by Mike Lee
For several minutes there was nothing to do but wait. Zahariel reached over and unclipped his force staff from where it hung against the tank’s armoured bulkhead and gripped the cold, adamantine haft with both hands. The staff was both a weapon and a focus for the Librarian’s psychic abilities, and Zahariel took a moment to meditate upon it as Israfael had taught him to do. He began with a series of slow, steady breaths as he interfaced first with the crystalline array of the psychic hood built into his power armour. The array, built into a metal shell that rose from the back of his cuirass and partially enclosed his bare head, served as a crucial buffer that shielded his brain from the terrible energies of the warp. Without it, he risked madness – or worse – every time he unleashed his psychic powers in battle. The interface cables connecting Zahariel to the hood grew warm against the back of his skull as he accessed the array and focused his awareness on the staff. Only then, once he was firmly grounded, did he extend that awareness further and take the measure of the psychic energies surrounding Sigma Five-One-Seven.
The shock was like an icy gale against his skin. Zahariel felt his flesh prickle; his muscles tensed, and a hungry, howling wind thundered in his mind. He felt the crystal array behind his head grow hot as the psychic torrent threatened to overwhelm the hood’s dampeners. It was like the raging storm he’d experienced at Aldurukh, only far stronger and wilder. What was worse, the Librarian could feel an otherworldly wrongness about the tempest – a taint that seemed to tug at his very soul.
Zahariel recoiled inwardly from the shock of the psychic storm. Screwing his eyes shut, he drew back his awareness as swiftly as he could, but the vileness in the aether plucked at him like grasping tendrils. For a horrifying second it felt as though there was a sentience behind the psychic force, and he was reminded of the nightmarish spectacle he’d witnessed on Sarosh.
After what seemed like an eternity, he managed to pull himself free from the taint. It withdrew and left him shaken to his core. ‘Are you well, brother?’
Zahariel looked up and saw Astelan’s concerned expression. He nodded, catching his breath. ‘Of course,’ he replied, ‘merely focusing my thoughts.’
The chapter master raised a dark eyebrow. ‘They must be very weighty thoughts. I can see the pulse in your temples from here.’ Zahariel wasn’t certain how to respond. Did he share what he’d just experienced? Would it make any difference to Astelan or the rest of the squad? This was a situation he’d never experienced in any training scenario. The matter was taken from his hands, however, when suddenly the driver called out over the intercom. ‘We’ve reached the central landing zone. I see ten Condor aerial transports in tactical landing formation at one hundred and fifty metres.’
The Librarian pushed his doubts and questions aside. If there was one thing he was certain of, it was that hesitation in battle was often fatal. ‘Halt and deploy!’ he called over the intercom. Leaping to his feet, he drew his bolt pistol from its holster and addressed his squad. ‘Tactical pattern delta! Treat all contacts as hostile until otherwise directed.’ He raised his staff, noticing for the first time the rime of frost coating the metal shaft. ‘Loyalty and honour!’
The Land Raider rumbled to a halt, its front assault ramp deploying with a hiss of powerful hydraulics. Astelan stood, igniting his power sword’s energy field. ‘For Luther!’ he shouted to his men.
As one, the Dark Angels answered Astelan’s cry. Zahariel had no time to wonder at the chapter master’s strange oath; he was already rushing towards the assault ramp, the golden double eagle at the top of his staff held before him like a talisman.
The landing field was a dark, grey plain of permacrete some five hundred metres square, bounded on three sides by huge, multi-storey mineral refinery and storage plants. Cylindrical sifting towers loomed over the idle refineries, ringed every ten metres by blinking red hazard lights. They cast long shadows across the field, bisecting the orderly rows of Condor transports crouching silently on their squat landing struts.
Zahariel swept the field with his bolt pistol, searching for targets as the squad spread out around him.
The transports’ assault ramps were down and all of the craft he could see had one or more of their maintenance hatches open, but there were no signs of activity.
The Librarian felt his scalp prickle as he grew aware of the deathly stillness that hung over the plant. He glanced at one of the warriors in his squad who was busy sweeping the field with a portable auspex unit. ‘Any readings?’ he asked.
