The Beast Arises

‘The people of Prax,’ said Major Bryce, appearing in the door ahead of Columba and Kalkator and a handful of Scions. ‘And a billion more from off-world, brought here to be… rendered.’

Zerberyn turned from the window as Columba strode past. The veteran-sergeant ignored the panorama entirely, thumped through the glazed metal doors onto the main staircase, and then blazed down the corridor with his bolt pistol to a riot of high-pitched screams. Kalkator joined Zerberyn at the glass. Jaskólska moved warily aside, some deep conditioning of her training causing her to half-raise her hellgun and slip behind a desk. The Iron Warrior disengaged his helmet’s seals and removed it, nose wrinkling as he took it under his arm and gazed across the plain towards the fortress that Perturabo had built. His eyes were pained, distant, his primarch’s glories dust.

‘You have seen it?’ said Zerberyn to the major.

‘Throne, have I seen it,’ muttered Bryce, hugging his carapace as though the armourglass provided no protection against the winds of the plain. ‘The smell of the tanneries stays on you for days, and the screams of the children…’

‘You are only human. It is understandable.’

Bryce nodded, grateful for that. He pointed to a humming stack of cogitator units that stood against the wall behind a clear plastek barrier. ‘The data-cache.’

‘I am no priest of Mars, major.’

‘I suggest we pull up the unit and take it with us, First Captain.’ Brother Antille walked over, shadowed by the smaller form of Bryce’s vox-officer-cum-adjutant, Sergeant Menthis, and greeted Zerberyn with a curt nod. ‘I can bear the weight, and see it safely loaded aboard the gunship. Once we return to Dantalion Forge-Brother Clathrin can conduct the necessary rites of retrieval.’

‘Do it.’

‘Everything the orks have done from here will have been automatically stored by the system,’ said Bryce. ‘Thousands of ships take off and land every day, and even more are unloaded from orbit. You’ll be able to learn what the orks are doing from that, I have no doubt.’

‘I can tell you what the orks are doing,’ said Kalkator, turning his nailhead stare on Zerberyn, ignoring the Scion utterly. ‘They are feeding an empire.’

Zerberyn looked again at that crimson pall. As if the thermosphere wept blood. If his transhuman biology had retained the ability for him to be physically sick, then he would have been so. By the Emperor’s wisdom, he was forced to keep his disgust internal; it stewed in his gut, suffused him, a familiar outrage trembling in the marrow of his bones.

Feed.

‘You saw the number of ships in orbit, little cousin,’ said Kalkator. ‘The industry of Prax could be supplying offensives against hundreds of sectors.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘You know what I am suggesting.’

‘You did not want to be on this planet. Now you are talking of reconquering it.’

‘Orks do not settle, they burn. They took no prisoners on Ostrom or Klostra or on Eidolica. I could not have known that this

would be here.’

‘There must be ten thousand orks in that city, defending a Fourth Legion citadel. There is no combination of variables that can sum forty men and fewer than thirty Adeptus Astartes into a schema of victory.’

With a scowl, Kalkator replaced his helm over his head. His armour resealed with a clank of magnetic clamps. The next words he spoke came directly through Zerberyn’s helmet channel.

‘Forget the citadel. The fortress is but the surface of a complex of subterranean bunkers that runs beneath the entire city. The entrances are concealed and gene-locked. We can take the citadel, and hold it long enough for our ships to land additional forces to cleanse the planet.’

Zerberyn closed his eyes and considered. The parameters of the modified mission schematic would recommend utilising the substation’s communications and landing capability to apprise the fleet and call down Thunderhawk extraction to remove the data-cache to safety, and then most likely destroy the facility on their departure. But there was merit to Kalkator’s argument. He opened his eyes and met the warsmith’s glowing, red-lensed stare.

That horned mask was hiding something, he felt certain, but the Iron Warrior was too altered from his exalted origins, his manner too void of humanity, for him to guess what.

‘We need only get into the city,’ said Kalkator.

Zerberyn’s eyes followed the line of the railroad, across the plain and into Princus Praxa’s bleak industrial heart.

There was merit.

He nodded, feeling an adrenal buzz suffuse his muscles as his body prepared itself for the combat promised by that red horizon. It felt good.

The fightback began now.

Eighteen

Terra — the Imperial Palace