by Dan Abnett
Tarvitz's party slid down the chalky rubble and backed away into the open, the expanse of the clearing behind them, keeping low. To their right, Lord Eidolon's position was engulfed in loud, furious combat.
What are they doing?' asked Bulle.
'Look.’ said Tarvitz.
The columns of megarachnid ascended the heap of rabble. Warrior forms, equipped with quad-blades, took station around the base, on guard. Others mounted the slopes and began to sort the spoil, clearing it with inhuman speed and efficiency. Tarvitz saw warrior forms doing this work, and also clades of a similar design, but which possessed spatulate shovel limbs in place of blades. With minute precision, the megarachnid began to disassemble the rubble heap, and carry the loose debris away into the thickets. They formed long, mechanical work gangs to do this. The more massive forms, the clades Tarvitz had not seen before, came forwards. They were superheavy monsters with short, thick legs and gigantic abdomens. They moved ponderously, and began to gnaw and suck on the loose rubble with ghastly, oversized mouth-parts. The smaller clades scurried around their hefty forms, pulling skeins of white matter from their abdominal spinnerets with curiously dainty, weaving motions of their upper limbs. The smaller clades carried this fibrous, stiffening matter back into the increasingly cleared site and began to plaster it together.
They're rebuilding the trees.’ Bulle whispered.
It was an extraordinary sight. The massive clades, weavers, were consuming the broken scraps of the trees Tarvitz had felled, and turning them into fresh new material, like gelling concrete. The smaller clades, busy and scurrying, were taking the material and forming new bases with it in the space that others of their kind had cleared.
In less than ten minutes, much of the area had been picked clean, and the trunks of three new trees were being formed. The scurrying builders brought limb loads of wet, milk white matter to the bases, and then regurgitated fluid onto them so as to mix them as cement. Their limbs whirred and shaped like the trowels of master builders.
Still, the battle behind them roared. Lucius kept glancing in the direction of the fight.
'We should go back,' he whispered. 'Lord Eidolon needs us.'
'If he can't win without the six of us.’ Tarvitz said, 'he can't win. I felled these trees. I'll not see them built again. Who's with me?'
BUlle answered 'Aye.’ So did Pherost, Lodoroton and Tykus.
Very well.’ said Lucius. 'What do we do?'
But Tarvitz had already drawn his broadsword and was charging the megarachnid workers.
THE FIGHT THAT followed was simple insanity. The six Astartes, blades out, bolters ready, rushed the megarachnid work gangs and made war upon them in the cold night air. Picket dades, warrior forms drawn up as sentinels around the edge of the site, alerted to them first and rushed out in defence. Lucius and Bulle met them and slaughtered them, and Tarvitz and Tykus ploughed on into the main site to confront the industrious builder forms. Pherost and Lodoroton followed them, firing wide to fend off flank strikes.
Tarvitz attacked one of the monster 'weaver' forms, one of the builder dades, and split its massive belly wide open with his sword. Molten cement poured out like pus, and it began to daw at the sky with its short, heavy limbs. Warrior forms leapt over its stricken mass to attack the Imperials. Tykus shot two out of the air
and then decapitated a third as it pounced on him. The megarachnid were everywhere, milling like ants.
Lodoroton had slain eight of them, including another monster dade, when a warrior form bit off his head. As if unsatisfied with that, the warrior form proceeded to flense Lodoroton's body apart with its four limb-blades. Blood and meat partides spumed into the cold air. Bulle shot the warrior dade dead with a single bolt round. It dropped on its face.
Lucius hacked his way through the outer guards, which were closing on him in ever increasing numbers. He swung his sword, no longer playing, no longer toying. This was test enough.
He'd killed sixteen megarachnid by the time they got him. A dade with spatulate limbs, bearing a cargo of wet milky cement, fell apart under his sword strokes, and dying, dumped its payload on him. Lucius fell, his arms and legs glued together by the wet load. He tried to break free, but the organic mulch began to thicken and solidify. A warrior clade pounced on him and made to skewer him with its four blade arms.
