Throne, he even sounded like Muhrne. Maybe his spirit was alive and well, and fighting the battle through him. Falka hoped so.
He’d found a pair of magnoculars clutched in the cauterised limb of some dead officer. The rest of the soldier’s body was gone, presumably atomised by the enemy gauss-flayers. The battling Ultramarines weren’t far, but the scopes allowed Falka to get a good look without needing to be up close and personal. With the Emperor’s Angels in their midst, the necrons had stopped shooting at the Ark Guard. Falka wanted to keep it that way… at least for a while.
Through the scope’s infra-red – conventional vision was largely useless for detailed observation in the snow-fog – he saw the Space Marines had committed to close assault against a wedge of necron warriors. Even the Angels looked diminutive compared to these hulks, but they had some kind of towering war machine to even the odds. Falka caught only glimpses of the gargantuan machine, swinging fists and shredding necrons with its fearsome cannon at close range.
The other Ultramarines were not faring so well, ill-suited to hand-to-hand combat against such heavily-armoured opponents. They fought valiantly, though, and Falka felt a swell of courage fill his breast. Lowering the scopes, he eyed the open ground between the barricades and the melee. Narrowing his vision, he reckoned on thirty metres. He let his lasgun sag on the strap around his shoulder – it was almost out, anyway – and hefted his ice-pick.
Damnosian permafrost was hard. It didn’t break easily, especially in the deep caverns beneath the surface. Falka had once seen a man swing at the ice-face and miss. Instead of burying the pick-blade in the meat of his thigh, he’d sheared his leg off completely. It was so sharp it went straight through the bone.
Across the blasted esplanade, another group kept up a constant las-barrage. Falka nodded to his vox-man. ‘Tell them to give it everything.’ Then he growled at the others crouched around him, his makeshift command squad. ‘I’m going over into that,’ he said, meaning the frenzied melee. ‘I won’t ask any of you to come with me.’
Eighteen hard-faced men, some soldiers, some conscripts, drew blades and picks grimly.
Falka smiled. ‘That’s what I hoped you’d say.’ He shouted to the gunners. ‘Keep firing but try not to shoot us.’
Then he vaulted the barricade and ran towards death.
They were in deeper than before, hunkered down in a tight defile with thick ice-shawled rocks hugging their shoulder plates. Scipio scowled as the frostbitten crags scraped his armour. He’d wanted to pare the powered suits down for better manoeuvrability, remove all but the body armour and leg greaves. Tigurius had forbidden it. The necrons were too dangerous, their technology too advanced, to go up against without full protection.
Behind Scipio a heavy clank echoed down the gorge as Largo slipped and cursed. The noise was carried away on the howling wind but his finger slipped into the trigger-guard of his bolt pistol anyway. The necron patrol below continued without pause. Whatever sensors or auspex-devices they possessed were being foiled by the weather and the altitude just like the Ultramarines scanning gear.
Scipio glanced over his shoulder. ‘You eager for a fight, brother?’
Largo held up his hand, signalling contrition.
Ortus, who was a metre behind him maintaining the rearguard, smiled thinly. He scoured the way they’d come through his bolter sight. The falling snow was settling over their tracks nicely. After a few seconds of intense and still interrogation, he nodded to Scipio.
Crawling on their stomachs, heads low against the arctic wind riming their features with tiny spines of hoarfrost, they moved on.
After the initial recon had drawn a blank, Scipio had been forced upwards. Somewhere across the sheer-sided cliffs that bent around the necron artillery like a crooked spine was a rocky canal. He was intent on finding it. The Ultramarines needed a way to bypass the defensive cordon, something the necrons had overlooked. Being isolated from the main battle group in the mountains was risky. Pressing on beyond the outer marker Tigurius had provided could even be considered reckless, but the mission demanded Scipio locate a route through which to assault the pylons and gauss-obliterators.
Ducking into a natural alcove, he raised the other squad members on the comm-feed. ‘Venetores, report.’
With Naceon’s death earlier, it left the Thunderbolts with nine. To tackle the mountain, Scipio had broken them up into combat squads of three. Unconventional as far as the Codex was concerned, but small groups would serve the Ultramarines’ purpose better.
