no success and his worry grew with each step.
The powerful shockwave had felt like some vast, underground detonation and as far as he knew there was only one way such a
detonation could have occurred. But surely Castellan Vauban would never have allowed the Adeptus Mechanicus to destroy the
tunnel and cut off thousands of men from their retreat? A terrible sinking feeling settled in his gut and he fervently hoped his
suspicions were unfounded.
At last they arrived at the main doors to the reactor chamber and Tedeski stood aside to allow the machine priest to access the
entry controls.
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
'Open the damn door!' snapped Tedeski when Yelede failed to move.
'I cannot, Major Tedeski.'
'What? Why the hell not?'
'I have been given instructions not to allow this facility to be destroyed.'
Tedeski slammed Yelede against the wall and drew his bolt pistol, shouting, 'If you don't open that door, I will shoot you in the
head!'
'Anything you can threaten me with is irrelevant, major,' protested Yelede. 'I have been given a sacred order by my superiors and I
cannot disobey it. Our word is iron.'
'And my bolt is 0.75 calibre, diamantine tipped with a depleted uranium core and if you don't open this bloody door right now, I
will fire it through your poor excuse for a brain. Now open the damn door!'
'I cannot—' began Yelede as a roaring screech of tearing metal ripped along the corridor. The two men watched as an enormous,
crackling fist tore open the elevator doors and a gigantic figure stepped through, filling the corridor with its bulk.
Almost three metres tall, the huge figure took a step into the light and Tedeski felt his heart hammer against his chest. The figure
wore a bloodstained suit of iron-grey Terminator armour, slashed with diagonal chevrons of black and yellow stripes. The helmet
was carved in the shape of a snarling jackal, and his molten chestplate bore the visored skull-mask of the Iron Warriors.
Yelede whimpered in fear and squirmed free of Tedeski's grasp, swiftly pressing his palm to the identification slate.
'Blessed Machine, I abjure thee to grant your unworthy servant entry to your holy sanctum, to your beating heart,' said Yelede, the
words coming out in a desperate rash.
'Hurry up, for the Emperor's sake!' hissed Tedeski as the Terminator lumbered towards them. More enemy clambered from the
wrecked elevator car, following their leader. Tedeski fired a short burst from his bolt pistol, but the heavy suits of armour were
impervious.
The reactor room door slid smoothly open and Tedeski and Yelede gratefully ducked inside as it slammed shut behind them.
Tedeski pushed Yelede towards the centre of the chamber where a tall podium with a dozen thick brass rods set into grooves on
the floor pulsed with energy.
Tedeski dragged the protesting magos towards this arrangement and pointed his pistol at his head.
'Give me any more trouble and I will kill you. Do you understand?'
Yelede nodded, what little flesh remained of his face twisted in fear. The magos jumped as thundering impacts slammed into the
door and the inner face bulged inwards. Quickly, he ran to the brass columns and pressed his palm into the top of the first, twisting
it and chanting a prayer of forgiveness to the Omnissiah. He climbed onto the central dais and rotated several cogged dials.
Tedeski fought for calm as the first brass column rose from the floor, steam hissing from the newly revealed metal. Warning
klaxons blared and a stream of words, meaningless to Tedeski, issued from a pair of speakers mounted on the dais.
'Can't you do this any faster?' hissed Tedeski urgently as the door buckled inwards again.
'I am going as fast as I can. Without the proper ministrations to appease the machine spirits that invest the reactor, I will not be
able to persuade them to aid us.'
'Then don't waste time talking to me,' snapped Tedeski as another hammer-blow slammed into the door.
FORRIX SMASHED HIS power fist into the door, feeling the layered metal starting to give. He knew he did not have much time. The
Warsmith's captured magos had told them of the capacity of Tor Christo's commander to destroy the fortress and Forrix was under
no illusions as to what the two men within this chamber were attempting to do.
