‘How long, indeed?’ he muttered to himself.
Beyond Kellenport, the ice was still and dead. Ever-thickening snow drifts had obliterated much from view past a few hundred metres. If the necrons were out there, regrouping, readying for another assault, the watch would not see them coming until they were almost on top of them.
That was assuming they travelled over the ice at all. For the longest time since the siege, Iulus had been aware of something below the surface. It was hard to describe, more of a feeling than an explicable perception. He dearly wished to tell Scipio of it, but the brother-sergeant was abroad in the Gladius keeping a watchful eye on the suspiciously dormant necrons that had rematerialised in the far north.
Agrippen had yet to sanction a full-scale attack on them. With their gunships and armour planetside, it was now possible, but a lightning strike would be foolhardy against an enemy whose strength the Ultramarines could not yet gauge. And there was talk of evacuation, also.
There was much unknown, and they would not underestimate the necrons again.
If Damnos could be won, they would win it. If not, they would get every living soul off this dead world and scour it from orbit.
Unable to guess the future himself, Iulus did the only thing he could and settled in for a long watch.
CHAPTER FIVE
WE ARE LEGION
The under-caverns below the surface of Damnos were a lie. Unbeknownst to the parasites currently embedded on this world, they were but a shell, an outer crust formed over its true core.
Ankh knew the truth. He was the Architect, the cryptek who had borne witness to the death of the first sun and the birth of the creeping ice that came in its wake. Cold did not affect the necrontyr, not any more. Since the long sleep, such things as warmth and comfort had become but the petty concerns of lesser beings.
They no longer felt as they once had, though some still dreamed and confused that dream with waking. A great many had been damaged during their slumber, like Sahtah the Enfleshed and the Undying. The risk in reviving them, the potential damage to their memory engrams… So many curses, the Sautekh Dynasty had indeed been brought low by them.
Ankh still held to hope. Tahek, Sahtah, even the Undying – they had been but lordlings compared to the true dynasts of Sautekh. The Architect was cunning. He had no desire to make the same mistake he had with the others, lost to grief, envy and madness. A chronomancer, he knew well the importance of time. In revivifying the Undying’s paltry war host, he had garnered enough of it to set the great mechanism in motion and bring about the return of the Sautekh’s pre-eminent overlord.
When he arose, the ice would cloak their world no longer and the wretched epithet of Damnos would be a footnote in the empire-history of the necrontyr. As a vaunted servant and trusted vizier, Ankh would bask in the reflected glory, his status assured.
As he walked slowly through the under-caverns, every slow and measured step carrying the cryptek deeper into the subterranean realm, legions of arachnid constructs were hard at work reactivating the tomb-pyramids and revivifying the necron hosts within.
Ankh could feel their life-signatures, perceive the growing web of necron awareness as it latticed over his subconscious.
Staff in hand, he paused by the slab-sided flank of a tomb. It was partially buried in a crust of hoarfrost. Just the summit was clad in ice – the bulk of the structure went deep into the actual tomb-world’s catacombs and was still locked in ageless slumber. Ankh resolved to alter that.
His skeletal fingers traced ancient sigil-runes over the surface of the tomb, manipulating an activation panel only perceivable to another cryptek. The sequence was complex and delicate. An error now could result in the dramatic and fatal deterioration of every memory engram contained within the tomb-pyramid.
Within seconds, Ankh activated it without mishap and felt the anima of hundreds start to waken.
‘Doom,’ he muttered to himself, his rictus jaw unmoving as the words emitted from vocalisers in his polished, metal skull. ‘Annihilation… Let slip these chariots of retribution.’
Through the metres-thick metal, his mind perceived the deadly war machines and their enslaved crew slowly being restored. Ankh saw their eyes alight with verdant balefire, felt the thrum of engines and power coils coming online.
In ancient days the necrontyr had waged war on the back of resplendent arks and barges. So they would again.
But more was needed, much more.
