Dark Hunters: Umbra Sumus

by Paul Kearney

  Whoever was in the city now would remain within it, for good or ill.

  ‘We should have sent them down into the mines,’ Von Arnim said, looking down at the crowds below. There were half a million in Sol Square alone, all praying at a massive open-air service which invoked the aid of the Emperor and his legions.

  ‘Can you imagine the panic if a single Chaos warband got down there, five kilometres deep with every passageway and shaft jammed with civilians?’ Dietrich asked. ‘No. Better they die up here in the light.’

  ‘I was not thinking of them, Pavul, but of us. Our tanks are little more than immobile pill-boxes in this mob. It is no place for armour.’

  ‘Agreed, but there it is – we must make the best of it. You take the 387th out of Askai and it’s like taking out the spine of the defence.’

  Von Arnim was scowling, his face as lined as a walnut. ‘Wait until the first shells come howling down from orbit.’

  ‘I’m hoping they won’t. I’m hoping they want the manufactoria intact. It’s why they desire this world in the first place. We’ll bog them down in the streets and make them bleed, Ismail.’

  ‘By the Throne, we will,’ the commissar replied, and his face lightened somewhat.

  Dietrich had set up the headquarters of the 387th Armoured in the Armaments District. Outside the citadel, the buildings here were the most easily defended in the city. They had been built by Imperial engineers back when the first deep mines had been sunk upon the planet, and they had been built to last. Massive cyclopean blocks of stone, each the size of a hab, were layered in lines and permacreted into a single, fused mass. These walls reared up some fifty metres, and enclosed a bewildering layout of buildings and marshalling yards, all built in the same extravagant manner. Even the roofs were of bonded stone, and Dietrich reckoned some of them could withstand a direct hit from a Basilisk shell.

  The Armaments District had its own water supplies, power generators and comms lines, and was thus a self-contained enclave within the city, even as the citadel itself was. More than that, in the district, the factories were still running, and half a million workers continued to toil at the assembly lines, turning out munitions and other armaments in vast quantities. This was the only place on the planet where Dietrich could hope to have his vehicles repaired and his magazines restocked in short order. It was also the entryway for the subterranean routes which led to the mines.

  The citadel might tower over the city, and look both awe-inspiring and threatening, but the squat, brutally strong warehouses of the manufactoria were the key objective on the entire planet, and Dietrich’s men had laboured for days to make them impregnable, aided by a full division of the Hanemite guard which Veigh had stationed there, and thirty thousand civilian volunteers, all of whom were now armed from the factoria production lines.

  The walls of Askai, tall and imposing though they might be, were over two hundred kilometres long. Not with a hundred thousand men could Dietrich have defended them. They had therefore been left to a skeleton defence force of militia and another Hanemite division – the governor had insisted.

  No, it was inside the walls of Askai that the real bloodletting would take place.

  ‘I hope Cypra Mundi reacts quickly for once,’ Dietrich said as the transport came in to land in a cloud of yellow dust. ‘Otherwise…’ He let it lie. Ismail knew as well as he what it meant. The commissar met his eyes and simply nodded.

  ‘It is for this that we are soldiers, Pavul.’

  Dietrich nodded. ‘By His Word.’

  The rear hatches of the Baneblade were open and its massive engines were idling as Dietrich and Von Arnim strolled through the knot of men and vehicles in the shadow of the tall Departmento Munitorum building. This structure was an austere, utilitarian example of Imperial architecture, the likes of which could be seen on a hundred thousand other worlds, but there was a certain majesty in its brutal lines, all the same.

  The rockcrete trembled under their feet with the thrum of the huge Baneblade’s Mars-Pattern engines, and it snorted clouds of smoke into the wind-blown dust, thickening the hot atmosphere even further.

  The city sirens wailed as though they would never stop.

  Dietrich’s personal command squad was there, and they snapped to attention as the general approached. Nothing more than four lowly troopers, they were nevertheless the most decorated men in the regiment, and were assigned to protect their commanding officer with no thought for their own lives. Instead of the faded green fatigues that the other troopers of the 387th wore, the command squad wore black and green disruptive pattern camouflage, and they had painted the many coloured stripes of their combat decorations onto their breastplates. Dietrich nodded at them, and they stared back into space with the impassive confidence of old soldiers.

