AND THEY SHALL KNOW NO FEAR…

Darren Cox

009.009.832.M41
04.52

‘Three minutes until blackout.’

The vox crackle from the Land Raider’s driver pulled Castellan Marius Reinhart from his silent liturgies. Bathed in the interior’s red light, he released himself from his assault harness and stood. His armour’s gyro-stabilisers steadied him against the buck of the transport’s passage as he peered over the driver’s shoulder.

Through the forward viewport he watched as flashes of lightning fractured the night and revealed a landscape of icy rock and jagged peaks. Above, strange auroras moved across a sea of churning storm clouds. Even over the rumble of the Land Raider’s tracks he could hear the slow roll of thunder.

‘How far are we from our target?’

The Land Raider’s co-driver adjusted a series of brass dials on the forward console. ‘At our current speed, auspex readings mark us thirty minutes out.’

‘Do we have any readings from the keep, any residual power spikes?’

‘Negative, Castellan, the storm is jamming the majority of our forward sensors. There is no way to say for certain.’

Reinhart growled a curse under his breath. They were going in blind. Atmosphereologists aboard the Black Templar flagship, the Revenant, had warned him and his Sword Brethren about the dangers of the electromagnetic storm raging over Stygia XII’s upper polar region – and over their waiting target. The forge-world’s storms could affect the machine-spirit of even the most basic device – a fact necessitating their insertion by Thunderhawk transports just beyond the storm’s perimeter. Though a direct flight through the storm would have saved the most time, there was no way to tell if the Thunderhawk’s systems could withstand the fury of the electromagnetic pulses. The risk was too great and their cargo too precious. The Land Raiders would have to get them as close as possible.

Reinhart keyed his vox, triggering the command channel connecting him to the rest of his battle-brothers in the convoy. ‘Escalade Two, Escalade Three; we’re approaching the storm’s blackout perimeter. Be prepared for vox interference.’

Two of the twelve amber runes displayed on his visor flashed briefly. Chaplain Mathias, commanding the second Land Raider, and Brother-Sergeant Janus, commanding the third, had received and understood.

Through the viewport Reinhart could see the track ahead narrowing into a rocky defile.

‘Understood, Escalade Three.’ The driver turned in his seat, addressing Reinhart. ‘We’re moving into a single ingress line. Escalade Three will take point.’

Reinhart nodded and turned back to the Land Raider’s hold, grasping an overhead stabiliser. In preparation, the interior of the hold had been stripped bare, leaving room only for its cargo and three occupants.

‘Brother Cerebus, Brother Fernus, prepare the Ark’s shield.’

On either side of the hold, two Techmarines, their helmets heavy with neural cables, turned towards him and nodded. They bowed over a great armoured casket – what they called the Ark. Its surface was incised with the baroque runes of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and grav-engines kept it suspended just above the floor.

Chanting the rites of activation, the Techmarines coupled their grafted servo-arms with the Ark’s forward actuators. Moments later a heavy thrum vibrated through the hold. A pale shimmer began to enshroud the Ark. Reinhart could not help but watch in awe as the machine-spirit was drawn from its slumber by the warrior-priests.

He found himself joining them in a prayer of his own.

‘Emperor, protect us in this hour of need, may you see the truth of our actions. Allow us to be the instruments of your will and steer our hands on this blessed duty.’

With the Techmarines’ rite complete Reinhart could barely see the Ark through the coalescing motes of energy that surrounded it. Lexmechanics aboard the Revenant had built the shield to specifically retard the effects of Stygia XII’s storms and protect the Ark’s internal functions. If it failed, millions would pay the price.

‘Castellan, we have contact. Escalade Three is taking fire.’

Reinhart whirled back to the viewport just as the heavy staccato thump of rounds stitched across the exterior of their own Land Raider. ‘Where? Where is it coming from?’ He braced himself as a violent shudder ripped through the hull of the transport. Alarms sounded in time with the strobing of combat lamps.

‘They’ve taken out our starboard sponson!’ The co-driver shouted over the hail of gunfire. ‘It’s an ambush, right and left, above us, from the cliffs–’

In front of them, Escalade Three blossomed into a searing ball of flame. Shrapnel from its shredded hide clanged against their forward armour. At once five runes disappeared from Reinhart’s visor.

‘Holy Throne!’ The driver, panic evident in his eyes, glanced over his shoulder at Reinhart. ‘They must have ruptured a fuel cell. Whoever they are, they have some heavy ordinance.’

Reinhart ignored him. Unwilling to admit their fate, he keyed his vox and tried to reach Escalade Three. Only static answered. Brother-Sergeant Janus plus Brothers Gorgon, Sangrill, Charsild and Eklain were five of the Templar’s most experienced and bravest Sword Brethren, each of them champions and legends in their own right. Together, they had all survived countless battles on countless worlds, and now they were gone. The loss was staggering.

‘Castellan, your orders? Do we search for survivors?’

Reinhart blinked. ‘They’re all dead. Drive – get us out of here.’

With the heavy growl of turbine engines, the driver punched the throttle forward. Reinhart looked back to Cerebus and Fernus, both of whom stood protectively to either side of the Ark. Their Mechanicus power axes were held ready, shoulder-mounted bolters on-line. ‘Be ready! This is going to get rough!’ he yelled over the cacophony.

Another violent lurch nearly sent him sprawling to the hold’s decking. A second series of alarms began to wail.

‘We can’t take much more, Castellan! We have armour breaches in three locations! If we continue to sustain this–’ A terrific blast of flame and smoke engulfed the cabin in front of Reinhart. Hot shrapnel flew in all directions, pinging off the ablative plates of his artificer-forged power armour. Beneath him, the Land Raider shuddered to a stop.

Oily smoke began to fill the hold. Cerebus inserted a diagnostic cable from his chest plate into the Land Raider’s secondary codifier. The machine’s screenplate flickered as lines of scripture scrolled across its surface. The Techmarine’s augmented voice came over Reinhart’s vox reflecting nothing of the anarchy that boiled around them. ‘The Land Raider is crippled, Castellan. Evacuation is the only option before the engine’s plasma coils go critical.’

Reinhart nodded. ‘Escalade Two, this is Escalade One; acknowledge.’

Amid the crackle of static, Mathias’s vox keyed up. Reinhart heard the thunderous boom of bolter fire in the background. ‘I acknowledge, Castellan. Your Land Raider is blocking the track. We can’t get around. We are dismounting and moving to your position to secure the Ark.’

Good, Reinhart thought. The Ark comes first; all of them would willingly sacrifice their lives to protect it. He drew his filigreed bolt pistol, its balanced weight a perfect extension of his armoured gauntlet. Whispering his Litany of Devotion, he clasped the bolter’s binding chain around his wrist, each link graven with the litany’s sacred words.

‘Brother Cerebus, Brother Fernus, exit forward.’ He gestured towards the hatch beneath the smoking crew cabin where the remains of the driver and co-driver crisped in the dying flames. ‘Chaplain Mathias and our battle-brothers in Escalade Two are moving to cover you. Get through to the target as quickly as possible. May the Emperor be with you.’

Without waiting for their response, Reinhart turned, flipped open an access panel, and punched the quick release of the port side hatch. Explosive bolts blew the armoured door outwards. With a roar, Reinhart leapt into the frozen night of Stygia XII.

Through swirling snow he was met by streaks of tracer fire lancing down from darkened figures in the crags. Las-pulses and solid shot tore up the ground around him in explosions of rock and ice.

