Necropolis

by Dan Abnett

  Now, from below, down the length of the Spoil, he could hear them.

  The Zoican filth were singing a name over and over, in a canon repeat.

  Heritor Asphodel Heritor Asphodel

  ELEVEN

  THE HERITOR

  Kill us! Kill us all! In the name of Terra, before he

  Transcript of last broadcast from Ryxus V,

  the first inherited world

  Level Sub-40 was almost a kilometre underground, deep in the foundation structure of the Main Spine. An armoured lift cage with grilled sides transported Gaunt down the last three hundred metres, lowering him into an underworld of dark, damp stone, stale air and caged sodium lamps.

  He entered an underground concourse where ground water dripped from the pipework roof onto the concrete floor and rusting chains dangled over piles of mildewed refuse. Along one side was a row of wooden posts with shackle-loops at wrist height. The wall behind the posts was stippled with bullet pocks and darkly stained.

  Gaunt approached an adamantine shutter marked with yellow chevrons. Rockcrete bunkers stood on either side of the shutter, blank except for letterbox slits set high up.

  As he moved forward, automatic spotlights mounted above the hatch snapped on and bathed him with blue-white light.

  Identify! a voice crackled out of a vox-relay.

  Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt, Gaunt replied curtly, reeling off his serial number afterwards.

  Your business?

  lust open the shutter.

  There was a brief pause, then the great metal hatch screeched open. Gaunt stepped through and found himself facing a second shutter. The one behind him slammed shut before the inner one would open.

  Inside the stockade, a caged walkway led down into a dispatch area with an open-sided shower stall and low tables for searching through personal effects. The sodium lamps gave the foetid, recirculated air a frosty hue.

  Guards moved out of side bunkers to meet him. They were all VPHC troopers dressed in black shirts, black, peaked caps, graphite-grey breeches and black boots. Each one wore orange arm-bands and wide, black, leather belts with riot-batons and cuffs dangling from them. Three carried pump-action shotguns.

  Grizmund, Gaunt told them briefly. He allowed himself to be frisked and handed over his bolt pistol. Two of the guards then led him through a series of cage doors with remotely activated electric locks, down the austere, red-washed hallways of the cell-block. There was an astringent ammonia stink of open drains, with a mouldering aftertaste of deep rock and soil. Every sound rang out and echoed.

  Grizmund and the four officers arrested with him were sharing a large communal holding tank. They still wore their mustard-brown Narmenian uniforms, but caps, belts, laces and all rank pins had been removed.

  Grizmund met Gaunt at the cage door. The VPHC guards refused to open it, so they were forced to talk through the bars.

  I'm glad to see you, Grizmund said. He was pale, and there was a dark look of anger in his eyes. Get us out of this.

  Tell me what happened. In your own words, Gaunt said.

  Grizmund paused, then shrugged. We were ordered to Veyveyr. Thanks to the gross idiocy of House Command organisation, the routes were blocked. I took my column off the roadway and headed on to the gate through an industrial sector. Next thing I knew, the VPHC were heading me off.

  Did you disobey any direct order?

  I was ordered to Veyveyr, the man repeated. I was told to take Arterial Route GH/7m. When I couldn't get through, I tried to achieve my primary order to reach the appointed frontline.

  Did you strike a VPHC officer?

  Yes. He drew a gun on me first, without provocation.

  Gaunt was quiet for a moment.

  You'd think these bastards didn't want us to fight for them, growled Grizmund.

  Their pride is hurt. The inadequacies of their command systems were shown up clearly today. They're looking for others to blame.

  Screw them if they try to pin anything on me! This is crazy! Won't Sturm back you up?

  Sturm is too busy trying to please both sides. Don't worry. I won't let this continue a moment longer than it has to.

  Grizmund nodded. Loud footsteps, unpaced and overlapping, reverberated down the dank cell-block behind them. Gaunt turned to see Commissar Tarrian enter with an escort of VPHC troops.

  Commissar Gaunt. You shouldn't be here. The Narmenian insubordination is a matter for the VPHC Disciplinary Review. You will not interfere with Verghastian military justice. You will not confer with the prisoners. My men will escort you back to the elevator.

