Atop the Nolfeas Terminal, New Rynn Spaceport There were few ork flying machines on the Nolfeas Plate, and those there were, sitting silently a few dozen metres from the plate's edge, looked to be in bad shape. Their sides were pocked with holes, their diameter consistent with the damage Hydra rounds inflicted. These craft had been struck by the guns of the Imperial defenders, and had limped back here for repairs. A few gretchin hovered around them, but, when they saw Kantor crossing a covered walkway and stepping onto the edge of the plate, they panicked and disappeared down a small service ramp, screeching and chittering in their crude alien tongue.

Above the plate, the sky was lightening, turning from darkest, star-speckled blue to pale rose. With this colour shift, Kantor could no longer see the tiny lights that told of the battle in space. He prayed to Dorn that Lord Admiral Galtaire was as good in combat as his service record attested.

He did not like it that so much of his future, and the future of the whole Chapter, rested in the hands of others. No Astartes could be comfortable with that. A Space Marine was used to controlling his own fate. Even in the heat of his most intense battles, he had always known that, live or die, others would fight on. He had always known that the Chapter would go on without him.

Would the coming day see them saved or obliterated?

He crossed to the centre of the Nolfeas Plate. So far, there was no sign of the ork warlord, nor of the gunship, but Kantor was certain he had not misinterpreted the massive ork's intent.

He scanned the skies, senses hyper-alert...

...and heard the roar of jets just a second before the ork gunship surged upwards over the lip of the plate and opened fire on him, stitching the ferrocrete with shells that traced a lethal line towards him.

His dive was almost too late. Chips of ferrocrete smashed against his right side as the hail of fire ripped past him.

He rose to face the craft.

He tracked it as it swung left and loosed a burst from Dorn's Arrow, but the cockpit was heavily armoured, and the bursting bolter-shells left only smears of black on the clear armaplas bubble. One of the ork pilots yanked on the craft's controls, and the gunship swung its nose around to face him head-on again.

Kantor knew only too well the power of the weapons that bristled from under the craft's stubby wings. He saw now that they were indeed looted autocannons. There were two of them, fed by thick, heavy ammo drums that he guessed contained tens of thousands of rounds.

The guns fired again, and again he narrowly avoided being torn apart. Employing his halo again would have cost him power, slowing him down. He couldn't afford that. He had a sense that the ork pilots were toying with him. Snagrod wouldn't let them steal the glory of killing an Astartes Chapter Master. He would want that victory for himself.

The gunship unleashed a third rippling volley, and Kantor tested a theory. He did not move.

It was a deadly gamble to take, but, sure enough, the rounds stitched a path in the surface of the Nolfeas Plate that passed right by him.

The ork pilots were snarling and cursing him. One hauled on his control sticks, and the craft veered away moving to the far edge of the landing plate. Once there, it turned side-on, and again saw his huge nemesis.

The craft lowered unsteadily towards the plate on its vectored jets. When it was still six metres up, the beast called Snagrod dropped from the bay door, landing so hard and heavy that Kantor imagined he felt the plate tremble. Of course, that was impossible. The Nolfeas Plate used anti-gravitic suspension just like the others. Nothing short of a Naval transport could shake it.

Now that Snagrod had landed on the plate, he rose to his full height, and the gunship pulled up into the air, hovering there, drifting drunkenly from left to right as the pilots tried to keep it steady.

Kantor's eyes were on the warlord. Snagrod wore no suit of power armour like other warlords did. His hulking, muscle-bound torso was bare of everything save deep scars and burns, crude stitches and rippling veins as thick as a man's thumb. This lack of armour was the most overt sign of pure confidence and power Kantor had ever seen in an individual ork.

Kantor knew then that he had never faced a beast like this in mortal combat.

For weaponry, the monster wielded no power claw, but he gripped a single massive heavy-stubber in the fingers of its right hand, box-fed with a cruelly serrated bayonet slung underneath the barrel. There were close combat weapons slung on the creature's back, too, but Kantor didn't have a good view of them.

The two enemies glared at each other, frozen for a moment, each silently assessing his foe. From around Snagrod's thick waist, a collection of Space Marine helmets hung, swinging on short iron chains that rattled from a squiggoth-skin belt. There were four helmets, each coloured differently, each taken from a battle-brother belonging to a different Chapter. One was decorated with the gold laurels of a veteran sergeant.

