Lords of Mars Read online

  She kept a tight rein on her terror, partitioning the innate synaptic responses to tumbling thousands of kilometres behind walls of logic. She would pay for that later, but for now she needed to function without the debilitating handicap of fear.

  She’d launched more drones, but capped their altitude to forty metres to keep them below the umbra, assigning them figure of eight orbits around the towering spire of the Tomioka. Visual feeds coming in from the embattled forces on the plateau had shocked everyone, but they were Mechanicus, and encountering the inconceivable was part of their mandate.

  ‘Magos Dahan will learn a valuable lesson in humility,’ said Galatea, its mismatched legs walking it around the surveyor table, where flickering icons and veils of binary bloomed from the hololithic surface in multicoloured bands. ‘The Tomioka is well defended.’

  ‘Is that why you didn’t go with them?’ asked Linya. ‘Did you know these things were here?’

  Galatea looked up, and the cold silver of its dead optics made Linya’s skin crawl.

  ‘No, but the presence of automated defences was a logical possibility.’

  ‘A possibility you neglected to mention.’

  ‘We saw no need,’ replied Galatea. ‘We believed Archmagos Kotov would come to the same conclusion.’

  Though Linya knew it was an absurdly organic notion, she would have sworn on a stack of STC fragments that it was lying.

  Warnings broadcast in binary and Gothic blared from vox-horns and Linya gripped the surveyor table as the Tabularium shuddered, the deck angling minutely downwards.

  ‘We are at the midpoint of our crossing,’ Magos Kryptaestrex intoned, and Linya’s heart beat a little faster at the thought of the Land Leviathan’s vast, monolithic feet breaking through the temporary bridge’s weakest point with thunderous hammerblows.

  ‘Then let’s hope your pioneer crews have been thorough in their work on the far side,’ said Azuramagelli from the steering station, his deconstructed brain portions flickering in the light of his electrical activity.

  ‘If you keep us straight, instead of weaving us about like you have so far, then there will be no issues,’ returned Kryptaestrex, plugged into the controls for motive power as he attempted to reduce the impact force of the Tabularium’s twin banks of enormous feet.

  ‘If you wish to switch assignments,’ said Azuramagelli, his artificial voice still managing to convey his irritation at Kryptaestrex, ‘then I will be only too happy to take command of motive power.’

  ‘It would be conducive to operations and my mental equilibrium if the two of you would shut up and concentrate on your assigned tasks,’ said Linya with a blurt of admonishing binary. ‘That way we might actually make it across this crevasse in one piece.’

  Neither Kryptaestrex nor Azuramagelli replied, but both signalled their contrition with noospheric messages of assent.

  The attenuated reverberations echoing through the Land Leviathan changed in pitch as the vast machine moved to a descending latticework support of adamantium struts, interlocking deck plating and bored-in suspensors. Linya brought up a drone optic feed and watched the Tabularium crossing the bridge, a million-tonne leviathan perched on an absurdly slender-looking structure that any rational eye would see as utterly incapable of supporting something so massive.

  But, as impossible as it might look, Kryptaestrex’s bridge was holding firm and they were almost across. The pitch of the Land Leviathan’s feet returned to normal, and Linya let out a breath, the primal part of her brain having taken over her physiological functions despite her best efforts to self-regulate. They were across – though would, of course, have to return the same way – and the Tabularium canted upwards as Kryptaestrex poured power into the propulsion decks and they climbed the last hundred metres to the plateau.

  Linya switched between the dozens of visual feeds coming from the drones, studying multiple inloads at once. Dahan’s skitarii were falling back in good order, extricating themselves from overwhelming odds by means of mutually supporting mobile shield walls. The plateau was awash with the ice creatures, a glittering army assembled in their thousands from the crystalline bedrock of the world. Against so numerous a foe, most mortal armies would already have been destroyed, overrun and slaughtered as they fled the field in panic.

  Skitarii were not like a mortal army. Their courage held in the face of insurmountable odds, their cool detachment and unbreakable discipline keeping them in the fight. Linya saw Dahan in the thick of the hardest fighting, breaking enemy thrusts that might interfere with the skitarii’s retreat.

