Master of Sanctity by Gav Thorpe

Author:Gav Thorpe
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2014-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

A Losing Battle

Blasting and hacking through the walls certainly made progress into the fortress swifter. Sapphon and his Terminators, swelled by other stray warriors picked up along the way to number thirteen Space Marines, found themselves embroiled time and again by daemonic assailants. There were recurring forms, of pot-bellied cyclopean daemons and bounding, slug-like beasts, and there was a myriad of unique and disturbing manifestations from the palace itself. There seemed to be no pattern or reason behind the waves of attacks; sometimes minutes passed without assault while on other occasions they were beset by seemingly endless hordes of creatures.

By the haphazard nature of the defence it was impossible to tell if they were any nearer their objective. Sapphon might have expected an organised defence force to layer itself in increasingly strong positions the closer he came to the commanders. Here there was no such rigidity. Sometimes a solitary daemon would pop into existence, easily cut down. Other times it appeared that the citadel was making every effort to reshape itself to bar their path only for their route to eventually lead to a dead end or in a circle.

After ninety minutes of near-constant fighting, Sapphon was aware that they were already thirty minutes over the planned operation time frame. Nobody had yet reported low ammunition – power fists, chainfists, thunder hammers and lightning claws were used to bear the brunt of the attacks – but it was obvious that the Dark Angels First Company could not fight on indefinitely. Worse still, there was yet no sign of Belial.

‘We cannot know if the Grand Master survived teleportation,’ Sapphon said, during a brief council with Sergeants Asarael and Caulderain. ‘We must push on, to gather any remaining forces and, with luck, locate the enemy leaders.’

‘Perhaps we need to draw back and think again, Brother-Chaplain,’ said Asarael. ‘We should secure a location and then send out sweeps and patrols to establish ourselves. Roving needlessly from one area to the next does our cause no good.’

Sapphon took the criticism without comment and looked at Caulderain. The sergeant did not reply for several seconds, evidently collecting his thoughts.

‘I concur, in part.’ Caulderain turned and looked back at the squad of Terminators guarding the rear. ‘There is not a warrior here that would not gladly press forwards and take the fight to the enemy, but in doing so we may relinquish the true objective. Our deployment was compromised the moment the teleporting force was scattered. We have yet to recover from that setback.’

‘So we should wait here and hope that others find us?’ said Sapphon, unconvinced.

‘They are as likely to locate us in one place as we are to run in to them by happenstance,’ said Asarael. ‘For the moment we fight without any clear sight of our objective. To be honest, with due respect, Brother-Chaplain, we are flailing like blind men here.’

‘I appreciate your honesty, brother-sergeant.’ Sapphon understood the logic of what he was being told but it strained against his instinct to remain in one place and simply allow the enemy to come at them when they pleased.

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