  Gaunt nodded to Grizmund and walked over to the VPHC group, facing Tarrian for a moment. You are making a mistake both you and your cadre will regret, Tarrian.

  Is that some kind of threat, Gaunt?

  You're a commissar, Tarrian, or at least you're supposed to be. You must know commissars never issue threats. Only facts.

  Gaunt allowed himself to be marched out of the stockade.

  The thirty-third dawn was already on them, with heavy rain falling across the entire hive, the outer habs and the grasslands beyond. Marshal Croe was taking breakfast in his retiring chamber off the war-room when Gaunt entered.

  The room was long, gloomy and wood-panelled with gilt-framed oil paintings of past marshals lining the walls. Croe sat at the head of a long, varnished mahogany table, picking at food laid out on a salver as he read through a pile of data-slates. Behind him, the end wall of the room was armoured glass and overlooked the Commercia and Shield Pylon. Backlit by the great window and the grey morning glare, Croe was a dark, brooding shape.

  Commissar.

  Gaunt saluted. Marshal. The charges against the Narmenian officers must be dropped at once.

  Croe looked up, his noble, white-haired head inclining towards Gaunt like an eagle considering a lamb. Because?

  Because they are utterly foolish and counterproductive. Because we need officers of Grizmund's standing. Because any punishment will send a negative message to the Narmenian units and to all Guard units as a whole: that Vervunhive values the efforts of the off-world forces very little.

  And what of the other view? You heard it yourself: one rule for Vervun, one for the Guard?

  We both know that's not true. Grizmund's actions are hardly capital in nature, yet the VPHC seems hell-bent on prosecuting them to the extreme.

  I'm not even sure this so-called ˜insubordination' was even that. A tribunal would throw it out, but to even get to a tribunal would be damaging. Narmenian and Guard honour would be slighted, and the VPHC would be made to look stupid. At the last minute, Gaunt managed to prevent himself from saying even more stupid.

  Tarrian's staff is very thorough. They would not undertake a tribunal if they thought it would collapse.

  I am familiar with such ˜courts', marshal. However, that will only happen if the VPHC are allowed to run the hearing themselves.

  It is their purview. Military discipline. It's Tarrian's job.

  I will not allow the VPHC to conduct any hearing.

  Croe put down his fork and stared at Gaunt as if he had just insulted Croe's own mother. He rose to his feet, dabbing his mouth with a napkin.

  You won't allow it?

  Gaunt stood his ground. Imperial Commissariat edict 4378b states that any activity concerning the discipline of Imperial Guardsmen must be conducted by the Imperial Commissariat itself. Not by planetary bodies. It is not Tarrian's responsibility. It should not be a matter for the VPHC.

  And you will enforce this ruling?

  If I have to. I am the ranking Imperial commissar on Verghast.

  The interpretation of law will be murderous. Any conflicts between Imperial and Planetary rules will be argued over and over. Do not pursue this, Gaunt.

  I'm afraid I have to, marshal. I am not a stranger to martial hearings. I will personally resource and provide all the legal precedents I need to throw Tarrian, his thugs and his pitiful case to the wolves.

  A Vervun Primary ad
jutant hurried into the retiring room behind Gaunt.

  Not now! barked Croe, but the man didn't withdraw. He held out a data-slate to the fuming marshal.

  You you need to see this, sir, he stammered.

  Croe snatched the slate out of the man's hands and read it quickly. What he read arrested his attention, and he went back and re-read slowly, his eyes narrowing.

  Croe thrust the slate to Gaunt. Read it yourself, he said. Our observers along the South Curtain have been picking it up since daybreak.

  Gaunt looked through the transcripts recorded by the wall-guards as they scrolled across the glowing screen.

  Heritor Asphodel, he murmured. He looked round at Croe. I suggest you release Grizmund now. We're going to need all the men we can get.

  * * * * *

  Gaunt and Croe left the retiring room together and strode down the short hall into the great control auditorium of House Command. Both the lower level and the wrought-iron upper deck of the place were jostling with activity. Hololithic projections of the warfront glowed upwards into the air from crenellated lens-pits in the floor, and the air throbbed with vox-caster traffic, astropaths' chants and the clack of the cogitator banks.

