The sun was high in the ice-blue Damnos sky when Scipio reached the city. The edges of its walls were veneered in hazy umber from the light.
Led by the Thunderbolts, the Ultramarines from the Thanatos Mission passed through the Kellenport gates just as a viridian explosion lit up the distant hills. So large and destructive, the blast was even visible from the city. The pylons and gauss-obliterators would not return. For one they were buried, for another the Ultramarines had used enough explosive to level the mountainside.
‘Sergeant Vorolanus.’
It was Tigurius. Scipio stopped and turned to face the Librarian.
‘I will see to our captain,’ he said. ‘Agrippen has command.’
Scipio bowed, acknowledging.
As they parted ways, Tigurius stopped. ‘I saw courage on the Thanatos Hills and a desire for self-sacrifice. Now you know who you are, brother. Remember it.’
The Librarian was heading into the distant hubbub of the city. Already, preparations were being made for the arrival of the Ultramarines armour. Several squads stood watchful upon the battlements, alongside the Damnosian soldiery.
There was no sign of Agrippen or the Lions. Scipio assumed they were in council, planning the strategic defence of the city. At least two other sergeants were not present at that meeting. Leaving Brakkius in charge, Scipio dismissed the Thunderbolts. His gaze lingered on Jynn as she was carried to the nearest medical station. He banished the bleak thoughts from his mind as he went to meet his brothers.
Hugging Scipio firmly, Iulus said, ‘I am glad you’re alive, brother.’
Scipio laughed mirthlessly. ‘You sound like you had your doubts.’ He turned to Praxor. ‘Brother?’
He looked downcast, his shame obvious in his bearing. Praxor had believed Sicarius dead and become like the people of Damnos he had thought weren’t worth saving on account of that fatalism.
The captain was injured, badly, but lived. The truth of it was revealed later when the courtyard had cleared and Venatio announced to the Lions that their lord still drew breath. He was still in the Apothecary’s care, surrounded by his inner circle warriors. But Cato Sicarius would play no further part in the war on Damnos. As soon as possible, he would be ferried to the apothecarion aboard the Valin’s Revenge and allowed to recover.
Scipio put a hand on Praxor’s shoulder. ‘Neither of us was there, brother. We didn’t witness what you did.’
‘I should have known, but instead I gave in to doubt.’
‘All three of us have experienced much in this campaign. I confess I never thought this ball of ice would be a place for revelation.’
At this point, Iulus stepped in. ‘It’s not done yet, either.’ He held up a data-slate displaying the planet’s northern geography. ‘Necron forces are stirring in the north. Scans reveal massive tectonic activity.’
Exhaling, Scipio marshalled his anger. ‘So all we have done so far has merely set them back?’
Iulus nodded. ‘It would appear so.’
‘We have sacrificed much for little.’
‘And more is needed.’
Scipio was pensive for a moment before he straightened and clapped his brothers each on the pauldron. ‘Then by the glory of Ultramar, it will be given.’
Praxor nodded determinedly. Iulus even cracked a feral smile.
All three looked skywards as a large vessel silhouetted the upper atmosphere. The sound of the battle-barge’s engines was loud, even as far up as it was, and smaller ships were disgorging from it.
Valin’s Revenge.
The Ultramarines on the wall, those in the courtyard, all of the Damnosian infantry looked up.
The voice of Antaro Chronus, veteran Ultramarines tank commander, came over the feed. ‘The heavens are clear,’ he announced, shouting above the sound of heavy machinery in the background. ‘We are coming, brothers.’
EPILOGUE
Ankh had foreseen this outcome. Not through any form of prescience or sixth sense, but rather the cold logic of cause and effect. The Undying’s demise was inevitable; the necron retreat likewise. Tahek’s death he had engineered purposely – it meant the skies were open for the genebred warriors to bring their vessels and machineries to the surface. It would give them hope, make them believe that victory was even possible.