Within moments the crunch of footfalls and the bellow of war chants alerted him to Brother Apollos’s approach from the direction of Escalade Two. The giant Sword Brother marched through the gunfire as if striding through a heavy gale. Shells whined and spat off his ornate Terminator armour. He bore his giant thunder hammer chained to his wrist; in his other, a heavy bolt pistol tracked and fired. The newest of Castellan’s squad – and the youngest – Apollos had been awarded his tabard just a year prior. In that time, Reinhart had met few who could match his fervour in battle.

Next to the hulking Terminator, a giant himself but dwarfed in Apollos’s shadow, was Brother Ackolon. The prime helix of the Apothecarius was emblazoned on his shoulder pad, his narthecium strapped securely to his back. Together, the Space Marines laid down a withering fusillade of fire, their blazing muzzle flashes lending a daemonic cast to their already terrifying countenances.

Apollos reached the shadow of the burning Land Raider and crashed against its buckled armour, shielded against the fire from the opposite cliffside. He pulverised the rock face looming over them in a shower of bolter shells, sending shadowy foes diving for cover. Ackolon followed close behind and crouched next to Reinhart, slamming a fresh magazine into his bolter. ‘Castellan, Chaplain Mathias with Brothers Dorner, Gerard, and Julius are moving up the right; your orders?’

‘Keep moving,’ Reinhart voxed over the hammer of his bolter, even as a smoking slug blew a chunk from his ceramite leg guard. ‘They’ll cut us to pieces if we remain exposed in this Throne-forsaken defile much longer!’

Ackolon nodded. ‘The Emperor protects!’ He motioned to Apollos and the two Space Marines burst from the cover of the crippled Land Raider, charging through the smoke and haze of gunfire. Reinhart fired a final volley, blowing two of the enemy from the cliff, then followed.

Ahead, he could see the towering forms of Cerebus and Fernus fighting their way through the defile – the Ark between them – its shield sparking each time a round found its surface. Paralleling him across the narrow track, Chaplain Mathias, his golden skull helm gleaming, led the three remaining Sword Brethren at a full run, their bolters streaking angry gouts of automatic fire.

Reaching the two Techmarines, Reinhart and his squad flowed seamlessly into a wide formation around the Ark. From their left, a rocket, spitting a fiery contrail, hissed through the air and detonated at Brother Julius’s feet.

The blast vaporised his legs, blowing away his helmet and a good portion of his breastplate. The Templar fell, screaming hate around mouthfuls of bloody froth. Still, Julius’s bolter roared. Ackolon dashed to him, and began dragging him along, firing from the hip. Brother Gerard moved to help. Before he could reach them, a stray round blew through the knee joint of his armour. Blood sprayed, steaming on the frozen ground.

Reinhart knew the situation was slipping from his grasp. Enemies they had yet to identify held the high ground, the rough terrain rendering them next to impossible to acquire. Worse yet, the storm of gunfire lacing the air around them only seemed to be intensifying.

With two battle-brothers down, the squad moved into a tight circle, doing their best to cover all angles of fire. A sudden, earth-shaking detonation washed the defile in blinding firelight – the crippled Land Raider had finally succumbed to its wounds. Then, as abruptly as it had started, the gunfire ceased.

From somewhere forward of their position, where the defile opened into a deep valley, came the echoing booms of multiple engines. Reinhart risked a glance upwards.

Dorner heard the booms as well, mistaking them for enemy fire. ‘Incoming!’ he yelled.

Reinhart held up a fist. ‘Hold your fire; those are jump packs.’ With the words barely uttered, the sound of thumping bolters filled the night once more. Tracer rounds streaked down from the sky into the enemy positions high in the rocks.

‘Stay alert! Everyone hold their position.’

In the momentary respite, Reinhart removed his helmet, its vox and visor readings going dead from the interference of the storm. The others followed suit. None of them could risk being blind and unable to communicate if the fighting broke out again.

Reinhart moved to Brother Gerard. The injured Space Marine, blood colouring the lower leg of his power armour, stood over Ackolon and the stricken Brother Julius. The Castellan laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘How is your knee, brother?’

Gerard continued to scan the defile, his bolter sweeping left and right. ‘A minor wound. I can still fight,’ he said.

Reinhart looked down at Ackolon. ‘Brother Julius?’

Ackolon shook his head. ‘Massive trauma. I’ve already removed his gene-seed.’

Reinhart scanned the rocks. He felt the stares of his men. He looked back at Ackolon. ‘Then he will serve the Chapter in death,’ he said loud enough for all of them to hear. ‘So will we all, if that is what the Emperor’s will demands of us.’

Overhead, the sound of bolter fire ceased, but Reinhart’s heightened senses could pick out the faint echo of a more intense exchange from somewhere deeper in the valley. Subtle flashes flickered in the darkness. An ochre cast stained the sky, a great conflagration raging just out of sight. He knew it could only be coming from one place. What he did not know was what waited for them there.

Chaplain Mathias, the black cross of their Chapter tattooed on his forehead, moved to Reinhart’s side. ‘Castellan, our… rescuers… approach.’

Reinhart turned. He glanced at Mathias, the disgust of their situation evident on the Chaplain’s grim face. From the direction of the valley a squad of women – armoured in crimson and sable – advanced. Catechisms of the Ecclesiarchy adorned their tabards, stitched in High Gothic around the blood red petals of a single rose. Each carried a finely worked, Godwyn Deaz-pattern bolter of gold and silver. It was the signature weapon of those female orphans raised in the schola progenium and inducted as Adepta Sororitas battle-sisters of the Orders Militant.

The lead sister broke from her flanking guard. Reinhart moved to meet her, Mathias a step behind.

Beneath short-cropped midnight-black hair, old scars lined what would have been an attractive face. Her marred beauty was accentuated by an augmetic targeting reticule that replaced her left eye; the jewelled lens glowed a baleful red. ‘Brother Astartes,’ she said, her voice as cold as the biting wind. ‘I am Sister Superior Helena Britaine of the Third Celestian Squad of the Order of the Bloody Rose.’

‘Castellan Marius Reinhart of the Sword Brethren of the Black Templars,’ Reinhart gestured to Mathias. The Chaplain stepped forward, his skull helm held in the crook of his arm, his crozius arcanum – topped with a glittering Imperial eagle – cradled in the other. ‘This is Chaplain Mathias Vlain.’

The Sister Superior nodded. ‘Well met, brothers of the Emperor.’ Her single blue eye drifted past the two Astartes to the others who still waited, bolters at the ready. ‘My Seraphim have driven the enemy from the cliffs. It should be safe for the moment. I can offer medical assistance to any of your battle-brothers who require it.’

‘We have our own Apothecary,’ Reinhart said, then stepped closer, his voice low. ‘What I do need are answers. How have you and your sisters come to be here?’

Sister Helena’s eye narrowed. ‘I would ask the same of you, Castellan. We were given no word of your coming.’

‘We did not offer any word, Sister Superior, and if you are not willing to give me the answers I need, I suggest you take me to someone who will.’

Helena studied the towering Marine for a moment. ‘Very well, Castellan,’ she said finally. ‘I will take you. But be warned: Chaos has assuredly tainted this place.’

Interrogator Edwin Savaul of the Ordo Hereticus took a ragged breath of the mountain air as he surveyed the siege’s progress. He stood at a shattered casement high in an ancient tower, a tower his men dubbed ‘the Spike.’ With walls forged from the ironite stone indigenous to Stygia XII, the Spike was one of two towers guarding the entrance to the valley from the winding defile beyond. All that remained of the second was a finger of crumbling stone, a place avoided by the simple Guardsmen, who claimed the unquiet dead haunted its collapsed halls.

