Hail to the Iron

[Goreshed]

So its been a long times since I've really written anything. GW had some applications going out for writers and I tried my own hand at it. While not entirely confident in my abilities it would still be cool to see my own work on a GW printing, even if it was only 250 words. That being said I've gotten the itch to write again and here is some of the fruits of my labor.

 

Hail to the Iron

Chapter 1: Mountains of Pain

    The man next to Private Hur exploded in a cacophony of screaming and blood as the invader’s weapons tore into him. They were pinned. They were doomed. They were going to die. He would never see his love again. Simple facts to live by for the moment. “Fight you cowards!” Private Hur could hear the his sergeant belting out curses at his unit. Gripping the auto gun tightly to his chest Private Hur counted down the seconds before his death. For a brief moment of time Private Hur’s world slowed down to almost nothing. He could see the weapons fire crashing back and forth over his head like the rip currents of the rivers near his parents home. He could smell with distinct quality the discharged gases of their standard issue auto gun. He could see the minute details of the rocks as they slowly crashed around him. Yet his mind hadn’t yet caught up with what was happening to him.
    With earth shattering force Private Hur’s world righted itself to the present moment. Rocks and other debris smashed into his body, a grenade must have gone off near by. He lost his grip on his rifle, only to see it moments later be crushed into uselessness just out of arms reach. The moments seemed to drag on until finally Private Hur’s existence came to a bone jarring stop, a heap of a soldier alone in his foxhole. Cursing himself, his luck, his sergeant and even the Emperor himself the Private tried to move but on to find his strength leaving him. Try as he might his vision slowly clouded making his world a smaller and smaller place until finally it goes black.

