Storm of Iron

ONE

Bloody, broken and dejected, the column of men and women shuffled up the road that led from Jericho Falls spaceport to the plateau above. Their heads were cast down: many were grievously wounded and would soon be dead without medical attention.

The Iron Warriors that herded them to their deaths cared not for the condition of their charges. That they could walk was enough.

The column was a mix of thousands of emaciated and malnourished slaves, brought to Hydra Cordatus to work and die, and prisoners taken captive during the attack on the spaceport, spared from death only because it suited the purposes of the Warsmith.

Kroeger marched alongside the wretched column, feeling his contempt for these pathetic so-called humans as a disgusted knot in his belly. How could these snivelling excuses for a species ever hope to rule the galaxy? They were weak and followed the teachings of a rotted corpse on a planet few of them even knew the name of and none would ever have set foot upon.

It galled him to have to use these beasts as fodder, but what choice did they have? The Warsmith had decreed that they be the first into battle and the honour he did them in this manner stuck in Kroeger's throat.

Kroeger felt his rage building and swallowed hard, fighting it down. He was slipping more and more into the frenzied lusts of the Blood God and knew that he must restrain himself.

To satiate his sudden anger he lashed out with his fist, smashing a nearby prisoner's ribs to splinters. The man dropped to the ground, wheezing and wide-eyed in agony. A few nearby captives stooped to help the dying man, but a warning growl from Kroeger soon dissuaded them. The prisoner was unceremoniously kicked aside, and rolled out of the path of the thousands who followed.

'You march to your deaths and know not the honour you are being accorded!' shouted Kroeger as the top of the ridge came into sight. He swung his arms wide, walking backwards up the hillside, lifting his voice so that more could hear him.

'I make you a solemn promise: if any of you survive the task that you have been given, you shall live. You have my word as an Iron Warrior.'

Kroeger turned his back on the column with a hollow laugh before a woman's voice called out, 'And what is that worth, traitor?'

A frozen moment stretched for long seconds as Kroeger drew his chainsword and marched back to the column of people, his face twisted in fury.

'Who dares address me?' he bellowed. 'Which of you weakling scum thinks to question me?'

Terrified men and women desperately pushed themselves from Kroeger's rampage as he swung his sword about him like a butcher, hacking limbs and heads from bodies in his rage.

Kroeger's chainsword rose and fell a dozen times more before the same voice, stronger now, spoke again.

'I do, traitor. Lieutenant Larana Utorian, 383rd Jouran Dragoons. I question what the word of a heretic such as you is worth.'

Kroeger felt the red mist descend upon him, his vision narrowing to a point where all he could see was the woman who had dared speak to him, the pulsing artery in her neck, the arc his sword would take before it hacked her head from her shoulders. But he held the rage in check and forced himself to lower the chainsword. He towered over the prisoner, a lean, insolent-faced woman in a tattered sky blue uniform of the Imperial Guard. The woman was bloody, her arm held in a crude sling, but she stared at him with a fierce hatred.

A strange, unnatural sense of familiarity struck him, though he could not say why. Strangely, Kroeger felt his rage dissipate. What could she hope to achieve by this show of defiance but a swift death? Kroeger leaned down to meet Larana Utorian's gaze, gripping the woman's wounded arm in his gauntlet and squeezing.

Her face contorted in agony, but Kroeger kept pressing until he felt the splintered ends of bone grinding beneath the skin.

'What is your word worth?' repeated Larana Utorian through gritted teeth.

'Not much,' admitted Kroeger, twisting his grip and drawing a fresh cry of pain from Utorian, 'but you are possessed of a modicum of courage, prisoner, and you shall bear the fruits of that courage.'

Laughing, Kroeger released the woman's arm and said, 'This one shall be in the first wave.'

TWO

The first thought that penetrated the fog of Guardsman Hawke's semiconsciousness was that he had taken it too far this time, that he had drank something that had finally got the better of him. In all his notorious drinking sessions, he'd never felt such all over pain before, as though his body was one enormous bruise being pounded on by an angry carnosaur.

Darkness and dust surrounded him and he coughed as his lungs heaved, wondering what the hell was going on. He slowly opened his eyes, taking a moment to focus on the view before him. The rockcrete of what looked like the floor of the listening post was right in front of his face, but he could see nothing beyond that. Orange light and swirls of dust ghosted before him.

He tried to shift his position and hot pain stabbed in his left shoulder, drawing a colourful oath and a sticky wetness that ran down his arm.

Hawke turned his head slowly, trying to make sense out of the scorched, acrid-smelling place he was lying in. A blackened, lumpen mass lay against one wall, though he could not make out its nature in the gloom. Hawke's ears rang and every sound his movements made seemed tinny and far away. He shifted position once more, twisting onto his back and gritting his teeth as pain lanced through his shoulder again. But this time he was able to gain more of a sense of his situation. Something heavy lay across his legs and as he twisted around he could see it was the shattered carcass of the vox-unit.

Hawke dragged himself from under the bulky unit as the events of - how long ago now? - came trickling back into his consciousness. He propped himself up against one wall, exploring his injuries with his good arm and remembering the clatter of the grenades as they landed inside. He'd gotten one into the sump, but the other had detonated before he could reach. Thank the Emperor that the decrepit equipment installed in this wretched place was so clunky that it had shielded him from the force of its blast.

He rubbed his arm, feeling the pain from the gash at his shoulder flare anew then glanced over at the blackened shape across the bunker from him. The gleam of bone and the hand burned into a claw told him that it had once been his fellow squadmate, Hitch.

Hawke couldn't feel sorry for Hitch, he had his own problems to deal with - like what the hell was he supposed to do now? The equipment here was smashed and he was sure that there was no way he could fix it. He was stuck near the top of a fragging mountain with no sure way down, and his arm hurt like a cast-iron bitch.

With a groan Hawke pushed himself onto wobbling legs and leaned back against the wall of the listening post. His breath hurt in his chest and he wondered if any of his ribs had been broken. He lurched drunkenly towards a gunmetal footlocker, partly concealed beneath the remains of the assault cannon and vox-console. He kicked the debris clear and hauled open the locker lid, lifting out a canvas rucksack and rummaging around inside. He lifted out a small medi-pack and ripped it open, painfully shrugging off his uniform jacket and undershirt.

As he doused his wound in analgesic fluid and applied a pressure swab to his arm, he wondered who the hell had attacked him. The question only occurred to him as his thoughts became less disjointed and confused. He hadn't had much of a look at them, but whoever they were they were enormous. He'd had a fleeting impression of iron-grey vastness, too bulky to be anything but a Space Marine.

Hawke paused in his ministrations as the breath caught in his throat.

Space Marines…

He'd seen Space Marines a few times - when he'd been unlucky enough to pull a tour at the Hope and had watched them march from their armoured gunships. At first he'd been in awe of their stature, longing to ask one of them about his life, the battles he'd fought and the places he'd seen. But their stoic demeanour, martial bearing and enormous guns had made it clear that to do so would probably be the gravest and last mistake he'd ever make.

Still, there was something about the glimpse he'd had of the anonymous warrior that caused him to shiver in sudden fear. He was like no Space Marine Hawke had ever seen before. For all their arrogant superiority, none of them had, even when they deigned to glance his way, chilled him with such ancient malevolence. This was something else entirely.

A wry smile creased Hawke's ash-streaked features as he suddenly realised that his desire for action had been granted in the most concrete way possible. He had come eye-to-eye with the enemy and was still alive. The puzzle of why his attackers had let him live was solved when his gaze fell once more on the body against the wall. They'd seen Hitch's corpse and figured it for his. He laughed, the pitch a little too high.

'Well, Hitchy boy,' giggled Hawke, 'looks like you managed to do something useful with your life after all.'

Like most people had throughout Hawke's life, the enemy had underestimated him and he felt a sudden anger rise up in him. He was a soldier, damn it, and he'd make sure these bastards knew it.

Cradling his arm close to his chest, he fashioned a crude sling with bandages from the medi-pack and dumped the contents of the rucksack onto the floor, tossing aside items that were just extra weight and loading up with anything that looked useful, not that much had survived the explosion. He stuffed as many ration packs as he could find into his pack as well as a couple of plastic bottles of hydration capsules. He checked his uniform jacket for detox pills, sighing in relief as he felt the container in his inside pocket. Without them, he might as well put a bullet through his brains right now as the poisons within the atmosphere would cause him to sicken within the day unless he took the purgatives and cleansing chemicals the Adeptus Mechanicus Biologis distilled and manufactured for the soldiers. They were perhaps the foulest things Hawke had ever tasted, but if they kept him alive, then he guessed he could bear it. He didn't have too many left, though…

He rummaged around the locker, pulling out a battered respirator kit and stuffing it in the rucksack. The oxygen level inside was just over half-full, but it would come in handy if he got caught in one of the frequent dust storms that lashed the mountains.

