No one who heard these words lived to record them.
These brave fighters and millions more died for their world, their loved ones, and for the honour of the Emperor. But none fought as hard, nor as tirelessly, selflessly, as the last two hundred and eighteen battle-brothers of the Crimson Fists.
Though the greenskins pushed closer and closer to the Silver Citadel and its last neighbouring districts, the Crimson Fists extracted a high and bloody price for every centimetre given. The greenskin advance slowed to a crawl. Wherever their armour appeared, defensive batteries blasted it apart. Wherever the orks attempted to rig the walls with explosives, or cut their way through the gates with high-powered las and melta analogues, they were shredded in a hail of bolt and plasma fire.
For every blow the orks sought to strike, the Crimson Fists martialled everything at their disposal and launched a counter blow. And, slowly, the siege settled into a pattern, a deadly routine where attrition looked set to decide the future of the world.
Even the cycle of seasons, unchanged since long before Rynn’s World had known the footsteps of man, were not immune to the effects of the Waaagh.
Barely a week after Chapter Master Kantor arrived at the capital, Matiluvia, the Month of Hammering Rains, began in earnest, and it was unlike any such season in living memory. Both the Pakomac and the River Rynn broke their banks, flooding the surrounding lands, turning the ork-held outer districts into filthy, smelly, fly-infested mires. Ork excrement mixed with the floodwaters, coating everything. When the rains finally subsided and the hot weather came, a stinking yellow-brown haze cut visibility down to only five or six kilometres, confounding the Rynnsguard artillery spotters and those manning the forward observation posts.
Summer brought other problems for the beleaguered defenders. Though the River Rynn flowed through the centre of the city and rendered fresh drinking water a matter of little concern, the burning sun took its toll on many. Guardsmen serving high on the walls day after day were battered with relentless heat and glare. Many reported to medicae facilities with maladies caused by the intensity of the Rynnstar system’s twin suns. Others simply collapsed where they stood. How many of those were shot by their commissars for sleeping on the job? How many, dizzy from exhaustion, driven to carelessness by the protests of their own bodies, fell to ork fire when they might have lived had they only been allowed adequate rest?
Only the Space Marines were immune to such things. The rains did not bother them. The blazing suns did not affect them. Rumours spread. Fresh legends grew. Some said they did not eat. Some said they did not sleep. Others said that they could not be killed, that they would fight on for a thousand years if need be, even if there were no civilians left to protect.
Maybe such talk was comforting to some, but the reality was altogether darker. Not even the Adeptus Astartes could hold indefinitely. Snagrod’s Waaagh was getting stronger all the time. That each individual battle-brother was far deadlier than a typical ork, none could argue, but the Crimson Fists themselves knew the truth. They saw that they were losing, and the knowledge burned.
Summer turned to autumn. Perhaps the orks favoured the milder seasons. Perhaps they too had been hampered by the hard heat of the Rynnite summer. Who could know? They were alien, and seeking to comprehend their ways was forbidden by Imperial edict to all those without the proper dispensation. Certainly, the autumn seemed to rouse them. They strengthened their assaults. Their numbers seemed to increase, despite their daily losses. More and more of them swarmed and flowed along the ruined streets each day, pillaging the bodies of their fallen kin for equipment and pulling the teeth from dead mouths to use as a kind of currency.
It was in late autumn that the aliens began constructing the first of their massive iron ziggurats. A yellow pall still hung in the air, and it was not easy to see their activities in detail, but it was clear they worked with purpose. The structure was quickly completed, and work began on numerous others. Fires still burned throughout the xenos-occupied territories, but those of destruction were soon outnumbered by those of industry.
Pessimists murmured that this was a sign of the coming end. The orks built their foul constructs beyond the range of the Basilisks and Earthshaker batteries, and the defenders could only watch. The sight of the greenskins’ massive new fume stacks and construction blocks had an immediate demoralising effect. Suicides increased among Rynnite civilians and soldiers alike, despite the warnings and threats of the commissars. Dare to insult the Emperor by killing yourself, the black-clad zealots warned everyone, and those you hold dearest will suffer a longer, more painful death as punishment.
