Corax: Soulforge

by Gav Thorpe

  At fifty metres, arcs of coloured lightning rippled across the narrowing space, the miniature storm boiling between the cities cracking and thundering like an artillery barrage in full effect.

  As the outer edges of the two fields touched, a kilometre out from the prow of Atlas, the lightning formed two massive domes, one above each city. The sky seethed with energy and sparks danced over Corax’s skin. Several tech-adepts stumbled and fell, two of them crying out as the electromagnetic charge permeating the atmosphere overloaded parts of their cybernetic bodies.

  Loriark’s voice projector emitted a high-pitched wail and forks of electricity coruscated along his bionic arm as he staggered backwards. Corax grabbed the front of his robe to prevent the tech-priest from falling, feeling a surge of voltage up his arm at the contact. Dark veins throbbed beneath the primarch’s pale skin.

  The temple was at the epicentre of the electrical storm, a miasma of power swirling about its summit. A twin tempest engulfed the main precinct of Iapetus, and the barge-cities shook as generators set into their foundations overheated.

  Finally they could take no more of the titanic pressure.

  Atlas’s starboard field generator exploded first, wiping out two empty tenement blocks and an abandoned manufactorum in a blast that rocketed debris half a kilometre into the air and showered dust and debris across two districts. A second detonation erupted in Seventh District at the rear of the barge-city, roaring out across the ocean, sending a kilometre of dockworks and quays arcing down into the sea. Similar explosions were wracking Iapetus, toppling buildings and sending plumes of flame into the tormented air above the capital.

  The combined energy fields exploded out with a deafening boom, sending waves as tall as a Titan rippling out across the ocean. Dog-fighting aircraft were thrown into spins and stalls by the blast.

  ‘Open fire, all batteries!’ snapped Corax, even as the tech-adepts dragged themselves back to their posts. ‘Target enemy weapon arrays and the city perimeter. I want a blanket of fire to cover our approach.’

  From turrets atop the main temple and spread through the city, macro-lasers and volcano cannons roared into action. Shells the size of battle tanks arced into the air towards Iapetus while ruby-coloured beams sprang into life between the two cities. Rocket launchers sent flaring missiles streaming across the gap by the score, twisting and turning towards their designated targets.

  Flurries of explosions lit up the nearest sectors of the capital where the beams touched, cutting through armoured turrets and plated embrasures. The shells of the cannons fell, flattening buildings in a line along the port districts. Another second later and the rockets struck home, their warheads punching into the foundation of Iapetus before exploding, rending immense craters from the surface like bullet holes in flesh. Airburst shells and submunitions showered incendiary destruction onto the already wounded city, setting fires as gas lines and fuel tanks detonated while weaponry depots were torn to scattered rubble.

  Delvere and his cohort were slower to react; the fourth salvo from Atlas was landing even as the capital’s surviving guns returned fire. Atlas was rocked by the impacts, shuddering under the tonnage of shells descending upon its streets and buildings. Corax gritted his teeth as rockets slammed into the armoured sheath of the temple building and he was glad that one of his first orders had been to plate over the ostentatious but vulnerable windows.

  Thick ceramite and ferrocrete cladding held, though the temple shook under the impacts sending several servitors and Mechani- cum adepts sprawling.

  The stormy exchange of artillery continued as Atlas closed with her target, lessening as counter-battery fire from each city destroyed the cannons and emplacements of the other. For more than five minutes the bombardments continued until both barge-cities were nothing more than ruined wastelands, dotted with shells of buildings like ragged teeth, destroyed power plants and factories belching smoke and fumes.

  Corax knew that there would be casualties, but he did not need to know the details. The point of commitment had been reached the moment they had set course for Iapetus, now all that remained was to endure the pain and see his charges through to victory. Later the losses could be mourned, but for the moment his entire intellect and will was bent towards the destruction of his enemies.

  AGAPITO HAD CLAMBERED up to the cockpit to look out of the canopy after the first shell impacts. He had seen many sights in his battle-strewn life, both stirring and dismal, but the sight of two cities blasting each other to pieces pretty much eclipsed them all. Perhaps only a full fleet bombardment from orbit could match the sheer amount of firepower being unleashed.