Tarvitz shot it in the side of the body and knocked it away. He stood over Lucius to protect him from the xenos scum. Bulle came to his side, shooting and chopping. Pherost fought his way to join them, but fell as a limb-blade punched clean through his torso from behind. Tykus backed up close. The three remaining Emperor's Children blazed and sliced away at the enclosing foe. At their feet, Lucius struggled to free himself and get up.
'Get this off me, Saul!' he yelled.
Tarvitz wanted to. He wanted to be able to turn and hack free his stricken friend, but there was no space. No time. The megarachnid warrior dades were all over them now, diittering and slashing. If he broke off even for a moment, he would be dead.
Thunder boomed in the clear night sky. Caught up in the fierce warfare, Tarvitz paid it no heed. Just the shield-storm returning.
But it wasn't.
Meteors were dropping out of the sky into the clearing around them, impacting hard and super-hot in the red dirt, like lightning strikes. Two, four, a dozen, twenty.
Drop-pods.
The noise of fresh fire rang out above the din of the fight. Bolters boomed. Plasma weapons shrieked. The drop-pods kept falling like bombs.
'Look!' Bulk cried out. 'Look!'
The megarachnid were swarming over them. Tarvitz had lost his bolter and could barely swing his broadsword, such was the density of enemies upon him. He felt himself slowly being borne over by sheer weight of numbers.
'-hear me?' The vox squealed suddenly.
'W-what? Say again!'
'I said, we are Imperial! Do we have brothers in there?'
Yes, in the name of Terra-'
An explosion. A series of rapid gunshots. A Shockwave rocked through the enemy masses.
'Follow me in,' a voice was yelling, commanding and deep. 'Follow me in and drive them back!'
More searing explosions. Grey bodies blew apart in gouts of flame, spinning broken limbs into the air like matchwood. One whizzing limb smacked into Tarvitz's visor and knocked him onto his back. The world, scarlet and concussed, spun for a second.
A hand reached down towards Tarvitz. It swam into his field of view. It was an Astartes gauntlet. White, with black edging.
'Up you come, brother.’
Tarvitz grabbed at it and felt himself hauled upright.
'My thanks.’ he yelled, mayhem still raging all around him. 'Who are you?'
'My name is Tarik, brother.’ said his saviour. 'Pleased to meet you.’
FIVE
Informal formalities
The war dogs' rebuke
I can't say
IT WAS A little cruel, in Loken's opinion. Someone, somewhere - and Loken suspected the scheming of Maloghurst - had omitted to tell the officers of the 140th Expedition Fleet exactly who they were about to welcome on board.
The Vengeful Spirit, and its attendant fleet consorts, had drawn up majestically into high anchorage alongside the vessels of the 140th and the other ships that had come to the expedition's aid, and an armoured heavy shuttle had transferred from the flagship to the battle-barge Misericord.
Mathanual August and his coterie of commanders, including Eidolon's equerry Eshkerrus, had assembled on one of the Misericord's main embarkation decks to greet the shuttle. They knew it was bearing the commanders of the relief taskforce from the 63rd Expedition, and that inevitably meant officers of the XVI Legion. With the possible exception of Eshkerrus, they were all nervous. The arrival of the Luna Wolves, the most famed and
feared of all Astartes divisions, was enough to tension any man's nerve strings.
When the shuttle's landing ramp extended and ten Luna Wolves descended through the c
learing vapour, there had been silence, and that silence had turned to stifled gasps when it became apparent these were not the ten brothers of a captain's ceremonial detail, but ten captains themselves in full, formal wargear.
The first captain led the party, and made the sign of the aquila to Mathanual August.
'I am-' he began.
'I know who you are, lord.’ August said, and bowed deeply, trembling. There were few in the Imperium who didn't recognise or fear First Captain Abaddon. 'I welcome you and-'
'Hush, master.’ Abaddon said. We're not there yet.’
August looked up, not really understanding. Abaddon stepped back into his place, and the ten, cloaked captains, five on each side of the landing ramp, formed an honour guard and snapped to attention, visors front and hands on the pommels of their sheathed swords.
The Warmaster emerged from the shuttle. Everyone, apart from the ten captains and Mathanual August, immediately prostrated themselves on the deck.
