Inferno! Volume 5, page 12
‘Fisher,’ Lacutus practically spat. The elderman had emerged from within the palanquin and was standing on a platform at the head of the vehicle. Lacutus was less than pleased that he could see no trace of the near-fatal wound he had dealt Fisher in Innsport. The elderman turned towards the castle and Lacutus couldn’t shake the feeling that Fisher was staring straight at him.
‘Ballista on the tower!’ his father called. Whatever else, he still had a strong voice. ‘Can you reach the palanquin?’
‘Sorry, my lord,’ the ballista crew commander called back.
There were creatures moving around Fisher’s feet but they were too small and far away for Lacutus to make out properly.
‘The hill, just behind the palanquin,’ his father said.
Lacutus shifted the telescope away from Fisher’s hated features and focused on the hilltop. His blood ran cold. He saw purestrain genestealers moving low and predatorily; there were dozens of them. The hybrids they could fight, but he wasn’t sure they had weapons that could hurt the purestrains. These were creatures that gave even the Emperor’s own holy warriors pause. It felt like looking at his own death.
‘Emperor preserve us,’ he muttered, earning a sharp look from his father.
‘Did you see the more human-looking ones? Many of them were carrying crossbows,’ his father told him. ‘They and the siege engines will provide cover but it will be the hybrids that come to scale our walls.’
That made sense, but Lacutus noticed his father hadn’t mentioned the purestrains; if they climbed like they ran it wouldn’t take more than a few of them to get into the castle, and they would tear the yeomanry and castle guard apart.
‘They must have been preparing for this for a long time,’ Lacutus said.
‘Your discovery must have forced their hand. I dread to think what would have happened if we’d had no warning,’ his father said. Then he turned and made for the steps. ‘Hold the wall,’ he told Lacutus. ‘I’m going to speak with Lydia.’
‘Father!’ Lacutus called after him. The lord governor paused and turned. ‘We may yet need to find Vervius.’ Lacutus left it unsaid that finding Vervius would become all the more important if Lydia could not fix Wargod. His father made no reply but continued down the steps.
Lacutus turned back and realised that Nokes was watching him.
‘What?’ he asked. ‘Do you know something about Vervius?’
Nokes took a few moments, as though reluctant to answer.
‘Some here might,’ she said finally.
‘Where want us?’ Kark asked Lacutus. Lacutus had all but forgotten the group of huge ogryns taking up much of the battlements.
‘Spread your people out, one between each of the towers on the eastern wall. Anything comes over the wall, you kill it,’ he said.
Kark concentrated for a moment, thinking through his order, and then nodded. He started grabbing members of his family and pushing them in the direction he wanted them to go. Finally he turned back to Lacutus.
‘I think I stay here with you,’ Kark told him.
Lacutus nodded. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Kark, wielding his hammer, might be the only thing between him and death at the claws of one of the genestealers.
Lacutus ducked behind the merlon as a barrel full of stone-shot exploded against the wall. He heard screams and saw yeomanry torn off the battlements, falling into the killing ground between the two walls. He watched flame blossom over the battlements further down the wall as a barrel full of pitch exploded against it. There was more screaming, and more bodies tumbling off the battlements, these ones on fire. Bolts tore through the air all around them. He could see smoke rising from the courtyard. The trebuchet closest to them on the other side of the inner wall was burning. The genestealers’ siege weapons, throwing lighter payloads further, had been surprisingly accurate.
On the other side of the crenel Nokes risked loosing an arrow, and then ducked back behind the wall as she was answered with crossbow bolts for her troubles.
Teams of neophytes sheltered behind crude pavise shields. They kept up a near-constant barrage of crossbow bolts from equally crude windlasses. As Lacutus watched, one of the pavise shields was sundered by a spear-sized bolt fired by one of the tower ballista teams. A vengeful yeoman cut down the fleeing neophytes in a hail of arrows.
The four siege towers, pushed by the huge aberrations, were inching their way towards the eastern wall.
