by Dan Abnett
People faded and vanished from his life. Time took some. Jacobin, the workshop’s master, went in a season of coughs that brought black sludge from his lungs. His death took something away. It took away the voice that screamed louder than even the hammers. It took away the whip of oiled wire. It took away the only face that had stayed the same for as long as he could remember. He had cried when the old man died, and had not known why.
The hammers rang on.
Nothing remained for long, except the turning of seasons marked by smothering heat or burning rain. Children grew and vanished to the stars. Others came, ragged people who had travelled from far away, men and women with broken bodies, who screamed through their sleep. Some worked, some tried to work and then just stopped, and some never tried and were taken by the overseers. He supposed that they went somewhere where it did not matter that they stared into space, tears gathering in the corners of their eyes. He hoped that was where they went. He did not think too much on it, though. Nothing lasted, and nothing needed to be part of tomorrow, no matter how much it had been part of yesterday.
And more new people came, as others around him grew and vanished. That was how Hekadia came to him. She had half a face. Scars cratered the right-hand side. The left half was not there. She covered it with a shell of green plastek. Underneath the mask her skin was like fat left close to a flame. All the way down to the bone. He saw it once, when a beam caught the top of her head and knocked the mask off. He saw, and she saw that he had seen. She did not shout. She just hit him hard enough for him to wake minutes later in a pool of his own vomit.
Eventually, when she had drunk a jug of tar-liqueur, he asked her half the question he had been holding inside since the first newcomer had arrived.
‘Where are you from?’
‘Not here.’
‘But you… you were somewhere before you were here?’
‘I was… serving the Emperor.’ She laughed. It was the same laugh she made when the preachers walked the streets outside the workshops, calling out the rotes of service above the clangour. He did not like the priests. He did not dislike them either. They were just another layer of noise that came and went.
‘Where was that?’
‘Out there, Anarkos, Khan II, Nyzon… Take your pick.’
‘Are they… in the stars?’
‘Yeah,’ she nodded.
‘What are stars?’
‘You want to see them? You want to know?’
‘Yes.’
‘How old are you?’
He shrugged.
‘You will find out soon enough,’ she had said, and took a long gulp of black liquor. ‘I guarantee it.’
Hekadia went later. One day she did not wake up. They took her out to the wagon on its first pass of the day.
She was right though.
He grew older, stronger. The cycles of work, and sleep, and grey gruel were his breath and the beat of his heart. The hammer in his hand was as much a part of him as the spark burns on his face, or the soot shading his skin. He learnt enough to know that when people went away they went somewhere to die in a war that sucked up each generation as soon as it was old enough. He knew that he would go to the stars himself one day, just like the rest. And, though he never made it real by saying it, he wanted to go.
At least then it would be over.
III
There are many steps to silence, from birth to death, from death to revelation.
We begin as creatures, not as humans – creatures whose existences are a shell of falsehoods. We wear our lies as scales over our true skins. Our voices and thoughts are the noise of confusion and desperation, and fear. We hold tight onto the thread of hope that we believe is our soul, and we babble on, not realising that each syllable of sound, each note of every thought, means nothing.
I do not know if all who serve He Whose Voice Drowns Out All Others became his sons as I did. Perhaps it is different for each of us, perhaps not.
My revelation began with the Room of Voices.
Hands dragged me there, hands and hooks. Stitches held my eyes shut. I wanted to scream, but a spiked tongue of iron held my own tongue still, and kept my mouth closed. They pulled me across floors of warm metal, and bare earth. At last they took the bridle from my mouth, and left me on cold, polished stone.
For a moment I breathed, and did not move.
Then I called out.
The sound cut through me. My cries were all around me, rising higher and higher, echoing and combining until they were a flock of needles and hammers. I tried to press my hands against my ears. Iron thorns had been bound to my fingers. I tore my hands away from my face. I cried again, and the sound of my pain crashed back over me. My own voice was deafening me. The shriek dragged through me like razor wire. I bit my lips closed.
Slice by slice the echoes faded. I bathed in the silence, so relieved that I wanted to weep, but I made no sound. The silence deepened.
It was so quiet, so utterly quiet. It was wonderful. It felt like freedom, like breathing after drowning, like…
My heart beat in my chest. I could hear it, each dull, thump beat, rising, rising, hammering through me from within. My breath quickened as the drum beat rose, each inhalation a saw edge, each exhalation a bellow. I pulled my limbs closer, trying to slow my heart. The rags I wore rustled like a forest in a gale.
And on and on, each beat and breath a crack of thunder.
It has to stop.
It has to stop.
Please let it stop.
‘Please make it stop!’
And my own weak plea ripped me apart. My eardrums burst. Blood ran from my mouth, and ears, and eyes.
The sound did not stop. It roared through my skin and bones. I wanted the silence again, its agony forgotten. The thought of it was everything. I shivered, and bit blood from my lips, until the tormenting voice was fading.
