'Castellan Vauban, we must leave! The enemy are coming in overwhelming numbers with heavy support and I do not believe we
can hold them.'
'Not yet!' yelled Vauban. 'Give us enough time to set the explosives then fall back! We need you alive!'
'How long do you need?' asked Eshara, his voice muffled by nearby shots and detonations.
Vauban looked along the line of bucking war machines and said, 'Give us four minutes!'
'We'll try! But be ready to move when you see us falling back!'
'HOLD ON A minute!' snapped Hawke. 'Attach the bronze cable with the sacred halo symbol to the two pins with the what?'
Even over the vox-link, Hawke detected more than a trace of impatience in the magos's voice as he answered.
'The bronze cable attaches to the pins with the demi-cog symbol. Just like I said before. Once you have—'
'Hold on, hold on…' grumbled Hawke, fiddling with the cable clips as he fought to find the correct pins and hold the wire steady
over the exposed circuitry. The illuminator on his respirator was growing dim and he had to squint to see the symbols Beauvais
was talking about. There! He reached in and snapped the clips over the pins, flinching and almost losing his balance when they
sparked violently and burnt his fingertips.
He grabbed onto the steel gantry he was lying on and tried not to think of how high above the floor he was. The gantry was solidly
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
constructed, one of several bolted to the wall at various points around the room, presumably for technicians to carry out routine
maintenance to the torpedo. He seriously doubted it was used for people trying to hotwire the device. Behind him, a mesh grille in
the wall led off into darkness. It had taken him a frustrating twenty minutes to climb the ladder, find the correct access panel in the
side of the giant torpedo and use Hitch's knife to undo the sacred bolts that held it in place.
And over the past hour, he'd been mildly electrocuted twice, burnt his fingers three times and almost fallen thirty metres to the
solid rockcrete floor. Hawke was not a happy man. He steadied his breathing and spoke into the vox.
'You might have bloody warned me!' he complained.
'Is it done?'
'Yes, it's done.'
'Very good, you have now armed the torpedo.'
Hawke pushed himself back along the gantry, suddenly very alarmed at the prospect of this armed behemoth being less than a
metre from his head. 'It's armed. What next?'
'Now we have to inform the war-spirit within the torpedo the whereabouts of its victim.'
'Uh-huh…' shrugged Hawke. 'And how exactly do I do that?'
'You don't. I will perform that sacred task. Now, I need you to remove a red and gold cable embossed with the rune of telemetry,
then—'
'The what? Just tell me what the damn thing looks like.'
Beauvais sighed. 'It resembles a winged triangle with a cog at its centre. It is connected to the war-spirit's seeker chamber. That's
the gold box at the top of the panel. Once you have the cable, plug it into the vox-unit's remote triangulation output socket and
wait. Once the lights on the vox stop flashing, reattach the cable to the war-spirit's seeker chamber.'
Hawke found the plug and pulled it from the panel. He swore as he saw it would only extend some fifteen centimetres from the
torpedo. He lifted the vox unit to the edge of the gantry, propping it against one of the uprights. He slotted the cable home,
watching as the front panel of the vox unit faded and the lights arranged around the dial flickered in strange patterns. As the
sequence continued he propped himself up on one elbow, looking up at the top of the giant torpedo.
The top of the giant missile was rounded and strangely irregular. There was a serrated, spiral groove cut in the warhead and
Hawke guessed that this was to help it burrow through the thick hull of a starship before detonating deep inside.
He waited for several minutes before the clicking sequence of lights finally stopped, then unplugged the cable and reconnected it
to the torpedo. He thought he heard a noise below and glanced over the gantry. Dismissing it, he returned his attention to the
torpedo as Beauvais came back on the vox.
'The war-spirit now knows its prey, Hawke. Now you must speak the Chant of Awakening to set it on the hunt.'
'Ok, Chant of Awakening… right. And after that, then what?'
'Simply strike the rune of firing upon the—'
Beauvais never finished his sentence as a hail of bolter fire ripped through the vox and blasted it to fragments. Hawke jumped in
shock, grabbing onto the upright, very nearly going over the edge of the gantry.