His warriors gathered behind him, impatient to kill their prey and begin refortifying this place. He slammed his fist against the
door again, feeling the metal crumple beneath his assault. He gripped the twisted metal and pulled, tearing the door from its
mounting with a roar of triumph. Forrix pushed through the doorway to see a magos in white robes ministering to a machine in the
centre of the chamber, and a one-armed Imperial Guard officer standing beside him. The man fired his bolt pistol and Forrix
grinned as he felt the ringing impacts against his thick armour. He felt a sensation he had not known in many centuries, but
recognised as pain.
He raised his own weapon and squeezed off a short burst, the shells taking the magos between the shoulders, disintegrating his
torso and blasting him clear of the dais in a welter of blood and bone.
The Guard officer turned and leapt towards the dais, fumbling with the brass columns, vainly attempting to complete what the
magos had begun. Forrix laughed at the man's efforts and shot him in the leg, toppling him to the floor with a scream of pain. He
deactivated the energy field surrounding his power fist and lifted the howling officer from the ground, hurling him to a waiting
Terminator.
Forrix mounted the dais and saw that they had cut it close, a few more minutes and Tor Christo would have been reduced to a
useless molten ruin. He put a bolt through each of the wall-mounted speakers and the screaming klaxons were silenced.
'Replace the rods. It will prevent the reactor blowing,' he said to another of his Terminators and strode from the room.
Tor Christo had fallen.
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
THE SECOND PARALLEL
ONE
As LIEUTENANT COLONEL Leonid entered the Sepulchre the flame at the end of the taper wavered in the draft that gusted in from
the open door. Kneeling before a basalt statue of the Emperor in the chapel's ossuary, Castellan Vauban cupped the flame behind
his hand, shielding it from the wind and lit a candle for the men of Battalion A, as he had done every day for the last six days since
Tor Christo had fallen.
Leonid kept a respectful distance from his commanding officer, awaiting the completion of his ministrations to the dead, and
Vauban was grateful for his officer's understanding.
The grim tower known as the Sepulchre stood on the north-western slopes of the mountains, high above the citadel. Constructed
of smooth, black marble, veined with threads of gold, it was a tall, hollow tube, some thirty metres in diameter and a hundred
high. Its inner walls were studded with hundreds of ossuaries containing the bleached bones of every man who had borne the title
of castellan. It had been a great comfort to Vauban to imagine that one day he too would have a place of honour amongst the
immortal dead, but he knew that was nothing but a dream. In all likelihood, he would end his days as a desiccated corpse
somewhere below in the citadel, murdered by this infernal foe. The thought of his bones scoured clean by the dust storms of this
planet filled him with great melancholy.
The entire floor was a polished disc of solid brass, its surface etched with intricate traceries and swirling lines that looped
gracefully across its surface, weaving and intersecting in a beguiling dance. It looked like a puzzle where the solution, if there
even was one, was forever elusive. Vauban knew it was possible to happily lose several hours trying to untangle the design with
your eyes, but he had long ago decided that it was a mystery he would never solve.
He rose from his knees, wincing as his joints cracked painfully. War was a young man's game and he was too old to bear the
horrors being placed before him. He bowed towards the Emperor's graven image and whispered, 'Lord Emperor, give me the
strength to do your bidding. I am but a man, with a man's courage, and need your holy wisdom to guide me in this, our time of
need.'
The statue remained silent and the commander of Hydra Cordatus turned on his heel, marching towards the door to the outer
chambers of the Sepulchre.
Vauban thought he had known anguish as he had watched the scenes of destruction at Jericho Falls and on the plains when the
Iron Warriors had tricked the gunners at Tor Christo into shelling their own men.
But with the fall of Tor Christo and the death of nearly seven thousand men, he knew the true depths of misery. So many dead,
and the battle not yet over.
He nodded to Leonid as he passed, his second-in-command closing the door to the candlelit house of the dead. The outer
chambers of the Sepulchre were light and airily constructed, as though the architects had understood that the human mind could
absorb only so much grief, and that there were times when it was good to rejoice in the immortality of the spirit.
Bright glow-globes, set behind arched windows of stained glass, threw gold and azure light across the marble-flagged floor.
Vauban paused to admire the handiwork of artists dead these last ten millennia. Scenes of battle were played out above him
alongside images of the Emperor ascending to his throne and feats of bravery of long-dead Space Marine heroes.
