Their banner with its now meaningless honours was the last trace of the Caducades Battalion to disappear, consumed by the corrosive mass of the men and women who had once fought so bravely beneath it.
‘Get those Leman Russ over here and clear the staging area,’ Grand Master Gabriel called out. ‘You there. Have your men fill the breech. Don’t let the enemy retake the beachhead or we’ll never get the rest of our forces through.’
The Mordian major being addressed by the Deathwing stood rooted to the spot, the shock of seeing half his men turned to mush in the same attack that wiped out the Caducades Battalion still sinking in. The trio of Leman Russ showed no such hesitation, firing their engines and rolling towards the sticky remains of the Guardsmen the daemon had wiped out. Their dozer blades already pitted from the four previous occasions they had been called upon to carry out this grisly task. The three tanks pushed the bubbling goo to one side ready for the Mordians to step in and hold the line.
‘Did your ears melt in the attack, major, or are you intentionally disobeying an order from the Grand Master of the Deathwing?’
Despite four days of constant fighting there was no harshness to Balthasar’s tone. It wasn’t needed. The sight of the ivory-clad Terminator looming over him was enough to scare the Mordian back into lucidity, and within moments blue uniforms filled the void left by grey and brown.
Their reaction came just in time. Sensing an opportunity to stem the flow of Imperial Guard, a phalanx of plague-riddled beasts charged the staging area, tearing and hurling any defenders that got in their way. Balthasar, Gabriel and the rest of the Deathwing squad assigned to secure the cave entrance were the first to react, storm bolters blazing in a withering hail of fire. The front ranks succumbed to the onslaught, but their kindred behind them simply bounded over the bodies and drove onwards. The Leman Russes joined the attack, their turrets having finally rotated into firing position and the drumming of their guns sounded out a tattoo, throwing up daemonic limbs and entrails with every beat. Emboldened, the Mordians and elements of the Cadian 4th who were flooding into the Emerald Cave opened up with their guns, picking out any of the fiends fortunate enough to avoid the guns of the Dark Angels and the tanks.
Gabriel stood firm, his storm bolter taking down enemies at range, his humming power sword carving through any that ventured into its deadly arc. His armour, already in a poor state of repair before the battle as a result of the grenade explosion, was battered and cracked. The once-pristine ivory was streaked with the red of blood, black of fire and green and brown of daemonic filth, and the vambrace of his sword arm was missing entirely, the exposed skin a mess of scars and welts where ichor from his victims had gushed down the hilt of his blade. Balthasar noticed that the Crux Terminatus the Grand Master bore on his left pauldron was cracked and hoped that it was not a poor augur of events to come. But that wasn’t all he noticed.
‘Master Gabriel!’ Balthasar called out, seeing the dark shadow moving through the press of daemons on the older Space Marine’s blindside. Scattering the weaker of its kind and panicked Guardsman alike, the hulking daemon pounded over the rocky ground at speed, building to a head before launching its bulk into the air directly at the Master of the Deathwing. At the last moment, Gabriel took two quick steps backwards, the space where the daemon had expected to connect with the Deathwing now occupied by the glowing blue metal of a power sword. The ultra-sharp blade caught the monster square in the gut, momentum passing him through the blade as opposed to vice versa. Without altering the angle of his gun, Gabriel continued to fire as the bisected parts of the daemon passed through its arc, gobbets of rancid matter gouging from its flesh with the impact of every bolt shell. The two separated halves of the beast hit the floor with a wet thud, the unnatural liquids no longer contained within its form leaving a blood-like smear in its wake. They had not yet come to a stop when Brother Barachiel stepped up with his heavy flamer and doused the remains in cleansing fire.
‘I think that most definitely squares us now,’ Gabriel voxed over a closed channel to Balthasar.
The other Deathwing did not have time to formulate a response. Through the channel created by the forerunner, more of the gargantuan daemons surged forwards, each closer in size to a Dreadnought than the Terminators they bore down on. Storm bolters were mag-locked to armour as power swords and maces were drawn to be wielded two-handed against the rotting hulks.
