Gulliman City waited, awaiting its fate. Like Janikos's warriors from the myths, each and every Astarte detachment, Imperial Army regiment, Civilian Defence group, Planetary Defence force, Titan, and civilian militia waited.
Standing over the Gate of Konor, Marius Gage, First Chapter Master of the Ultramarines and Regent of Ultramar, awaited his fate. To either side of him, two captains - Longenius of the 32nd and Leosanus of the 15th - kept their vigil.
The Chapter Master had listened into Ferok's vox right up until he died. He commended the Night Lord and his squad for their bravery, but it was all he could do. He turned his gaze back to where the city's defenders waited like himself, aware that the angels of death were waiting to feast on the souls of the so-called Imperials and the so-called Renegades alike. He watched as Jarl Sven Jorgenson joined him, his face as stoic as the Chapter Master. Neither man was afraid of death in battle; it had been their destiny since adolescence, and both men had lived long and glorious lives. What scared Gage was losing Ultramar to the foul things that the Emperor's Children had become. And nevertheless, he knew Vespasian was not going to stop at anything less.
Gage had told all of his Astartes to fight according to the situation. Past theoreticals had not been designed for wars such as this, not for one reason but for a trident of them. All the same, there were some approaches that worked... but not many, and the intuitions of the Space Wolves and Night Lords, which Gage had briefly hoped may provide a solution Ultramarine doctrine could not, were faring no better. There was no hidden way to turn the tide, and no victory against the warped Emperor's Children in sight.
Gage looked to the heavens for deliverance: where was his father? The Ultimate Warrior? The Empire Builder? His worlds were wreathed in flames of madness and he was nowhere to be seen.
For the first time in his two centuries of life. Marius Gage despised his father more than anything else. Perhaps it would pass, but for now he was angry - angry at his father's stubborn pride. Angry that Roboute Guilliman had not heard Horus out as the Warmaster had told him that the building of a second Imperium could wait until this one was dealt with. Angry that the Primarch had then departed galactic west, and left Ultramar with a defense that now seemed vastly insufficient. And angriest of all that despite everything, with Fulgrim tainted and Calth aflame, he knew nothing more about the Battle-King's whereabouts.
Already so many had died. No one had believed that Fulgrim would continue the battle; they had thought that he would search for another diversion, that the Emperor's Children had been bled dry. They had been wrong, so very wrong. If it were not for the arrival of Lord Russ and his sons, and the addition of the Celestial Lions...
Gage had all the tactical acumen one of his station was expected to have. But as the Night Lord had explained, against the Emperor's Children prior to this madness, that might have worked, now improvisation was necessary to rely on. It was a way of war he was not used to, and it wasn't working.
...The politicians had told him that as Regent of Ultramar, his place was on Macragge. He had told them where to go. Marius Gage was not about to let his brothers die whilst he sat snug and safe on the homeworld. Now, he wondered whether he should have stayed behind. To lose Calth was bad enough, but its consequences could have been ameliorated, instead of gambling everything on stopping Fulgrim here.
That was the thing about counterfactuals: you could never be sure.
Jorgenson watched as the Emperor's Children appeared on the horizon. Already the outlying farms burnt. With a heavy heart, Gage had ordered the gates closed. He had no idea what had happened to Captain Kelesian and his company, who had gone to usher the civilians towards the city. When he asked the Space Wolf, Jorgenson pointed and - needing no binoculars or spyglass - the four Astartes saw full well what had happened to at least the command of 19th Company. Their bodies were splayed across the tanks of the Emperor's Children, their chests ripped open, but - by all the fates - they were still alive. Gage set his jaw straight, his anger hidden behind his eyes, the scene burrowed deep into his soul. He spoke into his vox.
"Put our defiled dead out of their misery," he quietly ordered.
Shots fired from the massive cannons on the city ramparts. Despite the distance, they struck true, and the five tanks carrying the defiled bodies of the 19th Company Captain and his command staff were blown into next quarter.
++Tyros, begin targeting solutions and fire at will++ Gage ordered.
++Courage and honour My Lord++
++Indeed++ Gage looked to his Captains and the Space Wolf. "They will breach the walls eventually: Vespasian is an expert on such matters, and they have the numbers. We need to take as many as we can before that happens. Jorgenson - I want you and your Rout brothers alongside my company and me. We will face these bastards in front of the city walls."
"My lord," Longenius protested. Marius cut him off before he could finish.
