A Promise Kept - Warhammer Fiction

It was grim. The troubled heavens, the mood, the landscape, all of it was grim, gloomy, dreary and above all, grim. Looking out from the battlements of the modest stone tower of the weathered keep of Hoffnung, Franz Hubermann squinted through the biting wind. He leaned into the lee of the stonework and pulled up his furred collar to keep out the chill. It felt like the icy fingers of the dead down the back of his neck.

Over the last two weeks it seemed as though he could never stay warm, save in front of the roaring hearth, but with the enemy abroad, their dwindling stockpile of firewood was more precious than ever. He fancied he even saw fleeting flickers of green witchfire in amongst the dancing yellow flames, whilst sitting there late at night on the edge of sleep. A sign of dark powers at work he was sure. Then again, it could just be the beguiling nature of a hypnotic fire and a sorrowful ode of deeds long passed.

There was a dull click, and the heavy steel bound timber door to the inner tower squealed open. The rotund smiling man that struggled out into the wind, a pair of embossed pewter tankards in one hand, and his other trying to prevent the door from smashing itself against the lichen spotted wall, greeted Franz with an even broader grin, displaying a rank of uneven gap teeth. With an effort, he squeezed his body around the edge of the door, and then pushed it shut with his ample behind.

“Here, mein Herr. A warm spiced wine to keep your insides from curdling!”

He held out one of the tankards to Hubermann. Franz took the proffered drink gratefully, and sat down on the bench under the wall, out of the whistling wind. The other man came and eased down next to him, the old bench creaking like a deaf old woman in protest at the load.

“It’s true then, Claus? Vicelli means to betray us?” Claus turned to look his friend in the face, his expression suddenly serious. This was why Hubermann valued Claus Hungard, both as an old companion and as an advisor. He was jovial and full of light heartedness in the main, lifting the spirits of those around him, but dour and focussed when graveness was called for.

“Reilman and his outriders arrived back an hour ago. I spoke to him before he even had his riding gear off and a drink in his hand, such was the urgency in his voice.” Claus leaned closer, so Franz could hear without raising his voice too high. “He was deadly afraid, his voice all a quiver as he spouted about all of our souls being forfeit, and pacts with daemons.”Hubermann was sceptical. Reilman was a horseman second to none, but with a propensity for strong drink.

“What did he see, Claus?”

Claus Hungard sighed, and took a breath before he responded. In that dim light, sitting on that rickety bench leaning against the cold stone, the man looked his age, though he was younger than Hubermann by five years. Both of them looked worn, he thought. Too many cold nights, too many battlefields.

“Reilman said they rode out northeast, two days since, taking the road that skirts the Grey Hills. They followed the trail of a group of horsemen for a day and a night, until they came to a small camp in a hollow, out of the wind. Just a dozen men and beasts under canvas. Seeing it was Vicelli and his men, they made to ride down and join them, but they noticed at the last moment another group of mounted warriors approach the camp from the north.”

As Claus told the story, Hubermann nodded in understanding. It was the way in these remote parts to be wary of travellers, and the signs of the passing of bands of mounted warriors near to their homes warranted investigation, as Reilman was tasked to do. These were dark times, growing darker by the year. Hubermann cut into Claus’s monologue.

“And who were these others Claus?”

Hubermann was keen to get to the crux of the report, and he knew how Claus Hungard liked to stretch out a yarn. He was a teller of stories of some renown, but this was important. Chastened, Hungard continued.

“Ah, yes. Reilmann said they were cloaked in black, and there was a dread air about them. Vicelli’s men were very wary of them, and they kept their hands on the hilts of their swords. Their horses shied and were unsettled by their very presence. When their leader threw back his hood, it was him, underneath. That devil Schwarznacht.”

The devil, Schwarznacht. Count Schwarznacht, a terror from the north of the region. His castle was said to be in the Grey Mountains somewhere, but none had ever found it, or at least not returned to tell the tale. The army of this monster had swept through the northern marches of the Border Princes, setting flame to hamlets and villages.

