‘I know, captain,’ said Wayland. ‘But think about it. An enemy primarch is aboard, and nothing short of another primarch is going to be enough to drive him off. If Thamatica is doing what we think he’s doing then we can kill Perturabo. Right here and now. It won’t matter how tough a primarch is, he won’t survive this. We can avenge Ferrus Manus.’
The armoured door of the apothecarion blew in with a dull clang. Escaping gases vented explosively through the torn hatch, followed closely by a shrieking blast of noise. Glass shattered and medicinal fluids spilled out; a stink of chemicals mixed with counterseptic. Clashing soundwaves zipped through the chamber like miniature comets, crazing steel and shattering anything crystalline.
Cracks spread over the surface of Ulrach Branthan’s casket as Ignatius Numen and Septus Thoic returned fire, filling the empty space with shots. The sound was deafening in the enclosed space. Booming echoes and spiralling contrails pierced the gunsmoke.
Atesh Tarsa knelt beside Ulrach Branthan’s casket and sighted down the length of his sniper rifle. The scope was slaved to his narthecium gauntlet and projected a wireframe rendition of his target onto his visor, with their internal organs highlighted in red. It made for kill shots every time, but ensured his battles were fought in a neon chrome shimmer of bio-thermal imagery. Right now the blown hatch was lousy with flaring heat, bolter trails and scattered, impossible readings.
A roaring form ploughed through the haze, a thunderous giant bleeding heat and biometrics that defied easy understanding. Enormous and powerful, its organs were like miniature suns within its frame, spreading energising light all through a body of monstrous proportions. Tarsa snap-fired, and the thing’s organs immediately went supernova as his custom-designed bio-ammo sent it into toxic shock. Distilled from the venom of the sulvaek lizards of the Wa’kulla ash swamps, Tarsa’s concoction was lethal to even the most robust cardiovascular system.
The creature kept coming.
Another round into its chest slowed it, but didn’t stop it. Two headshots from Ignatius Numen finally put it on its back, but by then more were pressing through the hatch.
‘Rally to the captain!’ shouted Numen, moving position as a third impossible beast pushed into the apothecarion. Septus Thoic rolled from behind cover and fired a short burst into the chest of the lumbering creature. It turned and backhanded him across the chamber.
‘This is Tarsa!’ he yelled into the vox. ‘We need help in the apothecarion. Now!’
He disengaged the narthecium link and his vision snapped back into focus.
Immediately he saw the beast was a Space Marine, one mutated far beyond its base genome. Tarsa was an Apothecary, one of the Legion’s guardians of its genetic heritage, and to see such a gross insult to the great work of the Emperor was an affront like no other. Even the Warmaster’s betrayal shrank in comparison to this treachery. Horus’s rebellion was an insult to an ideal and had its roots in mortal disaffection, however hard that was to comprehend, but this was an insult to life itself.
He fired at the beast Thoic had injured. The shot punched into its skull like a trepanning auger and the toxin devoured its brain in seconds. It dropped with its club-like paws clutched to its head as its higher functions were necrotised.
Yet another monstrous Space Marine pushed into the apothecarion and Numen put a burst of fire into its chest before it was upon him. Tarsa went to swing his rifle round, but stopped as he saw three warriors in garishly decorated battle-plate appear in the wrecked doorway. His senses recoiled from the shrieking noise surrounding them, a din of clashing disharmony and a riot of screams issuing from shoulder-mounted augmitters. He recognised the Emperor’s Children from their hideous appearance on Isstvan V and wasted no time in putting a round through the throat of the first warrior as he unlimbered a long wire-coiled stave connected to an amplification device on his back.
The warrior dropped to his knees, a gurgling howl of pleasure torn from his opened throat as the stave flared with a burst of blue fire and a booming bass note that hurled Tarsa against Branthan’s stasis casket. He crashed down on the other side, rolling to his feet and moving away from the fallen captain.
The gurgling warrior slumped forwards as another turned a low-slung weapon around, its neck slender and flanged with whipping steel strings and a vicious barb at its end. The legionary pounded the flared base of the weapon before Tarsa could wonder at its exact function, and the air between them buckled with pure concussive force. Once again Tarsa was hurled back and his armour cracked open under the sonic pressure.
