<Praise the Omnissiah,> his adepts intoned together.
“Is the damned thing dead?” asked a gruff voice.
Sennesdiar quickly tugged the fragment from around the warboss’ neck, breaking the leather
cord that held it there, and hid it within the deep folds of his robe. Then he rose and turned to face
the speaker.
“Colonel Stromm. The ork leader no longer lives. Adepts,” he said, addressing his subordinates
in Low Gothic, “it is time we launched our beacon.”
Together, the three Martian priests climbed down from The Fortress of Arrogance, and strode
towards their Chimera, passing Major Generals Bergen, Killian and Rennkamp on the way. All three
men looked drawn and exhausted, and they were speechless as the tech-priests passed.
When Sennesdiar was within a few metres of them, he said, “One of our lifters can be expected
to arrive within the hour, major generals. My servitors will tend to the Baneblade, but I suggest we
all make haste in our preparations to leave. Golgotha is still home to a vast population of orks.
Tarrying too long could prove to be a grave mistake.”
The magos moved off, but he had only gone about ten metres when Bergen called out to him.
“Sennesdiar,” he said. “Tell me, will you answer a question?”
Sennesdiar turned. “Ask it.”
Bergen’s eyes were hard. “Did you get what you were looking for?”
The magos paused for the briefest instant, and Bergen found himself imagining that, had
Sennesdiar still possessed a face capable of it, he would be wearing a smile.
“Didn’t we all?” said the magos. Then he turned and moved off again.
188
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The sky was turning from red to murky brown. It would be night soon, but Wulfe and the others
wouldn’t be here to see it. They were leaving. What remained of the 18th Army Group’s vehicles
had already been rolled or towed up the ramps and into the gaping holds of the Mechanicus lifter.
On the battlefield, the fires had gone out in most of the wrecks. Men moved among the dead,
collecting dog tags from the necks of their fallen brothers, and retrieving lasguns, pistols, grenades
and anything else that Munitorum procedure said was too valuable to leave behind.
Wulfe’s crew was already onboard the lifter, tying Last Rites II down in preparation for the
flight. Wulfe had asked Siegler to come and fetch him when the last call to board went out. Then he
had come, alone, to the place where Gossefried van Droi had died.
He stood looking at the twisted, burnt-out wreck that had once been the man’s pride and joy:
Foe-Breaker. The bodies of her brave crew were still inside her. There was no Confessor Friedrich
here to take care of them. The confessor had almost certainly died in the ork siege at Balkar, another
good man lost.
Wulfe’s heart felt like it was made of lead. He had known van Droi for almost all of his fighting
life. He trusted few people as much as he had trusted the lieutenant. That he was suddenly gone,
after so many years of beating the odds, just didn’t seem real, neither did the loss of Holtz or Viess.
These were men he had respected, men he had liked, not just fellow troopers, but friends.
That thought threw up another name, and a shiver ran the length of his spine, despite the heat.
He remembered a whispering voice he had heard on his intercom once, and a hollow-eyed face that
looked anything but peaceful: Corporal Borscht.
Wulfe prayed that van Droi and the others would not appear to him inexplicably like his former
driver had. Surely the Emperor had already welcomed them to his side. They had more than earned
it.
Footsteps sounded on the sand behind him.
“Time to ship out, right Sig?” asked Wulfe without turning.
“In a hurry to leave?” replied Voeder Lenck.
Wulfe turned, his brows drawing down into a scowl. “What are you doing here?”
Lenck grinned, but his eyes were dark and cold as he said, “Came to pay my respects, didn’t I?
Think you’ve got a monopoly on that?”
Wulfe’s eyes narrowed. There was something about Lenck’s stance that he didn’t like. The wiry
corporal looked loose and relaxed, but it seemed forced somehow.
Silence hung between them on the warm, still air.
“What are you really doing out here, corporal?”
Lenck shifted, stepping forward, bringing his hands around from behind his back. Wulfe saw a
glimmer of metal in the corporal’s right hand. “I’m doing what your mother should have done at
birth, you grox-rutter.”
Lenck settled into a fighting stance, well balanced on the balls of his feet, blade ready in his lead
hand.
Wulfe immediately reached for his own knife, but it wasn’t there. It was lodged in the forearm
of a dead ork.
189
“You’re frakking insane,” he spat. “Put that blade away, corporal. You’re making one hell of a
mistake.”
Lenck laughed. “The way I hear it, Wulfe, you’ve quite a thing for ghosts. Well, guess what.
