Once, there had been oceans on Terra.
Sergeant Haldrad smiles at the thought, though he finds it difficult to envision the ancient bodies of water that had once covered entire continent-sized portions of the planet. The dust seems determined to taint such imaginings. As the remnant companies of the 5th Thunder Legion roar their way across the arid surface of what had once been the bottom of a seabed, the treads of their prototype assault carriers throw up great clouds of fine grayish powder that adheres to everything it touches. It was the dust of the Strife Age: the ashen residue of some ancient environmental catastrophe now disturbed from its rest and sent billowing into the sky as the Legio Cataegis ride to war. The ultrafine particles all but blind Haldrad, clogging in his nostrils and irritating the back of his throat; it is the price he pays for riding in the Thunderchild's open command copula, his crimson horsetail helm-crest streaming behind him as he waits for the vanguard of the Iron Marauders' forces to emerge from the opposing cloud churned up by their own advancing warhost.
"Soon…" Haldrad murmurs, his gauntleted hand grasping the curved piece of bleached bone hanging from a leather lanyard looped around his gorget. He had found the bone in the aftermath of his first battle as a Thunder Warrior, protruding forlornly from the blood-soaked sand in the shadow of a burning Merican hive-city. He was certain it was the fragment of a rib and the realization there had once been creatures roaming Terra so gigantic that one of their ribs could fit comfortably in his genhanced fist had filled him with awe. He had scrimshawed one end into a tapered point and had taken to wearing it as his personal talisman. As the Unification Wars spread across the globe and he had attained the rank of sergeant he had taken to inducting new warriors into his squad by cutting the palms of their sword hands with the bone's sharpened tip and mingling their blood with his when they swore their oaths before the banner of the Raptor and Thunderbolt. None of his men deployed into battle without first touching the bone for good luck and despite having worn it in scores of engagements Haldrad has never once lost or damaged it during combat.
"As long as you remain unbroken, I remain unbroken," he whispers as he holds the shard up, drawing strength from its familiar contours. It is something he has come to believe wholeheartedly, though he knew such superstitions stand in stark opposition to the reason and logic the Emperor so ardently champions. Like all his brethren, Haldrad knows his days are numbered – yet not once since his transformation had his flesh or his reason failed him, and as countless Thunder Warriors succumbed to insanity or genetic dissolution he had come to view his survival as being inexorably intertwined with that of the talisman. In truth he knows he is merely fortunate to possess a vigorous constitution that has better withstood the invasive gen-enhancements his body has undergone; the same, however, could not be said for the men under his command.
"Haldrad…" A strained ragged voice crackles through the vox-bead in the Thunder Warrior's ear, disrupting his reveries. It is Brother Heidic, impatient and battle-eager as ever. "When are we going to engage? The auspex isn't showing Vylar shit. Do you have a visual?"
"Patience, brother," Haldrad says, knowing the blood-hungry veteran is growing more and more agitated with each passing minute. "The Marauders are coming; the dust cloud they're kicking up is blotting out Sol's light. Your chainsword will be bloodied soon enough; we shall –"
The Thunderchild abruptly swerves hard to the right, causing Haldrad to instinctively clutch the grips of the pintle-mounted storm-bolter he is manning. A jutting protrusion of gnarled rock is obliterated as the transport's right tread-track grinds it down without slowing.
"Your mother mates with pox-ridden pigs, Vylar!" he roars over the vox at the AC's designated driver, who always seemed to be seeking an excuse to avoid advancing in a straight line.
"Poxy pigs are still a step above the mangy vomit-licking curs your mother seems to prefer, sergeant," Vylar replies with a dry chuckle. "Relax, a bit of evasive maneuvering never hurt any– ah, there's another one!"
