Damien Trastoon the Pleasure Seeker, Lord of Space Marines

[MolotovKraken]

The servants of Chaos
-Lord Damien Trastoon , Emperor’s Children Traitor Legion
-Dib, Herald of the Dark Prince


IMPERIAL GOVERNOR’S PALACE, MAGOR’S SEAT GERATOMRO 087498.M41

The lord-civil of Matua Inferior began a scream that was cut off by a wet bang as Dostain put a bolt into his face. His head exploded into a cloud of red mist, and his body toppled onto the dais steps, hitting the floor before the heavy report of the bolt pistol had ceased to echo around the hall. A horrified crowd stared up at him. ‘How wonderful,’ murmured Pollein. ‘A very fine shot, Dostain,’ said Dib, clapping his hands. ‘Bravo.’ Their gold-dusted skin and enticing garments splashed with blood, the concubines screamed and shrank back from the corpse. A spreading wash of crimson trickled down the steps, carrying white pieces of the lord-civil’s brain away. They looked like pleasure boats on a red river, recklessly daring cataracts. ‘You!’ shouted Dostain, jabbing a finger at a concubine. ‘Come sit on my lap.’Biting her lip to stifle her tears, the girl came and placed herself on her planetary governor’s knee. ‘Is there more need for this tedious charade?’ said Dostain. ‘I wish to feast, and sate my appetites.’ He patted the girl’s behind. Dib smiled. Something inside Dostain curled in disgust. The perfume on the air mingled with blood, each scent strengthening the other until he felt dizzy with the stink. He longed for the sweet wine from his dream to wash away the flavour. Part of him shrilled inside. He could stop it now. He could. He knew it. But he could not. There was a feast of flesh, wine and meat to be enjoyed. The perfume intoxicated him. His scruples melted under its influence. His body, always large, called out for excess. He had everything. He wanted more. ‘Not quite yet, my lord,’ said Dib. ‘There is one more lord who wishes to pay his respects, and he is no coward, I assure you.’ Dostain swept an increasingly drunken gaze around his court. He could see none missing. As a boy raised in the most paranoid of circumstances, he had a honed ability to detect unexplained absences.

‘Who is he, this lord? Where is he?’ ‘One you will like very much.’ ‘Send him in!’ Dostain was beginning to enjoy himself again. The perfume lost its forbidding edge. Dib clapped his hands and waved them encouragingly. The court trumpeters blew their long horns. ‘Open the gates!’ Trembling servants drew open the doors to the hall. In strode a man of titanic proportions, flanked by two others of only marginally lesser size. The court herald looked at them dumbfounded. ‘I give you Damien Trastoon the Pleasure Seeker, Lord of Space Marines!’ Dib called. Trastoon towered head and shoulders over the courtiers who crowded Magor’s Hall. Heavy ceramite boots clanged on the stone floor. He wore power armour of brilliant, lurid pink, finely worked with grimacing faces. The jets of his back-pack, antiqued bronze orbs held in beast claws and spread like wings behind him, leaked a purple vapour. Upon his face was a brazen mask, wrought to resemble a snarling maw. The helm swept up fromglowing lenses into a crest of horns, also of bronze. Upon his pauldron was a symbol a little like those used to denote the sexes in ancient alchemical texts, those circles with lines coming off their sides – arrow for male, an addition sign for female, but upon his armour blended and decorated with ornate curlicues.

Trastoon came to the foot of the steps. His men put their boltguns at rest with a perfect display of synchronised movement. Trastoon reached up to his helm. The members of the court gasped and murmured. The crowd shimmered in Dostain’s vision. The individuals in it seemed to melt together so that to Dostain’s eyes it was one gaudily clad beast. Someone was weeping. Dostain’s head spun. With a hiss, Trastoon disengaged the upper part of his helm and pulled it free. With a soft touch, he pressed at the side of his vox-grille mask and detached it from his gorget and the soft seals at his neck. Putting the mask into the upturned bowl of his helm, he stood revealed, the most perfect and repulsive creature Dostain had ever seen. His skin was a flawless, pearlescent white. One eye was a pure emerald green. The other was golden, slitted like a felid’s. Above the golden eye, two delicate horns, pink and smooth as the lip of a seashell, curled up from his forehead. ‘Hail, Dostain!’ he shouted, clashing his arm against his chest. ‘Free Lord of Geratomro!’ His voice was pure and clear, but his words dripped with venom. His lips curved into a cruel smile.

‘You have shown wisdom beyond your years in rejecting the False Emperor and claiming this world for your own. For was it not always yours, and did not the lords of Terra, the lickspittles of the corpse-god, impose themselves upon you and usurp your rightful rule? You are a true heir of Magor, my lord.’ With long, smooth strides he walked up the steps to the top of the dais, his feet further mangling the remains of the lord-civil’s head. The weight of Trastoon must have been immense, for the boot squashed flesh flat and crunched bone on its way to meet the marble of the stair without hindrance. ‘I am Lord Damien Trastoon of the Emperor’s Children. Well met.’ ‘Em-em-emperor’s children?’ stuttered Dostain. ‘Yes, we are all children of the Emperor here, are we not? Isn’t that what He would like you to think, that He looks on you as a father?’ Trastoon leaned close and hissed through pointed teeth. ‘Lies. He is a mutant, like those He oppresses on every world. A psyker, like the many thousands Heslaughters every day to maintain His unnatural life. I name Him hypocrite. False.’ He stood erect again, imprisoning Dostain in his shadow as surely as if it were a cell in a tower. ‘The name He gave us we keep. An irony. Humour is pleasurable, all the better when its sweetness is laced with the bitterness of the sardonic. Who does not like to laugh?’ he shouted, and Dostain flinched. ‘Pleasure, satisfaction, fulfilment. The Emperor offers none of these things, only slavery! To Him, we were merely tools. To Him, we of the Legiones Astartes were expendable weapons. Thanks to our true lord, we are masters of all we survey.’ He bowed, that awful smile chasing itself across his face again. ‘Except here, of course... This is your world, my lord.’

He turned to Dib and bowed more deeply. ‘My lord. It is pleasure unbounded to stand before you.’ This time there was no irony in what he said. ‘Our master is pleased that you came,’ said Dib. ‘How could I not, when the opportunity for such divine entertainment presents itself?’ He turned to Pollein. ‘This is the gateway? How charming.’ He ran an inhumanly large, armoured finger along Pollein’s jaw-line. She shuddered, whether from pleasure or horror, or a mix of both, Dostain could not tell. ‘How wonderful,’ she said. ‘Who-who is your master?’ said Dostain. Trastoon swivelled smoothly, returning his attention to the new Lord of Geratomro. ‘Why! The lord of excess! The prince of pleasure! The lord of beauty and of abandon. Do you not know him?’ he said in arch surprise. ‘I have never heard of such a person.’ ‘No. You are the slave of the dusty corpse-king. How awful. Count yourself among the blind and the impoverished. But rejoice! We bring news of a fair prince who will treat you as you should be treated, with kindness and rewards of piquant sensation never to be bested.’ ‘You said nothing about a prince,’ said Dostain to Dib. ‘Am I not king?’ ‘I said nothing about a great many things. But all is to your benefit, my lord.’ Dib and the Space Marine lord shared a smile. ‘Bring in the feast!’ called Trastoon. ‘But we have a feast!’ said Dostain, rousing himself from his stupor. He pointed at the long banqueting tables lining the hall.Trastoon paid him no mind. The doors swung open again. Lines of human servants entered, some carrying tall ewers, others trays of goblets. They were dressed to preserve only the smallest part of their modesty, and often not even that. They were heavily tattooed, their eyes caked with make-up, spiked collars around their necks, and their hair styled into extravagant spikes and crests of every colour. They passed into the crowd, and began to pour wine. A heavy smell blew into the room, an unpleasant odour masquerading as something fine. The lords and ladies reluctantly drank of the wine, but the instant it touched their lips their unease melted away. Gaiety replaced fear. An excited chattering set up in the hall.

‘My lord,’ said Trastoon, taking a goblet from one of the slaves and holding it out to Dostain. A clear, viscous wine clung to the inside, giving off a sweet pungency. ‘Drink.’ ‘I–’ ‘Drink! You must drink, then you must eat. You must have your strength for your wedding night,’ he said lecherously. ‘I have my strength,’ Dostain said weakly. Trastoon looked meaningfully at Pollein. ‘You require more.’ Dostain took the goblet. The scent masked the perfumed air and made his mouth water. With the Space Marine staring at him, he had no choice but to sip. As soon as he did, his mouth tingled with pleasure. It was the wine he had supped while sleeping, but the flavour when tasted for real transcended that of his dreams. It was the sweetest he had ever had. Before it had a chance to travel down his gullet, he was suffused with a giddy euphoria. He began to smile. ‘Yes, yes?’ nodded Trastoon enthusiastically. ‘Is it fitting to your palate, my lord?’ ‘It is very fine!’ shouted Dostain. The transhuman took a mighty goblet appropriate to his size and raised it in salutation. ‘Your health!’ Dostain, laughing uncontrollably, forced some wine into the girl on his lap. Her sullenness vanished instantly upon tasting it, and her warm bodyrelaxed into his. Trastoon held up his goblet to the room and shouted out, ‘My lord demands a tribute, a celebration of carnality and excess! To Planetary Commander Dostain! Eat, drink, abandon yourselves to revelry and revelation!

