“G-Grayle,” gasped Blonsky, raising a hand to point — and, joined by Anakora, who had managed to free herself, Steele repeated the whole process again, until a fourth Ice Warrior was dragged spluttering to the surface. Fortunately, Grayle had been able to make an air hole for himself as the snow had settled around him, otherwise he would have suffocated.
When the avalanche had started, Pozhar had been a few metres behind Sergeant Gavotski. However, he was young and he was fast, and he had easily overtaken the older man. Relatively safe on the edge of the flow, he had surfed the snow with consummate skill and exulted in the head rush it gave him. In so doing — he had realised too late — he had quite lost track of his sergeant.
He had clambered over the freshly turned snow, yelling for Gavotski, his stomach churning with the thought that he had failed this man of all men, his mentor, his sponsor. His hand had started to itch again, beneath his glove, and Pozhar would have sworn that at that moment he could feel the grey fur spreading across it.
He had located Gavotski at last, worried that he might have left him buried too long. He had tried to dig down to him, but his bad arm had slowed him too much. Fortunately, Palinev had seen the avalanche from ahead, and returned to assist him.
Gavotski had not questioned the delay in his rescue, doubtless assuming that Pozhar had had his own problems. He had led the way to the next Ice Warrior instead, and now he and Palinev were digging for Mikhaelev. Pozhar hung back for fear of getting in their way. He felt useless. Useless and ashamed. And for the first time, he wondered if he might deserve what was happening to him after all, if the fur on his hand was a warning that he could do better, that he wasn’t serving the Emperor to the fullest of his ability. That he could have saved Borscz.
He vowed that, from this moment on, he would try even harder, become even more fierce in the execution of his duty. He would cleanse Iota Hive of the Chaos filth single-handedly if he had to, or die in the attempt.
Then Pozhar heard a sound behind him — the soft crunch of a footstep in the snow — and he whirled around, and caught a glimpse of a grey-furred mutant as it ducked out of sight. He grinned and offered up a grateful prayer to the Emperor for giving him this chance to prove himself so soon.
His comrades were still occupied, hadn’t seen anything — and something stopped Pozhar from calling to them. This was his test, not theirs. He crept away from them, and only built up speed once he knew they could no longer see him, as he rounded the side of the hill down which the avalanche had come.
This was probably the same mutant that had stalked the Ice Warriors outside the Aquila, and before that in the ice forest. Barreski and Grayle had already failed to kill it, as had Steele himself. Pozhar would not fail.
His enemy had made a mistake. Post-avalanche, the snow was deep and smooth and undisturbed, like a virgin fall. The mutant was trying to hide from him, but it had left a clear trail. It would not escape this time.
All but one of the Ice Warriors had been found.
They converged on the spot where Mikhaelev and Grayle had last seen Barreski. He could have ended up anywhere within a hundred metre radius, but a quick search turned up no sign of him. That was bad, thought Steele. It meant that the trooper had been completely buried, and would be running out of air.
“Start digging,” he instructed. “Centre on this spot here. Take a five-metre square each to begin with.” His augmetics had already analysed the speed of the avalanche’s flow as he had experienced it, extrapolated its likely speed this much closer to its centre, and correlated Barreski’s reported trajectory and last known distance from his starting point — to conclude that they couldn’t narrow the search area much more than his comrades’ instincts already had.
Then Steele picked up a sound from beneath his feet, a sound that he identified a moment later as the muffled cough of a misfiring flamer.
He grabbed Anakora by her greatcoat collar and yanked her backwards as a boiling geyser erupted from the ground where she had been standing. The Ice Warriors were showered with cooling water. When the deluge had ended, they crowded forward to find a large, round hole in the snow — and, at its bottom, the top half of a red-faced, spluttering Barreski.
“S-sorry, sir,” he addressed Steele breathlessly. “Couldn’t breathe down there, couldn’t wait any longer. I knew it was risky, but…”
He was cradling his flamer across his chest.
