The Eye of Ezekiel

by C Z Dunn

  Ezekiel’s elation was short-lived.

  Further back along the ork column, one of the vehicles began to exude dark clouds of oily smoke, its engine straining as it rammed the transport in front of it. Shoved violently forwards, the second vehicle too revved its motor, its huge dozer blade slamming against the rear of the truck in front, driving it forwards.

  That was when Ezekiel figured out what the orks were up to, not just in the short term but also what the long game they had been playing involved. Why the orks had seemingly been testing the Imperial defences, why they had been slaughtering their own kind…The orks were utilising the motive power of dozens of vehicles, locking them together like a train and using their combined force to shove the stricken vehicle at the head of the convoy through the doorway and out of their path. Their plan was working. The lead transport was moving slowly, gouging grooves into the rockcrete floor as its wrecked undercarriage ground forwards. Ezekiel’s improvised back-up plan had failed, but that was not his greatest concern. The act of removing the blockade was merely a complication; how the orks were removing it was the real threat.

  Built higher and wider than the transports’ gargantuan hulls, the enormous dozer blades, though effective at the task, were not designed for pushing other vehicles. Neither were they constructed with the intent to clear the prodigious amounts of snow that covered the surface of the planet. These modifications, crudely assembled from whatever spare bits of metal the orks could lay their hands on, were intended to plough the dead, to build ramps from the fallen, allowing the xenos to storm the high walls of Aurelianum.

  Down below, the rear end of the damaged transport disappeared from view, pushed out of the path of the convoy, which began to follow it out into the freezing dawn. Glancing upwards to confirm that the two surviving Mordians had reached safety, Ezekiel dropped the psychic shield that had been protecting them, before relinquishing his grip on the gantry and freefalling at speed towards the vehicles below.

  Chapter Sixteen

  After the bloom of the first blast rose up over the forge, Serpicus had taken the explosives from Mute, modified them, then handed them back with orders to plant them in a very specific position along the side of one of the production lines. Ladbon and the rest of the squad hunkered down in cover, alert for any sign of greenskin patrols. The Techmarine, despite his bulk and crimson armour, bled into the shadows, less visible than any of the filth-caked Vostroyans.

  Yet more columns of flame shot towards the high ceiling from points both near and far within the forge as the other squads completed their missions as best they could, yet still Serpicus refrained from activating the detonator.

  ‘What is he waiting for?’ hissed Allix in Ladbon’s ear.

  Ladbon looked as if he was about to reply when his features suddenly locked, trance-like. Seconds later, he snapped out of it.

  ‘Hold your fire until the last possible moment,’ he said, projecting his voice so that all of his spread-out squad could hear him.

  ‘Hold your fire until the last possible moment,’ Serpicus called out to them, still clinging to the darkness.

  The Vostroyans all turned to look at their captain, who merely shrugged and grinned. Ladbon’s uncanny knack for knowing what was about to happen had saved their skins many times over since they had been deployed to Honoria, and while none of them had come to rely upon his ‘luck’, neither were they prepared to question its source.

  Up ahead, distorted by heat haze thrown off by the furnaces, dozens of green figures emerged, many of them the diminutive labourers that operated the machinery, armed only with wrenches and hammers. They were flanked by a handful of larger specimens carrying crude large-bore projectile weapons. Instinctively, the Vostroyan’s raised their lasrifles but, remembering the orders of both Ladbon and the Dark Angel, they did not fire.

  ‘Wait for it… Wait for it…’ Ladbon muttered as the greenskins advanced ever closer. As they stalked past where the explosives were placed, Ladbon and Serpicus shouted out in unison.

  ‘Now!’

  The Vostroyans all crouched lower, throwing their arms over their heads as the detonation ripped through the machine, shards of metal, bone and flesh raining down upon them. Through the smoke and flame they could make out the still-moving forms of the wounded, their las-fire adding to the punishing barrage already being laid down by the Techmarine, who had not bothered taking cover.

