*Order the guns to fire,' said Horus, his voice cold. *Let the galaxy burn!'

*EMPEROR PRESERVE US,' whispered Moderati Ca.s.sar, unable to hide his horror and not caring who heard him. The miasma of rancid, putrid ga.s.ses still hung thickly around the t.i.tan and he could only dimly see the trenches again, along with the Death Guard emerging from the bunkers. Shortly after the order to seal the t.i.tan had been given, the Death Guard had taken cover, clearly in receipt of the same order as the Dies Irae.

The Isstvanians had received no such order. The Death Guard's withdrawal had drawn the Isstvanian soldiers forwards and they had borne the full brunt of the bio-weapon.

Ma.s.ses of mucus-like flesh choked the trenches, half-formed human corpses looming from them, faces melted and rot-bloated bodies split open. Thousands upon thousands of Isstvanians lay in rotting heaps and thick streams of sluggish black corruption ran the length of the trenches.

Beyond the battlefield, death had consumed the forests that lay just outside the Choral City's limits, now resembling endless graveyards of blackened trunks, like scorched skeletal hands. The earth beneath was saturated with biological death and the air was thick with foul ga.s.ses released by the oceans of decaying matter.

*Report,' said Princeps Turnet, re-entering the c.o.c.kpit from the t.i.tan's main dorsal cavity.

*We're sealed,' said Moderati Aruken on the other side of the bridge. *The crew's fine and I have a zero reading of contaminants.'

*The virus has burned itself out,' said Turnet. *Ca.s.sar, what's out there?'

Ca.s.sar took a moment to gather his thoughts, still struggling with the hideous magnitude of death that he couldn't have even imagined had he not seen it through the eyes of the Dies Irae.

*The Isstvanians are... gone,' he said. He peered through the swirling clouds of gas at the ma.s.s of the city to one side of the t.i.tan. *All of them.'

*The Death Guard?'

Ca.s.sar looked closer, seeing segments of gun-metal armour partially buried in gory chokepoints, marking where Astartes had fallen.

*Some of them were caught out there,' he said. *A lot of them are dead, but the order must have got to most of them in time.'

*The order?'

*Yes, princeps. The order to take cover.'

Turnet peered through the t.i.tan's eye on Aruken's side of the bridge, seeing Death Guard warriors through the greenish haze securing the trenches around their bunkers and treading through the foul remains of the Isstvanians.

*d.a.m.n,' said Turnet.

*We are blessed,' said Ca.s.sar. *They could so easily have been-'

*Watch your mouth, Moderati! That religious filth is a crime by the order of-'

Turnet's voice cut off as movement caught his eyes.

Ca.s.sar followed his gaze in time to see the clouds of gas lit up by a brilliant beam of light as a blazing lance strike slashed through the clouds of noxious, highly flammable ga.s.ses.

ALL IT TOOK WAS a single spark.

An entire planet's worth of decaying matter wreathed the atmosphere of Isstvan III in a thick shawl of combustible ga.s.ses. The lance strike from the Vengeful Spirit burned through the upper atmosphere into the choking miasma and its searing beam ignited the gas with a dull whoosh that seemed to suck the oxygen from the air.

In a second, the air itself caught light, ripping across the landscape in a howling maelstrom of fire and noise. Entire continents were laid bare, their landscapes seared to bare rock, their decayed populations vaporized in seconds as winds of fire swept across their surfaces in a deadly gale of blazing destruction.

Cities exploded as gas lines went up, blazing towers of fire whipping madly in the deadly firestorm. Nothing could survive and flesh, stone and metal were vitrified or melted in the unimaginable temperatures. Entire sprawls of buildings collapsed, the bodies of their former occupants reduced to ashen waste on the wind, palaces of marble and industrial heartlands destroyed in gigantic mushroom clouds as the storm of destruction swept around Isstvan III with relentless, mindless destruction until it seemed as though the entire globe was ablaze.

Those Astartes who had survived the viral attack found themselves consumed in flames as they desperately sought to find cover once more.

But against this firestorm there could be no cover for those who had dared to brave the elements.

By the time the echoes of the recoil had faded on the Warmaster's flagship, billions had died on Isstvan III.

MODERATI Ca.s.sAR HUNG on for dear life as the tempestuous firestorm raged around the Dies Irae. The colossal t.i.tan swayed like a reed in the wind, and he just hoped that the new stabilizing gyros the Mechanic.u.m had installed held firm in the face of the onslaught.

Across from him, Aruken gripped the rails surrounding his chair with white knuckled hands, staring in awed terror at the blazing vortices spinning beyond the command bridge.

*Emperor save us. Emperor save us. Emperor save us,' he whispered over and over as the flames billowed and surged for what seemed like an eternity. The heat in the command bridge was intolerable since the coolant units had been shut down when the t.i.tan was sealed off from the outside world.

