by Nick Kyme
The Avenging Sons had breached just behind four Sentinel walkers. The rearmost turned awkwardly, its double-jointed legs buckling as it struggled over a mound of rubble. The pilot’s eyes widened with horror inside the open cockpit as Rykhel’s frag grenade landed in his lap. He reached up to slap the release buckle on his restraining belt. A moment later the grenade detonated, spraying the inside of the walker with lethal shrapnel. The pilot was shredded, his bloodied, ragged form disembowelled. Its controls destroyed, the walker swayed to the left and then nose-dived to the right, the impact buckling its chin-mounted multilaser. The three others were beginning to turn, but not quickly enough to bring their weapons to bear. Nicz had a krak grenade in his hand. He leapt forwards and slammed the magnetic explosive onto the lower joint of the closest Sentinel’s left leg before jumping back. The grenade detonated, shearing away the walker’s steel limb. The Sentinel toppled backwards and Nicz punched his gauntleted fist through its exposed underside, tearing free a handful of wires and hydraulics. Red fluid spurted from the severed lines, spraying like arterial blood from the critically wounded Sentinel.
Gessart jumped up towards the next Sentinel, his free hand grabbing hold of the edge of the cockpit. The pilot pulled out a laspistol and fired it point blank into Gessart’s chest as the captain heaved himself up, the shots flickering harmless from the solid plastron of his armour. Gessart swung his storm bolter around and fired two shots; the first round ripped apart the pilot’s chest, the second disintegrated his head in a shower of gore; blood and brain matter spattered across Gessart’s golden helm. The Sentinel jerked spasmodically as the dead man’s muscles contracted at the controls, throwing Gessart to the ground in its mechanical death throes.
The last pilot fired his multilaser, the shots falling well wide, as he tried to steer his walker to face his attackers. Lehenhart reached up and grabbed the swivelling weapon with his right hand. The creak of hydraulics competed with the whine of servos as the Sentinel’s systems battled against the artificial muscles of Lehenhart’s bionic arm and power armour. With a screech and a shower of sparks the Sentinel’s actuators lost the fight and Lehenhart ripped the multilaser from its housing. Herdain’s plasma pistol tore a glowing hole through the walker’s engine block which exploded in a ball of blue flame, sending Lehenhart and the Chaplain crunching into the rubble littering the gallery floor.
The pilot of the walker crippled by Nicz pulled himself free of the cockpit and dragged himself a few paces across the grit of the floor, his leg shattered by the same blow that had destroyed his machine. Lehenhart picked himself up and grabbed the back of the man’s flak jacket. Casually lifting the soldier into the air, the Space Marine turned to Gessart.
‘Anyone want a new pet?’ Lehenhart asked.
‘Perhaps we can interrogate him for intelligence,’ said Nicz.
Gessart glanced at the wounded man. Tears made tracks through the filth on his smoke-grimed face beneath the peak of his skewed leather helmet. The man’s distress meant nothing to the captain. He was the enemy, that was all that mattered. ‘There’s nothing he can tell us that we don’t know already,’ said the captain with a dismissive shake of the head.
Lehenhart shrugged, the actuators beneath his shoulder pads whining in protest as they tried to replicate the expressive gesture. With a swing of his arm, the Space Marine smashed the pilot against the wreckage of his walker, dashing in his skull and snapping his spine with one blow. Lehenhart let the limp corpse drop from his fingers.
Gessart checked down the gallery to see if any other rebels had been following the walkers. He could see nothing and guessed they had been waiting until the sentinels secured a forward position. Still, he could not defend the gallery and the hallway at the same time; not if the rebels made a determined push along both. He was thankful that the rebel commanders, whoever they now were after overthrowing the Imperial commander’s regime, seemed to place a tactically-limiting value on their follower’s lives. An enemy with a more detached attitude would have overrun the hall on the first attack. ‘Back to the line,’ Gessart ordered.
FOR ANOTHER SIX hours the battle for the audience hall raged. There had been little let-up in the fighting and even Gessart was beginning to feel the strain of the constant vigilance required; not just on the line here but from more than forty days of continuous war since they had arrived on Helmabad.
