First Hunt
The mountain was a towering old monster soaring away into the sky, its top lost in thick bruised clouds, heavy with latent storms. Its lower reaches were barren and covered with ice but through the whiteness cut a black ribbon of a path winding its way down the sides like a snake. Down and down it winded from the high passes where storms brewed eternally into a sharp, narrow valley where hot air made the horizon shimmer. Down that path two figures slowly made their way through the fogs, ice from the high passes crusted their armour, melting and popping as every step took them down lower into the warmer air of the valley.
Any observer standing on that path would have thought at first that they were large men, but as they moved closer through the fog their true size would have been apparent. Towering silhouettes easily the size of a house, each was a giant made of pistons, gears and cogs, bearing weapons three times the height of a man. They were the most ancient of mankind's defenders; Imperial Knights, bearing heraldry of green and grey and carrying the mark of a spear ascending to heaven, the mark of House Frostwyrm. The first bore chainsword as large as a tank and its right arm was the thermal Lance of a Knight Errant, across its chest were emblazoned the words 'Heart of Zeal'. The second had a massive fist and a multi-barrelled cannon crowned with a missile pod, the arms of a Knight Warden and it bore the proud title 'Lifeward'. Any observer would have gasped in awe and wonder at such rare magnificence, a sight most men would count themselves lucky to see once in a life time. However should that observer be able to listen in to the conversation voxed between them that wonder would quickly be replaced with disappointment.
"I'm telling you she's ugly!" called the Knight Errant, it was a young voice with the quiver of youthful brashness that makes older men roll their eyes and grit their teeth.
"There's more to a marriage than looks boy," called the second knight, this voice older sterner and marked with the weariness of long years guiding arrogant youths away from folly, "There's compassion, understanding and patience, all of which will last a lot longer than full lips and a firm bosom believe me."
The youth gave that all the consideration due from a young man filled with hormones "But Hendrick, she's half my age and has a lazy eye and spots too!"
"Kayar, Just remember the Bearal family did us great honour, they feasted us and recharged our power cores off their own mansion, you should be proud to be joined to such a generous family" said Hendrick.
"And because of that I should marry her?!" snorted Kayar dismissively.
"No, you should marry her because your grandfather commands it; the Bearals are the strongest noble family in the Denarii mountain ranges and have long been House Frostwyrm's most ardent supporters in the region. These valleys are a long, long way from anywhere; we need supporters out here lest they seek favour from some other Knight House." Explained Hendrick with exasperation.
"Damn it you're just a commoner Hendrick, you can never inherit the Household, nobody cares who you marry" snorted Kayar.
Hendrick ground his teeth and spat, "Listen boy one day, Emperor forbid, you will be Patriarch of House Frostwyrm and on that dark day you will have to make these decisions for your own offspring."
"I can't believe I have to listen to a commoner, may I remind you I am third in line in the Patriarchy," whined Kayar, "Why does my grandfather let you talk to me that way? Why does he let you get away with not calling me My Lord?"
"Because I'm the Life Ward" spat Hendrick in irritation "My forbearers have guarded future Patriarchs for generations and it's only because of me your own father is alive today, now it's my job to keep you alive. Your grandfather knows I have better chance of doing that if I can beat some sense into that thick skull of yours."
"So when will you start calling me my lord?" asked Kayar entirely missing the point.
"When you've earned it" growled Hendrick.
"That is so…" began Kayar
"May I remind you were not just out here to arrange your nuptials" Hendrick interrupted him to say, "Something or someone has razed three villages to the ground and taken every last inhabitant. The Bearals petitioned our aid and we are honour bound to protect them and their vassals."
"Oh it's probably just a pack of stupid Ursals slipping by those lazy border guards, no trouble at all." Scorned Kayar
"I'm not so sure" muttered Hendrick
"You think it might be a Pardus?! That would put cousin Peatons' trophy Gyrfalcon to shame! Thirty foot wide he boasts its wings were, well imagine his face if I could take a Pardus head as a trophy." Exclaimed Kayar excitedly.
"It might be Jotuns" Hendrick replied
Kayar fell silent for minute then softly said, "That's not funny"
Hendrick ignored him and carried on, "My father once told me a tale of his youth when a Jotun throng got into the valleys levelling every town they found and devouring every man, woman and child within, every last one. That shows method, that shows planning and intelligence, the Knights sent to confront them were lost in ambushes and avalanches. House Frostwyrm had to unite with Houses Jacquar and Gyrfalcon to stop their rampage."
