CHAPTER TEN
The air was filled with the whine of incoming artillery, followed by the reverberating thump of explosions as they tore their way across squares and boulevards, demolishing statues, turning arboretums to muddy ruin and toppling gold-veined pillars. From his position on the crenulated battlements of the captured defence tower, Marduk could see the warriors of the XVII Legion in the streets below taking cover behind their Rhinos and in the lee of buildings as the Imperial artillery barrage began. He knew it would be a constant presence in the war from here on in.
Few of his brothers would fall in these attacks, but that was not the point: the barrage was chiefly designed to ensure the Word Bearers were pinned down, taking cover rather than concentrating on targeting the incoming enemy forces.
Marduk was unconcerned, confident that whatever the White Consuls could throw at his Host, they would emerge victorious.
“There,” said Burias, pointing.
The Icon Bearer had joined Marduk a moment before, his face and arms caked in drying blood, and he stood alongside his Dark Apostle, staring westward across the gleaming marble city. Marduk looked where Burias indicated, and the targeting matrices built into his helmet flashed momentarily as they locked onto fast-moving shapes, flying low and jinking around columns and statues, before he lost them again within the maze of streets.
“Land Speeders sighted,” relayed Marduk.
The anti-grav vehicles were moving at great speed as they roared through the city, closing the distance swiftly. They had split into two groups, one gunning their engines towards Sabtec’s position and the other moving towards Marduk’s.
Through the thick artillery smoke, larger shapes could be seen flying low over the rooftops, approaching fast—Thunderhawks, gleaming white and adorned with the blue eagle head motif of the White Consuls. Missiles streaked from beneath their stubby wings, and heavy battle cannons roared.
Marduk glanced up at the mass transports and heavy shuttles descending through the upper atmosphere. They were coming down painfully slowly, retros burning fiercely to control their momentum, and he knew that they were at their most vulnerable now. The contents of those transports were incalculably valuable; ensuring their unmolested arrival was of paramount importance for the success of this war.
The enemy’s intention was obvious—take these towers back and blast those mass transports to pieces before they landed. They were not fools, clearly; they understood how much of an impact the precious engines held within those transports would have in the forthcoming ground war.
The Land Speeders appeared again suddenly, only a few hundred metres away, banking sharply around the corner of a domed cathedral and roaring towards the defence tower, heavy bolters barking. They were about twenty metres off the ground, and as soon as they appeared, dozens of bolters and heavier weapons began to target them. They jinked from side to side, avoiding the worst of the incoming fire, and Marduk was forced to duck as heavy bolter rounds stitched across the battlements of the tower, ripping out chunks of marble.
One of the enemy vehicles was struck by a lascannon, taking the driver’s head off and ripping a hole through its engines. The Land Speeder veered sharply and spun out of control, trailing black smoke, before smashing into a towering Space Marine statue atop a pillar, shattering like glass as it struck the stone figure at full speed.
The remainder kept coming, and split smoothly into three distinct groups.
One group, using the buildings opposite the defence tower to protect them from ground fire, rose to be level with Marduk’s position and hovered in place, raking the walls with assault cannons and heavy bolters. Under this cover, a handful of speeders—their chassis longer than the others—rose and banked sharply, heading westward over the rooftops before lingering over a heavily defensible building nearby. As the sights in his helmet zoomed in, Marduk saw lightly armoured Scouts rappelling from them onto the building’s roof, sniper rifles slung across their backs.
The third group dipped low, and disappeared from sight.
“Enemy snipers moving into position,” Marduk said. “I have target-marked their last sighted location.”
“Acknowledged,” came Kol Badar’s reply. “Sabtec, be wary; that is near your position.”
“Understood,” said the exalted champion of the decorated 13th Coterie.
Marduk rose and snapped off a shot with his bolt pistol, which glanced off the armoured screen in front of an enemy gunner. One of his brethren nearby rose and fired a missile from his launcher that ripped apart a Land Speeder in a blinding explosion.
As if that had been a signal, the others dropped sharply, engines roaring and they disappeared from sight.
