Yarrick: The Pyres of Armageddon

by David Annandale

  ‘I wish the overlord had listened to you from the start,’ said Helm.

  I grunted. ‘Though I’ve made my share of mistakes. I underestimated the enemy too. No more.’

  ‘What now?’ he asked.

  ‘Now we prepare for much worse.’

  Helm had ordered vox casters brought to our location without my prompting. He knew the value of the moment. He was taking an active role in the shaping, the creation of my myth.

  I stepped up to the vox and looked out at Hades. I had spoken to all of Volcanus. Then I had been a veteran commissar. Now I was engaging in a wilful transformation.

  Whatever is necessary.

  ‘A victory,’ I said. I sharpened my gaze. It was directed at every soul who could see me. Yes. I am looking at you. I am judging you. ‘You witnessed a victory today, didn’t you?

  ‘No. You witnessed a reprieve.

  ‘Are you looking at me, and at the heroes of the Steel Legion, and thinking that we have the orks well in hand? Are you? Then you are beneath contempt. You are abandoning your fellows, and Hades, and Armageddon. You are abandoning the Emperor.

  ‘This was a reprieve, and a chance. You see what can be done. Know this now. You will stand with us. You will fight. In all the days of blood ahead, you will fight, or I will execute you myself. Do this, and victory will come. What is victory?’

  I paused.

  ‘What is victory?’

  Again I waited.

  ‘Victory is when all the greenskins lie dead on the soil they profaned!’

  The cheer came. It began with the troopers, who understood the battles, but it spread to civilians, to the streets, to the interior of the arcologies, to the manufactoria, to the chapels and cathedrals. The hive city called for blood.

  In Volcanus, the people had been ready to fight. That was not enough. The orks had become an extension of their prophet’s will. I made no heretical claims for myself. We were all bound to be extensions of the Emperor’s will. But I would see his will enforced by any means necessary.

  ‘Hades shall not fall!’ I shouted, and the cheer became a roar.

  Time slipping away, each unused second lost to the enemy. Each second, the orks were preparing. Each second, their second attack was closer. Were we using the time we had well? Was I?

  When the seconds ran out, I would know.

  We sent scouts out to the edges of the mines on all sides of Hades. They came as close as they could to the ork encampment. We knew where the greenskins were, but I would not assume they would attack along the same route. We watched, and we prepared. The citizens’ militia grew. Each company was attached to a squad of the Hive Militia, and their sergeants reported back to the Steel Legion. The organised defence of Hades grew and grew. There would be no refugees. There would be no flight.

  No sunrise, no sunset, no cycle of light on Armageddon now. Only the crimson dark, its intensity rising and falling by the whim of the wind and storm and eruption. Could I say a day passed? Thirty hours did. And then the orks came again.

  The distant thunder of their march gave us ample warning. They were heading back down the main highway.

  I stood with Helm on the wall. The enemy had not come into sight yet, though we could see the flashes of energy discharges over the hills.

  ‘No change at all?’ Helm asked.

  ‘Something will be different,’ I said. What, though? The pit in the highway was a major obstacle. The rocky slopes on either side were steep. There was no roof for the largest ork war machines to get around. Battlewagons and the small walkers would manage, but in narrow columns. They would be at a disadvantage against our wall turrets.

  The leading edge of the orks came into sight. Helm squinted. He raised his magnoculars. ‘What am I seeing?’ he said.

  He saw huge rectangular shapes transported by the vehicles at the head of the column. As far as I could tell, they were simply gigantic metal slabs.

  ‘Shields,’ I realised.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The orks are attacking on two fronts.’ I turned to go. ‘I’m taking Genath’s company down below. Stand fast, colonel. Hit those shields and hit them hard. The Emperor protects.’

  2. Helm

  The ork artillery barrage began moments after Yarrick headed for the underhive. The assault was massive, though most of the energy blasts fell short of the wall. The damage to the hive and the defences was minimal. But the explosions filled the region immediately east. They were blinding. Helm could see nothing of the ork force beyond. The cannons had to fire in the rough direction of the enemy. The shots were best guesses. Helm couldn’t tell if they were hitting the orks in any way that mattered.

