"I don't doubt they will," said Grimm, "but Snagrod has numbers to spare. It shames me to admit it, but we've lost so much ground to the enemy already."

"Shame be damned," replied Kantor. "You have fought more bravely than anyone could have asked. Who else could have stood this long against such a Waaagh? I'll not hear you speak of shame again."

"As my lord wishes," Grimm replied. Turning back to the original subject, he continued, saying, "This underpass is the last open path into Imperial-held territory. With the destruction of this tunnel, we are effectively sealing ourselves in."

"Help will come," said Kantor. "The Crusader got away."

"That is something. I hope they bring aid soon. Captain Alvez placed our forces under the Ceres Protocol. Epistolary Deguerro also felt it wise."

Grimm's question was implied. Would Kantor's famous sense of honour and his compassion for normal humans cause him to overturn Alvez's decree?

"The Ceres Protocol stays in place," said Kantor. "Drigo was right to put the survival of the Chapter first."

He thought Cortez threw a glance his way as he said this.

"Ironically," Grimm continued, "the captain gave his own life in violation of it. Thousands of Rynnsguard troopers and civilians would have died had he not made that final sacrifice."

"He surprised you," said Kantor perceptively.

Something in Sergeant Grimm's tone suggested he was smiling as he answered, "Truly, he did."

The Fists had come abreast of the two trucks now, and Kantor could see that they were very deliberately placed in the gaps between three thick pillars. The destruction of those pillars would undermine the integrity of the whole midsection. The weight of all that rock above would pulverise and bury even the toughest ork machine. The crashing waters that followed, the ice-cold Pakomac, would pound the xenos footsoldiers to a pulp against the walls, or drown them. Either way, they were dead.

The xenos needed oxygen just as much as humans did.

A part of Pedro Kantor wished he could see it, wished his consciousness could hover here to witness the deadly reprisal as a psyker's might do. But it was only a small part. The powers of the witch-kin were as much a curse as a blessing. He knew all too well how Eustace Mendoza had wrestled with the daemons of the warp, the efforts he had made to deflect their malign intentions every single day of his long life. Such a thing was a burden Kantor's broad shoulders, already weighed down with so much, did not need.

The Fists pressed on, Grimm apprising his Chapter Master and the others of all that had occurred in the days since the first alien ships made planetfall here. In turn, Kantor spoke of the tragedy at Arx Tyrannus. His psychological wounds were no better for the telling of the tale, but the brave 2nd Company sergeant and his men deserved to hear the truth from their leader.

The survival of the Chapter was gravely uncertain. There was so little of it left on which to rebuild.

Up ahead, the light changed. Dull daylight seeped into the darkness at a shallow angle, finally announcing the end of their journey through the underpass. It had taken almost two hours. Some of the refugees had slowed so much that Kantor had ordered the Fists in the rearguard to carry those on the verge of collapse.

He had no sooner set his left foot on the shallow ramp that led out of the tunnel than he heard a great rumbling noise behind him. Air began whooshing past, escaping upwards through the tunnel mouth.

"They have triggered the explosives!" called Huron Grimm over the rising noise.

The refugees began whimpering in fear.

"Run!" ordered Kantor. "Bring those people!"

The Astartes scooped up the civilians and began pounding up the ramp towards the rectangle of daylight. The rumble behind them grew exponentially louder.

Kantor heard Alessio Cortez roaring over the comm-link at his battle-brothers.

"Move, brothers! Dorn detests the slow!"

The noise behind them was deafening now. Any other words were lost in the cacophony. At the front of the group, Sergeant Grimm put on a great burst of speed, inspiring the others to do likewise.

They burst from the mouth of the underpass just as a great spume of water and loose rock exploded upwards from below, drenching them. The force of it knocked some of them from their feet. In seconds the momentum of the water was spent.

Kantor turned to see his Crimson Fists rising, many cradling the soaked, shivering forms of the refugees.

"Is everyone all right?" he asked, scanning them for signs of injury.

Only a few of the refugees were a little the worse for wear.

Kantor saw Alessio Cortez gesturing at a point beyond him, signalling for his Chapter Master to turn around.

He turned...

...and saw a squad of battle-brothers in heavy Terminator armour stomping mechanically towards him from the street up ahead.

A deep, dry voice hailed him on the comm-link.

It was Rogo Victurix.

"Welcome to New Rynn City!"

There was no mistaking the uncharacteristic jubilation in his tone. He was almost laughing with joy as he beheld his leader here before him, alive and well despite everything.

