‘Holy Throne!’ Valentin laughed as his tank trembled. It felt to him that his vehicle was a living thing, eager to get at the foe. It was the heretics’ turn now to taste hell.
‘Who else is spearheading this attack?’ Matto shouted up.
‘Steel Punch and Cadian Stalwarts.’ Valentin could see the other assault tank brigades moving into position on either side. He felt a sudden panic that they would start first, and steal his glory.
Valentin’s head was still light with alcohol. Their attack details had been meticulously timed with the barrage, but Valentin could not wait. Half a minute before the bombardment was due to move on, he signalled his driver, and the Hellhound tank lurched forward, camo netting swirling in the draught of its own passing.
Behind him his whole column started to move forward, tracks spinning and dust rising in their wake. It was half a mile to the heretic lines. Valentin’s scarf flew out almost straight behind him as his tank led the charge. Amid the ruin and the explosions, he could see shapes desperately trying to man guns, or falling back in confusion as the massed Hellhounds sped across the open ground, their tracks skidding as they kicked up the dirt.
The barrage crept forward as the Hellhounds closed the last few hundred yards. It was a race now for the assault company to cross the ground before the surviving heretics could man their anti-tank weapons.
Valentin was halfway across the open ground when the first shots began to flare out towards them. Tracer fire streaked the sky as heavy weapons opened up from pillboxes and emplacements.
He laughed at the sudden light show whizzing past his ears. The firing was wild and disorganised. That any were managing to fire with the bombardment that was raining down on them seemed remarkable. He did not duck. He had never felt so alive as at that moment, with the fury of the heretic blasting out at him.
‘Take fire to the enemy,’ he called to his crews. ‘Faith in the Emperor of Mankind.’ At the end of his speech he cried, ‘Cadia stands!’ as autocannon shells rang out on the armour of the Hellhound.
The range finder spiralled down. At a hundred and fifty yards he tested the flame cannons. The nozzle of the Hellhound cannon gave a brief spurt of liquid fire, a thin pressurised cone that fanned out into a swirl of flames. Hellhound-grade promethium filled his nostrils. It felt good, despite his hangover, helped his mind focus.
At a hundred yards Valentin slipped down into the firing position and began to pan the Aegis line on the left for a target. It was draped with the dead bodies of Guardsmen, used as sandbags. There was at least one heavy-weapons team in there, guessing from the lines of tracers.
A missile arched out and hit the tank to Valentin’s right. The explosion underlit the clouds with red and yellow as its fuel tanks combusted.
Inches-thick ablative armour ripped open like paper. A torrent of fire gouted two hundred yards into the air, and then, long seconds later, bits of burning metal began to rain down.
Valentin barely noticed it. He tracked, aimed and fired, and the plume of fuel arced out, feathering with flames. His targeter flared green as the flames overloaded the sensors. He let the flames linger for a moment on the pillbox. The liquid fuel poured in through the narrow vents and filled the interior with an incandescent fire.
His tank was already moving on to the next. There was a thud as the Hellhound hit the wire. The barbed coils held for a moment, the tracks spinning. There was a screech of metal as the wire snapped and the Hellhound surged onwards. It hit the Aegis line with a judder that threw Valentin forward. Matto gunned the engine and the tank veered up, belly exposed for a terrifying moment, before they crashed back down again, slamming forward on the simple suspension.
Valentin swung around to pour fire into the enemy lines. The first gout filled the first trench like a canal of knee-high promethium, all aflame. The next arced towards the second Aegis line. The third hit a squad of heretics, rushing forward, bent low, demo charges in hand.
Valentin grinned as dark shapes tumbled out of the inferno.
Dance, heretics, dance!
Then the demo charges blew and there was the wet slap of body parts hitting the front of his tank. Matto tracked round. There was a dull thud of a human being knocked to the ground and crushed, not the note of a melta or krak charge. Behind him, Valentin’s column was hitting the heretic lines, widening the hole that they’d punched through.