Hawke grinned as he pulled out a portable vox-unit from the bottom of the locker, though calling it portable was a joke. The bulky battery packs weighed a kilo each and the vox itself would take up over half the space in his pack. Still, he'd heard it said that there was nothing more dangerous on the battlefield than a man with a means of communication.

Personally, he would rather have a lascannon, but such was life.

He emptied Hitch's and Charedo's packs, searching for anything useful amongst his former friends' gear.

A direction finder and a set of magnoculars once belonging to Charedo went into one pocket, as well as six energy packs for a lasgun. A gleaming knife and tooled leather scabbard, once the pride and joy of Guardsman Hitch, was buckled around his waist with a quick nod to the blackened corpse.

'You don't mind if I take this, do you? No, thought not. Cheers, Hitch.'

Satisfied that he had salvaged all he could from the listening post's meagre supplies, Hawke turned to search for his lasgun, overturning twisted debris and kicking aside drifts of amber dust that had drifted in through the door.

There. He reached down and gripped the stock, pulling the weapon clear of the dust. Seeing that the barrel was twisted and buckled he dropped the useless weapon with a growl of disgust, and turned towards the buckled doorway.

Hawke stepped outside, squinting in the sudden brightness and staring in open-mouthed surprise at the pillars of smoke rising in the distance from Jericho Falls.

'Emperor's holy blood!' hissed Hawke as he gazed up at the packed sky, clustered with enormous craft that surely should not have been able to stay aloft such was their vast bulk. The Falls was busier than he had ever seen it. Tens of thousands of men and machines filled the environs of the spaceport, even more than when the entire regiment had been gathered for embarkation at the Great Muster on Joura.

His knees sagged and Hawke felt the hotness of the mountain ash through his combat fatigues as he sank to the ground. Who could believe that anyone could organise such vast numbers of men? He put his hand out to steady himself, his fingers meeting cold metal and closing around the barrel of a gun.

Hawke looked down, seeing a Jouran pattern lasgun on the ground, its stock smeared with dark blood. Smiling, he picked it up and saw that the charge indicator read a healthy green.

Fresh resolve filled him, and he pushed himself to his feet.

He had to do something, but what?

He couldn't fight that many men. Even the fireside legends of the Space Marine primarchs balked at such odds, yet the Emperor had seen fit to grant him this chance to prove himself worthy. How he would do that he wasn't sure, but he was pretty resourceful, he would think of something.

He couldn't see the citadel from here, but the knifeback ridge that ran north-west from the listening post climbed another thousand metres or so, and should provide him with a fine view down onto both the valley of the citadel and Jericho Falls spaceport.

He slung the lasgun and picked his way over the rocks to where the ground became steeper and more rugged. He sucked in a deep breath, coughing as the dusty air caught in the back of his throat, and took stock of his situation.

Stranded on the mountains with nothing but a portable vox, a rifle with six clips and a combat knife to his name.

Enemies of the Emperor beware, he thought grimly, and began to climb.

THREE

Forrix watched as yet another column of flatbed trucks carrying sallow-faced troopers roared across the runway towards the gateway in the outer wall of the spaceport. All manner of conveyances rumbled in an endless line from the vast bellies of scores of transports as they touched down and disgorged convoy after convoy of tanks, trucks, supply wagons, armoured carriers and mobile artillery pieces. Thousands of vehicles passed him, directed at each stage of their journey by an Iron Warrior from Forrix's grand company. Nothing was left to chance: every aspect of this logistical nightmare had been foreseen by Forrix and planned for.

Each craft descended in a precise pattern, landing in blinding clouds of ash and retros, disgorging their cargoes before lifting off in a carefully ordered sequence. Forrix knew exactly which ship captains were cautious and which were reckless in their approaches, how long each would take to land and how efficient each one's ground crew were. The noise was deafening and most of the humans landing on this planet today would never hear again.

To the uninformed observer's eye, the spaceport was a heaving mass of bodies and machinery, but had that observer looked closer, they would have seen an underlying structure to the movements. No random Brownian motion this, but a carefully orchestrated manoeuvre whose complex patterns could only be perceived by those with centuries of experience in moving such gargantuan volumes of men and machines.

The sheer scale of the operation and the speed with which it was being undertaken would have amazed Imperial logis-ticians. Were it not for the Iron Warriors' damnable purpose, those same logisticians would have willingly prostrated themselves before Forrix and begged him to teach them his skills.

As well as overseeing operations from within the spaceport, Forrix had his warriors directing operations from without. The pitiful excuse for defence that had been broken open during the initial attack was even now being repaired and lines of contravallation were being erected to defend the spaceport from any external threat. Not that Forrix particularly expected any, but it was procedure and thus was done. If history and his long years of war had taught him anything, it was that the minute you thought yourself safe from attack was when you were at your most vulnerable.

With a speed that would have put the finest Imperial engineers to shame, a nightmarish assembly of trench lines, razor wire fields and armoured pillboxes were being constructed in defensive formations around the spaceport's perimeter. By nightfall, Forrix expected the lines of contravallation to be complete and Jericho Falls to be as secure as it had ever been in its long existence.

The spaceport was his responsibility and he would not allow it to remain unprotected, no matter how much the Warsmith had assured them that there was no way the Imperial forces could summon aid, that their psychic link to the rest of the galaxy had been terminated.

Forrix was not so sure. Jharek Kelmaur, the Warsmith's cabal sorcerer, had looked uneasy as the Warsmith glibly dismissed the Imperial telepaths and Forrix wondered what guilty secret the sorcerer might be keeping. Had the Imperial forces been able to make some communication with the outside world that the sorcerer's machinations had been unable to prevent? It was an interesting notion and Forrix would store that nugget away lest it prove a valuable bargaining tool at some later date. The passion for intrigue had long since left Forrix, but he was astute enough to realise that knowledge was power, and it never hurt to have some potential advantage over your rivals. For now he would assume that there was at least the remote possibility of the citadel being relieved and he would plan his defences accordingly.

A rune flashed on his data-slate and Forrix put aside the paranoid intrigues that were the meat and gravy of the Iron Warriors and watched as the main runway was smoothly cleared of soldiers and vehicles as yet another vast ship hauled its bulk through the deep amber sky in shrieking clouds of engine fire. No sooner had the vessel cleared the outer markers of the landing field than a ponderous shadow slipped slowly across the spaceport, its inky blackness spreading across the entire facility like an obscene oil slick.

Forrix knew without looking which craft had entered the approach pattern, and while more easily impressed heads craned skyward to gawp at the leviathan descending towards Jericho Falls, he was merely irritated that it was almost thirty-six seconds behind his schedule. A groaning like the sound of the world cracking open split the air, the grinding screech of massive organic pistons and gears overcoming the bass thrumming of the mechanisms that kept the bloated craft aloft. These ancient and arcane devices, a hideous mix of what had once been organic components and ancient technology, had been created specifically for this craft and there was nothing in the galaxy like it. Their construction owed as much to the power of hyper-evolution and sorcery as engineering, and the physics of their operation should have been impossible. Forrix knew for a fact that their manufacture had only been possible within the Eye of Terror, that region of space where the warp spewed into real space and all laws of reality ceased to have meaning. That region of space called home by the Legions of Chaos.

As the ominous shadow stopped moving and the deafening grinding noise continued, Forrix glanced up to check that the ship was maintaining the correct altitude.

The cargo now being delivered here was vital to the success of the campaign.

The massive vessel resembled a vast spire of rock pitched on its side and left to lie for millennia at the bottom of some depthless ocean. Its ancient surface was a loathsome, glossy black, like the carapace of some vile insect, pitted and encrusted with lesions and fluid-leaking orifices. Its underside was studded with sphincter-like caverns that shimmered in a monstrous heat haze.

Once, long ago, this vessel had plied the icy depths of space in the unutterable vastness between galaxies, home and locus to billions of creatures linked together in a gestalt consciousness, enslaved to the imperative to consume biological matter and reproduce. It had drifted from world to world, stripping each bare of life, each creature within its shared mind acting in perfect concert with the vast over-mind. That had come to an end when the Warsmith had caused its neural pathways to become infected with the same techno-virus that infested the insane Obliterators, severing the vital link between the massive parent vessel and its offspring, stripping away the smothering blanket of belonging from the swarm.

No one knew how long the leviathan had fought the infection before the Warsmith's sorcerers had defeated its defences and dragged the barely sentient carcass to the Eye of Terror. Perhaps the creature-ship had thought it was to be granted succour, but in that regard it was to be sorely mistaken.