Now the Thunderchild veers to the left, demolishing another hunk of rock with a satisfying crunch. Haldrad grits his teeth as the Thunder Warrior in the copula of the AC alongside his laughs uproariously at his discomfort and climbs back down into the Thunderchild's deployment bay – which the dust has, unsurprisingly, also managed to infiltrate. He hawks and spits upon a pitted plasteel floor discolored by old bloodstains, trying to rid his tongue of the taste, and eyes the four remaining Thunder Warriors of his squad. The assault carrier can comfortably accommodate ten of the genhanced super-soldiers, but none of the 5th's losses have been replenished in recent months and Haldrad has begun to suspect this undertaking may be their last.
"Any of you worthless bastards searching for a new purpose in life?" he asks his men with a grin. "It involves spending prolonged periods of time sitting behind the wheel of a heavily armored transport vehicle and driving in a relatively straight line until you make contact with the enemy. It's a simple job, a straightforward job, but poor old Vylar can't seem to swing it anymore – anyone interested?"
Korgane – Haldrad's hard-bitten second – barks a harsh laugh, his battered gauntlets clenching about the haft of his brutal chainaxe. Korgane was afflicted with a perpetual nosebleed and his exposed mouth and chin are stained a dark crimson. "I'd sooner march the rest of the way then get stabbed in the face trying to relieve Vylar of his solemn duty. Make Heidic the new driver; with him behind the wheel we'll hit the Marauders long before anyone else; besides, he'll have no issue tearing Vylar limb from limb if he resists – it'd make for a fine diversion at least."
Pleased by the thought of killing something, Heidic looks about, grinning inanely, heedless of the red-tainted froth drooling out from between his metal teeth. Bors and Baral, both true-blooded brothers born to the same mother, shake their heads in unison. "Heidic's mind wanders in strange places; he'll tip us all down the nearest crevasse thinking there's a horde of mutants lurking in ambush at the bottom," Bors objects; he punches his brother's pauldron affectionately, "Baral will make a much better driver then –"
"If any of you whoremasters want my job you'll have to pry my dead hands off the wheel first." Vylar informs them over the Thunderchild's internal speakers. "Now stop your bleating before I decide to flip this oversized hunk of scrap."
"Can he do that?" Baral asks, looking vaguely intrigued at the prospect. "It'd be amusing it he actually managed it."
"Of course not," Haldrad snorts, "you're far too fat; it's a marvel we're even moving at all. Now, Heidic, can you remind us what our mission objectives are, according to Captain Ackarrius?"
For a long moment Heidic says nothing, as if pondering some great metaphysical puzzle. Asking the most mentally unstable warrior in his squad to relate their superiors' orders to his more cognitive comrades on the brink of battle was another tradition Haldrad had instigated upon rising to command; such questions help him gauge were his most vulnerable soldier stands and how much of a liability he might be.
"The Emperor's orders are to exterminate the Iron Marauders speed-cult, sergeant," Heidic says at last, wiping absently at the saliva coating his chin with the back of his gauntlet. "But since there's so few of us now it's unlikely we're going to be viable as a fighting force even if we do achieve victory. There's no support this time: no air support, no armor support, no infantry, nothing – just ourselves and the Marauders. That's good, I think; very good." He does not elaborate further and begins to rock back and forth in his restraint chair in restless anticipation for the slaughter to come.
"Yes," Haldrad agrees, "it is." Heidic was dying and could not be expected to show much concern about the dangers of mounting an unsupported assault against a well-equipped enemy. Haldrad grips the bone-talisman and holds it up. "Brothers, the Emperor's gaze has fallen upon the Iron Marauders and He has found them wanting. Azkymarr and Azkyruss have no place in a Unified Terra, nor a place in humanity's glorious future amongst the stars! So He sends us to accomplish what the Imperial Army weaklings could not; this won't be like the grinding grueling sieges we've grown accustomed to; there are no political prisoners to take, nor any useless Guardsmen to get underfoot. This will be a proper battle, pitched in the hot dust, with strength pitted against strength. It has been said by some there were once oceans on Terra, but when our work is done, no one will be able to say there were once Iron Marauders on Terra! For the Emperor! For humanity! For Unity!"
