Ultramarines Omnibus (warhammer 40000: ultramarines)

by Graham McNeill

  But supreme amongst the tide of roaring horrors charging towards the camp was a gargantuan beast that led them. Taller and broader than all the others, its physique was greater even than the largest of its monstrous followers, its lumpen head hunched low between its shoulders. Though some distance from Uriel, its skinless features bore the unmistakable gleam of feral intelligence, and the thought of such a creature possessing even the barest glimmer of self-awareness repulsed Uriel beyond reason.

  'Come on, Ultramarine,' shouted Vaanes. 'No time to gawp at the monsters!'

  Uriel ignored Vaanes and stared at the creatures as they smashed their way through the razorwire fence, unheeding of the barbs that tore at their red-wet bodies. Were they impervious to pain, wondered Uriel?

  'What are they?' he said.

  'I told you,' shouted back Vaanes. 'Come on! There's enough meat down there to keep them busy for a while, but once they've eaten their fill, they'll try to hunt us. If you don't come now, we will leave you here for them.'

  Uriel continued to stare at the grisly spectacle below with morbid fascination, watching as the Unfleshed ripped their way through the ruins of the warehouses, tossing aside massive girders like matchwood and gorging on the scorched meat within. Horrific sounds of snapping bone and tearing flesh sounded from below as the Unfleshed fell upon the prisoners who had remained outside the camp when the renegades had first attacked.

  Most died in the first instants of the attack, torn to pieces in a frenzy by the Unfleshed. Others were devoured alive, limbs and slabs of meat flying as the monsters fought for every morsel, their terrible roars of loathsome appetite echoing from the mountains.

  Pasanius gripped his arm and said, 'We have to go, Uriel!'

  'We let them die,' said Uriel darkly. 'We abandoned them. We might as well have killed them ourselves.'

  'We couldn't have saved them, but we can avenge them.'

  'How?' said Uriel.

  'By living,' answered Pasanius.

  Uriel nodded and turned away from the hideous spectacle below, shutting out the roaring feasting and orgiastic howls of pleasure, and feeling a part of his heart grow colder and harder as he left these people to die.

  Khalan-Ghol was in flames. Its spires were in ruins and its bastions pounded to dust by the relentless bombardment. Square kilometres burned in the fires of Berossus's shelling, but it was still the merest fraction of the scale of the fortress. Unnatural darkness swathed the fortress, black clouds of lightning-shot smoke hanging low and blotting out the dead whiteness of the sky for leagues around. Snaking kilometres of trenches topped with razorwire surrounded the darkened peak, newly constructed redoubts, bunkers, pillboxes and towers whose mighty guns deafeningly shelled Honsou's fastness, strobing the landscape with their red fire.

  Belching manufactorum had been erected on the plains and the pounding clang of industry was a constant refrain in the air. Glowing, orange-lit forges constantly churned out shells, guns and the materiel of war, and Honsou knew that their production rates would put the finest Imperial forge world to shame. He saw the huge silhouettes of Titans on the horizon, their diabolical forms dwarfing everything around them. They could do little but act as gun platforms for now, the leviathans unable to climb the mountainous slopes of Khalan-Ghol until the massive ramp Berossus was building was complete.

  He and a hand-picked cadre of his finest warriors clambered down the jagged slopes towards the forces arrayed below them. Honsou slid down a fallen pile of broken boulders, rotted, skeletal arms jutting from the cracks between them, but whether they belonged to one of his warriors or one of his foes he neither knew nor cared.

  Berossus had been nothing if not thorough in his attentions: the lower bastions were gone, shelled until it was as though they had never existed, and the outer ring of forts had fallen before his onslaught.

  Tens of thousands had already died in the battle, but Berossus had not been so stupid as to waste his best warriors in the battle thus far. Chaff, slaves and rabble bound to the service of Chaos, had charged his walls only to be met and hurled back by fire and steel.

  Combined with the soldiery of Toramino's grand company, the two warsmiths had enough manpower to drag down the walls of Khalan-Ghol eventually: it was simply a matter of time.

  Time Honsou did not intend to give them.

  'Berossus is a fool,' he had said, when broaching the plan that now saw him cautiously approaching the sentry lines of the enemy's furthest advanced trenches. 'We will take the fight to him.'

  'Beyond the walls?' asked Obax Zakayo.

