The fall of the Schadenhold. Its literal fall from the ceiling of the cavern. Trillions of tonnes of rock and devious architecture falling to the rocky floor, taking with it the thousands of traitor Iron Warriors and Imperial soldiers that had secured the Schadenhold’s defeat. The fortress’s final defiance, issued in gravity, fire and stone: falling and crushing beneath it, in a behemothic mountain of blood and rubble, the mighty Omnia Victrumand the colossal god-machines of its undoing.
UNSEALING HIS MASK, Dantioch cast his eyes across the flight deck of the flagship Benthos. The deck was largely empty; most of the cruiser’s Warhawks and Stormbirds had been involved in deployment and aerial attacks on the Schadenhold. The Stormbird around which the Iron Warriors had materialised was pale green and bore symbols and flourishes marking it out as belonging to the Sons of Horus – Hasdrubal Serapis’s personal transport.
Tarrasch marched down the Stormbird’s ramp carrying a teleport homer. Dantioch had ordered the device secretly planted on the vessel during their meeting with Krendl and the Sons of Horus captain in the Grand Reclusiam.
‘How are we going to get to the bridge?’ asked Chaplain Zhnev.
‘With as little bloodshed as possible,’ the Warsmith told him. ‘This is the 51st Expedition’s flagship. Iron Warriors are a common sight among its decks. Let us be that common sight.’
‘What about him?’ Tarrasch asked of Tauro Nicodemus. Despite the soot and gore, the brilliance of the Ultramarine’s armour still shone through.
‘The crew will not question a Legiones Astartes.’
Marching out purposefully across the flight deck, Dantioch was followed by his loyalist compatriots. The Space Marines fought their desire to hold their bolters at the ready, opting for more casual or ceremonial poses. Brother Toledo and Sergeant Ingoldt carried the limp plate of the Venerable Vastopol between them, lending the infiltrators even less the appearance of an attacking force.
There were virtually no Legiones Astartes left aboard the vessel, almost every Iron Warrior being committed to the depths of the planet below. Largely the Space Marines encountered regimental staff and the cruiser’s multitudinous crew. Few among these mortals allowed their eyes to linger on the demigods – especially under Krendl’s brutal regime – and their passage to the command deck was uneventful. Dantioch’s strategy had been so bold and audaciously executed that none aboard the Benthos, even for a second, entertained thoughts that they were under attack.
Their silent, uneasy approach to the bridge was shattered by an unexpected klaxon. Bolters came up and the Iron Warriors fell immediately into defensive positions.
‘As you were,’ Dantioch instructed.
The loyalists could hear the thunder of power armoured boots on the deck ahead. ‘We are not discovered. We are not under attack,’ Dantioch said. Fighting natural inclination and the brute vulnerability of their situation, the Iron Warriors let their barrels drift back down to the deck. A small contingent of Krendl’s 14th Grand Company veterans marched across an intersection in the corridor ahead. As their footfalls faded, Dantioch turned to his own veterans. ‘By now,’ he told them, ‘survivors on Lesser Damantyne will have reported the devastation below, the loss of Krendl, the Warmaster’s forces and the Omnia Victrum. Whoever is in command will want visual confirmation of such an impossible report. Five fewer brother Legiones Astartes for us to deal with.’
Dantioch turned and marched with confidence up the steps to the bridge, flanked by Brother Baubistra and the Iron Palatine. As the Warsmith reached the top and looked down across the expansive bridge of the Benthoshe fell into a coughing fit once more: a spasm of hacking convulsions that turned heads and drew attentions.
The bridge of the Benthoswas a hive of activity, with petty officers and sickly servitors busy at work amongst the labyrinth of runebanks, cogitators and consoles that dominated the command deck. Two Maximus-plated Iron Warriors stood sentry on the bridge arch-egress and Lord Commander Warsang Gabroon of the Nadir-Maru 4th Juntarians stood at conference with turbaned officers of his tactical staff. The Lord Commander stood as Dantioch remembered him, unconsciously twirling the braids of his beard and launching stabbing glares of jaundiced incredulity and disappointment at his inferiors.
At the epicentre of the activity and the destination of all reports, data and information were three Sons of Horus: swarthy Cthonians with superior sneers and knitted brows of insidious cunning. Among their number was one who immediately recognised what all others aboard the Benthoshad failed to: the threat before them. The enemy Warsmith, Barabas Dantioch.
Baubistra and Tarrasch barged onto the bridge, past their master. Putting the muzzles of their weapons to the temples of the traitor sentries they roared at their Olympian brothers to drop their weapons and fall to their knees. Abandoning their burden, Sergeant Ingoldt and Toledo came forwards with bolters raised and pointed at the Sons of Horus. The two traitors flanking Hasdrubal drew their bolt pistols and activity on the bridge slowed to a raucous stand-off. The traitor captain screamed his disbelief and insistence as Iron Warriors and Sons of Horus held each other in their sights. With the Chaplain kneeling beside the dying Vastopol and Dantioch clutching the archway in his coughing fit, it fell to Tauro Nicodemus to break the deadlock.
The Ultramarine champion strode forwards, the only thing moving on the stricken command deck. Undaunted, Nicodemus marched past an apoplectic Lord Commander Gabroon, who was screaming, ‘No shooting on the bridge,’ at the warring demigods. Hasdrubal Serapis’s face screwed up with rage and confusion. The destruction on Lesser Damantyne and the appearance of Dantioch and his Iron Warriors on the bridge had been disturbing enough. Now one of Guilliman’s sons stood before him: a mysterious Ultramarine who had involved himself in the Warmaster’s business and no doubt had something to do with the Iron Warrior resistance on the planet below.
Hasdrubal backed towards one of the great lancet screens that towered above the bridge: the thick glass was the only thing separating the Space Marine captain from the hostile emptiness outside. His two sentinels held their ground, tracking the advancing Nicodemus with their bolt pistols. Hasdrubal looked at the Iron Warriors, with their weapons aimed up the bridge and at him in front of the huge window. Gabroon continued to screech his alarm. Hasdrubal nodded, confident that the Iron Warriors were not foolish enough to fire and blast out the viewport, dooming all on the bridge to a voidgrave.
‘Kill that damned Ultramarine,’ Hasdrubal seethed.
The Sons of Horus fired. Iron Warriors thrust their bolters forwards with an intention to respond in kind.
‘Hold your fire!’ Dantioch managed between torso-wracking convulsions. With his Iron Warriors facing the bridge lancet screens, he could not afford a stray shot to pierce the hull of the ship.
Nicodemus hefted the mighty storm shield from its shoulder mounting and brought it around just in time to soak up the first of the traitor Space Marine’s bolt-rounds. As the shots hammered into the cerulean sheen of the plate, the Tetrarch thumbed the shield’s protective field to life. The marksmanship of the Sons of Horus was a beauty to behold. Every bolt-round found its mark, and had Nicodemus not been advancing behind the storm shield he would have been run through by a relentless onslaught of armour-piercing shot.
Closing on the traitors, the pistols’ effective range shortened and the storm shield’s energy field was breached. One of the adamatium-core Space Marine killers passed through the armour plating and clipped the Ultramarine’s shoulder. As Guilliman’s champion continued to advance, Hasdrubal’s features contorted further in fury and disbelief. The Sons of Horus ejected spent magazines from their sidearms before slamming home another and repeating the treatment. Nothing would stop Nicodemus, however.