The Hammer of Olympia looked out at the veritable sea of greenskins battering themselves against the small islands of legionnaires. The first string of five bastions rose up from the low buttes that were bounded These six positions were the only thing keeping the xeno tide from sweeping into the fertile hinterlands one hundred sixty kilometers away where settlers and natives attended to crops and rudimentary aspects of industry. As feral worlds went, this one was remarkably tame, the human population had settled into villages with little appreciable government and the odd bit of superstition held over from the first colonization of this planet and supplemented with the animism of the Xeno Eldar primitives that lived in the forested areas. These Exodites as they called themselves had forsaken the ways of their Craftworld brethren and had lived in peace, if not isolation, from their human neighbors for centuries and he, himself, had been at odds as to which course of action was the right one to take in their regards. The standard order of a planetary Compliance was to eliminate any Xenos presence, but his brothers Horus, Magnus, and Lorgar had prevailed upon him to leave them intact as part of Rogal's great plan. The Xenos would live in peace, unmolested, and provided for in as much as they desired for but one thing; they would help form the astropathic choir of this world; every year they would tithe up a portion of their number to go to a great fortress and using their pysker abilities would undertake the watch, calling out into the void the time, date, and location of the world. From this data, navigators would be able to sail space and weave the warp without the need for constant bearing from the astronomicon. After a year, they would return to their homes as their replacements took up the role. During their time in the fortress, they would be attended and ministered to by sons of Magnus, Lorgar, The Khan, and the Wolves of Fenris so their spirits would be fortified against the Ruinous Ones and that they may eventually come to see themselves as Citizens of the Imperium as a sanctioned Xenos population. In years to come their number would be supplemented with human psykers until their population slowly acclimated and assimilated with Imperial Culture and these very Xenos would come to live among the Imperium not merely as a sanctioned alienage, but as loyal sons and daughters of the human father figure of the Emperor.
Father would have just as soon seen them eliminated, and while his brothers admitted there was a certain immediate practicality to this, it ignored the long-view; in making these Xenos dependent upon and grateful to the Imperium, they became a valuable asset in ensuring the perpetuity and stability of the Imperium. If not for the unique complication of the Greenskin horde they knew would be arriving at this world, Perturabo would have likely bypassed it entirely, allowing a company to begin the process of the Compliance unassisted with auxiliaries from his brother's legions to help attend to certain specifics of infrastructure. But they did know the Greenskins were coming, so he had committed fully half his legion to the process of protecting this world along with two Battalions of the VIIth and a sizeable force from the Vth. The fortifications he had built were rough and crude in appearance, but unbreakable in design to any but the most unconventional means. These were truly masterpieces of defense, combining this own propensity for brute impenetrability and asymmetric warfare with Rogal's propensity for analyzing the geological and terrain minutia to create subtle hidden advantages that would turn a strong fortress into an unbreakable one. In the past he would have built three main fire bases with trenches between them complete with bunkers, pill boxes, and bunkers. The idea would have been that the greenskins would had struck the fortification head-long not concentrating their strength and thus folding under the overlapping fields of fire, but then there was the risk they would simply go around. What they had to do here was make themselves too tempting a target to bypass, a prize the scrap hungry orcs would spends weeks trying to crack and, in that time, break their back as a fighting force for easy mop-up.
He smiled to himself as he thought back to his selection of this area to begin building, the way he could almost hear Rogal's voice in his head, pointing out the terrain features that made it advantageous. The shallow and gradual rise and fall of the land made it easy to ignore the shifts in elevation, but it was just pronounced enough to create natural areas of bottleneck and isolation and it fed the orcs into one or two possible facings of each fort, with the three thousand astartes and twenty thousand Imperial troops in each of the five smaller bases, the Orcs could fling themselves at them in perpetuity to no avail and from the vantage of this, his higher elevated, larger central base he could fling artillery down on the greenskin sea or move to support the most beset bases.
Each base was constructed as a pentagonal structure, half a kilometer on a side with a five meter deep trench before the first line of concrete clad earthworks. The slabs themselves were a meter thick with heavy steel lattice built into the structure starting a centimeter and a half under the layer of concrete and running through the slab, the greenskins could not simply dig into the slabs for hand-holds as the steel prevented the ability to form hand-holds. Leading to the trenches they had to navigate a labyrinth of thigh-high T-wall concrete barriers sunk into the earth forcing a charge to funnel through openings before hitting the trench line. Interspersed with the concrete barriers were three meters high tank-traps a line of which ran at intervals of two meters between the traps themselves, there were three such lines and each was tipped a five kilogram melta charge so should the greenskins bring on of their scrap dreadnoughts or salvaged tanks close they would destroy it, turning the wreck into a new obstacle to be surmounted. If the Orks managed to surmount the trench, they were presented with rows of razor wire, and while it did not act as much of a deterrent, it did an admirable job of tangling the greenskins, leaving them open to fusillades from the walls or the twenty two meter high towers at one hundred meter intervals along the wall. The wall itself was eight meters high of meter-and-a-half-thick steel lattice reinforced concrete slabs, each three meters wide and sectioned together and bolted into steel wide flange beams that sank four meters into the earth. Firing slits were cut at eye level for a mortal, just high enough for a las-rifle bore to be shoved out but to narrow for most of the greenskins crude stubbers. Behind each firing vent was another slab of concrete with angled blast walls to contain attacks by chemical flamers and a grenade sump was cut into the ground should the Xenos manage to lob some sort of explosive through the vent. On the top of the wall there were steel catwalks big enough to stand astartes shoulder to shoulder along the whole length of the wall, reinforced enough to accommodate a squad of terminators behind the meter-and-a-half high steel barrier. From these positions his sons did the bulk of their fighting, boarding shields providing additional protection and the laced into the foe with bolter, plasma, or volkite fire.
