by Cl Werner
‘Don’t let them reach the wall!’ The order came from a young major, his face a mess of grey scars, the legacy of a slave riot at a strip mine long ago. Major Kuantai was matching words to actions, firing a long-barrelled stub pistol into the ork ship as he shouted commands.
Since the fiasco at Gamma Five, Taofang’s mauled regiment had been broken up, the survivors deployed in irregular formations cobbled together from janissaries, overseers, rail guards and even Air Cohort ground crew. In his current platoon, there were only five Scorpions. The only other soldier he knew was Mingzhou, the Jackal sniper. It was an eerie thing, fighting alongside men who you didn’t know, wondering whether they could be counted upon when things became desperate.
The leadership of an officer like Kuantai made the difference. The major led by bold example, demanding nothing from his troops he wouldn’t demand of himself. Where officers like Colonel Nehring would slink off and leave the men under his command to risk all the danger, Kuantai was there with them, sharing every hazard.
Emboldened by the major’s bravado, Taofang leaned out from behind the ferrocrete embrasure he was using for shelter. Steadying his grip on his lasgun, he fired into the gunship, targeting one of the blackened brutes standing in the doorway. The ork howled back at him, brandishing a huge axe with an electrified blade. Grinning murderously, the alien leapt down onto the parapet. It lunged up from its crouch as it landed, storming across the wall, its beady eyes locked on Taofang.
The janissary fired shot after shot into the charging ork, but the las-beams failed to strike any of the alien’s vitals, or else the beast was too stupid to recognise its injuries. Roaring like some prehistoric leviathan, it closed upon Taofang. Reeling back, he cringed as the ork’s axe sheared through the side of the embrasure, sending a sliver of ferrocrete crashing to the ground.
Before the monster could strike again, its face was split by a crimson beam of light. The ork blinked in confusion, stumbled back. It dropped the axe and jabbed a fat finger into the smouldering hole in its forehead. There was a confused look on its face as it probed the wound. A glob of greasy material hung from its finger as it withdrew. The ork sniffed curiously at the stuff, then, finally acknowledging that it should be dead, slammed against the side of the embrasure.
Taofang looked around, waving his thanks to Mingzhou. The flame-haired wastelander was lying prone across the roof of a pillbox, already seeking another victim for her lasrifle. He chastised himself for the absurdity of his emotions. A battlefield was no place for frivolities like gratitude.
Firming his grip on his lasgun, Taofang dashed across the wall towards the low barricade where a dozen janissaries were trying to hold their position. Ranged against them were only a handful of orks, but the odds went beyond mere numbers. Each of the orks was the equal of three men when it came to raw muscle and strength, and the weapons they carried were similarly powerful. While the humans fired their las-beams into the monsters, charring their armour or sometimes scorching their leathery flesh, the high-calibre rounds flying from the ork’s boltguns and stubbers were chewing chunks from the barricade. Only the slovenly aim of the charging aliens gave the humans any chance at all.
Taofang rushed into the embattled position, pressing himself against the barricade. He could feel the vibrations of the ork bullets slamming into the ferrocrete, a steady tattoo like the pounding of a drum. One janissary, rising to take his shot at the aliens, fell in a twitching mash of pulverised flesh, his chest exploded by a burst from a stubber. Taofang could see panic spreading among the others as they watched the wreckage of their comrade writhe. He could feel the same panic blazing up inside his own body.
Just as fear began to overwhelm them, Major Kuantai rose from behind the barricade and lobbed a fistful of grenades into the orks. The aliens vanished in a brilliant blaze of fire and smoke. Even before the smoke started to clear, Kuantai had his pistol drawn and was vaulting over the barricade.
‘Come on!’ the officer shouted to his men. ‘We finish them, or I promise you they will finish us!’ Kuantai didn’t wait to see if the janissaries were following him, but ran across the scarred surface of the wall to loom over the bleeding bulk of an ork that had been caught in the explosion. Vengefully, Kuantai brought his pistol against the beast’s skull and blew its brains out. Wiping the gore from his tunic, the major looked up to see his soldiers executing the other injured aliens.
