Venterras freed Krezoc from the scaffold. She stepped briskly away from the rune. It was the festering meaning in its shape that had caused her pain, more than the shackling itself. She ran to the west parapet and looked down at the street and across to the Viokania yards. The ground crawled with heretics, though she saw no organised defence yet. ‘They don’t know we’re free,’ she said. She looked at Venterras. ‘We need to get down before Darroban.’
‘A few of us can,’ the alpha hoplite answered. ‘Not all.’ He pointed back to the other entrance to the roof. ‘There is a small grav lift.’ There was a minute pause as Venterras’ implanted cogitators calculated relative speeds. ‘There will be time for two trips before the enemy reaches the street. Eight personnel.’
Krezoc weighed the odds of a smaller force and the benefit of surprise. She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Better to attack as a unified force.’ She grabbed the nearest lasrifle, cursing the absence of her plasma pistol. ‘Let’s go.’
It seemed to take an eternity before the princeps, moderati and secutarii had gathered on the cathedral’s ground floor. Beyond the doors, the roar of the cultists grew louder and more focused. Darroban had raised the alarm. The enemy was ready. But so was she, this time.
She did not wait for the ecclesiarch’s civilians. Their impact in the concerted assault would be minimal. Ornastas had assured her his followers were pleased to come after, disrupting the cultists in whatever way they could.
Officers and secutarii moved from the tower into the nave of the cathedral. The hoplites formed the front lines, the peltasts the rear. Venterras pushed open the great doors, and the Pallidus Mor charge began.
The fissure in the street was a wide one, but since taking the Viokania yards, the heretics had dropped makeshift bridges of roughly soldered iron slabs over the gap. There was one directly in front of the cathedral, and the Pallidus Mor made for it, running into las-fire and a boiling mob. The secutarii weapons scythed through the cultists. Shock waves from arc lances and blasts from galvanic casters ploughed a bloody path across the street and past the fallen gates of the Viokania forge. Krezoc led her moderati mere steps behind Venterras’ hoplites. Venterras had told her of the device that had disabled the secutarii, but there was no sign of another now. Perhaps there had been only one, a bomb assembled for the heretics for this one use, with no expectation of another being needed. Of course it wouldn’t be, she thought. We were supposed to have been corrupted before our descent.
The mob pushed in at the sides of the Pallidus Mor advance. She sent las-shots between the eyes of the attackers. Corpses with burned faces fell, tangling the feet of the cultists behind. A heretic leapt over the falling bodies and managed to grab at her greatcoat. She smashed the man’s skull open with the butt of the rifle.
The formations pressed on into the yards. The attacks of the cultists were more disorganised here. They were a frenzied, howling mass, interrupted in the midst of their rituals and caught in the fog of inchoate anger. Krezoc’s flesh crawled. The back of her scalp itched from the build-up of sorcerous energies. The ground of the Viokania works was unclean. Already she could see changes in the gantries and machinery of the yards. The metal works were turning into crimson and brass, and the stench of blood filled her nostrils. The thought of what was being attempted against the god-machines enraged her. Something tried to reach into her soul and push her deeper into rage, to turn it into the totality of her being. She refused. Her wrath had a focus and a goal. She had come to kill the unholy and for the salvation of the Titans.
Las and blades and clawed hands came in boiling waves for the Pallidus Mor. The advance slowed, but lost none of its lethal precision. The feet of Gloria Vastator came into view. Krezoc’s soul burned at the sight. She resisted the urge to charge, roaring, for the Warlord. She glanced to her sides and saw her anger reflected in the eyes of her moderati. There were cultists swarming over the sacred body of the god-machine. The sacrilege could not be allowed to stand. But it must not be fought on its own terms.
‘Discipline!’ Krezoc shouted. ‘Remember who we are!’
Vansaak nodded. ‘We are Pallidus Mor!’ she shouted back.
‘Let death and fury be as cold as the void!’ said Krezoc. She fired the lasgun, one shot after another, precise and metronomic in their rhythm, proving her words as she killed the foe with frozen hate.
