by Dan Abnett
the bright Astartes here to lead us, Lord Diaz, and Khan Shiban. I thought more Astartes were coming. That’s what we need. Space Marines. Not some old man. What does he know?’
‘He wouldn’t have been sent if he wasn’t good enough,’ said Willem Kordy (33rd Pan-Pac Lift Mobile). ‘Now, grab the other end of this, will you?’
* * *
The general’s retinue followed the dank transit tunnels from the platform down into Monsalvant Gard, principal bastion of the port’s southern line, a fortress built out of the skirts of the space port’s infrastructure.
Diaz fell in step with Cadwalder.
‘Glad to have you here,’ Diaz said. ‘Were you sent to ward the general?’
‘Safeguard him, yes,’ Cadwalder replied.
‘On the Praetorian’s orders?’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ Cadwalder replied.
‘I don’t know what that means,’ said Diaz, tersely.
‘Likewise,’ said Cadwalder, ‘it’s beyond me why a White Scar was running this zone and not a lord castellan.’
‘Shiban had already pulled it together,’ said Diaz. ‘We’re on a knife-edge, and he had it balanced. He’s a fine warrior, Cad. A real leader.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘I’m telling you,’ said Diaz, ‘he’s one of the Khagan’s senior men. Ordu commander. Would have made Master of the Hunt-‘
‘Would have made?’
‘Injury, I think. He has a good doctrine. “No backward step”.’
‘Very ordu. And simplistic.’
‘It’s Terran, in fact, as I understand,’ said Diaz. ‘And not a million leagues from our own philosophy.’
Cadwalder glanced at him.
‘If this khan is a friend of yours,’ he said, ‘keep an eye on the command staff mood, particularly if Niborran’s got to work with him. You see that man? Brohn? Colonel Brohn?’
‘I know him.’
‘See that look on his face, like someone’s put a turd under his nose? Every time he looks at Shiban. He can’t hide it. Niborran’s doing a better job.’
‘What are you saying?’ asked Diaz.
‘Niborran and Brohn were command staff, Grand Borealis.’
‘Yes, of course. Niborran is High Primary, and Brohn is one of the best. That’s why the Praetorian sent-‘
‘They were dismissed,’ said Cadwalder. ‘Summary expulsion.’
‘Why?’
‘Said the wrong thing to the Khan of Khans, and the Khan of Khans was not in the right mood. Vorst said he nearly took their heads off.’ ‘For what?’ asked Diaz.
‘It doesn’t matter. Something or nothing. They were tired, he was tired. My point is, I don’t think White Scars are their best friends.’
Wait, if they were dismissed-‘ Diaz began.
Cadwalder stopped, and brought Diaz to a halt. The rest of the party moved on down the tunnel.
‘They were done, strung out,’ said Cadwalder. ‘Bhab is chewing through senior commanders like… The burn-out rate is atrocious.
The Khagan lost his temper, and they were out. They chose not to go back, though Dorn wanted them. They volunteered to return to the line, and this is what they got. They want to be soldiers again, and see active service. They want to hold a gun, not look at an augur screen.’
‘Because that’s so demanding,’ said Diaz.
‘It’s different,’ said Cadwalder. ‘You haven’t been in the bastion for a good while. It’s punishing. Overwhelming. Things… things are not going well for us, lord. I think… Killing the enemy face to face might actually be easier. More meaningful, certainly.’
‘Are you telling me they’re non-vi? Incompetent?’
‘No, they’re very competent,’ said Cadwalder. ‘Niborran especially. Not just by dint of his supreme rank. There’s a fire in him, like he’s gained twenty years. He’s exactly the zone lead we want. But we’re going to need to support him, our full support. Clear any extraneous problems out of his path, like-‘
‘Like Shiban Khan?’
Cadwalder nodded. ‘Yes. It’s not the White Scar’s fault. But I doubt they’ll take to him. We need Niborran at the top of his game, because this is going to be hell.’
‘I thought it might be,’ said Diaz.
‘I’m telling you,’ said Cadwalder, ‘it definitely will be. To the glory of Him on Earth, trust me on this.’
‘You know what they say about hell, Cad,’ replied Diaz. He turned and set off after the others.
