The Beast Arises

Instead, distorted by stained plex-glass and cracked UV-shielding, he saw the ork moon. Its cratered face glared down through a tangle of piping as if it always knew exactly when and where to look to find him. It was far smaller than Terra’s own moon, but hanging in geostationary orbit just a few hundred kilometres above the Sanctum Imperialis it appeared ten times larger. The larger vessels of the blockading fleet — Autocephalax Eternal, Dies Dominus and Abhorrence being but three — were visible from Terra, like clouds passing slowly over the face of the hostile alien planetoid. Koorland himself knew no fear, but despite the visual reassurance, he could well understand the terror the ork moon instilled in people.

Even those who would never see the sky could feel its power over their world.

A tremor passed through the mountainous bastion of Daylight Wall. Unsecured maintenance hatches rattled. Fern-like communications vanes hummed, the indelicate side-to-side motion transformed into harmonic vibrations. The mighty fortifications moved, as they had been designed to move under tectonic stresses or the crushing overpressure of an artillery bombardment, but their superficial facades crumbled, tank-sized chunks of ornamental masonry crashing down into the killing fields and the under-hives. Cabling tore — electrical, hydraulic, plasmic — and ionised gases and pressurised fluids sprayed photochemical ejecta into the Palace twilight.

The shaking eased. The shouts of rescue and repair units filtered up from below.

Things were not, at least, as dire as they had become on Ardamantua. The Last Wall and Basilikon Astra’s bombardment had obliterated the attack moon’s weaponry along with about ninety-five per cent of its crust. No, this was not a weapon. This was simply the seismic shock of having a lunar body suddenly transposed into near orbit.

He looked across the fretted robes of the skitarii, dazzling the air with arcane symbology, to where Daylight stood on the opposite side of the platform with his back against the steep drop to the Palace. The Fists Exemplar battle-brother who had taken the name, formerly Seventh Captain Dentor, looked good in his new livery, as much as it pained Koorland to compel his brother to wear it. He knew the value that the warrior’s home Chapter placed on outward humility and inward pride. The golden spear and shield he carried were not the same as those borne by his namesake, for they too had been victims of Ardamantua’s destruction, but had been selected for him from the Chapter’s armouries on the basis of being a good enough likeness to fool anyone who was not a son of Dorn.

To his dishonour, it did feel good to share his wall with a brother again. And Lord Udo had been right. The populace appreciated the sight of Imperial Fists on the walls.

Daylight nodded the all-clear, and Koorland returned it.

In a squeal of hydraulics, the shuttle’s boarding hatch lowered. The ramp struck the platform with a dull metallic thump, flexing and rattling as if in the grip of another quake as the power-armoured High Marshal of the Black Templars emerged through the coolant vapours.

Bohemond’s face was a burned ruin, scorched by the witch-fire of an ork psyker in a battle long before the present uprising. Half of what remained was a metal mask as emotive as the chrome plate of the magos explorator, but the other half was what struck terror into mortals and transhumans alike. It was flesh, but it could not be called a face. Looking at it, you could see where flesh had run, where it had resolidifed as he beat the greenskin witch to death with his bare fists, and the new form it had taken.

Koorland was not above a slight feeling of intimidation. Whatever he felt was amplified in the mortal soldiery tenfold. The idea that they might offer any protection at all against even the one Space Marine was laughable.

The High Marshal carried Sigismund’s sword in one gauntleted fist, drawn, the long blade angled away from him and towards the ground. The other hand he presented, palm up, and waited for half a second while a warrior bondsman in bone-coloured flak armour and black surplice slapped a data-slate into it. It looked as though he was about to launch into some kind of prepared speech.

But Koorland had come to know him better than that.

‘The last coordinates of every Black Templars, Crimson Fists, Excoriators and Iron Knights ship in the blockade fleet, and the codes to our defensive installations in the base’s interior.’ Bohemond’s mouth no longer closed properly and the expression he made was a loathsome sneer. ‘I advise you to memorise them. By the High Lords’ decree, there remain enough orks in the deeper levels to occupy your surface teams.’