by Nick Kyme
‘No!’ Praxor snapped louder. ‘No,’ he repeated, lowering his voice again, ‘of course not…’
‘Your question, brother, is why he left you behind, is it not?’
Praxor’s silence answered for him.
‘Perhaps it is because the High Suzerain values your experience in keeping what he has already won. Or perhaps he felt you needed to garner a stronger affinity for the human charges we protect. To me they are little more than instruments, no different to the steel of the walls or the shells in the heavy guns. But as I value this wall and those shells, I value them. You, my brother, do not.’
Praxor maintained his silence a little longer.
‘I’ll commence sweeps of the wall to see if any of the orks have escaped notice beneath our guns,’ he replied curtly, cutting the comm-feed.
Praxor’s irritation was obvious. His squad were experienced. They had fought in many Chapter-level campaigns, distinguishing themselves with honour, but they lacked compassion. Iulus did too, but that was due to his pragmatic nature, the way he dissembled flesh and blood into materiel.
Unlike Praxor, he was pleased. The defence had gone better than he could have hoped. Minimal casualties amongst the Sable Gunners, and none of the Astartes had been so much as wounded. Sicarius had planned well, and prudentiy. In truth, Iulus’s siege expertise had not been needed. He had but to execute the strategy given.
In spite of himself, Iulus was forced to acknowledge his opinion of the captain was changing. He would die for him, obey his every command and fulfil it to his utmost – that had never been in question. But the doubts he had as to the High Suzerain’s methods, his yearning for renown and standing amongst the Chapter, the desire to supplant venerable Agemman: that had changed.
Two such noble heroes in our midst…
Iulus recalled Scipio’s words.
‘You are ever with your quiet wisdom, eh brother?’ Iulus muttered to himself.
Hurried movement along the rampart got his attention. Corporal Vormast’s aide was approaching. His face was ashen.
‘Sire,’ he began, genuflecting and removing his helmet in an act of deference.
‘Do not kneel to me, soldier. We are both warriors in the Emperor’s service,’ Iulus told him sternly. ‘And never remove your helmet on the battlefield. It is worn for your protection, and not to be taken off to serve due deference.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ said the aide quickly, and stood up.
‘Now, give me your report, Sable Gunner.’
‘We have received distress calls,’ said the aide, looking up at Iulus in awe and reverence despite the Ultramarine’s chastisement. ‘The orks are on the march. Sulphora Hive will be under attack in a matter of hours.’
THE ORK FORT burned. Twisted metal and broken bodies lay chewed up in the earth. Gunfire raged. War cries – alien and Astartes – rent the air in a bellicose chorus.
Scipio ran through the carnage, the rest of the Thunderbolts, bereft of Hekor, behind him. A ramshackle hut near to their position, little more than a box crate festooned with armour plates and daubed glyphs, was struck by a slew of incendiary and exploded, showering the Space Marines with frag.
Through the lens capture in his new Astartes battle helm, Scipio saw a trio of greenskins toting rockets and high-calibre cannons stationed on the roof of a crude watchtower.
Tapping his gorget, Scipio spoke into the comm-feed.
‘Up on the roof,’ he barked, ducking as shell-fire strafed overhead and an errant rocket immolated an already burning ork truck, blasting out shrapnel. ‘North-east corridor.’
‘Neutralising…’ was the curt response from Devastator Squad Atavian.
The foreboding retort of support weapons from the Titan Slayers boomed a moment later, and the watch tower was lit up like an incandescent candle by a ball of promethium. Heavy bolter rounds pummelled the blazing orkoid figures falling earthward from its destruction.
When Scipio’s vision adjusted from the actinic blast, he saw that the tower had been reduced to a charred stump of smouldering metal. There was nothing left.
Sergeant Atavian was terse in his confirmation. ‘Threat eliminated.’
The comm-feed was cut abruptly.
‘Three down, only five hundred to go,’ muttered Scipio cynically as he gave the order to move up and close with the enemy.
