He stared down into the abyss below and saw the darkness there that Aristaeus had described. Unhooking his weapon, he could almost sense the presence of alien minds regarding him and fired.

The bolt pistol scream resonated inside the bore hole, magnified as it rebounded off its sides. With the darkness cloaking the advancing scarabs, Iulus didn't realise he couldn't miss. As soon as the first creature was. .h.i.t, the illusion faded and the blackness receded to reveal a chittering host of the things. They scurried up the walls, which were ridged with the burrowing action of whatever monster or device had hewn them, in a swarm. Their eyes glinted like tiny emeralds in the natural shadows of the circular cavern, mandibles champing.

When Iulus's bolt fire struck them, a stream of the scarabs exploded leaving burning contrails in their wake as they fell. He panned the pistol around, finger tight on the trigger, and left a muzzle scar across the open air. Still holding on one-handed to the piece of broken rampart, Iulus gave a wordless cry.

He could not kill them all. Even with the las-fire flashing down from above, the scarabs would soon breach the surface. He estimated there were hundreds of the things and for every one he destroyed, another four replaced it. His ammunition counter was burning to zero when Iulus noticed a large mound ripple through the undulating ma.s.s. Down to his last rounds, he switched targets and fired a close burst into the mound. The scarabs outside it were blasted apart like a piece of ablative armour revealing a much larger construct beneath. It moved slower than the others but its carapace was thick and absorbed the impact of the explosive bolt sh.e.l.ls without pause. Iulus was debating whether to draw his chainsword and drop into the bore hole to kill the monster personally when it swung a gauss-blaster arm in his direction and fired.

The beam cut into the Ultramarine's battle-plate and he cried out. Armour shed like snake skin as the flaying effect of necron technology went to work and Iulus's leg greave was reduced to half-corroded mesh.

The pain was so severe he dropped his pistol. For a moment his grip wavered. Several more of the larger mounds were moving through the scarab swarm, which had almost reached him. Dangling off the edge of the precipice, Iulus realised it would mean his death to fall now. Eternal night reigned in the depths of those bore holes, as cold and unnatural as the creatures emerging from it.

A hand clasped around his wrist. Then another and another. Iulus looked up to see Kolpeck's straining face above him.

'Heave!' he yelled to the other conscripts all from the One Hundred that were trying to rescue their captain.

'At your side, brother-Angel,' Kolpeck said again through gritted teeth.

It took the combined efforts of four men to lift the Ultramarine even a small amount. They were all rig-hands, all strong men used to back-breaking labour in the Imperial mines beneath the d.a.m.nos ice, but none had ever worked so hard to lift something such a short distance.

It was enough for Iulus to swing his free arm around and grip the battlements with both hands. He pulled himself up as another gauss-blast speared the rock where he'd been hanging a moment earlier. The conscripts fell back as he emerged back over the top.

'Back! Fall back!'

Iulus turned towards the bore hole even as the conscripts started to retreat. He unclamped a pair of frag grenades from his belt just as the first wave of scarabs was spilling over the edge of the wall. Ignoring the smaller creatures, he tossed the explosives over the shiny bodies. A low boom came from beyond and below. The mechanoid spyder did not emerge and Iulus thanked the Emperor that his grenades had done their work.

He contemplated staying and trying to hold off the scarab swarm coming at him he had already drawn his chainsword but decided to fall back with the others.

Kolpeck was just behind him, waiting for his captain.

'We need to get off the wall,' he said, bringing his lasgun to bear on the smaller mechanoids.

Iulus pushed the barrel down. 'Then do it. Marshal the One Hundred. Every man is to head for the Courtyard of Xiphos. We'll stand a better chance of holding them there.'

Kolpeck nodded and ran. He was already shouting orders at the men, ushering them downwards, organising them into groups.

Unclamping his last pair of grenades, Iulus tossed them towards the scarab swarm and jumped from the wall.

The explosion blossomed behind him, kicking up debris and broken scarabs as the Ultramarine landed hard on the Courtyard of Xiphos. From there he could see the wall was breached in no fewer than six areas, each sunken by a bore hole and now swarming with scarabs. Gauss-fire cracked from the spyders, stripping men to bone and ash.

'Heavy weapons, target the larger mechanoids. Bring them down!'

From across the courtyard, rocket tubes and heavy stubbers hammered into the spyders. They were tough and took a lot of killing, but they were falling. So too were the Ark Guard. A ma.s.s retreat was in effect. Even done in good order, the humans were still pressed on all sides. The walls were empty, apart from the dead. Several squads had been overwhelmed completely in the first few seconds of the breach, swallowed beneath the necron wave. Even their bodies were no longer there, the scarabs had stripped them from existence.