The Warmaster stepped slowly down the ramp. His very presence was enough to inspire total and unreserved attention, but he was, quite calculatedly, doing the one thing that made matters even worse. He wasn't smiling.
August stood before him, his eyes wide open, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly, like a beached fish.
Eshkerrus, who had himself gone quite green, glanced up and yanked at the hem of August's robes. Abase yourself, fool!' he hissed.
August couldn't. Loken doubted the veteran fleet master could have even recalled his own name at that moment. Horas came to a halt, towering over him.
'Sir, will you not bow?' Horus inquired.
When August finally replied, his voice was a tiny, embryonic thing. 'I can't.’ he said. 'I can't remember how.’
Then, once again, the Warmaster showed his limitless genius for leadership. He sank to one knee and bowed to Mathanual August.
'I have come, as fast as I was able, to help you, sir.’ he said. He clasped August in an embrace. The Warmaster was smiling now. 'I like a man who's proud enough not to bend his knees to me.’ he said.
'I would have bent them if I had been able, my lord.’ August said. Already August was calmer, gratefully put at his ease by the Warmaster's informality.
'Forgive me, Mathanual... may I call you Mathanual? Master is so stiff. Forgive me for not informing you that I was coming in person. I detest pomp and ceremony, and if you'd known I was coming, you'd have gone to unnecessary lengths. Soldiers in dress regs, ceremonial bands, bunting. I particularly despise bunting.’
Mathanual August laughed. Horus rose to his feet and looked around at the prone figures covering the wide deck. 'Rise, please. Please. Get to your feet. A cheer or a round of applause will do me, not this futile grovelling.’
The fleet officers rose, cheering and applauding. He'd won them over. Just like that, thought Loken, he'd won them over. They were his now, forever.
Horus moved forwards to greet the officers and commanders individually Loken noticed Eshkerrus, in his purple and gold robes and half-armour, taking his greeting with a bow. There was something sour about the equerry, Loken thought. Something definitely put out.
'Helms!' Abaddon ordered, and the company commanders removed their helmets. They moved forwards, more casually now, to escort their commander through the press of applauding figures.
Horus whispered an aside to Abaddon as he took greeting kisses and bows from the assembly. Abaddon nodded. He touched his link, activating the privy channel, and spoke, in Cthonic, to the other three members of the Mournival. War council in thirty minutes. Be ready to play your parts.'
The other three knew what that meant. They followed Abaddon into the greeting crowd.
THEY ASSEMBLED FOR council in the sttategium of the Misericord, a massive rotunda situated behind the barge's main bridge. The Warmaster took the seat at the head of the long table, and the Mournival sat down with him, along with August, Eshkerrus and nine senior ship commanders and army officers. The other Luna Wolf captains sat amongst the crowds of lesser fleet officers filling the tiered seating in the panelled galleries above them.
Master August called up hololithic displays to illuminate his succinct recap of the situation. Horus regarded each one in turn, twice asking August to go back so he could study details again.
'So you poured everything you had into this death trap?' Torgaddon began bluntly, once August had finished.
August recoiled, as if slapped. 'Sir, I did as-'
The Warmaster raised his hand. Tarik, too much, too stern. Master August was simply doing as Captain Frome told him.’
'My apologies, lord.’ Torgaddon said. 'I withdraw the comment.’
'I don't believe Tarik should have to.’ Abaddon cut in. This was a monumental misuse of manpower. Three companies? Not to mention the army units...'
'It wouldn't have happened under my watch.’ murmured Torgaddon. August blinked his eyes very fast. He looked like he was attempting not to tear up.
'It's unforgivable.’ said Aximand. 'Simply unforgivable.’
We will forgive him, even so.’ Horus said.
'Should we, lord?' asked Loken.
'I've shot men for less.’ said Abaddon.
'Please.’ August said, pale, rising to his feet. 'I deserve punishment. I implore you to-'
'He's not worth the bolt.’ muttered Aximand.
'Enough.’ Horus smoothed. 'Mathanual made a mistake, a command mistake. Didn't you, Mathanual?'
'I believe I did, sir.’