  The barrage was another shield, he realised. The orks were using annihilating force as a cover.

  ‘Lower the aim,’ he ordered. ‘Fire at our near approach.’ He would make the land before Hades a hell for any being trying to draw near.

  The shells added fireballs and fountains of earth to the emerald screams of the greenskin artillery. The war became a spectacle. For over an hour, a battering storm raged that served no end, as far as Helm could see. Both sides poured destruction into a space that neither occupied.

  The absurdity made him uneasy. The orks’ tactic gave them the upper hand. They knew where the wall was. He had no idea where they were, or what they were doing. He hoped the Earthshakers had hit the shields. He had to assume otherwise.

  His hands clenched. The monstrous pyrotechnics mocked him with failure. There was no action he could take except to continue his own bombardment, aimed at nothing. He prayed Yarrick was faring better.

  He realised he was counting on the commissar’s success. He understood Yarrick’s political strategy. He approved and supported the moves. But there was more. The success of Yarrick’s ambush inspired awe. Three gargants had fallen to human infantry. The immensity of the sight had almost driven Helm to his knees. Hades needed Yarrick. Armageddon needed him.

  The artillery bursts stuttered for a moment. Helm saw through the gap. The orks had erected the metal slabs as blast shields on the near side of the pit. One of them was destroyed, revealing the greenskin tactic.

  Using dozens of siege ladders, the ork infantry was descending into the crevasse. They were opening a second front underground.

  3. Yarrick

  War in the underhive: a battering of sensations so utter it eroded reality itself. Flashes in the dark. The shriek of energy and the boom of gunfire bouncing off walls. Shrapnel, bodies and wreckage flying through the air, hurled by the wind of battle. We fought by instinct. If we stopped to reason, we would die.

  Yet reason was necessary. If we fought the orks on their terms, savagery for savagery, we would lose.

  The Heirs of Grevenberg were already fighting when I arrived with Genath’s company at the level of the pit. Beil tried to kill the orks as they descended the walls of the pit, but he didn’t have enough guns or troops.

  ‘Lure them down,’ I ordered. ‘Lure them down all the way.’ To the domain of the Rachen and all the worst vermin. ‘We have to keep them together.’ Once the orks started spreading through the underground warren, we would never get them out. They would infest the foundations of the hive. But if we could keep them bunched together, there was a chance to purge the city of them.

  The legionnaires opened fire, spreading the shots wide, drawing the attention of every ork on the ladders.

  They pursued us, and we moved down. We maintained a constant fire, whether there were orks in sight or not. We were the moving target, the bait.

  The Grevenbergs took the lead, taking us through mining tunnels, tilted ventilation shafts wider than a Leman Russ, and passageways formed by the random encounters of collapsed walls and sunken foundations. We put some distance between ourselves and the horde. The orks were having to feel their way through the labyrinth, but our clamour gave
them direction. I had full confidence in their ability to find us.

  My faith was justified. We reached the Rachen’s hills of detritus. By the boundary of the great wheel, we began the fight in earnest. The legionnaires formed tight squad formations with overlapping rows of fire. The Grevenbergs spread out along the flanks, disappearing into the heaps and angles of the dark world.

  ‘Rachen!’ I shouted. ‘I’ve brought you a worthy enemy.’ There was no answer. I took their presence on faith too.

  It was a day that rewarded the faithful.

  The orks spilled out of multiple conduits and tunnels in a wide arc before us. They plunged, roaring into the pathways between the heaps. We cut them down as they appeared. The Grevenbergs hit them from the sides, leaping from the dark with weapons as crude and lethal as the orks’. Squad by squad, we retreated into the amber hell of Rachen territory.

  Atroxa’s monsters attacked once the orks were past the wheel. Improvised explosives blew out the sides of the heaps. Metal fragments as a big as a man hurtled across the pathways, slicing orks in two. Rachen burst from the rubble-strewn ground, driving blades and claws into greenskin throats. The struggle turned into a savage melee. Gretchin swarmed over the heaps like vermin, overwhelming gangers with their numbers.

