by Paul Kearney
‘Granite Six, acknowledged.’
‘Hanem Four-two, acknowledged.’
One by one they reported in, and he could hear the doubt and disbelief in their voices. But they obeyed.
Pavul, this had better be good, he thought.
The red light again. ‘All Granite call signs, this is Zero, close all hatches and take best cover. Heavy ordnance inbound. This is friendly fire, I repeat, this is friendly fire to your front.’
At once, Von Arnim slid down into the hatch, pulling it closed after him with a clang. He spun the lock, and for a second was blind in the dark fighting-compartment of the tank. It was suffocatingly hot, and red and green lights winked on dials all about him. The main gun took up almost all the space in the turret and in bins along the walls the sleek shells sat racked in perfect sharp-nosed array. The sight steadied him, did away with his doubts.
‘Brace yourselves,’ he said to the crew. ‘I believe it’s going to rain.’
The entire offensive had ground to a halt, and across several square kilometres of the battle-torn city, the ranks of tanks and vehicles sat immobile, covered in the quaking dust, their exhausts pumping black smoke out into the thick, hot polluted air.
All around them, the infantry crouched in shell holes and ruins or under the very bellies of the tanks themselves. The men were white-faced and dull-eyed under their masking filth, and their officers hunched with them, waiting, fighting off confusion and stark fear, keeping it out of their eyes so the men might not see it.
Dietrich stood to one side of his Baneblade with his signaller at his back. The vox receiver was clenched in one fist so hard the plastic creaked.
He raised it to his mouth so fast the damn thing clicked off his teeth.
‘Marshal, we are ready for your word.’
‘General, the bombardment will commence in fifteen seconds. Emperor be with us.’
A call from inside the Baneblade. ‘Sir!’ It was Dyson. ‘Sir, you should see this.’
Dietrich lumbered back into the rear of the vehicle, and the armoured doors whined and hissed shut behind him.
‘What is it, Lars?’
His adjutant pointed at the augur-linked tactical readout. Dietrich peered at it, blinking. There was Granite One – the armoured spearhead led by Ismail – a long line of blue arrows. Behind it was his own formation, more tightly clenched, the infantry sigils smaller, somehow more vulnerable-looking even on a computer screen.
And in front–
Until a few minutes ago there had been nothing between Ismail and the foot of the citadel except a few scattered red arrows. The main enemy positions had been overrun in the first hours of the attack. But now more and more scarlet sigils were lighting up the screen, popping up out of nowhere in a carmine belt in front of Ismail’s tanks and thickening even as they watched.
‘The bastards must have been underground,’ Dietrich said wonderingly. ‘Veigh was right – they’ve been digging bunkers.’
‘It’s a massive counterattack,’ Dyson said. ‘Division strength, at least. They’re moving south.’
Dietrich stared. He rubbed his cracked mouth with one gauntleted fist, and all of a sudden a smile broke out across his face.
‘Emperor bless you, marshal, you dried-up old bastard. You called it right after all. But how in the world did you get Riedling to change his mind?’
‘Artillery is going in now, sir,’ one of the signallers in the compartment said, his hand to the receiver in one ear.
They did not need to be told. They could feel it. The impact of the shells came through the floor of the massive Baneblade, its hundred tons trembling as though it were made of plastek. A few seconds later, and they heard the dull massive roar of the strike, a rumbling, titanic thunder like the anger of gods.
‘It sounds like Earthshaker shells,’ Dyson said, listening. ‘But bigger calibre than our Basilisks could ever throw.’
‘Those are siege guns firing,’ Dietrich told him. ‘The heaviest known to man. Each round is bigger than a Chimera.’ He grinned fiercely. ‘And Marshal Veigh has timed it beautifully. He’s caught them in the open, just as they were making their counterattack.’
‘Emperor be thanked,’ one of the signallers murmured, his words barely heard over the monstrous roaring which was going on endlessly outside.
They listened, rapt, like men hearing the sweetest music of their lives. Dietrich bent over the monitors again and watched the destruction as it manifested itself in lights and sigils. The displays crackled and buzzed with static lines, then steadied in the gaps between explosions.
