by Dan Abnett
His lifeblood was pumping away through his leg wound. Lord Chass knew he was going to die very soon.
He crawled forward, a few centimetres at a time, soaking the priceless carpet with his blood. He couldn't see who or what was firing at him. The atrium was made of green cipolin stone and decorated with House Sondar banners. Light globes hung on chains from the high roof. At the atrium's far end, a wide arch led through into the audience hall, the Sondar chapel and the private residence.
He flopped over behind a sandstone jardiniРёre and loaded a fresh shell into his compact handgun. He thought about reaching for one of the fallen bodyguards' laspistols, but they were exposed in the open, and Sondar's unseen protectors were raking the carpeted floor with steady fire.
Then the firing stopped. Three meat puppets swung into view in the archway: a cloaked female, a naked youth covered in gold body-paint, and something rank and emaciated that was only vaguely human any more. All lolled wretchedly, eyes vacant, lasrifles wired into their hands. They came unsteadily down the atrium, wobbling on the feed-tubes and wires that played out from a recessed trackway in the ceiling. Though their eyes didn't move, they seemed to sense him. Chass knew they were guided by heat and motion systems wired into the palace walls. They fired again, blowing chunks off the jardiniРёre and hitting Chass in the foot and shin of his already wounded leg. He fired his single-shot piece and the heavy round took the youth's head off. It continued to advance and shoot.
A sudden burst of autogun fire licked down the atrium and tore the puppets to pieces, leaving nothing but a few shreds of flesh trailing from the wires.
Four men came down the hall from the main entrance. Chass knew their maroon body-glove armour made them guards from Croe's personal retinue. Their leader was Isak. He knelt by Lord Chass as his companions moved on to secure the archway. Isak bowed his respect to the nobleman, then reached into his harness pouches for field dressings.
The marshal sent you?
I am instructed to take any action necessary to restore the Shield, lord. That includes the suppression of High Master Sondar and his forces.
At last Croe is acting with the same purpose as me, thought Chass. He felt no pain from Isak's work on his wounds. He was cold and everything seemed distant. Help me up, he told the bodyguard. You'll need the geno-print of a noble to activate the Shield systems.
Isak nodded and hoisted Lord Chass up by the armpits, as if he was as light as a feather. From beyond the arch came the sounds of renewed gunfire.
In the colonnade beyond the atrium a long cloister of wooden beams and inlaid upper balconies with a roof of stained glass Isak's men had encountered more servitor puppets. Some were appearing in the balcony galleries, others moving down the open length of the cloister. The House Croe guardsmen were pinned near the archway.
Lord Chass, leaning heavily on Isak for support, noticed a smell, a spicy taint that stung his nostrils, sweeter and more subtle than the sharp pungency of the discharged weapons. What is that smell? he whispered, half to himself.
Chaos, Ibram Gaunt said.
Chass and Isak looked round from the archway where they were sheltering and saw Gaunt leading the team of Blueblood elite down the atrium with silent precision. Daur, Kowle and Sturm were at the back of the line, Gilbear alongside the commissar. All weapons were drawn.
It seems we share a mission, Gaunt said dryly. He gestured to Gilbear and the Volpone moved three of his seven troopers round to cover the far side of the arch. In a moment, they were adding the considerable force of their hellguns to the dispute.
Sic semper tyrannis, Chass whispered and smiled at Gaunt. I knew you would serve Vervunhive with true valour
His voice was faint. Gaunt looked at the wounds that mauled the nobleman's leg. Isak had applied a tourniquet high up on the thigh, but his robes were soaked with blood.
Gaunt caught Isak's look. They both knew how close to death Chass was.
Chass knew it too. I'd like to see us victorious before my passing, colonel-commissar.
Gaunt nodded. He shouted to the Volpone. Let's not waste any more time! Take the chamber now!
Gilbear looked across and tapped the grenade launcher mounted under his hellgun's barrel with a predatory grin. Permission?
Given! said Gaunt. Tell your men in there to duck and cover! he told Isak and the bodyguard snarled through his microbead.
Gilbear and one of his point men bellowed the Volpone battle-pledge at the tops of their lungs as they launched grenade after grenade in through the arch. The launcher mechanisms thumped and clacked as they pumped them.
