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Legacy of Dorn – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Prologue

Sacrifices

Zona Urbis, Minessa
Day 1

Ships were dying in the starry skies above Rynn’s World. An hour ago they had been mere pinpricks of searing orange light, flickering for a fraction of an instant in the vast sea of night; once or twice a minute at first, then growing steadily in size and number as the fighting moved inexorably closer to the planet. Now they were smudges of fire that lingered for long seconds across the heavens, nearly bright enough to cast shadows across the ferrocrete landing pad of the city’s urban defence headquarters. Very soon now, the explosions would fade altogether, and the first telltale streaks of ork landing craft would start their plunge through the agri-world’s atmosphere.

Alert sirens were wailing across the small city of Minessa, ordering its terrified citizens and tens of thousands of refugees into hastily built shelters, and summoning the young soldiers of the local planetary defence forces to their posts. The western edge of the vast landing pad was a riot of shouted orders and grumbling petrochem engines as red-faced sergeants turned their platoons out of barracks and herded them onto transports bound for the city walls. Boots pounded across the ferrocrete as messengers and staff aides raced to and from the headquarters building with hastily drafted orders for the city’s Rynnsguard regiments. Horns shrilled as staff cars tried to weave their way through the chaos, carrying sleep-deprived officers summoned from their beds across town.

All of them gave way before blue-armoured giants striding purposefully from the headquarters building towards the Thunderhawk gunship idling at the far end of the pad.

The leader of the three Crimson Fists was helmetless, his Phobos-pattern bolter locked into travel stays on the side of his backpack. His armour was ancient but dutifully tended, its midnight-blue surface marked at shoulder and breast with oath ribbons and battle honours that bore witness to millennia of war across the length and breadth of the Imperium of Man. Veteran Sergeant Sandor Galleas bore the silver skull of the Ordo Xenos’ Deathwatch at his left shoulder and the ivory Crux Terminatus at his knee. His gauntlets were the colour of fresh-spilled blood, marking him as a member of the Chapter’s elite Crusade Company. A holstered bolt pistol and a power sword in an ornate scabbard hung from his waist.

Galleas pressed a red fingertip to the vox-bead below his right ear. Unlike most Space Marines, he had a lean, pale face, with a sharp nose and deep-set eyes the colour of polished jade, framed by a head of short, curly black hair. ‘Brother Zephran!’ he called over the vox. ‘How long until lift-off?’

The Thunderhawk’s pilot responded at once, his deep voice buzzing in the sergeant’s head. ‘The Chosen have stowed all baggage, and I’ve concluded the pre-flight litanies. We can leave at any time, brother.’

Three Rynnsguard officers followed in Galleas’ wake, hands pressed to their peaked caps and greatcoats flapping around their ankles as they hurried to keep up with the veteran sergeant’s ground-eating strides. Their leader was a young man with dark eyes and a duellist’s moustache, his cheeks red from the late winter chill.

‘You can’t possibly go!’ Colonel Sebastian Ybarra said, shouting over the din. He had the rigid bearing and sharp enunciation of a low-country aristocrat, born to one of the wealthy agri-barons who ran the combines that stretched across most of Calliona’s arable plains. The regimental shoulder boards on his greatcoat seemed two sizes too large for his narrow shoulders, and his handsome face was almost rigid with panic. ‘We’re still finishing work on the inner redoubts, and the guns at the southern bastion aren’t properly calibrated! We need more time–’

‘The time for preparations is past,’ Galleas replied brusquely. ‘In another hour, perhaps less, the city will be under attack.’ He keyed the vox-bead again. ‘Brother Tauros, I don’t see our Rhino stowed aboard the Thunderhawk. Where in the black hells are you?’

‘Valentus, Salazar and I are on our way back from the southern bastion,’ Tauros replied. The veteran, a Crimson Fist of more than five hundred years’ service, sounded entirely unconcerned by the prospect of an impending ork invasion. ‘The regimental enginseers needed a little persuading, but we convinced them to forego the Rites of Calibration and let us configure the gun batteries by hand.’

‘Chapter Master Kantor expects us in New Rynn City right now.’

