Mechanicum

by Graham McNeill

  Roaring streams of turbo lasers and blitzing storms of explosive shells tore through skitarii and weaponised servitors as the Knights carved a path along the Typhon Causeway. Hundreds of their enemies were dying every second and their bodies were crushed underfoot as the Knights rode ever onwards. The Knights of Taranis slaughtered their way along the causeway’s length, Verticorda killing with methodical precision, Caturix with furious abandon.

  As sudden as the attack was, Melgator’s forces rallied with commendable speed, and armoured units raced to meet the charging Knights. Heedless of their own warriors, enemy cannon opened fire on the causeway, blowing wide craters in the great road. The speed and ferocity of their charge carried the Knights clear of the bulk of the fire, but two warriors, tangled up in the debris of their carnage, were caught by the full fury of a sustained salvo of high explosives and blown to pieces.

  Another Knight took a direct hit from an experimental gun recovered from the ruins of Adept Ulterimus’ tomb beneath the Zephyria Tholus. Empowered with dark energies from the Vaults of Moravec, a beam of black light punched straight through the Knight’s power field to wreath the machine in dark fire that instantly melted through its armour. Verticorda could hear its agonised screams over the Manifold and watched as its dying rider swept a host of enemy warriors to their doom as it plunged from the causeway and into the magma.

  With every passing moment, the Knights of Taranis were fighting their way further and further from the Magma City, killing and crushing Adept Zeth’s enemies with consummate skill and grace. This was no undisciplined, feral charge, but the exquisite skill of noble warriors exercising their killing art in the most sublime manner imaginable.

  Already they had travelled more than two kilometres from the gate, leaving a trail of dead and dying enemies in their wake. As another four hundred metres was won, another Knight died, the machine’s legs sawn off by Ulterimus’ dark weapon and its carapace pounced upon by a cackling tide of mutant skitarii.

  Lord Caturix turned his guns on the swarming skitarii, clearing them from the downed Knight in a series of devastating bursts of gunfire. The Knight was already dead, and, rather than allow the enemy to scavenge from its corpse, Caturix kept firing until its reactor core was breached and it vanished in a seething wall of plasma fire.

  Only five Knights remained with Verticorda and Caturix, and as devastating as their charge had proven, it was slowing. More and more enemy warriors were clogging the causeway with their bodies, and entire regiments of artillery and armour were concentrating their fire on stopping the Knights.

  Verticorda and Caturix, warriors of wildly different temper yet identical courage, kept pushing onwards, their ultimate goal in sight: the black pavilion of Ambassador Melgator.

  PRINCEPS KASIM IN Raptoria darted through the ruins of the Arsia sub-silos to unleash a furious barrage into one of the flanking Reavers. The towering engine’s shields soaked up the fire of the smaller war machine, turning its guns on the tumbled metallic ruins.

  A storm of shrapnel and explosions tore through the collapsed silo, but Raptoria was already on the move, surging though the jumbled mass of collapsed towers and fallen masonry to fire again. Using every inch of cover and his natural affinity for moving through close and dirty terrain, Kasim kept Raptoria one step ahead of his enemy’s fire, loping randomly from cover to deliver stinging fire on the lumbering Reaver before vanishing back into the cover of the silo.

  With the Warlords and Imperator closing behind them, one of the Reavers turned into the collapsed and burning silos to flush Kasim out, unwilling to leave a snapping predator in their wake, even one as hopelessly outgunned as a Warhound.

  Its vast bulk smashed through steel archways that had once seen the passage of thousands of workers, trampling through machine shops, which had produced weapons and ordnance that had pacified worlds on the other side of the galaxy. It towered over the twisted wreckage of melted machines and the charred skeletons of those who had died in the complex’s collapse.

  Sparks and trailing squalls of energy backwash flared from its shields as it bludgeoned its way through the factory to reach its quarry. A screaming wail of scrapcode bled from its external augmitters and its warhorn’s booming howl echoed weirdly from those walls that still stood.

  Kasim broke from cover, the cobalt blue of his engine stark against an ashen wall.

  The Reaver caught sight of him and twisted its upper body to target his nimble engine. A torrent of weapons fire reduced the wall to pulverised dust and sparked from Raptoria’s shields.

