by Guy Haley
Dantioch got to his feet with a grunt of pain. ‘I could not. Your orders were impossible to complete, though we tried to do so, and failing you fills me with the greatest of regrets. Were the hrud not to have begun this migration, I would have succeeded easily.’
‘This enemy is less predictable than I would like,’ said Perturabo. Dantioch swallowed before he spoke again. His saliva was sticky. ‘They are predictable. My lord, one of my sergeants, Zolan, insisted that I should consider withdrawal. I refused to listen to him. You had ordered us to hold, so we held. We have lost the majority of my grand battalion as a result of it. The Fifty-First Fleet is shattered.’
‘You lost it because you were weak,’ said Perturabo in disgust, his voice as frigid as deep space ‘Because I refused to bend!’ said Dantioch. ‘As much as it angered me to have Zolan speak to me in that manner, I find myself coming to you, our gene-father, with similar tidings. Abandon this campaign, my lord.’
Perturabo’s face crumpled with fury. He flushed, and his hands clenched the arms of his throne so hard the metal creaked.
‘My lord, listen to me,’ said Dantioch hurriedly. ‘I have examined all the histories we have concerning these xenos since I returned to the One Hundred and Twenty-First Fleet. You have evidently had some success against them, but you have scared the temporaferrox into fleeing. They were beginning to move before your deployment of the temporal weapon, but its use has prompted a full-scale migration. What is our plan now? We cannot slay them all. Here is the greatest concentration of hrud in known space We risk the Legion. The migration endangers the Cadomus System, and that will only be the start. The war must stop. This subsector must be declared Perdita and warding beacons set about it, so that it may be addressed with a larger force at a future date Perhaps if we withdraw now, the migration will falter, and the damage will be contained.’
Perturabo glared fiercely at Dantioch, but the warsmith was undaunted.
‘My lord,’ Dantioch went on, ‘as an Iron Warrior, as your son, it shames me to the core of my being to suggest we should pursue this course of action, but should all the hrud migrate out of this subsector, we shall be the instigators of a problem that will persist for hundreds of years, destabilising a large portion of the galactic north. We should withdraw, my lord, and reaffirm our orders Perhaps there had been some kind of mistake—’
This last statement was too much for the Lord of Iron.
‘The Emperor of Mankind makes no mistakes!’ shouted Perturabo. He powered to his feet, towering over the ruined warsmith. ‘His plans are flawless - how could it be any other way?’
Dantioch did not like the bitterness of this statement. ‘Then perhaps, my lord, it is your mistake in persisting with this campaign in the face of all available information.’
For a moment, Dantioch thought that Perturabo would strike him dead there and then. The primarch’s giant frame tensed, his oversized warsuit growling with the anticipation of action.
Dantioch stared fearlessly into his lord’s eyes. ‘There is no shame in admitting defeat,’ he said softly. ‘No man can win every battle. Not even a primarch. Not even you.’
‘As you demonstrate so well,’ said Perturabo. He exhaled noisily, his breath hot with unspent rage. ‘Do not presume to advise me, you who cannot keep three pathetic worlds.’ He took a step back, tension bleeding off him. ‘I release you from your orders, warsmith, and give you fresh ones. Lesser Damantyne has been marked for compliance, and thereafter will require a new regent. Go there. Take whatever dregs of your grand company remain to you, take it and then hold it for me. There are no real threats there, only aggressive native zooforms. I trust dealing with them remains within the scope of your abilities.’
‘I have but two hundred and forty warriors left to me, and only one remains from my command group on Gholghis, my lord.’ Dantioch stiffened with the insult done to his men. ‘He will gladly go where I go, if you command it. I have my ships.’
Perturabo looked down at the warsmith grimly. ‘I once considered you as fit for my Trident. Now I see that I was wrong. You are a disgrace to this Legion, Dantioch. I never wish to look upon your face again.’
Dantioch’s expression set. He bowed his head, crushed. Trembling with emotion, he spoke.
‘As you command, my lord, so shall it be done.’