The towers were humble masterpieces, twelve meters on a side, built from the same slabs of steel lattice reinforced concrete and capped with a pyramid shaped concrete roof that allowed the greenskins nowhere to land should they make such an attempt. In the towers, there were two combat decks where guardsmen manned quad mount heavy stubbers and heavy bolters, autocannons and lascannons. Crude interior elevators moved ammunition and barrel replacements and power packs up the auxilia and gave the mortals a 360 degree view of the landscape from which they poured merciless fire into and exacted a merciless toll upon the greenskin xenos. The leading edge of the towers ran out as far as the trench-line leaving any greenskins foolhardy enough to have to try to ascend twenty seven meters with hand-hold no-deeper than a fingernail's depth while the adjacent tower slapped them from the walls with las rifle or stubber fire. The auxilia fought in shifts, never allowing the fire to let up as long as Orks or their tiny brethren were in range. Supplemented as they were by astartes as the ground level along with dreadnoughts and fighting vehicles these mortals fought with a vigor and intensity that Perturabo found humbling. Individual soldiers kept grim tallies of their kills scored as chalk marks inside the walls under their name or designation or scribed into the stock of their las rifles and some had to be commanded, at gun point, to surrender their position to rest or eat so taken were they in this righteous slaughter.
Five meters inside the walls raised earthen fighting positions provided firing points for their Sicaran battle tanks or the Deredeo dreadnoughts of his legion that would move up an earthen ramp packed down under steel grates to the gambion lined fighting position. The Deredeos, specifically, gleaned a weighty toll from the foe with their autocannons, plasma cannonades, or Arachnus heavy lascannons.
But they were not limited totally to defense within the walls, for in each wall, set one hundred meters apart from one another, spirit between two squatter towers dotted with heavy stubbers and searchlights, there was a pair of gates, huge and heavy, swinging on meter thick pin-drums, the concrete slabs framed in flange-beams were so heavy that at each door a pair of Contemptor class dreadnoughts were needed to remove the two ton cross beam that barred the gates and swing the five tons doors open so vehicles or terminators could move in and out.
Another of the subtle considerations in the construction was that each base had a line of sight on two others, meaning no one base was isolated from the view of its siblings and in such they could coordinate their fire into areas where an assault seemed to be massing calling down additional support from this the main firebase as needed. Thus far firebases Coral and Ivory had taken the bulk of the enemy contact but had sustained precious few casualties will successfully laying low greenskins in the tens of thousands. Though he, himself, longed to enter the fray, he remained at the head of firebase Crown to ensure the operation was coordinated with a precision that would do his brother's Rogal and Horus proud. He estimated that in another six hours the greenskins may abandon their assaults on Coral and Ivory to focus on firebases Jade, Onyx, and Opal and as such he had detached the elements of the Vlka Fenryka 9th Company under the command of Jarl Joriksson to reinforce firebase Jade much to the delight of the Fenrysian and his battle brothers.
"Lord?"
Perturabo turned to see the bent form of his ancient Olympian steward, Koronikois.
The Lord of Iron lowered his head to look at the attendant, "Yes?"
"Shiban Khan sends his compliments; he reports the few greenskin stragglers that have entered the plains have been eliminated without issue. He stands ready for your command."
Perturabo reached up the rub his chin, as he contemplated, he did not want to commit the quick cavalry forces until he could collapse the entirety of the greenskin horde into the killing box, stuck in the quagmire between all five of the primary firebases with the capability of full commitment from Crown, Shiban did not have the benefit of his full Battalion so to fully commit them would force suicidally high casualties upon them, and while he shared no particular closeness with his brother Jaghatai, he would ward the khan's sons against needless death as much as he would certain that the khan would do the same for his.
"Notify Shiban Khan to move his retinue into the river basin at the edge of the plain, we will commit him to the final battle when the Xenos force is suitably in place." He declared, he knew the White Scar officer would chafe at being held in reserve, but he would be able to slake his bloodthirst to excess in but a few days.
The aged attendant nodded, "As you will, my lord."
As the Olympian mortal turned to leave, a captain of the Guard forces approached with an infantryman of the auxilia, both snapping to attention, "My Lord, auspex have detected a second large greenskin force moving to link with the one we currently have engaged."
Perturabo frowned, "How large?"
"From the area of ground they currently cover our cogitators estimate a force of as many as three million."
He arched his brows, hiding his concern; a force of five million greenskins was likely too many to hold against, even with their superior positioning and fortifications so huge a force could simply overwhelm them by dint of sheer bulk.
"The fleet?"
The guard captain swallowed, "Forced to pull back, my lord, when the space-hulk entered orbit they began accelerating meteors towards the ships with boarding parties, to avoid being overrun they were forced to displace to behind the tertiary lunar body of the planet."
He hated that the needs dictated this, but in order to keep the bulk of his legion intact and to keep the world from falling, he would need reinforcement. If this battle wore on more than another week, the Greenskins would begin supplementing their forces with the newly spawned members of their race left in the wake of their advance. In order to effectively purge this threat, they would have to be dealt with in their entirety before the fortnight's end lest a population of Feral Orks arise in the path of the advance to eventually grow in numbers until this world fell.
"How far is the second group from this position?"
"No more than thirty five kilometers, my lord and advancing at roughly five kilometers per hour."
That was a five hour window in which they could possibly bombard the group from orbit without placing the forces in the diadem fortress range at risk, but that was incumbent on one or more ships being able to make it close enough to the planet in that window of time. If they were forced to collapse all the gem bases to firebase Crown, they would be able to hold another two to three weeks even against the weight of the greenskin force. If Coral, Ivory, Jade, Onyx, and Opal were all prepared for evacuation and bombs sewn into their structure, they could kill maybe two to four hundred thousand greenskins in their detonation, but that would still leave close to three million remaining.
"My Lord?" The guardsman private inquired, holding up a lit Lho-stick towards him.
