Torag nodded. ‘I dreamt that an eagle circled a mountain peak and fell from the sky.’ He peered up at the spires, rising far above. ‘That’s sort of a mountain, I suppose.’ He looked at the Word Bearers and their inhuman allies and deliberately tore the shrapnel from his midsection. He brandished it like a knife. ‘Well, come on then. I don’t have all day.’
He laughed as they came for him.
And then the eagle fell and knew no more.
The Pilgrim’s Gate had fallen, and the enemy had begun to shell the cathedral-palace. Ord watched it begin from where he crouched behind a half-shattered pillar. Blood stained his face and arm, and one of his hearts had ceased its beating, but he felt no pain. Only anger.
The siege tanks had blown open the gate and mounted the steps. Thus elevated, they had begun to bombard the distant spires of the cathedral-palace. Word Bearers and mortal slaves moved among the tanks, dragging rubble into makeshift defensive positions that offended Ord with their sloppiness. They were digging in. Preparing for an attack.
He looked around. The shrine the surviving defenders had taken shelter in lay just south of the gate. It had been struck by debris, and its roof had collapsed. The tall, stained-glass windows, once depicting the triumphs of the Kabalevsky clan, had shattered, and multicoloured fragments littered the cracked floor. Pillars slumped at odd angles, and statues had toppled from their plinths, providing improvised defence-works.
The daemons were mostly gone. After breaching the defences, the great mass of them had flooded upwards, into High Town, leaving the Pilgrim’s Gate to the forces following behind. Some had remained, though, eager to claim the skulls of the survivors. These capered and shrieked out in the street, as human slaves celebrated with them.
Great bells clanged atop crude standards, and mutants with faces like squirming masses of worms, or wolfish jaws, howled in joy. They beat drums made from newly flayed flesh and cast the skulls of the dead into tottering pyramids. Some few fired at Ord’s position, doing just enough to keep the survivors pinned in their shelter.
The daemons dancing among them twitched and flickered, like hololithic images suffering interference. As the mortal celebrants spilled blood from their own gouged flesh, the daemons solidified, lapping at the offerings with greedy need – as if they were starving. Sometimes, the creatures were too greedy, and bore down an unlucky mortal, devouring them even as they shrieked in ecstatic agony.
‘What… what are they doing?’
Ord looked down. Regulator Fein crouched nearby, her helm missing, her face bruised and bloody. The enforcer’s armour was battered and stained, and she clutched her shotgun as if it were a holy relic. She stared at the daemons, her eyes wide. She was on the verge of panic, her breath coming in sharp, gasping bursts. He could smell the fear seeping from her pores. ‘I never… I never believed in them. Not really.’ She spoke in a hushed monotone.
‘Nor should you have,’ Ord said simply. In days gone by, such knowledge would have earned her death – or worse. But times had changed. The galaxy had split like an infected wound, and all manner of foulness had spilled out. Now, daemons had raged through the streets of Terra itself, and all the old certainties had been upended. He could not say whether that was a good thing or not. ‘Belief makes some evils stronger. We are lucky, in a way, that we fight them here, rather than elsewhere.’
‘What do you mean?’
He looked down at her. ‘This world was built on faith. I think maybe they are not so strong here as they might be elsewhere.’
‘They seem strong enough to me,’ she said, and he could see the fear on her face. In her eyes. But she was here. They were here. Enforcers and soldiers manned the rubble as if it were a palisade. Most of them were wounded. They had stood, and a part of him was proud of them. Proud to die with them.
‘They’re going to kill us, aren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ Ord said.
She closed her eyes, and he realised she was praying. Ord looked away, giving her as much privacy as he was able. He watched the seething riot of daemons and mortals, picking out the leaders among the latter. The ones exhorting their followers, gesticulating towards the battered defenders. Some were even singing.
Past this lunatic cacophony, Ord could see crimson siege vehicles grinding across the transitway. The Word Bearers seemed content to leave the slaughter to their slaves, both human and otherwise. And why shouldn’t they, Ord thought. There was no threat here.
