‘Commander Sonne has ordered me to escort you from the wall, sire.’
Rancourt looked genuinely nonplussed. ‘But who will inspire the men?’
‘He assures me they are well steeled already, sire.’
‘Yes, of course…’ His gaze drifted to the southern gate. ‘The Crastia Shipyards,’ he said. ‘They are a short march in that direction. With the cessation of bombardment, an evacuation might be possible.’
‘Commander Sonne has ordered that no one is to leave the safety of the city.’ Rancourt returned his gaze to Kador. His expression was distinctly conspiratorial.
‘A small mission from the city gates would likely go unnoticed.’
The sergeant’s face was like stone. ‘What are you suggesting, sire?’
‘Nothing. Only that an enterprising officer might be well rewarded should he deliver an Imperial official from certain peril.’
Kador leaned in close, just to be sure there was no misunderstanding. The relish in the lord governor’s eyes made him want to clench his fists. ‘No one leaves the city. No. One. These are my orders, sire. The Crastia Shipyards have been taken. Even if there were a vessel capable of taking us to orbit, the area is likely to be swarming with the enemy. Necrons employ hidden snares. They have troops able to bore through earth. There’s no telling what hazards we would encounter.’
The lord governor looked as if he might argue but Kador’s glare placated him.
‘Yes, of course. I was merely speaking hypothetically.’
‘Hypothetically, sire, indeed.’ Kador stepped aside, indicating the lord governor should make for the battlement stairs.
‘You are a dutiful servant, sergeant,’ he said as he passed.
‘Thank you, sire.’ Kador watched him go. Perhaps Governor Rancourt was right, perhaps the ceiling would fall on his head. He could but hope.
Chapter Seventeen
A low rumble ran through the earth below the newly christened Courtyard of Xiphos. Iulus felt it through his armoured boots, his greaved legs. In his core, he knew the necrons had found some fresh way to attack Kellenport.
He expected to see lumbering war machines, bipedal walkers, arachnid constructs or a host of other mechanical horrors pounding towards the walls. But no emerald beams scorched through the snow-fog that had rolled down off the mountains and swathed the world in dirty white. There were no ranks of blinking, soulless orbs as the phalanxes marched on the city. Even the necron communication-nodes were silent. It was something else.
Iulus scanned the third wall, the one that was mined with as much explosive as he could spare. The rumble beneath his feet grew deeper and heavier. Some of the men had to steady themselves on the battlements to stop from falling.
‘Battle positions,’ he bellowed. The order was relayed through the other Immortals. The entire defensive line, including the troops in the courtyards, tensed.
A Space Marine can exist in a state of heightened battle-tension for hours, even days. Their enhanced physiologies are genetically engineered to cope with even the most arduous mental extremes. For a human it is unbearable. Like a sinew pulled taut across a muscle it can only be strained for so long. Over-tense it and it will snap.
Still the tremors persisted.
The men looked fit to break.
Despite the absence of a vox-caster, Iulus’s voice reverberated around the wall. ‘Hold positions!’
Again, he searched the third wall. The proximity triggers were rigged throughout the ruins. There was no way the necrons could have bypassed them all. He searched the killing-field on which their guns were aimed and primed, despite the fact he knew no enemy could set foot there without first coming through the third wall. Where was the fire? Where were the explosions and the shrapnel storm he had laid for them? Come on, come on… We shall unleash death upon you.
‘Where are they?’ hissed Kolpeck, the normally stoic conscript showing signs he was on edge.
Iulus silenced him. ‘They are close. Be ready, brother.’
He’d said it without thinking, by rote. Iulus didn’t take it back. He could see instantly the effect it had on Kolpeck’s resolve. He was emboldened. In another life he would have made a fine Space Marine, Iulus was sure.
‘I am at your side, brother-Angel.’
‘And I yours,’ Iulus muttered. Breaking up his squad had felt unnatural at first. Iulus would still have preferred his brothers by his side but Kolpeck was a good soldier and a fine companion. He had never really thought much of humans before. This enemy they faced was enough to push an Ultramarine’s resolve and strength to the limit and yet here these men stood, in defence of their homes, defiant to the last. Yes, Iulus was proud to stand with them and learn an important lesson about the depth of the human spirit.