After Black Reach, Telion had told him that the Codex was not a book of strictures, nor was it meant to be an inflexible and comprehensive tactical manual.
‘It is our primarch’s wisdom,’ he had said, ‘distilled for all of us to utilise as we see fit. Some in the Chapter are old and hidebound, but as Adeptus Astartes we must adapt. The spur that does not bend before the sudden storm will surely break, Scipio.’
So it was they reconnoitred in threes.
Cator’s voice came through the feed. ‘Thracian, this is Venetores. Nothing so far.’
It was followed swiftly by the deep timbre of Brakkius. ‘Retiarii has found something. We are fifty-three metres east of Thracian’s position.’
Scipio opened up the feed to all three combat squads. ‘Converge on Retiarii. Confirm.’
A pair of affirmation chimes sounded in the sergeant’s ear. Waiting for the last of the necron column to disappear from sight, he waved the others on.
‘One of yours?’
They were standing in a shallow valley. The snow blustered overhead but they were well shielded from the wind. A necron lay dismembered in the valley basin. Attached to each of its limbs, skull and torso was a tubular device wrapped in wire. A faint veneer of snow was building on top of the body parts, slowly obscuring it. Scipio looked down at the mechanoid as he addressed his battle-brother.
Crouched next to the corpse, Cator shook his head.
Vermillion Cator was known in the Thunderbolts as an expert at fashioning booby traps. All Space Marines possessed some level of fieldcraft that allowed them to make improvised grenades and other simple snares, but Cator was often described as gifted.
Brakkius gave the torso an experimental kick. ‘Why hasn’t it phased out yet?’
Cator answered. ‘Because it’s still alive.’
A flurry of movement saw Ortus raise his bolter into an execution position.
Scipio waved him off. ‘Easy there, Torias Telion.’
Ortus stood down, but kept his weapon ready.
Scipio looked at Cator. ‘How?’
The other Ultramarine was prodding the tubular devices with his combat blade. ‘There’s an electrical charge running through these wires, attached to a powerful battery.’ He tapped the tube itself. ‘A strong magnet is keeping it from reforming.’
‘It foiled the self-repair system?’
Cator nodded. ‘Yes, but it’s designed as a form of torture rather than being useful on a military level.’
Scipio pressed further. ‘So it can’t phase out because it’s not sustained critical damage and it can’t self-repair on account of the opposing magnetic poles keeping its components apart?’
‘Precisely,’ Cator said, getting up.
Brakkius shook his head at the meticulousness of it all. ‘Who did this?’
‘That, my brother,’ said Scipio, ‘is the real question.’ He exhaled, thinking. ‘I want a deeper spread – a hundred metres.’
Cator cleared his throat. ‘Sir, this far into enemy territory – are you sure?’
‘Someone or something else is out here with us and I want it flushed out. We can cover more ground separated.’
Showing his obedience with a salute, Cator broke away east. Brakkius went west.
Scipio’s combat squad carried on north. When they were moving out, he nodded to Ortus. A single bolt shot, baffled by the wind and the valley depth, rang out a few seconds later as the Ultramarine got his wish.
&
nbsp; Chapter Six
Aboard the Valin’s Revenge, forty-seven years after the Black Reach Campaign
It had been a long time since Scipio had visited the reclusiam. The chamber was dark, lit by guttering candles ensconced in the mouths of votive cyber-skulls. Flickering firelight seemed to animate their grisly features.
‘I have been your Chaplain for over a year and this is the first time I’ve seen you in the Emperor’s presence.’
Scipio finished his benedictions, stood and turned to face the speaker.
Elianu Trajan was standing opposite, framed by the reclusiam’s narthex. The arch was inscribed with holy rubrics and catechisms, and there was a stylised effigy of the primarch at its apex to bring it all together.
Scipio bowed. ‘Brother-Chaplain.’
‘Brother Vorolanus.’ Trajan, like Scipio, was dressed in a supplicant’s robes. His were black to match the hue of his battle plate and had a cowl in lieu of a helmet. His crozius mace hung from a hook attached to a thick leather belt and his Chaplain’s rosarius fell to his broad chest suspended from a gilded chain.
