Astra Militarum

by David Annandale, Justin D Hill, Toby Frost, Braden Campbell (epub)

  I looked up at Velez. ‘Maybe it won’t come to this,’ I said quietly.

  Looking down the bridge once more, I saw that Leclair’s men were still alive and fighting valiantly. An impressive number of bodies lay sprawled on the ground at their feet, but it was obvious to me that their cause was lost. They were outnumbered nearly three to one and, what’s more, the cultists seemed enraged beyond mortal understanding.

  I searched the whirling melee and at last caught a glimpse of a silver sabre as it was thrust through the chest of one of the ogryns. The hulking corpse toppled forward to reveal the major. The hem of his greatcoat was soaked in the blood of traitors and he had taken a nasty wound to his left shoulder, to which he seemed to pay no mind.

  I was impressed. Again, he was no Cadian, but his valour couldn’t be denied. It was possible, I thought, that in the years to come his actions here, during the Siege of Rycklor, might find their way into the teaching manuals of the Departmento Munitorum.

  Another of the ogryns rose up behind him, its face covered by some kind of metal plate or welder’s mask, and in its hands it carried what appeared to be the bottom half of a street sign or lamppost with a chunky wad of rockcrete at one end. He hefted this impromptu club over one shoulder and swung it with all his might, striking Major Leclair in the side of the head. The handsome face was obliterated, and his body fountained blood before it collapsed to the ground.

  The Zhenyans had failed. Now, it was up to us.

  ‘When they funnel down the deck of that bridge,’ I shouted, ‘open fire and don’t stop until I say so. First rank, take aim. Second rank, at the ready.’

  Our priest unchained a thick tome from his belt, opened its yellowed pages and began to read aloud. I recognised the passage at once as being taken from the Book of Saint Ollanius, the patron saint of the Astra Militarum.

  ‘Let me preach His name!’ he cried out. ‘Praise be to the Emperor, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.’

  At the end of the bridge, the last of Leclair’s men cried out and fell in a heap. The cultists cheered and began to surge towards us. The remaining ogryns were in the lead, once more acting as living shields for the rest. I watched them rush headlong towards us, becoming dimly aware of a high-pitched howling in the distance.

  ‘Part the heavens, Lord, and come down. Touch the mountains, so that they smoke. Send forth lightning and scatter our enemy.’

  I raised my free hand and clutched the detonator tightly with the other. ‘First rank, fire!’

  With a loud crack, twenty-five beams of searing light struck the brutes. Two of the monsters stumbled and fell face first onto the bridge deck plating. The cultists scrambled over their dead bodies.

  ‘Reach down your hand from on high…’

  ‘Second rank, fire!’

  Twenty-five more shots struck the oncoming foe. Another ogryn went down, steam escaping from the holes in his chest. Still, the horde kept coming and the howling sound grew louder.

  ‘Intercede on our behalf…’

  ‘Fire at will!’

  My soldiers loosed a last, desperate volley that felled one more of the ogryn. By my count there were still nine left, and behind them perhaps three times our number in cultists. We were about to be overrun.

  I put my thumb on the detonator.

  ‘And from the deadly peril, deliver us,’ Lantz concluded.

  ‘Look!’ Velez cried. He was pointing at something in the sky behind me. I whirled around.

  A transport ship, resembling nothing so much as a flying brick, had broken through the sickly-coloured clouds and descended towards us. Its wings spanned nearly thirty meters and its hull was painted flat black. It had massive, twin engines mounted on each side, and at the back sprouted a stubby tail with dual stabilizers. As it grew closer, the screaming sound became a thunderous roar, and I could just make out white panels on its sides. Another, smaller brick was fastened to its underbelly, secured in place by six, segmented, mechanical arms.

  Realization hit, leaving me speechless – you hear stories about such things, but you never really expect it to happen. Yet, there it was: a Thunderhawk. The Space Marines were coming to save us.

  The transport suddenly tilted its nose up, and a blast of heated air washed over the land. Clumps of frozen dirt and debris swirled everywhere. I threw an arm across my eyes, struggling to watch as the titanic machine glided overhead, covering us with its shadow. The thing nestled underneath it was a wide, tracked vehicle with weapon mountings on either side. I blinked as I realised that it could only be a Land Raider.

