The ball of fire it had made was still etched onto the back of Chronus’s eyelids; his roar of grief and defiance still echoed in his mind. Reckoner was gone, but others yet lived.
‘Gnaeus, are you still with us?’ He had opened vox and was trying to contact his other commanders.
‘Taking heavy fire, commander,’ Gnaeus replied. Chronus could hear it on the vox-link, the ugly shriek of necron weaponry. ‘Everyone is falling back. The walls are gone… so too the streets. Fabricus is non-contactable. Lord Tigurius has issued orders for final evacuation.’
‘Confirmed,’ said Chronus, having received the same orders.
Fabricus was likely dead, along with his squadrons. Nothing could be done about that now. Nor was there any way to substantiate that belief either.
‘I will reconnoitre with you if you ask it of me, commander.’
‘Get your men out, Gnaeus. Follow Tigurius’s orders. It’s over, brother. The Antonius and I will try and hold the west avenue as long as we can. I want to keep an eye on Agrippen before the end.’
Gnaeus paused, as if processing.
‘I’ll see you on the Valin’s Revenge then, sir.’
‘Aye, Guilliman willing, you may indeed.’
Chronus ended the conversation, then went on to order the Triumph of Espandor back.
Everyone was leaving, except for Agrippen.
The Dreadnought had been pegged back to the centre of the Courtyard of Thor, but fought just as fiercely.
Necrons were teeming through the gaps in the western wall now. Chronus fired sporadic bursts into the melee from a distance, but it was like shooting at a dirty, silver ocean.
‘We have power for another four salvos, five at a push,’ his gunner’s voice came through the vox.
‘Then push, Vutrius. I don’t want Agrippen to be alone if we can help it.’
Through his magnoculars, Chronus watched as the Dreadnought continued to rip the necrons apart. They were crawling over him now as he thrashed at them and crushed their bodies as if they were ants, but he was slowly being overwhelmed. His plasma cannon was destroyed and sparks flashed angrily from his damaged servos and machinery.
Chronus knew he could not stay much longer. More enemy contacts were moving in via phasic insertion and would be upon them soon. He had to think of his crew.
The fifth lascannon burst sounded, the beams hazing through dust-choked air and spearing a clutch of the mechanoids advancing into the courtyard. They paid the Antonius no heed, their attack protocols slaved entirely to the destruction of the Dreadnought.
Lowering his scopes, Chronus bade a final farewell to Agrippen and then called down to his driver.
‘Novus, get us out of here.’
As they began to reverse, Chronus witnessed the huge form of a necron monolith materialise in the courtyard.
‘Bring those cannons back on line!’ he bellowed down to Vutrius.
‘I cannot, commander. Our power coils are spent… Worse than spent, they are burned.’
The data feed confirmed it – all main weapon systems were non-functional.
‘Hera damn it!’
The monolith’s anterior gauss array unleashed a concentrated salvo into the Ancient.
When it failed to bring Agrippen down, he stepped forwards and punched through the war machine’s armour with his fist. The monolith shuddered, viridian lightning coursing over its ruptured shell as it suffered an unexpected but catastrophic malfunction. The resulting explosion, hot and verdant, forced Chronus to look away.
When he looked back, Agrippen was still standing but near the end of his strength.
Through the Merciless Orar’s vision slits, Falka saw Ultramarines fighting and dying in Kellenport’s battle-choked streets.
Every metre, the Land Raider’s guns punished the necrons with deadly shellfire. A whirring cannon mounted on its front chewed through debris and mechanoid alike, whilst its side guns kept up a steady rate of burst fire.
Falka and those aboard the Merciless Orar’s troop hold fired out from the slits too, las and bolter adding to the tank’s destruction. It felt good to fight alongside the Space Marines, to not be so afraid when riding in the belly of this metal beast. That determination and resolve had spread to the other Guard and militia too. They fought with their pride, their vengeance and it made Falka’s heart soar to be a part of it.
A pair of necron walkers scuttled into view from behind the smoking remains of a battle tank they had just destroyed. Falka’s sense of invulnerability wavered as he saw the walkers about to turn their heat rays on the Merciless Orar. They were intercepted by an arcane-looking figure, lightning cascading from his brow and eldritch words upon his lips that Falka did not understand. But he did not need to know their meaning to realise they were words of power.
