His jaw itched again an instant before the voice of Hanlaishin sounded in his ear.
‘Do not engage them yet. Vibro-cannons target the rear vehicle. Heavy weapons and distort-crews disable the lead transport.’
Aradryan let go of the barrel of the shuriken catapult and flexed his fingers, his discomfort mirrored back at him by the tension of the other crews. The weapons were perfectly sited, their presence masked by devices augmented by the powers of the warlock and far more sophisticated than the technology of the renegades.
And yet the vehicles paused, a third of the way from the near end of the bridge.
A squad of armoured brutes disembarked from the lead transport and advanced on foot, the carriers following a score of paces behind.
‘Crone’s curse!’ exclaimed Hanlaishin, taken aback by the enemy’s action. ‘We have no choice. Open fire, now. Destroy the vehicles and then engage the foot troops.’
The mobile heavy weapons of the concealed Guardian Defenders fired first. The ruby pulse of a bright lance and a shimmering plasma burst from a starcannon slashed into the track guards of the closest transport. The starcannon shot burst ineffectually from the thick ceramic plates but the bright lance sliced through, splashing molten droplets. The wounded transport shed broken track links as it ground to a halt.
‘Our turn,’ said Diamedin, a flicker of anticipation leaking across the psychic link. Aradryan did not share her enthusiasm and swallowed hard.
The bulkier support weapons rose up from their hiding places under the guidance of their gunners. A few paces from Aradryan, Diamedin turned the vibro-cannon towards a break between two fallen walls. The ribbed muzzle of the sonic generator angled towards the black vehicles, the gleam of its powercells growing brighter.
A heartbeat later the distort-cannons burst into life.
A pair of dark vortices erupted around the front vehicle, swiftly expanding. Fronds of electrical discharge danced at the edge of the growing wounds in reality, flashing across the armoured hide of the troop carrier. The air twisted with agitated molecules, dragged into the warp rifts opened by the distort-cannons. Aradryan watched in awe while rivets popped and armoured plates distended as the rippling boundary between the material and immaterial expanded from the detonation. Track housings buckled, tearing free maintenance hatches and ripping road wheels from the flanks of the transport.
‘They shall suffer Khaine’s fury!’ Diamedin was excited now, gripped by war-fever left over from her Aspect Warrior past.
A sudden hum from the vibro-cannons escalated into a wailing screech. Aradryan followed the burst of sonic energy from Diamedin’s weapon as it tore a furrow along the ground like an invisible plough, scattering Traitor Space Marines as they disembarked. The beam thrummed through the lead vehicle, rocking the transport on its suspension, scattering flecks of paint and a cloud of dislodged dirt.
The sonic discharges of all five vibro-cannons came together at a point somewhere inside the second vehicle. Conflicting frequencies created an explosive resonance that literally shook the vehicle apart. Weak seams shattered and contorted splinters of metal flew in all directions. Dark flame gouted in odd spirals from the ruptured engine block while the occupants were thrown about like chaff in a tornado, slammed against the stanchions of the bridge and dragged violently across the cracked roadway.
A mixture of surprise and relief erupted from Aradryan as a short laugh. Ahead, from the riverbank, the Guardian Defenders erupted from their cover. The hiss of their shuriken catapults and cannons mingled with that of the returning Vyper and windriders, nearly lost among the clatter of falling debris and the crashing tread of the charging renegades.
A hail of mono-molecular discs slashed into the power-armoured warriors, striking sparks from the ceramic plates, leaving scars across the black paint and gilded decoration. Here and there one of the augmented humans fell or reeled back, an eye-lens shattered or a weaker seal in his war-plate ruptured by the stream of projectiles. Aradryan raised his own weapon but the enemy were not yet in range.
Into the teeth of the assault came the renegades, uncaring of the danger. Their bolters spat fire-trailing rounds, stitching small detonations across the walls and rocks that had concealed the ambushers.
