Jovian ran through the streets of Dinath, which was now a city of the dead.
Slaughter and atrocity reached out to him on all sides. The sound of crackling flames and collapsing foundations was muted, drowned out by his pounding boot steps. His failure to have held the walls against his enemy’s assault was now compounded by being forced to double back through the city they had been built to defend.
Jovian’s mind checked the term almost immediately. Few would possess a perspective generous enough to name where he found himself – even before it had been razed – a city. There were hive cities on this planet, great abandoned monoliths of its relative past left to rot or swallowed by massive sinkholes. Where he stood now was the world’s present, one of a scattered few threadbare settlements that housed the people who still called this world home.
No building stood intact, their skeletal frameworks gutted and jagged like broken teeth reaching out from the pulverised rockcrete. The ground was littered with bodies and their severed component parts. Jovian passed the twisted forms of men and women who had become trapped in their flight when the heat of the firebombing had rendered the streetways molten. They were hunched, trapped and sunk to their elbows and knees inside the road, their clothing baked onto their flesh, their final fates sealed by the blistering heat or any of the other myriad agents that had surrounded them when they died.
Others lay in hideous repose, victims of the after-effects of firestorms and thermobaric detonations. Jovian’s enemy was cunning enough to have known they needed only expend enough munitions to allow for nature to step in as the chief force of destruction. Start enough fires within close enough proximity to one another, and they would merge into a single mass conflagration. Such a drastic shift in air temperature withdrew the air from the area with explosive violence, just as it did within a human body. All that remained afterward was a shrunken, leathery thing, barely recognisable as having ever been human.
Jovian saw these corpses, thinking they resembled the dolls he had witnessed children carry, drowning in clothes that were now bizarrely oversized.
He blink-clicked a rune on his retinal display, searching the vox-network for active transponders, for any sign of his brothers holding key positions and aiding in evacuations across the planet. Only static replied.
Jovian slowed to a halt, pivoted around and brought his bolter up. The few breathless auxiliaries that had fallen back with him staggered past, ducking at each heavy bang of fire from their pursuers. Jovian fired single shots from his boltgun, mindful of every shell. The soldiers recoiled at his own shots just as much as those of the enemy.
One of the last mortals limped in exhaustion towards Jovian, struggling with the weight of his sniper-variant lasrifle. He was within five metres of the Space Marine when a bolt-round struck him in the meat of his right thigh. He cried out as he crashed to the broken road. It was a ricochet and a glancing wound, but still contact with the mass-reactive warhead had been enough to nearly sever his leg.
He reached for Jovian, squirming in a quickly expanding pool of crimson that could only mean the destruction of a main artery. He began to speak when a second round penetrated the carapace armour on his back. His muscles twitched and seized, feigning life, but Jovian knew better.
The Apothecary fired, staggering one traitor and sending the others scattering in search of cover. Two more shots found the more elastic armour between the ceramite plates and removed the heretic’s arm at the elbow. The flamer he was clutching fell to the dust with it. Suppressing fire lashed at Jovian as the wounded traitor’s foul kin bought him the time to scramble away.
Jovian could not hope that the Iron Warrior he had wounded was suffering with the effects of haemorrhage. He had seen the distinctive puff of black fluid when the limb was severed. An augmetic.
Jovian wondered just how much of the twisted men they once were remained of them at all. He doubted that all of his foes combined would amount to a single man. They were just hate and iron, and had been so for a very long time.
He spared a glance at the dead marksman as he turned. Jovian recalled the man’s name. Rask. He had watched him as an aspirant, striving like so many youths of Newfound to be deemed worthy to join the ranks of the Genesis Chapter. He had borne witness first-hand when Rask had failed in his quest for ascension, as his body rejected the surgeries Jovian laboured to complete upon his flesh during the first implantation cycle. From that day Rask became just another man. One more whom Jovian and his brothers had failed here on Quradim.
The moment passed, and after checking the vox again to no avail, Jovian plunged back down the flame-distorted road. He wondered if perhaps the droves of scorched wretches he passed were in fact the most fortunate of this world’s citizenry. Those who had survived, with the Chapter garrison shattered and unable to protect them, had been led into bondage in Olympian chains. The heresy of expending one’s life-force in service to Chaos, even against one’s will, was unfathomable to Jovian. It was far better to die than be forced into apostasy.
