The battle for Magma City had been won, but Cadmus Qevpilum knew that the things more important than battle had been lost.
He stood on a platform, the forge's high point, which had once housed the Death Guard's command post. The body of Sergeant Lgalun lay at his feet, though it had been Zerondem who'd killed the Death Guard commander. Qevpilum had assumed that Rask had led the defenders… but the importance of that was null, now. The third Death Guard squad, Mineceno, had been on the front lines, though Nusaamnius had worriedly mentioned not all of their bodies had been found. Deception aside, there were no Astartes of the Fourteenth Legion left in Magma City, or on the rest of Mars.
And he'd killed Rask. A traitor, of course, the action had been necessary. But they had been brothers, once. That did not vanish for him as easily as, by appearance, for Rask.
That was only the third-greatest defeat of the day, however. The second was that the Death Guard had apparently been evacuating Mechanicum personnel, as well as data, throughout the war. Lgalun, Rask, and the others had stayed behind, to kill loyal Astartes, but those – Adepts, mainly, Qevpilum expected – who had fled were far from irrelevant. And they would yet frustrate the Imperium.
The first was that Magma City would fall into the depths of its volcano within the hour, and its numerous archives with it.
"Brother-Centurion?" Tlaar Hemcasi asked, walking up to Qevpilum.
Hemcasi's leg was mangled, and Qevpilum knew he should really see an Apothecary. Less due to triage, and more for separating commanders within a collapsing forge complex. Magma City, dropping off, piece by piece, with nothing he could do –
But no, this was not Pyrrhia. Still not a battle, perhaps, but not unwinnable. Even when limited to the current setup.
Qevpilum listed through the schematics, trying to find the biggest cohesive block of archives that would be relevant and might be intact, assuming the Death Guard had not intentionally moved them (there were far too many to steal everything through whatever magic transportation Lgalun'd had). 02B – no, those were restricted military schematics, dangerous enough that perhaps they would be best drowned in magma. Moreover, the traitors and adepts would have raided them. Far from sure that they would be intact.
No, 12L was the better bet. Marginally smaller, dealing with medical technology and evolutionary biology. Much of it incompletely understood, yet. And he could see the region, twisting walls colored orange and silver – 12L would still be intact, at the moment.
"Brother-Centurion?" Hemcasi inquired again.
"Brother Hemcasi," Qevpilum answered. "Set up cranes. We should be able to raise Block 12L onto the slopes."
Hemcasi tilted his head in surprise. "I was going to say… wait. Remove Block 12L? Why?"
Did Hemcasi not see, or was it Qevpilum?
"To save the information within," Qevpilum explained. "The Death Guard have been extinguished; this is the best commitment of our time."
Hemcasi cautiously nodded. Qevpilum opened the vox channel to Venth Zerondem, repeating his order to Hemcasi; again a pause, albeit a lesser one.
"I will contact the Mechanicum," Zerondem said, "but will the block hold together?"
That was unclear – as Qevpilum jogged down the complex's edge, he could understand Zerondem's skepticism. If merely lifted from above, the holes in 12L would shatter it, and maybe a tenth could be lifted. It would need to be separated from its neighbors, and even after that the bottom half lifting would not be a sure thing.
It was the best shot they had, though. "Squads Hemcasi, Hierrth, Nistrlaq – under Brother Hemcasi's command, cut all physical connections between block 12L, coordinates appended, and surrounding Magma City blocks. Command squad, squad Ixeutyi – under my command, support block 12L from below. Squad Zerondem, work with the tech-priests to raise the block from above. Use all available machinery."
He descended into the Magma City on foot, ever cautious of errant movements as the forge flaked apart from below. A few murals and filigreed sculptures worked into the walls lined the corridors, but for the most part the abandoned complex was a monument to humanity in stark, utilitarian fashion. Qevpilum preferred that – it was fundamentally honest, and more importantly did not waste resources. Art had its place, perhaps, but this was not it.