That was when they all heard las-fire, coming from behind the hill — and Steele realised, in that selfsame moment, that one of his troopers was missing.
Pozhar ran at the mutant, firing. It had been fleeing from him — but as fast as it was, he was faster. As his first las-beam hit, the mutant gave a roar of pain and spun around to face him, throwing up its arms. It looked as if it was trying to surrender — although Pozhar doubted this, and it would have made no difference to him anyway.
“Not… what you… think…”
It took Pozhar by surprise, to be addressed by something he had thought of as an animal, dumb in both senses of the word. The mutant’s voice was hoarse and rough, like gravel across a rock surface, and the words came out slowly as if speaking was an effort for it.
“I can see what you are,” spat Pozhar, and he fired again.
His next two beams missed their target. He still wasn’t used to shooting left-handed, and that gave the mutant its chance. Having seen that it couldn’t fool him, it reverted to type — at least, that was how Pozhar chose to see it.
It came in low, its talons outstretched, and Pozhar slid to a halt and braced himself to meet it. As it thundered towards him, growing larger in his sights, he was able to zero in on it, and two beams sizzled through the mutant’s chest fur and created livid red sores. Then it cannoned into him, clawing at his throat — but Pozhar wasn’t about to be knocked down by another of these things, and although he was forced onto his back foot, he remained upright and jabbed at the creature’s stomach with his bayonet.
“Listen,” it rasped, switching its grip to Pozhar’s lasgun, twisting it so that it pointed away from them both, “Trying to… help. I know where Confessor… Confessor Wollkenden! Can take you.”
The mutant’s breath was hot and fetid in his face, and he recoiled from it, lost hold of his gun, panicked as he began to fear that he wasn’t strong enough to pass this test after all.
“You expect me to trust you?” he yelled. “You’re a filthy stinking mutant, and I won’t listen to you, I won’t be corrupted, I won’t!”
Somehow, he found the strength to hurl his foe away from him, and he leapt for his gun, lying in the snow. The mutant leapt for it too, but Pozhar got there first. He grabbed the gun, rolled onto his back, and he fired, striking the mutant again in the chest, and then in the stomach, widening its bayonet wound.
It was losing too much blood, It couldn’t survive. But it was still fighting. It came at Pozhar with a roar of rage, its eyes a blazing red, and he knew that he couldn’t fend it off again. He knew it would kill him, but that was all right because he had killed it first and would die a pure man. The mutant was on top of him, pinning his good arm, and it brought up its talons to strike, to tear out his throat.
Then it hesitated, and the fire in its eyes died out, and when it next spoke its words were more lucid than they had been.
“A few months ago,” said the mutant sadly, “I would have tried to kill me too.”
“Don’t you dare say that!” hissed Pozhar. “Don’t you dare try to say that I’m anything like you. And don’t stay your hand, I don’t want your… your pity. Kill me!”
But instead, the mutant died, and Pozhar let out a howl of frustration. He punched and kicked at it until it rolled off him, and then stood and drove his lasgun butt into the creature’s corpse again and again, shattering its bones.
He only stopped when he was exhausted. He looked down at the mutant’s staring red eyes seeming to accuse him even now, and he felt the itch on his right hand spreading, crawling up his arm. Hi
s right glove had come adrift from his greatcoat sleeve, and he was sickened by the sight of grey fur bristling in the gap. He pulled up the glove quickly, and buried the hand in its sling to conceal it more fully. He could almost have cried. Hadn’t he done what the Emperor had asked of him? It wasn’t his fault that the mutant had stopped fighting, hadn’t challenged him fully. Pozhar had expected redemption, but instead he felt empty.
And that was how Steele and the others found him, a short time later: standing over the fallen mutant, staring down at it, unable to tear his gaze away from it, unable to answer the one burning question, the unthinkable question, in his thoughts.
Is that my future?
Iota Hive was a little smaller than Alpha, and yet still it dwarfed the Ice Warriors as they emerged from the hills into its shadow. Its size fooled Mikhaelev, making him think that the hive was closer than it was. And the closer they got to it, the larger — and the further away — it seemed to grow. Even so, he could already smell the rank purple fungus that encrusted its iced-over surfaces.
