‘Thanks, sir,’ nodded Collix, dosing the breech. ‘Couldn’t quite get it.’
‘You’ve done well, sergeant’ said Virgil.
Collix heard the finality in Ortega’s words and glanced over at the battery pack detonator they’d rigged.
‘It’s time then?’
‘Yes, I think it is.’
The sergeant nodded, cocking the heavy bolter and drawing himself upright as much as his wounded body would allow. He saluted weakly and said, ‘It has been an honour to serve with you, sir.’
Virgil returned the salute and took Collix’s outstretched hand, gripping it firmly. He nodded over the barricade.
He smiled imperceptibly. ‘You would have made a fine officer I think, Judge Collix.’
‘I know,’ replied Collix, ‘Judge Captain within four years I thought. That was my plan anyway.’
‘Four years? Six maybe. I think Sharben would have given you a run for your money in the promotion stakes.’
Collix nodded. ‘Maybe, but think how my courageous actions here will help my chances for promotion.’
‘Good point’ conceded Ortega. ‘Remind me to mention it to the chief when we get out of here.’
‘I’ll hold you to that, sir.’
Both men turned serious and Ortega said, ‘Just give me enough time to blow this place.’
Collix nodded, pulling the gun’s stock hard against his shoulder and sighting on the wide doors to the armoury.
Virgil stumbled towards the vox-caster. The sharp crack of bolter fire and lasbolts heralded the next attack, but he did not dare look back.
Flashes of lasgun fire snapped around him, a round clipping his thigh. He yelled in pain as another bolt took him high in the back, sending him crashing to the floor. His wounded arm hit hard and he rolled, fighting to remain conscious over the agony that engulfed him.
He heard Collix shouting in anger over the storm of gunfire and willed the sergeant to give him just a little more
time. He crawled towards the vox-caster, trailing a lake of blood from his ruptured body.
A massive explosion showered him with splintered wood, metal and chunks of rock. The PDF had finally managed to bring up some heavy weaponry and all that was left of the barricade was a smoking heap of mangled metal and bodies.
Troops began pouring into the armoury, galvanised by the destruction of their foe.
Ortega snarled and pulled himself forwards.
Another lasbolt struck him in the back.
He wrapped his arms around the vox-caster as a flurry of lasgun shots blasted through his armour and ripped him apart.
The last thing Virgil Ortega managed before death claimed him was to thumb the activation rune on the vox-caster, sending a jolt of power along the insulated wire towards the detonators of sixty grenades.
VIRGIL ORTEGA WAS dead before the first shockwave of the armoury’s detonation even reached his body, but the results were more spectacular than he could ever have hoped.
Within seconds of his activating the vox-caster, the grenades he and his men had planted detonated the vast swathe of weapons and ammunition stored beneath the palace.
Even before the initial blasts had faded, a lethal chain reaction had begun.
Heat and vibration sensors registered the explosions and initiated containment procedures, but so rapid was the escalation of destruction that they could not even begin to cope with the vast forces Virgil had unleashed.
At first the inhabitants of Brandon Gate thought they were being bombarded again by the Vae Victus and waited in fear for the next salvo of magma bombs to rain down from the heavens.
The massive shockwave swept outwards through the ground with the force of an earthquake, shaking the entire city with the violence of the underground blast. Geysers of flame roared upwards from cracks ripped in the streets and
entire districts vanished as the force of the explosion spread, incinerating buildings, people and tanks in seconds.
Shells streaked skyward, falling amid the city like deadly fireworks, adding to the panic and destruction. A number of cartel force commanders believed themselves to be under attack, either from newly arrived loyalist forces or treacherous rival cartels, and vicious tank battles erupted as decades of mistrust and political infighting was fought out on the streets of Brandon Gate.
Tanks from the Vergen cartel fought those of the Abrogas, who fought the de Valtos, who fought the Honan, who fought anyone who came in range. In the confusion, it took the commanders more than an hour to restore command and control, by which time over fifty tanks had been destroyed or taken out of action.