‘What, lord?’ asked Cadwalder.
‘It’s just a chainsword deep.’
* * *
Euphrati Keeler leaned back against the wall, exhaled a long sigh, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Her brow furrowed.
Amon Tauromachian handed her a cup of water. ‘We should finish for the day,’ he said.
‘No,’ she sighed. ‘One more.’
‘You are tired,’ he said.
‘I won’t sleep. One more.’ She took a few sips from the cup, and handed it back. She straightened up, and turned to face the next cell door.
Amon hesitated. The air was cold. Nearby, rainwater pattered from the ceiling onto the friendless stone floor.
‘Not this one,’ he said.
‘Alphabetical order,’ she said. ‘Systematic. He’s next.’
‘Not this one,’ said Amon. ‘Skip this one.’
Keeler looked at him.
‘Well, now I’m just intrigued,’ she said. Today I have spoken, in turn, to some of the most unpleasant individuals ever sired by the human race-‘
‘I told you Sindermann’s entire effort was misjudged,’ he said,
‘And I told you,’ she snapped, ‘if you let me out, I could do it better. But this is the hand you’ve dealt me. So, how much worse could the next one be? Amon? Custodian?’
She frowned, and took the dataslate from his hand. She read the next entry.‘Open it,’ she said.
Amon gestured. The cell door rumbled open.
She stepped inside.
The prisoner was nothing to look at. A very small old man, his undernourished child-frame swamped by the dirty inmate overalls he’d been given. His forehead was broad, his eyes sharp. He reminded her of a small owl, or certainly some form of bird: perched on his cot, head tilted, eyes unblinking, everything about him small, fragile and entirely breakable.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Basilio Fo,’ she said, checking the slate. ‘Secured captive fifteen years ago by the Sixty-Third Expeditionary Fleet, following the compliance of Velich Tarn. Interesting. And it says he was held in the Imperial Dungeon.’
‘One of the transferees,’ said Amon.
‘The Dungeon was getting too full,’ said Fo, ‘or too empty. They didn’t tell me which. I would imagine the former.’
‘It says you were a biomechanical engineer,’ said Keeler, checking the slate. ‘A self-professed “worker of obscenity”.’
‘I wanted to put “artist”,’ said Fo, ‘but apparently that wasn’t an option on the form. Your culture has never really appreciated my work. Hardly surprising. Yours is a very conservative civilisation.’
‘My culture?’ asked Keeler.
‘The Imperium of Man. That’s what you call it, isn’t it?’
Keeler looked back at the slate. “There isn’t much detail here. It looks redacted. It says he’s a genius. By some abnormal measure, neurotypically. And it… Wait, that can’t be right.’
‘Can’t it?’ asked Fo sweetly.
‘According to this, you’re in excess of five thousand years old,’ said Keeler. ‘That must be a mistake, surely? Active on Terra before the fell of Old Night?’
Fo shrugged.
‘What can I say?’ he asked. ‘I look after myself and exercise regularly.’ ‘That’s nonsense,’ said Keeler.
‘Biomechanism and organic engineering were my areas of speciality,’ said Fo. ‘I learned very early on ho
w to prolong my mortal fabric. Of course, for the past fifteen years, without access to my studio, 1 have been ageing naturally. It’s miserable. I avoided it for so long.’
Keeler stared at him.
‘Were you really born before Old Night?’
‘Oh, that’s not the question you’ve come to ask me, is it?’ said Fo. He moistened his lips with the tip of his tiny bird-tongue and smiled. ‘Is he here? Has he come now? These last few weeks, I’ve been hearing terrible sounds outside.’
‘Who?’ asked Keeler.
‘When I met him,’ said Fo, ‘he called himself Lupercal.’
‘You mean Horus?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘You’ve met him?’ she asked.
‘He was the one who captured me,’ said Fo. ‘Have you met him? You have. Isn’t he quite the most awful thing?’
He looked at Amon. His smile was gone.
‘But then, they all are, aren’t they?’ he remarked.
‘What question did you think I was going to ask you, Fo?’ Keeler asked.
‘Well, I presumed you had all finally come to your senses and decided to ask me for my expert advice.’
