As Hasdrubal’s Space Marines emptied their weapons for the second time, Nicodemus took a round through the thigh, one in the chest and another in the shoulder. This time the adamantium slugs found their target and punctured holes through the shield and the Ultramarine’s artificer armour. The energy field sizzled and spat to overload and all Nicodemus had was the bolt-punched plate between him and his enemies. Running the final stretch of command deck, the Ultramarines champion closed with the Sons of Horus.
Desperate now, the traitors went for their Cthonian blades. Nicodemus already had a gauntlet on his own gladius. His armoured palm was slippery with the blood that had run down his arm from the grievous wound in his shoulder. Spinning between the two Legiones Astartes, Nicodemus slammed the storm shield into the first. He felt the slash of the enemy blade on the battered plate and hammered the Son of Horus again. Extending his arm and moving the shield aside like an open door, the Ultramarine allowed the traitor a single, wild thrust. The sword stabbed through the open space between the champion’s elbow and hip. Nicodemus swept down with the blade of the gladius, cutting through the Space Marine’s armoured forearm. Gauntlet and blade clattered to the deck.
The Ultramarine pressed his advantage: one honour guard to another. He smacked the traitor senseless with the storm shield, the plate edge dashing his helmet this way and that. Dazed, the Son of Horus slipped in his own gore and hit the deck. Nicodemus buried the toe of one power armoured boot in the traitor’s faceplate, rolling him over. Standing over his prone enemy, Nicodemus hovered the bottom edge of the rectangular shield over the Space Marine’s throat. He looked to Hasdrubal and his one remaining sentinel, who stood defiantly between the Ultramarine and his master. Nicodemus brought down the weight of the storm shield with a sickening crack. The seal between helmet and suit cracked and the shield edge cut through the traitor’s neck.
The Ultramarine’s armoured chest heaved up and down with exertion as he took a moment to recover, before hoisting the mighty shield around and running straight at the Son of Horus sentinel. Again, Nicodemus felt the pointless slash of the lighter, Cthonian blade on the bolt-shot plate. This time the Ultramarine didn’t stop. He rammed the Son of Horus straight into the thick glass lancet window. Crushed between the observation port and the Ultramarine, the traitor abandoned his weapon and tried to grab the edge of the shield with his ceramite fingertips. Nicodemus smashed him into the glass a second and third time. Finally, the Son of Horus managed to get a grip on the shield – his intention to push the plate aside and get his gauntlets around the Ultramarine’s neck.
He never got the chance. Pulling back his gladius, Nicodemus rammed the point of the blade through the back of the storm shield and skewered the Space Marine beyond. There was a gasp. Light. Almost inaudible. Retracting the blade, Nicodemus stepped aside and allowed the shield and Son of Horus to smash to the bridge floor.
Hasdrubal had turned away. Like everyone else on the bridge, the captain had thought that the Ultramarine was going to put the Space Marine straight through the window, crashing thick glass about them and inviting the void inside. The captain looked fearfully at Guilliman’s champion. Nicodemus paced up and down in front of him with the gore-smeared gladius held in one gauntlet. He unclipped his helmet and slipped the plumed helm off the back of his head. Gone was the martial grace and patrician calm. Nicodemus spat blood at the deck. A bolt pistol shook in Hasdrubal’s gauntlet. Iron Warriors surrounded them both, bolters gaping at the traitor.
‘It’s over,’ Dantioch called, his grim insistence cutting through the cacophony of a bridge in uproar. Hasdrubal turned from the Ultramarine’s fury to the cold, foreboding of Dantioch’s iron mask. ‘You lost,’ the Warsmith informed his enemy.
Hasdrubal’s bolt pistol tumbled from his ceramite fingers. As Toledo and Sergeant Ingoldt secured the prisoner, Nicodemus sheathed his gladius and limped back up the length of the bridge. Lord Commander Gabroon was still shrieking his protestations. The demigod silenced the officer with a slow finger to his lips.
Nicodemus joined Dantioch on the deck, next to the Venerable Vastopol. The Warsmith had ordered Tarrasch to take command of the bridge. Ingoldt and Toledo had been tasked with securing the traitor Hasdrubal Serapis and preparing him for interrogation. Chaplain Zhnev and Brother Baubistra were assigned to Warsang Gabroon, to ensure that the Lord Commander’s remaining troops and the crew of the Benthosaccepted the swift and relatively bloodless change of regime and the new orders that accompanied it.
Standing over the two survivors of the Gholghis fortress world, the Ultramarine asked: ‘Is there anything I can do, Warsmith?’
Dantioch didn’t look at the Tetrarch. The Warsmith’s eyes were on the helmetless Vastopol. The ancient lay motionless in battle-plate on the deck, propped up against the wall. The Iron Warrior’s grizzled and aged skull was criss-crossed with wisps of white hair and his face lined with premature centuries. Two milky orbs twitched and wandered between Dantioch, Nicodemus and the bridge.
‘Our honoured brother is taking his leave,’ Dantioch said. His words were hollow and shot through with loneliness and the simple sadness of loss. The Venerable Vastopol had not only survived the dreaded hrud on Gholghis. He’d resisted death’s cold invitation and forged on through the agonies of age to be of use to his brothers once more. Untimely ripped from his metal womb, Vastopol had still clung to life. Until now.
‘He was our chronicler,’ Dantioch said, ‘and carried with him our remembered triumphs. Once, on Gholghis, he told me that such stories of the past ground us in the challenge of the present, like a fortification or citadel built upon foundations of ancient rock. I have none of his skill – crafting in iron and stone what he would in words. I live to tell the tale, however, of the Iron Warriors’ final victory: the last loyal triumph of the IVth Legion. He would want the story to go on. Alas, his story,’ Dantioch said grimly, ‘like that of our Legion, is at an end.’
‘Warsmith,’ Nicodemus began slowly, ‘that need not be the case. I assured you once that my Lord Guilliman had a plan. You have executed your part of that plan flawlessly, Iron Warrior. Lord Guilliman still has need of such ingenuity and skill. The Imperium is frail, Dantioch. An Iron Warrior’s eye could spot such weakness and the good grace of his hand might make it strong once again.’
‘What more would you ask of me?’ the Warsmith said.
‘To stand shoulder to ceramite shoulder with my Lord Guilliman and help him fortify the Imperial Palace.’
‘Fortify the Palace…’ Dantioch repeated.
‘Yes, Iron Warrior.’
‘Perturabo will make us pay for such fantasies.’
‘Perhaps,’ Nicodemus said solemnly. ‘But I believe the genius of your victory today lay in your acceptance that the Schadenhold – for all its indomitable art – would fall. Lord Guilliman shares your vision. Humanity’s future lies in such contingency.’ The Ultramarine let the enormity of the idea linger.
Dantioch didn’t answer. Instead he watched the remaining vestiges of life leave the body of his friend and battle-brother. Vastopol’s crusted eyes fluttered before rolling and gently closing, the dry whisper of a dying breath escaping the warrior-poet’s lips.
As the Venerable Vastopol faded and left them, he heard Dantioch tell the Ultramarine: ‘You talk of the arts of destruction. Perturabo’s progeny are unrivalled in these arts: indomitable in battle and peerless in the science of siegecraft. Show me a palace and I’ll show you how an Iron Warrior would take it. Then I’ll show you how you would stop me. I don’t know how long I am for this Imperium, but I promise you this: whatever iron is left within this aged plate, is yours…’