Ben Counter - Galaxy in Flames

Loken followed his gaze. He could just glimpse a flash of dirty white armour.

World Eaters,’

Who else?'

'I don't know if Angron even knows another way to fight,’

Tarvitz shrugged. 'He probably does. He just likes his way better,’

Tarvitz and Loken had first met on Murder, where the Sons of Horns had fought alongside the Emperor's Children against hideous megarachnid aliens. Tarvitz had been a fine warrior, devoid of the grandstanding of his Legion that had so antagoВ­nised Torgaddon.

Loken barely remembered the journey back through the Sirenhold, scrambling through shattered tombs and burning ruins. He remembered fighting through men he had once called brother towards the great gates of the Sirenhold, and he had not stopped until he had his first proper sight of the Precentor's Palace and its magnificent rose-granite petals.

'They'll hit within the hour,’ said Tarvitz. Til move men over to the defences,’

'It could be a feint,’ said Loken, vividly remem­bering the first days of the battle for the palace. 'Angron hits one side, Eidolon counter-attacks,’

His first sight of Tarvitz's warriors in battle had resembled a great game with the Emperor's ChilВ­dren as pieces masterfully arranged in feints and counter-charges. A lesser man than Saul Tarvitz would have allowed his force to be picked apart by

them, but the captain of the Emperor's Children had somehow managed to weather three days of non-stop attacks.

"We'll be ready for it,’ said Tarvitz, looking down into the depths of the palace.

Loken and Tarvitz had climbed into the structure of a partially collapsed dome, one of the many secВ­tions of the Precentor's Palace that had been ruined during the firestorm and fighting.

Sheared sections of granite petals formed the cover behind which Loken and Tarvitz were shelterВ­ing, while in the rubble-choked dome below, hundreds of the survivors were manning the defences. Luna Wolves and Emperor's Children manned barricades made of priceless sculptures and other artworks that had filled the chambers beneath the dome.

Now these monumental sculptures of past rulers lay on their sides with Astartes crouched behind them.

'How much longer do you think we can hold?' asked Loken.

'We'll stay until it's over,’ said Tarvitz. 'You said so yourself, every second we survive, the chance grows that the Emperor hears of this and sends the other Legions to bring Horus to justice,’

'If Garro makes it,’ said Loken. 'He could be dead already, or lost in the warp,’

'Perhaps, but I have to hope that Nathaniel made it out,’ said Tarvitz. 'Our job is to hold them off for as long as we can,’

That's what worries me. This probably all started when Angron slipped the leash, but the Warmaster could have just pulled his Legions out and bombed this city into dust. He would have lost some of them, but even so… this planet should have been dead a long time ago,’

Tarvitz smiled. 'Four primarchs, Garviel. That's your answer. Four warriors not given to backing down. Who would be the first to leave? Angron? Mortarion? If Eidolon's leading the Emperor's ChilВ­dren then he's got a lot to prove alongside the primarchs, and I have never known Horus show weakness, not when his brother primarchs might

see it,’

'No,' agreed Loken. 'The Warmaster does not back down from a battle once he's committed,’

Then they'll have to kill us all,’ said Tarvitz.

'Yes, they will,’ said Loken grimly.

The vox-beads in both their helmets chimed and Torgaddon's voice sounded.

'Garvi, Saul!' said Torgaddon. 'I've got reports that the World Eaters are massing. We can hear them chanting, so they'll be coming soon. I've rein­forced the eastern barricades, but we need every man down here,’

'I'll pull my men back from the gallery dome,’ voxed Tarvitz. 'I'll send Garviel to join you,’

'Where are you going?' asked Loken.

'I'm going to make sure the west and north are still covered and to get some guns on the chapel too,’ said Tarvitz, pointing through the ruins of

the dome to the strange organic shape of the Warsingers' Chapel adjoining the palace comВ­plex.

The survivors had instinctively avoided the chapel and few of them had even seen inside it. Its very walls were redolent of the corruption that had conВ­sumed the soul of the Choral City.

'I'll take the chapel and Lucius can take the ground level,’ continued Tarvitz, turning back to Loken. 'I swear that sometimes I think Lucius is actually enjoying this,’

'A little too much, if you ask me,’ replied Loken. 'You need to keep an eye on him,’

A familiar dull explosion sounded and a tower of rubble and smoke burst from the Choral City's torВ­tured cityscape to the north of the palace.

Amazing,’ said Tarvitz, 'that there are any Death Guard left alive over there,’

'Death Guard are tough to kill,’ replied Loken, heading for the makeshift ladder that led down to the remains of the gallery dome.

Despite his words, he knew that it really was amazing. Mortarion, never one to do things with finesse, had simply landed one of his fleet's largest orbital landers on the edge of the western trenches and saturated the defences with turret fire while his Death Guard deployed.

That had been the last anyone had heard of the Death Guard in the Choral City.

Though from the haphazardly aimed artillery shells that landed daily in the traitors' camps, it was

clear that some loyal Death Guard still resisted Mortarion's efforts to exterminate them.

'I only hope we live as long,' said Tarvitz. We're running low on supplies and ammunition. Soon we'll start running low on Astartes,’

'As long as one is alive, captain, we'll fight,' promised Loken. 'Horus picked some unfortunate enemies in you and me. We'll make him regret ever taking us on.'

'Then we'll speak again after Angron's been sent scurrying,’ said Tarvitz.

'Until then.'

Loken dropped down into the dome, leaving Tarvitz alone for a moment to look across the blasted city. How long had it been since he had been surrounded by anything other than the nightВ­marish place the Choral City had become? Two months? Three?

Ashen skies and smouldering ruins surrounded the palace for as far as the eye could see in all direcВ­tions, the city resembling the kind of hell the Isstvanians themselves might once have believed in.

Tarvitz shook the thought from his mind.

'There are no hells, no gods, no eternal rewards or punishments,’ he told himself.

Lucius could hear the killing. He could read die sound of it as though it were written down before him like sheet music. He knew the difference between the war-cries of a World Eater and those of

a Son of Horus, and the variance between the tonal quality of a volley of bolter fire launched to support an attack or to defend an obstacle.

The chapel Saul had tasked him widi defending was a strange place to be the site of the Great CruВ­sade's last stand. Not so long ago it had been the nerve centre of an enemy regime, but now its makeshift defences were the only thing holding off the far superior traitor forces.

'Sounds like a nasty one,’ said Brother Solathen of Squad Nasicae, hunched down by the sill of the chapel window. 'They might break through,’

'Our friend Loken can handle fhem,’ sneered Lucius. Angron wants to get some more kills. That's all he wants. Listen? Can you hear that?'

Solathen cocked his head as he listened. Astartes hearing, like most of their senses, was finely honed, but Solathen didn't seem to recognise Lucius's point. 'Hear what, captain?'