features, above a sphincter-like mouth, ringed with needle teeth.
'Mutant,' spat Eshara, raising his pistol.
The four Guardsmen were transfixed in horrified wonder at the bizarre sight before them. And their perverse fascination killed
them.
The figure atop the rhomboid raised its arms, its flesh writhing as they transformed into two massive-barrelled weapons. A roaring
crescendo of fire erupted from the weapons, blasting through Leonid's honour guard and disintegrating them in a heartbeat. Leonid
once more dived for cover behind the drilling rig as Eshara charged towards the giant figure at the chamber's centre.
Magos Naicin hissed and leapt to intercept him, moving with inhuman speed, his arms whipping out and toothed proboscis
erupting from his fingertips to smash Eshara from his feet. Hissing ichor splashed Eshara's shoulder guard, the ceramite plates of
his armour rapidly dissolving beneath it. The Space Marine captain rolled beneath the questing mouths as Naicin came at him
again, hissing acids spraying from his lashing, whip-like hands.
Leonid took advantage of the distraction to rest his pistol against the track guard of the drilling rig and take aim at the monstrous
figure that had killed his men.
The gun arms had changed again, morphing into long, ribbed cables that waved like serpents. As he squinted down the barrel, the
figure's ribs cracked wide open, spreading apart like some ancient moss-covered gateway. A dozen grooved tentacles of dripping
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
green metal snaked from his chest cavity and spiralled through the air as though searching for something.
Leonid squeezed the trigger, the las-blast striking the figure in the head.
But a blaze of green light flared and Leonid saw his target was unharmed.
Leonid fired again and again, but his shots were wasted. The thing on the platform was invulnerable. The metallic tentacles
continued to lengthen, hooking into the banks of machines around the chamber's centre. More tentacles sprouted from the writhing
mass of biomechanical intestines, slipping through the air like branches of a tree and attaching themselves to the life-preserving
mechanics of the Machine Temple and the regulatory systems of the citadel.
Alarm bells chimed and warning lights flashed around the chamber's circumference.
Leonid knew he could do nothing to stop the vile creature without Eshara and rushed towards the Space Marine, who was fighting
the abhorrent mutant.
Eshara swung his sword at Naicin, but the thing moved with blinding speed, its dripping proboscises swaying aside from his every
blow. The captain's bolt pistol was a molten pile on the floor and Leonid could see Eshara's armour was pierced by several
smoking round holes where Naicin's corrosive proboscis had struck. He raised his pistol.
'Step back, Brother-Captain,' ordered Leonid.
Eshara dodged a blow aimed at his heart and rapidly backed away from the disgusting mutant. Naicin drew back to the base of the
rhomboid platform as the chamber's omnipresent amber light dimmed, changing to a sickly green. Leonid drew a bead on the
mutant's head.
Naicin chuckled, the sound somewhere between slurping and gurgling. 'Fools! You cannot win. You can kill me, but my masters
will trample your bones within the day.'
'Why, Naicin?' asked Leonid.
'I could ask you the same question,' spat Naicin. 'You do not even know what you fight to protect.'
'We fight to protect a world of the Emperor, mutant,' snapped Eshara.
Naicin laughed, a horrible retching noise. 'You think your Emperor cares about this world? Look around you, it is a wasteland! A
wasteland created by human hands. This was once a fertile and bountiful world until the Adeptus Mechanicus sought to make it
their own. Virus bombs killed every living thing on the surface of this world and rendered it uninhabitable for centuries.'
'You lie. Why should the Adeptus Mechanicus do such a thing?'
'They wanted to make sure no one ever desired this world. So that when they built their geno-labs here, they would be undisturbed
and forgotten. You stand in one of the most hallowed places of the Adeptus Mechanicus and you don't even know it. The geneseed
you prize so highly, the future of the Space Marines… this is one of only two places in the galaxy where it is created and
stored.'
Seeing the look of horrified shock on Eshara's face, Naicin laughed. 'Yes, captain, when the Warsmith and the Despoiler have
your gene-seed they will use it to create Legions of Space Marines loyal to the glory of Chaos!'
'But you won't be around to see it,' snarled Eshara plucking the pistol from Leonid's hand and pulling the trigger.
