Forests sprawled over the northern expanse of the compartment and a waterfall tumbled from a cleft in the rock below its vaulted roof, nearly seven hundred metres above the cavern floor. On any normal day, the gorge was a wondrous meeting place of travellers, friends old and new, or pilgrims making their way to pay homage at one of the many secluded shrine temples carved into the tunnels of Calth’s depths. Soon it would be a battlefield.
Uriel watched the cohorts of skitarii from the cupola of his Rhino as they took up dug-in positions to the west of the main entrance of the compartment. These savage servants of the Machine-God would be invaluable when the Iron Warriors attacked. He and the Ultramarines held the centre of the valley, deployed in the hills and fortified structures before Castra Meridien. The great fortress was built of green marble, its walls smooth and lined with black veins, its gate a layered portal of dark armaplas and steel.
On the ridges between the fortresses, numerous artillery pieces in the colours of the Calth Defence Auxilia were primed and ready to fire, while the slopes beneath them were thronged with blue-jacketed soldiers in prepared positions and backed by scores of armoured vehicles. Four Valleys Gorge was a death trap, the roads covered by intersecting fields of fire and the avenues and intersections between the structures transformed into killing grounds. The mighty form of Lex Tredecim hunkered in the dead ground before Castra Meridem, hidden from view to offer unprecedented levels of battlefield coordination.
Pasanius and Clausel stood beside his command Rhino, each with their arms folded and surveying the battlefield with practiced eyes. Clausel had attached himself to the Firebrands, and Pasanius had welcomed the addition.
“We’re as secure as we can make this place,” said Pasanius. “Though we’ve said that before. We’re all ready, and awaiting your orders.”
Ultramarines squads had dug in next to their Rhinos behind raised banks of earth, ready to sally out and face the invaders. Stark light dappled the ground through the canopy of trees, and Uriel found the absence of bird-song unsettling, as though the creatures of Calth knew well the terrible foe set to unleash hell upon this place.
“I keep thinking there is something I have missed,” said Uriel scanning the ground.
“I have reviewed your deployment plans,” said Chaplain Clausel. “All is in accordance with the Codex.”
“That is what worries me,” said Uriel. “Honsou has shown us that he can think like us, and if he can think like us, he can pre-empt us.”
“You doubt the wisdom of the Codex?” asked Clausel. “I thought you had learned to trust its teachings on Pavonis. Was I mistaken?”
“No, Chaplain, not at all, but it is never good when the enemy knows how we will react to any given situation.”
“True enough,” said Clausel. “Then perhaps it is time to think like the enemy.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Custodes of the Emperor once practised a form of internal security known as Blood Games, where warriors of their own brotherhood would attempt to breach the security of the Imperial Palace,” said Clausel. “Having his own Praetorians hunting for weaknesses or breaches in his defences pulled the web of security ever tighter around the Emperor.”
“What are you suggesting?”
Clausel swept his arm out over the layered defences of Four Valleys Gorge and said, “That you look at these defences and ask yourself how you would defeat them.”
Uriel studied the overlaid fields of fire, the defence in depth and the numerous enfilading positions. Nothing was out of place, everything was in its proper position, and the layout of the thousands of defenders could have come straight from a field instruction manual.
“That’s just it,” he said. “I don’t know how I would do it. These defences should be impossible to breach through any standard doctrinal approach.”
And that was the problem. Honsou paid scant regard for any doctrinal approach to warfare, fighting from the hip and with a frighteningly intuitive grasp of the nature of any combat. His situational awareness of the shape of a battle was unmatched, and he could read its ebbs and flows better than anyone Uriel had met. To know when to consolidate, to advance, to flank and when to gamble; these were the qualities most leaders of men had to learn in the bitter fires of bloodshed, but which Honsou possessed innately.
However Honsou gave battle, it would be in a manner none of them could foresee.
IT BEGAN WITH screaming artillery shells arcing from the great tunnel of Guilliman’s Gate. It had taken the Iron Warriors a day to get through the rubble brought down by Lex Tredecim’s guns, but now the fight for Calth was well and truly underway.
