"Storm of Iron" - читать интересную книгу автора (MvNeill Graham)

FIVE

Followed by nearly two thousand men, Castellan Prestre Vauban clambered over the lip of the citadel's ditch and sprinted towards the Iron Warriors' raised earthworks. There was no battle cry, no shout of rage, only the silence of soldiers who knew their only chance of survival was stealth.

The men's faces were smeared with soot and their sky blue uniform had been left in the barracks in favour of plain black flak jackets.

Leonid's storming parties spread out from the ditch, clustered around the demolition teams and Vauban knew that this attack was a desperate gamble indeed. But as his second-in-command had pointed out, they had no choice but to attempt to destroy the enemy guns. To not try would be to allow the Iron Warriors to pound them into dust.

A thrill of fear and exultation coursed through his veins at the prospect of battle, it had been too long since he had led men into combat.

He clutched his bolt pistol close to his chest, running crouched over, the breath heaving in his lungs. The traitor line was still a few hundred metres away. His breathing sounded hellishly loud and the thump of boots on the dusty earth was like the thunder of a Titan's tread, but so far the alarm had not been raised. Perhaps there was a chance this reckless attack might just succeed.

Even in the dim light, Vauban could see a head raised above the level of the ramparts of the enemy earthworks and counted down the seconds until the attack hit home.

All they needed was a little more time.

Uraja Klane pulled himself up to the ramparts of the earthworks and peered into the darkness, resting his rifle on the rough, earthen parapet. There was something happening in front of the works, but he couldn't quite see what. Lord Kroeger had charged them with the protection of these guns and he knew better than to disappoint his master. But the flickering lights and noise from the sprawling campsite made it difficult to make out anything.

Behind him, several hundred soldiers slept on the firing step or drank distilled spirits from tin mugs in their muddy dug-outs.

He glanced down and kicked Yosha awake. He had a pair of battered field glasses that could see in the dark, didn't he?

'Hey, Yosha, wake up, you useless piece of…' hissed Klane.

Yosha mumbled something foul and unintelligible, then rolled over. Klane kicked him again.

'Yosha, wake up, damn you. Gimme your goggles!'

'What?' slurred Yosha. 'My goggles?'

'Yeah, I think there's something out there.'

Yosha grumbled, but dragged himself to his feet, rubbing his eyes with filthy hands and yawning hugely. He peered out into the darkness.

'There's nothing out there,' he declared sleepily.

'Use your damn goggles, you idiot.'

Casting a scathing look at his comrade, Yosha pulled out a set of blackened and ancient field goggles. A bizarre protuberance slotted over the eyepiece and Yosha pulled it over his shaven head. He rested his chin on his hands and trained his gaze over the parapet.

'Well,' pressed Klane. 'You see anything?'

'Yeah,' whispered Yosha. 'There's something coming. Looks like—'

'Like what?'

'Like—'

Klane never got the chance to find out. A sharp, buzzing crack whipped by him and blasted the back of Yosha's head open in an explosion of blood and brains. Yosha crumpled slowly and toppled from the rampart.

'Khorne's teeth!' swore Klane, jerking back and switching his gaze from the headless corpse to the ground before the earthworks.

The whipping noise slashed past him again and a puff of earth exploded next to him.

Sniper!

Klane ducked down behind the parapet and cocked his rifle, his head working left and right to see other sentries dropping, no doubt picked off by Imperial snipers on the walls of the ravelin. He swore again. There must be an attack coming in!

He crawled along the firing step, clambering over sleeping bodies towards the alarm siren, and pulled himself up the timber spar where the flared bullhorn was bolted. He grabbed the cranking handle.

Klane heard booted steps approaching the parapet and realised he didn't have much time. He turned the squealing handle, the wailing cry from the bullhorn growing in volume as he spun it faster and faster. A shot blasted the timber beside him, showering him with splinters and he flinched, releasing the handle and taking up his rifle.

Thudding footsteps hit the soil of the earthworks below. Damned Imperials! He snarled, pleased to have this chance to kill. Scrabbling hands sounded on the far side of the parapet.

No bastard Guardsman was going to get past Uraja Klane!

He roared in hatred and rose to his feet, swinging his rifle around to find himself facing a giant warrior in yellow power armour with a crackling sword and scarlet Imperial eagle on his breastplate.

'What the f—' was all he had time to say before the Imperial Fists Space Marine clove him in two with his power sword.

Sirens screamed, piercing the night with their cries and Vauban knew that with the element of surprise lost they had only a limited time to achieve their objective before they would have to fall back. He climbed the steep exterior slope of the earthworks, using the butt of his pistol for purchase. His soldiers scrambled over the parapet with a roar of released fury.

