by Dan Abnett
Raising their storm bolters, the Terminator squad began to crunch out across the rock bridges, dislodging white bone and rotten tunics with their immense feet. Gunfire greeted them immediately, blistering down from invisible positions up in the crags. The shots spanked and whined off the specialised armour. Heads set, the Terminators walked into it, shrugging it away, like men walking into a gale wind. What had kept the army at bay for weeks, and cost them dearly, merely tickled the Legion warriors.
This would be over quickly, Loken realised. He regretted the loyal blood that had been wasted needlessly. This had always been a job for the Astartes.
The front ranks of the Terminator squad, halfway across the bridges, began to fire. Bolters and inbuilt heavy weapon systems unloaded across the abyss, blitzing las shots and storms of explosive munitions at the upper slopes. Hidden positions and fortifications exploded, and limp, tangled bodies tumbled away into the chasm below in flurries of rock and ice.
'Samus' began his worrying again. 'Samus. That's the only name you'll hear. Samus. It means the end and the death. Samus. I am Samus. Samus is all around you. Samus is the man beside you. Samus will gnaw upon your bones. Look out! Samus is here.’
'Advance!' Loken cried, 'and please, someone, shut that bastard up!'
'AND WHO'S SAMUS?' Borodin Flora asked.
The remembrancers, with an escort of army troopers and servitors, had just disembarked from their lander into the bitter cold of a township called Kasheri. The cold mountains swooped up beyond them into the mist.
The area had been securely occupied by Varvaras's troopers and war machines. The party stepped into the light, all of them giddy and breathless from the altitude. Keeler was calibrating her picter against the harsh glare, trying to slow her desperate breath-rate. She was annoyed. They'd set down in a safe zone, a long way back from the actual fighting area. There was nothing to see. They were being handled.
The town was a bleak outcrop of longhouses in a lower gorge below the peaks. It looked like it hadn't changed much in centuries. There were opportunities for shots of rustic dwellings or parked army war machines, but nothing significant. The glaring light had a pure quality, though. There was a thin rain in it. Some of the servitors had been instructed to carry the remembrancers' bags, but the rest were fighting to keep parasol canopies upright over the heads of the party in the crosswind. Keeler felt they all looked like some idle gang of aristos on a grand tour, exposing themselves not to risk but to some vague, stage-managed version of danger.
'Where are the Astartes?' she asked. 'When do we approach the warzone?'
'Never mind that.’ Flora interrupted. 'Who is Samus?'
'Samus?' Sindermann asked, puzzled. He had walked a short distance away from the group beside the lander into a scrubby stretch of white grass and sand, from where he could overlook the misty depth of the rainswept gorge. He looked small, as if he was about to address the canyon as an audience.
'I keep hearing it.’ Flora insisted, following him. He was having trouble catching a breath. Flora wore an earplug so he could listen in to the military's vox traffic.
'I heard it too.’ said one of the protection squad soldiers from behind his fogged rebreather.
The vox has been playing up.’ said another.
'All the way down to the surface.’ said the officer in charge. 'Ignore it. Interference.’
'I've been told it's been happening for days here.’ Van Krasten said.
'It's nothing,' said Sindermann. He looked pale and fragile, as if he might be about to faint from the airless-ness.
The captain says it's scare tactics.’ said one of the troopers.
The captain is surely right.’ said Sindermann. He took out his data-slate, and connected it to the fleet archive base. As an afterthought, he uncoupled his rebreather mask and set it to his face, sucking in oxygen from the compact tank strapped to his hip.
After a few moments' consultation, he said, 'Oh, that's interesting.’
What is?' asked Keeler.
'Nothing. It's nothing. The captain is right. Spread yourselves out, please, and look around. The soldiers here will be happy to answer any questions. Feel free to inspect the war machines.’
The remembrancers glanced at one another and began to disperse. Each one was followed by an obedient servitor with a parasol and a couple of grumpy soldiers.
*We might as well not have come.’ Keeler said.
*The mountains are splendid.’ Sark said.
'Bugger the mountains. Other worlds have mountains. Listen.’
