Mark of Calth

by Edited by Laurie Goulding

  Calth’s atmospherics are lousy with rad-squalls, but Tawren has learned to compensate for this. She adjusts her filters and the optics of the geo-sats respond to her commands. Static blurs. Holographics waver. Resolution refreshes and she sees what she needs to see.

  She reads the energy signatures of buried power sources, thermal blooms from what are most likely barrack structures. Everything the Word Bearers have tried to hide is laid bare before her and she relishes the godlike aspect to her current position.

  Everything she is seeing is consistent with the deployment characteristics known of the Word Bearers. Heat patterns are consistent with Legiones Astartes power plants, and this reassures her that nothing significant has changed since the last exload from the geo-sats.

  Half a dozen savants and logi are plugged into the table, each assigned to a command element of the assault force. The geo-sats send their findings back to Arcology X in compressed data blurts, which are then passed to the attacking Ultramarines. Each Space Marine commander has his own dedicated battle-savant to break the data inloads into packets of information more easily digested by those without cognitive process augmetics.

  The bio-architecture of Space Marine brains is greatly enhanced compared to mortals, but they are not Mechanicum.

  ‘Geo-sats will remain overhead for another fifty-three seconds,’ says a savant with dark skin and warm eyes that are still his own. ‘Five three seconds.’

  His accent is equator-thick, and Tawren likes the flexing epenthesis of his words.

  She watches the inloading data spread through the plotting table, the gold icons moving in a carefully orchestrated ballet. Everything moves with precision. Every sweep and thrust made by the warriors of the XIII is perfectly co-ordinated.

  It does not feel like watching a battle, it feels like watching a replay of a battle.

  Her eyes flick to a noospheric countdown hovering over the rune indicating the force element containing Captain Ventanus.

  XXI

  The Shadowsword fills with crackling electrical feedback as its main gun fires. Static charge lifts energised dust fragments from armour plates and makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention. Ventanus could have ridden into battle within a Land Raider, but the awesome destructive potential of the Shadowsword was too great to resist.

  On the grainy pict-slate before him, a wall disintegrates as the super-heavy’s main gun obliterates it. This is a tank capable of killing battle engines. An ad-hoc fortification has no chance. Bodies tumble from the wreckage, cultist bodies. Those that are still recognisable as human are on fire.

  Ventanus cannot hear their screams, but wishes he could.

  His capacity to enjoy the suffering of his enemies has become something feral.

  Ventanus activates the pressure seals that isolate his forward station from the rest of the super-heavy. He wants to see Foedral Fell’s stronghold laid waste with his own eyes.

  A green bulb lights up beside him. Pressure seals secure.

  He enters his command code onto an oversized keypad. The hatch above unlocks with a snap of vulcanised seals and durasteel locking bars. It slides back and Ventanus pushes himself upright.

  Flames surround the tank as it bludgeons its way through the outer reaches of Foedral Fell’s defences. Bands of brotherhood warriors in scavenged exo-suits run from the Shadowsword. None of their weapons are capable of denting its thick armour, and they know it.

  Banks of heavy bolters mow them down as they flee. Streams of las and solid rounds saw through their disordered ranks. Plumes of hot blood puff from their exploding bodies like geothermal geysers.

  Ventanus slews the pintle-mounted combi-bolter around and hauls back on the arming lever. The magazine engages with a satisfying clatter and he mashes the trigger. The recoil of a combi-bolter is ferocious, more suited to the man-capable tanks that are Terminators, but the Shadowsword’s assembly and his genhanced strength keep his rounds on target.

  Bodies detonate, reduced to meat and gristle.

  Here and there a warrior band holds its ground. Ventanus has brief glimpses of iron masks, ragged robes and wholly inadequate rad-shielding. They fire weapons that are sub-Army in quality and effectiveness. He wonders how such rabble ever gained a foothold on Calth. He kills them as soon as he sees them.

  There are no Word Bearers amongst the cultists, but everything he saw of the fighting before the retreat below ground displayed total disregard for their mortal allies. The humans are here only to slow the Ultramarines’ advance, to soak up their fury. If that is Fell’s plan, then he has sorely underestimated the well of fury from which the XIII Legion can draw.

