Despite the ceremonial transfer of power having not yet taken place, Zadakiel had, under Imperial decree, taken command of the campaign the instant the Sword of Caliban translated in-system. As well as having the whole of the subsector’s Navy patrol fleet at his disposal, all Astra Mili­tarum troops on the ground were his to control and he, along with his brother Dark Angels, began to vox orders and issue new deployments to the Mordian and Vostroyan forces. Each city was to be garrisoned by several thousand Guardsmen with a single Space Marine given direct command over them and the fortress defences. The remainder of the Imperial forces, including the Dark Angels armour, flyers and Dreadnoughts, were ordered to the capital to remain in reserve and act as a rapid deployment force to be despatched where and when needed. The Lion willing, the troop movements would be completed before orks started raining from the sky.

  Arch Magos Diezen, who for a brief period had crawled out from under the blanket of confusion and detachment he was swaddled in, reverted to type, allowing himself to become distracted by some piece of the Space Marines’ wargear or some miniscule variation in the slope of the trench walls. He misunderstood, or at times flat-out ignored, Zadakiel and the others’ questions, only giving a clear answer when the company master requested that elements of the skitarii be moved to strategically important fortress cities.

  ‘Oh no, I don’t think so,’ Diezen said, fussing at one of the servo-arms attached to Serpicus’ back. ‘They will be staying right where they are, thank you.’

  Zadakiel could not push the matter. Though he was the Imperial commander for the Honoria campaign, the Adeptus Mechanicus were an allied detachment and did not fall under his direct influence. In war, as in all matters, Mars retained its autonomy from the Imperium of Man.

  The journey itself was far from straightforward. Orks had been making planetfall for weeks, some breaking through the Navy lines by sheer luck, others shot down, others still simply losing control of their vessels. Tens, possibly even hundreds of thousands of greenskins were already on Honoria, and though the Vostroyans and Mordians had done an admirable job of controlling their numbers, the Dark Angels encountered several wandering alone and confused along the artificial gullies. Even alone and confused, an ork was a formidable foe and the close confines of the trenches hampered the Space Marines as much as the xenos, forcing them to move along it in single file. Puriel, his power fist crackling with violent potential, dealt with any that dared attack from the front; Ezekiel, his force sword alive with psychic energy, any that they encountered from the rear. By the time they reached the gate to the city, close to three dozen greenskin corpses marked their route.

  Bigger even than the cities they had studied on the holo­lith, the walls of the capital thrust over a hundred metres into the sky, smooth and devoid of features to prevent any attacker from scaling them. The gate itself was taller still, rising another eight feet proud of the battlements, the vast weapons array sat atop it adding the same again to its total height. As Ezekiel looked up at the looming edifice he was overcome by an unexpected sense of unease.

  ‘And this is one of the least impressive gates,’ Diezen chuckled. ‘There are another seventeen surrounding the city, all larger and better armed.’

  As the magos spoke, Ezekiel could hear other words, the words Turmiel had spoken to him before they had embarked for Honoria.

  ‘You die, Brother Ezekiel.’

  The Epistolary had paid little heed to the Codicier’s prophecy. Turmiel’s gift of divination was not yet honed, and his predictions did not always come to pass. Even when they did, they did so with wildly varying degrees of accuracy.

  ‘Does it have a name, arch magos?’ Ezekiel asked.

  ‘The capital? I believe it is called “Aurelianum”, a most unfortunate name if my recollection of Imperial history is correct.’ Diezen pressed his hand against a panel set into the base of the sheer wall, barely perceptible even to the Space Marines, and chanted something in binaric cant. A hiss of releasing pressure followed and a hidden door withdrew to allow them access to the interior, the Dark Angels stooping to fit through.

  ‘Not the city, the gate,’ Ezekiel said, stepping through the opening and into a wide, high-ceilinged chamber. There was no light source but his eyes adjusted instantly, revealing an array of flamer-like weapons set into the walls. The Librarian had no time to admire the ingenuity of whoever had constructed this particular chamber of death, his anxiety growing by the second.

