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  For all that, resistance still remained. The three squads of Raukaan were outnumbered many times over by the massed ranks of mortal defenders. Rows of armour-piercing lascannons had been installed at the rear of the chamber. In sufficient volume, even the humble lasguns carried by the individual troopers could cause damage. The preternatural agility and prowess of each Space Marine was needed just to prevent them being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of incoming fire.

  Morvox whirled out of one attack and into another, before seeing a lascannon beam crash into the plate armour of Brother Malloch. The warrior was hurled from the ground in a fountain of cracked ceramite and blood, smashed backwards and dragged along the floor. An instant later, Gergiz silenced the lascannon crew with a savage burst from his heavy bolter, but more existed to deal out the same level of punishment.

  At last, thought Morvox, crunching his way through a whole platoon of flailing mortals. We have our fight.

  His objective lay ahead of him, on the far side of the domed chamber. Huge circular blast doors protected the entrance to the access tunnels leading into the heart of the hive cluster. Once the gateway had been taken, the rest of Shardenus Prime would open up before them, ripe for conquest. The defenders knew that just as well, and fought like daemons to hold the Iron Hands back.

  It will not help you, thought Morvox, dropping to one knee and loosing a bolter round at a charging defender before twisting round to crush the torso armour of another. Nothing can help you now.

  Then, from behind, came an almighty crash. A corona of blue-white energy flared out across the chamber, lashing like storm lightning. Writhing strands clamped on to the mortal troops – dozens of them – and lifted them bodily into the air. Their bodies spasmed in sudden excruciation, and they screamed like animals led to slaughter.

  Morvox didn’t need to turn to see who had just joined the fight. He did anyway, just for a second – another human weakness.

  Clave Prime had entered the chamber. Chief Librarian Telach was with them, his entire battle-plate lit up with crackling energies. Warp lightning slewed across the midnight-blue of his power armour, shimmering like the raw stuff of stars. The Librarian’s whole facemask was lit up with it, and his helm lenses burned with a furious, majestic incandescence.

  Beside him came the greatest warriors of Raukaan, unleashed in their full, terrible glory. Imanol, Veteran Sergeant of Clave Prime, resplendent in massive Terminator armour, barrelled into combat like some great Mechanicus war engine. His entourage, enhanced with elaborate bionics across their night-black battle-plate, were scarcely less fearsome.

  Dominating them all was Arven Rauth, cracking the ground beneath his imposing Terminator-clad bulk, wreathed in a lambent aura of electrical discharge. In one hand he carried a power axe, in the other a storm bolter, and his helm lenses flashed the colour of raw heartblood.

  Alongside him came Iron Father Khatir, as intimidating a presence as any of them, his gauntlets bleeding waves of blue-edged flame. Alone of all the Iron Hands in that place, Khatir broke combat-silence, roaring a deafening, vox-amplified challenge as he crashed into combat.

  ‘Traitors of Shardenus!’ Khatir roared, and the echo of his battle-cry resounded from the dome above, shattering its lumens. ‘Judgement has come to this world! Surrender and your deaths will redeem you! Resist and your souls will be damned!’

  Morvox felt his heart-rates spike, stirred by the familiar exhortations of the Iron Father. Ever since his induction into the Chapter the machine-filtered voices of the Iron Fathers had guided him into war, stirring the residual human passion for killing and channelling the enormous destructive capacity of his genhanced frame.

  He turned back to the slaughter, knowing that its climax was near. Against such assembled forces the mortal defenders of the hive would soon be swept away, leaving the access tubes clear of resistance. After that, the assault would carry on remorselessly, hab-block by hab-block, spire by spire, manufactorium by manufactorium, until the entire world was scoured of the taint that infected it.

  For the honour of Manus, he mouthed, feeling the splash of fresh blood against his helm-mask. Now we make our presence known. From here, from this place, until the end and the victory, let the killing be unbounded.

