The Death of Dreams

*Selesia (Fortress World, Outer Feuerreich, Realm of the Obsidian Guard)*

*027.M31 (placeholder date)*

The Stormbird’s engines roared overhead. Its thrusters maintained a steady descent down to the landing platform, yellow-brown dust and wind-cones billowing from the jetstream. As the dropship landed with a thud, its axles hissed as the pilot turned off the engines, putting the dropship’s weight solely on its landing gear.

Adalgard, Castellan of Selesia, stood at the platform’s edge, his squad of nine standing behind their commander. They were akin to statues for all the movement they had made since arriving on the platform several minutes ago, having made the hundred metre walk from the Outer Gate to the fortress’ sole landing platform.

The Stormbird’s side hatch squealed open and the ramp lowered. Fifty Astartes in the colours of the Tenth Legion marched out as if on parade drill. Most wore armour that was unscarred, the black, orange and silver polished bright and catching the light of Selesia’s dim sun. All barring the sergeants leading them were newly inducted battle-brothers, fresh from training and newly implanted with the organs that made them a transhuman warrior of the Legiones Astartes.

The black watchtower upon an orange field was a reminder to Adalgard that these were not mere Astartes but brothers, fellow Obsidian Guard. Despite their youth, they were kin.

The five squads marched to stand ten meters away before halting, only one of their number closing the gap to five metres. The Space Marine saluted, the others behind him following suit without hesitation. Bolters held across the chest, forms rigid and ready. There were no banners, no pomp and ceremony. Just a unit submitting for inspection by a station’s commandant.

The Astartes’ rank marked him out as a sergeant. After saluting in the way of Unity, he removed his helm, service studs above his brow denoting at least fifty years of service. *Barely a third of his own*, Adalgard remarked privately in his thoughts.

“Castellan Adalgard, I am Sergeant Thurin. It is an honour to join your command.”

“Is it now?” The castellan replied dryly. Adalgard looked past Thurin at the others in formation and their waiting Stormbird, unable to hide his disappointment creeping into his voice. “Is this all?”

“Castellan?” Thurin’s voice hinted confusion.

“I sent out a call to Feuerstadt for reinforcements. I expected more than a demi-company of Space Marines, a single Stormbird and lone Legion destroyer in high orbit.”

“We are Obsidian Guard, Castellan. Fifty is more than enough,” Thurin’s voice had hardened, as if taken offense by Adalgard’s accurate observation.

“As am I, Sergeant Thurin, and I have been honoured to be one a damn near hundred years more than you.” Adalgard leaned forward. “Tell me, have you ever fought an Ork WAAAGH before, Thurin?”

“I have fought the greenskin curs at Luca Station, Bospur III and in the caverns of Numeah. But never a WAAAGH.”

“Fortunate for you.” Adalgard looked skyward, as if seeing into the deep of space, past the broken moon and the gas giants and far past the star system’s halo. Out there, several systems away, was an Ork fleet composed of hundreds of ramshackle abominations they called voidships. The xenos numbered in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, and were moving ever nearer to Selesia and the Realm it protected. Selesia may be a Fortress World but one severely undermanned. Adalgard had hoped that Feuerstadt would have sent more legionaries, but it seemed the homeworld had little to spare for his command as other threats, not all of them Ork, threatened the Feuerreich’s borders.

“You’ll fight one soon enough.”

Adalgard turned, motioning for the others to follow and for Thurin to walk beside him.

The sixty transhuman Astartes left the platform and the Stormbird upon it, the dropship crew running a final diagnostic before they too would retire to the fortress. Together they walked across the rockcrete bridge connecting the landing platform to the sole human structure on Selesia: the Bronze Hold.

“It is truly impressive,” Thurin remarked as they marched into the Hold beneath one of its two external gates, the other being at the Hold’s base a kilometre beneath them.

“As it should,” Adalgard replied. “Lord Keath may not flaunt his skill as other primarchs do, but I will say the Hold is probably one of his greatest works.”

Symbolic too, the castellan pondered. The Hold had been built inside of, and through, a volcano, similar to the cities of Feuerstadt. Inside the volcano was the Keep, hundreds of tunnels and corridors piercing through the volcanic rock walls to the outer layer which was thickly covered in plasteel and ceramite. The Hold sported several void shield generators supplied by geothermal vents built into the basin where the volcano’s magma lake provided an endless stream of geothermal power. If ever an invasion force arrived to Selesia, its void shields would deny an orbital bombardment, forcing the attackers to land planet-side and confront the Hold’s formidable defenses in the old ways.

No matter how powerful or dangerous nature was, it can and would be made subject to Mankind’s dominance. The Emperor, blessed be His memory, had promised humanity that the galaxy was destined to be ruled by Mankind, shepherded into that future by His Sons and their progeny.

And despite the tragedies and pitfalls that had assailed the Imperium in the decades since His disappearance, that promise was being kept.

The six squads of legionaries walked through the Hold’s Outer Wall, made up largely of rock, ferrocrete and plasteel. Armed combat-servitors lined the halls, hefting either autoguns, shotguns or chainswords. At every twist and turn in the Outer Wall were quad-stubbers slaved to a local machine-spirit. The turrets turned and tracked them as dozens of scans were done to determine their threat level. If they had belonged to any other lineage but the Tenth Primarch's then the quad-stubbers would have opened fire without hesitation, the solid-shot rounds able to shred through their war-plate with little effort.

And those were only the visible defenses.

