‘The Emperor has long grown distracted in his studies on ancient Terra,’ Hasdrubal Serapis insisted with venom. ‘The Imperium has no need of the councils, polity and bureaucracy he has created in his reclusion. We need leadership: a Great Crusade of meaning and purpose. The Emperor is no longer worthy to guide humanity in the next stage of its natural dominion over the galaxy. His son, Horus Lupercal, hasproved himself worthy of the task.’
‘Warsmith Krendl,’ Zhnev said, blanking out the Son of Horus and taking several dangerous steps forwards. ‘If you stand by and do nothing, while the Warmaster plots patricide and pours poison in his brother primarch’s ears, then you too plot a patricide of your own. Perturabo is our primarch. We must make our noble lord see the error of his judgement – not reinforce it with our unquestioned compliance.’
‘Lord Perturabo is your primarch, indeed. Is it so difficult to obey your primarch’s order?’ Serapis marvelled at the Iron Warriors. ‘Or does mutinous Olympian blood still burn in your veins? Krendl, to have your home world rebel in your absence is embarrassment enough. I trust you will not allow the same to happen amongst members of your own Legion.’
‘Save it, pontificator,’ Krendl snapped at the Chaplain. ‘I have heard the arguments. Soon the Legion will have little use for you and your kind.’ The Warsmith turned on the silent, seething Dantioch. ‘You will surrender command of this fortress and troops to me immediately.’
A moment of cool fury passed between the two Iron Warriors.
‘And if I refuse?’
‘Then you and your men will be treated as traitors to the primarch and his Warmaster,’ Krendl promised.
‘Like you and your Cthonian friend are to his majesty, the Emperor?’
‘Your stronghold will be pounded to dust and traitors with it,’ Krendl told him.
Dantioch turned and presented the grim iron of his masked face to Colonel Kruishank, Chaplain Zhnev and his Iron Palatine, Zygmund Tarrasch. Their faces were equally grim. Allowing his eyes to linger for a second on the visiting rector, Barabas Dantioch returned his gaze to his maniacal opposite. Krendl was flushed with fear and fire. Serapis merely watched: a distant observer – the puppet master with strings of his own. Adept Grachuss gurgled rhythmically and rotated his tri-ocular, the lens zeroing in on Dantioch. The Warsmith’s honour guard stood as statues: their bolters ready; their barrels on the custodians of the Schadenhold.
‘Vastopol,’ Dantioch called. ‘What do you think?’
A vox-roar boomed around the chamber, causing the iron rods suspended above the Reclusiam to tremble and dance. Something large and ungainly moved amongst the giant, iron sculptures of the aisle diorama. The most primitive of preservation instincts caused Krendl and his honour guard to spin around in shock. One of the sculptures had come to life. Seeming small in the choreographed throng of titan attackers, the assailant’s bulk and breadth swiftly grew as it advanced and towered over the astounded Iron Warriors.
The Legiones Astartes were presented with one of their own. A Dreadnought. A brooding, metal monster, as broad as it was tall and squatset with chunky weaponry. The Venerable Vastopoclass="underline" with his Warsmith, the last surviving Iron Warriors of the Gholghis fortress world. Wracked with horrendous injury and premature age, Dantioch had had the Space Marine entombed in Dreadnought armour, so that the warrior might continue to serve and keep the chronicles of the company alive. The war machine had been hastily sprayed black in order to blend in with the surrounding diorama and with movement the fresh paint left a black drizzle behind the beast.
As the wall of ceramite and adamantium came at them, Krendl’s armed escorts tried to bring their bolters to bear. The Venerable Vastopol’s gaping twin-autocannons were already loaded, primed and aimed right at them. The weapons crashed, chugging explosive fire at the two rearguard Space Marines and filling the chamber with the unbearable cacophony of battle. At such close range, the heavy weapon reduced the two Legiones Astartes to thrashing blurs of blood and shattered armour.
With more grace and coordination than would have been thought possible in the hulking machine, the charging Dreadnought turned and smashed a third Iron Warrior guard into the opposite aisle with a power claw-appendaged shoulder. The Space Marine’s glorious Maximus suit crumpled and the Legiones Astartes within could be heard screaming as bones snapped and organs ruptured. With Krendl and Serapis backing for cover, silent pistols drawn, and the Mechanicum adept knocked to the Reclusiam floor, the Warsmith’s remaining honour guard flung himself at the Dreadnought. Lifting his bolter above his head, the Iron Warrior blasted the Venerable Vastopol’s armoured womb-tomb with firepower.
Sparks showered from the Dreadnought’s adamantium shell. Vastopol gunned the chainfist bayonet that underslung his autocannons. Slashing at the Iron Warrior with the barbed nightmare, the war machine chewed up the Space Marine’s weapon before opening up his armour from the jaw to the navel. With chest cavity and abdomen spilling their contents out through the ragged gash, the honour guard dropped to his knees and died. Having come away from the wall of sculpture, the Dreadnought had allowed the crushed Legiones Astartes he’d pinned to the merciless iron to thunk to the ground. Lifting a huge metal foot, Vastopol stamped down on the Iron Warrior’s helmet, bespattering the polished stone with brain matter and putting the mauled Space marine out of his howling misery.
As Dantioch came forwards, flanked by Tarrasch and Zhnev on one side and the rector and colonel on the other, Krendl and the Son of Horus retreated: the rage and horror evident on their contorted faces. Both Legiones Astartes officers were backing step by step towards the Grand Reclusiam entrance, their pistols aimed at the unarmed Warsmith and his heavily-armed Dreadnought. Krendl and Serapis were politicians, however, and knew that their best chance of escaping the fortress alive lay in their threats rather than their pistols.
The Venerable Vastopol plucked Grachuss from the floor with the chisel-point digits of his power claw, holding the Mechanicum adept by the temples and hooded crown like an infant’s doll. The sickly yellow lens of the tech-priest’s tri-ocular revolved in panic while his respiratory pipes bubbled furiously.
‘I fear Warsmith Krendl brought you with instructions to catalogue our fortifications,’ Dantioch addressed the suspended Grachuss, ‘so that you might return with stories of our siege capability. A greater Warsmith than he would have done that himself, of course. Vastopol here was the chronicler for our company: he’s not much of a talker now. Vastopol,’ Dantioch called. ‘How does Adept Grachuss’s story end?’
The Dreadnought’s power claw attachment began to revolve at the wrist, wrenching the tech-priest’s hooded head clean from his spinning shoulders. His body struck the altar steps, a cocktail of blood and ichor pumping from the ragged neck stump.
‘Insanity!’ Krendl bawled at the advancing Dantioch. ‘You’re dead!’ The threats had begun.
‘ CaptainKrendl,’ Dantioch hissed. ‘This is an Iron Warrior stronghold. It does not, nor will it ever serve the renegade Warmaster. My garrison and I are loyal to the Emperor: we will not share in your damnation.’ The cold pride that afflicted the Legion, as well as their Iron father, glinted in Dantioch’s cloudy eyes. ‘It seems I have one last opportunity to prove my worthiness to the primarch. I will not fail him this time. The Schadenhold will never fall. Do you hear me, Idriss? This stronghold and the men that defend it will never be yours. The Iron Warriors on Lesser Damantyne fight for their Emperor and they fight for me. You will taste failure and it will be your turn to return to the primarch’s wrath. Now run, you cur. Back to your renegade fleet and take this heretic dog with you.’
Stepping back through the archway of the Grand Reclusiam with a wary Serapis, the wide-eyed Krendl thrust his pistol behind him and then back at the Iron Warriors and their Dreadnought.