Black coated officers in skull-embossed peaked caps bellowed orders for their men to stand firm, enforcing these orders with bullets. Honsou let them shoot their own men, blasting holes in those enemy soldiers who weren't running. A swelling roar of hate filled the night as the Iron Warriors' indentured soldiery swarmed over the walls, fanning out towards the stairs or simply jumping into the courtyard. The bastion was theirs, now they just had to break out of it.
Stuttering volleys of las-fire blasted from the trench, but it was too little, too late as Honsou dropped into the prepared position and killed with wanton abandon. His sword chopped through a terrified Guardsman, the reverse stroke disembowelling another. He worked his way down the trench, hacking a bloody path through the defenders who fell back in horror from his deadly blade. As Honsou killed the Guardsmen, he revelled in his superiority, and could well understand the attraction of Khorne's path.
The Iron Warriors swept over the trench killing everything in it with the fury of those who had fought their way through hell and lived to tell the tale, butchering anything that came within reach.
FROM INSIDE THE keep of Tor Christo, Major Gunnar Tedeski watched the slaughter with a desperate heart. His men were dying and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He'd gambled with the lower guns, trusting that they would be able to stop the relentless advance of the Iron Warriors, but they had second guessed him, and now the fortress was as good as theirs.
He had failed and while Tor Christo's fate had never really been in doubt, it was galling for it to have fallen so quickly. The attackers had not yet broken out of Kane bastion, but they would surely overrun the entrenchments behind the bastion soon. He knew the images he was seeing on the remote pict-viewers did not capture the horror and carnage taking place outside. Thousands of men were streaming over the walls and it would only be a matter of time until the Mars and Dragon bastions came under attack from their vulnerable rears. If he let them, the men there would fight bravely, but they would die, and Tedeski would have no more deaths on his conscience.
'Poulsen!' sighed Tedeski, wiping dust and sweat from his brow.
'Sir?'
'Send the "Heaven's Fall" signal to all company commanders and Castellan Vauban.'
'"Heaven's Fall", sir?' queried Poulsen.
'Yes, damn you!' snapped Tedeski. 'Quickly, man!'
'Y-yes, sir,' nodded Poulsen hurriedly and ran off to pass the evacuation code to the vox operators.
Tedeski turned from his aide-de-camp and straightened his duty uniform jacket before addressing the remaining men and officers standing with him in the Christo's command centre.
'Gentlemen, it is time you left this place. It grieves me to say that Tor Christo is about to fall. As the commanding officer, I am ordering you to lead as many men as you can into the tunnels and make your way to the citadel. Castellan Vauban will need every man on the walls in the coming days and I will not deny him those men by sacrificing them needlessly here.'
Silence greeted his words until a junior officer asked, 'Will you not accompany us, sir?'
'No. I will stay to overload the reactor and deny our foes this fortress.'
Tedeski raised his arm as objections were shouted. 'I have made up my mind and will not be argued with. Now go! Time is of the essence!'
'THE HEAVEN'S FALL signal has been sent from Tor Christo, arch magos,' reported Magos Naicin, staring at the encrypted vox-thief before him.
'So soon?' hissed Amaethon, and though his flesh had lost any true emotive qualities, Naicin saw a passable approximation of genuine alarm cross the face of the arch magos.
'It appears that the men of the Guard are weaker than even I feared,' said Naicin sadly.
'We must protect ourselves! The citadel must not fall!'
'It must not,' agreed Naicin. 'What would you have me do, arch magos?'
'Blow the tunnel, Naicin! Do it now!'
CAPTAIN POULSEN HURRIED down the carved steps, clutching bundles of paper folders and an armful of data-slates. The fear was unlike anything he had felt before. He'd never been on the front line before, his talents in organisation and logistics making him much more valuable to the command echelons behind the line.
But standing on the walls of the Kane bastion with shells exploding all around him, he'd felt the bowel-loosening terror of an artillery bombardment and was desperately grateful he had been spared the horror of combat. Hundreds of men thronged the tunnels beneath the keep, descending into the depths of the promontory and heading for the wide cavern-tunnel that led back to the citadel. Similar underground passageways allowed the men from the flanking bastions to escape, though it was too late for the men in Kane bastion.
