Feat of Iron - Nick Kyme Read online

  ‘Have I raised weak sons?’ Ferrus asked when they were alone again.

  ‘You know that is not the case.’

  ‘Then why are we confounded?’ The primarch’s choler cooled as he took to pacing his ruined strategium. ‘I have been away from the war front too long, my brothers draining my attention. You have become malleable, tractable. I perceive a weakness of purpose in our ranks, a failing of will that holds us back from our objective. Eldar sorcery is not my concern, finding and destroying the node is. We should have the mental fortitude to overcome tricks. I am leading this campaign and I will not be bested by my brothers. We are strength, an example to all. The reputation of this Legion, my reputation, will not be besmirched. No more delays. We press on at speed. Leave the Army divisions behind if you must. Nothing must prevent us achieving victory.’

  Santar frowned as he saw resolve turn to melancholy on Ferrus’s face.

  ‘Desaan serves you unshakeably, as we all do. You have forged strong sons, my primarch.’

  Ferrus relented. His hand was heavy and crushing as it fell upon the equerry’s shoulder.

  ‘You make me temperate, Gabriel. I suspect you are the only one who can.’

  Santar bowed his head respectfully. ‘You honour me with your praise, my primarch.’

  ‘It is well-earned, my son.’ Ferrus released him, leaving the shoulder numb beneath the guard. ‘Desaan is a good soldier.’

  ‘I shall tell him you said so.’

  ‘No, I’ll do it. Better it come from me.’

  ‘As you wish, my primarch.’ There was a pregnant pause as Santar considered what he was about to say next.

  Ferrus had his back to him again. ‘Voice your concerns. My eyes might be cold, but they are not blind.’

  ‘Very well. Is it wise to abandon our auxiliaries? We might have need of their support.’

  Ferrus’s head came around to regard his first captain swiftly. The primarch’s calm demeanour scorched to ash as something molten and unpredictable burned in his gaze.

  ‘Are you questioning my orders, equerry?’

  Unlike his less experienced captain, Santar did not falter.

  ‘No, primarch, but you do not seem yourself.’

  Anyone but Santar would have been struck for speaking so candidly. As it was, the first captain experienced a moment of disquiet as his primarch considered his reaction. Santar’s fists were clenched, the lightning claws poised for release as his warrior instincts took over.

  Ferrus’s fury ebbed as quickly as it had flared and he stared into the darkness.

  ‘There is something I need to tell you, Gabriel.’ Ferrus met the first captain’s gaze. ‘It is for you and only you to know, but I must confess it. I warn you, speak of this to no one…’

  An implicit threat lurked at the periphery of the primarch’s trailing words and a nerve tremor in Ferrus’s jaw flickered. The first captain waited patiently.

  ‘I have had strange dreams of late,’ Ferrus muttered. It was utterly unlike him to do so and set Santar on edge more than any threat of violence ever could. ‘Of a desert of black sand and of eyes watching… cold, reptilian eyes.’

  Santar had no response. He had never seen his primarch vulnerable before. Ever.

  ‘Should I summon an Apothecary, my lord?’ he eventually asked when he noticed Ferrus rubbing his neck. Under the gorget, just visible above the lip, the skin was raw.

  ‘An irritation, nothing more,’ he said, though his voice was far away. ‘It is this place, this desert. There is something out there…’

  Now Santar felt real concern and wanted to end the campaign in short order and venture to fresh theatres of war.

  ‘The Legion can destroy the node unassisted,’ he asserted with confidence. ‘Flesh is weak, my primarch, but we shall not be slaves to it.’

  And like a shadow moving from across the sun, Ferrus brightened and became his old self again. He clasped Santar’s shoulder in a grip that was painful for the first captain.

  ‘Muster the legionary captains. I will lead us to our enemies and show just how strong the sons of Medusa are,’ he vowed. ‘My course is set, equerry. Nothing will stop me. Nothing.’

  With Gabriel Santar gone, Ferrus returned to introspection. Nothing, not even the promise of battle, could shake his bleak mood. Like an anvil hung around his neck, it dragged him deeper towards an abyss. Fulgrim could lighten it, he was sure, but then the Phoenician was not here. Instead, he had to make war with that obstinate bastard Mortarion and soft-hearted Vulkan.

