Warlord: Fury of the God-Machine

by David Annandale

  From the streets below, the sounds of battle and of slaughter rose to embrace the cathedral towers.

  Ornastas rode beside the driver of the lead Taurox. Deyers had dispatched two of the armoured personnel carriers to transport the Company of the Bridge to Deicoon. The walls of the city were just coming into sight, shimmering in the distance, when Ornastas felt a shadow at his neck. He leaned his head out of the narrow window in the passenger door and looked back the way they had come. Crimson light rose to the sky, and the earth roared.

  ‘The enemy has struck again,’ he said to the driver, whose name was Folner. ‘Can you reach the reserves at Deicoon?’

  Folner tried, but got only static on the vox. He shared a concerned look with Ornastas. ‘They’re blocking our communications,’ he said.

  ‘From the strait?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Folner stared at the approaching city with grim apprehension.

  Before long, they saw the smoke that did not come from manufactorum chimneys.

  ‘There’s fighting going on,’ said Folner. ‘I’ll have to hook up with the reserve units, if I can.’

  ‘Of course,’ Ornastas said.

  ‘Will you join us too?’

  Ornastas thought that through. The Company of the Bridge would have to become part of something larger if it wanted to hurt the heretics in a meaningful way. But trying to fight alongside the Kataran Spears or even the city militias didn’t feel like the correct path. His followers were not trained. They could easily become a hindrance for military personnel. No, their task lay elsewhere.

  As they drew closer to Deicoon, the fighting became clear. There were struggles on the walls. Las flashed in the overcast gloom. The air over the city, always an industrial dark brown, was turning black as unholy clouds gathered to answer the summons of the heresy below. There were holes in the wall, and the gates had been blown apart, but from the inside. The husks of vehicles lay at the entrance. Ornastas guessed some loyalist troops had tried to break out of the city to issue a warning and had been stopped at the moment of escape.

  In the middle distance, looming above the walls, were the god-machines. In their immobility, Ornastas saw dreadful meaning and urgent mission. ‘The Titans,’ he said to Folner. ‘Can you take us to them?’

  ‘I can try.’

  The first of the Iron Skulls Titans was halfway across the causeway when Deyers made his decision. ‘Still no answer from Deicoon?’ he voxed Halex Rahl in the Chimera General Lange. The Chimera held the regiment’s long-range communications.

  ‘Nothing,’ Rahl said. His voice popped and jumped. Transmissions even within the regiment had become rough, though still functional.

  ‘New orders,’ Deyers told him. ‘We make for Deicoon at all speed.’

  He had barely finished speaking when Medina began turning Bastion of Faith around. Deyers swallowed the lump of shame he felt in his throat. It felt like he had just commanded the Spears to flee from the advancing enemy. But there was no point in making a stand here. The Iron Skulls would turn the 66th into slag in minutes.

  If he was wrestling with the shame of perceived retreat, Deyers knew the rest of the Spears were too. As the tanks backed away from the Kazani Strait and began their run for Deicoon, he spoke to the regiment, hoping enough of his words made it through the static to matter.

  ‘Comrades,’ he said, ‘we aren’t retreating. We’re choosing our ground. If we’re going to save our world we mustn’t just hurl ourselves onto a pyre of futile martyrdom.’ They could not take on the Iron Skulls by themselves. That much had to be clear to every trooper of the 66th. ‘We must join forces with the Pallidus Mor at Deicoon. A united stand there will matter.’ So he needed to believe. But the force of traitor god-machines was still much larger than the Pallidus Mor’s portion of the battle group.

  When Deyers had finished speaking, Platen called up from her gun seat, ‘Aren’t we concerned we can’t get through to the Pallidus Mor?’

  ‘We are,’ Deyers told her. ‘So it’s all the more important we reach Deicoon.’ And do so ahead of the Iron Skulls.

  Bastion of Faith accelerated. Deyers looked back as the Kataran Spears stormed towards Deicoon, leaving clouds of dust between them and the Kazani Strait. The unnatural causeway still glowed. What looked like an unending stream of monsters marched across it.

