Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 171
The metropolis didn't have long left. Everywhere ash fell, driven by flaming winds and lofted high by violent explosions. In the streets Solar Knights warred, trading shots without care for the collateral damage they inflicted. Ancient storehouses collapsed as energy rounds riddled them with shots, Manufactorums exploded as munitions detonated in their innards and transit hubs were turned to rubble by stray warheads. Worst of all were the rifts carved into reality by the stained-glass cannon, openings to the warp through which lashing tendrils of Neverborn reached to rend and tear.
Amid that destruction Coluber limped along, trying to avoid dying to a stray shot. He was following the footsteps of the Castigator, assuming the Titan would annihilate anything that stood against it. He had been proven right and many crushed automatons lay broken amongst the rubble. Yet he also had to avoid the rifts it left behind, the unlight glow warning him to make haste as he lurched past before any Neverborn could touch him.
The Titan had soon outpaced him, its steps far faster than his injured lurch. Still its path was zigzagging, errant and wild, so he was able to stay near. Coluber was left in the unusual position of having nothing to fight. His only objective was to survive, a prospect that was looking less likely with every passing minute. The rising tide of carnage would soon drown him and he was only buying minutes with this desperate retreat. Coluber knew deep down he was going to die in this Forge, yet he took comfort knowing his Brothers would escape.
The Amber Vipers should be breaking orbit by now, reaching the safety of the Serpens Rex. The Chapter would live on, wounded and bleeding but alive. They would escape annihilation and continue their efforts to rebuild under another master. Coluber wondered if Ferrac would take up the mantle of Chapter Master, he would hate it but surely it was the only option. Unless Maru Kysoto stepped into the void. A Dreadnought Chapter Master, stranger things had happened though he was amused to picture Ferrac's reaction to the notion.
He realised then that he was growing delirious, his mind wandering and forced his attention back to the moment. He had to concentrate if was to survive the next five minutes. Coluber pulled up short as he heard buildings collapsing ahead, accompanied the unlight of the Warp. He immediately knew the way ahead would be blocked by immaterial travesties, reaching through the rifts to claw at the material world. To advance would be to die but as he glanced back he saw even greater danger behind. Left with no alternative he turned down a side street and limped away, looking for any means of escape. The only possibility was a circular shield vane, wrapped in Ferrocrete so to resemble a tower. He darted through a narrow door and found a plasteel staircase climbing the interior. No other options presented themselves so he took the stairs, wheezing slightly as he climbed high.
Coluber emerged onto a narrow balcony and found himself confronted by a sea of fire. Under the dim night sky the Forge burned end to end. Flames danced in the Manufactorums and transit hubs while destruction ran riot among the streets. Unlight shone in all quarters, rifts carved into reality allowing the filth of the Warp to rip and tear at the meat and bone of the metropolis. If any automatons fought on he could not see them, lost in the inferno sweeping across Gobannus. Yet striding through that devastation came the Castigator, impervious to the carnage it had unleashed and indifferent to the woes of others.
Coluber looked about and saw soon the shield vane he was standing on would be consumed by flame or torn down by grasping Neverborn. His time was running out and he had nowhere left to run, but maybe he could be carried away. A terrible idea formed in his mind, fanciful and preposterous in conception, yet offering the only way to survive another minute.
"This is such a bad idea," Coluber muttered as he vaulted onto the low wall running around the balcony. The drop below tugged at him, the instinctive urge to jump tingling in the soles of his feet but he ignored it as he focused on the closing Titan. By his measure it would pass within a few metres of the shield vane, an easy jump for a fit Astartes but in his injured state a perilous risk to take. Coluber pushed thoughts of failure from his mind as he waited for the moment to leap, then the Titan made its closest crossing and he threw himself into the air.
The jump was rather more of a flop than he would care to admit, his weakened legs barely able to lift him. His arc dropped alarmingly but he reached out and just caught a lintel running around the Titan's knee. His chest slammed into the metal of its shin and he clung on for dear life as the whole leg shifted, carrying him away. The motion was sickening, lifting, swinging and slamming back down. He wasn't nearly high enough to avoid being sprayed with masonry dust as the Castigator strode through buildings and the rising flames were worryingly close to his body.
Coluber waited until the leg slammed down once more then heaved up and grabbed the next handhold. His muscles screamed in protest at the forced climb but with the alternative being death he compelled them into action and climbed. He had to time each movement carefully, ascending only as the Titan's leg set down. On any other Titan he would have looked for a crew hatch to climb into but the Castigator had no such access. Between its joints were not gears and pistons but organic looking fibre-motive bundles, seamless and sealed as they bulged and compressed. Coluber suspected this Titan had no crew, no Princeps and thus no Machine Spirit to keep it true. More proof of the ancient's foolish arrogance, as if any more was needed.
Painfully Coluber cross the knee joint then climbed up the thigh to the hip. Vertigo tugged at him but he put it from his mind as he ascended to the torso. As he rose he felt strange vibrations under his gauntlets, a revolting sense of immaterial energies flowing from the heart of the Castigator. Whatever eldritch generators energized this Titan they were as corrupt as the rest of the Forge and Coluber wished to be as far away as he could. Teeth gritted he climbed even higher, gripping tiny handholds in the contoured metal of its armour. As he reached the shoulders the vertical wall became a slope, and then he was standing on the shoulder, right next to the rounded gorget and domed head of the cockpit.
