by Gav Thorpe
As he had thought, momentum took him onwards and just two seconds after entering the shadow the impetus of his charge carried him free of it again.
The sudden light and sound was blinding and deafening, the whine from his suit as power once more surged through its limbs like a welcome clarion. His bolts and grenades exploded just a few metres ahead, ripping across a tangle of wires and metal just a little narrower than the corridor itself, a metre and a half tall.
A trio of hereteks stood behind the device, which continued to slowly grind forward on metal tracks. He saw their eyes widen with fear in the visors of their wolf-masks, as they reached for long-barrelled pistols hanging in holsters beneath their robes.
He fired high. The first bolt took the nearest heretek in the face and turned her mask into hot shards, flinging her back with a piercing shriek. The second had started to duck but two bolts caught the top of his head, ripping his cranium apart from within, the blast partially contained by his hood so that as he fell a slick of broken skull and gobbets of flesh coated the inside of the rough cloth.
The third did not flinch as a bolt whirred over his shoulder. Azrael had time to register the strange ruby-like gem that tipped the pistol – rather than a muzzle or las-lens – a moment before a spark no bigger than a thumbnail hit him in the chest.
Though not large, the shot dug deep through the layers of metal and ceramite. The discharge of energy carved open his breastplate like the swipe of a lightning claw. Scorching pain lanced through Azrael’s pectoral but he pulled the trigger as he stumbled back and his next two shots found their mark in the heretek’s chest. Two bright explosions tore open his robes and scattered blood-spattered scales into the air.
Blood bubbled from the wound in Azrael’s chest, quickly solidifying as modified cells clotted the injury.
There were more hereteks behind the shadowcaster, but the bulk of the machine was between them and the Grand Master, blocking their lines of fire.
With a grunt, Azrael heaved a shoulder into the metal plate fronting the machine. Its tracks squealed and screeched on the hard floor as snarling engines fought against the powerful fibre bundles of the Grand Master’s warplate. Its momentum, though slow, was implacable and it continued to push forwards, sliding Azrael back across the ferrocrete floor. Detecting a loss of traction, his suit responded, jutting slender memesteel spines from the soles of his boots. The spikes dug ragged grooves in the stone until they found purchase.
The growl of the shadowcaster’s engines grew to a loud whine. Past the armoured shield Azrael could see robed figures clambering onto the engine block and track housings. He stowed his storm bolter against his greave with a clang of its magnetic clamp and grabbed the bottom of the frontisplate with his now free hand.
‘Boost to servos,’ he told his armour and it responded immediately, the hum of its stacked crystal core reactor becoming a pulsing buzz. A temporary surge of power flooded the Terminator suit’s limbs and spinal hydraulics.
Azrael straightened his knees and lifted the front of the shadowcaster. As its tracks rose from the floor it lost traction, and the Grand Master’s task grew easier with each passing moment. With a shout, Azrael hauled the diabolic engine up, turning it as he did so to tip aside the hereteks climbing along its length.
Metal screeched and tore as he continued to tilt the shadowcaster. He toppled the bulky machine onto a handful of techno-cultists, its weight crushing them to a paste across the unforgiving floor. Tracks whirred against the bodies of those on the other side, dragging robes and limbs into drive wheels, grating flesh and bone against the wall.
Azrael pushed. With no force to act against the power of his armour, he broke into a run, using the overturned shadowcaster as a ram to flatten even more hereteks that had been following behind the bizarre field generator. Their screams and panicked cries were silenced as the engine crashed through them like a runaway heavy loader.
Twenty metres and more than a score of dead enemies later, the shadowcaster crashed against the wall of a junction, mashing another trio of cultists to pulp against shattering stones. Sparks flared from the shadow generator and flames burst from ruptured lubricant lines. In seconds the entire infernal machine was engulfed in green flames.
Able to utilise the sensorium again, Azrael saw that his companions were beset from three sides – the scanner relay showed their beacons as a few bright dots amongst a sea of energy signals. The chamber to which they had been heading was as full as the corridor, which had been empty thirty seconds earlier, indicating that the rebels had some means to arrive at the ground level.