Having begun the process, Ankh could leave the scarabs and spyders to finish revivifying the war machines. At a command gesture, two canoptek wraiths, his watchdogs and guardians, materialised into being before him. Tall and serpentine, their bladed limbs clacked together in anticipation of their master’s command.
‘Show me the rest,’ Ankh ordered in a sibilant voice.
His mind connected with those of the wraiths and he perceived rank upon rank of tombs, stretching ever deeper into his world’s forgotten core. Some were damaged, and would have to be destroyed. This was an eventuality for which Ankh had already prepared. But the majority harboured legions. He saw foot soldiers, the gilded retainers of kings, walker constructs and the venerable overlords themselves. And at the last, something else, a malign intelligence that when unleashed would scour all life from this world and restore it to the necrontyr.
‘Good,’ hissed Ankh, myriad plans already forming as he focused on the image of a many-limbed walker. ‘We shall begin with the Triarch.’
A barren ice plain stretched before Chronus through his magnoculars. Riding in the cupola of the Rage of Antonius, hatch thrown back, he barely felt the bite of the ice and the scything hail hammering against the Predator’s armour.
Somewhere in the storm, his enemy was lurking. From all the intelligence he had gathered, the necron force was still numerous and growing. But it also consisted solely of infantry, and slow-moving, tactically inert infantry at that. Chronus did not consider himself an arrogant man. He was logical and tried to base his assumptions only on fact, but a laborious host of foot soldiers would not last long against an Ultramarines tank company. They would be easily defeated, and he suspected there were more forces held in reserve somewhere, sterner opponents.
But he had to engage the remnants first, and goad whatever else was waiting for them out of the ice. He had seen the reports of the phasic generators, large-scale teleportation devices that had moved entire phalanxes from the battle zone to an unknown regrouping point in the northern polar wastes. If engaging the necrons was the primary mission, then finding and destroying the generator was next.
Of course, that was assuming he could even find the necron remnants left after the Kellenport siege.
Setting the scopes down on the hull, he took the auspex from his belt. The backlit screen still returned an empty scanner pulse. Since leaving Kellenport they had continued north, following the map coordinates he had given the sergeant who had contacted them earlier. Chronus led the line, a column of twenty-four battle tanks with fourteen other armoured carriers advancing along either flank. He kept them in file until engagement was imminent; it was easier to conceal their martial strength that way.
Taking up the scopes again, he first ranged left and then right, checking on formation dispersal. It was wide, just as instructed, and the column was also spread. If he was riding into a trap, if the necron reinforcements were closer at hand than gathered intelligence suggested, then the wide spread across the length and width of the formation would give those not caught directly in the ambush a chance to counter, or regroup.
He was just about to despair of ever making contact with the enemy to run such a risk when a blip came through on the auspex. A pair of markers, they flashed red against the screen and then returned a second later.
He recognised the origin of the markers. They were Ultramarines.
Chronus called down into the hold.
‘Novus, I have the Gladius and the Thunderstorm.’ He sent the markers to the driver’s retinal display.
‘Affirmative, commander.’
Chronus switched channels through his comm-feed to his sergeants leading the other two squadrons.
‘Be advised our guides are inbound.’
‘I have them on auspex, Commander Chronus,’ replied Gnaeus.
Egnatius’s comm-channel remained silent.
Chronus tried the link again. ‘Sergeant Egnatius, respond.’
Still no answer. He went back to the other sergeant.
‘Gnaeus, are you experiencing any comms interference?’
‘Nothing unusual, commander.’
‘What about between vehicles in Sergeant Egnatius’s squadrons?’
‘I’ve not had vox contact with Sergeant Egnatius since we left Kellenport.’
Egnatius’s formation was second in column. Chronus cut the link to Gnaeus and opened up a channel to the next battle tank in the line, The Vengeful.
Fabricus answered his hail.
‘Brother Fabricus, take front of column.’
