Iron Warriors - The Omnibus

by Graham McNeill

  ‘Engage basilica defence routines,’ shouted Olantor. ‘Give me a tight torpedo spread, all safeties disengaged, and all close-in batteries concentrate fire on its gun batteries.’

  ‘What in the Emperor’s name is it doing?’ wondered Sibiya. ‘It’ll be destroyed.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ said Olantor.

  The first warning Sergeant Decimus had that something was wrong came when he caught a fragment of Deacon Calef’s hectoring sermon as he switched vox-networks. On Interrogator Sibiya’s orders, her preacher had remained on the walls to fill the hearts of the defenders with fire and fury. It was wasted effort, for the soldiers of Ultramar did not respond well to such fire and brimstone hectoring. Theirs was a courage bolstered by thoughts of duty, honour and brotherhood earned through years of battle, not the hysterical fervour of the more fiery Imperial preachers.

  Decimus caught a gleeful reference to the fiery comet of the Emperor’s Wrath, but dismissed it as a fanciful metaphor until he saw a great many soldiers looking upwards, a flickering golden light reflected on every visor.

  He turned back to the rampart, little more than a waist-high wall of rubble and broken stonework, and scanned the shattered extremities of the star fort. What had once been a monumental expanse of soaring architecture – temples, shrines and weapon arches – was now a hellish wasteland of bunkers, razorwire, defensive earthworks, redoubts and raised batteries.

  A golden light in the heavens burned as it drew closer, a haze of light surrounding it.

  ‘Do you see it?’ said Sabatina, coming alongside him. The Chaplain’s armour was dusty and grey, the black virtually obscured by the dust of the fighting. His crozius still shone golden, and though he had not stopped fighting since the battle had begun, he seemed as fresh as though he had yet to strike a blow.

  ‘Aye, Chaplain,’ said Decimus. ‘Though ’tis no fiery comet of the Emperor.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Sabatina.

  The light continued to grow until there was no mistaking its form; a starship, perhaps three hundred metres long, though it was hard to be exact, and streaming plasma and debris from its hull as it streaked towards the star fort. Aimed like a dreadful spear at the heart of the Gauntlet Bastions, its wedge-shaped prow seemed to be grinning at the prospect of killing. Slashes of light bloomed from its fore-mounted batteries, and a portion of the Via Rex collapsed as enormous shells smashed through the roof and blew apart a generator temple.

  Soldiers rushed to find cover as the vessel drew ever closer, its guns firing again and blowing out the walls of a dry dock. The explosion flattened a nearby shrine temple and tore the roof from an ore silo.

  Streaking torpedoes slashed overhead, trailing blue-hot contrails as they arced up towards the starship, and pounding weapon batteries unleashed streams of fire. The attacking ship shook from bow to stern as the torpedoes slammed home and exploded deep inside its belly. Spumes of brief fires and streams of glittering fuel and steel peeled away from the craft as it was hit again and again.

  Another volley of torpedoes streaked overhead amid the thundering vibrations of the basilica’s guns.

  ‘It’s finished,’ said Sabatina, with no small measure of satisfaction. ‘How could its captain think to survive such an attack run?’

  ‘He didn’t,’ said Decimus. ‘And this isn’t an attack run…’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They don’t think like us, Chaplain,’ said Decimus with a sinking feeling. ‘Life holds no meaning for them.’

  Sabatina looked up at the flaming wreckage as the guns of the basilica pummelled it to destruction with furious broadsides from its close-in guns.

  ‘Guilliman’s oath…’ hissed the Chaplain.

  Decimus opened a force-wide vox channel and shouted. ‘Everyone find cover! Now!’

  But against the might of a falling starship, his warning was too little, too late.

  Once it had been known as the Fellclaw, and had served with honour in the Imperial Navy, but its purpose had been perverted long ago, and now it was little more than a flying bomb. Its guns had blasted a trail of destruction along the Via Rex, but they were silent now, the mutated gun crews torn from their fused positions as the Indomitable’s guns ripped the vessel to pieces.

