'Everybody off!' he shouted. 'Now!'
After two such close calls, none of the Space Marines needed any encouragement. They clambered over the sides of the bulk-hauler and leapt from the vehicle. Uriel saw Pasanius hit the ground and roll, and hauled open the driver's cab.
'Vaanes! Come on, let's go!' he shouted over the din of gunfire and explosions.
'Go!' he shouted. 'I'm right behind you!'
Uriel nodded and vaulted from the platform outside the cab. He hit the ground hard and rolled, smashing a dozen soldiers aside as he landed. In a heartbeat he was on his feet, slashing with his sword and running for the mountain. Shots kicked up dust around him and ricocheted from his armour as he ran.
He saw Ardaric Vaanes leap from the driver's cab as a shell from one of the guns finally struck the bulk-hauler. The engine section vanished in a sheet of flame and the wreckage ploughed onwards for another few seconds before slamming through a razorwire fence and exploding with the force of a cluster of demolition charges. Secondary explosions quickly followed as fuel bladders and siege shells cooked off in the huge blast. Uriel realised Vaanes must have used those last few seconds to guide the hauler towards a valuable target before escaping the cab.
The earth shook as shells arced through the air and burning sheets of fuel sprayed in all directions. Enemy soldiers ducked and ran for cover in the maelstrom of exploding shells and blazing plumes of scorching fires, but Uriel and the Space Marines kept running.
Ahead, he saw the lower reaches of the mountain, where Berossus's engineers had constructed vast funicular rails onto the rock that climbed towards the higher peaks of the mountains. A giant, angled car, bounded by iron railings, ascended the rails, bearing hundreds of the Iron Warriors' soldiers towards the battle high above.
Thousands of soldiers clustered at the base of the mountain, awaiting their turn to travel up the mountainside and join the assault. The sounds of explosions and gunfire were nothing new to them and they had not yet noticed the charging Space Marines behind them. Uriel saw Pasanius and Vaanes up ahead and called to them over the vox.
'The platform on the right!' he called. 'There's an empty car just coming down. We need to take it!'
'I see it,' replied Vaanes.
The Space Marines of the warrior band struck the milling soldiers like a freight train, cutting down scores in the first seconds of their attack. Grimly they forced their way onward, hacking, cutting and slaying their way forward in an orgy of bloodshed.
Caught unawares by the killers in their midst, the soldiers fought to get out of their way and Uriel soon found himself with a clear ran to the platform. Vaanes was there before him and had already killed them a path up to the approaching funicular car.
Uriel took the steps up to the platform two at a time, glancing over his shoulder to see the rest of their warriors right behind him, keeping low to avoid the worst of the gunfire directed at them. The car docked at the platform with a huge, ringing clang and barely had it done so before the Space Marines swarmed over it.
The car was empty save for a grey-fleshed servitor creature, fused with the mechanism of its controls, whose only function appeared to be pulling the levers that sent it up or down the mountain. Uriel and Pasanius, together with Kyama Shae, moved to the edge of the platform and fired into the approaching enemy soldiers whose courage now began to return.
'Ventris!' shouted Vaanes. 'Come on, the car's leaving!'
Uriel slung his bolter and slapped the shoulder guards of his two companions before running for the funicular car. Grinding cogs and wheezing engines lifted it from the platform, but it was slow to get moving and Uriel clambered aboard before it had climbed more than a metre. He turned to help Pasanius, gripping his silver arm and hauling him up, noticing with surprise that it was utterly pristine, without so much as a scratch on it. How could that be, when his own gauntlets were torn and battered to the point of uselessness?
Pasanius moved past him to take up a firing position at the railings and Uriel turned to help Kyama Shae aboard the moving car.
Small-arms fire spanged from the sides of the car and the railings, but as it rapidly picked up speed they were soon beyond the range of the soldiers' rifles.
Uriel glanced over at Pasanius before transferring his gaze to the mountain above. Black, smoky clouds wreathed the higher slopes, lightning and explosions flaring in the darkness from the battle above.
'Well, we're here,' said a breathless Vaanes.
Uriel turned to watch the swiftly diminishing ground as they rose into the clouds and darkness swallowed them.
'Getting here was the easy part,' said Uriel. 'Now we have to storm the fortress.'
CHAPTER TEN
'It would seem your attempt to antagonise Lord Berossus by shelling his pavilion was successful,' said Obax Zakayo needlessly, as another fluny of shells impacted against the walls. Plumes of flame and smoke soared skyward and Honsou laughed as he watched bodies rain down amid the rubble. Dust enveloped them, chunks of debris clattering down on the cobbled ramparts, and Honsou coughed as he swallowed a mouthful of ash. It was perhaps foolish to be this close to the front lines, but he was not so far removed from the sharp end of battle that he did not relish the cannon's roar in his ear.
'Yes, it does, doesn't it? He's so predictable it almost takes the fun out of crushing him.'
'But, my lord, he is within days of breaching the inner walls of Khalan-Ghol,' said Onyx, standing slightly behind Honsou. 'How can this be to our advantage?'
'Because he is dancing to my tone, Onyx, not his own. Get an enemy to react to your designs and he is as good as lost, I almost have him exactly where I want him. But Toramino… Toramino is not so easy. He is the one we need to be wary of. I don't know what he is doing.'
'Our scryers have seen nothing of note regarding Toramino,' said Obax Zakayo. 'It seems he waits, simply husbanding his warriors while Berossus grinds his men to dust against our walls.'
'I know, and that's what worries me,' snapped Honsou, waving his arms at the carnage taking place on the walls below him. 'Toramino is too clever to simply hurl his men at us like this. He knows that Berossus has no other stratagems and is waiting for his moment to strike. We must anticipate that and pre-empt him. Or else we are lost.'
Onyx leaned over the parapet and cast his gleaming silver eyes to either side of where he, Honsou and Obax Zakayo stood. Iron Warriors were ready to defend the ramparts should the bastions below fall, which if the projected strength of the assault below was correct, was entirely likely.
'We are too close to the battle,' he said.
Honsou shook his head. 'No, I need to be here.'
'I can protect you from an assassin's blade or a killer's bullet,' said Onyx, 'but I cannot say the same for an artillery shell. An eternity of torment awaits my essence should I allow you to die while under my protection.'
'Why should I care about your eternal torment?'
'You wouldn't, you'd be dead.'
Honsou considered this for a second and said, 'You may have a point there, Onyx.'
The daemonic symbiote nodded respectfully as more screaming shells exploded against the walls below. Honsou turned, content that the bastion here was as secure as he could want. The warriors he had chosen to accompany him into the camp of Berossus commanded this section of the walls, and there were no better warriors in his grand company.