by Dan Abnett
“Baskevyl did it,” Daur said, ducking in beside Rawne. He held his wall gun upright, its stock resting on the floor. “He powered the system up.”
“Holy Throne,” Rawne murmured.
“I’m trying to get them distributed through the house. Ammo too. Baskevyl’s leading Sloman’s company topside to get them armed. China’s trying to cut through the house on level eight to relieve the southern face. It’s not over yet. This is probably just a stay of execution rather than a reprieve, but we can make it count. We can give those bastards one feth of a show before we’re done.”
“Ban,” said Rawne.
“Yes, sir?”
“I want one of those things.”
“I thought you might,” said Daur.
The rampart line of cloche domes and casemates along the top of the house was on fire. Several domes had been blown entirely open, and flames and sparks guttered up into the cold night sky. H and B Companies had held the enemy back for as long as possible, but once the Blood Pact had penetrated the first of the domes, things deteriorated rapidly. The raiders had no shortage of grenades. They’d even lugged flamers up the sheer north cliff face. They showed no signs of fatigue after their arduous climb. Varl suspected they were too high on bloodlust and glanded stimms.
Vigo Kamori was killed by a nail bomb in upper west sixteen about five minutes before the last of the rifle cells packed up. He died not far from where Gaunt had fallen. To Varl, it seemed like a curse repeating itself. He had witnessed both deaths. He tried to raise Rawne on his bead, but the intervox had been dead for some time.
Kamori had not flinched in his duty. He had commanded the action from the front throughout, even when it descended into bestial melees in the burning hallways. Varl, forced to rely on his service pistol, found the men looking to him for leadership.
“Kamori’s dead! Kamori’s dead!” Cant screamed. “What do we do?”
“Well, stop yelling in my ear would be a start,” Varl growled, cracking off a round to stop a charging storm trooper with an axe.
“Maybe we can hold them in the next gallery,” Maggs suggested.
“Yeah, good,” said Varl. “Close up!” he yelled. “Close up and fall back! Nice and steady! Do you hear me?”
Firing their pistols or clutching dead rifles with fixed blades, the men around him shouted back in affirmation.
“Just keep firing,” Varl called. “Pick your targets and keep firing. You can do that, can’t you, Cant?”
Cant looked at him. “You fething watch me,” he replied.
“That’s what I like to hear,” Varl grinned.
“You heard the sergeant!” Maggs yelled. “If she wants us, she can bloody wait for us!”
She wanted them. Shots were punching into them. On either side of Varl and Maggs, men were falling and dying. Sonorote took a round in the mouth that blew out the back of his head. Fenix lost an arm and an ear to a raking line of tracer shots, and bled out before anyone could get to him. Ezlan was thrown backwards by an impact to the belly. When Gunsfeld reached his side to help him, he found that Ezlan had a live rocket grenade sticking out of his stomach wall. Ezlan was wailing in pain.
“It’s a dud! Ezlan, it’s a dud,” Gunsfeld yelled at him. “It misfired!”
“Get it out! Get it out!” Ezlan screamed. Gunsfeld took hold of the projectile and tugged.
It wasn’t a dud. The blast killed Ezlan, Gunsfeld and Destra outright and blinded Dickerson, the famous seamster and darner of socks.
Varl’s pistol dry clicked. He searched in his pockets, certain that he must have one last cell left. He always kept one around for what he called “emergency work”, which translated as a headshot for himself if the situation ever got too bad.
Like now, he thought.
His pockets were conspicuously empty. In the turmoil, he’d torn through every cell on his person. He reached into his hip pouch and yanked out the old autopistol he carried as a last ditch. He racked the slide. Nine rounds and one in the pipe.
“Come on, back! Back!” Varl shouted. He fired the pistol. The bullet deflected off the grotesk of an advancing storm trooper.
“You useless fething object!” Varl shouted at his weapon.
Cant cannoned into Varl and pushed him against the hallway wall. “What are you doing?” Varl began to exclaim.
