by Various
One by one, each of the battlesuits was caught in the storm’s talons, and began to twitch and shudder, as small explosions coursed through them. The lightning swept over them and pulsed out into their enemies beyond the walls, burning the drifts of snow to steam in its passing. The battlesuits, scorched black and gutted, had slumped, and were already being covered by the snow which had been stirred by Ambaghai’s wrath.
The Stormseer sank down the length of his staff, sweat dripping from his features. Kor’sarro sheathed his blade and caught Ambaghai as he slumped. ‘Easy, seer, summon your strength, for we have a hard ride ahead of us, and no time for rest.’ He propelled the Stormseer towards Thursk. ‘Catch him, cousin,’ Kor’sarro said. He turned towards the others. ‘What are you staring for? The wind calls us. To your bikes, brothers. Our enemy thinks us trapped. She thinks us beaten and broken on the anvil of her cunning. But you cannot hammer smoke, and you cannot trap the lightning.’ He flung out a hand. ‘To your bikes! We shall show our foe the true way of war, our way!’
Thus invigorated, the White Scars raced to their bikes. Thursk hesitated. Kor’sarro met his gaze. ‘You know how to ride?’
‘The White Scars are not the only Chapter who use bikes, my khan,’ the Dark Hunter said. ‘What of those who cannot ride?’ he asked.
Kor’sarro hesitated, his eagerness dimming. There were more white armoured bodies lying in the snow than he’d wanted to admit. Not all of them were dead. He was saved from having to reply by Godi. The battle-brother still carried his heavy bolter, despite the wound which marked him. A blast from one of the battlesuits had ripped one of the shoulder plates from his power armour, and torn the latter open, so that sharp protrusions of metal jutted from his blistered and burnt torso and arm. His breathing was ragged, and the difficulty he was having just speaking was obvious. ‘We die, Dark Hunter,’ Godi croaked. ‘Aye and gladly, for what good are we, if we cannot ride,’ he said. It wasn’t a question.
‘We will return,’ Kor’sarro said, laying a hand on Godi’s unwounded arm. ‘Dead or alive, I will come back for you, hunt-brother, with the full might of the Third Minghan at my back.’
‘As you say, my khan,’ Godi said. ‘Hopefully, it’ll be the latter. Your swiftness would be appreciated.’ He patted the heavy bolter. ‘I’m almost out of ammunition.’
Kor’sarro had meant what he said. He would come back, if only to collect the gene-seed of the fallen. Joking aside, Godi knew as well as he that the likelihood of survival for those staying behind was slim to none. Wounded, low on ammunition and too far behind enemy lines for easy extraction. They would be forgotten, until the war was won or lost.
Of the wounded, there were only a few who couldn’t ride, or otherwise had volunteered to stay behind. Godi and another hefted the heavy bolters, and the others who could walk were ready to cover their fellows. Those who couldn’t move were carried to the gaps in the wall, with as much ammunition as could be spared.
The bikes that had no riders were stripped and laid to rest as if they were dead warriors. It pained the White Scars to do so, for each was, if not a relic, then as much a brother of the ordu as their fellow Space Marines. But even as their ancestors had slaughtered horses which could not be ridden, so would they disable what they could not take with them. Nothing of the Chapter could fall into the hands of the enemy. That included the weapons they had stored in the bastion. As he mounted his bike, Kor’sarro clasped Godi’s hand. ‘You know what to do?’ he said.
‘If I live long enough, I’m to blow this cursed place off the ridge,’ Godi grunted. Blood ran freely down his armour, plopping onto the ground. ‘Deny the enemy our dead.’
Kor’sarro nodded shallowly. ‘Only if it becomes necessary,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry, my khan. Self-immolation isn’t high on my list of preferred activities, even in good cause,’ Godi rasped. ‘Besides, it’s entirely likely that they’ll kill us before we get the chance.’
Kor’sarro sat back as his steed growled beneath him. The bike had been still for too long. It yearned to ride, to hurtle forward. He didn’t look at Godi. ‘I’m sorry, brother,’ he said, softly. ‘I led you into death.’
Godi shrugged. ‘And so,’ he said. ‘At least it wasn’t boring.’
