by Ben Counter
'Sisters!' shouted the canoness, and Alaric knew she was talking over the vox - the Sisters must have had a robust vox-relay station somewhere in the rear lines, that kept their vox-net intact. 'Cease fire! Now, all of you!'
'Grey Knights cease fire!' echoed Alaric. An explosion sounded from Tancred's spearhead down the trench. 'Now, Tancred! Cease fire and fall back to me!'
Alaric glanced around. The Seraphim were standing back, bolt pistols aimed. Several Sisters appeared at the edge of the trench training their bolters on Alaric. The Grey Knights moved warily towards Alaric, storm bolters levelled, Nemesis weapons held ready. Alaric saw Lykkos was bleeding from several rents in his armour and Dvorn's chestplate was pockmarked and smoking. Squad Genhain had fared better but every Marine was looking the worse for wear, covered in wounds and bullet scars. Several Sisters lay wounded or dead, and the mud of the trench was soaked with blood.
The Seraphim Superior was helped to her feet by one of her Sisters. Her skin was pallid with shock but there was no hiding the hate in her eyes.
'Justicar?' said the canoness.
'Brother-Captain,' replied Alaric. 'Acting.'
'I fear there has been a terrible error of judgment.' The canoness looked down at the Sororitas bodies in the trench. She could rein in her emotions when so much was at stake, but she could not completely hide her sorrow.
'There was no error.' said Alaric. 'The source of the suffering on the Trail is here on Volcanis Ultor. The Enemy has used Imperial troops to guard it. The same Enemy was counting on none of the defenders having heard of the Grey Knights, in which respect I am assuming he was wrong.'
'My Order served with Lord Inquisitor Karamazov at the Tigurian Flow. The Grey Knights were there, too, though I never fought with them. You were fortunate I recognised you at all.' The canoness lowered her inferno pistol. 'Canoness Carmina Ludmilla, Order of the Bloody Rose.'
'Brother-Captain Alaric. Are your Sisters defending Lake Rapax?'
'It hardly seems worth defending. We are holding the end, of the line, the only thing here is the processing plant.'
'Is there anything else on the lake?'
'No, just the plant.'
'Have you been inside?'
Ludmilla shook her head. 'Valinov warned us the chemicals inside were volatile.'
Alaric started. 'Inquisitor Valinov?'
'Yes. Did he send you?'
Alaric paused. How could he begin to explain? But seeing the noble canoness waiting for an answer, he knew the only choice was to tell her the truth. 'Valinov is the enemy. He was sentenced to death by the Ordo Malleus and escaped. The confusion is his doing. He ordered you to defend the plant because it conceals the place where his master will rise.'
'Valinov is an inquisitor.' Ludmilla's voice was stern - Alaric could tell he hadn't yet completely earned her trust. 'He has the blessing of Cardinal Recoba and everyone else on Volcanis Ultor. You, however, have killed my Sisters and very nearly killed me. Grey Knight or not you are asking me to believe a great deal in a very short time.'
'We are not aggressors here.' said Alaric. 'Your Sisters fired the first shot.'
Ludmilla glanced to the south, where the inferno of the blast site glowed dully through the ash. 'The Balurian heavy infantry would argue otherwise, brother-captain.'
Tancred stomped through the trench towards Alaric. Smoke was pouring off him - the servos of his Terminator armour were working hard and the ceramite plates were charred and stank of promethium. 'Canoness.' he said darkly. 'Your Sisters fight well. I wish I had found out another way.'
Ludmilla glared at him.
'Where is Valinov now?' asked Alaric.
'He has offices in Cardinal Recoba's spire.' replied Ludmilla. 'But he was due to review our positions when the crash happened.'
'Then he's here already.' Alaric looked down at the dead Sisters, brave soldiers and servants the Imperium could not afford to replace. Sisters Hospitaller were hurrying from the rearward lines to tend to the wounded and take away the dead. 'I am sick of being too late, canoness, I need you and your Sisters. Valinov is raising something terrible on the shore of Lake Rapax and he has created our conflict to cover his tracks. He assumed that we would fight each other to a standstill, but he was wrong. I intend to prove him wrong with or without you, Sister, but I fear we cannot prevail on our own.'
