Collabed with the inestimable @JbcoolI implore thee, O Graces
Grant me seven tongues of fire with which to sing
Of the scourging of the stars,
Of savagery and suns,
The appetite of blood-toothed beasts, the reddened fang before a field of lambs;
Of she who wrings glory from iron,
And spinneth gold from the loom of war;
Of that old sage to whom the zephyrs bend,
Whose mind is a keening blade;
Let it be sweeter than honey upon the lips,
That quickens the steelforged heart;
For there is a crown forged of cages,
And the taste of victory
Hath no small price.
--The fragments of Remembrancer Kessig, assn: Threnos,13th legion
As Ullanor smoldered and the Emperor's campaign of liberation raged, the thirteenth and fifteenth legions, the Kindly Ones and the Sons of the Storm, had methodically encircled the rim of the system. Their fleets had struck hard at the outlying worlds of the Ullanor sector, burning out the Ork presence without stealth or subtlety, blazing like a challenging beacon to the widespread hordes and slowly but inevitably drawing them in, goading them toward one final, fatal theater of battle: the monolithic forge world Harkonnen IV; a vast and invaluable manufactorum crowning a sea of obsidian stone, creased with streaming rivers of magma.
Harkonnen had been one of the first major worlds to fall to the Ork Waaagh, and its value and distance had finally made it the site of a raging and ceaseless war of avarice between twelve of Urlakk's more ambitious Nob lieutenants. One by one, each would-be warlord had been crushed by another, their armies subsumed by the victors, until now only three remained, stronger and crueller than even before, each vying for control of the world's facilities and mastery of their rivals forces. With the Primarch's efforts,
hundreds of ork vessels intended to reinforce Urlakk's shipyards or join his forces on Ullanor Prime had launched or altered course, and now converged on Harkonnen IV, drawn to the lure of the power struggle rippling across its surface and the electrifying promise of battle with the Imperial Host.
If the augurs were correct, the Primarchs' ploy had been wildly successful.
Weaker hearts might say
too successful.
Lydia Magaera, war goddess of Asphodel, sixth Primarch of the Emperor's space marines and mistress of his thirteenth legion stood in her chambers, wrapped in a white chiton and golden girdle, regarding the dark sphere blotting out the stars before her as one might stare down an opponent. A young attendant sat at the far end of the chamber, facing away from her and coaxing a slow, placid melody from an exquisite white harp.
The viewing platform, like much of the Lady's chambers, had been remade, sculpted into an imitation of her temple balcony, where she had once gazed out over the sea. Now a more forbidding vision filled the window's arch -- The dark side of Harkonnen IV , its benighted surface ringed with pinpoints of artificial light and streaked with hot veins of glowing crimson. The black disc flared and flickered in the darkness, the manufactorum strobing with so much Orkish gunfire it could be seen from orbit.
It was as though the planet itself were malfunctioning; shorting out and throwing off sparks.
She showed it idly to Gorseval, superimposed with its strategic lines drawn, along with the ship's tactical auguries of the approaching Orkish flotsam and the deployment positions of her own fleet. He was occupied, of course, and in a most noble work. But the images would be there, cast in the temple of her mind's eye that she had always left open for him, when he cared to call them back.
There was a subtle change in the air. At some silent prompt, the Primarch lifted her head and beckoned idly, braids swinging against her hips, her eyes still locked on the tiny fireworks piercing the planet's surface. The doors to her chambers parted, and a decorated marine in the white and black armor of her legion entered, knelt and bowed her head to the floor. The Lady turned, unhurried, and her visitor rose, pressing one powerful armored hand to her chest.
"Mistress," she announced, "your brother's monastery-vessel has arrived. He awaits your pleasure on board."
The Lady cast one last, lingering glance over the surface of the planet, and paced slowly from the room as the soft music of the harp came to an end.
A question as to whether it would be possible to turn a
Gloriana-class Battleship, a space-faring weapon of mass destruction, into a void-travelling monastery had never really come up before the Grim Crusade; yet if one looked to the flagship of the Fifteenth Legion, their never-asked question would surely have been answered quite certainly - this was The
Fist of Zen, a multi-shielded behemoth of a space vessel, approximately twenty-four kilometres from prow to stern and with enough of an armament attached to it to cripple most opposing fleets, as well as decimate an entire planet on a whim.
From without it looked similar to most others of its class, albeit coloured in the light shades and hues of the Sons of the Storm, and with the clear silhouette of a multi-tiered tower jutting from the central top of it, but it was within those corridors, chambers and training halls that things began to take a most different turn; almost every individual aboard - Astartes and human alike - moved through the vessel in almost complete silence, some conversing quietly with one another, while only from the multiple halls of combat or
dōjō did the sound of violent but controlled combat reverberate. Of course, the further you travelled from the centre of the ship and the tower positioned there, the more armoured guardians you would find patrolling the gigantic construct, not even as peaceful a Primarch as Fū Xiá being idiotic enough to leave his greatest vessel completely undefended.
It was from the highest level of this solitary tower that Fū Xiá would observe his fleets formation and manoeuvres, the
Fist making up the solid core of his Lotus-pattern formation, each circle of ships becoming less and less dangerous the further out you went, with those of the accompanying
Armada Imperialis making up the majority of those spacecraft ranging ahead and around the circular formation, ships of such variety and configuration that even he had a hard time keeping track of their specific armaments, strengths and weaknesses.
