Lords Of Nocturne, page 130
Praetor ignited his thunder hammer. Energy crackled along its head and haft, stirring the weapon’s machine-spirit.
‘Combat formation.’
Tsu’gan rejoiced. Battle at last!
As the Firedrakes advanced, a missile scudded overhead and tore apart one of the immobilised tanks. It detonated the fuel reserves, slinging the warrior-maiden who’d been firing its turret-mounted heavy bolter to the ground where she lay bleeding.
Flamers were brought up, and bathed the onrushing Red Rage with super-heated promethium. The cultists died immediately, like pathetic candles withered by a blow-torch. The Traitor Marines were not so easily felled. One collapsed to a knee, shimmering in the heat haze, his armour wreathed by fire, but the others drove through it. Emerging from the smoke, they looked like daemons born from the fiery hells of the warp. Tendrils of licking flame trailed off their battle-plate.
Chainblades screeching for blood, the Red Rage were about to tear into the Battle Sisters when a second flamer blast smashed into them from the flank, spilling bodies unprepared to meet it.
‘Into the fires of battle!’ Praetor thundered towards the Traitor Marines like an armoured bull.
Tsu’gan was behind him. He felt the resonance of his heavy footfalls through his armour, and those of Kai’ru and Ankar to either side. Gathimu was at the rear, slow enough to scorch the Red Rage with his heavy flamer. Tsu’gan felt him too, saw his ident-rune on the grainy tac-display imposed on his helmet lens.
Advance three steps – fire. Advance three steps – fire.
Gathimu was unfaltering.
Running in Terminator armour was difficult, but not impossible. Unused to the manoeuvre, Tsu’gan found his enhanced physiology stretched but he soon compensated. His breath sounded harsh and reverberant inside his helmet. The enemy were getting closer through the yellow-orange optic lenses.
A spray of blood cascaded from the shattered skull of a Traitor Marine as Praetor connected with his thunder hammer. A second red slash tore from the warrior’s stomach as the Salamanders sergeant used his storm shield to open him up.
Tsu’gan triggered his storm bolter, the hard crash-bang staccato that followed filling his heart with righteous anger.
‘In Vulkan’s name! Glory to Prometheus!’ He strafed a fresh line of cultists rushing to intercept the Salamanders.
The Terminators barrelled through them like they were nothing. One crumpled against Ankar’s armoured bulk. Another disappeared in a visceral mist, torn apart by Kai’ru’s chainfist.
Ahead of them, the Battle Sisters were rallying. But further enemy forces were coming, Havoc squads armed with heavy weapons and a Rhino APC carrying another battle squad. A wall of fire whickered from their ranks. It pinged off the invulnerable Terminators but scythed into the Battle Sisters brutally. Bodies were spun and tossed by the fusillade. They fell in silence despite their wounds.
A trio of Ecclesiarchy tanks rolled up the street to meet the enemy’s secondary force, two Battle Sisters squads running alongside them. Unity Square was packed with troops. A short range fire-fight had erupted across a small patch of open ground. Frantic melta beams stabbed across the debris, generators screaming. Heavy bolters added a grunting chorus to the orchestra of war.
The skirmish was escalating.
In the middle of the storm, the Firedrakes met the enemy proper.
Cracking ceramite, the sound of sundered power armour, accompanied Tsu’gan’s bludgeoning of one of the Traitor Marines. Another came in his wake, firing his combi-bolter point blank into the Salamander’s torso. Tiny insect-like stings were no more than an annoyance.
Tsu’gan’s power fist crushed him into paste.
Buoyed by the sudden appearance of heavily armoured reinforcements, the Battle Sisters advanced beyond their barricades to link up with the Space Marines. Gathimu had reached his battle-brothers too, and sent a plume of burning promethium into the Chaos Rhino. Destroyed tracks and a badly scorched hull brought the vehicle to a skidding halt.
Keeping up the pressure, Gathimu engulfed the stricken Rhino. Smoke-shrouded figures stumbled from its hatches, before the hold ignited and blew out the rear door in a deep foom of exploding incendiary.
The muzzle-flare from Tsu’gan’s storm bolter lit up his armour in a stark glow. Already ablaze, the Traitor Marines from inside the vehicle bucked and spasmed against the bolt storm. Three survived, staggered by shell impacts but unbowed in their durable power armour.
