An explosion ripped up one of the Predators, flinging its burning remains end over end.

‘We do not have to,’ said Justinian.

Three Repulsor grav-tanks fell from the sky like stones, decelerating rapidly and coming to a gentle halt a couple of metres above the ground, right by the flanking Iron Warriors. Their pulsing, aggressive grav impellers knocked the traitors sideways. One of the Iron Warriors yanked a melta bomb from his side and dove under the tank, seeking to attach the charge and destroy the Primaris armour.

The traitor had evidently never faced a Repulsor before.

The tank’s pounding grav engines squashed him flat, leaving a silver, blurred human outline pressed into the ground, leaking blood. The grav-tanks’ anti-infantry weapons made short work of his fellow traitors, and the Repulsors flew onwards, the sand crushed to a glassy shine beneath them. The enemy Predators redirected their fire, increasing their rate of retreat as they volleyed lascannon shots at the Primaris grav-tanks, but the Repulsors were swift as well as dangerous, and they chased down their traitorous tracked cousins, blasting them apart with pinpoint accuracy. They flew over their vanquished foes, buckling the wrecks with gravitic backwash. The Silver Skulls ran after them, the jewels on their pauldrons sparking.

A terrific roaring rent the sky, so loud that it even drowned out the pounding of the Titans approaching the wall. Hundreds more drop pods and gunships were coming down from orbit, many racing off to attack the fortress. In seconds, the wide space beyond the field of wrecks and already-landed drop pods was just as crowded with newly arrived craft. Explosive door bolts blew in miniature, rippling cannonades as the petals of the drop pods slammed down.

Five thousand Space Marines disgorged from their landing craft as the Astra Militarum forces reached the foot of the wall on the other side. Stern-faced Titans loomed over the fortifications, raking the ramparts free of the enemy with gigantic power fists wreathed with the lightning of a hundred storms. The crackling of disruption fields powerful enough to crush a small voidship harshened the battle’s sound. A part of the wall came crashing down beneath a Titan’s ponderous blow. As the debris landed, the Titan was already turning, its carapace-mounted cannon roaring fire at some other target Justinian could not see.

‘It is over,’ said Justinian. ‘The battle is won.’

To the howling of Legio Metalica warhorns, the traitors upon the wall were surrounded and destroyed.

The fortress fell five hours later.

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Respite on Iax

The weeks went by on Iax quietly. As Varens’ wound healed, he took to coming out on the medicae facility balcony every evening.