survivors, have them hunted down and killed. We cannot afford to be slowed further by your incompetence.'
Honsou bit back an angry retort and simply nodded stiffly before marching away.
THE HEART WAS a notoriously hard organ to burn, but the blue flames curling from its roasting muscle tissue were well worth the
effort thought Jharek Kelmaur, sorcerer to the Warsmith and Wielder of the Seven Cryptical Magicks. The darkness of his tent
was wreathed in ghostly shadows cast by the burning heart and moonlight pooling at its entrance. He rubbed his hands across his
tattooed skull, spreading his arms before the blazing organ.
Though his eyes were sewn shut, he stared into the flames, seeing spectral images, beyond the ken of mortal sight. They flickered
in and out of focus as his magicks sought to shape the power bestowed by this latest offering into a useable form. He opened his
mind to the glory of the warp, feeling the rush of power and fulfilment that came each time he communed with the immaterium.
As always he felt the scratching, insistent presence of innumerable astral beasts that clawed at any intrusion into their realm, their
mindless thrashings drawn by his presence.
Such formless phantoms were of no consequence to him, it was the other, mightier creatures that lurked in the haunted depths of
the warp that were of more concern.
He felt the warp-spawned energies flow through him, channelled and intensified by the carven sigils on his gold and silver
armour. Symbols of ancient geomantic significance helped contain the powerful energies he drew within his flesh, and though his
physique was enhanced, he knew that the power he was tapping could destroy him in an instant were he to lose control of it.
The power raced along his fragile nerve endings, dispersing throughout his body and a luminescent green fire built behind his
eyes, spilling out from beneath the stitching, and gathering like emerald tears on his cheeks before billowing out in a noxious
cloud of glittering fog. The fog twisted and spiralled, though no wind disturbed it, coiling from his mouth and eyes before slipping
around his shoulders like a snake.
Questing tendrils of green light slithered from the sorcerer and waved through the air to reach into the flames of the burning heart,
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
the flames hissing and sputtering with greater ferocity as they consumed it.
Fleeting images flashed before Kelmaur's eyes: the rock of Tor Christo, a hidden chamber in its depths, a disc of bronze that shone
like the sun and, enfolding it all, a slowly spinning cog wheel, its surface cracked and blemished. As Kelmaur watched, the cog
suddenly erupted with brown, necrotic threads of rust, each one spreading rapidly through its structure until it crumbled to dust.
As quickly as the vision had appeared, it vanished, to be replaced with one of a spear of white light arcing through the darkness,
its brilliance fading as it travelled before it was in turn replaced by a warrior in yellow power armour, his weapons trained directly
at Kelmaur. As he watched, the warrior turned his weapon towards the sorcerer and pulled the trigger, the barrel exploding in
brilliant light.
Jharek Kelmaur screamed and collapsed to the floor of his tent, blood leaking from every orifice in his head, and pounding pain
thundering against the innards of his skull.
He groggily pushed himself to his feet, steadying himself against the iron tent pole.
He moved unsteadily to a long, cot bed and sat on its edge, rubbing the heels of his palms against his inked temples and taking
deep breaths. It was the same as before, but with each passing vision, the intensity grew stronger and he knew a crucial time of
confluence was approaching.
He had to divine the meaning of the visions, though he feared he knew the answer to the second apparition. As the Iron Warriors
had attacked the spaceport, he had sensed a psychic signal reach out from the planet, too quick for him to block, yet surely too
weak to be received by its intended recipients. But Kelmaur was afraid that others may have heard it, and if they grasped its
significance, might already be on their way to this planet now. He had not told the Warsmith, and trusted that his master's warcaptains
would be able to complete the destruction of the citadel before whatever aid was coming to Hydra Cordatus arrived. He
had despatched the battle barge Stonebreaker to the system's distant jump point to lie in wait for any would-be-rescuers, but,
consumed by the nagging suspicion he was already too late, he had since recalled it.