Further afield more Deathwing squads approached from the main hall – Squads Therizon and Karolus. Daeron’s men were still out of range.
‘Daeron, status report,’ Azrael voxed as he started back towards Squad Belial.
‘A few attacks. Nothing troubling, Grand Master. I think they are just trying to keep us occupied for the moment.’
‘The citadel shield generator is still operational. Link up with Karolus and locate its source. I want that shield down in five minutes.’
‘Affirmative, Grand Master. We’ll follow the energy grid and do a sweep from here.’
Date Ident: 887939.M41#1444
Arriving back at the arterial corridor, Azrael was confronted by an anarchic scene. The hereteks had pushed through the fusillades of the Terminators and an intense close assault raged on both flanks. Belial’s power sword swept back and forth with relentless precise strokes. The crackle and crash of power fists landing body-shattering blows punctuated the shouts and shrieks of the techno-cultists.
The hereteks thrashed and slashed with all manner of weapons, from simple crowbars to whirring chainblades and field-wreathed claws on mechanical tentacles. Many had considerable bionic and augmetic replacements and pounded the Deathwing with piston-like arms and additional blade-tipped appendages.
The press of bodies was tight and the corridor gave the Terminators little room to manoeuvre. With two warriors holding each flank, there was nowhere for Azrael to move forwards. He fired a few shots, picking off hereteks with sparkling arc-cutters and lasdrills literally crawling over the armour of Meritus and Garvel.
‘Belial, Cadael, push past the door and allow me to secure it,’ he instructed as he advanced towards the sergeant. ‘Garvel and Meritus, fall back to the new position.’
Belial lopped the head from another foe and advanced, using the mass of his armour to push his enemies back. Cadael’s fist slammed through a pair of cultists lunging through the door to the objective while his bolter salvo chewed through more inside the room. In the moment of relent he followed his sergeant, storm bolter blazing, giving Azrael room to reach the doorway.
The Grand Master lingered for a moment at the entrance, taking stock of his surroundings before stepping over the threshold. The corpses of several dozen hereteks littered the floor of the chamber, their blood and limbs strewn haphazardly over scratched and broken flagstones. As Azrael had suspected, the far wall was in fact a large gate, counterbraced with metre-thick bars and locked with heavy wheels.
The hereteks had plenty of cover from boxes and containers piled across the loading bay – cover from which they sniped and threw grenades at the Grand Master. His chest still ached from the strange blast of the heretek, and as he returned fire he picked out the most ostentatiously dressed foes and targeted them first on the assumption they might be leaders armed with similar weapons. Bolts scoured along crates and barrels, splinters of metal and wood added to the storm of shrapnel from the explosive rounds.
Two conveyor carriages lay open to his left, each large enough to carry three or four Terminators. Not ideal, but workable. Certainly better than the stairs.
‘Squad Belial to my position. We go up.’ Azrael switched to the company vox channel. ‘Status reports. Daeron, have you located the field generator? Therizon, what is your position? Balthasar, is the main gate secured?’
‘We have located a power source two le
vels down that may be the generator, Grand Master. Ninety seconds until we arrive.’
‘You have sixty,’ Azrael replied.
‘Ground floor main hall and access secured, Grand Master. Three squads pushing down in flank positions to Daeron and Karolus. We have the conveyors and stairwell within the cordon. Flamer operations ongoing at other ingress points.’
‘We have the gate, but the Fourth Company are making heavy work of the approach, Lord Azrael. The enemy have broken away from their engagement with the Third Company and are countering along the south-eastern flank of Master Sheol’s advance. We are surrounded – we cannot remain here for long. Master Nadael is suggesting that the Third break position in support of Sheol’s squads to speed the attack.’