The dense duster of ork buildings that comprised the fourth stronghold was surrounded by a dense wall of armour plate and corrugated siding. Cast iron braces reinforced the wall and were also driven into the scorched earth beyond, criss-crossed and welded into tank traps. The empty shells of large vehicles sat beyond the crude perimeter in small groups, some bolted together to form makeshift dwellings. The orks had also constructed box huts and hangars from steel sidings and scavenged sections of the Ghosporan bastion wall and its associated defences. They were rammed together behind the stronghold’s delineating barrier, overlooked by ganglion watch towers, and formed streets, avenues and plazas as if in some crude mockery of civilisation. Tussocks of razor wire crowned the roof of each and every one; gun emplacements were ubiquitous throughout. Sandbags, ammo crates and stockpiles of naked munitions filled in gaps and added to the overtly militaristic milieu.
The attack had come at night. Eschewing the gate for a more oblique line of assault, Telion and his saboteurs had crept stealthily past the web of searchlights and reached the east-facing wall in under a minute. From there it had taken six seconds for the veteran sergeant and his scouts to blow a hole in the siding large enough for a Thunderhawk. Fourteen seconds more and the parapet sentries and two watch towers were neutralised in the flare of monochromatic muzzle flashes. Twelve more and the first-strike assault squads were through the breach in the ork defences and raising hell in the confusion. Another eighteen seconds and the orks started to mobilise their forces. That was when the Thunderhawks and the rest of the Astartes battle group tore over the ridge through the darkness. Less than two minutes and the Ultramarines were inside the fort, fighting amongst the avenues that were filling rapidly with blood.
Scipio heard the throb of turbofans behind him as Pilium screamed overhead. The whoosh and thrust of ordnance followed it a second later as the craft dumped a payload of Hellstrike missiles into a mass of greenskin armour approaching from the east. The detonation was thunderous, shaking the earth and tearing a great hole in the blackness. Fire plumes spewed from the immense incendiary and streamed in pyrotechnic glory as the orks were thrown into the air like ugly dolls, their machineries rendered to scrap.
‘Drive on!’ bellowed Veteran Sergeant Daceus, pointing with his bulky power fist to a contested plaza beyond the shelter of the huts where Scipio and his squad were waiting. ‘Press them back. Herd them together for the Thunderhawks’ missiles.’
He led the Lions of Macragge forward into a horde of clambering orks working their way through the wreckage done by Pilium. The rest of the gunships circled overhead like carrion, their pilots observing the battlefield through long-range sensor arrays, waiting for the orks to cluster before they ordered the gunners to unleash their missiles.
Scipio went in after Daceus, right on the heels of the Lions with Tactical Squads Solinus, Vandar and Octavian. Their bolters barked as one, stitching a lutescent firestorm across the no-man’s-land between the Ultramarines and the advancing greenskins.
Scipio felt and heard bullets whine past his battle helm, shells crump overhead. Something hit his pauldron, but he shrugged it off and kept going. A battle-brother, he didn’t see who, went down alongside him – another victim of the orks’ custom cannons. The beasts were well equipped; this had to be Zanzag’s mob.
A few metres from the onrushing greenskins, a wave of orks bearing burn-scars and wearing welding masks emerged from the horde. Their brutish hands were swathed in rags or covered by thick gloves, and they toted crude-looking flame throwers.
A blur of movement flashed overhead. With the scream of jump pack engines Squads Strabo and Ixion landed am
idst the ork vanguard, cutting them down. Scipio saw Sicarius with them, a jump pack strapped to his artificer armour, rending with the Tempest Blade. The orks were shaken and on the back foot when Daceus and the other squads charged in. One lightning assault and the greenskins were falling back.
Scipio heard his captain barking down the comm-feed as the carnage raged. ‘Sergeant Helios, are you in position?’
He paused for a beat, awaiting the Terminator’s answer before replying.
‘Good. Bring it to the west quadrant. We have the plaza and are moving there now.’
Clearing the armour wreckage with frag grenades, the combined battle group advanced, harrying the retreating orks all the way.
Daceus set up a fire-team with Squads Vandar and Octavian to guard the northern approach to the plaza through which the greenskins were fleeing. He had no desire to be outflanked by the foe if they found their courage and came back.
There was a greater mass of orks to the west of the stronghold, the warriors of Zanzag’s clan. The bulk of the Ultramarines were heading straight for it, right into their jaws.
