Dan Abnett - Know no fear. The Battle of Calth

The cultist warriors break. Their chanting stops. Behind the first walking line of Ultramarines is a second, and a third. Their gold and blue armour is slightly dulled by the atmospheric conditions, but still it gleams. Salvation never looked so splendid. Death never looked so noble.

The cultists begin to flee. They run south down the earthwork, or flee into the mist. Those trying to follow the earthwork line, picking their way, scrambling, draw fire from the wall. Sparzi’s troopers and Arook’s skitarii lace them with opportunist weapons-fire, dropping them like sticks. Some turn back, and then turn back again, pinned and bracketed by gunfire that creeps in and slays them. Bodies slither and tumble into the death-pit of the ditch.

Ventanus sends an order to the colonel to suspend artillery. He wants to ensure the counter-strike has an unimpeded run into the enemy formation.

‘Captain Sydance,’ says Selaton, noting a standard and pointing.

‘The 4th,’ Ventanus agrees. He is surprised by the level of emotion he registers. It’s not just relief from the physical hazard. It’s honest pride of association. His company. His company.

It’s a heterogeneous mix, in all truth. Sydance has composed his battlelines out of men from several XIII Legion companies. All of them were assembled at the Erud muster. He’s patched holes and losses in the 4th Company structure with reinforcements from other broken units. One of the Shadowswords is an 8th Company asset, two of the Land Raiders are from 3rd. Ventanus notes the battle colours of Captain Lorchas, the second officer of the 9th.

The palace defenders watch whatever is visible. Most of the fighting boils back into the fog. Long-range armour duels rip through the cloudy murk. Nearer at hand, the Ultramarines finally dismember the last of the cult resistance, and engage in vicious close-quarter melee with the warriors of the XVII.

To their credit, the Word Bearers do not break like their chanting followers. They have significant numbers – a two-or three-company strength, by Ventanus’s estimate – and even caught out of position and by surprise, they dig in. From the savagery of Sydance’s assault, 4th Company and its reinforcing elements have seen too much already today to think about quarter. Ventanus wonders – dreads – what they might have witnessed and experienced out at Erud Station as the main part of the treachery broke. Did the Word Bearers encamped alongside the Ultramarines zones just turn? Did they simply rise and draw their weapons, and begin killing, without notice or warning?

He is sure they did. Ventanus is sure the Word Bearers have nothing but the absolute extermination of the XIII as an objective.

You do not just kill the Ultramarines Legion.

Lorgar’s barbarians would not have risked a fair fight. They would have gathered every advantage that surprise, deceit and entrapment could offer. They would have wanted to blitz and kill their enemy, kill him before he even realised he was an enemy.

It did not work. It did not work. The XIII has been hurt. The last ten hours on Calth might even have mortally wounded the Legion to such an extent that it will never fully recover, and, as a consequence, will always be a weaker, smaller fighting force.

But the Word Bearers did not make the clean kill they intended. They fumbled it, or they underestimated the effort required. They made a bloody mess, and left a wounded foe that could still move and fight; a wounded, mangled foe that was fuelled by pain and hatred and vengeance, and by the bright shock of moral outrage.

Always make sure your enemy is dead.

If you must fight an Ultramarine, pray you kill him. If he is still alive, then you are dead.

You are dead, Lorgar. You are dead. You are dead.

‘Did you say something?’ Arook says to Ventanus.

Ventanus wonders if he did.

‘No,’ he replies. He unbuckles his helm, removes it, and wipes a smear of blood off the pitted, chipped visor. Much of the cobalt-blue paint has been scratched or spalled off. Arook Serotid, similarly, is covered in metal scrapes and dents, his ornate golden armour battered and streaked with blood and oil.

Around them, wounded, weary, filthy men gather to watch the brutal fighting on the far side of the earthwork. Army, Ultramarine and skitarii alike stand together, weapons lowered. Residue smoke coils under the chewed-up arch of the gate. Broken pieces of stone slither down from the wall, some of it jarred loose by the earth-trembling assault of the armoured vehicles. The precious few medical personnel among Ventanus’s force take advantage of the suspended fire to move up and tend the injured and dying. Virtually every single one of the palace defenders has taken an injury of some kind. There are nothing like enough dressings or drugs to go around.

‘Why the code?’ asks Arook.

‘What?’

‘The number of the painted eldar?’

‘The war against Jielthwa Craftworld,’ Ventanus replies quietly. ‘Eight years ago. Sydance had the main assault. A privilege. During the charge, he was briefly cut off and made a personal stand, taking on a dozen eldar warriors. It was an outstanding achievement. He was decorated for it. I arrived to relieve him just as the fight was ending, and he was finishing his last opponent.’

Ventanus glances at the skitarii master.

‘The primarch decorated him for twelve kills in one accelerated bout of combat. Twelve of the painted eldar. But there were thirteen eldar dead on the hall floor when I reached him. I came in firing, anxious for his welfare. It is a high probability that my shots, loosed into the smoke, killed the thirteenth. So it is a standing joke between us. He famously slew twelve and was decorated for it. I slew one. But that one may have been crucial. It might have been the one who, at last, overcame him. Sydance might have died at the hands of the thirteenth, and never lived to celebrate his glory and prowess. So which was more important, his twelve or my one?’

Arook stares at him.

‘This is the sort of thing you joke about?’ he asks. ‘This passes for humour among your kind?’

‘I thought you might understand,’ says Ventanus, shaking his head. ‘Most humans would not.’

Arook shrugs his mighty shoulders.

‘I suppose I do. We skitarii enjoy similar boasts and rivalries. We just do it in binary and keep it to ourselves.’

The force of the armour battle has become so intense the field of fog west of the palace is rippling and churning like a troubled sea. Fierce beams of light flash and burn in the murk. A troop transport, hoisted by a considerable explosion, bursts out of the mist like a breaching cetacean. Debris and fragments shower off its burning carcass as it flops back into the vapour sea.

Closer at hand, at the edges of the mist, Ultramarines are locked in hand-to-hand fighting with Word Bearers. Loyal blue against traitor red. No quarter given or taken.

Ventanus reloads his boltgun, checks his sword, and gathers up the standard. Its haft is streaked with runs of blood, and badged with bloody palm prints.

‘I’m rejoining the fight,’ he tells Selaton. ‘Secure the palace.’

He hears a buzz from beneath his left ear, and responds instinctively before he realises what it is.

‘Ventanus? This is Sullus.’

‘Sullus?’

‘I’m in the palace sub-basement, Remus. She did it. The server did it. Vox-link is live. Repeat, vox-link is back and live.’

Ventanus acknowledges. He turns to Selaton and the other officers.

‘Change of plan,’ he says. ‘I’m returning to the palace building. Hold the line, and let me know the moment the nature of the fight out there changes.’

He turns and begins to walk away, through the gate, across the cratered gardens, towards the battered facade of the summer palace.