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CHAPTER ONE

Frozen tracks

Bent-backed, frozen to the core despite his thermal labour-suit, Engineer Thain swore as he broke the handle of his ice axe.

It was his third one, with only a fourth left in his tool kit. Discarding the broken haft, Thain glared ruefully at the frozen tank track he had failed to loosen. He rubbed his hands together – they were bone-cold, despite his heavy gloves – but got little feeling back into the fingers.

‘Use a hand flamer to thaw the hoarfrost, then switch to the ice axe.’

Thain would have started at the voice behind him, but he was too tired, too cold to react.

‘It’ll fuse the track guards,’ he snapped, testy, rising as he turned. ‘Make ’em sti–’ The word died in his mouth, which was now agape and ghosting air.

He came up to the warrior’s armoured chest: a plastron of cobalt emblazoned with the frost-white Ultima symbol of his Chapter.

The huge warrior had taken a hand flamer from the engineer’s kit and offered it to the man in his massive gauntleted hand.

‘Not if you tweak the setting, keep the flame low and take it off when the ice starts to melt,’ the warrior replied. He was not wearing a helmet, which seemed insane to Thain, given the conditions, and a white rime of frost crusted his hairless brow and sharp cheekbones. There was a platinum stud above his left eye, a record of service, so Thain understood. This one was a veteran, then. The Ultramarine smiled, though the gesture was far from warming. ‘You’ll break fewer handles that way.’

Thain genuflected awkwardly because of his stiff limbs.

‘Gratitude, my lord.’

‘I’m not your lord,’ the warrior said, moving on. ‘Your lords are dead. Go to your duty, and that track had best be unfrozen by the time we’re ready to roll out.’

The man attempted a salute, but was hindered again by his chilled bones. ‘Yes, sir.’

He went back to thawing out the tank track, using the hand flamer as instructed, but the chill never left him.

Antaro Chronus left the serf behind as he went to inspect the rest of the squadron, but reached out to touch the metal hull of the tank before he did so.

‘Antonius, old friend…’ he sighed. ‘You’ll be battle-ready for the war on this barren rock.’

Three Predators, Annihilator-patterns on account of their twin-linked lascannon turrets and heavy bolter sponsons, waited in the cold, engines growling. They had been back less than an hour and the Damnos ice had already crept back into their workings. Chronus was no Techmarine but he knew tanks and his were not at ease. Their machine-spirits were displeased.

A short reconnoitre into the wastes had revealed little. As reported, the immediate area surrounding Kellenport was free of necrons. The retreat looked to be total. It meant they would have to press further, towards Damnos Secundus, but that required a refuel and now a thorough de-icing after waiting so long in the cold.

As the serfs kept the vehicles from freezing over, his crew were performing other checks according to protocol and taking on extra ammunition before their next foray. This time they would head north into the region where Tigurius had alleged the necrons were regrouping.

Emerging from The Vengeful’s cupola, one of the Ultramarines crewmen hailed the tank commander and disembarked to speak to Chronus.

‘They work too slowly,’ he said, jutting his chin at the shivering labour gangs. Fabricus was a driver as fearless as any Chronus had known, and as relentless.

Chronus cast his eye over the serfs: first the ones striving to keep their tanks functional, then the much larger workforce currently attempting to reinforce the sundered walls of Kellenport. According to Tigurius, it was the last bastion of human habitation in all of Damnos. Judging by the shattered revetments, collapsed bulwarks and broken gates, it was a poor one and not particularly defensible.

‘It’s the cold, Brother Fabricus,’ said Chronus. ‘Remember, they are merely men and cannot be expected to endure what we can. They’ll do their duty. This is their city after all, their world, and we are all that stands between it and annihilation.’

They walked together in lockstep, passing first through three Predators and then between the heavier armoured forms of three siege tanks, the Vindicators Glory of Calth, The Ram and Wrath of Invictus. The Ultramarines who noticed Chronus as he passed saluted the tank commander before going back to their preparations.

‘Have you been to see him?’ asked Fabricus solemnly.

‘Who?’ Chronus replied as they reached a group of three immense Land Raiders, their drop-ramps down as crews within worked on thawing out the interior troop compartments.

‘Captain Sicarius.’

They stopped at the edge of the improvised laager provided by the hefty Land Raiders, looking in the same direction as the tanks’ hull-mounted heavy bolters towards featureless tundra and endless ice wastes. A storm had rolled in, obliterating the distant horizon line behind a wall of white.