  Velez was just as dumbstruck as I, and Lantz had dropped his book of sacred verse and stood with arms spread wide. He grinned like an idiot, mouthing words that were impossible to hear over the Thunderhawk’s turbines.

  I tore my attention away and glanced down the bridge. At the sight of this incredible intervention, the cultists had finally stopped their murderous charge. They stood frozen near the midpoint of the bridge and watched as the transport’s six mechanical arms suddenly flicked open. The Land Raider dropped onto the deck, its mass so great that the rockcrete beneath its treads cracked and splintered. Then, its engine came to life and it began to rumble forwards. With its role complete, the Thunderhawk rocketed back into the rusty clouds, leaving twisted contrails in its wake.

  The mass of former factory workers began to back away from the Land Raider’s implacable advance, but the ogryns showed a stunning lack of fear. The brute that had killed Major Leclair raised his massive cudgel.

  ‘Blood for the Blood God,’ he cried, and struck the tank’s forward hull.

  There was a resounding clang, and I saw the rockcrete at the base of the pole shatter into powder. Unaffected, the Land Raider repaid the fellow’s heresy by grinding him into mush beneath its treads. The other five were bowled over the guardrails where they splashed into the green sludge of the river.

  The Space Marines had replaced their tank’s lascannons with an assembly of boltguns, rigged to fire in unison. The sound was indescribable, and it roused not only myself, but also Lantz, Velez and the others out of our stupor. I took my thumb away from the detonator button and put the device back into the lock box. The sight of the Land Raider effortlessly pushing back the cultists brought on a heady enthusiasm.

  ‘Fall in behind that tank,’ I shouted. ‘Re-establish the line at the other end of the bridge. Support for the Space Marines on my order.’

  ‘Onward!’ Lantz shouted. He leapt over the sandbag wall with the agility of a man half his age and began running madly after the Land Raider. ‘Lend assistance to the Emperor’s Angels of Death!’

  The massive machine was nearly across the bridge by the time we caught up to it. The cultists, whose numbers had been greatly thinned by the firepower of the Space Marines, were once again on open ground. They were about to break and flee back into Rycklor, when the Land Raider suddenly stopped.

  For a split second the world was still. Then, the front of the machine opened up, dropping its assault ramp amidst the bodies of the slain. Panels on either side of the entryway exploded outwards, spraying the cultists with jagged shards of shrapnel, and from the inside of the cavity, Space Marines strode out into the pale, morning light.

  There were sixteen of them. Like their tank, the armour they wore was primarily black with patches of white, but there appeared to be different styles between them. Their leader clad in a baroque suit with a high collar and a long, flowing cloak carried a shield the size of a dinner table, and a hammer that crackled with a nimbus of destructive energy. Behind him were eight who wore the iconic power armour of the Adeptus Astartes – impossibly heavy and with massive, rounded shoulder plates. They carried boltguns festooned with purity seals and strips of parchment. And then, crouched low, came seven burly men in a lighter kind of combat dress that was not too different from my carapace armour. They too wielded boltguns
.

  Did this indicate differing levels of rank or achievement? Were we looking at a single unit, or some kind of mixed formation? I had no way of knowing for certain; the doctrines of the Space Marines are unknown and inscrutable to persons such as myself. In truth, it mattered very little.

  The corrupted citizens rallied and charged. I don’t know why – they might have been suddenly encouraged by their superior numbers, or perhaps their so-called blood god spurred them on. My guess is the latter, because within a few seconds, there was blood everywhere.

  The Space Marines received the charge by firing their boltguns. Explosive shells tore limbs from torsos, heads from necks and cut some of the cultists clean in half. Their leader used his shield to smash three of the burly men into heaps of meat and broken bone before swinging his hammer in a wide horizontal arc to decapitate two others. The ground was covered in crimson, too frozen to soak up even the smallest amount of gore. It pooled around the Space Marines’ feet and sprayed across the white patches of their armour.