Victurix gestured down at his bulky armour. "I would take a knee if I could, lord. And I see Captain Cortez continues to live up to his reputation as unkillable. Heartfelt greetings, brother."

Cortez nodded once and clashed a fist on his chest in salute.

Beneath his faceplate, Kantor found himself grinning. Victurix and his squad were the first living members of his Crusade Company that he had seen since the cataclysm in the Hellblades. And, by Terra, what a sight they were!

"What are you doing here, Rogo? Surely you are needed on the walls?"

Victurix halted his squad about four metres in front of the others. The refugees had never seen Terminator armour before. They had thought the Chapter Master and his three squads of survivors massive, but they were not nearly as massive as these others.

They gaped unblinking at the great blue behemoths while the other Crimson Fists, those that had carried them from the underpass, set them down on their feet. None dared move.

Sergeant Victurix cast an eye over them, then returned his gaze to the Chapter Master. His tone became a shade heavier. "The walls we can hold are being held, my lord, but this very section will be lost to us presently, so we cannot dally here. I have four transports waiting in a square just to the west. It is only a few minutes away.

"We," he said, spreading his arms, "are your escort."

THREE.

"Before such theories were labelled heresy by the Ecclesiarchy and made punishable by death, some men once believed in parallel universes, an infinity of them, physical places like our own universe where all possibilities were played out.

Though I consider myself a pragmatic man, it is not difficult to see the attraction inherent in such beliefs. Were those parallel universes to exist, after all, in many of them, the orks would never have come to Rynn's World.

Every day, I wish I lived in such a universe."

-Extract: Writings from the Ramparts: A Memoir.

Colonel (ret.) Portius Cantrell (948.M41).

ONE.

New Rynn City, Rynnland Province.

Imperial libraries would, one day, come to be filled with great volumes covering the events on Rynn's World. Millions of parchment pages would record the feats of great heroism and self-sacrifice that took place. The suicidal charge of the 16th Rynnite Women's Militia against the orks that breached the Baradon Gate would come to be remembered, as would the further acts of bravery it inspired. Likewise, the brave but costly counterattack prosecuted by the Rynnsguard 3rd Garrison Regiment against ork armoured elements which shelled the Zona 2 Residentia to rubble.

Day by day, the last free citizens of Rynn's World clung on, proving their mettle, holding always to the desperate hope that, maybe today, a great Imperial fleet would sweep down from the skies and decimate the alien besiegers. Every hour they held out against the uncountable hordes of the Arch-Arsonist, Snagrod, was testament to their strength and faith, their courage and passion. Each hour of life was earned with blood and sweat.

For all the feats that went recorded, how many more were not? No Imperial document would ever tell of the noble death of Sergeant Pacalis Filian, a middle-aged infantry squad leader born on the island of Calliona. He led a night assault against ork forces camped outside his section of the wall, knowing they would overcome his section the following day. None of his men returned alive, but they took more than their share of the enemy down with them.

Nor would any living man or woman retell the last hours of Captain Golrid Prinas of the Ninth Rynnsguard Artillery Regiment's 2nd Company. Prinas and his loyal gunnery crews fought to the last man against a tide of ork abominations before finally calling in an artillery strike from another company, guiding the shells in on their own heads when it was clear they were overrun. As death rained down, Prinas uttered the words, "My life for Rynn's World, gem of the Imperium, second only to Terra herself."

No one who heard these words lived to record them.

These brave fighters and millions more died for their world, their loved ones, and for the honour of the Emperor. But none fought as hard, nor as tirelessly selflessly, as the last two hundred and eighteen battle-brothers of the Crimson Fists.

Though the greenskins pushed closer and closer to the Silver Citadel and its last neighbouring districts, the Crimson Fists extracted a high and bloody price for every centimetre given. The greenskin advance slowed to a crawl. Wherever their armour appeared, defensive batteries blasted it apart. Wherever the orks attempted to rig the walls with explosives, or cut their way through the gates with high-powered las and melta analogues, they were shredded in a hail of bolt and plasma fire.

For every blow the orks sought to strike, the Crimson Fists martialled everything at their disposal and launched a counter blow. And, slowly, the siege settled into a pattern, a deadly routine where attrition looked set to decide the future of the world.

Even the cycle of seasons, unchanged since long before Rynn's World had known the footsteps of man, were not immune to the effects of the Waaagh.