His brothers were dead, save for Caln, who lay nearby, missing a leg and most of an arm. The survivors had erected makeshift defences from the rubble, but it was a poor substitute for a bulwark. Ord could smell their fear. Their shame. They’d failed, and that failure bit deep. Ord knew, because he felt it as well.
All their preparations, all their work – for nothing. The bulwarks had fallen in mere hours. The daemons had not ceased, or retreated. They had come on and on, in an untiring wave of unnatural bodies, screaming in hate. What could a warrior do against such as that? Even a warrior of the Adeptus Astartes?
‘They’re coming again, brother,’ Caln wheezed, from behind him. He lay flat, his good hand holding a boltgun steady atop a fallen statue.
Ord peered around the pillar, and saw a handful of leathery, red shapes loping through the clouds of dust that now choked the air. Celebrations finished, they had decided to make the kill. Mortals ran with them, howling frenziedly. The daemons seemed encouraged by, and encouraging of, these efforts. As if they somehow fed off the madness of the humans and mutants mingled among them.
Ord checked the ammunition counter on his helmet’s display. A few thousand rounds left for his heavy bolter, plus what he’d been able to salvage before the defences had collapsed. ‘Fein, I require assistance,’ he said.
‘You seem to be doing fine,’ she said.
‘If my rate of fire dips, we risk them overwhelming us. Bring those ammunition cases and help me hook the feeds together.’ She didn’t argue further. Instead, she slid back and called out for two others to help her open the crates and drag the heavy ammunition feeds to Ord. Swiftly, he hooked them together, looping the excess over his shoulders where it wouldn’t become tangled or jam the weapon.
After a final check to ensure that the feeds would be unimpeded, he jerked his head, indicating for Fein and the others to withdraw into the shrine. ‘Fall back. They will be at the steps in moments.’
‘And what about you?’ she demanded.
‘I have work to do.’ Ord braced his foot against the rubble and raised his heavy bolter. As soon as the targeting runes on his display flashed green, he opened fire. The roar of the weapon was loud in the shrine, and fragments of stained glass rattled across the stones at his feet. The ammunition feeds rattled against his armour as he let the barrel drift from left to right, playing across the approaching daemonic ranks.
Whatever their nature, few things could endure such a withering storm. Daemons erupted in gouts of ichor and came apart like bad dreams. Mortals fell, their bodies ripped asunder. And yet still, they came.
The ammunition counter on his helm display shrank steadily as he swept the weapon back and forth, like a reaper’s scythe. A daemon, its lanky frame covered in a score of wounds, sprang up the steps of the shrine, jaws wide, blade gleaming. He rammed the barrel of the heavy bolter into its chest and let rip, reducing it to tatters of stinking excresence.
But more of them pressed close, and mortals as well. Most were armed only with the crudest of hand weapons, but some had scavenged firearms. Las-rounds sang off the curved panes of his battleplate as he fired. The steps ran red, a waterfall of carnage. Bodies fell, piling in the broken walls. And still they came, driven to frenzied heights by the daemons that still danced on the broken street or lapped at the blood of the fallen. Only a few of the creatures were even attempting to enter the shrine. As if they were content to allow the mortals to die in their place.<
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Ord was pressed back by weight of numbers. Cultists squeezed past him and ran howling into the shrine. He heard Caln’s bolter roar, and the sound of the mortal defenders following suit. A screaming man, his face stained with a cross of blood, spat obscenities as he hacked at the seals of Ord’s leg-armour with a knife. Ord swept him off and kept firing. Two hundred rounds. One hundred fifty. One hundred. Fifty. Twenty-five.
When the heavy bolter ran dry, he swung it like a club. It was awkward, but satisfyingly heavy. Bodies pressed against him, climbing him, hacking and stabbing. Blades broke on his armour, but others pierced his seals, drawing blood. He could see nothing but hands and teeth, smell nothing but blood and–
Bolt pistols. He heard them. Recognised the sound instantly. Bodies fell away from him. He saw daemons clinging to the pillars like lizards, their skull-like faces turned towards the western end of the shrine, where white and black shapes moved. Space Marines. Scouts and Reivers, loping through the shrine.
