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Knight of Talassar: The Cato Sicarius Omnibus – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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PHASE ONE

BOMBARDMENT

Terrible beauty.

That was how Master Varken Mathius had described it in the fortress-monastery on Macragge, home world of the Ultramarines.

‘You’ll remember your first drop pod assault,’ he’d said, stalking the length of the lectorium, the sound of bionics concealed beneath his mentor’s robes whirring as he moved. ‘Encased in a spear-tip of metal, you’ll descend into a world of noise. The beat of plasma engines will resonate inside your skull, the screech of metal will tear at your resolve and the dead certainty that all which stands between you and oblivion is a thin wall of ceramite will fill your stomach like lead. The drop pod assault is a weapon of utmost swiftness and terror,’ he’d told them. ‘To look upon it is to behold a thing of terrible beauty.

‘But you will endure it,’ the master had continued. ‘You will endure it because you are Astartes, the sons of Guilliman himself – there is none better amongst all your brother Chapters. You are the galaxy’s finest warriors. The Ultramarines.’

Sergeant Scipio Vorolanus remembered these words well, standing in his grav-harness, the adamantium interior of his own gunmetal cocoon and nine of his battle-brothers surrounding him. Over a hundred and twenty long years had passed since that day, since he’d been a humble neophyte. He had been just a boy back then, accepting the expert tutelage of his betters, tremulous at the thought of distant battle amongst the stars. It was before the fear had been taken out of him and his rebirth through the gene-science of the Imperium into a warrior-god.

Clad in their full Astartes battle-plate, the stylised ‘U’ symbol depicting the allegiance of their Chapter prevalent on their armour, the warriors around Scipio stood unmoving in a circle. Nine pairs of eyes stared back at the sergeant, cold and hard behind the emerald lenses of their battle helms; superhuman beings ready for war, who gripped bolters in their armoured gauntlets like holy icons.

Only Scipio went unhooded. Better that his brothers saw the vehemence in his eyes, his devotion and courage. His close-cropped head reflected the winking operation runes inside the drop pod. The glowing symbols cast light onto the hard metal edges of the vessel interior into which the Space Marines were packed. They also displayed that the drop pod’s inertial dampening system was in effect and that their rapid trajectory was being guided by its machine-spirit with unerring precision.

Thunder echoed dully from below. Scipio could hear it over the roar of the drop prod’s engines as they vented. The low crump of detonating plasma warheads exploding planet-side was a concussive throb to the raucously disgorging thrusters. They were right on the heels of the raining plasma storm, screaming from the sky in a world of deafening noise and flashing fire.

It was a bold plan, fashioned by their liege-lord, Captain Sicarius of 2nd Company and Master of the Watch. The ork horde must be broken, and the will of the greenskins amassing on the planet below was tied to a single warlord. The bombardment would draw the beast out, and Sicarius intended his Ultramarines to be there when it did.

Slay the beast; kill the horde.

That was Sicarius’s maxim, and who there would refute him save for Iulus. But then ‘reckless’ wasn’t a word banded around lightly or obviously where the Captain of the Ultramarines 2nd Company was concerned.

The walls shuddered from the impact of re-entry, forcing Scipio’s thoughts back to the present as the anguished metal screeched for his attention. The rush and roar built to a powerful crescendo. External temperature readings spiked to incredible levels as warning runes pulsed insistently.

Scipio ignored them. Instead, he opened his mouth and gave full voice to the Litany of Vengeance, leading his squad in the rites of battle, his words warring with the din inside the drop pod. As one, his warriors took up the recital and the lone voice of Scipio became a bellow of brothers. They fell fast with all the power of a comet, the prow of their drop pod white-hot and trailing fire as it burst through Black Reach’s atmospheric barrier.

Scipio closed his eyes as he sang, imagining the drop pod’s descent in his mind as clear as if he were actually witnessing it: the hard metal spear as it ripped through the heavens, its approach angle arrow sharp; contrails of smoke and flame peeling off the hull; a cluster of bullet-nosed vessels, lit up like fiery teardrops, surging down alongside it. The sight of those falling stars was a herald, a harbinger.

The Angels of Death are descending from on high and they are coming. They are coming for you.

They were close. Seconds to landfall. Scipio jammed on his helmet; its brow was decorated with a gilded laurel. He would justify again the weight of that honour this day, measure it in greenskin dead.