They listened. A deep, distant booming rolled down the gorge to them. The sound of a war happening somewhere else.
Keeler nodded in the direction of the noise. That's where we ought to be. I'm going to ask the iterator why we're stuck here.’
'Best of luck.’ said Sark.
Sindermann had walked away from die group to stand under the eaves of one of the mountain town's crude longhouse dwellings. He continued to study his slate. The mountain wind nodded the tusks of dry grass sprouting from the white sand around his feet. Rain pattered down.
Keeler went over to him. Two soldiers and a servitor with a parasol began to follow her. She turned to face them.
'Don't bother.’ she said. They stopped in their tracks and allowed her to walk away, alone. By the time she reached the iterator, she was sucking on her own oxygen supply. Sindermann was entirely occupied with his data-slate. She held off with her complaint for a moment, curious.
'There's something wrong, isn't there?' she asked quietly.
'No, not at all.’ Sindermann said.
'You've found out what Samus is, haven't you?'
He looked at her and smiled. Yes. You're very tenacious, Euphrati.’
'Born that way. What is it, sir?'
Sindermann shrugged. 'It's silly.’ he said, showing her the screen of the data-slate. The background history we've already been able to absorb from this world features the name Samus, and the Whisperheads. It seems this is a sacred place to the people of Sixty-Three Nineteen. A holy, haunted place, where the alleged barrier between reality and the spirit world is at its most permeable. This is intriguing. I am endlessly fascinated by the belief systems and superstitions of primitive worlds.’
"What does your slate tell you, sir?' Keeler asked.
'It says... this is quite funny I suppose it would be scary, if one actually believed in such things. It says that the Whisperheads are the one place on this world where the spirits walk and speak. It mentions Samus as chief
of those spirits. Local, and very ancient, legend, tells how one of the emperors battled and restrained a nightmarish force of devilry here. The devil was called Samus. It is here in their myths, you see? We had one of our own, in the very antique days, called Seytan, orTearmat. Samus is the equivalent.’
'Samus is a spirit, then?' Keeler whispered, feeling unpleasantly light-headed.
'Yes. Why do you ask?'
'Because.’ said Keeler, 'I've heard him hissing at me since the moment we touched down. And I don't have a vox.’
BEYOND THE ROCK-BRIDGES, the insurgents had raised shield walls of stone and metal. They had heavy cannons covering the gully approaches to their fortress, wired munition charges in the narrow defiles, electrified razor-wire, bolted storm-doors, barricades of rockcrete blocks and heavy iron poles. They had a few automated sentry devices, and the advantage of the sheer drop and unscalable ice all around. They had faith and their god On their side.
They had held off Varvaras's regiments for six weeks.
They had no chance whatsoever.
Nothing they did even delayed the advance of the Luna Wolves. Shrugging off cannon rounds and the backwash of explosives, the Terminators wrenched their way through the shield walls, and blasted down the storm-doors. They crushed the spark of electric life out of the sentry drones with their mighty claws, and pushed down the heaped barricades with their shoulders. The company flooded in behind them, firing their weapons into the risi
ng smoke.
The fortress itself had been built into the mountain peak. Some sections of roof and battlement were visible from outside, but most of the structure lay within, thickly
armoured by hundreds of metres of rock. The Luna Wolves poured in through the fortified gates. Assault squads rose up the mountain face on their jump packs and settled like flocks of white birds on the exposed roofs, ripping them apart to gain entry and drop in from above. Explosions ripped out the interior chambers of the fortress, opening them to the air, and sending rafts of dislodged ice and rock crashing down into the gorge.
The interior was a maze of wet-black rock tunnels and old tile work, through which the wind funnelled so sharply it seemed to be hyperventilating. The bodies of the slain lay everywhere, slumped and twisted, sprawled and broken. Stepping over them, Loken pitied them. Their culture had deceived them into this resistance, and the resistance had brought down the wrath of the Astartes on their heads. They had all but invited a catastrophic doom.
Terrible human screams echoed down the windy rock tunnels, punctuated by the door-slam bangs of bolter fire. Loken hadn't even bothered to keep a tally of his kills. There was little glory in this, just duty. A surgical strike by the Emperor's martial instruments.
