by Nick Kyme
A bellow to his left. Close. He could smell its breath, feel the transformative heat of its body as the chem-shunts went to work rapidly fuelling its metabolism. Anger would make it clumsy. Zartath smiled, already moving, always moving. Slipping aside to avoid its opening attack, Zartath knew the fight was over.
Something stirred in the pit, and Issak realised it was the body of the dead mutant. Only it wasn’t dead. Brackish, foul-smelling liquids pulsed into it as it drank greedily. The blood had stopped flowing, now clotting completely, and the wound in its chest was closing.
Muttering a prayer to the Emperor to gird his soul against contamination, Issak ran over to the corpse with shotgun in hand. He racked the slide to chamber a round. Did it one-handed. It was a gorgon-class variant with a short barrel and broad muzzle. The range dipped on account of the modifications, but the trade-off was stopping power. Pressing the shotgun’s mouth to the monster’s forehead, he had time to see its eyes blink open once before he declared, ‘Try and come back from this,’ and pulled the trigger.
Then he ran back to the wall and climbed.
Three more rounds put the creature down, evacuating the contents of its torso in the process. Agatone kicked the body over and saw Zartath decapitate the fourth and final mutant. Then he went to Exor and helped the Techmarine to his feet.
Once he was back up, Exor bowed his head. ‘I’m sorry, brother-captain. My wounds are…’
‘Still fresh,’ Agatone replied. He lightly examined the goring of Exor’s chest caused by the harpoon. ‘With fresher still to join them.’
‘I can fight,’ he assured Agatone.
‘You will have to regardless of your readiness for it, brother.’ He looked to Zartath who was approaching slowly, his armour painted in arterial sprays of crimson. ‘Why decapitation, brother?’ Agatone asked him.
‘To be sure of death.’ His savage eyes briefly went to Exor, and there was a mocking smile within them. Weak. A liability always in need of rescue, they said. ‘I’ve not met an enemy yet who can come back from having no head.’
‘Best be certain,’ said Issak’s voice behind them. He was walking towards them, having just clambered from the pit, his robes also flecked in dark blood.
‘You injured, medicus?’ asked Agatone, with a hint of concern.
‘Not mine,’ he replied. ‘I had to put my shotgun to the head of the one in the pit.’ He looked at Zartath. ‘It was rising.’
‘I cored its heart. That’s a sure killing stroke,’ snarled the ex-Black Dragon.
Agatone looked around them. The mutants had been reduced to meat chunks but their limbs yet quivered. At first he had thought it nerve endings catching up to the fact that the body was dead, but now he really scrutinised the dead he saw eyelids flickering, lips trying to form words even when the heads upon which they featured were severed.
He glanced around quickly.
Zartath’s bone blades slid from their flesh sheaths as he went to finish what he thought he had done already.
‘Wait…’ Agatone held up his hand, and gestured to a cluster of nearby drums, the kind used to house fires that kept out the underhive chill. ‘Bring them to the pit,’ he told Exor. ‘Zartath and I will get the bodies.’
‘To what end?’ Zartath asked.
Agatone met his feral gaze with stern resolution.
‘To torch them. We burn everything. It’s the only way to be sure.’
They dragged the dead into the pit, wary of potential and sudden resurrection. With Issak’s help, Exor dropped in the barrels, oil spilling across the arena floor. At Agatone’s order, the Techmarine took out his hand flamer.
‘Is there anything you don’t have on that rig?’ said Zartath, jutting his chin in the direction of the small mechanical frame attached to Exor’s back. Much smaller than a servo-harness, the rig’s array of tools was limited but small enough to be hidden under the Techmarine’s cloak.
‘I believe in preparation. Not a philosophy you’re familiar with, I’d suspect.’
Zartath opened his arms wide. ‘Everything I need, I already have.’
‘And how would you have ignited the accelerant? By spitting on it?’
A roar of flame crowded out Zartath’s response as Exor put the barrels and the bodies to the torch. They watched the fire burn, the four of them, letting it warm their faces. Shadows were flickering across Agatone’s, the conflagration’s glow reflecting in his onyx-black skin.
