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  As if from far away, he heard Rauth’s voice answer him.

  ‘The transit tunnels. They are all I need to see.’

  Telach let his consciousness drift out of his body. He felt it pass through the layers upon layers of ferrocrete and adamantium above, drifting northwards. Everything was abstract, fleeting, picked out in watery lines over a gulf of darkness. Flickering images of living souls glowed within that darkness – fighting, fleeing, charging, dying. Even as his own soul soared above them, Telach could hear the icy hiss as men were cut down, releasing their quintessence into the metaphysical melange of the waiting warp.

  He broke free of the hive’s confines and looked down, from above, over the entire hive cluster. In every direction he could see the ghostly outlines of troop movements. He saw mortal men marching in endless ranks, filing out of the clot of darkness at the centre – the Capitolis – hundreds of them, driven onwards by faceless creatures with corruption clogged in their veins.

  Those men were no longer like the ones they’d fought out on the Helat, or across the Gorgas, or even during the first days of the assault on the Melamar spires. Telach could feel their debasement keenly; they were mockeries, cruelly altered by whatever power had taken root in Shardenus.

  Reinforcements continue to move from the Capitolis,+ he sent. +Many of them. They will not die as easily as those we have faced.+

  He let his psychic self sweep onwards, out beyond the northern reaches of the Melamar Primus spire and out over the wasteland beyond. He heard the dull crump of heavy ordnance, and saw the massive outlines of Titans striding into battle. He saw armoured columns from both sides rumbling towards the front. He saw gunships sweep into contact, stuffed with troops or loaded with cluster bombs. Ever since the Iron Hands had broken through the outer walls, the fighting had spread like a virus within a body, flooding the arteries and heading for the major organs.

  Telach felt himself falling. He drifted down slowly, caught by the eddies in the warp and guided by them.

  North-east of the Melamar spires stretched another wide region of abandoned industrial wastes. Clouds of toxic fog rolled between the old manufactoria walls, green-tinged like the glands of a corpse. The Shardenus complex, like many he’d seen, was a series of towering islands amid a sea of noxious filth.

  Zones north of Melamar are empty. As you suspect, enemy forces being conveyed underground.+

  Telach fell further. The ground rushed up to meet him, and his insubstantial echo-form sank clean through it. He felt a chilling sensation as he bored down through layers of earth, metal and aggregate.

  He emerged into a huge underground tunnel, as dark as the void save for regular bands of gently blinking guidance lights. The tunnel yawned away north-east, cutting straight through the earth under Shardenus Prime and heading towards the central spires of the Capitolis.

  Numerous fixed artillery points,+ sent Telach, sweeping up the length of the tunnels and observing carefully. +Defence lines established every five hundred metres. I see trench construction, deployment of heavy weapons groups.+

  Wide-gauge rail tracks had been dug into the tunnel floors. Massive land trains ground their way back and forth, adding to the cocktail of greasy smoke that hung permanently in the roof space. Telach saw the souls of mortal defenders burning like stars in the gloom. Unlike the souls of the loyalists, those souls glimmered with a purplish light, shot through with the refracting power of the aether.

  Supplies still arriving,+ he sent, watching the unloading of a whole series of tracked artillery pieces from the cavernous interior of a land train. +Their defences are formidable.+

  He looked ahead, peering through the shrouds of filth in the air. Even the psychic projections in his mind were fouled by it.

  I approach the junction with the Capitolis spire. I will attempt to penetrate the outer level.+

  A massive gateway swept up out of the shadows, circular in shape and studded with defence lasers. The land trains passed through blast doors five metres thick.

  As he attempted to follow them, Telach sensed a pressure exerted against him. He felt suddenly hot, as if he’d strayed into a furnace.

  He came to a halt, hanging like a ghost above the gateway, watching the land trains trundle back and forth below him.