The unstable structure of the Arbites precinct house rumbled deafeningly, huge chunks of loosened rockcrete tumbling from its face as the esplanade cracked and whole sections were swallowed. PDF tanks revved their engines madly, vainly trying to escape the destruction, but too slow to avoid the tipping ground and collapsing building.
The statues in Liberation Square rocked on their pedestals, all but the effigy of the Emperor in its centre crashing into the square.
The Imperial palace shook to its foundations as forces it was never meant to endure slammed into it, disintegrating yet more of its already weakened structure. Whole wings collapsed in roiling clouds of dust, burying entire companies of PDF troopers beneath tonnes of smashed marble.
A vast crater yawned between the Arbites precinct house and the palace, a section of the defensive wall slumping downwards into the flaming hell of the destroyed armoury. Enormous flames licked skyward amid a gigantic pillar of smoke. Within seconds Brandon Gate looked as though it had been under siege for weeks.
In a single stroke, Virgil Ortega’s sacrifice had denied the rebels the largest cache of weapons and military supplies on Pavonis.
URIEL STARED INTO the darkness of the mineshaft, a hundred metre wide wound on the face of the planet as the two Thunderhawks towards them. The circumference of the shaft was lined with massive cranes and cantilevered elevator gear to transport workers and materials both to and from the mine galleries below.
Huge funicular elevator cars secured to massive rails descended into the depths of the planet, each one capable of holding over a hundred men.
A winch wheel and control room, supported on a central pair of beams, hung over the pit, clusters of cables dropping into the darkness of the mineshaft.
When Dardino’s infiltrators had torn into the defences from behind, the soldiers were doomed. Caught between the hammer and anvil of the Ultramarines attack they had had no chance.
He recalled the pride that had filled him as he watched his men follow him across the walls, cutting down the foe with righteous fury and holy purpose. They had followed him unquestioningly into battle and the zeal they had displayed was the equal of anything he had ever witnessed. Uriel felt humbled by the honour these men had brought to the company this day.
The lead Thunderhawk touched down in a howling cloud of dust and exhaust fumes, its front ramp dropping almost as soon as its engines began powering down.
Ario Barzano and a number of the thralls from the Vae Victus strode out to meet Uriel. The inquisitor’s face was alight with anticipation. He had requisitioned a plasma pistol and power knife from the strike cruiser’s armoury.
‘Well done, Uriel, well done!’ he beamed, glancing over at the mineshaft and the elevators.
‘Thank you, inquisitor, but we’re not done yet.’
‘No, of course not, Uriel. But soon, eh?’
Uriel nodded, catching the inquisitor’s confidence. He shouted over to his warriors. ‘Get the rappelling gear disengaged from the gunships. Hurry!’
‘Rappelling gear?’ repeated Barzano. ‘You can’t be serious, Uriel, that shaft’s nearly ten kilometres deep. It’s far too deep to use ropes,’ He pointed to the hulking form of the workers’ elevator. ‘What about that? We can use that surely?’
Uriel shook his head. ‘No, the rebels are sure to have men stationed at the base of the mine. Anyone who goes
down in that will either be stranded half way or gunned down the moment they hit the bottom.’
‘So how do you intend to get down?’
Uriel turned the inquisitor around, marching him back to the Thunderhawk, where the Ultramarines were stripping blackened metallic cylinders from each rappelling rope.
‘We shall use these,’ said Uriel snapping one of the units from a rope. It resembled a plain cylinder of metal with a textured hand grip on its outside surface and a wide, toothed groove cut vertically along its length.
The device fitted snugly into Uriel’s palm and as he clenched his fist the ‘teeth’ in the central groove snapped back inside the cylinder. As he released his grip, they clamped back into the groove.
‘We use these for high-speed drops where we cannot use jump packs. We shall attach them to the lifting gear cables and drop along their length into the mine, achieving surprise on any defenders below.’
‘You’ll drop, one-handed, for ten thousand metres?’
Uriel nodded with a wry grin.
‘And how, dear boy, do you intend that I get down?’