The blast, a series of explosions piled on top of one another, ripped back down the colonnade and blew out the galleries and the glass roof. Debris and ash washed back through the arch.
Before the smoke even began to clear, the Volpone stormed the room, yelling and firing. Whatever else he thought about them, Gaunt had to give the Bluebloods their due. They were finely trained, ruthlessly effective heavy troops. He'd seen their worth on Monthax. Now they were proving it again.
With his bolt pistol and chainsword drawn, Gaunt ploughed into the colonnade after them, followed by Isak and the Croe guards, with Daur and Sturm left to assist Chass. Kowle simply wandered along behind.
The place was a ruin. Dismembered or support-severed servitors littered the wooden wreckage. One puppet, which had been standing on a now-collapsed balcony, swung above their heads like a corpse in a gibbet.
The Bluebloods fanned out, moving down side halls, exchanging fire with lifeless defenders.
Which way? Gaunt asked Chass, but the wounded man was only semiconscious.
The audience hall is down to the left, Isak said.
What did you mean, the smell was Chaos? asked Chass suddenly swimming awake.
The filth that corrupted Ferrozoica is here. It's got inside House Sondar, permeating everything. Probably why the bastard turned the Shield off. Kowle said Sondar was wired directly into the hive's systems. I'd lay bets that's how it got to him, infecting him like a disease.
You mean the hive systems are corrupted too?
No but Sondar has listened to lies that have come directly into his mind. The fact they say he was mad to begin with can't help. He checked ahead and saw the large double-doors to the chamber. With me! Gaunt yelled, his chainsword buzzing murderously. The Volpone fireteam formed up behind him and had to run to keep up.
Gaunt burst through the doors and clashed directly with more servitor puppets in the entrance lobby. His chainsword cut through support wires and flesh. He hacked clear of their murderous attentions as Gilbear and his men came in behind, finishing the rest.
The audience chamber was large and softly lit. The air was warm and now so much thicker with the taint-smell. Muslin wall drapes twitched in the ventilator breeze. On the far side of the room sat a large, iron tank its shell rich with verdigris from its brass fittings fashioned with a single, baleful porthole in the front.
I see you. What are you? asked an electronic voice that came from all around.
Gaunt walked towards the awareness tank. I am the agency of Imperial authority on this world.
I am the authority here, said the voice. I am the High Master of Vervun-hive. You are nothing. I see you and you are nothing. Begone.
Salvador Sondar if you still answer to that name your power is ended. In the name of the God-Emperor of Mankind and for the continued welfare of this subject planet, I order you to surrender yourself to the Imperial Guard.
Surrender?
Do it. You will not enjoy the alternative.
You have nothing that threatens me. Nothing to tempt me. Heritor Asphodel has promised me this world in totality. The chatter has told me this.
Asphodel is the spawn of the warp, and his promises are meaningless. I give you one last chance to comply.
And I give you this.
The servitor came into the room through a doorway concealed by muslin drapes. Sondar's macabre fascination with his meat-toys was i
nfamous in the noble houses, and many efforts had been made to curtail his surgical whims and clone-farming over the years.
This thing was far more than that, more even than the deluded creation of a mad flesh-engineer. The insanity of the warp was in it: eighteen hundred kilos of scarred meat and gristle, bigger than a Hyrkan antlerdon, a jigsaw of human parts fused into the carcass of a wild auroch from the grasslands. Limbs twisted and writhed around it, some human with grasping hands, some animal, some wet, glistening pseudopods like the muscular feet of giant molluscs. The massive head was an eyeless mouth full of needle teeth, that smacked slackly and gurgled. The donor auroch's vast horns swept outwards from the low skull crest. A multitude of cables, feeds and wires suspended it, but unlike the other meat puppets, this thing moved of its own volition, pawing and stamping the soft carpet, writhing and pulsing.
The smell was overwhelming.
Gilbear and the Volpone backed off a few paces in astonishment. Sturm cried out in horror and one of the House Croe bodyguards turned and ran.
