Chains Of Command Read Free

centuries of wisdom, the chapter’s artisans had designed a completely new, artificial body around the bloody rags of his remains.
    ‘How long until you and the servitors are finished?’ asked Uriel.
    Tomasin wiped the mud from his face and glanced up the length of the bridge. ‘Another hour, Ventris. Possibly less if this damned rain would ease up and I didn’t have to stop to talk to you.’
    Uriel bit back a retort and turned away, leaving the Techmarine to his work and striding to the nearest gun nest. Captain Idaeus was sitting on the sandbags and speaking animatedly into the vox-com.
    ‘Well make sure, damn you!’ he snapped. ‘I don’t want to be left sitting here facing half the rebel army with only thirty men.’
    Idaeus listened to the words that only he could hear through the comm-bead in his ear and cursed, snapping the vox unit back to his belt.
    ‘Trouble?’ asked Uriel.
    ‘Maybe,’ sighed Idaeus. ‘Orbital surveyors on the Vae Victus say they think they detected something large moving through the jungle in our direction, but this damned weather’s interfering with the auguries and they can’t bring them on-line again. It’s probably nothing.’
    ‘You don’t sound too convinced.’
    ‘I’m not,’ admitted Idaeus. ‘If the Night Lords are on this world, then this is just the kind of thing they would try.’
    ‘I have our scouts watching the approaches to the bridge. Nothing is going to get close without us knowing about it.’
    ‘Good. How is Tomasin getting on?’
    ‘There’s a lot of bridge to blow, captain, but Tomasin thinks he’ll have it done within the hour. I believe he will have it rigged sooner though.’
    Idaeus nodded and rose to his feet, staring into the mist and rain shrouded hills on the enemy side of the bridge. His face creased in a frown and Uriel followed his gaze. Dusk was fast approaching and with luck they would be on their way to rejoin the main assault on Mercia before nightfall.
    ‘Something wrong?’
    ‘I’m not sure. Every time I look across the bridge I get a bad feeling.’
    ‘A bad feeling?’
    ‘Aye, like someone is watching us,’ whispered Idaeus.
    Uriel checked his vox-com. ‘The scouts haven’t reported anything.’
    Idaeus shook his head. ‘No, this is more like instinct. This whole place feels wrong somehow. I can’t describe it.’
    Uriel was puzzled. Idaeus was a man he trusted implicitly, they had fought and bled together for over fifty years, forming a bond of friendship that Uriel found all too rarely. Yet he could never claim to truly understand Idaeus. The captain relied on instinct and feelings more than the holy Codex Astartes, that great work of military thinking penned ten thousand years ago by their own Primarch, Roboute Guilliman. The Codex formed the basis of virtually every Space Marine chapter’s tactical doctrine and laid the foundations for the military might of the entire Imperium. Its words were sanctified by the Emperor himself and the Ultramarines had not deviated from its teachings since it had been written following the dark days of the Horus Heresy.
    But Idaeus tended to regard the wisdom of the Codex as advice rather than holy instruction and this was a constant source of amazement to Uriel. He had been Idaeus’s second-in-command for nearly thirty years and, despite the captain’s successes, Uriel still found it hard to accept his methods.
    ‘I want to go and check those hills,’ said Idaeus suddenly.
    Uriel sighed and pointed out, ‘The scouts will inform us of anything that approaches.’
    ‘I know, and I have every faith in them. I just need to see for myself. Come on, let’s go and take a look.’
    Uriel took out his vox unit, informing the scouts they would be approaching from the rear and followed Idaeus as he strode purposefully to the end of the bridge. They passed the far bunker, the one the rebels should have occupied, noting the glint of bolters from within. The two Space Marines marched up the