"If I hear one more statement about how important I am to the Five Hundred Worlds, I will send you back to the ranks." His blue eyes were stern and unyielding. "The Primarch may have abandoned us to this fate, but I will not sit on a throne whilst good men and women die in my name."
"You, you really believe that my lord?" Longenius was shocked to hear such seditious words coming from the Regent's throat.
"I have no other option but to believe it," Marius replied, then took a deep breath. "Courage and honour, brothers; that will win the day, that and the determination of Astartes, humans, and Titans. Nothing else."
The two Captains bowed their heads and went to their positions. Jorgenson arched a thickset black eyebrow "Bold words, Regent."
They felt more than bold to him - they felt like lies. Gage wondered if the Space Wolf could smell that. It did not matter. "Aye, cousin, but words alone are not going to win this day. Shall we go?"
Jorgenson held his hand out. "For Mother Fenris, Russ, and the Imperial Truth."
"And we shall show no fear." Gage held the Fenrisian warrior's arm for a moment or two longer than necessary. "And pray to the fates that Bjorn does as he promised."
"He will not let us down, Regent. I sent the Vox this morning; he will be here."
The Regent of Ultramar took a deep breath and, with the Emperor-class Titan Prince of Morsari shielding their march, the Ultramarines' 1st Company and elements of the Rout's 3th Company took their place before the gates of the city, their banners held high.
Gage raised the Sword of Macragge and, raising his vox-level so it could be heard by his allies and foes both, roared, "FOR CALTH, ULTRAMAR AND THE 500 WORLDS! COURAGE AND HONOUR! WE SHALL KNOW NO FEAR!"
The shouts were echoed by the defenders. Vespasian arched an eyebrow as he took in the scene before him.
"Fools," he muttered under his breath, "those brave, but misguided, fools."
Lord Commander Vespasian, now the senior Lord Commander of Fulgrim's Legion, waited for a moment. Prayers had been made to the Goddess, the sacrifices required for her patronage and blessing this day given. He ordered the sonic weaponry to the front as the tanks of Guilliman City, Astarte and Imperial Army both, rolled out to a protective flank around their Chapter Master and his force.
++Captain Horonsa, if you would please take that Titan down++
++Yes, my lord++
The two ranks of Emperor's Children Noise Marines readied themselves. Then, at the word from their captain, they let loose such a perfectly discordant cacophony of noise it disrupted not only the tanks' on board systems but the Titans' too.
Princeps Tyros slapped his hands over his ears as the unholy noise rushing in his direction caused his beloved Titan to rock on her giant legs. Her pain was as much part of him as it was her. Blood began to fall from his ruptured eardrums, the Titan's cry as loud as the attack itself to him.
"Eragan - fire, bloody fire," he swore, trying to gather his wits whilst preventing a neural feedback.
The guns and rockets attached to the mighty war machine boomed out towards the enemy line, silencing the noise, but the damage had been done. The Prince of Morsari was injured, and badly so. Tyros himself was dying from the neural feedback he had received moments before her systems finally shut down.
Moderati Velena moved from her seat, ordering her second into her place. She unplugged the Princeps from his throne and lay his body on the deck; the blood from his ears, eyes and nose told her the prognosis was certain. She shook her head and muttered a prayer to the Omnissiah.
Eragan clutched his head and groaned in pain. Velena grabbed his shoulder. "Oskar, Oskar come on, you're the second... get in that throne, we need to get the old girl started again."
"I, I can't, her systems are shot to hell, whatever that was, it broke through the shields and all her defences - "
"Never say never." Seeing that he was not going to move, Velena ordered a medical team to take him away and put his second in the chair. Then, taking a deep breath, she climbed into the throne, allowed the tech priests to plug her in, and waited.
Her body became one with the Titan. She could sense her pain: she was like a small child, curled in a ball as if she had seen some monster under the bed. Velena had trained for this, but had never gotten the chance in the Prince of Morsari: Tyros had been a chauvinist and, furthermore, had always obstinately refused to consider the possibility of his own death.
Come on girl, she thought , fight it, we need you, the Ultramarines need you. Not in words, of course; it could be described as a mixture of images and machine-code, though that was still an oversimplification.
Pain, it screamed back at her, too much pain.
You've had worse, come on, I have tended you before, I will tend you again, but I need you to be operational.
