Magneric’s assault cannon ceased firing. Warning chimes sang in his sensorium — ammunition depleted. The five-digit counter for the weapon’s rounds glowed red: five large zeroes.
‘Thou shalt not escape my wrath!’ roared Magneric, and pressed forward. Orks surged in to fill the gap, readily as water flooding back. But Magneric was already moving, his short legs pumping, shifting the great bulk of his armoured tomb into an unstoppable run. Orks were barged aside by his mass, slammed to paste under his armoured tread. The biggest of them were flung away, bones shattered. Nothing could stop him.
Behind Magneric the brothers of the Black Templars continued their advance. Ordinarily guarded in their new faith, they sang their hymns to the Emperor openly, chanting prayers never heard upon the lips of a Space Marine. Flamers sent out rolling clouds of white-hot promethium, melting the orks by the score as they sought to regain lost ground. Where they passed between the cones of fire, they were met by bolts that slew and maimed. The press of greenskins was so great that the Templars could not keep them back forever, but they had no intention of doing so. This was a prelude to the real struggle. The rage of Dorn burned hot in them. Let their brother Chapters plan and fortify. That was not their way.
‘Sigismund!’ they shouted. ‘For the glory of the black cross! For the Emperor, holy Lord of Terra! Praise be!’
Five rounds of disciplined fire, and they let out a deafening war cry. ‘No fear, no regret, no mercy!’ They drew their chainswords and axes and charged, singing glories to the Emperor as they ran, surging past Magneric into the horde of orks.
Deep within the crowding adamantium of his towering tomb, the hearts of Magneric lifted at what he witnessed. He pressed on, Sword Brethren to his left and right. Volleys of bolter fire punched orks from their feet. The greenskins beat around him, unstoppable as the sea. He was a rock, and their fury was spent harmlessly on the metal of his skin. The Templars clove through them swiftly and surely, men o’war defying the tempest.
‘The Emperor protects!’ boomed Magneric. His storm bolter chattered its approval of his piety. ‘Blessed be the Lord of Mankind! Lift up your spirits, my brothers. Regard that which is true and eternal. Praise be to the God-Emperor, praise be to the saviour of humanity! Praise be! Praise be! Praise be!’
‘Praise be!’ scores of voices shouted back.
Strange lightnings crackled around the forces of the orks. Writhing bolts of power leapt skyward, punching rippled holes in the clouds. Tendrils of energy rose from the greenskins’ heavy faces, the fury of their vile breed feeding the powers of their sorcerer. Screaming curses, the weirdboy swept down his staff, and a beam of green warpfire vomited from his mouth, incinerating the orks that stood between the witch and the Dreadnought. No machine nor man could stand up to such raw power, and the weirdboy cackled through the fires at the doom his gods had unleashed upon his enemy. But the green fire hit an invisible barrier, splashing outwards in a writhing of broken might. The Dreadnought was unharmed.
‘I do not fear you!’ roared Magneric. ‘For the Emperor guides my right hand! His regard is ever on me, and His glory cloaks me. Behold the radiant might of the Lord of Terra! Behold the power of His champion! Abhor the witch, deny the witch, destroy the witch!’
‘Praise be!’ shouted the Black Templars.
The weirdboy shrank backwards. He lifted his hands to the air, calling up a storm of eldritch power from the warriors around him. Spectral light brought an early dawn to the battlefield, greenish and sinister, a howling maelstrom building that tugged ork wraithforms partially free of their bodies, hungry for their souls. The orks howled the louder, and began to chant. ‘Gork! Mork! Gork! Mork! Gork! Mork!’ a guttural rumbling that grew faster and faster until the names blurred into one. ‘Gorkamorkagorkamorkagorkamorka!’
The psyker was only metres in front of Magneric, arms held to the sky, his demented face lit by blazing white-green power. A whirlwind of abominable psychic energy raced around and around him, sparks of it spearing from his eyes, ears and mouth.
One of Magneric’s attendant Sword Brethren was cut down by his foes, his sword arm grabbed, bolter torn from his hand, his helm wrenched from his head. Another disappeared into a firefly swarm of sparks, disintegrated by a bizarre energy weapon. The others found themselves surrounded, and fought back to back. Their line was disrupted, leaving Magneric to go on alone.
The three walkers moved in front of Magneric as he closed upon his target. The first died, its cylindrical pilot’s compartment crushed by a single swing of Magneric’s four-fingered power fist. Magneric barged its remains aside, spraying lubricant and blood. The second swiped at him with cruel shears, grabbing at the stilled barrels of his assault cannon. The blades squealed on metal. Magneric wrenched himself free, rotating his torso to slam his fist again and again into the smaller walker. On the fourth strike, its primitive power plant detonated. Magneric stepped through a roiling cloud of fire to see the last machine stumbling away. He let it go. The psyker was before him.
‘Gorkamorkagorkamorkagorkamorka!’ chanted the orks. The psyker’s power drove them into a frenzy, and they hewed and cut and threw themselves again and again at the Black Templars, dragging many to their dooms.
‘This ends now,’ said Magneric. ‘O Emperor of Terra, lord of the stars! Once more cast Your protection about me, so that I might slay this enemy of Yours.’
‘Praise be!’ answered the Black Templars. They were few, but the strength of their faith made them sound legion.
He strode forward. A beam of light blazed from the psyker’s eyes, splashing to nothing before it could touch Magneric. The Marshal leaned forward, grabbing the weirdboy’s head. Energy leapt uncontrollably from the thing’s cranium, earthing itself in his armour.
‘So perish all unclean witches,’ said Magneric, and shut his fist, crushing the ork’s skull.
The vortex about the ork burst outward at the moment of its death, slamming into Magneric with such force that he came close to toppling backward. Green lines of power stabbed out, spearing orks.
And the orks died.
They fell by the hundred, heads exploded by psychic feedback, or their souls torn from their bodies. They dropped as the shock wave raced over them. Walkers clanked to a halt. Vehicles ran out of control or skidded and toppled over.
The light dissipated. Lightning chased itself across the skies.
Magneric turned from side to side. Half of his warriors were dead; the rest stood in a sea of corpses, black armour battered, scrips and robes bloody, but alive nonetheless. There was not a single ork left standing on the battlefield.
‘The witches,’ rumbled Magneric, and his voice was as thunder upon the suddenly silent field. ‘Their witches are their weakness! My brothers, the Emperor shows us the way! He delivers us victory, and in His beneficence reveals the road to final triumph! This is why we were sent here, this is why He brought us to Dzelenic Four. Praise be!’
As one, the Black Templars got to their knees, clasped their hands about the hilts of the swords, drove the points into the earth and bowed their heads.
‘Praise be!’ they shouted, and the faith in them burned twice as bright at their deliverance.
Kalkator took refuge from the energy wave as it hit the building. When it passed he stood, and to his amazement found himself looking down upon a field of dead orks. The Dreadnought marched across the corpses towards the fort, bellowing pieties, surrounded by his warriors singing hymns for the Emperor. Magneric stopped below the walls and angled his glacis upward.