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.
<That's arrogance,> canted Cavalerio.
'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.'
'Yes, my princeps,' replied his steersman, and Cavalerio felt the ancient machine respond, its vast and complex manoeuvring systems reacting with the speed of a brand new engine. Cavalerio felt the heat build as the monstrously powerful cannon on his left arm powered up.
He saw the stricken Warlord slow and relished the fear its princeps must be feeling to be so achingly vulnerable. With no shields and his engine burning, his fight was over.
'No, that won't do you any good,' chuckled Cavalerio as the volcano cannon fired and struck the Warlord's shields dead on, battering the last of its protection away. The first blast was immediately followed by two more, and the Warlord's upper carapace vanished in a thermonuclear blast as its reactor detonated.
'Centre Warlord's shields failing!' shouted Palus. 'It was too close to the explosion!'
'All stop,' ordered Cavalerio. 'Reverse left step and bring us back about, Lacus. Divert all shield power to volcano cannon, I want to make this shot count!'
His crew hastened to obey his commands, and Cavalerio felt the groaning strain of metal all around him as he pushed his engine to the limits of its endurance. A moment of doubt flickered across his mind as he remembered doing the same thing to Victorix Magna, but he pushed that thought aside.
<Quickly now!> canted Cavalerio. <Before his shields have a chance to replenish!>
A flurry of impacts struck his torso and carapace, and Cavalerio grunted in pain, his flesh convulsing in sympathy with his wounded engine. He felt the damage to Deus Tempestus, but shook off the pain. If his engine was paying the price for his tactics, then so too would he.
'Gun charged, my princeps,' reported Kuyper. 'Solution locked.'
Cavalerio snatched control of the weapon from his engine's gun-servitor. 'Firing!'
Once again the volcano cannon unleashed its deadly fire, the searing bolt of destruction enhanced with all the power Cavalerio could give it.
The enemy Warlord's shields absorbed the first microsecond of the impact, but collapsed with an explosive detonation that tore the upper tiers of its armour away like paper in a storm. Cavalerio kept his aim steady as the fire built in his arm to a raging, searing sensation, and the enemy Warlord vanished as his fire burned through its hull and sliced it almost in two.