Storm of Iron

ONE

As Lieutenant Colonel Leonid entered the Sepulchre the flame at the end of the taper wavered in the draft that gusted in from the open door. Kneeling before a basalt statue of the Emperor in the chapel's ossuary, Castellan Vauban cupped the flame behind his hand, shielding it from the wind and lit a candle for the men of Battalion A, as he had done every day for the last six days since Tor Christo had fallen.

Leonid kept a respectful distance from his commanding officer, awaiting the completion of his ministrations to the dead, and Vauban was grateful for his officer's understanding.

The grim tower known as the Sepulchre stood on the north-western slopes of the mountains, high above the citadel. Constructed of smooth, black marble, veined with threads of gold, it was a tall, hollow tube, some thirty metres in diameter and a hundred high. Its inner walls were studded with hundreds of ossuaries containing the bleached bones of every man who had borne the title of castellan. It had been a great comfort to Vauban to imagine that one day he too would have a place of honour amongst the immortal dead, but he knew that was nothing but a dream. In all likelihood, he would end his days as a desiccated corpse somewhere below in the citadel, murdered by this infernal foe. The thought of his bones scoured clean by the dust storms of this planet filled him with great melancholy.

The entire floor was a polished disc of solid brass, its surface etched with intricate traceries and swirling lines that looped gracefully across its surface, weaving and intersecting in a beguiling dance. It looked like a puzzle where the solution, if there even was one, was forever elusive. Vauban knew it was possible to happily lose several hours trying to untangle the design with your eyes, but he had long ago decided that it was a mystery he would never solve.

He rose from his knees, wincing as his joints cracked painfully. War was a young man's game and he was too old to bear the horrors being placed before him. He bowed towards the Emperor's graven image and whispered, 'Lord Emperor, give me the strength to do your bidding. I am but a man, with a man's courage, and need your holy wisdom to guide me in this, our time of need.'

The statue remained silent and the commander of Hydra Cordatus turned on his heel, marching towards the door to the outer chambers of the Sepulchre.

Vauban thought he had known anguish as he had watched the scenes of destruction at Jericho Falls and on the plains when the Iron Warriors had tricked the gunners at Tor Christo into shelling their own men.

But with the fall of Tor Christo and the death of nearly seven thousand men, he knew the true depths of misery. So many dead, and the battle not yet over.

He nodded to Leonid as he passed, his second-in-command closing the door to the candlelit house of the dead. The outer chambers of the Sepulchre were light and airily constructed, as though the architects had understood that the human mind could absorb only so much grief, and that there were times when it was good to rejoice in the immortality of the spirit.

Bright glow-globes, set behind arched windows of stained glass, threw gold and azure light across the marble-flagged floor. Vauban paused to admire the handiwork of artists dead these last ten millennia. Scenes of battle were played out above him alongside images of the Emperor ascending to his throne and feats of bravery of long-dead Space Marine heroes.

'Beautiful, aren't they?' whispered Vauban.

'Yes, sir, they are,' affirmed Leonid.

'Sad then, that they will be destroyed.'

'Sir?'

Vauban returned his gaze to his second-in-command with a sad smile. 'I think our enemies would as soon see this place reduced to dust, don't you, Mikhail?'

'Possibly,' conceded Leonid, bitterly. 'But as long as we are not betrayed by one man's lust for glory, or anomer's cowardice, we shall make them pay for every metre they advance.'

Vauban could understand Leonid's venom. Princeps Fierach had doomed nearly two thousand men to death when his Titans had abandoned the Jourans to hunt the corrupted Imperator Titan. Those Titans that had survived the battle had wisely retreated to their armoured hangars for repairs, their crews confined to barracks while the Legio's judiciary sought to apportion blame for the debacle. Fierach's death made it that much easier for them, giving them a conveniently dead scapegoat. Princeps Daekian, commander of the Warlord Titan Honoris Causa had come before the senior officers of the Jouran Dragoons in full dress uniform, offering his sorrow and a formal apology on behalf of the Legio Ignatum.

For the sake of unity, Vauban had accepted the apology, but the words tasted bitter. Leonid had shown no such restraint, walking up and striking Daekian. Vauban had been ready for the worst kind of reaction, but Princeps Daekian had merely nodded and said, 'That is your right and privilege, Lieutenant Colonel Leonid, and I bear you no ill-will.'

Princeps Daekian had then drawn his curved sabre, stepping forward to offer it, hilt first, to Leonid.

'But know this: the Legio Ignatum stands ready to fight at your side and we will not fail you again. I swear by my blade that it shall be so.'

Vauban had been stunned. For an officer of the Legio to offer his sword to another was a declaration that should he fail in his sworn duty, he was willing to be killed by his own blade, and have the gods of battle mock him for all eternity.

Leonid had stared at the blade for several seconds. In such circumstances it was customary for an officer and a gentleman to refuse to accept the sword, indicating that the gesture was enough. But Leonid had taken the sword and thrust it through his officer's sash before returning to his seat. Vauban had been disappointed, but not surprised. Leonid's battalion had been badly mauled in the battle and he was determined to extract a blood price for his men's deaths.

Leonid wore the sword still, and Vauban knew that when word of this incident had reached the ears of the common soldiers, his popularity had soared within the ranks.

'I am proud of you, Mikhail,' said Vauban suddenly. 'You have a quality that I do not: you have the ability to empathise with the men in your command on every level. From the formality of the officers' mess to the gutter-talk of the barracks.'

'Thank you, sir,' beamed Leonid, pleased with his commander's sentiment.

'I am a competent and experienced leader,' continued Vauban, 'but I have never enjoyed the love of my soldiers. I have always told myself that it is not necessary for my men to love me, only that they obey. Your men love and respect you, and, better, they trust you not to lead them into harm's way without good reason.'

The two officers left the Sepulchre, pulling their uniform jackets tighter about themselves as they stepped into the whipping wind that blew stiffly across the high peaks of the mountains. A thousand steps led downhill between eroded statues of faded Imperial heroes, and an honour guard of fifteen soldiers awaited to escort them back to the citadel.

Both officers stared in trepidation at the blasted plain before the citadel, feeling a gut-twisting sense of despair at the sight that met their eyes. Pillars of smoke curled skyward from countless forges and campfires as the enemy soldiers broke their fast this morning. The plain was a mass of men and machines, supply depots and digging parties.

In the days after the fall of Tor Christo, the main east/west parallel had been extended westwards to the base of the rocky promontory, and two zigzagging saps were being driven towards the citadel. The first was aimed at the salient angle of the Primus Ravelin, while the second was on a course for Vincare bastion's left flank.

'We're not slowing them down enough,' said Vauban needlessly.

'No,' agreed Leonid, 'But we are slowing them.'

'Yes, but we need to stop them,' said Vauban, lifting his eyes to the blackened form of the Imperator Titan standing immobile at the foot of Tor Christo, still swarming with men attempting to buttress it firmly and allow it to fire without collapsing. Behind it, huge gangs, thousands strong, had spent the last six days heaving and sweating to carry massive siege mortars and howitzers up the rocky slopes to the forward edge of Tor Christo's promontory. From there they would be able to lob their shells with impunity within the walls of the Vincare bastion and place breaching batteries to shoot over the glacis, targeting the main curtain wall with direct fire.

They were still some days away from completion, but when they were ready the carnage they would inflict on the garrison was sure to be horrific.

'By the Emperor, Mikhail, it will go badly for us once those guns are brought to bear.'

Leonid followed Vauban's stare and said, 'Have you thought any more about my idea for Guardsman Hawke?'

Guardsman Hawke, still trapped in the mountains, was proving invaluable to the artillerymen of the citadel. His daily reports of where the main work parties were gathering had forced the invaders to dig extra approach trenches to ensure that they were able to reach the front line alive, slowing the advance. Vauban's admiration for this lowly soldier had grown daily, as he had reported the enemy's movements, dispositions and apparent numbers in minute detail, allowing them to get a clearer understanding of the enemy's capabilities and direct their artillery fire accordingly. If they lived through this, Vauban would ensure that Hawke received a commendation.

'I have, but such a plan would involve the Adeptus Mechanicus and I do not trust them any more.'

'Nor I, but we will need their help if it is to work.'

'That is for Arch Magos Amaethon to decide.'

'Sir, you know Amaethon is slipping and cannot be relied upon any more. He is a fool, and worse, he's dangerous. Just look at what he did to the tunnel!'

'Be careful, Mikhail. The Adeptus Mechanicus is an ancient and powerful body, and Amaethon is still senior to you and therefore deserving of your respect. Despite the truth of your words I will not have you utter them again. Understood?'

'Aye, sir. But we are supposed to be above this sort of thing!'

'We are above it, my friend, which is why you will say nothing more about it. If we are to triumph here, we need to keep the Adeptus Mechanicus on our side. It will achieve nothing if we alienate them.'

Leonid said nothing more, and Vauban both understood and agreed with Leonid's reticence concerning the priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Blowing the tunnel between the Christo and the citadel was an act of unforgivable callousness, and were Amaethon not already less than a man, he would have made him pay for his crime.

Magos Naicin had explained how he had pleaded with the arch magos not to destroy the tunnel, but the venerable Amaethon had not listened to reason. Vauban had also asked Naicin why, after the Heaven's Fall signal had been received, the Christo had not been destroyed.

'I do not know, Castellan Vauban,' had been Naicin's answer. 'Perhaps Major Tedeski's courage failed him at the last and he could not fulfil his duty.'

Vauban had come close to losing his temper then, remembering the horrific sight of a swaggering giant in Terminator armour hurling Tedeski to his death from the battlements of the Mars bastion at the battle's end.

Fighting to keep the fury from his voice, he said, 'Be that as it may, but in future there will be no action taken by the Adeptus Mechanicus without direct approval from myself or Lieutenant Colonel Leonid. Is that clear?'

'As crystal, Castellan. And let me say, that I agree with you wholeheartedly. I cannot bring myself to condone the death of the men you lost at Tor Christo, but the magos is old and does not have long left in this world. He will soon be with the Omnissiah, and, may the holy spirit of the Machine forgive me for saying so, perhaps it might be better for us all were he to be taken sooner rather than later.'

Vauban had not replied to Naicin's sentiment, but had immediately sensed the younger magos's desire to take over from Amaethon.