From his perch, Savaul could easily see the gothic fortress stretching into the night sky, commanding the far side of the valley like a dark cathedral cut from the stone of the mountain. From its decaying battlements glowing streaks of criss-crossing las-fire and tracer rounds webbed the valley floor. Explosions rocked the broken landscape just beneath the walls, an area that had also received a name: ‘the cemetery.’ Everywhere, flashing light illuminated the forms of struggling soldiers.

Savaul turned to face the chamber’s dank interior. A ring of flickering lumoglobes circled the room, their snaking power cables stretching across the floor’s cracked flagstones. The harsh light stung his eyes. ‘Are we any closer?’ he asked.

Veteran Captain Dremin Vlorn of the 4th Inquisitorial storm-trooper regiment emerged from where he waited in the chamber’s entry portal. He limped into the room, his grizzled face streaked with soot and dried blood. A stylized ‘I’ – the mark of Inquisitorial conditioning – stood out on either ridge of his sunken cheeks. He placed his helmet on the only piece of furniture: a large, smoke-blackened quarter panel of a blasted Vindicator tank turned into a makeshift table. The captain’s exhaustion was palpable. ‘The gates hold, interrogator. Our troops still can’t get close enough to plant the breaching charges.’

Savaul stepped from the ruined window, one hand in the pocket of his ankle-length storm coat, its high black collar framing a face devoid of pigment. ‘Where is Sister Superior Helena? I expected her report along with yours.’

‘She should be just behind me,’ the captain replied, tugging his gloves free. ‘She took her Celestian and Seraphim squads to investigate a disturbance in the defile about an hour ago. I saw them descending the switchbacks as I entered the Spike.’

‘A disturbance?’

Vlorn shrugged. ‘There were reports of gunfire.’

Savaul’s disturbingly blue eyes searched the captain’s face. He had become adept at detecting a man turned by the warp. It appeared Veteran Captain Vlorn’s conditioning remained uncorrupted. Savaul engaged the safety of the laspistol in his pocket and placed the weapon on the table. Vlorn looked up in alarm.

‘None of us are safe from the warp’s taint, veteran captain. Especially here. I would expect you to deal with me in the same manner, were I no longer… pure.’

Vlorn inclined his head. ‘Understood, interrogator.’

A sound brought both men around. Footsteps echoed from the shadows beyond the chamber’s portal – slow and measured, like the tread of a Titan. As they grew nearer, dust began to sift from the ceiling stones. A moment later Sister Superior Helena entered the room, stepping aside to make way for the mammoth figure in her wake. Savaul sucked in a sharp breath at the sheer scale of the newcomer.

Astartes. He had seen one once from a distance, but nothing could match the awe or the terror of seeing one up close. They truly were monsters.

Helena stepped forward. ‘Interrogator Savaul, I present Castellan Marius Reinhart of the Black Templars’ Sword Brethren.’

Reinhart stared down at them, flint eyes sparkling, one half of his tanned face covered in tattooed lines of Gothic script. At close to three metres tall, encased in ornate black power armour, the Space Marine dominated the room. His tabard was the colour of aged parchment. Scorched and ripped, it bore the ebony cross of the Templars’ heraldry. An ancient blade hung at his side.

Silent, the giant nodded in greeting and stepped around the table, his gaze drawn to the maps spread upon its scarred surface. Armoured fingers lifted the vellum schematics of the besieged fortress’s walls and gridded layouts of troop dispersements. All of them watched, drawn into a hushed silence, entranced.

He let the maps fall back to the table. His gaze swept them all, and then his unwavering eyes locked with Savaul’s. ‘What troubles this place, interrogator?’

Savaul swallowed, feeling as though he had emerged from a dream. All the power and authority due an Inquisitorial agent flooded back in an instant. He straightened. ‘Castellan, I welcome you,’ he said, ignoring the Astartes’ question. ‘Your arrival is most propitious. I will require your forces to join the assault on the gates of the fortress. I’m sure you saw the situation on your descent from the defile.’

A strange, reverberating growl came from the Marine. It took a moment for Savaul to realize it was laughter.

‘Interrogator,’ he said, any hint of mirth now gone from his voice, ‘If you think I have come here to relieve you, you are mistaken.’

‘I… I’m afraid I don’t understand. Surely you have come at our request for aid. My envoys left with the call three days ago.’

Reinhart glanced down, again studying the map of the fortress. ‘Do you know, interrogator, what this place is that you lay siege to?’

Savaul looked from Helena to Vlorn, but neither noticed his glance. They simply stared at Reinhart, puzzlement evident on both of their faces. Savaul was beginning to feel as though he lacked some vital piece of information – a feeling he was not accustomed to. ‘Planetary records on file with Stygia XII’s Administratum centre in Capitalis Acheron report that this fortress was in existence upon the planet’s settlement. Its builders are unknown, possibly xenos, a rumour causing it to be shunned by the local populace. They call it Stormhelm. Further records indicate–’

‘Your records are lacking, interrogator,’ Reinhart interrupted. Savaul, unused to such disrespect, stood open-mouthed. Reinhart moved to the room’s gaping window, the glow of the siege-flames lighting his face. ‘The bastion’s true name is Montgisard; a chapter keep of my order founded by Marshal Gervhart during his execution of the Athelor Crusade. That was close to three thousand years prior to Stygia XII’s official settlement date. After millennia of faithful service it was declared Vox in Excelso – dissolved – and thus abandoned. However, the memory of our Chapter is long, and none of our keeps are ever truly forgotten. We have returned at the behest of High Marshal Ludoldus to reclaim Montgisard.’ Reinhart turned back to the table. ‘So, I ask you again: who has defiled this place?’

Savaul said nothing for a moment, unable to comprehend how his ordo could have been ignorant of these facts. Still, it changed nothing. The needs of the Templars would have to come second, if at all. A world’s fate hinged upon the Inquisition’s success. Savaul chose his next words carefully.

‘Castellan, I thank you for enlightening us on the history of this site. This fortress, whether you call it Montgisard or Stormhelm, has become an infested hive of taint and corruption – and, as near as we can tell, is the Archenemy’s base of operations on Stygia XII. We are here on orders from my master, Inquisitor Abraham Vinculus of the Ordo Hereticus, to cleanse this taint.’ Savaul motioned to Helena.

The Battle Sister moved to the table and gestured to the map outlining troop placements. ‘We arrived on-site a week ago,’ she said. ‘Shortly thereafter, the storm manifested, cutting our communication lines. Nothing in, nothing out.’ She looked up at Reinhart. ‘Our situation could not be more dire. The cult of the Archenemy has turned out to be much larger than anticipated. A sizeable portion of the Stygian Planetary Defence Force has turned traitor, enslaved by the warp’s corruption.’ She motioned to Vlorn. ‘Veteran Captain Vlorn and his storm-troopers have executed the brunt of the assault, with my sisters acting as the tip of the spear.’

Vlorn’s gruff voice cut in. ‘The bastards have dug in and they have a taste for blood. Though we lay siege, it is actually we who are encircled. They’ve taken the high ground around us, and the gates of Stormhelm refuse to fall.’ A touch of grudging admiration laced the veteran captain’s words. ‘You Astartes know how to build a door.’