He fell to the tiled floor, his visor a static blur of overloaded systems, his rifle shattered into fragments by the blast.
Bolter fire and a roar of hatred sounded among the bellowing screams and shrieks of the Emperor’s Children’s bizarre weaponry. A head bounced from the walls and rolled towards him, a pink helmet with all manner of auditory pickups worked into the metal. Blood drooled from the ragged edges of the neck, and Tarsa pushed himself to his feet in time to see Ignatius Numen bury his chainsword in the guts of another legionary. The Morlock’s breastplate was cratered in the centre, as though from a tremendous impact, and his battle helm was missing.
Septus Thoic wrestled with one of the gene-spliced Space Marines, but his strength was no match for the boosted physique of the monster. Tarsa climbed onto the end of Branthan’s casket and leapt onto its back, driving the functional end of his reductor into the back of its skull. Drills, blades and organ scoops normally used to remove progenoid glands chewed a fist-sized chunk from its head. Gurgling brain matter and blood filled the tissue compartments of Tarsa’s gauntlet, and the creature let out an anguished howl before its nervous system finally processed that it was dead.
Tarsa dropped from its back as it fell, and – too late – felt a presence dart in close to him. Something long, sharp and slender punched into his flesh through the cracks in his armour, and he let out a cry of agony as a poisonous chemical sent shrieking bolts of pain along every receptor in his body. He fell like a broken automaton, his limbs jerking and his internal organs pulsing as their functions went into overdrive.
Tarsa’s vision blurred with induced pain, but he saw Septus Thoic brought down by a series of clubbing blows from the last of the mutated Space Marines. The creature stamped down on Thoic’s form, but Tarsa couldn’t see whether the Morlock was still alive. Another blast of concussive sonics filled the apothecarion and Ignatius Numen collapsed, clutching his skull as though it were about to burst.
Tarsa tried to crawl towards Ulrach Branthan’s casket, but his nerves were jangling as if an ogryn were hammering the synapses of his brain. Nothing was his to control any more, and he wanted to scream in anger, but even that catharsis was denied him.
A figure loomed over him and turned him onto his back, propping him up against the edge of the stasis casket. Tall and swathed in a long robe of a grotesquely fleshy texture, the figure’s long white hair, sunken cheeks and parchment-yellow skin marked him as a practitioner of the deathly arts, one who in ages past would have been called a necromancer. And yet he still bore the sigils of the Apothecary on his pauldrons, a faded prime helix still visible beneath fresh daubs of mindless vandalism. A squatting machine-like presence clung to the Apothecary’s back, a loathsome mechanised parasite with blackened limbs of blades and hypos. Its waving parts appeared to be studying him.
Tarsa wanted to spit in the traitor’s face, but even as he felt a measure of control in his facial muscles, he knew he would never regain mastery of his body in time to thwart this Apothecary’s plans. His head lolled to one side, and he saw Ignatius Numen spasming uncontrollably, his weapons fallen to the floor as he sought to stem the tide of blood streaming from his ears.
Two Emperor’s Children stood, splay-legged, before him, cradling their howling, squalling instrument-weapons in their spiked gauntlets. One stood a head taller than the other, his armour bedecked in obscene sigils, hooks and vibrational pickups. His face was a viciously stretched
and swollen nightmare of mutant bone growth and bionic implantation, making it look as though he were permanently screaming.
Tarsa fought for some defiance, but whatever toxin or nerve agent had been used against him was too potent to overcome. The Apothecary saw the hate in his eyes and grinned, exposing yellowed teeth and exhaling a corpse’s death rattle.
‘Don’t die yet, little Salamander,’ said Apothecary Fabius. ‘I might yet have need of you.’
SIXTEEN
A Matter of Trust
Unconventional Entrance
Sisypheum Unleashed
Cadmus watched the readout on his command lectern, swallowing as the power levels in the engine core continued to rise. In a matter of moments the reactors were going to explode and destroy the Sisypheum, and though every fibre of his being rebelled against such a course of action, he knew Wayland was right.
If by their deaths they could kill a traitor primarch then they would have achieved something worthwhile after all.