The shambling meat puppets that made up the bulk of the unnatural enemy brought with them disease and decay and the terror that spread before the Count’s army was as potent a weapon as blade or shot. Great loping wolves had been seen in the blanketing forests, and ancient barrows in the Grey Hills had been broken open and their occupants seemingly vanished. More likely they had been called forth to war by the Vampire’s foul sorcery.

But this was not the heart of the Old World. There were not castles and lords aplenty here to face this threat. The settlements of men were few and far between in this part of the world, and many townships raised one year could be cast down and ruined the next.

“And, how did this meeting play out? It could not have been unlucky chance surely?”

Now Hungard’s face was as grim as the fleeing clouds above their heads. Fat raindrops began to drum off the wooden cover beneath which they sat.

“They have made a pact, an agreement between Vicelli and Schwarznacht, that the forces of Sperenza will not stand against the undead when they march on Hoffnung. In exchange, Sperenza will be left untouched.”

Hubermann clenched his meaty fists. His face was a picture of rage. He banged his hand down hard on the end of the bench.

“Fools! Do they know what they’ve done! They’ve damned us all! We cannot stand against the Vampire’s army without Vicelli’s forces to support us, and Vicelli knows this. The alliance between Hoffnung and Sperenza has stood strong for a century. Our grandfathers drew up that alliance at the founding of the two towns, and through it we have remained strong, survived where others have perished. If they spurn our ancient agreement now, both the people of Hoffnung and the people of Sperenza could be doomed to suffer death, or worse.”

Claus nodded vehemently in agreement.

“The people of both towns would be doomed for certain, for there is no chance that the feind will keep his word and spare Vicelli’s people. Once we are out of the way, the undead will turn on Sperenza, and there will be naught Vicelli can do.”

Claus spat on the floor, to ward off the darkness that talk of the Vampire carried with it. They had mentioned him too many times in the last few moments, and Claus thought he could hear even now the whispers of unquiet spirits drawn to their conversation, waiting just the other side of the eternal veil. The spies of the undead.

“So, what do we do?” Claus asked his old friend.

“We take the only chance we have. Not for naught were Hoffnung and Sperenza named for hope. Let us grasp that hope now, with both hands. We ride out to face the Vampire and his army. If we can cut the heart from the undead force by striking down Schwarznacht himself, maybe we have a chance. If we allow ourselves to be trapped here, they will starve us out or despoil the water supply, and we are all dead.”

Franz Hubermann, Burgomeister of the Border Principality town of Hoffnung got to his feet, a new vigiour in his aging frame. His friend stood with him.

“Come, we muster the army."

The ground that Hubermann had chosen to face the undead was favourable. His troops were sitting on a gentle slope, facing down the hill, which gave them the height advantage, but as the low ground was the flood plain of the swift moving River Grimmig, it also meant that the Vampire’s force would be deployed in the waterlogged mire, under his guns. Let them trudge up the hill towards him. 

The force that marched out of Hoffnung was an army born of a proud Empire heritage. To either side of Hubermann’s central position were arrayed ranks of Swordsmen in the black and red of Hoffnung. Flanking them were detachments of Hand Gunners, and Militiamen in their mismatched gear. At the far ends of the line on either flank, Hubermann had positioned his cannon, and to defend them against flanking units of fast moving wolves and other worse things, he had positioned his Outriders, the sons of the ruling council of Hoffnung, and small contingents of keen eyed bowmen.

Hubermann himself was surrounded by his loyal Knights, as splendid as any Order of the Empire. They may be a month’s ride from their ancestral home, but they kept to the old ways as well as any.

He hoped it would be enough. They would dearly miss the presence of their old ally Vicelli, and the pikemen, armoured crossbowmen and mortars he would have brought to battle. Over the years, the alliance between Sperenza and Hoffnung had allowed the soldiery of the two towns to train together and become accustomed to each other’s presence. They had become adept at fighting alongside each other, maximizing on the other’s strengths and learning to mitigate their weaknesses. Now the men of Hoffnung stood alone.

As he sat, mounted upon his armoured charger, the horse snorted and weighed it’s proud head up and down. He rubbed the beasts ears to soothe his fear.

