by C Z Dunn
Angered at being denied a second kill by the skull-faced Space Marine, the warboss threw its head upwards and bellowed in rage, every vein and sinew in its enormous body bulging as it vented its frustrations skywards. Spitting out one of its tusks, which Puriel had knocked loose with his devastating punch, the ork pointed at the Chaplain with the double-headed axe, using its other hand to goad him into attacking again.
Puriel obliged.
The screams of the dying and the triumphant chants of the greenskin invaders echoed up from the base of the weapons tower. Some of the Astra Militarum troops froze in fear at the top of the wide staircase, impeding the passage of those behind them. In his singular style, Serpicus urged them on.
‘Come on, otherwise I’ll throw you down those steps and send you into battle the quick way!’
The end of the Techmarine’s sentence was drowned out by the noise of the turret firing another volley at the marauding orks working their way through the trenches. It had the desired effect, though, the flow of Vostroyans and Mordians heading downwards picking up pace again.
‘How much longer, Diezen?’ Serpicus called out to the tech-priest. Diezen was hunched over a console, its metal cover ripped away to allow him to tinker with the mechanisms inside.
‘Seven hundred and forty-seven point three seconds,’ Diezen said instantly. ‘Provided the control systems are not encrypted, of course.’
The vox in Serpicus’ helmet was alive with chatter. Imperial commanders on the battlements reporting into Shadrach, who was leading the operation atop the battlements; their counterparts down below calling out casualty reports. And something else, something that would be gibberish to any of his non-Techmarine brethren but which was faintly discernible at the very bottom of the frequency spectrum. He went to the top of the stairway and looked down. The orks were almost halfway up the tower and the Guardsmen were barely arresting their progress. Serpicus ran the calculations in his head.
‘Diezen, order your skitarii in,’ he yelled.
As before the arch magos didn’t look up from his task. ‘What difference will twenty skitarii make? Send in more Guardsmen or get those brothers of yours to go down there.’
‘The Guard can’t keep them in check. If you don’t send your skitarii in there – all of them, the hundreds you’re holding in reserve within the fortress walls – then the turret will fall before you can deactivate it, and its secrets will be lost forever.’
‘The Mechanicus’ elite are not to be thrown away so casually. If it’s a suicide mission then let the armies of the Imperium throw down their lives,’ Diezen spat.
‘If you don’t order them in, then in six hundred and fifty-seven point three seconds the only part they’ll play in this fight is avenging your death.’
The arch magos hesitated for the briefest of moments. ‘Omnissiah take your circuits!’ he said, followed by a string of binaric cant, echoed on the low vox-frequency. The twenty skitarii that formed Diezen’s personal bodyguard marched in lockstep to where Serpicus was assessing the situation in the tower. ‘I’ve transferred command to you, Dark Angel. Try not to destroy them all.’
Serpicus issued his own set of orders in binary and the skitarii began to descend the tower, barging past the human soldiery as they went.
‘All Vostroyan and Mordian forces, pull back to the battlements. Your guns are more use up there,’ Serpicus broadcast over all channels before following the Mechanicus forces down, his servitors in tow.
Puriel swung his crozius down in a deadly arc, its coruscating energy field leaving a bright afterglow in its wake. The warboss threw its head out of the mace’s path, bringing its shoulder guard up to meet the blow instead, the metal denting and blackening under the impact.
Reacting quickest, the Chaplain lashed out with his other arm, his balled-up power fist connecting squarely with the ork’s metal jaw. The beast staggered backwards but was not felled. Puriel pressed the assault, but the next swipe of the crozius was met by the haft of the warboss’ axe.
The orks still held their position on the fringes of the duel, but their bloodlust was rising, whipped into a frenzy by their general’s personal battle. Rephial knelt between the two Librarians, wheezing through shattered ribs while he tended to the gravely wounded Zadakiel, who was already in the early stages of a sus-an coma. Ezekiel and Turmiel continued to hold the ork mob at bay but the perimeter of the makeshift arena got smaller with every act of aggression by the two combatants.
