‘Yes.’ She came lower now, back to the half-crouching position when, last time, she’d cut into him with the dagger. ‘I expect you believed yourself valiant, didn’t you? To delay us, so a decrepit and dying man could escape with your brothers and sisters.’
Commodus was not a vain man, but if that wasn’t something he could be proud of, he didn’t know what else could be.
‘I have one question,’ she asked, and he knew she was smiling behind the mask. ‘What happened to your friend? Yael?’
‘He was in the rearguard, next to me. I know he was hit, but I don’t know how badly. All I know is that he killed four of you.’
She leaned closer, pressing the knife blade to his throat. Here it is, he thought. Here we go.
But she didn’t kill him. She blinked, her eyes flicking to the dagger in her own hand. ‘Wait,’ the masked woman whispered. ‘You carried the Warmaster’s sword. You mean... your sword...’
Commodus grinned into her face. ‘Throne, you are one slow bitch.’
She turned to glance at the ornate sword she’d cast aside before. The sword she’d believed was his.
It was all the distraction he needed.
His boots thudded up between her legs, striking with the strength he’d been saving for half an hour, then powered into her lower stomach, sending her sprawling backwards into the table. He rose to his feet, still tied to the wooden chair, and launched after her in the most frantic hop – surely ludicrous to see, if anyone had been looking.
He drop-kicked her as she was picking herself up, both boots smacking into her face, breaking her cheek, her nose, and her freak-show witch-face mask. The chair crumbled beneath him as he crashed down, various jagged wooden limbs wrenching into his spine and shoulders. His wrists were still leashed behind his back, but that didn’t matter. He was free enough now.
Commodus was on her as she moaned on the floor, his knee slamming down into her throat, crushing any hope of breath. The woman’s slitted eyes were wide in her purpling face as she clawed at his thighs and chest, raking at the exposed wounds. Commodus breathed in agonised hisses, not letting up the pressure for a moment.
‘Should’ve called for help when you had the chance,’ he said.
She kicked ineffectually at his back, and hammered increasingly weak punches at his front. Her face was blue now. Commodus grunted and pushed harder. Vertebrae in her neck gave muted, snapping clicks as the pressure increased.
At last, she fell limp.
The sergeant stayed where he was for another thirty heartbeats, making certain she was never getting up again.
Several minutes later, after an ungainly performance of freeing himself from the tank cable bindings, Commodus picked up Liberatus from the floor and pulled the exquisite sabre from its plain leather sheath.
Lightning ran the length of the curved blade as he thumbed the activation rune.
‘Pleasure talking to you,’ he said to the woman’s corpse, and took one look at the chamber’s only door, before promptly leaving through the broken window.
XVI
As escapes went, it was hardly graceful. She’d cut him up good, and his injuries put paid to any attempt to bolt with decent speed.
Commodus leaned into a staggering run, spit running from his clenched teeth, swallowing the pain with each breath. Below the chest, his uniform was dyed red in the places it wasn’t completely shredded. Dozens of cuts ran down his legs. The insides of his boots were hot and squelching, and it wasn’t with sweat.
Blood loss would take him down soon; so the witch would kill him with her knife, after all.
More than once, Commodus went down on all fours, scrambling over rubble in a bid to keep moving no matter how often he lost his balance. The city around him was in absolute ruin – a levelled wreckage of shattered buildings and broken roadways. The palace, ostensibly retaken by the Imperials hours before, loomed to the south. Half of it still burned behind fallen walls. The witch and her friends really hadn’t dragged him far.
He’d made it almost five minutes away before las-rounds started dogging at his heels and slashing past his shoulders.
The sergeant hurled himself behind the closest rise of rubble, the Warmaster’s sword gripped in the hand without half its fingers broken, and stole a look to see who his pursuers were.
Two of them, running over the wasteland, firing from the hip. They wore the same grotesques as the witch had worn – those hook-nosed carnival face masks leered in metallic delight – and came clad in the same scarlet uniforms.
Blood Pact.
He hoped there weren’t many more of these malicious bastards out there. Were they some newly founded cult? An enemy regiment they’d not crossed paths with before?
Whatever they were, he certainly couldn’t survive another one of their knifey-knifey interrogation sessions.
Commodus sank down into the dusty rocks and started crawling. If he couldn’t run, it was time to hide.
XVII
The first red-clad soldier passed through the ruins of what had been a museum only three days before. He entered with his rifle up to his cheek, aiming into corners and at chunks of rubble each time he heard a noise. Perfect movement, keen senses. Head high, ready to fire.
And completely missing the faint trail of blood on the floor.
When he passed another slab of fallen masonry, a sabre lashed out from beneath and cleaved through both his shins. He went down firing, hitting nothing, and died a moment later when the sword of Warmaster Slaydo chopped through his neck in one clean blow.
Blood sizzled and turned crispy black as it burned on the energised blade.
One down. One to go.
Commodus pulled himself clear, cursing at the cramp taking over his left leg. It made a bad limp even worse, and even availing himself of the dead Blood Pact’s lasgun didn’t bring a smile to his face.
