On either side of him came four Terminator-clad warriors of his retinue, the elite of the clan. Their power weapons shimmered like stars in the void.
They crunched their way through a thick layer of burned, twisted and ruined bodies. Corpses stretched away fore and aft, interlocking and overlapping into a carpet of cadavers. Some wore the olive-green of the Ferik Tactical; others the pearl-grey of the old Shardenus regiments. Some of the flesh was pink and human; some mutated almost beyond recognition.
The chamber, narrow and enclosed, was a killing ground. Rauth had known it would be when he’d ordered the mortal soldiers to take it. If time had not been pressing, he could have circumvented the choke-point and assaulted it from above, below or behind. Time, though, was the one thing he didn’t have, and so the humans had been hurled into the gaping jaws of the hive’s defences, cracking them open, chamber by chamber.
The tactics were effective. Led by individual squads of Iron Hands, the regiments of the Ferik Imperial Guard had hacked, bludgeoned and shot their way deep into the heart of Melamar Primus, tearing a path directly through the centre of the hive and driving the traitors back.
As Rauth swept his gaze across the floor of the chamber, he saw just how many of the mortals had paid for their zeal with death. Hundreds of bodies lay immobile in the chamber. The rough surface of the floor was viscous with a thick layer of mingled blood, sticky and glistening in the on-off light.
The fighting had been savage. Appropriately savage.
Ahead of him, one of the bodies moved slightly. Rauth’s helm visor zoomed in on it automatically, drawn by the gesture.
He paused. All around him, his retinue stopped walking. All four behemoths stood silently, towering over the twisted field of corpses in silence.
One of the mortal soldiers was still alive. Rauth’s armour sensors picked up his life-signal pulsing weakly. Moving cumbersomely in his heavy plate, he stooped over the stricken Guardsman, letting his helm’s augmenters pick out the man’s outline in the flickering gloom.
A pair of eyes looked up at him from the floor. They were wide and red-rimmed. The man’s helmet visor had been shattered, exposing a blotchy, bloody face within. He breathed in shallow gasps, and pink foam collected at the edges of his swollen lips.
For a moment, the two warriors looked at one another. Rauth saw the enormous chasm in the mortal soldier’s chest where a las-beam had punched through. He saw snapped ribs sticking up from a pulpy mass of charred muscle. He saw organs trembling within, glossy where the intermittent light flashed across them.
Rauth looked at the flesh at the edge of the wound, noting how it tried to repair itself. Blood was already clotting, pooling like oil and coating the ragged fringes of the opening. The man’s heart laboured, pumping more blood around what remained of his body. It would not be enough – the injury was mortal.
Still, though. The man was fighting.
Rauth looked deep into the man’s eyes. For some reason he found himself unwilling to do what was necessary. He drew his gauntlet up and pressed a finger lightly against the man’s temple.
He waited a second longer. The man knew what was coming, and seemed to accept it. He stared straight back up at the Iron Hand, somehow maintaining eye contact, unable to speak, his fragile breathing growing just a little more urgent.
Then Rauth pressed his finger home. The movement was gentle, like cracking an egg-shell. The mortal shuddered, then fell still. Blood pumped from his wounds, but sparse breaths no longer issued from his gaping mouth.
Rauth withdrew his gauntlet and slowly stood up. His retinue made no movement.
Nethata’s words came back to him then, like a ghost-echo on a faulty audio recording.
You will remember that they are human. Like you used to be.
It was hard to recall a time when Rauth’s existence had been anything like the fragile, bloody one led by the mortal Guardsmen he led into war. They were ephemeral, those men; like short-lived insects destined to breed, fight and die. By contrast, Rauth knew that he was functionally immortal for as long as his warrior skills proved equal to those he faced in battle. He would never feel his muscles atrophy, nor the grip on his weapon weaken. If a las-beam somehow penetrated a Space Marine’s primary heart then his posthuman physiology would compensate immediately. In Rauth’s case, the centuries-worth of bionic implants that riddled what remained of his mortal frame would keep him going, keep him fighting, keep him existing.
Such had been the case for hundreds of years. Over the slow passage of time he’d only felt himself grow harder, colder, more unyielding.
Did it matter, that he’d virtually forgotten what it was like to possess mortal frailties? Would it have made a difference to his strategy, had he been able to fully recall his old capacity for terror, for fear, for weakness?
He remembered the words of Raukaan’s old Iron Father, the one who’d plucked him from the howling wastes of Medusa and started him off on the process that would slowly bleed away his humanity.
In times ahead, he had said, your mortal mind will return to you like a ghost. It will whisper to you, telling you that you have become a monster. A thousand voices will tell you this. You will be tempted to believe those voices.
Rauth lifted his gauntlet up and looked at it. The mortal’s blood glistened from his fingertip.
