Dekkan and Grelt followed their commander, striking with gun butts, knees and elbows as they bludgeoned through the mass of traitors. They clubbed and kicked, driving a wedge through the semicircle of enemy fighters until they were clear.

  Zheev’s chest heaved, heart straining to burst. His breath sawed in and out of his mouth as he clambered to reach the summit of the stacked containers. The colonel had left his youth behind decades ago, and the previous six years of his retirement had softened him. Wiping the sweat from his eyes with the sleeve of his greatcoat, he willed his weakness aside and climbed higher, resolved that if he were to meet his end, it would be in the Emperor’s name.

  Daylight and smoke poured through the maintenance bay’s gaping doors, which opened to the thunderous combat outside. The command squad climbed higher, struggling beneath the weight of their armour and gear as they strove for the topmost container.

  Outside, Raff’s battalion had put itself between the malignant Heretic Astartes and the maintenance bays. Las-fire cracked and heavy bolters rumbled, the din of battle all but drowned beneath the baleful howl of the possessed Space Marine as its armour turned their fire aside. That it could still move and kill despite all the damage it had suffered was remarkable. What remained of the transhuman warrior had practically melted into a lurching, bipedal mass of oozing black sludge and smoke, with only rust-encumbered fragments of shattered ceramite remaining to reveal what it had been. Its blade keened as it killed and killed again, reaping down all before it as it limped towards the maintenance facility where Zheev sheltered.

  Zheev pulled Grelt up onto the uppermost container. ‘This is going to have to do,’ he panted. ‘Mark it.’

  Grelt drew his rangefinder from a belt pack and crawled towards the edge of the container. Despite his exertion, he held his breath as he would before marking a shot for Dekkan, aiming the laser marking tube towards the rampaging Space Marine and depressing the button. The marker left nothing visible on the monstrous Heretic Astartes, but Zheev knew it would be luminous to any targeting augurs.

  Norroll listened to the twin battles being fought across the academy grounds and wondered why it was taking so long for Actis to reach Zheev’s location. He glanced at the chronometer on his vambrace display and noted it had been less than a minute, far too little time for the servo-skull to cross the distance.

  He joined Fennech on the loading platform as the commissar set an artillery shell into the Earthshaker’s breech.

  ‘You’ve taken charge here readily,’ Fennech observed, locking the breech closed with a clank.

  ‘Fell to me, I suppose.’

  ‘You could have left it to me.’

  Norroll scoffed. ‘You’ll forgive me, sir, but no. I found my last time under your command chafing.’

  ‘Abstinax?’

  Norroll nodded. He hopped down from the loading deck to grab an artillery round from the stack behind the Basilisk.

  ‘I suspected as much.’

  ‘You don’t remember?’

  The scars on the left half of Fennech’s face puckered beneath his augmetic eye. ‘No. I learned very quickly that it profited me nothing to retain the names of my surviving progenia following selection. The only cycle I can recall in its entirety is my first, and with Tempestor Ezl’s passing, Tempestor Traxel is the last of those.’

  ‘Traxel was one of your first?’

  ‘He holds a grudge. I was most particular during my first cycle.’

  Norroll placed another artillery round on the stack. ‘I thought that was the effect you had on everybody.’

  Fennech’s laugh made the hairs on Norroll’s arms stand up. It was deep and hollow, quite unsuited to conveying mirth.

  Shaking off his trepidation, Norroll placed another round in the stack on the loading deck. ‘May I ask you a question, commissar?’

  ‘You may.’

  ‘Do you recall Mierich Annigan?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘“A round squandered is as two in the backs of your allies,”’ Norroll said.

  Fennech’s eye narrowed. ‘The Path of Faith,’ he mused. ‘That was you, during my last cycle on Abstinax. The progenius willing to die for his friend.’

  ‘That was me.’ Norroll glanced down at his vambrace as gunfire and explosions continued to echo from the academy grounds. ‘You killed him, then reminded me that allowances must be made for misfires.’ Norroll’s vambrace pinged as targeting data scrolled across the face of his slate monitron. He touched the data-slate, transmitting the coordinates to the others.