Through the Outer Wall they walked across a ferrocrete bridge to the Mid-Wall, the first of the Keep’s barriers. Las-turrets, flechette emplacements, rocket batteries, and plasma cannons were aimed and ready to fire at a moment’s notice, making the whole area a kill-zone that could resist an army. Adalgard could hear the plasma coils above his head humming with barely contained energy.

On the other end stood twenty soldiers in the flak armour of the Aschehunde 964th Regiment, the mortal contingent of the Hold’s garrison. They manned heavy stubbers behind barricades.

Two symbols were etched into the stone above the Mid-Wall Gate: the Imperial Aquila and the Legion Watchtower, a constant reminder of the Obsidian Guard’s allegiance. It might have seemed obvious, but Adalgard was almost comforted by the reminder of whom the Tenth Legion served and that it and its lord would never sway from the ideals and oaths that bound the Obsidian Guard into fealty with the Imperium of Man and the Master of Mankind. Unlike other Legions who had broken their oaths and fallen into treachery.

Through the Mid-Wall Gate were five corridors. Adalgard went down the second from left without hesitation. In ten separate chambers he was faced with five options and walked down one each time, seemingly at random and in no particular order. As he led the Astartes through them, he knew the newly-arrived brothers were memorising their path.

“The other corridors lead to dead ends, kill-zones, and murder-boxes,” he explained over the vox as they continued toward the Keep’s Inner Sanctum. Here was another bridge, this one covered by fortified blockhouses that were each home to a squad of Aschehunde on either side every ten meters. Below by nearly two kilometers was a lake of magma, bubbling with contained pressure. Smoke rose in steady streams but thinned out by the time it reached the causeway.

They advanced further into the Hold, Adalgard picking up minuscule body language changes, noting that though Thurin was a veteran of fifty years some things could still inspire and awe.

It took over an hour to walk from the landing pad to the Inner Sanctum, and that sojourn was relatively short when traversing the Hold.

Arriving at Sanctum Control, the beating heart of the Bronze Hold, mortal officers and serfs stood from their cogitator stations. Adalgard spoke aloud, “Notify Mistress Kelce that I require her presence.” The Vox Officer began speaking into his earpiece, calling the Astropath to attend the Hold’s Castellan.

Adalgard and Thurin made their way to the central hololithic projector. It flickered on, casting blue-white light across the large chamber. A representation of several dozen star systems hovered in the air, only a few were part of the Legion’s Realm, the rest ruled by the Administration or the Imperial Army directly.

Several star systems away, about four days warp travel from Selesia, was where the Orks were concentrated. There they pillaged a world, Fulir, home of some billion humans. Despite its moderate population its defenses were inconsequential compared to Selesia’s. The local Army garrison and Planetary Defense Forces were slaughtered in the opening assault. The people, those still alive, were either kept as chattel or hunted down for sport. Three Imperial worlds separated Selesia from Furil, all far more populated than even Fulir. If the Orks continued their course, they would reach Feuerreich, specifically Selesia, in a month or more, leaving worlds drowned in blood in their wake.

“The Hold’s defenses are as good as they can realistically be. As a result, delaying the Ork assault will do nothing but see Imperial citizens butchered. We need to draw the xenos here, now.”

“How do you expect to do that, Castellan?” Thurin asked, the other Astartes encircling the hololithic projector dais, eying the ever-updating numbers and course projections.

The metre thick adamantium doors to Sanctum Control opened and entered a tall, lithe woman wearing Astropath robes. Her face was dark, drawn as if suffering from hunger, yet despite her frail appearance she walked with confident assurance to the Astartes though her eyes were absent, only hollow sockets with runes carved into the bone.

“Lord Adalgard?” queried the psyker. “You desired my presence.”

“I need you to send a message.”

“To whom, lord?”

“To them,” Adalgard pointed and Thurin gave a small smile.

Kelce bowed her head. “My pleasure, lord.”

—-

A challenge was issued into the Warp, sent on the tidings of the Empyrean. An ultimatum to the Ork Warboss. The xenos greenskin leading the WAAAGH was by all appearances a primal, primitive creature clad in mismatched scrap metal armour and painted crudely, but it took a cunning, vicious mind to control hundreds of thousands of its bestial kind. It had to be for if it appeared weak it would quickly be dethroned by another, stronger greenskin who would take its place.

The aetheric challenge was not subtle, not sent to the Weirdboyz who stood at the Warboss’ shoulder, hovering like a protective wolf over its cub. It was sent to all of the Ork vessels and it meant the message was received by all. It was heard. It was listened to.

And it was answered.

It took a week for the Orks to arrive at Selesia. They did not have the discipline or cohesion that a Space Marine Legion possessed. The Ork Warboss had to fight a dozen claimants to its position before the xenos armada had even left the razed world of Fulir.

When they arrived, exiting out of the Mandeville point like a torrent of water through a too small spout, all that faced them was a single Imperial destroyer.

By a bellowed roar from the Warboss, over thirty xenos voidships, all ranging from frigate to heavy cruiser in size, advanced through the void, redlining their engines, threatening overload, all for the chance of combat. Thought it was but a fraction of the xenos fleet, it was mighty indeed.

Orks were a brutish species, hungering for war like humanity hungered for food. It was typical behaviour. Reckless, yes, but typical and could be counted upon to occur with high frequency lest the Warboss in control had tighter reins over his fell horde than was common. This Warboss, having suffered a blow to his power by being issued a challenge by a foe who had not been brought to battle just yet, had looser reins than he otherwise should have and could not slow his ships’ advance to a more tactical approach even if he so desired.