"Unity! Unity! Unity! Ave Imperator! Ave Imperator!" the Thunder Warriors bellow, beating their chestplates with their armored fists and revving their idling chainweapons. Flecks of spittle fly from their lips and their eyes roll behind their helms' reflective half-visors as Haldrad skillfully stokes their murderlust. He extends the talisman and one by one his men touch their fingers to the ancient piece of bone, still cognitive enough to honor their commander's ad-hoc good-luck ritual, though they never acknowledge it as such.
"Soon, brothers!" Haldrad cries, momentarily caught up in the kill-fervor he had kindled. "Soon battle will be joined and a new ocean, an ocean of blood, will be –"
"Contact!" Vylar roars in jubilation over the vox. "Iron Marauder outriders inbound!"
The Thunderchild lunges forward like a hunting hound being let off-leash; hard rounds began spanging off the carrier's chassis; with a curse Haldrad clambers back up into the command copula and takes control of the storm-bolter once more. Several hundred outriders have emerged from the dust and are racing towards the advancing phalanx of Thunder Warrior assault carriers with suicidal abandon. Most of the warbikes are four-wheelers, while the two-wheelers carry additional Marauders in armored sidecars. No two vehicles are alike, yet even the largest among them look diminutive in comparison to the hulking behemoths Haldrad and his brethren ride.
Yet this first wave of attackers is merely the vanguard, a foretaste of the true warhost. The followers of the techno-barbarian warlords Azkymarr and Azkyruss had been reported to cobble together all manner of battle-engines and freakish mechanical constructs, some of which were said to utilize weaponry dating back to the Dark Age of Technology, using them to terrorize refugee columns, raid trading outposts and attack Imperial supply routes. All ambassadorial attempts had ended in failure and rumor had it the head of the latest dignitary had been sent back to the Emperor's regent, Malcador, completely flensed of skin and bereft of his eyes and tongue.
All right brothers, time to do what we do best Captain Ackarrius announces over the static-distorted command channel, Remember, the Emperor wants both Azkymarr and Azkyruss taken out; they are our primary targets, everything else is a secondary objective, but considering we have this battlefield all to ourselves we get to do this our way. Kill the bastards, brothers – kill them all. Show no hesitation! No mercy! Death! Death! In the Emperor's name let none survive!
"Death! Death!" the 5th's lieutenants and sergeants call out in response with varying degrees of derangement; some ACs begin breaking formation, pulling ahead of their comrades as their drivers are urged to close more quickly with the enemy. "I just had an interesting thought," Vylar voxes, sounding oddly contemplative. "Shut up and drive faster!" Haldrad orders, a surge of kill-pleasure washing through him as he opens up with his storm bolter and stitches a string of mass-reactive rounds across the line of nearest outriders, blowing the Marauders apart and sending their bikes pin-wheeling through the air in showers of disintegrating components.
"No one seems to know the Emperor's name," Vylar says as the Thunderchild begins to accelerate, its treads pulverizing the bodies of the fallen and grinding their wrecked vehicles into scrap. "Don't you find it strange, Haldrad?"
"I couldn't care less what the Emperor's name is!" Haldrad snaps as a bullet deflects off his right pauldron, "It's probably a dumb name, like yours! Your mother probably –"
"Incoming!" The Thunderchild swerves violently to the right, cutting off the AC it had just outpaced. An emerald beam of condensed energy spears out of the dust from an unseen war-construct and flashes past the Thunderchild. Every hair on Haldrad's body stands on end at the beam's passing and he looks over his shoulder just as the laser connect with the front end of the Corpsecrusher, the transport coming up on the Thunderchild's right. Instead of shearing the transport in two or causing it to detonate in some spectacular fashion the energy expands to envelope the entire vehicle, caging it within a perfectly round sphere. To Haldrad's astonishment the Corpsecrusher floats up off the ground as if the gravity inside had been suspended; it turns sedately end-over-end, its treads spinning to no avail. Then the sphere shrinks to a point of absolute zero, imploding in the blink of an eye. The Corpsecrusher and its compliment of Thunder Warriors vanish. Haldrad knows then that this will likely be the defining battle of his career whether he survives it or not.
