More Warhammer 40,000 stories from Black Library

The Beast Arises

1: I AM SLAUGHTER

2: PREDATOR, PREY

3: THE EMPEROR EXPECTS

4: THE LAST WALL

5: THRONEWORLD

6: ECHOES OF THE LONG WAR

7: THE HUNT FOR VULKAN

8: THE BEAST MUST DIE

Space Marine Battles

WAR OF THE FANG
A Space Marine Battles book, containing the novella The Hunt for Magnus and the novel Battle of the Fang

THE WORLD ENGINE
An Astral Knights novel

DAMNOS
An Ultramarines collection

DAMOCLES
Contains the White Scars, Raven Guard and Ultramarines novellas Blood Oath, Broken Sword, Black Leviathan and Hunter’s Snare

OVERFIEND
Contains the White Scars, Raven Guard and Salamanders novellas Stormseer, Shadow Captain and Forge Master

ARMAGEDDON
Contains the Black Templars novel Helsreach and novella Blood and Fire

Legends of the Dark Millennium

SHAS’O
A Tau Empire collection

ASTRA MILITARUM
An Astra Militarum collection

ULTRAMARINES
An Ultramarines collection

FARSIGHT
A Tau Empire novella

SONS OF CORAX
A Raven Guard collection

SPACE WOLVES
A Space Wolves collection

Visit blacklibrary.com for the full range of novels, novellas, audio dramas and Quick Reads, along with many other exclusive products

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Warhammer 40,000

Illustrations

Dramatis Personae

Part One – The Search

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Part Two – The Hunt

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Part Three – The Kill

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Blades Of Damocles’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Astra Militarum and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Deathwatch Station Picket’s Watch

Jotunn, Space Wolf, Watch-Commander

Domitian, Imperial Fists Librarian

Watch Company Vigil

Nergui, White Scar, captain

Kill Team Primus

Priam, Marine Errant

Gualtino, Angels of Redemption

Tula, Star Phantom

Nidal, Warmonger

Ellial, Mortifactor

Kill Team Orion

‘Last’ Leonas, Black Consul

Aslon, Brazen Claw

Brand, Destroyer

Branstonio, Ultramarine

Solovax, Black Guard

Kill Team Faith

Konrad Raimer, Black Templar

Cadvan, Storm Giant, veteran Techmarine pilot

Sardegna, Scion of Sanguinius

Harath, Salamander

Nestia, Crimson Fist

Atilio, Ultramarine

Olbath, Aurora Chapter

Elianus, Howling Griffon

Ragris, Celebrant, Vanguard Veteran

Imano, Lamenter, Vanguard Veteran

Kill Team Zeal: on loan from Watch Fortress Talassa Prime

Corith, Brazen Minotaur

Eadmund, Brotherhood of a Thousand

Iason, Carcharodon

Hadrian, Black Shield

Moaz Khileni, Raven Guard

Cadmus, Dark Angel

Cerys, Imperial Fist

Mateo Nuoros, Crimson Fist

Kallos, Ultramarines Tyranid War veteran

Deathwatch Personae

Loni Ferral, Shipmaster, strike cruiser Nemesis

White Scars Fourth Company, ‘The Tulwar Brotherhood’

Batbayar Khan, Captain, commander of White Scars Fourth Company, Master of Blades

Khulan, Apothecary

Ganzorig, Honour Guard Fourth Company, standard bearer

Törömbaater, Scout sergeant, Fourth Company

Sept Ke’lshan

Aun’ui Hoo’nan, Ethereal

Fireblade M’au, Base commander

Shas’vre Gru’eb, Commander, Security Orbital VX-223

Fio’ui K’or, Earth caste technician

Shas’vre N’loo, Instructor

Shas’vre O’man, Commander, Terrestial Defence Rig

Bro’bul, Air caste commander, Kir’qath defender

Kor’el Um’ng, Commander, Kir’qath defender

Shas’vre Rs’tu, Defence force, Kir’qath defender

Fio’ui Ph’al, Earth caste, chief technician, M’Yan’Ral Base

Mu’gulath Bay Veterans

Shas’vre Ch’an, Sept Au’taal, Stormsurge pilot

Shas’el Sham’bal, Sept Elsy'eir

Shas’vre Po’lco, Sept N’dras

Shas’vre Mysto, Stormsurge pilot

Shas’el Reet’u, Stormsurge gunner

Cadet

Shas’ui H’an, Sept Sa’cea, Stormsurge gunner

PART ONE
THE SEARCH

CHAPTER ONE

LOCATION: MOON QX-937, SEXTON SYSTEM,
DAMOCLES GULF, 999.M41

Captain Nergui of the Deathwatch stopped his bike at the top of one of the foothills and looked out into the void. To his left were the uncountable stars that made up the galaxy, the home of humanity, the hope for survival.

To the right were the empty shadows of the Eastern Fringe, where the wide-flung spiral arms threw a last few fingers of light out into the vast night. The light of these lonely stars was bright against the black. But it was to the shadows between them that he turned his gaze, and stared into the darkness. It was always the darkness from which his enemies – the foes of all mankind – came.

He unclasped his helmet and set it into the crook of his elbow. He had sent two kill teams out on this mission but neither of them had returned, and now he was desperate for answers, for a hint of what had happened to them.

This was the third rock they’d visited in as many days, just one of thousands that drifted through the less hospitable parts of the gas clouds in the Damocles Gulf. But what was strange about this one was that it had an atmosphere: thin, sulphurous, but an atmosphere nonetheless.

Nergui turned around. A light appeared over the southern horizon, coming low and winding towards him in great sweeping parabolas. It was Cadvan, formerly of the Storm Giants, searching in the Corvus Blackstar.

‘Captain. There’s nothing here,’ Cadvan voxed as he approached to within half a mile. The moon was empty apart from an archaic tau communication hub on the southern pole, which did not look like it had been touched for decades.

‘No,’ Nergui said. ‘But this was the last known position of Kill Team Primus.’

He could hear Cadvan grunt. Brother Cadvan was a big, flame-haired, thunder hammer of a warrior. He was the newest recruit to Nergui’s chamber and had proved himself the master of saying the obvious. He didn’t do subtleties. ‘Well. They’re not here now.’

Nergui knew arguing with a Storm Giant would be a waste of breath, however sulphurous. ‘No,’ he said, ‘they’re not. But they were here, and I want to find out what happened to them.’

He closed the vox-link before Cadvan could respond.

Cadvan was right though. There was nothing here, so why did the air reek of xenos taint?

Ahead of Nergui rose the lip of a great crater where some ancient asteroid had smashed into the moon, leaving behind a scar miles wide. Nergui skidded his bike – Ganbold – up the loose scree of the rise, using his knees to turn the handlebars. All Chogoreans learnt to ride horses as soon as they were big enough to balance upon a saddle, and they treated their bikes in the same casual way. Riding without hands was a trick White Scars learnt as Scouts, allowing them to fire and reload as they rode down their foes. He did it unconsciously now, knowing when to touch the handlebars just long enough to steady the bike over a rock or round a landmine, and turned towards the next low peak.

Dust and pebbles sprayed out behind as Nergui accelerated up a bare slab of copper-veined black rock. A fissure opened up suddenly before him, and he swerved past, the engine note rising as the incline steepened. He only took hold of the handlebars when the scree got so thick that he had to zigzag his way up. He brought his bike to where the rim of the crater fell precipitously before him, and paused.

Far below, the land was flat and plain, except for where sulphur pools slowly bubbled and spluttered, and the dark circles of smaller craters dotted the land in irregular patterns. Nergui was unusual among the veterans of the Deathwatch in that battle damage had not rendered it necessary to restore his vision. He looked out with narrowed yellow eyes over the boulder fields, craters and sulphur pools, silent except for the gentle hiss of atmosphere and the low revving of his bike. The Corvus made a low pass three miles to the west, banking off towards the polar region.

‘I’ve seen something,’ Nergui voxed and revved his bike forwards, over the edge of the crater. His wheels bounced once, twice on the rocks, and then there was nothing but thin air, and the exquisite sense of falling.

Nergui’s bike crunched as the reinforced suspension took the impact of hitting the bottom slopes of the crater. Once, twice he bounced. He had to hold on with one hand as Ganbold hit rocks and loose scree, the wheels screaming and the tyres beginning to smoke as he reached dangerous speeds, but still he clung on, grinning with the challenge.

In a few seconds the drop began to flatten out, the slopes less sheer as the crater wall approached the bottom. He gunned the engine, bouncing and roaring over fissures and boulders, until the crater levelled out as he approached the centre.

The armour was half buried, about ten miles from the cliff top, in the empty boulder field. Nergui caught it with one hand as he brought Ganbold to a skidding halt. The ceramite was blistered and melted, the charred edges dented and scratched, but despite the damage it was unmistakably the shoulder pad from a suit of Mark VI Corvus armour.

He looked around further. Just a shoulder pad. Nothing else. Nergui cursed. No body, no gun, no sign of what had stripped away the layers of ceramite plating. He dusted the dirt from the patches of unmelted armour. Enough of the insignia remained for him to recognise it as the badge of the Marines Errant: a flaming star on a background of midnight blue.

This was Brother Priam’s.

He engaged his vox, spoke tersely. ‘Cadvan. Bring Domitian here.’

The Storm Giant’s voice crackled back. ‘What is it?’

Nergui did not bother answering, but kicked Ganbold forwards.

The last telepathic relay had come from this moon. Kill Team Primus were amongst the best the Chapter had – eight of the finest veterans, honed through decades of battle against the alien. Priam had more augmetic parts than an Iron Hand – ‘Easy to wound,’ he’d laughed, ‘but hard to kill.’ It was the same for Ellial. Tula. Octavian. Nidal, even. Each of these warriors could have been a captain, like himself. He had led them many times. They could not just have disappeared. There had to be more evidence. A clue.

Searching further, Nergui found a few more scraps of Priam’s Mark VI power armour – a knee plate and an ankle fitting – and a spare underslung magazine for his combi-bolter. If he knew Priam, the Marine Errant had either made it away from the main battle, to draw the enemy off, or – more likely – he had been the last survivor.

The Corvus Blackstar grew from a dark spot to a blur as it skimmed in over the eastern horizon, just yards from the ground, a line of dust rising in its wake. Even at this speed it would take fifty seconds to reach him. He was about to investigate a deep crater fifty yards to the right when he shivered – an involuntary response, as though ice were dripping down the back of his neck.

‘Don’t do that,’ he almost said, as Librarian Domitian’s psychic presence slid into his consciousness, but by then the mind of the Imperial Fists psyker was within him.

There were no words, as such, just compulsions.

+I’m here,+ it seemed to say. +Show me what you have found.+

Nergui held up the shoulder pad and inspected it as though he were looking at it for the first time.

+Ah.+ Domitian was seeing through his eyes. +Priam.+

‘Yes.’ Nergui shook himself and forced his gaze away from the shoulder pad, but the Librarian’s presence had gone.

Nergui had served with all kinds of Librarians in his time. His Chapter’s own Stormseers, of course, who revelled in shamanistic rituals and totems, creating a mystery of it all, and then many Librarians from other Chapters. Blood Angels. Space Wolves. The strangest had been the Black Dragon Epistolary named Ulgon. He had bony protrusions on his skull and arms that he used in combat, and he had kept himself very much to himself, and the rest of them had been happy about that.

Ulgon’s Chapter had called him back. Nergui doubted he’d have lasted much longer. You could tell the brothers who were destined for death. There was a Lamenters Librarian who had dreamt that he was destined to die on Terra. He had joked about it for a while, but when they were given the mission to clear the drifting hulk named Heart of Terra, he had gone silent, and they knew he’d understood. He had held the genestealers back as the rest of his kill team withdrew to a defensible position. It was a good death. It helped, Nergui thought, when you knew it was coming.

But Domitian, the former Imperial Fist, was almost normal, at times, Nergui thought. You could almost forget that he wielded such power. But he had the odd habit of entering your mind too much, too invasively, as if he forgot that others did not have his abilities.

Domitian’s mind touched Nergui’s for a moment.

+We are nearly there.+

‘I can see.’ Nergui liked to speak the words aloud, even when his interlocutor was just a voice inside his head.

Nergui watched the Corvus approach and lift for a moment, as retro engines fired blue flames. The down-draught threw up a great cloud of grit as it settled on its landing gear, and Cadvan waved as he powered the craft down and checked his screen readings.

The dust was still settling when one of the fore-facing landing ramps lowered and a single figure marched down – small, for a Space Marine, slight, almost. Delicate. Poised. Intense.

Domitian knew all that Nergui had seen, but sometimes he acted as if he did not have the access to others’ minds that he did.

‘So,’ he said, ‘you have found Priam’s armour.’

Nergui nodded. ‘Yes.’

He held out the shoulder pad. Domitian took it and sighed. ‘Was it over there?’

Nergui nodded.

‘I found these as well,’ Nergui said. He held out the other pieces. Domitian smiled pleasantly and nodded.

‘Yes, I saw. Now, stay back. Your presence will only obscure the traces. I shall go and see if there is anything left.’

Cadvan jumped down from the Corvus Blackstar’s cockpit, his reinforced power-armoured boots crunching into the dust. He took off his helmet and held it in one hand as he strode towards Nergui. The scar across Cadvan’s cheek gave the Storm Giant’s mouth a lopsided grin. He saw the damage to Priam’s shoulder pad and said, ‘So they’re dead?’

Nergui nodded. ‘Priam most likely is.’

Cadvan gave a low and humourless chuckle. ‘Has he found anything?’ He nodded towards where Domitian was pacing slowly across the ground.

Nergui shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

Cadvan waited for a moment. ‘Do you think they all died here?’

Nergui was silent for a long time, then he nodded and said, ‘Perhaps.’

Cadvan liked to talk. He stood there for a while, as if thinking of something else to say, then seemed to change his mind and wandered back towards the Corvus.

Nergui let him go. He preferred to be alone. He watched Domitian move in a deliberate zigzag pattern, his psychic searchlight straining into the past, away from Nergui, looking for warp echoes of what had happened. Nergui’s thoughts began to drift for a moment, before the sudden presence of the Librarian’s mind made him shudder and his body stiffened.

+They died here.+

‘All of them?’

+All, I cannot tell. But more than one or two. The sense of death is thick. Some xenos, also.+

‘Where are their bodies?’

+Not here. But their presence remains. I feel anger. Frustration. Betrayal.+

‘Betrayal?’

+It is not hard to grasp what messages the dead leave behind them. The images that are easiest to read are related to the strongest emotions.+

Nergui turned and regarded the scene. It was as if the battlefield had been scoured clean. He strode to the Corvus and swung himself up to stand on the wing. He had seen the crater from the heights and he brought that image back to mind, seeing it differently now.

The smaller crater patterns were not asteroid strikes. Understanding went through him like a blade. He saw it all clearly. The clusters were where massive ordnance had been brought to bear.

Jumping down from the Corvus, he jogged to the nearest crater. There were lumps of molten copper, ripped from the ore by the intensity of the blasts. He knelt, rubbed his fingers in the dirt, and lifted them to his nose.

The scent had the unmistakable tang of plasma.

‘They made their stand here,’ he said. He could see it all. Where they had fallen back, desperate for shelter. Where they had split into pairs, dividing their pursuers, where each crater trail came to an end.

He took Ganbold and roared over to the farthest cluster, nearly half a mile away from where the Corvus’ engines were turning over. Three overlapping craters marked the place. He shuddered. Brothers had died here.

Nergui stopped suddenly, skidded round, bent from the saddle and plucked a spent brass bolt shell as easily as a Chogorean boy would swing from the saddle to pluck a ball from the ground.

Hellstrike round. Fired within the last month. He was about to move on when he saw a skull lying in the dirt. A tiny thing, no larger than a simian’s head, plated with gold and with facetted eyes of shaped red crystal.

He felt a cold shiver, as he did when Domitian entered his mind, but Domitian’s presence was nowhere near him.

Nergui clicked his vox-link open. ‘Domitian. I’ve found Ellial’s totem.’

Domitian’s mind was with him instantly. +Bring it to me.+

Brother Ellial had come to the Deathwatch from the Mortifactors Chapter.

The home world of the Mortifactors, Posul, was doomed to perpetual darkness, and that darkness had entered their souls, into their ways of being and ways of relating to the galaxy. Nergui had once been sent as an emissary to the Chapter.

He remembered landing on their fortress-monastery – a vast star fort in high orbit. The landing bay walls were decorated with the oversized bones of thousands of Space Marines. No body was complete. Femurs were arranged in spiral patterns. Shoulder blades into another. It had seemed disrespectful to display the bones of the dead warriors in this way.

A guide had appeared, hooded and pale.

‘This way,’ the guide had said, before leading him across the hallowed silence of the entrance hall to an arch of skulls. Adeptus Astartes’ skulls, Nergui saw, with distaste, some of the bones yellow with age and still bearing the violent marks of their death blows.

He had met the Chapter under a chandelier of ribs and scapulae, with skulls as the setting for the tallow candles. He had politely refused food and the Chapter Master had seen through his manners.

‘You will find recruits from our Chapter the most stalwart of all, for we do not fear death,’ the Chapter Master had explained, his face hidden in shadow. ‘We embrace it, for when we die, our souls are united with the Emperor on the Golden Throne.’

He’d brought Ellial back with him that time.

They’d served together for years, and before battle the Mortifactor always closed his eyes in meditation, his hearts almost stopping and his breathing slowing to a slight flare of the nostrils, once or twice a minute. It was the manner of the Mortifactors to withdraw like this before combat, just as it was the manner of the Space Wolves to brag and laugh at danger. Seconds before battle, Ellial would be sitting, eyes closed, body relaxed, and moments before the first shot his eyes would snap open.

‘We commune with the primarch, and all the brothers that have gone before us. They are our ancestors, in a manner of speaking,’ Ellial had told him. He’d been sitting in his cell – a shrine, really, to death – surrounded by the skulls of enemies he had taken. They were stacked up the walls and angled over into an arched ceiling of jaws and eye sockets, and the skulls of things that had no eyes – like the nicassar head that he had taken and which held pride of place in his room, the bulges in the thin, bird-like skull showing where the psychic glands had formed.

‘What do your Chapter believe?’ Ellial had asked, and Nergui laughed.

‘We do not think about death,’ he’d said.

Ellial had blinked in surprise. ‘No?’

Nergui had shaken his head. ‘No. We do not care for such things. We care for the wind in our hair, the blood of our foes, the ferocity of our assault. And after death, we sleep, because the battle is done.’

And that was enough.

Ellial was one of those who had been changed by his time within the Deathwatch. He had stopped drinking the blood of his foes, although he’d never given up collecting their skulls, or entering a near-death state of meditation as he approached battle.

The tiny gold-plated skull was Ellial’s totem, the thing he meditated upon when he wished to go into a deep trance. As Nergui’s fingers touched it he flinched, as if stung. There was a psychic presence there. He had the strangest feeling that Ellial was standing next to him.

As he rode Ganbold back, he held the tiny skull in his hand, as a Chogorean boy would carry a wounded bird, and he gave it to Domitian with due reverence.

Domitian closed his eyes and focused.

‘He’s here,’ Domitian gasped before he was quite ready to speak. ‘He has stayed, knowing we would find him. But he is weak. No one else could have held his presence so long after death. Only a Mortifactor. I must concentrate.’

The temperature began to drop.

Nergui’s nose began to drip. He wiped it and saw a smear of blood on his armour. The cold was precipitating acid from the air. It was starting to corrode his nasal lining.

‘What is happening?’ Cadvan voxed. ‘Your readings are showing that you are bleeding.’

‘It’s Domitian. He’s got Ellial’s totem skull. He’s communing with it.’

The Storm Giant was one of those brothers whose attitude was unchanged by the proximity of other Chapters and traditions.

‘Throne!’ he said. ‘Tell me when they’re done.’

Nergui stayed on, even as the noxious gases thickened about Domitian, creating a yellow mist of sulphuric acid. Nergui could feel the bite in his throat now. There was blood in his lungs. The blood in his nose had clotted but the scab hung like a red icicle, before he brushed it away.

Domitian staggered from the acidic mist, his drawn face white. Fresh red blood dripped from his nostrils and ears, and even from the corner of his human eye. He coughed, and there was blood there too. Even the black of his armour had been eaten away to reveal the yellow of his Chapter, and in patches raw metal. He made a gesture which said, I cannot speak.

Nergui felt the cold, wet, icy touch of Domitian’s presence slipping into his skull again. The world went dark. He resisted briefly, as he felt the Librarian taking over his mind. For a moment he was sitting in a Corvus, holding a storm shield, eyes closed as the craft bucked, weaved and lurched over hills and craters, gullies – and then he understood.

This was Ellial’s memory, as the Mortifactor had passed it on to Domitian.

Nergui braced himself as he prepared to watch the last moments of Ellial’s life.

CHAPTER TWO

A golden light stabs through the darkness. It does not blind. It is warm upon his face. There is singing, distant voices, calling to him.

‘Faith in the Emperor,’ a machine-spirit’s servitor voice intones. ‘Hatred steels our resolve. The alien cannot embrace the Emperor. To attempt understanding with the xenos is folly. You must destroy, and put understanding to the side. You shall rest in the comfort of the Emperor when the battle is done…’

The voice is the automated chant of the Corvus’ machine-spirit. It speaks to him in the same moment that he basks in the light of the Astronomican. His mind exists in both places. The here and now, the present and the other. He feels the tilt as the Corvus Blackstar banks and accelerates to the right. He breathes through his nose, circles in and out, impossibly long and slow. A voice comes as if from far away.

‘I’m taking her in. Landing in six, five, four…’

At ‘one’ the inside of the Corvus snaps into light. In one hand he holds a storm shield, in the other a combi-plasma. He is already moving.

Nidal, the Warmonger, is first out and then Tula, the Star Phantom, engaging his multi-melta as he follows. Priam, the Marine Errant, rests his combi-plasma on his lap. He turns and looks at Ellial.

‘Welcome back,’ he says.

‘I always come back,’ Ellial says. His hand slams the disengagment studs. He jumps down as the Corvus hovers a few yards above the ground, smells sulphur and dust through his helmet’s sensor array, and the distinctive peppery scent of tau.

Next moment, Ellial is crouched at the crater lip. This is a mission to destroy a tau communication relay, but what he sees is all wrong. The wrong buildings, the wrong doorways. What they have discovered is a small city of domes and gun turrets.

Nidal, the Warmonger, lets out a low whistle. ‘Throne!’ he says. ‘Look what we have found!’

The pain of possession made Nergui retch. He saw the kill team moving out to observe the tau base. He saw Ellial moving through the landscape. The Mortifactor’s last seconds came at him in vivid and fragmented flashes. For a moment, Nergui dropped back into his own mind. He found himself on all fours, but then Domitian’s mind gripped the back of his neck like a vice, and he arched his back in agony.

+You must see this.+

‘We have contacts,’ Ellial says.

The pilot, Gualtino of the Angels of Redemption, gives a short whistle.

‘Holy Throne,’ he voxes. ‘What are they doing?’

‘Nidal is taking picts. We’ll scout them out, and then get out of here. Jotunn has to see this or he won’t believe it.’

There is a sound like tearing cloth. Ellial rolls to the side as his retinal lens display flares an incandescent green. Rock showers on him. He is half buried. He kicks to get his legs back, and Nidal’s marker turns red. There is a smoking crater where he had been standing. Ellial has only minor wounds. He engages his bolter, rolls to the side, and sees a streak of blue as a pair of Razorsharks rips across the sky, contrails flaring white in the thin atmosphere. There are plumes of explosions that stitch closer, throwing up dark clouds of fractured rock. Another tau fighter screeches overhead, banking as drones drop from its belly in a long stream.

Ellial puts two rounds into each, knocking them out as they turn towards him. One explodes, two more spin, winged to the floor, and the third comes on, tilting closer. He fires a third shot which blows it into pieces that pirouette down to the ground.

‘More contacts!’ Priam voxes. There is a hiss and puff of melta fire. A skimming Piranha nose plugs the earth and spins over and over, slowing with each spin, before exploding in a hail of black fragments. He curses as the sky is suddenly full of contrails and drones, banking fighters and scouts.

‘They have our position,’ Tula is shouting.

Gualtino is swinging back around to try to extract them.

‘I’ll hold them off,’ he hisses, banking as a gun rig lands to fire its railguns. The Corvus Blackstar brackets a team of fire warriors. In the background comes the blast of railguns. Then he says, ‘Holy Throne! Look at those battlesuits.’

Ellial has mistaken them for Riptides. But now he sees. There are a hundred of them, in the colours of at least ten septs that he knows, surging over the sentry lines with giant bounds, their shoulder-mounted railguns primed and ready.

Then there is a Riptide! The battlesuits are dwarfed by this new construction. One of the giant battlesuits, in the pale colours of Vior’la, pauses for a moment, thrusters dampening recoil, and then it fires.

The ground explodes in a great gout of rock and spinning debris. Ellial rolls to the side. Suddenly it seems they are all firing. The world goes dark as shots hammer about him. All is rock and fire and debris and pain. It goes on for what feels like an age: blast, explosion, pain.

Gualtino is racing back in. ‘Are you still there, brothers?’ he voxes.

There is a long pause. ‘Still here,’ Ellial manages to say. His legs are stumps. He grits his teeth against the pain. ‘But I might be alone now.’ Something vast rears up before him. It blots out the thin light of the sun.

For a moment the world goes dark. Then impossibly bright.

And hot.

And then it is done.

Nergui found himself coughing and choking. He threw back his head, and saw Domitian kneeling beside him.

The blood had started dripping from his eye again. It rimmed his socket with red.

+You saw.+

‘Yes,’ Nergui said, and coughed and shook his head. He pushed himself to his feet, and held Domitian’s wrist to drag him up as well. The Librarian leant on him for a moment, and Nergui swayed. ‘Throne, yes. I understand now. What were those things? They had no chance against such an enemy. We must take word back. We must counter this thing.’

Domitian caught the White Scar with one hand and held him up as they limped back towards the Corvus. Cadvan was aboard, starting up the engines.

The ramps lowered and Nergui helped Domitian up.

‘Listen,’ the White Scar said. ‘Don’t ever do that again. Take me over. Without warning me.’ He hit the button to bring the ramps back up. They did not bother to strap themselves in as the Corvus’ engines whined and the craft lifted into the air.

‘I was losing him,’ Domitian said. ‘His soul, I mean. I wanted you to see what he saw.’

‘I know.’ Nergui wiped the scabs of blood from the corners of his eyes. ‘I saw it all. But just warn me next time.’

‘Find anything?’ Cadvan voxed, as the ramps closed behind them.

‘Oh yes,’ Nergui voxed back. We have found something, he thought.

CHAPTER THREE

It was not usual for a Deathwatch shipmaster to stand on the landing deck to await the return of a kill team, but Shipmaster Loni Ferral far from ordinary.

She was small, even for a human, but her diminutive size only made her tougher, like foil crushed by a mighty fist into a tight ball. Her face had been handsome once, despite the severe fringe, but years of rejuvenat had given her a slightly waxy look, while years of service with the Deathwatch had given her unaugmented eye a mean and wary light. At her side she carried a bolt pistol, and she’d used it a number of times, when the fighting had become desperate.

Ferral saw the Corvus Blackstar settle on the landing decks of the Deathwatch strike cruiser Nemesis, and watched the black-power-armoured Space Marines stride towards her. She had positioned herself by the doors to the private chambers of the warriors and addressed Nergui as he approached.

‘Did you find them?’

Nergui paused, took off his helmet and looked down. There was dried blood on his cheeks, and his eyes were rimmed with red. It was a point of pride for Ferrel that she alone of the bridge crew did not tremble when speaking with one of the Adeptus Astartes, but she caught her breath for a moment. ‘Was there a fight?’

‘No,’ Nergui said.

‘Then why the blood?’

‘Sulphur,’ he told her. ‘The atmosphere became acidic.’

She seemed unimpressed – if a member of the Adeptus Astartes was going to bleed, her face seemed to say, there better be a damn good reason for it. Something better than environmental hazards. ‘You should have put your helmet on.’

He did not laugh. ‘It is superficial. I wanted to smell the place where my brothers died.’

Among the human crew members, only she was privy to the purpose of the mission. ‘So you found them?’

Nergui absentmindedly brushed away the dried blood from one cheek. ‘We found traces of them.’

She looked back to where tracked servitors were fussing about the Corvus Blackstar: reloading, checking, promethium pipes already refilling her tanks. ‘But there are no bodies.’

‘No. But they died there nonetheless. Domitian felt it.’

‘What killed them?’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me it was the atmosphere.’

‘No. It was not the sulphur. It was the tau.’

Shipmaster Ferral did not have a sense of humour, though her habit of speaking bluntly was sometimes mistaken for jest – to the distinct disadvantage of her crew. ‘Looks like your prey fought back.’

Nergui nodded. ‘Yes, it does that.’

‘In the wild it is the hunter who kills the prey. Not the other way round.’

‘This is not the wilds of some planet, shipmaster. This is the way of the galaxy. Kill or be killed. The hunted adapts, or it dies. And this enemy has adapted.’

She stiffened. ‘I have commanded auspex sweeps of the whole system, but found nothing.’

Nergui turned for a moment as Ganbold was loaded onto one of the armoury carriages and carried with due reverence into the armoury lift. He waited until the lift doors had closed, and then he turned back to her. ‘I do not think they are still here. The xenos have made great efforts to hide their presence. Whatever was there a month ago is now gone.’

‘Where to?’

Nergui remembered the size of those battlesuits, and his jaw hardened. ‘That is what we need to find out.’

She sighed. ‘So we have accounted for Kill Team Primus. But what of Kill Team Orion? Do we keep searching for them?’

Nergui paused for a moment. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We do not. What I saw there – I must take news back. Our commander must hear. Now, please excuse me.’

Nergui’s cell was a plain chamber with a bed, an armoury and a vast round viewport that looked out across the upper portside weapon batteries. He kept reliving the moment when Ellial had seen the Riptide and the new battlesuit side by side. Their enemy had evolved in a way that repelled him. The urge to kill was strong. They were not just xenos, they were a deadly bacteria that multiplied and learned and changed.

Humanity would not be safe if even one of their foul race was left alive.

He closed his eyes, meditated upon the images that he had seen from Ellial’s mind, going over each one moment by moment, gleaning every scrap of information.

He did not sleep for three days, and it was not until he felt the warp drive being engaged that his eyes snapped open. He had given his orders for the return to Picket’s Watch, but now – after long and deep thought – something nagged at him.

Nergui jumped up suddenly and strode out into the central corridor. To the left the walls were warm and throbbed with the heat of the ship’s core reactor. To the right the Adeptus Astartes’ cells opened out to the port side of the Nemesis, at the base of the bridge spires. It would have taken Nergui an hour to climb the long stairs up to the bridge, and sometimes he did this, timing himself and trying to beat his best. It helped to keep the mind active on long voyages.

This time he took the lift, and just in time. Shipmaster Ferral was preparing for the jump into warp space as he entered. He felt the human crew stiffen at his presence. They stared into their instruments and avoided looking in his direction. It was an effect he was almost entirely oblivious to.

Shipmaster Ferral was sitting in her throne, issuing a series of commands, when an alarm sounded.

‘What is that?’ she said.

‘Long-range anomalous readings,’ the Master of Auspex reported.

‘Let me see.’ It was Nergui who spoke. The Master of Auspex was an augmented human, and he visibly wilted as Nergui turned his full attention upon him. He held out a sheath of reports in a shaking hand.

Nergui inspected the readings. ‘Anomalous readings from so far beyond the Mandeville point?’

The Master of Auspex nodded.

Nergui nodded. ‘We must investigate.’

Shipmaster Loni Ferral had been hovering on the edge of the conversation and she stepped in now, her voice tense. ‘Captain Nergui. Your orders were to move to the Mandeville point with all speed. It will take us two days, at least, to investigate those readings. May I suggest…’

Nergui did not bother listening to the suggestion. He turned his back on the shipmaster and waited for the suggestion to end, before saying, with due honorifics, ‘Shipmaster Ferral. My orders have changed. I want to find out if that is their ship, and if any of my brothers are still alive.’

The readings were correct. They found a burned hulk, two and a half days past the Mandeville point, within the dark, cold heart of a nebula made up of her own frozen clouds of oxygen and water and hydrogen – still venting thin trails of gas from the gaping holes in her flanks.

Kill Team Primus had set out on their mission aboard the six hundred-year-old strike cruiser Troilus – a hardy vessel, retrofitted with extra slabs of ablative armour along her sides, a suite of generators, and three vast dorsal lance batteries, unusual for a ship of this class, which gave her a formidable punch against any foe.

Domitian appeared on the bridge just as Nergui was about to call him. His eyes had lost their glassy tiredness, and he approached the round viewport with steady steps.

‘I have done as you asked,’ the Librarian said.

Nergui did not hold out much hope. ‘And did you feel any… presence, brother?’

Domitian shook his head. ‘I have felt out for life. But there is none.’

Nergui nodded. Sometimes there were pockets of life aboard a destroyed ship, airlocks that had remained secure, human crews sheltering in the depths of the engines or about the warmth of the reactor cores. Or one of the Adeptus Astartes, whose enhanced physiques and armour allowed them to survive in places no ordinary human could. ‘And did you sense anything else?’

Domitian shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

Nergui looked at the wreck. He had flown on the Troilus many times. She had a fine crew. It hurt him to see the gaping holes along the hull, thick slabs of armour melted and peeled away. Her fuselage was bent and broken. She had been blasted down to the structural spine, long after she would have stopped posing any threat. But most chilling of all were the three great dorsal turrets, with their massive lance arrays. All three of them remained in the cruising position, pointing straight forwards. ‘They did not even have a chance to fire back. They were ambushed.’

‘They knew what they were doing,’ Domitian said. He put a hand to Nergui’s arm, and spoke earnestly. ‘And you were right to send them here. Remember what you saw. They found something.’

Nergui remembered the images he had seen. An armed camp, hidden in the depths of empty space, a hundred newly developed battlesuits raining fire down upon a single kill team. ‘Yes, they found something. But what?’

‘Captain,’ the shipmaster’s voice came again.

Nergui turned.

Ferral cleared her throat. ‘I have logged the location of the Troilus. When we return to Picket’s Watch I suggest we send a reclamation craft to bring her home, but for now we have information of importance that must be brought back with all speed. Do I have your permission to make the translation now?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We can leave.’

CHAPTER FOUR

Nowhere in the Imperial archives did it tell who Picket of the Picket’s Watch was, but archeo-scribes recorded that the foundation of the fortress dated to the days of the Great Crusade, when it was a sentinel on the vast emptiness of the Damocles Gulf.

The earliest extant archival record was by Archeo-scribe Nay-lor, attached to Explorator Fleet Beaconfire, whose footnotes recorded that Picket’s Watch had been an outpost of the Imperial Fists Legion – although there was evidence of an earlier watch fortress, of human design, probably dating back to the Age of Strife.

What the Imperial Fists legionaries had been guarding against no record survived to tell, but they built Westkeep: a massive bastion of stone and ceramite, with void shield generators, hidden gun batteries and murderous enfilading fields of fire.

It was possible, the author of the history mused, that Picket’s Watch had been built to mark the edge of habitable space. Or it could be that whatever threat those ancient Legiones Astartes had perceived had faded, or been wiped out. Now the Damocles Gulf was a quiet region of space, Nay-lor stated: safe, predictable, thoroughly colonised. One of the more stable regions of the Imperium of Mankind.

Nay-lor’s treatise had been written in 789.M35, when the Explorator Fleet Beaconfire passed through on its way across the gulf. That statement about this being a safe region of space had been true then. The expedition had successfully crossed the Damocles Gulf and found worlds that had never been visited before by emissaries of the Adeptus Mechanicus. On their journey they had found one world, named T’au. Predominantly arid – possible uses: grox cultivation on semi-arid savannah regions, the official reports had read. Currently inhabited by indigenous xenos race. Have just mastered fire. Suggest extermination landing. Clearance expected one to six months.

That report had been logged, recorded and filed safely away when it reached Terra, and T’au scheduled for clearance before it was made suitable for human colonisation. A sudden warp storm had cut the region off for over six thousand years, and when the first rogue traders pushed back into this area of space, they found that the tau race had evolved from a virtual stone age to a culture of high sophistication and technological heresy, spanning three hundred light years.

For thousands of years Picket’s Watch had been sustained by a skeleton crew of servitors, but with the threat now expanding across the Damocles Gulf, it found itself on a new front line. It was taken over by the Deathwatch. They reinforced the outer wards, with massive batteries and emplacements, buttressed towers and bastions set around the impregnable fortress of Westkeep. And so it became a frontier outpost, home to the Second Chamber of the Warriors of Talassa Prime – Guardians of the Eastern Fringe.

But despite the vast bombardment cannons and automated lance batteries, its chief defence was secrecy. And it was to this hidden outpost that Nergui’s ship, Nemesis, returned, bearing the news of the loss of Kill Team Primus and the strike cruiser Troilus.

Their Navigator steered them through the swirling warp to this lone rock, lost in the black void of true space, and while the Nemesis manoeuvred slowly into her assigned dock, a black Thunderhawk bearing the insignia of the Deathwatch brought Cadvan, Domitian and Nergui down to the starport.

Automated gun platforms tracked their descent. They disembarked and made their way towards the dark, solid bulk of Westkeep.

‘Shall I come with you?’ Domitian voxed.

Nergui shook his head. ‘It is not necessary. I must tell the commander first.’

‘So be it,’ Domitian said.

Nergui watched as the slight figure of the Librarian and giant Cadvan crossed the flagstones of the inner courtyard and disappeared into the shadows of Carnot’s Bastion, then he turned to the vast, heavy block of Westkeep.

Slaved heavy bolters tracked Nergui’s progress as he started up the broad rockcrete steps. As he strode up, a bell rang out from the top of Westkeep, a single note marking the loss of his brothers. It seemed the tidings of the fate of Kill Team Primus had arrived before him. Ferral must have sent a message ahead. She should not have done that. It was not right for a human, even a shipmaster, to get involved in the affairs of the Deathwatch.

The augmented door wards had their black hoods pulled low over their faces. They stood back, shotguns braced to chests, and bowed as Nergui’s shadow passed across the threshold. The servitors’ slack-jawed faces had sad and melancholic looks, as if even they understood the loss that the Second Chamber had suffered.

A dark-cowled adept bowed. ‘The commander is in the Old Feast Hall. We heard of your losses, captain,’ he ventured. ‘We are sorry…’

‘Yes. We’re all sorry,’ Nergui snapped.

Nergui descended four levels down into the hidden fastness of Picket’s Watch, past Carnot’s Library, where two automated savants wheeled up towards their respective lecterns, low lights illuminating ancient leather-bound tomes as their metal fingers carefully turned each page.

The sparring chamber was strangely quiet, although he could hear the distant thud from the firing range. It sounded like Olbath. He had a distinctive one-two style of firing. Head and heart, he called it.

Nergui took the third corridor on the right, descending the broad and gently worn steps that led to the Old Feast Hall. Only authorised personnel were permitted to enter the lower levels, where the past centuries lay like fine dust on the floor, and the lower he went the more conscious he was that he was stepping into history – where the Imperial Fists once held vigil over the borders of the galaxy.

At the antechamber entrance, the lintels were carved with twin axes and above the lintel a clenched fist icon held three lightning bolts in its grip.

The Old Feast Hall was the only place in Westkeep where the Imperial Fists iconography had not been replaced with that of the Deathwatch. Why this was so, Nergui did not know. But there was a boldness and confidence in those Legion emblems that seemed to say, We are humanity’s guardians. We do not fear the emptiness of space.

Theirs had not been a secretive mission, he was sure. Here on the edges of known space those ancient warriors had gloried in humanity’s achievement. But their watch had ended, their Legion had been broken up, and the Chapter born in its stead was unable to maintain the resources necessary to man hundreds of watchposts.

Nergui passed under the arch of dressed stone into the Old Feast Hall. After so long in corridors and low chambers, he stepped into the vaulted room and felt the ceilings lift above his head to a cathedral space. He had seen it once lit as it must have been when the Imperial Fists filled the benches.

The arched ceiling was gilded with icons of Rogal Dorn, the Great Crusade and the Emperor Ascendant that must have taken decades to finish. The sight of these ancient images had taken his breath away for a moment. They had been so hopeful, coming as they did from before the days of the Great Heresy.

There had once been benches for the entire company of Imperial Fists. Now the Deathwatch could barely maintain more than three kill teams here. And despite the years of fighting, the dangers had only increased. The feast benches had been long since cleared away, and now the room was empty except for the tombs of ancient warriors that lined the walls, and a lone figure, standing in the corner, at the black marble shrine of St Hallows.

And it was here, in the ancient shadows, that Commander Jotunn liked to keep his watch.

‘White Scar…’ Jotunn the Space Wolf’s voice was so deep and resonant it made the stones of the ancient fortress tremble. Nergui paused mid-step. Watch-Commander Jotunn – the Lone Wolf – only addressed brothers by their Chapter names when he was angry, and now, as his great hunched form turned, Nergui could see that the Space Wolf’s long fangs were bared in a snarl. ‘Where are my warriors, White Scar?’