Kor’sarro nodded and smiled. ‘No, never that,’ he said. Then, with a shout, he gunned the bike’s engine. Wheels skidded and he shot forward, towards the largest gap in the wall. His riders fell in behind him, filling the air with noise. The bolters mounted on the chassis of each bike snarled a hymn of war as they followed him beyond the wall.
Only a few minutes had passed since Ambaghai had set the lightning on their enemy. The tau troops were unprepared for the sudden attack. Fire warriors tried to form up around the lightning-addled vehicles, and their impromptu phalanxes were shattered by the hurtling bikes. Kor’sarro didn’t even bother to draw his sword. He extended an arm as he raced past, catching a tau in the neck, and flipping the alien into the air. Godi had followed them out through the wall, and the roar of his heavy bolter, as well as the weapons of the others, followed them as they raced through the ring of xenos steel that had surrounded the bastion.
The ridge trail was blocked by one of the smooth-bodied transports. Kor’sarro urged his steed up and the bike’s wheels bit into the mottled plates of the vehicle as he rode up over it. His riders followed, shooting and shouting. He steadfastly resisted the urge to look back. ‘Onward,’ he roared, ‘for the glory of the ordu, and for the khan and the Khan-of-Khans!’
Chapter Five
A burst of gibberish erupted from the newcomer, but smoothed out into a stream of heavily accented Gothic. ‘Surrender, Khan Kor’sarro, and you shall be spared,’ the tau said. There was no trace of a sneer in the demand, which only made it worse.
Cemakar blinked. Then he laughed. Jebe looked at him. ‘It thinks you’re the khan, boy,’ Cemakar said, in Khorchin. A faint look of satisfaction passed fleetingly across the champion’s face. Then he spat a curse and tossed his blade from hand-to-hand.
‘It insults us,’ he said.
‘We probably all look alike to them,’ Cemakar said. He chuckled weakly. ‘He was right, though. Eagles pick his bones, he was right. She was here, waiting for him. She thought he’d make a break for it, once he realised it was a trap.’ Jebe stared at him, comprehension slowly dawning on his burnt features. Cemakar waved his hand. ‘Well go on boy, reply to her. Don’t let her realise she’s made a mistake, whatever you do. She wants the khan. Give her the khan.’
Jebe nodded sharply, his eye alight with understanding. In that moment, Cemakar was proud of him. Jebe was headstrong, and as dumb as hammer-addled auroch, but no one could fault his courage. He’d have walked backwards into the Eye of Terror if Kor’sarro had asked it of him.
Shadowsun repeated her question. ‘Captivity is not the same as mercy,’ Jebe said, barking out his reply in stilted Gothic.
The tau cocked her head, as if trying to parse his accent. Then she said, ‘If you do not surrender, your men will die.’
‘All men die,’ Jebe said.
‘Yes, but preferably somewhere else,’ Tolui muttered. Cemakar laughed, though it hurt him to do so. He pushed himself up and looked around. They were surrounded. ‘This song sounds familiar,’ Tolui said.
Cemakar nodded. ‘I’m growing tired of the tune myself,’ he said. Ever since they had left Agrellan Prime, it had been one trap after another. The khamar were too tricky by half. ‘On the whole, I’d rather be fighting orks. I – oh nine devils take him!’ he coughed as Jebe, provoked beyond all reason by Shadowsun’s insistence on surrender, had made his final thoughts on the matter known as, with a roar, he flung himself at her, his sword slicing towards her neck. ‘When I said give her the khan I didn’t mean attack.’
The white-armoured warrior moved with a sinuous grace that contrasted with the bulky battlesuit she wore. Jebe was hard-press
ed to keep up, and his blade bit only air as he attacked. The tau’s form flickered and blinked in and out of sight. He spun and whirled, trying to catch his opponent as she circled him. Every time his blade came close, one of the drones that accompanied her intercepted the blow.
Jebe snarled in fury as his sword rebounded off a drone’s shimmering shield for the fifth time in as many moments. As he readjusted, his opponent smashed into him from the side, staggering him. Cemakar winced. He glanced over and saw Tolui taking aim with his bolter. ‘Don’t even think it. It’s a waste of a shot and he won’t thank you. Keep your eyes on the others,’ he said. He levered himself up. ‘That goes for all of you. When they’ve had their fun, that’ll be the end of it, so you’d have best made your peace.’