The first wall was behind him, and Iulus knew they would need to fall back to here if they had any chance of surviving, let alone repelling, the attack. A ma.s.sive bore hole opened in the Courtyard of Xiphos, splitting flagstones and toppling shattered monuments. Men went with it, whole swathes of Ark Guard lost with a tortured scream. Iulus thought he saw something gargantuan surface from the depths. It looked segmented, almost centipedal, but was quickly swallowed by the unnatural darkness. Scarabs and spyders spilled forth in its wake.

'Incendiaries into the bore holes,' Iulus bellowed, pointing to the fresh attack point. 'Burn it down. Cleanse their route of a.s.sault.'

He saw Aristaeus, a rack of three promethium flamer tanks rattling on his back. He reached the circular crevice in the courtyard and threw the tanks in. Bringing up his boltgun in the same motion, he fired off a single round and a jet of liquid flame as thick as the pillars of Hera's Temple shot up from the bore hole.

The blast wave took Aristaeus off his feet but he was quick to recover and head for his sergeant. The other Immortals were doing the same, marshalling their troops with them, converging on Iulus as they sought to consolidate their forces.

Slowly, the squads came together. Stragglers were picked off easily by the scarab swarm but a concentrated wall of fire was ripping steadily from the Ark Guard now. At the orders of their s.p.a.ce Marine captains, they formed firing ranks and bathed the courtyard in hot las.

'Brother-sergeant,' Aristaeus reached Iulus's side and held out his sidearm, 'you seem to be without the Emperor's wrath.'

Iulus punched his chest, the air filling with las-beams around him. 'Here is where I keep it, brother,' he said, but then smiled as he took the bolt pistol.

More Ark Guard joined the others ma.s.sing outside the gates to the first wall even the troops on the battlements had opened up with their weapons and the rate of fire intensified. The scarabs and their larger, monstrous cousins had seemed infinite at first but now they were withering. None of them could penetrate the slowly retreating Imperial cordon. Even the spyders were pinioned by lascannon beams from the first wall battlements. But the necrons were tenacious and fed even greater numbers into the meatgrinder. Like a river of mercury swollen at its banks, they began to lap at the sides of the Imperial defences.

Several soldiers at the outer edge where the Ultramarines presence was weakest were dragged screaming into the swarm.

Iulus tightened the cordon further still but his troops were already shoulder-to-shoulder with their backs against the gate of the first wall. He sensed the tide turning, the sheer overwhelming force of the necron constructs tipping the balance. What had started out as an organised defence of hold and repulse was turning into a desperate last stand.

Behind him, there came the churning of gears as the mechanism to the gate was activated. It did not open wide but it was enough to admit a towering war machine into the Courtyard of Xiphos.

'The walls of Chundrabad shall never fall!' Agnathio's multi-melta tore a hot line through the scarabs. Men of the Ark Guard hurried from the Dreadnought's path as he bullied his way to the front rank. 'I serve the Chapter eternally!'

Though he moved slowly, his motive servos still spitting oil and steam, when Agnathio reached the necron horde it reeled. So indomitable, so utterly relentless, the venerable warrior's example was followed by all. Together, they threw the scarabs back.

Agnathio had been joined by the rest of the Immortals and several platoons of Ark Guard who lent their fire to the Imperial barrage.

As if sensing the futility of their attack, the necron machines retreated like ants from a fire and withdrew to their bore holes.

The shooting from the Ark Guard was slow to relent. In the end it took all of the Ultramarines to bring the humans back down again. They had survived a terrifying ordeal and fear did not give up its hold on lasgun triggers easily. When the noise of the barrage died, a wintry silence swept through the Courtyard of Xiphos. Already, the drifts were covering the evidence that a battle even took place. There were only the half-flayed remains of dead Ark Guard, anyway; all of the destroyed necrons had phased out. It made for an eerie scene.

Iulus rested his hand on the still-hot shoulder casing of Agnathio's multi-melta. 'We owe you a debt, honoured one.'

Pride was not really amongst a Dreadnought's limited emotional responses. Agnathio was typically matter-of-fact. 'I am my Chapter's servant. I seek only the glory of Ultramar.'

'Well spoken, brother,' Iulus murmured, humbled by such stalwart courage and loyalty.

Brother Galvia had been one of the s.p.a.ce Marines from the first wall to come and bolster the beleaguered defenders. 'Do we return to the second wall and try to regarrison it?' he asked.

Iulus shook his head. The second wall was all but rubble now, the bore holes had seen to that. It would be indefensible. He turned to Kolpeck who was crouching nearby, breathing hard while some of the men around him were puking out their nerves.

