Maven cried out as he saw his brother Knight stagger, but before the enemy machine could finish its work, Cronus surged forwards and darted into the smoke.

*Its voids are too tough!' shouted Cronus, his pain obvious even over the vox-link. *Our weapons won't overload them!'

His comrade-in-arms had left himself dangerously exposed by coming to Maven's aid, but their two-p.r.o.nged a.s.sault had forced the enemy to dance to their tune, and they would never get a better chance to take it down.

*Get ready!' he replied. *We've got it where we want it!'

Faced with two enemies, the machine had backed against the cliffs of the valley, seeking to minimise the directions from which it could be attacked.

Just as Maven knew it would.

It was a standard, textbook manoeuvre.

Maven disengaged the auto-targeters and said, *You know the drills, but you don't have the skills,' and opened fire once more.

Instead of aiming for the machine, his gunfire tore into the rock walls above it, and a torrent of gigantic boulders fell in a thunderous avalanche from the cliffs, smashing into the upper vectors of the machine's shields. Blooming explosions of light rippled from the machine, its voids screaming in protest, but still, impossibly, holding.

*Now, Cronus!' shouted Maven, pushing his wounded mount to its feet and charging his foe with a feral cry of battle-l.u.s.t He opened up with his cannon, hammering the machine's upper shields. Even through the tumbling, roaring avalanche of rock and dust, the machine saw him coming and turned its guns on Equitos Bellum, just as Pax Mortis loomed from the smoke and joined its fire with that of Maven's mount.

Already struggling to withstand the rain of debris falling from the cliff, the machine's shield-emitters finally gave way under the concentrated fire of the two Knights.

Its voids exploded outwards in a blinding blast wave, tearing the metallic weapon dendrites from its back and vaporising its left arm in a thunderous detonation. Smoke and sparks of jetting energy spewed from the machine's ruptured flanks and its sensor blisters flickered madly, as though unable to comprehend how it had been hurt.

It rocked back, stunned and screaming in garbled bursts of binary that sliced over the Manifold and blew several of the augmitters inside Maven's c.o.c.kpit.

Maven rode through the billowing clouds of rock dust, seeing the spherical form of his long-sought-for enemy ahead of him. It was mortally wounded, but still had some fight left in it. Maven didn't give it a chance and drove the full four metres of his energised war blade through its frontal section.

Its death scream shrieked in a pitiful wail of agonised binary, but Maven twisted his blade in the wound until at last its cries ceased and the light of its sensor blisters was extinguished.

Letting out a pent-up breath of battle fury and pain, Maven stepped back from the destroyed machine, feeling an overwhelming sense of closure as he stood over the sh.e.l.l of his defeated enemy. The pain from his psychostigmatic wounds diminished and Maven smiled as he felt Equitos Bellum's satisfaction wash through him in a rush of approval.

The essence of what made a Knight such a fearsome war machine moved through his battered flesh to ease his suffering, filling his body and rushing along his aching limbs.

Too late, Maven felt the soul of his mount surge to the fore, the soothing balm that eased his pain wielding him as though he were the mount and it the rider. He felt the raw, ferocious heart of his machine, the terrifying power that lurked in the heart of the Manifold, take control of his limbs and turn Equitos Bellum towards the scar in the earth where the targets of the enemy machine had taken cover.

Through the blown-out c.o.c.kpit gla.s.s, Maven saw a Mechanic.u.m Protector, leading a slightly built woman with eyes that shone with a golden light towards him. A red cloak billowed at the shoulders of the Protector, who carried a weapon stave hung with the number grid symbol of Koriel Zeth. Behind them was a short, robed man who knelt beside the p.r.o.ne form of what looked like a tonsured menial.

Maven heard heavy footfalls as Pax Mortis moved alongside him and tried to speak to Cronus, but the elemental force of the Manifold held him tightly in its grip.

The woman approached the wounded Knight and before he knew what was happening, Equitos Bellum dropped to one knee and bowed its head to her. Without looking, he knew his battle-brother's Knight had done likewise.

She reached out and Maven felt warmth infuse every molecule of his hybrid existence of flesh and steel with newfound purpose and vitality. He felt the warmth of the woman's touch through the sh.e.l.l of his mount, and gasped as trembling vibrations spread through its armoured frame of plasteel and ceramite.