  ‘Strength…’ he said as if invoking the word would provide it. With silver fingers he reached out to seize the haft of Forgebreaker.

  He would crush the eldar, destroy their psychic node and win the campaign.

  ‘And do it swiftly,’ he added in a whisper, tearing the hammer from its strappings.

  Though he would never admit it, for Ferrus, the war could not end soon enough.

  Cocooned in a vestibule of white bone, the two figures could speak without fear of interlopers listening in. There was a great deal to discuss and much hung in the balance.

  ‘I perceive two lines,’ said one, his voice lyrical and reverberant. ‘Convergent at the moment, but they will soon diverge.’

  The other speaker laced his slender fingers together as he answered. ‘I see them too, and the point at which they part. He will not heed you. You are wasting your time in this.’

  Though he was adamant, the first speaker did not sound agitated. ‘He must, or think of the cost.’

  ‘Others might not agree.’ After a moment, the other speaker slowly shook his head. ‘You perceive a second path where one does not truly exist. Fate will close this door to us.’

  ‘Have you seen it?’

  ‘I have seen him. He must choose, all must choose, but his decision is already made, and it is not to our favour.’

  Now the faintest resonance of exasperation entered the first speaker’s tone. ‘How can you be certain?’

  ‘Nothing is certain, however unlikely the alternative, but feet of iron do not readily alter their path without strong incentive.’

  The first speaker leaned back. ‘Then I shall provide it.’

  ‘It will not make any difference.’

  ‘I must succeed.’

  ‘And yet you will not.’

  ‘But I have to try.’

  Bion Henricos of the Iron Hands Tenth Company was not encouraged as he surveyed the bedraggled condition of the Army divisions. They were sweat-stained, gaunt-looking men, plastered in the crust of their own flesh-salt. They were raw and bleeding, and slow. Interminably slow.

  Even the claves of Mechanicum skitarii and servitor battalions were suffering, the frailty of their flesh components a major contributing factor. Several hundred of the cybernetic creatures had been left to rust and rot in the war host’s wake; while casualties amongst the Saavan Masonites were allowed to lie where they fell in ragged Army dress and buried only at the whim of sporadic sandstorms.

  A makeshift encampment had been hastily erected by the few remaining gangs of able-bodied labour serfs, and infirmaries established to deal with heat exhaustion and chronic dehydration.

  Henricos counted the ranks of men within the tents, prostrate on row upon row of wire and canvas bunks. It amounted to hundreds of sick and wounded. Aside from the occasional plaintive moan, they were silent and desolate. He did not slow or linger, blind to clutches of Dogan Maulers leaning on their pike shafts and huddled beneath awnings suspended from the flanks of Chimeras; or the desperate efforts of pilots and drivers attempting to cool the engines of their vehicles; or the muttered curses of men raking clods of compacted sand from their weapons. One hoary-looking colonel tipped his cap to him, whilst sucking on a stick of tabac. He looked weathered; so did his men. But as the Iron Hand passed through the throngs of blistered, heat-scorched soldiers who could barely speak through bone-dry lips and leathern tongues, he felt an iota of compassion.

  This was no place for men. It
was hell made manifest and therefore the province of star-forged warriors like him. Unlike many of his brothers, Henricos did not possess a full array of bionic enhancements. His hand had been severed and replaced with a mechanised simulacrum, as was rite and ritual amongst the Legion, but the rest of the seventh sergeant was organic. He suspected that shred of empathy he had experienced came from this bias of biology.

  He wondered if his more cybernetic brethren were surrendering more than just the weakness of flesh to the altar of mechanised strength and resilience. Were they giving up a part of their humanity too?

  Henricos dismissed the notion, and yet it stayed at the edge of his subconscious.

  Infirmary tents soon gave way to smaller pavilions that provided shade to entire battalions but were of little use to their clustered occupants in such oppressive heat. Canteens were passed around in quick succession but not even a reservoir would be enough to slake the thirst of one, let alone the many divisions of the war host. Discipline masters stood upright and unflinching as an example to their charges, but even these normally steel-backed officers were weakening. Henricos saw one collapse to his knees before he picked himself up and reasserted his post.

  The old colonel was singing, but few took up the scratchy ditty, save for his veterans.