'I cannot help you if I do not know what we are fighting, brother-captain.'
Alaric took a breath. How could he articulate something like this, an evil composed of pure knowledge that used insanity and corruption as its weapon, that could not be fought or killed or understood, that once risen would ingrain itself into the fabric of the Imperium until it would take another thousand years to find?
'Sister.' began Alaric carefully, 'There is no time, so I cannot make you begin to truly understand. But it calls itself Ghargatuloth...'
Chapter Eighteen
THE STATUE GARDEN
THE BALURIAN HEAVY infantry had lost a third of its men, wiped out by a crash that turned them into dust that swirled over the mantle of ash and mud. Colonel Gortz was dead and communications were gone, so another third were cut off and helpless, stranded blind and out of contact, forced to hunker down and hold their defences against an enemy they could not see.
The rest of the Balurians, more than seven hundred troops, gathered towards the northern end of the Imperial lines. The Balurians were exceptionally disciplined troops but with so many officers dead there was no one to lead them against the enemy that would surely attack in the wake of the catastrophe.
But the Imperial Guard could fight on without officers. Because when officers could not lead - whether through incompetence, corruption, lack of willpower or, as at Volcanis Ultor, sheer magnitude of casualties, the Guard had another command structure that took over.
A commissar was not a tactician. He was not a strategist. He could not fine-tune an assault or design the perfect defence. But when the Guard needed leadership, such things were irrelevant. Commissars led when the Guardsmen needed to be led from the front into the teeth of a foe a colonel and his officers could not face. When there was no room for tactics or skill or anything but sheer bloody-minded, fanatical bravery, the commissars took the lead.
Commissar Thanatal had always known he might have to take the Balurians into combat when there was no one else to do it. It was what he had been trained for since he first came to the Schola Progenium, an orphan of one of innumerable Imperial wars. In many years of harsh tutelage he had learned that duty was a sword that would kill you as surely as it could be wielded against the enemy, a sword it was his destiny to wield. He did not care about the lives of his men or the cleanness of the victory, or even his own wellbeing. He cared about punishing the enemies of the Emperor for the sin of daring to exist in His sight, in bringing the souls of his Guardsmen to the embrace of the Emperor in the holy light of war.
He believed in culling the cowardly and the weak-willed, so the Balurians could count only true Imperial spirits in their number when the time came to die for the Emperor's glory.
The hem of Thanatal's long black leather coat dragged in the clotted mud of the trenches and his mesh armour was heavy as he struggled northwards through the blinding ash. He heard men yelling their comrades' names, screaming in pain, praying out loud.
He stumbled over choking bodies. The commissar took off his peaked cap and pulled his rebreather over his head, breathing deeply as the filter screened out the worst of the ash.
The clouds parted and Thanatal could see, just, as if in the dead of night. Torchlight cut through the swirling gloom. Men, dim straggling shapes, were scrambling over the rained defences, heading back in the direction of Volcanis Ultor.
Thanatal saw a sergeant directing a gaggle of men. 'Sergeant!' he yelled. 'Where are you going?'
'They're coming at us through the Sisters' lines. We're gathering at the rearward trenches. We're going to hold the supply trenches, set up another line...'
Thanatal drew his bolt pistol and shot the sergeant through the throat. The soldiers nearby stopped dead.
'The regiment!' yelled Thanatal as if he were bawling orders on the parade ground, 'Will advance to the north! The enemy has assaulted us to cut us off from his objective, but he has failed! While Balurians still live, the enemy will be punished!'
Men tried to scramble through the darkness away from Thanatal. Two more shots barked out and a Guardsmen fell, draped over the razorwire. No one else ran.
'The enemy is to the north! The regiment will advance!'
Men were gathering around him. Thanatal strode as best he could through the bodies and mud, clambering over the crumbling edge of the trench so all the men could see him. He grabbed a torch off one of the men and held it high, casting a finger of light that pointed upwards through the ash.