‘He came looking for hell, and he found it,’ he whispered. ‘Tsu’gan is here. And he’s not looking for punishment, not any more. He wants redemption, not death. Against this cult, whoever or whatever they are, he may find both.’
‘Something changed those men into monsters,’ uttered Exor. ‘It wasn’t just will that drove them to damnation. The method by which they regenerated, the way their blood clotted and skin knitted back together… I have only seen that on one other life form.’
Agatone nodded, as Zartath stared into the flames.
They had come hunting for Tsu’gan and discovered he was engaged in a hunt of his own. And it was a particular quarry he was after.
Traitor Space Marines. The legionaries of Chaos had come to Molior.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Heletine, Canticus, Salvation Bridge
Dozer blades attached to the front of Zantho’s Predators shouldered aside the minor wreckage but not the heavier land-freighters and hauler-trams the heretics had used to block the road. Using their turret weapons would not clear them, either. If they managed anything more than a dent, they would only create more trammelling wreckage. Zantho was not accustomed to relying on others, no fire-born was, so he decided they would try to barge their way through.
‘Roll back,’ the tank commander ordered. ‘Push again.’ He was starting to regret holding the larger Redeemers in reserve, but nothing could help that now.
Small-arms fire from scattered pockets of enemy fighters was peppering Zantho’s position, but it was no more irritating than a persistent hail against his power armour. The various cannon nests dug in across the bridge and shored up in alcoves and on ledges high up on its Victory Arch were less easily dismissed.
Salvation Bridge was the single largest span leading into Canticus. It was almost four thousand metres long with six major arches and twelve minor arches stretching over its fifty-metre width. Heretics occupied the first third of that. Victory Arch was but the initial major arch across the bridge. That left at least one more major, and up to four minor arches, a total of over one thousand metres of hard, dug-in fighters. Tough did not begin to describe the task before Zantho.
And he needed to get through it. In the north, Kor’ad led a force that was moving into Canticus through its templum district and then on to its slums. A large disposition of heretic armour had been sighted moving through that region and an attack from the angle of the slums to the north and Salvation Bridge to the south would not only bracket the enemy armour, but also see it destroyed as a result. Any other outcome would leave one or the other force outgunned, outmatched and likely defeated. Smashing this armoured convoy was the key to gaining a foothold in the city, above and beyond the scraps of territory the Imperial alliance had so far achieved. And from that staging ground with the Adepta Sororitas as reinforcement, they could begin a meaningful invasion.
A major step was opening the ‘gate’ and releasing Zantho’s armour onto the bridge.
He winced when a las-beam came close, searing the side of his face with its passage of heat. High-calibre solid shot and heavy bolt-rounds followed it in withering storm, but the same wreckage that was impeding the armour group’s progress absorbed most of the impact. It was the lascannons that gave Zantho the greatest concern.
As soon as the beam flashed past, he opened up the vox-feed.
‘Storm bolters on that nest. Hose the whole damn thing down.’
The arches were riddled with alcoves and crawlspaces. Ledges, suspension wires and gantries clung to every surface. There was room enough for an entire army to bed in, if they so desired.
The pintle mounts on the Predators were already firing, and aimed up simultaneously to put pressure on the lascannon nest. It was firmly entrenched in the arch’s plascrete, surrounded by sandbags and wire-threaded crates. The brief salvo forced the gunners into retreat but failed to neutralise the threat.
Most of the Predators’ heavier cannon, the turret and sponson weapons, were ineffective until they could get beyond the barricades and effect some decent lines of fire. Zantho had forbidden the use of their more powerful turret weapons against the arches and the Vindicators did not have the range or potential missile trajectory. Salvation Bridge must stand if they were to cross and support Kor’ad’s push across the northern templum district. If even one of the four arches fell, the bridge would likely collapse with it. Stalled, boxed in, the greatest strengths of Zantho’s tanks were mitigated, their weaknesses enhanced.