Bong!The tenth gong had been struck, and Fū Xiá, resting his body on his heels and sitting upright, descended into the hundredth level of meditation; directly before him was his own suit of snarling artificer armour, looming out of the dimly lit gloom like some sort of starved adversary hanging from a rack, each part being carefully maintained and blessed by his coterie of mortal assistants, these natives of his homeworld known as a
Nōdo or 'Serf' of the legion, men and women who willingly submitted to training from their superhuman superiors as well as accompanying them into battle.
Bong!Further and further he withdrew into himself, feeling the weightlessness of nothing at all, his mind entirely focused toward his own centre and the rhythmic breathing used to induce such a state long ago forgotten. For several hours he had been sitting within his tower, everything from his servants, to the inky black void beyond the four walls surrounding him, forgotten as if they never were and never would be.
"Xiá-tono," came a soft voice from seemingly very far away, the slight woman addressing the kneeling giant actually standing right next to him, "My lord, the fleet is approaching our allies own. It appears that the Thirteenth Legion is awaiting our arrival."
The so-called 'Kindly Ones', of course.Opening his eyes, he turned to look at the woman and gave a curt nod of his head, "thank you, Ayano," he replied with a voice almost as melodic and soft as her own, yet much deeper, "please, fetch my robes and we shall meet with my beloved sister,
neh?"
The first scattering of Ork vessels had already begun to arrive as the thirteenth legion's contingent boarded the Sons' vessel, and the vaulted halls of the battleship resounded with the distant ring of lance fire and the muted
crump of imploding roks battering their remnants uselessly against the hull. Though the Lady's bearing was as impassive as marble, it sang in her blood like music.
Perhaps it was a sign of things to come that the bearing of her sibling could not have been more different, or even the way in which the crew of the
Fist conducted themselves, moving about with swift and precise motions that wasted no time nor energy, shifting from one station to another as if the Orks were not even there. For all intents and purposes, they may as well have been been on Terra itself! Such was the disdain and quiet indifference with which they treated the unorganised assaults of the enemy ships; it was true, some of the weaker Imperial vessels on the fringes of the formation had been been destroyed - or, more than likely, simply scattered into the void before being engaged - but any Greenskins that had managed to penetrate any further would have soon found far more formidable opposition and death.
Fū Xiá strode quickly to meet them, clad only in a flowing
kimono-like robe of green over a more tightly fitting under-robe of pristine white, his steps carrying him as fast as they could toward the bridge of the battleship - the area where it was known all great meetings such as this took place. He went unaccompanied and unarmed, fully confident in his own abilities and the good will of his sister, and as a being capable of breaking rockrete and punching through power armour why should he not be?
There were four when he arrived: Magaera herself, towering over the others, helm tilted to show her face, braids swinging heavily at her back. She was attended on one side by a Librarian draped in a deep-hooded cloak, and the twins Tisiphone and Alecto strode one step behind, unhelmed but encased in their armor, each bearing one of the Primarch's weapons and flanking her in a ceremonial honor guard.
The smaller Primarch went forward to meet them with a smile upon his usually enigmatic face, the neutrality turning to a look of joyous greeting as he spread his arms wide in there deep sleeves, "welcome aboard, sister," he announced in an airy tone, almost as if he were talking from without himself, his eyes looking up to those of his sibling, "it is a pleasure to have the Lady, the War Goddess of Asphodel, aboard my flagship."
The Primarch's chin lifted, her carven expression of cool pride giving way to a subtle look of acknowledgement and approval as her eyes met those of her brother.
It was only now that Fū really paid any attention to those that had accompanied their Lady onto the bridge, taking in their every obvious strength and weakness with a swift glance from his stormy eyes, his smile widening even further.
"These can only be the twins that I have heard so much about," by now his Chi-level attributes were probably beginning to exert themselves, though thankfully - perhaps by some design of his father, or maybe even a twist of fate - those around him had never yet gotten the urge to murder him, "although the tales I have heard do not tell of this one."
The cloaked Fury drew back her hood, revealing a round-faced girl, her hair bound tightly with golden rings and dyed a red so deep it seemed almost black in the light of the Stormsons' vessel. Her neck was sheathed in a smooth net of cables which wrapped around to cradle her brainstem, and a deep scar traced her cheek, crossing at an angle over her otherwise full lips. She touched a hand to her breastplate and bowed.
"Grace and glory, noble Primarch," she intoned in a voice rich and sweet, smoky, like burning honey, "I am Polyhymna, and by the Lady's grace have the honor of serving her as second Chief Librarian. I shall stand as her aide for the duration of this august meeting, if this pleases you."
"Please, there is no need to bow to me," he chuckled with a dismissive wave, "you are as welcome as the rest, blessed Polyhymna, and any assisstance you offer to your Ladyship is well accepted by myself and mine."
"As you will," the girl said easily, "It has been pleasant, to make war alongside you and your Sons." She looked to her Primarch a moment, the Lady regarding her brother cordially. "...The Lady extends her respect for both the fullness of your legion's devotion to the Emperor's work, and their formidable skill in carrying it out."
"Lady Magaera has known those who sought to claim their last objective first." spoke Tisiphone.
