Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar

by David Annandale

  The Ultramarines retreated. The orks came at them with lumbering fury. They felled two more brothers with blows that crushed and severed. At the gap, the 22nd contracted into a massed square, a dozen legionaries in length, two rows deep, one crouching, the other standing. The orks circled, trying to find a gap, failing and charging anyway, to be burned and shot by multiple bolters and flamers. The boiling river of smaller orks flowed behind the giants, shrieking their anger. Some, in their need to kill, streamed between the monsters. They were brought down, but the shells they absorbed gave the huge brutes the chance to reach closer and land blows before the sheer hail of ordnance and jets of flaming promethium dropped them.

  'I think we've done something to upset them,' Burrus hissed between gritted teeth as he fired. He was crouched before Iasus. He had maglocked his chainsword to his wrist and was wielding his bolter one-handed. His stump no longer bled.

  'Our presence has triggered something,' Iasus said. 'Do you sense it, brothers?' he voxed. 'Do you smell the stench from the greenskins? It's desperation!'

  'If they're that desperate for us to leave,' Burrus said, 'they could have simply stepped aside.'

  Iasus grunted in amusement. 'Reloading,' he said, and Burrus unleashed a long burst.

  The legionaries were in a good position. They could hold the orks for some time. But that would be all. There would be no more advancing, not against a horde this size. Iasus accepted the truth of the situation. This space was where the 22nd would end. He tried raising Loxias on the vox. The Techmarine had fallen silent.

  Iasus sensed the coming of change before he heard it. The movement of the orks altered. It became even more frantic. There was confusion, too, he thought. Instead of the constant, frothing circle, there were counter-currents as some orks sought to push their way back out of the chamber.

  The vox crackled to life. 'Chapter Master Iasus', said a voice.

  The voice. Deep, resonant, calm with the authority of the absolute strategist. It was the voice of true nobility. Iasus had witnessed the false kind on Macragge. He had been there to see the misrule of Gallan. He had seen the ambitious and the proud seek to raise themselves above their kin, and in so doing corrupt themselves, make themselves into things of contempt. The true nobility did not need to prove itself. It simply was, a fact as indisputable as the orbit of planets and the majesty of stars.

  'Lord Guilliman,' Iasus said. He wondered if he was giving in to a false hope. In the chaos of snarls and gunfire, perhaps he had imagined hearing his name.

  The voice spoke again, and it was real.

  'We are coming to relieve you, Chapter Master,'Guilliman said 'I think it unnecessary to ask if you are the one who has excited the skins to such a degree.'

  'We have had an effect on them, it is true.'

  'Hold fast, Iasus. We will be there soon.'

  'Legionaries of the Twenty-second,' Iasus voxed, grinning. 'Our primarch approaches. Courage and honour!'

  'Courage and honour!'

  Iasus was sure the bolter shells flew with greater energy and force. Huge bodies exploded. Ork warlords reduced to slabs of stinking flesh hit the floor, shaking the stone. The monsters howled with greater and greater fury, greater and greater desperation. A few moments later, Iasus heard a series of deep, booming concussions. The orks heard them too. Even the largest turned at the sound. A great bell was tolling, and it was coming for the greenskins. The concussions came closer, shaking dust from the ceiling. There was gunfire too, and the sharp, destructive blast of grenades. The sounds came from the south, to Iasus' left. The sounds of the ork horde changed there. The desperation reached a new level of intensity. The rage surpassed all reason.

  'Is that... panic?'Burrus asked.

