Eye of Terra

by Various

  There was movement here in the darkness.

  Hundreds of wretched, drug-addled Euphorosians, who had been obscenely mistreated by the sons of Fulgrim.

  Every pleasure, amusement and satisfaction had been taken out upon the prisoners. From the appearance of their clothing they had been selected on rancid whim from the rich and poor, the young and old – and relatively recently. It seemed that prisoners did not last long in pleasing the Emperor’s Children. With a planet of deviant pleasures to enjoy and a small civilisation upon which to visit the horror of their desires, it was all too apparent to see why Lord Commander Lelanthius and his legionaries had lingered on the paradise world instead of following their primarch to the meeting with Lord Perturabo.

  ‘Siege-captain, what do you have?’ Krendl voxed.

  ‘A dungeon for prisoners, warsmith,’ Krugeran confirmed, having moved with squads deeper into the bowels of the palace. ‘They look to be in a sorry state.’

  Krendl slowed. He peered through the bars of the communal cells. The filthy enclosures were full of the used and abused, all huddled like livestock. Their faces were afflicted with a haunted look of dread, but still they moved forward as a wretched collective to clap their misty eyes on the Iron Warriors.

  Something wasn’t right. Krendl could feel it in the dull agony of his shattered bones.

  ‘Eradicant,’ he said, ‘Obliteratus. Same grid reference. Sheltering targets. Ordnance adjust. Stand by.’

  Seconds passed. The prisoners drifted forward until their foreheads touched the bars and their clouded eyes squirmed about in their skulls. Krendl’s gaze travelled down the bars. In front of him, some mess of a woman had slammed her body into the cell door, rattling it back and forth.

  It was open.

  ‘The Emperor’s Children are hiding behind the prisoners,’ Krendl voxed across the open channel, his tone flat and emotionless. ‘They’re in the cells. Open fire.’

  Every Iron Warrior had heard the order. With transhuman reflexes, they moved to obey.

  However, the Iron Warriors were not the only ones in the dungeon with transhuman reflexes.

  The ragged prisoners were torn apart by gunfire from behind them. With boltgun muzzles pressed against their spines and the backs of their skulls, the Emperor’s Children blasted straight through the Euphorosians.

  The dungeon became a scene of even greater horror as the Iron Warriors returned fire. Rounds sparked off bars and shields as the Emperor’s Children and the Iron Warriors fought to annihilate one another.

  It was brief and bloody, with legionaries of the III and IV falling to the cacophony of point-blank fire exchanged through the bars of the dungeon. Iron Warriors were thrown back against the wall, bolts plucking at their helms and heads. As the remaining huddles of screaming prisoners fell like a curtain, bolts that had thudded through their flesh found purple-plated deviants hiding in the shadows.

  In some cells, the Iron Warriors managed to maintain their shieldwall, hammering the trapped sons of Fulgrim back into the darkness. Elsewhere, the surprise attack had decimated the siege squads with peerless accuracy and broke the line. Within moments, the Emperor’s Children were out of the cells and working their way up the passageways, forcing Krendl’s legionaries back. When bolters ran dry, sabres flashed and sparked off ceramite. In return, the Iron Warriors hammered their enemies with the unforgiving surfaces of their boarding shields.

  As fresh shots blazed up the passageway behind Krendl, the warsmith clutched his data-slate to his chest and stepped back behind a corner. Bolts sparked off the brute simplicity of the stonework, and he chanced a few more shots in return before his pistol also clunked empty.

  ‘Warsmith,’ Victrus Krugeran said across the vox, ‘we should withdraw to the Spartans.’

  ‘Withdraw?’ Krendl replied. He could hear the captain’s exertions as he fought enemy legionaries almost faceplate to faceplate, but he was unimpressed. ‘Do you think Perturabo will withdraw, standing in the rubble of the Imperial Palace? Do you think Horus will withdraw, moments from a hard-fought victory? We stand, we fight and we win!’

  In the gloom and strobing light of gunfire, a singular warrior swept out to strike the head from an Iron Warrior trying to reload his weapon. He wore the cape and ornamental battleplate of a III Legion officer – a lord commander, no less. He was helmless and looked at Krendl through the long, straight, white hair that framed his burning gaze. Even blood-splattered and murderous, Lelanthius wore his sharp, youthful looks like a planetary prince. But like the Euphorosians, his eyes were misted by some foul local narcotic.

