by Nick Kyme
‘Hydras move up, firing solutions at these coordinates,’ barked Redgage, conveying the data from his spotter aboard the Chimera to all flak tank commanders. On the right flank, two troops of anti-aircraft platforms rolled into position on grimy tracks. A few seconds later their autocannons were chugging high-calibre rounds into the dogfight above. The artillery quads on each tank thumped back and forth alternatively like pistons, spitting out an incredible rate of shells. Two more enemy flyers were torn apart, dismantled by chasing autocannon fire.
Retaliation was swift. A Heldrake broke off from the interception sweep, diving in low to unleash its nose-mounted cannon. Hell-hot rounds whined in like hail and sawed one of the Hydras in half. A stray round hit the fuel tanks and the whole engine went up in a fiery plume. Exploding shrapnel shredded the exposed crew of the tank alongside it but mercifully its armour prevented a chain of destruction.
Turrets swivelling, the other Hydras tried to track the monster amongst them but it was flying too close and too low.
Strapping into the Chimera’s pintle mount, Redgage tried to distract it with a burst of heavy stubber. He needed to keep it away from the siege tanks. Solid shot chased the monster through the air before peppering its armoured hide.
Redgage roared down the vox as the Heldrake came for him. ‘Vulture Six, peel back and engage!’ And in that moment the battle shrank to just he and it, witnessed down the myopic ironsights of a heavy stubber. Impervious to his cannon, Redgage had just made it angry.
‘Vulture Si–’
Vulture Six went down, its pilot shouting in the colonel’s ear until his screams were eclipsed by static. The rest of the air group were already engaged. A low dive from the Heldrake became a strafing run.
‘In the Emperor’s grace I trust,’ said Redgage, his fingers clenched on the heavy stubber’s triggers. Brass casings cascaded down at his feet, sparks cracked across the Heldrake’s armoured face. ‘Let it be a light in dark places…’
Balefire ignited within the monster, its eyes already aflame, mouth trailing smoke.
‘Let it be my shield,’ whispered Redgage, and began to shut his eyes.
A flare of actinic energy slammed into its neck, wrenching it off course. The balefire went wild, streaming wide and burning up the ground. Kor’ad brought the Heldrake down with a second burst, coring a hole right through its fuselage with his plasma cannon. It limped on in defiance of the mortal injury before crashing a half-kilometre away, towards the western district of the city.
Still a little shaken, Redgage nodded his thanks but got nothing from the Dreadnought who had already turned away.
Though the Emperor’s Angels had begun as men, in the broader sense, they were far removed from that biological paradigm after their genhanced apotheosis. Redgage admired them, was in awe of their prowess and fortitude, but found he could not understand or relate to them. And allegedly, the Salamanders were the most human of all the Chapter Adeptus Astartes. Some of the men were afraid of them. None had admitted as much, but Redgage saw it in their eyes as they looked on the green-armoured monsters. Still, they fought like black-skinned devils and that was good enough for the Cadian colonel.
The skies were clearing over war-torn Canticus at last. After receiving enough punishment, the Chaos flyers had broken off and the wings of Stormtalons and Vultures were ordered back. Several did not make the recall.
‘A good fight,’ murmured Kor’ad, surveying the devastation through his sensors. With the grind of leg pistons, the Dreadnought faced the colonel. ‘You honour them.’
Redgage wasn’t sure that he was the one being addressed at first.
‘My lord?’
Kor’ad’s impassive vision slit regarded him. For Redgage it was like staring back into an unfeeling abyss.
‘You stood, willing to sacrifice your life. You honour them,’ Kor’ad repeated.
Was the Dreadnought giving him praise? Redgage was unfamiliar with any Adeptus Astartes offering praise to lowly men, especially a warrior as ancient as Kor’ad.
‘I am the one who is honoured,’ said Redgage, mustering enough resolve to converse with the massive war machine. Even sat up in his cupola, the Dreadnought stood eye to eye with the colonel. ‘By their bravery. I vouch for every one of these men, tankers and flyers both.’
‘I see now why the mettle of Cadia is mentioned in such high regard,’ said Kor’ad. ‘Your courage and magnanimity do you credit, colonel. Refer to me as brother from now on – you are my warrior-equal, not my serf.’
