dtnovels Chapter 185 185: The Skaven Way of War
Chapter 185 185: The Skaven Way of War
The orbital defense platforms of Clan Angrund roared incessantly, their fire turning countless drop-pods and landing craft into a rain of burning wreckage every passing second.
Yet, compared to the sheer, torrential volume of the assault, these losses seemed insignificant. These ramshackle pods, the polar opposite of the disciplined, professional engineering of the Leagues of Votann, often fell apart mid-descent, spilling their passengers into the void before impact. They were built to a single, brutal standard: mass efficiency.
The first wave of Skaven drop-pods slammed down by the tens of thousands. The lucky survivors kicked open warped hatches, desperate to flee the cramped, tin-can interiors. They gulped down the fresh air, a welcome relief from the suffocating stench of rodent kin—a foul cocktail of fleas, dried blood, and sewer filth—before converging with their brethren into a vast, verminous tide.
"Lord Gnawdwell commands-orders! Take a stuntie's head, rise a rank-tier!" shrieked a Skaven Warlord clad in scavenged power armor, his voice amplified by a bizarre, crackling vox-loudspeaker.
At this decree, the ratmen surged with renewed fanaticism. Life for a Slave Rat is a cycle of misery; a Clan Rat's existence is only marginally better. Every Skaven harbors a desperate urge to climb the social hierarchy; even Stormvermin dream of becoming the mighty, long-lived Ironclaw Warriors. Because of Gnawdwell's absolute authority, the swarms believed his promise. Their morale reached a fever pitch.
This was exactly as Gnawdwell intended. Very few would live long enough to claim a reward, but should a Skaven prove lucky and lethal enough to survive, he was a specimen worth the Warlord's kept promise.
Massive rats scurried alongside their upright kin, a flood of pests preceding the Skaven host. As they charged, they did not merely devour any flesh that dared stand before them; they set their serrated teeth and filth-encrusted claws to the very steel of the enemy's armaments.
The Skaven horde rapidly bifurcated and encircled the fortified but isolated Votann positions. Outlying Kinhosts, caught in the open, formed defensive laagers, using their Sagitaur ATVs and Hekaton Land Fortresses as improvised ramparts.
The Kin unleashed the precise, unrelenting fury of their technology. Plasma weapons that never overheated and Bolters far more advanced than those of the Adeptus Astartes, augmented by hunter-module sub-routines, spat death into the vermin ranks. Even a glancing blow from these masterwork weapons was enough to obliterate a Skaven's spindly frame. But there were simply too many of them.
Shoulder to shoulder, a literal sea of fur and spite, the chattering pests were driven forward by the crush of those behind them. Those in the front, trapped between the Kin's fire and the frantic shoving of their peers, saw their terror transmute into suicidal madness. They emptied the jagged shards of warpstone from their Warp-pistols in wild volleys before lunging forward with rusted blades.
"Squeek-kill! DIE-DIE!" A Skaven Slave, pushed to the brink of insanity by fear, scrambled over the mangled remains of countless comrades to reach the thick hull of a Sagitaur, hacking futilely at the reinforced plating.
His blade left only a microscopic white scratch before he was buried under a fresh mound of Slave Rats. They howled and raged, using the fallen as stepping stones, indifferent to the fate of those below who had survived the enemy's gauntlet only to be trampled to death by their own kind.
Living mountains of Skaven eventually crested the towering hulls of the Votann vehicles, spilling into the heart of the Kin's formation.
"For the Votann Ancestors! For the Urani-Surtr Regulates!" cried the Hearthkyn Warriors. Clad in superior void-suits and wielding power swords alongside plasma and bolt weaponry, the bedrock of the Votann military met the overwhelming odds without a flicker of hesitation.
Triggers were depressed; plasma bolts core-burned through Skaven bodies, but more ratmen stepped over the dying to press the assault. They swarmed over the Hearthkyn's void-suits, firing pistols point-blank, stabbing with knives, and even tearing with their teeth.
One by one, these isolated pockets of Kin were swallowed by the gray tide. On the surface of Luny, the Votann holdings were reduced to fragmented islands of city-fortresses and keeps. Consequently, many orbital defense positions were overrun. Except for the skies above the most heavily shielded fortress-cities, the planet lay wide open to the Skaven.
"The time... the time is now, YES! We go-move!" Atop his flagship, the Scarlet Harvest, Queek Headtaker watched the fading dots of resistance on the ship's auspex. He nodded, the severed head of a Kin pinned to his trophy rack seemingly whispering to him where the weaknesses lay and where the killing blow should fall.
Queek listened to the imaginary grumbling of the long-dead Kin, nodding before snapping irritably, "Pannibo, you cursed stuntie, stop-stop your babbling!"
His Scarlet Guard, long accustomed to their master's eccentricities, stood ready as the true Skaven engines of war began boarding the heavy drop-ships and transports.
Durgar Ironhammer held the line within the primary Hold-Fortress of Luny, his jaw set in a grim mask. As a powerful Kindred within the League, they should not have been breached so swiftly. However, to fulfill his oaths, Belegar had taken the lion's share of their strength and the Votann Core itself. They were under-strength and over-extended.
Currently, the Kin and Ironkin on Luny numbered only about a million. Without the Votann Core, every casualty was permanent, there would be no clones to replace the fallen. Yet, they fought on without regret.
Rows of Hearthkyn poured fire from the battlements, walls far grander and more resilient than those of any human Hive. Railguns and pulse cannons, tech far exceeding that of the T'au Empire, fired in ceaseless cadences. Whatever ramshackle war machines the Skaven cobbled together below were swatted aside like flies.
But soon, the heavy transports touched down. Warlock Engineers drove their apprentices and slaves to strip every captured Votann structure, repurposing every scrap of salvage and refuse.
The true horrors of Skaven ingenuity were unleashed: Doom-Flayers, Doomwheels, Warp-lightning Cannons, and the dreaded Ratling Warpblasters, six-barreled gatling guns mounted on massive twin-wheeled carriages, alongside Avalanche Mortars and Plagueclaws.
First came the Mini-Doomrockets, one-shot, high-yield weapons with ranges as vast as their accuracy was erratic. Guided by the unstable whims of the Warlock Engineers, they streaked toward the Votann keeps, trailing erratic plumes of sickly green flame. Though smaller than a standard Doomrocket, these were "dirty bombs" laden with extreme corrosive and mutagenic properties.
The Votann railguns found it nearly impossible to intercept these man-sized projectiles, whose flight paths were a mystery even to the Skaven firing them. As the rockets impacted, the Warp-tainted chemicals began to eat away at the fortress walls, turning reinforced alloy brittle and corrupt.
Then came the 203mm Avalanche Mortars, lobbing massive Poisoned Wind globes alongside the high-velocity discharge of Warp-lightning Cannons. The lightning punched through the weakened sections of the curtain wall, allowing the toxic clouds of the gas globes to billow into the breaches.
The counter-fire from the Votann keep withered by thirty percent, a margin the Skaven were quick to exploit. Poisoned Wind Mortar teams and Jezzail snipers moved into the vanguard, providing long-range suppression.
Finally, the Warpblasters roared to life, their engines thrumming with mechanical spite as they unleashed a Ratling-speed hail of warp-lead against the corroded gates. The deluge of fire shredded the alloy, and as the gates buckled, a sea of Slave Rats poured through the gap. Behind them, the Clan Rats followed, cautiously shoving and jostling one another, taking cover to trade Warp-rifle fire with the remaining Kin defenders.
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