The Lord of Iron bent his knee and knelt as the infantryman brought up the burning lho-stick to his lips. The chemical effects of the leaf were not present given his primarch adaptations, but Pertuabo enjoyed the taste of the smoldering lho leaf and the fragrance of the smoke. He pursed his lips at the tip and inhaled, the tip glowing red as he took in a mouthful of the smoke and sucked it down into his lungs. The guardsman pulled the cylinder back as the primarch held the smoke in his lungs savoring the just slightly sweet earthiness on his tongue and palate before blowing it out through his nose.
"Is the hulk still in orbit?"
"The majority of it, sir, some portions were detached to make planetfall but we suspect there are still close to three hundred thousand greenskins manning the hulk and it is moving to intercept our fleet at low speed."
There would not be enough time to wheel the fleet around and begin a pass of the planet to bombard the forces in route to this location. Still, if they began to force an attrition campaign here on the ground now, it could buy them a few extra days before the gem bases were forced to collapse. There came a point when foes became too numerous to effectively defend any position, and given the greenskin propensity to ignore casualties, this meant that a sea of the feral porcine xenos could overrun them by simply charging as a horde and disregarding their losses.
"Call the guard captains to my location, then have the astropaths contact any legion vessels within sixty light years, request reinforcement."
The soldier brought the lho-stick back up again and Perturabo once again inhaled from the rolled cylinder, "Inform them that the greenskin host numbers in the area of five million strong and runs the potential of bypassing our fortifications into the inhabitable farm lands."
The captain nodded, "It will be done my lord."
The soldier stood dutifully aside, blowing ash from the tip of the lho-stick waiting until the primarch nodded then would bring it back to his lips, his hands were already too large to effectively manipulate the small cylinder, clad as they were in his terminator armor this just became less plausible. The captain returned to the command bunker and began relaying orders and within a minute the other guard captains arrived.
The primarch nodded to the small human soldier and arose, the infantryman returned the nod and took a quick pair of puffs at the stick himself before stomping it out and returning to his post. Perturabo found himself impressed by the mortal's strangely understated empathy. Most guardsman would have been fearful of such forthright behavior in his position with a common astartes, much less before a son of the Emperor, but this short-lived common human had extended him a kindness out of no other reasoning other than the storied ancient quality of human empathy. It impressed him, the way this small act of relatively inconsequential sacrifice had been undertaken by the least of those assembled on this field of battle had brought him some measure of comfort.
The previous four days had watched casualties mount, mostly unfortunate mortals among the auxilia. Of those who had been felled by increased Ork probes and their sloppy fire, most would live, but they were losses all the same even if still well within acceptable limits. He had withdrawn much of the indirect fire artillery to Firebase Crown keeping direct fire Predators and the like within the gem bases and moving the exotic energy weapon vehicles such as the fellblades into hastily constructed fighting positions nearer to Crown where they could fire down into the horde without the heat they generated being confined within the bases walls. He had begun exploiting the greenskins perception of desperation, he would instruct a besieged base to begin expending as much ordnance possible into the advance, giving the appearance they were about to fall and were fighting to the last, this would of course cause the advance to falter as well timed artillery and mortars began to fall in the back ranks of the advance. Then, from over the walls and barricades and from between shield wall of smoky grey Iron Warriors with the occasional dot of Yellow indicating one of the sons of his brother Rogal, his Tyrants would advance, dumping their cyclone missiles deep into the advancing line and laying into them with their combi-bolters smashing any foolish enough to draw close enough to bits with their powerfists or shredding them to steaming meat with their chainfists. Then, having expended their ammunition, they would fall back into the base for re-armament as the shield-wall capping the fortifications would reform, once again creating the unbreachable barrier of concrete clad earthworks and ceramite stitching the faltered advance with more bolter fire or lances of melta, plasma, and las fire as the towers raked them from on high with autocannons and heavy stubbers.
It was beginning to look as if they would be able to hold, the position would not falter despite the new force that had joined the group besieging his line of fortification, one of the fire bases may have to be evacuated and sacrificed, but in shorting up the remaining four gem bases they would be able to increase their defensive and offensive output. It turned out the force that was advancing was closer to five million than the initial projection of three and while they had slaughtered what must have been close to a million of the greenskins at this point, there were still almost six million crammed into the seventy square meter lowland facing the diadem fortification line. The risk lay in supply and the possibility that the Ork warlord leading this foray would have some inconceivable spark of insight that would lead him to rally his forces from out of the low-lands to bypass the crescent of hills and buttes entirely and head into the fertile plains. Trying to displace his force at that juncture would be impossible, and while they would inevitably triumph, the land would be wiped bare and too much time and investment had already gone into this world for it to be lost to a ravening clade of slavering greenskins. The compliance of this world would already bring little to no glory to his legion, but this was the nature of their task and in imprinting the Iron Warriors agelessly into the history and makeup in this world, he would forever have its subtle and quiet admiration which was a unique reward, one he would jealously guard from a pack of near-mindless Xenos; the indelible memory of the collection of demi-gods and mortal men who had served to ward them from an insurmountable foe.
Shiban Khan had intercepted a number of Ork scouting parties moving into the river basin advancing in the direction of the fertile plains. If the horde broke free from the quagmire they would pour across the plain and into the settlements, they would find little of what they sought, no technology or crap to speak of, majority of the work that had been done on this world was via beasts of burden or the sweat of mortal brows, a small collection of steam engines that had been jealously maintained and rebuilt over the centuries since old night allowed for some measure of heavy labor, but it was not sufficient to the hunger of the green skins.
"My Lord!"
Perturabo spun to see Koronikois advancing to him, a demand of expeditiousness forcing his aged limbs into a rather competent jog.
"What news do you herald, Koronikois?"