He knew he should say something to the crew, final words to express the honour he felt at having served with them, but the words wouldn’t come. Branthan would have given a valediction that would have survived his sacrifice, words that would live on beyond his death and be quoted by men and women facing their own demise.
Tyro had nothing, and never had he felt more like an inadequate replacement for Captain Ulrach Branthan.
He looked over at Sabik Wayland, but the Iron Father would not meet his gaze, too fixed on the readings streaming into the engineering station. Garuda flapped its metal wings in the upper reaches of the bridge, cawing and swooping down around the eldar guide. If Varuchi Vohra was irritated by the bird’s attentions, he gave no sign.
‘How long?’ asked Tyro.
Wayland looked up. ‘I’d estimate around three and a half minutes.’
Tyro cleared his throat. ‘We did some good out here, Sabik,’ he said.
Wayland nodded. ‘Aye, captain,’ he said. ‘That we did. Ferrus would be proud of us.’
‘I’ll settle for not being a disgrace,’ said Tyro.
Wayland looked confused by that, but his response was broken off when the vox-station crackled with an incoming transmission. A blare of emergency horns and whooping brays of superheated steam filled the bridge, but through it all cut a voice that was part desperation, part gleeful anarchy.
‘Cadmus? Cadmus, are you there?’ called Frater Thamatica.
‘Frater? Is that you?’
‘Yes, of course it is,’ answered Thamatica. ‘Who else would it be?’
‘Damn you, Thamatica, you’ve killed us all,’ spat Tyro.
‘Not yet, boy, but keep interrupting me and you might.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Is Frater Wayland still on the bridge?’ asked Thamatica over the crashing bangs and screeching sirens from the engineering spaces.
Wayland rushed over to the vox-station and grabbed the speaker horn.
‘I’m here, Frater,’ he said. ‘You’re drawing all the excess energy into the engines.’
‘I am,’ agreed Thamatica.
‘They’ll go critical in under three minutes.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s slightly over three minutes, Frater,’ said Thamatica. ‘You can’t beat in situ data recording. But accuracy aside, you need to get Cadmus to transfer command authority to the data engine down here. I need the ship.’
‘Not a chance,’ snapped Tyro. ‘I’m not giving you the ship’s last command.’
‘You have to,’ barked Thamatica, all levity gone from his voice. ‘And do it quickly, captain, or we are all dead.’
‘Dead? We’re already dead, Thamatica,’ said Tyro. ‘You’ve seen to that. You’re going to blow up the ship.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Thamatica. ‘I’d never blow up this grand old ship. Well, not deliberately anyway. Now you listen to me, Cadmus Tyro. I’ve been pushing starships to the edge of their tolerances and beyond since before you got your fist lopped off. Now transfer command to my data engine, and I swear by the Seven Sacred Shadows of Karaashi that we will live through this. And if we don’t, well, it won’t matter anyway.’
Tyro looked up at Wayland, who shrugged with incomprehension.
‘What are you planning?’ asked Wayland.
Thamatica’s amusement was audible even over the noise below decks.
‘You’ll see, Sabik,’ he said. ‘But best get that guide ready at the helm. Oh, and one last thing.’
‘What?’
‘Hold onto something.’
The breaching charges were in place and ready to break open the guts of the Iron Hands ship. Every legionary of the Iron Warriors was a demolitions expert, and Kroeger was no exception. Within minutes of the embarkation deck’s clearance, he had rigged charges capable of tearing through the heavy armour of the blast doors. Kroeger checked the ring of explosives around the main shutter one last time and jogged back towards Perturabo.
The primarch had said nothing since the last of the Iron Hands had been killed, walking among the dead as though seeking something lost. Forrix was at his side, the wily old First Captain having delegated the placement of his demolition charges.
‘We’re ready to breach,’ said Kroeger, arriving at Perturabo and Forrix’s side.
The Iron Circle formed a wide ring around the primarch, their number smaller by two. That the Iron Hands had managed to destroy any of the battle robots had surprised Kroeger, but he should have known the X Legion was never one to lie down and take a beating. Once again, Kroeger had been honoured to watch his primarch in battle, and standing in the ruin of another crushing victory, Kroeger had never been prouder to serve the IV Legion.