They speak the truth, though you must not heed them. Some truths are ruinous, and some deceptions necessary.
Rauth remembered how he’d felt when hearing the words for the first time. He’d not listened. He’d never listened, back in the days when his passions ran hot and his spirit raged against the symbols of authority.
And what if they strike near the mark? What then? Some men, we believe, must become monsters so that all of humanity does not become so.
Rauth found himself wishing then that Telach was close, and not closeted away with his three Codiciers in preparation for the main assault through the tunnels. He couldn’t confide in Khatir – the Iron Father was little more than a weapon.
He cast his mechanical gaze across the bodies of those slain under his orders, and felt the ghost of the past whisper to him, just as he had been promised that it would. Its voice was comforting even as it mocked him.
You have become a monster.
His comm-feed crackled into life. Rauth’s thoughts abruptly broke off, and he let his gauntlet fall.
‘Lord,’ said Khatir.
‘Tell me,’ he said.
‘Melamar Primus is secured,’ said Khatir. Rauth could hear the crash of bolter fire in the background, tinny and obscure. ‘Tunnel approaches are now under assault. I assume you wish to lead the attack beyond.’
‘I do,’ Rauth replied. ‘I will be at your position shortly.’
‘Very well. Interim orders?’
Rauth hesitated. His thoughts, normally so acute, felt sluggish. Telach’s words about the presence in the spires being something they had fought before preyed on his mind. The Chief Librarian had been unable to give him any further insight on what that meant, but it was clear that the normally stoic Telach had been unnerved by what he’d sensed.
Under Rauth’s immense, unmoving shadow, the dead Guardsman stared up at him with empty eyes.
‘Ensure the heavy support is in place,’ he said finally. ‘And contact Princeps Lopi.’
Rauth began to walk again, striding through the layers of mingled gore and bone. As his limbs moved once more, he felt some of that sluggishness recede. His boot crushed the skull of the man he’d given the Emperor’s Mercy to, and he barely noticed it.
‘Telach has warned us of what lies in those tunnels, and I will not enter them unprepared,’ said Rauth, pulling up tactical overlays on his helm display as he walked. Activity helped him, and he felt his blood stirring. ‘I want all claves assembled, and I want the Librarians deployed, and most of all – and this is what you mu
st impress on Lopi – I want the Titans.’
Rauth contemplated the destruction that would bring, and something within him almost smiled.
‘We will send the Warhounds in,’ he said. ‘Right under their feet. If that doesn’t break their spirit, nothing will.’
Lopi sank deeper into the pseudo-world of the Manifold, soaking up the streams of symbolic data as they flooded towards and over him. He was satisfied, and still buoyed by the sheer thrill of sharing consciousness with Vindicta.
The Warlord Titan had made its way across the open space of the Maw and through the narrow gap between the Melamar Primus and Secundus hives. Striding through the valley between sheer walls on either side, it had waded through whole detachments of heavy armour, crunching the wreckage beneath its feet and grinding the smoking remnants into the ash-soil.
The enemy had nothing with which to fight back. Their tanks were too slow and too bogged down in the morass of semi-derelict buildings to respond adequately. Only its ferocious wall-mounted artillery packed a big enough punch to trouble the war machines of Astorum.
He shouldn’t have worried about Remona. Castigatio’s princeps was as capable as he was, and seemingly impervious to fear. She had a kill-tally far in excess of what would be expected of one her age, and she knew her machine well.
Still, he worried. He worried about all the men and women in his formation, just as he fretted over the spirits of the god-machines they inhabited. They were like family to him; like his children, or his siblings. When they suffered harm, he felt the pain of it.
‘Engine Castigatio is seven points to rear-left,’ replied Killan, his fingers busy at his console. ‘Bogged down with fire-lines still lodged in the flanks of Melamar Primus, but making progress towards our position. The blessed machine is intact and moving well.’
Lopi shook his head, trying to loosen his tight organic muscles.
Vindicta slewed round, rocking on its central axis. Its left leg planted firmly, crushing an abandoned industrial building as if it were made of rotten synthwood. The soaring edges of Melamar Secundus filled the forward viewers, laced with promethium fires. As ever on Shardenus, the air was thick with smog and ash, cloaking everything in a dirty haze. The Warlord’s sensoria picked out the sources of the heavy las-fire – seven separate positions high up on the hive’s exterior battlements – and presented Lopi with a range of firing responses.
The rocket hit Vindicta just below the neck-joint. It screamed out from a position high up on Melamar’s north-west facing terraces, trailed by a thick line of ink-black smoke. It came in fast, curving slightly as guidance cogitators locked on, and exploded in a riot of colour and noise across the forward voids. For a second, all views were replaced with a fuzzy hail of static. Vindicta staggered backwards, reeling from the detonation.
