The others followed, ready to fight and die.

Praxor's doubts, his misgivings about the indestructible foe, vanished in the face of Sicarius's bravura and dauntless courage. Basking in the reflected light of a true hero, he cried out until his lungs burned and the air turned hot with bolter-fury.

They all did; every glorious one of them.

'Victoris Ultra!'

Praxor stayed close to the captain and his Lions, using the resplendent glow of the blade as a beacon. He made to speak but the h.e.l.lish wind robbed him of his voice. He tried again, bellowing to the Shieldbearers. 'Keep to the sword.'

Upon entering the maelstrom, the comm-feed had died. It wasn't wracked by static interference it had simply ceased to be. A shroud had been cast over them and all within was deafening silence. Except it wasn't, not quite. The wind whipped and billowed, so loud it shrieked. Voices, cold and mechanical, hollow and pleading, manifested on the chilling breeze. Flecks of earth and pieces of debris churned about in the night-black storm the necron lord had weaved.

A heavy flash overloaded Praxor's retinal display as bolt-lightning forked earthwards in a jagged trajectory. One of the Lions was struck, lit up in cruciform like a human torch. He shuddered, emerald energy wreathing his body, before he crumpled in a smoke-drooling mess and never moved again.

Brother Halnior was dead.

A second bolt arrowed through the night, and ripped a ferocious line in the blackness. It cratered the ground then leapt into Etrius.

A flare, magnesium-bright, saturated the storm cloud edging it in white. At its core was Etrius. The Ultramarine was lifted off his feet, the lightning tendrils like a puppet-master's strings animating him jerkily.

A low foom foom battered Praxor's auditory ca.n.a.l and he was pitched into the air with the sudden shockwave. Time slowed in that terrible moment. His arm, going to shield his eyes, moved as if through gelatine. His legs, flung away from the blast, moved with all the purpose of sodden sand struggling through the neck of an hourgla.s.s. Belatedly he realised Etrius's spare ammo had exploded. It turned him into a fireball. battered Praxor's auditory ca.n.a.l and he was pitched into the air with the sudden shockwave. Time slowed in that terrible moment. His arm, going to shield his eyes, moved as if through gelatine. His legs, flung away from the blast, moved with all the purpose of sodden sand struggling through the neck of an hourgla.s.s. Belatedly he realised Etrius's spare ammo had exploded. It turned him into a fireball.

Hitting the ground hard jolted Praxor around and time rushed back, urgent and filled with smoke and agony. Hurrying to his feet, he tackled his battle-brother out of the inferno.

Etrius lived, but was barely able to nod as he left his ruined bolter behind. He pulled a bolt pistol from his weapons belt and nodded again to show he was ready to fight on.

But the lightning arc wasn't done. Four more times it struck the earth, tearing holes in the ice and scorching the ground. No one else was felled by the blasts, but it seared battle-plate and cut blackened scars into shoulder guards. The Ultramarines' impetus had been slowed.

The wraiths detached themselves from the darkness as if it were an ent.i.ty and they its cellular defences. Serpentine and sinuous, they advanced on the Ultramarines with a terrifying grace and fluidity.

'Brother-sergeant.' Krixous pointed with his mutilated stump.

Praxor followed it to where Brother Vandius valiantly upheld the company standard. The banner was stilled, heavy as if soaked with rain, though the wind raged around it.

Buffeted by the gale that failed to lift the Second's banner but hammered everything else, Praxor urged, 'Fight on, brother. Courage and honour.'

Something as close to fear as a s.p.a.ce Marine could experience tainted Krixous's voice. 'How is that even possible?'

Trajan's vehement dogma tore through the storm and his doubt. 'Our glory is more than the hallowed cloth of a standard. It is blood and sinew, heritage and valour virtues these soulless aberrations know nothing of. Wars are not won by cold machination and the calculus of metal. Victory is achieved through heart and flesh-made courage. We are Guilliman's heirs, his n.o.ble sons. Honour his legacy!'