And it was exactly what Adalgard predicted would happen.

The thirty-two Ork voidships neared the destroyer, firing upon the ship with their arsenal, though poorly, most shots missing wide of the mark.

The destroyer did not have void shields raised, the macrocannon shells and lance shots causing large rends in the Imperial vessel, atmosphere and power coolant leaking into hard vacuum. The Orks, driven by bloodlust, launched hundreds of assault rams, boarding torpedoes and dropships. Yet they did not stop firing for some time, killing hundreds of their own as they traversed the void towards their seemingly defenseless prey.

Yet the destroyer did not return fire. And when the xenos boarded the vessel, they found its hallways crammed with frightened crew, firing autopistols, autoguns, and stubguns at the xenos. With blood in the air, it drove them into a deep battle craze. Hundreds of Orks died, but thousands survived and slaughtered the human crew, shrugging off wounds that would have killed a man five times over.

When the Orks were at the blast doors of the destroyer's bridge the ship’s captain, a loyal servant of the Legion and the Golden Throne, looked to the waiting tech-priest whose mechadendrites plunged into several cogitator consoles.

“Do it,” the captain ordered, the weight of his command lifting from his shoulders at the directive’s issue. The red robed Martian nodded and input a series of complex commands and data-directives, overriding scores of failsafes.

“For the Omnissiah,” the tech-priest chirped in lingua-technis as he overloaded the warp reactor.

By the time the xenos realised what was happening, it was too late. Many did not even deign to care, lost to their violent nature. The Warboss ordered his ships to move away but only half were attempting to do so when the destroyer’s warp drive exploded. A miniature tear in reality formed where the destroyer used to be, and it's Immaterial energies were swept outwards, consuming twenty-nine of the thirty-two ships. Those ships disappeared into the Warp, never to be seen again, their crews overrun by the aetheric predators that resided there.

The sacrifice of the Imperial destroyer, named *For Glory Eternal,* would be recorded in the annals of the Tenth Legion with honour as its final act killed over one hundred thousand xenos, making a noticeable dent in the WAAAGH.

In Sanctum Control, Castellan Adalgard and the five subordinate sergeants watched over the hololithic display. Thousands of red dots representing dropships, drop-pods and whatever else the greenskin had scrounged up, fled from the Ork ships like bees from a kicked hive. They sped through the void, entering the atmosphere, appearing like falling stars if one were to watch with the naked eye.

“Here they come,” Adalgard said, arms folded. “Weapons Officer.”

“Lord?” came the mortal’s voice.

“Show these bastards how we greet uninvited guests.”

Across the Bronze Hold, metal shutters retracted, revealing hundreds of quad-barreled flak guns ready to fire, their crews aiming at the nearest targets. Accompanying them were SAM turrets, six-barrel miniguns and more.

“Fire,” Adalgard said and the Aschehunde 964th complied obediently.

Tens of thousands of time-delay fused shells and hundreds of heat-seeking missiles were fired, obliterating the nearest xenos craft as they fell to Selesia’s barren earth. Wreckage and corpses littered the ground freely, but it was but a small portion of the neverending tide coming to kill the Imperial defenders.

For days the Hold fired into the air, slaughtering the Orks in their tens of thousands. By the end of the first day however, the Warboss had reined in a majority of his more aggressive underlings. The Orks then began to land en masse several kilometers away, supposedly just beyond the Hold’s artillery guns.

They were wrong in this matter.

The Primarch Lukas Keath was an ingenious builder, and he had designed the Hold to hold off forces many times the size of its garrison. The primarch’s mindset was to bleed the enemy so terribly before they even set foot at the base of the Hold. Wide tracks, that encircled the entire Hold’s upper diameter, allowed the Hold’s several score long-range artillery cannons to relocate to better aim at the greenskin landing zone.

Their artillery barrage lasted for a week before the cannons were red-hot from firing and munitions for them had run dangerously low with the remainder kept in reserve.

Eventually the Orks constructed a primitive airfield near their ever growing landing zone, and hundreds of fighters and bombers began to take off and head towards the Hold.

The Hold’s anti-air defenses held them off as best as they could from a distance, but once the bomb explosions could be felt from Sanctum Control, Adalgard ordered the void shields to activate and the defenses to lower back down beneath the metal shutters for some desperately needed maintenance.

The xenos munitions exploded uselessly against the shielding. But with the shields raised, the Hold’s defenders couldn’t fire skyward or out into the distance, only at the base of the Hold inside the shielding.

Though they had lost some two hundred thousand xenos since arriving on Selesia, the Orks were undaunted.

After assembling their war-host with thousands of tanks, vehicles and mobile artillery guns, supported in the air by hundreds of aircraft circling, watchful for any Imperial challengers, they advanced.

For some distance everything went well for the xenos… until a scout buggy hundreds of metres in front of the rest exploded, having ran over a landmine. The Warboss couldn’t risk his armour or troop carriers, so instead he sent in the most expendable thing in his force: gretchin.

Some hundred thousand of the diminutive greenskin surged forward, fleeing the violent encouragement of their larger brethren. Adalgard watched them run into the minefield, the mines placed per the primarch’s instructions to sow confusion and be a pattern hard to deduce by an opposing force.

As they used their bodies as probes, dying in their hundreds and then thousands, Thurin muttered beside him.

“Barbaric,” he said.

