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  Under his helmet, Valax’s lips pulled back in a cunning smile. ‘Leave him ignorant of the true purpose of the mission,’ he mused. ‘But Rhodaan is no fool. He will question the deployment of my own squad as a diversionary force. He may guess the deception and undermine me.’ Valax’s hand tightened into a fist as unpleasant memories recurred to him. ‘He has done it before,’ the over-captain admitted, thinking of Rhodaan’s ambush of the hrud.

  Oriax’s laugh was like a burst of electronic interference. ‘You will not deploy anywhere near the blockhouse, or anywhere that might give Rhodaan warning. When the time for action comes, your squad will come to my sanctum.’ The entire console around the techmarine shifted with him as he turned to face a particular portion of wall. An unspoken command from the Fabricator caused the entire wall to sink into the floor, exposing a second chamber.

  Even through his armour, Valax felt a chill and knew it to be a cold born not of flesh but of spirit, a psychic frost that betokened some great effort of witchery. Warily, he came forwards to peer into the inner room. He gasped at what he saw.

  ‘Each wall possesses thirteen facets, adorned with special psycho-reactive alloys found only within the Eye of Terror,’ Oriax boasted as Valax stared at the sharply angled walls. At the base of each facet, arrayed like the spokes of a wheel, were thirteen naked things chained to stout pillars. ‘The pillars are of wraithbone plundered from the vanquished craftworld of X’amot,’ the Fabricator said, but Valax was more interested in the beings bound to those pillars, rather than the columns themselves. At first glance, the things might be mistaken for humans of the most degenerate and malformed stock, but a second look made it apparent that whatever lurked inside those twisted bodies was anything but human.

  At the centre of the chamber, its surface etched in cabalistic symbols and framed with a ring of psi-circuitry, was a great disc of bloodwood. The black hue of the disc gave evidence that the bloodwood had recently been fed, soaking up the spirit-energy of its victims. For such a mass of bloodwood, Oriax must have had at least a hundred ‘donors’. Murder on such a scale didn’t impress Valax. What did impress him was the fact that he recognized this apparatus and could guess its purpose.

  ‘You’ve recreated the Daemonculum,’ Valax said, glancing away from the inner chamber to stare at Oriax’s corpse-like face.

  ‘I’ve improved upon it,’ Oriax corrected him. ‘The sorcerers of the pesedjet are too mired in superstition to truly understand such power.’ The Fabricator’s claw stretched out, gesturing at the bloodwood platform. ‘Bring your squad to me, Valax. Stand at the heart of the Daemonculum. I shall summon the thirteen daemons and harness their energies to transmit you where you need to be.’ Again, the static-laughter crackled through the sanctum. ‘Unless Rhodaan has developed a warp-eye, he will never guess your purpose or your objective.’

  Valax nodded slowly. ‘This will bring great glory to both of us,’ he said. ‘The Warsmith will be impressed and will reward me greatly. You will not find me ungenerous, Oriax.’

  The Fabricator’s many arms spread outwards in a great spiral, his mechanical eyes glowing in the darkness. ‘It is enough that I help the brother who saved my life. That is all the reward I ask.’

  ‘Xenos abomination!’ Nazdrav roared, his chainaxe slashing through the arm of an ork big enough to fit a whole grox in its fanged maw. The limb went bouncing down the corridor, its finger still pulling the trigger of the bolter in its hand. The greenskin stared stupidly at the spurting stump, then slumped to the floor as Nazdrav brought the chainaxe churning into its gut.

  Shells from Valax’s bolt pistol spattered alien blood across the walls as he wrought havoc amongst the greenskin marauders charging down the hall. Already there was such a heap of dead littering the corridor that the optical targeter in his helmet was having problems differentiating between fresh adversaries and those already dying. The Iron Warrior, however, was fully capable of picking his own shots without the aid of the cogitator.

  An agonized scream rang through the squad-channel of his helmet’s audio relay. A tiny indicator on his optical display winked out, heralding the extinction of Malfas, the Iron Warrior Valax had designated as rearguard. Spinning around, the over-captain saw the mangled body of Malfas dangling from an immense metal claw affixed to a crude armature. The armature appeared to have punched its way through the exterior wall, seizing the Iron Warrior before he even knew it was there.

