Vaanes narrowed his eyes, wary at letting Uriel speak directly to his men, but realising that he could not refuse. ‘Very well. Let’s hear what you have to say.’
Uriel nodded and followed Vaanes and his men into the still air and burning glare of the black sun. Space Marines filed out of the blockhouse and descended from their posts in the peaks surrounding the bunker complex as they were called down. Yawning and blinking, Leonid and Ellard stepped into the brightness of the valley, cradling their lasguns over their shoulders.
When the entirety of the renegade warrior band had gathered, some thirty Space Marines of various Chapters, Vaanes said, ‘The floor is yours, Ventris.’
Uriel took a deep breath as Pasanius whispered, ‘Are you sure this is wise?’
‘We don’t have a choice, my friend,’ replied Uriel. ‘It has to be this way.’
Pasanius shrugged as Uriel moved to the centre of the circle of Space Marines and began to speak, his voice strong and clear. ‘My name is Uriel Ventris and until recently I was a captain of the Ultramarines. I commanded the Fourth Company and Pasanius was my senior sergeant. We were cast from our Chapter for breaking faith with the Codex Astartes and to our brethren we are no longer Ultramarines.’
Uriel paced around the circumference of the circle and raised his voice. ‘We are no longer Ultramarines, but we are still Space Marines, warriors of the Emperor, and we will remain so until the day we die. As are you, and you and you!’
Uriel jabbed his fist at Space Marines around the circle as he spoke. ‘I do not know why any of you are here, what circumstances drove you from your Chapters and led you to this place, and nor do I need to know. But I offer you a chance to regain your honour, to prove that you are true warriors of purpose.’
‘What is it you are asking of us?’ said a huge Space Marine in the livery of the Crimson Fists, his battered skull scarred and shaven.
‘What is your name, brother?’
‘Kyama Shae,’ said the Crimson Fist.
‘I am asking you to join us in our quest, Brother Shae,’ said Uriel. ‘To penetrate the fortress of Honsou and destroy the daemonculaba. Some of you already know that, but there is more. The Omphalos Daemonium, the daemon that brought us here did so for a reason. It spoke to us of the Heart of Blood and told us that it resides within the secret vaults of Honsou’s fortress.’
A muttered ripple of horrified surprise travelled the circle as Uriel continued. ‘It charged us with retrieving the Heart of Blood for it, and we agreed.’
‘Traitors!’ hissed a White Consul. ‘You consort with daemons!’
Pasanius surged to his feet and shouted, ‘Never! Say such a thing again and I will kill you!’
Uriel stepped between the two Space Marines and said, ‘We agreed because our homeworlds were threatened with destruction, brother, but fear not, we have no intention of honouring such an agreement. When I find this Heart of Blood in that fortress I will destroy it. You have my word on that.’
‘How can we trust you?’ asked Vaanes.
‘I have only my word to offer you, Vaanes, but think on this. The warlord Honsou has recently returned from campaign and is laden with stolen gene-seed. What do you think he is using it for? How do you think the daemonculaba are producing these newly-birthed abominations? With enough gene-seed, Honsou can create hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of new warriors for his armies. Soon they will come and destroy you. You know this, so why not strike now before they are able to?’
Uriel could see that his words were reaching the assembled Space Marines and pressed on. ‘You say that what hurts the Iron Warriors is at the heart of all you do, well what will hurt them more than this, to have their newest warriors destroyed before they can fight? At the very least, we can cause the Iron Warriors such grief that they will not soon forget us. If we are to die in this, then at least it will be with our honour!’
‘What use is honour if we are all dead?’ asked Vaanes.
‘Death and honour,’ said Uriel. ‘If one brings the other, then it is a good death.’
‘Easy for you to say, Ventris.’
Uriel shook his head. ‘No, Vaanes, it is not. You think I want to die? I do not. I wish to live for a long time and bring death to my enemies for many years to come, but if I am to die, I can think of no better an end than fighting alongside brother Space Marines for a noble cause.’
‘Noble? Who do you think cares?’ snapped Vaanes. ‘If we die on this suicide mission of yours, what will any of this matter? ‘Who will even know of your precious honour?’