"It ended as you might expect." echoed her sister.
Polyhymna continued: "She further wishes to impress the pride she feels at the prospect of commencing the deciding battle together, upon the surface of the forge world."
Once mirthful features turned far more serious as thoughts entered Fū's mind, his eyes sweeping once more over the formidable foursome present before him, and he gestured toward a luminous table placed near to the centre of the bridge. All manner of icons and flickering insignia moved rapidly across the surface, the planet of Harkonnen IV itself a large orb on the eastward fringe of the map, and Fū moved to slowly to stand beside it.
"Perhaps you may enlighten me as to what your Mistress intends? We face three threats here, each a potent adversary in their own right, and having the wisdom of the Lady of Victory is a boon to us all."
Of course this may have sounded like hollow flattery, but it was well known that although Fū Xiá
was a player of tricks and an oft time joker, he very rarely ever joked. Especially when it came to war. No, he was most grateful for the guidance of his sister, and hoped that beneath that striking but cold exterior she might return that feeling in kind.
Polyhymna hesitated, glancing up at her Primarch. The Lady's gaze lingered upon her brother a moment more before she inclined her head and leaned over the pict-map, a braid falling over her shoulder, gesturing and zooming the display down onto the forge world as the Librarian spoke.
"As you are aware, the ork infestation is considerable, but concentrated heavily around this central facility."
The map was a intimidating industrial labyrinth choked with an overwhelming mass of green, multiple hotspots circled in warning red. The Primarch's hand moved, circling the densest concentration.
"We face a useful irony," Polyhymna continued, "The Ork numbers have swollen considerably, but this has also caused the destabilization of their conflict. As they strengthen, we yet have them at their most vulnerable." She looked up, gravely. "The third Chief Librarian has been urgently clear. We will never have a stronger window of opportunity than this. This is our
kairos, our one supreme moment. It
must be now."
Behind the Primarch, the twins exchanged uneasy, simultaneous glances, apparently less than comfortable being reminded of the third Chief Librarian, whomever she may be. Unruffled, Lydia moved her hand along the tactical display, marking units, routes and locations in black-white icons along an open area at the bottom of the facility.
"The third clan--" Lydia tapped the display as the girl spoke, highlighting a lethal red wall of gun emplacements, "--is buttressed by a considerable defensive line, but that line is forcibly committed against its two rivals and the Lady believes it will provide the optimal point of insertion for a shock attack. Once the animals have been scoured from our landing zone, our legions may separate and continue to push upward into the primary facility on two fronts, gaining what ground we may before the enemy forces cease fighting one another and rally."
Alecto chimed in: "The area was formerly a sizable vehicle pool; now the territory of a warlord Habdab Swiftfingerz of the "Death skulls." A plunderer and panoplist of some infamy."
"A looter and a
thief, sister, call it what it is." rejoined her twin, flatly.
"Trivialities. The creature hoards a colossal arsenal, but insists on keeping nearly all of it for itself. Fell that one and the rest will be cut like grain."
Fū watched in complete silence as the situation on the planet was expertly laid out before his eyes, one hand massaging his chin as thoughts raced in and out ofd his mind, even the back-and-forth between the two twins - which usually would have elicited at least a chuckle from him - could not break his concentration and the plans already swimming about in his head.
"I feel I need not contribute too much to this strategy, not in words at least," spoke the Primarch in a clipped tone, "all
we need do now is decide on our order of battle; this Habdab has done what we would not, he has isolated himself from his fellows, and, as you rightly surmise, shall be the linchpin to our entire conquest of Harkonnen."
Both of their legions were equally matched for the task ahead, both adaptable and well-organised, both sensitive to the commands and whims of their Primarchs, the only thing being that this enemy was an immobile force that had dug itself well into the soil of the former Forge World - the lightning-fast hit-and-run would not work well here, lest they sought to draw the Greenskins out into the open first, and so a hard, heavy and speedy strike would be what was required.
Looking up from the war table, his feline-like features taking on a sickly green glow from beneath his chin, he locked his own eyes onto those remarkable orbs of malachite embedded in bronzed flesh, taking slight note also of the barbs hanging from her thick braids, but spoke to the Chief Librarian all the same.
"What would your Lady suggest? My legion is prepared to follow where the Kindly Ones lead, if that is what she wishes."
"Actually, the Lady wishes
you to have the honor of commanding the first assault," Polyhymna said, "And of taking the head of this putative Warboss. A gift; for her brother so long lost amongst the stars." The Librarian's head inclined toward her mistress, who nodded, her face still impassive, but some warmth, some distant and enigmatic emotion softening her eyes. "..She intends to remain aboard
Threnos and oversee the theater of war both above and below, until need calls her to the surface."
"We are prepared to follow your instructions," declared Tisiphone.
"Until the zone is cleared and our legions separate for the secondary invasions." added Alecto.
"Which brings us to our last tactical decision." Tisiphone gestured to the map's left flank with a white-armored finger. "The army of warlord Rokk KillKrazy; a half-mechanical lunatic known for stripping systems bare in its wake."
Alecto mirrored the gesture in black, pointing to the right flank.
"The army of warlord Oogh WorldMelta; a charismatic and conniving creature more than capable of launching its own barbaric crusade if not stopped here."
