Grulgor couldn’t resist the opportunity to twist the knife. ‘I’ll bring a little glory back for you, Terran.’
Garro’s ire rose in a hot surge, but Typhon’s gruff voice snapped out again before he could speak.
‘No, Captain Grulgor, you will not. It is my decision that you will also remain with the orbital flotilla during the Isstvan III operation.’
The commander’s arrogant bluster died in his throat. ‘What? Why, lord? Garro, he is injured, but I am at battle-ready strength and—’
Typhon spoke over him. ‘I called you here to give you this order personally, before I departed to board the Terminus Est. I was going to send a runner to Captain Garro with his orders, but as he has presented himself here before me, I see no reason why I shouldn’t inform both of you together.’
The first captain stepped around the chart table towards them and took on a formal, commanding tone. ‘Based on the battle plans of his excellence the Warmaster Horus and our liege the Death Lord Mortarion, it has been determined that you will both be assigned to duty stations with your command squads aboard an Imperial warship. This will be a supervisory posting. The rest of your great companies will remain in reserve. During the assault on Isstvan III and the Choral City, you will provide standby tactical support for the drop-pod deployment operation, and remain on alert to perform rapid-reaction interdict duties.’
A servitor approached Garro and handed him a data-slate containing the details of the official battle edict.
‘Interdiction against what?’ demanded Grulgor. ‘Praal’s army has nothing that flies, we destroyed it all!’
‘Which of us will have operational command?’ asked Garro in a low, resigned voice, paging through the content of the slate.
‘That responsibility will be shared jointly.’ Typhon replied.
On some level, Garro felt defeated and empty, but at least he could draw small consolation from the fact that he would not have to face Grulgor lording his superiority over the men of his command squad. In an instant, the burning discontentment that had flooded through him cooled and faded. Garro’s old, usual manner of dogged endurance came easily back to the fore. If Mortarion said it was to be so, then in all truth what right did he have to say otherwise? He hid a sigh. ‘Thank you, first captain, for illuminating me. At your discretion, I wish to assemble my men and brief them on this new task.’
Typhon nodded. ‘You are dismissed, Captain Garro.’
Nathaniel Garro turned and walked away, the clicking of the steel foot a ticking metronome for his discontent.
GRULGOR MADE TO leave as well, but Typhon shook his head. ‘Ignatius, a moment.’ When Garro had left the chamber, he stepped closer to the commander. ‘I know you feel that I have slighted you, brother, but believe me, the reverse is so.’
‘Indeed?’ Grulgor was unconvinced. ‘The key battle of this campaign and you tell me I must watch it from orbit, corralled in a tin can with a gang of swabs, and Garro playing the wounded martyr? Please, my esteemed first captain, tell me how this thing does me such great honour!’
Typhon ignored the sarcasm. ‘I spoke to you before of our master’s desire to bring Garro to the Warmaster’s banner over Terra’s, but we both know that Garro will not change. He’s too much the Emperor’s dutiful warrior.’
Grulgor’s brow furrowed. ‘Isstvan III… Could this be the turning point?’ Typhon said nothing, watching him. ‘Perhaps…’ He nodded slowly, forming his thoughts. ‘I think I see an intention emerging: the unusual pattern of mission assignments to specific units from the Legions, instead of complete companies. One could imagine that the Lord Horus seeks to isolate the elements that do not share his convictions.’
Typhon nodded. ‘When the turning point, as you call it, arrives there are certain duties Horus would have you perform.’ His voice dropped. ‘Despite Mortarion’s munificence and lenience towards him, I know Garro will attempt to betray our liege lord and the Warmaster.’
Grulgor nodded in return, for the first time exactly aware of his position in the scheme of things. ‘I will not allow that to transpire.’
GARRO STOOD IN the centre of the armoury chamber and repeated Typhon’s words. He forced away the chill impression of storm clouds and building threat, the sense of vast and silent machinations thundering unseen above him. Garro put these things aside and spoke to his men as their brother and commander, preparing them for the battle to come. There were grumblings of dissension, but Hakur stamped on them immediately, and in good order the assembled squads of Astartes began their arming procedures prior to embarkation to their new posting.
