Seventh Retribution

by Ben Counter

  The tall building at the north-west corner shuddered, as if explosives had been detonated around its foundations. The front of it fell away and dark purplish light blazed out, as if the building was the false front of a deep cave lined with glowing amethyst. The light filled the cockpit of the Sanctifier, obliterating the viewscreen readout.

  The sound of orders and yelled curses came from the vox-link to the ground. The pict-screens in front of Kebriones flickered and went dark. The Sanctifier yawed as a shockwave hit it, the air pushed outwards as something forced its way into reality.

  Rubble slewed across the square from the flayed tower. A shape, like a vast bird with long, coiling feathers of multicoloured fire, swept out of the purple blaze.

  At its centre was a humanoid shape. A woman. At first glance she was beautiful. Her perfect body was pale and flawless as a sculptor’s marble. But her arms and legs ended in sprays of feathers and her eyes were not eyes at all, but black hollows that bored through her face and gave a glimpse of a void contained within her. What seemed at first to be her hair were strips of skin, extruded from her scalp in a fleshy mass that fell halfway to the ground.

  She had wings, too, a huge spread of burning feathers that unfolded from behind her.

  She held up an arm, and the feathers unfurled and coiled like the fronds of an underwater plant. With a gesture, she cast a long line of pink fire across the square, rushing out from a point beneath her feet.

  The flames rushed through the lead tank. The tank was engulfed by them, disappearing in the luminescence that flowed over it like liquid. The Kirgallans caught in it disappeared, burst into showers of burning ash.

  <> came the vox-operator’s voice, forgetting his voice was being transmitted.

  ‘Sanctifier is engaging!’ voxed Gorgythion, and fired the vertical engines to force the Shadowhawk higher over the battlefield.

  Las-fire streaked up at the abomination. A missile spiralled towards her and detonated a short distance away, as if it had struck an invisible sphere surrounding her body.

  No, not her body. Its body.

  Gorgythion told himself it was not a woman. It would have to be human to be a woman, and it had shed whatever humanity it possessed a long time ago. He aimed the nose of the Sanctifier at the centre of the blaze surrounding it, and the targeting runes lit up. The archeotech targeting systems, using technology from before the Imperium’s founding, seemed eager to launch everything it had at the moral threat. It seemed to know. Quite possibly, given the antiquity of the cogitators which housed its machine-spirit, it did.

  The six missile pods, whose bulk replaced the passenger compartment in the Thunderhawk chassis, rumbled angrily as a salvo was chambered and the rockets primed. The cogitators shuddered, throwing incandescent launch paths across the viewscreen in front of Gorgythion.

  Piloting the Sanctifier was more than just a question of aiming the craft’s weapons. Gorgythion had learned to hold it back, too, until the time was perfect.

  The Shadowhawk arrowed downwards, plunging steeply towards the target. A wave of pink fire scythed towards it, scouring along the top of the fuselage, just off-target. The abomination’s eyes turned towards the Sanctifier and Gorgythion was sure those windows into the void were focused right on him.

  A ring of runes lit up around her inhuman face. Targeting solutions rattled past. Gorgythion slammed a fist onto the firing stud on the instrument panel.

  The cogitator seemed to roar in delight, the sound mingling with the shriek of the missile exhausts igniting. A salvo of six missiles, each tipped with a Harbinger warhead, lanced towards the abomination. Each one split into a dozen bomblets, and every bomblet burst in a shower of silver flame and shrapnel.

  Gorgythion yanked the controls to one side and the Sanctifier shuddered in the shockwave from the exploding missiles. The gunship rose on the wave of superheated air, carrying it over the head of the abomination and through the fan of flame that adorned its wings.

  Arrows of fire spat up at the gunship. The craft flipped, one wing struck, and Gorgythion shut down the main engines and gunned the landing jets.

  The craft fell for a second and a half, the spinning tiles of the square sprinting up towards it. The jets, fired independently as Gorgythion’s gauntlets danced across the instruments, forced it level again and arrested the plunge.

  The abomination, thrown back by the volley of explosions, slammed into the front of one of the square’s northern buildings. The void bled from her eyes, liquid blackness running down her face like dark tears. She shrieked, perhaps less at the pain and more at the indignity of being thrown out of the air and sprawled like a discarded toy.

