Vulkan Lord of Drakes Read online

  Ram ships appeared to port and starboard. Even if they didn’t crack the Termite’s hull, their impact would be enough to knock it from its course. T’kell blasted the engines, forcing the last bit of speed he could from the Spear of Fire, racing the ram ships to the surface. The shattered remains of the Klostzatz loomed closer, still captures cascading across the pict screen with the speed of a bolter firing at full burst. The sight of the wreckage grieved Vulkan. He saluted the courage of the crew who had fought to the last extremity, but he felt their loss too. He believed that he and the sons of Nocturne had arrived in time to save the Terran XVIII. Even so, his thoughts were now for all those who had died in the battle for the Taras Division. For them, the fleet from Nocturne had come far too late.

  The ram ships angled in, their courses beyond reckless.

  ‘Those vessels have doomed themselves,’ T’kell said, appalled. He had seen every manner of sadistic ferocity in the battles to free Nocturne from the Dusk Wraiths, but this was his first encounter with the relentless, mindless savagery of the orks. ‘Do they think so little of their own lives?’

  ‘They do not think in those terms,’ said Vulkan. ‘It has not occurred to them that they will die. Their only goal is our destruction. This is what makes them so dangerous. This is why they must be exterminated.’

  As he spoke, Vulkan’s eyes flicked from screen to screen, estimating speed and trajectories. The race was too close to call.

  The ruins of the Klostzatz became a skeleton. The remains of the great hull reached up from the surface of the attack moon, jagged, gnarled, clutching, stabbing. The Termite descended into the abstraction of metal kilometres high. The ram ships came after it, and the fire from the other ork ships converged into a blistering attack. The barrage took out one of the pursuing vessels. Its engines exploded and it spun, a battering ram hundreds of metres long, careening in a death spiral, colliding with the sky-reaching shards of the Klostzatz.

  Now pict screens on all sides of the pilot’s compartment showed nothing but the wreckage of the great ship. The Termite descended through the cold remains of an immense pyre. Vulkan saw nothing that resembled a ship any longer. There was only a torn vastness, a twisted metal cry of pride and despair.

  The second ram ship hammered its way through the ruined plate. The impact did not stop the ship, but did slow it. The Termite gained a few more seconds in the race. The drill head accelerated to full speed, the hull trembling and whining with its energy.

  ‘We stab at thee,’ Vulkan growled at the ork planetoid.

  Then came the impact of a sword striking home. The Termite roared as its spinning head ground through the crust of the base.

  Behind it came another roar, the apocalyptic thunder of the ram ship hitting with the force of a meteor.

  Five

  two descents / the sign of fate / seized

  Struggle is eternal. We are forever subject to the tempering of the forge. It shapes us until our nature and our purpose align.

  – Vulkan, Considerations of Purpose

  Numeon made his way across the roofs of the modules that made up the fortress.

  The roofs were a cramped series of gun platforms with a landing platform at the centre for the gunships. There was barely room to accommodate the firepower and the recoil of the big cannons. This was intentional. The modular units of the stronghold were designed to be impregnable. They were components that would only appear in the midst of warzones. They would become fortresses whose very existence meant they were under siege. There was no time, in the fury of battle, to make the walls indestructible, so the bases were made to be unapproachable.

  Artellus Numeon moved across the roofs to the southern rampart. On either side of him, Earthshaker cannons pounded away at the greenskins. There were four of the huge guns on this wall. Their fire was staggered so there was never a pause in the shelling, just a steady boom, boom, boom, boom of monstrous loads of high explosive. They churned the cooling lava of the plain, hurling rock and bodies high into the air, creating a barrier of fire and dust between the enemy and the fortress. Behind Numeon, raised lascannon turrets swept back and forth, stitching the terrain with searing heat. In between the cannons, legionaries manned heavy bolter positions. And then there was the solid line of warriors. Even with their numbers so reduced, they could put up an unbroken defence along the limited space of the walls.

