by Gav Thorpe
The assault ramp hissed shut behind Belial as he joined his battle-brothers. Usually he would have attended to the command station behind the driver’s position. This attack would be brutally simple, and he could rely upon Chapter Master Nakir to orchestrate the larger force. He took his place amongst his Knights instead.
‘Hard fighting ahead,’ said Barzareon.
‘The best kind,’ replied Cragarion.
‘Seek and destroy,’ added Galbarad. ‘I always prefer the simple missions.’
‘As do I,’ said Belial. He activated the sensorium and his view merged with that of his companions. More than that, it felt as though his soul became one with theirs. An uncharacteristic urge caused him to share the feeling and he opened up his vox to a force-wide channel. ‘My brothers, today might see all we have fought for laid low. Our armour may be broken. Our bodies may be crushed. Our fortress-monastery, the Chapter that gives us purpose, might be destroyed. We do not confront this challenge with heavy hearts, but with gladness. There is not a Dark Angel…’ He glanced at the Consecrators. ‘There is not a son of the Lion that would not give all that he had that he might fight with us today. We are not shamed that this battle falls to us. We are privileged!’
The Land Raider rumbled into motion, plasma-powered engines pushing the armoured behemoth across the uneven ground.
‘I look at our foe and I see not the bearers of our demise. I see the manner of our glorious victory. They are cowards sheltering in the guise of Space Marines. They have given up all semblance of honour. So it is to our credit that we have been chosen by the Emperor to face them today. Trust in your brothers. Trust in the Lion. Trust in the Emperor. We shall prevail and seal our names amongst the greatest of the Chapter!’
Defiance
With the Deathwing at the forefront, the Dark Angels column leapt from the shadow of the inner gates like a mastiff from the leash. The front line of Death Guard opened fire, their bolts and blasts sheering harmlessly from the armoured hulls of the Land Raiders leading the charge. Lascannons and assault cannons spat in reply, while the turrets of Predators and Razorbacks coursed plasma and heavy bolter salvoes through the enemy squads.
The armoured column ploughed into the thick fog, lamps cutting white and yellow wounds across the enveloping darkness. The smog whirled with the passing of accelerating vehicles, leaving strangely contoured faces and grimacing mouths carved into the unnatural fume.
Taken unawares by the unexpected counter-attack, the legionaries of the Death Guard were easily swept aside by the armoured fist crashing through their midst. Power-armoured warriors were torn apart by heavy weapons fire or forced to fall back lest they be crushed beneath a score of whirring tracks.
Heedless of the scattered enemies left in their wake, Belial’s spearhead plunged on. They ran straight through the second line of advancing Death Guard, once more pouring such fire from their weapons as they could muster on the move, choosing momentum over accuracy. Return fire from bolters pattered from armoured hulls like rain. Redeemer-pattern Land Raiders left swathes of burning promethium from their flamestorm cannons, driving the Death Guard out of ruined bunkers and half-collapsed trenches. From amongst the Rhinos, Whirlwinds unleashed blankets of explosions with multiple missile launchers, blasting every scrap of cover used by the traitor legionaries.
The shock of the attack carried the Dark Angels into the first reserves of the invading forces. Coming upon armoured foes – ancient patterns of Space Marine vehicles and the half-machine abominations spawned by the warp – here the force split. Land Raiders and Predators with their anti-tank lascannons and autocannons peeled to the left and right, targeting their weapons against the self-propelled guns, slug beasts and carriers of the enemy.
Three Deathwing squads, each five warriors strong, deployed from the Land Raiders to provide close support. Heavy flamers and cyclone launchers scoured the surrounding ruins as the Terminators advanced outwards, their armour shrugging off the irregular bursts of fire from the Death Guard. The bone-white armoured figures dispersed into the miasma, their progress highlighted only by the spark of muzzle flare and the blaze of rocket trails.
From behind this storm of missiles, laser beams and rapid-firing shells, the remaining assault vehicles and transports pushed onwards, like the warhead of a missile ejected from its carrier housing, striking deep into the heart of the assaulting force.