The first crashed into the Imperial line, Balthasar and Gabriel simultaneously swiping low with their blades and taking the legs from beneath it. It lurched to the ground with a thud to be instantly set upon by Cadians and Mordians who shot it at close range with their rifles or ripped it open with bayonets.
Not all of the defenders were as successful. Further along the line, Brother Casatiel, a veteran Deathwing Knight of more than two centuries’ service, found himself isolated by two of the monstrosities. Valiantly swinging his Mace of Absolution, the robed Terminator stove in the skull of one of them, felling it like so much dead timber, but the other slapped aside the weapon as Casatiel attempted to connect with the backswing. Its other massive arm drove over its head in a windmill motion and smashed against the Dark Angel’s head, knocking it back to an unnatural angle with the sickening crunch. The veteran was dead before the daemon’s other arm swung back and punched him forcefully from his feet.
Witnessing the demise of the Space Marine, the Catachan crews of the Leman Russ – now abandoned, as deadly to ally as enemy at such close quarters – fearlessly rushed his killer, their dulled blades tip down in their fists. A dozen figures in jungle camouflage assaulted the towering beast as if it were a wall to be scaled like their first day in basic training. Using their knives to gain purchase, they clambered over it, spilling its brackish vitae with every motion of their blades. By the time they had brought it to its knees and Barachiel had bathed it in flame to finish it off, fully half of their number lay dead or dying.
Casualties were heavy but the line held and the staging area remained clear. Brother Golathiel, a Deathwing Knight so large in stature that the Apothecaries speculated he might be a genetic throwback to the days of the Great Crusade, rallied the Mordians at the brunt of the fighting, going so far as to assume direct command when their major fell to one of the massive beasts. Bereft of his mace, the enormous Space Marine took one of the daemons down barehanded, pummelling it to a pulp under a rain of mighty blows, while the Mordians saw off another through the combined efforts of a hundred men, some of whom survived the encounter.
Dardariel and Mendrion butchered another two between them. Squadmates since their days in Tenth Company, the innate understanding they shared made them a formidable force on the battlefield, so much so that it had not escaped the eye of Master Ezekiel or the brothers of the Reclusiam who had ascended them to the Deathwing as soon as openings became available.
Narcariel. Thaddiel. Paderion. Yimguel. All of the Deathwing handpicked by Gabriel to defend the staging area covered themselves in glory, just as they covered themselves in the rank filth of the enemy. Ten of the brutes fell to the Space Marines and their human allies, putting the smaller daemons to rout, but this was merely a skirmish, one of thousands that formed the Battle for the Emerald Cave, and that was not yet won. For every daemon slain at the hands of the reconquest force, the thing that should not be at the heart of the chamber spawned two more in its place.
Balthasar was mopping up stragglers alongside Barachiel when the vox in his helmet crackled to life with the voice of Supreme Grand Master Azrael.
‘Deathwing. To me,’ he said. His tone was as inspiring as it had been when he had given his speech before the start of the battle. ‘This ends now.’
The heat inside Traitor’s Bane was so oppressive that Tzula regretted ever requisitioning a new bodyglove and pined instead for the Catachan fatigues and vest she had worn before the reconquest force arrived.
With so many daemons packed so tightly into the Emerald Cave, Strike had assigned a Hellhound to pro
tect each of the super-heavies from boarders. Tindalos ran alongside the Hellhammer, bathing its hull with fire every few minutes to burn away the conglomeration of fiends climbing over its armour, allowing Traitor’s Bane to concentrate on mowing down the enemy beneath its tracks and obliterating them with its fearsome arsenal.
So far the tactic had worked for Strike, but some of the other tanks under his command had not fared so well. Four Stormswords were lost on the first day of the battle through friendly fire incidents, stray shots from the larger tank taking out their escorts’ promethium reserves, allowing the daemons unhindered progress through their thick hulls, and the same number of Baneblades – including Brigstone’s – had suffered similar fates since.
