He hurdled the bloody rain of the gun emplacement and slammed his armoured bulk against the door to the building. The heavy door exploded into splinters and the Space Marines were inside. He knew they had to hurry, his enhanced hearing had caught the distinctive whine of ornithopter engines approaching and that could only mean one thing.
Learchus rolled as gunfire sawed a path towards him, tearing up the floor tiles in terracotta chunks. He rose and fired his bolter one-handed, blasting a man in a judge's uniform on a set of wide stairs to rags and waved his men inside.
'The traitors will be on the roof awaiting pick-up. They must not leave this building,' ordered Learchus. The Ultramarines nodded and followed their sergeant as he took the steps upwards five at a time.
Learchus emerged into another long, tiled room, stacked with furniture covered in white sheets. Another, narrower flight of steps led up to an oblong of sunlight and he could hear the sound of ornithopter engines even louder now.
As he ran towards the opening to the roof a man rose up from behind one of the sheets, but before he could fire, Cleander put a bolt through his head. Learchus leapt up the steps and emerged onto the flat roof of the building.
Amel Vedden watched as the twin dots of the ornithopters drew closer, sourly reflecting that one would now be enough as he cast his eyes over the seven men who'd survived. He'd lost a lot of soldiers on this mission, but he couldn't bring himself to feel sorry for them.
But what a mission!
Who could have expected the Space Marines to get involved?
He'd be sure to ask for a damn sight more money for dealing with that unexpected threat. He still held the unconscious girl in his arms, knowing that he'd enjoy killing her as soon as they were safe.
He glanced back to the opening in the roof as he heard barks of gunfire from below.
Couldn't these bloody ornithopters hurry up? This was getting too close.
The insect-like shapes buzzed in on wide nacelles, bulbous gunpods like stingers slung under their noses, eerily tracking with the pilot's head movements as they circled the building.
Why didn't they land?
Vedden spun as he heard the thud of armoured footfalls and dragged out a pistol, pressing it hard into the girl's temple.
Five Space Marines stood with their unfeasibly large bolt-guns pointing at him and his men. His own men levelled their shotguns, but nobody moved.
The air seemed to stagnate, as though unwilling to pass through this unfolding drama. Even the sounds of the circling ornithopters and the baying crowd as they tore the city apart seemed strangely muted. His mouth was dry as he faced these mighty warriors and he felt a tremor begin in his arm.
These were Space Marines: what the hell was he doing? He dug deep within himself, searching for some untapped reserve of bravery and licked his lips.
Amel Vedden never got the chance to find out whether he had the courage to face down a Space Marine as it was at that point the guns of the ornithopters opened fire.
Heavy autocannon fire sprayed the roof of the building, churning up its pebbled surface and shredding human flesh. The men who had been awaiting rescue in the flyers were the first to die, ripped apart in seconds by the heavy calibre, armour piercing shells. Vedden screamed as an autocannon shell clipped him, instantly shearing his leg from his body in mid-thigh. He collapsed, dragging the girl to the ground with him.
The Ultramarines scattered, firing at the ornithopters, but their bolter rounds were ineffective against the armoured undersides of the gunships.
Learchus sprinted forward, diving to the ground to gather the girl in his arms and rolling on top of her as the omithopter's shells ripped towards her. He supported his weight on his elbows so as not to crash the girl and felt the powerful impacts hammer into his back plate. He offered a short prayer of thanks to his armour for standing firm against the traitorous fire.
Abruptly, the weapons ceased fire and the ornithopters gained altitude, spinning away from the town house, their murderous mission complete. Bolter fire chased them, but they were soon out of range and vanished amid the hazy smog surrounding the manufactorum.
Learchus rose to his knees and pulled the girl out from under him. She was covered in blood, but how much of it was hers, Learchus was unsure. From a cursory inspection, he believed she would live.