    When Private Hur awoke it was to scream all of the air out of his lungs. Never in his life had he felt so much pain. He tried to look around only to be rewarded with even more sharp pain coursing through his body. Learning from his mistake he opened his eyes one at the time but regretting doing so instantly. His body lay in a heap and a number of bones were surely broken give how one of his legs and his wrist were laying across him. Slowly the last events he remembered played through his mind. Running across the road towards some cover. Getting his first look at the Enemy. Taking a few shots in the general direction of those he had been trained to kill. Then pain. So much fiery pain. And finally darkness.
    Gingerly he tried to move various parts of his body finding some parts that were unscathed or at least manageable in pain while others he knew would require skills beyond his abilities. What seemed like an age passed before he was able to just sit up and take a better look at himself. Realizing that screaming, alone, in a place he wasn’t familiar with and Enemy units in the area brought him back to the greater world he lived in. Taking his combat knife out of his side pocket he managed to get the hilt into his mouth so he wouldn’t break his teeth as he moved himself around.
    His leg was broken, in a number of places by the looks of it. His wrist hung limply and was useless. Blood covered his uniform but he wasn’t sure if that was from his own wounds or those from his comrade that exploded beside him, screaming his soul into the after life. Not for the first time in the past week did he curse his luck. He stopped and thought for a moment. Could it really only have been a few weeks since he got out of basic war school? His thoughts drifted back to the wider world of things. A few months ago he had enlisted like all first born sons of his family into the Planetary Defense Force. It was an honor they said. Something to carry down from father to son for generations both past and present.
    He didn’t feel it was much of an honor at the moment. Cut, bruised, broken, he was anything but the ideal soldier that the family portraits back home showed. Growing up he had always been in awe of those striking figures with their gilded officer’s uniforms, medals of all makes filling up their chests. Now he wasn’t quite so sure he would even see it through this day. Once again he tried to move around and was rewarded with some movement with more manageable pain. Finally able to take in his surroundings he pulled his strew med kit closer to him.
    Bandaging oneself with one working hand turned out to be far more challenging then Private Hur thought. Slowly though, starting with the easiest issue of his cuts and bruises he works to at least clean himself up. The mountains were known for various poisons in a number of different forms. It didn’t take much more then a insect bite in some cases to leave a soldier in a world of pain. The last thing he wanted to be was in that situation. Hell he didn’t want to be in his present situation but such is the twist of fate. By the time he finished tending to himself the best he could the twin suns were low in the sky line. As if noticing this for the first time he started to panic.
    The mountains of the Upper Reach were known for their wild life. Specially those predators that hunted at night. Fierce leonine like Reapers were known to grow to the size of small ground cars while the ever vicious Turuphans were known to take down prey the size of a super heavy tank given so many of them work together with a collective hive mind. Then of course there the Mountain Stalkers, Wormwraiths, Draacons and the list went on and on. Each region had their own native predators and given the basic terrain of the continents it wasn’t surprising to see a number of variations on the same species.
    Looking around Private Hur tried to find something for a weapon. He remembered seeing his beloved autogun being crushed to uselessness. Where was his unit? Were they even looking for him? The thought was sudden but made his mood far more bitter. Given how long he had spent already down the embankment surely someone would have searched for him? His thoughts turned darker. Perhaps the choke point they were guarding had fallen to the enemy? What if his entire unit was nothing more then specters before the God-Emperor’s throne? It wasn’t an exactly pleasing thought.
    Still he had a duty to uphold. With more determination and perhaps some vengeance mixed in he started to search around himself for some sort of firearm to use. He still had his combat knife and a grenade or two but he would rather have something more to make his last stand more lasting. Chuckling he let that thought sift through his mind. Who knows, maybe his unit has already pushed the enemy back and they were on the victory march that the Commissars continue to talk about. That thought left a darker one in its place. They had been fighting this invasion as hard as they could and yet they were still loosing ground. The Enemy always seemed to know what the PDF High Command was going to do.
    Sure there were some victories but they didn’t feel like it. Take for instance the Battle of Grime Gorge. The battle lasted two solid days, heavy artillery pounding each other in a non stop crescendo of violence, men dieing each moment to slowly fill the gorge with blood and entrails. At the end of the second day those who were still alive looked up to find the enemy gone. The army of propaganda reporters were jumping all over the situation and for a few hours that is what it seemed like. Rumors had it however that a few hours later the gorge was completely overrun and the enemy had stolen whatever grounds the Defense Forces had held for those two blood soaked days.
    They never talked about the defeats. The news reports were always trying to put a positive spin on it and Private Hur was sure that those outside of the military would believe it but it was another thing entirely to be standing in front of the Enemy. Catching something out of the corner of his eye Private Hur craned his neck to see what was happening. Further away down the slope to his left he catch sight of a small light appearing. Enemy? Friend? For a moment he wished it would just disappear and never show itself again but it didn’t. For a moment it flicked but then it burned steadily in the slowly growing night.
    Digging deep into himself Private Hur tried to move himself some more and was rewarded with a slow ache. Good, the medication he had taken were finally working. Slowly, painfully, bodily achingly slow, he managed to put one arm in front of the other and drag himself across the rocks. He knew he was making more noise then he should but the sight of himself getting closer to the light source gave him more strength. An age seemed to pass yet when he rolled onto his back to look towards the night sky the twin moons were still high.
    Focusing back on himself and his surroundings he threw himself back on his stomach and resumed his slow crawling state. Hours seemed to pass before he reached his final obstacle between himself and the source of the light. Pulling his pistol and knife free he mentally prepared himself for what would happen next. His breathing slowed, his mind felt like it was on another gear as if it was trying to go past the rev limiter that he never knew he had. Silently he said a prayer to the Emperor to give him strength.
    
