Honsou gripped onto a splintered corbel of rock and watched the approaching army with a mixture of exhilaration and dread.
Logistically Berossus had the upper hand, and he was using it to strangle the life from the defenders of his fortress - or what was left of them. Onyx was right, they could not defeat this army conventionally.
But Honsou did not intend to fight conventionally.
'Come on, damn you!' he shouted into the deafening crescendo of noise. He straggled to penetrate the gunsmoke, but could see nothing through the acrid fog.
Onyx looked at Honsou in confusion, but said nothing as more shells landed nearby. Whizzing shrapnel ricocheted from the walls and Onyx leapt before Honsou, allowing several plate-sized blades of metal to hammer into his daemonic flesh rather than shred his master.
'Onyx!' called Honsou, dragging the daemonic symbiote to its feet. 'Look towards Berossus's army and tell me what you see!'
Onyx staggered over to the edge of the wall and shifted his vision patterns until he could see clearly across the entirety of the battle. Streamers of fire and starbursts of explosions flickered like distant galaxies, but his eyes pierced the chaos and confusion of the battle with ease.
The lead elements of Berossus's army had smashed their way onto the spire's plateau and were less than a hundred metres from the last wall that stood between them and final victory. Dreadnoughts howled in battle fury and the Titans strode behind them like avatars of the gods of battle, weapons roaring with prayers to their dark masters.
'Berossus is at the wall!' shouted Onyx. 'He will be upon us in moments!'
'No! The ramp!' returned Honsou. 'What's happening at the end of the ramp!'
'I see tanks, hundreds of tanks,' yelled the daemonic symbiote, barely audible over the concussive booms of artillery fire. 'They are gathered beside the entrance to the mineworkings at the base of the ramp and are simply awaiting their turn to begin the climb.'
'Excellent,' laughed Honsou. 'Oh, Berossus, you are even more of a fool than I took you for!'
Satisfied that there was just the right amount of explosives, shaped and arranged to explode upwards into the fortress, Corias Keagh retreated swiftly from the gallery beneath Khalan-Ghol, unwinding a long length of insulated cable from the servo-rig on his back. Darting pincer arms mounted on the rig kept the cable from fouling and ensured that it remained straight and level.
'Here should do it,' he said to no one in particular as he turned into the armoured bunker he had constructed for just this moment.
The pincer arms cut the cable and craned over his shoulder to hand him the brushed copper end of its length. Synchronous timers had been calibrated from his armour's own power unit and he hooked the end of the cable into a power port on the chest of his breastplate. A winking red light on his helmet's visor turned to gold and he felt a physical stirring as the charges he had set armed.
He opened a channel to his lord and master and said, 'Lord Berossus, the charges beneath the fortress are set and ready to be detonated.'
'Then detonate them now,' came the familiar growling rasp of his master's voice. 'We are almost at the head of the ramp.'
Pausing to savour this moment of his greatest triumph, Keagh allowed the dim silence of the tunnel to enfold him before sending a pulse of energy along the length of the cable.
The mountain itself shook with the force of the blast far below, thousands of tonnes of ordnance and fuel exploding in one simultaneous blast that instantly atomised a whole swathe of the bedrock of Medrengard. Honsou staggered and fell to his knees as the Shockwave rippled throughout the fortress. Tall towers that had stood for millennia crashed down to ruin and every fighting man was knocked from his feet.
Tanks, and even one of Berossus's Titans, tumbled from the ramp as the Shockwave fanned upwards from below. Cracks split the stonework of the battlements and hundreds died as they fell to their deaths upon shattered ramparts. The main wall crumbled, torn like paper and breached in a dozen places by the shear forces twisting the mountain.
Aftershocks continued to rumble, shaking Khalan-Ghol to its foundations and Honsou heard a deep, answering roar, as though the fortress itself cried out in rage at this violation.
His fortress had been breached, but Honsou felt nothing but elation as the growling tremors that gripped his fastness began to fade.
'Now I have you, Berossus!' he snarled. 'Iron Warriors, ready yourselves!'