  The jagged, tangled remains of Iapetus’s docks loomed large in his view. The capital was trying to rise up, hoping to avoid the coming collision, but Atlas was ascending also, driving on directly towards the enemy-held city. Only a few hundred metres separated the two gigantic craft and the commander made his way back to the main compartment and lowered himself into the brace harness.

  ‘Get ready for launch. Pilot, I want to be airborne before these two bastards meet head-on.’

  ‘Affirmative, commander’, replied Stanz.

  ‘This is Agapito to all commands, prepare for assault.’

  A series of confirmations echoed back across the vox as he spread his fingers, forcing himself to relax. He pulled his power sword free from the stanchion above his head and laid it across his lap, fingers creating a rattling tattoo along its ebony sheath.

  The waiting was almost over.

  Agapito felt the Shadowhawk taxiing out of the armoured bunker where it had been hidden, and a few seconds later felt it rising up into the air. He turned his head to look out of the slit-like viewing port beside him. There was almost nothing to see through the haze of fire and smoke, but where the gusting winds parted the clouds, he watched as Atlas rammed Iapetus.

  The barrage-ravaged prow of the barge-city ploughed into the equally ruined dockyards of the capital. Spars and the wreckage of loading cranes bent like grass in a wind while armoured plates sheared into each other, sending metre-long splinters spinning through the air. As the cities seemed to drop away beneath him, Agapito could see more - chasms opening up along the roads, splitting the gutted remnants of buildings.

  A huge cloud of dust was thrown up by the impact, engulfing the Shadowhawk and sending it lurching to port while debris rattled against the hull.

  ‘Losing trim. This is going to be tricky,’ Stanz warned.

  A moment later the turbulence threw the drop-ship to starboard. Restraining harnesses creaked and the Raven Guard muttered curses as they were tipped over, the hull clanging with impacts, the groan of straining metal reverberating around them.

  While Stanz wrestled the craft out of its wild roll, Agapito glanced out of the vision slit again. Tall buildings on both sides of the collision were toppling towards each other, slow and majestic yet terrible to witness. He knew that much of Atlas’s populace was safe deep into the foundation of the city, but had Delvere shown similar concern for the citizens of the capital? It seemed unlikely. In all probability, thousands were dying.

  The concern was soon replaced with another emotion. Agapito flexed his gauntleted fingers and wrapped them around his sword, and smiled as the calm hatred of righteousness gripped him.

  The smoke bank blotting out the sky above Iapetus was cut by the shape of a dozen sleek craft arrowing towards the centre of the city. Shadowhawks and Whispercutters slid almost invisibly down through the miasma, yet this was no stealth approach. Heavy weapons fire spewed from the craft as they skimmed across the rooftops and angled down the ruined streets, spitting death into the traitor skitarii beneath. Plasma bombs rained down from a Stormbird while two dart-like interceptors raked along the wide roads with anti-tank rockets and autocannons.

  Agapito wanted the enemy to know exactly where he was.

  Jets blaring, the Shadowhawks descended into the central plaza, dominated by the mangled remains of great abstract sculptures onc
e raised in praise to the Machine-God’s artifices. There seemed to be not a building left intact, the pavements and streets scattered with debris, blocked in places where taller edifices had collapsed to their foundations. The drop-ships hovered a few metres above the uneven ground while their cargoes of black-armoured warriors disembarked, spilling out in a wave with jump packs flaring. Whispercutters circled noiselessly overhead, piloted by simple machine-spirits that relayed visual, audio and scanner information across the strategy-net to the Raven Guard leaders.

  With practised ease the assault force dispersed, moving into the buildings while heavy weapons squads laid down covering fire from amidst the rubble, driving back the disorganised and scattered defenders.

  Quickly, relentlessly, the Raven Guard pushed on, grenade blasts and flamer bursts heralding their progress as they moved from one shattered chamber to another.

