The Warhound rumbled forward as Aspasian, the commander of the 21st, ordered the advance. Despite the tank’s lumbering size and bulk, Scipio spared no worry about the bridge falling apart. The steel they used was hardened to the finest degree and the structure was supported in a dozen different ways, each level complementing the next. The idea of one breaking was unheard of.
As the tank rolled over the metalwork, Scipio felt the main turret traverse with thirst, searching for a target to obliterate. It passed through a gate, its doors hanging loosely on its hinges from when it had been rammed asunder. Inside the city centre’s walls, there was little order or cohesion.
The area was a great deal bigger than the rest of the city combined, and less ruined. Suddenly the tank shuddered as its cannon fired. Scipio looked at a viewport screen inside the crew cabin to view its target and saw a low bridge connecting two government buildings together fall apart in a shower of masonry. A large group of devii had been on the platform, directing the remaining paradigms in various counter-attacks. Nero, the tank captain of the Warhound, cheered briefly before choosing his next kill.
The streets were narrow, less so than the city beforehand, but enough to prevent the vehicle progressing very far without trouble.
“We need clearance here!” Nero yelled into his headset as the Warhound ground to a halt, the burnt-out carcass of a human vehicle strewn across the street.
Scipio kept his eyes trained through the sights of his Avenger-II, wary of the vulnerable position they had found themselves in now. Normally, a Warhound tank would just crawl over any obstacle like this, but Nero had already heard reports of snares and traps in the detritus where other armour units had been unwary.
Scipio silently cursed the legions that had come before them for leaving the mess to them. They were all on the same side; why they hadn’t swept for mines before the 21st turned up Scipio couldn’t explain.
A squad of legionnaires ran past the tank, barely fitting between it and the tower blocks flanking it on either side. Beyond those the city centre descended into a deep crater where the residential areas transitioned into industrial zones and governmental offices.
The Warhound’s previous target had been over a kilometre away, but its cannons were far-reaching and Nero was a perfect shot. Scipio envied him for his kills, itching now to slay some Phantoms too. Though he’d killed a great many of them that morning, that time was too long ago for his satisfaction.
His dark wish came alarmingly possible as, without warning, volleys of weapons fire smashed into the hull of the tank from all sides. Scipio scanned for the nearest source as he heard the cries of the clearance team being cut to pieces. Nero, unable to bring the cannon to bear on such a close threat, was helpless.
“Return fire!” he yelled, desperate for someone to be more useful than he was.
“There’s too many!” Vorlo, the operator of the other Avenger-II shouted.
Scipio felt the tank start to roll back towards the gate, but it was too late. There were others waiting behind it who were equally inundated by the ambush.
“Get back!” Nero screamed through his headset to the other tank captains, but it did little to help. Either they couldn’t hear him or they simply couldn’t do what he told them.
Scipio found his targets as they rushed from the dark depths of the surrounding alleyways and crevices. He cut them down mercilessly, but the short distance between them and the tank meant his line of fire quickly filled with dead bodies.
Only then did the true trap become apparent. Groups of golems, too many to count, came rushing over the mound of the deceased. The Avenger fire, enough to cut down paradigms and devii in swathes, was harmless to the living-stone creatures. As dozens of them began to climb onto the hull of the tank and smash their mighty hands against the access hatch Scipio wondered, for the first time since Colossi, how they were going to make it out alive.
LUPUS LAUNCHED HIMSELF against the brutish devii that barred the entrance to the city hall. It brought its pole arm up to block him but it wasn’t fast enough to defend itself as he tore it apart with his jaws. Roaring in the face of his prey, loud enough that it could be heard across the city, he wrenched the thing’s head off with a snap of his teeth. With a flick of his neck, he threw it down the steps leading up to the hall like a child’s play thing.
The bodies of dead devii lay all over the place with legionnaires scattered amongst them, but the battle raged on. The 617th had pushed on through to this position, but their reinforcements were cut off by the enemy’s well-placed ambushes. Lupus knew it was no coincidence that his forces were being choked off at the crucial moment he needed them.
