"Fall back! Everyone, back into the passage!"
Soldiers poured through the passage. Brunok stayed at the rear, firing his machine gun as he withdrew.
On the other side of the passage, the fanatical rebels remained as endless as ever.
"Gather all the ammunition. Everyone else, fix bayonets. For the Emperor, every one of us must hold out to the very end."
Sith stood before a group of battered survivors, almost all of them drenched in blood. At his command, the last scraps of ammunition were collected and delivered to the rearguard.
The others fixed bayonets without hesitation. Even men with wounded arms held their blades in one hand, staring fixedly at the last defensive line before them.
Scattered rebel fire had even begun ricocheting through the passage.
A bullet flew past, almost grazing Sith's cheek.
A thin cut opened, and blood trickled down his face.
Everyone instinctively looked toward Sith, but he simply remained where he stood, doing what a commander most needed to do at that moment.
Without panicking or even attending to his wound, Sith addressed the soldiers looking his way, his expression stern.
"Do your duty."
The men hurriedly looked away, turning their attention back to the passage. Another stray bullet flew past, and a soldier near the front fell at the shot.
Clenching his teeth without crying out, the wounded soldier was immediately dragged to the rear.
But with Sith's earlier composure before them, the soldiers barely reacted this time.
Footsteps came from behind, and Ana spoke with some urgency.
"The Deathwatch needs you over there."
Seeing the soldiers still holding their ground, then turning to look at the communicator Daviro had smashed to pieces by the gate, Sith could only feel speechless.
He turned and walked toward the gate. Meanwhile, Ana and the veterans Sith had assigned to protect her took a large quantity of grenades and explosive rounds from their already meager ammunition reserves.
"I hope you didn't call me over to tell me it's time to die for the Emperor."
Sith was so exasperated that he spoke sharply even to Daviro.
A mere mortal was actually expressing displeasure with an Astartes-and an elite Astartes qualified to join the Deathwatch, at that.
Yet neither the Astartes still standing nor the wounded one lying nearby showed any anger toward Sith.
Even Daviro merely accepted the last of the heavy ammunition Ana had brought, his expression calm.
Crouching to count the supplies before him, Daviro seemed not to hear Sith's displeasure and went straight to the point.
"I can blast the gate open."
Sith froze. Not just Sith, but Ana and even the other two Astartes, Daviro's battle-brothers, did too.
Sith looked at the decidedly scant ammunition at his feet, then at the gate that had withstood repeated rebel bombardments. He truly could not imagine how they were supposed to blast it open.
After all, even if he disregarded the secret of his hundredfold ability and personally subjected this ammunition to Hundredfold Amplification, there was still no way to blast open a Hive City gate with small-arms ammunition.
But faced with the puzzlement of those around him, including his own battle-brothers, Daviro sighed.
The fire holding back the enemy in the distant passage was already weakening rapidly. In its place, the sounds of close combat began to reach them.
Daviro wasted no time. He raised both hands and removed his helmet.
His resolute face bore a white beard, its features as sharply defined as though sculpted from steel.
Lifting his head and shifting his attention from the ammunition to Sith before him, Daviro actually showed some reluctance in his eyes.
"Before I came to the Deathwatch..."
"Siege assaults were my greatest specialty."
Daviro explained, but Ana still looked puzzled-even more puzzled after that answer.
As Ana saw it, even a Chapter specializing in siege assaults could, at most, be somewhat better at them than other Astartes. There could never be a qualitative difference.
And it was not just Ana. The other two Deathwatch Marines looked equally puzzled.
After all, they too knew very little about the Horus Heresy over ten thousand years ago.
Only Sith froze, the corners of his mouth twitching several times before he forcibly suppressed them.
Not daring to show any emotion on his face, Sith did his best to pretend that he, too, knew nothing.
Yet enormous waves had already risen in his heart.
Because Sith was almost certain that Daviro was a loyalist from a traitor legion.
And that traitor legion was the one among the eighteen Space Marine Chapters that specialized in siege assaults!
Lowering his head slightly to avoid looking straight at Daviro, Sith could only rant inwardly.
How did that saying go?
Even if the Imperial Fists were guarding a pile of shit, we Iron Warriors would still take that pile of shit from them!
That they dared say such a thing to the Imperial Fists, charged with guarding Terra and the greatest defenders in the galaxy, showed just how confident the Iron Warriors were in their siege capabilities.
