Spear of Ultramar Page 8

  They are, to Aquila’s eyes, a bitter irony.

  The Ultramarines charge down the hall, making for the centre of the station. Aquila’s expectations are fulfilled when the next junction is blocked by more rubble. This destruction has not just taken place. The Iron Warriors expected the station to be boarded, and took precautions early. Vascas is correct, though. They have not blocked every possible route. Another detour presents itself. This one requires the Ultramarines to follow a perimeter route around almost a quarter of the station before heading towards the centre again. As he pounds along the marble flagstones of the deck, Aquila comes to see, in the gold lines of the walls, a mockery of the zigzagging route the Iron Warriors are forcing him to take.

  ‘These delays are the work of cowards,’ says Vascas.

  ‘They are the work of strategy. Their hope is to defeat us with delay.’ And they are winning, he thinks. He has no choice but to take the circuitous path. Trying to blast through the walls to reach the bridge would take even more time. Vascas does well in finding the most efficient approaches possible. Even so, Aquila feels time slipping away from him.

  A single squad, he thinks. He is more and more convinced of the truth of this supposition. A single squad is waging a powerful battle against him, and the Iron Warriors have yet to commit to face-to-face combat.

  ‘We’re almost there,’ says Vascas, consulting his data-slate again. ‘There is a staircase around the next bend. If it is intact, it will take us to the bridge.’

  The staircase is battered but intact. It is built of marble, a monumental ornament. It is a high, wide descent intended for processionals. The Barbican is a symbol as much as it is a fortress. It is a symbol of Carchera’s loyalty to the Imperium, and of the Imperium’s commitment to the defence of its citizens. No war has come to the system since its Compliance in the early years of the Great Crusade. No war until now, and the Iron Warriors have scarred the grand staircase with fallen decking and smashed stone from the high ceiling. Golden statues of the Emperor and his primarchs lie across the span, toppled from the pedestals that line both sides of the steps. Aquila observes that the IV Legion’s anger has struck loyalists and traitors alike. Only Perturabo’s grim figure still stands, gazing impassively at his shattered brothers.

  ‘The wrath of the abandoned,’ Aquila mutters.

  The staircase descends the equivalent of three decks and ends at the wide archway to the bridge. The doors are shut, and before them are massive heaps of wreckage. The Iron Warriors have brought down the pillars supporting the vaults of the great hall. They have created a formidable barricade, one with only a narrow gap, barely wide enough for a single Space Marine to pass. The Iron Warriors are hidden.

  ‘An invitation to suicide,’ says Vascas.

  ‘Declined,’ says Aquila. ‘We do not accept the battlefield they offer.’ He voxed the entire company. ‘Brothers, let us destroy this insult. Sergeants, wall formation.’

  The Ultramarines descend the stairs like a relentless machine. Each of the squads forms up as a line across the steps, one behind the other, with Aquila’s in the lead. Before the captain is a third of the way down, the barricade is exposed to the fire of the entire company. The Ultramarines march in lockstep, an iron unity of discipline and skill. They are a collective entity of war, a single will of violence, perfected. Bolt shells strike the barricade with a simultaneity so powerful, it is as if they had become the power fist of an invisible Titan. A storm of pulverised metal and stone fills the great hall. Rockets slam into the gap in the barrier, filling it with fire. In that confined space, the explosions are infernos beyond ferocity. Other rockets hit the bridge doors, terrible battering rams. They are the hammering of justice itself, demanding entry, demanding an accounting.

  The Ultramarines are halfway down the stairs, and there is no return fire. Two-thirds of the way down, and the barricade is crumbling, a broken shell. When Aquila reaches the floor of the great hall, there is nothing before him but fire and dust. Broken spears of metal glow molten in the vortex. Aquila blinks through the filters of his auto-lenses until he can make out the cooler shape of the entrance to the bridge beyond the bombardment of his company. There are no heat signatures of anything living on this side of the doors.