Smoke billowing from four wrecked tanks hung heavily in the still air, obscuring growing numbers of shadowy figures beyond. The rebels were clearly massing for another attack, as they had done three times before in the last twenty hours.
‘Ammunition check,’ said Gessart, ejecting his own empty magazine and slamming another drum into place on the side of the storm bolter.
‘Last belt, captain,’ Brother Willusch reported on the comm.
‘Seven rounds left, captain,’ warned Brother Rykhel. ‘Power pack at thirty-five per cent,’ said Brother Heynke.
As the rest gave their reports it was quickly apparent that every Space Marine was running low. Gessart looked out at the hundreds of soldiers now creeping closer and closer to their line. Some were less than fifty metres away, firing blind from their hiding places to cover the advance of their comrades. Gessart knew that they would be moving up heavier weaponry and the Space Marines would feel the full wrath of the rebels’ attack soon.
Another Leman Russ tank rumbled into view. It foolishly shouldered aside the wreckage of a transport and crawled forwards, its cannon swinging towards Gessart’s position. Obviously the men inside had not learnt from the mistakes of their fellow tank crews. The captain fearlessly stared down the bore of the gun for a moment.
‘Heynke!’ Gessart called out, but his warning was unnecessary; even as the name left his lips Heynke’s las-cannon spat out a blast of energy that slammed into the turret of the tank. The shot ignited the shells stored inside and the whole of the turret erupted into a blossom of fire and smoke, hurling a burning body out onto the blood-soaked marble.
‘Power pack at thirty per cent,’ warned Heynke. ‘No more than half a dozen shots left, brother-captain. What are your orders, captain?’
‘We are outgunned,’ said Rykhel. ‘We need to defend a more enclosed area.’
‘It is our duty to press forward and drive these scum from the palace, captain,’ snapped Herdain. ‘Remember the teachings of Guilliman!’
Las- and heavy weapons fire intensified around the knot of Space Marines as more and more rebels got into position. Las-bolts, shrapnel and splinters of rockcrete pattered from their armour. Gessart could see only two options: retreat to the next position or counterattack and drive back the soldiers with hand to hand combat. He chose the former.
‘Colonel, fall back to the access way,’ Gessart directed his order to Colonel Akhaim, the leader of the Sepulchre Guard.
The Guardsmen needed no further encouragement and were soon scrambling and scrabbling over the wreckage towards the corridor behind them. A few minutes later Gessart signalled his own squads to withdraw. The Avenging Sons pulled back from the line, facing their foes all the while. No shots were fired to cover their retreat; the Space Marines were contemptuous of the rebels’ weapons, and they needed to save every last shred of ammunition if they were to continue the war.
As they passed into the corridor the Space Marines retreated past a ring of melta-bombs secured to the walls and ceiling. When they were clear of the area Gessart sent the detonation signal. The ground underfoot shuddered as the captain watched the gateway into the audience hall disappear under tons of rockcrete and twisted steel. Now there was only one way in to and out of the central sepulchre where the Imperial commander was hidden.
‘Reminds me of Archimedon,’ said Nicz from behind the captain.
Gessart turned to look at the Space Marine, unable to see Nicz’s expression hidden inside his helmet. ‘Keep that thought to yourself,’ snarled Gessart.
THE SEPULCHRE WAS the inner reaches of the Imperial commander’s palace; a maze
of corridors and chambers dug into the heartrock that were the foundations of the citadel. Before the uprising they had been home to functionaries and courtiers, now they were a makeshift hospital, communications station and headquarters. The brick tunnels were now choked with storage crates and wounded men on bloodstained bedding. The ghostly echoes of the dying resounded along the long, low tunnels.
Having left some of his warriors to defend the last gateway to the surface, Gessart led the remnants of his company through the winding subterranean passages. He ignored the moans of the wounded and the scared chatter of the Sepulchre Guard. Here and there a radio squawked out tinny propaganda transmitted by the rebels – a crude but effective jamming of the loyalists’ communications.
