It didn’t take long to reach a decision.
‘We advance,’ he ordered, addressing the squadron commanders over the division-wide channel. ‘Take up positions alongside the Commissar-General. Follow his fire-pattern and take his orders. Emperor be with you. Emperor be with us all.’
The tanks started moving immediately. Despite the obvious danger, none of the commanders liked standing idly while their comrades were in action ahead of them. Columns of Leman Russes began to grind their way north, crashing through the maze of shattered buildings and breaking out onto potholed, cracked highways between them.
Nethata watched them go through tiny viewports on the tank’s hull. As the tanks made their way towards the battle-front he felt his failure weigh heavily on his shoulders. Physical pain, deep-seated and acute, throbbed in his lower torso, but he resisted the urge to gland.
I should feel pain for this. I should feel guilt, and I should feel shame.
The tank’s commander, a man named Hiert Lerdian, turned to face him.
‘Are we going in, lord?’ he asked.
The tone of his voice was reproachful. Just like the rest, he didn’t enjoy seeing other men charge into action ahead of him.
Nethata checked the readings on his auspex again. The screen was filthy with ash.
‘Have you raised Princeps Lopi yet?’ he asked.
‘Negative. The comms protocols are complex. We are trying.’
Neither of the Warlords had moved. They remained static, like ancient statues of a long-dead civilisation watching over the gradual destruction of the world around them. For all Nethata knew, the god-machines might have been in contact with Heriat, or Rauth even, but he no longer had the means to raise them himself.
Nethata put the auspex down.
‘Keep trying,’ he said.
‘And us?’
Nethata looked out of the viewport again, out to where the spires burned.
He knew his life was forfeit. He was tempted to give the order to retreat south. He might have been able to get to the gates, then out across the Helat to the command bunkers. Shuttles would still be berthed there, ready to take him up into orbit and the safety of the fleet. Once aboard a Naval warship, even Rauth would not be able to get at him easily.
‘Lord, are we going in?’
It would be difficult, but it could be done. Perhaps, despite all he had done to earn the clan commander’s wrath, something – his life at least – could still be salvaged. Maybe negotiations could be made.
You cannot control the Iron Hands. It is dangerous to try.
He smiled again; a hooked, wry gesture across his blunt face.
‘Yes, we are going in, commander,’ said Nethata, gripping the edges of his seat, ready for the lurch and roll of the tank’s movement. Everything on the northern horizon was aflame. For as long as he looked at the Capitolis, he felt like he was looking at the end of the world. ‘Seal us up, and bring us close. We’ll add our fire to theirs. Perhaps we can do some good out there.’
He felt the engines start up. The hull of the tank shook violently, and smoke belched into the crew compartments.
‘Perhaps we can yet make amends,’ Nethata said quietly, speaking to himself as the crew busied themselves with their duties. ‘Perhaps there is still time.’
Chapter Twenty
Marivo had made his choice, and Khadi had made hers.
When she’d left, scampering down the tunnels like a sewer rat, he’d felt a sharp and unexpected pang of regret. He’d wanted something a little more pronounced to mark their separation; an acknowledgement, however slight, that they had shared something of a strange bond over the terrible days of the insurrection on Shardenus.
He had saved her life. She had saved his. They had both killed men in the name of the Emperor and lived to witness the Angels of Death in furious, terrifying action. He felt that was worth more than a weary nod, a quick look up, and a brief hand on his shoulder before she’d gone.
That was what he’d got, though. Perhaps there had been no time for anything else. Or perhaps, as was more likely, Khadi had never felt more than a fleeting affinity for him. Any illusion that the two of them had begun to feel some shared sense of purpose, a bond of comradeship even, had been just that – an illusion.
For all that, Marivo couldn’t quite shake the image of her tired, scared, dirty face. He held it in his mind as he ran, gripping his lasgun with white-knuckled fingers. Focusing on a picture of humanity in all its ordinariness helped stave off the imminent madness for a little longer.
