Kingsblade

by Andy Clark

  It is written that young Danial Tan Draconis took part in that probing advance, marching as part of a lance led by the herald Markos Dar Draconis and accompanied by his squirehood friend, Luk Tan Chimaeros. Escorted by the Cadian soldiery of one Major Lenyrd Kovash, their route took them along the eastern coastline of Donatos Primus, with no allies for many miles except the vague promise of Imperial Navy air cover…

  – Extracted from the writings of Sendraghorst,

  Sage Strategic of Adrastapol,

  vol XVII ‘The Donatos Uprising’

  Luk Tan Chimaeros swung his ion shield, realigning it with haptic twitches of his left hand. The translucent energy field flared as las-rounds struck it, flickering and splashing harmlessly in mid-air.

  ‘Tan Chimaeros, stop wasting your time. Those cultists are firing lasguns, lad, not lascannons.’

  The son of Viscount Gerraint scowled as Markos Dar Draconis barked orders at him over the vox.

  ‘I know that now, Sire Markos, but I wasn’t sure of their armaments. I was following your direct command to exercise caution in–’

  ‘I don’t need you to repeat my own words back to me, boy,’ interrupted Markos gruffly. ‘I said exercise caution in enemy territory, not cower behind your shield every time someone shines a lumen your way. If I’m to be saddled with you and Danial as my lancemates for this advance, I’ll not have you jumping at every shadow and making me look a fool.’

  Luk fought down the angry urge to defend himself. He’d known Markos Dar Draconis a long while. In that time, he had learned that talking back to the herald only made things worse. Markos was absolutely positive that he knew better than ‘wet behind the ears squirelings’ on every matter from war to courtly protocol, wine and wenches. On that last point, at least, Luk flattered himself that he might have a few things to teach the scarred old war dog. His smirk faltered as his Knight bucked around him. Impact alarms sang out, and several green lights flicked to amber on his control-board.

  ‘By the fire!’ exclaimed Markos in exasperation, ‘he’s hiding like a scullsmaid from an arachnid one minute, and standing around letting them shoot him the next.’

  Angry, Luk checked his auspex. Ahead loomed contested hab-blocks, to his flanks little but an empty expanse of ferrocrete. It was not hard to spot his assailant, a crudely modified groundcar that had gotten around his shield and was throwing high calibre fire his way. With a snarl echoed by the ghosts of his throne, the young Knight turned his steed. Sword of Heroes responded smoothly to his commands, revolving at its waist gimbal and taking a single, ground-shaking step. The Errant’s heavy stubber howled as Luk let fly, sawing the improvised gun wagon in half with a stabbing line of shots. The vehicle’s engine exploded, and Luk watched in satisfaction through his sensoria as it burned.

  ‘There. Dead.’ Luk hated how petulant he sounded even as he said it, but Markos Dar Draconis had always had a way of getting under his skin.

  ‘Valiant,’ snorted Markos in response, and Luk snarled as he mowed down the few cultists to escape from the groundcar’s wreck.

  Determined not to make another mistake, Luk expanded his auspex range with a thought. The runes swam before his eyes, and he took several moments to fully absorb the information scrolling across his retinas. His and Markos’ Knights were standing on a huge industrial lot, a ferrocrete plain fifty miles across that had once served as a storage space for countless Chimera chassis. The tanks were gone now, pressed into service by traitors or loyalists, and they’d left nothing but grey desolation and puddles of oil in their wake. In the Knights’ twinned shadow idled a bulky Sacristan Crawler, an ornately decorated vehicle that sat on eight armoured balloon tyres and was almost the size of a super-heavy battle tank. The Crawler’s armature rig was extended, its repair booms swarming with Sacristans and servitors as they effected minor repairs to Markos’ Knight.

  ‘Danial,’ voxed Markos. ‘Have you finished with those traitor tanks yet, lad?’

  Danial’s Knight Errant was a little way ahead, guarding the gap between the towering hab-blocks that overlooked the lot.

  ‘Yes, Sire Markos,’ he replied. ‘All destroyed.’

  ‘Good work,’ grunted Markos, and Luk heard him switching channels. ‘Major Kovash, did you hear that? No more heretics to join the ball.’

