Twelve
"The Guard dies but does not surrender!"
-Lord General Pierrot Cambraine
Almudena wasted little time in organising his men for a defence. He had asked Maharbal what the most optimistic and pessimistic time frames for the xenos arrival were. He found both to be depressing.
'We did our best to fortify this position.' Almudena said and indicated the narrow defile that would soon be crawling with lycan warriors. 'There's only one way in for those bastards and our Imperial friends have rigged some nasty surprises for them. I'm not going to lie, this is going to be hard as nails but we need to hold out for as long as we can if we are to have any hope of rescue.'
'You know,' Alejandrino began after Almudena was finished 'I could have been on the first Valkyrie out of that Emperor-forsaken hellhole, on account of my grievous wounds and all. But I didn't as I couldn't bear the thought of leaving my heroic commander behind.'
'You suffered a bruised thumb.' Almudena said dryly.
'Be that as it may.' Alejandrino smoothly replied. 'I want my valour to be noted in the official history of our world.'
'I'll see what I can do.' Almudena said.
'That's all I ask.' Alejandrino grinned.
'Are you lot about done?' A harshly accented voice demanded.
Both men turned to look at the uncaring visor of Bodmelqart, the Sacred Band vox operator.
'We were just discussing our chances of getting out of here alive.' Alejandrino decided to try his trademark charm on the offworlder. It had served him well with the ladies, and the od gentleman, but confronted with Bodmelqart's psyche it might as well have run head first into a brick wall.
Almudena could almost see the Qart-Hadashtim's eyes roll behind his helmet.
'Tsade hetyod mēmrūš?' Another offworlder voice, this one belonging to Maharbal, entered the conversation in a language neither Almudena nor Alejandrino had ever heard in their entire lives.
'Nūn kap ēnwaw.' Bodmelqart replied.
Though Almudena did not now the words being spoken it was hard to miss the venom in which Bodmelqart's words were coated.
'He tad!' Maharbal snapped. 'Shin qof alp!'
Bodmelqart suddenly straightened and saluted before marching of.
'What was all that about?' Almudena asked of Maharbal. 'That didn't sound like any dialect of Low Gothic I ever heard.'
'That was Ponim. It is the tongue of our ancestors, of old Qart-Hadasht.' Maharbal replied with a knowing smile. 'Forgive us, in times of stress one falls back on his native language.'
'But what were you saying?' Almudena wanted to know, entranced by this language.
'If you must know. I demanded to know what had Bodmelqart so riled up.' Maharbal said and tried to leave it at that.
'Well?' Almudena insisted.
'He… had some less than flattering words to describe you and your comrades.' Maharbal admitted, embarrassed to admit such things to someone who he considered an ally.
'Oh.' Almudena said. 'And wait did you say then?'
'I told him to shut up and man his position.' Maharbal said. 'It does not do when warriors of the Emperor bicker amongst themselves. You have fought and bled for the Emperor just as we have. In my eyes that makes us brothers.'
'Well then, brother.' Almudena said with a weak smile as Maharbal's auspex began to beep again. 'Let's hope we live long enough to have a family reunion.'
…
The first sign they had of the enemy advance was a low rumble caused by the marching of hundreds of feet.
Alejandrino shared worried glances with his fellow PDF soldiers, whatever force was coming for them was massive and would likely snuff them out in an instance. Annoyingly he could not read the emotions of the offworlders behind their visors, though their body language suggested it was just another day on the job for them despite having lost two of their number already.
'How can they stay so bloody calm?' One of his comrades, a woman with whom he had been through basic training, asked.
'I don't know, Xioma.' Alejandrino sighed. 'I dread to think about the shit they've been through that they're not shaking in their boots.'
One of them turned his head towards Alejandrino and Xioma and moved towards him. The Corduban braced himself for another withering hail of stoic nonsense, the kind these offworlders seemed so fond off. Xioma quickly looked elsewhere, her freckled face turning so fast she almost gave herself whiplash.
'You seem worried.' The Sacred Band trooper said, matter of factly with a soft feminine voice, as if they were merely waiting for a thunderstorm to pass.
'How are you not?' Xioma snapped. 'How can you people simply stand there and pretend you're not scared to death of what is coming?'
'We have done all we could to prepare.' The offworlder said. 'We have established defences and we have sworn the Oaths of Vengeance. What happens next is up to the God-Emperor and Lady Tanit.'
The frantic voice of Almudena pierced the air, cutting of Alejandrino's retort.
'INCOMING!'
…
Mortar shells exploded in front and amongst the Imperial positions as a prelude to the lycan charge. Though the barrage was fierce in intensity the xenos were essentially firing blind as their commander did not deem it necessary to operate with spotters for his muzzle-loaded artillery.