Now you get to be one. You’ve had it in for me since the day we met, you self-righteous prick. But
you didn’t know who you were messing with. Time to show you.”
Lenck lunged at Wulfe in a blur, thrusting the knife out towards his belly. Wulfe barely managed
to twist away in time. He heard the ripping of fabric and looked down to see a wide cut in his tunic.
Lenck reset his stance, and then lunged again, this time with a high-to-low backhand slash that
caught Wulfe on the right forearm. The blade bit into his flesh and sent a flare of pain along his
nerves.
“Damn you, Lenck. Are you insane? How do you expect to get away with this?”
Lenck laughed. “You were out here grieving for van Droi when a wounded ork stumbled out of
the shadows, surprised you and cut you down. Siegler will find your body.”
Lenck stepped in with another vicious slash, but Wulfe saw it coming and kicked out at the
corporal’s knife-hand.
He missed.
The knife sliced deep into the meat of his left shoulder.
Wulfe gritted his teeth and grasped Lenck’s wrist, but the corporal punched him in the face with
his free hand and sent him reeling backwards.
“You’re a relic, Wulfe, like Yarrick’s tank. You’ve had your day.”
Wulfe knew he couldn’t beat Lenck’s speed. Lenck had proved that already, but Wulfe was
bigger and stronger.
His only chance lay in clinching, but it was a huge gamble. At close range, the knife would slash
him to pieces. If he could just wrestle it free.
With a sneer of triumph, Lenck said, “I can see the fear in—”
Wulfe didn’t let him finish. He bull-rushed him, ramming his wounded shoulder hard into
Lenck’s abdomen. Pain exploded throughout Wulfe’s body, but it was worth it. Lenck hit the ground
hard with Wulfe on top of him, the air rushing out of his lungs.
“Bastard,” he hissed and immediately slashed at Wulfe’s face. Wulfe blocked with his forearm
again and took another painful cut for his troubles.
Wulfe roared at the pain through gritted teeth, but he noticed something, too. On the ground next
to Lenck lay something long and white and familiar. It had fallen from Wulfe’s pocket when they
had landed on the ground.
Still straddling his enemy, Wulfe snatched it up desperately.
Lenck saw Wulfe grab for something and lashed out again at his face, but this time, Wulfe
caught his wrist firmly in one hand and stabbed the ork tusk straight down into Lenck’s biceps with
the other. The corporal howled as Wulfe yanked the tusk left and right, doing as much tissue
damage as possible.
Lenck’s fingers went weak. The blade dropped.
“All right, enough,” he whined, grasping at his wounded arm. “You win, sergeant. You win. Just
don’t kill me. I wasn’t gonna kill you, I swear. I just wanted to teach you a lesson.”
Wulfe loomed over him, growling, baring his teeth. It would be so easy to murder this worthless
wretch. So many problems would be solved in an instant. So why did he hesitate? He wasn’t sure
what it was at first. For a brief moment, he thought it might be that there were so few Gunheads left,
and Lenck had been through the same hell as he had, but it wasn’t that. It was simply duty. Lenck
was an Imperial Guardsman, whether he liked it or not. His life belonged to the Emperor. It wasn’t
Wulfe’s to take.
“Listen carefully, you piece of groxshit,” he rumbled. “You walk around like some kind of hiveganger
boss and think it counts for something. It counts for nothing out here. You got that? I saw
190
through you from the start, you little punker. You’ll never have another chance like you did just
now. Do you hear me? This will never happen again. I know you, Lenck. And, whether I’m dead or
alive, I’m going to haunt you for the rest of your worthless frakking life.”
Having said his piece, Wulfe threw his whole body weight forward into a crushing elbow strike
that smashed Lenck’s nose and split both his lips wide open. The back of his head bounced hard off
the ground. He was out cold.
Wulfe looked down at the corporal’s ruined face. “That one’s for you, Holtz,” he muttered.
Wulfe carried Lenck’s limp form back to the Mechanicus lifter, the corporal draped over one
shoulder like a sack of grain, and was climbing the boarding ramp just as Siegler appeared at the
top.
“I was coming to fetch you,” said the loader. “Six minutes till take-off.”
Wulfe nodded and walked past him, and Siegler fell into step behind.
“What happened to Lenck?” he asked without a trace of concern.
“He was born stupid,” replied Wulfe.