  Through it all, the mob fought back, refusing to flee even when it became apparent that they were going to lose. It seemed their god had sent them on a suicide mission.

  The five ogryns that had fallen off the bridge hauled themselves up from out of the river. Their massive weapons remained intact, even though their cloth hoods and ragged clothing had all dissolved in the toxic sludge. Their skin was now a sickly green colour in the places where it was not falling off entirely. How they were still alive, let alone hungry for combat, was a miracle.

  The Space Marines whirled around to face this new threat. Boltguns were of no use at such close range, so they slashed and stabbed their attackers with knives the size of short swords. I saw one of the ogryn lifelessly slide beneath the surface of the river. The others, however, refused to die and struck back with fury.

  Their blows were harmlessly absorbed or deflected by the Space Marines’ armour, save for an enormous pickaxe that flew up and shattered the helmet of one of the suits. I saw the Space Marine stumble backwards from the force of the blow, falling onto his back in a puddle of blood.

  The Space Marines had their backs to the mob of cultists and now faced a battle on two fronts, something wholly unacceptable. I ordered my shock troops to join in the fray and they happily obliged. Frustrated, cold and hungry, they unleashed all their pent-up frustration on the cultists, using the butts of their lasguns to knock out teeth and break noses. When one of the enemy fell or doubled over, they finished the wretch with the steel toes of their boots. It was a brutal, horrible scene that had more in common with a street brawl than a military counter-attack.

  At once I fell back into familiar motions of cut, thrust, and parry. Several of the cultists I killed were nondescript, their features lost in a blur of kill-or-be-killed. I do recall a middle-aged man with a scraggly beard though, only because his neck geysered like a waterfall as I dragged my blade across it. As he went down, I caught a glimpse of the Space Marines’ leader.

  He was using his shield to protect the fallen, helmetless comrade, while beating at the ogryn with his unwieldy hammer; there was a sound like thunder and a flash of light every time the weapon found its mark. The ogryn took three blows to the chest – the last of which sent him flying backwards into the river once and for all. The remaining ogryns blinked as if blinded, shaking their heads, and the Space Marines finished them with no further incident to themselves.

  Likewise, our fight against the cultists drew to a hasty conclusion. From somewhere on my left, a young woman drove a club into my ribs. My armour dulled most of the pain, but the impact left me gasping for breath. Spinning around, I kicked her legs out from under her and thrust my sword through her heart before she could get back up. I sprang back and searched for another target, only to find none.

  Of the fifty soldiers I had started with, I counted thirty-two still alive. We were surrounded by a sea of destroyed bodies and congealing gore. Velez was a slight distance away, leaning heavily against one of the bridge’s support columns, and several dead cultists were heaped before him.

  ‘It’s a sign,’ he said, as if reading my thoughts.

  My boots made squishing sounds as I approached him. ‘Velez, don’t be paranoid. There’s a lot of it, sure, but it’s just blood.’

  ‘Is it, Olen? Is it?’ Forgoing both my rank and last name, he tapped his staff against one of the corpses at his feet. The chest was covered by a pair of circles, nearly intertwined, that appeared to have been burned directly onto the skin.

  ‘A brand of some kind?’

  Velez seemed to consider how to reply. He was sweating despite the cold, his gaze drifting over the scene and coming to rest on the Space Marines. ‘I can’t yet say for certain. But they didn’t arrive just to help us, I promise you that.’

  The Space Marine leader was kneeling beside the one who had taken the severe blow to the head. He set his hammer and shield down and removed the helmet of his armour, revealing skin the colour of old leather. His nose was his most prominent feature – wide and flat, as if it had been broken and reset innumerable times – and his brow was creased with worry.

  The scene was an oil painting come to life, worthy of immortalization in the stained glass or vaulted ceiling of any cathedral. Lantz must have thought so as well.

  ‘Would that I had the means to capture this moment,’ he said loudly.

  The faces of all sixteen Space Marines shot up to glare at him in unison. Velez closed his eyes and sighed as I darted forwards.

  ‘I think what he means is that we are very, very grateful for your help. Isn’t that right, Lantz?’ I replied.

