Largo was shouting down the comm-feed, 'Necron artillery sixty per cent effective, damaged but still operational. Our incendiaries haven't worked.'

Grey cloud was everywhere, a directionless void without end.

Largo was insistent. 'Your orders, brother-sergeant.'

Checking the retinal display, knowing they were close to Tigurius but not yet within striking distance, Scipio found similar reports coming from Octavian and Vandar. Two of the artillery pieces were down, but the others were still functional.

'Get heavies and whatever grenades you have left on those guns, brother.'

'Negative, sir. We are no longer in control of the strike area. Necron aggression is too heavy. Falling back to the centre.'

Scipio cursed. Without the a.s.sault squads there was no backup plan, no route of egress should the mission fail. His voice was bitter. 'I've led us to our deaths.'

He felt something seize his wrist and was about to lash out when he saw it was Cator. 'We're not done yet, Scipio. Courage and honour.'

Scipio clapped him on the shoulder and nodded once.

The smoke cleared. As the two Ultramarines emerged from the cloud, their objective came into sight they'd reached Tigurius. At least they could achieve something.

Another necron was coming at them out of the ice-fog and Scipio was forced to meet it. He only had time to point at the darkness crushing Tigurius.

'Shoot it!'

Cator hesitated. 'I might hit Lord Tigurius.'

'Do it now, brother!' The shriek of chainblade teeth striking metal sounded close by.

Muttering an oath to the primarch, Cator took aim into the dark veil and fired.

Pain was an outmoded concept in the experiential range of the Voidbringer. He had long ago outgrown the capacity to feel the sensation. Even so, he knew he was injured and the desire for self-preservation still influenced his actions. In order to find his attacker, he had to release the pyromancer. He was nearly dead, anyway. Voidbringer resolved to eradicate this new threat and then finish what he had started. Darkness billowing about him, withdrawn from crushing the pyromancer, the necron lord searched the battlefield. He unleashed the power of his staff and the hot beam found Voidbringer's enemy and pitched him off his feet.

'Insect!'

The brief moment of pique cost him. When he turned his attention back to the pyromancer he saw his enemy was far from defeated, he was glowing.

An aura of power surrounded Tigurius, chasing away the darkness from the necron lord's unnatural veil. It was a magnesium-bright sun, banishing the shadow with the Librarian as its focus. Jagged forks of lightning peeled off from the aura around his body. His eyes were alive with a captured storm, mirroring the tumultuous thunderhead surging into being around him.

The air cracked with the sound of his voice. 'Now you die, machine.'

Bolt after bolt of psychic lightning hammered into the Voidbringer, who reeled beneath the blows. A crack split the monster's chest, tore off an arm. His arcane staff spilled away on the eldritch wind summoned by the Librarian. Harsh and metallic, the necron lord roared as if in agony. Tigurius doubted it could feel, it was merely railing against its imminent demise. Even when the Voidbringer was nearly sundered, he didn't stop Tigurius poured it on, opening his mind to the warp and releasing its terrible power.

Psychic lightning was ripping into his body, tearing away strips, burning mechanisms so old and complex that no human mind could ever hope to understand them. It was happening too fast even the Voidbringer's enhanced regenerative abilities couldn't self-repair quickly enough. A mote of something cold and unpleasant flickered in his engrammic circuitry. Something akin to anxiety seized his aeons-old mind for just a moment as the necron lord contemplated the long dark.

I am the master of darkness, not its slave...

The self-declaration seemed pointless in the circ.u.mstances. Escape was still possible. He would not submit yet. Voidbringer would would be royarch. He would self-repair, kill this worm that had stung him and a.s.sume the throne. Ankh, the self-aggrandising plebeian, had given him the means to do it. Before he was lost, Voidbringer activated the resurrection orb. be royarch. He would self-repair, kill this worm that had stung him and a.s.sume the throne. Ankh, the self-aggrandising plebeian, had given him the means to do it. Before he was lost, Voidbringer activated the resurrection orb.

The monster was almost destroyed. Scipio watched from a safe distance, the broken body of Cator in his arms. A long burn marred the Imperial eagle on his plastron, but at least Cator was still alive. He glared, willing retribution on the necron lord. Leaking fluids, machine parts crackling and fizzing in his skeletal armature, the Voidbringer was done. Tigurius was relentless and so too was the storm blazing from his fingertips. It lit up the plateau, searing away the ice-fog.