Praetor’s thunder hammer showed no such mercy as he waded in and crushed them.
Emboldened, the Battle Sisters advanced ahead of the more cumbersome Terminators to establish a fresh strongpoint beyond Unity Square. Further squads were moving in from the avenues of broken temples and collapsed spires. Rubble provided a natural cordon in which to funnel the Chaos renegades.
Tsu’gan noticed the Sister Superior he’d seen earlier give a curt nod of thanks to his sergeant before pressing on.
Praetor’s voice rumbled over the comm-link a moment later.
‘Fire-born, converge on my position.’
A series of affirmation runes flashed up on Tsu’gan’s helmet lens as the squad tightened its coherency.
‘Do we advance?’ Kai’ru sounded eager for more.
He wasn’t alone. Tsu’gan was getting ready to head after their allies when Praetor spoke again.
‘Hold position.’
‘Brother-sergeant–’
Gathimu cut Tsu’gan off before he made a mistake he’d regret.
‘Be patient, brother. This isn’t over yet.’
Tsu’gan followed his eye-line. A pair of Immolator battle tanks spearheaded the Ecclesiarchy counter-assault. Their inferno cannons were short-ranged but deadly. Shooting gouts of intense fire ahead of them, they laid a path for the warrior-maidens behind. Some rode inside the Rhino APC that followed. Others hung on to its outer rails, holding their bolters one-handed.
Tsu’gan’s eyes narrowed. His occulobe filtered out smoke graining and sharpened the image despite the distance and the heat haze. Something was coming, heralded by a squall of blood-crazed cultists. What was left of the Havocs and the few Traitor Marines from the battle squads retreated to consolidate with it.
‘Massive heat signature, brother-sergeant.’ Gathimu was calm, the blind sword of utter stillness to Tsu’gan’s font of reckless anger.
‘I read.’
Threat icons in Tsu’gan’s helmet array flashed insistently.
‘Looks like some sort of machine. Dreadnought?’
Tsu’gan locked onto it with his targeter. His tac-display spooled down the metres rapidly.
It was speeding up, and no Dreadnought.
Ankar cranked fresh rounds into his storm bolter.
‘An Adeptus Astartes?’
A dense but distant thunk of metal against metal arrested Praetor’s reply. A dark shape was crashing out of the sky towards the Firedrakes. It took Tsu’gan a few seconds to realise it was one of the Immolators.
They were already moving when Praetor bellowed.
‘Disperse!’
A hunk of flaming tank landed between them, like so much burning shrapnel. It had literally been torn apart.
‘Forwards on me, brothers!’ Praetor circled the wreck quickly, overcoming the weight of his armour with sheer strength.
Tsu’gan was first behind him, but Praetor already had a lead. ‘What is that thing?’
It resembled a suit of mechanised armour, a simulacrum of a man, something that might once have been part of the long defunct Legio Cybernetica. And though it had pistons and cogs, wheels and chains, and vented steam and oil like a mag-lev train, it was no robot. Something lived and drew breath in those dark iron confines. Tsu’gan felt it.
‘Unnatural…’ Gathimu sounded almost haunted. ‘It’s possessed.’
Tsu’gan’s teeth clenched. It was a daemon that had a hand in the death of his former captain, Ko’tan Kadai. His ire grew as he vowed this one would be banished back into the warp without taking anyone with it.
A short distance away, the Battle Sisters were levelling everything they had at it. Bolter fire, even melta blasts rolled off like they were nothing. Another Immolator crumpled like parchment when the daemon-engine shoulder-barged its hull. Fuel and ammunition exploded in a vast fireball that Tsu’gan felt in the resulting heat wash.
‘Emperor’s name… It’s strong.’
Praetor was swinging his thunder hammer in a slow but steady arc. ‘We are stronger.’
The daemon-engine was relentless. It tossed Battle Sisters like limp marionettes. White-armoured bodies fell like rain, eviscerated by its blades and saws.
Tsu’gan heard Praetor mutter when the Firedrakes charged.
‘Vulkan guide me in my hour of doom.’