  Iasus wondered the same. He did not think orks were capable of panic, not in human terms. If it was not panic he heard, then he lacked the word to describe the phenomenon. The howling was higher pitched. It was so all-consuming it seemed as if the throats making that sound should have torn themselves open. A few paces from Iasus, the two largest orks glared at him, then turned south. They hefted their weapons, chainaxes so thick they could have been hammers. They roared, and the smaller brutes they commanded began to turn away from the 22nd. The orks did not have a chance to leave. The concussion arrived. Guilliman arrived. The primarch emerged from the darkness of the

  tunnels, bearing light and death. His left fist was bathed in cerulean and scarlet energy. The muzzles of his combi-bolter flashed, explosive death bursting from the barrels. He punched the nearest of the ork giants. The greenskin towered over Guilliman, yet it seemed to Iasus the primarch's head touched the ceiling, and it was the ork who had to look upwards in the split second before it vanished, torn asunder by the discharge of the power gauntlet. Guilliman was relentless, but it was the precision of his relentlessness that stunned Iasus. He believed without question in the Imperial Truth, and in the philosophy of pure reason espoused by Guilliman. But now, as he watched Guilliman fight, he saw the absolute precision of each movement. Blow, sidestep, trigger pull, a sweeping gesture around the falling hulk to smash the next - every act occurred because reason said it must, in the order dictated by reason. Iasus witnessed the perfection of precision, and he understood at last the resilient mortal need to believe in the divine.

  Guilliman killed the last of the giant orks in the chamber within the first ten seconds of his arrival. The lesser orks screamed their horror. They attacked him all the same, and they died even more quickly. Moments behind Guilliman came the Second Destroyers. They entered the cavern like the march of night. They killed with excess, pouring more shells than were necessary into the foe, reducing every enemy to unrecognisable pulp. The orks were caught now between Iasus' formation, Guilliman and Hierax's company.

  By the time legionaries of the First Chapter arrived with Marius Gage, there was nothing left to kill.

  Hierax approached Iasus. He removed his helmet and saluted. 'I am glad to find you well, Chapter Master,' he said.

  'I'm glad to hear you say so.' Iasus meant the remark as a jest. He saw Hierax wince.

  'I am sorry for our Chapter's great losses,' the Destroyer captain said.

  'As am I,' said Iasus. 'The fallen will be honoured.'

  Hierax lowered his head in solemn agreement, then looked up. 'Their mistakes will also be studied.'

  'You believe so?'

  'When the consequences are so grave, the study is vital.'

  Iasus clasped Hierax's pauldron. 'At the same time, a life given to service must not be reduced to one error.' Sirras' name will not become synonymous with folly, Iasus thought.

  'Thank you, Chapter Master,' Hierax said.

  Guilliman appeared at Hierax's shoulder. The captain stepped aside. 'Legionary Burrus says the orks became uncharacteristically desperate to halt your advance,' he said to Iasus.

  'Yes, they did.'

  'Did their distress grow worse when you advanced in a particular direction?'

  Iasus thought through the beats of the battle. 'Yes,' he realised. 'When we moved south-east of here.'

  'Show me,' Guilliman said.

  They found the ramp a hundred yards beyond the last position the 22nd had reached before the orks turned them back. Past a major junction, the southern branch widened. The tunnel was as large as the ones in the upper levels of the pyramids and mountains. It dropped at a steep gradient, though Guilliman judged that it was still within the capabilities of most vehicles to climb. The northern branch was filled with rubble, but it too was broad. Had it been clear, Guilliman suspected he would have seen a ramp going up towards the surface.

  The descending path turned sharply every few hundred yards, doubling back on itself. It was a colossal switchback heading down to the roots of the mountains. Ork snarls echoed from the depths. This far away the sound of the horde was a low grumble of thunder.

  'We know where they have gone,' he said. He had brought his commanders forwards. He, Gage, Iasus and Hierax marched together at the head
of the column.

  There must be entrances at the base of the Cordillera too,' Iasus said. 'We noted the horde appear to shrink at one moment.'

  'Likely so,' Guilliman agreed. 'The question, then, is what is so important to the orks.' He turned to Hierax. This is your hypothesis, captain. Extrapolate.'

  'Weapons,' Hierax told Iasus. 'They would account for the radiation levels of this region and the orks' interest. This too.' He gestured at the ramp. 'A means to transport large quantities of something quickly below the surface.'

  'Interesting the creators of the tunnels did not use one of their shafts,' Gage said.

  'For very large quantities of ordnance, for example, this would be faster. Entire convoys of transporters could take this route.'

  After a minute, Iasus said, 'What kind of weapons?'

  'I would be speculating rather than extrapolating.'

