Slayer Lord, Ender of Lives – just two of Dreghgor’s well-earned honorifics.
The warlord watched his champions intently from a pile of ruined stone. Something was still twitching beneath him, mewling for a merciful death. He paid it no heed. Let the weak suffer. While the blood flows, Khorne’s will be done.
His warriors fought fiercely, hacking at each other with abandon. Every drop of spilled blood hissed as it touched the unholy circle. Dreghgor saw dark energy coursing through the lines he had carved in the shattered flagstones.
With a grunt, one of the champions severed the head of the other and roared. Though his armour was cut and his body bleeding from countless wounds, the warrior exulted in triumph.
Dreghgor smiled beneath his helm. Khorne would be satisfied. The blood-letting had been prodigious. He turned his gaze upon the shackled sorcerer, who looked on meekly from the opposite end of the arena, caged in an iron gibbet.
The warlord’s eyes burned like balefires, and he nodded.
As the sorcerer began to incant, blood from his ruptured organs flecked the inside of the cage. The victorious champion clutched his chest and went down on one knee.
Vokrhan was a mighty warrior; he would make a strong vessel.
Dark tendrils, like strands of hyperactive electricity, crackled around the circle. When the champion tried to rise, a black bolt felled him. He tried again, and this time the dark energy was more potent. Vokrhan’s roar of triumph had turned into a wail of agony. Despite all of his strength and fortitude, he collapsed and shook.
‘Take his flesh,’ Dreghgor uttered like a curse. ‘Bind it to the engine.’
From below Dreghgor’s ‘throne’ of sundered stone, a suit of dark mechanical armour was wheeled forth by Kharthak the Blood-wrought.
By now the champion’s body was ravaged by daemon-change. Something dark and abyssal had crept into his soul. The essence of the thing manifested in his tortured and mutated flesh. Claws and monstrous faces stretched it as they fought for release, whilst screams heralded every agonised jerk of Vokrhan’s body.
Kharthak released the ribcage of the engine, which sprang opened like a fanged maw. Chains spilled from within like hungry tentacles, driven by a smoke-spewing, oil-spattering device on the back of the armour that also colonised its joints and limbs.
Hooks fashioned at the end of the chains found purchase in the terrified meat-puppet and dragged Vokrhan thrashing into the engine’s iron embrace.
After the ribcage slammed shut with a hard bang, the screaming stopped. A dull glow smouldered in the eyes of the engine’s banded war-helm. Its studded torso, made to resemble bone, heaved as if with a first breath.
Dreghgor leapt from his rocky vantage point and landed in front of it, stone splintering beneath him.
Dominance had always been one of the warlord’s chief credos.
‘Who is your master?’
With a creak of shifting iron, the daemon-engine went down on one knee in front of the warlord and lowered its head.
Dreghgor smiled… then struck it, hard across the temple. Even bowed, the daemon-engine was a head taller than the warlord, but his blow was fearsome enough to send it reeling to its feet and back a step.
Its eyes flared with red-hate and an array of weapons – sharp, spiked and bladed things, festooned with chains and dripping oil – snapped from its arms, greedy for blood. Dreghgor fed it his rage and his fury, it boiled within him like a tempest. He sensed the thing that had hollowed out his champion’s corpse for its own, slaved to the engine. It struggled against its bonds. Let slip, it would devour him and all of his warriors.
Dreghgor liked that. The daemon-engine would cause such carnage. His smile became a snarl.
‘Slay our enemies. Bleed them. Bring me what I seek.’
The streets of Sepulchre IV were drowning in blood. Ecclesiarchy troops lay tangled in the rubble like broken alabaster dolls. Survivors fell back by degrees, sloshing through vital fluids and avoiding the corpses choking up the once proud avenues.
Despite their defiance, the shrine world’s defenders were wilting before the Chaos battalions. The Battle Sisters were losing. Several combat squads were trying to hold their ground in Unity Square of Monast, Sepulchre’s capital. All other cities had been evacuated or overrun. Here in Monast, the Red Rage fell hardest. Here in Monast they bracketed the defenders’ escape routes, destroyed the bridges before reinforcements could be brought in and ensured dominance of the blood-soaked skies. Here in Monast they sought something, a relic to satisfy their warmongering god. The Red Rage surrounded the convent-bastion but, as of yet, hadn’t broken through.