It took long seconds, but eventually, the Titan's soul was soothed enough for Velena to get a repair crew into the heart of the Titan and start repairs. She would be ready, but it would take time, which was as bad as it sounded in combat conditions.
"Systems status," she ordered.
"Firing solutions offline," Megava called up.
"Sensors and motive cognitors scrambled; I can get them up and running, but it will take me time," Negara told her.
"Time we do not have. Do the best you can, gentlemen; the Regent needs us to be ready," Velena told them both. "Someone tell the Regent that we are working on getting systems back online."
She listened as she was told that both Tyros and Eragan had succumbed to their injuries, making her the Princeps. In a spare moment she read the casualty list: two hundred wounded or dead from the Emperor's Children first volley, but that figure still paled in devastation compared to the damage dealt to the machinery. Whatever that was it had done its job.
She had to turn it around and turn it around fast. For all their sakes. ++Princeps Holton and Useva, my compliments; we are wounded, we need you both up here with your Titans. Get the Warhounds out here, give those soldiers cover.++
++Where is Princeps Tyros Olivia?++ Holton called back.
++Dead, as is Eragan. I am now the Princeps.++
The silence was short. ++Understood, Princeps, on our way++ that was Useva; a woman as stern as a Martian examiner, but one who got the job done.
Velena sat back in her throne. She would get the Titan up and running if it was the last thing she did.
There was no structure, no order to the battle for Guilliman City. It was war at its basest and bloodiest. The Ultramarines spilled from the city, protecting their Chapter Master paramount in their minds. Behind them, the human defenders fired their weapons, targeting the likewise human army that accompanied the Lord Commander's forces.
Against the behemoths in purple and gold, their weapons would be like gnat stings (though enough of those would still be lethal). Gage was pleased to see them firing at the other humans; it made his job easier. Wading in, his sword held high in one hand, his bolter in the other, he took his shots, disciplined, timed and deadly. He wanted Vespasian; he wanted to rip the bastard apart for daring to set his traitorous feet on such hallowed ground as Calth, revenge for the Five Hundred Worlds that now awaited the outcome of this battle with collective baited breaths,
To lose Calth would be to lose Macragge.
He turned as the Librarians, free from the edict of Nikaea and once more in their blue-and-gold hoods, let loose their own powers. It was their birthright, and Gage was proud to see it. He was pleased that the Warmaster had rescinded the orders of Nikaea; battles like this needed the Librarians. When this was over he would ensure that the proper procedures were taken to have the re-established Librarius be properly organized. Untrained psykers were a greater danger than ever now, but equally, trained ones were a greater-than-ever boon.
Rune Priests joined their cousins, picking off the flanking enemy and killing them in good order. Gage found new admiration for the Librarians of Fenris... not Librarians, technically, but Rune Priests, which was a point the Wolves were rather insistent on. He ducked under a bolter that had come up in front of him and, without pause or recourse, shot the Emperors Child in the face.
He had long since given up his kill count; it had already risen into the hundreds. He had also given up on naming his prey: one name merged into the other and he, like his brothers and cousins inside the city, could only see the advancing horde and the death that was being wrought. There was no time now for the doubt and fury that had haunted him, only to fight and kill - and Gage was distantly aware that he was doing that better than he ever had.
Over his vox he heard a human whoop. "Like fish in a phonebooth!"
"Like what?" He heard Sergeant Omisian ask. Omisian was one of the brothers stationed on the towers, guarding and directing the fixed defenses.
"Old Terran saying, my lord; like fish trapped in a box, all cramped and easy targets at the moment."
"Aye, lad: at the moment. Now save your euphoria and keep going."
Gage allowed himself a small smile even as he killed; there were bonds being forged this day between the mortals and immortals, some of the Calth defence force already following the Rout and the Ultramarines, determined to drive these invaders away from their home.
He could have ordered them back to their positions, but he didn't, because this was what the Emperors Children seemed to forget. The civilians of Calth did not wear the cobalt blue, but they were all warriors. It mattered not whether they were Astarte or soldier, farmer or mother, daughter or son; they all fought with equal determination, and that was exactly what had always made Ultramar work.
The Ultramarines and Space Wolves did not have it all their way, not that they had expected to. The Emperor's Children were carving their way through the bloody mess that lay around their feet with equal ferocity and determination.