The shells impacted in the centre of the cavern, falling amid the forward positions of the Defence Auxilia. Earth boomed upward in a series of percussive explosions that marched outwards in waves. Heavily dug in within foxholes and redoubts, few were killed by these blasts, the thick layers of packed earth dispersing the force of the explosions. Only those positions unlucky enough to be struck by a direct hit were pounded into the earth.
Even as the first echoes faded, a second and third volley of shells slammed down, spreading the destruction wider and fanning outward in an explosive arc. Smoke and incendiary shells were mixed with the high explosives, and the valley began to fill with choking grey banks. Uriel blinked his vision into thermal imaging, and saw the landscape laid out in sweeping patterns of heat traces. The valley was an almost uniform grey, with only minor temperature gradients except where the shells had landed, but he saw the bright heat traces of enemy infantry moving from the mouth of the valley under cover of the smoke.
“Incoming infantry,” he said over the artillery vox-net. “Set fire to target grid rows Primus and Secundus. Set warheads for airburst.”
No sooner was the order issued than the guns of the Defence Auxilia opened fire with a thunderous volley. Whirlwinds concealed in banked up berms below let loose rippling salvoes of rockets that fell upon the valley mouth and wiped out the enemy soldiers in a flashing series of air-splitting detonations. The shells burst thirty metres above the ground, sending an expanding cloud of razor shrapnel slicing down onto the Bloodborn warriors. Scores died instantly, shredded into bloody rags by the slicing clouds of fragments.
The artillery duel continued for several minutes, with Honsou’s warriors unable to gain a foothold in the cavern or push out further than a hundred metres. Where the Iron Warriors artillery was restricted to a narrow field of fire, the defenders of Calth had no such problem and they pounded the invaders remorselessly.
“It seems you overestimated this Honsou’s ability,” said Clausel, watching the bombardment of the enemy forces with righteous relish.
Uriel nodded absently. This direct assault wasn’t what he’d expected at all. It was too obvious, too unimaginative and too lacking in flair for a warsmith like Honsou.
“That is what worries me,” he said.
OVER THE COURSE of the day, the Iron Warriors pushed out further with each passing hour. Though it cost them hundreds of warriors for every foot gained, their bridgehead at the mouth of the valley was getting wider and wider. In the gaps between shelling, heavy diggers drove the vast piles of debris and loosened earth into heavy berms, behind which increasing numbers of warriors took shelter.
Mobile artillery pieces rumbled from the tunnel and rucked up behind prepared positions, and the arcs of enemy fire widened to encompass the entire gorge. It was warfare at its most brutal and methodical, pushing forward and winning ground without care for the number of lives it cost. The bravura of the strategy was fearsome, and only the most determined of wills could force men to march into the teeth of such withering enemy fire without protest.
High berms curved in a wide arc from one side of the tunnel mouth to the other. Hundreds of heavy, rectangular blocks formed from mesh-wrapped canvas and containing rubble dug from the floor of the gorge were slid over the lip of the earthworks to form an irregular covering that was as impervious to artillery stri
kes as it was hideous to look upon. Vile banners were planted on the ridge and molten metal poured down its slopes to form armoured plates of brazen iron. Uriel looked at the sloping line of ugly blocks and realised with horror what the Iron Warriors were building.
“It’s a fortress wall,” he said. “They’re laying siege to us.”
ON THE WALLS of Castra Occidens, Inquisitor Suzaku watched the intricate ballet of military manoeuvres below with a mix of professional interest and studied boredom. As a warrior of the holy ordos, she had, of course, been schooled in the art of war, but so much of her work was done in the shadows that such obvious displays of power were almost alien to her. She disliked working in the open, knowing that a great deal of her organisation’s power rested in the fear of its unknown nature.
The stares she was attracting standing on the firing step were curious and respectful, but there was none of the fear she was used to seeing. Beside her, Soburo sensed her unease, turning towards her with a slight smile on his face.