  With a grisly snap, the claw tightened and sent the bisected parts of Malfas dripping to the floor. Valax shouted a command to the rest of his squad, ordering Gressil and Uhlan to keep the orks charging down the corridor at bay while he and Nazdrav dealt with this new threat.

  New threat? Almost from the very moment the Iron Warriors had emerged from the Daemonculum’s black fog and found themselves within the depths of the blockhouse, they had been under constant attack. Lesser beings would have been ripped apart by the fell energies of the Daemonculum, their shredded bodies devoured by the rapacious malignance of the Warp. The Iron Warriors had emerged alive but bewildered, their senses requiring precious minutes to readjust from their fleeting brush with the immaterium, their flesh stubborn to accept the transition back to physical matter. It was because of this moment of readjustment and vulnerability that the Iron Warriors had been accompanied by two dozen of the soulless Steel Blood.

  The Steel Blood Oriax had sent to accompany them as scouts had proven useless, alerting the strike force about the mustering orks only after the fact. Again and again, at every room and hallway, the Iron Warriors had been confronted by howling aliens, forced to carve their way through snarling greenskins. Their armour was clotted with ork blood, their swords spattered with alien flesh, and still there was no end in sight. At least two hundred of the monsters were lying dead in the rooms they had put behind them and still they seemed no closer to their objective.

  The rest of the wall crumbled inwards, rebar stabbing out like the broken fingers of a corpse, concrete dust ballooning through the hall. Through the rupture, a mastodon of scrap metal and pounding pistons lumbered into view, black smoke belching from the ramshackle power-plant fitted to its back. The machine pulled back its clawed armature and brought one piston-driven leg smashing down into the carcass of Malfas. Bestial laughter croaked from the loudspeakers fitted to the machine’s hull.

  Valax felt his stomach boil at sight of the scrap-metal behemoth. An ork dreadnought, a primitive’s parody of the venerable war-machines of the Legiones Astartes. Locked inside a cockpit buried deep inside the war-machine was one of the greenskin invaders, secure within its mechanical shell. For all the crudity of its shape, Valax knew destroying the dreadnought wouldn’t be easy or quick. Not without some sacrifices.

  The over-captain thought of the timetable Oriax had promised Warsmith Andraaz. He had already chosen the brother most suited to destroying the dreadnought quickly.

  ‘Nazdrav! Flank the abomination! Disable its legs with your chainaxe!’ Valax started directing a steady stream of shots at the narrow viewport stretching across the front of the dreadnought’s hull. From the corner of his eye, he could see Nazdrav rush towards the ork machine.

  If it was simply a question of eliminating the dreadnought, Nazdrav and his axe might be enough. But Valax could see other orks on the other side of the wall, struggling to squeeze past the hulking war-machine and charge into the corridor. The Iron Warriors didn’t have the time to fend off attacks from both front and rear. The breeched wall had to be closed off and quickly.

  Valax waited until Nazdrav closed upon the dreadnought, then he quickly shifted his aim. Nazdrav was a simple but vicious Space Marine, always ready to glut himself on havoc and carnage. He had the endearing habit of always carrying extra ammunition and grenades into battle, frightened that he might expend his reserves while there was something still standing. Aside from the normal compliment of grenades fitted to his belt, he wore an improvised bandolier strung across his chest. Much more vulnerable to an enemy who
knew what he was looking for.

  ‘Inferno,’ Valax hissed, commanding his bolt pistol to shift ammunition. The normal rounds retreated back into the clip, allowing the specialized Inferno Bolt to enter the chamber from a side magazine. The specialized ammunition was designed to immolate a softer target than a Space Marine in power armour, but against the armaplas of Nazdrav’s bandolier, it was more than adequate.

  ‘Laugh at this!’ Nazdrav roared at the dreadnought as he began his assault. The moment the Iron Warrior was directly beneath the machine’s hull, Valax opened fire. The Inferno Bolt slammed into Nazdrav’s side in a burst of flame, the promethium burning into the bandolier. The betrayed Space Marine didn’t even have time to cry out before the ruptured grenades detonated. Nazdrav, ork dreadnought and a ten metre swath of hallway vanished in a burst of flame and smoke. A quaking rumble swept through the blockhouse, a cloud of dust exploding down the corridor. When it cleared, the only trace of the combatants was one of the dreadnought’s torn claws protruding from the immense pile of rubble that choked off the corridor behind the Iron Warriors.