Defiled and perverted to serve instead of rule, it had been enslaved to the Warsmith's desires and became yet another cog in his grand design.

Like some bloated sea monster from legend, the gargantuan vessel's vast belly hung open, geysers of putrescent gases venting from its interior. Over two thousand metres in length, it hovered impossibly above Jericho Falls.

From the sweating darkness of its ribbed interior, two shapes slowly descended from the vessel, cries of terror and welcome rising in equal measure as the human soldiers pressed into the service of the Iron Warriors screamed a welcome to their gods of war.

Their upper reaches swathed in metres-thick cable-like tentacles, two vast Battle Titans of the Legio Mortis descended to Hydra Cordatus. First came their massive legs, each like the tower of a castle, their surfaces studded with gun ports and scarred by millennia of war, followed by wide torsos and armoured chests.

Shaped in the image of Man, their resemblance to their creators ended there. Powerful arms, bearing guns larger than buildings, hung inert from wide, turret-like shoulders. Then came the heads, and Forrix, for all his weariness of battle, could not help but be struck by the terrible power inherent in these glorious creations. Whether they had been carved, moulded or shaped by the will of the dark gods themselves none could say, but their daemonic visages shone with the very power of Chaos, as though a fragment of that raw energy might be contained within their hellish features.

The ground shook with thunderous vibration as the feet of these glorious machines slammed down like the tread of an angry god. The glistening cable-tentacles, slipped free of their charges, coiled back into the belly of their host and vanished from sight as the next two Battle Titans were readied for landing.

Forrix watched as the two Titans stood motionless on the landing field, their power and majesty palpable even in their stillness. A sinuous tail, bearing a spiked wrecking ball larger than the greatest super heavy tank, twitched at the back of the largest Titan and a massive cheer burst from the assembled warriors.

A powerful whine burst suddenly from the Titans as the mighty weapon-arms began to move, a fierce and monstrous anime enlivening each of the war machines with vigour. The first war machine, once an Emperor-class Titan in the service of the corpse-god, now known and feared as the Dies Irae, took a ponderous step forward, its mighty foot crashing down on the ground with teeth-loosening force, its daemonic princeps eager to plunge into battle lest his monstrous war machine turn its fury upon its allies.

Its companion in death, the Pater Mortis, raised its guns to the heavens, as though saluting the gods for delivering it to war once more and roared its battle lust across the world. Smaller than the Dies Irae, it followed its massive sibling like a devoted acolyte.

Forrix allowed himself a tight smile as he watched the two mighty engines of destruction stride from the spaceport towards the mountains. Tanks and infantry swarmed around their legs. Those who had fought alongside these lethal machines before kept a sensible distance from them while those unused to seeing the power of their masters so physically manifested clustered around to pay homage. Many of their foolish human soldiers paid the price for their unwise devotion, as whole swathes of men were crashed underfoot with each step of the gigantic machines.

Two more Titans were even now descending to the planet's surface and there would be many more before this day's operation was complete. Forrix had much yet to do, but was content that everything was proceeding on schedule.

Within another two hours there would be an army of conquest ready to take this world apart in a storm of iron.

FOUR

Larana Utorian fought to keep the pain of her ruined arm at bay just a little longer. Even if she lived through this nightmare, which she acknowledged was unlikely, she knew she would lose it. The giant who had brought them here had seen to that, crashing every bone and ripping every tendon in her arm. Each step sent bolts of pain shooting through her and it took a supreme effort of will not to drop to her knees and just give up.

She had seen what happened to those who had done that, and had no wish to end her days as a screaming, eyeless wreck, nailed to the chassis of a traitor's tank. She would face death on her feet like a true soldier of the Emperor.

Painfully, she shuffled uphill, keeping her eyes focussed on the neck of the man in front, concentrating on putting one foot before the other. She glanced up as he suddenly stopped and felt a hot, roiling sensation of fear work its way through her gut as she saw the formidable, rocky slopes of Tor Christo before her. The grey bastions on the rocks above were over a kilometre away, but Utorian fancied she could make out the faces of the gunners and soldiers on the firing steps. What must they be thinking, she wondered? Were they afraid, or were they full of bravado, confident that nothing could breach their high walls? Larana hoped they were afraid.

Their column began moving forwards as smoke-belching trucks roared alongside them. The tracks skidded to a halt at the head of the columns and sudden hope flared in Larana's heart as she saw men in crimson overalls with crude eight-pointed stars stitched over their left breast on the back of the tracks handing battered, but serviceable looking rifles to the startled prisoners. If these traitorous curs thought that the men and women of the Jouran Dragoons would fight for them, then they were even more deluded than she had thought. As soon as she was given a weapon, she would turn it on their captors and damn the consequences.

But any hope of a swift death in a glorious last stand were dashed as Larana took hold of one of the rifles and discovered it was nothing more than a hollow framework, the internal workings missing. She felt tears of frustration well up inside, but suppressed them viciously. Hands pulled at her, dragging her and the others forward and lifting them onto the backs of the trucks. Too numb to resist, she allowed herself to be packed into the vehicle, biting her lip to avoid screaming as more and more prisoners were pressed inside the truck. The stench of fear was overpowering. Soldiers vomited and soiled themselves in terror as their reserves of courage finally reached their limit.

Larana, pressed at the side of the truck, caught only glimpses of what was happening outside. The revving of engines built to a deafening crescendo and she could see hundreds of trucks, all as crammed as this one, lined at the edge of the plateau. Interspersed between the trucks, Larana could see boxy, armoured personnel carriers, similar to the ones she had seen Space Marines using. She knew they were called Rhinos, but these bore little resemblance to the noble vehicles she had seen members of the Adeptus Astartes employ. Their armoured sides had a disgusting, oily texture, as though somehow alive, their every surface festooned with spikes, chains and skulls. The roar of their exhausts was like the bellowing of some impatient predator, and each bucked madly, as though chafing at the delay enforced upon them.

Larana bit her lip hard enough to draw blood as the truck lurched forward, its wheels churning the dusty ground as its wheels fought for purchase. Her vision spun crazily and she gripped the stock of her useless lasgun trying not to imagine the next horror that awaited her.

Gunner First Class Dervlan Chu watched the approaching line of vehicles through the gunsight of his Basilisk artillery piece mounted behind the walls of Tor Christo's Kane bastion with undisguised relish. The image was grainy and static interference washed through the sight, but its beauty was unmistakable. It was an artilleryman's dream. He tried to get a count on the number of targets approaching the fortress, dividing the approaching line in two and then halving it again. He made out roughly three hundred trucks, no doubt laden with traitorous scum eager to dash themselves against the bulwark of Tor Christo, and perhaps two dozen APCs.

These fools hadn't even bothered to commence their attack with an artillery barrage or under cover of smoke. If this was the calibre of their opposition, then the warnings of their company commanders had been largely unnecessary. They would send these incompetent idiots home in pieces.

Chu already had his zones of fire mapped out, he knew the precise ranges of his gun, and his loading team already had one of the metre-long shells loaded in the breech of the massive artillery piece. He allowed himself a quick glance along the line of emplaced artillery, pleased to note that every other gun appeared to be locked and loaded. Jephen, the commander of the next Basilisk in line, gave him a smiling thumbs-up.

Chu laughed and shouted, 'Good hunting, Mr Jephen! A bottle of amasec says I tally more than you and your boys!'

Jephen sketched a casual salute and replied, 'I'll take that wager, Mr Chu. Nothing tastes as fine as amasec another man has paid for.'

'A fact I shall no doubt rejoice in later, Mr Jephen.'

Chu returned to his gunsight as the line of vehicles rumbled closer, the roar of their engines little more than a distant growl from his elevated position. Smoke and dust billowed behind the attacking vehicles and soon they would be in range.

Chu swivelled on his gun-chair to watch the senior officers of the Christo, together with the omnipresent priests of the Machine God, gathered far behind the guns, consulting an attack logister that was no doubt wired into the gunsights of their artillery pieces.

A liveried aide passed round crystal glasses of amasec to the senior officers from a silver tray as another handed out ear protectors. The officers laughed at some private joke and toasted the success of the venture, downing their drinks in a single gulp.

The officers removed their peaked caps and donned their ear protectors. One officer, who Chu recognised as Major Tedeski, stepped towards the guns and raised a portable vox to his mouth.

The oil-stained speaker beside Chu hissed and Tedeski's harsh, clipped tones announced, 'My compliments to you, gentlemen, you may fire when ready.'

Chu smiled and returned to his gunsight, watching the range counter unwind as the enemy approached.

Honsou ducked inside the crew compartment of his Rhino and spun the locking wheel of the hatch behind him. There was little point in manning the bolters now, and he would only expose himself to unnecessary risk by riding with the hatch open.