"My Lord, we have received communication via astropath, your brothers Rogal Dorn and Jaghatai Khan have responded, they come with a response force to bolster us against the greenskins!"
"Did they say what forces they bring?" The greenskins had been working on something for the last two days and he was not certain what it was, it could be one of their god machine scrap titans or it could have been fording equipment, the former meant a massed assault on the bases with everything they had, the latter meant they intended to bypass the line of fortifications, neither was a beneficial situation.
"Each comes with a battalion of astartes, lord Dorn brings three brigades of Auxilia armor, the Khan brings the retinue of two knightly houses."
Perturabo clapped his armored hands together, "Splendid! We will see these filthy Xenos purged in their entirety!"
Forrix, first captain and Warsmith of IVth waited just inside the square of the one the humble hamlets in the verdant hinterlands for Lord Dorn's vanguard approaching in a Sokar pattern Stormbird. The primitive mortals still marveled at the sight of the astartes, they had been on the verge of worshiping his father Perturabo, but he was certain that compared to the austere utilitarianism of the IVth, the radiance of Lord Dorn and the barbaric majesty of the Archaemusians, Templar Brethren, and Huscarls would convince these people that a god truly did walk among them. His father and Uncle shared a sort of taciturn closeness since his father had been inducted into the special kinship referred to as The Dauntless. They were the sons most loyal to the Emperor in deed if not so much in word. Indeed, Lord Dorn routinely questioned their father, often backed by Lords Horus and Sanguinius with whom Dorn shared a form of filial bond that had perplexed and had, once, been the envy of his father. There had been some initial friction between the lords of the IVth and VIIth, but Horus had made overtures to Perturabo and brought him into the tightknit kinship only to later reveal that it was at Dorn's insistence that the Hammer of Olympia become one with their exclusive brotherhood. This world, while primitive, was of unparalleled richness in both the fertile almost blackened brown soil and mineral rich mountains and hills. The people were genetically pure and hardy, absurdly so, harkening back to ancient Terra in their unsullied genomes and their judicious demeanor. This planet was slated for compliance by the Sons of Dorn, but he had gifted the World to Perturabo so that he may benefit from the rich tithe this world would produce in minerals, food stuffs, sons for his legion.
As the Stormbird feathered in for a landing he was approached by an astropath. "Lord Forrix…"
"What is it, astropath?"
"The leader of the fair-Xenos requests audience."
Forrix wrinkled his brow, "Can it not wait?"
"My Lord…his mind reached to mind, his portent was unclear but it seems…dire."
"Hells…I shall attend to this once I have greeted Lord Dorn."
"As you decree, sire."
The ramp lowered and out stepped the Huscarls, the personal guard alternately wearing the livery of the Templar Brethren of Sigismund's Black Maltese and the Lightning Wreathed Brazier of the Archaemusian Life Guard. The Ice Lion furs draped across the power plants of their Artificer wrought Crusader Armor and their power maces and swords clutched in their hands giving them the truly imposing look of Barbarous nobility from some age of yore. Between the ordered rows of elite legionnaires he spotted the bare head of Kye, the master of the Archaemusian brotherhood and captain of the Huscarls, his mark III Iron armor accented in brass and gold, combining Dorn's own heraldic Maltese cross with the brazier of the kinship of Archaemus from which rose the fist of the VIIth. In his hand he bore the stone headed power-mace he was known for like a baton of command with his combibolter maglocked to his right hip and a seax at the left. A few moments later, the golden panoply of Lord Dorn caught a ray of light, sending a bright flash to every eye that beheld the giant primarch descending the ramp. The tallest of his assembled sons only came up to his mid chest and in the gold and brass of this warplate he appeared a god given form.
The mortal citizens of the village stopped dead in their tracks as the beheld the fearsome majesty of Dorn and his bodyguard. Even Forrix had to admit it was much more the image of a primarch that remembrancers though out the legions had attempted to paint for the Imperium, and given the peculiar almost good-natured adversarial relationship between his own father and Dorn, he couldn't help but feel an intense sense of respect for the indomitable Lord of the VIIth. Dorn took a moment to look over the world, closing his eyes for a moment as his nostrils flared and his chest rose, Forrix understood this, for he never grew tired of breathing in the clean sweet air of this world. Occasionally perfumed with the odor of wood smoke, hay, and freshly shorn grass, other times spiked with the stink of draft and herd animal manure or tannin, or the burn metal odor of a blacksmith, but even then they were simple and pure smells. The acrid chemical stench of hive life, of mass waste disposal, of caustic substances found no purchase in this world and a part of him believed it would be best if it remained so. For this world, urban sprawl and massive manufactora would not be an improvement, these people lived well and thrived in a simple life and to force it to "improve" by the standard of modernity would likely harm them more than help.
Dorn gave some direction to Kye and with a nod the captain of the Archaemusians crossed to the square where Forrix stood with a contingent of his marines.
"Greetings, cousin." The Huscarl intoned with mock-affability, it was known that Kye was a taciturn man, serious and utterly devoted to his craft as retainers to their lord, while he was not considered crass or unpleasant, his true nature was as cold as that of the Ice Hives of his birth.
"Hail, captain." Forrix replied as they shared the ritual wrist clasp of the astartes.
Kye wasted no more time on pleasantries and the First Captain found he appreciated the way the Huscarl Captain focused on the task at hand. "Our astropaths detected something strange from the alienage, something besets them?"
Forrix frowned, "I had just been made aware of this myself, I intended to discover the nature of this as soon as I had oriented your Lord on the situation on this world."
"My lord has declared this a priority in the immediacy of our current concerns. He has total faith in your lord's capability to stymie and crush the foul greenskins, we have arrived to simply facilitate the foregone conclusion of your legion's utter and complete victory."