“But effective,” the castellan said. The Hold had done splendidly so far, but the mortal crew were tired after over a week of unstopping battle. Chem-stims, energy bars and caff could only do so much. His weapon systems, though few were destroyed by the Orks, had been used to the breaking point with tech-priests working around the clock to repair them. Adalgard had hoped to buy three days with the minefield, but the way the gretchin were discovering and dying to them meant that it would last less than a day at current rates.

“Be ready to deploy wherever they break through,” Adalgard said to Thurin.

“Aye, castellan.”

—-

The minefield was all but gone by the end of the day. The gretchin were largely wiped out, but their more dangerous cousins began the advance once more.

The inexorable advance, regardless of casualties, reminded Adalgard of the Necrons at Veila who were defeated only by Extermiantus. It was as if the earth itself shuddered beneath their passing, leaving death and despair in their wake. Death meant nothing compared to final victory. It was a mantra of the Legiones Astartes but adopted in a more brutish and savage way by foul xenos.

By the dawn of the ninth day, the greenskins had reached the Hold’s base. The large ferrocrete highway leading to the ground entrance was collapsed by hundreds of carefully placed det-charges, killing many of the Ork filth. Yet they climbed over the dead and the rubble, all while under fire by short range howitzers, mortars, rocket barrages, chain guns, heavy stubbers, las-fire and autocannons.

From the enemy camp, long range auspex detected a monster of metal moving towards the Hold.

“How did they build that?” Thurin asked, something akin to surprise on his unhelmed features.

“A Gargant,” Adalgard noted. “Must have been building it during the night, assembling it in pieces. It isn’t as deadly as a Titan, but it isn’t far off.”

Adalgard switched to a private vox-channel keyed to the Stormbird Thurin and his Astartes arrived on.

“Brothers, the time has come. Is the payload ready?”

“Yes, my castellan,” the two legionaries said, the other four Astartes that had manned the Stormbird’s turrets had been reassigned to bolster the defences of the Hold.

“Good. I’m forwarding you coordinates to release them. For the Emperor and the primarch.”

“For the Emperor and primarch,” they repeated.

A hundred kilometres away, hidden in a carefully prepared cave by the Legion’s artisans years ago when the Hold was being built, resided a Stormbird on a launch-rack. It had been there since before the Orks arrived in-system.

The venerable dropship took off from its hidden location and soared barely five metres above ground to avoid auspex detection and headed towards the Ork camp where the Gargant was just beginning to move out from. Huddled at the base of the Gargant were hundreds of vehicles, tanks, mobile artillery guns and several divisions worth of xenos warriors, cheering wildly as the Ork god-machine trembled the earth by its thunderous passage.

The dropship targeted the Gargant and fired. Two missiles tipped with atomic warheads slammed into the xenos construct, overwhelming its void shields, superheating the metal behind the shielding to radioactive slag. While the Gargant died, all of its crew and attendants burning to death from the heat, they fared better than the Orks trailing beside the Gargant.

They, if they somehow survived the blast itself, became irradiated, rad-burns and sores forming on their skin that not even an Ork’s formidable physiology could counter. They died screaming, blood pouring from every orifice as their organs shut down and their flesh blistered and peeled, cancerous tumours forming throughout their body, attacking with malignant lethality.

But the Stormbird did not bask in its victory, veering sharply towards the Hold. The nearest enemy aircraft, finally responding to the threat, was locked on by a Dominae air-to-air missile and quickly destroyed by the seasoned Space Marines commanding the dropship. Another xenos aircraft was targeted and shot down. With its Dominae munitions exhausted, the dropship dived toward the earth, choosing significant concentrations of armour and artillery at the Hold’s base and fired its two Dreadstrike missiles and entire arsenal of unguided rockets in less than a minute. Its twin-linked lascannon and heavy bolters had been synced to pilot control and unleashed death upon the xenos, sending up torrents of red blood alongside shredded meat and broken bone.

But the onslaught was not to last. A burst from one Ork AA gun hit it's mark, overloading its void shields, while fire from another speared through the cargo hold, crippling the engines.

The Stormbird spiraled out of control, smoke trailing behind it in the air, just barely able to perform an emergency crash landing. Orks swarmed the downed dropship, hoping to loot it of any scavengable valuables.

But the Astartes within were defiant in the face of death, proving to be true sons of the Obsidian Lord. The two Astartes had detached the heavy bolters from the flanks and fired them from the hip to cut through the encroaching xenos horde, an endless sea of green before them.

Before long the belts of ammunition had been exhausted. Dropping them, they went back-to-back, firing their bolters and reloading with the precision of seasoned veterans not afraid to die for the Imperium, up until the greenskins neared the exposed hatches.

Bolters empty, they pulled out their combat knives and bolt pistols, keeping the greenskins off another minute before one Obsidian Guard had been stabbed in the primary heart. The Ork who did the deed bellowed victory. It's celebration ended abruptly when the injured Astartes grabbed the xeno’s skull and caved it in with his armoured hands. Falling to the floor, wound attempting to heal, he pulled out the knife that impaled him. Reversing it, he threw the knife, watching with satisfaction as it impaled into an eye socket of a greenskin about to shoot his brother. The xenos died, the Astartes kicking the bolter over to his wounded brother. The wounded legionary  XVfired until the weapon jammed.

“Damn xenos tech…” he snarled, grabbing his combat knife and taking out two more Orks before they swarmed him, axes and chainblades going to work on his armour and the flesh beneath.

The other Obsidian Guard, still standing, withdrew to the cockpit and sealed it, knowing that would only buy him time. Outside he saw dozens of greenskins climbing and swarming the Stormbird.