  There were bodies crushed amongst the debris, but Agapito ignored them as he led the first squad into the next set of ruins - the tumbled remains of a wire production facility. Articulated conveyor belts and lifting engines protruded from the piles of broken masonry and twisted plasteel rebar.

  A heavily armoured combat servitor stood watch from above, unleashing a stream of fire from its heavy bolters as the commander ducked through the remains of a doorway. It seemed unlikely to have clambered up to the higher floor by itself and must have miraculously survived when the rest of the building had come crashing down.

  Bolts flaring from the rubble around him, Agapito cut to the right, drawing the fire of the mindless half-man. He fired his jump pack and leapt up to the next storey as return fire from a squad on the ground floor converged on the sentry machine. The white beam of a lascannon sheared through its tracks, scattering links and the molten remnants of broad-spoked wheels, slicing the servitor from waist to neck.

  Moving up further, Agapito sought a vantage point from which to view the city. Reaching the pinnacle of a shattered stairway, he was able to see back towards Atlas and across the city to the towering edifice of the main temple.

  The lightning insertion by the Raven Guard had achieved complete surprise, but the defenders of Iapetus were now responding. A trio of lightly armed walkers rounded a junction three hundred metres down the street. They had bulbous sensor lenses, like glittering spider eyes, and an array of communications dishes and antennae.

  ‘Recon walkers,’ the commander told the company. ‘Let them see us and then destroy them.’

  Sergeant Varsio led his squad out into the street, bounding with their jump packs from one heap of rubble to another directly in front of the enemy spy vehicles. The recon walkers turned as one, false eyes sparkling as they locked on to the moving figures. Half a minute passed as Varsio and his warriors disappeared into the ruin of a flattened hab-block opposite; enough time for the scouts to signal back their discovery.

  Missiles and plasma fire erupted from the upper levels of a nearby shuttle docking port, punching though the walkers’ thin armour with ease and turning them into three smoking wrecks in a matter of seconds.

  ‘Good. Designate main temple as bearing zero. Insertion point is grid one. Company, relocate to grids four and six. Cannat, Garsa and Hasul, break right and set up a welcoming party by that communications tower at the end of the roadway.’

  The ad-hoc company moved as ordered, forming a rough perimeter around a square kilometre of city with the central plaza at its heart.

  It was not long before the skitarii arrived, the lead elements transported in tracked open-topped carriers that were easy targets for the heavy weapons that had been moved into position to greet them. Part-cybernetic warriors spilled from the burning remains of the two lead vehicles while the others quickly tried to reverse, only to be caught in a crossfire of plasma grenades and bolter fire from a pair of Raven Guard squads that had moved in behind them through the cover of a demolished hab-complex.

  The rest of the counter-attacking force approached more cautiously. Agapito moved from position to position, ensuring that the lines of sight of each squad were maximised, creating killing grounds where possible, leaving some routes open to encourage the enemy to venture further forwards than was safe. He had studied under Corax himself and attended to the fine detail of his force’s disposition with the same care with which a tech-priest might administer maintenance to the circuitry of a cogitator.

  As he moved, he assessed the enemy strength. About five hundred infantry, moving ahead of a dozen battle tanks and three support guns. The vehicle commanders were understandably wary of advancing too far into the mess of broken buildings and haphazard rubble piles, instead sending in the infantry brigade to clear a path first.

  Agapito detailed three squads to follow him as he dropped down to ground level. They gathered in the shadow of a leaning rail stanchion; the rest of the bridge had fallen to block the road behind them. Picking their way sure-footedly through the debris, the Raven Guard circled to the left around the incoming squads of infantry. Concealed by the pall of smoke, using their heat-detecting autosenses to track the progress of their foes, they waited.

  A minute later, the Raven Guard stationed around the enemy line of advance opened fire, tearing into the infantry with their bolters. Several dozen were cut down in the opening salvo. Not willing to stay in the open, the Mechanicum soldiers broke ranks and moved into the cover of the shattered buildings, and it was then that Agapito made his move. Splitting his force, the commander led the charge into the enemy, power sword in one hand, plasma pistol in the other.