Up close, the daemon-engine was massive. It reeked of blood and oil. Smoke and heat exuded off its dark iron flesh in a pall. But it was the eyes that Tsu’gan really noticed. With every blow, as the carnage increased, they blazed brighter with a malign light.
Praetor swung. It was like lightning from the sky when he struck. Tsu’gan expected to see the daemon-engine crumble but instead his sergeant’s battle cry became a roar of agony as he was punched off his feet several metres through the air.
To see the mighty Praetor so humbled made the Firedrakes falter.
Kai’ru recovered quickest, getting ahead of Tsu’gan to ram his chainfist into the daemon-engine’s torso.
‘Taste Vulkan’s wrath, warp spawn.’ The oath died on his lips when one of the thing’s hell-blades punctured his Terminator armour as if it were tin. With his aegis broken, Kai’ru could only watch as the saw-teeth churned his innards to mulch.
Gathimu was advancing fast, Kai’ru’s name a cry of anguish on his lips. The igniter on his heavy flamer was already burning when the daemon-engine levelled its wrist-mounted cannon and unloaded. Dozens of armour-piercing shells, jacketed with hellfire, peppered his armour and detonated the promethium tanks on his back.
Blinded by the sudden explosion, Tsu’gan waited a few seconds before his occulobe implant compensated. Gathimu was burning.
‘Ankar.’
The other Firedrake nodded. They would attack the daemon-engine together. Tsu’gan’s tac-display recorded five metres until engagement when a transmission icon flashed urgently on his helmet lens. It had an Imperial signature, emergency coded. The message spooled as rune-text across the display:
Incoming. Fall back five metres and stand fast.
A high-pitched whine broke overhead. No time to retreat. Tsu’gan and Ankar locked their bodies as the ordnance hit. It struck the daemon-engine squarely and it disappeared in a storm of fire and shrapnel.
The explosion billowed outwards, engulfing the Terminators who weathered the blast like a cliff against the tide. When the dust dispersed, the daemon-engine was crouched almost fifty metres away but still intact. It rose slowly. Its dead eyes blazed brighter.
Behind the Salamanders, Ecclesiarchy troops were advancing in force. A stern-faced Sister Superior appeared from the roof hatch of an Exorcist. It looked more like a grotesque church organ than a battle tank, but there it was, auto-loaders priming for another missile launch.
Another pair of Immolators flanked it, heavy bolter turrets rattling. High velocity, mass reactive shells stitched a thick line all the way to the daemon-engine. The dense impacts never even scratched it. The tanks rolled on past the Salamanders, determined to block it. Two Rhinos sped after them, fully loaded with engines screaming.
‘See to your battle-brother.’ Praetor was on his feet. His battle-helm was shattered and he’d torn it off. He was bloodied, still groggy from the blow. It was incredible he lived, let alone stood.
Praetor scowled when it didn’t happen immediately. ‘Get Gathimu up.’
With some effort, Ankar and Tsu’gan hauled the Firedrake to his feet. His armour was badly damaged, blackened by burns, but he nodded his willingness to fight.
Tsu’gan was ready to go again. ‘How do we kill it?’
‘We don’t.’
‘But Brother Kai’ru–’
‘Is gone.’ Praetor’s face was grim. This wasn’t an easy decision. ‘We make for the convent-bastion. They have given us that chance.’ He gestured to where the Battle Sisters fought and died furiously.
Incomprehension and anger warred in Tsu’gan’s burning eyes. ‘What of vengeance? Our brother’s death demands it!’
Praetor snarled, thrusting his thunder hammer in Tsu’gan’s direction. ‘I’ll fell you where you stand. Obey my orders.’
He showed them his back and stalked away. ‘On my lead.’
Despite himself, Tsu’gan was about to protest again, when Gathimu touched his arm.
‘We’ll win no honour for Kai’ru by dying here, our oaths unfulfilled. Sacrifice is not always physical, brother.’
Grief softened Tsu’gan’s face briefly, before the mask returned and his impotent wrath dominated.
The Firedrakes left the battlefield. The convent-bastion wasn’t far. Tsu’gan knew, in their wake, the daemon-engine would be close.
The heavy drumming of explosions outside sounded muffled through the thick convent-bastion walls.
