Warlord: Fury of the God-Machine

by David Annandale

  The next man to jump, an archivist named Runesehn, leapt without pausing. He seemed to rush, as if unwilling to hold back the moment of his fate. He landed safely on the ledge. So did the rest of the party.

  Ornastas moved off, staff in his left hand, right hand clutching the girders on his right whenever they were close enough to do so. There were gaps, yards long, where there was a void on both sides of the catwalk. The wind howled around Ornastas, battering and pulling him. His robes tried to become wings, and he placed each step carefully, not lifting one foot until the other felt secure. The span stretched into the gloom of the falling night, and he could not see the other side. The groans of the trusses were deafening. They sounded like a ship about to break apart. Tremors ran through the girders and down the catwalk. The agonised life of the bridge thrummed through Ornastas’ frame. And below, the Kazani Strait roared and seethed.

  ‘Confessor!’ Velatz had to shout to make herself heard over the wind.

  Ornastas paused and looked back. They had come far enough now that the eastern end of the bridge was obscured too. They were in the midst of an iron limbo.

  ‘They’re coming!’ Velatz said.

  She was right. The vibrations were becoming stronger. A few moments later, he saw the glare of scores of headlights in the distance. The heretics were making their run on the bridge.

  Something else must be close, then.

  Ornastas raised his eyes, and saw what he had feared. There were other lights approaching from on high. They were a dull, crimson glow in the dark, the colour of boiling blood and burning pain. They were towering shadows, and then, as they came on, they became hideous walking mountains. Their silhouettes were distorted by huge, twisting horns and spikes, the metallic growths of corruption. Though they were still some distance from the bridge, it shook with the beat of their footsteps.

  Boom. Boom. Boom. A slow, relentless drumbeat. The doom of Katara walked, and what foolish pride had led Ornastas to think he could do anything to stop what was coming?

  Then, from the west, came another sound. Though miles distant, it was overwhelming, a blast of war and wrath and imperious majesty that forced Ornastas to his knees. He turned again, and there were lights in that distance too. It was too far to make out the beings whose eyes those were, but Ornastas felt their presence. They were monsters too, but sublime ones, leviathans of faith and awe.

  The war-horns of the traitors answered the challenge. Then, from the east and from the west, the god-machines closed in on the Kazani Bridge.

  ‘Sound the horns again,’ Krezoc ordered.

  The roar of the Pallidus Mor shattered the falling night. It triggered vibrations in the Kazani Bridge visible to the naked eye. Then Gloria Vastator took its first steps onto the span. The rockcrete of the road cracked under its steps, but the bridge was more than capable of taking the weight of the Warlord. The trusses were not linked over the centre of the bridge, leaving the way clear for even the tallest of the god-machines to cross. The Warhounds and the Reaver of Krezoc’s maniple marched ahead. Behind, Rheliax and Drahn had their maniples side by side. The Titans were in close proximity, but the mile width of the span was enough to permit the wedge formation.

  ‘Our Imperial Hunters brethren are speaking with Syagrius,’ Drahn voxed.

  ‘I would have been surprised if they weren’t,’ said Krezoc.

  ‘What are you going to tell him?’ Rheliax asked.

  ‘That we are securing the defence of Deicoon. That is, if he gets through to me.’

  She had given orders to her moderati not to respond or acknowledge any transmissions from Syagrius. She had sent a datapack to the marshal just before leaving Deicoon, informing him of the necessity to move on the enemy. She had not communicated with him since. There was no point. There would be consequences, and she accepted them. They would not be as severe as the ones that would come from waiting at Deicoon for the traitors to cross the bridge. ‘I seem to be having some technical difficulties with the long-range vox,’ she said. ‘Maybe you are too.’

  Drahn laughed. ‘I think we are. We’ll just have to leave it to the Hunters to keep the marshal up to date.’

  ‘Will they follow your orders?’ Krezoc asked. That was a real concern.

  ‘They are following them so far, if under protest,’ said Rheliax.

  ‘That will be good enough,’ said Krezoc. She switched channels to address the entire demi-legio. ‘Place your shots with care. Do not aim at the bridge. For now, our goal is to keep it intact.’