Their Lord Commander led from the front, as he always did. Vespasian moved as a strike from the Titan Uktena hit to his left, wiping out a couple of tanks and a unit of Chemos Third Infantry with it. Another shot hit an Emperor's Children squad, this time to his right, from a Warhound that had found it way through. Hades Child was proving difficult to kill as it did what Warhounds were made to do: harry the enemy, strike, move back, and strike again. But it was not enough damage to break them. The renegades were delaying the advance, he knew that, but for what?
He got his answer: suddenly, after maybe half a day, the boom from the Emperor-class Titan sounded across the battlefield. She had awakened, and she was out for vengeance. He went to order the Noise Marines to attack once more, but realised what the Warhound had done: it had taken down the remaining Noise Marines under his command. He cursed, admiring the enemy's tenacity.
Running towards the Warhound, he leapt and jumped onto its back, just as a volley from the newly awakened Titan crushed what was left of the infantry with its weaponry - armaments made from hell itself, it looked like. That had always been an aspect of war, for all the renegades' accusations of 'taint'. He climbed the back of the Warhound, hand over hand. The beast bucked under him, determined to get this annoyance off, but he refused to budge. Eventually he made it to the canopy and stood, looking at the Princeps within. Rather young looking for a Princeps; maybe the vain bastard had juvenat surgery, who knew, who cared? He didn't.
He readied his maul and smashed it through the canopy window, then chucked a few inferno grenades in and dived from the top. As the Warhound died in a wreath of flame, he stood and smiled to himself.
"Perfect," he muttered before rejoining his men. "Call up the Valencia," he ordered, "and tell Princeps Ardois he is to target that Titan."
Shortly after giving the order, the sound of another Titan could be heard. As the Prince of Morsari took her first strides across the battlefield, she saw the Valencia, an Imperator Titan that matched her own shape. At first her Moderati balked, but her new Princeps was determined; she brought them under her control and turned to meet the enemy. This would be a battle to outclass any in the Prince of Morsari's record, but she would do what she had to do and bring that monster down.
The battle wore on and into the night's first embrace. The defenders along the walls changed shifts, snatching an hour where they sat; unlike their Astarte lords, they were unable to go without a rest period. Captain Ensarianus knew this. He had ordered that the army take shifts, that the soldiers along the wall were to be given something to refresh themselves with. In the meantime, the second line took over.
The Astartes carried on, and so did the bombardment. Ensarianus caught a young woman as the blast from one of the flak guns disintegrated the wall before her, killing two of her brethren and blowing her leg off. There was nothing he could do for her: the human medics were all over the place and would not have the time even if they had been here. The dying woman tried to fumble for her pocket.
Laying her down, he undid her jacket pocket and took a photo out. A battered photo - a man and woman with three children, her parents, he suspected. He handed it to her and she clutched it to her chest.
"Rest well, sister, your sleep awaits you," he whispered. She made no sound and her eyes stared ahead. He closed them and got to his feet.
He saw admiring gazes on the soldiers around him. Without a word being said, or an order being issued, they carried on as he had instructed hours before.
Ensarianus had taken care to instill in them that while, yes, Astartes were the gods of battle that could take the punishment no other could, they appreciated the fact that it was the Imperial Army that had conquered the greatest part of the galaxy. He respected them, he would stand by them, and that was all their tired bodies needed. But their souls needed a little more, something to give them more heart then they already had, to quash any doubts that rose from the fact that it was also Astartes that formed the enemy ranks this time.
Ensarianus had recalled the tale, which Lixantel had told him the previous day, of a human woman that had been adopted by a squad of Iron Warriors attacking a Dark Angel position some months ago. How she had become their sister and their good-luck charm, how her name remained etched alongside those of the great Astartes of the Lord of Iron's Legion. He told this tale so that every man and woman could hear. It gave them that something special; it gave them that hope of immortality which did not depend on them living to see the dawn. Most would not, but it did not matter: they were all part of this storm, Space Marine and baseline human alike.
Ensarianus fought on as new assaults hit the wall. When an Emperor's Child sniper took his left eye, he took the bastard's life with an accurate shot that almost defied logic. He still stood tall and proud; he had been born on Calth, and he would die on Calth if that was what was required.
But he would take some of these bastards with him.
The two Titans strode across the battlefield, their battle horns blaring. If anything was underfoot, it got squashed into the blood-soaked mud so thoroughly as to leave no trace. Tanks, ruined by the cannons and giant guns from either side, were nothing more then pebbles to the warring Titans, metal crushed underfoot.