‘Squad Vorolanus, make ready!’ he bellowed over the shriek of the drop pod’s engines as they gave their last. ‘Remember who you are,’ he told them. ‘You are Ultramarines. You are the Emperor’s finest warriors. Thunderbolts,’ he said, using the squad’s agnomen. ‘Let us paint this day in the blood of His enemies.’

As one, Scipio’s battle-brothers roared in affirmation.

‘Emperor’s finest,’ he repeated, warning lights screaming. ‘Courage and honour!’

‘Courage and honour!’ they cried, and the drop pod smashed into the surface of Black Reach.

As the plasma missiles continued to fall like thermo-nuclear rain, their titanic impacts vibrating through the drop pod’s hull as it started to split, Scipio thought for a moment that they might have to run the gauntlet of the bombardment too. He hoped that Iulus wasn’t right and that Sicarius’s plan wasn’t indeed reckless…

Space Marine Strike Cruiser Valin’s Revenge,
two weeks earlier

‘You know I’m right,’ snarled Sergeant Fennion.

‘I know that Sicarius is High Suzerain, that he earned honours at Crusat Minor, Dyzanyr and Fort Telendrar. That is what I know, Iulus,’ hissed Sergeant Manorian in return.

Scipio had been privy to their entire hushed conversation, and knew that the debate was growing heated when Manorian reverted to calling Sergeant Fennion by his first name.

Sergeant Praxor Manorian was thin-faced with close shaven silver hair and as straight-backed as they came. Honour and glory was his chief credo, so, if Iulus was to be believed, he had much in common with his captain. Iulus, on the other hand, could not be more different. Sacrificing idealism for pragmatism, he was primarily concerned with getting the job done. He had little use for laurels and medals, though he wore his Iron Skull, the insignia for all sergeants, proudly.

Iulus’s appearance matched his demeanour. He had a flat nose and a square jaw. A pepper wash of stubble was scattered over his head. His face was about as uncompromising and rigid as a Space Marine’s could get. Scipio had seen rocks with more character. The bluntness extended to Iulus’s voicing of opinion too; opinions that had roused the interest of others. For hushed though it was, his and Praxor’s exchange had alerted the attention of their fellow sergeants.

They all sat together around a white table; it, like the icons on their power armour, was fashioned into the Ultramarine symbol. The room itself was well lit by lume-globes set in alcoves along the three walls. They threw an azure cast over everything and made the Ultramarines’ blue power armour shine with even greater lustre. The fourth wall was dominated by an immense double blast door carved in ornate filigree and depicting, split over the two faces, Chapter Master Marneus Calgar seated upon the throne of Macragge, the fabled Gauntlets of Ultramar resting on his lap. The rest of the chamber sported little ornamentation. The banner of 2nd Company hung reverently upon the wall opposite the blast doors. It sat proudly behind a shimmering integrity field, refracted light from the lume-globes the only clue to the field’s presence. It was a powerful totem, displaying the heraldry of the vaunted company alongside some of Captain Sicarius’s very own merits.

The noble captain’s entire officer cadre awaited him in the strategium, one of many in the strike cruiser. The chamber’s austerity was only exacerbated by its size – there was room enough to accommodate half the 2nd Company – and sound echoed powerfully within its white walls, hence the current interest in the sergeants’ thinly-veiled conversation.

‘I do not deny his valour, Praxor. In that regard Sicarius is beyond reproach’, snapped Iulus, and turned to face his debating partner directly. ‘It is his ambition which I question, and the reckless ends to which he pursues it.’

Praxor snorted contemptuously, turning away.

‘You only fear his favour will eclipse that of Agemman.’

‘And is that such a ridiculous claim? Who would not wish to be at the right hand of the Chapter Master, to become the Regent of Ultramar?’

Like many organisations within the Imperium, the Ultramarines Chapter, despite being a strongly-forged brotherhood, had its factions. It functioned not unlike a republic, with Calgar as its president. In times gone by, Macragge had its battle kings, warrior-monarchs who led and governed its peoples; now it had democracy and solidarity, a republic in many respects with the sergeants within its companies as its senators. At least this was how Scipio interpreted it.