 

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IMPERIAL GOVERNOR’S PALACE, MAGOR’S SEAT GERATOMRO 087798.M41

Dostain’s wedding and coronation passed in a blur. It was certain the wine was of no normal vintage, but he did not care. It heightened his senses and dulled something important inside his mind. Upon his throne, he indulged in heroic acts of gluttony while his court threw off its inhibitions and sank into sybaritic indulgence. Coy whispers became discreet liaisons. Laughter rang out from every corner. They sipped wine to begin with, but only to begin with. Soon they were guzzling it, and cavorting openly with one another and the servants of the Space Marines, dancing, singing, feasting and shouting, until all in the hall were drawn into a grand display of excess. Trastoon cheered to see such abandon. Dib wandered the hall, fingers trailing along backs, whispering things into ears that either horrified or delighted them. Music struck up. Drums beat out a rhythm to quicken the oldest heart, flutes played unearthly melodies. The beat became wilder as the wine flowed quicker. There were moments when Dostain’s attention shifted somehow, and hesaw scenes of bloodshed and horror. Faces stained red with vitae, the flesh of living victims consumed by laughing courtiers, and the music became screams torn from the throats of tortured men. At those moments, the servants of the Emperor’s Children took on a different form, and the golden cauldron they served their wine from became a hideous creature that mewled in agony. Then he would blink, and he would see none of this, just unrestrained revelry as practised in the old days of Geratomro. Unease would linger a few moments, soon to fade under a sense of triumph and joy as he took another sip of the delightful wine. ‘How wonderful,’ said Pollein leadenly. Trastoon massaged the back of her neck possessively. Dostain thought this odd one moment, and not at all the next. The evening wore on. Dostain’s sense of time collapsed like a shattered mirror. Temporality became flashing images falling past his mind’s eye without any sense of order or relative importance. The tiny sounds of cutlery on plates or the glint of candlelight on a diamond facet of the chandeliers had as much weight as the loudest horn or the most beautiful woman. Trastoon’s face became the only constant. Always he was by his side, scrutinising him, as if there were some meat Dostain might provide to satisfy an unknowable hunger. The new governor’s pleasure was shot through with discomfort at this regard, though only when he groggily remembered it.

All the while, the shattered impressions of the revel piled one atop the other until Dostain’s mind was overwhelmed with sensation. Then there was only Trastoon’s eyes, burning into his, and a short darkness fell. Only the eyes. One gold, one green. A strong hand lifted his head. A warm goblet was pressed to his lips. ‘Drink, my lord! Soon you must be away to your marriage bed. A little more sweet wine to awaken the senses.’ ‘Whu?’ he said blearily. The girl had gone from his lap. Pollein had gone from his side. ‘Where is my wife?’ he said clumsily. ‘Why, she enjoys the marriage feast, my lord, as a bride in the gaze of Slaanesh should.’ The Space Marine restricted his view to a small triangle caught in the crook of Trastoon’s elbow. Dostain could not see Pollein through this small window, and while he looked there the scene flickered back and forth from white-lit pleasure to carmine-illuminated bloodshed. Neither remained long.Both the transition between the two and what he saw in the latter made him ill, and he vomited copiously. Trastoon stepped smoothly back to prevent the vomit splashing his boots. ‘Oh, my lord!’ the Space Marine tutted. He nodded behind him at one of his helmeted fellows, who shoved his way roughly into the crowd. He plucked Pollein from a mass of bodies entwined in the remains of the food atop a banqueting table. The Space Marine was none too gentle, and the revellers made odd cries at the pain inflicted on them. ‘Why is she naked?’ he said. ‘What was that, my lord?’ asked Trastoon. ‘She has no clothes. Why?’ ‘How will she love you otherwise?’ said Trastoon, hauling Dostain from his chair and carrying him like a child in his arms. ‘They are ready,’ said Trastoon to his brother, who had Pollein slung over one shoulder.

Dostain snuggled into the hard armour of the warrior. His misgivings gave way again to satisfaction. His aunt was his, by marriage, by right. He had wanted her for so long. It was wrong to deprive someone of physical bliss. Next thing he knew, he was in his bed and she beside him. Surely, he thought, it should be day? But day never came, darkness reigned, and black water fell in sheets from the sky. Far away there was a rumbling noise punctuated by dazzling flashes and world-shaking booms. Her touch drove it from his mind. The spell upon Pollein seemed to melt away, and she came to shuddering life. Experiences were his to know that he had never expected to feel. All the while he had the impression of something vast watching him, sharing the sensations, something that seemed benevolent on the surface, but within which strong currents of evil ran. Dostain did not care. He did not care that Trastoon and his warrior companion stood guard by the door. He did not care that the day never came. ‘Pollein, Pollein!’ he cried. ‘Dib, Dib, Dib,’ she murmured. He did not care about that either. Only the feeling of her next to him. He was a lord of the world, and the lord of the woman he had long desired. No better fate could he wish for. Nothing lasts. At the end, they fell drunken and exhausted. Dostain’s eyesslid shut. Before he drifted into a troubled sleep, he felt Trastoon move to his side and lean down. He whispered into his ear so closely that his lips brushed his sweat-beaded skin. ‘And so the Prince of Pleasure rewards you for your sacrifice.’ What sacrifice, he wondered. There was none. He had done nothing but gain. Not the way he had expected, but he had won. Weight shifted from the bed next to him, and he passed out.

 

[MolotovKraken]

FOUNDER’S SQUARE, MAGOR’S SEAT GERATOMRO 087898.M41

A throaty roaring intruded into the nearing sounds of gunfire. Dostain looked up Magor’s Way to see Space Marines on huge combat bikes burst into the square and open fire. A number of the Emperor’s Children fell, but the traitors spread out unhurriedly, unslinging their weapons and returning fire upon the Adeptus Astartes. Several of the traitors carried devices more akin to musical instruments than guns, and they played twanging cacophonies of destruction that burst apart the piles of bodies around Magor’s companions and shattered the stone beneath. Dostain’s captor remained still besides the rearing Dib, who laughed long and loud. ‘They are here – the Black Templars! The final guests at our celebration!’ Between the spread parts of Pollein’s body, the membrane of energy glowed kaleidoscopically and began to throb, bulging outwards in time to the Emperor’s Children’s war-instruments. One of the Black Templars was brought low, his bike shattered into scrap by sonic pulses. The Space Marine skidded free, sparks flying from his armour. He rolled and pushed himself to his feet, drawing his sword.‘For Dorn! For the Emperor!’ he shouted, and ran at the Traitor Space Marines, only to die in a hail of bolt-rounds. Dostain watched dispassionately, shocked out of his fear. They could not all be bent on attempting such a suicidal dash, he thought. The Black Templars drove full tilt into the Emperor’s Children, the mass of their steeds bowling over those who got in their way. Boltguns blazed. As they reached the centre of the square they leapt off their bikes, allowing them to slide away, wheels still spinning, to crash into the followers of the Dark Prince. Their legs aided by their armour, they leapt improbably far, cracking the paving when they landed. There they drew blades and axes attached by steel chains to their wrists, and charged without delay, yelling praise to the Emperor and damning the traitors for their treachery. Slender power swords met heavy axes in showers of sparks. The Black Templars were furious warriors, moving with smooth grace despite their size and armour’s mass. Impelled by the momentum of their bikes, they cut several of Trastoon’s followers down before they were slowed. ‘Impressive, aren’t they?’ hissed Dib to Dostain. ‘But these sons of Dorn face the sons of Fulgrim. They are the Emperor’s Children, for whom perfection was once a byword. Each one of these warriors has fought for thousands of years, and their mastery of blade-craft is unsurpassed, even by the so-called Knights of Dorn. Watch, and see the dogs of the Emperor die.’ Trastoon moved into the melee towards a Black Templar whose armour was trimmed in red. This one fought ferociously, bolt pistol in one hand, a power axe in the other.