Nergui stopped two sword lengths away. ‘Kill Team Primus was destroyed. Domitian found Ellial’s presence on a moon in the Sexton Sector.’

Jotunn faced the White Scar. His finely artificed black power armour was almost as old as the fortress itself. His face was drawn with age and the puckered red marks of old scars, while his white beard hung in long plaits that reached down to his knees.

‘I gave you my best kill team, White Scar,’ the Lone Wolf growled.

Nergui was defiant. ‘Yes, commander. You did. And I sent them out to do their duty, which is to fight the xenos.’

There was a low rumble of anger. The Lone Wolf came almost to the edge of the shadows.

‘Do you see this empty hall? I cannot spare warriors!’

Nergui did not need to look. He knew what the darkness obscured. The walls were covered with an assortment of shoulder pads, xenos skulls, bolt pistols, lovingly polished hellfire bolter rounds, eldar swords, grotesque and screaming masks, chequerboard faces with wickedly curved features, a loaxtl’s withered front claw, the flensed jaw bone of a carnifex prime. Each totem was carefully inscribed in High Gothic script with the name of a fallen member of the Deathwatch.

Jotunn picked out a green spirit stone with the name Mortifax chiselled into the surface, but where the names usually ended with a Chapter symbol, there was an empty shield, without emblem or marking.

‘Do you know who Mortifax was, White Scar?’

Nergui shook his head.

‘His real name was Kaspar Dabanville. He was of the Sons of Medusa Chapter. He rose to great fame among his brothers. For a hundred and six years he was a great warrior within the Deathwatch. He hated the eldar, and pursued them mercilessly from world to world, burning and razing their ancient shrines and scattered communities. He led an entire chamber – seven kill teams – on a raid into the webway on the world of Brand’s Gate. It was a trap that the xenos had laid for him. They killed each of his warriors, one by one, until only he was left, surrounded, wounded and alone.

‘And do you know what they did to him?’

Nergui shook his head.

‘They let him return to Brand’s Gate. Alive. Shamed. It was there that he took the black. He held himself to higher standards than anyone else. He became a Black Shield and painted over all trace of his former Chapter, and went back to being a simple warrior. He even changed his name to Mortifax to symbolise his contrition.’

‘Why do you tell me this, commander?’

‘I tell you this because there is no mercy in this galaxy,’ Jotunn said. ‘There is no room for the weak or the stupid. The hunters became the hunted. It is the way of the galaxy. Only the strongest and fiercest and most cunning will survive. You have to think like the xenos we hunt. You have to understand them, to know what they are thinking, even though their thoughts are abhorrent. You have to understand their logic, even though their thoughts are illogical. You have to hate them! But you must never underestimate their evil and their cunning. You have failed to outthink, out-reason, outguess your foes. Not doing so, Captain Nergui, is the worst kind of failure.’

Jotunn touched the spirit stone, and a glow appeared within it – as if there were a firefly trapped inside – that slowly faded again.

Nergui found the xenos object disgusting. He stroked his moustaches and said, ‘It was no failure.’

‘What do you mean, no failure?’

‘You have not heard?’

Jotunn’s fangs showed for a moment. ‘No. I have not heard.’

‘Kill Team Primus found something.’

There was a pause, and the ancient Space Wolf moved towards him. Nergui could see his eyes gleaming with reflected candlelight, like a cat’s, and bared fangs as the Space Wolf growled.

‘What?’ he rumbled.

‘They found something that the tau do not want us to know even exists. The xenos cleaned the site of the battle. They destroyed the Troilus and towed it out past the Mandeville point, into dead space. They scoured the system and thought they had left nothing that could leave a trace. And they were almost successful.’

‘Almost?’

‘Yes. But they overlooked this.’ He held up the gold-plated simian skull that Ellial had used as a totem. The red crystal eyes glittered. ‘Ellial’s presence remained. Domitian communed with him. I saw what he saw.’

The Lone Wolf was like a ghost in the darkness. ‘What did he see, White Scar?’

Nergui described the large complex, the number of buildings, the gun emplacements and the hab zones, and the Lone Wolf listened patiently. At the end Nergui said, ‘And there was a type of battlesuit we have not seen before.’

‘Describe it to me.’

‘Larger than their usual battlesuits. They carry the same calibre railgun as their ships, but shoulder-mounted, on a suit that can deploy onto the battlefield via jump pack or aerial insertion. I saw one being deployed. It looks like a Titan killer.’ He drew himself up. ‘I would class them as an extreme threat. And what is more, there were nearly a hundred of them, with at least twelve separate sept markings, including Vior’la, Ke’lshan and Sa’cea.’

The Space Wolf sank back into the shadows. ‘The finest warrior worlds of the tau, working together?’ His fangs showed once more. ‘What could this be, this secret base that disappears when we find it? That is protected so well, my finest warriors are wiped out? That has so many of these new weapons of war? And where the septs cooperate? Nergui. You have done well. We know the base is no longer on this moon. But where could it be?’

‘It did not appear to be a production facility.’

Jotunn nodded. ‘No. Not with so many septs working together. Then what do you think it was?’

‘I do not know,’ he said. ‘Unless, perhaps, it is a training facility.’

‘Where pilots are brought to be inducted…’ Jotunn growled. ‘Whatever it is, Nergui, if the enemy value it, you must find it and destroy it.’

Nergui bowed. ‘I shall, commander.’

As he marched back across the dark and empty chamber, Jotunn called out after him.

‘What about Kill Team Orion? Where are they?’

Nergui turned and faced the Space Marine. ‘I do not know.’

‘You stopped looking?’

‘I thought the appearance of these battlesuits meant I had to return here. To consult with you.’

Jotunn’s fangs were bared. ‘I might be able to help. We had an astropathic signal while you were gone, from the strike cruiser Robidoux. Two weeks ago.’

Nergui started forwards. ‘Tell me.’

‘Yes. Leonas led them in a boarding action of a tau emissary craft that was heading towards the Sexton Sector. Leonas and his team were trapped. The captain of the Robidoux was heading for the Mandeville point. If she ever got there, I do not know.’

‘The Sexton Sector? So they would use the route through the Distaf Nebula? I will go and see what I can find,’ Nergui said.

Jotunn nodded.

Nergui turned back to the darkness of the hall. His enhanced vision could make out the xenos trophies that stretched up to the vaulted ceiling, weapons and names as ancient as the Imperium of Mankind itself. His was a fight that seemed endless, unwinnable at times. But all that mattered was the fight itself.

Without war, there was no hope.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘Last’ Leonas refused to die.

He spat fresh blood from his mouth. Bile burned his throat. No, it was not bile, it was the shots that had wounded him. He kicked and moaned as he relived that moment. The knowledge that he was alone and surrounded by tau.

It was supposed to be an ambassador’s ship. Lightly defended, a respectfully sized bodyguard – easy, in short, to overwhelm. It should have been easy.

Half the squad were in Terminator armour, the other half in power armour, so that they could keep moving, rocking the enemy back with lightning body punches.

Their Thunderhawk had come in unseen and blasted its way into the docking bay. It landed long enough to drop the kill team, as its own automated weapon systems knocked out bulkheads, ripped through tau drones and shredded the first team of fire warriors who came sprinting into the hall, their commander shouting orders as his warriors knelt and fired.

The mission itself had gone well. They’d cut a path through the ship, leaving dead tau slumped against bulkheads and lying in heaps where they had fallen. The bridge been taken after a brief assault, and they’d killed all within and torn the databanks from their cases.

It was the fight out that had gone badly. How were they to know that this craft was carrying a tau ethereal? They had carried the xenos tech, battling their way back out against twice as much opposition as they had faced on the way in, and each moment they were slowed meant the enemy could bring more warriors to bear. The fire warriors fought with a tenacity and resolve that was exemplary.

Leonas and Brothers Aslon and Brand had dragged themselves wounded to the Thunderhawk. Leonas’ magazines had clicked empty as he stood on the ramp and covered the retreat of the Terminators. The three of them had strode slowly backwards, shoulder to shoulder, assault cannons tearing up the mobile tau bulkheads, as plasma rounds made the air crackle with ozone.

It had all gone wrong when the Thunderhawk lifted and a lucky shot ignited a fuel cable in the gunship’s second engine. A small fire spread in seconds, until the whole wing was ablaze, and he remembered the face of Branstonio as the Thunderhawk crashed.

‘Throne,’ he had said. ‘Let’s get out there and die with honour.’

They had fought a three-hour battle across the landing zone, trapped, encircled, running low on ammunition, without hope of rescue. They’d used the wreckage of their own Thunderhawk as cover until one by one his brothers had been picked off. Aslon and Branstonio were incinerated when the Thunderhawk’s port-side fuel tank exploded. He had no idea what killed Brand, but Solovax of the Black Guard died cursing the xenos.

Leonas had taken a plasma bolt to the side, and something big enough had hit him on the side of the head, making an egg-shell dent in his skull. His clips were empty, but still he had fought on, battering the foe with the butt of his weapon – bucking, snarling, clawing at faces, tearing off helmets, breaking bones in his grip. He had killed ten, a score, he had lost count, and then the world had become fire.

It did not matter. All that mattered was that he stayed alive. He could not die.

Leonas was the last. He would not die, he could not die.

Leonas twitched as the dreams tore like old curtains and reality pushed her ugly snout into his consciousness.

He moaned and tried to turn back over into his delirium, but he could not. There was light in his eyes, his nose was full of scabbed blood, one of his hearts had failed and the other one was skipping beats, sending dizzy palpitations through his wounded body.

The plasma had seared a hole straight through his chest. He could feel fluids dripping into his core as his body tried to repair the seared innards of his flesh, despite the fact that the edges scabbed and the pain was…

…bearable. He was of the Adeptus Astartes. He was the weapon that had conquered the whole galaxy on behalf of the Emperor of Mankind. He could conquer pain. All it took was concentration. He slowed his breathing. He concentrated.

He knew the xenos observed him from behind the armoured glass screen. He could feel their wonder as scabs formed on his wounds and he came back to life, when they were sure that he had died. But he did not care. He had to survive. He was the last. He could not die.

A door opened. One of Leonas’ eyes was bruised shut. The other opened just enough for him to see the room. It was plain, cream, smooth, unmistakably alien.

He took in the bulkhead’s location, the way it opened, sliding to the left, in case he had to prise it open. A figure walked towards him. It was a human, female: a short, plump woman with a stud in her nostril and long blonde hair. She wore what looked like the grey flak armour of an Imperial Guard major, but underneath she wore a suit of xenos design. Where she would have worn the aquila was the round black-and-white symbol of a tau sept.

‘Can you speak?’ she asked. She was trembling. He wanted to kill her for her treachery to her species, and it took a moment’s concentration to hold back the desire to reach out.

‘Lord, can you speak?’ she asked again.

He lay still for a long time.

‘If you speak, I can help you,’ she said. He saw that she kept well back out of arm’s reach. She had that much sense at least.

‘I am Major Jerym,’ she said. ‘Of Sept Bork’an.’ She came forwards a little.

Leonas had picked up enough to know that Bork’an was the centre of learning for the tau, and the chiefmost of their military academies.

She came a little closer still. ‘We thought you were dead.’

He laughed at the idea. It was simple. He could not die.

‘When you started moving we brought you here. It is for your good. It is for all our good. You’ll understand that at some point. It is better that way.’

Leonas opened his good eye fully. He could tell from the look on her face that it was a baleful sight, looking into the red eyes of a Black Consuls Space Marine.

‘Better for whom?’ he spat.

She took a step back. He could smell her fear. It sparked something within him. Confidence. Violence. The pride of his kind. He slowed his heart. It had enough to deal with. He tried to smile, but the left side of his face was swollen. There were bits of teeth still in the bloody recesses of his mouth. His right hand twitched for a bolter or a blade.

‘You are disarmed,’ she said.

He laughed. ‘If you were just a little closer I would break your neck.’

‘You’re sick,’ she told him.

‘I’m not sick. I’m wounded. There’s a distinct difference.’

‘Rest. I will speak to you later. We’re taking you back.’

‘Back where?’

‘You will see.’

Leonas laughed, even though it hurt, and it brought a gout of fresh blood from his mouth. ‘Look what you made me do,’ he said, as he struggled to lift a hand to wipe the blood away.

‘You will understand,’ she said, ‘or we will have to hand you over.’

‘Who to?’

‘To the others,’ she said. ‘We have claimed the first right. But there are others. Younger, brasher. They want to have their chance with you. They will not be as kind as us. It would be easier if you conform.’

Leonas spat at the word ‘conform’. The acid hit her full in the face, and she screamed and stumbled back.

He pulled at his restraints, but he was held fast. The door opened. He had a brief glimpse of a thin, grey-skinned tau dressed in long white robes with thick cuffs that were turned back.

‘I cannot do anything with him,’ his interviewer hissed.

After that a team of tau came in with pain-prods and stun-shields. They surrounded Leonas and beat him down, and the electrocharges in the spiked ends brought grunts of startled pain through his clenched teeth.

When he woke there was fresh blood oozing down his face and from his ears. His hands had been bound. There were tubes in his arms, a tube up his nose. His heart was more erratic. Another of his teeth was broken, his arms leaden. Even opening his good eye was an effort.

And then he saw why. They were pumping something into his veins. Sedatives. Pacifiers.

He closed his eyes.

He wanted to retch. He wanted to sleep. He wanted it to be over.

No, a voice within him said.

You are the last, Leonas.

You cannot die.

The next interrogator came after hours of flashing lights and blaring sirens. He came in the darkness, as if that would hide him from the Space Marine’s sight, padding stealthily into the room, as if Leonas could not hear him. Then he spoke. A human, but one with a slight accent that Leonas could not locate.

‘You will die, here, Space Marine,’ he whispered. ‘Look at you! You are weak, and broken! All your brute strength could not save you against the united power of our forces. You think you are strong, but you are weak. We shall break you all. One by one, as we destroy your corrupt empire. We bring the Greater Good! We shall triumph. All that you hold dear shall be washed away. There will be nothing left. Not your Chapter, not your Emperor, not even the Golden Throne upon which He rots. We shall replace the darkness with light. Terror with peace. War with Trade. We are the servants of the Greater Good.’

The lights returned with a sudden hum of lumens. Leonas tried to lift a hand, but it had been strapped down. He felt the lights’ heat upon his face as his pupils shrank to pinheads within his green eyes. He blinked for a moment as his enhanced physique responded.

Human male, buck-toothed, mid-forties according to standard Terran years, no visible weapon, no armour, grey uniform, Sept Ke’lshan – and just beyond the reach of his boot.

The man glared down at Leonas.

‘Look at you! Tethered like a beast. You are worthless. You are stupid. You are crude and brutal. What do you know of the Greater Good? You like your life in darkness. You think the light of a candle flame is illumination. You could not understand what it is to live in the bright light of day. The light of knowledge and understanding. Your Imperium is dead. It is worthless. It is rotten to the core. We are the future…’

Leonas closed his eyes as buck-tooth kept up his tirade. Just a little closer, he thought, and I shall have you. One kick and I will stave this buck-toothed fool’s skull in.

‘Are you done yet, traitor?’ Leonas said in the end. ‘Take your tricks away. I do not fear you! You try to hide in darkness and light, but I see your face, and I shall remember, and I will take vengeance.’

Buck-tooth laughed at him. And the sirens and flashing lights started up again.

They lasted a week this time.

On the eighth day a third man came in. He was dressed in a double-breasted yellow jacket, fastened with buttons that carried the sept badge of the Elsy'eir. He held up a hand and cleared his throat, and the noise and flashing stopped. A single gentle light lit the room. Leonas forced himself to sit up, woozily shaking his head.

They had increased the dosage, and his body was struggling to counter its effects.

His hands were clamped down with leather straps about his wrists and forearms. He shook his head slowly, like a stunned bull that has one last charge in it.

The man waited. He was a neat little figure, sitting there before him. He drew up a three-legged stool and sat down, hands folded precisely on a data-slate in his lap. He had a thin neck, large head and grey hair swept across his wide forehead. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Please don’t glare at me. I am here to help you.’

The man waited as Leonas sat up and opened his good eye before speaking. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘My name is Roboute.’

‘You’re called Roboute?’

The man seemed nonplussed. ‘Yes,’ he said.

Leonas could not hold back his laughter. He could imagine telling Branstonio that he had met a traitor named Roboute. He could picture the Ultramarine’s fury.

The man continued a little peevishly. ‘Now can we get along? We don’t have much time.’

Leonas was still laughing. ‘No?’

‘No. I’m the last.’

‘The last what?’

The man gave a thin smile. ‘The last chance. Your last chance, in fact.’

‘Chance of what?’

‘Life.’

Leonas laughed once more. ‘My life is mine. You cannot take it from me.’

‘Oh, but I can.’ The man seemed incredibly pleased with himself. ‘You see, I am the last. If you do not agree to talk to me, then we shall vent you out of the nearest airlock.’

‘And you think that will kill me?’

‘Yes,’ the man said, simply. ‘If you keep your mouth shut then, yes, I am reliably informed so by our scientist brothers – a poor translation of the exact word, but never mind. If you are voided and keep your mouth shut I am told that the air in your lungs will expand at such a rate that it will tear you apart from the inside. That would be almost instantaneous death. Even with the ribcage you possess, the air will find a way out. The softest way, generally. Through your stomach, or your neck. It will tear through the soft organs and turn you inside out within moments. Seconds. A second, really, to be precise.

‘If you don’t hold your breath you may survive a few seconds. I suppose, before cold and the void kill you. A normal human would survive seconds. You might survive minutes. But yes. It will kill you.’ The man forced a smile. ‘So. Perhaps you will cooperate.’

‘What do you want to talk about?’ Leonas said. He swept his hands over the wounds on his body. ‘I am in some pain.’

‘Yes, but you are healing so quickly.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes. They thought that you would not survive,’ Roboute said.

‘I have to survive,’ Leonas said.

Roboute frowned, put his stylus to his mouth and sucked it for a moment. ‘You keep saying that. Please explain.’

There was a dull thud and the ship trembled for a moment.

Leonas waited. There was another thud. Far off but distinctive.

A siren sounded. Leonas sat up abruptly and the interrogator’s eyes widened in surprise.

‘My,’ he said. ‘You have healed quickly!’

Leonas flexed his forearms and the bindings creaked as his muscles swelled and stretched them wide. He tugged at the holding straps. One hand burst free and then the other. Roboute’s face expressed a moment of boggle-eyed surprise as Leonas reached across and caught him by the throat. The neck was so thin it was easy to snap.

‘I told you,’ Leonas said, dropping the dead body to the floor. ‘I cannot die.’

CHAPTER SIX

LOCATION: CANNIS GAS CLOUD,
DAMOCLES GULF, 999.M41

Without psykers, the tau could not make translations into the warp, but they had learnt to make short hops through the edge of the immaterial and real space, sticking to pre-ordained ‘stepping stones’. This particular transit point, deep in the Cannis gas cloud, was known to connect to the Sexton Sector. It was what the tau thought was a safe transit route, but its location had been known to the Deathwatch for some time.

And now the Nemesis waited, systems low, barely ticking over, watching the empty space.

Nergui stood before the Nemesis’ bridge viewport and watched the tau ships as an eagle watches the deer on the Chogorean plains, waiting his moment.

The strike cruiser had been in a state of preparedness for over two weeks. Rumours of the loss of a kill team had filtered down among the human crew. All of them were keen to strike a blow against the enemy. All of them were hungry for violence.

It was the waiting that strained nerves. Kill Team Faith were ready for immediate deployment. The bridge crew were tense. Nergui gave no sign or movement.

An alarm sounded from the auspex scanners as a tau convoy slowed almost to a stop, their white hulls pale against the darkness of the void.

The xenos ships readied their gravitic drives. If the Deathwatch were to attack, it had to be now, but the captain made no move.

Only Shipmaster Ferral dared disturb the Space Marine. Her boots clipped out a regular beat as she strode towards the viewport. She had a sheath of reports in her hands.

‘Our guns are ready. Give the word, Captain Nergui, and we shall attack.’ There was a long pause. Her voice was tense. ‘If we do not, then we will lose the chance.’

Still no answer.

‘Captain Nergui. Permission to engage the foe? My gun crews are ready. We could just take out a few of their transports and slip into warp space before their escorts have time to react. After the loss of Kill Team Primus…’

‘No,’ he said, and when she started to argue he spoke over her. ‘I do not doubt the bravery or skill of you or your crew, shipmaster. But we are hunting something far more important than this. We will not let vengeance get in our way.’ He gave the huddled transports before them a contemptuous nod.

‘May I know what?’

‘An emissary-class craft, bound for the Sexton Sector. Damaged in some way. Wounded.’ Domitian had seen it in the Emperor’s Tarot. ‘Wounded’ was the word he’d used.

‘Wounded’ seemed an odd word to use for a craft, but there were some mysteries about which it was better not to know.

Ferral looked down and seemed to remember the thing she was carrying in her hand.

‘This arrived,’ she said. She held out a sealed message from the astropathic chambers. It was a standard bulletin from Agrellan. Clearance code vermillion.

The language was terse and impersonal.

Imperial Task Force Retribution had closed on Agrellan, under Lord Admiral Hawke’s command, and engaged the tau defences. The Will of Iron had been lost. The Herald of Terra had been forced to retire. The first Imperial Guard landings had taken place. The results were mixed. House Terryn had lost twelve Knights within the first day. The tau had a new battlesuit.

Nergui’s hearts beat a little faster as he read on with a growing sense of hatred and anger.

A new battlesuit, the thing that Kill Team Primus had found on Moon QX-937. Designated Stormsurges by the enemy. His eyes scanned through the pages, seeing the name, over and over.

The Space Marine rolled the vellum scroll back up and held it tight in his fist. He gave no visible reaction, but he felt personally responsible. Worse than that, he felt sick at the thought of the damage the enemy had done with these new weapons. It had been his mission to find them and destroy them, and he was no closer to that than he had been six months earlier. When he had three entire kill teams.

Ferral cleared her throat. The tau ships were still there, and it was hard for her to pass up the opportunity to strike a blow against the foe. She ran a hand through her short-cropped hair, shaking it back from her neck. ‘Do you think this emissary craft will come?’

‘Yes,’ Nergui said. ‘It has been seen in the Tarot.’

As he spoke, the first of the tau ships seemed to pulse as it skimmed into the immaterium. In ten minutes they were all gone, and the space before them was empty once more, except for the light of distant stars.

It was three days later that a lone tau ship tore into real space at the Cannis gas cloud, heading back towards the Eastern Fringe. It slowed rapidly, slewing off vapour contrails from its wide-spread wings.

‘Emissary craft,’ the Master of Auspex reported, and Ferral sent word to Nergui.

The Space Marine was on the bridge in moments. Ferral handed him data reports but he did not look at them, striding straight to the viewport. The ship’s port drive was running on half power. Wounded. He knew in an instant. ‘That is it. Prepare for the attack.’

His order was so sudden that Ferral thought she had misheard.

Nergui turned on her. ‘Prepare your ship for the assault,’ he told her. ‘I am taking Kill Team Faith in.’

The emissary craft went through standard protocol defensive manoeuvres as it prepared its gravitic drives for the next hop across space. The air caste captain was a veteran of many years, and had made a point of hailing each of the other captains they had met along this route. The last convoy had passed through this point only days before, reporting no signs of an enemy. Shields were raised. Scanners made perfunctory interrogations of the area, and drones were deployed before the ship made the next jump.

The gravitic drive was powering up when the alarms sounded. A single ship, the scanners reported. Alarm signals flared as the attackers moved to assault positions. Scanners showed a spread of torpedoes burning towards them. The captain remained calm but tense. He deployed counter-drones, set all automated gun turrets to attack mode.

One by one the torpedoes were hit with precise fire. The captain of the emissary craft slewed his ship around, scrambling to find an escape route. But the real attack had been launched half an hour before. A spread of three Caestus assault rams – too small to pick up amongst the space debris – powered towards the emissary craft. The first warning the bridge crew had was when one of them made visual contact. He stared and pointed through the bridge windows. It was hard to pick out anything so small until a drone exploded. Then they saw it: a blunt, brutal shape.

The captain shouted for defences to be reconfigured against short-range targets. The air caste crew dashed to their controls, the fire warriors at the bridge door engaging their pulse weapons. Evasive manoeuvres were ordered, and through the skill of the crew, the technologically advanced ship began to bank to the right as close-range drones moved to intercept the attackers.

The Caestus batted the drones out of the way. Shots whizzed about the assault ram. They seared scorch marks into the thick slabs of reinforced ceramite plating, and had almost no effect. The Caestus kept coming, and as it filled the viewport the wing-mounted meltas flared. Then the bridge of the emissary craft was filled with molten steel and globes of reinforced glass. There was a moment of noise as the Caestus smashed through the wide viewport. At the same time, the atmosphere suddenly vented in a roar of air. The air caste crew were sucked out of the hissing gaps around the hull of the Caestus. Within seconds the entire bridge crew was dead or had been vomited out into the void, pain and horror forever frozen upon their faces as the twinned assault ramps slammed down, and a single black-armoured Terminator strode out, assault cannon spitting out trails of murderous steel.

Nergui’s preferred style of battle combined speed and power in a devastating strike. He liked to drop from orbit like an eagle, jump pack lifting him from foe to foe, or ride his bike across the empty spaces. The slow and ponderous Terminator armour was not natural to him. He had not even left the assault ramp before he cursed its slowness. While it made him almost invulnerable to attack, it made him too slow. He crunched through the ruin of the emissary craft’s bridge, punched his chainfist through the sealed blast doors, kicked the bent panels to the side and forced his way through.

As the vacuum of space sucked the air from the next corridor, it blasted towards him in a hail of debris. A startled fire warrior slammed full into his body. For a moment the warrior was held there by the force of the exiting air, mouth working soundlessly in the vacuum before it sucked him out and he spiralled into space.

Nergui was already at the second door, carving through it and standing back to let the next section of the ship expel its contents. He must have found a mess hall of some kind, for large pots and plates and eating utensils went past in a sloppy blizzard of what he guessed was food. There were chunks in the mix: chunks that were tau and human. A hundred of them, he thought, as they started to catch and clog up the hole he had carved.

His chainfist widened the hole and then the whole clot of food and bodies and furniture tore the rest of the door away, and it was all he could do to hold his footing.

Nergui kicked through the next door, and a squad of fire warriors greeted him. These had had time to engage their void suits, and magnetic boots held them to the floor as they lowered their pulse carbines and doused him in a hail of searing fire. His Terminator suit was older than the tau race. He fired. The hail of shots cut through the tau bodies as a shredder went through straw on an agri world. As their bodies were ripped apart, he was already stepping through the gore and engaging the next foes.

As Nergui advanced, the second Caestus assault ram hit the beleaguered emissary craft. Nergui felt the tau ship shudder at the impact.

We have them now, he thought.

Konrad Raimer’s Caestus assault ram hit the tau ship on the fifth deck, just below the secondary engines. The Black Templar was a grey and grizzled veteran with nearly a hundred years within the Deathwatch to his name. He loved the darkness inside a suit of Terminator armour, relished the power, the fury, the weaponry it gave him.

He fired his heavy flamer as soon as the ramp doors slammed down. The corridor filled with fumes as the jet of promethium spilled out into the mess room. Off-duty tau warriors fell backwards before the incinerating flames. Behind Konrad three more Terminators strode out.

Sardegna, a Scion of Sanguinius, lowered the muzzle of his storm bolter and fired. Cadvan blocked a burst of plasma with his storm shield and brought his thunder hammer over his head in a crushing blow that crumpled a close-action battlesuit into the floor. Olbath of the Aurora Chapter fired his storm bolter in the familiar staccato pattern of paired shots: head and heart, head and heart.

The trailing shots punched fire warriors from their feet, exploded within them, showering their comrades with gore. Cadvan led the way, storm shield swatting away the few desultory shots, thunder hammer crackling with blue threads of power.

Nergui kept moving into the tau ship, carving his way through bulkheads and into its heart. His role was to cause maximum destruction. He drew the defenders towards him, mowed them down with torrents of murderous fire.

He had been inside the ship for just over sixty-four seconds when the third impact came. Nergui felt the ship tremble.

Even within his Terminator armour Nergui flinched at the cold touch on his neck as Domitian’s mind found his own.

+In.+

Librarian Domitian was the Angel of Death in his suit of black artificer armour: a thing of sombre craftsmanship, visor sockets glowing, his psychic hood crackling with static overflow as he reached out through the ship, his gamma-plus level psychic presence a many-tendrilled thing, touching each mind.

His psychic power stunned everyone who felt it. It left the tau and their human allies slumped and drooling in mental shock. Frost rimed the corridor walls as Domitian searched for his brother.

It took him seven seconds to find his target, and when he did he reached out to Nergui and Konrad.

+He is alive.+

Leonas ripped the tubes from his veins, and staggered up. His head still hurt, and the wound in his side leaked blood and internal fluids, but he was alive, he told himself, and he could still fight.

The tau guards had no idea what was coming for them. They ducked back behind the bulkheads and stared in horror at the naked torso of the Space Marine, hammering the plexiglass screen, leaving bloody smears against the pane. The roar of battle came closer, and ice began to craze the monitor screens before them. One of the fire warriors tried to open the door to shoot. As he fumbled with the lock the door burst from its hinges and the Space Marine ripped the carbine from him.

Leonas fumbled with the mechanism for a moment, before giving up and smashing the guard in the face with the butt of the gun. By the time the others fought their way to him, Leonas stood in a room of the dead. He finally got the carbine to work as one by one the three Terminators pushed their way inside. He knew them by their Chapter markings. Konrad with heavy flamer, Sardegna with the heavy bolter, Cadvan with thunder hammer and storm shield, Olbath with his gilt-worked storm bolter.

‘What kept you?’ he said.

Konrad wasn’t one for jokes. He spoke through his vox-grille.

‘Are there any others?’

‘Not that I know of,’ Leonas said. Then more seriously. ‘No. They’re all dead.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure. They don’t have the same pressure. I can’t die, you see.’

+Time to go.+ Domitian’s mind spoke to them all simultaneously. Konrad made no reaction. +Let’s get out of here.+

+We have him.+

The Librarian’s message came as Nergui slammed another magazine into his bolter.

‘How is he?’

+Angry we took so long.+

What was left of the fire warriors made way for a pair of close-assault battlesuits. The corridor was suddenly full of photon grenades and a blizzard of red burst cannon rounds. Nergui swore through gritted teeth as his underslung storm bolter jammed.

‘Hazard battlesuit,’ he hissed, as a third battlesuit engaged its jump pack and powered up the corridor. ‘I’m retreating to my transport.’

The assault cannon was low on ammo. He moved too slowly, and cursed as a hail of burst cannon rounds smacked into his gut. His system internals flared red as circuits failed. He slammed the jammed assault cannon against the wall. His left leg was dragging. He slammed it again, and this time it clicked into firing mode, and he opened up, wildly spraying the corridor. The battlesuits ducked back. Nergui had a moment’s warning as something landed behind him. He twisted too late.

There was a flash of light, and his helmet’s readings flared red. His armour’s leg had seized up completely and his assault cannon clicked empty. He punched his chainfist into the chest of the suit that had ambushed him. The ceramite teeth spun for a moment on the armour casing, before breaking through to the soft interior.

Nergui kept pushing until the razor sharp teeth found flesh and his left visor lens was splattered with gore. His suit’s left leg was still shut down, so he half-dragged himself back along the corridor. He could see his Caestus only a hundred feet away, but at this rate it might just as well have been a league.

Mission objectives had him dragging out the databanks, but that would be impossible now. ‘Can you help?’ he hissed.

Domitian’s presence was immediate.

+I was just waiting for you to ask.+

The Librarian’s mind was operating at distance. It swept through the corridor in a stunning blast. Nergui felt it.

‘Careful,’ he voxed.

+I wanted to make sure.+

As Nergui’s vision cleared he saw hazard suits hanging motionless in the air, their pilots unconscious. Nergui limped through the ruins of the ship’s bridge, cutting the wall of databanks open and dragging them up the Caestus ramps. Tau were nothing if not efficient. The databanks came in large blocks that could easily be fitted and removed from their casing.

It took a minute before he had salvaged all he could. He punched the ramp controls closed.

‘Disengage,’ he commanded the machine-spirit and the Caestus snarled and trembled as the engines roared to full power. There was a hiss and screech of glass and steel, and then they were out in the void.

Nergui cursed as he dragged his malfunctioning leg up the boom and slumped down at the far end, exhausted. Next time just go in power armour, he thought, and then took in a deep breath and voxed the Nemesis.

‘On our way back. We’ve got Leonas.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

News had spread through the crew that they had recovered one of the members of Kill Team Orion. Nergui could feel the change in mood. Even the servitors who had gathered on the landing deck seemed to move with a sharpness and a speed that was unlike them. He hailed the tech officer.

‘Recover the data,’ he said as they carefully unloaded the recovered xenos equipment, ‘and report to me as soon as possible.’

The tech officer bowed. ‘We will do all that we can.’

It was a week’s journey back through the warp to Picket’s Watch. A team of servitors re-established power for the databanks, repairing broken cables and then coaxing out the reams of tau information.

The Space Marines had little need for sleep. They worked constantly, comparing Imperial star charts to those of the tau, finding known points of reference, and slowly piecing together a picture of tau movements to and from the Agrellan Warzone.

When they had inputted it all, the holo-charts glowed with criss-crossing web-lines of xenos activity. Its scale and sophistication repelled them all. Supply hubs, refuelling stations, convoy protection teams, automated drone sentries, human worlds secretly compliant, all enabling the massive movement of the invasion fleet that had smashed through to Agrellan. Konrad located two new routes that had appeared only a Terran week before the appearance of the Stormsurges.

‘This is how they are transporting their new battlesuits,’ he said with grim conviction.

Domitian’s slight face followed the lines on the chart that the Black Templar was pointing to. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘We will feed the information through to Navy command. But those routes are too well defended for us to attack.’

They stared at the glowing charts.

Konrad scowled. ‘We have to do something,’ he snapped.

‘You’re right,’ Nergui said. ‘We have to find the heart of the enemy.’

Konrad snarled in frustration. ‘So where do we attack?’

Nergui paused. ‘The question is not where, but what. I will speak to Leonas.’

There was an honour guard of adepts assembled to watch Leonas’ return to Picket’s Watch. They stood by the front gate. Nergui let them celebrate, but he was tense. The Stormsurge had to be stopped somehow. The enemy had to be weakened. The coming meeting with Jotunn troubled him as he led his warriors up the steps and into the Westkeep. After so many setbacks, the return of Leonas should have put a fresh energy into their steps, but now they knew much more about the new suits the tau had deployed, and unless they could do something to hinder their foe, the future of the battle at Agrellan and the fate of the Eastern Fringe hung in the balance.

The entrance hall was hung with Deathwatch banners, each proudly telling of victories over the xenos. It was a cold and draughty chamber, the red and black tiles usually unoccupied except for the door wards and the occasional servo-skull that hummed across the empty space.

This time, as they crested the top step and nodded to the door wards, they saw a new kill team standing in the entrance way. It seemed that Jotunn’s request for aid from Talassa Prime had borne fruit, though one kill team was hardly enough in this battle. They should have been sent a hundred brothers, or more.

Nergui stepped forwards. Their leader – a Brazen Minotaur – had a tyranid skin thrown over one pauldron. He was a square hulk of a warrior, with curly black hair and a face that must once have been handsome before half of it had been torn away. The steel plates beneath did little to soften his arrogant air.

‘I am Brother Corith,’ he said. ‘We come from Talassa Prime. Word is that you have lost two kill teams, against the tau.’

‘We have,’ Nergui said. ‘You are aware of the state of the battle for Agrellan?’

‘We are,’ Corith said. ‘And we are ready.’ He turned to the others. ‘We are Kill Team Zeal.’

He introduced his brothers. A Carcharodon was the first to step forwards. He was almost softly spoken. ‘I am Iason. We are glad to join your fight.’

Next was a Space Marine with a formal, almost bookish look about him, with a grey shoulder pad marked with the letter ‘M’ in black. Nergui frowned. ‘Greetings, brother. I do not know that sigil.’

‘Brotherhood of a Thousand,’ the warrior said, taking Nergui’s hand in a firm grip. ‘I am Eadmund.’

‘Ah,’ Nergui said. ‘I have never served with a brother of your Chapter. But I have heard of your exploits. You liberated the Mostar System from the Darellian.’

Eadmund smiled. ‘The dog-soldiers. Yes. I was honoured to be part of that victory when I was a just a Scout.’

Nergui gave a brief nod.

The next was a Dark Angel, his black hood drawn over a lean and grizzled face.

‘I am Cadmus,’ the warrior whispered. Behind him was an Imperial Fist named Cerys, Mateo Nuoros, a Crimson Fist, and Kallos, an Ultramarine – but it was the last who caught Nergui’s attention.

‘Greetings, Black Shield,’ he said. The warrior bore no Chapter markings, nothing that might identify him, just plain black power armour, a silver left arm, and a helmet etched with threads of silver, which traced the faint outline of a skull.

‘I am Hadrian,’ the dark-haired warrior said. His eyes were violet, and his skin almost white. ‘Of the Deathwatch.’

‘Welcome,’ Nergui said. Black Shields were bad luck and they did not need any bad luck at the moment. As the kill teams shook hands, the Black Shield, Hadrian, turned and looked to Leonas. ‘I have heard of you, brother. You are the one they called the “Last”?’

‘Yes,’ Leonas said. ‘I am.’

Corith’s skin pulled against the steel plates in his face as he snorted at the exchange. ‘The last what?’

‘I am Leonas of the Black Consuls Chapter.’

The Brazen Minotaur clearly spent less time than his fellows in the librariums. ‘And what of it?’

Leonas fixed him with a hard stare. ‘Do you not know? The Black Consuls were destroyed in battle at Goddeth Hive. Probably when you were still a Scout, learning how to clean a bolter.’

The Brazen Minotaur sneered at the insult, but Leonas spoke over him. ‘At the time there were seven of us who were not with the Chapter. Three of us were on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of our Primogenitor on Ultramar. The other four were serving with the Deathwatch. For a while there was talk of refounding our Chapter. There still is, sometimes, but no decision came, so we resolved to join the Deathwatch. That was three and a half centuries ago. Brother Agrys died that same year, fighting the Demiurge Incursion. Brother Soktritas was lost to the Great Devourer. Brothers Cylus and Nikanos were sent to Vraks. Their gene-seed was never recovered. Brother Kyriakos was interred into a Dreadnought, on Watch Fortress Callax. He was last seen holding the breach, locked in combat with the dark eldar. Until six months ago there was only me, and Razlon. He served the Throne in Segmentum Pacificus. But now, I hear that he too is dead. I am the only one left. Deathwatch is my Chapter now. When I die the Black Consuls shall be no more than a note in the histories of the Imperium of Mankind.’

The sneer had softened somewhat, and the Brazen Minotaur held his tongue. But the Black Shield, Hadrian, frowned. ‘The Segmentum Pacificus is far from here. How do you know he is dead?’

‘I saw it in my dream,’ Leonas said. ‘Just as I saw Brother Konrad would come to release me.’

Iason, the Carcharodon, made the sign of the aquila, but Hadrian laughed. The Deathwatch was tolerant of all the Chapters who served with them.

‘Good,’ Nergui said. ‘I shall leave the pleasantries to you. Now, please excuse me, I must report to our watch-commander.’

‘Ah,’ Corith said. ‘The Lone Wolf? He said he would see you in the morning. He is busy.’

‘At what?’

Corith smiled. ‘He did not tell me.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

Nergui spent the night in meditation, but no answers came. An hour before daybreak there was a scrape on his door. An adept bowed.

‘Here, lord,’ he said. ‘This has just arrived.’

The parchment had come from the Tower of the Astropath. Nergui broke the wax seal and unrolled the parchment. It bore greetings from his Chapter, the White Scars.

Nergui read the message and smiled. The Emperor had delivered.

As Nergui made his way down to the feast hall the only light came from distant stars that glimmered in the high gothic windows. There was a pensive feel to the air, which Nergui did not think was entirely of his own imagination. The Lone Wolf only secluded himself when there was a matter of great import. The air smelt of burned meat and knucklebones were spread out across the floor. The Lone Wolf had been communing with the fates, escrying the paths in his own, particular way. Jotunn turned as soon as Nergui entered.

‘Ah!’ he said. ‘At last. The eagle returns. What have you found, Nergui? Have you brought me news?’

The two of them met in the middle of the great hall. Nergui drew in a deep breath.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think we have good news.’

Jotunn put his head back and laughed. His fangs glinted in the dim light and he rubbed his pale hands together. ‘Nergui – it is not often that you give me good news! Come tell, what have you found?’

Nergui slowly laid out the data-slates for the Lone Wolf to inspect: vox transcripts, reams of picts, supply lists. The Space Wolf leafed through them all, taking it in, building up each fragment into a picture that made sense. At last he let out a low grunt. ‘We cannot attack the transport lines. They are too heavily guarded. But we could pass on their location to others.’

Nergui nodded. ‘We have. The Imperial Navy could strike them here, at Major’s Point. Or here, even. But it would require a bold captain to go so far into enemy space and once there, how long could they remain exposed, so close to the Fi’irious Sept?’

