'But you defeated it?'
'After a fashion. We drove it away and lived to tell the tale, though what became of it, I do not know.'
'You are haunted by the things it showed you,' stated Joaniel.
'Aye,' nodded Uriel, placing his head in his hands. 'I close my eyes and all I see is blood, death and mutilation. When I fight, I can barely hold back the killing rages born from the taint of the Bringer of Darkness.'
'I do not pretend to understand the nature of this monstrous being, but I feel you are tormenting yourself needlessly, Uriel. 'To have your mind touched, however briefly, by something of such power is bound to leave scars. To believe otherwise is folly.'
Joaniel reached out and took Uriel's hand. 'Every injury, whether physical or psychological, leaves behind its mark and sometimes they come tumbling out like daemons in the dark. Scars heal, Uriel, but only if you let them.'
'You do not think I am tainted?'
Joaniel smiled. 'No, I do not, Uriel. The power of this Bringer of Darkness must have been prodigious, but you defeated it. Yes, it showed you the depths to which man can sully himself with blood and death, but such barbarity is in all of us. You must accept that aspect of yourself and understand that part of the Bringer of Darkness will always be with you. With acceptance will come release. That you feel such pain tells me you are not tainted.'
Uriel nodded, already feeling the shadow within him recede at Joaniel's words. The two sat in companionable silence for many minutes until the vox bead in his ear crackled into life and the clipped tones of Learchus said, 'Brother-Captain, your presence is required at the main wall.'
He stood, acknowledging the message and bowed to the seated woman. 'My thanks for your understanding, Sister Joaniel,' said Uriel. 'But I must go now.'
Joaniel pushed herself from the pew and offered him her hand. Uriel shook it, his gauntlet swallowing her delicate hand utterly.
'I am always here, Uriel, should you feel the need to talk some more.'
'Thank you, I should like that,' said Uriel, bowing once more and marching quickly from the chapel.
Moving thousands of men and machines along with their attendant supplies, munitions and vehicles was potentially a nightmare, but with the well-drilled provosts of Erebus directing the soldiers of the Imperial Guard, there were precious few snarl-ups on the roads leading back to the city.
A thousand men of the Krieg regiment manned the second line of trenches as the Logres regiment and the Erebus Defence Legion pulled out. Those supplies that could not be brought back within the city walls were torched, bright pyres burning in the late afternoon sun. Supply trucks ferried troops back to barracks within Erebus at an admirable speed, and high in his Capitol Imperialis, Colonel Rabelaq was satisfied that the evacuation of the trenches was proceeding about as well as could be expected.
But random chance and misfortune have always played a part in any military operation and two things were to happen that would cost the Imperial defenders greatly.
On the high road to the northern gate, tracks laden with ordnance for the tanks bounced along a road which had become heavily ratted due to the immense volume of traffic passing along it and a supply truck loaded with this volatile payload dropped into a pothole, bouncing out with a teeth rattling jolt. Whether one or more shells had a faulty fuse mechanism or a careless soldier had accidentally removed one of the arming pins would never be known, but as the shells clattered around inside, the track suddenly exploded in a devastating fireball. Secondary blasts ripped apart what little remained of the track as the full complement of ordnance cooked off in the heat and detonated in a string of concussive booms that obliterated the road and everything within a hundred and fifty metres. Those vehicles spared the horror of the blast halted, backed up for half a kilometre and trapped on a narrow road with little room to turn around and head for another gate.
As the provosts attempted to sort out the logjam of vehicles, a swirling black cloud, fully a kilometre wide, appeared on the horizon far to the east, swooping and screeching low over the peaks of the high valley. Warning sirens blared and the city's guns opened fire. Fearing they were under attack, many of the Imperial units immediately adopted a defensive posture, slamming down the hatches of their tanks and readying their weapons to fire.
In many cases, this undoubtedly saved their lives.
From the ridges of the northern mountain slopes, hundreds of tyranid organisms poured down the treacherous, rocky slopes to fall upon the strung-out Imperial forces.
Soon, fierce battles were raging before the city walls as a tide of alien killers, having traversed the supposedly impassable mountains, fell upon the unsuspecting Guardsmen.
Alien and human blood flowed in rivers as the two forces clashed.
But there was worse to come.
'Oh, sweet Emperor, no…' moaned Colonel Rabelaq as the images on the holo-map suddenly leapt forwards. Fresh enemy icons appeared on the northern mountains and he realised that Captain Ventris had been right to doubt Fabricator Montante's word regarding their impassability. Fear settled in his belly and the blood drained from his face. The tyranids had fooled them all. The calculus-logi of the Capitol Imperialis had projected the speed of the advancing swarms and assumed that they were moving at optimum speed. Naively, he had fallen to thinking the same thing, but as he watched the icons of the three swarms closing rapidly with Erebus, he realised that he had fatally underestimated the cunning of these aliens.
He rushed towards the vox-station, and grabbed the carved nalwood handset from the console.
'All Krieg units, be advised that the tyranids will be on you imminently! I repeat, the tyranids will be attacking your position within minutes! Get out of there now!'
'What the hell are you talking about?' snapped Lieutenant Konarski, grabbing the headphones from the vox-operator and jamming them to his ear. His eyes widened as he heard the panicked voice of Colonel Rabelaq screaming for them to evacuate the trenches.
He tossed back the handset and ran to the trench periscope, pressing his face to the viewing plate. Biting back a curse he swung the scope from left to right and felt a cold band of iron close around his chest as he saw a tide of alien monsters hurtling towards their position.
'Shit,' said Konarski and unslung his lasgun from his shoulder.
He ran along the trench, shouting at his men to stand to.
'Sir!' called his vox-operator. 'We're not evacuating?'
Casting his gaze along the line of the trench and seeing other Krieg officers pushing their men onto the trench's firing step, he said, 'No, son, we're not.'
'But Colonel Rabelaq's orders…'
'Damn Rabelaq!' snapped Konarski. 'We're the Death Korp of Krieg, son. Did you think that was just a pretty name? We never retreat. We fight and we die, that's the Krieg way.'
As terrifying as the first attacks on the trenches had been, they were but a shadow of this assault. A massive, multi-limbed beast stamped forwards, smashing giant craters in the ice as it charged. Steaming jets of scalding acids sprayed from grotesque organic tubes slung beneath its massive jaws, dissolving snow, ice and flesh in smoking conflagrations.
Hundreds of spines fired with monstrous muscular contractions hammered the trenches, punching through metres of snow to skewer both men and tanks.
A boiling tide of creatures swarmed around the legs of the gargantuan beast. Chitin-clad organisms with bony prows and curled forelimbs hurled fleshy pods which burst in lethal sprays of razor-sharp bone and bio acids. Slow moving, each creature excreted another organic missile as it slithered across the ice.