‘What?’
‘They are loyalist instruments,’ she says. ‘The Burning Cloud and Kaskardus Killstroke. One has just made an engine-kill against the Word Bearers-aligned Titan Mortis Maxor.’
‘We are supported?’ Selaton asks.
‘It seems–’
‘Server, are you telling me that reinforcement forces are arriving to supplement the 4th?’
‘Yes, sergeant, I am. The data supports this supposition. According to the data, that is the case.’
Tawren remains entirely calm. She seems to show no relief. She studies the rapidly updating datastream, winnowing out its information.
‘Captain Ventanus’s force was facing an annihilation projection of three minutes and sixteen seconds. That limit is being revised up to six minutes and twelve seconds. To eight min... to ten minutes and fifty-one seconds.’
Tawren watches the datafeed. It streams from a thousand different picture and data sources: the visor capture of the Ultramarines legionaries, the optic feeds of the skitarii, the auspexes of loyalist vehicles, the guildhall zone sensors, the parts of the city cogitation network still operating. She watches events unfold.
The reinforcement strength explodes into the Lanshear Belt from the east, fast and mobile. It comes along Tarxis Traverse, Malonik Transit, Bedrus Oblique and the Lanshear Arterials. It pushes through the conurb structures behind the cargo depots and the ring of habitats to the east of Port Dock 18. A column of Land Raiders and armour support three Titans: two Reavers and a Warlord. An infantry force follows, moving rapidly. She identifies them by insignia, heraldry, trace codes and unit marker transponders. The force is mostly XIII and Mechanicum elements from Barrtor and the Sharud muster, but there are twenty thousand Army troopers too, bringing lighter armour and support weapons.
She switches rapidly between pict-supporting feed views to track the advance. The relief force forms two prongs of assault. One is a Legion force led by a sergeant of the 112th called Anchise, and a captain of the 19th called Aethon. The other is predominantly Army, and is commanded by a colonel of the Neride 41st called Bartol, but it is physically being led by Eikos Lamiad and a lumbering Ultramarines Dreadnought.
Before she was lost, Tawren’s loyal junior Uldort fulfilled her duties with extraordinary diligence, and coordinated all the force and firepower she could contact.
Lamiad. Eikos Lamiad, Tetrarch of Ultramar, Primarch’s Champion. He leads a ragged host of soldiery collected from the desert and the burning hills around the Holophusikon. He raises his sword in his one good arm and sweeps his warriors into the street fight.
Telemechrus, the Contemptor, strides beside him, expending ammunition as he drives a wedge into the enemy formations. His munitions tally records two kills among Hol Beloth’s senior commanders. Assault cannon. Most efficient.
Tawren switches views again. She follows other code tags.
Justarius, the venerable, walks with Aethon’s squads. A second Dreadnought brought to the fight. And in the shadow of the Titans, a second tetrarch too: Tauro Nicodemus, who has spent the day fighting up from the south and the slaughterfields at Komesh.
Switch view. Switch view. Tawren watches the data, almost startled by the speed of update, the rapid turn of the battle’s balance.
She finally becomes aware of Selaton’s desperation, and starts to tell him what she can see.
Hol Beloth’s forces flinch at the unbridled force of the attack. It is not just the firepower, it is the coordinated strength of it. The shattered survivors of the XIII should not have been able to organise with such precision and effect. In the midst of chaos, confusion, a world ablaze, they should not have been able to rally and focus around such a strategically specific point.
Tawren checks her annihilation projection.
It now stands at forty-seven minutes and thirty-one seconds.
In that time, the assembled survivors of the Calth Atrocity will express their fury and their vengeance, and they will do massive damage to the enemy. They may even temporarily drive the Word Bearers back out of the Lanshear Belt.
But it is only a last, gratifying chance to rage into the face of death.
For Hol Beloth, it will simply add an hour or two to the fight. In many ways, it serves to concentrate his victims in one convenient killing ground. He can draw in supporting divisions from all directions.
The XIII cannot.
If they hoped to fall in glory, they are about to get their wish.
Tawren has no grid control with which to shift the combat dynamic. She has the killcode, but no damned control.
The athame bites. Guilliman’s blood wells up around the sliced flesh. He grunts through clenched teeth.
‘Let it go,’ whispers Kor Phaeron. ‘This is the beginning of wisdom.’
Guilliman mutters something in reply.
‘What?’ asks Kor Phaeron, cupping a hand to his ear, mocking him. ‘What did you say, Roboute?’
Every single word is an effort.
‘You made an error,’ Guilliman gasps.
‘An error?’
‘You chose the wrong practical. You had a choice. Toy with me. Kill me. You chose the wrong one.’
‘Really?’ smiles Kor Phaeron.
‘You should not have let me live.’
‘I let you live so I could share the truth, Roboute.’
‘Yes,’ says Guilliman, sucking in each ragged breath. ‘But all the while I’m alive, I can do this.’
There is a sharp sound. A sudden, wet crack. An explosive spray of blood, as though a skin of red wine has burst between them. Kor Phaeron makes a tiny noise; a thin, ceramic sound like a wet finger sliding down glass.
Guilliman rises. Though its power has long since shorted out and failed, he has buried his armour claw in Kor Phaeron’s chest. He has crunched through plate, through muscle, through augmented ribs. Kor Phaeron twitches, impaled on Guilliman’s fist. His feet are off the deck, his elbows digging into his sides. He shudders, head flopping on his neck.
The athame falls from his fingers and rebounds off the deck.
Sorot Tchure hears the noise his master makes. He is focused on his combat with the Ultramarines raiders, but he cannot help but turn his eyes for a second. Less than a second. A microsecond.
Thiel sees his opening. His practical. It is infinitesimal, a tiny chink in the Word Bearer’s guard. It lasts a microsecond, and it will not be repeated.
He puts his sword through it.
The longsword shears the right side of Tchure’s helm away. Cheek, ear and part of the skull separate with it. Tchure stumbles, bewildered by the pain, the shock, the disorientation.
For a moment, Tchure thinks it is Luciel. He thinks it is Luciel who has risen up to punish him for a trust so miserably betrayed.
Thiel shoulder-slams him aside into one of the other Word Bearers, spattering blood over them all. He ducks the sword slash of the third, and decapitates him.
He is the first to break clear and rush to Guilliman’s side.
Guilliman looks Kor Phaeron in the eyes. Kor Phaeron’s lips quiver. He blinks hard and bubbles of saliva form around the corners of his trembling mouth.
Guilliman wrenches the claw out. It is clutching Kor Phaeron’s heart.
Kor Phaeron crashes to the deck, bitter black blood coursing from under him in all directions. He retches, and covers the floor with a vile lactic spatter.
Guilliman throws the mangled heart aside.
Thiel steadies him to stop him falling.
‘Never mind me, sergeant,’ Guilliman rasps. ‘Kill the damned systems. Do what we came to do.’
Thiel races to the system consoles. The brass cogitation banks of the data-engine chatter and clack in front of him. He doesn’t know where to start.