by Nick Kyme
‘None shall pass, Ancient,’ said Chronus, the guns of his battle tanks both close and distant thundering in his ears, despite his battle-helm.
‘None shall pass. Courage and honour.’
‘Yours has been an example to us all.’ It was a bittersweet moment, for Chronus knew the sacrifice Agrippen was making to allow his brothers a chance at escape. Thumping the roof of the Antonius, Chronus signalled the retreat.
The streets were clogged with bodies and rubble. Most of the necron skimmers had reportedly been diverted to attack the Ultramarines tank divisions, their unarmoured frames and much-reduced manoeuvrability making them too vulnerable in the close confines of Kellenport’s warren of roads and avenues. Instead, the enemy deployed their ground troops in force: roving packs of flesh-cowled horrors, hulking heavy infantry and the ubiquitous raiders.
Though Falka had no vox like Sergeant Iulus Fennion, no means of keeping apprised of the greater warfront, he had discerned that the walls had taken severe punishment across the entire city and would likely not last much longer. They had abandoned their post, him and the few Guard and militia that remained, on the orders of Sergeant Fennion and his men.
They retreated in phases, hunkering down in what scraps of cover they could find before unleashing suppressing fire, rushing to the next scraps and then doing it all over again.
Fire. Run. Hide.
Then repeat.
During the last hour or so, it had become his mantra.
For the moment at least, Falka, sixteen other men and a battle-brother called Venkelius were taking cover as Iulus and another group raked the end of the alleyway with las- and bolt-shells. He saw one Ultramarine step out into the street and release a plume of fire from his flamer. It roared across the ground like some serpent of old myth, devouring the skin-wearing necrons scuttling into its path.
Several made it through, still burning, but the others brought them down with a brutal salvo.
Iulus waved them on, urging, ‘Retreat in good order!’
Venkelius filtered the Guardsmen and militia in single fire, whilst Falka did what he had done for the last hour. Head down, he ran. He kept his lascarbine close to his body, just as he had been shown. It was not his original weapon. When his power pack had run dry, he had taken a fully charged replacement gun from one of the dead. He could not bring the man’s face to mind and was surprised at how much that bothered him, even as he was struggling to survive the chaos of the streets.
As far as Falka could tell from the snatched pieces of vox-communication between Sergeant Fennion and his warriors, they were not the only ones. He got the impression the Ultramarines were stretched across the length of Kellenport, dispersed amongst the few Guard and militia regiments that were alive and holding their nerve. On more than one occasion, Iulus had tried and failed to reach one of his fellow sergeants. Falka took this to be a bad sign, but said nothing and kept his eyes down when confronted with the wrathful-looking Space Marines protecting them.
Death was part of duty, Falka had learned that about the Ultramarines from Iulus, but this was tantamount to slaughter.
As if to emphasise the fact, gauss fire from the necrons following up their skin-clad comrades fizzed and crackled in the tight alleyway. An Ark Guard trooper who had run ahead of the line and caught up to Falka was spun, his innards terminally flayed away. Falka did not see him fall; to look back now would mean death. Another did, though, and barrelled into the ex-rig-hand, recoiling in horror from the dead man’s extremely visceral demise. He took Falka off his feet, and sent him tumbling to the ground. Falka’s last sight was of Sergeant Fennion, putting up a hand and rushing towards him.
Something hot lashed his face and for a moment he thought he had been struck, but it was the fleeing trooper’s blood as a gauss beam eviscerated him and pasted his remains across everything in close proximity, including Falka.
He got to his knees, dimly aware of the men screaming around him and the Space Marines urgently shouting in front and behind. He heard the necrons too, the cold metallic sound of their footfalls, the crackling burr of their gauss weapons re-powering.
Out the corner of his eye, as he broke into a shambling run, Falka saw Venkelius shoot one necron at close range, thrusting the muzzle of his borrowed bolter into the creature’s midriff and pulling the trigger. It broke apart, its soulless existence ended by the Ultramarine’s fury, but more were coming.
