Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [95]
‘Get up,’ he snarls at Artarion without even looking.
I crash the faceplate of my helm into the barking maw of the alien before me, shattering his jaw and the rows of shark-like teeth. As he falls back, my crozius crunches into his throat, hammering his wrecked corpse to the ground.
The banner rises again, though Artarion favours his left leg. The right is mauled, his thigh punctured by an alien spear. Curse the fact these beasts have the strength to violate Astartes war plate.
Another vox-distorted growl signifies Artarion has pulled the lance free from his leg. I have no time to witness his recovery. More beasts shriek before me – a thrashing wall of sick, jade flesh.
‘We’re losing this road,’ Bastilan grunts, his signal marred by the sound of weapons crashing against his armour. ‘We are but six, against a legion.’
‘Five.’ Nerovar’s voice is strained as he fights with his chainblade two-handed, hewing down the beasts with none of Priamus’s artistry but no less fury. ‘Cador is dead.’
‘Forgive me, brother,’ Bastilan’s voice breaks off as he fires a stream of bolter shells at point-blank range. ‘A moment’s lack of focus.’
Ahead, our targets – three junkyard tanks that have long since ceased to resemble their original Imperial Guard hulls – continue shelling the shelter block. These have none of the security offered by the subterranean shelters, for they are not civilian evacuation shelters at all. Each of these squat domes houses a thousand at capacity, designed to resist violent sandstorms and the tropical cyclones all too common on the equatorial coast – not sustained shelling from enemy armour. They are used now because there is nothing else to use, with the city grown far beyond its capacity to shelter all its citizens beneath the ground.
The beasts know us well. They seek to draw the city’s forces into the most fevered fighting, so they hurl themselves at our defenceless civilians with sick cunning, knowing we will do all we can to defend these sites above any others.
How easy it is, to despise them.
‘Gnnh,’ Nerovar voxes, his voice wet and ruined by pain. I vault the falling corpse of the alien closest to me, and stand by his side – maul swinging with relentless motion – as our Apothecary struggles to rise again.
He fails. The beasts have brought him to his knees.
‘Gnnnnnh. Not coming out,’ he coughs. His hands clutch weakly at the axe hammered into his stomach. His gauntlets stroke without strength along the haft, gaining no grip. Blood from the sunder in his armour is painting his tabard scarlet. ‘Can’t do it.’
‘In the name of the Emperor,’ my chastisement comes forth as no more than a low growl, ‘stand and fight, or we all die.’
With Nerovar wounded and prone, he becomes a lodestone for the creatures desperate to deliver the death blow to one of the Emperor’s knights. They bellow and charge.
My crozius kills one. A kick to the sternum sends another staggering back long enough for me to bring the maul down on his head. A third is claimed by plasma fire, tumbling back as a blur of white-hot flame. Stinging ash, all that remains of the wretched alien, blasts back into the eyes of its bestial comrades.
Too many.
Even for us, this is too many.
I have a momentary glimpse of human families fleeing in all directions down the burning streets, able to escape while the horde focuses its fury on us. Several of the civilians are cut down by sponson fire from the junk-tanks, but many more survive – even if only to run blind into the unsafe labyrinth of their dying city. Before this war, I would never have counted such a thing to be a victory.
With a cry that mixes anger and pain, Nero tears the axe blade from his abdomen. Any relief I feel is swallowed, for he has no time to rise before the beasts are on us.
‘I see some knights,’ Andrej said. This announcement was followed by a whispered ‘Damn it,’ and the humming of his hellgun powering up again.
The work gang kept their backs to the rooftop’s low wall, with only Andrej peering over the edge to look down into the street.