He returned to his commander's seat as the Rhino bucked over the undulating ground, the driver easing back on its speed and allowing the trucks carrying the prisoners to take the lead. There were sure to be minefields before the hill fort, and it was the tracks' job to find them first.

The warriors accompanying him chanted a monotonous dirge - a prayer to the Dark Gods, memorised and unchanged these last ten millennia. Honsou closed his eyes and allowed it to wash over him, his lips moving in time with the words. He clutched his bolter tight, though he knew that it was not yet time to sate its battle hunger with the blood of traitors. The only deaths likely this day were those of worthless prisoners, men who deserved to die anyway for their stubborn refusal to follow the only true path that could save mankind from the multifarious horrors of this universe.

Where else but in Chaos could humanity find the strength to resist the implacable advance of the tyranids, the barbarity of the orks or the nascent peril of the ancient star-gods that were even now awakening from their aeons-long slumbers? Only Chaos had the power to unite a fragmented race and defeat that which sought to destroy it. The soldiers of the corpse-god only speeded the ruination of that which they purported to defend by resisting Chaos.

Well, the great work they undertook here would bring the ultimate victory of Chaos one step closer, and the Warsmith would surely reward all those who aided in his victory with the patronage of the gods. Such a prize was worth any price and Honsou knew he would risk anything to win such reward.

The roar of the Rhino's engine deepened, startling Honsou from his reverie and he knew that the time had come to implement the next stage of the attack.

The truck bounced over the uneven ground and Larana Utorian felt her legs sag as pain washed over her. She fell against the side of the truck, sinking to her knees and slamming her face against its timber panelled sides. She tasted blood and felt a tooth snap from her gums.

Larana tried to push herself upright, but the press of bodies was too great and she couldn't move. She was trapped by jostling legs, her trousers soaking up the human waste swilling around the truck's floor.

Through a splintered plank, she watched the truck alongside them, the crimson overalled driver heedless of the human cattle in his vehicle. She locked eyes with a young soldier across from her, his eyes wide in terror, tears streaking tracks down his dirty face. The boy's eyes were full of mute pleading, but Larana could do nothing for him. As though in a race, the boy's truck began pulling ahead and she watched as it bounced across a rugged patch of scrub.

A huge explosion lifted the vehicle into the air, spinning it onto its front section, the chassis breaking in midsection. Bright flames and afterimages danced across Larana's eyes as she saw bodies flung in all directions. The buried mine threw out secondary munitions - anti-personnel charges that exploded seconds later to shred anyone fortunate enough to survive the initial blast. She lost sight of the boy as the wrecked truck was swallowed in the dust behind them, knowing there was no way he could have survived.

She was thrown forward, the cries of terror growing louder as she heard more explosions. The truck skidded to a halt in a billowing cloud of obscuring red dust. What was happening? She heard desperate shouting and screams as the tailgate of the track was wrenched down and fiery light flooded the rear of the track. Snarling voices and barbed clubs hammered into the prisoners, their captors were dragging them from the illusory safety of the trucks.

Larana was propelled to her feet by the mass of men debarking from the truck and fell to the hard-packed ground. Black smoke billowed upwards from scores of wrecked vehicles, their twisted hulks broken by the detonation of mines. Bodies lay strewn about and the screams of the wounded were ignored as the prisoners were clubbed forward. The spike adorned Rhinos ground to a halt behind the smoking wrecks and, with practiced ease, the iron giants who had brought them to this slaughter emerged, weapons at the ready.

A terrified man, his eyes wild, stumbled past her, heading in the opposite direction. Larana watched as one of the giant warriors casually gunned him down, a single bolt from his weapon blasting the man's entire torso away. Larana rose to her feet, dazed and blinded by dust and pain. Smoke stung her eyes and she could no longer feel her arm. She stumbled in the direction everyone else was running. Was it to safety? She couldn't tell.

Howls of pain and confusion tore at her ears and she gripped the barrel of her impotent lasgun, vowing that she would use it to crash an enemy's skull before the day was out. More gunfire sounded behind her. A body, gory holes torn in its flesh, fell into her and streaks of bullets whipped by her head.

She pushed the body away and ran into the smoke.

Dervlan Chu pressed the firing stud on the armament panel and closed his eyes as the Basilisk fired. The massive barrel's recoil pushed almost its entire length into the track unit, the crack of the shell's discharge easily penetrating the ear protectors he wore. Despite the bolted locking clamps, the track unit rocked under the force of the recoil. Even as the first shell arced through the air, his loading team was ejecting the spent casing and unlimbering a fresh shell from the gurney beside the gun.

He pressed his eye to the gunsight, checking to see how much the recoil had caused the barrel to drift from its aiming position. Not much, he saw, spinning the correction wheel, bringing the aiming reticle back to centre, and adjusting fire for the next shot.

'Loader alpha ready!' came the shout from below.

'Up!' answered the breechman.

Chu smiled. Their first shell hadn't even impacted yet and they were ready to fire again. He and his crew had trained hard for just this kind of fight and now that training was paying off.

He centred the aiming reticle on a smoking track with scores of men milling in confusion around it and pressed the firing stud again.

Even over the screaming and confusion, Larana Utorian could hear the shriek of the incoming shell and recognised it for what it was. She hurled herself flat, screaming as her arms jarred on the hard earth. The ground whipped upwards, tossing her through the air as the first Basilisk shell impacted, blasting a crater fifteen metres across and obliterating a dozen men in an instant. Shrieks sounded as further shells struck the ground with thunderous hammer blows. Huge chunks of rock and dust were blasted skyward as the first volley hit. Larana slammed back to the ground, the impact driving the breath from her lungs. She rolled over, across the lip of a crater, and flopped to its smoking base.

Scraps of flesh and bone spattered the interior surface of the crater, the stench of scorched human meat and burning propellant filling her nostrils. Another prisoner sheltered in the crater. His mouth was open, stretched wide as he screamed in terror, but Larana could not hear him, her skull filled with an all-encompassing ringing.

She felt wetness seep from her ears.

The man sheltering in the crater stumbled over to her, his mouth working soundlessly up and down, but Larana ignored him, crawling to the lip of the crater, clutching her lasgun like some kind of protective talisman. The man was insistent though and clawed at her uniform. Larana pushed him away, shouting something incoherent over the whoosh of displaced air as another volley of shells screamed in. The man rolled into a foetal ball, rocking back and forth in terror.

Larana buried her head in the ground as she felt the awful vibrations of the shell impacts hammer the ground. With her good arm she clutched the soil. Dust filled her mouth and the Shockwaves from the explosions threatened to pulp her bones to jelly.

She knew she couldn't stay here. She had to get back. But which direction to go? One place was as likely to take a hit as another and the smoke and disorientation had made a mockery of her sense of direction.

She scrambled to the weeping man at the crater's base, and dragged him by the collar towards the rear edge of the crater.

'Come on! We have to get back!' she yelled.

The man shook his head, fighting Larana's grip with the strength of a madman and pulling free of her grasp.

'You'll die if you stay here!' she shouted. The man shook his head and Larana was unsure whether he'd even heard her or she'd made any kind of sense. She'd tried her best, but if the idiot didn't want to move, there was nothing she could do to make him. She dropped flat as another thunderous detonation rocked the ground, the impact throwing her from the crater.

She landed on something soft and yielding, and rolled clear with a terrified cry as she saw that she was lying on shredded flesh and mangled limbs. Shapes ran through the smoke, but where they were going or who they were, she couldn't tell. She could see nothing more than a few metres away, the drifting smoke and dust rendering everything beyond invisible.

A smoking wreck lay on its side, belching black clouds just at the edge of her vision and she began crawling towards it over torn-open corpses and crying men with no legs or arms. One man was on his knees, vainly trying to gather up his looped entrails and push them back into his raptured belly. Another stuffed his severed arm into his jacket, beside a man vomiting thick ropes of red gore. Each few paces brought fresh horrors and Larana wept as the ground continued to shake as though in the grip of the most violent of earthquakes.

She reached the blazing track, weeping and laughing hysterically at this small victory. A blackened corpse lay under the shattered cab of the vehicle, severed through the torso by the track's fall. Larana could see the corpse wore the crimson overalls of their captors and felt a burning hatred light in her belly. She snarled in fear and anger, pounding her rifle butt against the corpse's skull, smashing it to destruction, fresh sobs bursting from her lips with every blow. She threw aside the bloody weapon and took what shelter she could from the burning truck. Tyre tracks from the vehicle led back through the smoke towards the place where - presumably - this insane venture had begun. Taking a deep breath she waited until another barrage of shells landed.

Knowing that there was no way she could survive, but unwilling to give up, Larana Utorian set off to find a way out of this hell.