Redgage had no reply, genuinely aghast and humbled. He did not need one – Kor’ad had already turned away to address the battle group.
‘Skies are ours,’ he uttered thunderously through his vox-emitters. ‘Advance into the city.’ With ground-quaking purpose, the Dreadnought led his squads out. It was a half kilometre march to the next bombardment point, and from there into Canticus proper.
Redgage consulted his tactical slate, fighting down the swell of pride in his breast at the Dreadnought’s words. Artillery was staying behind, at the first line. Two troops of Demolishers and a pair of Thunderers moved forward with his Chimera. Once they hit beyond Canticus’s outer borders, an infantry battalion from the Adepta Sororitas that was coming up from the blockaded eastern road would link up with them. Just before they rolled out, Redgage ducked his head back inside the tank.
‘Any word from the Ecclesiarchy?’ he asked his comms-operator.
‘Nothing yet, sir.’
Redgage took another look at the slate. In order to make an incursion into Canticus, they needed that infantry support. At distance his tanks were lethal. They had already turned much of the outer reaches into rubble and debris. But at close range, in that warren of streets, they would be vulnerable. Best defence against infantry was infantry, and Redgage had heard the Battle Sisters excelled in that role. He got back on the vox to his commanders.
‘We are heading into the belly of the beast, officers,’ he announced with full-blooded conviction. ‘Keep a tight formation. Roll out.’
Subtle vibrations from the turbofans trembled the Thunderhawk’s interior but it was background noise to those seated within. Amber strip lighting just below the ceiling glowed but shed little light in the gloomy hold. Despite the ostensible calm, the mood in the gunship bordered on tense.
The Wyverns of Fourth Company were anxious. One of their own lay dead: a tax in enemy lives was demanded in payment.
Va’lin had been with Sor’ad when he died and so had the warrior sitting across from him. Not since their foray into the Canticus ruins had the two of them spoken. Ky’dak kept his feelings guarded as if like Va’lin he did not know what to make of the reliquary or its meaning to the enemy or the Ecclesiarchy. Voicing concern prior to deployment would serve no useful purpose, so Va’lin had kept quiet. His eyes met Ky’dak’s, trying to read him but saw nothing but a granite wall. In the end it was Va’lin who looked away. His averted gaze arrived at another difficult sight.
Sor’ad’s empty harness was like an open wound. Xerus sat alongside the vacant spot at the end of the row, muttering to himself, or perhaps it was with his slain brother that he exchanged conversation. Except
for Xerus, a solemn mood persisted, the others preoccupied with grim thoughts. Dersius leant his head against the hull, eyes closed in meditation. Vo’sha and Illus bowed their heads, murmuring final oaths of moment. Arrok filled his mind with routine, mechanically thumbing brass-shelled mass-reactives into spare clips, oiling and sharpening the teeth of his chainblade. Naeb was quiet. Sepelius had declared him combat-ready but Va’lin suspected his injury was paining him.
‘Silence suits you, brother.’
Naeb returned a weak smile.
‘I do not plan on making it habit.’
‘A pity. You would make more friends that way.’
‘I need none. I have one, a long-suffering ally.�
��
Va’lin laughed, letting his relief show at Naeb’s good humour.
‘Indeed, I am.’
For a moment, Naeb grew serious. ‘I meant Dersius, brother.’ He held Va’lin’s gaze a moment longer before laughing loudly.
Dersius’s eyes remained closed but he said, ‘If you are disparaging me, Naeb, I will see you in the cages once battle is done.’
‘I think you upset him,’ said Va’lin, thumbing in the burly Themian’s direction, one eyebrow raised. His eye fell on Iaptus, and he felt their levity bleed away before the sergeant’s intense stare. Iaptus rarely smiled, seeing little value in humour. He was a stark, serious man but a warrior they all aspired to emulate.
Mastery of thunder hammer and storm shield in combat was not easy. Harder still was wielding them proficiently whilst aloft on the screaming fire-jets of a jump pack. Iaptus had mag-locked his shield to a weapons rack inside the hold, but his thunder hammer was to hand, sitting across his lap. His stare was penetrating, searching, as if he knew everything Va’lin and Naeb were thinking, as if every fault and flaw were laid bare to him. He nodded to give them reassurance. His one intention for them all was victory, and retribution for a brother lost.