Can he be moved?+ Ezekiel sent to Rephial.
That doesn’t matter. If he isn’t moved, we’ll lose him. The organ damage is catastrophic and he needs to get to the medicae now.
The Apothecary’s gauntlets were covered in red as he fought to curtail the company master’s bleeding.
Can you get us out of here, Ezekiel?
Yes, but we all have to go. Turmiel does not yet have the power or control to teleport you, nor would he be able to hold the orks at bay alone.+
Then we go. Zadakiel is fading fast, Rephial thought back.
Puriel, we have to go, the company master’s wounds are too severe to treat in the field,+ Ezekiel sent, opening up a psychic link with the Chaplain.
No! came the Chaplain’s response, so forcefully that Ezekiel was taken aback. Zadakiel’s orders were that we finish this now and that’s precisely what I intend to do.
Puriel unleashed another assault, his fury the match of the warboss’. Blow after blow rained down on the greenskin, crozius and power fist alike breaking bones and splitting flesh. Though the ork had the size advantage, Puriel was quicker and more nimble, avoiding the test of strength that had laid Zadakiel low, relying instead on speed and guile.
Puriel. Now,+ Ezekiel sent.
The ork mob was becoming harder to keep back, the sight of their leader being taken apart so completely before their eyes driving them to action. Ezekiel and Turmiel’s illusions became more horrific and realistic as a result.
I have this, brother. Not long now.
The ork’s arm snapped as a result of a solid hit from the crozius, bone protruding at its elbow in a mess of muscle and gore. It cried out in rage and anguish, but the call died prematurely as the power fist connected with its throat. Instinctively, the warboss dropped its axe and raised a hand to its neck. Jumping on the opening, Puriel thrust his power fist into the ork’s stomach like a piledriver, dropping the beast to its knees. He wound up the crozius, ready to stove in the greenskin’s skull and end the war for Honoria before it had even properly begun.
Bursting upwards with the speed and agility of something a fraction of its size, the warboss launched its head like a guided missile towards the Chaplain’s skull helm. The spikes on top of its head penetrated Puriel’s visage, opening a crack through the centre of the mask through which blood seeped. He rocked backwards but kept his footing, weakly raising his crozius in defence. A massive green hand batted the mace away, forcing Puriel to swing wildly with his power fist. The warboss caught the Dark Angel’s arm at the wrist, locking it in place as it grinned manically from behind its blood-drenched and battered artificial jaw.
Then it ripped the Chaplain’s arm off.
The sound of a hundred pairs of metallic feet running down stone steps heralded the first fusillade from the skitarii rangers’ galvanic rifles. Marching in lockstep, the front rank of black-clad man-machines dropped to augmetic knees, took aim and fired in a single fluid motion. Every shot found its mark but barely half were fatal, hitting meaty ork shoulders or thighs instead, the electrical field emitted on impact merely slowing them down rather than killing the beasts. As the second wave of rangers took the place of the first in perfect unison, the noosphere was already alive with revised firing solutions and aiming corrections. By the time the third rank took to its knees, the data had been finessed to the point where every round felled its greenskin target.
At the top of the stai
rway, Serpicus coordinated the assault, his own weapon and those of his combat servitors raining down death from above. With each second that passed, scores of orks crashed lifeless to the cold stone of the steps, their fellow xenos climbing over the corpses without a second thought. The intervention of the Mechanicus elite had made a difference, but it was not enough. Based on the data being fed to him by the skitarii, and his own calculations, the tide of greenskins would engulf Arch Magos Diezen long before he could deactivate the turret. There were thousands of orks already crammed inside the tower and many more flowing in through the rent in its base. If he could somehow prevent the greenskins’ reinforcements from getting in, then the rangers might stand a chance of eliminating all those already within the walls of the tower.
Serpicus ran through all the likely scenarios, then ran them again. Drawing a blank both times, he ran all the unlikely scenarios too. One in particular had a quarter of a per cent greater chance of succeeding than any of the other possibilities, but even then the odds of pulling it off were less than two in a hundred. Not great, but better than any of the alternatives.
