by Andy Clark
‘How then do we gain access, my liege?’ asked Sire Hectour.
‘Gallants, and our turncoat soldiery,’ said Gerraint firmly. ‘Sires Hectour, Massimo, Vendt, be ready to advance on my signal. The rest of you, keep them shielded – their steeds are our key to unlocking victory.’
To his left, a sudden flare of energy registered through Gerraint’s sensorium. Held aloft amidst a protective corona, Alicia unleashed fire. Gerraint’s scarred face twisted into a savage grin as he watched the unbridled energies of change engulf the Word Bearers, their armoured forms writhing and melting, powerless to resist the unbridled might of Tzeentch.
Gerraint drank in the intoxicating sense of power that flowed from his queen, her raven hair flying in the etheric winds she had conjured, the cold beauty of her features. Magnificent. Powerful. Gerraint would do anything for her. He would kill for her, and win her a world, no matter the cost.
‘Dunkan,’ he voxed, his tone hard. ‘What news from your ambushers? Is the boy dead?’
‘My king!’ responded Dunkan Tan Wyvorn. ‘They failed, bloody useless wretches. The last of my Knights are retreating towards you now, with the boy king probably not far behind.’
Gerraint felt his anger flare.
‘You sound singularly unrepentant for your Knights’ failings, archduke. In case you haven’t been watching your strategic overlay…’
‘I haven’t!’ Dunkan cut in. ‘Been a little busy applying some new panoply, yes?’ The archduke laughed, as though at some joke that Gerraint was missing.
‘What is wrong with you, Dunkan? Are you drunk?’
This was met by another laugh, one bordering on hysteria.
‘Ha, no, my liege! But then, perhaps yes? Can one be drunk upon a song?’
Gerraint shook his head in bewilderment, blasting shells into a speeding traitor Rhino and turning it into a tumbling fireball.
‘What have you done, you fool?’ he snarled. ‘What is this secret weapon? Thanks to your House’s weakness I must now fight yet another foe. Get back here and aid us as swiftly as you can, or if you’ve lost your mind then stay absent, and pray I don’t find you.’ Furious, Gerraint severed his vox link.
Now his auspex lit up with fresh contacts as a handful of Wyvorn Knights strode into the plaza. Vox hail runes flickered in his peripheral vision, and he dismissed them with an angry blink. The machines were battle-damaged, several trailing flames and wreckage, but they could still fight. He suppressed the urge to fire upon them, and snarled as he realised the murderous desires were seeping from his throne mechanicum.
‘Knights of House Chimaeros,’ voxed Gerraint across an open channel, ‘look upon shame and failure for what it is. You of House Wyvorn, I don’t want to hear your warnings or your excuses. You will stand and fight by my side, and you will repair your honour, or you will die at our guns this moment. Is that understood?’
Fresh runes blinked on his retinal display. Gerraint took them for assent, and ordered his Knights accordingly. They were about to be beset from a fourth direction. This would be a desperate fight.
‘My love,’ came Alicia’s voice across a private channel. His queen drifted down to alight upon his Knight’s carapace.
‘My queen… You fight with the Lord’s blessings. You are as beautiful and refulgent as a blazing star.’
Alicia’s answering chuckle was musical to him.
‘My king, if I am a star then you are the questing hero whose path to glory I light. But that path grows darker now, does it not? You need my guidance more than ever.’
‘I do, my queen. Has the emissary given you nothing further?’
‘It…’ Again Gerraint heard that note of uncertainty in his lover’s voice, perhaps even fear, and wished he could drive it out. ‘It has not,’ she said, her voice firm. ‘I cannot communicate with That Which Dwells in Darkness at will, my love, you know this. And the cost of summoning the emissary needlessly, of questioning its words… That could go badly for us both.’
‘Of course,’ said Gerraint, half an eye on his auspex and instruments. Several of his Knights had stepped up to surround him as he communed with his queen, and their shields were bearing the brunt of enemy fire directed at him. ‘Then what shall we do? Danial and his traitors will be here in moments, if Dunkan is to be believed. The Duke Tan Wyvorn has gone mad, I fear, though fates know how or why. And I cannot drive out the thought that, whatever Varakh’Lorr is attempting, it nears fruition. If I commit the Gallants to attacking the generatorum that’s three less steeds to counter-attack the Tan Draconis whelp, but if we don’t break through soon…’
‘My lord,’ said Alicia, and Gerraint fell silent at her soothing. ‘Fear not. You deserve to be High King, and so you shall be. And while you earn that right upon the field of battle, I will deal with the Dark Apostle.’