  Linya did not like Dahan, but had to admire his tenacity and devotion to his warriors.

  One feed caught her eye, and she zoomed in on it with a spike of disbelief.

  Roboute Surcouf was in the midst of the fighting, his grav-sled fleeing the field of battle in spurts and starts as its engine burned out. That it had got them this far was a miracle of the Omnissiah, but Linya saw its machine-spirit was close to extinction. Hundreds of crystal-forms surrounded them, and even with the Black Templars fighting from its back, she estimated they had less than a minute before being overrun.

  ‘Magos Azuramagelli,’ said Linya. ‘Exloading a course change to you.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘Magos Kryptaestrex, deploy the docking clamp.’

  ‘It’s too far,’ said Moderati Marko Koskinen. ‘No way we can make it.’

  +Have faith,+ said the Wintersun. +I know this engine. I know what she is capable of.+

  ‘As do I, princeps, and that crevasse is too wide for us,’ said Koskinen, bringing up the schematics of a Warlord Titan from the Manifold. A three-dimensional image of the towering god-machine appeared over the central display hub of the command bridge, rotating slowly with reams of data listing its tolerances and capacity cascading alongside. ‘We should wait until the bridge is clear.’

  Though Princeps Luth had no need – or mortal eyes – to see the schematic, his withered, bifurcated wraith-form drifted from the milky grey suspension within his amniotic tank to press against the armourglass. Silver feed-cables plugged into his truncated waist and spinal implants trailed from his back like the hackles of a roused wolf.

  +Schematics are for the scholam,+ said the Wintersun, +We are at war, Koskinen. Lupa Capitalina waits for no man.+

  ‘Hyrdrith, back me up here,’ said Koskinen.

  ‘Princeps,’ said Magos Hyrdrith from her elevated station at the rear of the bridge. ‘As ever, I accept your wisdom as Omnissiah-given, but I must agree with Moderati Koskinen. Once the Tabularium and its attendant vehicles are clear, we can–’

  +Mechanicus warriors are dying,+ snarled Luth. +We can save them from the beasts.+

  ‘My princeps,’ said Koskinen, frowning as swarming ghost images flickered through the Manifold for the briefest instant. ‘Even if you’re right and we can make it across, there’s no telling if the ground on the far side is strong enough to take our mass. We–’

  ‘If your princeps gives you an order, you question it?’ snapped Joakim Baldur on the opposite moderati station to Koskinen’s. He shook his head. ‘No wonder Moonsorrow challenged for alpha.’

  Joakim Baldur served as Moderati Primus on Canis Ulfrica, but had been assigned to Lupa Capitalia in the wake of Lars Rosten’s death. He was Reaver through and through, which made him belligerent at the best of times, but now serving on the engine that had almost killed his own princeps only sharpened his viper’s tongue. The burns he had suffered aboard Canis Ulfrica had healed, but the skin around his eyes and ears still had the rugose texture of vat-cultured skin.

  ‘You crew a Reaver,’ snapped Koskinen, his fraying temper – worn thin by Baldur’s constant carping and obvious reluctance to be aboard Lupa Capitalina – finally snapping. ‘What the hell do you know about this engine?

  +Be silent! Lupa Capitalina’s anger burns hot,+ said Princeps Luth. +Would you feel that anger through your Manifold interface?+

  ‘No, princeps,’ said Koskine
n, pushing the motive systems out and trying not to let his disquiet at what he thought he’d seen in the Manifold show. Lupa Capitalina set off at combat pace towards the crevasse. Its strides were long, the Warlord moving faster than was prudent in such icy conditions. Koskinen heard Hyrdrith’s prayers to the Machine-God as the crevasse yawned before them.

  Koskinen’s heart dropped at the sight of it, knowing in his bones it was too wide for them and too impossibly deep to survive if they plunged into its bottomless depths. The Warlord was walking faster than it had walked in months, its mighty legs slamming into the ground and throwing up vast chunks of dislodged ice and rock.