Relinquishing direct control of his servitors to allow them to operate autonomously, Serpicus leapt from the top of the stairs, out into a void that terminated eighty metres below.
Chapter Twelve
The warboss raised Puriel’s power fist above its head, holding it aloft as a trophy. The assembled throng cheered, calling for more of the Chaplain’s blood.
Though gravely wounded, Puriel was not finished yet, using his one remaining arm to crawl across the pile of greenskin bodies and retrieve his crozius. He had just got a single finger on the hilt of the weapon when the ork general brought the power fist crashing down, shattering Puriel’s other arm at the wrist.
It did not end there.
The warboss brought the fist down hard again, a mighty blow smashing open the Dark Angel’s backpack and tearing it away from his armour. Then again, and again, and again, until the ceramite beneath cracked open, exposing Puriel’s vulnerable back. Slamming the power fist down one last time, the ork broke the Chaplain’s spine with a sickening crunch, before tossing the weapon aside to be fought over by its exuberant troops.
We have to do something,+ Turmiel sent. The young Lexicanium was not prone to displays of emotion, but Ezekiel could feel the rage in the psychic communiqué.
He’s already dead, brother, Rephial replied. He was dead the moment he allowed the ork to goad him on.
But we can’t just leave him here for the orks to defile,+ Turmiel pleaded.
As if in response, the warboss knelt down before Puriel’s still twitching corpse and tore the Chaplain’s cracked skull mask from his helmet before attaching it to its belt alongside a host of other trophies looted from vanquished foes. With its undamaged arm, the warboss lifted the Dark Angel from the ground and tossed him like a piece of scrap meat into the baying mob. The greenskins’ uncommon restraint finally found its limit as they surged forwards in the hope of claiming their own spoils of war.
Ezekiel! Rephial thought urgently.
Already alert to the danger, Ezekiel hastily threw a psychic dome over the four surviving Dark Angels, Turmiel lending his aetheric strength to the effort once he realised what the senior Librarian was doing. The shield crackled with the raw stuff of the warp as the onrushing orks collided violently against it.
In their rage and frustration, the xenos tried to break it down with knives and axes, only to have them flung from their grasp as corporeal metal met incorporeal energy. When that didn’t work, many of them took to opening fire on the shimmering wall, the shots deflecting back with interest, killing either the firer or those standing nearby. Undeterred, the horde continued to unleash salvo after futile salvo until a primal bellow cowed them into submission.
Falling silent, the greenskins parted, clearing a path to where the two Librarians strained to maintain the shield and Rephial fought desperately to keep Zadakiel alive. The warboss strode brazenly through the gap until it was only a few centimetres away from the Dark Angels, the shimmering field of psychic energy the only thing preventing it from tearing them apart, as it had Puriel.
Twenty metres from the end of his suicidal plummet, Serpicus dropped the pair of grenades he had primed towards the hole blasted in the wall by the looted Land Raider. As they spun away to the floor below he reached out with his servo-arm, extending it to its full length and clasping the edge of the spiral stairway with the powerful gripper attached to its end. Manipulating the artificial limb with synaptic impulses as easily as he would a real arm, Serpicus used it to reverse his motion, flipping himself upwards and over towards the stairs. Landing among the surprised mob, he arrived just in time to use the xenos as a meat shield against the ensuing grenade blasts.
The entire tower rocked as the simultaneous detonations threw heat, energy and noise up through the enclosed space. Those greenskins unfortunate enough to be at the outer edge of the corkscrew staircase fell to their deaths as they lost their footing or were shoved aside by their panicking kin. Thick smoke, heavy with the stench of burning ork, rose upwards, blinding those closest to the base and causing yet more to disappear over the brink.