‘No, we are not committing to full assault at this point,’ Azrael snapped back. He adjusted the vox frequency again and advanced towards the closest hereteks as he spoke. His power fist turned the piping they had been sheltering behind to crumpled steel. Two bursts from his storm bolter cut down the exposed rebels. ‘Sheol, can you break through to the walls within two minutes?’
‘They have sally bunkers hidden from the initial scan, and retracting tank traps. The crossfire is increasing,’ the captain of the Fourth Company replied. ‘I could reach the walls within that time frame, but expect casualties to be at ten or even fifteen per cent.’
Azrael bit back a frustrated curse, remembering that he was now in overall command. Properly investing and then assaulting the Iron Stalagmite had never been part of the strategy – it would be too costly for dubious benefit when a couple of companies could just as easily contain any threat with a siegework. While the morale of the Chapter was important, the retrieval of Naberius’ remains and the Chapter banner was starting to look like a false errand.
‘Sixty seconds to make significant progress, otherwise withdraw to pre-assault positions.’ Azrael moved to the right as Belial and Meritus came into the loading chamber, forming a firing line that swept clear everything in front of the conveyors. He switched back to the Deathwing channel. ‘Balthasar, if the Fourth do not reach you in the next minute, break out and form up with the other perimeter squads for a move back to the citadel.’
‘Understood, Grand Master.’
Galad and Garvel turned right as they entered, firing on the move while Cadael held back the hereteks at the door.
Azrael heard the ring of a bell and one of the conveyors started to close.
‘Proximity fuse,’ he snapped and fired a frag charge into the gap between the closing doors. ‘Brother Tezalion?’
‘Yes, Grand Master?’ replied the Techmarine attached to Squad Caulderain.
‘I need you to find the conveyor controls and override them.’
‘We’re already en route, Grand Master,’ Sergeant Caulderain assured his commander. ‘One level below you. Thirty seconds until we secure the controls.’
A brief thump and flash on the sensorium highlighted the detonation of the frag charge as rebels opened the conveyor some distance above. Azrael crashed through the remains of another barricade, always moving, his fist and storm bolter in constant action. Belial was at his shoulder, his weapons cleaving an equally bloody path.
‘Grand Master, this is Sheol. We cannot reach the walls.’
‘Understood, brother-captain. Continue to engage force on the perimeter to cover the withdrawal of Squad Balthasar and then return to siege positions.’
‘The sooner we leave here, the better, Grand Master,’ said Cadael.
‘I concur, brother.’
Azrael was about to switch to the company channel to order a convergence on the citadel gate when they reached the entrance to the docked conveyor. Naberius’ beacon signal was almost directly above.
To Azrael’s surprise it pulsed faintly, an indication of continuing lifesigns. Intermittent and weak, but real. No longer a theoretical, morale-boosting objective, now Naberius was once more a living, breathing battle-brother. If the thought of the hereteks despoiling the Supreme Grand Master’s body had galvanised him, the notion that they held him prisoner was like a threat to his own life, his purpose of existence. The Grand Master’s hearts pounded faster in response, flooding his body with a surge of energy.
He was not the only one.
‘By the Angels, the Chapter Master is alive!’ Brother Galad strode towards the closed conveyor doors, his power fist raised as though he might smash them down with a single blow. The others exclaimed their own surprise.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Cadael. ‘We had a confirmed sighting of his death.’
‘From a wounded brother,’ replied Garvel. ‘Now dead himself.’
‘Or not,’ said Azrael.
The welter of stimulants swelling up through Azrael, both hormonal and artificial, brought everything into a slow, sharp focus. The need to act filled him; an overwhelming desire to be on the move took him to the threshold of the open conveyor before he stopped. He forced himself to assess the situation with a critical eye, riding the wave of battle euphoria, using it to speed his thought processes and observations rather than letting it sweep him on without conscious thought.
‘If Naberius survives, others of his command squad might also be alive.’ He addressed his company again, speaking quickly but clearly. ‘All squad commands attend for mission reprioritisation. Squad Belial and I will retrieve Supreme Grand Master Naberius and the Chapter banner. Primary objective is to secure and destroy the field generator. Secondary objective is to maintain possession of the conveyor controls. If we cannot succeed in the first for teleport extraction, we will require the second. Sergeants Therizon and Balthasar have command in my absence. Organise task forces and deployment as dictated by local conditions.’
