C. Goto - Dawn of War

A squad of Chaos Marines spilt out of the rupture in the front, thrown by the force of the impact and the arrested momentum of the Rhino. They tumbled through the flames, diving and rolling to control their falls. And then they were on their feet, their bolters braced and coughing at once, spraying the first salvo of fire directly into the eldar defences, clipping at the circling jetbikes and riddling Jaerielle’s line with venom.

The Storm squad reacted instantly, moving into new formations like a fluid organism and releasing disciplined volleys of shuriken fire back into the face of the advancing Chaos Marines. Jaerielle watched as two giant warriors strode out of the blazing remains of the Rhino, stepping through the chemical fire as though it were a cool river. One of them must have been over two metres tall. He was bare-headed and carried a huge scythe, its blade easily the length of a human. The other was slightly shorter, but the ornate blades on his helmet thrust viciously into the sky, making him seem even bigger. In his hand he carried a long, dual-pronged force staff, which sizzled and hissed with purple energy, repelling the flames effortlessly.

Behind the two huge warriors, two more Rhinos crested the summit of the mountain, skidding to a halt and spilling two more squadrons of Alpha Legionaries into the fight. As they did so, the circling warbikes broke off from their ring and arced back round to provide flanks for their battle-brothers-forming a single, wide line of fire that advanced steadily towards Jaerielle’s small unit.

The eldar may have made it to the menhir before the Chaos Marines, but they had sacrificed power for speed. Jaerielle’s Storm squadron contained ten eldar warriors. He had one Vyper left at his disposal, and three jetbikes. Looking down the slope from the menhir, with the last red rays of the sun flooding down the mountain face from behind him, casting his own deep shadow right up to the feet of the enemy, Jaerielle could count five bristling bikes, two hulking armoured transports, and nearly twenty-five mammoth Chaos Marines. For the first time in his long life, even the supreme arrogance of the eldar could not convince him that victory was certain.

The pass of Korath was little more than a narrow path cut through the cliffs, providing a hazardous route from the Lloovre Valley to the summit of the ancient mountain. On both sides of the rough path were steep cliffs, sheer and unforgiving, and in the half light of dusk the pass was cast into near darkness by their shadows.

Up ahead, already at the narrowest point of the pathway, barely wide enough for a Rhino to pass through, Gabriel could see his scouts. They had paused momentarily, and he could see them looking from side to side, scanning the rock faces for signs of trigger mechanisms or mines. So far, there had been nothing, and Gabriel was beginning to feel uneasy.

The makeshift road had been chewed up by the passage of a number of heavy vehicles. The scouts had noted the wide tracks of Rhinos and the bouncing intermittent marks of assault bikes in the dust. But the eldar seemed to have left no trail at all, if indeed they had even passed this way.

Corallis raised his arm, indicating that the pass was secure. The sergeant had insisted that he should lead the scouting party despite the loss of his arm. He was determined that no other Marine should suffer the fate of Mikaelus in his place, and Gabriel had not the heart to argue with him. Besides, Corallis was the best scout in the entire Third Company, and Gabriel was pleased to have his eyes to survey the pass.

With a sudden cutting motion, Corallis changed his signal, pulling his arm down in a swipe across his body and drawing his bolt pistol. The other scouts dived for cover at the edges of the path, rolling behind boulders and bracing their weapons against them. Gabriel could see the movement from his vantage point on top of the stationary command Rhino further back down the pathway, but it took a fraction of a second for the sound to reach him, echoing back and forth through the sheer crevice.

All at once, he could see flickers of green catching the last rays of sunlight, high in the cliff face; and there, through the eye of the narrowest point of the pass, he could see a group of sleek, green grav-tanks slide into place. So this was the trap, thought Gabriel calmly. This we can deal with.

“Corallis,” he hissed into his armour’s vox-unit. “Keep in the cover at the edges of the pass-the Typhoons are coming through. Tanthius-get the Terminators into the breach behind the Typhoons. And Matiel-see what you can do about those snipers up on the cliff face.”

As he finished talking, everything happened at once. The Typhoon land speeders roared into life, accelerating to attack speed almost instantaneously and flashing through the pass amidst a hail of fire, engaging the Falcon tanks on the other side. The jump packs of the Space Marines erupted, pushing the squadron into the air as they traced their bolter fire against the cliff faces, splintering the stone and sending avalanches of rock tumbling down into the pass.

Sergeant Tanthius broke into a loping run, waving his arm to the rest of the Terminators to follow him into the breach. As he passed the scouts, who were stabbing out rapid volleys of fire and then ducking back into cover, Tanthius saw that the pass opened up into a wider valley on the other side. There were three Falcon tanks arrayed across the space and at least two squads of wraithguard lying in wait. The Blood Ravens’ Typhoons were skidding and darting under heavy fire, trailing threads of smoke from their engines.

The Terminators fanned out into a firing line and braced their feet into the rocky ground. As one, they opened up with storm bolters and assault cannons, strafing a line of fire across the wraithguard squads as they started to run towards the Marines. Tanthius levelled a careful shot into the elongated headpiece of one of the alien warriors, cracking the helmet but not stopping its charge. Another three shots smashed into its head, shattering the strange carapace completely, but still it ran, as though its head had been mere ornamentation.

One of the Typhoons banked sharply to avoid overshooting the Falcon tanks, but as it turned it presented its thin undercarriage to the eldar line and they punished it with a volley of las-fire that blew it immediately into a tumbling fireball. A second Typhoon burst through the burning wreckage of the first, its heavy bolter sputtering, spitting a typhoon missile directly into the sloping prow of the offending tank. The missile skidded across the sleek armoured panels and slid off into the air, spiralling harmlessly into an explosion against the cliff face beyond.

The Typhoon flashed in between the tanks, clearing the eldar line and then banking into a tight turn to attack it again from the rear. Another missile jetted out of the land speeder. This time it punched into the thinner, oblique armour at the back of the tank, ripping through into the Falcon’s interior where it detonated ferociously. The tank bucked and spasmed before exploding outwards from within, scattering fragments of the chassis across the valley floor.

Meanwhile, Gabriel had ducked down into the roof-hatch and his Rhino was rolling through the narrow point of the pass with its storm bolters stripping a constant line of fire. It came to a halt in the midst of the line of Terminators, emptying the command squad onto the deck behind it. Gabriel drew his chainsword into his right hand and his bolt pistol into his left and called out to his men. “For the Great Father and the Emperor!”

A great chorus of voices echoed back through the narrow crevice. “For the Great Father and the Emperor!” And the small Blood Ravens’ strike force was now fully deployed, as gouts of flame, bolter fire and coruscating blue energy lanced out of the command squad towards the advancing wraithguard.