Tales of the Amber Viper Chapter 164
The base fell into stunned silence as mortals and Transhumans stared up in dread. The least of the God-Engines of the Collegia Titanicus was a towering monstrosity, able to lay waste cities and break armies, but the Castigator was beyond any of them. The mighty lord of war loomed over buildings and vehicles, its shadow blocking out the sky. Even craning back to peer upwards barely gave one a view of its belly, the bulky torso blocking out all above. Its joints swelled with eerily organic fibre-bundle musculature and its motions were smooth and graceful compared to its lumbering Imperial counterparts. It was war incarnate, it was destruction and ruin given form and it's gaze held contempt for all it surveyed.
Coluber stared up in awe and horror as he beheld the death of the Amber Vipers. He knew the Chapter had nothing in its arsenal that could match this single engine and to try to meet it in battle was sheer folly. Yet fleeing was not an option, the base would take time to evacuate, time they didn't have. The Castigator was upon them and its will belonged to Apophis. The Soulbound was not one to tolerate defiance, any who stood against him would be annihilated without mercy. The time for showing off was done, the moment for total obliteration was at hand.
The Castigator's right arm came to bear, pointing into the heart of the camp. Strange lights built around the barrel of its primary weapon, a prismatic rainbow of hues as light refracted within its strange matrixes. Coluber had never seen the like but he knew it must be deadly, the builders of such a Titan would only arm it with their mightiest weapon and the power it bore must eclipse anything the Forgeworld had shown him so far. The air throbbed as power built, creating a pounding drumbeat that shook the bones and Coluber's teeth itched as his blood began to boil in his veins.
"Get clear of the blast zone!" Coluber yelled at the milling Chattels and Transhumans.
"It's too late!" Shrios shouted over the drumming beat.
With a flare of unlight the Castigator fired, unleashing a beam of prismatic energies. Forged at the zenith of Mankind's vigour and hubris the beam ripped through the dimensions of realspace and punched into the Immaterium below. In all the Imperium only the Chapters of the Unforgiven would have recognised it as a stained-glass cannon, a weapon that opened rifts into the warp, but they would have been stunned by its potency and scale. The Emperor had granted His First Legion only the most primitive versions of the weapon, lesser copies of copies with reduced potential for destruction. This was the original template and its scope put them to shame.
A scintillating beam touched the earth and where it did so reality cracked. Rainbows of light blinded all as a boom of thunder hammered the ears and a jagged rift split open in the air. An instant wind blew up as matter was sucked into the howling depths of the warp, mortal men being yanked off their feet and sent hurtling into the pitiless tides of madness beyond, their screams echoing long after their souls were incinerated. Dark Angel's rift cannons could only sustain a rupture for a mere second but this was beyond their feeble understanding. The rift yawned wider and then they came, Neverborn horrors reaching through the gap in reality to drag the living into their embrace.
"Ware!" Coluber screamed as a forest of grasping tentacles shot out of the rift. They were disgusting to look upon, writhing appendages that danced and cavorted in the light of day. Covered in suppurating sores or bleeding thorns, blinking eyes or narcotic blooms, they shot outwards and wrapped themselves around the first things they encountered. Mortals screamed in agony and Ecstacy as the touch of the unholy flooded over them, their flesh bursting with gangrene or mutating insanely as the power of the Warp filled them. Some were gripped by two tentacles and ripped in half, others were crushed into bags of broken bones and some were stabbed straight through and hoisted aloft like trophies being held up by a hunter. The luckiest died in moments, their hearts giving out in protest but those not so fortunate were dragged back into the rift to face an eternity of torment.
Coluber was horrified beyond words by the sight but his reflexes were not so hampered. Space Marines were conditioned to fight no matter what and face with terror incarnate they were compelled to act. He spied a Brother being yanked off his feet. Space Marine flesh was more resilient to corruption than mortal's but nothing he did could prevent his looming death. Venom leapt into Coluber's hand as he dived to intervene, sweeping his relic blade down to sever the tentacle in one blow. Black blood boiled upon the ground as the Brother fell free but Coluber had no time to cheer, for he had drawn the attention of the rest.
