by C. L. Werner
‘I cannot execute these orders,’ Hafiz stated. ‘You want me to turn my artillery on Mount Rama. These orders are unjust. Unconscionable.’
Murdan returned his attention to Hafiz. ‘You are the commander of Lubentina’s militia, sworn by oaths of honour and loyalty to obey the orders of your Cardinal-Governor.’ He pressed his hand to the jewelled pectoral he wore. ‘You cannot disobey me while you command my army.’
Hafiz nodded, the tremble in his outstretched arm intensifying. ‘I cannot issue this order. I beg Your Excellency to permit me to resign my commission. Major Darjit can assume my duties and responsibilities.’
Murdan sank deeper into the heavy robes. ‘What of your honour, colonel?’
The officer pressed his hand against the holster of his laspistol and looked across the chamber to the door leading into Murdan’s private chapel. ‘If you will permit me to withdraw, I will see that honour is satisfied.’
The slightest of nods from the Cardinal-Governor dismissed Hafiz. Kargil watched in disbelief as the soldier marched off. He looked around the room at the other councillors. Each man wore the same expression of disbelief and shock. Long moments of silence passed, the quiet taking on an almost tangible atmosphere of despair. It was Kargil who stirred himself from the horror that oppressed them all. He turned back to Murdan, trying one last appeal to reach Lubentina’s ruler. ‘Palatine Yadav, surely you wouldn’t abandon him.’
‘Yadav should never have communicated with the astropath,’ Murdan mused. ‘His disobedience proves him an apostate, but when he becomes a martyr, all will be redeemed.’ He looked over at Kargil. ‘See that Major Darjit receives my orders. He is now commander of the militia. His first duty will be to reposition the Thirty-Eighth artillery.’
Shuddering, Kargil retreated from the council room. Before he had reached the outer door he heard the crack of Hafiz’s laspistol sound from within the chapel. Kargil wouldn’t risk Murdan’s ire by disobeying his decree. He’d get word to Darjit. And once that was done, he’d see about getting himself as far from Murdan as possible.
Between the cultists, the Iron Warriors and the Cardinal-Governor, Kargil wasn’t certain which posed the most danger to his own longevity. He didn’t intend to remain to find out.
Bakasur’s hulking bodyguards led the magus through the massed ranks of cultists swarming up the slopes of Mount Rama. They had no trouble with the hybrids, the mental vibrations of the magus clearing a path for them through the mob. Even the usual adoration with which the cultists regarded the Voice of the Beast was subdued by Bakasur’s psychic influence. He had little time to spare, even to accept the worship of the Great Father’s children.
The sound of combat drew Bakasur onwards. Uncertainty, that befuddlement of thinking that was so common to the weak minds of humans, came crawling back into his consciousness. The stubborn mammalian part of his brain dared to wonder if the Great Father had been mistaken to think the Space Marines could be used to any advantage. That they were a terrible, awesome force Bakasur couldn’t deny. It was these very qualities that had awakened his concerns. Whatever obstacle he put before them, the Iron Warriors swatted it aside with abominable speed. Even simply trying to delay them had proven a costly endeavour.
Bakasur threw his consciousness forwards, entering the mind of a hybrid ahead of him on the plaza before the cathedral. With the cultist’s borrowed flesh, Bakasur quickly assessed the situation. The plaza was an abattoir, filled with the torn remains of refugees and cultists. At one end of the square were the steps of the cathedral and the Great Gate. At the other were the Iron Warriors, armoured giants who butchered anyone who fell under their murderous gaze.
The Chaos sorcerer Cornak had erected a psychic wall around himself, a phantasmal shield Bakasur would expend too much energy trying to pierce. Only the most minor protection had been extended to guard the other Iron Warriors. The magus was able to glance at them with his psychic eye. What he found were grim, fearsome intelligences that cared for little beyond war and revenge. Some possessed more nuance in their thoughts, but ultimately their desires were the same, a twisted image of duty and service that absolved them of any atrocity they perpetrated. The most resolute of them all was their leader. Bakasur focused his powers on their commander, winding through the labyrinth of viciousness and bitterness that swirled in his mind. Like the others, this one clung to notions of honour and duty as a last ember of pride and purpose. But there was more here. Bakasur found a name and title, that of the Warsmith Rhodaan. In him, Bakasur found a monstrous fire of ambition.