  II

  Underworld

  Chapter Eight

  Nethata tried not to look too hard at the woman in front of him. No matter how often he met adepts of the Machine-God in person he felt an almost irresistible urge to scrutinise their panoply of implants, to guess which parts of their bodies were real and which were augmetic.

  It was a foolish, discourteous instinct, and he knew it. For all that, it was hard not to stare.

  ‘Thank you for coming to see me, magos,’ he said, settling into his stiff-backed chair.

  Magos Ys inclined her head slightly, and the crimson cowl obscuring her face slipped a little lower. The chamber around them, located high up in the Guard’s Helat base of operations, was roughly circular and offered a wide view of the plains below through a set of curved windows. Troop movements were visible in almost every direction – columns of armoured vehicles, Sentinel formations, squadrons of flyers taking off for the front. Over in the far north-west horizon, the burning outlines of Shardenus Prime could just be made out.

  ‘A pleasure, Lord General,’ she replied. ‘I could hardly expect you to meet me in orbit with matters balanced so delicately.’

  Nethata gestured to the table beside her. Bolofe, his Master of Protocol, had covered it in things he thought a servant of the Mechanicus would expect to find – fruit, mostly, beside a decanter of Martian emreva.

  ‘We’re all right conducting this in Gothic? I can ask for servitor mediation if you wish.’

  It was impossible to read Ys’s mood with her face covered, but Nethata thought he caught a flicker of a metal smile somewhere in the shadows.

  ‘That is kind, but I am perfectly happy to speak in Gothic.’

  Nethata bowed to acknowledge the courtesy.

  ‘I received word from Princeps Lopi that his Titans are available for deployment,’ he said. ‘I repeat our thanks. With the perimeter breached, we will have need of their heavy weapons soon.’

  ‘I am glad,’ said Ys. ‘And you are to be congratulated – my adepts inform me the assault on the hives goes well.’

  Nethata suppressed a sour expression.

  ‘The walls have been compromised west of the Rovax Gate,’ he said. ‘The main assault along the eastern walls, the one led by my regiments, was withdrawn after taking heavy losses. No Warhawks were recovered. Two days later, we’re still patching things up. I’m not sure that counts as “going well”.’

  ‘But the breakthrough was made. Surely that is the important thing.’

  Nethata found the magos’s smooth, subtle voice disconcerting. No hint of machine filtering discoloured it. It was human; almost too human, if such a thing were possible. He knew that Ys was almost entirely machine, just like the senior Iron Hands, though at least in their case one couldn’t miss the ostentatious display of mechanical alteration.

  ‘Let me be candid, magos,’ he said. ‘I trust this meeting is in full confidence?’

  ‘Always, Lord General.’

  ‘So,’ said Nethata, drawing a breath. ‘There have been differences of emphasis between me and Clan Commander Rauth over the assault. I’m sure you’re aware of that, but now that your assets are coming under his purview, I thought we should discuss it.’

  As he spoke, he tried to gauge something of Ys’s reception, but it was futile; like talking to a mute servitor.

  ‘I am concerned about the way this war is being fought,’ he said. ‘We lost thousands of men establishing a temporary breach in the walls, in my view with no justifiable cause. Guard losses are one thing – I’m capable of arguing the case for my own men – but your battle-formation… well, that is something else. I can’
t speak for you.’

  ‘We would not expect you to,’ said Ys.

  She folded her legs. The movement was as supple and fluid as a normal human’s, though Nethata noticed the glint of dark metal under the hem of her robes before they settled.

  ‘They didn’t tell us anything,’ said Nethata. ‘We launched our assault knowing nothing of their positions, of their intentions. They used my men to concentrate defenders along the eastern wall sections while they came in from the west. Even now they commandeer units under my direct command, driving them alongside their own advance, wasting them in their haste to press on towards the Capitolis.’

  He shot Ys a frustrated look.

  ‘They are – forgive me – impossible.’

