by Dan Abnett
Rawne nodded. I wish to commence discriminate return of fire. There are mortars trying to range my positions.
Corday looked at his chart again and then nodded. Do you want support?
They're simply harrying, biding their time. But I'd rather not sit my men there while they find their true range.
Is it worth drawing up the artillery?
Rawne shook his head. Not yet. Let me silence the mortars and see what they try next.
Very good.
Rawne turned to leave.
Major? Rawne, isn't it?
Rawne turned back to see that Corday had risen to his feet. I am anxious that the Volpone and the Tanith can complement each other in this position, he said.
I share your hope.
There is not a good record between our regiments.
Rawne was surprised by the frankness.
No. No, there isn't. May I ask do you know why?
Corday sighed. Voltemand. I was not part of that action, but I have reviewed the records. A miscalculation on General Sturm's part caused artillery to injure your units in the field.
Rawne coughed gently. It was a polite and rather inaccurate appraisal, but he didn't want to antagonise the Blueblood officer.
I don't believe the Volpone have ever formally apologised to the Tanith for it. For what it's worth, I make that apology now.
Is there a reason? Rawne asked guardedly.
One of my men, Culcis, speaks highly of the Ghosts, of your Colonel Corbec in particular. He fought with them on Nacedon. Others have praised Gaunt's leadership on Monthax. Corday smiled. The smile seemed genuine, despite the aristocratic languor of the face. Rawne thought it would not be impossible to like Corday.
Sturm, Emperor honour him Gilbear many of the upper echelon will of course despise the Tanith for eternity! They both laughed. But you'll find me a fair man, Rawne. We Bluebloods have prided ourselves on our superiority for a long time. It is time we learned from others and realised that the Imperial Guard has other fine regiments within it that we might be honoured and educated to serve alongside.
Rawne was quietly astonished. Like all the Ghosts, he had come to loathe the Bluebloods, and for a damaged, hating soul like Rawne that loathing came easy. He could never have believed he would hear such comradeship from one of them, especially a senior officer.
I appreciate your words, colonel. I will bear them in mind and circulate your thoughts amongst my own men. It's fair to say that unless we learn to fight together, we will die here. In the spirit of co-operation, may I note that our inter-unit vox-links are still unreliable?
Corday nodded and made a note on his data-slate with a stylus. Select band pi as a working link, with band kappa as reserve. I think I'll send one of my subalterns with a vox-set to work as liaison. I suggest you reciprocate.
Rawne nodded, saluted and left the carriage.
Corday called his bodyguard in to join him. Send Graven to the Tanith position with a vox-set. Tell him to act as intermediary. I want these disgusting Ghost scum kept sweet, make that clear to him. We don't want them hanging our arses out to dry when the fighting starts.
Returning down the trench, Rawne sent a confirmation to Feygor at the leading wall. Bragg's launcher thumped and the mortar position erupted in a sheet of flame and debris as its munitions were hit.
After a while, las-fire began to pepper back from the Zoican lines. The Ghosts kept their heads down and waited.
At Hass East Fort, overlooking the estuary inlet, it was deathly quiet. Hass East had been spared all the fighting so far, but the position was still vital, as it watched the Vannick Highway and guarded the Ontabi Gate entrance to the hive, the only one of the five great city gates not yet assaulted.
On the high top of the tower, Sergeant Varl gazed out across the dusk settling on the reed-beds and islets of the matt-grey river. Waders and flycatchers darted and warbled over the water and rushes, and the riverside air was crazy with billowing gnats. The great bulk of the Hiraldi road-bridge to the north was just a silhouette.
The rain had eased off. There was a smell of thunder in the air. Varl, with two platoons of Tanith, was sharing defence of the Fort with three platoons of Roane Deepers under Captain Willard, and three hundred Vervun Primary gunners and wall artillerymen answering to Major Rodyin, a junior member of one of the lesser noble houses.
