The Beast Arises

Smoke was swiftly clearing with the onshore breeze. As the soot and ash whirled in the wind Allegra stepped out, onto charred bodies. The shoreline was carpeted with blackened xenos corpses. The commander found herself nodding with satisfaction, but she knew the beasts would be back — and in number. Offshore, Allegra could see a few remaining guardsmen swamped by orks who were overrunning their battered landing craft. The Maritine cutter that the commander had also been pinning her hopes on was now listing horribly as some greenskin titan seized it from below. About the craft, the pontoon shanties — in chaotic disarray — had fragmented and were floating away from one another in ramshackle sections. The shoreline was overrun and the absence of their assigned evacuation had been a blow, but Allegra couldn’t afford to wait any longer. The Screeching Eagles simply couldn’t hold the perimeter.

‘The pontoons,’ the commander ordered. ‘Make for the pontoons.’

Directing the remaining guardsmen into two columns, Gohlandr barked at the Lord Governor and his freakish retinue to run into the shallows. Many of the spireborns had never been near the waters for fear of pollutant contamination. They were not keen on stumbling into the chemical shallows, but the heart-stopping vision of green fiends stomping up through the cadavers of their monster-kin lent the aristocrats resolve. Cutting a path through the surf with savage bursts of las-fire and lobbed frag grenades, Gohlandr led the way through the hazards of emerging orks.

Clambering up the side of a pontoon platform bearing part of the shattered shanty, the chief took the frail Lord Governor from his exhausted valets and hauled him up onto the amphibious community. As the Marineers and their charges climbed aboard, shanty wretches emerged from hiding. They extended emaciated arms and skeletal hands to help the screaming survivors — survivors they did not know were their palace-dwelling betters.

Like some death world reptile, a hulking greenskin tramped up the scorched shoreline towards the fleeing rescue party. It towered above the other examples of its species that were swarming up the coast. The creature grizzled to itself as it smashed the monstrous weapon it was heaving with a frustrated fist. It shook the rotor-cannon, and water cascaded from the barrels.

Another savage shake and the weapon stuttered to reluctant life. The unexpected eruption of shells tore through the unfortunate greenskins in front before the creature angled its fire up the shore and cut the rescue party in half. With the shallows thrashing and spitting in the gunfire, Allegra fell forwards into the sea.

She was only below the surface for a few seconds but as she emerged she felt her eyes burn and her skin sear from the chemicals in the water. Finding her way back to her feet, she started wading back towards the shore. Commandant Szekes and a handful of guardsmen had been cut off by the wall of bullets unleashed by the advancing beast.

‘Commander!’ Lyle Gohlandr roared. There was nothing she could do, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn her back on her men. It was over quickly. Greenskins bounded through desperate las-fire to maul the Undine Marineers. Szekes blasted through several thuggish creatures before his combat shotgun ran empty. Throwing the weapon at an ork bulldozing its way at him, the enforcer drew his crackling power maul; but as he readied himself to bury the weapon in the creature’s domed skull, he did not see a larger monster cannon through the advancing ranks behind him.

The beast smashed the enforcer to the side with one swing of its brute hammer. Szekes’ broken body landed some distance away in a mound of bloody bones and torn carapace. The sight brought Allegra to her senses and she turned, striding through the shallows for the drifting shanty.

Helped up onto the pontoon by one of the Lord Governor’s spire guardians, Allegra looked up, searching for Chief Gohlandr. Greenskins were clambering up the rusted metal drums and flotation tanks, only to meet the barrels of assault lasrifles pointing down at them. A number broke through and charged wildly about the corrugated habs, multi-shacks and hovels, but were blasted off-board by the two remaining enforcers. The pontoon shanty was floating away from the hive, but not nearly fast enough. The blood-splattered landing craft now belonged to the orks, and the cutter was sinking. The monstrous greenskin that had done for the vessel was aflame; there was fire on the water, with the inferno cannon’s ruptured tanks bleeding promethium across the surface of the sea. With the craft conquered, the beast disappeared below the flickering waves, dousing its flame-tangled form.