The Beast Arises

‘Melta bombs!’ he cried, taking a fist-sized charge from his belt.

The stomper’s main cannon roared again, flame and fury engulfing more of the Space Marines just behind Koorland. His armour registered the wash of heat from the detonation but he ignored the amber warning flashes.

The stomper took a step, exhaust smoke billowing as engines rumbled. It swung its right arm, a wicked chainblade thrice as long as Koorland was tall. The whirring teeth snarled over the Lord Commander’s head. He heard the snap of shattering ceramite and a cry from Quesadra.

Glancing back Koorland saw the blade sweep on and up, bloodied teeth hurling chunks of the bisected Chapter Master across the black granite and vandalised banners. The Crimson Fists shouted their dismay and swore vengeance, the blood of their commander spattered on their armour as they charged the ork engine.

Nearing the stomper, Koorland sheathed his blade and jumped, his fingers finding purchase on the metal belly plates of the ork war machine. The metal clanged around him as others landed on the towering engine, smashing at the armour with power fists and thunder hammers, with the more staccato chime of maglocks as melta bombs were slammed into place.

Koorland pulled himself up a few more metres, to where a viewport was cut into the plates. A diminutive gretchin stared out in horror. He plunged his fist into the war machine’s chest and dragged the creature out of the hole. Activating the melta charge’s timer, he tossed the bomb into the stomper’s interior and pushed away, jumping down to the hall floor.

He had time to glance across the hall, to see Vulkan emerge from the smoking ruins of the other engine, fumes coiling around the glowing head of Doomtremor, his war-plate smeared with oil and alien gore.

The melta bombs detonated in a rippling cascade over a few seconds, turning the stomper’s metal hide into showers of molten drops, slashing through the mechanisms within with blasts of super-heated gas. Fuel stores and ammunition ignited, ripping the stomper apart with secondary detonations. The Space Marines withdrew as jagged debris and burning hunks of ork flesh rained down onto them.

Vulkan was already at the gate, standing before the portal with Doomtremor held aloft ready to strike.

Before he even started to swing his weapon, a line of light appeared between the doors and the portal swung away, opening inwards to the sanctum beyond, flooding the outer hall with bright, pale green light.

Koorland and the others followed the primarch over the threshold, weapons ready. Koorland checked on his small force. About a third had fallen to the stompers’ attack. He could hear fighting from beyond the hall, getting closer. The rearguard was collapsing.

The chamber past the gateway was most definitely a power generator of some kind. Koorland was reminded of the plasma chambers of Imperial fortresses and starships, the walls lined with pipes and crackling cables, in this instance thick bundles of coppery wire strewn like garlands that hissed and sparked with green energy. The air throbbed with latent power. Koorland could feel the vibrations through his armour.

But it also put him in mind of the Ecclesiarchy shrines. Past the mechanical aspects, the walls had the same decorations as much of the rest of the temple-gargant — glyph plates and stark mosaics, painted geometric designs and pictorial murals. The chamber was semicircular, about thirty metres across, the focus of the arrangement an ork idol sitting upon an ornate chair.

The statue was at least ten metres tall, in a square-arched alcove filled with the green light of ork power. Its body was encased in thick layers of plate, intricately wrought and carved with orkish designs. A bull-horned helm with a mock tusked face encased the head. Two claws each the size of a Space Marine rested on the arms of the chair.

‘Master of Terra…’ muttered Odaenathus.

‘Speak not of the Throneworld in this place,’ growled Bohemond. ‘What further mockery is this?’

A plethora of cables hung from the armoured form of the idol, fizzing with power. It was clear that the statue was the centre of the power generation system, though by what means Koorland did not know. He looked to the Rune Priest, Thorild.

‘Is this the centre of the psychic presence?’

‘The power of the waaagh suffuses this place,’ replied the Space Wolf, with some evident effort, his voice strained. ‘It is both the vortex and the sun, the consumer and the creator.’

Koorland looked sharply at the psyker, remembering the ork-possession that had beset some of the other Librarians. The Space Wolf seemed in control of himself, merely being poetic in his choice of words.

‘Let us destroy the reactor and find the Great Beast,’ declared Thane, stepping towards the energy-shrouded god-effigy.

‘Where are you?’ Bohemond called, stalking after the Exemplar. ‘False priest to an artificial god! No Great Beast here, just alien impostors!’