The Beast Arises

He looked up to see a massive platform floating impossibly over the ruined skyline, a hundred-metres-long oblong slab that gleamed with jade energy. On its back it carried five metal towers, and struts like gangplanks jutted from every level.

The hovering fortress slid to a halt a hundred metres above Bohemond’s force. Lascannon blasts from the Land Raiders flickered from its shimmering field. A circle opened in the centre of the bizarre engine, flaring with paler green light. A disc of energy descended from the opening, a crowd of heavily armoured orks clustered on the pulsing light as though it was a solid thing.

The Black Templars opened fire, bolters and heavy weapons strafing back and forth across the extending cylinder of light. From towers atop the construct emerged more armoured foes, the spark of power weapons and plasma chambers stark against the darkness of the flying keep. Brighter flares lit the sky as the orks jumped, falling down towards the Black Templars with green bursts of fire from their flight packs.

The drop-troops landed first, crashing into the Space Marines with bursts of plasma fire and sweeps of wickedly serrated power axes. Eddarin launched himself at them, several squads following his counter-attack.

The Black Templar hammered his chainsword against the raised power fist of a greenskin. His cry was of joy more than surprise. ‘It’s raining orks!’

If any servant of the Omnissiah or Emperor had doubted that the final battle for Gorkogrod had begun, those doubts were drowned by the growl of engines, the pounding of terrible cannons and the bellows of ten thousand gigantic mega-armoured orks.

The main cannon of the Dorn’s Ire had run out of shells in the push across the boundary of the brute-shield, and it was reduced to lascannons and bolters against the incoming tide. The same was true of many of the field-legatus’ super-heavy tanks, such had been the need for their guns in the prior days of battle. Normally they would have been resupplied by orbital drops, but any such action had been impossible given the lethality of the anti-orbital defences. Knights and Titans were not so limited, but the engines of the Adeptus Mechanicus were hard-pressed against the fresh surge of ork gargants and stompers.

‘I fear these foes may be the match of us,’ Dorr confided over his secure channel to Dominus Zhokuv. ‘The damage was done with the first blow, and we simply don’t have the guns to face these giants.’

‘Your fear is ill-founded, field-legatus,’ came Zhokuv’s clipped reply. ‘Trust ever in the artifices of the Machine-God to deliver us from harm.’

‘We have already lost one of the Warlords and the other is beset by foes,’ said Dorr.

‘I speak not of Titans, but of a far newer addition to the arsenal of the Machine-God,’ declared the dominus. ‘If you would direct your attention a kilometre to the west…’

Dorr adjusted the auspex and vid-capture feeds to look at where the dominus indicated. Something enormous was advancing slowly through the rubble and shattered walls. It was longer than any of the ork sky-barges, carried on huge track units larger than battle tanks. Much of the superstructure was taken up with an immense cylinder surrounded by building-sized cabins and kilometres of scaffold and walkways.

‘Are those…’ Dorr looked again. ‘Those tracks are from the Praetor Fidelis! What have you done to my Capitol Imperialis, Zhokuv?’

‘The Praetor Fidelis has been given new life in a more functional form, field-legatus,’ crowed Zhokuv. ‘The reactors and tracks were very useful in my grand design. The weapon you might not recognise. We salvaged it from the wreckage of my forge-ship. A plasma accelerator.’

‘You mounted a starship cannon on the bastardised remains of my command vehicle?’ Dorr was not sure whether to cry or laugh. He opted for the latter.

‘Behold the great device of the Omnissiah’s retribution,’ declared Zhokuv. ‘Witness the power of the Machine-God’s wrath. Pay homage to the mysteries of the Cult Mechanicus! Be in awe of the majesty of Ordinatus Ullanor!’

At the conclusion of the dominus’ speech, the newly constructed Ordinatus opened fire. A scintillating stream of plasma blasts erupted from its weapon, striking the closest of the mega-gargants menacing the Imperial lines. Energies capable of overloading the defensive screens of voidships burst through the power fields of the gargant in moments. Energy shields parted in a collapsing shower of red lightning and green flares, the layers of fields evaporating in moments. The final blasts of the salvo tore through the gargant’s plated shell — armour a tenth the thickness of a warship’s hull.

Engines and ammunition detonated inside the brutal machine, scattering tank-sized debris and shrapnel through the mobs of orks marching in its shadow.

One minute and forty-five seconds later the Ordinatus had recharged, its next target reduced to smoking slag by another fusillade of incendiary blasts.