  A gaggle of Munitorum staffers, Vervun Primary aides and technical operators hastened forward around the marshal as he entered, but he waved them all away, crossing to the ironwork upper deck, his boots clanging up the metal steps. Vice Marshal Anko, General Sturm, Commissar Kowle and General Xance of the NorthCol were already assembled by the great chart table. Silent servitors, encrusted with bionics, and poised regimental aides waited behind them. An occasional vox/pict drone bumbled across the command space. Gaunt hung back at the head of the stairs, observing.

  Kowle? asked Croe, approaching the chart table.

  No confirmation. It is impossible to confirm, lord marshal.

  Croe held up the data-slate. But this is an accurate transcript of the enemy broadcasts? They're chanting this at the gates?

  Since dawn, replied Sturm. He looked bleary-eyed, and his grey and gold Volpone dress uniform was crumpled, as if he had been roused hurriedly. And not just chanting.

  He nodded and a servitor opened a vox-channel. A chatter of almost unintelligible noise rolled from the speaker.

  Vox-central has washed the signal clean. The name repeats on all band-widths as a voice pattern and also as machine code, arithmetical sequence and compressed pict-representation. Sturm fell silent. He reached for a cup of caffeine on the edge of the chart table, his hand trembling.

  A blanket broadcast. They certainly want us to know, Gaunt said.

  Kowle looked round at him. They want us to be scared, he said snidely. Just hours ago, you complimented me on my ability to control information. We can presume the enemy are similarly efficient. This could be propaganda. Demoralising broadcasts. They may simply be using the name as a terror device.

  Possibly but we agreed it would take a force of great charisma to turn a hive the size of Ferrozoica. Heritor Asphodel is just such a force. His fate and whereabouts since Balhaut are unknown.

  Anko looked away from Gaunt deliberately and turned to Kowle. You were on Balhaut, Kowle. What is this creature?

  Kowle was about to speak when Gaunt cut across. Both Kowle and I served on Balhaut. I believe the commissar was deployed on the southwest continent, away from the main battle for the Oligarchy. I encountered the Heritor's forces personally.

  Kowle conceded. He could barely hide his bitterness at the memory. The colonel-commissar may have more experience than me.

  Croe turned his hooded eyes back to Gaunt. Well?

  The Heritor was one of Archon Nadzybar's foremost lieutenants, a warlord in his own right, personally commanding a force of over a million. He was one of the chief commanders Nadzybar gathered in his great retinue to form the vast enemy force which overran the Sabbat Worlds, Emperor damn him. Despite the notoriety of the other warlords filth like Sholen Skara, Nokad the Blighted, Anakwanar Sek, Qux of the Eyeless Heritor Asphodel remains the most notorious. His sworn aim, both before and after Archon Nadzybar co-opted him into the pact, was to ˜inherit' Imperium world after Imperium world and return them to what he saw as the ˜true state' of Chaos. His ruthlessness is immeasurable, his brutality staggering and the charismatic force of his personality as a leader cannot be underestimated. And with the possible exception of Sek, he is probably the most tactically brilliant of all Nadzybar's commanders.

  It almost sounds like you admire the bastard, sniffed Sturm.

  I do not underestimate him, general, Gaunt said coldly. That is different.

  And he could be here? It could be more than an enemy lie? Anko asked, failing to disguise the wobble in his voice.

  The Heritor fled Balhaut along with all the surviving warlords after Warmaster Slaydo slew the Archon. This may be his first reappearance. The Zoican forces have encircled us well and swiftly, and they have used both waiting and surprise to great effect. Both are tactics I know the Heritor favours. Furthermore, he delights in war machines. With access to Ferrozoica hive's fabricating plants, the baroque war machines we have seen are precisely the sort of things I would expect him to send out at us.

  Croe said nothing as he took it in. Suggestions? Gaunt?

  Astutely, Gaunt deferred to Kowle, aware of how the commissar was bristling at what he would no doubt see as the colonel-commissar's grandstanding. I would invite Commissar Kowle's ideas on how to deal with this information.