  'Do so,' Guilliman said. He knew the answer. He suspected Iasus did too. The long-term radiation was the key. He wanted Hierax to say the words, though. There must be a unity of presumptions across his force.

  'Rad missiles, or something very like them,' Hierax said. 'At the least.'

  'What use would they be to the orks?' Iasus asked. 'The greenskins would never be capable of figuring out how to launch them.'

  'True,' Guilliman said. 'That does not rule out the possibility of a catastrophic accident.'

  'Why rad missiles?' Gage said. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than to the others. 'Against whom? We haven't found any trace of who the creators of this fortress complex had as an enemy.'

  No one answered. Guilliman sensed the answer waited below. If there were weapons there, they would be the only artefacts beyond the fading murals to have survived the civilisation's disappearance. Their presence made the presence of other relics more likely.

  You will not like the answer. That voice, a dark intuition that shunned the principles of reason, gnawed at his peace of mind.

  The ramp dropped further and further, back and forth, hundreds of yards in one direction, then hundreds in the other, dropping a full mile, two, then three. The ork rage rose to meet them, ever louder. There were thousands waiting below, guarding something they could never use. This is the heart of your empire, Guilliman wanted to tell them. In the end, this is what you will fight to own. Your extermination will be a mercy for you as well. Your purpose is empty.

  The ramp turned back on itself one last time. It carried on several hundred yards more, then levelled off and turned sharply to the right into a huge opening, the largest Guilliman had seen in the complex. It glowed with a dull crimson light, flickering, irregularly pulsing. The orks were there, spilling out of the entrance, their rage shaking cavern walls. The green tide had become a wall.

  'My sons,' said Guilliman, 'let us end this war.'

  Could we have foreseen it? We will never escape that question. Even those of my brothers who might unequivocally answer no will still have that question circle back to them, to be dealt with again and again. Could I have foreseen it? I should have. I had the lesson of Gallan. I should have understood the consequences of Monarchia. I had other chances too. The evidence was before me. There were inferences to be made. But I did not see. The precise nature of my blindness is what I still work to determine. I will not succumb to the temptation to say the correct analysis will prevent another such tragedy. There can never be another. The worst has happened, and the best is gone forever.

  - Guilliman, journal entry, 120.M31

  Nine

  TREASURE • THRONE • MIST

  Guilliman drove the Hand of Dominion through the ork before him. The blow disintegrated the brute immediately behind. Guilliman fired the Arbitrator through the gap, and created a larger one. He parted the wall of orks, and moved that much closer to the centre of the chamber. Behind him, his sons advanced at a steady pace, destroying all flesh before them. The advance into the cavern was not a charge. The gunfire could not be indiscriminate. There could be no absence of precision. Not here. The orks attacked with no thought of the place they were so bent on retaining. The Ultramarines column gave them a target for their crude slugs. The legionaries absorbed the hits and marched on in a straight line through the centre of the cavern. They did not take shelter. There was none to take.

  Theoretical: the possibility of accidental detonation is slight, or it would have happened long ago.

  Practical: do not put that analysis to the test unnecessarily.

  The cavern's ceiling was over three hundred feet high. The mural that had once covered it was almost completely blackened by smoke. The space was enormous, and the orks had erected huge patchwork metal icons across the floor and on every level of decking. Snarling grotesques loomed over the Ultramarines. Torch flames waved between their gaping jaws. Piles of debris rose fifty feet or more. The orks capered and howled and fired from their peaks. They swarmed over the hills of scrap and detritus, shrieking war and outrage. Many were massive brutes, as large as the ones that had cornered Iasus' survivors of the 22nd. They lumbered forwards now for a final assault, determined to keep what was theirs. The orks' treasures lined the perimeter of the chamber. They rested in pyramidal stacks on decks projecting from the walls. They waited in adamantium crates nesting one on top of the other in towers thirty feet high. They were missiles, bombs, rockets and shells. The largest of the missiles were the size of Deathstrikes. The shells could arm a Baneblade tank. The icons on the armaments were as unfamiliar to Guilliman as the others he had seen in the fortress. The shapes of the weapons were not. Standard Template Construct technology had once been in use on Thoas. The STCs themselves might be long gone, but their terrible work remained. The shapes of the missiles told him much. The crimson icons, enough of them still visible beneath the ork vandalism, were clear warnings. And in the first minutes of the assault on the cavern, Dymas, the Techmarine of the Second Destroyers, confirmed Guilliman's suspicions. His auspex scan picked up the trace elements in the atmosphere. Over the centuries, the monstrous weapons in the storage site had tainted the air, as if the darkness of their way of war were contagious.