  The orks were much larger than the human brutes, but the gangers were just as savage. During the slow butcher’s journey towards my goal, I saw Beil wield his blade as both sword and axe, disembowelling and splitting skulls. Atroxa punched eyes out with spikes embedded through her palms, then tore throats out of her blind prey.

  I noted them both. If they survived this day, they would become more and more valuable in the struggles ahead.

  I was with Lanner’s squad. We backed up beyond what appeared to be a low wall. It fell, releasing a wave of brackish, debris-filled water. The torrent foamed through the narrow passageways, knocking the orks down, drowning the armoured greenskins while the Rachen swam for the surface.

  Many of the Grevenberg drowned too. If they saw the tactic as a betrayal, they showed no sign. They continued their flanking attacks, two or three or more attackers working in concert to take a single ork down.

  ‘Spread the word,’ I said to Lanner’s vox operator. I ducked as ork bullets whined over my head. They ricocheted off the shattered metal and rockcrete. ‘Move towards the glow. Find high ground. And I want rocket launchers ready.’

  Lanner said, ‘Commissar, you’re mad.’

  ‘Objections, sergeant?’

  ‘None.’

  Flames erupted forward and to the right of our position. They squeezed through narrow gaps in the heaps and filled a tight ­passageway. Humans and orks screamed. More humans than orks. The greenskins with flamers were pushing forward, purging their path of enemies. I took a frag grenade and sent it bouncing around the corner with the flames. We backed up quickly. The grenade’s explosion became a larger fireball, then another, then more, a chain reaction of death. Following each other too closely, the flamer orks blew up in sequence.

  The blasts toppled a pile of girders. A cluster of brutes turned from the flames and ran through our lines, their shotguns chewing up legionnaires and troopers. I shot one through the mouth. Teeth and grey matter exploded. We retreated faster. I couldn’t see the rest of the company but I trusted they were moving in the right direction too.

  I looked behind, towards the glow. The terrain was as I remembered it. We were about to pass through a triangular arch formed by two sunken foundations leaning against each other. Beyond that, there was relatively open ground before the right half of the reservoir receiving the molten cast-offs. On the left-hand-side were unstable-looking mounds, bristling with edges and spikes. They were death traps. On the far right was an almost vertical wall. Ten metres up, a wide ledge gave access to more tunnels. A slope of smaller debris lay in the corner formed by the wall and the side of the reservoir. It would do.

  ‘With me!’ I yelled. ‘Climb or die! Judgement is at hand!’

  The rush to the wall was disciplined, even with three disparate forces. The fighting retreat gave me hope. We had order even here. The Steel Legion company assembled at the base of the slope. Each squad as it arrived provided covering fire to the other elements. The archway and the narrow passageways kept the greenskins bunched together. Our guns were more effective while they were unable to use the advantage of their numbers. The gangers scrambled up the slope. The Rachen went up it like arachnids, reminding me this was their home. I was surprised by how many emerged from the dark and flew to safety, already disappearing down the tunnels. Atroxa, though, remained on the ledge, the beast surveying this region of her lair for the last time.

  Some of the Heirs of Grevenberg, either through impatience or hostility towards the Rachen, broke left and climbed the other heaps. They paid for their error, impaled and sliced wide open by the vicious edges and points. A few made it to the top, perching like vultures.

  The Steel Legion squads were next. The troopers were slower, weighed down by their weapons and uniforms. The orks shot back with ferocity, blasting troopers on the ground and on the slope, and gangers on the ledge. Heavy bullets chewed up the debris on the ground. They slammed into the reservoir wall, and I winced. The painful heat at my back seemed to increase. It was an illusion, and it was a reminder of how little time separated massacre from victory.

  I was among the last to climb the slope. I moved up with the troopers carrying the missile launchers. I scanned the floor of the cavern. There were still humans locked in struggle with the orks. I was sorry for them. They were beyond our help, and I could not delay.

  Pushing forward against our las, the orks spilled into the open space. In moments, the volume of their fire would overwhelm ours, and then they would wipe us out.

  The troopers were above me. The rockets were ready. I was a few metres yet from the top. Ork bullets chewed at the debris and I slipped back. No more time and no choice. ‘Fire on the tank,’ I called.