The Imperials weathered the storm as best they could, hunkering down in improvised fox holes hastily dug only a few hours before with whatever equipment they had lying around. The Sacred Band were well protected from the light artillery pounding by their carapace armour which along with their cover shielded them from the worst of the barrage. The Cordubans in their simple flak jackets, however, were not so lucky and an occasional shriek of pain could be heard as an unfortunate PDF trooper was hit by an errant piece of shrapnel.
When the storm passed the Imperial soldiers emerged from their cover to take up firing positions around rocks and felled trees. It would most likely not stop a determined assault by an organized force, but it was better than nothing.
The eerie silence that descended after the furious bombardment was soon broken by harsh chanting in a guttural tongue as the first of the xenos came into view.
As usual alien warriors had draped their segmented armour in horrific trophies taken from dead humans. Their base intimidation tactics held little fear for the Imperials who had seen these obscenities before, instead they served to fan the flames of their hatred.
The armoured form of Maharbal was the first to rise. He held his sword high and ignited the power field so it was wreathed in golden energy.
'Men and women of Qart-Hadasht and Corduba,' The voice of Maharbal roared from the vox emitters built into his helmet. 'Soldiers of the Imperium! The enemy has come seeking an easy victory. You will deny them this! You will hold your ground and you will make them pay in blood for all they have done! Glory to the Imperium! Glory to Corduba!'
At his word Corduban lasrifles and Qart-Hadashtim hellguns were levelled at the xeno horde, ready to spit forth death.
Maharbal pointed his sword at the approaching horde. 'For the Emperor!'
At the uttering of those three famous words which uncounted numbers of Imperial soldiers had used to roar their defiance throughout the ages the Imperial line opened up with a hail of energy bolts that scythed into the lycan warriors. Where the segmented armour offered some protection against the lasrifles of the Cordubans, they were utterly useless against the hellguns of the Sacred Band which could penetrate even Astartes power armour. Lycan warriors returned fire, shooting from the hip as they advanced at a run. The volley of hard rounds impacted against the cover behind which the Imperials sheltered. One unlucky Corduban staggered back with a shriek, his head reduced to red ruin by a gunshot wound. The man thrashed and screamed in his death throes and then, mercifully, went still.
Alejandrino looked in horror at the unmoving heap of his comrade, his face splattered by the man's blood.
'You'll pay for that, you bastards!' Xioma cried next to him and toggled her lasrifle to full auto, hosing the xenos with lasfire in her fury as tears streaked across her face. 'You hear me?! You'll pay for that you frakking bastards!'
Alejandrino, still slightly dazed, remembered the fallen soldier was a dashing lad called Raphael. He always had a joke or a quick reply ready and he had a young son back home. He also remembered he and Xioma were very intimate during their ordeals since the invasion.
'Animals!' He snarled and joined Xioma in unloading his magazine at the xenos.
The xenos had advanced to within 30 meters when Maharbal turned to one of his Sacred Band troopers, a Kan'anim woman called Jetzabel. 'Let's give them a taste of what Imperial wrath looks like.'
The woman nodded and scrambled up a large rock where something lay under heavy cloth.
The Sacred Band trooper removed the cloth cover to reveal the multilaser stripped from the crashed Valkyrie. Jetzabel wasted no time in raking the enemy ranks with rapid laser fire, she uttered curse after curse in Ponim while the lycans howled in rage and frustration as the laser bolts reaped a fearsome toll.
Despite the withering fire the xenos came on, maddened by bloodlust and the urge to kill. Whoever their commander was would have reckoned on high casualties as his troops advanced into Imperial firepower, these were sacrifices the lycans seemed all too willing to make.
'Alright lads and lasses,' Almudena yelled over the echo of gunfire as the xenos had advanced far enough for the Imperials to see the whites of their eyes. 'Let them have it!'
A volley of grenades flew out from the defenders and detonated into the lycan ranks.
Almudena smiled grimly at the devastation, the broken heaps of flesh and mewling xeno warriors, that his men had wrought. The smile was soon wiped from his face as more lycans swarmed forwards, trampling over their dead and injured. He could see where this was going.
'Bayonets!' He managed to yell right before the first lycan leapt over their defences and speared one of his men with a wicked looking blade. It looked at Almudena with a hideous grin, still savouring it's kill.
The alien had little time to relish in it's victory as a lasbolt from Xioma turned its head to a smoking crater. Almudena nodded his thanks to her and fired his lasrifle point blank into the segmented torso armour of a black furred xeno. The armour plates absorbed some of the blasts, but they began to glow red from the heat of the repeated shots. The beast howled as its own armour began to sear into its flesh. A quick thrust to it's throat from his bayonet ended the alien's misery.
