Saturnine

by Dan Abnett

‘This story then?’ asked Hari. He was sitting on a retaining wall, overlooking the emplacement at the eastern end of the Pons Solar. Below, soldiers on work-drill moved in teams, filling and passing sacks of earth to pack the talus of the rampart. He took out his data-slate. ‘Start with your name.’

  ‘My name is Joseph,’ said the soldier. He leaned his rifle against the wall, and sat down in the sunlight beside Hari. ‘Joseph Baako Monday (Eighteenth Regiment, Nordafrik Resistance Army). But it is not about me, no. It is a story I heard last night, about a mighty hero, and about the grace of the Emperor.’

  Hari nodded. He liked the soldier. Joseph Monday had an honest manner, and, despite everything, a cheerful disposition. But Hari had a feeling he was about to hear a story he had been told three times already that morning.

  ‘There was a convoy, coming here,’ said Joseph. ‘Reinforcements for the port defence. Like the one that brought you, I’m sure.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Hari agreed.

  ‘It was attacked, my friend,’ said Joseph, his hands moving expressively in a dramatic flourish, his tone turning solemn. ‘A terrible attack. Many dead. The enemy was upon them, you see? But one man, just an ordinary soldier like me, he stood his ground. He fought like a devil. And when he could fight no more, the Emperor Himself came, in the form of a winged angel, and saved him. The angel, it flew down, like fire, and it killed them all, killed them all, all of the enemy dead. Because the soldier, you see, he had shown faith, and had held the enemy at bay, and the Emperor had felt alive to the soldier’s great faith, and sent His grace to deliver him.’

  ‘Was this soldier’s name Piers?’ Hari asked. Joseph glanced at him in surprise.

  ‘You have heard it?’ he asked.

  ‘Versions…’ said Hari.

  Joseph shrugged, disappointed.

  ‘But I want to hear them all,’ Hari added quickly. ‘I’m sure the various versions contain the truth of the story, one way or-‘

  ‘You see, there is your mistake,’ said Joseph. That is the thing about stories. The truth is in all of them. I grew up in Endayu, and all the children there, they would trade stories, and the grown-ups would tell them stories, because that is how we learn about the world. If you’re going to be a storyteller, my friend, you should know this. The truth is in all of them.’

  Hari was making quick notes.

  ‘Tell me about that,’ he said.

  Joseph frowned. ‘I don’t know how to say it clearer,’ he said.

  ‘Well, this story you just told me, about the convoy, I’ve heard different versions…’

  ‘You mean different details,’ said Joseph. ‘The facts don’t matter.’

  ‘Well-’

  Joseph laughed. ‘All right, they do. They do matter. But they are like the scales on a fish. The fish can’t swim without them, but the fish is what matters. You talk about your versions, my friend… Did the hero man have a rifle or a sword? Was he tall or was he short-‘

  ‘Or was he fat, with a big beard?’

  ‘Or yes, that, however you like,’ said Joseph. ‘But the truth, the fish-‘

  His dirty hands mimed the sinuous motion of a salmon racing downstream.

  ‘-the fish. Well. That is what you need to hook. The man, he was an ordinary man. A soldier. Army man. Just a man. But what he did mattered. His courage and his fortitude. He did not give up. And the Emperor came to him, like an angel, and saved him. Just as He will save us all. He watches over us. That is the story.’

  ‘Do you have other stories, sir?’ Hari asked.

  Joseph looked doubtful. ‘I am just an ordinary man.’

  ‘So was the man in your story. How did you get here?’

  Joseph Monday looked aside. He seemed reluctant, suddenly.

  ‘I was on the line,’ he said quietly. ‘Line Fourteen, in the north reach. Eleventh of Quintus, Lion’s port fell, and there was a terrible time afterwards. Terrible confusion. We had to run and fight. I saw many bad things. In the end, I came here.’

  ‘What kind of things did you see?’

  ‘I do not want to speak of them,’ said Joseph. ‘The story about the convoy is much better.’

  ‘Isn’t it the same?’ asked Hari.

  Joseph looked at him. ‘How can it be the same?’

