The host marshalled upon the plains of Medrengard. The numbers of warriors and tanks pouring out of Khalan-Ghol impressed Ignis – the Warsmith had more Astartes under his command than the entire Fifteenth Legion. Of course, even the least talented Sorcerer was a match for a dozen of Perturabo's sons, but it was still an impressive sight. Not since the Siege of Terra had the Master of Ruin seen so many Legionaries marching to war. Their formation was perfect, with the heavy armor leading the way. By his count, the Warsmith had brought more than five hundred tanks of various classes and around ten thousand Astartes. Forrix, acting as the liason between the Thousand Sons and their Iron Warriors allies, had told Ignis that, if they had more time, they would have been able to call upon their allies in the Titan Legions. But those were fighting other battles elsewhere in the Eye, for other warbands or for their own gain and pleasure, the Iron Warrior did not know. In any case, the massive daemon engines that crawled from Khalan-Ghol's depths should more than make up for the lack of Titans, and if the fortress of the warsmiths Berrossus and Toramino proved more resilient than expected, well, Ignis and his own forces would take care of it.

After asking permission from his allies, the Master of Ruin had brought his Silver Tower down on Medrengard, using an orbital descent secured by the Warsmith's fleet. The giant construction floated above the gathered army, the Iron Warriors giving it a wide berth – they might trust in the powers of the Sorcerers within, but still weren't keen on standing directly beneath it. From atop the Tower, Ignis had an unequaled view of the field, and was fully aware of just what an irresistible target the whole thing was to enemy artillery. Soon they would reach the territory of their foes, and Ignis would have the opportunity to field-test the psychic shields and other sorcerous defenses he and his minions had painstakingly installed. The hundreds of mortals in the Tower were preparing for battle. Thrall Wizards gathered around rune circles, while hereteks manned the more conventional weapons – though nothing in a Silver Tower could really be called conventional.

Most of the brute work of loading the guns was done by Tzaangors, whose blood had been heated by the prospect of battle. Their excited cackling echoed across the Tower, all the way up to the open plateau upon which Ignis stood, seemingly exposed to both the elements and enemy fire, Credence at his side. The sound made his skin crawl – like him, the Tzaangors took pleasure in destruction, but unlike him, it wasn't because they saw the beauty in the precise applications of force that led to it. No, they were little more than the beasts with whom they shared so much of their genetic code – they revelled in destruction for its own sake. Their cunning and greed for arcane trinkets and weapons were but paper-thin masks laid upon their true nature.

Are you prepared ? He sent to his brothers, spread across the height of the Tower, each telepathically linked to the defenses of his section of the flying fortress. Nine pulses of confirmation were sent back in reply.

Remember, he continued, this is about more than victory. Perturabo is watching from within the Fortress of Hate. We must not just win, we must win in a way fit to impress a Primarch.

Another pulse of agreement, this time edged with anticipation. All members of the Order of Ruin shared Ignis' admiration for the Lord of Iron, and a chance to practice their art under the eye of a master was something no one would ever pass up. After another mental inspection of the aetheric currents within the Silver Tower, Ignis directed his attention outward, to the fortifications growing on the horizon. The enemy had known about their coming attack as soon as they had marched out of Khalan-Ghol, and possibly earlier than that – Forrix had been surprisingly sanguine about admitting to the likelyhood of spies within the Warsmith's Grand Battalions. It seemed that such things were common practice on Medrengard, with the traitors expecting rewards if their patron should ever triumph, while prepared to actually resume their loyalty to their apparent master if the balance of power clearly shifted. Such division within a Legion made Ignis uneasy, yet he suspected the hand of Perturabo in the seeming codification that existed in conflicts between Iron Warriors. It would certainly be like the Lord of Iron to arrange for his sons to test their mettle against one another in a manner that still allowed for them all to rally under his banner, should he ever emerge from his lair.

The fortress that blocked their path to Perturabo's domain was huge, and crowned by a great tower reaching up to orbit like a single claw of some terrific hand. There dwelled the armies of the two warsmiths who were the main rivals of the faction with which Ignis had allied himself. He had been surprised to hear of Berrossus and Toramino's alliance – it seemed unlikely that two individuals as prideful as the warsmiths of the Fourth Legion could collaborate without an overwhelming presence such as that of Khalan-Ghol's master being in charge. Forrix had explained that the alliance was a legacy of the Horus Heresy, when Berrossus had almost been killed by the Lord of Iron and entombed into a Dreadnought. As his mind slipped further and further into the confusion that took most Dreadnoughts in the Nine Legions, Toramino had more or less usurped command of his Grand Battalion. Berrossus was still technically the leader of his forces, but he led from the front, more a sentient, hate-filled engine of destruction than a true warlord.