‘Why not simply pull out, fight your way back through the defile, and return with additional forces?’

Helena and Vlorn looked to Savaul, a sudden uneasiness to their features.

Savaul looked down, composed himself, and then raised his eyes to meet the full force of Reinhart’s gaze. ‘Retreat is not an option, Castellan. We–’ Savaul hesitated.

The hulking Space Marine’s voice cracked with impatience. ‘Speak, man! My time is short!’

‘As is ours, Castellan!’ Savaul reached to the inner-pocket of his storm coat and withdrew a rolled parchment. ‘Have you heard of a Necrolectifier?’

‘No, interrogator, I have not.’

Savaul unrolled the scroll and placed it on the table. A coruscating mass of arcanographs and warp glyphs crawled across the blood-stained parchment. Reinhart snarled, stepping back from the table. ‘What abomination is this?’

The interrogator laid a splayed hand across the parchment, never taking his eyes from Reinhart. ‘This scroll holds the design of a warp gate, a physical portal between our universe and the realm of Chaos. It requires four artefacts, four Necrolectifiers, vile items capable of focusing enough daemonic energy to rip a hole through the fabric of our reality into the maelstrom of the warp. Castellan, they are planning to open this gate.’

‘But you have captured this scroll,’ Reinhart said. ‘You have foiled their plan, correct?’

‘No, Castellan, this scroll is not the key; it was drawn by a captured heretic during interrogation – a physical representation of the knowledge my excruciators drew from him. It tells us the cultists within Montgisard already hold the Necrolectifiers, the knowledge of their proper arrangement, and the rituals required to activate them. It tells us that on any given year, at the ninth hour of a ninth day of a ninth month, a portal may be opened, a portal through which the legions of the warp may pass.’

Savaul’s voice lowered to a whisper. ‘Castellan, this is the ninth day, of the ninth month of 832.M41 and very soon it will be the ninth hour. Unless this fortress is destroyed first, you can be assured this gate will open, then this world will burn – and the thousands of souls living here will burn with it.’

The meeting with the interrogator had taken longer than Reinhart expected. The time he had spent with Savaul made it plain to him the man’s resolve was unbendable, and that the situation at Stormhelm posed a very real threat to the success of the Templars’ mission. Now, more than ever, time was of the essence.

He found his battle-brothers waiting for him in one of the tower’s undercrofts. Its western wall had collapsed, the rubble cleared to give easy access to the tower’s exterior. Beyond the wall a marshalling yard had been levelled. A hive of activity swarmed across its packed surface. Ordinance officers bellowed while loading crews thronged around a handful of damaged Vindicator tanks awaiting the ministrations of overworked enginseers.

Dorner and Apollos stood watchful at the undercroft’s crude exit, observing the tumult outside, their bolters at low guard. Gerard sat on a battered munitions crate, his leg elevated while Ackolon applied a battlefield dressing. Chaplain Mathias talked in hushed tones with the Techmarines, not far from the floating Ark. They all turned at Reinhart’s approach.

Mathias stepped to the forefront. ‘Castellan?’

Reinhart looked at each of them in turn. ‘I will tell you simply, brothers: Chaos has gained a foothold here. The Archenemy occupies Montgisard. At minimum two regiments of traitor guard and PDF lie within. In three hours they will attempt to open a warp gate within the fortress’s grand chapel, and this world will die in the apocalypse that follows.’

Mathias’s face darkened. ‘Then we dare not lose another moment. The power cells of the shield will last another two hours at most.’

‘I am well aware of the cells’ capacity, Chaplain,’ he replied. He brushed past Mathias and strode to the Ark, running his hands across the shield’s crackling surface. So much hope hinged on what lay within. ‘The Inquisition’s forces are desperate. They have been engaged here over a week and are no closer to breaking the fortress’s gates.’

Mathias followed Reinhart to the Ark. ‘Castellan, I am afraid I don’t see how their situation has any bearing on our mission here.’

‘It bears on our mission, Chaplain Mathias, because I have told them we would help–’

‘By Terra,’ Mathias snapped. ‘You told them what? I must protest this!’ he growled, the muscles in his jaw knotting. ‘Were this any other circumstance I would agree.’ He looked to the Marines around him. ‘We all would, but aiding the Inquisition is not an option. We have an oath and only one directive here. The fate of this world, our lives if need be, are secondary.’

Reinhart felt Ackolon move up beside him. ‘Castellan, you know we would follow you anywhere, but Chaplain Mathias is right. Stygia XII has not yet fallen. We can return once our task is done.’

Reinhart faced the Apothecary. ‘Are the two of you done?’

Startled by the iron in the Castellan’s tone, Ackolon stepped back. Dorner and Apollos exchanged concerned looks.

‘I have pledged to help them, yes,’ he repeated. ‘But for the first time in my life I must betray my word. We must feign compliance with them because I suspect that our comrades in the Inquisition will not help us, and I fear that whatever lies in wait within those halls will be more than we can handle alone. You and Mathias are right, Ackolon. Our task is more important and I will see it done at any cost, even if we must turn our backs on them.’

Reinhart looked back to the Ark. ‘And when that time comes, may the Emperor forgive us all.’

The wind howled across the escarpment, snow and ice scouring the rock. It had taken the small battlegroup of Reinhart’s men and the Sister Superior’s Celestian squad just under an hour to climb the steep crags leading up to Montgisard’s flank. It was an hour they could ill afford. The black ramparts of the fortress at last loomed above them.

Carved from the very rock and sheathed in armoured layers of rusting iron, the impregnable walls had bore witness to the week-long slaughter in the valley before them. Now, however, a haunting stillness cloaked the valley. Following the Castellan’s orders, Veteran Captain Vlorn and his men had pulled back – every hand needed to prepare for the massed artillery barrage that was to come. In response, the enemy’s guns had gone silent.

Reinhart squinted through the gale, double-checking the codifier readout in his vambrace. Lines of interference spiked across the display. With the storm raging he was surprised it worked at all. The glowing schematic of Montgisard – something all of the Templars had been given prior to making planetfall – showed the entrance to an auxiliary passage at this location. The hidden tunnel would give them access to the fortress’s lower levels and hopefully allow them to approach their target with minimal contact. It had perturbed Interrogator Savaul, Vlorn and the Sister Superior that this piece of information was lacking from their own maps. To Reinhart, this boded well. If the Inquisition did not know about the passage, it was possible the enemy was equally ignorant.

To either side, the armoured forms of his battle-brothers, along with the twelve members of Sister Superior Helena’s Celestian squad, hugged the steep walls of the mountain trail. Interrogator Savaul stood behind him, wrapped in the leather of his storm coat, breath frosting on the wind. Reinhart scowled. The man’s albino skin was a beacon against the darkness. Luckily, the rocky outcroppings kept them shielded from the watchful eyes of the Archenemy’s sentries patrolling the heights above.

Reinhart looked down at Cerebus where he knelt next to Fernus, the Techmarine’s servo arms manipulating the tunnel door’s locking mechanism hidden in the rock. ‘How long?’

‘Thirty seconds, Castellan.’

Reinhart nodded; he motioned for the battlegroup to prepare for entry. The silent gesture travelled down the line. Next to him, Savaul drew his silver-plated laspistol, its barrel stamped with the crimson sigil of the Inquisition.