  Behind them and the muttering Baneblade, three scout Sentinels stood like bipedal monsters in the haze, their hatches all open to combat the heat. And behind those were a trio of squat Chimeras, with a platoon of specialist troopers hurriedly lining up into files at the approach of the general. Younger these, but no less professional in their turnout.

  These vehicles and men constituted the command squadron of the regiment.

  Dietrich’s adjutant, Captain Lars Dyson, stepped forward with a swift salute and offered the general a strip of plasment.

  ‘Status report on all companies, sir.’

  ‘What?’ Dietrich grimaced. ‘I can’t hear myself think with these damn sirens!’

  ‘All is in order, sir, but we have–’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We have–’

  And the sirens stopped.

  Even with the Baneblade engine running nearby, it suddenly seemed eerily quiet. Across the city, a hush had fallen, and crowds on the streets grew still, everyone looking up at the dust-choked sky as if they expected that very moment to see the clouds part and the enemy begin its attack.

  ‘Did you see that?’ one of Dietrich’s troopers exclaimed, startled.

  A bright flash, like far-off lightning, high up in the wind-driven dust-storm which boiled above the city.

  ‘Silence in the ranks!’ Commissar Von Arnim barked at once. But he, too, was looking skywards.

  More flashes, not brief enough to be lightning. And there was no thunder to accompany them.

  ‘The orbital batteries have gone into action,’ Dietrich said. ‘Captain Dyson – give me a quick précis if you will.’

  ‘Yes, sir. All companies are reported fully fuelled and armed, except for Fifth, which is still working on those two Chimeras. The Hydras have been put in place at the north and west gates–’

  ‘Camouflaged?’

  ‘Prefab sheds have been built around them, sir – they are completely hidden.’

  ‘Very good. What else?’

  ‘A Hanemite infantry battalion has been emplaced with each of our armoured companies.’

  ‘How are we doing with heavy weapons for these fellows?’

  ‘Not good, sir. We have lascannons and heavy plasmas or bolters for one company in four.’

  Dietrich nodded grimly. There were more flashes overhead, which he ignored. He could hear the crowds again now, a low, rushing sound, like that of the sea at night.

  ‘All right, Lars, stand-to the regiment. All troopers to their vehicles. Vox discipline to be enforced from here on in. I will be in the command vehicle. All comms traffic to be routed through my station.’

  Dyson saluted, his gauntlet slapping against his helmet.

  When did captains become so damned young, Dietrich found himself wondering. Then he shook his head as though to clear it, and strode forward into the gaping hatchway at the rear of the Baneblade. Von Arnim and the four troopers of his bodyguard followed. They stood and looked out as the hatch hydraulics whined and the massive ramp began to close. A Sentinel strode past, looking like some prehistoric predator in the dust.

  Then the ramp clanged shut, and they were in the belly of the great tank. A further, inner door, and Dietri
ch found himself in the tightly packed command compartment. He slapped dust off his uniform and sat down on a badly worn metal stool which sprouted out of the steel floor like a mushroom. Four vox technicians were seated at their screens muttering into headsets, and in the corner was the lizard-like presence of the Baneblade’s enginseer, his mechadendrite arms neatly folded away, his eyes a dull scarlet glow. He gave no acknowledgement of the general’s presence, but one of his extra appendages was plugged into the bulkhead at his side, monitoring the machine-spirit of the huge armoured vehicle whose needs he served.

  A Baneblade had a crew of ten, but these were all forward in the fighting compartment. This model had been rejigged to house extra vox arrays, and a high-gain antenna had been embedded in the turret. From here, Dietrich meant to monitor and control as much of the coming battle as he could. He did not relish the prospect. It was roasting hot in the cramped compartment, and it stank of oil and sweat. When he wiped his hand across his face it came away gritty with saffron-coloured dust. Everyone else’s faces were streaked with it.

  ‘Give me a war on a cold planet, any day,’ he said to Von Arnim, grimacing.

