Throneworld

by Guy Haley

  He looked out over the ork horde. There were thousands of them, but there was some truth to what Kalkator said. These were pirates, opportunists ranging ahead of the main fleets. They had little heavy equipment, and their fleet was locked in battle with the Palimodes and the Obsidian Sky. If there were an attack moon, the situation would be different. A scouting group, he thought. And still there were five thousand orks and more.

  A bright flash drew his eyes heavenward. Night brought no thinning of the dust clouds that hid the face of Dzelenic IV, but when the sun had gone the weapons discharge of the void battle raging overhead replaced its light.

  ‘Ship death,’ said Ralstan.

  The vox hissed in his ear.

  ‘Castellan Ralstan, Marshal Magneric, respond. This is the Obsidian Sky.’

  ‘Castellan Ralstan responding, shipmaster.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ Ericus sounded exulted, pleased. Ralstan heard victory in his voice. ‘The ork fleet is shattered. We are free and able to bring you back aboard. Is this your desire?’

  Ralstan wanted to say no. Every warrior’s instinct told him to remain and slay until no ork breathed upon Dzelenic IV. With difficulty, he replied. ‘Begin extraction immediately. We are surrounded by orks. Extend air cover to the Iron Warriors gunships. Escort them down.’

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘An oath was taken,’ said Ralstan.

  ‘Thunderhawks are away,’ said Ericus. ‘Prepare for evacuation.’

  Ralstan watched the sky. In twenty minutes gunships would come screaming from orbit, scouring the orks from the building. Then one short flight awaited.

  After that, they could drop this pretence at alliance.

  A change came over the orks. Their cries of frustration became barbarous cheers, starting in the east, running out until all the filthy masses of them cried and beat their chests. Ralstan hurried over to the east corner of the building. There, at the back of the ork force, shone a sickly light in the dark. A hush fell over the orks. At some signal invisible to Ralstan, the xenos drew back from the building, leaving a wide area free of everything but their dead.

  A familiar pressure troubled his skull. Thunder cracked in the distance.

  ‘Witch!’ he spat in disgust.

  The psyker came escorted by burly orks in heavy armour. A dozen more scrawny examples capered and danced behind him. The witch was peculiar in appearance, even for an ork, carrying no gun or heavy cutting blade, only a long copper staff chained to his wrist in a manner similar to the oath bonds of the Black Templars’ weapons. Upon his chest hung a breastplate of ribs strung together. Bone fetishes and shiny scraps of metal dangled from his tusks and ears. He wore a huge greatcoat, filched from an ogryn by the looks of it. He was wholly incongruous, a whimsical creature in marked contrast to the brutal practicality of the other orks, but that he was a being of great power was not in doubt. A nimbus of green energy haloed his head. Fizzing sparks spat from his mouth when he roared, sending his insane followers into paroxysms of laughter.

  The orks parted to let him through, and he strode forward, twitching and cackling, his massive minders gimlet-eyed by his sides.

  Magneric reset his ocular magnification to standard.

  Through his vox-link, Magneric listened to his castellan confer with Kalkator. ‘Have your men take it down,’ said Ralstan.

  ‘I have already commanded them to do so.’

  ‘Lascannons will do no good,’ interrupted Magneric.

  ‘We shall see,’ said Kalkator. ‘Heavy support, open fire.’

  The shot was a clear one, a straight line down an avenue of orks directly to the psyker. Three beams of ruby light leapt down this path, aimed precisely at the ork. They struck home with terrible power, enough to cut a Land Raider in two. A second light burst from the psyker in response, meeting with that of the cannons and obscuring the witch. When it dissipated the psyker strode on, laughing madly, its dancing followers somersaulting and leaping about in ecstasy.

  ‘Again!’ snapped Kalkator.

  The ork raised his hand, waved it up and down sharply. A jet of energy flicked out from it, singeing the ground. Where it rolled over dead orks they jiggled and danced, momentarily animated by the psyker’s might. The jet grew broader and brighter the closer it came to the building. It made no sound as it bore down straight upon the weathered walls.