A grenade detonated nearby, showering him with earth and he slipped, feet scrabbling for grip.

A gauntleted hand reached down and closed on his wrist, lifting him easily across the parapet in a single motion. He was deposited on the firing step beside a broken corpse, and swiftly drew his power sword. The Space Marine who had hauled him over the parapet turned and began firing a bolt-gun into a mass of enemy soldiers in red overalls. His brethren were pushing further into the entrenchments as the Imperial Guard scrambled over the parapet and into the battery.

'Thank you, Brother-Captain Eshara,' said Vauban breathlessly.

The Imperial Fists captain nodded, slammed a fresh magazine into his bolter and said, 'Thank me later. We have work to do,' before turning and charging from the firing step.

Gunfire and explosions lit the trenches and dug-outs of the battery with strobing light, screaming soldiers and wounded men providing a cacophonous backdrop to the attack. Hundreds of Jourans poured over the earthwork, killing anything in their path. The Chaos soldiery had been caught largely unawares, and the Imperial troops offered no quarter to the unready foe. Storming parties slaughtered the enemy soldiers, shooting them where they lay or stabbing them with bayonets as they scrambled for weapons.

Fifteen gigantic war machines were situated here, enormous howitzers and long cannons with barrels so wide a man could stand upright inside. Bronze plates embossed with skulls and unholy icons were fixed on each machine's flank, and thick chains looped around giant rings were securely bolted to their track units. There was a terrible sense of menace surrounding the siege engines and Vauban had a gnawing sense of wrongness in his gut. He knew without doubt that such blasphemous creations should never have been allowed to come into existence.

The Imperial Fists swept efficiently through the battery, securing its perimeters and killing the war machines' gunners. They established themselves in strong positions around the approach trenches and parallel, ready to hold off the inevitable counterattack.

Vauban dropped from the firing step and shouted, 'Alpha demo team, with me! Bravo team with Colonel Leonid!'

Two dozen men followed him towards the machines and, even over the crack of small-arms fire, Vauban shivered as he felt the pulse of monstrous, daemonic breath grating along his spine just below the threshold of hearing. He stepped across scores of corpses, making his way quickly towards the daemon engines. As he and his men drew near, the sense of wrongness grew stronger and stronger. As he set foot on the metal decking where the machines were chained, agonising pain ripped into him and he felt his guts cramp and his knees buckle. Terror seized him as his mind was filled with the unshakable belief that to touch these unholy monsters was to die.

He could see he was not alone in this hideous sensation. Soldiers were dropping to their knees, some vomiting blood as the daemonic aura of the nightmare machines washed over them. Chains rattled and metal groaned beneath them as the war machines supped on the red liquid, a bass thrumming building from the line of daemon engines.

The sounds of bolter fire intensified from the edges of the battery, and Vauban knew the Iron Warriors must be counterattacking, fearful of losing their hellish artillery.

They couldn't fail! Not now they had come so close.

Vauban pushed himself to his feet, gritting his teeth against the waves of sickness that wracked him and dragged the soldier nearest to him to his feet.

'Come on, damn you!' he yelled. 'On your feet, soldier!'

The man grabbed his satchel charges and stumbled after Vauban, his face contorted in terror and agony. The two men lurched towards the nearest machine, its chains jangling furiously and geysers of steam venting from corroded grilles. A furious static descended upon his vision, like looking through a faulty holo. A bitter, metallic taste flooded Vauban's mouth as he bit the flesh of his lip to keep from screaming.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the pain and terror vanished like the light from a snuffed candle. Vauban felt a huge, pressing weight lift from his mind. His lungs heaved and he spat blood, spinning as he heard a booming chant from behind him.

One of the Imperial Fists, his yellow armour decorated with numerous purity seals and one shoulder guard painted blue, strode towards the daemon engines, his proud voice clear and true. He carried a carved staff of ebony, coils of blue light coruscating along its length.

Vauban did not know the warrior's name, but knew by his words that their saviour was a psyker, one of the Chapter's Librarians. Somehow, he was fighting against the corrupting power of the daemon engines and protecting them from its malign influence.

Ghostly streamers of insubstantial energy flared from the icons and markings on the armoured flanks of the war machines.

Vauban could see by the sweat pouring in runnels from the Librarian's face and the pulsing vein in his temple that the effort of holding their daemonic essence at bay was stretching him to the limit.

The Librarian had bought them a chance, but they would need to be quick.

'Quickly!' he bellowed over the bark of gunfire and explosions. 'Demo teams, plant your charges and let's get the hell out of here!'