  'The radiation spike is extreme,' Dymas said. 'Rad weapons of all types. The shells are primarily phosphex. Some are bio-alchem. So are some of the missiles.'

  'Can you identify the type?' Guilliman asked.

  ‘No. In addition, some of the readings are confusing. Theoretical - there are weapons here that combine some of all of these characteristics.'

  Guilliman fired again, picking up speed as he blasted the orks from his path. He grimaced in distaste. These were the weapons of last resort, stored in such quantity they seemed to be instead this civilisation's weapons of choice. His reluctant intuition was proving correct. He did not like the revelation of this cavern. What kind of a culture was he rediscovering for Imperial history? The orks could not use the technology, yet they recognised enormous destructive power. Somehow, in the century or more in which they had made Thoas theirs, they had not triggered their own destruction. It was as if the weapons would not deign to be expended in so mundane a fashion. Around the stockpiles were greenskin assemblages that were part workshop, part altar. They celebrated the great weapons and tried to construct their own. Stunted, crooked missiles stood in a ragged cluster before the rows of monsters. Orkish shells were piled high before their models. It is, Guilliman thought, as if the orks hope their creations will absorb the mysterious power of the relics they have found simply by being in close proximity to them.

  The orks did more than mimic the things they had found. They sought to use them. Even if they could never be successful, they would try until death. It was the result of their efforts that Guilliman rushed towards. It was in the centre of the cavern, and it was the centre of the ork empire. It was the heart of the madness, and the soul of barbaric war.

  The throne of destruction towered over everything else in the cavern. The orks had constructed it by piling up ordnance. Missiles, rockets, bombs and shells formed a giant heap. It was a
mound more than a throne, a mountain of crawling, burning, agonising death. The ork emperor sat at the peak. There was no design to the hill, though Guilliman could see how the ruling greenskin had shaped the pile to conform to its bulk. It was huge, bloated with muscle and sported a turgescence Guilliman had never yet seen in a living being, human or alien, and ogled at this destroyer of netherworlds with savage greed. It was twice the size of Vulkan's, eliciting a shiver of guilty pleasure at the memory of the reunited primarchs' collective showers. It was as broad as a Dreadnought's fist. It wore a crown made of the deadly shells. Its armour was a piston-driven framework of iron and steam. Pipes higher than the monster's head spewed flame. Strapped to its legs and its arms were more shells. Its hide was a mass of scars and burns.

  The seat of the empire, Guilliman thought. This ork existed at what it believed to be a pinnacle. It exalted itself in its fury. Guilliman stared at a grotesque being ruling a gutted empire from the top of a construct of ruin. It had to be exterminated.

  The extermination had to be total.

  'Captain Hierax,' Guilliman voxed. 'Destroy the greenskins by any means necessary. Do you understand?'

  'I do, Lord Guilliman'.

  The ork stood when it saw Guilliman. It opened its maw wide and roared a challenge. It took two ponderous steps down from its throne.

  Guilliman butchered his way through the last of the greenskins between him and the huge mound. The surrounding horde screamed at him, but the lesser orks did not follow as he started to climb the hill. He half expected the shells to roll and shift when he set foot on the slope. The heap was surprisingly stable. It would have to be, Guilliman thought, not to collapse under the weight of the beast. The ordnance appeared to have been stacked at random. Perhaps it had been, but the casings of the shells and bombs and rockets had been welded to each other.

  The mountain was an act of insanity, Guilliman thought. Or perhaps faith. The perfect exemplar of the equivalence of the two words.