There were several positions of power within the Chapter. Highest were those of Chapter Command: Lord Calgar himself and Chaplain Ortan Cassius, his Master of Sanctity, and then the other masters. Next came the company captains and of these, two in particular vied for a seat at Marneus Calgar’s right hand. Agemman held the prestige of leading 1st Company, the veterans of the Chapter and its finest warriors; Sicarius, though, was a star in the ascendant, Master of the Watch and High Suzerain of the Ultramarines. Some, the die-hard factionalists that supported Agemman, believed that the Captain of 2nd Company regarded the regent’s position enviously. Iulus was one such arch-traditionalist, and it was a widely held belief that he desired to join 1st Company himself and be at the side of Agemman. Praxor Manorian, however, held a differing view and saw only Sicarius the hero, Sicarius the battle leader. Like most of the 2nd, to him the captain was above any reproach, his tactics sound and beyond question. All respected his bravery; all venerated Sicarius as they should with him as their captain.

‘You are very quiet, Scipio, what do you say?’

Scipio groaned inwardly. Iulus had obviously tired of trying to convert Praxor and was turning his attentions elsewhere. Scipio, though, had no wish to join the debate. The sergeant had not long joined the 2nd and had no wish to tarnish or even endanger his future tenure by being drawn into internal politics.

Scipio regarded the faces of the officers around the table – seven sergeants, not including himself, Iulus and Praxor, five along each curve of the stylised ‘U’. Young and old, scarred and unblemished, shaven-headed – all were stern of face and bore multiple service studs drilled into their skulls; one for every hundred years of service to the Chapter.

The seated sergeants returned Scipio’s gaze stoically; some nodding in fraternal camaraderie, others just meeting it with steel in their eyes. One such sergeant was Arcus Helios. He was not of the 2nd; he was one of Agemman’s chosen, a veteran whose usual attire was the tactical dreadnought armour of the Terminators. He eschewed that suit of tank-busting, nigh-on indestructibility for his power armour now; the former being a highly impractical choice, even given the expansive strategium. If Helios had heard any of the debate between the other two sergeants and thought anything of it, he did not show it.

There was another not of 2nd Company within the room, and Scipio’s gaze strayed to him next. He stayed in the shadows at the edge of the chamber, just beyond the glow of the lume-globes. Though shrouded in gloom, Scipio’s enhanced vision made out a face framed by a grey-white beard, with patrician cheekbones. A long camo-cloak hung over the warrior’s broad shoulders which were bereft of the power-armoured pauldrons worn by every other officer in the room.

Scipio had not noticed him before. Perhaps he had wished not to be noticed. He perched – for he seemed in such a state of idle readiness that it could hardly be called ‘standing’ – in absolute stillness, so inert that Scipio might have mistaken him for a statue. This then was Telion, Brother-Sergeant of the 10th, master scout, a veteran under three different Chapter Masters and battle-tutor to four of the current Ultramarines’ captains. There were not enough honours and service studs crafted by the Chapter artisans to fit his brow and breast.

Telion returned the young sergeant’s gaze, and his eyes were like ice. Scipio looked away despite himself.

‘Well?’ Iulus pressed.

In his desire to break visual contact with the intimidating Telion, Scipio’s eyes fell upon a final figure. Armoured in black ceramite replete with icons of death and mortality, this one stood alone, and he was no less threatening.

‘We are blessed to have two such noble heroes in our midst,’ Scipio replied at last, mustering some diplomacy. ‘And I also think that Chaplain Orad would take a dim view of this debate.’

Iulus had clearly followed his gaze, and stayed silent before the glowering countenance of the Chaplain. Orad had been attached to 2nd Company for many long years. None amongst the battle-brothers could ever recall him removing his skull-mask battle helm, at least not in public. Rumours abounded that most his face had been burned off, eaten away by bio-acid, fighting the tyranid of Hive Fleet Behemoth over a hundred years ago. Apocryphal or not, the very fact that the Chaplain effectively had a bleached skull for a head compounded his already fearsome reputation. He spoke in a harsh, grating whisper, his voice enhanced by a vox-unit built into his gorget that made it audible and metallic. Yes, Orad was every inch the forbidding spectre.

The silence that fell at last was short-lived. The mighty blast doors to the strategium split open and slid apart, and a wash of warm ochre light spilled in from the corridor beyond. Shadows were immediately realised in the pool of spreading light, long and low as they reached into the room. Sicarius’s command squad, the Lions of Macragge, stepped in, and the officer cadre stood as one, turning to face them.