  ‘It is called the Subarius Gate. No. Wait, that’s your name, isn’t it?’ Diezen pointed at Serpicus, who was inspecting the weapons bristling from the chamber walls. ‘Aha! I remember what it’s called now. It’s the Sularian Gate.’

  ‘You die, Brother Ezekiel.’ The words echoed again in Ezekiel’s mind, except this time, it was not Turmiel’s voice he heard.

  It was the voice of the daemon that had bested him on Korsh.

  There was no functional need for the ceremonial transfer of power from the governor and the commanders of the Vostroyan and Mordian regiments, but Ezekiel understood why the company master had agreed to it. Showing up with five ranking Space Marines sent out a powerful message of reassurance: we are here for you, you can depend on us. But it also said something else: we are in charge and will brook no dissent or cowardice; our word is the word of the Emperor and you will follow it to the letter. Both the Astra Militarum officers were polite and deferential, but they looked ill at ease in the presence of the Dark Angels.

  Good, Ezekiel thought, fear will make them compliant, less likely to improvise or deviate from the battle plan when the bolt shells start flying.

  The governor did not appear cowed by being in the company of five Dark Angels, but was no less respectful. The man was obviously a Guard veteran, judging by his scars and demeanour, and had likely served alongside some Chapter or other in the past. That too boded well; if he knew how Space Marines operated in the thea­tre of war then he would be less likely to try to impress them with his leadership, or allow personal ambition to cloud his judgement.

  The handover was mercifully short. As yet, the invasion was not under way but that might change at any moment. When it did, the Dark Angels needed to be in a position to react.

  Shipmaster Selenaz was reporting that the ork vessels were holding formation – or what passed for it – just beyond Honoria’s first moon, while she had moved the Imperial fleet into hiding beyond the third moon. When the invasion commenced, her orders were to destroy as many ork ships and roks as possible before they made it through the atmosphere, and then to hunt down any new arrivals in-system to prevent their numbers being bolstered.

  With the ceremonial aspects seen to, Zadakiel took the governor and Astra Militarum officers to one side, to brief them on his strategy. He needed neither approval nor consent but full understanding would be key if Honoria was to persist in the face of such overwhelming odds.

  Serpicus and Diezen left together, the arch magos mutter­ing something about showing ‘Sansirius’ the gun emplacements atop the wall. Rephial went off to find a space large enough to commandeer as a medicae, while Puriel sought out the Dark Angels who had begun to arrive in the capital, to steel their souls for the battle to come.

  Ezekiel, the sense of dread that had overwhelmed him at the gate still not fully abated, decided to familiarise himself with the layout of the city. The governor’s office had supplied the Dark Angels with maps, both physical and in a format compatible with their power armour’s systems, but committing the physical geography to his eidetic memory would give him the edge should the unthink­able happen and the city’s defences fell.

  The capital was exactly what he had been expecting from Diezen’s description of the place, with the exception that the gates did not form a single ring around the city. Instead there were twelve placed along the outer wall and six forming an inner citadel to fall back to should the first line be breached. Both ringed walls were equal in height but the inner gates ascended even higher into the sky, presumably so that the weapons turrets could fire over the top of their counterparts on the outer perimeter, eliminating redundancy. The Honorians might have been honing their fortifications for ten millennia but that made their feats of martial engineering no less impressive to Ezekiel.

  What the Librarian had not been expecting was for so many people to be on the wide streets of Aurelianum. Most were, understand­ably, armed, troops of the Honorian defence forces clad in uniforms of grey that matched the colour of the walls, or Mordians and Vostroyans billeted in the capital. Those who did not bear arms instead hurried about carrying supplies, ferrying ammunition to the Guardsmen about to scale the vast staircases leading to the top of the walls, or distributing ration packs. The non-combatants wore similarly hued outfits to the Honorian soldiery but without military insignia or mark of rank, and even the very young pitched in, children barely in the first flushes of puberty at the wheels of transport vehicles or stripping down and cleaning weapons. It reminded Ezekiel of Cadia, a place he had served with distinction in the past. He hoped that in the dark days to come, the citizenry of Honoria would serve with the same devotion as the people of that beleaguered world.

