Shadowsword

by Guy Haley

  Still the tanks had many teeth. Endless rounds of las-fire hissed into the front of the Baneblade, scoring the metal with molten furrows. The tanks’ turrets smoothly tracked Cortein’s Honour as they split. Bannick ducked as one of the turret windows smashed and melted armourglass dripped into the cupola. The tank’s armour was proof against the lascannons, but there were so many vulnerable areas. If they hit the treads or got behind the Baneblade and fired on the engine block, or managed to take out Shoam, they were dead.

  ‘Damn it! Into the river!’ When he looked again, the Predators were closing fast. One of the two on the right ran up the embankment onto the road. The other pursued them closely, while the third, on the left, came in wide, pummelling the side of the tank. Leonates yelled in fright as his left-hand sponson blew, the bolter ammunition inside spraying off in corkscrewing fireworks.

  ‘I’m down to the heavy bolters in the right turret, sir. They’re not responding well.’

  ‘They’re out of my fire arc, sir,’ reported Kalligen.

  The two Predators on the right were drawing near, the third a quarter of a mile away and coming parallel to their left flank. All of them were out of the demolisher’s fire arc.

  ‘Where’s the river?’ said Shoam, who was driving blind.

  ‘Keep going! We’re nearly there. Slow down on my mark, or we’ll come down too hard and submerge the exhaust. Everyone brace!’

  The tank’s rear tracks hit the bank. A natural levee had built up there, and the Baneblade jounced over it. Cortein’s Honour slithered down the bank into the water, the overheated engine bringing forth clouds of steam. Bannick held his breath as the bow tilted up, exposing the tank’s underbelly for a dangerous second. They slipped into the river unharmed.

  ‘Now, Meggen, track thirty left!’

  As Cortein’s Honour levelled off, the lead Predator, the one on the left, cleared the levee, bouncing down after them. Meggen held his fire.

  ‘Fire!’ said Bannick.

  ‘Not yet, not yet, not yet!’

  The second Predator cleared the bank on the right, tipping forwards to expose its weaker top armour.

  ‘That one!’ shouted Meggen, putting the battle cannon shell through the turret. Fire flashed inside. The tank stopped dead, black smoke pouring from every aperture.

  ‘One down!’ yelled Meggen.

  ‘Sir, the third tank is taking up position on the bridge overlooking the river,’ called Epperaliant, who was rushing from viewing port to viewing port on the command deck.

  ‘Bring us in closer to the piers, Shoam. Cut into its firing angle.’

  ‘What about the third tank?’ said Leonates. ‘It’s drawing alongside!’

  ‘Kalligen, get on it. Shoam, fifteen degrees left. Keep Kalligen in line.’

  At first the Predator pulled forwards, but as the water deepened, the more powerful engines of the Baneblade won out, and they began to make distance on it. As they moved by, it unleashed a furious fusillade against the left side of Cortein’s Honour. Tocsins rang below. Lesser alarms peeped with infuriating insistence. A ruby las-beam scored the air from above.

  ‘Meggen, put a round across that thing’s bow.’

  ‘Aye aye,’ said Meggen. The main cannon boomed. The angle was hard and Meggen missed. A massive chunk of rockcrete blew out of the bridge.

  ‘Again!’ Bannick looked behind them. They were coming in on a shallow oblique line at the bridge. ‘Shoam, when I give the order, hard reverse left, full ninety degrees. Kalligen, get ready.’

  Meggen’s second round took the bridge underneath, putting a hole in the deck.

  ‘Basdack! I cannot get a bead on it from here.’

  ‘Stop firing,’ said Bannick.

  The third Predator was out of sight.

  ‘I think it’s falling back,’ said Epperaliant.

  ‘Keep eyes on it,’ ordered Bannick. The shadow of the bridge moved over the turret.

  ‘Now! Now, Shoam!’

  Shoam yanked the left stick backwards and pushed the right forwards. The Baneblade moaned at the sudden change in direction. Water churned audibly against the hull as tracks spun on loose gravel, and it turned to the left.

  ‘Full reverse!’ yelled Bannick. Shoam drove it back into the shelter of the bridge. ‘Meggen, bring the turret around, cover the rear, depress main gun full!’

  ‘Turret around, depressing main gun full!’ he shouted. The Baneblade retreated into the shelter of the bridge.

  Whichever side the Predator came at them, it would be facing down the barrel of a main armament. Not even the Space Marines could survive that.