‘But before that, he ordered us to supervise defensive preparations for the city,’ Tauros pointed out. ‘There’s no virtue in leaving a job unfinished, brother, especially not on the eve of battle.’

Galleas scowled. They’d only had six days to mobilise the local Rynnsguard regiments and restore fortifications that hadn’t seen use in nearly a thousand years. The Space Marines had pushed the troops hard, working them around the clock to get the city ready, and while they’d performed some certifiable miracles getting the ancient defence systems back online, there would still be a great many crucial tasks left undone by the time the greenskins arrived. Such was the way of war. ‘If you’re not back here in five minutes, you’re driving the Rhino to the capital. Understood?’

Tauros chuckled. ‘We’ll be there, brother.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Colonel Ybarra persisted. Six days before, he’d been a privileged son of a wealthy family, marking time in an inherited commission with the Rynnsguard, and the ork Waaagh! sweeping across the eastern frontier had been little more than a troubling rumour. ‘I thought we were supposed to have forty hours’ warning or more from the time the xenos arrived insystem!’

The sergeant’s scowl deepened. ‘It would appear that the Arch-Arsonist of Charadon has surprised us yet again,’ he snapped, heading for the trio of Crimson Fists who waited, boltguns in hand, at the foot of the Thunderhawk’s starboard hatch.

Titus Juno nodded his head in greeting as Galleas approached. Like his sergeant, Juno was bareheaded, his broad, rugged features as blunt and unyielding as Magalan granite. Two silver service studs glittered coldly from his scarred forehead, just below the line of his close-cropped black hair. Like Galleas, he wore the silver skull of the Deathwatch upon his left shoulder, and a short, heavy sword hung at his left hip. The parchment ribbons of purity seals fluttered angrily in the wind generated by the Thunderhawk’s idling turbines.

‘Another few minutes and I think Amador here was going to start swimming for Sorocco without us,’ he called out.

‘We’re wasting time!’ Claudio Amador said hotly. He stood to Juno’s right, his trigger hand twitching irritably on the grip of his boltgun. Chains of polished ork tusks hung from both pauldrons, and his breastplate was crowded with battle honours and badges of valour. Amador fancied himself a warrior in the same mould as the fearless Alessio Cortez, captain of the Chapter’s Fourth Company, and took great pride in his war trophies. ‘The orks could be over New Rynn City at any moment. Am I the only one who grasps this?’

‘We remain constantly in awe of your tactical prowess,’ Timon Royas grumbled. Standing at Juno’s left, Royas’ helmeted head was constantly in motion, scanning the chaos of the landing field for potential threats. A veteran of two hundred years and countless bloody battles, he too wore the silver Deathwatch skull on his left shoulder, and had spent more time with the secretive order than nearly any other Space Marine in the Chapter. Galleas often wondered if that was the reason for his cynical nature and razor-edged tongue.

‘Where are Caron, Olivar and Rodrigo?’ Galleas demanded.

‘On board, checking to make sure we haven’t left any gear behind,’ Juno replied. ‘Tauros, Valentus and Salazar seem to have disappeared with the Rhino.’

‘They’re on the way,’ Galleas replied, sounding nearly as impatient as Amador.

Royas fixed Colonel Ybarra with a baleful red stare. ‘Does the popinjay think he’s coming with us?’ he growled.

The colonel’s eyes went wide. If a man had spoken to him thus, it would have meant an immediate demand of satisfaction, and sabres or pistols on the parade field at dawn. As it was, the young officer drew himself up to his meagre height and met the Space Marine’s eyes. ‘I am an Ybarra,’ he said, with much affronted dignity. ‘I know very well where my duty lies.’

‘Then I suggest you see to it,’ Galleas said coldly. He turned to Ybarra. ‘The city is no longer our concern, colonel. Our work here is done.’

Ybarra’s aides blanched at the tone in Galleas’ voice. The young colonel’s hands clenched at his sides. The full weight of his responsibility seemed to settle on his narrow shoulders, and for a moment it looked as though it might break him. He drew a deep breath. ‘H-how long are we expected to hold out?’