  Ventanus savours the sight of hundreds of Ultramarines tanks thundering over the hellish wasteland of Fell’s outer fortifications. To either side of him, Land Raiders rear up over hastily-raised berms of scorched earth, slamming back down with thunderous force. The enemy warriors who have held their ground are crushed beneath their tracks or buried in the dust. Squadrons of Predators fire syncopated volleys of heavy las-fire and the fiery contrails of Whirlwind missiles arc overhead in dizzying numbers.

  Squadron upon squadron of Land Speeders flit like murderous raptors over the battlefield, strafing exposed enemy formations. Their multi-meltas breach bunkers, and Assault squads drop in their wake to end pockets of resistance with shrieking chain-blades and pistols.

  The Burning Cloud strides in from the east, its guns wreathed in smoke and light as it sears the sky with magma blasts. Mushrooming explosions erupt in the centre of the fortifications. Adamantium walls are turned to slag with each impact. Air-bursting rockets flare from the Titan’s void shields, and its warhorn sounds like booming laughter.

  Ventanus brings a tactical overlay onto his visor. Gold icons close like a fist on Fell’s fortification, but these are just the outer layers. Easily overcome. The real defences are a kilometre ahead, towering walls that can withstand a Titan’s guns, hellish bastions of dark steel and sunken bunker complexes that even a Shadowsword will struggle to breach.

  But he has bigger guns than even a Reaver or a Shadowsword can mount.

  Ventanus opens a vox-channel to Arcology X.

  ‘Meer Edv Tawren,’ he says. ‘Just like before.’

  XXII

  Tawren links with the orbital guns and disengages their safety protocols with an outward sweep of both hands, like an actor parting a curtain and taking the stage. It takes a moment for the multiple layers of security put in place since the invasion to disengage, but each platform comes under her command without issue.

  Every orbital gun is now slaved to Arcology X.

  She has control.

  ‘Brace for full bombardment,’ says Tawren.

  XXIII

  For a single, beautiful moment, Calth’s night ends.

  The poisoned air lights up. Daylight returns.

  But it is a false dawn, heralding not the promise of fresh beginnings, only endings.

  The undersides of clouds heavy with acid rain glow for an instant as high powered lasers burn through them. Meson trails flash-burn the volatile, chemically-rich bands of vapour that have gathered above the strongpoint. The landscape is lit up for hundreds of kilometres as the sky catches fire.

  All of this happens in an instant. Fractions of seconds later, searing beams of energy slice down from space like arrow-straight lightning. The beams make no sound in themselves, but the atmosphere ignites with their passage. Each impact is swiftly followed by a hard bang of displaced air.

  Ventanus watches it through the filtering insulation of his armour’s auto-senses. Aural dampers resist deafening cracks of thunder that would otherwise rupture his eardrums. Visual protection keeps him from being blinded. Ceramite plates protect him from heat that would sear the flesh from his bones.

  The exposed cultists have no such protection and their formations are reduced to swir
ling banks of meat-smoke. Skeletons have the flesh burned from them, blood boils and impregnable walls are left as little more than heaped rubble.

  The first wave of overpressure hits and the ground quakes. The Shadowsword rocks back on its suspension as the percussive blast slams into it like an army of Contemptors slamming its hull with graviton hammers. Ventanus leans into the blast wave, riding out the pummelling force. His link with the super-heavy tells him that numerous onboard systems have failed. Feed lines rupture, hydraulics burst and delicate systems overload.

  A kilometre from the nearest impact point, and still they are too close.

  Laser lances and kinetic rounds all slam down on Foedral Fell’s stronghold, blowing out its pathetic blast shielding and rudimentary void fields. There is nothing left of the fortifications. Its soft underbelly has been exposed and Ventanus has the harpoon ready to thrust.

  Excited chatter bursts over the vox. A hundred voices all saying the same thing.

  ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘Throne!’

  ‘There can’t be anything left alive in there!’