  The battle of the station is a game of move and countermove, many of them occurring before a single round has been fired. Surrounded by the storm, Aquila takes the evidence before him and tracks the moves back. He is more convinced than ever that the actual strength of the Iron Warriors is a single squad. So small a force must avoid open battle with his company for as long as possible, and their victory is measured by the stealing of time from the Ultramarines.

  Thus far, Aquila counts the contest aboard the Barbican as a victory for the IV Legion. But now the Iron Warriors are at bay. They can only play for mere moments. Still, their skill at siege warfare has served them. They have lured the Ultramarines into the systematic destruction of nothing at all.

  The bridge lies open. Aquila sees a second invitation, so he does not order the fire to cease. The walls of the station are thick, and though the Ultramarines have reduced the doors to molten slag, they cannot punch their way through the walls themselves. Not without wasting still more time.

  The doorway is wide, but a single squad, well-positioned, could still do considerable damage to warriors trying to cross the threshold.

  Aquila’s choices are limited. He will still use what he can. From cover, inside the bridge, the Iron Warriors must believe themselves to be immune to surprise. They would have no reason to believe otherwise. He will give them a reason.

  ‘Maintain fire,’ he voxes the company. ‘On my signal, create a gap leading to the bridge entrance. Keep covering fire just above our heads.’

  The orders are acknowledged. The signal is given. The charge is staggered, but it is as precise as the descent, and as unstoppable. A devastating gale of bolter shells screaming over his head, Aquila runs for the entrance, Vascas and the squad at his heels, Legionary Berricus at his shoulder. Berricus carries a flamer, and he sends the burning promethium jetting through the entrance as they approach. At the threshold, Aquila and Berricus veer around the walls, blasting and burning the dark to either side. The rest of the squad comes in behind them, and the Ultramarines fire spreads to cover one hundred and eighty degrees.

  The Iron Warriors are attacking at last. They opened up as Aquila entered, and he keeps moving, refining his aim to target the muzzle flashes in the smoky gloom. Shells smack into his chest and shoulders, the impact almost spinning him around. He pushes on, racing towards the centre of the bridge, and as more and more of the company forces its way in, some of the traitors choose other targets.

  There are civilians here, cowering on the floor. They are screaming in fear, their cries inaudible in the fury of battle. Aquila pities them, but all he can do for them is end this war as fast as possible.

  He counts flashes from nine muzzles. He was right, then, only a squad. Ten seconds after he and Berricus cross the threshold, there are seven. There are six when the entire company has entered the vastness of the bridge, and the six are working hard to make their shots count. A crossfire catches Sergeant Galvius, and his helmet and skull explode. A dozen shells strike Legionary Nervix in the chest, shattering his armour and bone, turning his internal organs to mist.

  But then there are five muzzle flashes. And now four.

  But why nine? Aquila thinks. He has moved far onto the floor of the bridge. He is surrounded by work stations and cogitator banks. Servitors are writhing torches, and the bridge is a chaos of flame and smoke and shrapnel. The space is vast, and it is hard to see clearly for more than a few metres. Aquila tracks the flash of the enemy guns and trains his bolter on their shifting positions, but though the battle is turning against the Iron Warriors, as it must, he is uneasy. ‘Why nine?’ he says aloud.

  ‘Captain?’ Vascas is at his back, firing in the
opposite direction.

  ‘There should have been ten traitors. We have only seen nine. Not one of them an officer.’ Aquila cannot believe that chance would have seen him killed by the torpedo barrage. The station did not suffer serious damage before the Ultramarines boarded. ‘Where is their commander?’

  The missing enemy amplifies a worry that has been growing at the back of Aquila’s mind. He wonders if it is really possible that the Iron Warriors will be satisfied with a victory that is only delay. So little, for a Legion that lives by the great bitterness of pride.

  Something else is happening.

  Aquila scans the battle, trying to pierce the roaring madness, the billowing smoke, the searing blooms of electrical fires. If the tenth Iron Warrior is hidden, then Aquila must seek an absence.

  He finds it. On the far side of the bridge from the entrance, there is a silence. The traitors’ positions are all far from this point. The battle rages along lines that cut perpendicularly across the entrance. No one is fighting at the other end of the bridge. Nothing burns there. Nothing is happening there. It is a patch of deeper dark, unlit by fire, concealed by smoke.