On Valentin’s right, a Hellhound – it must have been Kristen’s – hit a mine and slewed sideways. It came to rest in a shell-hole, nozzle-flame still hissing menacingly. Another lifted up over the Aegis defence line and was hit in the belly with a close-range melta shot that ripped through the Hellhound and combusted the reinforced armoured fuel tanks. It was lifted twenty feet off the ground with the explosion and fired burning wreckage across the battlefield, a hundred yards in all directions.
He pressed his vox-stud to all channels. ‘All tanks, proceed south,’ Valentin ordered. ‘Maximum speed. Maximum violence. Cadia stands!’
‘Cadia stands!’ was repeated in every tank.
They plunged forward, smashing into the second, third and fourth lines of defence, the pause in their momentum longer each time before they pushed through.
This was the crucial moment. They had to keep pressing forward, despite the losses, forever pushing through for open ground. Hauser’s tank got snared in wire and came to a skidding halt. A missile arced out and hit it on the armoured flanks.
There was a pause, and then it started to burn. The driver’s hatch slapped open, and flames began to rise from within. Out, damn it! Valentin willed, but whoever had managed to get the hatch open did not appear. Maybe they’d gone back to help someone, Valentin thought. Out, he willed, punching the cupola before him, but then the fires spread and the whole tank went up with a hiss of flames that built to a blowtorch roar.
Valentin drew his pistol, shot an axe-wielding heretic through the forehead.
‘Forward!’ he raged, as his inferno cannon blazed out once more.
Four
Bastion 8, Myrak Salient
Bastion 8 was a rockcrete star, sunk into a dry moat fifty yards wide – the largest of the string of ancient defences that ringed the highlands – excavated with atomic bunkers, barracks, ration stores and munitions depots, and stoutly fortified in three stepped levels, each one offering enfilading fields of fire in all directions.
It was from there that General Grüber launched his counter-attack. He rode in a Baneblade named High Lord, a magnificent, brass-worked masterpiece, with four lascannon sponsons and a raised cupola throne. It trundled forward, Cadians raising their lasguns in salute. They passed over the trench systems and pushed forward through the detritus of war, chasing the front line as it pushed deeper and deeper into the guts of the heretic army.
The High Lord ripped through the trench systems of the foe, its main guns pummelling any armoured resistance, while sponsons tore the combat stimm-induced fighters apart with heavy bolt shells as long as a man’s hand. The vast tracks barely noticed the tank traps and trench systems that had been worked with so much care by the enemy. The Baneblade crossed six lines of trenches. At midday on the first day of the assault, an improvised column of assorted Black Legion tanks was thrown against it. They came rumbling forward across the burned, open moorland, black banners flapping in the smoke-dark air.
The Baneblade smashed through craters and piles of wreckage. It took four gunners to man the Baneblade’s main cannon. They assessed the danger, pinpointed a Vanquisher at the back of the column, and swung the turret round. It took them only a few seconds to line the tank up and fire. The Baneblade shell tore a hole in the armour of the Leman Russ wide enough for a man to climb through. Its explosion ripped the tank into shrapnel.
On the foredeck of the Baneblade the Demolisher cannon targeted the closest of the enemy tanks and fired a rocket-propelled siege round at it. When the smoke cl
eared there was nothing left of tank or shell but a smouldering crater and a few scraps of burning metal.
All units were pushing forward. It was as if a crack had opened in a vast dam. The torrent was too fast and too powerful, the head of water too great to be held back. The gap opened wider until Cadian units were pushing forward on a sixteen-mile front, with infantry and supply craft coming up behind them.
All the time their massed artillery regiments were hammering the enemy backlines, preventing them bringing up reinforcements or even mounting an effective response.
Grüber sat in the throne, sword drawn.
His attendants begged for him to come down and protect himself. Grüber was stern. ‘Who dares to stand against us?’
Across much of the Myrak Salient the earth was pocked with craters, the vegetation scoured away or burned black with war. The prospect was one the Cadians were familiar with as they moved forward by foot, or in armoured transports.