  ‘Well, you said the man was on his way here, and then bad things happened, but the Emperor was watching over him, and He saved him. That’s what happened to you.’

  ‘The Emperor did not come to me. I did not see an angel.’

  ‘Those are just scales on the fish,’ said Hari. ‘I’d like to hear what happened to you. What you actually saw-‘

  Joseph got to his feet. ‘I do not want to talk about it,’ he said.

  ‘Can I ask you a question, then?’ asked Hari. ‘The way you are talking about the Emperor. It… it makes Him sound like a divine presence. A spiritual power. You know that it’s decreed wrong to think about Him that way? The Emperor Himself doesn’t want people to think of Him as a god. The notion is suppressed by order of-‘

  ‘A god doesn’t talk about Himself that way,’ said Joseph. ‘A real god is modest. In the old times, gods were boastful and arrogant. That is why they fell away and were seen as false. A true god is humble.’

  He looked at Hari fiercely, then crouched down again, staring Hari in the eyes.

  ‘I have heard there is a book,’ he said. ‘A secret book. A text explaining the divinity of the Emperor.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I have heard there is a copy of that book here. Someone here in the port has it.’

  Hari cleared his throat, and looked down at his dataslate.

  ‘I would like to read that book,’ said Joseph. ‘But I do not need to read it to know the truth. This war, all this fighting and killing, there would be no sense to it if the Emperor was just a man. That is how I know what He is. We fight for Him, my friend, because we believe He will save us. We have faith in Him. Total faith. Because if we didn’t, we would just lay down and die. That is how I know.’

  ‘So… He has to be a god because you have faith in Him?’

  ‘Faith is all we have. I have not read this book. I have not seen angels, or the daemons that they say have come. 1 don’t need to.’

  Someone was calling. Troopers were getting up from their rest break.

  ‘I have to go,’ said Joseph, looping his rifle over his shoulder on ils sling.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hari. ‘For the story. If you change your mind, 1 would like to hear your story.’

  Joseph laughed, but Hari could hear the sadness in his tone.

  ‘It is really not a good story,’ he replied. ‘But I’ll bring you other stories if I hear them. Where will you be?’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Hari.

  There was no chance of leaving now. Word was, the enemy was advancing on the Eternity Wall space port from the south, through the pulverised ruins of what had been the Celestial City, and contact was expected within hours. Niborran, a commanding presence, was orchestrating a mass defence of the port’s reinforced garrison. Hari had hoped his warrant might get him a few minutes with the lord general, but he’d only glimpsed him from a distance. It seemed pitiful to try and arrange an audience. The clock was counting down. Niborran had far more important things to do with his time.

  The rubble wastes adjacent to the port were swathed in a golden fog of sunlit dust. The air was dry. Someone had said that supplies were low, water especially. There was intense activity in the skirts of the port zone. Around the freight quadrants to the south and south-east, fortifications were being constructed and reinforced. The main defence was Monsalvant Gard, a bastion that looked indomitable. Artillery positions waited in the bleaching light. The port’s defence systems maintained a bristling watch for movement, audio signals or noospherics.

  The atmosphere was as taut as the steel cables anchoring the silent vox-masts.

  * * *

  ‘I think you’re wron
g,’ said Clement Brohn. ‘Frankly.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ve been here long enough to make that judgement,’ Shiban Khan replied.

  ‘I’ve been here long enough to know we don’t have the force strength to cover every-‘

  ‘Stop it,’ said Niborran. The High Primary looked at his second and the White Scar. ‘No arguments, please.’

  ‘I am not arguing, general,’ said Shiban. ‘The assault will be multipoint. We need to maintain coverage.’

  ‘I have noted your recommendations, khan,’ said Niborran.

  ‘But not acted on them,’ said Shiban.

  ‘My lord Niborran has command here,’ Brohn said. His tone was hard, even though he was staring up at an armoured giant. ‘You no longer have zone command, khan.’

  ‘I am well aware,’ said Shiban. ‘I am also well aware that none of us have a full intelligence picture on which to base our calculations. We know nothing-‘

  ‘So we make an educated guess!’ Brohn snapped.

  ‘No, we cover wide, and stay flexible,’ replied Shiban.