  That portion of the bridge can still function.

  Aquila hurls himself through the smoke towards the dark patch. As he does, the enemy guns suddenly concentrate on him. His squad runs interference, giving him covering fire. The smoke clears before him, and he sees the tenth Iron Warrior. The enemy is a captain, his armour marked by the scars of uncounted battles. He is still, unmoved by the combat on the bridge, an engine of war that has yet to engage. He stands at a bank of controls. They are operated by a pair of weeping mortals. The traitor has prepared for an interruption, and the instant that Aquila has the group in sight, a krak grenade lands at his feet. The explosion throws him to the right. He lands heavily, stunned, shrapnel embedded in the cracks in his armour.

  The Iron Warrior presses his advantage, training his bolter on Aquila. Shells punch a hole in his armour’s left flank. He rolls away, leaving a trail of blood, feeling things break and rupture inside his torso. He scrambles behind the wreckage of a control station, the traitor’s shells following him. The Iron Warrior’s attack is furious, a fight to protect the work in which the mortals are engaged, and so it is as vital for Aquila to stop this work.

  He realises what the mortals are doing a few moments later, when the entire station shakes and murderous light flashes outside the bridge’s viewports.

  The defence platforms are turning their laser batteries on the Barbican.

  The Warforged waits in low orbit, auspex arrays scanning for the approach of the Ultramarines fleet.

  ‘We will have to leave this position soon,’ says Navghar.

  ‘Soon,’ says Vûrtaq. ‘Not now. If we want to see an armada die, we have to wait a little longer. That is a sight worth waiting for, don’t you think? That is a deed worth doing, don’t you think?’ Vûrtaq smiles, already enjoying the bloody taste of triumph. Khrossus has shaped the battlefield of the Carchera system, and he has given this region of the war to Vûrtaq. Every detail of this attack has been prepared, from the precise position over Himera at which to wait, to the Warforged’s capacity for acceleration. It falls to Vûrtaq to enact Khrossus’ plan and to savour the victory.

  Only a few moments more now.

  Vûrtaq takes a breath and prepares to give the order to destroy an armada.

  The Glorious Nova is about to pass over Himera’s north pole.

  ‘The enemy still has not moved,’ comes the auspex report.

  Corvo frowns. ‘This isn’t right,’ he says.

  ‘It is suicide for them to stay there,’ says the officer. ‘They have to know they can’t hide, and what we’re about to do.’

  Corvo looks at the dead world below, its hemisphere filling the bottom half of the viewport. They have to know, he thinks. The words sound like a warning. They have to know.

  Understanding dawns. Why would a single ship wait in low orbit for a fleet to close in around it? When it is vital to draw the fleet into low orbit too. Horror chills his blood. ‘They want us to do it!’ he shouts. ‘All ships, break orbit, maximum acceleration! Now!’

  At the same moment comes the call that the enemy is moving. Corvo feels the jaws of the trap slamming shut on his neck.

  As Stormbirds drop two companies of Ultramarines on the plains leading to the monstrous defence laser, Guilliman feels the fraying of the campaign. He catches only short, confused bursts of vox traffic before he lands. They are partial, frustrating glimpses of the larger picture of the war, the picture from which he has, of necessity, turned his gaze. They tell him little except sudden urgency in the fleet, and of alarm from the squadron dispatched to the Barbican.

  There has been a sudden, vicious turn of the tide. Rip currents threaten to steal more than time from him.

  The collective roar of the tanks’ engines is a fanfare of thunder, a clarion call of warning that a reckoning is coming to the foes of the Emperor. Guilliman climbs atop the Land Raider Flame of Illyrium. It is his mobile command centre and will be the lead vehicle, and he will be the figure of vengeance for the enemy to see and fear.

  Prayto, standing next to the Flame, says, ‘They will certainly know of our coming.’

  Guilliman sees the value in that fact. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Let them. Sound the war horns!’ he commands the companies. ‘Fire the guns! We will announce our coming.’ To Prayto he says, ‘We’ll make them react to us before we are there.’ Anything, he thinks, that might relieve the pressure on Hierax.

