by Dan Abnett
Gol got his company into the chapel, spreading them out to cover the openings and find the obvious escape routes.
The ground shook as tank rounds took out the workshop where they had sprung their trap.
In the cover of the explosions, he dared to speak, signing at the same time. Let's find the next ones to kill, he said.
A squad of six, moving in from the west, hissed loom-girl Banda, setting down her lasgun and peering out of a half-broken lancet window.
Drill form as before, Gol Kolea signed to his company, Form on me. Let's set the next snare.
Lord Heymlik Chass sent his servitors and bodyguard away. The chief of the guard, Rudrec, his weapon dutifully shrouded, tried to refuse, but Chass was not in the mood for argument.
Alone in the cool, gloomy family chapel of House Chass, high up in the Main Spine upper sectors, the lord prayed diligently to the soul of the undying Emperor. The ghosts of his ancestors welled up around him, immortalised in statuary. Heymlik Chass believed in ghosts.
They spoke to him.
He unlocked the casket by the high altar between the family stasis-crypts with a geno-key that had been in his family for generations. He raised the velvet-padded lid, hearing the moan of ancient suspensor fields, and lifted out Heironymo's Amulet.
What are you doing, father? Merity Chass asked. His daughter's voice startled him and almost made him drop the precious thing.
Merity! You shouldn't be here! he murmured.
What are you doing? she asked again, striding forward under the flaming sconces of the chapel, her green velvet dress whispering as she moved.
Is that Her voice trailed away. She could not utter the words.
Yes. Given to our house by Great Heironymo himself.
You're not thinking of using it! Father!
He stared down into her pained, beautiful face.
Go away, my daughter. This is not for your eyes.
No! she barked. She so reminded him of her mother when she turned angry that way. I am grown, I am the heir, female though I may be. Tell me what you are doing!
Chass sighed and let the weight of the amulet play in his hands. What I must, what is good for the hive. There was a reason Old Heironymo bequeathed this to my father. Salvadore Sondar is a maniac. He will kill us all.
You have raised me to be respectful of the High House, father, she said, a slight smile escaping her frown. That was her mother again, Heymlik noticed.
It amounts to treason, his daughter whispered.
He nodded and his head sank. I know what it amounts to. But we are on the very brink now. Heironymo always foretold this moment.
He hugged her. She felt the weight of the amulet in his hands against her back.
You must do what you must, father, Merity said.
Like a slow, pollen-gathering insect, a vox drone hummed lazily in the chapel and crossed to the embracing figures. It bleeped insistently. Chass pulled away from his daughter, savouring the sweet smell of her hair.
A vote is being taken in the Upper Legislature. I must go.
Bumbling like a moth, the drone hovered in front of the Noble Lord, leading him out of the chamber.
Father?
Heymlik looked back at his beloved child, hunched and frightened by the cold, marble familial crypt.
I will support you in whatever you do, but you must tell me what you decide. Don't keep me in the dark.
I promise, he said.
The Privy Council was a circular theatre set on the Spine-floor above the spectacular main hall of the Legislature, and it was reserved for the noble houses only. The domed roof was a painted frieze of the Emperor and the god-machines of Mars hovering in radiant clouds. Columns of warm, yellow light stabbed down from the edges of the circular ceiling and lit the velvet thrones of the high houses. Apart from Chass, they were all there: Gavunda, Yetch, Rodyn, Anko, Croe, Piidestro, Nompherenti and Vwik.
Marshal Croe stood by his brother, the old, wizened Lord Croe, in deep conference. Vice Marshal Anko, beaming and obsequious, was introducing General Sturm to his resplendently gowned cousin, Lord Anko. Commissar Kowle was diplomatically greeting Lords Gavunda and Nompherenti. Servants and house retainers thronged the place, running messages, fetching silver platters of refreshments, or simply guarding their noble masters with shrouded sidearms.