‘Commander?’ asked Fabricus, nonplussed.
‘That’s a direct order, driver.’
Chronus shouted down for Novus to peel off the column and double back along the flanks, then voxed the nearest Razorback and Rhino outriders with the brief change in the order of march.
‘Novus,’ Chronus shouted down into the hold. ‘I want you to bring us right alongside the Stormwarden,’ he said, referring to Egnatius’s Predator Destructor.
The Rage of Antonius rode down the line, running against the churning tide. Ice cracked and snow was ground to slush before the ruthless advance of the armoured column. Exhaust ports plumed grey smoke that was quickly caught on the wind and dispersed. Frost hugged the flanks of every vehicle and ice rimed their turrets where thick snow squalls had built up and then solidified.
Rolling close to combat speed, engines spitting out a throaty rumble as if grateful for the sudden run-out, the Rage of Antonius came up alongside the Stormwarden in a few minutes.
Hail and ice were slamming down hard now, chipping paintwork, and Chronus donned his helmet before the storm got bad enough to cut flesh or take an eye.
‘Vutrius,’ he called down to his own gunner. ‘Put the searchlight onto the Stormwarden.’
Novus had expertly brought them around and alongside the Predator Destructor so they were rolling with the column again, directly adjacent to the Stormwarden. The automated lamp attached to the Rage of Antonius’s turret swung around and, with a heavy chank of activation, blazed into life. Magnesium-bright, it lit up the side of the Stormwarden and flooded its vision slits.
When Egnatius did not respond, Chronus unholstered his sidearm and fired off a single shot at the Destructor’s front arc, leaving a dent but no permanent damage. It barely registered outside in the storm, but he knew that inside it would resonate.
A few seconds later, the turret hatch disengaged and Egnatius emerged from the cupola. Though it was difficult to tell with him wearing his helmet, Chronus could tell his sergeant was angry. When Egnatius looked over and saw the commander his ire cooled almost immediately.
Chronus tapped the side of his helmet.
Egnatius’s channel came online, indicated by a single glowing Ultima rune on Chronus’s retinal display.
‘Why did you not respond to my hails, brother-sergeant?’
Egnatius’s reply was chopped with static and bad signal return.
‘Apologies, commander. We are… periencing… issue… ith… comms.’
‘Find a solution. Our Thunderhawks have just made contact and will be guiding us in. We are about to rendezvous. I want you and your squadron back in vox contact before that happens.’
‘Yes, comm… der. It… ill… be done.’
‘See it is, Egnatius.’
Chronus went down below, sealing the hatch behind him. Disengaging the holding clamps, he removed his helmet to drink in the atmosphere. It was louder inside the Predator’s hold, the engine noise exacerbated by the close confines, and every contour of the rough terrain could be felt through the shuddering hull. Though during combat there was no better place to be than riding in the cupola and seeing the destruction wrought by his war machine first-hand, Chronus had always found the interior of the battle tank calming.
It was dingy and cramped inside, the majority of the hold taken up with machinery and munitions. Novus sat up front, surrounded by instrumentation. A control panel was lit up dully next to him, providing a slew of information including fuel, speed and acceleration. The forward vision slit was open. Hands on the steering column, Novus peered intently through the gap. Internal auspex and sensorium were proving patchy on account of the adverse weather, so Novus preferred the evidence of his own eyes as opposed to the Predator’s on-board systems.
The only other crewman of the Antonius, Vutrius, sat at the back of the hold and nodded to the commander as he descended and joined them both in the shadows.
‘Are we battle-hungry yet, gunner?’ Chronus asked as he took up position midway down the cramped crew compartment.
‘Running final readiness procedures now, commander,’ replied Vutrius without much of the hunger his commander had asked for. Chronus was unconcerned. His gunner might be cold but his aim was deadly and unforgiving.