But time, Tsu’gan was acutely aware, was running out.
‘Enhance magnification.’
The image resolved itself in his occulobe.
A bare-headed Battle Sister was holding her power sword aloft, rallying the troops when she took a round to the neck. She fell seconds later as the mass-reactive shell exploded, staining her skull-white armour crimson.
Sustained bolter fire met her demise.
Tsu’gan was reluctantly impressed. The Battle Sisters had adopted a long firing line and kept it steady in spite of casualties. He watched another sister superior step into the dead one’s place and try to anchor the defenders.
No war cries, nor screams. It was… unnerving. At first, Tsu’gan thought it was pique at having to call on the Adeptus Astartes to retrieve their holy artefact. Now, he wasn’t so sure. The Battle Sisters were almost automatons.
A few shattered rockcrete barricades and a pair of half-destroyed tanks stood between them and the enemy. Red Rage Traitor Marines, their power armour baptised in arterial blood, wielding bolt guns and chainblades came at them in a mob. Cultists, those they had brought upon their graven ships and desperate converts, former natives now driven insane by the carnage, ranged ahead of them like pack dogs.
Tsu’gan sneered contemptuously.
Weak.
++Your orders, brother-sergeant?++ Ankar’s voice came across the comm-link.
The Firedrakes were a hundred metres or so from the battle-site, having penetrated Unity Square, and approached down its flank. They could avoid this fight, continue on to the convent-bastion and the mission.
Praetor ignited his thunder hammer. Energy crackled along the head and haft, stirring the weapon’s machine-spirit.
‘Combat formation.’
Tsu’gan rejoiced. Battle at last!
As the Firedrakes advanced, a missile scudded overhead and tore apart one of the immobilised tanks. It detonated the fuel reserves, slinging the warrior-maiden who’d been firing its turret-mounted heavy bolter to the ground where she lay bleeding.
Flamers were brought up, and bathed the onrushing Red Rage with super-heated promethium. The cultists died immediately, like pathetic candles withered by a blow-torch. The Traitor Marines were not so easily felled. One collapsed to a knee, shimmering in the heat haze, his armour wreathed by fire, but the others drove through it. Emerging from the smoke, they looked like daemons born from the fiery hells of the warp. Tendrils of licking flame trailed off their battle-plate.
Chainblades screeching for blood, the Red Rage were about to tear into the Battle Sisters when a second flamer blast smashed into them from the flank, spilling bodies unprepared to meet it.
‘Into the fires of battle!’ Praetor thundered towards the Traitor Marines like an armoured bull.
Tsu’gan was behind him. He felt the resonance of his heavy footfalls through his armour, and those of Kai’ru and Ankar, either side. Gathimu was at the rear, slow enough to scorch the Red Rage with his heavy flamer. Tsu’gan felt him too, saw his ident-rune on the grainy tac-display imposed on his helmet lens.
Advance three steps – fire. Advance three steps – fire.
Gathimu was unfaltering.
Running in Terminator armour was difficult, but not impossible. Unused to the manoeuvre, Tsu’gan found his enhanced physiology stretched but he soon compensated. His
breath sounded harsh and reverberant inside his helmet. The enemy were getting closer through the yellow-orange optic lenses.
A spray of blood cascaded from the shattered skull of a Traitor Marine as Praetor connected with his thunder hammer. A second red slash tore from the warrior’s stomach as the Salamanders sergeant used his storm shield to open him up.
Tsu’gan triggered his storm bolter, the hard crash-bang staccato that followed filled his heart with righteous anger.
‘In Vulkan’s name! Glory to Prometheus!’ He strafed a fresh line of cultists rushing to intercept the Salamanders.
The Terminators barrelled through them like they were nothing. One crumpled against Ankar’s armoured bulk. Another disappeared in a visceral mist, torn apart by Kai’ru’s chainfist.
Ahead of them, the Battle Sisters were rallying. But further enemy forces were coming, Havoc squads armed with heavy weapons and a Rhino APC carrying another battle squad. A wall of fire whickered from their ranks. It pinged off the invulnerable Terminators but scythed into the Battle Sisters brutally. Bodies were spun and tossed by the fusillade. They fell in silence despite their wounds.