*Machine, heal thyself,' she said.

3.05.

NIGHT WAS FALLING across the Magma City, though darkness never really came to the glowing, orange-lit metropolis. Like a scene from the ancients' visions of the underworld, Adept Zeth's forge was bathed in the fires of battle as the forces of the Dark Mechanic.u.m pounded her walls with vortex missiles and collapsed the outer bastions with graviton cannons.

The city was being torn apart with mechanistic precision and, within hours, the forces under the command of Amba.s.sador Melgator a who watched the unfolding destruction from beneath his dark pavilion at the end of the Typhon Causeway a would have seized their prize for the Fabricator General.

The city was doomed and there was only one order left to give.

Deus Tempestus strode through the twisted, blackened remains of what had once been an armaments factory. Fires and small explosions still popped and flamed beneath the Warlord's mighty tread, but Princeps Cavalerio paid them no mind. Such things were irrelevant to a being of his stature. Only Aeschman's host of Tempestus skitarii following behind his battlegroups needed to concern themselves with such matters.

The full strength of Tempestus marched from the shelter of the Magma City, the cobalt blue of their armour and the fluttering honour banners gloriously bright against the brooding skies and fire-blackened rubble they marched through.

Leading from the centre, Deus Tempestus took up position behind a tangle of twisted iron columns and girders that had once been the structure of the largest sheet metal fabrication plant in Tharsis, but which now resembled a ma.s.s of razorwire.

On Cavalerio's right was Princeps Sharaq's battle group, Metallus Cebrenia leading the Warhounds Astrus Lux and Raptoria into battle. Princeps Lamnos and Kasim marched their smaller engines to either side of the larger Reaver, and Cavalerio raised his volcano cannon in salute of his brave warriors.

To his immediate left towered the mighty Warlord Tharsis Hastatus, under Princeps Suzak, while further out was Princeps Mordant's Reaver, Arcadia Fortis, with the dashing Princeps Basek's Warhound, Vulpus Rex, in support.

Once again, Cavalerio acknowledged his warriors as they took up position in the ruins of the outer sub-hives.

*All princeps, Manifold conference,' he said.

One by one, the flickering images of his brother princeps appeared before Cavalerio and he was gratified to see only the hunger for battle in their faces. Each was eager to take the fight to Mortis, despite there only being one possible outcome to the battle. For a moment he wished he still fought as they did. Then, he smiled at the foolishness of such a desire, for who could not wish to be as connected to such a mighty engine as Deus Tempestus in such a complete and total manner as he was.

*Brothers, this is the most dreadful and most glorious moment of our lives,' he said. *I'm not normally given to sentiment, but if the day of our deaths doesn't warrant a little melodrama, then I don't know what does.'

Cavalerio saw a few wry smiles and said, *The credo of Tempestus is that the manner of our deaths is at least as important as the manner of our lives. Today we will show these Mortis dogs what it means to feel the wrath of our Legio. It has been an honour to fight alongside you all over the years, and it is a privilege to lead you in this last march. May the light of the Omnissiah guide you.'

His brothers solemnly acknowledged his words with binaric glows of pride, but it was left to Princeps Kasim to give fleshvoice to the feelings of the Legio.

*The honour is ours, Stormlord,' said Kasim.

Cavalerio smiled as he saw the gleam of the gold skull and cog medallion he had given the man after the Epsiloid Binary Cl.u.s.ter wars.

*Good hunting, everyone,' said Cavalerio, and closed the link.

Despite their blooding in the initial fighting around the Magma City, Princeps Camulos could not ignore such a blatant challenge, and Cavalerio's auspex filled with returns as Legio Mortis marched through the smoke and fire to meet them. Swarming around each engine were thousands of Mortis skitarii, fearsome, skull-visaged warriors of terrible reputation.

The Tempestus skitarii, led by the indomitable Zem Aeschman, the scarred hero of Nemzal Reach, marched out to meet them, outnumbered at least four to one. To go into an engine fight required great courage, but to march into battle beneath such a t.i.tanic conflict demanded fearlessness only such enhanced warriors could boast.

*Multiple engine signatures,' said Sensori Palus, and Cavalerio acknowledged the inload, putting Aeschman's skitarii from his mind. The gargantuan form of Aquila Ignis led the Mortis engines, a row of three twisted Warlords marching in front of it like a skirmish screen. On both flanks, two Reavers circled wide.

