Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 179
At forty kilometres range the Macrocannons began to fire. Thunderous waves rolled over the wall as the Aquilla-pattern heavy batteries bracing Victory Gate began lobbing shells over the horizon. They fired in sequence, each retort paced forty-five seconds apart, creating a slow drumbeat that hammered the sky above with percussive impacts. Guardsmen huddled along the wall, clutching at their ears as painful spikes of agony lacerated their tympanic membranes. Commissars walked the walls, bellowing at the soldiers to get their hands back on their guns, but their voices were periodically drowned in the din. Ajax ignored it all, waiting for the fight to reach the walls.
Far beyond his sight the shells would be falling, exploding among teeming Greenskins. Ork bodies would be blown to pieces, machines wrecked and transports overturned. Far beyond their ability to fire back, they would suffer greatly for daring to approach the city, but it would make no difference. Ork hordes were vast and unrelenting, they would drive forward no matter the cost in blood. They would be at the foot of the wall within the hour, this Ajax was certain of.
"Reports of enemy activity at the River Gate," Iagion informed him.
"Ignore it," Ajax instructed.
"An assault in our backyard could be trouble."
"It is a feint, of no true consequence."
"You are sure?"
"Always," Ajax affirmed, "This is where the true assault will come. Now be silent and watch."
The horizon darkened as Orks poured into view. Thousands of Xenos, riding in Trukks, clinging to bikes and shooting across the land on smoke-belching Monowheels. As a dark arrowhead they came, lancing straight at Victory Gate. If their mass was diminished by the Macrocannons Ajax saw no hint of it. And this was a small Waaagh by Greenskin standards. He spied Battlewagons and guntrukks, Looted Tanks and spindly Grot-walkers, but nowhere did he spy Stompas. That made his eyes narrow, where were the largest Ork Warmachines?
There was no time to wonder as the Macrocannons shortened their range. Explosions bloomed among the horde, each shell blowing hundreds of Greenskins to atoms. They weren't dismayed, only gunning their throttles, more determined than ever to close the range. The Imperial response was an onslaught of Apocalypse missiles, fired from hard points further along the walls. Rockets dell in deluges, blasting an instant firestorm across the front rank. Ajax was battered by hot winds as the inferno spread, consuming machines and Orks alike. A pair of launchers had fired along the walls, each blowing a swathe of Greenskins to ashes, but the horde rolled on regardless, crushing the charred remains of their fellows under their tracks as they rushed forward. A human foe would have been broken by the violence but it only spurred the Orks on. Their approach corridor was narrow, denying many of the wall guns a fire arc, but it was a lengthy column, stretching back as far as the eye could see. Cunning, very cunning.
"It's about to get bloody," Iagion muttered.
"About time," Ajax rumbled, "I was getting bored."
"It won't be boring for much longer."
"Let them come, I am going to take my blade and make a roasting skewer of Green meat."
"Sometimes you scare me Brother-Sergeant."
"Good," Ajax smirked under his helm.
In minutes the Ork closed to conventional range and now the regular guns could engage. Earthshakers positioned on the walls began to burp fireballs, sending shells into the midst of the foe. Rocket batteries let rip a moment later, and then Lascannons started picking off heaver machines. Heavy Bolters finally found the range and swept the front ranks with torrents of firepower as Autocannons chugged and mortars flung explosives into the face of the enemy. Finally lasrifles opened up, thousands of them sweeping the Ork's front line with lashings of needle pinpricks. How many Orks had died, Ajax could not begin to calculate, but nothing was slowing them down, not at all.
The Greenskins rolled over their dead and began shooting back. Zzap guns lashed the lower battlements with emerald energies, Shootas chattered and Rokkets flew, blasting against the reinforced structure. Lesser defences would have crumbled, but Imperial engineering was proof against so lowly an assault, the dense matter shrugging off even the most penetrating attack, but then that was not the intent. The Orks were merely suppressing the defenders so the real assault could make its assent. Grapple lines shot from flatbeds, spearing over the crenulations to latch on, ladders extended high to crest the lip of the lower battlements and Orks began to swarm upwards.