TWELVE
REBELLION
999.M30
THE IRON BLOOD, GUGANN SYSTEM
The week after the hrud migrated from Gugann, the fleet waited vainly for its master’s command. Perturabo gave no orders. He closeted himself away in his command chamber alone. No gathering of warsmiths was called, no edicts offered. It was left to the warsmiths and the captains of the Iron Warriors to begin regathering the scattered forces of the 125th Expeditionary Fleet. Their task was thankless, and complex.
Solar flares troubled the battered fleet for hours after the departure of the hrud, rendering communication nigh on impossible. Messages were reduced to pulsed laser signals. Multiple ships had their shields overwhelmed by the constant torrent of energy pouring from the damaged sun, and three of those took further damage that crippled them. The critical nature of this damage necessitated the diversion of other vessels to put the crippled ships under tow or, in the worst cases, facilitate their evacuation. These operations strained relations between the warsmiths in command of the various grand battalions, further complicating matters. All the Iron Warriors’ logistical expertise was required to reform their battle-group, but slowly the fleet regathered, and such repairs as could be made without orbital facilities were begun.
It was Forrix, first captain, to whom responsibility fell. Three standard Terran days went by without any sign of the primarch, and all attempts to contact him were unsuccessful. The doors to the command chamber remained sealed.
Forrix ordered the fleet towards the gravipause between Gugann and its nearest sibling. He had scout ships scour every world. They all reported the same thing: empty warrens beneath the honeycombed land masses, containing nothing but the foetid rags of dead xenos. The hrud had deserted the system completely. Astropathic messages came in from subdivisions of the fleet in nearby systems. Several were also devoid of the hrud, though in others the xenos presence persisted. Lacking guidance, Forrix drew plans up for their extermination with his fellow triarchs, Harkor and Golg.
It was therefore to everyone’s great surprise when Perturabo emerged from his sanctum unannounced and attended the Dodekatheon, the legionary order drawn from Olympia’s ancient clandestine society of masons.
Forrix, Golg and Harkor were pacing the long triumphal way that ran up to the base of the Iron Blood’s ram. In contrast to the rest of the prow, which was crammed with lance batteries, torpedo tubes and all the many systems that made them function, the open space of the Mason’s Hall seemed an indulgence, but it too had a purpose The tall buttressing that crossed the space was angled slightly towards the prow. The rib vaulting increased the strength of the ship abeam. Beyond the forward wall were the ram’s shock halls, housing pistons the size of escort ships whose sleeves were filled with lakes of hydraulic fluid. The whole of the Mason’s Hall was nothing more than an elaborate crumple zone for the Iron Blood.
It was fitting, Forrix had always thought, that the Brotherhood of Stone should meet there, for the Dodekatheon served a similar purpose for the Legion: a place where rivalries could clash and inflict minimal damage on the whole.
The triarchs wore their full armour burnished to an oily sheen. Many of the other warsmiths and captains present were dressed in robes of hessian decorated with chainmail patches over their body gloves, but Forrix believed that a triarch should always appear ready for war.
Strategy boards occupied much of the hall’s space These were thronged by Iron Warriors arguing how best to represent the hrud in their simulated battles. Their recent setbacks had exercised their minds as much as their anger, and ambitious warsmiths could see the glory to be won if they concocted a winning strategy.
> In truth, all warsmiths were ambitious, and they all had different ideas. In the first place, they could not agree how best to test their theories. Those that favoured the purity of wood block formations and outcomes decided by the casting of ten-sided dice argued bitterly with the proponents of cogitator-assisted hololith battle simulators. They in turn nearly came to blows with those who insisted that the hrud’s unpredictability could only be modelled by savant brains deliberately altered to be insane, then linked in complex series. The followers of the Brethren of Thunder - the so-called Burned Men - gathered there also, putting forward their ideas for novel weapons tailored to defeat the xenos. Their suggestions generated more discussion as various warsmiths supported or rubbished their proposals as either inspired genius or completely unworkable Things appear to be returning to normal,’ said Harkor.
‘Do not be deceived,’ said Forrix. He could see the aggression building there. Words were sharper than usual. ‘They are frustrated - their arguments could turn ugly.’