It looked as if the hive had been abandoned a long time ago to the uncaring elements. If only, Mikhaelev thought, that could have been the case.
There was a breach in the hive’s blackstone outer wall, but Steele steered his squad well clear of this after Palinev sighted through his field goggles and reported that he saw figures moving amid the wreckage.
The hive stopped growing at last, and the great wall filled Mikhaelev’s field of vision. The Ice Warriors tucked themselves in against it, careful not to touch the reeking ice, and Steele led the way along the sheer black face. It soon became evident to Mikhaelev that they were making for the breach after all.
Not long after that, the colonel motioned to his squad to be silent and still. They were nearing their goal, he said, although Mikhaelev had no way of seeing this for himself. Presumably, Steele’s augmetics had helped him calculate the distance to the breach.
“We don’t know how many guards there might be in there,” said the colonel, “but as always it only takes one to raise the alarm.”
“Fortunately,” said Gavotski, “we still have surprise on our side. If anyone had seen us coming, I’m sure we would know about it by now.”
“We’re a long way behind enemy lines,” said Blonsky. “Those guards have every reason to be complacent, to have let their attention wonder. We all know that the followers of Chaos lack self-discipline.” A couple of the others murmured their agreement, and Mikhaelev joined in belatedly. After what Blonsky had said about him last night, after the number of suspicious glares he had drawn today, he thought it wise to display his enthusiasm for their cause.
“What we need,” said Gavotski, “is for a couple of troopers to scout ahead, to take out the sentries without being seen if they can. Palinev should be one.”
“I can do that!” Pozhar chirped up. Seeing Gavotski’s doubtful look, he said, “It makes sense, sergeant. After Palinev, I’m the lightest on his feet — and I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking this sling will slow me down, but I’m getting used to it. I know I’m having trouble shooting with my left hand, but I can handle a knife with it, just let me show you.”
The look on his face was imploring, almost desperate — and Gavotski gave Pozhar a long, appraising stare, and then glanced at Steele, before he made his decision and announced it with a curt nod of his head.
Mikhaelev thought that he had made a mistake. Pozhar was too impatient for a job like this one. He had volunteered for no other reason than that he wanted some action, and nothing would get in the way of that for him. But then this wasn’t the first time Gavotski had shown a soft spot for the young trooper — and the last thing Mikhaelev could afford to do right now was question that.
In the event, his pessimism was proved ill-founded. Only a few minutes after Palinev and Pozhar had slipped away, the latter returned beaming from ear to ear, to report that there had been four cultists on sentry duty and that they had all been despatched. Steele motioned the squad forwards again, and soon the black wall beside them fell away, and they were climbing over rubble.
There were, indeed, four robed corpses at the entrance. It looked as if the cultists had been playing cards when Palinev and Pozhar had got the drop on them and slashed two of their throats. A third cultist had struggled, and had had his neck broken. The fourth had evidently tried to run, and had been brought down by a knife to the back.
“We should try to hide the bodies,” said Anakora. “Then, if anyone comes by, they might assume that these guards have just deserted their post.”
They were inside the hive at last — Mangellan’s hive, as it was now.
From now on, thought Mikhaelev gloomily, things could only get a great deal more dangerous.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Time to Destruction of Cressida: 20.32.13
From the outside, Iota Hive had seemed relatively intact.
Inside, it was a different story. Hardly a structure had been left untouched by the war that had raged within. Bridges had been blown out, gantries collapsed, water tanks exploded. A burnt-out Chimera lay on its roof, the corpses of a driver and two gunners rotting inside. There were many more bodies, and parts thereof, strewn about the streets or half-buried in the wreckage of demolished walls. Barricades had been built up from whatever materials were available, to be broken down again.