“Castellan Adalgard,” the pilot called out over the vox. “It has been an honour, sir.”

*“The honour was all mine. Die well, brother.”*

Facing the door, the Obsidian Guard removed his helm, taking a deep breath of unfiltered air. Reloading his bolt pistol, he used one hand to aim at the door and the other clutching a dozen linked krak grenades.

The moment the Orks had opened the door, forcing them open with brute strength, they eyed him with their beady red eyes and began to advance, thick spittle dropping from their open maws.

He fired until his pistol ran out, killing three of them, but the fourth stood over him, chainaxe raised to strike, and smiled.

Until he saw the blinking lights on the krak grenades.

—-

Adalgard watched the Stormbird explode, shrapnel cutting down nearly a hundred greenskins in the vicinity. The two battle-brothers, though newly arrived, had died well in the pursuit of their mission. Their names would be remembered, their deeds recorded into the Legion’s annals.

Now to make their sacrifice not be in vain.

The Castellan of Bronze Hold eyed the hololith and issued orders. Already Ork artillery batteries unleashed their hatred on the ground entrance. The gates were strong, made of solid adamantium, but not unbreakable. They would eventually fall.

But all they had to do was hold out and wait for reinforcements. Mistress Kelce had sent out several calls for aid. But with other Ork fleets plaguing the area, and rumours of a Necron Tomb awakening nearby was causing considerable  strain on the resources of Feuerreich Command.

All they had to do was hold.

—-

The Siege of Bronze Hold continued for another month, unceasing in its ferocity. Tens of thousands of Orks died beneath its battlements, slain by a network of interlocking defenses designed by a primarch. But those defenses were not intended to be firing constantly for over a month without pause. Ammunition stores for the solid-shot weapons were nearly exhausted. As for the last-weapons they were nearly fried, their batteries burned out and replacement ones well on their way to meeting the same fate.

The Outer Gate fell three weeks into the siege. Adalgard had watched from Sanctum Control the combat-servitors fight and die in the Outer Wall, following defence protocols hard-wired into their synapses. They had fought well, scything through xenos waves but were overwhelmed by brute force, their metal rend asunder and flesh broken on the anvil of alien ferocity. As the xenos flooded the many hallways of the Outer Wall, spreading further and further throughout the Bronze Hold, Adalgard had authorized the deployment of toxic chem-warfare that clogged the rock and metal corridors of dead xenos. As the gas dissipated they were once more jammed with Ork warriors. Jellied Promethium was then flooded into the hallways, blast doors still under control by Sanctum Control’s machine-spirits were sealed shut. Then the promethium was set aflame and tens of thousands burned, their bellowing screams impossible to hear through the Mid and Inner Walls but Adalgard knew that the noise would be intense, wailing, and guttural as flesh was cooked and they flailed in their death-throes.

By Adalgard’s estimation, nearly two-thirds of the xenos had thus far died in siege but hundreds of thousands still remained.Once the fires ceased after several days, the Orks were now truly enraged. Nearly a month had passed and they had fought only servitor and turret, barring the battle-brothers from the Stormbird. From the few pict-thiefs left to him, Adalgard was seeing increasingly conflict within the xenos ranks. Greenskin fought greenskin, their bloodlust and battle-frenzy hobbled by the Hold. They fought one another, each brute killed in brawls or duels meant one less to fight later. Though their ranks thinned, their horde was still galling.

The Mid-Gate fell a week later, having resisted for days under endless assault, with its bridge destroyed to slow them down. Slow it did, but the greenskin was nothing if not persistent. A makeshift bridge was connected from the Outer Wall to the Mid-Gate and the Orks eventually broke through and swarmed, hundreds dying like grox to the slaughter in the maze of kill-chambers yet that too was overcome by sheer numbers. Nearly half of the Aschehunde remained in the Mid-Wall, placed in false walls, hidden rooms and choke points. Their targets were the largest and physically intimidating Orks, usually an indication of rank in the Ork hierarchy where might was right. Armed with all sorts of heavy weapons a mortal could carry, they proved to be bloody surprises to the invaders. Many Orks were killed, though every single man and woman of the 864th who remained in the Mid-Wall perished. Their regimental commander, Colonel Atkins, saluted her troopers as they perished, a single tear falling from her non-augmetic eye. Though they died, they caused enough confusion to Ork hierarchy that the in-fighting lasted over a day.

That was until he arrived. Adalgard watched the xenos commander prowl down charred-corpse ridden hallways, roaring orders and killing the few who challenged his authority. The Ork Warboss was like others of his kind, just larger with tightly corded muscles and skin blackish-green. The jaw was augmetic, both eyes had tattoos and piercings all around them. The mortals were dismayed at the sight of such a monstrous beast.

“We have fought bigger Orks and they too have died to our weapons,” Adalgard said aloud. “If the Ullanor Orks could be defeated by the Imperium, then this minor warlord is nothing in comparison. Stand strong, citizens of Feuerreich, this beast is but an insect.”

That eased the tension, strengthening resolve and lifting morale but it was a lie. A lie, for though this Warboss was not near the equal of the Prime Orks of Ullanor, it was threat enough for the forces left to the Castellan of Selesia.

Thus far Adalgard had preserved his Astartes, letting the brave men and women of the Aschehunde to weather the combat. Whenever the Inner Gate broke, and broke it likely would, it would be guarded by sixty-four Astartes battle-brothers, shield raised, bolters loaded and blades unsheathed..