Inside his armour, Kantor flexed his muscles and felt blood rushing through them, blood and adrenaline. The latter would make him faster, inure him to pain, help him fight fatigue and make his opponents movements seem slower than they really were. But how fast could this monster move? Unhindered by tonnes of iron plate, like that worn by Urzog Mag Kull, Snagrod was a different prospect altogether.

The moment broke suddenly, like glass, and it began.

Snagrod raised the barrel of his gun straight at Kantor and pulled hard on the trigger. Kantor raised Dorn's Arrow and opened fire a fraction of a second later. Shells hammered through the air in both directions... and struck their targets.

Kantor had flicked on the shield of his Iron Halo again, just in time. The ork rounds danced on the energy field, sparking and ricocheting while he fired back.

The bolts from Dorn's Arrow struck true, but Snagrod suffered no damage at all. He, too, seemed to be shielded by some kind of power-field. It was another reason he didn't need a hulking mass of metal plate. The storm bolts exploded harmlessly, sending ripples of strange green energy out over the warlord's body.

They stood there, unleashing the full fury of their weapons at each other, both roaring in hate at rage as they did so. Then, almost simultaneously, their ranged weapons ran dry.

Kantor deactivated the halo's energy field. His armour's power levels had dropped dangerously low. They climbed again now, but never quite reached optimum. He knew he couldn't rely on the halo again. If he came too close to overloading his armour's generator, his systems would lock out to prevent an atomic explosion.

Ammo spent, Snagrod threw his heavy-stubber aside in disgust and charged.

Damn, but he was fast!

His impossibly muscular legs halved the distance to Kantor in scant seconds.

Kantor loosed a battle cry and raced forward to meet him, drawing his sword left-handed from the scabbard at his lower back and activating the power fist on his right.

Snagrod drew the close combat weapons from the slings on his broad back as he ran, two huge chainaxes decorated with roughly painted black and white checks. They growled into motion, teeth blurring.

The two enemies clashed hard, right in the middle of the Nolfeas Plate. Kantor slipped a blistering blow and struck at Snagrod's belly with his blade. Green sparks flew. The monster's energy shield was still in play Where did it get its power? It had to come from somewhere, but Kantor's eyes couldn't find sign of a device. It had to be somewhere on Snagrod's body, but there was no time to search in earnest for it. Another whistling swipe almost took the Chapter Master's head off. The blade of the left chainaxe missed him by a hair's breadth.

Kantor tried to stay in close. His reach was far shorter than the ork's. It wouldn't help him to pull back. If he stayed here, he stayed within his own striking range, but what good would that do him when the monster was still shielded?

Another swing of the warlord's axes gave Kantor a brief opening, and his power fist flashed forward, a devastating hook that would have killed just about any living thing. The fist's power-field snapped like lightning, and Snagrod's personal shield flashed bright, but the force of the blow was spent on the shield, and the warlord barely even stumbled back a step.

Kantor's adrenaline surged even higher. He felt like a child battling this thing, powerless to hurt it.

Snagrod kicked out while Kantor was focused on the swings of the monster's deadly blades. The kick caught him square in the stomach and launched him ten metres backward, skidding along the surface of the landing plate.

Kantor grunted. Even through his ceramite plate, the blow had winded him.

Snagrod charged straight in while the Chapter Master was still on his back. The beast lifted both chainaxes at once and put all its formidable might into a vertical killing stroke.

Kantor rolled left, every fibre of his body committed to the motion, and the axes bit deep into the plate, lodging there hard. The motors that drove the weapons' wicked teeth whined in complaint.

Snagrod roared and yanked at them, while Kantor leapt to his feet and slipped around to the monster's side. There, at the warlord's back, attached to the squiggoth-skin belt, was a curious looking module.

The shield must come from there, thought Kantor.

In the split second before Snagrod pulled his axes free, Kantor's sword stabbed towards the module, his movement deliberately slowed. Most shields resisted objects travelling at high speeds, but allowed slower intrusions. This was no different. The tip of Kantor's blade pierced the energy field and skewered the module.

There was a snap of ionised air and the green shield flickered off.

Snagrod felt it immediately. With a roar of rage, he swung and batted Kantor aside with the butt of his right axe.

The blow sent Kantor skidding along the plate once more, his right pauldron almost entirely shattered, chunks of ceramite spinning away from him.