  Valax turned his back on the ruins, focusing his fire on the orks still trickling into the hallway ahead. Gressil and Uhlan glanced back at their captain, but knew better than to ask what had happened to Nazdrav.

  Above the heads of the lurching orks, one of the metallic skulls came flying, its vox-caster braying an alarm. Valax exploded the automaton with a single round. The Steel Blood was late with its warning. The Iron Warriors had already engaged the orks.

  When he returned to the Iron Bastion, Valax would have a serious discussion with Oriax about the deficiencies in his synthetic scouts.

  This was no way to thank a brother who had saved his life.

  Valax glared up at the wailing skull, shattering it with a well-placed bolt shell, then returned his attention to the mob of greenskins rushing into the manufactory. He glanced aside to where Gressil’s body lay, his armour shredded by the weird ork combi-weapon wielded by his killer. Gressil had probably saved his captain’s life by leaping between Valax and the armoured alien. It was just as well the ork had killed him. Valax didn’t like the idea of feeling indebted to anyone, even a fellow Iron Warrior.

  The remains of Valax’s squad had fought their way deeper into the blockhouse, clearing it room by room and hall by hall. At each level, they had expected to find the ork fuel stores, but instead of supplies they had merely encountered more aliens. Valax had wondered if despite Oriax’s cunning, Rhodaan had somehow learned of the switch and held back his diversion. Certainly the number of orks opposing them appeared to indicate Valax had the aliens’ undivided attention.

  Valax whipped out his chainsword and fell upon Gressil’s murderer, venting his doubt and anger on the hulking ork. The whirring blade churned into the alien’s shoulder, but instead of biting into flesh, it gnawed into a mass of wire and cable, fuel lines and gears. The ork lashed back, its power claw closing about Valax’s arm. Warning lights flashed across the over-captain’s optics as the pneumatic claw began to compress the ceramite vambrace.

  The Iron Warrior brought his legs hammering into the ork’s chest, trying to kick it away. For all the good the effort did him, he might as well have kicked the blockhouse itself. Such was the ork’s mass that the brute wasn’t even jostled. It smirked at him with what little of its face wasn’t a metal prosthetic and tightened its grip. Valax squirmed within the alien’s clutch. Unable to free himself, he twisted so that he could bring his bolt pistol towards the brute’s face.

  His arm became a mangled ruin as the ork’s power claw squeezed tight. Valax had been conditioned to block out all magnitudes of pain, the destruction of his arm was something he didn’t have time to feel. Instead he focused on lifting his good arm and pumping shell after shell into the cyborg ork’s face.

  The monster shuddered as the first shell exploded against its metal prosthetic, sending sparks and shrapnel spraying in every direction. The second shell tore through the thick cranium of its organic side and detonated inside whatever remained of its brain. The third simply blew out the back of the creature’s skull.

  Instead of crumpling to the floor, the cyborg simply froze in place, like a powered-down machine. The power claw continued to tighten, but after a few seconds, even that motion abated. Like some corroded statue, the ork loomed over the conveyor belts and stamping presses of the manufactory, the arm of its killer held fast in its upraised claw.

  Other greenskins, the small weedy slavelings of the orks, came scrambling out from cover to finish what their vanquished master had started. Like demented children, they surged about the trapped Valax, peppering his armour with ineffectual shots from slug-throwers and autoguns, swatting at his legs with clubs and axes. The over-captain gunned down those he could, but there were always more gretchin to assault him from behind.

  Relief came in the form of Uhlan, the half-breed. The Space Marine’s pistol echoed in the vastness of the manufactory, obliterating gretchin with each shot. Unlike their masters, the diminutive slavelings had no stomach for battle. With a wailing shriek, the craven aliens broke and fled back to their hiding spots.

  ‘That is the last of them, My Lord Captain,’ Uhlan reported.