The fortress didn't have the same protections against sorcery as Khalan-Ghol – all Ignis could detect were blood sigils crafted upon the stones, capable of turning aside the assaults of lesser practicionners, but no match for the power of a true Sorcerer. According to Forrix, the old fortress of their enemies had much stronger protections, but this was a relatively new stronghold, raised after the defeat that had forced the members of the Trident to abandon the territory surrounding the Fortress of Hate and return to Khalan-Ghol. It might be possible to build a fortress overnight in the Eye of Terror by using the shifting nature of all daemon worlds, but the Iron Warriors preferred to build theirs the old-fashioned way, only taking advantage of the impossible physics of the Eye to make their creations even more impregnable. As a result, though, Fourth Legion's redoubts wouldn't collapse with the death of their master, as it was all too probable a Silver Tower would. Or at least most wouldn't – Ignis was so sure about Khalan-Ghol. The thing bound there was potent, and he suspected that the Warsmith's growing power was linked to the chains that held it – in which case, should he fail, the consequences for the fortress would be dire.

The army stopped at some distance from the walls, and the Iron Warriors began to dig trenches and raise barracks. Transports were emptied, then arranged into makeshift fortifications. The sons of Perturabo wouldn't launch an assault on the walls without a solid position to fall back to, and knew the effective range of the fortress' guns from previous attacks. The ground between fortress and besieging army bore the traces of these failed attempts : while all the corpses and wrecks had been reclaimed for recycling in one way or another, craters still dotted the desolate landscape. Inside the Silver Tower, Ignis' minions chaffed at the delay, but the Exalted Sorcerer exerted his will upon them, commanding them to obediently wait until their allies were ready.

'Ignis,' came the contact from Forrix after only half an hour, during which the Warsmith's forces had built an impressive camp, with several layers of defensive positions. 'We are ready. Would you care to take the first shot ?'

'With pleasure,' replied Ignis truthfully.

The Master of Ruin looked at the entire battlefield, his mind processing every detail, from the position of the Warsmith's daemon engines and Astartes squad to the angle of the fortress' walls. An equation formed into his mind, to which he added the firepower of the Silver Tower, his knowledge of Fourth Legion's breach tactics, and the aetheric currents of Medrengard. Then he solved the equation, obtaining the perfect location for the first strike. He raised his hands, and called upon the awesome power of the Silver Tower, drawing it through himself and letting it loose.

A blow of azure light burst forth from the Tower's top, broader than a Land Raider and bright enough to blind unshielded mortal eyes. It struck the exact point of the wall Ignis had targeted, warding sigils flaring briefly before being completely overwhelmed by the greater power of the blast. The wall shattered under the impact, fragments the size of Rhinos flying in the air and landing in the courtyard behind that separated the wall from the bunker-like buildings that made up the rest of the fortress, crushing dozens of slaves and Iron Warriors. More importantly, the debris formed a ramp up to the battlement, and the Warsmith's forces immediately seized the opportunity.

The Iron Warriors were too disciplined for them to roar in approval, but Ignis could feel the exaltation mixed with dread of the forces arrayed beneath the Silver Tower as they witnessed the display of power. He vaguely sensed Kroeger's mind leading the charge, radiating rage and bloodlust, but his perception of the battlefield had greatly diminished after his attack. Wielding such power took its toll, and the Master of Ruin had been brought on his knees by the effort, his psychic powers nearly exhausted for the moment. The energies of the Silver Tower itself had also been severely depleted, and it would take several hours before it had drawn enough power from the Eye of Terror to fire another shot like this one. However, that didn't mean its part in the battle was over.

The nine Sorcerers had all felt the blast, having helped Ignis channel its power. As soon as the Silver Tower stopped trembling from the aftershock, they unleashed the full firepower of the Tower's defenses upon the fortress, covering the charging Iron Warriors. Along with the more conventional bombardment from the Warsmith's forces, sorcerous flames swept the battlements, and telekinetically-quickened shells passed over the walls and detonated within the fortress, releasing mutagenous energies that transformed the Iron Warriors' unfortunate thralls into mutated wrecks. Most of those died almost instantly, but those who did not spread great confusion as they tore their way through their erstwhile comrades before being put down by their Legionary overseers. Taking advantage of the panic, the Thrall Wizards reached out into the storms above, using summoning rituals to draw forth the Neverborn into the flesh of those in the fortress with even a modicum of latent psychic ability. The sudden death of dozens of individuals, their flesh bursting apart to reveal the horrors of the Warp, added to the chaos among the defenders.

