A victory, but another costly one. The Guilliman moved sluggishly, half its engines lightless. The Excelsior was dead, her broken hull shining with short-lived fires and the departure thrusts of lifeboats. He called up the casualty lists in his faceplate from the taskforce noosphere. Twenty-nine dead brothers and thousands of serfs. He unfocused his eyes from the list, but left it scrolling across his view of the disintegrating ork ships.
A bleeping interrupted his thoughts.
‘First Captain, we have an incoming message from the surface,’ said Odrazar.
‘Survivors?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
Zerberyn stood taller. ‘Excellent news! Turn us about. We are in no danger now. Let us descend to the surface and see these people our blood has saved.’
The Thunderhawks of the Iron Warriors and the Fists Exemplar landed together upon the shattered landing fields of Turos port. Zerberyn, Honorius, Reoch and five others stepped out into a landscape of utter devastation. The space port was in ruins, substantial terminal buildings and hangar spaces broken into untidy heaps of rubble. Beyond the rockcrete aprons the vegetation was burned back to ash. Columns of smoke held up a sky of black clouds. The light of the sun was obscured, the horizon stained red and orange with the fires of burning cities.
Against the odds, mankind had survived the orks there. A delegation of a dozen battered, dirty soldiers waited for the Space Marines when they walked down the assault ramp. They were streaked with soot and old blood, their uniforms tattered. Several were not soldiers, but civilian guerillas bearing weapons of the dead. Their leader wore a necklace of large orkish teeth. In him the light of defiance burned brightest.
‘My lord,’ he said, and knelt with fearful reverence. ‘It is you who destroyed the ork fleet?’
‘It was. My brothers run the last few out of the system as we speak.’
There were more figures two hundred metres away, a small crowd watching nervously in the lee of a half-burned warehouse. ‘Rise. Do not kneel.’ Zerberyn looked around at the ruined landscape. ‘You are this army’s general?’
‘Lieutenant, my lord. The generals are all dead.’
‘Look at me. What is your name?’
‘Cadraig, my lord.’ The man lifted his head. He looked Zerberyn unflinchingly in the eye-lenses, but remained kneeling. He was scared; Zerberyn could practically taste his fear. ‘I was an officer in the militia. You have saved us.’
‘You saved yourselves,’ said Zerberyn. ‘How did you prevail?’
‘We did not prevail. We were near defeat. It is three months since the orks came, and we have been fighting all the while. They… they took most of us. There are not so many of us left, but those that are alive still took an oath not to lay down our arms until we were all dead. We swore not to let a single other person be taken. We owe it all to Penderyn. He raised our spirits when our will was broken. He roused us to fight back when the regiments of our defence force were crushed. At his command we struck at them from hidden places. We bled their supply lines. We did what we could. It was not enough.’ The man bowed his head.
‘You have done more than most,’ said Zerberyn. ‘Where is this Penderyn? I would speak with him.’
‘He is dead, my lord.’
‘A shame. But you have done well. You are free now. Raise a monument to him and be thankful.’
Zerberyn looked to Kalkator’s craft. The warsmith had yet to emerge. An uneasy feeling passed through him.
‘My lord, might I beg to ask a question of you?’
‘Yes. By all means. You have earned my attention.’
‘Why were we left to fight alone? Not a single one of our requests for aid went answered. We had lost faith in the Emperor. We thought He had abandoned us, until now.’
‘The galaxy burns,’ said Zerberyn. ‘Your world is one of a thousand assailed.’
He would have said more. The man’s plight moved him. For the first time in months he saw a human being who had not lost his wits, or thrown his lot in with the orks, or allowed himself to be made livestock, but who had fought bravely, and nearly won.
The ramp to Kalkator’s Thunderhawk descended, hissing compressed gases. The lieutenant watched Kalkator as he approached over the pitted landing apron. The warsmith stamped down the ramp to stand next to Zerberyn.
‘Your prayers have been answered. We have come, but freedom does not come cheap.’
‘My lord?’ said Cadraig uneasily. His eyes shifted from Kalkator to Zerberyn and back again, the fear in them growing.
With a sudden chill, Zerberyn realised that Cadraig looked at he and Kalkator the same way. Fear and awe. There was no difference in his regard. And why should there be? Their metallic liveries were stained with soot and blood, with no markings clear to tell them apart. In Cadraig’s eyes they looked the same.
‘Aid such as ours requires payment. Our fleets are battered, our supplies low,’ said Kalkator.
‘Of course, my lord,’ said Cadraig. ‘You are welcome to rest here. We will give you what we can.’
‘You will give us everything,’ said Kalkator menacingly. ‘Food. Water. Munitions. All of it.’
Cadraig got falteringly to his feet. The men behind him looked up uncertainly.
‘We have so little. We shall starve.’
‘If you do not give us what we demand, we shall take it,’ said Kalkator. ‘Are there children among you?’
‘My lord!’ said Cadraig in alarm. ‘We swore not to let any more of our people be taken.’
One of Cadraig’s men caressed the firing mechanism of his gun. Kalkator caught the tiny movement and turned to address him.
‘I would not advise resistance. We will take one hundred of your strongest boys. Now. We do you a great honour. We are not orks. We shall not eat them, but raise them above the fragile state of base humanity. Your sons will be Legiones Astartes.’
‘Legiones?’ said Cadraig. A dawning realisation crossed his face. Weapons were raised. ‘Who are you?’ he said suspiciously.
‘We are members of the Fists Exemplar Chapter of Space Marines,’ said Zerberyn. He took a step forward. ‘We are loyal servants of Terra.’
‘You are. I am not.’ Kalkator plucked his pistol from his belt. Cadraig’s men raised their weapons fully. Kalkator trained his gun upon Cadraig. Servo-motors whined in the cheeks of the Iron Warriors Thunderhawk, bringing heavy bolter sponsons to bear.
‘One hundred youths,’ said Kalkator. ‘As much food as you can gather. Bring it here tomorrow morning, or we shall rain fire down upon this world that shall make your engagement with the orks appear trivial. Now go!’ The last words he amplified to godlike levels, and the men flinched and turned, and ran away. The crowd by the ruined terminal building looked on nervously.
Reoch laughed drily.
‘Brother,’ Kalkator said to Zerberyn. His use of the word had lost its ironic edge.
‘Why?’ said Zerberyn. ‘Why do we have to take everything? They would have supplied us well without complaint.’
‘You know why,’ said Kalkator, holstering his pistol. ‘My Great Company is a fifth the size it was before this began. I have lost all my holdings. Three worlds were mine to command, and now I have but one. A single further setback, and I shall be reduced to the status of a wandering beggar. I have lost most of my fleet, many of my machines. We are low on stores and munitions. I need recruits, I need food to feed them, or my brotherhood will die.’
‘There is no need. They would have given to you freely.’
‘Not everything. Now I get it all.’
‘You take their children! You are as good as killing them.’
‘I am not killing them. Shooting them would be killing them. What do you care, Zerberyn?’ said Kalkator, turning to look on the Exemplar fully. ‘The expression of disdain for common humanity has stamped itself into your face so deeply your own serfs have begun to fear you. How many have we seen reduced to livestock, or turned feral under the influence of the Green Roar? One pocket of defiance and your resolve crumbles.’