More crossbow bolts forced Lacutus to duck back behind the merlon before he found a target. The towers were a significant worry. The castle was surrounded by a dry moat on three sides and protected by the river gorge to the west. That meant the bridge at the top of each tower would be exposed to the defenders, but as soon as one of them reached the battlements it would be only a matter of time before the curtain wall fell. The purestrains remained the biggest threat, however, though so far they had stayed by Fisher, as if protecting the palanquin. The archers were already concentrating their fire on the aberrations but to little avail.
Lacutus swung around, crossbow at the ready. An elongated, purple-skinned face appeared in the crenel gap. Its long, sharp tongue extended past rows of sharp teeth. Lacutus gave a cry of surprise and squeezed the tickler, loosing the bolt right into the hybrid’s face.
‘Ladders!’ he cried, another face appearing in the crenel, a clawed arm reaching over the wall. Lacutus unloaded the crossbow’s second bolt into its face. ‘Kark!’
Lacutus dropped the crossbow and grabbed for his shield, left leaning against the wall. Straightening up he saw one of the hybrids climbing through the crenel. Hissing, it threw itself at him. Lacutus managed to bring Faith up. The impact of the hybrid landing on the shield almost knocked him off the battlements. Lacutus went down on one knee and bent. He heard claws scrabbling on adamantium, and the creature slid off and into the killing zone between the two walls. He knew the yeomanry on the inner wall’s battlements would already be loosing arrows at the creature.
Lacutus made to stand but then ducked as a hammer flew overhead and caved in the face of another hybrid standing in the crenel. Nokes loosed an arrow and a hybrid standing on the merlon next to Kark fell back.
‘The pole!’ Lacutus screamed at the ogryn as he tore Woundthirst from its scabbard and tried to activate it. Nothing happened. Today it appeared Woundthirst was just a sword, albeit one that never lost its edge. Lacutus thrust the point forward into another climbing hybrid’s face and it fell away.
Kark grabbed one of the long forked poles, almost knocking Lacutus off the battlements as he did so. He thrust the pole forward, knocking another climbing hybrid out of the crenel, and then used the fork to hook the top of the ladder. The ogryn’s enormous strength easily pushed the ladder away from the wall.
The flight of a crossbow bolt opened up a cut on the side of Lacutus’ face, the head narrowly missing him. He ducked back behind the merlon. They had to do something about the siege towers or it was all over.
‘Nokes!’ he shouted. She ignored him momentarily as she loosed another arrow, then she moved behind a merlon as well, looking over at him. Lacutus pointed south along the wall. ‘Go to the next tower with a ballista, tell them to attach a line to a broad-head bolt and put it into the tower closest to us!’ Nokes nodded and set off. ‘Kark, stay here!’ The big ogryn grunted his affirmative.
Lacutus slung his crossbow over his shoulder and headed north along the battlements towards the closest tower. The air was full of crossbow bolts. He kept Faith up and heard the bolts bouncing off the shield. Arrows, loosed blind by the yeomanry on the inner wall, flew overhead. He reached the entrance to the tower and scrambled up the plasteel stairs, past the wounded and runners sent for more ammunition.
He came out onto the tower and paused for a moment to take in the full panorama of the battle. He watched as ladders were pushed up against the wall, the hybrids already climbing them. He watched the genestealers’ trebuchets launch flaming barrels of pitch. Moments later a huge ball of fire blossomed up somewhere south of him, behind the inner wall. One of the barrels had found a supply of their own incendiaries.
The biggest problem remained, however, the siege towers inching forward.
Lacutus dropped his shield and reloaded his crossbow with two of Lydia’s special bolts. He gestured for the ballista commander to join him. The man crouch-ran over to him as bolts shot overhead. Lacutus told him what he wanted.
‘We have a bodkin loaded now!’ he shouted over the din.
‘Kill one of the large creatures pushing the tower, the closest to us!’
The man nodded and scampered back to his crew. The wood of the ballista’s frame was studded with crossbow bolts.
