On the ruined landing pads of the spaceport, Kerne’s warriors finally stood aside while the heavy Imperial guns of the looming fortress barked out a howling litany of hate, and immolated whole regiments of the Great Enemy, the last surviving formations of any size in the city.
And when they were broken into ragged, bleeding ribbons, the citadel gates opened for the first time in many days. As the sun came up, a single Baneblade roared forth, followed by half a dozen Leman Russes and a few gawky Sentinels, spitting las-fire. They were all General Dietrich had left, but he launched them into the battle without hesitation.
Inside the tanks the gaunt, red-eyed troopers of the 387th Armoured Regiment of the Imperial Guard loaded the main guns and the heavy anti-personnel weapons and set finger to trigger with the dark fury of men who have endured too much, who have lost all instincts save those of hate and destruction.
The last of the enemy were ground to scarlet bloody paste by the armoured treads of Dietrich’s surviving tanks.
The Space Marines stood by and let the Imperial Guard have their moment, and allowed them to enjoy their unfettered rage. These men, mere humans, had after all been fighting in this charnel house for months, and they had a long list of scores to settle. The armoured vehicles were all manned by veterans now, and the mechanical behemoths wheeled and fired like part of the men who manned them. It was, in its way, a beautiful sight, for those who appreciated such things.
Fornix unhelmed and wiped his glistening forehead as the rare bright light of the sun rose upon it. He stood beside Jonah Kerne and watched the Imperials relish the last of the mopping up. Hundreds had now debussed from a line of battle-worn Chimeras in a mix of guard green and militia grey, and they were at close quarters now, fighting like men possessed.
‘They do make heavy weather out of it, don’t they?’ he said lightly.
‘From what I hear, they faced far worse than we found, in the early days of the war. The initial assault was heavy enough, but then something happened. The enemy withdrew most of his best troops, leaving just enough here to keep Dietrich and his men bottled up.’
Kerne was frowning with thought. ‘I’ve been in touch with Massaron on the Ogadai, and there are only scattered remnants of the Punishers on the rest of the planet, no more than marauding bands. And their fleet has fled the entire system. Or so it seems.’
‘Or so it seems,’ Fornix repeated. He sighed. ‘Not much glory in it after all, Jonah.’
‘There seldom is, brother.’
Kerne had not even presented the company banner for a battle-brother to carry, so unworthy did this fight seem of its unfurling. It had remained in its case.
He admired the mettle of the Ras Hanem defenders, but they were not Adeptus Astartes, and as Fornix said, they made heavy weather out of the mere act of killing.
Three days after the Dark Hunters landed, the last surviving remnants of the Punisher hordes which had once overrun the city were wiped out.
They died under the eyes of the silent Space Marines, who had been ordered by Jonah Kerne to stand down and let the Imperial Guard have this moment as their own. As flawed as their efforts had been, they had been valiant, and deserved this sop to their pride, Kerne had decided.
So it was that as the last artillery rounds fell, and the snapping of lasguns finally died out, the fighting men of Ras Hanem stared across the scarred, body-strewn, blood-reeking battlefield, and saw standing on the other side of it the silent giants of the Adeptus Astartes, dark under their dust, faceless in their savage helms, like creatures from another world and time.
Two men came walking wearily towards them through the powdered dirt and the rubble and steaming body parts, one tall and bone-lean with the tattered peaked cap of the Commissariat on his head, and sunken murderer’s eyes, the other broad and muscular with a pale, hairless scalp. They drew themselves up before Kerne and Fornix, and saluted.
‘I am General Pavul Dietrich,’ the stocky, bald one said. ‘Officer commanding the garrison of Ras Hanem. I hereby relinquish command of this city to you, my lord captain, and entrust this planet to your care.’
He had a deep, tired stare that had seen a lot of killing, but the man was still there behind the death and desperation and the utter weariness. Kerne took off his helm, and tasted the iron reek of blood on the air, the tang of munitions launched and expended by the million. It was an old and familiar smell. He had known it all his long life.
‘General, I am most glad to meet you.’
The general and his commissar looked up at the towering captain of the Adeptus Astartes, and met his eyes a mere moment, then went to one knee. Behind them, by ones and twos and then in squads and companies, their men followed suit, until the scattered lines of soldiers were all on their knees, heads bowed.
‘We thank you, your mighty brethren, and the munificence of the Emperor himself for our deliverance,’ the commissar, Von Arnim said, with real reverence in his voice.
Kerne stepped forward and took Dietrich gently by the shoulder. ‘Rise, general. Brave men have no need to kneel, not before me and mine.’
Dietrich looked up at that, and there was a broken light in his eyes, catching the sun. He rose to his feet, and behind him the defenders of Askai rose with him, and the sunlight lit them up, making giants out of their shadows.
FIFTEEN
In Fragminis
The Thunderhawks were patrolling the skies like lean black raptors, something hungry in their box-shaped airframes. Dietrich stared out at them from the balcony over which Riedling’s body had once been thrown. The governor’s death seemed a very long time ago now.
There were over a thousand square kilometres of ruined buildings down below.
The hive-scrapers were burned out at last, and the wholesome wind of the cool season was blowing steadily through the shattered city, clearing the air somewhat. It was possible to look east and see the sere lowlands beyond Askai and the dry bed of the Koi River, even catch a glimpse of the blue-shadowed Koi-Niro Mountains far to the east.
As though the world and its possibilities had opened up for him again.
It was an odd feeling, not to have death breathing at his shoulder. Odder still to miss the crump of artillery and crack of small arms. The city was silent, exhausted, broken down. It reeked of decay, even now, and in the ruins legions of rats and giant centipedes and packs of wild, pot-bellied canines were still gorging themselves on a harvest of corpses, many of the bodies reduced to skeletal fragments by now through the fury of the fighting.
But we held, Dietrich thought. That is the main thing. We did not give in, and we did not give up. That is victory – this, here, the stench of death on the wind, is victory.
He was too tired to savour it. He felt as though he would need a year of dreamless sleep to catch up on all he had lost.
And all his men, who had been fed into the storm of war, feeding that furnace. Lars Dyson was dead, and the entire bodyguard with him except Garner, now promoted to lieutenant. His magnificent regiment was a mere shell.
But we saved a world, he thought.
He turned around and drew himself up. Even after all these years in the service of the Imperium, to stand in close proximity to the Adeptus Astartes shook something in his core. Space Marines were like things out of fable and myth. A man might serve out his entire career in the Guard without ever encountering one, as Dietrich had.
And now they were here in this room with him, dark, brooding angels, more than men, more like a legend brought to life out of some ancient storybook and set down for lesser beings to marvel at.