Captain Lation’s 114th Cadians made rapid progress, defeating three small tank forces that had been sent to halt him. The first two were units of heretic Guardsmen, manning captured tanks and armoured transports. They were easy prey for the elite Cadian units, their ruins left burning as the Cadians pushed on. But the third was a pair of Black Legion Predator tanks that fought a desperate and effective battle, sniping, falling back, and sniping once more.
Lation lost three Leman Russ tanks and sustained damage to two more before his gunner managed to catch a Predator as it sped between the ruins, hitting it with a battle cannon round to the weak side armour. The Predator was lifted up by the explosion and slammed back to the ground, a broken and burning shell. A second tried to retreat between the rocks, speeding backwards, trailing smoke into the air.
Lation had fought on the mist-bound moors of Maner and had a knack of guessing where a foe was heading. ‘Krak,’ he ordered as the gunner dragged an armour-piercing round from the magazine, turned and slid it onto the loading ramp.
‘Loaded!’ the driver said, throwing the gun door shut and locking it closed.
Lation elevated the gun barrel, adding another fifty feet to the shot. He made a quick prayer to the Golden Throne, then fired.
The round arced off, leaving a swirling track as it plunged through the ink-black smoke. There was a pause as the cloud wound in upon itself, and then there was a sudden flash of flame that shot straight up into the air like a furnace blast.
Lation led the column forward, checking that the second tank had been destroyed. The Predator had been hit on the turret, and the armour-piercing round had burned a neat hole through the reinforced plating and exploded within the tank, igniting the magazine.
It was a hit that would have instantaneously killed an Imperial Guard crew, but one of the Traitor Space Marines had survived, horribly wounded. Its legs had been blown away and half its face had been burned down to the bone. But it was still alive.
‘Bring us close,’ Lation ordered his driver.
Lation’s tank stopped twenty feet away from the wounded Space Marine.
Goldburg, his gunner, spoke. ‘What should I load, sir?’
Lation paused for a moment. ‘Nothing.’
The thing was huge, malformed, inhuman. Its eyes were yellow, with vertical slits, like a snake’s. When its ruined mouth moved Lation knew there were words there, though it was an accent he could not understand. He slid down from his tank and landed on both feet. ‘I do not fear you!’ he shouted. He felt courage from his words.
The thing snarled at him.
The size of the traitor before him only became apparent as Lation drew closer. Its chest was as wide as some men were tall. It was massive, solid, though terribly wounded, and still moving as it struggled for breath.
Lation drew his service-issue laspistol. He set the charge to the max, lifted the gun and sighted the thing’s forehead. This time he understood the accent. ‘Fire true, captain.’
Lation felt sick at the sound of the thing’s voice. His hand shook as it stared into him. The light of its eyes turned orange and then red, like a real fire burning.
‘Shoot, captain!’ the thing hissed.
Lation fired. The first shot hit the traitor on the side of the cheek. It scored a deep burn.
‘Again!’ it hissed at him.
Lation’s hand was shaking now. The next shot missed. He stepped forward for the third and held the pistol with both hands. ‘In the name of the God Emperor of Mankind,’ he called out, and fired a third time.
Sally Ports, Salvation 9983
It felt good to be driving again. Bendikt stood in the turret of his tank and breathed the moment deep, but even as he led his column forward, he waited for his vox officer to connect to General Grüber.
Grüber’s voice was tight and drawn. ‘What is your strength?’ he demanded.
Bendikt knew the figure off by heart. He was leading one thousand five hundred Leman Russ tanks, assorted patterns. Fifty Hydra defence platforms. A squadron of assault tanks. Thirty-nine Knights Errant. A hundred thousand mechanised infantry. Ten thousand kasrkin. Bendikt allowed himself a smile. ‘We make up the 207th Army.’
There was a long pause that Bendikt enjoyed.
‘You are sure of your numbers?’ Grüber’s voice queried.
‘All correct.’
‘What is your position?’
