Paazur fell to his knees. One ork jammed the chainaxe into his gorget, grinding through until Paazur’s head hung down his left shoulder. The other greenskin, unwilling to be left out of the kill, slammed its claw against his back. Its aim was off and it burst the flamer tanks. Howling, coated in liquid fire, the orks jumped from the battlewagon, spreading flame in the horde below.
The tide rose up both sides of the choke point. Two more tanks were coming up behind. The Raven Guard had created a dam, but Behrasi knew it was about to burst. How long had they held the orks back?
The battle had lasted a few minutes. It was almost over.
The squad regrouped. The Space Marines formed a line across the road. They walked backwards, away from the wreck of the battlewagon, and poured bolter shells into the horde. They killed orks by the score. Orks by the hundreds replaced them. The retaliatory fire became more organised, more concentrated, more lethal.
‘Brothers,’ Behrasi voxed to the company, ‘I hope you are close. We have held the enemy back for as long as we can.’
‘We are almost with you,’ Sergeant Klijuun responded.
‘I see them,’ Gheara said.
Behrasi risked a glance backwards. He saw the streaks of seven more assault squads closing in.
In the same moment that he saw the hope of reinforcements, he heard the train. Heavy, thudding, sending the vibrations of its might spreading through the ground for thousands of metres in all directions, the orkish madness for speed and strength given material form appeared in the east.
Too soon, Behrasi thought. Too fast.
The train’s horn blasted across the land. Violence itself had a voice, and it rejoiced.
Chapter Five
The autarch and Alathannas arrived in the field just outside the Raven Guard encampment within minutes of Krevaan’s return. The two eldar rode their jetbikes to within a few metres of where the Thunderhawk Claw of Deliverance was preparing for lift-off. Krevaan was aboard with his squad. He ordered the pilot, Radost, to wait. He pulled open the side door, jumped to the ground, and strode over to the two xenos.
‘You know of the land train,’ Alathannas said.
‘It destroyed ten of my warriors.’
‘And many of ours. Autarch Eleira believes our strategies should be closely coordinated. We cannot confront the orks in a direct contest.’
Admitting the orks’ numerical and armour superiority to anyone other than his battle-brothers went against Krevaan’s every instinct of honour and pride. Denying the truth of the assessment, however, would be madness. There was no time for grandstanding. And he had never had patience for commanders unwilling to face reality. ‘I agree,’ he said, looking directly at Eleira.
She acknowledged him with a formal nod.
Alathannas began, ‘If the land train joins the main army…’
‘We are aware of the danger,’ Krevaan interrupted. ‘We are fighting to keep them apart.’
Eleira said something to the ranger. Alathannas translated, ‘With respect, force may not be sufficient.’
That, too, was true. ‘What alternative do you propose?’
‘We must make the orks choose to take separate paths.’
‘I approve of the goal. You would need to offer them something very tempting for that to work.’
‘The autarch proposes that we offer ourselves. All the eldar on this planet will ride before the army, drawing it off before the land train arrives.’
Krevaan was impressed by the daring and the selflessness of the move. The sacrifice the eldar were willing to offer was great.
It was one that would make no sense if there wasn’t something more important to the eldar than any of their lives on this planet. In the city.
For Krevaan, the conversation took on the aspect of a duel. He and the eldar were using verbal camouflage as they sought to outflank each other. Every word spoken was true, and every word spoken was beside the point. The eldar needed the orks destroyed so they could find their true target. Krevaan had come to rid the planet of the orks, but to the larger game of luring the Overfiend to the system was added the necessity of uncovering the eldar game.
‘Your plan does you great honour,’ Krevaan said. And he too, was speaking the truth, even while he thought how profoundly he distrusted the eldar motives for undertaking this action. ‘Should you succeed, have you considered how to survive that pursuit?’
‘Speed has always been our weapon. If the orks look to our annihilation, rather than to besiege the city, we will have greater scope for action,’ Alathannas said.