First into the room was Daceus, a veteran sergeant who had fought with the captain in every one of his campaigns. He’d lost an eye at the Siege of Zalathras, and the bionic replacement whirred and clicked as it surveyed the standing officers. Brothers Prabian and Vandius followed, Prabian wore his power sword and combat shield attached to his belt, while Vandius glanced at the company banner that he usually carried, and muttered an oath of piety. Last were Venatio, Apothecary to the 2nd, and Brother Malcian. These Astartes were heroes all, their bravery filling the Chapter’s archives for many volumes. But even combined they could not hope to match the valour of the one who strode in next.

Upright and imperious, head held high, he seemed to glow with inner glory. He was resplendent in his artificer armour, crafted by the Chapter artisans upon his appointment to High Suzerain. He cradled an ornate battle helm in the crook of his arm, the low crest running from left to right temple an indication of his superiority and rank. An array of pteruges hung beneath a broad loincloth dedicated with the stylised symbol of the Chapter, and the armoured plastron he wore over his chest was wreathed with honour brocade.

Cato Sicarius had entered the chamber, and all within it, even the cantankerous Iulus, could not help but be lifted by his presence. Master of the Watch, High Suzerain of Ultramar, Knight Champion of Macragge, Grand Duke Talassar: Sicarius had many titles, all earned on the battlefield, all dispensed for the glory of his many great deeds and victories. But in truth, he valued only one: captain.

Sicarius strode into the strategium, eyeing each of his officers in turn and giving a slight nod to Arcus Helios to acknowledge him as a battle-brother from a company other than the 2nd. Chaplain Orad followed his captain, and the Lions of Macragge fell into line behind him. When Sicarius came to the apex of the U-shaped strategium table, he stood in the void where the two points of the sweeping arc ended, and started speaking.

‘Welcome, brothers.’ His voice was noble, but filled with inner steel and undeniable confidence. ‘Please. Sit,’ he told them, and the officers obeyed. The Lions joined them at the tips of the U, occupying the last of the empty positions. Only Orad and the captain himself remained standing. Scipio noticed that Telion also remained where he was, and showed no visible sign of deference. But something had passed between the veteran scout and Sicarius. In his marrow, Scipio felt it. Respect.

‘We are two weeks from the Black Reach system,’ Sicarius began, once his officers were reseated. ‘Immortal renown for the 2nd, the Guardians of the Temple, awaits us there.’

Scipio felt Iulus stiffen slightly at the captain’s apparent vainglory.

‘Daceus,’ the captain added, nodding to his battle-brother.

The veteran sergeant rose to his feet and saluted, before activating a series of runic icons on the face of the strategium table. In the central point of the plate floor, delineated by the U, a hololith flickered into life, depicting a revolving green orb. The planet had several landmasses and was riddled with thick water tributaries, like fat through marbled beef, running from several major oceans. A wreath of smaller objects, a dense asteroid belt, swarmed around it, occasionally obscuring the view.

‘The planet of Black Reach, principle world of the Black Reach sector,’ Daceus announced. ‘A mining world, Black Reach has little obvious value to Ultramar yet it is tactically crucial,’ he explained.

The sergeant pressed another rune on the sunken panel set into the table. The planetary image zoomed out, displaying the entire sector. ‘Jede’ogh and Voldermacht,’ he said, indicating two further worlds that had been revealed in the image shift. The immense asteroid field swathed all three. ‘And here,’ Daceus added, scrolling the image to one side with a desultory sweep of his gauntlet.

A roiling mass of warp space, a rift in the layer of reality, was revealed circulating at the fringe of the sector. To Scipio it looked like a baleful eye, ragged and torn, seething with incandescent energy. Despite its pseudo-incorporeal form, it was visible even through the grainy resolution of the holo-capture.

‘Jorgund’s Eye,’ Daceus named it. ‘Through this wyrmhole a massive horde of greenskins has descended on Black Reach. It is unknown to us how such a thing was possible, how the ork could have caught us by surprise. It matters not. The facts are these: the greenskins have invaded the system and even now wage war upon the planet of Black Reach. Should their assault prove successful, the aliens will have gained a foothold in such close proximity to Ultramar as to make the Chapter Master nervous. Furthermore, the asteroid belt surrounding the system contains high concentrations of magnetic ore, making long-range augur probes all-but impossible.’