The men with demolition charges picked themselves up from the steel decking of the battery and, under the direction of Vauban's best ordnance officers, began placing the explosive charges at vital points on each daemon engine. The vast machines strained at their bindings, thrashing in fury at these mortals who dared to defile them.

As the men moved on to the next machine the vox-bead in Vauban's ear clicked and Captain Eshara's voice filled his skull. 'Castellan Vauban, we must leave! The enemy are coming in overwhelming numbers with heavy support and I do not believe we can hold them.'

'Not yet!' yelled Vauban. 'Give us enough time to set the explosives then fall back! We need you alive!'

'How long do you need?' asked Eshara, his voice muffled by nearby shots and detonations.

Vauban looked along the line of bucking war machines and said, 'Give us four minutes!'

'We'll try! But be ready to move when you see us falling back!'

'Hold on a minute!' snapped Hawke. 'Attach the bronze cable with the sacred halo symbol to the two pins with the what?'

Even over the vox-link, Hawke detected more than a trace of impatience in the magos's voice as he answered.

'The bronze cable attaches to the pins with the demi-cog symbol. Just like I said before. Once you have—'

'Hold on, hold on…' grumbled Hawke, fiddling with the cable clips as he fought to find the correct pins and hold the wire steady over the exposed circuitry. The illuminator on his respirator was growing dim and he had to squint to see the symbols Beauvais was talking about. There! He reached in and snapped the clips over the pins, flinching and almost losing his balance when they sparked violently and burnt his fingertips.

He grabbed onto the steel gantry he was lying on and tried not to think of how high above the floor he was. The gantry was solidly constructed, one of several bolted to the wall at various points around the room, presumably for technicians to carry out routine maintenance to the torpedo. He seriously doubted it was used for people trying to hotwire the device. Behind him, a mesh grille in the wall led off into darkness. It had taken him a frustrating twenty minutes to climb the ladder, find the correct access panel in the side of the giant torpedo and use Hitch's knife to undo the sacred bolts that held it in place.

And over the past hour, he'd been mildly electrocuted twice, burnt his fingers three times and almost fallen thirty metres to the solid rockcrete floor. Hawke was not a happy man. He steadied his breathing and spoke into the vox.

'You might have bloody warned me!' he complained.

'Is it done?'

'Yes, it's done.'

'Very good, you have now armed the torpedo.'

Hawke pushed himself back along the gantry, suddenly very alarmed at the prospect of this armed behemoth being less than a metre from his head. 'It's armed. What next?'

'Now we have to inform the war-spirit within the torpedo the whereabouts of its victim.'

'Uh-huh…' shrugged Hawke. 'And how exactly do I do that?'

'You don't. I will perform that sacred task. Now, I need you to remove a red and gold cable embossed with the rune of telemetry, then—'

'The what? Just tell me what the damn thing looks like.'

Beauvais sighed. 'It resembles a winged triangle with a cog at its centre. It is connected to the war-spirit's seeker chamber. That's the gold box at the top of the panel. Once you have the cable, plug it into the vox-unit's remote triangulation output socket and wait. Once the lights on the vox stop flashing, reattach the cable to the war-spirit's seeker chamber.'

Hawke found the plug and pulled it from the panel. He swore as he saw it would only extend some fifteen centimetres from the torpedo. He lifted the vox unit to the edge of the gantry, propping it against one of the uprights. He slotted the cable home, watching as the front panel of the vox unit faded and the lights arranged around the dial flickered in strange patterns. As the sequence continued he propped himself up on one elbow, looking up at the top of the giant torpedo.

The top of the giant missile was rounded and strangely irregular. There was a serrated, spiral groove cut in the warhead and Hawke guessed that this was to help it burrow through the thick hull of a starship before detonating deep inside.

He waited for several minutes before the clicking sequence of lights finally stopped, then unplugged the cable and reconnected it to the torpedo. He thought he heard a noise below and glanced over the gantry. Dismissing it, he returned his attention to the torpedo as Beauvais came back on the vox.

'The war-spirit now knows its prey, Hawke. Now you must speak the Chant of Awakening to set it on the hunt.'

'Ok, Chant of Awakening… right. And after that, then what?'

'Simply strike the rune of firing upon the—'

Beauvais never finished his sentence as a hail of bolter fire ripped through the vox and blasted it to fragments. Hawke jumped in shock, grabbing onto the upright, very nearly going over the edge of the gantry.

'Emperor's holy blood!' he swore, grabbing his rifle and pressing his back against the cold metal grille in the wall behind him. His breath pounded in his throat and his heart beat wildly against his chest. What the hell was going on?