  ‘Down, down!’ yelled Ralstan. Power-armoured warriors scrambled to get out of the way as the blast hit the building. It connected silently, passing ethereally through the walls, then the ork clasped his hand and ripped it backward, and the rockcrete of the building sundered. The ruin shook with the force. Atomised rockcrete sprayed outward in a cloud. Where the energy touched Black Templar or Iron Warrior, they convulsed and fell dead. Armour collapsed, helmets rolled free, allowing the liquid remains to pour onto the ground. In a second, the dynamic of the battle changed. The walls were breached, the way was open to the orks.

  They heard the indrawing of breath coming from the horde.

  ‘Waaagh!’ they bellowed. ‘WAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHH!’ The orks broke into a run, coming at the hole in the wall, heedless of the hundreds felled by booming boltguns.

  ‘We cannot hold this building,’ voxed Magneric. ‘We must attack. If their witch falls, they may withdraw. It is our only chance of survival.’

  ‘We will be slaughtered,’ said Kalkator. ‘We must only hold out for another handful of minutes.’

  ‘We will be dead. The gunships downed. The witch must die.’

  ‘Then we shall fight with you, Magneric. In honour of the times before,’ said Kalkator.

  ‘No,’ said Magneric, stepping over the low wall of his emplacement. The orks were only fifty metres away, and coming in fast from all sides. ‘There is one defence proof against this sorcery, and that is faith,’ said Magneric. ‘Black Templars, to me!’

  The Black Templars abandoned their positions by the Iron Warriors, leaping from windows and rooftop, rushing to join their Marshal.

  ‘Cover us,’ said Ralstan to Kalkator, jumping outside, his armour absorbing the shock of the six-metre drop.

  ‘Iron Warriors!’ shouted Kalkator. ‘To the breach! Clear the way for the Black Templars, or we shall all perish.’

  Twenty

  Faith and iron

  The Black Templars lined up on either side of their Marshal, already firing. Sword Brethren ran to form an escort around him.

  The orks closed. Flamers sang their deadly song of fire, incinerating dozens. Several came through, skin blazing, still ready to fight. These were felled by shots from the building, or died upon the waiting swords of the Templars. When a space was cleared the Black Templars opened fire again with long-practised discipline, rapid bursts of mass-reactives that together made an impenetrable wall.

  Magneric lifted up his vox-amplifiers to their maximum. ‘Let none survive! Destroy them all! He that feareth the witch has conceded defeat, even as his boltgun sings still in his hand! Attack, attack!’

  The Dreadnought led from the front, his assault cannon blazing. At a run he slammed into the press of orks, smiting them with his power fist. His assault cannon glowed hot, blazing through the last few thousand rounds in a glorious sheet of searing death, felling orks in a wide swathe. Those closest to the rotating barrels of the cannon were blasted apart, a fine mist of flesh and blood bursting from them. As far as forty metres from the Dreadnought, orks were torn to pieces, limbs and heads scattering.

  Sweeping back and forth, Magneric carved a bloody road to the ork psyker. The fire of his Black Templars and the Iron Warriors in the building behind him kept them from surging back in. Behind him his men advanced, firing relentlessly. Magneric made straight for the witch, bashing any greenskin that came between them off its feet, lofting them high over the heads of the others. His last rounds cut down the creature’s bodyguard, but no more. Bullets sent true at t
he witch were deflected as the lascannons had been, or exploded with bright, green flashes. The psyker gibbered and pranced, waving its copper staff above its head in challenge. Its lunatic entourage ran past him, fingers hooked to tear at the Dreadnought. From behind, a trio of crude walkers waddled up to intercept the Marshal.

  Magneric’s assault cannon ceased firing. Warning chimes sang in his sensorium – ammunition depleted. The five-digit counter for the weapon’s rounds glowed red: five large zeroes.

  ‘Thou shalt not escape my wrath!’ roared Magneric, and pressed forward. Orks surged in to fill the gap, readily as water flooding back. But Magneric was already moving, his short legs pumping, shifting the great bulk of his armoured tomb into an unstoppable run. Orks were barged aside by his mass, slammed to paste under his armoured tread. The biggest of them were flung away, bones shattered. Nothing could stop him.