‘What purpose would that serve, brother? I know Sicarius is being tended in the apothecarion of the Valin’s Revenge. There is precious little I can do for him when he is unconscious and at high anchor above this frozen world, is there?’

Fabricus frowned, and the ice riming his face and closely shorn scalp cracked.

‘The Master of the Watch has fallen. Does that not concern you, commander?’

Chronus folded his arms, but kept his gaze on the white false horizon as Fabricus looked at him for his answer. ‘Do I think his absence harms our chances of success out here? Yes, of course. He is an inspirational leader and a fierce warrior, albeit capricious. But does it concern me?’ He gave a derisory laugh. ‘No more than a thrown track or a malfunctioning sponson mount. We adapt, we maintain, we overcome. We are armour.’ He slammed his fist against his chest with a heavy clank. ‘We are inviolable. The necron have yet to taste our fury, and I am wholly confident it won’t be to their liking when they do.’

Fabricus slammed his fist against his armour too, nodding at this declaration.

A second tank squadron idled within fifty metres of the first and comprised an identical array of vehicles, with the exception that the siege tanks were replaced by launcher-fitted patterns, excellent for long-range sustained barrage.

Alongside this fearsome alliance of armour was a void. It was waiting to be filled by a third group, one that was now almost an hour late.

‘Has there been any sign of them yet?’ Chronus asked.

‘Sergeant Egnatius’s last communication had them entering the Vogenhoff region. It’s remote, plagued by ravines and ice caves. Together with the storm…’ Fabricus let it hang like that, knowing there was no need to go further.

Chronus scowled, as if satisfied for now, but he was itching to be back aboard the Rage of Antonius, his own Predator tank, and back amidst the ice. ‘Inform Sergeant Gnaeus he has temporary command of the company, and vox me the moment Egnatius returns.’

‘Yes, commander.’

‘Have them stand by. We move on my order. One I must delay until I speak with our captains.’

Fabricus saluted again and went to carry out his orders.

Turning on his heel, Chronus began to stride back towards Kellenport.

Labour crews swarmed over the city like ants, directed by Techmarines and a few battle-brothers from the Tactical squads. Despite superior Space Marine engineering and fortification, the city looked far from siege-worthy. It was ragged. Only he and his armour would serve as any real protection for these people.

Despite what Tigurius believed, Chronus knew he could save this world. He had but to be afforded the opportunity.

CHAPTER TWO

First meetings and old reunions

The Ultramarines command section had made camp just within the broken gatehouse of Kellenport’s north wall. Most of the officers present were Second Company, some of Sicarius’s squad sergeants and honour guard. The rest were well known to Chronus, and he picked out faces he recognised as he breached the makeshift cordon of barricades and came to stand alongside the warriors surrounding a map table.

‘Hololiths are out,’ explained one sergeant, an officious sort given his stilted bearing, Chronus thought, but with a shadow behind his eyes. He had seen a lot of that since they had made landfall in the Thunderhawk transporters, and he wondered exactly what had happened prior to their arrival. He had not stopped to ask, just rolled out with his vehicles to secure the immediate perimeter. In the end, it had proven unnecessary, a fact that made the back of the tank commander’s neck itch in irritation.

‘Vintage,’ Chronus replied, stepping into the circle of officers and taking stock of the parchment map they were all examining. ‘I find something quite reassuring about that. Antaro,’ he added, offering a hand.

‘Brother-Sergeant Manorian,’ said the sergeant, clasping the tank commander’s wrist in the traditional Ultramarines greeting.

‘I know your rank, brother. It’s on your armour. Tell me your given name.’ Chronus was already absorbing all the information on the map and matching it to what he knew of the landscape first-hand from his initial reconnoitre and futile harrying mission. ‘If we are to bleed together, then I would know who you are.’ He looked back at the sergeant, his eyes bright and alert.

The sergeant nodded. ‘Praxor.’

Chronus smiled. ‘Excellent.’ He looked up at the rest of the gathering, who had been in the midst of determining strategy when he arrived. ‘So then, who can provide me with a situation report and who else around this table have I yet to become acquainted with?’

At the head of the table loomed a massive and imposing figure, the veteran Brother Agrippen, now encased in a holy Dreadnought sarcophagus. He was roughly a third taller than any of the assembled Ultramarines and easily twice as broad. Out of the vox-emitter built into his sarcophagus churned a machine-growl that Chronus took to be laughter.

‘It is good you are here, Brother Chronus. I see you did not wait to make greeting after landfall.’

