Warlord: Fury of the God-Machine

by David Annandale

  She had her answer with Syagrius’ next words.

  ‘One of our Reavers and two of our Warhounds will complete your formations. You may, of course, assign them within your ranks as you see fit.’ He spoke as if he were acting with impressive largesse.

  Krezoc nodded. The son of nobility was treating her as his vassal. She would not do or say anything that would reinforce this image. If he expected her gratitude, he would not receive it. She thought about how to spread three outsider Titans through her demi-legio. No matter what she did, the impact would be painful. Gloria Vastator’s maniple had survived the battle of Gelon intact. Preserving its integrity felt simultaneously selfish and imperative. It was one point where she could minimise the havoc Syagrius was imposing on the Pallidus Mor. Crudelis Mortem, on the other hand, had nothing left of its escort except two Warhounds. Toven Rheliax would not thank her for placing the Imperial Hunters Reaver and one of the Warhounds with him, but there was little choice. That would leave Merys Drahn of Fatum Messor to take on the surviving Reaver from Balzhan’s decimated maniple and the other Warhound from the Hunters. There was nothing in this solution that she liked. It was also the least bad configuration she could see.

  ‘Whatever the composition of the individual maniples,’ said Syagrius, ‘it is the cohesion of the whole that is crucial. The chain of command will be respected. I will tolerate no insubordination.’

  Krezoc glared at him. The insult was clear, and she could not respond without making it appear entirely justified. She cursed the fate that had killed Balzhan and spared Syagrius. The marshal stared back at her, inviting her challenge, daring her to make a move against him before witnesses.

  She did not trust herself to answer. Anything she said would be either capitulation or thrown gauntlet.

  Menas stepped into the silence. ‘The Imperial Navy is, of course, ready to assist in the liberation of Katara by whatever means may be required.’

  Fleiser joined in. ‘Tell me, Marshal Syagrius, have you decided on a landing site yet?’ He gestured at the tacticarium table, as if physically pulling the attention of the two officers away from each other.

  Krezoc did feel some gratitude now. Menas and Fleiser had redirected the conversation, and she did not have to answer Syagrius. She could preserve that much honour, at least.

  ‘I have,’ Syagrius said to Fleiser. ‘To the best of our understanding, only Creontiades has fallen. Our strategy will be one of isolation, containment and preservation.’

  Our strategy, Krezoc thought. The one I have heard nothing about.

  Syagrius tapped the table. The hololithic representation of Creontiades became brighter. ‘The geographic situation of the capital region provides us with an advantage.’

  Krezoc agreed, to a point. Three-quarters of Katara’s surface was ocean. It had one main land mass, and much of it was uninhabitable desert. Creontiades was on an island just off the continent’s east coast. The Kazani bridge connected it to the mainland. That narrow route would be the enemy’s only means of advance. Taking Creontiades first might prove to be the enemy’s great mistake. On the other hand, the island also provided the foe with a stronghold. Taking the city back would mean crossing the bridge too.

  ‘We will begin with a landing outside Deicoon,’ Syagrius continued.

  ‘Good,’ said Krezoc. Deicoon was the smallest of Katara’s population centres. It was less than fifty miles across the strait from Creontiades, and so highly vulnerable. It would be the enemy’s next target, if it had not fallen already. Therimachus was a fair distance north and west of Deicoon. If the situation was as reports indicated, the third city was not an immediate concern.

  ‘We will take and hold the cities,’ Syagrius said, ‘then force the enemy to fight the war on our terms.’

  Krezoc frowned. Did Syagrius mean to divide the battle group’s attention between Deicoon and Therimachus? She started to object, then saw the look on Deyers’ face. The captain was pale. His lips were pressed in a determined line. His eyes were flicking back and forth between Krezoc and Syagrius, glinting with hope and concern.

  We are deciding the fate of his home world, Krezoc thought. She glanced down at the tacticarium table. Perhaps she and the marshal needed this reminder after all. Neither of them knew the situation on the ground yet. She wasn’t sure now if her objection was based on something stronger than her feelings of antipathy and distrust towards Syagrius. She had reason to doubt his judgement, but if she opposed him by default, her position was as badly thought out as she believed his to be. Her duty was the salvation of Katara.