‘About?’
Fo frowned. ‘About how you might kill him,’ he said.
‘Kill Horus?’
‘Well, you clearly want him dead, don’t you?’ asked Fo. ‘It’s plainly becoming quite an imperative. Survival, as I found out a long time ago, triggers the most basic, fundamental responses in an organic form. An individual, a species… It will do almost anything, evolve in almost any way it can, in order to stay alive. I called it the Existential Maturation Trigger.’
Fo sat back on his cot, and rested his head against the wet stone wall. He gazed up at the ceiling.
‘I have a few suggestions,’ he said. ‘No guarantees, but they have a reasonable chance of working. I’ve had time to consider the problem, and formulate some recommendations.’
‘Based on?’ asked Keeler.
‘Based on the fact,’ Fo replied, ‘that fifteen years ago I came very close to killing him myself’
* * *
The six missiles had been travelling for two kilometres at one and a half times the speed of sound when they hit the convoy. All came from the west, and the impacts were virtually simultaneous.
They struck the hulls of the target vehicles broadside and to port. The tip of each projectile was a high-explosive shaped charge of volate-19 and compressed imotex, designed to create a narrow and ultra high-velocity particle stream. The superplasticity created by these
precursor charges bored through any hull armour and anti-rocket plating. The molybdenum liners around the precursors vaporised during contact detonation, allowing the much larger main charge of each weapon to penetrate each target vehicle nanoseconds later, via the puncture the precursor had created.
Two carriers and one of the escort Carnodons were wiped out instantly. A second Carnodon survived the initial strike, but caught fire.
Unable to move or return fire, the vehicle was destroyed fourteen seconds later when the flames reached the main magazine.
A third Brontosan was hit at the wheel line. The blast lifted the entire bulk of the transporter, and flipped it on its side.
The sixth missile struck the upper deck of the carrier Hari Harr was riding in.
The impact was so sudden, so complete, it felt like something he was remembering from weeks before: a noise that was too loud to be heard; a pulse of monstrous concussion trapped and channelled by the vehicle’s hull; a flash like the sun.
A vast ring of dirt slapped up around the carrier. The vehicle swayed, the side of it deforming inwards at first, then bursting out like a hatching egg. Seventy-nine per cent of the personnel on the upper deck were killed outright immediately.
Power failed. The carrier filled with dense smoke. The upper flooring bulged and collapsed, crushing men below. Many of them were already dead or dying in their seats, ruined by compression, burning gas or blast debris that had torn down through the decking into the lower compartment. Fire instantly engulfed the upper compartment. Those troopers still alive and conscious shrieked as they were consumed. The fire, a rolling wave, rushed down into the lower deck through the collapsed floor, and washed backwards More men died before they could even rise. Others scrambled up choking the aisles, and were engulfed or crushed by their own comrades.
Only those at the rear stood any kind of chance. Hull deformation had actually burst the access hatches open. Troopers in the last six or seven rows scrambled and fell out into the open. Several had clothes ablaze.
Olly Piers came out with his plas-caliver in one hand and Hari in the other. He dropped Hari within metres of the hatch, and fell to his knees. His moustache was singed. Hari found himself on the ground, his ears ringing. He was still clutching his dataslate as though he was reading it. There was a diagonal crack across the screen.
It was bright outside. The sky was a stained haze. The landscape was a wasteland of tan dirt, the dry ruins of some industrial zone.
Dust as fine as sand rolled in across the wide road.
‘Up, up, up!’ Piers yelled.
Hari rose. Behind them, several vehicles were alight, spewing fat cones of smoke into the pale sky. He could hear the chatter of small-arms, the crump of the surviving Camodons as they fired their main guns into the wasteland to the west. He could hear the moans of the injured, the screams of men trapped and incinerating.
The entire convoy had halted. They could see figures milling aimlessly around stopped or ruined vehicles, people too stunned to know what to do.
‘Get rolling, get rolling!’ Piers was yelling down the road. ‘We’re sitting bloody ducks, you shitting simpletons!’