A daemon lunged for him, blade raised. A shot felled it. Two warriors – one in white, one in black, moved to finish it as it screeched and rose. He recognised the former – the White Scars Scout, known as Rukn. The other was a Raven Guard – a Primaris Reiver. They shot it again and again, until it faltered at last, seeming to deflate.
Back to back, they fired into the crowd of cultists that swirled around them. Ord disentangled himself from his heavy bolter, and drew his sidearm. The bolt pistol kicked in his grip as he fought his way towards them.
Behind him, he could see that Fein and the others had been joined by other mortals – not soldiers, but gangers and civilians. All armed. All fighting. With some relief, he saw that Caln was still alive as well, though even more bloody than before. He’d rolled into a sitting position, and was reloading his boltgun with one hand.
‘My thanks,’ Ord rumbled as he joined Rukn. ‘Your assistance was well timed.’
‘Don’t thank me,’ Rukn growled. He indicated the Reiver. ‘It was Solaro’s idea.’
‘Conservation of resources,’ Solaro said. ‘They’re retreating.’
The cultists were falling back. Their frenzy had seemingly evaporated as quickly as it had risen. ‘Not retreating, regrouping,’ Rukn corrected. ‘Listen…’
Ord heard it – a shrill whine, growing louder with every passing moment. He looked at Rukn. ‘Is that–?’
Rukn hurried towards the front of the shrine, his Scouts following him. They spread out along the wall. Ord glanced around, and saw Regulator Fein crouched next to Caln. She met his gaze and nodded. He hesitated and then turned back.
‘Drop pods,’ Solaro said.
Ord saw them. Slow streaks, piercing the sky. The whistle of their descent was impossible to ignore. The question was, who did they belong to? He turned his attention to the enemy. They had seen the drop pods as well.
Rukn muttered something in Khorchin, but before Ord could ask him what it meant, the first drop pod slammed down, raising clouds of dust from the already broken streets. A Lucius-pattern, Ord realised. Larger and heavier than the normal sort, lacking internal systems and armament. Pneumatic seals hissed in release, as the pod blossomed. Something massive stomped down the gangplank, concealed by a cloud of smoke and dust.
Ord heard the telltale whirr of an assault cannon warming up. A slow smile spread across Rukn’s face. ‘At last,’ the White Scar murmured.
‘What vermin is this I see before me?’ a vox-amplified voice bellowed. ‘What rough beast dares face a hero of Chogoris?’
A daemon roared in reply, claws flexing. It reeled as the newcomer’s assault cannon thundered. The shots punched into its scaly hide, drawing out spurts of smoke and ichor. The newcomer descended to the street, firing as it came. Daemons staggered under the constant stream of shots, turning this way and that as if seeking escape. Mortals died in droves, cut to ribbons by the withering volley.
The familiar white shape of a Dreadnought lumbered into view through the smoke, totems rattling against its sarcophagus. Rukn pounded a fist against Ord’s shoulder-plate. ‘Ha! I knew I recognised that howl. Malamir is here. Now we will see some death.’
‘Excellent,’ Solaro said. ‘I was getting bored.’ The air shuddered as more drop pods slammed down along the street. Mortal cultists scattered, falling back towards the line of siege tanks. Ord could see red-armoured forms hefting weapons. Heavy bolters roared at the newly arrived drop pods, even as the latter unleashed their own armament, clearing space for their passengers to disembark. He lost sight of them as the Dreadnought – Malamir – rampaged through his field of vision.
‘Stop gibbering,’ Malamir bellowed, as he slammed into a daemon. ‘Accept death with courage. If your kind even understands such a thing.’ His talon crackled with lethal energies as he drove his opponent back against a pillar and pried the creature’s body apart. More of them leapt onto his hull, hacking at him with brass blades. Malamir swung his assault cannon around and fired, blowing another off its feet. His talon plucked a struggling creature from his hull and slammed it into the ground, reducing the lanky form to a mess of pulp and alien meat.
White Scars advanced through the smoke, clearing the street with brutal swiftness as they moved towards the dug-in siege tanks. Malamir turned to follow them, roaring imprecations as he went. Rukn laughed and clapped Ord on the shoulder. ‘Come then, son of Dorn, we have reinforcements. Time to finish what you started.’
