by Various
Over his plate Krendl wore the ragged mail cloak of a warsmith – a rank he now held in name only. The 14th Grand Company had been wiped out on Lesser Damantyne and his flagship stolen by the traitor Barabas Dantioch. He had commanded one thousand Iron Warriors intended for the primarch’s glorious march on the Throneworld. Now he had but a handful of battle-brothers attached to Krugeran’s battery section and its associated divisions.
‘It’s huge,’ the captain admitted, looking at the colossal structure that dominated the northern horizon. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘Then you’ve never been to Terra,’ Krendl said. ‘The architecture, the flourishes and ornamental towers. Size. Defensive capabilities. Walls. The layout of the structures within. These are all comparable.’
‘Comparable to what?’
‘To the Imperial Palace, to the decadent pile of rubble Dorn and his mongrels work to fortify. To the tomb into which the Emperor has already crawled.’
‘That’s impossible.’
‘I ran the calculations myself,’ Krendl said, handing Krugeran a scuffed data-slate. ‘I’ve compared thousands of known fortifications on just as many different worlds. This is as close a match as Perturabo or the Warmaster could hope for.’
‘These figures are correct?’ Krugeran asked, scanning the stream of data.
‘They’re correct,’ Krendl hissed. ‘We are to become part of Imperial history, siege-captain. It starts with us. The first preparations for an attack on the Palace. The first real-world siege simulations. Here we shall discover how to crack the defences of such a fortification.’
‘What is this place?’ Krugeran asked.
‘It’s all in the files,’ Krendl said, lost in imagined visions of decimation and destruction.
The planet’s name was Euphoros. It had been designated One-Forty-One Nineteen and received back into the Imperium of Man after a swift and bloodless compliance action years before. Classified as a garden world by attending adepts of the Administratum, it was appreciated as a place of incredible, almost hypnotic beauty, even by the battle-hungry warriors of the Legiones Astartes who had quietly conquered it. Polychromatic deserts dominated the pleasant poles. The equatorial regions, meanwhile, were a scattered landscape of deltas, floodplains and crystal-clear waterways. There a belt of lush vegetation grew, visible from orbit. The perfume of the mangroves carried on winds that sculpted the southern dunes. Oasis-townships, orbital ports and hinterfields of desert fruits and optimised grain crops punctuated the stunning desolation of the north. The architecture of towering citadels and regional alcazars was an exquisite union of defensive function and elegant artistry, finding an apex of expression in the great polar palaces.
The paradise was inhabited by a technologically advanced civilisation who had called themselves the Euphantine before compliance. Over thousands of years in isolation, they discovered such hedonistic wonders upon their home world, expanded their technological reach, fought off the pirates and marauders of local systems and mined the mineral-rich moon of Phibea, leaving but a hollowed husk in the Euphorosian sky. From the bedrock of Phibea, the Euphantine created a sprawling, fortified palace at the northern pole that housed much of the planet’s population. Called the Great Selenic, it was a grand fortification of kilometre-high concentric walls, domes, hanging gardens and towers that rivalled even the Imperial Palace of Ancient Terra.
‘Admitted,’ Victrus Krugeran said. ‘It is a wonder.’
‘And we’re going to destroy that wonder,’ Krendl said.
‘However… warsmith,’ Krugeran said, hesitating to use the title. ‘You seem to be forgetting something.’
Krendl let the slur wash over him. He knew what Iron Warriors like Krugeran thought of him – of his failure at Lesser Damantyne and the cripple he had become.
‘Enlighten me, siege-captain. If you can.’
‘The Imperial Palace – when we get there, primarch willing – is defended by the Imperial Army, the Legio Custodes and Dorn’s dogs of the Seventh Legion. How are you going to simulate that, warsmith?’
‘I will improvise,’ Krendl shrugged. ‘I will give our father and the Warmaster what they truly desire – data, tactical simulations tested in shot and shell, stratagems whose success has already been written in blood.’
‘The subjugated population that resides behind these walls, even in their millions, are no match for the sons of Perturabo.’