Naicin's head exploded, showering the platform with stinking yellow fluid and scraps of rubbery, tentacled flesh. The corpse
slumped to the ground as Eshara pumped another four shots into the body.
Eshara wordlessly handed the pistol back to Leonid as alarms began shrieking throughout the chamber. Both men looked up as the
figure on the platform was lifted from its feet, its arms spreading wide in a cruciform pattern. More and more cabled tentacles
sprouted from its body, the green haze that filled the chamber pulsing from deep within its chest.
Explosions of jade sparks burst from the edges of the room, flickering lines of lethal electricity arcing from machine to machine as
the corruption of the techno-virus spread to every system of the citadel.
A lashing tongue of electrical discharge licked the ground beside Leonid and Eshara, and the two warriors stumbled away from
the monster in front of them. Explosions filled the chamber and a crackling storm of lightning blazed through the Machine
Temple. Eshara gathered Leonid into the shelter of his body as he sprinted for the ragged hole of the door. Spears of emerald
lightning flashed around the chamber. A bolt struck Eshara's back and he grunted in pain, diving through the doorway as forks of
green fire blasted behind him.
Eshara rolled aside as the unnatural lightning danced across the door to the Machine Temple, forming a crackling electrical web
that completely blocked the entrance.
The two scrambled away from the pulsing green light, breathless and groaning in pain.
Eshara pushed himself to his feet and offered his hand to Leonid, who gripped his wounded shoulder and pulled himself upright.
Before either man could speak, the vox-bead in Eshara's helmet crackled and the captain listened intently to the message he was
receiving.
Leonid could tell the news was not good.
'Well?' he asked, expecting the worst.
'It has begun. The shield has gone down and the enemy are attacking once more.'
Leonid nodded and looked back into the sealed green hell of the Machine Temple.
'Then our place is on the walls,' he said grimly.
THE REMAINING TWO Titans of the Legio Mortis advanced on the citadel accompanied by a wave of Vindicator tanks and fortytwo
screaming Dreadnoughts. Nearly six thousand battered soldiers in red uniforms sprinted amongst this armoured thrust and
dropped into the ditch, its surfaces smooth and vitrified by the plasma fire from the downed Titans.
Sunfire shells streaked into the darkness as alarms rang from the citadel and scattered shots lanced out to the charging horde.
Honsou watched from the bastions mounted atop the shoulders of the Pater Mortis, nearly thirty metres above the ground. He saw
the Vindicators pull into their firing revetments along the third parallel and pound the weakened walls of the citadel, bringing
down vast quantities of masonry as the Dreadnoughts made for the ditch. He gripped the edge of the bastion's iron pallisading as
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
the Titan stepped down into the ditch, the rubble claws fitted over its massive feet keeping its stride sure.
Sixty-two Iron Warriors, all that remained of his company, filled the bastions either side of the Titan's head, ready to be unleashed
upon the ramparts of the inner wall of the citadel. The Imperial defenders had abandoned the outer wall and the shield was down.
They would never get a better chance than this.
The fire against the bastions and curtain wall slackened as the Titans closed with the walls, now little more than shattered piles of
rubble. Honsou raised his sword in salute to the Dies Irae as they passed over its molten remains.
Honsou glanced to his right, making out the shadow of the Legio's other remaining Titan, its bastions crammed with Forrix's
warriors. This was the last assault and it could not afford to fail. He braced himself as the mighty war machine battered its way
through the breach torn by the death of the Dies Irae and felt the rumbling roar of fury build from within the daemon Titan.
Powerful blasts of gunfire ripped from both war machines, blowing great chunks from the inner wall and demolishing whole
sections of rampart.
The gap between the inner and outer wall was empty of foes; the Warhounds that had frustrated the first assault wisely having
withdrawn behind the inner wall. Soldiers on the wall opened fire, but the Titans' shields were proof against such pinpricks.
Flickering green fires played around the wall-mounted guns. Flonsou could not understand why they were not firing, but gave
thanks to the dark gods for their silence.