‘These are not for us.’

‘No. But here. Look at this.’

Nergui presented the information he had gleaned from the data banks and that Leonas had reported to them. ‘The battlesuits are coming from the tau empire. This was where Kill Team Primus discovered the tau base in the Sexton Sector. See these transport routes? After that they move here, to the Distaf Nebula. See, as I move time forwards, the routes of these ships changes. See the movements into this system. The tau call this place Sh’anshi. I have checked the records. It is the same as the Imperial planet Proth.’

Jotunn frowned at the data-slate before him. ‘Proth. What is this place?’

‘Ice world, mainly. Limited mining. It was abandoned during warp storm Hades.’

Jotunn’s pink eyes narrowed. ‘What use would the enemy have for a place like Proth?’

‘No one has any interest in Proth, which makes it invaluable to our foes. I think they are taking crew from Agrellan and training them how to use the new battlesuits. See. We have a plan of a base, here. It does not say so, but I would guess this is what was found by Kill Team Primus. And it is what has been built on Proth.’

The Space Wolf looked. There was an orbital defence platform at the north pole. Three hunter cadres. Xenos auxiliaries. He snorted. ‘This does not look like a training facility, it looks like a fortress!’

‘Exactly. A training facility that is well defended.’

‘But why is this place so important that the enemy defend it with such strength? Why do they take such care to hide it from us?’

‘As they expand they are coming up against new problems that their old systems and structures cannot cope with. Here, in the outer regions, they are having to pool the strength of their septs. Evolution is something they have excelled at. What I saw from Ellial’s visions has to have been some kind of pilot training facility for the new Stormsurge. If we strike this place and destroy it, we will rob them of months of battle-trained warriors.’

Jotunn smiled briefly. ‘I see, Nergui. But to attack this place would mean destroying it in one strike. Killing all the crews. And I have less than twenty warriors left. How can we attack such a place with hope for success?’

Nergui returned his gaze. ‘We cannot.’

The White Scar’s face was inscrutable, but Jotunn had a nose for such things.

‘You have a plan?’

‘I have more than a plan. I have this.’ Nergui held up the roll of parchment.

Jotunn read it and scowled. ‘A White Scars strike cruiser has slipped out of the warp. A week’s flight away. How does this help? Kor’sarro is already engaged on Agrellan. He has sworn to find Shadowsun and kill her. If this ship has strayed off course, he will be eager for them to catch up. He will not let you take his warriors. You are chasing lightning. They will not help.’

The Space Wolf screwed the parchment up and dropped it onto the scattered knucklebones at his feet.

‘The ship that has arrived is the Northwind,’ Nergui said. It is the flagship of the Tulwar Brotherhood, the Fourth Company of White Scars. Kor’sarro Khan leads the Third Company.’ Nergui let that fact sink in for a moment. ‘The Fourth Company are bound for Chogoris, to defend her from invasion. The warp has blown her off course. I have seen a little of the ways of the galaxy, and when a company of the White Scars loses sight of the Astronomican and becomes stranded, just as we need their help, then I am not one to pass over that opportunity.’

‘What good will they be to us?’ Jotunn demanded. ‘The White Scars do not serve the Deathwatch. If they are bound for Chogoris, then to Chogoris they will go.’

‘Not necessarily.’

The Lone Wolf snarled. ‘Speak no more in riddles, White Scar. Tell me plain. If you have a plan, then announce it!’

‘I shall. The Fourth Company of White Scars is led by the Master of Blades. We were Scouts together, once, riding our bikes over the bones of our foes. I taught him how to strip a boltgun. His name is Batbayar Khan. I know how to persuade him to help our cause. In fact I have already sent word to his strike cruiser, telling him how he can gain his company great glory…‘

‘And?’

‘The eagle flies to the glove for the easy meal.’

Jotunn let out a snort of laughter. ‘You are crafty as you are devious, White Scar. When does their cruiser arrive?’

‘Four days.’

Jotunn slapped the White Scar on the arm. Nergui had to brace himself against the blow.

‘Go!’ Jotunn roared. ‘Meet this brother of yours. See if he will eat your scraps.’

CHAPTER NINE

Westkeep was crowned with a wonder of Dark Age technology: the double-barrelled defence laser that bore the name Dorn’s Fury. It had always been the last line of defence for the citadel, when secrecy failed. Back-up generators, batteries and overload circuits spiralled down into the keep’s core, deep in the rock upon which the citadel stood.

As the White Scars strike cruiser Northwind approached to within five hundred miles, Dorn’s Fury turned towards it, the weapon’s machine-spirit locking on to the approaching craft, the double barrels tracking it as it sped closer.

The captain of the Northwind sent a curt message. Nergui stood at Jotunn’s side.

‘Batbayar Khan is tetchy,’ the Lone Wolf rumbled in his chest. ‘He says he will not continue unless our defence laser is disengaged. He wants me to disarm our only protection? It is preposterous. Who is this khan and how dare he tell me what I should do?’

‘Do as he says,’ Nergui said. ‘He is not bluffing. If he leaves we lose a company of the Adeptus Astartes and the chance to throw back our foes. If we step Dorn’s Fury down you lose nothing but your pride.’

Jotunn growled. ‘What is a warrior without pride? I do not like this. Are there things you are not telling me, Nergui of the White Scars?’

‘Yes,’ Nergui laughed. ‘Many things.’ The sound of laughter was a rarely heard sound within Picket’s Watch. But as the last echoes of it died away, Nergui’s face was serious. ‘But we need Batbayar. I do not think Jotunn of the Space Wolves, Watch-Commander of Picket’s Watch, will die from the loss of his pride.’

Jotunn turned his back. ‘I am Jotunn of the Deathwatch,’ he hissed. ‘I was old when this Batbayar was a mewling babe at his mother’s breast. I do not take orders from a pompous young pup!’

‘Do as he says,’ Nergui said.

The Lone Wolf turned his albino pink eyes on the White Scar. Jotunn loved Dorn’s Fury. It spoke to his soul. He saw the ancient gun as a kindred spirit. It was how he saw the Deathwatch: ancient, tough, defiant, isolated, deadly against its foes. Disarming the ancient gun was emasculation. Surrender.

There was a long pause.

‘It will please Batbayar Khan. He is… proud. Overly so, at times, but if I meet him, I can turn him to our cause.’

Jotunn growled deep in his chest. It was a low rumble that set the air vibrating. He nodded.

‘Have it done then. Order Dorn’s Fury to disengage. But I hold you responsible, White Scar.’

Nergui put a hand to the Space Wolf’s pauldron. ‘Thank you. Trust me, I will bring him to our cause.’

Nergui was in the librarium when the servo-skull found him, its lenses whirring as it focused on the White Scar’s face. Satisfied it had found the right recipient, its memory logs played back the broadcast message in a staccato voice. ‘The White Scars strike cruiser Northwind has docked with the orbital platform, captain.’

Nergui took a deep breath. He was ready. ‘Is my Thunderhawk prepared?’

‘Yes.’ The skull hovered, lenses whirring once more.

As he sat in the Deathwatch Thunderhawk that carried him up to the Northwind, Nergui prepared himself for his meeting with his gene-brothers. He felt apprehensive, in a way that disturbed him.

There were ghosts in his past that he had long thought banished, but they haunted him now.

The last time Nergui had fought with his gene-brothers was on Gastrond IV. He’d led the Second Company – the Firefist Brotherhood. His hand had shaken with the magnitude of this honour. The objective of that long campaign was to kill a greenskin war-chief named Blackfist. He’d cornered the xenos forces on the plains of Brenax Secundus, and Blackfist had led the whole ork horde against them. Nergui remembered how the flat plains were dark with the foe, a black cloud of exhaust fumes above their heads, the sky raining lead as the beasts fired their weapons wildly into the air.

Nergui had led the charge, a whole company as one, firing their side-mounted bolters into the masses of orks. Smaller greenskins sped forwards on crude bikes to meet them, and Nergui had cut through the creatures like a warm blade through wax, prompting a great roar of anger and terror and exultation. The xenos seemed to love nothing more than a battle, even one in which they were destined to be destroyed.

Blackfist was a vast hulk of fangs and neck and gap-tusked jaws, riding a bike of enormous proportions and unique manufacture. He had come for Nergui through the desperate melee. The tusked giant had bellowed his fury, the great metal jaws of his power armour working crudely in time with his own. Nergui had emptied a full magazine of bolter shells into Blackfist’s machine, but the ramshackle bike had only given up fifty feet from him, slewing to a halt in a billowing cloud of burning fumes.

Blackfist had jumped free and bounded towards Nergui, still bellowing with the same long breath, chainaxes whirling. The ork’s keenest bodyguards had charged with him. Nergui rode one down, put bolter shells through the next and saved his power lance for their leader. The explosive charge caught Blackfist under the chin. A jolt went through the ork’s body, but he did not seem to notice, even when Nergui’s tulwar sliced one muscled limb down to the thick bone.

Nergui had made three passes before Blackfist understood that he was dead. He had fallen backwards, still snarling as his heels drummed the earth.

The death of their leader only drove the greenskins to a higher pitch of fury as each one tried to outdo the other, to claim the title of warchief. The fighting was furious. Nergui’s left pauldron was ripped from his armour. He had a dozen rents in his war-plate. His blood clotted in the dust of battle. In the end, Nergui had stood alone, eagle banner in one hand, tulwar in the other.

He flinched just reliving the moment. Nergui had thought himself done. His confidence had drawn him too deep into the enemy. And what point in killing the leader, if the beast had a hundred heads?

He was a blur of steel, a typhoon of fury. He was as slippery as a river dragon, made of mist and clouds.

‘Jaghatai!’ he had raged, and he had felt the power of his primarch fill him with the fury of a steppes gale. He was destruction. He was death. He was a sublime killer, and his warriors saw his stand, as the piles of greenskin dead rose up about him, and their will and drive and relentless skill with blade and bolter drove the greenskins back.

He had a moment to draw breath. Dark liquids oozed from his suit, and foul greenskin blood covered his arm from his hand to his shoulder. And then he saw how many of his warriors he had lost to the xenos, and a furious fire burned within him that would lead him eventually to this place: serving with the Deathwatch.

His charge had been foolish. It had risked too much. He had lost too many of his brothers, and Nergui felt his pride tarnished. Was his time with the Deathwatch an attempt to make up for this, he wondered? That battle had been decades ago. He had not ridden with his gene-brothers since.

The realisation hit him with a feeling akin to loss. He missed his gene-brothers.

CHAPTER TEN

Cadvan was flying Nergui’s Thunderhawk up to the Northwind. The Storm Giant had tried a number of times to start up a conversation, but each time Nergui had answered with a single word, and by the time the gunship arrived – a black dot alongside the vast white gun batteries of the Northwind – the pilot had fallen silent.

And silence suited Nergui.

He felt the vibration as they passed through the airlock into the upper port-side landing deck, felt the landing gear touch down. He heard the hiss as the atmosphere of the Deathwatch Thunderhawk equalised with that aboard the Northwind, heard his own heavy footsteps as he strode out of the dark into the brightly lit landing bay.

‘No one’s here to greet you,’ Cadvan voxed.

‘No,’ Nergui said. ‘Maybe they do not think one of their own needs to be greeted.’

‘Maybe they do not think you are one of them any more.’

Nergui did not answer. He had spent so long in the shadows of Picket’s Watch that the glare of the lumen globes on the plain white walls, with their lightning strike imagery, seemed too bright, too stark. But as he stepped onto the side landing ramp Nergui had the odd sense that he was home.

Across the long wall were four Thunderhawks, all emblazoned with the lightning strike of the White Scars and the crossed tulwars of the Fourth Company. Two servitors were loading missiles into the underwing hard points, while across the flight deck a trio of tracked servitors were attending to an ancient Fire Raptor, Obos. Steam vented from its engine exhausts as the turbofans wound down, and a wheel-track servitor moved across the chevroned landing deck with a fuel hose connector where its right shoulder should be.

Nergui had flown Obos once, long, long ago. He crossed the deck and reached out his hand to the Fire Raptor’s fuselage. He could feel the hum of the machine-spirit, fierce and eager, and he felt it recognised him as one of its own. He patted its ablative armour in a way that reminded him of his father stroking the muzzle of his black stallion. It shocked him, for a moment, to see the black of his glove against the white of the White Scars craft.

He had barely noticed the colour of his armour for years. But here, he saw himself in a new light. Black, not white. Secretive, not exultant.

A White Scars Apothecary entered the deck. His long black hair was pulled back in a knot so tight it pulled the skin of his forehead up.

He had a steel jaw and three ritual scars down what remained of each cheek. A voice sounded but hismouth did not move, and for a moment Nergui thought that there was a third interlocutor somewhere, but it was this warrior who spoke.

‘I am Khulan,’ he said. ‘Announce yourself, stranger in black.’

Nergui turned full towards him. ‘I am Nergui Khan, of the White Scars.’

‘Khan no longer,’ the words came, and as Nergui strode towards the Apothecary, he saw the speaker inside the steel mouth.

‘No,’ Nergui said, ‘but still a White Scar. And as a brother I seek your khan.’

‘Batbayar Khan?’

Nergui nodded.

‘Your hand, brother.’ As Nergui let him take it there was a sharp prick. Nergui pulled his hand back and saw blood. ‘Forgive me,’ Khulan said, lifting his arm to see the readings on his narthecium. ‘I was sent here to see if you were really who you claim to be.’

Nergui gave a humourless laugh. ‘The Tulwar Brotherhood have sunk low if this is the way you greet brothers now.’

‘Forgive me. Dealings with the Deathwatch are never straightforward. I do not like to expose my khan to unnecessary dangers. He does that well enough for himself. You bear the gene-seed of the White Scars so I shall trust that you are indeed Nergui.’ The Apothecary bowed. ‘Batbayar is my khan and he asked me to greet you.’

‘And this is his greeting?’

‘This way,’ Khulan said. ‘Welcome to the Northwind, home of the Fourth Company, the Tulwar Brotherhood, scourge of the enemies of Mankind.’

‘What was that about?’ Cadvan voxed.

‘It’s how we do things,’ Nergui voxed back. After a moment’s thought he added, ‘Leave me to it now,’ and closed the link.

Nergui followed Khulan through corridors that could have belonged to any of the ships within the White Scars Chapter. The walls were plain and white, adorned with occasional tapestries of felted yak hair, woven totems in niches, scroll paintings, bells of cast bronze: all the symbols of Chogorean power.

Nergui remembered the days when he rode on the front of his mother’s horse, and felt a strange pang at the thought of riding with his people again.

Nergui followed Khulan along the corridors, to the Hall of the Warriors. His palms were clammy and he could not tell what exactly it was that made his hearts beat so fast.

The great brass doors were shut, their ring-handles – each a ton in weight – tied with red and white silk scarves. Two bronze dragons were emblazoned into the wall on either side of the gateway. One devoured a greenskin, the other held a necron pyramid in its claws. Beneath them was a stylised image of the Empty Lands of Chogoris, where the wild tribes lived and warred and supplied the new recruits, and where Nergui and Batbayar had grown up as children, Nergui from the Chaoge, Batbayar from the Tufan.

By the time the doors swung open his eyes had become used to the bright glare of white, but through the doors he saw that the Hall of the Warriors was dark, except for the low light of yak-butter wall lamps, the single flames reflected in the wide bowls in which they burned. The ceiling hung with coils of unlit incense. Embroidered banners covered each wall, the images lost, only the glint of silver and golden thread revealing depictions of massed armies of white-clad warriors.

The vast hall echoed as Nergui strode inside, Khulan at his shoulder. The unpolished marble flagstones rang as he paced into the centre of the room and stopped as the main doors shut behind him.

Suddenly the hall was filled with the growl of fifty bikes sweeping in from side doors. Within moments he and Khulan stood in the centre of concentric circles of bikers, each going about in opposite directions. Nergui felt the sudden proximity of so many of his gene-brothers exhilarating, almost overwhelming. The roar of engines, the stink of promethium fuel, the acrid scent of the yak-oil they used to tie back their hair – all this woke the White Scar within Nergui and he longed to leap on a bike and ride.

‘They have not forgotten Nergui,’ he thought. ‘And Nergui has not forgotten them.’

One of the warriors veered suddenly out of the circle and accelerated towards him, his rear tyre skidding as he braked to a sudden halt, and the front of the bike, where the bolter muzzles jutted out, tapped gently against Nergui’s black knee pad. The rider tore off his helmet. This was not Batbayar but a young warrior with a face that was proud, arrogant and ugly beneath thick black brows that met in the middle.

His mouth was harsh.

‘Who summoned us?’ he demanded.

‘I am Nergui.’

The other warrior gave him a contemptuous nod. ‘What is your tribe?’

‘Chaoge.’

The other warrior snorted and slammed his fist into his power-armoured chest. ‘I am of the Red Tangut.’

This was Batbayar’s doing, Nergui knew. Chaoge and Red Tangut tribes were blood enemies. Nergui knew he would have to fight.

‘What is your name, Red Tangut?’

The other warrior punched his chest-plate with his left fist. ‘I am Ganzorig.’

Nergui grinned. ‘First blood,’ he said.

Ganzorig put out his hand and another of the warriors with the Red Tangut scars on his cheeks pulled a Chogorean power axe from his back and put it into Ganzorig’s hand.

‘That is a big weapon for a duel,’ Nergui said and conspicuously left his tulwar sheathed.

Ganzorig pressed the activation stud, and the blade of the power axe crackled blue. ‘It is typical of a Chaoge to try and wriggle from a fight.’

Nergui felt more alive than he had done for years. He was a child again, on the steppes, with the smell of wood smoke in his nose, flocks to guard, and a constant threat of wolves and enemies. He dropped into a fighting stance. ‘Come, Ganzorig of the Red Tangut.’

Ganzorig leapt at him, power axe already swinging down in a terrifying blow. Nergui twisted and the blade slammed into the slabs he had been standing on. He made no effort to strike back, but let Ganzorig of the Red Tangut swing backhanded, overhead, body swipes, face-butts.

‘Draw your weapon, Chaoge!’ Ganzorig snarled, but Nergui did not need a weapon to beat a Red Tangut. He was a black blur, always just out of reach of the swinging blade. Ganzorig grunted and cursed, sweat starting to spray from his bald pate. His face grew uglier with anger as his frustration grew.

‘Fight!’ he hissed. ‘Are you a coward?’

Nergui skipped back out of his range. Ganzorig swung wildly at his head and Nergui ducked in low, caught the axe haft in one hand, and drove the other fist into Ganzorig’s face.

The other warrior was thrown backwards. He cursed, spat a piece of tooth onto the ground as he lifted the axe, and readied for another swing.

Nergui pointed to the flagstones at their feet.

The spittle was red.

Sometimes it was the precision blow that killed the foe. The shot of a lone sniper, not the rage of a hundred warriors.

‘Don’t bring an axe next time,’ Nergui said as he held out his hand. Ganzorig cursed and bowed stiffly.

‘Well fought, Chaoge,’ he said, in a manner that implied there was no honour in Nergui’s win.

There was laughter like a clap of thunder. A Land Speeder descended from the dark heights of the hall, where the incense coils hung.

A white-clad warrior stood on one of the Land Speeder’s vanes. It flew down along one side of the hall and banked sharply to come around the other side. As the Land Speeder made its third pass the warrior leapt from its vane and landed with a heavy thud that cracked the marble flags at Nergui’s feet. It was Batbayar Khan.

He had aged, of course. His moustaches now hung to his chest, and they were shot with steel grey, but his face still looked youthful, and the light in his dark eyes glittered.

‘Greetings, brother!’ he roared, his bone charms rattling as he held Nergui at arm’s length. ‘I told Ganzorig to lose,’ he said. ‘I did not know if you had forgotten how to fight. You have been away from the hunt for too long. When will you ride with us again? The wind misses your call, brother. The skies miss the wind of your passing. The hunt misses your speed. I miss you, brother!’

Nergui found himself laughing with his old comrade. It came to him again, how much he missed his Chapter – a sudden, sharp pain, the same sense of loss. He bowed his head. ‘As soon as my service here is done.’

‘When will that be?’ Batbayar roared. Nergui could not answer. Batbayar still held him by the shoulders but as he took in Nergui’s armour the khan’s face looked pained. ‘I thought you had summoned me to ask me to take you away from here. To colour your armour white. It should not be black. Black is not your colour, brother.’

‘I need your help,’ Nergui said.

The hint of a shadow passed across Batbayar’s face, but he said, ‘Speak! What Batbayar can do, he shall. But I must warn you. I have been summoned back to Chogoris. There are dark tidings, brother.’

‘I know them,’ Nergui said. ‘I have heard. But still, I have need of your help.’

Batbayar held out his hand. ‘Speak then. What is it?’

Nergui told him.

There was a moment’s pause and Batbayar turned his head to give Nergui a sideways look. ‘You want me to destroy a xenos factory?’ Batbayar’s reaction seemed to waver between insulted and disappointed. His eyes narrowed and there was a hint of anger in his voice. ‘Do you mock me?’

Nergui shook his head. ‘I do not mock.’

Batbayar’s temper flared for a moment. ‘I am Batbayar Khan! I lead the Fourth Company, the Tulwar Brotherhood. I shall not carry the eagle banner into battle against such a petty target. It is like taking a boltgun to hunt a rat.’ He spat out the last words with distaste, then called to the horde. ‘Nergui, it cannot be you. It is an imposter. Warriors! Come!’ he shouted. ‘Let us go!’

Each squad peeled away to either side. Immediately the hall was filled with the sound of bikes. ‘Wait!’ Nergui shouted, and the roar of bikes subsided for a moment as the khan turned back to face the black-armoured figure.

‘You think there is no glory here, Batbayar of the Tufan, Khan of the Fourth Company. Is that all the Tulwar Brotherhood want? Glory? These xenos are tough as steel. They are as fast as an eagle. They are as slippery as a snake, and they bite!’

Batbayar looked back and laughed with contempt. ‘Chogoris calls me. She is under attack. I am needed where there are foes I can kill. Foes worthy of my fury! I will leave two squads. Twenty brothers. No more.’

Batbayar whistled and the Land Speeder swept in like a summoned eagle, swooping down to the centre of the room. As Batbayar set one foot on the wing, Nergui shouted once more, ‘Kor’sarro Khan has not found the tau an easy foe.’

The words hung in the air for a moment, and Batbayar turned, his foot still resting on the Land Speeder’s wing. ‘Kor’sarro Khan fights the tau… I had almost forgotten. Has he not defeated them yet?’

‘He has not.’

‘And has he not killed their commander yet?’

‘He has not.’

Batbayar paused. There was a note of expectancy in the revving engines of the bikes. Nergui took his chance.

‘Kor’sarro Khan has suffered great troubles on Agrellan. He has lost many brothers. If you win victory where he has not, then what glory would that bring for the Tulwar Brotherhood and their khan?’

Batbayar took his foot off the Land Speeder, and the roar of bike engines stilled for a moment. The khan looked at Nergui for a long time. ‘I do not smell deceit,’ he said. ‘Nor do I see it. But I feel it.’

‘I do not lie,’ Nergui said. He nodded towards Khulan. ‘I came here in good faith. I am Nergui of the Chaoge. It was your Apothecary who tested my blood, as if I were a lie clad in power armour.’

Batbayar seemed taken aback. ‘If Khulan did this thing, I did not command it.’

‘Maybe not, khan. But you did not forbid it either, and there is guilt in the absence of command.’

‘You speak to me of guilt?’ Batbayar’s anger flared again.

‘Yes,’ Nergui said. ‘There is guilt in omission, just as there is guilt in inaction. I come here to ask for your help, and you deny me. That makes you guilty.’

Batbayar thumped a clenched fist against the intricately worked breast of his suit of Mark VIII power armour. ‘I am not guilty. Chogoris burns. The tribes have fallen back to the Empty Lands. They hide from the enemy that comes from the sky.’

‘If you destroy this place, it will not take you more than a month. Can Chogoris last that long? I say yes. We know our people. They do not succumb. They do not bow. They fight and they die, and in killing their enemies they are glad to die.’

Batbayar paused for a long time, considering. ‘I would like to help you, but Kor’sarro has the Eagle Brotherhood on Agrellan. To have two companies fighting the tau… Are these xenos worthy of so many of our Chapter? We would just get in each other’s way.’

‘What if I told you Shadowsun was on this planet that I wish you to attack?’

Batbayar Khan put up a hand and the roar of bikes came to a sudden halt. For a moment it seemed that the only thing moving in the room was the dust and fumes of their exhausts. A sly smile played about Batbayar’s lips. ‘I knew you were hiding something, Nergui of the Chaoge. I could smell it on you. It hangs about you like a cloud of flies over yak’s dung. Tell me true. Is this Shadowsun on the planet?’

It was like pushing at an open door. Nergui could not hold himself back. The lie came easily, even to his own gene-brother. ‘Yes. We think she is there. You do the killing. The glory will be all yours.’

Batbayar licked his lips. ‘I could bring her head to Kor’sarro Khan. As a gift from the Tulwar Brotherhood. Both our companies could return to Chogoris.’ Batbayar smiled as he savoured the thought. ‘Kor’sarro would not be pleased.’

Nergui frowned and nodded. ‘Oh, no. He would not.’ It was as if the decades of separation had never been. The two of them slipped back into their old friendship. ‘Kor’sarro has worked so hard to find her. He has lost so many of his warriors. He has sworn to kill her.’

‘He would be foresworn,’ Batbayar laughed, and then remembered himself. ‘Poor Kor’sarro. We should not shame him so.’

‘No,’ Nergui said. ‘We should not.’

‘We should not,’ Batbayar sighed. ‘But let us do it anyway!’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

As soon as he returned from the Northwind, Nergui started putting his plan into action.

Kill Team Zeal were to lead the way, preparing the ground before the rest arrived.

Nergui gave them their orders, and came to see them off.

He stood with Corith at the side of the landing port as the others climbed aboard the shuttle. Their strike cruiser, the Valete, was ready above them.

‘Remember. Secrecy is paramount.’

Corith nodded curtly. ‘I understand.’

They clasped forearms.

‘Good winds,’ Nergui said. It was a traditional White Scars farewell, and Corith nodded.

‘I shall see you there,’ the Brazen Minotaur said.

Nergui stood alone as he watched their Thunderhawk lift off and disappear into the black of the galaxy. In his mind’s eye he could trace them up to the docks, aboard the strike cruiser Valete, and then out towards the Mandeville point. He never liked to be left behind, but as he turned to walk back towards the inner courtyard, he consoled himself that soon the rest of them would be following.

Leonas was in the inner courtyard when he returned. ‘How was it meeting your gene-brothers again?’ he asked.

‘It has brought back many… memories.’

‘Do you want to return to them?’

Nergui smiled. ‘No. Not yet.’ He thought about saying more, but the Black Consul did not have the option of returning to his Chapter, and so he held his tongue.

‘When are we leaving?’ Leonas asked.

‘As soon as the White Scars are ready.’

‘Aren’t you coming to the Remembering?’

Nergui cursed. ‘No. I must speak with Jotunn. Be there for me.’

Leonas nodded. ‘I shall.’

Sometimes Westkeep reminded him of Quan Zhou, the fortress-monastery of the White Scars.

It bore the nickname of the Fort of Ten Thousand Doors. But deep, deep in the old palace’s heart were the remains of an older temple, and occasionally Nergui had found himself walking there, on steps worn almost flat with age.

The depths of Picket’s Watch had the same ancient air about them. The same smell, the same damp touch, the same musty air that had lingered there for centuries, undisturbed, and barely even breathed. It was to those deepest chambers that Jotunn summoned him. The Lone Wolf had insisted. ‘See Kill Team Zeal off, then come to me. I shall be waiting on the first level.’

‘The first?’

‘Yes,’ Jotunn had said. ‘You have never been so deep before?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t worry. You will find the way.’

The conversation echoed through Nergui’s mind as he took the long stair down. The blast doors opened at his touch, and he went through doorways he had not known even existed.

The stairs plunged past ground level, deep into the heart of the rock, the steps no longer slabs of masonry, but carved from the mountain itself. The White Scar passed ancient chambers where narrow shafts of light from lumen-globes stabbed down to the dark hollows, where the dust of xenos bones lay thick on the floor, past crude shrines of uncarved rock, where paintings of extinct xenos races lined the wall, down to where the hum of the vast generatorium was just an echo.

Nergui’s enhanced vision could only make out rough shapes of light and dark. This was the purest darkness, which had lain undisturbed for millennia. He put out a hand to feel his way. The walls fell away to either side as he stepped into the dark mouth of the cave, and he felt his skin prickle.

He spoke to the darkness. ‘Are you there?’

He felt he was being watched, and marched with one hand out into the centre of the cave. Then there was light from across the cavern.

Faint, distant, wan – but it was enough to illuminate the white head of Jotunn.

‘You have come,’ the Lone Wolf growled. ‘Now follow.’

Nergui followed the Space Wolf down another staircase of worn steps. The air grew colder. The steps became irregular and there was a faint hum.

‘I did not think there was anything down here,’ Nergui said after they had passed ancient doors, each marked with the clenched fist.

‘There is much down here, brother. There is much that you do not know that dates back to times beyond our ken. These are the ancient catacombs. I will show them to you, perhaps. It is where the Imperial Fists laid their most honoured warriors.’

The Space Wolf stopped at a brass door set into the rock. It bore no sigil, just a pair of holes in the interlocking ceramite plates. Jotunn fitted the two prongs of his clavis key into the lock. There was a faint hiss as the door unsealed, and then it swung open before them.

‘What is this place?’

‘It is named the Ubliet, though that is a poor name, for this part of the fortress is used for many things,’ Jotunn said. ‘It is a place of keys and doors and hidden chambers. It is where all doors are locked. It is both a prison and a safe. It is the deepest vaults of our fortress.’

Nergui stopped and put a hand to his ear. He turned and looked behind him, but the corridor was empty. ‘I heard my mother’s voice,’ he said. ‘I heard a shout. She called me by the name she used when I was a child.’

Jotunn sniffed the air. ‘All I smell is us,’ he said.

‘There!’ Nergui said. ‘I heard her again.’

‘You heard our enemies. Some of the things locked away here have refused to die. They are too dangerous to be let out. One of those touched your mind.’

Nergui listened again. There was a strange call, like a muffled voice. It came clearer this time. ‘Shao-shao!’ his mother called to him. It meant ‘little one.’

Jotunn watched Nergui’s face intently. ‘What do you know of the Nicassar?’

‘Little.’

‘They are creatures that the tau have used, in a way we are not yet sure about. Domitian is studying this. They are psychic. They sleep for years, sometimes. They are strange to us. But when they dream their minds lash out emotions. When we took this one, its dreams were all of war and violence. Now, it dreams of home. So when its psychic tendrils touch your mind, it brings forth memories so vivid and real, you are convinced that they are true.’

‘Is it safe to keep this thing here?’

‘Nothing is safe in this world,’ Jotunn said. ‘Least of all the xenos. But if it was not safe, I would not have brought you. Come, follow me.’

Nergui did as he was told. Shao-shao, he heard over and over, and had to will himself not to turn and look.

‘Do you know what I hear when I pass the Nicassar’s chamber?’ Jotunn said as they approached another doorway.

‘Wolves howling?’

‘No.’ Jotunn grinned long, yellow fangs. ‘I hear the bell chime for our lost brothers.’

The interlocking blast doors rolled back, and the corridor that was revealed was lit with low lume-globes. There were ten niches to either side, which appeared to have once held statues or busts, perhaps, but which were now empty, and at the end another door.

Again Jotunn inserted the twin prongs of the clavis key. There was another low hiss as cold air escaped, and the lume-globes flickered to life, revealing a wide gallery.

The door closed behind them and Nergui looked about him in wonder. To either side suits of ancient armour stood in gothic alcoves. The air was warm. It had a clean, fresh feel. Nergui stopped before the first suit, finely crafted Mark VI armour with ornate black scrollwork about the chest-plate and greaves. The next was an ancient suit of armour, with gold-trimmed greaves and gloves. It had once belonged to Watch-Captain Titus, who had founded this fortress, his three-flanged maul still gripped in the suit’s fist.

In the next niche was a suit of Terminator armour, and beside it was a twin-headed power axe with a handle of solid steel, cast with the shapes of coiling serpents.

‘That belonged to my predecessor,’ Jotunn said. ‘With it he slew the Tyrant of Rangarr. A single blow to the neck.’

At the end was a suit of silver armour.

‘Do not touch,’ Jotunn said quickly.

Nergui pulled his hand back. ‘Mark II,’ he said in wonder. There was a pause. ‘What is that sigil?’

‘That is the symbol of Malcador.’

The suit had been cared for and cleaned, but there were nicks in the armour, scratches and dents where it had seen combat.

‘Can it still be used?’

‘It could,’ Jotunn said. ‘But the spirit of the armour would have to be placated before it could be painted black. There are only so many times that a suit of armour can be changed.’

‘What colour was it before?’

‘I cannot tell you. It is beyond the reach of the sagas of my Chapter, and the sagas we tell ourselves here. But I did not bring you here to wonder about such things, Nergui. Come, follow me.’

Jotunn led him along niches holding weapons: beautifully crafted boltguns, swords, axes, a pair of curved tulwars such as the White Scars used, but it was at the end of the row that they stopped before an exquisitely damasked halberd. Jotunn stepped forwards and lifted the blade from its mountings. The blade was wide, the shaft solid brass, a pair of gold-worked bolters incorporated into the weapon, the magazines fashioned in the shape of coiled serpents.

‘This is a guardian spear,’ Jotunn said. ‘Forged in the Holy Palace on Terra.’ The Space Wolf spoke with awe. He turned it in the light so that they could see the fine damasking of light and dark in the blade. ‘There are over a thousand rods of steel folded in this blade,’ Jotunn said at last, his voice lowered. ‘I counted them once. No smith could fashion this now. Not even among the Salamanders. Harath said that there was a blade with eight hundred folds that he had seen. But nothing like this. And,’ he said, giving Nergui a long look, ‘there were hundreds of these weapons made. Thousands, even. Once.’

Nergui’s mouth was dry as he ran his hands along a weapon that was as old as the Imperium itself.

‘Why bring me here?’

‘What use are weapons if they are not used?’ Jotunn said.

‘You are going to risk it in battle?’

‘We shall not fail,’ Jotunn said. ‘We are few and our enemy are many. This will inspire each of us to fight harder.’ As he spoke the bell in the high tower rang out. A single note that brought a deep silence after, which stretched on, before another mournful knell.

Nergui knew he should have been there, and he lowered his head in silence.

The Remembering had begun.

As the bell rang Leonas led the members of Kill Team Faith into the armoury furnace chamber.

In the centre of the room a vast crucible was half embedded into the rockcrete floor. Red flames and black smoke licked up about its heavy stand as the bellows drove a storm of sparks up from the furnace floor, and the colour of the molten steel inside went from black to red to glowing yellow – the surface washed by flames.

One by one the Adeptus Astartes entered. When all the warriors were gathered, the arco-smiths bowed and filed out. ‘All who are living, and who remember, are gathered here.’ As Leonas spoke, the bellows whined and sparks flew up from the crucible fires, until the metal within was white.

Leonas stepped to the edge of the wide crucible. One by one the other Space Marines stepped forwards to join him. They stood in a circle, their faces uplit with the glowing light. High above them, in the chapel, a lone bell rang out a steady knell. One toll for each year of service that the lost Space Marines had given to the Deathwatch. When the count reached thirty-seven, ‘Last’ Leonas put his hand over the crucible. He did not flinch at the heat as he held out his bare arm and opened his fist. A metal ingot dropped onto the crust of molten slag. It broke under the weight and showed cracks of dull red fire that widened to yellow. The lead ingot sank slowly, dissolving as it did so, until it was a thin lozenge and the name inscribed upon it was lit from beneath by fire.

The inscription read: Nidal Franz, Warmonger.

The words glowed brighter as the bar dissolved, before finally slipping into the molten liquid and fading from sight.

Konrad Raimer, the grizzled Black Templar, carried the tablet with Priam’s name. Sardegna, the Scion of Sanguinius, held the tablet of Gualtino. Harath carried Tula’s. Elianus carried Branstonio’s. Each of them stepped forwards, bearing their ingot. Each one spoke the name of their lost brothers, and the darkness heard and remembered as each lead tablet fell into the crucible and was devoured.

The last to fall was carried by Cadvan, the Storm Giant. The name read Ellial, Mortifactor. As the glowing ingot began to dissolve at the edges, they chanted.

‘They died holding back the darkness of the alien. Let their memory bring light. Let their legacy be death to the xenos.’

The forge bell rang, a different note to the death knell that had rung above, and the arco-smiths filed back into the room, their goggle eyes reflecting the light of the furnace as their vox-grille mouths began chanting the litany of perfect casting. As the crucible tilted, the Deathwatch warriors stood back. Molten metal lit up the grooves in the floor. There were hundreds of moulds, in neat lines of glowing lead, cooling from white to yellow to red, and then a dull, shiny black.

The Ritual of Casting was complete. The mould cases opened and hundreds of bolter shells rattled into the basin before them.

‘Last’ Leonas lifted his up. Nidal, it read, with the Warmonger’s sword-and-skull icon emblazoned on the side. It was a lucky sign to pick out the same name you had put in. One by one they took their pick.

Harath, the Salamander, was always last. He chanted an old Nocturne smith’s charm as he reached in with his ungloved hand and took a handful of the fresh, hot shells. ‘I shall honour you all,’ he said.

As the Space Marines returned to their chambers the names of the fallen were inscribed in the wall of the feast hall, and the high bell tolled a melancholy note.

The Remembering was done.

The note of the bell changed from grief to one that sounded vengeance, and the fortress of Picket’s Watch began to charge with anticipation.

Thunderhawks were fuelled, ammo-carriages brought up missiles from the armoury, tech-savants checked over Land Speeders, Rhinos were cleaned and loaded onto the lifters – even the Land Raider, Moab’s Revenge, was brought out of seclusion, her promethium tanks checked and refitted and tested once more.

Now it was time for war.

CHAPTER TWELVE

In their own quarters, and in their own ways, the warriors of Kill Team Faith spent their last hours in Picket’s Watch, preparing for their mission.

In his painted chambers, Sardegna of the Scions of Sanguinius examined the fine tracery of the stone block before him. The statue is there, so the old masters liked to say – the trick is in uncovering it. But it was odd thinking of his primarch locked inside this white marble slab. Sardegna bent once more and tapped away the line of Sanguinius’ wing. He would free him from it, as he had freed him so many times before. It was the perfect way to prepare for battle, to feel your hearts slow almost to nothing, your breathing become measured, the only sound in the world the clang of the mission bell, and the gentle tap of hammer and chisel upon stone.

Next to Sardegna’s chambers were those of Imano, the Lamenter.

Imano and Ragris the Celebrant were wrestling as the bell tolled. Imano tipped Ragris over, and the Celebrant fell on his back with a grunt that drove the wind from his lungs for a moment before the other let go.

‘Two,’ Imano said, grinning as he wiped the sand from his shoulders.

They were both stripped to the waist, their massive torsos criss-crossed with scars, their chests heaving with exertion.

Ragris cursed as he pushed himself up, dusted the sand off his hands, and went immediately back to the opening stance.

‘Again!’ he said.

Imano laughed. He was the master of this kind of battle. ‘You do not need to prove anything,’ he said.

‘Again!’ Ragris spat.

Imano strode into the ring, feigning indifference. Ragris came at him like a python. It was over in a matter of seconds, Ragris lying flat on his back again.

He cursed and punched the floor.

‘How did you do that?’ he said.

Imano laughed. He did not give away his secrets.

‘I will not stop until I have beaten you,’ Ragris said, as he dusted his shoulders off once more.

‘It could be a long time,’ Imano said.

‘I can do it.’

Below them, in rooms just above the gateway, Olbath of the Aurora Chapter stood in his fighting pit and wiped the sweat from his eyes. He was not satisfied. Again, he told himself, as he went through his Chapter’s attack drill, pacing to the end of the long chamber and taking up his stance.

He slowed his breathing down and concentrated on the energy within himself. Control the power within you, his Chapter taught. Learn the strength of the quiet. The resolve of the silent. The patience of the leopard. There were a hundred and eight steps to the drill. The upper cut, the pommel drive, the explosive break, the feigned sting, the mantis strike.

Olbath ran through the drill three more times before he was satisfied, then turned to see Cadvan leaning against the wall.

The Storm Giant’s presence irritated Olbath. The irritation gave him an edge as he worked through the last moves, harder and faster now, and at the end he slammed his pistol back into its holster and rested the chainsword on his shoulder pad.

‘I wish you would not do that,’ Olbath said.

Cadvan did not care. ‘Nervous?’

Olbath made a non-committal sound.

Cadvan smiled. ‘This is your first battle with the Deathwatch?’

Olbath was used to Cadvan’s taunts.

‘It is,’ Olbath said, and stuck out his chin defiantly. ‘So?’

Cadvan was the largest Space Marine Olbath had ever seen. The red-haired warrior looked down on him and smiled. ‘There was another warrior from the Aurora Chapter once. His name was Kalgah. He fell against the Great Devourer.’