PART FOUR
THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY…
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Corias Keagh felt the thunderous roar of the explosion force its way down his tunnels like the bellow of an angry god. He braced himself against the wall of his underground bunker, confident that his works would survive this violence he had unleashed. He heard the metal of his tunnel supports groan in protest at the power of the Shockwave, but Keagh had been digging mines and bringing ruin to fortresses from below for thousands of years and knew his craft well.
Only when the temperature readout on his visor leapt upwards did he realise that something was amiss.
He heard it first as a whooshing rush of superheated air, forced through the tunnels ahead of something unimaginably hot. He rushed out into the tunnels as a terrible fear suddenly seized him.
Leaping from tunnel to tunnel, a flashing cloud of incandescent vapours foamed along the length of his workings. Behind it came a roaring, seething orange glow of molten metal and Keagh heard the screams of the soldiers as the lethally hot steam boiled the flesh from their bones.
He knew then that every one of the thousands of men in the tunnels beneath the ramp was going to die. His tunnels had not breached the sepulchres of Khalan-Ghol, but somewhere else entirely.
But how could that be, when the location of Keagh's breaching gallery had come straight from Obax Zakayo…?
In the split second Keagh had left of life, he realised that that they had been horribly deceived - that all they had striven for was ruined.
He turned to run, but even one as enhanced as an Iron Warrior could not outrun millions of tonnes of roaring molten metal as it spilled from the forges of Khalan-Ghol, destroying everything before it and liquefying the earth of the ramp as it went.
Keagh was engulfed in the rushing torrent of fire and had the exquisite horror of a last few seconds of life before his armour was melted away and his flesh vaporised.
Uriel felt the immense power of the subterranean explosion spread through the landscape and stumbled, gripping the sharp rocks of Khalan-Ghol's peak tightly as the tremors shook the foundations of the world itself. Plumes of glowing, orange steam geysered from the foot of the mountain and, as he watched, more and more began bursting from channels cut into the monstrous ramp.
'What in the Emperor's name?' breathed Uriel as he looked up and saw the top of the ramp sag and collapse upon itself as though the weight of earth supporting it was being steadily removed.
'A countermine?' shouted Pasanius.
'It would need to have been colossal to cause such damage,' said Uriel, shaking his head.
'Emperor angry at iron men,' roared the Lord of the Unfleshed. 'Strikes them from heaven!'
'He does indeed,' nodded Uriel, risking a glance at the gory features of the creature and feeling immense relief that Vaanes was not here to see the expression on his own face.
The renegades had turned their backs on them, spitting on this last chance for redemption and had marched away without a single word as soon as they had reached the surface. Uriel had watched them go, his heart heavy at their betrayal of what it meant to be a Space Marine, but relieved that he himself had been tested and not been found wanting.
Truth be told, there was some merit in what Vaanes had said. Perhaps this was a suicide mission and would see them all dead. And perhaps as well there was merit in survival, for where was the glory or honour to be had from their deaths?
But Uriel knew that for a true warrior of the Emperor there was no terror of death, only the fear that he might die with hi
s works unfulfilled.
The death oath placed upon them by Marneus Calgar remained to be honoured and even should they fail in their quest, their deaths would respect the chance their Chapter Master had given them, so long ago it seemed, on Macragge.
As he watched Vaanes and the renegades depart, Uriel knew that though he was probably going to his death, his was the better choice.
'We fight iron men now?' asked the Lord of the Unfleshed. 'Show us way in!'
The primal ferocity in the Lord of the Unfleshed's face reminded Uriel just how precarious their situation was. There was no guarantee that his plan would succeed and he did not want to think of the consequences should the Unfleshed decide that he no longer spoke with the Emperor's voice.
'Soon,' said Uriel, resuming his climb of the rocks that led to the fighting above.
Honsou took the steps from the high spire that led to the main wall quickly, thinking that the swelling roars of hate he could hear were a fine hymn upon which to wage war. He and Onyx and a coterie of his finest warriors emerged onto a cracked series of barbican ramparts, arranged in a saw-toothed pattern, freshly constructed behind the main walls.