"Look I know your just trying to scare me." Kayar sighed, "We've all heard the old legends when the Jotuns nearly overran the world but after the coming of the imperium they were practically hunted into extinction. Peaton told me there's barely a handful of runts left in the high passes they wouldn't dare come into human lands again. This will turn out to be boring Ursals after all"
"I wouldn't be so sure boy" muttered Hendrick.
"My Lord!" Cried Kayar "You're supposed to call me My Lord!"
"Shut up." Spat Hendrick.
"How dare!" yelled Kayar
"No seriously shut up, can't you detect that?" whispered Hendrick.
Across the low band vox a weak signal was repeating, no words simply a pattern of dots and dashes, an automated distress call. Without speaking the two knights leapt into a gallop, great strides eating up the distance with a speed that such large machines should never have been able to achieve. They burst out from the fogs and saw a large town spread before them nestled in the green valley surrounded by terrace fields cut into the hillside. Grey stone walls and slate roofs confronted them and the streets were winding and crazed with no order or straight line anywhere.
The knights swept through the streets the slate roofs just barely higher than their heads, the obstruction of vision was a minor annoyance but the auspex showed no threats and the signal guided their turns to the heart of the town. The source of the distress signal was coming from the very centre of the settlement and now their audio sensors were picking up distinct crashes and familiar roars that evoked a deep loathing and outrage from their machine spirits. The knights crested a sharp rise and at last had a clear view into the centre of the village, there stood an ancient machine temple, its stonework pitied and worn and with a single spire that bore a decrepit Vox antenna. All over the building swarmed a score of gigantic, hairy apelike brutes, each rivalling the size of the Knights and packed with corded muscle. Their mouths were filled with sharp fangs and their shovel like hands bore filthy black claws but worst of all was the glimmer of crude intelligence shining in their eyes. They were the ancient terror of the people of San Grael and the most despised foe of its Knights: Jotuns.
The Jotuns were all over the ancient temple, pulling off roof tiles and reaching their long shaggy arms through the windows. As Kayar watched one of them pulled out a flailing, screaming man and shoved his entire torso into its mouth, his frantic screams were cut off as the Jotun bit down hard. One shaggy grey backed creature suddenly paused and looked around, noticing the Knights for the first time, this must have been the Alpha as it cuffed several of its throng mates and screamed some crude doggerel at them. With a disturbing coordination a dozen of the beasts broke off from assaulting the temple and hurled themselves at the Knights, closing the distance fast. The Jotuns were perilously close to the peasants cowering in the temple, the slightest glance from his thermal lance could incinerate them too but he was willing to risk the shot anyway. Kayar targeted his Thermal Lance at the pack but as he did so the ancient protocols imprinted onto his conscious by the Throne Mechanicum rang out, "Protect, Defend, Avenge" and he hesitated. Hendrick showed his experience by driving Lifeward hard to the left, opening up the angles and as the Jotuns covered the distance in a feral mass he opened up with his Bolt cannon. A hail of bolt shells tore into the pack tearing through thick hides and ripping into flesh, the fusillade would have put down a squad of Astartes but the Jotuns rivalled the Knights themselves for bulk and only one of the beasts went down.
The Jotuns slammed into the knights, their servo motors groaning to compensate against the heaving bulky mass of flesh crushing them down. Massive fists briefly pounded against adamantium plates but the Jotuns were not stupid beasts, their thick fingers worked around the armour plates tearing at the linking mechanisms and filthy claw tips worked their ways into pistons and gears fouling their movement. Kayar shook his knight from side to side; working to find room in the heaving mass to swing his reaper chainsword but the Jotuns held on tight and howled their spite into his facemask. He clubbed out with his thermal lance and kicked out with his armoured feet but couldn't find room to fight back, and his engine's knees began to buckle under the strain. A terrible wrenching vibrated through the knight's chassis as one of the armour plates tore away and Kayar felt a rush of rage and shame at the dishonour wrought against Heart of Zeal even as the Jotuns reached in to tear at the exposed joints below.
Suddenly a blast of light exploded amongst the throng, bright flames and metal shrapnel shattering around them, the beast's thick hides protected them from the worst of the blow but they fell about dazed and confused for a few seconds. Kayar stood dumbfounded in the centre of the smoke looking around for an explanation of his reprieve, until he saw Hendrick charging past him steam billowing from his ironstorm missile pod. He hurtled by calling out, "Damn it boy, Knights have legs for a reason. Don't just stand there like a sow for slaughter: RUN!"
