Kingsblade

by Andy Clark

  At that moment Jennika’s vox crackled again, bringing her the distorted voice of High Sacristan Polluxis.

  ‘…ady Tan Draconis. The Omnissiah has smiled upon our labours at last. Prep… ing to deploy data-wards and loose the renewed Heavenly Host.’

  Jennika felt the stirrings of hope at the Sacristan’s words.

  ‘Magnificent work, High Sacristan,’ she replied. ‘My heartfelt thanks. As soon as you’ve worked your wards, I need access to the global vox net. Get us back in touch with the war.’

  ‘Yes, Lady Tan Draconis,’ replied Polluxis. Fire Defiant shivered almost imperceptibly around her, its machine-spirit rumbling a sigh of relief as the High Sacristan’s data wards deployed. Jennika watched her auspex feeds clarify and targeting reticule settle. Her chrono stabilised, even as her Knight’s motive actuators re-calibrated with a series of hissing clanks, and the laboured note of Fire Defiant’s reactor settled to a powerful hum. Skirling through the vox came the last squeals and shrieks of the scrapcode, sounding somehow outraged to be driven out.

  ‘Better,’ said Jennika, settling her sights over the oncoming daemon engines and blowing two of them apart, one after the other. Fire Defiant growled in agreement.

  Small, cherubic figures swept overhead. They shot from the darkness of the warehouse caverns, eye-lenses glowing and censers trailing the incense as they arrowed up into the skies. Jennika watched her strategic overlay blossom, its borders expanding by the second and clarity increasing tenfold. New runes leapt into view across the map, and the Lady Tan Draconis sucked in a breath as she saw the true strength of the enemy massed around her. Their main concentration was to the north, building rapidly amongst a field of transistor-towers. She had less time than she had thought, but Jennika thanked the Emperor and Polluxis all the same; if she hadn’t seen that hammer-blow being readied, it would have crushed her forces.

  Fighting to stay calm, Jennika scoured the western edge of the display for any telltale runes that might show her brother and his Knights returning. Her hope dwindled as she saw none.

  ‘High Sacristan,’ she voxed urgently. ‘The global vox, if you please?’

  ‘One moment, Lady Tan Draconis. My acolytes are completing the rites as we speak.’

  Jennika drew breath to reply, and then her vox filled with scattered channels. Runes lit green across her instruments as her access to the global network was restored. Immediately Jennika began blink-clicking through channels, trying to gauge the strategic situation across Donatos Primus and to locate any word of Danial. Jennika fought on even as she worked the vox, her Knight’s legs braced and its shield up as she fired shells at each fresh daemon engine to enter the plaza. Explosions made her shield flare bright, and more than one shot punched through to clang from her steed’s armour, but she remained focused.

  Each new channel brought fresh tales of desperation and destruction. There were still significant Imperial forces at large across the continent, it seemed, but they were scattered and – in many cases – fighting on the defensive without centralised command. Most of the Imperial forces, after all, did not have the newfound benefits of Polluxis’ wards to aid them. The scrapcode signal continued to play havoc in the districts surrounding the valle electrum, while further out the Word Bearers and their traitor hordes were keeping pressure on the loyalists. Jennika adjusted her vox frequency with methodical precision, hunting through snippets of mayhem and desperation.

  ‘….helm, correct two points starboard and deploy interceptors, I want those torpedoes dead before they’re within a hundred miles of the hull. We’ll not break this damned stalemate with the ship torn in two. Gunnery, Murder Class Cruiser to our fore, get me a solution and…’

  ‘…is Agha First-Class Dasheid, Mubraxis Twenty-Seventh, Fourth Platoon Command. Repeat, traitor armour pressing heavily in quadrants two, four and seven. That is two, four and seven. Pentakhost beachhead in jeopardy, reinforcement requested. Throne’s sake, can anyone hear thi…’

  ‘…pilot to bombardier, pilot to bombardier, commencing second run over nortus maximal now. Hellfire Squadron, make your run count, gentlemen, we may not get another. Stay low, watch the flak, and let’s make a hole in these wretches that’d make the Emperor proud…’

  ‘…Kannoch, on your right! Traitor Knight, two hundred yards and closing. Elevate main gun and put a round through him…Emperor’s balls, he’s still coming! Pull away, pull awa…’

  ‘…repeat this is Sire Markos Dar Draconis, herald of House Draconis. Lady Jennika, can you…’

  Heart thumping, Jennika twitched her vox controls back, hunting for the faint signal. A volley of plasma blasts raked her shield, shaking her throne and causing overheat alarms to shrill. The Lady Tan Draconis screamed in frustration as she lost the signal.