  Behind Magneric the brothers of the Black Templars continued their advance. Ordinarily guarded in their new faith, they sang their hymns to the Emperor openly, chanting prayers never heard upon the lips of a Space Marine. Flamers sent out rolling clouds of white-hot promethium, melting the orks by the score as they sought to regain lost ground. Where they passed between the cones of fire, they were met by bolts that slew and maimed. The press of greenskins was so great that the Templars could not keep them back forever, but they had no intention of doing so. This was a prelude to the real struggle. The rage of Dorn burned hot in them. Let their brother Chapters plan and fortify. That was not their way.

  ‘Sigismund!’ they shouted. ‘For the glory of the black cross! For the Emperor, holy Lord of Terra! Praise be!’

  Five rounds of disciplined fire, and they let out a deafening war cry. ‘No fear, no regret, no mercy!’ They drew their chainswords and axes and charged, singing glories to the Emperor as they ran, surging past Magneric into the horde of orks.

  Deep within the crowding adamantium of his towering tomb, the hearts of Magneric lifted at what he witnessed. He pressed on, Sword Brethren to his left and right. Volleys of bolter fire punched orks from their feet. The greenskins beat around him, unstoppable as the sea. He was a rock, and their fury was spent harmlessly on the metal of his skin. The Templars clove through them swiftly and surely, men o’war defying the tempest.

  ‘The Emperor protects!’ boomed Magneric. His storm bolter chattered its approval of his piety. ‘Blessed be the Lord of Mankind! Lift up your spirits, my brothers. Regard that which is true and eternal. Praise be to the God-Emperor, praise be to the saviour of humanity! Praise be! Praise be! Praise be!’

  ‘Praise be!’ scores of voices shouted back.

  Strange lightnings crackled around the forces of the orks. Writhing bolts of power leapt skyward, punching rippled holes in the clouds. Tendrils of energy rose from the greenskins’ heavy faces, the fury of their vile breed feeding the powers of their sorcerer. Screaming curses, the weirdboy swept down his staff, and a beam of green warpfire vomited from his mouth, incinerating the orks that stood between the witch and the Dreadnought. No machine nor man could stand up to such raw power, and the weirdboy cackled through the fires at the doom his gods had unleashed upon his enemy. But the green fire hit an invisible barrier, splashing outwards in a writhing of broken might. The Dreadnought was unharmed.

  ‘I do not fear you!’ roared Magneric. ‘For the Emperor guides my right hand! His regard is ever on me, and His glory cloaks me. Behold the radiant might of the Lord of Terra! Behold the power of His champion! Abhor the witch, deny the witch, destroy the witch!’

  ‘Praise be!’ shouted the Black Templars.

  The weirdboy shrank backwards. He lifted his hands to the air, calling up a storm of eldritch power from the warriors around him. Spectral light brought an early dawn to the battlefield, greenish and sinister, a howling maelstrom building that tugged ork wraithforms partially free of their bodies, hungry for their souls. The orks howled the louder, and began to chant. ‘Gork! Mork! Gork! Mork! Gork! Mork!’ a guttural rumbling that grew faster and faster until the names blurred into one. ‘Gorkamorkagorkamorkagorkamorka!’

  The psyker was only metres in front of Magneric, arms held to the sky, his demented face lit by blazing white-green power. A whirlwind of abominable psychic energy raced around and around him, sparks of it spearing from his eyes, ears and mouth.

  One of Magneric’s attendant Sword Brethren was cut down by his foes, his sword arm grabbed, bolter torn from his hand, his helm wrenched from his head. Another disappeared into a firefly swarm of sparks, disintegrated by a bizarre energy weapon. The others found themselves surrounded, and fought back to back. Their line was disrupted, leaving Magneric to go on alone.

  The three walkers moved in front of Magneric as he closed upon his target. The first died, its cylindrical pilot’s compartment crushed by a single swing of Magneric’s four-fingered power fist. Magneric barged its remains aside, spraying lubricant and blood. The second swiped at him with cruel shears, grabbing at the stilled barrels of his assault cannon. The blades squealed on metal. Magneric wrenched himself free, rotating his torso to slam his fist again and again into the smaller walker. On the fourth strike, its primitive power plant detonated. Magneric stepped through a roiling cloud of fire to see the last machine stumbling away. He let it go. The psyker was before him.

