Ultramarines

by Graham McNeill

  Telion watched the squad as it moved through the hot, dusty environment, offering advice and instructional pointers as they went. It was a strong squad, already bound as brothers and eager to prove their worth.

  Dareios was the taciturn killer, a sniper of methodical skill and calculating intelligence. He had mastered the intricacies of the long-range kill with ease, yet there was no flair to him. The lad would make a fine warrior, but Telion suspected he would never have the passion to become more than a line officer.

  In contrast, the squad’s second sniper was rash, but a quick learner. Zeno had natural talent, yet lacked the focus to be the patient hunter. Younger than Dareios by a year, he had time yet to master his temperament.

  Draco’s worth had already been proved, and he’d be a natural fit within the Devastators upon his elevation to battle-brother.

  The squad’s most recent addition was Agathon, a devoted youngster from the forest world of Espandor. Over the centuries, his family had sent two previous sons to the Ultramarines, and Telion remembered them both. They were dead now, slain on Tarsis Ultra and Ichar IV, both victims of the Great Devourer.

  After ten hours of swift march, Kaetan called a halt to rest and re-hydrate as a vicious wind blew down from the mountains, wreathing the parched deserts of Quintarn in a scouring haze of dust particles.

  They took shelter in a jagged crevice in the rock, and while Dareios kept watch, the rest of the squad rested in preparation for the next push. The Imperial armoured units would be following the Scouts, and Telion wanted to get into position before they arrived.

  Agathon took a drink from a canvas-wrapped canteen and wiped his chin with the back of his hand. The young Scout’s bolter was cradled easily in his arms, like a mother holding a newborn babe. Telion was pleased to note that even with the dust and hot winds scouring Quintarn, the weapon was as pristine as one fresh from the crate.

  ‘Can I ask you something, Sergeant Telion?’ asked Agathon.

  ‘What is it, lad?’

  ‘Do you really think this mission will win the war?’ asked the youngster.

  Telion grinned as he saw the other Scouts turn to hear what he had to say.

  ‘I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t think so,’ he said. ‘But let me turn it around and ask you a question. Why are we losing this war?’

  Zeno ventured an answer. ‘Because the enemy outnumber us?’

  Telion shook his head. ‘No. These Bloodborn are chaff, a host of bastardised war machines led by a warlord who wouldn’t know strategy if came up and bit his metal arse.’

  ‘It’s because the Bloodborn don’t care about losses,’ said Dareios. ‘Any war machine they lose or capture is reforged into some other weapon.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Telion, ‘but their leader has made the mistake of relying on that to win him this war. That makes him vulnerable. Take it away and he’s got nothing.’

  ‘And the forge-temple at the Maidens of Nestor is his vulnerability?’ asked Zeno.

  ‘Exactly,’ replied Telion. ‘The other forges we destroyed were important, certainly, but they were just processing hubs. The forge-temple at the Maidens of Nestor is where the enemy creates its most lethal battle engines. They turn crop sprayers into flame-tanks, threshing machines into flesh tearers, harvester leviathans into battle fortresses. We take this forge out and the Bloodborn are just another ragamuffin host of corsairs and renegades.’

  Draco patted the missile launcher propped up beside him and said, ‘Just show me where to shoot, Sergeant Telion.’

  They laughed at Draco’s bravado. Sergeant Kaetan stood and shook the dust from his camo-cape.

  ‘If Sergeant Telion has finished dispensing his pearls of wisdom, we need to move if we’re going to play any part in the battles to come. On your feet!’

  The Scouts responded instantly, and minutes later, they were on the move, all sign that they had stopped obscured by the howling winds.

  Flames from burning vehicles lit the underside of the clouds, and strobing bursts of gunfire lit the craggy surface of the Upashid Scar. A tectonic flatland of shallow canyons, teetering mesas and glassy riverbeds, it was a bleak patch of striated desert that stretched from coast to coast. Booming traceries of artillery pounded the southern ridges as Bloodborn tanks fought through the winding gullies or hauled their bloated bulk over vitrified dunes on clanking, multi-jointed legs.

