'Very well,' Rancourt replied, not entirely sure. 'What of Lord Governor Arxis? How do you plan to move him?'

Kador frowned. 'I don't understand.'

'It's very simple, sergeant,' Rancourt replied in exasperation. 'How do we get him from the capitolis to Kellenport?'

'We don't. He's dead.'

Rancourt was about to protest when he looked around. The room was bare. All the equipment, the life-preserving machines were gone... because they were no longer needed. The lord governor hadn't survived his injuries in the Proteus bunker.

'Of course... Yes, I will leave now. Lead on, sergeant.'

Iulus wiped the sweat off his brow with a heavy hand. Despite his advanced physiology, the wound he'd sustained in his shoulder was slowing him. Ahead of the squad, Agnathio led the line. His armoured bulk bore the worst of the intense gauss-barrage. A fusillade of beams staggered the Dreadnought and Iulus willed the venerable one to endure it.

Slamming a fresh clip into his bolt pistol, Iulus released a tightly controlled burst. The hulking necron in his sights bucked, sparks cascaded off its armoured body, but it came on undaunted. Galvia and Urnos added their bolters to their sergeant's barrage, but to little effect.

Still firing, Iulus levelled his chainsword at the seemingly invulnerable necrons. 'Throw up a wall, brother.'

Aristaeus opened up his flamer, bathing the front line with a wave of super-heated promethium. Implacable, the mechanoids just ploughed through it, their bodies trailing with tendrils of fire and smoke.

'Oath of Hera,' breathed Galvia. 'They are unstoppable.'

Somewhere in the distance las-beams stabbed into the flames, but they were as insect stings to the monstrous automatons.

Iulus realised the Guard had engaged the enemy, but discounted the humans as an a.s.set almost immediately. The Second were alone. He was determined they would triumph. It rested on the necron elites. Break them and the plaza was won.

Iulus grunted. 'Tough, but not inviolable. Close the gap and intensify.'

His Immortals advanced in Agnathio's shadow, crouched low and widely dispersed, but stalled as the warrior eternal faltered. His armour, his mighty sarcophagus that had endured for centuries over countless campaigns, was slowly being eroded.

'Venerable One. We need to move!'

Agnathio levelled his multi-melta and sent a blast into the necron elites. It cut one of the mechanoids in half and it phased out.

Iulus rallied his warriors. 'See! They are not indestructible.'

A second necron lost a limb but incredibly self-repaired, its living metal reflowing and its wires re-st.i.tching before Iulus's very eyes.

'Mercy of the primarch...'

Agnathio was not to be denied and strafed the line. The wounded mechanoid was only partway through its regeneration cycle when a salvo of ma.s.s-reactive sh.e.l.ls from the Dreadnought's storm bolter tore it open. Balefires dying in its eyes, the necron phased out.

'I serve the Chapter eternally!' Agnathio was about to advance again when a plume of fire exploded from his motive servos. Haemorrhaging smoke and machine-fluid, one of his trunk-like legs seized.

A cry was ripped from his vox-emitter as a raw, burning line jagged up his sarcophagus. Visceral matter was leaking from the wound and Aganthio's agony resonated around the plaza.

Iulus felt a tremor of disquiet. He had never seen the Dreadnought hurt before. A small part of him hadn't thought it was possible that he would ever witness such a thing.

'Brother-sergeant,' Agnathio's speech was broken and fizzed with static, in part from the damage done to his vox-emitter and part from the pain he was enduring. He even had to fight the din of the gauss-a.s.sault to be heard. 'You must take... the gate alone, brother. I can go no further.'

The gate? Then Iulus realised. Agnathio was back at Chundrabad, where he had fallen over five millennia ago when he was a mere battle-brother. Then Iulus realised. Agnathio was back at Chundrabad, where he had fallen over five millennia ago when he was a mere battle-brother.

Iulus had no time to reply. A piece of armour plate was ripped from the Dreadnought's shoulder, flung shrapnel embedding in the sergeant's pauldron. Agnathio turned in the direction of his aggressors, unleashing a salvo from his storm bolter. It was to be his last as the weapon attached to his power fist burst apart in a cloud of exploding ammo. Like a pugilist that had taken too many beatings, Agnathio jerked and rocked as the blows rained down.