That thought amused the Architect. In the depths of the tomb his spyders and scarabs were revivifying in thousands, tens of thousands. The phalanxes in full retreat on the surface were but a fraction of what lay beneath, and there were things much more terrible in those depths. As the battles raged above, Ankh had been busy waking them.
He felt the touch of an ancient sentience in the emerald gloom of the under-caverns. It was a royal chamber where he stood. As Ankh contemplated the vast catacombs and their slumbering hordes, a pair of eyes ignited in the darkness in front of him.
Ankh took a step back and bowed almost to the floor.
‘My lord,’ he purred as the royarch’s gaze fell upon him.
‘They came with the ice, so the natives would later tell us. But the truth was they had always been there, slumbering, waiting. We knew little about them during that first encounter, save that they were ages old and hard to kill. We know precious little more now.
‘The dead don’t stay dead, not on Damnos. They came back, from up out of the ice, and we shed much blood to put them back beneath it. We are Ultramarines. The exemplars. Our victories are many, but against the enemy on Damnos we tasted that rarest of things, a word I thought lost to our vocabulary – defeat. Few foes have ever claimed that over us, but in the necrons we found a worthy and most terrible one. In the necrons, we found a nemesis, and one which we were destined to meet again.’
– Chapter Master Marneus Calgar, after the
so-called ‘Damnos Incident’
CHAPTER ONE
FROZEN TRACKS
Bent-backed, frozen to the core despite his thermal labour-suit, Engineer Thain swore as he broke the handle of his ice axe.
It was his third one, with only a fourth left in his tool kit. Discarding the broken haft, Thain glared ruefully at the frozen tank track he had failed to loosen. He rubbed his hands together – they were bone-cold, despite his heavy gloves – but got little feeling back into the fingers.
‘Use a hand flamer to thaw the hoarfrost, then switch to the ice axe.’
Thain would have started at the voice behind him, but he was too tired, too cold to react.
‘It’ll fuse the track guards,’ he snapped, testy, rising as he turned. ‘Make ’em sti–’ The word died in his mouth, which was now agape and ghosting air.
He came up to the warrior’s armoured chest: a plastron of cobalt emblazoned with the frost-white Ultima symbol of his Chapter.
The huge warrior had taken a hand flamer from the engineer’s kit and offered it to the man in his massive gauntleted hand.
‘Not if you tweak the setting, keep the flame low and take it off when the ice starts to melt,’ the warrior replied. He was not wearing a helmet, which seemed insane to Thain, given the conditions, and a white rime of frost crusted his hairless brow and sharp cheekbones. There was a platinum stud above his left eye, a record of service, so Thain understood. This one was a veteran, then. The Ultramarine smiled, though the gesture was far from warming. ‘You’ll break fewer handles that way.’
Thain genuflected awkwardly because of his stiff limbs.
‘Gratitude, my lord.’
‘I’m not your lord,’ the warrior said, moving on. ‘Your lords are dead. Go to your duty, and that track had best be unfrozen by the time we’re ready to roll out.’
The man attempted a salute, but was hindered again by his chilled bones. ‘Yes, sir.’
He went back to thawing out the tank track, using the hand flamer as instructed, but the chill never left him.
Antaro Chronus left the serf
behind as he went to inspect the rest of the squadron, but reached out to touch the metal hull of the tank before he did so.
‘Antonius, old friend…’ he sighed. ‘You’ll be battle-ready for the war on this barren rock.’
Three Predators, Annihilator-patterns on account of their twin-linked lascannon turrets and heavy bolter sponsons, waited in the cold, engines growling. They had been back less than an hour and the Damnos ice had already crept back into their workings. Chronus was no Techmarine but he knew tanks and his were not at ease. Their machine-spirits were displeased.
A short reconnoitre into the wastes had revealed little. As reported, the immediate area surrounding Kellenport was free of necrons. The retreat looked to be total. It meant they would have to press further, towards Damnos Secundus, but that required a refuel and now a thorough de-icing after waiting so long in the cold.
As the serfs kept the vehicles from freezing over, his crew were performing other checks according to protocol and taking on extra ammunition before their next foray. This time they would head north into the region where Tigurius had alleged the necrons were regrouping.
