Mechanicum

All his other senses were undimmed. He could feel the nearness of princeps Lamnos's engine, the bite of the dust on Raptoria's hull, and taste the oily, ashen flavour of the wind as it howled around him.

Somewhere out in the dust was the enemy, even if they hadn't been classified as such yet, but Kasim couldn't see them or know how close they were. Such situations were a Titan driver's worst nightmare; that your enemy could be plotting a firing solution without you even knowing he was there.

Kasim knew it was only a matter of time before Mortis and Tempestus drew blood.

The words exchanged between the Stormlord and Camulos at the Council of Tharsis had as good as guaranteed it. Kasim's warrior instinct was to strike the first blow, but he would not disobey a direct order from Princeps Sharaq.

'My princeps!' called Vorich as the ground suddenly shook with a thunderous reverberation. 'Hard returns, dead ahead! Reactor blooms and void signatures!'

'Where in the name of the Machine did they come from?' demanded Kasim. 'Identify!'

'Unknown contact, but it's too big to be a Warhound.'

The vibration of the ground had already told him that this was no Warhound. Too big for a Reaver.

'A Warlord?' responded Kasim, his excitement and fear manifesting in the Warhound's posture as it crouched close to the ground.

'No, my princeps,' said Vorich, staring in horror at the sight emerging from the howling dust clouds.

Kasim felt the chill of its shadow envelop him, and his skin flushed as he saw the enormous engine stride towards them, its every step rocking the very earth with its monstrous tread. A towering fortress of brazen red metal with black and silver etchings moulded on the great bastion towers of its legs, the enormous engine dwarfed the Warhound as a grown man would dwarf a babe in arms.

Arcing battlements crowned its immensity, the colossal, mountainous fortress engine unlike anything Kasim had seen before. He had heard the rumours and looked over the technical specs and blueprints of similar machines, but nothing had prepared him for the awesome spectacle of so gargantuan a war machine in the flesh.

Weapons capable of obliterating cities depended from its wide shoulders and its head was a grinning, horned skull of burnished silver.

'Imperator,' said Kasim.

Princeps Cavalerio scoured the Manifold for information, reading nothing through the barking, squealing hash of scrapcode fouling the airwaves. He could get nothing from Princeps Sharaq and feared the worst. Mortis was on the march, and Cavalerio wondered if Princeps Camulos was about to make good his threat of a coming storm.

His battle group was marching at flank speed towards their fortress and he could feel the ancient heart of Victorix Magna protest at the demands placed upon it. His own heart beat in time with the great machine and he felt a growing numbness spreading through his limbs.

Cavalerio fought against the sensation, willing both his mortal frame and the immortal might of his engine to keep going.

'Do you really think Mortis is about to attack Ascraeus Mons?' asked Moderati Kuyper.

'I don't know,' confessed Cavalerio, their words spoken through the link of the Manifold. 'I believe Camulos wants to drive our Legio from Tharsis, but this seems bold even for him.'

'Then perhaps this is the first strike in a larger war,' suggested Kuyper.

Cavalerio kept his thoughts close, remembering what Camulos had said at the Council of Tharsis.

Sides were being chosen and battle lines drawn all across Mars, and while Cavalerio couldn't bring himself to believe that the Titan orders were about to go to war, this manoeuvre of Mortis seemed deliberately calculated to rouse the ire of Tempestus.

Well, Indias Cavalerio was not about to rise to the bait of this provocation.

'I don't think they will attack,' he said. 'I think they want us to attack them, to fire the first shot so as to justify their retaliation.'

'Our warriors will only fire if they're fired on first,' said Kuyper.

Cavalerio thought of the engine commanders at Ascraeus Mons: Sharaq, Lamnos and Kasim. Sharaq could be trusted to understand the situation, but Lamnos and Kasim?

Their hearts were fiery and warlike, as was expected of Warhound drivers, but where heart and mind were in balance in more experienced warriors, Cavalerio feared what impulsive decisions they might make in the heat of the moment.

'Get me Sharaq's battle group,' he said. 'I need to make sure they know not to fire first.'

'Understood, Stormlord,' said Kuyper, returning his attention to breaking through the interference.

Cavalerio opened the Manifold link to Magos Argyre. 'How long till we reach the Mons?'

'Update: at flank speed, we will be within visual range of Ascraeus Mons in seventeen point four minutes. However, the reactor is running twenty-seven per cent in excess of what I believe it can safely handle at this time.'

'Increase reactor output,' ordered Cavalerio. 'I want us there in less than ten.'