His cabal of acolytes had spoken of mind whispers on the planet that were not theirs, and how this could be was a mystery to
Kelmaur. It would take great cunning to have evaded detection by the Stonebreaker, but then it wasn't here, was it… ? The vast
cargo ships that orbited this planet were not equipped with mystical surveyors that would allow them to detect any approaching
enemies. Had something slipped past while the Stonebreaker had been away?
And if so, where had it gone and what had it done in the intervening time?
Paranoia, his constant companion, held him tight in its grip and his mind was alive with all manner of fearsome possibilities.
Should he tell the Warsmith of his suspicions? Should he deal with it on his own? Should he feign ignorance?
None of the options were particularly appealing and Kelmaur was filled with a dreadful foreboding. As to the first vision… well,
that he was more sure of. He turned as a low moan sounded behind him.
He smiled grimly, staring into the face of Adept Cycerin.
The former priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus that Kroeger had almost killed in the attack on the spaceport was chained, naked, to
an angled trestle, part surgical table and part engineers' workbench. His missing hand had been replaced with an augmented bionic
gauntlet, its pulsating black surface daubed with ancient symbols of power. Encircling the wrist was a broad, spiked bracelet with
curved talons embedded deep in the flesh above the gauntlet. A modified form of the Obliterators' techno-virus seeped from the
talons, slowly working its way around Cycerin's body. Eruptions of mecha-organic components appeared all over his flesh, their
form fluid, yet angular. His flesh seethed with the workings of the virus as they integrated themselves with his organic matter.
Jharek Kelmaur smiled humourlessly and rose to go to the twitching priest of the Machine God.
The changes wracking his body must have been painful, but the adept's face gave no sign of it. Instead his features were twisted in
rapture and obscene pleasure.
'Yes,' whispered Kelmaur. 'Feel the power of the new machine fill your flesh. You have great work ahead of you.'
Cycerin opened his eye, the pupil a dilated black, its internal surfaces alive with crawling, newly-birthed circuitry. He smiled and
nodded towards the pulsing gauntlet.
'More,' he hissed. 'Give me more…'
THREE
ON THE TWENTIETH day of the siege the two saps driven forward from the first parallel were linked by a second parallel, some six
hundred metres from the edge of the ditch protecting the walls of the frontal bastions. This was well within the range of the
unerringly accurate Imperial gunners and thousands of lives had been expended to complete the second parallel, but the Iron
Warriors were heedless of the human cost of such endeavours. All that mattered was that the Warsmith's orders were obeyed.
The second parallel stretched from the ground in front of the Vincare bastion's salient to that before the tip of Mori bastion. The
second parallel's northern face was piled high with rammed earth and revetted with iron hoardings to ensure that it could withstand
artillery impacts. A well laid out battery was constructed at either end, their firing embrasures placed perpendicular to each
bastion's flank.
Already, markers had been laid for yet another approach sap, this time aimed at the head of the Primus Ravelin, but until the
batteries had had a chance to open fire and dismount most of the citadel's wall guns, work could not yet begin. This was siegework
at its most brutal and obvious. There would be no methodical approach to flank each of the bastions in turn, but a full frontal
advance on the works, with batteries to pound the walls to oblivion before a devastating assault was unleashed.
With the establishment of the batteries, the trenches behind were widened and deepened to allow the daemonic war machines to
move safely to the front line. Lessons had been learnt following the destruction unleashed by the rampaging war machine in the
trenches approaching Tor Christo, and those charged with keeping the monstrous daemon engines in check were taking no
chances.
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
The following morning, the guns placed in the batteries of the second parallel opened fire in conjunction with those situated on the
northern slopes of Tor Christo's promontory. The guns in the batteries were not yet close enough to fire over the lip of the glacis -
the raised area of ground before the ditch that prevented enemy artillery from striking the vulnerable base of the walls - but they
could hammer the ramparts and make the firing step untenable for the defenders. And this they did with remarkable efficiency,
smashing the wall head with solid projectiles and reducing the thick ramparts to jagged piles of rubble. Counterbattery fire from
the citadel was desultory and shots that did strike home were either deflected by the reinforced earthworks or, in the case of the
guns on Tor Christo, found to be out of range.