‘We cannot afford to let the greenskin infect this sector,’ Sicarius continued for his veteran sergeant. ‘I for one have no desire to engage in a lengthy purging campaign of the planets and all their astral bodies. Such an enterprise is costly. It would take us centuries to exterminate the alien scum if they were allowed to carry on unchecked. There is no honour in that.’

Scipio felt Iulus bristle again, but he ignored him. By contrast, Praxor was utterly enrapt by the captain’s words.

‘Like any horde,’ Sicarius continued, ‘remove the head and the body will die.’

He smiled grimly. ‘The orks have a head. A warlord, who, we have learned by vox-monitoring the Imperial planetary communications below, goes by the name of Zanzag. This creature must die. I will not rest until its head is mounted on a spike. My spike.’ Sicarius nodded to Daceus for him to continue.

‘Finding the ork warlord will not be easy,’ said the veteran sergeant. ‘If reports from the surface are to be believed, the beast has engaged in a series of lightning raids that has left nine of the original twelve hive cities in ruins, taken by the greenskins. Such inexplicable cunning is uncharacteristic for the ork, and we have yet to determine how such an assault was even possible.’

‘The orks have laid waste to this world, but it stops here. Now,’ Sicarius declared. ‘We will go in swift and hard, via drop pod assault. Prior to our insertion, the Valin’s Revenge will bombard the planet from orbit, launching plasma torpedoes into the greenskin forces. We will come in the wake of the ordnance, like hellhounds on the heels of its fiery wrath.’ He grinned ferally. ‘Wherever the orks stand and fight, we will strike hardest. For there we will find our quarry.’

‘Launching such an attack directly behind a planetary bombardment – the risks are incredible,’ said Iulus, unable to keep his discontent in check any longer.

‘I agree with Sergeant Fennion,’ said another dissenting voice, Sergeant Solinus of the Indomitable. He was the battle leader of the vaunted warriors who took Fort Telendrar. They were the first Astartes into the breach after Captain Sicarius, a feat that had earned them the Victorex Maxima. ‘Is such a strategy even feasible?’

Daceus was about to intervene, when Sicarius raised a hand to stop him.

‘Brothers,’ the captain replied, spreading his arms in a gesture of solidarity. ‘For us,’ he shook his head, giving a belligerent smile, ‘nothing is impossible. A swift assault will catch the enemy off guard. Kill the head, and the body will die,’ he repeated. ‘Our victory will be assured. We are 2nd Company. We are the slayers of kings, the destroyers of worlds, bringers of death and ruination in all its forms. These things we do in the name of the Emperor and in the defence of mankind. I say let none stay our wrath.’

Scipio could not help but feel the pride in his captain’s voice and knew the entire officer cadre felt it too.

Praxor nodded with vehemence, smacking his fist against the cuirass of his power armour in affirmation and salute. The other officers followed his example, even Sergeant Solinus. Iulus was last of all, and gave a single firm rap against his armour. Sicarius held the truculent sergeant’s gaze for a moment before he moved on.

‘Is there anything further?’ he asked.

‘What Imperial forces can we expect to find on the planet surface?’ replied Sergeant Atavian of the Titan Slayers. The Devastator squad battle leader growled the words. A long scar ran down the left side of his face and terminated in a bionic eye, which added to his grim appearance.

It was Daceus who answered. ‘Black Reach has its own Imperial Guard garrison, the Sable Gunners. They are well stretched across the four continents of the world, marshalling its hive cities and the numerous aqueducts that feed its reservoirs. Strategium indicates that the beleaguered defenders have been fighting the orks for two months, local time. Morale will be low, and casualties high. As such, any aid from that quarter will be negligible.’

‘And the greenskins,’ added Iulus. ‘What are our estimations of their forces?’

‘The ork are concentrated on the northern continent.’ Daceus gestured with his gauntlet again, and the hololith zoomed in at a rapid rate of magnification. A large landmass was revealed, surrounded by black tributaries, with two towering spikes that were hives. ‘Their main offensive is dedicated to sacking Ghospora,’ he explained, pointing out the largest of the two hive cities displayed on the hololith. ‘We reckon their numbers to be in the region of fifty thousand, well spread out, with armour and heavy artillery.’