Taofang saw the grim smile that appeared on Kuantai’s face. It was an expression of defiant fatalism. The men under Kuantai’s command might be annihilated by the orks, but they would not be broken. Such was the major’s determination. Strangely, it gave Taofang a feeling of pride.
For more than half an hour, the fighting on the parapets continued. In the end, the defenders were neither annihilated nor beaten. Exhausted, shivering as the repressed horror of the close-quarter fighting returned to them, tending a catalogue of wounds that ranged from cuts and scrapes to broken bones and severed limbs, the janissaries were strewn along the wall, too weary even to separate the living, the dead and the dying. They had paid a desperate price to hold their position, but under Major Kuantai’s leadership, hold it they had.
His back against the cold bulk of an embrasure, Taofang tried to bind the gash across his forearm by pulling at the bandage with his clenched teeth. Despite the pain, he counted himself lucky. A few centimetres more and the ork’s knife would have taken the whole limb. Just the same, it was hard to feel fortunate with his arm feeling like it was on fire.
‘Let me do that.’ Mingzhou didn’t give him a chance to protest. Crouching beside him, leaning the lethal length of her lasrifle against the embrasure, the sniper inspected the crude bandage. Her face twisted in a scowl of disapproval. Taofang bit his lip as she undid the wrapping and a wave of raw agony coursed through his body.
‘You’re lucky you didn’t lose this,’ Mingzhou observed as she redid the bandage.
Taofang winced, trying not to squirm while she worked. ‘I… I guess my… protector had other things… to do.’ He cried out as the woman gave a sharp pull and the bandage tightened.
‘You should have kept your head down,’ Mingzhou reprimanded him. She gestured irritably at the bloody bandage. ‘Only a fool lets himself get that close to an ork.’
Somehow, through the pain, Taofang managed a smile. ‘We had to get the orks off the wall,’ he said, then shook his head. ‘I suppose you could say I let myself get caught up in the moment.’ His gaze strayed from the sniper to a cluster of men prowling along the wall, inspecting the bodies strewn about the parapets. Centremost among them was the figure of Major Kuantai, his tunic spattered with blood, his side bandaged where an ork bullet had nearly broken his ribs.
‘A brave man,’ Mingzhou conceded, her tone bitter.
Taofang shifted his body, eliciting a sullen groan as his arm brushed against his belt. ‘If not for him, we could never have held the wall.’
‘A brave man,’ Mingzhou repeated. She might have said more, but whatever words were forming themselves stayed unspoken. Her eyes became wide with alarm, pallor crept into her face. Taofang could see her body grow tense beneath her uniform and he wondered what could make this bold, almost callous woman, display such fear.
Turning his gaze back towards the officers, Taofang found his answer. His own pulse quickened as he watched a gigantic figure stalk along the parapet. It was something he had last seen in Dirgas, the ghoulish shape of Skintaker Algol.
The Skintaker did not spare a glance for the dead and dying men strewn around him, indeed it was left to the wounded to drag themselves from his path. Algol’s attention was fixed entirely upon the officers. As these men became aware of the Space Marine’s approach, their conclave broke apart, each man snapping to attention and sketching a hasty salute.
Algol glowered down at them, the optics in his skull-like helm seeming to smoulder with rage. ‘Which Flesh is in command here?’ the Iron Warrior demanded.
Paling visibly, a tremor in his
step that hadn’t been there even in the thickest of the fighting, Major Kuantai advanced and bowed before the armoured giant. ‘Major Kuantai of the 4/5 Rosicracian Tigers…’
Algol closed the distance between them in a single step, his cloak of human skin snapping in the wind. The Iron Warrior paused a moment, as though listening to the sounds of battle raging in other parts of the city, then his attention reverted to the puny human trembling before him.
‘Casualties: one hundred and fifty-four,’ the Iron Warrior growled. ‘Xenos losses: seventy-five.’ Algol raised his hand, the talons of his gauntlet pointing into Kuantai’s face. ‘This action took forty-two minutes.’ The statement ended in a grunt of contempt. ‘One Iron Warrior could have accomplished this much in three.’
Kuantai bowed again. ‘Forgive me, lord captain,’ he begged. ‘I shall do better.’
