[Space Marine Battles] - Catechism Of Hate by Gav Thorpe

Author:Gav Thorpe [Thorpe, Gav]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-07-24T14:58:58+00:00

CHAPTER VI

IN THE AFTERNOON the clouds had burnt away, leaving Cordus Via baking beneath the hot sun. A haze of smoke drifted down the highway, the faltering winds bringing the smog from crop fields set ablaze by the guns of the Titans. Bounded to the north and south by the rivers, there was little danger of the fires spreading too far; in any case it was no concern of Chaplain Cassius. He was not here to defend the cereal fields, but to ensure the safety of the people sheltering in Plains Fall.

In the settlement, the Ultramarines Rhinos were put to work clearing the tyranid corpses choking the streets. A mass of lesser creatures had tried to overwhelm the defenders with their numbers, and several hundred had survived the gauntlet of multiple rocket launchers, volcano cannons and gatling blasters to descend on Cordus Via throughout the morning, to be met by the unflinching fusillade of the Space Marines. With earthmoving blades, the armoured transports heaped the twisted and burnt bodies of termagants and hormagaunts into grisly barricades between the warehouses.

Cassius stood on the Minoran Gradient looking down at the aftermath of the morning's deadly work. Heat haze shimmered from the rockrete highway and fire flickered amongst the outbuildings as the combat squads of the Ultramarines moved through the settlement with flamers, seeking out surviving foes that had managed to get inside the buildings.

The cataract foamed pale green with alien fluids, the pool beneath the thundering fall of water choked with hundreds of tyranid corpses washed down the river. Sergeant Dacia and his veterans were using fragmentation grenades to dislodge the bodies acting as a dam across the river, blowing holes in the wall of dead piling up where the cataract narrowed to ensure Cordus Via did not flood.

The reports from orbit and the patrols of the Thunderhawks indicated that the tyranids had relented in their assault for the moment, pulling back more than ten kilometres. Cassius knew better than to think of them as mindless drones. The tyranids were driven by a compulsion to devour everything in their path, but they were not all simple beasts; alien intelligence directed their actions individually and as a swarm. Their hive ship destroyed, the tyranids that had landed were not an unending horde descending from orbit, and their strategy was still evolving. The Chaplain had fought this menace on more than a score of worlds, and they had never acted exactly the same, though there were predictable patterns, as with any foe.

Having tested the defenders at Cordus Via, and found them unbreaking, the mind guiding the tyranid assault was now seeking a means to circumnavigate the waystation. The Thunderhawks had reported flocks of gargoyles seeking passage to the north and south, but here the terrain was in the favour of the defenders, as Cassius and Arka had known it would be. The rivers were impassable further west of Cordus Via, except perhaps by the harridans and gargoyles and a few of the largest constructs.

If

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