He risked a glance over the gantry and saw a giant in iron-grey power armour with a smoking gun and a mechanised claw snaking over his shoulder. Men in red uniforms clustered around the warrior, all carrying rifles aimed upwards.

A deep voice, rich and full of threat drifted up to him.

'You are going to die, little man. You have led us a merry dance, but now it is over.'

Hawke shut his eyes tight and whispered, 'Oh damn, oh damn, oh damn…'

Incandescent fire erupted from the first demolition charges, vaporising the chains and bindings holding the first daemon engine in place. Painstakingly wrought symbols of arcane protection were incinerated and the mechanical components of the war machine ran molten under the volcanic heat of the explosion. The scream of the daemon engine's death whiplashed around the battery as the terrifying creature bound within its infernal mechanisms was freed by the blast.

Those closest, even though well clear of the explosives' blast radius, were swatted to the floor of the battery by its shriek of release. A swirling hurricane of etheric energy, insane geometries warping through its daemonic form, tore through the Jourans with the power of the immaterium, turning men inside out and exploding others from within as it shrieked in the throes of its dissolution.

Honsou heard the screech of one of the creatures of the damned and cursed Kroeger again. Where were the men from his company tasked with guarding these precious beasts? Creatures that had required countless thousands of lives and diabolical pacts to conjure into being. The answer came easily enough: drunk on slaughter somewhere, slaking their thirst for blood in an orgy of butchery.

He ducked as a hail of bullets stitched the trench wall before him and a clutch of human soldiers fell, their bodies blown apart by the burst. He racked the slide on his own weapon, then paused as he realised the shots he'd heard were fired from a bolter. Honsou stepped over their bleeding corpses and jerked his head around the bend in the trench. He was stunned to see a Space Marine in yellow power armour firing down the trench. The length of the narrow earthen corridor was choked with bodies and there was no way through.

Hundreds of human soldiers gathered behind him, fearfully clutching their primitive rifles as they crouched in the shelter of this trench. They looked to him for guidance and Honsou snarled as he reached back and grabbed one by the neck, tossing him into the approach trench. The man landed hard and, as he rose to his feet, bolter fire shredded him.

Before the body had even hit the ground, Honsou spun low around the corner of the trench, firing controlled bursts at the Space Marine. His victim crumpled, his armour breached by his shots. Honsou's jaw hardened as he saw the clenched, black fist icon on the warrior's left shoulder guard.

Imperial Fists! The ancient enemy, source of his polluted blood and cause of millennia of misery at the hands of those who were not fit even to serve beside him.

Blind rage took Honsou and he roared in hate, charging through the body-filled trench, the desperate need to kill Imperial Fists driving him onwards. Another yellow-armoured warrior appeared at the entrance to the battery and levelled his bolter, but Honsou was quicker, pulling the trigger and emptying his weapon's magazine at the hated foe.

Sparks and earth flew as his shots ricocheted from the Space Marine's armour.

Honsou screamed in fury, throwing aside his bolter when the hammer slammed down empty, and drew his sword as the warrior before him dropped to one knee and took careful aim.

He felt impacts slam into his chest, but nothing, not even death itself would prevent him from reaching his enemy. Pain ripped through him, but he ignored it, hammering his boot into the Space Marine's breastplate. He reversed his grip on his sword hilt and drove it downwards through the chest of the fallen warrior, hate-fuelled strength driving it hilt-deep into his victim.

Blood splashed him as a flaring explosion thundered through the battery and another daemon engine vanished in a sheet of flames, its shriek momentarily drowning out the noise of the blast. Psychic Shockwaves buffeted Honsou and he felt the ancient malice of a being that was ancient before mankind was born roar through him. He rejoiced in its hate, feeling it consume him, pouring fresh vigour through his body as it took his unworthy flesh for its own. He spread wide his arms, actinic bolts of black lightning arcing from his hands.

Destruction ripped through the battery as the bolts lashed out, indiscriminately ripping apart banks of soil, machinery and groups of soldiers - both enemy and allied.

Honsou revelled in such carnage, though he knew that it was but borrowed power. Flaring purple afterimages seared across his retinas, but he laughed, hurling spears of warp energy into the confused mass of men and machines. His body swelled as daemonic power poured in. His armour buckled and he screamed as joints and sinews stretched, bones cracked and his jaw stretched wide in a soundless cry of agony.