  For the moment, the gap between the two forces was growing. The Spears were gaining time. It was precious little.

  Deyers wondered if they were racing to find there really was no time left at all.

  The Tauroxes careened through the streets of Deicoon. The drivers pushed through the struggles at high speed. Ornastas stared towards their target. He registered the thumps of bodies against the grille, the crunching bumps as heretics went under the wheels. The cultists crowded the avenues and rushed the Tauroxes, but the armoured vehicles’ velocity was enough to hold them off. If the drivers slowed down at all, that would be enough for the enemy to swarm the transports and catch them in a quagmire of flesh.

  Folner stuck to the major thoroughfares. They gave him a bit more room to manoeuvre, and he ploughed a path forwards for the second Taurox. The shapes of the Titans grew larger. Not long now, and they would reach the forge where the god-machines stood immobile.

  Then what? Ornastas thought. He needed some plan. Something better than disembarking and being slaughtered. If the Titans did not walk, the warriors of the Pallidus Mor were prevented from making them walk. The most likely reason was that they were held captive.

  Is this your goal, then? Is this what you have been called upon to do? To rescue the Pallidus Mor?

  The presumption was enormous. Even if he thought it was true, where would he look?

  Ornastas scanned the blackened towers of the city for inspiration. He prayed to the Emperor for guidance.

  We are here to serve You. Show us Your will.

  The Emperor heard. Ornastas’ eyes instinctively went to the architecture of faith that was the Cathedral of Saint Chirosius. He saw movement at the top of its towers. He saw the silhouettes of runic crucifixion.

  He grabbed Folner by the shoulder and pointed. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Get us there, to the north side of the north tower.’

  Folner nodded. If he had doubts about Ornastas’ mission, he kept them to himself. He carried on up the current route, then turned sharply into narrower streets. He smashed the Taurox through a group of heretics who had just left the main avenue, and for the first time since their arrival in Deicoon, the road ahead was deserted. The air was sharp with smoke, and the windows of the hab blocks on either side were dark. Ornastas wondered if their inhabitants were hiding, or if the buildings were deserted. If everyone was gone, that raised the dark spectre of where they might be, and what might be happening to them. Ornastas brushed the speculation aside. It was inconsequential. What mattered was the task the Emperor had set before him.

  ‘North side,’ Folner repeated.

  ‘Yes. Approach from the east if you can.’

  Folner nodded again and did as Ornastas hoped. The streets here remained relatively clear. The struggles were elsewhere, and the few people Ornastas saw were rushing off to join those fights. After a few minutes of careering down narrow alleys, the sides of the Tauroxes grinding against the corners of buildings, Folner and the driver of the second Taurox stopped at the corner of the cathedral’s north tower. Ornastas and the Company of the Bridge disembarked.

  ‘We can’t wait for you,’ Folner said.

  ‘Nor do I expect you to,’ Ornastas told him. ‘Fight well. The Emperor guides your hand.’

  Folner made the sign of the aquila and lowered his head in thanks for the blessing. Then the Tauroxes drove off.

  ‘What are we doing?’ Velatz asked.

  ‘There are prisoners on the roofs of the towers,’ Ornastas said as he led the company to a small door at the bas
e of the north tower. ‘Their position faces the god-machines, and so I believe them to be the officers of the Pallidus Mor.’ He reached into his robes and produced a ring of keys. There were doors common to the great churches of Katara that were closed to the general populace but open to all ecclesiarchs of Ornastas’ rank. There were commonalities to the architecture of the buildings too, and he made use of those features now. He unlocked the door and ushered his followers inside. He looked back at the street briefly before he shut the door again. No one was following, though that didn’t mean they hadn’t been seen. He slammed the door and locked it. If someone tried to follow, they would find it difficult.

  Beyond the door was a small antechamber that led to a grav lift. It was used by church officials to reach the heights of the cathedral quickly. It had two stops – one at the level of the roof, permitting access to the south tower, and one at the top of the tower. Ornastas pulled down a lever, stiff from lack of use, and the grav lift’s heavy wooden doors slid aside. The compartment was small. There was room for only four people at a time.

