Beloth circles from the south. Foedral Fell approaches from the north-west. Ventanus wonders how much longer Uldort’s valuable datalink can remain active.
They have passed below the Shield Wall, and are drawing close to the service linkage where they will be obliged to surface, and move in the open.
Ventanus stops briefly to talk to his unit leaders: Cyramica, commanding the skitarii strength; Colonel Sparzi of the Army; Sydance and the company sergeants, Vattian of the scout force.
He has the battered golden standard in his hands as he talks to them. There are no orders, and no feeble efforts at oratory. He tells them how it is, and what has to be done. He tells them the practical, and he tells them what he expects from them.
They say nothing. They nod.
That’s all he needs.
They have what they need. They have their target. They have their practical.
They are ready.
It took the primarch about ten minutes to determine the target. Ten minutes. Thiel watched him work it out. Guilliman did it by eye, by observation, by consulting the reams of notes and scraps and stylus jottings he had scattered over the strategium.
He had the resolution long before the datalink from Leptius was re-established.
‘It has to be a functioning facility,’ he reasoned. ‘It has to have a data-engine rating of at least, what, 46nCog? It needs to have an active datalink, which we can probably detect using back-trace. The Word Bearers have done such a good job of destroying platform facilities, it makes it easier to spot the ones they’ve deliberately left alone.’
He pointed to the display.
Zetsun Verid Yard.
Then the practical had to be decided. Shipmaster Hommed recommended a ranged bombardment: primary spinals, lances. The Macragge’s Honour certainly has firepower enough. Gage seconded the suggestion. But if they didn’t make a direct kill with the first salvo, there was a real danger that the enemy could retaliate with the grid and finish the flagship.
Empion was all for close attack: flagship power to yield, shields up, throw off the enemy cruisers suckling around them and go for the yard. Blow it out of nearspace. Ram it, if necessary.
Except, the moment they moved, the moment they even rated a power condition, the Macragge’s Honour would become a target. The flagship could move rapidly, and with devastating effect, but faster than the weapons grid could be retrained and discharged? That was even supposing nothing got in their way, like a drive issue, or an enemy ship.
So Empion’s plan had also been dismissed, and Gage’s alternative considered: put all power into the teleport system. Transfer a kill squad, maybe two if the power lasted, direct to the Zetsun Verid. Do it the old way.
‘I will lead it, of course,’ said Guilliman.
‘I hardly think so,’ retorted Gage. Almost everybody present physically recoiled from the look the primarch shot his Chapter Master.
‘Very well,’ said Gage.
‘Damn it, Marius,’ growled Guilliman. ‘If not now, when?’
The first kill squad of fifty Ultramarines, led by Guilliman, Heutonicus and Thiel, assembles in the flagship’s teleportation terminal. If enough power remains, a second squad led by Empion will follow them.
The helms of Heutonicus and the section leaders are painted red to match Thiel’s.
Guilliman’s cleaned and polished wargear makes him look more like a vengeful martial god than ever. There are golden wings spread across his helm’s faceplate. His left fist is a massive power claw, and his right holds a superb bolter weapon, decorated to match his armour.
There is a stink of ozone in the chamber, a metallic tang rising from the heavy, matt-grey platform of the teleport system. Coolant vapour rolls like mist in the yellow light. Guilliman takes a cue from his squad leaders, then signals to the Magi of Portation behind their lead-lined screens.
Power builds. It builds to a painful pitch.
Like a storm, about to break and unload its fury.
Sullus can hear the rain beating on the roof. He watches the magos, Uldort, working in communion with the data-engine. It is as though she is in a trance. Data chatters and whirrs. Her hands make haptic motions across invisible touchpads.
Sullus hurts. He never told Ventanus or any of the others quite how much he had been damaged. He can feel bones grinding, refusing to mend despite the fever heat of biological repair throbbing through his body.
Pain, death, he doesn’t fear any of that. Only failure.
His helmet link bleeps. He gets up, picks up his sword and his boltgun, and limps up the passageway to the west entrance.
In the rain, the ruined grounds and collapsed frontage of the palace seem even more dismal. Water streams and patters down from the shattered roof, dripping on grand tiles and mosaics, cascading down inlaid staircases, turning fallen drapes and tapestries into lank shrouds.
He limps out onto the rubble. Rain drums on his armour. The sun, a toxic blue, burns malignantly through the cloud cover.
Arook Serotid is waiting for him.
‘They are here,’ says the master of skitarii.
Sullus looks out into the rain. Beyond the crumpled walls, beyond the earthwork ditch, beyond the ragged bridge, the enemy has assembled. They have come silently out of the downpour. They are not chanting. The black ranks of the brotherhoods line the ditch in rows a hundred deep, but behind them are the shapes of war machines, and the ominous gleam of red armour.
Behind that mass, there are larger shapes still. Giant things, obscured by rain, horned and hunched.
There are even more than Sullus imagined. Foedral Fell’s assault force numbers in the tens of thousands.
‘Now it ends,’ says Arook.
Sullus draws his sword.
‘Oh please, skitarii,’ he says, head up. ‘It’s only just beginning.’
2
4th Company strikes.
The first that the Word Bearers know of it is a savage, serial bombardment of light cannon and field pieces, supported by the immense firepower of a Shadowsword and a handful of other significant machines.
The Word Bearers had forces positioned along Ketar Transit, a main access way that linked the container stores to the northern facilities of Lanshear port. The forces were supposed to ward Hol Beloth’s main army from any counter-attack that came around the eastern sweep of the Shield Wall into Numinus territory.
The forces do not realise that, by occupying the zone around Ketar Transit, they are also effectively guarding the data-engine of the cargo handling guild in the bunker system below the majestic prospect of the guildhall.
It was a majestic prospect. Stippled with shell holes, the guildhall remains an inspiring building, crowned by statues of toiling guild porters and the proud Ultima symbol.
The area has not been razed wholesale. It is not military, it is commercial. Server Hesst chose it very well.
The barrage pummels the roadway, levels three blocks of habs, and scatters the enemy formation. Hundreds of knife brother warriors are killed by the shellfire, dozens of Word Bearers too. Armoured vehicles are destroyed and left burning in the rain. A traitor Warhound engine, suddenly alert and striding forward like an angry moa, hunts for a hot target. A torrent of cannonfire catches it, hammers it, and beats its void shields down with sheer relentless insolence. Then the Shadowsword speaks, and a spear of white light kills the Warhound like the lance of some vengeful god.