  She looked at Syagrius, at his hostility and pride, and wondered how conscious he was of their duty. We are not at war with each other, she told herself.

  She wished she believed that to be true.

  The rockcrete expanse of Gelon’s space port vibrated. As Lehanna Platen made her way towards the heavy lifter Foundry’s Heritage, another of the fat-bellied transports launched. It rose on four columns of fire, its thunder turning the air brittle. Ahead, the tanks of the 66th Kataran Spears rolled up the ramps into the Heritage’s cargo bay. The roars of their engines turned into crashing echoes when they entered the huge space. Beside the Heritage, Pallidus Mor and Imperial Hunters Warhounds were being loaded into another heavy lifter. A group of officers and crews from both legios had gathered at the base of the loading ramp. Platen slowed as she walked past the cluster. Raised voices stopped her.

  Two moderati were facing each other. Their comrades had formed a rough circle around them, and were watching each other warily.

  ‘If you’re in our maniple, you’re in our maniple,’ said Sen Narsek, the Pallidus Mor moderati. ‘The orders come from the princeps captain.’

  ‘I follow my princeps, not a jumped-up serf,’ Velor Balventius snapped. ‘You don’t understand, do you? I haven’t joined your maniple. You’re now part of our battle group. We’re going to make sure you keep proper discipline this time.’

  ‘This time?’

  ‘We’ve had enough disasters from your leaders. We want victory on Katara. I know you don’t have the same concern.’

  Narsek leaned in towards Balventius. His hands were fists. ‘You’re very free with your insults.’

  Balventius snorted. ‘How can the truth be an insult? Your marshal led you off a cliff. His death is proof of that.’

  Narsek flushed red and took another step forwards. He was a few inches shorter than Balventius, but much more solidly built. ‘You will withdraw that–’ he began.

  Balventius slapped him.

  Platen gaped. The crack of the blow sent a ripple through the rest of the crowd. There was a collective intake of breath. When the shock of the act wore off, violence would erupt.

  Narsek stared at Balventius, his eyes bulging with rage. The Imperial Hunter regarded him calmly. He had all the self-assurance of an aristocrat who took it as his natural right to strike those he perceived to be his social inferiors. It was inconceivable that he would be struck in return. He looked down his nose at the Pallidus Mor moderati with a tight, pleased smile.

  Platen ran forwards. She plunged through the circle of foes as Narsek grabbed Balventius by the collar of his uniform. Narsek pulled his fist back. Platen threw herself between the two men. She broke Narsek’s grip and shoved the two moderati back. Balventius staggered, startled and sputtering with outrage that Narsek had dared retaliate.

  ‘Throne, are you all mad?’ Platen shouted. She looked back and forth at the men, ready to lunge against the first who made a move. Narsek was a coiled spring. Balventius was shouting incoherently, but had taken a further step back. He must have realised that he could not win a physical struggle against Narsek. Most of the Pallidus Mor officers Platen had seen looked as if they could handle themselves in combat outside their god-machines. As far as she knew, none of the princeps that had come to Khania were confined to amniotic tanks. They were all ab
le-bodied. They had trained, she suspected, in the expectation of the worst scenarios, and were ready to fight on the battlefield if the fortunes of war pitched them onto it. Balventius looked far less able with his fists. Power was his defence. Authority and high birth were his shield. Narsek recognised neither. He could pummel the Imperial Hunter with ease.

  And disaster would follow.

  ‘This is not your concern, tanker,’ Balventius said.

  His contempt was so clear, Platen was tempted to step aside and let Narsek bloody him. She was almost ready to throw a punch herself. ‘Isn’t it my concern?’ she said. ‘Katara is my home. I’m going to defend it, and I’m not going to let a couple of glory hounds put their pride ahead of my world.’

  Balventius glared at her. She felt the anger of the Imperial Hunters in the circle shift in her direction.

  ‘Glory hound,’ Narsek grunted. He sounded almost amused. ‘I’ve never been accused of that before.’

  ‘Is it refreshing?’ Platen asked him.

  He grinned, the purple flush leaving his face. ‘It makes a change.’