Father Lumeon was pacing.
Why don’t they feel thick enough?
Since departing with the Crusaders, Ignacia had not returned. Five Celestians remained, a full half of her bodyguard, led by Sister Clymene. They eyed the long corridor beyond the force-shield nervously. It was dark, its emergency lighting low.
He looked away when the shadows started to grow and coalesce in his mind. His heart was racing and he gripped his aquila for support.
Evangeline showed no such anxiety. She was kneeling before the reliquary, serene, bereft of all doubt. Though her lips moved in prayer, she made no sound.
Sister Clymene hunched over a tactical console fashioned like a shrine in one corner of the chamber. She turned to Father Lumeon, who then went over to her.
A grainy pict-viewer displayed the situation beyond the convent-bastion’s walls. Flaring bolter fire polluted the image with bright flashes, overloading the external pict-viewer. Static from comm-link chatter obscured it further. But the picture was painfully clear to Father Lumeon. There was no escape. They would all die here. All that mattered was the relic.
He was muttering a prayer to the Emperor when four armoured forms came into view at the edge of the pict. Lumeon had never studied the Adeptus Astartes in any great detail but he recognised the insignia of the Salamanders and offered up his profound thanks.
Despite their bulky armour, the Adeptus Astartes progressed steadily through the Chaos picket lines, shredding foes with their holy bolters and bathing the heinous masses with cleansing flame. Father Lumeon was transfixed as a bald-headed giant smashed his way to the gate, his warrior brothers behind him. As the barrier wall began to open, a force of Celestians came out to meet the Adeptus Astartes. Desperate to get inside, the Red Rage couldn’t get close. The defenders were just too fierce to breach.
Once the Salamanders were through, the Celestians retreated and the gate banged shut again. Pintle-mounted fire from the towers intensified and a battle tank was rolled into the small outer courtyard to watch the gate.
The vox-unit on the tactical console crackled to life.
‘This is Sergeant Praetor of the Salamanders First Company Firedrakes – acknowledge.’
Father Lumeon looked to Sister Clymene, who gestured for him to answer.
His relief was almost palpable. ‘Lords, the Emperor’s blessing you have come. I am Father Lumeon, Missionary High Priest attached to the Orders.’
‘We are sealing the inner doors now.’
Father Lumeon’s tone betrayed his surprise.
‘Ah… But how will we get out? The relic–’
‘Is in safe hands. Be more concerned that the enemy doesn’t get in.’
There was a short pause that filled the priest’s gut with lead.
‘Something is following us. There is little time. Ready the relic, we will be with you soon.’
The vox-link died and silence returned.
Something is following us.
Something.
The words replaying in Lumeon’s head chilled him before he found some resolve.
‘Sister Evangeline.’ She was praying in front of the reliquary and looked up. ‘It’s time.’
The force-shield shimmered once then dissipated before Praetor and his Firedrakes stepped into the sanctum. It was quick to resolve itself again, the waft of ozone from its reactivation souring the air.
Tsu’gan scowled at such fear.
‘That won’t save you,’ said Praetor, looking down at the frail, old priest in front of him.
‘Then we shall have to rely on the Emperor’s grace to protect us.’
If Praetor had an opinion about this, he kept it well hidden.
The priest bowed. ‘I am Father Lumeon.’
The Firedrake sergeant kept the introductions brief. He showed him a small, cylindrical device mag-locked to his belt. ‘Teleport homer. Once locked onto its signal, my ship will transport us and the relic aboard.’ Praetor’s expression became regretful. ‘Its localised field is too small for all of us. Besides, you would not survive translation intact. I am truly sorry.’
Lumeon was already resigned to his fate. He had no fear of death, only of losing the relic.
Praetor’s gaze alighted on the reliquary of Sister Uthraxese where a slim novitiate was kneeling.
‘Brothers, make way.’ The Firedrakes standing behind him spread out. A gap for Praetor and the relic formed between them.
‘When translation occurs, there will be a massive exothermic reaction. Stand well back. Better still, leave the chamber.’ Praetor had moved into position. When he turned the novitiate was standing downcast before him.
‘I am tempered in Vulkan’s forge, sister. I have no need of benediction.’ Praetor looked up. ‘Priest, bring forth the relic. Our time is almost up.’