  Almost all firepower was aimed at the south. The orks could not approach upslope from the north. A few guns concentrating on the east and west sides were enough to hold the orks back there. The near continuous flow of lava in those directions acted as moat and crematory against the enemy, but the bridges of cooling rock were enough to allow the troops and armour to make their way from the Cauldron down the slopes to strike the enemy’s flank.

  The attacks killed the orks in their thousands. The earlier lava flood had reduced the army on the plains by more than half. But it was still huge, and the tide pushed forwards. The brutes climbed over the bodies of their dead, unwavering in their savage need to clash with the legionaries.

  Numeon looked down the side of the wall. Here, as on the other ramparts, he saw the damage inflicted by the eruptions. The adamantine and ferrocrete walls were scorched. Their foundations were crumpled. They seemed to have been gnawed by a monstrous scavenger. He glanced back at the peak of the volcano and the ash clouds billowing from the crater. Every so often, another flow of molten rock streamed down the slope. So far, there had not been a third major eruption, and the lava ran mainly over earlier, cooled rock. The ongoing damage to the Cauldron was, for the moment, limited. The upheavals had ruined enough of the landing platforms that the surviving Thunderhawks and Stormbirds could only land one at a time to refuel. As a result, the aerial attacks on the orks were perpetual. But the stores of fuel and ammunition were not infinite. From every angle that Numeon considered the battle, he saw the end rushing near.

  Orasus nodded in greeting to Numeon. He did not pause in his bolter fire. ‘Where do we stand, first captain?’ he asked.

  ‘Against the mountain?’ said Numeon. ‘That depends on its caprices. If it chooses, it can sweep us away.’

  ‘It is an impatient mountain,’ Orasus said. ‘I do not think it will wait much longer.’

  ‘Let us will it to patience. The reinforcements are coming.’

  ‘Do they plan to be here within hours?’

  ‘We know the answer to that question, at least,’ Numeon said. ‘They cannot be. The true question is whether we can last until they do arrive.’ He added his own bolter to the barrage. Orks fell every time he pulled the trigger. It was like firing into the sea. The waves kept coming. The orks moved inexorably up the volcanic cone. ‘We need more time,’ he muttered.

  ‘It’s a shame we can’t survive another eruption,’ said Orasus. ‘They tend to keep the greenskins at bay for a while.’

  Numeon frowned. He looked down the mountain slope, at the fissures and gorges, at the patterns of lava. He noted the jets of steam from the smaller vents in the lower reaches. The deck under his feet shook from the cannon fire, but continuous microquakes also made it heave up and down. ‘I wonder,’ he said. ‘Maybe this volcano can still be our ally.’ He voxed Xerexenia. ‘Are the sensors reading the mountain still intact?’

  ‘Some of them are. An unsatisfactory number,’ she replied.

  ‘Can you get a reading of weak points or spikes of pressure on the south face, directly below the Cauldron?’

  ‘There are many, of varying degrees. What do you seek, first captain?’

  ‘Are there any points where we might use seismic charges to unleash a lava flow between ourselves and the orks?’

  Xerexenia chattered in binaric. Then she said, ‘There is a point at which that may be possible. Its position is approximately two-thirds of the distance between our location and the enemy’s front line. There is a crevasse leading towards a magma c
hamber. It may be possible to open the chamber.’

  ‘Show me where it is,’ Numeon said.

  ‘I have no data to suggest the consequences of this action,’ said Xerexenia. ‘Extrication from the crevasse, in the event of an eruption, may not be possible.’

  ‘I would expect nothing else,’ said Numeon.

  A few seconds later, he received the data stream from the tech-priest. An overlay on his retinal lenses appeared, showing him the position of the crevasse. From this distance, it was merely one dark patch among others in a storm of grey and fire. ‘Gunnery control,’ he voxed, ‘I’m sending you new coordinates. Is the target a viable one for the Earthshakers? I want to crack that crevasse open.’

  After a moment, Sergeant Tusculan, commanding the downslope artillery, said, ‘The angle is wrong, first captain. We can damage the surface, but our shells will come in almost parallel to the slope.’

