Knightsblade

by Andy Clark

  ‘Those are Imperial Basilisks, under all that scrap metal,’ said Markos.

  ‘I see them,’ said Danial in disgust.

  Two purloined tanks opened fire, hurling shells through the air which burst against the Knights’ shields. Oath of Flame staggered at the impact. Danial rode the sway. The third Basilisk suffered a catastrophic failure. Its rusted barrel burst as the shell detonated within. Flames blasted through the tank’s crew compartment, roasting gretchin.

  ‘Rubbish,’ snorted Markos. ‘Such tech-heresy invites weakness.’

  Pivoting his steed at the waist, he raked the tanks with fire. Thousands of foot-long shells peppered the vehicles’ hulls, cratering the metal and causing them to shudder and skid. One tank rolled to a halt, smoke billowing from it. The other kept going, its crew frantically loading another shell.

  ‘Turn and address,’ said Danial. ‘Their infantry is getting closer.’

  Don’t let them mount your steed’s legs, came a whisper from his throne. Several more voices murmured in agreement. I was slain by just such a thing, came one voice, and he is right, they will tear your Knight from beneath you, came another.

  ‘I understand,’ muttered Danial, bracing Oath of Flame’s legs and letting fly with his guns.

  His first shot hit the middle of a greenskin mob. Those xenos caught in the blast were vaporised, while those further out were set aflame. Danial’s eyes widened as the burning orks kept running, sheer ferocity carrying them onwards even as they burned.

  With a thought, Danial set his heavy stubbers to thin out the crowd. Spurts of blood flew through the air. Greenskins were punched off their feet. Still their comrades came on, brandishing hatchets and crude chainswords.

  Markos was firing too, Honourblaze annihilating the orks around him. In return, crude rockets corkscrewed through the air, fired from the greenskins’ portable launchers. Several flew wide, while more exploded against the Knights’ shields. Danial gritted his teeth as one rocket found its way through, blasting a sparking hole in his steed’s chest-plate.

  Oath of Flame rumbled angrily.

  With a loud boom, the last looted tank fired again. Aimed low, its shell skimmed the bottom of Sire Markos’ shield and slammed into his steed’s right leg. Fire blossomed and Markos swore vehemently.

  ‘Damage?’ asked Danial, clenching his haptic gauntlet and firing again.

  ‘Enough,’ said Markos. ‘I can move, but I’m limping. Damnation!’

  ‘Keep firing, slow advance’ said Danial. ‘We need to break them before they do us any more damage, or the jaws of the Dracon won’t close.’

  He fed power into his motive impellers, pressing runes and blink-clicking icons to alter his targeting vectors. Danial revved Oath of Flame’s chainsword, and swung his thermal cannon to bear against the ramshackle Basilisk.

  The tank’s crew were dancing about, shaking their fists in the air, celebrating their lucky shot. Their cackles turned to shrieks as they saw Danial’s gun swing towards them, and they scrambled to load another shell.

  ‘Too late, filth,’ said Danial. He fired.

  Caught amidst the immolating blast, the Basilisk’s hull flashed from red to white in an instant, its crew vanishing in clouds of ash before it detonated. The tank’s ammunition cooked off, adding to the detonation.

  Still the surviving orks came on, several dozen greenskins sprinting towards the Knights with bellowed war cries.

  They flooded around Oath’s legs. Alert runes flashed in Danial’s cockpit as dozens of blades and bludgeons battered at his steed’s feet. Crude grenades spun through the air to detonate against his armour, while the most audacious greenskins began clambering up Oath’s shins.

  ‘Caution, my liege,’ urged Markos.

  Danial had seen what happened to Knights who panicked or slowed when an ork assault hit home. He had no intention of being pulled down to such an ignominious fate. Feeding more power to his steed’s legs, he kept striding, kicking and trampling the orks as he went. Broken bodies flew through the air. Muscled monsters were crushed beneath his footfalls.

  At the same time, Danial pivoted his steed’s torso forward, bringing his chainsword into play. He swept the reaper left and right, skimming it through the orks at head height.

  Each of the weapon’s cutting teeth was two feet across and three high, travelling at a speed of over three hundred feet per second. It was a weapon capable of ripping through a castle wall, or piercing the armoured hides of super-heavy war engines. The orks were torn apart at the slightest contact. Mangled showers of meat and gore sprayed with each swing of Danial’s blade, and the orks broke before him.

