by Nick Kyme
‘Rise, colonel,’ he bellowed through his vox-emitters. ‘Return to your men.’
The reinforcements looked tougher than their predecessors. Both were clad in hefty suits of war-plate, larger and more formidable than power armour. As one of the warriors stood firm, he unleashed a long-barrelled cannon. Redgage threw himself down as a hail of shells filled the air. Kor’ad bore the brunt of it, staggering as several dense rounds pierced his thick armour. There was no respite.
In the wake of the salvo, the second warrior drove into the Dreadnought, chainfist swinging. Kor’ad reacted on instinct, striking a glancing blow that took off the warrior’s helm and sent him sprawling. Beneath the blood and the mass of shorting cables, the warrior wore a face of flayed skin.
Kor’ad advanced on him when a second burst ripped from the long-barrelled cannon. This time the Dreadnought could angle his body without fear of Redgage being hit and avoided most of the shell storm. Turning back, aware the warrior with the chainfist was coming at him, Kor’ad fired off a bolt from his plasma cannon and the Black Legion shooter disappeared from sight.
Dead or smashed back down the slope by the impact, Redgage didn’t know. He saw the other warrior hit Kor’ad again though, and heard the ominous clunk of a grenade being attached to the Dreadnought’s casket.
The detonation came seconds later as Kor’ad’s plasma cannon exploded, taking his left arm with it and severing the cables in the right so the Dreadnought dropped his thunder hammer. Kor’ad had enough power left to reach for the unhelmeted warrior and crush his skull in his fist before throwing him bodily into the air and back down into the ravine.
Redgage had never seen a Dreadnought kneel; he didn’t know they could until that moment. Close up, he realised it wasn’t just the arm that had been damaged when the krak grenade had gone off. Part of Kor’ad’s casket was split too, and he could see the remnants of the warrior the Dreadnought once was languishing within.
He was just a man inside, a withered torso and head, whose flesh was puckered with cables and venting fluid, a war-maker no more.
‘What can I do? Tell me,’ Redgage pleaded, his knowledge of Dreadnought repair woefully lacking.
Kor’ad was bloody, struggling for breath. Dying. Without his vox-emitters, he sounded frail and rasping.
‘You’ve stood with me… colonel,’ said Kor’ad haltingly. ‘That is… enough. Run… save your–’
The whine of rocket propulsion cut off the end of the sentence, followed by the ear-shattering explosion of the missile striking the Dreadnought’s back. There was a scream, half mechanised through the emitters, half croaked by the failing lungs of the withered corpse entombed in his dying machine.
Kor’ad fell face forward. His back was a smoking ruin. The Venerable was dead, slain by an honourless blow. Redgage thrust out his pistol, searching for a target but it was an empty gesture. His enemy was lost to him through smoke and fire. He paused, holstering his pistol as he regarded the wreck of his saviour, once so formidable but now laid irrevocably low.
Then he ran, scrambling, up the slope.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Heletine, nearing the border of Solist
The screaming began about forty kilometres out from Solist. Sitting quietly in the gunship’s troop hold, Stephina had the vox frequency switched to that of their so-called allies. In that moment, surrounded by the solemn figures of her Seraphim whose heads were bowed in prayer and guilt, she wondered if that word could really be used for betrayers.
As abhorrent as that truth was, it was also irrefutable.
Sister Helia went to cut the link but Stephina’s raised hand stopped her.
‘No,’ she uttered flatly. It was the first time any of them had spoken since the vox-feed had been opened.
‘We need not listen to that,’ said Helia, her seraphic appearance at odds with her obvious discomfort.
Stephina looked up to meet her fellow Sister Superior’s gaze.
‘Does it bother you, my Sister, to hear their cries of pain and curses against our Order?’
The voices conveyed by the vox not only screamed their death agonies, they also vowed revenge upon the Ebon Chalice and the daughters of the Emperor who had chosen to abandon them.
‘Craven men will oft lay blame at the feet of the blameless,’ Helia replied.
Stephina quickly got to her feet, causing several of her fellow Seraphim to look up from their devotions.
