Stormseer - David Annandale Read online

  ‘Understood.’

  Moments later, Temur saw the Thunderhawk Furious Lightning take off from the bastion.

  He switched to a company-wide channel. ‘Brothers,’ he said, ‘we need to strike the enemy armour with a mighty fist. I want the greenskins demoralised and broken. Land Speeders, take the forward tanks. Bikes, the ones to the rear. Assault squad, the central mass. Use the Furious Lightning as our cue. Let’s show them the truth of a sudden arrival.’

  Temur likened the deployment to the snap of a steel-jawed trap. The bikes that had been scything through the ork mass pulled away and rode towards the back of the ork horde. Temur watched the sky, tracking the flight of the gunship. It came in low, screaming the rage of a storm, and unleashed punishment on the orks. The other White Scars attacked at the same moment. Blows from the front, the sides, the rear, and from above. Steel jaws. Snap.

  The Thunderhawk began with its twin lascannons, scorching a furrow through the orks, leading up to the first Battlewagon. Then it switched to its battle cannon. The shell struck the ork machine head-on. The brutes who had been hanging on to the tank’s profusion of metal projections, riding it like ticks, flew away in chunks. Flames erupted from inside, yet the tank kept going, gears screaming against each other. Smoke poured from the front as if the beast were a wounded dragon.

  The orks did not abandon their ride. If it had not exploded, then there was nothing wrong with it. Gunfire stabbed upwards at the Furious Lightning as it passed overhead. Rooftop turrets tracked its flight, but it was already streaking on to its next prey. Its lascannons never stopped firing. Tokhta was going to cut the ork army in half with a line of flame. He loosed Hellstrike missiles at the second Battlewagon, and was on to the next before the rockets struck.

  The hit was perfect. The explosion was massive, engulfing the tank, and then redoubling in force as the vehicle erupted. Fireballs grew out of each other. The orks in the vicinity scattered, burning and howling. Flaming wreckage rained down in a wide area. With it, as if born from the same fire, came the jump-packed assault squad, deploying from the Thunderhawk.

  The White Scars landed in the middle of the orks, justice lashing out from the dark of the night sky. Each warrior killed dozens of greenskins in a wide swath around his landing area, then rose up to come down again, repeated hammerblows striking the orks. Eddies of confusion rippled out from each strike point. The advance was slowing again.

  In the growing disorder, five Land Speeders hit the orks head on. They skimmed barely two metres above the ground, so fast it was as if they were trying to outrace the shells from their heavy bolters. They ploughed more furrows into the ork lines. They decapitated the greenskins who were foolish enough to stand tall and roar a challenge. They closed with the wounded tank with krak missiles from their Typhoon launchers.

  Temur observed the first blows of the steel jaws as he and his bike squads approached the rear elements and the two remaining tanks. He saw the flashes and explosions, and he heard the reports over the vox. He thought, Good, good, good. The orks could throw their heavy armour at them, but the White Scars were still going to smash this assault.

  The bike squads came in from two sides. The ones on the east side were targeting the same tank as the Furious Lightning. Temur led the assault from the west. The twin bolters of the bikes cut a path through the savage masses, heading straight for the tank. The orks responded more quickly, firing back with inaccuracy but wild abandon. Temur jinked the bike left and right. At this speed, riding over bodies, colliding with orks in primitive armour, he risked overturning. He only went faster. With his helmet on, he could not feel the rush of wind against his face, but he saw the smear of enemies falling in his wake, and he felt every jolt and bump of his hurricane ride.

  The Battlewagon was just ahead now. And the Thunderhawk launched more Hellstrikes at the other tank. Another snap of the jaws–

  No.

  At the moment the Furious Lightning fired, the ork machine put on a burst of speed. It surged forwards. The rockets flashed past it, blowing up scores of foot-soldiers behind. For a second, the Battlewagon claimed the initiative.

  A fatal second. The tank’s cannon fired. The exuberant, excessive, overpowered shell struck the gunship’s starboard wing.

