But food and water weren't his main worries.
No, his main concern was his lack of detox pills. He pulled the plastic pill container from his pocket and counted out the capsules
inside. Without this medicine, the Adeptus Mechanicus claimed, anyone stationed on this planet would become unbearably sick. It
had never happened to him yet, but he was in no rush to put the theory to the test.
Glumly he realised that he had enough for another six days, but, Emperor willing, he hoped to be back in the citadel by then. He
had a vox-unit and though he had been unable to raise anyone last night, he fervently hoped he'd be able to make contact today.
He yawned and stretched, pushing himself to his feet with a groan of stiffness. He had climbed a thousand metres over steep,
rocky terrain and, though he hated to admit it, he realised he was badly out of shape. It had been early evening by the time he'd
reached this perch overlooking the valley of the citadel and Jericho Falls, his legs burning and his lungs afire. He'd needed ten
minutes on the respirator just to get his breath back.
Just in time for a grandstand view of the horror of watching thousands of his comrades in arms herded forward like cattle to be
butchered in the storm of shelling from Tor Christo. He'd screamed himself hoarse with frustration. Couldn't they see they were
shelling their own men? He'd burned out a whole battery pack trying to raise the gunners on the Christo and tell them of their
error.
The smoke had obscured the worst of the horror, but when it cleared, he'd been shocked rigid at the carnage he saw below him
through the unflinching lenses of the magnoculars. What manner of foe had come to Hydra Cordatus? Death in battle he could
understand, but this senseless slaughter was beyond his comprehension.
Though he'd tried to get some rest, sleep constantly eluded him. The rumble of artillery, heavy vehicles and ultra-rapid
construction had echoed constantly from below. When the sky had lit up with sunflares, he'd used the magnoculars to try and see
what was happening, but all he could see were tiny explosions bursting on the plain before the Christo as the gunners lobbed
shells over their walls.
Hawke pulled his jacket tighter about himself and shouldered his pack, tossing aside the burnt out vox-battery and ration pack he'd
consumed last night and limped towards the edge of the ridge. He pulled out the magnoculars, training them on the base of the
mountains to see what this morning's light brought.
The pace of operations at Jericho Falls had slowed, but not by much. The huge cargo ships that had been descending in a more or
less constant stream were still arriving, but there were noticeably fewer than yesterday.
'Great balls of the saints!' swore Hawke as he shifted his gaze from the spaceport to the gap in the mountains that led from Jericho
Falls to the citadel.
Enormous numbers of vehicles, artillery and siege engines rumbled along the road in ordered ranks, though there was a strange,
shimmering haze obscuring some of the larger machines, and what seemed like an unnecessarily large number of guards stationed
around them. Hawke noticed that these guards were all facing inwards as though the machines themselves were the threat.
Shocked by the sheer amount of hardware on its way to the citadel, he turned and clambered across the jagged rocks to the other
side of the knifeback ridge and trained the magnoculars on the valley below.
He gasped as he saw the vast scale of the engineering works carried out during the night. A vast trench, at least a kilometre long,
stretched due west, its outer edges piled high with earth, before bending in a sloping, concave arc to the south-west. The curving
arm of the trench exactly followed the sweep of the walls of Tor Christo and its outer face was likewise strengthened with earthen
walls.
Further trenches, like snaking roots, wound their way back to enormous supply depots, huge stockpiles of artillery shells and
construction materials where long trains of men dragged supplies throughout the sprawling campsite.
Already Hawke could see working parties digging forward from the main trench parallel to the walls. A constant thunder of
distant artillery boomed from the high walls of the Christo, powerful explosions slamming into the earth around the working
parties, but the high, earthen berms thrown up on the exterior faces of the trench protected the workers from the worst of the
blasts.
And the saps continued inexorably towards Tor Christo.
Behind the trenches sprawling bunkers and massive artillery positions had been built. Though nothing occupied the latter at
present, Hawke wondered what manner of gun might fill such a site. The stone of their structures appeared to have been quarried
from the mountainside during the night by vast, tracked drilling machines. Hawke could see these were even now boring into the
rock for more building materials. Everything suggested a monstrous controlling influence that knew every last detail of every
operation. The sheer mechanical, unfeeling nature of what he saw chilled Hawke to the bone.
