The Chapter Master turned and began to walk away, calling for the battle-brothers guarding the perimeter of the downed Lightning to fall in behind him. He was five metres from Cortez when he half-turned and said over his shoulder, ‘You may rig the wreckage with some of our melta charges, brother. I’m sure the orks will appreciate the surprise.’
That, at least, made Cortez grin. Minutes later, it was done. He and his squad hurried to rejoin the rest of the group, taking their place now as rearguard.
They marched hard. The land underfoot changed, becoming greener by degrees until, hours later, they found themselves crossing lush grassy plains. They had descended thousands of metres since leaving the ruin of their home. So much closer to sea level, the land seemed to be enjoying a different season altogether from the wintry heights of the mountains. The air was warmer, its pressure and humidity higher.
As the sibling suns began to set in the west, casting everything in hues of red and gold, there came a great boom that echoed off the mountains and out over the plains.
Looking back the way he had come, Cortez squinted, and made out a column of smoke rising from the final resting place of Galen Keanos.
He resumed his march, wondering how many stinking xenos he had just killed and swearing to himself that he was just getting started.
Eight
Zona 6 Industria, New Rynn City
Brother Jerian was death incarnate, and there was little the orks could do against the fury of his weapons. Not at first. The roving ork units that had attempted to flank the Crimson Fists position made a third attempt just minutes after Jerian had shown up behind the barricade, and they soon found themselves faced with an enemy utterly invulnerable to their stubbers and bladed weapons. Jerian did not need cover. He was cover. He stomped out in full view of the roaring alien filth and began cycling his assault cannon.
When he fired, the torrent of shells was so intense, so destructive, that it cut the orks in half. Even the greenskins at the very back of the charging mass could not avoid the hail of sharp-nosed slugs as they punched through body after body until the street was awash with blood and steaming viscera.
Jerian let out a battle cry that resonated over the whole south-eastern quarter, audible even above the distant boom of Basilisk SPGs and Earthshaker batteries. Few alien battle cries could have matched it.
As the sound faded, Alvez suspected some of the orks nearby would be turning to flee. The larger greenskins were not typically fearful of anything, but they were highly superstitious, wary of the unknown, and they were not above breaking from a fight in the face of obvious defeat. It was the clearest sign of intelligence they typically showed.
‘To me!’ Jerian roared as he thundered down the street in the direction of the manufactorum and the crashed ork lander. Strong-smelling smoke wafted from the barrels of his assault cannon. The massive hydraulic pistons that powered his legs hissed and clanked as he moved, and oily black smoke poured from two large exhaust stacks on his broad metal back.
‘Squads Rectris and Gualan,’ said Alvez over the comm-link, ‘move up behind Brother Jerian. Cover his blind spots. Squads Grimm and Ulias flank left. Squads Anto and Haleos, you have the right flank. Move!’
Alvez marched with Maurillo Rectris and his squad. Greenskins rushed out from corners to intercept them, but they were cut down the moment they showed their ugly flat faces. Within minutes, Jerian had led the others close to the manufactorum, and a hail of stubber and pistol-fire began pouring out of shattered black windows high in the building’s side wall.
The Crimson Fists did not hesitate. They raised their bolters, took aim, and loosed a deadly torrent of rounds at the windows. Jerian added his own fire, the raw destructive power of it quickly making the well-aimed bursts of his battle-brothers superfluous. The manufactorum’s upper walls were being ripped apart. A rain of brass shell casings fell around his sturdy metal feet.
The orks pulled back from the windows rather than face such a lethal fusillade.
‘Jerian,’ called Alvez, but the Dreadnought either didn’t hear him, or didn’t wish to.
‘Brother Jerian,’ Alvez barked again, this time with more force. ‘Cease fire, now. Move up. Secure the north wall. We will blow our way in.’
Jerian stopped firing, and his assault cannon cycled down with a whine that sounded almost disappointed. He lurched forward as ordered. Squads Rectris and Gualan moved up quickly to take position along the north wall of the building. On the other side, the south side, the spiked hull of the ork transport still lay half-buried in tumbled brick, pouring trails of thick black smoke into the air.