That broad belt of enemy red was thinning out, minute by minute, the scarlet signs of the opposing formations winking into darkness, one by one.
What hellish slaughter was going on up ahead on the front line, even Dietrich could not fully envisage, but he pounded his fist on the comms bench in savage satisfaction as he watched it happen in bloodless electronic sequence, and the music of the bombardment shook the world around him.
The vox came to life again, ticking with static, but workable.
‘General, this is Marshal Veigh. I have heavy rounds sufficient for four more minutes. After that we will walk the bombardment north and bring the lighter guns to bear. My observers report that several major enemy formations have been smashed. We estimate sixty per cent casualties.’
‘Well done, marshal. I could not have set it up better myself. My compliments to you and to Governor Riedling. You have saved a lot of lives today.’
There was a pause. ‘Governor Riedling is dead. It is I who am in command at the citadel now. I will support the advance of your troops to the last round if I have to. I suggest you advance as soon as the bombardment shifts, to keep the enemy off balance.’
Dietrich hesitated. Something in Veigh’s voice was not right. And how could Riedling be dead? How could that have happened? The governor was not a man to put himself in a place of danger.
That was for another day. Dietrich keyed the vox. ‘Roger that, marshal.’ He glanced at the chrono on the back of his gauntlet. ‘The advance will recommence in four minutes. Can you give us anti-air cover?’
‘That is affirmative. We have already cleared the skies above you. The enemy air-units have been driven off for now. But they will be back. General, you must drive for the citadel walls at best speed. Once you are within half a kilometre, we intend to sally out with several regiments of infantry to meet you. My men will fire green flares to indicate their positions.’
‘Green flares. Roger that. I will communicate it to all my subunits.’
‘I look forward to meeting you again at last, general.’ There was no emotion in Veigh’s voice. He sounded like a dead man talking.
‘As do I, marshal. Dietrich out.’
The vox went dead. Dietrich stared at the mike for a moment, lost in thought, speculation ringing in his brain. Then he shook his head. The task in hand was work enough for now. Whatever had happened in the citadel, whatever fate Riedling had met with, was of no matter. There was killing to be done.
‘Get me Commissar Von Arnim,’ he said to the signaller. ‘And patch me in to all company commanders at the same time.’
Now, he thought. Now, we have a fighting chance at last.
ELEVEN
Habebat Funiculum
The infantry debussed from the Chimeras right on top of the enemy trenches, shooting down into the white, snarling faces of the cultists. The squat vehicles powered over the positions, and from the top turrets the flamers sent out spewing rivers of yellow promethium to incinerate the reserves as they came charging in to counterattack.
A wall of flame, through which the enemy charged heedless of pain and fear. Their champions, tall behemoths in power armour, drove them on like twisted shepherds. The Hanemite troopers engaged in close-quarter combat with burning, shrieking shapes that swept through the line of Chimeras like living torches.
Von Arnim strode along with his personal squad keeping pace to either side. His c
hainsword hummed as the monomolecular blades spun too fast to see.
‘That one is mine,’ he said, pointing with the sword at a Chaos champion who had lifted a wriggling trooper into the air, impaled on the wicked blade which was affixed to his bolter. He tossed the screaming man aside as though flicking an insect from his arm, and roared with maniacal laughter, his teeth clashing, scoring his own flesh. He paid no mind to the flames which licked round his armour.
The assault had ridden over the enemy trench line, cutting it into knots and gobbets of struggling men and things which had once been men. In the light of the flamer-blasts, shadows capered in milling mayhem, bolts of las-fire searing flesh which was already charred.
A team were kneeling to one side, the gunner’s mate crouched with a heavy weapon perched on his shoulder while the gunner emptied the magazine drum in long, deafening bursts of fire, blowing waves of cultists apart, and then zeroing in on one of the towering Chaos champions, chewing up his armour, blowing chunks of flesh and metal from his bones, finally reducing him to some unrecognisable charnel-frame of meat and metal.
Von Arnim confronted the champion he had picked out of the enemy ranks.
‘Ho! Abomination! Come meet death!’ he cried, and there was on his face a wide grin of mingled rage and joy as he raised the chainsword.