    The prayer died in his throat as he felt the cold edge of a blade sit on the back of his neck. With one swift kick his pistol was smashed from his grip and before he could react his knife suffered the same fate. He tried to stifle his pain as fingers were crushed and broken. All the while the cold blade didn’t move from his neck. “Well what do we have here?” The voice dripped with an off world accent. Instantly Private Cornith Hast Proth Hur knew he made a mistake. With as much swiftness as the previous kicks Private Hur was tossed onto his back. This time the blade was to his throat.
    Before him stood the enemy. The worst part was just how much this enemy looked like him. There were no obvious mutations. Nothing to show some sort of warp taint that he had been schooled in during his weeks at drill. The uniform was perfectly camouflaged for the environment but Private Hur could see clearly there was far more armor plating then what one would see in the PDF force. Festooned all over the Enemy was a number of battle modifications, trinkets and other such memorabilia one would find with a veteran. His hair was cropped short but he held a large goatee that reach down to the middle of his throat. Whatever color his facial hair was masked by the night’s darkness but his eyes were alight in a manner that Private Hur would never be able to describe.  His world shrank slightly at the thought of a normal human being wanting to side with Chaos. Another swift kick in his side brought him back to reality.
    “I said, what do we have here?” Private Hur remembered something of his training. “A soldier of the Emperor’s Army.” He tried to sound brave but he didn’t feel confident that his aura gave it off. The enemy soldier just laughed which made the situation feel even worse. “Typical. You realize that you were making enough noise that I could have killed you in my sleep?” The enemy let that thought sink in before continuing. “Then again maybe you thought you would find your friends by the light instead of us?” As he spoke Private Hur could hear more foot steps around him. “No matter. You will just end up like the rest of them.” Private Hur tried to form some sort of response but instead the knife slashed across his throat. The cut shallow and just enough to bleed him slowly. Perplexed his mind tried to rationalize what had happened and by instinct his hands reached for his throat but nothing he could do would ever stop the flow of blood.
    As his life gushed from his throat Private Hur could feel himself being lifted by his arms and dragged towards the light source he had made his goal. Looking at it now, even in his vastly shrinking world he registered what was going to happen to him. As he was manhandled from his spot behind the cover of his last stand Private Hur finally saw what had been his goal. Laughter greeted him from one of his captors. “Look Spar, his already filled his pants.” More laughter. “Look? I can smell it from over here.” In the center of the clearing of rocks was a bi-pedaled walker hunched down so whoever was piloting it could get out. It looked like an Imperial version but had been so heavily modified it resembled little of what it once was. The source of light was one of its head laps that had been shown down to illuminate the clearing.
    Around the first bi-pedaled walker were others of similar makes but no two were the same. All of them, save one, had some sort of body chained or staked to the front of its carapace. “Now look at this, Mardox finally gets a decoration for his Warstalker.” More laughter filled the clearing. As the darkness closed in around Private Hur’s world the last thing he witnessed was his own body behind lifted onto the front plate of the war machine. Suddenly his head was let go and fell down to his chest where he watched a spar of metal poke through his uniform. It was all wrong. How could he have had this happen to him? With slowly fading clarity he realized that he had been impaled onto the war machine and his appendages were suffering the same treatment.  
    As the darkness slowly built he wondered how this could have happened. Where was his last stand? His picture on his families wall? His honor and his medals? The pain was no longer there, long since abandoning him to his fate which could not be a good thing. The last experience he felt before finally succumbing to his fate was the sound of laughter. Mocking, hate filled laughter.
 

[Goreshed]

