Iron Warriors - The Omnibus

by Graham McNeill

  'Impossible!' sputtered Honsou. 'With the second parallel not yet complete? The batteries here will take another four days at least to prepare, and it will probably take several days for them to effect a breach in the walls. And I do not believe we will be able to make a practicable breach without the establishment of a third parallel and bringing up our siege tanks. All this will take time, you know that better than anyone.'

  'Nevertheless, it must be done.'

  'How?'

  'By any means necessary, Honsou. Time is a luxury we do not have.'

  'Then what do you suggest?'

  'That we push the saps forwards with greater speed, build more sap rollers, throw slaves and men at the digging, so that the mounds of corpses will shield the diggers from the Imperial artillery,' snapped Forrix suddenly.

  'That will be difficult, Forrix,' said Honsou slowly. 'The Imperial gunners are proving to be uncannily accurate with their fire.'

  'Indeed they are,' mused Forrix, staring at the mountains surrounding the plains. 'Almost too accurate, wouldn't you say?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'You are sure you killed everyone in the places you attacked before the invasion?'

  'Aye,' snarled Honsou, 'We left nothing alive.'

  Forrix returned his gaze to the mountains and sighed.

  'I think you are mistaken, Honsou. I believe there is still someone out there.'

  Honsou said nothing and Forrix continued. 'Send Goran Delau back to the places you attacked and if there are any signs of survivors, have them hunted down and killed. We cannot afford to be slowed further by your incompetence.'

  Honsou bit back an angry retort and simply nodded stiffly before marching away.

  THE HEART WAS a notoriously hard organ to burn, but the blue flames curling from its roasting muscle tissue were well worth the effort thought Jharek Kelmaur, sorcerer to the Warsmith and Wielder of the Seven Cryptical Magicks. The darkness of his tent was wreathed in ghostly shadows cast by the burning heart and moonlight pooling at its entrance. He rubbed his hands across his tattooed skull, spreading his arms before the blazing organ.

  Though his eyes were sewn shut, he stared into the flames, seeing spectral images, beyond the ken of mortal sight. They flickered in and out of focus as his magicks sought to shape the power bestowed by this latest offering into a useable form. He opened his mind to the glory of the warp, feeling the rush of power and fulfilment that came each time he communed with the immaterium. As always he felt the scratching, insistent presence of innumerable astral beasts that clawed at any intrusion into their realm, their mindless thrashings drawn by his presence.

  Such formless phantoms were of no consequence to him, it was the other, mightier creatures that lurked in the haunted depths of the warp that were of more concern.

  He felt the warp-spawned energies flow through him, channelled and intensified by the carven sigils on his gold and silver armour. Symbols of ancient geomantic significance helped contain the powerful energies he drew within his flesh, and though his physique was enhanced, he knew that the power he was tapping could destroy him in an instant were he to lose control of it.

  The power raced along his fragile nerve endings, dispersing throughout his body and a luminescent green fire built behind his eyes, spilling out from beneath the stitching, and gathering like emerald tears on his cheeks before billowing out in a noxious cloud of glittering fog. The fog twisted and spiralled, though no wind disturbed it, coiling from his mouth and eyes before slipping around his shoulders like a snake.

  Questing tendrils of green light slithered from the sorcerer and waved through the air to reach into the flames of the burning heart, the flames hissing and sputtering with greater ferocity as they consumed it.

  Fleeting images flashed before Kelmaur's eyes: the rock of Tor Christo, a hidden chamber in its depths, a disc of bronze that shone like the sun and, enfolding it all, a slowly spinning cog wheel, its surface cracked and blemished. As Kelmaur watched, the cog suddenly erupted with brown, necrotic threads of rust, each one spreading rapidly through its structure until it crumbled to dust.

  As quickly as the vision had appeared, it vanished, to be replaced with one of a spear of white light arcing through the darkness, its brilliance fading as it travelled before it was in turn replaced by a warrior in yellow power armour, his weapons trained directly at Kelmaur. As he watched, the warrior turned his weapon towards the sorcerer and pulled the trigger, the barrel exploding in brilliant light.

