Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 318
The assault came from nowhere, an explosion of violence that surged up the long accessway leading to the Gates of Perdition. One moment the avenue was clear, the next Howling Griffons and Blood Ravens were pouring into the broad concourse. Squads of Intercessors advanced in tandem, covering each other with crisp precision. Tacticals and Devastators were a step behind, heavy weapons held ready to destroy any threat. It did not take long for challenges to present themselves.
From the high roof swivelled tarantula turrets, targeting lasers sweeping the intruders as servitor-brains responded to the violation of their sanctuary. Panels on the floor slid away and gun-servitors sprang up from hidden alcoves, overlarge weapons stapled into their shoulders clunking loudly, as withered faces twitched at random. In an instant the empty corridor was made into a tangled briar of opposition, and then they opened fire.
Ryneon was at the fore and felt a heavy bolter round deflect off his breastplate. The impact slowed his stride but the round had failed to penetrate and detonated safely in mid-air. Others were not so fortunate, he saw Brother Percaeval take a hit to the helm that sheared the top of his skull off, trepanning him neatly as a surgical slice. He fell forward, spilling brains as his saga came to an inglorious end. Others took hits, losing limbs and spilling blood but Ryneon dared not stop.
"Advance!" he roared, "Advance into the fire, let nothing stop you!" He matched deeds to words, striding into the teeth of enemy fire, as Chrysoar spat rounds back. Ryneon's aim was precise as ever and he put bolt rounds into the faces of withered servitors, blowing their lobotomised brains out. A dozen he took out in moments, keeping up his pace as he culled the opposition. His Brothers followed suit, though with less accuracy, blasting the defensive emplacements with torrents of rounds. The Blood Ravens concentrated fire on the roof guns, Devastators blowing them apart with missiles and lascannon. They had expected resistance and come appropriately armed.
"They cannot stop us!" Ryneon barked as he strode forward.
Auriga called back, "More keep coming!"
"Let them, we cannot be slowed."
But Auriga warned, "We face only the outer defences, we have yet to meet the gatekeepers. Beware, I sense doom approaching!"
Ryneon looked forward and saw the true defenders sprinting into position. Warriors in black plate, with a red handprint upon their faceplates. They carried bulky guns, with energy coils over and under, and as they emerged barricades rose from the floor, providing shelter. Among them strode a warrior with ponderous augmetics, his form strewn with replacement devices and a bulky grav-weapon on an articulated mount over his shoulder. The Cerberii had come to defend their Gates, but Ryneon was not dismayed, there were only twelve of them and the invaders outnumbered them eleven to one.
"Take them!" Ryneon snarled. A flurry of bolt rounds sprang from his squads but struck a shimmering barrier, layered over the barricades. An energy field, protecting the Cerberii. Ryneon snarled in frustration but then the Cerberii returned fire. Crackling red orbs shot forth, hammering into the resplendent ranks of the Howling Griffons. The blasts cut through power armour like a plasma round, but Ryneon's rad counter began screaming in alarm, whatever they were firing was laced with deadly radioactive material.
Half a dozen Howling Griffons fell as Ryneon shouted, "Auriga!"
"I see them," the Librarian hollered, "Their shield hides a flaw, it oscillates every two point one seconds. Push it and you will have your opening."
Ryneon cried, "Odds numbered squads, fire on my mark, even numbered fire two seconds later. Now!"
At his command a barrage of concentrated fire struck the shield, making it go white as it strained to hold. The shield quivered as it shunted aside the energy and reset, but then the next volley hit. Bolt rounds passed through the infinitesimal gap, not all, but enough. Bolts hammered the Cerberii's protection, forcing them to duck. Ryneon's shot was among those that made it through and he was pleased to see one foe fall, gushing blood from a ruptured neck seal.
Two more had fallen, reducing the Cerberii to nine, and the invaders had closed to point-blank range. The Cerberii did the only thing they could do, they fell back, retreating towards a looming door in the far wall. They left a nasty surprise. Glassy orbs were thrown to cover their retreat, Ryneon took them for grenades, till they shattered open and spilled metallic worms everywhere. They slithered forward, seeking motion with eerily intelligence.
"Do not let them touch you!" Auriga barked.
"Drop your aim!" Ryneon commanded his squads.
At his word rifles lowered and bolt rounds flew. The mass reactives were bigger than the worms but the impacts destroyed them regardless. Most of them were swept away in a single burst, but a handful made it. They sprang for the boots of Brother Veroca, boring through Ceramite like it was a rotten ploin fruit. Veroca threw his head back as he jerked in agony. The worms were eating into him, boring into his bones to consume the Marine from the inside out. The torment must be excruciating, but Veroca responded by leaping into an insane charge. The Belisarian Furnace, Ryneon realised, Veroca's implant had triggered, granting him a last burst of vitality.
The Cerberii had withdrawn while the intruders were stalled but Veroca charged after them, screaming in pain and fury. The augmetic leader of the vile breed turned, his grav-cannon aligned and contorted space rippled about the barrel as the weapon discharged. Veroca collapsed inwards, crushed by gravity waves as dense as a scrap compacter. The noble Howling Griffon's arms and legs folded into his body, as his spine snapped and then he became an oozing ball of flesh and ceramite, where once a man stood.
Ryneon's anger surged, "After them!"
