The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

‘Already in place, lieutenant,’ Vari replied from the cramped driver’s compartment. Skander scrambled onto the tank’s forward twin battle cannon turret and dropped into the commander’s hatch. Helmet on, he plugged in to the onboard attack-logister.

Information cascaded; deployment rates, ammunition levels, core temperature and hull integrity.

All in the green.

The enginseer gave them clearance, but before Skander could give the order to move out, something powerful struck the subterranean hangar.

The chamber roof split wide open.

Colossal chunks of sheared plascrete slammed down throughout the chamber. Dust-smeared pillars of sunlight stabbed inside. A squadron of Baneblades was flattened by debris, their hulls smashed open like toymaker’s models.

Skander was slammed forward as a falling chunk of rock struck his helmet. Blood ran down his face and he blinked away tears of sudden pain. Static fogged his visor. He tore the helmet off. It was useless now, split down the middle.

The noise and confusion was unbelievable. The regiment’s tanks in the hangar’s centre had taken the worst of the barrage, pulverised by hundreds of tonnes of debris and high explosives. Detonations ripped across the ready line as follow-on shells found their marks in exposed Malcadors and Chimeras. The main roadway was engulfed in flames, burning pools of fuel spewing thick black smoke. Regimental pennants burned in the fires.

The heat from an exploding Minotaur rolled over him, and Skander looked up through the smashed roof of the hanger to see a sky red with flames and black with smoke. Once a refuge for his tanks, the hangar was now a deathtrap.

‘Get us out of here!’ he shouted and The Reaper lurched forward as Vari fed power to the engines. A clattering, screeching howl of protest told him they’d sheared a track in the barrage. They were ripping the hangar floor apart, but that was the least of Skander’s worries.

Something hammered down in the flaming heart of the hangar, a pair of tapered oblongs. Pale steel and scorched black with re-entry burn. Scalding exhaust vapour billowed from burned out retros. Locking bolts blasted off and the shielded sides of the drop pod dropped like unfolding prop-drives.

Powerful figures emerged from two of the pods, giants in pale armour bearing a spiked skull icon on their shoulder guards. The warriors of the Death Guard waded through wreckage and rubble, but weren’t slowed.

A towering figure in battle armour of bare metal, brass and ivory stepped from his drop pod and into the blazing ruin of the hangar. A giant come to rend their flesh and grind their bones. Framed by fire and a billowing cloak of fibrous mesh, the primarch of the XIV Legion bore a great scythe that shimmered with corpse-light.