Marduk glanced over the parapet and saw White Consuls vehicles moving swiftly up the streets, having been dropped in by Thunderhawks. He also saw Rhino APCs, Predators and other vehicles that he had no name for, variations of the Rhino pattern that he had not encountered before.
“Enemy armour, moving on my position,” said Marduk:
“Received and moving to intercept,” replied Kol Badar.
Further communication was forestalled as hissing static interference suddenly washed the comms-network across all channels.
“Curse them,” snarled Marduk. “We are being jammed.”
There was a roar of engines close by, and a strong downdraft struck Marduk. He looked up to see a Land Speeder hovering directly overhead. White Consuls Scouts were rappelling from it onto the roof of the tower.
“Ware the sky!” roared Marduk, as he began to fire. He caught one of the Scouts in the back of the head, killing him instantly, before the remainder ducked out of sight. He saw four Land Speeders veering away, just a fraction of a second before a hail of small projectiles were lobbed towards his position.
“Grenades!” roared Marduk, throwing himself back inside the tower. The concussive explosions of the frag grenades picked him up and hurled him inside, razor-tipped shards of shrapnel embedding in his power armour.
He crashed down, red warning lights flashing before his eyes. One of his brothers was nearby, armour blackened and filled with fragmentation shards. Marduk barked a warning as the warrior rose to his feet. Before the warrior could respond, his head was pulped by a shotgun blast fired at close range.
Burias was picking himself up off the floor nearby, snarling. The left side of his face was a blackened ruin of charred flesh, and he was about to hurl himself back out onto the battlements when there was a crash behind them, and a shower of plasglass.
Marduk spun to see a white-armoured Astartes figure on one knee behind him, smoke billowing from its bulky jump pack, plasglass surrounding it. Before he could fire, Marduk saw looming shadows appear outside, and more Space Marines suddenly crashed through the plasglass, jump packs and chainswords roaring.
Acrid exhaust fumes filled the interior of the control room, and Marduk rose to his feet, firing. He hit one of the Assault Marines in the chest, but the bolt was unable to penetrate the thick ceramite armour, merely knocking the warrior back half a step.
Marduk felt a surge of warp energy as Drak’shal rose to power within Burias’ flesh. Roaring in infernal fury, the possessed warrior leapt past him, bowling one of the Assault Marines to the ground, talons digging through power armour. A bolt hit Marduk in the shoulder, half spinning him, and he snarled, firing a pair of shots in retaliation.
Holstering the sidearm, Marduk took hold of his crozius in two hands and leapt forwards to meet the advancing Assault Marines head-on, bellowing his hatred. He ducked beneath a buzzing chainsword and slammed his crozius into the side of his attacker, the spiked head of the holy weapon penetrating ceramite and crackling with energy as it knocked the White Consul aside.
Marduk swayed backwards and a chainsword, roaring furiously, tore through the air where his head had been a fraction of a second earlier. He only just managed to get his weapon into the path of the return blow, his muscles straining against the strength of his opponent. The te
eth of the madly whirring chainsword ripped at his crozius, threatening to tear it from his grip. Marduk kicked the White Consuls Assault Marine away from him, straight into the path of Burias-Drak’shal, who impaled the warrior upon the Host’s icon, lifting the spitted enemy warrior off his feet before hurling him aside.
A chainsword tore into Burias-Drak’shal’s neck, ripping at power armour and flesh, and blood sprayed out. He roared in fury and pain and spun, dropping to one knee and smashing the legs from under his attacker with a sweep of his bladed icon. Before he could leap upon the downed warrior and finish him, a bolt hit him in the back, making him stumble forwards, and he lost his grip on the icon.
A bolt pistol was levelled at the possessed Icon Bearer’s head, but with preternatural speed he swayed to the side, avoiding the shot, and as another chainsword roared in at him, Burias-Drak’shal merely grabbed the whirring blade in one hand, blood splattering as he pulled the wielder towards him. With the palm of his other hand he struck the White Consul under the chin, snapping his head back sharply and exposing his neck. Still holding the chainsword tightly in one hand, blood continuing to splatter out as its mechanisms strained to rip the flesh from his bones, Burias-Drak’shal lunged forwards and tore the White Consul’s throat.