Aside from the tools of his office, Trajan did not favour ostentation. Devotion was another matter and his simple power armour was festooned with purity seals and scripture parchment, oaths of moment and votive chains.
He waited in silence, not moving.
Scipio felt suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Do you wish to ask me something, Brother-Chaplain?’
Trajan’s eyes were penetrating. Embers seemed to smoulder behind the pupils.
‘Just this – why?’
‘Why what?’
The Chaplain’s eyes hardened, and the embers became a sharp flame conveying his annoyance.
‘I am not one of your battle-brothers, nor am I a fellow sergeant. I am your Chaplain, Brother Vorolanus, and won’t tolerate games. Answer the question.’
Scipio’s mouth became a hard line. Despite the fact he’d been with the company for over a year, Scipio had not yet found an accord with Trajan. Where Orad had been quiet and reflective, Trajan was direct and exacting. He bullied faith, rather than preached it. A supreme warrior, as fiery and zealous as any Chaplain Scipio had known, but hard to like.
‘I have observed the requisite devotions…’
‘Just not in my sight. Chaplain Orad served this Chapter with distinction. His death was a tragedy, as are the deaths of all true sons of Guilliman, but I am here now and I alone minister to the purity of this company.’
Scipio’s gaze narrowed. He tried not to make a fist.
‘What are you suggesting?’
Trajan smacked him hard across the cheek, and the shock of it felled the sergeant to one knee.
‘I don’t suggest. I decree and act,’ he snapped.
Scipio found the crozius pressing on his shoulder as he went to rise.
‘Stay down,’ Trajan warned. ‘I am not finished.’
The Chaplain’s face glowered behind the shadows of his cowl. ‘Your captain and I have known each other for many long years. He speaks highly of your actions on Black Reach, as does Master Telion, so I shall assume you have yet to show me the same qualities that inspired praise in them.’
‘If I displease you, I apologise.’
Trajan rapped Scipio hard on the shoulder blade, drawing a scowl from the sergeant’s mouth and blood from his body.
‘Don’t mock or pander to me, Brother Vorolanus. You are already testing my wrath.’
Scipio’s teeth were gritted. To strike a fellow son of Guilliman was heinous if done without just cause; to strike a member of the Chaplaincy under any circumstances was unconscionable. He bowed his head, allowing the anger to subside.
Trajan continued. ‘Your disaffection has been noted, as has your absence from my ministrations. I will not tolerate it. Orad’s ways are not my ways. You will learn to value them and venerate me as your spiritual leader. Are we clear on this, Scipio?’ Trajan dug the sharp edge of the crozius into Scipio’s flesh to help make his point.
Scipio maintained his position of penitence and nodded.
Trajan nodded back. ‘Being a sergeant carries certain expectations that you will meet. Now,’ he added, lifting the crozius. It left a bloody trail. ‘I go to the battle-cages. You should work that anger out. Meet me there once you’re done here, if you wish, but regardless, let this be the last time we exchange words.’
Then he was gone, headed to the training deck.
Scipio never joined him.
‘What do you think that is?’
Ortus was pointing at something in the distance – a series of large, pyramidal silhouettes.
‘Designation: Monolith.’ Largo had the scopes and was using them to get a closer look. ‘And something else.’ He handed the magnoculars to his sergeant.
Through the elliptical lens, Scipio saw the three monoliths that Largo had identified. They were moving ponderously, levitating just above the ground on an anti-gravitic energy pulse. Slab-sided, metallic and inscribed with necron runes they looked more like mobile obelisks than battle tanks. Scipio had yet to see one in combat. Given their fearsome weapons array and eldritch crystal power matrix, glowing at the pyramid’s summit, he had no wish to. A portal of light shimmered in the front arc of each monolith, emerald like the gauss-technology and rippling as if fluidic. Even without Mechanicus indoctrination, he knew this was some form of energy gate.
The other machinery Largo had pointed out was larger and of a similar design. It was some kind of alpha-monolith. Lightning arcs crackled between it and the other lesser pyramids, suggesting it as a sort of power node.
‘Looks like a capacitor, something to focus the firepower of the other war machines.’ He gave the magnoculars back to Largo.
Ortus’s face was grim. ‘Moving away from the artillery, too.’ His jaw hardened. ‘Bound for Kellenport.’
