by Dan Abnett
Gilbear leaned down once the force of the outrush slackened, and he watched the twitching, spasming form of the High Master trembling in his draining tank. He fired a grenade in through the broken port and turned away.
A dull crump and the sheet of steam that billowed out of the window hole marked the end of Salvadore Sondar, High Master of Vervunhive.
Daur had carried Chass over to the brass console in the wall and he helped the enfeebled lord punch in the override settings. Chass mumbled the codes to Daur just in time. The noble was dead by the time Gaunt reached them.
The runic sigils on the console plate asked for a noble geno-print. Gaunt simply lifted one of Chass' limp hands and pressed it to the reader-slate.
Sic semper tyrannis, Lord Chass, Gaunt whispered.
Did he see victory, sir? asked Daur.
He saw enough. We'll find out if this is a victory or not.
Automated systems cycled and whirred. Deep in the bowels of Vervun-hive, field batteries throbbed. The pylon crackled and the anchor stations that remained intact raised their masts.
With a resounding, fulminating crack and a reek of ozone, the Shield was reignited.
Ibram Gaunt left the audience hall of House Sondar and walked up onto an enclosed roof terrace that overlooked the entire hive. Fires burned below, thousands of them, and streaks of constant shelling lit the air. The Shield overhead glowed and crackled.
Now the Last Ditch had begun.
FIFTEEN
DAY THIRTY-FIVE
Target and deny! By our deaths shall they know us!
General Coron Grizmund, at the start
of the Narmenian counterattack
Overnight, between the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth days of the war, Vervunhive had come to the brink of destruction. Now, like a clenching muscle, the Imperial forces tightened and backed through the inner habs and elite sectors, resisting the encircling foe. For all their massive numbers, the Zoicans could only attack by land with the Shield reactivated. The dense streets, city blocks, habitats and thoroughfares favoured the defenders, who could dig in and hold the Zoican push.
Corday and Rawne dragged their forces back from Veyveyr into the worker habs a bare half hour before they could be encircled by enemy forces reaching upwards from Sondar Gate. NorthCol and Vervun Primary battalions pushed west to support the retreating Roane, still resisting street by street as they fell back from the Croe and Ontabi Gates. Colonel Bulwar had nominal command of that front.
Five thousand Vervun Primary troopers under Captain Cargin still held the Hass West Fort fast, though looping columns of Zoican infantry were beginning to bracket them through the chemical plant district.
Throughout the inner habs south of the Main Spine, Imperial units tried to stem the advance. Sergeant Bray directed the Tanith in the wastes north of the chem district. Volpone, NorthCol and Vervun Primary sections strung out to his east, where Corbec's remaining Tanith and a force of Roane Deepers under Major Relf had consolidated a wide area of manufactories.
The fighting there was thick, as thick as any in the hive. Guild Githran Agricultural had been held since the small hours of the morning. Corbec's platoons had precious little ammo left and no food. They had been fighting all-out for six hours straight. Enemy flamer-tanks holding the north-south arterial highway rightly were preventing the Tanith from obtaining munitions from the better-provided Roane, just half a kilometre away to the east. The Tanith were forced to scavenge for ammo, running out of cover in twos and threes to loot the fallen Zoicans. At least with the Shield reactivated, they were spared the worst of the shelling, though the enemy armour and field pieces now set up inside the Shield dome were unrelenting.
Baffels whistled a command, and Milo, Neskon and Cocoer dashed from the cover of a derelict abattoir and scurried towards a burning textile mill. Dremmond covered their run with spurts from his flamer. The three Tanith had bayonets fixed. They were all out of ammo, except Cocoer, who had only a handful of shots left.
Six Zoicans lay dead behind the rear wall of the mill. The trio descended on them and stripped them of las-cells. Each corpse had six or seven as well as musette bags filled with stick grenades.
Milo looked up. The air throbbed with las-fire and though the Shield had shut out the rain, the ground was slick and muddy. Me pulled Neskon down into cover. Enemy fire chased down the mill wall, cracking holes in the plaster facing and puffing out brick dust.