A shotgun blast took one of Marduk’s companions in the back, knocking him forwards and into the path of the blue helmeted veteran sergeant of the Assault Marines, who used his full body weight to deliver a powerful punch with a massive power gauntlet. The blow sundered the Word Bearer’s chest plate and the fused ribcage within, pulping his twin hearts and sending him crashing to his back, flickers of electrical energy dancing across his exposed chest cavity.
Marduk deflected a swinging blow aimed at his head and risked a glance onto the battlements, seeing several squads of Scouts dropping down onto the area he had recently vacated, combat shotguns held in their hands. More Assault Marines crashed through the tinted plasglass, and another of his brethren went down, impaled on a chainsword that ripped and tore at his flesh, splattering hot blood across the room.
“Back!” shouted Marduk, swallowing down his bitterness. “Pull back!”
With smoke spewing from its daemon-headed exhausts, the Land Raider smashed through the wall, rockcrete and marble crumbling around it. It came down hard, powering onto a quad-laned road, and with a sickening crunch ploughed straight into the side of a White Consuls Rhino. The smaller APC was slammed sidewards, tracks skidding on the rockcrete roadway before it was rammed at speed into the corner of a building and came to shocking halt.
Dust and rock crumbled from the building, crashing down upon the vehicle’s armoured roof. The Rhino’s engines spluttered and died, and smoke rose from its buckled chassis. The Land Raider roared, tracks spinning into reverse, kicking up rocks and dust as it spun around to face the other enemy vehicles in the convoy.
Two Rhinos had slewed to the side and ground to a halt, their occupants spilling from within. The White Consuls dropped into cover on either side of the road, bolters bucking in their hands. The Word Bearers Land Raider fired and its twin-linked lascannon struck one of the Rhinos as it started to reverse, punching a pair of gaping holes through its armour and engine block. Its heavy bolters chased the White Consuls as they ducked into cover.
The Land Raider’s assault hatch slammed down on the rubble strewn across the road. Kol Badar was first out, his combi-bolter blazing. He ordered his Anointed forward, while he strode towards the Rhino that his Land Raider had just rammed.
Smoke was rising from the wreck, and as Kol Badar reached the vehicle its side hatch slammed open. He grabbed the first White Consul to emerge by the head, his power talons closing around the Astartes’ helmet. With a wrench, Kol Badar dragged the warrior out and lifted his combi-bolter, spraying bolts into the crowded interior. Kol Badar twisted his power talons, ripping the head off the White Consul held in his clutches, and continued firing. When he had exhausted a full clip he switched to the flamer affixed to his combi-bolter and filled the inside of the APC with burning promethium.
Satisfied, Kol Badar turned away, and began stalking towards the other enemy warriors, who were engaged in a brutal, close range firefight with his advancing Anointed brethren. Four lascannon beams hit the second Rhino, and it exploded in a blinding fireball, flipping end over end ten metres into the air before smashing back to the ground as a blackened, twisted heap of metal.
Targeting icons flashed as they identified heavily armoured tanks further up the roadway, turning southward.
“Tanks moving on your position, Sabtec,” he said, reloading.
“Understood,” said Sabtec, his hand held to his ear. He had formed a perimeter around the outside of the silenced defence laser turret that he had been assigned to secure, his warriors hunkered down behind makeshift barricades.
“13th!” he shouted. “Incoming armour!”
“The attack on my position was a feint,” came the crackling voice of First Acolyte Ashkanez across the vox. “Moving to support you.”
Seeing the enemy tanks hove into view, Sabtec gritted his teeth.
“You had better hurry, First Acolyte,” he replied. “The 13th will hold as long as able.”
Half a dozen enemy vehicles had rounded a bend three hundred metres from his position, and were rumbling towards his cordon. At the forefront was a pair of Predators, Destructor-pattern: heavily armoured frontline battle tanks with rotating autocannon turrets and heavy bolter side sponsons. The autocannon turrets began to fire towards his position, tearing huge chunks out of the tower behind him, and Sabtec grimaced.