Fortunately for the affable tank commander, Traitor’s Bane had been operating nearby when his own vehicle’s end came and he now sat at the controls of his commanding officer’s tank, manipulating the ancient controls as easily as if he had been fused with the machine like a Titan princeps. At Brigstone’s feet, K’Cee slept with his head on a pile of scrunched-up tunics, the three days he had spent at the controls having taken thier physical toll on the xenos. Nearby, other crewmen rested now that the operators of the destroyed Baneblade had relieved them. Neither the sound of the jokaero’s snoring nor the battle raging outside barred them from the welcome embrace of slumber.
Strike, his thick beard drenched with sweat, peered out through the slit in the turret.
‘Are we winning?’ Tzula asked from her position at one of the sponson guns. She had felt much like a spare part for most of the action and had been happy to relieve a gunner when the opportunity arose.
‘Winning. Losing. Drawing. It depends where you look and how you look at it.’ The colonel sounded uncharacteristically philosophical, which Tzula put down to exhaustion. Even the great Colonel ‘Death’ Strike needed rest once in a while and when the rest of the crew awoke, she was going to pull rank and place Brigstone in temporary charge of Traitor’s Bane while Strike got some well-earned sleep. Well, she would try at least.
‘We’re keeping the foot soldiers contained but that big bastard keeps spawning reinforcements as fast as we kill them,’ he continued. ‘Unless we take it down, we’re only delaying the inevitable.’
‘The Grey Knights will deal with it,’ she replied, squeezing the firing controls and wiping out a pack of daemons with the lascannon. ‘They did it before, thousands of years ago. I have every faith they can do it again.’
‘The Grey Knights can’t get close enough to it. If you think we’re having a hard time with these monsters, they have it ten times worse. The things are singling them out. Targeting them. They know the threat they pose to their master and are dealing with it.’
Tzula looked out through her own viewslit and made out the silvered forms of a squad of Purifiers, harried by four times their number of daemons, some winged and striking at them from the air. Tzula readjusted her aim and took one of the winged horrors down, followed by another, then another. She couldn’t risk targeting the daemons on the ground in case she hit the Grey Knights, but at least she had helped make the odds a little fairer.
‘So what do you suggest we do?’ she asked. Both Azrael and Draigo would be prepared to hear Strike out if he had an alternative plan and Tzula would lend her Inquisitorial authority if it was required to help change minds.
Strike jumped down from the turret. ‘What if we had a weapon that could kill it? What if we’d had that weapon all along?’
Tzula stopped firing and turned to face him. ‘You mean the athame? The knife?’
‘Why not? If what you’ve told me about it is accurate, then it’s more than powerful enough to cope with that thing. Tear a portal and send it through.’
‘But it could end up anywhere. We might end up trading one war zone for another. Or worse.’
‘Then stab the bastard with it.’
‘If the Grey Knights can’t get anywhere near it, what makes you think we can?’
Strike never got to answer.
‘Chief. The vox-light’s flashing. Somebody’s trying to raise us,’ Brigstone said, keeping both hands on the controls but motioning at a console with his head.
Strike turned away from Tzula and lifted the handset. ‘Traitor’s Bane. Go ahead.’
‘Colonel Strike,’ Lord Azrael said over the weak, crackling link. ‘I have need of you. We’re going after the daemon.’
157961.M41 / The Mouth of the Underhive. Atika, Pythos
Lieutenant Rann Oberwald sipped from his mug of recaff as he stood listening to the rain pounding against the tarp over his head. Pythos’s dry season had given way to monsoon season with a vengeance, and even after weeks of constant downpour the sky still had plenty left in reserve.
As part of the Eighth Cadian Recon Regiment, Oberwald had served on three different worlds now – including his own – but he had never experienced rain like this. It didn’t fall as drops but instead in sheets, walls of water cascading from above. It was warm too and despite breaking the oppressive Pythosian humidity, it did nothing to diminish the heat. The one upside to the inclement weather that the lieutenant had found was that men who had spent months fighting on the planet without bathing could now shower at will, much to the relief of all.