But he had achieved more than he'd hoped. The warlord was vulnerable now, and all Kantor's fury and lust for vengeance bubbled up, spilling over his self-control like a torrent of boiling lava.

He was on his feet instantly, ignoring all his pain. His conscious mind retreated, giving way to raw, untempered aggression. With a battle cry that rang out across the landing plate, he launched himself at the ork warboss once last time. There was no holding back. His killer instinct took over everything. He would rip the beast apart or die.

Snagrod loosed a roar of his own and stormed forward to meet him, axes high. The warlord had been undefeated in battle for a thousand years, slaying every last challenger to his rule. No mere human would change that.

They slammed against each other like crashing trucks, ceramite armour against flesh tougher and thicker than old leather. The axes whistled through the air, motors growling greedily again, hungry for meat to rip apart. Snagrod tried to cut Kantor in half with a scissor-like double backhand, but he cut only empty space.

Kantor slipped under in a blur, and, at last, had the warlord right where he wanted him. His sword thrust deep into the monster's side and twisted. Snagrod howled in pain and anger, and tried to knock Kantor away, but the pain robbed the blow of speed and Kantor evaded it, staying inside the creature's guard. He yanked out his blade. Hot blood poured onto the landing plate. Snagrod swiped again and staggered back, his right leg drenched in slick crimson.

Kantor followed the ork's movements, pressing his attack. He launched a savage overhand blow with his power fist, aimed straight at the warlord's head, but the beast rolled with the blow, catching it on his huge shoulder.

The thick deltoid muscle exploded in a grisly spray, revealing the bone and sinew beneath. The impact staggered Snagrod, dropping him to one knee. Kantor leapt at him, kicking him down onto his back and straddling the beast's huge chest. He raised the power fist again for a killing blow, but Snagrod caught it, fingers wrapping iron tight around the wrist.

Kantor's reaction was immediate. He brought his left hand up, still gripping his sword, and stabbed down at the monster's throat.

Snagrod's left shoulder was almost obliterated, almost useless, but not quite.

Through the pain, the ork managed to bring his ruined arm up just in time. He caught the blade of Kantor's sword in his right hand, the edge biting deep into his fingers. With a roar of pain, the warlord wrenched the blade from Kantor's grip. It skittered away across the ground.

Kantor snarled and launched a barrage of punches with his gauntleted left hand instead. There was no deadly power-field over that hand, just hard knuckles encased in armour. It was enough. The fury of his blows was terrible. He rained punch after savage punch on the warlord's face, smashing the beast's tusks, tearing deep red gouges in its cheeks and brow, blinding one of its eyes and breaking its massive jaw.

Snagrod scrambled to defend himself, but, from his back, one arm greatly diminished in strength, the other locked in a death grip around the Chapter Master's power fist, he could do little to resist Kantor's unrelenting fury.

"You destroyed our home!" Kantor yelled as he tore the warlord's face apart. "You killed my brothers. Now you pay!"

The words were wasted on the warlord's tattered ears, but the meaning was not. Death was close, closer than it had ever come to the greenskin leader before.

With an infuriated roar, Snagrod bridged, thrusting his torso up from the ground with the full power of his thick legs. Kantor was flung off and scrambled back to his feet to continue the attack. Snagrod didn't wait for that. He rose and ran, his huge feet pounding the plate, straight towards the place where the gunship still hovered. Kantor gave chase, but there was a sudden stutter of autocannon and he had to leap back to avoid being torn apart by the shells.

Snagrod kept running, blood pouring from his wounds in red rivers, splashing a great wet trail onto the landing plate as he went. The gunship dipped towards the edge of the plate just as Snagrod arrived there, and the warlord leapt into the open bay-door in the side of the craft, causing the whole gunship to swing unsteadily for a moment.

Kantor roared in frustration as he watched the ship drift away from the edge on tongues of blue fire. The warlord was going to escape!

There was a rattle of fire from behind him, and a patter of storm-bolts exploded on the gunship's cockpit bubble. The armaplas cracked under the hail of shells, but it didn't break. Still, the ork pilots weren't about to wait for another volley of fire. They swung the gunship around and increased its thrust to maximum.

As the ship roared off towards the south-east, Kantor's eyes tracked it.

He saw Snagrod lean out of the bay-door and look back at him.