  She looked ahead, to the lights of the approaching enemy. The augur array was showing a force already the equal of hers in size, and more traitors were advancing from Creontiades. The narrowness of the battlefield would mitigate the imbalance a bit, but already she was adjusting her larger strategy. There would be sacrifices on this night, and victory was beyond reach. But she would strike a blow.

  ‘Captain Deyers,’ she voxed. ‘You may begin.’

  Lined up on the eastern edge of the cliff, the tanks and artillery of the Kataran Spears commenced fire. Shells, mortars and rockets streaked across the Kazani Strait. To the north and south of the bridge, on the Creontiades side of the strait, the land bloomed with fire. There was no pause in the barrage. The guns fired at staggered intervals, and however badly hit the regiment had been at Gelon, its armoured ranks were still strong enough that while one portion of the cannons were reloading, others were firing, and the booming, shrieking bombardment became an unceasing thunder.

  On the bridge, a swarm of vehicles raced across the span. The here­tics surged ahead of their colossal masters like a plague of vermin. Pounding into the lead, the Warhound Canis Ignem opened up with its mega-bolter, the controlled spray of fire slamming into the lead vehicles, turning them into rolling balls of wreckage and flame. They collided with each other against the framework of the bridge. The explosions and the mounting pile of tangled metal slowed the cultists down, but many more pressed from behind, forcing their way through the burning wrecks.

  Krezoc looked towards the far end of the bridge. She waited for the first glimpse of the enemy Titan lights. In the manifold, her consciousness swam through the data streaming in from the augurs. The machine-spirit fought her restraint. It could sense its foes and it burned with the need to send them to oblivion. She held back, though Gloria Vastator’s hate flowed through her soul too at the thought of Traitor Titans. The hate was more pure and more visceral than what the machine-spirit felt for the tyranids. They were a threat to the existence of the Imperium. The xenos had to be eradicated. But treachery inspired something more, something deeper. The mere existence of the fallen legios was an insupportable stain.

  The Warlord strained to unleash its full rage. Krezoc held back. The bridge must be preserved if Creontiades were to be retaken. And now that the Pallidus Mor was upon it, its destruction would be disastrous. At least the traitors were showing similar, unusual restraint. They needed the bridge too.

  Krezoc sighted her target. Her flesh eyes saw the red of its eyes and maw in the night, and the dim hints of its shape limned by the reflected fire of the Kataran barrage. Behind it came more of its misshapen kin. The traitors advanced, and now Krezoc saw the glint of brass. The sensor arrays scanned the silhouettes. They picked up their markings. They delineated the heads reshaped into the image of death.

  ‘Banelord acquired,’ Grevereign intoned. He was so focused on the size of the target, he had not registered its full identity.

  Krezoc recognised the enemy. Her fists tightened with hate. ‘The traitors are the Iron Skulls,’ she announced to the demi-legio. With a name came history, and with the closing distance an even greater, agonised need to turn the foe into heaps of irradiated scrap. Ancient as the Pallidus Mor, the glories the Iron Skulls had once shared with their brethren legios, in the days, ten thousand years past, of the Imperium’s great unity, were forgotten, expunged from all records
by the fact of their duplicity.

  Krezoc’s vox buzzed with angry voices and oaths to bring molten justice to the traitors. Krezoc filtered through the transmissions. Some voices were absent. ‘Do the Imperial Hunters have anything to say?’ she asked Drahn and Rheliax.

  ‘They’re acknowledging orders and the receipt of information. Nothing more,’ said Rheliax.

  ‘They must not have encountered the Iron Skulls before,’ said Drahn.

  ‘They may have,’ said Krezoc. ‘They just didn’t fight them as we had to.’

