Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 121
Calamity and woe were spawned in the guise of half a million screaming savages. From the depths they arose, barrelling out of the darkness with choppas and shootas in hand. They came with bloodcurdling cries on their lips and feral glee in their eyes, eager to find the biggest fight and taste the exhilaration of battle. They did not waste time asking where they were or how they had come to be there, war called and all other thoughts were driven from their simple minds. So they arose in a green tide and threw themselves at the first thing they encountered which happened to be the Necron army.
Far away Mathep heard the carnage and ran to intervene. He knew well what this heralded, he grasped the scope of the calamity and cursed every second he was absent from his forces. He left the Space Marine leader crippled in his wake, not even bothering to finish the vermin off. The usurper didn't matter, none of those pathetic dregs yet fighting in the city mattered anymore. The true threat lay behind the front lines and he sprinted to get back to his troops before it was too late.
Mathep bounded onto his chariot and urged the pilots to take him into the sky. The space where his Lychguard should be standing was empty, Tamunn having been forced to phase out in their chase. The chariot rose from the crash site and flew over the ravaged buildings. Around him the usurpers fought on, firing desperately into the advancing silver army. Yet this was nothing but a sideshow, unimportant compared to what was happening beyond the city. Far away the silver ranks of his magnificent army were being consumed by darkness and fire. A horde of Greenskin brutes spilling out of the ramps, emerging in the centre of his army and laying waste to all they found.
Mathep experienced a bewildering moment of cognitive dissonance as he tried to grasp how the Orks has been freed and what damage they could inflict. Predictive calculations ran in his mind but came up short, he could not form any idea of the destruction they would wreck, all he knew was it would be immense. The Ork race had been the Old One's most desperate gamble, a living doomsday weapon made for the end of days. Their last futile attempt to turn the tide and drive back the undying Necrons. They had failed, the Old Ones were gone for good but their weapons remained, rampaging across the galaxy and destroying all they found. The Necrons has been unable to stop them, the C'tan couldn't stop them, the Orks were a force of nature and they would not be denied.
With a hurried wave Mathep directed his chariot to the battle, signalling his army to redress and present their weapons to this new threat. The city was forgotten, the units still there left to fend for themselves as he flew towards the carnage. Even from this distance he could see Orks throwing themselves into the Necron host, tearing them apart at point-blank range. He saw mobs of snarling savages rend Necron warriors limb from limb, cumbersome wartrukks driving over orderly rows of silver bodies, crushing them under spiked wheels and smoking Killa Kans stomping through the army with no more bother than walking through a field of grass. Gauss weapons were brought to bear and Tesla blasters flared but the range was too close, the Necrons could not deploy their full might whilst the Orks were in their element.
"Faster," Mathep commanded his pilots, "Faster lest I have neural decay take you!" His servants were incapable of understanding his threat but they obeyed regardless, sending them hurtling towards the battlefield. Mathep hoisted his Chronostave as they closed and eyed a Trukk that had wandered too far from the rest. He lowered his stave and let loose a stream of entropy. Raw time enveloped the machine and it began to rust, parts falling off it like an avalanche. The Orks covering its back grew grey and pitted but they did not fall, merely screaming in anger and letting off random shots in his direction. Mathep saw their innate resistance to age made manifest and was forced to double his efforts, then double them again. Finally the Orks collapsed into dust but Mathep was not satisfied, that had taken far too long, for too little result. He wasn't going to beat the Orks by picking them off a handful at a time.
Mathep sent out a subwave broadcast, "Vizier, bring forth my Doom Scythes."
From afar Inotep protested, "But my lord, the range is too close. The blasts will…"
"Irrelevant!" Mathep snarled, "My troops are unimportant but if these Orks run free they will wreak havoc on my kingdom. Send forth the fighters and ready reinforcements for teleportation."
