by Gav Thorpe
The tanks and praetorians were taken completely by surprise and barely a shot was loosed in return during thirty seconds of fire and fury. Wrecks and corpses littered the wide street, secondary detonations and burning fuel lighting up the boulevard, the cracks of popping metal and burning rounds ringing from the buildings.
As quickly as it appeared the Castor Terminus disappeared again as the reflex shields engaged once more. Corax caught a last glimpse of the immense war engine turning away towards the east as the great guns of the temple started to rain shells down onto its position. Without void shields, surprise had been the Titan’s greatest defence and now the princeps would retreat, his mission completed.
‘Dive!’ the primarch commanded, arrowing groundwards. There was no time to lose; Vangellin had realised that his counter-attack was failing and was drawing back forces to protect the temple.
Behind the primarch, a Shadowhawk gunship plunged from the fume clouds contained within Atlas’s weather-shield, a blur of black against the dark sky. Four sets of triple-mounted heavy bolters opened fire, impacts rippling along the street as they scythed through a flood of infantry surging back towards the gatehouses.
The Shadowhawk’s strafing run was just the last in the long series of feints, drawing streams of tracer fire from the temple’s anti-air turrets as it swept past, bright flashes tearing through the drop-ship’s wake but missing their mark.
Unnoticed, Corax dropped down towards the upper storeys of the temple.
He aimed for a balcony on the highest tier of the ziggurat, in front of a tall arched window. The primarch allowed himself a grim smile; he often mused that if he had possessed such a flight pack during the uprising on Deliverance, then he could have taken the Ravenspire himself and saved weeks of bitter fighting.
Barely slowing, Corax crashed into the temple feet first, shattering the inches-thick crystalflex with clawed boots. Luxurious carpet and the stone beneath were torn to shreds as he dragged himself to a halt on the floor within.
Standing in front of a massive display screen was Vangellin, the magokritarch obvious by his long red robes stitched with golden Mechanicum runes. He held a cog-topped staff of office in one hand; the other was a hooked claw that twitched spasmodically as the ruler of Atlas turned towards the intruder.
Three hulking combat servitors lumbered towards Corax, weapon barrels spinning up, chainblades screeching. Overpowering his talons, the primarch sent sparking arcs of energy into two of the half-machine brutes. He leapt to the right as the third opened fire, diving over the stream of las-bolts that erupted from its twin cannons. A step and a jump sent Corax past his mechanical foe, lightning claw carving through its midriff from gut to spine, cutting the servitor in half.
As blood and fuel spewed across the room, Corax turned his attention to three tech-priests at the bank of consoles to his right, only now reacting to the intruder in their midst. There was no time for subtlety, to gauge their individual tolerances to injury; killing blows were unfortunate but necessary.
His next strike took the head off the closest – a female adept reaching for a pistol at her belt. Behind her the next tech-priest clenched an articulated metal fist. The bionic appendage was sent flying across the chamber as Corax’s following sweep took the Mechanicum cultist through the shoulder and sank deep into his tube-pierced chest. The third, eyes replaced with goggle-like ruby lenses, opened his mouth to shout a warning moments before Corax’s claw jabbed up through the bottom of his jaw, erupting from the top of his scalp with a spray of bluish fluid.
Corax pulled his weapon free and turned to the magokritarch. The primarch wanted him alive.
Vangellin thrust his staff towards Corax, a spew of energy bolts erupting from its tip. Corax had been warned of the weapon by his allies and was ready, dodging a fusillade that shattered dials and gauges behind him. A leap and a kick sent the magokritarch flying across the chamber to crash into a panel of screens with an eruption of cobalt sparks.
Looming over Vangellin, reflected in the polished ebon plate that made up almost half of the Mechanicum magos’s face, Corax raised his claw in readiness for another blow.
‘Stand your warriors down, and yield,’ he snarled.
Vangellin’s remaining eye regarded the towering primarch with all-too-human fear. Oily blood trickled from a gash across the tech-priest’s forehead, pooling around the rivets that ran in a line down the centre of his face.