Scipio's eyes narrowed. Something was happening amidst the storm. Impossibly, the necron lord was self-repairing. Despite the fact his form was being stripped apart by psychic fire, the Voidbringer was regenerating! Living metal pooled together, running in rivulets over his shattered body, and started to form fresh carapace. Seemingly terminal wounds in the necron were reknitting, sealing. Scipio noticed the orb in the monster's chest. It was black like onyx and shimmered as the regeneration process perpetuated itself.

Thumbing the activation stud on his chainsword, Scipio knew what he had to do. To step into that lightning meant certain death. It was a small price. He only hoped his sacrifice would be enough.

Voidbringer was laughing. He glared down at the pyromancer who forced more of his crude sorcery into being.

It is to no avail, worm. I am eternal. I am He stopped laughing. Voidbringer's savage joy turned to anguish and horror. His wounds were reopening, his body was disintegrating. The pull of the long dark returned, teasing at his consciousness.

No, no...

An inner chill swept over him. The scent of the tomb and the dust of the long sleep filled his olfactory sensors. It was simulation, he was sure of it. His memory engrams were reacting to his approaching destruction. Voidbringer tried to engage with the resurrection orb, to shut off the process, but it was too late. Instead of healing him, it was disa.s.sembling his body, unravelling systems and the technology of his entire being. As the genebred ones closed with their weapons, sensing his demise, Voidbringer cursed Ankh. The Architect had tricked him.

Tigurius held up a warding hand.

'Wait!'

The lightning was ebbing as he recalled the power of the warp back into check, marshalling the destructive forces he'd called upon by using his psychic hood as a cerebral dampener. It was a complex procedure and he created sigils of temperance and control in the air to focus his thoughts. Instead of a conduit, the Librarian's force rod became a vacuum channelling the psychic energies away to dissipate harmlessly.

'Wait,' he breathed, feeling the pull on his physical strength as he a.s.serted mastery of his mental power. Light gave way to dark, the ice-fog came back and the plateau was stilled. An intense fatigue washed over the Librarian, as if his entire body was a tensed muscle allowed to relax. He staggered and fell, but waved Scipio away as he came to help him.

He scarcely had the breath to command: 'Finish it. Do it now.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

Atavian saw the energy lances cut into the hard metal of the monoliths only for the damage to be absorbed and nullified a second later.

'Mercy of Hera, are they impervious to all harm?'

Tirian's voice came over the feed Sergeant Atavian hadn't realised he'd broadcast his words to the other Devastators. They were on an open channel, in order to better coordinate their fire. In the fury of the barrage, that fact had slipped Atavian's mind. 'I heard that Captain Sicarius destroyed one single-handedly,' said Tirian.

'I don't doubt it, brother. Perhaps he'd be willing to come over from the front line, run the three hundred or so metres between us and it, and show us how he did the first time.'

Tirian's booming laughter was at odds with the seriousness of the situation, but it made Atavian smile.

A few hundred metres was no distance at all. It was optimum range for lascannons but then most decent distances were Atavian had never known a more accurate, more relentlessly deadly weapon. Hektar and Ulius hammered the advancing monoliths that were using their energies to transport necron phalanxes from outside Kellenport to the force attacking the Ultramarine rearguard in the ruins of Arcona City.

Tirian's squad drilled the infantry. The muzzle flashes of the heavy bolters were almost constant, burning through their belt-feeds in seconds rather than minutes. It was testament to the sergeant's skill and preparation as well as that of his gunners that not one of the heavies had jammed. He was no Techmarine, but Atavian muttered a blessing to the Omnissiah for that. Explosions blossomed in the packed necron ranks as high-velocity bolt sh.e.l.ls smashed into the front ranks. It was like throwing rocks into the ocean. There was a ripple as some of the mechanoids were destroyed but then the sea of metal subsided again, the casualties swallowed into the horde or simply redeployed through the monolith portals.

The floating pyramids had to go, Atavian decided. By crippling the enemy's ability to recycle its fallen troops directly into the battle the Ultramarines at least stood a chance of slowing them down. As things stood, they couldn't even do that.

'Aim for the crystal nodes,' Atavian told his heavies. 'All weapons.'

