'You have cost me dear, mongrel, but it ends now,' snarled Berossus. 'Your fortress is mine, no matter what happens.'
'Never!' shouted Honsou, fighting to free himself from his captor's grip, but Berossus had him firm and wasn't about to let go.
The dreadnought stabbed his breacher drill towards Honsou's face.
The master of Khalan-Ghol hurled his arm in front of the blow, the screeching of tearing metal and white-hot shavings spraying the air as the drill pierced the silver metal of Honsou's arm.
But instead of shearing straight through the arm and skewering Honsou's skull, the metal ran like liquid, reknitting itself as quickly as Berossus's arm attempted to destroy it. The dreadnought watched amazed as the drill stuttered and jammed within Honsou's arm. Even as Berossus paused, a black-armoured blur streaked through the air, twisting to land upon the upper mantlet of the dreadnought's carapace.
Onyx landed gracefully on one knee and powered both bronze claws down into the armoured shell of the dreadnought. The terrible machine roared in pain, its arms spasming and dropping Honsou to the cratered ground.
Honsou rolled away from the thrashing dreadnought as he heard a thunderous crashing behind him and the headless form of Berossus's Titan crashed through the last remaining portion of the main wall, hurling stone and blazing streamers of plasma through the air. One of his own Titans fell with it, shorn practically in half, and the impact to the two armoured leviathans sent Shockwaves through the earth that were almost the equal of the blast beneath the ramp.
A great cry of dismay went up and Honsou knew that he could end this now. Berossus fought to dislodge Onyx, his clawed arms slashing and stabbing the daemonic symbiote repeatedly. Honsou gripped his axe and sprang to his feet, not about to waste the chance his champion had gained him.
With a roar of hate, he charged forwards while the dreadnought's attention was fixated on Onyx and hammered his axe with all his strength into the now-unguarded portion of the dreadnought's leg where the armour was weakest.
Screaming, warp-forged steel met ancient metal crafted by forgotten technologies in a blazing corona of flaring energy. Berossus roared and smashed to the ground, slamming down on his back as Onyx leapt gracefully clear of the toppled machine.
'Call me half-breed now, you bastard!' screamed Honsou, stepping in and hammering his axe against the dreadnought's sarcophagus. The ancient metal split and Berossus wailed in agony as the daemon weapon tore into his iron body.
'Still think you're better than me?' yelled Honsou as he hacked at the dying dreadnought's body. Metal and sparks flew as the master of Khalan-Ghol butchered his iron foe. Berossus fought to right himself, but Honsou and Onyx gave him no chance, darting away from his clumsy blows and hacking his uselessly flailing limbs from his body.
'You're nothing, Berossus, nothing! Do you hear me?'
A grainy wash of static-laced, incoherence blared from Berossus's vox-amp, and Honsou vaulted onto the dreadnought's sarcophagus yelling, 'Perhaps you can't hear me through all that iron.'
He raised himself triumphant on the warsmith of the attacking army and brought his axe down again and again on the grinning skull-faced sarcophagus, finally splitting it apart with his fifth blow.
The sounds of battle faded and, for the first time in months, the fighting stopped as the battling Iron Warriors paused to watch the unfolding drama being played out before them.
Honsou knelt atop Berossus's sarcophagus and punched his pristine silver arm into the dreadnought. With a grunt and wrench, he ripped something clear in a welter of black blood and amniotic fluids.
He held up his arm and shouted, 'Your warsmith is dead!'
In his hand he held a monstrously swollen skull and dripping spinal column, fused wires like veins dangling from the last mortal remains of Warsmith Berossus.
The tension was palpable and Honsou knew he had to cow the scores of enemy warriors or risk this slaughter becoming a battle of mutually assured destruction. With a roar of hate, he swung the spinal column like a club and smashed Berossus's skull to splinters of bone against the ruptured iron shell that had once housed it.
'Your warsmith is dead!' he repeated, hurling away the remains. 'But you do not need to die! Berossus is gone and by right of conquest I offer any warrior who wants it a place in my army. You have proved yourselves warriors of courage, and I have need of such men.'
No one moved, and for the briefest second Honsou thought he had made a grave error.
But then a warrior in heavily tooled armour of burnished iron and sporting a burnt and tattered back banner of gold and black stepped forwards.
The warrior's armour was bloody and scored from the hard fighting. He removed his cracked helmet, revealing scarred and pitted features topped with a close-cropped mohawk.
'Why should we join you, half-breed?' he shouted. 'You may have defeated Berossus, but Toramino will wipe you and your fortress from the face of Medrengard.'
'What is your name, warrior?' said Honsou, jumping from the broken carcass of the dreadnought and marching purposefully towards the Iron Warrior.
'I am Cadaras Grendel, Captain of Arms of Lord Berossus.'
Honsou stood before the bloody warrior, seeing the defiance in his eyes.
'Aye,' agreed Honsou, raising his voice so that all the warriors gathered in the ruins of his fortress could hear him. 'You may be right, Cadaras Grendel. Toramino has the strength of arms to destroy me, I cannot argue with that. But ask yourself this… why has he not blooded his warriors yet?'
Honsou turned to address the rest of the assembled warriors, raising his arms and punctuating his words by punching the air with his axe. 'Where was Toramino while you all fought and bled to get here? You know who built this place and you know that only the bravest of warriors could take it. Where was Toramino while you were dying in your hundreds to storm this fortress?'
He could see his words were having the desired effect. Honsou felt a hot rash of adrenaline race around his body as he saw that he had correctly anticipated the rancour these brave Iron Warriors must have felt at the bloody work they did while Toramino's warriors watched them die.
'Toramino hung you out to dry and laughed while he did it. Even if you had succeeded here, do you think the spoils of Khalan-Ghol would be yours to plunder? Toramino has betrayed you, just as the Emperor betrayed the Iron Warriors in the ancient days. Will you be used like that or are you men of iron?'
'We are men of iron!' shouted Cadaras Grendel, the shout taken up by his surviving warriors.
'Then join me!' bellowed Honsou, gripping Grendel's shoulder guards. 'Join me and avenge this betrayal!'
Months of bitterness at the deaths of his men rose to the surface on Grendel's face and he nodded. 'Aye. Toramino will pay for this. My warriors and I are yours to command!'
Honsou turned and with Cadaras Grendel beside him roared, 'Iron within!'
'Iron without!' came the answering bellow from every Iron Warrior, shouted over and over again.
And Honsou knew he had them.
Uriel watched the two Titans collapse and, amazingly, heard the sounds of battle fade away. Had Khalan-Ghol fallen or had Honsou defeated the escalade? It was impossible to tell, and they would only know when they reached the top.
Their ascent up the cliff-face had been heart-poundingly fraught, as the Unfleshed had carried them swiftly up slopes Uriel would have sworn were unclimbable. Their strength was prodigious and their endurance phenomenal.
In the sudden silence, Uriel could hear the crackling flames from the burning vehicles at the foot of the mountain and the occasional explosion from a shell as it detonated in the heat. The infrastructure of Berossus's army burned and as the quietness stretched on, Uriel guessed that die attack had failed to take the fortress. Warriors who had fought their way through a breach were so fuelled on adrenaline and rage that looting and slaughter usually followed in the wake of a successful storming.