‘This ship, sir,’ said Sendek, ‘the vessel where we’re to be sent. Do you know anything of it?’
‘A frigate,’ replied Garro. ‘It’s called the Eisenstein.’
SEVEN
Hard Landing
Life-Eater
Decision
IT WAS THE honour of the Death Guard that they be the first Astartes to set foot on the surface of Isstvan III, in the mission to restore the world to compliance. Ullis Temeter’s heart swelled with martial pride to know that he and the men of his company would form the very point of the spear tip. The captain’s drop-pod hammered into the compacted mudflats adjoining the Choral City’s trench lines with a solid thunder of torn earth. The concussion of the landing echoed over and over as hundreds more pods rained from the sky in burning red-orange streaks, half-burying themselves in the dirt.
The invasion force numbered in the thousands, with warriors of every rank and stripe coming in hard, cold fury to the surface. In the minds of each Astartes there was anger and censure for the rebels, and the Death Guard were but a part of the multiple brigades of warriors and war machines turned to that purpose.
The flanks of Temeter’s pod flew open, propelled by explosive bolts, and he took his first breath of Isstvanian air to call out to his men.
‘For Terra and Mortarion!’ The captain led his command squad out of the shallow crater their landing had created and opened fire, laying down a chattering fan of tracer against a group of turncoat soldiers who had ventured close to observe.
Vardus Praal had prepared his defences well, gutting the forest that had previously stood in this place and making the flat landscape into a sparse killing ground of trenches, tunnels and low bunkers. Beyond it, a few kilometres distant, were the outskirts of the Choral City itself. The cool blue-white sunlight of the day made it glitter and shine. Temeter saw more streaks of fire descending on the city proper, towards the striking shapes of the Precentor’s palace and the Sirenhold: the drop-pod assault elements of the World Eaters, Emperor’s Children and the Sons of Horus.
He smiled. The Death Guard would meet them soon enough, but first he had a punishment to mete out. The traitor Praal’s men had fashioned these earthworks in defiance of the Emperor’s call to obedience, and it was Captain Temeter’s duty to show them the error of their ways. It would have been a simple matter for the Astartes invasion force to bypass the trench lines and land behind them, but to do that would have sent the wrong message. It would have implied that the fortifications were somehow a challenge to Imperial might, when clearly they were nothing more than a minor impediment. So, Temeter and the Death Guard would walk into the fire corridors of the Isstvanian lines. They would rend and destroy them, and march on to the Choral City to show these deluded fools the math. Nothing could stand in the way of the Emperor’s will.
The Astartes moved across the dull mud in a thick line of marble-grey and green armour, a heavy wave of ceramite and flexsteel fording snarls of razor wire and barriers made of rough-cut tree trunks. They strode through kill points and shrugged off hails of stubber bullets. Some of Temeter’s troops paused here and there as they found concealed pop-up hatches and closed them permanently with melta bombs.
The captain glanced back and saw the venerable dreadnought Huron-Fal moving to his right flank, the spread clawed feet of the hulking warrior churning up the mud. Sprays of fire from the twin-moun
ted cannons on Huron’s right arm lanced out and blew huge divots of clotted earth from the enemy lines, sending traitor soldiers scattering.
The defenders of the Choral City wore drab fatigues that matched the colour of the dull mud, but such pitiful attempts at camouflage were rendered useless by the image intensification lenses and infra-red prey sight functions of an Astartes helm. He gave the command in battle-sign for the line to split into skirmish parties and watched as the warriors broke into packs.
Temeter knew most of the men in this detachment by name or reputation, although there were some Death Guard here today that he had never fought with. The Warmaster’s deployment plan for the assault, while sound, was not one that Temeter himself would have constructed. Rather than follow the traditional lines of unit by company division, Horus had combed the Legions for individual squad-level elements and assembled a force that drew men from dozens of different companies.
It was the captain’s understanding that this had happened not only with the Death Guard, but also in the World Eaters, the Emperor’s Children and Horus’s own Legion. He had to admit, the strategic thinking behind such a selective deployment was beyond him, but if the Warmaster had ordered it to be so, then he had no doubt there was a reason for it; privately, the captain of the Fourth was pleased to have a battlefield to himself for a change, able to fight without taking a back seat to Grulgor’s grandstanding or Typhon’s brutal tactics.