‘Enough,’ wheezed the lord of Atlas. ‘You have my surrender.’
Four
Atlas’s main temple chamber was filled with tech-adepts, attending to the damage-control circuits and mechanisms that commanded and monitored the barge-city’s defences, energy grid and a dozen other vital systems. Agapito had escorted Loriark and the other magi of Third District to Corax a few minutes earlier, along with an entourage from other precincts. These were swiftly led back out again as they bombarded the primarch with questions and demands. Now only Loriark, Firax and Agapito remained, and between them sat the former Magokritarch Vangellin, hunched in a chair with his natural hand held across a dented metal chestplate. He glowered at Corax.
‘Your victory will be short-lived.’ Exposed by his ripped robe, his sallow skin was covered with spots of thick, drying blood. ‘Do you think I freely gave in to Delvere’s demands? He wields a power greater than even a primarch.’
‘The power of the Omnissiah?’ said Agapito, standing beside his lord. ‘Your Machine-God will save him from vengeance?’
‘The power of the warp.’ What little could be seen of Vangellin’s cracked lips twisted in a sneer. ‘The warp unchained.’
‘You have seen this for yourself?’ grated Loriark. ‘What manner of creations is the archmagos forging on Iapetus?’
‘What did you learn from the memory stores of your companion?’ Corax asked, ignoring the magokritarch’s posturing. ‘Did he know what Delvere is planning?’
‘Nothing more than we could have guessed,’ replied Loriark with a shake of the head. ‘Delvere is long studied in the mechanics and arts of the warp and with the aid of the Word Bearer, Nathrakin, is creating new engines to harness its power.’
‘Not only to harness it, but bring it to life, to give it divine mechanical form!’ snapped Vangellin. ‘The warp sustained – yes, that is what he has achieved. The synthesis of material and immaterial. The symbiosis of the physical and the incorporeal. Even as he threatened me with its power, he showed me the heights of greatness to which Constanix can now aspire. We will rival Anvillus, Gryphonne, perhaps even Mars itself when our power is revealed.’
‘More powerful… than the sacred… Red Planet?’ Even with his laboured words, Firax’s incredulity was plain to hear. ‘If you believe… such lies then you… are a fool. It is right… that we resisted your… delusions.’
Corax turned away from the others and stared out of the shattered remains of the window. Dawn was spreading across Atlas, now strangely peaceful in the pinkish light. Vangellin had been true to his word of surrender, formally handing power to Loriark in exchange for his life. The fighting had lasted only a few minutes more as word had spread that order had been restored, the speed of the command network as swift to restore peace as it had been to break it. Loriark had sent a brief statement to the outer districts explaining that Vangellin had been accused of techno-heresies and would face judgement by his fellow magi in due course. Freed from the threats of Vangellin, the other district temples had been swift to acknowledge Loriark’s claim, backed as it was by more Raven Guard arriving from orbit in the dawn hours.
Squads of soldiers and battle engines had been withdrawn, to be replaced by teams of labourers and repair equipment. Cranes and grav-lifters, cyber-reticulated work crews and myriad other men and machines were clearing the rubble, shoring up damaged buildings and dousing the flames left by just three hours of close fighting.
‘If Delvere’s studies into the
warp are so advanced, how can a legionary of the Word Bearers help him?’ Agapito asked. Corax glanced over his shoulder to see the commander standing over Vangellin, arms folded across his chest. ‘What could this Nathrakin know of the warp that the archmagos doesn’t?’
‘The wrong sort of knowledge,’ said Corax before Vangellin could answer. ‘You remember the Word Bearers at Cruciax? Or those poor creatures on the Kamiel? The hideous beasts that came at us on Isstvan Five?’
Agapito’s grimace showed clearly that he remembered the mutated warriors who had followed Lorgar during the Dropsite Massacre. Corax knew that there had been whispers and rumours ever since of mysterious powers at play.