‘Your own words betray you, Sister, and barely convince yourself!’ she snapped, but then calmed down. It would not be proper to act thusly in front of the others. ‘We have both seen them fight. They are not craven men.’ She let that hang in the air for a moment to gauge Helia’s reaction and see if she dared refute it.
Helia’s mouth shaped a response but the words died on her lips, and she shook her head.
‘No.’
‘Nor are they savages, deserving of savage treatment.’
Helia lowered her gaze and let out a resigned breath.
‘Our orders come from the preceptor, she who is the will of the–’
‘The will of the Throne, yes I am well aware,’ said Stephina, reaching out to gently lift Helia’s chin. She spoke with a quiet intensity. ‘Whatever work Canoness Angerer is engaged in cannot be worth the souls of thousands of Imperial servants, the very angels of the Emperor Himself!’
The vox-feed cut to static as whoever was broadcasting the signal could do so no longer. A brief silence followed.
Helia’s eyes were pleading, tearful.
‘We must have faith in Angerer’s plan…’
‘Even if that plan is to leave our allies to slaughter?’
Stephina turned away, not waiting for an answer as she contacted the transport’s pilot.
‘Sister,’ she began with authority, ‘we are turning around.’
There was a short pause as the pilot tried to comprehend the order.
‘Superior?’
‘Do not question. Obey. Make heading for Canticus at all speed. This is my order: you are my Seraphim. Let it not be said that we too abandoned our God-Emperor sworn honour.’
The vessel slowed with the dull roar of turbo fans, banking sharply as the pilot changed course.
When Stephina had relayed the same order to Avensi and Cassia in the second transport, who were both wise enough not to argue with their commanding superior, she addressed the hold.
‘Know who you are,’ she said, shouting above the engines as they pushed hard and complained loudly. ‘Know your purpose is divine and that there is no greater expression of faith or loyalty to the Throne than in battle against the enemies of the Ecclesiarchy. We are less than forty souls aboard these two ships, but we will fight as more than four hundred.
‘Our allies are dying on the battlefield, our promise to them ash in the wind. Take up your arms and follow me. The righteous have no fear. A holy wrath descends upon the perfidious and the traitor – it falls on ebon wings, your wings. I would have them occlude the very sun.’
Stephina gritted her teeth, stirred by her own rhetoric.
‘If any here believe we follow an unjust path, that I lead you to damnation in the eyes of Throne and God-Emperor, speak and let us all hear your condemnation.’
None did.
And none looked down to their feet anymore, either. Every Seraphim aboard the vessel had raised their eyes, blazing with holy fury.
Betrayers no longer, they would be avengers and honour their oaths to the Salamanders.
‘Canticus…’ Stephina snarled through clenched teeth. ‘Blood and fire await us!’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Heletine, Canticus, inside the ravine
The Serpentia moved through the ravine as one, fighting all quarters and surrounding Drakgaard as they went. Elysius was amongst them, roving between warriors and shouting canti
cles of retribution against the traitor. In the tight scrum of bodies slowly filling the ravine, resolve was everything. The Chaplain used his gifts to strengthen that resolve with hate. If vitriol was a blade, his would have cut through power armour.
The earth had collapsed beneath them, demolished by charges set against fragile foundations by the heretics. The explosives had exposed the weakened surface of Canticus, upon which were built its temples, shrines and domiciles, dropping the majority of the Salamanders into the catacombs below.
This subterranean world was vast, only hinted at in maps and impossible to accurately chart through geological survey and sensorium probes from low orbit. Tunnels threaded the catacombs like arterial veins, leading to vast chambers and antechambers where the bulk of the heretic forces had mustered and lain in wait. Goaded like fools, the Imperial army had been drawn into the trap based on the belief that the enemy was defeated. It had merely been saving its killer blow for that moment.
Recalled dimly through the smoke and dust, Elysius saw an immense sinkhole open up. As they were at the vanguard of the army, the fire-born fell first, dragged down against their will as the dirt and rock piled on. Then came the tanks, an entire company of Cadian heavy armour raining down on the heads of the fragile infantry like a vehicular landslide.