  But they did not come. Seconds ticked by, becoming minutes.

  ‘They’re Space Marines. They’re not going for this,’ Bannick said to himself nervously. Noise in the tank died away. A tense silence reigned.

  ‘They’re coming from the rear!’ shouted Epperaliant.

  ‘And the front!’ said Bannick, seeing the snarling muzzle of a lascannon emerge around the pier. ‘Kalligen! Meggen! Fire! Fire! Fire!’

  The third Predator had come off the bridge and outflanked them, coming in from the rear. The first attempted a dash to the left side of the tank, but Kalligen caught it square on.

  The Predator exploded outwards, the force of the demolisher blast enough to burst the armour asunder and shock the Baneblade itself. Red-hot shards of metal hissed into the water.

  The battle cannon boomed half a second later. The shell glanced off the Predator’s angled turret armour and went whooshing away over the river.

  ‘Basdack! Armour’s thick!’

  Through the clouds of exhaust smoke and steam pouring up around the engine block, Bannick saw the Predator turning so it could bring all four of its weapons to bear on their vulnerable back end. Three of them were already hammering the Baneblade.

  ‘Shoam! Full reverse, now!’

  The engine roared. The Baneblade slammed back into the Predator’s bow. It fired wildly, catching the Baneblade’s right-side auxiliary fuel drums and causing them to detonate. A ball of flame washed over both tanks. The Predator was pushed backwards towards deeper water. Tracks churning the river cloudy, it slipped down the edge of gravel bank. With a throaty, bellowing roar, the Baneblade upended it, pushing it onto its side, then over onto its roof.

  ‘Forwards!’ yelled Bannick.

  Still dripping burning promethium, the super-heavy pulled off from the Predator. Nosing the wreck of the other Space Marine vehicle out of the way, it pulled out into the river from under the bridge. The rear ramp of the Predator was being forced open from inside. A pair of bare-headed crewmen, trailing hard-wired interface cables, staggered out.

  ‘Meggen! The crew are bailing. See to it they don’t get far.’

  ‘Already on it, Col,’ said Meggen.

  A final cannon shot rang, punching through side of the Predator. Hatches blew as it detonated. The rear ramp flipped off and flew free, skimming over the river’s surface. The Space Marines were thrown forwards, disappearing into the water as fire rushed over them. Bannick doubted very much that it would be enough to finish them, but there would be little they could do to harm the Baneblade without their tank.

  ‘That’s it, that’s the last of them. Well done, crew,’ said Bannick.

  Whoops of relief sounded through the tank. As it pushed on back over the river, Bannick kissed his amulets, then placed his hand gently on the rim of his cupola in thanks.

  ‘And praise to the Emperor and Omnissiah,’ he said to Cortein’s Honour.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A new enemy

  ASTRA MILITARUM CASTELLA, MAGOR’S FIELDS,

  THE NORTA GREAT PLAIN

  GERATOMRO

  087398.M41

  Cortein’s Honour limped into camp some six hours later. What should have been a stronghold to launch the final
subjugation of a world had become a fortress under siege. Artillery fire fell sporadically around the perimeter. Overhead, the sky flashed with low-orbital burn up: debris and munitions, the fall out of void war. The fleet was under attack.

  Bannick looked overhead at the flashing sky. Brilliant stars fell, orbital bombardment shells keeping back the enemy from the camp. Twenty kilometres away the capital city of Magor’s Seat squatted darkly, its towering spires spindly in the distance. The multiple rocket flares of descending ships lit a trail from orbit to the planet’s main landing fields.

  He directed the Baneblade up a river of mud masquerading as a road to a gate in the prefabricated rockcrete walls. A gate was set there, flanked by two octagonal concrete bunkers hiding behind heaps of sandbags. The sergeant-at-arms, a Cadian, came out at their approach.

  ‘You’re with the Paragonian’s Seventh super-heavy?’ he called up.

  Bannick looked at the man humourlessly. The company emblem, number and the tank’s name were all emblazoned on the sides clearly enough that they showed through mud and battle damage.

  ‘You can stare at me all you want, sir,’ said the soldier. ‘I’m asking because you’re supposed to be dead.’

  ‘We’re not,’ said Bannick

  ‘I can see that. I’m glad, if you care.’ He pointed through the gate. ‘Your company’s on road twenty-one, of the Principia.’