Magaera lifted her palms evenly as she watched her brother, a faint, almost imperceptible smile tugging at one corner of her lips. Polyhymna spoke:
"...The Lady wishes to know which of these scum it would most please you to slay."
For the very first time during that meeting, Fū took on an expression of some sadness, "it does not
please me to kill anything," he replied in a half-whisper. "but I would like the honour of taking the head of this 'WorldMelta'; he sounds like a worthy adversary." This was accompanied by a sharp nod of the head before the seventh Primarch lapsed once more into a studious silence, waiting to see if Polyhymna had more to say on behalf of her Mistress.
"So let it be done," intoned the Librarian. "The Lady trusts she has not--"
Lydia lifted her hand, gently, and Polyhymna flinched as though slapped, falling abruptly silent. She drew her hood back up over her eyes, inclining her head gracefully.
"Forgive us, noble Primarch." she said, "We are to depart, and prepare the legion for battle. We shall converge again soon. And you will find us radiant and eager to fight by your side."
The twins saluted in silent unison, moving alongside the young Librarian in escort positions. The three marched from the bridge, disappearing into the halls of the monastery-vessel and the serene comings and going of its inscrutable crew, leaving Lydia and Fū Xiá alone across the colored glow of the map.
There was a long, silent pause.
At last, the Lady dropped her gaze and leant down, producing a thin wooden box inscribed with Asphodelic letters and decorated with regular, meandering patterns, setting it upon the surface. She slid it open and removed the contents: an earthenware bottle and a pair of red-fired cups that would have been large in the hands of any normal man or woman. She laid them out atop the display -- one before herself, one before Fū Xiá -- and unstoppered the vessel, pouring a chaste trickle of some dark, sweet-scented wine into each.
Although he had no idea just what he were about to drink, for he correctly assumed this to be the beginning of some form of toast or pact, much disliking anything but the rice-wine or tea from his own world, he nevertheless plucked up one of the cups and studied it carefully; fine craftsmanship to be sure, the clay shaped for a Primarch would have to be! The box as well was a truly beautiful piece, the intricate and curved lettering not so different from the calligraphy used by his own people and yet utterly alien all the same.
He could not comprehend what she must be thinking at that moment, what she must be
feeling in his prescense, but he allowed himself to raise the cup up in a two-handed salute and take a long draught from the deep vessel. Not usually one for drink, he drained the contents until the bitter dregs were all that were left at the bottom...much as it was in life.
"My thanks, my Lady."
At a clap of his hands a black-armoured Astartes removed himself from the shadows, for it was there that he had been standing all along - motionless and as silent as the grave - a sheathed blade the size of an Astartes combat knife placed into the Primarch's outstretched hand.
"I regret I have no drink of my own readily available, but I hope that you might accept this instead." Withdrawing the
tanto from the scabbard just a bit, he allowed her to see the blade and the wave-like pattern running along the always sharp blade, before thrusting it back home, "the grip is made from Ork hide and the blade able to cut through most materials without the help of a generator; I hope it will suffice."
Reaching out his hand, he gently placed the blade in the crimson sheath down before her, next to her own box, a smile turning the corners of his mouth up as he gave a short sigh.
"I believe it is now time to prepare ourselves and our legions for the coming conflict," he sounded almost sad about it...but also
hungry, "honour to us all, and victory for the Imperium."
"An odd one, to be sure," said Alecto as the three marched through the halls of the
Fist, not seeming to care who heard.
"More than he appears, sister," cautioned her counterpart.
"He could hardly be less," snorted the first twin.
"We are
both aware that you say this only to goad me. His is a well-hidden strength. Did you not sense that aura?"
"We all did." Polyhymna's voice came softly from beneath her hood, "I have never felt anything quite like it. Serene. Tranquil... Inviolate." She turned her hidden face toward the window-arch as they passed, watching the distant conflict amidst the stars. "Like the eye of a storm."
"Apt, then." observed Tisiphone, wryly, "I confess it. I felt... almost at peace."
There was a momentary quiet as the three entered the elevator to the shuttle bay.
"Yes," said Alecto at last as the doors began to hiss shut, "I didn't like it either."
The massed ranks of the thirteenth legion knelt before the towering figure of the Emperor's daughter in a regimented sea of gleaming black and white, crested by a thicket of flowing banners. A deep, choral hymn swelled throughout the vessel's halls as the Lady paced slowly before them, hand resting on the braids of her whip, her expression passive and untouchable.
Tisiphone stood rigid before her phalanx as a host of white-robed attendants brought the crowning piece of her armor. She whispered one last, eager prayer as the Terminator's mask was raised and secured, a flat, threatening slab of golden metal engraved with Imperial heraldry and Asphodelic motif. There was a familiar, tiny hiss of pressurization and the whirr and thud of automatic locks, a rising sub-aural whine as its eyes slowly glowed into painful, blinding aquamarine lamps.
Magaera lifted her chin, clapping her hands once. As one the legion rose, presented arms, pivoted and marched.
Tisiphone spoke in a voice so aggressively amplified, pitch-shifted and modulated that it was no longer female, was not even human, and at last it were as though some veil had been lifted and her true nature shown: Not a woman, but a war machine; the monstrous, sexless angel of a wrathful and avenging god.