‘And we would hope to command many more siege guns alongside the paltry two with which your battalion has been entrusted,’ Krendl said. He did not allow Krugeran any retort. ‘You are right, of course. For a true simulation, even one calibrated to the meagre forces at our disposal, we shall need legionaries. We need to see how our own kind might respond to an attack on such a fortress, so that we can factor their presence into our future battle plans.’
‘And how are you going to do that?’ Krugeran demanded.
‘One-Forty-One Nineteen was brought to compliance by the Third Legion.’
‘The Emperor’s Children?’
‘Aye,’ Krendl said. ‘Fulgrim’s deviants took to the worthless beauty of this world and the myriad pleasures of its people. And now, they have an entire civilisation to use and abuse within the mighty palace walls. Lord Commander Lelanthius should have regrouped at his primarch’s command, but he dallied and sent half of his force on to Fulgrim at Hydra Cordatus, remaining here with one hundred of his brothers.’
‘A hundred legionaries garrison that place?’ Krugeran asked.
‘In truth I have no idea what depraved things Lelanthius and his warriors do behind those walls. But I know what they are going to do when we attack.’
‘We cannot attack the sons of Fulgrim!’ Krugeran protested. ‘The primarchs are allies. They fight side by side for Horus.’
‘As this war rolls on, siege-captain,’ Krendl said, ‘you are going to have to develop a stomach for such necessities. Our only allegiance is to victory and those standing next to us upon its achievement. All else is ash on the wind, collateral damage in the service of greater death still to come. Remember, I have spilled the blood of our own brothers. Necessity demanded such a sacrifice. Perturabo and the Warmaster too, though they did not know it at the time. You think I care more for warriors of the Third Legion than I do our own primarch’s flesh and blood?’
‘When Fulgrim hears of this, he will believe the order came from Perturabo. Horus will punish them both. Your sufferings have driven the sense from you, Krendl. What you propose is madness.’
Krendl took the data-slate back. ‘Before we entered orbit, I sent a message to Lord Commander Lelanthius. I told him that we had sighted an Imperial Fists flotilla two systems away. There was, of course, no flotilla. He despatched his only strike cruiser – the Rapture – to investigate the threat. When Fulgrim finally discovers that his wayward sons have been wiped off the face of this planet, the Rapture’s own logs will tell him all he needs to know – that the ship searched for an enemy contingent that had meanwhile launched an attack on Euphoros. Only Perturabo shall learn of the truth, and only when the invaluable data our simulations have provided are in his hand. When our father offers the Warmaster the tactical keys to the Imperial Palace, do you think that Horus will care about the loss of a few Third Legion deviants?’
Victrus Krugeran gave the warsmith a hard glare. ‘I don’t know that such a plan convinces me of your sanity.’
‘You are not here to be convinced,’ Krendl told him. ‘You are here to rain destruction down upon that fortress. Bring forth your gunners.’
Krugeran’s hateful gaze lingered on the monstrous warsmith before he motioned for a pair of Iron Warriors to join them, and Krendl turned his back on the palace that shimmered through the heat of the immaculate desert.
Before him was Eradicant, the mountainous centrepiece of the Iron Warrior encampment. Stolen from the Mechanicum
on Diamat by the I Legion, the gargantuan mobile artillery piece had subsequently been entrusted to Perturabo before the Dropsite Massacre. Eradicant was as long as a Titan was tall, the tracks of its individual drive units sitting in the Euphorosian sands. In the bright light of day, the enormous barrel of a macrocannon gaped darkness and death at them from where its great system of pulleys and derricks allowed it to rest. The massive machine bristled with automated emplacements – quad-lasers, flak batteries and mega-bolters silent and ready to roar to the siege gun’s defence. Fat, tracked ordnance compartments two storeys high stretched for hundreds of metres, trailing the main gun carriage like the segmentations of a death world decamillipede.
Trudging through the polychromatic sands, a pair of Techmarines presented themselves to Krendl and their siege-captain.
‘Brothers Arkasi Achorax,’ Krugeran said, ‘and Mordan Vhosk. Overseers and senior gunners of Eradicant and Obliteratus respectively. They are Dodekatheon. The best artillerists I have.’
