Sons of the Forge Page 5

  Obek observed from the crater. No outward sign of the Techmarine’s success or failure presented itself, and the sense of impotence at having to watch and wait sat poorly with the brother-captain, but he would not risk an interruption.

  ‘I do not like this waiting, brother-captain,’ Zandu said over the vox.

  ‘A Salamander is patient, brother-sergeant,’ Obek replied, but inwardly empathised. ‘He tempers his mood as he tempers metal.’

  ‘You sound like Zau’ull.’

  The tremor of a smile crept onto Obek’s face.

  ‘I’ll consider that a compliment. Any unusual movement?’

  Obek had instructed Zandu to maintain close overwatch on the outpost. From his higher vantage point, the sergeant had a much better view. Obek could see little more than the sloping walls and the gap between them through which the workers passed back and forth. Should any sign, however ostensibly innocuous, suggest they had been discovered, they were to engage immediately.

  ‘The machines still toil,’ Zandu replied. ‘I have sighted several combat-units but only lightly armed and remaining on station.’

  That coincided with what Obek had seen too.

  ‘If needed, we will storm this place and lay waste to any who ally themselves with the renegades.’

  ‘Understood, Firebearer.’

  Obek cut the feed; something was happening below.

  ‘Forgefather?’ he asked, and could just make out T’kell, whose entire body had gone into spasm, a single violent jolt that put him onto his back.

  ‘Forgefather?’ Obek asked again when he got no answer. He brought up his bolt pistol, glancing at the outpost but seeing nothing unusual.

  A crackle of static infected the vox, a blurt of binaric cant that came from T’kell. He quickly reverted to Gothic, but haltingly. ‘I found… some… ing.’

  ‘Are you injured, Forgefather?’

  ‘Mechanicum… know… they know.’

  ‘About the Wrought?’ Obek glanced over again, but nothing had changed. He considered voxing Zandu but wanted to know what T’kell had discovered.

  ‘Us…’ said T’kell, and began to thrash. ‘They know we are here.’

  ‘What?’

  An explosion lit up the hillside, sending bone scraps flying and chunks of rubble with it. The skitarii had unleashed a heavy cannon.

  Obek roared down the vox. ‘Salamanders, engage!’

  Zandu was already moving, steadily advancing down the hillside as he led the attack.

  ‘I’ll secure the Forgemaster,’ said Obek, rushing down towards where T’kell lay eerily still in his crater. He reached him just as the bolters started up and the hillside erupted in muzzle flare.

  The shell storm hit the side of the outpost, tearing across its ramparts and howling through its open ingress. There was no gate, just an opening. Servitors and menials alike were shredded, including the combat-unit that had fired the incendiary. Explosive fury ripped through the encampment, and as the bipedal battle-automata responded, their non-martial equivalents continued to labour without pause.

  A phalanx of shield-bearers erected a mobile barricade at the opening, but Zandu quickly put a hole through it with his volkite. A cluster of grenades followed and the makeshift barrier was blown apart and skywards in a series of fiery detonations. The legionaries did not slow, but drove implacably into the outpost itself, targeting sentry points and gun towers with lethal precision.

  This was the Legion at war, the Emperor’s Angels unleashed, and the Salamanders revelled in it.

  The rest disappeared behind smoke, hinted at through half-heard carnage and the throaty retort of Space Marine weaponry, as Obek finally got to T’kell.

  ‘Forgefather?’ he asked tentatively. ‘Brother?’ He was reaching to check T’kell’s vital signs when the Techmarine’s eye opened. He appeared weak, but lucid.

  ‘What happened?’ Obek asked.

  ‘Malicious code,’ T’kell replied. ‘Something designed to discourage infiltration. As my mechanical implants came under attack, my biological body suffered a seizure.’

  Obek offered his arm. ‘Can you stand?’

  ‘Unsure.’ T’kell managed to look down at his legs, but they stayed inert. ‘No. Still non-functional. Need to purge the code.’