Ignis had discussed the methods by which he and his forces could assist the Warsmith quite extensively with Forrix. The Iron Warriors had warned that his men would open fire upon the daemons as soon as their enemies, which hadn't bothered the Exalted Sorcerer. It was dubious that the Thrall Wizards would be able to properly control them anyway, given the circumstances of the summoning – better for the Legionaries to be careful and put them down once they had served their purpose. It wasn't as if there weren't an infinity of them eager to be called, after all. Medrengard was relatively free of daemonic infestations, as such things were counted in the Eye of Terror : there were few spontaneous manifestations, which was likely due to the lesser number of Sorcerers among the Fourth Legion coupled with the fact that most daemons were either destroyed or enslaved within an infernal engine. Ignis also suspected that the will of Perturabo had something to do with it – even now, with the Fortress of Hate kilometers away, he could sense the power of the Daemon Primarch looming over the battlefield like an observing god. During Horus' rebellion, Perturabo had put most of his trust in weapons, not sorcery, using psychic powers only near the end of the war and never with the same reckless abandon displayed by other Traitor Legions, like the Word Bearers. Ignis thought this was partially why Magnus wanted the Lord of Iron on his side – Perturabo understood the dangers of Warp-craft, but his Legion's daemon engines showed that he understood the unlimited potential it also offered.

As the outer wall fell to Kroeger's onslaught – Ignis could sense the death and destruction surrounding the warrior, and knew that, should he survive, his fate would inevitably lead him down the same path as Angron's Legion – the other Grand Battalions began to advance. Within minutes, the great adamantium doors of the wall – to the left of the breach Ignis' shot had opened – began to swing open, before stopping suddenly. Ignis frowned and opened a vox-channel :

'Forrix, the gates aren't opening. What is wrong ?'

'There was a failsafe hidden in the mechanism,' came the reply. 'Toramino must have activated it from one of the towers – the explosion took an entire squad, and the entire structure is full of broken machinery.'

'Keep your forces away from the gates,' commanded Ignis. 'We will take care of this.'

'These gates are quite heavy,' noted the warsmith, his tone doubtful. 'Are you sure ...'

'Yes,' cut Ignis, 'I am.'

Forrix sent his agreement, and Ignis immediately focused once more on the Silver Tower's inner workings, fusing his awareness with the aetheric circuits of his flying fortress. Immediately, it began to advance, leaving its position in the Iron Warriors' camp to go toward the gates. To allow for sorties, the gates opened outward, and the opening was still far too small for the Silver Tower to pass – or at least, that must have been what the enemy warsmiths must have believed. Ignis pushed the Tower forward without slowing as it approached the gap, and at the last moment before impact he called once more upon the transdimensional nature of the stuff that made up the Silver Tower.

For a fraction of a second, everyone within the Tower experienced the quite disorientating sensation of being two-dimensional, before the reality to which they were used to reasserted itself. But by that point, the Silver Tower had already flown through the gap and was in the fortress' courtyard. On his plateform, Ignis turned back to the gates, drawing upon the power of his acolytes once more while the Thrall Wizards and Tzaangor crews let loose their fury upon the exposed defenders, guided by the Sorcerers to make sure they didn't accidentally fire upon their allies.

Thinking to himself that this would be much easier to do now than it would have been from the other side – massive applications of telekine power were made exponentially more difficult by even the simpler applications of subtlety – Ignis began to push at the gates with all the might he could muster. The mechanisms in the two towers siding the gates had been there to provide the motive force to move them, but Toramino had been lax in not making sure the gates couldn't be opened at all once his failsafe triggered. Slowly, meter by meter, the gates swung open, allowing for the full host of the Warsmith to enter the courtyard. Now, the next phase of the battle could begin – a slow, vicious battle through the bunkers and towers of the fortress, with every meter paid for in blood. On the way here, Forrix had laid out the battle-plan to Ignis, who had been impressed by its complexity, as well as Forrix' complete thrust that his warriors would be able to carry it out to the letter.

With Kroeger and his men stopping to recover their wounded and regroup – the fury of the warriors temporarily sated by the carnage they had inflicted – Forrix's forces split in squads and began to advance, each toward their assigned objective and supporting the others. Within a few hours, the defenders were retreating, abandoning the fortress as Toramino and Berrossus gave the order to withdraw back to their original stronghold. Ignis heard oaths of vengeance being exchanged on open channels before the last transport fled, and, to his lack of surprise, his offering to blast the retreating enemies to oblivion with his now recharged Silver Tower was refused.

Now that victory had been achieved – although not without cost, as several hundred of the Warsmith's warriors could attest, their bodies lying on the ground awaiting gene-seed extraction – it was time for Ignis to go speak with the Daemon Primarch who sat in the Fortress of Hate.