Iulus had seen enough. He pressed the comm-bead in his ear and spoke into his gorget vox-grille. He might have lost his battle-helm and with it the retinal display, but he could still command.

'Brother-Sergeants Tirian and Atavian, bring h.e.l.l and fury!'

A barrage hammered from either flank. The sharp tracers and missile contrails blended together furiously as the Devastators concentrated fire on the hulking elites.

A storm of hot frag exploded in the necrons' midst but they came on implacably. Their numbers had thinned but they merely closed ranks and drove at the Ultramarines, laying down an emerald curtain of fire. Some of the casualties were rising, picking up their slowly reconst.i.tuting bodies and rejoining the rear echelons.

The Ultramarines had to get close, make certain of their kills. Iulus tightened the grip on his chainsword.

'Immortals! Hand-to-hand. Engage and destroy!' He ran headlong at the necrons, ignoring the gauss-beams glancing off his armour.

On his right shoulder, Urnos was struck in the chest and pitched off his feet. Iulus lost sight of him in the rush. 'Low and fast.'

Nearby, a terrible thunder shook the frost-caked earth as Ultracius joined them. A spew of a.s.sault cannon sh.e.l.ls ripped a ragged hole in the elites, interrupting their fire pattern and allowing Iulus and his squad the precious seconds they needed to close the gap.

His first swing was like striking the bulkhead on a battleship. Sparks churned into the air but the blow left little more than a scar against the necron's torso. Up close the elites were even bigger, dwarfing even the s.p.a.ce Marines. Iulus ducked beneath a swing of its gauss-blaster. There was strength in the attack and even used as an unconventional bludgeon, the weapon was potent. A burst of fire raked the sergeant's left side but it only stripped away paint and surface armour. He rammed his bolt pistol into the creature's neck cavity and pulled the trigger.

Spitting shards of metal opened up a dozen shallow cuts on his face but the necron's head came away, leaving behind a sheared spinal column. Iulus kicked it over with an exultant roar before it phased out.

'Taste the fury of the Immortals!'

A savage blow to his solar plexus cut his victory short. He felt his armour plastron crack and struggled to breathe before his multi-lung kicked in to take up the slack of his collapsed organ.

One of the hulking necrons regarded him curiously. 'You are not immortal, flesh-thing. They are before you. They are your doom.'

Chainsword screaming, Iulus swung, but the mechanoid blocked with its arm and b.u.t.ted him.

Groggy, he shook it off.

Around him, he was acutely aware of his squad fighting hard with bolter and blade. Somewhere in the dense throng of the necron elite, Ultracius was avenging the crippling of his fellow Dreadnought. A heavy necron form was tossed into the air before landing back down into the melee and disappearing.

Ultracius was relentless. 'Guilliman watches over us. Do not be found wanting in his hallowed sight!' The a.s.sault cannon shrieked and a half-dozen mechanoids were ruined, their shattered bodies flung into the closing mist.

Iulus took a blow against his wounded shoulder and felt the bone crack. His guard was split in two and fell away uselessly. He brought his chainsword around for another swing, this time ramming the blade where the necron's innards should be. The creature pulled the blade away, losing skeletal fingers to the chain-teeth, and brought its gauss-blaster up one-handed. With a feral shout, Iulus severed the weapon where it was conjoined to the necron's wrist and rammed the sword in again.

Iulus rejoiced as he drew out a modulated scream from the monster, but it came on undeterred.

'Desist. Your efforts are futile.' Bereft of its gauss-blaster, the hulking mechanoid smashed the Ultramarine's shoulder repeatedly with its wrist-stump. The other hand closed around Iulus's throat with three clacking digits. Its grip was incredible and the sergeant felt his trachea being crushed immediately. Without his battle-helm, the seal between it and gorget was compromised and his throat was exposed. The necron had a.n.a.lysed this weakness and exploited it.

Mag-locking his bolt pistol its clip was spent and he had no room to insert a fresh one Iulus took a two-handed grip on his chainsword and drove it deeper. His sight was darkening as his air supply dwindled to a trickle.

He spat a last, defiant breath. 'Die, you soulless dog,'

Then the darkling world closed around him and Iulus felt his fingers slipping on the chainsword, losing their grip on the haft and his life.