The Castellan heard a loud hiss, a sound not unlike the sudden decompression of a Thunderhawk’s airlock, and the rock face in front of the Techmarines split to reveal a shadowed portal. From the opposite side of the door Apollos side-armed a pair of glowing phosphorus rods into the tunnel beyond. The rods’ fizzling light slowly grew steady. Motioning for the others to follow, Reinhart slid forward, his bolt pistol raised.

Silence greeted them, the low passage dark and empty. As they had hoped, the enemy had not discovered this part of the tunnel. After the last of them had filed through, Cerebus activated the door’s inner mechanism and sealed the portal behind them. Reinhart moved to Gerard’s side. ‘Try your auspex,’ he said.

Slinging his bolter, Gerard pulled his auspex from his belt and thumbed its activator switch. The scanner’s display sputtered then blinked to life. Gerard looked over at Reinhart, relief evident on his face. ‘The Emperor is watching over us.’

Reinhart nodded. They had expected the ironite walls of Montgisard to block the effects of the storm but couldn’t know for certain until they had reached this point. None of them had relished the idea of descending into the fortress blind.

Keeping his voice low Reinhart addressed the rest of the group. ‘Let’s move. The generator room is straight ahead.’

They descended quickly through the tunnel and minutes later emptied into their first objective. The chamber they entered stretched away into the gloom: a long gallery of dormant generators lined its stone walls and disappeared into the upper shadows of the room. Weapons braced, Helena and her battle-sisters fanned out. Cerebus and Fernus moved to an archaic panel of codifiers, and began working to restore the fortress’s power. Chaplain Mathias entered last with the remaining Templars flanking the floating Ark. Reinhart noticed Savaul watching it, the hunger in his eyes warring with nervous anticipation.

Reinhart had told the interrogator the Ark was a high-yield reactor core capable of powering the fortress’s system of defence turrets, part of the protocol required to reclaim the stronghold. However, it could be used in another capacity. Placed in the heart of Stormhelm, it could be rigged to detonate – the resultant explosion strong enough to destroy the fortress. For the interrogator it was an answer to his prayers: a weapon capable of foiling the Archenemy’s plans in one fell strike. Reinhart only wished he could have told the man the truth.

They waited in the near darkness until, finally, a series of thumps travelled down the gallery as generators kicked on one by one, causing banks of suspended lumoglobes to flicker to life. Reinhart looked over to the Techmarines. ‘Only quadrant sigma up to the grav lifts. We don’t want the entire fortress to know we’re here.’

‘These grav lifts, they will take us to where we can plant the reactor?’ Savaul asked, perspiration beading on his brow.

Reinhart hesitated; he could not look him in the eye. ‘The grav lifts are as far as we go.’ He turned and motioned Gerard to him. With a slight limp the Space Marine advanced to the Castellan’s side. ‘Take point with Apollos and keep me advised of any contact.’

Reinhart turned to address them all. ‘I want noise discipline from this point forward. Sister Superior Helena, you and your squad have the rear. The Ark stays between your squad and mine.’

Helena nodded, her features lost beneath the ‘sabbat’ pattern of her helm.

From a great distance, the percussive boom of massed ordinance vibrated down through the halls. Captain Vlorn and his men had begun their bombardment as planned. With any luck, it would pull the enemy from the lower levels.

With drilled precision, the small force moved into the halls of ancient Montgisard.

For what seemed like miles, they stalked through the fortress’s lower chambers. Thankfully, they were empty of enemy troops. Vlorn’s bombardment appeared to have done its job in pulling them to the surface levels. Each step took the battlegroup deeper into the nightmare that had once been the Templar stronghold. Everywhere, the walls were awash in horrific glyphs and grotesque scenes depicted in rotting blood and viscera. Even to the Space Marines the stench was nearly unbearable.

‘Contact, twenty metres.’ Gerard knelt in the vaulted corridor, the green glow of his auspex tinting his face. Reinhart’s raised fist halted the formation behind him. He moved to Gerard’s shoulder.

‘How many?’

‘It looks like a patrol; I count fifteen, just around the next junction.’

Apollos looked over at Reinhart, a hard grin splitting his face. ‘I guess they want to know who turned the lights on.’

Reinhart motioned to Dorner. ‘Spread the word, contact in two minutes,’ he said. ‘We will take them. The sisters and Savaul will protect the Ark with Cerebus and Fernus.’

Dorner glanced over his shoulder at the waiting Sororitas. ‘They might not like that.’

Reinhart drew his ancient battle blade, a massive bastard sword blessed and inscribed with the sacred oaths of his Chapter. ‘Once this begins,’ he said, ‘there will be plenty for them to do.’

To Apollos and Mathias, he said: ‘We will lead the strike. Gerard, Dorner and Ackolon, you will support us with bolter fire. No one gets through our line, understood?’

They all nodded. Reinhart stepped to the forefront, flanked by Apollos and Mathias as Dorner rushed off to warn the rest of the battlegroup. The sound of disruptive energy crackled through the air as Mathias triggered his crozius arcanum. Apollos activated his thunder hammer, waves of gleaming power rolling across its surface.

Moments later, Dorner returned. He nodded to Reinhart. ‘We’re ready.’

Gerard took a final reading from his auspex. ‘Twenty metres and still approaching’

Reinhart glanced to the rear and saw the battle-sisters spreading out in a formation around the Ark.

Mathias’s voice brought him around. ‘Here they come.’

The patrol rounded the corner; a dozen lost souls of the PDF clad in armour streaked with gore and marked with foul symbols of Chaos. The cultists stumbled to a halt, shocked at what lay before them.

With a thunderous roar, Reinhart charged followed closely by Apollos and Mathias. Superheated bolter rounds screamed past them to shred the enemy’s forward rank, exploding flesh, blood and bone. In seconds, the Astartes were among them. The deafening crack of Apollos’s thunder hammer splintered the armour of a former guardsman. To Reinhart’s left, Mathias waded into the fray, his crozius trailing bloody arcs through the air. Snarling, the Castellan ducked a thrusting rifle butt; with a savage two-handed downward cut, he opened the cultist from shoulder to hip. Blood washed the floor. Twirling the blade, he pivoted and swept the weapon in a tight arc, decapitating a charging foe.

It was over in a heartbeat, the floor littered with the enemy’s crushed and eviscerated bodies. Reinhart whirled to check their rear. He could see Savaul, his white face paler still at the brutal effectiveness of the Sword Brethren.

Gerard activated his auspex again, his smoking bolter still ready in the opposite hand. ‘I’ve got more, converging from the last junction to our rear.’ He looked closer. ‘And ahead. Throne! They’re crawling all over the main plasma coil chamber.’

Reinhart knew they couldn’t afford to get bogged down in a protracted fight. Pumping his arm, he yelled back to the others through the haze that filled the corridor. ‘The game is up! Expect contact forward and to our rear! We’ve got to punch through to the grav lifts! Move! Move!’

They broke into a run, Cerebus and Fernus increasing the output of the Ark’s propulsion engines to keep pace. The reverberating thump of the battle-sisters’ bolters exploded from behind them. Reinhart heard a sucking whoosh followed by an eruption of gurgling screams. The air grew hot, the stench of promethium masking that of decay as a Sororitas flamer did its holy work.

The embattled force stormed down the last few metres of the corridor and plunged through a yawning doorway. Close on Apollos’s heels, Reinhart burst into the seemingly infinite space of the plasma coil chamber. Floor after floor of open gantries ringed the room and stretched upwards into the cavernous void above. Rising from a deep pit, the plasma coil dominated the chamber’s centre: a monstrous pillar of brass machinery that arced and crackled with pent-up energies. Stabilising beams sprouted from its skin like the disjointed spokes of an endless wheel, each strut hung with scarlet rags, banners scrawled with the blasphemous litanies of Chaos.

