The Beast Arises

Laurentis turned his attention from the dominus and focused on the mountain of lights that denoted the distant ork city, shimmering as though behind a heat haze. Lit from within by innumerable lamps and fires, studded with cannon-encrusted pinnacles and towers, Gorkogrod looked like a massive, squatting beast.

Chapter Ten

Ullanor — Gorkogrod, outer defences

This again? It all resolves the same way, in blood and mayhem and the courageous or lucky surviving to another day.

Can a legend not just stay dead?

A night and a day of relentless fighting meant that Koorland no longer heard the thump of exploding shells and the crackle of bolters and lasguns. He was as deaf to it as the roars and groans of the orks and the growing prickle at the nape of his neck that increased with proximity to the brute-shield.

He vaulted over the broken remains of a courtyard wall, landing messily in the bolt-ruined corpses of the orks that had been defending the barrier a minute earlier. Thane and his Fists Exemplar moved through the rubble to either side. Lascannon and autocannon fire flared and shrieked overhead from the Land Raiders and Predators pushing up behind the Space Marines’ thrust. Further out, companies from the rest of the multi-Chapter taskforce speared into the desolation unleashed by the big guns of the Astra Militarum and the bombs of the Navy.

The setting sun carved stark shadows from the jutting remnants of walls and stairwells, the heaps of collapsed roofs, making dark pits of exposed cellars and sub-levels.

A distinct crack sounded through the din of other battle noise, sharper than thunder, longer than the report of a cannon. An instant later a bolt of red flew past the advancing Space Marines, striking a Crimson Fists Predator. The blast passed through the turret armour, leaving a neat hole. Its exit through the engine block was far more explosive, turning fuel and batteries into an incendiary blast that shot out ten metres, scattering flaming shrapnel.

In seconds the other vehicles returned fire, tracing the trajectory of the attack to an armoured bunker that squatted over the ruins on an outcrop of bomb-cratered rock. Lascannon beams and shells ricocheted harmlessly from a gleaming wall of energy that sprang into life around it.

The squads pushed on, concentrating their bolter fire on the orks still holding the ruins ahead. Corkscrewing rockets and rapid-fire bullets whined out of the dust clouds in reply.

The ork gun fired again, this time slashing through the frontal armour of a Vindicator tank that had been crawling forward, its demolisher cannon intending to breach the gates of the fortifications guarding the gun tower. The muzzle flare of smaller weapons sparkled along revetments and from firing slits, the fusillade lashing down at the brightly-armoured warriors pushing through the smoke and rubble.

‘We cannot afford to lose more armour!’ Quesadra’s vox-carried assessment was as accurate as it was brief.

‘Air support?’ suggested Thane. ‘Knights?’

‘Anti-air batteries still active,’ replied Koorland. ‘The Knight battalions are supporting the western flank. Analysis has revealed a weakness in the orks’ chronobiology. They seem to be more sluggish around twilight. We need to be at the shield-line by dusk. We’ll have to do this ourselves.’

A shadow swallowed Koorland as Vulkan caught up with him. The primarch paid no attention to the weapons fire exploding all around them, turning his helmeted head left and right as he surveyed the scene.

‘Armoured gate, Lord Commander,’ Vulkan told Koorland. Bullets skipped from his plastron and shoulder pauldrons as he raised to point a little to the right.

Koorland looked, magnifying his suit’s auto-senses. Through the swirl of grime and smoke he could see the portal, hidden between two craggy outcrops surrounded by mounds of broken masonry and tangled metal.

The ork emplacement fired again, turning a second Predator to slag and broken armour plates.

‘We must pull the armour back, brother-commander,’ said Thane, coming up from behind Koorland, two squads of Fists Exemplar with him.

‘Vehicle support, withdraw five hundred metres,’ Koorland announced over the vox. ‘Devastator squads attend for new orders.’

Bohemond arrived out of the battle fog moments later, leading nearly two hundred black-armoured Space Marines — his personal guard bolstered by warriors drawn from other companies. He did not pause but broke out of the ruined buildings across the square beyond, into the teeth of the ork defensive fire. Several of his Space Marines fell to a converging storm of heavy weapons fire, yet the High Marshal’s warriors gained ground quickly and took up firing positions from which they could target the orks ringing the hill-bunker.