Nevertheless, with the city hall finally in reach and a curtain of governmental buildings surrounding it, the 617th fought harder than ever against the Phantoms. Paradigms had surrounded them on all sides when the largest group of devii they had come across in the Crusade poured out from the hall to meet them in a last stand.
The Guardians suffered casualties before they had time to react and regroup into formation, but Sabre and Olympus managed to bring the companies back into an effective fighting force as Lupus fought the brunt of the fresh assault. He smashed them aside in pairs with his furious charge, slaughtering one after the other. They tried to escape his wrath and focus their fire on the legionnaires instead, but it was impossible for them to fight their animal instincts and self-preservation. They desperately tried to find a weakness on the Apostle’s body, but his skin was too thick, his flesh too strong to be wounded by their weapons. Yet it wasn’t fear that clouded their eyes, but an evil determination to kill and maim whoever they could.
It was this aspect of them that drove Lupus to greater bouts of rage and violence. When he finished the last of those stupid enough to stand against him, he turned to see his legionnaires clashing against the others with holo-swords and shields. The weapons were yet another part of the Guardians’ arsenal that Lupus admired, not just for their deadliness, but for their technological supremacy.
From the Guardians’ forearms protruded an oval of blue light, projected from a device embedded in their armour. These shapes, though seemingly holographic, were as physical and strong as any real metal could be and they protected the wearers’ from the devii melee attacks as well as any tank hull could.
When they grew tired of parrying and found the moment to strike back with lethal precision, the legionnaires would unsheathe a long handle that appeared to be the remnants of broken blades. Yet, Lupus knew, they were anything but; at the squeeze of the wielder, a blade would shimmer into existence, made from much the same light as the holo-shields. Blocking the devii attacks and returning their own, the legionnaires found it child’s play to pierce the Phantom flesh with their blue swords and send them to the Underrealm weeping of surprise pain and death. He saw Sabre lop off the head of his assailant with a sweeping arc as Olympus gutted another. Lysander took pot shots at the enemy while Clestor, Jax and Theos hacked a particularly large devii apart limb by limb with their holo-blades.
Though the devii threat had been eliminated, scores of paradigms remained, but Lupus could wait no longer. Whatever had been commanding the Phantoms was waiting for them in the city hall; that much he could tell from the screaming and the barbaric laughter emanating from inside.
Lupus looked over his shoulder to see if any of his legionnaires were free to join him, but most were engaged in close combat with the paradigms or taking cover to engage in brutal fire fights, exchanging their pulsar fire with the hard bullets of the enemy. Just as he resolved to face the Phantoms inside alone, a voice called out to him.
“My Lord, wait!” He recognised who it was immediately, his heart glad to hear the speaker.
Arcadius, bring your squad and join me. The Crusades end here, he replied, stalking purposefully into the dark entrance.
Inside, there was only darkness. The sound of his paws on the wooden floor resounded through the corridor, every step he took echoing through the seemin
gly empty space. The sound of people in agony and a mocking punisher was the only reply they heard. Lupus was determined to reach the source and remove its stain from the world. As he continued forward, slowly to avoid any potential traps, he was cautious to avoid being heard by any enemy forces lying in ambush. Now every step he took was deathly silent, belying his fearsome size and mass.
Heed your senses, legionnaires. This place is full of evil, he warned.
Arcadius, along with the ten other Guardians, didn’t need to openly acknowledge the Apostle’s directive. It was obvious enough from the sound of them checking every room that they had obeyed, and the fact he could no longer hear their footsteps was testament to their abilities to avoid detection.
They had travelled down multiple corridors now without any sign of the enemy. The noise was growing closer, that much was certain, but Lupus felt ill at ease at the lack of conflict. It felt odd, as if they should have been attacked at every opportunity. Instead, it was as if the enemy were goading them inside. It felt like a trap.