Smoke wreathed the breaches and the Khalan-Ghol's main gate hung in splinters, a pack of frenzied dreadnoughts smashing through it. At their head, Honsou saw Lord Berossus, his mechanised arms hurling warriors before him in sprays of blood. A wild, orgiastic howling screeched from his vox-amp and Honsou grinned ferally as he knew that he would not allow Berossus to survive this battle.
Billowing clouds of scalding steam and the crack of splintering stone from beyond the ruined walls told him that the top of the great ramp was no more, the stone and earth running molten and collapsing under the strain of supporting Berossus's armoured column.
Virtually everything metal within the fortress had been smelted down and the forges had burned constantly to ensure that when Berossus's engineers breached the fortress from below - as Honsou had known they would - they would be tunnelling into a great reservoir of molten metal and not the catacombs they expected.
Honsou knew that a warsmith as gullible as Berossus did not deserve to live: his very existence weakened the Iron Warriors. To have believed that Honsou would not have known of Obax Zakayo's treachery and use him against his paymasters was ludicrous, but had proven to be his salvation.
Gunfire and explosions filled the interior space of the barbican as the vanguard of Berossus's army swarmed through the gate, though Honsou realised that it was no longer the vanguard, but its entirety. Now the odds were evened and Berossus would learn what it was to fight Honsou of the Iron Warriors.
Dreadnoughts charged towards the sandbagged gun pits, shrugging off weapon impacts and ripping men apart with wild bursts of weapons' fire. But behind the gun pits, disciplined teams of Iron Warriors picked off the armoured fighting machines with calm efficiency, their smoking hulks soon outnumbering those that still fought.
A dark shadow loomed above the fortress walls as the surviving Titan gripped the ruined battlements and began ripping them down with great sweeps of its piston-driven hammer arms. Blocks of stone the size of buildings crashed down amongst the warriors of both armies, killing a dozen men or more each time.
Huge assault ramps smashed down on the massive piles of rubble and debris, and Iron Warriors bearing the black and gold banner of Berossus charged from the shoulder bastions of the Titan.
'Iron Warriors!' shouted Honsou. 'Now is your time to show these bastards who is the master of Khalan-Ghol!'
His warriors roared in adulation, following their master down into the heat of the battle. The Iron Warriors of Berossus fought their way down the rubble of the breach, firing as they went and Honsou saw that they were warriors of courage and iron as volley after volley of lethally effective weapons' fire took a horrific toll on their numbers, but they did not falter.
The space between the smashed wall and the bunkers and saw-tooth walls Honsou had constructed was a killing ground: nothing could cross it and live. But with no way back, the Iron Warriors of Berossus had no choice but to advance into the teeth of Hon-sou's guns, and the carnage was awe-inspiring in its savagery.
More rubble fell from the main wall as the Titan smashed its way inside now that its cargo of warriors had disembarked. A shoulder-mounted cannon blasted a great crater in the centre of Honsou's defences and the warriors of Berossus cheered as they fought their way forwards once more.
Before it could fire again, a huge explosion ripped the cannon from the Titan's shoulder and a line of white fire stitched itself across its bloody carapace. From the smoke either side of the attacking Titan came a pair of similarly massive forms, Titans bearing the dread banners of the Legio Mortis. No longer required to guard the inner sanctum of Khalan-Ghol, the two terrifying daemon engines stalked from the rubble and smoke of the fortress's interior to do battle.
Berossus's last Titan roared at such worthy adversaries and turned its guns upon its new foes, leaving the Iron Warriors it had carried to look to their own battles. The ground shuddered at the tread of these mighty daemon machines, and whole sections of the walls were pulverised as they grappled with white-hot blades and screaming chainfists.
All subtleties and stratagems were meaningless now: the outcome of this storming would be decided at the end of a smoking bolter or upon the roaring blade of a chainsword. Iron Warriors charged one another, the battle degenerating into a close-range firefight and swirling melee of savage killers.