Aradryan saw the muzzle of a boltgun turned in his direction. Propellant flickered in the chamber within as he threw himself flat.
Explosions tore at the wall where he had been crouched, turning bricks to shards and dust, the thunder of the detonations painful even through the dampening effect of his helm. Aradryan felt a stab of pain from Diamedin half a heartbeat before he heard the bolt impact and her cry.
He looked up in horror, just in time to see her chest-plate spraying shards, the mesh beneath a fountain of glittering scales mingled with droplets of bright blood. Armour lit by the deadly blossom of yellow and white in her chest, edged with dark fragments of shattered breast-plate, Diamedin was hurled out of the gunnery couch.
As he pushed himself harder into the cover of the wall, Aradryan’s gaze locked on to the unmoving remains of his companion. Among the fleshy ruin of her torso glittered a bluish gem – her waystone, now imbued with spirit energy. Its ghost-flicker entranced him, like so many other spirits whose internment into the infinity circuit he had attended. His own waystone was a cold dagger of ice in his heart. So long ago he had looked upon bodies returning from battle and the fear had been raised in him. It had driven him to flee into indulgence, and set him upon the course of terrible events that had eventually brought him here. And now Aradryan drifted alone, mesmerised by the mangled remains dappled in spirit light. Diamedin’s quietus severed what little contact there had been.
Another burst of enemy fire raked the ruins of the human building. Teeth gritted, he pictured himself standing and returning fire with the shuriken catapult, but his body did not respond.
A cycle. Never-ending. Even in death there was no escape.
Through the clamour of battle – a thunder of guns, crack of shattering ceramic, the patter of brick shards on his armour and the heavy footfalls of the approaching Space Marines – Aradryan felt the buzz of the messenger-bead again. The insistent tone of Arhathain cut into his numbed thoughts.
‘Hold your ground! More enemy forces are diverting to your position. Keep them back as long as you can.’
It felt as though the words were meant for him, and it took a short while for Aradryan to realise that the autarch had addressed the whole Guardian host.
He dimly noted that the wall was no longer exploding around him and slowly pushed up from his belly. Five fist-sized holes had been punched through the bricks where he had squatted and the entire top course had been turned to a cloud of dust. His blood chilled at the realisation of how close his death had been. The prison of the infinity circuit still awaited him.
The sensation spurred him into action. Self-disgust at his body’s cowardice overcame natural responses.
He risked a glance through one of the holes and saw half a dozen enemy bodies strewn on the grass just a few strides away. Their armour was mangled, limbs bent awkwardly, indicating a cross-fire from the other vibro-cannons. More corpses, like black-carapaced beetles, were strewn along the line of the assault, leading back to flashes of gunfire sparkling from where the survivors still fought out of the cover of their broken vehicles.
He looked at the seat on the vibro-cannon, the morphic cushion spattered with Diamedin’s blood. Swallowing hard, he edged closer, still keeping below the wall as though it were the parapet of a fortress rather than a flimsy domestic construction. He dropped down and advanced on elbows and knees, the shuriken catapult in his grasp, until he reached the breach in the building. The vibro-cannon was still three strides away, floating in place as serenely as a grav-barge in a parade.
Aradryan considered his options, and his chances. He was fast, a gift of his species, but so too were the artificially crafted re
actions of the Space Marines. He would probably be able to reach the support weapon before they registered his presence, but would he be able to set a target and open fire?
He waited, the fingers of his free hand pressed against the wall, shuriken catapult still in the other, attuning himself to the rhythms of gunfire. He drew up a foot beneath him, ready to run. The snap of bolters and subsequent growl of the rounds was short, targeted close to the bridge. Most likely at the Guardian Defenders. Aradryan heard the crackle of the warlock’s singing spear impacting against plates of armour.