Former guardsman swarmed the gantries above, their Imperial uniforms now a mockery of filth and gore. Gunfire spewed down from the heretics’ positions as Reinhart’s force dashed across the room. Firing upwards, the Castellan waved his men past. One Sister stumbled as multiple rounds tore through her armour. Her body twisted under the impacts; unable to stop her momentum, she fell screaming over the edge of the coil’s pit.

Apollos reached the exit at the far side of the chamber and turned; his bolter blazing, he provided covering fire for the rest of the squad who rushed through. Dorner hurried into position at his side. Together, they answered the cultists with a hellish barrage of their own. Bolters roared, and a gruesome rain of torn and mangled bodies fell from the upper floors.

Bringing up the rear, Savaul and Helena raced towards Reinhart. The Sister Superior’s helmet was gone, a bloody gash down her face. Both fired blindly behind them.

‘Move, Castellan! They’re right behind us!’ Helena yelled.

Reinhart fell in step behind them, back-pedalling and firing a furious volley into the horde of screaming cultists that burst from the corridor they had just vacated. He grunted in annoyance as a lucky shell punched through his shoulder joint, lodging near his collarbone. Already off-balance, a blast of auto fire stitched across his breastplate and sent him sprawling.

Seeing him fall, Helena and Savaul turned back. Helena slung her bolter and, together with Savaul, dragged the Astartes to his feet. As she did so, she tore a krak grenade from her belt, pulled the pin with her teeth, and pitched it into the oncoming mass. A horrific blast ripped through the horde, pulverising the thronged bodies into a cloud of blood vapour and shredded flesh.

Together, the three stumbled through the exit hatch between Apollos and Dorner. The Space Marines swung in behind them, letting loose a final round of fire before punching the hatch activator that sent the door booming closed behind them, the hollow thump of rounds continuing to bang against its armoured shell.

They stood now in another wide corridor, once again, thankfully devoid of the enemy.

Flexing his shoulder, Reinhart could feel the wound closing with the shell still lodged painfully against his collarbone. He had fought with worse injuries. He looked at Helena and Savaul. The Sister Superior was organising the eight remaining members of her squad. Savaul, attended by Ackolon, was bent against the wall catching his breath and holding his side where a grazing round had cut through. They made no mention of what they had done for him and neither did he.

Fernus, his red tabard in rags, moved past Dorner and Apollos to the hatch activator. He looked over his shoulder at Reinhart. ‘This door has no locking mechanism; it won’t hold them long.’

The sudden thunder of a bolter round startled them all. The hatch activator exploded in a shower of sparks. They all turned to see Mathias lowering his bolt pistol. ‘It should hold them now,’ he said. Holstering the weapon, Mathias stepped forward, raising his crozius arcanum. ‘All of you steel yourselves. In this fateful hour, the Emperor’s eyes are upon us. May we all go to Him knowing that we have done our duty and stayed true to His will.’

Reinhart could not help but think these last words were directed at him.

By the time they reached the grav lift chamber the Ark’s shield had died and Reinhart’s time had run out. He could no longer hide the true nature of his squad’s mission. He could see this fact on all his men’s faces as they set up a perimeter around the lifts. They and the sisters had bled together, a bond formed of shared hardship. Savaul and Helena had saved his life. Only Mathias seemed resolute in what they had to do. Reinhart knew he had to follow the Chaplain’s example.

The Ark waited on the first of three grav lifts: circular pads set into the floor adorned with the Templar cross. The battle-sisters had split. Two stood guard at each of the stairwells that emptied into the room’s four corners. The Techmarines worked at a bank of codifiers that controlled the lifts.

‘How far up do we have to plant the reactor?’ Savaul asked, watching the Techmarines work. His face was sunken and splattered with dried blood; one hand still clutched his wounded side.

Reinhart looked behind him. Mathias stood at the foot of the Ark, his manner cold and aloof. Apollos and Ackolon locked eyes on the floor, unable to meet his gaze. Never had he felt the weight of duty as acutely as he did at that moment. He looked back to Savaul. Helena had come to stand beside the injured interrogator.

‘We are not going up, interrogator.’

Savaul’s head snapped around. ‘What? I thought you said the reactor needed to be set near the ground floor.’

Reinhart hardened his voice. ‘I mean we are not destroying the fortress, Savaul.’ He motioned to the Ark. ‘That is not a reactor and it cannot be rigged to detonate.’

Savaul turned to face him fully, his voice quivering with rage. ‘What, by the Throne, are you talking about?’

‘What I told you was a reactor core for Montgisard’s defences is in fact a sarcophagus housing the body of one of our Chapter’s most decorated Sword Brethren. His name is Ezekial Yesod, and he clings to life by a thread.’

Helena stepped forward, her face a mask of fury. ‘Then what has all this been about, Castellan? Why have you brought us here, if not to exterminate this threat?’

‘My battle-brothers and I have not come here to reclaim Montgisard, Sister Superior. We are here because this grav lift will take us down to the keep’s lowest sepulchre, where one of our Chapter’s most venerated Dreadnoughts sleeps. There, we will inter Brother Yesod so that he may continue to fight in the Emperor’s name.’

Savaul pushed past Helena, to stand toe to toe with Reinhart. ‘Is fighting in the Emperor’s name not what we’re already doing here? Throne, man! Don’t you realise that by doing this you will condemn hundreds of thousands of His servants to death?’

Reinhart stared down at the trembling interrogator. ‘This world is not yet lost.’ He motioned to the waiting sarcophagus. ‘But thousands of light years away, a battle is being fought. An entire system stands on the brink of destruction, and what lies in Brother Yesod’s mind could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Interment within the Dreadnought is his only chance. The loss of Stygia XII would be a mere ripple in an ocean of lost souls if I were to let him die.’

He looked past Savaul to Helena. ‘Come with us, all of you. Once our task is done we will return to our battle-barge and explain the conditions here. High Marshal Ludoldus will send aid, and we can return and save this planet before it is too late.’

Helena shook her head, a look of sorrow filling her eyes. ‘It will be too late, Castellan. The Archenemy will already have opened the warp gate. We must do everything we can now to stop it.’

Gerard’s voice cut the air. ‘Castellan, contact again, approaching from the stairwells. Ten minutes, max.’

Reinhart stepped back, called to the Techmarines. ‘Prepare the lift.’ He looked again at Savaul and Helena. ‘I will only offer this once more: come with us.’

Savaul’s head sank, his shoulders wilting in defeat. ‘Then we are on our own.’

‘Unless you come with us, yes.’

Helena stepped forward. ‘This man Ezekial, you claim that by saving him you will save millions of others?’

Reinhart nodded. ‘That is correct, Sister Superior.’

Helena fixed him with a cold stare. ‘You know you used us, you lied to us.’

‘If there had been another way…’ Reinhart let the words trail off.

Helena only smiled. She looked at Savaul. ‘You have command, it’s your choice.’

Savaul drew in a deep breath. ‘I cannot let this atrocity go unanswered. We must try.’ He looked at the empty lift next to him, then to Reinhart. ‘Send us up and we will destroy the gate or die trying.’

Reinhart stared at him for a moment. He truly did wish there was another way. ‘Send them up, Fernus,’ he said finally.

Savaul turned without another word.

