Sergeants and captains sought to steady their warriors with words of duty and courage, but their words were laden with fear and only served to drive icy splinters deeper into the hearts of the Defence Auxilia.
With a titanic crash, the clouds overhead unleashed their fury. A deluge of black rain fell and surging flares of lightning slammed down on the ridges between the three fortresses. Like hammer blows from orbiting warships, the ridges vanished in sheets of fire as a dozen artillery pieces exploded. Secondary detonations swiftly followed as magazine stores were touched off. Corkscrewing shells arced up over the battlefield, falling randomly amid the defenders as yet more forking blasts of light hammered the defenders.
Battery commanders ordered their mobile artillery into the shelter of hardened hangars cut into the rock, but it was too late for many of them.
Twisting bolts of fire made a mockery of thick plates of armour and plasma jets filled each tank with searing fire that incinerated their crews in a heartbeat. No sooner had much of the Imperial artillery been effectively silenced than the booming chants from beyond the wall rose to new heights.
With rabid yells and a blare of discordant war horns, thousands of Bloodborn soldiers and battle tanks surged over the wall into Four Valleys Gorge.
FIFTEEN
URIEL WATCHED THE sheeting flames engulf the artillery positions. Their defences had been planned out with the expectation of facing a conventional army, one that fought with logical tactics and which reacted to changing circumstances with reasonably predictable methods. That had been a mistake, for the forces of the Ruinous Powers were anything but predictable, their very existence derived from the fluid chaos of the immaterium.
Lit by the fires of burning tanks and the strobing flashes of lightning, the Bloodborn charged down the slopes of the gorge towards the Imperial defenders. Uriel had expected a riotous mob of ill-disciplined rabble, but straight away he saw that these were trained soldiers, not simply piratical killers. They moved from cover to cover, one group advancing as another fired suppressive bursts of automatic gunfire.
Tanks crashed through unmanned barricades and opened fire on Defence Auxilia positions with their main guns crashing back on recoil compensators. A rippling series of explosions erupted from the defenders’ lines. Weapon fire answered the charge of the Bloodborn, but it was uncoordinated and desultory. The soul-crushing despair conjured by the enemy’s warpcraft and the black rain still held many in its paralysing grip, and only slowly could its claws be torn free of the heart.
To their credit, the Defence Auxilia troops were recovering their wits and courage far quicker than most mortals afflicted by such sorcery, but Uriel saw it wouldn’t make any difference unless he acted now.
“Ultramarines!” ordered Uriel, standing tall in the Rhino’s cupola. “Forward. General advance. Gladius formation.”
His Rhino reversed from its sheltering berm and gunned its engine, throwing up clods of dark earth and water as its tracks fought for purchase on the sodden ground. The vehicle surged forward, picking a swift path through the trees towards the forward lines of battle. Uriel had hoped to keep his warriors in reserve long enough to pinpoint the weakest point in the attack and split the enemy advance, but events were moving too fast for that now.
The Rhinos of the 4th Company smoothly moved into position behind him, the blade of the gladius, with two Land Raiders forming the quillons and the company’s Thunderstrikes the hilt. Uriel gripped the handles of the storm bolter, allowing the mechanisms of his new augmetic eye to link with the machine spirits of the vehicle.
“Exceptional work, magos,” said Uriel as a targeting reticule appeared in the centre of his vision, the eye’s internal mechanisms compensating for the movement of the tank and the low light conditions. He squeezed the trigger, working the weapon over a group of enemy soldiers running for the cover of a ruined wayshrine. Two bursts cut them down and he swung the weapon to bear on another group. Guided by the reticule, another precisely-aimed burst killed six enemy warriors.
The Defence Auxilia were firing back in earnest now, and not a moment too soon; the enemy were almost upon them. Gunfire blazed back and forth in desperate bursts, splintering timber and tearing through sandbags. The Bloodborn were an army of monsters, their bronze and iron masks rendered into screaming daemonic horrors. Those that eschewed helms had disfigured their features with blades and claw into grotesque visages worse than any mask.