  ‘Terra’s hearth,’ said Kebriones. ‘It bleeds, at least.’

  ‘Damage?’ said Gorgythion.

  ‘Left wing is holed,’ came the reply. ‘Left bow jet burned out.’

  ‘Good,’ said Gorgythion. ‘We can still fly and shoot.’ He swung the gunship back around, just a few metres above the ground, nose panning across the square.

  ‘Wait,’ said Kebriones. ‘The north side. More of them.’

  Gorgythion could see them. They were not sacrifices. They were armed – they were soldiers.

  Most of them were drawn, by the looks of it, from the forces of the Aristeia. Their bright uniforms, however, were unkempt and ragged, and they were a mismatch of household colours. Mixed in with them were the same random assortment of Khezal’s social castes who had thrown themselves from the buildings above. They carried lasguns and autoguns, a few heavy stubbers, swords and knives. Several hundred of them were emerging from the shadows around the buildings, advancing over the bodies of those who had died a few minutes earlier.

  And there was something appallingly wrong with them. It might have been the pallor of their skin, either dusty white or the lifeless grey-brown of asphalt. The way they shambled as much as walked, snapping shots less in the hope of hitting anything and more because some old instinct told them that was what soldiers did. But mostly, it was their faces. The same void that filled the abomination glimmered behind their eyes, too.

  ‘Contacts, north!’ voxed Kebriones. ‘Kirgallan, 4th Plaudis Shock, you have enemy militia approaching in strength from the north!’

  Gorgythion could see the Kirgallans responding. Already in disarray from the multicoloured flame raining down among them, they now scattered and leapt into the cover afforded by the collapsed buildings of the square. The two remaining tanks took aim and hammered battle cannon shots into the approaching enemy, throwing bodies into the air.

  The enemy did not stop. They sped up, breaking into loping runs. They barely seemed to notice the lasgun fire from the Kirgallans that mowed them down in tens and twenties. Their own fire did barely anything to the armoured, disciplined Guardsmen.

  Gorgythion aimed the Sanctifier into the enemy ranks and sprayed assault cannon fire into them, and the kill was huge. Fifty militia must have died as the Shadowhawk gunship yawed sideways, the cogitators hungrily rattling through ammo belts to tally the kill.

  Gorgythion could see the enemy up close now. Their humanity had been shorn from them as surely as from the abomination now spreading its burning wings again. They charged into the Kirgallans even as the Guardsmen’s guns mowed down another hundred of them, the bodies sent sprawling, spraying gore, across the square.

  The enemy tore open their uniform jackets and overalls. Beneath them, they had long, straight slits running from collarbone to waist, like lipless vertical mouths. The mouths opened, revealing the shuddering masses of polyps that clung to the wet redness inside.

  The polyps burst. A greyish haze flowed over the Guardsmen. Every biological weapon alert in the cockpit of the Sanctifier lit up at once.

  ‘Kirgallans, bioweapon alert!’ voxed Gorgythion.

  There was no reply, just the scratchy echo of las-fire and screaming over the open vox-link.

  ‘Kirgallan, come in!’

  <! I can see the Hells! Right… right to the centre of the world…>> came the vox-operator’s voice.

  ‘Kirgallan, please acknowledge, bioweapon alert!’

  <>

  Beneath the Sanctifier, Gorgythion could see Guardsmen collapsing under the cloud of spores emanating from the enemy troops, or shooting one another, or weeping, or dancing. The enemy were cutting the throats of the helpless ones, while the few Guardsmen who retained their senses were falling back out of the square, rifling through their packs for their rebreather masks.

  One of the remaining Plaudis tanks exploded, throwing its turret high on a burning cloud of detonating ammunition.

  ‘It’s a general retreat,’ said Kebriones, monitoring the command vox-channels linking the various Imperial Guard units. ‘Abandon open ground and dig in.’

  Gorgythion tried to cover the Kirgallans’ retreat, but there was little he could do. The enemy were many and he could only kill so many of them. The Kirgallans dug in on the lower floors of the buildings south of the square, and once inside they were on their own. The enemy were wheeling missile launchers and autocannon on limbers across the square, even a couple of lascannon from the armouries of the Aristeia. Gorgythion pulled the Sanctifier up and back, out of the range of the heavy weapons.