  Vast sections of the ship were blown off, but the central mass of its core remained intact, thousands of tonnes of iron falling at high speed towards the Gauntlet Bastions. The course plotted by its suicidal captain was off by a few hundred metres, but with such a weapon, accuracy was never going to be important.

  The Fellclaw ploughed into the ditch before Varro’s Gate, and the section of the wall between the two bastions was utterly obliterated by the force of the impact. A vast mushroom cloud boomed skyward as the plasma core of the vessel ruptured, and a pounding shockwave roared outwards like a blazing tsunami of searing white fire.

  Both bastions vanished in the seething flames of the explosion, collapsing and vitrifying in seconds. Stone and steel and flesh instantly vaporised in a roiling wave of superheated plasma as it boiled outwards from the crash site. Not a single soul escaped the destruction of the Gauntlet Bastions, neither hardened shelters or power armour protection against such awesome destruction.

  The wave of devastation spread outwards, obliterating the mighty footings and buttresses of the Tower of the First and cleaving a dreadful chunk from its structure. So colossal a tower could not survive such damage to its base and a series of cracks, each one wider than a highway, ripped their way up its length. Vast chunks of stonework fell to the ground and within moments of the explosion the entire height of the tower sheared downwards in a billowing storm of falling rubble and dust. The remains of the Gauntlet Bastions were flattened by the avalanche of stone, and the southern edge of the Indomitable was now little more than a massive debris field.

  Nor was the damage confined to the bastions alone. The shockwave toppled sacred buildings all along the length of the Via Rex, and the star fort shuddered from end to end as the aftershocks spread through the entirety of its structure.

  The death toll was in the thousands, and in one fell swoop, Honsou had broken open the Indomitable. Before the last shuddering vibrations of the Fellclaw’s death had ceased, the Iron Warriors poured from fortified, void-shielded bunkers and began their final advance.

  Riding in the open hatch of a Land Raider, Honsou marvelled at the destruction the crashing ship had wrought. Never one to shirk from using his assets so callously, he was amazed it had taken Notha Etassay to suggest the idea. Even Grendel had been taken aback by the blademaster’s words.

  A pall of hot ash filled the air, coating everything in a patina of white. The Land Raider tore over the shattered ground, the driver expertly weaving between twisted piles of rubble and gaping craters where entire sections of wall had been wiped out. They had fought and bled over this ground, but now it was an undulating field of broken defiance, a testament to Honsou’s ruthlessness and drive to triumph.

  Scores of armoured vehicles followed behind him, a riotous mix of Rhinos, Land Raiders, Votheer Tark’s surviving battle-engines and hundreds of looted flatbeds and half-tracks. Anything that could carry fighters deep into the star fort was pressed into service. Those without transport ran through the smoking ruins of the bastions, desperate to earn a measure of blood in this final battle.

  The Land Raider’s tracks fought for purchase on the steep slope at the top of the remains of the bastion. They bit, and the vehicle surged forward, roaring down into the heart of the main processional way. Though spared the worst of the blast, this section of the fortress looked as though a giant had taken a wrecking ball to every structure and not stopped until it would take a hundred years to repair the damage.

  Almost immediately, gunfire and heavy weapons opened up on them. Hurriedly constructed barricades and fire points had been thrown up. He shouldn’t have been surprised. The few surviving Ultramarines had reacted with customary speed and efficiency to the attack, and they were
going to have to fight their way down the length of the processional to the central basilica and its mighty gun towers. The enormous structure loomed ahead of him, solid, immense and, crucially, just within reach.

  ‘Break through,’ he shouted. ‘No mercy, no prisoners and no stopping!’

  The heavy sponson guns of the Land Raider spoke with a blazing voice, and a hastily constructed redoubt vanished in a searing sheet of fire and smoke. Streaming shots rippled from ruins either side of the building, pattering from the heavy armour of the Land Raider. Honsou slewed the heavy bolter around and racked the slide before pumping a constant stream of shells from the gun.