  The Pallidus Mor had clashed with the Iron Skulls more than once. During the Battle of Cruciatus Primus, elements of the Iron Skulls had made a concerted effort to corrupt the Pallidus Mor. The attempt had been an utter failure, but the fact that the traitors had believed the Pallidus Mor might be susceptible was an insupportable insult. They believed that the legio’s history of long wars and often unacknowledged sacrifice meant there would be fertile ground for the whispers of the Ruinous Powers. The mere thought was a stain on the honour of the Pallidus Mor. It had to be expunged from the face of the galaxy. Krezoc welcomed the chance to instruct the Iron Skulls further on the magnitude of their mistake. But her hatred for them made it even more difficult to control the fury of Gloria Vastator.

  ‘Target is in range,’ Grevereign reported. In his voice was the same strain and need to strike that Krezoc felt.

  ‘Hurt it,’ Krezoc said.

  The volcano cannon fired. The las burned across the span of the Kazani Bridge. It struck the distant shape of the Banelord. The eastern night flared with the warring energies of las and void shields, a struggle more incandescent than the explosions of shells. The enemy stood revealed in all its corrupted might. The ancient work of the forges of Mars had been transformed into a monster from predatory dreams. The form of a Warlord was recognisable, but distorted, with spines along its arms, on its head and running down its back. It had grown a tail that lashed with anger, at the end of which was a cannon. Below the head of the Titan was a gaping maw, from which another gun barrel protruded. The Banelord fired the jaw cannon, a beast breathing fire. The las-beam was a tortured red. It burned and bled the night. Its light was rotten. To see it was to know the universe was cracked and broken, and that behind the fissures of reality there were things that strained to find their way through and bring ruin to all creation.

  The dire las struck Gloria Vastator’s void shields. As they struggled against it, pushed to the edge of collapse, Krezoc kept the Warlord marching forwards, as if against a hurricane wind. The manifold convulsed with the energy demands of the shields and recoiled from the corrupted touch of the dark blast. The only answer was retaliation.

  ‘Magos,’ Krezoc voxed to Thezerin, ‘first priority is the volcano cannon. All other weapons systems are on standby. Divert energy as needed. We must fire again.’

  ‘Understood.’

  The cannon charged up with alacrity, fed by the prayers and rituals of the tech-priest and by the war-rage of the machine-spirit. Krezoc fired again, and was rewarded with a violet-hued blast around the torso of the Banelord. Its shields collapsed, and flame burst from a rent in the armour. The beast’s war-horn sounded, and it was the raging cry of a wounded animal, lunging forwards to destroy its tormentor. The bridge shook as the largest Traitor Titans increased their pace.

  The distance between the lines of god-machines narrowed, and the intensity of the fire grew. The servants of the God-Emperor and the traitors now all had targets they could assault without blowing up the supports of the bridge. The span was lit by a storm of las. The night turned into a searing maelstrom. Gloria Vastator pressed its advantage on the Banelord, and the volcano cannon hit it again before its shields could recharge. The traitor’s las punched through the Warlord’s defences, but its aim was affected by the hits it had taken. Though the beam lanced through the armour on the left of the torso, it missed vital elements. Gloria Vastator walked on.

  ‘Lower,’ Krezoc breathed, deep in the fusion of self and moderati and machine. ‘Make it fall.’

  The next shot struck the Banelord in the left knee. It turned metal molten and severed the lower half of the leg. In mid-step, the Banelord pitched forwards and to Krezoc’s right. The monster crashed down, crushing heretics and a Feral Titan beneath it.

  The bridge swayed. On the right, the truss nearest the Banelord shrieked. Girders tore free.

  Now comes the true storm, Krezoc thought.

  His flock was terrified. They were in the midst of a war of gods. The night was riven by blinding exchanges of energy. Ornastas could barely think, and he could not hear the shrieks of the frightened over the howl and crack of las. The bridge shook and shook and shook. Flakes of rust and powdered concrete fell like snow on the refugees’ heads. But they kept going. He led the way, and they followed. He began to run. The wind still blasted, the waves below reached up in hunger, and the ledge vibrated and swayed with the pounding of the war on the bridge. Ornastas knew the risk of a fall with every step. But he ran, because he knew what the war would bring. He could feel the agony of the bridge growing. He would not die with his flock in futility here. He would not accept that end. His service to the God-Emperor was not done, and nor was that of his followers. There was war here, but it was not one they could fight. Ornastas felt the calling. There was a destiny prepared for his band. They would have a role to play in the struggle for Katara’s soul. They just had to live long enough to answer that call.