‘You intend to come too?’
‘Of course, you don’t think after all that’s happened I’m going to miss the chance to see you take down de Valtos do you?’
‘Very well,’ answered Uriel, walking the inquisitor towards the worker elevator. ‘Then you will join us after we have dropped. I calculate it will take us almost five minutes to drop the ten kilometres to the bottom of the mine. Wait for that long until beginning your descent. After all, we will need a means of getting back to the surface.’
Barzano clearly did not like the idea of travelling down in the elevator car, but could see that there was no other way for him to reach the bottom of the mine. He certainly could not descend in the same manner as the Ultramarines. Reluctantly, he nodded.
‘Very well, Uriel,’ said Barzano, unsnapping the catch on his pistol holster, ‘shall we?’
‘Aye,’ snarled the Ultramarine. ‘Let’s finish this.’
THE ULTRAMARINES WOULD descend in four waves, each following five seconds after the one before it. Uriel sat on the central beam, the massive winch wheel beside his right shoulder and his armoured legs dangling into the infinite darkness before him.
He and the first wave of warriors clambered down the beam, sliding the rappelling clamps over the elevator cables and clenching their fists around them, locking them in place, ready for the drop.
Uriel licked his suddenly dry lips as a sudden sense of vertigo seized him. He looked over his shoulder towards Ario Barzano in the worker elevator and sketched the Inquisitor a salute.
Barzano returned the salute.
Uriel checked left and right, to make sure the first wave was ready.
Taking a deep breath, he shouted, ‘Now!’ and dropped into the depths of the world.
THE METAL FELT warm to the touch, soft and yielding despite the fact that Kasimir de Valtos knew it was stronger than adamantium. Reverently, he lifted the first piece from the box and turned it in his hands, inspecting every centimetre of its shimmering surface. He had spent years of his life in search of these pieces and to see them now before him took his bream away.
Reluctantly, he tore his eyes from the object and turned to the sarcophagus, sensing the power that lay within and the attraction the metal had for it. He felt the object twitching in his hands and watched, amazed as its surface began to flow like mercury, reshaping itself into some new, altered form. Holding the glimmering metal before him like an offering, he took a hesitant step towards the sarcophagus, unsure as to whether he or the metal was more anxious.
The metal’s malleable form settled into that of a flat, circular disc, like a cogwheel, yet with a subtle wrongness to its angles.
De Valtos could see the mirror of its form on the side of the sarcophagus facing him and knelt beside the dark oblong, pressing the metal into its surface. It flowed from his fingers, slipping easily into the perfectly sized niche. The metal liquefied once more, running and spreading in glittering silver trails across the surface of the sarcophagus, trickling along the patterns carved there.
Abruptly the glistening trails stopped, straining as though at the end of their elasticity, and de Valtos knew what he had to do next. He dragged the silver box over to the sarcophagus, hearing the metal fragments within clattering together, as though excited about the prospect of returning to the bosom of their maker.
As he lifted each piece, its structure rebelled from its original form, transforming into something new, shaping itself into the form required to fit into yet another niche on the sarcophagus’s side. Working as fast as he could, de Valtos placed each piece of the living metal into its matching niche. As each piece was added, the quicksilver lines reached further around the basalt obelisk, an interconnecting web of angular lines and complex geometries.
Finally, he lifted the last piece from the box, a slender cruciform shape with a flattened, hooped top, and circled the sarcophagus, searching for its place. This final piece alone retained its initial form and he could find no similarly shaped niche in which to place it. Then de Valtos smiled, standing on tiptoe to find the metal’s exact shape carved on the thick slab that formed the lid of the sarcophagus. He reached over and dropped it into place, stepping back to admire the beauty of the rippling silver structure before him. The sarcophagus lay wrapped in a glittering web, lines of the living metal interwoven across its surface and glowing with their own internal light.
‘Now what?’ whispered Kesharq.
‘Now we wait,’ answered de Valtos.
‘For what?’
‘For the rebirth of a creature older than time.’