  They turned and fled, howling in terror, and he slaughtered them without mercy. Markos joined him, his gatling cannon screaming as it scythed down the fleeing xenos.

  Not a single ork survived.

  ‘Nicely done, sire,’ said Markos as his steed limped up to join Oath of Flame.

  ‘Thank you, Markos,’ said Danial, checking his strategic overlay and vid-feeds. He and Markos had flanked out for almost half a mile, circumventing the main greenskin horde. The mass of xenos was now swirling around the feet of Melessa and Nauman’s steeds, which stomped back and forth with their weapons blazing. ‘We need to move quickly. Melessa and Nauman are beset,’ he said.

  ‘Orks,’ spat Markos. ‘Can’t turn down a fight, no matter what it costs them.’

  ‘Duty demands that we make it cost them dear,’ said Danial. ‘Sire Roget, are you positioned?’

  ‘I am, liege,’ replied Roget. ‘Requesting leave to fire.’

  ‘Fire at will,’ said Danial. ‘Close on their flank and give them the Dracon’s wrath.’

  Feeding power to his steed, Danial advanced.

  ‘Catch up as soon as you can,’ he voxed to Markos. ‘The delay has left Nauman and Melessa exposed. I need to pull some of the enemy off them before they’re overrun.’

  ‘Of course, sire,’ said Markos, his steed limping gamely in Oath’s wake. ‘Don’t do anything reckless.’

  ‘Lady Melessa,’ said Danial. ‘Sire Nauman. The Dracon’s jaws are closing.’

  ‘Glad to hear it, sire,’ said Melessa, her voice tight, then broke off as one of the ork walkers swung its hydraulic claw at her. Dracon’s Ire parried with its chainsword, and sparks rained down on the orks below. Melessa stepped back. She redressed and fired her thermal cannon. Her attacker detonated in a fireball.

  ‘But we’re hard pressed,’ she finished. ‘Intercession requested.’

  Oath of Flame advanced at a pounding run, the ground shaking and tree trunks toppling before it. The nearest orks turned, roaring feral challenges. Danial didn’t slow, hitting their lines like an avalanche.

  Cogitating on the move, he fired his thermal cannon and annihilated a heavy transport packed with armoured greenskins. Fire raked him from all sides, and he swung his shield one way then the other, concentrating on the weapons that could harm him.

  Oath of Flame’s foot descended on a greenskin truck. The ork vehicle’s fuel tanks exploded, causing Danial’s steed to lurch. He wrestled his controls, fighting Oath of Flame back from the tipping point. Alarms quieted as his steed stabilised, but the momentary distraction had forced him to slow.

  Danial cursed as a mob of greenskins leapt up from amidst the horde on trails of flame. Strapped to rocket packs, they sailed gracelessly through the air, diving down on his steed like living ordnance. Several struck his shield, and their rocket packs exploded with enough force to dent Danial’s cockpit. One ork managed to land on his steed’s carapace, while another brute, with a mechanical claw for a hand, came down atop his thermal cannon.

  ‘Get off, vermin,’ snarled Danial, throwing Oath of Flame into a wheeling backwards stride. He saw the big brute with the claw stumble, grabbing his cannon’s shield and digging the metal prongs in deep. The Knight stomped backwards
, but his assailants clung on.

  From above, Danial heard a ringing clang, then another. He spared a glance at his cockpit hatch, and swore as he saw it shudder under a third blow.

  Beware! moaned his throne’s ghosts. They are fearsome, strong. These beasts can tear through even a Knight’s adamant hide given time.

  As one greenskin battered the hatch, the other had regained its feet and was gleefully firing its huge pistol into Oath of Flame’s right arm joint. Worse, the beasts swirling around his feet were getting bolder, shooting his Knight and trying again to scale its legs.

  Don’t get overwhelmed, came the voice of his throne again.

  ‘It’s hardly my intent,’ spat Danial, raking the orks with stubber rounds.

  Fire erupted around him as missiles tore into the horde. Shells followed, their detonations making his warning augurs shrill. As the smoke cleared, Danial saw dozens of orks sprawled dead on the ground.

  ‘You looked irked, sire,’ came Roget’s voice over the vox.

