One plea threatened to cut through his resolve, the voice of his dearest son.
Help us,it said.
“I cannot, Ahzek,” he said between clenched teeth. “I mustnot.”
SMOKE FILLED THE streets around the outer precincts of the port, choking the light and oxygen from the day. Booming explosions marched through the city like the tread of drunken gods, and the bark of gunfire mingled with screams in a pitch perfect rendition of a hellish choir. Phael Toron ducked back behind a fallen statue to reload his bolter as a stuttering blast of fire tore through the walls of the Fountain House. A hundred warriors of his Fellowship held this portion of the perimeter, with a further two hundred on either side of him. Three times the enemy forces had tried to break through from the port, and three times the guns and blades of the 7th had hurled them back.
Phael Toron’s warriors knew this part of Tizca like no other, and the divinatory commands from the Corvidae allowed them to coordinate their defences with perfect cohesion. Coupled with the information gathered by the Athanaeans, the defences were always perfectly aligned to meet every attack.
Corpses littered the streets; both enemy and friend, for the defences had not been held without cost. Blood splashed the pristine marble of the walls and rivers of vital fluid flowed in the cracks in the streets. Phael Toron had exhausted twelve magazines, and only a regular supply of ammunition from Spireguard squads had kept their guns firing.
A cramping pain clenched in his gut and he granted as an unidentifiable sickness sent spasms through his limbs. He shook off the sensation, forcing down the bilious phlegm building in his throat and shaking out the sudden blurring of his vision. He blinked away bright spots before his eyes as a series of fiery blasts ripped through their lines.
“Watch the right!” he shouted, seeing three of his warriors torn apart in a blitzing stream of cannon-fire. The distinctive thumping noise told Phael Toron it was too heavy for an infantry gun. Crimson-armoured warriors dashed through the rubble towards the gap, bearing heavy weapons. He risked a glance over the fallen statue of a golden lion.
The district between the port and the Timoran Library was unrecognisable, its colonnaded processionals and arched follies now a tumbledown wasteland of blazing ruins and jumbled stone. The salty tang of sea air was laden with chemical pollutants from the blazing port, the enormous volume of gunfire and the pyres of burning books.
Space Wolves and golden warriors moved cautiously through the smouldering remains of what had once been a gallery of pre-Old Night sculpture, their forms unknown and of obviously alien manufacture. They were now crashed fragments beneath the invaders’ boots, and Phael Toron felt the aether simmering beneath his skin as Dtoaa amplified his choler. He took a deep breath, reining in his emotions. The Enumerations weren’t helping, and he could feel his Tutelary’s raging desire to hurt the attackers threatening to overwhelm his tactical sense.
“That would make me little better than them,” he hissed, forcing its red rage down.
Another spray of bullets tore a line through the golden lion, chewing up the soft metal as though it were as porous as sandstone. Phael Toron rolled away from the disintegrating lion and scrambled over to the cover of a fallen arc of stonework. He recognised it as part of the gallery’s domed roof, and looked over his shoulder to see a plume of grey smoke coiling from the building’s interior. Streaking contrails of speeders flashed overhead amid a series of stuttering, strobing detonations.
Portions of the gallery crashed down to the east, burying at least thirty of his warriors beneath tonnes of rubble and sending up a billowing cloud of dust. No sooner had the walls of the gallery fallen than an ululating howl erupted from the invaders.
“Push them back!” he shouted, swinging around the fallen portion of the dome and opening fire, pumping shot after shot into the mass of charging Space Wolves. His warriors followed suit, filling their designated fire sectors with lethally accurate bolter fire. Some of the enemy warriors went down, but not enough. Phael Toron estimated at least six hundred Space Wolves were pushing hard from the port.
They were feral barbarians, with none of the grace and poise an Astartes should possess. Their armour was hung with fetishes, skulls and furs, like some primitive tribe of savages that deserved no less a fate than extinction.
Many charged into battle without helms, either casting them aside in their bloodlust or too stupid to care about protecting their most vital organ. Phael Toron made them pay for that by picking his targets, blasting skulls from shoulders with every shot.
Gunfire streaked back and forth, fizzing lines of fire that filled the air with explosive shells. He ducked back behind the ruins of the dome, hearing the hard thud of bolt rounds against its copper-sheathed surface.
A warrior in red scrambled into cover with him, and he nodded curtly at his Philosophus, Tulekh. The man was a fine adept and had mastered his powers more quickly than any of the 7th Fellowship. Even Phael Toron had struggled to master the breadth and power of abilities brought back to Prospero by Magnus and the Legion. Where the other Fellowships employed their mystical abilities, the 7th fought this battle with conventional means.
“We can’t hold them like this,” said Tulekh. “We need to use our powers!”
“Not yet,” said Phael Toron. “They are weapons of last resort.”
“This isthe last resort!” urged Tulekh. “What else is there?”
Phael Toron knew the man was right, but still he hesitated. His men were nowhere near as experienced at wielding the Great Ocean’s powers as the other Fellowships, and he feared to unleash them in so violent a cauldron. But as Tulekh said… what else was there?
“Very well,” he said at last. “Pass the word that everyone is to use whatever means they need to push these bastards back into the sea.”
Tulekh nodded and Phael Toron read his ferocious anticipation as the order was given.
He looked around the fallen dome and drew in a breath as he saw a monstrous shape thumping through the rubble behind the Space Wolves, a grey giant of thick ceramite plates and whirring, clanking mechanics. The dreadnought was dust-covered and fire-blackened, its hull dented with impacts and its back banner in flames.
One arm was a bloodied, electrically-sheathed fist, the other a whirring, rotating launcher that spun up to replenish its ammo from a giant missile hopper at its shoulder.
“Move!” shouted Phael Toron as a series of warheads spat from the launcher and streaked towards them.
The missiles slammed into the ruins of the dome, and a tremendous explosion hurled him through the air. The blast tore his bolter from his grip and he slammed down into a crater sloshing with blood. He rolled and reached for a weapon, but there was nothing within reach.
Shredded corpses of Thousand Sons were strewn around the crater, their bodies catastrophically mangled by gunfire and explosions. Once again, the nauseous cramps seized him, and he bent double as he felt Dtoaa’s power flow into him, unbidden and unstoppable.
All around Phael Toron, the rubble rose up into the air and the blood boiled at his feet. The power of the Great Ocean flowed through him, but deep in the cellular core of him, a dreadful flaw was already unmaking him.
THE THOUSAND SONS were dying. Scores died in the opening minutes of the Wolf King’s attack, his fury unstoppable and his power immeasurable. Clad in the finest battle-plate and armed with a frostblade that clove warriors in two with single strokes, his fury was that of a pack hunter who knows his brothers are with him. His huscarls were grimly efficient butchers of men, their Terminator armour proof against all but the luckiest shots and blades.