The Blessings of the Emperor upon you.
Looking out of the scope I saw endless rows of armoured vehicles glittering in the early morning light. Greyish exhaust fumes made the air shimmer. Horns sounded. Engines roared. In my ear bead I could hear the constant chatter of comm-net communications. I was only supposed to be able to hear the lieutenant but there was some bleed through his monitor and very faintly in the background I heard signals coming down from the higher command echelons.
Out there, the army stirred like a great beast. Company after company of armoured vehicles made off, rolling downslope, crushing friable stone beneath their huge treads, raising enormous plumes of dust and ash as they gathered momentum.
I relaxed in the bucket seat and offered up some more technical prayers. I knew it would be several hours before we had to move. Our place was quite far back in the column. I looked down at the crystal of the console and watched the dots that represented units shimmer and shift, bees of greenish light swarming against a blood-red background.
I looked over at the New Boy. He had tilted his cap to one side in emulation of my manner. He caught me looking at him and grinned, a little nervously. It was understandable. We were not yet in any danger but this was the start of his first campaign and we would soon be moving into the eye of the storm of violence the Imperial Guard had brought to this world. He swallowed and made an aquila over his heart with his fingers and then closed his eyes. His lips twisted slightly and I knew he was praying.
Over the Baneblade’s internal comm-net the lieutenant’s calm voice sounded, chanting out the First Battle Catechism and getting the expected answers first from Corporal Hesse then from the remainder of the crew stations, then the gunners. From deeper within the Indomitable came the sound of turrets rotating and guns elevating. The machine shuddered a little as barrels reached maximum elevation and locked.
One by one the great tanks of our company rolled out; I watched their massive forms disappear downslope into the great cloud of dust like enormous mastodons moving through the dawn of time.
‘Lemuel, move us out,’ said the lieutenant. I invoked the spirit and our engines roared to full life. Somewhere in the depths of the vehicle I heard cheers and prayers as the crew reacted to the movement each in their own way.
The great armoured monster that was the Indomitable rumbled to life beneath my hands. In that moment, I wondered if this was how Macharius felt when he gave orders to an army. The mighty vehicle responded to my commands like some great beast responding to its rider. I felt all of those hundreds of tons of weight move at my will. An armoured behemoth capable of crushing men to jelly beneath its treads, of crashing through buildings and destroying lesser vehicles by mass alone, responded to my hands on its ancient controls.
At that moment, I felt alive, as if I was doing what I was put in this world to do.
Ahead of us a wall of flames stretched to the horizon, as if the entire planet had caught fire and the world itself was burning. The sands of the desert were the red of blood. Even through the filters, the air had taken on a curious metallic tang. The column slowed almost to a halt and began to move forwards cautiously as the leading scouting vehicles reached the edge of the lava seas.
‘You’ll want to be careful here, Lemuel,’ the lieutenant said. ‘This is not the place to make a mistake. We’re approaching the causeways and if we fall off we’ll never see Belial again or anywhere else for that matter.’
The New Boy gulped. I suspected that if I could have seen his expression I would have discovered that he was glad that he was not the one driving right now. I did not look. I was too busy concentrating on the paths ahead.
You could have marched an army over them company by company, but a Baneblade is not a company of soldiers. It can’t narrow its frontage or move along in single file if it has to.
I could not see much ahead except for the clouds of dust raised by the tanks that had gone this way before, and the marks of their tracks in the reddish sand, and the ever-narrowing roadway as it pushed out into the lava sea.
Sea is misleading, it suggests waves and tides and regular movement. The lava was not like that. It glowed in different colours, from almost incandescent white to cherry red. It bubbled and it spurted. It was like a living thing. It was all too easy to imagine daemons living below its surface and emerging to devour the souls of men.
It was easy too to understand how the inhabitants of Karsk IV believed that the Angel of Fire stood at the right hand of the Emperor. Flame was the most powerful thing in this world. Its potency was a self-evident truth. Even the mighty frame of the Indomitable seemed a pitifully small thing compared to the endless, encroaching lava.
Not that I gave it too much attention. I was too busy keeping an eye on the path and making adjustments with the control sticks to keep us as close to the centre of it as possible. It was not easy. The way was neither regular nor smooth. Sometimes we would run up small slopes and I would feel the Indomitable tilt and for a horrible moment wonder if we were going to start sliding.
Ahead of us another Baneblade loomed out of the dust fog. The rock beneath its left tread had started to crumble. The weight of so many massive vehicles moving over the thin crust of this burning land was taking its toll. The driver struggled to keep the tank moving straight. As I watched it swerved dangerously close to the edge.
I wondered what was going on: guidance servo malfunction, driver drunkenness, misheard command over the comm-net. I slowed down to avoid a possible collision. It was easy to imagine getting knocked into the boiling lava by a misjudgement on the part of the lead driver. I hoped the drivers behind us were paying the same attention as I was.
I let out a long breath I did not know I had been holding as the tank in front got back on course. I heard a gentle curse from the New Boy.
It was going to be a long day.
We emerged from the lava paths into the ash deserts beyond. I felt as if a weight had lifted from my shoulders. All around huge Imperial tanks ploughed ahead at full speed, raising bow-sprays of sand and dust. There was a sense of swiftness and motion that had been sorely missed in the cramped volcanic paths through the lava.
The sun glared down, a gigantic cyclopean eye. I studied a horizon that looked like a sea suddenly petrified by the magic of daemons, waves turned red as blood, layered with cobalt blue. Everything had a tainted chemical look to it. Huge, chitinous things scurried out of the way of the tanks. A few were crushed to a bloody purple gel by the tracks.
Over the comm-net relieved chatter filled the lower-level links. Anton and Ivan must have been as worried as I; they could see what was happening from their gun-position and could not do anything about it. At least I had some say in what happened.
Vulture gunships skimmed overhead, engines thundering, exhaust contrails scarring the desert sky white, like claw-marks made by the talons of some huge invisible beast, their twin-tailed shadows gliding over the sand beneath them.
The tac-map showed the position of an oasis ahead. The holo-spheres representing our forces were already surrounding it. In the distance a few brief high explosive shots rang out as some pueblo village rejoined the dust from which it emerged before our position could be reported.
Anton grumbled over the comm-net to Ivan. ‘The vanguard get all the fun.’
‘We’ll be in battle soon enough,’ Ivan replied. ‘You’ll have your chance to blow something up then.’