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Storm of Iron – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Bridgehead

One

The Emperor damn Major Tedeski’s soul to the warp, thought Guardsman Hawke bitterly as he huddled closer to the plasma wave generator that provided what little heat there was in the cramped surveyor station. With no small measure of glee, he imagined putting a las-bolt into the back of his company commander’s head as he stalked up and down the ash-coated esplanades of Tor Christo.

One thing! Just one little thing and Tedeski had busted them from a cushy little number up on Tor Christo, free from interfering officers, to this damn place!

He glanced without interest at the sensor display before him, noting with boredom that – surprise, surprise! – there was nothing happening outside.

As if anyone in their right mind would want to try and attack Hydra Cordatus. A single crumbling citadel on a damned dusty rock, bleaker than a killer’s heart, with nothing of remote interest to anyone. Least of all, Guardsman Hawke.

People didn’t come to Hydra Cordatus voluntarily; they ended up here.

He sat inside the cold, cramped confines of one of the sixteen mountain surveyor stations that ringed Jericho Falls spaceport, the one lifeline this place had with the outside world. The machines housed here constantly swept for the approach of any would-be attackers. Not that there ever would be, even if they knew about the citadel.

It was a nightmare detail to be posted here and everyone knew it. The heaters barely worked, the deafening roar of the scouring wind as it howled down from the high peaks was maddening, there was nothing to do and the sheer boredom could drive even the strongest willed to despair. The only thing there was to do was watch the machines and report the odd spike on the display slate.

He cursed his foul luck and went back to imagining new and inventive ways of busting Tedeski’s head.

Sure, so they had turned up for duty pretty badly hung-over. Well, probably still drunk from the night before, truth be told. But it wasn’t as though there was anything else to do on this Emperor-damned rock. It wasn’t as if they’d been entrusted with some kind of top-secret, highly important mission. They were just on the early watch before changeover. By the Throne, they’d turned up for duty drunk before and had never had any problems.

It was just bad luck that Tedeski had pulled an alert drill that morning and the three of them had been caught sound asleep on the Christo’s walls. Bad luck as it was, they counted themselves lucky they hadn’t been caught by Castellan Vauban.

They’d received a roasting from Major Tedeski, and here they were: stuck in the mountains in a rockcrete can, looking for enemies who would never come.

He sat alone for now. His two companions in misery were out in the dust-stained rocks, some hundred metres in front of the post. He rose from beside the ineffective heater, stamping his feet and slapping his arms around himself in a futile effort to warm up, then stepped closer to the rockcrete walls of the miniature bunker. He peered through what were – laughably – named vision blocks, over the stubby firing grip of the rear assault cannon, to see if he could spot either of his two fellow victims of Tedeski’s wrath.

After a few minutes he gave up in disgust. He couldn’t see a fragging thing through the swirling dust. They’d be lucky if they found anything in that grey soup. One tiny spike had registered on the display and they’d drawn straws to see which lucky pair would venture outside and check it out.

Thank the Emperor he’d cheated and didn’t have to leave the meagre warmth of the post. The others had been gone for nearly half an hour and he realised it was about time he checked in with them. He thumbed the dial on the vox-panel, ‘Hitch, Charedo? You two find anything out there?’

He turned the dial to ‘receive’ and waited for a response.

The white hiss of static poured from the battered vox, filling the surveyor station with a haunting, empty noise. He turned the dial again, staring through the vision blocks and fingering the trigger guard on the assault cannon.

‘Hey, you two. If you’re okay, answer me. Do you copy?’

Static came again and he anxiously flicked the external cannon’s safety off. He was ready to call again when the vox barked into life and he laughed with relief.

‘You gotta be kidding, Hawke. There ain’t a damned thing out here except us!’ said a voice that, despite the roaring of the wind, he recognised as belonging to Guardsman Hitch. The distortion on the soldier’s voice was thickening so he adjusted the controls, relieved to hear a friendly voice.

‘Yeah, I figured that,’ he replied. ‘Miserable out there, I bet!’ he laughed.

‘Frag you, man!’ snapped Hitch. ‘We’re freezing our backsides off out here. Sod this, huh?’

Hawke chuckled to himself as Hitch swore again.

‘There’s nothing here. It must be a surveyor fault or something. We’re right where we’re supposed to be and there ain’t a damn thing alive for kilometres around us.’

‘You’re sure you’re in the right place?’ asked Hawke.

‘Of course I’m fragging sure!’ shouted Hitch. ‘I can read a map, you know. We’re not all as stupid as you.’

‘Don’t bet on it, Hitchy-boy!’ said Hawke, enjoying his comrade’s annoyance.

‘There’s nothing out here,’ cursed Hitch, ‘we’re coming back in.’

‘Okay, see you in a while then.’

‘Just get the caffeine on, huh? And make sure it’s hotter than hell, okay?’

‘Sure thing,’ answered Hawke, flicking off the vox-unit.

He’d already drunk the last of the caffeine, so he took a belt of amasec from his silver hip flask, savouring the heat as it snaked its way down his neck to his gut. It was the only thing that gave him any real warmth here. He tucked it away deep in his pocket, not wanting to share any with Hitch and Charedo, and knowing that they’d be back any minute.

The storm continued to howl around the small listening bunker as he stomped around, his foul mood worsening with each step. He’d just made his routine two-hourly check-in with the command post back at the spaceport and had been told by a smug vox-flunkey that their relief would be a couple of hours late. The ash storm was playing hell with the ornithopter’s engines again, so they were stuck here until the Emperor knew when.

It was just one thing after another!

He supposed he should be used to it by now. He’d been in the Imperial Guard for almost ten of his twenty-five years now. Picked from a clutch of the best PDF troopers on Jouran III to serve in the 383rd Jouran Dragoons, he’d looked forward to seeing new worlds and strange creatures. A life of adventure surely beckoned.

But, no, he’d been stuck on this damned rock for nearly all ten of those years with nothing but demerits and black marks against his name. There was nothing here but the citadel, and nothing inside that worth fighting for as far as he knew. Why they felt it was worth stationing over twenty thousand soldiers of the Emperor, a demi legion of Battle Titans and all those batteries of artillery here was beyond him.

Used to a life of boredom in the PDF, it had been a wake-up call to him when he joined the regiment. Constant drilling, weapons training and tactics had been drummed into him like there was no tomorrow.

And for what?

He hadn’t fired a shot in anger in ten years!

In truth, he was bored.

Hawke was a hellraiser. He wanted some action, a chance to show his stuff. He picked up his rifle and shouldered it, imagining some alien raider in his sights.

‘Bang bang, you’re dead,’ he whispered, spinning and squeezing off more imaginary shots at his imaginary enemies.

He should be so lucky. He chuckled to himself and put down the rifle, having won the battle.

Yeah, right, he thought.

The hunter who was about to kill Guardsmen Hitch and Charedo had been stealthily approaching the surveyor station in the darkness for the last hour, his enhanced vision turning night into day.

His name was Honsou and in the last hour he had advanced two hundred metres on his belly, centimetre by centimetre, the auto-senses in his helmet alerting him to the surveyor sweeps of the armoured bunker. Each time his earpiece growled a warning he would freeze as the questing spirits of the ancient machinery sought him out.

The other members of his squad were invisible to him, but he knew that they too were slowly approaching the station. Two of their targets had left the bunker. Were they hunting? Was it just a regular patrol or had someone inside the bunker caught something suspicious on their surveyors? Briefly, he wondered if the soldier within had reported yet.

Probably not, he thought, as he watched the two morons blunder about in the dust storm. They’d passed within a metre of his position as they headed to where they thought their quarry was, making enough noise to stampede a herd of grox.

Hopefully the third soldier in the surveyor station was as pathetic as these two. He had waited, watching them wander aimlessly for nearly half an hour before seeming to come to the conclusion that their hunt was fruitless, and beginning the trek back.

They stumbled away and Honsou wondered again how the Imperium had lasted for the last ten thousand years with men like these defending it. Would that all the False Emperor’s soldiers were like them.

Slowly, he followed them, making better time on his belly than his prey did on foot until he was practically on top of them. He was now less than seven metres from the bunker’s rear, and only, door.

He shivered as he saw the stubby, multiple barrels of the rear-mounted assault cannon and took a deep breath.

Patience. He had to wait until they entered the code and opened the door.

Still flat on his stomach, he pulled his bolt pistol from its insulated holster and worked the action, chambering a round. The storm easily swallowed the noise. He flicked off the safety and waited.

His targets entered the sheltered lee of the bunker and the tallest of the pair began punching the entry code into the keypad. Honsou sighted on the soldier nearest him, lining the fore and back sight precisely on the gap between the man’s helmet and flak jacket. He exhaled slowly, calming his breathing, preparing to shoot.

Everything faded from his perceptions. Everything except the shot.

The code was almost entered. His finger tightened on the trigger. His vision narrowed to a tunnel, following the path his bolt would take.

Hawke grimaced as the door to the bunker slid jerkily open, draining away the little heat left in the listening post. Why the hell didn’t they put a two-door approach system on these places? Not just for the security, but to keep the warmth in.

He glanced at the external pict-display as the door slid further open and did a slow double-take as the wind dropped and the swirling dust abated. Behind Charedo he saw a huge armoured figure with a raised pistol.

Without a second thought he leapt for the emergency door override and slammed it down.

The roaring of the wind drowned the first shot.

Hawke heard a second, followed by two dull thuds. He swore, seeing Hitch and Charedo slump to the ground, gaping craters where their faces had been.

He grabbed the handle of the rear cannon and yanked the trigger hard. He swung the gun from side to side, not aiming, just shooting. The roar of the cannon was deafening, the rattling of spent shells ringing from the grey walls.

The supersonic shells blew up a storm, churning the mud and earth outside to atoms as thousands of rounds turned the area before him into a death-trap, shredding anything within its arc of fire.

He screamed as he fired. He didn’t know whether he was hitting anything and didn’t much care.

‘You just messed with the wrong guy!’ he yelled.

Dust blew in his face, filling his mouth and he angrily spat it clear. Then he–

Dust? He glanced quickly at the door.