  'Aye,' replied Honsou. 'Right to the very heart of his army.'

  'Madness,' said Zakayo.

  'Exactly,' grinned Honsou. 'Which is why Berossus will never expect it. You know Berossus! To him, sieges are simply a matter of logistics. As a former vassal of Forrix, I would have thought you would have appreciated that, Zakayo.'

  'I do, but to leave the protection of our walls…'

  'Berossus is a slave to the mechanics of a siege. This course of action results in that result - that's how he thinks. He is too hidebound by the grand tradition of battle from the ancient days to think beyond the purity of an escalade, to expect the unexpected.' .

  'It has not failed him before,' pointed out Obax Zakayo.

  'He hasn't fought me before,' said Honsou.

  The trenches ahead were lit by drumfires, and the clang of digging shovels and the rumble of earth-moving machines was all but obscured by the thunder of guns.

  'Onyx,' whispered Honsou, unsheathing his black bladed axe. 'Go.'

  Onyx nodded, a fluid shadow and all but invisible in the darkness, slithering on his belly towards the trenchline, his outline blurring and merging with the night. Obax Zakayo said, 'If he is discovered, we will all die here.'

  'Then we die,' snarled Honsou. 'Now be silent or I will kill you myself.'

  Suitably chastened, Obax Zakayo said nothing more as he heard the sound of gurgling cries and slashing blades from ahead. Honsou saw a fountain of blood spurt above the line of the trench and knew that it was now safe to approach.

  He crawled to where Onyx had cut a path through the razorwire and dropped into the trench. A score of corpses filled the trench and adjacent dugout, blood, glistening and oily in the firelight, coating the walls and seeping between the well laid duckboards. Each body lay sprawled at an unnatural angle, as though every bone had been broken. Each bore a long gash up the centre of their backs where their spinal column had been ripped out. Onyx himself stood immobile in the centre of the trench, slowly sheathing bronze claws into the grey flesh of his hands as the silver fire of his veins burned even brighter than normal. The daemon within him revelled in the slaughter and allowed the human part of him to return to the surface once more.

  'Good kills,' said Honsou as his Iron Warriors dropped into the trench, spreading out and securing their entry point. He ran over to the communications trench at the back of this widened area and ducked his head around the corner. Just as he had expected, he could only see partway along it, the trench following a standard zigzagging course. Further down its length, he could see red-liveried soldiers and slaves.

  'Have you no imagination, Berossus?' he chuckled to himself. 'You make this too easy.'

  He turned away and gathered his warriors about him. 'It is time. Let's go, and remember, as far as anyone here knows, we are loyal Iron Warriors of Berossus. Let no one challenge that.'

  His warriors nodded and, with Honsou in the lead, they set off down the communication trench. They walked with the confident, easy swagger of warriors who know they are without equal, and all the human and mutant labourers of Berossus abased themselves before them as they passed.

  They passed dugouts filled with twisted mutant creatures gathered in chanting groups around shrines to the Dark Gods, their mutterings overseen by sorcerers in golden robes. None questioned them, none had any reason to, honoured to have ancient warriors of Chaos pass by. Honsou saw bright arc lights suspended on baroque t
owers of iron that reared into the night and were hung with all manner of bloody trophies. Chanting groups of robed figures surrounded them, Honsou stopped and asked, 'Zakayo, what are these towers? This doesn't look like something Berossus would do.'

  'I am not sure,' replied Obax Zakayo. 'I have never seen their like.'

  'They seek to break the walls of Khalan-Ghol with sorcery,' said Onyx. 'The towers are saturated with mystical energy. I can feel it, and the daemon within me bathes in it.'

  'What?' hissed Honsou, suddenly wary. 'Are their magicks strong enough to overcome the kabal and the Heart of Blood?'

  'No,' said Onyx. 'Not even close. There is great power here, but the Heart of Blood has endured for an eternity and no power wielded by a mortal can defeat it.'

  Honsou nodded, reassured that the mystical defences of his fortress would hold. He glanced at the towers.

  'This smells of Toramino,' he said. 'Berossus would not have thought of it.'

  'Aye,' agreed Obax Zakayo. 'Lord Toramino has great cunning.'

  'That he does, but I'll see that arrogant bastard dead before he takes Khalan-Ghol, sorcery or not.'