Forrix couldn't help but feel the swell of pride, for his legion to be so considered by one of the original three scions of the Dauntless was no small mark of honor. Lesser legions had been bled heavily by the Orks in previous encounters; victory was measured by amount of losses accrued and in said situations victory was only achieved by scourging the planet to the point of being almost unlivable. Still, what Kye said was not an empty platitude or wrong, thus far a paltry fifty of his brothers had died despite two full weeks of siege, among the mortal Auxilia the figure was not significantly higher, and no greenskin had been able to venture as close as the furthest outlying farmsteads in the meantime. From that perspective, the concerns of the Xenos exodites was of higher importance given their proximity to the issue, he knew his gene-father would not begrudge them even three days in the interest of appropriate mobilization for how he would devise the plan of battle. Dealing with the problem that beset the Aeldari would not take them more than a day on the outside of possible timetables, they could reach their woodlands by ground transport in under four hours and traverse to their settlements in the forest in under and hour by foot.
"Does you lord wish to speak with them himself?"
Kye frowned, "If such becomes necessary, he implied that I should go with you to see to their problems with all possible haste."
Even given his position as first captain of the IVth, one did not ignore the bidding of a primarch, especially where it lay within the confines of responsibility you already had. "Very well, we shall go, I have a land raider nearby."
"Would it not be quicker to avail ourselves of the Stormbird?"
"The Xenos frown upon technology beyond that which we bear upon ourselves being brought into their woodlands." Forrix replied, his father had instructed that they should pander to the cultural considerations of the Xenos in this regard at least.
"We can land it outside the forest, can we not?"
That was, admittedly, a practical solution, and it cut the travel time to a mere half an hour flight time. "That would be preferable in regards to expediency."
"Shall we then, first captain?"
Forrix glanced back at his retinue, he was about to dismiss them when Kye immediately spoke up, "Of course your subordinates would remain with you."
He gave a deferential nod, "Let us be off then."
As they approached the transport craft, Dorn was direction a trio of his masters of signal in where to direct landing detachments and a group of ten Husclars readied bikes to travel to the Diadem Fortification line. As they drew close Dorn glanced in Forrix's direction and closed his eyes with a deep nod, he in turn clasped his right hand over his chest and returned the gesture with a shallow bow. Kye, ever the one for expediency, pre-empted further ritual by stating, "My lord will join us momentarily."
Forrix noted the lack of tech priests upon entering the Stormbird. There were a few, three, and while they wore the robes of their station, they had remarkably less augmentation then he was accustomed to seeing. The scent of incense was not present, purity seals did not adorn any of the equipment and they offered no prayers to machine spirits as the engines whined to life then began a steady purr as the vessel lifted off. They had been airborne for six minutes before Lord Dorn approached, and Forrix moved to make his subservience and respect to the primarch, taking a knee and bowing his head. No sooner had he done so than Dorn gestured with a hand for him to rise.
"You need make no signs of respect to me, nephew, you are my brother's son and should think of me as naught other than your gene-uncle." His brassy voice called out in the remarkably quiet interior.
"My Lord, I simply meant to show the proper respect." Iron Warrior declared, stunned at the disregard for protocol by the primarch.
"Your devotion to duty and to your father, my brother, is respect enough for any astartes. Your fealty is spoken for and that is respect enough for me. How does my brother fair?"
"We have stymied the greenskins' advance, my lord, my father holds the foe at a standstill in the lowlands, still he has concern that facing their current quagmire the greenskins may simply opt to bypass the defensive lines and brave the river or attempt to scale the cliffs."
"Are the cliffs undefended?"
"We have naught but a few scout detachments and stormtroops of the auxilia in this area, my lord, given the greenskin propensity of seeking battle we believed the likelihood that they would brave the two hundred meter climb was remote, thus we sought to focus them into the lowland."
Dorn nodded, "My brother was correct in this regard."
"The Diadem defensive fortifications have held them to the lowlands for two weeks, but four days ago they received massive reinforcement from their hulks in orbit, it has made our plans to simply quit the fortifications to slaughter them in the fields impractical."
"How many are there?" Dorn inquired.
"My lord, our close-range auspex scans allow us to estimate there are five million currently in the low-lands."
Dorn frowned, "Such a number, how are your casualties?"
"Negligible, all things considered, my lord, fifty battle brothers, perhaps a hundred mortals, but we have laid low close to one million of the Xenos."
"Impressive." Dorn rumbled.
Forrix was granted the privilege of Lord Dorn's countenance for the remainder of the flight as the primarch posited questions about the situation at the Diadem Line and further inquired what progress there had been on the world prior the greenskins' arrival. Finally, in a lull in the conversation Forrix gave voice to something he had noted at the time he had boarded the craft.
"My Lord, if I may, does there not seem to be too few tech priests for a craft built by the mechanicus?"
Dorn's left snowy brow arched, "This craft was not built by the mechanicus."
"But…my lord…craft of this make, the complexity…"
"There was a time, first captain, when mankind did not have a cult of Mars, on numerous worlds, humanity built technological wonders without the blessing for secretive and esoteric castes and orders and in those ages, humanity thrived."
Forrix felt the blood rush from his face, "My lord…the mechanicus would call this heresy, without the enshrining of a machine spirit…"
Dorn's mouth widened into an austere smile, "Do you know what a machine spirit is, first captain?"
"No, my Lord, I had thought-" He didn't finish, leaving his words to hang.
"A machine spirit is a set of computational algorithms and heuristics, a series of cogitation programs that is meant to somewhat mimic the facility of an abominable intelligence but without the ingrained self-determination. The prayers and blessings of the cult of Mars is nothing more than ritual practice meant to reinforce the concept of exclusivity. The mechanicus is a lie." Dorn declared, a fierce glint in his eyes as he laid forth his pronouncement.
"But, my lord, the Emperor himself…"
"Tolerates them. My father knows that we are generations away from being able to produce the technology this Imperium will require without their aid, but mark my words, he knows that theirs is a practice in the basest artifice, they maintain their existence by furthering the perception that without them humanity would be incapable of producing the technology they borrowed or stole from prior ages of human ingenuity."