Oh no…

Hitch’s body was blocking it, preventing it from closing.

Indecision tore at him. Door or cannon?

‘Damn you, Hitch!’ he shouted and jumped down from the cannon’s firing step. He grabbed Hitch’s headless corpse and pulled, hauling his former squadmate inside, out of the door’s path.

A shape loomed up out of the dust. He fell back as a bullet tore across his shoulder.

Hawke screamed and snatched up Hitch’s fallen rifle as a giant shape loomed in the doorway.

He fired the rifle, laughing as his shot punched into the figure’s chest. The massive silhouette reeled, but didn’t fall. Hawke unloaded the remainder of the power cell through the door, shot after shot. He laughed as he finally managed to pull Hitch’s body inside the bunker and slammed himself against the door-closing handle.

‘Ha! Get in now, you fraggers!’ he shouted at the closing door, whooping with excitement.

Something clattered on the ground as the door finally shut and the laughter died in his throat as he saw the two gently spinning grenades at his feet.

‘Oh no…’ he whispered.

Instinctively he kicked out, sending them skittering across the sloping floor to the grenade sump, a deep and narrow trench cut into the floor at the wall of the listening post for just such an emergency. The first grenade dropped into the sump, but the second bounced clear, rolling back towards him.

Dropping everything, he sprinted for cover behind the vox-panel.

The grenade exploded.

Fire and shrapnel, blinding light and ringing eardrums. Blood and noise as the bunker became a raging inferno.

Guardsman Hawke screamed as fire and whickering fragments lashed his body. The force of the explosion picked him up and slammed him against the wall of the listening post.

Bright lights sunburst before his eyes and pain swallowed him whole. He had time to scream once before the pressure wave snatched the breath from his lungs, slamming his head into the wall and taking the pain away.

As the dust settled, Honsou stepped across the shattered threshold and surveyed the devastated remains of the bunker. Blood clotted on his chest where the Guardsman had shot him.

But that was the least of his concerns. The Imperial lackey had turned his carefully planned assault into a bloodbath.

Two of his men were dead, blown away in the first roar of the assault cannon.

A couple of grenades into the bunker had silenced the cannon, however. Frags weren’t the most powerful grenades, but contained within the cramped confines of this bunker they had been devastating.

He kicked the blackened, smouldering corpse of the Guardsman, venting his frustration on the dead body. He ducked below the lintel of the bunker, black smoke pouring from its interior, and stood erect. Almost as tall as the bunker, Honsou was a giant of a warrior. He was clad in power armour the colour of burnished iron, its surfaces pitted and scored by three months of living in the hostile environment of Hydra Cordatus. He wiped the dust clogging his visor and engaged the illuminator on his shoulder. The powerful glow cast a stark light across his armour, shadowing his moulded breastplate and the symbol of the Iron Warriors on his right shoulder guard.

He crunched through the dust and trained his gaze further down the mountains towards the spaceport. He could barely make it out through the dust clouds, and knew the storm was beginning to blow itself out. They must move quickly.

He had lost two men, but, in the end, he supposed it did not matter. With two listening posts down, they now had a narrow blind-spot running towards the spaceport and he had more than enough men to successfully complete his mission.

He voxed the remainder of his warriors.

‘We are clear now. All teams close on me and move out.’

Two

Jericho Falls spaceport squatted at the foot of the mountains, a glowing beacon of light in the greyness of the dust storm. Such storms were not uncommon on Hydra Cordatus, and were just one of the unpleasant phenomenon that simply had to be endured. A typical Imperial military establishment, it boasted a collection of three dozen buildings, ranging from armoured hangars for Marauder and Lightning aircraft, fuel stations and mess halls to barracks and maintenance sheds. The landing strips and hardened runways covered over eighty per cent of the ground enclosed by the three metre high perimeter walls, enough to land or launch an entire attack wing of aircraft in under five minutes. Vast supply shuttles, each capable of landing a Battle Titan, could be handled by the base, though it had been many years since anything larger than a Thunderhawk gunship had availed itself of the facilities.

The command post of the spaceport was housed in what was known by the soldiers as ‘The Hope’, due to an oft-repeated mantra amongst the Guardsmen stationed on Hydra Cordatus that they hoped not to pull duty at Jericho Falls. A thick, armoured tower with a flattened disc on top, set on the northern edge of the landing fields, the Hope was protected by reinforced rockcrete walls, which in turn were plated in sheets of adamantium specially commissioned from the shipyards of Calth. Howling winds swept across the open ground of the base, whipping the abrasive dust into every fold and crease of a soldier’s uniform, getting into mouths and behind goggles to choke and blind.

The only way in or out of the Hope was through an adamantium door that required four gigantic pistons to open.

Five companies of the Jouran Dragoons were stationed here, housed in reinforced barracks and a hardened hangar. Green and red lights winked on the numerous landing platforms and runways, and powerful arc lights fought to penetrate the swirling dust and illuminate the outer perimeter of the base. Patrol vehicles, their engines modified to resist the intake of dust, circled the base, their headlights feebly piercing the gloom.

The atmosphere within the Hope was subdued. This close to dawn was always slow, no different from any other time of the day. An hour before the shift change, the staff were tired and restless. The soft ticking of logic engines and hushed conversations with patrolling vehicles and soldiers were the only sounds.

Operator Three, Koval Peronus, rubbed his grainy eyes and took a hit of caffeine. It was cold, but did the job. Once again he leaned towards the vox-panel.

‘Listening post Sigma IV, come in please,’ he said. A burst of static was his only answer. He checked the time. It had been two hours and ten minutes since Hawke’s last check-in. He was late. Again.

‘Listening post Sigma IV, come in. Hawke, I know you’re there, so pick up the damn vox!’

Disgusted, Koval dropped the vox-handset and took another gulp of caffeine. Trust bloody Hawke to put a spanner in the works.

He’d try once more and if he couldn’t get an answer then he’d have to kick it higher and tough luck to Hawke.

He called again. Nothing.

‘Okay, Hawke. It’s your butt if you want to sleep on the job again,’ he whispered and thumbed the vox-link connecting his panel to the adept’s station.

‘Yes, Operator Three?’ answered Adept Cycerin.

‘Sorry to disturb you, adept, but we may have a problem. One of the surveyor stations has not checked in and I can’t raise them.’

‘Very well, I shall be there directly.’

‘Yes, adept,’ replied Koval, lounging back and waiting for his superior.

Hawke was for it this time. He’d already been busted onto report, ending up in the mountains and if this was another of his classic screw-ups, then he was finished as a Guardsman.

Adept Cycerin appeared at his shoulder and leaned over the panel, the rasping static of his vox-amp in his throat hissing in displeasure. He smelt of incense and oil.

‘Who is stationed at Sigma IV?’ he asked.

‘Hawke, Charedo and Hitch.’

The adept’s vox-amp crackled in what Koval took to be a sigh of frustration; apparently Hawke’s reputation had spread even to the priests of the Machine God.

‘I’ve tried them three times, adept. I can’t even get the standby signal.’

‘Very well. Keep trying, but if you still can’t raise them after another ten minutes, send a flight of ornithopters to investigate. Keep me informed.’

‘Yes, adept.’

There would be no saving Hawke this time.

Honsou could see the hazy glow of the spaceport just ahead. The bobbing lights of a vehicle wove their way through the gloom, a pair of sweeping beams swinging in their direction. He dropped to his knees and raised his fist. Behind him, thirty armoured figures dropped to their knees, bolters at the ready. It was unlikely that the vehicle’s beams could penetrate the thick, dusty air as far as their position, but there was no sense in being reckless.

The lights moved on and Honsou relaxed a fraction. Routine had made the Imperial troops careless. These last few months had allowed him to study the circuits made by the patrol vehicles and plot their routes and timings. The warp alone knew how long these particular soldiers had been stationed on this planet, but it must have been a long time. It was only natural that their alertness would drop and patrol patterns would become predictable. It was an inevitable price for long tours of duty and it would soon see them dead.

Satisfied the patrol vehicle had moved on, he extended his fist once again, opening and shutting it three times in rapid succession. They were too close to the spaceport to risk any form of vox communication. Honsou heard muffled footfalls behind him and turned as a figure in steeldust armour, chevroned with yellow and black, crept towards him. Goran Delau, his second-in-command, knelt beside him and nodded. The newcomer’s power armour was heavily modified and ornamented with skull-faced rivets and brass mouldings of writhing faces cunningly worked into the edging of his shoulder guards. A whining servo limb, like a clawed digger arm, lolled over Delau’s right shoulder, the ribbed grip sighing open and closed as though with breath of its own.

Honsou pointed to the sky then clenched his gauntleted fist again, hammering it into his palm. Delau nodded and removed a crude looking slate from the side of his bulky backpack, adjusting a brass dial on its front. A red light flashed on the otherwise featureless front panel, flickering for a second before becoming a steady, blood-red glow.

Delau raised his hands to the sky, the servo arm mimicking his movements. Honsou could not hear his words, but knew that Delau was offering his thanks that the Dark Gods had again given them a chance to strike back against the ancient enemy.

Honsou watched the red light on Goran’s slate and marked this moment in his memory. The targeting beacons they had spent the last three months planting around the spaceport on this barren rock were all now active, shrieking their locations into space.

This was the most dangerous part of their mission. The Imperials within the spaceport would now know that there were enemies close.

If the favour of their Lords deserted them then they would all be dead soon. He shrugged, the servo muscles in his armour whining as they tried to match the gesture. If it was the will of the gods that he should die here, then so be it. He had asked nothing of them and expected nothing in return.

He just hoped that if he was to die on this barren world it would be by the will of the gods, and not because of that madman Kroeger.

Piercing shrieks filled the command centre of the Hope as Honsou’s signal locators screamed into the sky. Technicians wrenched headsets from their ears at the din, and alarm sirens began wailing.

Adept Cycerin stared, ashen faced, at the runic display. Bright dots of light pulsed on the map projected before him. Each dot indicated one of the orbital torpedo silos or air defence batteries, and operators hurriedly tried to contact the men stationed there to ascertain what was happening.