Perturabo surveyed the aftermath of the fighting: the dead bodies, the wrecked vehicles and the torn-up remains of flesh. Backlit by the flames of a gutted Rhino, he stood taller than Kroeger remembered. His cloak lifted and flapped in the thermals of the fires and the black and gold gemstone in the skull brooch caught the firelight.
Perturabo nodded and dropped to one knee with his hand pressed to the deck.
‘Not yet, triarch,’ said Perturabo. ‘I need a moment.’
Kroeger looked over at Forrix.
‘They’ll be regrouping at choke points deeper in the ship,’ he said, knowing that Perturabo and Forrix must surely be aware of this.
‘They are indeed,’ said Perturabo. ‘And we will root them out and destroy them. It will be difficult and we will lose many warriors along the way.’
‘We lose more the longer we wait,’ said Kroeger.
‘I know that.’
‘Then I don’t understand why you’re hesitating, my lord.’
‘You mistake consideration for hesitation, Kroeger. I am giving our worthy enemies a last stand,’ said Perturabo, rising and indicating the hideously mutated flesh of the monsters Fabius had brought aboard. ‘This was not an honourable victory, so we owe the Iron Hands an honourable death.’
‘That makes no sense,’ raged Kroeger. ‘We need to push on quickly, kill them all before they can turn this ship into more of a death trap than it already is.’
Perturabo drew Forgebreaker and swung it round, letting the killing face come to rest on Kroeger’s breastplate.
‘Careful, my young triarch,’ said Perturabo, his voice devoid of tone. ‘I need a plain speaker in the Trident, not a yapping dog. Be silent.’
Kroeger looked to Forrix for support, but the First Captain had the fingers of his right hand pressed to the side of his helm. His head nodded at whatever he was hearing over the vox and he looked up. His alarm was obvious.
‘My lord,’ said Forrix urgently. ‘We need to get you off this ship.’
Perturabo lowered his hammer and turned to the First Captain. ‘Explain.’
‘Barban Falk reports a massive build-up of power in the ship’s engine reactors,’ said Forrix. ‘They’re almost overloaded; minutes at best from blowing this ship to radioactive debris.
’
Perturabo shook his head. ‘It’s a bluff,’ he said. ‘If the Iron Hands are dying here, they’re going to do it fighting.’
‘You can’t be sure of that,’ said Forrix.
‘I knew my brother,’ said Perturabo. ‘And his Legion would not end their own lives like this. Not when there are enemies left to fight.’
‘Ferrus Manus is dead, my lord,’ said Forrix. ‘Who can say what his Legion of flesh-haters are capable of now that he’s gone?’
‘Not this,’ said Perturabo, adamant.
‘No,’ said Kroeger with sudden certainty, confident of what he would do were the roles reversed. ‘You’re wrong, my lord. They’ll gladly blow this ship apart if they think they’re going to kill you in the process. What do the lives of a few hundred legionaries matter against the killing of a primarch? One ship of warriors measured against the life of the Lord of Iron? It’s no question at all. I’m just surprised it’s taken them this long to realise it.’
Perturabo didn’t reply, considering the words of his triarchs.
With every second that passed, Kroeger expected to feel the white-hot instant of detonation as the ship’s reactor core exploded.
‘My lord,’ pressed Kroeger. ‘You wanted a plain speaker, well this is as plain as I can say it. You need to get off this ship right now. They’ll end their lives in a nuclear fireball if they think you’ll die too. But if it’s just us, then they’ll fight. We can take this ship, you know we can, but we can’t do it with you aboard. You need to go and leave the killing to us.’
Kroeger tensed as Perturabo’s cold eyes fixed on him. Berossus had been broken by Forgebreaker for less. At last the primarch nodded and drew the hammer across his shoulders.
‘No,’ he said. ‘We all go. As you say, this ship is a death trap by now, and I’ll lose no more warriors to Fulgrim’s vanity. We will return to the Iron Blood and blow this ship apart with our guns. And if the Andronicus gets in our way then we’ll gut it too.’
Kroeger grinned. This was the Iron Warriors way of war.