‘Combat formation.’
Tsu’gan rejoiced. Battle at last!
As the Firedrakes advanced, a missile scudded overhead and tore apart one of the immobilised tanks. It detonated the fuel reserves, slinging the warrior-maiden who’d been firing its turret-mounted heavy bolter to the ground where she lay bleeding.
Flamers were brought up, and bathed the onrushing Red Rage with super-heated promethium. The cultists died immediately, like pathetic candles withered by a blow-torch. The Traitor Marines were not so easily felled. One collapsed to a knee, shimmering in the heat haze, his armour wreathed by fire, but the others drove through it. Emerging from the smoke, they looked like daemons born from the fiery hells of the warp. Tendrils of licking flame trailed off their battle-plate.
Chainblades screeching for blood, the Red Rage were about to tear into the Battle Sisters when a second flamer blast smashed into them from the flank, spilling bodies unprepared to meet it.
‘Into the fires of battle!’ Praetor thundered towards the Traitor Marines like an armoured bull.
Tsu’gan was behind him. He felt the resonance of his heavy footfalls through his armour, and those of Kai’ru and Ankar to either side. Gathimu was at the rear, slow enough to scorch the Red Rage with his heavy flamer. Tsu’gan felt him too, saw his ident-rune on the grainy tac-display imposed on his helmet lens.
Advance three steps – fire. Advance three steps – fire.
Gathimu was unfaltering.
Running in Terminator armour was difficult, but not impossible. Unused to the manoeuvre, Tsu’gan found his enhanced physiology stretched but he soon compensated. His breath sounded harsh and reverberant inside his helmet. The enemy were getting closer through the yellow-orange optic lenses.
A spray of blood cascaded from the shattered skull of a Traitor Marine as Praetor connected with his thunder hammer. A second red slash tore from the warrior’s stomach as the Salamanders sergeant used his storm shield to open him up.
Tsu’gan triggered his storm bolter, the hard crash-bang staccato that followed filling his heart with righteous anger.
‘In Vulkan’s name! Glory to Prometheus!’ He strafed a fresh line of cultists rushing to intercept the Salamanders.
The Terminators barrelled through them like they were nothing. One crumpled against Ankar’s armoured bulk. Another disappeared in a visceral mist, torn apart by Kai’ru’s chainfist.
Ahead of them, the Battle Sisters were rallying. But further enemy forces were coming, Havoc squads armed with heavy weapons and a Rhino APC carrying another battle squad. A wall of fire whickered from their ranks. It pinged off the invulnerable Terminators but scythed into the Battle Sisters brutally. Bodies were spun and tossed by the fusillade. They fell in silence despite their wounds.
A trio of Ecclesiarchy tanks rolled up the street to meet the enemy’s secondary force, two Battle Sisters squads running alongside them. Unity Square was packed with troops. A short range fire-fight had erupted across a small patch of open ground. Frantic melta beams stabbed across the debris, generators screaming. Heavy bolters added a grunting chorus to the orchestra of war.
The skirmish was escalating.
In the middle of the storm, the Firedrakes met the enemy proper.
Cracking ceramite, the sound of sundered power armour, accompanied Tsu’gan’s bludgeoning of one of the Traitor Marines. Another came in his wake, firing his combi-bolter point blank into the Salamander’s torso. Tiny insect-like stings were no more than an annoyance.
Tsu’gan’s power fist crushed him into paste.
Buoyed by the sudden appearance of heavily armoured reinforcements, the Battle Sisters advanced beyond their barricades to link up with the Space Marines. Gathimu had reached his battle-brothers too, and sent a plume of burning promethium into the Chaos Rhino. Destroyed tracks and a badly scorched hull brought the vehicle to a skidding halt.
Keeping up the pressure, Gathimu engulfed the stricken Rhino. Smoke-shrouded figures stumbled from its hatches, before the hold ignited and blew out the rear door in a deep foom of exploding incendiary.
The muzzle-flare from Tsu’gan’s storm bolter lit up his armour in a stark glow. Already ablaze, the Traitor Marines from inside the vehicle bucked and spasmed against the bolt storm. Three survived, staggered by shell impacts but unbowed in their durable power armour.
