Armorum Fidei Chapter 33
The Psybrids were on the move. A vast army gathered on the barren plains, drawn from various assaults on Train-cities across the planet. By hoof and claw and foot thousands of slaves assembled, unable to complain of exhaustion or malnutrition. Portals brought more from further away, the Gestalts opening ways for more troops to join the growing mass. The air thronged with the wings of Q'uorl, Vespid and Gykons, while the earth trembled at the treat of Borlac and Nephilim, Tallestirans, Tau, K'nib and Mortaks. This was the largest assembly of might the Psybrids had yet gathered and the sight of it made Chuqik concerned.
At the edge of the horde he and Mewek stood apart, watching the proceedings. The Song was heavy with anticipation, the thirst for blood bubbling in the souls of the Psybrid race, a clarion call to war. He was compelled to follow that battlecry but that did not mean he agreed with it. They were taking a risk gathering so much force together, tempting the Praetorians to attack and yet despite his nervousness the plan was annoyingly good. He had to admit the Choir for War had produced an effective scheme.
Mewek sensed his ambivalent mood and pressed, "You think this won't work?"
Chuqik confessed, "Worse, I think it might. The Choir for War may well pull this off, which bodes ill."
Mewek bobbed her head and replied, "If they succeed the calls for violence will grow, they will want more blood."
"More and more," Chuqik agreed, "They won't be satisfied, they won't stop, not until they dash our race's bones against the Songbreaker's hide. And it all starts here."
Their eyes fell upon the target, no Train-city but a low collection of prefab bunkers and vox-masts and guns, surrounded by razorwire. The Praetorian's ground nest, the source of their supplies, munitions, fuel and the hub of their aerial intelligence. It was a tempting target and Chuqik was forced to admit its elimination would cripple the Praetorians, leaving them to wither on the vine as ammunition dwindled. It was a vital asset, which was why the humans had made sure to defend it well. Rings of razorwire encircled it, heavy weapons were placed in strategic points, to create interlinked nets of kill-zones. Flak barrels spouted everywhere, covering the air underneath a shimmering void-shield and psychic wards glittered, repelling the Song with harsh dins. Taking this nest would carry a steep price in blood, yet it was a cost Newak was willing to pay.
Mewek muttered, "The part that concerns me is what the Praetorians will do when they find out we wiped out their nest."
"Indeed," Chuqik grunted, "They will know they live on borrowed time; they will be forced to act in ways we cannot predict. An animal is most dangerous when backed into a corner, none more so than the Praetorians."
Mewek spat, "I note Newak chooses to risk our lives and not his own with this bold plan."
"He is Praecentor, it is his role to chose."
Mewek paused for a moment and then asked, "Have you found a way around Newak's authority?"
"I am considering our options" Chuqik deflected.
It was true, in a sense, he had given much thought to the Choir of Possibility, wondering what scheme they were enacting. He had scoured his mind but found no answers, there was no way to change the Song that he could think of. But then their contribution to the harmony was to think unthinkable things, so perhaps they had means he could not grasp.
Any further musings were cut short as Newak's voice resounded through the Choir. There was no bolstering speech, no urges to violence and carnage, simply a command to begin. It was doubtful the Psybrids would understand such a declaration regardless, and the slaves had no spirits to stir, so the attack began without warning. At the command the horde stepped forward as one, surging away from Chuqik's position in a tidal wave of flesh. He saw bulky forms racing across the ground, legs pumping and feet stomping. Some loped on all fours, others stumbled along on eight, or two but all headed straight at the waiting nest without hesitation, obediently racing into gun range.
The first sign that the humans were ready to greet them was a flurry of missiles, shooting out from under the void shield envelope with a scream of rocket exhaust. Praetorians weren't known for their heavy artillery, but they made up for it with speed and ferocious firepower. The missiles arced low and landed in the midst of the horde, exploding into flaming mushrooms of destruction. Bodies were ripped to shreds, charred remains spraying everywhere, coating the survivors in the vitae of their fellows.
Hundreds died in the first volley but the rest drove on, lashed by the Song to keep moving. They were greeted by heavy weapons, opening fire in a horizontal hail. Heavy bolters, autocannons, rockets and mortars, all letting rip with furious barks of thunder. The land became a sea of dark red as blood flowed, the entire front rank disappearing as they were scythed apart. Distant gunners clung to juddering weapons as they swept back and forth, making up for their lack of accuracy with sheer rate of fire. Thousands of slaves were culled, already a higher price than any Train-city had exacted but the Psybrids cared not, for they were learning something vitally important. The defenders were only human, the servants of the Praetorians. As suspected the bulk of their force was vacant, fighting distant battles. Only their lowliest underlings were left to defend the nest.
At Newak's command an aerial assault rolled forth, the sky darkening with flurries of wings. Flocks of darting slaves dashed over the carnage below, crossing the distance in a fraction of the time. In response the nest sent up ribbons of flak and las, crisscrossing the sky with deadly firepower. Bodies were violated by deadly force, reduced to rags that fluttered from the heavens like leaves shed by an autumnal tree. Few made it to the line of razorwire and they unleashed blister-rifles onto the defenders, but they weren't enough to make any impression.
The battle split the air with thunder and light but Chuqik turned away from the spectacle, for the true genius of the plan was about to unfold. A half-dozen Psybrids congregated, drawing together in expectation. The Song pulsed ever louder, becoming a shriek in the Otherness that made the universe tremble. Then it reached a crescendo and reality split, opening a portal in the air, one that led right into the centre of the Praetorian nest.
