this warrior pulsed along every nerve of his body.
In a calm voice he said, 'I am Castellan Prestre de Roche Vauban the sixth, heir to the lands of Burgovah on the planet Joura, scion
of the House of Vauban. Cross blades with me if you wish to die, foul daemon.'
The warrior smiled. 'I have no such impressive titles, human. I am called Honsou. Half-breed, mongrel, filth, scum. I will cross
blades with you.'
Vauban activated the blade of his sword and dropped into a fighting crouch as Honsou approached. The battery fell silent as the
two combatants circled one another, searching for a weakness in the other's defence.
Vauban raised his sword in salute and, without warning, leapt towards Honsou, thrusting with his energised blade.
Honsou swayed aside and swept his sword round, slashing the blade towards Vauban. He ducked and spun away, slashing high
with his sword.
Honsou deflected the sweep and stepped back, his sword raised before him. Vauban recovered his balance and advanced towards
Honsou. He lunged again and Honsou expertly blocked the thrust, rolling his wrists and slashing at Vauban's head. But he had
read the move in Honsou's eyes and the castellan dodged the blow.
Wary now, the pair again circled each other, their defences alert for any sudden moves.
Honsou attacked, a flashing whirlwind of steel, forcing Vauban backwards step by step. Vauban parried a vicious slash aimed at
his chest, launching a lightning riposte at his foe. The blade scraped a deep furrow in Honsou's armour, but slid clear before
drawing blood.
Honsou retreated and Vauban followed with a grin of anticipation, launching himself at Honsou with fresh vigour. Honsou was a
powerful warrior, but Prestre Vauban had been a student of swordplay his entire life and each attack drew fresh blood from his
adversary.
He hammered his enemy's defences again and again, forcing him slowly backwards until Honsou stumbled and lost his footing.
Vauban spun left and struck out at Honsou's sword arm. Honsou was quick, bringing his block up just in time to intercept the
blow, and their weapons met in a coruscating halo of sparks. Vauban roared as Honsou's blade snapped and his own smashed
home. The Iron Warrior grunted in pain as his arm was severed just above the elbow.
Honsou retreated, stumbling as blood sprayed from the stump of his arm.
Seizing the opportunity, Vauban leapt in to deliver the deathblow, but, at the last second, realised that Honsou had lured him into
the attack.
Honsou roared and stepped to meet Vauban, slamming inside his guard and hammering the snapped length of his sword blade
through his silver breastplate and into his heart.
White-hot pain flooded Vauban as Honsou twisted the blade, bright blood pouring down his chest and darkness veiling his sight.
Had he heard someone crying his name?
He felt his lifeblood pouring from him and looked into the eyes of his killer.
'Damn you…' he whispered.
'That happened a long time ago, human,' hissed Honsou, but Vauban was already dead.
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
SIX
DAWN BROKE ACROSS the valley, scarlet beams of light throwing its unforgiving glare over a scene of utter devastation. A pall of
grey dust hung heavy in the air and smothered all sounds in an unnatural silence.
The Warsmith surveyed the destruction before him with an impassive eye. The swirling metamorphic shadows that wreathed his
features were a clue to his fury, and none of his war-captains dared approach their master for fear of his rage. The writhings in his
armour spun faster, their agonised mewling becoming more desperate.
Two batteries all but destroyed, the guns on Tor Christo gone and almost every daemon engine shattered. Millions of rounds of
artillery had been blown to pieces, thousands were dead and weeks of work had been buried under the rubble of a destroyed
mountain.
The Warsmith turned to face his captains and not one was spared a moment of utter terror as he advanced towards them. Each of
them could see that the forces of change at work within the Warsmith's body were increasing at a furious rate and the force of his
presence was almost overpowering.
'You disappoint me,' he said simply.
Each captain felt the horrendous changes working in the Warsmith's body wash over them. He leaned close to his first captain.
'Forrix, I trusted you to have our siegeworks at the walls by now. They are not.'
He moved on. 'Kroeger, I trusted you to protect my war-engines. You did not.'
The Warsmith faced his last war-captain, his voice dangerously soft and controlled.
'Honsou, you have been blessed by the touch of a creature of Chaos. You are now one of us. You have done well and I shall not
forget this service you have done me.'