‘No movement. No life signs,’ the Astartes answered. ‘Trace heat on the engines of the transports, but that’s all.’
Zahariel’s eyes narrowed warily. That wasn’t quite all; he could sense the tension in the warrior’s voice. There was something else, something invisible that didn’t register on any of their equipment. He’d felt it once before, many, many years past, when he’d travelled deep into the forest in search of the last Calibanite Lion.
This was an evil place, Zahariel knew. The air was heavy with a sense of malice and slow, hateful corruption, and it knew he was there.
A dreadful sense of deja vu swept over him. Zahariel raised his head and looked past the hulking buildings and silent towers, searching the horizon for clues. He studied the broken line of mountains that comprised the nearby Northwilds, and realised that he was very close to that same spot where he’d fought the lion, decades ago. The terrible, twisted trees were gone and the echoing hollows had been scraped bare, but the aura of the place somehow remained.
‘Not far from here,’ a hollow voice spoke in Zahariel’s ear. With a start, he turned to see Attias staring at him, just a couple of metres away. The lenses of Attias’s augmetic eyes were flat and depthless in his polished, skull-like face.
‘What is that, brother?’ Zahariel replied.
‘The castle,’ Attias replied. The words were flat and emotionless, resonating from the small, silver vox grille embedded in his throat. He raised his chainsword and pointed off to the northeast. ‘The fortress of the Knights of Lupus was just a few score kilometres off that way. You remember?’
Zahariel followed the whirring tip of the sword and stared off into the gathering darkness. Sure enough, he could just make out the distant flank of Wolf’s Head Mountain, the old peak from which the disgraced knights had taken their name. They had been the last of the knightly orders to defy Jonson’s plan of unification against the great beasts that terrorised Caliban’s people, and their intransigence had ultimately led to open conflict. He remembered the horrific assault on the fortress as clearly as if it had been yesterday. That had been his first real taste of the brutality of war.
The worst shock, though, had been once the knights of the Order had breached the outer walls and fought their way into the castle proper. The outer courtyard of the fortress had been full of enclosures, most of them filled with twisted monstrosities. Zahariel and his brethren had been horrified to learn that the Knights of Lupus had been collecting as many of the great beasts as they could and preserving them from the wrath of Jonson’s forces. Jonson had been so furious he’d ordered the fortress to be completely destroyed. Not one stone had been left atop another, and every trace of the Knights of Lupus had been wiped away.
Except for their library, Zahariel realised. The library of the renegade knights had been vast, larger even than the one at Aldurukh, and filled with a huge assortment of ancient and esoteric tomes. To everyone’s surprise, Jonson had ordered the library to be catalogued and transported back to the Rock. No one knew why, and Zahariel never learned what happened to the books after that.
The Northwilds had always been the oldest, wildest and most dangerous wilderness region on Caliban. Now, nearly all of the forest was gone – but had something ancient and inimical somehow remained?
Astelan’s voice shook Zahariel from his reverie. ‘Is your vox-unit working, brother?’ he said. He nodded his head back at the idling Land Raider. ‘I’ve tried to check with the crew, but no one is responding.’
Zahariel turned and stared worriedly at the massive vehicle. He keyed his vox-unit. ‘Raider two-one, respond.’
Nothing. No interference, no static. Just dead air.
The Librarian took a step towards the assault tank just as the driver’s hatch rose on hydraulic hinges and the warrior’s helmeted head appeared. ‘We’ve been trying to call you for a full minute,’ the driver said over the rumbling engines. ‘Our vox-unit’s not working properly.’
Frowning inside his helmet, Zahariel tried to contact Luther. The orbital communications array and the Rock’s far more powerful vox-unit should have easily picked up the signal, but once again, all he heard was dead air. The unit was working fine, he knew, and there were no signs of jamming. It was as though their vox signals were simply being swallowed, though he couldn’t imagine how such a thing was possible.
‘The vox was working fine at the plant’s perimeter,’ Astelan said, clearly thinking along the same lines. ‘We could send the Land Raider back to maintain contact with Aldurukh while we secure the site.’
