they would die alone.
A SINGLE PLAGUE Marine stood on a dais, overlooking the sleeping dens of over two hundred slaves. The slaves, some so sickened that they could no longer stomach water, lay in lethargic heaps before him.
Yet when Gammadin’s declaration broadcast over the vox, the slaves began to stir. As one, they began to move.
The Plague Marine was disquieted. He checked the magazine on his bolter and braced it against his hip. He shouted for the slaves to remain supine, but some, he noticed, did not obey him. They stood up – pale and trembling, yet they defied him.
By the time Gammadin’s voice was heard a second time, the slaves surged. Their collective minds had been spurred. They rushed up to overwhelm the Plague Marine.
Determined though the slaves were, the Traitor Marine was a killer. With one shot, he killed. He had calibrated his methods of execution to the heights of efficiency. There was no warrior who could match him. But he could not withstand the combined savagery of two hundred desperate humans with nothing left to lose.
They drowned him with the weight of their bodies, tearing at his impervious armour.
They crushed the Plague Marine, dying as they did so. For the slaves, it was a dignified end.
To be slain in that final thrust of valour, to try but to fail nobly – it was a death they clambered to receive.
TIGHTLY CONFINED VIOLENCE bubbled up from the lower levels and onto the command deck.
At the supply vaults, Sergeant Nightgaunt of Squad Hekuba succeeded in retaking the entire complex after finding it lightly defended. Heavy numbers of Plague Marines supported by Septic heavy infantry continued to press upon their position. The Blood Gorgons utilised the tight confines of the corridors to their advantage, repelling enemy attacks through their knowledge of the maze‐like halls and their tunnel fighting expertise.
Nightgaunt himself was killed approaching the third hour of combat, slain as he covered the approach against enemy advance. Yet the remaining five brothers of the squad secured the complex until fragments of the 9th Company reinforced their position and established a line of supply, including ammunitions and weaponry, to those skirmishing in the lower decks.
Only thirty‐six minutes into the uprising, two black turban slaves arrived in the Temple Halls, where the fighting was heaviest. The black turbans advised most senior Captain Zothique that slaves had reclaimed significant portions of the lower slave warrens and 174
basements. They had driven out the Septic overseers through sheer numbers, forcing the enemy to reconsolidate their positions. Although it provided little strategic advantage, it renewed the Blood Gorgons’ fighting vigour.
Bond‐Sergeant Severn, leading the remains of 6th Company, brought the fight to the interior citadels. Assuming command in place of his slain Khoitan, Severn led an eighty-strong contingent of bonded brethren into a frontal assault against dug‐in Plague Marines.
With the aid of a veteran rocket team in the overhead bulkheads, Severn was able to dislodge a company‐sized element of Plague Marines from their personal quarters and scatter them into the narrow catacombs that housed the black turban barracks.
Nurgle battle tactics were little‐changed despite the unfamiliar terrain – they relied on solid, frontal advances supported by heavy ordnance. They set up road blocks and static gun pits in an attempt to entice the Blood Gorgons into open warfare. But against a mobile Blood Gorgons force that refused to engage, they were frustrated in any attempts to counter‐attack meaningfully. Perhaps by fault of their obstinate nature, the static Plague Marine formations endured ceaseless hit and run attacks that eventually drove them lower down the Cauldron Born’s extremities.
TWO VERY POWERFUL entities were approaching the command deck, beings of raw Chaos power. Gammadin could feel their psychic imprint and sense their approach through the ship’s neural link.
‘They are coming,’ he said. The Ascendant Champion’s eyelids flickered open as he severed neural links with the Cauldron Born.
‘Can you hear that?’ Gammadin asked.
There was a low keening in the air. Barsabbas strained to hear. Low on the wind, almost inaudible, he heard the acoustic echoes of an ancient metal fortress, a monolithic megastructure creaking as all the pressures of the universe pushed against its iron flanks.
‘The Cauldron Born is warning me of their approach,’ Gammadin said. He brushed the neural fibres from his temple and stood up from the command throne. His pincer arm began to click involuntarily in slight agitation.
Barsabbas took a deep, steadying breath, expanding his lungs with much‐needed oxygen. His pupils dilated. There was a static burst of machine‐scream through the