A fireteam of Zoican stormtroopers was advancing through the ruins to the west of the mill. Cocoer now had a fresh clip in his Guard-issue weapon and he fired twice, missing his targets but causing the Zoicans to duck and cover.
We're pinned! Milo hissed into his microbead.
Stay down, the voice of Sergeant Baffels crackled back.
They did. Neskon poked his head up long enough to be shot at.
Come on, Baffels! Milo added urgently. They could hear the crunching footfalls of the Zoicans barely ten paces from their cover.
Just another moment, Baffels reassured his friend.
Loud las-shots cracked over the ruins, single shots, high-powered.
You're clear! Go! Baffels squawked.
Milo led the way, Neskon and Cocoer on his heels. He got a glimpse of the Zoicans behind him, sprawled dead from clean head-shots.
Milo smiled.
The trio slid into cover in the agricultural manufactory, safe behind a solid ceramite wall. Baffels and other Tanith crowded round them as they shared out the clip-cells and the stick-bombs.
Milo looked across the roofless factory-space and saw Larkin dug in high up near a vent hatch. The Tanith snipers, along with the Spoilers, had drawn back from the Spoil. Milo had known that the precision killing of the Zoicans had been the work of marksmen.
He flashed a grin up at Larkin. The weasely sniper winked back.
Milo handed a cell to Baffels. Your turn next time, he joked.
Of course, said Baffels. Hours before he had ceased to recognise the humour in anything.
Colm?
Corbec looked up out of the loophole he was holding, his shaggy head coated in soot and grime. He shot a beaming grin when he saw Mkoll.
About time you got here.
Came as fast as we could. The bastards have the Spoil now. We left it to them.
Corbec got up and slapped Mkoll on the arm. You all make it through?
Yeah, Domor, Larkin, MkVenner all the boys. I've spread them out through our lines.
Good work. We need good marksman coverage all along. Feth, but this is ugly work.
They looked round, hearing angry voices down the burned-out hall. Vervun Primary troops with long-barrelled lasguns were moving in to join the defence.
The Spoilers, so called, Mkoll explained to his colonel. Dedicated to protecting the Spoil. Took a while to convince them that falling back was the smart choice. They'd have held the slag-slopes forever. It's a pride thing.
We understand pride, don't we? grimaced Corbec.
Mkoll nodded. He pointed out the leader of the Spoilers, a bulky man with bloodshot eyes who was doing most of the shouting and cursing. That's Gak' Ormon. Spoiler commander.
Corbec sauntered over to the big Verghastite.
Corbec, Tanith First-and-Only.
Major Ormon. I want to lodge a complaint, colonel. Your man Mkoll ordered our withdrawal from the Spoil, and
Corbec cut him short. We're fighting for our fething lives and you want to complain? Shut up. Get used to it. Mkoll made a good call. Another half an hour and you would have been surrounded and dead. You want a spoil' to defend? Take a look! He gestured out of a shattered window at the wasteland around. Start thinking like a soldier, and stop cussing and whining. There's more than unit pride at stake here.
Ormon opened and closed his mouth a few times like a fish. I'm glad we understand each other, Corbec said.
In the north-eastern corner of the hive, Sergeant Varl and Major Rodyin had command of one hundred and seventy or so men holding the bur
ning docks. Half were Tanith; the rest, Vervun Primary and Roane. Zoican stormtroops were blasting in along the Hass East Causeway under the Hiraldi road-bridge, and the Imperial forces were being driven back through the hive's promethium depots. Several bulk capacity tanks were already ablaze and liquescent fire spurted from derricks and spout-vents.
Firing tight bursts, Varl crossed a depot freightway and dropped into cover beside Major Rodyin, who had paused to fiddle with the cracked lens of his spectacles.
No sign of support. I've been trying the vox. We're on our own, the Vervun officer remarked.
Varl nodded. We can do that. Just a few of us should be able to keep them busy in these industrial sectors.
Unless they move armour our way.
Varl sighed. The hiver was pessimism personified.
Did you see the way the Zoicans' armour was smeared with tar and oil?
I did, said Varl, clipping off a few more shots. What of it?