It was strange, that some in the Mechanicum did not seem to recognize that. Their perception of beauty may not have been the same as baseline humanity's, but they still placed significant weight into it.
But then, that was part of what they fought for as well, was it not? The freedom not to be limited to survival. It was not as if humanity would go extinct, if Mortarion's like won. But life was more than… well, servitor status. And complexity, in its inconstant arc, sometimes turned to strange eddies.
Eddies, here, of presses and of channels, of iron etched with the promise of sublime destiny, a promise that was not destiny's to keep. Qevpilum traced a hive of pipes and cables into the depths, a nest that changed color and anastomosed as he jogged, but led unerringly down, to the base of 12L.
Qevpilum nodded to Hemcasi as he passed his lieutenant, the latter sawing angrily while fastened to one of the complex's many divided ceilings. Anwiter was waiting with Ignition Grasp below, and in the corner nest –
Qevpilum had time to scream a warning, as he raised his own bolter. Hemcasi did not have time to hear it.
Qevpilum's lieutenant fell, even as the centurion dashed into the hall. Hemcasi's armor impacted the floor on its back with a grinding crunch, but the fall was not fatal; the headshot, however, was. A halo of blood surrounded Hemcasi's ruined head, its central ray pointing straight towards the nest from which the killing shot had come.
Nusaamnius was next in line, now, if Qevpilum died here. But as the centurion ran past his brother's body, he realized that such an outcome was unlikely. The Death Guard within wore a sergeant's armor, but pitted and mangled to the point where one would at first think the Astarte within was dead. Likely Hemcasi had thought so, too.
Sergeant Mineceno began to raise his bolter again, but he was far too slow. Qevpilum had unlatched and extended his pike with his left hand, and now drove it forward like a javelin with his right, impaling Mineceno's head on its tip in one movement.
The bolter dropped from Mineceno's gray-armored fingers, and Qevpilum waited for a few seconds to ensure the traitor sergeant had not somehow survived. Kicking the Astarte to confirm in full, he walked back to Hemcasi's body, kneeling to his lieutenant.
His gene-seed was intact, at least, and so Qevpilum raised Hemcasi's body onto his shoulders and walked down the few remaining steps, meeting Anwiter's unhelmeted gaze, his squadmate's head plugged into cables and mechatendrils that snaked down his armor.
"Hemcasi was killed by a hiding Death Guard," Qevpilum clarified. "Mark Sergeant Mineceno's body as found."
Anwiter frowned and nodded, looking at Eulemaz and his bike. Qevpilum handed Hemcasi's body over as he climbed up Ignition Grasp's side, noting the newly repainted Legion sigil on the tank's side.
"Apothecarion, and come right back, Brother Eulemaz," Qevpilum ordered. "We need all hands."
Qevpilum climbed into the hatch, Anwiter following him.
"Zerondem suggested modifications to your plan," Anwiter said, "for efficiency's sake. He plans to redirect –"
"Accept them all."
They drove through the forge complex, occasionally bulldozing a particularly stubborn support. Ixeutyi's team marked the remaining two Death Guard bodies, meaning Magma City was now provably cleared. Well, unless Lgalun had brought along Astartes not from the three destroyed squads, just for this purpose. Qevpilum couldn't be entirely certain.
The plascrete above began to infinitesimally move, as Zerondem began to wrench 12L free of its mooring. Qevpilum tossed a few disc grenades into a hole below, watching them explode and send another doomed chunk of the Magma City into the fire. Then they drove onwards, across this boundary floor, dark except for what the Iron Hands provided, full of abandoned metal. Ever westwards, towards the crater wall.
He didn't talk with Anwiter, in those minutes, except to declare targets. Qevpilum did order the rest of his squad, in accordance with Zerondem's calculations. But the rate of collapse was on the high end of those expectations.
Ahead, Qevpilum could see the wall of dark pink rock, the complex's end. The ceiling above began to buckle, Zerondem accelerating his work to counter the collapse below.
