Then Gdolkin saw it: the blocky shape of a Chimera chassis, not thirty metres from his position. The vehicle was lying on its side, tracks torn and missing, bodies spilling out of it haphazardly, wearing the uniform of the tech-guard of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Whatever had taken out the Chimera and its crew hadn't damaged its shell magazine, otherwise there wouldn't have been anything left of the vehicle at all.

It should at least provide some cover, the Iron-Father thought, and he began powering towards it. There was the subsonic retort of a heavy weapon firing and Gdolkin flung himself forward just a split-second before the ground erupted behind him at the shuddering impact of a shell fired from the defiler's main cannon. Mud and fragments of rock-crete rained down on the Iron Hand but in a second he was up and running again.

He slewed to a halt around the side of the Chimera as the defiler hobbled after him, an abrasive bark being emitted from the vox-grille of its amphibian-helm, the throbbing of its engine accompanying it with a low-pitched, bestial growl.

Gdolkin was aware of an acid hiss. Scanning the exposed underside of the Chimera he was now sheltering behind, he saw that its fuel cell had ruptured and was leaking.

Then he knew how he could stop the accursed Ebolus.

Gdolkin's servo-arm clamp pulled open the damaged panel covering the Chimera's fuel cell whilst with his two free hands he planted more of the frag grenades he was carrying in the battery breech. He could hear the daemon-engine's snarls nearer now. It was almost on top of him.

He pulled away just as a pincer appeared over the top of the side of the tank. Bolt pistol in hand he backed away rapidly as the defiler took hold of the hull of the Chimera in its massive front cutter-claws and with a deafening screeching began to tear the chassis apart in angry frustration.

Gdolkin took aim, his ocular implant targeters locking onto the breach in the battery core, and fired. A single miniature mass-reactive missile shot from the gun and struck one of the grenades planted inside the fuel cell cavity. There was the explosion of a frag grenade detonating followed a split-second later by the boom of the battery core detonating and the contents of the Chimera's magazine with it.

The battlefield was lit up as the defiler disappeared in a sheet of incandescent flame. Gdolkin felt the heat-wash of the explosion as the Shockwave of the blast bowled him over.

For a moment the Iron-Father was blinded again as his eyes - organic and augmetic - adjusted to the brilliance of the flare of the explosion. As he blinked his vision clear he saw the broken carcass of the Chaos-engine lying at the edge of a wide crater where the wrecked Chimera had been only moments before. The defiler was lying on one side, claw-limbs buckled and fused beneath it. Its other legs twitched in the air. There was a grating, clunking sound as the daemon-machine tried to turn its ruptured turret-body and right itself. There was nothing left of the defiler's mechadendrite tentacles.