It was an unenviable position outlined by the Nocturnean taking a solid hit to its front armour. A second split it open and struck the fuel tanks. The tank went up moments later, throwing shrapnel across the width of the bridge. Zantho ducked below the cupola, throwing the hatch closed as the resulting fire storm rolled over the remaining tanks.
‘As Vulkan bears witness,’ he roared down the vox. ‘Get this damn barricade down!’
They rolled forwards, engines growling in protest and were met by the sound of slamming steel and the continued frustration of not going anywhere fast.
More las-beams stabbed down from the nests. On the Victory Arch they looked like incandescent threads of light. One unstitched another of Zantho’s Predators. It took off the tank’s left tread leaving it floundering and useless trapped behind the barricade.
Back above the hatch, the fires were still burning. Strength of Xavier and Immortal Anvil had been next in the line to the sundered Nocturnean and bore the brunt of the frag and fire. Both were black as soot ash, their hulls jutting with pieces of shrapnel. Zantho had three lines left. Four Predator Annihilators and three Destructor-class in the first two lines, with two Vindicators at the back. As he appeared back above the cupola hatch, Zantho had a pair of magnoculars in hand and brought them up to his eyes. Scanning through the billowing smoke, he caught sight of one of Fourth’s Wyvern squads. They were fighting their way across the bridge.
Zantho smiled. ‘Vulkan be praised.’
Then he saw the shadow flash overhead, and made out through his scopes the underside of a Thunderhawk. The smile faded as he recognised the icon scored into the metal. A brazen eight-pointed star with an unblinking eye at its core. So far they had fought heretic insurgency fighters, mainly dregs with some Militarum-trained defectors. Well-armed, but more irritating than genuinely troubling. That all changed with sighting the gunship. It meant a different calibre of enemy had just entered the battlefield.
The Black Legion.
Iaptus and his combat squad were climbing all over Triumphal Arch, bursting into the traitor gun nests and digging them out by force. It was slow and painstaking, but the first half of the Wyverns went about their task methodically. The arch would be cleansed. Ahead of it was Victory Arch and the point closest to the Salamanders tank armour. That too would need to be cleared out before a breach on the gate could be attempted with any strong chance of success.
Though much of Salvation Bridge’s aesthetic beauty had been destroyed by the war, the bold arches still retained some of their artistry. Huge frescoes of prelates, cardinals and other ecclesiarchs stood alongside palatines and lord-commanders, one on either arm of the arch, soaring into the sky. Heletine was a world that could trace its lineage back to the Great Crusade. The men and women sculpted on these arches were its founders and leaders in ages past. It had weathered the Great War of Heresy, and endured. It was tragic then that with the invasion of the Arch-Traitor’s sons, that legacy could be nearing its end – unless the descendants of another primarch could prevent it.
Naeb craned his neck to take in the monolithic spectacle of the Victory Arch.
‘Vulkan’s blood…’
‘Afraid of heights now, little drake?’ asked Dersius.
‘No, brother. Only wary of you falling and hitting me on the way down,’ Naeb replied, and focused on the mission. ‘Two-man teams,’ he said. ‘We cover more ground. Who knows how many nests and lurkers are up there.’ He glanced at Va’lin. ‘Dersius and I. Va’lin and Ky’dak. East and west, respectively. Stop when you reach the summit.’
‘It’s dirty work,’ said Dersius.
‘Tell me when war is anything other,’ Va’lin replied, and Dersius nodded in agreement.
Ky’dak snorted his impatience, ‘Moving to engage,’ then boosted his engines. Va’lin had to hurry to keep pace. They veered to the west side of the arch as ordered, whilst Naeb and Dersius went east.
‘Try to keep up,’ Ky’dak said through the vox-feed. ‘Fall behind, I’ll leave you behind, brother.’
‘Look to your own part in this mission,’ Va’lin replied, gaining one of the lower ledges, ‘and I’ll look to mine.’ It was unoccupied, and he boosted his engines again quickly to stay on Ky’dak’s heels who was already soaring for the arch’s higher echelons.
‘I intend to.’