Screams from the Guardsmen arose as they pointed their lasguns over the lintel and desperately fired downward, some sawing at the grappling ropes or trying to push the ladders over. Ajax didn't respond yet, in the last seconds he lifted Storm's Wrath before his eyes and whispered, "Noble blade, never have you failed me, never have you stalled or jammed. I beseech thy spirit to prove leal once more. Be with me in this hour, stalwart companion, and I shall repay you with lives reaped and Xenos heads by the score."
A scream from the Guardsmen indicated a Greenskin had reached the lintel. Skin smoking from countless Las shots, one eye a gaping ruin, it still swarmed up the ladder faster than a man could run. A Cleaver in its hand drew back to claim the first kill, but Ajax finally moved. He gripped his hilt with both hands and the Eviscaerator sprang into life, teeth roaring as he swung in a roundhouse blow. The blade met Ork ribs and chewed through bone and gristle, spraying viscera in a shower of red vitae. Ajax's arm juddered madly, his teeth rattled, but his strength was inexorable and he sawed straight through the Greenskin, leaving two wet chunks to fall away. His first kill of this war, but not his last.
"Waaagh!" the Orks bellowed as they rushed the battlements, hundreds of them pouring over the firing step in a wave of green. The fight became close and bloody, bayonets against cleavers, laspistols against shootas. Despite the casualties, despite barely a fraction of the Orks making it to the wall, the survivors piled in with wild abandon, gleeful in their slaughter. Ajax however met their fury in kind, leading with his blade, reaping lives with every step.
Along the wall he advanced, Storm's Wrath a whirlwind of red murder. An Ork Boyz bellowed as it set foot upon the stone, Ajax ended it with a backhanded blow that tore its chest wide open. Another came at him with a pistol blazing, he thrust the point of his blade into its face and reduced the head to wet jelly. Another he dissected with a downwards slash, another head he smashed with a vertical strike, then cut apart a third with the return stroke. Ajax strode along the wall, culling Xenos like a threshing machine, his strength undeniable, his speed dazzling. Hatred thrummed through him, quickening his step. Sacred abhorrence was the blood in his veins, rage the beating of his twin hearts, No Ork could face him and live, Ajax would slaughter them all.
Five seconds in and he'd killed as many foes, but the Orks were cresting the wall through sheer force of numbers and Guardsmen began to die. Ajax redoubled his assault, arms never ceasing to kill. Storm's Wrath became slick with blood, ropey entrails catching in the teeth, but the valiant weapon was undaunted, its motor running clear and smooth. Ajax honoured its zeal with many kills, he strode along the wall, decimating Greenskins wherever he found them. The Vanguard Veterans were with him, power weapons making short work of any foe. Where the Storm Heralds walked the Orks were thrown back but they were few and the battlement was long.
The Storm Herald's vox-net rang, "Heavy assault on the right tower but we hold! Bolter ammo running low in the higher gun steps. Stand your ground, deny the Xenos filth! IVth squad besieged in the left tower. For Him on Terra! Gun positions lost over the gate, requesting reinforcements. Macrocannon alpha is being targeted. Slay these monsters! We are the Emperor's Storm, unleash the tempest!"
Ajax was a pure force of bloodletting but it was not enough. The Orks were still coming and he wasn't making a difference. He drank deeper of his font of rage, pushing his body to the limit, channelling his abhorrence into his blows. Centuries of war had hardened him, losses beyond counting had gifted him rage and the breaking of his body over and over had forged his will into a diamond-hard chisel of hate. Ajax tore into the Orks, his blade's sweep culling Greenskins left and right and where he walked only dead bodies remained.
"Come to me Xenos filth!" he bellowed into the face of the foe.
"Die at the hand of Ajax!" he roared as he tore an Ork apart.
"I am the Emperor's mailed fist!" he roared as he ripped the heart from a foe with a single thrust.