  All told, it was a woeful sight, and these were just the vanguard troops; many more were still adrift from the main war host, slogging through the desert.

  A command tent came into view at the end of a flattened colonnade of sand that was rapidly being overrun with drifts. A pair of ragged-looking Masonite Praetors stood to attention as the Iron Hand approached.

  Henricos did not request entry, or even deign to look at the soldiers beyond acknowledging that they were present. Instead, he strode into the tent and was hit by a belt of stagnant air. Squatting in the corner of the canvas tent was a recyc-fan switched to its coldest setting. The boxy machine juddered and whined as it was pushed well beyond its limits.

  Fifteen men, all in officers’ attire dishevelled to the point of half-dress, stood to attention as Henricos entered.

  One, a general judging by the ostentation of his uniform and the quill-bearing thrall-hawk perched upon his shoulder, stepped forwards. He had a data-slate clutched in his gauntleted hand and opened his mouth to speak, but Henricos silenced him with an upraised palm. He used his cybernetic one deliberately.

  ‘Break it down,’ he stated flatly. The Iron Hand could have been speaking in binaric for all the emotion he conveyed. ‘All of it.’

  A second officer, his face aghast, spoke up. This one had removed his armoured cuirass and unbuttoned his jacket. Evidently, settling in.

  ‘But, my lord, we have only just–’

  Henricos considered the three seconds he had allowed the officer to speak as a concession he would not repeat.

  ‘No exceptions. The Legion advances, so do you. Gather your divisions or you are welcome to take up your objections with this.’ He tapped the bolt pistol holstered at his hip once. ‘Lord Manus commands it.’

  Only the chief medicus was undeterred. ‘If we uproot now, our sick and wounded will perish.’ He dared to glower through wire framed spectacles. Fortunately for him, Henricos did not take it as a challenge to his authority.

  ‘Yes, they will,’ said the Iron Hand, the barest tremor of remorse surprising him.

  The officers sat down, or rather slumped. Henricos took the data-slate and absorbed the information in a glance.

  Then he left.

  The desert stretched before them like a gilded ocean, burnished by the sun.

  Upon a sickle-shaped rise, Ferrus Manus was surveying the way ahead. A cadre of his officers was close by while the rest of the legionary ranks waited in formation below.

  The primarch glanced at a geographic hololith projected from a slate in Santar’s hand. He observed sweeping dunes, caverns of basalt and endless sand plains revealed in green monochrome, before returning to the desert vista.

  ‘Nothing on the horizon line…’ he rumbled, but then squinted as if perceiving something only one of his vaunted genetic provenance could see. ‘But there is a hazing of the air, a disturbance…’

  ‘Potential energy feedback, my lord,’ said Ruuman, peering down at the scorched valley through his bionic eye. The gyroscopic focusing rings whirred and clicked, the faceted apertures clacking and reclacking in different configurations as fresh spectra were overlaid upon his vision. Its telescopic extension retracted as he added, ‘Which could suggest an outpost or bastion.’

  ‘I see it too,’ said Desaan, analysing the scene through his visor. ‘The outpost is likely cloaked in some way.’

  Santar regarded the valley through a pair of magnoculars. It was shawled with bone-white rocks, bleached by the sun. Some jutted from the ground like skeletal fingers or were clustered together, suggesting the ribcage of some vast but long-dead predator. Sigils too; he thought he saw runic patterns described in the arrangement of the rocks.

  ‘It must be there,’ said Ferrus, interrupting the first captain’s thoughts.

  A dusty squall was slowly rolling across the valley basin. Santar thought he saw tiny star flashes in the churned dirt and unnatural shadows that could not have been formed by the sun. He blinked and they were gone, but the sand squall had thickened.

  Santar shut down the hololith and gave the slate back to one of the few still-functioning servitor units in attendance. He passed the scopes back to Shadrak Meduson.

  ‘Even advancing at pace, it will be a slow march across the valley,’ he said, appraising all of the various tactical options. ‘But arcing around the basin will be slower still.’

  Ruuman made a rapid calculation through his bionics.

  ‘Four-point-eight kilometres once we’ve made descent, first captain.’

  Santar nodded to the Ironwrought, but addressed his primarch.