The foe was regrouping, recovering from the shock of the initial landing to the point where their fire was no longer random. Over the flat blares of ballistic shot, Temeter’s keen hearing captured scratchy, atonal sounds that sounded like singing. He had read the after-action chronicles from Isstvan Extremis and knew of these so-called ‘Warsingers’ and their strange choral witchery. It seems that here on the third planet, the arcane power of their peculiar music also held sway. Temeter raised his combi-bolter and began a symphony of his own.
THE EISENSTEIN WAS an unremarkable vessel, an older pattern of ship in the frigate tonnage grade, just over two kilometres in length from bow to stern. It bore some resemblance to the newer Sword-class craft, but only inasmuch as most Imperial ships shared a similar design philosophy. Almost every line vessel in service to the Lord of Terra was constructed of congruent elements: the dagger prow, the massive block of sub-light and warp drives, and forged between them amidships of crenellations and complex sheaves of steel.
‘It doesn’t look like much,’ Voyen remarked quietly, peering through the Stormbird’s viewport as they crossed from the Endurance. He was still wary around Garro and it showed in his voice.
‘It’s just a ship,’ replied the battle-captain. ‘There or elsewhere, we do our duty no differently.’
In the frigate’s landing bay, which seemed cramped and narrow in comparison to the Endurance, the ship’s master was waiting to greet the Death Guard with a formal bridge party.
‘Baryk Carya,’ he said, with a clipped accent and a brisk salute. ‘Commander Grulgor, Battle-Captain Garro. As the primarch has ordered, this ship is yours until death or new duty.’
Carya was thickset and tawny, with a matting of stubbly grey hair around his head and chin. Garro noticed the shine of a carbon-plated augmetic at his cheek and saw the stud-plug cords dangling in a queue from the back of his skull. He was terse in manner, but just on the right side of obedient.
As ship’s master, Carya would be de facto captain when a ranking Astartes was not on board, and he didn’t doubt the man had some resentment about stepping out of that role for this assignment. The shipmaster glanced at the lean, thin-faced woman at his side. Garro recognised the status pins on her epaulets as those of executive rank. ‘My deck officer, Racel Vought.’ She bowed and made the sign of the aquila.
Grulgor took this opportunity to sniff in slight disdain. ‘You may carry on, shipmaster. When Captain Garro or I require you attention, you will be made aware of it.’
Carya and Vought saluted and left. Garro watched them go, aware that Grulgor was already attempting to place himself in a position of superiority less than a minute after they had stepped on to Eisenstein’s decks.
He looked back towards the aura-field holding out the vacuum of space as the last of the Stormbirds drifted into the landing bay on darts of blue thrust, angling to land next to the transports assigned to the elements from the Second and Seventh Companies. A momentary crease of uncertainty crossed Garro’s face. He counted the Stormbirds. Surely the new arrival was one too many for their needs? It wasn’t as if the entirety of their commands had come with the two unit leaders.
The ship settled and folded its raptor wings to its fuselage. The captain watched it from the corner of his eye, waiting for the embarkation hatch to drop open to release more of Grulgor’s men, but it remained static. There were no passengers aboard, then? Perhaps the ship only carried inanimate cargo.
Grulgor crossed his line of sight and showed Garro a thin, humourless smile. ‘I intend to make an inspection of this vessel to ensure it is fully prepared for the battle.’
‘Very well.’
The commander signalled to a handful of his men and strode away without looking back. Garro sighed and turned to Kaleb, where the housecarl stood, bowed. ‘Supervise the Eisenstein’s servitors to unload our wargear and equipment.’ He paused. ‘And report to me any information about the payload from that last Stormbird.’
‘Aye, lord. I’ll have the crew install the gear on the frigate’s arming racks.’
Garro looked at Sergeant Hakur. ‘Andus, take the men and find us a good billet before Grulgor’s men take the choice spaces.’ Off the veteran’s salute, the battle-captain turned to his command squad. ‘I’m going to the bridge. Decius, Sendek, you’ll join me.’