“There now Hertz, I can smell them too. They smell worse than Claus the morning after the Midsummer Feast.”

He was unsettled, as were they all. It was no natural enemy they faced, and few were the men who could stand and face the horror of things that should by rights be dead and buried stumbling forwards to claw their eyes out. He heard the sound of hooves, and Claus rode up beside him. His face was beaming.

“They come, the Sperenzari, to our left, they are marching up the reverse slope towards our position!”

Hubermann was wary.

“Towards us? Or to our flank to take up battle positions?”

Claus’ horse stepped quickly left and right, empathic to the excitement of the rider.

“They march in the traditional battle formation set down by your grandfather, Sigmar bless his soul, in a fighting column, ready to turn when they reach our flank to face the enemy. They have knights to their front, and mortars in tow behind, with a great phalanx of pikes in between. Should I send a rider with a message?”

Hubermann knew not what to expect of his oldest friend, Capitano Vicelli. He was overjoyed at the news that the army of Sperenza had marched after all, but what of the pact witnessed by Reilman? Could the outrider have been mistaken?

“Signal the drums to beat the ‘Comrades in Arms’, and see how they respond.”

“Mein Herr!”

Hubermann turned his attention back to his front. From the trees on the opposite side of the river, there was a glimmer of bone and old metal from between the trees, and glimmers of ethereal witch lights flitting to and fro. A thousand yards to the enemy, as the carrion crow flies.

Within moments, to his left the Burgomeister could hear his own drummers beating out the traditional welcome to allied warriors, the ‘Comrades in Arms’, older than the pact between the two towns.

Even as the silent regiments of Skeletons marched out of the woods, cold and rusted blades in fleshless hands, and began to array themselves for battle, the clouds began to darken casting a spirit sapping shadow across the field.

The Burgomeister heard the change of drums, as his ally’s drummers returned the salute. They were really here, here to fight at the side of their old friends. They could win this fight. If they held true, they could win this fight here in this sodden field. He risked a smile to himself.

As Franz Hubermann and his knights looked on, the banks of the river were wreathed in a creeping mist which obscured the waters. On the far bank could now be seen regiments of skeletal knights: riders in black, who held themselves tall and proud as they might have done in life. There were massing unruly packs of vile corpse eaters, those depraved men who had shed any semblance of humanity to follow the lords of the dead and feast amidst the battlefield carnage. To the far left and right of the field, Hubermann saw undead wolves of great size bound out of the woods towards the banks of the river, and other, larger shadows beyond, which moved too quick for his old eyes to make out through the gathering mist.

It was time. Hubermann raised his hand to signal his troops to give fire, but as he did so, he noticed the water. There were things in the water, bodies. Hundreds of them. The river Hubermann had hoped would keep the undead at bay so that his troops could cut them down at range, the river that would buy them time to array themselves on the banks and strike at them as they struggled against the freezing currents, was a mass of writhing corpses. They were packed so tightly, the regiments of enemy warriors did not even break step when they reached the bank, but marched straight across the bridge of dead limbs and heads and backs and onto the near bank.

Hubermann dropped his hand, and the sound of black powder discharge thundered across the hill. Then the rain began slowly to fall, just a few drops. He cursed under his breath. It was as if all the fates were slowly turning their gaze from him. Where before there had been hope, now that hope was was being drawn from him. As the few sporadic drops of rain came down and became a torrent, and then a storm, he knew the fire from his troops would falter, powder would be soaked, bowstrings become heavy with moisture, and then they would be fighting for their lives, face to face with death.

Again, the sound of hooves behind him. Hubermann turned, the clamour of his battle line engaging the enemy at range rising in his ears. As he turned, his heart sank. Claus Hungard pulled up his horse beside him. He looked as though he had been slapped across the face.

“We are undone! Undone I tell you! Vicelli means to destroy us!”

Hubermann saw through the billowing powder smoke, even as another crack and boom from elsewhere on the slope told him that his guns were still firing, a solid mass of pikemen advancing towards the rear of the Hoffnung troops. Like a stone thrown into a pond, the ripples of panic spread up and down his line, and soldiers turned at the sound of approaching drums marching up the reverse slope towards the men of Hoffnung. Hubermann swung round again, to see the relentless lines of Skeletons marching slowly up the hill from their opposite side. At their centre came a solid armoured core of heavy infantry, marching beneath a flapping banner, and leading these elite warriors was the Vampire himself, Schwarznacht.