Lacutus crossed to one of the crenels and put his foot on it. He was looking out over the battlements. He took aim at an aberration pushing the tower that was closest to him. He squeezed the tickler, then again. He heard the clang of the ballista firing behind him, felt the wind from the huge bolt passing him. The ballista bolt passed Lacutus’ own in the air. The crew’s aim was true. The bolt ran the huge creature through, bursting out of its back. Lacutus’ bolts hit, one blasting a huge chunk of flesh out of the creature’s side, the other an arm. The creature staggered but didn’t go down. The tower had almost reached the top of the dry moat.
The ballista crew loaded a broad-head bolt with a line attached. Lacutus took the other end of the line and attached a grapple to it. He shouted a warning to the defenders on the inner wall and then threw the grapple over the battlements. Then he reloaded his own crossbow and took opportunistic shots whilst the ballista was cranked back. One of the crew screamed and fell back as a crossbow bolt took him in the cheek; he staggered away spitting blood and teeth but finally the ballista was ready. The ballista commander pushed the rest of the line off the tower so it wouldn’t bisect anyone when it went taut.
‘Loose!’ the commander cried.
The huge broad-head bolt shot out of the weapon, and once again the crew’s aim was sound. The bolt flew through the thick wood of the siege tower and into its interior. Lacutus hoped it had skewered a few of the hybrids that had been clambering up the inside of the siege engine. The tower had stopped on the edge of the dry moat. At the top of the wheeled structure a bridge was extending towards the curtain wall.
‘Pull the line!’ Lacutus screamed at the defenders on the inner wall. ‘As much weight as possible!’
Down on the battlements Kark grabbed the line, braced his legs against the wall and pulled with all his might. His huge, corded, ogryn muscles were bulging like they might burst with the effort.
Moments later another line was shot from the ballista he’d sent Nokes to, two towers along. It hit the same siege tower. The tower was bottom-heavy but it was on wheels, and some of the weight would shift as the hybrid horde scrambled up it, eager to be the first over the wall. Both lines were taut. Lacutus didn’t need it to move very much, just enough… The tower inched forward. There seemed to be confusion amongst the aberrations; too late they tried to halt the tower’s progress. The front wheels went over the lip of the dry moat and the whole structure toppled forward, hitting the castle wall and breaking in two.
Further south, one of the surviving trebuchets flung a smoking, oddly shaped object at another of the towers. The object landed close to the tower and there was an almighty explosion that almost knocked Lacutus over. He was sure it must have blown some of their own people off the battlements. The siege tower was lifted into the air and torn apart. It took the defenders a moment or two to recover from the shock, but then a ragged cheer went up. It had been another one of Lydia’s surprises: ancient unstable ordnance, probably intended originally for one of the Knights Errant, jury-rigged to explode and launched by a particularly brave trebuchet crew.
There were still two more towers moving, their bridges reaching out over the moat towards the battlements, and now the enemy’s trebuchets were concentrating on the ballista towers. More and more ladders were going up against the wall. The dry moat boiled with hybrids clambering over each other in their haste to reach the battlements and get amongst the defenders.
‘Move!’ Lacutus screamed as a smoking barrel of pitch arced towards the tower he was on. He dived for the hatch. Fire chased him down the plasteel stairs. He heard screaming above and saw a burning body plummet past one of the arrow slits as the ballista crew died.
Coughing, almost blinded by smoke, he managed to make it down the stairs and back out onto the battlements. He heard clanking, a heavy chain being wound. Appalled, he realised that it was the outer gatehouse’s portcullis being raised. He ran to the closest crenel and stuck his head out, oblivious to the crossbow bolts flying around him. He was even more horrified to see the drawbridge being lowered. In quick succession he thought that the hybrids had taken the wall, that his troops had rebelled and were foolishly trying to surrender, or even that some of the more human-looking hybrids had infiltrated the castle.
‘No!’ he screamed. ‘Draw it back up!’
Yeomanry and castle guard alike stared at him as though he were mad, but none made a move to action his orders. He looked out again and saw hybrids surge towards the drawbridge over the dry moat, many of them leaping for it despite the murderous hail of arrows.
The drawbridge had finally lowered. A shadow fell across the hybrid horde as they came to a halt. Then they turned and started to run, and then they simply ceased to exist. Even up on the wall Lacutus felt the wall of heat hit him as the fleeing hybrids were vaporised.
