Remus burst into the courtyard, firing precise bursts of bolter fire at exposed enemy warriors. Hunched behind their vehicles to shelter from Archo’s fire from above, they were dangerously exposed from the rear, and three bursts of fire put down two of his opponents. The third Salamander took the hit, but didn’t fall. He raised his weapon, a pitch-blackened multi-melta. Remus pulled the trigger, and the hammer of his bolter fell on an empty chamber.

He cursed his lax fire discipline and ran for the cover of an out-of-action Rhino.

Before the multi-melta could fire, a missile struck the ground beside the gunner and the concussive force of the blast knocked the warrior from his feet. Remus slammed into cover, grateful that at least one of Archo’s gunners had thought to keep a shot back for an act of 4th Company recklessness. He grinned. Not even a primarch’s tome could completely erase the spirit of the Troublesome Fourth.

Remus slotted home another magazine and scanned the killing ground of the courtyard, looking for rank badges or some other form of officer markings. He saw etchings of teeth, dragon amulets and various forge symbols, but nothing that resembled a logical progression of rank. He’d been briefed on the Salamander’s system of rank markings, but could see nothing that indicated any high level of commander lay among the dead.

Had their intelligence been flawed?

The thought was discarded immediately. The idea that Roboute Guilliman could be wrong about anything was beyond ridiculous. It was heretical, which, given this current engagement, was a rich irony indeed. He returned his attention to the battlefield, anxious that this mission be successful. So far the 4th Company had the foremost record of all the Legion’s battle companies, and he wasn’t about to blot their copybook with failure now.

The two Salamanders Rhinos were registering as out of action, their command and control facilities destroyed beyond repair, yet the mighty, cliff-sided Land Raider was merely crippled. Its weapons were disabled, and one of its track units had suffered a debilitating impact. It wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry, but whoever was inside it was likely still alive.

As if to confirm that fact, the Land Raider spun on its axis, its one functioning track grinding the flagstones to powder beneath the vehicle’s monstrous weight. The frontal assault ramp dropped and three figures emerged, titans amongst mortals, giants to their mere men.

Terminators.

Remus had seen Terminator armour during the battle for Calth, mighty suits of armour so colossal it seemed impossible that men could wear them. Such was the newness and complexity of the suits that only a handful of the Ultramarines 1st Company had been trained in their use. Nor were there nearly enough to outfit more than a few hundred of the 1st, for the initial Mechanicum mass conveyers had only just arrived at Macragge when news of the massacre at Isstvan V had arrived.

Hulking, armour-plated behemoths, each Terminator was a full head and shoulders taller than the Ultramarines, the thick plates of their armour shrugging off bolter fire like light rain. Remus had seen the effect these warriors had had on the Word Bearers, but to face one was a new experience, and not one he was keen to repeat.

One warrior bore a cloak of olive green mail over his left pauldron, and the vast skull of some unknown beast with elongated frontal fangs was affixed to his helmet, giving him the hideous appearance of some strange xenos barbarian warrior. In one hand, this warrior carried an enormous, oversized hammer wreathed with crackling energies, in the other a shield worked in the form of the honour badge that granted him the right to wear such terrifyingly powerful armour.

Two others warriors accompanied this brutish war leader – surely the commander of this force of Salamanders – each a humanoid fighting tank armed with a monstrously oversized fist and a bulky weapon resembling two bolters welded together.

Their bolters opened up with a ripping storm of fire, raking the courtyard from left to right in controlled bursts. Three Ultramarines went down, bracketed and gunned down by the commander’s two praetorians in concert. This was no random spray of fire, but a methodical slaughter. Shots flashed past Remus, but he ducked back into the cover of the Rhino as the streaking fire turned in his direction.

The enemy commander didn’t come at them, instead turning his vast hammer on the walls of the courtyard in the lee of the Land Raider. One swing of the hammer put a man-sized hole in the wall. Masonry and steel reinforcement bars were smashed aside by the lethal weapon. Two more blows at most would see the enemy commander break free of their surprise assault. It would be next to impossible to mount an effective pursuit through the streets of Idrisia. Remus’s armour was already registering the flurry of vox traffic coming from the enemy commander as he summoned reinforcements. Within moments, the target would be lost.

‘All forces, converge and close the net,’ he ordered. ‘Command target is on the move.’

Ultramarines warriors broke cover, moving in stepped overwatch patterns, but where any normal enemy would be forced to keep their heads down under such a fusillade, the Terminators walked tall through enough firepower to reduce entire squads to shredded meat.

Remus saw Barkha hit, his armour struck by multiple impacts from the oversized bolters. Barkha cursed and loosed a string of Talassarian vulgarities before dropping to the ground and lying still. Pinned down and with a rapidly diminishing roster of warriors, Remus knew he had only one chance to win this fight. The tactical situation had only one option left, and he opened a channel to Sergeant Archo.

‘Archo, suppressive fire on the courtyard. Now!’

‘Captain, that places you in the kill zone.’

‘I know, just do it! Fill this place with fire!’

The order didn’t need to be repeated. Archo knew his place in the chain of command. As did Remus. The mission was paramount. The primarch’s writings made it clear that the lives of friendly combatants were of paramount importance, especially Legiones Astartes lives, for they were sure to be in short supply in the coming years of war.

But just as clearly, the primarch knew that wars were won by the blood of the soldiers fighting them. Sometimes the only way to win was to sacrifice everything for the victory.

‘Hurry, Archo!’ he shouted as the enemy commander finally tore down the wall between him and escape.

The courtyard erupted in fire and flame as missile after missile tore down into the courtyard. Heavy bolters raked back and forth, their fire brutally effective and lethally indiscriminate. A missile took the Salamander captain on the shoulder and the impact spun him around as another struck him full in the plastron. The force of the warheads drove him to his knees. Another missile streaked downwards, but the Salamander warrior brought his shield up to block it. The deflected missile corkscrewed into the courtyard, where it exploded in the midst of a knot of Ultramarines hunkering down behind what little cover remained.

An unending storm of gunfire filled the courtyard, and Remus lost track of everything as the deafening cacophony of sound rolled through him. He’d lost control of this battle, but he could regain it if he could only see what had become of the Salamander war leader.

He belly-crawled around the Rhino, his bolter crossed on his forearms as he skidded through the debris of battle. Shell casings, crushed masonry and bodies. The vox crackled and barked in his ear: nearby squads requesting updates, intercepted chatter from enemy units en route to the building, Thunderhawk pilots yelling warnings at one another. Remus blotted it all out, concentrating on moving at speed to fulfil his objective.