"Now that's why I always practice evasive maneuvering!" Vylar yells in triumph, "or would you prefer I keep driving on in a perfectly straight line, sergeant?"
Haldrad finds himself grinning again. "I don't care if we hit the Marauders while turning cartwheels, Vylar – just get us to the Blood Bastian in one piece."
Some of the 5th's carriers have been equipped with dozer-blades, others with rocket-launchers and lascannons; a few have even been outfitted with side-mounted heavy flamer units; the Thunderchild, for her part, possessed no additional armaments to distinguish her, save for some extra armor plating reinforcing her forward sections. Vylar does his best with what he has been given, swerving, crushing and sideswiping the lesser Marauder vehicles in his way while Haldrad cuts down the smaller, more agile bikers with his storm bolter. Yet these barbarians were not the Thunder Warriors' true targets. Eye-witness accounts claimed Azkymarr and Azkyruss traveled together along with their warhost in a great fortress-like edifice known as the Blood Bastian. The traumatized witnesses who had survived the Marauders' raids on their townships and encampments had wept when they recounted the massive construct's slow, implacable grind through the ranks of their warriors and the destruction it had visited upon their homes; they told also of how the bodies of the defeated had been hung from the Blood Bastian's battlements and gun turrets in such numbers that the fortress's sides were perpetually running with vitae.
Haldrad had given these reports little credence; terror had a way of warping a witness's perspective, leading to overblown exaggerations of the threat the enemy posed; even if the Blood Bastian is as formidable as the survivors claim Haldrad is certain their objective is still achievable; the Iron Marauders are accustomed to waging war against other techno-clans and the common soldiery of the Imperial Army; they have yet to match themselves against the Emperor's true elite, against enhanced warriors like Heidic and Korgane who are capable of tearing grown men to pieces with their bare hands.
Laughing, glorying in unrestrained bloodshed, Haldrad swings his chainblade into the midriff of a screaming Marauder even as he blows apart the head of another with the storm-bolter as the speed-cultist hauled himself onto the Thunderchild's roof. For all the bullish aggression of the ACs the advance is beginning to bog down. Collisions and explosions are rife. Warbikes and battle-buggies weave in-between the Thunder Warriors' transports, allowing the more maniacal Marauders to leap off and scale the larger vehicles with grenades in an attempt to breach the hulls. Even as he reduces another Marauder into a red mist with a near point-blank shot, Haldrad can hear Heidic and the others bellowing down in the bay, infuriated he is spilling enemy blood while they are still waiting to deploy; they will start attacking one another if he keeps them confined for much longer, yet it is vital that Vylar bring them as close to the Blood Bastian as possible. Fighting their way to the fortress on foot while facing off against mounted opponents would tax even a Thunder Warrior, though Haldrad cannot deny the challenge holds a certain appeal.
"Are we there yet?" Korgane voxes, not bothering to mask his annoyance; through the churning clouds of dust and smoke Haldrad can make out the outline of the Blood Bastian as the Thunderchild draws nearer, the muzzle-flashes of its guns and the beams of its las-cannons lighting up the darkness cast by the dust. Suddenly an eye-searing detonation illuminates the Bastian's frontal battlements and the countless mutilated corpses crucified to its armor plates; the bedlam of the battlefield is eclipsed with the tortured sounds of mangled metal giving way, then the Marauders' fortress lists to the right and comes to a ponderous halt.
