by John French
Angron’s stillness was absolute. His bulk was a statue, the roiling dark and rage around him quiet. Argonis found that his eyes were locked on the daemon primarch, fixed on an embodiment of endless violence, motionless. Blood itched at the edges of his eyes, and in his stomach the memories of emotions taken from him long ago flared. That stillness was the most terrifying thing he had ever seen.
Above them the light of battle strobed across the stars.
‘I put my life and the lives of my warriors in your hands, brother,’ said Perturabo.
Seventeen
Ekaddon
An arc of lightning struck the floor in front of Ekaddon. Blackness swallowed his sight for a second. He ducked aside on instinct. A bolt-round exploded where he had been. Shrapnel rang on his armour. He surged to his feet. The air was thick in his lungs, burning his skin inside his armour. Voices filled his ears, screaming, laughing, gurgling, overlapping. The sounds of battle seemed far off for an instant. Then his sight returned, as though a cloth had been pulled from his face. Light boiled through the throne room. Muzzle flare sliced through the darkness. Sheets of actinic light flashed. He saw a Luperci launch itself at one of the Justaerin, jaws split wide, talons extended. The black-clad Terminator fired at the daemon-kin. A spear of fire ripped through the Luperci the instant before it struck. Burning ichor and bone blasted out. It landed. The edges of its talons were white with heat as they sliced through the black armour. Bloody smoke caught the strobing glare of gunfire as the pair fell, locked together.
And on the scene went, half-daemons and warriors in black running to murder each other beneath the closed eyes of their primarch. Maloghurst lay at Horus’ feet, a hand raised to rest on his master’s foot. The maw-wound had opened in the Warmaster’s side. Blood covered the steps beneath them, draining from Warmaster and equerry alike. Fire and the flash of void shields curtained the view through the crystal window behind them.
Ekaddon froze as his gaze touched Horus. His substance was thin, like an image projected into smoke, flickering in and out of being.
A powerblade flashed at the edge of his sight, and he twisted in time to step back from a descending axe. Two Justaerin were closing on him, hacking heavy, killing blows as he stepped back. He fired the last three rounds into the Terminators, aiming into their central mass, hoping to stagger them. They did not pause, and he found himself pushed back to the foot of the bloody throne.
‘Traitor,’ called one of the Justaerin. ‘Defiler!’
Ekaddon parried a blow with the flat of his own axe, and felt force rip through his arm as the power fields of the two weapons met. The snarls of chainblades and Luperci rose against the laughter seeping into his thoughts.
The doors at the far end of the chamber began to open. Lines of fire poured through the widening crack. Ekaddon could see warriors in storm-green with bronze faceplates charging in the van of more Terminators in coal-black.
The Justaerin facing Ekaddon sensed the moment of distraction and lashed a blow at his head. He twitched aside and cut back, but the Justaerin stepped into the blow. Shards of black ceramite exploded out as Ekaddon’s axe sheared through the edge of a shoulder guard. The Justaerin rammed his weight forwards. Ekaddon felt his chest plate crack under the impact, pain shooting through him as he fell back against the steps to the throne. The image of the bleeding primarch looked down on him with sightless eyes, a cadaver where a king of conquest had once sat. Maloghurst’s face was a hand reach away, his eyes open but staring at nothing, seeing nothing.
‘You have the right idea, boy,’ he had growled as he broke Ekaddon’s knife hand, long ago in the dark of Cthonia’s underworld. The splintered tip of Ekaddon’s knife projected from the bone just under Maloghurst’s eye. Blood rolled down his cheek. ‘You will do,’ he laughed. ‘You will do.’
Ekaddon tried to rise, but a boot crashed into his chest. More pain. He looked up at the face of Falkus Kibre as he aimed his bolter.
‘Traitor,’ growled the Widowmaker. His armour was battle-damaged and still held the frost sheen of teleport residue. At his shoulder stood Horus Aximand, eyes cold fire in his skin-mask face.
The twin circles of the gun barrels filled Ekaddon’s gaze. He was aware that the wash of battle-sound had quietened. He grinned up at the barrels and waited for them to swallow him.
