Old Earth

by Nick Kyme

  Then he stood and regarded the sea of lava, and the jutting edge of the eldritch gate just visible above its bubbling skin.

  Gripping the hammer in both hands, Vulkan swept it around in a half-arc. There was work to be done.

  Two

  Ambition, made in iron

  Ezekarr dug another fistful of dirt, and dragged his body across the scorched earth of the outpost. Razor wire tore the rubber seal around his left arm, and ripped small iron-grey grooves into the sea-green of his war-plate. He was tangled in the wire, its barbs digging in, finding purchase, relentlessly cutting, slowly squeezing the life from him, like a python constricting about its victim.

  He heard them coming, battering through stacked munitions crates, blades sawing and growling as they took the makeshift palis­ades apart.

  Still Ezekarr crawled, and felt the dirt intruding through a split in his gauntlet. He’d lost a finger somewhere. Perhaps to a bolt-round. He couldn’t remember. He’d lost his legs too, or at least everything that mattered below the knee. His ragged, bloody stumps, lathered in machine oil and mud, were little use in terms of forward momentum. The edges of twisted metal, where his armour had been roughly severed, snared on the wire, forcing a grimace as the barbs found flesh.

  Ezekarr would have laughed at their temerity had he not been dying. Perhaps he should laugh anyway, meet his killers with baffling good humour. They would hate that, those cold bastards. They couldn’t understand that. The war, their losses, had put it beyond them.

  An explosion sounded, muffled by the growing fug of smoke, distance or his failing auditory senses, Ezekarr could not say for certain. He knew it meant they were in, beyond the cordon he and his brothers had fought so hard to hold. The attack had come fast and during night hours. The lack of light had proven no impediment to the efficacy of the warriors on either side, but it had masked the approach of those in black power armour to an extent, and turned obvious interlopers into silhouettes that matched the form of allies. It had provided a second’s grace for the attackers, and a legionary could accomplish much in even so short a span of time.

  He and his brothers had been slow. Not by any ordinary standards, of course, but the ones that mattered – the standards that would be met and superseded by their enemies.

  It had begun in fire. A sprawling line of flame had sprung up in the north like a ragged, flickering grin where the commercia used to be. Ezekarr and his brothers had flattened it during daylight hours with launched ordnance from a battery of Medusas before the Vindicator tanks had moved in with dozer-blades to shovel away the rubble and the bodies. It had taken several hours. Labour gangs had been formed from the local populace. After landfall, and less than an hour of conflict, in which the world’s defence forces had been critically diminished in both size and morale, the remaining sixteen native garrisons had reneged their oaths to Terra and sworn to the Warmaster, though he was far away in another part of the segmentum.

  Prefabricated watchtowers had been raised up like a row of spears. Communal halls and agri habs had been emptied, fortified and turned into munitions stores. What could not be housed inside was piled and stacked and lashed together in the municipal square, where a statue of the lord-governor lay headless like its namesake and reduced to rubble beneath a Vindicator’s tracks.

  This they had done swiftly, efficiently, brutally, but without needless bloodshed, until a supply dump the size of several city blocks had been established. This had been designated ‘secundus’. Ezekarr also knew of ‘tertius’ and ‘primus’. The initial stages of the invasion had proceeded according to plan. In fact, they had exceeded expectations.

  That had been then. Now he crawled, the irony not lost on him that these were his brothers’ defences that had bled him almost to the bone. Through a rapidly dispersed smoke cloud, he saw a sea-green gauntlet and thought reinforcements had come. He reached for it, though the act of doing so provoked agony as the wire pulled taut.

  The gauntlet yielded instantly to his grasp and he realised it was no longer attached to its owner. A bloody stump of wrist poked out the end, and Ezekarr dropped it in disgust. He drew a rattling breath, still trying to worm out from under the razor wire, and felt his throat burn. Then it tightened. Choke gas. His helm rebreather must be broken. He tried to move and felt a cracked retinal lens fall out in pieces. The world grew brighter, more painful, in one eye.

  Yes, definitely broken.

  He was about to reach for the gorget seal to disengage his helm when a shadow fell across him. The scent of oil and soot stung his nose. He looked up to see an armoured foot. It had splayed metal toes and gave off a low machine grind, a bionic. It slammed down on his outstretched hand, breaking two of his remaining fingers.