  Satisfied that all of the greenskins were dead, Serpicus, aware that the Vostroyan’s hearing was likely still affected by the close proximity of the blast, gestured for them to head back the way they had come. He took the lead, leaving Ladbon and his squad to fall in behind him. Kas took the rear of the formation, glancing back over his shoulder at the wreckage strewn wide across the floor of the forge, forming a perfect barricade to prevent any more xenos advancing from that direction. Mute tapped Kas on the elbow, relaying something to him in sign language once he had the big man’s attention.

  ‘Clever bastard,’ Kas said, nodding in appreciation.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Gaspar said, slightly breathlessly as he ran alongside the heavy bolter team.

  ‘The Space Marine. He shaped the charges. He didn’t just blow the machine up, he blew it out.’

  Up ahead, Serpicus halted, raising a hand to the side of his helmet as if listening to an incoming message. ‘Acknowledged,’ he said before turning to the Vostroyans. ‘We’re retreating. If we get split up, rendezvous at the extraction point. The transports will be leaving in precisely ten minutes and if you’re not on one, this place becomes your grave.’ He set off again at pace.

  ‘He may be a clever bastard,’ Gaspar said, ‘but he’s a miserable one with it.’

  Fingers jammed tight into the handholds he had made atop the hull of the lead transport, Ezekiel finished sending his message to the Dark Angels left behind at the Annantine Gate before refocusing and sending a warning ahead to Aurelianum. The sun was just breaking over the horizon but it was still bitterly cold, the icy winds blowing over his prone form, freezing his robes to his armour. Attuning himself once again to the aether, the Librarian reached out to contact Balthasar.

  Brother Balthasar, grave tidings.+

  Before any response came, Ezekiel could feel the feedback of revulsion, of a mind that felt violated. The mission did not go well, I take it?

  The mission was only a partial success. We have neutralised the forges but were unable to prevent the vehicles the orks had already built from leaving the facility.+

  How many? And what are we dealing with here? Tanks? Siege engines? Balthasar thought, the subtext of blame glowing bright around the words as they formed in Ezekiel’s psyche.

  About a thousand, and they are transport vehicles modified with enlarged dozer blades to the fore.+

  Transports…? They intend to plough the dead and use them to scale the walls. Ezekiel could sense the exact moment that the acting company master came to his realisation.

  That was my summation too, first sergeant. I’ve already ordered airstrikes. The Astra Militarum transports and Thunderhawks are going to hit the convoy on its way to the Annantine Gate and again on the way back.+

  And the turrets here can deal with the rest.

  That was my thinking too. Please appraise Arch Magos Diezen and assist him in any way possible.+

  Affirmative, Balthasar replied, then, after a pause, May the Emperor and the Lion watch over you, Brother Librarian. Though the words sounded awkward and forced in Ezekiel’s head, he could sense an aura of sincerity around them.

  And you, brother,+ Ezekiel replied before cutting the psychic link. He was contemplating his next move when he became aware of the sound of aircraft engines in the distance. They did not sound like either Valkyries or Thunderhawks and were approaching from the wrong direction.

  When Ezekiel raised his head from the hull and turned to look back over his shoulder, the da
wn sky had turned dark with the shapes of ork flyers.

  ‘Arch Magos Diezen, I have news of the mission from the Annantine Gate,’ Balthasar said, approaching the tech-priest, who was fiddling with a missile launcher emplaced upon the gate wall.

  ‘Yes, yes. They managed to destroy the blessed forges of the Omnissiah but not the ork-fouled creations they birthed,’ Diezen said, his tone taking on a dark aspect Balthasar had not heard before from the arch magos’ machine-mouth as he uttered the last part of the sentence. ‘110110001 has been feeding me constant updates.’

  ‘They are going to use the transports to plough the dead,’ Balthasar said. ‘They intend to build an edifice of corpses to scale the fortress walls.’

  Diezen looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Logical,’ he said after a few moments. ‘Unorthodox, but logical. And how do you intend to defend against the greenskin assault, Dark Angel?’

  Diezen never got his answer. Balthasar flinched, Ezekiel’s hurried psychic warning about the incoming flyers hitting him like a physical blow as the drone of thousands of engines could suddenly be heard on the icy breeze. The pale light of dawn faded to black as the shadows of the ork aircraft filled the horizon. All around the high walls of Aurelianum turrets jerked into action, multiple weapons tracking myriad targets, missiles and super-charged las-fire blasting ork craft from the sky the instant they flew into range.