Venterras unleashed another shock wave with his arc lance, and there was a momentary clear path to Gloria Vastator. The Pallidus Mor warriors paused here, forming lines to hold the foe back while Venterras took his squad with Krezoc and the moderati into the Titan.
When Venterras opened the hatch on the lower right leg, it was all Krezoc could do to hold herself back. Her instincts cried out for her to charge inside the god-machine. The void she felt whenever she was not linked to the Warlord had grown towards agony in the last few hours. She felt the torment of the machine-spirit. The enemy was wounding it in new ways, and it cried out to Krezoc to join with it and smite the foe. She waited, though, and just barely, for the secutarii to enter first. She and her moderati followed in the next breath.
There was a lift inside the leg, and it seemed operational, but Venterras did not take it. He led the squad and officers up the sharp switchbacks of the metal staircase instead, past the colossal pistons and cables thick as tree trunks. Blasphemous runes had been splashed on the interior walls, and Krezoc stared at them, her lips pulled back in a silent snarl. The desecration pushed her to an anger beyond words, but at the same time, she felt a cold, merciless pride. These signs were not enough to corrupt Gloria Vastator. They were mere surface blemishes, impotent expressions of the enemy’s intent. They could play with their runes and their rituals and their sacrifices. They would not succeed. And they would be punished.
As they climbed closer to the core of the Warlord, Krezoc heard chanting voices. The hoplites raised their shields and readied their lances. The next landing opened into corridors leading to the enginarium sectors of the Titan. The war party headed down towards the power plant. The chanting grew louder. The runes multiplied on the bulkheads. Blood was spattered on the decking.
The secutarii burst into the power plant control chamber. The space was filled with heretics. Magos Thezerin was chained to a wall, a huge skull rune painted behind her. Other tech-priests and serfs of the crew were bound next to her. The servitors of Gloria Vastator were motionless, deprived of function. The chanting stung Krezoc’s ears. Her mouth filled with the taste of blood. The song of corruption tried to slide its claws into her. She shut it out. The secutarii waded into the heretics with their arc lances, and then Krezoc and her moderati opened fire. She placed her shots carefully. Each burst of las hit flesh, not metal. The searing burns purged the unholy from this sacred place, and she would not cause the Warlord any more harm. It had suffered, but she felt the machine-spirit rejoice in the punishing violence that erupted at its heart. Every component of the Titan had been thrice blessed and anointed with holy oil during its construction, and the sanctity of the god-machine was strong. It had not fallen to the vermin that had infested it. And now it called the righteous to purge its body of the heretic filth.
The cultists reacted with animalistic fury to the attack. Their ritual was ended. Their attempt to enslave Gloria Vastator and its crew to their false worship was finished. They leapt at hoplites and crew with rabid madness. Krezoc and her moderati answered with a rage as frozen and controlled. A cultist landed on Grevereign, shoving him back against a bulkhead and dragging his nails down the moderati’s face. Vansaak jabbed her rifle’s bayonet deep into the cultist’s ribs and yanked him away. Grevereign ignored the flaps of skin hanging from his cheeks and put a shot between the eyes of another heretic trying to flank Vansaak. The secutarii laid waste to the bulk of the cultists with swift blows of their arc lances. All the heretics were dead before Krezoc felt even the smallest portion of her anger assuaged.
She turned to Thezerin as Venterras smashed her shackles. ‘Can we walk?’ Krezoc asked.
‘We can,’ said Thezerin. ‘The most important repairs had taken place before the attack.’
‘And the degree of infection?’
‘Gloria Vastator is strong,’ Thezerin said, confirming what Krezoc already knew.
‘Then we will walk,’ Krezoc said.