*They only outnumber us by one engine,' said Cavalerio. *That's not so bad, eh?'

*Yes, my princeps,' said Moderati Kuyper. *It's just a shame they outgun us so heavily.'

Watching the Mortis deployment, Cavalerio said, *They're being cautious. None of them dare stray too far from their big brother.'

*And who can blame them?'

*They're afraid of us,' said Cavalerio. *They're still thinking of what we did to them in the opening ambush and they're scared we've got another trick like that up our sleeves.'

*I wish we did, Stormlord,' muttered Kuyper.

Cavalerio smiled in his amniotic tank, a stream of bubbles rising from his mouth.

*Who says I haven't?' he asked. *All princeps, marching speed.'

On the far side of the Magma City, where screaming mobs of skitarii and altered Protectors threw themselves at the Vulkan Gate, a blizzard of gunfire and artillery laid waste to the attackers closest to the entrance. Before Melgator's forces could regroup and resume their attack, the Vulkan Gate opened and beneath their azure lightning wheel standard, the Knights of Taranis rode out.

Lord Verticorda led his Knights, the n.o.ble form of Ares Lictor resplendent, the wound in its chest repaired in time for this last ride to glory. Alongside Verticorda, Lord Caturix rode the majestic Gladius Fulmen, his war engine proudly bearing the scars and ravages of battle on its burnished plates.

Behind them came the last nine Knights of the order, their armour polished and repaired such that they shone like new. This was to be their final charge and the Magma City's artificers had ensured that they would make a fine sight as they rode out.

The Knights formed a wedge, with Verticorda and Caturix as the tip of the spear, and plunged into the ma.s.s of enemy warriors, their guns spitting death with every shot. The combined shock of the artillery strike followed by the a.s.sault of the Knights broke the front of the Dark Mechanic.u.m line, and the Knights smashed through the reeling survivors like giants scattering children before them.

Roaring streams of turbo lasers and blitzing storms of explosive sh.e.l.ls tore through skitarii and weaponised servitors as the Knights carved a path along the Typhon Causeway. Hundreds of their enemies were dying every second and their bodies were crushed underfoot as the Knights rode ever onwards. The Knights of Taranis slaughtered their way along the causeway's length, Verticorda killing with methodical precision, Caturix with furious abandon.

As sudden as the attack was, Melgator's forces rallied with commendable speed, and armoured units raced to meet the charging Knights. Heedless of their own warriors, enemy cannon opened fire on the causeway, blowing wide craters in the great road. The speed and ferocity of their charge carried the Knights clear of the bulk of the fire, but two warriors, tangled up in the debris of their carnage, were caught by the full fury of a sustained salvo of high explosives and blown to pieces.

Another Knight took a direct hit from an experimental gun recovered from the ruins of Adept Ulterimus' tomb beneath the Zephyria Tholus. Empowered with dark energies from the Vaults of Moravec, a beam of black light punched straight through the Knight's power field to wreath the machine in dark fire that instantly melted through its armour. Verticorda could hear its agonised screams over the Manifold and watched as its dying rider swept a host of enemy warriors to their doom as it plunged from the causeway and into the magma.

With every pa.s.sing moment, the Knights of Taranis were fighting their way further and further from the Magma City, killing and crushing Adept Zeth's enemies with consummate skill and grace. This was no undisciplined, feral charge, but the exquisite skill of n.o.ble warriors exercising their killing art in the most sublime manner imaginable.

Already they had travelled more than two kilometres from the gate, leaving a trail of dead and dying enemies in their wake. As another four hundred metres was won, another Knight died, the machine's legs sawn off by Ulterimus' dark weapon and its carapace pounced upon by a cackling tide of mutant skitarii.

Lord Caturix turned his guns on the swarming skitarii, clearing them from the downed Knight in a series of devastating bursts of gunfire. The Knight was already dead, and, rather than allow the enemy to scavenge from its corpse, Caturix kept firing until its reactor core was breached and it vanished in a seething wall of plasma fire.

Only five Knights remained with Verticorda and Caturix, and as devastating as their charge had proven, it was slowing. More and more enemy warriors were clogging the causeway with their bodies, and entire regiments of artillery and armour were concentrating their fire on stopping the Knights.