Alvez opened a link to Huron Grimm. ‘Are you in position, sergeant?’
‘We are, my lord,’ replied Grimm. ‘We encountered some resistance on the south access, but we have cover with a clear view of the downed ship. Significant enemy activity to the north-west and west of us.’
‘Hold for further orders,’ Alvez commanded. Then, he opened a link to Sergeant Anto. ‘Report your status, brother.’
‘Both squads in position, my lord, awaiting your command to attack. There is no breach here, but there are four large loading bays through which we are observing the orks. They are Deathskulls.’
Alvez thought about this. The Deathskull clan were notorious looters and took their obsession with scavenging machines to murderous levels. ‘If they are Deathskulls,’ he told Anto, ‘all the better. Their attentions will be split between us and the machines inside. As soon as Rectris and Gualan breach the north wall, I want all flanking squads to give suppressing fire. Confirm.’
‘Affirmative, lord. We await the signal.’
Closing the comm-link, Alvez turned to Maurillo Rectris, who stood on his left, backpack pressed tight to the manufactorum’s brick wall. ‘Have your men plant the charges, sergeant. Twenty seconds should be enough.’
‘My lord,’ said Rectris. He stepped out from the wall, called two members of his squad to him, and began issuing orders of his own.
Just a few metres away from Alvez, Brother Jerian growled. ‘You should let me rip the wall open, captain.’ He flexed his power fist restlessly.
‘I need a good clean breach, brother,’ said Alvez. ‘It must be wide and instantaneous. I’m sure you could rip this entire place apart single-handed, given time, but I would prefer you focussed on smashing orks, not walls. Just be ready to go in. You will be the first.’
Jerian stopped flexing his fist. ‘In that, at least, you show great wisdom.’
Alvez did not miss the barb in the comment. He felt a flash of anger, just briefly, but it soon subsided. The Chapter’s Old Ones, as the Dreadnoughts were collectively known, were widely understood to be a gruff, cantankerous lot. One did not try to change a personality forged in battle over six hundred years. Not unless one enjoyed courting failure. Besides, Jerian and his machine-entombed fellows had, by their long history of heroic endeavour, earned a level of tolerance Alvez accorded few others.
There was a hiss of static on the comm-link, followed by the voice of Sergeant Salvador Ulias. ‘Lord captain,’ he said. ‘We have orks moving around the perimeter of the building. They are heading your way. Twenty of them with heavy-stubbers and blades. They’ll be on you soon. Permission to engage?’
‘Rectris?’ said Alvez.
‘Ten seconds. Setting the last of the charges now.’
Judging by the report from Ulias, ten seconds was too long. Alvez raised his storm-bolter.
‘All squads, fire at will!’
‘For Dorn and the Emperor,’ replied Anto over the comm.
The sharp crack and rattle of gunfire erupted on the other three sides of the structure, immediately answered from inside by the deep drumbeat of ork heavy weaponry.
‘Charges set,’ Rectris announced. ‘Back away!’
Squads Rectris and Gualan pressed themselves flat against the wall. Brother Jerian merely took two steps backwards and waited for the blast. Watching him, Alvez noted how fearless he was. Any n
ormal Space Marine would have risked serious injury, perhaps even death, standing so close to so much high explosive. Not so Jerian.
There was a deep, ear-splitting bang and a gush of dust and stone. Jerian was obscured from Alvez’s vision, but the captain could hear the rain of stone chips bouncing off the Dreadnought’s armour plate.
‘Forward,’ Jerian boomed. ‘We are their death!’
The dust cloud swirled and Alvez knew that Jerian had charged inside. He heard the distinctive whine of an assault cannon as it strafed the interior.
‘Kill them all,’ Alvez roared over the comm-link before he, too, charged through the gaping wound in the brick surface. His battle-brothers followed him in without hesitation.