THE GREENSKIN ELITES were gathered in a veritable junkyard of trucks, wagons and buggies in the west quarter of the ork stronghold. The pintle-mounted armaments of the vehicles were still operational and being used as improvised gun emplacements. Stretching in front of the stronghold was a rolling mass of orks and orkoid armour. And there in the very centre – overlooking his mob in a crude crow’s nest on one of the massive wagons – was Zanzag, cursing like a crazed priest.
Bolter fire hammered in the inky depths behind the massed greenskins – Helios and his Terminators, together with the dreadnoughts, forcing Zanzag to seek refuge in the middle of his horde. The ork thought it was safe surrounded by its kin. It had no concept of the danger it was in; Sicarius had it exactly where he wanted it.
‘That’s it Arcus,’ he growled beneath his breath. ‘Bring it to my teeth.’
‘Into the jaws of hell, then,’ remarked Daceus grimly, reunited with his captain once more, as he looked out across the endless green.
He was standing with the rest of the Lions, taking cover at the commencement of the ork shelling behind a cluster of barricades. The rest of the Ultramarines had moved into position around them and were returning the ork fire with determination.
‘Not necessarily, brother,’ Sicarius returned. ‘We have but to sever the head,’ he reminded him amidst the raucous din of the bolter storm: the Ultramarines were engaging.
‘Yes, my captain,’ Daceus agreed, ‘and the head lies through that.’
‘We have to outflank them, strike were the line in thinnest,’ Sicarius told him. ‘Hold the company here. Brother-Chaplain,’ he added, as the skull-faced Orad appeared alongside the command squad. The Chaplain’s crackling crozius seemed to echo his mood. ‘You will assume operational command. Stymie the ork tide. Keep the beast’s eye fixed on you.’
‘And where will you be, brother-captain?’ asked Daceus, evidently nonplussed by Sicarius’s strategy.
A massive explosion rocked the left flank of the ork horde, deep within their lines. The resulting conflagration spread like a hungry wave, incinerating the orks in an ephemeral flame storm. Sporadic bolter fire ripped into the night in its wake from concealed positions, dull and distant.
Scipio was at the front line of the barricades alongside Sicarius and his Lions. They had engaged the greenskins at long-range. His bolt pistol was useless at this point so he watched the ork warlord instead, hollering at his troops to plug the burning hole in their ranks where Telion’s explosion had gouged it.
‘I will be exploiting the gap, sergeant,’ he heard Sicarius reply.
‘Sergeants Strabo and Vorolanus,’ he continued, ‘you and your squads are with me.’
Scipio’s post at the barricade was taken up by Sergeant Octavian and his Swords of Judgement, as he and the Thunderbolts followed Captain Sicarius stomping over to the right flank with Strabo’s assault squad.
‘Assault squads are the vanguard,’ said Sicarius curtly and efficiently as they made their way through scattered debris and burned out buildings in order to get into an outflanking position. ‘Sergeant Vorolanus, you are our back-up.’
Scipio was about to acknowledge but quickly realised they were moving on at speed. His heart was pounding in his chest.
Led into battle by the Master of the Watch himself!
‘Thunderbolts form up on my lead,’ he said into the comm-feed, trying to keep pace.
Taking an oblique route around the main battlefront, slaying any greenskin stragglers as they found them, Scipio arrived at an immense hangar. Crossing the threshold a few seconds after Sicarius and Squad Strabo, the sergeant saw a small fleet of wrecked ork bombers. Fire lapped languidly over their fuselages, the craft long destroyed by Telion and his saboteurs.
Farther in there was more evidence of the scout sergeant’s handiwork. Dead greenskin sentries – pilots, mechanics and gretchin slaves amongst them – littered the ground. Most had had their throats slit, though there were some with deep-bore blade wounds to their eyes and ears, or single-shot executions to their head. Experience fighting the greenskins had taught the Astartes that an ork’s brain was small and compacted within thick layers of skull. It made such a kill-shot all the more impressive.
Sicarius was a glorious leader. He inspired and fought with the courage of Guilliman, even if his methods were capricious and unfathomable at times. But Telion was something else altogether. Scipio balked at the scout’s prowess. He seemed to be everywhere at once, wreaking havoc, sowing discord like he stringed chains of incendiary. “Dangerous” did not begin to describe him, even “lethal” fell a way short.