And, while he did not approve of such machinations, he gloomily realised that Naicin might well be correct.

Guardsman Hawke ran a hand through his tousled hair and settled into a more comfortable position on the rocks, using his jacket as a rest for his elbows and training the magnoculars on the enemy camp below.

'Right, let's see what's going on now,' he muttered.

The dusky plain below was a patchwork of activity, with whole swathes of ground given over to weapon and tool manufacture, with thousands upon thousands of men milling about in regular patterns. It had taken him a few days to find this perch from which to observe the camp. It was far from comfortable, but it was probably as good as it got in these mountains. It was sheltered from the worst of the winds and there was a rocky overhang that allowed him to snatch some sleep when the noise from below wasn't too bad. He yawned, the mere thought of sleep making his body crave it all the more. Night was drawing in anyway and he wouldn't be able to see much more at the rate the daylight was fading.

He'd eaten and drunk only sparingly and his food and water supplies were still holding out, but he had long since ran out of detox pills. However, worries that he would fall prey to the toxic atmosphere of Hydra Cordatus appeared to be unfounded. His health, aside from a few braises and scrapes, was better than it had been since he'd ended up on this useless planet.

After the initial pain and stiffness had left his underused muscles, he had felt clearer and fitter than ever. The constant headaches had vanished like morning mist and the ashen taste that always caught in the back of his mouth had also disappeared. His skin was taking on a healthy glow, his natural paleness replaced by the beginnings of a tan.

Whatever the cause of his sudden good health, Hawke was grateful for it. Perhaps it was the feeling that he was now proving his worth to the regiment, that he was a good soldier and could hack it with the best of them. As he panned the magnoculars across the enemy camp, counting the number of work parties that made their way to the approach trenches, Hawke was forced to admit that, all things being equal, he was having the time of his life.

TWO

The bone-bladed knife scraped a clean furrow through the ingrained blood on the heavy vambrace, the dried crust gathering on the curved rear of the blade. Larana Utorian dipped the blade in the bucket of warm water beside her and returned to her task. Once again, Kroeger had returned to the dug-out with dried blood caked across his armour and without a word to her, had indicated that she should remove his armour and clean it for him.

Each piece was heavy, almost too heavy, and were it not for the wheezing mechanical arm Kroeger's butcher-surgeons had grafted to her shoulder she would have been unable to lift his armour clear. The black-steel metalwork of the mechanical arm was nauseating to look at and the feel of its corrupt bio-mechanical components worming their way through her body made her want to rip it from her shoulder. But the writhing black tendrils of synth-nerve had forged an unbreakable bond with her own flesh and she could no more remove it than she could stop her heart from beating.

A heavy steel frame carried the individual components of Kroeger's armour, each moulded breastplate, cuissart, greave, vambrace and gorget precisely arranged so that it resembled some gigantic, disassembled mechanical man. Virtually every surface was stained with gore and the stench of decaying matter made her want to gag every time she looked at the armour.

She bent to her task once more, scraping yet another clean furrow in Kroeger's armour. Tears ran down her cheeks as she cleaned the armour of a monster, knowing that tomorrow she would be performing the same task again.

Why Kroeger had not killed her was a mystery and every day she found herself almost wishing that he had.

And every day she found herself hating herself for wanting to live.

To toil in the service of such a beast was to play handmaiden to a daemon itself.

And this was a capricious daemon; there was no way she could predict its moods and behavioural mores, no way to know Kroeger's reaction to anything she did. She railed against him, beating her fists against his bloody armour and he laughed, throwing her aside. She acquiesced to his desires and found him surly and brooding, picking at old scars and licking his own blood from his hands - he refused to allow his wounds to clot - as he glared at her with contempt.

She hated him with a fiery passion, but so wanted to live. There was no way to know how to behave to stop Kroeger killing her. She scraped the last of the blood from the vambrace and put aside the bone knife, taking up an oily rag and polishing the silver of its surface until it shone. Satisfied that the heavy piece of armour was as clean as she could manage, she rose to her feet and hung it upon the armour frame.

As she hung the vambrace in place, she found her eyes drawn again to the sight and stench of the interior faces of Kroeger's armour. She polished and cleaned the exterior of his armour, but she would not touch its interior surfaces. Coated in a loathsome, creeping horror, these internal surfaces looked like flensed hunks of rotten meat, their putrid surfaces undulating as though imbued with some foul internal life. Yet for all its vile appearance, the armour exuded a hateful attraction, as though it called to her on some unknowable level.

She shivered as she removed the next piece of armour from the frame, the rounded elbow guard. This piece was not so heavily stained and would not take long to clean.

The blood I have worn will take more than your little knife to clean…

She picked up her knife again she glanced furtively to where Kroeger's weapons lay upright on an ebony and silver rack. A massive, toothed sword, its hilt carved in the shape of an eight-pointed star and quillons tipped with stabbing spikes. Beside that, an ornate pistol with a skull-mouthed barrel and bronze plated flanks. The magazine alone was bigger than her forearm.

Go on, touch them… feel their power…

She shook her head: Kroeger never allowed her to clean his weapons, and the one time she had offered had been her last. He had backhanded her lightly across the face, cracking her cheekbone and loosening teeth, saying, 'You will never touch these weapons, human.'

Bitterness rose with her tears and she cursed herself for wanting to live, for serving this creature of evil, but she could see no other way. She was powerless to do anything except play house-pet to a madman who bathed in gore and revelled in slaughter.

Is that so bad? To take pleasure from the death of another… is that not the highest honour you can pay another creature?

Her hate for Kroeger was a bright flame burning in her heart and she felt that if she did not let it out it would eventually consume her.

Yes, hate, little one, hate…

Her eyes were once again drawn to the armour and she swore she could almost hear distant laughter.

First light was breaking across the mountains as Honsou watched the slave gangs haul the last components of an artillery piece's gun carriage over the lip of the promontory. He noted with satisfaction that there were a few slaves with the blue jackets of the enemy within their numbers. It seemed as though there were a few yet able to serve the Iron Warriors.

Forrix stood beside him, a head higher in his Terminator armour, surveying the slow progress below on the plain. Between the booming explosions of artillery fire from the two bastions and the central ravelin, the saps were advancing from the extended parallel, but they were doing so cautiously, moving forward under the protection of heavily armoured sap-rollers, low, wide-bodied behemoths crawling slowly forwards to shield the workers who dug the saps.

'The Warsmith is displeased,' said Forrix, sweeping his arms out to encompass the works below.

Honsou turned to face the pale veteran, his brow wrinkled in puzzlement. 'But we have proceeded with great speed, Forrix. In less than two weeks we have captured this outwork and our saps are almost close enough to the citadel that we can link them into a second parallel. Scarcely have I seen a siege progress with such haste.'

Forrix shook his head. 'There are matters afoot that require we make even better speed, Honsou. The Warsmith wishes us to be done with this place within ten days.'

'Impossible!' sputtered Honsou. 'With the second parallel not yet complete? The batteries here will take another four days at least to prepare, and it will probably take several days for them to effect a breach in the walls. And I do not believe we will be able to make a practicable breach without the establishment of a third parallel and bringing up our siege tanks. All this will take time, you know that better than anyone.'

'Nevertheless, it must be done.'

'How?'

'By any means necessary, Honsou. Time is a luxury we do not have.'

'Then what do you suggest?'

'That we push the saps forwards with greater speed, build more sap rollers, throw slaves and men at the digging, so that the mounds of corpses will shield the diggers from the Imperial artillery,' snapped Forrix suddenly.

'That will be difficult, Forrix,' said Honsou slowly. 'The Imperial gunners are proving to be uncannily accurate with their fire.'

'Indeed they are,' mused Forrix, staring at the mountains surrounding the plains. 'Almost too accurate, wouldn't you say?'

'What do you mean?'

'You are sure you killed everyone in the places you attacked before the invasion?'

'Aye,' snarled Honsou, 'We left nothing alive.'

Forrix returned his gaze to the mountains and sighed.

'I think you are mistaken, Honsou. I believe there is still someone out there.'

Honsou said nothing and Forrix continued. 'Send Goran Delau back to the places you attacked and if there are any signs of survivors, have them hunted down and killed. We cannot afford to be slowed further by your incompetence.'

Honsou bit back an angry retort and simply nodded stiffly before marching away.

The heart was a notoriously hard organ to burn, but the blue flames curling from its roasting muscle tissue were well worth the effort thought Jharek Kelmaur, sorcerer to the Warsmith and Wielder of the Seven Cryptical Magicks. The darkness of his tent was wreathed in ghostly shadows cast by the burning heart and moonlight pooling at its entrance. He rubbed his hands across his tattooed skull, spreading his arms before the blazing organ.

Though his eyes were sewn shut, he stared into the flames, seeing spectral images, beyond the ken of mortal sight. They flickered in and out of focus as his magicks sought to shape the power bestowed by this latest offering into a useable form. He opened his mind to the glory of the warp, feeling the rush of power and fulfilment that came each time he communed with the immaterium. As always he felt the scratching, insistent presence of innumerable astral beasts that clawed at any intrusion into their realm, their mindless thrashings drawn by his presence.

Such formless phantoms were of no consequence to him, it was the other, mightier creatures that lurked in the haunted depths of the warp that were of more concern.

He felt the warp-spawned energies flow through him, channelled and intensified by the carven sigils on his gold and silver armour. Symbols of ancient geomantic significance helped contain the powerful energies he drew within his flesh, and though his physique was enhanced, he knew that the power he was tapping could destroy him in an instant were he to lose control of it.

The power raced along his fragile nerve endings, dispersing throughout his body and a luminescent green fire built behind his eyes, spilling out from beneath the stitching, and gathering like emerald tears on his cheeks before billowing out in a noxious cloud of glittering fog. The fog twisted and spiralled, though no wind disturbed it, coiling from his mouth and eyes before slipping around his shoulders like a snake.

Questing tendrils of green light slithered from the sorcerer and waved through the air to reach into the flames of the burning heart, the flames hissing and sputtering with greater ferocity as they consumed it.