Seeing the puzzlement on the faces before him, something flickered in Daviro's eyes-whether disappointment or relief was impossible to tell.
Disappointment that no one knew of his legion's many sacrifices and contributions during the Great Crusade.
Relief that he could still continue serving the Emperor as a loyalist.
Saying nothing more, Daviro picked up the ammunition, turned, and began working at several key points on the gate.
As he placed the explosives, he spoke.
"Regimental Commander Sith, I need you to buy me as much time as possible."
"I'll have my battle-brother hold the line with you."
Daviro's sole remaining battle-brother said nothing, merely raising his bolter calmly.
Sith took one last look at Daviro. Without wasting words, he holstered his completely empty sidearm and picked up two military sabers.
By now, large numbers of rebels had begun charging through the passage, plunging straight into bloody combat with the soldiers before them.
Seeing the weakening fire, one mass of rebels did not even spread out into formation, instead charging forward in a dense crowd.
Faced with these tightly packed rebels, Brunok and the other defenders could only watch helplessly.
Then a burst of bolter fire came, blasting all the rebels in the passage into severed limbs.
But there was only that single burst. What followed was not more bolter fire, but the roar of a spinning Chainsword.
The Astartes, too, had run out of ammunition.
The rebels at the other end of the passage rejoiced at the sight and charged again, screaming fanatically.
But what met them was not panicking soldiers, but two military sabers whirling like a cyclone.
Sith did not know how long he had been hacking away. Perhaps Daviro simply had too little ammunition on hand, for the gate was not breached as quickly as he had imagined.
Only after Sith cut down another crazed rebel, with a faint red glow even beginning to emerge over his body again, did a series of soft, successive booms finally come from the gate behind him.
The sound was hardly loud, and not remotely earth-shaking.
Many soldiers at the front, lost in their killing frenzy, did not react at all.
But Sith instantly turned to look at the tall, thick gate behind him.
Thin wisps of smoke slowly rose along its edges. Then, under a kick from Daviro, the towering gate toppled backward in one piece.
Dense volleys swept across the narrow passage, reducing every rebel inside it to bloody pulp.
Well-equipped noble guards rushed out from behind the gate, pouring fire into the rebels.
At the same time, the guards kept glancing to their sides. Apart from the towering Astartes, even more of their attention fell on the blood-drenched 101st Regiment, which had fought its way through the Orks and the entire Hive City.
Looking at these soldiers, almost completely coated in blood, even the most spiteful guards showed clear respect in their eyes.
But unlike the guards dutifully carrying out their responsibilities-or rather, having no choice but to do so now that the gate had fallen-
The obese noble arriving in a small litter carried by four Servitors had a face full of terror.
Forcing a smile, the noble swept his gaze over the people who had fought their way here.
His eyes moved between Sith and Daviro. Faced with the clear killing intent in Sith's eyes, the noble offered only an equally clear look of contempt before turning his flattery exclusively toward Daviro.
"My lord, the Emperor must have sent you to my side."
"If the Emperor sent you to escort me away, forgive my candor, but I cannot yet..."
High Gothic, the language reserved for nobles and the upper classes, flowed from the noble's mouth. As he spoke, he even ignored Sith completely.
Sith showed no anger at being slighted. He merely glanced at the few soldiers remaining behind him, then silently took ammunition from a nearby rack and loaded his sidearm.
The sight drew everyone's attention. Brunok and the other soldiers still able to move also picked up ammunition, seating magazines in their rifles.
The surrounding guards frowned in confusion. After a brief, stunned pause, they realized what was happening, and terror and panic instantly appeared in their eyes.
The noble froze as well, but rather than fear, what followed was the rage of someone who had suffered a tremendous insult.
He raised a hand to point at Sith, but before his curses could ring out, a figure stepped between Sith and the noble.
Sith paused. Daviro looked back at him.
The noble brightened at the sight, his face growing even more contemptuous, but Daviro's next words changed the atmosphere.
"Regimental Commander Sith, this pig isn't worth you doing this."
Daviro feared Sith would make a mistake, because regardless of the reason, a member of the Planetary Defence Force could never summarily execute a Hive City governor.
If Sith did this, it would leave an ugly stain on his already illustrious achievements.
The contempt on the noble's face instantly froze. Having earnestly explained this to Sith, Daviro turned back.
Without another word, Daviro raised his bolter and pressed its muzzle, almost as large as the noble's head, against the man's forehead.
"Remember."
"This is the Inquisition's judgment!"