‘There is tension here,’ agreed Golg, ‘but what of it? It is healthy. That is what this order is for.’
‘Listen to Erasmus. What do you expect Forrix?’ said Harkor. ‘This campaign has cost us one fifth of our strength. Our brothers argue their case not to secure advancement, but to ensure our survival. They are bound to be a little headstrong.’
‘There you are,’ said Forrix. ‘That is not normal. Look at them, bickering over their rules. It is distracting them from the true nature of the problem. Nothing will be normal until we are out of this subsector and fighting things that remain anchored in time.’
Harkor chuckled. ‘Really, Forrix, a few minor setbacks with this xenos race and you start braying doom like a cheap soothsayer.’
Forrix rounded on Harkor. ‘I don’t call thirty thousand dead legionaries minor setbacks, brother.’
‘There are more - there are always more,’ replied Harkor dismissively. ‘The supply fleet is due in from the Meretara Cluster soon. In the holds of its ships will be recruits from our holdings and home. Grist to the mill of war. The hrud are slippery, I agree, but even they must stand upon stone. When we take the metal to it and cut it away, they will fall like any other foe.’
Forrix turned his attention to an ongoing tactical simulation. Iron Warriors grand battalions assaulted a fixed installation in standard battle array: an encircling contravallation, field bastions for their artillery, brothers manning trenches and waiting for the call to assault.
‘There are fifteen major hrud worlds in the Deeps, and eighty-four minor,’ he said. ‘Excluding those they have abandoned, we have taken three. Even you must see the numbers do not add up. We are several hundred thousand warriors short.’
The captain playing the hrud unexpectedly deployed a skirmishing unit behind a battery of Manticore missile launchers. They were swept from existence Before the action was over, an entire grand company of Iron Warriors had been removed from the table the wooden blocks representing them dropped without ceremony into a blackened steel box.
‘And they’re running, not fighting. What will happen, do you think, when we finally corner them?’ said Forrix.
Golg grinned for reasons that eluded Forrix. He was a cold man, aloof from the Dodekatheon and every other organisation. His rank of captain while being elevated to the status of triarch had not endeared him to the higher warsmiths.
Harkor waved his hand. ‘We are iron. We will not be blunted. These are—’
‘Hush,’ said Forrix.
Conversation in the hall died like a ripple of wind across grass. ‘The primarch!’ someone said.
‘Perturabo is here!’ called someone else.
Knots of Iron Warriors in the hall’s aisle pulled themselves aside. Perturabo walked down between tables, trading nods with warriors that greeted him. The atmosphere of the hall changed. The Space Marines’ spirits lifted as their lord rejoined them.
A chant rose, accompanied by the stamp of heavy boots on the deck plating.
‘Iron within! Iron without! Iron within! Iron without!’
The chanting ceased when Perturabo came to a halt by his triarchs. The three warsmiths clashed their forearms on their armour.
‘It is good to see you again, my lord,’ said Forrix. His pleasure was tainted by worry; the primarch was drawn and tired-looking, but when he smiled at his sons in his awkward way, it was almost enough to put Forrix at ease.
‘First captain. You have performed commendably,’ said Perturabo. Forrix bowed his head in gratitude.
‘We are bound for the gravipause?’ Perturabo asked.
‘Yes, my lord, I intended to hold there until we had your orders, and wait for the arrival of the resupply fleet.’
‘A good place as well to stage an emergency warp jump,’ said Perturabo. His smile changed in character. A feral edge came to it. Forrix answered carefully.
‘An option I had not considered, my lord,’ he lied. ‘The campaign is not done.’
Harkor made a disparaging noise. Perturabo ignored it and looked around the room, his face open.
‘Come, my warriors,’ he said. ‘Do not stop in your discussions! It is a sad day when the Dodekatheon is silent. I see industry here that should continue. Who will impress me by devising the best strategy against the hrud? Do not let my presence put you off.’
Slowly, conversation crept back out of the silence. With an initial animal furtiveness, it grew in volume and tempo until much in the hall was as it had been before the primarch’s arrival.