  From here he could see the fires of battle added to the blazes begun by the naval bombardment. Buildings were alight with gunfire from their windows, and narrow streets were choked with the living and the dead as they fled or tried to advance. Everywhere the Imperial Guard were falling back, when every strategy of the Guard colonels had assumed they would advance unopposed into the heart of Khezal in a couple of hours.

  Gorgythion flew back towards the Imperial lines around the docks to refuel and rearm. He would fly out again soon, he was sure, but not to harry the defeated enemy everyone assumed would flee before the Guard. Instead, Khezal had proven it could fight back.

  Lord Speaker Kallistan vel Sephronaas cut much the same figure as the ancestors whose portraits hung around the auditorium of House Sephronaas. On a smaller man his gut would have made him obese, but on him, it somehow made him even more kingly than the bottle-green velvet and ermine trim in which he was enrobed. Even the wig he wore, powdered curls with strings of gemstones embroidered into the locks that tumbled over his shoulders, seemed on him the garb of a monarch rather than an affectation. The Aristeia’s defenders often claimed that the various household bloodlines were maintained to create men and women with the genes required for leadership and majesty, and Lord Speaker Kallistan vel Sephronaas was the man they pointed to when asked for proof.

  The auditorium, somewhere in the vast, mostly underground House Sephronaas estate, was designed to amplify the Lord Speaker’s majesty. Gilded ribs divided the dome into slices of fresco, with past luminaries of the house enthroned on clouds like saints. The Lord Speaker was alone, save for his translator, but still he seemed to fill the place. Even via pict-broadcast, the effect was total.

  He snapped his fingers. The translator, a small woman with short blonde hair seemingly selected for her plainness, scurried forwards and knelt by her master’s feet.

  ‘I shall stoop,’ he said via the translator, ‘to addressing you in the tongue of the common Imperium, though its words shall not sully my mouth.’ The Lord Speaker’s own words were in the breathy, booming language of the Aristeia, an old tongue that was still illegal for commoners to use, extinct outside the most senior of Opis’s aristocracy.

  ‘As the Lord Speaker of our people, the one to whom the responsibility for Opis’s place in the galaxy falls, I am to be considered the greatest authority on this world as far as the emissaries of the Imperium understand it. Therefore, the whole of Opis is bound to my word.

  ‘In the last three hours the determination of Opis to resist the Imperial tyranny has been demonstrated. My world will not kneel and beg for forgiveness. Our only crime was the execution of a malefactor who sought to denigrate the name of the Aristeia with his accusations. Lord Inquisitor Kekrops was justly slain by the ancient laws of Opis. The Imperium’s invasion of my world is, similarly, a crime, and like any crime, punishment will be exacted.

  ‘Every man and woman you send to Opis, Lords of the Imperium, will die in the streets of Khezal, and anywhere else you care to fight over. We are not alone in our fight, and our allies will fight just as fiercely as we do. Our whole population is at our disposal, and if their lives must all be spent to throw your verminous kind back into the void then spend them we will. Not the Imperial Guard, nor the Imperial Navy, nor the Adeptus Astartes themselves will sway us from our course of freedom and independence.

  ‘Leave Opis, and you will suffer nothing but the humiliation of your loss. Stay, and you will all die. This I swear, by the swords of my ancestors and the very stones of Opis.’

  Lord Speaker Kallistan vel Sephronaas snapped his fingers once more and the translator crawled backwards behind him, out of pict-shot. He said a final sentence, again in the language of the Aristeia, but even without translation the look on his jowly, furious face gave little doubt that it was the most venomous insult in the long history of Aristeia politics. Then, the broadcast ended.

  ‘Technically, he is the planetary governor,’ said the intelligence officer, indicating the frozen image of vel Sephronaas on the pict-screen. ‘Since it is to him that the tithing and legal responsibilities fall.’

  ‘Have we dealt with him before?’ said Lord Commander Tchepikov, who sat at the head of the briefing table in the map room aboard the Merciless. Beside him were liaison officers from Imperial Guard regiments currently embattled in Khezal, many of whom were now among the few survivors of their regiments. The form of Librarian Deiphobus loomed, standing, for none of the map table’s thrones were large enough for his armoured size.