Like a gigantic pressure cooker, the temperature inside the t.i.tan climbed rapidly until Ca.s.sar felt as if he could no longer draw breath without searing the interior of his lungs. He closed his eyes and saw the ghostly green scroll of data flash through his retinas. Sweat poured from him in a torrent and he knew that this was it, this was how he would die: not in battle, not saying the Lect.i.tio Divinitatus, but cooked to death inside his beloved Dies Irae.

He had lost track of how long they had been bathed in fire when the professional core of his mind saw that the temperature readings, which had been rising rapidly since the firestorm had hit, were beginning to flatten out. Ca.s.sar opened his eyes and saw the madly churning ma.s.s of flame through the viewing bays of the t.i.tan's head, but he also saw spots of sky, burned blue as the fire incinerated the last of the combustible ga.s.ses released by the dead of Isstvan.

*Temperature dropping,' he said, amazed that they were still alive.

Aruken laughed as he too realized they were going to live.

Princeps Turnet slid back into his command chair and began bringing the t.i.tan's systems back on line. Ca.s.sar slid back into his own chair, the leather soaking wet where his sweat had collected. He saw the readouts of the external surveyors come to life as the princeps once again opened their systems to the outside world. *Systems check,' ordered Turnet. Aruken nodded, mopping his sweat-streaked brow with his sleeve. *Weapons fine, though we'll need to watch our rate of fire, since they're already pretty hot.'

*Confirmed,' said Ca.s.sar. *We won't be able to fire the plasma weapons any time soon either. We'll probably blow our arm off if we try.'

*Understood,' said Turnet. *Initiate emergency coolant procedures. I want those guns ready to fire as soon as possible.'

Ca.s.sar nodded, though he was unsure as to the cause of the princeps's urgency. Surely there could be nothing out there that would have survived the firestorm? Certainly nothing that could threaten a t.i.tan.

*Incoming!' called Aruken, and Ca.s.sar looked up to see a flock of black specks descending rapidly through the crystal sky, flying low towards the blackened ruins of the burned city.

*Aruken, track them,' snapped Turnet.

*Gunships,' said Aruken. *They're heading for the centre of the city, what's left of the palace.'

*Whose are they?'

*Can't tell yet.'

Ca.s.sar sat back in the c.o.c.kpit seat and let the filaments of the t.i.tan's command systems come to the fore of his mind once again. He engaged the t.i.tan's targeting systems and his vision plunged into the target reticule, zooming in on the formation of gunships disappearing among the crumbling, fire-blackened ruins of the Choral City. He saw bone-white colours trimmed with blue and the symbol of fanged jaws closing over a planet.

*World Eaters,' he said out loud. *They're the World Eaters. It must be the second wave.'

*There is no second wave,' said Turnet, as if to himself. *Aruken, get the vox-mast up and connect me to the Vengeful Spirit.'

*Fleet command?' asked Aruken. *No,' said Turnet, *the Warmaster.'

IACTON QRUZE LED them through the corridors of the Vengeful Spirit, past the Training Halls, past the Lupercal's Court and down through twisting pa.s.sageways none of them had traversed before, even when they had been hiding from Maggard and Maloghurst.

Sindermann's heart beat a rapid tattoo on his ribs, and he felt a curious mix of elation and sorrow fill him as he realized what Qruze had saved them from. There could be little doubt as to what must have happened to those remembrancers in the Audience Chamber and the thought of so many wonderful creative people sacrificed to serve the interests of those with no understanding of art or the creative process galled him and saddened him in equal measure.

He glanced at Euphrati Keeler, who appeared to have become stronger since their escape from death. Her hair was golden and her eyes bright, and though her skin was still pallid, it only served to highlight the power within her.

Mersadie Oliton, by contrast, was visibly weakening.

*They will come after us soon,' said Keeler, *if they are not already.'

*Can we escape?' Mersadie asked, hoa.r.s.ely.

Qruze only shrugged. *We will or we won't.'

*Then this is it?' asked Sindermann.

Keeler shot him an amused glance. *No, you should know better than that, Kyril. It is never "it", not for a believer. There's always more, something to look forward to when it's all over.'

They pa.s.sed a number of observation domes that looked out into the cold void of s.p.a.ce, the sight only serving to remind Sindermann of just how tiny they were in the context of the galaxy. Even the faintest speck of light that he could see was actually a star, perhaps surrounded by its own worlds, its own people and entire civilizations.

*How is it that we find ourselves at the centre of such momentous events and yet we never saw them coming?' he whispered.

After a while, Sindermann began to recognize his surroundings, seeing familiar signs sc.r.a.ped into bulkheads, and insignia he recognized, telling him that they were approaching the embarkation decks. Qruze led the way unerringly, his stride sure and confident, a far cry from the wretched sycophant he had heard described.

The blast doors to the embarkation deck were closed, the tattered remnants of the votive papers and offerings made to the Warmaster when his sons took him to the Delphos still fixed to the surrounding structure.