With clipped orders he organised his defence, redeploying the two Havoc squads accompanying him into enfilading fire positions and picking out the prime targets. With a nod, he ordered the lascannon-wielding heavy weapon specialist within his own 13th Coterie to fire, but just as the warrior’s finger squeezed the trigger he jerked backwards, the back of his head blown out.
“Sniper!” roared Sabtec, throwing himself towards his fallen brother to commandeer the heavy weapon. “27th Coterie, do you see them?”
A burst of heavy bolter fire from atop the defence tower roared in answer.
“Three confirmed kills, Exalted Champion Sabtec,” replied the squad champion of 27th.
“Be vigilant,” said Sabtec. “There will be more of them up there.”
He hefted the lascannon onto his shoulder and flicked out its optical sight. He did not unhook the heavy power generator from his fallen brother’s back—he did not have time—and the insulated cables connecting the bulky weapon hummed as he linked to its targeting systems.
The enemy tanks had fired smoke and blind grenades; broad-spectrum electro-magnetic radiation blinding both sensors and scans as well as blocking conventional sight. Sabtec swore.
He aimed the lascannon into the thick smoke that confused his auto-sensors. The edge of the smoke was no more than a hundred metres off, and he panned left and right as he sought a target.
Abruptly, he saw headlights appear through the smoke and his target icons flashed red. He swung the lascannon around towards them and fired.
The shot glanced off the Predator’s angled fore-armour. Sabtec gritted his teeth in frustration as the weapon began to power up again, venting steam.
“Come on,” he said as more enemy vehicles materialised out of the blinding fog, moving at speed towards him.
Missiles streamed from the Havoc team on his left, and an enemy Rhino ground to a halt as its tracks were torn clear. Autocannons ripped across armoured plates and tore a barking heavy bolter sponson loose from a Predator. The turret of the battle tank turned molten, dripping down over its hull like wax as a plasma cannon found its mark.
The heavy vehicles gunned their engines and accelerated.
The Predator unleashed a torrent from its weapon systems, raking fire across the Word Bearers line, and bolters began to roar as White Consuls disembarked from their Rhinos. A melta blast seared a burning hole through the marble ba
lustrade that Sabtec knelt behind, but he remained unfazed as he calmly waited for his weapon to reach full power.
Bolts ricocheted off the marble around him, and as a blinking red icon turned green, he took careful aim and squeezed the lascannon’s trigger.
The shot hit a Predator in its armoured vision slit, burning straight through the high-compound reinforced plasglass and killing the tank’s driver instantly. The Predator slewed to the side and struck a Rhino, half spinning it, before ploughing up a bank of marble stairs and ramming into a wall. The tank’s turret started to turn, but a well-aimed missile hit the Predator’s exposed rear. There was a muted explosion and smoke and flames began pouring from inside, and the turret froze.
No more than two metres from Sabtec, a warrior dropped without a sound as a result of sniper fire, half his helmet blowing out in a blossoming cloud of blood. Sabtec ditched the lascannon and threw himself to the side as a Rhino, an immense dozer blade painted in yellow and black chevrons affixed to its front, ploughed towards him. Bolts and autocannon rounds pinged off the thick protective dozer blade, and the APC drove straight through the balustrade, debris, chunks of masonry and fallen statues smashed out of its path.
Side hatches slammed open and enemy Astartes leapt out, bolters barking. A shot took Sabtec in the side of the head, obscuring his vision as sparks and smoke filled his helmet. Firing his bolter one-handed, he ripped his helmet off, and the full sound and scent of battle crashed in on him.
Blood was dripping down his face as Sabtec ordered the 13th to reform and fall back now that their defensive position had been compromised. He saw two of his brothers torn to shreds by concentrated bursts of close-range fire, but continued to issue his orders with cool detachment.
“I could really do with that support, First Acolyte,” said Sabtec, calmly.
[Word Bearers 03] - Dark Creed Page 18
