Wrath of Iron

by Chris Wraight

 

  Heriat swung round in his seat to face Nethata.

  ‘We have another comm,’ he said. He let some reproach bleed into his voice. ‘It’s been relayed, stored in a buffer for delayed transmission.’

  Nethata nodded absently. Malevolentia rocked as it crushed something big beneath its tracks, and both men rocked with it.

  ‘I know what it says,’ said Nethata.

  ‘You can’t keep ignoring them,’ said Heriat, irritated.

  Nethata lifted his head from the short-range auspex display.

  ‘Any change?’ he asked.

  ‘Rauth has ordered his forces into assault,’ said Heriat. ‘He’s advancing along the tunnels towards the Capitolis.’

  Nethata looked briefly surprised.

  ‘Underground? I thought he took the Warhounds?’

  ‘They’re underground too.’

  Nethata let slip a low whistle.

  ‘Throne,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe Lopi let him do that.’

  ‘I’m not sure the princeps knows.’

  Nethata turned back to the auspex display.

  ‘So he’s taking the direct route,’ said the commander. ‘I should have guessed. He’ll lose thousands, just as before.’

  ‘It’ll be fast.’

  Nethata shook his head wearily.

  ‘Do you understand this obsession with speed, Slavo?’ he asked. ‘Tell me if I’m missing something.’

  Heriat looked at Nethata carefully. He’d always admired the man’s flexibility, his willingness to change course when the circumstances demanded it. That was something that he himself found difficult – a commi-ssar’s training cultivated a rigid mindset, one more suited to following a restricted set of commands to the letter.

  Heriat had long been aware of the limitations of that way of thinking, even as he’d worked hard to purge the emotions from his psyche that endangered it. It was one reason why he’d never sought a command position in the regular military – he knew that he’d have run an army in the way he ran the Commissariat, something that would never have brought the results that Nethata’s imaginative, instinctive command had done.

  Heriat, by contrast, would have followed Rauth’s orders completely. He’d have sent the armoured columns into Melamar Primus for the muster on schedule, and by now they’d have been filing into the tunnels in support of the vanguard units.

  If Nethata had been any other man, Heriat would have overruled him long ago. Still, though, he resisted the urge. Nethata was not any other man, and that was all that kept things together.

  ‘I do not,’ he said, feeling the sores around his mouth jostle like a reminder of that. ‘I do not need to understand. Rauth is in supreme command; when he issues the order, you are bound to obey.’

  Nethata met his gaze steadily.

  ‘We are making progress,’ he said. ‘The Apex hive is on fire. Our tanks have already destroyed the outer defences, and I can deploy troop carriers within the hour. All standard procedure tells me I am doing the right thing. Tunnels or not, Rauth will regret pushing on to the centre before taking out the periphery.’

  His voice shook a little as he spoke, but his eyes remained dark and unmoving.

  ‘This is Imperial Guard doctrine, Slavo,’ Nethata said. ‘That is what we are bound to obey. It is what you are bound to enforce.’

  ‘You have a creative interpretation of my job.’

  Nethata smiled.

  ‘Creative?’ His smile faded quickly. ‘Are you having doubts?’

  Heriat didn’t reply immediately. He knew his expression would give nothing away – he’d worked hard at perfecting the stony, unflinching expression he knew the men expected of him. He looked the same when he was pinning medals on officers’ breasts, and he looked the same when he executed those who’d deserted their posts.

  For all that, he felt torn inside, pulled apart by two old, immovable loyalties – one personal and contingent, one impersonal and eternal.

  ‘If I ordered you to turn back, sir, invoking Commi-ssariat’s privilege,’ he said, speaking slowly, ‘would you do it?’

  Nethata pursed his lips.

  ‘Is this a hypothetical question?’

  ‘I don’t know. Is it?’

  The two men sat facing one another for some time, neither one speaking, neither one yielding.