  The arch magos observed the action clinically, his augmetic eyes rapidly flitting from the turrets to the onrushing enemy and back again. ‘It’s not going to be enough,’ he murmured.

  Balthasar, calling out orders to Astra Militarum heavy weapons teams to train their guns on the skies, heard him perfectly. ‘What isn’t going to be enough?’

  ‘Us. All of this.’ Diezen gestured with his hands and mechadendrites to the assembled Imperial Guardsmen and the rapidly firing turrets overhead. A dozen missiles launched simultaneously from a cupola mounted on the closest weapons battery, each one finding its mark and downing an ork flyer, a ripple of explosions blooming skywards in the distance as they crashed to the ground. Even with the turrets’ rapacious rate of fire there were so many xenos aircraft in the sky, it barely made a difference.

  Now in range with their own weapons systems, the ork flyers unleashed a barrage of rockets, streaks of orange fire glowing brightly in the gloom of dawn. Reacting to the new threat, the turrets switched seamlessly from offensive to defensive operations, missiles now targeting missiles and bursts of chaff deployed to prematurely detonate any ordnance that evaded the Imperial weapons. The first volley was neutralised entirely. The second was not.

  Missing a cloud of chaff by the narrowest of margins, a trio of missiles made it as far as the Sularian Gate. The first fell short and slammed almost harmlessly into the wall thirty metres from the ground. The second struck the battlements, a Mordian missile launcher team wiped out in the blink of an eye, dozens more Guardsmen blinded and wounded from the blast. But it was the third missile that caused the real damage.

  For a moment, Balthasar and Diezen thought it was a dud as it struck the missile cupola but pierced it without detonating. For the next few seconds, the pod rotated experimentally, as if the weapons system was running self-diagnostics before rearming the cupola with fresh missiles. That was when the ork rocket finally decided to detonate.

  Instinctively, Balthasar, Diezen and all Astra Militarum personnel within the blast radius threw their arms across their faces, as white-hot metal and shrapnel rained down upon them. The thunder of the blast was followed by the sound of metal grinding on metal, the barely operational turret struggling valiantly to bring its few working weapons to bear and continue with its programmed task.

  Whether out of bravery, foolishness, intellect or opportunity, a wing of almost twenty orks broke off from the bulk of the pack, their red-liveried flyers seemingly faster than similar patterned aircraft of other colours. Barrel rolling and weaving through the anti-aircraft fire, only six were taken out by the few working lascannons on the ailing turret. When the surviving orks unleashed their missiles, all of them found their targets, an entire section of battlement collapsing less than a hundred metres from Balthasar and Diezen’s position.

  ‘Concentrate all fire on those flyers!’ the Dark Angel yelled, running to scale the wreckage beside the turret in an effort to find a better firing position. On the periphery of his enhanced hearing and vision, he could just make out the first of the modified ork transports heading towards the capital. Not allowing himself to be distracted, he scaled the twisted metal and masonry, took aim at the lead ork flyer and let off a short burst of bolter fire, shredding both the cockpit and the pilot within. As the aircraft spun uncontrollably to the ground, Balthasar adjusted his aim, this time destroying a wing-mounted engine, dropping the plane out of the sky. More explosions blossomed in the half-light, and Balthasar glanced down below to see that a cadre of skitarii had emerged as if from nowhere, directed by Diezen. Their precision targeting of the flyers’ fuel tanks was reaping dividends but, as the arch magos had already stated, it wasn’t enough.

  With no chaff or defensive fire to protect it, the surviving breakaway orks targeted the turret, several missiles finding their mark and disabling all but a lone lascannon. The force of the blast dislodged Balthasar, who managed to let off one last killshot before his impromptu sniper’s perch gave way beneath him. He dropped to the battlements, where he landed in a roll, bringing himself back upright and spraying the oncoming flyers with bolter fire. Defiantly, the last functioning lascannon accounted for another pair of ork craft and winged a third before its machine-spirit finally fled, the barrel hanging limply as gears and motors failed to find purchase. The damaged ork aircraft, black smoke pouring from a burning engine, released its last two rockets, unaware that they had succeeded in disabling the turret. Balthasar took one down, a well-placed shot detonating it in mid-air, but the combined fire of the skitarii and Guardsmen could not account for the other, which fortunately failed to find its mark, overshooting the turret and the gate, and exploding harmlessly over the inner walls.

