Knightsblade

by Andy Clark

  ‘This is Dolvar, sire,’ came a deep voice laced with bhinaric. ‘Confirming clean drop, Omnissiah be praised. Our pilot servitors report that angle of atmospheric entry is sound.’

  ‘Gesmund,’ came the Vesserine colonel’s gruff voice. ‘All drop ships away and following re-entry protocols. But that Valhallan drunkard dropped us early. We’re off course by hundreds of miles.’

  ‘I see that, Colonel,’ said Luk. ‘Considering the weight of fire that the Unbroken was taking, I’d call his decision sound.’

  ‘Yes, sire,’ said Gesmund, sounding unconvinced.

  ‘Just ready your people, gentlemen,’ said Luk. ‘Barring mishaps, in just over three minutes, we’ll be landing in potentially hostile territory. We can’t afford mistakes.’

  Dolvar and Gesmund chorused their assent, and Luk switched channels.

  ‘Emperor damn that alcoholic madman,’ he said angrily. ‘He’s dropped us away-and-gone on the wrong side of the Adrapotines. We’re lucky we’re not landing in the bloody ocean.’

  ‘You weren’t wrong, though,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘He did need to get us clear.’

  ‘And I will thank him if we ever see him again,’ said Luk.

  ‘I’ve cogitated our precise landing coordinates,’ said J’madus. ‘Exloading them now.’

  Luk studied the data, transposing it to his strategic overlay.

  ‘That’s House Pegasson territory,’ said Luk. ‘The Diaphane highlands.’

  ‘There appears to be a structure near to our drop site,’ said Maia.

  ‘A border fort,’ said Luk. ‘If it’s garrisoned that could prove useful. Even if it’s overrun, there’s a chance its long-range vox will still be operational. We could get access to the current command channels, make contact with the Draconspire.’

  ‘If we are landing in the territory of House Pegasson, would it not be more efficient to speak to their ruler?’ asked Ranulf.

  ‘No,’ said Luk. ‘Danial will be coordinating the defence. It’s him I need to talk to.’

  Vo-Geiss answered with a non-committal grunt that Luk ignored.

  ‘I’m reading scattered signatures around the structure,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘We’re too far out to tell origin but the dispersal doesn’t look Imperial. Too anarchic.’

  Luk nodded to himself.

  ‘All ships,’ he voxed. ‘The drop keep is coming in three miles to the north of the fortress structure you see on your strategic overlay. Sacristans, land within our turret cover and deploy ironlegs. Colonel, bring two of your ships in alongside us, and send the other one ahead. Deploy forces and scout the structure.’

  ‘Understood, sire,’ said Colonel Gesmund. ‘I’ll send Pirkhin’s boys.’

  ‘Exiles, be prepared for anything once the portcullis goes up,’ said Luk. ‘Let’s not allow our steeds to be hobbled before we’ve even left our armatures’ shadows.’

  ‘We’re ready, Luk,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘Just make sure that you are.’

  The drop keep hit bedrock like a hammer striking an anvil. Autofanfares blared, and the portcullis rattled upwards as layers of heat shielding slid aside before it. The pale daylight of Adrastpolitan morning spilled in, and Luk felt a surge of nostalgia as it washed over his steed.

  He willed Sword of Heroes to advance, striding his Knight out of the drop keep and onto the soil of Adrastapol for the first time in long years. For a moment he felt slightly lightheaded, battling the idea that no time had passed at all, and that his entire exile had been nothing but a strange dream. The others followed, marching out like a war party of demi-gods from their stronghold. Their resounding footfalls brought Luk back to reality.

  The region they had landed in was a cold, dry tundra. There was little to see in any direction but swaying grassland and rocky outcroppings, that Luk knew sloped away to the ocean if you travelled far enough north. South and east of them the Adrapotine range rose as a hazy line of grey-blue. Closer, columns of black smoke coiled lazily towards the sky.

  ‘Not much to be seen,’ commented Ranulf Vo-Geiss. ‘Nothing to kill, either.’

  ‘Patience, Vo-Geiss,’ said J’madus as his towering Knight strode out through the grasslands. ‘I’m reading xenos machine signatures around the border fortress. You shall have your slaughter soon enough.’