He hooked his axe-head behind the knee of a traitor, whipping him off his feet and bringing him down hard, ending his unnatural life with three bolt shots to the brain. Before the first had died, he pivoted on one foot, coming in low, his axe sweeping around to cleave another traitor through the chest. Lightning burst around the impact point, there was the almighty bang of annihilated atoms, and blood welled unstoppably from the shattered chest. Another died, riddled with shots from the red-and-black warrior’s pistol, then another, and another. All the time the warrior moved faster, sang louder, his axe hewing down traitors. His blows became frenzied, and his battle-song throbbed the very stones of the square. Dib winced. ‘Prayers to their god. None of that will work here.’ Trastoon decapitated a Black Templar, sending his helmeted head rattling among the feet of the fighting Space Marines. Seeing the red warrioroccupied, he charged, only for his sword to be met with the reinforced haft of the warrior’s axe. Trastoon pushed down hard on his foe, but the Black Templar threw him back, and the two staggered away from each other. The square filled with the ringing of weapons, the crackling of disruption fields and the banging of shattering matter. The combatants moved too fast for Dostain to make sense of. A space formed around the warrior in red and black and Trastoon, warriors from both sides having the sense not to intervene, and they circled each other warily. ‘I am Sword Brother Adelard of the Black Templars,’ said Adelard, brandishing his axe. ‘I challenge you! May your death be as clean as your life has not.’

Trastoon saluted, holding his blue-steel sword in front of his face, the power field making his fanged mask jump and quiver. ‘I am Damien Trastoon, and I have been killing the sons of Dorn since Horus declared war on the falsehoods of the Emperor. It is I who shall be your death, knight.’ ‘Let it be seen,’ said Adelard. He came in with a devastating overhand swing of his axe that Trastoon caught on his own blade and flung wide. He thrust at Adelard, but leapt back as Adelard levelled his gun and loosed a pair of swift bolts. Incredibly, Trastoon deflected one with his blade and dodge the second. It buried itself in the thigh of another traitor so that he fell with a cry, and was finished by another Black Templar. The Black Templars were hard pressed, outnumbered several times over. A third fell, cut down from behind and run through by two swords from the front. Only four remained. But one of those was a warrior like no other. ‘The Emperor’s Champion. It is his death that will lead to the opening of the gate,’ said Dib. ‘You expected them?’ said Dostain. ‘Of course. We let them through! Time has no meaning to my master. They rush to confront us for pride. He has foreseen it. The death of one of such exquisite purity has value in the working of magicks. For his blood, the warp will obey me. Watch him, marvel at his skill. Martial prowess such as his is rarely witnessed.’ This warrior fought his way forwards with insane power, smashing aside all who came against him. The Emperor’s Champion’s armour was marked by tiny script and fluttering parchments. A wreath circled his helm, and hebore in his hands a sword of purest black that he swung without tiring. Each blow felled multiple opponents, cleaving through ceramite armour and flinging back their bodies. A nimbus of light surrounded him, so pure that it was painful to look at, though it was by no means bright. When it settled on him, Dostain was filled with shame, made aware of all he had done wrong these last months.

In that light was the truth of his treachery, and it was more than he could bear, but the Traitor Space Marine held him in place, and he could do little more than cringe from it. Weapons clashed and songs vied with blasphemous war-cries as a hundred centuries of hatred was vented on both sides. A third Black Templar fell. Knowing what the loyal warriors of the Emperor would do to him if they prevailed, still Dostain found himself urging them to win. The sound of the greater battle had halted some distance away, near where his best troops were stationed, reinforced by more of Trastoon’s warriors. The Imperial Guard would be too late to save him, only the Black Templars could, and he realised now that it was not his life in the balance – he could never keep that after what he had done – but his soul. ‘Fiend! Fiend!’ called the Emperor’s Champion to Dib as he smashed his way through the melee towards the daemon. He barged aside a warrior in pink and gold, reversed his sword and drove it backwards. It pierced backpack, back and chest, emerging from the front of the traitor and steaming with blood cooking in its disruption field. He withdrew his sword and flourished it at Dib. ‘In my dreams I have seen you. The Emperor has sent me to bring about your end. Stand forwards, and fight!’ Dib smiled. ‘Who could possibly ignore an invitation like that?’ he said, and darted at the Champion with the speed of a striking serpent. From each of Dib’s hands a sword sprouted, exotic alloys gleaming bright colours and dripping with exquisite poisons. He duelled with the Champion, Trastoon with Adelard. The numbers of the traitors had been reduced to a dozen, but the two other remaining Black Templars were isolated, heavily beset by them. One more went down, knocked onto his back. A blade was driven through his breastplate with a sickening crack. Before he died, he looked at Dostain. His bolter came up, and he fired. Dostain expected the end. There was a bang directly behind the planetary governor. The giant holding Dostain crumpled, his helmet hollowed out. His hand spasmed onDostain’s shoulder as he fell, crushing Dostain’s collarbone. Screaming at the pain, Dostain fell down with the warrior over him. In panicked agony, he pulled himself out from beneath unnoticed and crawled away.

 

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Dib and the Champion duelled. Unholy blades clashed upon the edge of the sacred black sword. Dib whirled and darted faster than Dostain’s eyes could follow, but every strike in his flurry of blows was met by the black sword. One by one the other Traitor Space Marines fell around the combatants, dispatched by the Champion when they strayed too near. Soon, there was only Trastoon fighting Adelard, and Dib fighting the champion. Behind them the unnatural gate pulsed. Dostain peered at it, though it hurt his eyes. On the other side of the membrane of light he saw images of creatures gathering, lovely yet terrible, pressing hard against the glow. For now they appeared unfinished, flat, like uncompleted sketches drawn by a madman. Dostain crawled faster, his wounded shoulder hunched and left arm drawn up like a wounded dog’s leg. He dared not stand, but cowered, watching men far better than he fight because of his actions. Adelard whirled and chopped without slowing. His battle-hymn was loud and pure after many minutes of fighting, but his enhanced metabolism was more than matched by that of Trastoon, who was further strengthened by the unholy power of the warp. Trastoon leapt high and drove down at the sword brother, the sorcerous energies sheathing his blade colliding with the purer power fields of Adelard’s axe in eruptions of light and sound. Adelard staggered back. Dostain watched, his heart in his mouth, as Trastoon drove at him again, his sword blurring arcs of painful fire before him. Again the axe and the sword met. Again the combatants parted. Adelard was being pushed away from the gate, back towards the ring of Founders’ statues and the piles of corpses. Dostain felt sick. This was what he had brought on his world. Suffering and death. He looked around for a weapon, anything. Hiseyes lit upon the boltgun of the dead Space Marine, but even with both arms he would not have been able to defy its magnetic lock and pull it away from the armour. Then he saw the pistol, holstered at the Space Marine’s side. His injured arm held awkwardly, he crawled over.

Nervously, he looked up, but neither Dib nor Trastoon saw him. Dostain reached for the bolt pistol with his right hand. It slipped free from its holster easily enough, but he nearly dropped it when he lifted it up. Sized for a Space Marine, the bolt pistol was too massive for a normal man to wield comfortably. With difficulty he sat back, rested it on his knee and aimed it at Trastoon. His finger felt inadequate for the task of pulling the trigger. ‘You should join me, you are a good warrior,’ Trastoon shouted over the buzz and crackle of locked power fields. ‘Never!’ said Adelard. ‘Reconsider. The Emperor is intolerant of those who call Him a god. You are ignorant of the lessons of the past.’ ‘Lies!’ cried Adelard, and flung the Chaos champion’s blade aside. ‘Then you shall die,’ said Trastoon. He thrust with his blade at Adelard, both hands on the hilt. The axe came down to force it aside, but there was too much impetus behind the blow, and it slammed into Adelard’s torso. Adelard spun with the hit, but the blade scored a deep smoking gash across the gothic cross moulded into his chest. The power cables underneath parted and spat. Adelard let out a metallic cry through his vox-grille and fell sideways, his armour dying on him. ‘So many have fallen to me. You are but the latest,’ said Trastoon. He raised his sword. Somehow, Dostain pulled the trigger without yanking the gun off target. The shot rang out. The bolt flew true, smashing through Trastoon’s power armour and exploding inside his wrist.

Trastoon staggered, his left hand hanging by its tendons from the ruin of his arm. His ugly helmet turned to find his assassin. When he saw Dostain, the stolen bolt pistol propped upon his knee, Trastoon laughed. ‘You? You dare to defy me?’ ‘I am Planetary Governor. This is my world,’ said Dostain, and fired again. The second bolt hit Trastoon in the side, and his sword fell from nervelessfingers. The champion tottered. With a growl of effort, Adelard thrust upwards from the ground, the spike atop his power axe slamming up through Trastoon’s gorget and into his brain. Trastoon collapsed to the ground and Adelard fell back. The fight between Dib and the Champion was reaching its climax. The Black Templar’s armour smoked from a dozen rents. His blade slowed. With a triumphant screech, Dib fell upon him, all four swords plunging into the Champion. He covered the warrior in an obscene embrace, snake-like body coiling around the Black Templar. At this blow the membrane dividing the material realm from the warp pushed outwards and did not rebound. In this new extrusion, thousands of pairs of hungry eyes looked out into the universe. ‘The way is open!’ screeched Dib triumphantly. ‘The way is–’ Dib made a clicking noise in his throat and arched backwards. The Black Sword burst from his spine, thick blue ichor running over his serpentine body. The sword ground round, opening the wound wide, then cut outwards, almost cleaving Dib in two. The daemon herald fell gurgling, and the Champion staggered free, his armour shattered and blood pooling around his feet. He raised his sword to the heavens and tilted back his head. ‘Emperor, hear me! I am Brother Bastoigne of the Black Templars! I have served you! I have served you! Witness me! No pity! No remorse! No fear!’