The meat-beast came for them, moving with a speed and fluidity that seemed impossible for something so vast. It howled as it came, a piercing, sibilant shriek of rage. Gaunt leapt aside and was knocked over by a flailing pseudopod. The slime burned through his leather coat where it touched.
Gilbear fired twice, blowing open holes in the lower belly of the thing. These issued spurts of stagnant pus onto the carpet. Then the Blueblood colonel was flying through the air, tossed aside by a twist of the huge horns.
Backing frantically, the other Volpone fired wildly. Blubbery, wet punctures appeared in the creature's flank, some oozing filmy fluid, others erupting with sprays of tissue and watery blood. A cloned human arm was blown right off and lay twitching on the ground.
A screaming Volpone was hoisted into the air and shaken violently to death, impaled through the chest on one of the horns. Another was crushed under the meat-beast's bulk, leaving a trampled mess of blood, bone and broken armour pressed into the carpet. Grasping limbs and curling pseudopods caught hold of a third and began to pull him apart, slowly and inexorably. His agonised wailing drowned out the meat-beast's keening roar.
Gaunt scrambled up, dazed, and shot the clasped Volpone through the head to end his drawn-out death. He fired again and again, until the sickle clip of his bolt gun was empty, the powerful close-range shots blowing chunks of raw meat and translucent fat out of the creature. Blood and ichor spurted from the wounds.
The monster wheeled round at Gaunt, wailing. Head down, it charged him and the horns, one still decorated with the limp corpse of the Volpone soldier, smashed into the chamber wall, gouging the ceramite facing. Gaunt dived aside, swinging his chainsword round with both hands. The purring blade sliced through the top of the skull and chopped one of the horns off. Then Gaunt was rolling away again, trying to stay out of reach of the biting maw that chased after him, drooling spittle. With its attention on Gaunt, the meat-beast had turned away from the remaining Volpone and they resumed firing, ripping into the thing's hindquarters but apparently doing nothing to slow it down.
Gaunt knew that daemonic force pulsed inside the beast, a life-energy that animated it beyond any considerations of physical function. If there was a brain or any vital organs at all, they would be useless as targets. The thing wasn't alive in any real sense. It couldn't be killed the way a human could be killed.
Daur was firing too now, as were the remaining House Croe guards, and Kowle had scooped up the weapon of a dead Volpone, adding his own shots to the fight. Chass was slumped limply in a corner, unconscious. There was no sign of Sturm.
Gaunt hacked into the thing again, ripping through ribs. His chainsword was matted and clogged with the beast's fluid and tissue, and steam was rising from the blade where it was being eaten away by the toxic deposits.
Gaunt cursed. Delane Oktar, his old mentor, now long dead, had given him that sword on Darendara, right at the start of his career, when he had still been green and eager. He had carried it ever since, all through his time with the Hyrkans until his service under Slaydo at Balhaut, and beyond to Tanith and every victory of his beloved Ghosts. Its destruction hurt him more than he could say. It took the past from him, took his memories and victories away.
He jammed the dying blade into the beast's shoulder, kicking out a wash of toxic blood and bone chips. Wedged fast, the sword disintegrated and the power unit in the grip exploded. Gaunt was thrown backwards.
The thing lunged down after him, biting at his kicking boots as he scrambled backwards on his backside. Isak and two of the Volpone surged forward, firing to cover him and draw the thing away. As it wheeled on them, Gaunt found himself dragged clear. It was Gilbear. Blood flecked the front of his armaplas chestplate and there was rage in his eyes. He hauled Gaunt back towards the green bulk of the iron tank.
Another Volpone was caught by the beast's clamping jaws and shredded by savage bites of its teeth. The walls and drapes of the audience hall were sprayed heavily with blood now.
The creature turned on Isak, snapping off his head and shoulders with one crushing bite. His body fell beneath its clawing, stamping legs.
A gun! Gaunt yelled to Gilbear.
Lost mine! replied the Blueblood colonel, referring to the hellgun that had been tossed aside with him. He had out his powerful sidearm, a long-barrelled autogun plated with chrome. He put shell after shell into the creature's neck.
Gaunt scrambled forward, retrieving his boltgun, and slammed a fresh clip into the receiver. He would kill this thing before he died. By the ghosts of Tanith, he would.