He held the crozius aloft and it burst into azure flame, banishing the darkness around it. Three wraiths recoiled from its brilliance, revealed in the shadows. Trajan brought the power mace down upon the skull of one, crushing it and sending the vile thing back to the unholy cradle that sp.a.w.ned it.

Praxor drove at one of the others, swinging his power sword in a lethal arc. It was a master blade, forged by the Chapter artisans, crafted from the purest metals and imbued with an indomitable machine-spirit.

It pa.s.sed right through the creature as ethereal as smoke. The wraith resolved a moment later and its long talons cut Praxor's bolt pistol in half as the Ultramarine made to fire. He cast the ruined weapon aside as his fist closed on a useless trigger and took his sword in a two-handed grip, feeding more power to its monomolecular edge.

'We are defiant!' he roared, mustering righteous anger. 'The scions of Ultramar!'

The wraith was unmoved and attacked with whipcord, preternatural speed.

An instinctive parry warded one talon strike, a frantic block fended off a lash of the wraith's whip-like tail. He had yet to strike a blow. Hard-pressed, Praxor fell back a step.

'Only forward, brother-sergeant.' It was Daceus. The formidable veteran was leading the line. He bellowed to the Lions, 'Forge a path for the captain!'

Somewhere ahead of the wraiths was the Stormcaller. Sicarius meant to meet him in combat and do what he was born to do end lives.

Daceus seized a wraith in his power fist, but it squirmed free before he could clamp his fingers together to crush it and was lost to the storm. To his right, obscured by the mist and shadows, Honourable Gaius Prabian fought with sword and shield like the Macraggian battle-kings of old. The Company Champion moved with relentless purpose, a match for any of the serpentine wraiths. He severed necks and sundered bodies, his mind and body as one, his weapons an extension of his martial will. As Daceus and Gaius Prabian drove them, the other Lions sent salvos of fire into the night, tearing the blackness to strips.

Sicarius advanced in the killing ground they made, slaying when he had to, searching for his prey when he didn't.

In those few frantic moments, Praxor's world contracted into microcosm where only his Shieldbearers and the Lions existed, surrounded by the night. Silhouettes ranged in the shadows still, bellowing oaths or yielding screams, but they were indistinct and phantasmal. Somewhere in the dark were Trajan and Agrippen. The faint corona of the Chaplain's crozius was yet visible spitting righteous fire, while the Dreadnought was a hulking nightmare limned emerald against onyx-black with each lightning strike.

Of Brother-Sergeant Solinus and the Indomitable, there was no sign.

Praxor hoped they fought on still. Without his bolt pistol, he drew his gladius and battled with two swords instead. The wraiths still lingered at the edge of his vision, distracted by the march of Sicarius and his Lions. Perhaps the Stormcaller was reacting to an imminent threat to his life, such as it was, and recalling his revenants.

Brandishing his power sword, Praxor roared a challenge. 'Here, machine!'

Twisting its head on a strange, segmented neck, the wraith regarded him as a predator to prey. Coiling first, like a snake, it attacked.

With his gladius Praxor batted away the first talon thrust, following up with the power sword and hacking off the necron's wrist. A burst of sh.e.l.ls from Etrius's bolt pistol strafed its torso and skull-face, angering it.

Tartaron impaled it with a thrown spear of rebar he'd found amongst the debris. Somewhere along the line, his meltagun had been rendered inoperative. While the creature was still squirming, Praxor removed its head. Permanent phase-out was instantaneous.

Keeping pace with Sicarius and the Lions was a feat. When a second wraith emerged from the shadows, Praxor lunged first gladius then power sword to gain ground. Both blows missed but Krixous hammered it with a bolter salvo, steadying his aim on his ruined stump. Praxor carved the wraith open as it staggered, before Tartaron and Etrius each rammed a gladius into its neck cavity. It jerked once, the balefires in its eyes flaring with impotent fury, before phasing out.

Krixous had his eyes on the sky, 'Emperor's grace...' he breathed, 'Look!'

All eyes went to the heavens where dozens of wraiths swirled and twisted like the denizens of some black infernal sea.