He reversed his sword and plunged it point first into the stone. Then he knelt. Head bowed in prayer and hands clasped around the hilt of the black sword, he died. The membrane quivered. Pollein’s head mouthed, ‘How wonderful.’ Dib’s top half lay still, his nearly severed tail squirming beside him. Adelard rolled onto his side and laughed, his mirth growing in volume until it encompassed the whole square. ‘You lose, daemon! There shall be no horror upon Geratomro this day.’ Dib roused himself, his torso curling in upon itself like a dying insect’s. A wet tearing saw his tail come free, and he crawled away from the gate. ‘There is but... one more death needed here, Templar... and I have found it. The last of the house of Magor.’ With the last of his ebbing strength he plucked a dagger from his belt and cast it out. ‘No!’ shouted Adelard.The blade buried itself in Dostain’s forehead. His eyes rolled backwards, and he fell dead. ‘It... is... you... who... loses,’ hissed Dib. Before he had finished speaking, his body was already collapsing into bubbling, black filth. The membrane swelled and thinned. The faces pressed against it lost their flatness, becoming more real as the colour drained from the energy field. Then it popped, prosaically, like a child’s burst balloon. A hideous laughing filled the square, and the numberless brides of Slaanesh spilled into the world.

 

[MolotovKraken]

An outsized, armoured hand stretched out from behind a Chimera’s hull. Bannick put his fingers to his lips and beckoned them forwards. They crept round the edge of the Chimera. A giant lay slain on the far side. It was seven feet tall, clad in violently pink-and-purple armour, an archaic looking boltgun decorated with leering faces lying at its side. A ring of dead men surrounded it. Bannick raised his gun and pointed it at the giant’s helm lens. Bolt casings tinkled across the road as his feet nudged them. ‘Adeptus Astartes!’ said Vaskigen. ‘Have you ever seen one in such armour? What’s he doing here?’ They looked around, fanning out without consultation. ‘Here is another,’ said Gollph quietly.‘And a third,’ said Bannick. ‘There, one of their transports, a Rhino.’ He nodded towards a squat armoured personnel carrier, whose lurid paint had been stripped away by fire. ‘That looks like it’s been hit by a battle cannon,’ said Vaskigen. ‘I don’t understand. Were they fighting our men? Is this some kind of mistake?’ ‘The fire of brother on brother. I have heard of it happening,’ said Bannick. He approached one of the corpses. ‘I do not recognise these symbols. And look, this one bears a necklace of skulls.’ Gollph looked at them. ‘We tell story on our world. Time when Sky Emperor make His mightiest son chief of all the others, and is rewarded by betrayal. Heaven shook for many years, and when it was done, the Emperor’s son was dead and many worlds lost. Is why Bosovar alone for so long, so the elders say.’ ‘The legend of Horus,’ breathed Bannick. ‘Traitor Space Marines? Legiones Astartes?’ said Vaskigen, his ordinarily bluff manner replaced by horror. ‘Come on,’ said Bannick. ‘Let’s get back. We should leave this place. Now.’ They jogged back, scaring up flocks of cawing avians from their meals. ‘Listen!’ said Gollph. They halted. Bannick heard nothing but the chuckle of the river over its stony bed, laughing at the slaughter. Gollph darted off towards a mound of dead men. He waved frantically. ‘This one alive!’ They ran away from the road. A man lay close to death, his face bloody and all four limbs crooked at unnatural angles. He was saying something, but his lips were cracked and his words were so hoarse as to be inaudible. Vaskigen leaned in close. Gollph’s eyes widened and he grabbed his arm. ‘No.’ ‘What?’ said Vaskigen angrily. ‘This man needs help! He’s a son of our world. Let go.

‘Run!’ Meggen shouted from the top of the tank. ‘They’re coming!’ ‘We’re leaving!’ said Bannick into the vox pick-up of his headset. Cortein’s Honour’s engines rumbled. Another engine answered, then another. Gollph and Bannick scrambled up onto the Baneblade as three light tanks burst onto the road half a mile away, moving at speed. ‘Get in!’ he shouted, throwing himself up onto the turret and diving head first into the cupola as bolter fire rang off the front of the Baneblade. ‘Three Predator-class Adeptus Astartes light battle tanks coming in fast. Shoam, full reverse! All weapons, open fire! Keep them back.’ Bannick turned around awkwardly and put his head up out of the turret. Bolts buzzed past, one blowing apart on the open hatch and peppering his skin with microshrapnel. He yanked the turret hatch down and peered out of the glass viewing blocks set all around the hatch ring. ‘Back up, back up!’ The Predators were smaller than Cortein’s Honour, but they were much faster. They fired as they came, lascannons decorated with leering gargoyle mouths spitting ruby light. They were terrifyingly accurate, the las-fire scorching the armour of Cortein’s Honour all around the turret. Two of the tanks split, heading for the wounded side of the Baneblade. The Paragonians’ remaining lascannon turret fired, but went well wide. ‘Calm down, Leonates! Take your time. They’re trying to pull the tank’s fangs and trying to flank us. Don’t let them, Shoam.’ ‘No, sir,’ said Shoam, the first Bannick had heard from him in a day and a half. ‘Savlar like to die just about as much as you do.’ Beams pumped out from the enemy lascannon as Leonates tried to homein on the tanks, but he kept missing. ‘Do not fire so wildly,’ said Kolios. ‘You risk the power shunts.’ Bannick could taste it, the fear on them. They were not facing other men, or orks, or eldar, but the Emperor’s finest creations, creatures bred for war. To be in combat against them was a man’s worst nightmare. Bannick looked back. The river was a hundred yards away from them. The tank reversed as quickly as it could towards it. It shook as it barged a vehicle wreck out of the way. ‘Right stick, right stick!’ shouted Bannick. ‘You’re taking us up the embankment. If we get caught on the bridge we’re dead. Get us in the river! Let the water slow them down and even things up.’ ‘I am disengaging the safety guard on the reactor. Diverting extra power to the engine. Be warned, this will anger the spirit of Cortein’s Honour,’ said Kolios. There was fear in him too, no matter how hard he attempted to mask it. The metal of the tank vibrated. Cortein’s Honour roared. The thwack-boom of the demolisher sounded. A cone of soil burst in front of one of the Traitor Space Marine tanks. ‘Basdack!’ shouted Kalligen as the tank rolled neatly around it, guns unswervingly tracking the Baneblade. Besides the two lascannons mounted in their turrets, the tanks all had another pair in sponsons. They were dedicated tank hunters, outfitted to destroy enemy armour. ‘Dammit,’ growled Meggen. ‘That’s a lot of lascannons.’ ‘Heavy bolter! Take out their sensors! Aim for their targeting arrays,’ yelled Bannick. ‘Buy some time! Meggen! Hold fire! We’re damaged, let’s make them think our cannon is malfunctioning, draw them in. When we drop down the bank, they’ll have to follow if they want to be sure of catching us.