  ‘We will fight to free the prisoners,’ Ornastas told the company. ‘This could well be the moment of our sacrifice. If so, let it be a worthy one, as we give our lives to unleash the god-machines against the heretic.’

  Solemn nods greeted his words. Many of the faces he saw were pale, clearly frightened, but all were determined. Ornastas looked at the way hands gripped lasrifles. There was no training here. There was only determination and faith. That would be enough. Did the cultists have more military training? Some would. Most would not. ‘We have faith, and we have righteousness with us,’ Ornastas said. ‘That is more than the heretic can say. That is what will make the difference this day.’ That, and surprise. ‘I will go up with the first group,’ he continued. ‘There is a chamber similar to this one at the top. We will gather there.’

  More nods. More determination. Then the ascent began. The mechanism of the grav lift ground and clanked as the compartment rose. There had been no call to use this access in some time. Most of Ornastas’ fellow confessors preferred, like him, to take the stairs, and use the time of the long climbs for contemplation and prayer. Now he murmured his thanks that the grav lift still worked. He hoped the noise would be muffled by the stone, and lost in the wider din of the city’s war.

  It took almost ten minutes for the entire Company of the Bridge to reach the upper chamber. When all were assembled, Ornastas placed his key in the lock of the outside door. He paused for a moment. He did not know what waited on the other side. He thought about what strategy he could offer. Precious little, except a reminder of the goal. ‘Fight to free the prisoners,’ he said. ‘Free them, and we grow stronger. That is the first priority.’ He took a breath. ‘May the Father of Mankind strike through us,’ he said, then he turned the key and threw open the door.

  The Company of the Bridge stormed out of the interior of the north-east crown of the tower’s parapet. On the roof, rows of secutarii were fastened to runic scaffolds. They were guarded by a score of heretics. The guards’ attention was directed towards the south tower, though. They were confident their prisoners could not break free, and Ornastas saw why before he had taken five steps onto the roof. In the north-west corner, near the main staircase, stood a generator. It was a bloody machine with horns of brass. Cables snaked from it to the scaffolds and down the steps towards the floors beneath the bells. Energy hummed and pulsed along the cables. Its ugly green light coruscated over the iron runes and over the prisoners, the spiralling, arcing energy doing more to hold the secutarii than the physical manacles. The pulses were doing something to disable the machinic augmentations of the prisoners.

  ‘The generator!’ Ornastas shouted. He and almost half the company raced for the device while the others turned their fire on the cultists.

  The Company of the Bridge had surprise on its side for several beats. The heretics were completely unprepared for an attack. They were hundreds of feet above the fray in the streets, and their prisoners were completely helpless. They reacted slowly. They turned around at the sound of the company’s charge, confused, and they fumbled to bring their weapons to bear. The company shot multiple las salvoes before return fire commenced. A dozen bursts hit the generator, burning through its plating and cables. Ornastas brought the charged head of his staff down on the nearest cable. He sent a power surge running both ways down its length. The cable tore free of the scaffold, whipping back and forth like an electrified snake, and then fell, inert.

  The roof became a storm of interlacing las-beams. The cultists outnumbered the company and fought back now with wrath. The faithful and the heretic burned and died. Ornastas ducked behind the runic constructions, making his way towards the smoking generator. A few of the secutarii yanked themselves free of their manacles and joined the fight. They were unarmed, but their cybernetic bodies were weapons in themselves. They charged the heretics, battering them and hurling them from the roof of the tower.

  Ornastas reached the generator. Misfiring energy burst from the cable connections. The brass mechanisms were spinning wildly, sparking and spitting fire. Ornastas eyed the control panel. The inscriptions beside the levers were obscene. He did not know how it worked. He suspected there was sorcery infused with its machinery. Beside him, Aldemar and four others trained their rifles at the generator at point-blank range. Ornastas drove the staff into the controls, calling down a curse from the Emperor upon the foulness. An angry flash answered his blow, and a blast sent him flying back. He bounced off scaffolding and landed next to the tower’s parapet. The generator was engulfed in flame. The machine shrieked in anger and pain. There was a brilliant flash of curdled, crimson light. Then the generator fell into blackened silence.

