The ground erupted in front of them and they crouched behind what chunks of the wall of the massive building were left.
The machines moved towards them. While they moved at different rates of speed something about how they moved screamed that they were moving inexorably.
Gartor heard his Captain over the voxcom telling him to move his squad. Gartor heard but it took a few moments to register, his mind was fading into a red mist. He shook himself out of it and yelled on the squad vox for everyone to move out of the building.
They were just in time and the building they had been in exploded as the demolisher cannon round ripped through it.
His squad raced forward.
"Now, fire, fire!" Gartor yelled over the voxcom. The meltagun hissed and Gartor standing next to it could feel the heat even through his armour.
The sponson on the land raider started to melt instantly, the metal flowed briefly over the lascannons it contained before solidifying again and locking the weapons in place.
Having drawn its attention the massive tank spun and disgorged its passengers into the loyalists. Gartor didn't try to keep the red mist from his head now.
The fight was brief but devastating. His men were ripped apart by the traitors and the few men that survived the initial impact quickly withdrew from the fight, firing to keep the rampagers back as they went.
The shock of seeing his squad destroyed so quickly brought Gartor back to his senses. He scanned the battlefield and saw a virtual hail of fire exploding around Angron as, screaming, the primarch ran into the building next to the one Gartor's squad had evacuated.
As the Red Angel tore into the squad at the base of the building Gartor was almost shocked at the amount of blood that was flying through the air. The grimy dust he was so used to now was turned wet and dark with the torrents of gore pouring out of the combat.
He saw the Baneblade blasting new craters into the already crater-strewn battle field and he saw Ancient Karfral fire his multimelta into the attack bike that had rolled up on their left flank, destroying the machine and killing the two marines that were its crew.
Just as Karfral was turning after dealing with this threat the Baneblade targeted him with a lascannon blast that blew out the front of the striding warmachine, a second explosion sent debris raining over the combatants of both sides.
The flash of light from behind where the loyalist terminators were moving toward the fight told Gartor that some new combatants had come down to play. The terminators turned to face the new threat only to lose two of their number to the tanks that they had been moving to engage.
The traitor terminators surged towards them, their vox speakers blaring a tortured scream of a battle cry which was only overwhelmed briefly by the sounds of explosions. The loyaists quickly succumbed to the fury of the traitors.
Gartor's enhanced eye sight could see the far side of their lines. The Seeker squad had moved up to try to stem the attack by three APCs, which it looked like they had done, but the attempt cost them their lives as traitors surged over the loyalists, cutting them down with little loss of their own.
He saw Angron emerge from the building, both he and the structure literally dripping with gore.
Captain Hardrath turned to see his primarch emerge. He had just shoved his chainfist through the sarcophagus of the traitor dreadnought and now tried to do the same thing to Angron.
Angron did not play with his victims. He easily parried the clumsy weapon aside with Gorechild, severing it and the arm it was attached to from the Captain's body before burying the second massive chain axe in the Captains midsection. The whirling blades ripping though armour and genhanced meat alike. The captain sank down trying to hold his intestines in with his remaining hand as Angron's blade moved again, slicing the head from the body.