Fleeting images flashed before Kelmaur's eyes: the rock of Tor Christo, a hidden chamber in its depths, a disc of bronze that shone like the sun and, enfolding it all, a slowly spinning cog wheel, its surface cracked and blemished. As Kelmaur watched, the cog suddenly erupted with brown, necrotic threads of rust, each one spreading rapidly through its structure until it crumbled to dust.

As quickly as the vision had appeared, it vanished, to be replaced with one of a spear of white light arcing through the darkness, its brilliance fading as it travelled before it was in turn replaced by a warrior in yellow power armour, his weapons trained directly at Kelmaur. As he watched, the warrior turned his weapon towards the sorcerer and pulled the trigger, the barrel exploding in brilliant light.

Jharek Kelmaur screamed and collapsed to the floor of his tent, blood leaking from every orifice in his head, and pounding pain thundering against the innards of his skull.

He groggily pushed himself to his feet, steadying himself against the iron tent pole.

He moved unsteadily to a long, cot bed and sat on its edge, rubbing the heels of his palms against his inked temples and taking deep breaths. It was the same as before, but with each passing vision, the intensity grew stronger and he knew a crucial time of confluence was approaching.

He had to divine the meaning of the visions, though he feared he knew the answer to the second apparition. As the Iron Warriors had attacked the spaceport, he had sensed a psychic signal reach out from the planet, too quick for him to block, yet surely too weak to be received by its intended recipients. But Kelmaur was afraid that others may have heard it, and if they grasped its significance, might already be on their way to this planet now. He had not told the Warsmith, and trusted that his master's war-captains would be able to complete the destruction of the citadel before whatever aid was coming to Hydra Cordatus arrived. He had despatched the battle barge Stonebreaker to the system's distant jump point to lie in wait for any would-be-rescuers, but, consumed by the nagging suspicion he was already too late, he had since recalled it.

His cabal of acolytes had spoken of mind whispers on the planet that were not theirs, and how this could be was a mystery to Kelmaur. It would take great cunning to have evaded detection by the Stonebreaker, but then it wasn't here, was it… ? The vast cargo ships that orbited this planet were not equipped with mystical surveyors that would allow them to detect any approaching enemies. Had something slipped past while the Stonebreaker had been away?

And if so, where had it gone and what had it done in the intervening time?

Paranoia, his constant companion, held him tight in its grip and his mind was alive with all manner of fearsome possibilities. Should he tell the Warsmith of his suspicions? Should he deal with it on his own? Should he feign ignorance?

None of the options were particularly appealing and Kelmaur was filled with a dreadful foreboding. As to the first vision… well, that he was more sure of. He turned as a low moan sounded behind him.

He smiled grimly, staring into the face of Adept Cycerin.

The former priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus that Kroeger had almost killed in the attack on the spaceport was chained, naked, to an angled trestle, part surgical table and part engineers' workbench. His missing hand had been replaced with an augmented bionic gauntlet, its pulsating black surface daubed with ancient symbols of power. Encircling the wrist was a broad, spiked bracelet with curved talons embedded deep in the flesh above the gauntlet. A modified form of the Obliterators' techno-virus seeped from the talons, slowly working its way around Cycerin's body. Eruptions of mecha-organic components appeared all over his flesh, their form fluid, yet angular. His flesh seethed with the workings of the virus as they integrated themselves with his organic matter.

Jharek Kelmaur smiled humourlessly and rose to go to the twitching priest of the Machine God.

The changes wracking his body must have been painful, but the adept's face gave no sign of it. Instead his features were twisted in rapture and obscene pleasure.

'Yes,' whispered Kelmaur. 'Feel the power of the new machine fill your flesh. You have great work ahead of you.'

Cycerin opened his eye, the pupil a dilated black, its internal surfaces alive with crawling, newly-birthed circuitry. He smiled and nodded towards the pulsing gauntlet.

'More,' he hissed. 'Give me more…'

THREE

On the twentieth day of the siege the two saps driven forward from the first parallel were linked by a second parallel, some six hundred metres from the edge of the ditch protecting the walls of the frontal bastions. This was well within the range of the unerringly accurate Imperial gunners and thousands of lives had been expended to complete the second parallel, but the Iron Warriors were heedless of the human cost of such endeavours. All that mattered was that the Warsmith's orders were obeyed.

The second parallel stretched from the ground in front of the Vincare bastion's salient to that before the tip of Mori bastion. The second parallel's northern face was piled high with rammed earth and revetted with iron hoardings to ensure that it could withstand artillery impacts. A well laid out battery was constructed at either end, their firing embrasures placed perpendicular to each bastion's flank.

Already, markers had been laid for yet another approach sap, this time aimed at the head of the Primus Ravelin, but until the batteries had had a chance to open fire and dismount most of the citadel's wall guns, work could not yet begin. This was siegework at its most brutal and obvious. There would be no methodical approach to flank each of the bastions in turn, but a full frontal advance on the works, with batteries to pound the walls to oblivion before a devastating assault was unleashed.

With the establishment of the batteries, the trenches behind were widened and deepened to allow the daemonic war machines to move safely to the front line. Lessons had been learnt following the destruction unleashed by the rampaging war machine in the trenches approaching Tor Christo, and those charged with keeping the monstrous daemon engines in check were taking no chances.

The following morning, the guns placed in the batteries of the second parallel opened fire in conjunction with those situated on the northern slopes of Tor Christo's promontory. The guns in the batteries were not yet close enough to fire over the lip of the glacis - the raised area of ground before the ditch that prevented enemy artillery from striking the vulnerable base of the walls - but they could hammer the ramparts and make the firing step untenable for the defenders. And this they did with remarkable efficiency, smashing the wall head with solid projectiles and reducing the thick ramparts to jagged piles of rubble. Counterbattery fire from the citadel was desultory and shots that did strike home were either deflected by the reinforced earthworks or, in the case of the guns on Tor Christo, found to be out of range.

Hundreds of men died in the first minutes of the bombardment, before the order was given to fall back within the bastions' enclosures. For the men of Mori bastion this was a life saving order, but for many of those in Vincare it proved to be a death sentence.

Howitzers from the promontory now fired explosive shells on high trajectories, landing their bombs within the walls of Vincare bastion and shredding the men gathered within its walls. Scores of men died with each shrieking explosion, the airbursting shells taking a fearsome toll, razor fragments ripping flesh and bone apart with ease. Officers rallied their men, shouting at them to take cover within the wall bunkers.

As their targets took shelter, the guns on the promontory shifted their fire to the interior of the citadel, their increased elevation giving them the range to drop shells inside the perimeter of the inner curtain wall. Three large barrack buildings were gutted by fire and a handful of others reduced to rubble before Arch Magos Amaethon was able to raise the energy shield that protected the inner citadel.

The shelling continued throughout the day, ripping apart the tops of the two bastions and the ravelin, dismounting a huge number of guns and rendering much of their frontal sections wide open.

As night fell and the guns continued to pound the citadel, hundreds of slaves trudged through the approach trenches from their corpse-infested dug-outs and began digging the approach sap forward.

FOUR

Vauban circled the briefing table and poured each of his weary officers a glass of amasec, searching their faces for signs of resignation. Pleased to find none, he returned to his seat at the head of the table, poured another glass and set it before Gunnar Tedeski's empty seat.

All the officers appeared to have aged, their features lined with fatigue and numb with the unceasing, grinding nature of the siege.

Morgan Kristan looked the worst, his arm in a bloody sling and a wide bandage wrapped around his midriff where fragments from an exploding shell had torn into him. His men in the Vincare bastion had taken a battering and he had been there with them during it.

All his officers had been blooded now and he was fiercely proud of them.

'Gentlemen,' began Vauban, raising his glass. 'To you all.'

His officers raised their glasses and drained their amasec as one. Vauban set down his glass and poured himself another. None of the men gathered around the table said anything as the castellan of Hydra Cordatus sipped his drink.

Leonid consulted a featureless gold box before nodding slowly to Vauban.

Eventually Vauban broke the silence, saying, 'We are in a perilous position, gentlemen. The enemy is at the gates and if the estimates of our engineers are correct, we have days at best before they breach our walls and enter the citadel.'

'I pledge that my men will fight to the last,' vowed Morgan Kristan, slamming the table with his one good hand.

'As will those of Battalion C,' echoed Piet Anders.

Vauban suppressed a sly smile and said, 'Hopefully that will not be necessary. There have been some… unexpected developments in the last few hours and Lieutenant Colonel Leonid has a plan that may buy us some more time. The enemy artillery, especially that on the promontory, is killing us. To have any chance of survival we must knock it out, and that will not be easy. Mikhail?'

Leonid stood and checked the gold box again to make sure that the vox-scrambler was functioning properly before handing out data-slates to the senior officers of the Jourans. Leonid and Vauban watched as each man scanned the contents of the slate, their expressions changing from weariness to sudden hope.

'Is it really true?' asked Major Anders.

'It is, Piet,' confirmed Leonid. 'I have seen them.'

'An entire company?' breathed Kristan. 'How?'

Vauban raised his hand, halting further questions and said, 'The files you are holding in your hands are to be considered the most sacred thing in your possession, gentlemen. Follow the orders within them. Do so with care and resolution, and tell no one outside this room what we are about. Be ready to move on this plan the instant I give the order, for if you are not, then we truly are lost.'

Morgan Kristan scanned further down the slate and grunted as he saw a familiar name.

'Is there a problem, Major Kristan?' asked Leonid.

'There may be,' nodded Kristan. 'Any plan that involves - relies even - on Hawke, scares me to the soles of my boots.'

'Do not concern yourself with Hawke's involvement in this,' soothed Vauban. 'I have faith in him, and Lieutenant Colonel Leonid will handle that part of the plan.'

Piet Anders lifted his eyes from his slate and asked, 'And who will lead us?'

'I will,' replied Vauban.

The ruins of listening post Sigma IV had long ceased smouldering as Goran Delau squatted by its entrance, his servo-arm sifting through the wreckage.

He and ten soldiers clad in red overalls had searched the mountains these last few days without finding another living soul and Delau was beginning to believe that Honsou had sent them on a fool's errand. A body without a face lay beside the buckled doorway, its bones gleaming through the torn fabric of its uniform and Delau kicked it aside as he ducked inside the listening post, remembering the battle they had fought to take this place, the roar of assault cannon fire and the storm of shells as it tore through them.