A wall of force slammed the Justaerin commander back. The air shimmered with ghost-light as Tormageddon slid into view. Arcs of cold fire ran over his armour. Ekaddon started to rise.
‘Leave him,’ said the daemonhost, the word a dry rattle pulled from unused vocal cords.
Ekaddon pushed himself up. Kibre raised his bolter to fire at Tormageddon.
No.+
The word hammered into Ekaddon. His muscles froze.
Gunfire ceased. Noise vanished.
No, my sons,+ said the voice again. Ekaddon felt his head turn. Frost was blooming over the iron of the throne. The air swam with heat. High, distant screams filled Ekaddon’s skull.
The Warmaster opened his eyes. Furnace fire burned beneath the lids. He stood. Shards of frozen blood fell from him like scattered rubies. The maw in his side was closed, the armour flawless. Ghost images of wailing faces danced and spun around him, and the shadows of cadaverous hands brushed his armour as he stepped down from the dais. His form blurred in Ekaddon’s eyes, colour, light and shadow flickering like the image from a damaged pict-feed. He could not breathe, and he could not look away.
My sons,+ spoke Horus, his voice echoing in Ekaddon’s skull, obliterating the voice of his own thoughts. +You have doubted, and you have feared…+
Every figure in the room knelt as Horus stepped between Ekaddon, Kibre and Aximand. The great warlords were on their knees, pressing themselves down into the cold metal, as though held by the hands of heaven. Even Tormageddon had shrunk, its horned head bowed, as though it were a dog under the gaze of a great wolf.
But now all doubt and fear die,+ spoke Horus. The words in Ekaddon’s mind blurred into the air, rolling with the sound as the Warmaster stood above them. ‘All shall burn…’ he said aloud, raising Kibre up with a claw under his chin. The Widowmaker was shaking.
‘All shall be conquered.’ Horus turned and looked down at Aximand. There were red tears falling from Little Horus’ eyes. ‘And all shall kneel.’
He walked between the abased warriors and grovelling daemonbreed.
Ekaddon felt as though his head would explode, as though his muscles would crumble to dust. He wanted to run. He wanted to plead for mercy. He wanted to murder, and laugh, and live, and see his star ascend in a golden age that was yet to come.
‘Rise, my sons,’ said Horus.
Ekaddon stood. Pain and damage drained away from him. All the others stood as one, their eyes locked on Horus, who turned and looked at the rippling void-light beyond the great viewport. His eyes were cold and black now, mirrors to the battle beyond.
‘We end this now,’ he said. ‘And then we go to Ullanor.’ Ekaddon thought he saw the shadow of a smile on the face. ‘My brothers wait for me. And then a reckoning waits for all of us.’
Horus strode towards the doors, lightning already wreathing his taloned hand. The Sons of Horus followed him, and a choir of the damned sang in his wake.
Argonis
The Conqueror was the first to turn. The World Eaters flagship accelerated to meet the Ultramarines. Macro fire danced off its shields. Then its sisters followed roaring in its wake to meet their enemy head on. Two died in as many seconds as coordinated fire ripped through already-damaged hulls. The battle-barge Victory’s Monument turned to meet the wild charge, pulling an octet of destroyers with it. The Conqueror lashed fire at it in response, battering its shields like a warrior goading an enemy to come closer.
Above the arc of Deluge, Perturabo’s Grand Fleet held steady in tight formation, thrusters firing as they maintained their station. T
he first long-burn torpedoes began to explode amongst them. Plasma sub-munitions burst against hulls in spheres of sun-fire. The Iron Warriors fired in turn, gridding the dark with short-range munitions to swallow the oncoming ordnance.
The Ultramarines fleet began to spread wider, flattening into a disc that pressed the World Eaters and Iron Warriors between it and the system’s core. At the thick centre of the disc rode the fleet’s heaviest guns. Watching the tactical output expand across his helmet display, Argonis found himself thinking of the pit fights of the World Eaters, of the fighters who would cast a net to snare their opponents before driving a trident into their chest. Around him gunships were lifting into the sky. Slab-sided bulk carriers swallowed blocks of World Eaters. Daemons snarled at their backs, their cries growing weaker as their bodies dissolved into the mud. Above them circled Angron. The rage rolling off him peeled red streaks through the air.