  The rest of the secutarii had pulled free now. Some gathered up lasrifles from fallen combatants. The battle on the roof turned into a military operation, and then a rout. From below, Ornastas heard more shots. The secutarii held at the next level were freeing themselves now that their prisons no longer had power. Some heretics rushed up the stairs, but they were too late to reinforce their fellow cultists. All they did was run to their own deaths.

  The entire struggle lasted less than a minute. Smoke covered the roof, drifting up from the generator and the charred bodies of the fallen. The battle on the lower level ended just as quickly, and the secutarii who had been held there now climbed the stairs to join their brethren. One of the leaders approached Ornastas. He spoke first in an ear-splitting burst of binaric cant, then caught himself and switched to Gothic. His voice was a modulated rumble, designed to be broadcast over the breadth of a field if necessary. ‘Hoplite Alpha Venterras,’ he said. ‘You have our thanks.’ He glanced at the dead members of the company. Over a third had been killed. ‘Those are not soldiers,’ he said.

  ‘Confessor Lehrn Ornastas. And no, they are not. But they have answered the call to war.’

  ‘Their protection is not within our remit.’

  ‘We would not expect it to be.’

  Venterras nodded. He turned to face the other tower. If there had been a ceremony under way there, it had been disrupted. Ornastas heard shouts of anger. A few las-shots seared the top of the parapet, but the attack was not organised yet.

  ‘We must get there quickly,’ Venterras said.

  ‘We can.’ Ornastas told him about the grav lifts. ‘There is another in the south tower.’

  ‘Good.’ Venterras took the lead going down the stairs. The secutarii formed up into their units, so many gears instantly flowing into a precision military machine. In a chamber just off the cavernous space where the bells hung, their weapons had been stored in heaps. There were scorch marks on the walls and incinerated heretics here, their hands still clutching the weapons they had tried to use for themselves. Venterras bent down and tore one of the lances from a corpse. There was anger in his gesture that made it different from the machine-like grace of his other movements.
/>   When the other secutarii had rearmed themselves, Venterras said to Ornastas, ‘Show us the way.’

  ‘I shall.’ And the confessor gave thanks that he had, indeed, found the path of his destiny.

  The triumph in Darroban’s face vanished at the sounds of battle coming from the north tower. Soon he was cursing. He yelled at the cultists with him to shoot the enemy on the other tower, but there were not enough of them, and even fewer with military training. They could do nothing.

  ‘Your reckoning is coming,’ Krezoc called out. ‘Not ours. Are you prepared for the cost of heresy? I don’t think you are.’

  Darroban snarled as he lined up his followers to face the staircase. Most of them were not military, but he was, and he managed to order the cultists into formations that would provide withering fire down the steps. He noticed the door in the south-east corner and put half his rifles covering that position. ‘I am ready,’ he said to Krezoc. ‘If I die now, then mine is another skull for the Skull Throne. You are still not prepared for what is coming.’

  ‘I think I would surprise you,’ said Krezoc. The warriors of the Pallidus Mor were one with death. They brought it, and they expected it. They never sold their lives cheaply, and they fought to the bitterest of ends, because the unity with death had to be earned.

  Darroban snorted. His arrogance was misplaced. The roof of the other tower was empty. Krezoc knew exactly what Darroban was about to fight. So did he, yet he seemed to believe he could fight and win against the secutarii.

  When the guardians of the Pallidus Mor burst out of the south-east door, Darroban showed how little he really was prepared. The heretic who had had the patience to prepare so long and so completely to bring about the fall of Deicoon was not ready to fight to hold the moment he had believed was his triumph. The heretics went down before the disciplined fire of the secutarii and the fanatical charge of a group of ragged civilians led by an ecclesiarch. There was no contest, only a slaughter. Darroban was part of the struggle for only a few seconds. He fired two shots from his plasma pistol, then turned and ran for the main stairs. A handful of cultists fled with him. The others were too caught up in their bloodthirst to register what was happening and were cut down by the secutarii.