Fading…
Fading…
And there was silence, and for a second it felt like everything.
Then the quiet crowded close again, and the pleas for mercy began to bubble up to my mouth.
And on it went, until I could bear it no more, and the seconds between silence and cacophony were everything I lived for, and then not enough to live for. And I remembered the iron thorns bound to my hands.
That last time – as the beat of my heart faded to softness, pure, nothing – they came for me, and they dragged me back into life.
Someone put a hand on my skull, as other hands lifted me. The fingers on my scalp are warm, resonating metal.
‘Do you understand?’ asks a voice, which vibrates through my skull. ‘Do you hear it now?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I… I understand.’
IV
Las-fire laced the air above him. He dived low, and the soft mud smacked up into his face. He got a mouthful, a full thick taste of the swamp-mulch. It tasted of chemicals, of things dissolving slowly in still water. The whack-snap of energy bolts was thick in his ears. He pulled his head up, and his eyes hit the strobing sheet of fog above.
‘Frag.’
A black geyser of mud exploded ten strides behind him. Las-bolts smacked into the falling mud in flashes of steam.
Fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump…
Voices rose against the gunfire. He did not recognise them. They just all sounded raw, ripped from dry throats. They all sounded like sudden and complete terror.
‘Castyuran! Gord! Anyone!’
Fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump…
‘Medic.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Left flank.’
Fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump…
‘I can’t see them.’
‘Medic!’
‘Dead ahead.’
Fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump…
‘Sacred Throne.’
‘Medic!’
Another weapon started up, something heavy, something that began to tear up the damp folds of ground with lumps of metal.
He had hold of his lasgun, but it was half buried under him. His helmet was gone, too. He had to move. Fact. No doubt. White-hot certainty ran down his spine.
He had listened in training. Had done all the drills, and thought through what was likely to happen once they were on the ground. They had been walking that ground for a week, and had seen the corpses of those who had come before them. He had tried to see the lessons in their blank eyes and slumped shapes. He would have read the manuals, too, but he could not do that, never learnt how. All of the training said stay still, work with the squad, look for officers to tell you what to do, and keep hold of your gun.
Apart from the last part it all now seemed like picking the patch of ground to die on.
Fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump…
He rolled over, slithering across the black ground. His breath sucked hard between his teeth. The swell of gunfire grew. Earth pattered down on him. People were still shouting. His world was a slit of sight just above the ground. Neon-stitches passed just above his head.
Fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump…
He rolled over, looked up. A lacework of light covered the sky above.
Fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump…
Left to right, left to right, always left to right.
Fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump…
He rolled back over. The world had squeezed in around him. The shouts and gunfire had slid backwards in his mind, like the hammer ring of struck metal.
‘Fall back.’
‘Fire at will.’
‘My hand, they got my hand!
Fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump…
He could see a ridge of broken bricks poking up from the mud ten paces in front of him. Ten paces.
The heavier gun opened up again, its base note blending with the cackle of las-fire.
Ten paces.
‘They are moving!’
‘What?’
‘I think…’
Fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump…
The heavy gun’s stuttered beat slackened, paused.
He pulled his legs under him, came up to a crouch, and ran.
Fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump, fizz-thump…
His heart was a fist punching his ribs. Something whipped his legs. Stinging pain, bright sharp.
He reached the scrap of wall. There was shouting behind him, voices he recognised. He dropped over the wall, pressed himself to the ground, and began to crawl forward. He could see now. The enemy was on his left, a ragged line of muzzle flashes among a stand of splintered trees. He could see something moving, las-light glinting on a fat barrel as it was dragged around. He pulled his gun up, fingers sliding and slapping on the catches.
Sight, look through the damned sight.
He looked, paused, breathed, and pulled the trigger. Las-bolts flickered out. Wood puffed to splinters and steam. He heard more shouts. The enemy gunfire weakened. Someone dropped over the wall next to him. He heard heavy breathing, and then the crack of a gun firing right next to his ear. He flinched, swearing, his finger coming off the trigger.
A figure rose from the stand of trees. He saw mud-smudged ochre fatigues, and a face of stitch scars and bright inked feathers. It looked almost comical. It was not a joke though, except perhaps a cruel one.
For a second, he watched the painted man scuttle forward, hugging the ground, buckles and hooked knives jangling and jumping. Then a blurt of gunfire stung the wall in front of him.
He ducked, rolled, and came up a pace from where he had been. The painted man was closer, much, much closer. He could see tiny teardrops of bone hanging on loops from the stitched face. There was a fat, dull green sphere in the painted man’s hand, its pin already a silver glimmer on the ground behind. He brought his gun up, and pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
He looked down. The empty charge light winked red from the gun casing. The gun of whoever was next to him had gone silent too.