The Hold had already been undermanned and undersupplied prior to the siege. Any other foe that took the time to construct siege works and work slowly but steadily towards the Hold and withdraw under heavy fire, would have given them more time and not have to use as much munitions. But the Orks were relentless, uncaring of their losses. All they wanted to do was fight and kill, and that was why they were so dangerous.

Adalgard had hoped after Ullanor that the Orks would be a broken species. A serious threat yes, but not to the degree they had been before Ullanor.

But the damn Ruins had wounded the Imperium dearly. It’s once innumerable armies were thinly spread and bled white even before those cataclysmic events began. The First Ruin revealed the treachery of the Shadow Warriors, then came the galaxy-wide Necron Awakening which became the Second Ruin. For several years it appeared things would return to a sense of normalcy that had evaded the Imperium since the Emperor’s disappearance.

But then came the Third Ruin. Five Legions spat on their oaths and seceded from the Imperium. The Border Wars with the Separatists had not stopped since. Thousands of every Loyal Legion manned the borders between the Separatists and the Imperium.

Adalgard was a soldier of Feuerstadt, a warrior of the Imperium, an Angel of Death. Yet the galaxy was very different than the one during his time as a Neophyte. The Imperium had fought some truly terrifying enemies, empire-killers who would have enslaved humanity or worse. Yet the Emperor had always been there to save Mankind, His Sons acting as His generals and representatives. Despite the terror of the threats surrounding the Imperium, there was always a glimmer of hope, a sense of progress towards Mankind’s Manifest Destiny.

That had dimmed following the Emperor’s disappearance and the resurgence of xenos forces, taking advantage of a leaderless and shocked Imperium. Years of hard, brutal warfare followed but after Ullanor and the Triumph had given a brief return to a better time. High Regent Alexandros and the other primarchs had begun to find their footing in ruling without their father’s counsel, things had started to develop for the positive.

And then the Ruins came, and it all went to shit.

Yet his duty remained and his oath ironclad. He was no traitor nor coward. He would fight until his last breath, until the stars themselves died. No hesitance, no surrender.

Ave Imperator.

After five weeks of being besieged, the siege’s endgame approached.

“Castellan?” spoke one of the Auspex Sub-Officers.

“What is it?”

“The Orks, they’re approaching the Inner Gate.”

“They’ve done that nearly every day for the last week, why should now be any different?”

“Because, lord, they’re carrying something with them.”

Adalgard’s eyes snapped to several pict-screens against the wall, the grainy footage showing six large greenskins carrying a multi-pronged bomb. Adalgard knew what it was. A directional melta bomb of considerable power. It would be used to blow the Inner Gate, its energies capable of burning through the metres of armour.

“What are they-“

The pict-screens were going dark. One of them showed an Ork snarling into the feed, his jump-pack sputtering smoke and fire who raised a bolt pistol, then blackness.

“I need eyes out there!” Adalgard shouted, more and more pict-screens going out. The Orks had largely been uncaring of pict-thieves, not bothering to destroy the more hidden or elevated ones. Yet the xenos had hefted the melta bomb through the Hold where most of the pict-thieves had already been destroyed in battle. The Ork Warboss was finally using a modicum of cunning and strategy, revealing a weapon so close to its objective that it left little time to respond.

“Servo-skulls going out!” called a voice. A new visual appeared on the primary pict-screen. Hundreds of Orks with jump-packs flew to and fro, shooting out pict-screens built into the side of the Hold.

They saw the servo-skulls and began shooting them down, though these also fired back, firing their small magazine of hot-shot rounds as they flew about. But eventually those too were shot down.

The last servo-skull fired its weapon at the melta-carrying Orks, killing one, but the other five hefted it to the Inner Gate. The servo-skull was hit with a bolt and exploded, bone and metal falling down onto the lake of magma below.

“Thurin, inform our brothers to back away from the Inner Gate. Order them to Blast Door Gamma. The Orks are coming. It is time we fight.”

“Of course, castellan,” Thurin called out on the vox, ordering the Astartes to rendezvous further into the Hold, a mere blast door away from the entrance to Sanctum Control. Adalgard’s demi-squad stood guard outside said entrance and followed behind him and Thurin.

It did not take long to reach Blast Door Gamma, a mere hundred metres from Sanctum Control, down a slight sloping ramp. Stepping in front of his brothers, closed blast door to his back, he looked at them. Sixty-three helmed faces looked at him, determined and unafraid, warriors till death. The primarch would be proud, the Emperor honoured. Behind the Astartes were the few hundred Aschehunde remaining, makeshift autocannon and heavy stubber nests readied, the last crates of ammunition being loaded into the waiting guns. Las-rifles were primed and aimed. Though their faces showed fear, it was overridden by duty.

“Brothers,” Castellan Adalgard said. “We are going to die today.”

None spoke out or shuffled in unease, not even the mortals. Their discipline was strong, their loyalty ironclad.

“Even though our corpses will soon line these halls, know that we have delayed the enemy for nearly two and a half months. This garrison has killed nearly a million Orks these past nine weeks. Worlds have been saved by our actions, billions who would have been butchered will now live thanks to our sacrifice. Once the Orks breach the Inner Gate they will break through Blast Doors Alpha and Beta with ease. Once they break through our line here, Sanctum Control will be next. This fortress cannot fall into the hands of the enemy. I have ordered the Hold’s tech-priests to overload the geothermal generators once the Orks have overrun this last defence. The Hold will be destroyed, the enemy vanquished, yet Mankind will have emerged victorious from this. We have defanged this greenskin horde and now we will kill it. Even in death, we shall seize victory.”