I want you ready to blast one of them apart.’ ‘Aye, sir! Gollph, send us up an AP shell, double quick.’ He slammed the eject, shunting the unfired shell out of the breach. The shell lift wound up, bringing up a quartet of blue-tipped shells. Meggen helped the auto-loader slam the round home. Leonates shouted in triumph as his weapons hammered a Predator’s sponson-mounted augur array. The soulless glass eye shattered in its housing, spewing sparks. The lascannon sagged in its cowl, caught on the ground and was ripped off. Still the tanks had many teeth. Endless rounds of las-fire hissed into thefront of the Baneblade, scoring the metal with molten furrows. The tanks’ turrets smoothly tracked Cortein’s Honour as they split. Bannick ducked as one of the turret windows smashed and melted armourglass dripped into the cupola. The tank’s armour was proof against the lascannons, but there were so many vulnerable areas. If they hit the treads or got behind the Baneblade and fired on the engine block, or managed to take out Shoam, they were dead. ‘Damn it! Into the river!’ When he looked again, the Predators were closing fast. One of the two on the right ran up the embankment onto the road. The other pursued them closely, while the third, on the left, came in wide, pummelling the side of the tank. Leonates yelled in fright as his lefthand sponson blew, the bolter ammunition inside spraying off in corkscrewing fireworks. ‘I’m down to the heavy bolters in the right turret, sir. They’re not responding well.’ ‘They’re out of my fire arc, sir,’ reported Kalligen. The two Predators on the right were drawing near, the third a quarter of a mile away and coming parallel to their left flank. All of them were out of the demolisher’s fire arc. ‘Where’s the river?’ said Shoam, who was driving blind. ‘Keep going! We’re nearly there. Slow down on my mark, or we’ll come down too hard and submerge the exhaust. Everyone brace!’ The tank’s rear tracks hit the bank. A natural levee had built up there, and the Baneblade jounced over it. Cortein’s Honour slithered down the bank into the water, the overheated engine bringing forth clouds of steam. Bannick held his breath as the bow tilted up, exposing the tank’s underbelly for a dangerous second. They slipped into the river unharmed. ‘Now, Meggen, track thirty left!’ As Cortein’s Honour levelled off, the lead Predator, the one on the left, cleared the levee, bouncing down after them. Meggen held his fire. ‘Fire!’ said Bannick. ‘Not yet, not yet, not yet!’ The second Predator cleared the bank on the right, tipping forwards to expose its weaker top armour. ‘That one!’ shouted Meggen, putting the battle cannon shell through the turret. Fire flashed inside. The tank stopped dead, black smoke pouringfrom every aperture. ‘One down!’ yelled Meggen. ‘Sir, the third tank is taking up position on the bridge overlooking the river,’ called Epperaliant, who was rushing from viewing port to viewing port on the command deck. ‘Bring us in closer to the piers, Shoam. Cut into its firing angle.’ ‘What about the third tank?’ said Leonates. ‘It’s drawing alongside!’ ‘Kalligen, get on it. Shoam, fifteen degrees left. Keep Kalligen in line.’ At first the Predator pulled forwards, but as the water deepened, the more powerful engines of the Baneblade won out, and they began to make distance on it. As they moved by, it unleashed a furious fusillade against the left side of Cortein’s Honour. Tocsins rang below. Lesser alarms peeped with infuriating insistence.

 

[MolotovKraken]

A ruby las-beam scored the air from above. ‘Meggen, put a round across that thing’s bow.’ ‘Aye aye,’ said Meggen. The main cannon boomed. The angle was hard and Meggen missed. A massive chunk of rockcrete blew out of the bridge. ‘Again!’ Bannick looked behind them. They were coming in on a shallow oblique line at the bridge. ‘Shoam, when I give the order, hard reverse left, full ninety degrees. Kalligen, get ready.’ Meggen’s second round took the bridge underneath, putting a hole in the deck. ‘Basdack! I cannot get a bead on it from here.’ ‘Stop firing,’ said Bannick. The third Predator was out of sight. ‘I think it’s falling back,’ said Epperaliant. ‘Keep eyes on it,’ ordered Bannick. The shadow of the bridge moved over the turret. ‘Now! Now, Shoam!’ Shoam yanked the left stick backwards and pushed the right forwards. The Baneblade moaned at the sudden change in direction. Water churned audibly against the hull as tracks spun on loose gravel, and it turned to the left. ‘Full reverse!’ yelled Bannick. Shoam drove it back into the shelter of the bridge. ‘Meggen, bring the turret around, cover the rear, depress main gun full!’ ‘Turret around, depressing main gun full!’ he shouted. The Banebladeretreated into the shelter of the bridge. Whichever side the Predator came at them, it would be facing down the barrel of a main armament. Not even the Space Marines could survive that. But they did not come. Seconds ticked by, becoming minutes. ‘They’re Space Marines. They’re not going for this,’ Bannick said to himself nervously. Noise in the tank died away. A tense silence reigned. ‘They’re coming from the rear!’ shouted Epperaliant. ‘And the front!’ said Bannick, seeing the snarling muzzle of a lascannon emerge around the pier. ‘Kalligen! Meggen! Fire! Fire! Fire!’ The third Predator had come off the bridge and outflanked them, coming in from the rear. The first attempted a dash to the left side of the tank, but Kalligen caught it square on. The Predator exploded outwards, the force of the demolisher blast enough to burst the armour asunder and shock the Baneblade itself. Red-hot shards of metal hissed into the water. The battle cannon boomed half a second later. The shell glanced off the Predator’s angled turret armour and went whooshing away over the river. ‘Basdack! Armour’s thick!’ Through the clouds of exhaust smoke and steam pouring up around the engine block, Bannick saw the Predator turning so it could bring all four of its weapons to bear on their vulnerable back end. Three of them were already hammering the Baneblade. ‘Shoam! Full reverse, now!’ The engine roared. The Baneblade slammed back into the Predator’s bow. It fired wildly, catching the Baneblade’s right-side auxiliary fuel drums and causing them to detonate.

A ball of flame washed over both tanks. The Predator was pushed backwards towards deeper water. Tracks churning the river cloudy, it slipped down the edge of gravel bank. With a throaty, bellowing roar, the Baneblade upended it, pushing it onto its side, then over onto its roof. ‘Forwards!’ yelled Bannick. Still dripping burning promethium, the super-heavy pulled off from the Predator. Nosing the wreck of the other Space Marine vehicle out of the way, it pulled out into the river from under the bridge. The rear ramp of the Predator was being forced open from inside. A pair of bare-headed crewmen, trailing hard-wired interface cables, staggered out.‘Meggen! The crew are bailing. See to it they don’t get far.’ ‘Already on it, Col,’ said Meggen. A final cannon shot rang, punching through side of the Predator. Hatches blew as it detonated. The rear ramp flipped off and flew free, skimming over the river’s surface. The Space Marines were thrown forwards, disappearing into the water as fire rushed over them. Bannick doubted very much that it would be enough to finish them, but there would be little they could do to harm the Baneblade without their tank. ‘That’s it, that’s the last of them. Well done, crew,’ said Bannick. Whoops of relief sounded through the tank. As it pushed on back over the river, Bannick kissed his amulets, then placed his hand gently on the rim of his cupola in thanks. ‘And praise to the Emperor and Omnissiah,’ he said to Cortein’s Honour

 

[MolotovKraken]

‘Good to see you, Colaron,’ he said. ‘You likewise, sir.’ He looked around nervously, sure what he was about to say was blasphemy. ‘Our attackers. I have never seen anything like it. They were Space Marines.’ ‘The treachery of Geratomro grows daily. They have petitioned the oldest of the Imperium’s foes for aid, and they have answered.’ ‘I thought such things were myths.’ Hannick spoke softly. ‘They are not. A long war has been waged by them, millennia old, and we find ourselves caught up in it.’ He looked up and smiled. ‘Get yourself cleaned up as best you can. I’ve had orders from high command. Briefing in twenty minutes.’‘Where is our support group?’ asked Bannick. He could not see their wheeled shrine, service vehicles and enginseers in the yard. ‘Lost. We must do what we can with what we have, Colaron.’

 

[MolotovKraken]

‘I am sorry about the space, gentlemen,’ said Hannick, gesturing at the open sides of their tent. ‘I’ll keep the briefing, well, brief. Our enemy has wasted no time.’ He pushed a pile of papers to the side of the tac table and keyed its activation stud with his company signet. The pict screen embedded in the ornate surface ignited, showing blurry, low-definition imagery. ‘High command relayed news of an incoming hostile fleet at twenty-three twelve last night to me. The enemy came in line of battle, direct from the sun and in the blindside of the planet, evading augur detection until the last. They engaged the fleet shortly after, deploying simultaneously to the surface by drop pod and gunship in the teeth of our fire.’ ‘Emperor,’ muttered Marteken. ‘They are Space Marines, no matter what wicked master they might follow now,’ said Hannick. ‘They launched attacks immediately, cutting off our line of reinforcements coming from the south. That’s what you saw, Bannick. From your experience we can deduce they’ve left ambush units behind to pick off stragglers, intelligence I have passed on to high command. We pushed on ahead of the advance as instructed. We missed the ambush, a shame, as our presence may have tipped the encounter in our favour. We can only assume that the majority of our on-planet supplies, the lower tech-adepts, recovery tanks, mobile manufactoria and the rest were caught up in the slaughter. That brings me to my first point – we must conserve our supplies. Spares and replacement parts, ammunition for our larger guns, these things will be hard to come by for the foresee able future. There will be no resupply while the fleets are engaged. Their fleet is small,but fast. Ours holds station above us here.’ He tapped the scratched glass of the table. A red circle pulsed over the castella. ‘Theirs is here, over Magor’s Seat. As you can appreciate, this is no distance at all when it comes to void war. The fleets are fighting at what is, for them, point-blank range. Our ships are taking something of a pounding. If they move, our camp here will be obliterated from orbit.