After the first blow, the enemy made itself known. Cultists swarmed from the ridge, weapon emplacements were established. Solid shot, las and shells descended in a storm.
Most of the Kasrkin were dead, and those that had survived were getting picked off as they tried to haul their severely wounded captain back up the slope. Half the Cadian tanks were lying broken and on fire at the bottom of the ravine in a slurry of unrecognisable machine parts.
The fire-born held their ground. No Salamander would ever retreat, unless in extremis. Even then they would solemnly lay down their lives if it meant denying victory to the enemy, self-sacrificial to the end. It was a bitter, self-destructive creed but it had hardened them well.
Few remained though – Devastators, some remnants from Tactical. There was no sign of Kor’ad or his brother Dreadnoughts. Zantho and the armour was cut off from the main army.
Escorted by the Serpentia, Elysius surveyed Drakgaard’s operational assets and knew they were vastly outmatched. They had got so much wrong, made so many mistakes it might not be possible to rectify.
It wasn’t the fall that had killed the fire-born, it was what was waiting for them inside the ravine that opened up beneath them. This was the third blow.
Not only Black Legion, but a massive host of sworn Renegade Astartes. A veritable army of deserters and civilians turned cultist served as cannon fodder, weak but armed and numerous. One man alone with a stubber was barely worthy of notice. A mob armed with cudgels and blades could similarly be dismissed, but a horde of thousands arrayed with rocket tubes and heavy cannon… Such an enemy posed a genuine threat, even to Adeptus Astartes.
It was the fanatic masses that attacked first, a second host spilling from the tunnels to join up with those scrambling down the slopes of the ravine. Only once the dregs had been engaged, the fire-born committed to what they had seen as a desperate but still costly ambush, had Black Legion emerged from the tunnels.
Then the real killing began.
The attack was well-crafted despite its savagery, intended to split the Salamanders up and destroy them piecemeal.
So far, it was working but not without resistance.
Elysius caved in a renegade’s skull with his mace, splitting it apart in a shower of crumpled armour plate and bone. He barely paused to register the stink of hyper-cauterising blood caused by the energy surge from the powered crozius, instead turning to see Tul’vek die.
A chainsword was lodged in the warrior’s throat. Dismayed, Elysius reached out for him but the churning blade had chewed through enough flesh and sinew to nearly remove the Serpentia’s head. As Tul’vek fell, gouting blood, Elysius snatched his banner so it wouldn’t touch the ground.
Kaladin slew Tul’vek’s killer, coring the Black Legion warrior through the torso with his melta. The dragon mouth of the weapon roared as he fired, given voice by Kaladin’s anguish.
‘Brother Her’us…’ Elysius called above the battle din, causing the Champion to pause in his hammer swings and look up.
Elysius gestured to the gap in their defensive circle left by Tul’vek.
Her’us nodded and took the dead banner bearer’s place to close it.
Apothecary Sepelius had already departed with the injured Sergeant Bar’dak. At least, Elysius considered bitterly, there would be someone left to harvest the Chapter’s due. So, without Tul’vek, Drakgaard’s command squad numbered six warriors.
They fought like sixty.
Drakgaard led them, hacking and cutting with his kaskara. There was a certain savagery to the captain’s blows, a wild abandon brought about through desperation. In spite of everything, he wanted this victory, believing solely through force of will and aggression he could still obtain it. Whatever injuries blighted his once strong body were forgotten during the ferocity of close combat. Though not skilled beyond any expected level for a ranking fire-born, Drakgaard was tenacious and hard to kill. His wound-ravaged flesh was testament to that.
He took blows that would finish lesser men, shrugging them off and gutting his surprised opponents with typical brutality. A kaskara was a noble weapon, a blade forged by artisans. Drakgaard had afforded it every flourish but wielded it like a slaughter-man’s cleaver, and to great effect.
‘We are dying in this grind,’ Elysius voxed to the captain during a brief respite.