Another two of the soldiers with Jovian were cut down by bolter fire as the Iron Warriors renewed the chase. Only one of the auxiliaries remained, a man cowering behind a waist-high mound of broken rubble.
‘Rise,’ Jovian said as he stopped beside him.
‘I, I cannot, lord,’ he gasped.
Jovian smelled the sour reek of fear mixed with his exhaustion. The Apothecary tasted his despair, and it stoked a rage within him.
Jovian loomed over the soldier and seized him about the arm. He was careful not to crush the limb into uselessness or dislocate it from the shoulder as he made to throw him to his feet. The brassy clank of a frag grenade landing behind them widened the man’s eyes, filling them with an animal panic.
Jovian did not think. He only reacted. He crouched, positioning his armoured bulk between the auxiliary and the grenade. He released the man’s arm as his own swept out to draw him to his chest just before it detonated.
Light and sound drowned Jovian for an instant and then vanished, replaced by a lightless silence as his helm’s sensory cancellation systems recalibrated. The rubble the soldier had been sheltering behind had absorbed a portion of the blast, yet still Jovian felt it with the force of a thunder hammer against his spine. His armour’s systems lagged and flickered as his powerplant endured the brunt of the detonation.
The smoke and shrapnel cleared, and Jovian drew back from the man. The soldier’s form was twisted awkwardly in the throes of panic, his terror so great and his body so fragile that he was dead, crushed within Jovian’s embrace, while the Apothecary himself was unharmed.
What good am I, as protector of humanity, the thought rose unbidden in his mind, if I outlive it? What good is a wall left standing over ruins?
Jovian let the dead soldier go. He slumped bonelessly to the dust. Another bolt-round spanked off the Apothecary’s shoulder pauldron, sending his brothers’ harvested gene-seed bound to his armour spinning on their chains. He felt what was left of his kin slosh inside the armourglass. His adrenaline spiked, and he launched forward, sprinting deeper into the city.
From the fiery crucible of battle to the endless cold of the void, Chaplain Helios travelled to answer the summons from the Lord Executioner.
He felt a crackle of static crawl over his skin as his Stormraven passed through an integrity field and touched down upon the principal landing deck of the Mare Nostrum. The forward assault ramp began to descend a moment later.
The Chaplain’s boots clanged from the ramp as he departed the gunship, while Apothecaries and support auxilia hurried past him on either side, seeing to the wounded and dead Ultramarines that had shared the crew hold with him. The vessel did not linger, for as soon as it was emptied, squads of Helios’ battle-brothers marched up the ramp and secured themselves within. They filled the gunship’s hold, the next wave of fresh warriors making ready to bolster the Ultramarines forces on the surface and press the initiative gained by their brothers’ triumph in the valley battle.
Helios crossed the embarkation deck in silence. His mind was distant as he offered blessings and prayers to the warriors and serfs who kneeled and bowed at his passage. He was slathered in xenos gore, the blood of countless orks that had since dried and congealed and now chipped and flaked away from his plate, leaving a trail of crimson snow behind him as he moved.
His mind yet remained on Meto. It had been eleven days since the fleet, with the Mare Nostrum at the vanguard, had driven the xenos scrap armada out of orbit. There was no fighting up here, neither the claustrophobic crush of boarding actions nor the calculated exchange of fire at breathtaking distances with ork warships. Not any longer.
The Chaplain would never ignore or fail to make haste to answer the call of his captain, but within his own mind he did admit he was curious about the nature of his summons, and of its timing. The order of battle planetside stood at a critical juncture. Where other adversaries might have been driven to rout by the Eighth’s success, the greenskins continued to attack as though nothing had changed. The xenos had no concept of retreat, of falling back to regroup, and thus the inherent danger of their presence was undiminished. Helios had faith in the wisdom of those who commanded him, but he could not shake the sense that he should have been with his brothers, pressing the advantage and refusing the vile alien anything but the fastest path to oblivion at the Chapter’s hands.
Whatever reason the Lord Executioner had to deprive Helios of further battle, he was confident that it would be of import.