  ‘Only the Administratum,’ replied the officer, referring to a pile of parchments in front of him. ‘He was always high-handed, but nothing that cultural differences could not explain. The last tithing mission thought him to be a reliable link between the Imperium and the Aristeia. Never any problems.’

  ‘There are problems now,’ said Tchepikov. ‘Would you not agree?’

  ‘Yes, Lord Commander,’ said the officer.

  ‘Get that jackal off my screen,’ ordered Tchepikov, and the image of Lord Speaker Kallistan vel Sephronaas vanished.

  ‘He blusters like a prizefighter who knows he is outclassed,’ said Colonel Hartz of the Lord Sorteliger’s Own, a hereditary officer who had nevertheless earned every medal he wore on his chest along with the duelling scars on his face. ‘He seeks to intimidate. These are the words of desperation.’

  ‘But the allies of which he speaks are real enough,’ replied Colonel DuKrastimir of the Luthermak Deathworlders. ‘I have bodybags to fill with the evidence of that.’ DuKrastimir pointed with a meaty finger to illustrate his point. He was as huge as a shaven bear, his physical presence somehow enhanced by the fact that both his legs and his left arm had been lost in combat and replaced with oily, functional bionics. ‘This is a message for his own people. They have been conditioned to obey everything the damned Aristeia say. There are only so many moral threats on this world for him to call on. He needs the people of Opis to believe they can beat us, too.’

  ‘And what news of these allies have we collated?’ said Tchepikov. ‘They have shown their hand, in Khezal at least. Lieutenant Mace, what are we dealing with?’

  One of the intelligence officers cleared her throat and stood up. She had a greyish, drained look to her, with a tight, lean face and black hair drawn up in a severe bun. ‘Kekrops had compiled the likely identities of some moral threats he believed were hiding on Opis. Some of those in turn have appeared to defend Khezal. Karnikhal Six-Finger is the warrior witnessed by the 120th Deucalians. He is believed to be a renegade Adeptus Astartes, probably in a military co
mmand role. Hektaon sappers infiltrating the underground transportation system encountered a witch who can be identified with Dravin Stahl, a long-time Inquisition target. And the creature engaged by the Kirgallans was probably a possessee and witch named by Kekrops as Antiocha Wyraxx.’

  ‘One of yours,’ said Tchepikov to Deiphobus.

  ‘My brother Imperial Fists brought Wyraxx to battle,’ said Deiphobus. ‘The heretic was engaged by our support craft. I have offered all intelligence gained in this to your staff.’

  ‘Where did they come from?’ said Tchepikov. ‘Kekrops was so close to finding out when he was killed. What secrets the Aristeia must have been keeping, to have executed an inquisitor and brought the Imperium’s vengeance on their world.’

  ‘And why?’ said Deiphobus. ‘What prize is Opis to such a gallery of traitors and witches? This is a populous world, it is certain, and the Imperium would suffer much from its loss. But the same could be said of any one of a million worlds. These threats are not home-grown; they are not native to this world. Something brought them here. If we knew what it was, we might understand much more about who is really in control of the enemy here.’

  ‘Then it is not vel Sephronaas?’ said Colonel Hartz.

  ‘Indeed, it is not,’ replied Deiphobus. ‘Many times have the Imperial Fists taken to war against the slaves of the Dark Gods. And every one of those traitors has believed that he is in charge of his own destiny. They are never in charge of anything. They are puppets of a greater power, a power which must be hunted down and destroyed as the true enemy. Vel Sephronaas probably believes that he is the leader of Opis’s resistance to the Imperium, but in truth, he is being controlled by something far worse than a renegade governor.’ Deiphobus paused, holding out a hand as if weighing something. ‘But don’t let that dissuade you from killing him.’

  ‘He will be added to the target list,’ said Tchepikov. ‘It is getting rapidly longer. On which note, gentlemen, the defence of Khezal has forced us to alter our plan for Opis. The moral threats of the city are utilising its population in numbers we did not expect. This is unfortunate but not without precedent and has been planned for. We will not behead the resistance on Opis by storming and capturing Khezal rapidly. A secondary plan to surround, invade and reduce other key cities of Opis will be instituted immediately. Naval and Guard reinforcements have been demanded and the reserves currently in orbit, which were to be used in refounding and subjugation duties, will be committed on the ground. This has gone from a battle to a war, but we were prepared for war and it will be won.’