  ‘To have the Emperor’s Angels of Death stand with us, to be allowed to fight at their side, is an honour none here deserve,’ Lantz continued, even louder this time.

  The leader rose. ‘Angels of Death,’ he repeated. His face showed no emotion, but the tone of his voice held a hint of amusement. Reaching down, he helped the fallen Space Marine to his feet. Two of the others retrieved his shield, hammer and helmet. He took the helmet first and passed it to the man who no longer had one, then calmly rearmed himself. ‘I am looking for Captain Olen Kervis, Cadian Guard, Twenty-Eighth Regiment.’

  I instinctively snapped to attention. ‘Reporting… Sir, my lord? I’m sorry, I have no idea how I’m supposed to address you.’

  ‘I am Isaias, Castellan of the Black Templars.’ His rank meant nothing to me, but it sounded very impressive. ‘Captain, you are currently overseeing the command of a number of native Zhenyans.’

  ‘A local force regiment, yes.’

  ‘I require use of them,’ he said.

  One of my junior officers, a sergeant named Crowell, stepped forward. Her violet-coloured eyes darted nervously at the Templars before she shook her head at me. Leclair’s sword rested across her outstretched arms.

  ‘Castellan, I regret to inform you the last of the local soldiers have all died in combat against the enemy.’

  Isaias frowned in silent tableau for a moment. Sickly clouds swallowed the sun once more, and the wind picked up, whistling through the superstructure of the bridge. ‘Then, you and your men will come with us. Now.’

  ‘Castellan,’ I said cautiously, ‘we have orders to protect this bridge and to keep the enemy bottled up in Rycklor until a relief force arrives. Are you that force?’

  ‘We are not.’

  ‘Then, I’m sorry, but I cannot abandon this post.’

  He blinked several times, which I presume is the reaction a Space Marine makes when he is confused or in a state of disbelief.

  ‘Yes?’ I finally asked.

  ‘One does not say no to the Angels of Death, Kervis,’ Lantz hissed.

  ‘I’m not going before a court martial for dereliction of duty,’ I said. ‘No one here is.’

  Isaias raised his chin. ‘Your commitment is well placed, captain, but you
mistake a command for a request.’

  Velez had been correct. There was an agenda at work here and we were to play some part in it.

  ‘Why? What could Space Marines possibly need our help with?’

  Again, there was a moment of strained silence punctuated only by the winter wind.

  ‘We are going into Rycklor,’ Isaias finally said.

  This statement caused a stir. No one had gone into the city for months. It was firmly in the hold of renegades, cultists and, it was whispered, horrific monsters that could strip the flesh from a man in seconds.

  ‘Normally,’ Isaias continued, ‘we would use teleport homing beacons or orbital drop pods in a situation such as this. However, Rycklor is blanketed by a fell miasma.’

  I didn’t recognize the term. It sounded arcane and otherworldly. ‘By a what?’

  Isaias turned towards the city. From here it appeared as a jumbled collection of dark shapes through thick fog that hung over it like a death shroud.

  ‘Ah, yes, that. It’s been there ever since we arrived,’ I said. ‘The forces couldn’t maintain their hold and had to abandon it. They told us that not long after, this… fog… billowed up and smothered it. It’s spreading across the countryside now, but we’ve never been able to formerly identify it. Maybe a nerve agent or chemical weapon?’

  ‘Nothing so mundane. It does, however render the cityscape immune to our augur arrays. Without accurate targeting data, we must instead enter the city by using Integuma,’ he said, casting a glance at the Land Raider.

  Thinking that I knew what the Space Marines were after, I snapped my fingers and held out a hand. Crowell read the gesture intuitively, handed Leclair’s sword to Lantz and produced a field map from her kit. She unfolded the wrinkled paper and gave it to me, revealing a rough map of Rycklor compiled from the descriptions of local soldiers.

  ‘I can offer you this,’ I said, holding the map towards Isais. ‘We made it for the day long-range artillery would arrive. I can’t vouch for it entirely, though. It’s based on a lot of conjecture and is likely months out of date.’