Olbath was not sure what kind of response was called for here. ‘I did not know him.’

‘No,’ Cadvan said. ‘You would not. But he saved me, and Storm Giants do not forget such things. Understand?’

‘No,’ Olbath said.

Cadvan laughed and turned to go. At the doorway he turned and spoke seriously, for once. ‘Let me know if you ever… need a brother at your side.’

Then he was gone, and Olbath was not quite sure what had happened.

Atilio the Ultramarine strode the empty corridors with an almost obsessive manner. He had been stationed here for nine years and this was the third watch fortress he had been attached to, and the loneliest. But he found peace in movement.

He could not wait to return to his Chapter, to Ultramar, to see once more the shrine of Roboute Guilliman. To thank him for deliverance. But he quelled this yearning. It did not help a warrior fight.

On the seventh toll of the bell, he passed Harath the Salamander on his way back from the forge.

‘Greetings, brother,’ the Salamander said. ‘I was looking for you.’ He held something out in his dark hand.

Atilio took it and saw immediately what it was: a bolt round with the name ‘Branstonio’ upon it.

‘He was of your Chapter. You should take revenge for him.’

Atilio’s fingers closed about it. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

It was an exercise in persistence, ‘Last’ Leonas thought, tattooing a Space Marine. No sooner was the skin cut than it healed into thick scar tissue. You had to cut deep, he’d found, and rub caustic black powder into the wound.

Leonas sat cross-legged on the floor of his chambers and tested the point of the knife against his thumb. His enhanced musculature made his skin taut as a drum skin. He began to chant the Song of Tollon, the Master of Sanctity, who bore Lorgar’s Bane in battle, and pressed the knife into his flesh.

It was both painful and slow, but it helped focus the mind as he worked his flesh.

All the other rooms on this side of Westkeep were locked and empty, so when he heard footsteps from the far end of his corridor, he knew they were coming to his chambers. He also knew they belonged to Konrad, the Black Templar. His footsteps had a distinctive heel-clip note as he walked.

Konrad cast a slight shadow as he stood in the doorway.

‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.

Leonas blew on his skin as the scab formed. He did not bother to look up, but said, ‘Tattooing my arm.’

‘I heard the Black Consuls kept strictly to the Codex?’

‘They do,’ Leonas said.

‘There is room for such tribal markings?’

‘There is now,’ Leonas said, lifting a round flap of skin away, so he could mark it before it healed. The caustic salts stung, but not all pain was evil, he’d found. He pressed it down for a few seconds to let the Larraman cells seal the wound, then he inspected his handiwork.

Konrad came into the room. ‘What name?’

‘The name of an impetuous fool named Razlon.’

‘If you did not like this warrior, then why tattoo yourself with his name?’

‘Because I swore I would do so,’ Leonas said. He had almost finished the outer rim of the disc upon his arm. He pressed the flap down for a few seconds, and looked up. ‘Why are you here, Black Templar?’

‘You are part of Kill Team Faith now. I like to know the warriors that serve with me.’

Leonas nodded. That made sense. He carefully ground the point of his knife back to a razor’s edge.

‘The edge is lost so quickly,’ he said. ‘You have to keep honing it, don’t you find?’

‘Are we talking blades or warriors?’

Leonas laughed. ‘Both.’

‘So tell me. I know nothing about the Black Consuls.’

‘You say it as if it is our fault. You are from the Black Templars?’

Konrad nodded. ‘I am.’ He turned to show his shoulder pad with its distinctive cross and sword icons.

‘Second Founding, from the gene-seed of the Imperial Fists?’

‘Yes,’ Konrad snapped.

Leonas looked up from his tattoo. ‘See, I know all about your Chapter. But you know nothing of mine. We too were Second Founding. Our warriors were brought from the seventy-second Chapter of the Ultramarines. As a home we were given the star fort Noctis Obscurum, which once guarded the skies above Macragge. Our commander was Arrias Cordos, who was known as the Bane of Lorgar. He earnt his name in the Cleansing of the Orbstar. He pursued our foes through the Orbstar System, leading his Chapter from the Noctis Obscurum.

‘We were a crusading Chapter like your own. One of twenty Chapters named the Astartes Praeses. I can see that at least you have heard of them. We each made a solemn vow to guard the Eye of Terror, to take the fight to the greatest enemy of mankind. Our foe was not the xenos, but our former brothers, who had turned to evil.

‘Our home, the Noctis Obscurum, was almost impregnable. Or so we thought. But one year our Chapter was lured out to fight, and our star fort was infiltrated by the dark eldar. They found a way aboard as we made a jump through the warp. None of us knew they were there. While the Chapter was fighting, they overpowered the skeleton crew and overloaded the warp drives.’

He blew on the cut.

‘Our Chapter came home, victorious, to find their home, their armoury, their history was gone.’ He blew once more. ‘All this happened before my birth. When I was young there were still a few members of the Chapter who remembered the Noctis Obscurum. It was our experience with the dark eldar that brought us closer to the Deathwatch. We sent some of our greatest warriors to the Deathwatch, and they brought all their expertise against the xenos.’

‘But it was not the dark eldar who wiped you out?’

‘Oh no. They did not. That happened later. We had many enemies, some older than the dark eldar. We found our foe, the Infidus Imperator, once the flagship of the Word Bearers, in orbit around the planet of Yearsli. We brought them to bay at last at Goddeth Hive. As we broke down the final defences, the traitors ignited the reactors within the hive. In the explosion, half the planet was broken away and our entire Chapter was lost, including the axe of our founder, Lorgar’s Bane.’

Leonas looked up. He had almost finished the image above Razlon’s name. It was a tau sept mark. ‘You are wondering how I survived. I was not there. I was on pilgrimage to Macragge. To the shrine of Roboute Guilliman,’ he said. ‘I remember standing by his tomb, looking at the face, and I thought of all the stories I had heard. All the dreams that our gene-father had for our race. The light, the beauty, and the vision he had. And I console myself with that. When I die and my Chapter’s story is finally done, then we will have left the galaxy a less dark place than it might have been. And that light still shines. That hope. It is all we have left. The battle for the good of mankind.’

‘The Greater Good?’ Konrad said. He chuckled at his own joke. ‘You sound like the foe.’

Leonas remembered his time with the xenos. How they had tried to break him.

‘Yes,’ Leonas said. ‘The Greater Good.’

For a long time Konrad did not speak.

‘I have seen that there is a black mark against your name,’ the Black Templar said.

Leonas smiled as he rubbed black into his wound. ‘Ah. So that is why you are here.’

‘If you join my kill team I have to know what transgression you committed.’

Leonas blew on the scab as it sealed the wound. ‘I wanted vengeance.’

‘Do not speak in riddles.’

‘Three years ago I was on a mission in the Cellebos Warzone when I heard that a high-ranking demagogue of the Word Bearers was fighting there. I took my kill team without orders to hunt him down.’

‘And did you find him?’

Leonas looked up and caught the Black Templar’s eye. ‘Yes. He had horns where his mouth had been. He was a dreadful, twisted thing, more terrible to behold than any xenos I have seen, because once he was like us. We could barely make out what he was saying. He no longer knew what was true and what was false. Whatever he had been, he was now debased. He was a mad, mewling thing by the time I put a bolt round through his skull.’

Leonas ground the edge of his knife once more. ‘So, as a punishment I was sent here, to the Eastern Fringes, on the far edge of the universe, far from all that I knew. And now, I fight xenos.’

He inspected his new tattoo, and then held it out for the Black Templar to admire.

‘Very detailed,’ the Black Templar said, in a tone that was forbearing of such deviant behaviour. ‘But it is a xenos marking.’

‘It is,’ Leonas said. ‘It is the mark of the Sept Ke’lshan. I put it there so I will remember.’ Leonas tapped the side of his head. ‘I have so much to remember. So many debts I have to repay. I am the last, remember.’ Leonas turned to show his back. It was covered in script. Names, Konrad realised as he curled his lip in disgust. Leonas’ back was covered with names.

‘The names of the nine hundred and eighty-four of our Chapter who died at Goddeth Hive,’ Leonas told him. He turned back to Konrad. ‘On Cyclopeia the gangers had a tradition of writing the names of their dead gangers on their bodies. We brought this tradition back when our brothers were lost.’ He turned his shoulder towards the Black Templar.

Konrad gave a snort. ‘Who will bear your name on their skin?’

Leonas laughed. ‘Me,’ he said, and tore open his top to show his own name in curling Gothic script emblazoned across his chest.

The Black Templar frowned. ‘But does that mean…?’

‘Yes,’ Leonas said. ‘I’ve already died.’

Konrad laughed at that. He put a hand out. ‘You are welcome among us, Brother Leonas. I hope the dead fight well.’

PART TWO
THE HUNT

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It took nearly a week for the Valete to drift towards the target, power systems barely functioning. Now, at last Kill Team Zeal’s Corvus Blackstars were within range of Proth.

Moaz Khileni was going in first. A bandolier of jammers slung about his chest, he crouched in shadows as the Corvus lifted off from the landing bay, the fuselage rattling as it passed through the airlock and out into the vacuum of space.

Only when he felt the craft rattle as it slipped into the high atmosphere did he stand. His mission was to disable the listening stations that covered the planet. He had to move carefully to avoid banging his jump pack on the roof of the craft.

‘Approaching the southern pole,’ the Dark Angel, Cadmus, said.

There was a hiss of wind as the rear landing ramp lowered. Moaz stepped forwards to the edge of the opening and looked down. They were flying above the equatorial range, where the landscape was brown and dusty. It soon gave way to tundra and the brilliant ice fields of the polar regions. From this high the sky was distinctly curved, a blue nimbus ringing the horizon.

Moaz had seen many battlefields and planets in his eighty-four years. Most of them had started off like this: the view of an unknown world seen from the open doorway of a Stormraven or Thunderhawk. Entering from high orbit with nothing but a jump pack was what the Raven Guard excelled at. It was what they were made for. To strike from the sky, when most enemies looked towards the land for their foes.

Moaz stepped to the edge and felt the ramp shudder beneath his power-armoured footsteps. The emptiness seemed to suck at him, to beg him to step forwards and embrace it. They were passing into night now, the land below turning dark until all that was left was the blue nimbus and the shadowed mass of the planet.

‘We’re approaching drop zone,’ Cadmus voxed.

There was no answer. Moaz had already embraced the void and was falling head first into the night.

Moaz accelerated to thousands of yards per second. At a height of two miles he began to reach atmosphere and the temperature readings in his suit climbed. Friction began to heat his power armour. The black paint started to burn. Black on black, it did not matter. That is why we wear the black, one of his Scout masters had told him when he was learning the ways of the Raven Guard.

As he fell he stabilised his fall until his arms and legs were flung back, like the barbs of a black arrow. In the earth, he could make out the dry beds of ancient river systems. The meandering channels ended in the vast white salt pans. His enhanced vision searched for a suitable canyon and found one within moments. Three hundred feet deep, funnelling out into a dry river bed.

From a height of one mile, the gap towards which he was falling was nothing but a black line. It grew slowly at first. He was falling at a hundred yards a second. Seventeen seconds until impact.

He altered his body shape as effortlessly as a raven would adjust a tail feather and he started to veer towards the gap. He changed direction again, lining up with the narrow mouth of the canyon, always adjusting, altering, aligning.

He counted down the seconds to impact. Five, four, three. The canyon was only four yards wide. Moaz wobbled as it rushed towards him, filling his vision.

Moaz overloaded his retros, blasting back against his momentum. He hit a projecting rock and pulverised it, then bounced twice more before landing so hard his chin hit his knees. His vision went dark for a moment as the blood drained from his cranium, his muscles tensing in response, both hearts slowing momentarily as amber readings flashed inside his helmet and he forced blood up and around his body.

An unaugmented human would have died from organ failure at the shock of that deceleration. Moaz Khileni shook himself and rose slowly. He checked his readings, got his bearings within seconds and started towards his first target.

It was only twenty miles distant. He slipped out of the canyon mouth. He was a shadow.

Moaz found the first listening station three Terran hours after landing. The tower rose twenty feet into the air, with four splayed feet and a cupola sensor scanning the skies above the planet. He twisted the first of the jammers from his bandolier, engaged the power, set the timer and then slipped it into the housing.

By the second morning he had attached a jammer to another fifteen sensor towers. By the fourth day he had travelled nearly a thousand miles. By the time he reached the north pole he would have covered a corridor a mile wide across the whole planet. The tau thought that they had shrouded their world with sensors, but when the timer clicked in, the jammers would create an area over which the tau would be entirely blind.

And along that strip would come their doom.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

LOCATION: TAU WORLD SH’ANSHI

At the same time as Moaz landed at the southern pole, a tau craft touched down at the base named M’Yan’Ral.

The silhouette of a fire warrior wearing a well-worn black leather greatcoat like a cloak from his shoulders appeared in the doorway, and all across the flats of the hastily erected starport facility there was a hush from the assembled fighters and earth caste engineers.

Shas’vre Ch’an drew in a short breath through his thin, leathery lips as he leant on his staff. Sh’anshi was a bleak place, he thought, as he took in the four low mountains that surrounded Base M’Yan’Ral, then the ice-flats, the kroot camp, the planetary defence turrets and the low domes of the tau training station, with its triple rings of mobile defence.

So this was it, Ch’an thought, as he leant on his cane and took the first steps down.

He had come straight from Mu’gulath Bay, a vampire of a planet that had sucked blood deep into its earth. After the noise and violence of that world this place was silent and white and frozen. But what he noticed most was the stillness of the air. Given ten tau’cyr or so, the earth caste could make this place habitable. A hundred tau’cyr and it could even be a pleasant place, worthy of colonisation. Maybe even as sublime as his own home world of Au’taal: a gentle place of lakes and rivers, and mountain retreats where the ascetic could retire to contemplate the Greater Good. Other tau considered them lazy, but there had been nothing lacking in the warriors he had fought with.

It saddened Ch’an when he thought of how many of his sept – who were cultured and learned in all the arts of the tau race – had lost their lives on Mu’gulath Bay. It was for the Greater Good, of course, but he had started to have the feeling that the Greater Good would not include him, or the armies that he had sailed with nine tau’cyr ago.

He, at least, was still alive. But there were only so many times he could survive battle, and each time he fought he seemed to leave parts of himself behind. The last time had been the worst. It had been on Mu’gulath Bay, in the ruins of a hive, with thousands of gue’la refugees streaming from the burning city. The Imperials had fired indiscriminately, killing many of their own kind. He had been trying to protect them with his Stormsurge when he’d been hit. It was the enemy you never saw that were the most dangerous, he’d always said, and he’d ignored his own wisdom. Ch’an had spent so long in the rehabilitation ward, he had thought he would be refused permission to return to the battlefront. He had begged for active service, and in the end his commander had come to his bed.

‘You will be sent away,’ the commander said.

‘Back to Au’taal?’

‘No,’ his commander had said. ‘I cannot tell you where you are going. I can say nothing more.’

Ch’an had gleaned the rest from the earth caste technicians who’d brought him here. This was a forward training base, and he was to be both instructor and pupil. It was an honour, he reminded himself, as he caught a glimpse of a distant Stormsurge striding back to the domes of the base. But it wouldn’t be the same. He’d miss the thrill of being part of something vast and mobile, like the kauyon assault on Mu’gulath Bay when they had taken three hive cities in one day. He would miss the down-to-earth humour of the fire warrior teams he brought into battle; he would miss the thrill of swooping in and setting his stabilisers into the ground, and letting his gunner open fire.

By the time Ch’an had limped to the bottom of the ramp, the crowd were staring intently at him in that odd way the earth caste had.

‘I am Fio’ui K’or,’ one of them said. ‘We are Sept Ke’lshan. We are honoured to have you here, Shas’vre Ch’an.’

Ch’an thanked him and then the silence returned.

‘This way,’ Fio’ui K’or said, and bowed, and Ch’an limped after him.

Fio’ui K’or led him to where a skimmer floated, waiting, and helped Ch’an mount the steps and then closed the dome over his head.

‘I will bring you to the camp,’ Fio’ui K’or said. He climbed in beside Ch’an and fitted his three-fingered hand into the steering mechanism, and they accelerated away.

The tau flew across the crater field. Ch’an found it hard to go at their pace. He wondered, not for the first time, how the earth caste managed to get anything done. They moved so slowly, he thought. They thought slowly too. Ch’an tried to make conversation as they crossed the ice flats to the camp, but his heart wasn’t in it and Fio’ui K’or was a little staccato in his replies, and eventually they were passing a tethered krootox when the conversation faltered.

‘How many kroot are here?’ Ch’an said when he spotted the low shaggy yurts of the kroot camp, half buried into the ice.

‘A hundred,’ Fio’ui K’or said. His flat, dark face was impassive, hands fixed on the steering disc. ‘There are thirty-seven hounds, fifty-four kroot and nine krootox.’

‘They can survive the cold?’

‘They are from Yuun’chen. Ice world. Genome mixed with local fauna named Yuun’chen ice bear.’

Shas’vre Ch’an nodded and leant his head against the domed windowpane. There were four of the new NG-4 terrestrial defence rigs – their low domes and twin-linked railguns an unmistakable silhouette. The farthermost one was at the top of a rocky crag that stood up straight through the ice, as if it were a spear that had been driven through the ice cap. At the top he could see what appeared from this distance to be the kind of flies found on gue’la worlds. Black, dirty, noisy.

The earth caste saw what he was looking at. ‘Vespid,’ he said.

‘Vespid?’

‘They come from the planet Vespid,’ Fio’ui K’or said without irony.

Ch’an nodded. Not very imaginative, he thought. They must have been discovered by one of the more dour sept worlds. ‘What are they like?’

There was a pause. ‘They are a little slow,’ Fio’ui said.

Ch’an nodded. And that was coming from an earth caste. He had fought with kroot on Mu’gulath Bay. He’d rather liked them until he’d found them squatting in the trenches, eating their way along the bodies of dead Imperial Guardsmen. He had never come across vespids before.

‘What do they eat?’ he asked.

The earth caste frowned. ‘I do not know.’

‘Not flesh, I hope.’ The technician kept his mouth shut. Ch’an left him alone for a while, then said, ‘This place is secret?’

‘Oh yes,’ Fio’ui said. ‘Very secret.’

‘So why all these defences?’

‘Just in case.’

‘Just in case of what?’

‘In case the enemy find us again.’

‘They found it before?’

‘Once. Yes,’ Fio’ui said. ‘We had to move. We cannot be found.’

Ch’an nodded. Experience had taught him that the more heavily defended a place was, the more someone wanted to find and destroy it. And now he knew they were being hunted he turned and looked about him. It was an instinctive movement, born from so long spent in deadly warzones. It was a dead warrior who did not check behind him.

Ch’an’s eyes scanned the starport, the kroot camp, the distant crags that rose up to the defence turrets, but he saw nothing.

They were nearly at the base. He closed his eyes for a moment, and wished he could hold this moment of peace and silence a little longer. From what he knew of a warrior’s life, silence and stillness never lasted long.

Tidings travelled faster than earth caste fio’ui, it seemed. As the transporter came to a slow halt alongside the main dome, Ch’an saw a crowd of fio’la workers staring up expectantly, their flat faces and wide nostrils flaring in the cold air. They had a slightly nervous air to them, their three-fingered hands clasped together in a gesture of honour and supplication.

‘This is Shas’vre Au’taal Ch’an,’ Fio’ui K’or announced. The fio’la looked on without blinking.

Shas’vre Ch’an felt foolish as he swung his leg over the side of the passenger compartment. He leant heavily on his cane as he limped down to the crowd and they stood back silently, watching him pass, the hero of Mu’gulath Bay. It was as if they could not quite believe he was still alive.

Sometimes he could not either. Ch’an set his cane and bowed.

‘Greetings, brothers,’ he said. ‘And what is your honoured sept?’

It was a formal greeting, perhaps too formal for a fire caste to use with fio’la, but the tau of Au’taal were famed for their manners, and he liked to keep these traditions up, despite everything.

‘Ke’lshan,’ their leader said. ‘We are all Ke’lshan. It is the honour of our sept to defend you all.’

‘Indeed?’ he said, as if he were learning this for the first time.

It depressed him, to be honest, to learn that he was to be seconded to Sept Ke’lshan. They were a hard, dour bunch, with little room in their minds for arts or pleasure or harmony.

‘Honoured one. We were glad when we heard that you had survived.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I survived when many others did not.’

‘We all wish you much luck.’

‘Please,’ Fio’ui K’or said and led him towards the dome. ‘This way. The commander is keen to meet you.’

The command dome stood a little way off from the larger hab-dome. There were sandbags about its entrance, which kept off the wind.

Ch’an was led into an office, and through a door guarded by two fire warriors in the grey-and-black armour of Ke’lshan, yellow sept markings on the sides of their helmets and pulse carbines that were held close to their chests. As he moved towards the doorway, one of them stepped in front of him.

‘You cannot enter with that,’ the fire warrior said.

Ch’an shook them off. A voice from the office called out in question.

‘Sire. He has brought this gue’la object. We cannot allow anyone to bring gue’la artefacts into this camp. It is procedure.’

‘What do you mean, you cannot allow?’

‘There might be gue’la objects within it. Tracing devices.’

Ch’an pushed the fire warriors from him. ‘There are no tracing devices within this jacket.’

‘Stand back,’ a voice called, and the two Ke’lshan fire warriors obeyed. Ch’an cast them a furious look as he pulled the black jacket over his shoulders. Their commander strode out. He took Ch’an in, and guessed correctly who he was.

‘Welcome to M’Yan’Ral,’ he said. ‘I am Fireblade M’au. We are honoured by your presence, Shas’vre Ch’an. But I am the commander here, on behalf of my sept. We are entrusted with your safety and all those on this camp. So, I am afraid you will have to give up this… trophy.’

Fireblade M’au had the nasal twang of a Ke’lshan warrior that grated on Ch’an’s nerves. ‘I have fought for our empire for longer than some of you have been alive, and this jacket has been with me every step of the way. If you want me here to train your crews, then you leave this with me. It is my totem.’ The urgency of Ch’an’s words surprised them all.

Fireblade M’au smiled and nodded. ‘We can make an exception for our honoured guest. Just this time.’ He nodded to the two fire warriors. ‘Show the esteemed warrior to his quarters.’

‘Sorry, shas’vre,’ Fio’ui K’or said as they crossed the well-trodden ice to the hab-dome.

‘It’s nothing,’ Ch’an said, but he was still shaking as they reached the hab-dome’s doors.

They passed through the doors, and there was a blast of warm air as they closed behind them. The dome wound down into the ice, with rows of dorms overlooking a central sunken Ke’lshan rock garden. It was a fairly standard design, with sublevels no doubt, where stores and ammunition could be kept. Ke’lshan was not known for foresight or originality.

‘We have nearly seven hundred students here. They are drawn from all the septs.’

‘So I heard.’

‘As you know, this runs counter to previous practice. Before now, septs tended to work alone. This was not harmonious. Most High One Aun’ui Hoo’nan wished the septs to work together in this. The need is great.’

‘That it is,’ Ch’an said.

Fio’ui K’or stopped for a moment. ‘Apologies, honoured one. You have been on Mu’gulath Bay. Is it a beautiful world?’

‘No. Not really.’ Ch’an paused. ‘It is polluted and foul. You know the gue’la.’

The earth caste nodded slowly and solemnly. ‘Yes. I hoped it would be beautiful. We have given so many lives. So much towards it.’

Emotion was rare in an earth caste.

‘It might be one day,’ Ch’an said. ‘Given time and work.’

Fio’ui K’or nodded. ‘You are from Au’taal. I always wished to see Au’taal.’

‘Maybe you will.’

‘I dream of it sometimes. It is the most radiant world, is it not?’

Ch’an had never imagined an earth caste dreaming. ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment’s consideration. ‘It is.’

Fio’ui K’or pressed his hands together, interlocking the four digits on each hand. ‘I hope to see it one day. But I do not think it will happen.’

They moved on, the brief flash of emotion passing, and Fio’ui K’or went back to facts and figures. They were probably safer ground. ‘The hab block is three quarters underground,’ he said. ‘It is better for insulation and protection. There is no way through the ice, and the camp is protected by six planetary defence turrets.’

‘Six? I only saw four.’

‘There are two more in the outer hills. They are the older NG-23 variety. Much bigger than the ones you saw.’

Ch’an knew the NG-23s. They were weapons of an impressive scale, with generators to match. But they were largely stationary once deployed, which made them increasingly unsuitable for the kind of warfare that the tau had developed. The newer versions were fitted with more efficient gravitational drives. On the flat they could move at half the speed of a Devilfish.

He realised that he had drifted off for a moment. Fio’ui K’or was still talking. ‘Have you seen the new XV9 battlesuits?’

‘No,’ Ch’an said. ‘I have not.’

‘Fireblade M’au has one. I will see if we can get one for you to try. They are impressive. You will think so too. Everyone thinks so.’

Fio’ui K’or touched a corrugated pipe that wound around the inner wall of the stairwell. ‘We have installed back-up generators here,’ he said. ‘We also have extra generators for the dome shield. You see, we have thought of everything.’

Ch’an said nothing. If experience had taught him anything, it was that expressions like that were always misplaced.

‘Here,’ Fio’ui K’or said when they got to the bottom, and they looked into a wide circular underground chamber, ringed with hab blocks, their neat, regular armourglass windows tinted against the glare. ‘I will let you go in and find your bunk. It is bunk number Y-445-A.’

‘Y-445-A,’ Ch’an repeated, and nodded, forcing a smile. ‘Thank you.’

All tau establishments were built and ordered to the same harmonious plan, so he knew what his room would be like before he got there, and he was not surprised: it was a tall and narrow room with four double bunk beds, two on either side of the cell. A thin lume-strip lit the chamber when the window tint was turned up to night levels. The only thing that did surprise him was the holo-vista of the Western Lakes on his home sept of Au’taal. The isles were wreathed with mist, and the ultraviolet tones had been enriched. Underneath was written in simple letters of an archaic style a line of poetry from a famous fire warrior named D’fu: The burning of this fire, the years run out too soon.

There was the low hissing from a sleeping warrior across the room. Shas’vre Ch’an threw his pack onto one of the empty beds and from the bunk above him there was a creak as a mottled head appeared, eyes widening in surprise.

‘It’s you!’ he said. Then he blushed a deep shade of purple, and fumbled with his greetings. ‘Apologies, master!’ he said. ‘We were not expecting you so soon.’

‘We arrived early,’ Shas’vre Ch’an said. ‘It is a good habit for a warrior to have.’

The other fire warrior sat up, swung his hooves over the side of the bunk, dropped onto the floor and bowed low.

‘Shas’vre,’ he said. ‘We are deeply honoured!’

Ch’an gave him a long look and the cadet blushed. ‘Apologies. My honoured name is Shas’ui Sa’cea H’an.’ H’an bowed low, his pigmentation on the ultraviolet scale cooling as he mastered his sudden burst of excitement. ‘I am a cadet. We are to be bonded.’

‘Are we?’ Shas’vre Ch’an said.

He tried to hide his discomfort. For an old timer like him, it felt wrong for warriors of different septs to be brought together like this, but Mu’gulath Bay had taken such a toll on the Tau Empire that this was what the ethereals had demanded. The other one blushed purple again and hung his head in an almost child-like gesture. ‘I was one of the top students to graduate from my intake of Ves’oni’Vash.’

Shas’vre Ch’an pursed his lips in a thoughtful manner. ‘So we’re sending infants and the ancient into battle together. There must be a poem in there somewhere.’

Whispers were running along the corridor. ‘Shas’vre Ch’an is here! Shas’vre Ch’an!’ There was a clatter of hooves as other cadets filled the doorway in a silent crowd. One of them reached out to touch the black leather overcoat that he wore. ‘We did not believe it, master, that you were really coming back to fight. A-a-after your wounds…’

‘I serve the Greater Good,’ Shas’vre Ch’an said. He made a low clacking sound, that was almost like a laugh. ‘The reports of my death were a little premature.’ He took off his overcoat, threw it onto the bed and sat down, grateful to take the weight from his damaged leg. ‘Now, when does training start?’

‘Class begins again after noontide.’

The look in Ch’an’s eyes gave away the fact he was not quite clear on whether noontide was close or not.

‘In three dec,’ H’an added helpfully. ‘But as you have just landed, perhaps we could ask the Commander M’au to let you rest until tomorrow.’

Ch’an grunted in appreciation. ‘There is no time to rest. I will start with you. But now, if you will excuse me, brothers, I have come straight from Mu’gulath Bay. I am a little tired. I shall lie down and sleep.’

Ch’an used both hands to swing his stiff leg up. He laid his cane by his side, pulled the black leather overcoat up over his body and closed his eyes.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ch’an had given himself a week to lose his patience. He did not make it through the first afternoon’s session, in one of the sublevel lecture theatres.

A pale Ke’lshan warrior named N’loo relayed footage from Mu’gulath Bay.

‘This is another successful kauyon engagement,’ he droned, and showed footage of a fleet of drones swooping over the hilltop fortified Imperial position. It had been prepared in depth, with rockcrete bunkers, twinned trench support systems and gun emplacements at each of the six forts that offered enfilading fire to each other and to the long wall sections.

‘See how they keep the heads of the enemy warriors down. Then look. This is a new use of the Stormsurge, a tactical variation developed on Ke’lshan known as the Petalled Sword.’

He played the footage of a lone Stormsurge landing in the middle of the compound. One foot crushed the command Chimera while the other kicked a power lift sentinel that tried to engage it. The air was suddenly full of airburst fragments, and then it opened up with its pulse battle cannon from point-blank range. The forts all faced outwards, and their guns swivelled helplessly as the Stormsurge singled each one out from behind with a blast of its pulse battle cannon. One shot was enough to destroy a fort, the ammunitions inside raining the troops with debris. Six shots and all the forts were neutralised; fire warriors were already deploying from their Devilfish and mopping up the last defenders.

‘This is called the Stunned Krootox,’ N’loo started. He almost smiled. ‘It was a name I came up with myself, for reasons that I believe will be obvious.’

N’loo loved to hear the sound of his own voice. After an hour, Ch’an could not hold himself back. He stood up. ‘Excuse me, honoured one. May I speak?’

N’loo faltered to a stop. There was an embarrassed silence as Ch’an pushed himself up on his cane. ‘My name is Shas’vre Ch’an. You will forgive me interrupting like this. My body has been broken beyond my years. I am delighted to see so many victories over our enemies, but I have fought the gue’la many times, even though it was with the forces of my sept of Au’taal, which I know many of you do not consider to be within the top rank, or even second rank of fighting septs.

‘But even we have found that the gue’la are not entirely stupid. They have a base and evil cunning, and they will be learning our methods of war as much as we learn them here. And they will find ways to counter them. It is our strategy that we should be three steps ahead of them at all times. It is by speed, power and innovation that we destroy our enemies. You give us footage of all these victories, but you know as well as I that we are losing Stormsurge crews faster than we can replace them.

‘We should not be studying our victories but our failures. I would like to see our failures on Mu’gulath Bay. Then we can learn from that. Then we can break our enemy on their own anvil.’

Ch’an let himself sink back onto his stool.

N’loo had coloured a deep ultraviolet. His nostrils flared and he bowed briefly. ‘I will bring us to the failures of our esteemed commander. We will consider this in the second half of the kai’rotaa.’

‘Do we have that time?’

The instructor’s mouth opened in shock and there was a stir as some of the warriors there made a low and disapproving hissing sound, and turned their heads. Ch’an pushed himself to his feet again. ‘Forgive me, teacher. I was on Mu’gulath Bay and it is terrible. We have all heard about the Imperium of Mankind, how their kingdom stretches for tau’cyr of travel. Many tau’cyr. The numbers of their worlds are legion. The power of their empire is vast.’

He made a gesture to the black coat he wore. ‘This jacket was taken from the body of a warrior they name the Kom’sr. His duty is to make sure his warriors fight. He uses this stick.’ He gestured towards the cane that he leant on. ‘He drives his men forwards like cattle, and if they fail, he speaks to them and then he shoots them in the head.’

There was a stunned silence among the cadets. How could a warrior kill one of his own?

‘I have seen this happen. Many times. That is the way of our enemy. I wear this coat to remind me of the nature of the foe we face. They are cruel, they are merciless, they are uncivilised and they are evil. I use that word with much thought. I, like many of you, have fought alongside our gue’vesa allies, and they use a word that I should quote here – in-human. But they are many and we are few. We are like a…’ he paused for the right comparison, ‘a fl’aat bee when the fanged honey bear comes to break into his hive. The bear is stronger, more powerful. Why, he is the master of his world. But each bee has a sting, even though it may kill him when he delivers it. We are those bees. The gue’la empire can crush us with just a single claw of its mighty fist. We have to deliver such a blow to it at Mu’gulath Bay that it pulls back its paw in pain and shock. Then we must pursue it from one planet to the next and we must drive it away, as the hive of bees drive off the bear.’

Ch’an’s anger had got the better of him. His words died away and were greeted with silence, then a scattering of applause that grew in strength and feeling.

Ch’an took in a deep breath and bowed stiffly before sitting down. Half the listeners seemed scandalised, the other half delighted. H’an touched his arm.

‘Well said!’ he whispered. ‘About time someone told them!’

That evening Ch’an and H’an were to suit up for their first test flight.

The suiting bay lay towards the top of the firing range, a long, low building with a row of gates for the Stormsurge battlesuits to pass through. It was a short distance from the hab-dome. Ch’an’s leg had stiffened as he sat, and the cold of the crossing had done it no good either. He used both hands to lower himself, wincing as the limb jammed against the knee brace.

‘I’m fine,’ he said. He felt strange emotions of fear and trepidation. ‘Take my jacket off.’ He watched as it was hung on a peg by the door.

‘I shall make sure that no one touches it,’ the earth caste technician, Fio’o Bork’an Koba’ashi, reported. His assistant was earnest as he helped Ch’an into the pilot’s bay. ‘I have adjusted the stirrups,’ the young assistant said. He spoke quickly and breathlessly around the veteran.

‘Thank you,’ Ch’an said, adjusting the controls, and then pulled the pilot’s vision helm onto his head. Ch’an slid his hands into the controls and welcomed the feeling of becoming the machine, without old wounds, a stiff leg, or the unpleasant memories. Machines had no memories, he thought as he flexed the arms and bent the legs as if for a giant spring.

They’d updated it. This was a newer version than he had been using on Mu’gulath Bay. The holo-graphs did not lag as much.

He started the power generator as H’an slipped into the seat beside him. His last gunner had been from Au’taal, of course. His name was… P’ort’a, and he’d hum his favourite lines of poetry as he fired. When battle was at its worst, he would chant The Ballad of O’pon’sa. He was the one who really deserved the title of ace, Ch’an thought, as H’an flicked the gun systems on.

‘Live fire exercise two hundred and seventy-six,’ H’an dictated into the system log. ‘Cluster rockets, one through four – check. Destroyer missile – check. Flamers engaged – check. Pulse driver cannon – check. Shields engaged – check. Secondary generator, full power – check. All weapon systems active and engaged.’

The Stormsurge lurched forwards on its massive legs.

‘Right,’ Ch’an said, ‘let’s see how this thing moves.’

For the first hour, Ch’an was fine, but when they started the wargame simulator programme, he felt his hands begin to shake. He closed his eyes and tried to focus, but for a moment he was back on Mu’gulath, dropping from a Manta into the maelstrom of battle. Even the descent was terrifying as searing tracers and missiles arced towards him, their contrails of white falling gracefully behind them.

‘Is all well, master?’ H’an asked.

Ch’an closed his eyes to find the inner peace. For him it was the view of the Western Lakes on Au’taal, with the sacred mountain, Fi’jen, in the background, reflected on its mirrored surface. He held that image in his mind for a moment, just as he had when he hung from the bottom of a Manta, praying that they would not be shot out of the sky. But as soon as he opened his eyes he felt the panic return, and in irritation he lurched forwards as the thrusters flared, making the opening of the target range in two great bounds.

‘What is wrong with this machine?’

H’an looked at him in concern. ‘Master,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you are well?’

There were beads of sweat on Ch’an’s brow. He wiped them away and closed his eyes once more. I am fine, he told himself. But the Stormsurge did not move. It stood motionless for what seemed an age. Ch’an sat in the pilot’s carriage and breathed deeply.

‘The suit is faulty.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes,’ Ch’an said. He closed his eyes again.

‘Shall we go back?’ H’an said. ‘Fio’ui K’or can check it.’

Ch’an paused and then nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think that would be good.’

Ch’an managed to get them back into the suiting dome, and Fio’o Bork’an was there to open the hatch.

Ch’an could not get out fast enough. As he dragged himself from the machine, he caught his bad leg on the rim and gritted his teeth against the pain.

‘Apologies,’ Fio’ui K’or said. ‘I will check the suit straight away.’

‘My thanks,’ Ch’an said as he took Fio’o Bork’an’s hand. He grabbed his leather jacket and sucked in long breaths.

By this time H’an had climbed out. ‘Are you sure you are well?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Ch’an said. ‘You are very kind. I think I will lie down.’

Ch’an had not long closed his eyes and started to breathe slowly when someone shook his shoulder.

‘Shas’vre Ch’an.’ It was a Ke’lshan voice. He sat up and saw the pale face of N’loo staring down at him. ‘Commander M’au has summoned you. You are to come at once.’

N’loo marched with Ch’an to the lift and out into the snow. M’au did not make him wait long, having Ch’an brought in as the commander sat cross-legged on the floor.

‘Sit,’ M’au gestured, but Ch’an tapped his leg. ‘It is easier if I stand.’

‘As you wish.’ M’au drew himself up. ‘Shas’vre Ch’an,’ he said, his voice straining with fury. ‘I hear that yesterday you interrupted a training session with talk of jackets and gue’la and shooting your own troops.’

‘Yes, sire. I did.’

‘What do you mean by this?’

Ch'an started to speak but M’au cut him off. ‘You were criticising our training. You do not think we are teaching the cadets properly. You are typical of the warriors of Au’taal. You think yourself above all others. You hide your laziness behind contempt. You are separate, when strength comes from being whole. This is the way of the Tau Empire. We work together as one. We do not pursue individual aims and goals. What is it you want, Shas’vre Ch’an? Personal glory?’

‘No, Shas’el.’

‘Then do not criticise us again. Is that clear? I keep a strict grip on this camp. We are all working towards the Greater Good.’ Ch’an turned towards the door but Fireblade M’au called him back. ‘One more thing. I made an exception before, but I think I made a mistake. Please take off that filthy jacket. I know what it stands for. You disrespect us all by wearing such a thing.’

Fireblade M’au called one of his guards forwards. The fire warrior took the jacket from Ch’an’s shoulders, first one side, then the other. ‘Burn that filthy thing.’

Ch’an was stiff as he stood before the commander.

‘I expect you to support our efforts here, Ch’an. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Fireblade.’

‘Dismissed.’

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ch’an lay in his bunk all that afternoon. Whenever he closed his eyes he felt his heart pounding, he heard the thunder of battle and he felt himself falling as his Stormsurge burned about him.

He lay there throughout the afternoon and into eventide. His dorm mates stayed away out of respect and H’an stood at the door to ward off the chain of concerned warriors who came to visit.

‘He is unwell,’ he said. ‘It was a long flight. He is going to meditate. Yes, he was most impressed with the improvements in the stabilisation controls. He liked the rotary controls. Yes.’

The sound of the evening bell brought him back. He sat up and touched his brow. He was cold, he thought. Damp. It was an unhealthy sight for a tau. H’an was sitting at the end of the bed. He looked concerned. ‘The cooks have prepared a feast.’ Ch’an made no response. ‘It is in your honour, shas’vre.’

Ch’an sat up slowly. He nodded. ‘I’ll come,’ he said.

‘I could bring you something.’

‘No,’ Ch’an said. ‘I am fine.’

The food sharing hall was a wide, low-sided chamber, dug under the ice, with rows of long benches and tables. When Ch’an limped in that eventide, the whole cadre of Stormsurge pilots and gunners stood and started the low hooting noise that marked deep respect. He hooted with them in return and they all sat and went on with their meals.

Ch’an moved slowly along, bowing to the chief warriors who came forward to greet him personally. The cadre was a mix of veterans and new graduates. It was so strange to see a room full of a mix of septs. He could see the markings of Elsy’eir, T’olku, Ksi’m’yen, Uan’Voss and Dal’yth, amongst others.

Some of the warriors had the smooth flat faces of young fire warriors, each one with the honour Ch’ay symbol, for elite graduates.

It was easy to spot the veterans. They had a slightly haunted look about them, as if they knew how thin their shadows were. Ch’an knew many of them by face or reputation. Shas’vre N’dras Po’lco, with the almost-black leather hide of his sept, had almost a hundred kills. Shas’vre Mysto, who greeted him with stiff formality, had a Warhound Titan to his name. Shas’el Reet’u, who had lost a finger and part of his skull on Mu’gulath Bay, was credited with driving back an Imperial tank brigade single-handedly. And at the end he saw an old fellow, Shas’el Elsy’eir Sham’bal, who had fought with him in the first battle of Mu’gulath Bay.

‘So they sent you here too!’ Sham'bal said. ‘Must be bad if they’re bringing an old thin-lip like you back.’