As the telltale whine of a gauss flayer discharge made the hair on the back of Falka’s neck prickle, Iulus suddenly arrived out of the shadows and was putting his armoured body in harm’s way. The beam seared him, raking his plastron and left shoulder guard.
Thrown into cover, Falka cried out just before he hit the ground, ‘Brother-Angel!’
Iulus staggered, almost to one knee, but cracked off a three-round burst that destroyed his attacker. Venkelius hurried by a splitsecond later and hauled his sergeant from the path of further return fire. The entire alleyway was stitched with it, an unrelenting swathe of viridian gauss beams from rifles and the heavier cannons wielded by the hulking necron elite.
Venkelius and Aristaeus, the one who had stepped out with the flamer, were replying in kind, but the firestorm levelled against them was fearsome and they barely got off more than a shot each.
Gasping in pain, Iulus slumped to his haunches and they hunkered down behind an empty ore silo. It was reinforced adamantium with a ceramite over-layer, so Falka knew it could take a battering. But it would not last indefinitely.
‘How far?’ asked Iulus, rasping as he removed and discarded his battle-helm. It was wrecked to all hell, and without its functioning systems impeded his breathing. He wore a rebreather underneath it, but tore this away too as he took a gulp of air.
‘Not gakking far enough,’ Falka replied. He scowled, trying to gauge the distance from their position to the necrons and then the end of the street. ‘Thirty-three metres for them to advance, twenty-six for us to run.’
Iulus sagged a little further, then checked the ammo gauge of his bolt pistol. His expression suggested what he had seen was not welcome news.
‘Sorry, Sergeant Kolpeck. I said I’d save you…’ he breathed, making an abortive effort to struggle to his feet with Falka’s help.
‘I’m not a sergeant, Brother-Angel, and you already did save my life. More than once. Our debt is paid.’
‘It was never to you that I was indebted, Kolpeck.’
The necrons were closing, a firing line of raiders as a dogged vanguard with a rear echelon of heavier elites behind them.
Falka closed his eyes and thought of Jynn, glad that she had made it off-world. He hoped she would find the strength she needed to rebuild her life and begin again, just as all the refugees of Damnos would have to.
Venkelius ducked back into cover to make a quick report.
‘At least thirty raiders and half as many in immortals, brother-sergeant. And I saw reinforcements en route, also.’
‘We are the Immortals, brother,’ Iulus told him. ‘Never forget that, even if that honorific is about to be sorely tested.’
Venkelius nodded.
‘What about the others?’ asked Iulus, inquiring about the rest of the squad and the staggered Second Company.
‘Seems long-range is down in this district. We have no way of knowing.’
Iulus snorted ruefully. ‘Let’s hope they’re doing better than us, eh? Are you ready to die on your feet with a bolter in your hands, Venkelius?’
‘I have prayed for this day to be so glorious, brother-sergeant.’
Iulus angled his head towards the other Ultramarine, who had exhausted his flamer’s ammunition and was down to his sidearm. ‘And you, Aristaeus?’
‘Venkelius and I are of the same mind, brother-sergeant.’
They helped the injured sergeant to his feet, with Falka’s aid. Intense gauss fire reflected on the stern-faced Guardsmen and militia who remained as they contemplated their almost certain, imminent deaths.
But the charge into death never happened. The left flanking wall collapsed instead, a half-dozen necrons crushed beneath it and the emergent bulk of Merciless Orar and The Vengeful. Their names were daubed on their battle-scarred hulls, but Falka scarcely had time to read them as the tanks turned and punitively hammered the mechanoid foot soldiers thronging the alleyway. It took eight seconds of sustained fire before the necron ranks had been thinned enough to earn a brief respite for the survivors.
With the smaller The Vengeful maintaining a sentry position in the middle of the broken alleyway, the imposing form of Merciless Orar turned about and lowered its embarkation ramp. An Ultramarine emerged from its roof hatch and beckoned them inside.
Iulus stepped forwards. ‘What news from the wall?’
‘Completely overrun, barring the western gate where last I heard the Ancient was holding firm,’ said the tanker.