  ‘I did, Sire Markos,’ the Cadian officer’s voice crackled back over their joint frequency. ‘Please pass on our thanks to Sire Danial. Almost clear, here.’

  Luk was impressed. Kovash’s Cadians had gone into the hab-blocks twenty minutes earlier, three hundred against a suspected force of over one thousand traitors.

  ‘Do you require any artillery support, Major Kovash?’ voxed Luk, eager to assist with the battle if he could.

  ‘Careful, Tan Chimaeros,’ chuckled Markos. ‘You’ll offend the man.’

  Luk’s question was answered as the top three floors of the western block lit up with a string of thunderous explosions. Windows blew out in staccato sequence. Glass fell like twinkling hail, burning corpses tumbling with it. A Cadian voice sounded over the channel against a background of crackling flames.

  ‘Habs clear. Pulling out.’ He might have been reporting that his rations were satisfactory, he sounded so calm. Already the Guardsmen’s Taurox were rolling into position, the pugnacious vehicles taking position near the block entrances where the retreating Cadians could quickly re-embark.

  ‘Sniper teams Voetchek, Kastance, Drael,’ came Kovash’s voice, ‘secure rooftop positions. Vox-intel and watch the approaches – you know the drill, gentlemen.’

  Voices replied, Cadian soldiers confirming their orders.

  ‘Signifier confirmed and sanctified,’ buzzed a binharic voice on the Crawler’s channel. ‘Location secure, position exloaded.’ A new rune lit up green on Luk’s auspex, showing this location as secure and in loyalist hands. Overhead, a flock of cyber-cherubim circled briefly and blared auto-hymnals, before returning to their primary duties.

  ‘Form up on me,’ came Markos’ voice in Luk’s ear. ‘We’re moving out along the forty-seventh arterial again, as far as point seven-seven-nine-one. Luk, I want you five strides back, covering the left. Danial, four strides to my fore, covering the right. Match pace, let the Cadians dictate. And no wandering off.’

  ‘He’s a mean old dog,’ said Luk to Danial on a private channel.

  ‘He’s my father’s herald,’ came the serious reply, but Luk knew his friend well enough to hear the amusement hidden behind the propriety. ‘Be careful throwing uncouthness around about him, even on private channels. He’s duelled for less.’

  ‘Hah,’ grunted Luk, feeding power to his Knight’s motive actuators and striding into formation. ‘He’d be welcome to try me.’

  ‘He’d ruin you,’ chuckled Danial. ‘Now be quiet and watch your auspex. We’re in a warzone.’

  Ahead of Luk, Sire Markos’ looming Knight Warden strode into position. The Knight looked every bit as formidable as the man who piloted it, and beneath his bravado Luk felt privately glad that Markos was his ally, not his enemy. That still didn’t mean he had to like the gruff old crank though.

  ‘Come on, you giggling little consorts-in-waiting,’ ordered the herald. ‘Tighten up and be mindful of your thrones. The Cadians are moving out, and I won’t have either of you bringing shame on our houses by not keeping up.’

  ‘Yes, Sire Markos,’ came Danial’s dutiful response. Luk rolled his eyes and strode out behind his comrades as they guided their Knights between the habs. This was going to be a long day.

  The minutes ticked by on Luk’s chrono, slowly becoming hours as their lance pressed on along the coastal highway between towering, ravaged structures. His throne murmured, its ghosts still indistinct to him since his Becoming. The Cadians rumbled along in their Tauroxes around the Knights’ pounding feet, weapons unshrouded and ready for battle, but the enemy did not present themselves.

  Still, each new sight of desecration and cruelty made the young Knight hate the rebels
more.

  ‘How could anyone do this?’ Luk asked, more to himself than his comrades.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Danial, voice unsettled. ‘It’s horrible.’

  ‘Fear,’ growled Sire Markos. ‘Despair. Weakness of one sort or another. Don’t try to understand heretics, lads. Just kill them.’

  ‘Sendraghorst writes that understanding your foe is the first step to defeating him,’ replied Danial. ‘I wish I could comprehend what sorrows or lies could lead good Imperial citizens to fall into such heresy.’