‘I thought the same when I saw you here.’

‘I revolunteered.’

‘You did? Then you're a fool.’

Sham’bal made a respectful gesture which meant, will you honour me by sitting and eating with me? After a few refusals, Ch’an accepted.

‘I wanted to keep fighting,’ Sham’bal said at last. ‘I lay in my bed and thought about what would happen if the gue’la ever landed on Au’taal. They would dig her mountains for coal. They would burn her forests. Rip down the arches. They would turn it into a rank and polluted place. I had to go back and fight. I knew that I would never see her again. But I would give my life making sure that my home lived on. We would give other worlds the chance to flourish and bloom, as Au’taal does.’

They took it in turns serving each other the choicest pieces from the platter before them. For a while they talked of Au’taal, and the times they had met there by the Western Lakes, and recalled their battles.

‘So how did you end up here?’ Ch’an said.

Sham’bal shook his head. ‘I was at an awards ceremony when an earth caste by the name of Fio’o Bork’an Koba’ashi…’

‘Oh, I met him this morning.’

‘Well. He was very excited. This was a tau’cyr ago, or more. He said he had helped develop a new weapon that would counter the titans of the enemy. It was the Stormsurge KV122 at the time. A little heavier. More armour on the front, but too slow. He wanted me to pilot it as they perfected the torso controls. So I helped out. I recommended a lighter chassis. I went through four development stages. There was a problem with the recoil. Then Fio’o Bork’an Koba’ashi came up with the idea of stabilisers. I helped him with those. And when it was done, and perfect, and deadly, how could I leave it and say goodbye? I had to try it out myself. In combat. Against the foe. I just had to!’

Ch’an made the distinctive chuckle deep in his throat. He understood.

They ate for a while, before Sham’bal said, ‘I felt needed. That this battle for Mu’gulath Bay is bigger than anything before.’

Ch’an nodded. ‘If it were not for Shadowsun…’

‘She is very fine,’ Sham’bal nodded.

‘Even she is rumoured to have made…’ he paused, and the last word came out with a look of distaste, ‘…mistakes.’

The word ‘mistakes’ lingered in the air.

There was a long silence.

‘I heard what happened this morning,’ Sham’bal said at last.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your machine malfunctioned.’

‘No. It was me.’ Ch’an forced a smile. ‘I was a little unwell.’

Sham’bal put out a hand and rested it on the back of Ch’an’s. ‘You could retire, you know.’

Ch’an felt the clamminess returning to his forehead. He slowed his breathing, swallowed and nodded.

‘We cannot let the gue’la change us. We cannot let go of what it means to be tau. Not just the success, but also the art, the songs, the poetry, the tolerance, peace, productivity, innovation.

‘Just imagine a galaxy which was full of gue’la and only gue’la. Just imagine the horror and the devastation.’

Sham’bal shuddered. ‘And the ignorance,’ he said.

Ch’an’s eyes were wide with passion. ‘Yes!’ he hissed. ‘The ignorance!’

As the food sharing hall emptied, Sham’bal called for a jug of wine and laid out two small ceremonial cups.

‘We should drink to remember our old fellows,’ he said, and poured two cups.

They drank them back and poured two more.

When they reached the bottom of the pot, Ch’an started a song. The words were his own, set to an ancient Elsy’eir tune. They spoke of hope and light, when the darkness and stupidity pressed close. Sham’bal picked up as Ch’an sang the chorus, and the hall fell silent as all the warriors listened to the song. One by one, like a flame being passed from one candle to another, each of the warriors sang the melody. Even the earth caste servants came out of the kitchens and hung their heads with strange and rare emotions.

Tomorrow, Ch’an swore, he would get back into the Stormsurge, and he would not fail.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Shipmaster Ferral brought the news of their successful translation directly to Nergui’s chamber. Kill Team Faith kept to their own decks for the two weeks it took the strike cruiser Nemesis to make the warp jump. The corridors of the Space Marine quarters were silent, except for the thud of a distant boltgun.

Nergui’s chambers were at the base of the bridge, looking out over the dorsal lance batteries. She felt her pulse rising as she turned left from the lift and tapped gently on his door. It opened in moments, Nergui’s black-armoured shape filling the doorway.

It always surprised her, when she had been away for more than a few weeks – the size and proportions of the Adeptus Astartes. She flinched.

His voice was a deep rumble. ‘Shipmaster.’

For a moment she forgot why she had come, and then it came out in a rush. ‘We have made contact with the Valete. They report the insertion successful.’

‘Thank you, shipmaster,’ Nergui said. ‘Has Batbayar’s Northwind arrived yet?’

‘Not yet, sire.’

‘Let me know as soon as that happens. Until then, we remain in blackout.’

‘Yes, sire,’ she said, and the door closed.

Two days later, the Northwind exited the warp with a sudden flash of blue energy, her gun batteries and launch bays wreathed in tendrils of warp energy as she hit real space. Shipmaster Ferral brought the Nemesis alongside the Northwind, and when the two strike cruisers – one black, one white – came to within a hundred miles of each other, a black Thunderhawk launched from the Nemesis, bound for the White Scars.

On board, Nergui was tense at the thought of returning to his brothers’ craft.

He had enjoyed it too much, he thought, and the voice of his mother in the catacombs of Picket’s Watch had woken memories he had thought long forgotten.

The Thunderhawk landed in the same bay as before, but now the White Scars Thunderhawks had gone, and there was only the venerable Fire Raptor, Obos, with attentive servitors milling along her fuselage. As Nergui came down the assault ramp, Ganzorig strode out to greet him. If there were any hard feelings between Nergui and the Red Tangut they appeared to have been buried.

‘Welcome, captain,’ the White Scar said. ‘The khan is eager to see you. He asked me to tell you to come to the Eyrie. I can summon a servo-skull to show you the way’

Nergui marched into the White Scars ship. ‘No. I know the way.’

The Eyrie was a nickname Nergui and Batbayar had for the observation tower that rose up behind the bridge. It was the highest point you could reach on a strike cruiser. You could look back over the engines, into the darkness of space, or forwards along the spine of the craft, or out to either side, over the gun batteries. It was Nergui’s favourite place on a cruiser – a place where he could stand and watch and think.

Batbayar had clearly remembered this.

The White Scars he passed did not even give him a second glance. It was as if they could see through the black on his armour to the white beneath. As if they had accepted him as one of their own.

Nergui thought the guards on the bridge lift would say something, but they stood aside and let him pass. He entered the lift and punched in the access code, and felt himself being carried up through the decks, past the bridge access point, up to the observation tower.

The lift opened out into the centre of a small domed chamber. Thirty feet across, the armourglass gave clear visibility overhead as well as below, the floor plates affording a viewer the odd sensation of walking in space.

Batbayar stood with his back to the lift. He was alone, except for a pair of servo-skulls that hovered in the air behind him.

‘Ah!’ the khan said as Nergui entered. ‘You were right. There’s nothing better after the claustrophobia of a warp jump than standing here and feeling the openness of the galaxy all about you.’

Nergui joined him and they stood staring out into the darkness. Somewhere, ahead of them, lay their target.

‘So,’ Batbayar said, ‘what news?’

‘Our advance teams are already on the planet. They will prepare the ground and when all is ready we attack. Not until then, understand?’

‘Of course,’ Batbayar said. He tapped his thigh with a gauntleted hand. ‘Have they found Shadowsun?’

‘Not yet,’ Nergui said.

‘I can just see Kor’sarro’s face!’ He chuckled to himself. ‘It will be a great aid for our Chapter, if I bring our leader home as well. If I bring you home too… Nergui Khan’s return would be a boon in our hour of need.’

Nergui laid out a map of the planet before them. ‘The production facility is here,’ he said. He pointed to a plateau near the northern pole of the planet. ‘The camp lies in the middle of this valley. On each of these crags there are NG-4 planetary defence platforms. We will deal with these. There are six hunter cadres with strong air support. I will lead the attack on the landing port. There are vespid warriors here, and a kroot camp here. Their threat is not negligible.’

‘How many battlesuits?’ asked Batbayer

‘Thirty suits of various classes, as well as the larger, newer ones in production’

‘A hundred?’

‘Yes. They are your target. The production facility here.’

If Batbayar was intimidated by this he did not show it. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘We will sear it from the galaxy. Is it protected?’

‘We will destroy the generators. There are a number of possible routes of attack. Our team have disabled a route along here.’ Nergui traced a line along the planet.

Batbayar looked at the other with barely suppressed amusement. ‘You have spent too long with the Deathwatch, my friend. Remember how you used to lead your company to battle, with drop pods and assault squads raining from the sky? Tell me, does the eagle still fly?’

‘I fly,’ Nergui said.

‘Join us then! Fly with our warriors as we plummet from the sky! We shall draw chainswords together once more.’

There was a long pause. Nergui laughed. ‘That would be fine, wouldn’t it? Black and white together!’

‘You see it too!’ The khan paced up and down, extoling the virtues of battle and combat, and the ways of the White Scars. Then he grabbed Nergui’s hand. ‘Paint your armour white!’ The khan was serious. ‘My Techmarines are ready. They can do what must be done. Come out of the shadows. Black is not a colour for a White Scar. It is the colour of hiding. Of shadows. It is the colour of burned timbers. Of the exhaust smoke that we leave in our wake. Wear white once more. I will give you command of the Fourth Company.’

Nergui took a deep breath to answer but Batbayar held up a hand. ‘Do not answer. But think on it. Swing your sword with us. Kill the foes with us. Hunt them. Add the roar of your bike to our charge. Where is Ganbold? How your bike must miss the company of our bikes. Is it not alone?’

Nergui smiled as he imagined his own return. Part of him wished for nothing more… ‘I heard my mother’s voice a month ago,’ he said.

Batbayar looked at him. ‘Your mother?’

Nergui nodded. ‘She was calling me. I was in the Empty Lands, standing with the goats as my father mounted up. I was trying to lift a kid that was too weak to suckle, and she called out to me, “shao-shao!”’

Batbayar frowned as his amusement turned to concern. He snorted, ‘I don’t even remember which of my father’s wives was my mother!’

‘Of course it was not really her. The memory was prompted by a psychic presence,’ Nergui said. ‘But it was a true memory.’

‘So?’

‘I have not thought of Chogoris for a long time. I hope I see it before I die. Of course my mother will be dead. My whole family will have died out a hundred years ago. But that is not why I hope to return. I would like to see my tribe once more, the Chaoge. When I think of fighting the aliens, it is the Chaoge I think of. Not hive slummers or agri worlds, or even the marble arcades of Ultramar. I think of my people, picking their way from summer pasture to winter hole, herding their grox. And it is them I fight for.’

‘Then come back with me! After this is over. Come back to Chogoris!’

Nergui had to force the words out. ‘I cannot join you.’

‘Cannot, or will not?’

‘I have sworn a vow, and until that is complete I cannot leave the Deathwatch.’

‘What is the vow?’

‘I cannot say.’

Batbayar let out a shout of anger and frustration. ‘I come to the aid of your brothers. Will you not do me the small honour of returning to us?’

‘I will do all that I can,’ Nergui said, but Batbayar cursed in frustration – and the black and the white moved apart.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Ch’an was furious as he limped towards Commander M’au’s office.

The guard stepped before him. ‘Shas’vre Ch’an. Should you not be teaching our cadets?’

Ch’an tried to go round him but the guards reacted quickly, blocking the door, so he shouted over their heads.

A shadow appeared, as Commander M’au made his way from his office to the door. He acted surprised to see Ch’an here, and made a point of checking his chronometer. ‘This morning you are scheduled to be instructing Cohort Ar on the gue’la strategies.’

Ch’an nodded. ‘Yes, honourable one. I have asked Sham’bal to perform this duty for me.’

‘If I wanted Sham’bal to teach Cohort Ar, then I would have scheduled that myself,’ M’au said.

‘I heard something that I thought was urgent. That there are gue’la on this planet.’

M’au feigned surprise. ‘Who told you this?’

‘You don’t deny it?’

Fireblade M’au drew himself up. ‘There is nothing to deny. A kroot claimed to have seen one fall from the sky. I have three hunter cadres out searching for it. They have found nothing. No body. No trace. Nothing. Every time the kroot tell me they have seen something it is the same. They are a little unreliable.’

Ch’an cut him off. ‘This has happened before?’

‘What?’

‘The camp has been discovered?’

‘How do you know?’

‘That does not matter.’

Fireblade M’au’s eyes narrowed. He put his fingers together and nodded slowly. ‘Yes, once. The intruders were eliminated. Last time we sent the cadets straight into battle, but the losses were too high. It is vital that the training and bonding of crews is performed in the correct manner. Most High One Aun’ui Hoo’nan has thought on this most deeply. We have tightened security. Sweeps are being made. All we need is a week, then the training will be finished and the cohort deployed to Mu’gulath Bay. Once your cohort is ready, this base shall be moved again. It is all under control.’

Ch’an struggled to counter this. He stammered for moment. ‘If there is an intruder then he cannot have flown through space to reach us. It means there is a ship up there. Our enemies are upon us.’

‘If there was an intruder then don’t you think we would have found it? We have a Defender patrolling the system, a security orbital above our heads, and the planet is covered with listening devices. You are not afraid, are you? I have heard what happened during the simulation. Maybe you cannot face fighting any more…’

Ch’an could barely contain his fury. ‘It is not fear that makes me speak, but the vision of victory to which I hold dear. If we have been found we must relocate to a safe location. They will come for us. I have seen them – they are terrible.’

‘If,’ Commander M’au repeated Ch’an’s own word. He drew himself up. ‘Ke’lshan Sept has been granted the honour of guarding this facility and we take our duty seriously. I have sent my best hunter cadres out. The kroot too are hunting for signs. If anything landed here, we will find it.

‘The Most High One is aware of the risks. A move at this point, when the crews are being bonded, will result in an unacceptable delay. This cadre of pilots and gunners need to be deployed to Mu’gulath Bay. Training will be completed within six days. Until then, the risk is not negligible, but it is acceptable.’ Ch’an started to argue once more and Fireblade M’au bowed suddenly. Aun’ui Hoo’nan was standing in the doorway.

‘We have nothing to fear,’ the ethereal said.

Ch’an opened his mouth. He struggled for a moment, then bowed deeply. ‘Apologies. I did not know that you were aware of this, and that the matter had been considered.’

‘Do not feel guilt. We need your wisdom. We need you to lead. By example. Am I right in hearing that you have not yet completed the Mu’gulath Bay simulation?’

Ch’an shook. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Please go to Cohort Ar. You have much experience that they will need in the coming battle. I would like you to share that with them. Show them. Lead them. Do the simulation. I have confidence in your abilities.’

Ch’an’s voice was a croak. ‘Thank you, Most Honoured One. I will be glad to help.’

Ch’an limped back towards the instructional dome.

He felt giddy and deflated as he entered the food sharing hall. From the noise, Cohort S’a’an were on the firing range. Cohort Y’ap and Ar had both entered the hall at the same time. Ch’an took his tray and turned, but there was no place for him to sit, and no one made way for him.

‘Shas’vre!’ a voice said, and he turned and saw H’an holding an empty tray. ‘I missed you this morning.’

‘I was giving a talk to Cohort Ar.’

H’an nodded and leant in closer to speak. ‘We heard you had gone to see Fireblade M’au.’

Ch’an felt his hand trembling, and he put his tray down and poured himself a cup of water. ‘I did.’

‘Was it about the simulation?’

‘No,’ Ch’an said.

‘Everyone is talking.’

‘About what?’

H’an didn’t like to say.

‘I am no coward,’ Ch’an said.

‘I do not think you are, but the Greater Good has been decided.’

‘Maybe the Most High One is wrong,’ Ch’an said quietly. H’an’s face blanched for a moment. No one spoke against the ethereals. They were the supreme minds of their society. It was like a well frog trying to speak of the ocean. Mere fire warriors were unable to contemplate such lofty things. He leant forwards and took Ch’an’s three fingers in his own, pressing hard in both warning and concern.

‘Please don’t say that again,’ he said.

Ch’an started to argue, but H’an put up his hand. ‘Promise me you will not say such a thing again…’ He struggled for the words. ‘If you do I will lose all respect for you.’

As evening fell Ch’an stood in the top chamber of the hab-dome, and looked out from the armourglass windows. All day, security had been visibly tightening. That afternoon the krootox were released. Mobile gun rigs made an ostentatious display as they moved to the high crags on Vespid Rock. Devilfish moved in outer rim defensive patterns, and a Riptide appeared suddenly, its jump pack flaring as it crested the distant ridge, knees bending before it jumped once more, skimming low across the ground.

Behind him H’an was playing another cadet at sho’gi. The other cadets were crowded round. H’an appeared to be winning. Ch’an listened to their banter with a detached air. He saw his reflection in the oval armourglass window and the sight of his own body shocked him. The galaxy had not been kind to him. It had taken him in its palm and crushed and broken him. And now this was what was left.

‘I am tired,’ he said to the others, and took the lift down to his dorm. In the sunken garden, a fire warrior was meditating, and in the lit windows he saw others talking, sleeping, revising for the next day’s exercises. The chime rang for lights out.

Ch’an turned back to his bunk, but for once sleep did not come. He tossed and turned, let out an irritated sigh, sat up, and walked back to the window.

H’an heard the door latch click and sat up. Ch’an was gone.

H’an thought for a moment, and decided that he should follow. He slipped from his bunk and lifted the latch.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The corridor was empty and quiet, apart from the gentle hum of the hab-dome’s generator. There was no sign of Ch’an or any guards. The sunken garden was empty. The lift door stood open, the lights dimmed, unused.

H’an felt his panic growing as he began to run up the winding stairs, but the doors were closed and secure. There were fire warriors outside. A mobile gun rig moved slowly past with crew walking behind.

The sight of them calmed his panic.

He spun about and saw a figure sitting in the low red light of the dome. It was Ch’an.

‘What are you doing?’ H’an demanded as he hurried across the open space.

Ch’an turned and looked up. ‘I could not sleep,’ he said. There was a bundle in his lap. ‘I feel it. They are coming for us. The Most Honoured One is… mistaken.’

‘I asked you not to say that,’ H’an said.

Ch’an looked down into his lap and the cadet put a hand out to the older warrior’s shoulder. ‘Forgive me. It is a veteran’s sense. They found this place before. They will find it again. The silence always shatters.’

There was a pause. ‘It’s late,’ H’an said. He stood, but Ch’an did not move.

After a long pause the veteran said, ‘H’an. Will you do something for me?’

‘What?’

‘Will you bond with me?’

H’an hesitated.

‘They are coming,’ Ch’an said. ‘We must be ready. If we are to fight, then we must be bonded.’

‘But we were forbidden from bonding until our pairings have been selected.’

‘You have to stop thinking like a cadet,’ Ch’an said. ‘You are about to go to war. Do you know how many of the last cohort are still alive? Less than half. Mu’gulath Bay is a thirsty planet. We have trained each day together. If we are to serve together in a Stormsurge, then we should bond.’

It went against all the theory that H’an had learnt in the Auspicious Warrior Graduate School on Bork’an, where the ceremony was held at the time of graduation, as a rite of passage, but he saw the look in the old warrior’s eyes and the beads of sweat about his head, and inclined his head in a respectful gesture. ‘If you wish, Shas’vre. I do not have a knife. May we use yours?’

Ch’an nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. He lifted the bundle in his lap, and H’an saw a bonding knife there. ‘Good. I have all that we need.’

‘Where should we go?’

Young warriors had such ideas. Ch’an laughed. ‘Here will do as well as any,’ he said.

Ch’an dimmed the red lume-strip. He lit a candle, took out his bonding kit and unrolled the ceremonial cloth which held the knife. He lifted it in both hands.

Most of the knives that H’an had seen were new, freshly issued to newly appointed Shas’vre, but this one had a worn scabbard, with knotwork of red cord about the top and a handle that had been held many times. It looked ancient. It looked like a knife from the tales of old.

Darkness added a certain solemnity to the occasion. ‘It is ready,’ Ch’an said, and laid the wrapping cloth over his wrist. He handed one scarf to H’an and took one for himself. They were old as well, and had the scent of cordite about them.

‘They have been used,’ Ch’an said, by way of explanation.

They tied the scarves of bonding about their heads, and then Ch’an started the ceremony of ta’lissera. There was none of the formal standing and bowing and ritual chanting that H’an had learnt in graduate school, but it felt much more real despite this. It felt like the ceremony his ancient forebears had carried out as they prepared for battle. Earnest, full of meaning, solemn unto death. At the end, Ch’an held out his palm and touched the knife to it. He clenched his fingers about it, and then drew the knife so that it cut the grey skin of the open palm. His face was drawn and tight. His life blood dripped out, purple droplets falling to the floor at their hooves.

‘Though the suns shall be sundered, though the mists of destruction shall blind us, I shall stay true to you, to ourselves, and to the Greater Good. So I swear by this line on my palm,’ he said. ‘I shall fulfil my bond to you, unto death and beyond, brother in arms.’

Ch’an handed the knife to H’an. He held the blade, drew in a deep breath, then put the edge to his palm, clenching his own fist around it. At that moment H’an understood why this ceremony had been held on to by his people when so much else had been let go. He understood what it meant to look another warrior in the eye, and pledge to him your brotherhood. He understood that they would fight and die together, if need be.

He spoke the words and began to pull the ancient knife through his clenched fist. The pain made him feel sick. He felt clamminess on his brow. He kept pulling the knife until the whole thing was smeared with his blood.

Ch’an held out his bloody hand, and H’an grasped it. ‘Blood to blood, my brother, we shall fight as one for the Greater Good.’

‘Now,’ Ch’an said. ‘When the time comes, we shall be ready.’

H’an slept fitfully that night. His palm throbbed, and he only seemed to fall asleep moments before suit drills began at the fourth dec.

It was dark outside as they crossed to the suiting dome. Flecks of snow were falling hard against H’an’s cheeks.

‘How is your palm?’ Ch’an asked.

‘It is fine,’ H’an said.

Ch’an nodded and they did not speak again until they were inside the suiting dome, their Stormsurge standing silently waiting for them.

Ch’an was brusque and business-like as they went through the suiting rituals. H’an dropped into place and the earth caste technicians closed the suit hatches up, and he found himself scrambling to keep up with the opening checks.

‘Generator. Check. Guns armed. Check. Shield engaged. Check. Ready for combat, shas’vre.’

Ch’an grunted in reply, and they paused for a moment at the opening of the firing range. ‘Commencing Mu’gulath Bay simulator seven-eight-four,’ he announced.

‘Simulation seven-eight-four beginning,’ an earth caste technician answered, with just a hint of excitement in his voice. Earth caste could be so, well, earth caste.

‘Let’s go,’ Ch’an said. He sidestepped and lumbered forwards.

The veteran seemed calm and focused in a way that H’an had not seen before. ‘You are different this morning,’ he said at last.

‘Focus,’ Ch’an said as their suit stomped across the open tundra. A decoy Titan’s head appeared over the top of the rocks, miles to their right. On Mu’gulath Bay they reckoned you had six seconds to kill a Titan before it brought its own weapons to bear.

‘Enemy sighted,’ Ch’an’s voice rattled through the routine announcements with all the slick, practised air of the ace that he was. ‘Engage,’ he said, bending the legs and bracing the feet.

At four seconds H’an fired. There was a glorious burst of energy from the secondary generator, a flash of incandescent light that spanned the ultraviolet and infrared spectrums. A first time hit. A hole ripped through the decoy, a steaming crater burned into the ice-cliff behind.

At the end, as they climbed out of their suits, the earth caste’s voice sounded excited. ‘The suit did not malfunction?’

‘No,’ Ch’an said. ‘Nor the pilot.’

Fio’ui K’or bowed to them both. ‘Full marks on firing.’

‘We achieved full marks?’ Ch’an said.

The earth caste nodded.

Ch’an frowned. ‘We shouldn’t have. Don’t look so pleased with yourself.’ H’an’s pigmentation darkened. ‘This course should be made harder. Attrition rates among new crews are too high. I have been on Mu’gulath Bay. We should train for that. Real war.’

H’an watched Ch’an limp away with a sense of deflation. He shared a look with K’or.

‘He is very brave,’ the earth caste said.

‘He is,’ H’an said.

After the noontide meal, H’an made his way down to the sunken garden.

‘Shas’ui H’an,’ a voice called out.

Shas’el Sham’bal was sitting cross-legged against a rock. ‘I see that you have bonded,’ he said.

H’an held up his bandaged hand, and nodded.

‘It is a great honour to be joined with Shas’vre Ch’an.’

‘It is,’ H’an said. ‘Believe me. I understand that.’

‘But it is dangerous too,’ the older warrior said.

‘What do you mean?’

He took H’an’s bandaged hand in his own. ‘Look at your hand. It has one scar. Ch’an’s hand has many lines. Ch’an’s life-thread is strong. It is like a thread of steel that rubs against those that are bonded with it. It wears the other threads out, and breaks them, though it does not mean to.’

H’an lowered his head. ‘I understand that, Shas’el. But if that is my fate, then so be it. I shall accept it. It will be for the Greater Good.’

Sham’bal nodded. ‘The Greater Good.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

For two days Moaz had been making good time. It was too easy, almost. But a sense had grown on him. He paused, low in the broken ice field, and tried to remember what it meant. It came back to him slowly… It was like having a shadow. Something behind him, just out of sight: a presence. It came to him that this was what it felt like to be hunted.

The Raven Guard looked back, his helm-enhanced vision scanning the tundra for heat traces or movement. Nothing, just miles of icy waste, broken here and there by black boulders and places where the grox herds had scraped the ice away. Just flat snow and ice-fields, and the distant passing of a grox herd moving slowly south to better grazing.

They were a hardy winter variant, with shaggy long red hair, wide horns and thick, tough necks. The bull was a thick-necked beast. Ten cows around him. The bull snorted, and swung its horned head about, but it was looking away from him, back along the way that Moaz had come.

The bull had sensed the same thing. Whatever was tracking him had swung wide to come in under the glare of the sunset. He found a ledge under an ice-crag to sit and wait, combat knife loose in its scabbard and a silencer round in his stalker-pattern bolter. An hour later Moaz spotted it, five miles behind him, a low shape, nose pressed to the ground, following the route that he had taken – a kroot hound. It was some kind of tracking beast with beak and claws. He held his fire, needing to know if there was more than one.

It took half an hour for them to show themselves. The kroot hound led, sniffing the air for a moment, then lowered its head to the ice once more. Then another kroot hound appeared, and a third, and then a craggy kroot hunter, bent almost as low as his hounds, taking long loping strides. The pack master had a shaggy white pelt, a hunting rifle and a bandolier of skinning knives across his back, and a black beak and narrow, yellow eyes. He lowered his head to sniff in a manner just like the hounds.

Moaz watched the creatures for a long while. He could shoot, of course, but he was not sure that he could kill them all. Bodies would betray his presence.

He scanned ahead. There was a valley opening ten miles to the north west. It would be a short detour but it would hem his pursuers in, and then he could destroy them.

It took Moaz three hours to reach the valley mouth. It was narrow, with steep, snow-covered slopes: the perfect killing zone. He headed straight along the bottom, then doubled back, scaling the left-hand slopes, looking for a place where he could count his pursuers.

He found a ledge and dug his feet in for good purchase. He loaded hellfire rounds into his stalker-pattern boltgun as the pack of kroot hounds entered the mouth of the valley, the hunter loping after them. Seven hounds, he counted, with one pack master. As the hounds bounded up the defile, Moaz lifted the muzzle, found the head of the pack master, and traced as he bent to sniff the ground. Just a little further.

The shaggy beaked head turned towards where he was sitting. It was as if he could hear the Space Marine. Moaz saw the beaked head in the crosshairs of the bolter, the blinking yellow eyes – which turned and stared straight up to where he was sitting.

Moaz understood his mistake.

The pack master’s narrow yellow eyes were not looking at him, they were looking behind him. A low grunt gave Moaz a bare moment’s warning.

The blade missed him by inches. It hit bedrock as Moaz twisted and turned. A second blade slammed down. Moaz’s boot connected with a thin, hard shin, then the kroot was on him, beak scraping against his armour. He got both legs under it and kicked out, but it was stronger than he had imagined. His boltgun was knocked out of his hand. Thin, hard fingers scrabbled for his throat. He caught one leathery neck in a fist. He felt it snapping at his arm, the razor sharp teeth cutting through to the flesh beneath as he ground his fingers together.

They slid down the slope. The kroot flailed at him in a mad flurry of blows. Moaz kneed it in the head to make it let go, dragged his arm out of its beak, grabbed his gun from the snow, and fired. The stalker-pattern boltgun was much too long for hand-to-hand combat. It gave a low thud and hiss as the round fired at the first assailant. If he hit, it had no effect. He fired again and the other kroot jumped on his back, knife scoring lines in his armour as it searched for his jugular.

Moaz threw it over his head and fired into it. The mass-reactive hellfire round hit the thing in the neck, the explosive bolt ripping through the tight tendons as toxins sent the kroot’s muscles into spasms.

Moaz ducked the other kroot and fired a round into its belly. The hellfire round exploded in a mess of gore.

Moaz saw a blur of movement and skidded down the ice cliff, using a hand to steady himself. Snow tumbled down about him as he descended in an avalanche of his own making. He saw his foe scrambling along the bottom of the ice cliff. A shot rang out. He felt it hurtling past his ear and slowed himself for a moment. Four more shots rang out. He was getting a sense of their numbers now. He was the one who had been driven into an ambush.

He had to kill them all, or the whole mission would be thrown into jeopardy. He took one out from the other side of the crag. It fell back against the snow, and then slid down the slope, hitting the ground in a dark, crumpled heap. Something whizzed past his ear again. All around him kroot were standing and firing.

He counted three more kroot warriors on the slopes nearby, six more on the slopes opposite. One of them was kneeling to fire. Moaz took it down with a shot to the head. He scrambled higher, fired again. Another kill. The kroot hounds were bounding up the slopes towards him. Moaz needed more time. He scrambled higher up the steep slopes. Just as he reached the top he ran into something huge. He found himself staring into a great yellow eye. A vast black beak opened in a hiss.

Krootox, he cursed. It did not look friendly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Moaz put a second hellfire round into the krootox as it snapped at him. It slowed for a moment and he fired twice more. The acid began to work at once, seeping into wounds that the shrapnel had already blasted through the creature’s internal tissues. A shot to the eyeball finished it off, but a second creature bounded towards him. The rider’s spear slammed into his face, crazing his visor. He ducked as the creature crashed into him with the force of a hammer. His visor was a blur of ice and snow and feathers, and the krootox stood over him, pecking and squawking even as he pumped hellfire rounds up into its body.

The rider was on him. Moaz twisted out of its grasp, slammed a foot onto the kroot’s spear shaft, and then drove the muzzle of his bolter into its gut. He fired. There was red all over the snow as he pulled his boltgun free of the remains, and turned.

Seven kroot hounds, and five more warriors. He took the warriors down as they tried to flee up the valley wall opposite. The hellfire rounds were deadly. Even a miss could cover a target in a spray of bubbling acid. Nothing could survive a direct hit.

He was moving for a better vantage point when he spotted a blur in the corner of his eye. He ducked as a savage blade glanced off his helm. His head rang with the blow. He came at it from the side. It was taller than him, with a serrated beak, round yellow eyes and a heavy rusted blade that looked like it had been looted from a greenskin. It swung at him again and he stepped inside the blow and caught the kroot hunter with an uppercut. It let out a grunt as he slammed it back against the ice wall.

It rolled to the side, and came back with a backhand blow, followed up by an overhead swipe and a third savage blow. The blade hissed through the air in front of him, scoring a deep graze across the aquila on his chest-plate. He dropped low and drew his combat knife, and drove into the thing, hitting it low in the gut and knocking it backwards.

Its torso was skinny and slippery in his hands, the arms and legs long and incredibly powerful. He drove it back against the ice wall and they rolled on the ground, tearing and clawing at each other.

Moaz felt them slide towards the lip of the ledge and threw his weight over the edge, dragging the kroot with him. Its beak was clamped on his shoulder. He turned so that the kroot hunter cushioned his fall as they bounced off the first crag, took the second bounce on his back, and then they were tumbling down the lower slopes.

Moaz tore through the rest, until there was only one kroot left.

Half an hour later Moaz found its trail. It had escaped through the mouth of the valley and headed west with two hounds. The hounds gave the hunter’s location away. Moaz shot one in the shoulder as it leapt over a rock.

The other was sniffing the pool of blood when the next shot hit it in the head. The hunter laid low for over an hour, and Moaz slowly circled in for the kill.

It knew he was there, unblinking yellow eyes turning to face him as he looked through the scope. The strangeness of having the prey look you in the eye had thrown him last time. This time he was ready.

It was a xenos. It had to die.

When at last he found the body, Moaz stood over the hunter to check that it was dead. The hellfire round had caught it in the back, and his quarry had kept going for nearly half a mile.

He bent down to touch its arm. He flinched back as the head turned towards him and the yellow eyes opened.

It seemed to be speaking to him.

He bent down, trying to hear what it was saying, but could not. He took off his helmet and felt the icy touch of the planet on his cheek, and the kroot blinked and spoke again.

Moaz did not know the tongue. He did not care about what language it spoke, but bent and put the stalker-pattern boltgun to its head. ‘The Emperor hates you,’ he said and put a bolt into its skull.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Moaz covered the last hundred miles in less than four hours, found the designated spot and cursed. This was the place Kill Team Zeal were supposed to rendezvous, but he was two days late, and there was no one else here.

He had not slept for four days and the exertion was beginning to show. He crouched in a low hollow half a mile south of the tau space port and took out his magnoculars. The tau facility was well guarded. There was no sign of the rest of his kill team.

He ducked back as a flight of drones went overhead, one leap-frogging the other as they scouted the land. He could not vox so close to the enemy, but he risked a quick crackle of static on his personal channel: two crackles in quick succession.

Nothing. He had started moving round the space port when he heard his vox-unit come to life – just a hint of static, before the signal dropped. He moved forwards, keeping to the shadows, and the signal came again, closer this time. He crouched down, unable to see anything, and risked sending a brief signal back. Just a crackle of static in return.

Moaz moved forwards at a run now, dropping into an icy hollow as a Devilfish passed within twenty feet of him, blue screens lighting up the gunner’s face as he looked straight through the Raven Guard.

A hand clasped his arm. Moaz twisted, knife out, but already there was a knife at his own throat.

‘I have been waiting for you,’ Hadrian said.

Moaz laughed. ‘Well done, brother! I have taught you well,’ he said and put his own knife away. ‘Now, if I had slept in the last four days…!’

‘I wondered why you were making so much noise. What happened though? You should have been here two days ago.’

There wasn’t time to go over it all. ‘I was delayed,’ Moaz said.

‘Were you seen?’

The Raven Guard had to admit it. ‘Yes. Kroot hunters. I killed them all. It took longer than I thought.’

‘The jammers are fitted?’

‘All of them. They will start jamming in about…’ he checked the chronometer inside his helmet, ‘ten minutes.’

The Black Shield had dropped in three days after Moaz, manoeuvred slowly to within half a mile of the star base and, for the last three weeks, had watched and recorded all the little routines of the camp. The times of meals. The patterns of movement. The deployment of forces. He knew it all. They were almost ready to attack.

‘Get your bolter ready,’ Hadrian said. ‘You’re just in time.’

He opened the vox-link to the ships in orbit. ‘He is here,’ Hadrian said. ‘Yes. Yes. Understood.’ He closed the vox-link. ‘Nergui says we are ready to go.’

As he spoke he took a homing beacon from his belt, placed it down and set the signal pulsing. There was a slight hum as it started up, and then the note changed as the Nemesis locked on to it. A light flashed to show a drop-unit was inbound.

Hadrian loaded his bolter. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s give them room.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Northwind was running on almost no power, her systems barely ticking over as she slid through the thick gas clouds of the Distaf Nebula. In the Eyrie, Batbayar Khan had his honour guard in attendance. They stood with legs braced wide and arms folded as they stared down at the planet they were about to attack.

‘I have a question, great khan.’

Batbayar scowled, his brows coming together as Ganzorig stepped forwards.

‘Speak,’ Batbayar said.

‘Tell me, great khan, why does the Tulwar Brotherhood fight this war, when there is battle on our home world?’

There was a sudden stillness. Batbayar turned on the banner bearer. ‘Ganzorig, are you afraid?’

The other warrior smarted. ‘You know the answer to that,’ he said. ‘I fear nothing, except failure.’

‘I tell you why we fight today. We were born on a world of wide plains, good for riding and hunting. But we are Adeptus Astartes! We have been raised above others. We are stronger, fiercer, braver. The galaxy is our steppe land. We ride where we choose. We hunt our enemies and we kill them! That is the reason we fight. But more than that. We fight today because our brothers need us. Kor’sarro Khan is set on killing this Shadowsun. If we kill her then we bring two companies home to Chogoris… What a victory that would be!’

As he spoke something began to appear over the planet. It slid slowly into view, a pale cupola with an underslung array of pulse cannons and railguns that could even smash through a craft as powerful as the Northwind.

‘That is the orbital defence platform,’ Apothecary Khulan said as he stood at his khan’s shoulder. ‘Are you sure the Deathwatch will be able to destroy that?’

‘My brother has promised me,’ Batbayar said. ‘Let us see if he is true to his word.’

Ganzorig marched forwards. ‘Why do we not just blow it out of the sky?’

Batbayar smiled indulgently. ‘I know. That would be a fine thing, wouldn’t it? To sweep in now, before they even know we are here. But no. The Deathwatch want to help. Let them do their work for you.’

‘Maybe that is where Shadowsun is,’ Khulan said.

No one spoke. Batbayar scowled, but he said nothing. ‘If Shadowsun is here, she is mine. Make sure all the sergeants know that. The minute she is spotted, I want to know.’

There was a brief hiss as the lift opened behind them, and Nergui strode out.

‘I have just been in contact with my kill teams on the planet. They are in position. We can start the attack.’

Batbayar pointed towards the defence platform. ‘And your teams are able to take that out as well?’

‘Yes,’ Nergui said. ‘Three of our brothers are on the planet already. The rest of their team will destroy the defence platform. The others will ensure that there is no resistance to your strike. And then you can do the rest.’

Ganzorig spoke. ‘The Deathwatch are confident.’

Nergui looked at him. ‘It is a xenos construction. Killing xenos is what we do.’

It was little more than five minutes before Batbayar Khan was sweeping onto the flight deck, riding on his Land Speeder Tempest, legs braced wide. His bear-skin cloak flapped behind him, and his long moustaches trailed over his shoulder pads with the wind of his passing. The air filled with the roar of his warriors as they saluted him and Batbayar made a long, circuitous sweep about the chamber before he jumped down to the dais, where the lightning strike of the White Scars was emblazoned in red upon the wall. ‘We have hunted and killed, but there are always more foes for us upon the steppes. Some of you fight today for the first time. Some of you are scarred with years of battle.

‘We fight because Kor’sarro Khan needs our help as he leads the Eagle Brotherhood against the xenos. But first another brother needs us.

‘The xenos have crafted a new weapon that has driven our forces back over and over. They are weak in the face of it, and Nergui, my brother, has located their production facility. We go to destroy it. Will you ride with me, brothers? Will you follow in my wake and bring destruction to our foes? Will you bring glory to the eagle banner – for it shall be watching you, and the ghosts of our forefathers will see you fight and they shall remember!’

Each time he asked a question there was a roar of ‘Yes!’ Even Ganzorig roared as the bikers lifted their hunting lances in salute. Batbayar held out his arms. ‘The planet we strike today is hidden. The enemy think they can take worlds from our Great Father. Show them no mercy. Show them that there is no place they can hide from us! We shall hunt them, we shall find them, and we shall destroy them!’

Squad by squad the White Scars roared up the ramps, and one by one the Thunderhawks lifted, and then the gunships poured out into the silence of the void.

PART THREE
THE KILL

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Kill Team Zeal had been the first into the Proth System, so it was fitting that they made the first strike. While Moaz and Hadrian moved into their final positions, the others loaded into a boarding torpedo that burned a lone course towards the pale mass of Security Orbital VX-223. The single torpedo barely registered on the tau system monitors. Its size was, in space terms, barely a mote of dust, and compared to most celestial objects, it was moving at a crawl. It was not until a last defence drone picked it up on an automated sweep of the upper quadrant that the torpedo was even flagged as a potential threat.

By the time an alarm rang on the bridge and a remote gun turret lined it up in its sights, the torpedo was less than ten seconds from impact. Twin railguns fired a dazzling set of bracketing rounds at the object, but these coincided with the boarding torpedo’s impact thrusters firing on full. Its acceleration was so sudden that the carefully computed shots fell short, blasting out into the void.

‘Countdown commencing.’ The machine-spirit of the boarding torpedo had a stern female voice, full of bile and hatred for the xenos.

In the cramped space three warriors from Kill Team Zeal waited. Corith, Eadmund and Iason each stood ready in their black Terminator armour. The low red light of the torpedo’s core flickered as the auxiliary thrusters flared in the final moments before collision. Their harnesses braced them for the impact. There was a roar of melta charges, screaming metal, and then the staccato pop of stun grenades being fired into the cavity beyond.