Chuqik was first through and felt multiple dimensions squeezing his atoms as he passed through. A sense of cold dread shivered his being as the predators of the Otherness sensed his passing, ever hungry for life to devour yet the Song wrapped him in its essence and he was untroubled by the creatures, its reverberations grating on their senses like a rasp over teeth. He drifted for a moment in the infinite shoals and then was spat out into another place entirely.
Chuqik found himself appearing a few metres over the ground and dropped instantly. His legs caught the unexpected impact smoothly, his Exo-cuirass compensating effortlessly. He had emerged in the centre of their nest, well inside the defences, where none could have expected him. Relief rushed through his being, it had been a terrible risk leaping across the distance, had the wards been denser or worse a Mind-Singer been present they would have been lost forevermore, but the gamble had paid off. The Psybrids were inside.
A pair of humans spun about; their arms heavy with crates of ammunition. Chuqik sliced them into pieces with a flick of his shatter-whips, letting the bisected corpses fall where they may. Above he heard a sharp crack as his fellows translocated, snapping into existence and dropping to the ground. One of them didn't make it, a tangled mess of bloody meat slamming into the ground where a Psybrid should be. By the looks of it they had arrived inside out, an annoying mischance at the outset, but Chuqik accepted the losses with cold disdain, such were the risks they had accepted.
"Spread out, cause havoc and kill as many as you can find. Waste no time trying to subvert them, our army bleeds for every second we dawdle." The Psybrids nodded and set off, each heading in a different direction. Mewek and Chuqik leapt over a low roof and set off, heading towards the pulsing hub of the nest. The throbbing emotions of humans flared like a candle in the night, fear, trepidation, blind hope, all the discordant noises making a racket of clashing terrors. Chuqik longed to smother them in the strict conformity of the Song but he would settle for silencing them permanently.
Mewek peeled off and charged a knot of humans labouring over an anti-aircraft gun. The hammering thunder of its many barrels drowned out her approach and they remained ignorant until she struck. Her fist blurred with resonances of the Song, creating a vibrational distortion that made atoms dance. With a mere touch she exploded a human into mist, making his fellows spin in horror. They had a moment to gawp in awful terror, then she ended their lives.
Chuqik left her to it as he spied a broad construct, judging by the many masts and antenna on its roof some form of low command and control hub. He leapt for the entrance and cleared metres in a single bound. He slammed a foot into the door and blew it off its doughty hinges. A dark cavern awaited, filled with chattering wretches, helpless to resist his attack. And yet his confidence was misplaced, for from the dark came a low rumble as pair of hard eyes turned to greet him, reflecting the daylight back at him. A Praetorian, it seemed the nest was not as leaderless as he supposed.
Chuqik lifted his shatter-whips but the Praetorian charged like a raging Carnofex. In his hands was a mighty hammer, as long as he was tall, already swinging for the Psybrid's head. Chuqik was forced to duck under the blow, lest he be decapitated. He jumped back but the Praetorian barely slowed, feet hammering the ground as he reversed his swing and brought his hammer up diagonally, trying to stove in Chuqik's chest.
The Psybrid lurched back, awkwardly dodging a lethal impact. The Praetorian was not slow to take advantage, shoulder barging straight into him, with force enough to dent metal. Only the flexible, organic nature of an Exo-cuirass saved Chuqik from having his bones shattered, leaving him reeling but alive. The Praetorian barrelled past, fighting his own momentum and spun on his heel, spitting some mushy battlecry through the speaker grill. Chuqik heard bloody froth in the cry and deduced this one had been wounded in an earlier battle, sent back to his nest to recover, but that was less important than the fact he was momentarily off-balance.
Quick as a flash Chuqik regrouped and charged, swinging shatter-whips high. The doughty hammerhead descended to end him but as they made contact the Song surged and the weapon's energy field died. The Praetorian jerked in surprise and that was all Chuqik needed to end this fight. A flick of his right whip and the arm holding the hammer was severed, leaving it to drop to the ground. A slash to the left saw the other arm cleaved from the body, then a low swipe took out both legs. The Praetorian fell to the dirt, dismembered and helpless. He squealed a final spit of defiance but Chuqik had already lost interest. His whips scissored across the neck and the Praetorian collapsed, helm rolling away spilling blood freely as it spun to a halt.
Chuqik was battered and sore yet he had a job to do and was set upon finishing it. He drew himself up and stalked into the command hub, meeting the screams of those within with deadly slashes of his whips. There was no pleasure in this task, no sense of triumph. His killing was mechanical and functional, a task to be completed and nothing more. With brisk efficiency he ended all he encountered, making an abattoir to rival a Psybrid digestion cocoon.
Task finished he stepped outside, finding Mewek waiting for him. She was splattered with blood but examined his kill eagerly and remarked, "A Praetorian?"
"Only one," Chuqik breathed, "A fortunate turn of events. Any more to be found?"
"Only one, on the other side of the nest. We killed it quickly, thankfully we outnumbered it three to one."
"Then the nest is ours," Chuqik stated. Indeed the perimeter guns were going silent, outflanked and overrun. The Psybrid army entered quickly, beginning to tear down and set alight everything in sight, in no time at all this nest would be rubble. The victory was theirs and yet it brought Chuqik no joy, they had drawn a line in the dirt, one the Praetorians would not ignore.
Mewek sensed his thoughts and asked, "What will the Praetorians do when they find out we destroyed their nest?"
"I don't know," Chuqik grimly uttered, "And that worries me greatly. We've backed them into a corner, now we find out how sharp the beast's teeth really are."