'He drip-fed his expedition's forces into a danger zone until they were all gone.’ said Horus. 'It's tragic. It happens sometimes. We're here now, that's all that matters. Here to rectify the problem.’
What of the Emperor's Children?' Loken put in. 'Did they not even consider waiting?'
'For what, exactly?' asked Eshkerrus.
'For us.’ smiled Aximand.
'An entire expedition was in jeopardy.’ replied Eshkerrus, his eyes narrowing. We were first on scene. A critical response. We owed it to our Blood Angels brothers to-'
To what? Die too?' Torgaddon asked.
Three companies of Blood Angels were-' Eshkerrus exclaimed.
'Probably dead already.’ Aximand interrupted. They'd showed you the trap was there. Did you just think you'd walk into it too?'
We-' Eshkerrus began.
'Or was Lord Eidolon simply hungry for glory?' asked Torgaddon.
Eshkerrus rose to his feet. He glared across the table at Torgaddon. 'Captain, you offend the honour of the Emperor's Children.’
That may indeed be what I'm doing, yes.’ Torgaddon replied.
Then, sir, you are a base and low-born-'
'Equerry Eshkerrus,' Loken said. 'None of us like Torgad-don much, except when he is speaking the truth. Right now, I like him a great deal.'
That's enough, Garviel,' Horns said quietly. 'Enough, all of you. Sit down, equerry. My Luna Wolves speak harshly because they are dismayed at this situation. An Imperial defeat. Companies lost. An implacable foe. This saddens me, and it will sadden the Emperor too, when he hears of it'
Horus rose. 'My report to him will say this. Captain Frame was right to assault this world, for it is clearly a nest of xenos filth. We applaud his courage. Master August was right to support the captain, even though it meant he spent the bulk of his military formation. Lord Commander Eidolon was right to engage, without support, for to do otherwise would have been cowardly when lives were at stake. I would also like to thank all those commanders who rerouted here to offer assistance. From this point on, we will handle it'
'How will you handle it, lord?' Eshkerrus asked boldly.
'Will you attack?' asked August.
"We will consider our options and inform you presently. That's all.'
The officers filed out of the strategium, along with Sedi-rae, Marr, Moy, Goshen, Targost and Qruze, leaving the Warmaster alone with the Moumival.
Once they were alone, Homs looked at the four of them. Thank you, friends.
Well played.'
Loken was fast learning both how the Warmaster liked to employ the Mournival as a political weapon, and what a masterful political animal the Warmaster was. Aximand had quietly briefed Loken on what would be required of him just before they boarded the shuttle on the Vengeful Spirit. The situation here is a mess, and the commander believes that mess has in part been
caused by incompetence and mistakes at command level. He wants all the officers reprimanded, rebuked so hard they smart with shame, but... if he's going to pull the 140th Expedition back together again and make it viable, he needs their admiration, their respect and their unswerving loyalty. None of which he will have if he marches in and starts throwing his weight around.’
'So the Moumival does the rebuking for him?'
'Just so,' Aximand had smiled. The Luna Wolves are feared anyway, so let them fear us. Let them hate us. We'll be the mouthpiece of discontent and rancour. All accusations must come from us. Play the part, speak as bluntly and critically as you like. Make them squirm in discomfort. They'll get the message, but at the same time, the Warmaster will be seen as a benign conciliator.'
We're his war dogs?'
'So he doesn't have to growl himself. Exactly. He wants us to give them hell, a dressing down they'll remember and learn from. That allows him to seem the peacemaker. To remain beloved, adored, a voice of reason and calm. By the end, if we do things properly, they'll all feel suitably admonished, and simultaneously they'll all love the War-master for showing mercy and calling us off. Everyone thinks the Warmaster's keenest talent is as a warrior. No one expects him to be a consummate politician. Watch him and leam, Garvi. Learn why the Emperor chose him as his proxy.’
'Well played indeed.’ Homs said to the Moumival with a smile. 'Garviel, that last comment was deliriously barbed. Eshkerrus was quite incandescent.’
Loken nodded. 'From the moment I laid eyes on him, he struck me as man eager to cover his arse. He knew mistakes had been made.’