Praxor levelled his gladius in an order to fire. 'Bolters!' he cried, and the air was torn apart by explosive, ma.s.s-reactive death.

Some of the wraiths were drawn by the attack, swimming effortlessly in and out of phase, with only the viridian orbs of their eyes a constant.

'Hold them off.' Praxor knew they must give Sicarius time to find and kill their lord. 'By Guilliman's sword!'

The wraiths engulfed the Shieldbearers. Talon-blades and tail-barbs became a ghostly blur as the necrons swept amongst them. Their rending tools cleaved and cut.

Brother Belthonis was dragged into the storm, the hard bangs of his bolter stolen on the air. Skewered through the torso and neck, Brother Galrion crumpled spitting blood. His vambraces shredded, Brother Hexedese screamed the primarch's name as a spear-like tail punctured his plastron and he fell.

'Form shield around me!' Praxor urged his warriors to rally, and the Shieldbearers closed ranks like an armoured laager, firing in all directions. They were an island of cobalt in a hostile black ocean surrounded by a shoal of pitiless killers. Images flashed before Praxor in the chaos: Daceus crying h.e.l.l and fury; Gaius Prabian, colder and more clinical in his kills than the machines; Venatio, stooped over the body of Galrion. Through the blood-soaked blur, one resolved brighter than all the rest.

Sicarius...

The Grand Duke of Tala.s.sar had found his prey. He angled his blade, energy bleeding off the edge in a pearlescent haze. Answering, the Stormcaller brandished his staff. Alien sigils ran along the haft and it crackled with emerald lightning. Moments later, their weapons clashed in incandescent fusion. Above, the thunder bellowed in empathy. Every emotion, every blow and counter-blow was described in the storm-wracked sky.

For a machine, the necron moved more swiftly that Praxor gave it credit for. He caught only s.n.a.t.c.hes through the frenzy of his own battle, but heard the lightning crack time and again. The duellists became shadows in the harsh light of its afterglow, lit in stark monochrome.

It lasted only seconds. With a shout of triumph, Sicarius cut the Stormcaller's staff in half, sending a backwash of energy through him, and then decapitated the creature with the reverse blow. The necron lord's head didn't even have time to hit the earth before he disappeared, leaving behind the malicious resonance of his pa.s.sing.

The storm went with him, evaporating as if carried on a strong wind, light replacing dark like a sudden breaking dawn. Lightning ebbed, thunder subsided. Even the wraiths melted away, returned to their master's side. In the centre of it all was Sicarius. He leant on one knee, heaving breath into his body.

The lightning had struck him more than once the smoke coiling off his scorched armour was testament to that. In spite of the obvious pain, he rose and with straightened back and head held high lifted the Tempest Blade.

'Victoris Ultra!'

Relief and exultation blending as one glorious emotion, the Second Lions, Shieldbears, Indomitable and all gave voice that echoed their captain.

Desolation surrounded them. And more than one of Guilliman's sons had returned to their primarch's side in the Temple of Correction on Macragge.

Vandius's banner stirred again, rippling on an arctic breeze.

The necron vanguard was defeated.

Though of exultant mood, a small kernel of Praxor felt hollow at the victory. Over half his squad were dead or maimed; Sicarius's maddened rush at the enemy the reason for it. Solinus's squad had suffered too, though not nearly as badly.

As he watched Apothecary Venatio add the gene-seed of Hexedese to that of Galrion and Vortigan, Praxor could not help but question.

'Only in death, Brother-Sergeant Manorian.'

Trajan again, the ever-vigilant shadow of Second Company. 'Duty is all we have, brother.'

Praxor nodded.

'Yes, my Chaplain.'

At least Belthonis had lived, though he was badly wounded. He might walk, but fight? Given their position, he had little choice with either. Venatio would have to patch him up and make him last for however long he could.

Agrippen met the sergeant's gaze, stoic and unreadable within the armour-eternal of his sarcophagus, and within Praxor felt an accord.

Suddenly the presence of the First on d.a.m.nos, Agemman's watchmen, seemed all too necessary.

ACT TWO:.