Varl got on with Willard. The Roane was about twenty-five, tanned and shaggy blond, with penetrating, brown eyes and an earthy sense of humour. Like Varl, Willard had a metallic implant in his case, the fingers and palm of his right hand. They joked together about their experiences of body automation.
Rodyin was rather more difficult. Although they all faced death here, Rodyin had a more personal stake because this was his home. He was pale, earnest and prematurely balding, though he was only in his early twenties. He seemed utterly mystified by the jokes and quips that rattled freely between his two fellow officers, and he would stare at them myopically though the half-moon glasses that were permanently perched on the bridge of his nose. Varl understood that House Rodyin was one of the liberal families in the hive, more humanitarian and forward-thinking than the old noble houses or the guilders. House Rodyin's fortunes were built on food sources and their harvester-machines grazed the great pastoral uplands north of the Hass, gathering grain for the vast granaries in the dock district.
Varl liked Rodyin, but he didn't seem much of a soldier.
The Tanith sergeant crossed the tower top, slapping gnats off his skin, and toured the emplacements as the daylight faded.
He heard laughter and saw Willard and some of his tan-uniformed troops joking by a rocket station. Rodyin stood a little apart, scoping the river and the road with a high-power set of magnoculars.
Willard greeted Varl. But for these bloody flies, Ghost, I'd say we've pulled the best duty here! None of that bloody fighting stuff up here at Hass East, eh?
Varl had already seen fighting in Vervunhive and was actually glad of the calm and quiet up here on the far eastern side of the city. But still, waiting was sometimes the mind-killer. Wouldn't object to a few Zoicans to pop though, he grinned.
Hell, no! A few of those bloody yellows to keep my eye in, eh?
More laughter. Varl saw how Rodyin shifted uncomfortably, unwilling to be drawn in. The major took his duties and his war seriously too seriously in Varl's opinion probably because he'd never been in one before.
See anything? Varl asked, joining Rodyin at the parapet.
A little river traffic. Barges, ferries. Most of them are crossing from the north bank with munition hauls. House Command has embargoed all but vital supply runs.
Varl took his own single-lens scope from his pack and scanned the area. To the north of their position, near the bridge, sat the bulky promethium tanks of the dockside fuel depot, the main facility serving Vervunhive. On stilt legs, pipelines tracked away to the north and east, as far into the distance as Varl could see. They'd once pumped the fuel in from Vannick Hive, before it was lost. Now the only liquid fuel supplies available to Vervunhive were coming from NorthCol.
Looks quiet enough, Varl said.
Behind them, Willard finished a particularly coarse joke and the laughter of his men echoed down the battlements into the deepening gloom.
Guilder Worlin returned to his guild house at nightfall. He was grinning broadly and his face was shiny with the glow of too much joiliq. An extraordinary guild meeting conducted in an armoured bunker under the Commercia had left his personal resources three times the size they had been that dawn. The considerable promethium reserves he had to bargain with had been snapped up greedily in a bidding war between five major guild cadres, and he'd also managed to draw up a resourcing agreement with representatives of Vervun Primary. His pipeline was still drawing fuel into the massive steel bowsers in the Worlin commercial estates on the river. Vannick Hive might be dead, but its legacy lingered on and Worlin was amassing a trade fortune with every drop of it. By the time the war w
as over, Worlin was assured of a place in the high circle of the Commercia guilds. House Worlin would affect a promotion to the senior echelon of hive trade institutions. Its stock price alone had quadrupled since the First Storm.
He sat in his private office, at a teak-topped desk with built-in pict-plates, and sipped an overfilled glass of joiliq as he reviewed the messages his communicator had collected during the day.
One stopped him in his tracks. It was a notification of enquiry from some nobody called Curth at Inner Hab Collective Medical Hall 67/mv. It wanted to know his whereabouts on the first day of attack. Had he been anywhere near Carriage Station C7/d? There were irregularities that demanded investigation and they were taking statements from anybody who had been in the area at that time. Monitor viewers along the access ramp had recorded him and two of his houseguard crossing that way during the bombardment of the Commercia. The message was signed Curth, A. and copied to an off-worlder medic named Dorden, one of the Imperial Guard.
