Imperial Glory by Warhammer

Author:Warhammer [Warhammer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-06-17T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Impact Crater, Tswaing, Voor pacification Stage 1 Day 18

‘First rank, fire! Second rank, fire!’ The orders rolled out again, timed to perfection from long experience. Carson’s men held a tight line, each man no more than a pace away from his fellow beside him. Van Am and her Voorjer scouts did the same, tacking onto the end of the line and picking their shots in their own time. The orks had little to throw back at them and so there was no need to seek cover. The troopers knew it was far better to stay close to their comrades and concentrate their fire. The tank beside them thundered as it fired its main cannon. Down the slope, a knot of orks disappeared in a bloody cloud of spores kicked up by the shell’s explosion.

The cloud dispersed and the orks’ latest push against them dissipated. Carson was not yet concerned. This first wave of tiny, ragtag bands was little threat while his men held the crater rim. Each one would emerge from the edge of the settlement on the slope below, bellow, stomp and roar. Then they would try to climb up to reach their enemies and the Brimlock fire would send them tumbling back down again.

Gradually, though, the orks were learning. The small groups stopped trying to rush up the slope on their own. Instead they waited for more and more of their fellows to join them before beginning another attack. Each assault left ork bodies in the dirt, yet each assault was stronger than the last. That was the way it always was with orks, Carson knew; if they did not win at once they simply wore you down, keeping you under continual pressure, exhausting ammunition, fuel and men. All you could do was pray that when their final assault came you still had the strength to withstand it.

The shouts and calls of the orks echoed up to the soldiers. More warriors had filtered in from the rest of the settlement and they were once more psyching themselves up to throw themselves headlong into the Brimlock guns. Then, from somewhere beside Carson, a single voice began to sing. For once it was not Captain Drum, rather it was Private Heal. He began to sing an ancient song of his home, from one of the far-flung continents of Brimlock. It told of war, of victory, of defiance and death; of ordinary men facing the extraordinary. Heal finished the first stanza and was about to launch into the second when another voice rose above his:

‘Private Heal! Shut your gob, you appalling shocker! We fight in silence until told otherwise. You understand me?’

‘Yes, colour!’

‘Shut it!’

The men of Brimlock needed no war-cries to scare the enemy; they needed no shouted oaths to bolster their courage. They were not animals or xenos filth. They fought as professionals, in disciplined silence, punctuated only by the crisp commands of their officers. When their wild and wailing foes charged they found themselves facing a grey line as still as death, and that shook them all the more.

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