Small motes of debris were shaking loose from the defences now. The Ark Guard in the gun nests had to hold onto their pintle-mounts and tripods to prevent them moving and fouling their aim. Several troopers knelt, leaning against the wall for stability. Some prayed, making the sign of the aquila. Others locked arms with their comrades for mutual support.
‘Like ice in your veins,’ Iulus said to them, his abyssal voice carrying on the wind. ‘Your spine and will as steel.’
A conscript with a rocket tube gestured into the whiteout fearfully. ‘What if we cannot see them? What if they are already upon us?’
Iulus growled at him. ‘Get hold of your fear, seize it and lock it fast. I will see them coming.’
Except he couldn’t see them. Iulus saw no more than the frightened conscripts on the wall. How quickly a man’s insane courage could corrode in the face of inaction when confronted with the unknown. There were no horrors in the universe that could compare to what a man harboured in his own mind. It was a place where daemons and monsters reigned, where blades and guns were no protection. And it was here that a Space Marine was armoured the most.
But still, the humans held.
A cry echoed across the battlements. It was followed by the crack of splitting stone as part of the wall collapsed. Huge plumes of dust, grit and snow spewed up into the air like a frozen geyser just under fifty metres from Iulus’s position. Men and materiel were swallowed in the cloud, their screams dampened by the crash of sundered stone.
In the other direction, another section of the wall fell, broken in two as if its foundations had rotted through or succumbed to rapid erosion.
Uncertain where best to turn first, Iulus reached for the vox. He was scanning the dust cloud for some clue of a necron attack, when Kolpeck left his position and raced for the ladder to the lower level.
Iulus shouted, ‘Trooper, stand and fight!’ He had no time to go after him. Something was happening to the wall but he was still ignorant of the cause. He eyed the third wall again, but the mines and explosives were intact. He heard no las-fire, no bolter bursts. Kolpeck had fled, climbed down the ladder and was racing down the stairs to the Courtyard of Xiphos.
So much for human courage, Iulus thought bitterly. Perhaps the war had broken the man. Cracks were usually hard to see until it was too late to shore them up.
At least the rest of the One Hundred were holding firm. He’d glared at them all when Kolpeck had run, defying them to move with sheer force of will. None did.
Putting the thought aside as he would a spent clip or blunted gladius, Iulus barked down the vox. ‘Aristaeus.’
He was the closest Ultramarine to the site of the second collapse. Iulus himself was in command of the wall section where the first collapse had taken place.
Aristaeus’s reply was riddled with static, the dust and grit muddying the signal even at close range. ‘Nothing, brother-sergeant. I see…’ The vox-return crackled.
‘Repeat. I cannot make you out, brother.’
‘A hole, brother-sergeant. There is a vast hole opened up in the wall right down into the earth.’
Iulus heard screaming over the vox-return and could imagine the fates of those on the section when it collapsed. Aristaeus co
ntinued.
‘I can see into its depths. There is…’
There was a pause as Aristaeus consulted his autosenses and cycled through his retinal spectra.
Iulus’s patience was threadbare. They were under attack but he still had no idea by what or from where the next assault would come. ‘Speak, brother. What do you see?’
‘Darkness, only darkness.’
Crouched at the battlements, one eye on the dissipating dust cloud ahead of him, Iulus frowned. ‘Is your retinal display malfunctioning? Tell me what you see through infra-red and night vision.’
‘Nothing, brother-sergeant. It’s just black, like oily cloud. Visual filters have no effect.’
‘That can’t be good,’ said Kolpeck. The grizzled rig-hand was out of breath and clutching a strange device in one hand. He’d obviously gone to retrieve it after the attack. It was based on a long metal spike with some kind of data-slate at the top. Iulus had never seen one before but its design suggested some kind of seismological mining tool.
‘A soldier does not desert his post, Trooper Kolpeck.’ His voice was stern but now was not the time for a long reprimand. He wanted to know what Kolpeck had found.