  No sooner had the Reaver opened fire than the vulpine form of Astrus Lux slipped from the shadows of a sagging derrick and bounded towards the Reaver’s exposed back, her weapon arms blazing. Princeps Lamnos poured his shots into where the swirling energy discharges were greatest, battering down the Reaver’s shields with a furious concentration of fire.

  The Reaver immediately realised its danger and tried to turn, but Princeps Lamnos was quicker, sidestepping his engine through the tangled mess of smashed machinery and fallen structure. Fighting to keep his aim true while manoeuvring his engine over such rough terrain, Lamnos kept his fire steady for longer than was safe.

  His persistence paid off as the rear quarter of the Reaver’s shields blew out in an enormous flaming bloom of light. The blaring challenge of the machine’s warhorn changed in pitch to one of pain as Raptoria vaulted a broken berm of machinery and opened fire on the Reaver at point-blank range.

  Without the protection of its shields, the Reaver was horribly exposed and Kasim’s fire wreaked fearful damage on the larger engine. Like Lamnos, Kasim kept his fire steady, raking a salvo of high-energy turbo laser fire across the Reaver’s hip. The joint streamed molten gobbets of armour before explosively giving way, and Raptoria and Astrus Lux bounded away from the mortally wounded engine.

  The Reaver toppled slowly, majestically, onto its side, crushing what little remained of the silo beneath its enormous weight and breaking into pieces. Raptoria pushed onwards, hugging the ground and taking advantage of the billowing cloud of ash and smoke clouds thrown up by the Reaver’s collapse.

  Astrus Lux pulled back through the silo, circling around the fallen engine, but Lamnos had exposed his Warhound for too long and the Reaver’s companion had worked up a firing solution.

  A withering series of missile impacts slammed into the top of Astrus Lux and pounded her into the ground, hammering her shields until they broke open with a pounding, concussive detonation. Like a wounded bird, Astrus Lux tried to crawl into cover, shieldless and with her legs shattered by the impacts.

  The second Reaver was taking no chances, however, and strode into the flaming ruin of the silo, crushing Astrus Lux beneath its bulk.

  First blood to Tempestus.

  ON THE LEFT flank of the Tempestus battlegroups, far across the cratered wasteland of the landing fields – where Deus Tempestus and Tharsis Hastatus duelled with Aquila Ignis’ skirmish screen of Warlords – Princeps Mordant pushed forwards in Arcadia Fortis. Though he commanded a Reaver, Jan Mordant matched the pace of his Warhound companion, Vulpus Rex, stride for stride.

  He and Princeps Basek strode to meet the two flanking Reavers, both enemy machines twisted and hateful with bloody banners and grisly adornments hanging from their weapons. Instead of marching straight towards the enemy Reavers, Arcadia Fortis followed a wide curving course that drew his opponents away from the easy shelter of the Imperator with every step.

  Whickering streams of weapons fire filled the air between the foes, both Tempestus princeps directing all their fire upon the Reaver closest to the centre of the battle line. Further out from the Magma City, there was none of the cover enjoyed by Raptoria, and Princeps Basek was forced to use all his savvy to avoid the worst of the incoming fire. The distance between the Mortis and Tempestus engines was shrinking and with every stride, the firestorm grew ever more ferocious.

  Given the disparity of weight and gun strengths, it was only a matter of ti
me until the brutal mathematics of war took their toll on the Tempestus engines. The Mortis engines knew this and their discordant horns boomed in triumph, but in war, as in all things, there are variables that can upset even the most inevitable of functions.

  Both Vulpus Rex and Arcadia Fortis were commanded by men whose hearts were still those of aggressive hunters, and they were fighting to destroy as much of Mortis’ strength as possible before their ending.

  The shields of the Reaver targeted by both Tempestus engines flickered out, worn down by the constant barrage and shut off before they blew out. An instant later the Warlord Tharsis Hastatus, which had been waiting for just that moment, unleashed a punishing volley from its volcano cannon. A searing beam of nuclear fire punched through the Reaver’s cockpit, and blew off its entire upper section in a spectacular explosion that hurled pieces of wreckage for over six kilometres.