He looked up in time to see the painted man throw the grenade. He ducked. The grenade hit the soft earth behind the wall and to his left.
‘Holy–’
The grenade detonated. The blast wave juddered through him. His head slammed against the back of his gun. Wet particles pattered down his back. His ears rang. He was breathing.
He was breathing.
He looked up. A hump of ripped fabric and wet meat lay next to him. He saw teeth, a string of white shards in mashed pink. A breath sawed out of his mouth. He was still staring at the teeth.
The painted man came over the lip of wall and landed in a crouch. They stared at each other, as though surprised to meet. The painted man had grey eyes.
He lunged forward, trying to hit the painted man’s face with the gun in his hand. The edge of the casing hit something. He was aware of hands scrabbling at him, of the clink of a knife slipping from a hook into a hand. The man smelled of sweat and blood and sugared cinnamon. Something punched him in the thigh, hard. The painted man’s eyes were wide in their setting of scars and feathers. Another punch, another numb deadness, like being hit by a hammer. He pulled back, and his legs folded like soft jelly. The painted man rose, a long, dirty needle of a knife in his fist, fresh blood thick on the ochre fatigues.
He brought his gun up. The painted man flinched. The trigger snapped back. Nothing. The painted man lunged. The lasgun barrel hit the painted man’s patchwork face, and spread his nose into a pink smear. The side of the casing came next, crashing into cheekbones and jaw; once, twice, a number that was lost in the slippery, bloody roar that had become the world. The man was no longer painted, he was a slack bag of split skin and streaming crimson. Blood was everywhere, and he could not tell whose it was. He had it in his eyes, on his cheeks, on his lips.
Las-bolts whizzed above his head, and slammed into the scrap of wall. He glanced up as he dropped between the two corpses, one a comrade, one an enemy.
Three, maybe more figures in ochre were closing in, firing as they moved. His vision was smudging at the edges. He did not want to look at his legs. He could taste metal in his mouth. The two grenades were heavy lumps as he pulled them from the painted man’s corpse. He was breathing hard. The pins ran free in his fingers. He turned, raising his head above the wall as he threw. He got it wrong, his arm suddenly weak, his vision softening to dizzy grey. It was a perfect piece of luck.
The grenades hit the soft ground, rolled away, and detonated just as the charging figures ran over them. The lead man punched into the air, flailing, legs gone under the knee, body a pincushion of shrapnel. The rest just vanished.
He waited, fighting to keep his eyes open as the smoke drifted over him. He waited. Nothing happened. His ears were ringing. He waited. He tried to shake his head, but the movement began, and did not end. The ground rocked as he moved. Bright, chequerboard bands ran across his eyes.
Bright…
Lights…
Stars…
He woke again, but the world was different, made of sharp pain, stitches and tubes. For a few days, maybe weeks, he thought about the sound of the guns, about the painted man, about seeing a figure cartwheel through the air without legs. Then they reduced something in the tube feeds, and the pain of healing stole much of his memory. He was almost grateful.
An officer came to see him. She acted as though they had talked before, but he had no idea who she was, or why she was there. She wore a different uniform from his regiment, matt black with red piping, cap tucked under her left epaulet. Her pips said major, but everything else about her said ‘much more important than that, thank you very much’.
She started talking, rattling through words li
ke a crank gun swallowing rounds.
‘Good thing is that you are going to be training-ready in four weeks. Field-ready… Well, we will see. Not enough left of your outfit to send you back to, and that is probably not the best use of your profile now. Zerdian Heavy 101st is looking promising, lots of punch on paper, but… lacking the polish of battle. You are just what they need. Fine scarred hero of a platoon leader to send a signal, pull the rest up. Once you’re fit that is, and once you’ve got through training to fill the gaps.’
‘Gaps?’
‘Tactics, leadership, all the tricks of the trade, all the things that you didn’t need at the baseline of things.’ She handed him a sheaf of parchment. The paper was thick, weighted and textured with importance. A phrase she had said surfaced in his pain- and drug-fogged mind. Platoon leader… That meant, presuming she was serious – and the paper in his hand had all the look of seriousness – that he was being promoted, straight from the lines, and his first action, into the officer ranks.
He turned the paper over in his hands, carefully slowly. After a moment she started to speak.
‘Three platoons went into that area. You and ten others came out. You stopped an ambush becoming a rout. The enemy stopped dead, when they meant to keep going. They would’ve been Throne knows how much further by now, maybe even to the supply base at Talimanx.’
He didn’t know how to say that she was wrong. He had just tried to stay alive. He was not a leader. He was alone, no matter how many people stood next to him. You could not hold on to anything, everything went away sooner or later. The only thing that was his was the beat of his heart, and he had to fight to hold on to that.
‘It’s not a reward,’ she said, after he still said nothing. ‘It’s another way for you to serve.’