Bakasur withdrew his mentality from the hybrid he’d possessed and poured his essence back into his own body. He pondered the things he’d observed. The Great Father was right. These Iron Warriors could be manipulated with care... but only at great cost.
Ahead, far up the street, Bakasur could see the cathedral. He raised his staff, thrusting it towards the structure, pointing its head at the Great Gate. ‘Tear down the eidolons of the Golden Tyrant! Pull down the diseased tabernacle of the oppressors! Kill all that stand between you and the ascension that is your birthright!’
The cultists rallied to Bakasur’s words and the psychic resonance that echoed through them. Hesitance evaporated, uneasiness was smothered as the religious fury of the cult was fanned into an inferno. Shouts of rage, cries of devotion, shrieks of bloodlust rang out from the more human of the hybrids, while those in whom the genestealer strain was strongest simply rushed ahead in deadly silence. The beleaguered forces in the plaza were bolstered by an inundation of cultists.
Bakasur followed behind the rush, his bodyguards keeping close to him. From the edge of the plaza he could see the swelling mass of cultists firing at the cathedral, firing at the Battle Sisters, firing at the Iron Warriors. He was surprised to see troops in the uniform of the militia just beyond the Chaos Space Marines. They weren’t brood brothers, for they lacked the vibration that betokened kinship with the Great Father. Whoever they were, they courted destruction by seeking the attention of the Iron Warriors.
The magus lingered a moment to watch the Space Marines fight. Beset on all sides, attacked by the cultists and the militia, fired on by the Sisters behind the walls of the cathedral, still these giants were unstoppable. An Iron Warrior armed with an autocannon shattered a platoon of soldiers with a sustained burst. One of the invaders played the searing beam of his meltagun into an oncoming clutch of hybrids, transforming them into ash and steam. The horned Rhodaan fired his pistol with grisly precision, pulping the heads of militia squad leaders while using the snarling edge of his chainsword to savage the cultists who charged at him with power pick and shock maul.
It would need the Inheritors themselves to have a real chance of overcoming the Iron Warriors and Bakasur was loath to squander their sacred lives in such fashion. The hybrids would suffice to keep the Space Marines occupied. That was all he required for now.
Bakasur cast his gaze to the corner of the square that stood near the Ladder. A fitting place, indeed, for looming over one of the buildings was a scaffold, built to support the sagging roof of the structure. It seemed unremarkable but this one was special. The labourers who’d raised it had been cultists. Deliberately they’d stretched out the duration of their work, ensuring that the scaffold would be in a specific position.
‘Leave them,’ Bakasur admonished one of his bodyguards when he took a shot at the Iron Warriors. ‘We have no part in this fight. Our place is up there.’ He nodded to the scaffold. The aberrant bowed his misshapen head. The hybrid didn’t need to understand, he only needed to obey. Urging his guards to haste, Bakasur circled the periphery of the square and advanced to the roof that would provide him entry to the cathedral.
They climbed through the deserted building to the roof then ascended to the scaffold. From the framework, it was only a small stretch out to the funerary encrustations that bulged from the walls of the cathedral. A pair of cultist tomb-cutters we
re awaiting Bakasur’s arrival, ready to lead the magus to the special crypts that would provide him ingress.
Long had Bakasur been preparing this violation of the cathedral’s sanctuary, but with an eye to conquest and occupation. Seizing the cathedral, rededicating it to the Great Father, would have shaken the faith of every Imperial on Lubentina. The presence of the Space Marines put that objective into question. Bakasur would have to be content with a less monumental desecration of the Cult of the Warmason. If securing the cathedral itself was uncertain, then the magus would adjust his plans. There were other objectives he could pursue that would bring glory to the Great Father and sow despair in Imperial hearts. With the Sisters focused on the Iron Warriors and the mass of cultists on their doorstep, they wouldn’t know about his trespass until it was already accomplished.
