The magnetic boot came down hard into loose desert sand, and the impact sent a dry spray of grains scattering outward in a wide circle.
Nolan straightened and pushed the desert camouflage cloak back from the power armor's shoulders, letting it hang freely. Through the helmet's eyepiece he could see two things clearly in the distance: a long, winding column of civilians moving away from the mountain city in organized lines, and the city itself, vast and tiered, carved into and built against the rock face of the mountain behind it like something that had grown there over centuries.
"Lord Primarch." Doom stepped up behind him, his dark green cloak catching the dry wind. "The Intelligent Control Corps is deployed and currently advancing underground. Based on the timeline S.P.E.A.R. provided, the civilian evacuation will require approximately six hours. It will not be complete before dark."
"We expected that." Nolan did not turn. "Keep the Corps moving. Tell them to continue digging the forward passages." A brief pause. "How many cyclone missile launchers did I have David transport?"
"Over a hundred units. Spare ammunition runs to three or five volleys each."
Nolan gave a single nod, considered the terrain ahead, and laid out the approach clearly.
"When we move: the Intelligent Control Corps launches upward from underground simultaneously with the opening strike. The twenty heavy Servitors advance on the frontal approach with the cyclone launchers, draw their attention, absorb their response. You and I take the Doom Squat around the flank under cover of the engagement and move for the leadership. We cut off Wen Wu's head and the rest collapses."
He turned his helmet slightly toward Doom.
"The S.P.E.A.R. intelligence says Wen Wu is capable in close quarters and controls some form of magic or sorcery. The ten rings themselves, their specific capabilities are not fully documented, but their base function appears to be essentially indestructible force. My vibranium shell should absorb a direct hit. Your ceramite may not. Keep the Scyllax units between you and him if the distance closes."
"Understood, Lord Primarch."
"As for the sorcery," Doom said, with the particular quiet confidence of someone whose preparation answers the concern before it is raised, "I brought a magic-suppression bracelet. Activating it means I fight without my own abilities, only the armor, but it shuts down the operating environment for his magic as well. He may not have faced that before."
Nolan looked at him through the eyepiece and said nothing.
If Wen Wu were the kind of opponent a single tactical adjustment could neutralize, S.P.E.A.R. would not have spent decades in opposition to him without a resolution.
But he said nothing. There was no value in it before the fight.
Night came with the sudden temperature drop of deep desert, the warmth of the day vanishing in minutes. Above the mountain city, the sky had already begun to change. Heavy cloud cover rolled in from the west and thickened rapidly, and within the hour a cold, biting rain was falling across the stone rooftops and carved facades of the ancient city. The rain turned as the temperature fell further, and crystal shards of ice came down on the wind like thrown blades, hammering every exposed surface.
Niwa was already at work.
From behind the desert hills to the south, a streaking light cut upward through the dark sky, then another, then a dozen more in rapid succession, the cyclone missiles drawing bright arcs across the clouds before they came down into the city's road network. The twenty heavy combat Servitors followed immediately, pouring out of their concealed positions and advancing hard, laser firearms and storm bolters firing continuously, targeting the structures and routes that would force the Ten Rings garrison to respond and commit.
The garrison responded.
The men who had been sheltering from the weather inside were suddenly on the streets, organized and moving toward the most visible enemy. Part of the ancient city's outer buildings disappeared inside rolling balls of fire as the missile volleys landed. Walls collapsed. Rooms fell through their own floors. The Servitors pushed forward without slowing, absorbing return fire and continuing to advance.
Then the ground beneath the city's streets began to shake.
The men closest to the collapse points had enough time to feel it and not enough time to warn anyone who could have done something about it. The Scyllax Guardian Automata came up through the broken earth like mechanical ambush predators, chain swords spinning, tentacles already moving. The sounds that followed were not the sounds of a battle. They were the sounds of a slaughter.
The Ten Rings soldiers were experienced men. For civilian populations, they were an overwhelming force. Against Servitors with no pain response and Scyllax units with no tactical hesitation, their training and their courage were genuine and insufficient.
The outer defensive perimeter of the mountain city broke faster than Nolan had planned for.
He was already moving, the Warscythe's green light steady in the dark, Doom and the the Doom Squad maintaining formation behind him as they drove into the city's interior through a gap in the collapsed outer wall.
David's voice arrived in his ear.
"My lord. Front-line Scyllax units are beginning to take casualties. There are black-robed agents present who are burning their own life force to empower their strikes. A single laser shot kills them, but they are not fighting defensively. They are accepting the trade."
Nolan passed the information to the team without breaking stride.
These were not garrison soldiers. This was something older, something that had been waiting behind the outer layers.
He was still processing that when the sound reached them: quiet footsteps in multiple directions at once, coordinated, moving through the shadows between the ancient buildings. The beheading team stopped.
The black-robed figures stepped out of the dark in a ring, one after another, broad and deliberate in their movement, scimitars already drawn. There were enough of them that the encirclement was complete before anyone had a clear count.
"Change of approach," Nolan said, his voice even.
He raised the Warscythe.
"Violent entry."
He drove the power armor forward before the last word had fully left his mouth, moving directly into the nearest cluster of black-robed agents at full acceleration. The Warscythe's edge swept through the space in front of him and the ancient stonework of the building behind them, and the men who had been standing between the two were no longer standing.
He turned and swept again. Green light traced the arc of each movement.
These were elite soldiers of the Ten Rings Gang, genuinely trained, genuinely capable. Against Nolan in vibranium power armor with the Warscythe in hand, that did not translate into any advantage that mattered. A dozen of them were dead before the ring of fighters had finished reacting to the first strike.
Behind him, Doom and the the Doom Squad engaged the rest.
The night around them was full of noise.
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