  Passing beyond the towers, Honsou and his warriors emerged from the trench lines without incident, watching as the sweating, straining army of Berossus sought to bring his fortress to ruin. Tracked dozers laden with shells rumbled past behind high earthworks and Honsou was forced to admire the thorough completeness of the siegeworks. Forrix himself would have been proud.

  Plumes of fire shot up from an iron refinery. The thunder of processing plants producing explosives and the hammering of forges filled the plains: millions of men working to bring him down. Stockpiles of ammunition and brass-cased shells were stored in armoured magazines and as they passed each one, Obax Zakayo would enter and place an explosive charge from the dispenser on his back. Honsou knew that Obax Zakayo was, in all likelihood, a liability, too entrenched in the old ways of his former master to be part of Honsou's cadre of lieutenants, but no one knew demolitions and explosives like he did.

  And he had a cruelty to him that appealed to Honsou's sense for mayhem.

  The further back they travelled from the front trenches, the greater the risk of discovery became. He saw sturdily constructed barrack-bunkers and great artillery pits that had obviously been built by Iron Warriors, and heard roaring bellows of madness that could only mean the cage-pits of the dreadnoughts were near.

  'It is folly to continue, my lord, we should retreat now,' said Obax Zakayo. 'We have placed enough explosives to disrupt Berossus for months.'

  'No, not yet,' said Honsou, a reckless sense of abandon driving him onwards as he caught sight of a familiar banner flapping in the wind atop an armoured pavilion. It squatted in the shadow of one of the colossal Titans, beyond a forest of razorwire and a staggered series of bunkers. 'Not when we have a chance to deliver something a little more personal to Lord Berossus himself.'

  Obax Zakayo saw the banner and said, 'Great gods of Chaos, you cannot be serious!'

  'You know I am, Zakayo,' said Honsou. 'I never joke about killing.'

  Dug seven metres down into the rock, the sides of the artillery pit were reinforced with steel-laced rockcrete, at least two mettes thick. Angled parapets, designed to deflect enemy artillery strikes swept up over the embrasure the huge siege gun would fire through. Honsou knew that none of his artillery pieces could reach this far and that such endeavour was wasted effort, but it was so like Berossus to have them built anyway.

  The mighty cannon's bronze barrel was silhouetted against the roiling clouds above, etched with great spells of ruin and hung with thick, drooling chains of desecrated iron. It sat at the base of an incline on rails, so that after each shot it would roll back into its firing position.

  Perhaps a hundred human soldiers surrounded the huge cannon, guards to protect the mighty siege gun. Honsou and his warriors brazenly marched towards the artillery pit, daring the soldiers to stop them. Though he and his warriors proudly displayed the heraldry of the Iron Warriors, it would not take the soldiers long to realise that they did not belong here and raise the alarm.

  Honsou could see they were attracting stares, but pressed on, pushing the bluff to the limit as an Iron Warrior with a heavily augmented head and arms climbed from the artillery pit. Red lights winked on his helmet, fitted with range-finders, trajectorum and cogitators, and Honsou knew he looked upon one of Berossus's Chirumeks. More machine to him than man, the practitioner of the black arts of technology scanned him up and down before a huge gun affixed to his back swung around on a hissing armature and aimed at them.

  Onyx never gave him a chance to fire the weapon, leaping forward with the speed of a striking snake. His outline blurred, becoming oily and indistinct as he moved. A flash of bronze claws and a rip of flesh and the Chirumek collapsed, his spinal column held aloft by the daemonic symbiote.

  'Hurry!' shouted Honsou, running for the artillery pit now that all hopes of subterfuge were gone. He dropped into the artillery pit, firing his bolter at its other occupants. Loader slaves died in the hail of fire, blasted apart by his explosive shells and Chirumeks dived for cover as the Iron Warriors stormed-in.

  Yells and shouts of warning sounded from the human soldiers, but as the bark of gunfire continued, most were soon silenced. Honsou knew they didn't have much time and shouted, 'Zakayo, get down here!'

  The lumbering giant climbed down into the pit as Honsou and his warriors slaughtered the remainder of the gun's crew. The huge cannon hissed and rumbled, revelling in the bloodshed around it and he could sense the daemonic urge to kill bound within it. Obax Zakayo climbed to the gunner's mount and began hauling at the bronze levers there.