  Detonations tore through the ruins, the explosive shells punching through the stonework and killing the soldiers sheltering behind it. He worked his fire over the soldiers, making them dance like grotesque puppets in a hail of shells. A volley of missiles arced up from behind a barricade ahead, sweeping up into the air before slashing downwards towards the wedge of tanks.

  None came near Honsou’s Land Raider, but a trio of flatbeds exploded as the warheads punched through the engine blocks and drivers’ cabs. Others exploded amongst the troopers running alongside the armoured charge. Rattling blasts of gunfire scythed through these unprotected troops, but Honsou cared nothing for their losses; it was the armour that would win this fight.

  Lines of fire filled the air between the two forces, but the majority of it came from the Iron Warriors. The defenders had been badly shaken by the destruction of the Gauntlet Bastions and the fall of the Tower of the First. Hundreds, if not thousands, of their comrades were dead, and Honsou laughed at what notions of friendship and camaraderie led to. A warrior who cared nothing for the men he fought beside could not be undone by their deaths.

  The Land Raider roared over a makeshift barricade, crushing a handful of soldiers in uniforms of blue and gold. A surviving soldier let off a burst of las-fire, and his rounds sparked off Honsou’s shoulder guards. He sprayed the man with bolter shells and cut him in two. The defence was crumbling. Honsou’s armoured wedge simply rolling over the defenders with its sheer mass and momentum.

  One by one, the hurriedly deployed barricades were crushed, shelled by mobile artillery units or isolated and overwhelmed by the following troops. Though the discipline of these men was nigh unshakable, it was not unbreakable. As the noose of blazing tanks closed upon the defenders, they finally gave way to the inevitable.

  Scores of the ogre creatures gleefully tore mortal soldiers limb from limb as they fought to escape, dragging the bodies behind them on their chain grapples like trophies. Votheer Tark’s battle-engines revelled in the slaughter, multi-limbed stalk tanks scuttling over the ruins and cutting their way through the defenders with lashing tails or clawed pincers.

  Tark’s hybrid creation of meat and metal coughed dozens of shells at the enemy from its racks of mortars, his ruined flesh swirling in the amniotic suspension on the belly of the spider machine. Kaarja Salombar rode with her corsairs in gaudily embellished skiffs, cutting through the ranks of the defenders as they fled towards the basilica. Honsou watched as her skiff darted in and its crew slashed open blue environment suits with crackling sabres and deadly accurate pistol shots.

  The corsairs’ way of war was not his, too flamboyant by half, but he admired their malice and made a mental note to congratulate the Corsair Queen on her cruelties.

  The Land Raider crushed the bodies of fallen soldiers and Honsou worked the fire of his heavy bolter over the fleeing enemy, revelling in the visceral feel of the bucking weapon and the scale of this fight.

  When the Thrice Born was his to command, it would be but a taster of what was to come.

  SIX

  Despite the warning klaxons and alarm bells filling the command chapel of the Basilica Dominastus, Olantor felt utter calm and stillness. The scenes of carnage on the Via Rex playing out on the picter displays were plucked directly from his worst nightmares, a massacre undertaken with such zeal and glee that he found it hard to imagine.

  The Gauntlet Bastions had fallen, smashed asunder in one blow of such infamy that he could scarce recall its equal. Decimus and Sabatina were surely dead, as were the warriors of the 5th he had tasked with bolstering the defences. But for his summons to the command chapel, he would be too.

  ‘Emperor save us, they’re all dead,’ wept Pater Monna, his disaffected air quite vanished in the face of the enemy. ‘They’re going to kill us all…’

  ‘Be quiet,’ snapped Sibiya. ‘You are a servant of the Emperor. Give into despair and you are no better than a worm.’

  Pater Monna looked at her with his bulging eyes, as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Are you insane? Look what’s happening out there! Everyone’s dead, or they will be soon! And we’re next!’

  The Navigator bondsman turned angrily on Olantor. ‘I thought you were supposed to protect us? So much for the vaunted Ultramarines, eh? Fat lot of good you did us!’

  Olantor lifted Pater Monna from the deck by the front of his scarlet and gold tunic.