The tall Chaos champion tossed aside another broken corpse. He had bitten through the trooper’s throat and blood was black and shining on his face from the nose down. It slimed his pestilential-looking armour and added a new gleam to the ceramite plates.
‘A commissar – a true believer!’ he gargled in recognisable Low Gothic. ‘Come, little man, meet the reality of belief. Let me show you a vision of the true faith!’
He bounded forward, and the scrum of fighting figures seemed to open up for him and Von Arnim as the commissar leapt to meet him. Ismail ducked the skull-crushing swing of the bladed bolter and rolled, and as he did he sent the chainsword licking out in a swift jab. It bit into the champion’s shin, the blade groaning, screeching as it churned through ceramite – and then Ismail was on his feet again. He snapped off a shot from his laspistol, which missed but threw the champion off balance, and then the chainsword flicked in again, this time slicing at the hand which held the bolter.
The champion roared and lunged forward, his hand lopped off at the wrist, the bolter falling to the ground, and Ismail stepped aside, like a man dodging an angry bull. The chainsword stabbed upwards once more and this time it dug deep, deep into the side of the champion’s neck, and Ismail held it there a moment, savouring the feel of the spine splintering and severing under the busy blades, until he let the sword complete its work and the head fell free.
The great armoured form of the enemy slumped inert, another broken carcass amid thousands, another piece of carrion – and Ismail spat upon it.
He looked around. They were mopping up now, Hanemites and troopers of the Imperial Guard mingled together, tossing grenades into the bunkers, burning out the last stubborn remnants of the enemy in their trenches.
As he watched, a Chimera came to a halt on top of one slit-trench with three cultists in it, and the driver worked the tracks back and forth with great skill so that it almost seemed the heavy machine was pirouetting in place. The slit-trench collapsed, and the cultists were crushed and buried in the same moment. Then the Chimera lurched onwards, vomiting flame, shreds of meat hanging in rags from its tracks.
Ismail thumbed the power button on his sword and knelt there in the blood-mire of the battlefield, and bending his head he said a silent prayer of thanks to the Emperor who watches all, the Guardian of Man.
We will not go gently into that Dark Night, he thought. The Imperium of Man has a flame at its heart which can never be extinguished. Lord of Terra watch over us now, as we do thy bidding, and send to thee a sacrament of blood.
By Your Throne.
He straightened. More vehicles were looming up out of the reek and the tawny dust now, like great antediluvian beasts roaring and farting smoke.
He realised that he had cultist blood stiffening dry across his face and he wiped it off in brown flakes, grimacing. He shook gore from the chainsword blade and hung the weapon at his belt. His personal squad surrounded him again – there were two missing. He nodded at the survivors, and they nodded back. They had that white, wild-eyed look of men who find themselves alive when they did not expect to be.
They were good men, all of them, Hanemites and Imperials alike. It was a privilege to fight beside them.
‘Well, Ismail,’ a familiar voice said. ‘Went the day well?’
He turned, and Dietrich was standing beside him, and beyond, the command Baneblade of the regiment frowned over them both, the turret traversing like the snout of a predator seeking fresh prey.
‘We have scoured the spaceport,’ Commissar Von Arnim said formally, bowing slightly. ‘This was the last of their lines. The citadel and the Armaments District are now connected by our forces once more.’
‘The first ammo convoy is waiting to set out even as we speak,’ Dietrich said, nodding with satisfaction. ‘Now, we must consolidate. The armour will pull out of the front line while the infantry dig in.’
‘The enemy is weakening,’ Ismail said.
‘You think so?’ Dietrich screwed up one eye. ‘I wondered if it was just my own wishful thinking.’
‘His counterattacks are ill-thought-out, and lack heavy troops. He is sending in waves of cultists as if it is all he has left.’
‘He has more than that left,’ Dietrich said. ‘Of that I am sure. And I wonder to myself who he is. Somewhere, possibly still in orbit, a single mind directs all this, Ismail, and until that mind is blinded and broken, we will not have final victory here. The best we can do is survive, until we are relieved. We do not have the resources to mount another attack like today’s. It was our last gamble.’