Having failed to prevent the Terminators reaching the conveyors, the hereteks had withdrawn a short distance to regroup. A few continued to snipe at Cadael from doorways and columns along the access corridor. The crunching of gears and the grumble of an engine somewhere at the top of the second conveyor shaft announced the return journey of the carriage.
‘Tezalion, are you at the controls?’
‘Negative, Grand Master. I have not yet accessed the control panel.’
Azrael pointed at the descending conveyor and the squad formed a rough semicircle, storm bolters and heavy flamer readied. With a creak and bang the conveyor reached the ground floor.
‘Annihilate whatever is inside,’ Belial told his squad.
The doors wheezed open to reveal a hulking creature that almost filled the cage, twice as big as even the Terminators, its bulbous head cocked to one side beneath the ceiling of the carriage. It wore a robe like the other hereteks, dark red and stained with oil streaks, marked with solder burns. Such flesh that showed was dark grey, coated with long wiry hairs. Pistons hissed as it tensed to leap out of the cage with long simian arms outstretched towards Belial, lips drawn back to expose finger-length fangs.
The crash of simultaneous storm bolter fire was deafening. A dozen bolts hit the brute in the next seconds, shredding its face and chest, almost decapitating it.
The huge body flopped out of the conveyor; the grisly remains of its head slapped wetly against the ferrocrete just a few centimetres from Belial’s boots. The sergeant stamped down on the remains of the head and drove his sword into the spine.
‘Better to be sure,’ he told the others, pulling his sword free from severed vertebrae.
While Meritus dragged the carcass clear, Azrael inspected the inside of the cage. The metal sheeting was pocked with shrapnel marks from his grenade and there was congealed blood spattered by the doorway. He spotted an ear in one corner, oddly intact and incongruent.
‘Grand Master, Tezalion here. I have overridden the conveyor controls. Where do you want to go?’
Date Ident: 887939.M41#1452
The clatter of the conveyor’s chains echoed along the shaft, the whine of ancient gears in accompaniment. Azrael tried not to fixate on the pulsing beacon from Naberius’ war
-plate, now only twenty-five metres above. A flurry of confused energy and life signals masked the exact location, but betrayed a concerning amount of activity in the upper levels of the citadel.
‘Retribution will be ours, Grand Master,’ Belial assured him.
It was strange to find comfort in the words of his junior, but Azrael took heart from them all the same. The sergeant had a manner about him that exuded precision and confidence, both excellent qualities in a leader.
‘Have you ever thought about becoming a Master, Belial? Naberius’ loss would require a redressing of the ranks. I would happily nominate you for command of a company.’
‘Ambition is a distraction, Grand Master.’
‘But we exist to serve, sergeant. To command is a duty as well as an honour.’
‘And if I am called upon to command, I will accept. But I cannot say in honesty that I desire it, because I do not. I am content in whatever role suits the Chapter.’
Fifty metres above. The conveyor was swaying a little now, the clank of the chains louder in the dwindling space above.
‘Did you desire it? Command. Did you strive for it, Grand Master?’ Belial’s question was quiet, respectful and entirely unexpected. It took Azrael a second to compose a suitable reply.
‘No. I was born to it, brother.’
They rattled the last few dozen metres to the level where Naberius’ signal was strongest. Belial dragged aside the lever to activate the brakes and the contraption shuddered to a halt. The sensorium was thick with returns; heat, light, sound all merged together. A tracery of energy cables and light fittings, environment systems and door controls created a wire-frame reality within the datastream that outlined a small antechamber and then a large hall. The details blurred beyond twenty metres but the pulse from the Supreme Grand Master’s armour was irresistibly strong.
‘The Lion wills it,’ said Azrael. He activated the door rune and the cage squealed open.