An instant later he leapt from the cover of the wall, one hand reaching for the back of the vibro-cannon. He vaulted into the gunnery seat and slapped his weapon against a grip pad. Aradryan snapped his attention towards the bridge even as his fingers curled about the controls. The platform tilted slightly on its suspensor field as he steered right, a small screen in front of him dancing with images until it settled on the shape of a helmed head poking out from behind the broken track housing of the closest enemy vehicle.
The first Aradryan knew of the still-functioning mounted weapon on the lead vehicle was a spark of bolt detonations tearing up the sloped shell of the vibro-cannon. He flung himself sideways as the support weapon disintegrated. Tucking his head down, he rolled as he hit the ground, pieces of shrapnel slicing into the dirt around him.
A shard of broken plating pierced the back of his leg, ripping a pained yelp from his lips as he slithered back to the comparative safety of the wall. Blood leaking from the flesh wound, he continued on, pushing himself across the dry grass until his back found the angle of the other wall.
Through the pounding of his own heart and the continued fusillades from both sides, Aradryan picked out a deeper boom – the sound of larger cannons. Panicked shouts from his companions preceded the whine of falling shells and a ground-shaking eruption close at hand. Dirt showered down on Aradryan over the top of the broken wall. A blinding flash of laser light scorched not far overhead, from somewhere across the river.
The enemy reinforcements had arrived.
‘Five enemy tanks have peeled away from the main attack to reinforce the flanking manoeuvre across the bridge,’ reported Arhathain, as dispassionately as if he were passing on a weather report. ‘Hold your ground.’
Aradryan risked a second glance over the wall. The initial probing force had been reduced to a few Chaos Space Marines, stubbornly sniping out from among the wreckage of their transports, but the Alaitocii had not fared well in the exchange. The wreckage of several support weapons littered the buildings beside the road, the bodies of their crews draped over brick and rock. The vibro-cannon beside Aradryan was a pile of psychoplastic splinters and molten metal, his shuriken catapult somewhere in the mess that remained.
Sporadic distort-cannon fire and the continuing fusillades of the Guardian Defenders kept the Chaos Space Marines at bay for the moment, but it was only a matter of time before they crushed the remnants of the ambush force. Shells burst from across the river while harsh lascannon blasts scoured through the crumbling ruins.
The surge of confidence that had spurred him swiftly abated, replace by grim reality. Arhathain’s exhortation notwithstanding, as far as Aradryan was concerned he had played his part, but without a weapon and faced with a company of tanks there was nothing more he could do.
There certainly was little point to staying where he was. Even now, just a few moments since the first shell had exploded, the sound of fire from surviving support weapons had lessened, targeted by the newly arrived enemy tanks.
His options were limited. Arhathain had picked the battle site carefully, denying the enemy much in the way of shelter as they approached but that also meant there was little to retreat through. There were a few scattered patches of cover before the land dropped down into a ravine about a hundred strides behind the outpost where he hid. If he set off now he might just make the dip before the enemy saw him. For a moment he was possessed by a wild thought, of sprinting towards the enemy to throw himself in the waters below the bridge, and thus escape downriver. Or he could remain where he was, hoping that whatever relief force Arhathain would certainly dispatch arrived before the bulk of the enemy had pushed across the bridge.
Guilt needled him at the thought of retreating. The force had been placed to counter just this type of flanking attack. If the bridge fell it could cost countless more Alaitocii lives. It was almost enough to make him break from cover and seek a weapon.
Almost.
Aradryan remained where he was, pushed up against the protective wall like a limpet on a rock, wondering how it was that fate had chosen to put him in this situation. There seemed little enough worth dying for on the forsaken human world. He was not sure of the grander scheme, but knew it involved the primarch, the Ynnari and the greater war against the minions of the Dark Gods. Farseers, Eldrad Ulthran included, had insisted that the warriors of the Black Legion could not be allowed to expand into this star system.
The messenger waves burst into renewed activity, pulsing into Aradryan’s whirling thoughts.
‘The enemy are amassing for another push,’ warned Hanlaishin.
‘Movement into the river, armoured infantry,’ reported one of the other Guardians.