It was inevitable that some men would have to die so that the others might live.
Weak illumination from the glow-globes strung from the ceiling cast a fitful light over the soldiers around him. Fearful and guilty expressions were writ large across his fellow officers' faces. Dust drifted from the ceiling and sputtering recyc-units struggled to keep the air moving in the hot, stagnant underground.
Eventually, the steps ended and the tunnel widened into a large, roughly circular cavern with passages leading off into the rock beneath Tor Christo. Men from the Dragon and Mars bastions were already streaming from these tunnels, yellow-coated provosts attempting to impose a semblance of order of the retreat with limited success. Major Tedeski's order to withdraw was being obeyed with speed. Four giant, blast-shielded elevator doors studded one wall and, ahead, the cavern narrowed to a well-lit underground highway, nearly twelve metres wide and seven high.
Normally this level of the fort was used to move artillery and ordnance between Tor Christo and the citadel, but it was equally well-suited for large scale movements of troops. Poulsen jostled alongside sweating troopers, the shouts of fiie provosts and soldiers almost deafening. The heaving mass of men moved towards the main tunnel and Poulsen felt himself being carried along with it. An elbow dug painfully into his side and he yelped, dropping the armful of data-slates to the painted floor.
The bureaucrat in him took over and he fell to his knees to gather up the fallen slates, cursing under his breath as a booted foot crunched the nearest one to splinters. A hand grabbed him and hauled him roughly upright.
'Leave them!' snarled a grim-faced provost. 'Keep moving.'
Poulsen was about to protest at this rough treatment, when the ground shook and cries of alarm echoed around the cavern. A rain of dust dropped from the roof and an eerie quiet descended upon the chamber.
'What was that?' breathed Poulsen. 'Artillery?'
'No,' hissed the provost. 'We wouldn't hear artillery down here. That was something else.'
'Then what?'
'I don't know, but I don't like the sound of it.'
Another louder vibration shook the cavern, then another. Shouts of alarm turned to cries of terror as Poulsen saw a hellish orange glow race towards them down the main tunnel, followed by a furious whooshing roar. Poulsen watched the approaching glow with incomprehension. What was happening?
His unasked question was suddenly answered as someone shouted, 'Emperor's Blood, they're blowing the tunnel!'
Blowing the tunnel? That was inconceivable! While there were men still here? Castellan Vauban would never give such an order. This couldn't be happening. Hundreds of soldiers turned in panic and attempted to race back into the tunnels they had recently fled, pushing their comrades aside in terror. Men fell and were trampled underfoot as the terrified men of the Jourans stampeded back from the collapsing tunnel.
Poulsen stumbled backwards, dropping the slates he had collected from the floor, all thoughts of their worth forgotten. Explosions of demolition charges marched their way along the tunnel, bringing down thousands of tonnes of rock upon the trapped men of the Guard within it.
He staggered back towards the clogged tunnel he had just come from, clawing at the men in front of him, desperate to escape.
The main tunnel suddenly exploded in fire a
nd noise, rubble blasting from its mouth, crashing and burning hundreds of men in an instant. Poulsen wrenched a man from in front of him, and pushed his way forwards as he heard an ominous crack from the ceiling above him. A demolition charge set in the centre of the cavern's roof exploded, showering the soldiers below in chunks of rock and collapsing the entire cavern roof.
Poulsen screamed as falling rocks pummelled him to the ground, smashing his skull and crashing his body to a jellied pulp.
Nearly three thousand men joined him in death as the tunnel between the citadel and Tor Christo was sealed.
MAJOR TEDESKI SWIGGED from a bottle of amasec as he stared at the pict-viewer displaying the exterior of the keep, watching thousands of soldiers in red swamp the walls of his fortress. Mars and Dragon bastions were thronged with enemy soldiers, firing their weapons into the air and cheering at their victory. He'd watched in fury as his captured soldiers were lined up and shot against the bastion walls or herded into the trenches and set alight with flamers. Tedeski had never felt such a strong hatred before. A grim smile touched his lips as he pictured sending these bastards to hell.