Mathep cut the link with abrupt disdain and rose high. Flurries of crude bullets glanced off his chariot's protective field, individually nothing but in great enough number they may overload the barriers. The underslung gauss blasters fired continuously, mowing Orks down but it was a drop in an ocean of green and all they achieved was to draw more fire his way. The barrier turned white and Mathep realised it was on the verge of overload, but then a flock of crescent wings fell from on high.
Diving at top speed a dozen Doom Scythes fell upon the Orks, Tesla blasters and Death Rays blazing. Greenskin bodies exploded under the onslaught, sending gory showers of offal flying over their comrades. Trukks disappeared in actinic blasts and Killa Kans toppled in smoking ruins. A larger Dreadnought was struck by a Death Ray, that punched straight through it and out the other side before ploughing into the ground and burrowing ten levels deep. Scores of living metal bodies were blown apart too but Mathep paid them no mind, the lowly warriors were of no import. The Orks were not dismayed by this blow, they merely shook their fists and fired random shots into the air but they were blown back a step.
"Bring forth Monoliths!" Mathep ordered and fifty squat pyramid shapes advanced. From their tops green crystals fired arcs of energy into the horde and on their fronts glowing portals swirled. The Monoliths set down and then they started disgorging warriors in endless streams. From far away reinforcements marched into teleport arrays and emerged in the midst of battle, weapons firing the second they stepped forth. The nearest Orks were disintegrated by gauss fire, ragged holes blown through them. They roared as they charged but were swept by fire again and again. Now it was the Necrons emerging in their midst and the undying took full advantage of the surprise attack. A clearing was made in the horde and Mathep looked for a leader beast. Orks typically followed the biggest of their kind but he could see no sign of any such beast. Perhaps they were merely following their feral instincts, attacking without direction. It seemed he would have to kill them all. So be it, he had superior weapons and position, he could do this.
It was then that a hundred Orks shot upwards from the mob. Riding on flaming contrails spat out by crude rokkets strapped to their backs. Lashes of green lightning punched a score from the sky but they only laughed as they dove upon the Monoliths. Ironshod boots slammed down as crude hands slapped melta bombs to armoured buttresses and green crystals. Mathep reached out to stop them but was too slow, the bombs detonated as one and ripped the Monoliths to shreds. Living metal flanks slumped as green fires consumed eldritch machinery within, reducing them to slag. The Orks hadn't even bothered to dismount, laughing gleefully as they blew themselves to bits along with their targets. They cared nothing for their own survival so long as they hurt the enemy, even Necrons could not say such a thing.
Mathep was lost for words as the savage horde rallied and rushed forward. His reinforcements disappeared under a solid wall of green skin, trampled into the ground by countless feet. The Orks surged over all resistance and left nothing in their wake, battering his army into submission through sheer brute force. Laughing barbarians tore down those who would stand against them and the stain of violence spread into the silver ranks still marching mindlessly towards the city.
Mathep reeled as he struggled to find a way to reverse the tide of carnage. His chariot rose high and he saw he still had thousands of troops yet to join the fight. Calculations churned in his mind as he deduced he could still win. If he abandoned his forces already engaged and pulled back the rest he could form a firing line. Yes, relentless application of gauss fire could end this threat, all he needed was a little time. Unfortunately that was the moment a trio of Deffkopters attacked.
The first Mathep knew of it was when a salvo of missiles slammed into his chariot's shield. Sheer kinetic force sent it spinning and Mathep had to hang on to avoid being thrown from his perch. The pilots retreated back towards the city as Mathep looked up to three ungainly machines chasing him. They were squared-off shapes, born of mismatched parts and hovering under twin blades that spun in the air above them. The pilots wore usurper-skin leathers and had thick goggles over their eyes. The machines looked ridiculous save for the weight of shootas and missiles strapped to their fonts, a deadly cargo all aimed in his direction. The pilots gripped their control levers with meaty hands and laughed evilly as their leader chewed on smoking rolled-up weed and screamed, "Git dat poncy-basturd!"