However, we expect that as soon as the enemy fleet has deployed all ground force assets, they will withdraw. They are swift and cunning and heavily armed, but the size of their craft makes their fleet ill-suited to a protracted firefight.’ ‘How many are there on the ground?’ said Bannick. ‘The Emperor alone knows. High command does not know exactly what we’re facing. Traitor Space Marines for sure. Maybe other assets. Are there one hundred, a thousand? Ten thousand? Our forces number in the region of five million in and around Geratomro, but Iskhandrian’s lightning war, which had us so close to victory, has left us spread out and vulnerable. One of the Traitor Space Marines is worth fifty normal men in open battle, and they’re not playing that game. They continue to employ hit-and-run attacks all over the continent. Our supply lines are being targeted, as are units on the march from the subdued cities. It is only a matter of time before they begin to isolate and retake the cities we have fought so far to reconquer.’ Hannick coughed, a short fit that the others politely waited through. They always began short, and became more severe. Hannick sped up his briefing before he was overcome. ‘And there’s worse. An Ark Mechanicus of some kind accompanies their fleet. Even a sizeable Space Marine fleet could have deployed in Magor’s Seat and withdrawn in under a few hours. High command is certain they’re in a holding pattern directly opposing our own fleet because they’re landing something else, something big.’ The lieutenants looked at one another. ‘Engines?’ said Marteken. ‘Traitor war engines? First, Traitor Space Marines, and now, Traitor Titans, Traitor Mechanicus?’ ‘There is a danger we’ll be facing Traitor Titans.’ Hannick coughed again, a worse fit. The lieutenants pretended not to see the blood on his handkerchief when he dabbed at his mouth. ‘In fact, high command think this so likely that we’ve been ordered to reorganise. On this planet we have a grand total of two engines of our own – not a true force of the TitanLegions. A show to cow those Planetary Governors who haven’t quite got the guts to go the whole way like Huratal has. The Warhound War’s Gift, and the Reaver-class Ultimate Sanction. If there are enemy engines, they will need support.

Therefore, with immediate effect, the Lucky Eights, the Eighteenth Atraxian and the Seventh Paragonian will be split and temporarily reorganised in group Epsilon and Ultra. Under my command, Epsilon will consist of Ostrakhan’s Rebirth, Artemen Ultrus and the Atraxian Baneblade Fidellius and Stormsword Refutation of Sin. We will be supported by the Eighth’s War Forged and Saint Josef. Our role will be to lead the spearhead into Magor’s Seat in an attempt to cut the head off this rebellion. ‘Group Ultra will comprise Lux Imperator. It is to join the Eighteenth Atraxian’s Shadowswords Indominus and World Burner under Lieutenant Askelios – he’s liaison with the Atraxians. Ultra will be led by Honoured Captain Parrigar and the Righteous Vengeance from the Eights. He’s in overall charge, but Askelios is the man to listen to when it comes to shooting war engines. Ultra will begin the engagement concealed here to the east, well out of the line of attack, and is to work in close conjunction with Princeps Gonzar and Princeps Yolanedesh. Their plan is to draw the enemy engines from the city, where they might be flanked and brought down by our Shadowswords.’ ‘Titan hunting,’ said Hurnigen, a gleam in his eye. ‘And us, sir?’ asked Marteken. ‘Can you give us any more specifics at this time?’ ‘We’re going right for the heart of Magor’s Seat. There’s a void shield up around the palace that has to come down. We’re to lead the spearhead to take the generatoria. We need to finish this quickly. If we let the Traitor Space Marines establish themselves here, we’ll be fighting this war for decades. It’ll be a close fight, but it needs to be done.’ ‘What about Cortein’s Honour, sir?’ said Bannick with rising dismay. ‘We can get it up and ready for battle again within five hours.’ ‘Not according to Brasslock.’ ‘Brasslock is wrong.’ ‘You will not be at full operational status,’ said Hannick. ‘Without full communications you’ll be sitting kree birds ready for the poacher’s gun. I won’t send a wounded tank into battle just to lose it.’

 

[MolotovKraken]

‘You be careful. I’ve a bad feeling about all this.’ ‘We’re facing monsters out of the deep past. We’re all scared.’ ‘No, no – think. They’re Space Marines, but they are not invulnerable. There’s not so many of them, or we’d be done already. What’s worrying me is if they don’t have the ability to take us out in one go, why bother fighting us at all?’ They walked slowly. Lux Imperator emerged from the rain. The two Bannicks paused at the access ladder while Shoam, Meggen and Leonates clambered up. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Emperor, Colaron! Think. Why are they here? As things stand, we’re bound to win. Though it will be harder for us with them being here, they can’t hope to overcome us. All this, these strikes and feints, they’re delaying tactics. They’ll slow us down, but they can’t stop us. It’s obvious they want to take this planet, otherwise they’d have hit us with an asteroid, or dropped virus bombs, or those planet crackers the Space Marines use. So my point is, cousin, what exactly are they waiting for?’ A chill ran down Bannick’s back. ‘Now, if I can see that, you can bet your last quart of gleece high command can too. Something bad is going to happen if this attack fails. Can’t you see it? The sense of desperation here. This mad rush for Magor’s Seat. It’s not the careful strategy Iskhandrian’s been following. Things have got a little sloppier, a little quicker, since the inquisitor arrived.’ Jonas nodded at Bannick, urging him to understand. The vox-set chimed in Bannick’s ear. ‘Sir, Parrigar and Askelios are calling for all hands to prepare. The assault begins in two minutes.’ ‘I’ll be right there.’ Jonas prodded Bannick gently in the chest. ‘We’d best pray to the Emperor all this works out. The funny thing about stories is that they’re no fun to be in, and the ones I’ve heard about Traitor Space Marines really are unpleasant.’ Bannick took his leave and clambered back aboard the tank. He tore off hisponcho and hung it to dry on the back wall, closest to the reactor where Chensormen lurked. He ignored the commissar’s arched eyebrow. Parrigar and Askelios were conferring on open vox. Bannick half listened as he stripped down to his vest – even that was damp – and sat himself down in the Shadowsword’s command chair. ‘Everyone look sharp. The time for battle is upon us.’

 

[MolotovKraken]

The enemy loomed out of the dark, lit by the light of collapsing void shields. It was huge, monstrously so, bigger than the ork gargants Bannick had seen on Kalidar and more terrifying for its greater grace. The gargants had been little more than rickety fortresses on tracked feet; this had arms and legs, a hunched back protected by a heavy armoured carapace. The details of it were hazed by the spread of its void shields, presenting a sinister silhouette that had more of the look of a giant than a machine. It moved like a man, with all a man’s murderous intent. The orks knew no better; they were an enemy Bannick could understand. Bannick found that, as he could not forgive himself for killing Tuparillio, he could not forgive his species for the cruelty it inflicted upon itself. This iron god was all the hate and cruelty man had to offer the galaxy incarnate. It horrified him, more so because in its form he could see himself reflected. ‘Range twelve hundred yards and closing,’ said Epperaliant. ‘All tank gunners, fix range and focus,’ ordered Askelios. ‘Enginseers stand ready to reactivate reactors and charge cannon capacitors.’ The Warlord paced backwards, still unaware of the ambush hunters lurking to its rear. Now both god-engines were visible through the storm. A furious exchange of fire flew between the Warlord and the Imperial Reaver. The Traitor Titan was heavier, and carried far more armament. This was not a fight Ultimate Sanction could win on its own. Void shields on both Titans blazed as they collapsed, flaring layers of protection stripped back one by one. For a second the Reaver lost all of its own field protection. Only its armour prevented it being laid low, and this absorbed a punishing amount of fire before the shields burst back into life. When the soapy shimmer of field protection encased it again, the carapace missile launcher was ablaze, struck by plasma weapons hot enough to set the metal on fire. ‘Stand ready. Fleet, fire on my coordinates, now,’ spoke Yolanedesh. Columns of light as broad as city blocks punched down from the heavens, emanating from orbit over the army castella and coming in at an angle at the Warlord Titan. Three lance strikes, all went wide. They hammered the ground, sending up geysers of super-heated steam that obscured Bannick’s limited view of the battle. Lance fire against a planet was imprecise,inappropriate for anything smaller than a city. To hit something as relatively small as a Titan from orbit was difficult without close-in observer direction. Any strike would have been a great boon, but it was not the first intention of the battlegroup.

