Argel Tal made a break for a nearby glass wall, where a handful of Xaphen’s warriors were crouching. They weren’t hidden, but it was cover nevertheless. The rest of his assault squad spread out.
‘It fires?’ Argel Tal asked. ‘Are you certain it’s not an automated statue, and you’ve been engaging some of the local art in a heroic battle?’
‘It fires,’ Xaphen grunted. ‘And it won’t die. Watch this. Malnor Squad, engage.’
From a crater ahead, several Word Bearers rose in trained unity, each of them opening up with bolt pistols. Shells hammered into the glass creature’s body, knocking it off-balance but inflicting no visible damage. Electrical force sparked where each bolt round punched home, detonating the shells before they inflicted anything more than minor kinetic annoyance.
‘Cease fire and fall back,’ Xaphen ordered.
‘I’m growing tired of hearing that order, sir,’ Malnor’s voice crackled, but the bolter fire stopped.
The creature immediately righted itself, and veered towards where Malnor’s warriors crouched in cover. The circuitry serving as its innards flared with phosphorous anger, and eye-aching electricity speared from its open mouth to dance across the edge of the crater, melting the black stone wherever it touched.
‘It’s made of unbreakable glass,’ Torgal voxed, ‘and it vomits lightning. The primarch was right to order these people dead. They are more than heretics – they forge insanity into physical form.’
Argel Tal swore softly as he listened to vox-reports of Legion squads encountering these things all over the city. With the capital’s protective shield down, he’d expected this to be easy. The planetary leaders were supposed to dead, damn it. Why wasn’t resistance crumbling?
‘Torgal Squad, to higher ground.’
‘By your word, captain,’ chorused the loyal responses. Heat haze rippled the air around each warrior as their bulky jump thrusters cycled back to life. The air was rich with charcoalish engine-stink.
Argel Tal boosted up, straight as a spear, coming down on a balcony overlooking the ruined street. The warriors of Torgal Squad followed, finding their own perches on the edges of nearby rooftops. Grey gargoyles, watching the battle below.
‘How many have you destroyed so far?’ asked Argel Tal.
‘Three, but two were downed by a Vindicator from Firestorm.’ Xaphen referred to the Serrated Sun’s armour battalion.
‘Don’t tell me the tank was destroyed.’
Malnor answered this time. ‘Then I won’t tell you, captain. But it’s not here anymore.’
Argel Tal watched the artificial stalking closer, maintaining its inhuman balance on those multi-jointed legs despite the punishing terrain. His visor zoomed in deep, clearing after a moment’s distortion. Silver veins threaded through the construct’s torso, flickering with power. Its skin moved like liquid glass, yet bolter shells sparked aside, as harmless as rainfall.
‘You said you’ve killed three of these, but the tanks destroyed two.’
‘I killed the third with my crozius,’ Xaphen replied. ‘The constructs seem vulnerable to power weapons.’
‘Understood. Leave this one to us.’ Argel Tal refocused his visor. ‘Torgal Squad, at the ready. We’ll fight fire with fire.’
‘By your word,’ came the voice chorus again.
Argel Tal drew both swords – each a red-iron blade housing generators in the ivory crosspieces. His fingers slid to the triggers along the leather-wrapped grips, and twin hums droned as the blades came alive, coated in jagged licks of electrical force.
‘For the primarch!’ The shout echoed across the street, drawing the artificial’s attention. It looked up with a featureless face – where a man’s mouth would be, the glass visage glowed with rising heat.
Argel Tal took two running steps; the first sent tremors through the balcony, the second shattered the railing as he kicked off from it, leaping into the air. His thrusters roared, breathing smoke and fire as he fell from sky. The twin blades trailed blurs of lightning.
‘Aurelian!’ the warriors of Torgal Squad cried out, leaping from their eyries to slice through the air, following their captain down on whining engines. ‘Aurelian!’
Argel Tal led the dive, hurling himself to the side as burning electricity arced up from the artificial below. A second later he was on the creature, twisting around it to bring his boot crashing against its glass head. Chips of diamond sprayed away as its skull snapped back. Both power swords fell a heartbeat later, the blades hammering into the artificial’s face. More twinkling shards scattered like hailstones.
Sergeant Torgal landed on the automaton’s shoulders from behind, his chainsword skidding and scraping along the glass. His bolter barked once, a shell hammering uselessly aside before detonating in the air.
With grunts of effort leaving their helm-speakers like avian cries, the rest of Torgal’s squad descended and added their grinding blades to the assault. They attacked in waves, thrusting skyward while those beneath struck, then diving for another strike as their brothers boosted away. The artificial staggered, reeling under the host’s attack, unable to bring its defences to bear against a single threat.
Argel Tal dived a third time, rasping his sword blades against each other, causing their overlapping power fields to hiss and spit. This time, the blades bit, both carving into the glass throat, sending diamond shards clattering against Argel Tal’s faceplate.
The construct died instantly. Its silver veins turned black, and it toppled to the dust on dead legs.
With sedate grace, the five warriors of Torgal Assault Squad drifted to the ground around their captain. Chainblades growled softer as trigger fingers relaxed. Jump thrusters exhaled as they cooled.
Xaphen and Malnor led their warriors from the ruins, bolters held across chestplates.
‘Nicely done,’ said the Chaplain. ‘Move ahead if you wish, brother. We will purge the road to the city’s heart. Don’t wait on our account.’
Argel Tal nodded, still not used to Xaphen’s repainted armour. The Chaplain’s warplate was black – darkened in remembrance of the ashes coating every warrior’s armour in Monarchia. Argel Tal had said nothing when he’d first witnessed this new tradition, but it still rankled. Some shames were better left forgotten.
A spurt of detuned vox preceded another broken voice. ‘Captain, this is Dagotal.’
Argel Tal looked to the spires making up the city’s core. Something there – some hidden machinery – was playing havoc with the communication channels.
‘I’m here, Dagotal.’
‘Requesting permission to summon Carthage.’
Xaphen and Malnor exchanged glances, their faceplates concealing their expressions. Torgal gunned his chainsword, the teeth chewing air for a few seconds.
‘Specifics, Dagotal,’ said Argel Tal.
‘It’s the artificials, sir. They have a king.’
Dagotal Squad kept moving through the streets, never going to ground, always watching. As Seventh Company’s outriders, penetrating a hostile city far ahead of the captain’s main force was nothing new.
This enemy, however, brought some foul surprises with them. The army of artificials stalking through the doomed city were putting up ferocious resistance – and that was before the Word Bearers advance forces began to encounter the Obsidians.
Dagotal was one of the first to spot one. He’d leaned forward in his saddle, forcing his visor to zoom and track the black construct making its ponderous way along the street ahead.
‘Blood of the Urizen,’ he swore. The thing was two storeys tall – an artificial on six legs, its torso cut not from clear glass, but opaque black.
He’d voxed the captain immediately, while his squad opened fire. The bolters mounted on each bike chattered and crashed. The black glass construct didn’t deign to notice. Despite the artificial’s apparent weight, its bladed limbs didn’t impale down into the road.
‘Fall back,’ Dagotal ordered his brothers. And they had – at speed.
The grey bikes snarled as they banked around a winding corner, tyres struggling to grip the smooth black stone of the road. Korus swerved in the lead, his braking wheels screeching as they sheared over the road’s surface.
‘Careful,’ Dagotal warned.