"+ Form ranks and prepare to decant! +" it thundered as the shining legion of the Lady's space marines filed quickly into their drop pods,
"+ We go to glory! +"
Meanwhile, the mood aboard the
Fist could not have been any different, any more solemn or far from the thought of battle; throughout the mighty vessel the drums of war had been sounded, each warrior gathering his mortal assistants to his side and making ready, the various Temples of the Fifteenth Legion gathering in the hugely vast space of the battleships main hall - it was a most sacred space, reserved for only such moments as this, and as Fū Xiá surmounted the elegantly constructed podium to look out over the veritable ocean of assembled Astartes and human standing side-by-side, he could not have been more proud.
On his left stood one of the largest of his sons, prepared to strike the gong that would send them all to the surface of the planet, a stick the size of a normal man's arm held in one clenched fist. To his right-hand side, a priest chanted holy verse as he blessed the Primarch with sticks of incense.
Soon enough he was joined by a dozen mortal attendants, each piece of his armour blessed with smoke before being placed upon his giant frame, beginning from his feet and continuing all the way to his head.
At the last moment he raised a hand, his helmet tucked neatly into the crook of his arm, and caught the eye of more than a few of his more experienced Astartes, "we go now into battle, so steel yourselves and hold fast my sons, and remember the words of the ancestors - 'a warrior is worthless unless he rises above others and stands strong in the midst of a storm.'"
Enough words wasted, he placed his helmet over his head and took a deep breath as the world was both dulled and heightened by the various sensors contained in the space now walled-in all around him.
Honour to us all, for Mankind and for the Emperor, wareware wa tatakau tame ni ikimasu.
The dark side of Harkonnen was shrouded in a deep, permanent twilight, the sky roiling with thick red clouds and looming with dark spires that twinkled with a scattering of distant, artificial lights. Everywhere the vast industrial facility had fallen into disrepair, its streets and mechanical cathedrals, once maintained by a well-oiled and efficient administration, now laying grimy and dark under a pall of obsidian dust and cthonic ash.
The compound of Habdab Swiftfingerz was no exception: A filthy, sprawling wasteland of plated roadways and garages bathed in the stark white glare of industrial floodlamps, hemmed in on its north side by a thick, twisted patchwork wall of scrap metal some thirty feet high that stood lined with rusted battlements, alien skulls and huge outfacing spikes. Crude, jagged gun emplacements nailed with orkish symbols and totems rattled deafeningly and blazed with meter-long muzzle fire as they raked the opposing bridges, and all along its mile and a half length, three tiers of firing slits bristled with flaring shootas, some crammed with two or three guns apiece, making aiming impossible.
Inside, a mass of swollen, muscular green bodies swarmed between the hydraulic platforms, assembling, disassembling, shoving their way through to the frontline or lugging ammunition to the great wall. The air was a cacophony of barking gunfire, the banging of hammers and the whine of sawblades shearing through metal as the warlord's underlings continued to add to his panoply, bolting cannons together out of sluice pipes and ruined engines, welding bombed-out transports onto higher walls or the creatures' monstrous walkers, the vehicle pool slowly skeletonized as more and more of the forge world's structures were eaten away to fuel the Ork war machine.
Without, from the north bank of the tertiary magma canal, the bridges were choked with a river of Orks loyal to Habdab's rivals, trying to swarm their way over the wall or taking noisy, inaccurate potshots from behind pipes and fixtures. By the hundreds they were cut into mince by the warlord's excessive defences, and by the hundreds they kept coming. One hapless gunner after another toppled from the wall with a gurgling howl, pierced by a hail of shots, and for each one that fell, twenty more Orks would heave their way up the ramps, punching and kicking at each other in an effort to be the next to have a go on the turrets.
Swiftfingerz himself stood atop the largest pillbox on the wall, firing an incalculable quantity of munitions from an almost comically oversized weapon.
"Boss!"
Weird ol' Vrotz, Habdab's biggest and least dead weirdboy, stumbled out of the inside of his tower garret, ringing his bell-stikk and hollering abrasively. Swiftfingerz blocked it out, his lower lip curled into a drooling snarl as he got one of KillKrazy's trukks in his sights, its occupants firing wildly into the air. Sparks flew as stray shots peppered the wall.
"Boss?
Boss!"
The Nob-turned-warboss squeezed all four triggers, carpeting everything in his view with a blizzard of shrapnel. The trukk went up in a blossoming cloud of flame, lighting up the gantries and spires and showering KillKrazy's boyz in every direction. One hunchbacked mekanik stood nearby, pouring slugs, nuts and bolts into the ammo funnel, while one of Habdab's koola boyz dumped buckets of filthy water over the weapon's glowing red barrel, filling the open-air pillbox with a dense cloud of foul-smelling steam.
"BOOOOOOOOSS!"
"Orm
busy!" roared Swiftfingerz over the hail of gunfire and the relentless
ping of ricocheting slugs, "
Whadderya want ya weirdy grot?!"
The ork psyker swayed against the makeshift railing of his equally makeshift tower, clutching at his stitched-up skull.
"Boss --" he hollered, his squwaking, warbling voice echoing across the converted vehicle pool, "I just got da weirdest feeling!"