  Having spent his convalescence solely in the company of his brother Dark Angels, who were trained and shielded not to ‘leak’ in the presence of psykers, being surrounded by so many unguarded minds came as a shock to Ezekiel initially. Without delving directly into an individual’s psyche he could not read specific thoughts, but he could sense emotions without any conscious effort. Under the current circumstances, and with so many souls crammed within the city walls, the wave rolling over him consisted of only one emotion: fear.

  Naturally, all who cast eyes upon the figure of the eight foot tall, power-armoured transhuman killing machine, had some kind of reaction to him. Many just stood transfixed, unsure of how to react in his presence. Some – mainly those in Mordian or Vostroyan uniform – stopped and saluted. A tiny few averted their gaze, uncertain of whether they were worthy to look upon him. What each of them had in common was that their first emotional reaction upon encountering him was a surge of fear. Even after that feeling subsided, when elation at one of the Emperor’s greatest creations being among them, or pride at knowing that they would soon be fighting alongside the fabled Adeptus Astartes took over, fear still remained. Fear of the gathering storm; fear that this day would be their last; fear that they would be found wanting in the conflict to come.

  Of all the emotions that Ezekiel – or any of his Librarius brethren – could feel, fear was the most alien. Pride, envy, love, rage – especially rage – he was capable of understanding if not feeling, but fear? Fear had been driven from him as part of the indoctrination process when he had become a Space Marine. To sense it second-hand was anathema to him; it was like wearing another man’s skin.

  Something itched at the back of Ezekiel’s mind, the faint echo of the warp. He had felt it many times before, always in the presence of other psykers, but this was different somehow: weaker, diluted. To the best of his knowledge, Turmiel was the only other warp-touched being on the planet, but what Ezekiel was sensing was not recognisable as the Codicier’s psychic spoor.

  Ezekiel set out to follow its keening call.

  The cold wind blew hard into the Vostroyans’ faces, forcing them to fasten the top button of their field coats so that the bottom half of their faces were covered by raised lapels. The snow it brought with it settled heavily on their clothing, fur hats and moustaches, camouflaging them against both the white of the sky and what little of the ground they could see in the blizzard.

  The Valkyrie spooled up its engines, the backwash turning the area surrounding it into a lake of sludge, kicking up drifts to contribute once more to the relentless flurry. As it rose into the air, Allix made a fist and raised it skywards in salute. Kas, manning the heavy bolter mounted at the side of the troop hold, mirrored the gesture.

  Their supposition that the pilot would go along with their plan given a big enough bribe was only partially correct. Though he was happy to take them to the Braeval Gate, he wouldn’t take them as far as the fortress itself – only to the perimeter of the trenches – out of fear of somebody reporting his impromptu and unauthorised visit to his superiors. Likewise, he refused point-blank to wait for them, insisting that he resume his normal patrol route and return for them later. Allix had gone one better, suggesting that Kas stay on board and man the door gun in case he spotted any enemy activity on the ground that needed to be dealt with. The entire squad knew exactly what Allix was up to; leaving Kas on board would ensure – by intimidation, or violence if necessary – that the pilot didn’t try to pull a fast one by keeping the bribe but neglecting to come back and pick them up.

  The Valkyrie disappeared into the whiteout leaving the five Vostroyans to turn and trudge towards the edge of the trench network. Though the early stages were tough going, the snow at times drifting to almost waist height, once they reached the start of the man-made gullies their progress became startlingly easy.

  Where they had expected the deep grooves to be filled with snow, instead they found that the stone – or whatever material they were hewn from – remained entirely devoid of it. They stopped for a moment, looking around at each other in puzzlement before Allix dropped down into the trench and held out a hand against the moisture-slicked wall.