Finally, they met. Like a pair of old Panik gods, they fought for the right to rule mankind. The Valencia drove its humongous chainblade towards the centre of the Prince Morsari, a disembowelling stroke, but the other Titan moved to one side, resulting in merely a scratch. Raising its chain gun, the Prince Morsari fired into the centre of the Valencia, aiming for its plasma heart. The Valencia moved, but the onslaught took off one of the arms of the giant god machine. The crew in the bridge of the Prince Morsari cheered and pressed their advantage.
But with one arm or two, a god-machine was still a formidable foe. Raising its foot, it struck at the knee joint. The Prince Morsari buckled under the high-powered kick and moved to one knee as its left leg shattered under the impact. The Valencia brought its massive arm up and aimed a strike at the face of the Titan itself, but the crippled Prince Morsari raised both its arms and deflected the blow.
Velena wanted an opening; another blow like that, and she was not sure if the old girl would manage to fend them off. The knee joint was shattered, and she wouldn't be standing any time soon. Then, as a hail of tertiary weapons hit them, she saw the opening she wanted, but also that it would not end well for them either. A glance at her two Moderati showed that they had seen the same. An unspoken word passed between them all.
Farewell, my friend, you have served well, she thought with the heart of the machine.
The Prince Morsari raised its massive chain-gun and, at the moment that the Valencia moved in for a lethal barrage, pressed it against the chest and fired at point-blank range. The gigantic shells passed through the protective armour and, as it fired again, the plasma core became exposed. There was no hesitation, no second thoughts; this other Titan could not be allowed to live. The Prince Morsari fired, destroying not only the Valencia but itself too, an explosion that blinded many human warriors and even the Astartes suffered a moment's disorientation. Any that were near the dying Titans immolated instantly. There was no discrimination: Ultramarine, Emperor's Child, or human, the ashes left the mark of their bodies where they stood.
Gage whispered a benediction to the crew of the Prince Morsari and, disembowelling an Emperor's Child, he moved on. Blood covered so much of his armour that it was now a dark red. Gore and brain matter dripped from much of his decorations, and his face was so matted with blood that he suspected he looked like some red skinned daemon from the old stories of hell itself.
At this moment in time, he felt that was what he was, propelled by hate that was fueled by doubt. But when his sergeant fell and Sven Jorgenson died at the hands of the warrior before him, he knew the end of the battle was drawing near. For before him stood Lord Commander Vespasian, and as dawn's first sign began to creep into the Calth sky, Gage drew on whatever reserves he had left.
He was going to need them.
Vespasian said nothing. No battle-taunts needed to be said between two such as they. Even with an overwhelming force against them, the Ultramarines and Space Wolves had fought well. In his mind it would not be enough to delay the inevitable, but sufficient to make this a perfect battle. War as it should be.
He read Marius Gage perfectly. Despite his appearance as the calm, collected Chapter Master of the largest - correction, formerly largest - Legion, his eyes were haunted. Vespasian could see it lingering behind the veneer of the warrior-king. He was angry, not just at all that was going on around him, but also at something else. Something that he was struggling to hold in.
Vespasian shrugged it off. It mattered not; maybe later they would discover what had disturbed the Regent of Ultramar, but now he wanted the perfect end, for surely with the death of Marius Gage this city too would fall.
The two warriors circled each other, waiting, watching, looking for an opening or a counter move. Vespasian moved first, but Gage sidestepped, using his sword to counter Vespasian's move, and slammed his fist into the Lord Commander's face, shattering his nose. Vespasian moved back, putting a finger tip to his ruined nose.
"Ah," he said, more to himself but loud enough for Gage to overhear. "So that's what Lucius felt like when Loken broke his nose."
If Gage wanted to see him wince in pain, he would be very much disappointed. A sordid smile creased the Lord Commanders thin lips and he bowed in mockery, then readied himself. This time, he countered Gage's thrust and drove his elbow into the side of the Chapter Master, knocking the wind from Gage for a few seconds. But it was a few seconds that Vespasian wanted; raising his knee, he sent Gage's head moving back as his jaw snapped, and then the rest of the Ultramarine's body.
On his back, Gage realised that Vespasian was toying with him, draining his energy like a leech sucking blood. He was exhausted from the battle, despite the abundance of adrenaline, metacmeine, and other stimulants that his anger had driven into his blood. Vespasian was by no means fresh, but he'd done far less of the killing himself.