The first tube held an automated assault cannon. As the ramps crashed down, the machine-spirit filled the empty chamber with a storm of shells. ‘Tube two,’ it announced, barely a second after the first, and the bracing straps dropped away as the tube entrance slammed down, filling the interior with light and smoke.

Corith, the Brazen Minotaur, led this mission. ‘Hatred is a gift from the Emperor,’ he voxed, tearing through an armoured bulkhead. ‘Use it well.’

As he ripped through the last of the structural bars blocking their way, Eadmund hosed flames from one side of the chamber to the other. They appeared to have hit a service conduit. There were the burning remains of an earth caste team in the far corner of the chamber.

‘We are too high,’ Corith voxed, but he had already planned the fastest route to the bridge and shared it via their helm displays. ‘Remember our mission. Disable, disorientate, destroy!’

The boots of the three suits of Terminator armour were like thunder. Eadmund went first, filling each room with burning promethium. At the third intersection a team of grey-armoured fire warriors made a brief and spirited stand, filling the corridor with micro-bursts of incandescent blue plasma, before they were driven back by Eadmund with heavy losses.

There were two more brief stands from the fire warriors as they put up a brave and commendable resistance. But in the close confines of the security orbital’s corridors and bulkheads, they were outgunned by the terrible ferocity of Kill Team Zeal.

Eadmund fought off ambushers with brief but deadly rounds of assault cannon fire. The tau commander responded with admirable speed, but even as the fire warriors were being marshalled, Kill Team Zeal were within a hundred feet of their target.

‘Hostiles,’ Corith voxed as he cut through the blast door and was met by a hailstorm of blue plasma. His armour flashed an amber warning. Corith slashed at the remains of the bulkhead, and then kicked his way through.

There had to be twenty fire warriors at least. Corith stomped forwards, lightning claws tearing through them. Kallos led the way as the other Terminators drove through and fired.

It was over in seconds. Promethium flames, assault cannon rounds and lightning claws turned the generator room into a smoking charnel house.

In the command hub of Security Orbital VX-223 sirens began to wail. The impact made the metal flooring tremble. There were shouts and orders.

Warning symbols flashed. An earth caste technician took a moment to locate the point of entry. ‘They have hit us just above the gunnery decks,’ he confirmed.

The air caste commander shouted desperately for the scanners to find something to shoot at: ‘We have been boarded. They have to have come from somewhere!’

The sound of fighting and explosions drifted up through the decks. Defence measures were being taken. Shas’vre Gru’eb was in command of the third shift. He was buckling on his body armour as he ran into the command hub with his elite warriors around him.

‘All combat teams scrambled. I have counter-assault drones. Fire warriors. Combat suits. I can confidently assure you that this assault will be contained.’

‘Gunnery decks compromised,’ another technician reported.

Shas’vre Gru’eb stared at the readings. ‘Seal off the Lower Third Quadrant.’

No one questioned his order. This was life and death now. There was no time to consider the fate of the tau who were locked into compromised sectors.

Shas’vre Gru’eb’s presence restored a moment of calm and control over the situation. He put in motion a series of countermeasures and the volume within the room rose as each took over a part of the defence. Raising shields. Redirecting power supplies. Shutting blast doors. Unlocking the close-quarter battlesuits.

‘Find where they are coming from,’ he ordered when there was a second thud.

‘Impact in the lower decks,’ a croaky-voiced earth caste technician reported.

‘Visuals!’ Gru’eb demanded.

The earth caste technician’s voice came back thirty seconds later with a visual from the gun drone sent to investigate. The boarding torpedo appeared empty.

‘Decoy,’ Shas’vre Gru’eb said with characteristic confidence. ‘Leave it.’

His voice betrayed the strain as he redeployed the station’s defence forces, but as he tried to get an answer from a commander in the Lower Third Quadrant, there was a third impact, much closer than the last two. The command deck shook violently. The lights flickered. Within seconds there was the scent of burning and the distinctive patter of bolters. Shas’vre Gru’eb’s response was immediate. ‘All cadres within two quadrants report to command hub. Gun drones redeploy. Kill on sight.’

There was an explosion and the blast doors rattled.

Shas’vre Gru’eb’s pulse carbine had remained slung across his back. He swung the strap back across his body, and loaded a fresh powercell. There was no time to get into his battlesuit. ‘I will try to hold them,’ he told the earth and air caste crew.

He took thirty fire warriors with him at a jog. The blast doors were sealed behind him and moments later the sound of fighting filled the corridor outside.

Cadmus, the Dark Angel, led the remaining members of Kill Team Zeal out of the third boarding torpedo. The Dark Angel knew all the known configurations of tau orbital stations. It took him less than a second to guess the mark of this particular platform.

‘Urchin four-three-zero,’ he announced. ‘The control centre is this way.’

The Imperial Fist, Cerys, cursed. His targeting matrix was ghosting. He reloaded his multi-melta and fired. The second time he compensated for the faulty system, and as the smoke cleared he saw that the blast doors had been reduced to dripping slag. The shower of molten metal had caused devastation in the corridor beyond. Searing beads of blue plasma lanced through the smoke. He snarled as a light dazzled him. A fraction of a second later there was a blast and a stink of burned flesh inside his helm.

He tried to find a target, but he felt tears on his cheeks and he could not open his eyes. ‘I’m hit,’ he cursed as he slammed into a bulkhead. He shook his head. ‘Visor.’

A hand caught his arm. ‘Got you,’ Cadmus voxed. ‘Nuoros. We’ll need you up front.’

It was not easy manoeuvring Terminator armour in the tight, low corridors of the tau orbital.

‘Covering you all,’ Nuoros, the Crimson Fist, voxed. There was a hollow patter as his storm shield took the brunt of the incoming fire.

‘Leave me,’ Cerys hissed, but the hand did not let go.

‘Can you see?’ Cadmus hissed.

The Imperial Fist shook his head from side to side. ‘Go on.’

‘We are not leaving you,’ Cadmus voxed.

The fire warriors had thrown up a hasty barricade of monitors and consoles and whatever else they could throw in the way of the attackers. Nuoros’ power axe smashed a way through in seconds. He drove the xenos off as Cerys tried to open his eyes. His left eye was gone, he was sure, but his right eye burned as he blinked away the tears, and there were flares of light and dark as the helm cleared of noxious fumes.

‘Helm systems are coming back,’ he said after a moment’s pause. ‘It’s getting better.’

The first thing he saw through his streaming eye was Cadmus’ black helm staring intently at him.

‘Can you see?’ the Dark Angel voxed.

‘Yes,’ Cerys hissed. ‘Just about.’

‘Good. Stay close,’ Cadmus told him.

The last stretch of corridor was crammed with fire warriors. Their leader was screaming as he sprinted down the corridor towards them. Behind him his warriors knelt and fired. Sparks flew. The air rang as grenades bounced and exploded. Two rounds hit Cadmus in the midriff, scorching insignificant marks in his Terminator armour. He clicked his assault cannon into action. The barrel whirled as he strode forwards. By the time he had reached the blast doors, his gun barrels were starting to smoke and the floor was slick with the blood of the dead.

Nuoros cut through another pair of blast doors with his axe. ‘We have reached the command entrance,’ he voxed as he kicked his way inside and punched the activation stud of his axe.

In the command hub the crew of earth and air castes looked at each other as they listened and tried to guess what was happening outside. ‘Surely our warriors will hold them off,’ the air caste commander said. His attendants nodded. Shas’vre Gru’eb had seemed so competent. There was no doubting his bravery. And he had thirty fire warriors, all armed and ready.

Despite all this, the noise grew louder, and closer. Something hammered on the blast doors. It sounded eerily like a tau hand, desperate to get in.

‘They’re coming!’ a technician shouted, his dry voice tight with terror. There were screams of tau, the roar of shooting, the stink of gue’la.

Another tau threw himself on the locking mechanism. ‘Closed. Locked and secured!’ he declared. He checked his readings and almost smiled with relief as the hammering started again. ‘The bulkheads are closed and locked,’ he repeated.

There was a shout as a crackling blue axe suddenly appeared through the metal. Then a great hand, flaring with blue light, crumpled the reinforced doorway and tore a chunk away. In three rips there was enough room for a foot, which kicked away the rest of the door, and then the gue’la were inside, and the command deck filled with the sound of dying.

The command hub was full of smoke and fires and fumes from the shattered consoles.

‘Command hub destroyed,’ Cadmus voxed.

Corith’s voice came back, heavy with exertion. ‘Charges laid along the power ducts. Six minutes until detonation.’

Nuoros led Cadmus and Cerys back through the scattered and wounded defenders. As they strode along the ruined corridors, the Dark Angel raised a vox-link to the Nemesis.

‘Charges laid,’ he announced. ‘We are making our way back. Cerys is hit. He is with us. We are going to get him out.’

They found a team of fire warriors battling with the boarding torpedo’s machine-spirit. They scattered as the thud of the Terminators echoed down the corridor, and Nuoros helped the Imperial Fist back into his harness.

Cadmus’ magazines were almost empty as he backed up the assault ramp. As soon as he reached the top, it slammed closed.

‘Disengaging,’ the machine-spirit announced.

The retro rockets blasted them free.

Thirty seconds after their torpedo had blasted out into the void, the charges blew. It took a few seconds for the overload to become critical, and then the super-heated cables ignited and a series of explosions in the lower decks spread rapidly as fireballs raced through the interior.

Without the command hub to section the blazes off they reached the magazines and a cascade of detonations rose up through the spine of the platform as the plasma bays ignited.

Security Orbital VX-223 exploded in a ball of blue flame and debris.

The crew of the tau escort-class Defender had spent the last month in diligent sweeps of the system. With its multi-arc railgun battery and recently modified and upgraded suite of torpedoes, the crew of this sturdy vessel were confident that they could fight off anything that strayed into their vicinity. So, they listened in astonishment as Security Orbital VX-223 was boarded by an unseen enemy.

‘Is this an exercise?’ their commander hissed, but the wild chatter that came over the intercoms was too chilling and convincing. You could not fake that terror as the bridge crew defended themselves. There was the sudden noise of gunfire and then the link was lost.

‘Visual,’ Kor’el Um’ng, air caste commander, ordered, and as the long craft swung about to come to the aid of the Security Orbital, its multi-arc railgun panned for targets. ‘Power to shields and close-range fire turrets.’

‘Shields raised,’ a keen technician reported. ‘All power subbed to anti-boarding defence arrays. Railgun charging.’

Automated quad ion turrets scanned close space, searching for boarding vessels.

Kor’el Um’ng bent over the consoles. ‘Bring us close. I cannot see what has attacked them.’

The Defender accelerated towards the Security Orbital as fires ignited on its underside. They watched in astonishment as Security Orbital VX-223 exploded in a shower of burning debris.

Kor’el Um’ng hailed his Shas’vre. His voice was calm. ‘Security Orbital lost. Prepare for possible boarding attack.’

‘Maximising all defences,’ Shas’vre Rs’tu responded. ‘Battlesuits deployed on all levels. We shall contain and then expel intruders.’

A siren blared, and one of the earth caste technicians pointed through the wide clear dome of the defence platform. A vast white shape was powering towards them.

‘Enemy identified. Gue’la.‘

The Defender’s shields flared as the White Scars strike cruiser opened fire. The barriers flickered and held. As soon as the chief gunner reported ‘Railgun charged,’ Kor’el Um’ng gave the order to return fire.

The vast railgun fired a solid munition the size of a land ship at a velocity unhindered by atmosphere. The energy of its passage lit a searing trail though the near-vacuum of space.

The first shot caused the shields of the White Scars strike cruiser to flare and already the second railgun was being brought to bear. But as it focused its energies on the enemy before it, a black shape came at it from the opposite direction, and opened up.

Nemesis’ dorsal lance batteries fixed the smaller craft in their sights, and fired as one.

The Defender’s gravitic shielding was overwhelmed by pinpoint lance strikes at the same time as the bombardment cannons spat fury across the void. The ordnance ripped great holes through the defence platform. Some of them tore right through, others exploded within, wreaking terrible carnage and setting off the generators in a ring of explosions that broke the Defender into three pieces, which peeled away from one another and tumbled burning to the planet’s surface.

The world had been stripped of its last defences, the way for the planetary assault was now clear.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

On the hill overlooking the starport, the southern terrestrial defence rig remained on automated watch as Shas’vre O’man lost his third game of p’ao. He shook his head in disgust at himself and went outside while Shas’ui K’len collected his winnings.

O’man threw on his coat and ducked through the exit hatch, rubbing his three-fingered hands against the cold. As he stood he saw a flare in the night sky. It grew in brightness until it was a star, gleaming – a star that started to fall to earth. By the time he ducked back in, Shas’ui K’len had turned the intercom on full. They listened in astonishment to the panicked exchanges from Orbital Security Platform VX-223. They heard the wild chatter as the crew defended themselves, and then there was the sudden noise of gunfire and the link was lost.

Shas’vre O’man vaulted into the gunner’s seat as a siren began to wail. The scanners had been blank five minutes ago. Now three blips showed up as clear marks on his targeter. Three mid-sized cruisers. He swung around to face the nearest of the enemy spacecraft.

‘Deploy stabilisers!’ he commanded, and the giant gun rig braced itself as its twin railguns traversed upwards, their generators beginning to whine as they powered up for the first shot.

Reports were coming through fast now as all the terrestrial defence rigs began to react. As information began to appear about the probable angle of attack, some of the great rigs lifted on their jet packs, looking for improved lines of fire, while others deployed stabilisers and charged their railguns for firing.

Shas’vre O’man had one of the best teams in the outfit. He was desperate to get the first kill, and had already calculated the attack vectors of an approaching gue’la spacecraft.

‘Targeting alien craft,’ he reported. ‘Estimated time to firing, four seconds.’ The electromagnetic generator whine reached a pitch of readiness. He made final adjustments for the distortion in the atmosphere and fired a solid projectile at speeds many times that of sound.

It still took eight seconds before his targeter confirmed a hit.

‘Reloading,’ Shas’ui K’len called as the railgun’s whine rose in pitch again. The six piston stabilisers that ringed the gun rig adjusted for recoil. The gue’la craft was not even bothering to take evasive manoeuvres. A drone alarm sounded.

‘Intruders,’ O’man called.

‘Gue’la approaching from the north!’ K’len shouted. O’man pulled up the visual on his screen. There was a bike, bouncing through the snow.

‘Lone gue’la?’ he checked, as the targeting matrix locked on to the spaceship.

‘Affirmative,’ K’len reported. ‘Drones deploying.’

In his helmet he could hear the targeting locks as the rig’s deployment of four drones aimed and fired. In the chamber the intruder alarm was still sounding. The main railgun powered up with a whine of electromagnetic force. As it fired, a cloud of snow rose about it, vibrant with the concussive aftershock. As he waited for the confirmation of a hit, O’man turned to his targeter. ‘Have the drones contained the threat?’

‘Hit!’ the targeter shouted. K’len checked outside. The gue’la rode a crude bike one-handed. It seemed impossible that one warrior would attack a weapon of war so vast and powerful it could knock out targets in space. But this warrior was.

‘Where are the drones?’ O’man demanded.

‘They are silent!’ K’len shouted.

‘Take him down.’ Shas’vre O’man’s voice betrayed a sudden sense of panic. ‘Get out there and deal with it.’

There was a rack of pulse rifles on the wall. K’len grabbed a pair and tossed them to the warriors next to him. ‘Let’s go!’

Kallos, Tyrannic War veteran of the Ultramarines Chapter, had been deployed from a Corvus Blackstar an hour earlier, his bike leaping from the hovering craft and landing with an explosion of snow and a crunch of suspension. This was how he loved to fight – alone, able to strike and move and strike once more. He had already disabled a pair of automated sentry drones and had come at this vast NG-4 terrestrial defence rig from the north, unseen, lying low as a Devilfish patrol hummed by, and now moving in for the kill.

The vast rig was a low dome, with a squat railgun pointing towards the sky. Its stabilisers had been driven deep into the ground. It fired with a crack of concussive energy that made the snow jump for hundreds of feet.

It disappeared for a moment as a fog of ice was thrown up about it. The turret swivelled and lined up for another shot. A drone appeared, targeter lights searching for him. Kallos fired one-handed as he wove from side to side. He knocked the first one down, and it fell smoking to the ground. Three more came for him. Kallos picked them off, the last one showering the ice with fragments of armour and wire and smouldering alloys.

His bike jumped over a hollow. Shapes emerged from the rig’s rear exit hatch.

He skidded as pulse rifle shots lanced towards him, then started returning fire. The twin-linked bolters hit a fire warrior in the chest and punched him back into the snow. He killed another before the third ran back inside, as hellfire rounds exploded about him.

The rig’s gravitic drive engaged, but its stabilisers had been driven too deep into the snow for it to come free. It shuddered as they held for a moment too long, then broke free with a low hiss, and the whole rig lifted and began to rise with a shower of snow and ice.

Kallos tore a melta bomb from his belt. By the time he had approached, the rig was already twenty feet above him. He engaged the magnetic clamp and hurled the melta bomb towards the rig’s underbelly. It hit with a satisfying clunk.

He swung his bike around and accelerated clear. The melta charge tore a hole in the rig’s belly, ripping through the power relays. The gravitational drive failed immediately. The vast gun rig lurched dangerously as the crew struggled to regain control, and then it slipped sideways and slammed into the ground with a shower of ice.

Kallos dismounted, slammed a fresh magazine of hellfire rounds into his bolter and strode towards the smoking gun rig. There was something almost tragic in such a vast weapon of war being unable to defend itself against a lone warrior, like him. It reminded him of a fearsome creature of the sea, left stranded and immobile as the waves retreated. He dragged the rear access hatch open. His helm’s sensors cut through the smoke and debris. Five crew still living. His helm retina display was already lining them up in neat order.

Five hellfire shots rang out.

Kallos’ black-booted feet crunched back towards his bike, as smoke continued to rise from the ruins of the gun rig.

Tau Objective One accomplished, Kallos swung a leg over the back of his bike and settled into his seat. This bike had kept him alive through the Tyrannic Wars. He trusted it as if it were a brother. He swung the front round as the tau camp lit up with floating gun rigs, Devilfish and the low red pilot lights of squadrons of drones, streaming out searching for foes.

The trick with any pugilist starting to rock backwards was to just keep hitting them until they fell over.

The back wheel spun for a moment as Kallos accelerated down the hillside. A drop pod left a long white contrail as it burned through the high atmosphere. He watched for a moment as it slammed into the ground with a great cloud of dust, and allowed himself a moment of brief satisfaction.

The direct assault phase had begun.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

In his command centre on M’Yan’Ral, Fireblade M’au stared at the contradictory information from sensor towers and drones, and could not understand what the readings were telling him. He could not contact either the Security Orbital or the kir’qarth, and now he was trying to raise a link to the next tau waystation to call for assistance.

At least, he thought, the enemy were still in space. With shields raised and their formidable terrestrial defence rigs, they should be able to hold off any enemy until assistance could be brought. Until then he needed to understand what was happening.

‘Find those missing patrols!’ he called to his aide, as Fio’ui Ph’al, chief earth caste technician of the base, came back after a thorough scan of read-outs.

‘Nothing, Shas’o,’ the technician reported with Ke’lshan certainty. ‘There is no trace. I have checked all the sensor drones and towers. There has been no infiltration. I can assure you that there are no enemies upon this planet.’

Fireblade M’au was not one for excessive displays of emotion, but he slammed his hand down, the three fingers splayed out wide. ‘Then what is that noise?’

The earth caste could hear the explosions as well as any of them, but he hesitated for a moment in confusion. ‘This doesn’t make sense,’ he said. ‘I see no way that the enemy could have infiltrated our defences.’

Fireblade M’au slammed his fist down again. ‘We are being attacked, and you have no trace of enemies landing. Nothing?’

The earth caste began to tremble. ‘Nothing!’

Fireblade M’au cursed as drone-captured pict-feeds of a piranha nose-diving into the lower slopes of Vespid Rock played on his visuals.

‘Something shot that down,’ he said.

Fio’ui Ph’al turned to his attendants and the earth caste bent over their instruments in a manner that showed that the readings made no sense to them.

‘No sign of infiltration,’ one of them said after a long pause.

Fireblade M’au cursed them again. ‘Then what is attacking us? I want answers. There are five hundred sensor turrets on this planet. One of them must be able to tell you something!’ He paced up and down the row of earth caste technicians. There was an air of tension as they flicked through screens, their flat, grey faces uplit by the glowing monitors, their long slender fingers punching buttons. An alarm went off, and one of the technicians jumped and hurried to shut it down as another explosion erupted to the south.

The ice beneath them trembled.

‘What was that?’ Commander M’au shouted.

This time the readings were clear. ‘Southern terrestrial planetary defence rig has… exploded.’

Two more explosions made the building rattle.

‘Get the shields up!’ he shouted.

There was a moment of frantic slamming of buttons and checking of display readings. ‘The shields are already up,’ one of the earth caste attendants said. His voice was hesitant.

‘How can they be up… unless the enemy are among us?’ M’au said, as realisation dawned on them all. ‘They are among us. All hunter cadres here to defend the base. Urgent call. Our defences have been compromised. Get me the other terrestrial defence rig commanders. Ask them to commence fire…’

‘Links are down.’

M’au slammed his hand against the central column. He calmed himself for a moment. They had conquered whole swathes of Taros with less forces than he had here now. ‘I want all forces armed and ready. Mantas, Stormsurges. Everything. We have to assume this is a critical situation.’

The orders were relayed along all the lines that were still working. Something roared overhead. A trail of missiles slammed into a Riptide. An explosion tore it apart and scattered smoking fragments for hundreds of yards in all directions.

‘Where is our air support?’ M’au shouted.

A drone pict-feed showed the space port. ‘Mantas are destroyed.’

‘They have been shot down?’ M’au was incredulous.

‘No, Fireblade. They did not make it off the ground.’

Fireblade M’au shouted for his bodyguard. ‘You will take your two best warriors and defend the Most Honoured One. The rest of you, with me. Get my battlesuit ready. It is time to fight.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The ice flats of the space port facility erupted in chaos as six deathstorm drop pods slammed onto the flats. One hit a Manta’s broad wing, smashing through to the ground beneath, before its payload of missiles exploded, flipping the huge craft onto its side where it began to burn.

The rest landed safely, their five assault ramps slamming down as assault cannons and missiles were unleashed into crews and craft alike. Within seconds the whole starport began to burn, as acrid smoke drifted across the facility.

Through the tumult rode Ultramarine Kallos, of Kill Team Zeal, his cape of tyranid hide flapping out behind him as he raced his bike along the lines of craft, picking out any that had escaped destruction. In his ear he could hear all the vox chatter of the Deathwatch kill teams as they fulfilled their missions.

Cadmus and Corith and the teams that had attacked the orbital station were racing planetwards in their Corvus Blackstar. Moaz had found a good place to hunker down and pick key targets off with his stalker-pattern bolter. Hadrian was somewhere on the other side of the space port directing the drop pods of Kill Team Faith. They were inbound already. Nergui had taken two of their brothers and they were falling from low orbit with their jump packs, ready to block any enemy counterattacks.

Kallos skidded to a halt by a Tigershark, slammed on a melta charge and kicked the bike around. You could not take something as large as a Manta or Tigershark with a single melta bomb, unless you knew exactly where to place them. Kallos had learnt much from fighting the Great Devourer, where only precision shots at eyes or into the mouths of carnifexes could hope to bring the creatures down. The Deathwatch specialised in such information. Kallos had found the Deathwatch libraries full of precise observations. He had spent years learning the anatomy of harpies and tervigons, where a Tigershark’s gravitic drive was situated, and how the xenos had tried to mask this fault in the AX10 model. It took him bare moments to pick his spot.

With the first he blew out the power cables that linked the cockpit to the steering thrusters. With the next he lit the port-side fuel tank, knowing it would soon bleed through to the main generator casing. The main generator whined as it failed and overheated, and the secondary explosion ripped through the vast craft as he accelerated along the lines of parked fliers, setting more charges. He passed a Deathstorm drop pod and heard the assault cannons reload as the machine-spirit identified him as a friendly target. He did not pause. He targeted a fuel tank behind him and it detonated as the first rounds hit it. Black smoke roiled skywards. Kallos was already swinging round the base of a burning Tigershark. Two Mantas were burning. He locked a melta bomb to the next. A shadow fell over him. A Manta was rising to the left. Smoke billowed about it as it displaced the air. He cursed and kicked his bike round a cylindrical fuel-hub, the engine screaming as he accelerated towards it.

He flicked a melta charge from the bandolier hung over the front of his bike and lobbed it up, but it failed to attach. A drone disengaged from the Manta’s right wing and swung its twin-linked guns towards him as he reared up on the bike’s back wheel and fired his front-mounted combi-plasmas into the Manta’s belly.

At this range he couldn’t miss. Both shots exploded on its underside, but it seemed almost unaffected as it rotated in the air above him. He cursed again and fired his bolter one-handed. A hellfire round hit the drone square on and its systems failed in rapid succession as the acids did their work.

‘One Manta has got away,’ he voxed.

For a moment there was silence. Then from the inbound Corvus, Cadmus spoke. The enmity was clear. ‘You let one go, Kallos?’

‘I hit it,’ the Ultramarine said as he swerved to avoid a second drone’s fire. ‘But it was too large.’

As a drone laced the ground with incendaries, Kallos drove one-handed, ducking under the Tigershark, round the observation tower and behind a fuel float, where an earth caste technician’s grey face peered out from under the wheels.

Kallos shot him in the chest, clamped a melta charge to the square fuel carriage and paused. ‘The Manta is flying south. The White Scars must be warned.’

Nergui’s voice suddenly crackled in their helmets. His voice faded in and out, but Kallos got the gist of what he was saying.

‘Yes, a Manta,’ Kallos hissed as he kicked his bike round a corner and met a pair of tau air caste pilots running in a strangely weightless bounce towards their crafts. They shouted something as they saw him. He slammed the first with his bike, tripped the second with a foot, skidded his bike round and put two bolts into its head.

Nergui’s voice was suddenly loud in Kallos’ earpiece. He looked up and could see the flames of the White Scar’s jump pack as he began to slow his descent.

‘I see it.’ Nergui’s voice was indistinct for a moment. ‘Throne,’ he cursed. ‘It’s almost in range.’

Nergui had never lost the White Scars’ love of the pinpoint strike. He had carried this method of war through to the Deathwatch, where he had specialised in the use of the jump pack to deal the foe a crushing blow. He named it the Eagle Strike: it was unseen, unstoppable, deadly. He had perfected it through ceaseless practice, falling like a stone and then firing his thrusters at the very last moment. He had spent years stationed at Talassa Prime, training others in this art. Moaz had been one of his first pupils, and was perhaps the only one who had bettered Nergui at it.

Today the White Scar stood with Elianus of the Howling Griffons and Imano, the Lamenter, in the black Thunderhawk. The rear ramp shuddered as he led them out. They were more than a mile above the ground. For a moment they stood facing into clouds.

‘Ready?’ Nergui voxed.

The two answered in affirmative. Nergui stepped off the end, and was gone.

Elianus jumped straight after. Imano, the Howling Griffon, always went last. ‘So I can clear up your mess,’ he liked to say.

They fell head first, locking on to the homing beacons set by Hadrian, senses honed and alert, weapons ready. Halfway through the fall the columns of black smoke cut off visual contact. It was then they heard the reports from the ground that a Manta was aloft.

‘This should not have happened,’ Nergui cursed, but there was no time for arguments. He switched to the personal channel with Imano and Elianus as he changed his angle of flight. ‘Follow me.’

As they came through the smoke, they could see the target below them and the Manta swinging round towards the south. It was wider than a Baneblade was long, and yet it moved with a strange speed and grace typical of these xenos. It started to accelerate. The distance made it look slow at first, but as they fell towards it they could see it moved at speed.

‘It’s going too fast,’ Elianus hissed as he struggled to change his angle of attack.

Nergui did not respond. He was an eagle in the sky above Chogoris, falling towards its prey. All the world was the Manta, the roar of the air passing his helmet, and the fury of the righteous.

The Manta’s wing lifted as it banked. He fired his jump pack too late and the vast wing slammed his knees against his chin. Something cracked in his jaw. His retinal display froze for a moment as he caught a wing strut and dragged himself out along the central fuselage.

The wing-mounted drones spun in their sockets and fired. ‘With you!’ Elianus voxed, but the Manta was rolling side to side in an effort to dislodge them, and he mistimed his jump pack’s thrust, slammed down the length of the Manta’s flat top, and scraped along the wing as he scrabbled for purchase. He managed to catch a hold of the engine intake, but as the Manta accelerated with punishing force, his fingers were wrenched free, and he tumbled back and out in its wake.

Imano came in higher. He hit the Manta just behind the port drone. His mag-locks slammed onto the Manta’s wing and held, and he grunted in pain as he was body slammed backwards along the craft’s surface. It took a moment for him to turn to the side to engage a melta bomb, only to find that his charge had been thrown clear by the force of his landing.

The port-side drone swung about and fired. Imano felt the impacts across his chest-plate as he grabbed a krak grenade from his belt. The explosive blew a hole deep enough to reach the Manta’s core.

Rounds struck his pauldron. A drone had swung about and was firing at him at almost point-blank range. Warning runes began to flash red.

He put three hellfire rounds into the front of the drone. The bio-acids fizzed as they burned through metal plating.

Imano dropped a melta bomb into the blackened hole, disengaged his mag-lock and kicked free. The charge blew a hole a hand span wide in the upper wing, but failed to take out any critical systems. It was like a gnat bite on a behemoth.

Only Nergui was left, hanging precariously from an engine inlet on the central fuselage. He snarled as he forced himself along it. The acceleration of the Manta made it an effort just to drag himself forwards. Fire was coming from all directions. There was a stab of pain in his left side, but it only made him more determined. He pulled himself to the front of the craft. ‘Suffer not the alien to fly,’ he hissed as he slammed three melta charges onto the top of the pilot’s cabin, disengaged his mag-locks at the same time, and tumbled off into the Manta’s slipstream.

The Manta roared into the distance. Three seconds after Nergui had disengaged, the melta charges blew. The force of the blast struck straight down into the main chamber of the Manta, killing the shas’vre and half his hunter cadre instantly. It crippled the craft’s gravitational drive and filled the pilots’ cabin with beads of molten steel.

Both air caste pilots were killed in moments, and as the gravitational field upon which the great craft floated began to fail, its nose tilted down and it slammed straight into the ground, skidding for three hundred yards before tipping over and exploding in a great fireball.

Nergui switched back to broadcast mode on his vox. ‘Manta down. The skies are clear.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Shas’vre Ch’an woke with a start.

For a moment he was back on Mu’gulath Bay, the dust of the cinderplains clogging up his ventilation ducts, surrounded by burning Imperial tanks, thick billowing smoke, shots and screams of the dying. Through the smoke he saw a new Imperial division charging towards them, alarms sounding in his battlesuit as the enemy began to fire.

And then he was in his dorm. In bunk Y-445.

The dream was over, but the alarms were still sounding.

His heart was racing as he pushed himself up. There was sweat on his leathery brow.

H’an slid down, eyes puffy with sleep. ‘What is it?’

Ch’an was already moving towards the door. ‘Quick! We’re being attacked.’

The dome’s corridors were already filling up as the secure doors slammed down. Ch’an and H’an pushed past the rushing fire warriors to the lift. They were herding everyone down to the sublevels. It had been locked down.

‘The stairs,’ Ch’an said.

He should have brought his stick. Ch’an cursed himself and put a hand to the wall to help himself along.

Something exploded outside. The hab-dome’s shields were still up, but the complex shook, and the lights flickered out for a moment. H’an steadied the older warrior. ‘We’re supposed to stay inside,’ he said.

‘Don’t be stupid!’ The retort was stinging. ‘Do you want to die here, like this?’

‘But Fireblade M’au… The Most Honoured One…’

Ch’an nodded. ‘Yes. They were wrong! The gue’la have found us. If we can get to the suiting chambers, we can get into a Stormsurge.’

The building rocked again. The shields were still holding, though the room shook violently. Ch’an dragged himself up the wide stairs. The air smelt of cordite and plasma. The lights flickered as the ground trembled with the low thuds of explosions.

Tracers wound up into the darkness. A Riptide briefly strobed the night as its railgun fired. A drop pod landed beyond the void shield. As it hit the ground the petals slammed down, and then the yard was full of shooting as a flight of piranhas swept overhead, destroying it in moments.

At the exit there was a crowd of warriors trying to push past the guards at the door. The shas’vre was a serious young Ke’lshan. His voice did not carry. He kept repeating, ‘You must stay inside. Here we can protect you. Here you will be safe. Please do not try to push past us. The attack will be repelled. All our forces have been mobilised. Sept Ke’lshan is honoured to have this great duty. Down to the sublevels!’

He had twenty guards with him, half of them facing outwards, their fingers pressed to their ear-beads, engaged in a tense conversation. Ch’an cursed. There was no way out here. They had to trust to Sept Ke’lshan, but survival had taught Ch’an one thing: it was sometimes better to work alone.

His fingers were tight on H’an’s sleeve. ‘We have to get out there. We have to fight. Is there another way?’

H’an thought for a moment. ‘There’s an exit through the kitchens. It opens out behind the generators.’

‘Let’s go!’

They turned and pushed through the warriors who were coming up the stairs. One of them was Sham’bal. He grabbed Ch’an’s arm. ‘Any idea what’s happening?’

‘The gue’la have found us!’ Ch’an shouted back. ‘The Ke’lshan won’t let us leave. We’re going through the kitchen. We have to get out. We have to fight them.’

They took the back spiral to the kitchens, Sham’bal bent low as he hurried down the corridor. A rocket went off just overhead and the explosion rocked the building. Two more followed, each one impacting in the air above them.

‘Shields are still up,’ Sham’bal shouted.

Ch’an looked up for a moment. The shields could not hold indefinitely. He pushed the cadets and pilots before him. The food sharing hall was scattered with the remains of half-eaten meals that had been abandoned. The kitchen doors were open. Ch’an led them into the darkened room. The hum of refrigeration units was drowned out by the noise of approaching battle. They pushed past and one of the running warriors knocked a fridge door open. Its contents spilt out in a shower of tins. Ch’an tripped and H’an fell with the weight of him.

Ch’an let out a moan. The pain in his leg was excruciating. He felt sick. It was as if his bones had broken once more.

‘Are you well, master?’ H’an said.

Ch’an pushed himself up. He could not speak for a moment. He swallowed, drew in a deep breath and nodded. ‘You landed on my leg,’ he managed to say. H’an was appalled. ‘It’s fine. Just help me up.’ Ch’an was unsteady on his feet and threw an arm over H’an’s shoulders.

‘Gently,’ Ch’an managed to say. He felt nauseous. He blinked to try to clear his head. He had to find a battlesuit. He had to fight for his people. His sept. His civilisation.

Sham’bal’s mind was already ahead of him, in his Stormsurge suit, starting up the systems. His mind ran through all the checks, slammed the generator on and stomped out, weapons primed.

‘Come!’ he hissed to the others. ‘Come!’

The kitchen service doors were shut, only the thin crack of light showing where the two portals met in the middle. A Vas’talos pilot was already at the door, punching in an access code as the others bunched up in anticipation. Sham’bal turned. Ch’an had fallen behind. He had an arm draped over his cadet’s shoulder, and the two were moving slowly about the sharp edges of the cutting counters.

Ch’an saw his friend waiting and forced a smile. ‘You lead them!’ he said. ‘But don’t let them take all the suits. Leave one for us!’

Sham’bal nodded. The sept code was recognised. As the doors slid upwards the cold air rushed in. It stank of battle. Flames guttered bright against the night sky and the first warriors were ducking through the opening when someone shouted a warning.

‘Shut the doors!’ Sham’bal shouted, but it was too late.

Silhouetted against the light were the giant shapes of gue’la warriors.

‘Back!’ Sham’bal shouted. ‘Back!’ The doors slid wide open, and the room was full of sparks and fury as rounds ricocheted about them.

Sham’bal found himself lying under a table, his neck at a sharp angle, his head pressed down onto the soft black tiles. He did not feel any pain, but he knew he had been hit. He could see the hole in his chest, could see the long black smear that he had left down the white wall.

His mind flickered back to being in a Stormsurge suit. He loved the height the suit gave him, looking down on the world as he bent the suit’s legs and prepared to fire. As his eyes opened, he saw a shadow. It was three times his height, eye sockets lit with a dull red light as they turned towards him.

He saw the gun muzzle point, saw the flash of a round being fired, and the flare that followed it.

Shas’el Sham’bal closed his eyes and felt himself inside the Stormsurge… and then his fantasy ended as the snub-nosed hellfire and its payload of bio-acids ripped through him.

The shooting went on for what seemed like an age, slowing from a storm to an irregular patter. H’an lay on the floor of the kitchens with Ch’an under him.

‘Master,’ he hissed.

Ch’an squeezed his arm in response to show that he was here and alive. They scrabbled behind the fridge door, drew their legs up tight to their bodies and tried not to breathe.

The gunshots came closer. H’an realised with a chill that the gue’la were moving inside, executing each warrior. Someone cursed the gue’la. Another shouted the name of her sept. Ch’an put a finger on H’an’s arm.

The cadet turned. He was bonded to this veteran warrior, and the look in Ch’an’s face – flat, solemn, impassive – calmed him for a moment.

There were harsh alien voices, the unmistakable sound of a fresh magazine being slammed into a gun and another shot rang out as the footsteps came closer. The look in the older warrior’s eyes was of warning. H’an understood. There could be no sound or they would both die.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

‘Last’ Leonas had been tense as the kill teams assembled for the briefing on the Nemesis, but there was no need. All of them had known that there was only one Space Marine who could lead the attack on the hab-dome – and it had to be him.

He was the only surviving member of Kill Team Primus. He had been captured and tortured. He had many grievances, but most of all, he had a lot to prove.

Cadvan brought the Corvus Blackstar in so low that they could hear the scrape of snow as they skimmed over the surface, and Leonas had been the first out – leaping from the front hatch and landing with a crunch.

Cadvan banked up and away, as Leonas led the kill team forwards at a run.

He ran straight into the path of fifty fire warriors and a trio of their smaller battlesuits, skimming towards them.

‘Contacts,’ Leonas voxed and fired his plasma gun. He hit a drone with the first shot, one of the battlesuits with the next. The plasma punched it back into the path of the fire warriors.

The fight was ferocious and brutal. Ragris cut one of battlesuits apart with his power axe as he was hit in the back by a bolt of plasma. He burned alive inside his suit. None of them could help him.

‘Atilio!’ Leonas voxed. The Ultramarine had the storm shield. He should be here to cover them, but what was left of Atilio was slumped against a lump of wreckage. Even his storm shield had been deformed by the power of the blast that had killed him. They were out in the open, outnumbered and out-gunned, and he had already lost two brothers.

It was fifty yards to the hab-dome’s doors. There was only one thing for it, Leonas thought, as his lightning claw crackled with furious blue light – and he charged.

The Corvus Blackstar had brought Konrad Raimer and his men to within five hundred yards of the hab-dome without the enemy even knowing that they were there. They deployed without resistance, marching across the open snow, guns ready to fire. Sardegna’s heavy bolter had knocked a heavy gun drone out, and then they were at the back door.

Domitian had insisted they attack the service entrance, and as they approached the sealed doorway, Konrad pulled a melta charge from his belt.

Before he could set the charge in place the door began to rise.

‘I told you,’ Domitian voxed.

‘It seems you were right,’ Konrad said.

The tau were astonished to see Space Marines at their back door. The front ones fell back in terror as those behind pushed forwards. All of them died. And then Konrad’s squad were inside, moving through what appeared to be a kitchen, executing the survivors.

Domitian led his warriors in over the mangled bodies of the tau. While the guards wore Ke’lshan grey, these bodies wore badges of a multitude of different septs.

‘Thirty-two tau confirmed dead,’ he voxed. ‘Entering hab-dome now.’

It was fifteen feet to the third battlesuit, Leonas reckoned, as he led the charge on the front gate. The suit was already skimming about to face him, underslung plasmas heating rapidly.

Leonas’ combi-plasma was already spent. He held the gun out before him and pumped the enemy with bolt-rounds. At such short range, the mass-reactive shots slammed into the battlesuit’s armour, knocking the foe off balance.

But not, Leonas realised, for long enough.

The twin barrels of the battlesuit swung towards him.

He found the sept markings. Ke’lshan, he saw with fury.

I am going to die at the hands of the Ke’lshan and with me shall end the ten-thousand-year history of the Black Consuls Chapter, he thought. This was not how he imagined his brotherhood ending, on an unknown planet in the Damocles Gulf, charging into a host of foes.

Leonas had saved the round imprinted with Nidal until now. He slammed it into his bolter and roared his fury as his power-armoured legs forced his massive bulk towards the enemy, firing wildly.

There was a muffled crack in his vox as the battlesuit fired. The globe of plasma shed white flames as it spat from the twinned barrels. Leonas’ visor compensated, dimming the world to soften the glare of the shot. Warning runes flared as the plasma impacted on his armour, and he knew that in a second, as the plasma tore through the layers of ablative ceramite, he would be dead.