‘Your successor will,’ Algol hissed. His armoured hand smashed down, punching through the back of the bowed officer. Kuantai screamed as steel fingers ripped into his flesh and pulled several centimetres of spine from his body.
‘It seems you did have a backbone,’ Algol spat, tossing the gory talisman onto Kuantai’s quivering body. The Iron Warrior wiped the man’s blood on the hem of his grisly cloak, then turned to regard the other officers. ‘One of you is now major,’ he declared.
The Space Marine turned, started to walk away, then stopped. ‘Leave that for disposal,’ he said, pointing at Kuantai’s body. ‘And remember what is expected of you.’
The skull-faced helm glared across the horrified janissaries. ‘The eyes of the Legion are everywhere,’ he warned. ‘If you are weak, we will know. There is no room for weakness on the battlefield. Remember that too.’
The Skintaker whipped his cloak about him and marched away, savouring the stink of terror. Let them fear, he thought. Fear is the seed of obedience. If it would not take root, then there was always room for a fresh face on the raiment of Algol.
Yuxiang rolled his shoulders, the only effort the narrow confines of the pit allowed him when it came to stretching his cramped body. His fellow inmate, a burly welder named Shenlau, gave him an ugly look as his arm brushed against the man’s chest.
‘Enough of that,’ Shenlau cursed. ‘There’s not enough room already.’ He slapped his calloused palm against the stock of the lasgun. ‘You want to spoil my aim?’
Yuxiang matched the other man’s angry stare. ‘What do you expect to shoot from way back here?’ he demanded. Despite the thunder of artillery and the las-pack a janissary had tossed down into the pit some hours before, he found it inconceivable to think anything could penetrate the perimeter of Vorago, much less drive so deep as to reach the firebreak.
With short, scuffling steps, Shenlau pulled away from the narrow slit in the side of the pit. Extending the lasgun, he motioned for Yuxiang to take a look for himself.
The firebreak towered over the adjacent buildings, offering a panoramic view of Vorago that was interrupted only by the still more immense flak towers. Yuxiang could see the entire district laid out below, the streets slashing their way through the maze of factories and processing plants. For the first time, he was confronted by the deranged layout of the city. Streets and roads, even railways, twisted and twined around the buildings, seldom allowing themselves more than a few blocks for any straightaway before resuming their meandering habits. Seen from above, the effect was a confusing labyrinth. It didn’t take much imagination to picture the effect the maze would have on someone actually down in the streets.
The bright blaze of an explosion drew Yuxiang’s eyes to the immense perimeter wall. He could see ork gunships, resembling gigantic scrap metal bloat-flies, buzzing about the parapets, unleashing a murderous fire into the defenders. Alien warriors, disembarking from the hovering aircraft, ran amok along the wall, slaughtering any human unfortunate enough to cross their path. It was a scene at once fascinating and horrifying. But it was soon eclipsed by an even more awesome vision.
The city was rocked by a tremendous explosion, even the walls of the pit rained ferrocrete dust as the tremor rolled through the firebreak. A boom like the cracking of the planet roared through the air. Yuxiang felt Shenlau’s hand clawing at him with sweaty fingers.
‘What is it?’ the man pleaded. ‘What is happening? What do you see?’
Yuxiang hesitated, wondering how mere words could describe the holocaust of destruction he had just witnessed. An entire section of the perimeter wall had blown up, ripped from the earth as though by some giant hand and then dashed across the landscape. The force of the explosion had flattened nearby buildings and toppled distant smoke stacks. Where the section had been there was now only a thick haze of smoke and a blackened crater marred by the odd ferrocrete block or twisted titanium girder.
‘The wall… The orks blew up the wall...’ Yuxiang managed to gasp. He pressed closer to the slit, trying to will his eyes to pierce the smoke. It might be his imagination, but he thought he saw shapes moving in the smoke. Had someone survived the explosion? It seemed impossible.
The next instant dissolved the naïve idea that anything human had survived the breaching of the wall. The shapes moving through the smoke were orks, their squat, apish builds clearly distinct even from such a distance. At first only in small mobs, but then in increasing numbers, the aliens rushed across the destruction, their savage brains showing no hesitation, no fear of crossing the scene of such recent havoc.