Verticorda and Caturix, warriors of wildly different temper yet identical courage, kept pushing onwards, their ultimate goal in sight: the black pavilion of Amba.s.sador Melgator.

PRINCEPS KASIM IN Raptoria darted through the ruins of the Arsia sub-silos to unleash a furious barrage into one of the flanking Reavers. The towering engine's shields soaked up the fire of the smaller war machine, turning its guns on the tumbled metallic ruins.

A storm of shrapnel and explosions tore through the collapsed silo, but Raptoria was already on the move, surging though the jumbled ma.s.s of collapsed towers and fallen masonry to fire again. Using every inch of cover and his natural affinity for moving through close and dirty terrain, Kasim kept Raptoria one step ahead of his enemy's fire, loping randomly from cover to deliver stinging fire on the lumbering Reaver before vanishing back into the cover of the silo.

With the Warlords and Imperator closing behind them, one of the Reavers turned into the collapsed and burning silos to flush Kasim out, unwilling to leave a snapping predator in their wake, even one as hopelessly outgunned as a Warhound.

Its vast bulk smashed through steel archways that had once seen the pa.s.sage of thousands of workers, trampling through machine shops, which had produced weapons and ordnance that had pacified worlds on the other side of the galaxy. It towered over the twisted wreckage of melted machines and the charred skeletons of those who had died in the complex's collapse.

Sparks and trailing squalls of energy backwash flared from its shields as it bludgeoned its way through the factory to reach its quarry. A screaming wail of sc.r.a.pcode bled from its external augmitters and its warhorn's booming howl echoed weirdly from those walls that still stood.

Kasim broke from cover, the cobalt blue of his engine stark against an ashen wall.

The Reaver caught sight of him and twisted its upper body to target his nimble engine. A torrent of weapons fire reduced the wall to pulverised dust and sparked from Raptoria's shields.

No sooner had the Reaver opened fire than the vulpine form of Astrus Lux slipped from the shadows of a sagging derrick and bounded towards the Reaver's exposed back, her weapon arms blazing. Princeps Lamnos poured his shots into where the swirling energy discharges were greatest, battering down the Reaver's shields with a furious concentration of fire.

The Reaver immediately realised its danger and tried to turn, but Princeps Lamnos was quicker, sidestepping his engine through the tangled mess of smashed machinery and fallen structure. Fighting to keep his aim true while manoeuvring his engine over such rough terrain, Lamnos kept his fire steady for longer than was safe.

His persistence paid off as the rear quarter of the Reaver's shields blew out in an enormous flaming bloom of light. The blaring challenge of the machine's warhorn changed in pitch to one of pain as Raptoria vaulted a broken berm of machinery and opened fire on the Reaver at point-blank range.

Without the protection of its shields, the Reaver was horribly exposed and Kasim's fire wreaked fearful damage on the larger engine. Like Lamnos, Kasim kept his fire steady, raking a salvo of high-energy turbo laser fire across the Reaver's hip. The joint streamed molten gobbets of armour before explosively giving way, and Raptoria and Astrus Lux bounded away from the mortally wounded engine.

The Reaver toppled slowly, majestically, onto its side, crushing what little remained of the silo beneath its enormous weight and breaking into pieces. Raptoria pushed onwards, hugging the ground and taking advantage of the billowing cloud of ash and smoke clouds thrown up by the Reaver's collapse.

Astrus Lux pulled back through the silo, circling around the fallen engine, but Lamnos had exposed his Warhound for too long and the Reaver's companion had worked up a firing solution.

A withering series of missile impacts slammed into the top of Astrus Lux and pounded her into the ground, hammering her shields until they broke open with a pounding, concussive detonation. Like a wounded bird, Astrus Lux tried to crawl into cover, shieldless and with her legs shattered by the impacts.

The second Reaver was taking no chances, however, and strode into the flaming ruin of the silo, crushing Astrus Lux beneath its bulk.

First blood to Tempestus.

ON THE LEFT flank of the Tempestus battlegroups, far across the cratered wasteland of the landing fields a where Deus Tempestus and Tharsis Hastatus duelled with Aquila Ignis' skirmish screen of Warlords a Princeps Mordant pushed forwards in Arcadia Fortis. Though he commanded a Reaver, Jan Mordant matched the pace of his Warhound companion, Vulpus Rex, stride for stride.