Coluber sagged in relief as he saw he was at his destination, but the sight that greeted him was far from reassuring. The Forge was aflame end to end, a sea of fire and smoke that blotted out the sky. Horizon to horizon it burned as skyscrapers collapsed in billowing clouds of dust and rivers of fire swept through the suburbs. The heat was immense and the wind filled with choking ash, were it not for his armour's filters he would be blinded and suffocating. Between the automatons and the Titan the Forge had been laid waste and yet there was one building still standing. A squat fortress, with heavily reinforced walls. Coluber knew this building, it was the warp-energy tap and the Castigator was heading right for it.
Coluber gulped as he tried to calculate the devastation if the Titan cracked that arcane generator open. He found himself falling short, whatever power it contained would surely be immense, enough to blow this Forge off the map and kill him too. Coluber had no way to stop it, the Castigator was striding right towards it and its weapons were humming with power. His life was measured in moments and yet amid that calamity his eyes were drawn to the heavens, where a shape moved among the billowing pillars of smoke.
Coluber squinted to see, even autosenses struggling to pierce this haze. Then a pillar swayed slightly and he spied the cruciform shape of a Thunderhawk, Viper's Bite, circling low over the Forge. They were looking for him, Coluber realised. Ferrac was aboard that gunship and was looking for him. That magnificent idiot must have refused to leave without his Master. It was the stupidest decision possible, to risk all the lives on board for one Marine, and also the truest act of Brotherhood he had ever beheld.
Coluber knew they would never spot him on the Titan's back so he drew his sundered Volkite Pistol from its holster. He set a power rune to maximum and heard the weapon whining as its damaged coils tried to activate. The gun had no way to release its energy and began to radiate heat as it overloaded, seconds away from exploding in his hand. Coluber drew back his arm and then threw the pistol high, sending it soaring upwards. Moments later the energy coils overloaded, exploding in a brilliant flash of red light, brighter than flare in the night.
Instantly Viper's Bite banked around, steering in his direction. Coluber waved his arms overhead to guide them in and the gunship slowed as its engines shifted to vertical flight mode, coming to hover behind the Titan's shoulders. The front ramp ground down and Ferrac burst out, frantically waving for Coluber to leap aboard as he shouted, "Get in!"
Coluber glanced behind and then yelled, "Wait."
"Are you Frakking jesting me?!" Ferrac barked, "Get a sodding move on!"
"I need a Melta bomb!" Coluber yelled, "We have to stop this Titan."
"A what?!" Ferrac shouted.
"Melta bomb, now!" Coluber hollered.
Ferrac reached to his belt and tossed over a silver orb as he bellowed, "I'll do you one better, have a vortex grenade!"
Coluber grabbed the proffered orb from the air and spun to plant it behind the Titan's head. He set it as deep as he could, amid the pulsing conduits and coils of its spine, then pulled the pin. He threw himself onto the Thunderhawk's ramp and Ferrac grabbed his arm to heave him into the troop bay, where the bulk of Maru Kysoto was braced immobile. Viper's Bite lurched back as the pilots steered away, reaching for height as the ramp began to grind close. Yet Coluber peered out of the narrowing gap and waited for the grenade to detonate.
The Castigator managed a whole step before the implosion occurred. A glint of light, a sense of dislocation and then a sphere of blackness engulfed the rear half of its cockpit. Metal and wires and cogitators were sucked into the warp as the vortex chewed its way through reality, dumping anything inside its radius into the Immaterium. Nothing could resist such power and the Castigator's artificial brain was cut in half, leaving a perfectly bisected tableau of its innards as the vortex snapped off. The Castigator froze; its control signals severed utterly. Then it toppled forward, the immense length of it sinking into the sea of fire as it died. It fell just short of the warp-energy tap, leaving the building alone in a destroyed city, the last bastion against obliteration.
Finally the ramp slammed shut and Viper's Bite stood on its end as the pilot reached for the heavens. Coluber sagged against a wall, bones aching as G-forces weighed upon him. Every wound sank knives into his nerves and yet he minded not. This was the pain of survival, of life and he sank into its embrace with relief.
Ferrac was braced with his feet on the inclined deck and holding a handhold as he remarked, "You cut that one close."
"You should have left me behind," Coluber growled.
"Not happening," Ferrac snorted, "Not now, not ever."
"I'm serious," Coluber retorted, "A Thunderhawk and all aboard are worth more than my single life."
"Then I'll make an agreement with you," Ferrac quipped, "You can sacrifice yourself all you like, so long as I get to die first."
Coluber scoffed, "I don't know whether to sentence you to six hours of shriving or give you a medal, but thank you. As ever you are my truest Brother."
With that Coluber sank into blessed silence as the Thunderhawk flew for orbit, leaving the burning ruin of the Forge behind. Gobannus was lost in flame as the Amber Vipers escaped, yet its memory would live on. Too many lives had it claimed, too many wounds had this pit of iniquity left upon their souls. The scars of this war would take many years to heal and Coluber would lament their losses to the end of his days.