He stood and lifted her into his arms. The man who had abducted her stared with glassy eyes at the sky, hyperventilating and clutching at the stump of his leg. He scrabbled weakly at the churned roof, whimpering for help. Cleander gave him emergency first aid, and put a tourniquet on his leg, hoping that the man would prove a good source of information if he lived.
The sounds of battle still raged from Liberation Square and Learchus could see orange flames and smoke spreading throughout the city as the people of Pavonis reacted to the day's events in the only way they knew how.
The destruction raged throughout the day, with the mob rampaging through the marble city with murder on their minds. Statuary on the main thoroughfares was toppled, beautifully maintained gardens and parks put to the torch and homes ransacked as the baser elements of the crowd sought to take advantage of the rioting.
Fires spread unchecked and whole districts were razed to the ground with no organised fire-fighters willing to risk their lives on the city streets. People huddled terrified, in their homes as screaming workers broke down doors and stole anything of value. Some of the wealthier inhabitants fought back, gunning down those who broke into their homes, but against the mob they had no chance and were torn apart, their priceless heirlooms and treasures smashed.
Saner heads in the crowd appealed for calm, walking through the streets with their arms upraised, but against the chaos of the riot, their voices went unheard.
Knowing that to venture into the city was to invite certain death, the judges had pulled back within the palace grounds, protected behind its armoured walls and defence turrets. A few rioters had attempted to storm the gates, but roaring blasts of gunfire from the bastions had cut them down mercilessly.
The judge squads stationed at the approach roads had quickly realised that they were cut off from the precinct house and had taken refuge in the nearest shelter they could find. They fought desperate sieges for hours until flyers from the palace were dispatched to carry them and the dwellings' owners to safety.
Protected by the Ultramarines, Virgil Ortega's ad hoc squad of judges had little to do but await a pick up from one of the palace's ornithopters. Slipping in and out of consciousness, Ortega experienced a momentary surge of panic as the propwash of the ornithopter roared over him, thinking that its guns were about to open fire.
Ortega and the wounded prisoner were carried away along with his judges. The aircraft could not carry the weight of eight fully armoured Space Marines, but the pilot assured Learchus that he would be back directly.
The sergeant assured the pilot that he and his men could make their own way back to the palace quite safely, and ordered him to pick up any remaining judge units holed up in the city.
Darkness drew in and the rioters had still not exhausted themselves. Red flames licked at the sky, smoke boiling from each blaze. Whole districts were shrouded in darkness, their frightened residents unwilling to advertise their presence with illumination. It would later be learned that over four thousand people had died this day, killed in the fighting, murdered in their homes or burned to death as fires raged, unchecked, throughout the city. It would be a day long mourned by Pavonis.
Slowly at first, then with greater speed as the chill of night took hold, many of the workers of Pavonis filed from the city. But a great many remained to vent their frustration on those they felt deserved it. Some felt shame at what was occurring, while others felt nothing but a sense of triumphant vindication.
Ario Barzano watched, expressionless, as the palace physician worked on the wounded man, lifting bloody swabs and clamps from the ragged stump where his leg had once been. Barzano had seen enough combat trauma
wounds to know that the man would not die.
Not from that wound anyway.
He was unconscious just now, pumped full of sedatives and pain suppressants. His limbs were held immobile by the bed's restraints as the physician worked to clamp the spurting artery. Brother Oleander's observance of battlefield triage had probably saved his life. It was a situation the prisoner would later come to regret, thought Barzano.
Judge Ortega lay on the pallet bed next to the traitor, his barrel chest swathed in bandages. Two of his ribs had been broken by the shotgun blast, one of the splintered ends puncturing his left lung. He was lucky to be alive and from the shouts and curses he'd made as the physician had tended to his wound, Barzano wondered if it was his sheer stubbornness that had kept him alive.
Jenna Sharben sat beside him, quietly describing the day's events he had missed while unconscious and the list of those judges who had lost their lives. His face remained set in stone, but Barzano could tell he was hurting.