Soburo was an empath, and a good one too.
“They don’t fear you,” he said. “That must be unusual.”
“It is,” confessed Suzaku.
“Perhaps Ultramar’s citizens are truly innocent and have no need to fear the Inquisition.”
“That would make it a very unusual place indeed.”
“Unique, I would have said,” replied Soburo, adjusting the holster at his hip. Like Suzaku, Soburo was dark skinned and white haired, though he was considerably taller and more solidly built. He had the makings of a good acolyte, but Suzaku didn’t think he had the steel to be a full inquisitor. His empathic skills gave him compassion and understanding, traits not always desirable in an inquisitor. This campaign would answer many of Suzaku’s questions regarding her acolyte’s suitability.
A cold wind whipped across the walls of the fortress, a bulwark of black stone and high walls, and Suzaku pulled her stormcoat tighter about herself. The fortress was typical Ultramarines architecture: strong, stolid and unchanging. Suzaku had seen mason’s marks dating back to the years following the Great Betrayal.
Her entourage clustered around her, a motley assembly of robed savants, calculus-logi and armoured warriors. Her bodyguards had once been storm-troopers of the Jacintine Marauders, but had since been augmented with numerous bio-warfare implants to turn them into fearsome cybernetic killers. They had names, she presumed, but Suzaku knew them only by their call signs. Her stunted savant Milotas studied a data-slate worked in the form of a mirror, a streaming flow of paper unfolding from its base as he muttered catechisms pleasing to the statistical spirits within.
Only the twins stood apart, a pair of abnormally tall and slender males, with reed-thin limbs held fast by leather straitjackets secured with silver buckles and locks of cold iron. Both were albinic, with translucent skin and eyes the colour of winter. Suzaku had rescued them from their home world, where their disorder had seen their kind hunted almost to extinction by superstitious savages who sought to slaughter them for the supposedly medicinal effects their internal organs could produce when ingested.
Given the mental torments they had endured in Suzaku’s service, Soburo had often remarked that it might have been a kindness to let them die. In her more reflective moments, Suzaku was inclined to agree, but their prodigious psychic abilities were too useful to waste with mercy. Carefully controlled, the twins could read the twisting currents of the immaterium and warn of impending warp intrusion. But, like all psykers, they needed to be watched for signs of corruption, and her fingers flexed on the butt of her pistols.
“They’ve been twitchy ever since we got here,” said Soburo.
“Stop doing that,” said Suzaku. “Don’t read my thoughts.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s hard not to,” said Soburo. “You don’t cover your feelings well.”
“Then steel yourself against them,” warned Suzaku. “Concentrate on the white eyes. Guide them and read their emotions.”
“Of course,” said Soburo, suitably chastened.
Suzaku looked up as she saw a cloud pass beneath the roof of the giant cavern. The weather below Calth could change in moments, and it was a common saying among the populace that if you didn’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it would change. She still found it strange that clouds could form within such underground spaces, but Locard had told her that the weather patterns were enhanced by technology crafted in a more ancient time. Some, he had whispered, were rumoured to be of xenos manufacture, but no member of the Martian Priesthood had ever been permitted to examine them.
She pulled the collar of her stormcoat up and shivered, feeling her teeth tingle with the cold. The temperature had dropped significantly, and her breath feathered the air as crackling frost formed on the marble of the ramparts.
Realisation hit her like a blow. This was no natural change! Suzaku looked over to see Soburo trying to form words though a mouth frozen rigid with cold.
“Soburo!” cried Suzaku.
“Warpcraft…” hissed Soburo through teeth cracking with the baleful energies filling his body. “Powerful. Dark! Oh no… it’s blood magic. Here!”
He dropped to the ground, his eyes misting over and a deathly cold enveloping his body. Suzaku dropped to the ground beside her acolyte, and reached out to touch him. She flinched from the freezing air surrounding him. A shadow loomed, and she looked up to see the twins standing over her.