'Emperor's holy blood!' he swore, grabbing his rifle and pressing his back against the cold metal grille in the wall behind him. His
breath pounded in his throat and his heart beat wildly against his chest. What the hell was going on?
He risked a glance over the gantry and saw a giant in iron-grey power armour with a smoking gun and a mechanised claw snaking
over his shoulder. Men in red uniforms clustered around the warrior, all carrying rifles aimed upwards.
A deep voice, rich and full of threat drifted up to him.
'You are going to die, little man. You have led us a merry dance, but now it is over.'
Hawke shut his eyes tight and whispered, 'Oh damn, oh damn, oh damn…'
INCANDESCENT FIRE ERUPTED from the first demolition charges, vaporising the chains and bindings holding the first daemon
engine in place. Painstakingly wrought symbols of arcane protection were incinerated and the mechanical components of the war
machine ran molten under the volcanic heat of the explosion. The scream of the daemon engine's death whiplashed around the
battery as the terrifying creature bound within its infernal mechanisms was freed by the blast.
Those closest, even though well clear of the explosives' blast radius, were swatted to the floor of the battery by its shriek of
release. A swirling hurricane of etheric energy, insane geometries warping through its daemonic form, tore through the Jourans
with the power of the immaterium, turning men inside out and exploding others from within as it shrieked in the throes of its
dissolution.
HONSOU HEARD THE screech of one of the creatures of the damned and cursed Kroeger again. Where were the men from his
company tasked with guarding these precious beasts? Creatures that had required countless thousands of lives and diabolical pacts
to conjure into being. The answer came easily enough: drunk on slaughter somewhere, slaking their thirst for blood in an orgy of
butchery.
He ducked as a hail of bullets stitched the trench wall before him and a clutch of human soldiers fell, their bodies blown apart by
the burst. He racked the slide on his own weapon, then paused as he realised the shots he'd heard were fired from a bolter. Honsou
stepped over their bleeding corpses and jerked his head around the bend in the trench. He was stunned to see a Space Marine in
yellow power armour firing down the trench. The length of the narrow earthen corridor was choked with bodies and there was no
way through.
Hundreds of human soldiers gathered behind him, fearfully clutching their primitive rifles as they crouched in the shelter of this
trench. They looked to him for guidance and Honsou snarled as he reached back and grabbed one by the neck, tossing him into the
approach trench. The man landed hard and, as he rose to his feet, bolter fire shredded him.
Before the body had even hit the ground, Honsou spun low around the corner of the trench, firing controlled bursts at the Space
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
Marine. His victim crumpled, his armour breached by his shots. Honsou's jaw hardened as he saw the clenched, black fist icon on
the warrior's left shoulder guard.
Imperial Fists! The ancient enemy, source of his polluted blood and cause of millennia of misery at the hands of those who were
not fit even to serve beside him.
Blind rage took Honsou and he roared in hate, charging through the body-filled trench, the desperate need to kill Imperial Fists
driving him onwards. Another yellow-armoured warrior appeared at the entrance to the battery and levelled his bolter, but Honsou
was quicker, pulling the trigger and emptying his weapon's magazine at the hated foe.
Sparks and earth flew as his shots ricocheted from the Space Marine's armour.
Honsou screamed in fury, throwing aside his bolter when the hammer slammed down empty, and drew his sword as the warrior
before him dropped to one knee and took careful aim.
He felt impacts slam into his chest, but nothing, not even death itself would prevent him from reaching his enemy. Pain ripped
through him, but he ignored it, hammering his boot into the Space Marine's breastplate. He reversed his grip on his sword hilt and
drove it downwards through the chest of the fallen warrior, hate-fuelled strength driving it hilt-deep into his victim.
Blood splashed him as a flaring explosion thundered through the battery and another daemon engine vanished in a sheet of flames,
its shriek momentarily drowning out the noise of the blast. Psychic Shockwaves buffeted Honsou and he felt the ancient malice of
a being that was ancient before mankind was born roar through him. He rejoiced in its hate, feeling it consume him, pouring fresh
vigour through his body as it took his unworthy flesh for its own. He spread wide his arms, actinic bolts of black lightning arcing
from his hands.