  Within range of its guns, the ork flyer opened up, raking the battlements with solid shot, forcing the Mechanicus and Imperial forces to find cover. Balthasar stood alone, rounds ricocheting from his ceramite armour as he unloaded his last bolter shells into the oncoming aircraft. His final shot was on target, the flyer by now close enough for Balthasar to see the mass-reactive shell crack the glass of the cockpit and embed itself between the pilot’s eyes. Too stupid to know when it was dead, the ork ploughed onwards, riding through the hail of las-fire and barrelling inexorably towards the dormant turret.

  The last thing Balthasar heard before the flyer struck, burying him under tons of masonry and metal, was his vox filling with the voices of his brothers in the Fifth Company, each reporting that the gates of Aurelianum were falling.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ezekiel threw himself clear of the speeding ork transport as the second grenade clattered down through the access hatch he had torn open and into the darkness below. His landing was cushioned by the soft snow, and he quickly threw up a psychic shield as he rose to his feet, twin detonations igniting fuel lines that fed back into the vehicle’s enormous promethium tanks, reducing it to nothing more than a blazing shell. In its wake lay three identical wrecks, earlier results of the Librarian’s handiwork, but despite his best efforts it was like countering a hurricane by pelting it with pebbles; hundreds of the modified transports still sped through the snowy wastes towards the looming edifice of Aurelianum, its battlements assailed by ork aircraft now able to strike the city unimpeded.

  Manoeuvring around the fiery ruin impeding its path, another transport drew alongside Ezekiel and he blinked out of existence, rematerialising a split second later atop its hull. Overhead, a formation of Thunderhawks and Valkyries ran a sortie over the ork convoy and the Dark Angel sent a brief psychic message to the pilots telling them to avoid
this particular vehicle. Each of the Imperial flyers dropped its payload, taking out two more of the gargantuan tracked vehicles before rising back into the brightening sky to engage the ork pilots attacking the capital.

  Crawling along the top of the transport, Ezekiel came to the access hatch he had been looking for and was just about to put his last two grenades to devastating use when the vehicle began to slow down, the full-throttle roar of its engines yielding to the sound of grinding metal. Rising to a crouch, Ezekiel looked ahead to see that the dozer blades were lowering into position as the lead vehicles of the convoy reached the perimeter of the trench system. A huge cheer rose from the throng of greenskins encircling the city, many of them running towards the rapidly rising mounds of corpses, determined to ride the wave of the dead and be the first to reach the battlements. Intellect not being high among the attributes of the fiercest ork warriors, most of them found themselves joining the ranks of the deceased as they were swallowed up by the ever-rising surge of bodies.

  Ezekiel resigned himself to the inevitable. At best, he could take out this transport and possibly two more before they reached the city walls, but that would barely hinder the ork plan; the hundreds of still-functioning vehicles would construct the ramps needed to scale the fortress, allowing the orks unfettered access. Better to slow down the impending assault and give the forces on the walls more time to prepare their defence.

  Taking up position at the front of the hull, Ezekiel drew his bolt pistol and began to pick off greenskins one by one.

  Just as Serpicus had promised, the Imperial transports took off precisely ten minutes after he had ordered the Vostroyans to retreat. Their path back was relatively trouble-free, scores of dead orks littering the route thanks to the surly Techmarine having cleared the way. Not all of the Vostroyans were so fortunate, however, and of those who had travelled to the Annantine Gate, less than half made the return journey. For the most part Ladbon’s squad sat in silence, the occasional burst of fire from Kas operating the door-mounted heavy bolter jarringly loud. In the weeks since they had deployed to Honoria, they had known that the ork assault was inevitable but even armed with that foreknowledge, the reality was no less frightening.