“We sense all, mistress. All the currents,” said one.
“Flow like a river through our mind,” finished the other. “The blood of innocents runs.”
“Like rain in the streets.”
“Like a surge tide in spring.”
“It comes to wash away the enemies of the Bloodborn.”
“No riddles,” demanded Suzaku. “What manner of warpcraft do you sense?”
“The gates of the empyrean open.”
“The terrors of the beyond answer the summons.”
“What was dreamed of in nightmares past.”
“Will bear bloody fruit in the minds of the living.”
Suzaku saw all trace of whiteness vanish from the twins’ eyes as their irises filled with blood. Soburo cried out in pain.
“And the dead shall outnumber the living,” said the twins in perfect unison.
The silver buckles securing their arms blazed with heat, running molten down the leather straitjackets and the iron locks shattered with a sharp crack. The twins’ skin blackened and their faces twisted into daemonic masks of bloodlust. Their restraints peeled away from their bodies like a pair of serpents shedding their skin to reveal the monsters beneath.
Suzaku’s pistol was in her hand a second later and she put a bullet through the first twin’s howling features without blinking. The second tore free of its straitjacket and reached for her with skeletal arms that now ended in elongated talons. She swung her weapon around, but before she could fire, a roaring chainblade implant in the fist of one of her Jacinitine bodyguards erupted from its chest.
The blade tore up and out through its collarbone, and the pale-skinned psyker fell in a gory heap to the ramparts. The frost on the battlements faded, and Suzaku swiftly opened a vox-channel to the Ultramarines.
“Captain Ventris,” she gasped, her lungs still aching with the bitter cold. “Be on your guard, the enemy are employing powerful sorcery. The mortal soldiers are the least of your concerns. In all likelihood, you will be facing warp creatures drawn from beyond the veil.”
“Daemons?” asked Captain Ventris, his voice distorted by a sudden swirl of static.
“More than likely,” said Suzaku. “Blood magic summons only the very worst creatures.”
“Understood. Ventris out.”
Suzaku shut off the link as Soburo climbed unsteadily to his feet. Suzaku was about to offer him a hand up when she saw the lingering redness in her acolyte’s eyes. The taint of the warp was insidious, and even the slightest trace would grow to consume one touched by its corruption. Sh
e stepped back and raised her weapon.
Soburo saw the pistol and read Suzaku’s feelings of regret and cold necessity in an instant. His open features fell, but he had been schooled well by the adepts of Talasa Prime, and nodded in weary acceptance.
“Do it,” said Soburo. “You know you have to.”
Suzaku nodded and eased back the hammer of her pistol with her thumb.
“Now they will fear you, sister,” said Soburo.
SUZAKU'S SHOT WAS swallowed by crashes of thunder as seething clouds of darkness swelled in the air of the gorge. Changing weather patterns on Calth were nothing new, but the speed with which the darkness grew overhead was far from natural. Crackling thunderheads boiled into existence, trailing sickly light back to the hideous wall and Bloodborn icons.
The solumens were snuffed out one by one and the vast compartment was plunged into near darkness as icy squalls howled from the northern tunnel, like the frozen winds of an ice-locked deathworld. Phantom shapes, glimpsed only from the corner of the eye, moved in the winds and cloud, reptilian and winged with pale skin and slitted yellow eyes.
Bolts of lightning leapt between the clouds and the air of the cavern filled with a sickening, actinic frisson. Fear spread like a contagion, the howling clouds awakening phobias, repressed terrors or forgotten fears long thought banished in childhood.
Booming drums echoed from the compartment’s walls, like a diseased heart gasping for its last futile beats of life. A hideous chanting joined the drums, a low, rhythmic utterance that swelled in volume in time to the booming heartbeat echoing from the clouds. It cut through the thunder, now accompanied by the clash of swords on shields and the scrape of combat blades affixed to rifle barrels. No man or woman in the Defence Auxilia failed to imagine those grisly blades plunging into their bellies or tearing out their throats.
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