‘I will,’ said Uriel softly. ‘And that will be enough.’
Silence fell and Uriel could see that the renegade Space Marines were torn between the status quo of their current existence and this chance for redemption. He could not yet tell which way they would lean.
Just as he was beginning to believe that no one would rise to the challenge he had offered them, Colonel Leonid and Sergeant Ellard stood and crossed the circle towards him.
Leonid saluted him and said, ‘We will fight alongside you, Captain Ventris. We’re dying anyway and if we can kill Iron Warriors before that happens, then so much the better.’
Uriel smiled and accepted Leonid’s hand. ‘You are a brave man, colonel.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Leonid, ‘or a man with nothing to lose.’
‘I thank you both anyway,’ said Uriel as Brother Seraphys also came forward to join them.
‘I will come with you, Uriel,’ said Seraphys. ‘If I can learn more of the machinations of the Ruinous Powers then that can only be for the good.’
Uriel nodded his thanks as first one Space Marine, then others came forward to join him. They came in ones and twos, until every one of the renegade Space Marines stood beside Uriel and Pasanius save Ardaric Vaanes.
The former Raven Guards Space Marine chuckled to himself and said, ‘You have a way with words, Ventris, I’ll give you that.’
‘Join us, Vaanes!’ urged Uriel. ‘Take this chance for honour. Remember who you are, what you were created to do!’
Vaanes rose and approached Uriel. ‘I know that well enough, Ventris.’
‘Then join us!’
The renegade sighed, casting his gaze around the ruined bunker complex he had called home and the Space Marines who now stood with Uriel.
‘Very well, I will help you get into the fortress, but I’m not getting killed to help you carry out your death oath. So long as you understand that.’
‘I understand that,’ assured Uriel.
Vaanes suddenly grinned and shook his head. ‘Damn, but I knew you were trouble…’
CHAPTER NINE
THE WARRIOR BAND gathered up their weapons and equipment, filled with a new sense of purpose as they prepared to leave the sanctuary. Uriel cleaned his armour as best he could and knelt to give thanks to his battle gear, placing his gun and sword before him and asking them to help him do the Emperor’s bidding.
Pasanius filled his flamer with the last of his promethium and though it pained him, he knew he was going to have to leave it behind soon. A weapon with no ammunition was no weapon at all.
At last the warriors were ready and Uriel proudly led the ragtag band of Space Marines away from the crumbling bunkers towards the mouth of the shadowed valley Ardaric Vaanes marched alongside him and said, ‘You realise you’re probably going to get every one of us killed.’
‘That is a distinct possibility,’ admitted Uriel.
‘Good, I just wanted to make sure you understood that.’
THE SKY DARKENED when they finally reached the end of the valley an unnatural darkness of low, threatening smoke clouds. Briefly Uriel wondered if there were such a thing as weather on Medrengard, but dismissed the notion. What need had the Iron Warriors of weather? Nothing grew here or needed nourishment from the heavens.
Ahead was their ultimate destination, and now that Uriel could see it clearly, he understood Vaanes’s assertion that to attempt to penetrate the defences of such a fastness was a suicide m
ission.
The fortress of Honsou was a nightmarish black fang against the sky, ebony towers of dark, bloodstained stone piercing the clouds of ash and crackling with dark lightning. The towers and arched halls of the fortress were surrounded by scarred bastions with walls hundreds of metres tall. The upper levels stood inviolate against the besieging army below, but the lower reaches were a cratered hell of flames and war. A haze of powerful energies surrounded the fortress as though it were not quite real. Uriel had to blink away stinging moisture from his eyes if he gazed too long at its lunatic architecture.
The world itself echoed to the snarl of mighty machines, and the rhythmic drumming of hammers sounded like the beat of some monstrous mechanical heart. Like a malignant fungus, the armies of Honsou’s attackers were spread around the fortress in jagged lines of circumvallation, zigzagging approach saps snaking through the lower foothills of the fortress and ending in heavily fortified parallels, studded with enormous bunkers and redoubts. Blooms of explosions swathed the fortress and the plains before it flickered and flashed with the constant muzzle flares of monstrous cannons and howitzers.