Worlin realised his hand was shaking and he was slopping joiliq out of the glass. He set it down and sucked the drops off the ball of his thumb.
He checked his weapon was still in the drawer of the desk. This annoyance would need to be dealt with quickly.
The chatter was now so persistent that there was no other sign or meaning to the world. Salvador Sondar spasmed gently in his fluid world, gnawing at his lips. The voice of his worthy Ferrozoican cousin Clatch had been whittled away until it simply repeated two words, over and again. A name. A daemonic name.
Sondar was emaciated and weak with hunger. His feeder tubes had long since run dry and he had not the presence of mind to cycle the automated systems to refresh them. Even his meat puppets were forgotten and slowly rotting as they dangled lifelessly from their strings.
A rich smell of decay filled the High Master's chambers.
He was oblivious.
He knew what the chatter wanted. The notion appealed to him, because the chatter made it so appealing.
He couldn't form a coherent thought. He simply listened. Perhaps he would do it just to shut the chatter up. Any time now.
Larkin had been perfectly still for over an hour. His eye never left the scope-sight. The Spoil-head manufactory around him was quiet and dark, but he was aware of the Vervun sniper Lotin crouched behind rubble further down the second-storey room.
Ten minutes before, Larkin had sensed movement down on the Spoil. He'd watched for it again and now he saw it: a brief flash of moonlight on armour.
He retrained his aim. Breathed.
The Zoicans were advancing up the Spoil. They were well-drilled and as stealthy as any practised insurgency team. It was clear they had either switched their distinctive ochre armour for dull, night-fighting kit or had covered the livid yellow with soot.
He signalled his intelligence to Mkoll over the vox link, using only half a dozen code words.
Mkoll ordered the Tanith snipers to address and fire when they had a target. A second later, Ormon delivered the same command to his own men.
Larkin saw movement again, clearly in the foggy, green glow of his scope.
He breathed, squared and fired.
The stinging red pulse whipped down the ore slope and a black-clad figure was thrown up and backwards.
Larkin immediately dipped under the edge of the rubble and took a new position. He was certain his muzzle flash had been discreet, but there was no sense in advertising. He made his new vantage and aimed again, his extended barrel hidden inside a broken drain-gutter.
Lotin, ten metres away, fired. His lasgun made a loud crack and even from where he was, Larkin saw the muzzle flash and cursed.
He heard Lotin complain over the vox-link. He'd missed.
Move, move and re-aim! Larkin willed silently.
Lotin fired again. His whoop of success was quickly cut short by a perfectly aimed las-round from the Spoil below. The Zoicans had been watching for a repeat flash.
Lotin toppled back and slumped into the rubble scree on the floor, his face gone.
So, thought Larkin, they have capable and careful snipers too.
This war just got interesting.
The night was on them now and the moons, two large and cream and one tiny and livid red, climbed slowly into a purple sky. Rain clouds, black and woolly, chased along the eastern skyline. Distant thunder rolled out in the grasslands.
The air was sultry and unseasonable, and at Hass East Fort, Varl was sweating freely into his black fatigues. The discomfort was made worse by the static build-up generated by the vast Shield behind them, fizzing and crackling in the dark, a glowing hemisphere of energy.
The plating of his lasgun and his bionic arm tingled with electricity. Varl yearned for the threatening storm to break over them and clear the stifling air.
There was a brutal flash from the north-east and then an ear-splitting bang, followed by an impact that threw Varl off his feet. Voices were shouting in the night, alarms were ringing and someone was screaming in agony.
The sky lit up again. Explosions were rippling along the entire stretch of Curtain Wall between Ontabi Gate and the Hass.
Varl got up, blinking. There was no sign of shelling. That had been mines.
He ran down the parapet, yelling into his vox-link as more explosions shook the wall. Detonating mines meant one thing only: the enemy was right on top of them, close enough to set charges.
