Chapter 9

  This was no longer a battle. It was a dissection.

  Captain Mikael Fabian parried the swing of a whirring mega-choppa, the impact jarring his arm to the shoulder. He spun, his power sword a humming arc of blue light, and severed the Ork Nob’s arm at the elbow. The xenos roared, not in pain but in fury, and charged again, only to be met by a bolt shell from Fabian’s master-crafted pistol that blew its head into a fine green mist. He didn’t pause. He couldn’t.

  The fight on the Scab Plains had devolved into a meat grinder. The Orks were not breaking; they were cycling. Mobs would charge, fight with suicidal intensity, and then, just before being broken, would melt back into the scrap-heaps as a fresh wave took their place. It was a relentless, grinding attrition designed to exhaust ammunition, dull chainsword teeth, and bleed the 3rd Company dry.

  And through it all, Fabian would see him. On a distant ridge, perched atop that monstrous, one-eyed Squigosaur, sat the Warboss. He wasn't leading the charge. He was observing. Directing. It was a cold, calculated strategy, and it was working.

  “Captain, the line is thinning at sector Gamma-7!” came the strained vox-call from Veteran Sergeant Cassian. “We cannot hold against these numbers indefinitely!”

  Cassian. He had served the Chapter for one hundred and fifty years. His face was a roadmap of scars from a hundred campaigns, his demeanour as steady and reliable as the twin hearts in his chest.

  “Reinforce from sector Gamma-5,” Fabian ordered, his eyes scanning the chaos. “We must hold the perimeter.”

  “With respect, Captain,” Cassian’s voice crackled back, “the perimeter is a fiction. The xenos are everywhere. This is a killing ground. We should execute a tactical withdrawal, consolidate, and await orbital support.”

  “Negative, Sergeant,” Fabian snapped, his patience worn thin. It was then he saw it. An opening. A momentary lapse in the Ork line directly in front of him. And beyond it, not two hundred metres away, the Warboss had descended from his ridge, directing a mob of his biggest Nobs.

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  The objective was not the shield generator. Not anymore. It was the head of the beast.

  “Cassian, hold the line at all costs,” Fabian commanded, overriding the Sergeant’s counsel. “I am ending this.”

  “Captain, no! It is a feint! The Codex warns against–”

  The vox clicked off as Fabian began to run. He charged forward, a blue thunderbolt of righteous fury, his honour guard struggling to keep pace. The Orks in his path were a disorganised rabble, and he cut through them with contemptuous ease. He could see the Warboss now, turning his foul mount to face him, a hideous grin splitting its face.

  But the grin wasn't for him.

  A shadow fell over Fabian, and he looked up to see a Meganob of terrifying proportions drop from a concealed gantry above. It was a walking fortress of scrap-iron, its armour plated with the torn hull of a Rhino. One arm was a hydraulic klaw that pulsed with green energy, the other a drill tipped with adamantium.

  The trap was sprung.

  Fabian met the brute’s charge, his power sword screaming as it scraped against the Meganob’s armour. He was locked in a brutal contest of strength. As he fought, his vox crackled to life, not with Cassian’s disciplined tones, but with a cacophony of screams, guttural roars, and the distinctive shriek of Ork chain-choppas.

  “Sector Gamma-7 is compromised!” an unknown battle-brother yelled. “They came out of the ground! Sergeant Cassian is down! I repeat, the Sergeant is–” The transmission ended in a wet crunch.

  Fabian’s blood ran cold. He had been baited. The Warboss had presented himself as a target, knowing Fabian’s commander-centric doctrine would compel him to strike. The Warboss had used the Codex Astartes against him. He hadn’t just created an opening; he had targeted the one man Fabian trusted most to hold the line in his absence.

  A cold, black rage, utterly alien to his disciplined nature, flooded Fabian’s senses. He roared, a sound of pure fury, and drove his power sword through a weak joint in the Meganob’s neck. He wrenched the blade free and, as the brute fell, he charged on, heedless of his honour guard, heedless of the Ork mobs that now swarmed him from all sides.

  He was alone, deep within the enemy horde. His brothers were dying behind him because of his mistake. And the Warboss, was pulling back, his silent, mocking gaze a testament to his victory. The fight was no longer about strategy or objectives. It had become a duel of wills, and Fabian, for the first time in his long service, was losing.