Praetor’s thunder hammer showed no such mercy as he waded in and crushed them.
Emboldened, the Battle Sisters advanced ahead of the more cumbersome Terminators to establish a fresh strongpoint beyond Unity Square. Further squads were moving in from the avenues of broken temples and collapsed spires. Rubble provided a natural cordon in which to funnel the Chaos renegades.
Tsu’gan noticed the Sister Superior he’d seen earlier give a curt nod of thanks to his sergeant before pressing on.
Praetor’s voice rumbled over the comm-link a moment later.
‘Fire-born, converge on my position.’
A series of affirmation runes flashed up on Tsu’gan’s helmet lens as the squad tightened its coherency.
‘Do we advance?’ Kai’ru sounded eager for more.
He wasn’t alone. Tsu’gan was getting ready to head after their allies when Praetor spoke again.
‘Hold position.’
‘Brother-sergeant–’
Gathimu cut Tsu’gan off before he made a mistake he’d regret.
‘Be patient, brother. This isn’t over yet.’
Tsu’gan followed his eye-line. A pair of Immolator battle tanks spearheaded the Ecclesiarchy counter-assault. Their inferno cannons were short-ranged but deadly. Shooting gouts of intense fire ahead of them, they laid a path for the warrior-maidens behind. Some rode inside the Rhino APC that followed. Others hung on to its outer rails, holding their bolters one-handed.
Tsu’gan’s eyes narrowed. His occulobe filtered out smoke graining and sharpened the image despite the distance and the heat haze. Something was coming, heralded by a squall of blood-crazed cultists. What was left of the Havocs and the few Traitor Marines from the battle squads retreated to consolidate with it.
‘Massive heat signature, brother-sergeant.’ Gathimu was calm, the blind sword of utter stillness to Tsu’gan’s font of reckless anger.
‘I read.’
Threat icons in Tsu’gan’s helmet array flashed insistently.
‘Looks like some sort of machine. Dreadnought?’
Tsu’gan locked onto it with his targeter. His tac-display spooled down the metres rapidly.
It was speeding up, and no Dreadnought.
Ankar cranked fresh rounds into his storm bolter.
‘An Adeptus Astartes?’
A dense but distant thunk of metal against metal arrested Praetor’s reply. A dark shape was crashing out of the sky towards the Firedrakes. It took Tsu’gan a few seconds to realise it was one of the Immolators.
They were already moving when Praetor bellowed.
‘Disperse!’
A hunk of flaming tank landed between them, like so much burning shrapnel. It had literally been torn apart.
‘Forwards on me, brothers!’ Praetor circled the wreck quickly, overcoming the weight of his armour with sheer strength.
Tsu’gan was first behind him, but Praetor already had a lead. ‘What is that thing?’
It resembled a suit of mechanised armour, a simulacrum of a man, something that might once have been part of the long defunct Legio Cybernetica. And though it had pistons and cogs, wheels and chains, and vented steam and oil like a mag-lev train, it was no robot. Something lived and drew breath in those dark iron confines. Tsu’gan felt it.
‘Unnatural…’ Gathimu sounded almost haunted. ‘It’s possessed.’
Tsu’gan’s teeth clenched. It was a daemon that had a hand in the death of his former captain, Ko’tan Kadai. His ire grew as he vowed this one would be banished back into the warp without taking anyone with it.
A short distance away, the Battle Sisters were levelling everything they had at it. Bolter fire, even melta blasts rolled off like they were nothing. Another Immolator crumpled like parchment when the daemon-engine shoulder-barged its hull. Fuel and ammunition exploded in a vast fireball that Tsu’gan felt in the resulting heat wash.
‘Emperor’s name… It’s strong.’
Praetor was swinging his thunder hammer in a slow but steady arc. ‘We are stronger.’
The daemon-engine was relentless. It tossed Battle Sisters like limp marionettes. White-armoured bodies fell like rain, eviscerated by its blades and saws.
Tsu’gan heard Praetor mutter when the Firedrakes charged.
‘Vulkan guide me in my hour of doom.’