Chapter 2: Fire and Stone

    Storm clouds thundered over the twin mountain peaks sending electric currents rippling through the air. Upon the battlements of the Baultaur Gate men of the 39th PDF Regiment, the Stone Guard, brooded inside of their fortress. The storms normally never caused the defenders of the oldest fortification of the planet any issue but since the invasion the storms seemed to have gotten worse. Soldiers reported seeing ghosts in the lower holds of the twin fortress towers, or hearing things on the edge of their perception. The Commissars had enough to deal with as it is but this threatened to put them over the edge.
    Baultaur Gate was not the largest fortification on the planet, far from it, but it held some of the greatest importance towards the planet’s history. From time innumerable, for as much as anyone knew, this was the site of the greatest battle in driving back the evil that threatened to overtake the planet. For that reason alone the fortifications of Baultaur Gate were valued, the very warrior fighting spirit of the planet was based upon the very bedrock of the Gate.
    It was also the starting and ending place of three mountain ranges. To the West was the Kurdo Mountain Range that started from the Gate and drove westward until it met the cliffs of the Immortal Saints on the edge of the Tuutoa Sea. The Kurdo range was also the longest range on the second largest continent of the planet which made the Gate a key controlling factor in any invasion.  On the opposite side of the Gate sit’s the Arm of Sidonus. A small range, The Arm of Sidonus consisted of only a few mountains and low lying hills before it came to the edge of the Smolder Fields. Named after a commander of Baultuar Gate for his heroics in the defense of the planet.
    These Smolder fields were inhospitable to life and stretched out for hundreds of leagues in all directions, gas and flames from the inside of the planet escaped to shatter the earth in a constantly changing cycle. But it was here that the greatest Adeptus Mechanicus city on the planet lay. Giant foundries worked day and night to produce arms and armour for the PDF forces and the regiments that inevitably found themselves fighting on the distant conflicts of the Imperium’s wars. Giant domes dotted the foundry, known to the Mechanicus as 0/55-X and the rest of humanity as Volitite City, these domes were all that stopped the dangerous weather from eroding many precious machines whose inner workings befuddled even those in charge of keeping them running.
    South of the gate was a dozen or so square miles of open space before the third mountain range started. Known as the Victor’s Range this was the site of a last stand performed by the original defenders of the Baultaur Gate during a misguided and costly civil war that wracked the planet in its ancient history. Victor’s Range was more of a cluster of mountains stretching over a fifth of the southern land’s mass. The largest pass between Victor’s Range and the Kurdo Range was a highway that led from the Gate towards the second largest city on the planet, Bouldgrad. The second highway led along the edge of the Victor’s Range and the Smolder fields, almost a two thousand miles, to the largest factory site of the Adeptus Mechanicus on the planet at Volitite City.
    All of these factors created a problem for the Imperials on the planet. On one hand the Gate was a key point in holding the second largest continent on the planet. It also had so much meaning for those who fought and died for the planet. On the other its defenses were largely looked at as secondary compared to the capital city which meant that, though they were manned, some of the systems were old and to the more modern era of the planet, out dated. To say that the Gate was weak however is an understatement. The lands before the Gate were filled with pillboxes equipped with a number of anti-personnel and anti-armor pieces. These individual pillboxes were set up so that the neighbor could cover the flanks of each other, combined with connecting tunnels this provided for a quick and easy way to get ammunition and men to the most needed areas.
     Stretched between these pillboxes were laid countless thousands of mines, miles of razor wire and enough trenches to fit an entire regiment inside of them. But that still didn’t change the fact that now, after years of neglect to only the key components, the lands around the Gate could use months more of preparation. General Adbine Julius Marteen shook his head and sighed as he cast his gaze over the killing ground. Three weeks ago he arrived at Baultaur Gate to do a snap inspection. Three weeks ago his Commissar had killed the then acting Commander of the Gate for negligence given the invasion and his lackluster spirit in defense of one of the planet‘s holiest sites. He didn’t think about that now. No, what was on his mind was how he was going to cobble together a defense from a moral stricken regiment.
    Under orders from High Field Command in the capital a large company of men and machines were sent out up the highway to harass any scouting elements of the Enemy. The men had barely been gone for half a day before reporting that they were engaging with enemy units who had come out of the Smolder Fields. How the enemy could have worked their way through that mess of land without the use of the Adeptus Mechanicus’s shielded highways was beyond him. The rest of the night saw the company of men whittled down further and further until dawn the next day when the survivors managed to make their way back to the Gate. Countless cries over the vox were heard yet any sort of useful aid was thwarted by the electrical storms that brewed over the mountain.
    The broken men that returned reported that the units of the Enemy were not scouting forces but in fact similar forces in size and scope to their own. General Marteen shook his head. Leave it to High Field Command to not have the information straight. Typical of those who fight wars thousands of miles away and the General knew that this was not something so uncommon in a galaxy continuously at war. Or for that matter the nature of war itself fought through the ages. A sharp crack of electrical discharge brought him out of his thoughts. Looking up at the might bastion that stood behind him he felt a sense of pride at what he had been able to do so far.
    Patrols were changed for the better. Failing equipment was slowly being changed out with help from regular flights of Drogg supply ships coming in from the Mechanicus Forge city in the Smolder Fields. Already countless failures of the lowly soldier to the command structure itself were being sorted out by the General’s own Commissar. Things were looking bright, even given the circumstances. Invasion. The thought of it could cause anyone to wonder why? Why was their planet, a loyal planet in the folds of a defended sector the target for an invasion? No warnings. No ripples through the warp. One day the world spun as it always did, the next the enemy, the Arch Enemy was upon their doorstep.
    General Marteen watched as the latest current of electrical discharge played across the killing grounds. The scene was eerie, even for someone such as himself whose first posting was the Baultaur Gate when he was fresh out of the barracks. Something didn’t feel quite right, even to one as seasoned as he was. It was as though the fortifications themselves had changed, warped slightly in some way. He put this off however. The moral in the Gate would sink even further should they see their leader so affected. Casting one last look over the battlements, the work gangs slaving away to fix the years of neglect, the electrical discharges from the storm, the General finally turned and walked deeper into the Gate, content for the moment that the hundreds of heavy guns pointed out into the killing grounds and the very walls themselves were safe for the moment.
 

[Carrack]

I really liked the second part. I think you firmly established a setting for an upcoming battle with your descriptions of the fortifications and the lay of the land. The sense of unease the General felt was good foreshadowing too.