  With a blast of war horns, the charge begins. Though the enemy is beyond the horizon, far out of range, the cannons fire, and Guilliman’s thunder tears across the hard ground of Carchera. The sound is overwhelming and defiant. Standing astride the hatch of the Flame of Illyrium, Guilliman leans into the wind, tortured by the knowledge that he has attacked on three fronts, and triggered three traps.

  Six

  The Final Grains

  The sound comes to Khrossus over the mountains and through the pass. It is a sudden wave, a new surge of the tide. It threads its way through the clamour of battle and he can hear the distant drums of other cannons and great horns.

  The sound is a herald of the end. It is the first real sign of the approaching inevitable. What remains to him to do now is try to hold it off a little bit longer.

  All this crosses his mind before Magos Dominus Rissin voxes him. Khrossus barely needs to know the details of the threat.

  ‘Two companies of Ultramarines are coming for the orbital cannon,’ says Rissin.

  ‘How far are they?’ Khrossus asks.

  ‘Far enough. If we withdraw our forces from the pass, they will reach us in time to reinforce our defence.’

  ‘How long will you be able to hold?’

  There is a chattering squeal of binaric code. ‘The estimation is difficult.’ Though her voice is without emotion, her words convey her frustration. ‘We are subject to an unacceptable number of variables. We speculate an order of magnitude greater than is possible without the full complement of our forces.’

  The Whirlwind beside Khrossus sends up another volley of rockets. The rain of explosives comes down on the Ultramarines trying to climb the slope towards the tank emplacement. Khrossus’ legionaries are in staggered lines below him, and, under the direction of Sergeant Zennek present a solid wall of fire at the exit from the pass.

  ‘What do you propose, warsmith?’ asks Rissin.

  Khrossus considers his choice. With the Mechanicum contingent attacking the rear flank of the Ultramarines, the Iron Warriors could block the pass for some time yet. It is a question of which delay is the better. And the decision is clear. ‘We must hold the gun as long as we can,’ Khrossus says. ‘Without it, we cannot hold their ships at bay.’

  There was another screech of binaric. ‘Question – do you expect the Thirteenth Legion t
o bombard Siderius from orbit? The resultant civilian loss would be a deviation from Ultramarines norm.’

  ‘It would be,’ says Khrossus. ‘But the Ultramarines are not the Salamanders. Guilliman is logical. He may decide that civilian deaths here will be counterbalanced by a much greater number saved on Terra.’ Khrossus is not certain Guilliman’s blood is cold enough to make that choice. He has heard Guilliman called ‘the human cogitator’. But he knows the Ultramarines primarch is not that cold. Perturabo would not hesitate. Just as he did not hesitate to sacrifice Khrossus’ company. The warsmith believes there is enough sentimentality in Guilliman that he will try to save everyone. What he is not sure of is how long Guilliman will be pushed before he decides he cannot save everyone. Given the stakes, this could well be that point. It is possible that victory or defeat will come down to a matter of minutes, so Khrossus must steal every moment he can. ‘Take your forces back and hold the gun,’ he says to Rissin. ‘We will do the same at Siderius.’

  Thanks to the constricted pass and the placement of the tanks, the Iron Warriors are holding strong against the Destroyers. The defensive positions have almost evened the odds between the two Legions. Khrossus’ company is a depleted one, but it is eroding the strength of the Destroyers. What he does not understand is why the Ultramarines are trying to take the eastern cliff face. The slope is too steep. The attack makes no sense, yet somehow it must. The clouds of dust and smoke conceal much of the action from Khrossus, and he knows there is something in the Ultramarines’ actions that he does not see. This troubles him.

  Khrossus believed he had reached a state of perfect fatalism. To his shame, he finds that he has not. It would seem he has a taste of Vûrtaq’s delusions. It is his duty to fight as if he could win. It is a weakness in this war to really believe that he can. Yet, knowing everything he does, the thought that he has overlooked something, that he has made a mistake that could lead to defeat, still eats at him like a canker.