The Chapters Due

by Graham McNeill

  Only a sputtering fragment of the once mighty fire of the Machine-God flickered dully within these aborted nightmares. A parasitic will drove their fibre-bundle muscles and gave animation to their mechanised frames. What were once beautiful and magnificent in their logical arrangement were now aberrations to be hated and, most importantly, destroyed.

  Locard opened a vox-link to Commander Trejo, master of the skitarii host he had brought to Calth. Positioned to the west of the main entrance to the gorge, they were ideally placed to counterattack.

  “Commander Trejo, are you seeing this?”

  “I am, magos,” growled Trejo, his thick down-hive accent still discernable even after extensive augmetic surgery to his jaw. “Unleash us, I beg you.”

  “Consider yourself unleashed,” he said. He didn’t need to add against which force. The hate the Adeptus Mechanicus had for these corrupt machines was felt no less keenly by its servants. “Serve the will of the Omnissiah.”

  “Understood. Trejo out.”

  No sooner had the link shut off than the gold icons representing the skitarii host moved eastward, accompanied by its supporting battle servitors. The Ultramarines were already embroiled with the enemy machines, and as much as he wished to see the corrupted engines destroyed, it was more fitting that it be at the hands of a righteous servant of the Machine-God.

  And there were none more thorough in their righteous vengeance than Trejo.

  A warning icon flashed on the holo-sphere, a seismic tremor surveyor, and Locard swept a haptically-enabled hand over the display, bringing the readouts to the fore. Regular bursts of energy spiked in the rock. That, in itself, was nothing unusual, especially in a planet so riddled with caverns and tunnels, but these readings were too regular and too artificial than any general movement he might have expected during the course of a battle.

  With swift gestures, he refined the search parameters of the seismic surveyors, filtering out local movement of tectonic plates and the impacts of heavy artillery. Five traces were moving from within the tunnel at the far side of the gorge, and there could only be one explanation for such specific tracks.

  “Identify,” he said, running the seismic traces and vibration analysis through Lex Tredecim’s logic engines. “Refine to error margin of no less than ten per cent.”

  As he suspected, the answer was not long in coming, the traces so specific and unmistakable that he hadn’t really needed the cogitators to tell him what he was looking at.

  A fresh pane opened in the holo-sphere, filled with a glowing image that slowly rotated in three dimensions. Long and cylindrical, its entire length was hooked and barbed, like a vicious undersea predator with a conical beak.

  He dismissed the pane with flick of his fingers and called up a ghostly topographical representation of Four Valleys Gorge. Defence Auxilia units were picked out in white, Ultramarines in blue and Adeptus Mechanicus forces in gold. Locard had assigned the Raven Guard green icons, but, for reasons he could not fathom, they did not appear on the holo-sphere. Curiously, the lone silver icon representing Inquisitor Suzaku was moving from Castra Meridem towards the front lines.

  The seismic traces were moving deeper into the planet’s bedrock, but Locard knew that wouldn’t last long. His fingers danced in the air as he inloaded numerous likely scenarios for their movement patterns based on the rock density of Four Valleys Gorge.

  “Project probable emergence points based on current trajectory of incoming tracks,” he hissed. “Interrogative: where are they going to surface?”

  FLICKERING LIGHT ILLUMINATED the horror of the death machines, the fright masks of the daemon-possessed Praetorians and the hideousness of their mutant flesh. Organic and artificial components blended together in a grotesque fusion that reminded Uriel of gangrenous wounds.

  The black downpour was unending, and the ground was a quagmire through which every step was an effort. Hundreds of bodies lay in stagnant pools of oil-like rain, and the mud was slippery with blood from the slaughter. Thunder crashed overhead and visibility was cut to a hundred metres or less. Juddering shapes moved in the shadows, hunting packs of weaponised servitors armed with shock prods and electrified shears that crackled and fizzed in the rain. Others fired clattering weapons like energised rivet guns, while yet more were armed with blazing las weapons that fired stuttering bursts of wild energy.

  The daemon machines stalked the ruins and burning forests of Four Valleys Gorge, darting between cover as they advanced on the Imperial lines. Hundreds of them littered the muddy ground, their armoured bodies pounded to ruin by artillery rounds landing dangerously close to the Imperial lines, but hundreds more came on in a mad rush.