Inside, all was darkness, but Delau's enhanced vision easily pierced the gloom. Shattered equipment and blackened metal lay strewn about, the walls peppered with grenade fragments. A body lay against one wall, the little flesh that remained on its skeleton was scorched and black. This body's face was blown away, and Delau remembered the two shots Honsou had fired to kill these men.

Where then was the body of the third?

As he scanned the deserted listening post, he saw the open footlocker and the discarded items that lay strewn about it. He fell to his knees, examining them all in turn. All were useless trinkets and, to a man trapped on the mountain, worthless.

So, one soldier had somehow survived and salvaged everything of value from the bunker.

Where had he gone?

Delau marched from the listening post and examined the dusty ground outside. The corpse on the ground had no rifle and Delau guessed that the survivor had taken it before moving on.

Delau sniffed the air and knelt beside the decaying corpse, noting a patch of discoloured rock beside its feet. Without needing to taste it, he knew it was blood and, from its patterning, that it had not come from the corpse's wound.

So Forrix was correct. There was someone still alive on the mountains. A resourceful man as well, if Delau's reasoning was correct.

Scanning the surrounding environment, he knew there was only one way a man determined to strike back at the Iron Warriors would have gone: north-west across the knifeback ridge to a position of observation.

Swiftly he gathered the indentured soldiery to him and set off up the mountainside.

Goran Delau grinned within his helmet at the thought of facing this worthy foe.

Hawke scrambled across a jagged outcrop of rock, breathing heavily as he traversed the steep slopes of the mountain. He had travelled three kilometres across exceptionally difficult terrain and had another two kilometres to go before nightfall, but he was determined to make it.

Despite the weary exhaustion filling his limbs, he was filled with real purpose. He pulled himself onto a relatively flat slab of rock and took a moment to get his breath back. He checked his location on the direction finder, knowing where he had been ordered to go, but not knowing exactly what he would find when he got there. Lieutenant Colonel Leonid himself had given him his mission on the vox earlier that day and Hawke had assured him that he would not let them down.

'You cannot,' Leonid had said, 'all our hopes rest upon you.'

Hawke had felt that was kind of melodramatic, but hadn't said so. He was too pleased by the fact that he was being trusted with something so important.

'Well, Hawke,' he chuckled to himself, 'It's a commission for you when you get back home.'

He mopped his brow with his sleeve and unwrapped one of his last ration packs, chewing on the remains of a high-energy bar. Hawke groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. He was amazed at how good he felt, despite not having taken any detox pills for over two weeks. He had become lean and his muscles, especially in his legs, had become well-defined. He smiled as he realised he was in better shape than he had been for years. His spreading midriff was gone and his lungs felt clearer than ever.

True, his food and water supplies were all but exhausted, but Lieutenant Colonel Leonid had assured him that they were working on that even now. He wolfed down the last of the food bar and tossed the wrapping aside as he squinted into the afternoon sun.

'Well, you ain't gonna get there just by standing here, Hawke,' he said, climbing further along the rockface.

Hawke set off again through the afternoon's heat.

Vauban and Leonid stood watching the rainbow flares of energy rippling above their heads, as enemy shell impacts slammed into the invisible energy field that protected the areas within the curtain wall.

Observers in the blockhouse on the northern slopes scanned the shield for breaches, as some shells were slipping through where coverage was incomplete, and detonating within the citadel's supposed safe areas. The warning they could give was probably too short to do any real good, but it was better than nothing and, once again, Vauban felt his anger mount towards Arch Magos Amaethon.

When the shells had first breached the shield he had spent an infuriating hour waiting to be hooked up with the Machine Temple on the holo-link. He knew he would be wasting his time attempting to see the arch magos in person.

'Why is the shield not holding?' he had demanded.

'It is… arduous work to maintain such a… a prodigious energy barrier,' explained the arch magos in stuttering, halting speech. 'To maintain all other systems at peak efficiency as well as the shield… requires great strength.'

'Then let the other systems go to hell,' raged Vauban. 'If you allow the shield to falter, then very soon there will be no other systems to maintain!'

'That cannot be,' snapped Amaethon as he shut off the link, and no matter how desperately Vauban petitioned the arch magos, he would not re-establish it.

Perhaps Naicin was right, perhaps it would be better for them all if Amaethon were to be got rid of. Indeed, Naicin had contacted him personally not long after his brief conversation with Amaethon and had insinuated that such an event might not be too hard to contrive.

Vauban pushed his thoughts of the damned arch magos and his scheming underlings from his mind, forcing himself to concentrate on the job in hand.

'Have you heard from Kristan and Anders yet?' he asked Leonid.

Leonid nodded. 'So far everything is proceeding as planned. Weapons, ammunition and demolition charges have been distributed to the soldiers taking part in the mission and the storming parties are gathering at the rally points.'

Vauban looked up into the crimson sky just as the day slipped from afternoon's warmth into evening's twilight. 'I wish it was already dark. I can't abide this waiting.'

'They say the waiting is the hardest part, sir.'

'And are they right, Mikhail?'

'No,' chuckled Leonid. 'Not by a long shot. Give me the waiting any day.'

Vauban checked his pocket chronometer and frowned. 'Any word from Hawke?'

'Not yet, sir, no, but we should give him time to get there.'

'He'd better get there soon or that magos you sequestered will be missed by his brethren and spill his guts. I'm keen to avoid that, at least until it is too late for them to interfere, Mikhail.'

'We should give Hawke a little more time, it's a tough journey,' pointed out Leonid.

'Do you think he can do it even if he does get there?'

'Yes, I think he can. His profile has him as above average intelligence, and he's come a long way from the disgrace of a man we once knew as Guardsman Hawke. He's a soldier now.'

'Any idea why he's not coughed up his lungs yet? He claims to have ran out of detox pills over a week ago.'

'Not yet, sir. I asked the Magos Biologis how long we could expect Hawke to keep going, but he was pretty vague, and claimed it wasn't possible to predict exactly.'

Vauban shook his head. 'Emperor preserve us from the meddling of the Adeptus Mechanicus.'

'Amen to that, sir,' agreed Leonid. 'What of our new arrivals? Are they in agreement with our plan?'

Vauban smiled, though there was no warmth in his expression. 'Oh yes, they are wholeheartedly with us.'

Leonid nodded, but said nothing, noting the way the castellan gripped the hilt of his power sword. Both officers were arrayed for battle and had taken pains to appear so for their men. Vauban had put on his dress uniform jacket and wore his silver breastplate over it, the bronze eagle at its centre polished to a brilliant sheen. Leonid's breastplate was bronze, but also gleaming. The dent in its centre where he had been shot had been repaired and the armour was as good as new.

'How long now?' asked Vauban.

Leonid looked at the darkening sky and said, 'Not long.'

Goran Delau turned the drained vox-battery and ration pack in his hands as though trying to gain some deeper understanding of his prey by touch alone. His early admiration for this man had diminished as they had closed in and discovered the detritus of his passing. The man had not even bothered to cover his tracks, leaving his waste in the open where any half-competent tracker would easily discover it.

He guessed that his prey could not be more than an hour or so ahead of him and Delau was irritated by his foe's lack of savvy. The challenge of the hunt had now been reduced to reeling in the man and then killing him.

The men who followed him now only numbered six. One had fallen to his death down a wide ravine they had been forced to leap; the other three Delau had killed himself because of their lack of skill and stamina. They were irrelevant and he knew he could kill this man on his own anyway.

Wherever this man was going, he seemed to be making his way there with real purpose, since his course had kept true this last few hours. Whatever lay at the end of this chase, Delau was certain of one thing.

It would end in the prey's death.

Hawke checked the direction finder to check he was in the right place, unable to see anything much in the encroaching darkness. He stood on a flat plateau, in part of the highest reaches of the mountains, the constant thunder of the invaders' artillery nothing more than a distant rumble from here. His breath caught in his throat and he wiped sweat from his brow. He was exhausted, but pleased to have arrived here - wherever here was - before darkness had fallen.

There wasn't much to see, just a spill of rocks lying against a flat, vertical slice of the mountainside, though the ground looked pretty churned up, as though someone had set off a bunch of explosives. He shucked off his pack and pulled out the portable vox, cursing as he saw he was down to his last battery.

He slotted the battery home and pressed the activation rune, breathing a sigh of relief as the front panel lit up with a reassuring glow. He lifted the handset, spun the dial to the correct frequency and thumbed the talk button.

'Bastion, this is Hawke, do you copy?'

The vox crackled for a second before a voice came on the line. 'Receiving you loud and clear, Hawke. This is Magos Beauvais, are you at the specified co-ordinates?'

'Yeah, but aside from the view I don't see anything that makes the climb worthwhile.'

'Describe what you can see,' ordered Beauvais.

'Not a hell of a lot. It's pretty damn flat here, aside from a pile of rocks, but not much else.'

'Go over to the pile of rocks and tell me what's there.'

'Ok'said Hawke, lugging his pack and the vox over to the rocks and peering through the gloom. He stepped forwards and brushed away a thick coating of dust.

'There's a door behind here! The rock fall's covered most of it, but there's definitely a door.'

'Is there a panel with a keypad visible to the side of the door?'

'Yeah, it's a bit dusty, but looks alright.'

'Good, here's what you have to do,' explained Beauvais. 'Using the keypad, enter the following code: tertius-three-alpha-epsilon-nine.'

Wedging the handset between his shoulder and ear, Hawke punched in the code and stepped back as the door juddered open on buckled rollers. A faint wind brushed past him, like the exhalation of a dead thing and he shivered.

'Ok, door's open. I guess I'm going in,' said Hawke.

'Yes, go inside,' confirmed Beauvais. 'And follow my directions. Do not deviate from them at all.'

'What the hell do you think I'm going to do, go on a tour?'

He ducked his head below the rocks and entered a gloomy corridor. He stepped forward, stumbling as his foot met resistance then tripped as he trod on something soft. He swore as he hit the ground and rolled onto the floor of the corridor, finding himself face to face with a corpse, its mouth twisted in a rictus mask of death. He yelped and pushed himself back towards the dim light at the door where he saw another three bodies slumped on the ground.

Their fists were covered with dried blood. Looking at the door, Hawke saw bloody handprints smeared over its inside surface.

