by Guy Haley
Relieved of their cordon duty, the Raptor packs ignited their jets and bounded down the wall out from the landing zone.
The Night Lords worked quickly to secure the area. A final ship thundered down through the sky, breaching the weakened aegis in a flare of orange and sickly green. The torrent of blood raining from the sky ran off it in black falls, but it could not hide the ornate nature of the ship. Decorated with precious metals, lavishly painted, the Stormbird carried the personal heraldry of Gendor Skraivok, self-proclaimed leader of the Night Lords Legion.
The ramp opened as the ship was landing. Space Marines leapt from the exits before it had touched down. When landing claws kissed rockcrete and the ramp opened, a unit of Atramentar strode purposefully forth, slower than their power-armoured brethren but massively better protected. Lesser Night Lords took hits from the buildings of the Palace and died, but these giant warriors stood firm as las-fire flashed off their power fields without effect, and bolts and solid slugs were deflected away by their angled armour plates.
Gendor Skraivok marched out with a confident swagger, his hand gripping the hilt of his sheathed warp blade. He surveyed his troops from the top of the ramp before joining his Terminator guard. His chronometer told him it was day, but the world was deep into a war gloom as black as any Nostraman noon.
Night suited him perfectly.
‘An exemplary deployment, Captain Ashmalesh,’ Skraivok voxed. He drew his sword. The comforting power of the Neverborn flowed into his body from the naked blade, and he smiled within his helm. Why had he resisted its gifts? He saw how foolish he had been now, and it made him smile.
‘Get a shield line of breacher squads at the fore of our advance,’ he commanded. ‘We move on the Helios Gate.’
Daylight Wall, Helios Gate, 15th of Quartus
The smell of the blood pouring from the sky permeated everything. It filled Raldoron’s helmet long after he activated the void sealing on his armour. Though it was sickening by any human measure, he found it alluring, appetising even. The odour fogged his mind, encouraging him to throw off restraint and slaughter the enemy.
The world had lost all colour barring red, black and orange. Fire lit everything. The sky was so dark it was hard to believe Terra had ever enjoyed sunlight. The aegis’ displacement glows were guttering pinks and purples.
‘Captain.’ Thane’s voice penetrated the fog in Raldoron’s mind. ‘Captain!’
Raldoron shook himself out of the fugue. They were under attack from all quarters.
‘The Night Lords to the south of the gate have reinforced and are moving on our position. The siege towers are closing, two to the north of the gate, one to the south. The aegis has collapsed across the entire front of our section.’
‘Elsewhere?’
‘Hardline vox reports say the wall is under assault in the seven other places facing the siege camps,’ said Thane. ‘The shield-banes burn away our protection. The upper aegis holds for now, but we have lost many generators, and the system is under great strain, so the adepts say.’
Raldoron surveyed the wall top. It had taken the enemy minutes to sweep the rampart free of defenders, secure their landing zone, then bring in more troops. Now the Night Lords were advancing in force, before he and Thane had rallied a counter-attack. The great black snake of the shield-bane cut a darker channel across the murk. Meanwhile, the siege engines had gathered speed, and were dark shapes in the downpour, revealed by flashes of gunfire like shock images in vid-plays made to frighten.
‘We do not have enough warriors to hold the wall against this attack,’ said Raldoron.
The macro cannon on the gate tower roared, shaking him to his core.
‘Take one in every two men from sections twelve, thirteen, fourteen, seventeen and eighteen. I shall provide you with my authorisation coding.’ He blink-clicked an icon to send the data key over to Thane’s warsuit. ‘We will have to trust that the enemy will not attempt an escalade there. Inform Bhab command that those sections will be vulnerable. Request reinforcements, whatever they have. The siege towers here must not be allowed to make contact with the wall. Concentrate all fire on them. If one gets through, then our situation here will be greatly compromised. And watch the skies. If one Legion is willing to attempt a landing on the rampart, others will.’ He looked upwards through the dying aegis, half expecting to see the trails of falling drop-craft. ‘They will attack us here at section sixteen, where the aegis is weak. We can trust the sections we draw our reinforcements from will be safe, for now.’
