‘Three belts left, sergeant,’ he said.
‘Use them well, brother,’ Finn March said. ‘Make sure every bullet has a home.’
The firing began again.
All across the city vicious firefights erupted, exploding like novae in the ruins, burning a while and then sputtering out: as though flint were clashing with steel at a score of spots within a darkened room.
The human defenders of Askai fought where they stood, lacking the superlative night-fighting capabilities of the Dark Hunters. But the warriors of the Adeptus Astartes ranged the streets in small groups, inflicting mayhem here and there and then drawing back into the shadows, unbalancing the enemy even as the Punisher companies were trying to coalesce after the harried and chaotic manner of their insertion.
One thing became clear as the night went on, though. The Punishers might have landed many thousands of warriors within the unbroken circuit of the city walls in the aerial assault, but the main body of the enemy was being set down outside the city, on the plains to the west where the Dark Hunters Thunderhawks had destroyed the airstrip upon their own arrival.
The gates of Askai, those indomitable bastions of adamantium, therefore became key to the city’s initial defence. In the first war they had been bypassed and left intact, then ignored; the city had fallen without the need to cross the walls.
But this time around, there were Adeptus Astartes defending the city, and it would seem that the Chaos commander, whoever he was, wanted to bring heavier metal to bear within the perimeter. To do that, the gates must be opened.
The anti-aircraft fire from the citadel had taken a huge toll on the Stormbird squadrons, and these were now withdrawn. The fighting rolled out along the ground in waves of death and fire, while on the western plains the heavy vehicles of the Punisher armoured companies formed up for attack.
All across the city, companies of the enemy assembled and began fighting their way to the western gates. And as they struggled westwards through the night, the Dark Hunters were waiting for them.
‘Dawn in an hour,’ General Dietrich said to Von Arnim.
They looked out from the heights of the citadel to the ruins below, where half a hundred firefights were flaming in the dark, and columns of smoke were lit up from below like hatchways to hell; and out to the west they could see where the fiercest fights were going on at the three tall gates.
‘They cannot hold forever,’ Von Arnim said. He took off his cap and wiped his pale forehead. ‘Even warriors such as these cannot stem this immense tide of hate.’
‘He knows that, Ismail. He knows that at some point he will have to pull them back. But he means to make them pay for it first.’
‘Have you ever fought alongside the Adeptus Astartes before, Pavul?’
The general shrugged. ‘Once, in my youth, I saw them from afar as we relieved them at the end of the Dundarron campaign. They were giants in the distance, no more.’
‘Giants indeed. I give thanks to the Emperor for his wisdom in creating them – else I think mankind would long ago have been wiped from the stars.’
‘They are not invincible,’ Dietrich told his commissar. ‘Their blood is as red as ours, Ismail.’
‘But it takes a lot more to spill it.’
NINETEEN
Amicis et Inimicis
In the shattering chaos of the trench lines, Fornix found Jonah Kerne and Elijah Kass under a cameleoline tarp, watching while some of Dietrich’s vox specialists struggled to coax their comms signals through the welter of jamming frequencies that flooded the aether.
The sun was up, but smoke was rolling across the city in such clouds that it seemed closer to dusk than dawn. Now the heavy guns of the citadel were being called in on enemy positions beyond the walls, and the howitzers in the gun caverns were at full elevation, sending earthshaker shells arcing high above the ruins to impact on the plains where the enemy was forming up, some three kilometres outside the western gates.
There were Haradai on the walls, observing the fall of shot and calling in corrections whenever they could get a message through on the vox. Sergeant Laufey was working with Finn March on the most vulnerable gate. With the help of his Scout Marine squad, Primus had beaten off three assaults in the last two hours, but they were hanging on by a thread now, reduced to scavenging the enemy dead for bolter-magazines that fitted their own weapons.
‘What word, first sergeant?’ Kerne asked Fornix as they all three stood under the frail tarp and listened to the frantic efforts of the human signallers to construct some kind of viable vox-net.
‘They’re hitting the gates with everything they’ve got, especially Primus’s position,’ Fornix told him. ‘I give it another hour before they take the gatehouse.’
‘And our other squads?’
‘I’ve ordered them back within the interior trench line. They are consolidating even as we speak, covered by Dietrich’s artillery.’
Kerne said nothing for a long moment. Finally he turned to his Librarian.
‘Elijah, get through to the squads on the walls. Tell them to break out and make their way back to our lines. The walls are to be abandoned – we have not the means or the numbers to defend them any longer. Can you do that, brother?’
Elijah Kass did not answer. His eyes were sightless, bright as blue marbles lit from within. A thin cobalt light pulsed around his psychic hood.
At last, he came back to them, blinking. ‘It is done,’ he said. His eyes were more than bloodshot, and when Kerne looked closely into them, he saw that there was a blackness there, leaking through the iris like dye spreading through fabric.
‘Brother, are you all right?’
Kass smiled thinly. ‘Brother Vennan warned me before I set out on this expedition that the Great Enemy would make me pay for my gift, and he was not wrong. I am fighting off psychic attack day and night now, captain. It takes a toll on the body as well as the mind. But I am equal to it, I assure you.’
‘I hope so, brother. Were it not for your abilities and the instincts of our Reclusiarch, we would be fighting almost blind.’
‘I’ve never known the Great Enemy to utilise such efficient vox-jamming,’ Fornix said, anger taut in his voice.
‘Perhaps it is not the Great Enemy,’ Elijah Kass said.
‘What do you mean, brother?’ Kerne demanded.
‘Only that the third presence which I touched upon from time to time before this assault began is still here, another element which is distinct from the foe we are trading fire with. It may be this other is responsible for the vox difficulties.’
‘Track it down,’ Kerne said grimly. ‘I want to know what in hell has killed our communications, brother. It is costing us in blood.’
‘I will, brother-captain. It will take time–’
‘Time?’ Fornix spat out with a bitter laugh. ‘Well, we’ve plenty of that.’
‘It is time,’ Ainoc said. ‘Their situation is worsening, and they are pulling back from their forward positions, but they still hold the entrance to the mines in strength. That is our only access point, farseer.’
Te Mirah looked down upon the bright turning world that dominated the shielded viewports of Steerledge. Around it now there wheeled a series of objects, long and angular, that caught the light of the Kargad star in bright glitters as they orbited the planet.
‘We are close enough now,’ she breathed. ‘Yes, you are right, Ainoc. We cannot leave it too long. How many teams do we have in readiness?’
‘Callinall’s rangers are planetside, and we have inserted a dozen other covens by falcon stealth ships around the city. They report that our jamming seems to have worked. There will be no communications off-world for as long as the vox-scramblers are undiscovered.’
‘Good. The planet must remain isolated from further Imperial involvement until we have what we came for.’