A fierce exhilaration pounded through Honsou's veins at the visceral thrill of such slaughter. He hacked his axe through the arm of an Iron Warrior, spinning on his heel to behead him before leaping the smoking corpse of a dreadnought to find more foes. Onyx followed him, killing any who dared come near the master of the fortress with casual swipes of his bladed fists.
Honsou saw the awesomely powerful form of Berossus through the swirling smoke and shouted, 'Onyx! To me!'
Uriel knew they did not have much time. The battle above was seething with the ferocity of a tempest, the screams of men in battle echoing from the high peaks. He climbed with all the speed he could muster, but their destination seemed always tantalisingly out of reach.
He did not want to get caught up in the fighting, but knew they had to reach the site of the battle before too much time had passed.
'Come on!' he shouted. 'We have to hurry!'
The Lord of the Unfleshed roared, 'You slow! Not fast like me!'
'I know!' shouted Uriel. 'But we cannot climb any faster!'
'We go faster!' said the Lord of the Unfleshed and reached out to grab Uriel's wrist, swinging him around and onto his shoulders so that he was being carried in much the same fashion as Colonel Leonid.
The ground swung dizzyingly below Uriel and he gripped onto the clammy, glistening flesh of the creature as it scaled the rocky flanks of Khalan-Ghol with terrifying speed.
He turned his head to see Pasanius scooped up in the same manner, and the speed of their ascent doubled.
'Go faster now!' promised the Lord of the Unfleshed. 'Tribe! On!'
Hundreds of the red, skinless creatures followed the Lord of the Unfleshed and Uriel was suddenly seized by a wild sense of abandonment.
They might be heading to their deaths, but what an end they would make for themselves!
He returned his gaze to the smoke-wreathed peak of the fortress, amazed at how different it now looked. When he had first laid eyes upon it, it had seemed utterly impregnable, fashioned from dark madness and impossibly hewn stone, and placed upon the highest peak. Now little of its lower reaches remained, save as blasted, dusty boneyards and its upper spire looked in danger of falling at any moment.
But having seen what happened to the huge ramp, Uriel knew that Honsou was not going to let his fortress fall without a damn hard fight.
He did not know exactly what had happened to the ramp, but watched in wonder as entire sections of its upper reaches cracked, and the tanks and men who climbed towards the fortress
were swallowed whole.
Streaming lines of smoking, orange liquid boiled from cracks in the side of the ramp, pouring down its sides like lava spilling from the crater of an erupting volcano. A vast, oozing lake of molten metal poured from the mouth of the tunnel at the base of the ramp, growing larger with every passing moment.
Hundreds of vehicles had mustered here and were caught in the flash flood of killing liquid. Uriel watched tanks burn and explode as their fuel and ammunition cooked in the awful heat.
Madly revving tanks barged into one another, crashing together in their desperation to escape, but succeeding only in forming an impenetrable logjam. Soon an army of fighting vehicles was reduced to molten slag without so much as a shot being fired.
'No,' whispered Uriel, as Honsou's fortress drew ever closer. 'If you are certainly not going without a fight.'
Chunks of stone and flesh were thrown skyward as wreckage and debris from the Titans' battle smashed into the ground. Another bunker was flattened and Honsou knew that, one way or another, this battle would soon be over. An Iron Warrior slashed a huge, crackling fist towards his head and he rolled beneath it, swinging his axe in a backhand sweep that cut the legs from beneath his opponent.
The warrior screamed and collapsed, clutching the stumps of his thighs as Onyx removed his head in the wake of his master, but Honsou carried on towards Berossus as the warsmith finally saw him coming.
'Half-breed!' roared the dreadnought, raising his arms in challenge. Though he was no longer a warrior of flesh and blood, Berossus had lost none of the ferocity he had displayed in life, his bronze-skulled sarcophagus blazing with diabolical energy.
The giant dreadnought braced its legs and lowered its monstrous drill ringed with heavy calibre cannons. Onyx leapt forwards as the cannons spooled up to firing speed, slashing his claws through the barrels in a shower of bright sparks.
Ultramarines Omnibus (warhammer 40000: ultramarines) Page 94