There were two more skirmishes with cultists on the way to the Warlord’s head. Two of the wretches were trying to pry open the door to the bridge. Thezerin had managed to trigger some of the security mechanisms before being overcome, and the heretics had been denied this prize. Venterras and his squad stepped aside and let Krezoc and the moderati deal with the cultists. Krezoc nodded her thanks to Venterras. This was her sanctum under attack. The privilege of cleansing it belonged to her and her fellow officers. She shot one of the cultists between the eyes, then kicked the corpse out of the way. Vansaak and Grevereign dealt with the other heretic by beating him to death. Their blows were methodical. The crack of each bone was precisely calculated. While the hoplites dragged the bodies away, Krezoc put her eye to the optical recognition plate, and the door opened.
As she sat in her throne and prepared to link to the manifold, Krezoc asked Venterras, ‘You will be completing a full sweep?’
‘We will, princeps senioris. I will send word when we are ready to disembark and resume ground patrol.’
‘Good. Then our initial attack will presume none of our forces are at ground level east of our position.’
‘That is correct.’
The secutarii withdrew, and as the last of the mechadendrites plugged into her ports, Krezoc completed the links. With a rush, she and Gloria Vastator found each other again. Their fusion was a necessity to human and machine-spirit, and now the full measure of their anger could be unleashed.
But always controlled. Always with the rigour of ice.
The nuclear heartbeat of the Warlord was strong. The power coursed through the god-machine’s limbs, and before long Krezoc felt movement return to them. Gloria Vastator took a step forwards. The twisted gantries fell away, raining lethal wreckage on the ground below. Krezoc pivoted the torso of the Warlord to the east. She looked down at the swarming, festering insects of the heretics. In the manifold, the Titan’s spirit snarled at the vermin that had dared to hold it captive and had spread their unclean touch through its halls. Krezoc felt no tinge of corruption in the machine-spirit. Its loyalty to the Emperor was as fierce as it had ever been, and now there was outrage at what had been attempted. The machine-spirit demanded retribution. So did Krezoc. Was Darroban down there, still fighting to reclaim what he had thought was his? She hoped so.
Retribution began with the volcano cannon.
The Company of the Bridge fought from the relative shelter of the cathedral doorway. The citizen warriors ducked in and out of the walls, sending las bursts into the mass of cultists. It was impossible to miss. There was some return fire, but the focus of the mob was on the Viokania forge. The heretics were desperate to take back the Titans. The company created some confusion at the rear, but no more than that. It didn’t matter. The great blow had already been struck. Ornastas’ band was smaller than it had been, and more ragged, but also more confident. His followers had had their first victory. They fought because they could, and because they must. And as they fought, they saw the fruit of their labours.
‘Look!’ Aldemar cried. ‘Look!’ Gloria Vastator had begun to move. Its towering form took a single step, breaking free of the scaffolding as if shattering a prison. The red light of its eyes was the glow of warning. Further back, the other god-machines began to power up. The earth trembled with their first movements.
The right arm of the Warlord took aim at the ground.
‘Pull back!’ Ornastas warned. He led a rapid retreat down the nave. Some events were too great to be seen up close. The actions of the gods could not be witnessed without cost.
Even so, he looked back.
The blast at short range cut through rockcrete and deep into the ground itself. The yards between Gloria Vastator and the gates vanished in the terrible beam. All became fire and molten rockcrete. A wave of sublime fire roared towards the cathedral. The beam itself did not strike the doors, but the flames it unleashed stormed the entrance, reaching and spreading wide. Ornastas took the company towards the rear doors, but he kept looking back, staring through the purging destruction to see the war gods of the Imperium beginning their march and bringing judgement to the heretic.
We have done this, Ornastas thought. We freed the secutarii, and we opened the way. He didn’t say this to his followers. He didn’t have to. He saw the pride of that knowledge in every face.
They emerged from the rear doors of the cathedral in time as the volcano cannon fired again and the mega-bolter of the Warlord behind Gloria Vastator opened up. The south tower of the cathedral, caught in the edge of the destruction, collapsed, burying the split street in rubble.
Ornastas grieved for the razed cathedral, but it had been defiled by the heretics. A catastrophe had come to Deicoon, and the fire that would now sweep the city would be a purging one.