Zahariel shook his head. The whole point of bringing the Land Raider in the first place was to provide a base of heavy firepower for the squad and to serve as a mobile strongpoint that the Astartes could fall back to in the event of an emergency. Until he knew more, he wanted the tank close by.
‘Button up and keep a close eye on the auspex arrays,’ he ordered the driver. ‘And secure the assault ramp until we signal.’
The driver acknowledged with a curt nod and dropped back inside the tank. Within seconds the circular hatch and the heavy ramp clanged shut, sealing the vehicle tight. Zahariel then turned to Astelan. ‘Take two brothers and see what you can find at the plant’s control room,’ he said. ‘There ought to be a log of vox transmissions at the very least.’ He indicated the landing field with a sweep of his staff. ‘We’ll inspect the transports and try to find out what happened to the relief force.’
Astelan acknowledged the order with a nod. ‘Jonas and Gideon, you’re with me,’ he said, and headed off across the landing field at a ground-eating jog with two of the squad’s warriors close behind him.
Zahariel waved the rest of the squad forward. ‘Spread out,’ he ordered. ‘But remain in visual contact at all times. If you see anything strange, inform me at once.’
Weapons ready, the Dark Angels advanced across the landing field towards the closest of the Condors. Permacrete crunched underfoot; Zahariel glanced down and saw deep cracks running through the landing field’s pavement. Here and there, he saw the tops of slick, brown and black roots pushing their way up through the cracks. Caliban’s forests were not surrendering meekly to the Imperium’s ground-clearing machines. His home planet was a death world, Zahariel had come to learn, and such places were nearly impossible to tame. Still, it surprised him to see so much damage to a site that couldn’t be more than eight months old. Reinforced permacrete was built to resist the elements for centuries.
They came upon the first transport in line, approaching it from the port side. Zahariel saw at once that the Condor’s cockpit, set between the craft’s building air intakes, was empty. The Librarian circled around aft as the squad surrounded the transport. Bolt pistol ready, he peered up the open assault ramp into the red-lit troop compartment. It was empty, save for an open toolbox sitting in the centre of the bay. ‘Access panels are open, starboard side,’ Attias said, peering up at the ship’s fuselage.
Zahariel walked around the transport and studied the open hatches. ‘Auspex and vox arrays,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I suspect the crews were running tests on their systems and trying to determine why their vox-units weren’t working.’
‘And then?’ Attias said in his sepulchral voice.
Zahariel shrugged. ‘I don’t know. There’s no sign of a struggle. No weapons damage to the transport. It looks like the crew just walked away.’
‘Like Sarosh,’ Attias declared.
‘No, not like Sarosh,’ Zahariel shot back. ‘The people of Sarosh went insane. This has to be something different.’
Attias said nothing, his augmetic eyes lifeless and unreadable in a cold steel mask.
The sound of running feet resounded across the permacrete plain. Zahariel turned to see Brother Gabriel approaching at a dead run. ‘Astelan says to come at once,’ Gabriel called out. ‘We’ve found something.’
NINE
UNTO THE BREACH
Diamat
In the 200th year of the Emperor’s Great Crusade
‘I SEE THE Dragoons built the rebels some fortifications,’ Kohl grumbled.
Nemiel and the sergeant were crouching at the corner of a burnt-out building some two hundred and fifty metres from the entrance to the forge complex, peering across a wasteland of rubble and twisted girders that had once been someone’s hab. From their vantage point they could observe approximately five hundred metres of tramway and the tall, wide gateway that led into the outer districts of the great forge. Neither of the Astartes cared for what they saw.
At some point in the recent past the Imperial garrison had heavily fortified the entrance, creating a pair of permacrete bastions to either side of the gateway. Heavy weapons emplacements had been built to create a deadly crossfire covering the approaches to the gate, and revetments had been dug to provide cover for armoured vehicles as well. Buildings had been levelled in a two hundred metre swathe around the fortifications, creating a killing ground devoid of cover or concealment. It was a formidable strong-point by anyone’s estimations, and Nemiel would have been encouraged by its presence, except for the fact that there were rebel troops manning the fortifications now instead of the Tanagran Dragoons.