He had been too focused on rebuilding the Legion and then striking back at Horus to quell the chattering, but now it was time to make certain truths known. Truths that had been revealed to him directly by the Emperor; truths that even now were hinted at in the recesses of his mind where the last memories the Emperor had passed to Corax still dwelt, like shadows at the bottom of a gorge.
He trusted Agapito, and had done so since they had first stood together so many decades ago. Though hot-headed of late, he needed to know the nature of the foes they were now facing; all of the Raven Guard deserved that after suffering so much at their hands.
‘There are creatures that live within the warp,’ said Corax. Agapito nodded in understanding and was about to reply but the primarch cut him off. ‘Things not just in the warp but of the warp. The creatures that can consume a ship if its Geller fields fail. The creatures that the Navigators call the empyrean predators, and the Emperor calls daemons.’
Agapito muttered with distaste while a cruel laugh erupted from Vangellin. The other tech-priests listened with interest, seemingly detached from concern.
‘Yes, daemons,’ said Corax. ‘Beings not of flesh but of the stuff of the warp itself.’
‘But what has that got to do with the Word Bearers?’ asked Agapito.
‘I saw the power in them, and I saw it written in the eyes of Lorgar as I confronted him. There is another name for the warp, which the Emperor knew and I now remember. Chaos.’
There was a flicker of recognition in the eyes of Agapito as he heard the word that had been whispered amongst the ranks, but never spoken outright. Corax continued.
‘The daemons of Chaos cannot exist in our world without a conduit. They are made up of the warp and so reality leeches their power. The Word Bearers we have fought, the twisted warriors that we faced, made themselves such conduits. They gave up a portion of their flesh, parts of their minds, so that these creatures could reside within them.’
Agapito turned on Vangellin and seized him by the throat, dragging him from the chair.
‘Delvere and Nathrakin are infecting the people of Iapetus with this daemon-curse?’ he growled. ‘You knew of this and allied with them?’
‘Nothing so crude,’ whispered Vangellin. ‘Flesh is temporal, impermanent. Machine… Machine is immortal, fitting for the hosts of the Great Ones.’
‘Let him go,’ Corax said quietly. Agapito obeyed without comment, dropping the deposed magokritarch back into his seat. The primarch looked at Loriark and Firax. ‘Is it possible? Could Chaos become manifest in a creation of wire and circuit, adamantium and plasteel?’
‘If it is possible, Delvere will find a way,’ said Loriark. ‘At the smallest level, flesh is nothing more than a mechanism too, composed of electrical impulses and exchanges of information. Life is simply a biological machine.’
Corax took a deep breath and pursed his lips. He had thought that perhaps the Word Bearers had been coming in desperation to Constanix II, seeking repairs or fresh arms and armour. The reality was far more grave, and made the primarch all the more glad that he had followed his instinct to come to the forge world. Constanix II had not been chosen by Nathrakin because it was rich in resources, but for the opposite reason. It was inconsequential – out of sight and out of mind. What better place to conduct experiments of the nature being discussed?
‘Whatever advancements our enemies have made, they must be stopped,’ he told the others. ‘Not only must we destroy any machines they have created, the knowledge of their creation cannot leave this world.’
‘And the Word Bearers?’ Agapito asked the question casually, but Corax could feel the anger concealed beneath the commander’s calm.
‘They will be dealt with in due course,’ the primarch replied carefully. ‘The mission is to rid Constanix of their corrupting influence. To thwart their plans will be punishment enough. This is no time for vendetta. Victory is vengeance.’
Agapito did not reply, and it was plain that the primarch’s words were not to his liking.
‘There is far more at stake than simply revenge against the traitors that tried to exterminate us,’ Corax said solemnly, trying to make Agapito understand. ‘It was such errors of judgement, the desire to put personal need and gain above duty and service, which has led to so many following the Warmaster into treachery. It is the ambitions of the weak that the daemons of Chaos seek to exploit. Even here, their temptations have lured the archmagos down a corrupt path, twisting his pursuit of knowledge into something far darker.’
It was not clear whether the commander understood fully the threat that Horus’s alliance had unleashed, but he nodded in compliance and stepped towards the door.