Arrayed around Vutrius’s gunnery seat were three monitors, one for each of the Annihilator’s main weapons. Ammunition counts were at maximum, though they also carried two additional drum mags for the heavy bolters and a spare power generator for the twin-linked lascannon. According to his readouts, all weapons were at acceptable temperature levels and currently running at full efficacy.
‘Could it have been environmental interference?’ suggested Vutrius.
‘Could be.’ Chronus did not sound convinced. ‘I want you to send them a hail every three minutes until they’re back on comms.’
Vutrius nodded, his attention still on the Predator’s arsenal. He was not wearing his battle-helm, none of them did once inside the tank, and Chronus could see his gunner’s lips moving in silent litanies of accuracy and function.
Satisfied, he called up to Novus.
‘Get us back to the front of column. I want to meet our aerial support at the tip of the spear.’
Novus increased speed and the drone within the hold grew to a roar.
Chronus recalled his earlier words to Agrippen and the others.
‘It’s the reason we were forged.’
He smiled, knowing he was not just referring to the tanks.
CHAPTER SIX
ARMOURED FURY
The tank column slowed to within approximately three kilometres of the enemy and began to fan out. Its concomitant elements, formerly alloyed together in a long line of tracked steel, dispersed into their smaller squadrons.
Twenty-four battle tanks with additional armoured support faced off against six infantry cohorts. From the air, Scipio gauged each necron formation was roughly fifty warriors strong. None of them were the more advanced constructs he and his brothers had fought during the siege and the assault on the Thanatos Hills. Despite the obvious enemy threat, the necrons still appeared sluggish, but had begun to adopt some approximation of a firing line as they advanced into the teeth of Chronus’s armour.
The tank commander rejoined his sergeants, forming a twelve-engine-strong phalanx of Predators. Judging from the formation Scipio could see emerging from his vantage point in the Gladius, he assumed Chronus would attack in two waves.
On a shallow ridge that overlooked the vast ice plain where the necrons were marching, Chronus had positioned his preliminary bombardiers. At the rear, a trio of Whirlwinds cycled their launchers and adjusted for precise trajectory. To the front of them and a little further down the ridge were the formidable Vindicato
rs, their massive Demolisher cannons angled to maximum elevation. It was clear to Scipio that Chronus meant to soften the necrons up before he committed to closer engagement.
Six hulking Land Raiders were ranged on the opposite flank to the Predators. Pre-eminent troop transports, the tank commander had deployed them as mobile weapon platforms, a trio each of the standard and Crusader-pattern variants.
Last were the armoured outriders, the Razorbacks and Rhinos that would run interference for the larger, more destructive battle tanks.
‘He’s creating a killbox,’ said Brakkius unnecessarily, competing with the howling gale ripping through the gunship’s open side-hatch. ‘The necrons will engage the obvious threat, the tanks on the ridge, and they’ll be outflanked by the farther ranging engines to their right and left.’
From the air, Chronus’s stratagem was obvious but, against a slow-moving infantry force, also deadly. The necrons would be destroyed, but Scipio still frowned.
‘This cannot be all that is left of them,’ he said, ‘these rudimentary, half-functioning constructs.’
‘We can only fight what’s in front of us, brother-sergeant,’ replied Largo, ever the philosopher.
‘And that is precisely what concerns me. That this is all there is in front of us. We fought an enemy ten times more potent than this. Not all of those necrons were destroyed in the rout at the gates. Some endured, they must have.’
Garrik pointed down to the kilometre-spanning battlefield unfolding below, his missile launcher shouldered and ready.
‘Whatever their mettle, Sergeant Vorolanus, we are about to see it tested.’
The last of the battle tanks and their attendant outriders were moving into position. The order to commence bombardment was about to be given.
The Gladius and the Thunderstorm remained at the edge of the battle zone for now. Both gunships were tooled for war with dorsal-mounted battle cannons, a payload of heavy ordnance and several reserve weapons that would still be ruthlessly effective against the necrons.
Damnos - Nick Kyme Page 37