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They were too late, Havorn thought. The Terminators were already past them and his body was old and slow. He cursed the debilities of age and pushed himself on. Fallen Elysians and Skitarii lay strewn across the ground, as well as the occasional bulky form of a fallen enemy. Few of them were truly dead and they lashed out, grabbing and killing any foe within their reach. Even at the point of death they were more than a match for a Guardsman.

The ogryn raised its heavy ripper gun, a thick finger pulling the trigger. Empty shells scattered in its wake. It did not roar or bellow as it charged. Such base, animalistic behaviours had been erased from its simple brainpan, but no amount of augmetics could improve the aim of the ogryn and the bullets from its ripper gun sprayed the area, hitting nothing.

Havorn snapped off a shot with his pistol, the streaming blue-white bolt of plasma dropping one of the Terminators.

Bolter fire raked towards him, striking the hulking abhuman, who grimaced in pain. Chunks of flesh were torn from its arms and chest, but the three metre creature that dwarfed even the Terminators did not slow. It lowered a shoulder and smashed into one of the enemy, knocking it from its feet. Raising the butt of its heavy ripper gun, the ogryn began caving in the helmet of the fallen warrior, smashing it down onto the prone traitor again and again.

Skitarii and Guardsmen were all around Havorn, filling the air with las-fire and high-velocity bolts. The traitors were on the steps and held a tight defensive formation. More than half of the bastards had been taken down, most from the devastation wrought by the Titan's cannons and the powerful weaponry of the elite tech-guard warriors. It would be but moments before they breached the blast doors that led into the Titan.

'Take them down, men of Elysia!' he hollered, his steely, field parade voice carrying over the din of battle.

Suddenly, victory was snatched away as the Titan raised its massive foot high up into the air, carrying with it the traitor Terminators and hundreds of tech-guard warriors still fighting upon the steps. Many of them were knocked off as the Exemplis raised its leg, falling ten metres to the valley floor as the foot was raised higher and higher.

'Damn it!' swore Havorn.

'We are through, Lord Coryphaus,' reported one his Anointed brethren. The chainfists had made short work of the blast doors that had sealed the entrance to the leg bastion, carving through the thick metal with a minimum of fuss.

'Into the breach!' roared Kol Badar as he crushed the augmented, semi-mechanical skull of a Skitarii warrior and hurled it over the edge as the Titan's leg continued to rise. At his command, the Anointed entered the Imperator class Titan.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Flames roared up the spiralling metal staircase, clearing the way. Two abreast, the Terminators had been climbing for what seemed like an age, assailed from above and below by an apparently never-ending stream of Skitarii warriors. Inbuilt defence turrets were stationed at every second level, their hard-wired servitor controllers built into the heavy wall panels of the interior staircase, and they swung their weaponry upon the intruders, filling the cloying, hot air with shells and gunsmoke.

It was hard going, the Word Bearers forced to fight for every step of the mammoth climb up the interior of the Titan's lower leg. Kol Badar's destroyed eye, still with the shrapnel shard jutting from the socket, was throbbing in his head, but he pushed the sensation away as he stamped up the heavy, grilled stairway, blazing away with his combi-bolter.

He was at the front of the line of Terminators, the heavy-flamer wielding Anointed warrior Bokkar at his side. Between the flames of his comrade and the bolts of his combi-weapon, few of the Skitarii could stand against them. Those few that survived were ripped apart by the warlord's power claws and hurled over the railing to fall down the open expanse in the centre of the spiralling stairwell to join a growing pile of sparking, shattered corpses.

The resistance from above slackened. Clearly the last of the Skitarii had been neutralised, leaving just the inbuilt, servitor-guided sentry guns to hamper their progress. The going was unsteady as the heavy Titan foot smashed down into the ground with devastating force and rose once more into the air.

Kol Badar allowed a pair of cult members wielding reaper autocannons to advance past him, for their powerful guns were able to rip through the armoured plating protecting the sentry guns far more efficiently than flame or bolt. It was a torturous task, for they had to advance up through a barrage of gunfire before they could get a clear shot at the servitor housed just beneath the turret, but time was of the essence.