  The Rhinos spat bolt rounds towards the enemy and both Land Raiders fought on despite heavy damage. Their armoured hides were scored and burned, Artemis limped on a damaged track unit, and Capitalinus had lost one of her side sponsons. Both still engaged the enemy, but their ammo and power reserves were dangerously low. Daemon engines broke against the Ultramarines lines in a storm of blades and machine curses. Explosions, gunfire and mechanised howls of bloodlust blended into a terrible, drawn out scream of eternal hatred.

  Uriel swept his sword through what little flesh remained of a corrupt battle servitor, spilling a foul-smelling ichor that reeked of engine oil and infected blood. The machine screeched with a crackling blurt of pain and collapsed, its grossly swollen limbs falling limp as it died. An explosion and discordant burst of static further along the Ultramarines lines signalled the death of another machine. Uriel didn’t need to see the status icons at the edge of his visor to know that Ultramarines were dying too. The Swords of Calth fought at his side, close combat weapons sheathed in favour of bolters. Coordinated volleys of bolter fire were all that could bring down these monstrous engines. They were heavily armoured and could take horrendous amounts of punishment before going down.

  “Enemy, right!” shouted Apothecary Selenus, as a screaming pack of hulking beetle-like machines burst from the cover of what had once been a Hellhound, but was now simply a blazing wreck. Their carapaces were glossy and slick with rain, their shark-like heads bullet-shaped and sheathed in horned metal.

  Ancient Peleus levelled his pistol and put two swift rounds through the visor of the nearest daemon engine, and it crumpled without a sound. Cyprian and Selenus took out the next, firing sustained bursts into its chest until its armour caved and the mass reactive rounds cut it in two. A third fell to Hadrianus’ meltagun, and Uriel emptied his bolt pistol into the chest of a fourth. It staggered, but kept coming, its body a mass of bloody craters where his bolts had detonated. Three others survived to reach the Ultramarines, and Nero switched to his sabre in a heartbeat.

  The daemon machines clashed with the Swords of Calth and Livius Hadrianus was punched from his feet by a crushing sweep of a bulky chainsaw arm. Sparks flew from his armour in an orange fan as the teeth bit into his chest, but before the blade could penetrate, Brutus Cyprian blew it apart with a controlled burst of fire.

  Petronius Nero ducked beneath its flailing limbs, seeming to anticipate its every move as he rammed his blade between a slender gap in its armour. He twisted the blade and the monster dropped with a strangled cry. Hadrianus rolled onto his back and vaporised a screeching machine with a snap shot of his meltagun.

  Cyprian dragged him to his feet as the battle swirled around them. Uriel and Nero closed on a monster with the face of a snapping wolf, its silver mask animated with a baleful light. Unfettered bloodlust burned in its red eyes, and it howled with an artificial voice that was utterly inhuman in its hatred.

  “Go left,” said Nero, and Uriel obeyed the swordsman’s command instantly. It slashed with a pneumatically-powered hammerfist, and Uriel ducked beneath the blow, rolling to his feet and slashing his sword at the cables connecting the fist to the crackling generators on its back. Nero deflected a sweeping blow from a set of enormous shears and drove his sword up into the soft tissue beneath the monster’s shoulder. His blade tore up and
out, cutting the metal-sheathed tendons motivating the arm. The weapon fell limply to its side and it stabbed at Nero with one of its spiked legs.

  The swordsman swayed aside, and Uriel took advantage of the distraction to leap onto the beast’s carapace. It bucked and tried to throw him off, but Uriel gripped its horned spine and swept his blade down, cleaving the daemon from brainpan to clavicle with one blow. The beast flopped onto its front in the mud, and Uriel jumped clear before it hit. Nero looked over at him and shook his head. “That was a risky manoeuvre,” he said. “What if it had rolled when it fell? You would have been crushed and impaled.”

  Uriel nodded and said, “I know, but it is dead, and that is all that matters.”