  The thunderous death of the Reaver had been bought by a furious concentration of fire, but that in turn had allowed the second Reaver to close virtually unmolested. Its heavy guns had brought the shields of Arcadia Fortis to breaking point and it was the work of moments to finish the job of overloading them.

  A lucky strike on one of the carapace emitters blew out the relays connected to the neural network of the Tempestus engine, and the feedback agonies burned out the cerebral cortex of Princeps Mordant as surely as though he had taken a bolt-round to the head. Arcadia Fortis died with him, the mighty engine grinding to a halt, helpless and utterly at the mercy of its foes.

  Basek attempted to flee from the screaming Reaver, its weakened shields and depleted ammunition load no match for such a towering foe. Vulpus Rex moved with grace and speed, but in the face of an indiscriminate barrage of missiles it had no chance of evasion. Missiles slammed into the ground, tearing huge craters and hurling chunks of debris into the air.

  Her terrain-reading auspex overloaded with screaming, scrapcode interference, Vulpus Rex tumbled into a crater, one of its weapon arms snapping off and its legs buckling as it landed awkwardly. Trapped and with no escape, Princeps Basek tried to eject, but a brutal volley from the Reaver tore his floundering engine to pieces, killing him and all his crew in a mercifully swift thunder of hard rounds.

  Then the sky broke open and the gathering darkness was banished as a bright sunset of atomic detonation painted the distant heavens with fire.

  ADEPT KORIEL ZETH closed her eyes at the sight of the fire in the sky, knowing exactly what it represented and feeling the human portion of her body fill with sadness. She focused the Chamber of Vesta’s viewing screens to the north and increased the magnification to maximum, knowing what she would see, but dreading it all the same.

  All along Ipluvien Maximal’s reactor chain of Ulysses Fossae, a score of fiery mushroom clouds climbed skyward. A blast wave of unimaginable force flattened the landscape for hundreds of kilometres bare of life, and the following firestorm would turn the Martian desert to irradiated glass for ten thousand years.

  ‘Goodbye, Ipluvien,’ said Zeth, before turning her attention to the unfolding conflict around her own forge, the burnished plates showing such ferocious scenes of battle that even she could scarce believe such slaughter was happening on Mars.

  The charge of the Knights of Taranis had cleaved a bloody path through the attackers on the causeway, but their numbers were dwindling fast. Another two Knights had gone down, leaving only Verticorda, Caturix and three warriors.

  Every second brought them closer to Melgator’s pavilion, but she had no idea whether they would reach it alive. Even if they did, there would be no escape from the heart of the enemy army. Legio Tempestus were fighting a battle that would enter the annals of their histories as one of their most noble, were there any left alive to record it, and her own warriors had fought harder than she could ever have wished.

  Kelbor-Hal’s minions would suffer greatly to take the Magma City, and unless Zeth acted now, they would take it, that was certain. And not just the Magma City, but the rest of Mars would soon be in the thrall of those loyal to the Fabricator General.

  The time had come to follow Ipluvien Maximal’s noble action.

  Zeth turned from the screens and walked towards the wide shaft that descended into the depths of her forge, bathing in the heat and waves of energy that rippled upwards from the magma far below.

  A primitive-looking servitor swathed in a hooded robe followed her, its crudity quite at odds with the sophistication of the chamber. The anonymous cyborg creature took up position alongside Zeth as a dozen slender silver columns rose from the floor around the shaft.

  Each of the columns was topped with an intricate arrangement of plugs and Zeth stepped into the middle of them. She reached out and slipped her hands into the biometric readers atop two of the columns, extruding a series of mechadendrites from the length of her spine.

  These waved through the air and made contact with the remaining columns, and she began exloading a series of macroinstructions into the noospheric network of the Magma City. A glowing schematic of her forge flickered into life before her, invisible to anyone not noospherically modified.

  ‘I hope Kane managed to rescue at least a portion of his noospheric network from Mondus Occulum,’ she whispered to herself. ‘It would be a shame for my technology to be forgotten in this sordid civil war.’

  ‘Even facing destruction you are vain,’ said a voice behind her.