  Lelanthius’ face contorted around a noble snarl at the death of so many of his legionaries, then softened to the dreamy daze of a fantasy-addicted lunatic. He ejected the empty clip from his own pistol before dropping the weapon as well. In his other gauntlet he held a long blade that glinted in the gloom and dripped with Iron Warriors’ blood.

  ‘Are you out of your mind, turncoat?’ the lord commander said, spitting his words with aristocratic venom. ‘We have greater matters to contend with in this war.’

  ‘Yet here I find you, deviant,’ Krendl spat, ‘looking to your prisoners. You will no longer find Iron Warriors garrisoning the galaxy for you. Perturabo has let his sons off the leash.’

  ‘Our primarchs are allies,’ Lelanthius seethed before his anger softened once more to hallucinogenic hilarity. ‘Our Legions are brothers in service to Warmaster Horus. Who do you think you are, to spill the precious blood of Fulgrim that flows through the veins of every warrior of the Emperor’s Children?’

  ‘It seems something else entirely is flowing through your veins right now, lord commander…’

  Lelanthius brought up the razor-sharp edge of his sabre. ‘You should look to what is flowing through your own, Iron Warrior,’ he warned Krendl, ‘for you shall soon see it all over my dungeon floor.’

  ‘Stop.’

  The word was spoken with searing belief and confidence. Krendl had commanded, and incredibly the lord commander obeyed. The two officers paused as their warriors murdered one another in the darkness around them.

  ‘Eradicant? Obliteratus?’

  ‘Standing by, warsmith.’

  ‘You might have a blade as well as the will and ability to kill me, swordsman,’ Krendl told Lelanthius. ‘But one word from me and my siege guns will fire once more on this position. I’m ready to return to the iron and the fire. How about you, lord commander?’

  Lelanthius’ face twisted with doubt. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he spat.

  A bolt pistol swung out from the cover of an adjoining passage, and pressed to the lord commander’s temple. Lelanthius froze, his eyes darting to the side.

  ‘Trust me,’ Siege-Captain Krugeran said, ‘he would have done it.’

  The bolt pistol barked, blasting the deviant legionary’s brains all over the wall. Krugeran limped around the corner. He had taken a bolt-round to the stomach and his helm had been cleaved open by a blade. Idriss Krendl nodded his appreciation, and the two officers waited amidst the smoke and stench of death as the last clashes of brutal fratricide played out in the dungeon gloom. In the end, only Iron Warriors limped from the darkness to present themselves to their siege-captain and warsmith.

  Thousands of palace guards were flooding the avenues, stairways and thoroughfares, intent on surrounding the invading Iron Warriors. Victrus Krugeran joined Krendl once more as they made for the Spartans.

  ‘You can send for the Thunderhawks to evacuate your warriors,’ Krendl said. ‘Orbital lifters too, for the siege guns.’

  ‘The live simulation is over?’ Krugeran asked.

  ‘It’s over. Ironfire was a success. Our father, perhaps even the Warmaster too, might learn something from it. Perhaps, siege-captain, you and I might do this again on distant Terra.’

  ‘Primarch-willing,’ Krugeran murmured, but he didn’t
sound as though he meant it.

  ‘Meanwhile, I have other duties for you,’ the warsmith said, looking down at Krugeran’s wounds. ‘During your restoration.’

  ‘Yes, warsmith?’

  Krendl handed the siege-captain the data-slate. ‘Take this to Lord Perturabo. Appraise the primarch personally of Ironfire’s success. Tell him this stratagem is a gift to atone for my past failures.’

  ‘Would you rather not go yourself?’

  ‘No,’ Idriss Krendl said, eyeing the siege-captain’s injuries. ‘As you well know, our father abhors a cripple.’

  Red-Marked

  Nick Kyme

  Guilliman lies.

  He has deluded himself into denying an inconvenient truth. He says that Ultramar no longer burns. He says that we won the war, and turned back the Shadow Crusade. He says that we must forge a second empire.

  Guilliman is wrong. None of this is true.

  On Macragge, he believes that order reigns. That is also wrong, the denial of another inconvenient truth. Because out on the fringes, farthest from the light, only two things are true.