  Resistance encountered. I shall persevere, masking my presence.+

  Telach pushed on, drifting through the gates. A huge chamber extended out on the far side – some kind of enormous dispatch depot, stuffed full of armaments and supplies. Automated cranes swung to and fro, pulling materiel from towering stacks and loading it on to the waiting land trains.

  The pressure in his mind grew.

  Telach pushed deeper in, feeling the character of the air change with each passing metre. The atmosphere became sweltering and moist, like the depths of some tropical world on the eve of monsoon. The noises of battle preparation echoed strangely in his psyche, distorted and stretched out. He felt nausea blossom at the back of his throat – the throat that still lay kilometres away in the depths of the Melamar hive.

  I am in the Capitolis, just beyond the subterranean gates,+ he sent, pushing the message through with difficulty. +The presence of the arch-enemy is evident. It is waiting, gathering its strength. We have not seen the extent of it yet.+

  Telach swam up towards the terminus of the giant chamber, seeing more tunnels leading away and up into the centre of the colossal hive spire above. As he drew closer to them he saw how the stone walls on either side had been tortured and warped. The faint impression of faces stared out from the structure of the walls, each one fixed in an expression of agonised pain. Fluid dripped from the ceilings above him, glimmering with a pale pink lustre. He heard screams, or something like screams, resounding out from far away.

  Then something else made itself known. Telach recoiled, falling back down the length of the chamber.

  An intelligence stirs. I will withdraw before–+

  He felt another mind brush against his. The touch was gentle – the merest scrape of consciousnesses – but it sent him crashing back into the tunnels beyond the gateway. For an instant, he was aware of something vast and ancient rushing up to meet him, like some bloated creature of the deep ocean sweeping out of the abyss to feed. He caught an impression of two eyes, burning like coals, and a wide, broken mouth, all of it hanging in the dark.

  Telach’s control began to slip. Nausea exploded within him, choking him and making him gag. He fled, the tunnels passing by in a blur of confused movement. Even as he rushed back to his mortal body, back to where his physical form would afford him some level of protection against whatever dwelt in the Capitolis, he heard the creature’s voice.

  It rang out in his mind, as seductive as honey, but sadistic and immeasurably, infinitely cruel.

  ‘I remember you being stronger,’ it said.

  Telach gasped, and his eyes opened. The psychic link broke, and his projected self snapped back into its mortal bounds.

  He cried out, and staggered to his knees. Blood burst from the veins on the backs of his hands, running hotly down the inside of his gauntlets. His head exploded into pain, so intense that he nearly lost consciousness.

  Rauth grabbed him by the gauntlets, forcing him to remain upright.

  Telach gagged, and his staff fell to the ground.

  ‘What did you see?’ asked Rauth.

  For a moment, Telach thought he’d lost the power of speech. It took a while to recall how to make his lips move properly.

  He saw the red eyes still, hovering over the deep shadow like sentinel flares. Their scrutiny, even for the briefest of periods, had been ravaging.

  ‘You were right,’ he rasped, spitting the words out.

  Rauth looked down at him. His helm-mask glinted in the dark. His lenses were red too, like pale imitations of the monster he’d seen.

  ‘Can we force passage through the
tunnels?’

  Telach didn’t know. He couldn’t concentrate on the question. His mind spun out of control, whirling around the image of those eyes.

  Rauth pulled him to his feet roughly.

  ‘Librarian,’ he said. ‘Can we force passage through the tunnels?’

  Telach stared back at him, groggily, and said nothing. He felt a line of drool run across his chin.

  ‘It will speed the assault,’ said Rauth. ‘Can it be done? Answer me.’

  Rauth’s command had a clarifying effect. Telach felt some of his self-control return, and with it an awareness of the pain spiking all across his body.

  ‘How much faster?’ he asked.

  ‘The Capitolis has heavy wall defences,’ said Rauth. ‘The tunnels will be quicker to take, if we can force them, but only you have seen them.’

  ‘Then do it,’ said Telach, swallowing a slug of bile and blood. His heart-rate was returning to normal, though the echo of his visions remained. ‘Order it now. Bring everything forward.’