‘Blood for blood, brothers,’ he said aloud, looking directly at Va’lin, ‘We go to avenge Sor’ad.’
Nine Salamanders thumped their fists against their breastplates.
So it was said, so it would be done. Iaptus had just given them his word, and that was more unbreakable than his storm shield.
The hold’s vox crackled, admitting the voice of Brother Orcas.
‘Prepare for imminent disembarkation, brothers,’ said the pilot. A lumen glowing next to the Thunderhawk’s rear access ramp changed from amber to green. Gusting pressure release filled the area around the point of egress with pneumatic gas before a crack appeared delineating the ramp and began to let in daylight.
‘Helmets on,’ said Iaptus, disengaging his restraint harness so he could stand.
The crack of daylight became a yawning chasm as the ramp slowly unfurled. Iaptus was framed in the light, his armour rimmed in a rising umber dawn. He shouldered his storm shield, thunder hammer gripped in his right hand.
‘Let this be a day for vengeance!’ he shouted over the wind buffeting inside the hold.
The ramp distended fully, eight armoured silhouettes standing behind Iaptus who waited patiently for their target to present itself in the conflict below.
A vast bridge, wide enough to accommodate entire armies stretched below. Well fortified, its arches and buttresses were thronged with razor-wire. Forked tank traps, huge crosses of barbed and rusted metal, littered the roadway. Sand-bagged gun emplacements, sniper nests, minefields and barricades fashioned from the burned wrecks of freight loaders and ground cars turned Salvation Bridge from a major artery into the city into a death trap.
Squad Iaptus were about to dive right into it. Gladly.
Orcas brought the gunship in low. Firefights on the ground were keeping most of the insurgent heretics busy, so they attracted little in the way of flak. Even so, the hull shook with close impacts and the smoke from explosions swept in through the open hatch.
‘Confirmed visual on Zantho’s line-breakers…’ Iaptus voxed.
Orcas did not reply, preoccupied with keeping them aloft, but the turbofans burned harder in response and Iaptus saw the drop point through the blur of smoke and fire swilling across the hatch.
Four Predators armoured up with dozer blades were trying to push through the wreckage. Zantho rode up in the cupola of the one in the middle, Annihilator-class, preferred to his Redeemer. After the grubby fight in the Canticus ruins, the commander had ordered the Land Raiders kept in reserve. It was the knock-out blow and the cleansing fire that would rid them of the enemy once they had brought them to battle. Predators were lighter, more manoeuvrable, and equipped with dozer blades they made shovelling through debris look easy. As well as his own, Zantho led four other similar Destructor-class battle tanks and three siege-breaking Vindicators.
This was the armoured fist that would punch through the heretic defences, reach in and crush its throat. The Wyverns just had to help breach the ‘gate’. It was code for the mass of wreckage blocking the bridge. Its opening was their primary mission and would be effected by incendiaries, melta charges, but there was work to do beforehand. Cleanse and purge were the secondary missions. Heretic infantry armed with all manner of improvised bombs, explosives and even crude rocket tubes colonised the debris below. Before Zantho’s tanks could properly advance, they needed excising. Squad Iaptus was the ideal scalpel for such an operation.
Iaptus smacked the flat of his thunder hammer against his shield, sending a minor charge through both. Heat vapour was already eking from the exhaust vents of his jump pack as he sank to a crouching position from which to launch.
‘On my mark…’ he said, ‘now fly!’ and leapt from the hold.
Va’lin was third out behind Xerus, body angled down like a spear and accelerating fast. Wind shear hit him like a mailed fist and he corrected with small bursts from his turbine engines. Nine armoured forms knifed through clouds of smoke and rising ash, their eyes ablaze. Iaptus drew them into a wedge, himself as the spear-tip.
‘Give them tooth and claw,’ said the sergeant. ‘Show them how drakes fight and kill.’