  She turned to Balventius. ‘Are you going to make me plead?’ she said. ‘I will if I have to. Katara is more important to me than my pride.’ The speech made her feel sick. At this moment, real satisfaction would have involved training Bastion of Faith’s cannon on Balventius. But she was speaking the truth. She would swallow her own pride if it meant mollifying this fool and reminding him of his duty.

  Balventius shrugged. ‘It must be,’ he said, as dismissive as ever. At least he wasn’t looking at Narsek. He seemed happy enough to shift his disdain in Platen’s direction. His nose wrinkled as if he had suddenly become aware of a foul smell. Then he turned and walked away, heading towards the lifter’s bay door. The other Imperial Hunters left with him.

  ‘We haven’t all forgotten what needs to be done,’ Narsek said.

  ‘Good,’ said Platen. She didn’t look back at the moderati as she started walking again.

  Ornastas hesitated only for a second at the intersection of the storm sewers before choosing the left-hand channel. He waded through stinking water a foot deep. The torch he had taken from the crypt of Saint Kaspha’s cast a wan cone of light in the darkness. The brickwork of the tunnel glistened, dripping with seepage.

  ‘How do you know the way?’ the man at his left asked. His name was Aldemar. He was a worker in the Administratum, monitoring hab construction in a small portion of the western sector of the city. He was pale, and his face was smudged with ash. In the dim light, it looked like shadows were clinging to his skull. The rest of the group following Ornastas had the same look as Aldemar. They were frightened almost to the point of despair. But they hadn’t given up yet. Their faith in Ornastas, and through him in the Emperor, kept them going.

  ‘I don’t know that this is the right path,’ Ornastas said. He had never ventured beyond the crypt himself. ‘It’s heading west, though. That’s where we want to go. Out of the city and across the bridge to the mainland.’

  Just behind Aldemar, Velatz asked, ‘And then what?’ She was a manufactorum serf, blunt and rough-hewn, and one of the most fervent worshippers at Saint Kaspha’s.

  ‘Then we fight,’ Ornastas said. He risked raising his voice so the entire group would hear. His words boomed and echoed down the tunnel, a shout of defiance. From far above, at ground level, came the sounds of steady, rhythmic impacts, like the tread of something monstrous.

  ‘We’ll need weapons,’ said Velatz, though it was clear she was not disagreeing with him.

  ‘We’ll get them. But we are not unarmed.’

  ‘Aren’t we?’ Aldemar asked.

  ‘Do you have hands to strike the heretic? Do you have faith in the God-Emperor? Then you are armed,’ Ornastas told him.

  In the hours since they had left the chapel, he had felt a shift in his flock. There was more than fear present in the citizens now. There was anger too. They were hungry to strike back at the enemy that had taken the city.

  Velatz was right, though. They would need weapons.

  A few minutes later, there was a sharp rattling overhead. The sounds came closer, dropping down into the sewers. Ornastas stopped and held up a hand. His band waited, silent. They heard voices now, harsh with violent laughter. A hundred yards ahead, an access where the wall curved into the tunnel roof banged open. A group of heretics dropped into the tunnel. They pulled bodies with them. Two still twitched feebly. The others were mutilated corpses. The cultists propped the bodies against the wall, where the victims’ blood poured into the muddy water. Shouting and struggling with each other, the heretics tore into the flesh of the dead and the dying. They had hauled their prizes into the storm sewers to devour them away from the greed of other rivals, and even this small group was consumed with competition for the choicest flesh.

  Ornastas gave no signal. The rush to attack was spontaneous. The celebrants of Saint Kaspha’s shrieked with moral, physical and spiritual revulsion, and they charged at the heretics. The enemy wielded blades. One had a laspistol. It did not matter. A single shot was fired, and then the righteous fell on the unholy. Ornastas and his flock had greater numbers. They also had faith, as he had told them. Ornastas smashed heretic skulls with the iron wings of his staff. The others punched and kicked and clawed. The struggle was ugly. The tunnel walls rang with animal growls. Ornastas shouted prayers, so there would be a voice of faith in the violence, a beacon to guide the faithful and keep them from descending too far into the maelstrom of violence.

  He was heeded. When the last of the heretics lay face down in the water, the people did not turn on each other. They seized the weapons of the cultists, then fell to their knees and joined Ornastas in a hymn of martial thanksgiving.