After she’d gone, he’d gone back to the front, just as he’d always known he would. He’d reported for duty and picked up recycled weapons and armour components. The visor he’d been given had been much better than the one he’d used before, save for the smell of sweat and blood inside.
He’d followed the Iron Hands in with the rest of the mortal troops. He’d watched the gates open, and had felt the cold waves of horror sweep across him again. He’d seen the Space Marines charge through the gap, and he’d heard them shout their battle-cry.
The sound of that had jolted him out of his fear-struck stupor. Before then, even when the daemons had been among them, the Iron Hands had fought in silence. Hearing them roar their defiance in metal-edged unison had daunted him rather than inspired him. It had reminded him just how much he was an insignificant part of all that was unfolding – a mere speck of humanity thrown between the contests of gods and daemons.
Then the orders from the sergeants had broken out, and the remnants of the mortal forces sent into the spires alongside the Iron Hands had begun to shuffle forwards. A mix of uniforms – pearl-grey, olive, black – had jostled alongside one another, a product of hastily reconstituted units and regiments. Marivo had broken into a tumbling run along with the others, trying to keep his feet as he’d passed under the enormous lintel of the gates, trying to keep his senses as the thunderous crash and echo of warfare broke out around him once again.
Now past the gates and still climbing, he couldn’t remember what had made him give up the chance to escape. It hadn’t been fear of being discovered. It hadn’t been faith in the inevitable success of the Imperial Guard – events in the tunnels had shattered any beliefs he’d once had in that respect.
Perhaps it had been nothing more than stubbornness; an inability to change his essential nature even in the face of such extremity.
Marivo charged up the enormous stairwell alongside the others. He only had fleeting glimpses of the vast chasm around him – huge, arching roofs covered with hanging growths and throbbing tumours, pillars soaring away in the muzzle-flash-lit dark, gothic arches framing furnaces beyond. Snatched fragments of screams rang out, some of them human, some of them unearthly and bestial. Violent bursts of gunfire hammered out from further up the Great Stair, matched by the roar and growl of flame weapons igniting.
Marivo felt his lungs burn. The air was hot and bitter, like ashes drifting above a bonfire. Las-fire flickered in the dark, angling in all directions. His boots crunched through what felt like body parts lying on the ground – broken ribcages, crunched torsos, fractured skulls. He nearly pitched onto his face, but was held up and driven onwards by the press of bodies around him.
Just as before, the Iron Hands advanced faster than the mortals could. They had their own objectives, ones that had not been communicated to him or anyone else. That was fine by him; he knew his role. Every man around him knew his role – to do as much damage to the enemy as he could before the end came. If that end drew just one blade away from the Angels of Death then it had achieved its purpose.
Mutants began to crash in amongst them then, howling and shrieking as they careered down the many spans that bridged the gulf between the spiral stairway and the inner walls of the hive. Some still carried ranged weapons; most used improvised blades or the distorted growths bursting from their ruine
d frames.
Marivo saw one come at him – a burly horror with round black plates in place of skin – and fired. His first shot went wide, but the second connected. The mutant stumbled, and another las-blast finished him.
He kept running. Men alongside him fell and were left behind, choking in the bloody murk that ran ankle-deep and rolling down into oblivion. He kept firing. Two more mutants went down to his shots.
He’d always been a good marksman. He’d been proud of that, back when his life had consisted of training drills and off-world exercises. He could shoot.
Another one came charging across to the stairway, sprinting along a slender connecting bridge and leaping over the stone railing.
The creature’s face was stretched obscenely. Its teeth punched through its own cheeks, extending out and up like the tusks of an ork. It pounced at Marivo from the shadows, thrashing a dirty-looking goad at his stomach.
Marivo swung his lasgun round, squeezing off a single shot. It glanced against the creature’s oncoming arm but didn’t stop the goad. The blunt blade slipped under his armoured breastplate and burrowed deep into his stomach.