There was a shriek like an eagle’s call. A bright, columnated beam of energy burned down the hallway past him and reduced two Blood Pact raiders to clouds of swirling organic debris. Several more beams followed it, bursting enemy soldiers like ripe ploins stuffed with det-tape.
The last thing Varl had expected to see was reinforcements. Baskevyl stormed past him, hefting a huge long-gun. Other men followed, similarly armed. One of them was Dalin Criid, a look of grim determination on his young face. They paused and sent more beams down the tunnel.
“Varl?”
Ludd appeared, leading a second block of men all armed with the antique weapons. Ludd was carrying his pistol.
“Commissar.”
“Pull your men back as best you can to the stairwell on fourteen. Preed’s waiting there with weapons to hand out.”
“I like the sound of that,” said Varl.
Ludd turned and raised his voice. “Men of Tanith!” he yelled. “Do you want to live forever?”
VII
Eszrah staggered backwards. He was gashed on the right arm, the left thigh and the left shoulder. So much blood soaked his grey clothing, he might easily have been mistaken for a member of the Blood Pact cadre. He tried to swing the sword.
The damogaur clipped its threat away with his whirring chainsword and rammed the blade into the side of Eszrah’s head. The Nihtgane crashed over, breaking a chart table.
The damogaur took a step forwards, holding the chainsword’s elongated grip with both hands. He chuckled, a deep, throaty sound. He was playing with Eszrah. He had knocked him down with the flat of his blade. Eszrah clawed for the handle of the sword, but the damogaur put his foot down on Eszrah’s forearm. Bones creaked. Eszrah gasped in pain. The damogaur, tiring of his sport, raised the eviscerator for the kill stroke. The teeth of the blade whirred.
A tiny silver point, no bigger than a fingernail, emerged from the damogaur’s Adam’s apple. A single drop of blood glittered on it. The damogaur pitched forwards, revealing Mkoll, teeth clenched, both fists clamped around the grip of the warknife he had rammed into the back of the damogaur’s neck.
“Hwat seyathee, soule?” Mkoll asked.
Eszrah managed a feeble, pain-drawn grin. “Y seyathee sacred feth,” he whispered.
Mkoll yanked his silver out of the corpse. “I’ve set charges to the mast,” he told Eszrah as he helped him up. “We’ve got four minutes.”
Eszrah nodded and picked up the sword.
“We can still get out of here,” Mkoll said. “Get out of here and head out into the desert while this place burns and they all run around looking for their arses with both hands.”
Eszrah shook his head. He raised the sword and pointed towards the back of the prefab, where a canvas flap led through into the adjoining shelter.
Mkoll knew what he meant. He was feeling the same thing, the same urge.
They moved down the prefab. Mkoll had unslung his rifle and held it ready to fire.
Near the doorway, a man was cowering in the shadows. He was a plump, wretched thing with scars on his bloated face. He wore a stinking leather apron smeared with blood both old and fresh. His hands were cased in rough leather gauntlets. He looked like a worker from a meat processing plant; the denizen of some infernal abattoir.
As they approached, he whimpered and held out a dirty spiked goad to threaten them.
Mkoll shot him in the head.
They moved past his twitching corpse, pulled back the canvas drop sheet and smelled blood.
VIII
The rocking Salamander sped back down the length of the Cadogus column, kicking dust. Hark sat in a pull down seat in the cab, lo
st in thought. Criid and Twenzet followed in a second Salamander. Bacler, riding in the cab beside Hark, had told them they would pick up their escort at the rear of the column. Bacler was busy on the cab vox-set, issuing instructions to the officers who would be taking charge of the mechanised squadron when he left it.
In the distance, the night sky was underlit by the pummelling flashes of an artillery duel ten kilometres north. Tanks and armoured vehicles flashed past as they rode down the centre of the advancing lines of Bacler’s battalion.
Hark was oblivious to the passing vehicles and lines of men. Pain and fatigue had all but conquered him. He swayed in his seat, burned out and lost, lost, like the Tanith First. His broken machine arm ached, and he found the pain faintly ridiculous.