‘And the streets?’
‘According to the Thunderhawks, a fresh necron offensive is moving in. Much larger than this last one. Streets are being abandoned. We’re pulling back, all the way to the space port. Final evacuation.’
Iulus nodded, and ordered all of them aboard.
Falka stalled as the shadow of the immense battle tank fell upon him.
‘It’s just a Land Raider, Kolpeck,’ Iulus assured him. ‘I am sorry for your world, but it’s beyond saving now. But you are not. Now get aboard.’
The Rage of Antonius was close to shutdown. Warning sirens screamed inside the hull, accompanied by flashing crimson icons across every console. Despite exploiting the natural cover and giving a good account of themselves against the necrons, the data feed rolling across Chronus’s retinal lens display told him that the battering they had taken was close to reaching the venerable battle tank’s limit.
‘Just a little more, old friend…’ he muttered, having already rerouted power and jerry-rigged a half-dozen battlefield ‘fixes’ to keep the Predator moving and its weapon systems functional. Reports from the Triumph of Espandor suggested it was also on the brink of expiry, and they had lost Reckoner a short while back when three heat beams had finally transfixed it and resulted in the engine’s catastrophic failure.
The ball of fire it had made was still etched onto the back of Chronus’s eyelids; his roar of grief and defiance still echoed in his mind. Reckoner was gone, but others yet lived.
‘Gnaeus, are you still with us?’ He had opened vox and was trying to contact his other commanders.
‘Taking heavy fire, commander,’ Gnaeus replied. Chronus could hear it on the vox-link, the ugly shriek of necron weaponry. ‘Everyone is falling back. The walls are gone… so too the streets. Fabricus is non-contactable. Lord Tigurius has issued orders for final evacuation.’
‘Confirmed,’ said Chronus, having received the same orders.
Fabricus was likely dead, along with his squadrons. Nothing could be done about that now. Nor was there any way to substantiate that belief either.
‘I will reconnoitre with you if you ask it of me, commander.’
‘Get your men out, Gnaeus. Follow Tigurius’s orders. It’s over, brother. The Antonius and I will try and hold the west avenue as long as we can. I want to keep an eye on Agrippen before the end.’
Gnaeus paused, as if processing.
‘I’ll see you on the Valin’s Revenge then, sir.’
‘Aye, Guilliman willing, you may indeed.’
Chronus ended the conversation, then went on to order the Triumph of Espandor back.
Everyone was leaving, except for Agrippen.
The Dreadnought had been pegged back to the centre of the Courtyard of Thor, but fought just as fiercely.
Necrons were teeming through the gaps in the western wall now. Chronus fired sporadic bursts into the melee from a distance, but it was like shooting at a dirty, silver ocean.
‘We have power for another four salvos, five at a push,’ his gunner’s voice came through the vox.
‘Then push, Vutrius. I don’t want Agrippen to be alone if we can help it.’
Through his magnoculars, Chronus watched as the Dreadnought continued to rip the necrons apart. They were crawling over him now as he thrashed at them and crushed their bodies as if they were ants, but he was slowly being overwhelmed. His plasma cannon was destroyed and sparks flashed angrily from his damaged servos and machinery.
Chronus knew he could not stay much longer. More enemy contacts were moving in via phasic insertion and would be upon them soon. He had to think of his crew.
The fifth lascannon burst sounded, the beams hazing through dust-choked air and spearing a clutch of the mechanoids advancing into the courtyard. They paid the Antonius no heed, their attack protocols slaved entirely to the destruction of the Dreadnought.
Lowering his scopes, Chronus bade a final farewell to Agrippen and then called down to his driver.
‘Novus, get us out of here.’
As they began to reverse, Chronus witnessed the huge form of a necron monolith materialise in the courtyard.
‘Bring those cannons back on line!’ he bellowed down to Vutrius.
‘I cannot, commander. Our power coils are spent… Worse than spent, they are burned.’
The data feed confirmed it – all main weapon systems were non-functional.
‘Hera damn it!’