Hubermann tore his helm free and tossed it into the dirt. He turned his horse around to face Vicelli’s troops once more.

“So this is the pact you have made, you bastard! Not just to leave us to our doom, but to strike the blow yourself! Have you no honour?!”

Franz Hubermann was incandescent with rage, his reason leaving him as he realised the full extent of the treachery of his oldest friend, Andrea Vicelli.

A rider burst from the advancing troops, and galloped towards Hubermann. The Knights around him prepared to defend their commander, but the rider stopped short. It was Vicelli. He too removed his helm. He shouted across the din to Hubermann.

“Franz, my oldest friend and comrade, get your troops out of here. This is my fight, my honour that is at stake! Live to fight another day.”

Hubermann led his horse step by step over to Vicelli. The advancing men of Sperenza had stopped short of the Hoffnung line, and prepared to face the undead trudging inexorably up the sodden slope. Their Hoffnung counterparts looked on in confusion, and all the while, the cannon and handguns continued to give fire, chipping away at the approaching enemy all too slowly. Where Skeletal warriors were shattered by cannon balls, or rotten zombie limbs burst by lead shot, more stepped forward to take their place and continue the march up the hill, even as the broken remains clawed their way back together.

“You cannot win this fight alone, you need us.” Shouted Hubermann.

“No.” Vicelli stated adamantly “Another army marches from the High Peak, a great army of Dwarfs. You need not perish here. Join the Dawi and fight another day, at a place where the evil of the Vampire can be ended at last.” Vicelli’s face was set, and Hubermann knew there was no dissuading him in this. 

“Get your men off the field. It is I who am shamed by not marching alongside you when I should have honoured our ancient pact. I was a fool.”

Hubermann drew close to his old friend.

“But why? Why treat with that daemon? Surely you must have known the wretch would not keep his damned word! The oaths of such creatures are empty as their souls.”

A hundred yards. Just a hundred yards separated the two lines of warriors, living and unliving. The armoured crossbowmen of Vicelli’s column added their fire to that of the Hoffnung bowmen. By a miracle, the rain was slowing. They might still be blessed. Then the mortars opened fire as well, belching forth explosive munitions which obliterated entire blocks of the dead. Did they have enough time? Once the lines met, it would only be decided by the courage of the living, their ability to hold their nerve even as it frayed.

Eighty yards.

“Lucciana. The fiend has taken my wife. He swore he would spare her life if I ordered the army of Sperenza to stand down. It was a slim hope, but the only one I had. I could not forsake her. Now I know it was a lie of the blackest kind, the kind that sets man against man, friend against friend, and brother against brother. He would never let her live.”

Vicelli clasped his friends hand, and looked into his eyes.

“You can’t save her Andrea.” There was a peace in Vicelli’s face.

“I know. Old friend, let me do this. Let me be with her. If I can reach that fiend, maybe I can end this, with a single sword thrust.”

Franz Hubermann nodded. He turned to his drummer.

“Signal a withdrawal, quickly man!”

40 yards. The drums of Hoffnung rang out. Almost at once the troops of that town began to step backwards, down the slope the army of Sperenza had marched up minutes before, slipping through the gaps between the units. They exchanged words of comradeship and encouragement. The cannon crews of Hoffnung, with old time bonds of friendship to the crews of the Sperenza mortar crews, elected to stay behind. Their guns could not now be moved in any case, it was too late.

25 yards. As the army of Hoffnung advanced down the slope, Hubermann turned to see his friend Vicelli lead his household knights in a charge towards the centre of the undead line, even as blocks of pikemen crashed against massed ranks of skeletons, and heavy crossbowmen loosed at point blank range into the charging forms of enemy horsemen and red eyed dire wolves.

As Andrea Vicelli thundered across the field, he fixed his gaze on his enemy. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and in his mind he called out to his wife, Lucciana.