Krevaan visualised the territory. ‘There are gullies to the east,’ he said. ‘If they follow you there, their mobility will be compromised.’
Alathannas translated for the autarch. She inclined her head again. The ranger said, ‘We thank you for the information. You will mount an assault on the train?’
‘Yes. It will not reach the city.’
‘Then we wish you victory.’
The sentiment sounded heartfelt. It was difficult to read what move in the duel it concealed. Krevaan wondered if the ranger had his leader’s full confidence. Having him speak made Eleira’s strategy even harder to divine, especially if Alathannas believed what he was saying. Yet the autarch was not wearing her helmet. She was looking at Krevaan with a clear gaze, and an expression that spoke of the respect of one veteran warrior for another. She spoke now, her Gothic laboured but correct. ‘Your alliance is an honour,’ she said.
‘As is yours,’ Krevaan said. He had expected to grind his teeth. Instead, the words came easily. They were true without qualification, without subterfuge. The skill of the Saim-Hann was ferocious. Krevaan knew this from having fought them in the past. As formidable as these xenos warriors were, they were as badly overmatched as they had been the night before. The orks were stronger, more numerous and better equipped than either eldar or Space Marines had expected. What Eleira planned verged on martyrdom.
The eldar departed, bikes streaking over the morning field of a paradise tipped into war. Krevaan returned to the Claw of Deliverance. As the gunship took off, he looked out of a viewing block. He followed the track of the two warriors as they joined the larger stream of skimmers. They flowed out of Reclamation to hook up with the patrols that would now be converging on the orks. Krevaan appreciated the art that he saw. He understood the elegance of the perfectly executed attack. Whether it came from the shadows or the wind, the enemy did not see the blow coming until it was too late.
Just as the eldar would not see his blade until it was deep in their flesh.
He thought about the melta bombs planted on the skimmers, awaiting his will. He looked across the troop compartment at Thaene. The Techmarine’s face was expressionless. Much of his flesh had given way to machinic replacement. His eyes were black crystal lenses. His lips were a grille that was a mirror of his helmet’s. The larynx through which he spoke delivered his words in a flat monotone. The cock of his head was expressive, though. He can see my doubts, Krevaan thought.
‘What do the eldar intend?’ Thaene asked.
‘To fight a heroic, and perhaps doomed, battle.’
‘Their plan is much like ours, then.’
Was Thaene capable of humour? That was a mystery Krevaan had tried and failed to pierce several times in the past. He decided to take the words at face value. ‘Quite,’ he said. They had no real intelligence on the land train beyond Caeligus’s aborted vox transmission. But the obliteration of the squad told an important story. All ten of the Raven Guard gone in seconds. The rest of Eighth Company would be up against a weapon that was the equal, at least, of the entire greenskin army.
Thaene was still watching him. ‘A question, Shadow Captain?’
‘Go ahead, brother.’
‘Do you believe we were in error in our judgement of the eldar?’
Having his doubts
spoken aloud gave them added force. ‘We were wise to prepare for the worst eventuality,’ he said, knowing that that was not what Thaene had asked. The Techmarine said nothing in response. He remained motionless, impassive, while Krevaan examined his own reasoning.
He did not trust the eldar. No human should. And after the orks were crushed, the eldar would have to leave Lepidus, or be exterminated in turn. These facts were givens. There could be no tolerance of xenos presence on an Imperial world. Krevaan, though, had acted on a presumption of hostilities.
Why did you plant the bombs?
Because eldar have a deeper agenda.
One that you know to be inimical to Imperium?
If it is for xenos ends, it is inimical.
That truth wasn’t enough. It was a principle so universal, it might as well have been background radiation. It did not speak to his personal decision.
Krevaan looked deeper. It was his responsibility as captain to know the source of his commands. That was intelligence at least as vital as understanding the enemy. He found himself turning to his experiences in the Deathwatch. Mission after mission, decade after decade of xenos extermination. The reflex to plan the violent end of the eldar on Lepidus was as natural as breathing.