  ‘The Emperor protects,’ Ornastas said as they moved on. ‘And He provides to those who will fight in His name.’

  Some time later, the band reached the end of the journey through the tunnels. The passage they were following reached a huge pool. An underground lake of waste water churned at the edge of channels sloping sharply downwards. Only drowning awaited there.

  On the left, a service ladder mounted into the wall rose fifty feet to the ceiling of the chamber. Ornastas led the climb. At the top, the wheel lock of the hatch resisted his efforts to turn it at first, then gave with a metallic screech. Ornastas pushed the hatch open and made his way into open air for the first time since leaving Saint Kaspha’s.

  It was night. The ecclesiarch and his flock emerged at the edge of Creontiades’ outermost wall, in a region of pump stations and power plants. Fires burned on the ramparts. Heretics danced and chanted before them. The revelry of conquest was at its peak. There had been some fighting in the sector. To the right, buildings had been bombed, and the gutted husks of tanks smouldered. Near them, the wall had been smashed. It looked as if something immense had passed through it.

  From behind came the sounds of the great treads, loud enough for the vibrations to shake Ornastas’ chest.

  ‘Don’t look back,’ he said. ‘Only forwards.’

  He broke into a run. The others followed. He made straight for the base of the wall, where the shadows were thickest, then turned right, running hard for the ruins. He did as he had commanded and looked only at his goal. If they were spotted, there was nothing that could be done. So he ran, sprinting for escape and the chance to fight on. A smoky breeze blew in his face. His ears were full of the shouts and thunder of the fallen city. His heart was strong with the Emperor, and he knew he would not fail now. He must not. He was leading what remained of Creontiades’ faith.

  The heretics on the wall were too caught up in their obscene celebration to spot Ornastas’ group. He reached the gap in the defences. Huge chunks of rockcrete lay in a blanket of rubble reaching half a mile into the city. The breach was hundreds of yards wide. Ornastas charged through it. The terrain ahead was rocky. Boulders and jagged
outcroppings turned the land into a maze of stone. Some distance to the left, a road had been blasted through the rock. It ran to the city from the bridge and was the only level ground outside the walls. Ornastas kept the road in sight, but led the way into the maze, keeping to the deep shadows of the tallest outcroppings. He kept the torch aimed at the ground. He had to move more slowly now. The footing was treacherous, and he could barely see. The ground sloped upwards gradually as it approached the coast of the island.

  Ornastas had the band out of sight of the wall almost immediately. He did not stop to rest for another hour. Only then did he and his followers finally look back towards Creontiades. They had reached an elevation a bit higher than the outer walls, and they had a good view of the city. They saw the fires, the smoke and the flares of the final battles. Most of all, they saw the monsters that had come. The new lords of Creontiades were Titans. They were cruel, spiked, misshapen god-machines. Their armour was a deep crimson. Their war-horns resounded in the night, and they moved with foul majesty, towering horrors bestriding the avenues, walking through hab blocks that happened to be in their way.

  Their sight inspired terror that bled the very soul. The people wailed. One man fell to the ground screaming. He curled into a ball and clawed his eyes from their sockets.

  ‘We cannot fight those,’ Velatz said. She could barely speak.

  ‘No, but those who can will be coming. When they do, we will fight with them. We will take back Creontiades. Now turn away,’ Ornastas commanded his flock. ‘Do not gaze at the unholy.’

  He turned away from the sight of the dark colossi. He urged the faithful on. It was important that they keep moving. It was more important that they not dwell on what they had seen. And it was important that he avoid the same mistake. He felt that if he gazed too long on the Traitor Titans, their sublime horror would root him to the spot and turn him into a pillar of salt.

  The battle group encountered no opposition when it arrived in orbit over Katara. The transport vessels of traitor legio were empty husks at anchor. They appeared to be captured civilian freighters, twisted into immense tombs by the corruption that had seized them. Enslaved, they had been consumed by their task of delivering the enemy to Katara. Now they were broken, dark, silent shells, their bellies ripped open by the descent of Titans. The Pallidus Mor and the Imperial Hunters had the freedom to land at will, though Krezoc did not like the implications she read in the absence of an enemy fleet. All the traitor forces had reached planetside, and they felt no need for orbital support.