  Explosions shook the ground as a volley of shells slammed down in the midst of the Bloodborn, masterfully guided in by Sergeant Vorean’s spotters. A dozen vehicles were vaporised in the pounding barrage, and only a single survivor crawled from the wreckage on fire-blackened stumps.

  As impressive as such destructive power was, it was a drop in the ocean against the Bloodborn host. Telion counted at least a thousand enemy vehicles, a creeping horde of diabolical war machines crafted by degenerate minds twisted in ways too terrible to imagine.

  No two were alike, and each was a horror of blasphemous mechanised arts, abortions of brazen iron and flesh. Giant crawlers crushed the earth beneath their bulk, moving like blood-fat leeches across the sandy rock and leaving a trail of stinking engine fluids in their wake. Tanks with pulsating hulls that glistened like flayed muscle fired hideously organic cannons and blazed with weaponry that seemed grown rather than attached.

  Juggernauts of bloodstained steel stamped forward on piston-driven legs, braying their war cries from loathsomely organic horns. Shattered glass carapaces shawled them, flapping at their weapon mounts with the sound of a million windows breaking at once.

  Others resembled giant insect creatures, bulbous and glossy, with lethal antennae that spat fire and lances of destructive energy. From a distance, the battle engines of Votheer Tark resembled escapees from a madman’s workshop, but Telion did not allow their bizarre appearance fool him as to their capabilities.

  Facing the monstrous horde was a glorious host of tanks in the azure of the Ultramarines and the blue and white of the defence auxila. Though outnumbered by nearly three to one, the Imperial forces had angels on their shoulders.

  Telion took the first kill with his Stalker-pattern bolter, putting a burst of fire through the fuel lines of a chittering vehicle that resembled a low-slung spider with mechanised legs and a bulbous turret that spat torrents of lasfire. Blazing fuel emptied into its hull, and the machine buckled as its crew died and the vehicle collapsed to the sand.

  Draco took out tank after tank with missiles fired through the weaker top armour of more conventionally designed tanks. Zeno and Dareios guided each other’s sniper fire to take out exposed commanders, ammo feeds and fuel lines. With Telion’s expert guidance, no shot was wasted, and Zeno put a kill shot through a cracked vision slit in the turret of a battle engine that might once have been a Baneblade, but which now resembled a mobile fortress of blades and gibbets. Whatever had commanded that monstrous vehicle died with that shot, and it was easy prey for the tank-killer vehicles of Antaro Chronus.

  With each kill, the Scouts moved on, each squad firing only once from any position within the Scar, taking advantage of the natural cover and speed to evade any return fire. The machine intelligences of Votheer Tark’s battle engines were cunning, and it took all of Telion’s superlative skill to stay one step beyond their reach.

  ‘Spider tank, ten o’clock,’ shouted Zeno, tracking a vehicle through the scope of his sniper rifle. ‘Range, six hundred metres.’

  ‘Engaging!’ said Draco, dialling in the range to his launcher as a missile fed itself into the breech. Telion watched the young Scout as he led the vehicle, depressing the firing trigger with a soft squeeze.

  The missile leapt from the launcher, arcing up into the sky like a star shell before turning the seeker head back towards it target. It streaked back down to earth, a blur of phosphorent light that slammed into the spider tank’s topside. The warhead blew and a searing plasma jet punched into th
e vehicle, instantly incinerating its crew and blowing the turret ten metres into the air.

  ‘A fine shot, Draco,’ said Telion, slapping the Scout on the shoulder guard.

  ‘Target of opportunity!’ cried Dareios, his eye fixed to the scope of his rifle. ‘Dead ahead, a thousand metres.’

  Telion knew they should displace, but crouched next to the Scout and pressed his own sighted bolter to his eye, scanning the ground before him. He had seen armoured clashes before, but was rarely this close to a tank fight. Scouts paved the way for the battle companies or harried the enemy from the flanks and rear, they didn’t usually get this close to a tank fight.

  ‘We’ve lingered here too long,’ warned Kaetan. ‘We should move to another position.’

  ‘I know,’ said Telion. ‘But Dareios rarely offers up targets without good reason.’

  Kaetan scowled, but nodded. ‘What do you have, Dareios?’

  ‘Command walker by the looks of it,’ replied the Scout. ‘Looks vulnerable.’

  Telion had to agree.