The trickle of xenos warriors soon became a swarm, numbers greater than Yuxiang could calculate. Roaring and shooting, the orks rushed into the winding streets, eager to find something to kill.
It was only when they were deep within the labyrinth that the orks discovered the trap they had rushed so recklessly into. From his vantage on the firebreak, Yuxiang watched as the hidden defences of the district swung into operation. Automated death traps hidden in every factory, each sewer and workshop; traps that exploited the hazards of Vorago’s production plants and processing centres. Reclamation towers sprayed showers of molten slag onto the heads of the oncoming orks. Toxic vapours vented from the air recyclers built into the walls of factories. Raw industrial waste was pumped into the streets, spilling from the sewer lines and flow trenches. Entire buildings shuddered and collapsed, broken by charges planted against their very foundations, the rubble burying whole mobs of orks and blocking the paths of those who followed.
As he watched trap after trap deployed against the orks, a sickening thought occurred to Yuxiang. The Iron Warriors had planned for this. These traps had been built when the structures were first being constructed. From the start, they had been prepared for an enemy to attack Vorago, to breach the perimeter and fall prey to the deadly maze within. More than prepared, perhaps the Space Marines had even goaded the xenos horde into the labyrinth, drawn them in like a rat catcher baiting his snares. Had it been an uncannily accurate ork barrage which broke the perimeter wall, or had it been some ruthless machination of the Iron Warriors themselves?
‘Let me see!’ Shenlau demanded, clamping his hand on Yuxiang’s shoulder. ‘Let me see,’ he repeated in a low growl when the slave didn’t move. ‘I’ve got the gun,’ he hissed. ‘My place is at the window!’
Yuxiang turned his head and glared at the other man. ‘What will you do? Shoot me?’
Shenlau smiled coldly. ‘If I thought a disposal team would fish you out of here before you started to stink, I’d consider it.’ His finger tightened about the trigger, his eyes like chips of ice. ‘I still might.’
‘Go ahead,’ Yuxiang said, calling the other slave’s bluff. He jabbed his thumb at the slit behind him. ‘From what I can see, we’ll both be dead soon.’
Shenlau’s eyes went wide. ‘The orks are winning?’ he cried.
Yuxiang shook his head as he awkwardly drew away from the window.
‘Orks or Iron Warriors, it makes no difference,’ he said. ‘Either way, whichever wins, we lose.’
‘The orks have taken the bait. They are rushing i
nto the breach in Omicron-Sigma. From the information being relayed by Oriax’s Steel Blood, we can expect to exterminate upwards of fifty thousand of the filth.’
Warsmith Andraaz digested Sergeant Ipos’s report, the talons of his power claw drumming against the arm of his diamond throne. Though the death toll was impressive, it hardly justified the demolition of their own perimeter wall and the sacrifice of an entire district. No, the slaughter of so many orks was inconsequential, a drop in the bucket beside the vast number of aliens still laying siege to the city.
The real purpose of the ploy was more subtle. The Warsmith turned his attention away from Ipos, fixing his imperious gaze upon the cadaverous shape of Oriax’s servitor. ‘Fabricator, you have heard Ipos’s summary of the situation. How soon can we expect results?’
The servitor stared blankly at the massive Warsmith, its dead features displaying only the same silent agony they always bore. After a brief space, the metallic voice of Oriax crackled from the cyborg’s vox-caster. ‘The death of so many orks in such a short period will cause a disruption in the gestalt consciousness of the horde. They will become confused, unfocused. We can expect them to break off their attack while their individual psyches adjust.’
‘Your Steel Blood are in position,’ Andraaz did not phrase it as a question, but rather as a vocalization of what he expected the Fabricator to have already accomplished.
‘Yes, Grim Lord,’ the vox-caster crackled. ‘I am able to monitor more than thirty-nine per cent of the xenos camp. My spies will maintain visual observation of the orks throughout this crisis.’
‘They will look for leadership,’ Ipos stated. ‘In that, they are no different than any thinking creature of limited ability. When beset by calamity, they look to something better than themselves to tell them what to do.’ The Iron Warrior shook his head, his features dripping with disdain. ‘That has been the foundation of societies primitive and modern, the basis of every religion, government and tyranny. The weak look to the strong. They desire to be dominated.’