  Behind the neighbouring gun, Akraatumo flashed Norroll a thumbs-up. ‘Ready.’ Per Traxel’s coded instruction, the vox-operator had shifted to a different frequency so the 139th could not eavesdrop.

  ‘Tempestor, we have received Iron Zero’s targeting coordinates.’

  ‘Use the Basilisks to soften up the target area, then fire for effect with Deathstrike,’ Traxel said.

  Norroll glanced up at Fennech. The commissar shook his head.

  ‘Confirming, we are to fire on friendly forces?’

  ‘That sounded like a question, Norroll.’ Traxel’s voice crackled across the signal. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘No, Tempestor. Just making allowances for misfires.’

  ‘Do you have the coordinates loaded?’ Traxel asked.

  ‘Aye, Tempestor,’ Norroll replied.

  ‘Then fire.’

  Hurdt was thrown sprawling. Shrapnel clattered against his cara­pace as the force of the exploding Chimera knocked him from his feet. Instinct sent him back up and diving for cover.

  An uncanny silence seemed to have fallen over the battlefield. When his helmet’s audio filters finally disengaged, Hurdt could hear the grumbling of nearby Chimeras’ engines above the high-pitched whine ringing in his ears. His guts vibrated, as if his insides had attempted to become his outsides.

  Sheltering behind the smouldering remains of a Chimera, Hurdt sensed that all fighting had, for the moment, ceased. He looked around dazedly, searching for anything which might tell him what had just happened. Everything visible through the obscuring ochre dust cloud, traitor and loyalist, Stygian and ranker alike, was covered with a dense layer of dun grit. But for the patches of dark blood soaking through the powder, everyone appeared remarkably uniform.

  Hurdt clutched at his fractured thoughts.

  Earthshaker round. Had to be.

  He couldn’t see Matebos for the cloud of dust that billowed across the field. The momentary relief was quickly replaced by dread – if he couldn’t see the warped Iron Warrior, there was no telling where he was.

  A quick rush of air was the only hint the second Earthshaker round gave before it burst, perhaps two hundred yards away, still close enough for him to feel the blast. Flames glowed through the dust cloud as more Chimeras burned.

  ‘General?’ someone called from over Hurdt’s right shoulder.

  Hurdt drew his laspistol as Corporal Demitrus, his driver, rounded the rear corner of the Chimera the general sheltered behind.

  Hurdt put up his weapon. ‘Demitrus?’

  ‘Sir, come on!’ Demitrus said, grabbing Hurdt by the shoulder and pulling. ‘This way!’

  To Hurdt’s surprise and relief, it seemed his entire command squad was still alive, if not wholly intact. Blood soaked through the dust coating Surges’ and Hesturm’s fatigues in several areas. Enterich, his medic, applied pressure to a deep wound which had rendered his own left arm useless. Captain Ketch, Hurdt’s adjutant, and Sergeant Garrigo, the division’s vox-operator, received status reports as they ran.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Hurdt asked.

  The group staggered as a third Earthshaker punched through one of the maintenance bays, tearing the structure apart in a rapidly expanding fireball.

  ‘We’re getting out of here, sir, is what’s going on!’ Ketch said.

  Visibility improved as they fled the impact area. Hurdt could see movement now, as the surviving troops on both sides staggered to their feet and took to their heels. Nobody fought – troopers on either side with enough presence of mind to do so simply attempted to flee. Even the most fanatical of the twisted wretches under Hurdt’s command staggered about in aimless disorientation.

  The division’s colours drooped, singed and ragged, in Hesturm’s grip. Light reflected from a ragged bit of golden thread at the standard’s tattered edge, catching Hurdt’s eye – the general had cut the gold fringe from the flag himself following the massacre of the senate, when he had declared against the Imperium. He gaped at the threadbare remains of his once-proud banner, tasting blood and ashes as judgement fell on the Third Division.

  With a lowing groan, Matebos staggered upright behind them. Smoking black ichor poured from the innumerable wounds delved deep into the foul amalgamation of ceramite and daemonic flesh. His right arm had been torn free at the shoulder, and his head hung askew, lolling limply with every tottering step he took on visibly broken legs. How the Heretic Astartes had even survived beggared belief, for surely even the Emperor’s Angels had limits to their endurance.