‘I’m sorry, brother-Angel, but I was acting on a hunch,’ he replied with a little less contrition than Iulus had expected. ‘I told you, I am a miner not a soldier.’ He brandished the seismological device. The data-screen was grubby with dirt and hoarfrost but a series of undulating lines were visible along three horizontal axis. ‘They are beneath us.’
The three lines were depth markers. The last, therefore the deepest, was jagged with activity. Iulus saw what the necrons were doing. Undermining was a common siege tactic, well-used and perfected over millennia of war. Here the necrons had added a fresh element – they were using the darkness as a way to conceal themselves.
Iulus seized the vox, nearly crushing it in his gauntlet as urgency overtook him. ‘Aristaeus, burn it! Burn the hole. The mechanoids have tunnelled underneath us!
‘Pour everything you’ve got into that bore hole,’ he shouted, running the battlements in long, metre-eating strides. ‘Turn the cannon emplacements, fill it with hell and frag!’
Iulus got halfway to the site of the first collapse when the ground beneath him gave way and he was falling. Another bore hole had opened up in his path. Several of the One Hundred plunged to their deaths, unable to move in time. It was a dishonourable end for such brave men. Iulus reached out, his survival instinct impelling him to grab a chunk of rock jutting from the broken rampart.
He stared down into the abyss below and saw the darkness there that Aristaeus had described. Unhooking his weapon, he could almost sense the presence of alien minds regarding him and fired.
The bolt pistol scream resonated inside the bore hole, magnified as it rebounded off its sides. With the darkness cloaking the advancing scarabs, Iulus didn’t realise he couldn’t miss. As soon as the first creature was hit, the illusion faded and the blackness receded to reveal a chittering host of the things. They scurried up the walls, which were ridged with the burrowing action of whatever monster or device had hewn them, in a swarm. Their eyes glinted like tiny emeralds in the natural shadows of the circular cavern, mandibles champing.
When Iulus’s bolt fire struck them, a stream of the scarabs exploded, leaving burning contrails in their wake as they fell. He panned the pistol around, finger tight on the trigger, and left a muzzle scar across the open air. Still holding on one-handed to the piece of broken rampart, Iulus gave a wordless cry.
He could not kill them all. Even with the las-fire flashing down from above, the scarabs would soon breach the surface. He estimated there were hundreds of the things and for every one he destroyed, another four replaced it. His ammunition counter was burning to zero when Iulus noticed a large mound ripple through the undulating mass. Down to his last rounds, he switched targets and fired a close burst into the mound. The scarabs outside it were blasted apart like a piece of ablative armour revealing a much larger construct beneath. It moved slower than the others but its carapace was thick and absorbed the impact of the explosive bolt shells without pause. Iulus was debating whether to draw his chainsword and drop into the bore hole to kill the monster personally when it swung a gauss-blaster arm in his direction and fired.
The beam cut into the Ultramarine’s battle plate and he cried out. Armour shed like snake skin as the flaying effect of necron technology went to work and Iulus’s greave was reduced to half-corroded mesh.
The pain was so severe he dropped his pistol. For a moment his grip wavered. Several more of the larger mounds were moving through the scarab swarm, which had almost reached him. Dangling off the edge of the precipice, Iulus realised it would mean his death to fall now. Eternal night reigned in the depths of those bore holes, as cold and unnatural as the creatures emerging from it.
A hand clasped around his wrist. Then another and another. Iulus looked up to see Kolpeck’s straining face above him.
‘Heave!’ he yelled to the other conscripts – all from the One Hundred – who were trying to rescue their captain.
‘At your side, brother-Angel,’ Kolpeck said again through gritted teeth.
It took the combined efforts of four men to lift the Ultramarine even a small amount. They were all rig-hands, all strong men used to back-breaking labour in the Imperial mines beneath the Damnos ice, but none had ever worked so hard to lift something such a short distance.
It was enough for Iulus to swing his free arm around and grip the battlements with both hands. He pulled himself up as another gauss-blast speared the rock where he’d been hanging a moment earlier. The conscripts fell back as he emerged back over the top.
