Karnac the Killer III (short fiction)

Karnac bent down pulling his combat knife free from the skull of the dead Noise Marine. The bony plate cracked as the sharp tines along the edge of the blade snapped back through the rended skull. A long and thick purple tongue hung out from the open mouthh of the dead enemy. It was covered in a myriad of prickly flesh tips. The pair of blackened bulging eyes sagged from the ends of their eye stalks laying upon the burnished golden chestplate. Karnac carefully rubbed off the sticky grey bits of brain matter and reholstered the short broad blade. The fallen Noise Marine looked absolutely repungnant. Lifting it purple silk tabard the skull champion tossed it over the face of his dead enemy.

Next Karnac moved from body to dead body of his dead battle brothers looting their packs for grenades and fresh ammunition. He was able to find a few more fresh plasma cells and reloaded his pistol then slung it back in it hip holster. Unlike most World Eaters Karnac also carried a boltgun which he had tightly strapped to his backpack. He carried High X chambered rounds that could penetrate light armor at close range. He had only one magazine left and it was fitted inside the underslung chamber.

It was silent inside the room except for an occassional gust of cold wind blowing through the open ground. Karnac lifted his custom helmet fitted with psychic dampers and slid it back over his head. Again the skull champion ran his rough tongue over his pointed fangs feeling the scarred holes where he had bitten through the dark red flesh. His face was amply crisscrossed with row upon row of deep twisted scars. His eyes were deep blood red and shone from within. Khorne had marked Karnac early in his long career as one of his Chosen.

There had been no reply to his request for backup and some time had passed. Karnac returned to the open doorway leading back up to the surface and stared into the darkness using his daemonic visage to pierce the black gloom. He could return to the surface and attempt to rejoin his warmaster or continue on with the search for the stolen artefact. Probably the rest of his warband had found another hidden entrance to these buried vaults and had moved on leaving him and his team for dead. World Eaters did not accept failure lightly!and Kharn was no acception to this bloody tradition. Karnac made up his mind. He would continue the search on his lonesome. Hopefully he would later be able to rendevous with the rest of his warband. They could not blame him for not trying and thus that was the beter choice for now.

Up ahead Karnac heard the sound of something stirring, as if some great beast had awoken.