Rogal Dorn: The Emperor's Crusader Read online

  ‘Alert navigation and the fleet, we will be manoeuvring for support drop and bombardment.’ Dorn returned his attention to the hololith and manipulated the display until it showed the line of fortifications and conurbation where the Dark Angels had dropped. The schematic updated with icons past the walls and heading into the city. ‘The time has come for a final show of our intent.’

  ‘We are launching the second attack wave, lord?’

  ‘Yes, but we will do so in support of the Lion. I believe he has located the planet’s political capital. Calculate fleet movements to bring us alongside the First Legion ships and prepare a message to their primarch to the effect that we stand ready at his word.’

  ‘At his word?’ Gidoreas spoke before he could stop himself. ‘My lord? Command was granted to you.’

  ‘And now I am giving it to the person better placed to use it, captain,’ Dorn replied sharply.

  Gidoreas knew better than to say anything else. He saluted and bowed his head in acknowledgement of his orders. A few seconds later, Efried mounted the ramp to the observation deck.

  ‘My Lord Dorn, the primarch of the First Legion sends dispatches. He has broken through the defences and believes he is closing on their planetary leadership. He asks that we move in support to ensure that encirclement is complete.’

  Dorn had turned his attention to a display above the navigation stations where the fleet dispositions were shown, any interaction with his subordinates paused while he calculated the next sequence of events.

  ‘I have our orders,’ said Gidoreas, stepping past the primarch, taking the rolled plastek from the lieutenant.

  As they descended, Gidoreas spared one glance back at his Legion commander, still unsure of what he had witnessed. Any other individual might have thought the Lion’s ‘request’ presumptuous, an attempt to settle the score for his earlier failure to gain command. Dorn was not only prepared to relinquish his authority for the good of the campaign, but had also predicted such an occurrence. It had been a decade since the primarch had been united with his Legion, five years since Gidoreas had been promoted to equerry. Not in that time had he seen Dorn so forthright, so focused in his decisions. This was the primarch’s element, the Huscarl realised. This was Rogal Dorn operating at his full potential, and it was humbling to watch.

  It was not so much the absence of ego that surprised Gidoreas; he had seen pride occasionally get the better of Dorn. His strength came from utter conviction that he was doing the right thing. Not arrogance, just an overpowering sense of purpose that had been ignited by the recent Solar Conclave with the Emperor. He did not know for sure what had passed between the Emperor and His sons, but there was talk of the exchanging of fresh oaths, the reaffirmation of the Great Crusade’s purpose. Whatever the Master of Mankind had said to the primarchs, it had stoked the fire inside Rogal Dorn, and now he burned brighter than Gidoreas had witnessed before.

  A fire that would light the galaxy or consume them all.

  The light of burning palaces reflected from the lenses of Master Aeolus’ helm as he addressed the assembled Templars, three hundred of them, nearly the full company. They lined the rubble-strewn remnants of a boulevard that led into the heart of the capital, three ranks deep on either side. Companies had been pulled back from the fighting all over the planet to provide suitable honour guard for the primarch, in expectation that the Dark Angels and Emperor’s Children would be doing the same.

  ‘This isn’t a victory parade, we haven’t won yet. It’s a war council.’ Aeolus strode along the centre of the road between his Templars, his greatsword in his left hand, its blade against his shoulder pad. Broken masonry crunched under his heavy tread. ‘I want you to look on our bloody work and be proud. Those that refuse the Emperor cannot be allowed to work against Him. Resistance begets retribution. Compliance or conquest. We are just at the beginning of this crusade into the shadows and there will be a thousand foes yet to fall beneath each of your blades. Where we are going there is only darkness. We must carry our light with us, be it the lantern of enlightenment or the burning brand of destruction. The Imperial Truth binds us, but our blades define us. Now, stand proud before your primarch and the other Legions, secure in the knowledge that we have honoured ourselves in their gaze.’