  ‘Books,’ spat Markos, suddenly angry, ‘are no substitute for cold steel and courage. You don’t need to comprehend their sorrows, boy. You need to scour them from the face of the galaxy like the heretic scum they are. We are Knights of House Draconis, not scriptorium scribblers.’

  ‘I only meant…’ Danial began, his tone defensive, but Markos cut him off.

  ‘I know what you meant, boy. The Sage Strategic isn’t without his merits but this is battle, not the Draconspire library! We’re not theorising about war at this moment, Danial, we’re in one, and the pair of you are as green as a highland meadow. So stop philo­sophising, and start watching your damned auspex before the heretics catch us with our thrones unplugged.’

  Luk winced at the exchange, but swallowed the surge of protective anger he felt at his friend’s dressing down. Interceding now wouldn’t help. Besides, they were approaching a wide, arched bridge that leapt out over a petrochemical river. Even from some distance back, Luk could see that it was held against them.

  ‘Up ahead,’ said Luk, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

  ‘I see them, the wretches,’ replied Markos.

  Halfway across the broad bridge, beneath a crumbling marble archway, the heretics had constructed a barricade. Wrecked civilian vehicles, battle-damaged defence force tanks, heavy ferrocrete blocks and whatever detritus the heretics could scrape together had been piled high and thick. Each section was reinforced with stolen metal rebar, while the barricade’s summit was a tangled mess of razor-wire and rotting heads on spikes.

  Luk increased his auspex magnification, layering thermic scrying filters over his standard view.

  ‘They’re back there in numbers,’ he said. ‘Hundreds of them.’

  Danial’s Knight had stopped at the head of the bridge to wait for its companions, but the kingsward made no reply. Instead, it was Major Kovash, the Cadians’ leader, who spoke over the vox.

  ‘Enemy concentration four hundred yards ahead, Lance Honourblaze. Advise please.’

  The Cadian armoured vehicles fanned out to either side of the road as Luk and Markos halted beside Oath of Flame. There was a moment’s pause, during which smoke slowly drifted overhead from some distant fire, and crimson lightning split the clouds above. Luk could see movement at the barricades, like the frantic scurry of a rockrat nest.

  ‘Right then, lads,’ came Markos’ voice on the lance vox channel. ‘We charge. Shields fore, swift advance, steady suppressing fire. Whatever they’ve got back there, we can soak it up. The Cadians can’t. We take the heretic fire, breach their barricades, then the Cadians roll up and flush out the survivors.’

  ‘Lance Honourblaze,’ came Kovash’s voice again. ‘I repeat, advise please.’

  This time, Sire Markos replied and outlined his strategy. As he finished, Danial spoke up, his first words in several minutes.

  ‘Sire Markos, we are miles from any supporting elements, and the signal here is poor,’ said Danial. ‘The machine-spirits are unsettled by the proximity of the electrofane on the western bank. It’s hard to see precisely what awaits us on the bridge, sire herald. Or anywhere within a mile of here.’

  ‘If they had anything big enough to worry us over there, Danial, we’d be able to see it. Wars aren’t won with caution.’

  ‘Confirming our strategy,’ came Kovash’s voice. ‘I’ll attach three of my Tauroxes to your Crawler to provide the Sacristans with additional protection.’

  In his excitement, Luk was only half listening. A proper charge. Glory to be seized in headlong assault. The thought made his heart thump with excitement. He started as he realised that some of that eagerness was coming through the neural link to his throne mechanicum. His ancestors relished combat. He could hear their whispers, for the first time, beginning to resolve into actual words.

  …yourweaponupwatchtheflanksalwayspositionyourshieldtobestdeflectdonotbringdisgraceupon…

  ‘Are you hearing this?’ he voxed Danial privately, struggling to focus on the overlapping susurrus of words. The response took a moment in coming.

  ‘The voices from the throne? Yes, mine have been whispering for a while. It’s… distracting.’

  ‘It feels like I’m going mad,’ said Luk, a panicky edge to his voice.

