Horizon Gate

Echoes of Coldforge: Third War

The broader war came to a fulcrum point on Coldforge, a Forgeworld brought to ruin by successive occupations and struggles. Its manufacturing capability had made it the greatest source of Corvus-pattern Mark VI armour elements in the Sector – and through its plenty, it had doomed itself as the Pentarchy and Partisans struggled over it in three vicious and spiteful wars.

A key battleground of the War of the False Primarch, the planet was largely in ruins by the time of the Third War, which ended in the sound defeat of the Silver Stars and their Partisan allies at Horizon Gate. From this, all that was left was evacuation, a retreat to the Myrean League Shieldworlds, where it appeared the False Primarch 'Volnoscere' would make a stand. 

Coldforge was to prove a key route into the Myrean League for the remainder of the War, providing the Pentarchy and Master Enoch with a route that bypassed the formidable Calydon Fortress-system and  giving them a means to drive a fatal dagger into the Partisans.

[//Star Warden; believed pictured at the Exodus of Coldforge+]
[//@dark_isles+]

Jel wheeled about the wall with his bolter raised. He fired quickly and precisely. A gentle exhale and a tender squeeze of the trigger spat explosive death into the enemy.

The militia were cut down, a burst of five mass reactives detonating midair amongst them as they broke cover. The first of them simply evaporated, others had limbs thrown from their bodies, deep red strings of gore hanging for a moment in the air. The dead span wildly, dancing among the gunsmoke and red mist.

The dust thinned and a survivor stood rigid, an ugly rent in their stomach coating their fatigues with torrents of blood. The militiaman stumbled, then turned, stumbling again. A dazed prey-animal flushed from its burrow by smoke and thunder. Jel trained his bolter on the survivor, but then dropped his aim.  Mortal wound. Save the shot. 

Stumbling again on the uneven ground, the dazed and wounded militiaman collapsed in the dust. 

Jel approached, keenly sweeping the street for hidden gun emplacements or saboteurs. Slow measured movements gave the astartes a wholly uncanny nature. Part-predator, part-monument, the transhuman nightmare approached with dreadfully purposeful slowness.

The militiaman rolled onto his back, his face obscured by layers of dusty debris and the spray of his fellows' lifeblood. Streams of tears cracked the foul crust of life on the frontline from his face. Jel paused to examine the man, no, examine the boy.

'You shan't take me,' said the soldier, his voice reedy and trembling. 'Not alive,' he continued, his defiance rendered a thin whimper.

'Oh?' Jel responded, his eyes scanning the horizon. His calm murmur was amplified to a harsh metallic growl by his vox-grille.

All of a sudden, the boy wrenched a pistol up under his chin – but Jel was quicker. A single shot barked into the empty street and robbed the soldier of his final act of bleak defiance.

The young militiaman's chest exploded.

Jel moved on, trampling over the slain militia fighters, not with malice – but indifference.

[//Horizon Gate+]
[//natedungeon+]