‘I… what?’ Gerraint realised he sounded a fool, but he could not believe what he had heard.
‘The Lord of Fates has blessed me, Gerraint. You’ve seen it. Let me help you. Let me be your queen in this dark hour. We will win this fight together, you against the enemy’s Knights and I against this false priest.’
‘But, my lady,’ said Gerraint, suddenly frantic at the thought of Alicia alone in the enemy’s lair. ‘They are Space Marines, and moreover they are monsters. We don’t know what horrors await within their sanctum. I see your power, I do, but…’
‘There is no time to debate this, Gerraint,’ said Alicia, firmly. ‘I have more power than you know, my king. I’ll wield it for you this day. And I won’t go alone. You stay, face the loyalists and defend the crown that none of them is fit to wear. I will break open the doors of the Word Bearers’ citadel and lead the Donatosian charge inside. Let them fight the Word Bearers. I will save my fury for Varakh’Lorr.’
Gerraint wanted to refuse her. The Code, his sense of chivalry, his love for this woman all compelled him to forbid it. But he heard the conviction in Alicia’s voice. She didn’t just believe she could do this. She knew it. And he trusted her, more than any other living being.
‘Do it,’ he said, ‘but be safe. Alicia, if I lost you…’
‘I will always return to you, my king,’ she replied. ‘I love you.’
Alicia Kar Manticos rose in a whirling vortex of flame and drifted down to alight upon the steps of the generatorum. She rallied the Donatosians to her, making contemptuous gestures that turned enemy shells to smoke and energy blasts to fluttering crystal insects.
Ambition stoked by his queen’s words, Gerraint issued his orders. Victory would yet be his.
A roaring geyser of purple flame engulfed the doors of the generatorum, transforming them to some sort of smoky glass. A single volley from the Donatosians’ guns shattered them inwards, and Jennika saw Alicia vanish into the shadows beyond with a howling mob of traitors at her back.
The loyalist Knights had more immediate concerns, however. Ahead, across the plaza, Gerraint Tan Chimaeros was rallying his loyal followers. Ion shields overlapped masterfully as the Chimaeros Knights wheeled, protecting each other as best they could. A scattering of Wyvorn steeds lurked nearby, caught between fleeing or fighting. Their pilots looked to be panicked, firing randomly into whatever threats presented themselves. Cannon shells and thermal blasts leapt from their weapons to rip into building-fronts or rebound from the loyalists’ shields, but in return the Word Bearers were picking the Wyvorn Knights to pieces.
‘House Wyvorn has fallen,’ Jennika voxed triumphantly to her comrades. ‘Concentrate on the Chimaeros.’
‘Hold here,’ ordered Danial over the open channel. ‘Engage the traitor Knights. The Word Bearers will want them dead more than they do us, at least for now.’
‘Da,’ voxed Luk urgently. ‘I’m going after him. I’m going to kill that bastard.’
Thunder filled the air as the loyalist Knights opened fire, their shots slamming into the Chimaeros steeds’ shields and flaring them blue. Jennika aimed her shots low, looking to trip her targets or cripple thei
r leg actuators. Fire burst all around the enemy engines, and the ferrocrete of the plaza erupted in fountains of rubble and shrapnel.
‘You’re not the only one owed a debt!’ barked Markos, ‘That bastard killed my best friend. If anyone’s taking his head…’
‘Duty,’ voxed Danial, his voice stern. ‘The Code. All of us have a claim to Gerraint Tan Chimaeros. All of us have faced loss because of him. But we have a duty to the Emperor and we will fulfil that first and foremost, or we are none of us fit to be Knights.’
‘Danial,’ said Luk. ‘He’s my father. His sins are mine, and so is his life. You know I don’t have to obey your word.’
‘You’re not obeying me, Luk, you’re fighting at my side. Revenge isn’t enough. This is our Emperor-sworn duty.’
Then there was no more time for talking. One Chimaeros Knight had fallen to their fire, and another two had been wrecked or crippled by the Word Bearers, yet now the traitors had redressed their formation. Shields swivelling with cool determination, they weathered the firestorm and formed lance, with a trio of hulking Gallants at the fore and Gerraint’s machine lurking behind them.
