The Jure Divinu appeared at his side, its guns bellowing with thunder and raking the enemy attack with deadly shells. Two Land Raiders skidded away from the Titans, attempting to evade their guns, but Carlsen was quicker, lashing out with his Titan's foot and catching the closest vehicle square in the side panels, buckling its armoured hull with ease and hurling the wreck through the air.
The second slewed around, bringing its sponson mounted lascannon to bear and Carlsen felt the painful sensation of his void shields collapsing as the Land Raider's gunners found their mark.
'Damn you!' yelled Carlsen, hauling backwards as the tank's guns fired again, the deadly beams flashing overhead.
'Moderati Arkian, get those shields back up! Now!'
Carlsen walked his Titan backwards, spraying the traitor vehicles with fire, careful to try and avoid the running soldiers of the Imperial Guard. Sweat ran in runnels from his face as the strain of such precise piloting took its toll.
The Defensor Fidei stumbled as Carlsen brought one of its feet down upon the smashed hulk of a Leman Russ, the pilot's compartment swaying dangerously close to the ground. The Jure Divinu stood sentinel over its brother Titan, firing and moving as the enemy advanced more cautiously now.
'Arkian!' bellowed Carlsen, 'Where are my damn shields?'
'Working on it, princeps!'
'Work faster!' demanded Carlsen as he saw the two surviving Land Raiders emerge from the smoke on a direct course for him.
The Imperator Bellum was dying, but Princeps Fierach was not about to give up just yet. Blood and sweat coated his features and he was sure Moderati Yousen was dead. The Emperor alone knew what was going on in the engineering decks: he had not been able to raise anyone down there. The Dies Irae was taking him apart piece by piece, but Fierach was not going down without a fight, and it was taking terrible damage. The tanks that had accompanied the other enemy Titans had swept past him, content to allow their war god to destroy him.
Fierach just hoped that the survivors of Battle Group Sword were able to protect the Jourans and allow them to escape.
Another hammer blow fell upon him and shooting bolts of fire lanced through his skull in sympathetic pain. What the Imperator Bellum felt, he felt.
He brought up his chainblade, the now dulled edge scoring across the barrel of the Dies Irae's plasma annihilator. Gouts of searing plasma energy spurted from the enormous gun, hissing clouds of superheated vapour geysering downwards and vaporising a hundred men in its fury.
The Dies Irae stepped in and smashed its leg against Fierach's, buckling the knee joint and destroying it in an explosion of sparks. Warning klaxons blared and thick ropes of blood ran from Fierach's mouth as he bit down hard on his tongue, the pain almost unbearable. He vainly tried to step away from the enemy Titan, but the Imperator Helium's left leg was fused solid and he could not escape.
The Dies Irae advanced again and hammered one of its weapon arms against the Imperator Bellum s torso. Fierach's Titan was slammed sideways by the thunderous blow and yet more warning lights flared into life as systems failed all over his war machine. He fought for balance, but the external gyros were smashed and he was forced to rely on his own reeling senses rather than those of the Titan.
Amazingly, he was able to recover his balance and faced die Dies Irae once more, swinging his chainfist, the one system he knew he could rely on.
The blade shrieked across the Dies Irae's midsection, tearing away great chunks from the beast's armour. Fierach knew an Emperor class Titan's reactor was buried deep within its belly and if he could but hack through enough of its armour, then others might later have a chance to slay the monster. The Dies Irae stepped aside and batted away the chainblade with the barrels of its hellstorm cannon, planting the muzzle of its weapon flat against the top of his hissing leg joint.
Incandescent fire erupted from the weapon, explosive shells bursting at point blank range against his already damaged leg. The joint exploded, the metal running molten like mercurial blood down the war machine's leg. Fierach screamed as he felt his Titan's pain as his own, the feedback along the mind impulse unit frying much of his cerebral cortex.
The mighty war machine slumped sideways, the Titan's groin hammering into the severed leg, wedging the Imperator Bellum there at an angle.
Fierach laughed hysterically as his fall was arrested.
'Thank you, old friend!' he screamed, and with one last herculean effort, forced his dying brain to command the Titan in one last act of defiance.
The Imperator Bellum pushed off with its one good leg, lurching forward to smash its bridge section against the Dies Irae's head with terrifying force.
The impact smashed the armoured front of the Imperial Titan's cockpit and Fierach's last sight before the Imperator Bellum's reactor went critical was of a single, burning green eye as he was crushed against its surface.
Forrix watched the Warhound in front of them back off through the smoke, realising its shields must have been knocked down.
'Follow it! Go after it!' he bellowed. The Titan was not just an enemy war machine to him now, it was a beast from the Olympian legends and he felt a burning, primal desire to slay it. He almost laughed aloud at the passions seething within him. Emotions and desires once thought lost forever rushed to the surface of his mind like a drowning man clawing for oxygen. He felt hate, bright and keen, battle-lust hot and urgent, and desire as fervent as anything he had ever felt in his long life.
His new-found purpose was reawakening in all its visceral glory.
Forrix fixed his eyes on the viewing holo, watching the chaos of the battle before him. Another Land Raider roared alongside his own, its lascannon stabbing into the smoke. He could see enemy infantry falling back towards the citadel, some carried on vehicles or grabbing onto their running boards. Here and there, pockets of resistance fired on their attackers, buying time for their comrades to escape.
A ringing impact slammed into the Land Raider, throwing Forrix sideways and he knew they had been hit badly. Smoke and flames spewed into the crew compartment and as he looked back, Forrix saw a great hole torn in the side of the vehicle's side armour. Through the ragged tear, he could see the red sky and the looming form of another Warhound Titan coming for them. Its snarling face was carved in an expression of fury and Forrix was again seized by the desire to slay one of these beasts.
'Disembark now!' bellowed Forrix, as the frontal ramp dropped and four giant warriors, similarly clad in Terminator armour, debarked from the Land Raider after their leader.
Kroeger charged through the smoke, screaming a bloodcurdling battle cry as he scythed the head from an Imperial Guardsman with a single stroke of his chainsword. He kicked another soldier in the gut, rupturing his belly and shattering his spine. Terrified faces surrounded him, some screaming, some begging for mercy. Kroeger laughed at them all, killing anything that came within reach with equal impartiality.
Kroeger's warriors hacked a bloody path through the men of the Jouran Dragoons, their blades soaked in gore. This was no battle any more, it was simple butchery and Kroeger revelled in the slaughter, feeling the surge of satisfaction hammer in his blood as he slew. His senses contracted until he could see nothing beyond the arterial spray and hear nothing beyond the screams of the dying.