And what of honour?
That mattered too.
What if the eldar are truly acting in good faith?
Doubts on that side too. But the possibility was there. He could not deny the reality of what they were attempting in the battlefield.
He looked up at Thaene. ‘Brother Techmarine,’ he said, ‘you asked, earlier, if there was any chance we would not use the bombs.’
‘You have decided that there is, Shadow Captain?’
Krevaan nodded. ‘We will give the eldar the opportunity to prove themselves. If they act honourably, they will be allowed to depart the planet without harm.’
Thaene looked out through the viewing block on his side of the compartment. ‘I can see the greenskins,’ he said. ‘Their force is colossal. They may not grant the eldar the chance that you offer.’
‘It would,’ Krevaan said, ‘be in our best interests that they do.’
Radost’s voice sounded from the vox-speakers. ‘Land train in sight.’
Krevaan rose, opened the forward door, and climbed the ladder into the cockpit. He looked ahead. He saw the train. It was the antithesis of the Raven Guard way of war. It was monstrous. It was snake and mountain chain. It was machinery that had become the brutality of strength itself.
The train rumbled across the plain, gouging a long wound over the landscape. Its current position was just to the south of the higher, rockier, gully-riven terrain. A few kilometres to the north-west, the ork army fought the squads of Eighth Company. The formation of eldar skimmers was moments away from joining the fight.
‘All squads,’ Krevaan voxed, ‘leave the orks to the eldar. Converge on the train.’
‘What do you suppose will kill that thing?’ Radost asked.
‘The same things that will kill anything else,’ Krevaan said. ‘Shadows and knowledge, brother. Shadows and knowledge.’
The Space Marines left the field as the Saim-Hann closed in. Their jump packs took them away in steep climbs. Alathannas saw what looked like a flight of black, iron birds shooting upwards. They were harsh silhouettes, fire and darkness cutting wounds against the sky. The humans lacked grace in their methods of combat, he thought. But there was a cold, merciless precision at work. To be dismissive of it would be to fall to it.
The orks were convinced of the Raven Guard threat. The army was having to advance through hundreds of its dead. Two- and four-wheeled vehicles smouldered, almost all of them killed in the middle of the road, where they would most hamper the orks’ forward march. The horde had spilled up the slopes on either side of the road, and more of them had died there. The Raven Guard’s kills had eaten into the coherence of the ork army. It still advanced, but more slowly. Eddies of confusion slowed it down. The orks were striking out in all directions, and were unable to find a concentrated foe. Instead, they had been struck again and again by single warriors and small hit teams.
The orks had drawn their own blood. Alathannas saw, scattered over the hills and on the road, the giant bodies of the Space Marines. Their armour had been shattered by massive projectiles and repeated explosive attacks. Orks were still raining blows on the corpses. The green tide bellowed in triumph as its foe departed, and raged in frustration that its prey was slipping from its grasp. The orks sent a storm of ordnance into the skies. As if governed by a single thought, they all turned their eyes upwards. They were so intent on bringing down the giant humans that they paid no attention to the ground.
They don’t see us, Alathannas thought. He rode just behind the autarch. Behind his helmet, he grinned for the first time in days.
The Saim-Hann slashed into the orks’ front lines. Eleira led them in a narrow wedge. The jetbikes’ catapults launched their monomolecular discs into the horde. The shuriken sliced through muscle and bone, dismembered and disembowelled. They blinded, and they opened throats, and they even cut through weapons. Some orks found their prize possessions coming apart in their hands. Others tried to fire the damaged gear, and lost hands or lives as the guns blew up. The jetbikes carved their way through the orks until Eleira signalled a turn and led the squadron out of their midst towards the south. She hesitated briefly at the first gully.
Alathannas looked back. The orks had given up on the Raven Guard. They were now sending all their wrath towards the eldar. Their fire was indiscriminate, inaccurate and plentiful. Rounds chewed up the nearby ground. One hit the cowling of his jetbike. The orks did not pursue. Though distracted, they were still moving down the road, towards the junction that would take them to the city.