  Anarchy reigns.

  And the war for Ultramar isn’t over.

  An explosion lights up the gloom, throwing the burned armour of Thiel’s men into relief. The blue of each is streaked by grey. Acid has scorched through to the bare ceramite beneath. Clouds of incendiary smoke fill the air around the Protus listening post, turning the rain into a sulphuric haze. The stench is more than acerbic. It burns.

  Muzzle flare sears through a soot-black pall released by the explosion. Magazines cook off, and the air thunders as two nearby bunkers go up. Gunfire lashes the slab-sided armoury tower. It looms above Thiel through the murky air. Bolter shells splash against its walls.

  They are trapped here, in this dead man’s gauntlet.

  They must advance. To survive, they must advance.

  The dense nest of grey silos, bunkers and walled magazines reminds Aeonid Thiel of Calth. Packed so close together they form a labyrinthine zone mortalis. Choke-points and bottlenecks… it’s merciless.

  But wasn’t that what this was all about? Leaving Calth, doing something with purpose? Thiel raises his power sword, and it blazes like a beacon.

  ‘Forward!’ he cries. ‘On my lead! Wide dispersal. Keep fighting, damn–’

  A sniper’s bullet cracks against his shoulder guard, but he barely flinches. Then the sword’s down again, and he’s leading the vanguard.

  The legionaries in his charge begin to move, edging from behind steel-plated munitions crates, bolters roaring in the darkness.

  A targeting icon flashes up on his retinal feed, right over the tower. Crowned with razorwire and reinforced with ablative exterior armour, it shrugs off the fusillade coming from Thiel’s men. ‘Inviglio, I need those heavies – now!’

  ‘I see it,’ Inviglio replies.

  Thiel switches vox-feeds. ‘Thaddeus?’

  Inviglio shakes his head. Gunfire is flashing across the munitions yard, so close that the transit heat is palpable. The Ultramarines keep moving, hugging walls, hunkering down whenever they can.

  A distant scream resounds above the battle noise. Two ident-markers on the tactical feed go from green to red. Haldus and Konos. With the others, that makes six. Thiel catches the briefest glance of a scope’s reflection above, before it’s gone again.

  ‘Get a response! There’s recon in that nest. Tell Thaddeus to take them out, or it’s over.’

  Solid shot and mass-reactive shells carom off a nearby bunker wall, as Inviglio tries again. ‘Thaddeus, are you with us?’

  More dead air scratches across the feed, before a crackle of noise announces a broken reply.

  ‘Apologies… pinned… This is Petronius. Thaddeus is dead… moving up… support…’

  Thiel’s jaw clenches as he feels the noose tighten. ‘How long?’

  ‘…three minutes…’

  ‘Can we hold for that long?’ Inviglio asks. ‘Do we fall back, find a different ingress?’

  Thiel shakes his head. ‘If we fall back, that sniper team will cut us apart. Our only chance is forwards.’

  Ahead, the smoke parts to reveal several power-armoured forms advancing in unison. Bolters are braced against their shoulders in a firing lock.

  Shots ring out, forcing Thiel down. ‘Return fire!’

  The air is seared by an intense weapons exchange. Even the dust burns.

  ‘Break them! Out of the kill-box! Out, out!’ he urges his warriors. ‘Grenades, then hard assault on my lead!’

  Three-round bursts spit from behind their rapidly disintegrating barricade. Finius waits for a gap in the chaos before throwing a grenade.

  It detonates deep into the enemy’s ranks. Erontius is clipped as he rises, but then his throat is torn open in a welter of blood by a stray bolter shell, his gorget split and hanging wide like a snapped hinge. He falls, still holding the primed grenade.

  Thiel roars over the din. ‘Down–’

  Thiel’s warning is obliterated by the blast, as are the two legionaries closest to Erontius. Then comes the silence.

  White light. White pain. Retinal lenses overloaded.

  Thoughts become instincts and impressions, and for the next few seconds, Thiel’s world is a magnesium-bright flare of searing agony.

  Then the pain suppressants kick in, and get him moving again. His audio is down, but his retinal display still functions and shows him the bodies. There is blood on their armour. The stench of cordite and hot, wet copper fills his nostrils.