  Superficially, it resembled the defence auxila’s Sentinels in that it was a two-legged war machine that supported a pilot’s armoured compartment. But where the Imperial walker was a practical response to the needs of war, this seemed a ludicrous folly. Instead of an armoured cockpit, the reverse jointed legs supported a sphere of blackened glass in which frothing amniotic fluid sloshed back and forth with the machine’s bow-legged gait. Dozens of whipping aerials protruded from its rear section and Telion saw something fleshy and foetal floating in the viscous suspension. Jagged runes were branded into its sides, and the embellishment in its workings convinced Telion that Dareios was right to call it in.

  ‘Take it out,’ he ordered.

  ‘Engaging,’ said Dareios.

  The Scout took a breath and let the air ease from his lungs rather then expelling it with a force that might upset his aim. His rifle fed him wind velocities, ambient temperatures, local gravitational fields and myriad other variables that would affect his shot.

  The rifle snapped as it fired, and Telion watched the walker as the blackened glass sphere hazed where Dareios’s shot struck. Cracks spread out from the point of impact, and less than a second later, Zeno’s shot took the kill. The glass broke like a blister and steaming liquid poured from the ruptured interior. Arcs of electrical energy blazed from the wreckage as a scrap of deformed meat and distended bone flopped out onto the sand, trailing a forest of copper wires and crackling input plugs.

  Telion didn’t waste time by wondering what vile flesh-alchemy had wrought such a by-blow, and said, ‘Up! Good kills, but it’s time we were going.’

  The Scouts scooted back from the edge of the ridge and followed Telion as he ran low through a shallow gully, taking turns apparently at random. Explosions burst overhead and the deafening, percussive force of shellfire and impacts rolled over them. Roaring engine noise echoed weirdly around the gully and streams of gunfire disintegrated its upper edges. Stone fragments fell like rain, but Telion kept going. A thunderous impact on the ground made them all stumble, and Telion held up a fist. He pushed himself back against the stone walls of the gully as the ground shook once again with a pounding reverberation. A shadow filled their hiding place as something enormous passed overhead, its mass large enough to traverse the gully without effort.

  ‘What in Hera’s name was that?’ breathed Draco.

  Telion silenced him with a glare. He darted across the gully and sprang onto an embedded boulder, peering through a cleft in the rock to see what had passed them by. He saw it in fragments, but pieced enough together in those glimpses to identify the war engine.

  The Imperial designation was Stormlord, a monstrously heavy tank bristling with weapons, any one of which could wipe out the Scouts with barely a moment’s pause. A hellishly large bolter cannon was mounted on the turret, and a plethora of powerful weapons jutted from bladed turrets and blister-like sponsons: rotary machine guns and promethium jets. Its hull was a corroded rust colour, and a figure in rubberised overalls and a bestial-moulded gasmask stood arrogantly in the upper hatch. He waved a bloodstained flag, like he rode in a triumphal parade instead of in a battle.

  ‘That’s just asking to get a bullet in the head,’ said Telion.

  ‘Would that they were all that stupid,’ agreed Kaetan, coming alongside him.

  ‘Stormlord,’ said Telion, dropping back into the gully. ‘Nasty.’

  ‘Let it go,’ warned Kaetan, seeing the glint in Telion’s eye.

  Telion shook his head, and scrambled onto the upper edges of the gully. The Scouts followed him, keeping close to the jagged edges so as not to silhouette themselves.

  The Stormlord rolled over the rocky terrain with a teeth-loosening rumble, moving far too fast for so heavy a machine. The cannon on its turret swung around as a pair of defence auxila Chimeras rounded a leaning arch of rock. Fire blitzed from the chugging barrels as a hurri­cane of solid shot shredded the light armour of the Imperial tanks. Both transports skidded to a halt, wounded and bloody soldiers spilling from their blazing interiors. The Stormlord lurched forward and a spurting tongue of flame played over the survivors.

  The screams were mercifully short-lived as the monstrous tank’s guns finished the job of murder.

  ‘Come on, Torias,’ said Kaetan. ‘It’s a super-heavy. We don’t have the weapons to take it out.’

  ‘At least let’s take out that cocky bastard in the turret,’ replied Telion. ‘One shot and we’re like ghosts.’