As the t.i.tan Slayers lifted their aim, a shadow fell across them. The whine of repulsor engines promoted Atavian to shout, 'Down!'

A pair of necron gun-platforms hovered overhead at speed.

'I can vanquish them!' It was Brother Ikus he'd stayed on his feet. 'In the Emperor's name!' The burst from his plasma cannon engulfed the lead gun-platform, turning it into a ma.s.s of plummeting fire-wreathed wreckage. The second jinked out of the plasma bolt's path, avoiding the worst of its fury, and returned fire.

Ikus swung the heavy weapon around, grunting with the effort. The plasma coils on his back-mounted generator were still cycling. The necron's heavy gauss-cannon sent out a pulse of emerald light that bored through the Ultramarine's armour, transfixing him. Ikus shook as most of his internal organs were flayed to atoms and then crashed head-first down the steps.

'Neutralise it!' Atavian was pointing towards the gun-platform, which was wheeling around for another pa.s.s until one of Tirian's missile launchers tore it open in mid-air. The necron plummeted to the earth just in front of the other Devastators, twisted and on fire.

Brother Korvus of the t.i.tan Slayers slung his bolter as he went to take up Ikus's fallen plasma cannon. Meanwhile, one of Tirian's warriors had made it to the gun-platform's crash site to execute the stricken necron in the debris.

'Still alive,' said Korvus, checking Ikus's vitals.

'Put that cannon on the monoliths,' ordered Atavian, sending another of the bolter-armed battle-brothers to drag Ikus to relative safety. He turned his attention back to the monoliths. In the distance, they were turning their energy to something new. A web of light was growing between the three hovering structures, the larger one at its nexus.

'That can't be good,' Atavian muttered, before ordering the lascannons to intensify fire on the middle monolith. The tactics had changed. Rather than overwhelm the Ultramarines with infantry, the necrons would scour their bodies from the very earth with h.e.l.lish firepower.

Watching their implacable advance, knowing there was little else he could do to resist the monoliths, Atavian wished he had more lascannons.

Ullyious Ixion cursed as the necron gun-platforms escaped his wrath. He was still shaking loose the wreckage of the last machine he had crushed when he landed. The end of his jump took him into a phalanx of raiders and he immediately set about them with a deadly a.r.s.enal of plasma pistol and power fist. Alongside their sergeant, Macragge's Avengers were imperious and brutal. A spew of flame ripped through the packed necron ranks from Ptolon's flamer. His brothers leapt on the burning mechanoids and cut them apart with chainswords. It was tough work; the necrons were hard, but the raiders fell back before the a.s.sault squad's onslaught.

More gun-platforms, a different group, were coming around again as Ixion looked to the skies. Engage, destroy, manoeuvre and repeat: these were the tactical rotas of an a.s.sault Marine. At their sergeant's sub-vocal command, Macragge's Avengers boosted into the air leaving scorched earth behind them.

Near the apex of the jump, Ixion asked, 'How does Strabo fare?'

The other a.s.sault squad, the self-dubbed Heroes of Selonopolis, were on the opposite flank to the Macragge's Avengers and focussed on similar targets. Ixion had instructed Brother Ptolon to keep a tally.

'They outstrip us by a single gun-platform, sergeant.'

Targets, urgent and red, were coming into view through Ixion's retinal lenses. He took aim down the small barrel of his plasma pistol. 'Then let us even the score.'

Even in desperate battle, squad rivalry was evident. Sicarius liked it that way it kept his warrior-brothers sharp. So did Ixion.

The necrons were everywhere. It was a battle without end. Ixion revelled in it.

'Death from the heavens, fire and wrath! For Ultramar!'

Below the aerial duelling between the a.s.sault squads and the necron gun-platforms, Praxor was cutting apart the last of a raider group sent to blunt his attack. The Shieldbearers were rampant through the mechanoids' ranks; Praxor had never fought beside his warriors this fired-up. He, too, was at the peak of his prowess. Deep within the thick of the necrons, they needed to be.

He saw Sicarius just ahead of him through the melee. It was close-up work, bolters and blades, just what s.p.a.ce Marines were made for. Though tough, the raiders were not as adept at close combat as the s.p.a.ce Marines it put them at a disadvantage despite their regenerative capability. In hand-to-hand, or at close range, it was easier to ensure a necron was badly damaged enough that they phased out; at distance, where the Ultramarines had first engaged, too many were self-repairing and getting back up.