Acrid propellant filled Kane bastion, but Dervlan Chu was exultant despite the sting in his eyes and the ringing in his ears. The attack had been stopped in its tracks before it had covered even half the distance to the Christo. They had comprehensively bracketed the enemy force within their fire zones and put their entire load on target. He knew for a fact that his crew had laid more shells on target and in a faster time than Jephen, and looked forward to receiving his bottle of amasec in the mess hall tonight.

Night was drawing in and drifting smoke obscured much of the shattered battle line of what had once been hundreds of vehicles. Major Tedeski had called a halt to the barrage until the smoke cleared, unwilling to waste ordnance on a foe that was already destroyed.

He sat back on the railings of the gun platform and pulled out a silver case of cheroots, lighting one and tossing the case down to his loader and breechman.

'Well done, men, I think we managed to put a sizeable dent in the foe this time.'

His crew smiled, teeth gleaming in their soot-stained faces as he said, 'When I get that bottle of amasec from Jephen, I'll be sure to share it with you.'

He took a satisfied draw on his cheroot, and took another look through the gunsight of the Basilisk. The smoke was clearing and his professional eye was pleased with the utter destruction he saw. Hundreds of burning wrecks littered the ground, flames licking skyward as they and their traitorous passengers burned. Their fire zones were cratered wastelands, the ground churned unrecognisably by the sheer power and fury of the barrage.

As he swivelled the gunsight around, he saw that the guns mounted in Mars bastion had been equally thorough. The guns of the Dragon bastion covered the southern approaches to the Christo, and Chu could well imagine the frustration of its commander that the gunners in the Kane and Mars bastions had got the glory of the first kills.

Chu returned the gunsight to his own fire zone. The wind was beginning to clear the smoke more rapidly and he could make out shapes moving in the dusk. Chu was surprised there was anything left alive down there. He switched up a level of magnification as the smoke cleared still further and saw more vehicles through the haze: the armoured personnel carriers that he had briefly glimpsed just prior to the commencement of the barrage.

He pressed the range finder button on the armament panel and cursed as he realised the APCs and the warriors standing before them were some hundred metres beyond the maximum range of his gun. A handful of stumbling shapes crawled or walked towards the warriors. As he increased the magnification another level, Chu was suddenly sick to the pit of his stomach as he saw the stained uniforms their targets were wearing.

Dust covered and bloodstained, but unmistakably the sky blue of the 383rd Jouran Dragoons. Horrified, he spun the gunsight back to the cratered desolation his gun had helped to create, moaning as he saw more and more familiar uniforms scattered across the ground, lifeless and broken.

Chu felt his gorge rise as he realised what they had just done. The thought of winning a bottle of amasec from this slaughter made him want to weep.

Honsou was pleased. He had watched the barrage from the hilltop fort with calm detachment, noting how far the shells reached, how long they had taken to travel to their targets and how wide each bastion's arc of fire was. The southernmost bastion had not fired, but Honsou knew that, at this range, its big guns were irrelevant. Its artillery pieces could only cover the far southern approaches, but the close-in guns and soldiers on the wall could sweep the face of the centre bastion with murderous crossfire.

His armour's auto-senses had easily penetrated the smoke of the barrage and, despite his hatred for the men in the fort, he grudgingly admitted to himself that they were competent gunners. Competent, but not intelligent. Honsou now had an exact plan of the fort's fire zones mapped out in his head. Normally an attacker would pay a fearsome butcher's bill to obtain such information, but where was the cost when you could use prisoners?

Honsou watched the survivors of the artillery barrage stagger back from the killing ground and drew back the hammer on his bolter. Looking at the sorry state of the men that emerged from the rolling banks of smoke, he realised that there was little point in letting them live. Most would be no use as slaves, for how could a deafened man understand orders or obey them? What use was a man with one arm? How could he dig a trench? And if they could fulfill no useful function then they were of no interest to Honsou.

He nodded to his men and in perfect concert, the Iron Warriors raised their bolters and opened fire.

They worked their weapons left and right, shredding the pitiful survivors in a hail of mass-reactive bolts. Pleading faces screamed for mercy, but the Iron Warriors had none to give.

Within seconds almost every last one of the five thousand prisoners who had advanced into the teeth of Tor Christo's guns was dead.

Honsou watched a swaying figure emerge from the smoke, cradling her arm close to her chest, and levelled his bolter at the woman's head.

Before he could pull the trigger, a gauntleted hand reached up and slapped aside his weapon. Snarling, Honsou reached for his sword.

Kroeger whipped his own sword up to swipe Honsou's hand from the scabbard.

Honsou stepped back, his pale features twisted in fury.

'Damn you, Kroeger! You go too far.'

Kroeger chuckled and turned his back on Honsou, gripping the tunic of the sole survivor of the attack and hauling her level with his face.

'Do you see this woman, half-breed? She has courage. She may be a lapdog of the False Emperor, but she has courage. Tell this mongrel scum your name, human.'

Honsou watched the woman's features twist in incomprehension until Kroeger repeated his order. He saw the woman's eyes focus on Kroeger's lips and realised she was probably deafened by the violence of the shelling.

At last she seemed to understand Kroeger's words and croaked, 'Lieutenant Larana Utorian, 383rd Jouran Dragoons. And you gave your word—'

Kroeger laughed and nodded. 'Yes, I did, but did you really expect me to keep it?'

The woman shook her head and Honsou was surprised when Kroeger threw her towards one of his squad leaders and said, 'Take her to the Chirumeks and have the wounded arm removed. Replace it and bring her to me.'

'You are sparing her life, Kroeger? Why? Mercy does not become you.'

'My reasons are my own, half-breed,' snapped Kroeger, though Honsou could see that he seemed just as surprised himself. 'You would do well to remember that, but I am wasting my breath on you. The Warsmith demands you lead your men forward and obtain information regarding the defences closer in. Now that I have the guns mapped I can begin the first parallel.'

'Before we know the sites of any close-in redoubts or traps?'

'Aye, we are to proceed with all speed. Or did you think that the Warsmith's orders did not apply to you?'

'You are unwise to begin the trenches before we know more,' pointed out Honsou.

'And you are a mongrel whelp, not fit to lead a company of the Iron Warriors. I can smell the stench of the ancient enemy upon you. You and your disgusting bastard company. It is an affront that you wear the symbol of the Iron Warriors upon your shoulder guard and I weep for the future of our Legion to know that unclean hybrids like you are counted amongst our number.'

Honsou fought to keep his bitter rage in check, clenching his knuckles white on the hilt of his sword. How easy it would be to rip it from its scabbard and attempt to strike Kroeger down, but that was just what his rival wanted, for him to prove that he was not worthy of the Iron Warriors. With difficulty, he forced down his anger, seeing the disappointment in Kroeger's eyes as he realised Honsou was not about to rise to his challenge.

'It shall be as the Warsmith commands,' replied Honsou and turned away.

FIVE

Night had closed in completely as Honsou crept through the cratered wasteland before the walls of Tor Christo. The sky was a dull, lustreless orange, streaked with scarlet bands drifting in the upper atmosphere. But to Honsou, the ground before him was as clear as though he walked in the brightest sunlight, the augmented senses of his armour turning night into day.

Far behind him, the warriors of Forrix's company pegged out the arc of the first trench to be dug before the walls of the hilltop fortress. Called a parallel, it was dug in line with the curtain wall of the fortress to be attacked. Deep, but narrow, it was just outside the range of the fort's guns, and would form the first line of attack. From this first parallel would be dug the attack trenches, known as saps. These would be driven towards the fortress on a line which, if extended, would miss the fortress, thus preventing the garrison from firing down the length of them.

When the sap had reached a point where the Iron Warriors' artillery pieces had the range to the hilltop fortress, a second parallel would be dug and breaching batteries placed to batter the walls to rubble in preparation for an escalade. Should it prove necessary, more saps could be dug forward and a third parallel established to place yet more batteries that would lob high explosive shells over the walls and into the heart of the garrison.

Honsou doubted that such a thorough siege would be required to take Tor Christo. The garrison would clearly be able to see the progress the attackers were making and would, in all likelihood, abandon the fortress and pull their men back to the main citadel.

Taking Tor Christo was a necessary precursor to any assault on the citadel, but it was sure to be thankless, bloody work and there would be little glory to be had in such a venture.

This current mission was a prime example of the gritty necessities of a siege. From a distance it was all too easy to rely only on what you could see, trusting to distant observations to prepare a plan of attack on a fortress. Honsou had seen dozens of attacks on fortifications founder due to lack of proper reconnaissance when attackers had run into previously unseen traps or redoubts that rendered their plans obsolete.