"I am His fury!" Ajax bellowed as he smashed the red ruin of another foe into the stones at his feet.
"I am His hate!" another foe lost their legs and was sent tumbling over the wall.
"I am His Wrath!" Ajax thundered as he cleaved a Greenskin right down the middle.
The battle hung in the balance, the Greenskins were swarming Victory Gate but were being held by the tenacity of the defenders. The Storm Heralds lent their strength to the embattled Guardsman, shoring up their courage and denying any breakthrough. The thunder of guns above never ceased as artillery rained firepower upon the horde, the booming of heavy weapons ceaseless, the death toll rising by the second. The foe was being held, but they weren't done yet. From the rapidly diminishing ranks flew another wave, literally flew. Rokket packs strapped to backs sent Stormboyz hurtling upwards, arcing for the Macrocannon batteries. Ajax saw the threat instantly, to lose a single Macroweapon would be a devastating loss, it could not be allowed.
His Jump pack ignited as his thoughts triggered the machine spirit. His bones rattled and his face pulled taut as he jetted upwards, racing to intercept the Stormboyz in mid-air. His Eviscerator he pulled tight to his chest, pointing it at the foe, thrusting as they closed into contact. The collision smashed into him like a racing ground-cab, slamming him back. Meanwhile Storm's Wrath plunged into the mass of an Ork and ripped it asunder, sending jagged chunks raining down Ajax's sharp rise was turned into an instant plummet, his velocity cut to nothing by the impact. He fell, tumbling head over heels, feeling the weightlessness of freefall grip hard. He had a single glance of the Stormboyz scattering, their flight thrown into disarray by his charge, they would fall short and be slaughtered, but if he did not want to join them he needed to save himself.
Ajax twisted in mid-air, bringing his feet towards the dirt. The ground was seconds away from slamming into him, a most undignified way to die, but his jump pack's power was with him. Turbines screamed as twin jet exhausts stabbed downwards. Ajax's spine screamed as inertia sought to compact his bones, to rip his legs from his body and tear him in two. A mortal would have died from the forces but Ajax endured, twin hearts beating rapidly to force blood back into his head. Despite that the world began to grey, his vision failing and dizzying sensations squeezing his brain. He endured, demanding even more from his jump pack, compelling it to burn hot. Jet exhaust blackened the dirt, so close did he come to dying, but then the thrust overcame his descent and sent him soaring back upwards. The Gate's mass blurred past, empty ladders and vacant grappling lines streaks in his eye, then Ajax crested the battlements and arced his path to land on the blood-slicked stone.
Boots touched down and he cut his jet thrust, allowing overtaxed turbines to wheeze in exhaustion. Heat scorched his back as the Machine Spirits vented their indignation over the affront, but Ajax had no time to appease them. He spun about, seeking another foe, but found the battlement empty. Ork bodies lay in piles, along with numerous Guardsmen corpses, but the thunder of guns was diminishing, the sounds of battle fading. Ajax cast left and right, disbelief refuting the reality of his eyes, but the facts were plain, the Ork assault had been beaten.
"We held them!" Iagion called as the Veteran closed, his Friction Axe steaming with boiling blood.
"Grox-dung!" Ajax spat, "It can't be this easy!"
"Look for yourself, they're dead, all of them."
Ajax's Transhuman mind flashed as calculations ran through his brain, "Ten thousand Orks, maybe twelve, a mere fraction of the horde. This was no true assault, this was a feint."
Iagion paused, "The Orks threw away ten thousand lives to what… count our guns?"
"No," Ajax snarled as he drew Storm's Wrath upright, "It was meant to keep us distracted."
"I don't follow," Iagion scowled.
Ajax turned his helm to the horizon and gripped his hilt so tight knuckles whitened as he hissed, "No Stompas, none of their heaviest war machines. The Orks sent chaff against us, nothing more. This assault wasn't meant to carry the walls; its purpose was to keep us from asking the real question. If Orkamemnon isn't here, then where is he?"