"Flamin' Mork!" the warboss released the handlebars of his super-pressurized Mega-Multi-Deffgun and whirled furiously, the swarm-rokkit launchers mounted on his shoulders thumping against the roof of his turret and knocking his ammo handler headlong into the spikes thirty feet below. He picked up the koola boy in two huge, scarred green claws, breaking its back over his knee before tossing it after the first and leaned over the inside wall of the turret, bellowing in rage: "I tole you already, you stupid git! If yer gunna koff up dat glowy green stuff, do it over the zoggin' wall so it hits dem shootas on the uvva side! Uvvawise, shut yer trap an keep--"
The tower exploded.
In one single reverberating peal of thunder, the twisting metal garret had been pounded into a wide crater of hot scrap by a gleaming white box, the earth-shaking impact sending the dark mass of Orks cascading into each each other like a circle of hideous dominoes.
"What the zog--"
Another six impacts followed the first, another half-score Orks crushed or thrown into the air with each one. The walls of the drop pods thumped open, and huge armored bodies marched out, advancing relentlessly in six directions and pouring explosive fire into the green horde, the bodies of Habdab's creatures withering like grass under the scythe. The moment a clearing was cut, the first Terminator phalanx warped onto the field with a clap of exploding air.
"+ TACTICAL FORMATION +" the shiniest of them thundered,
"+ STERILIZE THE LANDING ZONE +"The warlord looked up. The dark sky of Harkonnen was alight with tongues of fire, the burning glow of the space marines' pods criss-crossed with the streaking fragments of ork rok-ships, screaming down as hot, meteoric rain.
"Humies..." a feral light kindled in the beast's eyes. He drew himself up to his full height, tearing the Deffgun from its mooring bolts with a gutteral roar. "HUMIES FROM DA FLAMIN' SKY! FOINALLY! BOYZ!" One meaty fist wrenched a heavy lever, and the compound filled with the blare of manufactorum alarm klaxons. "YOU AIN'T GETTIN'
MY GUBBINS YA SHINY GITS!"
Tekuan, Master of the Wind Drakes and the closest confidant of his Primarch, listened intently to the various reports from the battlefield below being filtered into his helmet.
"Xiá-sama, the Kindly Ones have initiated the assault," he spoke softly into his comm, the keen edge of anticipated violence clearly present in his tone, "it appears that the Greenskins are swarming the area but the Furies are doing their duty."
Fū Xiá listened to the news with eyes half-closed, more focused on the reverberating sound of the Stormbirds engines and his own breathing, a half-smile coming to his concealed face nonetheless as he imagined the shock and surprise of the hardy xenos below; even now, as his legions transports drew ever closer to the warzone like an expansive flock of birds-of-prey, he could hear the
ping and rattle of projectiles being thrown their way. By which 'side' he could not specify, and nor did it matter, his
Winds Fury would taste the blood and flesh of Habdab Swiftfingerz if he had to wade through the entirety of the sorry mob to get to him.
"Excellent, High Abbot," he replied at last, "then let us make sure they do not fight alone."
Opening his eyes, he was once more pleased by what he saw; had they gone into battle via drop-pods then the armed and armoured men and women that now accompanied them to the field would have been reduced to nothing but pulp by the time they hit earth. As it was, through the use of Stormbirds covered by wings of Storm Eagle Gunships, they would reach the landing zone together and intact.
By the time his thought process was over they were there, the Stormbird firing off its arsenal as it came in to land and clearing a perimeter around it, nearly eighty of its fellows following suit; most did not land, for finding somewhere within the confines of the Death Skullz compound would have been hard enough, let alone not hitting their own allies in the process, and so it was that as with many of his First Temple Fū Xiá leapt the last few feet and landed with a ground-shattering
thud and a squelch atop a crushed green carcass.
His own attendants and those of his fellow Astartes - nearly sisxteen-thousand men and women in all - made use of short-thrust grav-shutes to remain by their masters side, some already plummeting to the ground as their lives were cut short by slugga or shoota fire.
The sight, as always, made Fū Xiá feel sick in his stomach.
"Wind Drakes, form up,
hoshi formation - we shall push these beasts from the field, and glory to the one who takes the largest head."
Based on the battlefield tactics of his homeworld, Fū Xiá formed his eight-thousand Astartes into an arrowhead with their attendants used to defend the more vulnerable flanks, much like the arrow he would 'loose it' straight into the core of the Orkoid formation and fell Habdab himself. As to exactly
where he would point the arrow, well, there could only be one humongous Greenskin wielding what looked like a mingling of several heavy bolters and a melta-gun and
that Ork was currently heading straight toward the combined Astartes forces with the look of a frenzied mad-man in his eyes.
There was a distant
crump and a crackling
whoosh. The horizon blazed with light and the manufactorum was forested with dark shadows as a twisting wall of yellow flares launched into the sky from somewhere far over the wall, sailing in a high arc, spitting fire against the night sky and trailing coils of greasy smoke. They scattered wildly, some spinning off at odd angles and exploding against towers or gantries, but a hundred more were streaking down toward the wall in a flaming mass.
