'For Ferrus Manus and Medusa!' the other nine clan representatives echoed.

'For Ferrus Manus and Medusa.’ Gdolkin muttered, the words like bile in his mouth.

And with that, the silently furious Iron-Father turned his back on the great clan council and strode from the council chamber to prepare for war, his servitor bodyguard falling into line again behind him.

He would return, Gdolkin vowed, and soon, before Medusa fell to the claws of Chaos. He swore it by the primarch, by the Emperor and by his mother-world herself. Medusa would not fall.

FORNAX ORBIS MAJORIS

'What do I ask of my officers? Merely that they do their duty with fire in their bellies and a prayer on their lips!

- Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed

THREE

FORNAX RISING

Manufactory District XII, Ferroturitus Prime,

Adeptus Mechanicus forge world

Fornax Orbis Majoris

Coils of clammy brown smoke drifted through the blasted ruins. Black water collected in the crater pits. And the rain continued to fall, sizzling as it hit the ground, sending puffs of acrid vapour into the toxic air from the dark puddles. Fires burned within the wreckage of the manufactory, adding their fumy black smoke to the pollution already tainting the air with its bitter chemical taste.

Sergeant Vessig of the Cadian 108th - the Wyverns - looked out across the broken carcass of the tank manufactory and caught sight of the enemy. They were advancing in small, squad-sized groups, but each one of them was a hulking giant of a warrior.

Vessig and his squad were hunkered down inside the splintered shell of an abandoned operations tower. Their position gave them an unhindered view of the ruins to the south for almost five kilometres, the sergeant reckoned. Unhindered, that was, apart for the ceaseless smog cascading over the barrage-formed wasteland. It was between breaks in the roiling, polluted mist that the Cadians could see the enemy advance through the ruins. From here the squad had a sniper's view of District XII. They could take pot shots at the enemy from their position.

Trooper Hacker was the man for that task, Vessig considered, but such an action now would compromise their position, and besides, Vessig was not sure how much of an impact their las-shots would make on the heavily armoured forms moving towards them from such a distance. No - better to harry the enemy from up close, surprising them from amidst the smoke and shadows of the manufactory wrecks.

And yet, despite their advantageous position, the Cadians still hadn't been able to clearly make out the nature of the enemy moving steadily towards the Imperial lines six kilometres behind them. What were they going to find out tbere in the polluted hellhole of District XII?

Having taken a fix on the positions of the advancing enemy scout units, Squad Vessig descended the operations tower via rusted wall ladders and shattered rockcrete staircases until they were out in the warren of the manufactory complex again. Ranpol and Irving having checked that the way ahead was clear, the squad emerged from the base of the tower into a street that ran parallel to a huge pipeline that rose above the manufactorum district in now-disconnected segments.