The Beast Arises

‘Yes.’ Across the command network, Koorland sent the order. ‘To all Imperial forces, the enemy’s defeat is at hand. Withdraw from the rift. But keep the orks contained.’ Switching to the squad channels, he said, ‘To the tunnels, brothers. To the tunnels.’

The brothers of the Last Wall fought their way back through the cauldron of orks, staggering up the slope. The land was a sea in storm. Chunks of the cliffs were falling onto the battlefield.

Koorland found he had to put his faith in the orks. He had to hope they had built their wall strong enough to withstand the storm.

‘Take the ground from under them!’ Thane ordered.

The armour of the ork walkers had withstood the fire of the Predators and the missiles of the gunships. The huge skirts of the behemoths were smoking and cratered, but so dense they still had not collapsed to expose the interior. The orks had destroyed two of the Fists Exemplar tanks. The Imperial armour was faster and more manoeuvrable than the greenskin machines, and they stayed close to the enemy, forcing the orks to risk their own destruction in the firing of the huge guns. But when the orks moved back, all it took was a single step, a lucky swing of the arm, and the tanks were exposed.

The earthquakes had begun. They were building. Remaining upright was difficult. Thane would make it even more so for the walkers.

Most of the greenskin infantry was held further into the valley, in the battle with Imren’s regiments. The Fists Exemplar destroyed the foot soldiers who had made it this far. Thane sent half the company downslope to hold back the rest. But the walkers were the problem. They needed to be stopped.

And as the tremors presaged great events to come, a barrier was needed.

The tanks lowered their guns. They blasted the land at the walkers’ feet. The shells dug deep depressions in the already wounded land. New fissures opened, joined, and spread in webs.

The ground heaved. The ground plunged.

And Koorland’s order came.

‘Acknowledged,’ Thane said.

He waited to hear the same from Imren. There was only silence from the general.

The walkers’ steps slowed, then stopped. They stood their ground, immensity holding them in place, while their gigantic arm turrets moved with jerking urgency, their shots coming faster but more erratic.

‘Chapter Master,’ Aloysian called on the feed. He and the rest of Thane’s squad were between the two walkers. The Techmarine pointed to the western monster. A third of the way up the hull, a shell impact had destroyed a gun emplacement and peeled back the piston-raised shutters that protected it.

‘I see it.’ The actual opening was small, the angle unpromising, but it was an opportunity. He eyed the overlapping shields. Their edges would serve. ‘With me, Brother Aloysian.’

They climbed. The rest of the squad provided covering fire as the other shutters opened and the orks rained shots down on the intruders.

Aloysian took the lead, climbing faster with his servo-arms. He and Thane took shots, but there was no evasion to take. It was all Thane could do to hold on to the ledges as the iron wall he climbed rocked and swayed, the operators of the walker struggling to compensate for the upheavals of the tremors.

Higher. Gravity and violent motion tried to throw them to the ground. Slugs slammed into their armour, striking at their gauntlets. Higher. The shattered gun came with reach. Smoke poured from the rent.

With less than two metres to go, a pair of orks appeared in the gap. They turned their shotguns on Thane and Aloysian. The Techmarine responded with his plasma cutter, firing the jet into the brutish faces, burning them off their skulls. The greenskins fell back, and Aloysian climbed in after them. Thane followed.

There was no time for strategy. Koorland’s warning was almost a minute in the past. Thane charged through the narrow passageway leading from the wrecked gun. It led to a network of catwalks and compartments surrounding a shaft where immense pistons and gears formed the mobile skeleton of the walker’s leg. While Aloysian cut cables and breached conduits, Thane hurled krak grenades into the shaft above and below their position. He exhausted his supply and sprayed bursts of shells in all directions. Smaller greenskins panicked. Larger ones died trying to attack. Mass-reactive shells blew apart the supports on the catwalks and they fell into the shaft, tangling gears.

The grenades went off. The damage spread. The machine shook within and without.

The floor tilted.

‘Out,’ said Thane.

The raid had taken thirty seconds.

They ran back to the gun emplacement. They climbed out of the gap, the slope of the walker’s skirt now near vertical. The walker was listing, one leg paralysed, its motion becoming erratic. The behemoth was unstable, and it was still firing. Thane and Aloysian dropped down its side, slowing their fall with quick grabs at ledges for as long as they could, then leaping the last several metres.

They landed on ground whose movement was as violent as the walker’s.