Gunfire pinked off his armour, and he turned, without really thinking, and cut down his assailants. Two desperate men in mail shirts disintegrated under his fire and spattered across a wall. He couldn't understand why they were still fighting. If they'd ventured a surrender, he would have accepted it.
That way.’ he ordered, and a squad moved up past him into the next series of chambers. As he followed them, a body on the floor at his feet stirred and moaned. The insurgent, smeared in his own blood and gravely wounded, looked up at Loken with glassy eyes. He whispered something.
Loken knelt down and cradled his enemy's head in one massive hand. 'What did you say?'
'Bless me...' the man whispered. 'I can't.'
'Please, say a prayer and commend me to the gods.' 'I can't. There are no gods.'
'Please... the otherworld will shun me if I die without a prayer.' 'I'm sorry,' Loken said, "ifou're dying. That's all there
is.
'Help me...' the man gasped.
'Of course.’ Loken said. He drew his combat blade, the standard-issue short, stabbing sword, and activated the power cell. The grey blade glowed with force. Loken cut down and sharply back up again in the mercy stroke, and gently set the man's detached head on the ground.
The next chamber was vast and irregular. Meltwater trickled down from the black ceiling, and formed spurs of glistening mineral, like silver whiskers, on the rocks it ran over. A pool had been cut in the centre of the chamber floor to collect the meltwater, probably as one of the fortress's primary water reserves. The squad he had sent on had come to a halt around its lip.
'Report.’ he said.
One of the Wolves looked round. What is this, captain?' he asked.
Loken stepped forward to join them and saw that a great number of bottles and glass flasks had been set around the pool, many of them in the path of the trickling feed from above. At first, he assumed they were there to collect the water, but there were other items too: coins, brooches, strange doll-like figures of clay and the head bones of small mammals and lizards. The spattering water fell across them, and had evidendy done so for some time, for Loken could see that many of the bottles and other items were gleaming and distorted with mineral deposits. On the overhang of rock above the pool, ancient, eroded script had been chiselled. Loken couldn't
read the words, and realised he didn't want to. There were symbols there that made him feel curiously uneasy.
'It's a fane.’ he said simply. 'You know what these locals are like. They believe in spirits, and these are offerings.’
The men glanced at one another, not really understanding.
They believe in things that aren't real?' asked one.
They've been deceived.’ Loken said. That's why we're here. Destroy this.’ he instructed, and turned away.
THE ASSAULT LASTED sixty-eight minutes, start to finish. By the end, the fastness was a smoking ruin, many sections of it blown wide to the fierce sunlight and mountain air. Not a single Luna Wolf had been lost. Not a single insurgent had survived.
'How many?' Loken asked Rassek.
They're still counting bodies, captain.’ Rassek replied. 'As it stands, nine hundred and seventy-two.’
In the course of the assault, something in the region of thirty meltwater fanes had been discovered in the labyrinthine fortress, pools surrounded by offerings. Loken ordered them all expunged.
They were guarding the last outpost of their faith.’ Nero Vipus remarked.
'I suppose so.’ Loken replied.
'You don't like it, do you, Garvi?' Vipus asked.
'I hate to see men die for no reason. I hate to see men give their lives like this, for nothing. For a belief in nothing. It sickens me. This is what we were once, Nero. Zealots, spiritualists, believers in lies we'd made up ourselves. The Emperor showed us the path out of that madness.’
'So be of good humour that we've taken it.’ Vipus said. 'And, though we spill their blood, be phlegmatic that we're at last bringing truth to our lost brothers here.’
Loken nodded. T feel sorry for them.’ he said. They must be so scared.’
'Of us?'
'Yes, of course, but that's not what I mean. Scared of the truth we bring. We're trying to teach them that there are no greater forces at work in the galaxy than light, gravity and human will. No wonder they cling to their gods and spirits. We're removing every last crutch of their ignorance. They felt safe until we came. Safe in the custody of the spirits that they believed watched over them. Safe in the ideal that there was an afterlife, an otherworld. They thought they would be immortal, beyond flesh.’
