Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

Lin hadn't brought many siege tanks or much reserve ammunition, but paired with a few disposable artillery pieces of Evil Sun manufacture, he could still open with a barrage that blanketed the enemy positions.

The thunder of the explosions tore across the leaden-grey heavens, and even the daemons had to shrink back for a moment from the razor edge of that blast. Seizing the opening while the enemy line was pinned down and unable to raise its head, the underhive residents had already launched their charge, braving the risk of being wounded by their own artillery.

The logging guns on the enemy position only barely began to sputter to life when the charge was already halfway home. Fire so sparse could clearly no longer halt the momentum of the assault. The Hellhound war-vehicle plunged first into the enemy line, its flamers clearing out a foothold within their defensive works.

Neos and his squad rolled through the enemy fire and into the trench that the flamers had emptied, but the Planetary Defence Force troopers—long since corrupted by Chaos into puppets—hurled themselves at the intruders without the slightest hesitation, and in an instant the situation collapsed into a brutal melee of blade against blade.

Pulling a trigger only takes knowing how to squeeze it, but killing at close quarters demands skills honed unchangingly across decades. In such close combat, the underhive dwellers who had only just learned how to fight were plainly no match for the Planetary Defence Force troopers who still retained their combat instincts.

One underhiver tried to drive his bayonet into the belly of a corrupted defender, but his clumsy thrust was easily dodged. The enemy's combat knife came down backhanded across the underhiver's shoulder, and with a muffled grunt he fell, his blood staining the ground red.

The next underhiver to face this defender tried to strike while the moment was ripe, but the instant he raised his gun he was beaten to it in the exchange—that combat knife came slashing down onto his Dakka Gun, forcing him into a corner.

From the very outset the scene had sunk into a near-collapsing disadvantage.

But that did not include Neos.

Neos slammed the shoulder of his power armour into the corrupted soldier before him, the edge of the Black Sword pointed straight at the Tzeentch daemon that manipulated these mortals from behind. The Tzeentch daemon had scarcely spat out half a sentence of blasphemy, trying to bewitch them, when the point of that blade—as though truly wreathed in golden flame—pierced clean through its skull.

Azure fire spilled from its seven orifices, casting half of Neos's power armour in a glassy, lustrous hue.

The surrounding daemons could sense that the slain daemon had not returned to the Warp upon death. This same technique that Lin had used back in the underhive to break the summoning ritual sent them fleeing in panic from this walking calamity. Neos, the Black Sword in hand, at once became the very center of the battlefield.

The underhivers had struggled on the edge of death from the moment they were born. Hunger, radiation, gang wars… and though being accustomed to death is not the same as enduring casualties, as they looked upon Neos, a will surpassing death itself surged up within their hearts.

The daemons before them, the Battle Moon hanging high overhead—none of it mattered. Unlike the miserable clinging to survival they had known in the underhive, what drove them to keep fighting now was a future they had never once considered before their bellies were full!

Their familiarity with death transformed in that moment into an unimaginable resilience. The soldier who had just barred the blade with his gun roared, flung his weapon aside, and hurled himself bare-handed at his foe.

Even the daemon manipulating the defenders was startled by this sudden, mad act. Though it recovered the very next moment and drove the defender's blade clean through the man's heart, another underhiver had already seized the chance to snatch up a Dakka Gun. He pulled the trigger and blasted the corrupted defender's head into fragments.

The Dakka Gun's machine-spirit rejoiced, spewing out an even fiercer tongue of flame that tore every enemy before it to shreds.

Ayash, orchestrating the situation from behind the scenes, felt the exact opposite of that exultant machine-spirit. His face grim, he studied the state of the battlefield, and in his heart he came to understand why M'Kachen had earlier declared it impossible for them to hold back these underhivers.

The underhivers' victory was bought with staggering casualties, and the souls needed to satisfy the ritual climbed steadily higher with each underhiver's death.

But because that lot had earlier done everything they could to avoid casualties, the ritual to summon M'Kachen into the material realm still needed a little more time to prepare.

Yet the underhivers had already gained a firm foothold within the defenders' line, and with that Neos at their head, a swarm of daemons were actually cowering before those mortals.

How could this rabble possess such a mighty will to fight? Or rather—how could these daemons be so pathetically weak in combat?

If things went on like this, the line would be breached long before the ritual was complete—

Fortunately, he had other plans. Unexpected as it was, Ayash believed the situation still lay within his grasp.

"Send in the Horrors—flush out those lapdogs of the False Emperor for me!"