*In here,' said Qruze. *If we're lucky, there will be a gunship we can take.'

*And go where?' demanded Mersadie. *Where can we go that the Warmaster won't find us?'

Keeler reached out and placed her hand on Mersadie's arm. *Don't worry. We have more friends than you know, Sadie. The Emperor will show me the way.'

The doors rumbled open and Qruze marched confidently onto the embarkation deck. Sindermann smiled in relief when the warrior said, *There. Thunderhawk Nine Delta.'

But the smile fell from his face as he saw the gold-armoured form of Maggard standing before the machine.

SAUL TARVITZ WATCHED the look of utter disbelief on Captain Ehrlen's face as he took in the scale of the destruction wrought by the firestorm. Nothing remained of the Choral City as they had known it. Every sc.r.a.p of living tissue was gone, burned to atoms by the flames that roared and howled in the wake of the virus attack.

Every building was black, burned and collapsed so that Isstvan III resembled a vision of h.e.l.l, its tumbled buildings still ablaze as the last combustible materials burned away. Tall plumes of fire poured skyward in defiance of gravity, fuel lines and refineries that would continue to burn until their reserves were exhausted. The stench of scorched metal and meat was pungent and the vista before them was unrecognizable as that which they had fought across only minutes before.

*Why?' was all Ehrlen could ask.

*I don't know,' said Tarvitz, wishing he had more to tell the World Eater.

*This wasn't the Isstvanians, was it?' asked Ehrlen.

Tarvitz wanted to lie, but he knew that the World Eater would see through him instantly.

*No,' he said. *It wasn't.'

*We are betrayed?'

Tarvitz nodded.

*Why?' repeated Ehrlen.

*I have no answers for you, brother, but if they hoped to kill us all in one fell swoop, then they have failed.'

*And the World Eaters will make them pay for that failure,' swore Ehrlen, as a new sound rose over the crackle of burning buildings and tumbling masonry.

Tarvitz heard it too and looked up in time to see a flock of World Eaters' gunships streaking towards their position from the outskirts of the city. Gunfire came down in a burning spray, punching through the ruins around them, boring holes in the black marble of the ground.

*Hold!' shouted Ehrlen.

Heavy fire thudded down among the World Eaters as the gunships roared overhead. Tarvitz crouched at a smashed window opening beside Ehrlen, hearing one of the World Eaters grunt in pain as a sh.e.l.l found its mark.

The gunships pa.s.sed and soared up into the sky, looping around above the shattered palace before angling down for another run.

*Heavy weapons! Get some fire up there!' yelled Ehrlen.

Gunfire stuttered up from the gaps in partially collapsed roofs, chattering heavy bolters and the occasional ruby flare of a lascannon blast. Tarvitz ducked back from the window as return fire thundered down, st.i.tching lines of explosions through the World Eaters. More of them fell, blown off their feet or blasted apart.

One World Eater slumped down beside Tarvitz, the back of his head a pulsing red ma.s.s.

The gunships banked, spraying fire down at their position.

Tarvitz could see the World Eaters zeroing in on them as they flew back towards their position. Return fire lanced upwards and one gunship fell, its engine spewing flames, to smash to pieces against a burning ruin.

Tarvitz could see dozens of gunships, surely the whole of the World Eaters' a.r.s.enal.

The lead Thunderhawk dropped through the ruins, hovering a few metres above the ground with its a.s.sault ramp down and bolter fire sparking around the opening.

Ehrlen turned towards Tarvitz.

*This isn't your fight,' he yelled over the gunfire. *Get out of here!'

*Emperor's Children never run!' replied Tarvitz, drawing his sword.

*They do from this!'

No s.p.a.ce Marine could have survived the storm of fire that blazed away at the interior of the gunship, but it was no ordinary s.p.a.ce Marine that was borne within it.

With a roar like a hunting animal, Angron leapt from the gunship and landed with a terrible crash in the midst of the ruined city.

He was a monster of legend, huge and terrible. The primarch's hideous face was twisted in hatred, his huge chainaxes battered and stained with decades of bloodshed. As the mighty primarch landed, World Eaters dropped from the other gunships.

Thousands of World Eaters loyal to the Warmaster followed their primarch into the Choral City, accompanied by the war cries that echoed Angron's own b.e.s.t.i.a.l howl as he charged into his former brethren.

HORUS PUT HIS fist through the pict-screen that showed the transmission from the Dies Irae. The image of the World Eaters' gunships splintered under the a.s.sault as his anger at Angron's defiance boiled over. One of his allies a no, one of his subordinates a had disobeyed his direct order.

Aximand, Abaddon, Erebus and Maloghurst eyed him warily and Horus could imagine their trepidation at the news of Angron's impetuous attack on the survivors of the virus bombing.

That there were survivors at all was galling, but Angron's actions put a whole new spin on the Isstvan campaign.