  They were practically sprinting, which was dangerous for such a towering war machine at the best of times, but they needed all the momentum they could get. That might be all that saved them from toppling back into the crevasse, so Koskinen set to scavenging every ounce of reactor energy from the voids and any secondary system he could think of to boost the gyro-stabilising mechanisms at the heart of the vast machine.

  Angry red icons flared in the Manifold, stamped with inload signifiers of the Tabularium. The magi aboard the Land Leviathan saw what they attempted and were warning them of the dangers.

  +They think we will fail,+ laughed the Wintersun. +I will show them what Sirius can do.+

  Roboute was trying every trick he knew to keep the grav-sled in the air, from prayers to threats, but the machine was dying. Thick smoke and streamers of random gravity fluctuations poured from the engine cowling, and they were leaving a black and oily train in their juddering, weaving wake. Sergeant Tanna and his Black Templars had expended their ammunition reserve and were keeping the crystal-forms at bay with swords and fists.

  ‘Come on,’ said Roboute, finally seeing the cliff face of the Tabularium as it stamped onto the plateau, accompanied by a host of steeldust Cadian tanks. The vast machine was around three hundred metres away, but it might as well have been on the other side of the planet. Skitarii units were falling back either side of them, some on foot and some in badly damaged Rhinos, but they were fighting to their own plan.

  A plan in which Roboute and the Black Templars didn’t factor.

  The grav-sled dropped, and Roboute felt the ventral fin kiss the ground.

  ‘Can you coax any more life out of this bloody sled?’ he shouted back to Pavelka.

  ‘Don’t you think I am trying?’ she replied. ‘Clarification: employing pejorative terms on machines that might save your life is not recommended by the adepts of Mars.’

  ‘Good point,’ said Roboute, as yet another onboard system died. ‘Right, listen up, sled. If you get us out of here alive I promise to repair every dent, burn and tear in your hull. I will replace every damaged component and never again put you in harm’s way. Now will you bloody well get us to the Tabularium!’

  ‘Not quite what I think she had in mind, captain,’ said Adara.

  ‘Best I’ve got, son,’ said Roboute. ‘Best I’ve got.’

  The grav-sled’s rear section slewed around as the engine finally blew out with a bray of thrashing machine parts and squalling repulsor fields. The ventral fin ploughed a furrow, and the sled’s frontal section slammed into the ground with a shriek of tearing metal. Roboute was thrown forwards into the buckled canopy struts, his cheek cracking painfully on the inner face of his helmet.

  The sled had broken its back in the crash, spilling the body of the fallen Black Templar to the ground. The warrior with the white-wreathed helmet immediately leapt from the wreckage and swung his enormous black sword in a wide arc. Three crystal-forms shattered, and two more fell back with emerald light streaming from mortal wounds to their chests.

  The rest of the Templars were at his side in moments, fighting to clear a space around their downed brother as the enemy closed in. The sled was wrecked, and Roboute slammed his fist against the controls.

  ‘Bloody useless thing!’ he yelled

  ‘Time to get out of here, captain?’ said Adara.

  ‘I think you might be right,’ said Roboute, seeing hundreds of crystal-forms closing in through puffs of oxygen streaming from wide cracks in his helmet’s faceplate. ‘But I don’t think we’re going anywhere in a hurry.’

  He dragged his gold-chased laspistol from its holster and stood in the buckled doorway of the cab.

  ‘Come on then, you bastards!’ he yelled. ‘Come and get us!’

  He held his pistol in the classic straight-thumb grip and started shooting into the clashing, crystalline host that surrounded them. His first target dropped with a neat hole cored through its skull, the second with an identical wound.

  The third exploded into glassy vapour as though hit by a Vanquisher shell, leaving a giant crater in its wake. Roboute fell from the sled as the pounding shockwaves of the blast swatted him to the ground. Scores of smoking shell cases rained down around him, and he rolled onto his back as the shadow of a snarling beast reared over him.

  Its weapon arms bucked with the force of blazing mega-bolters, and the pair of warhorns mounted at its jutting, fanged maw unleashed a howling battle cry.

  ‘Vilka!’ cried Pavelka, hearing its name woven into the howl.