‘As you say, Lord Raldoron. If I had command, I would do the same.’ Thane said. ‘And I tell you, I am glad I do not have command.’
‘You hold here. The Blood Angels must deal with the threat to the south. The Night Lords must be swept from the wall before the siege towers come into contact with the ramparts. Give me covering fire.’
‘We shall bring up heavy weapons to cover the wall top, both sides.’
‘Make it so. Target their heavy armour and their Terminators. Your Legion is the holder of gates,’ said Raldoron. He looked south again. The Night Lords were close enough for him to pick out their heraldry under the coursing blood. ‘Night Lords are an insignificant threat to the Blood Angels. I shall give our guests below a warm welcome they will not quickly forget.’
Calling up his veteran squads, Raldoron gathered his warriors within the guard chambers of the Helios Gate, then led them out from the doors onto the ramparts. They came under immediate fire from the Night Lords advancing on the gatehouse. Breacher squads went to the fore of both lines, shielding the warriors behind them. Shield walls drew closer to each other, the thick breachers dancing with bolt impacts. Heavier weapons from both sides gunned for their opponents, the exchange becoming more violent the closer they came. Impacts from the wasteland and increasingly from the void blasted chunks from the fortifications, but the Night Lords and the Blood Angels were intent on each other. Warriors fell, opening gaps in the walls of shields that were quickly filled. Though the Night Lords suffered heavier casualties from Thane’s attentions and the gunfire coming in from the Palace hives, they were greater in number.
So it was that two forces came within striking distance of one another upon the walls.
This was a contest that would be decided by blades.
The space between the two groups was a storm of explosions and microshrapnel. They were one hundred, then seventy, then fifty metres apart.
When the foe were forty metres away, Raldoron held aloft and ignited his power sword. It glittered in the bloody rain as droplets burst to atoms in the disruption field. Timing was all. They must charge first.
‘Drop shields!’ he shouted. ‘Charge!’
A hundred veteran Blood Angels roared out their battle cry.
‘For Sanguinius! For the Emperor!’
The ramparts shook to the thunder of ceramite.
A replying call of ‘Kelish!’ sounded from the Night Lords’ line. ‘Brace!’ it meant. They stopped, shields angled and planted against the parapet, pauldrons butting them. Each shield bearer was supported by the hands of the legionary behind.
Raldoron ran ahead of his warriors. Guns barked on both sides, but the Blood Angels, their shields abandoned to grant them speed, took the brunt of the damage. Several fell dead.
The lines met with a deafening crash.
Raldoron leapt, sword buzzing down. It caught the edge of a shield. Searing light dazzled him as ceramite was annihilated by the disruption field. The sword boomed and crackled, slicing across, taking the shield bearer’s arm off.
The line bowed under the impact of the Blood Angels, but held. Guns fired from behind the shields, dropping more of the sons of Sanguinius. The Blood Angels wrenched at the Night Lords’ protection, dragging shields down and firing their bolters at the men behind, but they held. The line rearranged itself, and set firm.
‘Ila
shovarath!’ The Night Lords officers shouted through their voxmitters. ‘Advance!’
The Night Lords gave a wordless shout, and set themselves hard behind the shields. Arranged as a giant, pressing scrum, they pushed forwards. Blood Angels battered at them, killed them, but the pressure was immense. Red boots rasping on bloody rockcrete, the Night Lords pushed forwards three steps, and set their shields down again, rearranging themselves for another push.
‘Ilashovarath!’ The Night Lords commanded a second time.
They shoved hard, pushing Raldoron and his men back another few steps towards the tower. The ground gained, they slammed down their shields and braced once more.
Raldoron smote at his foe, but with the shields angled as they were, it was hard to land a telling blow, and though the shield in front of him bore several smoking gouges, it held. Raldoron reversed his grip, and pushed the point at the shield. Point and energy field worked together to cut into the surface. The breacher shield was thick, and though he strained with the effort, it nibbled only slowly through the metal towards its bearer.