Were they broadcasting? Were they under attack? What in the name of the Emperor was going on?

Cycerin returned to his monitoring station, placing his hands on the ridged, metal fixtures of the armrests. Thin, wiry tendrils of silver metal slithered from beneath his fingernails like gleaming worms and clicked into brass sockets on the ridges. The adept sighed, and his organic eye flickered behind a pale lid as information relayed from the multitude of surveyors and augurs positioned around the spaceport flooded his senses through the technology of his mechadendrites.

Awareness flooded him, his mind-sense perceiving space and distance as vectors, ranges and coverage of ground. His senses reached into space, following the sweeps of the orbital augurs. Information flowed through him, processed and compartmentalised in the synthetic logic stacks of his augmented brain. Even with his machine affinity, he could barely keep pace with the barrage of sensory data.

There had to be something, this couldn’t be happening without reason. Logic dictated that there was a cause for this effect. Something must be out of place…

There, in the north sector! He narrowed his perceptions, shutting off areas of sensory retrieval that were extraneous to his search and closing in on the anomaly. Where there should have been washes of energy sweeping down from the mountains, there was only black emptiness. The surveyor stations on the northern slopes were silent, their auguries no longer active. He immediately saw that this left an open corridor, through which an enemy could approach undetected to the very perimeter of the base.

How had this not been seen? Why had the operators here not reported such an unforgivable lapse in security? The identity of the surveyor station flashed up.

Sigma IV.

He cursed as he realised that the anomaly had been seen, but that the surveyor station’s failure to report had been put down to human error on the part of those within. He swore again, uncharacteristically letting slip his emotionless demeanour, as yet more sirens screeched around the control room.

Startled, Cycerin reopened his mind to other portions of his awareness and his breath caught in his throat as he felt the presence of dozens of starships in orbit above Hydra Cordatus. Inconceivable! Where had these ships come from and why had they not been detected before now? Nothing should be able to enter even the outer edges of the system without them being aware of it… could it? Or was this another example of human error? No, the logic engines would have screamed the place down many days ago if it had detected this size of fleet approaching. Somehow these starships had avoided detection by some of the rarest and most precious equipment available to the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Briefly he wondered what technologies these ships had and how it worked, but shook his head at such irrelevance. He had more important things to worry about. The defenders at the citadel must be warned that an invasion was imminent. He opened the mind-link to Arch Magos Amaethon’s Machine Temple in the citadel and sent the psychic alert code. The astropaths stationed there would detect it and send a more powerful psychic distress call for aid to Hydra Cordatus.

Hurriedly he closed off his mind-link and withdrew his digital mechadendrites from the monitoring station, opening his eyes on a scene of controlled efficiency. System operators called to the torpedo outstations, authenticating launch codes and feeding their operators firing solutions towards the collection of starships in orbit. Time was of the essence now and they had to get the torpedoes in the air.

Alert sirens would be ringing out in the pilots’ barracks by now and soon there would be a swarm of aircraft in the air, ready to meet whatever threat was approaching, and soldiers from the Jouran Dragoons were mustering even now to repel the attackers.

He had drilled the operators here for this eventuality time and time again, and now that it was happening for real, he was pleased to note the calmness evinced by his staff.

‘Adept Cycerin!’ shouted one of the orbital monitoring operators. ‘We have multiple signals detaching from several contacts in orbit.’

‘Identify them!’ barked Cycerin.

The operator nodded, bowing his head to his station, running his finger down the slate beside his display.

‘They’re too fast for landing craft, I believe they are inbound orbital munitions.’

‘Plot their vectors! Quickly, man!’ hissed Cycerin, though he feared he knew the answer already.

The man’s hands danced across his slate, and green lines extended from the rapidly moving blips, reaching out to the representation of the planet’s surface. Cycerin’s vox-amp crackled in sudden fear as he saw the approach vectors of the incoming bombs matched almost exactly the locator signals being broadcast from the torpedo launch silos.

‘How…?’ whispered the operator, his face ashen.

Cycerin lifted his eyes to the armoured glass windows of the Hope.

‘There’s someone out there…’

Nearly a thousand men died in the first seconds of the Iron Warriors’ initial bombardment of Jericho Falls spaceport. The battle barge Stonebreaker fired three salvoes of magma bombs into the desolate rocky slopes surrounding the spaceport, blasting vast chunks of rock hundreds of metres into the air and flattening almost all the torpedo silos in the mountains with unerring accuracy.

Alarm sirens screamed and the spaceport’s weapon batteries rumbled into firing positions as their gunners desperately sought to acquire targets before being annihilated. A few hastily blessed torpedoes roared upwards through the orange sky on pillars of fiery smoke and powerful beams of laser energy stabbed through the perpetually cloudless heavens.

More bombs fell, this time within the perimeter of Jericho Falls, demolishing buildings, gouging great craters and hurling enormous clouds of umber ash into the atmosphere. Flames from burning structures lit the smoke from within and bodies lay aflame in the wreckage of the shattered spaceport. Smashed aircraft littered the ground and more exploded as the heat from the fires cooked off their weapons and fuel tanks.

Bombs slammed into the rockcrete, scything lethal fragments everywhere. Others smashed into the runways, cratering them and melting the honeycombed adamantium with the heat of a star.

The Marauders and Lightnings out in the open took the worst of the barrage, pulverised by the force of the explosions.

The noise and confusion were unbelievable; the sky was red with flames and black with smoke. Heavy las-fire blasted upwards.

A number of shells impacted on the main hangar’s roof. Its armoured structure had absorbed the damage so far, though vast cracks now zigzagged across the reinforced walls and roof.

The main runway was engulfed in flames, burning pools of jet fuel spewing thick black smoke that turned day into night.

Hell had come to Hydra Cordatus.

Three

The first wave of drop-pods fired from the Stonebreaker landed in clouds of fire and smoke as their boosters slowed them after their screaming journey through the atmosphere. As each pod hit the ground, the release bolt on its base slammed home and the sides unfolded to reveal their interiors.

Each pod in this wave was Deathwind class, equipped with an auto-firing heavy gun platform. As they opened, the weapons began to pour their lethal fire in a spinning, circular arc. Fresh explosions erupted across the ready line as the bolts found their marks in the exposed attack craft and pilots. The volleys from the battle barge in orbit ceased as more streaking lines of fire followed the first wave. Gun turrets mounted on armoured bunkers engaged the weapon pods, methodically targeting them one at a time and destroying them with well-aimed gunfire. But the Deathwinds had done their job, keeping the gunners occupied as the second wave of drop-pods slashed downwards, unmolested, through the atmosphere towards the base.

Kroeger gripped his chainsword tight and repeated the Iron Warriors’ Litany of Hate for the ninth time since his Dreadclaw drop-pod had fired from the belly of the Stonebreaker. The pod shook with the fury of its fiery journey through the atmosphere and, as their passage became smoother, he knew that the curses and offerings to the Powers of Chaos had appeased their monstrous hunger. He grinned beneath his helmet as he watched the bone-rimmed altimeter unravel, counting the seconds to their landing.

They would now be within the lethal range of the spaceport’s guns, but if the half-breed, Honsou, had successfully completed his mission, then there should be little or no incoming fire to meet them. His lip curled in contempt as he thought of that mongrel leading one of the Warsmith’s grand companies. It was unseemly for a half-breed to attain such responsibility, and Kroeger despised Honsou with every fibre of his being.

He cast his gaze over the armoured warriors who sat around the steel-panelled walls of the drop-pod’s interior. Their dented power armour was the colour of dark iron, heavy and baroque, none less than ten thousand years old. Each man’s weapon had been anointed with the blood of a score of captives, and the stench of death filled the pod’s interior. The men strained at the harnesses that held them in place, eyes fixed on the iris hatch on the pod’s floor, every thought slaved to the slaughter of their foes.

Kroeger had picked these killers personally; they were the most blood-soaked berserkers of his grand company of the Iron Warriors, those who had trodden the path of Khorne for longer than most. The Blood God’s hunger for death and skulls had become the driving imperative for these warriors, and it was doubtful that they would ever break from the cycle of murder and killing that had swallowed them. Kroeger himself had revelled many times in the fierce joy of slaughter that so pleased Khorne, but had not yet fully surrendered to the frenzy of the Blood God.

Once a warrior lost himself in that red mist, he was unlikely to survive and Kroeger had agendas yet to follow, paths yet to tread. For Khorne was no sanguineous epicure. He cared not from whence the blood came and as the worshippers of the Blood God often discovered, their own vital fluid was as welcome as that of the enemy’s.

The drop-pod’s retros fired, filling the cramped vessel with a howling shriek like a banshee’s wail. Kroeger took the hateful screaming as a good omen.

He raised his sword in the salute of the warrior and roared, ‘Let blood be your watchword, death your companion and hate your strength.’

Barely a handful of the warriors acknowledged him, most too immersed in thoughts of the blood they would shed to even register that he had spoken. It was immaterial; the hated Imperial followers of the corpse-god would die screaming as he ripped their souls from their torn flesh. His blood sang at the prospect of killing yet more of their ancient foes and he prayed to the Majesty of the Warp that the honour of the first kill would be his.

He felt the bone-jarring impact of the Dreadclaw drop-pod through the thick ceramite plates of his power armour as it slammed into the ground. Scarcely had the bottom hatch irised open than he dropped through it, bending his knees and rolling aside as the next warrior followed him down. Thick, grey smoke from the retros obscured his vision, and the flames burning across the spaceport rendered the heat augurs in his helmet useless.

He drew his pistol, offering his thanks to the power of Chaos for giving him such a chance to bring death to his enemies.

Adept Cycerin was close to panic. He had had no response to his pleas for aid from the citadel, though they must surely be aware of their plight. The thought that there were enemies with the power to circumvent their surveyors and approach their fastness, unseen and unknown, had all but unmanned him. He cursed the weak, organic part of him that felt such bowel-loosening terror and wished again for the emotional detachment of his superiors.