‘Back! Fall back!’
Iulus turned towards the bore hole even as the conscripts started to retreat. He unclamped a pair of frag grenades from his belt just as the first wave of scarabs was spilling over the edge of the wall. Ignoring the smaller creatures, he tossed the explosives over the shiny bodies. A low boom came from beyond and below. The mechanoid spyder did not emerge and Iulus thanked the Emperor that his grenades had done their work.
He contemplated staying and trying to hold off the scarab swarm coming at him – he had already drawn his chainsword – but decided to fall back with the others.
Kolpeck was just behind him, waiting for his captain.
‘We need to get off the wall,’ he said, bringing his lasgun to bear on the smaller mechanoids.
Iulus pushed the barrel down. ‘Then do it. Marshal the One Hundred. Every man is to head for the Courtyard of Xiphos. We’ll stand a better chance of holding them there.’
Kolpeck nodded and ran. He was already shouting orders at the men, ushering them downwards, organising them into groups.
Unclamping his last pair of grenades, Iulus tossed them towards the scarab swarm and jumped from the wall.
The explosion blossomed behind him, kicking up debris and broken scarabs as the Ultramarine landed hard on the Courtyard of Xiphos. From there he could see the wall was breached in no fewer than six areas, each sunken by a bore hole and now swarming with scarabs. Gauss-fire cracked from the spyders, stripping men to bone and ash.
‘Heavy weapons, target the larger mechanoids. Bring them down!’
From across the courtyard, rocket tubes and heavy stubbers hammered into the spyders. They were tough and took a lot of killing, but they were falling. So too were the Ark Guard. A mass retreat was in effect. Even done in good order, the humans were still pressed on all sides. The walls were empty, apart from the dead. Several squads had been overwhelmed completely in the first few seconds of the breach, swallowed beneath the necron wave. Even their bodies were no longer there, the scarabs had stripped them from existence.
The first wall was behind him, and Iulus knew they would need to fall back to here if they had any chance of surviving, let alone repelling, the attack. A massive bore hole opened in the Courtyard of Xiphos, splitting flagstones and toppling shattered monuments. Men
went with it, whole swathes of Ark Guard lost with a tortured scream. Iulus thought he saw something gargantuan surface from the depths. It looked segmented, almost centipedal, but was quickly swallowed by the unnatural darkness. Scarabs and spyders spilled forth in its wake.
‘Incendiaries into the bore holes,’ Iulus bellowed, pointing to the fresh attack point. ‘Burn it down. Cleanse their route of assault.’
He saw Aristaeus, a rack of three promethium flamer tanks rattling on his back. He reached the circular crevice in the courtyard and threw the tanks in. Bringing up his boltgun in the same motion, he fired off a single round and a jet of liquid flame as thick as the pillars of Hera’s Temple shot up from the bore hole.
The blast wave took Aristaeus off his feet but he was quick to recover and head for his sergeant. The other Immortals were doing the same, marshalling their troops with them, converging on Iulus as they sought to consolidate their forces.
Slowly, the squads came together. Stragglers were picked off easily by the scarab swarm but a concentrated wall of fire was ripping steadily from the Ark Guard now. At the orders of their Space Marine captains, they formed firing ranks and bathed the courtyard in hot las.
‘Brother-sergeant.’ Aristaeus reached Iulus’s side and held out his sidearm. ‘You seem to be without the Emperor’s wrath.’
Iulus punched his chest, the air filling with las-beams around him. ‘Here is where I keep it, brother,’ he said, but then smiled as he took the bolt pistol.
More Ark Guard joined the others massing outside the gates to the first wall – even the troops on the battlements had opened up with their weapons – and the rate of fire intensified. The scarabs and their larger, monstrous cousins had seemed infinite at first but now they were withering. None of them could penetrate the slowly retreating Imperial cordon. Even the spyders were pinioned by lascannon beams from the first wall battlements. But the necrons were tenacious and fed even greater numbers into the meatgrinder. Like a river of mercury swollen at its banks, they began to lap at the sides of the Imperial defences.
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 122