The Librarian almost moved faster than sight, blurring around the clumsy attacks of the walkers as they reacted to the threat and tried to neutralise it. With phenomenal strength, he cut one walker in half before lifting the other off the ground with what seemed the merest thought, and casting it to ruin against the side of a silo.
‘Who was that?’ Falka heard one awe-filled Guardsman ask.
‘Lord Tigurius,’ Iulus replied.
The Merciless Orar was rumbling on as a squad of Ultramarines joined Tigurius in the street and went to engage a necron infantry force that had just phased in.
Though Falka tried to see as much as he could through the vision slit, the warriors were soon lost from view and he did not get to witness how the fight would end.
It was the first time Scipio and the Thunderbolts had been reunited with Tigurius since that first defence at the wall. During that time, he had seen the Librarian rip a monolith apart and lay waste to half a necron phalanx with the power of his mind. Potent as he was on the Thanatos Hills, this was something else entirely.
Scipio was not ashamed to admit to himself that he was intimidated as the awesome figure of the Librarian returned to their midst again.
‘The battle’s over,’ said Tigurius, unleashing a storm of lightning at the necrons trying to force their way through the rubble-strewn streets at them. A flurry of gauss fire answered. Drained from his exertions, Tigurius’s psychic shield was a little slow to manifest and he cried out, falling to one knee, as several beams struck him and went through his armour.
The Thunderbolts moved in ahead of him, raking the necron survivors with bolter fire and cleansing the street of enemies for a precious few seconds.
Scipio leaned down to help Tigurius to his feet and saw the Librarian’s eyes were aglow with power. He spoke in a voice like prophecy as his unerring prescience stared out into the ether.
‘We cannot stay. We will be overrun. The sun will rise again for one last time over Damnos, igniting all with its fury.’
It had been dark for weeks, some symptom of the necrons’ mass awakening or simply a result of the season, Scipio had no idea. But looking up into the eternal night, he wondered how the dawn would ever rise again for Damnos.
There was no time to consider further. A second and third phalanx had moved into the street Scipio’s men had just cleared. With a flash of phasic energy, a vast slab-sided monolith materialised behind them. More necrons were emerging through a portal that warped and cracked within its dark armour plating.
‘If you have any power remaining, my lord, now would be the time,’ said Scipio.
Tigurius smiled. ‘I have a little…’
As the Thunderbolts prepared for a last stand, the Librarian threw up his arms and uttered a final incantation. In a split second, Tigurius was gone, taking Scipio and all of his men with him.
The sky over the spaceport was threaded with gauss fire.
Realising the interlopers were attempting to escape, the necrons had brought all of their siege cannons into the city itself and were now stra
fing the heavens.
Entire flotillas of ships, Thunderhawks and Arvus lighters, soared desperately into the deadly beams as the last defenders of Damnos finally accepted defeat and fled.
Chronus was amongst the last.
After taking more punishment than any battle tank had a right to endure, the Rage of Antonius had shut down a quarter of a kilometre from the space port. Its saviour appeared out of the night, screaming down towards the tank commander on its turbine engines. Two other Thunderhawks alongside it, Gladius and Thunderstorm, peeled off from their flying formation in the direction of the space port itself.
The familiar sight of magna-grapnels came down out of the darkness, took hold and began hauling the Predator into the transporter’s waiting vehicle clamps. Then they were aloft, engines blazing again.
Despite his better judgement, Chronus cranked open the side hatch and looked out in the direction of the Courtyard of Thor.
Far below him, diminishing as the Thunderhawk rose up, he saw Agrippen.
Debris was hitting the roof of the transporter, Chronus could hear and feel it resonating through the dormant shell of the Antonius. It was from other vessels, torn down by enemy flak fire. Soon they would be headed into that maelstrom and Hera help them.
Agrippen was far from these concerns, though. He fought gloriously, an end worthy of the great Dreadnought. Necrons swarmed the Courtyard of Thor, their broken remains lying thick around Agrippen’s feet. He could no longer move, only swing with his power fist. Still he refused to fall, and for a moment Chronus dared believe he could somehow prevail.
When it came, the end was swift.
His armoured frame already split, oozing blood and oil, Agrippen staggered at last. Thick fumes were spewing from his reactor, suggesting an imminent meltdown. A cascade of beams erupted from the shadows at the edge of the courtyard, ripping through the thronging necrons to strike the Ancient.