No natural light could penetrate this deeply into the hive — and the electric lights were intermittent, unreliable, allowing black pools to congregate between them. Grayle drove through it all, along narrow streets that had once teemed with people. Those streets were empty now, most of the people dead — and of those who had survived, most would have joined their attackers and left with them, marching on to wage their next bloody battle.
Even so, the sounds of other vehicles and of pounding machinery still thrummed through the hive, and occasionally a voice could be heard raised in maniacal laughter or a tortured scream.
All in all, it was a sobering scene — especially for these nine soldiers who had, only yesterday, been fighting to defend a hive much like this one. The difference was, thought Grayle, that Alpha Hive had been attacked from without, its walls beaten down. The reason that Iota’s walls were still, for the most part, standing was that it had suffered a far worse fate. Iota had been attacked from within.
When he had started the truck’s engine, it had roared like an asthmatic lion. The unnatural sound had reverberated from the roof and the walls until it had seemed loud enough to bring them all crashing down. Gavotski had handed him a tattered robe, torn from a dead cultist, and offered the same to Barreski who was seated beside Grayle now in the cab. Neither of them had been happy about touching the foul cloth, wrapping it about their shoulders, but it had had to be done.
“The cultist I questioned talked about an Ice Palace,” Steele had said, “the stronghold of the Chaos leader in these parts. He didn’t exactly provide a map, but there’s no doubt that it will be the most defensible and defended building in the city. That means it will be as near as damn it to the centre, and most likely on one of the higher levels. We’ll have to make our way inwards and upwards, get as close as we can to our goal before the enemy knows we’re here.”
So far, Grayle had seen precious little of the enemy — just a few shapes flitting across high walkways, and at one point a cloaked figure slumped in the gutter, singing to herself. That changed as he guided his truck around a tight corner and was confronted by at least twenty of them.
It looked like they had been celebrating here, among the ruins. There were bottles everywhere. The revelry had died down now, though, and most of the cultists were lying around listlessly. That was, until they clapped eyes on the new arrivals. A half-hearted cheer went up at the sight of what the drunken cultists took to be friends, partners in their recent victory — and they rushed to surround the truck, banging on its sides and rocking it on its suspension.
Grayle fought down his natural disgust, forced a tig
ht smile onto his lips and gave a thumbs-up sign through the window. Beside him, Barreski tried to do likewise, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. The cultists were probably too far gone to notice anyway, thought Grayle. The real problems would arise if they were to open the truck’s back door and find a squad of Valhallan Ice Warriors seated inside.
He had to get away from here — but the cultists were in front of him too, slowing him to a crawl lest he crush three or four of them beneath his wheels. The temptation to do just that was almost irresistible. However, he kept his cool, and was soon through the crowd, able to pull away from them.
A moment later, Barreski sat bolt upright and cried, “Stop! Stop here!” And Grayle stepped hard on the brakes, although he couldn’t see the reason for the urgency.
Barreski hopped out of the cab, and scurried over to the corpse of an Imperial Guard officer. Grayle almost laughed with relief. There was no danger, his fellow tanker had just noticed a salvageable piece of kit and hadn’t been able to resist it. He peeled a metal gauntlet from the dead Guardsman’s hand, and his face was alight with enthusiasm as he climbed back into his seat with it.
“Nice glove,” said Grayle. “What’s it supposed to be?”
“A power fist, of course,” said Barreski, sounding surprised that his comrade didn’t know. “You put this on your arm, and it generates an energy field, lets you punch with the strength of ten men. It doesn’t seem too badly damaged, either. The casing is a little scorched, that’s all. Never used one before, but I’ve seen them in action. I’m pretty sure I can work out how to activate it.”
“Activate it?” said Grayle. “You can barely even lift it!”
“Once this thing is working,” said Barreski, “it’ll lift itself.”
At that moment, knuckles rapped on the partition behind them, a reminder from their colonel that they had a deadline. Grayle started up the truck again, and guided it into an area of relatively untouched streets, where the going was a little easier and cover more plentiful. The habitats of the lower-level hive-dwellers rose up around them, rows of tiny windows stretching to the roof.
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