  Though their bonded plasteel breastplates and bionic limbs made the skitarii superior to the unaugmented soldiers of the Imperial Army, they were no match for thirty-one warriors of the Legiones Astartes. Agapito did not use his pistol, instead hewing down a handful of foes in the first few seconds of the combat. Fragmentation grenades exploded ahead of him as another squad charged into the fray, shrapnel from the charges combining with splinters from the littered masonry in a deadly firestorm.

  In a hail of bolter shots, chainsword swings and savage punches the Raven Guard cleaved into the foe without pause. Those enemies that chose to retreat from the assault strayed into the fire of the legionaries still waiting behind, and in minutes all but a handful lay dead or dying. A few black-armoured Legion warriors lay amongst the fallen, taken out by lucky blows or desperate hacks from the power weapons of the skitarii squad leaders, but Agapito quickly calculated the kill ratio to be a satisfactory seventy-to-one or more.

  Robbed of their infantry support the tanks withdrew, covering their retreat with a barrage of shells from main guns and a hail of las-fire from secondary weapons, creating even more dust and debris but inflicting no casualties upon the Raven Guard.

  As the growl of engines receded, Agapito could hear the thump of larger guns in the distance - the main advance of Atlas’s own troops. Five hundred infantry and three scout walkers was nowhere near enough damage to ease the attack of the Mechanicum acolytes. The commander needed to make even more of an impact if the enemy were to be drawn into a full attack.

  He activated his command link to the patrolling Whispercutters overhead, half of his visual display flicking from one to the next as he built up a sense of the surrounding enemy forces. A sizeable combined column was advancing from bearing one-seventy, almost directly opposite the approach to the tech-temple, about a kilometre away and coming closer.

  They were of little concern for the moment.

  Of more interest was the Warhound-class Scout Titan picking its way along a rubble-strewn street two kilometres to his left, at bearing two-six-five. With it came assault guns and at least a thousand infantry, many of them with praetorian upgrades, supported by tracked Rapier laser destroyers, mobile rocket pods and other heavy weaponry.

  ‘Regroup, grid seven,’ he commanded, shutting down the link. ‘Shadowhawk command, interdiction strike on Titan advancing through grid four-six. Assault group, follow, attack vector eight, two-two, two-three. Stealth approach. It’s time
to make our presence really felt.’

  ‘PROGRESS IS TOO slow,’ growled Corax, turning an angry stare towards Loriark. ‘Your skitarii have to make ground quicker and push the enemy towards the left flank.’

  ‘I shall pass on your instructions, lord primarch, but they are facing stubborn opposition.’

  ‘The longer you take, the more stubborn it will get. Advance quickly and the defenders do not have time to reinforce their positions against your attack.’

  Loriark said nothing but simply bowed his head in acquiescence and returned to conferring with his fellow tech-priests.

  Corax glowered at the main display. The bulk of Atlas’s forces had been committed and still they had made no more than four kilometres into Iapetus’s streets. For two hours of fighting it simply was not good enough and the primarch had expected better.

  He focused on the rune-shapes depicting the locations of his Raven Guard and felt more positive. Agapito and his Talons had been making themselves a constant aggravation to Delvere’s forces, pushing closer and closer towards the Archmagos’s temple whilst drawing skitarii away from the fight with Atlas’s army. It could not continue indefinitely, though; sooner or later Loriark’s soldiers would have to break through to Agapito or the Raven Guard would eventually be caught and destroyed.

  Corax stared at the screen as if by will alone he could alter the course of the battle.

  AGAPITO HAD LOST around a fifth of his command, but now the enemy were taking the Raven Guard seriously. More and more infantry in particular had been streaming back through the streets, as if to swamp the Space Marines by numbers alone. Intelligence from the two Whispercutters that still remained airborne pointed to a mass assault coming from the right, which would push the Raven Guard towards the ruined dockyards at the city’s edge.

  Alert to the danger, Agapito ordered the assault force to contract on his position, to create a single, mobile element that would be able to extract at a moment’s notice. The beast that was Delvere’s forces had finally been roused to strike with all its power and it would not serve the Raven Guard’s purpose to be caught out of position when the blow landed.