And the boon that would make them unstoppable.
Eleira turned to Passavan. ‘The strategy will work,’ the farseer said. ‘For good or ill.’
‘For both,’ Eleira shot back. Then she was riding again, leading them all again, a crimson spear aimed at the orkish heart.
They could not pierce that heart. Alathannas knew that. The body of the horde was too strong, too resilient in numbers. Even so, the satisfaction of retaliation was visceral. The retreat at the bridge had been a profound humiliation. Now the orks were learning the cost of that affront.
He was grinning again as the bikes hit the orks for a second time. The rush of speed was even greater inside the green tide. He was surrounded by fragmentary images of ork faces. They raged, they screamed, and they bled and died. He saw a blur of green, of clawed fists turning blades and guns his way. They were so slow, they appeared frozen.
The orks’ sluggishness was an illusion. A dangerous one. It encouraged recklessness. It bred disaster. Eleira knew this. She guided her warriors back out once more, before the orks could arrest their flight. But Alathannas still heard the crunch of a high-velocity impact, the singing wrench of disintegrating wraithbone. The cry of a rider who was not killed on the instant, and instead fell to the butchery of the orks.
A battlewagon pushed past the wreckage of one of its kin. It surged forwards, cannon and side guns blazing. A shell burned through the air over Alathannas’s head. It struck a jetbike three back from him. The explosion took out the skimmer, its rider, and the orks in immediate proximity. Earth, flesh and wreckage rained back down.
Bringing up the rear of the eldar formation was the sole remaining Vyper. Its gunner, Selandria, turned the bright lance against the tank. Its beam scorched the armour, shearing right through the thinner plating of the shutters. It cut the side gunners in half.
The cannon swung at the Vyper. Selandria trained the beam on the barrel of the gun. The battlewagon fired as the skimmer passed close. Warped by the lance, the cannon burst apart. Selandria staggered as shrapnel bit into her armour.
The battlewagon was bereft of weapons except
its very mass. The maniacal frustration of its driver was audible well beyond the tank itself. As the Vyper veered away from the tank, following the jetbikes, the battlewagon gave chase. It broke out of the greater mass of the army, and headed out across the plain after the eldar.
The other orks on vehicles did the same. Most of the bikes and buggies in the front half of the ork advance had been destroyed by the Raven Guard. But another wave had been riding escort to the rearward tanks, and its vehicles now roared free of the choke point. Blue and black smoke choked the air. The drivers pursued the Saim-Hann with total disregard of common sense. Rough terrain or smooth made little difference to the skimmers. The jetbikes flew above the uneven ground. The orks came at such speed that they caught up to the eldar. For a few orks, that was all that they did. Their bikes hit rock outcroppings. The drivers lost control. The vehicles went into violent rolls.
Still the bikes kept coming. The more stable buggies weren’t far behind. Sprays of bullets covered the eldar formation. They began to take their toll. Two more riders were killed. The last of the enemy force passed through the choke point, unleashing still more vehicles. The final two battlewagons joined in the hunt. So did the infantry.
The orks had taken the bait.
The Saim-Hann raced to the gullies. The formation broke up. A handful of bikes dropped down each slope. They spread out over the terrain. They were no longer a coherent force. Having enticed the orks, the eldar denied them a concentrated group of targets. The green tide had numbers enough to cover the entire area. The orks poured into the maze of narrow streams and high cliffs.
The duel began.
Chapter Six
The Claw of Deliverance went in for a strafing run along the length of the land train. The armoured beast grew before Krevaan’s gaze. The locomotive and four cars resembled a mechanical being with its own volition. It was gargoyle, snake and battering ram. The crude, leering face at the front was, he suspected, a product of whatever passed for worship for the greenskins. The behemoth was constructed in tribute to their false god, and it was so powerful that it approached the monstrous divine.
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