A forest of tentacles were suddenly coming at him, grasping for his armour with hungry malice. Coluber threw himself aside but they turned to give chase, shooting after him like a missile after a fighter jet. He had hoped his Null Collar would provide some defence from the touch of the Warp, but the rift pumped Empyreal energies into the world and swamped his protection with raw force. He was forced to turn and fight, sweeping Venom about in great arcs to sever and slice appendages as they came after him. He fought with all his speed and skill, battling for his life. He sliced and cut and hewed but to no avail, the tentacles seemed to multiply in number and they surrounded him.
Suddenly a pair of appendages darted under his defence and grabbed his legs. Coluber's world span as he was yanked backwards, head slamming into his backpack generator with a painful thump. He felt himself being dragged bodily towards the rift, to a fate worse than death. His hand reached for a grenade at his belt, determined to die first and take some foes with him, but before he could grasp it a snarling axe-rake swung before his eyes, ripping Neverborn flesh apart.
"Grrrrraggh!" Ferrac screamed as he bounded into the fray with his weapon roaring. Coluber was freed from the grip of his captors as the Battle-Captain waded into the heart of the nightmare. His armour was instantly coated in black blood but he cared not. He hacked with the spinning chainblades and he stabbed with the reverse pick, he kicked and he punched and the iron faceplate of his skull glimmered with the wet blood of his enemy. Ferrac drove into the fray with full fury, setting the Neverborn back and he was not alone.
Coluber was amazed to see the entirety of the Amber Vipers piling in, hacking and stabbing with knives, flensing hooks and chain-glaives. Primus warriors and Secundus braves, Tertius Snakelets and specialists, fighting without order or direction but furious nonetheless. Even the Brother-Exemplars were there, Burst-lances spinning as their contact Volkite fields diced all they encountered. Coluber realised he was being passed by and leapt to his feet, Venom's edge cutting into writhing flesh as he joined the fray.
Coluber fought his way into the mass of flesh, shouting, "You intending to finish this without me?!"
Ferrac roared gleefully, "I saw you taking a snooze on your back and thought it seemed a shame to wake you!"
Together the Amber Vipers faced the outpouring of Chaos and drove it back, setting their strength and courage against the filth of the Warp. This was the product of the insane inventions of the Dark Age of Technology but the Space Marines were not daunted. Coluber fought to his utmost, arms blurring as bones cracked under his feet and blood painted his armour. He knew he was wading through the remains of Chattels but dared not look down, he could not afford to take his eyes off the fight for a heartbeat. So he fought on, trying to drive back the mass of tentacles with sheer force of will. With courage and fury the Amber Vipers held the line, stopping any further intrusion and the rift began to shrink as its hunger was denied, but the Castigator wasn't done.
A rainbow flare and a boom of thunder heralded another shot from the stained-glass cannon and a second rift yawned open. Suddenly the Amber Vipers were beset from two directions, grasping tentacles coming at them from both sides. Brothers were snatched up before they could turn and redress their line, dragged into the churning sea of the warp to be devoured by Daemons.
"Form a circle!" Coluber yelled as the Amber Vipers slammed shoulder to shoulder. They fought to hold back the tide, weapons lashing at the encroaching appendages, but they were only buying time. Coluber knew they couldn't win like this. The warp was infinite in its malice and they were finite, this battle could only end one way
"Shrios!" Coluber yelled.
"Here!" the Apothecary shouted back from the furious mass.
"Find Maru!" Coluber yelled, "We need him, go wake him up!"
"How?!" Shiros barked.
"Figure it out!" Coluber yelled, "We'll cover you!"
Coluber lost sight of the Apothecary as he vanished and Ferrac yelled, "So we stand and die while he wakes our sleeping poet?!"
"Hardly," Coluber barked, "Astartes with me... charge!"
Coluber threw himself to the left and his Brothers followed, a hundred Space Marines driving to one side. The tentacles hadn't expected this and were forced back as they advanced, mowed down by hacking blades and furious cries. Coluber led the way, angling towards the Castigator's feet as they cut a path through the nightmares. He knew the Titan was the source of this calamity and dreamed that disabling or destroying it would close the rifts. It was a desperate fantasy but it was all he had.
Ferrac bisected a grasping limb as he yelled, "We're attacking that?!"