  Telach looked away from Rauth, wondering exactly what the words he’d heard meant.

  ‘Be aware, though,’ he said ‘The presence in the Capitolis: we have fought it before.’

  Chapter Ten

  Nethata sat back against the juddering walls of Malevolentia’s command chamber and tried to ignore the vibrations radiating up his back and legs. The noise and movement inside the Baneblade was constant. Everything stank of engine oil, human sweat and munitions.

  The command chamber was small and cramped, despite the enormous size of the vehicle around it. Most of Malevolentia’s bulk was taken up with its drive motors, armour plating and weapon systems, and even the Lord General’s personal unit, fitted out on Mars three hundred years ago to his predecessor’s specifications and given every conceivable enhancement, wasn’t much different.

  The tank crashed through something resistant outside – a barricade line, perhaps – and the floor tipped up by ten degrees before righting.

  Nethata gripped the sides of his chair grimly.

  ‘How soon before we reach the front?’ he asked.

  Heriat looked up from the data-slate he’d been consulting. The Commissar-General sat opposite Nethata, less than two metres away, also strapped into a seat. He’d donned a rebreather and eye-mask, just as Nethata had, and it made him look even more skeletal than usual.

  ‘Soon,’ he replied. ‘These things aren’t built for speed.’

  Nethata nodded curtly, trying to curb his impatience.

  His bad temper, which had persisted throughout the Shardenus campaign, would not shake. Every response from a subordinate riled him, and he had to work hard to maintain a facade of calm in front of them. He was sleep-deprived. The constant demands of ensuring that supply lines were kept open, units properly deployed and reserves put in place all took their toll. He’d spent the early days of the assault resisting the urge to gland tranquilox, but lately he’d used more and more. Whenever he gave in, it made him irritable – it was a sign of failure, the erosion of a commitment he’d made a long time ago.

  Arven Rauth filled his waking life – the implacable, inscrutable, infuriating Rauth. Getting tactical information from the clan commander was next to impossible. One moment, Rauth would demand the redeployment of whole regiments of Ferik regulars for some obscure purpose, the next he’d issue a formal protest at Nethata’s request for a single Iron Hands squad in return. Every time a detachment of Guard troops was assigned to Rauth’s command it took horrendous casualties, to the extent that Nethata had started to wonder whether his men were being gunned down by his own side.

  ‘Any reports from your agent?’ Nethata asked, trying to find something else to occupy his mind.

  Heriat shook his head.

  ‘Not for a while.’

  ‘He didn’t achieve what we hoped for,’ said Nethata.

  ‘Some damage was done,’ Heriat said. ‘We always knew it would come down to brute force in the end.’

  ‘So it always seems to,’ said Nethata.

  ‘If you have a problem with that, sir, perhaps you should consider a change of career.’

  Nethata smiled painfully.

  ‘I certainly need to change something,’ he said.

  The restraint harness dug into Nethata’s chest as Malevolentia rocked and juddered its way across the broken terrain. Not for the first time since planetfall, he felt shackled, locked inside a massive system he had no hope of controlling.

  And that, of course, was the core of the problem, the source of his mounting frustration. Nethata was an Imperial commander, used to having the final say over the lives of millions of men and thousands of companies. He’d always carried out that duty soberly, mindful of the many and varied factors involved in the proper conduct of war. Every order he’d issued as lord general had been made in the full knowledge that he bore the ultimate responsibility for the consequences of his actions.

  They were his actions, his orders. His men.

  ‘I need to change something,’ he said again, this time a little more forcefully.

  They only respect strength.

  He snapped his restraint harness buckle open and stood up, holding on to the chassis around him for balance. Heriat looked up at him in surprise.

  ‘Something I can help you with?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Nethata, making his way shakily over to the access hatch leading to the crew chambers. ‘Not this time.’