Helena looked up at Reinhart. ‘Goodbye, Castellan. I ask you to remember one thing: Duty and honour do not always go hand in hand.’

Reinhart watched them gather on the lift, and then they were gone, shooting upwards into the heart of the keep and into the midst of the waiting enemy.

He turned. ‘Everyone to the lift, prepare for descent.’

All of them moved, circling around the Ark. All of them except Apollos.

‘Brother Apollos,’ Reinhart said. ‘I believe I gave an order.’

The young Terminator stared back at him. ‘Castellan... I request permission to follow them, to lend the support of my bolter.’

Reinhart glanced to the others.

Gerard looked up from his auspex. ‘Five minutes, Castellan.’

Apollos stepped to the lift. ‘Castellan, Chaplain Mathias said the eyes of the Emperor are upon us. I believe he speaks the truth. I believe you can complete this task without me. Let me help them, Castellan.’

‘Brother Apollos,’ Mathias said, his voice edged with venom, ‘Your Castellan has given you an order.’

Reinhart stepped from the lift. ‘No, Mathias, Brother Apollos speaks true. The rest of you go and we will do what we can to help them. Take the Ark, inter Ezekial, and then get out. If we are unsuccessful in closing the gate advise the High Marshal of what you’ve seen here and return to save this world. It is our duty. This is my final order. May the Emperor go with you.’

The crypt waited for them at the heart of Montgisard’s deepest catacombs. Their approach from the grav lift had been a quiet one, Gerard’s auspex showing no sign of the enemy, but they knew that wouldn’t last for long. Following the schematics downloaded to their personal codifiers, the crypt’s brass doors emerged from the darkness, glinting beneath the stark beams of their armour’s search lamps. The formidable doors were an imposing sight, each at five metres tall and nearly as wide, their brass surface worked with the image of Dorn smiting the forces of Chaos at the gates of the Imperial Palace.

With Ackolon and Dorner flanking the portal, the Techmarines started to examine the doors but Mathias waved them back. He pulled an adamantium necklace from beneath his armour, an amulet of polished obsidian hanging from its beaded length.

‘High Marshal Ludoldus bestowed this rosarius upon me before our departure,’ he said in an awe-hushed voice. ‘It belonged to Reclusiarch Gideon Amesaris. He served beneath High Marshal Gervhart.’ The Chaplain knelt before the doors. ‘It was he who designed these doors almost four thousand years ago.’ With reverence Mathias fitted the sacred rosarius into an ornate depression within the door. He turned the amulet. A series of clicks answered and with a hiss the doors rumbled open.

Beyond, statues carved in the grim shapes of ancient Templars holding aloft iron lanterns circled the perimeter of the room. As the doors boomed open the lanterns guttered to life. Their amber glow filled the chamber; its sectioned walls covered in dusty, bas-relief carvings of forgotten battles.

In the chamber’s centre stood the cyclopean hull of a venerable Dreadnought draped in cobwebs. Its chest plate was open, revealing a darkened cavity within.

Mathias stood. ‘We must work quickly.’

Together, the Space Marines brought the Ark forward, resting it just above a low altar at the foot of the colossal war machine. The smell of holy oils and sacred unguents permeated the air. Stepping back, Gerard and Dorner took up posts at the crypt’s threshold while Cerebus and Fernus flanked the Ark.

The Techmarines began to chant, manipulating a succession of rune-marked dials along the Ark’s side. Piece by piece its armoured shell folded back to reveal a golden sarcophagus, its surface glinting in the amber light.

Gerard’s voice once again brought the warning. ‘They’re coming,’ he said. ‘More than I can count.’

‘Hold them back,’ Mathias replied. ‘At any cost. We only need minutes.’

Gerard and Dorner drew their chainswords and kicked them into life even as the sound of the screaming cultists began to echo through the darkness of the hall beyond. Ackolon put himself between the sarcophagus and the door’s threshold, his bolter levelled. ‘Hurry, Chaplain.’

Reinhart and Apollos found the battle-sisters and Savaul in a long gallery leading to Montgisard’s chapel. They had formed a ragged line across the width of the hall. Step-by-step, they struggled through a seething mass of carnage, the space before them boiling with the streak of las-rounds, bolter shells and intermittent gouts of roaring flame. The stink of blood and promethium choked the air.

‘Throne,’ Apollos whispered.

Reinhart hefted his blade. ‘Come, Apollos. For the sword of Dorn.’

The Terminator looked over at him. ‘For the sword of Dorn, Castellan.’

Together, they charged into the centre of the battle-sisters line. Helena spotted them first. A grim smile crossed her features.

‘The Templars are with us!’ she shouted.

A cheer from the sisters rolled over the din.

With Reinhart and Apollos leading, they formed a wedge and drove into the screaming cultists. The writhing mass was frenzied to the point of suicide, hell-bent on keeping the Emperor’s faithful from reaching the chapel. Within moments, the blood of the enemy dripped from Reinhart’s armour, his blade a whirling blur of slaughter, his bolt pistol screaming its song of death. Through the carnage he could see Apollos. With every swing the Terminator’s thunder hammer cleaved away huge swaths of cultists. Savaul fought in his shadow, a surgical grace to his movements, each shot of his laspistol toppling a crazed heretic.

Ahead of them lay their goal: the towering bronze doors of the chapel.

Reinhart ducked the swing of a whining chainaxe and blew the wielder’s head away in a shower of gore. He vaulted the fallen heretic, watching as a Sister stumbled beneath the blow of a crackling power maul. Successive rounds tore her arm off and then her left leg below the knee. Her death grip discharged her flamer in a wide arc, the white flame incinerating all those standing before her. A cultist fell before Apollos, his ribcage crushed beneath the Terminator’s armoured boot.

Reinhart breathed hard, his armour wrenched and scorched, the skin of his face blistered. Only four of Helena’s sisters remained, but the doors were within reach. They had to keep moving.

‘The doors, Apollos, the doors!’

Apollos nodded. With a thunderous bellow the Terminator dropped his shoulder and plunged through the heretics, striking the doors with the full force of his weight and shattering them in an explosion of fragmenting wood and twisted bronze.

Reinhart and the others followed close on his heels... into hell.

Brother Dorner died in the first moments of the cultists’ charge. It was an errant shot, catching him in the throat and blowing out the back of his neck in a shower of blood. He fell to his knees, chainsword still raised in a blow that would never come, then pitched forward on his face. Gerard roared in fury and waded into the corridor. Hacking like a man possessed, the Sword Brother tore a bloody swathe through the maddened heretics. The floor became slick with blood and for a moment the foe recoiled from his savage onslaught.

At the threshold of the crypt, Ackolon pumped round after round into the melee; behind him, Mathias and the Techmarines continued their work. He risked a hurried glance.

The Chaplain stood before the altar and chanted the sacred rite of interment as the Techmarines’ servo-arms lifted the sarcophagus up and into the yawning cavity of the Dreadnought. For a moment, through the fogged glass set into the sarcophagus’s lid, the Apothecary caught a glimpse of an emaciated face. Brass tubes and wires inlaid with lexmechanical runes glistened from its eyes, ears, nose and mouth.

A scream of warning from Gerard brought him about just as a traitor PDF officer lunged at him with his sword. Ackolon caught the weapon in his gauntlet. Snarling he snapped the blade in half and put a bolter round through the officer’s chest. With a startled look in his eyes, the heretic fell to the floor.