He took another drink from the bottle and nodded slowly. The command centre was empty except for himself and Magos Yelede, who sat dejectedly in the corner. The machine priest had protested at being ordered to stay behind, but Tedeski had told him that he would either stay willingly or he would be shot.
Tedeski drained the last of the bottle and turned away from the sickening atrocities being committed within his walls. He gripped Magos Yelede's robes, hauling him to his feet.
'Come on, Yelede. Time to earn your keep.'
Tedeski dragged the reluctant magos from the control centre, through a maze of corridors and security sealed barriers before descending in a key-controlled elevator to the power chamber far below the keep. As the elevator rumbled downwards, a pounding vibration shook the elevator car, the lights flickering and metal squealing as it ground against the walls of the shaft.
'What the hell?' began Tedeski as the elevator began its downward journey again.
No sooner had the elevator doors opened than Tedeski pushed Magos Yelede out into the featureless grey corridor that led towards the reactor chamber. He tried to raise Captain Poulsen and the rest of his company commanders on the vox, but met with no success and his worry grew with each step.
The powerful shockwave had felt like some vast, underground detonation and as far as he knew there was only one way such a detonation could have occurred. But surely Castellan Vauban would never have allowed the Adeptus Mechanicus to destroy the tunnel and cut off thousands of men from their retreat? A terrible sinking feeling settled in his gut and he fervently hoped his suspicions were unfounded.
At last they arrived at the main doors to the reactor chamber and Tedeski stood aside to allow the machine priest to access the entry controls.
'Open the damn door!' snapped Tedeski when Yelede failed to move.
'I cannot, Major Tedeski.'
'What? Why the hell not?'
'I have been given instructions not to allow this facility to be destroyed.'
Tedeski slammed Yelede against the wall and drew his bolt pistol, shouting, 'If you don't open that door, I will shoot you in the head!'
'Anything you can threaten me with is irrelevant, major,' protested Yelede. 'I have been given a sacred order by my superiors and I cannot disobey it. Our word is iron.'
'And my bolt is 0.75 calibre, diamantine tipped with a depleted uranium core and if you don't open this bloody door right now, I will fire it through your poor excuse for a brain. Now open the damn door!'
'I cannot—' began Yelede as a roaring screech of tearing metal ripped along the corridor. The two men watched as an enormous, crackling fist tore open the elevator doors and a gigantic figure stepped through, filling the corridor with its bulk.
Almost three metres tall, the huge figure took a step into the light and Tedeski felt his heart hammer against his chest. The figure wore a bloodstained suit of iron-grey Terminator armour, slashed with diagonal chevrons of black and yellow stripes. The helmet was carved in the shape of a snarling jackal, and his molten chestplate bore the visored skull-mask of the Iron Warriors.
Yelede whimpered in fear and squirmed free of Tedeski's grasp, swiftly pressing his palm to the identification slate.
'Blessed Machine, I abjure thee to grant your unworthy servant entry to your holy sanctum, to your beating heart,' said Yelede, the words coming out in a desperate rash.
'Hurry up, for the Emperor's sake!' hissed Tedeski as the Terminator lumbered towards them. More enemy clambered from the wrecked elevator car, following their leader. Tedeski fired a short burst from his bolt pistol, but the heavy suits of armour were impervious.
The reactor room door slid smoothly open and Tedeski and Yelede gratefully ducked inside as it slammed shut behind them.
Tedeski pushed Yelede towards the centre of the chamber where a tall podium with a dozen thick brass rods set into grooves on the floor pulsed with energy.
Tedeski dragged the protesting magos towards this arrangement and pointed his pistol at his head.
'Give me any more trouble and I will kill you. Do you understand?'