  ‘Then do it quickly. The Mechanicum have turned their guns on us,’ said Obek, looking over to the outpost and imagining the battle within. Obek knew war, though he had not tasted it since the end of the Crusade. He knew weapons too, so he recognised the timbre of the Phobos-pattern boltguns his warriors used. He discerned their other patterns as well, the almost rhythmic staccato of suppressing and supporting fire. As he listened, absorbing everything in just a few seconds, something incongruous amid the battle din made him frown…

  T’kell seized his arm, but only to get his attention. ‘Not only the Mechanicum,’ he said.

  That sound Obek now heard… also bolter fire, but not from his warriors’ assault – it answered it. A counter-assault. An ambush.

  ‘Sons of Horus,’ Obek breathed and raised the pilots, but it was too late.

  Breaching the defensive cordon, Zandu pushed forwards. Through the heat of a las-beam fusillade, he quickly appraised the battlefield.

  Four watchtowers stood sentry at the cardinal points of the outpost, which was encircled by a defensive wall arranged in a horseshoe with a single open entry point. Crates, pipes, industrial-grade coils of wire and other materials cluttered around a main assembly area where the non-combatants had begun construction of a machine Zandu did not recognise. Some kind of seismic drill, perhaps? There were signs of excavation around the site. Defensive forces were spread out with lighter patrols scattered on the ramparts to the walls but the heaviest concentrations of resistance focused around the watchtowers.

  The Salamanders legionaries targeted these first.

  Zandu rushed the nearest tower, flanking left with his men. A cohort of mechanised thralls swung a mounted cannon into position, but the angle slowed them down and half of Zandu’s squad strafed the gunners from existence.

  Another thrall cohort began to close as the second half of the squad hurled krak grenades at the tower’s support struts, before reforming again and laying down suppressing fire. A split-second later, a detonation shook the ground and the tower collapsed with all the grace of a felled man. It crashed down onto a group of labour-servitors too slow to move out of the way, or too oblivious to the danger. When the tower then struck a fuel silo, it provoked a firestorm that raged through the encampment, leaving blasted tech-thralls and flesh-stripped menials in its wake. The resulting explosion shook the walls. Some of the menials continued to toil, though their scraps of hair were on fire and their augmetics shone cleanly through the gaps in their melted prosthetic flesh.

  Zandu’s warriors gunned them down, clearing their sight lines to the robed skitarii in their rad-masks struggling through the fiery wreckage. Returning from the right flank where a second demolished watchtower lay burning, Sergeant Ashax brought up his warriors in support and the two squads formed a phalanx. Against the massed bolter fire, the skitarii had to fall back or face annihilation.

  Scattered survivors from the tech-thralls and heavier battle-servitors tried to consolidate and outflank, but Varr’s squad laid down a swathe of blazing promethium that cooked them in their metal suits or fused their tracks solid. The Firedrakes advanced as they burned, hosing ramparts, smothering stragglers and otherwise devastating the Mechanicum’s ranks.

  Such is the fate of all renegades, thought Zandu as the warrior-spirit within all legionaries rejoiced. It had been too long since he had seen battle, too long as a watchman on Prometheus. It had been an honourable duty, but ultimately all Space Marines yearned for the crucible of battle. This was scarcely war, and it felt different to the way the Legion fought. Thirty men, bolters and flamers, it was far remove
d from the continent-spanning wars of the Crusade, but he could not deny it felt satisfying. Even though their helms hid their expressions, Zandu knew his brothers felt the same as he.

  Ashax even raised his chainsword in triumph as the remnants of the enemy were slowly crushed. Zandu raised his fist too. They had fought together at Antaem and driven back the alien scourge of the orks. A decade older than he, Ashax had taught Zandu what it meant to be a Firedrake and his example had inspired the other sergeant to better serve his primarch and his Legion. As sons of the forge, that bond of brotherhood and shared battle history was all that remained to the Salamanders. Here, a small moment of glory had been gratefully snatched, a rare victory after what felt like many recent defeats. Ashax turned, his triumphant mood infectious, poised to bellow a war cry, jerking instead as the bolt shell struck his gorget and took off his head.