A huge ramp was under construction from kilometres back that would allow heavy tanks and Titans access to the upper levels of the fortress and Uriel could see that the plain was teeming with millions of warriors. Sprawling camps and entire cities had been built to barrack these soldiers, and how they were going to successfully get through so many enemies to reach the fortress was beyond him.
‘Having second thoughts?’ asked Vaanes.
‘No,’ said Uriel.
‘Sure?’
‘I’m sure, Vaanes. We can do this. It will not be easy, but we can do it.’
Vaanes looked unconvinced, but pointed to where the plateau narrowed to become a near-vertical shear in the rock that carved a path down the flank of the mountain, ‘That’s the way down that leads to the plains below. It’s steep, very steep, and if you fall you’re dead.’
‘How the hell are we meant to get down that?’ breathed Leonid.
‘Very carefully,’ said Vaanes. ‘So don’t fall.’
‘It’s all right for you,’ said Ellard, slinging his lasgun and making his way towards the path. ‘If you fall you have a jump pack!’
‘What? You want me to announce our presence here?’ returned Vaanes.
Uriel followed the renegade and was seized by a dizzying lurch of vertigo as he saw the route they must take.
The plain was thousands of metres below them, steaming waterfalls of molten metal splashing along basalt channels towards lakes of glowing orange below.
‘You need to go down facing the rock,’ explained Vaanes, edging onto the path, barely half a metre across and gripping onto cracks in the rock for handholds. Gingerly, he edged out onto the path, leaning into the rockface and sliding sideways along and down.
Uriel went next, gripping the rockface and easing himself out onto the narrow path. He kept his weight forward, knowing that to overbalance even a little would send him plummeting thousands of metres to his death. Cold wind whipped at him and he felt his heartbeats hammering in his chest.
He edged out, following Vaanes’s example and utilising the same handholds wherever he could. Within the space of a few hours, his muscles ached, his fingers burned with fatigue and they were barely halfway down. His breath came in short, hard gasps and it was all he could do to not look down.
Hand over hand followed hand over hand and shuffling step to the side followed shuffling step to the side until they reached a point where the slope became shallower and it was possible to climb directly downwards for a short distance.
As Uriel climbed down to a narrow ledge, he flexed his fingers, the textured pads of his gauntlets torn and useless. His arms were leaden weights and he hoped he had the strength to make it to the bottom. With a little more room to manoeuvre on the ledge he carefully eased round and gazed at the terrifying scale of the siegeworks below.
What had brought this siege about anyway? Was it some internecine conflict or was there some other, darker purpose to the slaughter going on below?
Did the attackers have some knowledge of the Heart of Blood or the daemonculaba?
He supposed it didn’t matter why the followers of the Dark Powers made war upon one another: the more they killed each other, the fewer were left to attack the Emperor’s realm.
A startled cry from above snapped him from his reverie and he looked up in time to see a hail of stones skitter down the slope, closely followed by Colonel Leonid, who screamed in terror as he tumbled downwards.
Uriel pressed himself flat against the rockface and leaned dangerously to one side to snatch at Leonid as he plummeted past.
His fingers closed on Leonid’s uniform jacket and he gritted his teeth, gripping the rocks tightly as the colonel’s weight threatened to pull them both from the ledge. Under normal circumstances, Uriel would have had no problem with catching Leonid like this, but off balance on the edge of a crumbling corbel of rock he felt himself being pulled from the cliff as his agonised fingers slipped from their transient handhold.
‘I can’t hold on!’ he yelled. The ledge crumbled at the edge, dirt and pebbles spiralling downwards to the plains far below.
‘Don’t let go!’ screamed Leonid. ‘Please!’
Uriel fought to hold on, but knew that he could not. Should he just let go? Surely the presence of Leonid would not affect their mission one way or another. He was a normal man amongst Space Marines, what good could he possibly do?