Inside the manufactorum, the orks retaliated at once, pouring fire down on the Space Marines from raised gantries of metal mesh, or from behind the conveyors of the huge automated assembly lines. Gretchin skittered from shadow to shadow, terrified for their lives, turning to fire their large-bore pistols only when they found the safety of good cover. Their oversized kin fought without any such fear. Scores of them charged madly forward, their chainaxes whirring, only to be blown apart by mass-reactive explosive rounds from the boltguns of the Crimson Fists.
Brother Jerian ran out of ammunition soon after entering, but it did not slow him. He stormed forward, smashing idle machinery aside in his eagerness to spill the blood of the Chapter’s foes. Then he was right in among them, an awesome sight to behold. With every whistling arc of his mighty metal fist, he smashed ork bodies aside. Moving deeper into the mass of aliens that flowed out of the shadows to surround him, his heavy feet pulped and crunched the bodies of the fallen.
Alvez heard the Dreadnought’s mechanical laughter, and the sound was as far from human as it could possibly be.
Three orks dropped from an upper walkway right in front of Alvez, no more than three metres from him, close enough to lash out at once. But Alvez was fast, even in Terminator armour. His finger squeezed the trigger of his ancient gun, and the largest of the three orks reeled backwards, struck directly in the forehead before it could take its opening swing. The bolt detonated, blowing brain and skull outwards in all directions, and the creature collapsed to the floor as limp as a sack of meat.
The others did not wait to meet the same fate. The closest of the two lunged with a large, chipped blade, more cleaver than sword or knife. The blow struck Alvez’s storm-bolter aside, but did not knock it from his grip. The creature raised its other weapon, a spiked club of solid iron, and brought it down with blinding speed, but the blow bounced from Alvez’s ceramite-plated shoulder with a clang.
‘Die,’ spat the captain. The power sword in his left hand was a glowing blur. It crackled and hummed as it slid through the beast’s belly, cutting the ork in two.
Each half slapped wetly to the floor as Alvez turned to face the third of his attackers. But there was no third. Sergeant Gualan had gunned the creature down, firing into its back at point-blank range. Its chest cavity lay open to the air, blown out by a triple burst of explosive bolt rounds. Gualan, like the rest of his squad, was already moving on to other prey.
‘Huron,’ said Alvez over the link, ‘report status.’
‘Thirty-eight targets confirmed dead on the south side, my lord,’ said Grimm. ‘The orks taking refuge in the crashed ship are severely depleted. Suggest squads Grimm and Ulias move in and finish the job.’
Alvez could hear bolter fire over the link as the sergeant spoke, but it sounded sporadic, as if foes were getting harder to come by.
‘Do it,’ Alvez ordered. Then, switching channels, he said, ‘Faradis, status.’
Sergeant Anto’s report was likewise given against a background of lessening gunfire. He, too, reported a significant reduction in live targets in his sector and, like Grimm, requested permission to move in. It came as no surprise. What true Crimson Fist could stand to hold back when there were orks in close proximity? There would be little sport for either Grimm or Anto. The fight inside the manufactorum was well in hand, due in no small part to the unstoppable fury of Brother Jerian.
‘Request denied, Faradis,’ said Alvez, making a quick assessment. ‘I need you and Haleos to hold the outer perimeter. There may yet be ork cells in this district. Squads Grimm and Ulias are purging the ork wreck. Rectris and Gualan have the facility under control. This is over. I am coming outside.’
And that was what he did. He handed command of the mop-up operation to Maurillo Rectris, then emerged back into the last of the fading daylight.
In the sky above, ork ships were still painting dirty black trails across the darkening blue. Pillars of dense smoke rose hundreds of metres into the air. He could see them towering above the city walls like vast ghosts slowly clawing their way towards the heavens. He did not know if they represented dead orks or dead men, but death, certainly.
He caught sight of Sergeant Anto and his squad sweeping a row of ore silos to the east and began striding towards him. He was about to hail him over the comm-link when the ground under his feet trembled. He heard the sound of a great explosion out beyond the districts defensive walls. Anto looked up at the same time. An insistent voice sounded in his ear, overriding all other channels on the emergency band. ‘This is Squad Thanator to Captain Alvez,’ said the voice. ‘I repeat, this is Squad Thanator to Captain Alvez. Please respond.’