  He regrouped with his squad, pleased that everyone had made it through the attack unhurt. Even Livius Hadrianus had escaped serious injury, though blood pulsed weakly from the gouge torn in his plastron. The rest of his command squad were spattered in mud, but were magnificent in their defiance. Though the black rain had been unceasing since the battle’s opening, the fabric of the 4th Company banner was unsullied by so much as a single stain.

  Ten Ultramarines warriors were out of action, and three of those would never fight again. Their line had held the first surge of the daemon engines, but looking out into the rain- and lightning-filled gorge, he saw them massing for another attack.

  “They’ll be back at us before long,” said Nero, echoing his thoughts and swinging his blade to loosen the muscles of his shoulders.

  “Let them come,” answered Cyprian, punching a fist into his palm, “I could use a fight worthy of my strength. The Bloodborn are no sport. Thank the primarch for that, but still…”

  “Even you have your work cut out with these creatures,” said Hadrianus, fitting a fresh power cell into his melta gun. “Care to wager on that?”

  “No. I’d hate to see one tear your head off just to be proved right.”

  “They wouldn’t dare,” warned Cyprian.

  “No one could pull your head off, Cyprian,” said a voice. “You’ve no neck to tear it from.”

  Uriel knew that voice well, and smiled to see Pasanius lead the Firebrands alongside the Swords of Calth. Tactical Squad Nestor held position to Uriel’s left, and Chaplain Clausel led Pasanius’ squad into position on the right. His friend’s warriors were battered from their fight against the Bloodborn and the daemon engines. None had fallen, though all now sported impressive gouges torn in their amour.

  “Good to have you with us,” said Uriel, surprised at how much he missed having Pasanius at his side in battle. As coordinated a fighting unit as the Swords of Calth were, they had not the decades of familiarity shared by Uriel and Pasanius.

  “You need me here,” said Pasanius. “You’d miss my earthy counsel and sage advice. After all, this is no different to the Guard. It’s the sergeants who really run things here, eh? Isn’t that right, Nestor?”

  Sergeant Nestor nodded and said, “As you say, Sergeant Pasanius.”

  Pasanius gestured out into the shell-cratered wasteland and said, “Looks like this is where they’re going to hit us hardest when they come at us again, so I rounded up some help.”

  Three towering shapes marched between the Rhinos, armoured behemoths of ceramite and steel and flesh, with an arsenal of deadly weapons carried in their mighty fists.

  “I brought Dreadnoughts,” said Pasanius.

  THUS FAR IN the battle, the 4th Company’s Dreadnoughts had fulfilled a fire support role, but this fight was sure to get up close and personal very quickly. Having their ancient strength in the battle line would bolster the resolve and courage of every warrior who fought in their shadow.

  The 4th Company had once boasted four Dreadnoughts, but Brother Barkus had been lost on Espandor in the defence of Corinth. His death had been a grievous blow, for he had served the Chapter faithfully for nearly a thousand years and carried wisdom and courage within his breast that would likely never be seen again.

  Brother Speritas and Brother Zethus dwarfed the Space Marines, their armoured sarcophagi emblazoned with golden laurels, mailed fists and Ultramarines icons rendered in glittering quartz. Both had swapped their weapon loads to ones designed for close quarters battle. Speritas mounted a vast flamer on one fist, its burner nozzle flickering with blue fire, while on the other was a crackling pneumatic hammer weapon capable of pounding its way through metres of adamantium in seconds.

  Zethus, always the subtler warrior, mounted a crackling energy fist and an assault cannon.

  Both Dreadnoughts had fought alongside Uriel in the Pavonis campaign, though he had never known them in life. The 4th Company’s final Dreadnought, however, was one Uriel had known for many years.

  Techmarine Harkus had been mortally wounded on Pavonis, but his grim determination to live had seen his wrecked body held in stasis and returned to Macragge where he had been accorded the honour of being interred within one of the Chapter’s most sacred relics. His forge had been rebuilt on Macragge, and one arm had been replaced with a multi-functional servo-arm equipped with lethal drills and energy cutters.

  “Brother Harkus,” said Uriel with a bow. “You honour us with your presence.”

  “It has been too long since I fought with my battle-brothers,” said Harkus, marching past Uriel to take his place in the battle line. Uriel watched him go.