  Sigismund watched Aeolus head into the plaza that had been designated as the landing field, its bizarre abstract statues torn down, the facade murals of decadent scenes fractured and cratered by shell and bolter round. His gaze moved along the lines of his brothers, their armour bearing the same scars of harsh fighting. Only the promise of rightful extermination would make a foe fight with such rabid, pointless intensity. And as the enemy had feared, so had the primarch and his brothers been forced to act. There was no more negotiation, no new attempts at peace or even a contemplation of ceasefire to allow the iterators to begin their work bringing the great plan of the Emperor to the ignorant.

  Against such unreasoning hate only the bolt and blade could answer.

  The flare of drop-ship engines announced the arrival of the primarchs, each accompanied by squadrons of fighter craft in the colours of their Legions. Rogal Dorn had chosen a landing site large enough for all three Stormbirds to descend together, no hint of priority or hierarchy between the sons of the Emperor. In a precisely coordinated flourish the atmo-craft of the Emperor’s Children did a last spiral flight around their primarch’s drop-ship and then soared back towards the heavy clouds, their rolling sonic booms timed to sound like an eleven-gun cannonade salute that echoed over the ruined city.

  The drop-ships landed and disgorged their contents: Dorn with his gold-armoured Huscarls, the other two primarchs followed by their companion honour guards. Fulgrim’s Phoenix Guard in shining purple and gold marched beneath a long banner that looked like a flowing Imperial aquila, flanking their lord, while the primarch of the Dark Angels walked at the head of a column of his elite warriors under a flurry of banners in red, black and white, adorned with Calibanite heraldry.

  There had been speculation, swiftly curtailed by the Master of Templars, that the primarchs had to meet on the surface because they could not agree whose flagship was suitable to host such a council. It seemed obvious. The Phalanx was as large as a starbase, far outstripping the facilities of the capital ships of the Lion and the Phoenician. Yet it was not his decision to make.

  A rumble of engines heralded the arrival of a hundred bike-mounted Dark Angels, emerging from side streets to ride escort. Fulgrim was speaking, gesturing frequently as the trio made their way up the road towards the remnants of the old regime’s parliament. Dorn occasionally nodded while the Lion was shaking his head, his mane of hair tousled by the smoke-filled wind.

  Sigismund’s augmented senses picked up their words as they approached, though he had no context to understand them.

  ‘…go over this again,’ Fulgrim said. ‘Once committed to a course of action, we have to see it done properly or the whole endeavour becomes pointless.’

  ‘Your Legion precipitated this, Fulgrim, and now we have to deal with the consequences,’ snapped the Lion.

  The snarling of bike engines blocked out further sounds as the escort rode past, taking up station at the far end of the processional in a semicircular formation. As their engines dropped to idling, Sigismund caught a last exchange between the primarchs.

  ‘When faced with no possibility of compliance, there is no alternative but to eliminate all opposition,’ Rogal Dorn told his companions. ‘It is unfortunate, I would have avoided this outcome if possible, but matters have moved beyond any of us to reverse this course. We are only just embarking on this expedition into the Occluda Noctis, there are far sterner tests to come. We do not need to leave a potential foe at our backs, nor can we leave behind sufficient garrison to guard against future revolution. The dead do not become rebels.’

  ‘Graves rather than slaves?’ quipped Fulgrim with a faint laugh. He laid
a hand briefly on the arm of Rogal Dorn and looked across him to the Lion. ‘I know you feel that this is somehow dishonourable, but you need to remember something important. We are among the savages and xenos here. They do not have honour, and they do not deserve the benefit of your mercy. It is a gift that is wasted upon them. Save it for those that will embrace the Imperial Truth.’

  The Lion’s reply was swallowed by distance and the grumble of the Dark Angels’ bike squadrons. As the rest of the honour guards passed – Huscarls, Phoenix Guard, Paladins of Caliban – the clouds on the horizon were lit by red, and seconds later a massive detonation rumbled across the city from the east.

  Sigismund did not react, but it was a reminder that, all across the planet, the enemy were still fighting, giving their last breaths against those they saw as invaders. As the opening stage of a much grander campaign, it certainly left no illusions about how hard the wars ahead would be. Being a Templar meant that he would be in the white-hot heart of the fighting and for the first time since he had been plucked from a shack rooftop on Terra, he finally thought he had found his purpose.