The outer gate, or rather the smoking mass of craters and kilometres-long furrow that had been the outer gate, lay only five hundred metres ahead. There was no rearguard, just a smattering of isolated squads and the odd beast or vehicle that had been deposited by their landers or drop pods further from the attack. These sporadic encounters were easily dealt with, the hurricane bolters and assault cannons of the Lion’s Fury and the storm bolters of the Rhinos equal to the task.
At two hundred and fifty metres from the objective, Belial ordered his remaining Deathwing transports to spread out, half a kilometre between each. The two Crusaders and Redeemer slewed to a halt, turning hard until their weapons pointed back towards the enemy to form a formidable bunker line, their armour a match for almost anything the Death Guard possessed. Belial’s Knights, along with the Consecrators and two other Deathwing squads, dismounted from their vehicles, forming a line between the Land Raiders.
The transports carrying the power-armoured Dark Angels continued on towards the line of rubble and molten stone that marked the original border wall. The spaceship crash had exposed the inner guard rooms and subterranean chambers – a plethora of cover for the Devastator and Tactical squads to defend, while Assault squads found positions from which they could counter-attack against any enemy breakthrough.
There was a lull in the fighting as the Death Guard pulled back from the armoured thrust into the gut of their force. Belial waited, monitoring the sensorium feeds from the Deathwing squads stationed with the anti-tank line half a kilometre ahead of him.
‘Bite, you pox-ridden filth,’ he muttered. ‘Here we are.’
‘Pardon, Grand Master?’ asked Barzareon, standing just to Belial’s left.
‘The eastern gate is all but unguarded,’ the Grand Master explained. ‘Let us hope that the Death Guard commander, or what passes for their leader, is either stupid enough to attack the enemy that has just humiliated him, or clever enough to want to rid himself of the enemy to his rear.’
‘What if he is neither stupid nor clever, but merely competent?’ said Barzareon.
‘Then in thirty minutes we will be fighting to reclaim the Tower of Angels from him.’
This sobering thought silenced any further comment.
Initial reports were encouraging. The Death Guard did not press on towards the Tower of Angels but mustered to combat the Dark Angels force arrayed between them and their drop-ships. Evidently their officers were not wholly convinced they would take the fortress-monastery.
‘Cowards,’ said Belial. ‘They look to secure their line of retreat rather than push wholeheartedly into the fray. Their lack of dedication will be their defeat.’
‘Just as well we are not concerned about retreats, Grand Master,’ said Decimus, referencing the fact that the Death Guard were now between the Dark Angels and their fortress. He was the replacement for Deralus, who had not survived the wounds inflicted aboard Anovel’s flagship. The latest inductee to the Deathwing Knights was a fine warrior, but had a reputation for flippancy. Belial could not tell if he was joking.
‘We have a collapsing defence,’ growled the Deathwing commander. ‘The first line falls back to this position. We all fall back to the objective. There we will stand. Not a step back.’
‘Aye, Grand Master,’ his warriors replied in unison.
The mists lit up again as the intensity of fire increased over the following minutes. The Death Guard were trying to turn around the southern flank to regain the line at the curtain wall, pressing forward with thei
r Dreadnoughts and tanks. The Land Raiders and Predators were able to stem the initial thrust, but their repositioning allowed infantry squads to reclaim much of the ruins, almost encircling the Deathwing squads arrayed to protect the vehicles. Belial saw the developing situation and commanded them to reconvene with their transports pending the order to draw back.
On the other side of the battlefield, where the warriors of the other companies were stationed in the remnants of the wall, there were reports of fresh invaders arriving by a second wave of gunships. Squad portable support weapons such as Rapier laser destroyers and Tarantula gun platforms, controlled by sophisticated machine-spirits, assisted the defence, firing at anything that moved in the blasted wilderness beyond the Dark Angels cordon. The longest-ranged cannons of the Tower of Angels kept up a steady bombardment of the drop zone, but frequently had to turn their ire onto other areas to prevent the enemy breaking the curtain wall in various sectors.