Jebe whipped around, blade singing a deadly song. Shadowsun leapt straight up and skimmed back across the unsettled snows. She levelled the twin fusion blasters she carried and fired. Jebe flung himself aside. Even so, he only just managed to avoid the scalding blasts. He rolled through the snow, smoke rising from the patch of slagged ceramite on his side and hip. His power armour’s inner working was untouched, but the outer plates had been melted and warped. Cemakar knew that a single direct hit would end the other’s career as company champion, regardless of how tough he was.
Jebe recovered quickly enough, and shot forward. Shadowsun slid away, instinctively avoiding a slash that never came. Instead, Jebe stabbed at her. The point of his blade struck her armour again and again, carving deep ruts in the previously untouched surface. Shadowsun staggered with every blow, but she didn’t fall. Her fusion blasters slammed together, pinning Jebe’s blade between them. Shadowsun jerked him forward, and smashed an armoured boot into the champion’s midsection. Jebe staggered back, without his weapon.
Shadowsun tossed it aside. She took aim at him, and he tensed, ready to dive at her regardless. Then she raised her arm. One of the Riptides lunged forward and swatted Jebe to the ground with bone-rattling finality. Cemakar sighed. At least the khan wouldn’t have to suffer the ignominy of being captured. Maybe he escaped, he thought. The thought cheered him somewhat. In the end, glory and honour were as nothing to freedom. Chains by any other name, they meant little to sons of Jaghatai. If by trick and by blood, they could buy an extra moment for their khan, that was the way of it. ‘Laugh while you kill, brothers. And laugh loud, so our brothers can hear us, and know what fun they’re missing,’ he said. He rose unsteadily to his feet. The world swam about him.
‘I don’t think we need to laugh all that loud,’ Tolui said, ‘listen!’
Cemakar turned. He’d heard the sound for some time, but had assumed it was coming from the tau. But now that he focused on it, he knew that no khamar engine had ever sounded so boisterous. His seamed face split in a smile. ‘I guess he survived after all.’ He pivoted and snapped off a shot at Shadowsun. ‘Well brothers – lets light their way for them, shall we?’
Tolui gave a bark of laughter and began to fire as well. Soon, the entire knot of survivors was blazing away in all directions. The tau seemed taken aback by the apparent madness of their enemy, and it was long moments before they began to return fire.
Cemakar cackled happily as he fired. That would have been a good death, he thought, but this one will be much better.
Bikes roared through the snow, shoving aside the curtains of smoke with the force of their passage. The shattered remnants of Cemakar’s forces littered Rime Crag, but the bark of bolter fire said that there were survivors yet. Kor’sarro hunched forward over his bike’s handlebars, as if to wring more speed from its shrieking engines by sheer will. Thursk rode at his side, snow stinging his pale features. He could see Ambaghai riding on the other side of the khan. The Stormseer’s face was twisted in a grimace of concentration, as he wrapped the column of riders in a swirl of snow in order to hide them from prying eyes and muffle the noise of their passage. Every time Thursk thought Ambaghai had reached the limits of his mental strength, the Stormseer dug deeper into himself, summoning up psychic might from untold depths.
The White Scars did not slow as they swept through the wreckage. Thursk could see enemy vehicles moving below, at the base of the ridge, keeping on a parallel course. They were troop transports, he thought, though he couldn’t be sure, just as he couldn’t say whether they were in pursuit, or heading somewhere else.
Cemakar’s group hadn’t got far before they were hit. He was surprised they hadn’t seen smoke, but then, with the way Ambaghai had stirred up the winds, and the way the snow was falling, he was more surprised that they could see anything at all. Kor’sarro’s voice snarled through the vox, barking orders. ‘Ambaghai – fill the air with lightning. See if you can disrupt their communications the way they’ve done to ours,’ he said. ‘The rest of you – do as you must. Laugh and slay. Today, we teach the enemy what it means to grab hold of the tiger’s tail.’
The White Scars roared in reply, waving weapons and firing their guns. Thursk ducked his head as the column of bikers ripped through a cloud of oily smoke. As they exited the smoke, he saw where the tau had been heading. A tiny knot of White Scars were firing at their approaching enemy from the lip of the ridge. Two of the larger tau battlesuits were menacing them, as several squads of fire warriors climbed the slope, pausing only to return the Space Marine’s fire sporadically.