Marivo gasped, but kept moving. He ripped the blade free and smashed the stock of his weapon into the mutant’s face. It staggered backwards, lurching towards the edge of the stairway. Marivo limped after it, swinging his gun like a club and bludgeoning it closer to the drop.
It saw the danger, and tried to lunge at him again with the goad. By then, though, Marivo had been able to spin his lasgun back the right way round. He fired, and the shot blasted the creature clean over the railing. It tumbled out into the void, shrieking wildly before its plummet carried it out of earshot.
Marivo slumped against the railing of the stair, his hand clamped to his bloody stomach. He leaned against the stone. All around him, men and mutants grappled with one another.
Feeling dizzy, he let his head swing around. He looked out over the edge of the stairwell. The void fell away into blackness below him, vertiginous and yawning, and he realised how high he’d come already.
When he saw the green bloom race towards him from out of the depths, he had no idea what it was. He watched it puff out like algae in water, swimming out of the darkness and swirling up in broad, milky swathes.
Only when it hit him did he recognise what it was. He remembered the toxic fog of the wasteland, how it had nearly killed him before. He crashed to the floor, trying not to breathe in and knowing he would have to. The air around him flushed green as clouds of chemical fog raced up the core of the spire, billowing and boiling like thunderheads before a gale.
Marivo tried to rise, staggering forwards, then crashed to earth. He could feel blood run down from his eyes, and his skin begin to burn. He began to lose consciousness, but somehow managed to roll himself onto his back. He heard other bodies crash to the floor with wet thuds. He heard both men and mutants dissolve into fits of coughing.
His vision went cloudy. The sounds of gunfire receded, becoming muffled and echoing.
Marivo had no idea how the spire’s seals had been breached. He had no idea whether it had been intentional or not. Before he died, though, he did realise something that he guessed might be important: those of mortal flesh and blood, whether pure or mutant, could not fight for long in such conditions. They would die as the chemical filth filled their lungs. Only those encased in armour and with the physique of demigods could tolerate it.
The Emperor’s Angels.
Marivo let his head fall back. He gazed directly above him. As he did so, clouds of green-tinged fog rushed over him, sweeping up the Great Stair and curling around the core.
Bolted to an overhanging bulkhead, only five metres above him, was a standard-issue Imperial aquila. Marivo had seen thousands of such emblems during his service, and that one was no different. It was streaked with purple fluid and cracked from solid-round impacts, but it was still intact. Somehow it had survived the desecration, a tiny portion of Shardenus’s dignity still unbroken.
That gave him comfort. The image had been with him since childhood, defining him, giving him purpose. It was the emblem of his life. It was the emblem of all their lives. Now, at the end, it watched over him with blind, impassive eyes, unfurling its angular wingspan across the scenes of devastation.
‘Holy Throne of Terra…’ he breathed, beginning the catechism that would guide him to the Emperor’s side.
He knew he had achieved very little. He had killed a few traitors, and gathered a few more loyalists to his side. He had followed the orders he’d been given, even at the end when he’d had the chance to get out. Whenever he could, he’d stayed on his feet, fighting on, standing up to horrors that were far in excess of his limited powers.
He didn’t know whether that made him a hero or a fool. He knew what Khadi thought.
‘Holy Master of Mankind…’ he rasped, coughing.
He never finished. His jaw fell open, his lasgun fell from his hands, his chest stopped moving. All around him, traitors and loyalists slammed to the stairs, retching and scratching at their throats.
And so it was that, flat on his back, his unseeing eyes staring towards the heavens, Alend Marivo died the way he’d always known he would: his uniform on, his blast-visor down, and with image of the eternal Imperium gazing down upon him.
Telach sprinted up the stair, flanked by his three Codiciers. His breath came in deep, ragged gasps. Warp fire trailed from his armour in long glowing streamers, and the head of his staff flared like an imprisoned sun. The gap between the Stair’s edge and the bulk of the hive around him narrowed dramatically, closing down to nothing more than a few metres. He saw the curve of arches soaring towards their keystones, and knew the end was close.