Yelede nodded, what little flesh remained of his face twisted in fear. The magos jumped as thundering impacts slammed into the door and the inner face bulged inwards. Quickly, he ran to the brass columns and pressed his palm into the top of the first, twisting it and chanting a prayer of forgiveness to the Omnissiah. He climbed onto the central dais and rotated several cogged dials.
Tedeski fought for calm as the first brass column rose from the floor, steam hissing from the newly revealed metal. Warning klaxons blared and a stream of words, meaningless to Tedeski, issued from a pair of speakers mounted on the dais.
'Can't you do this any faster?' hissed Tedeski urgently as the door buckled inwards again.
'I am going as fast as I can. Without the proper ministrations to appease the machine spirits that invest the reactor, I will not be able to persuade them to aid us.'
'Then don't waste time talking to me,' snapped Tedeski as another hammer-blow slammed into the door.
FORRIX SMASHED HIS power fist into the door, feeling the layered metal starting to give. He knew he did not have much time. The Warsmith's captured magos had told them of the capacity of Tor Christo's commander to destroy the fortress and Forrix was under no illusions as to what the two men within this chamber were attempting to do.
His warriors gathered behind him, impatient to kill their prey and begin refortifying this place. He slammed his fist against the door again, feeling the metal crumple beneath his assault. He gripped the twisted metal and pulled, tearing the door from its mounting with a roar of triumph. Forrix pushed through the doorway to see a magos in white robes ministering to a machine in the centre of the chamber, and a one-armed Imperial Guard officer standing beside him. The man fired his bolt pistol and Forrix grinned as he felt the ringing impacts against his thick armour. He felt a sensation he had not known in many centuries, but recognised as pain.
He raised his own weapon and squeezed off a short burst, the shells taking the magos between the shoulders, disintegrating his torso and blasting him clear of the dais in a welter of blood and bone.
The Guard officer turned and leapt towards the dais, fumbling with the brass columns, vainly attempting to complete what the magos had begun. Forrix laughed at the man's efforts and shot him in the leg, toppling him to the floor with a scream of pain. He deactivated the energy field surrounding his power fist and lifted the howling officer from the ground, hurling him to a waiting Terminator.
Forrix mounted the dais and saw that they had cut it close, a few more minutes and Tor Christo would have been reduced to a useless molten ruin. He put a bolt through each of the wall-mounted speakers and the screaming klaxons were silenced.
'Replace the rods. It will prevent the reactor blowing,' he said to another of his Terminators and strode from the
room.
Tor Christo had fallen.
THE SECOND PARALLEL
ONE
As LIEUTENANT COLONEL Leonid entered the Sepulchre the flame at the end of the taper wavered in the draft that gusted in from the open door. Kneeling before a basalt statue of the Emperor in the chapel's ossuary, Castellan Vauban cupped the flame behind his hand, shielding it from the wind and lit a candle for the men of Battalion A, as he had done every day for the last six days since Tor Christo had fallen.
Leonid kept a respectful distance from his commanding officer, awaiting the completion of his ministrations to the dead, and Vauban was grateful for his officer's understanding.
The grim tower known as the Sepulchre stood on the north-western slopes of the mountains, high above the citadel. Constructed of smooth, black marble, veined with threads of gold, it was a tall, hollow tube, some thirty metres in diameter and a hundred high. Its inner walls were studded with hundreds of ossuaries containing the bleached bones of every man who had borne the title of castellan. It had been a great comfort to Vauban to imagine that one day he too would have a place of honour amongst the immortal dead, but he knew that was nothing but a dream. In all likelihood, he would end his days as a desiccated corpse somewhere below in the citadel, murdered by this infernal foe. The thought of his bones scoured clean by the dust storms of this planet filled him with great melancholy.
The entire floor was a polished disc of solid brass, its surface etched with intricate traceries and swirling lines that looped gracefully across its surface, weaving and intersecting in a beguiling dance. It looked like a puzzle where the solution, if there even was one, was forever elusive. Vauban knew it was possible to happily lose several hours trying to untangle the design with your eyes, but he had long ago decided that it was a mystery he would never solve.
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