Forrix balked, "Then the techpriests here are…what?"
"Merely humans, they do not adhere to the worship of the omnissiah, they recognize the 'machine spirits' for what they are…programming schemas, but by presenting themselves as tech priests, they alleviate the curiosity of the cult of Mars."
Forrix had been shocked to learn that this craft and thirty others like it had been built in relative secret on Araneus, as had the rhino in its loading bay, as had the phobos pattern bolters and armor his sons wore. All of it, built without the knowledge, blessing, or interference of the Mechanicus. While he saw the great advantage to this, he wondered if a schism with Mars was a path the Imperium would be wise to walk. But such things were beyond his comprehension as just an astartes, surely the Emperor's Sons had more complex insight in these regards than he.
Forty minutes after landing, Forrix and his retinue along with Kye and two other Huscarls entered a clearing having detected the presence of a small exodite hunting party. Upon exiting the tree-line he heard them begin muttering in their Xenos tongue, he fought back revulsion as they spoke to one another in their overly florid language. One of them, a female, approached projecting the foolhardy defiance common among their breed.
"What brings you here mon'keigh?" She demanded in a clipped tone and lilted vowels of her people as she was forced to crane her neck to look at their faces.
This posturing was tiring, he could kill every one of the Xenos in this clearing with his own hands and barely consider it a strain, yet she dared belligerence. Still…his father had ordered politeness so he bit back his indignity and spoke as calmly as he could.
"Our astropaths have sensed great disquiet from your chieftain, it seemed as though he implored our assistance."
Over his squad vox he heard two of the battle brothers of his squad speak, "Did she just call us monkeys?"
"No, brother, mon'keigh is the way they label outsiders; it is like unto how we call them Xenos."
"But we are human, they are the Xenos."
"To them we are the Xenos, brother."
Her eyes widened, "You've been summoned to Tirnain? But who is this Mon'keigh with you?"
"Kye." The Archaemusian declared.
The Aeldari blinked, rolling the name around in their heads, the similarity in pronunciation to that which they titled him confused them, the wondered if they were being mocked? What could they do if they were?
"What?"
"I am captain of lord Rogal Dorn's Huscarl, and master of the Archaemusian Life Guard, my name is Kye." The VIIth legionnaire declared, resplendent in the artificer armor, ice lion cloak, the tabard of his order and the war-baton cradled in his right arm. Kye looked like a lord, like a First Captain should, the gold and brass flourish on the yellow and black of his armor stood him out from the average astartes, even Forrix himself seemed inconsequential by comparison.
"This wastes time," Forrix chided in as gentle a tone as he could manage, "please take us to your chieftan so we may see what he needs of us."
One of the male Xenos said something to the female, it was unclear to the meaning of his words but it was clear from his tone, this confrontation was nonsense, it accomplished nothing, their people had accepted limited rulership by the Imperium and to confront organs of that rule was foolish. She nodded, grudgingly and spoke, "Come with us Mon'keigh, we will take you to Tirnan."
They spent another twenty minutes traversing the forest, moving along the rocky bed of a brook until they reached the primary settlement, having been here twice before Forrix was immediately aware of the level of disquiet in the village, the Xenos present did not go about their normal daily activities, everything was a frenzied blur of activity, preparing themselves for…something…was is possible a group of the Greenskins had landed not far from here? Were they preparing defense or to evacuate? Their disquiet became clear moments later when they saw the obscene armored bodies of their more belligerent kin marked with the cradling cross and heart of those known as the Biel-tan.
The ancient of Tirnan turned as Forrix and his retinue came into full view, his eyes going wide with panic, "Astartes, flee!"
Before Forrix could react energy blasts pitted into his armor and among the primitives cries of fear rang out as they scattered. Outright chaos erupted as concealed Biel-tan soldiers attacked from three sides. One of his retinue fell immediately as a blast of energy from their long rifles smashed into his helmet. Forrix presented no further hesitation as he bounded across the ground towards the elder of Tirnan as the officer of the Biel-tan lifted a pistol and his curved sword. Shots went wide around Forrix as he covered the distance at the speed he'd always heard mortals call alarming. Two shots pitted into his armor as he closed, drawing neither his chain sword nor his bolter as he covered the distance, upon reaching the Biel-tan warlord the Xeno attempted to bring his sword into to strike from the side. Forrix, moving with in human speed, clamped his hand on the being's right wrist, immediately crushing and wrenching the limb, crushing armor into flesh and bending it as bones cracked underneath his gauntleted fist, his right hand clenched onto the helmet, his fingers squeezing as the joints of the armor protests and the skull began to collapse against the cracking wraithbone. Behind him, bolters barked and a volkite screeched as the legionnaires engaged the attackers.
A sickly groan escaped the Biel-tani warlord as his head began to collapse under his hand and blood ran out from the helmet. With a sharp and sudden wrench Forrix snapped the Xenos' neck and pulled, rending the meat of his neck and pulled the helmet and head completely off the body, turning just enough to send it hurtling at one of the Xeno riflemen who was struck so hard by the flying helmet that it snapped his neck, dropping him to the ground. Forrix turned to see the horror on the face of the Tirnan chieftain. Doubtlessly he believed he would be next, that in this situation the presence of the craftworlders would be construed as a betrayal.
"Take your people and escape into the woods, this is our duty Aeldari." Forrix ordered.
The aged Xeno nodded emphatically, "Tirnan will forever remember your aid, Astartes."