In a game of cat and mouse, when one side was reduced to dragging himself through the dust, the evidence started to rack up for just who would be playing the rodent. Commodus hauled himself over to a pillar, leaning his back against what was left of it. His assets were a stolen lasrifle – half-empty – that smelled a little like an open coffin, and one of the finest, most potent power weapons in the Imperium of Man.
Working against him was the fact that the other Blood Pact soldier almost definitely knew where he was – even if his slain fellow hadn’t had the chance to scream, he’d still fired a fair few shots as he went down – and the equally troubling fact that Commodus was slowly but surely bleeding to death.
Good odds, Yael would’ve joked. But Yael was probably dead, too.
The sergeant blinked to clear his blurring vision. It worked on the third try.
Stand up, he thought. Just stand up first.
Commodus buckled the old man’s weapon belt around his waist, used the pillar for support to lift himself to his feet, and gripped his new rifle.
Now get the hell out of here.
He made it another two minutes before his pursuer tracked him down.
By this point, Commodus could barely breathe with his mouth and throat so dry, and blinking did nothing to stop his vision from swimming.
Something clattered to the ground. He could still feel the lasgun’s weight in his sore arms, so it must’ve been the sword. Or a piece of his armour, perhaps. It didn’t really matter.
‘Eshek gai tragir,’ barked the Blood Pact, from behind him. ‘Eshek gai tragir kal-kasakh!’
Commodus turned, seeing a red smear against a grey haze background.
‘I don’t speak...’
Wait, what language is that?
‘Eshek gai tragir!’ the Blood Pact yelled again.
‘I don’t speak... Evil,’ Commodus said, and started laughing.
He raised his weapon, but his hands moved like he was underwater. He heard th
e Blood Pact’s rifle crack once, and the red smear moved in a blur.
He felt himself falling a moment later. There was no change in the pain, no amplifying of the agony he already felt. They’d carved him to pieces already. Shooting him wouldn’t change a damn thing.
More gunfire rang out. More voices bleated. Commodus wiped his eyes, but couldn’t see a thing through them. Not that there was much to see, anyway. They’d levelled this beautiful city. Life at the Warmaster’s side, that was. Life in the Guard. Kill a whole world to break one viper’s back.
By the Saint’s sacred arse, he was tired. Dimly, he wondered where he’d been shot. Everywhere hurt as much as everywhere else.
This is what dying feels like. This is what the old man had fought through, right to the end.
Tough old bastard.
He was on all fours when the Blood Pact descended upon him. Their hands grabbed at his ripped clothes, taking his weight, lifting him to his feet, asking if he could hold on a little longer, and saying his name.
‘I don’t speak Evil,’ he murmured again, and collapsed into Yael’s arms.
XVIII
‘Senior Sergeant Commodus Ryland,’ called the voice.
‘You can go in,’ said the immaculately clad bodyguard. Commodus did just that, though his limp made it slow going.
When he’d first woken up that morning, the sawbones had threatened to have away with his leg.
‘Take the leg,’ Commodus had said, still flying high and grinning hard from the pain-inhibitors, ‘and I’ll shoot your balls off.’
He limped through the open doorway now, hoping his leg really would start to bend again soon.
Inside the Warmaster’s tent, twenty officers in a variety of uniforms stood around a central table that seemed to be drowning in print-papers. Commodus made no eye contact with any of the brass, and stole a glance at one of the paper scrolls that’d fallen onto the floor.
A casualty list, from the Hyrkan Eighth.
He glanced at the table again. Throne, these were the casualties of the last two weeks. A forest must’ve been slain to make that much paper.
‘Commodus Ryland?’ asked the same nasal voice that had called him in. ‘I believe you have something to present to me.’
‘Yes, my Warmaster.’
In a smooth motion, he offered the beautiful, fresh-cleaned sword out, hilt-first. Even leaning forwards like this made the healing muscles in his back catch fire. He trembled as he offered the blade, feeling his leg begin to go.
A hand gloved in white lifted Slaydo’s sword from his grip. It was all he could do not to reach for it and steal it back.
‘Yes, yes,’ the sword’s new owner trilled. ‘Lovely weapon. Served the old man well. My thanks, sergeant. You did gloriously.’
Commodus stood straight and saluted. He still avoided the Warmaster’s eyes, instead fixing his gaze on the man’s silver-white breastplate that encased a physique edging into portly.
‘Thank you, my Warmaster.’
‘I may have something for you in the future, to recognise your valour in the field. You’re dismissed for now, sergeant.’
He saluted again, and turned to limp out.
‘Ryland?’ The Warmaster seemed to voice his name through a nasal sneer. ‘I’ve not seen your report yet. Those traitors in the ruins, sergeant – what did they call themselves?’
‘Blood Pact, my Warmaster.’
‘Ah, yes, that’s it. Thank you.’ Macaroth, heir to Slaydo, Warmaster of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, turned back to his command staff.
‘Blood Pact,’ he said to them. ‘I do not like the sound of that at all.’
The city had been lost a long time ago.
Its defenders, however, were still fighting to hold the ruins. Even though they knew – even though they always knew – their cause to be hopeless.
