by Andy Clark
Another followed. Its heavy pistols blazing. He hacked off its arm, then its head.
Another.
Another.
The fighting became mechanical, exhausting and endless. The screams and yells and gunfire faded. The pain of his wounds faded. Nothing existed but the draconsfire flowing through his limbs, giving him strength, keeping him in the fight.
‘King Danial,’ he heard his name. His thoughts sharpened. ‘My liege!’ It was Suset on the vox.
‘My Lady?’
‘Do you hear that chant?’
He did now. Individual ork voices, shouting a name. They became a mass chant that beat upon the defenders like waves against a cliff.
‘GORGROK! GORGROK! GORGROK!’
Danial assessed the fight, drinking in the data his crown was feeding him.
‘Fire teams,’ he barked. ‘Ready in the second line! Assault teams, disengage and listen for my signal.’
He kicked an ork in the chest, swung his blade in a fiery arc that drove his enemies back, then turned and ran. A hundred yards separated him from the next line of barricades and the pale, resolute warriors stood behind it. He dodged and wove as he ran, yet he felt the awful itch in his back that told him at any moment a bullet, a rocket or an axe would hit him right between the shoulder blades and end his reign.
Still, he ran, and his warriors ran with him. Those who could break away, at least.
Danial glanced back and saw the orks flowing over the barricades. Militia screamed and died as the xenos hacked them apart. It was time.
‘Now!’ he bellowed, hurling himself prone. A heartbeat passed, a narrow window for his warriors to react to his signal. Then the gunners on the second line opened fire.
Heavy bolters thundered. Stubbers and autoguns spat streams of shells that stitched the ork lines. Lasguns flashed in the gloom.
Danial rolled over, deafened by the fusillade, and watched the front ranks of the greenskin charge cut to pieces. Dozens of Draconis warriors lay in his wake, the firestorm flashing over them. Others were not so lucky. Militiamen were gunned down from behind by greenskins or were too slow to evade their comrades’ fire. Their blast-riddled bodies hit the ground.
‘Mourn later,’ came Suset’s voice over the vox. ‘Now’s the time for the living.’
Danial nodded, pleased to hear her voice.
‘Fire teams, keep us covered,’ he ordered. ‘Assault teams, back to the second line.’
He crawled, arm over arm, beneath the withering fire, then pushed himself up into a crouching run. He reached the barricade and threw himself over it, nodding to Captain Bannoch who crouched next to a heavy bolter team.
‘Good work,’ said Danial as more of his warriors cleared the barricades or were hauled over them to safety.
‘Thank you, sire,’ said Bannoch over the roar of gunfire. ‘That’ll give them pause.’
Danial rose, accepting an autopistol from a nearby militiaman with a grateful nod. He saw the truth of Bannoch’s words. Ork dead were heaped around the outer barricades, more dying by the moment as they tried to scramble over the slain and charge into the Draconis guns.
The din of the barrage was phenomenal.
‘How long can we maintain this?’ asked Percivane, limping along the line to join them.
‘Our ammunition stocks are depleting rapidly,’ Danial replied, checking his crown’s data feeds. ‘Another few minutes, then we’re down to blades.’
He took a shot, and cursed as it bounced off an ork’s helmet. A bolter shell caught the beast in the chest a moment later, detonating within its torso.
‘Any more tricks?’ asked Suset, joining them from the other direction. Danial noticed she was bleeding from a gash in her forehead.
‘I was hoping you might have an idea or two,’ he said.
‘We fight until we can’t,’ she said grimly. ‘That’s all I’ve got.’
‘Last stand, then,’ said Captain Bannoch, snapping a lasgun shot at the enemy. Answering fire struck sparks from the top of the barricade and beheaded the militiaman who had handed Danial his gun.
‘Perhaps not,’ said Danial, pressing one hand to his vox-bead. ‘Sire Markos, can you hear me? This is Danial.’
‘Sire,’ came Markos’ voice, barely audible over the cacophony of battle. ‘I hear you.’
‘We’re pinned down in the throne room,’ said Danial. ‘Do you have any forces available to–’
Danial was interrupted by a deafening mechanical scream. Metres to his right the barricades vanished, consumed by a searing blast of green energy that turned several militia to ash. The shockwave buffeted them, wiping Danial’s vox out in a wash of static.