But then the heat was gone. The shots had scored a groove through his shoulder guard, and he was still driving forwards, with only two strides between them.

Leonas laughed as he realised that his enemy had just fired both his guns and missed, and as Moaz’s voice came in his ear, he understood.

‘I spoiled his aim. Now you kill him!’ the Raven Guard sniper voxed.

Leonas plunged the points of his lightning claw through the belly of the battlesuit and ripped out part of the crew inside. He felt more cracks of the stalker-pattern boltgun, and realised that he was hearing the shots through Moaz’s vox-link.

Leonas did not pause. He singled out the fire warrior leader, cut him into shreds with his lightning claw, and kept moving.

‘Keep it up,’ Moaz voxed, and Leonas heard the muffled crack in his earbud and felt the bolt-rounds whizz past his helmet.

Harath, the Salamander, was the only warrior still beside him, killing tau fire warriors with a master-crafted thunder hammer. The two of them waded through the fire warriors, mowing the enemy down.

‘I’m with you!’ a voice shouted, and the Black Shield, Hadrian, appeared, bolt pistol in one hand, power sword in the other, cutting his way through the foe. ‘Come!’ the Black Shield voxed. ‘The cadets are inside the hab-dome!’

Leonas wiped the splattered blood from his helm lenses and saw both that the enemy were dead and that there were more – hundreds of them – coming at a run from the south west with two Devilfish and a Hammerhead approaching from the direction of the starport.

Wherever Moaz was, it was obvious that he had to get clear.

‘I’ve got trouble,’ he voxed suddenly, and Leonas started sprinting towards the hab-dome’s gates.

‘Follow me!’ he shouted to Harath and Hadrian as he slammed vengeance rounds into his storm bolter and fired wildly as he charged. ‘Let’s get inside!’

Leonas reached the gates of the hab-dome. The entire team were wounded.

He kicked a way through the doorway as the Hammerhead fired and the shot landed short, showering them with dirt and ice. Hadrian and Harath were right behind him. They had to keep moving inside. They had to disable the shield and find the cadets.

It was furious hand-to-hand killing with the three Space Marines working as one. Harath was a stalwart. Hadrian fought with murderous speed. The defence stubbornly clogged the corridors. They were fire warriors, as far as he could tell, though there were others mixed in. Earth caste, he thought, their bodies packed in with the rest. Two battlesuits.

It took nearly two minutes to clear the defenders at the head of the stairwell and more fire warriors were coming into the hab-dome behind them. Hadrian was keeping them at bay.

This mission was going badly wrong.

‘No sign of tau,’ Leonas voxed, then, as fire warriors appeared behind them, he added, ‘I thought the White Scars were drawing off the enemy!’

He ducked back as what looked like a stealth battlesuit appeared across the dome. A searing stab of blue plasma lit the corridor from within. Leonas felt the shot pass inches in front of him, then lifted his storm bolter and fired. He had no idea if he had hit or not, but jumped out. He was furious.

‘What are the White Scars doing?’ he said, as he ran into a squad of fire warriors and emptied a magazine into them.

They were going too slowly. ‘We’re being bogged down!’ he voxed. ‘Nergui? Konrad?’

There was no response.

‘Domitian!’

Nothing. Leonas’ storm bolter magazine clicked empty. He slammed it into the face of a fire warrior and felt bones break. Tightly synchronised plans tended to unravel. Leonas cursed. It was taking too long for the White Scars to strike, and they still had not managed to get the hab-dome’s shields down.

CHAPTER THIRTY

The footsteps had long since passed through the kitchen, but H’an did not dare move.

He was shivering with cold and terror. Ch’an reached out and took his hand.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘We must go. We must fight!’

From inside the stairwell there was the echo of gunfire. H’an closed his eyes as if he could will it all away. ‘Come!’ Ch’an dragged at H’an’s arm, but his gunner would not move. Ch’an pulled him. ‘Come!’ the veteran said again. ‘We must fight!’

Ch’an dragged H’an from the ground, and pulled him through the ruins of the kitchen.

The smell of burned skin and blood was thick on the air. The door had been jammed open, the control hatch shot away. H’an gazed out at the scene before him in a flat-faced look of horror.

The space port burned as fuel dumps lit the sky, and tracers and pulse rounds stabbed into the night. The planetary defence turrets were burning like beacons on the four hills. There were heaps of dead fire warriors, lying where they had fallen.

A Ke’lshan fire warrior ran from the direction of Fireblade M’au’s command dome. A sniper shot rang out, and the warrior fell as if punched in the side of the head, and did not move again.

H’an was terrified. But he drew strength from his bonded pilot.

‘Will we make it?’ he hissed.

‘I cannot say,’ Ch’an said. ‘But we have to make the effort.’

Ch’an set off. H’an watched him, limping across the ice and then crouching as he ran. He caught the older warrior up, put his arm under his armpit and took his weight.

The two – pilot and gunner – struggled across the ice. A stray round hissed past their heads and Ch’an fell behind a defensive barrier.

H’an touched something warm. At his feet a disembowelled Ke’lshan fire warrior was already beginning to stiffen with cold. He recoiled and wiped the gore from his palm.

The defensive line led to within thirty feet of the suiting domes.

‘Let’s crawl,’ Ch’an said.

It was a painfully slow process. There were dead warriors lying where they had fought, but the battle had passed on, and the suiting dome seemed quiet and silent.

It took ten minutes for H’an to pull Ch’an across the compacted snow. At last they came to the entrance.

H’an reached up and slammed the access stud but it did not move. ‘Locked,’ he hissed, and pounded on the door with his fist.

‘Try the code.’

A missile exploded fifty feet away and the flash blinded H’an for a moment. He managed to punch the code in. The door hummed and slid open.

As it closed behind them, Ch’an rose to his feet. Above them, each standing in its chamber, ten Stormsurge battlesuits stood waiting, batteries charged, guns loaded, ready for battle.

Ch’an turned to his bonded gunner and the two of them clasped hands.

‘They are waiting for us,’ Ch’an said, and slowly and solemnly the two warriors approached the battlesuit, and bowed.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Aun’ui Hoo’nan’s personal quarters were in a separate complex. As soon as he had left his command bunker, Fireblade M’au knew that his first duty was to ensure the ethereal’s safety. He gave orders for his battlesuit to be made ready and then went to personally inform Aun’ui Hoo’nan of the danger.

The ethereal was sitting in his meditation chamber, his robes arranged about him and his hands folded neatly in his lap. He spoke with slow and deliberate tones, seemingly unaware of the explosions outside. At one point he looked up and said, ‘Fireblade. Do you think the facility is in danger?’

Another boom sounded from the direction of the space port. The explosion made the ground tremble. Fireblade M’au thought about this and said, ‘No. We have assessed the risk. Our fire warriors are being recalled from their forward bases. Hunter Cadres Three and Nine are both within minutes of the base. Hunter Cadre Five will be here within half a dec. Seven and Four are also on their way.’

The ethereal took in the information and nodded slowly. ‘You are concerned, though, for my safety.’

Fireblade M’au bowed. ‘Always.’

The ethereal nodded. ‘And you would like me to go somewhere… more steadfast.’

Fireblade M’au bowed once more. ‘Yes, Most Honoured One. I have asked for a chamber to be made ready for you in the sublevels. I have sent the great strength of Hunter Cadre One there. They will protect both you and the cadets. The safety of you and the cadets is my prime concern. My warriors and I will make sure that you are secure.’

Aun’ui Hoo’nan thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘As you wish.’

It was too dangerous for Aun’ui Hoo’nan to cross the open ground between his personal quarters and the hab-dome, so a Devilfish was brought up, and an honour guard of Ke’lshan fire warriors stood around him as the ethereal was escorted into the back.

‘Apologies,’ Fireblade M’au said. ‘We have not had sufficient time to make this more comfortable.’

Aun’ui Hoo’nan smiled. ‘Do not trouble yourself,’ he said. ‘This is a moment of trial for us all.’

The fire warriors stood guard as the ethereal was made comfortable, and Fireblade M’au stepped inside and personally oversaw the whole process. Aun’ui Hoo’nan seemed almost apologetic for the inconvenience he was causing, and his humility only made their feelings for him more intense. He was both wise and humble. He was greater than them in all things. Fireblade M’au felt this as keenly as the others. At the end he bowed once more and apologised.

‘I have no doubt,’ Aun’ui Hoo’nan said, ‘that you will deal with this threat. You have been chosen, Fireblade M’au. You are one of our sept’s finest warriors. You will honour our sept. Of that, I am sure.’

Fireblade M’au bowed a third time and then dismounted. As the rear hatch closed he slammed his hand onto the fuselage as a signal for the driver to set off. A pair of Devilfish escorted it across the yard to the hab-dome. He watched them enter the dome’s transport hatch in single file, and did not leave until he had the report that they were safe inside.

He led his bodyguards to his personal armoury, issuing orders all the time to his hunter cadre’s shas’vre. ‘Secure the hab-dome. All cadets are to wait in the sublevel. Aun’ui Hoo’nan must be protected within the substructure. If any of the enemy break in then they must be resisted with all strength. Reinforcements are on the way.’

A tau philosopher once said that there was no greater unity than between bonded warriors, or a warrior and his battlesuit.

It was so with Fireblade M’au. When he was harnessed inside his Crisis suit he felt greater than he had been before. He scrolled through the internal data logs and flexed the arms of his XV8. His right armhad a double-barrelled plasma rifle, the left a long shield generator – the most up-to-date Ke’lshan could equip him with.

He sat back in his suit’s cabin. The hatches closed about him; lights, monitors, gun readings all came to life at his touch. He sent out a message to all shas’vres. ‘Fireblade M’au is now personally leading the defence of M’Yan’Ral.’

With those words his battlesuit lifted from the ground and his shas’vre bodyguards trailed after with a cohort of drones in close support.

Fireblade M’au rallied the remains of the M’Yan’Ral guards as the attack on the hab dome started. The speed and power of the attack had rocked his forces back.

Earth caste technicians fed him constant streams of information, gleaned from drone observations, turrets and teams of fire warriors. Pict-feeds fed into his battlesuit from drones and observation turrets. The gue’la were few in number. No more than twenty, he was sure. His confidence rose with each minute as the attack on the hab-dome stalled and drone pict-feeds showed dead gue’la. Their drop pods had exhausted their ammunition by now, or had been knocked out by precision strikes from the Hammerheads. Three Razorsharks had managed to get aloft and were hunting a biker across the crater fields. A team of stealthsuits had tracked down a sniper and were playing a deadly game of cat and mouse through the wreckage of the starports. The vespid claimed to have killed a gue’la near their rock. They had joined up with Hunter Cadres Three and Nine, and both of them were skimming over the snow to join him. Kroot patrols were being brought in as the hunter cadres came across them.

Pathfinders were to join the Devilfish and Hammerheads to clear the space port of remaining infiltrators. His Crisis suits and fire warrior strike teams were to storm the hab-dome after the infiltrators and kill them before they managed to fight their way through to the sublevels.

The stresses of managing a camp of cadets began to lift from his shoulders. Fireblade M’au smiled for the first time in months, as he began marshalling his hunter cadres into their attack formations. This was war. It was what he was born for. It was what he excelled at.

The upset would be unfortunate, but it would be contained, he decided. The honour of Sept Ke’lshan would be enhanced. As he considered this, a new pict-feed streamed into his battlesuit displays.

It was an infrared image from a pathfinder team attached to Hunter Cadre Five. He paused for a moment, not believing what he saw. A new gue’la, largely mechanised, with strong air support.

His optimism ebbed. But there was no time for shock. The gue’la had caught them out a second time. But war was all about outmanoeuvring the enemy. It was about surprise and overwhelming force delivered with a pinpoint precision.

He started redeploying his forces to counter this new threat.

Leading an impromptu force of vespid, pathfinders, Devilfish and a Hammerhead, Fireblade M’au nagged away at the flanks of the White Scars time and again. His railgun’s shots left great steaming craters in the ice, and every time the White Scars tried to move forwards he engaged them in a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Each time the gue’la bikes and speeders tried to turn his flank or encircle him, the tau commander pulled his forces back, regrouping for another strike. As the White Scars columns drove inexorably forwards he became more reckless.

‘They cannot be allowed near to the hab-dome. Stall them. As soon as the hunter cadres arrive we will destroy them.’

Fireblade M’au would not let Sept Ke’lshan’s honour be besmirched. They would meet this threat and destroy it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The Fire Raptor Obos led the Thunderhawks and escorts of the Fourth Company of White Scars in over the route that Moaz had created through the dead zone in the remote sensor fields. Inside the tight confines of their transports the White Scars warriors were exultant – even the machine-spirits seemed to sense the joyful mood among the warriors, as a Chogorean steed will sense the mood of its rider and stretch out her neck so that the mane flies free.

Battle was in the souls of the White Scars. Few Chapters approached danger with such joy. It was a wild, dangerous and exultant thrill. They were weapons made flesh, and they were going to do what they lived for: kill the enemies of mankind. It made them laugh out loud as they waited inside the Thunderhawks.

The Fire Raptor’s machine-spirit searched for targets. Behind the gunship the four White Scars Thunderhawks followed in formation, two carrying a load of Razorbacks and Predators, as a pair of Stormravens flew on the flanks and Stormtalons brought up the rear.

The flight came in low over the snow, their engines kicking up a great tail of ice dust behind them. For the first twenty-five minutes they encountered no opposition beyond a heavy drone flight, whose targeting matrix immediately identified the craft as hostiles and tried to make a stand. Obos lined the three drones up and its twin-linked avenger bolt cannons fired. The ancient craft slowed for a moment with the backward force of her guns and the drones disintegrated before their internal logic systems could broadcast an alarm.

Without their remote sensors to show them where the targets might be, the automated gun turrets sat idle and inactive as the White Scars roared overhead. The White Scars cut straight through the outer defences and were seven minutes from contact when they encountered the first fire team patrols. There were two Devilfish –their crews were dismounted and exchanging news when one of them saw Obos and shouted.

The two crews were dashing back to their transports when a hunter-killer missile hit one of the craft halfway up the nose cone. It exploded in a shower of flaming debris at the same time as the second was hit in the rear port engine. The explosion knocked out the grav drives, and it slammed to the ice, rear first, hissing smoke from its fuel lines. The pilot bailed out just as a pair of well-aimed lascannon shots hit the main body and the inside exploded, sending a sheet of flame venting from the open hatches. Flaming bodies tumbled out. One of the fire warriors knelt to fire his pulse rifle.

His shots seared the Fire Raptor’s ceramite plating. The shas’vre was desperately trying to raise the nearest pathfinder team when the avenger bolt cannon whirred. Brass casings rained down as it hosed the wreckage with fist-sized mass-reactive shells.

A freezing mist of ice and blood rose where the tau had been. It billowed as the flight passed overhead, and slowly settled as they moved on, revealing a scene of utter destruction.

They were five minutes from contact when a third Devilfish, racing to investigate the lost cadres, hastily turned tail having seen the assault flight coming in low. A Land Speeder cut it off as it tried to circle away, a multi-melta shot winging it and causing it to spin out of control and crash nose first into a fist of a black rock.

Scout Sergeant Törömbaater jumped from the Land Speeder as it swung around for another shot. He approached to within ten feet of the burning wreck as the Thunderhawks roared overhead.

‘No survivors,’ he laughed and slammed his bolt pistol back into its holster.

The Land Speeder came back round for him and he jumped and caught the foot plate, swinging himself up as the pilot raced after the other fliers.

Two miles from the target, the Thunderhawk transporters lowered their landing gear and settled in the snow as their engines powered down for a moment. The Predators and Razorbacks disengaged from under the Thunderhawks’ fuselage, gun turrets already tracking for targets as they took up flanking positions. One by one the Thunderhawks’ front ramps slammed forwards and the white bikes roared out like steppe wolves eager for the kill.

Payloads empty, the Thunderhawks roared back into the air, swinging back to retreat to a safe distance, while the Stormravens and Stormtalons positioned themselves in close support. Fifty bikers charged forwards, with Batbayar leading them, pennants flying from the banner-poles on the back of his bike, Qorchi. The vehicle was a steed as old as the Chapter itself, a thing of simple and elegant lines, the horse-shaped head at the front lowered as if in a charge, a melta gun jutting out from the prow. In his hand Batbayar carried a great single-edged cutlass, named Greenfire. It crackled with eldritch light as he powered his bike forwards, moustaches streaming behind him.

He remained always ahead of his warriors, but right behind him came Ganzorig, the eagle banner held in his out-flung fist, riding one-handed. Around them both was the honour guard of the Tulwar Brotherhood, each one wielding an ancient power sword, and then came the squads of White Scars arranged in a great V formation, with Land Speeders, attack bikes and fliers roaring in behind.

Batbayar raised Greenfire to the skies and roared a war-cry ten thousand years old.

‘For the Khan and the Emperor!’

Batbayar Khan drove his columns onwards with relentless energy, always countering ambushers with squadrons of bikes and Land Speeders, and aerial attack runs.

He was the khan of the Tulwar Brotherhood, and he would not be held back. At last he broke through a swarm of drones and the way to the production facility was open.

Batbayar Khan was exultant as he led the charge straight towards the production facility. There was nothing better than the wind in your hair, the smell of promethium and the roar of chainswords, eager as hunting hounds.

Ganzorig pointed to a stealth team trying to return to their transport. They were right in the path of the White Scars onslaught, and there was no escape.

Their drones came straight towards the Space Marines in a futile effort to slow Batbayar down. They were barely a bump under the wheels of the bikers.

The stealth team turned and realised they were never going to escape. Five of them formed up bravely. Batbayar drove one down as he shot another. Ganzorig speared a third, and the heads of the others were claimed by warriors in the first and sixth squads.

The bikers crested a low rise, and there before them was the camp – already burning. Gun rigs were deploying in a line before the starport. The Tulwar Brotherhood were upon them before they could even deploy their stabilisers.

They rode the first line down. The crews were beheaded, their gun rigs destroyed by melta fire. The second at least managed to get off a salvo of shots before Obos roared in. Her avenger bolt cannon made a sound like ripping steel as its mass-reactive fire strafed along the line of rigs, tearing crew and weapon chassis apart, while the accompanying Stormravens’ twin-linked lascannons blew holes through the armoured compartments as if they were wax.

The third line of mobile gun rigs managed to get away. All three of them headed left, seeking to outflank the White Scars. They paused at a distance of half a mile to fire quick shots at the enemy. But the flankers had been outflanked. The White Scars spread the wings of their attack wide, and Scout bikers and Land Speeders caught the tau unawares, and destroyed them.

It was only the charge of the kroot that saved the base from being overrun in the first minutes. While half of their three hundred warrior strength was out on patrol, the rest had reacted with alarm and were waiting in their camp for the attack, armed and ready.

None had come, and kroot messengers that had been sent out to the base had not reported back, so until they saw an enemy their shapers had come together in council and decided to wait, and watch.

The White Scars assault was the first enemy they had seen and their shapers had no doubt that the tau masters would want them to fight. They came out of their camp in a wild mob of white-pelted warriors, feathers streaming, rifles clenched in knotty fists, their heads thrown back in their wild and high-pitched war cries. About them loped the shaggy kroot hounds, while the krootox riders shook their spears as they held on to their beasts’ backs.

Batbayar saw the kroot break out of their camp and knew that he could not leave them untouched on his flanks, so the khan led the charge straight into the heart of the kroot warband.

He slew a great shaggy kroot that swung at him with its rifle butt, drove his sword through another and slammed at least three to the ground with the momentum of his bike. He must have killed fifteen of the kroot before his charge began to slow. The khan was suddenly surrounded by snapping beaks.

Batbayar was exultant as the enemy’s jaws tore at him. His tulwar blade cut through three kroot braves in a single backswing. He punched a krootox so hard he could hear the crunch of bone inside its avian skull, and killed the second with a thrust straight to its cold-blooded heart.

Batbayar gloried in his conquest. He roared out the battle cry of the Tulwar Brotherhood and Ganzorig lifted the eagle banner, and the sight of it filled the hearts of the Fourth Company with the righteous joy of killing.

The charge of the Tulwar Brotherhood had slowed for a moment, like a chainsword catching on a bone, but as the banner was displayed Batbayar drove forwards once more, his bike splattered with blood, the wheels bucking as he rode over the bodies of their foes.

Within moments they were through. Seven White Scars lay dead, as promethium fumes mixed with the red mist that hung in the air around their bodies.

The charge of the kroot gave Fireblade M’au precious moments to redeploy his forces.

Surviving strike teams used their Devilfish to take the high ground to the right of the space port. Their burst cannons threw enfilading fire into the squads of White Scars. Land Speeder Storms drove them off for a moment, before the first vespid flight repulsed them in turn.

While Space Marine Scouts battled on the wings, Batbayar did not slow, but pressed the attack despite the withering fire from gun rigs and Hammerheads. Many of his guards about him were cut down as pathfinders brought in precision missile strikes with deadly accuracy.

The leading companies of White Scars faltered under the combined firepower, before vanguard veterans led Assault Marines into the attack.

There was a brief but stiff fight. Chainswords slashed through wing and bone. Lumps of xenos flesh rained down, while broken vespids hit the ground with dull thuds. Within less than a minute the vespids had broken.

The route to the Stormsurge production facility was open.

‘Follow me, my sons!’ Batbayar roared, swinging his bike around and racing forwards. ‘Find Shadowsun and win the Tulwar Brotherhood eternal glory!’

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Ch’an slid into the pilot’s seat and buckled himself in as H’an scrambled to get the gun generators up to full power.

‘All charged,’ H’an reported as Ch’an plugged into the pict and voice feeds from the units around him.

‘Ch’an?’ Commander M’au spoke the name with his distinctive Ke’lshan nasal twang.

M’au’s position flashed up on the holo-display before Ch’an. He was leading his battlesuits and vespids in a sweeping counter-punch from the east. Ch’an almost flipped the intercom to mute, but he drew in a deep breath and answered, ‘Yes, Fireblade.’

‘The hab-dome has been struck. I am leading my guard there. We shall hold them off until support arrives. Let them see you. Draw them off. I shall do the rest.’

‘Affirmative,’ Ch’an answered. ‘For the Greater Good.’

‘For the Greater Good,’ Fireblade M’au answered. Ch’an powered the Stormsurge out of the suiting bay.

The battle looked so different from this high up. He could see so much more and his infrared night vision showed a massive gue’la attack from the south. Fires burned all across the space port.

It was clear where the chief danger lay. Ch’an took three great strides forwards, bracing one foot on the wreck of a Manta as H’an scrambled to align the shoulder-mounted railgun.

‘Ready to fire,’ H’an told him.

Alarms chimed within the cockpit as a gue’la flier dived towards them.

‘Take that out first,’ Ch’an told his gunner, and H’an switched to missile launcher and bracketed the flier in his targeting matrix.

A missile arced out and hit the enemy aircraft straight on the nose. It exploded and veered wildly over the shoulder of the Stormsurge, crashing into the ice.

‘Moving left,’ Ch’an warned.

H’an was already preparing cluster rockets. The Stormsurge rattled as the rockets fired off in a gathering storm, obscuring the gue’la for a moment behind an expanding wall of smoke. The gue’la leader was on his bike, emerging unscathed from the smoke cloud, swatting away a desperate pair of drones that pulled back and turned once more to fire.

‘Charging the main gun,’ he reported.

Ch’an was always moving. A second and a third gue’la flier roared overhead. Something hit the Stormsurge in the thigh.

‘Full charge,’ he reported, as he assessed the damage.

‘We’re limping,’ H’an noted.

Ch’an was intent on killing. ‘It takes more than that to bring this suit down.’ He redeployed the stabilisers. ‘Bracing for fire. Take them down!’

H’an lined up the leader as the gue’las skidded round a burning gun rig. The Stormsurge’s shoulder mounted blastcannon swung about as the targeters locked on.

‘Full charge,’ he reported as he centred the gue’la leader within his targeting brackets. ‘Fire.’

The Stormsurge shook as the blastcannon’s negatively charged induction fields accelerated a ball of superheated plasma out at blinding speeds. H’an’s targeting screen flared green as the superheated plasma struck, and when the flare had gone, all he saw was a smoking hole where the rock had been turned to glass.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Nergui’s plan had been to drive the tau down into the sublevels. Once the enemy were confined within a tight space, Jotunn’s drop pod would smash into the hab-dome and he would lead the others in wiping out the entire Stormsurge cohort. The plan, as so often happened, was starting to fray at the edges.

Konrad just hoped that it was not going to come apart entirely.

‘This is all taking too long,’ the Black Templar cursed as he shook his chainsword to dislodge a piece of armour stuck between its teeth. He had led his team into the sublevels, but they were having to cut their way through the defenders, which wasn’t the plan.

+I can feel fear. I can feel excitement. It glows with their thoughts. It must be the cadets. It is not far now. We are closing on him.+

Domitian’s presence was brief. His mind was involved elsewhere.

Konrad ducked back as his armour took another salvo of enemy fire. Warning runes were flashing all over. Even his suit of the finest Mark VIII power armour was starting to fail.

‘Leonas?’ Konrad voxed.

In his helmet he could hear the roar of bolters.

‘We’re getting there,’ Leonas voxed back. Though it wasn’t really true – they were stuck as well, halfway down the hab-dome’s stairs, trapped in a three-way junction with tau reinforcements pouring in behind them.

‘We can’t stay here!’ Hadrian, the Black Shield, voxed as he used his power sword to widen a hole in the staircase bulkhead. Harath had taken a plasma shot to the side. He could move, but not much, and their enemies were coming up behind them.

‘Battlesuits,’ Harath spat.

Leonas risked a glance.

One of the tau’s Crisis battlesuits was skimming down the corridor and pressed close behind it were squads of fire warriors. Leonas only had two krak grenades left. He lobbed both of them at the battlesuit and sprayed the corridor with his bolter before he caught a glimpse of another battlesuit, this time firing burst cannons.

‘Domitian,’ he called. There was no reply.

‘Nergui?’ He voxed on the White Scar’s personal channel and when there was no response, he switched to open. ‘Where is Nergui?’

The Librarian’s mind-voice was distant. +He is helping his gene-brothers.+

‘I didn’t know Batbayar needed help.’

There was a touch of humour. +Batbayar does not know it either. I have had to help him.+

‘Nergui should be here,’ Konrad snarled.

+He will be. He is coming now. I feel his presence.+

On the strike cruiser Nemesis, the Lone Wolf waited in the darkness of his personal drop pod. The doors were sealed. His braces were clamped shut. His fist was clenched on the shaft of his guardian spear. His eyes were closed as if sleeping, as the vox chatter from below filled his helm.

There was a moment of stillness before a battle. The Lone Wolf exulted in it. It seemed endless and eternal. It was the quiet of the hunter before he strikes. It was the moment when a bow was drawn. It was the instant before the trigger was pulled. It was the pause before he struck.

Jotunn could hear alarm in the voices of his warriors. He let it wash over him, as the sea washes over the hidden rocks. It could not be long now.

Nergui’s voice was breathless when he picked up the vox chatter. He’d lost Imano to a sniper shot, and Elianus’ jump pack was malfunctioning so he was foot-slogging his way towards the hab-dome. He heard the voices of Konrad and Leonas’ teams. ‘You’re in the hab-dome?’ he asked.

‘Affirmative,’ Leonas voxed back. ‘There are hundreds of them. Battlesuits. Harath is wounded. Konrad is in the sublevels with Domitian. The attack is slowing…’

‘Understood.’ Nergui’s voxed message was clipped and short. ‘I’m on my way.’

Fireblade M’au led the counterattack on the hab-dome. The attackers were now trapped as his bodyguard of Crisis battlesuits worked with him – a deadly combination of formidable armour and destructive weaponry.

M’au was impressed with the responsiveness of the XV8. The gue’la were armed with a kind of bolt-round he had not come across before. It had killed one of his guard in moments, so now he went first.

His long shield saved him a number of times as he fought his way into the ruin of the hab-domes. His double-barrelled plasma rifle caught one gue’la full in the chest and left him a slumped ruin.

‘Vespid attack,’ he ordered, and the stingwing support swept in along the corridor, their leathery pinions flapping furiously, their neutron blasters making a mockery of the gue’la’s power armour.

As the gue’la fired at the vespids, Fireblade M’au used his jump pack to leap closer.

He could see the foe now – black-armoured gue’la.

‘For Ke’lshan!’ he ordered and, long shield held high, he fired.

Leonas fired a salvo of hellfire rounds into the next battlesuit, and prayed that the bio-acids would slow it down at least. There was a moment’s pause in Nergui’s voice, and a low grunt as if the White Scar had just cut an enemy down, then Leonas could hear the metallic thud of a melta bomb being clamped in place. Nergui’s voice came back a few moments later.

‘Generator has been destroyed,’ he voxed on all channels. ‘The shield is down.’

There was a pause, before a new voice joined the vox chatter.

It brought hope and faith to the hearts of all the Deathwatch who heard it. The low growl was unmistakable. It was defiance in the face of darkness. Resolution in the shadow of the xenos. It was belief in their right to wrest the galaxy for mankind.

‘Thank you, brothers,’ Watch-Commander Jotunn whispered. ‘I am coming in.’

Leonas counted the seconds.

He felt the impact as Jotunn’s drop pod smashed through the armourglass dome, crashed down along the curved dorm windows, and finally landed in the hab’s sunken garden, half tilted against the walls.

Two of the drop pod’s five ramps refused to open. But Jotunn only needed one. He was a blur of black Terminator armour as he stomped out, guardian spear lowered and already firing.

The Lone Wolf was free among the enemy. With two great sweeps of his blade, Jotunn cut through a crowd of fire warriors who blocked his way. A smaller battlesuit leapt out into the air above him but he shrugged off its burst cannon shots. Despite the bulk of his Terminator armour the Space Wolf moved with a terrible speed. As the battlesuit landed in front of the sublevel doors, Jotunn lowered his shoulder and drove it into the tau’s waist. There was a crunch of struts as he crumpled it in two, then, with a casual swing of the guardian spear, he cut the battlesuit – and its pilot – in half.

Jotunn knew the ways of the xenos. He was a whirlwind of death as he drove the tau back before him. He would not, he could not, be slowed. He feared nothing but failure, and as he battled into the sublevels the desperate fire warriors ran onto his blade in an effort to slow him down.

‘There’s an ethereal here,’ Jotunn voxed. It was simple. He could tell from the way that the enemy were dying. This was why they had been slowed down so much. Nergui’s intelligence had failed to locate this variable. It made the success of the mission even more precarious. When defending an ethereal, fire warriors fought with a stubbornness that was impressive to any.

‘Throne!’ Leonas said. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Do you doubt my word, Leonas of the Black Consuls?’ Jotunn was barely out of breath as he fought his way through. There was humour in his voice. ‘Domitian! Find where the ethereal is hiding.’

There was a long pause before the Librarian’s mind touched his.

+I have found him.+

‘Do not kill him. Just show me where,’ Jotunn said. ‘I will do the rest.’

Domitian’s mind was like a wall of fire as it threw the tau back, and behind the psychic bow-wave strode Jotunn – a giant of black fury. Domitian led him on the most direct route. Jotunn fought his way through the packed fire warriors. Their shots scoured the black paint from his armour, so that it was worn down to the bare ceramite in places. But nothing stopped the Space Wolf.

He cut his way down the steps to the sublevel bunkers, and the further he went, the weaker Domitian’s mind became.

+This is as far as I can project.+ The Librarian’s mind was barely a whisper in his own. +The ethereal is within this chamber.+

Jotunn glared at the bulkhead before him. He slapped a pair of melta bombs onto its seal.

The blasts ripped a hole large enough for him to get his hands through, and he tore the edges of the doors open and pushed himself inside.

Five Crisis battlesuits stood in defiant guard of their ethereal leader.

The Space Wolf charged.

This was the first time he’d seen one of this type of battlesuit in the flesh. The Lone Wolf sensed that he was facing the commander of the foe and looked forward with grim relish to the moment he could kill the enemy leader in battle.

The guardian spear fired individually inscribed bolter shells that Jotunn himself had crafted. They punched through the armour plating of the Crisis suits and exploded inside, ripping their interiors apart with a hail of steel fragments.

Two of the battlesuits fell before he even reached them. Two more were cut down by his ancient blade, and the last one tried to fire a fusion blast at him from point-blank range, but Jotunn twisted out of the path of the shot and rammed the guardian spear through its chest, killing the pilot within.

The XV9 stepped forwards. It was armed with long shield and double-barrelled plasma rifle. Jotunn sidestepped the plasma shot as he charged.

He drove the XV9 into the wall with such force he felt the armoured battlesuit crack. He drove again and again, then let the ruined suit slide to the floor. A hellfire bolt-shell killed the pilot inside.

Jotunn strode to the sealed blast doors. They were marked with a vast Ke’lshan symbol. He hammered on it with his armoured fist.

‘Open in the name of the Emperor of Mankind,’ he roared and clamped a melta charge onto it. The door did not open. It exploded. Jotunn kicked the remains away and stooped to enter.

Inside was a small meditation chamber, hung with scrolls of tau script. Jotunn growled as he smelt his foe. The ethereal had been knocked back into the corner of the room by the force of the blast. He paced towards it, fangs exposed. The ethereal shrank back. It was always thus. The xenos quivered before the judgement of mankind.

The xenos had the temerity to speak. The Space Wolf did not know the words. He did not care. Learning the speech of the foe only opened you up to their lies – all within the Deathwatch knew that in understanding lay madness.

As Jotunn stood over it, the ethereal held some symbol of office up towards Jotunn, as if warding the Space Marine off.

Jotunn ripped it from him and flung it against the wall.

The ethereal was still speaking.

Jotunn answered with a roar. He let the twin barrels of his guardian spear speak for him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The earth exploded beneath Batbayar Khan’s bike. He let out a low Chogorean curse as he found himself lying on the edge of a crater, Qorchi, his beloved mount twisted and scorched, both tyres burning. His armour runes were flashing in warning as he shoved himself up.

The warriors of his honour guard lay dead around him. Only Ganzorig still moved; the eagle banner had almost slipped from his hand. Batbayar seized it from his equerry’s fist, but the dying Space Marine would not let go.

‘Be still, Ganzorig. It is I, Batbayar Khan, who takes this. You have done well. You did not allow the banner to fall.’

Ganzorig held on for a moment, but Batbayar pushed his hand away.

‘Your khan has it,’ he said. ‘Sleep well, my brother.’

Ganzorig’s last words were lost as his broken body gave in to a score of fatal wounds and his twin hearts stopped.

‘Khulan!’ Batbayar shouted.

As the smoke cleared, the Apothecary’s bike came into view. ‘Khan! We feared you were dead.’

Batbayar laughed as he held the eagle banner high. ‘It takes more than these xenos to kill the khan of the Tulwar Brotherhood! Now give me your bike. Take their gene-seed. Our brothers fought well.’

Batbayar leapt onto the Apothecary’s bike. A furious battle was raging overhead as the White Scars air support hunted the enemy craft down. He watched as Obos banked round in a wide curve and lined the Stormsurge up in its sights. It was standing on a low rise, its back to the burning hab-dome. ‘Leave the Stormsurge to me,’ he ordered the crew of the Fire Raptor. ‘For the Khan and the Emperor!’

The Stormsurge fired twice more, but this time the White Scars had seen what it could do and they had learnt their lesson well. The bikers spread wide so that the blasts only killed a few of their number, and while the Stormsurge tried to get a bead on the khan, he was too fast and too wily for it, and the Stormsurge was alone.

Batbayar led his warriors around wrecks and along defiles, playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the Stormsurge, which was being gradually hemmed in by the White Scars.

‘I am the khan,’ Batbayar ordered as he raced across the snow flats, ‘and I want that kill.’

Ch’an knew they were running out of time. He could sense it as more and more systems started to flash with warning signals.

H’an was oblivious. All the gunner focused on was the shot and the kill, but even as they fought, the gue’la fliers were taking their toll as they fired into the Stormsurge’s exposed flanks and rear.

‘Bring me around,’ H’an said.

‘Bringing you round,’ Ch’an told him.

‘Steady.’

Ch’an gritted his teeth. He could feel the suit’s pain as it stumbled on a half-ruined leg. They were being hemmed in and there was nothing he could do about it. No way out.

They did not train for this in the academy. This was not how battles were supposed to happen, but they had been hit in so many places, were shorn of all their advantages, at the same time and with such violence, speed, surprise and precision, that there was no way the hunter cadres could react in time.

‘They’re gaining,’ H’an said.

They needed time to power up the railgun. Ch’an backed towards the hab-dome, but the Stormsurge had taken significant damage and as he took another step back the battlesuit stumbled.

‘Repelling assaulters,’ H’an reported. ‘Rocket clusters!’

The Stormsurge rattled violently as the salvo fired.

Ch’an saw gue’la through the smoke. If he didn’t get them out of there now, they were dead tau. He tried to step away but the systems failed and one of his generators shut down. He had to override the heat warning indicators.

H’an’s voice became tense. ‘Assault imminent.’

‘I am trying,’ Ch’an voxed. He felt the suit groaning as the railgun’s electromagnetic drives began to whine. They were spent. ‘If you have anything left, fire it now,’ he hissed.

H’an seemed to suddenly understand that they were doomed. The blastcannon was out. All he had left was the fragmentation projector. It fired off, filling the air with shrapnel. Some of it hit the Stormsurge. It rocked for a moment, and managed to stay upright, swaying drunkenly, like a prize fighter who has been beaten to the edge of the fighting pit, but will not fall.

Batbayar trapped the Stormsurge on a low rise.

The towering battlesuit rocked as Batbayar stopped his bike, swung his leg over the handlebars and stared up at it, fists on his hips.

Across the battlefield his warriors were victorious as they drove surviving tau into the wilds and cleared the skies of any opposition. His honour guard were dead. His banner bearer had given up his gene-seed so that another might tread the path of the White Scars, but he had led and he had conquered, and victory was sweetest when it was bitterly won, like this. There was no dishonour in death. Death was the end for all of them. All that mattered was to win a glorious end that the White Scars might remember in poems, and that those poems might find their way back to Chogoris, and the yurts of his tribe, where his people might remember him and his deeds, and be glad.

The bikes formed a crescent behind their khan as he handed the eagle banner to Sergeant Tenzig of the Second Squad. The Stormsurge’s systems were failing. Sparks flew from its groin pistons and as one of its legs gave way it sank to one knee, as if kowtowing before him.

Batbayar stopped in front of the machine. He would do it the honour of killing it himself. He judged the places where the crew were encased, and he struck with impeccable pose – his sword a sudden blur leaving two neat holes in the Stormsurge’s torso.

Blood trickled out from each, as the Stormsurge fell forwards.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Batbayar led the survivors of his company towards the Stormsurge production facility.

Land Speeders and Stormtalons had already destroyed the last drones that refused to leave their assigned stations and the ice was littered with their burning remains, as well as those of a last flight of vespids who had fallen back to the tower. ‘This is the place,’ Scout Sergeant Törömbaater announced. ‘But there is no production facility.’

Batbayar strode in through the open doors, hands on hips as he surveyed the insides. ‘Shadowsun?’

‘Nothing,’ the Scout sergeant reported.

Batbayar paced forwards. There were long rows of suiting bays and in each one stood a Stormsurge battlesuit. They had a menacing air about them, even in their sedentary state, but there was nothing here that spoke of production. ‘There must be another level,’ Batbayar said. ‘Find it!’

Törömbaater licked his lips before he spoke. ‘Khan. We have searched the place. There is nothing else here. No production facility. Nothing.’

Batbayar spun about in fury. ‘I do not believe you. Why would the tau defend this place with such ferocity if there was nothing here worth defending?’

As he spoke the khan had an unpleasant feeling. ‘Where is Nergui?’

He looked at his warriors, but none of them knew.

‘Where is Nergui!’ Batbayar roared.

A voice answered. ‘I am here.’

The khan turned to stare as the Deathwatch captain paced through the empty hangars. His helmet was under his arm. His black armour was criss-crossed with the blood-splatter that came from close-up sword work. Batbayar smelt deceit. His eyes were wide with fury. ‘Have you killed her?’

‘Shadowsun?’

‘Yes!’

‘No. She is not here.’

Batbayar strode towards him. ‘Not here? Will men say that she has made a fool of me, as she has Kor’sarro?’

‘No. She was never here.’

Batbayar could barely believe what he was hearing. ‘Why then did we attack this place, when we could be winning glory for the Tulwar Brotherhood on Chogoris itself?’

Nergui looked pained. ‘I cannot tell you,’ he said at last.

‘You cannot? Yet you led me to believe that she was here…! Are you fooling with me?’

‘No, brother.’

‘Don’t call me brother. If you are a White Scar then you call me khan!’

Nergui was impassive. ‘No, Khan Batbayar of the Tangut Tribe.’

Batbayar struck his brother with an open hand. Nergui stumbled back, but did not lift a hand except to wipe the blood away from his cheek. Batbayar turned on his heel and strode from the building.

‘You are no brother of mine,’ Batbayar spat, then turned to his warriors. ‘Melta bomb this place. And everything in it.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The Corvus Blackstar waited for the extraction as the hab-dome smoked. Konrad was the last to climb up from the sublevel. His joints were sticky with the congealing blood of the tau. They had found the cadets and they had massacred them all. They were so low on ammunition by then they’d had to finish the job by hand.