'Beautiful, aren't they?' whispered Vauban.
'Yes, sir, they are,' affirmed Leonid.
'Sad then, that they will be destroyed.'
'Sir?'
Vauban returned his gaze to his second-in-command with a sad smile. 'I think our enemies would as soon see this place reduced to
dust, don't you, Mikhail?'
'Possibly,' conceded Leonid, bitterly. 'But as long as we are not betrayed by one man's lust for glory, or anomer's cowardice, we
shall make them pay for every metre they advance.'
Vauban could understand Leonid's venom. Princeps Fierach had doomed nearly two thousand men to death when his Titans had
abandoned the Jourans to hunt the corrupted Imperator Titan. Those Titans that had survived the battle had wisely retreated to
their armoured hangars for repairs, their crews confined to barracks while the Legio's judiciary sought to apportion blame for the
debacle. Fierach's death made it that much easier for them, giving them a conveniently dead scapegoat. Princeps Daekian,
commander of the Warlord Titan Honoris Causa had come before the senior officers of the Jouran Dragoons in full dress uniform,
offering his sorrow and a formal apology on behalf of the Legio Ignatum.
For the sake of unity, Vauban had accepted the apology, but the words tasted bitter. Leonid had shown no such restraint, walking
up and striking Daekian. Vauban had been ready for the worst kind of reaction, but Princeps Daekian had merely nodded and said,
'That is your right and privilege, Lieutenant Colonel Leonid, and I bear you no ill-will.'
Princeps Daekian had then drawn his curved sabre, stepping forward to offer it, hilt first, to Leonid.
'But know this: the Legio Ignatum stands ready to fight at your side and we will not fail you again. I swear by my blade that it
shall be so.'
Vauban had been stunned. For an officer of the Legio to offer his sword to another was a declaration that should he fail in his
sworn duty, he was willing to be killed by his own blade, and have the gods of battle mock him for all eternity.
Leonid had stared at the blade for several seconds. In such circumstances it was customary for an officer and a gentleman to
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
refuse to accept the sword, indicating that the gesture was enough. But Leonid had taken the sword and thrust it through his
officer's sash before returning to his seat. Vauban had been disappointed, but not surprised. Leonid's battalion had been badly
mauled in the battle and he was determined to extract a blood price for his men's deaths.
Leonid wore the sword still, and Vauban knew that when word of this incident had reached the ears of the common soldiers, his
popularity had soared within the ranks.
'I am proud of you, Mikhail,' said Vauban suddenly. 'You have a quality that I do not: you have the ability to empathise with the
men in your command on every level. From the formality of the officers' mess to the gutter-talk of the barracks.'
'Thank you, sir,' beamed Leonid, pleased with his commander's sentiment.
'I am a competent and experienced leader,' continued Vauban, 'but I have never enjoyed the love of my soldiers. I have always told
myself that it is not necessary for my men to love me, only that they obey. Your men love and respect you, and, better, they trust
you not to lead them into harm's way without good reason.'
The two officers left the Sepulchre, pulling their uniform jackets tighter about themselves as they stepped into the whipping wind
that blew stiffly across the high peaks of the mountains. A thousand steps led downhill between eroded statues of faded Imperial
heroes, and an honour guard of fifteen soldiers awaited to escort them back to the citadel.
Both officers stared in trepidation at the blasted plain before the citadel, feeling a gut-twisting sense of despair at the sight that met
their eyes. Pillars of smoke curled skyward from countless forges and campfires as the enemy soldiers broke their fast this
morning. The plain was a mass of men and machines, supply depots and digging parties.
In the days after the fall of Tor Christo, the main east/west parallel had been extended westwards to the base of the rocky
promontory, and two zigzagging saps were being driven towards the citadel. The first was aimed at the salient angle of the Primus
Ravelin, while the second was on a course for Vincare bastion's left flank.
'We're not slowing them down enough,' said Vauban needlessly.
'No,' agreed Leonid, 'But we are slowing them.'
'Yes, but we need to stop them,' said Vauban, lifting his eyes to the blackened form of the Imperator Titan standing immobile at