'Find as many of those seismographic staves as you can,' said Iulus. 'Plant them around this cordon, ten metres out.'

'I could take them as far as the second wall,' Kolpeck suggested.

'No. Ten metres, no farther. Do it quickly.'

Kolpeck saluted, gathering up some men he trusted, and went about his orders.

Iulus's face was grim as he surveyed the ruins in front of them. Aristaeus was by his side and must have seen his expression.

'Something wrong, brother-sergeant?'

'That was just a probing attack to test our strength,' he said. 'This isn't over.'

Iulus did not intend his words to be prophetic but as he said them there was a flash of emerald light around the rubble of the second wall. A crack had opened in the air itself. The drifts did not fall there. It was as if something had interrupted the very ebb and flow of nature. The crack widened and became a pool of light that expanded again into roughly the size of a large doorway. Within it, the emerald light rippled as if something very deep down beneath the pool was attempting to surface. Shadows loomed there. Iulus could not be certain but he thought he could make out a long, glowing corridor with the shapes of necrons marching down it, growing more distinct with every step.

Another portal opened up a few metres away. A third followed swiftly after that. Down inside the bore holes a chittering clangour arose as the scarabs returned.

On the battlements, some of the Ark Guard were pointing beyond Kellenport's walls. Officers were looking through scopes. Iulus could hear the larger guns rotating to fresh trajectories.

Some of the men were muttering amongst themselves. A few in the front ranks who could see the enemy emerging had turned and were trying to reach the gap in the gate, but it had already closed.

'Hold to your positions!' Iulus bellowed, revving the teeth of his chainsword. He levelled it at the trio of portals and the shadows coming through them. 'Death comes for us. It comes clad in metal and with engines instead of organs. We shall hurl it back, back into the abyss. Faith in the Emperor.'

The rallying cry was taken up by his brothers; some of the One Hundred, including Kolpeck, echoed it too.

'Faith in the Emperor!'

Emboldened, perhaps even shamed by the ragged band of conscripts, the rest of the Ark Guard stopped trying to flee and gave voice.

'Faith in the Emperor!'

As the shout of defiance echoed to nothing, Kolpeck, alone, could be heard.

'And in the name of our brother-Angel, Iulus Fennion!'

Iulus wanted to rebuke him, but then the Ark Guard and the conscripts resounded with, 'Iulus Fennion! Brother-Angel!'

Despite himself, Iulus felt a slight swell of pride. It lasted but a moment as the shadow of the monoliths loomed through the gaps in the wall and the necrons emerged at last.

'Keep your courage steady,' he told Kolpeck as gunfire filled the Courtyard of Xiphos.

Letzger sweated like a stuck pig. The gunnery crews had worked well; Hel-handed Hel-handed was ready to unleash her first salvo. was ready to unleash her first salvo.

'Let 'em have it!' he cried into the vox-horn.

Even with the dampeners and compensators, the recoil from the cannon was immense. It shook its staging platform like the hand of an angry G.o.d, while the explosive sh.e.l.l fell like its clenched fist.

A huge cloud of dust and debris rose up from the strike point, obscuring the slow-moving phalanx of monoliths from view. It looked like a direct hit. Certainly, Letzger had made no mistake in his calculations. That heavy a missile payload... nothing in human creation could survive that.

Some of the gunnery crew were already celebrating. It was as much fear as it was exultation that fed their shouts and angry cheers.

Letzger stayed at the scopes, sweating. He was wearing plugs, but his ears still rang from the report of Hel-handed Hel-handed. She was a noisy b.i.t.c.h, all right, sometimes capricious, but he loved her and he loved what she could do.

Through the scope the smoke and dust was clearing. Ice and snow around the blast site had melted away to steam, adding to the obfuscation.

'Let me see it,' he murmured. 'Let me see your broken carca.s.s.' He'd never fired on monoliths before; he didn't know what happened to them when they were destroyed. Perhaps they phased out too; perhaps he was looking for a ghost he'd never see.

The image resolved. Letzger sagged at his post and the men groaned in despair. It was still there. Three of the necron pyramids advanced towards Kellenport. Somehow, impossibly, he had missed. The crater was so large, its effect so awesomely powerful, he didn't know how. But Hel-handed Hel-handed had been fouled somehow. had been fouled somehow.

Wiping away the perspiration on his forehead and lips, the cigar cinched between them no more than a smouldering nub, Letzger peered through the scopes more intently for an answer. He saw tendrils of darkness, coiling and twisting between the triumvirate of war machines. They appeared in synch, feeding off one another, boosting the terrible shroud that had somehow saved them.