Ahead of him, Gerard continued to scream: not in warning but in pain. The Space Marine had dropped his bolt pistol and was pressing his hand against his temple as he fought. Blood ran from his eyes. Ackolon noticed the rime of frost that crackled its way up the crypt doors and then he spotted the robed psyker at the back of the corridor.

Gerard’s agonised voice shrieked over the tumult. ‘Get out, Ackolon! I can’t hold it! Pull back! Close the do–’ With a loud crack Gerard’s head split.

Ackolon grunted as a las-round scorched across his check and burned away his ear. He dove for the door. Wrenching Mathias’s rosarius from the lock, he rolled into the crypt firing on full auto to keep the heretics at bay.

The doors boomed shut and Ackolon swung to his feet. ‘Chaplain Mathi–’ He stared in horror at the scene before him. Cerebus and Fernus were sprawled across the altar, a single bolt shot through each of their heads. Mathias stood over them, his pistol drawn, his armour caked in psychic frost.

Mathias glared at him, blood haemorrhaging from his eyes and nose. The Chaplain staggered forward and fell to his knees. ‘Ackolon... ki... kill me! The psyker, I... have expunged him, but I can’t hold... at bay for... for long!’ Even as he spoke, Mathias began to raise his pistol, his arm trembling. Behind them, the crypt doors started to buckle.

Ackolon placed his bolter to Mathias’s head, closed his eyes, and fired. Then, dropping his weapon, he sank to his knees and waited for his own death.

The violent squeal of heavy pneumatics brought him around. Ackolon looked up in awe. Somehow, Cerebus and Fernus had completed the rite of interment before Mathias killed them.

Like a vengeful god of death, the Dreadnought rose above him. The hollow pitch of Ezekiel’s voice trumpeted from the war machine’s loudspeaker.

‘Take me to the enemy, Apothecary.’

Reinhart choked on the smell of corruption as he stormed through the shattered doors behind Apollos. The interior was a charnel house. Flayed bodies and blood-soaked banners hung from the flying buttresses ribbing the chapel’s nave. Heaps of stone pews were piled like children’s building blocks near the chapel doors to make room for an undulating mass of Chaos worshipers. Two massive fires, a nebulous green tint to their flames, burned at either side of the sacristy’s altar. Within the flames, blackened human forms chained to iron stakes cried out in torment. At the Templars’ appearance the heretics spun. Screaming their fury, they poured down the nave.

With Helena and Savaul beside him, the Castellan slammed against a toppled marble pew, his eyes burning in the acrid air. Apollos hunkered against the heap across from them while Helena’s sisters turned and defended the splintered doors. They were surrounded.

Helena rose from the cover of the pew, her bolter kicking. ‘By the Emperor, the altar!’ she yelled, oblivious to the gunfire tearing up the marble around her.

Reinhart punched home a fresh magazine and stood to add his own firepower.

Where the sacristy’s rear wall once stood a tenebrous ripple of sickening warp energies now spiralled, twisting the laws of reality between the four anchor points of the Necrolectifiers. At the altar’s base nine robed warp priests chanted, their shaven skulls branded with ruinous curses.

‘Is it open?’ Apollos roared.

Helena shook her head. ‘No, but almost. We only have minutes.’

‘The priests! Aim for the priests!’ Savaul screamed.

As one, they poured fire over the heads of the cultists only to see their shells detonate just short of their target.

Reinhart spat a curse. ‘What is this heresy?’

‘Psykers!’ Savaul yelled.

Behind them one of the sisters fell, her body hacked apart as she was pulled through the doors.

‘We’re going to have to get close!’ Apollos shouted.

Helena let loose another barrage and fell back behind cover. ‘We’ll never make it. We have no defence against the warp. Their energies will tear us apart even if that mob doesn’t.’

Apollos raked down another wave of cultists. They were almost on them. ‘We’re running out of time!’

The warp gate began to darken.

Reinhart looked at his companions, each in turn. He knew there was only one option. The Emperor’s eyes were upon him. ‘Give me all of your grenades!’ he yelled to Helena.

She looked at him, a question on her lips, even as understanding blazed in her eyes. Unclipping her last two, she handed them over.

Reinhart ripped away a portion of his tabard, binding up her grenades with two of his own. He kept one in his hand.

From across the streaking avenue of fire Apollos watched, realising Reinhart’s intent. ‘No!’ he screamed. ‘Let me go, I have the best chance!’

A sudden, deafening eruption blew apart what remained of the chapel doors. A shattered piece of lintel struck Apollos in the temple, knocking the young Terminator unconscious. Helena’s remaining sisters simply ceased to exist, their bodies vaporised.

Reinhart shook himself from his dazed concussion, a heavy ringing in his ears. He felt warmth streaming down his chest. A bloody crater smoked just below his shoulder. Next to him, Helena coughed in the swirling dust, her face covered in blood from a deep gash across her forehead. Her left leg was gone. Savaul lay unconscious next to them. Through the roiling haze they could see a thronging horde of cultists climbing over the rubble of the devastated doorway.

‘Can you hold them?’ Reinhart asked.

Helena braced her bolter and nodded. She smiled at Reinhart. ‘You do know what true honour is, Marius Reinhart.’

‘The Emperor protects, Helena,’ he said and briefly grasped her hand.

The Battle Sister smiled again. ‘The Emperor protects, Castellan.’

Reinhart vaulted from cover. Hugging the grenades close to his body, he charged through the haze. It took a moment for the Chaos worshippers to realise what dashed between them. But, before they could react, the trembling discharge of an assault cannon shook the chapel’s foundations and ripped them to bloody pulps. A grenade arced over the Castellan’s head and detonated in a cloud of heavy smoke – masking his approach. Reinhart glanced over his shoulder as he covered the last few metres and saw the silhouette of an ancient Dreadnought in the shadow of the ruined threshold.

He whispered a word of thanks, then turned and emerged from the smoke in the midst of the unsuspecting psykers. Thumbing away the pin of his grenade, he barrelled onto the altar’s landing. He felt the first stabs of pain within his mind but they were too late.

‘The Emperor does protect,’ he said, and the gate was shut amidst lightning and flame.

They found him in the smoking rubble outside the chapel’s entrance; his body and armour shattered, his features burnt. He awoke as a young Templar Neophyte knelt next to him. His crusted eyes cracked open, miraculously intact.

Ackolon blinked.

The shadowed forms of Templars picked their way past them, bolters aimed. He tried to focus on the man leaning over him.

‘Brother,’ the Neophyte said. ‘Hold on. The Apothecaries will be here soon.’

Ackolon coughed, attempted to raise his head. He knew his wounds were mortal ‘How... where?’

‘The Revenant, brother, your flagship. High Marshal Ludoldus himself sent us after we received a call for aid from an Inquisitor named Vinculus. It appears we’re working with the Ordo Hereticus now.’ he said. ‘A crusade has been called against the remainder of the cult you and Castellan Reinhart stopped here.’

‘The others…’

‘Brother Apollos and the interrogator live, sir, we are pulling them out now. Brother Yesod has already been extracted.’

Ackolon nodded. He began to go cold. What little feeling he had left was slowly fading. He struggled to rise again.

‘What is your name, Neophyte?’ he rasped.

‘Helbrecht, sir.’

Ackolon fell back, his vision blurring. He thought he could hear Reinhart and the others calling his name. ‘Tell them, Helbrecht,’ he whispered, ‘tell them we knew no fear…’

And then he too joined his battle-brothers.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2009 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Hardy Fowler

© Games Workshop Limited, 2009, 2011. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-0-85787-222-7

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