  “Talkative as ever I see,” said Pasanius.

  “Harkus was never the most forthcoming of warriors,” said Uriel. “Even when he walked among the 4th in the flesh.”

  “Aye, well it seems his interment has done nothing to change that,” observed Pasanius.

  “No, but I do not value him for his loquaciousness,” said Uriel.

  “True enough. That drill arm looks handy,” said Pasanius. “And his plasma cannon will do some real damage.”

  Uriel looked out over the ruins and blasted wasteland of the gorge, as the maddening drums sounded from behind the wall the Iron Warriors had constructed. Its builders had not been idle during the fighting. Fresh bastions and redoubts had been built into its structure, and his enhanced vision saw that it had been pushed out from the tunnel mouth, swallowing yet more of Calth’s precious land.

  Bilious anger rose in Uriel’s throat at the sight of so much destruction on a world he had naively assumed was proof against all attacks. The fire-blackened ruins wept black tears from broken windows and the burning forests threw up sparks as the daemon machines burst from the tree line. At the same instant, a line of banners appeared at the ramparts of the walls and a host of Bloodborn warriors charged from the gates.

  The ground shook with a bass rumbling, like the first tremors of a violent earthquake, and Uriel gripped the exhaust vent of the Rhino next to him. Warriors looked around in shock, casting anxious glances towards the cavern’s ceiling as splintered stone and dust drifted downwards. Cave quakes were not unknown on Calth, but the sustained rumble and deep vibration told him this was no natural earth tremor.

  “Guilliman protect us!” hissed Brutus Cyprian, and Uriel saw the vast shadow of the Black Basilica loom over the walls, its enormous bulk a deeper darkness than the bleakest night. Streaking shells arced overhead from those few Defence Auxilia artillery pieces that had survived the sorcerous lightning, but bursts of crimson lightning flared with every impact and obliterated each warhead without effect. Its frontal cannon thundered and a hundred-metre section of the defence line vanished in a blazing tsunami of fire.

  The vox-bead in his ear chirruped, and Uriel recognised the cog icon of Magos Locard in his visor. The message icon blinked a furious red, and he opened the link.

  “Magos,” he said, “this is not the best time.”

  “Captain Ventris, I must inform you that five enemy war machines are tunnelling beneath your position right now,” said Locard. “My projection is that they will emerge some three hundred metres behind your current location. I cannot discern their payload, but from the weight to speed ratio, I suspect traitor Astartes.”

>   “As though this battle isn’t going to be hard enough to fight on one front,” cursed Uriel.

  “I have despatched Commander Trejo’s skitarii to your location,” said Locard. “They should be with you momentarily.”

  “Understood. Ventris out.”

  Uriel turned and said, “Ultramarines, stand to! Even squads pull back two hundred and fifty metres and watch for emerging underground transports in our rear echelons. Odds maintain position and stand ready for battle. Courage and honour!”

  And the slaughter began anew.

  PART 3

  THE CHAPTER’S DUE

  SIXTEEN

  THOUGH ARTILLERY HAMMERED them and the Defence Auxilia shredded hundreds with flanking fire, the charge of the Bloodborn and the daemon engines could not be stopped. Unleashed with disciplined precision, the host of enemy crashed into the Ultramarines lines with a booming of thunder that rang in time with the drums. The 4th Company braced to receive the charge, and their line bent back like a bowstave pulled to the point where the heartwood snaps.

  Barking guns, shrieking saws and crackling blades lit the conflict with a stuttering, flickering light, like welding torches in a shipwright’s yard. Daemon engines let loose whooping alien squeals and howls, gouging a path through the centre of the line, hurling men aside like straw dolls. Each breakthrough was met by a fluid reserve, a battering ram of shield-bearing veterans who marched into the teeth of every assault with stoic courage.

  Shredding gunfire swept across the front lines from the scores of weapons mounted on the Black Basilica: thumping automatic cannons, explosive shells and dancing arcs of sheet lightning, A hellish wall of fire leapt from the ground like a great curtain, burning armour and flesh alike. The booming grind of its tracks split the air as it pushed up to the arc of the fortress walls; a black behemoth crawling forward with relentless, grinding inevitability.