At first, this merely prompted hopeless men to slaughter their own families with merciful swiftness before turning their weapons on themselves. It was an intolerable situation. Every last individual capable of firing a lasgun had to be drafted onto the walls.
From the ramparts, they saw their planet burn. The forces of the Arch Arsonist set light to everything within reach. Fields blazed. Forests flared and crackled. Nothing was untouched by the hungry flames. It was now, with many losing their last vestiges of hope, that Lady Maia Cagliestra made a decision. Much of the Upper Rynnhouse railed against it, but the governor would not be swayed. Together, she and a cadre of noble ladies would take to the walls themselves, bringing light and comfort, she hoped, to the tired men who defended them. Viscount Isopho made an impassioned personal protest against this. Maia planned to visit those sections of the perimeter where the fighting was heaviest, since it was these men, she judged, who needed her support most. The viscount’s pleas achieved little at first, but Maia finally conceded to visit the walls only at night, since the fighting usually died off then. With the troopers at rest, she would have greater opportunity to speak with them and dispense food and water.
It became her regular routine. As twilight came each day, she and her party of ladies would make themselves as beautiful as possible – ‘To give the men something to fight for,’ she told the others whenever they asked – before heading out under armed escort to yet another section of the wall. Their visits soon became highly anticipated events for the Rynnsguard troopers and the militias, though more than a few men were executed by the commissars for making inappropriate comments. Maia tried to ignore that. She felt, for the first time since the war had started, that she was not hiding like a coward in the Silver Citadel, doing nothing while her people died.
Two weeks after she began her visits to the wall, Viscount Isopho announced that he was leaving his seat in the Upper Rynnhouse to rejoin the Rynnsguard as a commissioned officer. He would, he said, fight on the walls with the men, like a true Rynnite should. If, by his words, he hoped to shame other members of the government into following his example, he was fooling himself. Maia spoke privately with General Mir and made sure that Isopho was posted to one of the safer sections of the wall, even while she praised the viscount for his courage.
Despite all the measures to combat it, the death toll among the Rynnsguard, and the lack of any sign whatsoever that aid was coming, continued to eat away at the defenders’ morale. Individual Crimson Fists began patrolling sections of the wall on which they had, so far, not been seen. This was done at the suggestion of a young Adeptus Astartes Chaplain called Argo, and it worked. The sight of the glorious armoured giants, radiant and splendid despite all they had endured, still exerted a powerful effect on the ordinary people. The Adeptus Astartes inspired faith and dedication wherever they walked. They spoke encouragement to the troopers, and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with them. The number of suicides dropped. The walls held. Snagrod and his forces found themselves at a temporary impasse, but they had already begun work on the weapons that would end this war.
When winter came, the warlord and his savage lieutenants had committed even greater numbers to the construction of their forts and war factories. The human forces could only watch with mounting fear and apprehension as, slowly and inexorably, the mightiest engines of war they had ever seen began to ta
ke shape.
Most had never heard of a Gargant. Few men on Rynn’s World had the kind of clearance that would grant them access to the Munitorum archives in which accounts of such near-indestructible metal monstrosities could be found. But the surviving Rynnsguard commanders knew what was coming, and so did the Crimson Fists.
They considered the viability of launching surgical strikes on the massive engines of doom before they were completed, before they could bring their unstoppable weapons to bear on the gates and walls. Considered then rejected.
Such a strike would risk everything. Many battle-brothers would be lost. Forces critical to the continued deadlock would be fatally diminished. The orks would only begin construction again. With the rest of the planet being, to all extents and purposes, dominated by the greenskin race, their resources were near limitless.
Exchanging Adeptus Astartes lives for a little more time?
Chapter Master Kantor could not sanction it. Whichever way he looked at it, the losses outweighed the gains.
Deep winter came. Snow was a thing unheard of in the capital. New Rynn City lay close to the equator, and did not suffer winter like the mountain regions did.