The data-slate on the wall indicated a breach in the outer wall and garbled contact reports howling across the vox circuits told of giants in armour of burnished iron slaughtering all those who stood before them. He could not co-ordinate a defence without better reports and the chaos of battle was…

Chaos.

The very word sent a hot jolt of fear down Cycerin’s spine and suddenly he knew how their enemies had managed to elude their auguries. Accursed, warp-spawned sorcery must have confounded the spirits of the machines and rendered them blind to the monstrous evil that approached Hydra Cordatus. As soon as this first thought had struck, a second followed.

There could only be one reason the followers of the Ruinous Powers would come to this place and the thought made him shake with fear. Confused icons flashed on the holomap of the base, representing friendly forces deploying from barracks and attempting to engage the invaders. Cycerin could see that it would not be enough; there had simply been too much devastation in the opening moments of the attack.

But he consoled himself that he and his staff were safe enough in the Hope. Protected high within its armoured structure, there was no way an enemy could penetrate its security. No way at all.

Honsou hacked his sword through a weeping soldier’s torso, separating his upper and lower halves with a single blow. Their attack through the breach in the wall had caught the mustering Imperial soldiers completely by surprise. Most were already dead, crushed by masonry blasted from the wall by his heavy weapon teams.

An enemy officer attempted to rally his men from the hatch of his command Chimera, screaming at them to stand firm. Honsou shot him in the face and vaulted a rebar-laced chunk of rockcrete, swinging his mighty sword amongst the horrified soldiers. Gunfire raked the ground beside him, explosions of ash kicked up in red spurts by the Chimera’s hull-mounted heavy bolter. Honsou rolled aside as the turret began traversing in his direction.

‘Take that vehicle out!’ he yelled.

Positioned on the walls, two iron giants carrying long barrelled cannons on their shoulders swung their heavy weapons to bear. Twin streaks of incandescent energy blasted into the vehicle. Seconds later, it vanished in an orange fireball, raining yet more debris down upon the battlefield. Honsou picked himself up as another Chimera attempted to back away from the breach, firing its weapons as it retreated. His gunners on the wall methodically swept their weapons around and destroyed it with contemptuous ease.

The base was in flames, but Honsou’s practiced eye could see that the vital runways and landing platforms had escaped most of the violence of the bombardment. As his men gathered at the foot of the wall, he aligned himself with the map projected on the inside face of his visor. Through the smoke and billowing flames, he could see the faint outline of a tall tower with a flattened circular top. This must be the control tower and it was his next target. Wreckage and bodies littered the battlefield: drop-pods, aircraft and burning vehicles, their crews either dead or battling for their lives.

The sky was streaked with lines of fire as more Iron Warriors descended to the planet. His fellow company commanders, Kroeger and Forrix, would even now be bringing death to this world. He could not be seen to be doing less in the eyes of the Warsmith.

‘We have them now, brothers, and there is death yet to be done. Follow me and I will give you victory!’

Honsou raised his sword and set off at a sprint towards the control tower, knowing that its capture would earn him great reward. He wove a zigzag course towards the tower, pools of burning fuel and wrecked machines forcing him into frustrating detours. After three months of creeping through the mountains, it was a cathartic release of his fury to be amidst such brutality. The air was thick with death, and though he was no sorcerer, even he could feel the actinic tang of slaughter that they had brought to Hydra Cordatus.

Here and there, they met pockets of resistance, but the sight of his thirty blood-soaked warriors charging towards them broke the courage of all but the most stalwart. Honsou’s blade was dripping with gore as he and his men finally reached the tower.

Grudgingly he was forced to admit that its construction and defences were formidable. Soldiers in prepared positions surrounded it in well-constructed, angled redoubts, laying down a hail of bright las-bolts. Behind four linked and high-walled berms, Honsou could see the aerials of tanks, but what pattern they were he could not yet tell. Armoured bunkers at each of the compass points sprayed the area in front of the tower with deadly bullets, turning the open ground into a killing zone.

Honsou and his men moved into concealed positions behind the twisted wreckage of a Marauder bomber, as the thunderous crack of a tank’s main gun activated the dampers on his armour’s auto-senses. Clouds of dust and rubble rained down and Honsou could hear the cries of those wounded by the blast. They had to move fast or the citadel’s defenders would be able to counterattack before the Iron Warriors were able to consolidate their position here.

He peered through a ragged hole torn in the side of the aircraft, wrenching the pilot’s bloody corpse out of the way and pondered the situation. The corner bunkers were the key: take them and they could roll up the Imperial line with ease. The gunfire sawing from the bunkers was murderous; anyone who attempted to charge through it would pay the price for such stupidity. He grinned wryly as he saw several of Kroeger’s men, berserkers by the look of them, lying torn open, their blood leeching into the dusty ground. He wondered if perhaps Kroeger himself might be numbered amongst the dead, but knew that, despite his recklessness, Kroeger was no fool and would not risk his own neck if he did not have to.

Even as he formed the thought, he caught sight of his nemesis some two hundred metres away, firing his pistol ineffectually at the Imperial defenders. Kroeger’s attack on the tower had failed and Honsou knew that this was his chance.

He crawled along to his heavy weapon gunners and hammered his fist on the shoulder guards of the warriors with the lascannons, slung across their shoulders as easily as a human soldier might carry a walking cane.

The gunners turned, acknowledging their leader with curt nods.

Another rain of debris fell around them as a tank shell exploded nearby. Honsou pointed towards the tower, shouting, ‘When I give the order, aim for the salient angle of the near bunker, and keep firing until you break it open.’

The gunners nodded and Honsou moved further down the line. He knew he was condemning those men to death, but didn’t care. Another of his heavy gunners carried a hissing weapon with a wide, flaring barrel etched with elaborate traceries of flame. The gunner’s armour was dented and scorched in places, but the weapon was pristine, as though freshly pressed from a weapon forge.

‘When the lascannons blow open the bunker, I want you to put enough melta fire into that bunker to make the rock run like liquid.’

Without waiting for a response, Honsou rolled over towards the lascannons and jabbed his fist towards the bunker, voxing the order to stand to throughout his squads. He scrambled to the edge of the wrecked Marauder, watching as the two warriors carrying the lascannons moved into firing positions and aimed their weapons. Bolt after bolt of powerful las-blasts slammed into the protruding salient angle of the bunker, blasting away huge chunks of armaplas and rockcrete. Realising the danger, Imperial gunners switched their fire to the two heavy gunners, tearing up the ground in a storm of las-blasts and bolter fire.

The two Iron Warriors paid no attention to the incoming fire, sending shot after shot of unimaginably powerful energy into their target. Honsou watched as the angled corner of the bunker cracked wide open, the rockcrete burning orange in the heat. For a moment it appeared that the gunners might survive the hail of shots directed at them.

But the thunder of Imperial battle cannons settled the matter, obliterating both gunners in an explosive storm of ordnance. Before the echoes had died, the Iron Warrior with the multi-melta rose from his concealment and charged forwards to fire. The gun’s discharge built to a deafening screech before erupting from the barrels in a searing hiss. The warrior’s aim was true and the air within the bunker ignited with atomic fury, spurts of vaporised flesh and superheated oxygen blasting from the weapon slits.

A huge hole had been blown in the tower’s line of defence. Honsou rose up from his cover and screamed, ‘Death to the False Emperor!’

He leapt over the Marauder’s fuselage and sprinted towards the molten hell of the wrecked bunker, its walls now flowing like wax across the ground. His men followed him unquestioningly. To his left, he could see Kroeger gathering his men for the charge, obviously realising that Honsou would beat him to the tower.

Honsou leapt onto the remains of the bunker, his iron-shod boot sinking into the molten rock. The heat scorched his leg armour, but it held firm as he pushed off and dropped into the heart of the defence.

He caught a glimpse of the carnage his men had inflicted and rejoiced to see that his labours had borne such bloody fruit. Scorched and blackened limbs lay strewn about, all that remained of those stationed too close to the bunker; the backwash of the melta impact had burnt flesh and bone to cinders in an instant. An open mouthed head lay perched bizarrely atop a pile of rubble as if placed there by some macabre prankster. Honsou punched it aside as he passed.

Imperial soldiers were frantically reorganising their battle line as the Iron Warriors poured in through the gap in their defences. Honsou could see a tank – a Leman Russ Demolisher – reversing from its revetment and bringing its ponderous turret to bear on the attackers. Honsou dropped as the sponson-mounted weapons sprayed shells overhead, the ricochets tearing up the blasted rubble around him. Another white-hot blast of melta fire flashed and the Demolisher’s turret was engulfed in the inferno of the impact. Steam and smoke obscured the tank for brief seconds, but, unbelievably, it continued onwards through the boiling cloud.

Time slowed as Honsou watched the barrel of its main gun depress and knew that any second it would blast him to atoms. Then, with a terrific explosion, the turret lifted clean off, the tank detonating spectacularly from within as the shell exploded inside the main gun. Deadly shrapnel whickered through the Imperial ranks, scything men down by the dozen and ripping them to bloody rags. Honsou roared in release as he realised the heat of the melta blast must have warped the barrel enough to cause the weapon to misfire and the shell to detonate prematurely.

He rose to one knee and opened up with his bolt pistol, raking his fire over those fortunate enough to survive the destruction of the Demolisher, killing everything he saw in his battle rage.

Kroeger’s blood-maddened berserkers clambered across the shattered walls of the redoubt, ignoring wounds that would have felled a normal human a dozen times over. Not for them the elegance of precisely orchestrated attacks using sound principles of military engineering. Bodies were hurled aside, ripped apart with their bare hands when there was no weapon to wield.

Honsou spotted Kroeger amongst his men, wading through a press of bodies, hacking left and right with his chainsword. He raised his own sword in acknowledgement towards his fellow commander, but Kroeger ignored him, as Honsou knew he would. He smiled beneath his helm and sprinted through the blazing wreck of the Demolisher towards the tower.

Adept Cycerin watched the battle raging below with analytical detachment. His moment of panic had passed. Now, secure within the Hope, he watched the dance of attackers and defenders as coloured icons moving across a topographical representation of the base. Red icons surrounded the tower, periodically closing in, but each time fading as the fire of the defenders below saw them off.