‘Gorgrok,’ said Suset.
Danial looked over the barricade, and saw the immense warlord storming towards them. Shots rattled from his piston-driven armour, and his claws snapped open and shut with the eagerness to kill. More armoured greenskins surrounded him, each hulking beast clad in mechanised suits of slab-like armour whose arms ended in roaring guns, snapping claws and industrial buzz-saws.
‘They’re wading through our fire like it isn’t there!’ exclaimed Bannoch. ‘Others are using them for cover.’
‘Throne,’ cursed Danial. ‘All fire teams, everything you have left on Gorgrok and his retinue. Assault teams, reserves, rally to me. We slay the beast, no matter the cost.’
His warriors responded with commendable speed. A firestorm engulfed the greenskin warlord even as militia and Knights ran, bent-double, along the line of the barricades to mass on their king.
‘Even if we kill Gorgrok,’ said Suset. ‘They’re still going to overrun us.’
‘But this way, we give whoever’s left out there a chance to break the ork invasion,’ said Danial. ‘We may yet save Adrastapol.’
She nodded, her expression proud but sad.
‘It has been an honour, my king,’ she said.
‘It truly has, my lady,’ said Danial.
The thunder of gunfire petered out as the last of the gunners’ ammunition ran dry. Gorgrok gave a deafening battlecry, his pounding footsteps ringing from the flagstones. Countless orks answered, their feral roar shuddering through the throne room.
WAAAGH!
‘For Draconis, and the Emperor!’ shouted Danial. ‘Cast them back! Gorgrok must die!’
The orks hit the barricades at a run, and the warriors of House Draconis rose to meet them. Blades flashed. Gun butts crunched into alien skulls. Axes thunked into necks and chests.
Gorgrok struck the barricades like a battering ram, and metal buckled and tore beneath his monstrous bulk. Danial and his warriors dived aside as the ork warlord smashed his way through the obstruction, his armoured elites at his back.
‘Into them!’ cried Suset, hurling herself at the nearest greenskin. She wove around the cumbersome swing of its hydraulic claw and hacked her draconblade into its flank, deep enough to draw blood.
Following the Gatekeeper’s example, the last defenders of the throne of Draconis charged. Gorgrok’s cannon screamed again, and then Danial was face-to-face with the towering beast, seeing close up the rage, hate and feral cunning in its red eyes.
Gorgrok swung a claw bigger than Danial’s body, and the High King ducked under it. He threw himself sideways as the ork’s other claw slammed down where he had stood a moment before, rolling to his feet in time to swing a blow of his own. Danial’s draconblade described a flaming arc as it sliced through Gorgrok’s thigh. Armour split and blood sprayed, but the ork barely registered the wound.
Danial gave ground as Gorgrok bulled forward, trying to crush the High King with his immense bulk. One huge metal foot slammed down, and Danial just evaded having his kneecap shattered. Another claw swing followed, then another. Danial dodged the first, but the second clipped his shoulder as he wove aside.
It was like b
eing run over by a battle-tank. Armour split, flesh ripped open and bone shattered. His left arm went numb. Danial was flung through the air, rolling to a stop near the sundered barricade. For a moment everything felt numb. Feet thumped all around him. Something dark loomed overhead, and he looked up groggily to see one of Gorgrok’s elite raising its buzzsaw fist to butcher him.
A massive metal claw slammed into the ork’s side, hurling it through the air in a welter of blood. Gorgrok’s outraged roar echoed through the chamber, and Danial picked out crude words as the warlord slammed his claws against his chest armour.
The message was clear. My kill.
‘Arrogant bastard,’ snarled Danial. He scrambled sideways, grunting at the pain in his shoulder, and snatched up his Oathkeeper. Gorgrok’s claws swung down again and Danial rolled away, letting out a gasp as broken bones ground together. He drove himself back to his feet, raising his guard one-handed.
Gorgrok turned, pistons hissing, an ugly leer on his face. In that moment, Danial saw the chugging generator built into the backplates of the warlord’s armour and felt a sliver of hope.