Galleas looked down at the man. Ybarra and his troops had never seen a greenskin before. They’d never even seen real combat. If they had, they would have understood the grim truth. Every man, woman and child in Minessa was doomed. The cold calculations of war dictated that the defence of the planet would be focused on the Arx Tyrannus, the Crimson Fists Chapter monastery, and New Rynn City, where the majority of the planet’s populace was located. The rest of the planet’s scattered cities would have to fight alone as best they could, drawing off and killing as much of the greenskin horde as possible before they were overwhelmed. Given the magnitude of what they faced, there was no other alternative.

‘A month, perhaps. Six weeks at the most.’

The young officer considered this, nodding slowly. He drew another deep breath, summoning his resolve. ‘We will not fail you, my lord,’ he said gravely. ‘Is… is there any last wisdom you can share before you go?’

A familiar snarl of petrochem engines caught Galleas’ attention. He glanced across the landing field and saw the squad’s Rhino nosing past the line of trucks at the south gate and heading their way. His mind was already hundreds of kilometres away, contemplating the squad’s dispositions once they reached the capital.

‘Fight the xenos with every weapon at your disposal,’ Galleas said. ‘Make them pay for every square metre with blood. Fight until the ammunition is gone, until the walls are breached and the guns have fallen silent.’ He turned, heading for the Thunderhawk’s open hatch.

‘After that, colonel, all that remains is to die with honour.’

The ork Waaagh! had struck the Loki Sector without warning, catching even the Chapter’s psychic Librarians completely by surprise. Snagrod, the infamous Arch-Arsonist of Charadon, had fought countless battles against Imperial forces during his brief and brutal rise to power, and had learned much of his foe’s tactics and strategies. Uniting the fractious ork tribes along the Loki Sector’s eastern border, Snagrod struck at listening posts and astropathic relays across the frontier, crippling the Imperial communications and early warning network. By the time news of the Waaagh! reached Rynn’s World, much of the eastern frontier had been lost, and the ork vanguard had reached the planet of Badlanding, just a few short weeks’ travel away.

The Crimson Fists reacted swiftly and decisively to the sudden threat. Chapter Master Pedro Kantor despatched the Third Company, along with scouts from the Tenth, to gather information on the strength of the ork horde at Badlanding and to delay their advance while he warned the rest of the Segmentum. But the undertaking had ended in disaster; during a surgical strike on the greenskins’ long-range communication network, an impetuous Space Marine Scout had given away the location of the main force and drawn the wrath of the entire horde down upon them. Of the eighty-four Crimson Fists that had gone to Badlanding, only twenty-eight returned, most with wounds severe enough to require the attention of the Chapter’s Apothecaries. Captain Ashor Drakken, the commander of the Third Company, was counted among the slain, having lost his life attempting to rescue a wounded battle-brother.

The news of the Third Company’s near-destruction at Badlanding was a terrible blow to the Chapter, but worse was yet to come. Intercepted ork communications warned that Snagrod, enraged by the Crimson Fists’ attack, intended to turn the full wrath of his Waaagh! on Rynn’s World.

There had been less than a week to make ready for the greenskin attack. Second Company, along with the surviving Crimson Fists of Third Company and the Chapter’s elite Terminators, were sent to defend the capital at New Rynn City. Veteran squads from the Crusade Company were despatched to cities like Minessa to oversee defensive preparations. Meanwhile, the Chapter’s powerful space fleet, commanded by the vaunted Ceval Ranparre, had formed a defensive cordon around Rynn’s World to contest the arrival of the ork invasion fleet. Ranparre was pragmatic about the fleet’s odds against the xenos, whose ships outnumbered the system defence forces many times over. It would be impossible to stop Snagrod’s horde from reaching the planet, but the fleet would harry them the entire way from the jump point at the edge of the system. The space battle had been expected to last up to four days, providing the planet’s defenders with ample warning to complete their final preparations.

But Snagrod had outmanoeuvred them once again.

Galleas frowned down at the status report from the Strategium at the Arx Tyrannus. ‘The ork fleet jumped into the system just a hundred and fifty thousand kilometres from Rynn’s World,’ he announced, raising his voice to be heard over the muted roar of the gunship’s thrusters.