A trio of Ecclesiarchy tanks rolled up the street to meet the enemy’s secondary force, two Battle Sisters squads running alongside them. Unity Square was packed with troops. A short range fire-fight had erupted across a small patch of open ground. Frantic melta beams stabbed across the debris, generators screaming. Heavy bolters added a grunting chorus to the orchestra of war.
The skirmish was escalating.
In the middle of the storm, the Firedrakes met the enemy proper.
Cracking ceramite, the sound of sundered power armour, accompanied Tsu’gan’s bludgeoning of one of the Traitor Marines. Another came in his wake, firing his combi-bolter point blank into the Salamander’s torso. Tiny insect-like stings were no more than an annoyance.
Tsu’gan’s power fist crushed him into paste.
Buoyed by the sudden appearance of heavily armoured reinforcements, the Battle Sisters advanced beyond their barricades to link up with the Space Marines. Gathimu had reached his battle-brothers too, and sent a plume of burning promethium into the Chaos Rhino. Destroyed tracks and a badly scorched hull brought the vehicle to a skidding halt.
Keeping up the pressure, Gathimu engulfed the stricken Rhino. Smoke-shrouded figures stumbled from its hatches, before the hold ignited and blew out the rear door in a deep foom of exploding incendiary.
The muzzle-flare from Tsu’gan’s storm bolter lit up his armour in a stark glow. Already ablaze, the Traitor Marines from inside the vehicle bucked and spasmed against the bolt storm. Three survived, staggered by shell impacts but unbowed in their durable power armour.
Praetor’s thunder hammer showed no such mercy as he waded in and crushed them.
Emboldened, the Battle Sisters advanced ahead of the more cumbersome Terminators to establish a fresh strong-point beyond Unity Square. Further squads were moving in from the avenues of broken temples and collapsed spires. Rubble provided a natural cordon in which to funnel the Chaos renegades.
Tsu’gan noticed the sister superior he’d seen earlier give a curt nod of thanks to his sergeant before pressing on.
Praetor’s voice rumbled over the comm-link a moment later.
++Fire-born, converge on my position.++
A series of affirmation runes flashed up on Tsu’gan’s helmet lens as the squad tightened its coherency.
++Do we advance?++ Kai’ru sounded eager for more.
He wasn’t alone. Tsu’gan was getting ready to head after their allies when Praetor spoke again.
++Hold position.++
++Brother-sergeant–++
Gathimu cut Tsu’gan off before he made a mistake he’d regret.
‘Be patient, brother. This isn’t over yet.’
Tsu’gan followed his eye-line. A pair of Immolator battle tanks spearheaded the Ecclesiarchy counter-assault. Their inferno cannons were short-ranged but deadly. Shooting gouts of intense fire ahead of them, they laid a path for the warrior-maidens behind. Some rode inside the Rhino APC that followed. Others hung onto its outer rails, holding their bolters one-handed.
Tsu’gan’s eyes narrowed. His occulobe filtered out smoke graining and sharpened the image despite the distance and the heat haze. Something was coming, heralded by a squall of blood-crazed cultists. What was left of the Havocs and the few Traitor Marines from the battle squads retreated to consolidate with it.
++Massive heat signature, brother-sergeant.++ Gathimu was calm, the blind sword of utter stillness to Tsu’gan’s font of reckless anger.
++I read++
Threat icons in Tsu’gan’s helmet array flashed insistently.
++Looks like some sort of machine. Dreadnought?++
Tsu’gan locked onto it with his targeter. His tac-display spooled down the metres rapidly.
It was speeding up, and no Dreadnought.
Ankar cranked fresh rounds into his storm bolter. ++An Adeptus Astartes?++
A dense but distant thunk of metal against metal arrested Praetor’s reply. A dark shape was crashing out of the sky towards the Firedrakes. It took Tsu’gan a few seconds to realise it was one of the Immolators.
They were already moving when Praetor bellowed. ++Disperse!++
A hunk of flaming tank landed between them, like so much burning shrapnel. It had literally been torn apart.
++Forward on me, brothers!++ Praetor circled the wreck quickly, overcoming the weight of his armour with sheer strength.
Tsu’gan was first behind him, but Praetor already had a lead. ‘What is that thing?’