  ‘Gorkamorkagorkamorkagorkamorka!’ chanted the orks. The psyker’s power drove them into a frenzy, and they hewed and cut and threw themselves again and again at the Black Templars, dragging many to their dooms.

  ‘This ends now,’ said Magneric. ‘O Emperor of Terra, lord of the stars! Once more cast Your protection about me, so that I might slay this enemy of Yours.’

  ‘Praise be!’ answered the Black Templars. They were few, but the strength of their faith made them sound legion.

  He strode forward. A beam of light blazed from the psyker’s eyes, splashing to nothing before it could touch Magneric. The Marshal leaned forward, grabbing the weirdboy’s head. Energy leapt uncontrollably from the thing’s cranium, earthing itself in his armour.

  ‘So perish all unclean witches,’ said Magneric, and shut his fist, crushing the ork’s skull.

  The vortex about the ork burst outward at the moment of its death, slamming into Magneric with such force that he came close to toppling backward. Green lines of power stabbed out, spearing orks.

  And the orks died.

  They fell by the hundred, heads exploded by psychic feedback, or their souls torn from their bodies. They dropped as the shock wave raced over them. Walkers clanked to a halt. Vehicles ran out of control or skidded and toppled over.

  The light dissipated. Lightning chased itself across the skies.

  Magneric turned from side to side. Half of his warriors were dead; the rest stood in a sea of corpses, black armour battered, scrips and robes bloody, but alive nonetheless. There was not a single ork left standing on the battlefield.

  ‘The witches,’ rumbled Magneric, and his voice was as thunder upon the suddenly silent field. ‘Their witches are their weakness! My brothers, the Emperor shows us the way! He delivers us victory, and in His beneficence reveals the road to final triumph! This is why we were sent here, this is why He brought us to Dzelenic Four. Praise be!’

  As one, the Black Templars got to their knees, clasped their hands about the hilts of the swords, drove the points into the earth and bowed their heads.

  ‘Praise be!’ they shouted, and the faith in them burned twice as bright at their deliverance.

  Kalkator took refuge from the energy wave as it hit the building. When it passed he stood, and to his amazement found himself looking down upon a field of dead orks. The Dreadnought marched across the corpses towards the fort, bellowing pieties, surrounded by his warriors singing hymns for the Emperor. Magneric stopped below the walls and angled his glacis upward.

  ‘What is this?’ said Kalkator. ‘The cult of the Emperor as god has grown so
strong it has you in its clutches?’

  ‘What of it? I will not deny my faith! See, warsmith.’ Magneric raised a mighty metal fist and rotated upon his waist gimbal, showing the devastation of the battlefield triumphantly. ‘How can you deny it? You have witnessed the glory of the Emperor first hand, and that the strength of the Emperor is paramount over all things! Even sorely wounded upon His Golden Throne, He wields a power that cannot be denied! Nothing can stop Him, nor those who serve Him truly with faith within their hearts. One day He will rid the galaxy of all evil, for unlike the creatures you threw your lot in with He is just. Justice comes for you, Kalkator, the Emperor’s justice, and all your wicked betrayers will be destroyed for your treachery. Look upon this battlefield, look upon the slaughter. This was done by His will alone. That is why we follow Him.’

  Kalkator gripped at the parapet, looking down on the enemy who, so long ago, had been a friend.

  ‘I am genuinely at a loss for words. Do your loyalist brothers know you have caught the madness of the puling herds and have turned your back upon the Imperial Truth, the lie you fought so hard to protect? That you are casting it aside for the greatest heresy of all?’

  ‘The Emperor protected us with His lie,’ said Kalkator. ‘He protected us further by denying His godhood. We have had the scales lifted from our eyes. He is a god. The proof is around us everywhere, here on this battleground.’

  Lights appeared in the sky, growing brighter. The Thunderhawks were coming.

  ‘You are abandoning everything you vowed to honour, and you call me a traitor?’ said Kalkator. ‘Such irony is a rare thing, Magneric. Do all your warriors follow this insane creed?’

  ‘Each and every one,’ said Magneric proudly.