  ‘Message from the marshal, sir,’ one of the signallers said.

  ‘Punch it through.’

  Marshal Veigh’s voice came over the vox, crackling slightly.

  ‘General Dietrich?’

  ‘Here, marshal. What news?’

  ‘The enemy fleet is in high orbit exchanging fire with our orbital batteries as we speak. Orbital defences have been degraded by some forty per cent. We estimate their total destruction in a matter of hours.’

  ‘Any word on enemy casualties?’

  ‘We have reports that several of their frigates are dead in the air, and they have lost heavily in fighters.’

  ‘What about numbers? How many of them are there, marshal?’

  A pause, static crackling in the hushed compartment. The engines rumbled mindlessly.

  ‘Best estimate is at least a dozen cruisers and frigates and one large assault vessel, an adapted transport ship of some kind.’

  ‘Drop pods?’

  ‘It seems to be configured for them, yes.’

  ‘Damn.’ Drop pods were far less vulnerable to anti-air fire than transports, and they could be lobbed almost anywhere.

  ‘Well, we were right not to try and hold the walls,’ Von Arnim said, his dust-striped face like some malevolent puppet’s mask.

  ‘Sir–’ this was one of the signallers. ‘We have incoming contacts at forty thousand metres, descending fast.’

  ‘Excuse me, marshal – trajectory?’

  ‘They should land within the circuit of the city walls, general.’

  ‘Signal to all companies, targets approaching. All anti-air to stand by. Marshal, I will have to talk to you later.’

  ‘Good hunting,’ Veigh’s voice said. And then the vox went dead.

  There was noise now, to accompany the soundless flashes in the sky. The Guardsmen on the rooftops of the city looked up at the crack and thunder of sonic booms overhead, and soon they could see black shapes descending in gaps between the dust clouds. The wind began to drop even as they watched, and there were blue patches torn in the yellow curtain above the world. In these swathes of clear air silver shapes darted, towing bright contrails.

  Augur-guided anti-aircraft lasers began to open fire, and all over the city bright lances of red and white light jabbed up at the sky, painful to look upon in their intensity. There was the staccato booming of older, shell-firing guns also, and tracer in streams and arcs.

  Above Askai, a light show of immense proportions erupted, and in the midst of it the black shapes plummeted down with the red fire of afterburners slowing their fall.

  The first drop pods fell on the open landing pads of the city’s spaceport, slamming to earth in fountains of sand and earth and pulverised rockcrete.

  Even as they impacted, they were brought under a torrent of lasgun fire from the Hanemite defenders. Two full regiments manned the spaceport defences, while above it the great guns of the citadel began to boom out also, their concussion creating vast, tumbling smoke-rings in the settling dust.

  A dozen drop pods were blown to shrapnel before their ramps even opened.

  But more followed.

  All over the city the clumsy craft fell to earth, some landing upright, others blasted on their side, yet more detonating in the air high above, their contents tumbling out like seeds from a pod.

  And down with them swooped squadrons and wings of angular fighters and ground-support craft, spewing fire. They were painted in black and scarlet and wasp-yellow, and they strafed the crowds who were still milling in the streets of Askai, blowing hundreds of people to fragments of steaming meat with every pass.

  Thousands more suffocated in the press of humanity as the mobs tried to get under cover, to run away, to seek something approaching safety. In Sol Square four drop pods landed, and as the ramps came down the crowds recoiled from them as one would from an open flame.

  And out of the drop pods poured creatures from a nightmare.

  Part Two

  Darkness Follows

  EIGHT

  Diebus Duodecimus

  Rajek sighted down the barrel of his lasgun. He still could not quite believe what was in his sights.

  ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘Easy – wait until I open up.’

  The rest of his squad lay on the jagged rubble, their uniforms all long since abraded to rags and coated with the mustard-coloured dust of Askai’s ruins.

  ‘Aim for the eyes.’ We miss, and we’re all dead, he thought.

  His target was giving orders. Even from here, two hundred metres away, he could hear the harsh enhanced voice. Low Gothic, but with archaisms all through it. No one on Ras Hanem had spoken such a dialect in centuries.