Honsou nodded his thanks, flexing the freshly-grafted mechanical arm the Warsmith's personal Chirumek had gifted him with at
the conclusion of last night's battle.
The Warsmith stepped back, his monstrous form swelling and the darkness of his face parting for the briefest moment to reveal
the roiling chaos beneath.
He roared, his voice like the bellow of an angry god, 'I do not have time to be thwarted in my ascension by your incompetence. Go
now! Get out of my sight and break open that citadel!'
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
THE THIRD PARALLEL
ONE
IT WAS FITTING that the interment of Castellan Prestre Vauban took place under overcast skies. Colonel Leonid - Castellan Leonid
now - thought it would have been inappropriate for the sun to be out on this sombre day.
It had been two days since the torpedo had struck Tor Christo, but thick clouds of ash still hung low in the blood-red sky, plunging
the valley into perpetual twilight and dropping the temperature to almost freezing. Leonid shivered as he made his way up the
thousand steps on the northern flank of the valley towards the Sepulchre. He was one of the four pallbearers carrying their dead
leader to his final resting place.
A final honour guard of two thousand men lined the last route of their commander, one on each side of every wide step, and
Leonid felt tears gather in the corners of his eyes at this spontaneous tribute.
Vauban had said that he believed his men did not love him.
Now Leonid knew he had been wrong.
Between them, Morgan Kristan, Piet Anders and Brother-Captain Alaric Eshara of the Imperial Fists carried a bier of dark Jouran
oak upon which lay a simple ebony casket. Inside lay the mortal remains of Castellan Vauban, his bones prepared by the Magos
Biologis to take their place in the Sepulchre's ossuary. The day was deathly silent, as though even the enemy paid tribute to the
brave warrior who was laid to rest.
Thinking of the enemy sent fresh tears spilling from Leonid's eyes.
He had watched the Iron Warrior drive his sword through Castellan Vauban's chest, as he screamed a denial and dropped to his
knees in the rubble-filled battery. Captain Eshara and Librarian Corwin had driven the foe away from the castellan's body, and the
soldiers of the 383rd Jouran Dragoons had borne their commander-in-chief back to the citadel.
He hoped that Vauban had died knowing how successful his daring raid into the enemy's camp had been. Virtually every war
machine in the battery had been destroyed, either by Jouran bombs or the cataclysmic detonation of the orbital torpedo. Emperor
alone knew how much collateral damage had been caused by the fallout from the explosion.
Leonid again offered his thanks to the almighty God-Emperor that He had seen fit to deliver the Imperial Fists to them. Not only
had their arrival caused the morale of the garrison to soar, but the news they brought had made Leonid believe that there was real
hope.
News of their arrival had reached him just before he was due to present his plan of attack to Castellan Vauban. At first he had not
believed it, thinking it to be some cruel hoax, but as he sprinted from his chambers and saw them, ash-stained and weary, he'd
raised his eyes to the heavens and blessed the name of Rogal Dorn.
Fle'd run to the Imperial Fists, but all he could think to say was, 'How?'
The leader of the Space Marines said, 'Brother-Captain Eshara. Are you the commanding officer here?'
'Uh, no…' he'd managed. 'Castellan Vauban commands the citadel. I am Lieutenant Colonel Leonid, his second-in-command.
Where did you come from?'
'Thejustitia Fides, our strike cruiser, was about to make the jump into the Empyrean when the astropaths reported a faint distress
signal emanating from this planet,' explained Captain Eshara. 'The prefix on the signal was of sufficient urgency that I
immediately ordered them to pass it on to the naval base at Hydraphur before turning the ship back to Hydra Cordatus.'
'But what about the enemy vessels in orbit?'
'We narrowly avoided detection by a Chaos warship near the jump point, but once we were clear, I ordered best speed to the
source of the distress signal. It was a relatively simple matter to evade detection by the cargo hulks in orbit, but to avoid being
spotted by enemy ground troops we flew the Thunderhawks to the mountains some hundred kilometres north of this fastness.
After that, we simply crossed the mountains on foot to reach you.'
Leonid still marvelled at Eshara's casual description of his men's incredible journey across the mountains. Two days to cross some
of the most inhospitable terrain Leonid had ever seen. It had taken Guardsman Hawke almost a full day to cross eight kilometres,
never mind a hundred.