  ‘This region may not look like much, but watch your footing,’ said Luk, watching the Sacristans’ and mercenaries’ drop ships descend. ‘The highlands stretch out across a high plateau for several hundred miles. They’re riddled with chasms and cave systems, and much of the area is untamed. There are plenty of hazards for the unwary, and more than enough holes to turn a steed’s ankle if its pilot is rash.’

  The drop ships came in to land, flames licking beneath them as they put down on heavy hydraulic landing gear. Ramps slammed down, and the rest of Luk’s unconventional army emerged.

  Their Sacristans rode in heavy mechanical walkers, in the style of olden day Hawkshroud. They were a little reminiscent of the Sentinels used by the Astra Militarum, but bigger and supported by four-jointed piston-limbs rather than two. Affectionately known as ironlegs, the lurching machines were top-heavy with servo-arms, omnitools, ammo hoppers, fuel bowsers and all the other indecipherable techno-arcana used by adepts of the Machine-God. They carried heavy weapons for their own defence, and each was piloted by a Sacristan and several supporting servitors.

  The mercenaries, meanwhile, were Vesserines that Luk had hired on Tanos Station. They wore dark blue carapace armour and crested helms. Colonel Gesmund led several platoons of heavy infantry, all furnished with Taurox transports that allowed them to keep pace with their Knightly paymasters. Equipped with a mixture of man-portable heavy weaponry, and supported by a squadron of Banehound chem-tanks, they had proved their worth to the Exiles on many occasions.

  ‘Form up,’ voxed Luk. ‘The orks could be on us at any moment. We need to move quickly.’

  ‘Luk,’ said Ekhaterina over a private channel. ‘Take a breath. Centre yourself. You won’t help anything by rushing this and making errors.’

  ‘I know, my lady,’ said Luk. ‘It’s just… been a long time since I was here. It’s a lot to take in. I need to talk to Danial, to ensure that my old comrades live.’

  ‘And to find out whether your return is actually welcomed?’ she asked.

  ‘That, too,’ he said.

  ‘The scouts are down and deployed,’ voxed Gesmund from his command Taurox. ‘They’ve gained a defile within sight of the border fortress and are reporting scattered orks. There’s no sign of loyalist forces and the fortress has seen better days, sire.’

  ‘Then let us pray to the Emperor that its vox-array is intact, at least,’ said Luk. ‘Have your scouts hit the greenskins when we do. All forces, full advance.’

  Luk and the Exiles led the advance, making no effort to conceal themselves while the Vessarines followed in support. As they came into sight of the fortress, Luk saw that the towering structure had been partly gutted by fire, and sections of its walls had collapsed. Ork glyphs were daubed everywhere. Already the crude creatures had started to adorn the structure with ragged banners, and spikes topped with the impaled bodies of Pegasson militia. A single steed lay slain before the main gate, and Luk was disgusted to see greenskins swarming over its corpse like maggots, pulling it apart with pry-bars and massive wrenches.

  The orks formed a bellowing mass as the Knights strode into sight, but a single volley from the Exiles eradicated swathes of them and sent many others fleeing into the grasslands. The Vesserines plied their trade, ensuring that those that fled didn’t get far.

  From within the fortress rose a thwopping wing of ork gyrocopters, whose manic pilots dived down on the Knights with rockets spilling from their vehicles’ launchers. Ion shields flashed, while the Exiles’ guns roared in response and swatted the ork craft from the skies.

  As the last of
the gryocopters crashed down, the remaining greenskins turned tail and fled.

  ‘Little enough fight in them,’ said Ranulf, playing his guns across the scattering orks.

  ‘Never begrudge an easy hunt,’ said Maia, stamping her steed’s foot down atop one of the crashed scrap-copters. ‘They leave fewer slain friends.’

  Vo-Geiss grunted, his disinterest in such things clear. Luk ignored them and strode his steed up to the sundered fortress gate.

  ‘Duty Unending, Void and Wrath Inescapable, establish a perimeter with Colonel Gesmund,’ said Luk. ‘Crimson Death and I will lead the sweep through the ruin. Gesmund, we’ll need two squads of your finest to support us.’