  ‘I know where road twenty-one is,’ said Bannick. Most Imperial Guard camps followed a standard pattern, as dictated by the Tactica Imperialis. The Baneblade growled, sharing his annoyance, and rolled into the camp.

  It hadn’t rained all day but the ground was saturated from the prior downpours, and churned to a sticky, viscous bog. Men ran along lightweight aluminium duckboards bordering the tents, but even these were sinking into the ooze. When the Baneblade turned onto road XXI, it pushed a slow wave of muck up onto the pavements. No shouts of annoyance followed them; instead cheers rang out as the news spread that the tank had survived. There were only seven super-heavy tanks in the whole of the Paragonian contingent. The loss of one had severely dented morale. The reappearance of Cortein’s Honour brought forth jubilation among the harried Astra Militarum.

  A hollow square delineated by tents was the temporary marshalling yard of the Seventh. Slender towers of tubular aluminium supported by tensioned hawsers and topped with floodlights stood at each corner. A large command tent occupied the south-eastern corner. Most of the usual support vehicles were absent, but all three of the other super-heavy tanks sat idle, side by side.

  First Gunner Rollen of Artemen Ultrus was on guard, sitting glumly on a plastek barrel at the junction of the yard and road XXI. By the time Bannick ordered Shoam into the yard, Rollen was on his feet, craning his neck to watch the tank’s turret sail through the sea of tents.

  ‘You’ve not left us room to park!’ shouted Bannick down to Rollen.

  ‘We thought you were dead. Dead men don’t need a spot.’

  Crewmen were climbing from the other tanks and emerging from tents. Their cheers joined those of the men outside.

  ‘Bannick! You’re alive. We feared the worst,’ said Marteken from the top of his own vehicle. He held a steaming mug of recaff in his hand, his shirt off and shaving foam all over his face. Bannick saluted him.

  The tech-priests came out from behind Artemen Ultrus. Brasslock slogged his way through the mud, his robes already filthy with it.

  ‘What have you done to my charge?’ said Brasslock wheezily.

  ‘Everything I could to keep it alive,’ said Bannick. ‘I opted to cut across country to rejoin the advance at the River Drava, but we arrived to find only the dead. Hundreds killed.’

  ‘What happened to the tank?’

  ‘A hit from a Destroyer, then an encounter with a hunting pack of tank killers. Don’t worry, Marteken, you won’t have to face them. We killed them all for you.’

  ‘Now that’s a relief,’ shouted Marteken. ‘I’ll go back to my shave then.’

  Bannick clambered out of his hatch and walked across the front of the tank, jumping down in front of Brasslock.

  ‘A Destroyer?’ said Brasslock, with as much excitement as Bannick had ever heard him exhibit. ‘You secured it, I trust? Such vehicles are a rare prize.’

  ‘I am sorry, Magos. It lies in pieces atop hill seven-beta.’ He rested a hand on Brasslock’s shoulder. Brasslock gave it a sidelong glance. ‘Where is Hannick?’

  ‘Hannick is here, honoured lieutenant. You’re late!’ said Hannick.

  Bannick saluted the captain and walked over to join him. In daylight Hannick looked worse than ever, his skin was sallow, and he leaned heavily on a cane.

  ‘Good to see you, Colaron,’ he said.

  ‘You likewise, sir.’ He looked around nervously, sure what he was about to say was blasphemy. ‘Our attackers. I have never seen anything like it. They were Space Marines.’

  ‘The treachery of Geratomro grows daily. They have petitioned the oldest of the Imperium’s foes for aid, and they have answered.’

  ‘I thought such things were myths.’

  Hannick spoke softly. ‘They are not. A long war has been waged by them, millennia old, and we find ourselves caught up in it.’ He looked up and smiled. ‘Get yourself cleaned up as best you can. I’ve had orders from high command. Briefing in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Where is our support group?’ asked Bannick. He could not see their wheeled shrine, service vehicles and enginseers in the yard.

  ‘Lost. We must do what we can with what we have, Colaron.’

  Honoured Lieutenants Marteken, Hurnigen and Bannick joined Honoured Captain Hannick in the Seventh’s command centre. Hannick had managed to secure a flat-pict tac table. A few flimsy folding tables and chairs made up the rest of the furnishings. The day had darkened with thick cloud that brought chill and gloom. A lone lumoglobe buzzed noisily at the apex of the tent, where bewildered bugs battered their faces against it. The sound of covering orbital fire was constant.

