The Beast Arises

Beside him, Clermont was firing his bolter into the ruins on the far side of a collapsed bridge, the rest of the castellan’s squad providing more cover fire. The river that gurgled below was so choked with filth, bodies and debris that it was impossible to tell if it had ever been fresh or was just an exposed sewer. It steamed in the heat of the midday sun.

Just ahead of Bohemond a shell detonated against the remains of the bridge’s arch, showering him with fist-sized chunks of rubble. Stonework swayed and then collapsed, tumbling down the short ravine to dam the river even more.

‘Incoming vehicles,’ warned Brother Derneicht. ‘Multiple sig—’

The auspex-bearer was cut off by a massive tracked battlewagon rearing up over the mounds of rubble beside him, a huge spiked roller turning on arms mounted at its front. The machine slammed down into the rubble, crushing Derneicht and another Black Templar beneath the roller. Pieces of flesh and shattered ceramite flew in all directions as the behemoth churned towards the other squads. It was easily as large as a Land Raider, two turrets flanking a high-sided driver’s cab, their heavy weapons spitting rounds into the Space Marines.

Their engines a higher-pitched scream, three warbikes hurtled over the crest behind the battlefortress, wide-slung chainguns spewing haphazard salvoes. A fourth sped into view, jumping over the ridge. A shot from Clermont took off half the rider’s head and the warbike crashed flaming into the mess of broken masonry.

‘With me! Let not the size of the foe weight your thoughts,’ Bohemond roared, sprinting towards the battlefortress. From a slatted troop compartment behind the turrets, more orks threw stick-bombs at the onrushing Black Templars. Explosions and metal fragments engulfed them, but Bohemond pressed on through the smoke and dust.

He slightly misjudged the position of the battlefortress. It loomed out of the smoke, accelerating hard, just a few metres away. Jump pack flaring, Bohemond leapt, clearing the deadly cylinder. Behind him Brother Cadrallus was not so fortunate, and disappeared beneath blood-slicked, rubble-choked spikes.

Bohemond hewed through the retaining cage of the driver’s armoured cab, peeling back the roof like the lid of a ration tin. The driver looked up, firing a pistol with its free hand, the other chained to a thick-rimmed steering wheel. Bullets cracked from the High Marshal’s faceplate.

The cab was too confined for Bohemond’s blade. He punched down with all of the weight and strength of his battleplate, crushing the ork’s head with a single blow. An axe skittered across Bohemond’s pauldron and he turned, sword licking out instinctively to slash the face of his assailant. The ork fell back with a whine of pain. Other greenskins clambered out of the transport cage, climbing over whirring tracks and spinning turret gears.

With jump packs shrieking more Black Templars arrived, bodily landing on some of the orks, blades and pistols hacking and roaring to cut down others. A particularly well-armoured foe pulled itself out of the turret behind Bohemond and threw itself at him, bearing them both over with its momentum. They rolled twice, metal buckling under their bulk. Bohemond’s hand struck a trembling exhaust stack, jarring his blade from his grip. It dangled over churning treads, linked to his wrist by a length of gilded chain, just centimetres from being drawn into the grinding road wheels powering the track.

Pinning the Black Templar’s other hand beneath its bulk, the ork smashed the haft of its axe into Bohemond’s face, cracking his left eye-lens. It drew its arm back for another blow.

Clermont was there as the axe head reached the apex of its backswing. His armoured boot crashed into the side of the ork, knocking it over. Three rapid rounds from the castellan’s bolter obliterated the alien’s chest, bolts punching through armour to detonate inside the creature’s ribcage.

The battlefortress still careened onwards, the slumped driver’s body taking it in a curve towards the rubble-choked waterway. Drawing up his sword, Bohemond stood. He looked down the ridge from the extra height of the engine deck, to where a pall of smoke and dozens of vague silhouettes betrayed the approach of even more vehicles.

He leapt from the mobile fortress, his battle-brothers following. They landed awkwardly in the hillocks of broken stone and shattered corpses. A few seconds later the ork tank disappeared over the lip of the waterway. The crash of its descent masked the increasing growl of engines drawing closer.