  Orasus paused long enough to reload his bolter. His helmet turned Numeon’s way. ‘You are planning something, first captain,’ he said.

  ‘I am,’ said Numeon. He had hoped artillery fire could have at least partly opened the way to their goal, but it was not to be. He found himself starting to smile. Of course the cannons could not help. That would have been too easy. That would have been contrary to the fate and the character of his Legion. The more he thought about the lethal impossibility of what he was about to attempt, the wider his grin became.

  Below, the orks were now only a few hundred metres from the target. Their advance was slow but inexorable. The tide was rising.

  Numeon voxed Manius Silva, who was leading the assault on the eastern flank. The flares of shell blasts were brighter and closer in that direction than they were to the west. ‘Is there any way you can cut across the enemy south of the gates?’ he asked.

  ‘Given time, perhaps,’ said Silva. ‘We are making some progress against them, but it is slow, and there are more of the greenskins closing in from the south. This is a holding action, brother.’

  ‘I know it. I am going to try to gain us more time. If contact with me is lost, you have command, Manius.’

  ‘It is not like you to be foolhardy, Artellus.’

  ‘It is not like me to wait behind the lines for the inevitable, either.’

  And the orks were coming. They would take the walls of the Cauldron, and the time Vaughn’s strategy had bought for the Legion was disappearing. It was time to attempt something just as drastic. ‘What I have in mind, I will not have anyone risk in my stead,’ he told Manius. Not, he thought, with the end so near at hand.

  ‘I understand,’ said Manius, and it was clear that he did.

  Numeon turned to the legionaries who lined the wall beside him. Next to Orasus were three others who had all served, at one time or another, in squads commanded by Numeon before his elevation to first captain. That they were present now seemed fitting. He was tempted to credit a fate in which he did not believe. ‘We have little time,’ Numeon declared. ‘Orasus, Blasius, Saluran and Caelius,’ he said, ‘you are my squad.’ The casualties had been so high, there were no squads that had been left intact. Every formation was a new one.

  ‘Yes, first captain,’ said Orasus. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Downslope,’ Numeon said.

  Orasus gave a short bark of grim laughter. ‘Into the fire.’

  ‘That is truer than you know.’

  Numeon voxed his orders to the Cauldron’s arsenal as he and his squad descended from the roof. Wearied human serfs met them with seismic charges at the main entrance. As exhausted as the Legiones Astartes were, the mortals were at the very end of their endurance. It was, Numeon thought, a testament to their loyalty that they were still able to function at all. Their faces were grey, their cheeks hollow, their eyes burned-out coals. They looked too exhausted to die.

  Numeon watched the squad make final preparations. They were all tactical legionaries. Orasus was the eldest of the four, cut from the same rough material as Numeon. Saluran was phlegmatic, the scars he had earned fighting at Numeon’s side a map of ­honour on his face. Caelius was an observer of the bleak humour of war, while Blasius was taciturn but relentless. They had all fought together before. In the eyes of every one of them, Numeon saw the knowledge that this time could well be their last. But they had picked up on his eagerness, and shared it.

  ‘Maintain constant fire on the target until our arrival,’ Numeon voxed Tusculan. ‘Then fire downslope from there. Keep the orks away from the crevasse as long as you can.’

  ‘So ordered, first captain.’ Tusculan sounded as eager as Numeon’s squad. They all saw the madness in what they were doing. They also saw that there was no choice, and they were grateful for it.

  If this became the final action of the XVIII Legion, it would be a fitting one.

  The squad charged out of the Cauldron. The blocky fortress briefly sheltered them from the wind and the ash. They descended further, and the winds tried to yank them off the mountain face. Ash ticked like skeletal fingers against their armour.

  They moved down towards the tumult of cannon fire. The ground heaved so violently from the shells of the ­Earthshakers, it seemed the squad’s mission should be unnecessary. It was impossible that the mountain could survive such a pounding. Its entire base should split open, the cone collapsing into the flood of glowing rock.