‘Ilashovarath!’
Night Lords’ shields squealed against the Blood Angels’ armour, forcing them back. Raldoron counted the distance to the southern tower of the Helios Gate. Two hundred metres. Each push brought the Night Lords a few metres closer to their gatehouse. They were dying from Thane’s shots angling in from above, but not quickly enough.
‘Ilashovarath!
‘Ilashovarath!
‘Ilashovarath!’
The shield wall pushed on. The racket of weapons hitting shields was a hundred drums played to different rhythms. Raldoron had no need to push his blade. His sword sank into the shield before him as the legionary behind it was forced forwards. Bolts shot from the firing loops of the shields burst on his armour.
Raldoron waited as long as he could.
‘Ilashovarath!’
Until their backs were almost against the wall.
‘Ilashovarath!’
The tower was behind them, massive, indomitable, its reinforced portals standing between the Night Lords and the taking of the gate.
‘Ilashovarath!’
At the other points of the wall, similar things were happening. He wondered if any gates had fallen, if the enemy were on the wall elsewhere, or had come over it and got into the Palace.
‘Ilashovarath!’
He had little vox contact with Bhab command. No guidance.
‘Ilashovarath!’
Thane’s guns rained down their slaughter on the Night Lords. The Night Lords responded in kind, firing plasma guns up at the ramparts. Yellow-armoured figures fell back ablaze.
‘Ilashovarath!’
The gate was ten metres behind him.
The moment had come.
‘Now!’ Raldoron voxed.
The portal ground open, rolling aside like the stone of an ancient tomb. Lens lights blinked at twice the height of a man. Servos purred in the darkness of the chamber.
‘Split!’ roared Raldoron.
He yanked his sword free. His men stepped back. The shield wall, relieved of pressure, surged forwards in disarray.
Giant footsteps thumped in the tower chamber towards the wall walk.
Before the Dreadnoughts emerged onto the rampart, they were already firing.
The first shots of the rotary cannons mowed down the leading ranks of Skraivok’s men. Shields shattered under thousand-round-a-minute blows. The shield wall broke. Three Contemptor-pattern Dreadnoughts in pristine red thundered out from the tower, the blood rain slicking them a bright gloss, and smashed into the Night Lords’ advance. Blue-armoured warriors were bowled over. A power fist smashed a Space Marine into the air, sending him shouting madly over the battlement to plummet down on the far side.
The Blood Angels followed their walking dead, hacking and shooting. They roared like beasts, their famed refinement gone.
The Dreadnoughts ploughed deep into the Night Lords’ line before the mass of troops slowed them to a halt. They stood embattled by dozens of Space Marines, and the real work began.
The first Dreadnought fell a moment later, its leg blasted off by implosion charges.
‘My lord,’ growled Skraivok’s Atramentar sergeant. ‘We must take you to a place of safety.’
‘What, now, at the moment of my triumph?’ Skraivok scoffed. ‘When word of my deed reaches the Warmaster, I will be rewarded with power and with riches. If I depart now, I will be known as nothing but a coward.’
‘The leader!’ Another of his escort raised his combi-bolter, sighting it on a veteran captain whose armour was encrusted with high honours.
Skraivok put his hand on the top of the Terminator’s gun and pushed it down.
‘He’s mine,’ he said. ‘I want him. I want it to be known that I killed the captain of this gate myself.’
Skraivok pushed forwards into the fray. His Atramentar followed behind.
The first Blood Angel he encountered died so easily Skraivok barely felt the ceramite part. The sword shifted in his hands as he swung, perfecting the strike. The edge cleaved through the warrior’s helm, cutting it in half, and passing deep into his torso. A lesser blade would have stuck, but not his sword. He pulled it out with a light tug, easy as plucking a blade of grass. Skraivok smiled to himself. Power flooded him. His body tingled with it.