He felt mildly ashamed at the panic he had displayed earlier and resolved again to request ascension to the next level of symbiosis with the holy machine. He would seek permission once these impudent creatures had been defeated. Despite his failures in the past, surely Arch Magos Amaethon would not deny him again after his masterful defence of Jericho Falls? He smiled to himself as he watched yet more red icons fade from the slate.

The smile fell from his face as the icon representing the southern bunker faded from a steady blue to an ominous black.

‘Operator Three, what’s happened?’ he asked.

‘It’s gone, destroyed,’ replied Koval Peronus. ‘One second it was there, now it’s not!’

Cycerin watched, horrified as the red icons suddenly spilled over the location that had, only moments before, been one of the lynchpins of his defence. As the defences were breached, the entire line fell apart with horrifying rapidity. The blue icons vanished as they were systematically eliminated. Cycerin could not even begin to imagine the carnage occurring less than twenty metres from where he stood.

Eerie orange glows from the fires flickered through the armoured glass windows, but no sound penetrated the control room, making it appear remote and detached. Just below him, countless lives had been lost and there would be many more before this day’s slaughter was over.

He consoled himself with the knowledge that the tower itself was totally secure and that there was nothing more he could have done to prevent this disaster.

A deathly hush fell upon the operators and staff within the tower as a massive thudding boom suddenly echoed up from the main entrance.

‘What in the name of the Machine was that?’ Cycerin whispered in terror.

Forrix watched the adamantium door shudder under the impact of the Dreadnought’s siege hammer, the metres-thick door buckling under the repeated blows. It was only a matter of moments until the door would be ripped from its frame by the screaming war machine. Thick chains, looped through bolted rings, ran from its legs and shoulder mounts, where two dozen of the strongest Iron Warriors stood ready to restrain the machine once it had broken down the door to the control tower.

He could well imagine the torment the damned soul bound within the armoured sarcophagus must be undergoing. To be cut off from the sensation of bloodletting, never to feel the beat of blood in your veins at the moment of the kill. To be denied the thrill of bare flesh against flesh as you took another being’s life. Such a fate was indeed misery and suffering. It was small wonder that, once confined to the shell of a Dreadnought, the scraps of flesh that awoke to find themselves confined within the cold, metal walls of such an eternal prison could not escape the clutches of madness.

At least for those lunatic war machines, madness was some sort of release. For killing held no joy for Forrix any longer. Ten thousand years of butchery and murder had allowed him to explore the deepest, most wretched corners of the human capacity for cruelty and death. He had shot, cut, tortured, strangled, snapped, choked, bludgeoned and dismembered uncounted souls in his long life, yet he could remember none of them. Each blended into a seamless segue of banal horror that had long since dulled his senses and vicarious enjoyment of such slaughter.

Gunfire sounded sporadically, the last pockets of resistance being mopped up even now. The half-breed’s warriors were clearing out the Imperial soldiers from the ruins of their barrack complex, and despite Forrix’s contempt for Honsou’s flawed heritage, he had to admit that his rival was a competent commander. Furthermore, he still believed in the dream of Horus, and the unification of Humanity under the terrible Powers of Chaos.

Forrix watched Kroeger pace like a caged animal, straining to be let loose within the confines of the tower. Kroeger’s impatience had long ceased to anger Forrix; now it simply irritated him. The man was a proficient killer, and he had fought the Warsmith’s enemies for ten thousand years, admittedly, but he lacked the perspective that such an eternity of war and despair should bring. Unlike Honsou, Kroeger had long since cast off any notions of the good of humanity. He fought for greed, for slaughter and the chance to exact a measure of revenge upon those who had bested them so long ago.

As for himself? Forrix no longer knew what he fought for, only that there was nothing else he could do. He had been damned the instant he had spat upon his oaths of loyalty to the Emperor. Now he could walk no other path.

His own warriors waited behind him, drawn up in serried ranks, ready to begin the massive logistical operation of landing tens of thousands of slaves, workers, soldiers and war machines from orbit. In the centuries since the betrayal on Terra, Forrix had organised hundreds of such operations and could land ten thousand men and have them ready to march off in battle order in under five hours.

Until they landed the Titans, the sheer mass of the tower was proof against their available weapons, and the Warsmith himself had impressed upon Forrix the need for swiftness in this campaign. He could not risk bringing the massive bulk carriers, essentially vast barrack ships, down into low orbit until the control tower was theirs. It was entirely likely that there were torpedo silos or orbital batteries concealed within the mountains just waiting for the chance to down such valuable targets.

Once Kroeger had taken the tower he would begin the landings.

And then this world would burn.

Kroeger watched the Dreadnought rip the bludgeoned door from its frame and hurl the massive piece of metal through the air. The mad howl of the machine echoed across the spaceport as its keepers dragged its massive bulk away from the low-ceilinged interior of the tower.

He snarled and leapt through the shattered remains of the door, blood pounding through his veins in hot excitement. His bloodlust was up, stoked by the infuriating delays in achieving entry to the tower. Screams and roars followed him, as a tide of armoured killers poured inside the last bastion of the Imperial defenders.

Las-bolts burst around him and ricocheted from his armour, but nothing could stop his powerful form. Around fifty men defended the internal space of the tower, cowardly wretches who had allowed their comrades to be butchered while they had prayed for a deliverance that would never come.

Kroeger charged straight for the heart of the defence as Iron Warriors armed with gargoyle-mouthed heavy bolters took up position either side of the tower’s door, spraying the defenders’ barricades with shells.

Five powerful strides and Kroeger was amongst the Imperial soldiers, chopping and hacking with his sword. Blood fountained and cries of terror echoed from the gore-spattered walls as the Iron Warriors slew every man that stood before them. It was an uneven struggle and as Kroeger wrenched his sword from the belly of the last man, it was with a snarl of displeasure. Where was the sport to be had in slaughtering such weaklings? The Imperium had grown soft.

Not one of these soldiers could have stood on the walls of Terra in the last days and held their head high. Kroeger shook his head, clearing his mind of ancient memories. There was battle still to be had.

Adept Cycerin sat at his monitoring station and awaited death. He listened to the shrieks of the dying echoing from the vox-speakers, and felt his terror rise once more, suffocating in its intensity. His hands shook uncontrollably and he had not been able to move his legs for the last few minutes. He was going to die. The logic stacks in his engineered brain could offer no other probable outcome, no matter how often he pleaded and prayed.

The staff of the command centre huddled, shaking, at the far end of the room, holding one another as death approached. Koval Peronus stood alone, holding a pair of laspistols pointed at the door. Cycerin was under no illusion now as to how flimsy a barrier it truly was and was impressed by the determination that shone from his underling’s features.

Suddenly the awful shrieks and clamour of battle ceased from below and Cycerin knew that the soldiers were all dead. Strange how inviolable he had felt here, and how quickly that security had been stripped from him. Watching Peronus, he saw beads of sweat gathering on his forehead, muscles bunching along his jaw-line and noticed the barely perceptible tremor to his arms. The man was terrified, yet stood his ground in the face of insurmountable odds. Cycerin was no soldier, but recognised true courage when he saw it.

Stiffly, he rose from his seat, forcing his trembling body to stand beside Koval Peronus. He may be about to die, but as an adept of the Machine God, he would die standing before the enemy with chin held high. Koval turned his head as the adept stood alongside him and smiled weakly, nodding briefly in gratitude for his superior’s support.

He reversed the grip on one of his pistols and offered it to Cycerin.

‘Have you ever fired a weapon in anger?’ he asked.

Cycerin shook his head. ‘I monitored the production of them in a weapons forge on Gryphonne IV for fifty years, but never managed to actually fire one.’

He swallowed hard. It was the longest sentence he had ever uttered to one of his staff.

‘It’s easy. Just point and pull the trigger,’ explained Peronus. ‘I’ve set the power to maximum to give us a chance of actually hurting one of these heretics, so you’ll only get three, maybe four shots at the most. Make them count.’

Cycerin nodded, too scared to even reply. The pistol felt heavy in his hands, but reassuringly lethal. Let the enemy come, he thought. Let them come, and they will find Adept Etolph Cycerin ready for them.

Kroeger crouched at the end of the corridor leading to the control room and watched as two Iron Warriors planted shaped melta charges across the door’s centre. They turned to him and nodded, retreating and taking cover as the timers activated, detonating the charges in a ball of incandescent light.

Kroeger was momentarily blinded as his auto-senses darkened his receptors to compensate, but when they reactivated, he snarled in satisfaction as he saw the door and half the wall had been obliterated.

Nothing came through the door, not a single shot, grenade, or warrior intent on dying with some measure of honour. Angry now at having been cheated of the chance for glory, Kroeger smashed his way through the smouldering remains of the door, his bulk taking a portion of the wall with him and wreathing him in smoke.

Two figures stood before him, pistols held wavering before them. Perhaps here he would find a foe worthy of his blade. He grinned as he smelled their fear.

The smile faded as he saw that neither man was a warrior. One was a tonsured technician, while the other was one of the deluded priests of the machine.

What then could they offer him that he had not already ripped from five score men already? The robed machine priest shouted and fired his pistol, the blast punching a hole in the wall beside Kroeger. The technician fired a heartbeat later and Kroeger rocked back on his heels as the impact blasted a crater in his power armour. Before the Imperial could shoot again, Kroeger was upon him, backhanding his fist across his face and decapitating him in an explosion of blood and bone.

The adept fired again, the blast scoring across Kroeger’s back. He spun, plucking the pistol from the man and tearing the hand from his wrist. The adept dropped to his knees, open mouthed in horror as blood jetted from the ragged stump.

Kroeger drew his pistol, ready to finish off the fool, when a sibilant, velvet voice hissed from the blasted doorway.

‘You would cost me my victory, Kroeger? That would be unwise of you.’

Kroeger spun, the blood surging to his head as he lowered his weapon.

‘No, my lord,’ he stammered, dropping to his knees, awed and humbled at the unexpected presence of the Warsmith.