Eventually the Land Raiders and Predators were on the verge of being surrounded. One of the Land Raiders had been nearly crippled by a hit on its engines. Determinatus limped back through the mists sputtering and choking, its squad of Deathwing marching alongside as escort. Two of the Predators had been abandoned, the crews taking sanctuary in the larger battle tanks.
It was time to bring the armoured column back together and Belial issued the order.
‘The enemy will come at us hard, thinking that we are on the verge of breaking,’ he warned his Terminators and the Land Raider crews. ‘We will not discourage that thinking, but allow them to come onto our guns as close as we dare. We must lure them into a full commitment, to keep their wrath focused upon us and not the Tower of Angels.’
With these words in mind, the Deathwing chanted their catechisms and triple-checked sensorium and weapons systems. Maalik approached even as the lamps of the retreating vehicles grew brighter in the unnatural fog.
‘Grand Master, I think these accursed mists afflict our foes as much as us,’ said the seneschal. ‘With your permission I will lead my warriors a little further out, to ensure the anti-armour task force is herded directly into your sights. The enemy will be taken aback that we are so close.’
‘Two hundred metres, no more,’ Belial said, seeing the sense in Maalik’s plan. ‘You have the rally point fixed, I leave it up to you when you choose to fall back.’
‘Gratitude, Grand Master.’ Maalik raised his beautiful sword in salute and then led his warriors into the swirling green fog.
The throb of engines and glare of yellow lanterns heralded the arrival of the Dark Angels vehicles. The tanks rumbled out of the gloom, each showing grievous battle scars but still mobile. Cracked ceramite plates hung from the side of the Predator called Iron Lion, while the track links of the Land Raider Bringer of Honour were almost flying loose from a shattered track housing.
The bark of the Consecrators’ storm bolters and the flare of their heavy flamer betrayed the presence of the pursuing enemy just two hundred metres behind the retreating tanks. Perhaps the Death Guard had hoped that the vehicles would bar the Dark Angels fire. As it was, they pushed on past the Terminators, the crack of bolters and glow of plasma guns sweeping to the left and right of Belial’s position.
The line reinforced by the newly arrived vehicles and Terminators, the Dark Angels met the coming attack head-on. Belial fired his storm bolter over and over, picking out armoured warriors approaching through the mist. His bursts of fire bounced harmlessly from the power armour of the enemy for the most part, but such was the concentration of firepower from the assembled Deathwing that even ancient war-plate occasionally succumbed. Meanwhile the heavy weapons of the vehicles and the assault cannons and cyclone launchers of the Terminators kept all but the heaviest enemy tanks at bay.
A few minutes passed, the exchange of fire escalating as the Death Guard manoeuvred for an angle to attack the Dark Angels line while the sons of the Lion poured out whatever firepower they could muster. Maalik emerged from the gloom, broadcasting his approach over the vox-link lest they be mistaken for enemies. All five of the Consecrators were still standing, but their once brightly enamelled armour showed dozens of cracks and chips, revealing the plain grey ceramite beneath.
The Death Guard appeared to be pushing to the left and right, trying to get around the Dark Angels rather than going through them. It was possible that they were trying to link up with fresh forces being landed every few minutes. For some time, Belial resisted the feeling that he needed to redeploy his forces from the centre, but as time wore on and casualties grew, he was forced into a decision and despatched the two Deathwing squads to reinforce the eastern and western approaches, leaving his Knights, the Consecrators and the Lion’s Fury defending the centre.
The alteration seemed to work, as the encroachments to the east and west stalled, baulked by the armour and weapons of the Terminators. Though the sensorium was limited in range, Belial followed the vox-traffic, creating a mental picture of the unfolding engagement. The cut and parry and counter-thrust between the plague-ridden warriors of the Death Guard and his Terminators appeared to be swinging in favour of the Dark Angels.
It was then that he was alerted to a sensor reading coming from Cragarion, who was positioned twenty metres ahead and to the right, and a moment later another from Zandorael on the similar watch position to the left.
Something was approaching through the fog.