"It's our only chance!" Coluber barked.
"How are you planning to take it down?!" Ferrac hissed, "It will take more than a few melta bombs."
"I thought I'd keep hitting it until something breaks!" Coluber cried.
"My kind of plan!" Ferrac guffawed.
With steely determination the Amber Vipers closed and Coluber dared to think they could do this. Titan weapons were ferocious but long-ranged, when up close infantry could present a credible threat. Yet the Castigator was far from helpless. It disdainfully lifted its left arm and lightning wreathed its fist, then leapt forth to arc into the earth. Coluber was picked up and flung aside as the ground exploded under his feet, sending him tumbling head over heels. He hastily rolled to his feet but other Brothers were not so swift and were snatched up and torn to shreds by sinuous limbs.
"Frak!" Ferrac bellowed, "That bastard's got close-in defences!"
"I noticed," Coluber growled, "Reform the line and fight!"
Yet even as he did so there was a rainbow flare and a boom of thunder as a third rift split the skin of the world. The tentacles surrounding them multiplied exponentially, becoming solid walls of muscle. Coluber lost all sight of the world beyond as his vision filled with hungry limbs, feelers pressing in from all sides. He slashed and cut as fast as he was able, trying to carve a way free. He saw Axe-rakes chewing flesh, burst-lances cleaving limbs, knives stabbing and chainswords spewing blood but it made no difference. The Amber Vipers were being overwhelmed and their numbers shrank as more Brothers fell.
"Fight to the last drop of blood. In His name: Ave Imperator!" Coluber roared. The Amber Vipers matched his defiance, crying out their death oath as they sought to inflict every last mote of damage. Coluber could sense the end coming, the end of his Chapter and all his life's work. He had struggled and schemed and laboured to build this Brotherhood up and now it would end. Yet he knew no fear, they would die in the Emperor's service, facing the enemies of Mankind with weapons in hand. A Space Marine could ask for no more in life.
Coluber steeled himself for death but then a brilliant light burst through the wall of flesh. Neverborn limbs smoked under the touch of that radiance, skin bubbling and charring like they were being held over an open flame. Coluber's arm fell still for the first time as the tentacles retreated, slinking away from that holy light like korikroachs before a lumen orb. Into that gap strode Maru Kysoto, the Librarian-Dreadnought blazing with psychic potency. His armoured plates crackled with purifying flames and his aura blazed with cleansing light as his mind threw back the Neverborn from the world of the real. They retreated into the darkness of the Warp, fleeing the purity of the light as they sank into the rifts and pulled them shut.
Maru strode into the midst of the fray proclaiming, "I take a few hours to meditate and you cause yet another mess. It seems I missed something important."
"That's what you get for sleeping on the job!" Ferrac laughed.
Coluber was glad to see the Librarian-Dreadnought awake but spake, "Don't celebrate yet, I think we just hacked it off."
Over their heads the Castigator glowered with ire, its mechanisms growling with frustration. The Titan had no features but did a worthy job to projecting its ire as the ants at its feet fought back. Coluber's guts sank as both weapon-arms came to bear, pointing right at them. Energies built within and he knew even Maru could not hold back a direct hit, nothing could withstand that deadly power. He opened his mouth to cry one last bold charge into the face of annihilation but as he did so the sky was split apart by contrails of fire.
From the horizon came a flurry of shots, hypersonic rounds setting the air alight with their passage. Railgun shots, coming in from afar to target the Castigator. They struck the void shields covering the Titan and ripples bloomed around it as the opposing forces battled for supremacy. Coluber's words died in his mouth as his head turned and he held the sweeping wings of a Manta bomber swooping in from on high. The Tau's super-heavy dropship had seen the threat of the Titan from afar and had come to give battle.
The Castigator's warhorns blared as it saw the threat closing and turned to face it. The ants milling about its feet forgotten as a worthy foe presented itself. Coluber was left in the unfamiliar state of being ignored as the Castigator turned from the Amber Vipers, stepping away as if they were mere irritants. Coluber heard the whine of infernal weapons building in power, even as the Manta reloaded its railguns and knew two lords of war were about to engage in a confrontation that would decide the fate of them all.