At his command, the cultists of Tzeentch drew upon the power of the Warp that pooled in this place to open a small teleportation ritual circle. As a pink-and-blue rift split open in mid-air, a swarm of Pink Horrors came pouring out of it.

These feeble daemons, their bodies like twisted dolls, commanded sorcerous tricks lethal to ordinary mortals. They gathered balls of fire from profane energy in their hands, hurling them indiscriminately at the soldiers locked in close combat.

Several underhivers failed to dodge in time, and the soul-devouring fire of Chaos reduced them to ash in an instant.

"Dodge the fireballs!" William bellowed at the top of his lungs, demanding everyone act according to their earlier tactical training. "Find cover!"

This tactical order availed nothing against the daemons. The flames the Horrors unleashed writhed through the air like living things, and many were swallowed by the fire regardless.

The underhivers could only begin fighting back where they stood, but the Pink Horrors came in numbers like a tide, and able only to counterattack in the brief gaps between the daemons' bursts of flame, they were pinned in place.

Lin, of course, had noticed the situation here as well. The enemy had been the first to deploy supernatural power, raising the whole battlefield up a tier—which meant the Space Marines could now be committed to the fight.

"Kurande. These are your opponents."

Turbine engines shredded the smoke that hung over the battlefield as several Thunderhawk gunships came diving down like steel behemoths, the cannons at their nose-tips beginning to roar, dense shells pouring down like a torrential rain.

The Pink Horrors' shrieking laughter was drowned beneath the thunder of the guns, their bodies bursting apart into fragments in the explosions.

Having swept away the greater part of the Horrors, the Thunderhawk gunships did not press deeper. The aircraft hovered at a suitable altitude, and the Astartes leapt down from them in a single bound. With their bolters they precisely shattered the skulls of the remaining Pink Horrors, and at their head Kurande struck the head clean off a Tzeentch cultist that had tried to flee.

"By Dorn!" he cried out.

"For your glory and the glory of the Master of Terra!" the warriors behind him answered as one.

The summoned lesser daemons were utterly no match for the Imperial Fists, not even for a single exchange. Three hundred Astartes were divided into three spearheads of a hundred each, and under their lead the charge that had been checked began once more.

With these Astartes as the spear-tip, the whole army continued its deep advance toward the manufactorum stratum. The underhive troops who had originally served as the main assault force now followed behind the Astartes; their task had become one of securing the corridors the Astartes had seized, keeping the advancing Astartes from becoming an isolated, encircled force.

Ayash deftly shifted his dispositions, leaving before the Astartes only enough strength to delay them, and directing his main effort against the underhive troops holding the line.

He was in no hurry to sever the line and cut those unstoppable Astartes off as an isolated force. Instead, in the manner of a slow simmer over a low flame, he steadily widened the underhive army's casualties.

These seemingly peerless Astartes were the very sacrifices he had chosen. Once the Great Daemon manifested, even the Astartes would be reduced to nothing but fodder for his ascension beyond the mortal!

"Have we gathered enough souls?" he asked, confirming with M'Kachen behind him.

"Far from it."

The unexpected answer made the once-confident Ayash turn his head. "How can that be?"

Surely more than nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine mortals had died on the field by now? Even if it wasn't enough, it shouldn't still be far from it.

"Some of the souls have been stolen."

Though M'Kachen had not been directly watching the whole battlefield, he could faintly feel the anomalous movement of a portion of the souls. And though this anomalous movement seemed headed by that mortal wielding the golden Power Sword, M'Kachen believed the true mastermind behind it all had to be that Mechanicum sage.

The moment he recalled his own mutilated face, an unquenchable rage kindled in his heart.

"It must be that Mechanicum sage's doing," he explained coldly. That mortal possessed an inexplicable power to suppress the Warp.

A Mechanicum sage who could steal souls out from under them?

Ayash finally understood why M'Kachen had come off worse back in the underhive—only, learning the truth this late left him with a trace of dissatisfaction toward M'Kachen.

The Ever-Changing Daemon Lord merely waved a hand, signaling that all of this lay within his plans.

"We were always planning to be rid of him anyway, so what does it matter whether we learn it sooner or later? And I've created for you the very chance to deal with him, haven't I?"

The Astartes had already joined the battle as the spearhead, and there was hardly any garrison strength left at Lin's side. The two traitor Astartes who had earlier been won over with the Ever-Changing Daemon Lord's assistance were now poised and waiting at the edge of the battlefield. With the rear defenses hollow, they would strike straight for Lin's heart.