A quick look around told Almudena the thin Imperial line was close to breaking.
He had a decision to make. And he had to make it fast.
'Fall back!' He yelled. 'Fall back to the Va-'
He was cut off as a massive lycan hand closed around his throat. Almudena's panicked eyes looked into the snarling face of a grey furred lycan. It's head was encased in a helmet of blackened steel adorned with a crest of brass.
Almudena tried to reach for the back-up knife hanging from his belt with one hand while desperately attempting to ease the unrelenting pressure on his windpipe with the other. His vision began to fade as the lycan squeezed the life out of him.
…
Maharbal saw the Corduban soldiers falling back to the positions they had prepared around the Valkyrie. It was inevitable, the numbers of the Imperials were far too few for any outcome other than a heroic death.
Behind him the multi laser fell silent as the limited power cells they had scavenged from the wrecked Valkyrie gave out. He swore in Ponim, he had hoped they would have lasted a few minutes more.
He saw Jetzabel ditch the now useless multilaser and pick up her hellgun. She jumped from the rock that served as her vantage point and into the fray, firing high impact energy shots as she went.
At this close range the Cordubans were reduced to using their bayonets to fend of the increasingly savage attacks by the xenos as their armour could absorb some of the lasbolts fired at them. The weapons carried by the Sacred Band were of another calibre however and Maharbal saw several lycans simply gunned down by his Qdosim as they attempted to charge them with their blades.
His attention went from his embattled soldiers to the sight of Almudena being throttled to death by a lycan warrior. He aimed his bolt pistol at the alien's head only to discover his magazine was empty. He signalled Bodmelqart and made a quick hand gesture to the grey furred lycan.
The Qdosim nodded and sent a bolt from his hellgun into the xeno's cranium, demolishing it in the process.
Maharbal watched two PDF troopers drag the Corduban to what little safety still remained as a lycan cleaver flew at his face. Only reflexes saved him as he instinctively raised his sword to parry. The alien blade met the power field of his sword and was shorn in half. Maharbal followed up by bashing his empty bolt pistol into the lycan's snout with a sickening crunch of breaking bone and cartilage. The stunned xenos staggered back and he sliced it's head off with his power sword.
He kicked at the leg of another assailant, causing the lycan to stumble, before ramming his blade into it's open maw. He desperately wanted to reload his pistol but more and more lycans pressed at him, it was all he could do to keep them from hacking him apart. He did not think of striking out of his defensive pattern as he was forced ever back. All around him the Imperial defence contracted into an ever denser circle around the downed Valkyrie.
Many of the Sacred Band around him had already discarded their hellguns and were fighting on with their falcatas, the signature short swords for which the Qart-Hadashtim regiments were renowned. The falcata was not an elegant blade. It's single edge that tipped forward near the point was designed not to thrust and pierce, but to hack and slash, to dismember and mutilate. His Qdosim were using them to ruthless effect as lycan warriors were falling to the ground with stumps were once limbs had been attached.
He allowed himself a sad smile. His Sacred Band would walk the Path of Shades soon, but they had reaped a fearsome toll in alien blood. It was scant comfort, but it would have to do.
It was then that Bodmelqart's vox-caster, forgotten by all in the furious melee sparked into life as a deep voice emited from it.
'Hail Imperial soldiers, and take heed. This is the Stike Cruiser Ilafn Dialgar. Reinforcements are en route.'
Suddenly a streak of silver hammered down from the sky like bolts of thunder hurled by a vengeful god of Old Terra. It crashed down unto the battlefield and there was stunned silence as both sides took in what had just happened.
What Maharbal had taken for a freak meteorite turned out to be a silver object emblazoned with the image of black dragon on a golden field.
'By the Emperor.' He mouthed as he recognised the shape of a drop pod used by the Adeptus Astartes.
He reckoned at least twenty lycan warriors were crushed by the drop pod's impact.
Then the doors opened.
…
Brother-captain Artelius had wasted little time when he first heard the distress call from Corduba's surface. He had summoned a squad of his battle company to assemble in the hangar at once for a quick strike at the planet's surface. Imperial soldiers were fighting for their lives and it would have left a stain of dishonour on his Chapter's legacy to leave them to their fate.
He emerged from the confines of the drop pod with his red cloak trailing behind his silver power armour and regarded the shocked xenos looking at him. The aliens seemed unsure as of what to do at this sudden turn of events.
He made the decision for them as he fired his bolt pistol into the face of the closest lycan.
'Butcher them.' He instructed the squad of Silver Knights that accompanied him.
It was then that the real slaughter began.