  As he waited, Heriat felt the slow grind of Malevolentia’s enormous motive units as it thrust deeper into the warzone. He heard the distant crump of artillery discharge, and the endless percussive thuds of the tank groups unleashing their payloads against the reeling flanks of the Axis hive spires. He knew that, far underground and to the north-west of their position, similar firefights were taking place under Rauth’s direct control.

  We should be there. We should be at the speartip.

  ‘Let me ask you a question in turn,’ said Nethata, and his expression was strange – hurt, perhaps, or merely playful. ‘If you invoked such privilege, and I resisted, what would you do?’

  Heriat felt the weight of the bolt pistol at his belt. He knew from experience that he could draw it far quicker than Nethata could respond. That was what it was for – the enforcement of discipline. That was what he was for.

  ‘You didn’t answer me, sir,’ said Heriat.

  ‘Nor you, me.’

  Another awkward silence descended. That time, Heriat looked away first. Another comm-signal scrolled across his console, flickering red in the gloom of Malevolentia’s command module.

  ‘Lopi’s withdrawing his Warlords,’ he said, half-relieved at the distraction, half-annoyed by it. ‘He’s heading for the Melamar muster-point.’

  Nethata smiled.

  ‘Perhaps he is learning, in his own time, what Rauth is capable of.’

  Heriat didn’t return the smile.

  ‘We should join him.’

  Nethata glanced down at the tactical displays, showing the progress his tank divisions were making against the Axis hives. Heriat studied the same data, and saw how carefully executed the advance had been. Nethata had used his resources skilfully, opening up a separate flank and damaging the enemy’s power to encircle.

  He remembered his words about pride, and regretted them. Nethata had acted within the spirit of the Guard’s doctrine, if not the letter, and the battlefront leading to the Capitolis looked far healthier than it had done only hours previously.

  ‘We’ll pull back when the last of the artillery points has been taken down,’ said Nethata at last. He looked up. ‘You’re right, Slavo. You’ve always been right. We’ll join up with Rauth for the assault on the Capitolis – he’ll need our guns for that.’

  Heriat nodded. He realised how close his hand had strayed to his sidearm, and slowly moved it away.

  ‘That puts my mind at rest, sir,’ he said.

  Nethata looked equivocal.

  ‘Good,’ he said.

  Nethata turned to the cogitator array before him. His fingers moved expertly across the brass-lined input columns, each one of which controlled the movements of whole tank formations.

  ‘Perhaps, though, while I attend to this,’ he said, making it sound like an afterthought, ‘you could arrange a hololith-feed to Princeps Lopi?’

  Nethata’s expression was busy, already absorbed in the preparations needed to conclude the barrage and consolidate his forces with Rauth’s. For all that, Heriat had known him too long to miss the signs of lateral thinking, of external planning, of triangulation.

  ‘I think,’ said Nethata, keeping his eyes down, ‘that he and I will have much to discuss.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  The daemon was fast, far faster than Morvox. It was strong, too, and commanded subtle magicks of deception and disruption. The creature moved in a haze of misdirection – one moment darting in fo
r the attack, the next spinning away back into the dark.

  Morvox remained methodical, watchful, wielding his blade two-handed and maintaining his guard as he fought. He could feel the aura of intimidation emanating from the daemon, but it made little impact on him.

  The positions of his battle-brothers flickered across his retinal display as he fought. They were all busy with their own battles; close by, but not close enough to intervene. More daemons had come since Fierez had died, dropping out of the vaults like carrion birds and dancing into combat. The mutants seemed to draw strength from them, and they clustered around the lithe, spectral figures like supplicants.

  Morvox saw the claw come in – a blur of movement – and parried with his own blade. The two substances, one physical, the other quasi-physical, hit each other with a shower of witchlight. He felt the shock of the impact, and compensated instantly.

  He started moving again before the pressure had released. He switched back with the blade, whipping it though the air in a fencer’s motion, forcing the creature up and away.

  It smiled at him as it pirouetted out of danger. Its lilac skin shimmered in the dark, leaving trails hanging in the air like drifting pollen.