Chronus was reminded of a beast of myth, the great drakon or khimeraera, pierced by a dozen lances as its hunters finally brought it down.
Agrippen stood transfixed for a few moments, his last breaths devoted to his Chapter and his brothers, before his reactor overloaded and took most of the courtyard and the necrons around him with it.
Falka had to turn away as the light blazed through the vision ports of the gunship they were riding in. He caught the impression of an immense and terrible fire raging through Kellenport, one much too bright and fierce for him to watch. His gaze went to the Ultramarines instead. There were just under ten of them in the hold and all were staring out at the blaze engulfing his city.
One of them even stood by the open side-hatch of the gunship, letting in the light and the distant reek of flame.
Someone had died. It was ash Falka could smell on the hot, whipping breeze. Ash, and retribution.
Standing in the hold of the Gladius, Scipio watched as the sun rose for one last time over Damnos, banishing the perpetual night. It was a firestorm that emanated from the Courtyard of Thor, bright, beautiful and fierce. It obliterated hundreds of necrons. The resultant shock wave warmed the air with atomic heat and buffeted the ships aloft upon it, and it tore the enemy siege guns apart. Rolling outwards in a vast trembling wave, it immolated everything in its path.
Vantor’s voice crackled through the hold’s vox.
‘Rough skies ahead, Sergeant Vorolanus.’
‘Agrippen has shown us the way, brother,’ Scipio replied.
Above them, the lattice of gauss beams promising certain destruction flickered and broke apart, until only a few sporadic salvos cut into the night.
As they prepared for atmospheric entry, Scipio closed the side hatch and looked around the hold.
Together with those that had escaped aboard the Thunderstorm, there were barely four squads of Ultramarines and half that in Damnosian Guard and militia that had escaped. Thousands of refugees had made it aboard the Valin’s Revenge and her frigates. But it was small recompense for the millions who had lost their lives.
He met the gaze of Iulus, who was wounded and slumped against a bulkhead. A thick-set, bearded man sat next to him and the two were in conversation when the other sergeant nodded to Scipio.
Praxor had survived too, though Scipio had seen little of him during the conflict. He was aboard the other gunship, both of which now broke into the upper atmosphere, beyond range of the necron guns and bound for the Valin’s Revenge.
EPILOGUE
OATHS
Antaro Chronus stood in the apothecarion of the Valin’s Revenge for the very first time since what had recently become known as ‘The Damnos Incident’.
Massacre or slaughter was too incendiary a word, but all those of the Second Company and the men who fought beside them knew the truth of that.
He was standing next to a medi-casket, regarding the warrior slumbering fitfully inside. The casket was fixed upright to the wall, its occupant held aloft by the viscous solution within. A rebreather was clamped around his face, but Chronus knew who this was.
Cato Sicarius.
The Master of the Watch would not be best pleased he had missed the final hours of the fight on Damnos.
Apart from Venatio, who was deep into his work monitoring Sicarius’s vitals, Chronus was alone. Daceus, the captain’s faithful retainer, stood vigil outside the chamber.
Chronus placed his gauntleted hand against the hard glass of the medi-casket.
‘We of Guilliman’s blood, do we not always find a way? Rise soon, brother-captain,’ he whispered.
Even in suspended animation coma, Sicarius looked belligerent. He was fighting as he slept, remembering all and vowing revenge. And as he watched him, Chronus was certain of two things.
Sicarius would return. The battle was over, but not the war.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nick Kyme is the author of the Tome of Fire trilogy featuring the Salamanders and the Horus Heresy novel Vulkan Lives. He has also written for the Space Marine Battles and Time of Legends series with the novels The Fall of Damnos and The Great Betrayal. In addition, he has penned a host of short stories and several novellas, including ‘Feat of Iron’ which was in the Horus Heresy collection The Primarchs, a New York Times Bestseller. He lives and works in Nottingham.
For Will and Beth.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Fall of Damnos copyright © 2011, Games Workshop, Ltd.
Spear of Macragge has never before been available.
This edition first published in Great Britain in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Cover illustration by Jon Sullivan
Internal illustrations by Carl Dafforn, Neil Hodgson,
Sam Lamont and John Michelbach.
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ISBN: 978-1-78251-202-8
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