V3 Chapter 110: This Is Why Guilliman Wants Me to Command You
"Lord Tribune, per Lord Guilliman's order, you and your men will be acting under my command from here on." Duvette sat inside the Custodians' heavy grav-vehicle, looking across at Italeo. "I hope we can work well together."
Italeo had already shed the black cloak that had covered him entirely before, and had put on the crimson war-cloak that marked a Custodian Tribune once more. At Duvette's words, he only gave a silent nod, offering no reply of his own.
Duvette let out an inward sigh.
Getting a proud Custodian Tribune to take orders from a mortal was clearly no small thing. If Guilliman hadn't given the order personally, Italeo likely wouldn't have spared him a second glance.
Duvette didn't much mind, though. Right now, he was leading twenty Custodians and the thirteen Shadow Wolves of Luna to capture the assassination plot's central architect: Master of the Administratum Ilthor Cimotrion.
Markus, sitting beside Duvette, still kept his body wrapped in the black cloak. Even with the Custodians' heavy grav-vehicle offering plenty of room, his massive frame still took up several seats' worth of space.
The rest of the Shadow Wolves were spread across several vehicles behind them, while the twenty Custodians rode in a separate group of gold grav-vehicles, holding tight formation under Italeo's command.
Duvette didn't expect Cimotrion to surrender quietly. A man who'd stood at the peak of power for this long would find it hard to accept losing everything all at once, especially knowing that what likely awaited him was a trial for treason.
Duvette wasn't worried about it in the least. He had a full Custodian combat detachment under his command right now, and Guilliman himself was rather curious to see exactly what warriors already at the absolute limit of human physicality could become once his enhancements were layered on top.
The convoy pressed on fast along the Outer Palace's dedicated transit lane. The highest transit authority Guilliman had issued opened most checkpoints ahead of them, and the handful of guards who hadn't yet received the new orders chose to wave them through the instant they saw the Custodian insignia.
As they closed in on the Administratum's core district, the administrative personnel around them thinned out steadily. Great numbers of buildings had already gone into lockdown, the elevated walkways cut off by armoured blast-gates, and clusters of servo-skulls patrolled back and forth above the streets.
"Blockade three kilometres ahead." A Custodian's voice came through the comm channel. "Roughly a hundred and twenty personnel. Fixed heavy-weapon emplacements and combat servitors present."
Duvette's strategic map had already marked out these targets. Deeper within the Administratum's buildings, he could see still more hostile markers, several of them clearly far larger than any ordinary human.
Astartes? A Chapter willing to take orders from a High Lord... Duvette worked out which Chapter it had to be almost at once.
Heh. Seemed Cimotrion had left himself a little present after all.
"Convoy holds speed." Duvette said calmly. "Gain altitude before entering their firing range. Prepare to force the breach."
Italeo glanced at him, then relayed the order over the Custodian channel at once. The gold convoy adjusted formation quickly, and drove down the broad administrative avenue into the Administratum's core district.
The road ahead had already been sealed off by several armoured transports. A hundred and twenty of the Master's own personal guard, clad in dark grey carapace armour, occupied the road and the nearby platforms, their finely-crafted las-rifles all trained on the approaching convoy.
Dozens of combat servitors stood behind the defensive line, heavy bolters and autocannons mounted on their massive mechanical arms. The building's outer walls slid open slowly, more fixed gun emplacements rotating out from within, locking onto the direction of the convoy.
The Custodian convoy stopped several dozen metres from the line. Italeo rose and stepped out through the hatch, his crimson war-cloak hanging down behind the gold armour, and struck the ground hard with the halberd in his hand.
"I am Italeo, Tribune of the Emperor's Custodian Guard." His voice carried the length of the street through his vox-amplifier. "Under order of Imperial Regent Roboute Guilliman, I have come to arrest the removed Master of the Administratum, Ilthor Cimotrion."
Italeo raised the arrest warrant, authenticated through the Tower of Hegemony. The Imperial Regent's seal and the Captain-General's authority mark both appeared in the air together, and a stir passed through the personal guard's front ranks.
"Lift the blockade at once, and power down your weapon systems." Italeo went on. "To obstruct is to resist. To resist is to die."
The guard captain in command of the line clearly hadn't expected the Custodians to take this stance. He glanced at the authority mark hanging in the air, then at the soldiers around him, whose resolve had visibly begun to waver.
"Lord Tribune, our orders are to bar entry to anyone without the Master of the Administratum's own authorisation." The guard captain pushed down the fear in his chest. "Until we receive new orders, we can only continue carrying out our duty."
