The Emperor's Legion (Watchers of the Throne #1) - Chris Wraight Page 0,119
the chains, swollen into a huge bulkhead that jutted far out into the emptiness. I raced up the nearest stairwell, a rust-thick ladder that wound its way up within a metal cage, Reva hard on my heels.
Just as I got close to the summit, the first bolter fire ricocheted in, smashing through the rotting steelwork and smacking hard into the wall sections beyond. More shots rained down, and I glimpsed legionnaires emerging from access points above us, below us, across the far side of the shaft. Motorised gantries began to creak across the gulf, ready to link the two sides up, and more kill-squads clattered across them, poised to throw themselves right into us.
I kept going, slipping and stumbling, my hands struggling to grip the rungs as the bolt-shells ripped past. We were horribly exposed, open to ranged fire, and once the gantries slammed home the enemy would be free to assault directly. There was almost no cover, just the webs of scaffolding and access ladders, which would do little against fury such as theirs.
I reached the bulkhead, hauled myself through a wide access port and heaved up onto its summit, a flat plane of weathered adamantium no more than ten metres across. Before me stood the chain’s anchorage, a swollen tangle of rockcrete the size of a Land Raider that pinned the first of those enormous great links to the inner wall of the shaft.
Reva emerged beside me, racing across to the bulkhead’s perimeter, firing all the time from her bolt pistol. I took the last of my melta charges and slammed them against the mooring’s bolt mechanism even as the warning klaxons sounded for its release.
Then I was hit on the shoulder, thrown to the floor and dragged along by the momentum. I had a brief impression of the whirling abyss below, and saw the bright disc of Vorlese blurry at the bottom of the shaft, before a firm gauntlet seized me and hauled me back. I found myself staring up at Valerian’s helm for a brief moment, then he vaulted past, firing bolts from his guardian spear and shielding me from further hits.
My melta charges blew in sequence, fusing the massive links to their housing in a sequential burst of roaring plasma. Runes flashing over the arcane machinery suddenly flicked to red, and the heavy chain went taut, kicking out sparks and shaking the entire bulkhead platform. By then others of us had made it to the same vantage, and we clustered there together, Custodians and Sisters alike, firing into the oncoming legionnaires and using what scant cover we could to shield ourselves from the storm of incoming shells.
From below, from where we had emerged, I heard the clang of fresh fighting breaking out – eight of my sisters and two of Valerian’s chamber had remained behind to hold the doorway, and now fought back desperately against the charge from the corridors beyond. More projectiles thudded into the metalwork around us, detonating in splinter-bursts and punching clouds of powderised rockcrete high into the air.
I crouched down, keeping my blade in one hand while I reached for my pistol. Valerian stood beside me then, his heavier armour absorbing hits that would have pulverised mine. Even as I opened fire I could hear the muffled cries of my sisters as they were cut down one by one, the only sound that had passed their lips since the Vow. I saw a Custodian hammered back by a whole welter of heavy impacts, his battleplate bludgeoned into bloody craters and his spear shattered.
The chain still held taut. For as long as we held that bulwark, the shard could not release. I watched the tortured links stretch and spark afresh, straining against the melted armature and opening cracks up in the rockcrete. The mooring locked fast. It would need to be cut loose at close range now before they could complete the launch, and our enemy knew it.
I pushed my back into the charred mass of melted ironwork, firing steadily at the legionnaires who trundled to engage us. We were sitting targets where we were, hemmed in against the bulkhead’s outcrop, our ammunition running down rapidly and our armour already dinked and scored. There were so many of them now, pouring out of every opening, their red lenses glowing amid dark helms, their cursed language echoing against the soaring adamantium walls.
The first of them reached the end of the looming gantries and leapt in among us. Valerian met him with his spear,