Secret War: Upon Blood Sands, BAD Agar, Adrassil [children's ebooks online .txt] 📗

lower floors, and all of them were ascending their way, and his instincts were usually correct in these things.

Attelus cursed again and ejected his current clip of dumm dumms and replaced it with generic rounds- they'd do him no good against the guardsmen in flak armour.

He couldn't die! Not here, not now! Attelus knew with the warp storm it'd take Faleaseen weeks, perhaps months, to find his soul! That'd mean he couldn't do anything to help his friends stuck here!

"Delathasi!" he yelled as he cut down an advancing guardsman with a wild flurry of shots. "Hurry it up!"

 

Chapter 11

 Jelket checked his chronometer for what must have been the hundredth time. He laid prone beneath his camo cloak. Watching east and wondered for what might have been the thousandth time, why hadn't he gone with Hayden and company? He was meant to be Hayden's spotter.

If Jelket was going, to be honest with himself, Hayden Treash was one of those few snipers who didn't need a spotter. It made Jelket wonder why he'd been assigned to this mission in the first place. While all the "elite" ones go forward to scout, he was stuck here and...

Jelket shook away such thoughts; what the hell was wrong with him? He should be worried, not being bitter. Hayden and the others had yet to report in...

He straightened as he saw it, movement amongst the blood dunes about half a kilometre away, and he reached to activate his microbead when one movement became two, then three, then five, then dozens. Dozens of cultists seemed to materialise from nowhere, and their number just seemed to keep growing and growing.

And they were headed this way.

"Oh shit!" Jelket managed.

Side by side, Adelana and Hayden burst into the commercia complex. Their guns sweeping left and right. They'd heard the combat from miles away, and now they finally saw it as they looked down to the fourth floor.

Attelus and Delathasi stood, back to back, battling dozens of enemies who'd encircled them. It was obvious even from here how beaten and battered and exhausted they were. Adelana knew not even they could last much longer. Her heart thundering, Adelana raised her bolter over the handrail but hesitated as she saw they weren't just battling cultists but guardsmen too.

"What the hell?" she said.

Hayden took out a krak grenade and yelled. "Attelus! Delathasi! Brace yourselves!"

And to Adelana's shock, he pulled the pin then threw it. Too Adelana, it seemed to spin through the air in slow motion. She couldn't help wonder, why a krak grenade and not a frag? Her question was answered as it hit the wall and exploded about seven or eight metres left. It blew a hole in the rockcrete, a hole that allowed the sand outside to flood in. The avalanche smashed into cultist and guardsman alike, sending them sliding off the balcony and four stories to their deaths.

"Delathasi! Attelus!" snarled Hayden. "We've got to get out of here! Now! Move! Move!"

Finally, Adelana understood Hayden's plan, so she switched her bolter to fully automatic and opened fire, cutting down enemies to Attelus and Delathasi's right. Turning torsos and heads into a mist, Hayden switched out his hot shot round clip for a normal clip and shot with sporadic bursts into the enemy midst.

Attelus and Delathasi began moving, low and slow for the right side staircase- as enemies out of Adelana's line of sight fired from the west balcony. Adelana's and Hayden's cover fire cleared the way for them.

Meanwhile, the hole was growing, the wall cracking with horrific high pitched screeching and the whole play. Las fire erupted from the balconies below, forcing Adelana and Hayden into cover.

"Adelana!" said Hayden as he reloaded his long las. "Get to the east side! Cover Attelus and Delathasi from there!"

Adelana nodded; seeing Hayden's logic, she threw caution to the wind and began to run.

Meanwhile, the building's rumbling and crumbling got worse as more and more sand poured in, and the hole grew.

Somehow they knew, somehow the bastards knew they were there.

Jelket cursed and cursed as he killed cultist after cultist. Not even power armour could withstand the penetrative power of a Hell gun, so it melted through their robes and skin and bones with ease. One

On his left, Helma, the picture of calm, fired through the mob. A just as stern Verenth was on Jelket's right. His auto pistol and stubb revolver dropping cultists with precise headshots.

Jelket couldn't help envy them. From a few metres up the hill behind him, Halsin fired the pintle mount storm bolter while Karmen's bolter barked again and again.

 

Further north, Torris and Vark knelt. Torris' shotgun exploding holes through torsos and limbs like nobodies business, and Vark's precision with his hell gun was enviable.

Between them, they'd culled countless cultists, but there were still many more, and they came, like a tidal wave.

Jelket clenched his teeth. The braying psychotic bastards weren't far away now. Soon they would be in close combat, and that thought didn't sit well with Jelket, with all the close combat specialists gone. That was why they called in the big...

His thoughts were interrupted by the roar of thrusters, and Jelket looked up to see their Guncutter fly into view.

"You called?" said Darrance over the vox, sounding somehow smugger than usual.

Jelket couldn't help but smile.

The Guncutter spun; its heavy bolter turrets and autocannons opened fire, tearing a bloody swath through the cultist mob.