The command channel crackles to life, spotty with interference. All units converge…! Captain Ackarrius' voice sounds strangely wet and strangled, as if he is speaking through a mouthful of clotted blood. To me, brothers…we've opened up a breach…there's so much blood…come…we must finish this…the 5th must finish this…for the Emperor…why is there so much blood? You cannot stop me…I will kill you…I will kill all of you…
The link cuts out; calls for confirmation and clarification go unanswered. Haldrad is about to order Vylar to make for the captain's AC coordinates when the emerald energy beam lances out of the dust almost directly in front of them; to their right the carrier named Belligerent Bastard vanishes from existence. "I've had enough of these cowards!" Vylar snarls; the Thunderchild picks up speed. "Leave it, brother," Haldrad commands as he casts another Marauder over the side in two pieces, "The captain requires reinforcement; our true targets lie within the Bastian."
"To hell with the captain," Vylar spits, "I'm going to put this bastard down for good!"
The bastard construct in question suddenly lurches out of the smoke, stomping right for the Thunderchild on a pair of backwards-jointed, hydraulic-driven legs. Other ACs have inflicted severe damage to its stabilizers and it staggers forward like a drunkard – yet the silvery carapace-smooth cockpit harboring the archaic implosion weapon remains untouched. Haldrad knows what Vylar is about to do and knows he can do nothing to stop it; a part of him is furious at his brother's insubordination – and a bigger part is just as glad of it. "Brace for impact, brothers!" he voxes as the Thunderchild passes below the construct's firing arc, "Brace and prepare to deploy!" Pulling himself out of the copula he runs to the AC's rear, bowling Marauders aside as he charges across the roof; with a powerful boost of his legs he launches himself free of the transport; he is still in midair when Vylar rams the Thunderchild into the construct's left leg. Haldrad hits the ground rolling and comes to his feet with his bolt-pistol in one hand and his chainsword still whirring in the other.
The hideous scream of tortured metal rends the air for a second time; the Thunderchild's front end crumples inwards as she strikes the construct's thickly-armored foot head-on; the force of the impact is too great for its damaged stabilizers to withstand and the entire limb is wrenched off at the joint. The entire construct totters uncertainly, then falls, toppling like a collapsing tower across the stricken Thunderchild. Haldrad throws himself to the side as the cockpit slams like a meteor into the ground, hurling him from his feet and momentarily deafening him; immediately he rises, coughing dust from his lungs, his heart pounding like a tribal war drum.
"Korgane, report!" he snarls into the squad's shared vox-channel as he runs to the Thunderchild's rear deployment hatch. "Vylar's dead and Heidic is about to go crazy," Korgane replies as he struggles to disembark, growling in irritation as he pushes against the assault ramp which will not lower fully due to the wreckage blocking it; he seems more amused then saddened, "What the hell just happened?"
"Vylar decided to ram a war-engine instead of heeding the captain's orders," Haldrad says as he helps his men squeeze out of the narrow opening Korgane had forced, "The rest and relaxation interval is over, brothers; we're going to be footing it from here on out."
"Excellent!" Bors exclaims, smiling broadly as he hefts his grenade launcher.
"I was on the brink of falling asleep out of sheer boredom," Baral says as he checks his bolter over for damage.
"Is it time to kill now?" Heidic demands, his bloodshot eyes blazing as he guns his chainaxe into howling life. "I need to kill now!"
Haldrad laughs at the sheer insanity of it all and raises his own chainblade. "Come, brothers!" he cries as he leads his squad into the tumult of battle. "Come kill with me!"