  Suspicion flared in Valax’s mind as he stared at the half-breed. How long had Uhlan waited before intervening? Until he was certain Valax was out of danger?

  ‘Oriax’s Steel Blood was late as usual,’ Valax grumbled, struggling to free himself. By degrees, he was able to force the cyborg’s arm to lower, though the power claw remained closed fast. ‘The Fabricator’s usefulness to this operation begins to wear thin.’

  Uhlan nodded. ‘Indeed, over-captain. The failings of his servitors are inexcusable. They should have found the fuel dump for us by now.’

  Valax jerked the cyborg’s arm still lower. Scrabbling at the floor, he retrieved his chainsword and brought the weapon against the wrist behind the power claw. Uhlan’s words gave him pause. What the half-breed said was true. Reacting to the orks might be beyond the abilities of the Steel Blood, but locating the fuel supplies was another matter. Valax considered the layout of the blockhouse, the blueprint that had been fed into his armour’s cogitator. His squad had already covered three quarters of the fortification without any trace of the fuel supplies. Either the initial intelligence had been wrong…

  The over-captain cursed as he made the connection. The blockhouses all followed a standard pattern, each identical to the other. The Daemonculum had transported them to the wrong fortress!

  As that horrible certainty impressed itself upon his mind, Valax heard the wail of one of Oriax’s Steel Blood. He looked towards the sound, watching as the metal skull came flying into the manufactory – a horde of orks rushing after it. The Steel Blood was sounding an alarm alright – but it was an alarm meant for the orks. The damned things had been alerting the aliens and leading them to the Iron Warriors the whole time!

  ‘Shoot the Steel Blood!’ Valax snarled at Uhlan. The half-breed stared at him in confusion, then cried out as blood exploded from his ruptured chest. A harpoon of steel protruded from the stricken Iron Warrior’s breast. Even as Uhlan turned to fire on his attacker, the cable fitted to the harpoon snapped taut. He was thrown off his feet as the cable began to retract, dragging him across the manufactory towards the gun carriage that had fired on him and a grinning ork with a blowtorch gripped in his oily paw. Other aliens swarmed past the mekanik, loosing a fusillade of bolt shells, solid shot and glowing plasma at the disabled Uhlan.

  Valax redoubled his efforts to cut away the cyborg’s wrist. Survival was doubtful now, but at least he could die fighting on his feet like a true Iron Warrior, not slaughtered like Uhlan.

  Even as he cut away the last string of cables, Valax flattened beneath an impact against the back of his head. As he struck the ground he could see the crumpled wreckage of a metal skull lying on the floor beside him, its cranium caved-in by a high-velocity impact. Valax imagined his helmet must have a s
imilar dent.

  The jaw of the damaged Steel Blood dropped open, the vox caster spewing forth the synthesized voice of Fabricator Oriax.

  ‘This is the end, over-captain. Before you die, know that Sergeant Rhodaan even now secures the objective for the Warsmith. It is in another blockhouse, of course. The only thing in this one is death. Your death.’

  Valax struggled to rise, but found that his legs refused to respond. Learned in biology as well as mechanics, Oriax had guided his Steel Blood to the precise location to deliver maximum damage upon the Iron Warrior. The impacted helmet had delivered a paralysing blow to Valax’s spine.

  Terror swelled in Valax’s hearts as he realized the extent of Oriax’s treachery. He could hear the orks rushing into the room, rushing to seize their helpless prey.

  ‘You found me like this in the crystal-swamps,’ Oriax’s voice droned. ‘I should have died, but for you. Now, I avenge that crime.

  ‘Die, Valax, and may the Chaos Gods show your spirit the same mercy you showed me.’

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  C. L. Werner’s Black Library credits include Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter, Runefang, the Brunner the Bounty Hunter trilogy and the Thanquol and Boneripper series. Currently living in the American south-west, he continues to write stories of mayhem and madness set in the worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. He claims that he was a diseased servant of the Horned Rat long before his first story was ever published.

  A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

  Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

  © Games Workshop Limited 2013. All rights reserved.

  Black Library, the Black Library logo, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo and all associated marks, names, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer universe are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2013, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. All rights reserved.