The Red Path
Page 25
The gallery was long but also narrow. A parade of firing slits lined its east-facing wall, overlooking the battlefield. Fixed weapon mounts lay in every alcove, an array of energy carbines, solid-shot cannons and high-powered sniper rifles.
Faustus fired quickly and on the move, vacating the breach so the rest of the Velites could file in behind him. The legionaries fanned out across the width of the gallery as they entered the tight space, their rifles whispering promises of death to the enemy. Men collapsed in droves, soon too many to be ignorant of, folding up as if their bones were suddenly turned to paper and could no longer support them in their armour.
One turned, a flash of magenta armour revealed as his cloak parted with the rapid movement. He gaped at the apparitions emerging from the sea of fog that had suddenly risen up around him, but had little time to concern himself. The soldier was about to raise the alarm, but found he could only quietly choke with the combat blade suddenly embedded in his neck. He fell without further sound. Faustus was on him before his cooling corpse hit the ground, kneeling and then retrieving his blade in one swift motion.
Twenty-four were dead, the first eight teams, before the enemy realised they were under attack and attempted to counter. By then, Faustus and his men were amongst them, knives drawn for close quarters. In the tight confines of the corridor, the gurgling refrain of slit throats merged with the raucous discharge of legionary combat shotguns and bolters as the secondary units moved in.
At the end of the gallery, the survivors had marshalled a makeshift defence. They broke some of the cannons out from their concealed nests, rolled in whatever they could to fashion a barricade and set up behind it, weapons blazing.
‘Grab cover!’ Faustus bellowed across the vox, though his voice carried down the gallery well enough without it.
The Velites reacted as one, vacating a fire corridor where energy rounds and solid shells were chewing up the gallery floor. Glass and mosaic spat upwards in a cloud of shrapnel. The gallery had once been an artful place but war had rendered it into something entirely uglier.
Faustus rolled, chased by a fusillade of enemy fire that chipped stone and made the dead bodies jerk in animated parody. He moved rapidly out of the central aisle and up against the nearest alcove set into the wall. They were shallow but offered some protection.
Ahenobarbus took a hit to the leg, some kind of phase-weapon. Pain bled out of him in an angry roar as his flesh was burned black, and Narthius had to drag him clear.
‘Told you I wouldn’t let them kill you, Clod,’ he said, replacing a spent clip.
Ahenobarbus grunted, pressing his muscular body into the wall.
‘Flesh wound, pup. Takes more than something like that to kill me.’
‘Our limits will be tested soon enough,’ Faustus told them both with a dark smile. He and the other two Luna Wolves were holed up together, hunkered down behind a granite column being chipped back by aggressive suppressing fire.
‘You want us to take that barricade, sir?’ asked Narthius, forced to shout above the din.
‘I know you would if I ordered it, brother. But no. As robust as even Ahenobarbus here is, a headlong rush into those guns is suicide. I’d have a more heroic death for the Velites, and this isn’t it. Not this battle. Not this day.’ He turned his attention across to the opposite side of the corridor, through the hail of bullets and energy beams, to where Klaed was taking cover with Ezekus.
Faustus opened up the vox by tapping the bead embedded in his ear.
‘We need to divide their attention. Can you fashion me a diversion, Rakon?’
Rakon Klaed nodded, not bothering with the vox. He tapped Ezekus on the shoulder, who was kneeling down in front of him, acting as spotter for the rest of his unit but with mixed success, and asked him a question.
The demolitions expert nodded curtly once and went to his bandoleer.
Faustus turned back to Ahenobarbus and Narthius, sizing up the big warrior first of all.
‘Can you walk?’
‘I’ll run if you ask it of me, sir.’
‘I only need a kick, brother. A hard one.’ Faustus gestured to the firing slit. It was damaged from an errant shell explosion or some such and cracks lined the stone around the broken slit, promising a much wider aperture if forced.
Ahenobarbus lashed out with all his considerable strength and the slit broke apart, sundered stone sent tumbling from the ruptured aperture. In the noisy carnage of the battle no one paid it any attention. It was also now large enough to accommodate a fully-armoured legionary.