Lamps lit up the miasma. Three towering Dreadnoughts whose hulls and limbs were decked in rusted chains, armed with scything flails and crushing morningstars. Their heavy bolters and autocannons had remained silent. Largely ineffective against the Deathwing, they would have betrayed the presence of the attack for no gain.
Silhouetted by the lamps of the war engines were several dozen Plague Marines, who had managed to close within fifty metres, shrouded by the cursed mist.
‘Form shieldwall!’ Belial bellowed, but his Knights had predicted his command and were already moving. ‘Maalik, behind us!’
As the first rattle of bolts on Tactical Dreadnought armour engulfed the Terminators, they closed together, forming up to the left and right of their Grand Master. The assault cannons of the Lion’s Fury roared into life, spitting fire and shells into the gloom. The Death Guard split, parting before the wrath of the Crusader as flesh before a keen blade. The gunner redirected the hail of shells to the Dreadnoughts, but the war engines marched on relentlessly, their heavy weapons opening fire on the converging Terminators.
Belial held firm, trusting to the artifice of the Techmarines to protect him against the surge of projectiles slamming into his war-plate. Ceramite splintered and paint flaked, but the bonded layer of plasteel and adamantium beneath held firm. Barzareon lifted his shield, covering the right side of Belial. Zandorael did the same to the left and the intermittent crack of detonating rounds turned into the hiss of their power shields intercepting the incoming bolts.
One of the Plague Marines stole forwards, a meltagun in his hands. Belial barked a warning to the crew of the Lion’s Fury but it came too late. The housing of the twin assault cannons mounted in the upper hull disappeared in an explosive vaporisation of agitated particles, a cloud of expanding gas mushrooming into the air.
The fire from the power-armoured legionaries returned, slamming into the crackling shields of the Terminators in waves, sounding like rain thrown by flurries of wind against a window. Through this steady beat came frequent deeper detonations of the heavy bolters and the boom of autocannon shells.
The Lion’s Fury pushed forward, activating its frag assault launchers. Explosive charges mounted on the fronts of the track arrays hurled shrapnel a hundred metres, the jagged shards cutting erratic gashes through the thick fog. The blast wave hurled back the closest Plague Marines, studding their armour with splinters of metal. Others were knocked to their knees while shrapnel broke weapons and slashed armour seals.
The hurricane s
ystem opened fire. Twelve interlinked bolters lit the mist with muzzle flare, the hail of bolts hitting two Death Guard standing directly in the line of fire. The armour was smashed from them piece by piece as the torrent continued, the sheer weight of rounds overcoming millennia-old battleplate. Corrupted flesh was torn apart, blood and pus spraying into the air as the mortally wounded Plague Marines staggered back from the onslaught.
And still the Dreadnoughts loomed from the fog, twice as tall as the Terminators, flickers of devastating energy lighting their rust-encrusted bodies, making them seem even larger.
‘No retreat!’ Belial bellowed.
Sins Of The Past
Azrael waited in the hall of Tuchulcha, not looking at the ragged servitor that stood slumped just a few paces away. He wanted to pace but refused to show agitation in front of the warp-construct. For the same reason, he had a micro-bead in his ear relaying the ongoing strategic situation from the control tower of the Rock. Nakir was wielding two and a half Chapters of Space Marines with aplomb. The initial landings had been contained and the enemy cruisers driven off, although the fight for the Rock continued.
The Chaos doom-star was holding position out of range, perhaps awaiting the arrival of the Terminus Est, which had broken through the joint fleet of the Dark Angels and Knights of the Crimson Order.
These facts occupied his thoughts, ensuring that there was nothing Tuchulcha could pluck from his mind concerning deeper misgivings about the whole battle. If Azrael concentrated on purely military matters, the more spiritual ones could remain hidden.
It was almost with relief that he heard footsteps echoing along the corridor and turned to see Ezekiel escorting Cypher to the chamber. The arrival of the Chief Librarian brought a welcome break to the effort of shielding his mind against any probing tendrils of Tuchulcha’s power.