Bendikt checked. ‘Point Seventy-Three.’
‘207th Army is not on my list.’
‘We’re new.’
There was another long pause. ‘That is impossible.’
Bendikt paused. ‘Location confirmed. Point Seventy-Three.’
‘You cannot be.’
‘We are, General Grüber.’
Grüber’s voice was curt. ‘I said that is impossible. Please check and confirm immediately.’
Bendikt paused for a moment. He did not bother checking but brought the vox-link back up to his mouth. ‘Confirmed, sir.’
‘You’re twenty miles behind enemy lines.’
‘Confirmed.’
‘Lead your forces to cut off hostile army units.’
‘I’m afraid I cannot.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I have orders from the Lord Castellan, Ursarkar E. Creed.’
‘And what are those orders?’
‘I cannot tell you.’
Grüber put on his officious voice. ‘Major Bendikt. You are addressing a general of the Astra Militarum.’
Bendikt let the moment hang, and engaged the vox-stud. ‘Yes, General Grüber. I am also a general. I have my own orders. I will be following those. Good hunting!’
A battalion of Volscani defended the pontoon bridges over the Myrak River. Behind them, in the far distance, the pylons of the Elysion Fields rose up against the horizon.
Bendikt used a scope to assess their position. Three Leman Russes and a Destroyer tank dug into the riverbanks. The heretic unit put up a commendable defence. Their infantry squads were dug into foxholes. Missiles arced out from them as the tanks fired at a furious rate.
The 89th Army Group demolished them in less than ten minutes, and Bendikt led his army out over the Myrak River and past their burning wrecks, the Volscani troops lying dead.
In two hours his army had crossed to the other side. They paused to refuel, re-arm and regroup, and then they were off again, batting away three heretic forces that were flung at them. It was not until nightfall that they met serious opposition: a Black Legion column that had been diverted to impede their progress. The Traitor Space Marines brought Bendikt’s army to a halt for nearly two hours, as outflanking units enveloped them, and they slowly ground the Black Legion down.
The battlefield was littered with burning wrecks. They belched black smoke into the gathering gloom.
Bendikt’s tank was pushing cautiously through when Mere called up to
him. ‘Lord General,’ Mere said. ‘It’s the Lord Castellan.’
Bendikt nodded as he took the vox-link and started to speak, but Creed cut him off.
‘Bendikt,’ he said. ‘Where are you?’
‘We’ve crossed the Myrak River.’
‘Good,’ Creed said. ‘Well done. But I need more. Can you reach the Elysion Fields by dawn?’
It was fifty miles. ‘Confirmed,’ Bendikt said. ‘We’ll be there.’
Creed’s voice sounded strained and weary. Bendikt could imagine him putting his fingers to his temples and rubbing them before he spoke. ‘Thank you. Do all you can. Please. You’re the closest troops. Please, do your best. Cadia depends on it.’
Five
17th Army Group, Myrak Front
War lit Cadia. It was as if the planet burned.
On the surface raging firestorms lit up miles and miles of battlefront, while overhead lightning storms in the high atmosphere illuminated the night sky, punctuated by blinding flashes as warpships died in cataclysmic explosions, their plasma reactors going nuclear and the burning wrecks falling towards the planet like vast flares hanging in the darkness.
All was war, and gleaming above it the Eye of Terror pulsed and bulged as arcane sorceries were invoked. The vast globe swirled with vivid purple and yellow, blotches of unholy light pulsing and fading in sickening patterns.
Under the hell-flames General Grüber’s army hammered relentlessly at the armies before them, slaughtering heretics as they howled and shrieked forward. The forces they faced were high on frenzon. For a day they battled through the endless tide of screaming bodies.
Lina was on the left wing, with one of the surviving armoured units of the Cadian 8th, ‘Lord Castellan’s Own’. She’d been a sponson gunner at Tyrok Fields, but with war and field promotions she had risen to main gunner on the Ryza-pattern Demolisher, Hammer of Tyrok.
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