‘Alvez, here. What is it, sergeant?’
‘My lord,’ said Sergeant Thanator, ‘another ork ship just struck the city. The damage is severe.’
‘Where?’ Alvez demanded. ‘Can we contain them?’
‘There will be no containing this one, my lord,’ said Thanator, and Alvez could tell by the sergeant’s tone that this was more than just another crash. ‘They just took out an entire section of the Pavelis Wall!’
Dorn’s blood, cursed Alvez.
‘I need to know which section, sergeant.’
‘Zona 4 Commercia, section two, my lord. They’re pouring in like locusts. We need reinforcements. The sheer number of them…’
‘How many Astartes did we lose?’ he demanded.
‘None, lord. Our forces were massed around the gate itself. The breach is a kilometre west of it. But the Rynnsguard losses… I can only guess they number in the high hundreds. There are over a million citizens in this district, my lord. We are doing everything we can, but we are few. This place is a charnel pit!’
Alvez had already begun striding in the direction of the industrial zone’s eastern gate. ‘Hold fast, Thanator,’ he commanded. ‘You will have your reinforcements. I swear it. I’m sending Predators and Vindicators to your position.’
Alvez’s strides became longer, faster. His footfalls shook the buildings and the streetlamps as he passed. He called to Squad Anto as he went, and they joined him, marching with bolters ready.
A dark thought had taken hold of him and it wouldn’t let go.
It was deliberate! It had to be. The orks had started using their ships as battering rams. What in Terra’s holy name had the Rynnsguard anti-air crews been doing?
Had he and his Fists held Zona 6 Industria, only to lose Zona 4 Commercia?
If the orks kept this up – and he knew they would – just how long would New Rynn City survive?
Nine
The Eastern Steppes, Hellestro Province
Few normal men ever realised just how much information was all around them. The air they breathed was filled with it, but their noses were not attuned to it in the way a canid’s was, or the olfactory senses of a million other kinds of creature.
Space Marines knew. Within their bodies, each of Kantor’s survivors carried an organ called the neuroglottis, or The Devourer, grown from the gene-seed of their fellow Astartes and implanted during the painful process that forever physically separated them from their fellow men. The primary function of the neuroglottis was to allow instant analysis of a substance by taste. Toxins could be easily detected. Organic compounds could be tested for nutritional co
ntent. And a single scent molecule on a breeze could give away a hidden foe or tell the direction in which it had travelled.
Cortez and his squad were once again on point, ranging a kilometre ahead of the rest of the group.
The captain breathed, and smelled death on the wind.
Night had fallen three hours ago, and the Chapter Master had ordered everyone to increase their pace. He hoped to cross as much distance in the dark as possible. Too slow and the daylight would find his party in the open with the sun glaring off their armour and weapons. Ork aircrews would be able to spot them from as far as the horizon.
They had to make the most of the darkness. Kantor was guiding them north-west to the place where the Eastern Steppes ended and the Azcalan, the Soroccan continent’s massive rainforest, began.
Once the Crimson Fists were in the cover of the trees, night and day would become irrelevant. They would move without rest, and make the capital that much sooner. Right now, all Cortez could think about was the familiar smell he had detected.
Every breath he took spoke to him of spilled blood, of wet viscera exposed to the air. There were other scents, too. One of the strongest was dung, neither human, nor ork.
Cattle, he thought. Kine. That’s what I’m smelling.
The planet’s closest moon, Dantienne, was high and almost full. Her surface rock contained cobalt, and the dim light she threw down on the plains was distinctly blue. To Cortez and the rest of the Fists, everything had a greenish tinge. Their helmet visors were set to low-light mode, further brightening the gloom.
As he marched his squad onwards, Cortez now noticed large dark objects slumped on the grassy plains. They were shapeless black things. As he and his battle-brothers drew closer to them, the smell became stronger and stronger.
Cortez opened a link to the Chapter Master.
‘Orks have been here, and recently.’
The War for Rynn's World - Steve Parker & Mike Lee Page 19