  ‘Don’t concentrate on it,’ replied Danial. ‘Watch your instruments. Check your sensoria. Recite the Code Chivalric in your head, and think about what’s real. I read that the less you consciously pay attention to the ghosts, the easier you’ll find it to control and understand them.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Luk, taking a breath and running pre-combat checks on his cockpit systems. ‘Don’t concentrate on it. Concentrate on what’s real.’

  ‘And keep your wits about you, Luk,’ added Danial ominously. ‘I’ve been watching the strategic map, and the last orbital auspex sweeps suggested the enemy had some heavy armour out here.’

  ‘You can see that from that mess of runes?’ asked Luk.

  ‘Yes,’ said Danial, surprised. ‘Can’t you?’

  ‘Gentlemen…’ Sire Markos interrupted. ‘May the draconsfire be in you. Ready your weapons, keep your bloody shields up and make your ancestors proud. On my mark, we charge.’

  Markos led the attack, with Luk striding at his left shoulder and Danial at his right. Luk fed power to his steed’s motive actuators, feeling the urgent rush of excitement as Sword of Heroes’ machine-spirit relished the fight to come. The bridge shook at their footfalls, chunks of masonry crumbling away from the marble arch above the enemy barricade. He swayed with his steed, thrilling at its acceleration and feeling the Knight Errant lean left and right with each giant stride it took. His steed’s generator was growling, echoing his anticipation with its own. Behind, he was dimly aware of the Cadian Tauroxes advancing in a dispersed formation, but they meant little to him now. The pounding of his Knight’s furnace heart, the wind whipping across its carapace, and the eager sting of its weapons ready to discharge had become his world. Ahead, the traitor barricades grew closer with every step.

  Suddenly, as the Knights closed to within one hundred yards, the top of the barricades lit up like the Unity Day fireworks.

  ‘Contact fore,’ barked Markos, his steed charging headlong into the firestorm with the same bullish gait as its pilot. ‘Ware your shields. Fire at will.’

  Las-weapons flashed and strobed. Bursts of plasma spat from the glowing muzzles of man-portable firearms. Rockets rushed through the air on grey-black contrails as stolen militia weapons discharged. Luk recoiled instinctively at the sudden hail of fire, his Knight faltering in response. Explosions blossomed across his ion shield, a missile bursting harmlessly mere feet in front of the Sword’s helm.

  ‘Throne!’ he cried, as his ion shield absorbed the enemy shots. Danial had also hesitated as the first barrage struck them. Markos had not. The herald’s Knight Warden was still pounding down the bridge at full tilt as he returned fire against the heretic positions. Gatling rounds chewed along the lip of the barricade, kicking great puffs of stone-dust, shrapnel and sparks into the air. Heretics were hurled back like rag dolls, or burst like blood-blisters with the impact-shock of the huge calibre bullets. Markos’ Icarus cannons added their fury to the bombardment. Explosions bloomed as the rain of shots ripped through rubble and metal, and as the smoke cleared a yawning hole was revealed in the enemy barricade.

  Luk was accelerating again now, determined not to be left in Markos’ wake. Danial was doing the same, and Luk g
rinned as the two friends opened fire almost as one. Heaped wreckage glowed white hot before exploding in clouds of shrapnel. Fallen masonry and defiled statues cracked and detonated. Dozens of heretics vanished as the two thermal cannon blasts tore through the enemy fortifications.

  Traitor fire flashed back, taking its toll. A missile ricocheted off Danial’s ion shield, skipping off the road surface to strike a Taurox head on. The Cadian vehicle lifted up on a roaring fireball, crashing down on its roof. Luk cried out in sympathetic pain as plasma seared through his shield and melted his steed’s right knee-plate. A moment later, the shooter was obliterated as Honourblaze’s foot crashed down on him like a pile driver. The herald deftly leaned his Knight forward, its guns still hammering even as he swept his thunderstrike gauntlet along the top of the barricade and pulped a mass of enemies into a hideous blizzard of flesh.

  Luk’s eyes widened as he spotted a trio of rag-clad figures scrambling over the barricade and sprinting straight for Danial’s Knight. All three figures clutched bulky objects to their chests. His auspex confirmed it a split-second later, flashing schematics onto his retinas and shunting alert-data directly into his cortex. Demolition charges. Thrown from close range, they could blow the leg from Danial’s Knight, or worse.