‘That brazen bastard’s taken father’s blade,’ Jennika snarled as her eyes alighted on the weapon.
‘A theft he’ll pay for,’ replied Danial with determination. ‘Knights, be ready. Concentrate fire on their forerunners. Flanking steeds, enfold on my command. Jaws of the dracon. Now we take revenge.’
Danial had spread his Knights out in a single line, akin to that the Wyvorn Knights had formed as the loyalists charged across the bridge. Jennika and Markos held the centre, flanked by the two Minotos Knights. The rest were spread out to either side, with Danial at the leftmost end of the line, and Luk the right. Jennika could see that Lady Eleanat’s Knights and the surviving Crawlers were just minutes behind now – they would reinforce the centre, providing it held long enough against the Chimaeros charge. Meanwhile, Danial and Luk could lead the flanking charges and catch their enemies in a savage vice against which they would not be able to defend themselves.
Jennika punched a gauntlet forward and sent shells whipping across the plaza. They struck the shield of the lead Gallant and blew it out with a thunderclap of overpressure. A second volley slammed into the charging traitor, fired from Sire Garath’s battle cannon. They blasted the Knight’s helm to wreckage and fire surged into the cockpit behind. The Chimaeros Gallant staggered drunkenly out of formation, shoulder-barged unceremoniously aside by the Knights that followed. The machine crashed down on its face with horrible finality.
Gatling fire shredded the right leg of a Chimaeros Knight, the limb buckling and the war engine collapsing in a cloud of flame. Markos’ bellow of triumph briefly sounded across the vox. Lady Tamsane Dar Pegasson’s Saggitaire ripped the legs out from under another Chimaeros Gallant with a salvo of rockets.
The Word Bearers took their toll as well, felling another two of the charging traitor Knights. The Chimaeros steeds came on, still firing. Jennika’s cockpit shook and her ion shield flared as shot after shot hammered against it. She heard Lady Suset curse as a thermal blast melted her steed’s chainsword and scorched the right side of its hull. To her left, enemy fire battered the already damaged Knight of Rikhardt Dar Minotos, causing the machine to stagger and vent smoke from its emergency exhausts.
‘Come on,’ muttered Jennika, one eye on the runes of Lady Eleanat’s small force closing rapidly from behind. ‘Come on.’ Her throne whispered reassurances to her, steadying her aim.
‘Now!’ barked Danial. Hydraulics whined and generators roared, exhausts snorting fumes as the Knights advanced. Jennika, Markos and the Minotos Knights stepped deftly back. At the same time their comrades swung out and around the Chimaeros charge.
‘Draconsfire!’ roared Sire Markos. Then the Chimaeros charge slammed home, and everything was grinding metal and deafening industrial din.
The last of the enemy Gallants came at her, vox amplifier booming and lumens glaring as it swung its gauntlet at her Knight’s helm. Sixteen tons of adamantium and plasteel crackling with disruptor energies would tear through her armour like parchment. Muscle memory and years of combat experience took over, aided by her steed’s wily machine-spirit. Jennika swayed Fire Defiant back on its waist gimbal and took a lunging step backwards. It was an evasive manoeuvre that would have seen many Knights overbalance their steeds and crash down on their backs. Jennika performed it perfectly, ignoring the overstress warnings and hazard runes that lit up her instruments. The gauntlet’s power field came close enough to raise blisters on her steed’s paintwork. Carried by its own momentum, the Gallant bulled on, straight onto Fire Defiant’s upswinging chainsword. Jennika screamed in sympathetic pain as she felt the thunderous shock of the impact, the desperate straining of cable-tendons in her steed’s legs, waist and blade arm. The brutal collision buckled her left torso plates and crushed several of her steed’s actuator motors. Two heat sinks blew out.
Metal churned through metal, chain teeth ripping through the Gallant’s torso armour and into the cockpit. She drove the blade deeper, releasing a brief spray of gore from her enemy’s cockpit. Snarling, Jennika barged into the enemy Knight as fire poured from its ravaged innards. With a groan, the enemy war engine tipped backwards into the Chimaeros Knights behind. Its flailing wreck crashed into Gerraint Tan Chimaeros, fouling his charge and forcing him backwards in turn.