  Jharek Kelmaur screamed and collapsed to the floor of his tent, blood leaking from every orifice in his head, and pounding pain thundering against the innards of his skull.

  He groggily pushed himself to his feet, steadying himself against the iron tent pole.

  He moved unsteadily to a long, cot bed and sat on its edge, rubbing the heels of his palms against his inked temples and taking deep breaths. It was the same as before, but with each passing vision, the intensity grew stronger and he knew a crucial time of confluence was approaching.

  He had to divine the meaning of the visions, though he feared he knew the answer to the second apparition. As the Iron Warriors had attacked the spaceport, he had sensed a psychic signal reach out from the planet, too quick for him to block, yet surely too weak to be received by its intended recipients. But Kelmaur was afraid that others may have heard it, and if they grasped its significance, might already be on their way to this planet now. He had not told the Warsmith, and trusted that his master's war-captains would be able to complete the destruction of the citadel before whatever aid was coming to Hydra Cordatus arrived. He had despatched the battle barge Stonebreaker to the system's distant jump point to lie in wait for any would-be-rescuers, but, consumed by the nagging suspicion he was already too late, he had since recalled it.

  His cabal of acolytes had spoken of mind whispers on the planet that were not theirs, and how this could be was a mystery to Kelmaur. It would take great cunning to have evaded detection by the Stonebreaker, but then it wasn't here, was it… ? The vast cargo ships that orbited this planet were not equipped with mystical surveyors that would allow them to detect any approaching enemies. Had something slipped past while the Stonebreaker had been away?

  And if so, where had it gone and what had it done in the intervening time?

  Paranoia, his constant companion, held him tight in its grip and his mind was alive with all manner of fearsome possibilities. Should he tell the Warsmith of his suspicions? Should he deal with it on his own? Should he feign ignorance?

  None of the options were particularly appealing and Kelmaur was filled with a dreadful foreboding. As to the first vision… well, that he was more sure of. He turned as a low moan sounded behind him.

  He smiled grimly, staring into the face of Adept Cycerin.

  The former priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus that Kroeger had almost killed in the attack on the spaceport was chained, naked, to an angled trestle, part surgical table and part engineers' workbench. His missing hand had been replaced with an augmented bionic gauntlet, its pulsating black surface daubed with ancient symbols of power. Encircling the wrist was a broad, spiked bracelet with curved talons embedded deep in the flesh above the gauntlet. A modified form of the Obliterators' techno-virus seeped from the talons, slowly working its way around Cycerin's body. Eruptions of mecha-organic components appeared all over his flesh, their form fluid, yet angular. His flesh seethed with the workings of the virus as they integrated themselves with his organic matter.

  Jharek Kelmaur smiled humourlessly and rose to go to the twitching priest of the Machine God.

  The changes wracking his body must have been painful, but the adept's face gave no sign of it. Instead his features were twisted in rapture and obscene pleasure.

  'Yes,' whispered Kelmaur. 'Feel the power of the new machine fill your flesh. You have great work ahead of you.'

  Cycerin opened his eye, the pupil a dilated black, its internal surfaces alive with crawling, newly-birthed circuitry. He smi
led and nodded towards the pulsing gauntlet.

  'More,' he hissed. 'Give me more…'

  THREE

  ON THE TWENTIETH day of the siege the two saps driven forward from the first parallel were linked by a second parallel, some six hundred metres from the edge of the ditch protecting the walls of the frontal bastions. This was well within the range of the unerringly accurate Imperial gunners and thousands of lives had been expended to complete the second parallel, but the Iron Warriors were heedless of the human cost of such endeavours. All that mattered was that the Warsmith's orders were obeyed.

  The second parallel stretched from the ground in front of the Vincare bastion's salient to that before the tip of Mori bastion. The second parallel's northern face was piled high with rammed earth and revetted with iron hoardings to ensure that it could withstand artillery impacts. A well laid out battery was constructed at either end, their firing embrasures placed perpendicular to each bastion's flank.