  The Warhound stomped over the wreckage of the grav-sled, sheeting bursts of fire clearing the ground of enemies for tens of metres in all directions. It trampled the crystal-forms to powder beneath its enormous clawed feet and carved white-hot-edged gouges in the earth with its guns.

  Nor had it come alone.

  A second Warhound loped from a blizzard of spinning crystal shards, twin weapon arms spitting thunderous volleys of las-fire and explosive shells. Its flank was scored with deep wounds, and blessed oils sheened its armoured hide. Like its twin it howled its fury, darting in to make kills at every blast of its warhorn.

  Roboute scrambled into the cover of the smoking grav-sled, pulling himself upright as he fought to keep his breaths shallow. Already he was feeling giddy and lightheaded, a curious numbness seeping into his limbs.

  ‘God-machines…’ he said, staring up at the snapping, howling war-engines keeping the enemy creatures at bay.

  He felt the ground vibrate with titanic impacts, the footsteps of a true god-machine.

  Hands grabbed Roboute under the shoulders and dragged him back onto the sled. Black-armoured warriors surrounded him, and a robed tech-priest whose half-human features were familiar to him wrapped a snaking metallic arm around his waist.

  ‘Hold on, captain,’ said a voice he knew he should recognise, but which he just couldn’t place. ‘They’re coming for us!’

  ‘Of course they are,’ said Roboute. ‘Why wouldn’t they…?’

  He craned his neck up as a giant of myth strode into view, a soaring engine of destruction and power. Its size was incredible, a monstrous god of steel and adamantium with a sun at its heart and death in its fists. A gargantuan foot with four pneumatic buttress claws swept over them, trailing a rain of crystalline debris and pulverised rock. The god-machine’s enormous foot hammered down and sent seismic shockwaves through the earth.

  Pistoning clamps punched into the ground as auto-loaders fed ammo hoppers into hungry breeches and dozens of ratcheting missile hatches cycled open. In deference to the mortals at its feet, Lupa Capitalina’s plasma weaponry remained inactive, but an artillery battalion’s worth of blazing heavy ordnance rippled from its shoulders. Streaking missiles traced parabolic trails over the battlefield, twenty-four in the first second, another twenty-four a second later. Plumes of white-hot fire exploded from the terrifying gatling blaster, and thousands of shells sawed from the spinning barrels of the vast, snub-nosed rotary cannon.

  The plateau instantly vanished in sky-high curtains of fire and pounding explosions as the arcing streams of missiles slammed down in a never-ending series of punishing hammerblows. Roboute closed his eyes against the brightness, feeling his chest tighten and his thoughts drift off in what he knew was nitrogen narcosis.

  As ways to die went, this at least had the virtue of being painle
ss.

  He smiled, thinking it apt that he should die on a world he had named.

  Would anyone remember that name?

  He didn’t know, but it seemed important.

  Over the unending barrage of the three god-machines, Roboute heard a heavy clang of metal on metal and felt a thrumming vibration through his void-suit. A sense of weightlessness clutched at him, and he opened his eyes to see the ground spinning away from him as the grav-sled was hoisted into the air.

  Beneath him, a world burned in the fire of the god-machines.

  ‘Below the waterline’ was an expression from the days when vessels plied the seas of Old Earth; meaningless now that Mankind’s vessels had left their earthly oceans behind, but which still had currency among the bondsmen of the Speranza. Instead of referring to areas of a ship that would flood in the event of a hull breach, it now applied to the ventral regions of the Ark Mechanicus that were known to be dangerous for all sorts of additional reasons.

  Magos Casada had recently been assigned a supervisory role among the bondsmen after ten years spent in data-transmission, a move he’d hoped would see an end to the comparatively mundane duties of informational flow paths and the chance to be in charge of more than just binary bits and infocyte logs. But with only two work-shy loafers and three servitors following him down the iron screw-stairs into the cold darkness he didn’t feel like he was in charge of much at all.

  Everyone was on edge, which at least kept their minds on their surroundings instead of looking for ways to skive off.

  Or so Casada had thought.

  ‘How come we get to do this?’ asked Knox, picking something dripping and oily from his nose.