Forrix unclamped his bolter and took up his chain sword, turning to face the attackers once again in time to see Kye smash one of the attackers in the ground with his power-mace the baton snapping down with such great speed that upon impact in flattened the Xeno craftworlder into the ground, then blew his body apart as the crackling energy shot through its torso, ripping an arm and a leg off and splattering the ground with gore, pulped meat, and shattered wraithbone. The battle brother who had fell in the first exchange of fire was on a knee now, his helmet streaming smoke from a blasted pit in the side as he fired his bolter. Another of his brother, Herodate brought his Volkite serpenta back up and the weapon screeched, lancing a beam of orange into one of the craftworlders, flames erupted from the seams in the wraithbone armor and the body thrashed as steam and smoke from boiling bodily fluids and burning tissue rose from the still moving would-be corpse.
Then the inhuman howls came, not from his brothers, but from at his left flank, the wails modulated through vocadors as he turned to see the retinue of banshees in their pale wraithbone and their scarlet maned tall helmets dashed towards him.
The keening wails struck him with a force that seemed to melt his muscles as any movement became labored, the first was already upon him before he could swing his chain sword when a flash of gold caught the corner of his eye and a massive hand grasped the screaming female Xeno, lifting her bodily into the air then slamming her into the earth. The segmented plates of a massive greaves and sabaton of gold and brass came down to smash her, crushing ribs, spine, organs and armor. The deep braying growl of a chain sword caught in his ears and he knew that only one weapon in this universe could produce a sound of such mechanical purity, Storm's Teeth. Rogal Dorn's movements were so quick that the displacement of air caused a wind to catch his red cloak, billowing it open as he stepped between Forrix and the sprinting banshees as he lifted Storm's Teeth high to challenge any who would dare advance further.
Whatever forbearance Dorn's challenge served to offer was lost on these Xeno filth for they charged onwards still, oblivious to the fate they had thus sealed in challenging the Primarch. The Lord of the VIIth took a single step forward that may as well have been three for the distance he covered in the loping bound as he was suddenly amidst them, the massive chain sword, larger than any of the banshees arrayed against him lashed forth in a lightning quick arc the spinning talons shaped teeth kissing and parting wraithbone, funneling a stream of gore across the ground as the razor sharp tips of the teeth parted skin and flesh without effort, a line of a thousand centimeters deep cuts drew reddening lines across the bodies of the leaping and charging Xenos. At the end of the arc, the chain-sword struck one of the banshees full-on, and passed through her as if she were nothing but a cloud of smoke, her top half parted from the bottom as both fell end over end to the ground, her scream cut short in a gurgling croak as her body voided itself of all that it held, breath, blood, and offal.
Forrix was so amazed he wanted to stop to witness this peculiarly austere mastery of war, but his gene-forged aggression drove him forward to slay the enemy and in five bounding steps he fell upon the alien rifles, his own chain sword lashing out in brutal clubbing motions, smashing his foes as the teeth of the chain-track ground into and through armor to meet the tender flesh and fragile bone underneath, ripping messy furrows into the bodies, destroying and savaging what they touched, splitting torsos open to hang gaping in messy butchery. And within moments, all was silent except for the idle growl of chain sword motors and the purr of servos as they viewed their surroundings.
Dorn knelt beside one of the stricken banshees, around him lay sixteen bodies of her sisters as he pressed his giant hand against her cuirass, pushing her hard against the ground. Forrix approached but held at a distance of around five meters.
"Why have you come here?" Dorn's basso rumbled.
She spat out something in her native tongue, her voice bathed in the tones of pain.
"They came to take us, lord." The voice of the chieftain of Tirnan came out thin and strained.
On the face of the Xeno warrior there was an expression of betrayal that overrode the pain she felt in her body as he life crept from her. Dorn rose to turn to face the elder, "Why?"
"They take issue without treating with your people, with our coexistence with the humans of this world." The elder's voice was like a reed buffeted in a gale, conflicted by what had occurred but not for the reason Forrix suspected he should be.
"Their intrusion was uninvited, I trust?"
"It was lord, though we share a blood, I…my people…are not of their kind, we ceased to be Aeldari this day, we became traitors to their kind. We make ourselves your slaves, lord, I ask only that you not punish my people."
"We have no need of slaves, Aeldari." Dorn pronounced and Forrix could see fear on the face of the chieftain.
"We do, however, wish brothers and sisters, do you give your oath to the Imperium?"
The chieftain nodded, "To a man, woman, or child."
"Then I welcome you as brothers and sisters of the Imperium. My men will ensure no similar fate has befallen any other villages for I must know attend to my brother's war against the greenskins."
Perturabo stood still in contemplation as a technician of the Auxilia hosed Xeno gore from his terminator plate in Firebase Coral. He head led an assault foray into a building mass of the greenskins an hour earlier, fighting roughly a kilometer into their lines, only falling back when the pleas of the Auxilia Imperialis commanders and his own sons became so emphatic that he had advanced beyond support range that he finally deemed it prudent to fall back. The fact he and the terminator squads he lead had run their ammunition dry ten minutes prior to their retreat only compounded the prudence of their requests.
It had felt…cathartic…to vent some of his frustrations with this foe in personal combat. A trio of tech-priests were attending to his powermaul, maintain the power supply and affixing purity seals to the power-plant while two others topped off the ammunition magazines for the storm bolters attached to his wrists, and reattached the feed flexis. The Auxilia private from days before approached again, his las rifle showing the scratched tally marks of kills in the stock, forty two by the count of hash marks. He looked up at the primarch with almost disrespectful familiarity, saying not a word but lifted an unlit lho-stick with arched brows. He grinned at the mortal, who stepped up on an ammunition crate then lit the lho-stick between his own lips before lifting it up to the primarch's lips. Perturarbo took a deep pull at the lit cylinder, the smoke smelling sweeter, the taste of the burning leaves sharper and tingling, even more satisfying than the last time on his tongue. He closed his eyes, bathing in the sensory satisfaction, savoring it.
"These are fine lho-sticks, private…the finest I have experienced, where do you acquire them?"