The heat haze subsided and Wargod stepped out onto the drawbridge. Lacutus stared. A ragged cheer went up from the defenders on the curtain wall, those that weren’t busy fighting the hybrids that had made it up onto the battlements. The Knight Errant’s thermal cannon projected a haze of hot, silent death. The carapace stub gun fired into the fleeing genestealer forces. There was an explosion of earth as the Knight’s chainsword roared into life and struck out at the fleeing enemy creatures.
There was a moment of exultation, but just a moment. Beyond the main gate, one of the remaining siege towers had extended its bridge, and hybrids were boiling over it and onto the curtain wall battlements, despite the deadly hail of arrows.
Wargod turned and lifted his thermal cannon. It looked as though the siege tower had lifted itself into the air, burst into flames and then torn itself apart.
The war machine went after the fourth and final siege tower with his chainsword. The weapon’s whirring teeth bit into the wooden structure, cutting through it with ease, spilling hybrid bodies like blood. The top half toppled over. Wargod kicked the heavy bottom half into kindling and proceeded to stamp on the fleeing aberrations, the heavy stubber firing all the while.
The Knight Errant turned his armoured head and looked back at the hybrids in the dry moat as they scrambled up the siege ladders. Lacutus could feel Wargod’s steps through the wall as the war machine picked up pace, running back towards the castle wall. He leapt up into the air and landed amongst the hybrids, pulping some underfoot. The Knight stamped his way north along the dry moat, the thermal cannon creating a constant heat haze as the hybrids were vaporised. The power of the cannon was such that flesh became steam. Siege ladders were kicked off the wall, or cut away, the teeth of the mighty chainsword scoring the plasteel wall of the castle. Those hybrids who escaped Wargod’s stamping feet, the heat and the sword, were torn apart by the heavy stubber as they tried to flee.
Wargod turned his attention south, feet now sticky with pulped alien flesh. Trebuchet-flung rocks bounced off the war machine and barrels of burning pitch exploded over his armour, wreathing parts of him in flames. It just added to the Knight’s air of invincibility. It was to the crossbow-wielding neophytes’ credit that they vainly shot bolt after bolt at the war machine. The cloud of missiles sparking uselessly of his armour was so thick it looked like a swarm of stinging insects. Wargod raised the thermal cannon casually and burning pavise shields fell to the ground. He used the weapon to clear the moat south of the drawbridge. Lacutus felt the weapon’s heat, saw the earth itself catch fire – watched his father, as the indestructible god of war, stride through the flames. Then, as one, the genestealer forces turned and ran.
Amongst the flames, Wargod looked towards the palanquin on the hill behind the genestealer lines. He took a faltering step out of the burning dry moat. Lacutus thought nothing of it, but then Wargod hesitated. He did not pursue the fleeing hybrid hordes, wreak havoc amongst their siege engines, and take fire and blade to Fisher and whatever horror lurked within the palanquin. Instead Wargod made his way back towards the drawbridge. Lacutus could not understand why his father would not press home his advantage. There was just the slightest stagger as the Knight stooped under the gatehouse, and then Lacutus realised what was happening. He turned and ran for the steps.
He reached the Sanctuary just as Wargod came to a stop in the alcove. Lacutus raced up the stairs that ran around the wall, making for the Chamber of Echoes high above.
He had nearly reached the chamber when the door opened and his father, dressed in the armour he wore to pilot Wargod, to become one with the Knight Errant, staggered out of the chamber clutching his left arm. Even as Lacutus reached for him, his father collapsed, sliding down the stairs high above the Sanctuary. Lacutus threw himself to his knees, cradling his father in his arms. The lord governor reached for Lacutus’ face, mouth moving as though he was trying to say something, and then died.
Lacutus knelt there for what seemed like a very long time, too numb for tears. Far below him he could see where the wounded had been laid out on the floor of the Sanctuary. He could hear people running up the stairs towards him. He was vaguely aware of Lydia standing over him, tears in her eyes.
