He lay immobile under the felled branches of several deciduous trees, waiting for the sun to set. It was taking too long. Kurak was getting bored of the seemingly endless waiting, and knew his two men lying quietly next to him shared his sentiment as they had been there for no less than three hours. He decided to risk a slight incline of his head, looking along the natural trench to the 19 marines who had decided to set up there till the time to advance had come. Night fall could not come too soon.
They were a sorry sight, he had to admit. Under the various branches, dead leaves and moss the Astartes had covered themselves with for concealment he could see a kaleidoscopic mix of no less than nine legion colours. They were Orphaned and homeless sons, left with little else but a desire to do something of worth with their tarnished names. Each suit of armour worn by each man had seen better days, their equipment was less than pristine and they were tired, each one of them. Sure they had eaten and slept plentifully in the days before they had made planet-fall, but theirs was a different sort of weariness. They had seen too much in too short a time, a look normally reserved for the Imperial Army recruits after their first taste of combat. Each man here was a veteran of dozens if not hundreds of battles and carried the scars of war as a badge of honor, but each one of them had been betrayed by their brothers. That betrayal was a personal sort of tragedy for each man, and that wound they each carried was not a badge of honor at all, but a soul-deep scar that had left them with nothing but the desire to restore a little of their previous selves. The only way an Astartes could do that was in the blood of their enemies of course, the thought of which made Kurak grin behind his helmet. He was a simple man and not given easily to pholosophical thoughts. It was the damned waiting, he knew, which gave him time to think. He did not like the sensation.
Bethuel was the only one of the 19 men not lying prone, concealed as he was inside a half hollow tree stump at the edge of the clearing giving him a great view of the Chateau ahead. Chateau Thorn. Their target. Bethuel was acting as the group's scout with unspoken but unanimous agreement. In his lightweight armour and toting his sniper rifle he looked the least like an Astartes out of all of them, but the obvious skill at infiltration of the Alpha Legionnaire was beyond doubt. He had remained these past three hours completely still with uncanny patience, watching the building complex in the near distance with unflinching concentration. Each man there waited for the order to advance from him.
It had taken this group of lost Brothers nearly two days of cross country trekking through quiet backwoods to get to this point, and Kurak was surprised they had not attracted more notice. Their landing at the port some kilometers behind them was a characteristically bloody affair. There had been no way to make any kind of landing without taking out the fortified port first due to its highly advanced ground to air tracking technology. Without that going down first, any landing of nearly 20 heavily armoured marines anyhere within 300 miles would have been easily identified and stamped out within moments.
The marines had managed to annihilate the small armoured port within a ten minute period. Kurak and his men along with Ywain, Merdem, Lyras and Alypius had stormed the landing site and killed the unprepared soldiers there while the rest of the group struck out for the occupied landing pad and comms tower. Soon enough there was nothing left breathing in the area except for the loyal Astartes, and they had waited with baited breath for the inevitable artillery strike if the defenders had managed to get a distress signal out. When none came, they knew they had succeeded and headed straight out into the countryside. The small isolated port burned behind them, and Kurak hoped it would not be discovered till long after they had had infiltrated into the wilds of Argyos.
A few isolated military patrols had been taken out on the way, as well as one lone civilian hunting Folari in the woods. None of the population of the planet must know of the force of marines making their way towards their target location, in case they reported the incursion to their superiors even with the best of intentions. Kurak had slipped forward from the group when the man had been spotted early in the morning, more than eager to claim the kill for himself. The terrified man had hardly un-slung his low caliber hunting rifle from his shoulder before Kurak had bisected his upper torso in one clean strike of his combat knife, both parts falling wetly to the forest floor. He knew any of the other marines could have also killed the man, eventually and after some soul searching, but he believed he was the only one who would not have hesitated to kill a civilian for the greater good of the mission. The group had wordlessly moved on from the bloody site and not a word was ever spoken of it again, although he knew he caught a few questioning glances from Kraeger, Ferreus and the other Death Guard.
Kurak's focus was brought to the present by the slight flick of Bethuel's left wrist. It was time to move.
Wordlessly, the Astartes untangled themselves from their natural cover and readied their weapons. They had discussed the assault several hours earlier when the Chateau had first come into sight. Prodigal, Kraeger and Ywain would take the perimeter and eliminate any roving patrols and take out any straggler forces that tried to escape. Kurak and his men, Lyras, Alypius, Merdem and Brenard would then use cover to get close to the complex and then break down the front door, killing anything they could inside. Ferreus and his fellow Death Guard would then engage the Chateu from the road on the other side of the main assault and take and hold the roof. Bethuel would hold back and snipe any stragglers and serious threats inside the complex. Once both assault teams had succeeded in claiming a foothold inside, everyone outside would then tighten the noose and sweep and clear the chateau till nothing lived but those loyal to the Emperor.
They moved out into the gathering dusk, weapons ready for the bloody work ahead.