No two were alike, yet for all their individuality, they fought as a cohesive whole. They were well led and had been trained for just this sort of fight. Uriel worked the storm bolter over a dashing group of enemy soldiers, dropping them with one pull of the trigger as his Rhino slewed to a halt in the shadow of an empty tank berm.
He dropped into the Rhino, pulling the hatch shut behind him as the armoured doors on the side of the vehicle slid open. Petronius Nero was the first out, followed by Ancient Peleus, who immediately unfurled the banner of the 4th Company. The Swords of Calth debarked from the Rhino with speed and efficiency, and Uriel led them towards the nearest barricade as he took in the flow of the battle.
He was aware of the precise locations of every one of his warriors, their arcs of fire and the position of the enemy forces within range. Information gathered by his new eye was filtered through his enhanced mind to provide him with the most precise tactical appraisal of the battlefield imaginable. In seconds he had mapped out the fluid lines of combat.
“Sergeant Aktis, suppressive fire on the ruined wayshrine to the east, the enemy have heavy guns set up there. Nestor and Theron, hold the barricades to your front and keep pouring fire on those woods. Pasanius, push forward on the left. There are Bloodborn massing in the ruins to your front. Drive them out and push east to force them into the fire arcs of Aktis. All other squads support Defence Auxilia forces and be ready to plug any gaps.”
Uriel switched networks and said, “Land Raiders Artemis and Capitalinus, ignore the infantry. Target enemy battle tanks. Split them down the middle.”
“And what of us?” asked Brutus Cyprian, tapping the Ultramarines icon on side of his bolter. “Are we not to get into the fight?”
“Far from it, Cyprian,” said Uriel, risking a glance over the top of the barricade as a flurry of wild shots sparked from the metal. Thunderous, volleys strafed the hillsides and slashing missiles exploded amid the blackened stumps of brickwork and steel on the eastern slopes. Uriel saw Pasanius and Chaplain Clausel leading their warriors through a storm of gunfire towards the ruins sheltering a fifty-strong platoon of Bloodborn.
“Incoming armour,” said Livius Hadrianus, hefting his melta gun to his shoulder.
Enemy tanks, bastardised machines of leaking oil and iron spikes, ground over the torn earth of the hillside, their heavy guns traversing to target the Ultramarines positions.
“Forget them,” said Uriel, seeing a mass of Bloodborn soldiers advancing alongside the tanks. “We take the infantry.”
Driven from their original course by the gunfire of Tactical Squads Nestor and Theron, the Bloodborn soldiers thought to advance under the protection of their heavy armour. That was a foolish mistake.
Uriel watched a corrupted Leman Russ explode as a searing las-bolt punched through its turret and blew the weapons from its sides. A dozen Bloodborn were cut down by scything shrapnel, and the ground shook as two Ultramarines Land Raiders swept through the gaps in the defences torn by the artillery duel to engage the enemy tanks. Thunderous streams of shells flew back and forth between them, but the armour of the Land Raiders was proof against all but the most lethal impacts. “Now,” shouted Uriel. “Swords of Calth! With me!” Uriel scrambled over the barricade and leapt forward with his sword sparking to life and hissing in the black rain. The ground underfoot was sludgy and slick, but with the new systems incorporated in his eye he found he could keep his balance as easily as if he was marching across a parade ground. Storm bolter fire from the Rhinos slashed overhead, suppressing the enemy while the Ultrama
rines moved to attack.
The rain dulled everything to shadows lit by strobing flashes of gunfire and explosions. Burning tanks and blooming flares of missile detonations lit the unnatural twilight, but the senses of the Space Marines easily penetrated the hellish inferno. Bolter fire cut down four Bloodborn soldiers who emerged from the cover of a burning tank, and a searing tongue of flame engulfed the rear of the pack. Perhaps twenty or so of the Bloodborn survived to fall upon the Ultramarines.
Viewed from a distance, the Bloodborn were hideous travesties of soldiers, but up close they were much, much worse. They stank of sweat and grease, their tattered uniforms stiffened with ordure, as though they deliberately tried to make themselves as repugnant as possible. Yet for all their disgusting masks and filth-encrusted uniforms, they were mortal. Inquisitor Suzaku’s warning had led him to expect the very worst the Ruinous Powers could hurl at them, but these warriors were mortal and fragile. When the daemons came, and he had no doubt they would, that would be a different matter.