Von Arnim shrugged. ‘A gamble which succeeded.’ For the moment, he felt it was enough to have won a victory, after so many defeats. It was so tangible to him he could almost taste it. It filled him with new energy, perhaps even a glimmer of hope after the darkness of the last two weeks. But then something else niggled its way to the forefront of his mind.
‘I hear rumours the Imperial governor is dead. Is that true, Pavul?’
Dietrich nodded sombrely. ‘That is what I wanted to talk to you about. Come, Ismail. I need your advice. We are to go to the citadel now, to meet the marshal, and I am not altogether sure what we shall find there.’
As darkness fell, the fighting died down. The battered Hanemite divisions dug in on the rim of the spaceport, and constructed defensive lines that ran all the way back to the Armaments District, six kilometres to the south. At the same time, a squadron of Chimeras donned blades and bulldozed clear a single roadway through the rubble to link up the two strongholds.
They worked into the night, while around them in the choking darkness men constructed bunkers and sangars, digging where they could, and throwing up defensive walls of shattered rockcrete where they could not. They strung wire, laid mines, and conducted dozens of little firefights as they contested a narrow no-man’s-land with the restless patrols of the enemy.
And all the while, the heavy transports of the 387th trundled through the dark, lights off, their drivers wiping their exhausted eyes and cursing as they nursed the heavily laden vehicles north to replenish the exhausted magazines of the citadel.
Feeding the beast, it was called, the replenishment of units still in contact with the enemy.
Eight hundred tons of shells were shifted that first night, and the transports were kept running in shifts all through the hours of darkness, while the multi-barrelled Hydras lined the road which had now become the jugular of the defence, seeking out targets in the torn gaps which came and went in the hovering clouds of dust and smoke above them.
But there were no bombing runs, not even the casual strafing to which they had all become accustomed. The enemy seemed to have pulled ba
ck from major contact with the Imperium’s forces, and except for isolated firefights on the perimeter and skirmishes between patrols, the lines were quiet. The Basilisks kept up interdictory fire through the night, but even that low endless crump seemed nothing after the fury of the last fortnight.
Marshal Veigh sent a full company of Hanemite regulars to escort General Dietrich and Commissar Von Arnim into the citadel, as though he were taking no chances they might not make it there. They entered by a low postern door to one side of the main gates. Even this minor entrance was constructed from gleaming adamantium, and despite the fury of the past days there was scarcely a nick on the metal.
Within, the great subterranean generators which pulsed in the heart of the citadel were still running at full power, and they could be felt as an almost constant vibration in the soles of one’s feet.
In the heart of that hollowed-out, man-made mountain the lights were undimmed, and they seemed dazzlingly bright to Dietrich and Von Arnim after days of huddling in the dark, the shadows, the confined interiors of fighting vehicles. Here there was cleaner air, also, as the great filters which were plugged into the sides of the citadel were for the most part in perfect order, despite repeated bombing runs by the enemy fighter-bombers. There was a slight haze hanging in the atmosphere, and it was stiflingly hot, but there was water to be had – water that was not brown or opaque and that did not smell of death. And iron rations, bricks of compressed protein to fuel the body even if they did not entice the appetite.
The citadel had weathered the fortnight of war well. For some reason that angered Dietrich.
He could not face eating, despite his hunger. In the city, there were civilians living on half-putrid rats and cockroaches, gnawing out their existence behind his lines in cowed, starving mobs. Soldiers had to eat first – that was the merest logic. But the thought of those desperate crowds made him refuse the offered food all the same.
Their ears popped as they rode up the mountain in one of the great lifters. These were open to the floors and levels they passed, and Dietrich was able to glimpse the gun-caverns with their hundreds of crews, whose work had won his gamble for him, and the endless store-rooms, magazines, dormitories and barracks, all thinly populated but running as smoothly as the workings of a clock. He marvelled at it, and for a moment could understand why Governor Riedling had thought to sit out the war in here. The citadel was set apart, not untouched by the fighting, but in comparison with the wreck that was now the city of Askai, it had barely suffered at all. Small wonder a man as insulated as Riedling had closed his eyes to what was going on outside.