‘Against one hundred,’ stated Iulus.

‘Good odds, brother-sergeant,’ Captain Sicarius intervened.

‘Indeed, brother-captain,’ Iulus replied, levelly.

The captain smiled back at him without mirth, and nodded. ‘If there is nothing more…’ Sicarius turned to his veteran sergeant.

‘We begin planetfall here,’ said Daceus, ‘at the north wall of Ghospora.’

Black Reach, northern continent, Ghospora Hive City,
two weeks later

Pale light limned the interior of the drop pod. The doors slammed open seconds later as the vessel opened like a gunmetal bloom, venting steam, its hull still smouldering. The ochre sands of Black Reach had been scorched to glass with the intense heat radiation of the drop pod’s arrival. It crunched underfoot as Scipio and his nine Astartes came out, bolters singing.

The drop pod’s deathwind missile launcher armaments jolted with explosive recoil, a percussive chorus to the steady throb of bolter fire. A kill-zone of slain orks was forged around the landing site in seconds from the punitive barrage.

It bought a few moments’ grace for Scipio to see the cauldron of battle.

They had descended into the eye of the storm. Ahead of them, some five hundred metres or more, the north wall of Ghospora Hive loomed like a black bulkhead cliff. It was some eight kilometres across and stretched eighty kilometres high into Black Reach’s pollutant-laden upper atmosphere. Gunports, bunkers and battle-towers bristling with cannon and long-range sensor arrays hugged the extremities of the hive city like space debris clinging to the hull of a dead starship. Smoke billowed from the wrecked defences and fires raged unchecked along partially destroyed sections of the outer bastion wall. It was here at the forefront of the greenskin assault where the Imperial Guard Sable Gunners were making their last stand. Scipio’s enhanced vision, cycling through its various filters to ascertain the optimum visual spectrum, and augmented by the technology within his battle helm, detected the heat signatures from several heavy weapon emplacements.

The native soldiery of Black Reach were dug in around bunkers and entrenchments crested with razor wire. Even from a distance, Scipio could tell it was a thin line. Officers barked orders down the length of the fracturing wall, charred banners rose and fell. Men died in their droves.

A veritable sea of greenskins surrounded them, stretching for kilometres across and back in a dark mass. The thrashing ocean of aliens lapped at the meagre bulwarks of Ghospora Hive, threatening to overwhelm them. Ramshackle battle tanks and crudely-fashioned trucks festooned with cannon, rockets and other ordnance bounded madly alongside thronging mobs of green-skinned orks, decked in thick battle armour hammered with additional metal plates and daubed in crude glyphs. Diminutive gretchin capered in the wake of their larger cousins, swathed in little more than rags, brandishing over-sized pistols or scraps of battlefield debris to use as improvised weapons.

Hulking mechanical constructs, the bastardised greenskin equivalent of Space Marine dreadnoughts, lumbered in the midst of the horde in clusters, rending with claws and razor-saws or loosing staccato bursts of automatic fire and errant missile salvos.

Though broken up and battered from the strike cruiser bombardment – with thousands slain in the initial barrage, and some fleeing in terror or cowering beneath what little battlefield cover there was – it was still a vast horde. And it stood between Scipio and his objective.

‘Thunderbolts form up on me, fire-pattern omega,’ he said, unleashing his bolt pistol’s wrath into the rearguard of the greenskin ranks as the Space Marines started to move forwards. A splinter of the horde, now evidently aware of the Ultramarines’ arrival, had broken off from the rest and swarmed towards the drop pods.

Orks were huge, slab-muscled monsters. Sloping brows and broad chins, jutting with thick yellow tusks, gave them a distinctly porcine appearance. They were beasts, and lived only for battle. Survival of the strongest was their only creed, and one they demonstrated to brutal effect.

Scipio formed the tip of a spear, as his battle-brothers moved into formation around him. At one flank, Brother Garrik braced his missile launcher. Dropping to one knee for stability, he fired. A heavy whoosh of expelling incendiary blasted over Scipio’s head and an ork truck careening towards the squad was immolated in a ball of flame.

‘One for the Thunderbolts!’ yelled Garrik, his voice grainy through the comm-feed of Scipio’s helmet.

The conflagration spread, belching oily smoke and devouring any orks and gretchin in its path, but the greenskin splinter mob was undeterred.