‘In Excelsium Furore!’ cried Jennika, elation racing through her at the savagery of the kill. Her sensorium was full of crashing metal and sparks. The Chimaeros charge had hit hard but the loyalist line held. The enemy stalled, compacted together by the momentum of their huge metal steeds. Danial’s encirclement was working, Chimaeros runes blinking out on the strategic overlay. Lady Eleanat’s band of reinforcements marched from the mouth of the colonnade, their guns flaring as they added their fire to the battle.
Searing las-blasts ripped out. They riddled a Chimaeros Knight from behind, blowing out its torso and helm, then tore the leg from Sire Percivane’s steed and blasted Sire Federich’s in two.
‘Throne almighty,’ yelled Sire Garath. ‘What in the dracon’s name was that?’
Jennika scanned frantically, following the energy signatures back to their source with her auspex. She zoomed her optic pickups, washing out smoke and electrospiritual interference. Her blood ran cold at the enormous shape she saw lumbering into the plaza from the north, like some giant from primordial myth. It was almost twice the height of a standard Knight and nearly thrice as broad, its arms huge lascannon arrays and its carapace thick with missile racks. The heat bloom from the thing’s generator was enormous, the energy wash from its guns scarcely less so as they charged for another volley. The ground shuddered beneath its every thunderous footfall.
‘Relic Knight,’ she breathed, then louder: ‘I didn’t think there were any left on Adrastapol.’
‘A bloody Porphyrion,’ said Markos, grimly, ‘in Wyvorn panoply’.
‘See your doom!’ came a deranged bellow over the vox. Jennika recognised the voice of Dunkan Tan Wyvorn, distorted by madness. ‘Abandon your Emperor and bow down to me, for I am the god now.’
Traitors and loyalists alike faltered, staring in horrified awe at the relic Knight marching across the square. A pack of daemon engines clattered towards the titanic steed. Its guns swivelled and blew them apart, one after the other.
‘Dunkan, you lunatic,’ came a deep voice over the hijacked channel, and Jennika realised with a stab of hate that she was hearing the words of Gerraint Tan Chimaeros. ‘What have you done? Where are your warriors?’
‘Sacrificed to my glory!’ bellowed Tan Wyvorn, and fire blitzed through the swirling melee once again, killing another two traitors.
A lance of House Chimaeros Knights broke away from the fight, Sire Hectour at their head. They charged the Porphyrion with their guns thundering. The giant Knight shrugged off their fire to part its attackers with contemptuous ease. It came forward over their blazing corpse
s, its weapons tracking for fresh targets, and the other Knights retreated before it, loyalist and traitor alike fleeing the wrath of a mad god.
‘I have stabilised the channel,’ voxed Polluxis, and for the first time she could remember, Jennika thought she heard an emotion in the High Sacristan’s voice. He sounded angry. ‘We do not have much time. That heretic has profaned an ancient engine, and it is rejecting him. Its machine-spirit senses his taint and is attacking his mind. The Duke Tan Wyvorn cannot carry the mental load of piloting such a vast machine alone, not under such conditions. He has been driven insane.’
Jennika raised her blade by instinct as movement flashed in her peripheral vision. The churning teeth of her weapon locked with those of a Chimaeros Knight, and sparks rained across both steeds. It seemed the moment of distraction was over, and the fight was back on.
‘If we could get close enough, we could kill it’ growled Sire Markos, voice thick with exertion as he ripped his gauntlet through an enemy Knight. ‘But we’ll be blown apart before we can.’
‘I can assist,’ replied the High Sacristan. ‘The Porphyrion is an ancient and revered tool of the Omnissiah, but its very size and power is its weakness, when piloted by one not sufficiently attuned. I shall reverse the binharic cant of my data wards and strip away the engine’s protections while its machine-spirit and pilot are at odds, opening the Porphyrion up to our enemy’s scrapcode, and exacerbating its disorientation. I cogitate this will significantly improve the chances of successful hostile approach.’
‘Jennika,’ said Danial across the vox, over the roar of stubber fire. ‘You, Markos, Lady Eleanat, kill that thing.’
‘Danial?’ replied Jennika. ‘What are you planning?’
‘We still have to silence the scrapcode,’ said Danial. ‘Luk and I will finish the job.’
‘I understand,’ she replied. ‘We won’t let them stop you. And one way or another, Gerraint Tan Chimaeros dies.’
‘Make him suffer,’ voxed Luk.