Engines of War Read Online Free PDF

Skies ’s armour plating and almost drowned out by its engine. Still, the signal it sent out was clear enough. Battle had been joined.
    The Predator Destructors ahead of him strafed the enemy while they had the chance, and the daemon creatures – scores of them – surged forward, snarling and salivating. On Captain Numitor’s orders two hundred Space Marines broke into a full charge, and the opposing forces met in a savage explosion of fire, metal, entrails and blood.
    Arkelius dragged his eyes away from the grisly spectacle.
    He couldn’t be distracted by what was happening on the ground. Not today. Today, his primary concern had to be with what was happening above it. His new charge was named the Scourge of the Skies for a reason.
    A squadron of Imperial Stormtalons had entered the fray, screaming noisily over Arkelius’s head, appearing in his limited field of vision a moment later. A couple of daemon riders were riddled by the gunships’ assault cannons, thrown backwards from their insect mounts, while at least one of the giant flies too was blasted to pieces.
    Several of them kept coming, nevertheless, soaring effortlessly over the melee on the ground, and suddenly it became clear to Arkelius that their targets were the big guns at the rear of the battlefield, the Scourge of the Skies and its fellows.
    Not a moment too soon came the order from Captain Numitor for all artillery units to halt and to hold their positions, firing at the enemy at will.
    ‘Corbin, step on the brakes, but keep the engine ticking over,’ Arkelius instructed. ‘Iunus, pick a target – an airborne target – and lock onto it. Find a mount with a rider if you can. That way, we have a chance of scoring two kills with a single hit.’
    Corbin voxed him, ‘If there’s time, we should plant the stabilisers before we–’
    ‘Yes,’ said Arkelius, tersely, ‘thank you, brother, I am aware of that. Lower the stabilisers.’
    ‘I have a target lock, sergeant,’ reported Iunus. ‘Permission to–’
    Arkelius interrupted him, ‘Yes, do it, just–’
    Something small and round came spinning towards his vision slit – a grenade? It looked more like a skull to him. Presumably, one of the daemon insect-riders had flung it, though Arkelius hadn’t seen it. The skull bounced off the Scourge ’s prow with a blinding flash, and the Hunter was rocked violently. Arkelius planted his hands on the bulkheads around him, to brace himself, as warning runes flashed red across his control banks.
    ‘Damage report,’ he snapped, ‘quickly.’
    ‘I’m running diagnostics now, sergeant,’ reported Corbin.
    Behind Arkelius, Iunus had been jolted almost out of his seat by the explosion. Catching hold of a grab rail, he levered his armoured bulk back into position. ‘Do you still have that target lock?’ Arkelius asked him, and, checking his monitors, Iunus confirmed that he did.
    He tightened his hand around a trigger, and the Scourge was rocked again, this time by a punishing recoil from its rooftop missile launcher. Had its stabilisers not been sunk into the ground, it might well have been toppled onto its side.
    A sleek blue rocket shot away from the Hunter towards the stars. Arkelius craned forward to follow its exhaust trail with his eyes. The missile smacked into its targets – a fly and its daemon rider – and consumed them in a bloom of flame.
    The hit must have registered on Iunus’s monitors too, because he couldn’t hold in a curt exclamation of triumph. He was still young; at least, he appeared so to Arkelius. Iunus’s face, he had noted that morning, was smooth and unscarred and his eyes were still blue and clear.
    A perusal of his record had confirmed it: he had been a scout until as recently as four years ago, and since then had served only in his current role. As a tank gunner, Iunus would not have experienced combat as Arkelius knew it. How often, he wondered, had Iunus stood toe-to-toe with a heretic or a perverted mutant