The meat-beast slew one of the remaining Croe guards and flew at Daur and Kowle, trailing meat and blood from its mouth. Both men stood their ground, exhibiting levels of bravery as high as any Gaunt had ever witnessed. They pumped relentless shots into the approaching nightmare. Nothing slowed it.
Hastily they both dived aside. Daur rolled into Chass' crumpled body and frantically tried to reload.
Kowle landed on a Volpone corpse. The creature headed for him.
Get clear! Gaunt bellowed. Kowle was apparently fumbling with the dead Blueblood's equipment belts. Gaunt and Gilbear fired again in a futile attempt to drop the thing.
At the final moment, Kowle turned and rose. He faced the rushing beast with his arms held out. He was clutching a canvas web of grenades. The meat-beast bit his arms off at the elbows and Kowle tumbled backwards, blood jetting from the stumps. He didn't make a sound.
The creature convulsed, retched and exploded from within. Its massive torso blew out in a rush of flame and body matter. A spinning section of rib, thrown out by the blast, stuck quivering into the wall near Gaunt like a spear. Flames gouted out of the huge mouth.
The beast collapsed onto the floor, pulling feed lines and wires out of the ceiling. The pool of stinking fluid spreading beneath it began to burn the carpet away.
With Gilbear behind him, Gaunt crossed to the carcass. We need a flamer. We need to burn this abomination as soon as possible.
Yes, colonel-commissar, Gilbear answered, turning to the surviving Volpone.
Kowle, on his back in a widening circle of blood, was still alive. Gaunt knelt beside him, soaking his knees.
Said you didn't have the balls, Kowle said, his voice so weak it was barely audible.
Gaunt had no words for him.
Envy you
What? Gaunt asked, bending closer.
Balhaut you were there at the victory, with the warmaster. I envy you. I would have given everything to share in that
Pius, you
Shut up, Gaunt not interested in anything you have to say to me. You took my honour away, you ruined me. I hope the Emperor will forgive you for robbing Terra of a great leader like me.
Gaunt shook his head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out Kowle's rank studs and cap badge. Carefully and deferentially, he pinned them back in place. Kowle seemed to notice what Gaunt was doing, though his eyes were wide and dilated, and the bl
ood was now merely trickling from his ghastly stumps.
Goodbye, commissar. You gave your best.
Gaunt saluted, a sharp, smart gesture he hadn't made in a long time.
Kowle smiled, barely, then died.
Gaunt got up from the corpse of the People's Hero and crossed to the awareness tank. Get Lord Chass up. Get the Shield back on, he said to Daur sourly. Daur nodded and began to raise the feeble Verghast noble.
Gilbear joined Gaunt at the tank. They looked down at the thickly glazed porthole.
Come up with a way for me to pay you back as soon as you can, Gaunt said, not looking round at the Volpone.
What?
You pulled me clear of the beast. I don't want to be in the debt of a high-caste bastard like you any longer than I have to be.
Gilbear grinned. I think I may have underestimated you, Gaunt. I had no idea you were such an arrogant swine.
Gaunt glanced round. It would take another Ibram Gaunt and a whole different universe for there to be any trust or comradeship between him and Gilbear. But for now, in the thick of this nightmare, Gaunt couldn't help respecting the soldier, for that was what he was: a devoted soldier of the God-Emperor, just like Gaunt. They didn't have to like each other to make it work. A measure of understanding and honour between them was enough.
Gaunt bent down to look through the port glass, and Gilbear did likewise at his side.
Through the fog of murky, phlogistic fluid, they could just make out a frail, naked body, withered and corrupted, drifting inside the tank, its skull linked to wires and cables that curled upwards to the roof.
We can call it quits if you let me finish this, said Gilbear.
He's all yours, said Gaunt.
Gilbear smirked, arming the hellgun he had just retrieved. What about your due process? What about taking the law into your own hands? he asked sarcastically.
I can dispense it. I'm a commissar. That's what you said, wasn't it?
Gilbear nodded and fired two shots through the portal window. Filthy green water rushed out in torrents, flooding the floor. Steam rose from it.
