[Warhammer 40K - The Horus Heresy 46] - Ruinstorm by David Annandale

Author:David Annandale [David Annandale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Military Fiction, Science Fiction, Warhammer 40K
ISBN: 9781785727450
Published: 2017-09-01T09:38:59+00:00

When the Blood Angels entered the manufactorum, they dropped into silence so complete, they might have been swallowed by the grave. Daemons abandoned the other manufactoria to flood the land. Under the shadow of the daemonic fortress, on a battlefield so long that the combatants at either end were over the horizon from each other, the Legions struggled against the abominations.

The Lion led his legionaries to the regions before the closed doors of the forge. The formations of Dark Angels were walls of black iron. The daemons hurled themselves against the barriers. The Dark Angels refused to give up a single step of the land they held. Their heavy artillery bombarded the swarms of monsters, and the infantry advanced methodically, the walls of iron crushing the enemy.

While the Warhawks of the IX Legion launched strafing runs against the manufactoria, cutting into the hordes as they emerged from the gaping doorways, and Khalybus led his Iron Hands against the daemons emerging from the foundry closest to the primary manufactorum, Guilliman struck from three centres. After being part of the vanguard in the initial run to the great forge, the Destroyers turned back, driving a wedge through the centre of the mass of daemons at the same time as Guilliman took Flame of Illyrium and the Invictus Bodyguard in a stiletto-jab through the body of daemons besieging the Dark Angels. Towards the middle of the battlefield and at the southern end, the greater body of the Ultramarines attacked in two radiating movements. Phalanxes cut into the enemy like so many swords. Guilliman forced the daemons to contend with multiple fronts and kept them on the defensive. They sought to repel the invaders and take back the land. The Ultramarines had no positions to hold. All they needed to do was keep moving, and destroy everything in their paths.

The Destroyers threw themselves into the fight with an enthusiasm that might have troubled Guilliman in a different context. When he monitored the communications between Hierax and his company, he heard tones verging on savage joy. Yet the discipline of their attacks never wavered. What he heard was the brutal satisfaction of no longer fighting a defensive war. He understood. When he pumped the Arbitrator’s double stream of bolter shells into the abominations, when the explosions vaporised warp flesh, he felt the same satisfaction. And when the Destroyers pulverised the heaving mass of the enemy with rad artillery barrages, there was more satisfaction. The worst of weapons for the worst of foes. That logic was unassailable.

Then use the weapons you have acquired. You know what the athames can do to these beings.

He brushed the thought aside. The daggers were in the vault aboard the Samothrace, beyond the reach of temptation. There was no need of them here. The weaponry of the Ultramarines was effective in destroying the abominations.

Then Gorod, marching with Guilliman beside the Flame of ­Illyrium, challenged his certainty. ‘Chainswords and axes are felling these things more readily than bolters,’ he said.

‘We’ve seen this before,’ Guilliman answered.

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