The third patient was the girl these murdering scum had kidnapped from the Emperor's statue. Despite the vast quantities of blood on her clothes, she had come through her experience relatively unscathed. The physician had dug out a number of shotgun pellets embedded in her flesh and treated her for concussion, but other than that she was unharmed. At present she was sleeping off the last effects of a sedative.
Behind Barzano, Sergeant Learchus, Governor Shonai and Almerz Chanda waited in tense silence for the physician to finish his work. Barzano turned and strode towards them.
Barzano thanked Learchus for his courageous efforts during the chaos of the day. The Space Marine's armour was dented and blackened in places, yet he was unharmed. Then he turned his attention to the governor of Pavonis.
She had aged since he had last seen her. Her grey hair hung loosely about her shoulders and her face seemed to have acquired a whole new set of lines. Only Chanda seemed unmoved by the day's bloodletting.
'A bloody day,' offered Barzano, placing a hand on Mykola Shonai's shoulder.
She nodded, too choked to answer. Chanda had just provided her with a slate with the estimated death toll from today's violence and its scale had numbed her.
Barzano opened his arms to her and she accepted his embrace. He enfolded her shuddering body as she wept for the dead. Barzano looked Chanda in the eye.
'Get out,' he said simply.
Chanda looked ready to protest, but caught the iron resolve in Barzano's stare and departed through the infirmary door with a curt bow.
Ario Barzano and Mykola Shonai stood locked together for several minutes as the governor of Pavonis allowed the years of failure and frustration to wash through her in great, wracking sobs. Barzano held her, understanding her need to let out her burden that had been dammed for too long.
When she had finished, her eyes were puffed and red, but a fire that had been smothered there for so long had now been relit. She wiped her face on a handkerchief offered by Barzano and took a deep, cleansing breath. She smiled weakly at Barzano and straightened her shoulders, pulling her hair back into its tight ponytail.
She looked over to the bed containing the man whose leg had been blown off. Until now, her enemies had been faceless entities, robbing her of a means of striking back, but here, she had one of those enemies before her and she smiled in grim satisfaction. The man was unconscious and according to the physician would probably remain that way for several days.
But soon he would wake and the governor of Pavonis would show him no mercy.
Later, Ario Barzano, Jenna Sharben, Mykola Shonai, Sergeant Learchus, Almerz Chanda and Leland Corteo gathered in the governor's chambers, a large pot of caffeine steaming on the table. Barzano poured a mug for everyone, except Learchus, who politely declined. Everyone looked haggard and weary, with the exception of Mykola Shonai, who bustled around the room with pent-up energy. She stopped by the bust of old Forlanus and smiled, patting his carved shoulder.
Corteo reflected that it was a smile of the hunter.
Shonai returned to her desk, taking a drink from her mug and leaned forwards, her fingers laced before her.
'Right, to business, people. We have one of our enemies below. What do we know about him?'
Jenna Sharben dumped a canvas bag on the governor's desk and tipped out its contents. A pile of silver dog-tags and assorted personal effects tumbled out: a lighter, a small clasp knife and other soldiers' knick-knacks.
'One of the stitts we pulled from the house, a vox operator by the looks of things, was carrying this. We think he was left in the house while the others carried out their mission and then called for the omithopter extraction when they got back. I guess they didn't count on their ride opening fire on them.'
'Do we know whose gunships they were or where they went?' enquired Shonai.
'I'm afraid not,' said Almerz Chanda. 'Our aerial surveillance systems were offline for scheduled maintenance at the time.'
'So we don't know where the gunships went,' cursed Shonai, 'but I take it those dog-tags tell us who the men that attacked the crowd were?'
Jenna Sharben answered. 'Yes, looks like they were all lifers in the Planetary Defence Forces. The highest rank we found was a captain and I'm betting that's the prisoner we have below.'
'Does he have a name?' asked Barzano.
Sharben nodded towards the adept. 'If he is the captain, he's called Amel Vedden, an officer in the Kharon barracks.'
'That's one of the regiments sponsored by the Taloun,' pointed out Chanda.
'Does he have a record?' asked Barzano.