As the two Titans thundered forwards, the Vindicators churned over the breaches in the outer wall. The walls shook with
thunderous impacts from the siege tanks, the inner gate pounded by shell after shell. The Dreadnoughts added their own weight of
fire to the barrage. Three of the insane war machines, gripped in the frenzy of battle, lumbered forward to attack the gate with
their massive hammer arms, only to be caught in the Vindicators' fire and blown apart.
The gap closed with every step of the Pater Mortis, and Honsou could clearly see the faces of the men lining the walls. Las-fire
slashed towards him, but he laughed, feeling utterly invincible. He swayed forward as the Titan's arms pistoned into the walls,
bracing hooks punching deep within the rockcrete.
Seconds later, the battle drawbridges slammed down from the shoulder bastions, crushing the rampart beneath them as they
dropped.
Honsou raised his sword and charged onto the walls, shouting, 'This place is ours! Show no mercy!'
He jumped onto the rampart, hacking a trio of Guardsmen to death with one blow and firing his bolt pistol down the line of the
walls. Hundreds of warriors were arrayed against them, but Honsou faced them all without fear, killing with preternatural skill.
Iron Warriors fanned out from the Titan's shoulder bastions, slaughtering the defenders and hurling them back. The noise was
tremendous as the ramparts became slick with blood and entrails. Each time the Iron Warriors came close to breaking through the
defenders' lines, the Imperial Fists would lead a desperate counterattack and push them back and hold the line together. Honsou
killed another Guardsman and risked a glance to where Forrix led his warriors. Here too, the Iron Warriors were confronted with
the incredible tenacity and stubborn defiance of the citadel's defenders.
They were holding, but only just, and Honsou saw they were close to breaking.
Honsou blocked a blow aimed at his neck and disembowelled his attacker as a monstrous, black shadow, darker than the blackest
night fell across the walls. For the briefest second, the fighting slowed as heads craned upwards to see what new devilment had
been unleashed.
With a thunder that cracked the walls, the Warsmith crashed down on the rampart, the newborn darkness of powerful wings
spread behind him. Guardsmen around him dropped, vomiting blood and convulsing. His arms swept out, his taloned hand and
mighty axe killing everything within reach. The darkness enfolding the Warsmith's head billowed and spat bolts of dark light that
dissolved everything it struck.
Screams of terror spread along the walls and horrified soldiers turned and fled before this diabolical apparition. The Warsmith
reared up to his full height, his armour stretching and swelling, the keening faces bound within his armour straining and wailing a
banshee's choir.
Shaking off his amazement, Honsou bellowed, 'We have them now!'
He charged after the fleeing mass of soldiers, hacking them down with his sword. The Imperial front line collapsed and not even
the Imperial Fists could halt the rout.
He could see Forrix slaughtering fleeing Guardsmen by the dozen. A terrific crash echoed from below, and Honsou knew the
citadel's inner gate had fallen. The Warsmith took to the air once more as the carnage on the walls continued, casting his pall of
corruption and change throughout the ramparts.
Honsou kicked down the iron door to one of the giant towers that flanked the gate and dived through, firing as he rolled. The
soldiers within the tower screamed in terror as he rose to his feet. They were no threat, but he killed them anyway.
He swiftly made his way down the stairs, his blood afire and singing with the promise of victory.
'Iron Warriors! With me! The citadel is ours!'
FORRIX THUNDERED DOWN the stairs of the tower, firing as he went. The stair spiralled downwards to the left, bolter shells
whining and ricocheting from the walls. On two levels there were defensible landings, but the furious assault of the Iron Warriors
could not be stopped. Forrix and his Terminators smashed each one aside with ease.
Even as he killed, he marvelled at the appearance of the Warsmith. Their leader stood at the very cusp of daemon-hood, the
changes wracking his body becoming more manifest. Surely his final ascension was at hand? Forrix had sensed a terrible urgency
to the Warsmith, and knew that he was fighting to hold his form coherent. One wrong move now and the Warsmith could just as
easily explode into the thrashing riot of anatomies of a Chaos spawn, doomed for an eternal life of mindless mutation.
The base of the tower levelled into a wide killing zone, but it had been designed to defend against attacks from outside, not inside,
and the defenders had nothing to shelter behind. Las-fire raked the walls beside Forrix. He swept his combi-bolter around the
room, slaughtering Guardsmen with every pull of the trigger.
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
