Seconds later another missile streaked from the crater, but foolishly, the weapon team had not displaced before firing again and an answering volley of gunfire ripped the two-man team apart in a hail of bullets.
Keeping low, Honsou ran over to where a rabble of men in crimson overalls squatted behind shattered rockcrete tank traps. They fired crude, bolt-action rifles over their tops towards the crater. Honsou gripped the back of the nearest man's overalls and hauled him level with his helm.
'You are wasting ammunition, fool! Dig them out with your blades.'
The man nodded frantically, too terrified of Honsou to reply. Honsou hurled the wretch aside, wiping his gauntlet against his thigh armour and returned to his squad.
Lieutenant Colonel Leonid lay on the slopes of a cratered ridge, firing his lasgun as the first platoon sprinted back to the next rally point. His face was blackened and lined with fear-induced fatigue, but he was still alive and fighting, which was something given the confused nature of this battle. Sergeant Ellard lay beside him, pumping shot after shot into the indistinct shadows running through the smoke. The terror and threat of being surrounded, cut off and overwhelmed was a physical thing, and Leonid had to consciously fight to remain calm.
He had to lead by example, and though his chest was a knotted mass of pain, he fought it to set a good one to his men.
'Front rank fire! Rear rank withdraw!' he shouted as Ellard pushed himself to his feet and began chivvying the rear rank back towards the next rally point. Volley after volley of las-gun fire hammered through the ranks of the red-coated troopers charging through the madness of the battle, who were dropping by the dozen. So far he was holding the retreat together, but it was balancing on a knife-edge. The men were stretched to the limits of their courage and they had performed as well as he could ever have asked. But they were nearing the end of their reserves and could not hold forever.
It was a race against time as much as anything as to whether they could get back within the cover of the citadel's guns before that courage was exhausted.
Guardsman Corde crawled over to him, yelling over the crack of gunfire and rumble of tanks and explosions. The vox slithered around on his back as he crawled and he carried a hissing plasma gun, steam drifting from the coolant coils on its barrel.
'Sergeant Ellard reports they're at the rally point, sir!'
'Very good, Corde,' said Leonid, slinging his rifle and shouting, 'Front rank, let's get the hell out of here!'
The Jourans did not need to be told twice. They scrambled back down the slope as covering volleys of lasgun fire from Ellard's section stabbed into the smoke. Leonid waited until the last of his men had withdrawn before he and Corde moved to join the rest of the platoon.
A roar, like that of a Jouran carnosaur, came from the slope behind him and Leonid turned to see a legion of horrifying iron behemoths lurch over the ridge, slamming down with teeth-loosening force. The tanks were huge, perverted Leman Russ variants, their armoured flanks daubed with obscene symbols and their turrets grinding with the squeal of ancient gears. A wide-barrelled gun mounted on the nearest tank's forward hull chattered, spewing high velocity shells down the slope and ripping across the blasted ground. Leonid grabbed Corde and dropped, bullets sawing through the air above them.
He raised his head and terror flooded him as the tank rumbled forwards, ready to crush him under its bronze tracks. More bullets filled the air and the main gun fired with an ear-splitting crack, followed seconds later by a distant explosion. The track rumbled towards Leonid and he rolled in the only direction he could.
He rolled beneath the hull of the tank, its roaring metal underside passing a whisper from his head. Hot gasses and stinking exhaust fumes belched and he gagged. Something splashed him and he felt warm wetness cover his face and arms. He covered his ears and pressed his face into the dust, flattening his body as much as he could.
'Emperor protect me…' he whispered as the monstrous tank rumbled overhead. A protruding hook of metal caught on a fold of his uniform jacket and Leonid grunted in pain as he was dragged along the rough ground beneath the tank for several metres before he was able to work himself free.
Suddenly he was clear and the tank rumbled onwards, leaving him shaking with fear and relief. He took a deep breath and crawled back to Corde, who lay unmoving behind him.
Leonid felt his stomach rise and vomited explosively at the sight of Corde's mangled corpse. Corde had not been as lucky as he had, his lower body crushed to an unrecognisable pulp by the tank's mass. Blood still flooded from his mouth and Leonid dry-heaved, realising what the wetness that had splashed him under the tank had been.
The vox was crashed, but Corde's weapon was still intact and Leonid snatched it from the dead trooper's hands. A towering rage filled him at the thought that Corde's murderers probably didn't even know that they had killed someone. Leonid pushed himself to his feet and staggered drankenly after the iron monster.
The thing wasn't hard to find; it was rumbling slowly after his men, slaughtering them with bursts of gunfire and shells from its main gun. Leonid screamed himself hoarse at the traitors within, skidding to a halt less than ten metres from the rear of the tank and raising Corde's plasma gun.
He squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession, sending bolts of white-hot plasma energy towards the tank. The shots impacted squarely on the thin rear armour and punched through it easily, instantaneously igniting the tank's fuel and ammo. The tank exploded in a red fireball, the turret buckling from the pressure of internal detonations. The Shockwave swatted Leonid down, his chest searing in pain as he fell.
Black smoke plumed from the ruptured tank and Leonid screamed in fury as another shape came running towards him through the battle. He swung the plasma gun up, but it was still recharging. Angrily, he tossed the weapon aside and reached for his lasgun as Sergeant Ellard emerged from the smoke.
The sergeant didn't waste any time, hauling his commanding officer to his feet and dragging him away from the blazing wreck.
Carlsen crushed another vehicle beneath his heavy tread and sidestepped as another tried to ram him. He groaned with effort as he spun the agile Warhound on its central axis and unleashed a short volley into the tank's rear. The ammo requirements for his main guns were eating into the reserve hoppers and he knew that, at this current level of engagement, his guns would be empty in minutes.
And then this battle would be all over. Moderati Arkian had worked miracles, coaxing the Machine Spirit to invest their shields once more, and without a second to spare as that damned Land Raider had come at them again. Once again it had stripped him of his protective shields before the Jure Divinu had flanked it and blown it back to the warp. Some warriors had gotten out, but before he could bring his weapons to bear and finish them off, they were swallowed up in the smoke and confusion.
If they could just hold on a little longer, then they would be back within the visual range of the citadel and its guns. Then they would be safe.
Forrix charged across a crater, a loop of razor wire trailing from his leg, and worked the fire of his storm bolter across the backs of some cowering Guardsmen sheltering in its base. Across the battlefield he could see Kroeger slaughtering a clutch of soldiers unlucky enough to have been outpaced and cut off.
Forrix paused in his charge and his eyes narrowed as he watched the slaughter-maddened frenzy with which the young-blood butchered the enemy soldiers. His silver armour, gleaming and pristine before the battle, was now soaked in gore, its iconography obscured by glistening blood. Kroeger was going too far now, the call of the Blood God too strong for him to resist.