When the first snows came, the emaciated children of the capital shuffled out into the streets to gaze up at the sky in wonder. Few remembered such a beautiful sight. Beautiful, yes, but deadly, too. Within days, the first casualties of the freak winter were reported. This season, in its own way, was as harsh as the brutal heat of summer had been, and took just as many lives. The weakest children died in droves, leaving grief-wracked parents who were barely capable of standing, let alone firing on the foe. Many of the elderly perished, too. Again, the commissars and ecclesiarchs went out among the grieving people, threatening or consoling them, whichever was their way.
Again, it was the presence of the Space Marines that made the greater difference. It was now, with things darkest of all, that Pedro Kantor turned his eyes from the daily casualty reports and tactical hololiths, and went out among the ordinary people.
He saw a populace beaten to nothing, both mentally and physically, and felt their grief as if it were his own. He could not help but recall the tragedy that had struck Arx Tyrannus. It had haunted him every day since. It also gave him a keen sense of empathy with those who gathered around him, all those who had lost the things they loved most.
He stood before them, gleaming helmet under his left arm, and swore to them that the fight was far from over. He told them of The Crusader and of her escape the previous year. Warp travel was unpredictable, but help would come, he assured them. The Crusader would not fail.
They listened. They looked up from where they knelt in front of him, and he saw the hope in their eyes. They wanted to believe, and he let them. Somewhere deep down, he still believed it himself.
Spring came. The snows melted. The morning air became crisp, then eventually warm. The hope that Kantor spread was sustained as the climate became gentle again.
But, beyond the walls, things were different. A new wave of excitement whipped the orks to violent frenzy.
Soon, the Gargants would be complete.
Soon the planet would shudder under their massive feet. Gods of death and destruction would wade towards the final Imperial stronghold, crushing everything to powder beneath them.
For almost eighteen months, the defenders of New Rynn City had endured everything Snagrod’s foul orks had thrown at them.
But they would not survive the march of the Gargants.
Two
The Cassar, Zona Regis, New Rynn City
Within the void shielded walls of the Silver Citadel, the Cassar, last fortress stronghold of the Crimson Fists, stood so far unmarked by the ravages of war. Atop its roofs and towers, great gun batteries stood, whirring smoothly on their cogged mounts as they tracked left and right, scanning the sky for aerial threats. Below them, on a broad balcony facing south, Pedro Kantor stood looking out at the haze-shrouded horizon. Black smoke billowed into the air from a score of sites in ork-held land. Noxious green and brown fumes poured upwards from towering cylindrical stacks. Far out, beyond the reach of the Imperial guns and missile batteries, greenskin transports and aerial war machines buzzed and rumbled, always audible, even this far away.
Alessio Cortez grumbled something from Kantor’s left where he, too, stood surveying the horizon in the light of the morning.
‘Again, brother,’ said Kantor. ‘I’m afraid I was not paying attention.’
‘I said they’ve even turned the blasted air against us.’
Kantor nodded. Among his reports, he had seen those of the medicae. Allergic reactions, breathing disorders, cancers, deaths by airborne toxins, all had increased since the end of winter. This had once been such a beautiful world, so green and fertile, so rich and diverse in its animal and plant life.
The orks had raped it. They had poisoned and burned and scarred its face. Even if, by some miracle, the xenos were at last fully purged, the likelihood that Rynn’s World could ever be restored to its former glory was a thing beyond even his ability to hope for.
The planet’s scars, like the battle scars on his own body, would always remain.
‘The next session of the Upper Rynnhouse will begin in an hour,’ said Cortez. ‘Have you thought about what you will tell them?’
‘I have considered your proposal, Alessio, but I’ll not send the last of my Crimson Fists out to die. As I grow weary of telling you, the Chapter must endure, no matter what. I will not be remembered as the last master of the Crimson Fists. Our order must survive this.’