More thunderous detonations rocked the battery and Honsou felt yet another daemonic presence explode from within its iron machine-prison. He dropped to his knees as the daemon within him suddenly withdrew, feeling its hatred of the newly-birthed entity. As the power drained from him, he watched the two daemonic creatures spiralling heavenward, locked in battle and fading from his vision even as he watched. He ached for such power again, even though he knew it would destroy him.

He groaned in pain as the terrible damage done to him by the daemon's brief occupancy surged through his nerve endings. He pushed himself to his feet as the human soldiers swarmed around him, shooting into the mass of Guardsmen and Space Marines.

A mad shrieking filled the battery as more explosions lit up the night. A daemon engine, its bindings cracked and flailing, howled as it fought to finally sever the magicks that bound it to the war machine. Men were crushed beneath its bronze treads, and Honsou watched as its mighty gun swung ponderously around and fired repeatedly. The screaming projectiles sailed over his head, exploding somewhere deep in the Iron Warriors' camp, and a string of secondary detonations swiftly followed.

Honsou dragged his sword from the body beside him, wincing as his tortured muscles protested. There were still Imperial Fists to slay and he set off into the fiery hell of the battery to find them.

Bolter impacts rang from the walls, almost deafening, and Hawke felt the impact of countless bullets hitting the underside of the gantry. Desperately he hammered his elbow against the grille behind him, firing the lasgun blindly over the edge.

Sparking ricochets spanged from the torpedo and Hawke filled the air with a constant stream of expletives, expecting the damn thing to blow with every impact. Fie could hear the metallic thunk, thunk, of boots on the ladder beside him, and rolled over in time to see a grizzled face atop a red collar appear at the edge of the gantry.

He lashed out, his elbow smashing the man's nose across his face in a spray of blood. The man's hands flew to his face. He screamed as he fell from the ladder.

Hawke yelled, 'And stay down!' before glancing over the edge of the gantry to watch him fall. A bullet streaked past him, grazing his temple and he yelped in pain, blood washing down his face from the cut. He rolled back as another man clambered up the ladder.

A bolter shell plucked at his sleeve and blood streamed from his bicep. His hand spasmed and he dropped the las-gun. It rolled to the edge of the gantry and he lunged for the rifle, just stopping it from falling. Something heavy landed on him.

A fist cracked against his jaw, but he rolled with the blow, twisting his head aside as the man on top of him repeatedly punched him.

Hawke drove his knee into the man's groin and delivered a thunderous head-butt as his opponent's shoulders dropped. He hammered the heel of his hand into the man's neck and gripped his red overalls. Hawke slammed his head into the metalwork of the railings before heaving him over the edge.

Another enemy soldier stood in front of him, aiming a rifle.

Hawke kicked out hard, cracking his boots against the man's legs and shattering his kneecaps. The man shrieked and dropped to the floor of the gantry.

Hawke fired a hail of las-bolts, ripping the man's chest to bloody ruin and blasting clear the wall-mounted grille behind him. More bullet impacts raked the wall around him and he rolled away from the gantry's edge, finding himself looking into the depths of the torpedo's access panel.

How the hell did he fire this bloody thing?

He couldn't remember.

He heard more people climbing and cursed as he saw the charge indicator on the rifle flash red. Almost empty. He could see another soldier had reached the top of the ladder. He snatched the late Guardsman Hitch's pride and joy from his belt and rammed the full length of the Jouran fighting-knife into the man's neck. Bright arterial blood spurted from the wound, drenching Hawke. He frantically wiped his eyes clear, scrambling back towards the torpedo and ramming the knife back in its scabbard.

Gunfire sounded from below, but none of the shots seemed to be directed at him. He risked another furtive glance over the gantry and saw that the armoured giant had killed his remaining soldiers. Perhaps they hadn't been keen to meet the same fate as their comrades.

Hawke grinned suddenly. He didn't blame them.

'You are braver than I took you for, little man,' said the Chaos Marine, mounting the iron ladder. 'I will honour you with the most brutal death.'

'If it's all the same to you, I'll pass on that,' shouted Hawke, firing his lasgun, but the weapon was useless, his shots bouncing from the warrior's burnished armour. He searched desperately for something to use as a weapon, his gaze finally falling on the one thing he knew would finish this bastard off.

But how to use it? What had Beauvais said?

Strike the rune of firing upon the…

The what?

He bit his lip as he heard the warrior climbing.

'To hell with it,' he said and closed his eyes, reaching inside the access panel and hammering his open palm against the exposed runes, switches and buttons.

Nothing happened.

'Emperor damn you!' Hawke screamed in frustration. 'You useless pile of worthless junk! Fire, damn you! Fire you bastard! Fire!'