  Plumes of black smoke twisted from the Iron Warrior’s broken wings. There was nothing angelic in Matebos – rather the converse.

  Ketch dragged Hurdt forward. ‘Come on, sir!’

  Matebos swayed, oily black blood soaking through the thick layer of dust enveloping him. His form stuttered as whatever force kept him standing struggled to maintain its presence in the material universe. His semblance flickered between images – he staggered, now appearing as a blood-smeared and terribly wounded warrior of the IV Legion Astartes. A fraction of a second later, and Hurdt saw the massive chimerical beast that lay at the core of his blade – an iron-hooved horror defying any notion of natural parentage, its flaming pinions fluttering above a rippling skin of iridescent scales and bony, reptilian knobs. It fluctuated between the two aspects as materiality and unreality warred, overlapping and twisting about one another. The sword in its left talon shredded existence itself upon the ghastly singularity beneath its surface.

  Matebos turned, its head lolling from its crippled neck. The Iron Warrior slewed drunkenly towards the loyalist troopers, like a broken puppet pulled along by the daemon-thing ensnaring his soul. It limped, growling in frustration at its host’s mortal weakness.

  Zheev’s surviving loyalists opened fire, the fury of the Earthshaker’s explosion forgotten in the face of the manifest nightmare stumbling towards them. Hurdt’s Guardsmen likewise opened fire on Matebos with panicked abandon – it seemed there were some extremes beyond countenancing. The animosities of riven brotherhoods fell aside before the unnatural menace as traitor and loyalist Rilisians fought side by side against a foe hungering for their deaths.

  The possessed Space Marine bellowed and charged, all semblance of restraint or sanity lost as the hulking brute tore into whatever it encountered with howling abandon, murdering all in its path.

  ‘Zheev!’

  The daemon’s cry startled Hurdt, forcing him to stumble.

  Slicing free of the Guardsmen, it staggered across the field towards the maintenance bay and collapsed. Chunks of ravaged armour and flesh rained from its smoke-shrouded mass. It crawled forward, dragging the sparking, smouldering remains of its broken-winged power pack behind it on partially fleshed lengths of conduit. Black blood drooled and sputtered from its trap-jaw mouth as Matebos pointed at a distant figure with the tip of its blade.

  ‘Zheev! Esh’laki’im comes!’

  Ketch dragged Hurdt up by the pauldrons. ‘Run, dammit!’

  Matebos, or whatever remained of the Iron Warrior, boiled from within as the tether holding it to this reality frayed. It disintegrated as it struggled forward, bearing the daemon blade as if it might lead the possessed Chaos Space Marine to Zheev, as a dowsing rod might take a parched man to sweet water.

  The roar of powerful engines overhead drowned all other sound. Ketch was screaming, but Hurdt could barely hear him.

  ‘Run!’

  A moment later, the world behind them vanished in a flash of migraine light and fury.

  XVI

  Norroll and his team trudged across the cracked tarmac, towards the crater where the depot’s maintenance bays had been. Though they remained alert to any threats, none moved against them – in the wake of the artillery bombardment and the detonation of the Deathstrike’s vortex warhead, it seemed unlikely that any remained.

  The recon trooper’s feet felt heavy as he walked, his steps cumbersome. Being wounded and run ragged beyond the point of exhaustion for weeks at a time was nothing unusual for him. You got used to it, if it was anything that you could ever really get used to. This was something else.

  The Deathstrike had eliminated all that lay within its blast radius. Nothing remained of the maintenance area, save for a disconcertingly precise, concave crater, perhaps two hundred yards in circumference and three yards deep at its nadir. The warp bubble had sucked the entire impact zone, including corpses, vehicles and even buildings, into the empyrean before collapsing in on itself. A wonder of destructive efficiency, the vortex had consumed all within its reach. No evidence remained that the Iron Warrior, or indeed anyone else within the vortex’s circumference, had ever existed – allies and enemies alike had been cast into the warp.