  Sound returns after that, but it’s distant and submerged. It rings hollow inside his skull.

  Inviglio is shouting. He was far enough away from the blast to escape the worst of it. The words are so distant at first. ‘Get up, brother-sergeant! They’re coming!’

  The warriors emerging from the smoke and darkness are running. Thiel counts twenty. Wounded and barely conscious, his vision blurs, but he sees them well enough. Cobalt-blue and gold, a freshly painted Ultima on their shoulder guards.

  Ultramarines. He wants to laugh at the insanity of it, but the next explosion hits and Thiel is off his feet. Flying. Burning. And just before he’s about to die, he remembers what Captain Likane said to him on Oran.

  There is no war in Ultramar.

  ‘Request denied,’ Likane says flatly, before looking back down at the stack of data-slates on his desk currently in review. It’s dark in the office, but the shadows can’t hide the captain’s tensed jawline.

  After a few moments, he speaks again.

  ‘Is there something else you wish to say, brother-sergeant? You are not long returned from Calth. Are you having difficulty functioning in light, and with order?’

  Thiel looks directly ahead. His arms are folded behind his back, and his head is bare out of respect. ‘I would like to know something, sir.’

  Unlike many of the officers at Oran, Likane is a war veteran. His battle scars are a testament to his experience, as is the bionic that forms part of his jaw. His bile is all natural.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Our purpose, sir.’

  Likane doesn’t look up. He’s not paying attention to his cargo manifests, station reports and duty logs either. ‘On Oran? We are a garrison. Our purpose is to guard and be ready. Weren’t you told that when you arrived?’

  ‘Ready for what, sir?’

  ‘For whatever our primarch deems necessary. That is what it means to be Thirteenth Legion, to be an Ultramarine. Duty. Honour. Respect. You are here until a ship can bear you to Macragge – you and that ragged suit of war-plate you brought with you. Until then, you’re mine.’

  ‘I understand, sir,’ Thiel replies. ‘But any threat, however remote, should be investigated.’

  Likane sets down the stylus and regards Thiel sternly from under thick, dark brows. Hi
s eyes are the colour of iron, and just as unyielding.

  ‘There is no war in Ultramar,’ he growls. ‘Beyond our fight to liberate Calth, that is. You’ve been in the underworld too long. It sticks to you and leaves a mark. I should know.’

  Thiel meets the captain’s gaze at last. ‘I am ill-suited to guard duty, sir.’

  ‘Are you about to lecture me on how I deploy the warriors in this facility, Thiel?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You’ll do as bidden until I say otherwise, or that bloody ship rids me of you,’ Likane sighs. ‘Your service record grants you some leeway, Thiel, as does your recommendation from Captain Vultius. But do not think me tolerant of insubordination. Oran runs to my order. We are a garrison, here at our primarch’s command. I won’t sanction a mission that countermands that directive because you believe yourself to be above it. You are not. This is Imperium Secundus, sergeant. Get used to it.’

  Thiel nods curtly, salutes and turns to leave. Likane looks back down at his reports, when Thiel’s voice makes him pause.

  ‘What’s Nightfane?’

  It’s faint, but Thiel hears the slight catch in Likane’s breath. The captain’s face is pinched with anger when he looks up. ‘What do you know of that word?’

  ‘Just vox-chatter.’ Thiel gestures to the reports. ‘How many in that stack relate to listening posts or watch stations within our purview that we have lost contact with in the last few months, captain? Was it one of them who sent us Nightfane?’

  ‘Are you seriously expecting me to indulge this, sergeant? I know you and the other veterans are struggling to reintegrate with the recruits, but I won’t–’

  ‘I would gladly resubmit myself for censure, if you would grant me this one concession. Sir.’

  Likane grits his teeth, but stays calm. ‘I suspect censure holds little concern for you any more, sergeant.’

  Thiel raises an eyebrow. ‘So… The listening posts?’

  ‘You want purpose? Duty, Thiel?’ Likane scowls, as the already thinning veil of composure collapses. ‘You have no concept of either. I look at you, Thiel, and do you know what I see? That we have erred as a Legion. The demands of the Great Crusade were heavy, but men were needed. Lots of them. Our standards, however rigorously we tried to apply them, slipped. I suppose it was inevitable that lesser aspirants passed indoctrination.’