Destruction ripped through the battery as the bolts lashed out, indiscriminately ripping apart banks of soil, machinery and groups
of soldiers - both enemy and allied.
Honsou revelled in such carnage, though he knew that it was but borrowed power. Flaring purple afterimages seared across his
retinas, but he laughed, hurling spears of warp energy into the confused mass of men and machines. His body swelled as daemonic
power poured in. His armour buckled and he screamed as joints and sinews stretched, bones cracked and his jaw stretched wide in
a soundless cry of agony.
More thunderous detonations rocked the battery and Honsou felt yet another daemonic presence explode from within its iron
machine-prison. He dropped to his knees as the daemon within him suddenly withdrew, feeling its hatred of the newly-birthed
entity. As the power drained from him, he watched the two daemonic creatures spiralling heavenward, locked in battle and fading
from his vision even as he watched. He ached for such power again, even though he knew it would destroy him.
He groaned in pain as the terrible damage done to him by the daemon's brief occupancy surged through his nerve endings. He
pushed himself to his feet as the human soldiers swarmed around him, shooting into the mass of Guardsmen and Space Marines.
A mad shrieking filled the battery as more explosions lit up the night. A daemon engine, its bindings cracked and flailing, howled
as it fought to finally sever the magicks that bound it to the war machine. Men were crushed beneath its bronze treads, and
Honsou watched as its mighty gun swung ponderously around and fired repeatedly. The screaming projectiles sailed over his
head, exploding somewhere deep in the Iron Warriors' camp, and a string of secondary detonations swiftly followed.
Honsou dragged his sword from the body beside him, wincing as his tortured muscles protested. There were still Imperial Fists to
slay and he set off into the fiery hell of the battery to find them.
BOLTER IMPACTS RANG from the walls, almost deafening, and Hawke felt the impact of countless bullets hitting the underside of
the gantry. Desperately he hammered his elbow against the grille behind him, firing the lasgun blindly over the edge.
Sparking ricochets spanged from the torpedo and Hawke filled the air with a constant stream of expletives, expecting the damn
thing to blow with every impact. Fie could hear the metallic thunk, thunk, of boots on the ladder beside him, and rolled over in
time to see a grizzled face atop a red collar appear at the edge of the gantry.
He lashed out, his elbow smashing the man's nose across his face in a spray of blood. The man's hands flew to his face. He
screamed as he fell from the ladder.
Hawke yelled, 'And stay down!' before glancing over the edge of the gantry to watch him fall. A bullet streaked past him, grazing
his temple and he yelped in pain, blood washing down his face from the cut. He rolled back as another man clambered up the
ladder.
A bolter shell plucked at his sleeve and blood streamed from his bicep. His hand spasmed and he dropped the las-gun. It rolled to
the edge of the gantry and he lunged for the rifle, just stopping it from falling. Something heavy landed on him.
A fist cracked against his jaw, but he rolled with the blow, twisting his head aside as the man on top of him repeatedly punched
him.
Hawke drove his knee into the man's groin and delivered a thunderous head-butt as his opponent's shoulders dropped. He
hammered the heel of his hand into the man's neck and gripped his red overalls. Hawke slammed his head into the metalwork of
the railings before heaving him over the edge.
Another enemy soldier stood in front of him, aiming a rifle.
Hawke kicked out hard, cracking his boots against the man's legs and shattering his kneecaps. The man shrieked and dropped to
the floor of the gantry.
Hawke fired a hail of las-bolts, ripping the man's chest to bloody ruin and blasting clear the wall-mounted grille behind him. More
bullet impacts raked the wall around him and he rolled away from the gantry's edge, finding himself looking into the depths of the
torpedo's access panel.
How the hell did he fire this bloody thing?
He couldn't remember.
He heard more people climbing and cursed as he saw the charge indicator on the rifle flash red. Almost empty. He could see
another soldier had reached the top of the ladder. He snatched the late Guardsman Hitch's pride and joy from his belt and rammed
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
the full length of the Jouran fighting-knife into the man's neck. Bright arterial blood spurted from the wound, drenching Hawke.
He frantically wiped his eyes clear, scrambling back towards the torpedo and ramming the knife back in its scabbard.