A swelling roar of affirmation rose from the valley floor and Hawke saw that almost the entire population of the camp had ceased
its labours, parting before something as yet hidden from Hawke's sight.
The echoes of ponderous footsteps reached him and Hawke's blood slowed as he watched a legion of enormous dark gods tread
the earth.
He shucked the pack from his shoulders and desperately fumbled for the vox-unit.
HONSOU WATCHED IN rapt adoration as the Battle Titans of the Legio Mortis strode the earth, the thunder of their footsteps
threatening to break apart this planet's fragile crust. The majority of the hellish war machines stood over twenty metres in height,
their fearsome physiques cast in the form of mighty daemons from the depths of the warp. Each growled with a primal ferocity,
their hunger for destruction only barely kept in check by that which controlled them.
The largest of these monstrous leviathans, the Dies Irae, led the Battle Titans, its barbed tail sweeping back and forth in
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
anticipation of the slaughter. Vast spires, like perverted and defiled cathedrals, rested upon its gargantuan shoulders, gun
platforms and massed batteries of artillery clustered on each twisted steeple.
To witness the gathering of creations which were so close to Chaotic divinity was a privilege Honsou had experienced only a
handful of times, and he felt humbled by such a potent display of the power of the gods of Chaos. The shadows of the Titans
swallowed the camp, swathing the acres of men and materials in darkness as they passed.
Honsou watched as hundreds of chained prisoners were herded forward to be crushed underfoot as an offering to the daemonic
powers that dwelt within the Titans' unholy bodies. Their lumbering stride continued, giving no sign that they even noticed the
carnage they caused with every step. The Dies lrae paused in its thunderous march and its upper body ground towards the fortress
of Tor Christo, as though taking the measure of its foe. Honsou watched as it raised the enormous bulk of its hellstorm cannon and
plasma annihilator towards the fortress in mocking salute.
Honsou knew the commanding officers in Tor Christo would be watching the arrival of these magnificent war machines, and the
message they delivered was sure to be clear.
Your time has come.
SEVEN
MAGOS FERIAN CORSIL adjusted the dials on the communications panel again, tweaking the broadcast bandwidth in an attempt to
increase the capacity of the long range vox-casters. Beside him, the row of servitors plugged into the long vox-console sat in
lobotomised silence, each attuned to one of the various Imperial Guard frequencies. Their shaven heads and cable-plugged eye
sockets nodded monotonously in time with the cycling bands of static that filled their skulls.
Since the unexplained quarantining of the Star Chamber by Magos Naicin, they had been forced to try and adapt the vox-casters to
provide them with some sort of link to the outside world. Much as it went against everything Corsil had learned on Mars, he had
spent the last day and a half working on a dozen disassembled vox-panels attempting to alter the divinely decreed circuitry within
each blessed device.
A burst of static spat from the speakers indicating the machine spirit's displeasure and Corsil hastily made his obeisance to it.
'Blessed machine, a thousand pardons for my unworthy hands. Deus in Machina.'
Mechadendrites waved from his spine plugs like dreaming snakes, each ribbed, copper prosthetic terminating in mechanised digits
or some form of power-driven tool. Two mechadendrites worked deep inside an open access panel on the side of the console,
adjusting the power couplings in attempt to reroute some of the power to the broadcast amplifier.
If he could isolate some of the more redundant systems - perish the thought that such a term could exist in relation to a machine -
then he might be able to increase the range of the vox-casters by up to four per cent. His mechadendrites continued working away
inside the panel as he cycled through the various vox-nets.
As he hit upon the squad-level net, a servitor suddenly stopped its repetitive bobbing and sat upright, its mouth jerking into life.
'—dy hear me? What the hell's the point of a vox if no fragger ever answers?'
Corsil jumped at the sound of the voice, knocking the dial on the panel and glancing in puzzlement at the servitor as it returned to
its previous static-filled life. The squad-level vox-net? That was normally reserved for small unit actions; for platoon and squad
leaders to issue tactical orders. It was not supposed to be in use now.