  He slammed his fist into the door control, and the hatch grated open. On the far side, crammed into the narrow cockpit, four crew members worked at their stations. The tank’s commander, wearing a rebreather mask just like all the troops deployed across the toxic hell of Shardenus’s wastelands, made a hasty aquila as Nethata clambered inside.

  Nethata looked past him, out through the narrow viewfinder ahead. A brace of dirty pict screens hung down from the low ceiling, each giving more grainy detail of the world outside.

  He saw a wide open space – the Maw, he believed it was called – dotted with ruined buildings and smouldering piles of rubble. In the distance he saw the ash-shrouded outline of the closest hive spire, mottled with a throbbing network of flame. Beyond that he could just make out the angular shapes of two Warlord Titans striding through the smoke. Lines of tracer fire criss-crossed the scene, followed by the dull thud and crack of projectile rounds. The entire northern horizon was on fire.

  ‘Status,’ he said, watching the picts intently.

  ‘On course for rendezvous with Galamoth 4th and 9th, lord,’ replied the tank commander briskly. ‘All vehicles in formation.’

  Nethata nodded. He saw the signals on the auspex indicating the presence of a huge number of heavy tanks in convoy behind Malevolentia, all fully armed, fully fuelled and fully crewed. In their wake came support vehicles, troop carriers, mobile artillery.

  ‘Your coordinates came from Clan Commander Rauth, did they not?’ asked Nethata.

  ‘They did, lord.’

  Nethata looked out of the front viewfinder again. To the east of the principal hive spire stood a smaller structure – a lesser spire, relatively intact along its southern face. Enemy positions lodged high up in the walls had not been the target of Rauth’s assault, and still mustered a volume of fire on his right flank. If Nethata had been in overall command, he’d have moved to neutralise that threat before pressing on towards the centre of the cluster. That would have been the prudent thing to have done.

  ‘You have new coordinates, commander,’ he said, leaning over to consult the principal logic engine before inputting them. ‘We shall join with the Galamoth as planned, but that flanking position cannot be allowed to persist.’

  The tank commander looked back at him. His movements betrayed his nervousness.

  ‘Uh, lord, are you–’

  Nethata shot him a cold smile.
>
  ‘Perfectly. Make sure that the entire column receives the new coordinates. Do not disappoint me: the smaller outposts must be silenced.’

  Without waiting for a reply, Nethata made his way over to a set of looped rungs in the walls. He climbed quickly. With every step he took he felt his spirits lift. He remembered how life had been in the early days of his service – commanding tank battalions, crawling around in the machine’s innards, sacred unguents caking his hands and face, working from engagement to engagement with only the raw thoughts of aggression and survival to occupy him.

  I have forgotten where I came from.

  Nethata hauled the release lever down and the top hatch sprang open. A hot blast of smoggy air rushed down onto him. He pulled himself up, emerging from the armoured cocoon of Malevolentia and out into the open wind.

  The ash started to coat him in seconds. He smelled the acid tang of toxins as the tank tracks tore them up from the earth beneath. Devastation lay all around him, curving in a wide, broken swathe across the northern horizon.

  Nethata felt his heartbeat more strongly, fuelled by the thudding vibration of the immense vehicle beneath his feet. He felt the enormous power placed within his hands, the destructive potential he had been solemnly charged with directing, and it thrilled him.

  ‘I will show you strength,’ he breathed, gazing out at the secondary spire and already relishing its destruction. ‘I will show you mortal strength.’

  A crackle broke out in his earpiece, followed by Heriat’s concerned voice from the chamber below.

  ‘We seem to be changing course, sir,’ he said. ‘Is everything in order?’

  Nethata smiled.

  ‘It is, Commissar-General,’ he replied. ‘Perfectly so.’

  Rauth strode through the fields of death, feeling blood and viscera sluice down his armour as he went. His tread cracked the ground and bones beneath him, leaving a trail of shallow footprints in the raw ferrocrete. Above him, broken lumens flickered intermittently, making the narrow chamber look like an erratic stop-frame vid-feed. The walls, just like his armour, were streaked with blood.