  Numeon set a fast pace, leaping and sliding down the steep slope. For all the fury of the artillery barrage, the orks were still making headway. Tusculan was keeping them away from the target, but they were beginning to encroach on either side. Wherever there was the slightest decrease in shelling, the orks surged forwards.

  ‘Did the tech-priest say how many charges we would need?’ Blasius asked.

  ‘No,’ said Numeon, ‘and she is more displeased than I am. For her, the most grievous casualty of war is precision.’

  Down. Faster yet. Five legionaries hurtling towards a vortex of destruction, and Numeon’s grin was back. There was laughter on the vox from one of the others, and he knew they were sharing in his barbed pleasure.

  ‘This is no retreat, brothers,’ he said. ‘We have our advance at last!’

  ‘We come not just to take ground, but to destroy it,’ said Saluran, fully in the mad spirit of the charge.

  The crevasse was close, but still invisible to the naked eye. The explosions and the storm concealed it. Numeon’s auto-senses pointed him to a position less than a hundred metres away, and now they were almost in the midst of the Cauldron’s barrage.

  ‘March the shells downhill, Sergeant Tusculan,’ Numeon voxed. ‘We are there.’

  He didn’t wait for the guns to change their aim. He could see no orks in the centre of this hell, and the greenskins would be even more blind. If his squad could drop into the crevasse without being seen, they would gain that much more of an advantage.

  We have earned that small good fortune, he thought. That can’t be too much to ask.

  Numeon ran down between two jagged piles of rock, scree sliding under his boots. Buffeted by the shock waves of the shelling, he was almost on top of the crevasse before he could see it. It was less than three metres wide and perhaps fifteen metres long. The cannons had scooped out chunks of the mountainside all around it. A crater cut across the upper portion of the cleft. Numeon could not see how far the drop was, but there was no choice, and he jumped.

  The fissure narrowed quickly. Numeon scraped down the sides and landed with a violent crack on a ledge almost six metres down. The others followed. The darkness of the crevasse was lit fitfully by the strobing of explosions outside. The ash and dust drifted in with none of the force of the storm. The interior of the fissure felt strangely calm, the thunder of the war at a sudden remove, even though they had barely left it behind.

  After the initial drop, the crevasse wound back and forth through the rock. Numeon nodded to his legionaries
and they descended. It was slower going now. Each drop was barely more than the height of a man before the angle would change again.

  Then savage roaring came from above.

  ‘They saw us,’ said Orasus.

  ‘Of course they did,’ said Numeon. Below, the fissure narrowed even more. There was not enough room to get through. ‘And we are slowing down.’

  Caelius and Saluran raised their bolters while Numeon and Orasus prepared demolition charges. Blasius sent up quick bursts of burning promethium from his flamer.

  ‘Do please try not to collapse the mountain on us, first captain,’ said Caelius.

  ‘That would not be my first choice of outcome,’ Numeon said. He shone his helm light down. The tight confines extended a metre or so, then opened up again.

  Bolter fire hammered upwards, deafening in the confined space of the crevasse. Greenskin blood and shattered remains fell among the squad. Retaliatory fire ricocheted wildly, bouncing harmlessly off the legionaries’ armour. The roaring of the orks increased to a frenzy.

  Numeon and Orasus rose from their crouches. ‘We’re ready,’ Numeon said, and the squad scrambled back up the crevasse.

  The ascent was hard, even to gain a few metres and move around a bend in the rock, away from the melta charges.

  ‘We aren’t getting back out, are we?’ Orasus sounded more curious than concerned.

  ‘What matters is that we bring the fire,’ Numeon answered. He pulled the trigger on the detonator and the explosives went off.

  The burning light reached up through the crevasse, turning the darkness a hard silver. It illuminated the orks struggling down towards the squad. Bolter fire tore the beasts apart in a bottleneck. Corpses fell and jammed together. The orks were going to have to cut through their dead to reach the Space Marines.