Not only that, but less than five hours later, the Space Marines had fought a major battle and emerged triumphant. The Battle of
the Battery was as much their victory as the Jourans'.
Leonid shivered as he looked up at the grim, black tower before them, hating its bleak austerity and wishing that they did not have
to perform this solemn duty. But perform it they must. He lowered his eyes as they approached the doors to the Sepulchre.
Tonsured priests stood at the open portal with their heads bowed. Smoking censers hung from hooks beside the door, giving off
the heady aroma of Jouran incense.
As the pallbearers entered the Sepulchre, a lone voice sounded from the ranks of the assembled soldiers, '383rd, present arms!'
The sound of two thousand men slamming their heels down on the steps echoed from the mountainsides and the valley resounded
to the deafening salute of rifles firing in perfect unison.
THE BRIEFING CHAMBER was hot, despite the chill of the day, as the citadel's commanding officers filed into the room. Even
though he was now in command of the Jouran Dragoons, Leonid was not sitting at the head of the meeting table, but in his usual
seat to the right of Vauban's chair.
He watched as the officers of his regiment - his regiment now, the thought had not yet sunk in - entered the briefing chamber,
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
saluting before they took their seats. They looked to him for leadership now, and he just hoped he could provide it.
Vauban had been a natural leader who made command look effortless, but the last two days had shown Leonid how difficult it
truly was. Every day, a hundred decisions had to be made and each one had potentially life-threatening consequences. Could he
really take charge of the regiment and command the citadel's defences? He didn't know.
Morgan Kristan and Piet Anders took their usual seats. Opposite them sat the two leaders of the Imperial Fists detachment:
Brother-Captain Eshara and Librarian Corwin, their polished armour a brilliant yellow. Leonid felt grateful for their support and
knew he would need to rely on them more than ever over the coming days now that Vauban was gone. Princeps Daekian and
Magos Naicin were also present, but their placement further down the table was indicative of their status as pariahs to the Jourans.
Major Kristan lifted the bottle of amasec from the tray at the table's centre with his good arm and poured a glass for himself,
Leonid and Anders before also filling the glasses at the empty seats of Vauban and Tedeski. He offered the two Space Marines a
drink, but both politely refused. Pointedly, he did not offer a drink to the new commanding officer of the Legio Ignatum or the
representative of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Piet Anders took out a bundle of thin, twine-bound cheroots, the kind Vauban had
enjoyed, from inside his uniform jacket and offered them around the table. All the Jouran officers took one in honour of their
former leader, but again the Space Marines declined.
Once the drinks were poured and the cigars lit, Leonid raised his glass, sweeping his eyes around the regimental colours and
shields mounted on the wall. So many men had garrisoned this place, so many forgotten heroes. He promised himself that Prestre
Vauban would not go unremembered.
'To Castellan Prestre Vauban,' toasted Leonid, raising his glass.
'Castellan Vauban,' repeated the officers, draining their amasec in a single gulp.
Leonid took a draw on the cheroot, coughing as the acrid smoke caught in his throat. A few chuckles greeted his discomfort. They
all knew he disapproved of such vices.
'Gentlemen,' began Leonid, grimacing in distaste at the smoking cheroot. 'It has been over three weeks since this siege began, and
though it has been hard and we have seen good friends fall, we've given these Chaos scum a bloody nose they'll not forget.
Regardless of the eventual outcome of this battle, I want you all to know that you have done all that honour demands and I am
proud to have fought beside you.'
Indicating the Space Marine on his immediate left, Leonid continued. 'Captain Eshara informs me that the Imperium is now aware
of our plight, and that relief is en route to us even as we speak. Captain Eshara expects aid to arrive within—'
'Fifteen to twenty days at the most,' said Eshara, his voice clipped and regal. 'Fortunately, there is an Adeptus Mechanicus
astrotelepath way-station less than twenty light years from where we picked up your distress call and naval vessels are within easy
reach. The alert code we encrypted in the communique will ensure swift reaction.'
Smiles broke out across the table and hands were shaken in congratulation as Leonid pressed on. Aid is on its way, but in order to