A gong sounded four strokes. The main gilt shutter at the east side of the room slid up into the ceiling with a hiss and Master Legislator Anophy limped into the chamber, his opalescent robes glinting in the yellow light, his beribboned tricorn nodding with each heavy shuffle he took across the embroidered carpet. He was using the long, golden sceptre of his office as a stick. Child pages held his train and carried his gem-encrusted vox/pict drone and Book of Hive-law before him on tasselled cushions.
Anophy reached his place. He adjusted the silver arm of the vox-phone and spoke. Noble houses, your careful attention. All looked round and quickly took their places. Kowle, Sturm and the other military men withdrew to one side.
Noble Chass' seat was vacant.
Anophy thumbed through the data on a slate held up by one of his pages and he set a palsy-trembling finger to his moist lips.
A matter to vote. In all precision, before these houses, the ratification of the defence plans our noble friend, General Noches Sturm, has drawn up. The matter need not be lengthened further by discourse. The Hive, Emperor grant it wealth and longevity, awaits.
Six assent runes, fizzling holograms, lit the air above Anophy. Rodyn and Piidestro houses voted against with dark-tinged, threatening lights.
Carried, said Anophy simply. The Privy Council began chattering and moving again.
A shutter of herring-bone steel to the west side of the chamber slid open and Noble Chass, accompanied by his bodyguard, entered the chamber. An awkward hush fell. It remained in place as Chass descended the steps, crossed the chamber and took his appointed seat. Once they had folded his great, silk train over the throne back, his bodyguard and servants stood away.
Chass gazed around the circular hall. Several of his fellow nobles did not meet his gaze.
You have voted. I was not present.
You were summoned, Lord Anko said. If you miss the given time, your vote is forfeit.
You know the rules, noble lord, wheezed Anophy.
I know when I have been excluded.
Come now! Anophy said. There is no exclusion in the upper parliament of Vervunhive. Given the extraordinary circumstances of this situation, I will allow you to vote now.
Chass looked around again, very conscious of the way Lord Croe would not look at him.
I see the matter has been voted six to two. My vote, whichever way I meant to cast it, would be useless now.
Cast it anyway, brother lord, gurgled Gavunda through the silver-inlaid, wire-box augmentor that covered his mouth like an ornate, crouching spider.
Chass shook his head. I spoil my vote. There is no point to it.
A group of figures was entering through the east hatch. Commissar Tarrian was trying to delay them, but they pushed past. It was Gaunt, Grizmund, Nash and their senior officers.
I can scarce believe your guile, Sturm, Nash spat, facing the other general. Gilbear moved forward to confront the Roane commander, but Sturm held him back with a curt snap of his fingers.
Gaunt crossed directly to the Master Legislator's place and took the data-slate from the hands of the surprised page. He reviewed it.
So, it's true, he said, looking up at Sturm and Marshal Croe.
General Sturm's strategic suggestions have been agreed and ratified by the Upper Council, Vice Marshal Anko said smoothly. And I strongly suggest you, and the other off-world commanders with you, show some order of respect and courtesy to the workings and customs of this high parliament. We will not have our ancient traditions flouted by
You're all fools, Gaunt said carelessly, setting the slate down and turning away, if you care more for ceremonial traditions than life. You've made a serio
us error here.
You've killed this hive and all of us with it! Nash snapped, bristling with fury. Gaunt took the big Roane general by the shoulder and moved him away from confrontation.
I am surprised at you, marshal, Grizmund said, his stiff anger just held in check, like an attack dog on a choke chain, as he looked at Croe. From our meetings, I'd believed your grasp of tactics was better than this.
Marshal Croe got up. I'm sorry at your unhappiness, General Grizmund. But General Sturm's plan seems sound to me. I have the hive to think of. And Commissar Kowle, who has let's be fair actually encountered our foe, concurs.
Grizmund shook his head sadly.
What would you have done? Lord Chass asked.
There was a lot of shouting and protesting, all of it directed at Chass.
Lord Chass has a right to know! Ibram Gaunt's clear, hard voice cut the shouting away. Gaunt turned to face the nobleman. After due observation, Generals Nash, Grizmund and I would have opened the south-west gates and launched armour to meet them, infantry behind. A flanking gesture to front them outside of the Wall rather than give up all we have.