Though not equipped specifically for a.s.sault, Praxor had ordered his squad to switch to gladius and bolt pistols as soon as the necrons were within range. Advancing in a 'V' formation with the sergeant at the tip, the Shieldbearers were brutal and shredded the mechanoids' ranks.

Agrippen was merciless.

Both he and Ultracius had waded into the enemy throng a few seconds behind Sicarius. They ranged at either flank of the captain and his Lions, crushing bodies with their power fists and unleashing close-proximity barrages with their main weapons.

Against the Dreadnoughts, the necrons had no answer. Their flying gun-platforms couldn't get close; Ixion and Strabo were marshalling the skies. Nothing else could touch them. Unable to draw significant firepower against the venerable warriors, the necrons were getting slaughtered. But where one raider fell, another three replaced it. And these were just the rank and file; the elites would be a much tougher prospect. Sicarius's plan was a risky one. If he didn't draw the necron overlord into battle soon, all of the Dreadnoughts' efforts, the efforts of all the Ultramarines, would be for nothing.

A moment of calm descended over Praxor, his closest foes all dispatched for now. It enabled him to take stock of the battle. The Ultramarines had ventured quite far from the ruined basilica and driven a small wedge of cobalt into the necron sea of metal. As it got further, the wedge narrowed like a slow-moving lance seeking out the heart of its foes in this case, the necron overlord. Another phalanx was moving around to try and stymie the daring Ultramarines' attack.

Its machine-spirit humming for further death, Praxor pressed his power sword up to his battle-helm to beseech the blessing of the Emperor and the primarch before thrusting back into the fray.

The gilded necron overlord was not easy to miss. Sicarius had the creature target-locked in his left retinal lens. Schemata scrolled across the right, overlaying his vision. Weaknesses were hard to identify in the monster's metal armature. He was plated like the other necrons, but bigger, the same size as the elites pressing ahead of him in a tight warrior-cohort.

They were of a different caste, these mechanoids; just as implacable but better drilled. The elites stayed close to their lord, just in front of a tight ring of bodyguards. The latter wielded shimmering war-glaives that looked like they'd shear straight through power armour. Much like the elites, these too would need to be broken open in order to reach the overlord.

He had gambled with the Ultramarines under his command, allowed them to fall into the necron lord's web all so he could draw the monster out.

'You have me, creature,' he whispered to the confines of his battle-helm. 'Now come and claim me.'

Sicarius's mind was set: one way or another this war would end between him and the gilded necron. Even if he had to kill every one of the elites and then destroy the honour guard, he would do it. To the death.

The comm-feed in the captain's ear crackled, indicating long-range interference. He severed a raider's torso with his Tempest Blade, immolating another with a close burst from his plasma pistol.

'This is Sicarius. Proceed,' he growled.

The voice that answered was not who he expected but the news it brought allowed another plan to form in the captain's mind.

Cato Sicarius smiled.

'Daceus,' he said, turning to his second-in-command. 'Prepare the force to withdraw.'

The veteran-sergeant was pummelling a raider with his power fist as he looked up. 'Sir?'

'We fall back to Kellenport as originally planned.'

'Our forces are boxed in, brother-captain. We have no route of retreat.'

'Not yet. Defensive postures for all troops. Do it now, brother-sergeant.'

The order was relayed. The Ultramarines who'd fought the necrons back this far were told to give up the ground they'd won and consolidate at the ruins.

'I have an attack vector to the elites. We can engage. I repeat, we can engage.'

Ixion was soaring on the flaming pillars of his jump pack, locking onto his next target, when Daceus's voice brought his imagined glory crashing down to earth.

'Negative. Pull back to the ruins, all squads.'

The feed was cut. Ixion pulled up short, landing in a patch of no-man's-land with his squad.

Brother Ptolon thundered down alongside him. 'Sergeant?'

'We're falling back to the basilica ruins, all of us.'

Ixion looked heavenwards and saw Strabo was already on his way. He did not question, he did not doubt he merely obeyed. But Ullyious Ixion did feel his wrath magnified at the denial of his warrior-urge.

He craned his neck, looking up into the stars appearing in the sky, and ignited his jump-jets in a stream of fire. 'Fly, Avengers!'

'Bring it down!'