  The magos reached for her glass and raised it to her cowl, taking a sip before replacing it.

  ‘I appreciate your candour, lord general,’ she said. ‘And I understand your situation, since we have fought alongside the Iron Hands for millennia. Perhaps you know of our close association, perhaps not. In either case, given those ties, I am surprised that you have sought to take me into your confidence over this.’

  Nethata pressed his fingers together, fully aware of the need to go carefully. He knew how close the Mechanicus was to the Iron Hands. That didn’t make his approach to Ys pointless, just dangerous; in any case, he had precious few other allies to turn to.

  ‘This is not a question of insubordination,’ he said. ‘I serve the Imperial cause, as I know Princeps Lopi will, but I have tried to reason with Clan Commander Rauth on many occasions and have got precisely nowhere. He is blind to considerations of caution, of bloodshed, of waste. All he cares about is speed – the need to break the spires as soon as possible. If he has a sound tactical reason for that, then he hasn’t chosen to share it with me.’

  Nethata unclasped his hands and placed them in his lap, resisting the temptation to look down at them. Ys’s empty cowl was hard to stare into for long.

  ‘I am not a weak man, magos,’ he said. ‘I have led men into battle for over a hundred years, and have taken many hard decisions. But this is…’

  He trailed off, remembering the sacrifice of the Harakoni Warhawks, all to expedite the Iron Hands’ own hidden advance.

  ‘…inhuman.’

  Ys said nothing for a moment. She sat easily in her chair, not touching the fruit and liquor at her side, watching him.

  ‘Let me tell you something about the Iron Hands,’ she said eventually. ‘You may think that you know what to expect of them, but I assure you that you do not.’

  She leaned forwards a little.

  ‘Since we are speaking in confidence, I can make you privy to things many in the Imperium have long forgotten – it will help you to understand. The Iron Hands are human, lord general. Perhaps they do not like to think of themselves in quite that way any more, but they are, and they share in the full range of blessings and curses of that exalted state. One condition in particular is theirs: an ancient condition which even now, with all the techno-chirurgical advances available in our glorious Imperium, resists any attempts at a cure.’

  Nethata listened carefully, lulled a little by Ys’s smooth, cultivated voice. He had not expected a discourse.

  ‘Psychological states exist in which a healthy subject comes to harm himself,’ she said. ‘He lets himself waste away through neglect, or cuts his own flesh, or desires to have limbs amputated where no wound has been inflicted. The image he has of his body is distorted, and it is difficult for others to understand such an impulse, since they can have no insight into what he sees when he stands before a mirror.’

  Ys spoke in a measured, confident manner, as if her speech had been long prepared.

  ‘The body of a Space Marine is the most perfect human form ever created,’ she said. ‘Even our skitarii, given every augmetic aid known to us, do not compare to it in power and facility. You can imagine what degree of mental trauma would be required for a human to give up such a gift, to mutilate himself and replace his priceless gene-forged heritage with mechanical parts.’

  ‘Forgive me, magos,’ said Nethata, ‘but your own kind are not exactly immune to that.’

  Ys nodded, and Nethata had the same impression again – the impression that under her cowl she had just smiled.

  ‘We take ordinary bodies and make them better,’ she admitted. ‘We do so because we desire to improve on what we were born with. The Iron Hands cannot make their bodies better, since they are already perfect. Nevertheless, still they amputate their limbs in favour of metal parts and aspire to the state of machine-hood. Why? Because they fear their flesh, lord general. They look at it in the mirror of their minds and they see something loathsome. It is difficult to understand such an impulse, since, as I said, we can have no insight into what they see when they stand before the mirror.’

  Nethata pursed his lips, considering what he was being told.

  ‘So the augmetics,’ he said. ‘It’s because… they can’t help themselves?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘All of them? They all feel that way?’

  ‘The condition gets worse the longer they serve. Some of them recognise it, others do not. Eventually, yes, it claims them all.’