"So that's why we had to recruit those traitor Astartes…" Ayash mused.

"Of course. To deal with that Priest, we can only overcome the physical with the physical," M'Kachen answered, signaling his steward to hand down the order as quickly as possible. "Once he is dealt with, the last obstacle to our ritual will be swept away, and you too may smoothly ascend to a Daemon Prince."

Would it really be that simple?

Ayash felt a faint unease. He sensed there had to be some hidden reason M'Kachen had only now revealed the other party's special nature. His formerly airtight confidence was undermined by this suspicion toward M'Kachen.

But recalling the contingency he had prepared for when things went wrong, he set his mind somewhat more at ease.

"Let us deal with that sage first," he said.

For the first time since he was wounded, M'Kachen let a smile show.

"As it should be."

Efron and Malik, who had prowled about the fringes of the battlefield for so long, at last received their command from Ayash.

"Our target has finally come," Efron let out a long breath. The underhive army's triumphant advance had made him waver several times over whether to stir up a little chaos first to slow their pace. But before that identity-exposing action could begin, he had at last obtained "legitimate" permission to act.

"Let's go." Malik had no intention of lingering here any longer. "Just like we did before."

His form, like melting asphalt, was the first to vanish into the shadows. Led by the Night Lord, the two of them wound their way circuitously from the edge of the battlefield toward the frontline command post where Lin was stationed.

Apart from the garrison deployed at the forward edge, the vast position now saw only the coming and going of logistics personnel. Malik was displeased by the lax vigilance. "We wouldn't even need to lift a finger—any random sorcerer could summon something here and set off a riot."

"They aren't even Astra Militarum," Efron said, quite understanding of it.

"That's no excuse."

Malik rolled in over the outer wall of the command post, where he discovered a ventilation duct. The two of them slipped through the ventilation shafts to lurk above the ceiling of the command post, and before long had pinpointed the central command room.

Two Astartes stood watch at the command room's entrance, one hand holding a shield, the other a sword—but the style was quite unlike the storm shield and Power Sword commonly used by the Sword Brethren. In the readying chamber further off there was also a Librarian and an Inquisitor, who appeared to be exchanging some intelligence concerning the ritual.

But these were not the opponents the infiltrating pair had to concern themselves with. Looking down from the ceiling, they found that the vast command post held only two Tech-Priests with their backs to them. One was intently issuing deployment orders to the troops, while the other, who looked somewhat larger, stood off to the side, seemingly fiddling with some weapon.

The red robes of the Adeptus Mechanicus have the ability to block scans, but Efron nonetheless judged the two men's situation by his own experience.

"The one giving the orders is our target. Kill him, and we can turn this battle into a far greater trial."

Efron continued to assess the situation. "But that big fellow beside him looks like no easy prey. He's probably a Pursuer who's had his entire body rebuilt, and he's very likely the sage's bodyguard. If we don't take him out the instant we strike, we'll be drowned under his firepower."

Malik gave his wrist a shake, and the Disintegration Field on his lightning claw was overlaid with a galvanic energy capable of paralyzing machinery.

"Leave the big one to me." A bloodthirsty light glinted in his eyes. "Weakness is their original sin. Let us cull these weaklings, and make the Imperium mightier than it was when we arrived!"

The two of them exchanged one final glance, then Efron kicked open the ceiling, and both plunged down toward their respective targets.

Malik was the swiftest of them all. A cold sneer still hanging at the corner of his mouth, he drove his lightning claw into his target's body from behind.

"It's over, slave of metal!"

He had meant that as a declaration of the killing blow, but the feel of the lightning claw sinking into flesh gave him an immediate sense of wrongness.

Could it be that this Pursuer, over three meters tall, wasn't so heavily augmented after all?

But the plan brooked no deviation. He went with the motion and triggered the galvanic charge, meaning to cripple the mechanical implants in this Pursuer's body. Frightening sparks and smoke did indeed burst from this Tech-Priest's frame. Yet he did not lose his ability to move as Malik had anticipated.

That "Tech-Priest" slowly turned around. His red robe was torn apart by the galvanic charge, and beneath the cowl was revealed a savage green face. His tusks jutted out, and in his eyes burned a furious, violent rage. The mechanical implants smoldered with black smoke under the galvanic corrosion—but that did not mean the enemy's combat strength was diminished in the slightest.

"An ork?!" Malik shrieked, his voice breaking.

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