Falka was in charge. He didn't know how, but he was. At least fifty men, most of the paltry survivors from the four battalions, were looking to him for orders. They'd left the flattened ruins behind them and had made it to a second line of broken-toothed defences. From here he'd formed the fifty into a firing line and got them to man the still-operational heavy guns behind the barricades and in the hollowed-out pillboxes. The bunkers and walls were prefabs, set up by Commander Sonne just before the n.o.bilis was destroyed and their hopes with it. They hadn't lasted long; the garrison behind them a few seconds longer. Now, what was left provided scant cover but it was better than nothing.

'Keep your head down and your lasgun charged,' Muhrne had said during basic training. Falka missed the tough old b.a.s.t.a.r.d already. His bones were ash by now. It didn't seem a just fate for such an honourable man.

'Feed the cannon,' he shouted at a heavy stubber team down the line, 'and watch for jams. Keep the barrel cool,' he bellowed at another working a tripod-mounted multi-laser. 'Don't let it overheat. It overheats, and you're dead.'

Throne, he even sounded like Muhrne. Maybe his spirit was alive and well, and fighting the battle through him. Falka hoped so.

He'd found a pair of magnoculars clutched in the cauterised limb of some dead officer. The rest of the soldier's body was gone, presumably atomised by the enemy gauss-flayers. The battling Ultramarines weren't far, but the scopes allowed Falka to get a good look without needing to be up close and personal. With the Emperor's Angels in their midst, the necrons had stopped shooting at the Ark Guard. Falka wanted to keep it that way... at least for a while.

Through the scope's infra-red conventional vision was largely useless for detailed observation in the snow-fog he saw the s.p.a.ce Marines had committed to close a.s.sault against a wedge of necron warriors. Even the Angels looked diminutive compared to these hulks, but they had some kind of towering war machine to even the odds. Falka caught only glimpses of the gargantuan machine, swinging fists and shredding necrons with its fearsome cannon at close range.

The other Ultramarines were not faring so well, ill-suited to hand-to-hand combat against such heavily-armoured opponents. They fought valiantly, though, and Falka felt a swell of courage fill his breast. Lowering the scopes, he eyed the open ground between the barricades and the melee. Narrowing his vision, he reckoned on thirty metres. He let his lasgun sag on the strap around his shoulder it was almost out, anyway and hefted his ice-pick.

d.a.m.nosian permafrost was hard. It didn't break easily, especially in the deep caverns beneath the surface. Falka had once seen a man swing at the ice-face and miss. Instead of burying the pick-blade in the meat of his thigh, he'd sheared his leg off completely. It was so sharp it went straight through the bone.

Across the blasted esplanade, another group kept up a constant las-barrage. Falka nodded to his vox-man. 'Tell them to give it everything.' Then he growled at the others crouched around him, his makeshift command squad. 'I'm going over into that that,' he said, meaning the frenzied melee. 'I won't ask any of you to come with me.'

Eighteen hard-faced men, some soldiers, some conscripts, drew blades and picks grimly.

Falka smiled. 'That's what I hoped you'd say.' He shouted to the gunners. 'Keep firing but try not to shoot us.'

Then he vaulted the barricade and ran towards death.

They were in deeper than before, hunkered down in a tight defile with thick ice-shawled rocks hugging their shoulder plates. Scipio scowled as the frostbitten crags sc.r.a.ped his armour. He'd wanted to pare the powered suits down for better manoeuvrability, remove all but the body armour and leg greaves. Tigurius had forbidden it. The necrons were too dangerous, their technology too advanced, to go up against without full protection.

Behind Scipio a heavy clank clank echoed down the gorge as Largo slipped and cursed. The noise was carried away on the howling wind but his finger slipped into the trigger-guard of his bolt pistol anyway. The necron patrol below continued without pause. Whatever sensors or auspex-devices they possessed were being foiled by the weather and the alt.i.tude just like the Ultramarines' scanning gear. echoed down the gorge as Largo slipped and cursed. The noise was carried away on the howling wind but his finger slipped into the trigger-guard of his bolt pistol anyway. The necron patrol below continued without pause. Whatever sensors or auspex-devices they possessed were being foiled by the weather and the alt.i.tude just like the Ultramarines' scanning gear.

Scipio glanced over his shoulder. 'You eager for a fight, brother?'

Largo held up his hand, signalling contrition.