The darkness within the room swelled as one of the mightiest leaders of the Iron Warriors entered to claim his victory. Kroeger had a barely perceived vision of armour of darkest iron, almost black, and a ravaged face glowing with pale light. Horrible vitality pulsed from that face. Kroeger fought to keep from vomiting inside his helmet, such was the force of his leader’s presence.

The Warsmith’s burnished armour was magnificent and, eyes cast down, Kroeger could see writhing shapes and leering faces swimming up from its translucent depths. Their agonised wails clawed at the edge of his hearing, bound forever within the blasted stuff of the Warsmith’s body. His footfalls fell with the weight of ages, imbued with the authority of one who had fought alongside the Legion’s primarch, the great Perturabo, on the accursed soil of Terra.

Wisps of ghostly smoke smouldered where he walked, each twisting like a tormented soul before fading into nothing. Kroeger dared not look at the Warsmith without first being commanded, for fear of instant death at the hands of one of his infernal Terminator bodyguards. They stood a respectful distance from their lord as he slowly circled Kroeger.

The Warsmith brushed his gauntleted fingers along his scarred armour and Kroeger felt intense clamps of nausea seize him in a burning grip. Every cell in his body seemed to recoil at the Warsmith’s touch and only through a mantra of hate did Kroeger remain conscious. Though the pain was intense, he felt a powerful yearning for such power. What must it be like to command the power of the empyrean, to have its unimaginable power pump through your veins like blood itself?

‘You are reckless, Kroeger. Have ten thousand years of battle taught you nothing?’

‘I desire only to serve and to kill those who would deny us our destiny.’

The Warsmith chuckled, the sound like earth falling on a coffin. ‘Do not talk to me of destiny, Kroeger. I know why you fight and it is not for anything so lofty as that.’

Kroeger felt blinding waves of pain lance through his skull as the Warsmith leaned in close to the back of his head.

‘That you kill the lackeys of the corpse-emperor is enough for me, but have a care that your own needs do not interfere with mine.’

Kroeger nodded, unable to speak, again feeling the roiling sensation of the Warsmith’s impending change wash over him. He fought to retain consciousness.

The Warsmith turned from him and Kroeger sighed in relief. The master of the Iron Warriors stood over the still-twitching form of the adept who’d shot at him. From the corner of his eye, he saw the blurry outline of the Warsmith bend and scrutinise the howling adept with the bleeding stump.

‘My sorcerer, Jharek Kelmaur, spoke of this man. The servant of the machine with only one hand. He is important to me, Kroeger. And you almost killed him.’

‘I… I beg your forgiveness, my lord,’ gasped Kroeger.

‘See to it that he does not die and you shall have it.’

‘He will not die.’

‘If he does, you will follow him screaming into hell,’ promised the Warsmith, stalking from the room.

As his master departed Kroeger felt the nauseous contractions in his gut subside and pushed himself to his feet. He turned to the mewling form of the bloodstained adept.

He lifted the whimpering man roughly by his robes and dragged him from the room.

Why the Warsmith should want this one saved was beyond him, but if it was his lord’s will that the enemy be spared, then so be it.

Four

The last sounds of battle had faded as the commanders of the three grand companies of the Iron Warriors that had come to Hydra Cordatus gathered at the behest of their lord and master.

The Warsmith stood, resplendent in his monstrous suit of power armour, pleased with the bloodletting wreaked in his name. His three champions knelt before him, each man’s armour spattered with blood, hued orange by the high midday sun. The Warsmith ignored them, casting his gaze out over the blasted wasteland that had once been a spaceport. The devastated appearance was deceptive, however.

Lumbering, earth-moving machines, brought down from orbit less than an hour ago, were already bulldozing wrecked aircraft and drop-pods from the runways and landing platforms. Bodies were crushed under their grinding tracks or gathered up in vast dozer blades and dumped unceremoniously in giant craters. He cast his eyes to the fiery sky, remembering the first time he had set eyes on this world. Both he and the planet had been very different back then, and he wondered if those who called this place home even knew how it had come to resemble such a pleasing vision of hell.

Far above him he saw a bloated shape, blurred and indistinct, but visible to his enhanced and changing eyes, floating in the fiery haze of the upper atmosphere. The massive starship strained against the oppressive attraction of gravity, disgorging hundreds of landing craft from its belly like some vast sow giving birth to her litter.

Each of this craft’s spawn was hundreds of metres in length and crammed with a mixture of slaves, soldiers, ammunition, weapons, siege engines, tools and all manner of materiel required for a besieging army. Forrix knew his trade and the Warsmith was confident that this complex and demanding operation would proceed without problem.

He knew that time was his greatest enemy. Abaddon the Despoiler had bidden them complete this task before his great machination unfolded in return for settling the debt of the Iron Warriors’ withdrawal from his designs. To the Warsmith, the Despoiler’s plans reeked of the same betrayal that had forced their hand so long ago and driven them to the fold of the dark gods. Perturabo had made the mistake of trusting one he thought was his friend and lord. The Warsmith would not make that mistake himself.

Abaddon may have his plans, but the Warsmith had his own as well.

There was a pleasing synchronicity to his return to Hydra Cordatus. Just now, as he stood on the brink of greatness, he had returned to the world where he had first put into practice the skills he had learned as a novitiate on Olympia.

What he had once helped create, he would now tear asunder.

He returned his gaze to his war leaders, scrutinising each in turn.

Forrix, captain of the foremost of his grand companies, with whom he had held the last gate of the Jarelphi Palace, who had led the retreat from Terra and whose oath of loyalty had been sworn above the clone body of Horus himself. His experience was second to none and the Warsmith valued his counsel above all others. The fires of glory had long since burned out in his one-time brother, but ten thousand years of war had not dimmed his strength, the saturation of Chaos imbuing his ancient frame with incredible power. His crafted suit of Terminator armour had been struck in the forges of Olympia itself, each greave, vambrace and cuissart hand-tooled by artificers whose skill was now all but a whispered myth.

Beside Forrix: Kroeger, the young-blood, though such a term seemed laughable now, given that Kroeger had fought the long war almost as long as Forrix. But he had always been the young firebrand, with a physical need to plunge into the crucible of combat. His armour was dented and burned in a dozen places – testimony to his ferocity in battle – yet the Warsmith knew that Kroeger possessed a cunning beyond that of a simple butcher. No Khârn of the World Eaters this one, but a killer possessed of single minded drive. Had he simply been another one of those who succumbed to the hunger of the Blood God he would never have lived this long.

Even though they dared not look at each other in his presence, the Warsmith could feel the hatred between Kroeger and the half-breed Honsou. The blood of Olympia flowed in his veins, but he had also been implanted with gene-seed ripped from the bodies of their ancient foes, the Imperial Fists. His blood was tainted with the seed of the corpse-emperor’s lapdog, Rogal Dorn, and for that Kroeger would never forgive him. No matter that he had proven himself time and time again, some hatreds were carved on the heart. No matter that his dark deeds were at least the equal of Kroeger’s. Honsou had led the Forlorn Hope through the breach in the Cadian bastion of Magnot Four-Zero after a volley of Basilisk fire had obliterated his captain. He had personally broken the siege of Sevastavork and led the Lorgamar Rebellion to ultimate victory. Yet nothing could atone for the hated blood that flowed in his veins and for this, and other reasons, the Warsmith had not named Honsou as captain of the grand company, despite his utter suitability.

The Warsmith could smell the stench of belief and ambition on Honsou, and its sickly aroma pleased him greatly. This one would risk much for the honour of his captaincy. The rivalry he had carefully cultivated between his commanders was a pungent sweetmeat that nourished his senses.

The Warsmith no longer saw as other men did: his gaze was increasingly drawn into the realm of the immaterium, perceiving things beyond the ken of mortal men, things that would drive them to insanity. In every twisting weave of air he saw hints, suggestions and lies of the future. Every dancing particle of matter whispered tales of things to come and things that might never be. He saw a myriad of futures emanating from his champions, the roar of toxin-ridden filth flashing through nightmare darkness, a terrible explosion like a new born sun, and a mighty battle with a one-armed giant whose eyes burned with icy fire. What they were he did not know, but the promise of death they imparted made him smile.

‘You have done well, my sons,’ began the Warsmith, lowering his eyes to his champions. None answered; none dared to utter a word unless so bidden by their master.

Pleased at their awe, the Warsmith continued. ‘We come to this world at the behest of the Despoiler, but it is for my purposes that we do what we must. There is a fortress here that contains something precious to me, and I would see it in my possession soon. You, my sons, shall be my instruments in its obtaining. Great reward and patronage awaits the man who brings me what I desire. Defeat and death await us all should we fail.’

The Warsmith raised his head to the rocky slopes that stretched upwards to the west of the smouldering spaceport. A well-maintained road wove its way towards their goal, the reason for the coming battle. At the road’s end, the Warsmith knew that the culmination of everything he had striven for lay secreted below the world – a prize so valuable and so secret that not even the highest and mightiest within the corrupt Imperium knew of its existence.

Without waiting for his champions, the Warsmith set off towards a chevroned Land Raider with thick armour plating bolted to its side and bronzed tracks. The adamantium door slid open with a grating hiss, and the Warsmith turned to address his champions.

‘Come, we shall gaze upon the enemy we must destroy.’

Honsou steadied himself on the cupola of his command Rhino, scanning the skies for any airborne threats to their column of vehicles. He did not really expect anything, the spaceport was in their hands and the skies above it were filled with craft launched from the orbital landers. But Honsou’s natural caution made him wary.

Dust gathered in his throat and he hawked a morsel of phlegm over the side of his vehicle, the neuroglottis implanted in his throat assessing the chemical content of the air.

The organ no longer functioned as effectively as it once had, and many of the faint echoes of toxins he could taste were unknown to him. But he tasted enough foulness in the air to know that this planet had once been poison to any living thing that set foot on its blighted surface.