Scipio’s bolt pistol jolted in his armoured grasp, exploding apart an onrushing ork’s skull. The beast ran on headless for a few more seconds in a macabre display of tenacity before it slumped and fell.

A gout of promethium spewed from Brother Hekor’s flamer on the right flank, engulfing a swathe of belligerent greenskins. Some barrelled on through the intense heat, their bodies alight. Bursts of sporadic but controlled bolter fire put them down before they could get close.

At the edge of his peripheral vision, Scipio saw other squads moving up alongside him, adopting similar assault formations as they made their approach. But this was just an advance force, fighting an initial sortie to secure the landing zone and gain a foothold on the killing field – the real battle was still to come.

Several war-bikes and thickly armoured buggies bounced along with the splinter mob, belt-fed heavy cannons barking, ammo cases cascading like brass rain onto their flatbeds. The motorcade of greenskin vehicles picked up speed, smoke gushing from exhausts, spits of flame bursting from the overcharged engines.

A whistling contrail from a krak missile weaved over Scipio’s shoulder and took out one of the buggies, blasting apart its front axle and upending the machine onto its roof. The roll-bar capitulated instantly, crushing the goggled driver and the orks on the flatbed. A rolling firestorm then engulfed the buggy and its crew as the fuel canister went up and burned them all to ash.

Scipio commended Brother Garrik for his fine shooting over the comm-feed.

Further explosions rippled down the makeshift ork line as bikes and buggies were ripped apart by bursts of heavy bolter fire or skewered on lances of las or blasts of promethium.

Extending a chopping arm, Scipio took out one of the bikers as it sped past him. He felt the greenskin’s neck snap as he made contact. The bike slewed into a skid, ramming into another and the two vehicles exploded together in a fiery wreck.

The motorised vanguard was down. The Ultramarines’ squads had been efficient in its destruction and were yet to take a casualty. Now they’d meet the splinter horde up close.

Through the carnage, solid shot pranging off his pauldrons and greaves as the orks sought to retaliate against the Astartes’ fire superiority, Scipio saw the mob leader.

The massive brute bellowed at its warriors, spittle flying from its maw. Crudely stitched scars laced its face like patchwork, and metal rings and bones punctured the thick flesh of its ears, lips and brow. It wore a fur-trimmed helmet, crested by a pair of horns. An interlocking hauberk of riveted iron plates bulged with the musculature of its immense body.

The beast howled with rage as it charged at Scipio, brandishing a blood-slicked cleaver in challenge and squeezing off desultory rounds from a fat pistol. More greenskins flanked it, some pitched from their feet or staggered by bolter fire as the rest of the Thunderbolts tried to slay them from a distance. The brutish creatures bellowed in exultation of the fight to come. They wouldn’t have to wait long.

Scipio thumbed the activation rune of his chainsword, and with a throaty roar the weapon churned to life.

‘For Sicarius and the primarch!’ he cried, and prepared to meet his foe.

As they closed, Scipio held his bolt pistol’s trigger down. The muzzle-flare lit up the ork’s snarling face as a tracery of rounds ripped up its shoulder.

The beast was barely slowed. It shrugged off the wound and smacked Scipio’s pistol aside before he could fire again. The ork mob leader then drove its cleaver downward, hoping to shatter Scipio’s clavicle beneath his power armour. But the sergeant parried the blow with his chainsword, the serrated teeth spitting sparks as they ground against metal. Blades locked together, the ork pressed its weight against the blow, and Scipio felt his legs starting to buckle. He swept his bolt pistol around again, but the ork caught his wrist and held it fast. Explosive rounds barked off ineffectually to one side, chewing up sand. Bearing down on him, the ork’s face twisted in what Scipio assumed was a grin. Its beady red eyes, sunken beneath its overhanging brow, glittered with malice.

In his armour, Scipio stood almost two and a half metres tall, yet he was still dwarfed by the huge greenskin. Superhuman muscles flexing with every shred of strength he could muster, Scipio pushed back. The servos in his power armour whined with effort. He was so close to the beast’s leering face that he could smell the stink of its vile breath even through his helmet’s atmospheric filters.

‘What are you smiling at, ugly?’ he snarled through gritted teeth and smashed a brutal head butt into the ork’s snout. Dark blood gushed from its ruptured nose and the ork squealed in anger and pain.