  There seemed no purpose to the enemy attacks. Their commanders dead, their political leaders executed, their cities in rubble, still the Scathians thought they might prise the grip of the Emperor from their world.

  Perhaps it wasn’t pointless, Fafnir Rann decided. They knew what awaited them. There were no more broadcasts for surrender, no terms issued, no chance for peaceful compliance. Facing extermination, who wouldn’t fight? Pride alone would make one stand up and want to take a shot at the bastards that had come to kill you. A very human reaction. To spit in the eye of the executioner.

  The particular gobbet of phlegm currently marring the Legion was fierce, uncompromising resistance outside one of the remaining industrial sectors. Even after they had abandoned their political centres, the Scathians had continued to protect their infrastructure. In a surprisingly short time, much of it had been converted to war industry, even as the number of people to crew their factory-new vehicles and wield their freshly machined weapons dwindled daily. Though they were restricted to a single system, it seemed that the Scathians were no strangers to interstellar war, which reminded Rann that this would not be the greatest challenge they faced in the coming months, not by some margin.

  A fortified region of power plants, mills and manufactories sprawling across one of the main routes through a barrier range of mountains around the final bastion of resistance had now baulked the advance of the 45th Assault Cadre for several days. Other formations had been held up at different access points, contesting with terrain as well as fanatical enemies.

  An hour ago, Rogal Dorn had arrived to assess the situation and take battle command.

  Rann felt honoured that the primarch had chosen his sector of the front to strike at the enemy, though he could take little credit for that. Happenstance more than anything had placed them on the eastern arterial route directly into the centre of the Scathian fortified zone. Ahead a crag of a castle, a mound of reclaimed rubble and plasteel that jutted out of square kilometres of ruins, had domination of the road. Flak guns bristled from its flanks and the anti-orbit weapons of the industrial fortresses beyond kept the fleet at bay for the moment.

  Very much a problem that could only be solved with troops on the ground.

  Reinforcements from other formations had been brought in at the word of the primarch, along with the contingent of a hundred Huscarls that had dropped with him. Rann could see them a few hundred paces to his left, their gilded armour stark against the dark slabs and broken bricks on the far side of the cracked, pitted ferrocrete highways that ran along the valley floor. To either side rose terraced embankments choked with debris and cut through with access roads littered with rubble. Scan sweeps had shown no life signs outside of the ramshackle fortress ahead.

  The vox fizzed and then brought a single word of command from the primarch.

  ‘Begin.’

  Legionaries with flamers moved through the ranks of the forward squads, each flanked by a breacher with shield at the ready. Dozens of heavier, multi-firing weapons had been placed by the enemy amongst the ruins of the buildings that had once straddled the broad streets ahead, pits dug into the shattered masonry and slopes of tumbled brick. They were silent for now, but their presence had been made known in previous assaults.

  The initial foray by squads with jump packs had been repulsed, the weight of fire discouraging despite the angle of assault, so the tacticals and breachers had been deployed to cover the ground more cautiously but effectively. That had been too slow, giving the gunners time to concentrate their fire, protected against the Imperial Fists’ support weapons by the remains of their stronghold. Unable to force a path, the commanders had brought in artillery to suppress the foe.

  Rann had watched with disinterest for the last day as many shells had been expended turning rubble into smaller pieces of rubble.

  Now, with the primarch, a new sense of purpose had been injected into the attack, just as Rann’s modified body and armour systems flooded his blood vessels with stimulants. He felt the contraction and expansion of muscle and armour fibre bundle as one continuous sensation, a warrior with a skin of plasteel and ceramite.

  Rann was close to the front of the attack column, just behind the breachers, afforded an almost unimpeded view. Ahead, the primarch and his Huscarls led the charge, eschewing cover to advance at speed between fallen masonry and burnt-out wrecks on the highway. Long-range fire snapped down from the enemy positions, melta shells slagging the highway surface, occasionally striking down a legionary’s war plate.