As the last word left his mouth, a rumbling tremor filled the chamber, klaxons blared and a series of lights began flashing at the chamber's top. Hawke opened his eyes and laughed hysterically. Of course! The Chant of Awakening!

Sudden heat filled the chamber and steam flashed up the walls as powerful rocket engines began igniting sequentially. He'd only gone and bloody done it, hadn't he?

As the heat in the torpedo room suddenly leapt upwards he realised his danger. The ladder was sure as hell not an option and he cried in relief as he saw the duct exposed by the shattered grille. He didn't know where it led, but was sure it had to be better than here.

'Well, Hawke, my lad,' he whispered, 'time to get going.'

Swiftly he crawled towards the duct, pushing his lasgun ahead of him. It was easily wide enough to accommodate him and he slithered inside.

Something tugged at his fatigues. He turned and cried out as he saw the Chaos warrior's loathsome, mechanised claw snap shut on his ankle.

The giant was too large to enter the duct, but the claw would soon pull him out.

'If we are to die, we will die together, little man,' promised the warrior.

'Guess again,' snapped Hawke as he drew his knife and sawed through the throbbing power cables that ran from the claw. Black oil and hydraulic fluid spurted out, and the claw jerked spastically.

Its iron grip slackened and he kicked it clear, powering along the smooth metal duct. With every passing second he expected a bullet in the back, but none came. Vibrations rumbled along the duct and he pushed his muscles harder than he would have believed possible.

Hot steam billowed after him. Sweat poured from his brow as the aimbling of rocket engines grew behind him and the ductwork creaked as it expanded in the burgeoning heat.

Suddenly there was space above him. He pulled himself from the duct and slung his rifle over his shoulder as he found himself in what looked like a vent chamber. Other ducts fed into the chamber and another ladder ascended to a circle of reddish sky high above him. He leapt onto the ladder, climbing as fast as he could, hearing the rumble behind him build to a full-throated bellow, like a mighty dragon waking from its slumbers.

He climbed and climbed as the roar built below him.

Geysers of scalding steam flashed past him.

The heat was intolerable and he gritted his teeth. His skin blistered, but he shut out the pain, putting one hand above the other and pulling himself onwards.

Hawke reached the top of the ladder and moaned in fear as he felt a blaze of heat rash towards him and searing orange light flare around him. He shouted with one last herculean effort, hurling himself over the lip of the vent and rolling aside as a fountain of fiery exhaust gasses exploded behind him.

Hawke squeezed his eyes shut, and rolled away from the heat until he was sure he was safe. He gasped for air and pushed himself into a sitting position, opening his eyes in time to see the torpedo roaring through the sky on a pillar of fire.

Guardsman Julius Hawke knew he'd never seen a more beautiful sight.

The Glaive class ground-launched orbital torpedo climbed rapidly through the red sky of Hydra Cordatus on a blazing tail plume, lighting the battlefield below with its brilliant glare. It soon became nothing more than a flickering point of light in the sky, climbing to an altitude where the air was thinner and its speed could increase. As it reached a height of nearly one hundred kilometres, the first stage of the torpedo separated and stage two ignited, increasing its velocity still further as the war-spirit caged within the warhead calculated the time, distance and vector to its target.

The torpedo nosed over, travelling at almost fourteen thousand kilometres per hour, and began hunting for its prey. The Adeptus Mechanicus had cursed its target and that curse now passed to the war-spirit. As the torpedo angled itself back towards the planet, the warhead identified its target.

With its target locked in its sights, the war-spirit vectored the nozzles on the second stage to fire a corrective burn that altered its flight path and sent the torpedo plummeting back to Hydra Cordatus.

Forrix stood at the edge of the promontory watching the battle raging below with impotent frustration. The batteries were being attacked by the Imperials and he could do nothing about it. Who would have believed the curs of the corpse-god could be so bold? His hands bunched into fists and he vowed that someone would pay for this.

Flashes and rippling explosions lit up the night and his enhanced sight could follow individual acts of bravery and heroism in the battle. Not only that, but he could clearly see the yellow armour of the Imperial Fists in the flickering light. To have the ancient foe here was as close to perfect synchronicity as he could have wished. He remembered fighting Dorn's warriors on the walls of the Eternity Gate on Terra, ten thousand years ago. Then they had been warriors to walk the road to hell with, but now… ?

He would soon find out. An inferno of hate burned within his heart with a passion he had all but forgotten.

He'd watched the spear of light roar from the mountains to the east of the citadel and had experienced a moment's unease as he watched the orbital torpedo climb higher and higher.

How had it been fired and where was it bound? But these questions seemed largely irrelevant now, as it had streaked into the heavens then vanished through the clouds.