Lupus sniffed the air as he crept down the next hallway full of gloom and little else. It was smothered in nothing but black emptiness, but his enhanced senses had long since adjusted to the lack of light. He saw a pair of ornate doors bearing the emblem of the Empire, an arrow wrapped in stars, as the smell he was becoming eerily accustomed to grew more intense. It was a familiar odour, one that he’d despised getting used to; dry blood and fear.
Prepare yourselves, he said.
At the other end of the corridor, he prepared his run up to the doors. He coiled his hind legs, ready to catapult himself forward and through the wooden barrier. By now, the legionnaires had caught the full strength of the smell too. They now fought a different kind of enemy; the urge to retch and vomit.
Retyr Auranair Lupus told them, using the language of the Guardians to stir them.
“For the Queen” they solemnly repeated in his tongue.
Lupus sprung from his position, gaining speed as he thundered down the hallway, the legionnaires racing at his back. He collided with the doors and broke them apart with the force of a Warhound, sending woodchips flying out as they exploded from their frames upon his impact.
Once inside, the room lit with burning blood threatened to overwhelm them all. Worse than that, the pile of still-dying men and women in the centre of the room was a sight none of them were prepared for, save Lupus. Even so, he couldn’t help but baulk at what his eyes showed his mind.
Despite the legionnaires’ years of war and what they had seen before this, they were practically paralysed by the horrific scene. It was only when the brooding form of a Phantom, one they couldn’t hope to identify, brought its massive arms covered in black fur and rusty armour around the humans and embraced them, that they snapped out it.
The thing hugged the Gothicans close to its chest, crushing them together as if they were mere toys to be played with. The sound of bones breaking and terrified moans, weak without energy, filled the room. Then the creature stood up, drenched in the blood of its tortured, mutilated and crushed victims. It looked directly at Lupus. As if swimming in maniacal hedonism, it boomed with laughter at him.
THE PHANTOM, NOW a tower on its hind legs, brought its left arm down to swipe at Lupus. He rolled away from the attack, narrowly avoiding the sharp talon that ran the length of the creature’s limb like a natural appendage fashioned for death. Intent to kill something and spill its blood, the Phantom roared and attacked the legionnaires instead. They were not so quick and two were cut down, gutted together on the talon.
Lupus was back on all fours, his awkward evasion from the attempted death strike offsetting his positioning. He took in the sheer size and brutality of their new foe. What are you?! He roared.
Whatever it was, it heard his psychic message, something Lupus didn’t expect. His outcry was borne from anger, not from a desire to communicate, but the creature replied nonetheless.
“Me?” it bellowed, grinning in sadistic relish as it smashed another legionnaire aside, the man too far from Lupus to be saved. “I am a Gore Prince!”
Its voice almost deafened everyone in the room and Lupus could barely hear the faint groans of the humans clinging to life as the name of their torturer was revealed. It was twice the size of any devii, and where the latter wore next to no armour out of arrogance, the former had thick shoulder pads and a cuirass stained ochre with the blood of its victims out of obscene pomposity.
It was obvious that it could take a brutal punishment, even without its protection. It was one of the reasons Lupus couldn’t decide how to attack it. The legs of the Gore Prince were thick and roped with bundles of muscle, overlaid with chain mail that dripped steadily with its victims’ life fluid. It unsheathed a crude sword from its belt, a blade with spikes along its edges and wrought in decaying metal.
Move! Lupus yelled as it charged, shockingly fast for its size. The heaps of bodies at its feet were like soft, fleshy balls to be kicked aside with ease.
Arcadius dove forward as the Gore Prince arced its hand around in a large swoop, but the heads of three other legionnaires disappeared in a bloody haze. The Phantom seemed to relish in the carnage and waded through the pile of dead in front of it. The bodies, now both legionnaire and human, were still groaning in semi-conscious awareness of what was happening to them.
With the remaining four Guardians, Arcadius opened fire with his PR-5 on full-burst. Salvoes of pulsar fire poured into the Gore Prince, enough to devastate an entire cohort of devii. The Phantom strode through the projectiles like it was little but cold rain, laughing in derisive mockery at their feeble attempt to kill it.
