After regrouping, the Second and Eleventh Chapters once again marched into battle.
The two Chapters, alongside the House Vextrix Knights, launched assaults on the orks' fortresses to the northwest and southwest.
Captain Wilshire stood before his warriors and gave a speech.
Those listening were not only his own squad but ten others as well.
Though they were equals, the other captains instinctively gathered behind him, not only because he was a Knight of the Court, but because he inspired confidence.
Wilshire's voice boomed through an amplifier, something he had asked a tech-sergeant to fashion for him, so that his speeches and his song could carry their full force.
"Do you know me?"
His roar rose above even the rumble of engines.
"Yes!"
The answer came as one.
"I am Wilshire!"
Cheers rang out in reply, but that was not enough.
"Today is our day of glory. By the command of our Monarch, we will purge the greenskins."
"Will you stand with me?"
"We will!"
Over a hundred Shadows of Order bellowed their assent, following close behind him.
Beside them, the engines roared and then quieted as the green-painted Knight-suits of the House Vextrix strode off the landing deck.
Ward Sitra sat within the cockpit of the Glorious Victory, torrents of data streaming into his neural plugs.
Runes scrolled across his retina as he peered through the Knight's auger arrays at the battlefield beyond.
He was one with the Glorious Victory, sharing in its hunger for battle.
For the first time in millennia, they had left Daxos to take part in war among the stars once more.
Knight King Campbell Vextrix commanded the attack on the southwestern fortress, while Ward, the strongest Knight after the King himself, took charge of the northwestern front.
Nineteen Knights followed the Glorious Victory: among them Bowen Delicia's Shield of Daxos and Alvarez de Goes's Sacred Mars.
Ward opened the vox comms, his stern voice rumbling across the net.
"Power up your engines!"
The Glorious Victory was first to stir, smoke and incense venting from its exhausts, hydraulic muscles tensing, gears grinding into motion.
Twenty Knights advanced swiftly toward the ork fortress.
When the walls came into view, Ward's voice thundered over the link.
"Knights of Daxos, scions of Vextrix, Delicia, Sitra! Today we obey the command of the Monarc Nareth. We are the flame of cleansing."
"For the Monarch and for Daxos!"
All twenty Knights raised their ion shields as one.
On the southern wall of the fortress, the Glorious Victory's Avenger Gatling Cannon screamed, spewing a torrent of shells. Walls crumbled, and the orks behind them were torn into gore.
To the left, Sacred Mars and to the right, Shield of Daxos advanced to the wall's corners. Their thermal cannons flared, targeting data flooding their pilots' minds, the ground quaking underfoot.
Blinding blasts shattered the bastions; corners collapsed in fire. Ork runes winked out in droves as buildings fell.
Other Knights spun up their autocannons, sweeping the parapets. Green flesh burst and splattered in the storm of fire.
The orks' guns roared back, shells slamming into the oncoming Knights.
"Raise shields!" Ward commanded.
Ion shields locked into place. Explosions burst against their glowing barriers, ricocheting away.
The Glorious Victory charged, slamming its armored fist into the wall.
Stone cracked and thundered down.
Another punch, driving into the Gatling-blasted breach,
CRASH!
The wall gave way, and the Knights stormed through.
Orks surged forward with bellows, only to be smashed apart by the Glorious Victory's gauntleted fists.
At the corners, Bowen and Alvarez swung their chainswords, shrieking blades biting into stone. More walls collapsed, and their Knights crashed through.
The Knights of Daxos had breached the ork fortress.
At the southeastern angle, Wilshire opened his mouth and sang.
Amplified, his chant swept across the battlefield.
One hundred and nine Shadows of Order looked to the back of the "Bard." The song wrapped around them, into their very bodies.
They felt courage fill their hearts. They felt stronger, faster.
The Bard surged forward, singing still.
The Shadows followed. Their steps grew lighter, swifter.
It was not frenzy alone, their speed truly had increased.
They vaulted the breach, their black armor flashing, weapons lashing out in a storm of slaughter.
They were whirlwinds amid the green tide, cutting without mercy.
The Bard led them, his own body empowered by the song.
Wilshire swung his thunder hammer, the blue field of its disintegration arc flashing like lightning, tearing orks into scraps.
Inside the Glorious Victory, warning runes flared across Ward's vision. A section of his augurs screamed with frantic signals.
He almost unleashed his heavy guns, until the markers shifted green, tagged as allies.
He blinked, focused. The blurred hololith cleared, and towering figures emerged from the ork horde.
Black-armored Astartes. Shadows of Order.
A hundred of them, racing ahead of the Knights, faster even than the titanic war machines.
Their kill-count rivaled the Knights themselves.
Ward remembered, time and again, the elite of Daxos had been outmatched by the Shadows.
The voice of the Throne of Iron growled through his neural links, and Ward roared into the comms:
"For Daxos, charge!"
Servos howled. Iron feet thundered.
With every sweep of his gauntlets, Ward pulped scores of orks.
But the true prize lay deeper, the ork warboss. Honor demanded the Knights claim its head for Daxos.
The Glorious Victory smashed through bunkers, the auger updating until at last the warboss appeared.
Three meters tall, swinging a cleaver two meters long.
Wilshire had seen him too. His quarry, his tribute to his gene-father.
The Bard sang louder than the roar of battle.
Power surged within him. In an instant, he leapt past the Glorious Victory to stand before the hulking brute.
The ork raised its cleaver,
And Wilshire's hammer rose from below, its disintegration field tearing through ribs and flesh.
Ward arrived two steps too late, just in time to see the warboss shredded. He wrenched the Knight to the side in frustration; servos sparked, armor groaned.
Behind him, Wilshire's expression was calm. He whispered to himself as if in quiet revelation:
"I too have awakened the gift of Warp Insight."
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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