But before he could release his grip he felt a hand take hold of his shoulder guard and pull him back. Above him, Sergeant Ellard had hold of his armour and strained to pull him back. Uriel was too heavy for him to hold, but Ellard’s strength was prodigious and held Uriel long enough for him to shift his grip to a better handhold with firmer balance. Centimetre by centimetre, Uriel eased himself back onto the firmer ground of the ledge and was able to deposit Leonid back onto the slope.
The colonel was hyperventilating, his face pallid from shock and terror.
‘You are safe now, Mikhail,’ said Uriel, deliberately using the colonel’s first name.
Leonid took great gulps of air, keeping his eyes averted from the drop behind him. His body shook, but he said, Thank you.’
Uriel did not reply, but looked up to see a breathless Sergeant Ellard clinging to the rockface by what looked like his fingernails. Uriel respectfully nodded at the man, who nodded back.
‘Sir, are you able to go on?’ asked Ellard.
‘Aye…’ wheezed Leonid. ‘I’ll be all right, just give me a minute or two.’
The three of them waited as long as they dared before moving onwards, Uriel in the lead with Ellard bringing up the rear. The colonel’s steps were hesitant and unsure at first, but eventually his confidence returned and he made good time.
The journey down the mountains blurred into a painful series of vignettes: traverses across terrifyingly narrow spurs of rock and heart-pounding drops onto splintered ledges. Uriel continued down the slope of the mountain, pressing himself flat against the rock until he felt a tap on his shoulder and looked around to see that he had reached the base of the shear in the rock, that he was on a wide, screed slope of ash and iron debris. A churned mass of broken earth sloped gently to the darkened plains below.
The warrior band were spread around, breathless from their climb, and as Uriel looked up to see Leonid and Ellard completing the descent, his admiration for their endurance and courage soared as did his shame at the thought of even considering letting Leonid fall to his death.
Ardaric Vaanes approached him and said, ‘You made it then.’
‘You were right,’ said Uriel. ‘That was not easy.’
‘No, but we’re all here. Now what?’
That was a very good question. They were still many kilometres from the fortress, and Uriel could not even begin to guess how many enemy soldiers lay between them and its lower slopes. He scanned the ground below him, picking o
ut scores of work parties and earth-moving machines hauling hundreds of tonnes of earth to build the ramp that led towards the fortress. A hissing lake of molten metal pooled at the base of the slope, bathing everything in a hellish orange glow and the rumble of engines and cursing voices drifted up from the construction sites.
‘You know there’s no way we can just walk through that many soldiers. Even if the vast majority are only human.’
‘I know,’ replied Uriel, eyeing the huge bulk-haulers. ‘But perhaps we will not need to.’
THE HEAT RADIATING from the molten lake was stifling, filling the air with stinking fumes and making each breath hot and painful. Uriel edged around a tall mound of piled steel sheeting and waited for the latest work party to shuffle past, chained together at the neck by spiked collars and dressed in filthy rags. Servants of the Iron Warriors in all-enclosing vacuum suits
shouted gurgled commands to the slaves, beating and whipping them as they pleased.
The rumble of heavy, tracked bulk-haulers and booming gunfire covered the Space Marines’ approach down the lower slopes of the mountain, the darkness of the smoky clouds only helping them to approach the construction site unobserved. The huge machines were bigger than the largest super-heavy tank Uriel had ever seen, controlled via a cab mounted high on a massive, tracked engine unit that pulled a huge container on wheels with the diameter of three tall men.
Laden with tonnes of earth and rock, they plied their stately way up the ramp before depositing their cargo on its forward slope and then turning around and making their way back down again to refill. Millions of tonnes had already been poured out, yet the ramp was barely halfway towards the upper levels of the fortress. Uriel watched as a trio of bulk-haulers made their way towards the bottom of the ramp, and turned to Pasanius.
‘They’re coming,’ he whispered through his armour’s vox unit.
‘I see them,’ confirmed Vaanes.
Across the construction site from Uriel, he could see Vaanes climbing the side of the ramp, gaining height from where he could use his jump pack to better effect. Other Space Marines were poised ready for the word to attack.