  Ezekarr resisted the urge to cry out. He did manage to turn, craning his neck so he could see his attacker.

  A burning red bionic eye, set in a black war-helm, glared down. A heavy hammer crackled in the warrior’s clenched fist. He almost trembled with repressed anger. The fist too was a bionic.

  ‘You should watch that anger,’ said Ezekarr, and went for his holstered pistol with his other hand. ‘It will get you–’

  Frenix lifted his hammer. A long strand of congealed blood and matter stretched from the ruddy head to the ruin of the legionary’s helm. His blow had split ceramite and crushed most of the skull beneath. Red bone chips stuck up out of a growing pool of blood. Frenix, of Clan Saargor and the Iron Tenth, intensified the thunder hammer’s energy field to burn off the stuck-on gore.

  The dead legionary blinked. A gurgle of breath escaped his throat, foaming on his bottom lip.

  Frenix scowled. His bionic foot twitched reflexively and broke the other bones in the legionary’s hand.

  He hefted his hammer, annoyed that he had only just cleansed it.

  ‘Death to all traitors,’ he said, part machine rasp, all human hostility. ‘In the name of Shadrak Meduson.’

  The hammer fell again.

  They knew his name. That was good. It made him a target, but notoriety had its advantages. So did immortality, for hadn’t his enemies already killed him more than once? At Arissak. At Dwell. Yet, here he was. Alive. Fighting. The most pernicious of thorns. It hadn’t been easy, convincing the clan-fathers and gathering the other captains, but successive victories could be used as currency when trying to convince recalcitrant allies.

  As he stood surveying the battlefield they had made of Hamart III, Shadrak Meduson knew he would need more for what was ahead. This was but the beginning. He had a plan.

  It was burning, the outpost. Its defences had been overrun. Watchtowers were aflame, barricades toppled. Warriors in the soot-black of the Iron Tenth ran amok. Ravens wearing even darker black ranged around the periphery. He saw few of them, such was their creed of war – silence, stealth, sabotage. Fewer still were the Drakes, bellicose and aggressive in their scale-green armour. They fought stolidly, without fear. Like the others, they had little left to lose. But the prize here was worth the fight.

  The supplies they had taken would be useful. They would also need to be cached when this was over, split up, divided and then hidden in smaller ammo dumps. Tanks, walkers, heavy munitions, explosives, even medical supplies, the Sons of Horus had provided a wide array of materiel.

  It would prove useful. Had he been of a mind, Meduson might have felt gratitude to the Sons of Horus for that. Hatred overrode it, and the gnawing ache of an unsatisfied desire for revenge. His fist clenched unconsciously. It had been doing that a lot lately. An augmetic. Of decent quality, and grafted well on account of Gorgonson’s surgeries. It still itched, but then so did a lot of things.

  Sixteen separate cells had come together for this raid. After what had happened at Oqueth that hadn’t been easy, but it had dem­onstrated what they could do when allied together and were utilising the strengths of three Legions, not just one. Two days’ preparation had necessitated some r
isk. Two days to communicate a plan and coordinate the strike. Iron Hands were naturally well organised, but the few Salamanders and Raven Guard amongst the Iron Tenth’s ranks had adapted well to the methodology of the majority Legion, as well as contributing strategies of their own. It was as it had been said at Aeteria. A hybridisation of tactics had garnered success.

  Risk bred greater risk, of course. A time fast approached when that growing degree of risk would become unpalatable to some. Meduson knew this. It was part of the reason he went for the supply dump. Confidence was a commodity too. He would need to spend all they had in supply for what came after Hamart.

  Some of the clan-fathers, those who had assumed de facto positions vacated by the slain Vircule, Loreson, Kolver and Mach, had proven resistant, but Meduson felt sure logic would override the desire for self-preservation. If the Iron Tenth were to move forward, it would have to. From the ashes of Isstvan, they would have to.

  The vox-bead crackled in Meduson’s ear, and he attended to it at once. He barely heard it over his own thoughts and the armoured battle tank waiting nearby for his order.

  ‘Are we finished here?’ he asked the voice on the other end of the link.

  ‘A few remain, but they are beaten. Broken.’