  Kowle greedily accepted the scrap thrown to him. We can't shut out blanket broadcasts, so we must refute them. All military, municipal and guilder institutions in Vervunhive, along with select representatives of the citizenry and the Legislature, must be clearly and emphatically briefed that this is hollow propaganda. We should prepare statements for the public address plates to repeat denials of this. I also urge we counter with broadcasts of our own. Simple repeats of the statement ˜the Heritor is dead' should suffice for now.

  Begin the work. I want regular updates. Croe waited as Kowle saluted and left, then faced Sturm and Xance. Battle standby remains in force, but I want all military resources moved into position now. No reserves. We must meet the next thrust with absolute power.

  Both generals nodded.

  I trust the revisions you ordered to the communications net have been affected, General Sturm?

  New channel settings and new codes have been issued to our forces. The confusions of the last storm should not recur.

  Gaunt hoped Sturm was correct. He had reviewed the general's revisions and they seemed sound, though they favoured the Volpone Bluebloods and the Vervun Primary with the most accessible bands.

  Have you yet considered my proposal to engage them outside the Wall? asked Xance.

  Impractical, general, replied Croe.

  We saw how the Vervun Mechanised were destroyed in the grasslands, Sturm added.

  But now they are dug in and restricted by the streets of the outer habs. The policy vouched by Nash, Grizmund and Gaunt early on would seem more attractive now. The NorthCol and Narmenian armour could sally out with infantry support and shake them from their forward line.

  Gaunt listened, fascinated. This was the first he had heard of Xance's plan. Clearly Sturm, Anko and Croe had made efforts to suppress it. It could not be coincidence that Xance was voicing it now in Gaunt's presence.

  No! barked Sturm, anger getting the better of him for a moment. We will not dilute our resistance here by wasting manpower and machines in an external raid.

  Xance shook his head and left the upper auditorium without saluting.

  Sturm looked over at Gaunt with a scowl. Don't even begin to think about supporting Xance, Gaunt. The Imperial Forces here at Vervunhive will not go on the offensive now or in the foreseeable future.

  Gaunt nodded, saluted and left. He knew when it was time to argue, and he'd been sticking his neck out more than enough in the last few days.

  The Zoicans recommenced sporadic bombardment at dusk, throwing shells a
nd rockets up at the Curtain Wall at a listless rate, more to annoy than to do any real damage. The Wall positions returned fire intermittently, whenever a target was designated by the spotters.

  Zoican ground forces, edging closer to the Wall, fired las and bolt rounds at the gates from foxhole cover and ditches. At Sondar Gate, Vervun Primary corps under Captain Cargin elevated the armoured domes of the electric rotating turrets and peppered the ground in range outside with torrents of heavy autofire.

  The new defences at Veyveyr Gate took their first battering. There was the punk! punk! of mortars dropping shells close to the skirts of the stone siege walls and dirt clouds drifted back across the troops at the parapet.

  Feygor swivelled his scope, hunting for a target in the hab waste beyond, and he quickly identified the rising tendrils of smoke from the concealed mortars.

  He ordered Bragg up to the wall-line and spotted for him as Bragg loaded rocket grenades into his shoulder launcher. Then Feygor voxed to Rawne for permission to fire.

  Rawne was crossing the inner trenches below the gate when he received the request and told Feygor to hold fire.

  He hurried down a dugout towards the Volpone command section, a half-smashed rail carriage buried to the axles in ash and rubble and shielded along its length with flak-board, sandbags and piled stone. Rawne had been ordered to co-ordinate the defence with his Volpone opposite number, but despite Sturm's communication review or because of it, Rawne grimly suspected the inter-unit vox links seemed stilted and slow.

  Two Bluebloods of the elite 10th Brigade stood guard at the gas-curtained entrance. They were giants in their carapace battledress, the grey and gold of their segmented armaplas and fatigues spotless and austere. Each carried a gleaming black hellgun with a sawn-off pump-gun attached to the bayonet lug under the main barrel.

  They blocked his advance.

  Major Rawne, Tanith area commander, he said briskly and they stood aside to let him enter.

  Colonel Nikolaas Taschen DeHante Corday was a true Blueblood: massive, powerful and square-jawed with hooded eyes. He was sitting at his chart desk in the carriage as Rawne entered and he looked the Tanith over like he was something he'd found adhering to his boot.