‘Drop pods,’ Lorr said, her voice harsh.
Calder didn’t look up. ‘Ours or theirs?’ He dragged the top half of a statue across the edge of the landing, adding to the defences being erected there. His remaining Intercessors worked alongside him as the surviving human defenders rested.
The landing was a flat, wide platform, ringed by tall statues on plinths. Saints and martyrs looked down at the preparations being made in their shadows. Temporary bulwarks had been erected in staggered rows, each line anchored by a heavy weapon emplacement. At the rear of the defences, before the gate itself, a pair of Immolators waited, engines idling, their twin-linked heavy flamers at the ready. Cohorts of Sororitas moved along the bulwarks, acting as fire support for the governor’s soldiers.
Lorr stood atop an empty plinth, her eyes to the heavens. Her crimson cloak had been reduced to blackened tatters and her grey armour was scorched, but she was otherwise unharmed. He had come to the conclusion that it would take more than a rain of gunships to damage her. ‘Ours,’ she said.
Calder stopped and looked at her. ‘How do you know?’ Before she could reply, a burst of Khorchin echoed across the vox. Calder picked up one word in three, but understood the import. ‘The khan…’ he murmured. Suboden had returned.
‘Yes,’ Lorr said, dropping to her haunches, so that she was eye level with him. ‘Surely, the God-Emperor is with us. He has sent His angels to us, in our moment of need. Perhaps we should take advantage of this blessing and mount a counter-offensive.’ She smiled and Calder turned away. It had taken some effort to drag Lorr away from the enemy the first time.
‘No. We hold the Cardinal’s Gate. If they get into the cathedral-palace…’ As he spoke, the cathedral-palace shook to its foundations again.
Lorr frowned. ‘You do not have to tell me what the consequences would be, lieutenant. They shall not break our lines. Not here. Not now.’ She sniffed and looked out over the steps that stretched down to the smoky streets below. The fires from the crashed gunships had been trapped in the narrow streets. The smoke was rising slowly, as if through a chimney flue, hiding everything below it. ‘Your strategy was flawed.’
Calder stopped working and turned. ‘Yes. I did not expect that they would crash their own gunships in an effort to reach us.’
‘Why not? I would have done the same.’
‘You are…’ He hesitated. She stared at him, her gaze unblinking. He turned away. ‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘You would have. I mi
sjudged them. I will not make that mistake again.’
He knew that he spoke the truth, as surely as he knew that he would not have time to worry about it. Somewhere below, the Word Bearers were advancing up the steps, hidden by the smoke. Their assault had been so sudden – so savage – that he’d had little time to do anything but withdraw, and order the survivors to the secondary positions.
Kenric and two others had stayed behind to hold the way. They were dead now. He’d heard them die. Seen it, as he climbed the steps. They had deserved better deaths. Then, the same could be said for all those who’d perished in this conflict.
He’d expected the enemy to come as soldiers. To advance slowly, to buy distance with blood. Instead, they’d all but decapitated his strategy. The moment the gunship had burst from between buildings, its shape shrouded in fire, he’d known that he’d made a mistake. He had never considered that this enemy would do something so reckless. Karros had been right. He had thought of them as he would his own kind.
But they weren’t. They were mad. Fanatical.
On his tacticum display, he could see the battle for the city continuing to play out. A rumbling Taurox Prime rolled to a halt, its twin-linked gatling cannon whirring. Soldiers in red hurried down the embarkation ramp, lasrifles at the ready. Another Taurox burned nearby – Calder watched as the fire reached its fuel line, and the vehicle exploded. The planetary defence forces had little in the way of heavy armour, but they were making do with ore-haulers and transport vehicles where necessary.
He heard something explode far below, and thought for a moment that it was an echo of the Taurox. Orange flame-glow flared briefly beneath the shroud of smoke. He’d seen the Stormtalons swooping into the smoke, hunting the foe, holding them back. But no sign of them since. He activated his vox. ‘Torag – status?’
Static.
He switched frequencies. ‘Tyre.’ More static, but the ghost of a voice was there, beneath it. He amplified the frequency, fishing for clarity.
Apocalypse - Josh Reynolds Page 43