Thrusters blazing, the combined loyalist force led by Ferrus Manus surged through the fog, bent on retribution. The Gorgon’s drop-pod joined thousands of others, just as Vulkan’s Stormbird flew at the spear-tip of a vast flock of vessels.
Seconds after the first drop-ship pierced the cloud layer, batteries of emplaced guns erupted across metres of earthworks dug along the Urgall Depression. Flak fire filled the sky like upwards-pouring rain, chewing through wing and fuselage, detonating arrow-headed cocoons of metal and spilling their lethal payloads into the air.
It barely dented the assault, and when the Imperial loyalists finally made planetfall, over forty thousand legionaries tramped out upon the scorched earth.
Numeon sat mag-harnessed in the Stormbird, trying to track the unfolding carnage. His battle-helm was firmly clamped and he cycled through the various force commanders in his retinal display as the ship bucked and shuddered with its evasive actions.
A close impact prompted a rapid course correction, and he felt the sudden exertion of gravity as they pitched. Unperturbed, the captain of the Pyre Guard kept working through the Salamanders officers, committing their positions and statuses to his eidetic memory.
Heka’tan, 14th Company Fire-born…
Gravius, Fifth Company Fire-born…
K’gosi, 21st Company Pyroclasts…
Usabius, 33rd Company Fire-born…
Krysan, 40th Company Infernus…
Nemetor, 15th Company Reconnaissance …
Ral’stan, First Company Firedrakes…
Gaur’ach, Fourth Cohort Contemptors…
Chapter Masters, lieutenant commanders, company captains.
It went on.
More than a hundred names and faces scrolled across Numeon’s vision as he sought to follow the ever-shifting engagement. Thus far, they had only lost a dozen ships and eight drop-pods. In his mind’s eye, formations adapted, battle plans subtly altered, all to accommodate the violent landscape that was steadily unfolding above and below.
The Stormbird they rode in was a Warhawk IV. It could carry up to sixty legionaries and also had some capacity for transporting armour. During the apex of the Great Crusade, the Stormbird had been as ubiquitous as the stars in the night sky but its favour was fading. This one was an antique, having been usurped by the smaller and more agile Thunderhawk. Numeon liked the solidity of the Warhawk IV, just as he liked the fact he was harboured alongside fifty Pyroclasts, led by Lieutenant Vort’an. With chain face-masks that hung below the eye slits of their battle-helms and long surcoats of drake scale, they cut a stern figure in the hold. Unlike assault troopers of the line, Pyroclasts each wore a pair of flame gauntlets, slaved to a reservoir of promethium contained in canisters attached to their armour’s generator. Few warriors were as unyielding, as vengeful. In the old Gothic, their name literally meant ‘break with fire’. On the Isstvan killing fields, that was exactly what they would do.
Numeon could feel their hunger; the flame troopers were eager for battle.
In contrast, the Pyre Guard were still and calm like their lord. Vulkan’s eyes were closed, the retinal lenses of his helmet extinguished, as he meditated on what was to come. Numeon was reminded of their conversation aboard the Fireforgejust moments before they had gone to the muster deck and the primarch had addressed his warriors. His words were brief but poignant. They spoke of brotherhood and loyalty, they also referenced betrayal and a fight the Legion had not seen the equal of since the earliest days of its formation. They would be entering a caldera in the midst of violent eruption, and none amongst them would emerge from that unscathed.
Alert sirens screamed into activity, strobing the inside of the dingy hold in amber light.
‘ One minute to planetfall,’ the pilot’s voice issued through the vox.
Of their initial complement, only fifteen ships and eleven drop-pods would not make the surface intact. Nigh-on full Legion strength would be levelled against Horus and his rebels.
The Salamanders would hit along the left flank, the Raven Guard the right and Ferrus Manus with his Morlocks dead centre.
In Numeon’s retinal display, the roll call of Salamanders officers was replaced by a data-feed from the other two Legions which he relayed at once to Vulkan.
‘Nineteenth and Tenth confirm assault vectors and imminent planetfall,’ Numeon said.
‘Any word from the other four Legions?’ asked the primarch.
He referred to the Word Bearers, Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion and Night Lords. Since Kharaatan, relations with the VIII had been strained, but Numeon would rather have them fighting with, and not against, them.
These Legions, led by their primarchs, would form a second wave to relieve those making first planetfall. According to their last communications, which were well before the commencement of planetary bombardment, the other Legion fleets were inbound. Without them, the scales were evenly balanced between Horus and the loyalists. With them, it would be a massacre for the errant Warmaster and his rebels.
‘None, my lord.’
Any response to that from Vulkan was cut off as a second alert sounded, higher pitched than the first.
Thirty seconds.
‘Prepare yourselves,’ the primarch growled, opening his eyes at last.
Across the hold, power weapons energised, bolter slides were racked and igniters at the mouths of flame gauntlets lit up in whoosh-ingunison.
Screaming retro-thrusters kicked in, jolting the Stormbird hard. Mag-harnesses disengaged but the legionaries stayed steady, locked to the floor with their boots.
‘Eye-to-eye!’ Vulkan shouted as the ship touched down, hard and hot.
‘Tooth-to-tooth,’ the Salamanders roared as one, as the embarkation ramp opened to admit them onto Isstvan.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Trench warfare
‘Say what you like about the Fourteenth Legion. They are mean, ugly bastards but tenacious. There’s no one else I’d rather have by my side in a war of attrition, and almost anyone else I’d rather have against me.’
– Ferrus Manus, after the compliance of
One-Five-Four Four
Isstvan V
Black sand cratered by ordnance made for uncertain footing. As the vast armies of the three loyal primarchs ran from the holds of ships or emerged through the dissipating pressure cloud of blooming drop-pods, several legionaries faltered and slipped.
Sustained bolter fire met them upon planetfall, and hundreds amongst the first landers were cut down before any kind of beachhead could be established. Fire was met with fire, the drumming staccato of thousands of weapons discharged in unison, their muzzle flashes merging into a vast and unending roar of flame. Dense spreads of missiles whined overhead to accompany the salvo, streaking white contrails from their rockets. Sections of earthworks erupted in bright explosions that threw plumes of dirt and armoured men into the air. Las bursts lit up the swiftly following darkness, spearing through tanks and Dreadnoughts that loomed behind the foremost ranks of enemy defenders, only for return fire to spit back in reply. Flamers choked the air with smoke and the stink of burning flesh, as yet more esoteric weapons pulsed and shrieked.
It was a cacophony of death, but the song had barely begun its first verse.
The right flank was swollen with warriors of the XVIII.