[Goreshed]

Thanks. I like to take the time to flesh things out as I go along to help tell the story. My apologizes for not having one out sooner, work has picked up drastically and I had to spend much of the day today working on the electrical aspects of the house. Enjoy chapter three.

 

Chapter 3: Wastes of Pain

    Out beyond the blue white discharge of the electrical storms, beyond the sweating mass of penal workers, beyond even the range of the heavy guns and silent ears listening for any warning of the Arch Enemy, Mardox stood next to his Warstalker. The body of Private Hur was beginning to enter the second stages of decay, the smell however was lost to the stench of the Smolder Fields only a dozen or so miles away. For a while Mardox stood there with his long range scope, boosted by powers from the warp, looking at the fortification that lay before him. Though he couldn’t make out a lot of the details the telling signs were there, there enough to be given voice back to his masters. He pulled the warp fueled scope away from his eye, hiding his grimace as he felt the tendrils of something not of this world pulling themselves from his eye socket.
    He motioned behind him and another Warstalker plodded up beside him. This one was slightly different then the rest. A Warstalker could be compared to the loyalist Guards Sentinels however the largest divergent is the sheer amount of styles that one could find. Within the Warstalker grouping there were those specialized for all occasions. From recon, to anti tank or person, to communications. From there you also have the indulgence of each pilot, anything from skulls to chains or extra weapons or even the very coloring of their machine. His unit officially was known as the 56th Warstalker Fang, but to the common slave and soldier they were known as the Slaughterfangs, their reputation as one of the most violent and hardened killing units of the mortal armies. Their exploits on Carakuta only a short few years ago earned them special privileges never before given to mortals who served under the demi-gods of chaos.
    Many looked upon them with a mixture, a mixture of what Mardox didn’t care. What he did care about was ensuring that his masters knew what he had found out. The Warstalker came to rest before him, angling itself slightly before kneeling down into the dark gravel. Looking up into the cockpit all Mardox could see was the multitude of faces. At one point the human being inside of the cockpit had been known as Private First Class Emeli Brodent. At one point. Now, years after she threw herself into the glory of chaos she was simply known as Scream, a efficient hunter but one whose love of torture knew no bounds. The faces covering her cockpit were of those who most likely did not wish to have ended up there but such is the fate of those who court walking death.
    Thinking back Mardox couldn’t remember the last time he had actually seen Sceam’s face but that didn’t matter. Like a drug addict coming off of a fix the warp machine in his hands buzzed and hissed. He hate how much that little machine took out of him each time he used it but it was a far better outcome then serving in the Death Machines. With practiced ease he jumped up onto the rear of Sceam’s steed as the metal petals opened to receive the warp scope. Carefully Mardox slotted the scope home into the specially built alcove and stepped back as the metal petals closed once more. For a while nothing seemed to happen but he knew better. Scream was silently broadcasting the information back to their masters even as Mardox stared at the antenna array on the machine as if he could try to make out the message.
    For a long moment all that could be heard across the plains was the idle growls of the rest of the pack’s steeds, all of them knew better then to disrupt what was happening. The last fool that had done so was still being dragged behind one of the pack’s steed like some child’s plaything even those most of the carcass was barely recognizable as having once been human. Scream suddenly stood up and data began to in load through the scrap code into the small data pad that Mardox wore as his hip. Scrolling, Mardox looked the information over before nodding once to Scream. The message was simple and he expected nothing less. Their maters had received the information and the Slaughterfangs would be rewarded at their next hold over for their work, they were to move onto the next phase of their plans.
    Without thinking about it Mardox was already in the cockpit of his own Warstalker, keying up the power and checking the rest of his pack over. They were all anxious and he knew it. This part of the operations always kept the ‘Fangs on edge because soon they were be delegated to other uses and ones that did not bring the sheer joy of hunting down prey in the wilds of the planets they conquered. A few impatient questions came over the inter pack communications but Mardox paid them no mind. His soldiers were thinking they were already having to head back to their outpost and loose out on more fun but that would not be so. The second part of the message Scream had relayed to him would give them just the fun they were looking for. With a sadistic grin on his face Mardox brought his steed to a standing position before casting one last look towards the barely visible fortress and chuckled. The fools did not know what was going to hit them and he prayed to the Dark Gods that fight that happened next would be glorious for his masters.