  Assent runes flashed on his instruments. Powering his steed down and uncoupling his neural jacks, Luk grabbed his weapons and dismounted. He met Hw’ss in their Knights’ shadows. The former Krast Knight was shorter than Luk, made stocky by the burnished chrome augmetics and bundles of fibre-wires that jutted from his body. He wore a rubberised crimson bodyglove and cowl, and carried a much-modified boltgun, but for all his Mechanicus affectations, his face was surprisingly human. He glanced towards the fortress.

  ‘Engaging dismounted,’ he grinned, energy sparking behind his augmetic pupils. ‘This contradicts every strategic subroutine my old data-precept operates by.’

  Luk snorted.

  ‘You’re delighted, aren’t you?’ he asked. Hw’ss grinned wider in response.

  A pair of Tauroxes rumbled up, and the requested Vesserines piled out with a thunder of boots and a clatter of body armour. They held bullpup lasguns ready, while several of their number cradled hissing flamers ideal for building clearance. Their sergeants stepped forward and saluted. Luk knew the men, Undoh and D’vansa.

  ‘Reporting,’ said Sergeant Undoh. ‘Request permission to lead the sweeping force in, sires.’

  Luk nodded. ‘Go ahead, sergeant. D’vansa, your men have rearguard. We stay together and make for the operational sanctum at the top of the fortress. That’s where the vox array will be.’

  Undoh nodded, gesturing to his men. The Vesserines spread out smoothly, making for the nearest wall breach with their guns up and ready. The Knights followed, with Sergeant D’vansa’s men sticking close on their heels.

  They clambered over the rubble of the breach, stepping around militia and greenskin corpses buried amongst the wreckage.

  ‘These corpses are three days and five hours dead,’ said Hw’ss. ‘Visual augury suggests a brief but violent firefight. The walls were brought down by heavy shelling and then the breaches forced by combat walkers. None of which are now present.’

  ‘Hopefully,’ muttered Luk. ‘Though I suspect we’d have seen them by now if they were.’

  Inside the fortress’ marshalling yard lay dozens more corpses. A wrecked ork walker lay in their midst, mangled militia strewn around it.

  ‘A Dreadnought,’ said Hw’ss. ‘Caution, Sergeant Undoh. I’m reading faint lifesigns.’

  Undoh froze at the warning, signalling to his men to spread out around the fallen machine. The Dreadnought was slumped on one side, its legs a tangled mass of metal and two of its long hydraulic arms crumpled under it.

  As the Vessarines moved closer, Luke heard a muffled snarl from within the Dreadnought’s hull. One of its arms twitched feebly, pistons gasping and engines whirring as it tried to open its huge industrial shears. The Vesserines backed away, guns up, but the Dreadnought showed no further signs of movement.

  Luk paced around in front of the machine, and craned down to stare through its rusted vision slit. Red eyes stared back at him, feverish with hate and pain. He could barely make out the Dreadnought’s occupant, just a shadowy lump of flesh still wired into the machine that had become its tomb. The ork croaked words, crude sounds that sounded like fists hitting flesh.

  ‘I don’t know what it’s saying,’ he said. ‘But I’m fairly sure it isn’t happy to see us. Filthy xenos, smells like its rotting alive in there.’

  ‘Let it,’ said Hw’ss. ‘It is demonstrably unthreatening, and displays no ranged communicative capabilities with which to warn its allies of our presence.’

  ‘This unclean thing will not pollute my home for another minute,’ said Luk. ‘No mercy for these xenos. You understand?’

  Luk beckoned to one of the Vesserines, taking his flamer from him and pointing its nozzle at the Dreadnought’s vision slit. Within, the monstrous xenos threw itself about and snarled. Its machine’s arm stirred again, the shears snicking halfway open.

  Luk squeezed the trigger. Flames belched from his borrowed weapon and filled the Dreadnought’s interior. Flesh burned and fat crackled, the ork managing a last roar of pain before it fell silent. Luk handed the weapon back to its owner and turned towards the fortress’ central tower. He drew his chainsword and revved its blade.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s move inside.’

  They found no further living greenskins in the fortress, only corpses and wreckage.

  ‘They put up an optimal fight attempting to defend this facility,’ said Hw’ss as they clambered up another set of brushed steel steps. They were nearing the operational sanctum, picking their way over a carpet of butchered bodies tangled in fallen House Pegasson banners.

  ‘The militia here gave a good account of themselves,’ said Luk. ‘The Marchioness would be proud.’

