'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 gene-seed 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 forty-two 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 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.