Adalgard and everyone else felt the Hold shake. The melta bomb had been detonated. Within minutes, Orks will have swarmed through the hole and destroyed the blast doors leading to them. Death was approaching, this would be Adlagard’s last time to defy it. He was ready. They were all ready. For the Obsidian Lord and the Emperor, ever and always.

“Here they come. Prepare, brothers of the Tenth Legion; ready yourselves, troopers of the Realm. Death and glory await us and we shall not shirk from this. We shall know no fear!”

“We shall know no fear!” they all echoed, shouting with fury.

The Obsidian Guard legionaries slammed their fists upon their chestplate in salute, and readied their bolters. Adalgard donned his helm, breathing in deep the recycled air. He moved to the front rank to stand side-by-side with his squad, shield in one hand, bolt pistol in the other. His thunder hammer remained mag-locked to his back.

His auto-senses, enhancing his already genhanced hearing, detected the Alpha and Beta Blast Doors being breached.

Adalgard could hear the thump of melta charges being mag-locked onto the blast door. He was ready for the explosion. Molten slag flew from the superheated plasteel doors, dripping onto the floor like nectar. From the breach emerged the first greenskin, jumping through, clutching chipped axes in scarred hands.

Adalgard shot the Ork in the head, rupturing its skull as if it were spoiled fruit. More and more Orks stormed through the gap, and the Obsidian Guard welcomed them with bolter fire.

Mass-reactive rounds tore into the alien horde, rupturing flesh, splintering bone, and painting the blast door red with gore.

Adalgard chose his targets well, aiming for weak spots in the armour the Orks wore. Their dead clogged the entryway yet this was nothing but a hindrance. They clambered over their fallen, scrambling to close the distance.

His bolt pistol ran out of ammunition, clicking dry after the land round left the chamber. The Orks were too close to reload. He mag-locked the pistol to his hip and drew his combat blade, the length of a mortal’s extended arm. It was acid-edged, the blade monomolecular sharp. He put the blade over the rim of his shield and drove into the eye of an encroaching greenskin.

Other Astartes ran out of ammo, unable to reload, and pulled out blade, axe, and spear. Las-fire and stubber fire from the Army squads behind soared overhead, slapping into the Orks, but it was akin to pebbles thrown against a tidal wave.

Adalgard sawed his blade into an Ork’s throat before pulling it out and ramming into the open maw of another. The legionary beside him stopped a chainaxe with his shield but when he went to lunge with a short sword, two Orks grabbed him and pulled him into their horde, knives catching the flint of the overhead lumens before they plunged down into his battle-brother.

Brother Rachen was the first to die that day, but certainly not the last. For every hundred Orks killed in the hallway leading to Sanctum Control, a battle-brother died. It was not a favourable exchange.

Over forty legionaries died in the next half-hour, the mass of enemy combatants arrayed against them was simply too much. When one fell, another Space Marine took his place, fighting and defying to their deaths. Out of the original front rank, Adalgard was all that was left. He now stood by Thurin who had been in the third rank when the battle began.

Slowly but surely, the Obsidian Guard were pushed back. It was coordinated, it was disciplined, but it was defeat all the same. The thought was ash on Adalgard’s tongue. Another brother was swarmed, his blade stabbing into the side of the Ork who tackled him but he was on the ground and was dragged toward the eager blades of Ork and gretchin beasts.

He was about to order the tech-priests to begin the reactor overload when he spotted the Warboss. The behemoth of an Ork strode into the corridor, stepping over the cooled slag of what had been Blast Door Gamma.

Now was the chance, the sole opportunity, to save Bronze Hold and retain it in the hands of the Tenth Legion.

“You!” Adalgard shouted over the external speakers built into his helm. “Face-to-face. To the death.”

The Warboss had heard it and opened his maw to let loose a throaty roar, spittle flying from his mouth, stained yellow-black teeth visible to all.

The Orks ceased their attack and backed away, snarling at the Astartes.

The Warboss moved forward, a grin splitting its hideous face. It was over four metres of solid muscle and bulky armour, its jaw made of adamantium, its baleful red eyes stared with hatred and challenge at Adalgard.

“Time to die, little man,” it growled in a thick, barely understood Low Gothic.

Adalgard lifted the thunder hammer from his back.

To Thurin he voxed, “Withdraw and seal yourself in Sanctum Control. Prepare to hold them off for as long as possible. Buy the tech-priests time to overload the reactor. Deny the Hold to the enemy. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Castellan. It has been an honour to fight under your command.”

“The honour was all mine, brother.”

Thurin and the remaining Astartes withdrew to Sanctum Control, sealing themselves in it. The sound of mag-locks and bolts sliding and locking into place could be heard.

Leveling his thunder hammer, Adalgard charged. The battle was brief and bloody. He destroyed one of the Ork’s arms, leaving a meaty ruin, and caved in his chest armor but the Warboss’ jagged blade was impaled into Adalgard, breaking through the ceramite and drenched in transhuman blood. The Warboss lifted him up, causing his body to fall further onto the sword. The  Castellan of Bronze Hold stared down into the vicious xenos’ eyes, the taste of his own blood in his mouth.

“Hard to die, little man?” The Ork’s breath would have felled a Titan. Adalgard went limp, feigning weakness.