With a roar Haldrad dove into cover behind an overturned war-buggy just as a las-beam cut through the space where he'd been standing, dragging the Marauder he'd been throttling along with him. Though the speed-cult fields no infantry units and the Blood Bastian has been stalled, the construct's defense guns are wreaking havoc amongst the squads of Thunder Warriors driving towards the breach opened by Captain Ackarrius. The battlefield has dissolved into to a mess of gridlocked vehicles; Iron Marauders and Thunder Warriors clash face-to-face as the Thunder Warriors strive to navigate the twisted maze of wreckage surrounding their target. Exhaust fumes and the smoke of burning transports foul the dust-choked air, veiling the sky and occulting Sol behind a dark pall of pollution. Blood combined with spilled fuel has turned the dry earth into a slick mire beneath Haldrad's boots. Explosions light up the midday darkness as fuel tanks rupture and munitions cook off. Snarling, Haldrad hammers his opponent's head into the buggy's engine-block until the man's skull caves in. Another jumps down on him from above wielding a serrated cleaver, only to have his chest blown open as Korgane and the rest of the squad slide into cover beside him.
"It's a good thing we don't have a schedule to keep," Korgane grunts as he slots a fresh magazine into his bolter; all the Thunder Warriors are breathing raggedly, their enhanced lungs struggling to filter the tainted air. "Any word from the captain?"
"The vox is beyond worthless and no-one is even attempting to coordinate our advance," says Haldrad, unable to hide his disgust at how rapidly the situation has deteriorated. "It's every squad for itself now, yet our objective remains unchanged: we get inside the Bastian, we drag Azkymarr and Azkyruss from their miserable hiding places and we execute them; that's what the Emperor wants and that's what we're going to do." The others grunt in acknowledgment. As the fighting intensified and the Thunder Warriors slid deeper into unfettered bloodlust it had become necessary for Haldrad to regularly refocus their minds on the task at hand, reminding them again and again why they are fighting this battle, why they must to keep advancing on the Blood Bastian whether they ran, climbed or crawled.
Before the squad can break from cover a roving group of unseated speed-cultists catch sight of them and rush their position, seeking to mob them; bellowing vile curses, the Thunder Warriors weather the storm of bullets and las, sprays of blood fanning out from the teeth of their chainblades as they rip the Marauders apart at close quarters. One man attempts to disembowel Korgane with a customized chainfist only for the hulking Thunder Warrior to seize him by the arm and use him as a flail to bludgeon his comrades until the limb rips free of his body; blood and gore splashes against their warplate as Haldrad and the others break through and continued to advance, trampling the bodies of friend and foe as they move from cover to cover, pausing only to loot ammunition and spare blades from the corpses of their fallen brethren. Together they hack, stab, shoot, bludgeon and kick a path through the morass of men and machines clogging their way to the Blood Bastian, joining up with other Thunder Warrior squads who have also abandoned their transports to press on towards their target on foot.
"Gah…that bitch reeks," Bors grumbles as he fires a grenade into a group of Marauders cutting apart a wounded Thunder Warrior with motorized sawblades, "or perhaps it's just me?" Heidic howls with joy as he hews the legs from beneath a tall augmented Marauder attempting to skewer his throat with fingers refashioned into claws of razored steel. "It's all of us, brother!" he cries as he lunges forward and tackles another cultist off his bike, "It's every Emperor-damned one of us!" It was true: they are all soiled in blood, their chainblades slathered in gore – yet the slaughterhouse stench somehow grows more heavy and pungent as the corpse-adorned flanks of the Blood Bastian rise up before them. Haldrad's eyes go wide as he realizes the stories told by the survivors had been far from exaggerations: blood runs, blood streams, blood flows in continuous glistening rivulets down the Bastian's sides, spreading out around the stalled construct in an ever-expanding lake of crimson.
"Looks like the captain put that breacher-drill to good use," Korgane notes as they mark the gaping hole bored into the Bastain's portside track skirt and wheelbase. "And the plasma-cannon," Baral adds enviously, risking a moment to admire the vast circular opening framed by molten slag that has been blasted through the thick layers of iron and plasteel. The 5th's command carriers are clustered next to the breach, the Thunder Warriors ahead of them swarming up and over their chassis to accesses the Bastion's exposed interior. "With me – we end this now!" Haldrad shouts eagerly as he splashes into the blood lake, and all unknowing his men follow him into the charnel heart of hell.