  ‘It’s warm,’ Allix said, dropping to one knee. ‘The floor too.’

  The others followed Allix down, each of them removing gloves to feel for themselves.

  ‘Look,’ Grigori said. He strode further along the trench and pointed down at a fist-sized hole between his feet. ‘The meltwater drains away down here.’

  ‘And here,’ Dmitri called, having passed Grigori and advanced ten metres further down the trench. He turned and looked further ahead. ‘They’re spaced at regular intervals.’

  The squad exchanged impressed looks for a few moments before Allix spoke.

  ‘Come on. It’s the job of the Mechanicus to spend their days admiring the technology that went into this. Ours is to reach the fortress, find Marita and get out of here.’

  ‘About that,’ Dmitri said as the squad began their trek. ‘What exactly are we going to do when we get there? It’s not like we can bang on the front gate or sneak in over the walls.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Grigori, drawing alongside them. ‘How do we get in?’

  ‘With this,’ Allix said, producing a flare gun.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ asked Dmitri.

  ‘On board the Valkyrie. I figured that if the pilot wasn’t going to take us as far as we needed to go, he could at least contribute to the mission in some other way.’

  ‘That’s great, Allix, but what do we say once we have their attention? “Let us in. We’re a bunch of stinking roustabouts who are technically AWOL to pursue a personal mission to rescue our captain’s lover and unborn child”,’ Grigori said.

  ‘That’s one approach. Not a particularly wise one, but an approach, nonetheless,’ Allix said. ‘Or we could just say that our patrol got shot down by a marauding band of orks and we’ve been trekking blindly through the snow for days to reach the nearest gate.’

  ‘The lying, it comes easily to you, doesn’t it, Allix?’ Dmitri said, without a hint of judgement to his tone.

  ‘Sometimes I think my entire life before I joined this regi­ment was just one big lie,’ Allix said, picking up the pace.

  What set Aurelianum and all of the cities on Honoria apart from every other city under Imperial rule that Ezekiel had set foot in was the distinct lack of ornamentation and trappings of the Imperium. That was understand­able – the planet had only been rediscovered a few years earlier and the Ecclesiarchy was yet to gain much of a foothold here – but it was no less jarring. Not a single statue of a saint or martyr was to be found in any of the squares or plazas; no cathedrals stretched skywards in veneration of the God-Emperor; not even a propaganda poster hung sun-bleached and ragged on the smooth grey walls. So when Ezekiel turned a street corner and found himself facing a huge building, the front of which was emblazoned with an Imperial aquila, it came as something of a surprise.

  Even more so as the psychic gnawing he was experiencing was coming from within.

  He strode forwards towards the high double doors that served as its entrance, the two blue-uniformed Mordians in peaked caps standing sentry throwing them open as he approached before approximating salutes.

  Ezekiel stopped just in front of the doorway and looked up at the building. ‘What is this place?’ he asked to neither of the Mordians in particular.

  ‘It… It’s the Administratum headquarters, my lord,’ replied one of the sentries in Low Gothic. Ezekiel could not only sense the fear on the man, he could smell it.

  ‘And are any psykers housed in here?’ Ezekiel continued. ‘Any primaris attached to one of the Guard regiments? Astropaths, perhaps?’

  ‘No, lord,’ said the other Mordian, finding his voice. ‘Just clerks, the governor’s office and the brig.’

  Ezekiel entered the building, following the source of the sensation like an ethereal paper trail. Though he knew this was not his powers of foresight returning to him, it was the closest he had felt to divination in many months.

  The Librarian passed by open doors, wide-mouthed scribes looking up from their vital work as his imposing shadow passed over them. He stopped in front of one particular office where a clerk dropped the sheaves of parchment she had been filing at the sight of him. A more senior clerk broke off from his own filing to admonish her, only to drop the even bigger stack of papers in his arms when he realised he was standing not two metres from a Space Marine.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116