‘They had better be, siege-captain,’ the warsmith muttered. ‘They need to be, for what I have planned. Brothers Achorax and Vhosk, I have heard much about your mighty siege guns. Captured Mechanicum monstrosities, given as a gift from one primarch to another, the pride-foolish Lion El’Jonson thinking to buy the loyalties of our father. El’Jonson shall pay – like those who stand with him – for his lack of foresight. He will know its price, brothers, when your guns bring down the walls of his master’s great palace. Then the Dark Angels will come to know true darkness.’
‘They truly are wonders,’ Krugeran told the warsmith. ‘They are bigger than anything fielded by my brother-captains in the Dodekatheon, or present in the experimental arsenal of the Stor-Bezashk.’
‘Tell me of their wonders,’ Krendl said.
‘Fully armoured and protected by void shield generators, warsmith,’ Achorax said, ‘their weaponry can level a small fortress with ease from miles away.’
‘And what if it is my wish to strategically demolish sections of a much larger fortification – say, the Selenic behind me?’ Krendl put to them.
‘Each weapon boasts an MIU interface chamber,’ Vhosk told him.
‘For which we have embraced certain adaptations,’ Arkasi Achorax added.
‘A neural link between weapon and gunner results in unparalleled accuracy, data-streaming, response-calibration and rate of fire,’ Vhosk said. ‘Not unlike that expected of a Titan’s gunnery moderati.’
‘To be one with the weapon,’ Krendl said. ‘An intriguing notion. That truly is excellent, brothers. Your siege guns are everything your captain promised. It is just as well, for Captain Krugeran and myself will be putting our lives in your hands.’
Krugeran frowned. ‘My lord? This is the first I have heard of this. It is traditional for brethren officers to oversee the prosecution of the siege barrage from a command vehicle.’
He pointed down at the four Spartan assault tanks that flanked Eradicant as an armoured escort. His own, named Escutcheon, mounted a lodge banner of the Dodekatheon that turned and twisted in the desert wind.
‘And that is where we shall be overseeing the barrage,’ Krendl told him. ‘Only the command vehicle will be at the heart of our direct assault on the palace.’
Again, Krugeran’s face changed at the warsmith’s apparent insanity. He went to snarl some rebuke but caught himself. He would not question Krendl in front of Brothers Achorax and Vhosk.
‘Just to clarify,’ the siege-captain hissed through his teeth. ‘You wish to lead a direct assault on that fortress?’
‘Yes.’
‘With my Iron Warriors?’
‘With every Iron Warrior under your command,’ Idriss Krendl said. ‘Though I admit you do not have many, being that of a battery section. It is no grand company, but the primarch has seen fit to grant me a little, with which I shall achieve much.’
‘What of the guns themselves?’ Krugeran asked, hoping to find a weakness in the unassailable optimism of the warsmith’s insane plan.
‘As you said yourself, the guns are well protected and can defend themselves if need be. Achorax and Vhosk will command each mobile artillery piece, aided by the servitors and bondsmen assigned to the ordnance sections.’
‘Once more – you want to attack the palace, while the siege guns are firing upon it?’
‘It really is something,’ Krendl said, lifting the bionics of his replacement arm, ‘to be at the heart of the battle, rather than monitoring distant destruction from a horizon away. To feel the fires of destruction raging, while the fortress to which you lay siege crumbles about you. It is a feeling I would not deny you, captain. Following my last siege I had a great deal of time to think. While the body heals, it is important to keep the mind active. I worked on new siege tactics and approaches – strategies we can use to defeat the most determined of defences. As I relived the fall of the Schadenhold, billions of tonnes of rock and metal raining down, it came to me. As my bones and my mind broke, the very tenets of my training broke with it. Legion convention suggests that you bombard an enemy position – you break their defences and then you lead assault forces inside. But what if both could be achieved at the same time?’
‘You are talking about shelling your own forces,’ Krugeran said, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘My forces.’
‘If I can survive the unsurvivable,’ Krendl continued, ‘then perhaps my brothers can too. Perhaps besiegers can attack a fortification during a full-scale bombardment rather than following it. Perhaps a redoubtable force, using the eye of the storm as their protection, could strike at the strategic heart of an enemy exposed, an enemy in confusion, while all else about them turns to ash and screams. Who better than the Iron Warriors to put such a strategy to the test?’