  ‘Every one of them, Frenix. No survivors. No prisoners. Round them up, kill them. Don’t contact me again until it is done.’ Meduson severed the link, and exhaled a long calming breath.

  ‘I recognise that volatility,’ said Aug, standing at the Warleader’s side.

  ‘Do you, Frater? I see it in every loyal brother on this field.’ He turned to one of his council. ‘What say you, Nuros?’

  The Salamander had his helm in the crook of his arm. Strands of his vibrant red hair, though partly slicked to his scalp with sweat, whipped about in the wind like flickering tongues of flame. He still had the volkite caliver he had stolen from the XVI Legion warship, though Nuros had since improved upon its design and wrought an aesthetic more in keeping with his culture. A dragonhead ­baring its fangs snarled at the weapon’s mouth. Nuros mirrored it. He grinned, his black leathery skin pulling at the corners of his mouth, exposing alabaster-white teeth.

  ‘Aye, it heats the blood I’d say.’ His gaze strayed northwards, fixed upon a steadily rising conflagration. ‘Let the curs burn. Every damned one of them.’

  Meduson addressed the others. ‘Lumak, Mechosa?’

  The former, the captain of Clan Avernii, nodded. ‘Oh, I’m with the Drake. Fire is the only way to be sure.’

  Mechosa gave a rare, bellicose chuckle, confirming his position. ‘No need to ask Dalcoth, I think,’ said the captain of Clan Sorrgol, his gaze moving to the silent figure of the Raven Guard. The son of Corax stood slightly apart from the rest, as was his way, a wraith in shadow-black, deadly and invisible when he wanted to be. He tightened a gauntleted fist around his sheathed axe, aching to unleash it.

  ‘It’s a good victory,’ said Aug, placing his hand on Meduson’s armoured shoulder. Though the ministrations of the Mechanicum on Lliax had left him more flesh-spare than ever, Aug still retained his old sense of camaraderie. He rarely took off his helm any more, and beneath his armour he was more metal than man. It didn’t matter. The flesh might be weak, but brotherhood was not.

  Meduson nodded. ‘The supplies will prove useful, though I confess I think I like more the idea of denying them to the enemy than taking them ourselves.’

  ‘Surely you don’t favour destroying the cache out of hand?’ said Aug.

  Mechosa and Lumak shared a furtive smile, though Meduson saw it. He smiled too, inwardly, but was reminded how far estranged his Hand Elect was from his inner circle. He hadn’t intended it that way, but Aug’s debilitating injuries after Oqueth had forced changes that had knitted well in his absence. Meduson was reluctant to do anything that would jeopardise that, especially as they had finally begun to get somewhere.

  Perhaps we can graft heads, after all, he mused.

  ‘I was tempted,’ Meduson admitted, ‘but pragmatism won out in the end. Besides,’ he added, ‘we need them.’

  ‘I am relieved to hear it,’ said Aug.

  Meduson felt the Iron Father’s gaze upon him. Of the six of them, Aug was the only one still wearing his war-helm.

  ‘Something amiss, Frater?’ he asked.

  ‘You have blood on your face,’ Aug replied.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Meduson replied, replacing his helm, ‘none of it is mine.’

  Lumak laughed, shouldering a depowered Medusan zweihander.

  ‘You should name that blade,’ said Nuros.

  ‘It has a name,’ Lumak replied. ‘Sword.’

  ‘No. A better name. A war-name.’

  ‘How did you even know I was hefting it?’

  Nuros stood a few paces ahead of the two Iron Hands captains. His grin broadened, a dragon’s smile.

  ‘I heard it scrape your guard. The metal is thrice by thrice folded. It’s an alloy, hand-worked, a smith’s work. Well forged. All of that together with the inscription carved into the blade provokes a particular resonance when struck just so.’

  ‘Are you showing off, Nuros?’ asked Meduson.

  The Salamander held up his thumb and forefinger, pinched a half-inch apart. ‘Only a little. What about Cleave?’ he asked Lumak.

  The Avernii paused a beat to consider it. ‘Rather blunt, isn’t it?’

  ‘Precisely the opposite.’

  A vox crackle in Meduson’s ear stalled any further talk, his raised hand commanding silence.

  ‘Understood,’ he said after a few seconds, and cut the link.