‘Securing the perimeter of the city was more of a priority, Ancient.’ Chronus crafted a small bow to the Dreadnought, who gave a nod of sorts in return. ‘I was informed you have command?’

‘Yes,’ answered Agrippen, ‘together with our Chief Librarian.’

Chronus smiled at the hooded psyker, who kept his distance from the strategy table. His eyes glowed with power in the dusk that had settled over Kellenport.

‘Varro and I are well known to one another.’

Tigurius nodded. Even in the shadows, Chronus saw the Librarian’s jawbone tense at the informality.

Chronus did not linger on it. He gestured to another of the gathering, one armoured in black. ‘And Chaplain Trajan, also.’

He knew all of Sicarius’s Lions, too. Daceus, Vandius, Malican and Gaius Prabian. Only Venatio, the Apothecary, was absent. Doubtless, there were many injured who required his attention. Two others, besides the sergeant called Praxor, were unknown to him.

‘Strabo,’ said one, his markings indicating him as an Assault Marine. ‘Mathias,’ he corrected, before the tank commander had to request it.

‘Maxima Atavian,’ said the final officer, his bionic eye suggesting his position as a Devastator. ‘It is an honour to fight alongside you.’

Three line sergeants from each of the three squad dispositions of Second. ‘Well then,’ Chronus addressed the group, nodding in turn at the warriors he had not met before. ‘I don’t need to be told how Kellenport fares, this city is fit to crumble, but what of the rest of Damnos?’

‘From the Thanatos Hills, we saw a great force of necrons amassing to the north,’ said Tigurius. ‘And more phalanxes are activating in several other regions too.’

Chronus cast his eye over the map again, and the marks made in charcoal to indicate known and suspected enemy dispositions.

‘We are surrounded, Commander Chronus,’ uttered Tigurius. ‘Kellenport is a solitary lantern amidst a sea of night.’

‘I always admired your poetry, Varro,’ said Chronus, rubbing his clean-shaven chin. ‘I have no gift for it, myself. I am altogether a much blunter instrument.’ He looked up. ‘Perhaps that is what’s needed now, the more direct approach.’

‘I thought you a pragmatist also, Chronus,’ Tigurius replied, ‘and yet it sounds like you’re suggesting we can still take this world.’

Chronus was impassive. ‘I would see what kind of fight the necrons still have in them. Perhaps Damnos can still be saved. And if not, then the phasic generators present an issue for all of us, which requires an attack.’

‘Withdrawal is the only strategy left to us.’ A flash of power filled Tigurius’s eyes in sympathetic frustration. ‘Don’t risk your arsenal on what would be a pyrrhic victory, commander. By destroying the phasic generators you give us precious time to evacuate. To attempt any more than that is foolhardy. Damnos is lost.’

‘And yet here we all stand, stooped over a strategium,’ replied Chronus.

‘I find myself in agreement with Tigurius,’ said Chaplain Trajan from behind the death-skull mask of his helmet. ‘Even with the leadership of Sicarius, we cannot triumph here.’ He bowed his head to Agrippen. ‘No disrespect, Ancient.’

‘None taken, Brother-Chaplain.’ The Dreadnought’s gaze through his vision slit fell upon Chronus, though. ‘But if victory is still possible, then we must strive for it.’

‘Even at the potentially futile cost of more lives?’ asked Tigurius.

All present knew of the guilt he felt about Sicarius, and of the premonition he had failed to discern in time to prevent the captain’s mortal wounding.

Agrippen had already decided what their course would be, however.

‘What is our purpose, if it is not to lay down our lives in protecting humanity and its sovereign domains?’

Tigurius bowed to the Dreadnought.

‘Wise words, Ancient.’ He spared a glance at Chronus, who was studying the map and committing it to memory. ‘If the commander believes there is a chance to save Damnos then we are duty-bound to pursue that unto its end. Whatever end that might be,’ he added, somewhat forbiddingly.

When he was finished, Chronus looked up.

‘From what I know, the majority of the necrons are on foot. They are also slow and their tactics predictable.’

‘As we routed them at the gates, they were not as formidable,’ Agrippen agreed. ‘The loss of their leader crippled them in some gestalt fashion.’