They hit the first nest together, surprising a four-man crew with a pair of autocannons. Upon forcing his way inside, Va’lin crushed one with his sheer bulk. Ky’dak despatched the other three with short stabs of his gladius.
Above them a second battery of gunners had spotted the incursion and were rapidly trying to uncouple a heavy bolter from its mountings so they could aim it at the Salamanders. Va’lin sent a six-metre jet of flame into their alcove and three fire-blackened figures plummeted from the nest screaming.
‘Burn little heretics,’ Ky’dak laughed.
Va’lin ignored him, focusing instead on the other gun nests.
‘I count fourteen.’
‘Agreed,’ Ky’dak replied. ‘Four are harbouring snipers.’ He pointed so Va’lin could also pick out the grainy light haze from their targeters.
The second nest went down bloody with Ky’dak going in aggressively again. By the time they had reached the third, any advantage surprise had given them was over as the gunners split their fire between the tanks held up at the barricade and the warriors assaulting them from below.
‘Need to move,’ said Va’lin, boosting ahead of Ky’dak who had paused to finish off the last group of gunners. As he crested the next sunken nest, Va’lin heard the sharp whine of sniper shot whistle by his head. He caught a round in the leg, but his armour took off any sting. It slowed him incrementally, though, and he was still readjusting when he entered the fourth nest. It was larger than the others so far, a host of five heavy cannon present, and well-defended. As he moved on the first, he noticed one of the heretics come barrelling over a low wall of sandbags. Va’lin turned his flamer on him – he could take out all five cannons with a single burst – when he saw the grenade in the man’s clenched fist. He never got a chance to throw it, but the grenade went off anyway as did the bandolier of frags around his chest.
The explosion smashed into Va’lin’s chest, so hard it kicked him back and took him over the edge of the nest. For a few seconds he was falling, until Ky’dak grabbed his wrist and hauled him back.
‘Up, brother,’ he said, and there was a hint of a smile in his voice.
The gunners in the nest were all dead, burned to death by Va’lin’s flamer or blown apart when the grenades had cooked off.
‘Let’s waste no further time then,’ Va’lin snapped, locking a firing ledge in his sights and surging for it.
As he was about to hit the ledge, he caught sight of Naeb on the far side of the arch. He was clinging to a buttress jutting from an o
rnate column fashioned into the arch, and activating the vox.
‘Black Legion!’
Va’lin followed his gaze to the sky where, through roiling clouds of smoke, he saw the outline of two gunships emblazoned with the eye of Horus.
‘Ky’dak…’ Va’lin began, about to engage until he found the firing ledge empty.
The other Salamander joined him.
‘Strafing run?’ asked Ky’dak staring upwards at the passing ships.
‘Too high,’ said Va’lin. ‘And looks too slow for–’ he stopped when he saw something fall from one of the gunship’s cargo doors. Too large to be a missile, too anthropomorphic for something so lifeless. A form spiralled in freefall from the gaping hatch. To be precise, there were three forms. Three from each gunship.
They plummeted. Six dark shapes in total that resolved into warriors, their arms outstretched.
‘Not a strafe,’ Va’lin confirmed, watching the two enemy gunships peel off into the upper atmosphere before they attracted the attention of the nimbler Salamanders Stormtalons. ‘Reinforcements.’
‘They’ll die,’ said Ky’dak, but reloaded his bolt pistol and took aim at one anyway.
‘Save your ammunition, you’ll never hit it from this range.’ Va’lin shook his head, ‘No they won’t. That’s Tactical Dreadnought Armour.’
Terminators. Of the self-same creed and kin as the monster who had butchered Sor’ad and almost killed Va’lin and Ky’dak. Other than its champions, the Black Legion had no deadlier warriors and six of them were hurtling towards Salvation Bridge.
Va’lin turned his attention back to the barricade and Zantho. ‘We need those tanks out here now. They’re about the only thing that’ll cut through those warriors.’ He opened the vox-feed to Iaptus. ‘Brother-sergeant, are you seeing what we are?’
‘Heretics falling from the sky, brother. Yes, we see it. Disengage and head for Zantho. The gate opens now or not at all. Regroup on my marker.’