“My love, my wife. I swore on the day of our union that I would allow nothing to separate us. Today, I make good that vow.” 

Eric Schwarznacht glared back at him, his fangs barred, opening his arms in welcome.

Two weeks later. Another battlefield, another icy river. As mists rose to hide their broken and despoiled forms, another mass of putrid zombies waited in line to slip beneath the surface of the murky water. Huddled together at their centre, oblivious to the heaving mass around them, stood two decaying bodies, a man and a woman. Though they no longer knew it, or had any comprehension of anything outside the compulsion to inflict violence on the living at the bidding of their dark master, their wrists were tied, one to the other, by a slender silk ribbon. By the tying of a ribbon are marriage vows made unbreakable, in the Border Principality town of Sperenza. A last promise kept.

Fiction - Assault on Barakka - (set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe)

Assault on Barakka

19:37 hours...

The lights went out. All around them their entire world shook violently, as if the very ground were convulsing. The concussive force of the blast was terrible beyond thought, and it reverberated through everything; rockcrete walls, plastek tables, flesh and even bone, too thunderous for the ears alone. They fell. They all fell to the ground, unable to keep their feet when the floor was wrenched left and right beneath them. They wrapped their arms and hands around their heads, to protect themselves from falling debris from the floors above. They wept with fear, their cries lost in the tumult.

Then it stopped. There was a sudden silence. No, not silence, more like an unearthly absence of sound, like a pict that continued to move but the sound was switched off. The noises began to return. First a low whimpering sound from terrified mouths driven by terrified minds, as teeth unclenched, and eyes that had been shut tight eased open to see through the dust and the pale sunlight. There was creaking. The tutor clawed his way slowly to his feet, keeping low, using his hands to steady himself on upturned furniture. He turned to the huddle of children in the corner behind him and gestured for them to stay where they were.

“Shhh, don’t make a sound. It’ll be alright.”

Yhans didn’t really believe the words himself, but these children were in his care, had been so since the invasion began, and he must do what he could to comfort them. They had been holed up in the lower levels of the Scholam building for the past three days, waiting beyond hope to be rescued. It was beyond suicide to attempt to move across the stricken city with all these children in tow and shells raining down on the city from afar. He knew things might not be alright at all, that each moment might bring more pain and death, but looking into the faces of those terrified children, he could not bring himself to give voice to his worst fears.

Looking around the room, it looked like a tornado had passed through the Scholam, leaving devastation in its wake. He could see piles of debris scattered all over the Tutoriam chamber, some chunks of rockcrete massive and brutal in their stark hardness, jagged and sprouting twisted fangs of reinforcing metal bars. He saw a tiny body, its pale skinny legs protruding from beneath the huge weight of rubble, the torso crushed beneath the fall. He stifled a moan of dread, wondering which child it might be.

Shuffling sideways along the wall of the Tutoriam he squeezed past a desk that had been flung onto its side and had another lying on top, which itself had fallen through the crumbling ceiling from the room above. His feet crunched on broken glass. All the windows had been blown in by the force of the blast. He raised his head slowly above the sill. Looking out across the transport way, he could see the remains of the Arbites Precinct House, which had stood less than fifty yards from the Scholam, behind its imposing walls and electrified shield fencing. The entire upper section of that majestic reminder of the Emperors power had been entirely demolished by a huge explosion, though whether from within or without Yhans could not tell. Rubble and debris lay all around, and nearby buildings had suffered damage along with the Scholam building. Somewhere, a siren was sounding. Yhans noticed a liquid drop plip onto the cill. It was red. He reached up, placing his hand on his dusty forehead gingerly. When he took it away to look, it too was red, with blood from a cut he hadn’t realised he had sustained.

He must still be in shock he decided. The pain would follow soon he thought, a pounding and relentless headache on top of every other bruise, ache and scrape he had picked up over the last few days. In the background, the distant sounds which his battered eardrums until now had been too stunned to pick up on began to gather. The sounds of battle, of distant gunfire getting steadily nearer, and of machines on the move. The assault on the city must have begun. The Orks were here.

19:14 hours...