  Zeth turned, unsurprised to see the sinuous form of Melgator’s tech-priest assassin slithering through the air behind her.

  ‘I had a feeling I’d be seeing you again,’ said Zeth.

  ‘The Cydonian Sisterhood do not forget those who insult us,’ said Remiare.

  ‘I’d ask how you got in here, but I have a feeling it won’t matter.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Remiare. ‘It will not.’

  The assassin skimmed slowly over the floor of the chamber towards Zeth, drawing a pair of exquisite golden pistols from her thigh sheaths.

  ‘My employer wishes this city captured intact,’ said Remiare, inloading to the noospheric map floating before Zeth. ‘So you need to stop what you are doing.’

  ‘I’m not going to do that,’ stated Zeth.

  ‘I wasn’t asking,’ said Remiare, and shot Zeth twice in the chest.

  LORD COMMANDER VERTICORDA felt the pain of a dozen wounds through the Manifold of Ares Lictor. His shields were gone and his carapace was cracked in multiple locations. He could barely feel his left arm and the knee joint that had been healed two centuries ago by the touch of the Emperor ached with psycho-stigmatic pain.

  All around him he could see the red-lit legions of his enemy surrounding him. Weapons fire spanked from his disintegrating carapace and his fear was not that he was going to die, but that a machine touched by the hand of the Omnissiah would fall into the hands of his enemies.

  To his left he saw a group of dark-robed skitarii on one of the causeway’s overhanging platforms aim a battery of quad-barrelled guns. He turned his right cannon on them, letting Ares Lictor target them. He felt the thrill of acquisition course down his arm and opened fire, the hurricane of shells obliterating the platform and turning the guns and their operators into an expanding cloud of shredded meat and metal.

  Alongside him, Caturix crushed and sliced into the enemy host with his cannon and laser lance, his fury carrying him forward where Verticorda lived by his preternatural skill. The other Knights that still lived were the best of the order, the most sublime warriors he had fought alongside: Yelsic, Agamon and Old Stator.

  Ahead, Verticorda saw the black pavilion where the architect of this confrontation watched the honourable Knights of Taranis dying for his amusement. The standard of Melgator, a golden chain upon a crimson field, flew above the pavilion and though a host of warriors and black machines stood between them, Verticorda vowed he would not be brought low while such an ignoble individual still lived.

  More gunfire hammered the Knights, and Agamon was undone, the final strength of his
shields torn away by the heedless sacrifice of scores of suicidal warriors rushing close and detonating explosive petards against his armour.

  Old Stator died next, the preceptor clearing a path for the masters of his order with a gloriously heroic dash towards the black pavilion, his twin blades extended to either side of him as he charged. Running low, the Knight took a direct hit to the cockpit and crashed to the ground.

  The last three Knights blazed through the path won by Stator’s death, and Verticorda killed and killed as he drew upon the spirits of all the lord commanders who had ridden into battle within Ares Lictor.

  On one side, Caturix rode tall, though his mount was on the verge of destruction, while on the other, Yelsic, his companion from the day the Emperor first set foot on Olympus Mons, still carried the Taranis banner high.

  ‘The bastard’s running!’ shouted Verticorda, seeing Melgator’s golden chain banner moving.

  ‘What did you expect?’ retorted Caturix. ‘He’s no warrior. He’s nothing but a coward.’

  ‘He won’t escape us,’ vowed Yelsic.

  ‘No, he damn well won’t,’ agreed Caturix.

  Fresh impacts slammed into Ares Lictor, and Verticorda cried out, feeling the pain of his wounds surging bright and hot within his aged frame. Even as fresh wounds appeared on his body, he felt a sustaining power flow from the Manifold to hold him together, a gestalt legacy of heroism and honour that stretched back to his mount’s birth.

  The presence of Ares Lictor’s former masters poured into Verticorda, eager to accompany him in its last moments.

  All he could see through the canopy window were enemies, their twisted visages daemonic in the searing glow of the magma. This truly was a ride into hell, and these were its warped denizens.

  ‘There he is!’ bellowed Caturix, and Verticorda saw the shield-palanquin of Melgator surrounded by a cohort of brutal, ogre-like skitarii armed with fearsome beam weapons and flame lances.