The corridors of the Eighth Company flagship were abuzz with activity, as any Imperial ship would be when orchestrating the prosecution of a planetary war. The passageways and arched thoroughfares were crowded with hurried packs of mortal crew, chittering robed tech-priests with their cybernetic acolyte entourages, and the deliberate plodding of servitors. All of them gave Helios a respectful berth, murmuring hushed greetings to him as they hastened to their duties. For his part, Helios answered every one of them as he proceeded to the command deck.
The bridge of an Adeptus Astartes battle-barge was a massive, multi-levelled chamber, its interior an ornate marble and gilded skin laid over the void-hardened adamantium bones of its superstructure, at once cathedral and nerve centre for one of the deadliest weapons possessed by mankind. High vaulted ceilings loomed over tiered banks of crew stations that lined the walls, manned by the elite of the Chapter’s naval auxiliaries and by specialised servitors who were permanently enmeshed with their consoles. Other critical systems, weapons, navigation and communications were controlled and monitored in recessed pits overseen by the sharp attentions of experienced junior officers.
The master of the Mare Nostrum commanded from a control throne set on a dais at the centre of the bridge, surrounded by an orbiting screen of tactical hololiths, her bevy of senior advisors and marshals bearing signal flags. They were so engrossed in the endless orbital repositioning of the fleet that Helios was nearly past them before they took notice. Tapped boots clacked against the ancient marble floor. Hands slapped against uniforms as the senior crewmembers made the sign of the aquila, jingling the medals and other ornamentation that covered them. Helios returned their salute with a fist against his breastplate, replying with a soft clash of ceramite.
The Chaplain ascended a broad stone staircase to the uppermost level of the command deck, where two of his brothers stood intently over the hololithic projection table that dominated the centre of the strategium. One of them was clad in a suit of legendary artificer war-plate, older than the Imperium its wearer defended, a relic beyond value or replaceability. Familiar as it was, the sight of it always enraptured Helios. There existed not a single warrior of Ultramar who lived in ignorance of that armour.
The other stood in wargear that was of simpler design, and yet was no less intricately adorned. Runes, wards and passages of scripture were etched into its every surface, standing out in shining gold against the blue of the plates. It was a subtly different shade of blue, apart from that of the warrior he shared the table with, and apart from that of every other Ultramarine, save those few of his own order.
This one nodded to Helios as he left, the expression exaggerated by the crystalline hood that rose from his collar and the rustle of purity seals and parchments. Helios blinked away a chirping rune at the edge of his visor, alerting him to a sudden drop in temperature.
‘Arrone,’ replied Helios, greeting the Librarian of the Eighth.
Helios proceeded, taking the battle psyker’s place beside the master of the Eighth Company. The Lord Executioner. Gallant Brother-Captain Numitor.
‘Hail, Lord of the Eighth.’ The relative silence of the strategium was disturbed by the ringing crash of the Chaplain’s fist against his breastplate.
‘Helios,’ Numitor replied, dispensing of any further formality by using name over rank. ‘Well met. My thanks to you for the swiftness of your arrival here.’
Helios felt a twinge his death mask shielded from view as he heard the exhaustion saturating the words. The Indomitus Crusade was fresh, yet already he could see that it had aged his brother. As a company captain, Numitor was privy to more than any of the Chapter, save Chapter Master Calgar himself. He knew fully what was arrayed against Ultramar and the Imperium, the enormity of their undertaking. He knew what the cost would be, should they fail.
Numitor nodded at Helios’ armour. ‘I see you still elect to lead from the front,’ he said with a thin smile. ‘The blood of our enemies suits you.’
‘May my blade always find and spill it,’ replied the Chaplain.
‘Indeed. Without their ships, the orks’ numbers are falling faster than they can be replaced. The battles on the surface are de-escalating,’ said Numitor. ‘The war for Meto is nearly over.’
‘Praise the God-Emperor and His Risen Son,’ Helios said. He gestured to the hololith, displaying the slowly spinning orb of Meto in miniature. Tiny icons clustered together in the space around and upon it, chevrons of red and blue that twitched and reoriented as the timestamps were refreshed. ‘Were we only able to stop the xenos in orbit before the war ever began.’