'Imperator! There's dead bodies here!' shouted Hawke.

'Yes, the orbital bombardment was slightly off-course, and hit the mountains instead of the facility. We believe the explosions threw enough debris up to cover the oxy-recyc units and the men within choked to death.'

'Choked to death? Then why are their hands covered in blood?'

'It is logical that the men stationed here would have tried to exit the facility when they realised their air supply was cut off,' said Beauvais, his voice devoid of any compassion for the dead.

'But why couldn't they get out?' wheezed Hawke as his breathing returned to normal.

'Facility staff do not have access to the codes that allow the exterior doors to open. It would constitute a security risk were one to be compromised.'

'And for that, they died. You cold bastards!'

'A necessary precaution and one all staff are aware of when stationed in these facilities. Now, if we may continue? The facility commander should have a bronze key around his neck? Take it.'

Forcing down his repugnance, Hawke checked the bodies, finding the key on the third body. He vowed that if he got out of this alive, he was going to find Beauvais and punch his face in. He stepped over the bodies and made his way down the corridor, tucking the key into his pocket. The air felt stagnant and he soon found himself wheezing.

'I can hardly breathe in here,' he complained.

'Do you have a respirator to use until the outside air filters in?'

'Yeah, I got one,' snapped Hawke. He fumbled in the pack for the clumsy breathing apparatus and dragged it over his head, flicking on the illuminator above the faceplate.

A featureless corridor stretched off into the darkness, and he started his descent. Following Beauvais's instructions, he passed several iron doors sealed with keypads which were unmarked save for the cog symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus. His breathing sounded loud in his ears and the click of his worn-down boot heels and the tinny voice of Beauvais echoed from the walls, the torch-lit darkness seeming to magnify the sounds. Despite himself, Hawke felt his trepidation growing the further he descended into the mountain.

At last, Beauvais's directions led him to an unremarkable door, stencilled with wording he couldn't read, but a symbol that was clearly a warning. He raised the handset to his mouth.

'Right, I'm here, now what?'

'Use the key you took from the facility commander to unlock the door.'

Hawke dug the key from his pocket and did as instructed, standing back as the door clicked open and a gust of oil and incense-scented air rushed to meet him. Inside was darkness and he stepped through the door, panning the light from his respirator around him.

The room appeared to be circular, its blank walls running around a gigantic white pillar at its centre that took up most of the space. A metal-ranged ladder set into the rockcrete wall ascended into the darkness beside him, and he stared in puzzlement at the massive object before him.

Hawke put his hand out and touched it. It was warm to the touch and felt as though there was a quiver of movement within, but perhaps that was just his imagination. The base of the column sat in a sunken pit and as he leaned over to get a better look, he saw what appeared to be vast nozzles, like the ones he'd seen on the end of one of the heavy weapon team's missiles, but bigger.

Bigger…

Realisation sank in as Hawke craned his neck in an attempt to see how high this chamber was.

'Is this what I think it is?' he asked Beauvais.

'That depends on what you think it is, but I can tell you that it is a Glaive class, ground-launched orbital torpedo.'

'And what in the name of the High Lord's balls do you expect me to do with it?' spluttered Hawke.

'We want you to fire it, Guardsman Hawke,' explained Magos Beauvais.

FIVE

Followed by nearly two thousand men, Castellan Prestre Vauban clambered over the lip of the citadel's ditch and sprinted towards the Iron Warriors' raised earthworks. There was no battle cry, no shout of rage, only the silence of soldiers who knew their only chance of survival was stealth.

The men's faces were smeared with soot and their sky blue uniform had been left in the barracks in favour of plain black flak jackets.

Leonid's storming parties spread out from the ditch, clustered around the demolition teams and Vauban knew that this attack was a desperate gamble indeed. But as his second-in-command had pointed out, they had no choice but to attempt to destroy the enemy guns. To not try would be to allow the Iron Warriors to pound them into dust.

A thrill of fear and exultation coursed through his veins at the prospect of battle, it had been too long since he had led men into combat.

He clutched his bolt pistol close to his chest, running crouched over, the breath heaving in his lungs. The traitor line was still a few hundred metres away. His breathing sounded hellishly loud and the thump of boots on the dusty earth was like the thunder of a Titan's tread, but so far the alarm had not been raised. Perhaps there was a chance this reckless attack might just succeed.

Even in the dim light, Vauban could see a head raised above the level of the ramparts of the enemy earthworks and counted down the seconds until the attack hit home.

All they needed was a little more time.

Uraja Klane pulled himself up to the ramparts of the earthworks and peered into the darkness, resting his rifle on the rough, earthen parapet. There was something happening in front of the works, but he couldn't quite see what. Lord Kroeger had charged them with the protection of these guns and he knew better than to disappoint his master. But the flickering lights and noise from the sprawling campsite made it difficult to make out anything.

Behind him, several hundred soldiers slept on the firing step or drank distilled spirits from tin mugs in their muddy dug-outs.

He glanced down and kicked Yosha awake. He had a pair of battered field glasses that could see in the dark, didn't he?

'Hey, Yosha, wake up, you useless piece of…' hissed Klane.

Yosha mumbled something foul and unintelligible, then rolled over. Klane kicked him again.

'Yosha, wake up, damn you. Gimme your goggles!'

'What?' slurred Yosha. 'My goggles?'

'Yeah, I think there's something out there.'

Yosha grumbled, but dragged himself to his feet, rubbing his eyes with filthy hands and yawning hugely. He peered out into the darkness.

'There's nothing out there,' he declared sleepily.

'Use your damn goggles, you idiot.'

Casting a scathing look at his comrade, Yosha pulled out a set of blackened and ancient field goggles. A bizarre protuberance slotted over the eyepiece and Yosha pulled it over his shaven head. He rested his chin on his hands and trained his gaze over the parapet.

'Well,' pressed Klane. 'You see anything?'

'Yeah,' whispered Yosha. 'There's something coming. Looks like—'

'Like what?'

'Like—'

Klane never got the chance to find out. A sharp, buzzing crack whipped by him and blasted the back of Yosha's head open in an explosion of blood and brains. Yosha crumpled slowly and toppled from the rampart.

'Khorne's teeth!' swore Klane, jerking back and switching his gaze from the headless corpse to the ground before the earthworks.

The whipping noise slashed past him again and a puff of earth exploded next to him.

Sniper!

Klane ducked down behind the parapet and cocked his rifle, his head working left and right to see other sentries dropping, no doubt picked off by Imperial snipers on the walls of the ravelin. He swore again. There must be an attack coming in!

He crawled along the firing step, clambering over sleeping bodies towards the alarm siren, and pulled himself up the timber spar where the flared bullhorn was bolted. He grabbed the cranking handle.

Klane heard booted steps approaching the parapet and realised he didn't have much time. He turned the squealing handle, the wailing cry from the bullhorn growing in volume as he spun it faster and faster. A shot blasted the timber beside him, showering him with splinters and he flinched, releasing the handle and taking up his rifle.

Thudding footsteps hit the soil of the earthworks below. Damned Imperials! He snarled, pleased to have this chance to kill. Scrabbling hands sounded on the far side of the parapet.

No bastard Guardsman was going to get past Uraja Klane!

He roared in hatred and rose to his feet, swinging his rifle around to find himself facing a giant warrior in yellow power armour with a crackling sword and scarlet Imperial eagle on his breastplate.

'What the f—' was all he had time to say before the Imperial Fists Space Marine clove him in two with his power sword.

Sirens screamed, piercing the night with their cries and Vauban knew that with the element of surprise lost they had only a limited time to achieve their objective before they would have to fall back. He climbed the steep exterior slope of the earthworks, using the butt of his pistol for purchase. His soldiers scrambled over the parapet with a roar of released fury.

A grenade detonated nearby, showering him with earth and he slipped, feet scrabbling for grip.

A gauntleted hand reached down and closed on his wrist, lifting him easily across the parapet in a single motion. He was deposited on the firing step beside a broken corpse, and swiftly drew his power sword. The Space Marine who had hauled him over the parapet turned and began firing a bolt-gun into a mass of enemy soldiers in red overalls. His brethren were pushing further into the entrenchments as the Imperial Guard scrambled over the parapet and into the battery.

'Thank you, Brother-Captain Eshara,' said Vauban breathlessly.

The Imperial Fists captain nodded, slammed a fresh magazine into his bolter and said, 'Thank me later. We have work to do,' before turning and charging from the firing step.

Gunfire and explosions lit the trenches and dug-outs of the battery with strobing light, screaming soldiers and wounded men providing a cacophonous backdrop to the attack. Hundreds of Jourans poured over the earthwork, killing anything in their path. The Chaos soldiery had been caught largely unawares, and the Imperial troops offered no quarter to the unready foe. Storming parties slaughtered the enemy soldiers, shooting them where they lay or stabbing them with bayonets as they scrambled for weapons.

Fifteen gigantic war machines were situated here, enormous howitzers and long cannons with barrels so wide a man could stand upright inside. Bronze plates embossed with skulls and unholy icons were fixed on each machine's flank, and thick chains looped around giant rings were securely bolted to their track units. There was a terrible sense of menace surrounding the siege engines and Vauban had a gnawing sense of wrongness in his gut. He knew without doubt that such blasphemous creations should never have been allowed to come into existence.

The Imperial Fists swept efficiently through the battery, securing its perimeters and killing the war machines' gunners. They established themselves in strong positions around the approach trenches and parallel, ready to hold off the inevitable counterattack.

Vauban dropped from the firing step and shouted, 'Alpha demo team, with me! Bravo team with Colonel Leonid!'

Two dozen men followed him towards the machines and, even over the crack of small-arms fire, Vauban shivered as he felt the pulse of monstrous, daemonic breath grating along his spine just below the threshold of hearing. He stepped across scores of corpses, making his way quickly towards the daemon engines. As he and his men drew near, the sense of wrongness grew stronger and stronger. As he set foot on the metal decking where the machines were chained, agonising pain ripped into him and he felt his guts cramp and his knees buckle. Terror seized him as his mind was filled with the unshakable belief that to touch these unholy monsters was to die.

He could see he was not alone in this hideous sensation. Soldiers were dropping to their knees, some vomiting blood as the daemonic aura of the nightmare machines washed over them. Chains rattled and metal groaned beneath them as the war machines supped on the red liquid, a bass thrumming building from the line of daemon engines.