He glanced around, took in the frantic melee all around him. He caught a glance of Suset, ripping her blade from an armoured greenskin’s skull. Percivane, leading a band of militia in a frantic fight against the massed orks. Sires and Ladies of Draconis, hacking and parrying with their burning blades, on the verge of being overrun. More Draconis warriors, far too many, sprawled dead or dying amongst the heaps of slaughtered xenos.
And still more orks poured into the chamber.
‘Emperor give me strength,’ he muttered, missing the voices of his ghosts in the back of his mind. ‘I wish we could have done this in panoply.’
Gorgrok was coming at him again, his pounding footsteps cracking the flagstones. Danial feinted left and the ork took the bait, swinging a ponderous blow. Danial lunged right and spun, his swift footwork carrying him clear of his enemy’s claws. Heart thudding, shoulder a white scream of agony, Danial sprang past Gorgrok and swung his sword one-handed at the ork’s back.
The blade cut through cables and fuel lines, and took a chunk out of Gorgrok’s generator. Immediately the warlord’s armour began to smoke and whine, crude servos burning out as coolant feeds spurted and power failed.
Cursing and snarling, Gorgrok tried to turn. His movements were cumbersome, and sparks showered from seizing joints. Through sheer brute strength, the ork kept moving, but Danial moved with him, lunging around his slower opponent and swinging another blow that crunched through Gorgrok’s generator again. Fuel sprayed, and ignited. Flames leapt up Gorgrok’s back, and the warlord howled in fury.
Driven by pain and ferocity, the ork lunged backwards, catching Danial by surprise. Flames seared the High King’s skin, and Gorgrok’s armoured bulk smashed him from his feet for a second time. Danial gasped in agony, his vision swimming, but he managed to scramble clear before Gorgrok’s huge foot came down to crush him.
A headless militiaman fell across him, and Danial heaved the corpse away with his good arm in time to see Gorgrok break into a staggering charge. The warlord was ablaze, much of his armour inactive, yet still his incredible resilience and battle-lust kept him moving. He drove the immense weight of his armour through belligerence alone, eyes bulging as he swung back a claw to crush Danial like an insect.
‘Burn in the Draconsflame, you xenos filth,’ spat Danial, heaving himself to his feet and lashing out with his blade again. The blow hacked through flesh, bone and cabling. It severed the ork’s right claw at the elbow.
Danial didn’t give his enemy time to react. He hacked at Gorgrok again and again, splitting cables, mangling pistons, setting light to the greenkin’s flesh with the last guttering reserves of his draconblade’s fuel.
Gorgrok was trapped in his own armour, driven mad with frustration and pain, blood pumping from the stump of his right arm even as flames engulfed his body. Danial staggered back as Gorgrok burned, and the ork’s frantic howls filled his heart with the Emperor’s light.
‘See your leader burn, scum!’ he roared. ‘Hear his agony! This is the Emperor’s judgement made manifest!’
Around him, the orks faltered, gawping at the agonising fate of their leader. The warriors of House Draconis capitalised upon their hesitation, hurling themselves into their enemies with the last of their strength. Draconblades hacked through tough flesh and bone. Knives thrust into sunken red eyes.
Danial saw Percivane, bleeding from deep cuts across his breast-plate, decapitate one of the armoured orks and heave its body back over the barricade.
The greenskins gave a rising bellow of rage. As they surged forward, Captain Bannoch stepped to meet them with blade and pistol. He shot down one ork, ran another through, then was plucked off his feet as a third wrapped its piston-driven claw around his head. Bannoch struggled, battering his attacker’s face and shooting it in the chest. Shrugging off his efforts, the ork leered at Bannoch before snapping its claw shut with a horrible crunch.
Danial cried out in anger at the sensless death of the noble captain, and his heart sank. This wasn’t a heroic tale told on a tapestry to young squires. The monsters didn’t stop fighting, didn’t retreat just because you slew their king. They would keep coming until the last warriors of House Draconis were dead. Wearily, he raised his blade and sought for Suset. He could at least die by her side.
The outer wall of the throne room exploded with incredible force. Blazing rubble sailed through the air, crashing down like meteorites amongst the ork horde. Masonry collapsed in an avalanche, crushing them.