SALVATION.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Macragge, two years before the d.a.m.nos Incident Praxor was enrapt as he listened to the senators' endless debating.

Watching from a seat at the back of the auditorium, Iulus frowned and was glad of the concealing shadows cast in the wake of the late Macraggian sun.

Attired in robes of various hues and ostentation, he found the senators over-fond of their own voices, prolix for the sake of it. Their arguments did not interest him. He had come for Praxor.

Helots roamed the hall, plying the officials with drink and sustenance, while lexicographical servitors dictated every spoken word on clacking scriptoria. The debate had been going on for several days. It did not appear as if any resolution were in sight.

Iulus noticed other Adeptus Astartes in the throng, company spokesmen and the aides of captains. Daceus was there. The veteran-sergeant looked strange with a stump of arm instead of his power fist. It was rare to see the Lion without his battle gear. He looked as enthralled as Iulus felt. So too was Helios from the First. His demeanour appeared keener but no less exhausted at the endless procrastination.

Politics was not Iulus's strong suit. He believed in what he could touch and fashion towards war, but the Chapter needed solidity too and so its future was given to the politicians to argue over. Not that their opinions really really mattered. It was the illusion of diplomacy. Only one man could end the debate with any real authority and finality, and his throne in the auditorium was empty. He wasn't wasting his time listening to this. mattered. It was the illusion of diplomacy. Only one man could end the debate with any real authority and finality, and his throne in the auditorium was empty. He wasn't wasting his time listening to this.

Deciding Praxor was too involved to disturb, Iulus headed for the battle-cages alone.

He met Scipio, waiting for him in training fatigues and wielding a blunted rudius.

'I saw Praxor at the senate council again,' he said as he began stripping off his armour. A pair of serfs came to attend him, but Iulus waved them away. 'I am capable of donning my own training garb.' He glowered and sent the serfs scurrying.

Scipio was sketching test swings with his rudius. 'Why do you terrify them, brother?'

The corner of Iulus's mouth twitched as he set down his cuira.s.s. 'Because it's enjoyable.'

Shrugging, Scipio made two arcs, switching from one hand to the other, before ending on a low thrust.

'Serious, eh?' joked Iulus. His armour was stowed and he picked up a rudius himself, gauging the weight and heft.

'I have to be when sparring with you, ox.'

Iulus snorted, mimicking the beast Scipio had likened him to.

Then he swung.

Scipio blocked expertly, moving aside and allowing the blunted blade to roll down and off his own. His riposte was a sharp jab that Iulus swatted down before he backed away and said, 'We have not spoken of it since it happened.'

Scipio leapt and swung an overhead blow that staggered Iulus at first but the sergeant got his footing quickly and rammed his shoulder against his opponent, denying him the room for a follow-up. Scipio grimaced as he tried and failed to match his friend's superior strength, 'Spoken of what?'

Iulus felt Scipio move, turning his momentum against him. He checked his stance, bracing his legs wider, and pivoted on one foot to parry the reverse swipe aimed at his shoulder blade. The rudii clacked clacked loudly around the cage. loudly around the cage.

'Orad.'

A hail of blows rebounded against Iulus's blade and he was hard-pressed to defend against them. He had to back away, fending off each fresh attack, his options for a reply diminishing with every blow. It bordered on frenzied.

Like a pugilist against the ropes, he went in close, seizing Scipio's torso in a wrestling move and heaving him back to rea.s.sert some distance. Scipio came back undaunted and swinging. He carved elaborate approach swings in the air and Iulus had to use his full concentration to antic.i.p.ate his opponent's strike pattern. He blocked and feinted, but could find no counter.

Scipio was relentless. And silent, until saying, 'What is there to speak about? He is dead. That is the likely fate of us all in the end.'

He aimed a punch, which Iulus deflected easily with his meaty forearm. He could sense his battle-brother tiring. Anger, when misused during battle, was as much an enemy as a friend. He asked, 'When did you become so fatalistic, Scipio?'

Their blades locked, one pressing against the other. Scipio's face was a mask of aggression.

'I am merely being realistic.'