Cortez snorted derisively. ‘Nothing will survive the Gargants, and we both know it. They’ll march soon. Once the last few districts fall, they’ll turn their guns on the Silver Citadel and, when the void shields finally fail, we will be cornered and killed.’ He raised a hand. ‘Please, Pedro. I know you think aid is coming, but how long are we to sit and wait? Grant me the fight I want, for the sake of all we’ve been through together.’
Kantor looked away to the east, but the haze was thick today. He could see the river where it flowed towards the waters of the Medean, but he could not see the ocean itself.
‘You ask to overturn the Ceres Protocol so you can lead a suicide charge,’ he said, his voice low and angry. ‘You ask me to throw away my best fighters for the sake of a moment’s glory. Did you hit your head, Alessio?’
Cortez scowled and stepped forward, gripping the stonework lip of the balcony wall. ‘Do you know how many of our brothers have expressed to me their support for a last glorious charge?’ he asked.
Kantor nodded. ‘Almost half,’ he said. ‘And they are wrong, all of them. There is more to consider here than an honourable death.’
Cortez spun, his eyes blazing. ‘We are Crimson Fists! Honour is everything!’
Kantor met his friend’s harsh stare with his own.
Fire and ice, he thought. We were always so different. Fire and ice.
‘I tell you our honour is served best in protecting the people. Would you have history remember us as the Chapter that left them to die?’
‘They will die anyway,’ hissed Cortez.
Kantor flashed forward. As fast as Cortez was, the speed of the Chapter Master surprised him, and he found himself gripped tight by his upper arms.
For a moment, they stood that way, frozen, the tension crackling like static electricity between them. Kantor’s eyes held the fury of a winter blizzard, but no words came from his lips. He could not deny that his hope was fading fast. He knew only too well what the first steps of the Gargants would mean, and he knew it would start the moment the metal leviathans were complete. Snagrod would not wait. He had waited long enough for this. Perhaps he was even bored, already hungering for fresh battles on new worlds.
Perhaps he had only stayed this long at all because the Crimson Fists fought on, refusing to die.
At last, Kantor released his grip. Sorrow stole over his face. ‘Such a wedge between us, Alessio,’ he said. �
�In all our centuries, we never fought quite like this. What happened, I wonder?’
Hearing these words, Cortez’s fury cooled fast, like a glowing, fresh-forged blade suddenly thrust into cold water. ‘You are the Chapter Master,’ he replied. ‘Before the coming of the orks, we had not served together on the field of battle since I took command of Fourth Company. You gave me that honour, Pedro, and the latitude I needed to execute your will in your absence. The battles I won for you were fought my way. And I never lost. Now, I want Snagrod’s head… my way. I want vengeance for all the Fists he has killed. If it costs me my own life, it is a small price to pay for the honour of our dead. Every brother who wishes to go with me has asked the same question of himself, and has found the same answer in his heart. His life for vengeance. We await only your blessing. Let us all go out as warriors should. Lead us out yourself. The future be damned!’
Kantor’s features darkened again. He turned to go from the balcony.
Cortez gripped him by the right vambrace, stopping him momentarily.
Kantor looked down at his old friend’s hand, then slowly turned his eyes upwards with a warning glare.
Cortez released his grip.
‘I am the Chapter,’ said Kantor coldly as he turned away again. ‘The honour of the Crimson Fists is served only by serving me.’
He passed beyond the balcony’s arched doors and into the shadowy chamber beyond. At the back of his mind was the urge to pray for guidance in the Reclusiam before the session of the Upper Rynnhouse began. And there was something else he wanted to pray for, too.
The very thought of Alessio Cortez’s death chilled him far deeper than the thought of his own. Cortez the Immortal, the Chapter’s greatest living legend. Without him, how could there be hope for any of them?
As the Chapter Master’s footsteps echoed along the torch-lit stone corridor ahead of him, he looked back on his life, and saw it defined, not by his status or martial achievements, but by the centuries-long bond of brotherhood with the Fourth Company captain. Ever since the fall of Arx Tyrannus, that bond was the rock he had clung hardest to, the only certainty he had in this never-ending storm of death and loss, and the breaking of that bond was something he knew his hearts would not be able to bear.
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 93