They didn't have time for the initial plan, Qevpilum recognized. He was no tech-priest, but he had studied and seen enough of mechanics to know the building wouldn't hold, even if Ignition Grasp continued moving at full speed. Moreover, Ignition Grasp could well fall through the floor and into the lava lake below – and the tank's loss would be almost as tragic as its crew's in that case.
"Park Ignition Grasp at the wall," Qevpilum told Anwiter. "I'll set up the second support point on foot."
Anwiter looked at Qevpilum with uncertainty, but obeyed. "The flesh is weak!" he said.
"Fire and Iron!" Qevpilum responded, with a brief nod to the veteran.
Ignition Grasp's hatch sprung open and Qevpilum jumped out, running northward along the wall of barely modified stone. Circuits built into some of its surface, yes, and supports that Qevpilum chopped through with strokes of his pike, but that uneven red curtain still separated transhumanity's world from that which existed for billions of years before the first sapience on Earth woke.
But then, was not Mars a dead world before humanity's arrival? Deep time may not have been humanity's, but humanity's echoes would linger through it, even if all Earth-descended life vanished in one impossible instant.
Qevpilum shook his head to evade the grim thoughts, tracing the rough rock, and chopped through a final nail before walking to the point where the second support had been meant to be.
And above, the ceiling creaked and slanted.
It was too early, still. But Zerondem had accelerated, trusting in his centurion to keep up… or he'd had no choice. Below, Qevpilum saw decimeter-scale fragments of Magma City pouring like sand into the furnace – cables, supports, electronics, screens, and weirder industrial dust.
Without time to think, Qevpilum stood on a bump in the floor, bending to support the complex's weight and pushing upward. Too much for a single Astarte to hold, of course, a thousand times too much… but then most of the weight was Zerondem's and Anwiter's, and Ixeutyi's at the third support point. So Qevpilum held the ceiling, and the sky above.
Perhaps 12L had been a bit too much, he thought as his teeth grit against each other, as he felt flakes of bone leave his vertebrae; but then, when had Astartes settled for merely enough? And he was not only an Astarte, but an Iron Hand.
The weight began to lift, Qevpilum's cracking knees extending into verticality. The pain did not go away. He'd need surgery after this, need to turn more of his body into iron, effectively rebuild himself entirely. Still, he felt the going get easier, as he pushed the bump he was standing on flat, as the gray floor above lifted, lifted –
And then he felt the crack.
It was deafening, and at first Qevpilum though that he had failed 12L. But the ceiling continued to rise, even letting light in. Reddish white light from above, reddish orange from below –
That was when Qevpilum recognized that the crack had been below him, and that he was falling.
There was a circle of fire, his exhausted eyes recognized. Not a ring, but a splotch of certain scorching doom, whose heat he could barely feel, distantly warming his feet from below. The fall would be mortal, even without the lava. Around him, more dust… well, a macroscale version thereof. It drifted down, like hail into a lake.
Above, 12L's rise revealed a fragment of dusty sky, Ignition Grasp's side visible on a solid ledge. Below… below, Qevpilum knew he was falling back-first now, looking upward towards the sun, cresting in the sky. Qevpilum would not see another dusk.
He wasn't particularly bothered, by that.
No doubt there would come a new dusk… but no doubt, either, that the last dusk would come, and quite possibly soon. One way or another. As in all things. Death would die; the only question would be whether it would be before or after it had destroyed all else.
The principles of Chaos which Ferrus spoke about… they were merely one more step. Driven first by death, perhaps. But sworn, brightly, to life. All of them were, or at least had to be.
The heat was scalding, now, but Qevpilum did not close his eyes in those last instants before the impact came.
Instead he opened them as wide as he could, taking in the iron – and not only iron, but then for the Tenth iron had only ever been a shorthand for creation – hail and 12L, by now safe above the crater, partially eclipsing Sol; taking in the red sky and the redder walls, webbed with humanity's legacy. And taking in, not physically but with his imagination's brightest parts, the heroes of Mars gazing at smoking foundations of marvels like few yet known.
And smiling. Because the foundations were enough.