Konrad had personally killed a hundred and thirty of them. Leonas was just behind him with over a hundred and ten. Hadrian had a kill count of only seventy-nine.

‘I was covering you both,’ he said. ‘Someone has to keep watch.’

Moaz, the Raven Guard, was standing with one foot up on the ramp. He’d taken a couple of hits in his chest, and he was clearly exhausted. The surviving members of Faith were already inside.

Konrad felt nothing. ‘You’re coming with us?’ he said to the Raven Guard.

Moaz nodded.

‘What’s happened to the rest of your team?’ he asked.

‘They’ve gone back already.’

‘Domitian?’

‘With Zeal.’

Konrad nodded and climbed aboard the Corvus. Sardegna and Elianus were leaning on their guns. Hadrian was resting. On the floor were laid out five Space Marines. He knew them from their Chapter markings.

Ragris, Celebrant.

Atilio, Ultramarines.

Olbath, Aurora Chapter.

Imano, Lamenters.

Only the last one surprised him. ‘What happened to Sardegna?’

The hole in his chest showed where the fusion blaster had cut straight through him.

‘His luck ran out,’ Leonas said. ‘When they made their last stand.’

Konrad shook his head. It seemed a waste to have lost the Scion of Sanguinius right at the end of the battle.

‘All aboard,’ Leonas voxed Cadvan, the pilot, and slapped the side of the Blackstar.

‘I’m taking her up,’ Cadvan voxed back. ‘Hold on.’

They mag-locked their boots to the floor and tensed as the Blackstar made a vertical take-off, banking round for one last look at the tau camp. The White Scars had raised two great piles of heads. One was of flesh, the other a hundred and one Stormsurge heads, in a great mound of mixed sept colours. The field where they had fought was broken with craters and smoking ruins, many of them of Imperial design. At the edge of the battlefield, while a Stormtalon patrolled, a last White Scars Thunderhawk was loading the dead as servitors reclaimed an immobilised Predator. ‘How many did they lose?’

‘Twenty-seven,’ Leonas said.

‘I wonder what will happen with yours,’ Konrad said. ‘You know. When your last battle has been fought.’

Leonas nodded. He had often wondered the same thing.

‘The Administratum will have a place for it. The last Black Consul. It could go in a museum,’ said Konrad.

‘I’ll look after it until then,’ Leonas said.

Jotunn usually took his own Blackstar, but this time he waited while Nergui made one last effort to speak to Batbayar.

‘The khan is busy,’ Khulan told him, after he had pushed to the very door of Batbayar’s Thunderhawk. His bike lay by the side of the gunship, carefully loaded onto a stretcher crate.

‘I would like to see him,’ Nergui said.

‘I know,’ Khulan said. ‘But he does not want to see you, Nergui of the Chaoge. And he is khan, and you are not.’

Nergui nodded. This was the way of the White Scars. He held out an offering. ‘I brought him this.’

He held out a head.

Khulan looked at it. ‘Is that Shadowsun?’

Nergui shook his head.

‘Why would we want this ethereal’s head, Nergui?’

‘It is an offering.’

‘Of what?’

‘Regret,’ Nergui said.

‘There is no way back to the past. It is vain to regret and to wish. All there is, is now.’

Nergui nodded. He dropped the ethereal’s head at Khulan’s feet, and then turned and walked away. The Lone Wolf was waiting for him in the dark corner of the Blackstar.

It had been a long time since Nergui had seen the albino warrior in the light of day. The Space Wolf’s pink eyes were tired and bloodshot. ‘Did they take it?’ he growled.

‘No.’

‘I said they would not.’

‘And you were right. I knew it myself, but I still had to try. They were my brothers once. And may be again.’

Jotunn wiped the blood from his gauntlets and glanced at the pile of Stormsurge heads. ‘So we killed them all.‘

‘All of them,’ he said.

‘You know there must be more of these sites scattered through the Damocles Gulf. Places where our enemies are planning treachery and violence against us.’

‘Well,’ Nergui nodded, ‘there is one less now.’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Justin D Hill is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 short stories ‘Last Step Backwards’, ‘Lost Hope’ and ‘The Battle of Tyrok Fields’, following the adventures of Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed, as well as ‘Truth Is My Weapon’, and the Warhammer tales ‘Golgfag’s Revenge’ and ‘The Battle of Whitestone’. Storm of Damocles is his first Warhammer 40,000 novel for Black Library.

An extract from Blades of Damocles.

Jorus Numitor grinned fiercely as the Thunderhawk’s metal door pistoned open. The gunship’s interior filled with blazing violet light, and a gale force wind punched into him, but it only got his blood up all the more. Leaning forward, the sergeant ran into the hurricane and leaped, triggering his jump pack and boosting away with his assault squad close behind.

The Sword of Calth banked as it roared overhead, its wingtip passing inches from Numitor’s jump pack. He turned as he flew, now falling backwards, and counted his brothers off as they hurtled through the sky in his wake. All present and correct, nine runes flashing green in his peripherals.

‘Atheus will pounce on that one day, sergeant,’ voxed Aordus. ‘Supposed to debark from the tailgate into dead air on a drop like this.’

‘Captain Atheus can tuck himself in an evil-smelling drop pod,’ shouted Numitor, mirth bubbling through his words as he turned back into a leaning dive. ‘Orbital insertion’s a waste of a good view!’

Aordus laughed, and even over the crackling vox Numitor heard the frustration and boredom of their two-month transit sloughing away. He felt it too; the ice around his soul was melting, turned to liquid anticipation by the prospect of battle and the breathtaking vista below.

Dal’yth’s cloudbanks were truly magnificent. Violet and white, they stretched out like a realm of organic sky-castles, lit from within by strobing flashes of electricity. The Ultramarines straightened into close formation and plummeted headlong toward them.

This is what the Adeptus Astartes were made to do, thought Numitor. Not to meditate in silence, or to train endlessly in the dark bowels of a strike cruiser, but to bring death from above – sudden, loud, and in great measure. He took off his helm and mag-clamped it to his waist, revelling in the feeling of air blasting up into his face and tugging at the dense strip of hair that ran down his shaven scalp like a crest.

Nearby, Aordus shook his head at the flagrant breach of drop protocol.

Contrails scarred the skies ahead as the T-shaped aircraft of the tau duelled with box-nosed Thunderhawk and Stormraven gunships. Plummeting drop pods cut through their winding vapour trails, forming a lateral grid that cut the sky and gave shape to the squad’s otherwise abstract fall.

Here and there airbursts blossomed, fire-lit smoke spreading in the cold air wherever a missile or interceptor shot hit home. Even those distant signs of conflict made Numitor’s chest feel tight. Not long now, the sergeant told himself, as if comforting the beast rousing to wakefulness in his soul.

Not long.

Squad Numitor burst from the cloudbanks to witness the birth of a planetary war. Tessellating hex-zones each large enough to accommodate a hive city trammelled the indigo wilderness. Smoothly contoured buildings jutted from each junction point, lights glittering in their thousands wherever the ivory edifices reached up from the wider superstructures. The landscape of the tau sept world had been almost perverse in its order, but that was changing fast – the Imperium’s pre-invasion firestorm had torn ragged wounds across its surface. Megatonnes of ordnance were hurled from low orbit to break open the drop zones in the distance. Even those warheads detonated by tau flak were raining fire upon the cities below.

Numitor did not replace his helm. The chances of getting decapitated by sky-shrapnel were slim, and that was a gamble he was willing to take. It was worth it to drink in the spectacle of explosions blossoming below, to feel the blood-pounding rush of air hinting at the storm of violence to come. The tempestuous forces of the drop pulled at his skin, shook his bones and made his eyes and nose sting with sensation. He plunged through a high cloud and out again, needles of cold stinging his skin. It felt like a baptism.

The Ultramarines drop pod assault followed close behind the falling ordnance intended to clear a path for Operation Pluto. Livid fires billowed from shattered hexodomes and parallel plumes of dark smoke slanted into the skies from the black-rimmed craters that scarred the city’s alien symmetry. In his peripheral vision, Numitor could see dozens of gunships diving in near-vertical vectors, the throaty roars of their engines audible even over the thunder of freefall and the bass crump of ordnance.

The Imperial craft slammed through a thinly spread drone blockade to scatter enemy fighter craft like raptors slicing through a prey-flock. Coming out of their dives as they reached their drop coordinates, each gunship opened its doors and disgorged the Assault Marines inside. Numitor’s squad had been the first to make the drop, launching a good few seconds before Squad Sicarius, and even with the long freefall they would reach the planet first. He knew it was wrong to find joy in that, for it mattered little in truth. He smiled nonetheless.

‘Beachhead established in quadrant Zeta Tert, Gel’bryn City,’ said Aordus. ‘Good place to start.’

‘We’ll be fighting long before we get there,’ shouted Numitor. ‘Look sharp, brothers. Hunter-killers incoming. On my mark.’

A cluster of four wide, flat-bodied missiles blazed upwards from an intact hexodome.

‘Scatter!’ ordered Numitor. His men reacted a second before the seeker missiles reached their position. They triggered their jump packs simultaneously, blazing out in a ten-pointed star that saw the tau missiles sail harmlessly through the middle of their formation.

Three more of the xenotech warheads hurtled upwards. Numitor flipped and boosted straight down, swiping the fingertips of his power fist into the leading missile moments before it could strike Brother Duolor. It detonated with mind-numbing force as the other two shot past, missing their mark. The sergeant was flung outward, flailing and burning, but the flames found no purchase on his ceramite. He tucked into a somersault before righting his vector with a blast of his jump pack.

Trailing smoke, Numitor heaved in a great draught of air – not the stale, recycled air of a spaceship hold, but the cold, pure blast of freefall. He roared with the sheer catharsis of it. Elation flooded his body, despite the burning pain in the side of his face, despite the chemical tang of incendiaries in his multi-lung. His vox buzzed like a trapped insect, abruptly pulling him back to his senses.

‘Sergeant,’ said Aordus, ‘do we proceed to Zeta Tert?’

‘Hold course,’ called out Numitor, craning his head to look upward. ‘Zeta Tert, squad! Adjust vectors accordingly.’

High above, three remaining missiles looped around, doubling back in tight parabolas to close on the sergeant’s squad.

‘Ha!’ shouted Numitor triumphantly. ‘I thought as much. Ready pistols!’

The sergeant turned in mid-fall to face the night sky and the blunt-nosed missiles rocketing towards them. He unclamped his bolt pistol and snapped off three shots in close succession, his back to the ground even though his freefall was at terminal velocity. Numitor’s squad followed his lead. Mass-reactive bolts hurtled upwards, the last volley catching the incoming missiles a spear’s throw from their position. A canopy of fire bloomed above them, red and yellow against the darkening purple sky.

Nodding in satisfaction, Numitor turned back to his headlong descent.

From the hexodomes below tracer fire spat high, each stream stuttering phosphor-white. Black clouds of flak boomed as tau gunners intercepted the storm of Space Marine insertion craft hammering towards the xenos landscape. To their east flank, a cluster of hunter-missiles slammed into a plummeting drop pod. Numitor felt the blast wave of the explosion as it sent cherry-red metal scything in all directions.

Flailing Space Marines fell burning from the wreckage towards the planet’s surface.

They had fifteen seconds, if that.

‘Intercept that stricken squad!’ ordered Numitor, leaning into a diagonal vector and waving his squad to follow. He boosted hard, drawing his arms in close to streamline his body and angling his hands to fine-tune his path. His unit, close behind him, did likewise.

Nine seconds left.

A trio of falling Tactical Marines had righted themselves as best they could and were aiming their bolters downward, determined to take some kind of toll on the tau world before their deaths. The Tactical squad’s sergeant stretched out to catch one of his brothers by the arm as he pinwheeled past, yanking him in close. Numitor and his squad dived into their midst, each clamping an outstretched hand onto a falling battle-brother. There was no way Numitor and his squad could stop them entirely, pull them out of harm’s way, but they were still Assault Marines of the Eighth, the masters of the jump drop. This was their sky to rule.

‘Hard diagonal, due west!’ shouted Numitor.

With a burst of his jump pack engines at full yield, Numitor yanked the Tactical Marine’s descent into a sharp westward course. His squad did the same, their power armour preventing their arms from being ripped out of their sockets by the sudden weight. Slowly, agonisingly, their efforts bore fruit.

Three seconds.

‘Breakfall!’ shouted Numitor. ‘Ready!’

A bulbous white tower loomed suddenly upwards, its giant mushroom canopy studded with strange antennae. Numitor heaved hard, twisting his body so his jump pack bolstered the motion as he and his squad flung their battle-brothers sidelong towards the tau building’s upper slope.

The Tactical Marines struck it hard, but their armour took much of the impact. As they slid downward, they each drew their combat knives and drove them deep into the building’s curving roof, turning their skidding descent into a series of sharp halts.

By the time the Space Marines had mag-locked their boots onto the alloy of the building’s roof, Numitor had landed in their midst, and was already boosting back upwards. He caught a fifth falling battle-brother by the backpack and slowed his descent enough for him to hit the cream-coloured roof crumpled, but alive. The rest of Squad Numitor had touched down nearby, wispy circles of exhaust expanding around each of their landing sites. Pulse rounds shot from the balcony of a taller tau building to punch into their midst. The Tactical Marines turned their shoulders into the incoming fire, bolters aimed to launch a devastating counter-attack.

‘That was non-Codex drop procedure,’ said one of the rescued Space Marines.

The Tactical Marine sergeant snapped off a shot with his bolter, and a distant explosion mingled with xenos screams. ‘We’re alive, ingrate,’ he growled to his squadmate, ‘so make it count.’ He turned to Numitor between shots. ‘My thanks, brother. Antelion of the Fifth.’

‘I’m Numitor, Eighth Company. But if your friend reports the drop deviation, I’m Sergeant Cato Sicarius.’

Antelion laughed. ‘Now him I’ve heard of.’

Numitor nodded, but in truth his focus was already on the battle below.

‘Right, let’s get to it,’ he said, replacing his helm and slamming a fresh clip into his bolt pistol. ‘Brothers, make ready to join the fray. Cato is likely ankle-deep in blood already.’

Sergeant Cato Sicarius bellowed a wordless war cry, gunning his jump pack as he blasted shoulder-first towards a squadron of glider-like xenocraft. Energy streams spat from the tail-mounted quad turret of each tau fighter. They detonated explosively amongst his squad, one lucky shot sending Brother Endrion spiralling from the sky in a spray of blood.

Two more of the incandescent beams punched into Sicarius’ pauldron, vaporising chunks of ceramite and knocking him off kilter. He righted his charge within heartbeats, lips pulled back into a grimace of contempt, but it was too late. The aircraft had already hurtled past, the whine of their engines rising as they turned back for another strafing run.

A hot ache bled through Sicarius’ shoulder socket. ‘You’ve no idea who you are dealing with,’ he snarled under his breath. ‘You’re all going to die.’

‘Well said, sergeant,’ said Glavius, Sicarius’ de facto second in command. The sergeant clicked impatiently over the vox in response. The pain in his shoulder was dulling, but in his eyes it was still a symptom of failure.

On some level, Cato Sicarius knew and appreciated what was at stake upon Dal’yth. The war they were fighting here was no conventional crusade, but a battle for knowledge, hard won in the crucible of war. Two advanced civilisations were pitted against one another, and the sky was already filling with the fires of conflict.

‘Vespertine was a skirmish compared to this,’ said Glavius.

‘Good,’ said Sicarius. ‘A true test of our mettle, then.’ Here, each force was seeking not only to overcome the foe, but also to learn their strengths – and more importantly, weaknesses – in the process. ‘This is a race, Glavius,’ said Sicarius, ‘a race for understanding. Whoever wins it will secure victory not just here, but on a dozen worlds besides.’

With this site as the primary drop zone, there was every chance the battle for Gel’bryn City would determine the fate of the entire war. Taking the largest metropolis on the eastern seaboard would give them a commanding position, allowing them to dominate everything between the dropsite and the mountains to the north. As a sergeant, Sicarius was content to leave the wider campaign to the likes of Lord Calgar and Chief Librarian Tigurius, but here he was in his element. Drop invasions were his meat and drink.

He was made to conquer, and conquer he would.

The tau squadrons were coming back fast, veering around the tall antennae of a comms building for another pass. The two rearmost craft detached disc-like drones, machine intelligences much like those Sicarius had encountered on Vespertine. Their underslung ion guns thickened the firepower already searing the air.

Sicarius kept in the foremost pilot’s blind spot until the last moment, then launched up hard at top speed to catch its left wing and scrabble atop it. Gripping the front of the wing tight, he drew his Talassarian broadsword, thumbed the activation rune, and carved away the cockpit with a single broad sweep. Blood flew from the bisected head of the pilot inside. The fighter’s veering arc slowly turned into a dive.

‘Meagre creatures, these,’ said the sergeant, letting go of the wing and allowing himself to slide free. ‘Even weaker than the ground clades.’

‘Sergeant,’ came the vox from his squadmate Ionsian. ‘Inbound fighters.’

‘Mark them for me,’ said Sicarius, drawing his pistol as he fell. Energy weapon fire spat through the air towards him, but he twisted away from it.

‘Now, sergeant!’ said Ionsian, boosting past to draw the fire of the enemy pilot.

Sicarius’ target-runes flashed bright. He raised his plasma pistol and pulled the trigger, its grip painfully hot even through the ceramite banding of his gauntlet. His shot was true. It took a passing fighter under the nosecone, burning through its lightweight alien alloys to consume the tau inside.

The aircraft wobbled, veered, and crashed into the vanes of the distant communications array with force enough to tear the entire structure down into the battle below.

Numitor would have enjoyed that wrecking ball display, thought Sicarius, checking the chrono runes in his helm.

It was almost a shame he was taking so long to join in.

Sicarius took in the rest of the Eighth as they invaded the city, some by gunship, others by bulk lander. They were reinforced right and left by their warrior kin from the battle companies. Drop pods hurtled out of the skies, smashing through the alien hyperplastic of the tau hexodomes to release Space Marine squads into the smooth suburban landscapes beneath. Their assault had caught the tau unprepared. Small wonder; the brute force and speed of a Space Marine planetstrike was almost impossible to counter.

‘Numitor, attend me,’ voxed Sicarius, ‘I cannot see you, brother.’

‘Attend you? I think not,’ crackled the reply. ‘Besides, we took a detour. Look to the intersection nearest the reservoir.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Sicarius, signalling his squad to form up around him. ‘Got you. How fares the slaughter?’

‘It is everything I had hoped for.’

Sicarius gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Good hunting, then,’ he replied, ‘though I can see this being over far too quickly.’

‘There’s a whole planet of them, Cato. You will get your chance to shine.’

‘There’s a small empire, Jorus, not one paltry planet,’ replied Sicarius. ‘And likely not a single decent swordsman amongst them.’

‘We’ll have a challenge on our hands soon enough,’ said Numitor. ‘Take an altitude. Look at the interlinks of each district and tell me what you see.’

Sicarius signed off without a word. He triggered his jump pack, launching himself up to the landing platform jutting from a geometric hexodome and scanning the interstitial spars, brow furrowed.

Within each spar was a long, silver magnorail transmotive. The vehicles were moving with impressive speed. Sicarius could make out tau warriors inside the nearest. Hundreds stood in each transport, strapping on grenade harnesses and checking their long-barrelled guns. Couched atop each cylindrical section of the transmotive were the xenos warsuits the Eighth had encountered on Vespertine. The soulless creations combined the firepower of a Dreadnought with the agility of an Assault Marine.

Thousands of tau soldiers inbound, then. Sicarius counted the transmotive carriages and did a quick calculation. Tens of thousands, in fact.

Without exception, they were converging on the Eighth Company’s landing site.

Shas’o Dal’yth Ko’vash Kha’drel, better known as Commander Bravestorm, blink-clicked a hostiles filter on his battlesuit’s command suite. His sensors detected barely a hundred enemy warriors in this hex. They were so few in number, these proud Space Marine invaders. It was almost a shame the war would be over so soon.

Thus far, fewer than two gue’ron’sha cadre-equivalents – known to the Imperials as companies, according to his autotrans – had made planetfall. By the time the last interhex transmotives had reached each dropsite the Space Marine invasion would be contained, cauterised and eradicated. Bravestorm had ensured his countercrisis cadres were inbound as swiftly as possible. In the space of a single rotaa, the earth caste would have completed any necessary renovations, and Dal’yth society would return to normal. Did the humans truly expect to strike at the heart of the tau empire with so meagre a force, and somehow prevail?

The commander checked his cadre’s readiness symbols. All teams showed gold, whether buckled into the interior of the transmotives, or – as he and his other battlesuit teams were – ejector-locked into their roof cradles. His prototype XV8-02 shifted gently as the transmotive shot through a hex interstice to take a more direct course to the primary site of the invasion. The velocity barely changed, the transport’s progress silent apart for a low thrum of electromagnetic generators.

Bravestorm had originally assumed the Imperium’s blunt attack was a feint, a distraction to keep the fire caste occupied whilst the true strike fell elsewhere. He had apportioned his forces accordingly, distributing them evenly across the planet’s surface and coordinating with the other castes to ensure they could react quickly wherever the real blow fell. And yet no matter how many times he ran the air caste’s data through his analyticals, the answer was the same. Every orbital craft of the gue’la fleet had aligned with a major city, and fired its invasion force vertically downwards with only the most perfunctory of bombardments to pave the way. Bulk landers were following much the same trajectory in their wake. The attack had all the subtlety of a meteor shower.

‘They strike at Dal’yth’s heart,’ Bravestorm transmitted over the command-level cadre-net, ‘just as a savage kroot might jab his spear at a battlesuit’s chest, unaware that there, the armour is thickest of all.’

‘Their tactics are primitive, honoured Bravestorm,’ came the response from Commander Farsight. The famous warrior’s stoic features glowed on a sub-screen in Bravestorm’s command cocoon. ‘But some of their technologies are very advanced. Their interstellar transit speaks of far greater minds behind their warrior castes.’

‘I concur. I shall neutralise those invaders nearest my location and transmit my findings on the cadre-net for further analysis.’

‘Do so, with my thanks. I have every confidence in your resolve.’

Bravestorm eye-flicked a shorthand sign of respect. Today, he and his fellow commanders would impart a lesson, a lesson the defenders of Vespertine, caught out by the sheer alacrity of that first Imperial assault, had failed to teach. It was an immortal truth – one Bravestorm had learned shortly after birth and had been quietly reinforcing since he was old enough to speak.

It was the tau race’s destiny to rule the stars, and theirs alone.

‘Entering effective weapons range in sixty-two microdecs, commander,’ said Bravestorm. ‘All teams primed and ready.’

‘Excellent. I am making haste to join you,’ replied Farsight. ‘That which we presume to conquer, we must first understand.’

‘Master Puretide still speaks through his pupil.’

‘Of course. As he speaks through us all. For the Greater Good, Commander Bravestorm.’

‘For the Tau’va.’ Bravestorm made the sign of the impeccable kill and signed off.

The magnorail transmotive carved around another interstice at blurring speed. Atop its ejection cradle, Bravestorm fought to keep his sensor suite working smoothly. The panorama of war unfolding before them was so intense even his hyper-advanced battlesuit was struggling to keep up with the ballistics data flooding through it.

The air above the invasion site was filled with flak bursts, tracer fire, engine contrails and hurtling Imperial drop craft. The crystalline shards of broken hexodomes speared into the twilight. Each had been shattered by one of the pod-like landers the gue’ron’sha warships had hurled towards Gel’bryn City.

The headlong assault was proving an effective stratagem, brutal in its simplicity. Maximum force delivered at a concentrated point was a modus the fire caste made extensive use of themselves. The Imperials sought to break the shield wall, and once inside, capitalise. Though Bravestorm felt awkward and unclean at the thought, the directness of the Imperial mindset appealed to part of his soul. No negotiation here, no dance of veiled threat and false intelligence – just war, pitiless and direct.

Still, initial success or no, this alleged ‘Imperium of Man’ would pay for its temerity in crossing the Damocles Gulf. They had sent a vanguard of scarely a few thousand to conquer a major sept world; to Bravestorm’s mind, that did not reflect well on the military strength of this would-be rival empire. Though it had struck hard at first, the human armada would likely be broken within a matter of weeks.

The interhex transmotive passed a burning, shattered dome. Flickering explosions lit the black smoke within.

‘Here,’ transmitted Bravestorm. ‘We begin here.’

The transport slowed hard, shuddering as a series of small explosions was stitched along its length. Blue-armoured figures emerged from the smoke-shrouded sidings, bulky sidearms raised.

‘All teams deploy as briefed,’ said Bravestorm to the fire warrior teams inside.

Atop the transmotive, dozens of ejection cradles hissed open. Each battlesuit was hurled skyward in an explosion of hydraulic vapour. Below, doorports slid open to allow strike teams of tau to disembark.

The air shimmered as jet packs engaged en masse. Forming up in a shallow wedge behind their commander, the battlesuits soared towards the gue’ron’sha troopers on the sidings, shoulder-mounted missile pods laying down suppressive fire to cover their advance.

The Imperials raised their guns, the blocky weapons booming as they sent miniature rockets roaring up. In Bravestorm’s control cocoon, incoming fire alerts bipped insistently. Again these simple-minded invaders had attacked the largest, most obvious threat – and in doing so, wasted their best chance for survival.

The commander’s gun drones moved to interpose, but Bravestorm eye-flicked them back. His XV8-02 could handle this. A heartbeat later his shield generator flared as three detonations boomed across its convex disc of energy. He deactivated the shield for the fourth shot, instead turning his shoulder unit into its path. The earth caste would thank him for the ballistics data.

The projectile detonated with a loud, punching impact, but did little more than strip a patch of synth paint from the prototype suit’s iridium alloy. Rapid beeps of alarm sounded as an anti-tank missile shot from the commander’s western flank. Bravestorm braced in his cocoon as the missile thumped into his suit’s waist joint, sending him reeling with the blast of kinetic force but ultimately doing no more than superficial damage.

Bravestorm smiled as he brought his battlesuit back upright. He liked a fair fight more than most.

But this would have to do.

‘Mass-reactive projectiles incoming, standard Imperial pattern,’ said Bravestorm over the cadre-net. ‘Dangerous, but within the tolerances of our combat armour. Fire warriors advance. Team Mal’caor, target the missile trooper at appended coordinates.’

Symbols of assent blinked on Bravestorm’s command suite. Below, the Imperial warriors darted left and right, firing as they moved inside the smoke of the burning hexodome. Bravestorm levelled his plasma rifles as one, his blacksun filter effortlessly piercing the pall. He swept his legs forward to trigger a firing stance and took the shots.

Two gue’ron’sha troops collapsed, heads burnt down to cauterised stumps. A barrage of plasma from the rest of his team sent three more Space Marines down hard.

One of the blue-armoured warriors hurled a grenade straight upward into the battlesuit team’s midst. It detonated a hand’s breadth from Bravestorm’s jump unit. The blast failed to so much as dent his suit’s armour, but it tore gun drone Oe-ven-3 from the sky. The helper’s death was a sad loss, thought Bravestorm, but acceptable, and soon to be avenged.

Nearby, a concentrated volley thudded into Shas’ui Vosdao’s battlesuit. A string of explosions tore it apart in a bloom of flame. Bravestorm cried out in denial as he steadied his flight, rolling shoulder-first in midair. He passed over the Space Marines, his plasma rifles spitting their fury. No straight kill shots this time, but a dual strike that took the legs and throwing arm from the grenade-hurler. Let him dwell on the nature of retribution as he dies in the dirt, thought the commander.

Bravestorm’s thrust/vector suite glowed gold as he came down into a piston-cushioned crouch, his team following to take the ground behind him. Weapon-limbs fired bursts of plasma and stabbing salvos of missiles wherever the telltale blue of the foe was glimpsed through the smoke. The engagement was fast becoming a one-sided firefight that not even the boldest intruder could hope to win.

The surviving Space Marines withdrew towards the heart of the ruined hexodome, firing a hail of bolts at Bravestorm as they went. Every one of them hit home. The majority did little more than knock the commander’s balance for a moment, but the last ricocheted upward from his knee, bypassing the shield generator’s disc and detonating inside his waist joint. The explosion tore a tiny fissure in the battlesuit’s side, sending a splinter of shrapnel into the control cocoon to sizzle into Bravestorm’s own thigh with a pungent smell of cooked meat.

The commander clenched his rear teeth for a moment as stimulant injectors pricked needles into the back of his neck. His suit’s self-heal mechanisms had already gone to work, contingency cells bursting to fill the wound at its waist with bluish caulk that swiftly set iron-hard. Stimulant injectors took effect, the pain washing away in a wave of cooling numbness as the commander laid down a sidelong volley of plasma. It was intended as suppressive fire, but it cored a nearby Space Marine’s torso nonetheless.

Ahead, the Space Marines had all but disappeared inside the ruins. Over half their squad lay dead, corpses strewn in the rubble. The whole exchange had been over before the first of the cadre’s fire warrior teams had made it into pulse carbine range.

Ten Space Marines, sent to conquer an entire hexodome. The arrogance of it beggared belief.

‘Today, my comrades,’ transmitted Bravestorm over the cadre-net, striding forward with his weapons systems levelled at the breach, ‘today, we shall play the role of teacher. All teams, pursue and destroy.’

A high-pitched whine from above became a roar, then a deafening boom. The ground shook hard, jolting Bravestorm even with his command cocoon’s dampeners set to combat mode. A bulky blue invasion pod had crashed into the smoking undergrowth of the magnorail siding behind them, large enough to hold a Broadside battlesuit with room to spare. Ramp-like hull sections fell flat against the earth, clouds of violet dust swirling around them. A barrage of flak burst outward, baffling Bravestorm’s sensor suite with a storm of light and noise. On reflex the commander shot upward in a graceful leap, repulsor jet pack carrying him above the blue-armoured craft. The rest of his team followed his example without needing to be told – all bar the hotheaded Shas’ui Fal’ras, who instead levelled his fusion blaster and plasma rifle at the craft’s interior.

The thing that stormed out of the invasion pod was truly monstrous. Twice the size of a battlesuit and wider than it was tall, it was a hideous caricature of the Hero’s Mantle. It looked like a walking tank rather than a piloted suit, and it had articulated claws in place of ranged weapon systems.

‘Some kind of heavy war drone,’ transmitted Bravestorm. ‘No living thing could survive that impact. Analyse at range, then take it down.’

Splayed feet clanged as the machine crunched down the hull plates of its insertion craft. Flak blasted from frontal launchers that bracketed a slab-like midsection. Fal’ras fell backwards, opening fire. His plasma bolts sizzled ineffectually across the machine’s monolithic hull. Bravestorm and the rest of his team added fire from above. The volley scorched the thing, melting small dents into its hide, but achieved little more.

Fal’ras waited for it to clear the transport and fired his fusion blaster, confident of a point-blank kill. Searing columns of superheated energy shot out, gouging a deep groove into the thing’s hull and cooking off its remaining frag launchers.

The machine did not fall.

Giant claws shot forward with piston quickness. There was a tearing shriek of metal, and Fal’ras’ battlesuit was caught, impaled upon the whirring grinder inside the thing’s right fist. The shas’ui came apart in hideous indignity, suit and pilot mingled horribly in sprays of sparking electricity and hot blood.

Lumbering forward, the Imperial machine made a clumsy grab for Bravestorm’s leg. The commander smoothly rose out of reach before dropping sharply behind it, kicking the machine whilst it was mid-step in an attempt to overbalance it. It was like striking a loaded freight cube. He sent plasma bolts searing into the pistons at its hip, hoping to take its leg and send it sprawling. The white-hot energies spattered away without effect.

The thing was gathering speed, charging for the staggered lines of tau infantry that had formed up near the transmotive. The strike teams pock-marked its frontal armour with streams of plasma, and Bravestorm’s team added their fire. The combined fusillade turned the machine’s armour from cobalt blue to burned and blasted black, but it charged forwards nonetheless.

‘Controlled retreat!’ shouted Bravestorm over the cadre-net. ‘It’s iridium-plated!’

The fire warriors moved backwards in good order, some climbing back into the transmotive as others hurled photon grenades to buy them time. The devices detonated with blinding flashes, but they had as much effect as a pin-torch shone at a rampaging krootox.

A pug-nosed Imperial gunship roared overhead, its chugging anti-personnel cannons cutting down the fire warriors gathered close by the transmotive cylinder. The team’s cohesion broke, but their passage was hindered by the sprawling corpses of their comrades, and the resulting confusion cost them dear. The metal beast bore down on them, its footsteps shaking the earth.

Bravestorm punched his weapons yield to full, siphoning every iota of power from his shield generator to pour shots into the machine’s flank, but the thing barrelled through plasma fire and burst cannon volley alike. He had moments left before it reached the infantry. The thought of the slaughter that would ensue made the commander’s gorge rise.

Bravestorm boosted over the thing’s head, spinning mid-leap to land with a crunch right in its path.

‘Fight me then, monster!’ he shouted, his speakers blaring his challenge loud. He levelled a double shot at the hulking thing’s vision slit. The salvo did little more than scorch it. The war machine took the bait nonetheless, its entire torso swivelling at the waist as it swiped its demolition claw in a backhand arc. The disc of Bravestorm’s shield took most of the impact, but the blow connected hard nonetheless. His battlesuit flew backwards to crunch bodily into the transmotive’s transit cylinder, the impact caving in the reinforced metal of its side.

Muddled pain flared in Bravestorm’s head, his eyesight blurring even as his control cocoon’s systems glitched and shorted. His damage display suite pulsed red, alert chimes ringing insistently. The commander rerouted power, struggling to get the suit back online.

He could feel the Imperial death-machine stomping towards him, deadly purpose in every earth-shaking step.

The sensor suite fizzed back to life, and Bravestorm set his jaw as he levelled another volley. Still it did nothing. The monster had to be built specifically to resist plasma.

The thing was lumbering on, fire warriors scrabbling away from it on all sides. He did not blame them. They had two choices – flee, or die where they stood. Though he felt revulsion to admit it, perhaps the scattering infantry had the right idea.

Wan light glinted from the Imperial walker as it stormed in close, only fifteen feet away now. Its gauntlet fist flexed wide, the drills of its demolition claw whirring.

Bravestorm crouched and triggered his jump jets, shoulder-barging the thing with all the thrust he could muster. He rebounded hard from its torso, triggering his repulsor jets to skid away through the sparse undergrowth of the magnorail siding.

The machine tried to correct its charge, but its momentum was too great. It ploughed into the transmotive with such force it bowled an entire transit section over, twisting the rest of the conveyor along its length with a hideous shriek of alloys.

Bravestorm made use of the reprieve to cast about himself, searching desperately for a weapon that could deal with such heavy armour. Above him, the aerial struggle for supremacy raged on, as many contrails of humanity’s pollutants discolouring the skies as there were clean white traces of the air caste. From the west, an Imperial gunship screamed in towards them for a strafing run, guns levelled.

This time Bravestorm was ready.

‘Form a line on these coordinates!’ Symbols of request-clarification blipped on his command suite. ‘For the Tau’va! Do it now!’

Bravestorm vaulted into the air, spinning to land atop the nearest transit cylinder’s ejection cradles. His team redeployed into a line leading away from the transmotive. Just as Bravestorm had suspected, the Imperial pilot could not resist the choice enfilade in front of him. The gunship thudded fat shells into Bravestorm’s Crisis team, knocking two of them down – but in doing so, it aligned itself with the unstoppable Imperial walker beyond.

Bravestorm’s jump jets flared as he leapt from the roof of the transmotive to soar on a collision course with the gunship. The fist-like prow passed within arm’s reach. At that precise moment the commander opened fire at point-blank range into its cockpit. The plasma bolts burned the pilot to molten sludge just as the gunship’s wing slammed hard into Bravestorm’s side. Tremendous forces tore at him – it felt as if his limbs were being wrenched from his body, but incredibly the suit’s iridium held fast.

The gunship fared much worse. With its wing buckled and its cockpit ablaze, its strafing run turned into a headlong dive. Flames coursed along its fuselage as the bull-nosed gunship hurtled down to earth. Just as the Imperial walker was freeing itself from the stricken transmotive, the ruined aircraft slammed right into it with catastrophic force.

A mangled confusion of gunship, walker and transit cylinder slewed over the magnorail track before detonating spectacularly. The explosion lit the sky, Bravestorm’s displays auto-dimming a moment before a mushrooming cloud of smoke billowed from the carnage. The twisted bodies of the gunship’s Space Marine passengers mingled with the corpses of those fire warriors caught in the transit cylinder, tumbling down the siding in bloody confusion.

Bravestorm landed clumsily, his balance taken by the impact of the gunship’s wing. He overlaid a hostiles filter as he righted himself, sending the data pulsing outward. Those of his battlesuit team still standing after the Imperial craft’s pass went to work. Their plasma rifles, all but useless against the heavy walker, blasted apart the dazed Space Marines that were struggling from the gunship’s wreckage.

More fire warriors emerged from the transit cylinders to either side of the wreck, pulse carbine shots cutting down those gue’ron’sha emerging from the hexodome’s perimeter in support of their fallen kin. Here and there a wounded Imperial warrior returned fire, mass-reactive bolts punching tau infantry into the dirt, but in doing so they signed their own death warrants. Bravestorm eye-flicked target designators one after another, his weapon systems systematically destroying the remaining invaders whenever they revealed their locations. Every time his threat sensor chimed, another Space Marine was cut down.

‘Commander,’ came the transmission from his trusted saz’nami aide Et’rel, ‘there are several invaders here that are well beyond threat parameters, but still technically alive.’

‘Leave them,’ said Bravestorm, his battlesuit picking through the rubble. ‘They fought with courage and pose no further danger to us. Secure a perimeter. I have data to accrue.’

The burning wreckage of the transmotive had buckled in a great loop that dangled over the siding, and the ruined gunship had flipped over to expose the torn passenger bay beneath. In the middle of the carnage was the heavy walker, half-crumpled by the tremendous impact of the crashing aircraft.

Bravestorm hovered closer, his sensor suite on high alert for any sign of threat. There was information to be harvested here, information the earth caste would value highly. Perhaps there were materials the Imperium made use of that surpassed even the hardiness of his battlesuit’s iridium alloy. Unlikely, but O’Vesa would never forgive him if he didn’t at least try to find out.

Milky liquid drizzled from the crippled war machine’s chest unit, bubbling and popping in the electrical fires swathing its legs. Lubricant, thought Bravestorm. He zoomed in. The fluid was shot through with blood.

Something was moving inside the torso unit. Something broken and sick.

Bravestorm held his plasma rifle steady and extruded a hand from his battlesuit’s shield gauntlet. Gripping the blackened metal of the machine’s midsection, he carefully lifted the flaking hull plate up and outward, leaning forward to peer inside.

The creature that stared back made his breath catch.

A twisted and grotesque figure was trapped inside, all barrel chest and atrophied stumps. It stared up at him from sunken sockets, its undisguised hatred almost palpable. Wires and tubes penetrated its horrifically abused body in a hundred places. It wheezed, red-black fluids spilling from a broken jaw that worked and gummed as if it could click back into place through willpower alone.

A glut of milky liquid poured from around its sutured waist as it jerked, spitting a gobbet of half-clotted blood onto Bravestorm’s ochre paintwork. Bravestorm’s sensor suite performed a threat analysis as the liquid burned through his synth layer. The clot was laced with a potent acid.

The commander recoiled as the thing’s stink was filtered through his olfactory relay, and the battlesuit jerked upright in response. His autotrans flashed, spool-script rendering the creature’s slurred words in the tau lexicon.

‘– –DIE IN PAIN – – FOREIGN WORM THING – –’

Standing upright, the commander placed a hoof-like foot upon the creature’s torso and triggered the punch-cylinder under its sole. A thin tube of titanium thumped into the thing’s ruined flesh before withdrawing with a neat click. The device was intended for geological analysis, installed by the earth caste to be used whenever the tau set foot on a new world, but Bravestorm knew from experience it could read biological information just as well.

Keeping one eye on the plasma rifle’s designator, he used the other to scan the assessment screen in the rounded corner of his cocoon. The necrotic thing was human, or a close derivative. Extensive tissue damage, rejuvenation scars, and…

The commander looked again in horror.

Somehow, the vile thing was over six thousand years old.

A macabre realisation crept through Bravestorm’s mind. This abomination had been trapped in its armoured war-coffin long before the tau’s ancestors had first emerged from their caves. What manner of enemy were they fighting upon Dal’yth?

‘– – KILL ME – – VEXING FOOL – –’ spooled the autotrans. ‘– – KILL ME – – OR I SHALL HUNT YOU UNTIL DEATH – –’

Bravestorm triggered his plasma rifle, and the creature met its final oblivion.

Click here to buy Blades of Damocles.

For Papa Edwin & the staff and fellow gamers of Fun Atelier, Hong Kong, with whom I rolled dice for so many years; and especially the Veteran Company – who put the narrative into gaming. Keep fighting. There is only War…

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2016.
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Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

Cover illustration by Roman Tishenin.

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o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.