‘Something is happening,’ I said, but the warning came too late. Multiple beams of energy erupted from the undergrowth. They swung wildly through the air, seemingly at random, until one shone upon the descending Thunder­bolt. The instant it did, the craft was wrenched from the sky, plummeting like a rock.

I did not see where it fell, for the sky was now filled with bullets and explosions.

Chapter seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I had seen war. I had witnessed Imperial convoys clash with vile heretics, and captured the brutality of the killing ground between them. But even as the bodies fell, there was an order to it, lines ebbing and flowing as dominance was sought. There were feints and flanking manoeuvres, but these are time-tested tactics, another part of the great game of war.

I am sure it was different on the front lines, where the bullets were flying and bodies piling up. But even that would have seemed a coordinated conflict compared to the madness that unfolded a mile above the swamp. The ork fighters appeared from nowhere, hurling themselves towards the bombers, as though seeking to ram them. The Thunderbolts ran interception, their autocannons spitting a hail of shells and tearing the orks from the sky.

But an instant later another wave would be on us.

‘I need an eye down there!’ Shard bellowed. ‘Where are they coming from?’

It made no sense. There were no runways below, not with the encroaching vines. I had shifted Mizar to more conventional optics to better capture the battle, but there was still a glimmer from that strange energy source.

‘Whatever it is, it’s almost below us,’ I said.

Shard swore. ‘Screw it. We’re diving. Keep formation. Nocter, you have the lead.’

The view shifted as Hephaestus swooped downward, the sky receding as gnarl-vines flooded the viewscreen.

Then suddenly they were gone. There were no vines, or rather those that lingered were confined to the edges of a vast platform that dominated the swamp. Its construction held an echo of the vine-fruit refineries, but monstrous in size, having been assembled from the corpses of a dozen lesser platforms. Upon it was crafted a strange effigy: a crude orkish face welded from scrap. It was angled towards the sky, grinning with metal fangs that were embedded in a jaw wide enough to swallow Hephaestus whole. Beneath it, orks were scrambling to their aircraft, while strange cannons crewed by greenskin runts hurled beams of light that seemed to rob the Thunderbolts of their momentum, along with quite a few of the ork planes that became caught in the crossfire. Whether this was due to the weapons’ innate inaccuracy or because the runt gunners were unperturbed by friendly fire, it was impossible to say.

Shard engaged the vox.

‘Squads Raptor and Arrow, clear a path. Nocter, stay in reserve. Bombers, you have your target. Save the payload until we are closer. Wait for my signal.’