A warrior with a snarling daemon mask hurled himself at Uriel. A serrated bayonet slashed at him, but Uriel blocked it easily, rolling his wrist and plunging his sword into the man’s throat. He spun low and slashed his blade through the legs of another, rising up to backhand another with his fist.
Enemy warriors surrounded them, but the Swords of Calth fought in a wedge that pushed hard into their ranks. Their presence was like a lode-stone, attracting more howling killers with every moment.
“So many of them!” shouted Livius Hadrianus.
“Just more for me to kill!” replied Brutus Cyprian, crushing a Bloodborn warrior’s face with the butt of his pistol.
“Would that it were more,” answered Hadrianus.
“They will have a bounty on every one of us they kill,” said Uriel.
“How do you know?” asked Petronius Nero, his sword cutting down Bloodborn warriors with graceful strokes. Where Nero was an artist, Cyprian and Hadrianus fought without finesse, bludgeoning the enemy with hacking swipes of their chainswords and pistols.
“Because that is what I would do if I were their commander,” answered Uriel, taking Clausel’s last words to him to heart.
Selenus fought beside Uriel, firing short bursts of pistol fire in support of the rest of the squad. The Swords of Calth moved as one, pushing forward and killing everything in their path with grim efficiency. Uriel lost count of how many enemy soldiers he had killed, his sword red from quillons to tip. The line had held, and the Bloodborn were battering themselves to destruction against Uriel’s warriors.
Booming detonations echoed from the sides of the compartment as enemy vehicles exploded, picked off by Aktis’ Devastators or the powerful guns of the Land Raiders. Hot winds blew through the cavern compartment reeking of burned metal and cooking meat. The thick smoke made it hard to see much of anything. The tide of this engagement was turning, and Uriel felt the will of the Bloodborn to push into the teeth of the Ultramarines defence eroding with every passing second.
“Ancient!” he shouted. “Lift the banner high!”
Peleus nodded and sheathed his pistol, lifting the company standard high in both hands for all the defenders to see. Even in the dark rain, the banner of the 4th caught the firelight and a great cheer burst from the Defence Auxilia at the sight of it. In a lull between kills, Uriel looked over his shoulder, heartened to see the ranks of mortal soldiers once again manning their positions and firing into the enemy with their customary diligence.
A huge fireball rose from the ruins to the east. Uriel saw burning bodies tumble from the shattered towers and ramparts. Above him on the hillside, Bloodborn warriors were falling back from the forests and onto the road. Behind them, Pasanius, Clausel and the Firebrands took up firing positions at the timberline and began picking them off with carefully aimed shots. Not that there were many left. Pasanius’ warriors had driven the Bloodborn into the sectors of Theron and Nestor, and withering flanking fire had left few alive.
“The enemy retreats!” shouted Nero.
“Do we pursue?” asked Hadrianus, eager to be unleashed.
Uriel dearly wished to finish the enemy, to take this opportunity to drive them from Calth once and for all, but to recklessly pursue the foe was not something the Codex Astartes favoured. In any case, the question was rendered moot by what came over the crude fortress wall built at the end of Four Valleys Gorge.
A host of mechanised cyborg machines armed with revving chainblades, heavy calibre weaponry and protected with thick plates of armour. Nightmarish howls of scrapcode spewed from splintered augmitters affixed to their chests and heads. They moved like chittering insects on multiple legs, a hideous blend of organic and machine parts animated by daemonic wills into hellish living weapons.
This was the daemonic threat of which Suzaku had warned him.
Like a plague of locusts, they swarmed towards the Ultramarines in their thousands.
HONSOU PULLED THE bars of the restraint harness down over his head and locked it in place with a hard snap of metal on metal. He disliked being so confined, especially when Cadaras Grendel hadn’t yet pulled his harness down, but he was the leader and a leader had to lead. All around him, Iron Warriors followed his example, and in moments forty of his best fighters were arranged around him. He didn’t like the idea of going into battle like this, confined in a long metal tube, but supposed it was no different to a boarding torpedo or a dreadclaw assault pod. Nor were the Iron Warriors alone, for the Blade dancers of Xiomagra came on this mission too.