Barely a week after Chapter Master Kantor arrived at the capital, Matiluvia, the Month of Hammering Rains, began in earnest, and it was unlike any such season in living memory. Both the Pakomac and the River Rynn broke their banks, flooding the surrounding lands, turning the ork-held outer districts into filthy, smelly, fly-infested mires. Ork excrement mixed with the floodwaters, coating everything. When the rains finally subsided and the hot weather came, a stinking yellow-brown haze cut visibility down to only five or six kilometres, confounding the Rynnsguard artillery spotters and those manning the forwards observation posts.

Summer brought other problems for the beleaguered defenders. Though the River Rynn flowed through the centre of the city and rendered fresh drinking water a matter of little concern, the burning sun took its toll on many. Guardsmen serving high on the walls day after day were battered with relentless heat and glare. Many reported to medicae facilities with maladies caused by the intensity of the Rynnstar system's twin suns. Others simply collapsed where they stood. How many of those were shot by their commissars for sleeping on the job? How many, dizzy from exhaustion, driven to carelessness by the protests of their own bodies, fell to ork fire when they might have lived had they only been allowed adequate rest?

Only the Space Marines were immune to such things. The rains did not bother them. The blazing suns did not affect them. Rumours spread. Fresh legends grew. Some said they did not eat. Some said they did not sleep. Others said that they could not be killed, that they would fight on for a thousand years if need be, even if there were no civilians left to protect.

Maybe such talk was comforting to some, but the reality was altogether darker. Not even the Adeptus Astartes could hold indefinitely. Snagrod's Waaagh was getting stronger all the time. That each individual battle-brother was far deadlier than a typical ork, none could argue but the Crimson Fists themselves knew the truth. They saw that they were losing, and the knowledge burned.

Summer turned to autumn. Perhaps the orks favoured the milder seasons. Perhaps they too had been hampered by the hard heat of the Rynnite summer. Who could know? They were alien, and seeking to comprehend their ways was forbidden by Imperial edict to all those without the proper dispensation. Certainly, the autumn seemed to rouse them. They strengthened their assaults. Their numbers seemed to increase, despite their daily losses. More and more of them swarmed and flowed along the ruined streets each day, pillaging the bodies of their fallen kin for equipment and pulling the teeth from dead mouths to use as a kind of currency.

It was in late autumn that the aliens began constructing the first of their massive iron ziggurats. A yellow pall still hung in the air, and it was not easy to see their activities in detail, but it was clear they worked with purpose. The structure was quickly completed, and work began on numerous others. Fires still burned throughout the xenos-occupied territories, but those of destruction were soon outnumbered by those of industry.

Pessimists murmured that this was a sign of the coming end. The orks built their foul constructs beyond the range of the Basilisks and Earthshaker batteries, and the defenders could only watch. The sight of the greenskins' massive new fume stacks and construction blocks had an immediate demoralising effect. Suicides increased among Rynnite civilians and soldiers alike, despite the warnings and threats of the commissars. Dare to insult the Emperor by killing yourself, the black-dad zealots warned everyone, and those you hold dearest will suffer a longer, more painful death as punishment.

At first, this merely prompted hopeless men to slaughter their own families with merciful swiftness before turning their weapons on themselves. It was an intolerable situation. Every last individual capable of firing a lasgun had to be drafted onto the walls.

From the ramparts, they saw their planet burn. The forces of the Arch-Arsonist set light to everything within reach. Fields blazed. Forests flared and crackled. Nothing was untouched by the hungry flames. It was now, with many losing their last vestiges of hope, that Lady Maia Cagliestra made a decision. Much of the Upper Rynnhouse railed against it, but the governor would not be swayed. Together, she and a cadre of noble ladies would take to the walls themselves, bringing light and comfort, she hoped, to the tired men who defended them. Viscount Isopho made an impassioned personal protest against this. Maia planned to visit those sections of the perimeter where the fighting was heaviest, since it was these men, she judged, who needed her support most. The viscount's pleas achieved little at first, but Maia finally conceded to visit the walls only at night, since the fighting usually died off then. With the troopers at rest, she would have greater opportunity to speak with them and dispense food and water.

It became her regular routine. As twilight came each day, she and her party of ladies would make themselves as beautiful as possible-"To give the men something to fight for," she told the others whenever they asked-before heading out under armed escort to yet another section of the wall. Their visits soon became highly anticipated events for the Rynnsguard troopers and the militias, though more than a few men were executed by the commissars for making inappropriate comments. Maia tried to ignore that. She felt, for the first time since the war had started, that she was not hiding like a coward in the Silver Citadel, doing nothing while her people died.