'The enemy is trying to surround us and cut us off! Even now he butchers our brothers and plots our deaths! Even now he thinks he has won! But if he wants victory then by the Emperor, he will have to kill us all! While one Balurian lives the Emperor will suffer no defeat!' Thanatal fired again, at random this time into the murk. More Balurians were scrambling towards him. He walked north, through the wreckage and razorwire, and gradually the pull of the crowd drew more and more with him.
'To the north!' men were shouting. 'They're gonna get behind us! Follow me!'
Out of the chaos was forged a growing crowd of men, stumbling through the darkness, Thanatal never letting up as he commanded their attention. He told them of the revenge they were seeking. He fired at men who tried to crawl away as he approached. He took the anger of the Balurians and turned it into something that drowned out their fear, and his heart swelled as he thought of all those loyal minds turned upon him when they could have been seeking refuge in despair.
He was their salvation. He was walking the path that led them away from the sin of cowardice and into the blinding light of the Emperor.
The enemy was here. They had to be. The devastating crash was the first gambit in an all-out attack, and Thanatal would not let his Balurian charges lose the chance to be in the heart of it.
'Commissar!' came a voice from up ahead. Thanatal saw the shape of an armoured car through the ash. A figure jumped down from it and hurried over the mud. It was a tall, lean figure in a long flak-coat, holding a power sword. As the blade leapt to life it shone a pale blue and Thanatal could make out a proud, noble face, eyes burning with determination.
'Commissar, praise the Emperor! I had thought the Balurians were lost!'
'Not while one still breathes.' said Thanatal, making sure his men could hear. 'Not when we can still make the enemy suffer!'
'Then your men will be my honour guard, commissar. The enemy is here and they are foul indeed, but with you I can bring them the justice they crave.' The man saluted with the blade of his sword. 'Inquisitor Gholic Ren-Sar Valinov, commissar, honoured to serve alongside the men of Balur.'
Thanatal gripped Valinov's hand in a firm leader's handshake. 'What do you want of us, inquisitor?'
'Steel and guts, commissar. It's the only way.' Valinov held up his sword so the men could see it, a sparkling beacon like harnessed lightning. 'For the Throne and the Balurian dead! Vengeance and justice, sons of the Emperor! Vengeance!'
'Vengeance!' men yelled back, and soon the men took it up as a chant led by Thanatal. 'Vengeance!'
Vengeance. Everyone knew it was the only thing worth fighting for. Commissar Thanatal knew his duty would be done, for under him the sons of Balur would have the chance to fight for it.
THE PROCESSING PLANT loomed up through the darkness, squat and ugly, its sheer plasticrete sides streaked with grime. Alaric could just make out Retributor squads on the roof, trying to train their heavy bolters on the defences around the plant. Large rockcrete antitank blocks and several bunkers were ranged around the plant, offering plenty of cover to the Grey Knights and Sisters moving into position at the front of the plant.
The plant itself was on the very edge of Lake Rapax, the foul waters lapping at its rear wall. The squat blocky shapes that made up the plant were streaked with chemicals that had condensed on the walls. The whole plant looked filthy and neglected, like a prison - no windows, no markings, just the single rusted entrance serving the whole bloated building.
The stench of Lake Rapax cut through everything -harsh and metallic, a terrible chemical smell. The oily glint of the lake's surface was just visible, still rippling from the shock of the impact. Foul greasy mist rose off the lake, mingling with the ash to form a grim drizzle of corruption.
Alaric jogged through the defences towards the plant, his squad and Justicar Santoro's Marines around him, Ludmilla close behind.
Ludmilla had brought almost a hundred Sisters of Battle with her - she had seen many of the atrocities committed throughout the Trail, and now she knew that Ghargatuloth was behind them she understood why the Grey Knights were there.
She could now understand the web of lies and manipulation that had turned her Sisters into instruments of the Enemy, and Alaric thought it must have made her feel so unclean that only pure bloody revenge could get her soul clean.
'Sister Heloise.' ordered Ludmilla, her voice raised to get over the static still fouling all communications. 'Bring your multi-meltas to ground level, now!'
