He tried to imagine Arex was beside him, that he could smell her blossom-scented perfume, see the sadness in her eyes as she looked up at that statue: one of hundreds commissioned by successive Governors to honour those they had sent off to fight, those who hadn’t returned. A graven image of Arex’s father.
What had they done before that? He remembered. The newsreels. He had taken Arex to see them. They had made her uncomfortable, all that talk of bloodshed, but Gunthar had said it was okay because the Imperium always won. Arex had suggested they snatch protein burgers from a cart, surprising Gunthar who had been saving his credits for somewhat finer fare. He had loved that about her, the absence of any airs or graces.
They had sat beside the statue as the city had closed around them. A perfect summer evening, until Gunthar had spoiled it, his insecurities bubbling up as they always had.
“Let’s not talk about the future,” Arex had said, tearing her gaze from the statue, looking into his eyes instead. Her voice came as clear to him now as it had been back then. “I don’t care about the future right now. We have this moment, and we should enjoy it and not think about my uncle or your job or any of the rest of it. The future will happen regardless, and probably not in the way any of us expect, so why worry?”
He had opened his mouth to argue, and Arex had leaned in and touched her lips to his. Their first kiss. He had thought, at first, she was doing it to silence him. Then he had ceased to care if she was or she wasn’t, just lost himself in that blissful moment.
He hadn’t forgotten a single detail.
Arex broke off the contact, slipped through Gunthar’s arms, left him wreathed in a melancholic haze. On an impulse, he snatched the ring from his pocket, extended it towards her, begged her to take it before it was too late. Of course, she couldn’t answer him. She was only a ghost, and, when Gunthar opened his eyes, she was gone.
The past was gone.
He was weeping, without having felt the tears coming, and once that dam had burst he found he couldn’t rebuild it. He was doubled over, convulsed by wracking sobs, at the stone feet of Arex’s heroic father, howling his anguish at all he had lost to the uncaring sky and he didn’t care who or what might have heard him.
In the chill of the early morning, he found what he had been seeking.
He had had to venture closer than planned to the necron tomb, returning to ground level to do so. This was where the majority of his comrades had died, after all. Fortunately, there were few necrons about, the bulk of them doubtless still occupied in Thelonius, and Gunthar had only had to conceal himself twice from their patrols. Few corpses had survived the gauss guns intact, and those that had had been stripped of anything useful by the Death Korps quartermasters. However, Gunthar found a corpse the quartermasters had overlooked, and struck lucky. It was a grenadier, which meant he was likely better equipped than the average Guardsman.
He was lying in the open. The green light from the pyramid washed over him in sickening waves, albeit diffused by daylight. Gunthar bent low, scurried over there, relieved the body of its possessions as rapidly as he could. As he wrestled with its backpack, he knocked the facemask loose. Of course, he recalled, unlike the other Krieg men, the grenadiers carried their rebreather units on their backs, allowing room for more armour at the front. He had no time to untangle the connecting hose, so he bundled the whole assembly together, taking everything, armour and all.
He closed the fallen soldier’s eyes as a mark of respect, but didn’t stop to mourn him. He had purged the last of his human feelings in front of that statue.
He retreated to a bolthole: a dormitory several blocks away and a few floors up, where he laid out his haul for inspection. A hellgun with two spare power packs. Six frag grenades held within pouches in the grenadier’s belt, which Gunthar now donned. The rations and the medi-pack, he didn’t need. He was likewise about to lay the rebreather to one side when he hesitated, stared into the blank eyepieces of that mask.
He turned it around, lifted it to his face. The fabric felt scratchy against his cheeks and the mask restricted his peripheral vision. Still, there was something almost reassuring about looking at the world like this, through Krieg eyes. It made him feel one step removed from it all, looking in on life but no part of it. The only sound he could hear was that of his own breathing as he sucked in dry, filtered air through the hose. It felt good. It felt right—and, when Gunthar caught sight of his reflection in an unbroken window, it looked right too. It seemed fitting. So, instead of removing the mask, he picked up the rebreather unit, pushed his arms through its worn straps and hefted it onto his back. It was heavy, but he bore its weight gladly.
He fastened the grenadier’s shoulder guards, chest plate, shin and knee guards to himself. The helmet was a little too large for him, but he wore this too, and pulled on the charcoal grey greatcoat for good measure. He was ready now.
He stepped out into the street again, hellgun in hands. He had cleaned it thoroughly, familiarised himself with it, knew it was a good weapon.
He knew he could do little alone, he wasn’t fooling himself. Gunthar had heard it said that the Emperor would raze Hieronymous Theta rather than allow his enemies to keep it. He believed this, but he also believed that if anyone or anything could survive a planetary cataclysm, the necrons could. They would flock from here to another world, begin the cycle of destruction all over again.
He marched towards their tomb, his back straight, his head upright, no attempt at stealth made this time. Let the necrons see me, he thought, let them come. What could they do to him, after all? What more could they take from him?
Gunthar Soreson was dead, along with everything he had valued in his meaningless life. In his place, inhabiting his flesh, was a soldier. A soldier with no orders but now possessed of a new sense of purpose, the only purpose a soldier ever really had.
He remembered what his instructors had told him before his first battle: that if he could take down just one foe, he would have justified his life. He had already done more than that. He was fighting for the others now, for those comrades of his who had not been as lucky as he had been, for those who had died unfulfilled. He had no name anymore, no face. He represented all of them, and he carried their souls with him.
He was going to be a hero.
About the Author
Steve Lyons has written novels, short stories, radio plays and comic strips for characters including the X-Men, Doctor Who, Strontium Dog and Sapphire & Steel. For the Black Library, he is known for the Imperial Guard books, Death World and Ice Guard, and the audio drama, Waiting Death. He has also written several non-fiction books about television shows, and contributed to many magazines.
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