Ortus, who was a metre behind him maintaining rearguard, smiled thinly. He scoured the way they'd come through his bolter sight. The falling snow was settling over their tracks nicely. After a few seconds of intense and still interrogation, he nodded to Scipio.

Crawling on their stomachs, heads low against the arctic wind riming their features with tiny spines of h.o.a.rfrost, they moved on.

After the initial recon had drawn a blank, Scipio had been forced upwards. Somewhere across the sheer-sided cliffs that bent around the necron artillery like a crooked spine was a rocky ca.n.a.l. He was intent on finding it. The Ultramarines needed a way to bypa.s.s the defensive cordon, something the necrons had overlooked. Being isolated from the main battle group in the mountains was risky. Pressing on beyond the outer marker Tigurius had provided could even be considered reckless, but the mission demanded Scipio locate a route through which to a.s.sault the pylons and gauss-obliterators.

Ducking into a natural alcove, he raised the other squad members on the comm-feed. 'Venetores, report.'

With Naceon's death earlier, it left the Thunderbolts with nine. To tackle the mountain, Scipio had broken them up into combat squads of three. Unconventional as far as the Codex was concerned, but small groups would serve the Ultramarines' purpose better.

After Black Reach, Telion had told him that the Codex was not a book of strictures, nor was it meant to be an inflexible and comprehensive tactical manual.

'It is our primarch's wisdom,' he'd said, 'distilled for all of us to utilise as we see fit. Some in the Chapter are old and hidebound, but as Adeptus Astartes we must adapt. The spur that does not bend before the sudden storm will surely break, Scipio.'

So it was they reconnoitred in threes.

Cator's voice came through the feed. 'Thracian, this is Venetores Venetores. Nothing so far.'

It was followed swiftly by the deep timbre of Brakkius. 'Retiarii has found something. We are fifty-three metres east of has found something. We are fifty-three metres east of Thracian's Thracian's position.' position.'

Scipio opened up the feed to all three combat squads. 'Converge on Retiarii Retiarii. Confirm.'

A pair of affirmation chimes sounded in the sergeant's ear. Waiting for the last of the necron column to disappear from sight, he waved the others on.

'One of yours?'

They were standing in a shallow valley. The snow bl.u.s.tered overhead but they were well shielded from the wind. A necron lay dismembered in the valley basin. Attached to each of its limbs, skull and torso was a tubular device wrapped in wire. A faint veneer of snow was building on top of the body parts, slowly obscuring it. Scipio looked down at the mechanoid as he addressed his battle-brother.

Crouched next to the corpse, Cator shook his head.

Vermillion Cator was known in the Thunderbolts as an expert at fashioning b.o.o.by traps. All s.p.a.ce Marines possessed some level of fieldcraft that allowed them to make improvised grenades and other simple snares, but Cator was often described as gifted gifted.

Brakkius gave the torso an experimental kick. 'Why hasn't it phased out yet?'

Cator answered. 'Because it's still alive.'

A flurry of movement saw Ortus raise his bolter into an execution position.

Scipio waved him off. 'Easy there, Torias Telion Torias Telion.'

Ortus stood down, but kept his weapon ready.

Scipio looked at Cator. 'How?'

The other Ultramarine was prodding the tubular devices with his combat blade. 'There's an electrical charge running through these wires, attached to a powerful battery.' He tapped the tube itself. 'A strong magnet is keeping it from reforming.'

'It foiled the self-repair system?'

Cator nodded. 'Yes, but it's designed as a form of torture rather than being useful on a military level.'

Scipio pressed further. 'So it can't phase out because it's not sustained critical damage and it can't self-repair on account of the opposing magnetic poles keeping its components apart?'

'Precisely,' Cator said, getting up.

Brakkius shook his head at the meticulousness of it all. 'Who did this?'

'That, my brother,' said Scipio, 'is the real real question.' He exhaled, thinking. 'I want a deeper spread a hundred metres.' question.' He exhaled, thinking. 'I want a deeper spread a hundred metres.'

Cator cleared his throat. 'Sir, this far into enemy territory are you sure?'

'Someone or something else is out here with us and I want it flushed out. We can cover more ground separated.'

Showing his obedience with a salute, Cator broke away east. Brakkius went west.

Scipio's combat squad carried on north. When they were moving out, he nodded to Ortus. A single bolt shot, baffled by the wind and the valley depth, rang out a few seconds later as the Ultramarine got his wish.