'No, it's been expunged. Recently too.'
Barzano turned to Shonai. 'Who could expunge a military record like that? Only a commanding officer of a regiment has the power to do that.'
Shonai was quick to grasp the implication of Barzano's deduction.
'So now the loyalty of an entire regiment of PDF troopers is in question?'
She swore. 'That's nearly five thousand men.'
Governor Shonai pondered the situation in silence before coming to a decision.
'Very well, I'll authorise the mobilisation of more regiments to contain their base until we can be sure where their loyalties lie.'
'How long will that take?' inquired Barzano, looking over at Leland Corteo.
The old man sighed deeply and took a great draw on his pipe. 'It's hard to say, it's been decades since we needed to mobilise the PDF. The last time was in the governor's father's time.'
'Yes, but how long?' pressed Barzano.
'Perhaps two or three days. That's if enough of the soldiers answer the muster. There's a good chance a great many of them were in Liberation Square today.'
'The Vae Victus and Captain Ventris will return in less than three days,' added Sergeant Learchus. 'Then you will have a company of Ultramarines at your disposal, Governor Shonai.'
'Thank you, sergeant. I am most grateful for the aid provided by the Ultramarines. You do your Chapter honour.'
Learchus bowed his head, saying, 'We serve the Emperor.'
Shonai took another sip of her caffeine and said, 'So what else do we have to go on? Do we know who the town house belongs to yet?'
'We do indeed,' chimed Almerz Chanda with great relish. He produced a sheaf of papers, deeds of purchase and city records. 'It is a summer house belonging to Taryn Honan.'
'Honan?' exclaimed Corteo, almost choking on his pipe smoke. 'I don't believe it! That fat fool? Surely not?'
'It's all here in black and white,' gestured Chanda to the records.
'These are irrelevant,' put in Barzano. 'Whoever was behind this planned it carefully. They had no intention of picking up the soldiers after they had completed their mission. I hardly think that if Honan had been behind this, he would have been stupid enough to launch his attack from one of his own houses. Though it wouldn't hurt to bring him in to answer some questions.'
'So where does that leave us?' said Jenna Sharben.
'It leaves us,' continued Barzano, 'with a l
ot of work to do.'
Kasimir de Valtos stabbed his fork through a succulent cutlet of meat and forced himself to swallow, despite the taste of sour bile in his throat.
The meat tasted of rancid maggots and he washed it down with a drink from a crystal goblet of wine. He was reliably informed that this particular vintage was amongst the most sought after in the sector, but to him it was as tasteless as vinegar.
Yet another legacy of his torture.
But that would soon be a thing of the past. Lasko had informed him that his men would soon breach the final chamber and it had taken all of his considerable willpower not to rush off and see for himself. He felt his grip on the fork tightening convulsively and hid it from sight beneath the table.
His guest said something trivial and banal. He smiled politely and mouthed something equally meaningless in reply. He couldn't hear the words: a roaring sounded in his ears and a hot dryness formed in his mouth. He took another drink of wine.
Beneath the table his fist beat a rhythmic tattoo on his thigh, the fork pricking his flesh deep enough to draw blood through his trousers. He couldn't feel it and it was only when he raised the fork to his plate once more, that he noticed the blood.
His breath caught in his throat at the sight of the sticky red liquid and his tongue flicked out to catch the ruby droplets as they ran from his hand.
His guest said something else, but the words were lost to him as he tasted his blood.
He could not feel the pain in his leg. He could feel no pain at all.
De Valtos felt his gaze being drawn towards the dining hall's ceiling, picturing the black leather case sitting beneath his bed, but he forced himself to look away.
It was too soon.
It was always that much sweeter when savoured. He forced his mind clear of blades, saws, pliers and barbed hooks, attempting to focus his attention on his guest. But it was impossible to concentrate on the mindless babble that spewed from its rouged lips. Sweat poured down his face as he forced another lump of meat down his throat.
Ultramarines Omnibus (warhammer 40000: ultramarines) Page 21