  Ventanus knows there will be survivors. The Word Bearers will not be dug out so easily.

  He cuts across the vox-network.

  ‘We still have a practical to achieve,’ he says. ‘Carry out your orders.’

  The Ultramarines obey.

  XXIV

  Hol Beloth watches in horror as the horizon lights up from end to end. He knows what he is seeing, a holocaust of orbital fire concentrated in one place. He has memorised the geography of Calth and knows exactly who the wrath of the Ultramarines guns is striking.

  ‘Fell,’ he says.

  Maloq Kartho nods.

  Hot winds whip around the headless tower, billowing Hol Beloth’s cloak and filling his mouth with grey grit. The swaying motion of the tower forces him to keep his stance wide as the ground tilts alarmingly below him. He feels as though he stands upon the deck of a primitive longship. The sensation is not a welcome one.

  The devastation of Calth is even more apparent from up here. It is a radiation-lashed death world that will always bear the mark of the Word Bearers. Despite what he is seeing, he takes a moment of pride in that fact, even as his own skin blisters.

  More impacts slam into the ground, more fire lights the horizon. The first seismic shocks shake the tower. Glass fragments rain from gaping frames. Structural supports buckle and tumble earthwards. The tower slumps into its splitting foundations.

  Collimated lance battery fire strikes the horizon. The hellish radiance it provides illuminates one stark fact.

  ‘You knew this was coming,’ says Hol Beloth.

  Kartho shrugs and Hol Beloth hates the gesture. It is a gesture of giving up, of not feeling enough to care that something precious is dying. That shrug tells him that Maloq Kartho is no longer truly one of Lorgar’s sons, but is becoming something else entirely.

  ‘Fell had the biggest army,’ says Kartho, ‘and the grandest ambition.’

  Hol Beloth tries not to feel slighted, knowing it is absurd in the face of such destruction. He tries to follow Kartho’s words to a logical conclusion, but those he reaches make no sense. Only one factor remains constant in his thoughts.

  ‘You engineered this, didn’t you?’ he says.

  ‘Of course,’ replies Kartho.

  ‘Fell and his warriors are gone, aren’t they?’

  ‘Not yet,’ replies Kartho, struggling with the gorget seals at his neck. ‘But soon.’

  ‘Why?’ asks Hol Beloth, knowing now that he will have to kill the Dark Apostle. Kartho has crossed a line, though for what purpose, he does not know.

  ‘Service to the Dark Monarchs requires a degree of sacrifice,’ says Kartho. ‘And the Ultramarines needed a target tempting enough to draw them from their cowardly bolthole.’

  Kartho reaches up and removes his helmet. More accurately, he snaps his helmet apart in order to remove it. Zephyrs of dark smoke gust from within and Hol Beloth sees just how far the Dark Apostle has come in his service to Lorgar’s vision for the galaxy.

  XXV

  An electromagnetic haze hangs over the landscape. Dust swirls like ashen rain and heat blooms ripple the air over terrain that has been boiled to glass by the heat of multiple lance strikes. The Shadowsword crunches through the shattered remains of Foedral Fell’s strongpoint. The orbital weapons have destroyed his sheltering walls with horrifying ease.

  Ventanus climbs down from the Shadowsword. Its hull is hot to the touch and the reactor ticks over noisily as it cools. Shapes move in the mist, but they are armoured in cobalt-blue and gold. They are Ultramarines, and they are marching alongside him.

  His armour’s external pickups register a wide spectrum of exotic radiations and a lethal cocktail of poisonous elements in the air. This is only to be expected when such potent energies have been unleashed. Staggered lines of Legion warriors advance into the molten remnants of the enemy fortress, boltguns locked to their shoulders. They are blurred giants moving through a chemical fog that would dissolve the lungs of a mortal man with one breath.

  Ventanus has his bolt pistol drawn and his sword unsheathed. He does not expect to use either in the immediate future, but a captain must be seen to be ready to fight. He sees no sign of the Word Bearers, but he knows that they will be here somewhere. They are Legion trained and Legion blooded. They will have survived this bombardment and will even now be readying a counter-attack.