  Norroll was relieved the warhead had functioned properly, collapsing the vortex back in on itself following its detonation – he had heard tales where they lingered, meandering across the ­battlefield to devour all in their path.

  On the far side of the crater, Atebe sat with her back to them, stripped to the waist but for her sleeveless white undershirt, her tight blonde cornrows stark against her ebony skin in the late-afternoon sunshine. A spinal traction machine wrapped around her midsection like a corset, intermittently giving off a burring, mechanical whine as it stretched her vertebrae apart. She rocked forward and back, side to side, working her slipped discs back into place with the machine’s aid. She held her left leg out in front of her, flexing her knee and working her foot similarly to the movement of her torso.

  Bissot sat cross-legged beside her, singing quietly to herself as she looked down one of the barrels of her disassembled volley gun. Like Atebe, she went unhelmed, instead opting to wear her dark green beret over her close-cropped black hair. Unlike Atebe, she still wore all her pitted, blackened and cracked cara­pace armour, whatever remained of its original green almost completely obscured beneath a heavy layer of umber dust and grime. She swung the barrel towards Norroll, looking through it like a telescope, and graced him with a wry smile before rising.

  ‘Commissar,’ she said coolly with a dip of her chin.

  ‘Trooper Bissot,’ Fennech said. ‘Where might I find the Tempestor?’

  Bissot gestured over her shoulder towards the blasted area on the opposite side of the crater, and Fennech departed.

  Norroll unsealed his helmet, carefully peeling the suction cups holding his visor to his eye sockets free before lifting it off. After several days in an all-encompassing helm, smelling his own sour breath and consuming nothing but nutri-paste and reclaimed water, the simple comfort of a light breeze and daylight on his skin seemed a luxury. Despite the overpowering odours of blood, excrement and the lingering tang of explosives, he drew in a deep draught of air. He fished a protein wafer from a pouch on his belt and bit off a third of it.

  Bissot licked her index finger and wiped it around the threading for her lower barrel. ‘Bless the binding and the threading, that barrel and receiver join true,’ she prayed. ‘Bless my hands as I twist these four and twenty turns of the barrel, as it is written in the Manual of Maintenance and Operation, that I might guide it aright and strip not the threads on reassembly. I turn, turn, turn, turn, turn…’

  Norroll stuffed the rest of the protein wafer into his mouth, chewing noisily. ‘When did the Hundred-and-Thirty-Ninth show up?’ he mumbled.

  ‘Right on cue,’ Atebe said over her left shoulder. ‘A battalion of them, like the Emperor Himself dropped them onto the battle­field. They kept that thing occupied long enough for you to kill it with fire.’

  Norroll unscrewed his canteen’s cap. ‘Thing?’

  ‘The Heretic Astartes,’ Atebe said. ‘Or what was left of him.’ She shook her head. ‘I didn’t see it, though the Tempestor says it’s just as well most of the battalion died in the bombardment.’

  Norroll took a gulp from his canteen. The tang of the chemically purified water was unpleasant, but it helped to banish the taste of the protein wafer. ‘Matter of time for the others, I suppose.’

  Atebe shrugged. ‘The Tempestor is over there.’

  Norroll screwed the cap back onto his canteen and took his leave of them.

  It seemed a handful of Guardsmen had managed to escape the bombardment and the Deathstrike’s all-consuming detonation. Smeared in blood, Daviland worked at a hasty field surgery station she had established on the right edge of the crater, where survivors hauled the wounded.

  Durlo had joined the medicae-adept while Norroll and Atebe had been talking, fetching tools and supplies as Daviland required. While he was technologically adept, Durlo was no medicae, and Norroll doubted he provided her with much more than an extra set of hands and moral support. The surviving combat medics from Attack Battalion helped as best they could, either through triage or direct assistance, but there were only four of them, the odds stacked entirely against them by the sheer number of casualties in so small a place.

  Norroll left them to their work, unsure what Daviland was trying to accomplish. Mercy, if that’s what this was, was unlike her – from what he had inferred from Atebe, these troopers would be better served if the eradicant simply lined the survivors up in a row and executed them. Faster, anyway.