Scipio was already on the move again. ‘It gets us no closer to breaching the defensive cordon around the heavy guns. Tigurius can relay a message once we return to camp with better news.’
The comm-feed in his ear crackled.
‘Thracian, this is Retiarii.’
‘Go ahead, Brakkius.’
He was whispering. ‘A necron static outpost. Forty-two metres north of our position.’
‘Status, brother?’
‘Hunkered down and undetected. We have eyes on six targets, raider-class construct.’
‘Swarms?’
‘Negative, sir.’
Scipio muted the link and turned to the others. They were proceeding across a narrow pass and had pressed their bodies against the cliff wall. Heavy snowfall effectively whited-out their armour, forming a natural camouflage.
‘Why would the mechanoids garrison an outpost? It makes no sense.’
Largo’s broad forehead creased with thought. ‘Unless they are defending something.’
‘But not artillery,’ said Scipio.
Largo smiled and nodded. ‘A way into the mountains.’
‘Precisely.’ He racked his bolt pistol’s slide, checking the load. Enough for a skirmish.
‘I’m tired of skulking in the ice and wind.’ He un-muted the comm-feed, telling Brakkius to observe and wait, then he raised Cator and gave him the coordinates so the Thunderbolts could converge on the outpost’s position.
Scipio gave a feral smile before they moved out. ‘Brothers, we have our opening.’
Scipio clenched his fist as he listened to Cator’s report over the comm-feed.
‘Venetores delayed. Route impassable. Doubling back.’
‘How long?’
‘Approximately twenty-two minutes, brother-sergeant.’
Shaking his head, Scipio eyed the necron garrison. Just as Brakkius had said: six raider constructs, no heavy guns, elites or swarms. Six of Second Company against the mechanoid foot soldier. Scipio didn’t want to wait any longer. The outpost could be reinforced or they might miss their assault window.
‘Ortus.’ Scipio pointed to a shallow ledge behind a
cluster of boulders.
The Ultramarines were below the outpost, hiding in the basin of an ice trench. Sharp crags further obscured their vantage point. The ledge was slightly off-centre of a narrow gorge that fed up to the necron bastion – a functional obelisk-like structure with a small chute at the summit, its sides like the petals of a partially open flower – and offered a clear line of sight for Ortus’s deadly aim. Rivulets of frozen meltwater swathed the path up to the structure. Scipio thought he saw faces beneath the ice and wondered briefly what it must be like to have human limitations, to be at the mercy of the elements. Slain by the fickle nature of your own world – it was dishonourable.
Ortus got into his firing position immediately and was already sighting his bolter as Scipio outlined the rest of the plan.
He utilised battle-sign. Retiarii would attack from the road, drawing the necrons out and into Ortus’s crosshairs. Thracian would flank, low and quick, and attack once the garrison was committed.
Telion had often extolled the virtues of ‘divide and conquer’ as a strategy. It enabled a smaller force to outmanoeuvre and outgun a larger or better defended one. Here, Scipio intended to split the necrons’ attention by first having them focus on Brakkius’s squad, then Ortus and finally his own.
Scipio reckoned on an estimated total engagement time of thirteen seconds.
He didn’t consider another of Telion’s maxims, however: ‘Always assume the enemy knows something you don’t.’
Chapter Seven
Praxor saw the Stormcaller a split second after Sicarius.
They had known one of the minor necron lords was present in the vanguard; the further the Ultramarines had forged beyond the Kellenport walls, the more that emerald lightning had cracked the sky open.
It was a harbinger, this one, and a billowing tempest preceded him.
‘Twilight falls upon Kellenport and all of Damnos,’ uttered Agrippen, his booming voice as deep as the necron thunder.
A stricken tank company, one of the Guard’s last few on Damnos, fought valiantly in the wastes but they were alone and engulfed by the eldritch storm. Searchlights mounted to their cupolas strafed the darkness, trying to lock onto targets, but this was no ordinary twilight. There was no way to penetrate it. Creatures writhed around in the lightning and the wind, at once solid and incorporeal. Praxor had fought the wraiths before and nearly been killed. What chance did human men have against such things?
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 110