Faustus strapped his rifle over his shoulder so that he could draw a pair of combat blades. The edges were serrated and shone dully in the gloomy light of the gallery. Narthius was watching, and followed suit.
‘Three volunteers,’ Faustus said to the others in the two adjacent alcoves. ‘Not you, brother,’ he added to Ahenobarbus when he tried to offer. ‘A kick is one thing, but a climb…’ He gave him a conciliatory pat on the shoulder.
Eight Luna Wolves, all the legionaries in ear-shot stepped forwards. Faustus picked three – Kern, Faek and Henador – and passed Ahenobarbus to hang out of the gaping hole the hulking warrior had made for him.
‘Fifty metres,’ he said to the others, who had crept forwards to get as close as they could to their Centurion. ‘We won’t have much time. We’ll need to move quickly. Charges?’
Kern proffered his captain a pair of krak grenades. He was a veteran warrior, greying hair tied back in a pony tail that snaked down the back of his neck.
Faustus thanked him.
‘On my mark then, blades at the ready.’ He looked across the gallery floor through a gulf of unremitting enemy fire but found Klaed waiting for his signal. Faustus gave it and in his next movement plunged through the gap in the wall and back outside into the battle proper.
Klaed simultaneously patted Ezekus hard on the back and the squat demolitions expert flung a cluster of shroud and frag grenades he had bound together with wire.
Smoke and fire filled the confined gallery space, which rang with the thunder of explosives.
Outside, Faustus was already moving.
A shallow ledge, nothing more than a lip with room enough for the edge of his booted toes to snatch purchase, ran along the exterior gallery wall. Faustus had leapt onto it and then swung, pivoting on one foot and plunging his first knife into the rock. It sank in deep, the monomolecular edge retaining optimum sharpness. In under a second, he had swung again, using the opposite foot to pivot on and the embedded knife as a makeshift handhold, swiftly rolling his body across the gap from back to front. He crabbed in this manner across the entire length of the wall, using one blade then the other, pivoting off right foot then left, back over front until he had reached the firing slit beyond which he had judged the enemy forces to be barricaded.
The magenta-armoured warriors were so intent on the Luna Wolves pressing them to the front, they missed the five commandoes almost in their midst.
Faustus paused at the edge of the firing slit, sparing a glance at his four legionaries who had followed their captain’s example precisely and now awaited his next order. Sheathing one of the blades, Faustus attached the krak grenades, moving over to the opposite side of the firing slit before he primed them.
He gave one last look at the others, before mouthing, ‘Three, two…’
On one the incendiaries went off, erupting in a storm of stone shards, fire and pluming smoke. The men on the other side in the gallery choked on it. Those closest to the wall who had foolishly abandoned their posts were ripped apart in a flare of harsh, white light and knew nothing of their deaths. Others were mauled by the razor-edge stone shards. Some also caught on fire. Bodies were thrown inwards and bludgeoned into pieces by sheer concussive force.
But this was as nothing compared to what came in the wake of the explosion.
Faustus a
nd his men were upon the enemy, the epitome of their savage namesake, howling and slitting throats with their blades.
Seeing the enemy stricken and distracted, Klaed ordered the headlong rush into their dwindling guns. The Luna Wolves took some hits but weathered the storm and struck the enemy mass like a threshing machine. None were spare, but the slaughter was brief. In under thirty seconds, every man wearing magenta armour in the corridor was dead.
The last one who died was cut down by Faustus. He had been a sniper, his weapon resting in the next alcove along from where the Centurion had made the breach. It was locked on a tripod, its firing position fixed. Out of curiosity, Faustus looked down the scope. Just moved into the crosshairs, having broken through the induction gate was the captain of Tenth. Faustus didn’t know his name and the warrior was gone in seconds anyway.
He smiled, though, amused at the fact this unknown officer would never realise how close he had come to death.
‘You’re very welcome,’ whispered Faustus, before looking away.
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