‘In,’ growled Forrix, pulling at his shoulder, and then they were running for the ramp of a Stormbird as its engines rose to a scream pitch. It began to lift before the ramp closed behind him.
‘Recommended fleet distribution for breaching the enemy line,’ said Forrix, handing Perturabo a data-slate. Perturabo gave a single shake of his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘We do not just run. Angron needs blood, and so we will give it to him.’
The red of the compartment lights poured across the torn surface of his armour. In the pooling shadow, the metal seemed less like plates than scales, the rents shrinking to wounds in the dark. Perturabo’s hand danced over the data-slate, and then he handed it to Forrix.
‘Transmit these orders to all units in orbit.’
‘To the World Eaters?’
‘All units,’ said Perturabo. ‘We will pour blood and fire into the void.’
Forrix glanced at the slate then slotted it into a wall socket. A heartbeat later Argonis saw the order stream unfold in his helm display. It almost stopped the breath in his lungs.
‘This is suicide,’ he breathed.
‘Only if the daemons lied,’ said Perturabo. His eyes were still and unblinking, gleaming black in the red light.
The Iron Warriors ships began to move as the gunships swarmed into their hangars. Engines lit and began to shunt them closer together. Fire lashed out from those nearest the Ultramarines. Volleys sheeted into the killing mass of ships as it closed. The outer parts of the enemy fleet began to turn inwards, enveloping their prey.
Perturabo’s order signals began to cascade through the World Eaters ships. Some of them began to turn and drop closer to the Iron Warriors. Others ploughed on heedlessly, slashing at the enemy ships with rolling volleys of fire.
‘Those ships will be lost,’ said Argonis. The gunship was rising to meet the Iron Blood as the great ship cut through the blisters of explosions. Perturabo looked unmoved.
‘Three-quarters of the World Eaters report readiness,’ said Forrix. ‘And the Conqueror confirms that Angron is aboard.’
‘How many of the Twelfth remain on the surface?’ asked Perturabo.
‘Impossible to estimate,’ said Forrix. ‘Some certainly. Their discipline is–’
‘We do not wait,’ said Perturabo. The gunship shook as it slammed down onto the hangar deck. ‘Begin the process, all ships keyed to my command.’
‘The Conqueror–’ began Forrix.
‘The Conqueror will obey or it will die,’ said Perturabo. ‘They can read the consequences, the choice is theirs.’
The hatch opened, and Perturabo was striding out into the gloom of a hangar bay, slashed with stab-beams. Argonis noticed that he moved fluidly, as though neither flesh nor armour had been damaged.
Argonis felt the vibration in the deck increase as he stepped from the gunship. Far beneath his feet the ship’s plasma reactor output began to peak. In the void, the Ultramarines fleet was now a hand enclosing the World Eaters and Iron Warriors. Fire reached out in every direction to meet them. If the commanders of the enemy ships wondered at why the Iron Warriors did not focus their fire and try to punch through, it did not stop them. The net closed. Ships began to die.
The Stone Breaker took a nova shell cluster from the Seneca and cracked open down its length. Fire rolled through its compartments and deep decks. The strike was only partial, and the secondary shells exploded in the void around its burning hull. It might have survived, until the fires found an ordnance magazine in its hull. The explosion split its carcass open and scattered the remains into a white-hot cloud of gas and debris.
The Ultramarines battleship Banner of Truth was the first to strike a close blow at the Iron Warriors. Bombardment arrays flared as they loosed munitions before it. Miniature stars exploded amongst the iron-skinned ships as they began to return fire, but the Banner of Truth was an old crusader and it shrugged away their rebukes with a glitter of void shields. The Strontium Dawn turned to meet the Ultramarines ship, holding position until the two were ripping shields and then armour apart with point-blank shell and rocket fire. Atmosphere bled from both ships as they hammered each other.
The World Eaters heavy frigate Death Cut broke formation and drove towards the pair. Boarding torpedoes shot from its prow and punched into the Banner of Truth’s keel. World Eaters poured into the ship’s lower decks. Blood and shouts of panic flowed through the ratings as the sound of chainaxes screamed above the battle sirens. The Death Cut pressed on, ramming its prow across the Banner of Truth’s bridge. The two ships spun away, tumbling, firing on each other like two enemies hacking at each other as they fell from a cliff.
