Engines of War by Steve Lyons

– a hillock, or, more likely, an armoured corpse – and, briefly, his vision slit pointed up at the overcast sky. He saw the jagged warp rift and quickly wrenched his eyes away from its purple glare. At least its close proximity told him that they were finally nearing their objective.
    Standing in their way, of course, was a line of enemy tanks.
    There were several Chaos Predators among them. Most of the tanks, however, were Vindicators: siege engines, fitted with Demolisher cannons and dozer-blades. Their Death Guard owners had modified them in other ways too: more bizarre and horrifying ways.
    Directly ahead of the Scourge , one tank had slimy tentacles sprouting from its hull and it was coughing up gouts of flame; another daemon-engine, it seemed. Most of the tanks were daubed with blazing Chaos runes, which made them painful to look at.
    They had played little part in the fighting thus far, and had waited in silence for their enemies to come to them. As the battlefield began to clear, however – as the risk of causing collateral damage diminished – they were bringing their guns to bear.
    Two Ultramarines were struck by Demolisher shells and vaporised.
    Arkelius held the Scourge of the Skies back, alongside its sister Hunter – the Vengeance of Daedalus – and the two Stalkers. He let the Imperial Predator Destructors edge ahead of them. Their autocannons blazed, as did the lascannons in their sponsons, to which the enemy artillery were quick to respond in kind.
    The enemy tanks were well within the Skyspear’s range now – and close enough for Iunus to get a target lock on any of them, despite the intervening smoke haze. So, Arkelius had his driver step on the brakes and lower the stabilisers.
    Iunus asked permission to fire a missile. As Arkelius gave it, he heard sobering news through his earpiece: a Predator, one of theirs, had already been destroyed, struck by one of those Demolishers. Its crew hadn’t had time to get out; they had perished in flames.
    ‘All right,’ he snarled, addressing his own crew, ‘this is it! Captain Galenus is dealing with the Death Guard at the fort. That just leaves these unholy machines for us. Blow our way through them, and it’s over. We’ll have done the Emperor proud.’
    As the leader of an infantry squad, he had often given similar speeches before. In the past, though, he had usually believed them.
    The Scourge ’s first Skyspear missile hit the Vindicator in front of them. Arkelius was sure that it had cracked its armour plating, but the tank’s hull flowed like ooze, reforming into a new and even more hideous shape. Its turret spun around to face its attacker.
    A pair of searchlights on the Vindicator’s prow snapped on, glaring through the smoke of the explosion like malevolent eyes. To Arkelius, it seemed as if those eyes were looking right through the front of the Scourge and directly into his soul.
    Galenus learned of Chelaki’s fate over the vox-net.
    He hadn’t known the Doom Eagle, but he would certainly mourn his passing; later, when he had the time. For now, he was just grateful for the gain that his sacrifice had bought.
    He had lost three men from his own small force of ten, but the Apothecaries could probably save some of them, if they could reach them. On the other hand, the bodies of three of the seven Death Guard lay broken and half-buried in Fort Kerberos’s shifting rubble.
    Galenus closed with another of them. As he did so, the Plague Marine’s hollow eyes darkened and he jabbered insanely to himself. Suddenly, a cloud of filth erupted around him, filled with hundreds of thousands of tiny flies. Galenus’s auto-senses went wild, warning him of the threat of infection, and, reluctantly, he fell back.
    His battle-brothers nearby were having more luck. Brother Filion, with a sweep of his chainsword, opened up a fourth Plague Marine’s stomach, and, as the traitor sank to his knees coughing up black bile, Sergeant Thalorus sliced off his