  He ran, and so did they, ducking low even though they were beneath the levels of the battle and beneath the notice of the combatants. The western end of the bridge was in sight at last. They must reach it. Their destiny, whatever its form, waited on the other side of the strait.

  From behind came a metallic thunderclap that went on and on, a groaning, booming cataclysm of falling god. The ledge still wavered from side to side, and now it suddenly bucked as the bridge heaved under the impact of an immense body. Metal shrieked. There was a crash of tumbling wreckage.

  ‘Do not look back!’ Ornastas shouted. He disobeyed his own command so his followers might see his face even if they could not hear his words. ‘Do not look back!’ He saw the shattered Titan, and he saw the first of the great wounds in the bridge. Crevasses opened up in the road surface. Huge struts broke away from the superstructure and fell, spinning end over end, into the furious waves. One caught another of the faithful as it dropped. It crushed her, and her corpse plunged from the ledge. Her name was Lankas, and Ornastas marked it. She would be remembered too, for her faith and for her loyalty.

  He looked forwards again, and picked up the pace. ‘Don’t look back,’ he said again, to himself this time. His balance wavered. The bridge shook as if taken by an earthquake. He stumbled, clutched at air, then found his footing and ran on.

  ‘The Emperor protects,’ he said, and prayed, and pleaded. The end of the run was in sight, but so far, so very far away, and the Kazani Bridge cried out in its agony while the gods hurled thunderbolts at each other. ‘The Emperor protects. The Emperor protects.’

  The screams of metal grew louder.

  And then came more blasts, more terrible than before, huge as the end of days.

  ‘We can’t take them all on,’ Drahn voxed.

  More and more Traitor Titans were appearing. They outnumbered the Pallidus Mor already, and still more were showing up on the long-range auspex as they marched from Creontiades.

  ‘I know,’ Krezoc said. ‘We just need them to think we believe we can.’

  And we have, she thought. The Iron Skulls were moving onto the bridge at greater speed, rushing their might forwards. Krezoc had feinted a counter-attack, and the enemy had taken the bait.

  ‘Retreat,’ she ordered. ‘Get off the bridge and draw the traitors onwards.’

  She arrested the forwards march of Gloria Vastator. The Warlord resisted. The machine-spirit was not satisfied. It want
ed more kills, more justice. Krezoc reined it in and took the first step back. She fired again with the volcano cannon, the blast striking a Feral Titan full in the head, shearing away the distorted skull.

  The retreat began, and the enemy’s massed fire hit home. Fidelis Venator loped heavily across the width of the bridge, laying down covering fire for Canis Ignem to pull back, and it took two direct hits from Banelord jaw cannons. The stricken god-machine disappeared, melting to slag and then blowing apart. It disintegrated before its processes could go critical, but the explosion blew a hole hundreds of yards across in the surface of the bridge. The ragged armoured infantry of the heretics, charging ahead in the ecstasy of bloodlust, barely slowed for the obstacle. Vehicles swerved to avoid the gap. Some drove straight on to fall into the sea.

  Krezoc felt the growing movements of the bridge. Side to side, left and right – they were constant, and they were irreversible. Data streamed into the manifold. Vectors of damage and measures of weakness, the positions of Pallidus Mor maniples and their relative speeds.

  We need to be faster, she thought.

  To the rear, the top of the cliff lit up with a succession of monstrous blasts. The Iron Skulls at the rear, the ones not yet on the bridge, were venting their wrath on the Kataran Spears.

  The ledge bucked again, throwing Ornastas into the air. His head spun, his eyes blurred, and for an awful second he had no thought, only the confused expectation of death. Then he landed, hard, twisting his ankle. He skidded to the left, the weight of his staff pulling him to the edge. He lunged forwards with all of his strength. He fell to his knees, but he was still on the catwalk. He rose before Velatz collided with him and ran on, limping.