  ‘I said stop it,’ said Niborran. ‘I meant it.’

  The wind blew dust into the observation bunker high on Monsal-vant Gard’s southern battlements. Niborran shielded his silver eyes.

  ‘You know what civil war is?’ Niborran asked. ‘Comrades fighting each other. You’d think the last few years might have taught you both that. Clem, go and supervise the munition decks. See if those damn hoists are working yet.’

  ‘But-‘

  ‘Now, please, Clem.’

  Brohn saluted and left the bunker.

  ‘He’s a good man,’ Niborran said to Shiban.

  ‘I have no doubt, general.’

  ‘This war, it brings out bad things in us.’

  ‘I know he doesn’t like me much,’ said Shiban. He looked at Niborran. ‘I’m told you were both on the wrong side of my Khagan. That you are, in effect, here because of that.’

  ‘There’s more to it,’ said Niborran.

  ‘For you, I think, yes. A desire for field service. Not so much for Brohn. And I know what people think of my Legion. We may be Astartes, but we are barbarians. The White Scars do not enjoy the respect shown to the Imperial Fists or the Blood Angels.’

  ‘You seek respect, then?’ Niborran asked.

  ‘No, general, I seek victory. It is the simplicity of that notion that makes people think of us as uneducated tribesmen.’

  ‘You’ve nothing to prove to me, khan.’

  ‘Yet,’ said Shiban, ‘I saw the dismay on your faces when you arrived. When you found out I was zone command.’

  ‘A role you handed over without blinking, Shiban. And the very fact that Camba Diaz had deferred to you, even though he’s a lord castellan. That showed me enough. Besides, Diaz has spoken to me about you. He rates you highly.’

  ‘My recommendations are ignored.’

  ‘No, Shiban. But a full perimeter makes us weak everywhere. We have only nine thousand.’

  ‘A full perimeter guards us everywhere, when we know nothing.’

  We know plenty, Niborran thought. I know plenty. He glanced at Cadwalder, who was standing by the entry hatch on watch, and had remained silent throughout. I know the true burden of this. I know what is expected of us.

  ‘I have listened to you,’ said Niborran. ‘The internal transit routes of the port remain open. I didn’t block them and mine them, though that’s textbook, and Brohn was all for it. We can move strengths rapidly behind our own lines in response to threat or assault. We can’t cover everything, but we can focus swiftly when assault comes. Mobile warfare. That’s the White Scars way, isn’t it? Mobile war inside a fortified zone. I am listening to you, khan.’

  ‘Mobile warfare is just one of our traits,’ said Shiban. ‘It is the tag we’re given. Hit and run. We are more than that, but we are regarded as simply that.’

  ‘For Throne’s sake, Shiban, I am trying to work with you.’

  Shiban Khan nodded. ‘I understand. I apologise. This is not going to be an easy fight, however we run it. I answer to you. Know that. But my intent is the service of my Korchin Khan of Khans and, through him, the Emperor. Victory is the only thing that matters, and if I have to argue with you to achieve it, I am afraid I will.’

  ‘Good,’ said Niborran. He smiled. ‘Good. I expect… and want… no less.’

  His smile faded.

  ‘What if victory isn’t an option, Shiban?’ he asked.

  ‘General?’

  ‘You must have considered that,’ said Niborran. He took a pitcher from the map table, and filled a glass. ‘Not every battle can be won. Victory is not always a possible outcome. We don’t know what’s coming, but you can bet it’s going to be bad. We’re barely nine thousand, we’re boxed in, without support, and we can’t run if they break us. So what happens then?’

  ‘We die,’ said Shiban.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘And we make our deaths cost them as much as possible. We damage them so badly that even in victory, they are bled weak, and reduced as a threat.’

  ‘Correct answer,’ said Niborran.

  ‘Do you think that is the likely outcome?’

  Niborran sipped his water thoughtfully. ‘A year ago? No. But a year ago I didn’t think we’d be fighting to cling on to every last square centimetre of the Imperial Palace either. Are you ready, if it comes to it?’

  ‘You do not need to ask that.’

  ‘Then we stand together, Shiban Khan. Now, tell me, three things you would do that I’m not doing. Three priorities.’