I think that's how they got in, how they broke us open. They came through the pipeline from Vannick Hive. Rodyin pointed out across the depot to the series of vast fuel-pipe routes that came in over the river on metal stilt legs from the northern hinterlands. The pipes come in right under the Curtain Wall.
Why the feth weren't they shut down? snapped Varl.
Rodyin shrugged. They were meant to be. That's what I was told, anyway. The directive was circulated weeks ago, right after Vannick was obliterated. The guilds controlling the fuelways were ordered to blow the pipes on the far shore and fill the rest with rockcrete.
Someone didn't do their job properly, Varl mused. Somehow the information aggravated him. It was way too fething late to find out how they had been breached.
The fight at hand took his mind off it. Persistent rocket grenades were tumbling onto them from a loading dock at the edge of the depot. Varl ordered a pack of Roane down to establish covering fire and then sent Brostin in with the flamer.
He edged the rest of his men along down the devastated depot roadway, sometimes using the litter of metal plating and broken girders as cover, sometimes having to negotiate ways over or around it. A fuel lank sixty metres away blew out with huge, bright fury.
Logris, Meryn and Nehn, working forward with a handful of Vervun Primary troopers, almost ran into a Zoican fireteam in a drain-away under one of the main derrick rigs. The Tanith laid in fearlessly with bayonets, but the Vervunhivers tried to find room to shoot and several were cut down.
Hearing the commotion over his microbead, Varl charged in with several other Tanith, spiking the first ochre-suited soldier he met with his silver bayonet. Another sliced at him with a boarding hatchet and Varl punched his head off with one blow from his metal arm.
Major Rodyin came in behind, shooting his autopistol frantically. He seemed pale and short of breath. Varl knew that Rodyin had never been in combat like this before. In truth, the man had never been in combat at all before that day.
Three desperate, bloody minutes of close fighting cleared the drain-away of Zoicans. Logris and Nehn set up solid fire positions down the gully, overlooking the dock causeway.
Rodyin took off his glasses and tried to adjust the earpieces with shaking hands. He looked like he was about to weep.
You alright, major? Varl asked. He knew full well Rodyin wasn't, but he suspected it had less to do with combat shock and more to do with the sight of his home city falling around him. Varl could certainly sympathise with that.
Rodyin nodded, replacing his spectacles. The more I kill, the better I feel.
Nearby, Corporal Meryn laughed. The major sounds like Gaunt himself!
The notion seemed to please Rodyin.
What now? Left or right? Meryn asked. He was wearing bulky fuel-worker's overalls in place of the Tanith kit which had been scorched off him. His seared scalp was caked with dried blood and matted tufts of scorched hair.
Feth knows, Varl answered.
Right. We try to push down the river towards the bridge, Rodyin said with great certainty.
Varl said nothing. He'd rather have stayed put or even fallen back a little to consolidate. The last thing they wanted was to overreach themselves, yet Rodyin was determined. Varl was uneasy following the major, even though the Verghastite had rank. But Willard was dead Varl had seen his burning body fall from the Wall and there was no one of authority to back him up.
So they moved east, daring the open firestorms of the docks, winning back Vervunhive a metre at a time.
* * * * *
General Grizmund walked down the steps of the Main Spine exit, adjusting his cap and powersword. Wind-carried ash washed back across the stone terrace of the Commercia where the Narmenian tanks were drawn up: one hundred and twenty-seven main battle tanks of the Leman Russ pattern, with twenty-seven Demolishers and forty-two light support tanks. Their engines revved, filling the air with blue exhaust smoke and thunder.
Brigadier Nachin saluted his general.
Good to have you back, sir, he said.
Grizmund nodded. He and the other officers liberated by Gaunt from the hands of the VPHC were more than ready to see action.
Grizmund pulled his command officers into a huddle and flipped out the hololithic display of a data-slate. A three-dimensional light-map of the Commercia and adjacent districts billowed into the sooty air. Grizmund began to explain to his commanders what he wanted them to do, how they would be deployed, what objectives they were to achieve.
His voice was relayed by vox/pict drones to all the Narmenian crews. His briefing turned into a speech, a rousing declamation of power and victory. At the end of it, the tank crews, more than a thousand men, cheered and yelled.
