by Nick Kyme
‘A little grim tonight, brother?’ The metallic rasp of Zarrak’s ruined voice could not hide the goading amusement in the words. Volk ignored it, though he felt his lips twitch into the shadow of a smile.
‘Mission patterns locked in,’ said Volk into the vox. ‘Onyx command, this is flight seven-eight-six, awaiting clearance.’
Static hissed in his ears for a second. The diminishing count was racing down to zero.
‘Flight seven-eight-six, you are cleared for launch,’ came the voice of the officer. The man would be watching the data from Volk’s flight and matching it against the myriad other operations around the Onyx fortress. To that human, the war for Krade would only ever be numbers and signals shunting across his senses. Volk struggled to feel anything but loathing for such an existence.
‘Iron within,’ said the officer.
‘Iron without,’ replied Volk, and switched to the flight vox. ‘All weapons live.’
Amber weapon runes flashed to green. Shackled power built in 786-1-1’s engines. The strike fighter was shaking around him as the thrusters fought to hold it in place.
The count hit zero.
786-1-1 shot forwards. Force slammed into Volk. Air gasped from his lungs. The wall of night and swirling snow raced to meet him, and then he was out, rising into the black sky. Behind him, his squadron brothers were flowing from the open cavern mouth, afterburners streaks of blue fire.
Alerts began to scream as enemy targeting systems locked on to him. Tracer rounds and explosions boiled the night beyond the canopy. He triggered countermeasures. Flares and auspex lures scattered in 786-1-1’s wake. Volk slammed the strike fighter into a climbing spiral. His wingman followed him, holding in perfect formation. The rest of the Grand Flight scattered into the air from the hangar mouth, wheeling as fire reached for them. Beneath them, the Onyx mountain range extended away to the sky. Explosions pulsed across the ground, staining the underside of the clouds. Batteries dug into the mountain flanks blazed. Small-arms fire sparkled in a sea of light.
Krade was a world on the boundary between the Warmaster’s domain and the vengeful wrath of Ultramar. The warp storms that had for so long split the galaxy had guttered. The screaming tides that had blinded the Ultima Segmentum had dispersed and with its ebb, the anger of Roboute Guilliman, and every scrap of might he could call on, had begun to move in the storm’s wake. The Shadow Crusade of Lorgar and Angron had wounded them, and the predations of the Night Haunter had bled them. But the Lord of Macragge had endured, and now his sons came in vengeance. Worlds held in the Warmaster’s name had come under attack – some had fallen, and the loyalty of others had begun to waver. All the while, words and rumours had come from the galactic south, first in whispers then in scattered reports, of retreat and disaster: the warriors of the XIII were coming.
Across the path of this rising tide, the Iron Warriors stood. Worlds were burned, fortified or reinforced. Traps were laid in the path of the enemy. For every advance they made, the forces of the False Emperor paid and paid again. But advance they did.
Remnants of Imperial Army conquest-echelons, Mechanicum Taghmata, rogue trader households, landless Knights and the shattered remnants of Legions thought broken at Isstvan V – all fought in the armies marshalled by the Ultramarines. They fought with discipline and a unity of purpose, and that purpose was retribution. Against them the Lord of Iron stood, unbreaking, never tiring, holding the line while the Warmaster opened the path to Terra.
Krade was a keystone in that line, a world that controlled a system, and from that system projected power into other systems, without which the enemy could divide and slaughter. It had to hold, and hold it had for sixth months. Volk had been there since Perturabo had planted his banner on Krade’s northern mountains. He had watched as the pressure on the defences grew in the void, on the ground and in the sky. So far, the Ultramarines themselves had not reached Krade in force, but they would, and then the real fight would begin.
Volk was iron in blood and bone. He would fight until there was nothing left for him to fight with, and then still fight on. But sometimes, in the first moments of battle, he wondered if there was victory waiting for them.
‘Incoming enemy interceptors,’ called Zarrak.
Volk slammed the strike fighter into a spin before the auspex began to shriek the lock warning. Red runes flowed across his display. A stutter of autocannon fire lit up the night.
‘Breaking left!’ shouted Zarrak.