‘We would be obliterated…’ Krugeran murmured, but he could see that his words were lost on the warsmith.
‘Not with these new siege guns,’ Krendl said. ‘Not with the precision advantages mind-linked artillery can bring. Brothers Achorax and Vhosk here – by your own admission, your two best gunners – can monitor our position from the signatures of our suits, and time the impact of their artillery to clear a path before us of walls, structures, emplacements and enemy forces. It will be a feat of transhuman timing and calculation.’
‘I implore you, warsmith…’
Krendl did not listen, but turned to the two Iron Warriors before him. They both wore cruel smiles of expectation and bellicose glee. ‘Brother Achorax?’
‘Let us make history,’ the Iron Warrior returned.
‘Vhosk?’
‘Do you have a name for this stratagem, warsmith?’ Vhosk asked.
‘I do, brother,’ Krendl said. ‘I call it Ironfire.’
Seven Spartan assault tanks, all in the tarnished silver of the Iron Warriors, tore across the desert flats. Out in front, trailing the whipping Dodekatheon banner, was Escutcheon, carrying Siege-Captain Krugeran, Idriss Krendl and ten Iron Warriors in augmented plate, each carrying a boltgun and boarding shield. The squad stood in silence, riding out the bumps and rolls of a high-speed insertion. The drive system roared its automotive fury and the tracks tore through sand as Escutcheon led the train of tanks in.
Krugeran was wearing his helmet but Krendl could tell that the battery officer’s face was contorted with frustration beneath it. Krugeran was no cowardly soul – the warsmith understood that. He simply hadn’t expected to die under the fire of his own guns.
Krendl left him with his silent warriors and hauled himself up front. The assault tank’s driver, Brother Gholic, was strapped into his elevated seat, working the vehicle’s nest of throttles, levers and pedals. With the optics of his studded helm almost up to the armourglass of the narrow viewport, Gholic gunned the Spartan across the desert sands.
‘As you were, brother,’ Krendl said as Gholic went to acknowledge him. The warsmith leaned in and p
eered through the auxiliary port. Escutcheon was riding through the thick sands almost like a ship in the ocean, ploughing through the polychromatic desert, the tank’s tracks throwing up a haze of colour and beauty. Before them, the mighty walls of the Great Selenic reached for the deep Euphorosian skies. Krendl felt the sights of emplacement guns upon him, the reach of augurs and the eyes of a thousand sentries.
All of them were watching, but none of them knew what to make of the unannounced approach.
‘Why aren’t they firing?’ Gholic asked, his voice a grille-modulated hiss against the rhythmic rattle and bounce of the tank.
‘This world was conquered by the Emperor’s Children,’ Krendl said, ‘if you call what Fulgrim’s deviants did here “conquering”. They arrived as heralds of a new age but stayed on to become tyrants. The people of this planet know little of the wider conflict. They will not fire on a legionary. Not yet.’
‘What if a member of the Third Legion is up on those walls?’ Gholic pressed.
‘Lelanthius and his warriors will be otherwise occupied, I suspect,’ the warsmith said. ‘And even if they are up there, what of it? They know our vessel is in the area. We could be carrying messages from Perturabo or Fulgrim at Hydra Cordatus, or even from the Warmaster himself. We are brothers, united by our treachery. Don’t worry – first blood will go to us.’
Krendl opened a channel to the other tanks in the column. ‘Armour, call in.’
‘Truculent, ready.’
‘Iron Tyrant, ready.’
‘Ferrico, standing by.’
‘Incaladion Irae, right behind you, Escutcheon.’
‘Unbreakable Litany, awaiting your orders.’
‘Ictus is ready, warsmith.’
‘Eradicant, Obliteratus – report in,’ Krendl voxed.
‘Siege gun Eradicant, ready to commence firing,’ Arkasi Achorax reported.
‘Obliteratus tracking your progress and awaiting first target,’ came Mordan Vhosk’s voice a moment later.
Krendl turned and nodded his caged features at Siege-Captain Krugeran.