From its initial sprawling melee, the battle had broken up into smaller but still brutal skirmishes. Occasionally, two or more would merge and a larger fight would erupt only to break apart again when warriors were slain or routed.
At the nadir the ravine smoke and settling dust from the earth collapse reduced visibility, and with enemies in such close proximity to one another, combat was dominated by short-range firefights and hand-to-hand engagements. Farther out, where rubble and the shells of tanks littered the slopes, artillery from both sides was being employed to even the odds. Shell impacts from the heavy guns sent plumes of earth and bodies skyward, adding to the horrendous carnage.
‘Let the screw turn,’ Drakgaard replied, forging onward through the chaos, ‘let it gnaw our bones, Chaplain. I won’t yield until I am dead!’
‘Ur’zan, listen to–’
Drakgaard cut the feed, his violent threshing of the enemy unabated.
Elysius could respect a death wish – it spoke to the Promethean Creed – but not one that could lose a war and kill dozens of fire-born into the bargain. He briefly clutched Her’us’s shoulder guard. The Chaplain was close enough to speak to the Company Champion without the aid of comms.
‘Stay close to him. He dies and I’ll be the one who brings you to account.’
Her’us nodded. He parried a chainaxe with the haft of his hammer before throwing the renegade back and obliterating the right side of his torso. Blood flecked his draconic faceplate as the traitor’s flank crumpled, ruddying the inlaid ivory teeth of the helm.
‘On my honour, Chaplain,’ Her’us replied when he was clear of foes. ‘I die before he falls.’
A Company Champion’s place in battle was by the side of his captain. Her’us fought on Drakgaard’s left, where their different fighting styles would complement each other. Zetok positioned on the captain’s right, shoulder to shoulder. Zetok was a pyre warden and protected Drakgaard’s off-hand with his storm shield. The three of them formed the Serpentia’s vanguard, cutting through the throng of heretics and supported by their brothers in formation behind them.
A bolt-round struck Zetok’s shield square on and would have staggered him if not for Vervius leaning in from behind with his shoulder to help set his brother back on his feet.
‘Hold as one,’ said Vervius, and shot a sustained burst from his plasma pistol. Crackling spheres of energy left an actinic smear in their wake, indiscriminately rupturing flesh and ceramite.
Having recovered his composure, Zetok drove forwards again, and the circle of Serpentia hit hard into the Black Legion ranks that were swelling with every second as more warriors poured from the tunnels with their cultist retinues.
Warriors of like-for-like skill and ferocity met and were bloodied.
Tseg’un broke apart a traitor’s breastplate with a power fist, crushing bone and organs, as another warrior lodged a chainblade in his clavicle. His cry of agony drew the attention of Her’us, who lashed out at Tseg’un’s attacker and split the warrior’s chainblade apart in a storm of broken teeth. Elysius finished the traitor with a crushing blow from his power glove.
‘Ave Imperator…’ he snarled breathlessly.
They had been fighting for several minutes already, but had barely begun. More were coming.
Tseg’un lived but was badly wounded. His part of the circle was now weakened.
Elysius moved alongside him to bolster Tseg’un’s strength and resolve as further enemies loomed out of the half darkness.
Drab, grey smoke choked the battlefield. If it was day above, no one within the ravine would have known it. The sun was utterly eclipsed. Fire illuminated the oily clouds, spat in sharp flashes from promethium-based weapons or rendered in dull smudges from slowly burning vehicles.
Onagar lit his own flame and it cast him and the other Serpentia in a feverish wash of amber. He was the squad’s pyroclast, an old term from the Heresy War, since fallen out of fashion but still remembered by some in the Chapter. Burns ravaged Onagar’s exposed skin, making it leathern and tough. He was gnarled like a petrified tree but scowled with an arsonist’s pleasure as he spewed hellfire from his Nocturne-forged flamer. Silhouettes, smears of dirty brown and grey, stumbled in the blaze. Onagar laughed as they seemed to shrink inside the fire. His dark humour was cut short when a bolt-round took apart half his cheek and battle-helm. Retribution was meted out by Kaladin who reduced the renegade to a noisome slurry with his melta.