Honsou appeared on his right flank, leading his men forward in good order, firing and moving, firing and moving. Much as he hated to admit it, the half-breed was an adept commander, despite his mixed blood.
The battle had devolved into a series of smaller engagements now that the main Imperial offensive had been routed. There was little point in continuing the pursuit, those units that had escaped were so badly mauled that they were unlikely ever to regain field readiness.
All that remained was to slay the Titan.
With blissful synchronicity, the smoke parted and there it was before him, its red and yellow carapace blazing in the sunlight. Its snarling face challenged him to fight it.
'You task me…' he whispered, 'You task me,' and set off to meet this armoured monster, but as suddenly as it had appeared, it turned and set off at speed into the smoke.
Cheated of his prey, Forrix halted and whispered, 'Another time, beast…'
Leonid stumbled and lurched across the wasteland before the citadel, each breath hot in his chest. Were it not for Sergeant Ellard's support, he would surely have collapsed.
He could hear the cries of the enemy close behind, and the screams of those they had caught.
Suddenly he caught sight of three massive forms standing just at the edge of sight before him and, as Ellard continued pushing him forward, he almost laughed with relief as the shapes resolved themselves into the welcome form of two Reaver Battle Titans and a Warlord.
But as he drew nearer he saw, with a mounting sense of horror, that the Titans were horrendously damaged. Their carapaces were buckled and scorched by repeated weapon impacts. What had happened to these war machines? As he took in the scale of the damage he realised again the terrible nature of the foe they faced here and the folly of underestimating them. Flow many lives had been lost today because of such a mistake?
Two Warhounds lurched backwards through the smoke and dust, their weapons firing controlled bursts into the ranks of the enemy. Both were damaged, their armoured flanks scored and burned, but both were still fighting.
He watched as the Reavers and the Warlord opened fire and the air exploded with the shocking noise. The Warhounds gratefully took shelter in the shadow of their larger cousins, adding their own gunfire to the barrage.
Leonid stumbled forward, past the Titans and into the cover of the guns of the Primus Ravelin, relieved beyond words that he had made it back alive. Fresh troops manned the firing step at the edge of the forward ditch and Ellard passed him off to a frightened-looking soldier before returning to the battlefield to see to his men. Leonid leant against the wall of the parapet, cradling his head in his hands as the full horror of the battle crashed down upon him.
With those Dragoons who could escape now under the protection of the Titans of the Legio Ignatum and the citadel's gunners, the majority of the enemy did not appear too keen to continue the massacre, turning back to their own lines with raucous cries and taunts on their lips. Some could not contain their lust for killing and tried in vain to catch their victims, only to be mown down by close range fire from the Titans and the columns of fire from the ravelin and bastions.
Leonid felt an unbelievable exhaustion smother him. He put a hand out to steady himself, but the world spun crazily and he slid down the wall and collapsed before the soldiers next to him could catch him.
FOUR
Despite the warm wind that gusted across the mountain peaks, a shiver passed down Major Gunnar Tedeski's spine as he watched the activities below the fortress of Tor Christo. The stocky major leant over the parapet of Kane bastion, steadying himself with his one arm, and tried to guess at the number of men working below on the plains. At a conservative estimate, he guessed there were perhaps eight or nine thousand workers digging or otherwise engaged in the siege-works below. The enemy was not short of men to dig, that was for sure, but how many actual warriors faced him was impossible to say.
'Uh, Major Tedeski, I'm not sure that's such a good idea,' ventured his aide-de-camp Captain Poulsen, who followed behind him clutching a data-slate.
'Nonsense, Poulsen, these Chaos scum aren't the sort to go in for snipers.'
'Even so, sir,' reiterated Poulsen as the boom of artillery echoed from the sides of the valley.
Tedeski shook his head, saying, 'It's too short to matter.'
Sure enough the shell landed in the ruins of the watch-tower, sending up a plume of dust and rock fragments. The watchtower had been demolished after less than a day's shelling, but it had never been designed to withstand such a comprehensive bombardment in the first place.
Tedeski pulled back from the parapet and continued his walk around the perimeter of the bastion's walls. Soldiers sat, playing dice or sleeping below the level of the parapet. A few scanned the ground before them, their faces lined in exhaustion and lack of sleep. The more or less constant shelling had denied everyone sleep, and nerves were stretched taut.
In the week since the abortive attack on the traitors' trench system by the Legio Ignatum and the armoured units of the Dragoons, the plateau had changed beyond all recognition. Enemy artillery had pounded the plains day and night with high explosives, obliterating razor wire and detonating mines. Zigzag trenches covered the ground, reaching out towards the promontory that Tor Christo sat upon, their sides heavily reinforced with earthen ramparts. Tedeski's gunners had done their best, but the trenches had been constructed with mathematical precision and they were impossible to enfilade. Only once, when a portion of the trench had overreached, were they able to cause some real damage, killing the diggers and obliterating their machinery.
But since then, as each trench approached a point where the guns would be able to fire down their length, giant figures in grey-steel armour would direct the workers to alter the angle of digging.
A spider web of communication trenches and redoubts spread back to the main campsite and, though the Christo's guns shelled them daily, his observers could see no appreciable damage. It was maddeningly frustrating to see the foe advance with such impunity. The enemy had thrown out a second parallel at the termination of the saps, its sharp curve matching the sweep of his walls exactly. In two sections of this new parallel, high walls had been built. No doubt the trench behind them was being deepened and widened to allow the placement of large-bore howitzers.
Though the men in the Christo had been under fire for over a week, the range was too great for the enemy guns to do more than chip away at the walls. However, the range was ideal for delivering ricochet fire, which had dismounted a great many of Tor Christo's wall-mounted guns. Tedeski had ordered the remaining guns to be pulled back into the fort, and though casualties had been light - fifty-two men dead so far - that would all change when the batteries of the second parallel were completed.
But Tedeski had a surprise in store for Tor Christo's attackers.
Guns situated at the base of the rocky promontory, kept in reserve thus far, would soon make their presence felt when the enemy moved their heavy artillery forward into those newly constructed batteries.
'It won't be long now, Poulsen,' mused Tedeski.
'What won't, sir?'
'The attack, Poulsen, the attack,' replied Tedeski, unable to mask his irritation. 'If we can't stop them from completing those batteries, they will bring up their big guns and lob high explosive shells right over our walls. Then they won't need to batter our walls down, they'll be able to walk right up to the main gate and come in, because there will be no one left alive to stop them.'