Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 209
Panicking mobs of civilians ran below Vitcos' position, their heads vague shapes in the gloom of night. Flashing explosions in the distance cast brief glimpses of terrified faces, tears in their eyes and screams upon their lips. Fat lords bursting out of their girdles, noble ladies tripping over heavy skirts, dilatants and indolents, the idle rich awoken from their beds. They had thought they were safe in the west, that their riches had bought them the protection of the river and mighty armies, they were wrong. Orkamemnon was here, he had breached the defences and would kill the rich and poor without exception.
Vitcos sneered under his helm. Such wastes of skin and bone ruled the Imperium, unable to protect themselves from the horrors of the galaxy, yet they expected braver men to fight on their behalf. They proved no better than a penniless beggar when the hour of wolves was upon them. They ran for their worthless lives, heading west. They would find no succour there, only the unforgiving waters of the sea, denying escape. Vitcos imagined many would die there, crushed in the stampede or driven into the cruel waters. Prayer or coin would certainly not avail them and he had no mercy to offer.
From beyond the fleeing crowd came hulking shapes, backlit by the fires raging along the shore. Orruk, in great number, heading towards the Sanctum Imperialis, straight as a laser. Arjax-lel's message had had the desired effect; their prey was goaded and tore towards the trap like an enraged Grox. The Orruk could have spilled out in all directions, secured a beachhead and brought over numbers beyond reckoning, instead they were plunging headlong into the heart of the city, overextended and vulnerable. Their rear would suffer most cruelly and the Sanctum was rigged to drop on Orkamemnon's head, but it fell to the Smoke Jaguars to keep too many of his minions from entering. They needed the Warboss isolated when he stumbled into the noose.
Vitcos stood on a rooftop over a broad street, Chakrams in hand. The Orruk were pushing towards their goal and would be in range in seconds. Of Orkamemnon there was no sign, but several roads were being invaded, he must be elsewhere. All Blazing Shadow had to worry about was taking out the Orruk headed their way. The first of them passed below, but Vitcos held firm. A dozen, a score, more of them hurrying towards the dark spire with every second. Then the moment was right and the First stepped out.
A moment of weightlessness, then his boots crashed into an Orruk's back. His weight was immense, his momentum deadly and he crushed the foe into the cobbled street with the snapping of bones and breaking of metal rods as shock rang up his spine. Something was off, the Orruk wasn't dead, squirming under his boots but Vitcos had no time to investigate. He sheared a Chakram across the back of the neck, putting an end to this one, then sprang forward with an upward slash at the next. Skin parted but the vibrating edge rebounded off a metal plate underneath, the frequencies imperfect for penetrating armour. The foe leered at him with a face of staring lenses and needle fangs and he understood what they were facing.
"Cyborks!" Vitcos called aloud in warning as his autosenses cleared and etched the truth of the foe in distressing clarity. He had no time to see how Blazing Shadow were faring, his attention was locked on this foe. A snapping arm moved so fast he could barely see it and a buzzsaw tore along his flank, spraying Ceramite chips everywhere. Vitcos threw himself aside to avoid dying, but the other arm was a snapping pincer and came for his head with a piston-driven thrust. The First ducked low to avoid dying, lashing out at both kneecaps to dismember the Orruk, his attack was thwarted as he discovered the joints had been replaced with gears and rods.
The Buzzsaw came at his head again and Vitcos stumbled backwards, forcing himself to rise. All around Cyborks came at the Smoke Jaguars in a torrent, the demented genius of Diorkgenes at last given free reign. They were fast, they were strong and their vital organs had been replaced with metal and fluid-link. Conventional attacks were meaningless, they shrugged off wounds that should have ended them thrice over, this was going to be harder than expected.
Vitcos dived left only to run straight into an arm solid as a Plasteel girder. He rebounded and felt sharp pain as pincers punched into his flank. Pain unlike any he had ever known cut deep, tearing up his guts and shattering several ribs. The taste of blood in his mouth and air was short in his lungs, his wounding was grievous indeed. The Orruk leered as it lifted him high, lording over its imminent kill. Failure clawed at Vitcos' spirit, the knowledge that he had proved lacking once again. Vitcos had ever been flawed, his blood tainted with a mad Primarch's degeneracy, his strength hollow and soul tarnished. Tachna had been proven right, as was Vticos' barely remembered father. Vitcos was nothing he had always been nothing. That thought brought him shame, but also anger, a red-hot fury building in his chest. Vitcos refused to die, as he had refused on the sacrificial stones, as he had every damned day since. Vitcos had been fated to die long ago, but he had always spat in the face of destiny.
Vitcos' weapons curved about and drove both Chakrams into the elbow of the arm pinning him. Mad vibrations shook his arms but he held firm, pushing his weapons into the meat and metal with relentless strength. The Orruk roared as it tried to drive its buzzsaw into his hearts but Vitcos proved a second faster. His Chakrams at last found the perfect frequency and cut through the arm in a shower of blood and oil, dropping the First an instant before death took him. The Buzzsaw tore a furrow over his pauldron but he survived. Then grabbed the stump of the arm lodged in his side and heaved it free with a wet plop.