Light streamed from the joints in his battle-plate, leaking out from the incandescence within him. He was burning himself up, bleeding with summoned psychic fire that consumed him even as he used it to kill the creatures that blocked his progress. The agony of it had long since ceased to plague him. It drove him onwards, keeping his purpose pure, goading him into ever greater feats of endurance.
Only he knew the full measure of the monsters being birthed in the spire above. If the rift opened, many more abominations would spill through, condemning Shardenus to a living hell of madness. The lesser daemons they had fought since entering the tunnels required only trivial sorcery to spin into being. The ones that were coming demanded sacrifices of worlds: they were devourers, the shrivers of souls, the bringers of torment.
One of Fulgrim’s sons. And he has fought us before.
Telach kept running, leaping up several steps at a time. Warp creatures crashed against his psychic shielding, burning away at the touch of the dreadful aegis around him. With every impact, a little of his strength was chipped away, a fragment of his power dissipated.
He’d gone faster than the others, using his psychic gifts to propel him. Only Nedim, Malik and Djeze, similarly wreathed in layers of fire and capable of using their powers to sustain them, had been able to keep up. Telach had blazed a trail up through the high places, using his warp-summoned powers to speed him onwards. Even he had not been able to outrun the clouds of toxins that had rushed up the central core, sweeping through the ranks of mutants before them and laying them low. Now, with the swarms of traitor creatures thinned out, every step, every boost, took him a little closer to the conflict that waited.
He had to be quicker. He ignored the stress-warnings from his armour, and he ignored the blood swilling in his boots, and he ignored the growing tears in his muscles. He kept going, ever upwards, ever higher, carving a path through the vaults of darkness like a spear of starlight surging up through layers of shadow.
When he finally broke through, it came as shock. He thundered onwards, tearing along the broken marble stairwell. He reached a ruined segment – a jumbled heap of fallen masonry and metal struts, as if a whole section of wall had been blas
ted inwards, clogging the way ahead. There was no way around – it seemed as if the entire spire had collapsed in on itself, closing up the abyss between the core and the rest of the structure and forming a massive clot of semi-molten, tangled ferrocrete.
Telach picked up the pace, accelerating towards the wall of ruin. By the time he hit it, he was moving at massive speed. He burst up into the wreckage, burrowing through it and throwing the lumps of detritus aside like a leviathan emerging from the deep. He felt his Codiciers follow him, burning and destroying as they came. His momentum carried him straight through, barging away plasteel beams and hurling cracked blocks of masonry aside. He heard huge crashes as rebars and rockcrete arches crashed down into the stairwell below, bouncing and disintegrating as they whirled into the abyss.
Then he broke out, bursting into the open on the far side. The layers of broken hive-structure gave out at last. Above them was a sky formed of boiling ash clouds and flickering orange lightning. Telach shrugged off the debris in dusty clouds, emerging into a scene of pure desolation.
He clambered higher, pulling himself free of the well he had bored through the broken metal, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
The pinnacle of the Capitolis was gone. Whole towers, domes and structures had all gone, blasted apart in a storm of incendiary fury. What remained was a blunt, unstable, half-collapsed plateau at the very top of the hive. It was comprised of molten metal and broken pillars, riven with crevasses, still flickering with windswept flame, open to the elements and buffeted by the endless, driving ash.
Telach spun round, searching for the enemy that he had sensed for so long. His Codiciers pulled themselves free of the wreckage and joined him, their fists crackling with opalescent energies.
The plateau was big – four hundred metres across, at least – but was as uneven and treacherous as any blast site. Over to Telach’s left, a huge gouge plunged down the southern face of the spire, still burning furiously and sending rolling plumes of smoke drifting across what remained intact. Everything was black, scorched into carbon by the furious firestorm that had swept through the upper levels.
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