Honsou kept one eye on the watchtower that commanded the plateau and one on the ground before him, careful to avoid any fragments of shell casings or discarded weapons and battle gear. Sound carried further at night and the last thing he needed was to be caught out in the open with no immediate support in the vicinity. He and forty warriors from his company crept through the killing zone that had seen thousands of men die that very day, and by stealth, managed to get closer than any of the prisoners had by direct assault.

Carefully, he stepped around a mine his auto-senses detected and dropped a marker for the following troops to avoid. The minefield they traversed presented no significant threat to the Iron Warriors, but it would slow the digging if the prisoners and slaves were afraid of unexploded munitions every step of the way. The crack of metal sounded and Honsou cursed silently as he saw the ponderous form of Brakar Polonas, one of Forrix's senior engineers, step around the mine, marking its position on a light-proofed data-slate. The venerable warrior walked with an awkward, limping gait, his left leg a bionic replacement. It seemed this augmentation also made him incapable of moving quietly. It was a calculated insult by Forrix to send Polonas, letting Honsou know that his information was only trustworthy if accompanied by verification. It was just another entry in a catalogue of carefully measured insults to his prowess. He just hoped Forrix's clumsy insult didn't get them all killed.

He pushed the interloper from his mind as they continued forward, making good time despite their caution and Polonas's lack of stealth.

Honsou was now less than two hundred metres from the base of the rocky promontory that Tor Christo sat upon. Already this reconnaissance was bearing fruit. Ahead he could see three concealed artillery pits carved into the base of the hill. Rock-sheathed doors led within and, were it not for the rails that would carry the guns forward into position, he might never have spotted them.

Again he was forced to admire the cunning of the architects of Hydra Cordatus. These artillery pits were designed to remain silent and hidden until the Christo's attackers believed they had knocked out the fort's guns. Once attackers had established their breaching batteries, these guns would unleash deadly salvoes of ordnance to destroy their artillery pieces.

They were dug at an angle into the rock face, making it difficult, if not impossible, to target with counter-battery fire and Honsou realised that with this information he had a chance to prove his worth to the Warsmith.

He waved over his second-in-command, Goran Delau, and indicated the artillery positions.

'Clever,' observed Delau.

'Aye,' agreed Honsou darkly. 'It will be a devil of a job to destroy them.'

'Indeed.'

Honsou glanced round as the scrape of metal on rock sounded again, and he stifled a curse as Brakar Polonas noisily joined them.

'Why do we stop?' he asked.

Honsou didn't answer, he simply pointed towards the concealed artillery positions.

Polonas nodded, studying the positions with his practiced eye.

'We can mark their positions and shell them once the first parallel's batteries are in place,' suggested Delau. 'We can bring enough rock down to block the guns.'

Polonas shook his head. 'I do not believe it can be done with guns. Look, there is a rock canopy built across the top of the door and a ditch before them to catch any rubble that may be blasted loose.'

Honsou was impressed. He had not noticed those defences and his respect for the old man rose a fraction.

'Then we take the fight to them, and capture the guns now.'

Once again, Polonas shook his head.

'Keep your impatience in check, half-breed. We must not act in haste. Think about it. These doors lead within the rock of the fortress, most likely just to this outwork, but possibly even to the main citadel. Were we to attack now, the enemy would simply seal the tunnels beyond our means to breach and defend them with great vigour.'

'Then what do you suggest, Polonas?' snapped Honsou.

Polonas turned his gaze on Honsou and snarled, 'You must learn to respect your betters, half-breed. The first lesson of intelligence gathering is knowing how to use the information you accumulate. To act precipitously would be to alert the enemy of what we know.'

'Then what? We just ignore the fact that we have discovered these positions?'

'No, far from it. We continue as though we are unaware of their existence. Await their deployment and take the positions by storm by previously infiltrated troops. In conjunction with a frontal escalade, this will allow us to take Tor Christo in a matter of hours.'

Honsou bit back a retort as he saw the sense in what Brakar Polonas was suggesting. It was a salutary lesson and Honsou bowed his head, accepting the words of Forrix's engineer.

'Very well, we will do as you direct, Brakar Polonas' said Honsou formally.

Swiftly, Honsou contacted the remainder of his warriors and issued the command to return to the rally point. He deactivated the vox-link and was preparing to move out when Brakar Polonas turned and slipped on a loose patch of shale, the metal of his bionic leg scraping noisily between the faces of two boulders.

The Iron Warriors froze.

Tense seconds passed in the stagnant darkness as Honsou held his breath. He scrambled across to the veteran warrior as quietly as he was able and saw that his leg was wedged tight between two rocks. He cursed silently to himself and pressed his gauntlets flat against Polonas's shoulder guards.

'Be still,' he warned.

Just as he had begun to think they had not been detected, a spear of phosphorescent light streaked skyward, closely followed by a second. Both burst within seconds of one another and the plateau was suddenly illuminated by twin suns burning brightly as they slowly descended on small grav-chutes.

A cry of alarm was raised high above them and Honsou cursed aloud this time, uncaring of who heard him.

'Damn you, Polonas!' snarled Honsou, wrenching the ancient warrior from the ground. The metal of the bionic leg was wedged tightly and it was the organic components of the limb that failed first, tearing free in a wash of blood as Honsou ripped Polonas from the ground.

Polonas grunted in pain, the accelerated healing mechanism of his body stemming the flow of blood from his severed leg in seconds. Honsou shucked the man onto his shoulders and shouted, 'Iron Warriors, go! As fast as you can!' He heard the unmistakable cough of mortar fire.

Honsou knew that the first rounds would be for ranging purposes, but there would be spotters on the wall to direct subsequent volleys. They had to make as much use of this time as they could. The strobing light of the two sunflares cast lunatic shadows across the cracked ground and it took all Honsou's skill not to lose his footing as he raced from the base of the mountain. The ground rocked as mortar shells burst ahead of them, scything deadly fragments in all directions, but they were landing too long. The height of the mortars was working against the Imperial gunners now. Their elevation gave them longer reach, but also meant that it was impossible to engage targets within a certain range.

Perversely, Honsou knew they had been safest where they were, but also knew it was only a matter of time until troops were sent to flush them out. It was unlikely the Basilisks would join the fight, as it would be a waste of ordnance to engage so few targets with so remote a chance of hitting.

Another volley slammed into the ground, closer this time, and Honsou stumbled to his knees, just barely keeping his balance with the weight of Polonas on his shoulder. More sunflares exploded overhead and now small arms fire began bursting around them. Las-bolts vitrified the dust and heavy bolters churned the ground. He felt an impact graze his shoulder and another clip his thigh, but these were little but annoyances: his armour was proof against such weaponry.

Heavier impacts blasted into the ground beside him and he swore again as he realised that the defenders had managed to bring some heavy weaponry up to the firing step. A bolt from a lascannon hammered into the ground beside him, cracking the earth and flashing the dust to vapour.

More shells landed and this time Honsou was thrown to the ground as a mortar shell burst less than five metres directly above him, spraying him with razor sharp shrapnel. Red runes winked into life across his visor as the spirit within his armour registered breaches in its structure. Honsou could feel the stickiness of blood briefly run down his leg and back before his enhanced metabolism clotted the wounds.

He offered a brief prayer of thanks to the gods for sparing him. Power armour was amongst the best protection a warrior could have, but even it had its limitations. He reached over to grab Polonas and realised why he had been spared.

The veteran's back was laid open to the bone, his thick ribs and spine glistening and red. His head was a mass of gristle and bloody flesh, pulped grey matter pouring in a glutinous flood from his shattered skull. Honsou shrugged and tapped Polonas's Iron Warriors' icon on his shoulder plate in thanks for saving his life, then picked himself up from the ground.

Honsou pushed himself forward and, freed from the weight of Polonas, was quickly able to outdistance the mortars, pounding across the cratered ground in a lumbering sprint.

Shells continued to land behind him, but the gunners on the walls were firing at phantoms now, their targets having escaped their wrath. Honsou slowed to a jog and counted in his men, coming up one short. Aside from Polonas, only one other warrior had fallen. Honsou considered they had been lucky.

More sunflares continued to turn the valley's night into day, but the Imperials were simply wasting shells now.

Honsou strode through the picket lines protecting the digging parties, satisfied at the progress the slaves were making. The ground was dusty and hard-packed, but given the right threats and impetus, the slaves were working fast enough.

Over two thousand men dug the barren soil of Hydra Cordatus, creating a trench that ran from the eastern edge of the valley wall to a point mapped out by today's foray of the prisoners at the extreme range of Tor Christo's guns. Here the trench bent southwards, following the curve of Tor Christo's curtain wall.

