The Beast Arises

The shadow of Ardamantua fell on him. Though he marched up the slope, though he weathered the shots scoring and pitting his armour, though he led an attack that was still disciplined, still coherent, still powerful, he felt the sickening knowledge of imminent disaster.

It was Hemisphere who first saw what was coming. It was his voice that became the messenger of doom.

‘Chapter Master! Major ork forces closing from the east and west!’

Uphill, the ork cannons paused for a moment. Wind cleared the smoke, and Koorland could see the scale of the counter-attack.

No, not a counter-attack. A trap.

To the left and to the right, armies fully as large as the one to the north closed in.

An ocean of savagery came to drown the Imperial machine.

Six

Caldera — Laccolith

Smoke. Fire. Volcanic rock turned into a shrapnel whirlwind. Crashing waves of xenos muscle, blades and rifle fire. The slope caught in a hurricane of war. Directions becoming meaningless. The world disintegrating, reduced to the clamour of violent death. The vox a torrent from all the elements of the strike force.

‘Heavy weapons hitting us from the west…’

‘… the east, the east, the east…’

‘… suppressive fire on those tanks…’

‘… pushing us back…’

‘… maintain formation or I’ll shoot you myself…’

‘… consolidate Dunecrawler line…’

‘… lost…’

‘… close that gap, by the Throne, close—’

The screams of dying mortals. Chattering binharic dissolving into feedback whines. The grim calm of battle-brothers falling into sudden silence.

The choir of disaster.

The Last Wall closed ranks. The company became a ceramite barrier. Bolter shells and streams of flaming promethium slammed against the orks, exploding and incinerating flesh. At the northernmost tip of the Imperial advance, Koorland’s veterans held the ork infantry at bay.

‘They will not pass, Chapter Master,’ Eternity promised.

‘It is we who must pass,’ Koorland said. ‘Artillery,’ he voxed, ‘sustained fire to the north. All other forces, protect the artillery. We must advance!’ Their goal was almost in sight, beyond a few more ridges.

But the upper slope was hidden by ceaseless explosions. The fury of the Imperial guns thinned the ork infantry. The small-arms fire coming from the heights diminished. But the salvoes of the ork cannons were unceasing. Greenskin heavy support from the east and west now bombarded the slopes.

On the Imperial flanks, the ork infantry crashed against the Imperial forces. They broke the charge of the dragoons. Lumbering monsters in thick plate armour hurled their bulk against the legs of the Ironstriders. They toppled the steeds, then fell on the riders with power claws and killsaws, crushing metal, tearing flesh.

Skitarii could still bleed.

‘Gunships,’ Koorland called, ‘we need those artillery placements taken out.’

‘We are attacking,’ Hemisphere replied. ‘Their anti-aircraft fire is much stronger than we supposed. Two Xiphon interceptors and a Thunderhawk already lost.’

Koorland cursed. He marched forwards into the roiling flames. Overhead, eradicator beams lanced at the enemy as the Dunecrawlers manoeuvred through the Astra Militarum and skitarii infantry. The energy vanished into the maelstrom before him.

The Last Wall’s line advanced. The battle-brothers on the flanks held back the rampage of the ork infantry. Faster than they died, the greenskins kept coming, wave after wave. They ran over their dead and stormed through the explosions. In the brute savagery of the charge, Koorland saw a dual threat. Beyond the sheer power of the massed attack, it was also the reason humanity underestimated the greenskins again and again. This way of war was barely beyond the animal. It was what he would have expected of a pack of saurians. There was no way these savages could be capable of complex strategy.

No way they could have outwitted and outfought and humiliated the Imperium again and again.

No way they could have destroyed an entire Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes.

No way they could have trapped the strike force. Not when he had already witnessed their capabilities. Not when he knew better.

The taste of failure was bitter. The taste of shame was ash. Koorland swallowed them both. He gave himself to rage. He would not let the mission fail.

He marched into the vortex. There was no other option. There was no other path open. No choice.

He advanced as though will alone would defeat the reality before him.

It was like walking on the surface of a sun. Solid ground was an illusion. Koorland walked into eruption, into the kinetic fury of war embodied.

He was that fury too. He was the vengeance and the justice of the Imperial Fists. He was the Emperor’s war given flesh. He roared his challenge to the enemy.

The storm of war answered him with its greater voice. It mocked him. It hurled him back.