Passing an archway the captain heard laughter and swearing from the chamber beyond. He stooped under the low arch into the room. Inside were a handful of Guardsmen clustered around a battered vox-caster.
‘You’ll be getting the same as your dog-faced friends,’ their sergeant was saying into the pick-up. ‘Just try to come through the east gate and the Avenging Sons will send you crying to your mothers.’
Gessart’s massive armoured boot crushed the vox-caster, which died with a piercing screech.
‘No communication with the enemy!’ bellowed the captain.
The Guardsmen cowered before Gessart’s anger as he loomed over them.
‘This endless chatter gives the enemy vital information,’ the captain told them. It was not the first time that he had been forced to explain his edict for radio silence. ‘Fools such as you tell them where we keep our supplies, where our defences are strongest, where we intend to strike. If you wish to help the rebels at least have the courage to do it with your guns.’
Suitably cowed the Guardsmen muttered their apologies, avoiding the disconcerting gaze of the captain’s blank eye lenses. ‘Hopeless,’ muttered Gessart as he turned back into the corridor.
The captain soon led the others into the central chamber; an octagonal meeting place of the main thoroughfares that radiated outwards to the far reaches of the sepulchre. Rykhel was already waiting; his helmet removed to reveal a lean face and agitated grey eyes.
‘We have less than two hundred bolter rounds left,’ the Space Marine explained with a grim expression. ‘Less than fifty heavy shells for Willusch. Power packs are still plentiful.’
‘One engagement,’ said Heynke.
‘A short one, perhaps,’ said Lehenhart, his mood unusually subdued. ‘It’ll be short for the wrong reasons.’
‘It’s only through good fire discipline we’ve made our supplies last this long,’ said Rykhel. ‘We weren’t equipped for an elongated campaign. We’re already seventy days over our predicted combat threshold.’
‘Tell me something I don’t already know,’ said Gessart. ‘Other weapons?’
Rykhel strode across the chamber and picked up one of the many Guard-issue lasguns stacked against the walls. Its barrel crumpled in the augmented grip of his hand.
‘Useless for our purposes,’ said Rykhel, tossing the remnants of the lasgun aside. ‘Simply not durable enough. We would be better using our fists.’
‘If that is what we must do, that is what we shall do,’ said Herdain. His skull helm turned slowly as the Chaplain looked at the assembled Space Marines. ‘We fight to the last breath.’
Gessart did not reply, for his own thoughts were very different. Instead he looked towards Zacherys. The Librarian had pulled off his helmet, his black hair plastered with waxy sweat across his face. He leaned against the wall, the bricks behind him cracking under the strain as if in sympathy for the laboured psyker.
‘Have you detected any sign of relief or reinforcement?’ Gessart asked. ‘Any vision or message?’
The Librarian shook his head silently.
‘Nothing at all?’ Gessart continued. ‘No warp-chatter? No ship wakes?’
‘Nothing,’ said Zacherys in a cracked whisper. ‘There is a veil upon Helmabad that I cannot pierce. I cannot see beyond the curtain of blood.’
‘Rest,’ said Gessart, crossing the chamber to lay a hand upon the Librarian’s head. ‘Regather your strength.’
Zacherys nodded and pushed himself upright.
‘I do not wish to bring woe, but this does not augur well,’ croaked the Librarian. The others watched as he straightened and walked from the vault with as much dignity as he could muster.
‘His reticence worries me,’ said Herdain once Zacherys was out of earshot.
‘I trust no one more than Zacherys,’ said Gessart. ‘He guided us here. I trust he will lead us on the right path.’
‘As he did on Archimedon?’ asked Nicz. ‘You followed his prophecy then and what did we get? A penitence patrol that has brought us to this Emperor-forsaken war.’
‘I said not to speak of that place,’ said Gessart, squaring off to Nicz. ‘Your indiscipline borders on insubordination.’
‘If I have my doubts it is not wise to keep them hidden,’ said Nicz, looking at Herdain. ‘Is it not true that the doubt that is buried festers into heresy, Brother-Chaplain?’
‘There is a time and a place for voicing concerns,’ Herdain replied evenly. ‘This is neither. Respect your superiors or there will be consequences.’