  Shiban raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I would… deploy on a wide front, but we’ve had that conversation. I would give up the western approaches, and the Western Freight, now. Retreat and mine them out. The area’s too big to hold, and simply overstretches us. If we tighten the circle now, we concentrate and make better use of what forces we have. Third, I would-‘

  A siren began to sound. Its hoarse howl rose from nothing until it was echoing across the port complex and joined by others.

  ‘Assault,’ said Cadwalder. ‘My lord general, signals indicate they are coming from the west. Incoming main strength.’

  Men were rushing, running, scrambling with weapons, pulling on body armour and helmets they’d removed in the heat. Hari wanted them to tell him what was happening, and where he should go, but he knew the answer to the first question, and the answer to the second was hardly a priority to anyone.

  The first explosions lifted dirt from the outer line down by the bridge. They made distant crump sounds, like heavy wet sheets snapping in a gale. Hari couldn’t see the enemy, but below him, army units were mobbing into the dugouts and emplacements, along the bridgehead and the banks of the wide, deep gulf that the bridge spanned. The enemy was coming at the port zone from the west, out of the Dhawalagiri Quarter of Magnifican.

  More shelling hit the eastern bank. Return fire began to chop from the bartizan turrets along the port hem. Small-arms fire licked from the dugouts and trenchwork.

  Hari knew he should probably quit the area. Make his way back to Monsalvant, and keep out of the way. He glanced at the huge sprawl of the port megastructure behind him, just for a moment. Then he started to run after the soldiers.

  He was here for a reason. As a witness. Running off somewhere wouldn’t let him witness anything.

  Camba Diaz advanced. As he walked, he spoke clearly and simply into his link, coordinating the units around him. Close to a thousand men, most of them mixed Auxilia platoons, had been tasked to protect the Pons Solar approach. They seemed to be responding very slowly to both the assault and his orders. He wondered if it was the heat – exhaustion from the fortification labour they’d been doing when the attack began.

  Then he realised they weren’t being slow at all. They were being human. He was used to commanding squads of transhuman battle-brothers, who reacted with intense purpose in the blink of an eye.
These soldiers, even the best of them, the Excertus elite, were brave and steadfast and well drilled. But they weren’t Space Marines.

  He would have to lead from the front.

  Diaz held area command of the port’s western areas that day. Niborran, and every other senior commander of the zone, was a minimum of half an hour away at Monsalvant Gard. Diaz ordered vox signals to be sent immediately, expressing the situation and requesting support. Additional armoured elements, at least, from Western Freight. He had no sense of enemy numbers yet, but when the enemy had a technically limitless ability to reinforce, calculations were academic anyway.

  They were focusing on the Pons Solar.

  It was the only viable route for ground forces coming from the west. I he immense heat-sink gully it crossed was as deep and broad as a major river. Shiban had advised giving it up, and demolishing the bridge. He’d urged it several times in Diaz’s hearing. But Niborran had been swayed by Brohn’s argument that holding the bridge provided a potentially critical arterial route for reinforcement and resupply from Anterior. At its eastern end, the Pons Solar was protected by entrenched infantry positions, multiple field batteries and an Excertus tank unit. It also fell inside the gun-shadow of the port’s outer line, the western stretch of the barrier wall extending from Monsalvant. The heavier wall armaments, part of the port’s defence system, had begun firing, ranging shells and pulsed energy fire across the gully into Dhawalagiri. Auxilia combat engineers had raised an immense barricade of rockcrete blocks, razor wire and anti-armour obstacles across the mouth of the bridge.

  Diaz skirted the barricade. When he reached the east end of the bridge, the scale of the assault became apparent. He scanned, his visor absorbing data, processing it and transmitting it to Monsalvant command. Shelling had already pulverised both trenchwork and batteries north of the highway. A thicket of gunfire was drizzling over the spans of the bridge. The bankside terraces were scattered with dead, and wounded men were being dragged to cover. There was a massive wash of smoke from churned-up dust, and from incendiary bombs that the enemy had launched into the gully. Overhead, the barrier wall’s guns thundered and spat at an invisible foe.

  A vox chime.