Kayar launched himself into a gallop, chasing Hendrick into the twisting paths of the buildings taking turns at random, the slate roofs were barely high enough to conceal the towering knights but they would buy them a few precious seconds to regroup. Kayar glanced at his auspex, this foe had no thermal signature or energy emission to track but the motion sensors showed them splitting up into small groups to prevent any possibility of escape. Kayar gritted his teeth Knights did not survive the battlefields of the 41st millennium by being stupid, they may occasionally fall back but no knight worthy of the name would abandon the battlefield entirely and he swore that the foe would pay for such a mistake. He returned his attention to the path ahead and saw that in the few seconds of distraction Hendrick had pulled well ahead, he must have sensed Kayar falling behind as he called, "Divert power from your Ion shield, it's useless in this kind of fight, speed will serve you better this day."
Kayar was stunned by the idea, all his training demanded a Knight keep his shield up at all times, but this was no time to be debating doctrine and he quickly made the adjustments feeling the power surge through his motive systems. The auspex showed the Jotuns charging through the surrounding streets, Hendrick called "We don't have a chance if we let them come at us in strength, split up and pick them off one by one, hit and run don't get bogged down".
At the next junction they spilt up, heading down opposing streets, the Knight's heavy footfalls shaking tiles from the building and their pauldrons carving deep furrows in the walls where their bulk was too wide to pass down narrow streets. Kayar made blind turns, heading parallel to the roars and snarls chasing them through the twilight gloom. He made a sharp turn to his right and was suddenly confronted with a shaggy brute charging right at him, its blackened claws already rising to attack. The street was too narrow for evasion and there was but a moment for him to bring his reaper chainsword up as the two crashed together. His knight rang like a bell at the impact but his roaring chainsword plunged straight into the beast's chest and tore out of its back in a spray of blood and gore. Kayar stood still in shock for a second, then the life fled the Jotun's eyes and it slid off his sword and crashed to the ground.
Kayar felt a surge of elation and exulted, "I got one!"
"Great", called Hendrick over the Vox, "Now just do it twenty more times and were golden"
Remembering the fight was far from over Kayar stepped over his foe's corpse and began running once more. He made two more random turns and was about to make a third when his auspex screamed in warning, he barely had a second to bring his weapons up to ready before two shaggy monsters barrelled round the corner. He met the first one with a blast from his thermal lance, the melta weapon liquefied flesh in a heartbeat and carried on into the building behind, all that remained was a steaming pile of gore before a bubbling mass of liquid stone. The second Jotun was a more cunning beast, waiting for its pack mate to distract the Knight then sweeping in, it scythed its claws across the Knight's face plate and in doing so ruptured optic lines and shattered lenses. Kayar gasped in sympathetic agony as he felt the machine's pain through his neural link and static filled one half of his awareness, the auto senses attempt to compensate but the image was washed out and jumped intermittently. The beast tried to take advantage of his moment's weakness, slicing in for a disembowelling stroke but Kayar mastered his pain and met it with wide sweeps of his chainsword. His first blow tore off its arm and the next caved half way through its chest and it slumped with barely a whisper to the dirt.
Kayar stepped back assessing his kills, he wondered for a second if he should mark the location so he could return later and take a head as a trophy. A sudden crash and roar from uncomfortably close by shook him out of his complacency; this was no time for glory seeking. He pressed on but slower than before, his loss of visual sense made his walking erratic and his pauldrons constantly smashing into eaves and knocking stones free from walls. His auspex was washed with static but he saw a ghost of return, he paused for a moment to adjust the feed and this hesitation saved his life. From a blind alley jumped a monstrous Jotun, far larger than the previous ones and it pounced on the spot he would have been had he taken one more step. He brought up his thermal lance but the brute moved far quicker than anything that size had a right to and bounded forwards, too close for Kayar to fire lest he be caught in his own blast zone. The beast grappled at his armour, pulling Heart of Zeal chest to chest so the chainsword couldn't be brought to bear then it began slamming a clenched fist into the abdominal plating over and over. Kayar was shook about in the cockpit his body pulling hard against his implant ports with every blow; he tried to bring his Knight's knee up but was blocked by a bony elbow. In desperation he swung his stubber up and unleashed it into the monsters face, it screamed in fury and staggered back hands flying up to its face. Kayar took a single step back and swung his Knight's upper body hard to the left, in a move no organic soldier could replicate he swung the knight 360 degrees on its own waist bringing the reaper chainsword around and sawing the monster in half with one blow. The creature fell down in two halves the arms trashing about for long moments before it registered it was truly dead.
