Broken, The - Inside the Blood Keep: For the Ultramarines Chapter Master, it was hard to walk away from a fight, as hard a thing as Marneus Calgar had ever known. Drake and his five surviving retainers soon joined the Ultramarines, barely able to keep the punishing pace at which the Astartes moved.Were it not for the presence of the lumbering Terminators, the Chapter Master and his two Honour Guards would easily have outpaced them. As their internal Plasma Reactors spiked into the red from the exertion, Brother Starn's Terminators stayed at the rear of the small company.As they approached the Blood Keep, Calgar had the party stop. With a strain in his voice that even the Inquisitor had no difficulty in making out, the Lord of Ultramar asked Drake to use his psychic abilities to scry the way ahead. Despite the veil of rage and despair that infested Fury like a disease and the tumult caused by the many deaths in the battle for the Skull Chamber, Drake's psychic inquiry discerned a baleful power in the mighty fortress.Waves of hatred radiated from it which Inquisitor Drake felt as any other man would feel the sun's heat on his face. Though by no means deserted, the massive citadel did not teem with life-signs as did the battlefield beyond. Calgar's plan had worked: most of the enemy forces had indeed been drawn out into the larger battle, but the resolve emanating from the minds still inside the Blood Keep gave away their true nature. They were Heretic Astartes of the Broken.Though he had been subtle enough to avoid detection, the dark presence inside the citadel felt Drake's psychic probes. Its counter-lunge sent a spike of pain into the Inquisitor's mind. Such was the pain that Drake had to stop for a moment and collect himself, for seldom had he touched such a powerful mind before.With the enemy likely alerted as to their presence, Drake informed Calgar that while the walls were almost unguarded, most of their enemies on the inside had gathered in a central location, around a single, directing presence, a psyche of immense power.Calgar acknowledged the fact without further comment. Events were unfolding as he had anticipated. In the end, it would be the outcome of his duel with The Witness that would decide the fate of the Ultramarines aboard the Fury. Cold resolve guided his steps forwards, for the Chapter Master had long ago made his peace with the Emperor. If he was to die today, so be it.They splashed through the shallow, sucking expanse of the grim fortress' moat, the water rising no higher than the Astartes' knees, though it reached well over Drake's thighs. Even through his sealed armour, the touch of the stuff felt unclean and the Inquisitor felt a shudder of disgust crawl up his back.They carefully approached the moisture-covered and slimy exterior walls of the Blood Keep. The walls were an eclectic mix of stone, steel and ferrocrete, all festooned with green moss which seemed to writhe in unsettling patterns, giving the battlements a crawling aspect.Drake thought he saw bloodshot eyes there, embedded in the very walls, and pink-grey tendrils uncurled to grasp feebly at the humid air. More rose up under his feet, and he crushed them beneath his boots as he splashed along in the wake of Marneus Calgar. When Kastiro, one of his own Acolytes stumbled, those foul tentacles sought to latch onto him, entangling his hands and his weapon.Seeing the danger, Brother Antonus, one of the Terminators, swiftly but delicately picked up Drake's struggling retainer and ripped him free of the earth's foul clutch, his servo-augmented strength easily lifting the fully equipped man. Even without any defenders, the Blood Keep sought to actively kill them.As they reached the postern gate, the Imperial party saw that it was in fact far larger than they had anticipated. It was around twenty-five Terran feet high and half as broad, welded steel reinforced with bands of adamantium, all caked with filth and fecund growth like running sores. Runes were engraved across it, as was the eight-pointed Star of Chaos and the antler-like rune of Khorne.The Chapter Master eyed the gate before him, saying nothing, his party assembled behind him. Without warning, he charged forward and slammed the Gauntlets of Ultramar into the huge door with two vast hollow booms. The entire structure quivered, and they were all deluged in falling muck and fragments of broken masonry that tumbled from above.The Gauntlets of Ultramar shook and shimmered as Calgar slammed them again and again into the gate, lightning bolting out of them in a corona of flaring discharges. The disruptor fields that encased the gauntlets made the metal of the gate melt and run, molten rivulets pouring bright and steaming down to the ground, the structure groaning and shrieking in a howl of overstressed alloys and rending steel.The massive gauntlets struck the tall gateway again and again, until it buckled under the relentless blows. Within a few solar minutes, the gate lay in sundered, steaming ruins, the hot metal spitting and creaking as it cooled in broken pieces on the wet ground.All pretense of stealth abandoned in the wake of their break-in, the small party finally entered the Blood Keep. Across the vast courtyard they had entered, they could see the keep's defenders mustering for a counterattack. A shimmering volley of Lasgun-fire zipped through the party, one shot fizzing off Calgar’s ornate shoulder-plate, leaving a smoking dot of black carbon behind.Guided by Drake, the Ultramarines dashed forward, angling their progress towards the towering spire that emerged from the middle of the keep's other towers. There was real fighting then, as several squads of Chaos troops began to converge on the interlopers. The Ultramarines stood back to back and let loose, superbly placed volleys of Storm Bolter fire keeping the enemy at bay. The roadways and streets of the Blood Keep, so empty a few solar minutes before, were filling rapidly.Scores, even hundreds of enemies came streaming out of the shadows, not only cultists, but tall Chaos Champions of the Broken as well. Some of the latter screamed challenges that were barely rational speech, their power armour decorated with the skull-rune of Khorne as well as their own defiled badge.Most of the Champions were brought down by well-aimed shots, but even shattered by gunfire, they kept trying to crawl into contact with the Ultramarines. One had his helm blown off to reveal the pale, noble features of a Space Marine, hardly different from that of the scions of Guilliman, before being decapitated by a sweep of Brother Morent's Power Axe.Calgar's group reached the base of the tall blade-shaped tower, and there they found huge, double hatchways yawning open, and beyond, a wide staircase going up into darkness, fashioned out of immense blocks of unmortared stone. Drake noticed that the spire was once the prow of a Strike Cruiser, now half-buried by other debris.Without his Chapter Master having to order him to do so, Brother-Sergeant Starn and his Terminators peeled off from their group and took position at the base of the staircase: they would keep the enemies in the courtyard from following and could be trusted to fight to their dying breath. Only the Chapter Master, his two bodyguards and the five men in Inquisitor Drake's retinue began the ascension of the staircase, their common enemy already awaiting them.Outside the fortress, the main battle raged on. True to his word, Captain Galenus commanded 5th Company and the Devastators of 9th Company with great efficiency. His main concern was ammunition expenditure. He possessed only four remaining magazines for his Bolt Pistol, a total of eighty rounds, after which he would have to depend upon his chainsword. Though casualties were mounting, almost half of 5th Company, forty-six Ultramarines, were still standing.Unfortunately the Ultramarines had been forced to abandon the bodies of eight of their brethren on the field, their precious gene-seed lost to the Chapter unless they could claim victory. With fresh regiments of enemies trying to hem the Imperials in, Galenus had no choice but to detach 3rd Squad to serve as a rear guard, effectively buying time to reform his company with the lives of his brothers. Yard by bloody yard, the Ultramarines withdrew, keeping the enemy at a distance where their firepower could inflict maximum damage.The Ultramarines intentionally distanced themselves from their allies, seeking to close on the postern gate of the Blood Keep through which Marneus Calgar had penetrated the Broken's fortress. Galenus was sure that Calgar would need him before it was all over, and he did not intend to let the Lord of Macragge down.