A young trooper crouched inside a half-demolished, brick-built turret.
He held the butt of a lasgun to his shoulder. Through its sights, he surveyed the toxic landscape that stretched out before him.
A ragged, wheezing wind swirled about the trooper’s shoulders, ashes dancing in its eddies. He could feel its sting even through his dark greatcoat and thick plates of carapace armour. Still, he showed no sign of discomfort, betrayed no weakness. He maintained his rigid, muscle-locked stance, his trigger finger poised. Waiting.
He had waited for an hour or longer now. Ever since the shattering thunderclaps of the siege engines had finally subsided. Ever since a deathly hush had settled upon this blasted wasteland.
Who could know what he was thinking?
The young trooper had no name. He had no need of one. Instead, he had a number stamped into a dog tag. A number that identified his combat unit and his place within it, and thus said everything there was to know about him.
‘This is it. We have confirmation that the enemy is on the move.’
The general’s voice: distant, echoing, metallic. The young trooper had to strain to catch the words. He was a long way from the nearest vox speaker, out here.
‘Stand fast. Remember your training. Remember your orders. You must be ready to meet your attackers with lethal force.’
The young trooper wore a facemask. It trapped the sound of his own breathing in his ears. He held his breath to focus on the general’s instructions.
His air was filtered through a chest unit, fed to him through the mask by a rubbery hose. Still, it left a bitter taste, a gritty texture on his tongue. He knew the air was likely killing him, in spite of his protective equipment.
Did he ever think about that? Did he dread the thought of flesh rotting from his bones, his internal organs liquefying?
If he did, then he might have consoled himself with another thought: that death by radiation was a slow and lingering death, and therefore one that he would almost certainly not live to experience.
They had classified this planet a ‘death world’ with good reason.
‘It has already been calculated that you cannot win this battle. That is not your objective. Your objective is to ensure that victory costs the enemy dearly.
‘The enemy’s resources far outweigh your own. For every second you stand against his guns, however, you deplete those resources. You make him weaker.
‘The price of this achievement, in return, is only that resource most abundantly available to us, most easily replenished. The price is that which is already the Emperor’s by rights. Praise be to our father, our guardian.
‘Today, you face defeat, at the small cost of your worthless lives. But die bravely, die hard, and your meagre sacrifice will help pave the way for His most glorious triumph in the future. Praise be to the Emperor!’
The stirring speech concluded with a tinny fanfare.
The young trooper could see them now. Rather, he could see a cloud of disturbed dust billowing along the horizon, presaging the enemy army’s advance. The angry growls of machine-spirits were carried to him on the ragged wind. Soon, for the first time in his short life, he would have to fight.
His first battlefield. Almost certainly his last.
The young trooper had been trained – more than that, he had been bred – to show no fear. Did that mean he didn’t feel it? He had been taught to ask no questions, but did that mean he didn’t wonder? Did he ponder the value of a human soul?
The city had been lost a long time ago. Millennia, in fact.
It had no worth of which the young trooper was aware, neither strategic nor mineral. He would die for it, all the same, because that was what he had been birthed to do. It was not only his duty, but his destiny.
And, after all, this city was home to him – in a way – although he had never seen the sky above it before today. For uncountable generations, his people had fought and died here for the barren soil beneath his feet. Each serving the same intang
ible greater good, each seeking the redemption of this God-Emperor-damned world.
The young trooper’s home world. The only world he had ever known.
A death world by the name of Krieg.
Elsewhere in the ruins, something had been woken by the percussion sounds of battle. Something that had slept for many nights and many days and ought to have been long-dead by rights. Something with barely enough strength left to lift its globular head. But it lifted its head, anyway, and strained with the muscles in its six half-wasted limbs to push its belly up off the ground. Dust and debris sloughed from the creature’s back as, inexorably, it hauled itself into a standing position.
It was dead. At least, as good as. Sustained only by an overwhelming biological imperative. A primordial need that wouldn’t grant the creature peace until it had been satisfied. The need to ensure the continuance of its genetic material.
The need to breed.
The attacking soldiers numbered in the low thousands.
They were preceded across the battlefield, and partially shielded, by lightly-armoured support vehicles. The young trooper made out six or seven of these. Not many, and from this distance they looked ancient, barely serviceable.
The vehicles’ turrets, however, were each manned and he had no reason at all to doubt that their pintle-mounted heavy stubbers were in working order.
It was the soldiers themselves, however, who presented the most fearsome sight, marching in step with backs straight and rifles shouldered, apparently heedless of the peril they were parading towards. As if they knew themselves to be invincible. Their faces were concealed by the gas masks they wore. Could it have been by chance that these lent them the appearance of hollow-eyed skulls, the symbol of death itself?
Of course, the soldiers were only men. The young trooper knew this, as well as anyone could. He had known these men, many of them, all his life. He had no way of telling, though, which ones he had grown up with, studied, trained and been drilled alongside. Like him, these soldiers had no names. And no faces any longer.
Honour Imperialis - Aaron Dembski-Bowden Page 91