He craned his neck around to look back over the route they had taken, over the dusty, arid rocks of the mountains he had called home these last three months. A haze hung over the rocks where centuries of accumulated sands had been blasted free by the orbital bombardment. Under normal circumstances, an orbital barrage was a risky venture, and surgical strikes almost unheard of. But Honsou’s covert mission in the mountains had given the gun creatures on the Stonebreaker something to aim for, and allowed them to bring the fearsome power of a battle barge to bear upon this planet’s defences.

It felt good to have the armoured might of a Rhino beneath him as he rode into battle at the head of his warriors. The foe awaited and Honsou craved the excitement of battle as it pounded, hot and thrilling, through his veins. The battle at the spaceport had been a huge release, but now he looked forward to the destruction of an Imperial fortress, the logical methodology, the precise cause and effect initiated by careful planning and organisation.

Dust filled the air and he spat again, wondering what had happened to this world to make it so barren. He dismissed the question as irrelevant, turning his gaze towards the top of the ridge ahead where the transports of Kroeger, Forrix and the Warsmith had halted, their engines idling, plumes of black smoke belching from their gargoyle-topped exhausts. It was galling to be forced to travel behind the company captains, like some kind of lap-dog. He had fought and killed for almost as long as Kroeger and Forrix; he too had committed heinous acts in pursuit of their goals, had led men through the fire and proved his worth time and time again. Why then was he denied his captaincy; why must he constantly fight to prove his worth?

The answer came easily enough as he glanced at the pattern of dried blood on his gauntlet. His polluted blood was his curse. To be created from the seed of the enemy was an insult to both himself and that enemy, and a constant reminder that he was not pure, not of true Iron Warrior stock, despite those fragments of gene-seed that had come from the chosen of Olympia.

Bitterness rose in him and he let it come, revelling in the ashen taste in his mouth. Bitterness was easier than the stench of desperation and frustration he smelled on himself, the knowledge that no matter how hard he strove, he would never be accepted.

The driver of his Rhino, once an Iron Warrior, now so mutated that he and the vehicle were virtual symbiotes, pulled onto the top of the ridge, halting the vehicle beside that of Forrix. The gnarled veteran acknowledged his arrival with the briefest nod of his head, while beyond Kroeger ignored him.

Honsou allowed himself a tight grin. No matter how bitter he felt towards his master, he could always take solace in the fact that he was warrior enough to threaten Kroeger. He knew that the Warsmith valued Kroeger, and if the headstrong captain of the second company felt that Honsou was a threat, so much the better.

The Warsmith stood at the edge of the ridge, lost in thought, and Honsou shuddered in unreasoning fear as his eyes followed the writhing of the damned souls that undulated within the substance of his lord’s armour. His eyes stung if he stared too long, but his attention was claimed by something far, far greater than the Warsmith’s armour.

Ahead, cupped within the red-brown rocks of the valley, sat the fortress complex of Hydra Cordatus.

Honsou could scarcely believe his eyes. The perfection of the citadel before him was breathtaking. Never before had he laid eyes upon such a wondrous example of the military architect’s art.

Ahead, hunched on a rocky promontory high above the plateau sat a small, three-bastioned fort, with sloped walls of featureless rockcrete. Before the centre bastion stood a tall, crenellated tower, with sweeping walls protecting the narrow gorge between the left and centre bastions. The tower commanded the plateau, though in a protracted siege, Honsou saw that it would be the first location to be destroyed. The height and steepness of the slopes leading up to the fortress presented a formidable barrier in itself, and Honsou knew well enough that any assault on its walls would be bloody work indeed. Every centimetre of the plateau before the fort was sure to be covered by guns and there could be no approach to the main citadel while this outwork remained in Imperial hands.

But as his gaze travelled further north from the high fortress, Honsou forgot the impressiveness of the fastness atop the promontory. It was but the smaller cousin to the main citadel itself, and Honsou felt the blood thunder in his veins at the prospect of attacking this mighty edifice. Its proportions were so perfect that he wondered whether even he or any of the Iron Warriors alive could have designed such a majestic creation.

Two vast bastions, each large enough to contain thousands of warriors, squatted threateningly on each side of the valley, the majority of their armoured structure concealed below the slope of the ground as it angled downwards towards Honsou. The geometry of their construction was flawless, the precision of their construction a marvel. A long curtain wall connected them and, between the two massive bastions, Honsou could see the top of what looked like a forward ravelin, an angled structure shaped, in plan, like a flattened ‘V’. The ravelin protected the curtain wall and gate behind from attack, and could sweep attackers from the faces of the two bastions with murderous flanking fire. Both fronts of the ravelin were in turn covered by the faces of the bastions, so there could be no refuge from the storm of gunfire and artillery.

Though the slope of the ground concealed the foot of the bastions and ravelin, Honsou knew that each would have a lethal mix of ditches, fire traps, killing zones, minefields and other defensive traps.

Hundreds of metres of razor wire stretched out from the lip of the glacis, the slope built up at the forward edge of the ditch before the walls to prevent them from being targeted with direct-fire artillery weapons, the wire forming a barbed carpet across the entire floor of the valley.

Much of the remainder of the fortress was concealed from his vision by the angle of the ground and the cunning of its builders, but in the centre of the northernmost face of the valley, Honsou could see a diamond-shaped blockhouse built high on the slopes, its upper walkways bristling with guns. Its positioning could only mean one thing: that it was protecting something below and out of sight, possibly an entrance to the underground defences within the mountainside.

Positioned on higher ground, nearly a kilometre to the west of this blockhouse sat an ornate tower, crowned with winged angels and carved from a smooth black stone. Even from here, Honsou could see that it was not constructed from local materials, but ones brought from off-world. A statue-lined walkway sloped down from this tower, vanishing from sight as it travelled below the horizon of the bastion tops.

What its purpose was, or how such an exquisite piece of delicate architecture had come to be built in such a desolate place, was a mystery, but Honsou paid it no heed. Its strategic importance in any plan to attack this fortress was negligible, and thus it was irrelevant to him.

Whoever had designed this citadel was a master of the art indeed and Honsou felt a fierce stirring in his belly as he imagined this place churning with men and machines, blood and death, the thunder of artillery rumbling from the valleysides, blinding clouds of choking, acrid smoke and the screams of men as they drowned in thick, sucking mud, crushed underfoot by the tread of mighty Titans.

What secrets did this citadel hold? What mighty weapon or unknown treasure was concealed within its walls? In truth, Honsou did not care, the chance to assault a place of such majesty would be honour enough. That the Warsmith desired to unlock its mysteries was sufficient for Honsou, and he vowed that whatever it took, whatever acts he had to commit, he would be the first across the shattered rubble of this citadel’s walls.

A hollow boom echoed from the sides of the valley and Honsou saw a puff of dirty smoke blossom from behind the walls of the promontory fort. Even as the shell arced through the orange sky, Honsou could see it would land short. Sure enough, the shell impacted over half a kilometre before their position on the ridge, throwing up great chunks of earth and a long plume of smoke.

The Warsmith stared in the direction the shot had come from and said, ‘The battle has begun and it is time we learned more of our foes’ capabilities.’

He turned to his champions, nodding to Kroeger.

‘Bring up the prisoners…’

Five

The commander of the 383rd Jouran Dragoons regiment, Prestre Vauban, took a lungful of tobacco from his cigar and closed his eyes, allowing the acrid blue smoke to swirl in his mouth before exhaling slowly. The thick cigar was a gift from Adept Naicin and, while he normally preferred a milder cheroot, there was something strangely satisfying about the powerful taste of this monstrous, hand-rolled cigar.

Naicin smoked them constantly and swore blind that a day would come when the Imperial apothecaries would finally admit that cigars were a healthy pastime for a man to indulge in.

Vauban somehow doubted it, but it was hard to put a dent in Naicin’s conviction once he had an idea in his head. Vauban rested his arms on the iron guard-rail and surveyed the landscape before him.

The view from the briefing chamber’s south balcony was spectacular, to say the least. The blazing orange sky had awed him with its primal fire when he had first come to this world, but now its radiance simply nauseated him. Much like everything else on this Emperor-forsaken rock. Ash covered mountaintops stretched as far as the eye could see, and were it not for his cold fury and the thick pillars of black smoke burning far to the south-east, he might have been able to enjoy the rugged beauty of the scene.

Vauban would never forget the horror of the images of Jericho Falls he’d seen on the remote pict-viewers for as long as he lived: the spaceport had burned red with the blood of his regiment. That he could not have prevented it did nothing to ease the burden of his soldiers’ deaths. They were his men and had a right to expect their commanding officer not to put them into harm’s way without good reason. He had failed in his duty to his men and the pain of that failure was a splinter in his heart.

Jericho Falls in enemy hands, and so many dead it was inconceivable to the soldier in him.

Vauban caught himself staring at the magnificent panorama of steep-sided mountains before him, thinking about the battles to come.

What would it matter if they lived or died here, he wondered? Would the mountains crumble to dust, the wind blow any less fiercely or the sun grow dimmer? Of course not, but then he thought of the vile images he’d seen at Jericho Falls. The evil they promised was unlike anything Vauban had experienced before, and every nerve in his body recoiled at the thought of such forces. They had no right to exist in the universe.

Beings who would wreak such carnage were, by their very nature evil and must be opposed.

It might not matter to the rocks and the sun whether they died here, but Vauban knew that such evil had to be opposed wherever it appeared.

‘Sir?’ said a voice, rousing him from his grim thoughts.

A staff officer stood at the armoured door that led to the briefing chamber, coughing in the stagnant air. He held a thick sheaf of folders and papers clutched close to his chest.

‘Are they all here?’ asked Vauban.

‘Yes, sir. Everyone has arrived,’ replied the officer.

Vauban nodded his acknowledgement as the staff officer gratefully retreated within. He took a last look at the soaring peaks and breathed deeply, drawing his sky blue uniform jacket tighter and buttoning his collar.

They might be at war, but appearances had to be maintained.

Vauban shivered, telling himself it was the crisp mountain air, but he only half believed it. An enemy more evil that he could possibly have imagined had come to this world.

Now they would plan how to fight it.