Voyen gave him a look. ‘While Grulgor stalks the lower decks? Forgive me, lord, but I find something about his manner unsettling.’
‘Who doesn’t?’ offered Sendek.
‘He’s your superior, Apothecary,’ Garro said, more bluntly than he had intended. ‘He has the authority to do as he wishes, within reason.’ Nathaniel waved Voyen away. ‘Go with Hakur. I’m in no mood for idle speculation at this moment.’
With his warriors following him, Garro walked to the elevator platform that would take them up to the frigate’s central tiers. He kept his face neutral, but Voyen had struck a sore point. It would be divisive and unseemly for the battle-captain to have spoken openly in front of line Astartes, but the truth was Garro too suspected an ulterior motive on Grulgor’s part.
Have we come to this? His thoughts echoed in his mind. When men of the same Legion cannot look upon one another without a bloom of distrust? There is rivalry between warriors and then there is enmity… And this… What am I sensing?
‘CAPTAIN!’ TEMETER LOOKED up into the face of one of his junior officers. ‘Sir, our approach on the northern flank is being forced into a bottleneck. The defenders have a twinned quad-barrel cannon sweeping the area. It is emplaced in a ferrocrete bunker. Shall I give the command to go around?’
Temeter snorted. ‘We are Death Guard, lad. When we encounter a boulder in our path, we do not slink and flow around it like water. We strike and shatter it!’ He rose and beckoned his command squad with him. ‘Show me this impediment.’
They moved low over undulating ground, leaping over shallow trench works clogged with Isstvanian dead and shell casings. The crack and screech of shots whizzed around them, and still Temeter heard the doleful droning dirges of the enemy. Crossing a shallow incline, the captain deliberately stepped out of line and stomped on a fallen speaker horn where it had fallen from a support pole. The device sparked and fell silent.
‘There, lord,’ said the officer.
It was a flat hexagon set deep in the grey mud, the clean shade of ferrocrete not more than a few years old. Pits were being dug in the facia of it from bolt rounds as Death Guard sharpshooters sniped from cover. As the young Astartes had said, the wicked barrels of the quad-guns were spitting an endles
s stream of tracer out over the approaches. A handful of broken bodies in the killing zone showed where battle-brothers had advanced and died in the attempt. Temeter frowned. ‘Shot and shell won’t do the deed. Bring up the men with flamers and plasma weapons.’
The order was relayed and a troop of Death Guard carrying inferno guns came forward. Temeter tossed his combi-bolter to the young officer and beckoned another man closer. ‘Your torch, give it to me.’ The captain took the warrior’s flamer and shook it, hearing the satisfying slosh of a near-full tank of liquid promethium. ‘Bolters, draw their attention. Flamers, give them the heat.’
The Astartes opened fire and as Temeter expected, the heavy quad-guns inched around to track on them. His men understood the plan without the need for him to lay it out in detail. The moment the quads were depressed, the Death Guard with flamer and plasma weapons crested their cover and sent jets of superheated gas and burning fluid washing over the sides of the bunker and into the interior. The defenders couldn’t range the guns back fast enough, and within moments, Temeter had led his men to the very wall of the low blockhouse. For good measure he had a sergeant toss a fist of krak grenades through the aiming slot and then projected himself up and over the bunker roof.
Temeter ran and dropped down into the S-shaped entry tunnel, smashing a hooded trooper into the ferrocrete with an ugly crack of bone. He heard the confusion inside the dugout and waded into it. Within, black smoke and licks of guttering fire clung to the walls and the heat radiating from the thrumming quad-guns was thick. The captain triggered the borrowed flamer and hosed it across the space before him, a hissing red whip of flame carving through the air at chest height. Men became torches and boxes of unspent ammunition in compartments below cooked off in blaring detonations. One of the Isstvanian soldiers ran at him, shrieking and aflame, and pulled Temeter into an embrace. The captain let the flamer drop from his grip and ripped the man in two, tearing him apart. He beat out the flames and grimaced as the rest of his troop waded in and finished the task.
The Flight of the Eisenstein Page 13