‘Some kind of mobile artillery taking position on the hill.’
‘Concentrated fire coming fr–’
‘Something else, coming through the smoke. Khaine’s blood!’
A burst of acute paranoia rather than bravery pushed Aradryan to dart a look around the barrier – more than enough time to take stock of the changing situation.
Armoured walkers, each three times the height of the renegade Space Marines, stomped down the road towards the river. A multiple-rocket launcher was moving into position on a ridge overlooking the attack site, its turret-pods laden with warheads. Several squads of the Black Legionnaires had forced their way onto the bridge to bolster the infantry already there, bolt-rounds whickering across the divide to keep the eldar pinned down in their scattered clumps of cover.
Everything was building for a fresh and final assault on the gun batteries.
A dread-inspiring roar echoed across the river valley – artificially modulated, a half-mechanical bellow that emanated from the address systems of several dozen Traitor Space Marines. The war cry rolled over the bridge and river like an ocean wave, heralding devastation.
If Aradryan was to die here, what would happen next? As Mourner he had watched spirit after spirit guided into the relative sanctuary of the infinity circuit. A resting place, of sorts, far from the gaze of the Great Enemy. A reward for adhering to the pains and structures of the Asuryani Path. But what if his spirit stone fell into the hands of the depraved followers of Chaos? Were there acolytes of She Who Thirsts among their ranks?
The snarl of engines grew louder accompanied by the pounding of feet on artificial stone as the Chaos renegades thrust across the bridge.
Not for him, that semi-slumber of bare consciousness. All would be for nothing, his spirit stone broken open by the daemons of the Perfect Prince, his soul endlessly devoured.
And for what? To deny the Black Legion an abandoned world? To protect the Imperium of the humans?
It was all too grand to deal with, too far above Aradryan’s concerns. He understood the need for greater alliance with the humans – temporarily – but his own experience with the servants of the Emperor had shown that they were self-serving and weak. He had no doubts they would put themselves before any concern for the craftworlds. He had dedicated himself to serving Alaitoc, not the Emperor.
The enemy on the bridge burst from cover, supported by the scathing fire of their brothers-in-damnation. In just a few heartbeats they would be on the near side, falling upon the Guardians holding the riverbank.
Aradryan was just about to make a run for it when he felt something stir in his breast. It was faint, just a warmth where
before there had been emptiness. It reminded him of the infinity circuit, though more diffuse. A nascent connection, growing stronger.
In its midst he heard the echoes of the thoughts of others around him. Nothing specific, just vague notions of hope and fear, longing and dread like a refracted beam of light.
A whisper in his mind.
Invigoration pushed aside loneliness. His mind pulsed with a feeling of belonging he had not felt for a long time. He held his breath, heart like a drum in his ears. Many had died already. Who was he to judge his life worth more than theirs?
Aradryan darted to the remnants of the vibro-cannon and snatched up his shuriken catapult before leaping back to the shelter of the wall. Letting out an explosive exhalation, Aradryan stood up, ready to vault the wall. He did not fight for the humans, but for his companions.
If he was to die, it would not be alone.
Twin blasts of ruby light seared past his hiding place. Not from the Black Legionnaires, but towards them. A few heartbeats later a shadow passed over him. Aradryan looked up and saw the underside of a Wave Serpent, silhouetted against the bright sky. As it moved away, firing again towards the bridge, its colours were unfamiliar. He had thought it part of a reinforcement sent by the autarch, but instead of the blue and yellow of the Alaitoc warhost, the transport was coloured a dark grey with haphazard slashes of black and dark red across it.
Other vehicles arrived, speeding across the low hills, some in similar livery, others marked as coming from Saim-Hann, Biel-Tan and other craftworlds. And with them, warriors and vehicles not even of the craftworlds – blade-like drukhari Raiders packed with baying kabalite warriors, alongside swooping Reaver jetbikes ridden by shrieking wyches.
Lords and Tyrants Page 38