The briefing chamber felt uncomfortably warm to Vauban, but he ignored the sweat prickling on his brow and made his way to his chair at the head of the meeting table. Regimental colours and plaques of all the regiments that had garrisoned this citadel over the centuries lined the walls and Vauban nodded respectfully to the ghosts of his predecessors.

Every seat was taken. The senior commanders from his battalions and heads of station were gathered around the long, oval table. The commanders of his regiment sat along one side: Mikhail Leonid, his second-in-command, and the three battalion commanders Piet Anders, Gunnar Tedeski and Morgan Kristan. Along the other side of the table sat the representatives of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Adept Naicin sat with his gloved hands laced before him, smoking a long cigar, his artificial lungs purging the smoke from exhaust ports along his flexing, silver spine. A retinue of blind scriveners and auto-recorders stood behind him, meticulously noting down their master’s every movement and utterance.

Beside Adept Naicin, a brass-rimmed, holo-slate displayed a flickering image of an ashen face, haloed by wires and gurgling tubing. The face twitched as half-remembered muscle memories flickered across its features, their organic nature now subservient to the pulse of the machines around them. Arch Magos Caer Amaethon, Master of the Citadel of Hydra Cordatus, frowned from the depths of his machine-temple where he was forever linked to the beating, mechanical heart of the citadel, interfaced with every facet of its operation. So immersed in the internal matrix of the citadel, the scant remnants of Amaethon’s body could never leave his mechanised womb buried deep in the heart of the fortress.

Junior officers circled the table pouring caffeine and handing out briefing notes packed with columns of numbers listing operational strengths of units and supply readiness.

Vauban grunted with distaste. ‘There’s three kinds of lies,’ he said, quickly scanning the document, ‘lies, damn lies and statistics!’

Behind the table, tonsured technicians prepared the view-slate for the graphics Vauban had ordered and a gunmetal grey lectern was set up slightly to the side.

As the last of the techs and aides left the room, Vauban rose from his seat and moved to stand behind the lectern. The brusque commander exhaled a prodigious cloud of smoke and addressed the council of war.

‘Well, gentlemen, we’ve been hit badly and the situation’s probably only going to get worse before it gets better.’

A few scowls crossed the faces of his junior officers at this apparently defeatist statement. Vauban ignored them and continued.

‘We don’t have a lot of time, so I want to keep this as brief as possible. Then we can start getting even. We’ve taken a hit, and a damn bad one at that, but if we act now, I think we’ve got a good chance of kicking the enemy right in the teeth.

‘First, I’m going to give you all a rundown on what we’ve been seeing from here. Now, I’ll be fast, so keep up, and if I ask a question you’d better answer me quickly. But if you want to ask any questions, wait until I’m done.’

Taking the officers’ silence as assent, Vauban turned to a large scale map of the citadel and its surrounding environs that had appeared on the slate behind him. Jericho Falls was highlighted in red, while the citadel, Tor Christo and the underground tunnel between the two were picked out in green.

‘As you can see, the enemy have taken Jericho Falls and has denied us any hope of utilising the facilities there. This also precludes us from expecting any air cover or superiority.’

Vauban turned to face Gunnar Tedeski. ‘How many aircraft were based there, Major Tedeski?’

The stocky major was a small man, an ex-Marauder pilot with one arm and a crudely cauterised right eye socket of burnt flesh. Shot down whilst strafing an ork convoy, he had been taken prisoner and tortured by the greenskins before being rescued by warriors from the Ultramarines Fourth company.

Tedeski answered without consulting his notes. ‘Five squadrons of Lightnings and four of Marauders. A total of one hundred and twelve aircraft, mostly air interceptors and, we suspect, mostly destroyed.’

‘Very well, so at least we can be fairly sure that the enemy won’t be using our own craft against us. Anyway, putting that to one side for now, we still have the logistical and strategic advantage. How long that con–’

‘Excuse me, Colonel Vauban,’ interrupted Magos Naicin, ‘but can you explain how you arrived at such a conclusion? It is my understanding that we have lost the one lifeline we had to the outside world and now the enemy is using our own facilities to land yet more troops and war machines. I fail to see how this is to our advantage.’

Vauban didn’t bother to hide his annoyance, leaning on the lectern and speaking as though to a particularly stupid junior officer.

‘Magos Naicin, you are a man of science, not war, so you cannot be expected to understand, but it is plain to me that this attack on our citadel cannot succeed. We have over 20,000 soldiers, a brigade of armoured vehicles and a demi-legion of the Legio Ignatum at our disposal. I know this fortress and have read the journals of its former castellans. The kill ratio for the citadel’s bastions is, at worst, four to one and I am sure that even you will admit that such numbers are beyond the pale of what we can expect from any opposition.’

Naicin bristled at such a dismissive answer, and Vauban returned to the view-slate. Troop dispositions flashed up onto the screen, and Vauban pointed to each glowing icon in turn. ‘Our forces are dispersed throughout the main commands. Battalion C is based here along with Battalion B, altogether some 12,000 soldiers and 900 armoured vehicles. Battalion A was split between Jericho Falls and Tor Christo, and, taking into account the losses suffered at Jericho Falls, the battalion now stands at a little under 7,000 men, all currently based in Tor Christo.’

The viewscreen changed again as enemy troop positions and strengths were overlaid on the map.

‘As to the enemy, we know that since the battle at the Falls, very little has moved out of the spaceport. As to their numbers we can only guess, but we’re assuming they can’t have more than 30 to 40,000 soldiers, well armed and, right now, well motivated and led.’

Vauban paused to let the hugeness of the number sink in, pleased to note the absence of any fear in his audience.

‘Right then, so that’s the situation, as far as we can understand it. Now I want each of you to give the rest of us a quick update on your commands. Nothing fancy, and be honest. If your unit’s a mess, short of supplies or otherwise below par then I need to know about it. Understood?’

Vauban addressed the flickering, holographic figure of Magos Amaethon at the end of the table. ‘Arch Magos Amaethon, you are closer to the workings of this fort than most men, is there anything I need to know?’

The image of the arch magos fluttered on the holo and Vauban was about to repeat his question when Amaethon answered, his voice wavering and unsure.

‘I believe we must hit hard and hit quickly… yes. This citadel is strong… but any fortress will ultimately fall unless it is assured of relief, you see. We are on borrowed time unless we know that reinforcements are on their way to us. We must strive to hold out until reinforcements can arrive.’

‘Very well, you all heard the magos. I want full ammo inventories by tomorrow morning from every station. Now normally I don’t like reacting to an enemy’s moves, it gives him the initiative and keeps us on our back foot. However, in this instance, I don’t think we’ve got much choice.’

Vauban turned to his battalion commanders. ‘Gunnar, Piet, Morgan? What’s the status of your units?’

Piet Anders was the first to answer. ‘Sir, we’ll teach those curs a thing or two about fighting, ‘pon my soul we shall! Battalion C will send those heretic dogs packing with their tails between their legs before they even get to see the walls of the citadel.’

‘As will Battalion A,’ snapped Tedeski.

Vauban smiled, pleased at the aggressive spirit of his officers.

‘Very well. Good work.’

The officers saluted, eager to please their commanding officer and anxious to see some action.

The castellan of the citadel continued his briefing, emphasising each point with a jab of his fist as he circled the table.

‘Major Tedeski will continue to hold Tor Christo, reinforced by two artillery platoons from each of the other battalions. I want to lay as much ordnance on these fraggers as we can before they even get near the citadel. Major Kristan, you will hold the Vincare bastion while Major Anders holds the Mori bastion. Elements from both your battalions will take rotations in the Primus Ravelin, falling under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Leonid.’

Vauban’s officers nodded as he outlined more of his plans.

‘We are in for a hard fight, gentlemen, and we won’t do ourselves any favours by giving the enemy any respite. Assuming I can get Princeps Fierach of the Legio Ignatum to agree to my proposals, I intend to use his Titans and our armoured companies to take the fight to the enemy when a suitable opportunity arises and allow them neither time nor peace to complete their works. The longer we can delay the enemy’s advance and keep him from reaching the walls of the citadel, the more time we give reinforcements to arrive.’

Leonid leaned forwards, resting his elbows on the table and said, ‘How soon before we can reasonably expect reinforcements to arrive?’

‘I can answer that,’ replied Magos Naicin. ‘With your permission, Castellan Vauban?’

Vauban nodded his assent and the magos continued.

‘Before the capture of Jericho Falls, the Adeptus Magos stationed there was able to despatch a coded communiqué with the highest priority prefix. This will be received by all nearby Adeptus Mechanicus outposts very soon. The security prefix I detected on the message should engender the swiftest response.’

‘And how soon will that be?’ pressed Leonid.

‘It is impossible to say with any degree of certainty. Travel over such distances is fraught with all manner of variables and there are many factors that could adversely affect the arrival of our reinforcements.’

‘Your best guess then.’

Naicin shrugged and sighed, the sound like a burst of static from his vox-amp.

‘Perhaps seventy days, no more than one hundred.’

Leonid nodded, though he was clearly unhappy with the answer he’d received.

‘Have we despatched another message from the Star Chamber here? In case the first message does not get through.’

Magos Naicin shuffled uncomfortably, glancing over at the holographic form of his master before continuing. ‘Unfortunately we have been having some problems with encoding messages for transit recently and the Star Chamber is… currently unavailable to us at this time.’

Regaining his composure, Naicin said, ‘Do not let this concern you, major. It may be that our foes can defeat us by sheer weight of numbers, but that will take them time. Time they do not have if we have reinforcements on the way. They will be reckless with the knowledge that time presses upon them, making them careless. This works to our advantage.’

Naicin sat back as Vauban returned to his seat.

‘Alright, gentlemen, are we clear on what we’re all doing? We’re going to have to be sharp and quick. And we can’t afford any mistakes, so keep your rifle close and your sword sharp. Any questions?’

There were none, and Vauban continued. ‘Make no mistake, the threat we face here is very real. The coming conflict will demand the best of you and your men. The price of victory will be high, damnably high, and it is a sacrifice we must all be willing to make.

‘Now let’s go. We have a battle to fight.’

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