Heads turned inside the Thunderhawk’s red-lit troop compartment. Juno and Amador had disengaged from their crash harnesses and were making last-minute checks of their wargear. Yezim Olivar sat in his harness with his helmet on his knees, head bowed in prayer. Unlike his brothers, Olivar’s war-plate was decorated not with battle honours, but with oaths of moment and parchment pages from the Lectitio Divinitatus, the holy book of the Imperial Cult. The rest of the squad had been deep in meditation, taking the time between duties to rest, as veteran soldiers had been wont to do since the days of ancient Terra.

Mikael Tauros glanced over at Galleas. The veteran had removed his helmet as well, revealing a bald head and a blunt face tattooed with the Imperial aquila. ‘That’s madness,’ he said.

Royas grunted from the far side of the troop compartment. ‘What else would you expect from greenskin filth?’

Brother Valentus leaned forward in his harness, slowly shaking his polished metal head. His face and much of the bone beneath had been burned away by tyranid bio-acid during an undertaking to a space hulk a hundred and fifty years ago, requiring steel prosthetics and a pair of glowing augmetic eyes. Both arms and one leg were bionic replacements as well, left behind on battlefields scattered across the Segmentum. His squad mates had taken to calling him Brother Dreadnought Valentus as a result, a title the scarred veteran bore with equanimity.

‘It is poor tactics,’ he said, his voice grating from a vox grille set into his gorget. ‘At such a distance, the orks stand to lose as many ships to jump mishaps as they will to incoming fire.’

Galleas blanked the data-slate and set it in a cradle by his seat. ‘Snagrod’s fleet was even larger than we believed,’ he said grimly. ‘Hundreds of greenskin ships were destroyed on re-entry from the warp, but hundreds more emerged into real space just three hours from the planet, right in the midst of Ranparre’s defensive cordon.’ He shook his head. ‘Casualties were heavy on both sides, but our ships were outnumbered nearly a hundred to one. The last report from Ranparre’s flagship said that the frigate Crusader and a number of escorts were going to try to break through the ork formations and make for the Segmentum naval headquarters at Kar Duniash to summon aid. Once Crusader was safely away, Ranparre and the remnants of the fleet intended to seek an honourable death amongst the foe.’

The squad took the news in stunned silence. The deck of the Thunderhawk tilted beneath them, its thrusters rising in pitch. The gunship was turning in on its final approach to New Rynn City. The distant rumble of the capital’s anti-aircraft batteries could be felt through the transport’s armoured hull.

Ibrahim Salazar broke the silence at last. ‘The whole fleet… gone?’ he said. A member of the Crusade Company for little more than seventy-five years, he was the youngest member of the squad. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘First Badlanding, and now this,’ Valentus said. ‘These are dark times for the Chapter, brothers. Dark times indeed.’

Even Galleas could not help but feel a cold sense of foreboding at Valentus’ words, but he refused to give in to it. ‘We all knew that the void battle would be a grim one,’ he told his squad. ‘But the fight for Rynn’s World has only just begun. Snagrod doesn’t realise it yet, but he has attacked our home world at the worst possible time. Nearly the entire Chapter was gathered here for the Founding Day ceremonies just a few weeks past, and now we stand ready to bring our full strength to bear on the greenskin horde.

‘The Chapter Master and more than six hundred of our brothers hold the Arx Tyrannus. Second Company holds New Rynn City, supported by three-quarters of the Crusade Company and the survivors of the Third. Kantor knows that Snagrod will send the vast majority of his horde against the fortress-monastery, where our brothers will slaughter the xenos filth by the thousands. The Arx Tyrannus is warded by layers of void shielding that are proof against the heaviest orbital bombardment, and there is enough ammunition buried within the mountain to keep the guns firing continuously for years.