‘And the Nightbringer? What of it?’
De Valtos smiled, humourlessly. ‘Do not worry, my dear Archon. Everything is unfolding as I have planned. The ship will soon be ours. And then we—’
His voice trailed away as a deep, bass thrumming suddenly tolled from the very air, like the beating of an incomprehensibly vast heart. Nervous PDF troopers raised their rifles as the pulsing rumble sounded again, louder.
‘What’s happening?’ snapped Kesharq.
De Valtos didn’t answer, too intent on the silver lines draining from the sarcophagus and running in eager streams through the channels on the floor. Liquid rivulets of silver flowed from the centre of the chamber towards the alcoves that surrounded them, four running from the chamber towards the antechamber outside.
The streams ran up the walls, spilling into each alcove.
Vendare Taloun dropped to his knees, a prayer to the Emperor spilling from his lips.
‘Stand firm!’ shouted a PDF sergeant, as several troopers began backing towards the door. The rumbling heartbeat pounded the air and de Valtos could feel a power of ages past seeping into the chamber as the gold cap at the apex of the ceiling began to glow with a ghostly luminescence.
Archon Kesharq gripped his axe tightly, scanning the room for the source of the booming vibrations. Kasimir de Valtos moved to stand beside the sarcophagus, placing his hands on its warm, throbbing side.
A cry of terror sounded.
He looked up to see the skeletal guardians of the tomb take a single, perfect step down from their alcoves, each warrior acting in absolute concert with its silent brethren. Were these the advance guard of the creature he had awoken?
A gleam of movement and light at the entrance to the chamber caught his eye and he watched as the four silent guardians from the antechamber entered the tomb, their movements smooth and unhurried. Each figure’s androgynous features remained expressionless, but they carried their strange copper staffs threateningly before them.
A spectral light glittered within each of the tomb’s guardians, pulsing in time with the booming heartbeat, yet none moved, content just to watch the intruders within their sanctuary.
With a noise like thunder, a great crack tore down the middle of the slab on top of the tomb. Questing tendrils of dark smoke seeped from within and
de Valtos staggered back, falling to his knees as his mind blazed with unbidden thoughts of death and destruction. He reeled under the sensory overload of pain and suffering radiating from the sarcophagus.
Slowly, the sarcophagus began to unravel into wisps of smoky darkness.
EIGHTEEN
DEEPER AND DEEPER into the surface of Pavonis they fell, dropping past nine thousand metres and still going. Uriel saw a point of light below him and ordered the Ultramarines to begin slowing their descent.
He loosened the grip on his rappelling clamp, orange sparks flaring as the teeth dug into the thick wire cables. The speed of his depth counter’s revolutions began to slow and Uriel watched as the collection of lights below him resolved into glow-globes and a lighted portion of tunnel. There were men there, looking up in confusion at the strange sight of sputtering sparks above them. Uriel didn’t give them time to realise what they were seeing and released his grip on the rappelling clamp, dropping the last ten metres in free fall.
His armoured weight smashed down onto the first trooper, killing him before he knew what had happened. Uriel rolled, firing his pistol in quick bursts.
More Ultramarines dropped around him, quickly fanning out from the base of the mineshaft, pistols blasting and chainswords roaring.
There were forty troopers stationed at the bottom of the shaft, weapons trained at the elevator car from behind sand—
bagged gun nests. Gunfire blasted out to meet the attacking Ultramarines, bullets and lasbolts filling the air. Smoke billowed and blistering gouts of steam and exhaust gasses belched from shattered vents and the air grew dense with fumes.
Three powerful strides and Uriel was over the defences into the first gun nest, chopping left and right with his chainsword. A trooper brought his lasgun up.
Uriel hacked through the barrel, his reverse stroke chopping the man’s head from his shoulders. In a bloodthirsty frenzy, he killed every enemy around him, savage joy flooding through him. He shot and cut his way through ten men before finally there were no more foes in reach. The fury and surprise of the Space Marine assault could not be resisted and within minutes the defenders were dead, their position now their tomb.
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