 

[MolotovKraken]

The Titan was stuck in place, the joint of its left knee spot-welded together. With the hazing effects of the shields gone its hideous decoration was clear. All over its curved armour plates gaped screaming, daemoniacal faces. The head was made in the likeness of a skull still clad in shrunken, corpse-white flesh. A helmet of antique style capped this face, from under whose louring brows glowered a pair of blood-red eye-lenses yards across, the occuli of the great machine. The torso swivelled, the god-machine contemptuous of the fire slamming into its side from the advancing Ultimate Sanction. War-horns blew a polyphonic wail that struck dread into the tank crews. A weapon twice as long as the Shadowsword moved to target the tanks’ position while those on the carapace and the right arm swivelled to continue tracking the Reaver. ‘Emperor, it’s locked on to our position!’ shouted Epperaliant over the wailing of alarms. ‘Brace! Brace! Brace!’ shouted Bannick. A point of light grew from the muzzle of the Titan’s weapon and engulfed the world. Bannick was thrown from his seat as Lux Imperator was blasted by massive discharge. Instruments shorted out, screens died in the wash of accompanying electromagnetic energy. Sparks shot from instruments. A surge of visible energy arced up from the engineering desk throughStarstan’s mechadendrites and crackled all over his body. Smoke rose from his robes, his eyes blazed and he gave a hideous metallic screech. The short-range vox was filled with agonised screams, abruptly cut off as the equipment failed. The red operations lumens went out, plunging them all into darkness lit by the read-outs of isolated functioning instruments. Bannick’s hearing burred and lights danced before his eyes, the pulse strong enough to momentarily disrupt the proper functioning of his brain. When he came to himself, Lux Imperator was moving out of control, sliding forwards. It slipped a few degrees to the left and came to a slow halt, the potential to move again prominent in Bannick’s thoughts

 

[MolotovKraken]

‘Look!’ said one of his men, leaning out of the shelter and pointing down the rough slope of the crater. Jonas peered over the edge of the dugout. Emerging directly from the black water collected at the bottom of the crater were huge, armoured figures. The first walked straight at the steep slope below. They mag-locked their bolters to their chests then propelled themselves up the mud slope on all fours with horrifying speed. ‘Emperor,’ said Suliban. He raged at seeing their god’s finest servants turned traitor, but there was fear there, too. Jonas swore. The Space Marines were coming up under them. The angle was too steep for his heavy team to target. The blazing light of the dying reactor blinked out, plunging Jonas’ environs into blackness. ‘Hostiles! Hostiles!’ voxed one of his sergeants out on the left flank, away from the crater. The snapping reports of lasguns came swiftly on the heels of his words, then the terrible bangs of bolters, their clean, triple barks clearunder the booming of the Titans’ war. ‘Heavy team, pan left,’ said Jonas shakily. ‘Open fire. The rest of us, grenades and lasguns. Micz, get your melta ready.’ The men quickly rearranged themselves to the right of the heavy squad. Huddled together, they leaned into the damp bank of the dugout, knuckles white. ‘Ready?’ said Jonas. His men nodded. Suliban disengaged the safety on his pistol with an audible snap. ‘Raise Parrigar.’ ‘I can’t,’ said Anderick. ‘Then we’re on our own.’ The heavy weapons took aim on half-seen figures attacking the left flank. ‘Now,’ mouthed Jonas. Lit by the wrath of heaven, Jonas and his men leaned over the edge of the dugout and opened fire on the monsters climbing up to kill them. ‘Steady, steady!’ said Bannick. Through the brief day of the dying war machine, the Shadowsword crept backwards up the hill. Every few feet, the tracks slipped on mud so soft it was little better than slurry. For those moments, they held their breaths as Shoam delicately manoeuvred until the tracks bit again. He was standing inside the hatch, feet braced against his seat’s reinforced armrests, exposed to the foul air, hands caked in the mud he had scooped off the ranging augur. Rain ran off his greatcoat, streaking it with its load of dirt and ash. More mud rolled off the Shadowsword in ripples as thick as dough. Flashes and bangs, almost lost under the ongoing roar of the godmachines’ conflict, drew nearer to their position. Frantic bursts of shortrange vox told him the story. Traitor Space Marines in hideous armour were attacking the left where Jonas was stationed. Out of sight on the other side of the pressure ridge, Righteous Vengeance roared into action, heading to where the fighting was fiercest. None of that could concern Bannick. Not even if the enemy were feet from his tank. ‘Mute my vox, Epperaliant, but keep me informed if anything important happens. We’ve one shot. We need to concentrate.’ The tank rolled further up. The flashed reflections of explosions playing onthe black water in the crater receded. Flickering lights like sideways candles were bolts streaking through the air, betraying the Space Marines’ positions. The brightest of the weapon’s discharge lit them up in stark whites, running giants in horned helmets and armour adorned with leering gargoyles and cruel barbs. Their attention seemed to be on his cousin’s position, not on the tank inching its way backwards. The orbital strikes had ceased. Only rain fell from the sky. Far away, at the heart of a concentration of flashing detonations, he thought he saw the second enemy Reaver marching through the lead echelon of tanks seemingly without harm towards the heart of the Imperial advance. The damage it could do there...

 

[MolotovKraken]

sent a stream of mega-bolt-rounds into the head. The Warlord shuddered, and lay still. Execution done, War’s Gift let out a triumphant howling from its war-horns, turned and ran back towards the main advance. ‘They’re leaving it?’ said Leonates. ‘They will attempt to capture it, purify it and resanctify the engine in the name of the Emperor and Omnissiah,’ said Epperaliant. ‘A Warlord for a Reaver, not a bad exchange.’ ‘Omnis sancta omnia,’ intoned Starstan. ‘Meggen, get on the heavy bolters. Let’s keep the enemy back while we drag ourselves out of this mire,’ said Bannick. He bent to lower himself down into the tank, but a hand grasped him hard by the back of his coat and hauled him into the air. ‘It is a little late for that,’ said a silky voice. Bannick looked up into the respirator grille of a Space Marine. Casually, the warrior tossed a grenade down the open hatch. Bannick had time to see the yellow flash and dull crump of detonation before the warrior threw Bannick off the top of the tank, and jumped down after him.

The warrior locked his bolter to his thigh and advanced upon Bannick. Jonas and his men fired downwards, the beams from their lasguns doing little more than scorching the enemy’s battleplate. Jonas’ mouth ran dry. As soon as the Traitor Space Marines made it to the top of the slope, they would kill everyone in the dugout. There was nothing that could prevent that. To their left, giants appeared in the storm, their bolters flashing with muzzle flare as they gunned down Jonas’ men in the slit trenches yards from his position. ‘They’re coming! They’re coming!’ shouted Bosarain, right before a bolttook him in the chest. The explosion took the entirety of his left side and his head with it. The banner of Jonas’ platoon fell bloody into the earth. The man next to him screamed, turned and ran, abandoning his heavy bolter. ‘Halt! You defy the will of the Emperor!’ shouted Suliban, but his gun was already levelled, and the round left the barrel microseconds after the words left his lips. The soldier sprawled forwards, a crater in his back. Other men close to flight returned to their weapons. The autocannon coughed twice and one of the monsters staggered back at the impact. Cheers died on men’s lips as the monster righted himself, drew his pistol and recommenced the slaughter. ‘It’s no use,’ said Jonas, lowering his gun. ‘Stand firm, Lieutenant Bannick,’ said Suliban. ‘I am standing, commissar, but it is still no use.’ Lin Coass Lo Turneric, dressing the stump of a man whose arm had been blasted off at the elbow, caught Suliban’s expression and gave Jonas a warning look. Jonas ignored it. ‘Look! We can’t hurt them. We can’t...’ A terrifying screaming filled the dugout.

‘Down!’ yelled Suliban, tackling Jonas around his midriff. He bore the lieutenant into the mud as the thunderous noise of a heavy bolter loosing shot at close range obliterated every other vestige of sound in the dugout. Jonas rolled onto his back to see a giant standing on the edge of the dugout. Rain poured down in streams through the shattered plastek roof. There was a bolt lodged in the Space Marine’s torso, the last few seconds of its propellant charge fizzing to nothing. The Space Marine gurgled out a laugh, raised his outlandish axe. The bolt exploded. Stinging shards of ceramite peppered Jonas’ skin. The Space Marine fell forwards, smoke pouring from his neck seal and the black hole in his chest. Jonas scrambled out of the way of the falling body just in time. It landed hard in the mud, sinking under its own weight. ‘Suliban! We have to fall back.’ Another Space Marine clambered over the lip of the trench. Micz caught him full in the face with a blast from his meltagun, and he tumbled backwards, headless. ‘We’re not going to stay this lucky. We need Parrigar.’ Suliban’s eyes narrowed. Then he nodded. ‘Very well.’Jonas grabbed at his vox-bead. ‘Parrigar, come in. We require immediate extraction. We’re being overrun.’ ‘I still can’t raise him,’ said Anderick. ‘He can’t be dead!’ said Jonas. If Righteous Vengeance was gone, they had nowhere else to run. From the ridge some yards to their right and above them, the glaring blast of Lux Imperator’s cannon bathed the hellish scene in bright light. For a second, the world seemed to stop. Moments later, the Titan collapsed, and the howling confusion of combat swept back into the void left by the Titan’s fall. Jonas’ men were too occupied to cheer the engine’s death. The vox crackled. ‘I’m inbound,’ said Parrigar.

