Bolt Ironfist Warrior-priest of Mars
Under-Magos Rust Inkwell leaps down from his glider and hurries across the dessicated soil of the desert plain. If the sounds of battle from up ahead are any indication of how things are proceeding, his arrival was well-timed indeed: he clutches his autogun close to his chest, praying to the machine-spirit of the weapon to grant him steadiness of aim and celerity of target-acquisition as he runs to his brother-priest's aid.
When he actually catches sight of the man he was sent to find, he fumbles his autogun and almost commits the sacrilege of dropping it. Apparently his help isn't necessary after all.
The derelict refinery in the distance is dotted with intermittent flashes: weapons-fire, aimed in their direction. Rust takes cover behind a fallen column and watches, fascinated.
Magos Bolt Ironfist glides forward on wheeled cyberlegs, his stately movement from cover to cover as graceful and deliberate as a religious procession. His cowl, thrown back, reveals his fearsome augmentic apparati: Rust can hear the man's mechanical eyes click as lenses slide in and out, providing maximum visual magnification. The magos has acquired a target: pitons shoot out from his bare metal legs, anchoring him firmly to the ground as he unslings his magnificent bolter and places the stock against his shoulder.
The cacophony forces Rust to recalibrate his ears, as the bolter roars to life, spitting a storm of ordnance at the heretek emplacement. Rust has to squint against the sun to see the rounds impact, but the thin wails that carry on the wind indicate that Magos Ironfist's gunnery is, as ever, on the mark. The magos continues to suppress the position with bursts from his bolter, detaching his anchoring cybernetics and beginning to stride forward, inexorable as death.
When the bolter's belt of rounds rattles its last few links through the feed-hopper, Ironfist doesn't bat a stainless-steel eyelid, instead firing off a grenade from the underslung launcher. It bursts into a billow of smoke that hangs over the heretek position, providing effective cover for Ironfist who reloads nonchalantly. The hereteks' sporadic, wild fire is returned with considerably greater effect, and part of their sheet-metal barricade collapses under the sheer volume of Ironfist's firepower.
Rust scrambles to catch up, jogging alongside the senior magos. "I bring word from Forge-hive Primaris!" Rust blurts.
"Indeed?" Ironfist's voice is surprisingly mellow, emitted from behind his breathing apparatus. "And what would the Fabricator-Locum have of me?" The gentle question is punctuated by another grenade launch, this one punching through the smoke-screen and detonating with the dull thump of high explosive ordnance. There is a distant creak as part of the facility's roof caves in.
"You are summoned off-world. The Holy Ordos calls for your aid!" Rust's augmentics glow with worshipful light.
"Ah. That would be the Interrogator. Risen high in the world, it seems... Wait! Do you hear that?"
"Hear what, magos?" Rust turns his head from one side to the other. It is not his place to question the sensitivity of the senior priest's audial enhancements, but he can't hear anything. "There's nothing."
"Yes. Enemy fire has ceased. Strange. I count at least fifteen more biometric signatures. They're holding their fire. Why would they --"
Their answer comes with the flanking attack that blindsides them both. Rust fires a wild burst from his autogun before catching a foot-long harpoon through his shoulder that disarms him and pins him to the column. "Magos!"
Ironfist fares better. His mechadendrite whips around, the multi-barreled shotgun pumping out a hail of shot at practically point-blank range. The first wave of screaming hereteks who charge them with improvised mining tools are torn to shreds before they can even close to melee range; the second falters beneath the weight of Ironfist's fire, before the hammer clicks on empty.
They raise a ragged cheer and renew their charge. Rust watches with horrified fascination as Ironfist allows his bolter to fall from his hands, suspended by its sling. The magos takes an axe-blow to the collar-bone with nary a flinch, and the cruel edge of the weapon shears away the priest's red robe to reveal the hallowed surfaces of dragon-skin armour. Its servos hum, drawing power from Ironfist's very core, and the magos drives his armoured fists through his opponents, roaring all the while.
"Your flesh is weak! Your stolen steel surrenders before the might of the Machine God! Despair, fallen ones, for you behold your end!" A particular vicious uppercut tears off a heretek's lower mandible, and the jawbone falls to Rust's feet, blood splattering across his feet.
The last heretek is monstrous, plated in iron bolted into its living flesh. Tubes gurgle as they convey massive doses of combat stimulants to its poor abused brain; the chaingun in its hands whines to life, and the force of the bullets drives even Ironfist to one knee. The augmented mutant howls with glee, advancing on the tech-priest, its weapon firing ceaselessly.
It strays too close. The magos right arm shoots forward, extending impossibly on hydraulic pistons with a hiss of coolant and steam, allowing him to catch hold of the gun's rotating barrels. There is a moment of absolute stillness as the gun jams and the mutant looks down in disbelief, followed by a light like the opening of heaven itself as Ironfist's electoos erupt into incandescent radiance. The mutant jerks and dances at the end of the chaingun as the magos unleashes the tame lightnings of his heart-battery, sending torrents of electricity surging through the mutant's weapon.
With a violent wrench, Ironfist hurls the chaingun aside and stands. The mutant tries to raise itself up, but it is too late. Taking two bound strides forward, Ironfist lives up to his name, punching one fist clean through the heretek's armoured chestplate, and blood fountains from the creature's mouth.
As it topples backwards, Ironfist holds up something that pulses wetly. He regards it with curiosity, tilting his head from one side to the other.
"Genemod: synthacardium. Matches batch produced from Vat 25, Forge-hive Primaris, recorded missing three years ago. Interesting. The hereteks have an inside source."
The magos extracts the bolt from Rust's upper shoulder, his hand opening to reveal a multitude of prehensile tendrils, each tipped with implements to clamp blood vessels and stitch together flesh. The under-priest bows his head and utters litanies of thanksgiving as Ironfist tends to his wound.
"I hope your vehicle has room for the two of us. I think I will be accompanying you back to Primaris after all."