‘It looks like the Tanagrans at least put up a fight,’ Nemiel observed. Their enhanced vision allowed them to scrutinise the bastions as well as any man with a set of magnoculars. ‘Most of those gun emplacements have been knocked out, and there’s a burnt-out tank in each one of those revetments. That’s why the rebels have their vehicles parked along the tramway.
Kohl gave a pessimistic grunt. They could see four Testudos lined up along the berm, hull-down, with only their squat autocannon turrets showing. ‘Wonder why there aren’t any tanks?’
‘They were probably called away to reinforce another part of the line,’ Nemiel suggested.
The sergeant nodded. ‘Bet those fields are probably mined,’ he said, nodding at the wide expanse of churned earth that led up to the bastions.
The Redemptor shook his head ruefully. ‘You’re a veritable beacon of hope, brother.’
‘Hope is your area of responsibility,’ Kohl declared. ‘Mine is, among other things, steering callow young officers away from minefields.’ ‘And for that we are all duly grateful,’ Nemiel replied. Then he took a deep breath, focused his attention, and studied the bastions one more time.
He could see plenty of signs that the fortifications had come under heavy fire, but he couldn’t extrapolate how the rebels had managed to overrun them. There were no bodies in the fields that might suggest an axis of advance, nor any burnt-out hulls of wrecked vehicles to indicate an armoured rush. If he could figure out how the enemy had managed to overcome the strongpoint, then the odds were he could make use of the same vulnerabilities as well.
‘What do you think, brother-sergeant?’ Nemiel asked. ‘How are we going to take those bastions?’
Kohl studied the fortifications for another few moments. ‘Why, I expect we run right up and ask them to let us in.’
Nemiel gave the sergeant a dark look, a gesture entirely wasted within the confines of his helmet. ‘That’s not very funny, sergeant.’ ‘As it happens, I’m not joking,’ Kohl replied.
‘NOT SO FAST,’ Nemiel yelled over the Testudo’s roaring engine. ‘The last thing we need is to spook some trigger-happy rebel gunner into firing at his own side.’
The two APCs were rolling down the tramway at a steady clip towards the forge entrance, wreathed in thick plumes of ochre dust and swirling petrochem exh
aust. Askelon had used his servo arm and a plasma cutter to strip away everything he could from the interior of the vehicles, from the benches to the ammo baskets for turret autocannon, and still there was only enough room for one Astartes up front and three more in the troop compartment. Brother Marthes, who was driving the Testudo that Nemiel was riding in, would have to crawl out of the driver’s compartment on his hands and knees before exiting via the assault ramp at the rear. For the hundredth time, Nemiel found himself wondering how he’d let Brother-Sergeant Kohl talk him into this.
‘The sergeant said to make it look like we were running from something,’ Marthes shouted back. ‘If we’re going too slowly, they might try to challenge us.’
‘As opposed to going too fast and having them shoot at us?’
Marthes didn’t reply at first. ‘I admit it made more sense when Brother-Sergeant Kohl explained it,’ he replied.
Nemiel shook his head irritably. At least Kohl had the decency to be the first member of the squad to volunteer for the scheme. He was in the second APC, along with Askelon, Yung and Brother Farras. Nemiel had Brother Cortus and Brother Ephrial in the cramped troop compartment with him. They were jammed in shoulder-to-shoulder in the noisy, exhaust-filled space and completely blind. Nemiel, closest to the driver’s space, tried to crane his head around and see through one of the forward vision blocks, but he couldn’t quite manage it. ‘How far from the bastions are we?’ he asked.
‘One hundred and fifty metres,’ Marthes answered. ‘They saw us coming about a minute ago. I can see several of the Testudos aiming their cannons at us.’
Nemiel nodded to himself. No doubt the commander in charge of the garrison was trying to call them over the vox and find out what they were doing approaching his position. Askelon had taken pains to shoot the APCs antenna off with his bolt pistol, but would the rebels be convinced? Would they even notice, or simply decide to take no chances and open fire? It’s what he would do in their position.