The sounds of bolter fire intensified from the edges of the battery, and Vauban knew the Iron Warriors must be counterattacking, fearful of losing their hellish artillery.

They couldn't fail! Not now they had come so close.

Vauban pushed himself to his feet, gritting his teeth against the waves of sickness that wracked him and dragged the soldier nearest to him to his feet.

'Come on, damn you!' he yelled. 'On your feet, soldier!'

The man grabbed his satchel charges and stumbled after Vauban, his face contorted in terror and agony. The two men lurched towards the nearest machine, its chains jangling furiously and geysers of steam venting from corroded grilles. A furious static descended upon his vision, like looking through a faulty holo. A bitter, metallic taste flooded Vauban's mouth as he bit the flesh of his lip to keep from screaming.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the pain and terror vanished like the light from a snuffed candle. Vauban felt a huge, pressing weight lift from his mind. His lungs heaved and he spat blood, spinning as he heard a booming chant from behind him.

One of the Imperial Fists, his yellow armour decorated with numerous purity seals and one shoulder guard painted blue, strode towards the daemon engines, his proud voice clear and true. He carried a carved staff of ebony, coils of blue light coruscating along its length.

Vauban did not know the warrior's name, but knew by his words that their saviour was a psyker, one of the Chapter's Librarians. Somehow, he was fighting against the corrupting power of the daemon engines and protecting them from its malign influence.

Ghostly streamers of insubstantial energy flared from the icons and markings on the armoured flanks of the war machines.

Vauban could see by the sweat pouring in runnels from the Librarian's face and the pulsing vein in his temple that the effort of holding their daemonic essence at bay was stretching him to the limit.

The Librarian had bought them a chance, but they would need to be quick.

'Quickly!' he bellowed over the bark of gunfire and explosions. 'Demo teams, plant your charges and let's get the hell out of here!'

The men with demolition charges picked themselves up from the steel decking of the battery and, under the direction of Vauban's best ordnance officers, began placing the explosive charges at vital points on each daemon engine. The vast machines strained at their bindings, thrashing in fury at these mortals who dared to defile them.

As the men moved on to the next machine the vox-bead in Vauban's ear clicked and Captain Eshara's voice filled his skull. 'Castellan Vauban, we must leave! The enemy are coming in overwhelming numbers with heavy support and I do not believe we can hold them.'

'Not yet!' yelled Vauban. 'Give us enough time to set the explosives then fall back! We need you alive!'

'How long do you need?' asked Eshara, his voice muffled by nearby shots and detonations.

Vauban looked along the line of bucking war machines and said, 'Give us four minutes!'

'We'll try! But be ready to move when you see us falling back!'

'Hold on a minute!' snapped Hawke. 'Attach the bronze cable with the sacred halo symbol to the two pins with the what?'

Even over the vox-link, Hawke detected more than a trace of impatience in the magos's voice as he answered.

'The bronze cable attaches to the pins with the demi-cog symbol. Just like I said before. Once you have—'

'Hold on, hold on…' grumbled Hawke, fiddling with the cable clips as he fought to find the correct pins and hold the wire steady over the exposed circuitry. The illuminator on his respirator was growing dim and he had to squint to see the symbols Beauvais was talking about. There! He reached in and snapped the clips over the pins, flinching and almost losing his balance when they sparked violently and burnt his fingertips.

He grabbed onto the steel gantry he was lying on and tried not to think of how high above the floor he was. The gantry was solidly constructed, one of several bolted to the wall at various points around the room, presumably for technicians to carry out routine maintenance to the torpedo. He seriously doubted it was used for people trying to hotwire the device. Behind him, a mesh grille in the wall led off into darkness. It had taken him a frustrating twenty minutes to climb the ladder, find the correct access panel in the side of the giant torpedo and use Hitch's knife to undo the sacred bolts that held it in place.

And over the past hour, he'd been mildly electrocuted twice, burnt his fingers three times and almost fallen thirty metres to the solid rockcrete floor. Hawke was not a happy man. He steadied his breathing and spoke into the vox.

'You might have bloody warned me!' he complained.

'Is it done?'

'Yes, it's done.'

'Very good, you have now armed the torpedo.'

Hawke pushed himself back along the gantry, suddenly very alarmed at the prospect of this armed behemoth being less than a metre from his head. 'It's armed. What next?'

'Now we have to inform the war-spirit within the torpedo the whereabouts of its victim.'

'Uh-huh…' shrugged Hawke. 'And how exactly do I do that?'

'You don't. I will perform that sacred task. Now, I need you to remove a red and gold cable embossed with the rune of telemetry, then—'

'The what? Just tell me what the damn thing looks like.'

Beauvais sighed. 'It resembles a winged triangle with a cog at its centre. It is connected to the war-spirit's seeker chamber. That's the gold box at the top of the panel. Once you have the cable, plug it into the vox-unit's remote triangulation output socket and wait. Once the lights on the vox stop flashing, reattach the cable to the war-spirit's seeker chamber.'

Hawke found the plug and pulled it from the panel. He swore as he saw it would only extend some fifteen centimetres from the torpedo. He lifted the vox unit to the edge of the gantry, propping it against one of the uprights. He slotted the cable home, watching as the front panel of the vox unit faded and the lights arranged around the dial flickered in strange patterns. As the sequence continued he propped himself up on one elbow, looking up at the top of the giant torpedo.

The top of the giant missile was rounded and strangely irregular. There was a serrated, spiral groove cut in the warhead and Hawke guessed that this was to help it burrow through the thick hull of a starship before detonating deep inside.

He waited for several minutes before the clicking sequence of lights finally stopped, then unplugged the cable and reconnected it to the torpedo. He thought he heard a noise below and glanced over the gantry. Dismissing it, he returned his attention to the torpedo as Beauvais came back on the vox.

'The war-spirit now knows its prey, Hawke. Now you must speak the Chant of Awakening to set it on the hunt.'

'Ok, Chant of Awakening… right. And after that, then what?'

'Simply strike the rune of firing upon the—'

Beauvais never finished his sentence as a hail of bolter fire ripped through the vox and blasted it to fragments. Hawke jumped in shock, grabbing onto the upright, very nearly going over the edge of the gantry.

'Emperor's holy blood!' he swore, grabbing his rifle and pressing his back against the cold metal grille in the wall behind him. His breath pounded in his throat and his heart beat wildly against his chest. What the hell was going on?

He risked a glance over the gantry and saw a giant in iron-grey power armour with a smoking gun and a mechanised claw snaking over his shoulder. Men in red uniforms clustered around the warrior, all carrying rifles aimed upwards.

A deep voice, rich and full of threat drifted up to him.

'You are going to die, little man. You have led us a merry dance, but now it is over.'

Hawke shut his eyes tight and whispered, 'Oh damn, oh damn, oh damn…'

Incandescent fire erupted from the first demolition charges, vaporising the chains and bindings holding the first daemon engine in place. Painstakingly wrought symbols of arcane protection were incinerated and the mechanical components of the war machine ran molten under the volcanic heat of the explosion. The scream of the daemon engine's death whiplashed around the battery as the terrifying creature bound within its infernal mechanisms was freed by the blast.

Those closest, even though well clear of the explosives' blast radius, were swatted to the floor of the battery by its shriek of release. A swirling hurricane of etheric energy, insane geometries warping through its daemonic form, tore through the Jourans with the power of the immaterium, turning men inside out and exploding others from within as it shrieked in the throes of its dissolution.

Honsou heard the screech of one of the creatures of the damned and cursed Kroeger again. Where were the men from his company tasked with guarding these precious beasts? Creatures that had required countless thousands of lives and diabolical pacts to conjure into being. The answer came easily enough: drunk on slaughter somewhere, slaking their thirst for blood in an orgy of butchery.

He ducked as a hail of bullets stitched the trench wall before him and a clutch of human soldiers fell, their bodies blown apart by the burst. He racked the slide on his own weapon, then paused as he realised the shots he'd heard were fired from a bolter. Honsou stepped over their bleeding corpses and jerked his head around the bend in the trench. He was stunned to see a Space Marine in yellow power armour firing down the trench. The length of the narrow earthen corridor was choked with bodies and there was no way through.

Hundreds of human soldiers gathered behind him, fearfully clutching their primitive rifles as they crouched in the shelter of this trench. They looked to him for guidance and Honsou snarled as he reached back and grabbed one by the neck, tossing him into the approach trench. The man landed hard and, as he rose to his feet, bolter fire shredded him.

Before the body had even hit the ground, Honsou spun low around the corner of the trench, firing controlled bursts at the Space Marine. His victim crumpled, his armour breached by his shots. Honsou's jaw hardened as he saw the clenched, black fist icon on the warrior's left shoulder guard.

Imperial Fists! The ancient enemy, source of his polluted blood and cause of millennia of misery at the hands of those who were not fit even to serve beside him.

Blind rage took Honsou and he roared in hate, charging through the body-filled trench, the desperate need to kill Imperial Fists driving him onwards. Another yellow-armoured warrior appeared at the entrance to the battery and levelled his bolter, but Honsou was quicker, pulling the trigger and emptying his weapon's magazine at the hated foe.

Sparks and earth flew as his shots ricocheted from the Space Marine's armour.

Honsou screamed in fury, throwing aside his bolter when the hammer slammed down empty, and drew his sword as the warrior before him dropped to one knee and took careful aim.

He felt impacts slam into his chest, but nothing, not even death itself would prevent him from reaching his enemy. Pain ripped through him, but he ignored it, hammering his boot into the Space Marine's breastplate. He reversed his grip on his sword hilt and drove it downwards through the chest of the fallen warrior, hate-fuelled strength driving it hilt-deep into his victim.

Blood splashed him as a flaring explosion thundered through the battery and another daemon engine vanished in a sheet of flames, its shriek momentarily drowning out the noise of the blast. Psychic Shockwaves buffeted Honsou and he felt the ancient malice of a being that was ancient before mankind was born roar through him. He rejoiced in its hate, feeling it consume him, pouring fresh vigour through his body as it took his unworthy flesh for its own. He spread wide his arms, actinic bolts of black lightning arcing from his hands.