Would that have worked? Chass asked.
We'll never know, Gaunt replied. But we do know this: if we wait until they reach the Wall, where do we have to fall back to after that?
Nowhere.
Noble Chass wanted to question further, but the Privy Council dissolved in uproar and Gaunt marched out, closely followed by the furious Grizmund and Nash.
* * * * *
Commissar? Commissar-colonel? In the crowded promenade hall outside the Privy Council, where parliamentary and house aides thronged back and forth with guilders and house ordinary delegates, Gaunt paused and turned. A tall, grim-looking man in ornate body armour was pushing through the crowds after him, a satin-cloth covering the weapon in his right hand. Gaunt sent his staff ahead with the other generals and turned to face the man. A household bodyguard, he was sure.
The man approached and made a dutiful salute. I am Rudrec, lifeguard of his excellency Lord Chass of Noble House Chass. My lord requests a meeting with you at your earliest convenience.
The man handed Gaunt a small token-seal, with the Imperial eagle on one side and the Chass coat-of-arms on the other.
With this, you may be admitted to House Chass at all times. My lord will await.
Gaunt looked at the crest as the lifeguard bowed and departed, swallowed by the crowd.
Now what, he wondered?
Salvador Sondar half-woke, a dream teetering on the edge of memory. The water around him was sweet and warm, and pink bio-luminescence glowed softly.
The chatter murmured at him, soft, soothing, compelling. It was there almost all the time now, asleep or awake.
Sondar listed in the water.
What? What is it? What do you want?
The southern outer habs were ablaze and ash-smog was being driven through the rubble-strewn streets by the cross-winds surging cyclonically from the hottest blazes.
Despite fierce pockets of guerrilla resistance, the Zoican forces pushed up through the ruins in spaced phalanxes of infantry and columns of armour thousands of them grinding ever north through the confusion.
The first of them were now just a kilometre from the Curtain Wall.
SEVEN
DEATH MACHINES
Victory and Death are the twin sons of War.
Ancient proverb
The bombardment from the advancing Zoican land assault fell abruptly silent in the mid-morning of the twenty-fifth day. Hive observers had been carefully tracking the advance of the enemy legions through the outer habs, but by day twenty-two, the level of smoke and ash-clouds veiling the region made such a task impossible once again. Eerie silence now fell.
No one doubted that this cessation of shelling signalled an imminent storm-assault of the Curtain Wall and House Command ordered a swift redeployment to be made all along the southern defence sections. The Curtain Wall and gates were already fully manned by the Vervun Primary troops, and now significant portions of the Volpone, Roane and NorthCol armies were brought in to reinforce them. The Tanith Ghosts were also deployed to the frontline from their chem plant billet where they had been killing the hours in fretful indolence and frustration. Gaunt kept some platoons in reserve at the billet, but five platoons under Major Rawne were sent to the Hass West Fortress, and another four under Colonel Corbec were moved to Veyveyr Gate in support of the three Vervun Primary and two NorthCol companies already stationed there.
Corbec saw the vulnerability of Veyveyr Gate the moment he and his men arrived by transit truck. Superhuman efforts had been made to clear sections of the ruined rail terminal and he and his troops rode in past pioneer teams still clearing rubble or shaping it into effective barricade lines. The gate itself, seventy metres wide and a hundred high, had been blockaded with wreckage, a lot of it burned-out rolling stock from the railhead. But there were no great blast doors to seal it like at the other main Wall gates.
Corbec met with Colonel Modile and Major Racine, the ranking Vervun officers in the sector, and with Colonel Bulwar of the NorthCol contingent. Modile was earnest and businesslike, though clearly very nervous about the prospect of seeing action for the first time in his career. Corbec didn't like the idea that the officer at the apex of the command pyramid at Veyveyr was a combat virgin. The major, Racine, was a more likeable fellow, but he was dead on his feet with fatigue. Corbec found out later that the Vervun Primary Officer had been awake for the best part of three days straight, supervising the preparation of the Veyveyr defence.