  Vesserine Sergeant Undoh advanced around a last curve of the staircase and stopped, gun up.

  ‘Sires,’ he said, ‘the operational sanctum lies ahead. The doors are caved in. There’s fire damage, but no sign of movement.’

  ‘If you have a good word to put in with the Omnissiah, J’madus, now would be a good time,’ said Luk. ‘Sergeant, advance and secure that chamber.’

  They moved inside, following the all-clear vox pip from Undoh. The chamber was sizeable, and had once been airy and grand judging by its arched windows and glass-domed ceiling. Now much of it was burned black, trappings and furnishings ruined, glass smudged with soot. The Vesserines had woken the stablights slung under their guns, piercing the gloom and revealing heaped corpses and wrecked machinery.

  ‘There,’ said Sire Hw’ss. ‘Beneath those fallen greenskins. The vox array.’

  They picked their way across the chamber towards the blackened stack of machinery and its garland of bodies. As the Vesserines heaved the xenos corpses aside, Luk saw runes flickering dimly beneath a layer of soot.

  ‘Yes, there is motive force,’ said Hw’ss, slinging his boltgun and bending over the array. He swept away a cloud of choking soot to reveal a console, battered but operational. Muttering benedictions, Hw’ss unfolded several mechadendrites from apertures within his bodyglove and set to work.

  Luk surveyed the blasted chamber, the heaped bodies, and felt his hatred of the orks burn hotter. He would make them suffer for every drop of Adrastapolian blood spilled.

  Sire Hw’ss stepped back from the array. ‘I have resanctified the machine as best I can, calmed its bewildered machine-spirit and interrogated its internal cogitator. I have acquired the primary Adrastapolian command channels for your use, Luk.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Luk, taking up the voxman’s headset and settling it over his ears and mouth. His mouth was dry as he manipulated the array’s controls and selected the priority vox-channel for communication with the Draconspire.

  ‘Attention, Draconspire grand strategium vox array,’ he began. ‘This is the Knight of Ashes. I have made planetfall upon Adrastapol with a military force and seek immediate vox-communion with High King Danial Tan Draconis. Repeat…’

  It took twenty minutes of repeated enquiry to make contact with a flustered sounding vox-adept, and a further ten to convince him that Luk was who he said he was. A major martial undertaking was underway, Luk was told, and anyone flippantly occupying a choral slot on this channel would be subject to punitive execution. Luk pe
rsevered, surprised, in truth, that his reception had not been more hostile.

  Eventually, after almost an hour of increasingly frustrating, static-laden negotiations, a runner was sent to request the High King’s presence.

  Luk sat in the voxman’s throne, leaning back in the seat and toying with the grip of his pistol. The Vesserines still crouched in watchful positions, looking every bit as efficient as they had when he first entered the chamber. Sire Hw’ss had wandered away to the far side of the room, sifting through damaged systems and doing what he could to placate and repair them.

  Suddenly, a voice sounded in Luk’s ear.

  ‘Luk?’

  For a moment, he was sure it was High King Tolwyn, returned from the grave. Ridiculous, he thought. The man was long dead.

  ‘Luk, is that you?’ the voice came again.

  Danial sounded older, harder and far more confident. Still, there was a hesitancy that Luk recognised. It matched his own.

  ‘High King Danial,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘It is… very good to hear your voice, my liege.’

  ‘Luk!’ said Danial. ‘Throne. It’s good to hear your voice, brother. You return at a fortuitous time.’

  ‘No coincidence,’ said Luk. ‘I had warning that Adrastapol was endangered. I came to help.’

  ‘Warning?’ asked Danial. ‘Someone knew this invasion was coming?’

  ‘Nothing so specific,’ said Luk. ‘A prophecy of danger only, not its exact nature.’

  Danial was silent for a moment, and Luk felt a pang of frustration. This was not how he had imagined their reunion.

  ‘Your oath,’ said Danial. ‘Is it…?’

  ‘Alicia lives,’ said Luk. ‘But I know where she is, at last. I can strike her down, with your aid.’

  ‘I see…’ There was a tense pause. ‘That is… a matter for later, then.’ Background static hissed into their awkward silence.

  ‘I came to help,’ said Luk again. ‘I have Knights with me. A lance of Freeblades, and mercenary soldiers. A force of just over one hundred men with fighting machines.’