‘What now?’ Velatz asked as the company put the cathedral behind them, running down a wide avenue, away from the spreading devastation.
‘The Emperor guided us before. He will again,’ Ornastas said.
He looked ahead, and felt himself pause. The road sloped downwards in a straight line towards the walls of Deicoon. He saw what was approaching. An army of huge, twisted, corrupt shapes was closing in on the city. At the moment the god-machines of the Emperor at last walked again, the monsters of darkness had come to challenge them.
Chapter 8
The Guns of Deicoon
The first salvoes of the Iron Skulls smashed through the towers of the city. Gothic spires disintegrated in expanding fireballs. Others toppled, their lower portions severed by furious beams of crimson energy. The city began to fall, a grim harvest before the blade, as the Banelords, Ravagers and Ferals blasted everything that stood between them and the Pallidus Mor.
‘Are all maniples walking?’ Krezoc voxed. She held her fire for the moment. There were no clear targets yet. Let the Iron Skulls expend their energy on the obstacles for now.
‘We are,’ Drahn and Rheliax answered.
‘The secutarii are on the ground,’ Venterras reported.
‘Good.’ The ground outside of the Viokania yard was free of cultists. Gloria Vastator’s assault had turned it into a desert of melted shapes and jagged glass. Krezoc absorbed the long-range auspex readings. The heat signatures of the Iron Skulls showed the pattern of their deployment. A contingent somewhat larger than her own forces was spreading out around the walls of the city. It looked like an encircling move, though it seemed to her they were spreading themselves very thin. They were also not moving into the city just yet. She wondered about the delay, but she would use the time it gave her. Meanwhile, a much larger battle group of traitors had left Deicoon behind, and was clearly heading for Therimachus.
Krezoc sent a datapack of the readings streaming to Syagrius and then opened a vox-channel, hailing him. He answered immediately.
‘So much for your having contained the enemy,’ he said.
If we had concentrated our strength here from the start, this war might already be over, she thought. She did not say it. This was not the time for a debate. ‘Marshal, can you move to intercept? If we can break out of Deicoon, we have the chance to catch the enemy in a pincer move.’
‘Negative. Our post is at Therimachus. We will await the traitors here.’
‘There is a chance the city is already on the verge of falling. The corruption at Deicoon was hidden, but widespread.’
‘We are monitoring the situation closely. We will not be surprised.’
Again, Krezoc did not rise to the bait. She tried on
e more time. ‘We are letting the enemy divide us with this strategy,’ she said. ‘And we are remaining on the defensive.’
‘Then defend Deicoon, princeps. You know your duty.’
The channel shut down. The Pallidus Mor was on its own. Krezoc was not surprised. She had hoped Syagrius would see the new necessities and the opportunities of the situation. He had not. They all might pay for his blindness.
The barrages from the Iron Skulls were coming from four directions now. The city reeled, its towers toppling into the canyon-riven streets. Where buildings had stood, flames and dust and smoke rose to the sky. The cannon blasts from the east, the position closest to the Pallidus Mor, were striking the Viokania yards now. A cannon shell smashed through the remaining tower of the Cathedral of Saint Chirosius. Gloria Vastator’s void shields shimmered as they took the impact. Krezoc began the march towards the east gates. If the Iron Skulls saw fit to surround the city, let them. She would hit with a focused strike at one spot.
She hoped they would have time. She thought she saw meaning in the shape of the foe’s deployment.
‘Maniples,’ she voxed, ‘assume a wedge formation where possible. Maintain unit coherence. We march to the gates, at speed.’
‘The enemy’s strategy makes no sense,’ Drahn said.
‘I think it does,’ Krezoc said. ‘If the heretics have trained crews in control of the keep…’
‘Throne,’ said Drahn.
‘We will–’ Rheliax began. He was cut off by the scream of monstrous ordnance. The shot came from the west, as Krezoc had feared.
Warlord: Fury of the God-Machine Page 14