Deep inside his head, the pipes started to play They were Tanith pipes and they played as only Brin Milo could play them. They played the way they had often played in his haunted dreams those past few years.
He stood up, steadying himself.
“Commissar?” Bacler asked.
“Something’s going to happen,” Hark said.
“What?”
“Tell the driver to stop,” Hark said. “Something’s going to happen. Whenever the pipes play, it’s a sign.”
“Commissar, you’re tired. You’ve been through a lot—”
“Stop the vehicle! I can hear the pipes playing.”
Bacler smiled awkwardly. “There are no pipes, sir. I hear nothing.”
Hark looked at him. “You’re not supposed to, colonel. I think they’ve always been meant for me. Will you please tell the driver to stop?”
“Cut the engines,” Bacler called into the driver’s compartment. The commissar was clearly deranged, but that was hardly surprising. There was no harm humouring him for a minute or two.
The Salamander came to a halt, rocking on its tracks. Criid’s ride came to a halt behind it, engine revving. “Everything all right, sir?” the officer aboard the second Salamander voxed crisply.
“Stand by, Leyden,” said Bacler into his mic.
Hark dismounted, jumping down into the dust. He took a few paces forward. The melody hung in the air, or in his head, he couldn’t decide which. He felt a sudden, terrible feeling of sadness and regret. It was like a dream breaking, a buried dream he could finally remember.
He looked back at the other Salamander. Criid and Twenzet had dismounted and were staring at him.
“Hark?” Criid called out.
“Just… just a minute, Tona,” he called back. He started forwards, walking down the line of the column ahead, past rows of tanks with idling engines and Cadogus troopers sitting at ease on the tops of transports. They watched him walk by, amused by the sight of the ragged, one-armed commissar with the hopeless look on his face.
Hark.
Hark walked on, gathering speed, past the tank and transport elements into the next section of the waiting column. He walked between two rows of Trojan tractors towing canisters of fuel on low-loader trailers. Their engines throbbed, but did not drown out the thin, floating melody.
Hark.
The Trojan drivers, sitting up in the top hatches, watched him stride past through the dust. Several more Trojan tractors stood in a line behind the fuel carriers. The machines were painted black and towed a far more volatile cargo in their trailers. A cluster of men in caps and black leather coats stepped out in front of Hark. They were commissars wearing Special Attachment emblems on their collars and epaulettes.
“Let me pass,” said Hark.
They hesitated, and then stood aside.
Help me.
Heavy cages with thick, iron bars sat on the trailers towed by the ominous black tractors. Dark, spavined shapes lurked behind the bars, chained hand and foot, lashed to bare metal frames in the centre of each cage. Some of the cages were studded with spikes and barbs that pointed inwards. Despite the stink of exhaust wafting from the tractors, Hark could smell the pain. Blood, sweat, faeces, gangrene and the wretched tang of static filled the night air.
The pipes grew louder.
Each cage was attended by dark, silent figures: Special Attachment commissars, servitors, armed guards in black uniforms with curiously full helmets, their visors down, and men and women in dark robes armed with handling poles and electric prods. Pale, grim faces and closed visors followed him as he toiled along the line.
Help me, Hark.
Hark came to a halt. He realised there were tears running down his face. The sadness that had eaten away at him for years had finally broken out, cracking the frozen surface of his emotional reserve. He looked up at the cage in front of him. The inward turned spikes were matted with dried blood.
A hunchbacked man in black leather came and stood in front of Hark. “You cannot approach the cage,” he hissed through rotten teeth.
“Go feth yourself,” said Hark.
A woman stepped forwards beside the hunchback. She was old and stiff, her thin face disfigured with a large red birthmark. She wore a long, austere dress of black lace that rustled in the desert wind.
“Custodian Culcus is quite correct,” she said. “You may not approach the cage or the specimen. These are the rules of the Sanctioned Division. It is for your own safety, sir. Psykers, even sanctioned ones, are dangerous animals.”
“Get out of my way” said Hark.
“Let him pass.”