‘I have to see to the marshalling of the Talons arriving from the Kamiel,’ Agapito said. ‘If you will excuse me, lord primarch?’
‘One moment more, commander. Loriark, how soon do you think Delvere will learn of what has happened here?’
‘A brief examination of the transmission logs shows that communication with the capital was sparse during the battle,’ the magos replied. ‘Delvere knows that there has been an uprising and will deduce from the lack of contact that it was successful. There is nothing to indicate that your presence is known.’
‘Good,’ said Corax, looking back to Agapito. ‘Ensure that every weapon system on Atlas is operational. Coordinate with the magi and skitarii force commanders to create assault companies. I will review the preparations in two hours.’
‘Assault companies?’ wheezed Firax. ‘Surely we must… see to the defence of… Atlas first. The highest probability… is that Delvere’s response… will be a counter-attack.’
‘We will not be giving him the opportunity. We have the initiative and we will keep it. Magokritarch Loriark, set Atlas on a course for the capital. We will attack Iapetus at the earliest opportunity.’
Almost lost in the ever-present low cloud of Constanix II, vapour contrails cut across the midday sky. Corax watched them coming closer from the observatorium atop the main temple of Atlas, gazing skywards with Loriark beside him. Glimmers of engines rose up from the barge-city to meet the approaching craft from Iapetus. From this vantage point he could also see the grey-foamed seas stretching unbroken to the horizon, a low haze rising from the acidic waters.
Massive anti-grav repellers and plasma drives kept the city aloft, and though the shields kept Atlas protected from the acid storms that occasionally surged across its path they did nothing to ward away the chill of the air five hundred metres above sea level. To Corax the cold was of no consequence, but he was keenly aware of the discomfort it would be causing the unaugmented populace of the city. They were for the most part hard at work in munitions factories, manufacturing shells and energy packs for the skitarii and their war engines. Corax had gone to some lengths to make the people of Atlas feel as much a part of this endeavour as his warriors and the soldiers of the Mechanicum; the factory shift labourers had just as much to lose in the coming battle and had already suffered casualties in the struggle for possession of Atlas.
‘Are you sure it is wise to allow them to approach so closely?’ asked the tech-priest.
‘It is essential,’ replied Corax. He watched as the two squadrons converged on eac
h other, the reconnaissance craft from the capital splitting apart as the six Primaris Lightning interceptors broke into pairs to rise above them. ‘I want Delvere to see Atlas and think that he faces only Mechanicum forces. The presence of my Raven Guard is best hidden behind false intelligence. Your pilots have been correctly briefed?’
‘They will allow one of the enemy spycraft to evade destruction and return to Iapetus, as we discussed.’
‘Then I must do as the rest of my troops and make myself unseen.’
Corax headed down the broad stairwell into the upper level of the temple, Loriark at his heel. In the barge-city’s control centre adepts manned the scanner arrays, seeking to pinpoint the capital’s current location. It had taken nearly three days to cover more than twelve hundred kilometres, but now the primarch felt that his target was, relatively speaking, close at hand. The recon craft overhead had a range in hundreds of kilometres but it seemed unlikely that Delvere would have retreated in the face of the approaching barge-city. If anything, the tech-priests predicted Iapetus was most likely on a closing course to bring retribution to Atlas. Moving at full speed, the two cities were likely to come within sight of each other some time in the next ten hours.
It was unfortunate that the Kamiel had to remain hidden from Iapetus’s considerable sensors and defence cannons; an orbital scan would have located Iapetus with ease. As things stood, the captured strike cruiser had been forced to disengage into deeper space after despatching its cargo of legionaries and strike craft, to avoid detection by the Mechanicum’s orbital stations and patrolling monitor craft. Those same orbital assets were no doubt fixed upon Atlas’s current path and Delvere would know exactly where his enemies were. It was for this reason that Corax had permitted the recon overflight; the enemy could learn little more than they already knew, and the opportunity to mislead the foe was to be seized, turning the disadvantage around.