  To Rann’s left and right, tracers slashed the air, but he paid them no heed. The surest way to survive was to close the distance and engage. Anything else simply gave the enemy more time to improve their aim.

  ‘Heat plumes!’ The shout came from Ordera, auspex whining in his hand as he swung to the east and then the west. ‘Both flanks!’

  There were more bellows from the Huscarls ahead, and the vox crackled into life with warnings from squad leaders and officers alike.

  Rubble trembled then cascaded down the slopes of the shattered buildings. A renewed volley of fire from the dug-in heavy weapons added to the sudden influx of signals. Crashing and roaring, armoured vehicles as large as Baneblade super-heavies burst out of concealment, shouldering aside the broken remnants of walls, their dual-cannon turrets emerging from clouds of mortar fragments and dust while clattering tracks pulverised stone and tile.

  ‘No life signals!’ Ordera’s exclamation wasn’t so much a caution as a shout of shock. ‘Nobody inside!’

  ‘Driven by abominable intelligence,’ snarled Portok, the legionary to Rann’s left. ‘What happened with our aerial recon?’

  Lieutenant Pollux was snapping off orders quicker than the blasts of the defenders, but the company had gone from assaulting to ambushed in seconds, completely out of shape to deal with the four behemoth war engines whose turret guns now unleashed armour-cracking blasts of concentrated light into the heart of the assault squads at the rear.

  Ahead, Lord Dorn acted. The gold-clad giant pivoted towards a tank on the left, pounding across the roadway with long strides, the Huscarls sprinting but still unable to keep up.

  ‘Split and counter-attack, use the tanks themselves as cover,’ ordered the lieutenant. Rann caught a glimpse of him striding towards the right, his power sword held up like a banner to form a rally point.

  Rann couldn’t spare more time to watch, his own situation was far from ideal. One of the machine-guided super-heavies was less than two hundred metres away, crashing down the lip of a terrace directly towards the first line of breachers. Its turret blazed with las-power and two legionaries to Rann’s left were vaporised by the scarlet beam.

  A glimpse of gold in his peripheral vision and the resounding crash of a titanic impact made him remember Dorn’s immediate response
was counter-attack. Now, he could see why. The enemy tanks were too close, and though dozens of Imperial Fists fell to the first impetus of their attack, the company split and raced into their fire, using speed rather than armour to weather the onslaught. More of Rann’s brothers were slain during the next few seconds, blasted apart by ruby light. The breachers surged ahead despite the burden of their shields.

  ‘Iago!’ The breacher sergeant was just in front of Rann, a flurry of red beams from one of the hull guns spitting from the power field of his shield.

  ‘Go ahead,’ came his strained reply.

  ‘Elevation boarding,’ snapped Rann. He had his bolter aimed at the nearest tank, but there was nothing to shoot. Controlled by an unliving machine mind fed information from dozens of sensors, the vehicle had no commander or driver slit to target, and all but the tracks were housed in slabs of thick armour. Rann ventured a single shot against the links, but the bolt-round exploded uselessly against the blurring metal. ‘Right flank.’

  The artificial minds of the tanks were slow to respond to the sudden counter-attack, churning onwards even as the legionaries broke formation and raced down their flanks. Secondary weapon systems spat more laser fire, but much of it was ineffectual against power armour, spraying and sparking from helms, breastplates and pauldrons like a celebration display.

  Rann risked a glance towards his primarch and grinned at what he saw. Rogal Dorn was stood atop a clanking behemoth as though riding an ice floe on the Great River, his massive chainsword on its hanger while he used both hands to prise at the turret ring. As Rann watched, Dorn’s ceramite-clad fingers found purchase, tearing the slope-armoured assembly away from the chassis with a detonation of electrical sparks and threads of twisted metal.

  ‘On your mark,’ answered Iago, drawing Rann’s eye back to the task at hand. The breachers slowed as they reached the right-hand side of the huge war machine, turning to keep pace with the rumbling tank. Rann led his squad forward at a sprint.