The earth excavated from the trench was piled on its outer edge, on the side facing the fortress, providing a ready-made fire step and protection for the diggers. Once the trench had been completed, the Iron Warriors would build more permanent fortifications along its length, adding linked bunkers every fifty metres and laying minefields of their own.

Honsou jumped across the trench, nodding in acknowledgement to men from his company as they supervised the labouring slaves, ensuring everything was constructed to their satisfaction. The work was progressing at speed and, barring interference from the Imperials, the trench was sure to be complete before morning.

He moved easily through the swarming throng of bodies engaged in digging and stockpiling supplies ready for the push towards Tor Christo. Slaves either dragged enormous flatbeds of shells and explosives forward or sweated under the load of adamantium sheets to form roadways for heavy artillery and tanks. Others were arranged into chanting groups gathered around hastily emplaced shrines to the Dark Gods, their mutterings overseen by one of Jharek Kelmaur's sorcerers.

Bright arc lights were erected on baroque towers of iron, each placed at points decreed by the sorcerers to create some form of cabalistic arrangement. Quite what this would achieve, Honsou was unsure, but he reasoned that it couldn't hurt to appease the gods, whatever measures were used. Honsou honoured the Dark Powers of Chaos, but preferred to rely on the strength in his sword arm and the explosives in his artillery to win campaigns. To rely on Chaos was to invite disaster at the capaciousness of the gods. Had Angron himself not failed on Armageddon by doing just that?

He saw the Warsmith's pavilion set upon the rocks on the eastern flank of the mountains. Its bronze poles supported billowing steeldust fabric patterned with twisting, chaotic designs that enraptured the eye and held its fascination until reason itself became lost forever within the swirling significance that remained forever elusive. Honsou had learned never to allow his gaze to be lured into the foul pattern and kept his eyes firmly fixed on the figures that reclined beneath its treacherous design.

The Warsmith sat on an enormous throne, carried from lost Olympia and said to have been crafted by the holy Perturabo himself. The Warsmith claimed it was a gift from the primarch after the fighting on Tallarn, though Honsou doubted that their monstrous, daemonic progenitor would have been so generous after that particular campaign. Beside the hulking, sickening presence of the Warsmith stood the dead-faced Forrix, reading out lists of numbers and displacements of troops from a bone-rimmed data-slate.

Behind the throne stood Jharek Kelmaur, the sorcerer whose pronouncements had led them to this world. The sorcerer's armour was embossed with gold and silver, the traceries and patterning bewilderingly complex. Skulls decorated his greaves and cuissart, and his breastplate was moulded in the shape of Adonis-like musculature. He wore no helmet and his features spoke of a sly cunning: a lipless mouth and sewn-up eyes, set within a swept-forward brow. His pale skull was hairless and tattooed with bizarre symbols that seemed to writhe with a life of their own.

Honsou disliked Kelmaur, and did not trust his magicks and subtle manipulations. Kelmaur's head turned in Honsou's direction, as though sensing his thoughts, and a hidden smile creased his papery skin.

Crouched at Kelmaur's feet was a robed figure, its face hooded and unseen. A monochrome cogwheel symbol stitched on its back identified it as a member of the Cult of the Machine, and briefly Honsou wondered what purpose the creature served.

He dismissed the thought as he halted at the entrance to the pavilion, awaiting his lord's permission to enter his presence. Forrix looked up from his lists and his eyes narrowed as he saw that Honsou was alone. The Warsmith glanced up, his face shrouded in flitting shadows, and said, 'Honsou. Enter and tell us of your mission.'

'My lord,' whispered Honsou as he stepped into the pavilion. He felt the queasy sensation build in his stomach at the Warsmith's presence, fighting down his nausea as he gave his report.

'We were able to approach to within two hundred metres of the promontory and I have to report that there are concealed artillery positions at its base. They will be almost impossible to target with gunnery and it is my belief that—'

'Where is Brakar Polonas?' interrupted Forrix.

'He is dead,' stated Honsou with no small measure of satisfaction.

'Dead? How?' asked Forrix, his tone emotionless.

'He took a hit from a mortar shell at close range and was killed instantly.'

Forrix glanced over to Jharek Kelmaur, who nodded imperceptibly.

'The half-breed speaks the truth, Brother Forrix, and the information he brings will aid us greatly.'

Surprised at the unexpected support of the sorcerer, Honsou continued, wondering what price the magicker would later expect.

'We can infiltrate warriors into a position whereby the guns can be seized as they prepare to fire. If we combine this attack with an escalade on the main walls, we should be able to take Tor Christo within hours. The tunnels are sure to lead within its walls, and perhaps even run to the main citadel.'

'You presume too much, Honsou,' stated the Warsmith, his voice like the scraping of iron nails on slate.

'My lord?'

'You seek to plan this campaign for me? Is it your belief that I do not understand the proper workings of siegecraft?'

'No, my lord,' said Honsou quickly, 'I merely thought to offer a suggestion as to—'

'You are young and have much to learn, Honsou. Your inferior mixed blood holds much sway over your thinking and it saddens me to see that you have not learned from your betters. You think like an Imperial.'

Honsou flinched as though slapped. His anger arose, but he clamped bands of iron will around it, holding it and letting it smoulder dangerously within him.

'When I desire your "suggestions" I will ask for them, Honsou. You are not yet worthy to make such offerings to my table. Understand that it is not your place to suggest anything to me. You must spend another thousand years as my servant before even daring to think you are qualified to do so. I shall permit you this one indiscretion, but I will not again. You are dismissed.'

Honsou bit back an angry retort, seeing the satisfaction Forrix took in yet another of his public humiliations. He should be used to the insults and slaps in the face his polluted blood brought him, but it was almost too much to bear when he knew in his gut that he was right.

Stiffly, he bowed and withdrew from the Warsmith's pavilion, his heart burning with controlled fury.

He would prove them wrong. All of them.

SIX

Dawn broke its first light over the mountain peaks in sickly red streams, bathing the mountains in the colour of blood. As the echoing boom of distant artillery fire roused him from a fitful sleep, Guardsman Hawke rolled over and grunted as his shoulder grazed an outcrop of black rock. Groggily, he opened his eyes and stared into the lacerated sky.

His limbs ached, his throat was raw and his eyes felt like someone had been rubbing them with sandpaper all night.

He sat up and rummaged through the pouches on the side of his pack, pulling out his hydration pills. He swallowed a pair of blue capsules with a mouthful of water from his canteen. He had water and tablets enough to last for maybe three weeks and meal packs for two - depending on how he was able to ration himself.

But food and water weren't his main worries.

No, his main concern was his lack of detox pills. He pulled the plastic pill container from his pocket and counted out the capsules inside. Without this medicine, the Adeptus Mechanicus claimed, anyone stationed on this planet would become unbearably sick. It had never happened to him yet, but he was in no rush to put the theory to the test.

Glumly he realised that he had enough for another six days, but, Emperor willing, he hoped to be back in the citadel by then. He had a vox-unit and though he had been unable to raise anyone last night, he fervently hoped he'd be able to make contact today.

He yawned and stretched, pushing himself to his feet with a groan of stiffness. He had climbed a thousand metres over steep, rocky terrain and, though he hated to admit it, he realised he was badly out of shape. It had been early evening by the time he'd reached this perch overlooking the valley of the citadel and Jericho Falls, his legs burning and his lungs afire. He'd needed ten minutes on the respirator just to get his breath back.

Just in time for a grandstand view of the horror of watching thousands of his comrades in arms herded forward like cattle to be butchered in the storm of shelling from Tor Christo. He'd screamed himself hoarse with frustration. Couldn't they see they were shelling their own men? He'd burned out a whole battery pack trying to raise the gunners on the Christo and tell them of their error.

The smoke had obscured the worst of the horror, but when it cleared, he'd been shocked rigid at the carnage he saw below him through the unflinching lenses of the magnoculars. What manner of foe had come to Hydra Cordatus? Death in battle he could understand, but this senseless slaughter was beyond his comprehension.

Though he'd tried to get some rest, sleep constantly eluded him. The rumble of artillery, heavy vehicles and ultra-rapid construction had echoed constantly from below. When the sky had lit up with sunflares, he'd used the magnoculars to try and see what was happening, but all he could see were tiny explosions bursting on the plain before the Christo as the gunners lobbed shells over their walls.

Hawke pulled his jacket tighter about himself and shouldered his pack, tossing aside the burnt out vox-battery and ration pack he'd consumed last night and limped towards the edge of the ridge. He pulled out the magnoculars, training them on the base of the mountains to see what this morning's light brought.

The pace of operations at Jericho Falls had slowed, but not by much. The huge cargo ships that had been descending in a more or less constant stream were still arriving, but there were noticeably fewer than yesterday.

