Old Stator died next, the preceptor clearing a path for the masters of his order with a gloriously heroic dash towards the black pavilion, his twin blades extended to either side of him as he charged. Running low, the Knight took a direct hit to the cockpit and crashed to the ground.
The last three Knights blazed through the path won by Stator's death, and Verticorda killed and killed as he drew upon the spirits of all the lord commanders who had ridden into battle within Ares Lictor.
On one side, Caturix rode tall, though his mount was on the verge of destruction, while on the other, Yelsic, his companion from the day the Emperor first set foot on Olympus Mons, still carried the Taranis banner high.
'The bastard's running!' shouted Verticorda, seeing Melgator's golden chain banner moving.
'What did you expect?' retorted Caturix. 'He's no warrior. He's nothing but a coward.'
'He won't escape us,' vowed Yelsic.
'No, he damn well won't,' agreed Caturix.
Fresh impacts slammed into Ares Lictor, and Verticorda cried out, feeling the pain of his wounds surging bright and hot within his aged frame. Even as fresh wounds appeared on his body, he felt a sustaining power flow from the Manifold to hold him together, a gestalt legacy of heroism and honour that stretched back to his mount's birth.
The presence of Ares Lictor's former masters poured into Verticorda, eager to accompany him in its last moments.
All he could see through the canopy window were enemies, their twisted visages daemonic in the searing glow of the magma. This truly was a ride into hell, and these were its warped denizens.
'There he is!' bellowed Caturix, and Verticorda saw the shield-palanquin of Melgator surrounded by a cohort of brutal, ogre-like skitarii armed with fearsome beam weapons and flame lances.
The three Knights smashed through the cordon of enemy warriors between them and Melgator's retinue, their armour torn, trailing fire and spraying vital fluids. None would ever ride again, but with their final breath of life they would slay this last foe.
Verticorda shot down a dozen skitarii, and then felt the agony of sweeping beams of cutting light sawing through the armour of his right arm as though it was as insubstantial as smoke. He screamed in pain, his entire body spasming as the weapon arm was shorn from its mount.
Blood filled his throat and his vision greyed, but once again he felt the ghostly presences of his predecessors. Their ancient fury and fire was undimmed by the passage of years, and their will gave him the strength to carry on. Yet even with the sustaining power of the Manifold, Verticorda could feel his life slipping away from him.
Yelsic's machine took the full brunt of a volley of flame lance fire, his carapace wreathed in crackling purple flames from a dozen hits. Concussive impacts of grenades blew out his torso section, and the shorn halves of his stricken Knight exploded as it skidded into the mass of skitarii.
'Into them!' cried Caturix, seeing the gap Yelsic's death had created.
Acting on centuries of instinct, Verticorda followed Caturix into the scattered mob of skitarii, seeing the fur-robed form of Melgator whipping his shield bearers to carry him away from the rampaging Knights.
With the last of his energy, Verticorda shouted, 'I cast the lightning of Taranis at thee!' and together, he and Caturix opened fire. Thunderous impacts strafed the ground and blazed a devastating path through the skitarii towards Melgator.
A haze of shimmering blue light erupted around the ambassador, a personal void, but such a device was designed to protect its bearer for short periods of time and against the weapons of an assassin, not those carried by war machines as fearsome as Knights.
In seconds the capacity of Melgator's voids was overloaded, and the resulting explosion hurled him through the air. The ambassador didn't even have time to hit the ground before the sustained fire of the Knights obliterated his body in a fraction of a second.
With Melgator's destruction, Verticorda felt the presence of his mount's former riders fade back into the Manifold. The pain of his wounds returned tenfold and he cried out as he felt yet more impacts on his armour.
A missile exploded his knee, the one the Emperor had touched, and Ares Lictor fell. The carapace slammed into the ground and the glass of his cockpit shattered into fragments. Verticorda tasted blood, but felt no pain as he sensed the Manifold open up before him.
His last living memory was hearing Caturix's voice shouting his defiance to the end.
As Verticorda died, he was smiling, and the spirit of Ares Lictor welcomed him.
3.06
Blood and warnings filled the liquid before Cavalerio, telling him of shield ignition failures, reactor bleeds and a hundred other signs that his engine was suffering. Red droplets flecked the amniotic jelly, oozing from psychostigmatic wounds on his shoulders and torso, and bleeding from his nose.
He registered the deaths of three of his engines, but forced himself to concentrate on his own fight. Ahead of him, three Warlords advanced before the might of the Imperator, Aquila Ignis. The soaring creation had not yet deigned to open fire.
'My princeps?' asked Kuyper, bleeding from the side of his head where a panel had blown out next to him, taking the secondary reactor monitors with it.
'Nothing,' said Cavalerio. 'You have a solution to those Warlords on the right?'
'Yes, Stormlord,' confirmed Kuyper. 'All missiles locked in.'
'Then you may fire at your discretion, Moderati Kuyper,' ordered Cavalerio, before addressing his sensori. 'Where's that Reaver on our right?'
'In the silos a kilometre north of us,' reported Palus. 'It's fighting Metallus Cebrenia, but it's the one to our left we need to worry about. Vulpus Rex and Arcadia Fortis are gone.'
'Sharaq can handle himself,' said Cavalerio, 'and Tharsis Hastatus will deal with the bastard on our left.'
'Princeps Suzak also has a Warlord to deal with,' Kuyper reminded him.
'He's come through tougher fights,' insisted Cavalerio. 'I shouldn't need to remind you all that we are Legio Tempestus, we fear nothing!'
His bold words invigorated the crew, and he felt the delicious shudder of release as the missile pods on his carapace surged from their launchers. At the same time, a sustained barrage of turbo lasers hammered the Warlord on the right, while repeated blasts from his volcano cannon punched the Warlord in the centre.
His enemies were giving as good as they got, and each shot Deus Tempestus unleashed was answered with two in reply, but Cavalerio had an advantage the Mortis engines did not. He was linked through the amniotic suspension to the very heart of his machine, and though the immediacy of connection allowed him only a fractional advantage, for a princeps of the Stormlord's skill, it was the only advantage he needed.
The engine drivers of Mortis were good, for no one ever ascended to the princeps chair of a Warlord who had not proved himself a hundred times or more, but they were as fledglings compared to the skill of Indias Cavalerio.
With precise evasions and instinctual anticipation of his enemies' thoughts and tactics, Cavalerio had avoided a weight of fire that would have seen a lesser princeps destroyed thrice over. Deus Tempestus was wounded, but she strode through the storm of enemy fire without fear and with the banner of Legio Tempestus borne proudly aloft.
'Target's shield strength failing,' reported Palus. 'The turbos have got him!'
'Multiple missile impacts scored!' shouted Kuyper. 'She's burning!'
'Bring us about, Lacus,' cried Cavalerio. 'Volcano cannon on rightmost Warlord. A three-pulse volley if you please.'