For a second time, the greenskins howled and pointed as towering Imperial Knights stormed into the throne room. Rockets and shells blasted them apart. Stubbers and gatling cannons chewed greenskins to bloody mist.
Danial recognised the heraldry of the Knight leading the charge, and felt an incredible surge of fierce delight.
‘Luk!’ he yelled as the last of the orks panicked and scattered at last. ‘Luk, my brother!’ shouted Danial again, hearing the manic edge in his own laughter and not caring. He found the strength to hack down a fleeing ork, then impale another as it tried to barge past him.
Danial saw the strange Knights that followed his friend to battle, and the wave of Taurox armoured transports that roared on their heels. More gunfire tore into the orks as soldiers deployed from the armoured transports and loosed disciplined volleys. Greenskins fell by the second, slaughtered from in front and behind as they tried in vain to fight their way free of the trap.
Danial cut down another ork, vision greying with exhaustion, and suddenly Jennika was there, soldiers flanking her, blade blazing as she slaughtered every alien in reach.
‘Jen,’ he said, relief flowing through him. ‘Jen, you made it! We survived!’
His sister approached and saluted with her blade.
‘Brother,’ she said. ‘It is good to see you.’
‘What is it?’ he asked, reading the grim desperation behind her smile. ‘What else has happened?’
‘We don’t have much time,’ she said. ‘Whatever steeds you have, mobilise them. And gather the Sacristans. If we’re to save our world, Danial, there’s one last battle to be fought.’
High above Adrastapol, guns the size of hab-blocks spat hundred-foot-long shells into the void. Lances sent silent, blinding beams of energy through the darkness to chop apart ork warships, and strew their blazing wreckage across the starfield. Ork gun batteries hammered Imperial void shields. Fighters and bombers hurtled around the larger ships, fighting out their own zero gravity dogfights or engaging in desperate bombing runs through hails of flak.
With its numbers depleted by weeks of planetary drops, defence battery fire and harassing attacks from the Bastion Fleet, the ork armada was a shadow of its former self. Its ships still numbered in the hundreds, but many were damaged or scattered, their crews depleted.
O
rbital scans had revealed the desperate fight taking place on the planet below. With only a little browbeating from the irascible Captain Shas, the Bastion Fleet Captains had voted to ignore their standing orders and launch an all-out attack to break the back of the greenskin fleet.
Two hours into the naval action, and the fight was going well. Still, Captain Shas sat in his throne and glowered. On the main holoscreen, a compact fleet of Imperial warships could be seen cutting their way through the scattered ork armada from its opposite flank. Glowing lines on the astrogation monitor indicated they had slipped out from behind the dwarf moon of Triaetos, and were now on a direct heading for Adrastapol’s orbital envelope.
‘Auspex confirms one Oberon-class Battleship, two Exorcist-class Cruisers and six frigates of various marks,’ said Mister Klem. ‘Heavily modified, all vox encrypted.’
‘They’re still ignoring our hails?’ asked Shas, taking a slug from his hip flask. The metal digits of his augmetic hand tapped out a slow beat on the arm-rest of his throne. The aperture on his bionic eye whined and refocused, a sure sign Shas was tense.
‘Yes, captain,’ said Klem. ‘They appear to be disinterested in an exchange.’
The Unbroken shuddered as her gun decks spoke, hammering an ork ramship to scrap off the port bow.
‘What about the rest of the Bastion Fleet?’ asked the captain. ‘Any of these ujovskae got an opinion worth hearing?’
‘Nothing that wouldn’t provoke further insults from yourself, captain,’ said Klem. ‘They’re not the most experienced captains, and terribly bound by all this chivalric business.’
Shas grunted and scowled.
‘Mister Malsyn,’ voxed the captain. ‘Can you confirm the iconography on those ships?’
‘Yes, captain,’ came Malsyn’s reply. The man glanced up from his distant console, expression worried. ‘No doubt about it. That’s the sigil of the Emperor’s holy Inquisition.’
‘Well,’ said Shas heavily. ‘Throne damn it.’
‘Succinctly put, captain,’ said Mister Klem. ‘What do you wish us to do?’