  Laughing at the irony of the moment, Honsou also climbed the ladder to the gunner's position as the turret emitted a bass groan and the barrel began turning from Khalan-Ghol towards the pavilion of Berossus.

  The growling barrel depressed until it was virtually horizontal as bolter fire rattled from the sides of the artillery pit and Iron Warriors from Berossus's grand company poured from their barracks - together with their human auxiliaries - to launch a counterattack.

  'Can't you hurry this up?' snapped Honsou.

  'Not really, no!' shouted Obax Zakayo, pulling thick levers and heavy chains fitted to the daemon gun's breech. Honsou leaned over the railings of the gunnery platform and shouted down to his warriors. 'Get ready to reload this gun when we fire! I want at least a couple of shots before we have to escape!'

  Four warriors broke from the defence of the gun pit and began hauling on the pulley chains that led down through a great iron portal in the floor of the artillery pit to the armoured magazine below. Within seconds, the iron gate groaned open and an enormous shell emerged. Grunting with the effort, the Iron Warriors manhandled the shell onto the gurney that would deliver it to the gun. It was extremely dangerous to have the magazine open while firing, but Honsou figured that since it wasn't their gun anyway, it didn't matter whether it got blown up or not.

  'Ready to fire!' shouted Obax Zakayo.

  Honsou sighted along the aiming reticule and laughed, seeing the roof of Berossus's pavilion and the gold and black heraldry of his banner.

  'Fire!' he yelled and Obax Zakayo yanked the firing chain. Honsou swayed as the gun's massive recoil almost hurled him from the gunnery platform, the roar of its firing nearly deafening him. Thick, acrid smoke belched from the barrel as the great cannon screamed in pleasure. The daemonic breech clanged open of its own accord and his Iron Warriors ran the next shell along the rails and into the weapon.

  As they fetched another shell from the magazine, Honsou saw that the first shot had been uncannily accurate. The banner of Berossus was no more, destroyed utterly by the explosion. The top portion of the pavilion was gone, nothing but a saw-toothed ruin left of its upper half. Even as he watched the debris rain down, secondary explosions were touched off by the burning wreckage as the gun fired again.

  This time he was ready, but even so
, was again almost dislodged by the recoil. Once more the pavilion vanished in a sheet of flame as their second shell impacted. Another shell was rammed home, but as the breech clanged shut, Honsou felt a huge tremor pass through the earth, swiftly followed by a second.

  He looked up through the murk in time to see a massive shadow moving through the darkness and saw with a thrill of fear that one of the Titans was making for them. The ground shook to its tread, the footsteps of an angry god of war come to destroy them.

  'Come on!' he shouted to Obax Zakayo. 'One more shot, then it's time we were gone!'

  Obax Zakayo nodded, casting fearful glances over the gunner's mantlet with each booming footstep of the approaching Titan. Once again the mighty daemon gun fired, this time striking the barrack block beside the pavilion and reducing it to flaming rubble.

  'Everyone out!' shouted Honsou, leaping from the gun and running towards the ladders that led from the artillery pit. Honsou wrenched open the iron door to the magazine as he passed and lobbed a handful of grenades inside. He leapt for the ladder as a huge shadow enveloped the artillery pit and looked up in time to see the massive, clawed foot of the Titan descending upon him.

  He scrambled up the ladder and rolled aside as its thunderous footstep slammed down, obliterating the daemonic gun in a heartbeat and missing him by less than a metre. He rolled away and lurched to his feet, still dazed from the concussive impact of the Titan's foot when the grenades he had dropped into the magazine detonated.

  The ground heaved and bellowed, huge geysers of flame and smoke ripping from the ground as hundreds of tonnes of buried ordnance exploded in a terrifyingly powerful conflagration. Honsou was lifted into the air and swatted for a hundred metres or more by the blast, slamming into an earthen rampart and rolling into a pile of excavated soil.

  He picked himself up, coughing and reeling from the impact to take stock of his surroundings. He turned as he heard a groaning sound and saw the Titan that had destroyed the gun pit sway like a drunk, its leg destroyed from the knee down by the magazine's explosion. Sparks and plasma fire vented from shattered conduits and sparking cables. Even as he watched, the massive daemon engine began to slowly topple over, its piston-driven arms flailing for balance as it fell.