Bulwar at least was a combat veteran who had seen action during the years of rebellion wars in the NorthCol colonies on Verghast's main satellite moon. He was a thickset man who wore the same regular, evergreen flak-armour and fatigues as his men, though the braided cap and the crackling power claw marked him out instantly as a command officer. As the four officers met around the chart table in Modile's shelter, Corbec soon noticed the way Modile deferred to Bulwar's suggestions. Bulwar saw it too and in effect began to take command. All he had to do was hint and speculate, and Modile would quickly take up the ideas and turn them into tactical policy as if they were his own.
That's fine and good now, thought Corbec, but what happens when the shooting starts? Without direct, confident command, the defence would fall apart.
After the meeting, at which the Ghosts had been drawn to take position along the east flank, against the perimeter of the Ore Works and Smeltery ruins, Corbec took Bulwar to one side.
With respect, Modile's a weak link.
Bulwar nodded. Agreed. I think the same of most of the Vervun Primary units. No experience. At least my forces have had baptism enough in the moon war. But this is Vervunhive's show and their House Command has authority over us all, colonel.
We need a safeguard, Corbec said flatly, scratching at his collar. There were damn lice in those chem barns. I'm not talking insubordination
I know what you mean. My old call sign was anvil'. Let that be a signal to co-ordinate orders above Modile's head if it becomes necessary. I won't be hung out to dry by an inexperienced man. Even a well-meaning one like Modile.
Corbec nodded. He liked Bulwar. He hoped it wouldn't come to that.
* * * * *
Another day passed, with only silence and smoke outside the Curtain Wall. Nerves began to fray. All the while the shelling had been going on, there had at least been the illusion that a war was being fought. Waiting, the common fighting man's worst foe, began to take its toll. Anxious minds had time to worry, to fear, to anticipate. Nearly three quarters of a million fighting men were in position at the southern Curtain Wall of Vervunhive, with nothing to do but doze, fidget, gaze up at the spectral flashes and crackles of the Shield far above, and distress themselves with their own imaginations.
The VPHC was busy. Sixty-seven deserters or suspected derelicts were executed in a twenty-four hour period.
On the afternoon of the twenty-seventh day
, troops on the Wall top began to detect ominous grinding and clanking noises emanating from the smoke cover below. Machine noises, vast servos, threshing gears, rattling transmissions, creaking metal. It seemed that at any moment, the storm would begin.
But the noises simply continued until after dark and more urgently through the night. They were alien and incomprehensible, like the calls of unseen creatures in some mechanical jungle.
The twenty-eighth day was silent. The machine noises ceased at dawn. By noon, the smoke had begun to clear, especially after a rising wind from the southwest brought rain squalls in from the coast. But still visibility was low and the light was poor. There was nothing to see but the grey blur of the mangled outhabs.
On the twenty-ninth day, spotters on the Wall near Sondar Gate sighted a small group of Zoican tanks moving along a transit track adjacent to the Southern Highway, two kilometres out. With hurried permission from House Command in the Main Spine, they addressed six missile batteries and a trio of earthshaker guns and opened fire. There was jubilation all along the defence line, for no greater reasons than the soldiers finally had a visible enemy to target and the fighting drought was broken. The engagement lasted twelve minutes. No fire was returned from the enemy. When the shell-smoke cleared, there was no sign of the tanks that had been fired upon not even wreckage.
During the evening of that day, the machine noises from outside grumbled and clanked again, sporadically. Marshal Croe made a morale-boosting speech to the population and the troops over the public-address plates. It helped ease the tension, but Gaunt knew Croe should have been making such speeches daily for the last week. Croe had only spoken now on the advice of Commissar Kowle. Despite his dislike of the man, Gaunt saw that Kowle truly understood the political necessities of war. He was enormously capable. Kowle issued a directive that evening urging all commissarial officers, both the VPHC and the regular Guard, to tour the lines and raise the mood. Gaunt had been doing just that since his units went into position, shuttling between Hass West and Veyveyr. On these tours, he had been impressed by the resolve and discipline of the Vervun Primary troopers who manned the defences alongside his men. He prayed dearly to the beloved Emperor that combat wouldn't sour that determination.