  ‘Not now, you cretin,’ she snarled, hammering shots into the daemon engine that had fired upon her. A quadruped horror with glowing cannons for arms and maw, the engine wove aside from her fire. Its weapons glowed as it gathered energy for another volley, and Jennika let loose a stream of vehement curses before engaging her motive actuators.

  ‘I don’t have time for this,’ she spat, clearing the Cadian lines in a single stride and pushing Fire Defiant into a lumbering charge. The daemon engine fired, its cannons vomiting searing energies at her. Jennika swept the plasma blasts aside with her shield, then brought her chainsword down, sawing the machine in half in a welter of sparks and spurting ectoplasma. Caging her fire, Jennika walked her Knight carefully back into the Cadian position. As she did so, she reapplied herself to the vox, praying silently to the Emperor as she made one painstaking adjustment after another.

  At last, blessedly, she heard it again.

  ‘…herald of House Draconis. Lady Jennika, if you can hear this please respond.’

  ‘Sire Markos, this is Jennika. I hear you, sire.’

  ‘Jen,’ said Markos, weary relief in his voice. ‘Thank the draconsfire you’re still alive, girl. Thought for sure you’d be dead or gone by now.’

  ‘Glad to exceed your expectations, Sire Markos,’ said Jennika. She could see the first runes moving into the western edge of her strategic display. They seemed alarmingly few, and fear spread through her chest as she realised she couldn’t see the Oath of Flame amongst them. Yet the Code demanded decorum and duty, and the ghosts of her throne would not allow her to ignore it. ‘What’s your situation, Markos? What happened?’

  ‘We failed, Jen,’ he said. ‘It was a trap, and we walked right into it. They dropped a bloody fortress on us. Twenty Knights dead.’

  Twenty. Jennika’s mind reeled, and she fought to keep her focus on the battle. A ghostly whisper directed her attention to a blinking amber rune on her retinal display. Ammunition low.

  ‘Sire Markos,’ she said, her voice strained. ‘We’re under heavy attack. They’re massing to the north, and if they land that blow, we’re done. Do you have the strength remaining to deal with them?’

  ‘We do,’ growled Markos. ‘Emperor knows there’s not enough of these bastards on the whole planet for me to kill for what they’ve done to us. We’ll hit them from the flank, then wheel round on your position.’

  ‘Thank you, Markos,’ said Jennika, before finally allowing herself to ask the question she feared the most. ‘What of my brother?’

  ‘He lives, my lady,’ said Markos, and Jennika felt relief flood her. ‘His steed is badly damaged. He’s moving slower, with the rear guard, but they’re not far back.’

  Even as the herald spoke, Jennika saw fresh runes entering the combat zone from the west. Signifiers winked into being for Sire Olric, Lady Suset, Sire Wilhorm Dar Minotos, and, trailing a hundred yards behind the rest, Danial Tan Draconis with The Knight of Ashes at his side. Jennika felt a weight lift off her shoulders. Within her, the draconsfire blazed bright.

  ‘Welcome back, Da,’ she voxed on a private channel, and frowned at the simple vox-blip of acknowledgement she received. There would be time to check on her brother later, she t
hought. For now, they had gained a chance at victory and she didn’t mean to lose it.

  Markos commanded the charge into the enemy flank. Honourblaze led an unstoppable spearhead of Knights through the transistor towers, their guns thundering as they drove the enemy before them. Massed rebel tanks traversed their turrets and began to fire back, but the traitors had been fixated upon the foe to their fore, sure of imminent victory. The speed and fury of Markos’ attack caught them by surprise, smashing through them like a battering ram sundering a castle gate. The Knights crushed renegade militia underfoot, or engulfed them in racing fireballs. Crude Chaos icons fell and were trampled. Transistor towers toppled like olidarne trees, wreathed in haloes of leaping energy that burned heretics alive. Even the small knot of Word Bearers coordinating the attack could not stop the wrathful war engines. Traitor Space Marines crippled one Knight of House Minotos with melta-guns. A pair of hulking fleshmetal warriors scythed the legs from beneath Sire Galharad Dar Draconis with a volley of lascannon blasts, leaving his fallen steed tangled amid the wreckage of a crushed transistor tower. Sire Markos coordinated the firepower of seven Knights at once upon the traitors’ position, and reduced them to ashes.