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Kaetan. ‘We have a mission.’

  Telion sighed and nodded. ‘You’re right, but it would have made an impressive notch on the Stalker.’

  Too late, Telion saw Zeno aim his sniper rifle towards the Stormlord’s commander, frowning as his sights returned nonsensical information with every pulse of the range finder.

  ‘Don’t!’ hissed Telion, but the damage was done.

  The turret swivelled toward the hidden Scouts, like a prey creature suddenly catching the scent of a hunter. Its weapons clattered as the tank’s loaders prepared to fire.

  ‘Emperor’s blood!’ hissed Kaetan. ‘It’s onto us.’

  ‘Everyone down!’ shouted Telion as the sky lit up with pyrotechnic fury. Metre deep gouges tore through the lip of the gully and craters punched deep into the opposite wall of rock. The noise was deafening and Telion heard at least one of the squad cry out as ricocheting shrapnel sliced through light armour.

  Dust and grit choked the gully, and even Telion’s genhanced vision could see nothing though the billowing clouds. The echoes of the barrage had barely begun to fade when he heard the heavy rumble of the Stormlord drawing near.

  ‘Move!’ he yelled. ‘Get out any way you can and we’ll rally a kilo­metre to the north! Go!’

  Telion ran as fast as he could, looking for an escape route through the choking dust clouds. Stone crashed down behind him as a portion of the gully collapsed under the super-heavy’s tracks. Telion risked a glance over his shoulder and saw the tank’s guns depressing to fire along the gully.

  An Imperial tank commander would never have wasted such a powerful vehicle’s energy and ammunition on so few infantry, but the Stormlord had the scent of blood in its nostrils. The kill was all that mattered, not any grand strategy of its master. It had their scent and wasn’t about to let go until it had taken their corpses to mount on its track guards.

  Volcanic fire blazed down the gully, filling its width with a blitzing storm of shells. Telion threw himself down a side passage, feeling the air being sucked from his lungs by the supersonic jetwash of the Stormlord’s fire. He rolled onto his front, letting his secondary lung sift the reduced oxygen content of the air, crawling away from the main passage of the gully on his belly.

  A column of hot dust billowed through the passages of the gully, and he changed direction of
ten, moving on his hands and knees for greater speed. Telion heard the angry roar of the super-heavy behind him. It was circling, looking to confirm its kills, and he caught sight of its jagged outline through the clouds of smoke thrown up by its gunfire. A few desultory muzzle flashes lit up the smoke, a sniper rifle and a bolter.

  A good Scout knew when to fight and when to escape, and Telion forged a path onwards through the dust-filled gully, knowing he could do nothing against so powerful a foe. Zeno’s foolishness had cost them dear, and Telion hoped enough of the squad had survived to continue the mission.

  Thirty minutes later, Telion regrouped with his Scouts. He was grateful to see that the entire squad had survived, though Dareios and Agathon had taken shrapnel wounds from the exploding rock, and everyone else was covered in dust and bruises. The mood was ugly, and the focus of the Scouts’ anger was directed at one of their number in particular.

  ‘You could have killed us all,’ hissed Kaetan.

  Zeno had the good sense to look contrite, but the sergeant wasn’t finished. ‘It is disrespectful to aim your rifle and not take the shot.’

  Telion raised a hand to stem Kaetan’s tirade.

  ‘It was foolish, Kaetan,’ he said. ‘But we still have a mission to accomplish. Punish Zeno when we return to Idrisia.’

  ‘His mistake could have killed us all,’ protested Dareios.

  ‘Aye, lad, it could have, but it didn’t,’ said Telion. ‘Let that be enough for now.’

  Dareios nodded curtly and turned away. Telion saw the anger in his face, but let him go. A methodical killer, Dareios did not take kindly to his fellows making mistakes.

  As the Scouts prepared to head off once more, Kaetan approached Telion and said, ‘You are getting soft in your old age, Torias. Time was you’d have flayed that boy alive for a mistake like that.’

  ‘I know,’ agreed Telion. ‘But we yet live, and the lad won’t do it again. Call it a hard won lesson. They’re the kind that stick.’

  Kaetan shrugged, ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘but we should get on with the mission.’