Destruction ripped through the battery as the bolts lashed out, indiscriminately ripping apart banks of soil, machinery and groups of soldiers - both enemy and allied.

Honsou revelled in such carnage, though he knew that it was but borrowed power. Flaring purple afterimages seared across his retinas, but he laughed, hurling spears of warp energy into the confused mass of men and machines. His body swelled as daemonic power poured in. His armour buckled and he screamed as joints and sinews stretched, bones cracked and his jaw stretched wide in a soundless cry of agony.

More thunderous detonations rocked the battery and Honsou felt yet another daemonic presence explode from within its iron machine-prison. He dropped to his knees as the daemon within him suddenly withdrew, feeling its hatred of the newly-birthed entity. As the power drained from him, he watched the two daemonic creatures spiralling heavenward, locked in battle and fading from his vision even as he watched. He ached for such power again, even though he knew it would destroy him.

He groaned in pain as the terrible damage done to him by the daemon's brief occupancy surged through his nerve endings. He pushed himself to his feet as the human soldiers swarmed around him, shooting into the mass of Guardsmen and Space Marines.

A mad shrieking filled the battery as more explosions lit up the night. A daemon engine, its bindings cracked and flailing, howled as it fought to finally sever the magicks that bound it to the war machine. Men were crushed beneath its bronze treads, and Honsou watched as its mighty gun swung ponderously around and fired repeatedly. The screaming projectiles sailed over his head, exploding somewhere deep in the Iron Warriors' camp, and a string of secondary detonations swiftly followed.

Honsou dragged his sword from the body beside him, wincing as his tortured muscles protested. There were still Imperial Fists to slay and he set off into the fiery hell of the battery to find them.

Bolter impacts rang from the walls, almost deafening, and Hawke felt the impact of countless bullets hitting the underside of the gantry. Desperately he hammered his elbow against the grille behind him, firing the lasgun blindly over the edge.

Sparking ricochets spanged from the torpedo and Hawke filled the air with a constant stream of expletives, expecting the damn thing to blow with every impact. Fie could hear the metallic thunk, thunk, of boots on the ladder beside him, and rolled over in time to see a grizzled face atop a red collar appear at the edge of the gantry.

He lashed out, his elbow smashing the man's nose across his face in a spray of blood. The man's hands flew to his face. He screamed as he fell from the ladder.

Hawke yelled, 'And stay down!' before glancing over the edge of the gantry to watch him fall. A bullet streaked past him, grazing his temple and he yelped in pain, blood washing down his face from the cut. He rolled back as another man clambered up the ladder.

A bolter shell plucked at his sleeve and blood streamed from his bicep. His hand spasmed and he dropped the las-gun. It rolled to the edge of the gantry and he lunged for the rifle, just stopping it from falling. Something heavy landed on him.

A fist cracked against his jaw, but he rolled with the blow, twisting his head aside as the man on top of him repeatedly punched him.

Hawke drove his knee into the man's groin and delivered a thunderous head-butt as his opponent's shoulders dropped. He hammered the heel of his hand into the man's neck and gripped his red overalls. Hawke slammed his head into the metalwork of the railings before heaving him over the edge.

Another enemy soldier stood in front of him, aiming a rifle.

Hawke kicked out hard, cracking his boots against the man's legs and shattering his kneecaps. The man shrieked and dropped to the floor of the gantry.

Hawke fired a hail of las-bolts, ripping the man's chest to bloody ruin and blasting clear the wall-mounted grille behind him. More bullet impacts raked the wall around him and he rolled away from the gantry's edge, finding himself looking into the depths of the torpedo's access panel.

How the hell did he fire this bloody thing?

He couldn't remember.

He heard more people climbing and cursed as he saw the charge indicator on the rifle flash red. Almost empty. He could see another soldier had reached the top of the ladder. He snatched the late Guardsman Hitch's pride and joy from his belt and rammed the full length of the Jouran fighting-knife into the man's neck. Bright arterial blood spurted from the wound, drenching Hawke. He frantically wiped his eyes clear, scrambling back towards the torpedo and ramming the knife back in its scabbard.

Gunfire sounded from below, but none of the shots seemed to be directed at him. He risked another furtive glance over the gantry and saw that the armoured giant had killed his remaining soldiers. Perhaps they hadn't been keen to meet the same fate as their comrades.

Hawke grinned suddenly. He didn't blame them.

'You are braver than I took you for, little man,' said the Chaos Marine, mounting the iron ladder. 'I will honour you with the most brutal death.'

'If it's all the same to you, I'll pass on that,' shouted Hawke, firing his lasgun, but the weapon was useless, his shots bouncing from the warrior's burnished armour. He searched desperately for something to use as a weapon, his gaze finally falling on the one thing he knew would finish this bastard off.

But how to use it? What had Beauvais said?

Strike the rune of firing upon the…

The what?

He bit his lip as he heard the warrior climbing.

'To hell with it,' he said and closed his eyes, reaching inside the access panel and hammering his open palm against the exposed runes, switches and buttons.

Nothing happened.

'Emperor damn you!' Hawke screamed in frustration. 'You useless pile of worthless junk! Fire, damn you! Fire you bastard! Fire!'

As the last word left his mouth, a rumbling tremor filled the chamber, klaxons blared and a series of lights began flashing at the chamber's top. Hawke opened his eyes and laughed hysterically. Of course! The Chant of Awakening!

Sudden heat filled the chamber and steam flashed up the walls as powerful rocket engines began igniting sequentially. He'd only gone and bloody done it, hadn't he?

As the heat in the torpedo room suddenly leapt upwards he realised his danger. The ladder was sure as hell not an option and he cried in relief as he saw the duct exposed by the shattered grille. He didn't know where it led, but was sure it had to be better than here.

'Well, Hawke, my lad,' he whispered, 'time to get going.'

Swiftly he crawled towards the duct, pushing his lasgun ahead of him. It was easily wide enough to accommodate him and he slithered inside.

Something tugged at his fatigues. He turned and cried out as he saw the Chaos warrior's loathsome, mechanised claw snap shut on his ankle.

The giant was too large to enter the duct, but the claw would soon pull him out.

'If we are to die, we will die together, little man,' promised the warrior.

'Guess again,' snapped Hawke as he drew his knife and sawed through the throbbing power cables that ran from the claw. Black oil and hydraulic fluid spurted out, and the claw jerked spastically.

Its iron grip slackened and he kicked it clear, powering along the smooth metal duct. With every passing second he expected a bullet in the back, but none came. Vibrations rumbled along the duct and he pushed his muscles harder than he would have believed possible.

Hot steam billowed after him. Sweat poured from his brow as the aimbling of rocket engines grew behind him and the ductwork creaked as it expanded in the burgeoning heat.

Suddenly there was space above him. He pulled himself from the duct and slung his rifle over his shoulder as he found himself in what looked like a vent chamber. Other ducts fed into the chamber and another ladder ascended to a circle of reddish sky high above him. He leapt onto the ladder, climbing as fast as he could, hearing the rumble behind him build to a full-throated bellow, like a mighty dragon waking from its slumbers.

He climbed and climbed as the roar built below him.

Geysers of scalding steam flashed past him.

The heat was intolerable and he gritted his teeth. His skin blistered, but he shut out the pain, putting one hand above the other and pulling himself onwards.

Hawke reached the top of the ladder and moaned in fear as he felt a blaze of heat rash towards him and searing orange light flare around him. He shouted with one last herculean effort, hurling himself over the lip of the vent and rolling aside as a fountain of fiery exhaust gasses exploded behind him.

Hawke squeezed his eyes shut, and rolled away from the heat until he was sure he was safe. He gasped for air and pushed himself into a sitting position, opening his eyes in time to see the torpedo roaring through the sky on a pillar of fire.

Guardsman Julius Hawke knew he'd never seen a more beautiful sight.

The Glaive class ground-launched orbital torpedo climbed rapidly through the red sky of Hydra Cordatus on a blazing tail plume, lighting the battlefield below with its brilliant glare. It soon became nothing more than a flickering point of light in the sky, climbing to an altitude where the air was thinner and its speed could increase. As it reached a height of nearly one hundred kilometres, the first stage of the torpedo separated and stage two ignited, increasing its velocity still further as the war-spirit caged within the warhead calculated the time, distance and vector to its target.

The torpedo nosed over, travelling at almost fourteen thousand kilometres per hour, and began hunting for its prey. The Adeptus Mechanicus had cursed its target and that curse now passed to the war-spirit. As the torpedo angled itself back towards the planet, the warhead identified its target.

With its target locked in its sights, the war-spirit vectored the nozzles on the second stage to fire a corrective burn that altered its flight path and sent the torpedo plummeting back to Hydra Cordatus.

Forrix stood at the edge of the promontory watching the battle raging below with impotent frustration. The batteries were being attacked by the Imperials and he could do nothing about it. Who would have believed the curs of the corpse-god could be so bold? His hands bunched into fists and he vowed that someone would pay for this.

Flashes and rippling explosions lit up the night and his enhanced sight could follow individual acts of bravery and heroism in the battle. Not only that, but he could clearly see the yellow armour of the Imperial Fists in the flickering light. To have the ancient foe here was as close to perfect synchronicity as he could have wished. He remembered fighting Dorn's warriors on the walls of the Eternity Gate on Terra, ten thousand years ago. Then they had been warriors to walk the road to hell with, but now… ?

He would soon find out. An inferno of hate burned within his heart with a passion he had all but forgotten.

He'd watched the spear of light roar from the mountains to the east of the citadel and had experienced a moment's unease as he watched the orbital torpedo climb higher and higher.

How had it been fired and where was it bound? But these questions seemed largely irrelevant now, as it had streaked into the heavens then vanished through the clouds.

Forrix returned his attention to the battle below, sneering in contempt as he saw the Imperials begin to pull back under the fury of the Iron Warriors' counterattack. He saw Honsou leading a rabble of soldiers through the battery, killing those not quick enough to make their escape, and smiled grimly.

Honsou was becoming a fearsome war-leader and Forrix knew that, given the chance, he could be amongst the greatest Warsmiths the Legion had ever seen.

The battle below was as good as over. Forrix turned away, marching past the huge number of artillery pieces he had assembled on the promontory and over the breach Honsou had fought his way across. Tomorrow they would begin firing again and the walls of the citadel would crumble.