"+ ROCKET BARRAGE +" reverberated Tisiphone,
"+ BRACE FOR IMPACT! +"There was a noise like thunder and the battleground erupted in hot, ochre flame. A score of the missiles erupted against Polyhymna's telekinetic ward, spewing fire between the Furies' ranks and scattering shrapnel like rain. The bulk of the Orkish wall exploded into jagged sheets of rusting steel, its shoota towers toppling into friend and foe alike. One of the Kindly Ones fell with an electronic shriek, left pauldon crushed, her breastplate rent open.
"Apothecary!" bellowed Captain Euryale, wrenching a hot spear of metal from the fallen marine's breast.
The medic hurried through the oily smoke and flaming debris, kneeling to cut away the remains of the impaling armor and drive a mutlti-syringe into the torn mass of augmented flesh.
"Be still, sister," she advised.
"I can still fight!" gasped the woman's vox, "This is but flesh and blood -- forsake me not to the Asclepius exalted sister,
I can still fight!"
"Panacea?"
The apothecary regarded her instruments. "She will hold."
"Permissible. Rise and reinforce devastator position theta. Do not betray my confidence, sister.
Noli obliviscate."
"
Ut ne ignoscimus," choked the marine, hauling herself to her feet and hastening to her designation.
"*Advance company, return fire!*" the Captain barked into her comms with a metallic echo, "*Neutralize that position or choke the enemy with your dead!*"
"By--" the vox crackled,
"-ady's grace--"There was a distant roar of bolter fire and another deep eruption of air as a series of covertly-planted plasma charges detonated on the far bank. A depowered converter tower creaked, groaned and finally screamed as it toppled from its foundations, tumbling catastrophically onto the Ork artillery position. A geyser of roaring flame bloomed through the black skeleton of the tower struts, burning Orkoid bodies rolling across the roadways or flailing wildly as they dropped into the processing shafts.
Onward the Sons went, ignorant to much else except was was before them, trusting in the strength and vigour of the Furies and their Lady to keep them from the worst of harm, Fū Xiá moving like a flowing breeze at the very tip of the arrowhead with Tekuan at his side and his hundred-and-eight monk-warriors forming the piercing tip of the man-made projectile.
All around him was a blur of blades and the crushing press of close-quarter fighting, the bark of a bolt pistol sounding nearby as an Astartes was riddled with return fire and crumpled to the ground, the formation moving ever forward; Here and there he noticed an attendant carved apart by a choppa, their autoguns spitting solid death at the Ork menace, his own weapon flicking back and forth like a serpents tongue and each time another of his enemies falling dead at his feet, his armoured feet grinding them into so much pulp and flesh with his tread.
There you are."Habdab Swiftfingerz! I, Fū Xiá, challenge you. Face me, you wretch."
Bellowed from within the faceplate of his helmet, amplified by the autosensors embedded into it, the slightly digitalised voice of the angered Primarch could be heard over the din of battle as clearly as if he were yelling it into an empty chamber.
Habdab Swiftfingerz, Death Skullz Warboss and loota extraordinaire, turned to face the giant shiny boy who must have come to take his gubbinz for himself - good, he was tired of krumpin' all these weak 'umies that had gone ahead of the shiny onez, wiping the remains of one from the power claw sheathing one huge fist.
"Come an get it 'umie, I ain't scared of ya; I'm da biggest an I'm da boss, not youse nor nobody else!"
His Deffgun unleashed multiple barrels of death into the oncoming formation, attendants torn apart in bloody puffs of gore, Astartes hampered back or forced to halt as mek-improved bullets found their marks, but Fū would not be halted and came on with all the force of a lightning bolt.
All around him the bullets which had shredded lesser beings were stopped abruplty by the conversion field about him, jolts of light marking there trajectories as they impacted on the invisible barrier, Habdab blazing away even as the Primarch ordered his warriors to form a perimeter about the two combatants; soon enough they were enclosed within a circle of the Imperiums finest, the hundred-and-eight forming a second, smaller, circle even as battle raged and rokkits exploded all around.
"Oi, wot are you waitin' for, ye Grot!" Snarled the Warboss, throwing his empty Deffgun to the floor and drawing a choppa half the size of a full-grown man, "come on 'en."
Fū was in no hurry, removing his necklace of beads - and thereby his conversion field generator - as well as the faceplate of his helmet, handing them both to Tekuan, the High Abbot covered from head to toe in the blood of others. Calmly and without any urgency he moved away from his retinue, leisurely resting his polearm over one shoulder, his grey eyes never moving from his intended target, before stopping mere feet away from the gigantic Ork.
There he stood, motionless, like a statue of solid rock even as a rokkit exploded nearby, throwing a shower of black dirt and gore over him, only moving to bring his weapon into the 'ready' posture - blade pointed toward Habdab and both hands evenly spaced apart along the pole.
For long moments he stood there, saying nothing, before smirking beneath the rim of his helmet and opening his mouth, "come...
Warboss, I shall meditate on your ashes."
This was more than enough for the behemoth, his boyz broken or fleeing to some safer place, surrounded on all sides and with nowhere to go...and now this 'umie was threatening him! HIM!
"WAAAGH!"
With a roar and a loping stride that shook the very ground, Habdab Swifingerz hurled himself at the Primarch, an adversary almost a head-and-a-half shorter than him but clearly with nerves of adamantium, his choppa coming down even as his claw took a swipe at his enemy from the other direction. It, however, futile - where he struck his enemy was not, and where his enemy was he did not strike, only rarely did Fū use his own weapons blade to parry a blow which came almost too close in a shower of sparks.