In the ensuing chaos, Serpicus slew dozens of the stunned xenos, tossing them down below to further augment the dam of bodies he had created with his audacious gambit. Adjusting the filters on his augmetic eyes, he peered through the smoke to assess how effective his efforts had been. He grimaced as he witnessed a trickle of greenskins clambering over corpses to enter the tower through the gap that remained at the very top of the breached wall. That grimace soon became a wry smile as he noticed that as an unexpected bonus, his grenades had destroyed the ten metre section of the stairway at the bottom of the tower, making ascent from the base nigh on impossible.
Confident that he would not have to concern himself with an attack from behind, Serpicus set about assaulting the orks’ rear, his bolter accounting for dozens more before they had regained their wits enough to muster a counter-attack. He ploughed through them, those he didn’t toss from the stairway shot in the head at point-blank range or smashed in the face with the butt of his bolter.
Higher up, the first of the greenskins had engaged the skitarii in melee combat and were forcing the Mechanicus troops onto the back foot. Though the orks had the advantage over the rangers in close quarters, the battle had never been about winning: all that mattered was holding off the invaders long enough for the turret to be deactivated. The skitarii were not fighting to secure victory, or even preserve their own existence, merely to prolong the fighting in the tower to give their master every opportunity to complete his task.
For every two metres Serpicus gained, the skitarii lost one, those not driven back up the steps torn apart or thrown off the edge. The ork numbers were dwindling, but the chron read-out on Serpicus’ retinal display revealed the stark truth of the matter: at the rate the skitarii were dying, they weren’t going to buy Diezen enough time.
Serpicus renewed his efforts, practically sprinting up the steps as he tore through the mob, but his exertions came to naught. With at least fifty orks still left alive the last of the rangers fell, leaving only the servitors to protect the arch magos. Heavy bolters blazed away but even their combined rate of fire was nowhere near enough, the orks slamming into them like a battering ram and crushing them underfoot.
With no other options open to him, Serpicus enacted the final part of his plan. Offering up a brief prayer to the Omnissiah and seeking the blessing of the Lion, he reassumed direct control of one of the dying servitors and activated its self-destruct mechanism.
The warboss paced around the perimeter of the coruscating shield, its yellow eyes locked on Ezekiel, as if sizing up its next opponent. Blood poured from where Puriel had snapped the beast’s arm and oozed from its artificial jaw, but it paid its wounds no heed.
I’m losing him, Rephial sent, frantically tryin
g to staunch Zadakiel’s bleeding. We cannot tarry here any longer.
Ezekiel turned away from the ork general, glancing down at the rapidly fading company master to see the extent of the wounds for himself. The warboss’ two massive fists pounding at the shield pulled his attention back.
The ork smashed against the psychic dome again, irritated that the Librarian had dared to turn away from it, this time with such force that Ezekiel could feel the shield buckle slightly. This ork was unlike any he had encountered before, not only displaying cunning and tactical acumen far in excess of the norm for its species, but also physical strength, to the extreme that it threatened to break through an aetheric wall with its bare hands.
Ezekiel reached out with his mind. None of the Dark Angels could hope to match the warboss in singe combat, but if he could lash out at it psychically, destroy it from the inside like he had so many of the orks lying dead around him, the war could be over before it began in earnest, as both Puriel and Zadakiel had posited.
The psychic mine detonation that followed rocked Ezekiel physically. His knees buckled, threatening to drop him to the ground, and blood seeped from his nostrils and eyes. The shield wavered as his mind recoiled from the blast, but he composed himself just in time to reinforce the dome as the ork’s balled-up fists smashed against it once more. But the biggest surprise was yet to come. The warboss spoke to Ezekiel, in broken, basic Low Gothic.
‘Weirdboyz fix Groblonik good,’ he said with a bass chuckle.
The ork horde cheered, whether out of understanding of the actual words or in admiration of their leader speaking the Space Marine’s tongue, Ezekiel was unsure.
‘Groblonik fix you good, witch-mind. Now, Groblonik kill you.’
This further incited the mob. Many of them bayed and howled, smashing their weapons together to generate an almost rhythmic sound.
In his weakened state, Ezekiel knew that if the orks swarmed the dome then it would surely collapse. He only had moments to act.