‘Eventually, once the chasms surrounding the Arx Tyrannus have been filled with greenskin dead, the horde will grow impatient with their lack of progress and start looking for easier prey instead. Then our turn will come, and we’ll have to hold Snagrod’s horde outside the walls of New Rynn City. Then Kantor will go on the offensive, clearing the orks from around the fortress-monastery with a series of counter-attacks, launching strikes against the xenos outside the capital. If the horde turns its attention back to the Arx Tyrannus, then we will go on the offensive. Between fortress and city we will grind Snagrod’s horde to bits.’

Tauros chuckled. ‘I didn’t realise you were privy to the Chapter Master’s strategy meetings.’

‘You all know I served with Kantor as a Tactical Marine when he was captain of Fourth Company,’ Galleas replied. ‘He was a mentor to me, and taught me everything I know about fighting greenskins.’ He leaned forward, his expression fierce. ‘The Arx Tyrannus is key, brothers. Mark my words. The fortress-monastery cannot be taken. It’s too well-sited up in the mountains, and too well-defended. As long as we hold it, Snagrod’s horde cannot prevail. When ships from Kar Duniash finally arrive, months from now, they will find the Waaagh! broken and the Arch-Arsonist’s head resting on a spike atop the Conqueror’s Gate.’

Galleas’ words had the desired effect. Amador let out a triumphant yell, and Salazar and Rodrigo followed suit. The bleak mood inside the troop compartment had been dispelled. Tauros, the old veteran, gave Galleas an approving nod and leaned back in his crash harness.

Moments later the Thunderhawk touched down on a crowded landing pad outside the Cassar, a secondary Chapter fortress situated in the Zona Regis, a governmental preserve located on an island roughly in the centre of the city. The squad gathered up their wargear and fell into formation as the gunship’s assault ramp lowered to the ferrocrete.

The Crimson Fists trotted down the ramp into the midst of a raging warzone. The air shook with the percussive beat of anti-aircraft guns, and streams of green and red tracer fire etched glowing arcs across the night sky. The guttural roar of ork attack craft echoed from the city’s outer districts, followed by the reverberating blasts of rockets and heavy bombs. Angry yellow flames lit the horizon to the north and east, silhouetting dozens of towering columns of smoke and debris. All the while, high overhead, the fiery arcs of thousands of xenos landing craft plunged towards the planet’s surface.

The awful, overpowering din sank into Galleas’ reinforced bones and set his powerful hearts racing. He looked eastwards, past the flames and the ribbons of smoke, his gene-enhanced vision searching for a point along the distant peaks of the Hellblade Mountains. A fierce grin lit the veteran sergeant’s face.

‘Look there, brothers!’ he said proudly, pointing to the horizon. Thin filaments of angry, white light were rising heavenward, slowly at first, but gathering speed with every passing moment. ‘The Arx Tyrannus has opened fire! Now the battle’s truly begun!’

The Space Marines watched as scores of heavy ship-killer missiles blasted from silos around the fortress-monastery and clawed their way into the night sky, heading for Snagrod’s orbiting fleet.

‘That’s for Third Company!’ Amador shouted, raising his fist to the sky. ‘Vengeance for the fallen!’

‘Vengeance for the fallen!’ Salazar echoed, and soon Caron took up the cry. More missiles were launching now, following on the heels of the first wave. Soon there would be a whole new constellation of dying ships hanging in the sky above the planet.

Brother Rodrigo, a legendary sniper during his time with Tenth Company, took a step forward. He peered intently at a spot on the horizon. ‘What’s that?’

After a moment, Galleas saw it too. One of the silver contrails was curving, twisting into a corkscrew path above where the fortress-monastery stood. For a moment, it looked as though it might right itself and soar skyward – but then, with a final sharp twist, its armour-piercing nose dropped, and the missile plunged earthward like a fiery spear.

For a fleeting instant, nothing seemed to happen – but then the mountains were limned in an expanding globe of furious, white light. Thousands of metres across, the fireball continued to swell, roiling up into the heavens and darkening to a deep, angry red.

A full minute later the sound of the blast swept over the city: a rumbling roar that swelled in volume until it blotted out the thunder of the city’s own guns. Windows shattered across the Zona Regis and the Space Marines themselves were staggered by the sheer, awful force of the noise.

It was a sound like the end of the world.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2018.
This eBook edition published in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Mikhail Savier.

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