  His target was better than two metres tall, and it was difficult to keep one’s eyes upon it, because of the sheer terror it engendered.

  A man perhaps. Or once it had been born a man. Now it was a towering monstrosity, an armoured giant which had encased itself in the dessicated flesh and splintered bones of its vanquished foes. Black, red and garish yellow paint had been slashed across it, and it was bedecked with spikes and chains. Symbols that made Rajek’s flesh crawl were etched upon the armour, most mercifully half hidden by the charnel-house embellishments.

  But the face. It was that which was most unsettling. Black eyes, without cornea or pupil, eyes like holes opening onto a depthless abyss. And the white flesh of the face in which they were embedded was scarred and gouged and painted even as the armour was. The mouth was a bloody gash full of splintered fangs which clashed as the creature spoke, slicing its own lips and spattering dark blood like spittle.

  It hurt to look upon it. But Rajek’s aim was steady. He had seen worse things in the last fortnight.

  He drew a breath, uttering a silent prayer, and squeezed the lasgun’s trigger with infinite gentleness.

  Out streaked the bolt of hot energy. It took his target in the left temple. Rajek saw the burned meat of the face flayed open in a black flower.

  His comrades opened up a split second later, six more las-bolts lancing out. Two were on target, striking the enemy in the face and searing the meat from the skull. But the giant was already in movement, uttering a terrible gargled roar, the cooked tongue burned black in the fang-maw of its mouth. It pointed, and raised its gobbet-choked chainsword, then fell to its knees.

  The air was full of fire, and all about them the mounded rubble erupted as bolter-rounds struck home in fountains of earth and broken stone.

  Rajek rolled away. One of his men was blown clear in half and his torso and legs tumbled in different directions like two halves of a discarded doll. Another took a round through the shoulder, his body-armour broken open like baked clay as the adamantium-tipped bullet ripped off his arm.

  The rest ran, weaving and ducking, stumbling.

  The wounded were left behind.

  After the
things they had all seen in the first week, they knew better than to be captured while still breathing.

  In the second week, orders had come down from the High Command for all immobile wounded to kill themselves, and personal frags had been issued to every man, not to be used until that end was near.

  Do not let them take you alive.

  The things the enemy did to human flesh were an abomination too great to be contemplated by the sane.

  Behind the fleeing troopers a series of massive figures mounted the rubble that had shielded the ambush, and Rajek heard laughter, horribly distinct, crawling like maggots across his brain. He unclipped a grenade from his belt, thumbed the ring, and tossed it over his shoulder as he ran, hardly aware of what he was doing.

  One day soon it will be the last one. I will eat fire like the others have before me.

  Two more seconds, somehow still running through the storm of bolter rounds, and he dived into a shell-hole, his lasgun coming up to split his lip open as he fell. The grenade went off with a dull crump, and a shower of metallic rattles. The horrible laughter stopped.

  He wiped his lip, not knowing that he was shouting wordlessly at the top of his lungs, and then fired another series of bright bursts into the cloud of dust behind him. Then he looked round, breath heaving. Two of the others were still with him, wide-eyed, bloody-faced, but mobile.

  ‘Come on,’ was all he could say, his throat as dry and sore as if he had been swallowing gravel.

  They picked themselves up and ran again.

  The infantry were streaming back, as had been planned. But there were so few of them. Commissar Van Arnim leaned on the rim of the hatch and bared his teeth in a moment of helpless anger. Under him, the Leman Russ vibrated like some monstrous beast on a leash. The heat was baking him in his leather coat, his eyes stinging with sweat, but he scarcely felt it. He raised the vox-caster to his thin-lipped mouth.

  ‘Fifth, stand by for my word.’

  He looked to left and right. In the half-ruined buildings and rubbled mounds a line of tanks was waiting, so well hidden that even he could not see them all. They had been backed into broken houses, covered with cameleoline tarps and piled high with shovelled rubbish to keep them from the attention of the fighter-bombers. Behind them, what was left of a full battalion of the Hanemite Guard was in support, crouched in the ruins.