Emerging from The Vengeful’s cupola, one of the Ultramarines crewmen hailed the tank commander and disembarked to speak to Chronus.
‘They work too slowly,’ he said, jutting his chin at the shivering labour gangs. Fabricus was a driver as fearless as any Chronus had known, and as relentless.
Chronus cast his eye over the serfs: first the ones striving to keep their tanks functional, then the much larger workforce currently attempting to reinforce the sundered walls of Kellenport. According to Tigurius, it was the last bastion of human habitation in all of Damnos. Judging by the shattered revetments, collapsed bulwarks and broken gates, it was a poor one and not particularly defensible.
‘It’s the cold, Brother Fabricus,’ said Chronus. ‘Remember, they are merely men and cannot be expected to endure what we can. They’ll do their duty. This is their city after all, their world, and we are all that stands between it and annihilation.’
They walked together in lockstep, passing first through three Predators and then between the heavier armoured forms of three siege tanks, the Vindicators Glory of Calth, The Ram and Wrath of Invictus. The Ultramarines who noticed Chronus as he passed saluted the tank commander before going back to their preparations.
‘Have you been to see him?’ asked Fabricus solemnly.
‘Who?’ Chronus replied as they reached a group of three immense Land Raiders, their drop-ramps down as crews within worked on thawing out the interior troop compartments.
‘Captain Sicarius.’
They stopped at the edge of the improvised laager provided by the hefty Land Raiders, looking in the same direction as the tanks’ hull-mounted heavy bolters towards featureless tundra and endless ice wastes. A storm had rolled in, obliterating the distant horizon line behind a wall of white.
‘What purpose would that serve, brother? I know Sicarius is being tended in the apothecarion of the Valin’s Revenge. There is precious little I can do for him when he is unconscious and at high anchor above this frozen world, is there?’
Fabricus frowned, and the ice riming his face and closely shorn scalp cracked.
‘The Master of the Watch has fallen. Does that not concern you, commander?’
Chronus folded his arms, but kept his gaze on the white false horizon as Fabricus looked at him for his answer. ‘Do I think his absence harms our chances of success out here? Yes, of course. He is an inspirational leader and a fierce warrior, albeit capricious. But does it concern me?’ He gave a derisory laugh. ‘No more than a thrown track or a malfunctioning sponson mount. We adapt, we maintain, we overcome. We are armour.’ He slammed his fist against his chest with a heavy clank. ‘We are inviolable. The necron have yet to taste our fury, and I am wholly confident it won’t be to their liking when they do.’
Fabricus slammed his fist against his armour too, nodding at this declaration.
A second tank squadron idled within fifty metres of the first and comprised an identical array of vehicles, with the exception that the siege tanks were replaced by launcher-fitted patterns, excellent for long-range sustained barrage.
Alongside this fearsome alliance of armour was a void. It was waiting to be filled by a third group, one that was now almost an hour late.
‘Has there been any sign of them yet?’ Chronus asked.
‘Sergeant Egnatius’s last communication had them entering the Vogenhoff region. It’s remote, plagued by ravines and ice caves. Together with the storm…’ Fabricus let it hang like that, knowing there was no need to go further.
Chronus scowled, as if satisfied for now, but he was itching to be back aboard the Rage of Antonius, his own Predator tank, and back amidst the ice. ‘Inform Sergeant Gnaeus he has temporary command of the company, and vox me the moment Egnatius returns.’
‘Yes, commander.’
‘Have them stand by. We move on my order. One I must delay until I speak with our captains.’
Fabricus saluted again and went to carry out his orders.
Turning on his heel, Chronus began to stride back towards Kellenport.
Labour crews swarmed over the city like ants, directed by Techmarines and a few battle-brothers from the Tactical squads. Despite superior Space Marine engineering and fortification, the city looked far from siege-worthy. It was ragged. Only he and his armour would serve as any real protection for these people.