Chronus nodded. ‘The primary function of a tank is to kill infantry. It’s the reason we were forged. We should look towards our defence, and fortify Kellenport. Have your warriors keep vigil on the walls, your gunships the skies,’ he said. ‘I can see you’ve drawn all defences back to the city walls and abandoned all else beyond it. Make what preparations must be made for a planet-wide evacuation. In the meantime I will seek engagement, and treat these necrons like any other enemy in my crosshairs. Piece by piece, phalanx by phalanx, I’ll dismantle them. I have twenty-four engines at my disposal and several others in support. Not to mention those still in their berths aboard the Valin’s Revenge. We’ll head north into Damnos Secundus. Soon as I get a sight of the enemy, we’ll bombard them, break them apart. I understand they don’t run, so if they want to engage us they’ll have to advance. Slow as they are, that will hurt them, even these creatures. When they do, I’ll bring up a second line of armour, heavy cannon and bolters. By the time they reach us they’ll be a ragged mess. And if anything does remain, I’ll crush it under my tracks. There’s no coming back from that.’

‘There could be thousands of necrons, commander,’ said Trajan.

Chronus faced the dour Chaplain.

‘Then I shall have to take sufficient ammunition. Rest assured, this is not arrogance or vainglory. I want to know we are beaten before we accept defeat. With all good conscience, I cannot say that I do yet. So I fight.’

Spurred on by the tank commander’s rhetoric, Sergeant Manorian stepped forwards.

‘I’d like to pledge my warriors to your cause, Commander Chronus.’

‘Aye, and mine,’ added Atavian.

Strabo’s fervour was obvious in his eyes, so no offer was needed to convey his feelings.

All three sergeants looked eager for retribution, but Chronus knew he was going to deny them.

‘Your courage is without question, but your place is on the wall. My armoured company can end this threat, but I need to move quickly and with what I know. I am a commander of machines, not men. See to the protection of Kellenport, in case I am unsuccessful.’ Chronus turned to Agrippen. ‘We are in agreement, Ancient?’

‘Aye, we are. Engage the necrons and assess the threat they still pose to us, but the Chapter has lost one hero already to this enemy. I would not see it lose another.’

Chronus bowed reverently to the veteran Dreadnought. ‘Understood.’

Tigurius and Trajan nodded their assent to Chronus’s plan too.

A warrior appeared at the edge of the circle of officers. His armour markings described him as tank crew.

‘Then if all are agreed and everything is in order,’ said Chronus as he noticed the driver, ‘I believe Brother Fabricus here has arrived with news of my errant sergeant’s return, so I shall put actions to these words and seek engagement.’

He saluted, looking at each and every officer in turn.

‘Your gunships, Ancient,’ said Chronus as he was about to leave. ‘I need them as my eyes, to show where my hammer should fall hardest.’

A machine-growl emanated from Agrippen’s vox-emitter, expressing his eagerness to see Sicarius and all of the fallen avenged.

‘They are yours to command, Antaro. Do so wisely.’

Chronus nodded curtly, saluted again and left with Fabricus.

The six engines idling on the snow plain expelled steam and exhaust smoke. Ice clung to the hulls of the Predator tanks, but they were, nonetheless, fully operational.

Chronus approached the lead vehicle as one of its occupants appeared out of the cupola hatch.

‘Apologies, commander,’ said Egnatius. ‘We were caught in the storm. Our augurs malfunctioned and took us into a blind ravine. The Vogenhoff region is more treacherous than I at first believed.’ He bowed his head contritely, snow cresting the ridge of his battle-helm. It bore a steel laurel, and some scars that had not been there before.

‘Did you run into some trouble, brother-sergeant?’ asked Chronus.

‘Just the elements, sir.’

‘Then let’s hope you fare better against the necrons. Your squadron is second in the line after mine. We’re heading north into Damnos Secundus.’

Egnatius looked askance at the serfs freighting a cache of fuel drums in the direction of his squadron, but kept most of his attention on Chronus.

‘Far north, it would seem.’

‘Indeed. The enemy have retreated deep and are attempting to regroup. We’re not going to allow that. Take on your extra fuel and fall in as instructed.’

Egnatius saluted and Chronus left him to it. Fabricus had already returned to his vehicle, so Chronus crossed the snow plain alone to where the Rage of Antonius was waiting.

As he was climbing back into the open cupola hatch, he spared a last look at the white veil beyond the Kellenport perimeter.

It looked almost impenetrable.

Almost.

Ducking inside, he shut the overhead hatch with a dull clang.

Slowly at first, their tracks grinding and slipping on the snow until they found purchase, the tank company of Antaro Chronus rolled out.

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2012
This edition published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Cover illustration by Doo Chun.
Internal art by Sam Lamont and John Michelbach.

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