  ‘While an Ultramarine lives, there is hope.’

  Olantor dropped Pater Monna, who fell into a vacant seat and buried his head in his hands. He rocked back and forth. ‘The Emperor protects, the Emperor protects, the Emperor protects…’

  Olantor ignored the broken man and addressed the remainder of the command chapel.

  ‘Yes, our enemies are through the Gauntlets, but they cannot hope to take the Basilica,’ he said, his voice cutting through the babble of voices and clattering servitors. The panicked hubbub ceased at his booming voice, and all eyes turned to face the Ultramarines warrior.

  ‘The enemy have breached the outer bastions,’ continued Olantor, ‘but they will find us ready for them. The gun towers of the basilica will sweep through them like a hurricane through wheat. Our walls are high and thick, and they will not catch us the same way twice.’

  said Altarion, coming around the plotter table.

  Olantor thought of correcting the venerable brother, but no good could come of it. Altarion was lost in the memories of a long ago battle, and he would fight just as hard believing he fought the beasts of the Great Devourer as he would the forces of the Ruinous Powers.

  He saw Sibiya understood, and gave her a brief nod of thanks.

  ‘Hestian, shut this place down,’ he ordered. ‘All guns open fire on the Via Rex.’

  The Techmarine did not reply and Olantor turned to repeat his order, but his mouth dropped open in surprise and horror.

  Hestian’s head was thrown back, his mouth pulled wide in a jaw-cracking scream of agony. Blazing electrical fire burned behind his eyes and poured from his mouth with streaming emerald light. As Olantor watched, the fire erupted from every point of Hestian’s body connected to the command station, bathing the interior of the enclosure in baleful green light. Hestian howled, the sound of a soul in the vilest torment imaginable, and the fire poured from him in leaping, electrical arcs.

  Bolts of green lightning flew across the command chapel, tearing into the cogitators and logic engines of the basilica. Rippling fire spread like a gleeful virus into the heart of the machines and jade sparks frothed from output sockets. Pict screens blew out and brass dials popped and melted in an instant.

  Techs screamed as they were burned alive at their stations, too wired in and restrained to escape the flames. Servitors burned where they sat, unmoving and uncaring as the flesh peeled from their bones. Extinguisher sprays blasted into the command chapel, dousing the flames, but filling the air with choking, acrid fumes. Sparks flew in waterfalls from ruptured systems and the alarm klaxons diminished as emergency lights faded up with a dim, orange glow.

  Olantor stalked the ruined command chapel towards Hestian, the Techmarine’s body little more than a husk of blackened flesh within his scorched armour. Seared flesh still clung to his skull, and the green wychfires still bu
rned in the sockets. A burbling laugh issued from his ruined throat, and the augmitters placed around the command station hissed and spat static.

  ++This place is mine now.++ hissed a loathsome voice, mechanical and soulless.

  Olantor shot Hestian’s corpse, but the malevolent laugh continued unabated, its substance now infecting the systems of the star fort. His worst suspicions were confirmed when he heard Brother Altarion call his name from the plotter table.

  cried the Old One.

  Olantor ran to join the Dreadnought, scanning through the readouts before him and taking in the scale of the disaster with a heavy heart. Bulkheads were sealing off desperately needed reinforcements, techs and adepts were shut out of their systems, launch bays were powered down, armouries locked and internal defences taken offline. Anything that might have given them a chance to resist the invaders was now beyond their reach.

  ‘This place is lost,’ said Sibiya, reaching the same conclusion.

  said Altarion.

  Olantor looked up at Altarion’s gloriously carved sarcophagus. The solid slab of granite taken from the Castra Magna depicted the final battle that had all but taken the Old One’s life. The legends of Altarion’s last battle were legion, and if this was indeed their ending, there were no better heroes of the Chapter to fight alongside.

  ‘Aye, brother,’ he said, placing his hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘We shall raise arms together and spit in their eyes at Konor’s Gate.’

  agreed the Dreadnought, lost in the mists of time.

  Olantor turned to Interrogator Sibiya and said, ‘That last resort you showed me…’