Despite what Tigurius believed, Chronus knew he could save this world. He had but to be afforded the opportunity.
CHAPTER TWO
FIRST MEETINGS AND OLD REUNIONS
The Ultramarines command section had made camp just within the broken gatehouse of Kellenport’s north wall. Most of the officers present were Second Company, some of Sicarius’s squad sergeants and honour guard. The rest were well known to Chronus, and he picked out faces he recognised as he breached the makeshift cordon of barricades and came to stand alongside the warriors surrounding a map table.
‘Hololiths are out,’ explained one sergeant, an officious sort given his stilted bearing, Chronus thought, but with a shadow behind his eyes. He had seen a lot of that since they had made landfall in the Thunderhawk transporters, and he wondered exactly what had happened prior to their arrival. He had not stopped to ask, just rolled out with his vehicles to secure the immediate perimeter. In the end, it had proven unnecessary, a fact that made the back of the tank commander’s neck itch in irritation.
‘Vintage,’ Chronus replied, stepping into the circle of officers and taking stock of the parchment map they were all examining. ‘I find something quite reassuring about that. Antaro,’ he added, offering a hand.
‘Brother-Sergeant Manorian,’ said the sergeant, clasping the tank commander’s wrist in the traditional Ultramarines greeting.
‘I know your rank, brother. It’s on your armour. Tell me your given name.’ Chronus was already absorbing all the information on the map and matching it to what he knew of the landscape first-hand from his initial reconnoitre and futile harrying mission. ‘If we are to bleed together, then I would know who you are.’ He looked back at the sergeant, his eyes bright and alert.
The sergeant nodded. ‘Praxor.’
Chronus smiled. ‘Excellent.’ He looked up at the rest of the gathering, who had been in the midst of determining strategy when he arrived. ‘So then, who can provide me with a situation report and who else around this table have I yet to become acquainted with?’
At the head of the table loomed a massive and imposing figure, the veteran Brother Agrippen, now encased in a holy Dreadnought sarcophagus. He was roughly a third taller than any of the assembled Ultramarines and easily twice as broad. Out of the vox-emitter built into his sarcophagus churned a machine-growl that Chronus took to be laughter.
‘It is good you are here, Brother Chronus. I se
e you did not wait to make greeting after landfall.’
‘Securing the perimeter of the city was more of a priority, Ancient.’ Chronus crafted a small bow to the Dreadnought, who gave a nod of sorts in return. ‘I was informed you have command?’
‘Yes,’ answered Agrippen, ‘together with our Chief Librarian.’
Chronus smiled at the hooded psyker, who kept his distance from the strategy table. His eyes glowed with power in the dusk that had settled over Kellenport.
‘Varro and I are well known to one another.’
Tigurius nodded. Even in the shadows, Chronus saw the Librarian’s jawbone tense at the informality.
Chronus did not linger on it. He gestured to another of the gathering, one armoured in black. ‘And Chaplain Trajan, also.’
He knew all of Sicarius’s Lions, too. Daceus, Vandius, Malican and Gaius Prabian. Only Venatio, the Apothecary, was absent. Doubtless, there were many injured who required his attention. Two others, besides the sergeant called Praxor, were unknown to him.
‘Strabo,’ said one, his markings indicating him as an Assault Marine. ‘Mathias,’ he corrected, before the tank commander had to request it.
‘Maxima Atavian,’ said the final officer, his bionic eye suggesting his position as a Devastator. ‘It is an honour to fight alongside you.’
Three line sergeants from each of the three squad dispositions of Second. ‘Well then,’ Chronus addressed the group, nodding in turn at the warriors he had not met before. ‘I don’t need to be told how Kellenport fares, this city is fit to crumble, but what of the rest of Damnos?’
‘From the Thanatos Hills, we saw a great force of necrons amassing to the north,’ said Tigurius. ‘And more phalanxes are activating in several other regions too.’
Chronus cast his eye over the map again, and the marks made in charcoal to indicate known and suspected enemy dispositions.
Damnos - Nick Kyme Page 34