Incredibly, it looked like the monster was laughing. Five pairs of heavy footsteps stopped at Kantor's side.

When the ork gunship was gone from view, Kantor turned, and met the visored eyes of Terminator Squad Victurix.

It was Rogo Victurix, the squad sergeant, who spoke first. "He got away."

"This time," Kantor snarled back.

"We have the spaceport secure," said Victurix. "Anais has the defence grid online. Ruzco is already guiding in the first of the landers. It is minutes away."

Kantor looked out across the Nolfeas Plate. The damaged ork bombers were still there.

"We need to clear the tops of the three terminal towers," he said.

His voice was low, rasping. He was coming down from the adrenaline surge, and even his Astartes physiology felt weary after a battle like that. The pain of the blows Snagrod had landed began to push through to his brain now as the adrenal high seeped away.

Victurix nodded to his fellow Terminators and said, "I think we can take care of that."

They would simply push the bombers over the edge of the plate. Together, the Terminators had more than enough combined strength for that. They would clear the areas below of their brother Space Marines first, of course.

"You know, my lord," said Victurix, his tone suggesting a wry smile under that heavy ceramite faceplate, "you look terrible."

Kantor didn't have it in him to laugh, not right now.

The warlord lived.

The secondary sun was rising, poking up just beyond the lip of the eastern horizon.

Golden beams of light kissed Kantor's battered armour. He turned to look north, wondering how the Silver Citadel fared. What of Maia Cagliestra and her people? What of the Old Ones, the Dreadnoughts he had left to fight on the walls. The void-shields had probably fallen by now, or would be close to it. In a few minutes, the first of the Naval landers would be here. The Legio Titanicus were coming, but were they too late? He and his dauntless Astartes had done everything they could. They had seen to the things that were within their power, and at great cost. Much of the Chapter's blood had been spilled. Many brave brothers would be mourned.

What happened next lay as much in the hands of others as it did in those of the Crimson Fists.

Kantor knew this for certain: his Chapter would survive. The Crimson Fists would claw this world back, province by province, metre by metre if necessary. Everything would be put right. If he did nothing else in this life, he would see to that.

He was Lord Hellblade, twenty-ninth Chapter Master of the Crimson Fists, Scion of Dorn, born to wage war in the name of the Emperor.

Alessio Cortez would stand with him, and so would his unflinching battle-brothers, warriors like Daecor, Victurix, Grimm, Deguerro, all of them.

Dark decades still lay ahead, but he would endure.

The Chapter would endure.

EPILOGUE.

Remembrance.

"It is only on days like today, the anniversary of the day the tables finally turned, that I allow the memories to resurface, that I truly dwell on the totality of the destruction we faced. Despite my rank, despite my years of petitioning, I was never able to gain access to the complete truth of what happened at the spaceport. I know only this: had brave Space Marines not given their lives knowing they would never hear our thanks, not a single man, woman or child would live to remember the war.

The void-shields of the Zona Regis were close to overload when the greenskin gargants finally turned to engage the fresh Imperial forces suddenly attacking them from the rear. From the relative shelter of the gun towers, we saw Navy landers descend, vast armoured craft studded with guns and missile-pylons, filled to the brim with brave and hardy souls. We saw wings of fighters and Marauder bombers roar out over enemy lines, something we had never thought to see again, and watched those lines blaze yellow-white as deadly payloads hit their mark. Tired as we were, wounded, desperately hungry, we cheered as I know I will never hear men cheer again. We watched the greenskin invaders die by the thousands, then the tens of thousands, and somehow, somewhere, we found the energy to lift our guns again, and lend the last of our strength to the fight.

Ten years have passed. Ten years to the day. As we do every year, we gathered on Jadeberry Hill, veterans, politicians, survivors, to pay our respects to those that gave everything, men and Astartes both.

The governor was there. She has aged so quickly since the war. She looks haunted, and rumours abound that she will abdicate in favour of her granddaughter soon.

Of course, we are all a little haunted.

At midday, the skies opened. A cold rain lashed down. We took shelter in the memorial building where a string quartet played Guidollero's Vasparda et Gloris, and, together, we stood and wept in quiet gratitude for the souls of all those mighty warriors by whose determination and ultimate sacrifice we yet lived, and who, in this life, we could never hope to repay."

Extract: In the Shadow of Giants: A Retrospective.