rippling across his skin.  He could recall with perfect clarity the sounds It made, a sort of gentle padding, like a small mammal might make, belying the size and ferocity that waited patiently through the copse of dense bamboo.  

A scream.

Longstrider snapped his head in the direction of the cry and raised his pulse rifle, he could feel his chest tighten.

“Down!! Everyone down!”  He barked orders while his drones instinctively prepared their weapons and orbited around him. The scream had come from the rear of the marching column, but there was no way of knowing who had been attacked.  Communication was spotty, and only their weapons and drones remained mostly operable.  The prospect of a true battle without his precious quasi-arcane technology made Longstrider uneasy.  Luckily, he didn’t need to worry for long.

A fire warrior approached him, head tucked down to avoid the acrid vines limply suspended from the towering trees.

“Shas’El, we’ve lost contact with the rearguard, what are your orders?”

Good question Longstrider thought, If it were that easy I’d have given them already…

“Form up… ready markerlights.” He gave the order mindlessly, little more than an instinctive grasp at his training.  His head hurt.  He wanted nothing more than to lie down somewhere dry, and hopefully wake up from this nightmare.  Over the sounds of soldiers hurrying through the dense underbrush, he heard a sickening crunch from the rearguard.  The sound a cat makes as it devours a bird… the snapping of bones, the sucking of marrow.

He gulped hard, as his cadre circled up around him, desperately attempting to form some sort of defensive perimeter in the quagmire.  A fire warrior to his right went down hard into the mud, a dull thud accompanying his fall.  It took three others to pull him free of the greedy earth, although the forest claimed the young troopers helmet.  His eyes were almost completely black, he looked like an animal in a snare.  

I’d wager we all look like this one.  Thank the Ethereals none of the men can see my face…

The helmetless warrior suddenly shot bolt upright, a stream of hot blood trickling from his mouth.  Longstrider’s gaze widened as he looked at the youth.  For a moment the trooper stood, silent.  It only took another moment to realize that there were a pair of harpoon-sized spines jutting from the soldier’s chest, and that his feet were a full two inches off the ground.

In a moment, he jerked away from the formation, his limbs limp as a puppet’s.  His leg was caught on a branch, it’s foot-long spines had impaled him at the ankle, trapping him.  There was a tug from the end of the fleshy chord, and the warrior jerked away once more.  His leg however, stayed put.  The hapless Tau’s kneecap burst, sending a fine mist of blood across the clearing as he slipped noisily into the underbrush.  In that moment, all order was lost.

“Fall in!” Longstrider shouted against the scramble of his warrior’s panic.  “Remember your mission!” He wondered if he could even remember what it was at this point.  His soldiers only half-obeyed.  Instead of falling back, they fired wildly into the mist where the thing had pulled their comrade.  Flashes of bright blue energy streaked through the forest, screaming past the densely packed plants, flaring up small fires even in the damp foliage.

Their markerlight training was useless here, the creature they fought with was a phantom, and without seeing the enemy, how could they hope to get a bead on it?  Even his hyper-accurate drones couldn’t pick up any anomalous heat signatures, but he supposed the rainforest was warmer than any living thing in it.  He glanced up at the near-impenetrable canopy of the treetops... he’d never longed for a Devilfish more than at this moment.  He closed his eyes, and focused on his training.  He recalled his first day holding a pulse rifle.  His fervor and enthusiasm threw off his aim that day.  He remembered his commanding officer, an elderly Tau with grey skin and scars covering his twisted frame like the crosshatching of a etched drawing.  The way he looked at him… the way he spoke of conflicts to come, he ignited the passion for battle in Longstrider before he even touched his first Crisis suit.  He tuned out the sounds of the jungle, just as his mentor had shown him all those years ago.  He could hear nothing.  He was nothing.  He was centered, and he finally felt like himself… a warrior again.  Then, interrupting his meditation, a whirring in the gloom.  

Could it be a Devilfish?  Were his hopeless pleas heard?  He opened his eyes, and saw that he was alone.  Where his men once stood, there were only half-dissolved corpses.  In front of him crouched a hulking, insectile creature.  It’s six glassy eyes stared at Longstrider with an unblinking gaze.  He froze, but the creature paid him no mind.  It simply crouched at the first slain Fire Warrior and grabbed the soldier’s decapitated head.  It raised the grisly trophy like a Tau might raise a glass.  The ropy tendrils surrounding the thing’s maw plunged into the warrior’s skull, sucking greedily.

Longstrider was snapped from his hypnosis when he realized that the whirring had not ceased… and was coming from above.  His eyes shot upwards.  Where he had prayed for a savior, he instead saw great, beating wings.

He closed his eyes once more, and prepared for death.