Grizmund walked down the line of growling tanks and clambered deftly up onto his flag-armour, The Grace of the Throne, a long-chassis Russ variant with a hundred and ten-centimetre main weapon. Like all the Narmenian vehicles, it was painted mustard-drab and bore the Imperial eagle crest and the spiked fist sigil of Narmenia.
It felt like coming home. Grizmund dropped down through the main turret's hatch, strapped himself into the command chair, and plugged the dangling lead of his headset into the vox-caster.
Grizmund tested the vox-link and made sure he had total coverage.
He pulled the recessed lever that clanged the top-hatch down, and he saw his driver, gunner and loader grinning up at him from the lower spaces of the tank hull.
Let's give them hell, Grizmund said to his crew and, via the vox, to all his men.
The Narmenian tank units roared down through the Commercia and back into the war.
House Command was a molten ruin full of scorched debris and a few fused corpses. The blast that had taken it out had also blown out the floor and disintegrated the Main Spine structure for three levels below. Gaunt viewed it from the shattered doorway for a minute or two.
Searching the adjacent areas, Gaunt appropriated a Ministorum baptistry on Level Mid-36 as a new command centre. Under Daur's supervision, workteams cleared the pews and consecration tables and brought in codifiers and vox-systems liberated from dozens of houses ordinary on that level. Gaunt himself hefted a sheet of flakboard onto the top of the richly decorated font to make a desk. He began to pile up his data-slates and printouts.
Ecclesiarch Immaculus and his brethren watched the Imperial soldiers overrun their baptistry. It was one of the few remaining shrines in the hive still intact. They had been singing laments for the basilica when Gaunt arrived.
Immaculus joined Gaunt at his makeshift desk.
I suppose you're going to tell me this is sacrilege, Gaunt said.
The old man in long, purple robes shook his head wearily. You fight for the Imperial cause, my son. In such manner, you worship the Emperor more truly than a hundred of my prayers. If our baptistry suits your needs, you are welcome to it.
Gaunt inclined his head reverently and thanked the Ecdesiarch.
Baptise this war in blood, colonel-commissar, Immaculus said.
The cleric had been
nothing but gracious and Gaunt was anxious to show his appreciation. I will feel happier if you and your brothers would hold vigil here for us, watching over this place as a surety against destruction.
Immaculus nodded, leading his brethren up to the celebratory, from where their plainsong chants soon echoed.
Gaunt viewed the data-slates, seeing the depth of the destruction. He made note marks on a paper chart of the hive.
Daur brought him the latest reports. Xance was dead; Nash too. Sturm had vanished. As Gaunt surveyed the lists of the dead, Major Otte of the Vervun forces, the lord marshal's adjutant, arrived in the baptistry. He was wounded and shellshocked, one of the few men to make it clear of the fall of Sondar Gate.
He saluted Gaunt. Marshal Croe is slain, he said simply.
Gaunt sighed.
As ranking officer of Vervun Primary, I hand command to you, as ranking Imperial commander.
Gaunt stood up and solemnly received the salute with one of his own. What he had suspected ever since he led the assault on Sondar's lair was now confirmed: he was the senior surviving Imperial officer in Vervunhive and so overall military authority was now his. All senior ranks, both local and off-world, were dead or missing. Only Grizmund held a rank higher than Gaunt and armour was always subservient to an infantry command.
Otte presented Gaunt with Croe's sword of office: the powerblade of Heironymo Sondar.
I can't accept
You must. Whoever leads Vervunhive to war must carry the sword of Heironymo. It is a custom and tradition we have no wish to break.
Gaunt accepted, allowing Otte to formally buckle the carrying sash around him.
Intendant Banefail of the Administratum, surrounded by a procession of servitors and clerks, entered the baptistry as Otte was performing the ceremony. He nodded to Gaunt gravely and accepted his authority without question.
My ministry is at your disposal, commander. I have mobilised labour teams to assist in fire control and damage clearance. We are overwhelmed by the situation. Most of the population is trying to flee across the river, all militarised units request ammunition supply, the main