'Now they have met real immortals.’ Vipus quipped. 'It's a hard lesson, but they'll be better for it in the long run.’
Loken shrugged. T just empathise, I suppose. Their lives were comforted by mysteries, and we've taken that comfort away. All we can show them is a hard and unforgiving reality in which their lives are brief and without higher purpose.’
'Speaking of higher purpose.’ Vipus said, 'you should signal the fleet and tell them we're done. The iterators have voxed us. They request permission to bring the observers up to the site here.’
'Grant it. I'll signal the fleet and give them the good news.’
Vipus turned away, then halted. 'At least that voice shut up.’ he said.
Loken nodded. 'Samus' had quit his maudlin ram-blings half an hour since, though the assault had failed to identify any vox system or broadcast device.
Loken's intervox crackled.
'Captain?'
Tubal? Go ahead.’
'Captain, I'm...'
What? You're what? Say again, Jubal.’
'Sorry, captain. I need you to see this. I'm... I mean, I need you to see this. It's Samus.’
'What? Jubal, where are you?'
'Follow my locator. I've found something. I'm... I've found something. Samus. It means the end and the death.’
"What have you found, Jubal?'
'I'm... I've found... Captain, Samus is here.'
LOKEN LEFT VIPUS to orchestrate the clean-up, and descended into the bowels of the fastness with Seventh Squad, following the pip of Jubal's locator. Seventh Squad, Brakespur tactical squad, was commanded by Sergeant Udon, one of Loken's most reliable warriors.
The locator led them down to a massive stone well in the very basement of the fortress, deep in the heart of the mountain. They gained access to it via a corroded iron gate built into a niche in the dark stone. The dank chamber beyond the gate was a natural, vertical split in the mountain rock, a slanting cavern that overlooked a deep fault where only blackness could be detected. A pier of old stone steps arced out over the abyss, which dropped away into the very bottom of the mountain. Meltwater sprinkled down the glistening wa
lls of the cavern well.
The wind whined through invisible fissures and vents.
Xavyer Jubal was alone at the edge of the drop. As Loken and Seventh Squad approached, Loken wondered where the rest of Hellebore had gone.
'Xavyer?' Loken called.
Jubal looked around. 'Captain.’ he said. 'I've found something wonderful.’
What?'
'See?' Jubal said. 'See the words?'
Loken stared where Jubal was pointing. All he saw was water streaming down a calcified buttress of rock.
'No. What words?'
There! There!'
'I see only water.’ Loken said. 'Falling water.’
'Yes, yes! It's written in the water! In the falling water! There and gone, there and gone, You see? It makes words and they stream away, but the words come back.’
'Xavyer? Are you well? I'm concerned that-'
'Look, Garviel! Look at the words! Can't you hear the water speaking?'
'Speaking?'
'Drip drip drop. One name. Samus. That's the only name you'll hear.’
'Samus?'
'Samus. It means the end and the death. I'm...'
Loken looked at Udon and the men. 'Restrain him.’ he said quietly.
Udon nodded. He and four of his men slung their bolters and stepped forward.
What are you doing?' Jubal laughed. 'Are you threatening me? For Terra's sake, Garviel, can't you see? Samus is all around you!'
Where's Hellebore, Jubal?' Loken snapped. Where's the rest of your squad?'
Jubal shrugged. They didn't see it either.’ he said, and glanced towards the edge of the precipice. 'They couldn't see, I suppose. It's so clear to me. Samus is the man beside you.’
'Udon.’ Loken nodded. Udon moved towards Jubal. 'Let's go, brother.’ he said, kindly.
Jubal's bolter came up very suddenly. There was no warning. He shot Udon in the face, blowing gore and pulverised skull fragments out through the back of Udon's exploded helm. Udon fell on his face. Two of his men lunged forward, and the bolter roared again,
punching holes in their chest plates and throwing them over onto their backs.
Jubal's visor swung to look at Loken. 'I'm Samus.’ he said, chuckling. 'Look out! Samus is here.’