"Stop dancin' about like some pointy-ear git," growled the lumbering, but surprisingly fast, brute, taking another swipe that knocked aside Fū's weapon for but a second and allowed an opening to appear, Habdab spotting it with some primal instinct and lashing out with his claw to tear the polearm from his grip and send it skittering away into the crowd of Astartes about them.
Giving what might well have counted as a smile among his own kind, his drooling lips peeling back to reveal the tusks as long as Fū's forearms, Habdab spun his choppa overhead and bought it down in a blow that should have split the smaller of the Primarchs from head to groin.
When it didn't find its mark he twisted it, bringing it back about to swipe sideways at the more nimble of the two,
this was a mistake.
Using speed almost unimaginable even for one of his ilk, the Primarch stepped into the blow, catching the wrist of the hulking animal in a vice-like grip as his other arm was thrust in with an open palm and the splintering sound of fractured bone and torn muscle that - when done correctly - was the entire purpose of the technique.
"Wha- what you done to me arm!" Howled the Ork, more because his limb was somewhat immobile than because of any actual pain, "I'm still gonna krump ya, ye Snotling shit."
Fū was by this point beyond words, beyond much really, altogether withdrawn into himself and focusing solely on the space and time between he and his crippled foe.
One step...two step...three step...step aside...twist...move in...The power claw barely missed the head of the Primarch, mere inches of air saving Fū from an ignoble and very possible death on Harkonnen IV, the force of the momentum opening up the entire back of the enemy to what would be the thing that Habdab Swiftfingerz would ever feel in his miserable life.
Breath deep, plant foot, twist and strike.Power-armoured and unstoppable as a missile, the formerly flesh-coloured fist tore through metal and toughened hide, a shower of gore coating the length of his arm as Fū clutched what he correctly surmised was the 'heart' of Habdab - if he even ever had one! - and wrenched it straight out the back of the groaning Ork.
It took a moment, as it does for all Greenskins, for Habdab to realise that his power claw was getting heavier and his body slowly weaker. With one arm hanging useless at his side, though not for want of trying to use it, and a bloody hole now draining him of life, he began to crumple to his knees and, eventually, discovered that he could not rise.
"Ye...ye zoggin' runt," he managed to gargle, blood rising in his throat even as he spoke, "my matez 'ull kill ye, and I'll see you when...when..."
In the moments it had taken him to make some form of speech, Fū had drawn the smaller of his two blades from his waist and proceeded to saw through the tought nerve-bundles and muscle of the Orks neck, a process that would take some minutes with anything less than a power weapon of some form, but still went much quicker with Xīn Fēng-forged steel.
There was a slight sucking sound and a wet
pop as he gripped the massive head by one ear and raised it high into the air, the mouth still moving and muttering even as he did so, one booted foot coming up to kick the headless carcass into the dirt.
Polyhymna drew back her hood one-handed, the other holding a tight grip on her lumninous, angel-tipped staff, scattered pools of burning promethium bathing her in a flickering orange light.
"Sister-Captain, Report."
Captain Euryale saluted, inclining her helm. "The zone is pure, exalted sister. Acceptable casualties. We stand at point nine nine eight efficiency."
The Librarian's gaze drifed away, her turquoise eyes glowing eerily in the forge-world's gloom.
"The Lady forsees tactical advantage at negative fifteen degrees hubward," she intoned in her low, beautiful voice, "Ork vehicles will slow reinforcement at the damaged transport bridge."
They knew the unfolding of the strategic landscape in the Lady's eye and felt her will, felt the torch-flame of their sister-captains and the flickering candlelight of squad sargeants positioning across the battlefield along the Sons' flank.
They were one, as worlds orbiting the sun in their perfect, celestial dance. One will, one bright and purifying fire, as none other could be.
"I see it." Euryale proclaimed, pressing her comms. "*Deploy transports. Scouts on gantries. Our word is fulfilled and we must walk our own path.*"
In moments the 13th legion thunderhawks streaked down, their payload of armored carriers dropping heavily and bouncing once against the floor of the manufactorum with a dense crash. Everywhere, Magaera's Furies were mobilizing, spreading ranks.
The thing that was Tisiphone rammed the standard of the Kindly Ones into the debris atop their fork of the ruined wall, saluting with the flickering end of her heavy flamer.
"+ Grace and glory, brothers! +" she broadcast triumphantly to the jade legion over the thunder of the guns,
"+ When next we regard each other it will be over the smoldering bones of a trillion Orkoid dead! +"Those words were recieved joyfully by the Primarch of the Fifteenth, his large form sitting idly atop a stool made specifically for his weight and bulk, as he reviewed the many heads taken that day as they were presented to him. Above him the airborne transports of both legions came and went as blossom on the wind, and truly the pacification of the planet had began in ernest.
"Tekuan," he said to the closest of his guard, gesturing the monk-warrior over to his side, "send a message to the
Threnos and the Lady herself, tell her that we thank her for her assistance and that this initial victory is ours together." Thinking for a moment, a wry smile playing across his face, he spoke up once more, "and also tell Lydia Magaera, my sister, that once we are done here she has my friendship and my trust...but that we shall be seeing them next, before they shall see us."