  ‘My thanks, sire Roget,’ said Danial through gritted teeth. ‘Your assistance is timely, and the foe are damnably anarchic.’

  Another clang sounded from above, and sparks drizzled down from his steed’s hatch. Any moment, the ork would batter its way through, and there was no way he could fight such a beast strapped into his throne.

  ‘All right, you wish to enter,’ he said, grabbing his bolt pistol from its cockpit rack. ‘I’ll open it.’

  Raising his weapon, Danial slammed his free hand against the cockpit release. Above, the hatch popped up and slid backwards with a hiss of released atmosphere. The din of battle roared in, and the ork gawped down at him in surprise, axe raised for another blow.

  Danial shot the greenskin in the face. His bolt shell blew out the back of its head, and he heard the thud and scuff as the xenos’ body bounced away and fell from his carapace.

  ‘That’s one,’ he muttered. ‘Now, where’s the other…’

  A glance through his vid-feed showed the other greenskin had seen its comrade’s plunge. Its bestial features crumpled in a frown of puzzlement, then he saw its eyes widen with realisation. The ork triggered its rocket pack, a short burst that hurled it up onto Oath’s broad shoulders.

  ‘Come on…’ said Danial again, riding the sway as his steed continued to pace backwards through the fight. The percussion of his heavy stubbers was constant.

  Suddenly the ork appeared, framed in the hatch, jaws wide in a roar, a rusty stick grenade fizzing in its fist.

  Danial fired, hitting his hatch rune a split second later. The bolt took the ork in the neck. Its eyes bulged and the hatch slammed shut. There came a muffled boom as the xenos’ grenade detonated, and Danial watched in satisfaction as blood ran down over his vid-feeds.

  Free of his assailants, Danial saw that his Knights had wrought butchery upon the orks. Roget’s steed was pacing along one flank while Markos limped in from the other, both strafing the horde and thinning its numbers. Meanwhile, his own headlong charge had drawn enough of the foe away from Melessa and Nauman that they had been able to rally and take the fight to the foe.

  The ill-disciplined greenskins had been pulled in all directions by their eagerness to engage the newly arrived foes, and their cohesion had collapsed. Danial saw a bellowing monster stomping back and forth, brandishing an axe the size of a man as it tried to restore order. He erased the beast with his thermal cannon.

  The Rok’s fire still rained down indiscriminately, but with the Knights maintaining shield discipline, it was achieving little more than to speed the greenskins’ own demise. Though all the Knights were showing battle-damage, all were still in the fight.

  ‘Concentrate on the walkers,’ said Danial. ‘Finish them.’

  ‘Yes, Sire,’ came the replies, and fire raked the two surviving ork engines. One staggered, then exploded with volcanic fury.

  Shrugging off the barrage, the other levelled a huge, blunderbuss-like weapon at Lady Melessa’s steed and fired.

  Melessa yelled in surprise as a mass of crackling strands burst forth. Boulders and scrap metal weights sailed past her shield to enfold her steed in an electrified net. The impact drove Dracon’s Ire back and the weights pulled it off balance. Lady Melessa’s steed crashed down onto its back where it lay, voltage coursing over its limbs.

  Melessa’s screams filled the vox, then tailed away.

  ‘Kill it!’ roared Danial. They all fired at once. The ork walker shuddered under the barrage, then toppled sideways as Sire Nauman’s thunderstrike gauntlet caught it square in the side of its ironclad skull.

  As the last walker burned, the surviving greenskins fled.

  ‘Sires, leave them,’ ordered Danial. ‘They’re dregs. We must eliminate the primary target. Sacristan Banaxos, Lady Melessa’s steed has fallen. It’s bound in some sort of electrified net. She is likely to be badly hurt, if alive at all. Move up and do what you can. Beware, the ork artillery is still active.’

  ‘Understood, sire,’ said Banaxos.

  The remaining Knights of the lance advanced through the smoke, shields up and auto-pennants fluttering in the breeze. Artillery fire fell around them. It battered their shields, but they pressed forward. Melessa’s fall had made them angry. Danial felt the draconsfire burning in his breast.

  ‘You know how this works,’ he said, shrugging off an energy blast. ‘Spread out, target weak structural points, start a chain reaction.’