The monolith’s anterior gauss array unleashed a concentrated salvo into the Ancient.
When it failed to bring Agrippen down, he stepped forwards and punched through the war machine’s armour with his fist. The monolith shuddered, viridian lightning coursing over its ruptured shell as it suffered an unexpected but catastrophic malfunction. The resulting explosion, hot and verdant, forced Chronus to look away.
When he looked back, Agrippen was still standing but near the end of his strength.
Through the Merciless Orar’s vision slits, Falka saw Ultramarines fighting and dying in Kellenport’s battle-choked streets.
Every metre, the Land Raider’s guns punished the necrons with deadly shellfire. A whirring cannon mounted on its front chewed through debris and mechanoid alike, whilst its side guns kept up a steady rate of burst fire.
Falka and those aboard the Merciless Orar’s troop hold fired out from the slits too, las and bolter adding to the tank’s destruction. It felt good to fight alongside the Space Marines, to not be so afraid when riding in the belly of this metal beast. That determination and resolve had spread to the other Guard and militia too. They fought with their pride, their vengeance and it made Falka’s heart soar to be a part of it.
A pair of necron walkers scuttled into view from behind the smoking remains of a battle tank they had just destroyed. Falka’s sense of invulnerability wavered as he saw the walkers about to turn their heat rays on the Merciless Orar. They were intercepted by an arcane-looking figure, lightning cascading from his brow and eldritch words upon his lips that Falka did not understand. But he did not need to know their meaning to realise they were words of power.
The Librarian almost moved faster than sight, blurring around the clumsy attacks of the walkers as they reacted to the threat and tried to neutralise it. With phenomenal strength, he cut one walker in half before lifting the other off the ground with what seemed the merest thought, and casting it to ruin against the side of a silo.
‘Who was that?’ Falka heard one awe-filled Guardsman ask.
‘Lord Tigurius,’ Iulus replied.
The Merciless Orar was rumbling on as a squad of Ultramarines joined Tigurius in the street and went to engage a necron infantry force that had just phased in.
Though Falka tried to see as much as he could through the vision slit, the warriors were soon lost from view and he did not get to witness how the fight would end.
It was the first time Scipio and the Thunderbolts had been reunited with Tigurius since that first defence at the wall
. During that time, he had seen the Librarian rip a monolith apart and lay waste to half a necron phalanx with the power of his mind. Potent as he was on the Thanatos Hills, this was something else entirely.
Scipio was not ashamed to admit to himself that he was intimidated as the awesome figure of the Librarian returned to their midst again.
‘The battle’s over,’ said Tigurius, unleashing a storm of lightning at the necrons trying to force their way through the rubble-strewn streets at them. A flurry of gauss fire answered. Drained from his exertions, Tigurius’s psychic shield was a little slow to manifest and he cried out, falling to one knee, as several beams struck him and went through his armour.
The Thunderbolts moved in ahead of him, raking the necron survivors with bolter fire and cleansing the street of enemies for a precious few seconds.
Scipio leaned down to help Tigurius to his feet and saw the Librarian’s eyes were aglow with power. He spoke in a voice like prophecy as his unerring prescience stared out into the ether.
‘We cannot stay. We will be overrun. The sun will rise again for one last time over Damnos, igniting all with its fury.’
It had been dark for weeks, some symptom of the necrons’ mass awakening or simply a result of the season, Scipio had no idea. But looking up into the eternal night, he wondered how the dawn would ever rise again for Damnos.
There was no time to consider further. A second and third phalanx had moved into the street Scipio’s men had just cleared. With a flash of phasic energy, a vast slab-sided monolith materialised behind them. More necrons were emerging through a portal that warped and cracked within its dark armour plating.
‘If you have any power remaining, my lord, now would be the time,’ said Scipio.
Tigurius smiled. ‘I have a little…’
As the Thunderbolts prepared for a last stand, the Librarian threw up his arms and uttered a final incantation. In a split second, Tigurius was gone, taking Scipio and all of his men with him.
The sky over the spaceport was threaded with gauss fire.