  Medusan,+ it sent, and its voice was lilting like a child’s.

  Morvox ignored the taunts, the whispered half-truths as the daemon fought him. They were juvenile goads, trivial insults, the kind of thing a human would have grown out of upon reaching adulthood. The daemon was immortal, as ancient as the stars, and yet when it spoke, it spoke like a child.

  It pounced back at him, flinging out a cloud of spiralling purple motes as if casting a net across him.

  Morvox spun around, using his momentum to bring the blade across. The daemon veered out of its path – only just – and danced away again, laughing.

  Do you know the name Fulgrim, Medusan?+ it asked, never once moving its lips, letting its lethal claws snicker back and forth, toying with him.

  Morvox wasn’t drawn in. He didn’t follow the pattern, and stuck to his own methods. He stayed close, trusting to his armour, trusting in his systems, keeping his movements efficient. He lunged suddenly, point-first, nearly taking the monster’s leg off, then restored the wall of defence.

  Fulgrim lives still,+ it sent. +I have seen him. I have loved him. He has whispered truths to me, ancient stories, tales of old wonder.+

  The daemon came at him, claws criss-crossed but swinging open. It checked at the last minute, aiming to get past his guard. Morvox corrected, pulling back half a step, giving him the space he needed to block.

  Fulgrim killed a man, once. More than a man – a demigod, a paragon.+

  Morvox allowed himself a flicker of dry amusement. He knew what the daemon was trying to do, but he was neither a Space Wolf nor a World Eater, forever a hair’s breadth away from some berserk rage. He had been given over to the machine-spirit; he was a process, a procedure, a single link in a greater whole.

  So he didn’t rage. He didn’t launch into a frenzy of killing energy, nor roar out the name of his slain primarch as if it could somehow gift him the power to kill more swiftly.

  He fought on, smoothly, precisely, rocking around his centre of gravity and letting his thousands of augmetic implants do their work.

  Aspire to the state of the primarch.

  His name was the Gorgon then, though maybe you have forgotten that. What else have you forgotten, I wonder? What secrets have been lost to you?+

  The daemon smiled, and swooped in close again. Morvox let it come.

  My lord Fulgrim beheaded the Gorgon. Did you know that?+

  Morvox adjusted the grip on his blade, feeling the iron sinews of his left hand close tight. Servos in his upper thigh primed, storing energy for the burst to come. A series of adrenal adjusters below his rib-cage activated, matched by spike-nodes implanted under the skin of his neck.

  I have seen his head.+

  The daemon saw the opening, preparing for the plunge in.

  It is still screaming.+

  Morvox moved. His genhanced frame burst forwards, suddenly shifting into blinding, explosive speed. A nanosecond later his bionics did their work, powering up and boosting his response further. His blade blurred as it shot out.

  The daemon stopped smiling just as the killing edge swept up, tilting out and slicing through its neck-flesh.

  The chainsword flashed with the sudden release of warp energy, sending out a shockwave that nearly sent him reeling. Aetheric-residue lashed out, curling over his armour plate and scorching it. The daemon screamed, and its voice took on its true form – age-withered, fractured, composed of thousands of strands.

  Morvox felt the brief burst of power ebb, and jerked the blade down, putting his full weight behind the movement. The sword carved its way through the daemon’s body, shattering the armour fragments covering its torso and unwinding the unholy wards that kept it together.

  For a moment longer, it still lingered on the mortal plane, staring at him in mute astonishment.

  You–+

  Morvox pulled his fist back and lashed out. His gauntlet crunched into the daemon’s face, hurling it high and breaking its back. Then he went after it, working with both blade and gauntlet, cutting and hammering until the creature’s body was ruined.

  He stood over it for a moment, feeling his hearts hammering. What remained of the daemon shimmered on the floor, glowing softly as the animating power within it dissipated.

  ‘You talk too much,’ he said.

  Then he was moving again, striding back towards his battle-brothers who were still fighting. As he went, Morvox blink-summoned a tactical map on to his retinal display, showing the positions of the entire clan.