The only mercy was that, for now at least, the monoliths were not firing their weapons. They had phased forces into the vicinity, but otherwise their power matrices were dormant.

For an experienced crew, it took six minutes to load, prime and fire an Ordinatus like the Hel-handed Hel-handed. Letzger prided himself that his men were the best. As he bellowed the orders to reload, he knew the old girl would be spitting fury in less than five.

As he watched the monoliths float towards them, in defiance of all natural laws of physics, he clutched the aquila bracelet on his wrist.

'Come on sweetheart,' he said, patting the gun. 'This time...'

Adanar was running the battlements when the first shot from the Hel-handed Hel-handed rang out. He'd not got far, and even though he knew he was out of position, stopped to watch the magnificent weapon in action. The blast wave, felt even where he was standing on the wall, was invigorating. His heart sank to a cold and pitiless place when he looked through Corporal Humis's magnoculars and saw the monoliths were untouched. He'd always thought nothing would survive a blow like that. rang out. He'd not got far, and even though he knew he was out of position, stopped to watch the magnificent weapon in action. The blast wave, felt even where he was standing on the wall, was invigorating. His heart sank to a cold and pitiless place when he looked through Corporal Humis's magnoculars and saw the monoliths were untouched. He'd always thought nothing would survive a blow like that.

From the Courtyard of Thor behind him, the uber uber-mortars and long-nose cannons churned out sh.e.l.ls as if on a production line. With their subterfuge revealed, the necrons recommenced their barrage from the Thanatos Hills. As the emerald beams from pylons and gauss siege-cannon started up, Kellenport was under siege once more.

This time, however, the mechanoids were aiming for the walls.

A chunk of crenellation spumed into the air, trailing dust, grit and snow. Men went with it, broken and half-flayed.

Adanar ducked, grabbing Humis's jacket before he fell off the battlement like several others. The screams of the falling men didn't last long as they cracked against the ice-hardened flagstones of the square below.

'I've lost one aide today,' he said through gritted teeth, dragging the corporal bodily against part of the wall that was still intact. 'I don't intend on losing another.'

Humis was a little sh.e.l.l-shocked but otherwise grateful. He gestured to the blast-scarred section of wall. It gaped like an old wound, still festering. 'We are dead men out here on the wall.'

Adanar nodded. 'Agreed. All except the heavy cannon and gunnery nests are to drop below the wall to the lower level. The emplacements are dug in harder, that should give them some protection. For the rest: heads down and hunker down,' he added, as Humis got on the vox and started relaying orders to the officers spread throughout the defences.

The corporal put his hand over the receiver cup, though he scarcely needed to the combined barrage from both sides was deafening. 'What about the troops in the Courtyard of Xiphos? They'll lose the support fire from the platoons.'

Adanar thought for a second. He ducked again, as did Humis, when another explosion rocked the wall. More screaming followed.

'Tell Sergeant Fennion he's losing his support and offer to open up the gates. He's a warrior-knight, so I doubt he'll retreat easily, but at least the Ark Guard can get behind shelter if the Ultramarines want a glorious death.'

Adanar could tell by Humis's expression that he'd shocked the corporal. 'I'm sorry, Humis. It's hard to see any hope amongst all this death.' Subconsciously, he rubbed at the locket-charm strung around his wrist. 'It's been too long since I've seen anything else.' Another blast shook Adanar from his reverie. 'Give the order. The Angels are not immortal, they'll either fall back or they'll die like heroes.'

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

It felt strange to be above the ground. So long he had dwelled in darkness, his thoughts lost in a timeless miasma without meaning. The long sleep had gnawed at the Undying. Even his name, his true name was denied to him. He was only the Undying now, an immortal king upon a decayed throne. Eternity was not the paradise he had hoped for. With every waking moment, as his lucidity returned to him, it became a terror instead.

How can I exist for all the long aeons of the galaxy? Will I not atrophy? Will my mind not erode to oblivion?

As a member of one of the necrontyr's royal houses, he enjoyed certain privileges. No servitude as an automaton for him. Though the Undying had lost part of his ident.i.ty, he knew that much. Plebeians and n.o.bles were separated by a gulf. Since the necrons had embraced metal over flesh, that divide had increased exponentially. Not only was freedom denied to the lower cla.s.ses, so too now was true sentience.

Though tarnished and tattered, the Undying's vestments looked regal enough. As he'd left the tomb, eager to dispense death and annihilation, his lych-like guardians had found him.

Like their lord, they carried long war-scythes in silvered fists. As they bowed, he saw the flare of recognition in their eyes and knew these were no ordinary slaves.

'Retinue,' he had proclaimed. 'Summon my phalanx to war.'