  Within minutes, the Knights had shattered the greatest strength of the traitor forces and split in two, Sire Markos leading one spearhead and Lady Eleanat Dar Pegasson the other. They stormed down corpse-strewn streets, between the burned-out hulks of ruined buildings, and fell upon the remaining enemies from flank and rear. With Jennika’s warriors holding firm as the anvil, the returned Knights served as the hammer, smashing the attackers between them without mercy.

  Danial watched it play out across his strategic display, cocooned within the heart of his limping steed. He was relieved that his sister and her followers had survived, but he couldn’t find it in himself to feel much beyond that. Twenty Knights were dead. Twenty irreplaceable thrones lost along with all their ghosts. Twenty venerable machines, buried beneath thousands of tons of rubble or… worse. For a moment the image of Gustev’s horrific death flashed before his eyes and Danial’s mind squirmed with horror. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t had time to think through his options. It didn’t matter that he was inexperienced in war, let alone command, or that he had acted on the advice of Knights far more seasoned than him. The inescapable truth was that he, Danial Tan Draconis, had ordered his followers into that ambush and twenty Knights had fallen. They had been tricked again. He had been tricked again, and the cost was insupportable.

  ‘Perhaps I really am my father’s son,’ he muttered bitterly to himself. ‘The unworthy inheritor of a crown that was never mine.’ Danial felt the ghosts of his throne stir angrily, pressing in upon his mind to remonstrate or reassure. He pushed them back, with an effort. Their counsel wasn’t welcome. Perhaps it wasn’t even deserved. Danial’s mind whirled with all he had seen. Tolwyn’s death. Chimaeros and Wyvorn’s betrayal. The fortress thundering down upon them like the inescapable judgement of the Emperor.

  Alicia.

  The consort played on Danial’s mind most of all. If what she said was true, Alicia had always been the abomination revealed this day. How blind had they been, never to see it? How far had her taint spread? It seemed clear that poor Luk had never been part of his mother and father’s heresy, but did that mean he was truly clean of their taint? Danial’s own father had always been firm friends with the consort, and though she had passed away in sickness when Danial was only five, he knew that Queen Polenna had not approved. Had Alicia influenced his father in any way? Corrupted his rule? Every question spawned two more, eroding the bedrock of his life as they multiplied.

  The damaged Knights were nearing Jennika’s cordon, and the fight was all but done. Danial coaxed his steed’s weapon systems to wakefulness all the same, as his audio-receptors picked up the chatter and thump of gunfire ahead.

  ‘Luk,’ he voxed. ‘Weapons up and shield ready, just in case. Sword’s damaged enough as it is.’

  His auspex picked up a sluggish heat-bloom from the Freeblade’s Knight as his friend followed his advice, but Luk didn’t reply.

  ‘Luk,’ he tried again. ‘I’m sorry. About Alicia. About all of it.’

  ‘Don’t, Da,’ interrupted Luk tiredly. ‘Don’t say sorry. What did you do, to be sorry for? Did you make my father a heretic?’

  ‘No,’ frowned Danial.

  ‘And did you make my mother a witch, and me so stupid that I never even once suspected that something might be wrong?’

  ‘You know I didn’t, Luk,’ said Danial. ‘I meant that…’

  ‘What? That you’re High King now so everything must be your fault?’ Danial heard sudden anger in his friend’s voice. ‘Danial Tan bloody Draconis, High King and bearer of everyone else’s burdens. Just because our fathers betrayed us, Da, just because they stuck a crown on your head and told you that you were in charge, doesn’t make you a king, any more than it makes you responsible for the horrible things my parents did. Throne, we’re barely more than squires! Not everything going on here is about you, do you understand that?’

  Danial felt a surge of defensive anger at his friend’s words.