  The Iron Hands had pushed far down the main tunnel, outstripping the nearest mortal regiments and leaving them behind. Despite losses from the daemon attacks, the army’s progress was continuing. Its cohesion, though, was fracturing – the regular troops couldn’t keep up with Space Marines. Every stride took the Iron Hands further away from the main mass of the army, which had become bogged down further back, locked in a bloody tussle with the nightmarish forces dug in along the tunnel’s lengths.

  ‘Lord,’ he voxed to the command channel, isolating Khatir’s comm-signal. The Iron Father was fighting nearly three hundred metres away. ‘We are losing contact with the mortals. They are slowing.’

  A long hiss of interference sounded over the comm-link, punctuated by bolter fire and muffled explosions. When Khatir responded, his voice was typically acerbic.

  ‘Noted,’ he voxed. ‘Continue on present tasking.’

  Morvox looked over his shoulder, back down the smoke-choked tunnel to where the mortal ranks struggled. Even his enhanced eyesight could make out little.

  ‘Request permission to lead Clave Arx back to rally,’ he voxed. ‘We are losing them.’

  Something like a choke came down over the link. He could hear the sounds of massive energy bursts, and guessed that was Telach in action.

  ‘Negative,’ ordered Khatir. ‘Continue on present tasking.’

  Morvox hesitated for a moment longer. He could see other members of his clave in combat close by. The shriek and chatter of daemons had not gone away, and more would be coming soon enough.

  ‘The neverborn, lord,’ he voxed, making one last attempt. ‘We have not contained them – some have got past our line. You know the mortals cannot fight them.’

  A long fizz of static sounded on the comm-link. If he’d been a neophyte, Morvox might have thought that Khatir was considering the request. But he wasn’t a neophyte, he was a brother-sergeant of the Iron Hands, and he should have known better.

  ‘Continue on present tasking,’ came the response, and the link cut dead.

  Morvox stood still for a little while longer. The glowing runes of his helm’s tactical display danced in front of his visual field. He co
uld see a line of Iron Hand claves fighting their way along the tunnel, drawing nearer to the open gates at the far end through which the enemy still poured. He could even detect the portals themselves, shrouded in fire and smog, and knew that Rauth would be carving his way towards them, unencumbered by secondary objectives or considerations of mortal casualties.

  Aspire to the condition of the primarch.

  Then the scream of the daemonic broke out again, close by and moving fast. Morvox starting moving, striding back to where his brothers fought on. He watched his helm display cycle through proximal targets, and sensed the spoor of the nearest neverborn in his lone organic nostril.

  More cultists were already stumbling towards him, purple light bleeding from them like blood from wounds.

  He tried to forget the face of the man he’d saved.

  Aspire to the condition of the primarch.

  His arms felt strangely heavy. He hadn’t quite learned to forget faces. They still resonated with him, summoning up remnants of emotion, of hesitation, of humanity.

  The mortals cannot fight them.

  Unable to shake off his uncertainty, he shifted back into the mechanical patterns of movement that had sustained him in the Emperor’s service for all his postmortal life. The action of fighting banished doubt. It purified the soul, and cleansed the body.

  As the daemons sang in the vaults above him, Morvox took up his chainsword, assessed the tactical priority, and stalked back into combat.

  Princeps Yreg Nomen of the Warhound Titan Ferus Arma felt a flicker of unease.

  He felt the first stirrings of that unease even as he brought his war engine closer in to the enemy, hammering retreating ranks of debased troops with volley after volley of mega-bolter rounds. The tunnels were big, easily big enough to accommodate a Warhound Titan under their immense curvature, but it was still an uncomfortable, claustrophobic place to wage war.

  The Manifold was overrun. He was getting far too many signals to be processed adequately, and most of them flagged up as anomalous. Everything else, including across the realview ports, was miserably unclear and the sensoria were badly fogged. He’d have done better with his old human eyes.