  Already, markers had been laid for yet another approach sap, this time aimed at the head of the Primus Ravelin, but until the batteries had had a chance to open fire and dismount most of the citadel's wall guns, work could not yet begin. This was siegework at its most brutal and obvious. There would be no methodical approach to flank each of the bastions in turn, but a full frontal advance on the works, with batteries to pound the walls to oblivion before a devastating assault was unleashed.

  With the establishment of the batteries, the trenches behind were widened and deepened to allow the daemonic war machines to move safely to the front line. Lessons had been learnt following the destruction unleashed by the rampaging war machine in the trenches approaching Tor Christo, and those charged with keeping the monstrous daemon engines in check were taking no chances.

  The following morning, the guns placed in the batteries of the second parallel opened fire in conjunction with those situated on the northern slopes of Tor Christo's promontory. The guns in the batteries were not yet close enough to fire over the lip of the glacis - the raised area of ground before the ditch that prevented enemy artillery from striking the vulnerable base of the walls - but they could hammer the ramparts and make the firing step untenable for the defenders. And this they did with remarkable efficiency, smashing the wall head with solid projectiles and reducing the thick ramparts to jagged piles of rubble. Counterbattery fire from the citadel was desultory and shots that did strike home were either deflected by the reinforced earthworks or, in the case of the guns on Tor Christo, found to be out of range.

  Hundreds of men died in the first minutes of the bombardment, before the order was given to fall back within the bastions' enclosures. For the men of Mori bastion this was a life saving order, but for many of those in Vincare it proved to be a death sentence.

  Howitzers from the promontory now fired explosive shells on high trajectories, landing their bombs within the walls of Vincare bastion and shredding the men gathered within its walls. Scores of men died with each shrieking explosion, the airbursting shells taking a fearsome toll, razor fragments ripping flesh and bone apart with ease. Officers rallied their men, shouting at them to take cover within the wall bunkers.

  As their targets took shelter, the guns on the promontory shifted their fire to the interior of the citadel, their increased elevation giving them the range to drop shells inside the perimeter of the inner curtain wall. Three large barrack buildings were gutted by fire and a handful of others reduced to rubble before Arch Magos Amaethon was able to raise the energy shield that protected the inner citadel.

  The shelling continued throughout the day, ripping apart the tops of the two bastions and the ravelin, dismounting a huge number of guns and rendering much of their frontal sections wide open.

  As night fell and the guns continued to pound the citadel, hundreds of slaves trudged through the approach trenches from their corpse-infested dug-outs and began digging the approach sap forward.

  FOUR

  VAUBAN CIRCLED THE briefing table and poured each of his weary officers a glass of amasec, searching their faces for signs of resignation. Pleased to find none, he returned to his seat at the head of the table, poured another glass and set it before Gunnar Tedeski's empty seat.

  All the officers appeared to have aged, their features lined with fatigue and numb with the unceasing, grinding nature of the siege.

  Morgan Kristan looked the worst, his arm in a bloody sling and a wide bandage wrapped around his midriff where fragments from an exploding shell had torn into him. His men in the Vincare bastion had taken a battering and he had been there with them during it.

  All his officers had been blooded now and he was fiercely proud of them.

  'Gentlemen,' began Vauban, raising his glass. 'To you all.'

  His officers raised their glasses and drained their amasec as one. Vauban set down his glass and poured himself another. None of the men gathered around the table said anything as the castellan of Hydra Cordatus sipped his drink.

  Leonid consulted a featureless gold box before nodding slowly to Vauban.

  Eventually Vauban broke the silence, saying, 'We are in a perilous position, gentlemen. The enemy is at the gates and if the estimates of our engineers are correct, we have days at best before they breach our walls and enter the citadel.'

  'I pledge that my men will fight to the last,' vowed Morgan Kristan, slamming the table with his one good hand.

  'As will those of Battalion C,' echoed Piet Anders.

  Vauban suppressed a sly smile and said, 'Hopefully that will not be necessary. There have been some… unexpected developments in the last few hours and Lieutenant Colonel Leonid has a plan that may buy us some more time. The enemy artillery, especially that on the promontory, is killing us. To have any chance of survival we must knock it out, and that will not be easy. Mikhail?'