‘All I am saying is that we were never prepared for this fight,’ said Nicz. ‘You brought us here to put down a… What was it? A “small uprising”, wasn’t it? This world has been wracked in civil war for eight years. We should not have stayed.’
‘The Chapter will respond,’ said Herdain. ‘More will come, either to aid us, or to avenge us.’
‘Zacherys did not seem so certain,’ said Heynke. ‘All he talks about is the “curtain of blood” that surrounds this place. His messages have gone nowhere.’
‘Then here we will make our last stand,’ said Herdain. ‘We live for battle and we shall die for battle.’
‘We lay down our lives for victory,’ said Gessart. ‘I am not convinced there is any victory to be won here.’
GESSART WAS ALONE in one of the many chambers of the sepulchre, performing the rituals of maintenance on his storm bolter. The captain sat with his back to a crumbling vault wall, the storm bolter cradled delicately in his hands. He had removed his helm to see better and his craggy features were illuminated by the flicker of candles in small alcoves around the chamber. By the dim light he worked a cloth over the exposed innards of the weapon, inspecting each piece carefully before replacing it.
Now and then a detonation would set the whole network of corridors trembling, showering mortar dust from the walls and ceiling. The rebels’ bombardment had been continuous, trying to force a breach through the gateways since the Space Marines had withdrawn from the upper levels. Though the defences were strong, the men who defended the catacombs were weary and disillusioned. Once the gates collapsed – perhaps two days, perhaps three or four – there would be nothing left but a last stand against an unstoppable army.
‘Captain?’ said Willusch from the doorway. He had stripped his armour of backpack, helm and shoulder pads. It made Willusch look strangely thin and weak, something Gessart knew to be utterly wrong. ‘May I speak with you?’
Gessart looked up and waved in the Space Marine, placing his storm bolter to one side. Willusch did not sit.
‘I have concerns, captain,’ said Willusch.
‘Our Brother-Chaplain is always ready to listen,’ said Gessart.
‘It is with Herdain that I have an issue,’ Willusch said, his hands clasped at his waist.
‘How so?’ asked Gessart.
‘I know that you forbade us from speaking of Archimedon, but I must,’ said Willusch.
‘Say what you must, brother,’ said Gessart with a sigh.
‘Thank you, captain,’ Willusch said. He remained absolutely still as he spoke, his scarred face a picture of intense sincerity. ‘We were right to do what we did on Archimedon. It is not in the teachings of the primarch to throw our lives away in needless sacrifi
ce. We could not defend the space port any longer against the enemy. It had to be destroyed.’
‘I do not need to justify my actions,’ Gessart said angrily. ‘As I told you all at the time, thousands would die, but not in vain. If the renegades had captured the port they would have been able to wreak unknown terror and destruction.’
‘Yet the masters of the Chapter felt that you were in error,’ said Willusch. ‘They have punished us for that decision; a punishment that has led us to this place.’
‘A chance of fate, perhaps,’ said Gessart with a shake of the head. ‘There is no divine justice in our coming here, merely the happenstance of location and the vagaries of astrotelepathy.’
‘I concur, captain,’ said Willusch. ‘Yet Herdain lectured us when you departed. He told us that we were about to lay our lives upon the altar of battle for the glory of the Chapter.’
‘And perhaps we will,’ said Gessart. ‘I see no way for us to break out of our predicament. The enemy number in their billions. Billions, Willusch! In all likelihood it is well that Herdain resigns us to our doom.’
‘He not only expects it, he craves it,’ said Willusch, now growing more animated. ‘He would have us throw away our lives as a gesture of penance for Archimedon. He was not there yet he attributes us with a great shame for the judgement of the Chapter upon us… He does not seek victory, he seeks to absolve us with our deaths!’
Before Gessart replied a wailing shout echoed along the stone labyrinth; the cry of Zacherys. The captain pushed himself to his feet and strode out of the chamber, Willusch close on his heels. The pair marched quickly through the winding corridors, following the source of the shouts that continued to cry out. When they arrived at Zacherys’s quarters Gessart saw that many of his warriors were already there.