  ‘No, Luk, you’re right.’ The words spilled out like poison from a wound. ‘I’m not responsible for your father killing mine in cold blood. I’m not responsible for the fact that somehow no one, not me, not even you, saw how rotten House Chimaeros was or realised your mother was a witch. But believe it or not, we can’t all just take an oath and throw our responsibilities out the castle gates. I am the High King, crown and all, whether I want that burden or not. So yes, I am sorry, because I have to be. And because you’re still my friend, despite everything.’

  ‘Right,’ responded Luk after a pause. ‘Understood. My liege.’

  Danial sighed as his friend cut the vox link between them. He knew Luk, knew his temper. They had argued a hundred times before, as only best friends can, and always patched things up once Luk cooled off. But he wondered, this time. In just days, everything had changed. Still, he realised that he meant what he had said about the crown. He was the High King, and he couldn’t just cast that burden aside because it was heavy, or because he had failed. That was a squire’s response. His hand crept to the amulet about his neck, and from deep within the shadows of his throne an ancient voice sighed, a dry whisper that he had never heard before.

  The draconsfire burns brightest in victory, and is easy then to see. But a true king is he who sees the embers burn low, and fans them again to fury.

  Danial strained to hear more, pushing his consciousness as far back as he dared into his throne. The voice was gone, submerged as though beneath cold, black waters. And then Danial and Luk were walking their steeds into the plaza before the northern exit ramps, the last loyalist Knights to gather upon Jennika’s position.

  The enemy were fleeing into the surrounding ruins, chased by disciplined Cadian volleys. Jennika was glad of victory, but appalled to see how badly damaged Oath of Flame and Sword of Heroes were. Both Knights dragged damaged limbs and nursed buckled plating, severed cables and multiple power-leaks. A number of the other Knights looked scarcely better off, and she found herself hoping that Polluxis’ acolytes could effect sufficient repairs to keep them all in the field. The Knights stood facing each other across the corpse-strewn plaza, a gathering of war-weary giants.

  From the darkness below came Polluxis’ remaining Crawlers, summoned as soon as the last shots were fired. They wove between the Knights, two of their number splitting off with Cadian escorts to salvage the fallen steeds. The rest drew to a halt in the Knights’ midst and deployed their repair rigs. Blessed arc welders sparked. Sanctifying incense billowed. Hard-wired servitors rose on hydraulic booms, unfolding spider-like limbs heavy with whirring tools, as acolytes guided auto-loader carriages into place with fresh ammunition for the Knights’ depleted guns.

  Ordering repair and resupply in the open was a gamble, but Jennika knew they couldn’t afford to vanish below ground again. Besides, she
didn’t want to spend another minute in those stifling caves.

  ‘Perimeter secure, ma’am,’ voxed Kovash. ‘We’ll stand guard while you get your machines patched up.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ replied Jennika. ‘The Emperor protects, as you say. But I’m glad we have you to help him.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ replied the major, and Jennika thought she caught a note of satisfaction in his voice. The Cadian cut his link, and she turned her attention to the Knights assembled around her. Jennika was uncomfortably aware that Danial still had not spoken to her or – it seemed – to anyone else. She resolved to lead proceedings in his stead for now, but he would have to face his responsibilities soon. No doubt her younger brother had been through a lot. But then, they all had.

  ‘My lords and ladies,’ began Jennika. ‘I am glad that you have returned. We couldn’t have held this position for much longer.’

  ‘You shouldn’t even have remained as long as you did,’ said Sire Olric archly. ‘But we’re all glad you did, I’m sure.’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Sire Garath, his tone lacking its usual sardonic edge. ‘Thank you for your faith in us, Lady Jennika. Without those Crawlers we’d half of us never have made it back to friendly lines.’

  ‘And where should we consider to be ‘friendly’ now?’ asked Lady Eleanat. ‘I don’t know how many of you have found time to attend the vox network, but matters sound grim from Pentakhost to the nordindustriala.’

  ‘Pardon, my lady,’ said Sire Percivane. ‘You must have faith.’ The burly Knight’s steed had regained power just in time to limp clear of the falling fortress’ shadow. The apparent miracle had bolstered Percivane’s already abundant zeal. ‘Imperial forces are still in the field, and in substantial numbers. Since the High Sacristan cleared our vox channels we have received requests from numerous battle groups, all asking us to reinforce them and turn defeat into victory. The Emperor still rules this world. We cannot give in to despair when we walk in His light.’