  One trooper hissed through his teeth, unable to believe the folly of what I had asked him to do. But he launched his rocket too. I was obeyed without pause. The missiles streaked into the tank and the cavern lit up with the blossoming fireballs. With a great cry of dying metal, the reservoir released its flood. A cataract of molten ore burst into the cavern. The breach was a hundred metres from me. The heat and light stabbed my eyes and face. I held up my arm as a shield, but I watched. The ore hissed and roared as it hit the floor. It carried the scrap metal before it. The orks stopped firing. They saw the wave of liquid fire rushing at them. They tried to run, but the rest of their force was still trying to push through the archway. There was milling chaos.

  The wave hit. I savoured the screams. I had toppled the arrogance of the ork power with the gargants. Now I finally heard greenskin pain. It was a good start.

  The ore covered the floor. It ate at the debris. The slope trembled. I snapped out of my fascination and climbed the rest of the way to the ledge. I stood. I pointed at the writhing, burning, drowning orks. ‘We will purge the xenos from Hades,’ I shouted.

  Across from us, the debris mounds collapsed and were swept away by the hell torrent. The gangers clutching to the peaks shrieked. They thrashed in transcendent pain, and disappeared beneath the bright death.

  The killing wave crashed against the archway. It flowed through, submerging the orks beyond. The tide of fire rose and rose. Searing daylight filled the underhive. Death spread farther and farther. The orks had come down into the ground by the thousands. Now, crowded in narrow, twisting paths through high walls of metallic ruin, they blocked their own escape. The cries rose, almost drowning out the roar of the cataract. More hills fell, and then came a deep, loud, crumbling crack. The archway trembled. I watched calmly. There was no time to run. If the end was coming for us as well as the orks, then it would find me standing tall. Undermined by the ore, the leaning foundations lost their strength. They fe
ll. With them, on the other side, came millions of tonnes of rockcrete. The rumble was as vast as worlds in collision. A god’s fist smashed the rest of the orks to nothing. The contrast with the molten light of the ore was complete. Night itself had extinguished the region beyond the open cavern.

  A new reservoir had come into being, and we were inside. The ore rose, lapping at the wall. The heat, already intolerable, shrivelled the lungs. My eyes were dry as stones. It was time to leave.

  I did not hurry. I turned around. I faced legionnaires, Grevenbergs and Rachen. They stared at me as if the metal and stone had answered my will alone. I regarded them all in silence, then marched through the ranks and took the first tunnel I reached. Inside, I found Lanner, Genath and a vox operator. I saw awe even in Lanner’s eyes. Then I saw the terror in the vox operator’s eyes, and realised the looks I saw in these three had another source. ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re calling for you on the wall,’ said Genath.

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Everyone,’ Lanner said. ‘The people. The army.’ He swallowed. I hadn’t seen him nervous before. ‘The orks.’

  The chanting grew louder as I neared the wall. I ran through a battle of fanaticism. On this side of the wall, our forces were calling my name. As I climbed the steps to the battlements, I heard the countering cries of Ugulhard from the orks beyond. And at the top, just to the south of the gate, I heard a guttural, booming, inhuman voice snarl, ‘Yarrrrick.’

  I stepped into a tableau of suspended war. The ramparts had been battered. Smoke rolled over the wall. Several cannon turrets had been demolished. On the far side, the ground was a patchwork of overlapping craters filled with the wreckage of ork guns. Thousands of ork foot soldiers crowded forward to climb siege ladders. The defenders destroyed the ladders as they appeared, and the orks fired upwards, clearing the way for more ladders to rise.

  A stalemate.

  A few orks had reached the top of the wall. I found myself in their midst. Before me, barely more than five metres away and striding back and forth on the section of the battlements he had claimed for himself, was the giant who roared my name. He was summoning his rival to combat, and he had already dismissed Helm as being unworthy of that claim. The colonel was slumped against the wreckage of a cannon just on the other side of the warboss. He was moving, but weakly. His right arm was hanging at a strange angle. Blood soaked his face. Orks lined both ends of the warboss’s territory, echoing each of his shouts.