Captain Kyskin knelt down at the crest of the scrubby ridge, raised his lasgun, and shot the bellowing Ork in the chest. From the beast’s stunned expression, it was as though it had suddenly discovered the meaning of life, before its body suggested to its primitive brain that it might be dead, and it fell flat on its face at the Captain’s feet. Hard rounds zipped wildly all around, fired seemingly out of sheer excitement rather than with any aim of hitting the Talosian Guardsmen, the Orks crude pistols spitting out shells with a harsh chug chugging sound until their magazines were spent. Kyskin and the rest of his squad had hunkered down among the rocks and old barricades at the crest of the ridge and were shooting down into the mob of brightly attired greenskins charging up the hill towards them, rather foolishly in his opinion. To his right a gurgle followed by a whooshing sound underlined his sound judgement as the remaining Orks were incinerated by C Platoon’s flame troopers.

Looking down across the valley towards the outskirts of the city, the scree covered slopes were scattered with fast moving Orks and their ramshackle war machines. High sided Trukks bounced over the uneven ground on deep tread tyres, their passengers loosing automatic gunfire into the air with glee, or taking pot-shots at the high walls of the city more than five kilometeres ahead of them at the opposite end of the valley. It was a big enough target he supposed, maybe some of them would hit it. The Talosian 24th were engaging the left flank of the Ork Warband as it sped away from them towards Barakka. The Orks, being the feral battle hungry beasts that they are, eschewed using their superior speed and manoeuvrability to escape the pursuing Guardsmen, and instead many were turning to respond to the attack with typical Orkish abandon. Smaller buggies and smoke spewing bikes daubed in red and yellow paint roared up the hill towards their attackers, their mounted weapons spitting bullets, in the commonly held Ork belief that if they fired off enough lead, they were sure to hit something.

Lost for a second in the grandeur of the battlescape laid out before him, Kyskin failed to notice the roaring of the Orks own flame weapon as a Skorcha burst from the roiling smog which choked the hill before C Platoon. Mounted on the nose of the hurtling light assault vehicle was a stripped down dozer blade which its crazed speed freek driver used to crash through mounds of blasted earth and strung out razorwire, cleaving a path through old defences left over from previous engagements. This war moved fast, and the battle lines were fluid and ethereal.

The Skorcha sped directly towards the heart of the Talosian position, and seeing the danger the Guardsmen began to spread out and fall back down the hill. To be caught huddled together in defences that were useless in the face of such an attack was horrendous to even contemplate. The Skorcha ploughed onwards, seemingly aiming right at Kyskin, and as its crude but extremely effective flame cannon screeched round in its turret to drench the ridge with promethium, there was an almighty explosion which knocked Kyskin off his feet and into the dirt. He was in agony, and his fatigues were on fire in some places. He burned his hands putting out the flames, and as he looked up to see what had happened, all he could see was fragments of burning metal raining down around him, everything that remained of the Ork assault vehicle, amidst a circle of scorched scrub and burning Ork bodies.

Feeling intense pain in his shin, Kyskin looked down and saw one such piece of jagged metal embedded in his leg. He wasn’t bleeding too badly, and the pain was slowly being replaced by a light headedness as he went into shock. As he rolled over, his head swimming, to try and get up, he saw a Leman Russ Vanquisher grinding its way up the hill towards the ridge and the high vantage point it offered for its long range anti tank shells. Kyskin would have to buy the gunner a drink for taking out that Skorcha if he ever found himself in the same bar.

19:26 hours, on the opposite side of the valley...

The light was beginning to fade, more rapidly so with help from the layer of thickening smog that now hung threateningly over the valley. The smog had a life of its own, shifting and changing eternally, a product of the vast number of oily engines favoured by the greenskin race. It was their constant herald and companion. The layer of gloom was sporadically under lit by the stuttering flash of explosions, like a lightning storm bank, its colours bloomed into fiery oranges and angry reds where it reflected the escalating conflict below.