Hark looked around. Bacler had followed him up the line of vehicles with Criid limping at his side. Criid had tears in her eyes. She can probably hear the frail, plaintive music too, Hark thought.
“Let him pass,” Bacler repeated.
The old dam in the black lace dress nodded and backed away, pulling the hunchback aside.
Hark clambered up onto the greasy bed of the trailer. He knelt down in front of the cage, his hands clutching the filthy bars.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
The thing inside the cage stirred. It was just a sack of meat, rotting and sagging. Heavy shackles pinned its wasted limbs to the cage frame. Hark could see that it had undergone extensive surgery. Sutured scars criss-crossed its dirty scalp and augmetic devices had been implanted in its neck, chest and throat. Its ears had been clipped off with shears and its eyes had been sewn shut. It slumped naked in a pool of its own waste. Open, weeping sores covered the flesh of its torso.
It’s all right.
“No,” said Hark. “It isn’t.”
This is my life now.
“This is no life,” said Hark.
The thing in the cage stirred. The chains holding its cadaverous limbs rattled.
I felt you here.
“I know. I understand that now.”
I felt you close. All of you. My friends. My old friends. I tried to reach you.
“I’m afraid you hurt us. We didn’t understand.”
I’m sorry, Hark. I just wanted to help you. Help you to survive.
“I know.”
I just wanted you to hear me.
“I heard you. We all heard you, in our dreams, in the things that haunted us.” Hark wiped his nose on his cuff.
I just wanted you to hear me. I just wanted to help you. You were so far away, in such danger, but I could feel you. I tried to reach you—
“You reached us,” Hark said.
The thing inside the cage shuddered. It gurgled. Slime dripped from the slit that had once been its mouth. It was laughing.
It’s not a precise art, this thing I do. Not cut and dried, neat and tidy, like smeltery work or soldiering. I miss both of my old professions. What I do is not precise, Hark. You were so far away, I could only reach you through your memories.
“You reached us,” Hark repeated.
Thunder rolled. Frost had formed on the bars of the cage.
“That’s enough now!” the old dam in the black lace dress called. Bacler put a hand on her shoulder and whispered to her. She fell silent.
My handlers are unhappy. They think I might act up now you’re here. They think
your presence might provoke me. They think I might kill you.
“I know you’re not going to do that,” said Hark. “Although if you did, I wouldn’t blame you.”
J only wanted to help you.
“I know.”
I only wanted you to help me. Help me. Please, Hark, help me. I can’t stand this any more.
The thing inside the cage rattled its chains again. Icicles had formed along the roof bars.
“I’ll help you,” Hark whispered, pushing his face against the bars.
You have to make it look right, Hark. Commissar-style, you know? Otherwise they’ll charge you for all sorts of crimes. They’ll hang you out to dry.
“I know what to do. Trust me. And forgive me.”
There’s nothing to forgive. Just help me.
Hark rose to his feet. He drew his engraved bolt pistol and racked the slide.
“By the grace of the Emperor!” he declared, loud enough for the handlers down below to hear him, “You’re dead and I can’t let this go on. You’re killing my men with your ghosts.”
He let the slide snap back and aimed the weapon between the bars of the cage.
“He can’t do that!” the old dam cried.
“Yes, he fething well can,” snarled Criid behind her.
“Is there anything else you want to say to me?” Hark whispered, his hand trembling.
Only the same thing I’ve been trying to tell you all these last few days.
“What’s that?”
He’s alive. He’s in terrible pain, but he’s alive.
Hark paused.
“Be at peace,” he said.
The wretched thing that had once been called Agun Soric looked up at him with sewn-up eyes through the bars of the cage.
Hark fired.
He jumped down off the trailer. The sound of the pipes had faded, forever. Hark felt sick.
“What did you do?” the old dam screamed at him.
Hark shoved her aside.
“I gave him what he needed,” Hark said.
“You killed him!” the hunchback stammered, outraged.
“Only in death does duty end,” Hark replied, “and he had done his duty a thousand times over.”