Nothing seemed to happen. A tank fired again. Hari heard the thump, and saw the dust-kick. Then the Aurox munition train started to move, trying to draw up past the line of stricken transporters. They hadn’t heard Piers, of course not, they were too far away. But someone had the same basic instinct for self-preservation.
The second volley of missiles found the munition train as it was trying to pass. The flashes made Hari stumble back and flinch. He Mw lini’i fireballs lift from the road, an Aurox turning over in midair.
Then even bigger blasts came, as the munition wagons cooked off, blasts that engulfed some of the stationary carriers, and devoured the men out on the highway.
Piers turned, and ran up the highway, heading towards the scrub waste to the right of the road in front of the convoy position. He hugged his huge riffle. His gait was heavy and ungainly.
‘Where are you… Where are you going?’ Hari yelled after him.
Piers kept moving. Hari followed him. So did two dozen or more of the troops who had made it out of their carrier.
Hari suddenly realised he could see what the grenadier had seen. It was so big, it was almost invisible: a vast, white cliff some five kilometres north, veiled by the thick atmospheric dust.
It was the port. It was the vast, beautiful superstructure of the Eternity Wall space port, silent and massive like an alpine range. They had come so close. They had come so close without loss or incident and now, in sight of it, this.
They were running, piecemeal and with no order, out into the scrub. Some soldiers had their weapons, some didn’t. One ran off in the wrong direction for no apparent reason. Piers lumbered along at the head of the pack. He was fumbling to load something into his trusty firearm as he ran, cursing and spitting. Hari could hear the caliver whine as it charged to power.
The port was further away than it looked. It didn’t seem to be getting any closer. They started to slow, out of breath, some troopers stopping, heads down, hands braced on their knees, panting. Hari looked behind him. The convoy was a quarter of a kilometre back. A long, black curtain of smoke was lifting from it, as though it were trying to mirror the white sweep of the port in negative.
It was so quiet. Scrub. Dust. The stir
of wind. A few men gasping.
‘Shit,’ said Piers. He steadied his shako, and started to stride back the way they had come. ‘Shit-cakes,’ he added.
‘What?’ asked Hari.
Piers reached inside his heavy red coat and, with some effort, wrenched out an old service autopistol. He held it out to Hari without looking.
‘What?’ Hari repeated.
‘Do you know how to shoot one, boy?’ Piers asked.
‘You know I don’t!’
‘Bloody lake it anyway,’ the grenadier snapped. ‘You’re about to learn.’
Hari found the gun in his hands. It was heavy, and it stank of oil. He sluffed the slate in his coat pocket, and tried to hold the weapon in some way that it wouldn’t be pointing at him.
Piers turned to the others. He was settling the long mass of Old Bess against his shoulder.
‘Get yourselves in a line!’ he yelled out. ‘A flaming line, right now!’ His voice was a foghorn, though it had a ragged edge of fear. Some troopers stopped, bewildered. Most stepped forward, prepping whatever weapons they had.
‘Who’s got rank?’ Piers hollered. ‘Who’s got a stripe?’
No one answered.
‘Bloody me, then,’ he growled. ‘Come on, show some order then!’ ‘What’s going on?’ Hari asked.
Piers gave Hari the dirtiest look of contempt.
‘We thought we’d stop for a picnic,’ he said.
‘No, I mean-‘
The grenadier pointed. Hari saw.
Back on the highway, figures were moving around the burning vehicled. He could hear pings and cracks on the wind, like sticks being broken. Infantry. Ground troops, swarming the convoy from the west. There were hundreds of them. Black dots. Some were turning their way.
We’ve got a moment, Hari thought. It took us forever to run this far. They-
Some of the dots weren’t dots any more. They were shapes, bounding across the scrub towards them, moving so fast Hari couldn’t quite make sense of it.
They weren’t human.
At first, at first he thought dogs. Big dogs. Attack dogs. Then he thought apes. Then grox, galloping. The creatures rushing them weren’t any of those things.
They were might, once, have been men. Some appalling process had swollen them, enlarged their torsos, put humps of muscle bulk across the tops of their spines, and dropped them back down the evolutionary ladder onto all fours. Olly Piers was the biggest man present, and each of these things was twice his size. Their faces… their open mouths… the smell of them…