Kayar stood there for a few seconds the exertion making him heave and gasp for air but could not linger and pushed on, turn after turn came and went the beasts howls echoing from the blind alleys. Once as he ran he saw Hendrick beating a Jotun to death with his Thunderstike gauntlet but he was past the scene in moment. Finally Kayar made a turn that led into a wide plaza and was shocked to see the machine temple before him once more. Somehow in the confusion he had managed to end up right back where he had started. The temple's walls had caved in and a trio of Jotuns were sifting through the wreckage pulling bodies out, some still twitching, and shovelling them down their wide maws. A sudden rage filled Kayar and he took a step forward in challenge, he had barely a few seconds to grasp his mistake before another throng, led by the old Greyback itself, charged out of the alleyways behind and fell upon him, he had blundered into a crude trap!
The throng fell upon him tearing and clawing at his exposed back as the others raced to join the carnage, the fiends easily shredded through the lighter armour on his rear and cut deep into the mechanisms within. Kayar screamed in agony as plates tore free and fluid lines were ruptured, the power core began haemorrhaging energy and he felt Heart of Zeal's pain burning through his nerves as the Knight fell to one knee. He tried to fight them off but their feral mass covered Heart of Zeal and there was no room to swing his chainsword, the old Greyback snarled out a crude command and one of the Jotun's grabbed his Thermal lance and rammed it into the ground pinning his frame still. Heart of Zeal shook and shuddered under the blows rained upon it and one beast began to prise its razor claws into the seals around the cockpit hatch. Kayar knew this fight was already lost and he had seconds to live, almost all options were exhausted, all but one desperate chance.
Kayar gnashed his teeth and fired his thermal lance into the ground at point blank range.
A massive blast of heat and radiation exploded outwards and upwards, a backwash of energy that rivalled the impact of Titan grade weaponry. The Jotun holding the Lance down simply ceased to exist, its atoms vaporised into flaming dust, those nearby faring little better their flesh running and melting like wax. Only those Jotuns at the back of the throng evaded instant death but that was small consolation as their shaggy skin caught fire burning them head to toe. The old greyback opened its mouth to scream one final roar of hatred but flame rushed down its gullet and burned it from the inside out. Kayar however noted none of that, consumed in agony as Heart of Zeal suffered in its own killing fire. The feedback of energy exploded the Thermal lance, blowing it clean off leaving only a jagged stump, solid armour bubbled and adamantium rods were welded together as the Knight endured the core of the inferno. Control wires fused and energy conduits blew out and in a final indignity the face plate was melted down becoming nothing more than a fused lump of scorched metal. Then it was over.
Kayar reeled in agony, the smoke filled cockpit sparking and searing hot to breathe, gasping for air he reached up with his hands and flailed at the canopy release. The hot metal scalded his hands through his gloves but he managed to grasp the handle and twist it hard enough to pop. The air outside was blisteringly hot but it brought blessed relief from the smoke and allowed Kayar to see out with his own eyes.
The smoke cleared and revealed the massive form of Lifeward standing amidst the glassy craters and burnt bodies of Jotuns.
His vox crackled but Kayar couldn't make out any words among the broken snarls and crackles of his unit, then the external horns blared, "That was either the bravest or stupidest thing I've ever seen." Boomed Hendrick.
Kayar had to shout to make himself heard "I didn't see you in a position to help"
"I was busy taking care of the rest" Hendrick retorted, "Two knights against a whole throng of Jotuns; it's a feat that hasn't been seen in a thousand years."
Kayar coughed among the acrid smoke then yelled, "Doesn't feel as glorious as the minstrels said it would be."
Hendrick snorted, "Rarely is."
Kayar looked about from his cockpit, survivors were emerging from the ruins of the machine temple seeming shocked and dazed at events, there were so few of them it shamed the young Knight. They were his family's charges and despite all he had done he felt he had failed them, he instantly decided not to stay and demand the shows of gratitude that was his feudal right. He would speak to his father and implore they send out a relief party when he returned home, which reminded him, "Give me a minute, I'll try to get up."
Kayar focussed on his knight condition, the machine spirit was writhing in pain, he concentrated on soothing its anguish, rerouting energy and isolating damaged circuits. In a few minutes he was able to divert a trickle of power to his motive system and Heart of Zeal groaned as it forced itself to its feet. He took an experimental step, the right knee was a fused mass of molten metal and he was seriously unbalanced with the loss of the thermal lance, the knight swayed violently as it limped but he could just about move. He called "It's slow but I can walk."
Hendrick replied "Its long way home, can you make it back over the pass to the Bearal's mansion? We can call Sacristans to meet us there."
"Do we have any other options?" asked Kayar bleakly.
"Well… No" said Hendrick.
"Well I guess I'll have to make it then, let move." Called Kayar gritting his teeth and setting forth.
Hendrick followed saying only, "Let's get you home. M'lord"