He crossed the entrenchment on long, flat sheets of metal, stopping as a sudden premonition sent a shiver along his spine. He craned his neck upwards.

The sky was, as usual, the colour of blood, lit by reflected flashes of explosions from below.

What had made him look up?

Then he saw it.

A burning dot of light high in the sky, arcing down towards the planet at fantastic speed. Forrix's jaw hung slack as he realised the ultimate destination of the torpedo. Hot anger flooded his body as he watched molten streamers of light flare from the torpedo as it entered the lower atmosphere.

He bolted for the keep, shouting a voxed warning to the warriors inside.

'By all that is unholy, raise the keep's void shield!'

He lumbered towards the sunken blast doors that led within, casting a hurried glance over his shoulder. The burning corona of fire that surrounded the torpedo appeared to him like a baleful eye in the heavens, aimed straight for his heart.

Forrix entered the keep, hammering his fist across the door-closing mechanism and set off towards its command centre. He heard the pervasive hum of the void shield generator buried beneath the tower powering up and fervently hoped that it would raise in time.

For if it did not, he and everyone in the keep were as good as dead.

The torpedo impacted almost exactly in the centre of the Kane bastion of Tor Christo where its triple stage warhead detonated with devastating results. The lead element of the warhead was designed to crater an opening through the thick hull of a starship, while the tail element would explode simultaneously, acting as a propellant and hurling the middle charge deep within its target, But instead of the metres-thick, reinforced adamantium bulkhead of a starship, the torpedo slammed into the ground of the Kane bastion, travelling at over a thousand kilometres an hour. The first stage of the torpedo exploded with phenomenal power, flattening everything within three hundred metres and blasting a crater fifty metres deep. The tail section blew and thrust the torpedo deeper into the rock of the promontory where the more powerful centre charge detonated with the power of a sun, ripping the rock of Tor Christo apart.

Night became day as blinding light fountained from the impact. Tank-sized chunks of stone were hurled through the air like pebbles as an expanding wave of blinding smoke and dust filled the valley. The thunderclap of detonation was like the hammer of the gods, come to smite the surface of the planet, and a surging mushroom cloud billowed a thousand metres into the sky, hurling ash and burning rock in all directions.

The ramparts of the bastions either side of the torpedo's impact sagged and cracked, their rockcrete walls splitting under forces they were never designed to endure. The crater in the centre of the promontory expanded with terrifying rapidity, tonnes of rubble and artillery pieces collapsing into the fiery pit.

With a tortured groan, millions of tonnes of stone cracked and rumbled, sliding free of the slopes of the promontory, crashing down in a rocky tidal wave of destruction. The western end of the first parallel was buried beneath the avalanche of rock, and the zigzag approach saps leading to the second parallel filled and collapsed. Thousands died screaming as they were crushed beneath the sweeping tide of earth.

The battery constructed before the walls of the Vincare bastion vanished in a torrential downpour of earth and rock, the guns buried forever beneath thousands of tonnes of debris.

Hundreds of secondary explosions were touched off as burning shards of wreckage dropped into the Iron Warriors' camp, detonating ammo dumps and fuel bladders, and setting light to hundreds of tents. Anarchy filled the camp as men attempted to fight the blazes, but they were as ants fighting a forest fire; nothing could halt the spread of the voracious flames.

The blast wave buffeted the towering form of the Dies Irae, but the workers had done their job well and the towering buttresses and scaffolding held, keeping the monstrous leviathan from toppling. The massive Titan shook, its joints groaning and squealing as its external gyros fought for balance, but the Shockwave passed over it and left it intact. Several other Titans were not so fortunate and three Warlords of the Legio Mortis were brought down by massive hunks of rock or collapsed by the force of the blast.

The death toll had reached nearly ten thousand by the time the final echoes of the blast had died away and the blinding light of the torpedo's detonation had faded. All that remained of Tor Christo was the void-shielded keep, perched precariously on a splintered corbel of rock.

In a single stroke, Guardsman Hawke had suddenly tilted the balance of power on Hydra Cordatus.

Castellan Vauban pushed himself up out of the dust and earth and shook his head clear of the ringing din that filled his skull. Bright light filled the valley and he laughed in triumph as he saw the enormous mushroom cloud wreathing Tor Christo in smoke and flames.

He and Leonid had seen the torpedo launch, but they had been too busy rallying the men to fall back towards the Primus Ravelin to follow its course. The chaos of the attack on the battery had consumed him and the first he'd known of the torpedo's impact was when he'd seen his shadow suddenly thrown out before him and an enormous force smashed him to the ground. Fleeting impressions of flashing light, thunderous detonations and pain as rocks and earth came hammering down around him.

Dizzily he pushed himself to his feet, casting his gaze through the grey smoke, attempting to see the extent of the damage, but it was futile. He couldn't see more than a dozen metres: the dust and smoke was too thick. He could see shapes picking themselves slowly from the ground, but whether they were friend or foe was impossible to tell.

Muffled rallying cries of sergeants pierced the gloomy, dust-filled air and he thought he heard Leonid's voice calling his name, but it was hard to tell. He tried to shout a reply, but his mouth was dry with ash and all he could manage was a hoarse croak. He spat, wiping his face clear of dirt and futilely dusting down his jacket and breastplate.

It was time to impose some order. He stumbled towards where he thought he'd heard Leonid's voice. He turned blindly, all sense of direction lost in the haze.

Vauban froze as he heard a voice in the smoke and an enormous figure in burnished, dust and blood stained armour wearily emerged from the swirling clouds before him.

The warrior was helmetless, his close-cropped black hair tight against his skull and his eyes burning with a hate that chilled Vauban to his very soul.

The two faced one another in silence until Vauban drew his power sword and assumed a relaxed fighting stance, though fear of this warrior pulsed along every nerve of his body.

In a calm voice he said, 'I am Castellan Prestre de Roche Vauban the sixth, heir to the lands of Burgovah on the planet Joura, scion of the House of Vauban. Cross blades with me if you wish to die, foul daemon.'

The warrior smiled. 'I have no such impressive titles, human. I am called Honsou. Half-breed, mongrel, filth, scum. I will cross blades with you.'

Vauban activated the blade of his sword and dropped into a fighting crouch as Honsou approached. The battery fell silent as the two combatants circled one another, searching for a weakness in the other's defence.

Vauban raised his sword in salute and, without warning, leapt towards Honsou, thrusting with his energised blade.

Honsou swayed aside and swept his sword round, slashing the blade towards Vauban. He ducked and spun away, slashing high with his sword.

Honsou deflected the sweep and stepped back, his sword raised before him. Vauban recovered his balance and advanced towards Honsou. He lunged again and Honsou expertly blocked the thrust, rolling his wrists and slashing at Vauban's head. But he had read the move in Honsou's eyes and the castellan dodged the blow.

Wary now, the pair again circled each other, their defences alert for any sudden moves.

Honsou attacked, a flashing whirlwind of steel, forcing Vauban backwards step by step. Vauban parried a vicious slash aimed at his chest, launching a lightning riposte at his foe. The blade scraped a deep furrow in Honsou's armour, but slid clear before drawing blood.

Honsou retreated and Vauban followed with a grin of anticipation, launching himself at Honsou with fresh vigour. Honsou was a powerful warrior, but Prestre Vauban had been a student of swordplay his entire life and each attack drew fresh blood from his adversary.

He hammered his enemy's defences again and again, forcing him slowly backwards until Honsou stumbled and lost his footing.

Vauban spun left and struck out at Honsou's sword arm. Honsou was quick, bringing his block up just in time to intercept the blow, and their weapons met in a coruscating halo of sparks. Vauban roared as Honsou's blade snapped and his own smashed home. The Iron Warrior grunted in pain as his arm was severed just above the elbow.

Honsou retreated, stumbling as blood sprayed from the stump of his arm.

Seizing the opportunity, Vauban leapt in to deliver the deathblow, but, at the last second, realised that Honsou had lured him into the attack.

Honsou roared and stepped to meet Vauban, slamming inside his guard and hammering the snapped length of his sword blade through his silver breastplate and into his heart.

White-hot pain flooded Vauban as Honsou twisted the blade, bright blood pouring down his chest and darkness veiling his sight. Had he heard someone crying his name?

He felt his lifeblood pouring from him and looked into the eyes of his killer.

'Damn you…' he whispered.

'That happened a long time ago, human,' hissed Honsou, but Vauban was already dead.

SIX

Dawn broke across the valley, scarlet beams of light throwing its unforgiving glare over a scene of utter devastation. A pall of grey dust hung heavy in the air and smothered all sounds in an unnatural silence.

The Warsmith surveyed the destruction before him with an impassive eye. The swirling metamorphic shadows that wreathed his features were a clue to his fury, and none of his war-captains dared approach their master for fear of his rage. The writhings in his armour spun faster, their agonised mewling becoming more desperate.

Two batteries all but destroyed, the guns on Tor Christo gone and almost every daemon engine shattered. Millions of rounds of artillery had been blown to pieces, thousands were dead and weeks of work had been buried under the rubble of a destroyed mountain.

The Warsmith turned to face his captains and not one was spared a moment of utter terror as he advanced towards them. Each of them could see that the forces of change at work within the Warsmith's body were increasing at a furious rate and the force of his presence was almost overpowering.

'You disappoint me,' he said simply.

Each captain felt the horrendous changes working in the Warsmith's body wash over them. He leaned close to his first captain.

'Forrix, I trusted you to have our siegeworks at the walls by now. They are not.'

He moved on. 'Kroeger, I trusted you to protect my war-engines. You did not.'

The Warsmith faced his last war-captain, his voice dangerously soft and controlled.

'Honsou, you have been blessed by the touch of a creature of Chaos. You are now one of us. You have done well and I shall not forget this service you have done me.'

Honsou nodded his thanks, flexing the freshly-grafted mechanical arm the Warsmith's personal Chirumek had gifted him with at the conclusion of last night's battle.

The Warsmith stepped back, his monstrous form swelling and the darkness of his face parting for the briefest moment to reveal the roiling chaos beneath.

He roared, his voice like the bellow of an angry god, 'I do not have time to be thwarted in my ascension by your incompetence. Go now! Get out of my sight and break open that citadel!'