But now the ancient war machine was a shadow of its former glorious self. The Gehenna had suffered a relentless barrage from the enemy's guns, determined not to let the ordinatus complete its mission. The vanes of its augur arrays had been holed, command spires toppled and its gun emplacements were now nothing more than smoking pits in its side. Its front track unit had been twisted and fused by the detonation of some enormous mass-reactive warhead; indeed the unit teetered on the edge of a deep scorched crater. The ancient engine's hull had been breached in several places, all across its structure, and figures swarmed all over the ordinatus like flies.

A putrescent horde of enemy troops covered the grey-black plain before the ordinatus-engine like a rash.

Gdolkin could see larger, blockier shapes moving amongst the horde, which looked like shiny emerald green beetles. They crossed the battlefield at a slow, steady pace, crushing any who opposed them beneath iron claws, inexorably ploughing their way through the leviathan-machine's defensive cordons, tramping razor-wire coils under their feet without a thought. They broke through into Imperial-held trenches dug in around the mighty Gehenna, spewing high-velocity death at the loyalists from corrupted, venom-dripping cannons.

As they flew lower Gdolkin's enhanced and augmented eyesight was able to pick out the symbol of the Plague God blistered onto the carapace of one of the Chaos dreadnoughts. The triangular darts of targeting icons homed in on the blasphemous insignia, magnifying lenses in his optical implant whirring and clicking as they did so.

As he watched, the blisters blinked open to reveal grotesque, circling eyeballs underneath. The glistening eyes stopped spinning, and locked on to the passing flyer. Gdolkin could almost believe that they were looking directly at him, as the Death Guard dreadnought continued on its unhindered advance, unaware of what its blister-eyes were seeing.

'Drop zone in thirty seconds,' the pilot's steel tone announced.

Each of the Iron Hands made one final check of his weapon.

Gdolkin repeated the Prayer of Right Firing to ward against breech jams for the fifteenth time since the Iron Eagle had departed Ferroturitus Prime command, and asked for the primarch's blessing. Wherever lost Manus might be, Gdolkin knew that he was with the Sons of Medusa in spirit and watching lest they show any sign of weakness, and so bring down his unforgiving judgement upon their heads should they bring the noble name of the Iron Hands into disrepute.

A clattering whine started up as the exit ramp of the Thunderhawk began to descend and the servitor release system began to deploy.

'Drop zone in fifteen seconds.'

'This is it, men,' Gdolkin broadcast to his company on their comm-net, his words drowning out the scream of attitude thrusters in their helmets. 'Think of the primarch, and his strength shall be yours.'

'Ten-'

'Think of the Omnissiah, and your bodies of steel shall never fail you.'

'Seven-'

'Think of the Emperor, and his blessing will be upon you.'

'Four-'