  Zandu’s body reacted faster than his mind, even as he fought back the horror of seeing the fount of blood erupting from Ashax’s neck stump. The others were turning too, but their bolters felt slow to track with him, as if caught by some temporal anchor.

  Ashax’s corpse collapsed to its knees and fell forwards, but Zandu had confined this grim image to his peripheral vision as he focused on the threat in front of him.

  Shadows advanced through the murk, heavy armoured and definitely legionary. A stark zigzagging arc of lightning lit their forms in iridescent violet monochrome. They filled the breach in the horseshoe. Zandu mouthed a warning, motion and recognition happening in nanoseconds of enhanced cognition, as a firing line of bolters opened up.

  Any hope of slipping their notice evaporated when Obek saw the three legionaries coming for him and T’kell. The Forgemaster still lay prone, nearly paralysed and vulnerable.

  ‘You are my only defence, Obek…’ he murmured, and managed to clench his fist though his voice tripped like a badly synched audio feed.

  ‘Hold fast, brother,’ Obek said, resting a hand on the Techmarine’s chest before drawing his blade. ‘I shall not fail you.’

  The three legionaries had slowed, raising their boltguns to their shoulders to fire.

  Obek offered them his sword, gently, reverently laying his bolt pistol down but never breaking eye contact with his enemy.

  ‘You surrender?’ one of them laughed, incredulous.

  Obek shook his head. ‘I want to see if the Sons of Horus have any honour left.’

  The three legionaries looked at one another and, to Obek’s surprise, lowered their bolters and drew their own blades. They were notched and the metal dark, unlike the captain’s blade, which shimmered like flawless obsidian.

  They encircled him, those notched blades reaching out to Obek like claws. Obek moved forwards into the cordon the Sons of Horus had created. It put the fight farther from T’kell and, hopefully, a swift execution from the minds of the renegades who were now focused on the Salamanders legionary who could still walk and fight.

  Obek didn’t know why they had accepted his challenge. Boredom, perhaps, or possibly a desire to kill a legionary captain at close quarters. Win or lose, he resolved in that moment before the first blow came that he would not allow them to take him alive. Torture would follow if he did, and Obek would not suffer that indignity. By leaving his bolt pistol at T’kell’s feet, he had left the Forgemaster with a way to avoid such a fate, but could not worry about that now as his assailants closed on him.

  ‘Any last words, kinsman?’ asked one of the renegades as the ring of green and black tightened like a noose.

  Obek was about to decline when he gave a different answer. ‘Vulkan lives.’

  A thrust came in at his midriff, which he turned aside from to parry a second blow aimed at the join between gorget and helmet. He elbowed the renegade who had thrust, striking a point between forearm and upper arm. The legionary grunted in pain and was turning to stab again when Obek parried the third assailant, breaking his guard to spear his blade into the warrior’s throat. The third legionary gurgled, coughing blood up against his mouth-grille. The second, the one who had tried to cut Obek’s head off, shoved his brother out of the way so he could die somewhere else, and launched a feral attack.

  He snarled, spitting incoherent curses with every cleave and thrust. Such was the ferocity of the attack that Obek struggled to defend against it. He also had the other Sons of Horus legionary to worry about. A lance of white heat impaled his side as one of the cuts penetrated his guard, tearing ceramite, adamantium and the mesh beneath until it met flesh. Blood poured from the wound, but clotted fast. It needed to. Obek took a second hit to his left temple, just a glancing blow or the fight would have ended there and then, but it rattled his senses.

  Fighting three opponents was hard, but two was harder. A third assailant would often get in the way of the other two, interrupting their natural balance. As one attacks, the other could seek out a weakness in defence and exploit it. If three attack simultaneously, they would become entangled and inhibit their ability to bring superior numbers to bear. So, Obek knew it would get tougher before he was done. He had to move quickly and anticipate the renegades’ attacks, which left few chances to counter.

  A blow struck his shoulder guard, so hard that it jarred the bone but also snagged the blade. Obek turned sharply, exposing his flank to a vicious thrust from the legionary who was still armed, which sank deep into the meat of his body but wrenched the weapon from the other’s grasp. He shoulder-barged the still-armed renegade, forcing him back, affording himself time to marshal his pain whilst the disarmed renegade made the mistake of reaching for the protruding hilt of his sword.