Two weeks after she began her visits to the wall, Viscount Isopho announced that he was leaving his seat in the Upper Rynnhouse to rejoin the Rynnsguard as a commissioned officer. He would, he said, fight on the walls with the men, like a true Rynnite should. If, by his words, he hoped to shame other members of the government into following his example, he was fooling himself. Maia spoke privately with General Mir and made sure that Isopho was posted to one of the safer sections of the wall, even while she praised the viscount for his courage.

Despite all the measures to combat it, the death toll among the Rynnsguard, and the lack of any sign whatsoever that aid was coming, continued to eat away at the defenders' morale. Individual Crimson Fists began patrolling sections of the wall on which they had, so far, not been seen. This was done at the suggestion of a young Astartes Chaplain called Argo, and it worked. The sight of the glorious armoured giants, radiant and splendid despite all they had endured, still exerted a powerful effect on the ordinary people. The Astartes inspired faith and dedication wherever they walked. They spoke encouragement to the troopers, and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with them. The number of suicides dropped. The walls held. Snagrod and his forces found themselves at a temporary impasse, but they had already begun work on the weapons that would end this war.

When winter came, the warlord and his savage lieutenants had committed even greater numbers to the construction of their forts and war factories. The human forces could only watch with mounting fear and apprehension as, slowly and inexorably, the mightiest engines of war they had ever seen began to take shape.

Most had never heard of a gargant. Few men on Rynn's World had the kind of clearance that would grant them access to the Munitorum archives in which accounts of such near-indestructible metal monstrosities could be found. But the surviving Rynnsguard commanders knew what was coming, and so did the Crimson Fists.

They considered the viability of launching surgical strikes on the massive engines of doom before they were completed, before they could bring their unstoppable weapons to bear on the gates and walls. Considered then rejected.

Such a strike would risk everything. Many battle-brothers would be lost. Forces critical to the continued deadlock would be fatally diminished. The orks would only begin construction again. With the rest of the planet being, to all extents and purposes, dominated by the greenskin race, their resources were near limitless.

Exchanging Astartes lives for a little more time?

Chapter Master Kantor could not sanction it. Whichever way he looked at it, the losses outweighed the gains.

Deep winter came. Snow was a thing unheard of in the capital. New Rynn City lay close to the equator, and did not suffer winter like the mountain regions did.

When the first snows came, the emaciated children of the capital shuffled out into the streets to gaze up at the sky in wonder. Few remembered such a beautiful sight. Beautiful, yes, but deadly, too. Within days, the first casualties of the freak winter were reported. This season, in its own way, was as harsh as the brutal heat of summer had been, and took just as many lives. The weakest children died in droves, leaving grief-wracked parents who were barely capable of standing, let alone firing on the foe. Many of the elderly perished, too. Again, the commissars and Ecclesiarchs went out among the grieving people, threatening or consoling them, whichever was their way.

Again, it was the presence of the Space Marines that made the greater difference. It was now, with things darkest of all, that Pedro Kantor turned his eyes from the daily casualty reports and tactical hololiths, and went out among the ordinary people.

He saw a populace beaten to nothing, both mentally and physically, and felt their grief as if it were his own. He could not help but recall the tragedy that had struck Arx Tyrannus. It had haunted him every day since. It also gave him a keen sense of empathy with those who gathered around him, all those who had lost the things they loved most.

He stood before them, gleaming helmet under his left arm, and swore to them that the fight was far from over. He told them of The Crusader and of her escape the previous year. Warp travel was unpredictable, but help would come, he assured them. The Crusader would not fail.

They listened. They looked up from where they knelt in front of him, and he saw the hope in their eyes. They wanted to believe, and he let them. Somewhere deep down, he still believed it himself.

Spring came. The snows melted. The morning air became crisp, then eventually warm. The hope that Kantor spread was sustained as the climate became gentle again.

But, beyond the walls, things were different. A new wave of excitement whipped the orks to violent frenzy.

Soon, the gargants would be complete.

Soon the planet would shudder under their massive feet. Gods of death and destruction would wade towards the final Imperial stronghold, crushing everything to powder beneath them.

For almost eighteen months, the defenders of New Rynn City had endured everything Snagrod's foul orks had thrown at them.

But they would not survive the march of the gargants.

TWO.