Free 03 - Savage Scars by Andy Hoare - (ebook by Undead) Page B

deafening,
even from several kilometres away. In basic form the lander resembled the
drop-pod Sarik and the other White Scars had made planetfall in, yet its scale
was truly vast. The vessel was three or four times taller than its width, its
hull configured in a hexagonal form above the largest retro thruster Sarik had
ever seen on a ship capable of atmospheric operation.
    As the lander descended, an invisible anti-grav field was projected below it,
an arcane and ill-understood system that would ensure the vessel’s precious
cargo was deployed with all possible care. The anti-grav field pressed down upon
the earth as the vessel neared the ground, the invisible forces crushing
everything beneath it flat, including a tracked cargo tender which failed to
evacuate the landing zone in time. The grav field dampened the area so
effectively that the clouds of dust that should have been thrown up by the
retro-thrusters were crushed downwards to form a carpet of sand across the land.
    As the first lander touched down, Sarik felt the desert beneath his feet
tremble as millions of tons of steel and ceramite ground into the bedrock. It
felt to Sarik as if he witnessed a primeval contest of the elements: that
wrought in the forges of the Adeptus Mechanicus battling against the raw stuff
of Dal’yth Prime’s continental plates. The contest continued for long minutes,
until eventually the tremors faded away, leaving Sarik with the impression that
the world beneath his feet would remain scarred by the coming of the Titanicus
forever. Soon, a dozen of the landers had touched down, each towering a hundred
metres and more into air that shimmered with the residual heat of atmospheric
entry.
    The anti-grav fields deactivated, contingents of tech-priests and their
servitors emerged from dozens of hatches and busied themselves around the heavy
landers. Prayers and chants filled the air as the tech-priests supplicated
themselves before the vessels, which in themselves were a manifestation of their
Machine-God, the Omnissiah. The cloying scent of holy lubricant and incense oil
drifted across the desert, mixing unpleasantly with the scent of burning resin
blowing in from the ruined sensor pylon.
    Finally, the sides of each lander lowered downwards like the petals of a
titanic ceramite flower, accompanied by the grinding of metal gears and the thud
of the huge ramps striking the earth. Vast clouds of dust were thrown up as the
ramps hit the ground, and through them emerged a group of loping Warhound Titans
of the Legio Thanataris. Each was a towering war machine bearing weapons of the
scale normally only seen on starships. Though far from the heaviest of the
Titans the Legio could field, these had the speed to range ahead of the
crusade’s ground forces, moving swiftly with a characteristic stooped gait, to
engage anything the tau might be able to field. As they formed up into a
predatory pack on the blackened earth of the landing zone, the Warhounds’ heads,
each sculpted to resemble a mighty wolf-like face, tracked back and forth across
their new hunting ground. It almost appeared as if the Titans sniffed the air as
they sought the spoor of their prey.
    Sarik mouthed a prayer to the spirits of his ancestors, thanking them for the
part he would enact in the coming battles as his heart yearned to begin the
fight. Limbering his boltgun, Sarik turned to make his way from the mesa, filled
with anticipation for the glory the coming battles would surely bring.
     
    Deep in the bowels of the heavy cruiser Oceanid , Lucian and his son
Korvane approached the mighty armoured portal of the vessel’s armoury. This was
no conventional store of arms and munitions, but the inner sanctum of the rogue
trader dynasty, the holy of holies that kept safe some of the most prized of
Lucian’s possessions. Only the ancestral stasis tomb beneath the blasted surface
of sacred Terra held more valued treasures, such as the Arcadius