Perturabo’s smile dropped. ‘When is the resupply fleet due?? he asked the triarchs.
‘Soon, my lord,’ said Harkor silkily. ‘Five thousand new recruits at least, as well as new armoured units, new auxilia—’
‘I am aware of what it brings,’ interrupted Perturabo. ‘What I do not know is when we will have it.’
Forrix cleared his throat. ‘I expect it any day now. We shall know for certain soon. I have re-established astropathic communication with the sub-fleets in the surrounding systems. Longer range communication is still problematic, but our astropaths report the disturbances to real space are declining now that the hrud have departed. We should be able to make good contact soon, provided we remain in Gugann and do not venture on to other hrud-held systems.’
Perturabo nodded absent-mindedly, his great jaw working on nothing. The haunted look returned. ‘We should consult. This campaign has to end.’
‘As you desire, my lord,’ said Golg.
Perturabo beckoned them to a hololithic chart desk being used as a battle simulator. The warsmiths there wordlessly deactivated their programmes and departed, leaving the display field dusty white Perturabo summoned an image into life.
‘Display full cartoloithic view of Sak’trada Deeps. Overlay my cartographs, date stamp four-three-two.’
The table buzzed. A starscape blinked into life and out again, then stabilised, showing the isolated hundred stars of the Sak’trada Deeps. Black void circled it. The map was at such a scale that the nearest inhabited Imperial world was not visible. At the bottom a ragged double line of stars trailed from the cluster: the Vulpa Straits, so ineffectively held by Dantioch. Hrud inhabited systems were circled in red. Sinuous arrows came from the dozen stars at the formation’s centre where most of the signified planets were located: the migration tracks of the hrud.
‘I have not been idle while I have been away from you, my sons, but have spent my time composing this map.’ There was no explanation beyond that for his destabilising absence, and certainly no apology.
There never was from the Lord of Iron.
‘We have provoked the hrud into a major migration. If it continues at this rate, then the Deeps will be empty of the xenos within six months. Although this will technically clear this area of the galaxy of these creatures, I cannot think it was what the Emperor desired when he gave us our orders.’
Golg smiled widely at Perturabo’s flat jest. Harkor and Forrix remained stony-faced.
&n
bsp; ‘Though Dantioch was craven in desire for withdrawal, and incompetent in his defence of the fortress worlds we had established in the straits, he was correct in one regard.’ Perturabo pinched his fingers together then spread them wide within the projection. The hololith zoomed out smoothly. The Sak’trada Deeps became a single fuzzy ball of light, like a malformed star. The Orion-Cygnus arm, itself an isolated piece of the galaxy, shimmered and suddenly speckled with the blue-ringed signifiers of Imperial-held systems.
Projected tracks of the hrud migration painted themselves over the top.
‘The nearest Imperial holding is twenty-three light years away,’ said Perturabo, pointing at a star labelled as Haldos. ‘From my observations of the hrud’s unusual mode of transit, I calculate that they will hit the Cadomus and Haldos systems, and the worlds of Birgitta, Jonsdaim and Magna Aphrodite, inside a month. If they head further, they will come nigh to the Red Scar, and Sanguinius’ home world of Baal.’
‘Then let the angels deal with them,’ said Golg.
Perturabo silenced him with a look. ‘There are four main migratory routes that I have been able to plot. The other three will most likely head away into the outer rim of the Ultima Segmentum, where they will disperse and cause minimal damage to Imperial territory. However, our orders were to destroy them, and destroy them we shall.’
He gestured again. The table emitted a puff of static-scented gas and shifted its view.
‘The Vulpa Straits. Large numbers of hrud have passed this way. According to Dantioch, unlike the ones we faced here, those hrud he encountered fought only if confronted, at least until the last days when they appeared in greater numbers. Even then, many appeared to be - if we can use the term for these beings - non-combatants. They are using the straits to escape, probably for the same reasons I wished them to be held - they offer a stable route from the Deeps. If we were to block the migrant flocks’ egress here, here and here…’ Red bars blinked into existence, each labelled with the codename of a battlegroup. ‘…then they will be forced into the path of least resistance here.’
