Pandorax (Space Marine Battles) by C Z Dunn

Author:C Z Dunn [Dunn, C Z]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2013-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

785960.M41 / Thermenos Stronghold. 1,328 kilometres south of Mount Olympax, Pythos

The hellhammer shell struck the daemon in the thorax, tearing through flesh like it was kindling and exploding its bloated form in a shower of gore. It remained standing for several moments, unaware that its existence had been ended, before collapsing in a smoking heap. Others of its kind simply ignored the dissolving corpse as the army of the Neverborn advanced upon the cave-mouth entrance to the hold.

‘Reload! Reload!’ barked Strike from his command chair in the Hellhammer. Three burly Catachans heeded his command, one operating the mechanism to open the breech, the other two hefting an enormous shell into position. It was a process they had repeated more times than they could remember in the past year.

Forced to flee Olympax, the 183rd had spread to the four corners of Pythos. Those on foot or in the precious few armoured vehicles they retained dispersing across the main continent of Pythos Prime; those on board Valkyries and other flyers made it as far as the outlying continents and islands. Strike, along with the handful of men crewing his tank, the inquisitor, the Space Marine and the xenos, had made straight for Khan’s Hold – one of the largest holds to remain in Catachan hands and barracks for almost two hundred of his troops. It had taken them thirty days to navigate the swamps and thick jungles, battling as much against the environment as the numerous predators who saw the super-heavy tank as good sport. Catachan through and through, the skulls of three would-be attackers adorned the hull of the war machine.

When they reached Khan’s Hold, all they found was a charnel house.

Mutilated corpses lined the approach to the vast mining complex, some impaled on thick wooden stakes, others merely discarded on the padded-down earth that formed a crude road. Only weeks earlier, Khan’s Hold had been defended from Abaddon’s assault, the first victory of any note for the Imperial forces but now its defenders lay dead and defiled, the hold itself no more than a burned-out shell.

Other Catachan forces made contact with Strike and as the Hellhammer wound its way slowly through the mire and trees towards Thermenos Stronghold, a remote but relatively easy to defend mine in the south of Pythos Prime, Strike’s tank became as much a mobile command centre as it was a fearsome weapon of war. From all over the planet, small groups of jungle fighters reported in. A dozen taking refuge in High Peak, twelve men and women to defend a population of almost a thousand; three Valkyries finding sanctuary at Mount Blizzard, the second largest stronghold on the planet now under the protection of fifty Catachans with air support capability; thirty soldiers of Devil’s Brigade footslogging for a month to reach the trio of delver-strongholds sited at Glazer’s Plateau.

But the tank became so much more than that too. It became a rallying point. A symbol of Pythos’s defiance. It had even gained a name

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