Numitor shook his head once with a frown. ‘You were not at fault, brother. I ordered boarding actions on the most likely vessels to be bearing their foul tyrant. With a fleet their size, so many ships, I knew full well the probability of striking the correct targets was negligible.’
Helios leaned over the table, resting his knuckles against its polished stone with a soft scrape. His eyes stared into the projection, but his thoughts carried him back. Back to leading a strike force into the heart of the alien armada, butchering his way through the foulness within their warships in search of those monsters that led them. Failing to hound them out from hiding, and losing the one chance the Eighth had possessed to break up their armada before the xenos made planetfall and slaughtered millions.
‘I failed to cut the head from the beast in orbit,’ snarled Helios. ‘The Emperor’s fallen servants cry out from the ash pyres for retribution. Theirs is a loss I have yet to avenge.’
‘Nor shall you.’
The Chaplain paused. He straightened from his lean over the table, turning his eyes to his captain.
‘Brother?’
‘The war for Meto is nearly over,’ Numitor repeated, his eyes still locked to the hololith as it shifted from a planetary view to one of the whole system, and then subsector. ‘And yet in spite of our impending victory, we stand poised to fall behind the timeframe that was allotted to us to achieve it. This crusade is not a single campaign, Helios, but many thousands of them at once, and our father has planned them all down to the second. Only the primarch knows the full scale of the undertaking, of which we are but a small cog within its greater machine.’
Numitor shook his head, and Helios saw laid bare the exhaustion that had been carved into him. ‘The sheer complexity of it, brother. The scope. Hundreds of Chapters, thousands of ships, all moving simultaneously and according to his timetable. We cannot afford to tarry here, for doing so will compromise the next battle, and the ones around us, until all comes undone. Every day we fight here, we draw closer to that deadline. The primarch’s schedule must be upheld, no matter the disaster. You know of the Koryndil Reach?’
‘A little,’ admitted Helios. ‘The Third fight there, led by Honoured Fabian.’
‘Sent there to engage an Archenemy force of unknown scale or composition,’ said Numitor. He looked into the hololith, avoiding his Chaplain’s gaze. ‘We received a sending, authenticated to be from Fabian himself. When it was sent we have no way of knowing. It took the lives of nineteen astropaths before Arrone was finally able to decipher the message through all the screaming.’
‘What did it say?’
‘A single sentence. “We have been defeated in a great battle.”’
Helios was silent for several seconds. An entire company lost, one hundred Ultramarines dead or defeated. And Fabian, after all that he had survived. Such a calamity would have been unthinkable just years prior, a blow that would have rocked all of Ultramar to its core. Now it simply was one of many dark realities in this newly born age of apocalypse.
‘There is nothing more?’ he asked finally.
‘Nothing more,’ answered Numitor. ‘Nothing more than another defeat. Another loss we cannot afford. These are dark days, compounded by our dependence upon the very source of our own ruin. We require the warp to communicate, to move our armies. We need the warp to survive, Helios, and right now, the warp is tearing the galaxy in half.’
Numitor punched a series of keys into the runepad built into the table, and the projection realigned with a soft whir. Meto returned for a moment, before a new planet materialised in the hololith in its place, one far different from the verdant agri world.
‘I did not uproot you from the campaign on the surface lightly,’ said the Eighth Captain. ‘We do not know that the Third is gone – it could be merely wounded – but we must now act as if it is. Our operational allotment has been expanded. The Eighth no longer has time to conclude this war, reorganise and set out before the timeline progresses further. There is a mission that must be done, one that has come directly from our father.’
Despite himself, Helios’ breath caught. He clamped down with focus, but the headiness brought on by the revelation of this new mission’s source remained.
‘This is a task where we cannot spare the wrath of a full company,’ said Numitor. ‘But it can be achieved, my friend, by a small number of brothers, acting with speed, and under a commander who I can trust to see it completed with alacrity.’
Helios nodded once. Numitor knew that the Chaplain would never refuse him. On the day he sealed himself within the black, and his face became that of the skull mask, Helios’ life had ceased. He became a symbol, a holy shard of the God-Emperor’s will, made manifest to destroy the foes of Ultramar. His conviction hardened into steel. Helios looked down upon the strange planet hovering in the projection, then back at Numitor.
‘Tell me what must be done.’