The private nodded, with almost comfortable familiarity, "My home world, my lord, some insist and I am incline to believe we grow the finest lho in the galaxy."
His voice was heavily accented, he was likely from some marginally developed agri-world the name of which he had likely never heard, but the Auxilia was not wrong, this was intensely satisfying. The guardsman's comfort in his presence was amusing to Perturabo, most of the Auxilia were rendered bumbling fools in his presence, so awed to be in the presence of a son of the Emperor, yet this wisp of a mortal felt no discomfort at all and, in a way he could not even understand, he appreciate it.
"I would not argue that point, but how do you come to acquire them? Surely you did not bring them all the way from your world with you?"
The private grinned, "There is a secret, my lord, you have to find the boxes marked with a K on the bottom, this means they were made from leaves harvested on Katurs five."
Perturabo took another deep drag of the burning stick and pondered a moment, "Perhaps, we should mandate all lho stick come from Katurs five."
"Ahh, but then all lho sticks would be the same and it would all become bland, would they not, my lord?"
The primarch chuckled, "Yes, I suppose that is true, one can only appreciate quality where it is so often absent."
"As you say, my lord."
There was silence for a few moments, doubtlessly the guardsman was contemplating whether or not he had overstepped his bounds, but thus far he had seemed to enjoy some level of favor from the Primarch and, perhaps, he reasoned that at times even a Primarch desired to be treated as a fellow being and not some unapproachable demigod. "What was it like outside the wall, my lord?"
"It stinks." Perturabo intoned, brooking a laugh from the guardsman.
"We all lost sight of you for a moment, all we could see was the flying body parts and blood."
Perturabo imagined for a moment an almost farcical geyser of Orks in the sea of their fellows and imagined that such a sight would indeed be amusing to watch. He let out a sharp and halting laugh, "I imagine that must have looked peculiar."
The auxilia private grinned in a silly fashion in spite of himself, "It was, we started watching for the greenskins popping up in the air to figure out where you were. How many did you kill, my lord?"
Perturabo smirked, a soldier would think this way, "I stopped counting at five hundred."
The mortal's expression went wan, his mouth drawn into a line, "Really?"
The primarch nodded, smiling in amusement.
"It would take me weeks to catch up with that." He muttered.
Perturabo laughed at this, the idea of a guardsman matching a primarch in kill tally was ridiculous, the fact he wanted to so badly was amusingly admirable, he realized he truly liked this mortal, "There will be other worlds, private."
"But, my lord, you'll get too far ahead there that I'll never catch up." He protested with a grin, making jest over his own absurd premise.
The Primarch laughed again, "Maybe we shall get you a tank… that should help even it up."
"Oh yes, my lord, a tank would be very nice!"
He laughed again, taking another drag from the paper cylinder of lho-leaf, "What are you doing at this firebase?"
"I volunteered to be placed closer to the action, I like firebase crown very much, but it's too far away for me to shoot effectively."
"You like battle?" Perturabo arched his brows.
"I volunteered for my planet's tithe, my lord, I wanted to join the crusade."
The primarch nodded with an appraising expression, "Admirable, private. How long have you been in the auxilia?"
"Five years, my lord."
"And you have not been promoted?" He furrowed his brows.
"The paperwork moves slowly, my lord."
He reached up to rub his chin with the heavy ceramite gauntlet, "We shall have to fix that, you should be a corporal at least."
"If it keeps me on the front line I would be willing to stay a private, my lord."
He chuckled at this, "Yes, but if we did that we could not adequately reward your devotion."
The private was just about to speak again when the sudden piercing whine of a Stormbird pierced the air. Its presence set the orks to a frenzy and stubber fire intensified as a series of muted cracks and from where it hovered near the base Perturabo could see the chunks of soft metal fracture and scatter against the thick hull. The yellow of the construction and the black fists that adorned it could mean only one thing, his brother or one of his captains had arrived.
The craft made no attempt at landing, instead the rear ramp opened some fifteen meters above the ground and he saw a giant shape of gold with a red cape leap from the vessel, plummeting to earth as streaks of yellow followed. Perturabo turned to one of the terminator sergeants, "Open the rear gate, my brother has arrived!"
"Yes, my lord."
Moments later a pair of contemptors lifted the metal cross bar while two others grasped the gates in their clumsy manipulator hands and swung the doors open as the golden armored form of his broth, trailing his red cloak marched into the base with a retinue of his hurscarl sons flanking him.
"Rogal!" He intoned as the Primarch of the VIIth approached.
His white haired brother handed off his massive chain sword to one of his sons and stepped forward, his hands coming up to grip Perturabo's upper arms affectionately, "Hello brother, we came as soon as we received your call."
He embraced Dorn back to the extent he could with his terminator armor and grinned, "What do you think of the fortifications?"
"They are splendidly designed, overlapping fields of fire, area denial considerations, terrain advantage, walls that would take months to crack under concerted bombardment, fresh water reserves, grass and grating to prevent the interior from becoming bogged in mud, how long did they take to complete?"
"We had three days to finish the first line, completing crown took another two."
"Remarkable."
"If I had but another two days I might have even been able to make them pretty." Perturabo teased.
"You may have needed more of my sons for that." Dorn returned in jest with a twinkle in his eye.
The Hammer of Olympia laughed, "It is so good to see you."
"I have brought a full battalion with armor brigades, the Khan has five maneuver companies and thirty Imperial knights, how would you see us deploy, brother?"
Perturabo cocked a brow, "You have no plans for this yourself?"
"You are the master of this battle, we are here to serve as you deem fit."
Perturabo looked in Dorn's eyes with a genuine appreciation of the de facto deference this entailed, it effectively meant that two of his brothers were humbling themselves before him, making him the first of equals. "Thank you, Rogal. I do have a plan, I call it Operation Three Eagles, once Jaghatai arrives I will go over it."