The first concentrated volleys began to strike the Iron Blood. Its prow and spine shields fell in a rolling flash. Gunnery officers on the Ultramarines ships cycled their batteries, racing to fire on the great vessel before it could raise its void envelope again. Fighting a ship of its size was never about single killing blows; they were simply too huge, too heavily armoured and shielded. You had to wear them down, to land strike after strike against its main mass until it died of its wounds. That was what the captains and gunnery commanders had predicted and planned for. But the Iron Blood’s shields were not raised again. Instead the Ultramarines’ auspex saw reactor spikes across the Iron Warriors and World Eaters ships. Thinking that their prey was about to try to break through their net, they poured power into their own engines. The gap closed.
The Iron Blood turned slowly in a growing cloak of fire. Beside it, the Conqueror dropped into formation so that the two huge ships were within a kilometre of each other.
‘The warp engines are ready,’ said Forrix as Perturabo reached his strategium. Argonis watched the Lord of Iron pause then nod.
‘Give the order.’
Forrix bowed his head and turned, speaking into the vox. A second later the alert lights flicked from pulsing amber to cold blue. The vibration in the deck was now a high, teeth-itching buzz. Argonis closed his eyes briefly and for the first time felt himself hope that the Dark Gods were watching over them.
Warp translation was not a matter of mechanics. The engines and calculations that allowed ships to rip a hole into the Sea of Souls were a veneer of science over a process that was, in essence, the violation of reality. What seemed rules were little more than reassurance to human minds. One of those rules was that warp translation should only ever be attempted far from the gravity of planets and stars. To disobey that rule was to risk the creation of an unstable rift between worlds, a hungering wound that would draw all it could reach into the beyond.
The Navigators realised what was happening first. Across the Ultramarines fleet they began to shout into the vox. Transmechanics burbled shock and incredulity. Captains began to issue frantic orders to turn, for drives to reverse. Power flushed to engines as some of the Ultramarines fleet scattered across the void. Others, though, ploughed on, their commanders heedless or unaware of the danger.
Space began to crackle with multicoloured
lightning. Lesions formed in the skin of reality, and ruptured to glittering voids. Impossible wings churned through the vacuum as hurricanes of blue-and-green fire danced over the ships of the World Eaters and Iron Warriors.
In the heart of the Iron Blood, Argonis’ hearts stopped beating. He felt as though his skin were being dragged back into his flesh. A single high-pitched note filled his ears, shrieking louder and louder.
The void split. The holes opened in reality ripped wide, flowing together until a ragged grin ran through the arc of Deluge’s orbit. Vast eyes and teeth rippled at the edge of the wound. It sat for an instant, both present and an illusion. Then it inhaled. Ships tumbled into the beyond, vast hulls spinning over and over like splinters in a storm. Creatures with mist bodies and howling mouths clawed and bit at their hulls. Down and down and through and through into nothingness the ships fell. Howling wheels of flame tore apart the Ultramarines vessels, bodies spilled into the raw tides of Chaos. Those that were lucky found the claws of waiting carrion daemons. The rest fell on, their flesh dissolving and distorting as their souls screamed in torment.
And through the whirl and babble, the Iron Blood and the Conqueror fell on. Their sisters tumbled with them, their hulls shimmering in the ghost-light, untouched by claw or storm. On the outside of the Conqueror’s bridge, the figure of Angron pulled itself up to the highest point of the hull. His body was a hunched mass of muscle, his wings a vast cloak streaming in the raw winds of the warp. He straightened, his form still holding the image that he bore in the mortal realm. Swarms of the Neverborn spiralled close, calling out, the lesser predators honouring the apex of their kind. Angron raised his arms. Around him the dead of the sundered Ultramarines fleet were red shadows. The false substance of his muscle frayed from him as he tilted back his head and roared in victory and summons.
The storm tides crashed in and bore the ships away in their claws, clutched like infants in a mother’s arms. Through the warp, the World Eaters heard the Red Angel’s cry and cast their ships into the storm tides.