‘Coming right up behind you. Stand ready for extraction.’ ‘Fall back!’ ordered Jonas. ‘Mission accomplished!’ he shouted. ‘Platoon, fall back!’ Jonas had not expected an orderly retreat, and he did not get one. In a scrambling run the tattered remnants of Jonas’ platoon fled their trenches and dugouts, abandoning their heavy weapons. Bolters barked as the Space Marines crested the ridge in numbers. Burning bolts buzzed past Jonas’ head, burying themselves in the earth and exploding. Clods of mud blew into the air, further obscuring sight. He and Suliban sprinted side by side. Men fell all around them. Then searchlights were stabbing through the gloom, and the black shadow of Righteous Vengeance roared out of the night, streaming filthy rain from its plating. ‘Part either side of the tank! Stand clear of the weapons!’ ordered Parrigar through the tank’s vox-hailer. It was as if the tank itself gave voice. ‘Stand clear!’ The barrels of the mega-bolter began to turn, burring as they built up to firing speed. Jonas threw himself to the side, then ducked low as he saw the heavy bolters mounted in Righteous Vengeance’s sponsons tracking targets behind him. They opened fire, blades of flame stabbing from the muzzles. He ran on, the space between his shoulder blades itching in anticipation at the explosive death he was certain was coming. Bolts whistled overhead in both directions, their rocket trails crisscrossing the sky. Then he was past the sponsons, following in the footsteps of exhausted, terrified men up the access ladders to the fighting deck of the great tank. Men pushed each otherup from below, while others leaned down, hands grasping for the slippery arms of their comrades. Rain hissed in the beams of the meltagunners. Streams of plasma lit the scene more brightly than flares.

He had been wary of the order to concentrate his special weapons in one squad, but now he whispered silent thanks to the Emperor for Parrigar’s insistence. Space Marines were closing in from the sides. Bolts spanked off the thick armour of the tank, but the men scrambling to get aboard were torn apart, and it was through chunks of their flesh and their spilled entrails that Jonas scrambled upwards. Hands reached for him. From below someone pushed, and he hauled himself over the armoured parapet encircling the fighting deck. He leaned back out, reaching for Suliban. The commissar shook his head, instead taking charge of the men below, who were panicking as more Space Marines came out of the downpour. ‘There!’ shouted Jonas, slapping one the meltagunners on the shoulder and directing his fire at a Space Marine advancing with his bolter tucked into his shoulder, methodically shooting Jonas’ men. The first roaring fusion discharge missed, but the second was good, obliterating the Space Marine’s torso. The reactor in his back-pack exploded, and the traitor fell into the mud as a collection of smoking limbs.

 

[MolotovKraken]

Lux Imperator pulled away. Spouting blue smoke, it shuddered forwards, took a hard left turn and drove towards the sounds of combat, antipersonnel weaponry barking, leaving Bannick sprawled in the mud. They had left him for dead. With long strides that seemed nightmarishly slow, the Space Marine paced across the torn ground to where Bannick lay. Bannick’s heart froze, but his hand did not. His fingers closed around the wet, gritty hilt of his power sword, still scabbarded and belted to his waist. He got unsteadily to his feet. His head spun from the impact, his ribs were bruised and every breath hurt. The Space Marine drew nearer, unaware of the blade Bannick held hidden behind his back. As he came within thrusting distance, Bannick flicked the activation stud on his sword. The scabbard disintegrated around the weapon. He pulled it free. Ignoring the ache in his chest, he executed a perfect duellist’s thrust. The disruptive field flared as it encountered the Traitor Space Marine’s plastron, piercing one eye of the brazen face cast upon it with a crack. The blade point slid after, into the Space Marine’s heart. A back-handed blow sent Bannick back down and skidding through the sloppy mud. The Space Marine stood transfixed by Bannick’s blade. His shoulders moved in convulsively, as if he would catch the sword by the movement. He let out a gasp of surprise, and gripped the sword blade in his hand. The field banged again as the Traitor Space Marine’s fingers closed around it. The other hand groped for the hilt’s activation stud. Bannick scrambled backwards, half swimming in the mud. The Space Marine hunched over the sword for a moment, not moving. He dared not think he had killed it, but hope undid his best intentions. It was not to be. The Space Marine’s fingers found the stud and deactivated the disruption field. With a grunt, he drew out the power sword. In his grip, it seemed the smallest of things, a child’s toy. He threw it asideinto the mud and stood erect painfully. The Space Marine came to stand over Bannick, reached his hands to his helm and undid clasps there. Small jets of air hissed from uncoupled seals, heavy with a perfume strong enough for Bannick to smell in the rain. Bannick blinked gritty water from his eyes.

The man revealed beneath the helmet was beautiful, more perfect than the most exquisitely carved statue in a cathedral, more finely formed than those artworks that purported to show the inherent superiority of the human form over all others in the galaxy. Stark, purple tattoos marked his face. His lips were full, nose strong, cheekbones perfect in their angle and sharpness, and he held himself with a bearing more refined than the highest Paragonian aristocrat. His skin was flawless, bright, and his blue-white hair was cropped close to his skull. Bannick’s breath caught in his throat. For all his perfection, there was an air of ineffable sorrow about the man. He looked down at Bannick with bright eyes that wept quicksilver tears into the rain. ‘That was a good thrust. You are a fine swordsman, for a mortal. For the first time in a thousand years, I am wounded,’ he said. ‘For the first time in ten thousand, I came close to death.’ The language he used was almost incomprehensible. It was a form of Gothic, but full of strange stresses and archaic grammatical forms. The Space Marine took a step forwards. He was as solid as a tower, clad in heavy armour covered in soft leather. Bannick shrank back when he made out the outlines of a flattened human face, eyes and mouth stitched shut, wrapped around his greave. ‘Never in all the years of the long war has a mere man caused me harm. You have destroyed my birth heart. I shall never have another.’ The Space Marine’s eyes closed and he tilted his face into the downpour. ‘The feeling of loss is... exquisite. I remember times I thought never to recall as I contemplate its destruction. I have memories of a time that was lost brought out by the pain. Such pain. It is a blessing. I thank you.’ He looked down at Bannick and smiled. The lips were perfect, the teeth behind them perfect, and the malice behind them the most perfectly formed of all. ‘I should not wish you to miss out on such experience. I shall repay your gift. You are blessed. We shall travel the roads of agony together.’ He snatched out a long, silver blade from a scabbard at his belt, and knelt, licking his lips in anticipation. Bannick tried to scramble backwards, but theSpace Marine slammed down the heel of his hand into Bannick’s forearm, pinning him fast. Were it not for the softness of the ground beneath, his arm would surely have been broken.

The knife slid into his sleeve and parted it with no resistance. ‘I shall find you a fine nerve to pluck. You shall sing the song of pain, and we shall rejoice, for no sensation is wasted, and my master, Slaanesh, will be most gratified.’ He looked Bannick dead in the eye. ‘Be joyful. There is no purer form of offering than gratification.’ The knife tip pricked his skin. Bannick felt nothing as it opened his flesh, it was so sharp. But then the point bit into some vital pathway, and he sang indeed. There was a roaring through the pain. Yellow light fell onto the pair in the mud. The rapid report of a boltgun on full auto rang out, riddling the traitor’s body. The Space Marine fell away with a sigh of pleasure. The knife slipped agonisingly out of Bannick’s flesh. He sat. Agony coursed up his arm and he nearly fainted. The deafening rumble of Righteous Vengeance’s mega-bolter sounded sporadically. Lux Imperator’s bolters chattered away almost meekly by comparison. Both tanks were away from him, lumbering silhouettes in the rain whose angles were lit sporadically and confusingly by the battle. The shouts and screams of frightened men competed with the fire of automatic weaponry. A huge, blocky combat bike came to a sliding halt. A figure dismounted and strode towards him, tall and imposing as the dead traitor, framed by the headlamp of his steed. Another Space Marine, armoured and girded for war. His armour was black and trimmed in red, bedecked with skulls, bones and other talismans of grisly aspect. This new monster stood over the injured Bannick, eye-lenses glaring. The figure moved his bolter, and Bannick expected it to point at his head, and awaited the hammer-blow detonation in his skull. But the Space Marine only shifted his weapon so that he might hold it one-handed.

He leaned forwards, and offered his left gauntlet to Bannick, fingers spread wide. ‘Hail to you, though poorly met on this day of torrents and of treachery. You have survived one of the worst creatures this galaxy has to offer, son of holy Terra, and you yet live. The Emperor of Mankind watches over you. Take my hand and be risen from the earth. Your struggles for the Imperium are not yet done.’Bannick clutched the warrior’s arm. His shock subsided. A small force of Space Marines had been with them since Kalidar. He recognised the armour now, the emblem of the gothic cross blazoned on the pauldrons and chest. He was suddenly cold, and his teeth chattered with the same insistency as the bolters in the distance. ‘You are not going to kill me. You are of the Black Templars.’ ‘I am not going to kill you, I swear. I am Adelard,’ said the warrior, ‘sword brother of the Michaelus Crusade of the Black Templars Chapter, Adeptus Astartes, and loyal son of Rogal Dorn. You have nothing to fear. We are brothers, you and I. Warriors in the never-ending war. Come with me, and be safe.