Rhodaan smashed the butt of his pistol into the subhuman cultist’s shoulder, forcing the hybrid back onto the churning edge of his chainsword. The whirring teeth ripped into his foe’s body, digging through it in a spray of shredded meat and shattered bone. He let the lower half of his bisected enemy slop to the ground but a vicious twist of his arm sent the cultist’s torso careening into those who followed after him. The mangled body crashed into them like a boulder, knocking them in every direction. Before one of them could try to rise, Rhodaan plastered them with a burst from his bolt pistol. The explosive shells detonated inside their bodies, reducing them to gory heaps of quivering flesh.
‘Iron within! Iron without!’ The war cry boomed from the speakers fitted to Captain Uzraal’s helm. He sent a beam from his meltagun scorching through the militia squad trying to manoeuvre around Rhodaan’s back. The searing energy immolated three men and sent the rest fleeing back down the mountain. Bolter-fire from Brothers Turu and Mahar withered the retreating troops, hurling their carcasses into the ranks of their comrades.
The weak easily became lost to the call of combat. Rhodaan had seen many renegades who decayed into simple killers with no more thought than where they’d find their next victim. Such was not the way of the Iron Warriors. Battle was a tool, an instrument in their arsenal, a thing that was never wanton or directionless. Under Warsmith Andraaz, that distinction had become blurred and the Third Grand Company had become degenerate, several of its leaders becoming murderous sensationalists like Algol the Skintaker.
The weakness had been purged from the Third Grand Company during the Siege of Castellax. Rhodaan wouldn’t see it regress while he was warsmith.
Satisfied that the militia advance had been broken, Rhodaan snarled commands to his warriors. ‘The gate,’ he said. ‘Uzraal, Periphetes, blast us an opening in the wall. Brother Gaos, sweep those annoying viragos from the balconies that our comrades may place their charges undisturbed.’
With the other Iron Warriors raking the cultists with bursts from their bolters and the odd frag grenade, a path was opened for Uzraal and Periphetes to rush the steps. Before either Space Marine could move, the voice of Cornak called out both across the vox and in their minds.
‘Hold them back, warsmith,’ Cornak advised. ‘Something is coming!’ The sorcerer was staring up into the sky, the psychic shell he’d raised around himself crackling as las-bolts and bullets sought to strike him. Abruptly he lowered his head and drew his staff close against his chest. The arcane shield flared into visibility, intensifying until it became a translucent dome around him.
Rhodaan’s sharp ears caught the familiar whine that sounded overhead. ‘Artillery,’ he warned the Iron Warriors. The Space Marines braced themselves while keeping their weapons at the ready. Only such superhuman soldiers would be brazen enough to defy the coming barrage, looking to capitalise on the havoc it would wreak against their enemies. Running, hiding – these were things for lesser beings. The Iron Warriors would weather the storm right where they stood.
The shells came arcing down, smashing into the buildings surrounding the square, shearing into the plaza itself. Structures exploded under the impact, casting off great clouds of debris and smoke. The worst hit toppled against their neighbours, smashing down into a jumbled confusion of mangled architecture. Packs of hybrid cultists were buried beneath the collapsing structures while others were obliterated by the direct impact of the shells. Some of the ordnance even fell where the militia had taken position, exterminating entire squads in clouds of flame and dust. The carnage drove such refugees as had remained alive from their places of concealment. Confused and shocked by the bombardment, the cultists lashed out at the fleeing pilgrims.
The optics in Rhodaan’s helmet compensated for the swirling smoke and dust, piercing the carnage with a battery of filters and visual enhancements. He could see some of the shots banging against the cathedral itself. Swathes of barnacle-like tombs were ripped from their moorings and sent crashing earthwards. Great sheets of masonry came sliding away, a cascade of broken statuary and savaged frescos that spilled into the streets beyond. The destruction surprised him. He knew the foolish reverence with which flesh regarded the False Emperor and those of his henchmen they’d made over into saints. Either the artillery had misjudged their aim or else they were unusually irreverent.
As the barrage intensified, Rhodaan was forced to reappraise his estimation. The amount of ordnance pelting the summit was too great, the rapidity of the barrage too intense. It was hitting in every direction, not focused upon one end of the plaza or one section of the peak. The artillery didn’t care about the cathedral or any of their own people on Mount Rama. Their objective was simply to annihilate everything, be it friend or foe. It was a pragmatism that Rhodaan would have found admirable if it wasn’t inconvenient to him. More so because he now understood how futile those charges would have been when it came to forcing an opening.