He and Princeps Basek strode to meet the two flanking Reavers, both enemy machines twisted and hateful with b.l.o.o.d.y banners and grisly adornments hanging from their weapons. Instead of marching straight towards the enemy Reavers, Arcadia Fortis followed a wide curving course that drew his opponents away from the easy shelter of the Imperator with every step.

Whickering streams of weapons fire filled the air between the foes, both Tempestus princeps directing all their fire upon the Reaver closest to the centre of the battle line. Further out from the Magma City, there was none of the cover enjoyed by Raptoria, and Princeps Basek was forced to use all his savvy to avoid the worst of the incoming fire. The distance between the Mortis and Tempestus engines was shrinking and with every stride, the firestorm grew ever more ferocious.

Given the disparity of weight and gun strengths, it was only a matter of time until the brutal mathematics of war took their toll on the Tempestus engines. The Mortis engines knew this and their discordant horns boomed in triumph, but in war, as in all things, there are variables that can upset even the most inevitable of functions.

Both Vulpus Rex and Arcadia Fortis were commanded by men whose hearts were still those of aggressive hunters, and they were fighting to destroy as much of Mortis' strength as possible before their ending.

The shields of the Reaver targeted by both Tempestus engines flickered out, worn down by the constant barrage and shut off before they blew out. An instant later the Warlord Tharsis Hastatus, which had been waiting for just that moment, unleashed a punishing volley from its volcano cannon. A searing beam of nuclear fire punched through the Reaver's c.o.c.kpit, and blew off its entire upper section in a spectacular explosion that hurled pieces of wreckage for over six kilometres.

The thunderous death of the Reaver had been bought by a furious concentration of fire, but that in turn had allowed the second Reaver to close virtually unmolested. Its heavy guns had brought the shields of Arcadia Fortis to breaking point and it was the work of moments to finish the job of overloading them.

A lucky strike on one of the carapace emitters blew out the relays connected to the neural network of the Tempestus engine, and the feedback agonies burned out the cerebral cortex of Princeps Mordant as surely as though he had taken a bolt-round to the head. Arcadia Fortis died with him, the mighty engine grinding to a halt, helpless and utterly at the mercy of its foes.

Basek attempted to flee from the screaming Reaver, its weakened shields and depleted ammunition load no match for such a towering foe. Vulpus Rex moved with grace and speed, but in the face of an indiscriminate barrage of missiles it had no chance of evasion. Missiles slammed into the ground, tearing huge craters and hurling chunks of debris into the air.

Her terrain-reading auspex overloaded with screaming, sc.r.a.pcode interference, Vulpus Rex tumbled into a crater, one of its weapon arms snapping off and its legs buckling as it landed awkwardly. Trapped and with no escape, Princeps Basek tried to eject, but a brutal volley from the Reaver tore his floundering engine to pieces, killing him and all his crew in a mercifully swift thunder of hard rounds.

Then the sky broke open and the gathering darkness was banished as a bright sunset of atomic detonation painted the distant heavens with fire.

ADEPT KORIEL ZETH closed her eyes at the sight of the fire in the sky, knowing exactly what it represented and feeling the human portion of her body fill with sadness. She focused the Chamber of Vesta's viewing screens to the north and increased the magnification to maximum, knowing what she would see, but dreading it all the same.

All along Ipluvien Maximal's reactor chain of Ulysses Fossae, a score of fiery mushroom clouds climbed skyward. A blast wave of unimaginable force flattened the landscape for hundreds of kilometres bare of life, and the following firestorm would turn the Martian desert to irradiated gla.s.s for ten thousand years.

*Goodbye, Ipluvien,' said Zeth, before turning her attention to the unfolding conflict around her own forge, the burnished plates showing such ferocious scenes of battle that even she could scarce believe such slaughter was happening on Mars.

The charge of the Knights of Taranis had cleaved a b.l.o.o.d.y path through the attackers on the causeway, but their numbers were dwindling fast. Another two Knights had gone down, leaving only Verticorda, Caturix and three warriors.

Every second brought them closer to Melgator's pavilion, but she had no idea whether they would reach it alive. Even if they did, there would be no escape from the heart of the enemy army. Legio Tempestus were fighting a battle that would enter the annals of their histories as one of their most n.o.ble, were there any left alive to record it, and her own warriors had fought harder than she could ever have wished.