Forrix returned his attention to the battle below, sneering in contempt as he saw the Imperials begin to pull back under the fury of the Iron Warriors' counterattack. He saw Honsou leading a rabble of soldiers through the battery, killing those not quick enough to make their escape, and smiled grimly.

Honsou was becoming a fearsome war-leader and Forrix knew that, given the chance, he could be amongst the greatest Warsmiths the Legion had ever seen.

The battle below was as good as over. Forrix turned away, marching past the huge number of artillery pieces he had assembled on the promontory and over the breach Honsou had fought his way across. Tomorrow they would begin firing again and the walls of the citadel would crumble.

He crossed the entrenchment on long, flat sheets of metal, stopping as a sudden premonition sent a shiver along his spine. He craned his neck upwards.

The sky was, as usual, the colour of blood, lit by reflected flashes of explosions from below.

What had made him look up?

Then he saw it.

A burning dot of light high in the sky, arcing down towards the planet at fantastic speed. Forrix's jaw hung slack as he realised the ultimate destination of the torpedo. Hot anger flooded his body as he watched molten streamers of light flare from the torpedo as it entered the lower atmosphere.

He bolted for the keep, shouting a voxed warning to the warriors inside.

'By all that is unholy, raise the keep's void shield!'

He lumbered towards the sunken blast doors that led within, casting a hurried glance over his shoulder. The burning corona of fire that surrounded the torpedo appeared to him like a baleful eye in the heavens, aimed straight for his heart.

Forrix entered the keep, hammering his fist across the door-closing mechanism and set off towards its command centre. He heard the pervasive hum of the void shield generator buried beneath the tower powering up and fervently hoped that it would raise in time.

For if it did not, he and everyone in the keep were as good as dead.

The torpedo impacted almost exactly in the centre of the Kane bastion of Tor Christo where its triple stage warhead detonated with devastating results. The lead element of the warhead was designed to crater an opening through the thick hull of a starship, while the tail element would explode simultaneously, acting as a propellant and hurling the middle charge deep within its target, But instead of the metres-thick, reinforced adamantium bulkhead of a starship, the torpedo slammed into the ground of the Kane bastion, travelling at over a thousand kilometres an hour. The first stage of the torpedo exploded with phenomenal power, flattening everything within three hundred metres and blasting a crater fifty metres deep. The tail section blew and thrust the torpedo deeper into the rock of the promontory where the more powerful centre charge detonated with the power of a sun, ripping the rock of Tor Christo apart.

Night became day as blinding light fountained from the impact. Tank-sized chunks of stone were hurled through the air like pebbles as an expanding wave of blinding smoke and dust filled the valley. The thunderclap of detonation was like the hammer of the gods, come to smite the surface of the planet, and a surging mushroom cloud billowed a thousand metres into the sky, hurling ash and burning rock in all directions.

The ramparts of the bastions either side of the torpedo's impact sagged and cracked, their rockcrete walls splitting under forces they were never designed to endure. The crater in the centre of the promontory expanded with terrifying rapidity, tonnes of rubble and artillery pieces collapsing into the fiery pit.

With a tortured groan, millions of tonnes of stone cracked and rumbled, sliding free of the slopes of the promontory, crashing down in a rocky tidal wave of destruction. The western end of the first parallel was buried beneath the avalanche of rock, and the zigzag approach saps leading to the second parallel filled and collapsed. Thousands died screaming as they were crushed beneath the sweeping tide of earth.

The battery constructed before the walls of the Vincare bastion vanished in a torrential downpour of earth and rock, the guns buried forever beneath thousands of tonnes of debris.

Hundreds of secondary explosions were touched off as burning shards of wreckage dropped into the Iron Warriors' camp, detonating ammo dumps and fuel bladders, and setting light to hundreds of tents. Anarchy filled the camp as men attempted to fight the blazes, but they were as ants fighting a forest fire; nothing could halt the spread of the voracious flames.

The blast wave buffeted the towering form of the Dies Irae, but the workers had done their job well and the towering buttresses and scaffolding held, keeping the monstrous leviathan from toppling. The massive Titan shook, its joints groaning and squealing as its external gyros fought for balance, but the Shockwave passed over it and left it intact. Several other Titans were not so fortunate and three Warlords of the Legio Mortis were brought down by massive hunks of rock or collapsed by the force of the blast.

The death toll had reached nearly ten thousand by the time the final echoes of the blast had died away and the blinding light of the torpedo's detonation had faded. All that remained of Tor Christo was the void-shielded keep, perched precariously on a splintered corbel of rock.

