Ben Counter - Galaxy in Flames

Tremendous impacts smashed the marble floor and the noise of the building's destruction was like the sweetest music he had ever heard, as he felt the world go black around him.

Saul Tarvitz looked around him at the hundred Space Marines crammed into the tiny square of cover that was all that remained of the Warsingers' temple. They had sat awaiting the final attack of the traitors for what had seemed like an age, but had been no more than thirty minutes.

'Why don't they attack?' asked Nero Vipus, one of the few Luna Wolves still alive.

'I don't know,’ said Tarvitz, but whatever the rea­son I'm thankful for it,’

Vipus nodded, his face lined with a sadness that had nothing to do with the final battles of the PreВ­centor's Palace.

'Still no word from Garviel or Tarik?' asked Tarvitz, already knowing the answer.

'No,’ said Vipus, 'nothing,’

Tm sorry, my friend,’

Vipus shook his head. 'No, I won't mourn them, not yet. They might have succeeded,’

Tarvitz said nothing, leaving the warrior to his dream and turned his attention once again to the terrifying scale of the Warmaster's army. Ten thouВ­sand traitors stood immobile in the ruins of the Choral City. World Eaters chanted alongside Emperor's Children while the Sons of Horns and the Death Guard waited in long firing lines.

The colossal form of the Dies Irae had thankfully stopped firing, the monstrous Titan marching to tower over the Sirenhold like a brazen fortress.

'They want to make sure we're beaten,’ said Tarvitz, 'to plant a flag on our corpses,’

'Yes,’ agreed Vipus, 'but we gave them the fight of their lives did we not?'

That we did,’ said Tarvitz, 'that we did, and even once we're gone, Garro will tell the Legions of what they've done here. The Emperor will send an army bigger than anything the Great Crusade has ever seen,’

Vipus looked out over the Warmaster's army and said, 'He'll have to,’

Abaddon surveyed the ruins of the parliament house, its once magnificent structure a heaped pile of shattered stone. His face bled from a dozen cuts

and his skin was an ugly, bruised purple, but he was alive.

Beside him, Horus Aximand slumped against a ruined statue, his breathing laboured and his shoulder twisted at an unnatural angle. Abaddon had pulled them both from the wreckage of the building, but looking at Aximand's downcast face, he knew that they had not escaped without scars of a different kind.

But it was done. Loken and Torgaddon were dead.

He had thought to feel savage joy at the idea, but instead he felt only emptiness, a strange void that yawned in his soul like a vessel that could never be filled.

Abaddon dismissed the thought and spoke into the vox. 'Warmaster,’ he said, 'it is over,’

'What have we done, Ezekyle?' whispered AxiВ­mand.

What needed to be done,’ said Abaddon. 'The Warmaster ordered it and we obeyed,’

'They were our brothers,’ said Aximand and Abad­don was astonished to find tears spilling down his brother's cheeks.

'They were traitors to the Warmaster, let that be an end to it,’

Aximand nodded, but Abaddon could see the seed of doubt take root in his expression.

He lifted Aximand and supported him as they made their way towards the waiting stormbird that would take them from this cursed place and back to the Vengeful Spirit.

The traitors within the Mournival were dead, but he had not forgotten the look of regret he had seen on Aximand's face.

Horus Aximand would need watching, Abaddon decided.

The viewscreen of the strategium displayed the blackened, barren rock of Isstvan V.

Where Isstvan III had once been rich and verdant, Isstvan V had always been a mass of tangled igneous rock where no life thrived. Once there had been life, but that had been aeons ago, and its only remnants were scattered basalt cities and fortificaВ­tions. The people of the Choral City had thought these ruins were home to the evil gods of their reliВ­gion, who waited there plotting revenge.

Perhaps they were right, mused Horus, thinking of Fulgrim and his complement of Emperor's ChilВ­dren who were preparing the way for the next phase of the plan.

Isstvan III had been the prologue, but Isstvan V would be the most decisive battle the galaxy had ever seen. The thought made Horus smile as he looked up to see Maloghurst limping painfully towards his throne.

What news, Mai?' asked Horus. 'Have all surface units returned to their posts?'

'I have just heard from the Conqueror,' nodded Maloghurst. 'Angron has returned. He is the last,’

Horus turned back to the gnarled globe of Isstvan V and said, 'Good. It is no surprise to me that he

should be the last to quit the battlefield. So what is the butcher's bill?'

ЛҐе lost a great many in the landings and more than a few in the palace,’ replied Maloghurst. The Emperor's Children and the Death Guard were sim­ilarly mauled. The World Eaters lost the most. They are barely above half strength.'

'You do not think this battle was wise,’ said Horus. 'You cannot hide that from me, Mai,’

'The battle was costly,’ averred Maloghurst, 'and it could have been shortened. If efforts had been made to withdraw the Legions before the siege developed then lives and time could have been saved. We do not have an infinite number of Astartes and we certainly do not have infinite time. I do not believe there was any great victory to be won here,’

You see only the physical cost, Mai,’ said Horus. 'You do not see the psychological gains we have made. Abaddon was blooded, the real threats among the rebels have been eliminated and the World Eaters have been brought to a point where they can­not turn back. If there was ever any doubt as to whether this Crusade would succeed, it has been banished by what I have achieved on Isstvan III,’

'Then what are your orders?' asked Maloghurst.

Horus turned back to the viewscreen and said, 'We have tarried here too long and it is time to move onwards. You are right that I allowed myself to be drawn into a war that we did not have time to fight, but I will rectify that error,’

'Warmaster?'

'Bomb the city,' said Horus. 'Wipe it off the face of the planet.'

Loken couldn't move his legs. Every heartbeat was agony in his lungs as the muscles of his chest ground against splinters of bone. He coughed up clots of blood with every breath and he was sure that each one would be his last as the will to live seeped from his body.

Through a crack in the rubble pinning him to the ground, Loken could see the dark grey sky. He saw streaks of fire dropping through the clouds and closed his eyes as he realised that they were the first salvoes of an orbital bombardment.

Death was raining down on the Choral City for the second time, but this time it wouldn't be anything as exotic as a virus. High explosives would bring the city down and put a final, terrible exclamation mark at the end of the Battle of Isstvan III.

Such a display was typical of the Warmaster.

It was a final epitaph that would leave no one in any doubt as to who had won.

The first orange blooms of fire burst over the city. The ground shook. Buildings collapsed in waves of fire and the streets boiled with flame once more.

The ground shuddered as though in the grip of an earthquake and Loken felt his prison of debris shift. Hard spikes of pain buffeted him as flames burst across the remains of the parliament building.

Then darkness fell at last, and Loken felt nothing else.

A hundred of Tarvitz's loyalists remained. They were the only survivors of their glorious last stand, and he had gathered them in the remains of the Warsingers' Temple – Sons of Horns, Emperor's Children, and even a few lost-looking World Eaters. Tarvitz noticed that there were no Death Guard in their numbers, thinking that perhaps a few had sur­vived Mortarion's scouring of the trenches, but knowing that they might as well have been on the other side of Isstvan III.