  ‘I am sorry about the space, gentlemen,’ said Hannick, gesturing at the open sides of their tent. ‘I’ll keep the briefing, well, brief. Our enemy has wasted no time.’ He pushed a pile of papers to the side of the tac table and keyed its activation stud with his company signet. The pict screen embedded in the ornate surface ignited, showing blurry, low-definition imagery. ‘High command relayed news of an incoming hostile fleet at twenty-three twelve last night to me. The enemy came in line of battle, direct from the sun and in the blindside of the planet, evading augur detection until the last. They engaged the fleet shortly after, deploying simultaneously to the surface by drop pod and gunship in the teeth of our fire.’

  ‘Emperor,’ muttered Marteken.

  ‘They are Space Marines, no matter what wicked master they might follow now,’ said Hannick. ‘They launched attacks immediately, cutting off our line of reinforcements coming from the south. That’s what you saw, Bannick. From your experience we can deduce they’ve left ambush units behind to pick off stragglers, intelligence I have passed on to high command. We pushed on ahead of the advance as instructed. We missed the ambush, a shame, as our presence may have tipped the encounter in our favour. We can only assume that the majority of our on-planet supplies, the lower tech-adepts, recovery tanks, mobile manufactoria and the rest were caught up in the slaughter. That brings me to my first point – we must conserve our supplies. Spares and replacement parts, ammunition for our larger guns, these things will be hard to come by for the foresee­able future. There will be no resupply while the fleets are engaged. Their fleet is small, but fast. Ours holds station above us here.’ He tapped the scratched glass of the table. A red circle pulsed over the castella. ‘Theirs is here, over Magor’s Seat. As you can appreciate, this is no distance at all when it comes to void war. The fleets are fighting at what is, for them, point-blank range. Our ships are taking something of a p
ounding. If they move, our camp here will be obliterated from orbit. However, we expect that as soon as the enemy fleet has deployed all ground force assets, they will withdraw. They are swift and cunning and heavily armed, but the size of their craft makes their fleet ill-suited to a protracted firefight.’

  ‘How many are there on the ground?’ said Bannick.

  ‘The Emperor alone knows. High command does not know exactly what we’re facing. Traitor Space Marines for sure. Maybe other assets. Are there one hundred, a thousand? Ten thousand? Our forces number in the region of five million in and around Geratomro, but Iskhandrian’s lightning war, which had us so close to victory, has left us spread out and vulnerable. One of the Traitor Space Marines is worth fifty normal men in open battle, and they’re not playing that game. They continue to employ hit-and-run attacks all over the continent. Our supply lines are being targeted, as are units on the march from the subdued cities. It is only a matter of time before they begin to isolate and retake the cities we have fought so far to reconquer.’

  Hannick coughed, a short fit that the others politely waited through. They always began short, and became more severe. Hannick sped up his briefing before he was overcome.

  ‘And there’s worse. An Ark Mechanicus of some kind accompanies their fleet. Even a sizeable Space Marine fleet could have deployed in Magor’s Seat and withdrawn in under a few hours. High command is certain they’re in a holding pattern directly opposing our own fleet because they’re landing something else, something big.’

  The lieutenants looked at one another.

  ‘Engines?’ said Marteken. ‘Traitor war engines? First, Traitor Space Marines, and now, Traitor Titans, Traitor Mechanicus?’

  ‘There is a danger we’ll be facing Traitor Titans.’ Hannick coughed again, a worse fit. The lieutenants pretended not to see the blood on his handkerchief when he dabbed at his mouth. ‘In fact, high command think this so likely that we’ve been ordered to reorganise. On this planet we have a grand total of two engines of our own – not a true force of the Titan Legions. A show to cow those Planetary Governors who haven’t quite got the guts to go the whole way like Huratal has. The Warhound War’s Gift, and the Reaver-class Ultimate Sanction. If there are enemy engines, they will need support. Therefore, with immediate effect, the Lucky Eights, the Eighteenth Atraxian and the Seventh Paragonian will be split and temporarily reorganised in group Epsilon and Ultra. Under my command, Epsilon will consist of Ostrakhan’s Rebirth, Artemen Ultrus and the Atraxian Baneblade Fidellius and Stormsword Refutation of Sin. We will be supported by the Eighth’s War Forged and Saint Josef. Our role will be to lead the spearhead into Magor’s Seat in an attempt to cut the head off this rebellion.