"Cimotrion has already been removed from office."
"We take orders only from the Master of the Administratum."
The words had barely left his mouth when the comm inside the guard captain's helmet crackled to life. Cimotrion's ice-cold voice reached every member of the personal guard at once, ordering them to designate the newcomers as armed invaders.
A distant autocannon turret spat fire in the same instant.
A dense burst of shells swept the street, striking the foremost Custodian grav-vehicle dead on. Explosions rang out one after another, the armoured surface wrapped in flame, and even the personal guard nearby flinched at the suddenness of the attack.
After a brief hesitation, the guard captain finally made his choice.
"Carry out the Master's order!" He raised his weapon. "Open fire!"
A hundred and twenty of the personal guard pulled their triggers at once. Las-beams, bolt rounds, and rockets converged on the Custodian convoy, and the combat servitors behind them began swinging their heavy weapons into line as well.
Inside the grav-vehicle, Duvette only let out a soft sigh.
A stream of Emperor's Wrath went into the System, and a skill still on cooldown cleared instantly.
[Iron Crusade], [Flesh Engine], [Unity Fortress], and [King of War] all activated at once, their power washing over the twenty Custodians and the thirteen Shadow Wolves of Luna in an instant.
Italeo's body checked, ever so slightly.
He could feel it with total clarity: his strength, his reflexes, his perception, all climbing fast.
"Since they've already made their choice, let's give them what they want."
Duvette's calm voice carried through every comm channel present.
"No survivors."
Several Coronus heavy grav-carriers rose together, their hatches opening more than ten metres above the ground. Twenty Custodians dropped straight out of the vehicles, their heavy gold power armour slamming into the ground and cracking the reinforced road wide open beneath them.
Dense fire poured into them without pause. Las-beams and bolt rounds only threw up sparks of light against the gleaming gold armour's surface, and the Custodians' stride never slowed for it, not even slightly.
One of the personal guard fired a man-portable armour-piercing rocket. The projectile streaked toward Italeo trailing flame, only for the Tribune to snatch it cleanly out of the air.
The explosion went off right in his grip, flame and smoke swallowing the gold figure in an instant. The next moment, Italeo burst back out of the smoke, the black scorch marks already fading fast from his gauntlet's surface.
The twenty Custodians surged into the defensive line.
To the soldiers on the perimeter, all they could make out were streaks of gold, moving too fast to follow. Every swing of a halberd punched clean through carapace armour and the body beneath it, while bolt rounds fired from the weapons built into the halberds' shafts tore the heavy-weapons crews behind them apart outright.
The guard captain had only just begun to swing his weapon around when a streak of gold light was already upon him. All he felt was his body suddenly slipping out of his own control, his severed head spinning through the air just long enough to see his own headless body still falling behind it.
Markus led the Shadow Wolves in close behind. Rather than compete with the Custodians for targets head-on, they went straight for the combat servitors and the fixed gun emplacements instead, power swords cutting through mechanical structures one after another, bolt rounds detonating exposed ammunition crates.
Duvette sat inside the vehicle, glancing down at his pocket watch.
Second one: the Custodians hit the position.
Second three: every heavy-weapons crew stopped responding.
Second four: the last of the Master's personal guard fell beneath Italeo's halberd.
The battlefield fell silent fast. All hundred and twenty of the elite, carapace-armoured guard lay dead, shattered weapons and bodies scattered along both sides of the road.
The twenty Custodians regrouped behind Italeo. Their gleaming gold power armour was streaked with blood and smoke, but not a single clear scratch marked its surface anywhere.
Italeo glanced down at his own hand, then looked around at the Custodians near him.
This unknown enhancement left him wary.
Italeo turned and walked back toward the grav-vehicle, suspicion and unease plain in his eyes. Duvette snapped his pocket watch shut and stepped out of the vehicle at an unhurried pace.
"Four seconds."
Duvette glanced over the bodies covering the ground, then gave Italeo a smile.
"This is why the Imperial Regent wants me to command you, Lord Italeo."
He tucked the pocket watch back inside his coat, his gaze settling deeper on the strategic map. Over a hundred more red markers, more prominent still, waited for them behind the Administratum's next line of defence.
"Let's go, Lord Tribune." Duvette closed his left hand around Entropy's Song, and drew the Blade of Glory from his belt with his right. "Looks like we'll be fighting our way through from here. Best pick up the pace, or the quarry's going to slip away."
If you're enjoying the story, toss a Power Stone or drop a review — it helps more than you'd think.
Advance chapters → patreon.com/Eatinpieces