  Ys turned away from him. She looked out through the windows, over to the horizon where the spires burned.

  ‘There is a myth, a rumour, still repeated on Mars, that their Lord Primarch knew of this weakness and wished to purge it. I have seen scrolls, purported to be written in the hand of Manus, that state the matter clearly. Who knows if such things are genuine? Even if he intended it, he died long before he could accomplish it. And so we have the present situation: the Iron Hands no longer place trust in their gene-wrought perfection.’

  Once again, the irony of being told such things by a mostly-metal adept of the Mechanicus impressed itself on Nethata.

  ‘Why are you telling me this, magos?’ he asked.

  ‘To help you understand them. They do not see the universe in the way that you do. When you advocate courses of action that seem prudent – to slow the pace of the attack, to conserve strength, to protect your exposed flanks – they see only weakness. It reminds of them of their own weakness, and so they recoil from it.’

  ‘When they risk the lives of my men, I must speak.’

  ‘Quite so. But choose your words and your tactics carefully.’

  Ys turned away from the view of the battle and looked at him from under the shadow of her cowl.

  ‘They only respect strength,’ she said. ‘Do not argue from the need to preserve life; argue from the need to destroy it. Appeal to mercy, and they will disregard you. Appeal to reason, and they will disregard you. Appeal to the weakness of your men, and they will disregard you. They understand sacrifice, duty and resolve. Nothing else.’

  Nethata stared at his own hands. For the first time, he thought they looked old, despite all the rejuve he’d invested in over the years. He flexed his fingers, watching the way the muscles moved.

  ‘Your words give me little comfort,’ he said. ‘I had hoped that, with your support, those instincts might be controlled.’

  Ys shook her head. It was a perfect idiomatic human gesture, though Nethata suspected that she only adopted such mannerisms because he was there.

  ‘You cannot control the Iron Hands,’ she said. ‘It is dangerous to try. The best you can hope for is manage them; even we of Mars have had to learn how to do that. They need us for the augmetic devices we make for them, but we are not foolish enough to believe that our relationship is one of master and servant.’

  Ys rose from her seat in a single, lissom movement. Nethata got to his feet more clumsily. The audience, so it seemed, was at an end.

  ‘You were right to speak to me, lord general,’ she said. ‘I will reflect on your situation and see whether anything can be done. Princeps Lopi is an ex
perienced commander; I shall instruct him to remain in close contact with you.’

  ‘I’m grateful, magos,’ said Nethata. ‘And I hope you don’t think–’

  Ys raised a hand, and for the first time Nethata had a clear view of her metal-encased claw slipping clear of her sleeve.

  ‘It does not matter what I think,’ she said. ‘Your devotion to your men commends you.’

  Ys leaned closer, and a faint aroma of ceremonial incense rose from her robes.

  ‘If you remember only one thing I have told you, lord general, remember this,’ she said. ‘They only respect strength. Forget that, and it will kill you.’

  Valien crept forwards slowly, hugging the wall, taking extreme care not to lose his footing. The shaft below yawned away from him, hundreds of metres down. He saw a light blinking on and off in the depths, and wondered what kind of machinery existed so far down, and how anyone ever managed to get close enough to it to service it.

  He cleared his mind. Losing concentration would kill him.

  Valien edged around the side of the shaft, clinging on the narrow ledge and shuffling slowly. He’d removed the last disguise he’d been wearing in favour of a black bodyglove woven with lightweight armour panels. His bulbous head was enclosed in a sheer layer of sensor-repelling synthskin, and his eyes were protected by an environment-reactive visor. Various weapons, mostly small and esoteric in design, clustered around his belt.

  If he encountered spire guards now they wouldn’t hesitate before shooting him. That was fine; the time when adopting disguises was likely to help him had gone.

  He reached the far side of the shaft and stepped lightly into the tunnel on the far side. For a moment, a brief, thrilling moment, he felt his centre of gravity hang over the void, teetering on the lip of oblivion.