Torris cheered, as did Vark, but Jelket continued to shoot. His smile disappeared as a shiver slid up his spine. Something wasn't right.

"Halsin! Get out!" Karmen's scream erupted through Jelket's ears, causing him to flinch and turn, just in time to see the missile hit the ATV. The deafening explosion gutted it. What fate Halsin and Karmen had suffered, Jelket didn't know. And it was thrown off its wheels, flinging and spinning down the hill with breathtaking violence. Straight toward Jelket and the others.

 

Chapter 12

 

The barking of Adelana's cover fire above was hard to hear over the deafening roaring and creaking and yawning of the cracking, breaking walls. The blood sands were spurting in with horrifying speed, eager to claim what had eluded it for so long.

Fighting to keep his feet, Attelus moved for the stairs, his sword held loosely at his side. Delathasi just behind. Pain echoed through him, from dozens of cuts and las burns that managed to penetrate his flak jacket.

Despite Adelana's cover fire, las and solid rounds still rained around them. Attelus wanted to scream at them to stop, not out of fear of being hit but because their shots surely made the place cave in quicker.

Typical idiot mooks! Too busy trying to kill them instead of escaping!

Finally, he turned into the stairwell and came face to face with a snarling cultist. He cried in fright, reeling, and on instinct, decapitated him.

The corpse collapsed, revealing more were ascending after.

Attelus fired his autopistol, point-blank into the face of the next.

"Delathasi!" Attelus yelled. "Keep going!"

"But-!"

"Go! Frig you!"

The young apprentice sprinted up the stairs without further complaint.

The next cultist bounded up with incredible speed.

Attelus pulled the pistol's trigger. It clicked dry.

The cultist was on him, swinging down his chainsword. In the blink of an eye, Attelus' powersword swung out, knocking the cut off course and sliced through it.

But the cultist didn't break his stride and lunged forward; it took Attelus off guard.

Then the cultist sank his teeth into Attelus' thigh.

His shriek echoed; it was so loud it managed to eclipse all other sounds.

He stumbled, mind whirling but even still, he managed to flick his wrist for a throwing knife and plunge it into the side of the cultist's neck. The cultist let go, and Attelus stumbled, cursing and screaming before he fell onto his arse.

"Emperor damn it, Faleaseen!" he screamed. "I could really use your healing right now!"

Attelus writhed, he knew that due to his heightened metabolism, the bleeding would soon stop, but by frig, it hurt like hell!

The next cultist emerged from the stairs, smiling and aiming a lasgun at him.

Gasping, with shaking hands, he reached for another clip to reload his pistol he still somehow kept hold of, but he wasn't going to be quick enough.

The autopistol round punched through the top of the cultist's skull, and he dropped. Delathasi ran down the stairs to Attelus' side.

To her credit, she said nothing detrimental, although he deserved it and fired down the stairwell.

Adelana emerged into view, and for a second, Attelus forgot his pain as his heart fluttered.

"Attelus!" she cried, ran down to him, and picked up by his arm, then slipped it across her shoulders. Hauling him to his feet.

"I frigged up again, Adelana," he slurred.

"Yeah, we all do from time to time, Attelus," she said. "Just don't get too...bitten up about."

She laughed as they started up the stairs; Attelus didn't.

Meanwhile, the building continued to crumble.

Delathasi followed.

"Shit!" she snarled as her auto pistol spat again and again. "We've got hostiles coming from the south stairs!

Adelana paused, turned and gave Delathasi her bolter.

"Cover us! Have you used a bolter before?" said Adelana.

"N-No. I-"

"Just aim down the sight and pull the trigger! It's got a hell of a kickback, so be prepared!"

Delathasi nodded.

The bark of a bolter firing followed, then a round of curses from the young apprentice.

"Adelana," said Attelus. "Reload my autopistol for me, please! I can still be of some help!"

"Yeah, got you!" said Adelana as she took it, reloaded it then handed it back before drawing her own laspistol sidearm.

The vox crackled to life.

"Hurry it up," said Hayden. "They're almost on the sixth floor, and my long las isn't the best at crowd control."

"Sorry! Attelus is injured! We're moving as fast as we can!"

The trek up the stairs was slow, every step causing Attelus to hiss in pain.

Over the years, Attelus has had worse injuries, but this was just humiliating, and it was going to get infected.

After what seemed an age, they reached the fifth floor. Adelana and Attelus approached the exit with the utmost caution.

Adelana slipped Attelus off her shoulders and looked around the corner. Attelus watched her, his teeth on edge, his imagination flashing him a vision of a las round burning through her skull. Adelana was greeted by las fire nothing hit her before she slipped back and turned to him.

"Twelve, Attelus," she said. "All guardsmen! Seven left, five right! About fifteen meters!"

Delathasi joined them.

"Almost out of ammo!" Delathasi announced. "Can I have another clip?"

Adelana handed her two.

"Cover us, Delathasi!" said Attelus.

Delathasi nodded, leaned out and fired flurries as Adelana helped Attelus up. They walked from cover as