Praetorian of Dorn by John French

Author:John French
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 2016-06-13T14:12:22+00:00

III

The orks flooded Rennimar. Vast rocks fell from the sky as their space hulk base turned through the planet’s sky. Each rock was a hollowed asteroid, studded in crude boosters and armour. They glowed orange with heat as they punched through the atmosphere. Many did not survive their descent. Some fell into the oceans, sending pillars of steam into the air before sinking to the bottom. Others struck mountain ranges and shattered into burning chunks of stone and metal. But others thumped into the soft soil of river deltas and coastal plateaus. Even in those that landed whole, the casualties were huge. The impact force crushed hundreds of orks, and hundreds more burned in the heat of re-entry, or scattered into the atmosphere as parts of the rocks broke apart during the fall. But for every one that perished there were a hundred that emerged alive to bellow at the sky.

They swarmed from the rocks. While the first of them had simply charged across the land in search of slaughter, the larger hordes moved with more purpose. Thousands of hands pulled the grounded asteroids apart. Metal was torn and reshaped into armour plating, cleavers, axes and tusked helms. From the core of the rocks came machines. Black engine fumes breathed into the air. Vast cannons swallowed shells into their breeches. Trios of copper orbs began to spin around the barrels of exotic energy weapons. Green-and-blue lightning crackled through the air, and the stink of ozone and static blended with the reek of oil and ork flesh.

Archamus watched the horde grow in the eyepiece of his scope. The mountain air was cold on the skin of his face. The temperature in the valleys was scorching, but up in the peaks the altitude lent the wind a razor chill. He was crouched on the top of a rock crag above a wide dip between snow-capped mountain peaks. Bare slopes descended from the pass, running into foothills scattered with thorn trees. At his back the river plain, which had been the site of their first engagement with the orks, stretched down to the distant sea. This point was the only pass across the mountains for hundreds of kilometres.

He breathed in, feeling the cold fill his lungs, and lowered the scope from his eyes.

‘If the orks decide not to come this way I assume it will be less than good,’ said Katafalque. The young warrior was crouched beside Archamus, eyes watching the slopes beneath them. The blue of his left gauntlet marked him as one of the intake from the Gobi Rust Hives, and he was a child of the dune clans through and through, from the tones of his Low Gothic voice to the wry humour in his words. He had joined Archamus’ squad just before they had come to Rennimar. He was blooded but untested by the full heat of a great battle, but he still walked, moved and spoke as though succeeding was inevitable. Archamus liked him.

‘They will come this way,’ said Archamus.

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