The Fortress of Arrogance sat in the middle of the hold, tied down with dozens of thick steel
cables. She was swarming with tech-servitors and enginseers hell-bent on removing the ork
modifications as soon as possible. On the far left, between a pair of half-tracks, Wulfe spotted the
New Champion of Cerbera and its shifty, no-good crew. They looked anxious, and stood up
nervously when Wulfe began striding towards them with their unconscious leader.
None of them seemed inclined to speak.
Wulfe threw the sleeping corporal down hard on the metal deck, and then eyeballed each of the
three crewmen in turn. “Your corporal got himself in a bit of trouble. He came off the worse for it. If
any of you stupid sons-of-bitches think you’d like to find out what kind of trouble, make a move.
Now.”
No one, not even the bully boy, Varnuss, so much as twitched.
“Is he… is he dead?” asked Hobbs finally.
Without looking down, Wulfe kicked Lenck in the ribs and was rewarded with a feeble groan. It
was answer enough. Then he gestured to Siegler and together they walked off between the tanks and
halftracks in the direction of Last Rites II.
The loading ramp was being raised, crowding out a shrinking slice of ruddy Golgothan sky.
Klaxons blared, announcing imminent take-off. Orange warning lights began to spin. From scores of
loudspeakers, the rhythmic, atonal chanting of the Mechanicus tech-crew began, reciting litanies for
the safe, efficient operation of the lifter’s ancient engines.
Onboard gravitational fields kicked in. The hull shook with the power of the ship’s massive
thrusters as they heaved its metal bulk up into the air. Within minutes, it had risen beyond the
churning clouds of Golgotha and was making for high orbit.
There, The Scion of Tharsis waited.
Operation Thunderstorm was over.
191
EPILOGUE
The midday sky was a brilliant blue laced with the shimmering white trails of Lightning fighter
squadrons and formations of Marauder bombers out of the Tethys-Alpha airbase in the north.
Standing in his pulpit atop The Fortress of Arrogance, Yarrick looked out across the open plains.
The Palidus Mountains sat like patient giants on the far side, waiting for the grand spectacle to
begin. The ground was hard, good footing, excellent for tanks and infantry alike. In a few hours, it
would be a stinking, blood-sodden marshland littered with the dead.
With the Emperor’s blessing, most of the bodies would be alien.
The far foothills were already dark with the shadows of the descending xenos horde: such
incredible numbers. Good, it would be a worthy fight, a fitting end to a lifetime of vendetta. There
was no fear in him. Decades of constant war had desensitised him to it. All that time spent in the
forge of battle had made his soul as hard as ceramite. His mind was tougher than folded steel.
Victory alone was what mattered, and today he would have it, whatever the cost. Damn his
detractors. They were blind to the bigger picture. They squabbled like children over body counts and
budgets when it was this, life or death on the battlefield, that truly mattered.
It was here the future would be decided, here that he would meet Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka
for the very last time. The ork warlord would die today, or they both would. Either way was fine
with Yarrick, so long as his life’s work, the mission that had made him a legend among men, was
complete.
Looking left and right, Yarrick cast his eyes over the forces that Segmentum Command had
amassed and placed at his disposal. Millions of men and women stood ready to do their duty. Their
ranks stretched away to the north and south as far as the eye could see, and there were more to the
rear.
Yarrick could sense their determination and resolve. They were here to win. He could smell it on
the air. They had come from all across the Imperium, from worlds as different as night and day, but
they were utterly unified in purpose. They would turn back the greenskin threat. They would protect
Holy Terra. They would safeguard the destiny of mankind as the supreme race in the galaxy.
It was a rousing sight, a force greater than he had ever commanded before. Entire divisions of
tanks and artillery pieces sat idling, coughing smoke out onto the breeze. Sentinel scouts prowled
the forward lines like anxious predators, alert to any signs of change on the wind. There were trucks
and halftracks by the thousand, all filled with devoted infantrymen, and almost as many Chimera
APCs loaded with battle-hardened storm troopers.
Mightiest of all were the god-like Emperor-class Titans that towered over everything, arms
raised parallel to the ground, vast guns ready to unleash death on a planet-shaking scale. They
looked like gods of war cast in metal and ceramite. Surely no other creation embodied the strength
of humanity so absolutely. Well, perhaps just one.
From the railing of his turret-mounted pulpit, Yarrick looked down at her glacis plate: The
Fortress of Arrogance.
It still astounded him that she was the same tank, the very same damned tank that he had lost on