  The explosion lit the night, an evil sun. The ablative ceramite armour should have been proof against a single shell. The titanium rolled plates should have held. But it was as if this shell had been blessed by a ravening spirit of war. The wing sheared off. It tumbled end over end to the ground, killing more orks with flames and crushing steel. The Lightning went into a spiral. Its remaining engine roared as Tokhta fought to stabilise the flight.

  There was nothing he could do. The gunship’s death was inevitable. Still, it fought hard against the end. The engine’s howl became a cry for vengeance. Wounded, burning, the Thunderhawk spun around its own axis and slammed to earth in a steep diagonal. The impact was storm and earthquake. The battlefield shook. Flames washed over the orks. As it died, the ship took a phalanx of greenskins with it.

  The final retaliation meant nothing. The orks’ collective shout of celebration was deafening.

  The stern of the Furious Lightning was on fire, but the fuselage was still intact. The Battlewagon closed in.

  No, Temur thought. No, by the winds and by the earth, no! The tide would not turn like this. But there was nothing he could do. He saw only enough of the disaster to know what had happened. He was committed to his own attack, now seconds away.

  ‘Thunderhawk down, providing assistance,’ said a voice over the combat channel. It was Ghazan, leading the western charge.

  ‘Punish the greenskins’ temerity, Stormseer,’ Temur told him.

  ‘I will, khan, and more.’

  Ghazan split up the squad. He and Brother Kaidu veered off towards the fallen gunship while Sergeant Qaraqan led Ulagan and Boralun against the tank. He urged even more speed from his bike. The Thunderhawk was a prone target for the Battlewagon’s giant gun.

  The cannon fired again just before Ghazan reached the Lightning. The shell fell short, but not by much. The blast threw up a cloud of earth that half covered the wreck. Then Ghazan and Kaidu were at the front of the ship, on the port side, opposite the tank’s approach. The nose had dug itself into the ground. The primary access ramp was crumpled and half-buried. There would be no extraction that way.

  ‘Brother Tokhta,’ Ghazan voxed. ‘Are you still with us?’

  Static at first, but then a volley of pained curses.

  ‘Sounds like he is,’ said Kaidu. They dismounted, leaving their bikes close to the fuselage.

  The cannon thundered again, but at a different target. Ghazan heard the stutter of a bike’s bolters. Qaraqan’s attack was under way. The bike weaponry wouldn’t be enough to pierce the tank’s armour, but it was drawing the attention of the ork gunners, buying some time. Only a matter of seconds, though. The crash had killed scores of orks, but their comrades were rushing forwards to swarm over the prize, heedless of the possibility of being blown up by their own armament.

  The secondary access hatch was also inoperable. Ghazan looked at the slope of the ruined bow. ‘Let’s climb,’ he said. He and Kaidu scrambled up. To the north, they were exposed to the Battlewagon’s cannon, but it was still trying to hit closer targets. From the east, west and south, the orks rushed towards the Furious Lightning. A sea of green savagery was coming to drown them. The orks fired as they ran, filling the air with bullets. In less than a minute, the wave would crash against the gunship.

  The Thunderhawk’s forward armourglass windshield had been blown out by the impact. Tokhta was visible inside, pinned by crushed metal.

  ‘How are you faring, brother?’ Ghazan asked over the vox.

  ‘Left arm, leg, and ribs broken,’ the pilot answered. ‘No leverage.’

  Kaidu dropped inside and began hauling the wreckage away. Gha
zan turned to hold back the orks. As he did, he thought through another problem. They could not leave the Furious Lightning to be desecrated by the xenos. He thought of a possible solution. It was lunatic.

  My destiny lies elsewhere, he thought. So this will certainly work. He didn’t think anyone else would appreciate the humour. He barely did himself.

  ‘Can you ride, brother?’ he asked Tokhta. His staff in one hand, he opened fire with his bolt pistol with the other, blasting at the orks that came near his and Kaidu’s bikes. He ignored the ones on the other side of the gunship for now.

  ‘If I can breathe, I can ride.’

  Good. ‘Are there any jump packs aboard?’

  ‘In the troop compartment, yes.’