“And you thought you could challenge me-“ Adalgard’s hand shoved into the creature’s mouth, interrupting it, and dropped something into his gullet, inadvertently swallowing it.

“That has to kill you,” the castellan rasped.

The Warboss bit down, breaking through the gauntlet and severing the arm at the elbow. It spit out the armoured arm and took one step forward before the krak grenade in its belly detonated.

Adalgard was showered with gore. The Warboss fell to his knees, his insides ruined to a pulp and blood pooled outwards at a terminal rate. The Ork was still half-alive, a testament to its species’ strength. The Warboss watched as Adalgard picked up his thunder hammer with his one good hand and brought it down upon the Warboss’ skull, smearing the floor with the brains and broken skull fragments of the xenos warlord

Adalgard looked up and saw the hundreds of green faces looking at him. Some were confused, some were eager, but all wanted blood, whether it be his or their fellows.

One Ork, the largest one he saw, took one step forward and roared. But before he could rally or be cut down by his own, the vox-link buzzed.

Adalgard opened the channel and heard the familiar accent of a Feuerstadt native but one that had not been a part of the Hold’s defense these past two and a half months.

“Castellan,” came the deep voice of a transhuman legionary. “Reinforcements have arrived. We are beginning our bombardment of enemy forces.”

Adalgard could feel the vibrations from here so deep in the Hold.

The Orks, for their part, were in a panic. Not because they feared death but because they did not know who led them. Orks were rabid dogs without a leader. They killed each other more oft than not or began to retreat, leaving Adalgard to watch on in stunned relief.

Sanctum Control’s blast doors opened and Thurin and the other Astartes came out.

“A relief force!” Thurin shouted, patting Adalgard’s shoulder pad as the sole surviving Apothecary did what he could for the castellan’s wounds.

“From Feuerstadt?” He asked Thurin.

“Unknown. But the Martian priests ran a scan of high orbit. Nearly twenty Legion warships are up there, tearing the Ork fleet apart. Some voidships register as Obsidian Guard, but most identity as Red Eyes.”

“Red Eyes?” Why was Theoderaf’s progeny here in the Realm?

“Aye,” Thurin seemed to read his thoughts. “Maybe they were nearby and heard our call for help and linked up with our brothers.”

Adalgard nodded, accepting the reasoning.

“Come, let us welcome our saviours.”

It took hours for the reinforcements to reach the Inner Gate. The Orks had been all but wiped out by the external bombardment carried out by Astartes gunships, covered by fighter squadrons, but several thousand still lived in the Hold’s many chambers and corridors. The Orks, already greatly depleted, were squashed between the Hold’s garrison and the legionary reinforcements. Another eleven battle-brothers died purging the Inner Keep of xenos, but Adalgard led the final eight, including Thurin, to await their kin and kith at the Inner Gate.

As the reinforcements exited the Mid-Wall and walked across the heavily damaged Inner Gate bridge, Adalgard saw a dozen Obsidian Guard while about sixty more wore the gold and red of the Fourth Legion. Their armor was battle-scarred from greenskin gunfire and melee, yet they appeared in much better condition than his Astartes. All nine of the Hold’s last legionary garrison bore wounds of some sort.

The newly arrived Obsidian Guard and Red Eyes stood in front of the Hold defenders.

“Who are you?” Adalgard called out. The Obsidian Guard in the front, a Techmarine, did not answer, instead looking at all the damage upon the Gate.

“Is this all of the garrison?” The newcomer asked.

“Yes,” Adalgard responded, “though we have a few hundred mortals near Sanctum Control.”

“How are the Hold’s defenses?” The newcomer asked.

“Damaged but repairable. Most of our ammunition and supplies are depleted but once those are replenished and the damage is prepared, it will be like the Hold was never attacked,” Adalgard said testily, growing incredibly frustrated. “Who are you?”

“Gunther Tyne.”

In response the newcomers raised their bolters and opened up on the surviving nine Astartes defenders. They died as they lived. Defiant and loyal, yet dead nevertheless.

The last thing Adalgard saw was the end of Tyne’s gun aimed at his head

“Hallowed be the gods,” Tyne muttered before firing.

—-

Gunther Tyne, Lord of the Eightsworn Brotherhood, motioned forward, the other Eightsworn rushing forward, leading the way for the several squads of Red Eyes.

Sergeant Albroech of the Fourth Legion moved to stand beside him.

“Did you know him?” The Red Eye asked.

“I knew of him. A trusted officer and dedicated to the primarch. Now nothing more than a stain on my boot.”

The Red Eye sergeant grunted in agreement. The legionary looked out over the Inner Gate, noticing its bullet holes and las-burns.

“It is remarkable they held the Orks off as well as they did,” something akin to admiration was in the Red Eye’s voice, “Though the damage appears severe.”

“The damage is unfortunate but can be repaired in a few weeks,” Tyne noted. “By the time the loyalists realise Selesia is no longer theirs it will be too late. With Selesia now in our clutches, the Shadow Warriors, Black Stars and the Riven can depart the Eye, knowing this segment of their flank is secured.”

“The path will be open, the Imperium ripe for enlightenment. Onward to Terra.”

Tyne nodded agreement. “To Terra.”

Over the Bronze Hold, the banner bearing the Legion Watchtower was lowered, the flag desecrated and burned by fallen sons of Lukas Keath. To replace it rose a new banner, bearing a symbol that would soon reign supreme over tens of thousands of worlds.

An eight-pointed star, the Octed, billowed in the wind, as the sun lowered upon the horizon, bathing the whole land in red light.