  Ventanus leads the Ultramarines deeper into the smoking, debris strewn wasteland. The Shadowsword rolls behind him, its engine a bone-deep rumble that he feels in his marrow. As the circle of Ultramarines tightens on the stronghold’s centre, a nagging suspicion takes shape in Ventanus’s head. Nebulous and unformed, but insistent.

  Scattered groups of brotherhood soldiers have miraculously survived the barrage. They are blind and deaf, burned and desolate. They are slaughtered without mercy. The Ultramarines do not waste mass-reactives on them. Who knows when they will be resupplied? Chain-blades and fists put the enemy down, but there is little satisfaction in such wretched targets.

  ‘This is Ventanus,’ he voxes to his force commanders. ‘Report any sightings of enemy Legion forces.’

  There are no reports of contacts beyond the scalded, crippled forms of the enemy’s mortal soldiery, and Ventanus feels a gnawing worry that something here is very wrong.

  ‘Where are the Word Bearers?’ he asks himself.

  If Foedral Fell is not here, then where is he?

  At the heart of the fortress the Ultramarines find a vast crater, a nightmarish hell of electrical fires and scorched meat. Almost nothing is left standing, and what the barrage did not level in the opening moments, secondary explosions and burning ammunition depots have knocked flat. Here and there, Ventanus sees evidence of retrenchments and redoubts, but it is hard to make out anything for sure any more. Tawren’s precision strikes have seen to that.

  The Shadowsword’s main gun traverses over his head, searching for a target, but finding nothing worthy of its fire. The Burning Cloud is silhouetted in the flames, a great engine of destruction standing over the doom of its foe.

  A dust- and grime-coated warrior emerges from the haze and raises a hand.

  ‘I thought there’d be at least someone left alive to fight,’ says Sydance.

  ‘So did I,’ replies Ventanus, sheathing his sword and mag-locking his pistol to his thigh.

  ‘You think they died in the bombardment?’

  ‘It looks that way,’ says Ventanus, though it seems too convenient an explanation.

  ‘Not much of a fortress then,’ says Sydance. ‘Lord Dorn would have words.’

  Ventanus says nothing in reply, his friend’s words striking at the nagging suspicion that has been building ever since the first shots were fired. He stops in his tracks as his thoughts cohere on an inh
erent flaw in what has happened here.

  ‘This fortress could never have stood,’ he says. ‘It’s completely ridiculous.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Why build anything we could level from orbit in moments?’ says Ventanus. ‘Why build it above ground at all? It doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘Maybe they couldn’t find anywhere underground?’

  ‘They could have found somewhere to get underground,’ says Ventanus. ‘This isn’t making any sense. Damn it, what are we missing?’

  The winds are clearing the smoke and haze, and Ventanus has something of an answer when he sees the cracked structure at the very heart of the fortress. Like the hardened structure of an aircraft hangar, it has withstood the barrage enough to remain standing. Sections of its roof have caved in where the supporting walls have collapsed. Ventanus can see no defensive works in its construction.

  It is a giant dome, embellished with elaborate carvings, a pair of decorative towers and a wide entrance without gates. Its construction is grandiose and Ventanus realises he has seen its like before.

  ‘What do you think that is?’ asks Sydance. ‘A keep? Somewhere to make a last stand?’

  ‘No,’ says Ventanus. ‘It’s not a keep, but I know what it is now. I’ve seen buildings like this before.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On Monarchia,’ says Ventanus. ‘It’s a temple.’

  XXVI

  Ingenium Subiaco does not remember falling asleep, but that is surely what has happened.

  It is understandable. Toiling in perpetual twilight, with no rest in the darkness and no respite from the task in hand, no one could remain awake for as long as he has. He is dreaming, of that he is sure, for he travels the same silvered caves of his nightmares.

  He has come here night after night, dragged down into horrors that play out in an endless loop. That the experience never changes offers no respite, only dark foreknowledge of the nightmarish flight from the multi-jointed creatures with the polished steel claws that tap, tap, tap upon the rock.