"No, wait!" Auriga yelled.
It was too late. The invaders had given chase to the Cerberii and so come near the barricades. As the first crossed an invisible threshold doors to either side of the avenue sprang open, unleashing their contents. Ryneon had instant to see arms of blades and pulsing sinews, packed with stim injectors, then the trap was sprung.
On back-jointed legs they leapt, clearing the distance in an instant. Multi-jointed arms whipped about, tipped with buzzsaws that chewed through Ceramite in sprays of razor-sharp shrapnel. Bolt rifles clanged off armoured plates, as combat knives drew oily blood from pale flesh. In return the man-machines laid into packed ranks, hacking and sawing with wild abandon.
Ryneon could only see bizarre mixes of flesh and metal, but he discharged Chrysoar, blasting craters into the flank of one. His attack brought its attention and it rotated to see him. It was an awkward thing, hunched over in a curve, moving on three claw tipped legs and with four spindly metal arms. Yet at its heart a brain rested in a glassic jar, revealing its nature. A servitor in essence, but one fashioned by an insane torturer, warping the human frame into forms nightmarish and grotesque. It was to a combat servitor what a rabid mastiff is to a Grox, deadlier by far than the timid constructs of the Mechanicus.
Disgust filled Ryneon as he lifted Chrysoar to put a round into its brain but the thing moved first. It tipped forward, as if toppling, then curled up tight as it rolled over itself. In an instant it had become a bladed flywheel, charging towards him with spikes sticking out all over, and thrashing arms whipping from its hub. Ryneon desperately threw himself aside, barely avoiding being crushed as it rolled past.
"What are these Heretical things?!" Ryneon cried as he spun about.
"Inventions of the Dark Age, desecrations of the noble servitor ideal!" Auriga shouted from where he wrestled with one, "Woe Machines!"
"Whatever they are, they are still mere devices," Ryneon snarled.
The Woe Machine had pivoted about and was coming back at him. The whole thing tumbled over and over as its spines blurred. Ryneon refused to dodge again, he planted his feet and drew back his power fist. Energy swathed his arm but he did not strike, not yet, he had but one chance and he must not squander it. Closer the Woe Machine rolled, closer, making the floor shake and his boots shiver. Ryneon could see the flashes of light off its spines, feel the throb of its charge in his gut but still he held, till the moment was perfect.
An instant before it ran him down his fist flashed forward. Power Fist met spinning metal and the disruption field exploded into life. The Woe Machine came apart, metal shattering as taut sinews ruptured. The spine shattered into a million pieces, the brain jar burst open and gears and cogs went flying in all directions. The device stopped spinning instantly, all momentum arrested, leaving Ryneon standing with his arm buried in its wreaked innards.
Ryneon drew back his fist as he declared, "Be not dismayed by their foul appearance, they are nothing but servitors in garish masks! Space Marines, destroy them all!" The Howling Griffons responded, closing in with weapons held ready. They braved whipping cords and lashing claws, taking many deep marks to their armour but reaching the vulnerable flesh at their core.
Brother Regulam ducked a spiked macehead as he tackled a Woe Machine, driving Krak grenades into its innards before withdrawing. The thing detonated in a shower of gears, leaving a tangled mess behind. Another fell to a meltagun fired from a Tactical squad and another to the tearing chainswords of Cottas' Assault Intercessors. Brother-Sergeant Invika stood firm before a charging automaton, luring it close. At the last second he dove aside, clearing the shots of Blood Raven Devastators, who obliterated it with a volley of lascannon fire. Auriga was fending off the whips of tripod creation, trailing mechandrites below its belly. He avoided being diced by a hairsbreadth, and then his staff struck its knee, blowing out the joint at its weakest point. The Woe Machine toppled over, made helpless and pathetic as it thrashed upon the floor.
If the Cerberii thought such a carnival of horrors would slow Space Marines then they were fools. The invaders met nightmares without fear, demolishing them with indomitable courage and unyielding strength. The Howling Griffons were unmovable, the Blood Raven relentless and with Krak, Las, chainsword and melta they took the Woe Machine down, leaving a vista of smashed pistons and oozing meat.
"They underestimate us!" Ryneon crowed, "Capering puppets are as nothing to the Astartes! We shall drive on the Gates and break them, as we have broken these toys!"
But Auriga warned, "No, the true fight has yet to begin. Look to the rear!"
Ryneon snapped about and saw the path they had advanced up was contested. In the distance a wall of Ceramite advanced, orange-hued and royal blue side by side. Amber Vipers, Storm Heralds, marching to catch the invaders from the rear. Among them loomed bulky war machines, heavy with oversized weapons and grinding tracks. The invaders had walked into a trap, caught between the high doors and the closing host. They were closing fast and would soon be in weapons range, and they left Ryneon with nowhere to run.
How they had known, how deeply Auriga's plots had failed, these things flashed through Ryneon's mind but he pushed them aside. To stand and fight afforded a slim prospect of repulsing the counter-attack but ahead lay the doors and the promise of his prize. The plan was risky but he could not turn from the path. A Sacred Oath he had sworn and the choice presented was not one he could accept. Ryneon set his will and cried, "We are ambushed, but we shall not fall so easily. Quickly, to the Gates! Break them open and get inside before it is too late. Make haste Brothers, speed is all we have!"