His men had to charge, Carson thought, and that was exactly what they did. As his men leapt down upon their targets, Carson launched himself into a knot of the tribe-males. They were still standing, turning, fumbling to bring their weapons around against the new threat. Carson’s pistols were already in his hands. He clenched the triggers, once, twice and a third time, and the bodies of three of the xenos fighters smacked down onto stone, their faces and chests incinerated by the heat of the las-beams.
There was a sharp, shocked inhalation of breath behind him. He whirled about. Another Charasian had been hidden in the shadow of an outcrop. It was younger, this one, and for a split second Carson paused. His gaze locked with the wide, black-eyed xenos. Its youth was not relevant; it was carrying a gun, it would not get any older. Carson fired. He did not look to see that it hit, he knew it had.
He flattened himself against a rock, taking cover in exactly the same position that his enemy had been in a few seconds before. He listened and the only sounds he could hear were the shots of Brimlock lasrifles and the crunching of stone underfoot as men charged in behind him.
He looked up. All across the slope the Charasians were on their feet and running east, staying on the side of the valley, fleeing from Carson’s men above them and the Boy Company below. It was only now that he could see how many of the enemy there had been. Over a hundred of them were running from the thirty Guardsmen who had attacked them. The Brimlock Guardsmen, winded and unable to keep up, kept firing at the backs of those in flight. Every Charasian tribe-male they killed at this moment was one who would never return to strike at them in the future. Carson saw Forjaz, his bayonet and rifle barrel drenched in the blood of the xenos who had been shooting at his child.
‘Sergeant!’ Carson called over to him, his first word since he had worked away from Blunder. ‘Take a section, check on the boys.’
Forjaz stared for a moment, still wrapped in his paternal blood-rage, then blinked and nodded gratefully. Better that he knew as soon as he could whether his son was living or dead.
The sound of Brimlock las-fire lessened as the surviving Charasians went to ground, disappearing amongst the same kind of rock chimneys and gullies that had hidden Carson’s own attack. They would not go far, they did not need to. They knew the country far too well to be rooted out by off-worlders. A few of them at least would turn back so as to stall any pursuit of the main party and perhaps even to creep back and take their attackers off-guard.
It was a merciless war, on both sides, and Carson suspected he would soon see how little mercy his own side had, for Blunder had finally ordered the other two companies to move and they were coming back for him.
Captain Blundell regarded the awkward reunion of Sergeant Forjaz with his bruised, bloodied, but still living son: man and boy, both shaken, yet both firmly restraining the emotions going through them. Blundell looked away from the embarrassing scene and instead shot a scorching gaze up towards the rocks where Carson, Red and the rest of their platoon were still holding. Blundell would be damned if he was going up there to haul the second lieutenant down again. Carson had to come down to him, and he would wait until he did so and then throw the book at him.
Blundell was furious. The captain did not care who Carson had saved; he was finished in this company. With the help of a senior officer or two – Major Roussell was another who detested Carson – the second lieutenant would be finished in this existence as well. He would be handed over to the commissars and they would put him up against a wall and be done with him.
This waiting game he was playing was not going to save him. Lord General Ellinor himself could appear and could not save him from the facts. Carson had defied Blundell’s orders and that was it. His life was forfeit, and a thorn in Blundell’s side would finally be removed.
‘Captain,’ someone alerted him. Blundell looked about. A trooper was walking towards him from second platoon. It was that piece of Cawnpore detritus, Corporal Gardner.
‘Captain Blundell,’ Gardner said, raising his hand and saluting him.
Blundell automatically snapped off a quick salute in reply. ‘Yes, what?’
And the carefully aimed shot from a Kartha rifle burned through the back of Blundell’s head and blew his face out from behind.
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A Black Library Publication
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Guangda Li.
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ISBN: 978-1-78030-947-7
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Lightning Run - Peter McLean Page 4