Up close, the daemon-engine was massive. It reeked of blood and oil. Smoke and heat exuded off its dark iron flesh in a pall. But it was the eyes that Tsu’gan really noticed. With every blow, as the carnage increased, they blazed brighter with a malign light.
Praetor swung. It was like lightning from the sky when he struck. Tsu’gan expected to see the daemon-engine crumble but instead his sergeant’s battle cry became a roar of agony as he was punched off his feet several metres through the air.
To see the mighty Praetor so humbled made the Firedrakes falter.
Kai’ru recovered quickest, getting ahead of Tsu’gan to ram his chainfist into the daemon-engine’s torso.
‘Taste Vulkan’s wrath, warp spawn.’ The oath died on his lips when one of the thing’s hell-blades punctured his Terminator armour as if it were tin. With his aegis broken, Kai’ru could only watch as the saw-teeth churned his innards to mulch.
Gathimu was advancing fast, Kai’ru’s name a cry of anguish on his lips. The igniter on his heavy flamer was already burning when the daemon-engine levelled its wrist-mounted cannon and unloaded. Dozens of armour-piercing shells, jacketed with hellfire, peppered his armour and detonated the promethium tanks on his back.
Blinded by the sudden explosion, Tsu’gan waited a few seconds before his occulobe implant compensated. Gathimu was burning.
‘Ankar.’
The other Firedrake nodded. They would attack the daemon-engine together. Tsu’gan’s tac-display recorded five metres until engagement when a transmission icon flashed urgently on his helmet lens. It had an Imperial signature, emergency coded. The message spooled as rune-text across the display:
Incoming. Fall back five metres and stand fast.
A high-pitched whine broke overhead. No time to retreat. Tsu’gan and Ankar locked their bodies as the ordnance hit. It struck the daemon-engine squarely and it disappeared in a storm of fire and shrapnel.
The explosion billowed outwards, engulfing the Terminators who weathered the blast like a cliff against the tide. When the dust dispersed, the daemon-engine was crouched almost fifty metres away but still intact. It rose slowly. Its dead eyes blazed brighter.
Behind the Salamanders, Ecclesiarchy troops were advancing in force. A stern-faced Sister Superior appeared from the roof hatch of an Exorcist. It looked more like a grotesque church organ than a battle tank, but there it was, auto-loaders priming for another missile launch.
Another pair of Immolators flanked it, heavy bolter turrets rattling. High velocity, mass reactive shells stitched a thick line all the way to the daemon-engine. The dense impacts never even scratched it. The tanks rolled on past the Salamanders, determined to block it. Two Rhinos sped after them, fully loaded with engines screaming.
‘See to your battle-brother.’ Praetor was on his feet. His battle-helm was shattered and he’d torn it off. He was bloodied, still groggy from the blow. It was incredible he lived, let alone stood.
Praetor scowled when it didn’t happen immediately. ‘Get Gathimu up.’
With some effort, Ankar and Tsu’gan hauled the Firedrake to his feet. His armour was badly damaged, blackened by burns, but he nodded his willingness to fight.
Tsu’gan was ready to go again. ‘How do we kill it?’
‘We don’t.’
‘But Brother Kai’ru–’
‘Is gone.’ Praetor’s face was grim. This wasn’t an easy decision. ‘We make for the convent-bastion. They have given us that chance.’ He gestured to where the Battle Sisters fought and died furiously.
Incomprehension and anger warred in Tsu’gan’s burning eyes. ‘What of vengeance? Our brother’s death demands it!’
Praetor snarled, thrusting his thunder hammer in Tsu’gan’s direction. ‘I’ll fell you where you stand. Obey my orders.’
He showed them his back and stalked away. ‘On my lead.’
Despite himself, Tsu’gan was about to protest again, when Gathimu touched his arm.
‘We’ll win no honour for Kai’ru by dying here, our oaths unfulfilled. Sacrifice is not always physical, brother.’
Grief softened Tsu’gan’s face briefly, before the mask returned and his impotent wrath dominated.
The Firedrakes left the battlefield. The convent-bastion wasn’t far. Tsu’gan knew, in their wake, the daemon-engine would be close.
The heavy drumming of explosions outside sounded muffled through the thick convent-bastion walls.
Father Lumeon was pacing.
Why don’t they feel thick enough?
