Warlord: Fury of the God-Machine (Warhammer 40,000) by David Annandale

Author:David Annandale [Annandale, David]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2017-03-31T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

The Guns of Deicoon

The first salvoes of the Iron Skulls smashed through the towers of the city. Gothic spires disintegrated in expanding fireballs. Others toppled, their lower portions severed by furious beams of crimson energy. The city began to fall, a grim harvest before the blade, as the Banelords, Ravagers and Ferals blasted everything that stood between them and the Pallidus Mor.

‘Are all maniples walking?’ Krezoc voxed. She held her fire for the moment. There were no clear targets yet. Let the Iron Skulls expend their energy on the obstacles for now.

‘We are,’ Drahn and Rheliax answered.

‘The secutarii are on the ground,’ Venterras reported.

‘Good.’ The ground outside of the Viokania yard was free of cultists. Gloria Vastator’s assault had turned it into a desert of melted shapes and jagged glass. Krezoc absorbed the long-range auspex readings. The heat signatures of the Iron Skulls showed the pattern of their deployment. A contingent somewhat larger than her own forces was spreading out around the walls of the city. It looked like an encircling move, though it seemed to her they were spreading themselves very thin. They were also not moving into the city just yet. She wondered about the delay, but she would use the time it gave her. Meanwhile, a much larger battle group of traitors had left Deicoon behind, and was clearly heading for Therimachus.

Krezoc sent a datapack of the readings streaming to Syagrius and then opened a vox-channel, hailing him. He answered immediately.

‘So much for your having contained the enemy,’ he said.

If we had concentrated our strength here from the start, this war might already be over, she thought. She did not say it. This was not the time for a debate. ‘Marshal, can you move to intercept? If we can break out of Deicoon, we have the chance to catch the enemy in a pincer move.’

‘Negative. Our post is at Therimachus. We will await the traitors here.’

‘There is a chance the city is already on the verge of falling. The corruption at Deicoon was hidden, but widespread.’

‘We are monitoring the situation closely. We will not be surprised.’

Again, Krezoc did not rise to the bait. She tried one more time. ‘We are letting the enemy divide us with this strategy,’ she said. ‘And we are remaining on the defensive.’

‘Then defend Deicoon, princeps. You know your duty.’

The channel shut down. The Pallidus Mor was on its own. Krezoc was not surprised. She had hoped Syagrius would see the new necessities and the opportunities of the situation. He had not. They all might pay for his blindness.

The barrages from the Iron Skulls were coming from four directions now. The city reeled, its towers toppling into the canyon-riven streets. Where buildings had stood, flames and dust and smoke rose to the sky. The cannon blasts from the east, the position closest to the Pallidus Mor, were striking the Viokania yards now. A cannon shell smashed through the remaining tower of the Cathedral of Saint Chirosius. Gloria Vastator’s void shields shimmered as they took the impact.

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