W
ar drums pounded
on an arid breeze, increasing in intensity as they signalled another ork assault. The warboss thumped its muscle-slabbed chest with a drawn chainblade, bellowing and roaring its warriors into frenzy. The greenskins' chants built with a rhythmic cadence, reaching a natural peak when they charged again. This time the warboss entered the fray itself and committed all of its tribes to the attack. Like a dark green tsunami, the greenskins rolled off the ridgeline and down into the ash basin. As they hit the bottom, the orks overcame inertia and barrelled headlong towards the wall at speed. They moved as one, the faster trucks and wagons slowing to the pace of the greenskin foot sloggers, denying their urge to go faster in favour of shielding their brethren behind the mobile barricades offered by the vehicles. Even the reckless bikers held their nerve, impelled by the warboss who rode amongst them on a massive, smoke-spewing trike.
Bolter fire barked from the walls, lighting up the gloom of the unnatural eclipse. Missiles sped outwards on streamers of white smoke, whilst the incandescent beams of multi-meltas speared the darkness and caused blossoms of fire to erupt in the shadows. The orks absorbed the terrible punishment and just kept going. Hundreds died in the punitive barrage, but thousands struck the wall and the iron fortress seemed to groan with their sudden weight.
Captain N'keln raised his gore-drenched power sword for all to see. It was a weapon wielded by a hero and a rallying symbol. N'keln understood that now and had accepted his heavy mantle, just as Tu'Shan knew he would.
'Fire-born,' he called across the comm-feed, a few minutes before the orks struck. 'Stand ready. The beast comes. Now we shall remove its head!'
Cheers echoed into the courtyard below, where Tsu'gan waited impatiently at the gate. Techmarine Draedius had repaired it from the orks' earlier assault and a cohort of almost forty Salamanders clustered behind it.
Tsu'gan was on one flank of the
just behind the Land Raider's deadly side sponson. Though he couldn't see them with the massive assault tank in the way, he knew Praetor and the Firedrakes waited on the opposite side. Tsu'gan could feel the electricity of their thunder hammers charging the air. The scent of ozone prickled his nostrils and he focused on it in order to clear his thoughts. Soon they would be free; free of the traitor bastion's malign influence. For Tsu'gan and his squad, it couldn't come soon enough. Each was as eager as their sergeant to leave its confines and embrace true battle on the field. Only Iagon appeared subdued.
Upon ending contact with Agatone at the
Captain N'keln had thinned down the troops on the walls.
Tsu'gan's and Typhos's squads were redeployed with the other reserves in the courtyard. Though any details of the plan with Agatone were kept to N'keln himself, it was obvious to Tsu'gan that they would soon be sallying out.
Chaplain Elysius thought so too. He was standing next to Tsu'gan, having joined his squad, and ignited the crozius arcanum clenched in his black, gauntleted fist.
'This day we anoint the ash with greenskin blood,' he snarled, 'and scourge the taint of xenos from Scoria.'
The sounds of close combat filtered down to them from above. The orks had met the wall and were assaulting. Nothing came from the gate, save for the muffled din of explosions and battle cries.
flamestorm cannons rotated meaningfully before it. Tsu'gan guessed this was the reason for the greenskins eschewing the main route into the fortress.
'You'll still burn,' he hissed beneath his breath, and listened to the static crackle down the comm-feed.
N'keln's order would unleash them into the enemy.
'Come on…' Tsu'gan muttered, gripping his bolter as if it was an ork's neck.
D
ak'ir crouched in
the darkness of the tunnels. Ahead of him came the echoing screech of the chitin-beasts, followed by the roar of Ba'ken's heavy flamer. The flare of fire lit the Salamander's imposing silhouette, roughly fifty metres in front, as he corralled the creatures with careful bursts.
Illiad hunkered down beside Dak'ir with fifty of his men. He huddled a lasgun close to his chest and watched the driven chitin intently as they became lost in the darkness.
The scent of something sharp and acerbic bit at Dak'ir's enhanced senses. It was pungent, sulphurous and held the trace of a lingering memory. It put him in mind of smoke and cinder…
'How close are we to the mines from here?' he asked Illiad.
Illiad shook his head. 'Not very,' he said. 'The mines are much closer to the core and several kilometres distant.'
'Distant enough so as not to hear the battles above us?'
'Definitely. The rock face is shored up by reinforced struts and metal plating to keep out the chitin. It also insulates the mining chamber against ambient sound. In any case, they are far from here.'
Yet the acerbic tang remained.
Illiad's expression suggested he craved an answer.
Dak'ir wasn't about to give it to him. Instead, he signalled the advance.
The Salamanders at the
only had four squads at their disposal. The Thunderfire cannons were ill-suited to close assault warfare and so stayed behind in a small concession by Agatone to help protect the crash site. The rest were divided up into combat squads; with injuries some were only four men strong. Settlers accompanied them, both as guides and reinforcements. With their help, the Salamanders had found the chitin burrows swiftly and set about stirring their nests.
As Dak'ir moved, he heard the ruckus of battle above them like muted thunder. It was getting closer all the time.
T
he wall was
in danger of being overrun. Even the Devastators, aloft in the high towers, were coming under pressure. They targeted the orks assailing the fortress directly now, going to their bolters and ignoring the distant wagons and trucks that jostled their way from the back of the horde. Desultory cannon fire from the far off vehicles carrying most of the greenskins' heavy guns occasionally raked the parapet but was mercifully ineffective.
A rocket exploded overhead, showering Tsu'gan's armour with debris. He half-glimpsed snarling ork faces through the tiny fissures in the makeshift gate. Still they refused to assault it. All their efforts were bent against the wall. The pressure there was building to breaking point. Tsu'gan's battle- brothers were holding on tenaciously, heaving orks bodily into the green surf pounding against the foot of the wall below. The bite of chainswords ringed the air in a churning chorus. On the opposite side, the wrecked corpse of a Salamander crashed down into the courtyard. It was Brother Va'tok, his power armour cloven, battle-helm staved in by an ork mace. The dead Salamander's fingers were still twitching in his gauntlets when Fugis rushed forwards to extract Va'tok's geneseed.
Tsu'gan raged at the death. It took all of his willpower not to turn around and
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