The rusted steel front doors of the plant wouldn't have opened even if the Sisters could have unlocked them. The Excorcist tanks stationed at the front of the plant could have blasted through them but the Sisters and Grey Knights would have had to hang back to avoid the explosion - the multi-meltas could cut through the metal and let them charge in much more quickly.
Ghargatuloth would know they were coming. Whatever they found, the Sisters and the Grey Knights had to strike before it could fight back.
The Seraphim Superior, Sister Lachryma, brought her Seraphim to the front. Two squads had lost so many Sisters that they now fought as one, seven Seraphim under Lachryma whose jaw was now a large purple bruise.
She nodded once in salute as she led her Sisters behind a buttress on the plant wall for cover. Tancred stomped forward to the other side of the doors. These two squads, without having to be ordered, would be the first in.
The Retributor squad of Sister Heloise were down off the walls, lugging their multi-meltas and massive heavy bolters with their chains of explosive ammunition. Alaric saw Heloise had a bionic arm and her shaven scalp was half-covered in an ugly burn scar.
'Anything from inside?' asked Ludmilla.
'Nothing.' said Heloise.
'Open it up.' ordered Ludmilla. 'Sisters, ready! Lachryma and the Knights will lead. Steel your souls, for the Enemy will try to take you first.' Ludmilla turned to Alaric. 'I know the Grey Knights have never had a Marine lose their mind to Chaos. But the Adepta Sororitas have lost Sisters to the Enemy before. It is rare, and no one will admit to it, but.'
'It is bad enough that Ghargatuloth has used you.' said Alaric. 'I would not let any of you live on with your minds violated.'
Ludmilla nodded in thanks. Then, she turned back to Heloise. 'Fire!'
The melta-beams cut through the steel, sending showers of sparks that cast huge, sinister shadows through, the mantle of ash. A section of the doors fell away, and even to Alaric's superior sight there was only blackness inside.
Lachryma hurried out of cover and charged into the darkness, sword drawn. Her Seraphim followed, pistols out, and Tancred's squad followed. Their Terminator armour barely fit through the gap.
'Clear.' voxed Tancred after a few seconds.
'Move in!' called Alaric and ran for the gap, halberd ready. Santoro and Genhain followed him in. Ludmilla was next along with several squads of Battle Sisters, leaving Heloise outside to back them up.
It was pure blackness inside, not just an absence of light but a veil of obscuring darkness. Alaric couldn't make out the walls or the ceiling. The floor was ancient broken marble, once covered in exquisite mosaics
but now fragmented and crumbling. There were no chemical vats or processing turbines - the plant was silent and cold, and the air smelled only of age. The place had been completely sealed against the corrosion from Lake Rapax.
Alaric advanced carefully, the faint shaft of pallid light from the doorway his only point of reference. He spotted Lachryma's Seraphim up ahead, Tancred's Terminators holding a loose line in front of them. The sword of Mandulis glowed faintly in Tancred's hand, gleaming bright and clean in spite of the blood and ash that covered it - casting a faint pool of pale light around the justicar.
Alaric approached Tancred and saw why they had stopped. Looming through the darkness, stretching as far as Alaric could see, was a sinister forest of immense statues. They seemed to grow from the marble floor like trees, many times the height of a man, each one cracked and ancient. Many leaned at awkward angles. They were figures carved in sweeping robes or elaborate finery, turned by darkness and age into indistinct half-glimpsed shapes. Alaric jogged up behind Tancred and saw the face of the nearest statue was gone, eaten away as if by corrosion, blank pits where eyes should have been, the faint outlines of bare teeth instead of a mouth. The figure had once been a cardinal or a deacon in long robes, but now it leaned precariously as if about to topple down on whoever approached.
'Forward.' said Alaric. 'Spread out but stay in sight'
He passed the faceless cardinal and saw there were dozens of statues, forming a field of monuments that seemed to fill the shell of the processing plant. Here there was a dashing figure in a naval uniform whose head had crumbled into a featureless twist of stone. An astropath reached out to make the sign of the aquila, but his hand was a pile of broken stone on the floor beneath him.
