"Yikes!"
I ducked instinctively as a roaring stream of volcanic fury howled overhead, smashing into a hab block and erasing it from existence. Molten glass dripped over atomised ceramite, leaving superheated air shimmering in its wake.
The Traitor Warlord Titan stomped over, its war horns blaring all manner of foul scrap code and whatever. I didn't even want to understand the nonsensical noise that it was emitting. I didn't recognize the colossal war engine, particularly because its appearance was so horribly mutated that it resembled more a grotesque daemon than a bipedal Titan. Only the dull blue and silver colors were reminders that it was from a once proud legio.
I knew of the Loyalist elements of Legio Tempestus, particularly those led by the Storm Lord, but evidently this stray maniple was one of Karania's. The fallen princeps had somehow swayed a good portion of his Titan Legion to the banner of Horus, and even now they launched attacks across the Imperium. House Yato had been sent to reinforce the flagging military of Argent. Without any Titans to back up the fleeing population, the citizens of Argent were ripe for slaughter.
Not if we have anything to say about it, I thought to myself grimly.
"Tanaka!" Lord Takeda shouted, redirecting my attention to the present. As the Daimyo of our Knight Lance, he had the singular honor of piloting the Cerastus Knight Lancer, Kensei, and was leading the charge. "Bring your banner around and flank that Warlord!"
"Understood, my lord!"
I urged Kazan into a loping stride, even as Karyu and Hinowa followed, Suzuki and Taiyou guiding their armored stteds to follow my lead. Unlike Takeda and his banner, all of whom piloted advanced and ancient pattern Cerastus Knight Lancers dedicated wholly to the execution of war, Suzuki, Taiyou and I were given the helms of Questoris Knight Errants. Even so, the thermal cannons our engines wielded still presented a massive threat to the much larger war engines of Legio Tempestus.
Listening to the ghostly whispers in my Throne Mechanicum, I had Kazan lean low and swerved around another hab block, using the huge structure as cover, pushing my steed to full stride. Another tremor-shaking shell crashed against the faltering structure, demolishing it and sending debris raining on our midst, but with deft skill, I piloted Kazan away from the rubble. Suzuki cursed, Karyu almost buried underneath a pile of debris, but he managed to kick his Knight armor off at the last second and push it just meters away from an ignominious death.
On the opposite side, a third banner of Questoris Knight Wardens sprinted, also at full stride. Their reactors ran red-hot, shadowy steam pluming from their exhausts as they pushed their armors to their limits. Armed with Avenger Gatling cannons, there was little they could do against the heavily armored Titans, but I was sure that Sir Nijima would launch a coordinated strike at the most vulnerable portions of the much larger enemies. I had seen him deliver devastating volleys of depleted uranium rounds with pinpoint accuracy at weakened hullplates or joints, laying low even the mightiest of Titans.
"AAAAAAH!"
One of Lord Takeda's lifeguards vanished in an explosion of dirt and soil, the massive shell from the Mori Quake cannon landing right on him and erasing the poor guy. Fortunately, Takeda had the ability to render his banner never be Shaken, and the rest of his Knight Lancers simply shrugged off the concussive shockwaves and continued racing forward.
"Sir Kanda!" He snapped. "Covering fire!"
"Out of range, my lord," came the quipped reply. "And we have troubles of our own."
Despite myself, I glanced at the auspex and saw the duo of Warhounds loping forward like alpha predators. One was armed with two inferno guns, the barrels glowing with incadescent flame as the igniter sparked. The other spat a stream of mass reactives that chewed up the hab block that Kanda's banner of Acastus Knight Porphyrions were taking cover in, the Vulcan mega-bolter eating through its supply of ammunition at an incredible rate. Its twin curved around to flank the heavily armored Knights, only to stagger when it stepped on a plasma mine. Its heel was half-vaporized and it stumbled, its war-horn blaring in a bestial howl, but it righted itself almost gracefully, the semi-organic plating seeming to heal and regenerate right before our very eyes.
"You've got to be kidding me..." I muttered.
"How far have these Traitors fallen?" Sir Kanda spat.
"Destroy them," Lord Takeda ordered coldly. "Don't think about it too much. The moment they turned their back on the Emperor, they had signed their own death warrants. These oath-breakers do not even deserve the honor of committing seppuku."
"On it," Kanda replied as a storm of missiles screamed from the carapace-mounted pods. They detonated against the staggering Warhound, engulfing it in a fiery conflagration. The bigger war engine reared up, its snout snarling and sporting fangs that glistened in the dim illumination afforded by the lume globes. Somehow, despite the devastation wrought by the Traitors, power was still being supplied by the city.
