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Season of Shadows

Guy Haley

‘Here they come!’ voxed Sunno.

Dozens of light vehicles came leaping over the dunes’ ridges. Ork attack buggies, half-tracks, junkers – all equipped with heavy weapons, no two the same. Bikes, ridden by wild-eyed monsters, formed a surging arrowhead around them that constantly threatened to break apart. Four light transports, bursting with xenos, came behind. They were so caked in dust and ash that it was impossible to see which sub-grouping they belonged to. Brusc suspected speed cultists, but ultimately it did not matter.

‘Ignore the bikes, and prioritise the transports,’ he ordered the others.

The orks were on them quickly, driving at reckless speed. He snapped off a bolt, catching an ork biker square in the chest. Its ribcage exploded, making it flop like a gutted fish. The bike continued on for a dozen metres, before falling and tumbling over and over in a ball of scattering scrap. Cackling ork outriders skidded around it, bike engines howling. They leaned over in the saddle, firing pistols. The Jopali replied, ruby las-light stabbing out from cabs and containers. The socket stubbers on the cabs rattled. The Chimeras either side of the convoy belted out multi-laser and heavy bolter-rounds, while Doneal covered the front of the convoy with Cataphraxes’s storm bolter, and the Taurox covered the rear.

An ork bike went hurtling away from the line of trucks, rearing up as it hit the valley sides. Another exploded. But the riverbed was rough, the orks fast, and many of the Imperial shots went wide.

A line of heavy calibre solid shot stitched holes along the top of Brusc’s trailer, punching through the thin sheet metal. The bullets tracked upwards, streaking off Brusc’s armour. The Jopali were not so lucky. One was kneeling to get a better aim. He was caught in the shoulder and sent screaming from the rooftop. Another, lying flat, was pierced by bullets coming from below. He jerked twice, his lasgun clattering over the side of the truck. His body slid after it, dangling from his safety rope.

The ork gunner snarled, bashing his driver on the head. He gestured at Brusc. The buggy wobbled as the driver warded off the gunner’s blows and glanced up to see what his comrade was so angry about.

‘You will make no trophy of me,’ said Brusc. He levelled his boltgun. His first shot missed, his aim spoiled by the hauler’s sudden jolting. His second went true, decapitating the driver. The headless corpse slumped over the steering wheel, sending it caroming away from the convoy. It slammed into the valley side. The gunner recovered, and traversed his gun for a parting shot. He never made it, falling dead over his own weapon, felled by a sniper rifle.

‘A good shot, Marcomar,’ said Brusc.

The orks pursued undaunted. More bikes came out of the hills to run alongside the convoy, looping far out so that they could come at the trucks again and again with guns spitting. There were so many now that they were swirling around the giant trucks like flies around cattle. Three buggies and a half-track were harrying the last hauler but one, riddling the sides of the trailer with holes. It drove on, but Brusc doubted there would be anyone left living within. The Taurox Prime rearguard cleared wide areas of the dead river of hostiles, only for them to flood back.

Two of the rickety transports swooped down on a Chimera, chased by a couple of buggies. The tank’s turret tracked round, shooting a barrage of fire from its multilaser, and a brave gunner added to the weight of fire with the vehicle’s pintle stubber. A fusillade of rockets hammered into the human tank. Poorly fashioned, most clanged off the armour without detonating, but one flew true and exploded against the Chimera’s turret. The crewman was obliterated, the turret lifted half off its mount. The buggies closed in on the wounded vehicle.

One buggy went cartwheeling away, its tyres blown out. Another of the transports exploded in an orange fireball, destroyed by shots from the trailing Chimera, but the other drew alongside, easily keeping pace. A dozen orks were crammed into it, hanging from handholds along the outside. A broad gangplank crashed down, hooks on the end catching on the tank’s fittings. Ball-mounted lasguns along the side blasted at the xenos, but the gangplank was in the way and they could draw no good lines of fire. With a war cry Brusc could hear over the racket of battle, the orks clambering onto the tank, shoving at each other so hard in their eagerness that one tumbled from the locked vehicles. The Chimera swerved from side to side, trying to shake the orks off, but they only laughed at such entertainment. Within seconds, they had the upper hatch up and were slaughtering every man inside. The linked Chimera and buggy stopped, the orks dancing madly on their prize.

‘How much further, Brother Sunno?’ asked Brusc.

‘Another seventy kilometres until we reach the outermost Imperial line. No guarantee there’ll be anything there to greet us, Sword Brother. I’m getting nothing on the vox.’

Brusc blasted an ork from the back of a buggy. The roaring of ork engines was deafening. Black smoke billowed around the trucks.

‘My lord!’ cried a man of Jopal. He pointed to the south side of the valley.

Seven more trucks laden with orks were coming down the slope, swelling the number of greenskins. Orks swinging grappling irons and the boarding ramps held high on both sides of all the trucks left no doubt in Brusc’s mind as to their intentions. In the Rhino’s cupola, Doneal swung round and gunned for them with Cataphraxes’s storm bolter. His aim was good: the bolts raking across the bed of one of the trucks, slaughtering orks. Brusc added his fire, killing more. Marcomar slew a driver, sending a truck into a swerve that toppled it, spilling orks all over the valley floor. Others were too well protected and his las-shots were halted by iron plating.

‘Brother!’ warned Marcomar.

A buggy was driving right by the hauler that followed Brusc’s. The tractor unit’s heavy stubbers could not reduce their elevation enough, their bullets raising tracks in the desert a good metre out from the buggy. Men gesticulated, their shouts inaudible as they leaned out from the container roof. One slipped and fell, hanging helplessly by his ankle cord. Another two stood to help him and were shot down. Brusc switched targets, targeting the buggy. He missed twice, a third round bringing a plume of steam from the buggy’s engine block to no noticeable effect.

Its gunner had abandoned his gun. He reached down. When he stood upright he held a large bomb.

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