  ‘Higher ground offers better vantage, but will force us into column. Through the valley our divisions can spread out, but exposure would be prolonged. There is something about it I cannot see… a threat.’

  Ferrus glanced over his armoured shoulder. ‘Is superstition contagious now, equerry?’ he asked, as if sharing a private joke with Santar. The primarch did it often.

  ‘Trusting my instincts, primarch.’

  ‘For which I cannot fault you.’ Ferrus’s attempt at conciliation didn’t reach his cold eyes. He watched the valley too, as if he had already seen what Santar had described but chose to dismiss it. ‘I won’t be slowed any further. We take the low ground.’

  ‘Shall we send scouts to reconnoitre first? We don’t know what’s out there.’

  ‘There are none,’ answered Meduson, the bolter slung low and easy in his veteran’s grip. His narrow face was taut as a blade, and when he scowled it seemed to sharpen.

  The voice of Bion Henricos interrupted the exchange between captains. The sergeant had been brought to the impromptu conclave in order to speak for the Army divisions, since none of their officers were able to do so or quick enough to satisfy the primarch’s impatience. He was a thick-set warrior, tautly muscled but with a swordsman’s grace. The Medusan steel-edge strapped to his thigh alone was testament to that.

  ‘I have a suggestion, my lord,’ he said, falling to one knee but with his chin upraised and shoulders squared. He had not long been elevated to the sergeant’s rank, and this was the first time he had spoken directly to his lord and primarch.

  ‘Rise,’ said Ferrus, glancing askance at the deferent sergeant. ‘No son of mine must kneel before me, sergeant, not unless he is asking for forgiveness.’

  ‘There are scouts within the Army ranks, the Dogan Maulers,’ said Henricos as he stood.

  ‘We would be wasting our time,’ Desaan cut in.

  Henricos turned to him. ‘The humans have a role to play here.’

  Eyeing the sergeant’s singular bionic implant, Desaan was less than convivial.

  ‘Yes, that of ball and chain around our noble necks, drag
ging behind us in the dirt. They are unnecessary. Trust in iron, not flesh.’

  ‘Do you believe I do not?’ Henricos was careful to keep his tone neutral.

  If Desaan’s visored eyes could have narrowed they would have.

  ‘You are over-fleshed, Bion, a weakness that clouds your thinking.’

  Henricos bristled at the obvious slight. His jaw tightened. ‘I can assure you I am unclouded, brother-captain.’

  Booming laughter, hard-edged and full of violent mirth, broke the tension like a hammer splitting an anvil.

  ‘That’s the spirit, my sons,’ snarled the primarch, ‘but save your zeal for the enemy. No sense blunting blades on one another or my equerry humbling the both of you in front of your fellow legionaries, eh?’

  The rebuke was firm but without true ire.

  Meduson stepped in as conciliator before any further harsh words between the officers saw the primarch’s mood shift again. The captain’s face had softened so that it might only cut rather than cleave. ‘We could consolidate here, allow the Army divisions to catch up. Presumably, the Dogans will be in the vanguard.’

  Henricos nodded, indicating that was the case.

  ‘It will give them purpose and invigorate them,’ he said, ignoring Desaan’s disapproving expression.

  ‘And what of our purpose?’ asked Ferrus Manus. There was an edge to the primarch’s question. ‘It has been delayed enough. No more waiting,’ he snapped, capricious as mercury. A long, deep breath exhaled from his tight lips.

  ‘Muster the Legion, first captain,’ said Ferrus. ‘We’ll take the Morlocks through the valley, heavies in reserve to gain the hill and provide overwatch for the forces advancing across the basin. Captain Meduson, you’ll lead the rest in two half-battalions across the flanks of this rise and regroup with us when it levels out.’

  Santar gave a firm salute to his lord and went about his duty.

  The sickle-shaped banks were broad and long, but gradually tapered to a point at their terminus where they met the valley basin. Santar recalled the shadows in the dust squall and decided that the Morlocks would draw out whatever was lurking inside it.

  All but one of the potential node locations pinpointed by the Mechanicum had proven false; mirages likely fashioned through the eldar witchery. The Iron Hands’ efforts, which had seen the few Army divisions able to keep pace with the Legion lag farther and farther behind, had been rewarded with further ambush.