Alongside him, two other officers drank from identical Munitorum issue tin cups speculating about the battle taking place many kilometres beneath their feet. All Imperial Guard forces on the planet and in orbit had been called upon for the assault on the Emerald Cave, but Colonel Strike had the prudence to leave a sizable force topside. With only one way in or out of the underhive, the Catachan hadn’t wanted to risk reinforcements sweeping down to surprise them from the rear or, just as deadly, collapsing the tunnel entrance.
The two Cadian recon regiments deployed to Pythos were both the most lightly armed and armoured troops on the planet, and while that had been a boon during the jungle campaign, they were not well suited for the close confines fighting of the underground portion of the war. Lots had been drawn to determine whether it would be the Eighth or Third recon regiment that would defend the mouth of the underhive, with the loser scattering their forces to outlying delver-strongholds to allow Guardsmen better suited to up close subterranean fighting to join the assault. Oberwald was glad it had been the Eighth that had prevailed. Though most of the enemy forces were engaged down below, contact had been lost with many of the surrounding mines and the garbled snatches of vox-traffic the Eighth had been able to pick up gave the impression that the Third had literally and figuratively drawn the short straw.
Oberwald was about to join in the conversation when a new sound became evident in amongst the drumming and splashing of the fat raindrops. Through the falling torrent, he could make out pinpricks of light in the distance. He reached back into the Salamander Scout vehicle to which the makeshift rain shelter was attached and retrieved his magnoculars, setting them to his eyes and adjusting the magnification.
Tanks. No, not tanks, Oberwald realised as the image sharpened, armoured personnel carriers but not like the Chimera variant he rode into battle. These were Space Marine pattern vehicles – Rhinos and Land Raiders. This confused him briefly. The Dark Angels and Grey Knights were fighting in the underhive, so who did these belong to?
He sharpened the magnification and got his answer.
Dropping the magnoculars which smashed on impact with the rocky ground, Oberwald ran out through the rain, skidding and falling in his desperation to reach a vox-operator and issue a warning before it was too late.
157961.M41 / Vortras Hold. Twenty-nine kilometres north of Atika, Pythos
Shira brought the shuttle around in an arc maintaining the holding pattern she was flying in an effort to find a landing zone. Vortras Hold was perched at the peak of a high mountain, all of its approaches sheer boulder-strewn slopes that made it impossible for any land vehicle to traverse or flyer to put down. Ideally, she would have landed the craft directly in the cave mouth that formed the mine e
ntrance but, like so many others she had seen recently, it was billowing thick black smoke from fires lit in its depths. Considering how difficult it was to get to Vortras Hold, especially in light of the torrential downpour, somebody had gone to a lot of effort to destroy it.
‘There’s nowhere to put down,’ Shira said, taking her hands from the controls for a moment to shrug her shoulders. ‘I could try to land lower down the slopes and let you climb up but we both know you won’t find any survivors. The auspex isn’t returning any signs of life and if this was the work of the Black Legion, they hardly have a reputation for leaving anybody alive.’
Epimetheus considered this briefly. ‘One more pass but lower this time. The smoke is so thick that it may have obscured a landing site. Use the engines to disperse it.’
Shira shrugged again and prepared to do as he asked. A burst of static from the vox followed by a distorted, frantic voice halted her.
‘This is Lieutenant Oberwald of the Eighth Cadian Recon to all Imperial forces. The entrance to the underhive is under attack. I repeat, the entrance to the underhive is under attack. Black Legion.’ A pause, the hiss of interference. ‘Oh, sweet Emperor no! He is with them. Abaddon is here. Send help, Throne damn you. We’re being massac–’ There was a drawn-out scream followed by the hollow fizz of a dead channel.
Shira turned to Epimetheus. She knew how reluctant the Grey Knight was to link up with the Space Marine forces on Pythos, yet here was a distress call that would lead them to the same battlefront.
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