  ‘Frenix?’ asked Mechosa, all business.

  Meduson nodded. ‘It’s done.’ He opened the vox-link again, but not to raise Frenix.

  ‘Ironwrought Bereg,’ he said, ‘the traitors are dead. Supplies are secure. Level the rest of it.’

  From the south, a kilometre behind their position, came the grind of tracks and throaty growl of labouring engines. After a few minutes, the engine growl changed to a pneumatic throb. A pregnant pause of another three seconds passed before the air shrieked with the violent discharge of ordnance.

  A rain of siege mortar shells, little more than vapour-wreathed masses scoring through the night, arced overhead. The six legionaries watched the shells’ parabolas take them down into the heart of the supply dump, now divested of its riches and little more than half-standing prefab structures and failed improvised defence lines. The siege shells broke upon the camp in successive destructive impacts. After three chained barrages, not much more remained of the outpost than a crater. Smoke reached skywards, limned orange by the fires cropping up sporadically throughout the camp’s devastated footprint. It had been utterly flattened.

  Shadrak Meduson commended Bereg on the execution of his task before hailing the battlegroup.

  ‘All right then,’ he said, deliberately informal. ‘Well fought, ­brothers. Now we take the last one. Raise the storm.’

  The Land Raider Proteus, engines idling, began to stir.

  The others donned their war-helms as the entry ramp slammed down.

  ‘Let’s not keep our traitorous cousins waiting,’ said Meduson, grimly. ‘They have had enough borrowed time already. Nothing lives.’

  ‘Nothing lives,’ echoed the others, and mounted up.

  Nature makes a body recoil when struck. The instinct is one of preservation, a desire to minimise further harm. Though transhuman, and ostensibly beyond such reactions, the Sons of Horus behaved in this manner after the first two camps had been put to the torch by Meduson and his warriors.

  The Warleader had been ruthless. Moreover, his name was bellowed from every vox-horn and uttered as every battle cry. They chanted it, the iron sons of Medusa. So did the Drakes. Only the Raven Guard held their tongues, but then silence was their way and had been perfectly alloyed to a more
brutish methodology.

  The defenders of the final camp retreated, a splayed hand retracting into a bunched fist. A predictable reaction. Some of Hamart’s oath-sworn defectors turned again to serve their own ends, fleeing into the night. Meduson ignored them. They would be hunted down eventually, executed for swearing allegiance to traitors, but for now he reserved all of his ire for the Sons of Horus.

  The first ranks of the defenders went down like chaff. Native soldiery, human, armed with well-maintained lascarbines and heavy autocannons. Decently trained. Defectors. They only lasted minutes against Meduson’s determined assault. He had crafted a bludgeon to smash his way in from the northern side of the camp, a solid phalanx.

  Larger than the others, the final camp had a greater concentration of men and materiel. Heavy storage crates rose in metal ziggurats, forming entire sloped ranges of cased bullets and arms. Ranks of heavier munitions, mainly missiles and bombs, walled off entire sections of the camp. Stacks of promethium drums sat opposite, partly obscured by flame-retardant tarps. Freight-haulers stood in loose formation, paused in the act of disgorging further supplies. Unmanned tanks and fighters waited idly in open-fronted hangars. Tents groaned with ration packs and medical supplies. Bunkers, turrets and towers warded the main approaches. A large municipal structure dominated the camp’s core, appended by several permanent gun emplacements.

  Jebez Aug led them in, a cohort of Medusan Immortals surrounding him with breacher shields and an implacable refusal to die.

  ‘Heavy turret on the left,’ he said, with all the emotion of a man pointing out the state of the weather.

  A storm hit the turret, an up-armoured, blocky dome of riveted metal, its autocannon frantically chugging out shells. It disappeared as a volley of melta beams struck it. Only smoking slag remained, and the Iron Hands pushed on.

  The defenders had had the presence of mind to erect barricades, but they were hastily constructed. Bodies in the besmirched uniforms of Hamart’s local soldiery hung across parted razor wire, shredded sandbag emplacements and broken steel redoubts. Hulking Iron Hands in black armour clambered through the breach, desperate shots pranging off battered but unbreakable war-plate. Successive layers of defences were met and then overcome, each one more fragile than the last.