Va’lin clenched his teeth as his combat reflexes began to kick in, but felt his body shaking as the rapid descent hammered his armour systems. A counter in his left lens cycled down the metres as he hit terminal velocity. Smudged shapes began to resolve into fighters clad in rags and crude armour. Detail increased. Some of the fighters were shouting, gesturing wildly at the sky and aiming their weapons.
An explosion blossomed on the right, but Naeb ploughed through unharmed. Whining solid rounds were thickening the air, pranging armour plate. Va’lin felt a lucky shot smack his pauldron and ricochet.
‘Eye to eye, brother,’ Naeb’s voice came over Va’lin’s personal vox-feed. He was laughing all the way down. Va’lin could not prevent a feral smile.
They were close. Distance diminished as the crater-strewn roadway rushed up to meet them and Iaptus angled his body so he went down feet first.
‘Ready to engage,’ he uttered over the vox, taking a slew of hits against his storm shield.
Eight affirmatives responded in near-perfect unison as Squad Iaptus mirrored its sergeant.
Va’lin could not suppress a snarl as he gunned the engines of his jump pack, violently arresting his ascent on twin cones of fire.
A conflagration spread out below, cooking the drop zone and everything in it in successive waves of flame. Flesh and rockcrete blistered equally, and Squad Iaptus landed amidst a score of blackened corpses.
Iaptus touched down at the epicentre of a ring of fire, cracks webbing the rockcrete at the impact point, his warriors radiating out from it. He launched again seconds later, a small burst that took him just beyond the scorched perimeter of the drop zone and into a warren of burned out maglev carriages.
Heretics infested it like lice. Armoured in a mismatch of heavy carapace, flak and improvised plate metal ripped from various transports, the enemy had neither cohesion nor tactics. Men, their faces daubed in crude violet tattoos, threw themselves down on the Salamanders. Their minds were lost, for no sane man would commit to such a suicidal charge.
The killing was intense but no more than a conditioned reflex.
Va’lin’s flamer was still mag-locked to his jump pack as he favoured his sidearm and gladius for close quarters. An elbow strike broke an arm, a left swing carved open a clavicle, the return swing took a head. Another three seconds passed and the same rote repeated. Two bolt-rounds from Naeb accounted for a team attempting to set up a heavy cannon at the end of a corridor bracketed by a pair of carriages. More deranged heretics scurried from the carriages’ shatter
ed windows. Dersius gave them a bloody welcome.
Naturally splitting into their combat squads, Xerus went with Iaptus on the opposite side of the makeshift enemy barricades. He cored the plate shield of a tripod-mounted autocannon that was being set up on a carriage roof. The plasma bolt burned through metal, skin and bone. Arrok and Vo’sha raced on ahead, gaining a little loft from their jump packs before hitting two groups of dirty-looking soldiers that had finally scattered from the Salamanders’ irresistible onslaught.
A thick knot of warriors, armed with various solid-shot weapons and blades tried to bulrush Dersius down a flanking avenue. The hulking Salamander launched into them, breaking the pack before laying about them with chainblade and bolt pistol. Va’lin was right on his heels, Naeb just behind him, when he saw a second mob piling over a barricade on the opposite side.
‘Douse them, brother,’ said Naeb through his mouth grille, ‘I’ll reinforce Brother Dersius.’
Va’lin nodded, and came to a halt so he could level his flamer. Promethium-fire bathed the onrushing horde, rendering them down to charred and steaming bone. Va’lin moved on.
‘Brothers,’ Iaptus’s voice came over the vox-feed, ‘cleanse this nest then break for high ground.’
The secondary objective was all but achieved – now for the primary, the opening of the ‘gate’.
Dersius and Naeb finished the first mob just as the last of the heretic dregs were thinning out. More were positioned further down the bridge, but were bedded in and would need digging out. Dersius voiced their collective frustration.
‘We’re wasting our time with this rabble. Where are the real warriors?’
‘They are here, Dersius,’ said Naeb. ‘They’re just afraid to fight you, brother.’
Laughter echoed loudly across Salvation Bridge, incongruous when heard over the carnage.
Va’lin was scouring the vehicular warren and barely noticed.
‘Where is Ky’dak?’
Naeb scowled, ‘Probably waging a one-man war, as always.’