'Great balls of the saints!' swore Hawke as he shifted his gaze from the spaceport to the gap in the mountains that led from Jericho Falls to the citadel.

Enormous numbers of vehicles, artillery and siege engines rumbled along the road in ordered ranks, though there was a strange, shimmering haze obscuring some of the larger machines, and what seemed like an unnecessarily large number of guards stationed around them. Hawke noticed that these guards were all facing inwards as though the machines themselves were the threat.

Shocked by the sheer amount of hardware on its way to the citadel, he turned and clambered across the jagged rocks to the other side of the knifeback ridge and trained the magnoculars on the valley below.

He gasped as he saw the vast scale of the engineering works carried out during the night. A vast trench, at least a kilometre long, stretched due west, its outer edges piled high with earth, before bending in a sloping, concave arc to the south-west. The curving arm of the trench exactly followed the sweep of the walls of Tor Christo and its outer face was likewise strengthened with earthen walls.

Further trenches, like snaking roots, wound their way back to enormous supply depots, huge stockpiles of artillery shells and construction materials where long trains of men dragged supplies throughout the sprawling campsite.

Already Hawke could see working parties digging forward from the main trench parallel to the walls. A constant thunder of distant artillery boomed from the high walls of the Christo, powerful explosions slamming into the earth around the working parties, but the high, earthen berms thrown up on the exterior faces of the trench protected the workers from the worst of the blasts.

And the saps continued inexorably towards Tor Christo.

Behind the trenches sprawling bunkers and massive artillery positions had been built. Though nothing occupied the latter at present, Hawke wondered what manner of gun might fill such a site. The stone of their structures appeared to have been quarried from the mountainside during the night by vast, tracked drilling machines. Hawke could see these were even now boring into the rock for more building materials. Everything suggested a monstrous controlling influence that knew every last detail of every operation. The sheer mechanical, unfeeling nature of what he saw chilled Hawke to the bone.

A swelling roar of affirmation rose from the valley floor and Hawke saw that almost the entire population of the camp had ceased its labours, parting before something as yet hidden from Hawke's sight.

The echoes of ponderous footsteps reached him and Hawke's blood slowed as he watched a legion of enormous dark gods tread the earth.

He shucked the pack from his shoulders and desperately fumbled for the vox-unit.

Honsou watched in rapt adoration as the Battle Titans of the Legio Mortis strode the earth, the thunder of their footsteps threatening to break apart this planet's fragile crust. The majority of the hellish war machines stood over twenty metres in height, their fearsome physiques cast in the form of mighty daemons from the depths of the warp. Each growled with a primal ferocity, their hunger for destruction only barely kept in check by that which controlled them.

The largest of these monstrous leviathans, the Dies Irae, led the Battle Titans, its barbed tail sweeping back and forth in anticipation of the slaughter. Vast spires, like perverted and defiled cathedrals, rested upon its gargantuan shoulders, gun platforms and massed batteries of artillery clustered on each twisted steeple.

To witness the gathering of creations which were so close to Chaotic divinity was a privilege Honsou had experienced only a handful of times, and he felt humbled by such a potent display of the power of the gods of Chaos. The shadows of the Titans swallowed the camp, swathing the acres of men and materials in darkness as they passed.

Honsou watched as hundreds of chained prisoners were herded forward to be crushed underfoot as an offering to the daemonic powers that dwelt within the Titans' unholy bodies. Their lumbering stride continued, giving no sign that they even noticed the carnage they caused with every step. The Dies lrae paused in its thunderous march and its upper body ground towards the fortress of Tor Christo, as though taking the measure of its foe. Honsou watched as it raised the enormous bulk of its hellstorm cannon and plasma annihilator towards the fortress in mocking salute.

Honsou knew the commanding officers in Tor Christo would be watching the arrival of these magnificent war machines, and the message they delivered was sure to be clear.

Your time has come.

SEVEN

Magos Ferian Corsil adjusted the dials on the communications panel again, tweaking the broadcast bandwidth in an attempt to increase the capacity of the long range vox-casters. Beside him, the row of servitors plugged into the long vox-console sat in lobotomised silence, each attuned to one of the various Imperial Guard frequencies. Their shaven heads and cable-plugged eye sockets nodded monotonously in time with the cycling bands of static that filled their skulls.

Since the unexplained quarantining of the Star Chamber by Magos Naicin, they had been forced to try and adapt the vox-casters to provide them with some sort of link to the outside world. Much as it went against everything Corsil had learned on Mars, he had spent the last day and a half working on a dozen disassembled vox-panels attempting to alter the divinely decreed circuitry within each blessed device.

A burst of static spat from the speakers indicating the machine spirit's displeasure and Corsil hastily made his obeisance to it.

'Blessed machine, a thousand pardons for my unworthy hands. Deus in Machina.'

Mechadendrites waved from his spine plugs like dreaming snakes, each ribbed, copper prosthetic terminating in mechanised digits or some form of power-driven tool. Two mechadendrites worked deep inside an open access panel on the side of the console, adjusting the power couplings in attempt to reroute some of the power to the broadcast amplifier.

If he could isolate some of the more redundant systems - perish the thought that such a term could exist in relation to a machine - then he might be able to increase the range of the vox-casters by up to four per cent. His mechadendrites continued working away inside the panel as he cycled through the various vox-nets.

As he hit upon the squad-level net, a servitor suddenly stopped its repetitive bobbing and sat upright, its mouth jerking into life.

'—dy hear me? What the hell's the point of a vox if no fragger ever answers?'

Corsil jumped at the sound of the voice, knocking the dial on the panel and glancing in puzzlement at the servitor as it returned to its previous static-filled life. The squad-level vox-net? That was normally reserved for small unit actions; for platoon and squad leaders to issue tactical orders. It was not supposed to be in use now.

Hurriedly he returned the dial to its previous setting and disengaged his mechadendrites from beneath the console.

Once again, the servitor sat upright, its expressionless face relaying the message from this unknown source.

'…come in. This is Guardsman Julius Hawke, serial number 25031971, lately of listening post Sigma IV; I repeat this is Guardsman Julius Hawke attempting to raise Imperial forces in either Tor Christo or the citadel. Enemy Titans are inbound on your position together with brigade strength armour and infantry support.'

Corsil stared, open mouthed, at the console and the servitor relaying Hawke's message for long seconds before bolting from the room.

Word of Hawke's survival spread quickly through the upper command echelons of the citadel with mixed reactions. Many believed it was a trick of the invaders to feed them disinformation, while others felt that the Emperor had spared this man for some divine purpose. The irony of the idea that a man like Hawke could be an instrument of divine purpose was not lost on the officers that knew him.

Castellan Vauban paced his chambers, sipping a glass of amasec and pondering the Hawke dilemma. Lieutenant Colonel Leonid sat behind a desk reviewing Major Tedeski's file on the Guardsman, preparing a selection of questions they could use to verify that they were indeed talking to Hawke, and that he was not speaking under duress. Men from Hawke's platoon were even now being questioned for additional information that could verify his identity.

Should the voice on the end of the vox genuinely prove to be Hawke, then they would have a first-rate source of intelligence regarding the enemy's disposition, strength and movements, but Vauban wanted to be absolutely certain before he made any kind of decision. Magos Naicin was at this very moment researching the logic stacks within Arch Magos Amaethon's Machine Temple for some way of detecting whether the words spoken over the vox-caster were genuine, though he hadn't sounded hopeful. Naicin had balked at Vauban's idea of employing an empathic server to gauge the truth, citing the unreliability of such a procedure without the subject actually being present.

For now, at least, it looked as though they were going to have to do this on their own.

Vauban knew of Hawke, having seen his name appear on more disciplinary reviews than he cared to remember, but had never met the man. Drunkenness, disorderly conduct, brawling and theft were but a taster of the trouble Hawke had been involved in and Vauban was reminded of the story of the Hero of Chiros, Jan van Yastobaal. Lionised by the people of the Segmentum Pacificus as a true hero of the people, Yastobaal had fought in the wars against the Apostate Cardinal Bucharis during the Plague of Unbelief. History told that he had been a noble, selfless man who had sacrificed all he had to free his people.

Vauban had been inspired by Yastobaal as a youth and had made a study of the man while a captain in the Jouran Planetary Defence Force. The deeper he researched and the more he had become acquainted with the real Yastobaal, the more he had found him to be a reckless, unorthodox man, prone to taking unnecessary gambles with his mens' lives. Everything he read of the man spoke of a rampant ego and colossal vanity that bordered on psychosis, and yet there was still much to admire about him.

But read any Imperially approved historical text and the story of Yastobaal would be told as a noble battle of courage over tyranny.

In years to come, what would the history books say of Guardsman Julius Hawke?