‘I didn’t–’ Aximand started to say.
‘Tell him?’ asked the primarch.
‘I didn’t… recognise my true motive,’ Aximand replied, with reluctance.
‘Interesting when you see it, though, don’t you think?’ the Warmaster asked, sitting back. ‘You and Ezekyle, Widowmaker and Noctua, all of you… What is it you call it? True sons?’
‘True sons,’ Aximand echoed.
‘So, do you suppose,’ the Warmaster chuckled, ‘it is because you prefer the reassurance of a familiar face? Or is there another face you wish to block out?’
DRY AIR, COOL, a faint hint of salt. The Sea of Enna in the flat rift valley below, like a sheet of glass in a culvert. Along its shore, the teeming city of Tyjun, collected like flotsam, like multicoloured shingle. On the far side of the immense valley, across the back of the sleeping sea, the block line of the opposite valley wall, squared off and velvet black in the dawn light. The sky was violet, shot with stars and occasional moons. To the north, the pre-glow of the rising sun. To the east, the false dawn of the port, on fire since midnight. That was the handiwork of Jerrod and Thirteenth Company.
In the high morning of the Mausolytic plateau, the buildings of the Precinct stood like stone hangars for vast airships. Rectangles, unadorned, they were faced with yellow stone rendered gold by the early light. In places they were linked by soaring colonnades and porticos, gold stone columns the size of ancient redwoods. The pavements were made of etched steel, polished like mirrors. The atmosphere held a dry, static charge, as if great electromagnetic machines operated nearby.
The vaunted Chainveil made no appearance in the direct line at the Precinct. Chainveil soldiers caused a brief delay to Abaddon’s advance into the City of Elders. The First Captain made curt, grudging reports of their determined resistance. Goshen’s advance took a bastion west of the city where the defenders boasted they were Chainveil, but Goshen was sure they were merely regular army claiming to be the elites, so as to seem more intimidating.
He slew them all, anyway.
The Tyjunate Compulsories, resplendent in silver and crimson wargear, formed the main defence. The troopers were armed with long power swords, with energised axes and pikes, with munition-loaders, with sonic tubes, with plasmic-system weapons and las-rifles. Entering combat, they engaged individual, segmented force shields, light-absorbing fog that dimmed the glory of their ritual uniforms and made them look as if they’d each been enveloped in a hand-cut piece of storm cloud.
The shields were annoyingly effective, and deflected most gunfire over a certain range. When a Legiones Astartes bolt-round did pierce them, either through a direct hit or by finding the joint between segments, the Compulsory inside detonated, and his explosive demise was contained, pressurised, inside the shield, like a firecracker destroying a piece of soft fruit inside a bottle. The noise of it was dull, muted, like the slap of a muffled bass drum.
It was infuriating. Dug in around the looming structures of the Precinct, the Compulsories were actually retarding a Legiones Astartes assault. They were holding the line against the Sixteenth.
Yet they were men. Just men. Aximand felt a sense of injustice. The force shields, certainly not the best he’d ever seen, but made effective by their individual mounts and portability, were giving the Compulsories enough of an edge to botherthe Sons of Horus. It was an aberration brought about by circumstance. Human soldiers, no matter how good they were, did not resist transhuman soldiers. Aximand wanted to crush them, pulverise them for their temerity, to call in an orbital barrage, ranged shelling, or even one of the squadrons of superheavy armour pieces that were basking nearby like vast crocodilian predators in the rising sun, waiting for his word to send them slipping down to the kill.
However, any of those actions would also raze the Precinct. The Compulsories were protected by the very buildings they were defending. Aximand had latitude, but he sincerely intended to prove he didn’t need it.
Less than twenty minutes from drop landing, the assault on the Mausolytic Precinct had grown bitter and choked. The Sons of Horus and their Army auxiliaries had lost momentum, their offensive stalled, all their advantages cancelled out by the clear-sighted deployment of professional soldiers exploiting their combat assets.
Yade Durso, second captain of Aximand’s company, cursed all the spirits of vengeance and destiny over the vox-link, but Aximand knew Durso was actually cursing him. Xachary Scipion of Metallun Reaver reported his assumption of squad command. His sergeant, old Gaspir Yunkwist, was dead. There was heat in Scipion’s voice. He was calling for an Apothecary. Zeb Zenonius of Bale Tactical reported two fallen.
Somewhere, someone was breathing.
Taking hits, driven into cover, Aximand looked up at the sky above the plateau. It was still flooded with the blue ink of night, but the pale margins were increasing. He could see four of Dwell’s moons in the sky, one large, the other three not much larger than stars. Because of their relative positions, they were each in a different phase: full, gibbous, half, new.
The sight of it let his anger breathe out for a second. It was, what? A sign? A portent?
His vox tapped. Visor display identified the link as Grael Noctua.
‘Forget bolters,’ said Noctua. ‘Blades.’
‘Indeed?’ Aximand replied.
‘Get in close, and the fools do not stand a chance,’ Noctua replied.
Aximand smiled.
‘Blades! he yelled. He locked his bolter to his hip, and unsheathed his sword. Double-edged, power-active, Cthonic bluesteel, etched along the fuller. He’d called it Mourn-it-all. His combat shield was already on his left arm.
He didn’t wait to see his order observed. He powered out of cover, lasbolts clipping his shield face and dinking his leg plates. Two big, bounding strides put him on the colonnade, moving fast, head down, blade up. He saw the first of the Compulsories up ahead, fogged in their shields, dug in around the massive pillars, firing at him. He could see their faces, pale and astonished.
Transhuman dread. Aximand had heard iterators talk of the condition. He’d heard descriptions of it from regular Army officers too. The sight of an Adeptus Astartes was one thing: taller and broader than a man could ever be, armoured like a demigod. The singularity of purpose was self-evident. An Adeptus Astartes was designed to fight and kill anything that didn’t annihilate it first. If you saw an Adeptus Astartes, you knew you were in trouble. The appearance alone cowed you with fear.
But to see one move. Apparently thatwas the real thing. Nothing human-shaped should be so fast, so lithe, so powerful, especially not anything in excess of two metres tall and carrying more armour than four normal men could lift. The sight of an Adeptus Astartes was one thing, but the moving fact of one was quite another. The psychologists called it transhuman dread. It froze a man, stuck him to the ground, caused his mind to lock up, made him lose control of bladder and bowel. Something huge and warlike gave pause: something huge and warlike and moving with the speed of a striking snake, that was when you knew that gods moved amongst men, and that there existed a scale of strength and speed beyond anything mortal, and that you were about to die and, if you were really lucking, there might be just enough time to piss yourself first.
Aximand saw that dumbfounded look on the faces of the Dwellers he was about to gut and section. He heard the men of Fifth Company following behind him. He felt the joy of being Horus’s son.
Noctua was right. They had been wasting time and effort with guns and bolters. The shields were good enough to make the percentages of a firefight poor. The shields were good enough to stop blades too. Bayonets, that was. Pole arms. A sabre. Maybe even a powered blade.