The Bleeding Chalice

Two hundred metres. Senshini could see barely human silhouettes, some limbless or even headless, many toting weaponry looted from the Enforcement Division armouries, others just shambling along the broken stone. Whole marble-tiled roofs had been tipped on edge to form walls, stacks of toppled pillar sections made huge obstacles. Whatever had been knocked down in the previous shelling had been carted to the edge of the city and piled into treacherous slopes of pulverised marble and brick, with fire points on the top to rake troops with gunfire as they struggled upwards.

One hundred metres.

Small arms fire was spattering in the mud around the troopers - the Jouryans knew better than to try to engage in a fire-fight at this range but one or two still fell, the steel rain cutting them down as they advanced. A couple of shots rang off the hull of the Executioner, sharp steel dints against the grinding of the engine and the crunching as the tracks rode over the remains of previous assaults. There were dead men in the mud below them, Elysians and Enforcement Division troops mixed with gnarled Septiam limbs, along with weapons and equipment dropped by dead hands. No matter what happened, there would be a new layer of Jouryan dead added to it before long. Fifty metres.

If this had been a normal city the fleet would have obliterated it from orbit. But previous experience with Teturact's followers had shown that would just have given them a ruined warren of hiding places for the corpses to rise from. It had to be done the old-fashioned way, with troopers on foot bayoneting every one of them and burning the remains.

Senshini could just make out the yells of frontline officers as they lined their squads and platoons up with their designated attack points on the defences. Some would try to climb vertical marble rooftops with ropes and had climbing gear slung over their shoulders. Others would slog their way up crumbling slopes. Sapper units would try to go through or under, their task considered the most dangerous of all.

The targeting reticule showed the range in the bottom corner. Senshini knew he was close enough. For a second more he let the Executioner trundle on, bringing a few more metres of wall within the blastgun's reach.

'Squadron Six gu

'This is Squadron Six command.’ echoed Kaito into the vox. 'Ready to fire.’

'Squadron Six, fire.’ came command's response.

'Fire!' yelled Kaito, and Senshini slammed the firing lever down.

The reticule was filled with light, streaming from above and behind as the coils emptied their massive charges through the blastgun barrel. The energy was focused into a compacted bolt of superheated plasma, white-hot and liquid, which was spat with tremendous force towards the wall of column sections in Senshini's sights.

Huge column drums toppled, forming a landslide of carved stone, the sections rolling into the mud at the foot of the wall, kicking up great crescents of filth. Liquid plasma burst into a storm of lethal droplets, seething through the gaps between the stone. Figures tumbled down the ruined wall, bodies breaking or dissolving as the plasma hit them. Shells from the other squadrons nearby, and the longer-ranged tanks behind, slammed into the stone, splintering the marble and kicking more column sections down into the mud.

The troops to either side sped up, squads holding back to cover the advancing units. Lasgun fire spattered up towards the walls and heavy weapon units sent frag missiles and airburst mortars filling the air on the battlements with shrapnel.

The enemy took just a few moments to recover. The column stacks were broken but not completely breached. Senshini could see dozens and dozens of small dark figures dressed in rags, like insects swarming from under the bark of a tree.

The coils behind Senshini thrummed as they recharged and the tracks groaned in complaint as Tanako forced the tank over the churned earth by the walls, following the units that were ru

Tanako spat an ancient Jouiyan curse as tiny flames licked from his control consoles. A cold chemical smell filled the compartment as Kaito smothered the fire with a handheld extinguisher.

Senshini watched as a vicious, swirling fight was born amongst the fallen stone of the broken wall. The enemy had the numbers, hundreds of ragged pasty-ski

The old-fashioned way. No matter what the Mechanicus could cook up or the Navy could send into orbit, when it came down to it you needed a bayonet and some guts to win a war. For the briefest moment Senshini wished he were down there in the heart of the fighting, lasgun in his hand - but he could see men stumbling with limbs severed or entrails spilling, and he knew he should be glad there were several layers of armour between him and the hail of fire raking down into the Jouryans.

"This is Squadron Command.’ crackled the vox. 'I need a visual on Squadron Twenty.'

Twenty?' replied Kaito. 'This is Squadron Six, they won't be this far up front yet.'

'We've lost contact with Squadron Twenty. Report in a visual, we need them deployed at the wall.'

It made no sense. Squadron Twenty was a rear echelon squadron, consisting of three stripped-down Chimera transports crewed by medical corps officers. They would race up to the front line when the first wave of the attack had gone in, picking up the wounded and taking them back to the casualty stations to the rear of the Jouiyan lines. Senshini hated to think what would go through the minds of the assaulting troops if they knew their only hope of any kind of rapid medical attention had been lost somewhere in the rearward echelons.

'Gu

Senshini yanked on the vertical lever and the viewpoint swung upwards, framing a precarious section of the wall where several enemies were loading shells into a field gun that fired almost point-blank into the Jouryans battling to get a foothold in the rubble below. Senshini took a ranging, correcting up a few metres, and fired. The plasma discharged with a roar and the emplacement disappeared in a bursting blister of plasma.

Armour was coming up beside the Executioner, a Demolisher to help crack the wall open further and an Exterminator, twin autoca

'Gak me sideways.’ said Tanako from below. That's Squadron Twenty!'

Senshini swung the targeting array down to catch sight of the rear of a Chimera as it drove headlong for the walls, the staff-and-snake symbol of the medical corps stencilled on its rear ramp. A third Chimera with the same markings drove by a moment later, its driver recklessly gu

'Take us closer, Tanako.’ ordered Kaito. 'Senshini, close support fire, they're pi

The Executioner lurched forward. The stink of the recharging coils surrounded Senshini, and he could feel the greasy grime caking on his bare hands and face. The viewpoint swung violently and he caught a glimpse of the top hatch of Squadron Twenty's closest Chimera swinging open.