Korzakov, P, Private, Engineer, Imperial Baneblade Indomitable.
Cause of Death: Enemy Action.
Notes: Recommended for Order of Merit, Gates of Irongrad, Approved.
Krakov, V, Private, Engineer, Imperial Baneblade Indomitable.
Cause of Death: Enemy Action.
Notes: Recommended for Order of Merit, Gates of Irongrad, Pending.
Manzurian, K, Private, Gunner, Imperial Baneblade Indomitable.
Cause of Death: Enemy Action.
Notes: Recommended for Order of Merit, Gates of Irongrad, Pending.
Manzurian L, Private, Gunner, Imperial Baneblade Indomitable.
Cause of Death: Unknown. MIA.
Notes: Recommended for Order of Merit, Gates of Irongrad, Pending.
Zenikov, I, Private, Gunner, Imperial Baneblade Indomitable.
Cause of Death: Enemy Action.
Notes: Recommended for Order of Merit, Gates of Irongrad, Denied.
Document under seal. Extract From the Decrypted Personal Files of Inquisitor Hyronimus Drake.
Possible evidence of duplicity on the part of former High Inquisitor Drake.
Cross-reference to Exhibit 107D-21H (Report to High Inquisitor Toll).
Walk in the Emperor’s Light.
I have personally put several of the heretic commanders to the question. Under extreme duress and in the presence of sanctioned psykers they have revealed much. As always with heretics, it is difficult to sift through their deluded rantings and extract the core of truth, if any truth there ever be. The heretics of Karsk System have fallen into many of the Ten Great Errors. They believe themselves to be the sole possessors of cosmic truth and the true bearers of the Emperor’s Word. They believe us to be deluded invaders even in the face of their demonstrable error. They are prepared to die in the service of the false beliefs they hold.
Most of their commanders seem sincerely to believe, as is always the case, and refused to recant even under instructive surgery. The capacity to hold to such faith is admirable and I believe will prove most worthy once this world is re-educated into the Faith.
We have so far failed to take one of the so-called Sons of the Sacred Flame alive. When on the verge of capture they spontaneously combust, often taking those sent to bring them to the question with them into death. They have demonstrated psychic powers of alarming strength. I am reminded of many other heretics I have encountered who were proven to have drawn their power from daemonic sources. So far there is no proof that the Sons of the Sacred Flame draw energy from the Enemies of Mankind but I fear it will only be a matter of time before this is shown to be the case.
In the meantime, I have placed a request at the highest level that sufficient resources be allocated to the capture of a ranking member of this cult so that we may get to the truth of the matter. I am also ensuring that agents of the highest degree of competence and discretion are being infiltrated into position in the locality.
En masse we marched in triumph through a great arched gateway, flanked by two fire-winged angels fifty times as tall as a man, and passed into the depths of Hive Irongrad. Behind me stretched out long lines of grey-uniformed soldiers. Up ahead massive tanks roared like victorious beasts. In our hundreds of thousands we strode beneath banners that showed our regiment, our unit and our triumphs on a thousand different worlds. The High Command wanted no one to be in any doubt that the legions of the Emperor had returned to reclaim this world in His name.
I felt odd, marching along behind the tanks instead of driving the Indomitable. It had been a long time since I walked in parade file down the ramp-streets of a hive. Ahead of me a long line of machines receded into the distance. Overhead the lights of the level roof glittered like low-hanging stars.
Beside me were Hesse and Anton and Ivan and the others, their weapons slung over their shoulders, their boots polished and a swagger in their stride.
For the first time since we set foot on this benighted world I began to feel at home. The air had the recycled taste of a hive interior. It was different from that of Belial Masterforge but it had something of the same tang, of having been breathed a billion, billion times. There was the faint chemical undercurrent of the purification filters and the slightly rotten under-taste that I came to associate with Irongrad. It was warmer in this hive than it was in Belial Masterforge and the people were not so over-dressed. If the life-support systems broke down their problem was not going to be freezing and clearly they all knew this.
The hive was different in many other ways. The hab-towers were massive columns which supported the roofs that were the floors of the levels above. All of them were covered in titanic copper pipes through which ran gas and hot water and sewage and effluent. The sides of each tower vented flames as if they were engaged in some vast industrial process that was also a sacred rite. Each of the vents was moulded to resemble the Angel of Fire. It looked like a legion of rebel angels were poised for fire-winged flight across the city.
Between the hab-towers were expansive plazas and in every plaza was a fountain of fire. Emerging from their flames was a metal replica of the great statue of the Angel of Fire. Near every fountain was one of those sinister cages. Some were massive enough to hold hundreds of chained victims, some so small they seemed designed to hold children or dwarfs. Time and again as we made our way down into the belly of the hive I saw those ornate cages we had first seen in the desert with their x-frames and those devilish face-masks. No matter how crowded the streets were, there was always a clear space around them. It did not take a lot of imagination to work out why. Some of them were held on winches over the streets while below them flames vented from the pipes in the building sides.
Massive crowds watched us as we progressed downwards. The streets were full of folk looking down at us from every window and balcony. The people did not cheer but they did not seem hostile either. They were not sullen. They were curious. We were their world’s new masters. I suspected we could not have been much worse than their previous ones if we had been cannibal orks. The population had been so beaten down, so accustomed to the lash that they expected it from us and they did not even resent it.
The Irongradders seemed like typical hive dwellers: pasty-faced, undernourished, weary-looking from long, long hours of work. They could have been dropped here right from my old home-world. It made me feel oddly nostalgic and I could tell the others felt the same way.
Overhead glow-globes hovered. We passed flickering signs that exhorted us to worship the Angel and believe in his might. Our tech-priests had not got round to their ritual re-invocation yet. I found the images of the flame-winged angel and his burning-headed priesthood disturbing to say the least. I thought of the strange powers they had displayed and it seemed unlikely to me that there was anything holy about them. The Angel inspired awe and fear in me in about equal parts. The priests simply inspired fear and a desire to do murder if I got the chance. There must be many of them still out there and I very much doubted that they would give up the fight, whatever the planetary governor and the nobles of his court said.
Eventually, the long march ended, deep within the hive. We were confronted with our new home, billeted in factorum hab-units requisitioned by our Commissariat. The rooms within the massive buildings were huge and high-ceilinged and did not seem full even with a company of soldiers camped out in them. There were sinister fire-winged angels everywhere, astride the cornice of every building, worked in the frescoes of every ceiling. It was the sort of artwork, mass-produced and replicated in industrial scale, that only hive worlds can manage. In every alcove, on every desk, glaring down from every wall there were representations of the focus of the local religion. Someone had even used a small metal statue to prop open the door to the chamber in which we were to sleep.