  Obek stabbed sideways into his armpit, then pushed the blade down at an angle into the renegade’s heart before stepping to the side so the warrior’s body was between him and the survivor. The frenzied hack into his brother’s clavicle would have cleaved Obek’s chest open, armoured or not. Instead, it ended in frustration for the Sons of Horus legionary and left them one against one.

  The renegade’s blade tore up blood and meat as the last remaining warrior wrenched loose. Another notch had been added to the legacy of betrayals, albeit this last one unintended. Unsheathing his own sword from the dead legionary’s armpit, Obek let the corpse fall. He held his side, a gauntlet pressed to the grievous wounds that had opened him up and spattered his blood across the ground.

  ‘Would you like a rest…?’ he asked, but his voice was strained and ragged with effort.

  He expected the renegade to lunge, but instead the warrior dropped his blade and brought up the boltgun that was slung across his back. Dulled by his beating, Obek reacted a fraction too slowly to the altered rules of engagement. He heard the muffled boom of a bolter fired at close range as he reached the last legionary. The shell impact sent spikes of agony across his rib plate and he felt a lung collapse from the kinetic hammer blow against his chest. Mercifully, the shell did not embed or it would have blown out half of his torso. Instead, it caromed off his side and exploded outside of his armour. Heat and shrapnel spoiled his vision, and he tasted blood in his mouth so great in volume he had to spit it out. Half dazed, badly injured, he glared into the retinal lenses of the Sons of Horus legionary, so close now that they almost embraced, and expected the second shell to finish it. Only when he saw the hatred seep away, replaced by a cold vacuous stare, did he realise the renegade was dead. An obsidian blade had scythed through his gut, so deep and impelled with such violence that it had almost cut the warrior in half. An instinctive blow.

  Obek had strength enough to wrench his blade free, before he staggered and almost fell.

  ‘Brother-captain…’ T’kell was rising from the crater at last.

  ‘Need a moment,’ Obek hissed between clenched teeth, fighting the pain and urging his biology to knit his skin faster.

  It took several seconds for Obek’s vision to clear and for the blood rushing inside his skull to recede to a dull roar. He leaned hard
on his bloody sword, using it like a crutch, but when he finally arose, he looked to the outpost and the breach in the outer wall now closed by ranks of green and black.

  As the Forgemaster limped up beside him, Obek rasped breathlessly, ‘We need to fight.’

  Xen craved glory.

  His desire for it was the reason he had never been accepted into the primarch’s inner circle of warriors. Numeon had seen it immediately, and remarked as much to Vulkan. To be of the Pyre Guard, of the Seven, required a selflessness Xen did not possess. Pride undid him, but his sword arm? Numeon had told his father he had never seen another in the Legion who equalled it.

  Vulkan had given Xen a standard to bear, in the hope the burden of it, both physical and symbolic, would temper his pride. Then the war came and hope died with it.

  Xen failed to heed his father’s lesson. Consumed by grief, he embraced his natural talents instead. They had served him well. They would need to do so again.

  A bolter storm raged across the outpost, so fierce it pushed the Salamanders legionaries behind the wreckage of their assault and made makeshift barricades of the fallen watchtowers. A deadly laager of renegades had formed around them, weapons turned inwards. A diminishing knot of drake-scale war-plate, hunkered shoulder to shoulder, fought desperately at the eye of the storm.

  Ashax lay headless, but his warriors had dragged his body into the protective cordon the Salamanders legionaries had erected so it would not be defiled further. Xen only caught glimpses of them through the hail of shells, spitting war oaths as he returned fire into the lightning-streaked darkness.

  A second storm had already taken hold, a natural one that threaded the night sky with violet wounds. The fury of the battle was revealed in it, captured by each iridescent flash. A Sons of Horus legionary died in one of those flashes, shot through the neck to be trampled by his brothers still eager for the slaughter. Xen had no time to shout in triumph and no desire. He had looked up to the XVI Legion once, in awe of their prowess and envious of their laurels. Now he despised them.