‘Blood Angel!’ he shouted. His Terminators pushed aside the combatants, clearing him a path. ‘Blood Angel!’
The ramparts were broad, but crammed with fighters. The fighting was close and dirty work. There was little room for finesse.
Another Blood Angel died to Skraivok’s blows. The Atramentar laid about themselves, the booming of their power fists and the roar of their heavier weapons drawing the attention of one of the Blood Angels Ancients. It crushed the Space Marine it was fighting and threw down the leaking body. Bullets sprayed from its rotary cannon. One of the Atramentar was hit hundreds of times. The cannon overloaded his field generator, chewed through his layered ceramite and plasteel, and tore into the adamantium frame beneath. The man died inside his giant suit, and fell over heavily.
‘Deal with that for me would you, sergeant?’ said Skraivok. ‘I do not wish to be distracted. I will have that captain’s skin for my cloak.’
‘Our role is to protect the leader of–’
‘Do it!’ shrieked Skraivok. ‘Bring it down.’
His sergeant said no more but moved with his men to engage the Dreadnought. Skraivok pushed on. The lines of the two warring Legions were by now thoroughly blended. Bodies clogged the rampart. Footing was treacherous, but the enemy captain was near.
‘Blood Angel!’ Skraivok yelled joyfully. ‘Face me!’
The Blood Angel finished his opponent and turned to face the Night Lord. Upon his left pauldron, his name was emblazoned across a scroll plate, just legible under rivulets of blood.
‘Raldoron?’ said Skraivok. ‘The Raldoron?’ He made a few passes with his sword, revelling in its lightness, in its killing edge. ‘This will be a day to celebrate, the day I slew the hero of the Blood Angels!’ He saluted, and declaimed pompously, ‘I am Gendor Skraivok, the Painted Count, Lord Commander of the Night Lords Legion, and I am your end.’
The Blood Angel was unimpressed. ‘Never heard of you,’ he said, and came in to attack, his power sword buzzing.
Skraivok laughed and parried. The daemon sword moved with a mind of its own to block the blow so fast Raldoron was almost taken down by Skraivok’s riposte, only a wild slicing deflection turning it aside. A second strike was thus deflected by Raldoron, and a third. The First Captain of the Blood Angels was as good as his reputation suggested, but Skraivok was filled with sorcerous foreknowledge and supernatural speed. He saw an opening, and moved in for the kill.
He missed. He was too slow. Raldoron sidestepped the blow
and twisted it aside with a slight flick of his blade.
Skraivok stepped back. The delicious feeling of power was gone. The world lost its sheen. He was in the rain, on the wall, surrounded by the dead, and he could not beat this man.
Panic gripped Skraivok’s gut. The blade was heavy. It would not respond as it had. Where before it accentuated his skills, lending him greater speed and strength, now it did nothing. Raldoron pressed his attack, battering at Skraivok with a flurry of blows that he could barely deflect.
The daemon had deserted him.
‘No,’ said Skraivok. ‘It cannot be!’
Raldoron’s power sword banged against the edge of Skraivok’s blade, sending him stumbling backwards.
‘That always was the problem with your Legion, Night Lord,’ said Raldoron. ‘You are quick with your torturer’s knives, but so few of you are worthy warriors.’
Raldoron swung his sword overarm, building momentum into a blow that would cut a power-armoured warrior in two. Skraivok parried it only just in time, stepping back and nearly tripping on the corpse of a Night Lord. Raldoron followed with another blow, and another. Skraivok struggled to stop him. He was so fast. Skraivok was a Space Marine captain, and more than a passable swordsman, but Raldoron was a hero of the Imperium whose name was known across the galaxy.
Raldoron attacked with greater ferocity. Skraivok’s arm was numb from deflecting the blows. He forayed a few attacks, but they put him in more danger, as Raldoron caught and countered every one. His latest riposte was turned away, and Raldoron’s power blade scraped sparks up the side of his breast-plate.