Hundreds of men died in the first minutes of the bombardment, before the order was given to fall back within the bastions'
enclosures. For the men of Mori bastion this was a life saving order, but for many of those in Vincare it proved to be a death
sentence.
Howitzers from the promontory now fired explosive shells on high trajectories, landing their bombs within the walls of Vincare
bastion and shredding the men gathered within its walls. Scores of men died with each shrieking explosion, the airbursting shells
taking a fearsome toll, razor fragments ripping flesh and bone apart with ease. Officers rallied their men, shouting at them to take
cover within the wall bunkers.
As their targets took shelter, the guns on the promontory shifted their fire to the interior of the citadel, their increased elevation
giving them the range to drop shells inside the perimeter of the inner curtain wall. Three large barrack buildings were gutted by
fire and a handful of others reduced to rubble before Arch Magos Amaethon was able to raise the energy shield that protected the
inner citadel.
The shelling continued throughout the day, ripping apart the tops of the two bastions and the ravelin, dismounting a huge number
of guns and rendering much of their frontal sections wide open.
As night fell and the guns continued to pound the citadel, hundreds of slaves trudged through the approach trenches from their
corpse-infested dug-outs and began digging the approach sap forward.
FOUR
VAUBAN CIRCLED THE briefing table and poured each of his weary officers a glass of amasec, searching their faces for signs of
resignation. Pleased to find none, he returned to his seat at the head of the table, poured another glass and set it before Gunnar
Tedeski's empty seat.
All the officers appeared to have aged, their features lined with fatigue and numb with the unceasing, grinding nature of the siege.
Morgan Kristan looked the worst, his arm in a bloody sling and a wide bandage wrapped around his midriff where fragments from
an exploding shell had torn into him. His men in the Vincare bastion had taken a battering and he had been there with them during
it.
All his officers had been blooded now and he was fiercely proud of them.
'Gentlemen,' began Vauban, raising his glass. 'To you all.'
His officers raised their glasses and drained their amasec as one. Vauban set down his glass and poured himself another. None of
the men gathered around the table said anything as the castellan of Hydra Cordatus sipped his drink.
Leonid consulted a featureless gold box before nodding slowly to Vauban.
Eventually Vauban broke the silence, saying, 'We are in a perilous position, gentlemen. The enemy is at the gates and if the
estimates of our engineers are correct, we have days at best before they breach our walls and enter the citadel.'
'I pledge that my men will fight to the last,' vowed Morgan Kristan, slamming the table with his one good hand.
'As will those of Battalion C,' echoed Piet Anders.
Vauban suppressed a sly smile and said, 'Hopefully that will not be necessary. There have been some… unexpected developments
in the last few hours and Lieutenant Colonel Leonid has a plan that may buy us some more time. The enemy artillery, especially
that on the promontory, is killing us. To have any chance of survival we must knock it out, and that will not be easy. Mikhail?'
Leonid stood and checked the gold box again to make sure that the vox-scrambler was functioning properly before handing out
data-slates to the senior officers of the Jourans. Leonid and Vauban watched as each man scanned the contents of the slate, their
expressions changing from weariness to sudden hope.
'Is it really true?' asked Major Anders.
'It is, Piet,' confirmed Leonid. 'I have seen them.'
'An entire company?' breathed Kristan. 'How?'
Vauban raised his hand, halting further questions and said, 'The files you are holding in your hands are to be considered the most
sacred thing in your possession, gentlemen. Follow the orders within them. Do so with care and resolution, and tell no one outside
this room what we are about. Be ready to move on this plan the instant I give the order, for if you are not, then we truly are lost.'
Morgan Kristan scanned further down the slate and grunted as he saw a familiar name.
'Is there a problem, Major Kristan?' asked Leonid.
'There may be,' nodded Kristan. 'Any plan that involves - relies even - on Hawke, scares me to the soles of my boots.'
'Do not concern yourself with Hawke's involvement in this,' soothed Vauban. 'I have faith in him, and Lieutenant Colonel Leonid
will handle that part of the plan.'