Grendel and the Newborn took their places opposite him, and he nodded to his lieutenant and champion as they locked themselves in place. Grendel wasn’t wearing his helmet and his scarred face glared at him across the compartment.
“I don’t like this,” he said, looking over at the Blade dancers. “Bad enough that we’re errand boys for M’kar, but do we have to take these effetes with us?”
Honsou leaned forwards. “Say that to their faces,” he said. “I dare you.”
Grendel said nothing, remembering his earlier humiliation at the hands of Xiomagra. Truth be told, Honsou wasn’t keen on them coming along either, but there was space for them, and it was likely their extra blades would come in handy.
The Blade dancers sat silently at the rear of the compartment, heads bowed and their long swords held, point down, before them. Honsou thought that looked dangerous, given the vibration and rumbling this journey would entail, but smiled at the idea of one of Xiomagra’s warriors getting their head cut off by accident. He’d keep his eyes on them in case that happened.
He shook his head and returned his attention to the fore as the Newborn spoke.
“I agree with Grendel, but not because I do not trust the Blade dancers,” it said.
“Oh, then why?” asked Honsou.
“It feels… wrong to quit the field of battle like this. To leave the fighting when the outcome is not decided.”
“There’s the Ultramarine in you again,” laughed Grendel.
“The outcome doesn’t matter,” said Honsou. “It never did. Not yet, anyway.”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Grendel, as the whining roar of the vehicle’s engines and main generators powered up. “I thought you said this mission was secondary.”
“I lied,” said Honsou, “It needs to be done, the sooner the better. While the Ultramarines attention is fixed on this gorge, we can be elsewhere.”
“And you know where this shrine is?” Grendel asked the Newborn.
“I do,” said the Newborn. “In a cave of dragons. The walls are covered with murals and mosaics of them. They’re crude, like children’s paintings. There’s a wall of rock and a secret way through to another cavern beyond. No one knows it’s there, at least not anymore.”
“And that’s how we’re going to find it?” said Grendel with a sneer. “It’s hardly exact coordinates is it?”
“It’s close enough,” said Honsou. “We’ll tunnel down into the c
averns below and take it from there. See where fate leads us.”
“Great,” snapped Grendel. “And here was me worried you didn’t have a plan.”
“I always have a plan,” smiled Honsou.
With a grinding rumble of greased runners and a shrieking whine of hydraulics, the back of the compartment began rising and red lights began flashing along its length, Honsou felt the familiar excitement of going on a mission where the odds were stacked against success. Whining, high-pitched shrieks of drill bits and lasers biting rock echoed through the troop compartment as the burrowing war machine tore into the rock of Calth. Far beyond the tunnel mouth, the battle of Four Valleys Gorge raged on, but Honsou and his warriors would play no part in it.
“No doubt Obax Zakayo would have said this mission was foolhardy and reckless,” shouted Honsou as the compartment shook violently with the force of their descent.
“And he would have been right,” said Grendel.
“Aye, maybe so,” said Honsou. “But it feels good to be doing it.”
THE HOLO-SPHERE LIT up with traces of enemy movements and troop dispositions as Magos Locard processed the thousands of inputs he was receiving from the myriad augurs and surveyor equipment available to him through the surfaces of Lex Tredecim. A Capitol Imperialis was a vast network of command and control capabilities, but one crafted by the Adeptus Mechanicus was far more.
Equipped with machines designed to detect elements, wavelengths and physical phenomena far beyond anything required by the Imperial Guard, its sensor feeds would have overwhelmed such mortal strategos or military adjutants. Thirty multitasked servitors moved through the command bridge of Lex Tredecim, gathering information and feeding it directly into the holo-sphere.
Right now he was tracking the movement of the thousands of bastardised Praetorian battle servitors pouring over the makeshift fortress wall the Iron Warriors had erected. Though many of the emotions mortals took for granted had been supplanted with superior logical faculties, he still felt deep and bitter loathing for the corrupted magos who had so perverted these perfect specimens of the Omnissiah.