The PR-5s were useless, and as the legionnaires retreated, Lupus moved to the Gore Prince’s right flank. While it was distracted by the Guardians’ assault, he got into position and growled at it in angry challenge. The noise was enough to draw its attention and he launched himself at it without a second thought, intent to prevent any more deaths. The Phantom was far larger than he was and even though he’d never come across anything that could boast the same, he didn’t flinch in his duty.
The Gore Prince was ready for him, but unperturbed where its brethren knew to be cautious. It used its gruesome sword as a bat to swat Lupus aside like a small insect. The blunt side of the blade smashed into him so hard that it created a thunderclap in the room. Lupus was sent flying into a column that previously served to hold up the impressive, marble roof, but his body shattered it like clay. He crashed to the floor amongst the rubble, mentally dazed and surprised by his foe’s viciousness.
Arcadius saw the way the Gore Prince simply stood and delighted in his accomplishment. He had never seen the Apostle beaten back by any enemy and whilst the legionnaire knew that he couldn’t have been injured by it, the Lion’s pride must have been hurt. The Phantom’s twisted, nightmarish face grinned, showing row upon row of razor-sharp teeth that ran red with the blood it had drunk from the humans until they were dry. The pallid, bone-white skin of the humans was proof of its barbaric, unspeakable nature.
Snapping out of the hold that the living nightmare was having on him, Arcadius unlatched a gauss grenade from his weapons belt and threw it under the legs of the Gore Prince. The Phantom looked curiously down at the ball between its feet and laughed. It exploded in a blue brilliance, sending out a shockwave that was destined to ruin its atomic nature and destroy it.
As the light faded, a second white flash appeared briefly before the legionnaire shared a shocked look with his comrades. The Gore Prince remained standing. Somehow, the weapon had no effect.
“This is not good…” Gaius next to Arcadius moaned ominously.
Before anyone could reply, the Phantom was on them and cut Gaius down in one fell strike. The sword came down on the legionnaire’s head, splitting him from top to bottom in equal parts. The kill was horrific, but that was what the creature was hoping for. Arcadius opened fire again, hoping foolishly that this time it would matter. As he retreated, it smashed aside a
legionnaire to his right before impaling another upon its crude blade. Laughing, it tossed her aside and she landed against another column. This time, the stonework didn’t break, but every bone in her body did.
Arcadius reeled in disgust as he realised the Gore Prince was just playing games with them. Then he noticed something about the way its face contorted as it suffered his pulsar fire. His weapon was starting to hurt the beast, slowly but finally. He unloaded a clip on rapid fire, aiming his shots at the thing’s head even as it came within metres of striking distance. It winced in unexpected pain as if it had never been hurt before and bellowed in frustration as Arcadius and the last legionnaire, Vaia, concentrated their fire together. Her spirit had been paralysed by the successive deaths of her squad mates, but her resolve had returned and now she was as determined as he to slay the beast and avenge their fallen friends.
It began to stagger back, shielding its face with its left arm while swinging its right wildly, trying to hack at the Guardians blindly.
Keep firing; push it back to where it was before. Force it near the fallen column Lupus told them, now back on his feet and witness to all that had happened in what was only a few seconds. He had a knowing feeling what the white flash had been when the gauss grenade went off and he was eager to put his theory to the test.
Your grenade destroyed its force shield, Arcadius. Now we can hurt it.
Lupus circled round the Gore Prince, distracting it and diverting its wild attacks as it backed away in search of cover. When it reached the centre of the room, where the last of the humans were finally dying, he commanded the legionnaires to target the remaining columns with plasma grenades, the last and most valuable of their firepower. The legionnaires had only two between them, but it was enough.
“My Lord, what of the humans?” Vaia asked. She grimaced at the thought of leaving them behind, but kept up her steady rate of fire and switching to her last clip as she bled her gun dry.
The Deian War: Vermillion's Apostles Page 19