Still, Gage thought, he would show his foe that he'd still underestimated Ultramarine endurance. Vespasian raised his foot, but Gage recovered; grabbing the raised foot, he twisted it savagely, the snap audible and the ankle bone protruding outwards. For the briefest of moments Vespasian felt the giddy feeling of a broken-bone trauma, but then his body got to work, flooding antibiotics to the affected area and numbing the pain.
As Gage came at him, he drove the hilt of his sword into the chest of the Chapter Master and the side of the blade up under the already broken jaw, causing it to splinter more. So it continued: for every blow a parry, for every counter a counterstrike, blood coming from numerous cuts and bruises forming where they had both taken a battering, their power armours marking the list of damages done to the suit and the body. It was a brawl of attrition, whose like would normally favor the Ultramarine - but the Emperor's Child had chosen it precisely for that reason.
A broken ankle, broken jaw, fractured ribs, broken ribs, broken arm, dislocated shoulder. It went on, and eventually, even the mighty Regent of Ultramar reached his finishing point. It came when Vespasian moved inside his guard and rammed his sword clean through a slight crack the Ultramarine's chestplate and straight through both hearts of the Chapter Master. Had the blade deviated even by a degree in either direction, it couldn't have pierced both hearts, and redundancy would've saved the Ultramarine - but Vespasian did not make such errors.
Gage sank to his knees. His body screamed at him to rest, to let an Apothecary attend him, but he had a fight to win even if it meant his life. Even now, he saw people who were not warriors showing some of the more seasoned generals how to fight. These people deserved a future; he wasn't sure what it would be, but he was damned sure it would not be under the yoke of the Prince of Sleaze and his minions, of an Emperor that no longer believed in what he had been preaching for however long he had been alive. Guilliman wasn't perfect, he'd known that long before - but what would he have given for Guilliman to be here!
His helm had long since shattered, but he didn't need a diagnostics screen to know he was dying. Vespasian now gloated. He whispered that, for all their cries of courage and honour, they had fought the same way in the end, that the Emperor's Children had merely done so better. That despite speaking of knowing no fear, there was fear here, plenty of it, enough to feed his warriors on the tantalising experience for weeks.
No, Guilliman wasn't perfect, because there was no such thing as perfection, except perhaps as an ideal. And if this was what that ideal led to -
But Guilliman would never had done so, because it was he who had warned their foes never to leave an Ultramarine alive.
As Vespasian leaned forward, Gage, without moving his eyes from the face of the gloating Lord Commander, rammed his power-fist up between Vespasian's legs. As the unbalanced Emperor's Child toppled onto him, Gage grabbed his sword and shifted to let Vespasian fall onto it. In the same motion, he activated the rune stud that sent a pulse through Vespasian's body. The explosion rang like a bell as it blew he Lord Commander, the second-to-last thing Marius Gage heard.
Vespasian's head rolled to his left. Gage, with a great effort, met the dead man's eyes. And as his thoughts faded, the last sound to pass his ears was that of Bjorn the Fell-Handed and the core of Tra entering vox range.
Guilliman City was saved.
The warriors left standing, human and Astarte, all fell to one knee as the body of Marius Gage was born upon four openly weeping Ultramarines and four grim-faced Space Wolves. At their head, the bare-headed Bjorn the Fell-Handed walked slowly. His warriors had come in and taken the back ranks; within three hours, the battle was over, as the remaining Emperors Children, leaderless and no longer with the numerical advantage, were slaughtered by the vengeful Rout. Behind them came the same number of Ultramarines and Space Wolves carrying Sven Jorgenson's body, though the human crowds paid it less attention.
The weeping from the human warriors was silent at first, but as word spread that their beloved Regent was dead, it grew like a wave. There were Ultramarines that had served their father with no question now beginning to question where he was and why he had not been here, why it was that so many of them had to die, what he had been doing. But there were far more, in both Legions and among the hundreds of other units that had done their duty in the defense, whose anger was reserved for the Imperials alone.
Gulliman City was saved, and soon it would become known as the city of unity, where so many Ultramarine, Space Wolves, and humans fell in its defence. In time it would be named Gage City. But for now, the populace said goodbye to their Regent the way they knew how, and the Ultramarines that lived swore that his work would not be undone. A new Regent would have to be found, but for now, none wanted the job. It had been Marius's place, and not one warrior in battered cobalt-blue armour desired it.