A flurry of missiles smote the chariot, making it drop ten metres towards the ruins of the city and sending Mathep staggering. Shootas blazed and feral cries rang loud but Mathep was done retreating. He lifted the Chronostave and let loose a stream of entropy. One Deffkopter was hit full on and the pilot bawled as his craft rusted to pieces before his eyes. He dropped from the sky as his blades seized solid and he tumbled to his death. The second was raked by gauss fire and exploded in mid-air, sending zooming missiles flying away to land in the city and the horde at random. The third however dove straight at them, shootas hammering loudly, but Mathep contemptuously reversed his chariot's retreat, meeting head to head in a high-speed collision.
His calculation was the shield would break the crude machine apart and it proved accurate. Flames spilled around his protection and blood rained groundwards as the Ork was splattered over the shield. Yet it turned out Mathep had underestimated the effect of the impact on his chariot. The dimensional drive fluttered as erratic power surges flooded it and the chariot dropped like a stone. Mathep became weightless for an instant as they plummeted then they clipped a ruined wall and spun wildly about. The Phaeron was thrown from his footing and he slammed down with an impact that made his living metal distort and his limbs break.
"Dread Lord?!" Inotep cried, "I've lost you!" Mathep struggled to think straight as his awareness hazed. He could sense distant memory-capture devices reaching out for him, thinking his body was broken, but he rebuffed them as he commanded his form to rebuild. His limbs flowed back into shape and his chest inflated as he stood up and gripped his stave fiercely in hatred. He had no time for this delay. His army couldn't fight without direction, he had to get back to the battle before the Orks destroyed everything. But his time had run out.
From afar a hurricane wind grabbed his body and hurled him into a wall. Mathep was surprised by the unexpected blast of wind and tried to push through it, but it only doubled in force, crushing him into the wall like an insect under a boot. Suddenly the stone began to move, writhing like a living thing to wrap around his limbs and bind him tight. Mathep had never seen anything like this, it was totally unlike Orks to… no wait. He did recognise this, it was warp-power, the hated legacy of the Old Ones breaking the laws of the physical universe and rewriting them on a whim.
His eyes focused and he saw a bipedal war machine loom over the piled rubble. No Ork construct, too smooth and well made to be their handiwork. It towered over him with Ceramite armour clamped to broad piston limbs and it bore a massive blade in one mechanical fist. Its hue was the orange-red of the usurpers and power shimmered around it as the shackles on his limbs tightened. It closed like the shadow of oblivion and the war machine growled, "I owe you death."
Mathep poured all his hatred into his arm and managed to lever his Chronostave free. A blast of entropy rippled forth but was stopped before it hit. The stream of raw time picked apart by the manifest insanity of the Warp. Psychic power, the one aspect of existence the Necrons had never mastered, their one true vulnerability. Mathep had nothing that could touch this foe and both of them knew it.
Mathep stared his enemy in the sensor-dome and hissed, "I am the Phaeron of the Hyktot, you shall not touch me!"
"I am Maru Kysoto," the machine growled, "You killed my Brothers, you killed my Chapter and my Master. I shall break you, honour demands no less."
The machine was a mere metre away as Mathep snarled, "Fool, I am undying. You can't kill me!"
The machine paused for a moment then whispered, "There are worse fates than death, as you are about to discover."
The machine lifted its massive sword and drove the point into Mathep's chest, then raw warp powered flooded through the connection. Mathep screamed as torments like he had never known wracked his being, the filthy touch of the warp ripping into his mind. His every synapse was eviscerated and pain became his whole universe. The world disappeared as Maru Kysoto tore into the Phaeron's memories and gutted them, leaving ashes in his wake. The Phaeron's mind was ravaged, even as his body erupted with fire. Atom by atom he was torn apart, falling into dust as his mind howled in feral agony. Distant memory-capture devices reached for him but his mind was being shredded, precious memories and personality engrams burning to cinders, never to be recovered.
One final surge of power blew him apart and Mathep's mind fled to the safety of quantum-buffers, bleeding and savaged from its psychic mauling. Mathep's intellect disappeared into the darkness to lick his wounds and for all eternity he would never understand how much of himself he had lost on that ashen battlefield.