Hurriedly he returned the dial to its previous setting and disengaged his mechadendrites from beneath the console.
Once again, the servitor sat upright, its expressionless face relaying the message from this unknown source.
'…come in. This is Guardsman Julius Hawke, serial number 25031971, lately of listening post Sigma IV; I repeat this is
Guardsman Julius Hawke attempting to raise Imperial forces in either Tor Christo or the citadel. Enemy Titans are inbound on
your position together with brigade strength armour and infantry support.'
Corsil stared, open mouthed, at the console and the servitor relaying Hawke's message for long seconds before bolting from the
room.
WORD OF HAWKE'S survival spread quickly through the upper command echelons of the citadel with mixed reactions. Many
believed it was a trick of the invaders to feed them disinformation, while others felt that the Emperor had spared this man for some
divine purpose. The irony of the idea that a man like Hawke could be an instrument of divine purpose was not lost on the officers
that knew him.
Castellan Vauban paced his chambers, sipping a glass of amasec and pondering the Hawke dilemma. Lieutenant Colonel Leonid
sat behind a desk reviewing Major Tedeski's file on the Guardsman, preparing a selection of questions they could use to verify that
they were indeed talking to Hawke, and that he was not speaking under duress. Men from Hawke's platoon were even now being
questioned for additional information that could verify his identity.
Should the voice on the end of the vox genuinely prove to be Hawke, then they would have a first-rate source of intelligence
regarding the enemy's disposition, strength and movements, but Vauban wanted to be absolutely certain before he made any kind
of decision. Magos Naicin was at this very moment researching the logic stacks within Arch Magos Amaethon's Machine Temple
for some way of detecting whether the words spoken over the vox-caster were genuine, though he hadn't sounded hopeful. Naicin
had balked at Vauban's idea of employing an empathic server to gauge the truth, citing the unreliability of such a procedure
without the subject actually being present.
For now, at least, it looked as though they were going to have to do this on their own.
Vauban knew of Hawke, having seen his name appear on more disciplinary reviews than he cared to remember, but had never met
the man. Drunkenness, disorderly conduct, brawling and theft were but a taster of the trouble Hawke had been involved in and
Vauban was reminded of the story of the Hero of Chiros, Jan van Yastobaal. Lionised by the people of the Segmentum Pacificus
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
as a true hero of the people, Yastobaal had fought in the wars against the Apostate Cardinal Bucharis during the Plague of
Unbelief. History told that he had been a noble, selfless man who had sacrificed all he had to free his people.
Vauban had been inspired by Yastobaal as a youth and had made a study of the man while a captain in the Jouran Planetary
Defence Force. The deeper he researched and the more he had become acquainted with the real Yastobaal, the more he had found
him to be a reckless, unorthodox man, prone to taking unnecessary gambles with his mens' lives. Everything he read of the man
spoke of a rampant ego and colossal vanity that bordered on psychosis, and yet there was still much to admire about him.
But read any Imperially approved historical text and the story of Yastobaal would be told as a noble battle of courage over
tyranny.
In years to come, what would the history books say of Guardsman Julius Hawke?
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
TOR CHRISTO
ONE
THE VAST, SOUTHERN gate of the citadel measured exactly forty-four metres high, thirty metres wide and was known as the
Destiny Gate. Each layered half of the bronze gate was four metres thick and weighed hundreds of tonnes. No one knew exactly
how they had been constructed, when they had been brought to Hydra Cordatus, or even how such massive portals could be
opened with such ease.
Both gates were covered with battle scenes etched into their surfaces, the detail obscured by the ravages of time and green trails of
oxidation, but they were impressive nonetheless. Flanked by the threatening forms of Mori and Vincare bastions, they were set
within the sixty-metre high curtain wall of the citadel, surrounded by carven statuary.
Morning sunlight gleamed gold on the surface as the gates smoothly swung outwards, the battles immortalised on their faces
seeming to twist with life as the light caught them. At last they were opened fully and massive shapes began to move through the
