In the distance, something was happening. A thick cloud of dust spewed into the air and Tsu'gan swore he saw a duster of orks disappear below the earth. Bestial screams followed swiftly as the greenskins reacted to something in their midst. On the opposite side of the battlefield, another dust plume spiralled upwards, then another and another. Grey columns of ash were erupting all across the dunes and orks were sinking down into an unseen mire.
Behind him, the
frontal ramp announced N'keln's arrival on the battlefield. Tsu'gan turned briefly to witness the company banner unfurled by Malicant and his captain leading a fresh charge into the enemy with the rest of the Inferno Guard and Brother-Sergeant De'mas.
Turning his attention back on the greenskin machinery, Tsu'gan went in support of Praetor. The Firedrake sergeant faced off against the manic war engine, rebounding a blow from one its power claws with his storm shield. The ork pilot had overreached itself and was off balance. Praetor shattered the claw arm with a blow from his thunder hammer, before stepping in heavily to shoulder barge it. The ork pilot flailed at its controls, emulated by the machine itself. Tsu'gan, blindsiding it, ducked beneath a madly swiping claw and attached a melta-bomb to the war engine's body. Throwing himself backwards, Tsu'gan felt the heat of the explosion wash over his armour as the machine burst apart. Chips of debris fell like steel rain, a steaming pair of ruined legs holding up an abdomen of sloughed metal all that remained of the machinery, collapsing onto the ash.
Praetor had withstood the blast and drove on almost instantly, whilst Tsu'gan was still getting to his feet. The intensity of the ork assault was lessening. The guttural cries from those greenskins seemingly swallowed by the dunes were much closer now. At last he saw the cause.
Swarms of enraged chitin were rampaging amongst the horde. The orks hacked away at the carapace bodies of the subterranean creatures, their silt-blood mingling with the ash dunes in a grey soup. Sink holes devoured greenskins by the score, the soft earth, churned up by the chitin, no longer supporting the weight of the orks.
Familiar forms followed in the ash clouds, surging from the emergence holes bolters flaring. Agatone and the Salamanders from the
had joined up with them, driving the chirin before them like cattle to dig their assault tunnels.
Flame bursts spat through the murk, burning down orks in a fire-tinged haze of grey.
Through the dissipating ash cloud and the rampant pull and thrust of warring bodies, Tsu'gan saw an Assault squad crest the edge of a fresh emergence hole. They took to the air immediately, jump packs screaming. Orks were set ablaze in the violent discharge; one stumbled blindly into the gaping chasm made by the chitin and was lost from view.
Then he saw Dak'ir amongst the reinforcements. The Ignean came out fighting, gutting an ork on his chainsword whilst vaporising the snarling head of another with a shot from his plasma pistol. Tsu'gan felt his jaw harden. He was determined not to be outdone. He caught sight of Chaplain Elysius going after Praetor and the Firedrakes. They were headed towards an inexorable confrontation with the ork warboss. Smiling darkly, Tsu'gan followed.
II
Islands of open
ground were appearing in the green sea as Dak'ir led his combat squad up to the surface. Orks still thronged the ash dunes, just as Agatone's scouts had reported, but a single mass had become isolated knots. The coherency alloying the greenskins together was breaking. Survival instincts were overthrowing the desire for conquest, and tribal rivalries, once quashed by their overlord's brute menace, had begun to surface. Infighting ravaged groups of orks at the fringes of the battle, sensing the turn in fortunes and staking early claims of leadership.
'Stay with me, Illiad,' shouted Dak'ir, the flare of his plasma pistol dying down as a headless ork crumpled away from him and the humans reached the surface.
Sonnar Illiad merely nodded. His rugged face was pale, his muscles bunched tight as he gripped his lasgun harder than he needed to. The other settlers were the same. To their credit, they were organised and steadfast, but they had obviously never fought in such a conflict before. For a moment, Dak'ir regretted not opposing their role in the battle in front of Agatone. When a lasgun salvo shredded a mob of onrushing orks, he changed his mind. A man fighting for his home will do so to the death and with all of his resolve. Dak'ir wouldn't deny the settlers that.
Even as the orks broke, Dak'ir saw N'keln bringing the disparate forces of the Salamanders together.
The captain's words returned to him.
'Cleanse and burn,' Dak'ir barked into the comm-feed.
Ba'ken was the first forward from his sergeant's right shoulder, spewing a carpet of fire into the greenskins.
A second burst erupted from the heavy flamer of Venerable Brother Amadeus, who had lumbered from the chitin emergence hole behind them.
'
echoed the Salamander Dreadnought. The dully resonance of its vox-emitter boomed above the roar of the conflagration engulfing the orks.
Scorched earth was all that stood between Dak'ir and the Inferno Guard once the flames had died. Ashen husks broke apart under booted feet as the brother-sergeant sought his captain's side. N'keln was cutting his way through the greenskins with his power sword. Behind him, the company banner was providing a glorious backdrop upheld by Malicant behind him.
ground slowly after them, spitting out plumes of fire and stitching orks with explosive rounds from its assault cannon.
Reunited with his captain again, Dak'ir levelled his chainsword as more orks came at them. 'Forward!'
As more Salamanders fought their way to N'keln, a nexus of strength started to gather.
The anvil was slowly forming. Next would be the hammer.
Dak'ir saw its target through a fiery heat haze.
T
he greenskin warboss
ignored the bickering hordes, intent on the ''tin men'' who had just destroyed its orkoid war machine.
Slewing to a halt, barely a hundred metres away from the advancing Salamanders, the beast bellowed out a challenge. Sitting up in the bucket-seat of its wartrike, the warboss thrust its chin at Praetor.
Tsu'gan reached the veteran sergeant's side in time to hear his order to the Firedrakes.
'Kill it,' he growled.
Praetor was a hero, a veteran of countless battles and campaigns. His personal roll of honour in the Firedrakes was long and distinguished with many kill markings. But he was also a pragmatist
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