Lopi was hurled against the side of his throne, and the distinction between the real world and the Manifold blurred uncomfortably. Klaxons went off from somewhere deep in the Titan’s innards, and he sensed the sharp tang of engine oils suddenly loosed into the cockpit’s atmosphere.
Some of the sensor screens flickered back online. Lopi righted himself, pushing back against the throne’s iron arms. The Manifold hurled information at him, and he could feel Vindicta’s machine heart growling away in outrage.
‘Frontal voids down,’ reported Yemos. ‘I need a few moments, my princeps.’
‘Came in too close,’ muttered Jerolf, struggling to retain traction as the Warlord’s massive drive systems absorbed the blast-wave of the rocket. ‘Should pull back.’
He unleashed the multi-barrelled gatling, pouring the Warlord’s latent anger into the assault. As he did so, he felt Vindicta’s spirit surge up within him, roaring and raging.
The engine rocked back on its stabilisers, juddering from the torrent of fury pouring from the rotating barrels of the immense gun-mount. Heavy projectiles hammered into the sides of the hive spire ahead, scything through the outer armour and ripping it into a hail of torn-up ferrocrete.
Lopi suddenly became aware of the full presence of the Titan within him. The ancient, vengeful soul of the machine swam up from the murky depths, taking control of its weapon systems and powering them up.
He was losing control. The sensation was wonderful.
The gatling blaster cut a swathe across the hive walls, tearing through whole hoppers of ammunition in seconds. Lopi felt fresh loops being shunted up through the auto-loader systems and slamming into place. Every crashing impact sent new shivers of sensation rippling through him.
The rest of the Warlord’s weapons broke into action. Beams lanced out from the shoulder-mounted turbolasers, streaking through the roiling clouds of smoke and smog like starship contrails. The enormous quake cannon powered up, whining with accumulated energy before sending its payload thundering out into the atmosphere. When it struck the hive edges, the whole structure seemed to shudder. Gantries collapsed, walls were demolished, buttresses blew apart in cataclysmic eddies of destruction.
Vindicta disappeared behind a maelstrom of colossal energies. Everything opened up, flinging terrifying levels of power out at enemy fire-positions high up on the walls. The noise was deafening even within the confines of the cockpit, and several sensoria panels overloaded with sharp, fizzing pops.
Yemos sounded alarmed. Lopi could have laughed. Rooted deep within his consciousness, he heard the echo of Vindicta’s soul chuckling away. The sound was semi-human, as if the imprint of some long-dead mortal princeps had been stamped onto it in ages past.
It is alive. It thirsts for destruction. It is alive, and I am its avatar.
The sound of his deputy’s voice amused Lopi as much as it irritated him. He continued to unleash hell on the spire-flank, watching as the outer layers dissolved into a cascade of dust.
Then he stopped.
Lopi slumped a little, panting. The aftershocks of the barrage died away slowly, resounding out across the industrial wasteland between the spires. Smoke rolled down the artificial cliffs of the hive spire, lined with the angry red of incendiaries going off. A huge pall of dust and debris sank to earth with eerie slowness, gradually revealing what Vindicta had done.
Lopi became aware of the silence within the command chamber. With some difficulty, he extracted his awareness from the Manifold. Vindicta’s spirit clutched at him, trying to drag him back i
nto the embrace of rage. He felt an almost overwhelming urge to power the weapons up again, to keep firing, to destroy everything in his path.
Yemos was looking at him, aghast. Jerolf was still muttering away at his station, and Killan was busy trying to bring a whole bank of sensoria online.
Yemos looked unconvinced. He bowed his head slowly, never letting his eyes drop from Lopi’s.
‘We are now low on solid ammunition, princeps,’ he said. ‘I shall make arrangements for early resupply. We cannot do that again any time soon.’
Lopi didn’t feel sorry. His only regret was that the glorious devastation had to end. With the withdrawal of the god-machine’s bellicose presence, though, it was easy enough to see that the moderati was right.
The pict screens gradually cleared of dust and smoke, driven east by the hot wind. Lopi gazed out on what he’d done, and allowed himself another a brief frisson of pleasure.
Melamar Secundus was a pyramid of fire. Huge rents had been gouged out of the hive’s protective plating, exposing layers of hab-units within. Flames the size of Thunderhawks rippled up the precipitous edges, fed by the wind and spilled promethium. Secondary explosions rocked the spire from within, spewing out gobbets of smoke and sparks. The fire positions, including the location from which the missile had been fired, were black holes gouged deep into Melamar’s heart.
The spire had been ravaged. No las-beams now flickered from its turrets. Across whole swathes of its outer surface, it was as charred and dead as a lump of carbon.
Witness the hand of the Omnissiah, traitor, mouthed Lopi, casting his gaze across the horrific damage. Deep down now, almost beyond his ability to detect, the soul of the machine was still chuckling.
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