  ‘Brother Kaidu, I’ll need one.’ He maglocked the pistol, pulled a frag grenade from his belt and tossed it into the horde. The explosion hurled broken orks into the air. He had the pistol back in hand and was firing again before the bodies landed. Corpses accumulated in a semi-circle around the bikes. The greenskins on his side of the Thunderhawk slowed down and started shooting at him. Their bullets were no match for his armour. But behind these orks came their slower, larger, more heavily-armoured brothers.

  ‘Is that wise, Stormseer?’ Kaidu asked.

  ‘No, but it is necessary. Do hurry.’

  A massive ork in clanking armour leapt up onto the Lightning’s nose. It took a bolter shell in the chest. The hit damaged the armour, but the ork kept coming, its forward momentum unaffected. Ghazan blinked at the greenskin’s strength. He had never seen an ork able to shrug off a bolter’s impact quite so easily.

  It swung a huge chainaxe at him. He took a step back, and the axe went wide. Its head was so heavy that the ork’s swing threw it off balance for a moment. Ghazan raised his staff high. The eye sockets of the horse skull on its end glowed with the fury of Chogoris, and the winds of the White Scars home world rushed out from his being. They knocked the ork off the gunship, then raged to the ground below, hurling the attackers back.

  Ghazan reached into the spirit of the moon itself. He touched its elemental strength. He spoke to it with the voice of Chogoris entwined with his own. Cast these vermin away, he said. Scour them from your surface.

  The winds shrieked with anger. They flattened the orks and bowled them over, clearing the area around the two bikes by a dozen metres on all sides. Ghazan held the orks at bay. He pinned them to the ground with the moon’s howl.

  Frothing with rage, the biggest of the orks were already pushing themselves up. Then the Battlewagon’s cannon thundered again, and this time it hit very close to the flank of the Furious Lightning. The gunship shook hard. It broke Ghazan’s concentration, and he lost his link to the moon and his home world.

  Behind him, Ghazan heard Kaidu climb out of the cockpit, then pull Tokhta up. Ghazan turned. ‘You have seconds to get clear,’ he said. He took the jump pack Kaidu handed him.

  Kaidu nodded. Tokhta said, ‘My thanks, Stormseer.’

  Supported by Kaidu, the pilot slid to the ground. He slumped over Ghazan’s bike, but managed to start it unaided. Tokhta opened up with his bike’s twin bolters, pushing the orks back again, giving Kaidu the seconds and space he needed to start the run. Then they rode off, smashing through the greenskins, crushing them beneath their wheels.

  On the starboard side of the Thunderhawk, the tank was closing in. It had been slowed by the other White Scars, but they hadn’t been able to cripple it. The ship was surrounded by orks racing with each other to claim the prize.

  Ghazan had the jump pack on now. ‘Pull back,’ he voxed to the squad. ‘I have this.’

  He dropped into the cockpit. Despite the damage, the control surfaces were still more or less intact. He drove his fist into the panelling until he had punched a hole through, then peeled the metal back, exposing the wiring. He was no Techmarine, but he murmured a prayer of apology to the ship’s mortally wounded machine-spirit. He asked it to accept what he was about to do, and act as he hoped it would.

  The orks were on top of the nose now. Two were fighting with each other over which would have the privilege of entering the cockpit first. Ghazan shot them both. He grabbed the shattered windshield frame and hauled himself out. He looked down at the wiring, fixed its position in his mind, and triggered the jump pack. He shot into the air as the tank drew up beside the Furious Lightning. He kept looking downwards, visualising the cockpit, as he reached out once more to the elements.

  He was a seer of storms. He would share his vision with the orks below.

  The moon responded to him. The land was outraged by the presence of the greenskins. It was eager for retribution. It gave Ghazan its lightning. His staff crackled electrical silver along its entire length, and then the blast, a sear in the night, struck the cockpit of the Thunderhawk.

  With a roar of final rage and triumph, the Furious Lightning embraced its namesake and found its vengeance. All its weapons systems fired at once. Its remaining Hellstrike missiles launched straight into the ground. Explosions grew from explosions as the fuel and ammunition ignited. The gunship disappeared in an earth-shaking blast. The fire swallowed the tank, and then it too added to the holocaust. The fireball rose to meet Ghazan, and the jump pack barely kept him from the hunger of the spreading destruction. Successive booms built on each other. They were a symphony of ending. They were the sound of the entire centre of the ork army gone in a second, incinerated at the moment of their celebration.