Scipio had no time to consider it further – they had reached a dead end.
The back of the vast hangar was a steel-reinforced wall. Judging by the wear and crude graffiti, it must have been one of the first structures the greenskins had built upon touching down on Black Reach. Thick, iron stanchions supported it from the inside, and metal rebars were visible through the ferrocrete. Scipio doubted even Brother Agnathio could smash through it.
‘Transmit our coordinates to the Gladius,’ Sicarius ordered Sergeant Strabo.
The captain removed his helmet and clasped it to his battle-plate as Strabo relayed their position to the Thunderhawk.
‘My lord, why are you removing your armour?’ asked Scipio, briefly concerned that Sicarius’s desire to slay the ork warlord had somehow dulled his good sense.
The captain smiled at him. His eyes glinted with inner fire.
‘I want the beast to see my face as I kill it,’ he explained. ‘Never underestimate the effect this has on the enemy. It will see my wrath first hand, recognise that I do not fear it, and quail before me.’
Sicarius thumbed his gorget, accessing the comm-feed, once Strabo was done. ‘Brother Haxis, we are ready,’ he said, ‘Make me a door.’
He closed the comm-feed and ordered them back twenty metres.
Scipio crouched behind a half-demolished wall, his squad arrayed around him.
‘If he’s doing what I think he’s doing,’ remarked Brother Garrik on a closed channel, ‘then a missile strike from a gunship firing blind will have a margin of error of plus or minus twenty-five metres.’
‘Then we had best hope that Brother Haxis flies true, and his gunner is accurate,’ Scipio replied as the thrum of heavy engines approaching overhead rocked dust motes from the vaulted hangar ceiling.
The screech from the Hellstrike missile came a second later. A second after that and the hangar wall was blasted apart.
Debris was still falling when Sicarius was up and sprinting through the gaping hole left by the Gladius’s precise attack.
Bent rebars jutted like metal bones and the stanchions was crushed and split before the concussive force of the explosion. Ferrocrete lay in chunks; thick dust cascaded like grey rain. Scipio barrelled through it all, he and his squad on the heels on Strabo.
The massive aperture punched through the wall led out into the heart of the greenskin horde. And as Scipio surged through it, killing awestruck orks as he went, he could hear the angered bellowing of Zanzag, and see him clearly in the wagon’s tower.
Sicarius had seen him, too.
He was several metres ahead of the chasing Ultramarines, laying waste to anything in his path. Reaching a makeshift barricade of heaped trucks and wagons, Sicarius bounded up it thumbing his jump pack for extra loft.
Scaling the obstacle in seconds, ignoring the bullets pinging off his armour, he leapt from the very zenith of the crude vehicle tower. Despite their advantageous position, the distance between it and Zanzag’s vantage point was vast.
An almost impossible jump.
Scipio whispered the name of Roboute Guilliman as his captain sprang over the churning sea of greenskins. An explosion blossomed in the darkness, throwing light onto his gleaming armour. He looked like an azure angel soaring through the bullet-ridden night, tracer rounds screaming around him.
Sicarius landed on the edge of the wagon tower, his heavy boots crushing the metal underfoot. Firing off a burst from his plasma pistol, the captain seared his enemy’s torso, melting armour plate. Zanzag growled in pain, but shrugged off the blow and swung with his axe. Perched precariously on the tower, Sicarius would have fallen had he not deflected the attack with his power sword. Sparks spat from the blades in an ephemeral electrical storm as they met and parted in seconds.
Unperturbed, Zanzag swung again, only for Sicarius to smack the axe down with the flat of his sword and then trap it with his armoured boot. Before the greenskin warlord could recover, Sicarius lunged with the Tempest Blade, forcing the power sword through the beast’s heaving chest. A gushet of blood spilled out as Sicarius withdrew the weapon before the wound cauterised. A second blow took off Zanzag’s hand at the wrist as the ork fought to release his axe from beneath his foe’s boot. The greenskin howled in rage, baring its teeth and promising retribution. Sicarius matched it with fury of his own.