In a single stroke, Guardsman Hawke had suddenly tilted the balance of power on Hydra Cordatus.

Castellan Vauban pushed himself up out of the dust and earth and shook his head clear of the ringing din that filled his skull. Bright light filled the valley and he laughed in triumph as he saw the enormous mushroom cloud wreathing Tor Christo in smoke and flames.

He and Leonid had seen the torpedo launch, but they had been too busy rallying the men to fall back towards the Primus Ravelin to follow its course. The chaos of the attack on the battery had consumed him and the first he'd known of the torpedo's impact was when he'd seen his shadow suddenly thrown out before him and an enormous force smashed him to the ground. Fleeting impressions of flashing light, thunderous detonations and pain as rocks and earth came hammering down around him.

Dizzily he pushed himself to his feet, casting his gaze through the grey smoke, attempting to see the extent of the damage, but it was futile. He couldn't see more than a dozen metres: the dust and smoke was too thick. He could see shapes picking themselves slowly from the ground, but whether they were friend or foe was impossible to tell.

Muffled rallying cries of sergeants pierced the gloomy, dust-filled air and he thought he heard Leonid's voice calling his name, but it was hard to tell. He tried to shout a reply, but his mouth was dry with ash and all he could manage was a hoarse croak. He spat, wiping his face clear of dirt and futilely dusting down his jacket and breastplate.

It was time to impose some order. He stumbled towards where he thought he'd heard Leonid's voice. He turned blindly, all sense of direction lost in the haze.

Vauban froze as he heard a voice in the smoke and an enormous figure in burnished, dust and blood stained armour wearily emerged from the swirling clouds before him.

The warrior was helmetless, his close-cropped black hair tight against his skull and his eyes burning with a hate that chilled Vauban to his very soul.

The two faced one another in silence until Vauban drew his power sword and assumed a relaxed fighting stance, though fear of this warrior pulsed along every nerve of his body.

In a calm voice he said, 'I am Castellan Prestre de Roche Vauban the sixth, heir to the lands of Burgovah on the planet Joura, scion of the House of Vauban. Cross blades with me if you wish to die, foul daemon.'

The warrior smiled. 'I have no such impressive titles, human. I am called Honsou. Half-breed, mongrel, filth, scum. I will cross blades with you.'

Vauban activated the blade of his sword and dropped into a fighting crouch as Honsou approached. The battery fell silent as the two combatants circled one another, searching for a weakness in the other's defence.

Vauban raised his sword in salute and, without warning, leapt towards Honsou, thrusting with his energised blade.

Honsou swayed aside and swept his sword round, slashing the blade towards Vauban. He ducked and spun away, slashing high with his sword.

Honsou deflected the sweep and stepped back, his sword raised before him. Vauban recovered his balance and advanced towards Honsou. He lunged again and Honsou expertly blocked the thrust, rolling his wrists and slashing at Vauban's head. But he had read the move in Honsou's eyes and the castellan dodged the blow.

Wary now, the pair again circled each other, their defences alert for any sudden moves.

Honsou attacked, a flashing whirlwind of steel, forcing Vauban backwards step by step. Vauban parried a vicious slash aimed at his chest, launching a lightning riposte at his foe. The blade scraped a deep furrow in Honsou's armour, but slid clear before drawing blood.

Honsou retreated and Vauban followed with a grin of anticipation, launching himself at Honsou with fresh vigour. Honsou was a powerful warrior, but Prestre Vauban had been a student of swordplay his entire life and each attack drew fresh blood from his adversary.

He hammered his enemy's defences again and again, forcing him slowly backwards until Honsou stumbled and lost his footing.

Vauban spun left and struck out at Honsou's sword arm. Honsou was quick, bringing his block up just in time to intercept the blow, and their weapons met in a coruscating halo of sparks. Vauban roared as Honsou's blade snapped and his own smashed home. The Iron Warrior grunted in pain as his arm was severed just above the elbow.

Honsou retreated, stumbling as blood sprayed from the stump of his arm.

Seizing the opportunity, Vauban leapt in to deliver the deathblow, but, at the last second, realised that Honsou had lured him into the attack.

Honsou roared and stepped to meet Vauban, slamming inside his guard and hammering the snapped length of his sword blade through his silver breastplate and into his heart.

White-hot pain flooded Vauban as Honsou twisted the blade, bright blood pouring down his chest and darkness veiling his sight. Had he heard someone crying his name?

He felt his lifeblood pouring from him and looked into the eyes of his killer.

'Damn you…' he whispered.

'That happened a long time ago, human,' hissed Honsou, but Vauban was already dead.