In amongst the trees on the gentler slopes of the eastern valley side, Major Phranc led Jackal Squadron silently towards their target. The Storm Troopers, blacked out from head to foot in stealth camouflaged combat fatigues, stepped carefully between the trees towards the edge of the thinning copse, their night vision oculars allowing them a clear view of the Orks artillery position on the slope below them. Their alien bodies appeared as a mid range red, overlaying the cool greens of the terrain. Phranc could count about two dozen smaller greenskins, the diminutive gretchin, climbing on and under the launch carriages, hammering and clattering away like a mob of belligerent teenagers, intent on wanton vandalism. The carriages themselves were the size of freight cars, great tracked platforms upon whose backs were mounted long launch arms of crisscrossed ironwork.

These arms carried the missiles themselves, each at least thirty yards in length, their metal skins painted with gaudy yellows and blues and jagged black and white tribal designs. Each bore a leering fanged face upon its nose cone, probably a representation of one of their brutal gods. Overseeing them was a beast of an Ork, easily twice the Major’s weight and carrying a vicious man-catcher. He waved around a heavy pistol as he bawled at the gretchin in his own guttural tongue.

Major Phranc switched to a pale overlay of the icons representing each of his troopers, all a vital blue. Standing on the edge of the treeline, he glanced left and right, watching as his squad prepared to attack. To his left, Sergeant Andros, Troopers Effis, Kipris and Fayne, and on the end the Melta Trooper Sysko. On his right, emerging one at a time from the undergrowth were Corporal Kygan, Troopers Reyne and Mysteyka and Trooper Voors, the sapphire blue pilot light of his flamer glowing in the darkness. It was obvious that the Orks were busily preparing the huge seige missiles for launch, and time was of the essence. These missiles were intended to bring down the mighty walls of Barakka, and probably much more besides. Phranc tapped the comm at his ear, and watched the ticking red digits of his chronometer as the men tapped a return that they were set to go, the pale blue icons on his display one by one clicking over to a ‘ready green’.

‘Big Toy Soldiers’ they called them, the rest of the Guard. The men of Jackal Squadron knew, but they didn’t care. They were here to do the Emperor’s work, a sacred duty in payment for the care the Emperor had taken of them, all orphans of Imperial Officials of one ilk or another, trained from children to be the best. They needed no verbal command. Almost as one, they followed the Major’s lead in a swift stride out of the trees and towards the rear of the artillery position.

Matt black Hellguns raised, they were almost on top of the xenos position by the time the gretchin spotted them in the gloom and squealed warnings and threats and dived for cover or weapons. Panning left and right, Jackal Squadron opened up with bright spears of energy, their supercharged shots bursting small scuttling green bodies and punching glowing holes in the plating of the missile carriages. Phranc had half an eye on his chronometer, watching as it counted down the mission time. Twenty three seconds and counting. By the time the Ork Slaver had realised they were under attack, Sysko was cooking the firing arm mountings on the nearest of the three launchers, and with a hiss of superheated metal and then a piercing shriek of tearing metal like nails on a blackboard, the entire arm gave way and the missile crashed down onto the launcher and down it’s flank. It began to roll off down the hill across the Ork positions, picking up speed as it went, until it smashed itself into the side of a battlewagon and exploded with enough force to fling pieces of the wrecked machine and the missile casing in all directions, leaving a gaping scorched hole in the bare rocky ground and devastation all around.

The explosion lit up the valley, and unfortunately attracted the attention of half the Ork army at the same time, though by this point Phranc and his team were on to the second missile position, a trail of blasted green bodies in their wake. So far they hadn’t taken a single casualty, and Phranc wouldn’t expect them to facing off against these pathetic gretchin crew, but the roar of engines heralded the arrival of two ramshackle trukks packed with Orks eager for a fight. Kygan, Reyne and Mysteyka knelt down behind the robust body of a loading winch and began firing into the mob on full auto as they steamed up the slope towards them. Heavy calibre shells whickered all around from the trukk mounted heavy weapons, covering the Orks charge towards the Storm Troopers position, until Phranc loosed an incandescent charge of energy from his plasma pistol at the nearest trukk, and it exploded violently, spitting red hot shrapnel and Ork body parts in all directions. Corporal Kygan had taken down three Orks before he took a wild round in the chest and went down, clutching his gaping wound. He pushed himself back up against the track guards of the wrecked launcher and drew a Hot Shot Laspistol from a thigh holster, cracking shots off down the hill towards the Orks. His aim was off, and the shock threatened to overcome him at any moment. Reyne and Mysteyka crouched down next to him and rapid fired down the slope, punching Greenskins off their feet left and right, but the survivors were almost upon them, a cry of WAAAARRGH issuing from their alien throats.