Men were milling all around, confused. Equally useless barks of vox-traffic answered Varl. Varl grabbed the wall for support as another explosion went off close by, flame slicking upwards in a tight ball inside the Wall.
Inside the Wall?
They've penetrated! They've penetrated! he bellowed, not understanding it but desperate to get the message out. Almost at once, he came under fire. Las-shots flicked the air around him, coming up from the nearest Wall access stair.
Varl returned fire, rallying the Vervun Primary troops nearest to him. Crackling autoguns began to support him. He saw Zoican storm-troops spreading out onto the battlements from the stair access, their ochre armour dulled by dark, tarry stains.
Varl shot down one or two before realising many more were storming the battlement behind him too. How in the name of feth had they got inside?
A huge blast shook him to his knees. An entire section of Hass East collapsed with a roar and brick dust billowed into the sky, underlit by flame. Further detonations sliced through the top of the wall.
Varl saw gun emplacements ripped apart and exploded and he watched as entire sections of wall-defences blew outwards as mines set off ammunition silos and autoloader hoppers.
Like the wrath of a ruthless god, the war had come to Hass East at last.
TWELVE
DARKNESS FALLS
What is the strongest weapon of mankind? The god-machines of the Adeptus Mechanicus? No! The Astartes Legions? No! The tank? The lasgun? The fist? No to all! Courage and courage alone stands above them all!
Macharius, Lord Solar, from his writings
Distant thunder woke Ibram Gaunt from a dreamless sleep.
His bedroom, part of a small suite of rooms disposed to him, adjacent to House Command, was dark except for the dull amber glow of rune sigils on the small codifier by the desk.
He turned on the lamp and slid off the bed where he had lain down only a couple of hours before, fully clothed. Sleep had overtaken him in an instant.
By the light of the lamp, he crossed to the desk, where stacks of ribbon-bound papers and data-slates were piled up. He took a sip of last night's wine from a glass on a side table.
The thunder came again. Somewhere, deadened by the thick walls, an alarm was ringing.
He activated the call stud of the intercom set into the marble facing of the wall, blankly regarding the great framed portrait over the bare grate opposite. Its thick, time-darkened oils portrayed a pompous-looking man in the Vervun Primary uniform of an older age, bedraggled with braid, one foot raised to rest on a pile of human skulls,
a scroll in one hand and a power-sword in the other.
Sir?
What's going on?
Reports of a raid at Ontabi Gate. We're waiting for confirmation.
Appraise me swiftly. I have men at Hass East.
Of course, sir. There is a visitor for you.
Gaunt checked the clock. It was nearly two in the morning. Who?
He bears the Imperial seal and says you requested him.
Gaunt sighed and said, Allow him in.
The suite's outer door slid open and Gaunt went into the sitting room to meet his visitor, activating the wall lamps.
A gnarled, elderly man in long, purple robes shuffled in, peering at Gaunt through thick-lensed spectacles. His hair, where it protruded from under his high-crested, red, felt cap, was grey and unruly, and he leaned on an ebony cane. Behind him came a tall, pale young man in grey cleric's coat, laden down with old tomes and sheaves of paper.
Commissar Gaunt? the old man wheezed, studying the officer before him.
Colonel-commissar, actually. You are?
Advocate Cornelius Pater of the Administratum Judiciary. Your request for legal assistance was received this night and Intendant Banefail directed me to attend you with all urgency.
I thank the intendant for his alacrity and you for your time.
The advocate nodded and wheezed his way over to a leather couch, leaving his assistant in the doorway, swaying under the weight of the manuscripts and volumes he carried.
Set them down on the table, Gaunt told him. You are?
The man seemed wary of speaking.
My clerk, Bwelt, Pater answered for him. He will not speak. He is training for junior advocacy and must perforce learn the protocols of question and address. Besides, he knows nothing.
How do we undertake this? Gaunt asked the advocate.
Pater cleared his throat. You will review the matter for my benefit excluding no detail you will show me any pertinent transcripts and you will furnish me with a glass of fortified wine.