It resembled a suit of mechanised armour, a simulacrum of a man, something that might once have been part of the long defunct Legio Cybernetica. And though it had pistons and cogs, wheels and chains, and vented steam and oil like a mag-lev train, it was no robot. Something lived and drew breath in those dark iron confines. Tsu’gan felt it.
‘Unnatural…’ Gathimu sounded almost haunted. ‘It’s possessed.’
Tsu’gan’s teeth clenched. It was a daemon that had a hand in the death of his former captain, Ko’tan Kadai. His ire grew as he vowed this one would be banished back into the warp without taking anyone with it.
A short distance away, the Battle Sisters were levelling everything they had at it. Bolter fire, even melta blasts rolled off like they were nothing. Another Immolator crumpled like parchment when the daemon-engine shoulder-barged its hull. Fuel and ammunition exploded in a vast fireball that Tsu’gan felt in the resulting heat wash.
‘Emperor’s name… It’s strong.’
Praetor was swinging his thunder hammer in a slow but steady arc. ++We are stronger.++
The daemon-engine was relentless. It tossed Battle Sisters like limp marionettes. White-armoured bodies fell like rain, eviscerated by its blades and saws.
Tsu’gan heard Praetor mutter when the Firedrake’s charged.
++Vulkan guide me in my hour of doom.++
Up close, the daemon-engine was massive. It reeked of blood and oil. Smoke and heat exuded off its dark iron flesh in a pall. But it was the eyes that Tsu’gan really noticed. With every blow, as the carnage increased, they blazed brighter with a malign light.
Praetor swung. It was like lightning from the sky when he struck. Tsu’gan expected to see the daemon-engine crumble but instead his sergeant’s battle cry became a roar of agony as he was punched off his feet several metres through the air.
To see the mighty Praetor so humbled made the Firedrakes falter.
Kai’ru recovered quickest, getting ahead of Tsu’gan to ram his chainfist into the daemon-engine’s torso.
‘Taste Vulkan’s wrath, warp spawn.’ The oath died on his lips when one of the thing’s hell-blades punctured his Terminator armour as if it were tin. With his aegis broken, Kai’ru could only watch as the saw-teeth churned his innards to mulch.
Gathimu was advancing fast, Kai’ru’s name a cry of anguish on his lips. The igniter on his heavy fl
amer was already burning when the daemon-engine levelled its wrist-mounted cannon and unloaded. Dozens of armour-piercing shells, jacketed with hellfire, peppered his armour and detonated the promethium tanks on his back.
Blinded by the sudden explosion, Tsu’gan waited a few seconds before his occulobe implant compensated. Gathimu was burning.
++Ankar.++
The other Firedrake nodded. They would attack the daemon-engine together. Tsu’gan’s tac-display recorded five metres until engagement when a transmission icon flashed urgently on his helmet lens. It had an Imperial signature, emergency coded. The message spooled as rune-text across the display:
Incoming. Fall back five metres and stand fast.
A high-pitched whine broke overhead. No time to retreat. Tsu’gan and Ankar locked their bodies as the ordnance hit. It struck the daemon-engine squarely and it disappeared in a storm of fire and shrapnel.
The explosion billowed outwards, engulfing the Terminators who weathered the blast like a cliff against the tide. When the dust dispersed, the daemon-engine was crouched almost fifty metres away but still intact. It rose slowly. Its dead eyes blazed brighter.
Behind the Salamanders, Ecclesiarchy troops were advancing in force. A stern-faced sister superior appeared from the roof hatch of an Exorcist. It looked more like a grotesque church organ than a battle tank, but there it was, auto-loaders priming for another missile launch.
Another pair of Immolators flanked it, heavy bolter turrets rattling. High velocity, mass reactive shells stitched a thick line all the way to the daemon-engine. The dense impacts never even scratched it. The tanks rolled on past the Salamanders, determined to block it. Two Rhinos sped after them, fully loaded with engines screaming.
‘See to your battle-brother.’ Praetor was on his feet. His battle-helm was shattered and he’d torn it off. He was bloodied, still groggy from the blow. It was incredible he lived, let alone stood.
Praetor scowled when it didn’t happen immediately. ‘Get Gathimu up.’
Hammer and Bolter 22 Page 9