The trap, when taken at a remove, was brilliant in its simplicity. Once the tanks had been rendered immobile, the White Scars were at the mercy of the faster moving tau. And tenacity was no substitute for firepower. If the battlesuits didn’t get them, the tau battle tanks would. And if neither of those did the job, then the fire warriors would almost certainly wear the remaining Space Marines down.
Kor’sarro roared out a command and chopped the air with his hand. Ambaghai weaved around behind Thursk and, accompanied by two other riders, shot towards the enemy warriors climbing the slope. Thursk saw the Stormseer whip the end of his staff through the air, and it was as if an invisible scythe cut through the unprepared xenos. The trio buzzed across the line of fire warriors, disassembling the formerly precise formation into bloody wreckage. It was a stalling tactic, Thursk knew, and nothing more. Ambaghai might have been able to do more but he would have to stop, and if he didn’t kill them all, the tau would swarm him under. There were simply too many of them, and too few of the White Scars.
‘There she is,’ Kor’sarro snarled. Thursk saw that his attention had been drawn to a strange, white armoured shape standing near the knot of survivors. It was a tau battlesuit, but like none Thursk had ever seen. As they neared, the slim battlesuit rose into the air and shot backwards.
‘Oh no, you don’t,’ Kor’sarro said, aiming his bike in pursuit. Following Kor’sarro, Thursk shot past the closest of the towering battlesuits, he saw a familiar form lying before it in the snow. The battlesuit lifted its foot over Jebe’s sprawled form. Thursk recalled vividly what the result of that would be and he swung his bike around in a tight skid. He didn’t like the champion much, but he wasn’t going to allow the White Scar to be pulped. Even Jebe deserved a better death than that. As the machine toppled, the Dark Hunter threw himself from the seat and, with the impetus of the bike’s slide behind him he interposed himself between the fallen champion and the battlesuit. His palms slammed against the bottom of the battlesuit’s foot, and the servos in his power armour whined in protest as he tried to stop the crushing descent.
The weight of it was incredible, more even than he’d imagined. He sank slowly to one knee, both arms bending back. ‘Up, Jebe, get up,’ he said. The White Scar groaned, and looked up blearily. ‘Up, you stupid fool,’ Thursk roared, kicking the White Scar in the side. The battlesuit redoubled its efforts and he felt a servo blow somewhere in his armour, and the hiss of a pierced cooling hose. Jebe scrabbled weakly at the snow. Thursk saw his fingers brush up against the eagle-headed pommel of his sword.
Jebe caught up the blade and rolled over, piercing
the bottom of the suit’s foot and jamming the pommel against the ground. Thursk let go, grabbed him and rolled them both aside as the battlesuit jerked and flailed, trying to right itself.
‘You saved me,’ Jebe spat.
‘You’re welcome,’ Thursk said, pushing himself to his feet.
‘I was not thanking you!’
‘I apologise. The subtleties of Khorchin escape me,’ Thursk said, recovering his axe and his bolter from the fallen bike. He flipped the axe around and proffered the haft to Jebe. ‘Go get your sword, champion,’ he said, as he extended the bolter and fired off a burst at the enemy swarming around them. ‘I’ll cover you.’
Jebe made a face, then snorted, spat and ran a thumb along the edge of the axe. ‘I suppose this will have to do.’ He turned, a feral grin rippling across his burned and blistered features. He bounded towards the still off-balance battlesuit. Thursk turned and began to fire at the approaching fire warriors, intending to leave Jebe to his fun.
The battlesuit had torn itself free of the blade and it retreated several steps. Jebe pursued it with all the tenacity of a man for whom size differentials were merely a matter of opinion. He jumped, and used the battlesuit’s bent knee-joint as a springboard to propel him up its chest. The shield drones hummed about him, and he swiped at them irritably. The drones were less of an obstacle than an annoyance, if you got in close. He lunged for the battlesuit’s square head. The battlesuit moved quickly, snatching him out of the air with its empty hand. Jebe cursed as the construct’s grip began to tighten. Rivets popped and plates buckled. He hefted Thursk’s axe and threw it directly into the battlesuit’s optic sensor. The power axe buried itself in the boxy head, and the battlesuit staggered, blinded. The burst cannon on its other arm roared as it fired wildly, and it destroyed one of the drones by accident.