‘Periphetes! On me,’ Captain Uzraal shouted, his words standing clear across the vox as the audio dampeners in the helmets dulled the thunder of the artillery. ‘We’ll use the barrage to cover our approach.’
‘The plan is aborted,’ Rhodaan told Uzraal. ‘Look at the cathedral again. Look at what the shells destroy and what they can’t harm.’
‘Warsmith, they’ve hit the building several times but they can’t break through the walls,’ Brother Gaos hissed, surprise in his tone.
Rhodaan could hear similar expressions from the rest of his Iron Warriors. All except Cornak. Perhaps the sorcerer had known something of the truth even before the barrage. It was another subject Rhodaan would discuss with him at a more auspicious time. For now he regarded the explosions that crumbled the facade but left the cathedral intact. The Cult of the Warmason, and a cathedral that might have been designed according to Vadok Singh’s plans. The fortifications he’d built on Terra had defied everything the Chaos Legions could hurl against them. Small wonder then that something built to honour him could endure this barrage.
‘How will we force the gate?’ Uzraal wondered.
The barrage was intensifying. All but the most virulent of the cultists had gone to ground, sheltering amid the rubble or ducking into the craters, waiting for the artillery to relent. Others tried to pick their way through the bedlam. Their alien eyes made navigating through the smoke and dust an easy matter, but it availed them little. The Iron Warriors had lost none of their vigilance, even with shells raining down around them. Even as bits of shrapnel and debris glanced off their power armour, the Space Marines greeted the creeping hybrids with the chatter of bolters. Purple-clad cultists who’d come slinking out from the smoke were knocked down again by the punishing fire of the Iron Warriors.
It was in looking back at the militia soldiers that Rhodaan found an answer to Uzraal’s question. One wall had spilled out into the square, affording the warsmith a view of stone steps leading down into the mountain.
‘Forget the gate,’ Rhodaan declared. The steps leading down made him think what could be below. He’d sacked enough temples devoted to the False Emperor over the course of the Long War to know they alw
ays had some sort of postern gate secreted away, a route by which cowardly priests could flee their doomed sanctuaries. An exit that could quickly be made into an entrance. All it needed was the right way to find it. He looked over at Cornak. It was time to use the sorcerer’s arcane gifts, whatever toll they took on him. ‘I expect to force a quicker way inside.’
Commanding his Iron Warriors to follow him, Rhodaan led them back across the square. The ground shook beneath their feet as the barrage continued its demolition of the area. Bands of cultists sprang up to impede their trek only to be crushed beneath a fusillade of fire. Some three-armed hybrid wearing the tatters of an acolyte’s habit lunged at Cornak. The sorcerer’s bolt pistol raked across the rebel’s skull. An entire pack of gun-toting fanatics came afoul of Gaos’ autocannon, their bodies left in a gory mash at the bottom of a crater.
Then the Iron Warriors were descending the steps. A few militia stragglers emerged from the gloom. One of them was cleft apart by Rhodaan’s chainsword, the other crumpled as Periphetes exploded his belly with a bolter shell. The warsmith pointed his sword at the steps. ‘Periphetes, lead the way. Uzraal, close the door behind us.’
As the Iron Warriors marched into the subterranean shadows, Captain Uzraal lingered near the opening. A blast from his meltagun brought the roof crashing down, sealing the entrance with a mass of fused rockcrete rubble.
Rhodaan drew Cornak aside. ‘It is time to put your powers at my service, sorcerer.’
‘What is your command, warsmith?’ Cornak asked.
‘The Imperial dogs will have a door hidden away, some secret route inside the cathedral. It will be buried somewhere in the mountain. Find it for me,’ Rhodaan ordered.
Cornak clenched his staff tight, the talismans affixed to it vibrating as he invoked the dread forces that were at his call. ‘This is a vast network of catacombs,’ he said. ‘It will need time to sift through this maze. It would be easier to find someone who knows the way already.’