The Cybork did not relent, coming at him with its remaining weapon but Vitcos wove aside and the blow tore only the brick of the wall behind. His flank was on fire, his blood staining the ground but yet Vitcos fought on. He pushed through the pain and sliced his Chakrams across the foes' side, splitting armoured plates and spilling oil. A roundhouse blow came at him but he leaned back, then lashed in again, another cut to weaken the foe, and another. Vitcos felt the agony of genhanced organs knitting wounds clawing deep but the sharpness of pain only lent him fury. He struck in rapid slices, twin circlets spilling blood with every touch. Every blow drawing blood, faster and faster and faster. Death by a thousand cuts, slow and painful, the way of a soul who delights in pain and suffering. Vitcos judged it fit and made a ruin of the Cybork's flesh, taking its life from it piece by piece, till at last it collapsed in a wet heap, reduced to an oozing bag of blood and oil.
Vitcos spun upon his heel and found Blazing Shadow beset. Ilquitio fought with fury, his Daga blades reaping a fearful tally. He plunged the points deep then snapped the tines wide, each blow exploding meat and gears like a bolt round impacting. His tally was fearsome but the Cyborks were many and he could not hold them at bay. Sechura was more focused, he had climbed up a Cybork's back and was working his Obsidian Blade into the point where a skull was replaced by a metal cap. The Cybork tried to prize him free but Sechura was relentless, he levered the point of his blade upwards and the implant came away, taking a good chunk of brain with it. The Cybork collapsed but more were coming, many more. The rest of Blazing Shadow could not hold, this fight was lost.
"The Carnodon's maw yawns wide to swallow us!" Ilquitio gasped.
"The sun sets on all men," Sechura hissed as he brandished his blade in anticipation.
"Not today, not while I stand!" Vitcos growled.
"The stars mote it be?" Ilquitio asked.
"I will it so," Vitcos snarled.
Then a new voice cut in, "Ask and ye shall receive!"
From an adjoining house burst forth Tachna. The Headsman's armour was scored badly, his heraldry dented in many places but his arm was yet mighty and his weapons deadly. His power fist met a Cybork midcharge and exploded it into mist, reducing a deadly Orruk into a cloud of red. His axe flashed and another fell to the ground, its upper half held fast by a single thread of sinew. Tachna faced a wall of foes with the judgment of damnation and brought their sentence to them without respite.
"Your aid is welcome but your face is not!" Vitcos spat as he surged back into the fight.
Tachna continued killing, "The Headsman's verdict is not stayed by pleas nor threats, your bleating is nothing to me, last among Firsts!"
"Can the taunting not wait till the prey is no more?!" Sechura snapped as he stabbed up through a jaw into a braincase.
Ilquitio agreed as he exploded a spine, "Dark is the night when Ilquito agrees with him, but the midnight hour is long past!"
Vitcos fought on, meeting Cyborks with the edges of his Chakrams. He faced a nightmare blur of fused flesh and steel, with drill-bit hands and crackling shock-mauls for fingers. Each Cybork was a hideous blending of perversity and impossibility, their visages crimes unto themselves. He met each with his most deadly greetings, ending lives and reaping a fearful tally. The Cyborks were strong, they were relentless and they were hard to kill. Though he loathed it with all his being, without Tachna's steady presence the fight would have been lost. The Headsman's weapons were a match for the Cyborks and where he stood the dead piled high but they just kept coming.
Vitcos opened a throat with a rapid slash and cried, "This ground is lost!"
"To the rear, we withdraw!" Ilquitio called.
"Nay, stand your ground!" Tachna bellowed.
"Only the fool commands the tide not to turn!" Sechura barked.
"The tide will obey, for I am Il-Tzak!"
Tachna matched action to words, setting his feet broadly and engaging his missile launchers. Streaking warheads shot above the Cybork's head, spreading far and wide before air-bursting. Thick black clouds instantly unspooled and Vitcos' eyes widened, an instant before his helm's respirator slammed shut. The black smoke drifted over tightly packed Cyborks and they began to die. Choking on blood, tongues swelling and vitae pouring from eardrums. Reworked as they were they yet retained organic components and the Bloodmire toxin was lethal to any that breathed. Vitcos had thought the Smoke Jaguar's meagre supply was exhausted, he was proven wrong. Gaze Catcher had retained a small measure and put it to good use.
Cyborks fell in heaps, their lifeblood puddling upon the ground as a lake. Vitcos hastily backed up, aware his armour was breached, he wasn't sure if Astartes physiology could withstand contact exposure, but he was in no haste to find out. The rest of Blazing Shadow fell back with him, leaving a charnel house of grizzly horror and entrail-art, such as would have brought a cruel smile to the face of Konrad Curze himself.
"Judgement falls on all men," Sechura breathed.
"My will is not turned once set," Tachna rejoined.
"Is the deed done?" Ilquitio asked.
"Nay, the Hound Sinister is beset elsewhere, he calls for aid!"
Vitcos pulsed his Chakrams to clear the blood as he declared, "We go to his aid and may the Orruk beware, Blazing Shadow is not yet tired of killing!"
The Smoke Jaguars set off to rejoin the fight but Vitcos spared a glance at the dark spire. The plan was working, the lesser prey was held but Orkamemnon would not be denied. He would reach the Sanctum Imperialis with scant forces at his side, alone and vulnerable at last. It fell to Arjax-lel to end this war once and for all. The Storm Herald had demanded the right to spring the trap and there was no other Vitcos would have trusted so, his only regret was that he would not be there to witness the final confrontation between Marine and Xenos.