However, the void shields were down, flickering out with a bang that left a stink of ozone. The Warhound flailed about, but Kanda and his banner mercilessly bombarded it with their magna lascannons. Ruby beams stabbed out, slicing into the already weakened plate, damaged earlier by the plasma mine, and all but crippling it. With a metallic groan, the raptor-like limbs were severed, and the Warhound was laid low, its torso crashing to the ground and its cockpit buried by broken soil and rubble.
Unfortunately, the other Warhound had reached Sir Kanda's banner and was firing deadly lances from its turbo laser destructor, supported by hails from its Vulcan mega-bolter. I didn't have time to keep up with Kanda's status, because I had to duck under sweeping beams from the Warlord's turbo-laser destructor. One of Lord Takeda's guards faltered, the ion shield gauntlet mounted upon his Knight Lancer's arm blowing out as his ion shield overloaded from the high powered beams. Despite suffering severe damage, he coaxed his steed into a desperate charge.
"Charge!" Takeda ordered. We complied, charging in a straight line and rushing through the void shields of the Warlord to get underneath the arc of its weapons. The once venerable engine swung about desperately, its volcano cannon erupting furiously, but the apocalyptic volley went wide and instead blew up a macro cannon that the Tech-priests of the Dark Mechanicum had set up nearby.
The three surviving Knight Lancers smashed into the Warlord's torso with wrathful vengeance, their Cerastus shock lances crackling with disruptive energies. Lightning danced around the length of their deadly weapons, lending them power of the Motive Force as they breached the adamantium hull of the Warlord's hip and torso. The colossal war engine staggered, its reactor glowing white-hot when one of the lances punctured vital cables and containment fields.
Even so, it withstood the barrage and held firm, its feet digging in resolutely as it swung about.
Then Nijima crashed into the Warlord's leg, scything upward with his reaper chainsword. The disruptive field flared violently as the whirring blade sank into the breach, punching deeper into the already wailing reactor. For a moment, the Warlord froze.
And then it vanished in a supernova, the spreading fireball washing over Nijima's Knight Warden and disintegrating it. Another of Nijima's banner companions also fell, his steed burning from the superheated plasma that unfolded from the smoldering crater where the Warlord once stood, a raging tempest of flames. Even the tougher Cerastus Knight Lancers were knocked flat, with Sir Shindou's steed not rising again. To my relief, Takeda picked Kensei back up, supported by his final lifeguard.
"Good job, everybody," he managed, raising the lance of Kensei triumphantly, despite it being charred from the extreme heat. "Engine kill!"
"For House Yato and Draconis III!" We echoed, raising our reaper chainswords. What was left of us, anyway. For better or for worse, my banner of Knight Errants were too far away to get stuck in melee, but that also meant we escaped the devastating blast. Even so, the glory of our Lance mates was also our honor. "Long live the Emperor!"
"Uh, a little help here?" Kanda called. We turned around, Takeda regrouping our surviving Knights and rushing back to the Acastus Knight Porphyrions' position at full speed, but we wouldn't make it in time. The final Warhound was bearing down on the Acastus Knights Porphyrions, and one of them was already smoking and listing, its thick armor cracked open by the sheer volume of Vulcan mega-bolter shells and glowing furrows left by the lethal turbo-laser destructor.
However, they retaliated with a ferocious bombardment of missiles that blew out the void shields. The Warhound staggered and brayed, only for the magna lasers to find their mark on its head. The armorglass cracked as the lasers grazed against it, and a final volley of missiles finally blew it open. One warhead pierced through the molten breach made by the magna lasers and detonated inside the cockpit, engulfing the fallen Princeps and her deluded Moderatii in purifying flames. The decapitated Warhound swayed one last time before it fell, leveling a hab block behind it as it did.
"Engine kill!" Kanda crowed.
"Excellent work, Bushi of House Yato," Lord Takeda complimented, bringing his Knight Lancer to an exhausted halt. "Looks like we've managed to clear out the Traitor maniple here. Let's head back to base, get repairs and resupplies, and then go back out. There are still plenty of Traitor battlegroups roaming about Argent, and we won't rest until we've purged all of them."
"For the Emperor," I agreed, though inwardly I felt a little embarrassed that my banner didn't actually do anything this time. Fortunately, there was always a next time.
...I hope.
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