Volk pulled 786-1-1 out of its spiral and flooded power to the engines. Fuel warnings pulsed to amber. He rose, feeling the acceleration punch him with bone-breaking force. He did not have the time or fuel for an air duel. In his half-machine sight, he could see that his flight was with him, each craft following its own weaving path as munitions exploded in their wake. The enemy were there too, pairs of red markers converging from below and above. They would outrun them, though. Volk had seen and run the calculations; his forces would reach their objective. They would succeed.
‘What–’ called Zarrak across the vox, and then cut out.
Volk’s auspex fuzzed, static squawked.
A missile plunged down from the cloud layer above them and struck Volk’s wingman. Fire roared out. Volk twitched aside on instinct as a pulse of las-fire burned through the space where he had been.
A shape was falling from the dark clouds about him. The night had stolen the colours from its wings, but even in the split-second glimpse he caught, Volk recognised it. It was a Xiphon-pattern interceptor, kin to those that flew under his command. It was a predator of the skies, designed to kill its own kind. And it was not a machine that could be flown by human hands.
Volk rolled. Lascannon bolts kissed the air he passed through. Warning alarms were screaming in his ears. The vox was a static-ruined squall of signals as the rest of the flight met the enemy descending on them.
Volk blinked the automatic targeting system off as he kept rolling.
The enemy interceptor was plunging down at him like a dagger, its lascannons turning the night to strobing day. Volk triggered a burst from his thrusters. His roll stopped dead. The manual targeting rune centred on the interceptor for an instant. He touched the fire stud. A single pulse of white brilliance lanced out from his wings. It was a shot that no mortal could have made and few amongst the Legions would ever have attempted. It struck the enemy interceptor’s tail and vaporised it.
Volk had two heartbeats to watch the burning craft tumble past him. In those brief moments – while half of his awareness was marking the position of the rest of his flight and their opponents – he saw the colours of his enemy lit by the fires of its death.
Blue.
Sapphire-blue. The colour of the sea under the sun at noon. And on its wings, the symbol of Ultramar painted in stark white.
So, they are here, thought Volk.
He keyed the vox.
‘Onyx command, this is 786-1-1. Priority alert to all command echelon.’
His hands moved, and the fighter banked and cut down through the night towards where his brothers spun above the battle-lit land.
‘Go ahead, 786-1-1,’ said a voice that was too deep to be human.
‘Forces of the Thirteenth are in the battle space,’ he said. Beneath him, he saw a flash of white fire. A green marker blinked out on the flight status display. ‘The Ultramarines are here.’
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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
‘Myriad’ first published digitally in 2016.
‘The Grey Raven’ first published digitally in 2016.
‘Valerius’ first published as an audio drama in 2016.
‘Blackshield’ first published digitally in 2016.
Children of Sicarus first published as an audio drama in 2016.
‘Exocytosis’ first published digitally in 2016.
‘The Painted Count’ first published digitally in 2016.
‘The Last Son of Prospero’ first published digitally in 2016.
> ‘The Soul, Severed’ first published as an audio drama in 2016.
‘The Ember Wolves’ first published digitally in 2017.
Dark Compliance first published as an audio drama in 2017.
‘Duty Waits’ first published digitally in 2017.
‘Magisterium’ first published digitally in 2017.
‘Now Peals Midnight’ first published digitally in 2017.
‘Dreams of Unity’ first published digitally in 2017.
‘The Board is Set’ first published digitally in 2017.
This eBook edition published in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Neil Roberts.
Internal illustrations by Neil Roberts and Mikhail Savier.
Heralds of the Siege © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2018. Heralds of the Siege, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.
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ISBN: 978-1-78030-890-6
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Table of Contents
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
The Horus Heresy
Myriad
The Grey Raven
Valerius
The Ember Wolves
Blackshield
Children of Sicarus
Exocytosis
The Painted Count
The Last Son of Prospero
The Soul, Severed
Dark Compliance
Duty Waits
Magisterium
Now Peals Midnight
Dreams of Unity
The Board is Set
Afterword
About the Authors
An Extract from ‘Slaves to Darkness’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license