There was a momentary lift of pressure. Scipio exploited it to the full. He heaved, pushed with his legs and arms simultaneously, and threw the greenskin off. The beast was unbalanced for a second, more than long enough for Scipio to ram the churning blade of his chainsword into its gut. Penetrating armour plate, he twisted and turned the weapon in search of vital organs, while the ork thrashed and bucked on the end of it like a stuck pig. Still it fought, and was about to swing its cleaver again when Scipio brought up his bolt pistol, rammed the muzzle in the greenskin’s screaming maw and pulled the trigger. The ork’s brain pan punched out of the back of its head, amidst a shower of gore and skull fragments, and at last it was dead. Scipio ripped his chainsword free, deactivating it before release so as not to spit chunks of viscera over his battle-brothers, and made a rapid tactical assessment of the battlefield.

The greenskin rearguard was vanquished. Even now Ultramarines squads moved in staggered battle formations to close the gap between the remnants of the ork rear echelon and the main horde beyond.

The landing site was secure. Devastator squads bearing the majority of the Astartes heavy firepower took up position at the back on the quickly established Ultramarines battle-line. They advanced slowly behind the tactical squad vanguard, two of which had converged on the Thunderbolts’ position in order to form one flank of the Space Marine battle group. Scipio recognised the squad markings of Iulus and Praxor at once, the Immortals and the Shield Bearers.

‘Rough deployment, Iulus?’ Scipio remarked through the comm-feed of his battle helm.

Iulus’s drop pod had crash landed, three of its exit ramps incapacitated as it had dug itself into a sand bank and held fast. The sergeant’s armour was scorched from the fire that had obviously ensued, as was the armour of his squad as they moved to the Thunderbolts’ right.

‘Plasma detonation clipped us,’ he snapped. ‘Got caught in its blast wave. I told you this plan was reckless–’

‘You’re alive, aren’t you?’ countered Praxor, his own squad forging up on Scipio’s left.

Iulus fed a burst of static through the feed, and Scipio winced against the auditory assault.

‘We have our answer,’ said Praxor, adding, ‘On my lead, brothers.’

Squad Moranion, the Shield Bearers, was the most experienced of the group, having been the vanguard of numerous Chapter-level assaults, and both Scipio and Iulus deferred to Praxor.

‘Sergeants Tirian and Atavian assure me they’re making us a gap,’ he continued, the three squads advancing at pace across the scorched earth. The last few torpedoes of the bombardment erupted deep inside the ork lines as they moved, shaking the earth beneath their booted feet.

Secondary eruptions came from behind them as the two devastator squads Praxor had mentioned spat torrents of heavy fire. Beams of las and plasma, melta-flare, heavy bolter fire and spiralling missiles streaked overhead. The barrage withered one section of the greenskin line, trucks erupting in explosive blossoms. Swathes of orks shredded and burned in the vicious fusillade.

With the landing site anchored by heavy weaponry, the objective of the more mobile tactical squads was to cut a wedge through the ork horde and reach the embattled Sable Gunner regiments behind it. With the solid defences of Ghospora at their backs, the Ultramarines would have an excellent staging point at which to launch a counter offensive, retake the walls and from there lift the siege. The task of locating the ork warlord, Zanzag, fell to Sicarius, and to him alone.

As if his thoughts had heralded it, Scipio looked skyward. The armoured hull of a Thunderhawk hove into view, descending through billowing plumes of smoke, grey tendrils clinging to its sweeping wings. Dust and ash clouds scudded across the umber plain as it closed, disturbed by the down-thrust of the gunship’s massive engines.

Scipio recognised the vessel’s markings as its landing beams strafed the ground.

It was the Gladius, so-named for the short blade wielded by the Ultramarines’ honour guard.

The vessel surged forward like a sword, cutting right into the heart of the greenskins massing at the north wall. Ork bodies were tossed into the air in the violent backwash of descent thrusters, crushed beneath slowly extending landing stanchions or hosed with sprays of fire from the Thunderhawk’s heavy bolters. Within seconds of coming to rest a hundred metres from the Ultramarines’ swiftly advancing battle-line, the embarkation ramp was down and then there he was.

Sicarius.

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Assault on Blackreach first published in 2008.
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Spear of Macragge first published in 2013.
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