Voors stepped out from behind the launcher carriage and, standing protectively over his comrades, he unleashed a storm of fire at the oncoming Orks, sweeping left and right until there was almost nothing left. His flamer was of little use in their mission to destroy the launchers, but against the lightly armoured mobs of Orks there were few more effective weapons, though getting this close to the Xenos to start with was not for the feint hearted. As the smoke billowed and rolled across the hill, the burning raging form of a hulking Ork leader burst from the flames, roaring like an enraged bull. Firing on the run, he took Voors in the leg before Reyne atomised his head with a well aimed shot and the Ork pitched forwards just feet from them.

19:35 hours...

Trooper Sysko roared inside his mask as he aimed his melta at the oncoming Ork dreadnought, it’s four snapping claws virtually close enough to snip him in half before it’s shell exploded and it was thrown back onto the ground, it’s limbs waving limply as it’s pilot succumbed to its injuries, sparks bursting from the machines rent metal torso. He clawed his way to his feet, and ran on towards the third launcher, the second going up behind him as the melta bombs the Sarg had planted went off, blowing it to pieces. He felt the heat of the blast on his back even through his fatigues. Pumping his tired legs, he tried to catch up with the Major, Effis, Kipris and Fayne. Powering up the slope he passed the body of Sergeant Andros, face down with arms and legs splayed and a heavy Ork blade sticking out of his back. Kipris and Fayne had taken up covering positions at the corner of the last carriage, firing down into the increasing numbers of Orks as they stormed towards the Jackals, the Ork infantry finally catching up to their vehicle mounted brethren. The darkness was on the Storm Troopers side, as was the Orks infamously poor aim, but against these odds they couldn’t hold for long. Just as Sysko made it to cover behind the giant launch carriage, he was punched off his feet and into the dirt by a round which took him in the small of his back. He didn’t move. The others kept firing down the hill, loosing single shots to preserve ammunition.

Major Phranc moved round to the far side of the launch carriage, melta bomb in one hand, his recharged plasma pistol in the other. As he rounded the machine, a tremendous blow caught him full in the face, snapping his head back. He fell backwards to the ground, the thump knocking the wind from him. As his vision swam, through his crackled visor Major Phranc saw the muscled Ork slaver standing over him, its fangs barred in a feral snarl, the vicious man catcher held loose in its left claw. It’s right was on the launch lever. Phranc raised his pistol and fired. At this range he couldn’t miss, and the back wash from the pistol burned through his gear to sear the skin of his face and arms, but he was too late. The Slavers legs crumpled, all that remained of his vaporised form, but the lever was down. The rockets at the far end of the carriage sputtered, then exploded into life, the entire hillside vibrating as the huge missile soared upwards towards the city.

19:36...

All across the valley eyes, human and alien, turned to the night sky to see a streak of fire propelling the last remaining siege missile through the tracer laced air towards the city of Barakka. The noise was thunderous, like a shuttle launch, and it left a dirty grey contrail behind.

19:37...

Arbitrator Meehan checked the screen again, then lifted his gaze to look out of the viewing portal into the embattled night. From the top most viewing platform of the Precinct House, he could see it clearly, a massive ball of light, with an ugly fanged face at its centre, the painted nose cone of the Ork missile. He hit the evacuation alarm, turning to dash for the stairs through the blaring sirens and flashing red lights. He jumped down the metal stairs three at a time, other officers piling out of doors at every floor and down the stairs, leaving everything but their personal arms behind.

As Meehan made it to the open blast door of the upper third level, the missile, narrowly missing the already crumbling Scholam building across the square, ploughed into the upper reaches of the Barakka City Precinct House...

... The lights went out.