  On the descending arc of his jump, Ghazan saw the lights of the two bikes streaking away from the fire, still cutting their way through the greenskins. As he landed just beyond the periphery of the blasts, he saw the last tank come apart in flames too, brought down by Temur’s bike squad.

  Ghazan hit the ground with his bolt pistol drawn. He marched forwards, staff high, putting shells in the skulls of the nearest orks. A few fired back at him, but they were not attacking. The remaining force was in disarray, panicked by the massive, sudden losses of infantry and all their heavy support.

  No other tanks appeared. The orks were retreating.

  ‘We have a respite,’ Temur said. ‘I don’t expect it to be long, and it was dearly bought. I have no intention of sacrificing our remaining Thunderhawk to gain us another breathing spell, and I dislike sieges. I dislike them intensely.’

  The Fifth Brotherhood had regrouped in the bastion. The khan was speaking to his sergeants in the command block. Colonel Gregor Meixner of the Mordian Iron Guard was present, but standing to one side, remaining silent with good grace while Temur paced. Meixner struck Ghazan as an officer with a finely developed sense of the possible and the political. The 64th was a justifiably proud regiment, but Meixner knew that he and his men were present in this engagement in a supporting role. They would assist the White Scars as they could, but it was the Fifth Brotherhood that would stab the ork operations on this moon through the heart.

  Ghazan was impressed by Meixner’s good-natured calm as he listened to Temur. The Iron Guard on this day had wound up being little more than bait. As Ghazan turned over in his mind what must happen next, he realised that the men would continue in this role. They were the inviting target that would keep the main body of the ork army focused on this spot, distracted from protecting its own base.

  He doubted that Temur would be as sanguine when the same happened to him. But that was what the scenario he was outlining would be.

  ‘Our choices are limited,’ Temur said. ‘We will not give up our foothold on this moon, and we cannot attack a target whose location is unknown to us.’ He grunted, as if the reality of his situation just now fully registered. His scars, in the pattern of the claw marks of a berkul, darkened as his frustration shaded towards anger. ‘We will have to hold this position until we know where to strike.’ He turned to Sergeant Kusala, who led the Scout squad. ‘Brother-sergeant,’ said the khan, ‘I believe it is clear what we need you and your
men to do.’

  Kusala nodded. ‘It is, my khan,’ he said. He had lived long enough that his hair, tied back following tradition in a horse’s tail, was grey. Though Ghazan was younger, his hair was white. It had been since the night of his first vision, when his fated role as zadyin arga had been made manifest. ‘We will find the greenskins’ manufactorum for you,’ Kusala went on.

  ‘Good. And when you do, we shall fall on it like the worst of gales.’ To Meixner, Temur said, ‘When that moment comes, we will move to destroy the manufactorum, regardless of the situation on the ground here. That may well mean abandoning you to face another siege like we saw today. Quite possibly a worse one.’

  ‘We will do our duty,’ Meixner said. ‘We will hold.’

  Temur grunted again, this time more satisfied. ‘I look forward to your being put to the test, colonel. We cannot afford to let this mission drag on too long. Neither can the Raven Guard on Lepidus Prime.’ Temur stopped pacing. He had barely glanced at the tacticarium table behind him. Not that it was proving useful. They all knew the lie of the land around the bastion. Northwards, where the target lay, was mostly conjecture. The difficulty was not in knowing the terrain of the moon. The problem lay in how the orks had transformed the surface since their arrival. None of the lithographs produced by orbiting augur arrays were helpful. The only way to find the site of the orks’ heavy armour production would be to find it on the ground.

  All the same, Ghazan found himself looking past Temur at the table. The lithograph of the regions north of the bastion seemed to look back at him. The longer he stared at the image of the terrain, the more he felt the fraying vibration around the contours of reality that preceded his visions. Destiny tugged at him. The being he would fight awaited him there.