  ‘Sire,’ said Markos. ‘We can’t sustain this. Melessa… Even if she’s alive, she won’t be fighting again any time soon, and Emperor only knows the condition of her steed. That’s the tenth confirmed casualty today alone.’

  ‘I know, Markos,’ said Danial, bracing his steed in a firing stance. The immensity of the Rok rose above him, thrice the height of his steed. Its fire splashed against his shield to no avail. ‘But let’s finish this.’

  Weathering the frantic ork firestorm, the Knights braced their steeds and opened fire. Explosions tore through the Rok. Beams of heat melted gun decks and triggered fuel reserves. Striding close, Sire Nauman tore at the Rok with his steed’s weapons, ripping away avalanches of stone, metal and mangled bodies.

  Danial’s auspex showed vivid energy spikes within the Rok.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Back.’

  With control and discipline, the Knights strode their steeds backwards, away from the shuddering enemy structure. Orks and gretchin spilled from within, tumbling from hatches and tunnel mouths, many on fire. The Knights strafed them with stubber fire as the Rok shook in the grip of ever fiercer explosions. Ripped apart from within, the former spacecraft collapsed, until it was nothing more than a blazing mountain of rubble and corpses.

  In the battle’s wake, Danial and his Knights gathered near Melessa’s fallen steed. The electrified net had spent its fury. The fallen Knight smouldered where it lay. Banaxos’ Crawler sat in their midst, armatures extended and servitor limbs working as it effected repairs and rearmed their weapons from its internal hoppers. Melessa lay within, strapped into a medicae cradle, horribly burned, but clinging tenaciously to life.

  Banaxos had pronounced her chances of survival slim.

  ‘Markos, you believe our offensive is no longer tenable, yes?’ said Danial.

  ‘I do, sire,’ said Markos. ‘We’re taking casualties at an unsustainable rate.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Danial. ‘But is the price worth it? Is this how we win this war, through sacrifice? House Draconis has eliminated seventeen ork Roks and slaughtered an estimated twenty to thirty thousand greenskins since the invasion began.’

  ‘We’ve hurt them,’ said Markos. ‘I know what I said, about not letting them get a foothold, about staying mobile, but this horde is vast. In a war of attrition, we’re going to lose.’

  ‘The strategos adepts are saying it is three to four times the size of Skarjaw’s
invasion, at least,’ said Danial. ‘I don’t disagree with you. If Minotos would only commit to battles beyond their damned borders, then maybe we’d make headway.’

  ‘I don’t think even that would help,’ said Markos. ‘Thus far, we and House Pegasson’s Knights have kept the orks disrupted with these raids, and knocked out plenty of landing sites. But you saw those orbital auguries this morning, the same as I did. They’re massing, despite our efforts.’

  ‘If we’re still in the open when they do, they’ll overrun us,’ said Danial.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Markos. ‘We’ve given the last serf columns time to reach safe havens. But now I believe we should fall back behind sterner defences ourselves.’

  ‘You’re correct, Markos,’ said Danial. ‘The sheer anarchy these beasts unleash in battle… They can’t be predicted. The best laid plans fall apart around them. Knights die. The beasts’ proclivity for incapacitating machinery to be pulled apart for scrap is horrifying.’

  ‘Filthy xenos heretics,’ said Sire Roget. ‘They treat our steeds like common junk. They pick them apart like carrion avids.’

  ‘No more,’ said Danial. ‘Spread the word. I am ordering a full retreat. All Knights are to fall back to their allotted fortifications. Steeds are to meet the enemy in open battle only as part of necessary sallies until I decree otherwise. We must dig in and endure their besiegement, either until they are broken enough for us to strike back, or until other Imperial forces answer our astropathic cries for aid.’

  As Markos hooked into the long-range strategic channels and broadcasted Danial’s decree, the High King of Adrastapol turned his steed for the Draconspire. They were doing the right thing, he thought. The wise thing. Even his ghosts agreed, for the most part.

  So why, then, did it feel so much like defeat?

  ‘No response to my hails,’ said Jennika. ‘Anyone?’

  ‘No, Lady Jennika,’ said Lady Nualah Dar Pegasson. ‘I’m receiving no answer to vox hail, and I see no signs of machine-spirit activity on my auspex. Nothing from the wardens, my lady.’