  Leonid stood and checked the gold box again to make sure that the vox-scrambler was functioning properly before handing out data-slates to the senior officers of the Jourans. Leonid and Vauban watched as each man scanned the contents of the slate, their expressions changing from weariness to sudden hope.

  'Is it really true?' asked Major Anders.

  'It is, Piet,' confirmed Leonid. 'I have seen them.'

  'An entire company?' breathed Kristan. 'How?'

  Vauban raised his hand, halting further questions and said, 'The files you are holding in your hands are to be considered the most sacred thing in your possession, gentlemen. Follow the orders within them. Do so with care and resolution, and tell no one outside this room what we are about. Be ready to move on this plan the instant I give the order, for if you are not, then we truly are lost.'

  Morgan Kristan scanned further down the slate and grunted as he saw a familiar name.

  'Is there a problem, Major Kristan?' asked Leonid.

  'There may be,' nodded Kristan. 'Any plan that involves - relies even - on Hawke, scares me to the soles of my boots.'

  'Do not concern yourself with Hawke's involvement in this,' soothed Vauban. 'I have faith in him, and Lieutenant Colonel Leonid will handle that part of the plan.'

  Piet Anders lifted his eyes from his slate and asked, 'And who will lead us?'

  'I will,' replied Vauban.

  THE RUINS OF listening post Sigma IV had long ceased smouldering as Goran Delau squatted by its entrance, his servo-arm sifting through the wreckage.

  He and ten soldiers clad in red overalls had searched the mountains these last few days without finding another living soul and Delau was beginning to believe that Honsou had sent them on a fool's errand. A body without a face lay beside the buckled doorway, its bones gleaming through the torn fabric of its uniform and Delau kicked it aside as he ducked inside the listening post, remembering the battle they had fought to take this place, the roar of assault cannon fire and the storm of shells as it tore through them.

  Inside, all was darkness, but Delau's enhanced vision easily pierced the gloom. Shattered equipment and blackened metal lay strewn about, the walls peppere
d with grenade fragments. A body lay against one wall, the little flesh that remained on its skeleton was scorched and black. This body's face was blown away, and Delau remembered the two shots Honsou had fired to kill these men.

  Where then was the body of the third?

  As he scanned the deserted listening post, he saw the open footlocker and the discarded items that lay strewn about it. He fell to his knees, examining them all in turn. All were useless trinkets and, to a man trapped on the mountain, worthless.

  So, one soldier had somehow survived and salvaged everything of value from the bunker.

  Where had he gone?

  Delau marched from the listening post and examined the dusty ground outside. The corpse on the ground had no rifle and Delau guessed that the survivor had taken it before moving on.

  Delau sniffed the air and knelt beside the decaying corpse, noting a patch of discoloured rock beside its feet. Without needing to taste it, he knew it was blood and, from its patterning, that it had not come from the corpse's wound.

  So Forrix was correct. There was someone still alive on the mountains. A resourceful man as well, if Delau's reasoning was correct.

  Scanning the surrounding environment, he knew there was only one way a man determined to strike back at the Iron Warriors would have gone: north-west across the knifeback ridge to a position of observation.

  Swiftly he gathered the indentured soldiery to him and set off up the mountainside.

  Goran Delau grinned within his helmet at the thought of facing this worthy foe.

  HAWKE SCRAMBLED ACROSSs a jagged outcrop of rock, breathing heavily as he traversed the steep slopes of the mountain. He had travelled three kilometres across exceptionally difficult terrain and had another two kilometres to go before nightfall, but he was determined to make it.

  Despite the weary exhaustion filling his limbs, he was filled with real purpose. He pulled himself onto a relatively flat slab of rock and took a moment to get his breath back. He checked his location on the direction finder, knowing where he had been ordered to go, but not knowing exactly what he would find when he got there. Lieutenant Colonel Leonid himself had given him his mission on the vox earlier that day and Hawke had assured him that he would not let them down.