“Sentinel down!” one of the guardsmen cried as the walker took a direct hit from the corrupted Leman Russ, the soldiers under it diving out of the way as it came down. A volley of revenge slammed the lines of the renegades, some of the stronger armed guardsmen threw their grenades in great arcs towards the Whores. Any who were unfortunate enough to be standing under or next to one had their feet blown off as they were turning into fine red mist or bloody fragment-lain chunks.

However, the Imperial’s losses didn’t just stop at the Sentinel and a few dead guardsmen. On black wings of death, the Heldrake appeared and flames of chaos washed over the Imperial lines. Many scattered at the sight of it and its mightily chaos fires even as additional reinforcements arrived. The mortar teams let off one last volley, one shell directly hitting a heretic, before diving for cover from the wraith of the Heldrake.

Along with another Chimera of troops coming in, a trio of Leman Russes rolled into battle from the base at High Wall Pass, one with twin-linked autocannons who immediately began to fire at the winged chaos engine as the others shot at it with heavy bolters and heavy stubbers, even try their luck with the battle cannon to no avail.

Those who stayed at the edge of the stairs continued to rain down hell on to the heretics. The heavy bolter crew still pouring down bolter rounds into those who thought their suppression was done. Snipers picked off targets who thought it would be safe to look up. In the end, for the Whores it just came down to keeping down and hoping the Imperial lines would break soon from their Chaos Engine that was still going around setting fire to the troops and vehicles.

One Hellhound tried to make a break for it once it realized its fuel reserves had caught fire. But they had dentate near the edge of the stairs, exploding in a magnificent fireball, startling the defenders as its flaming wreck tumbled down the stairs, the carpeting proving no padding for either its burning crew or those who would stand under it.