Since departing with the Crusaders, Ignacia had not returned. Five Celestians remained, a full half of her bodyguard, led by Sister Clymene. They eyed the long corridor beyond the force-shield nervously. It was dark, its emergency lighting low.
He looked away when the shadows started to grow and coalesce in his mind. His heart was racing and he gripped his aquila for support.
Evangeline showed no such anxiety. She was kneeling before the reliquary, serene, bereft of all doubt. Though her lips moved in prayer, she made no sound.
Sister Clymene hunched over a tactical console fashioned like a shrine in one corner of the chamber. She turned to Father Lumeon, who then went over to her.
A grainy pict-viewer displayed the situation beyond the convent-bastion’s walls. Flaring bolter fire polluted the image with bright flashes, overloading the external pict-viewer. Static from comm-link chatter obscured it further. But the picture was painfully clear to Father Lumeon. There was no escape. They would all die here. All that mattered was the relic.
He was muttering a prayer to the Emperor when four armoured forms came into view at the edge of the pict. Lumeon had never studied the Adeptus Astartes in any great detail but he recognised the insignia of the Salamanders and offered up his profound thanks.
Despite their bulky armour, the Adeptus Astartes progressed steadily through the Chaos picket lines, shredding foes with their holy bolters and bathing the heinous masses with cleansing flame. Father Lumeon was transfixed as a bald-headed giant smashed his way to the gate, his warrior brothers behind him. As the barrier wall began to open, a force of Celestians came out to meet the Adeptus Astartes. Desperate to get inside, the Red Rage couldn’t get close. The defenders were just too fierce to breach.
Once the Salamanders were through, the Celestians retreated and the gate banged shut again. Pintle-mounted fire from the towers intensified and a battle tank was rolled into the small outer courtyard to watch the gate.
The vox-unit on the tactical console crackled to life.
‘This is Sergeant Praetor of the Salamanders First Company Firedrakes – acknowledge.’
Father Lumeon looked to Sister Clymene, who gestured for him to answer.
His relief was almost palpable. ‘Lords, the Emperor’s blessing you have come. I am Father Lumeon, Missionary High Priest attached to the Orders.’
‘We are sealing the inner doors now.’
Father Lumeon’s tone betrayed his surprise.
‘Ah… But how will we get out? The relic–’
‘Is in safe hands. Be more concerned that the enemy doesn’t get in.’
There was a short pause that filled the priest’s gut with lead.
‘Something is following us. There is little time. Ready the relic, we will be with you soon.’
The vox-link died and silence returned.
Something is following us.
Something.
The words replaying in Lumeon’s head chilled him before he found some resolve.
‘Sister Evangeline.’ She was praying in front of the reliquary and looked up. ‘It’s time.’
The force-shield shimmered once then dissipated before Praetor and his Firedrakes stepped into the sanctum. It was quick to resolve itself again, the waft of ozone from its reactivation souring the air.
Tsu’gan scowled at such fear.
‘That won’t save you,’ said Praetor, looking down at the frail, old priest in front of him.
‘Then we shall have to rely on the Emperor’s grace to protect us.’
If Praetor had an opinion about this, he kept it well hidden.
The priest bowed. ‘I am Father Lumeon.’
The Firedrake sergeant kept the introductions brief. He showed him a small, cylindrical device mag-locked to his belt. ‘Teleport homer. Once locked onto its signal, my ship will transport us and the relic aboard.’ Praetor’s expression became regretful. ‘Its localised field is too small for all of us. Besides, you would not survive translation intact. I am truly sorry.’
Lumeon was already resigned to his fate. He had no fear of death, only of losing the relic.
Praetor’s gaze alighted on the reliquary of Sister Uthraxese where a slim novitiate was kneeling.
‘Brothers, make way.’ The Firedrakes standing behind him spread out. A gap for Praetor and the relic formed between them.
‘When translation occurs, there will be a massive exothermic reaction. Stand well back. Better still, leave the chamber.’ Praetor had moved into position. When he turned the novitiate was standing downcast before him.
‘I am tempered in Vulkan’s forge, sister. I have no need of benediction.’ Praetor looked up. ‘Priest, bring forth the relic. Our time is almost up.’
