Dead Men Walking

by Steve Lyons

  Carwen had been assigned to a squad three days ago, but he couldn’t tell their watchmasters – the Krieg equivalent of sergeants – apart, so it was only when one of them snapped his name that he knew who to assemble with. Parvel followed him, while the other two PDF troopers went to the far end of the hallway. The command squad, left standing in the middle, was Krieg only, a little larger than the others, and it had the lieutenant, the quartermaster and the majority of the melta guns.

  It was only now that Carwen realised his seven-man squad’s true purpose. They were like the men with the bayonets in the combat with the ghouls. The lieutenant expected them to die, and the Krieg grenadiers were certainly aware of this, but as Carwen had come to expect by now they had nothing to say on the subject.

  They were to approach the pyramid from the north. They retraced their steps up several flights of stairs until they found a skyway – more a dilapidated bridge – that would take them to where they needed to be.

  The bridge ran parallel to the pyramid’s northern elevation, and, although the grenadiers kept their heads down as they crossed it, Carwen couldn’t resist a glance upwards. He regretted his curiosity immediately because, impressive as the pyramid had been from above, it was a far more intimidating sight from below. He had to crane his neck to find its upper reaches. It blotted out the sky, and seemed to suck the pale moonlight into itself, spewing out its own hellish green light instead.

  Carwen had hoped that, somewhere, there might be a skyway intact, low and close enough to the pyramid for his squad to snipe at its necron guardians from above. It was now clear, however, that no such skyway had survived, if one had ever existed. The only way to approach the necrons’ tomb was along the ground.

  So it was, then, that Carwen first set foot in a world he had prayed he would never see, a world that throughout his childhood had been synonymous with the worst of all mythical hells. The PDF had forsaken this world, as had the proctors and the city administrators, and no wonder. Its roads were ankle-deep with sewage, which bubbled up through metal gratings from a pipe system long since outgrown. There wasn’t a wall here that hadn’t been scorched by fire, and the stink of the mutant was everywhere. This was the world that, behind the walls of his PDF base, Carwen had increasingly heard referred to as ‘the undercity’, the world the authorities had talked of plascreting over. This was his world, he thought with a shiver. This was what Hieronymous Theta looked like from the ground, what its towers were built upon.

  The first road the squad took was completely blocked by debris. They had to back up and circle a block, but at last they found themselves within sight of the pyramid’s side wall, less than a hundred metres from its north-west corner. There was no sign of life here, but still they advanced stealthily, one by one, through towering heaps of rubble. Their caution paid off as, without warning, two necrons rounded the corner ahead of them. The watchmaster signalled his men to stay down, waited until the necrons had passed their hiding place by, then stepped out behind them and vaporised both with a single shot from the squad’s only melta gun.

  They waited, then, for a vox to confirm that the second distraction squad was also in position. Once they had received it, the watchmaster ordered them forwards. Carwen had half expected that, as soon as they rounded the front corner of the pyramid, they would come under fire from the necrons at the gateway, but of course that gateway was still some way distant and shielded from their view by the heaps of rubble.

  For the first time, the young trooper missed his lasgun. The hellgun may have been more powerful, but the trade-off for this was a far shorter range. If his squad was going to worry the necrons, they would have to get close to them, a lot closer than Carwen was remotely comfortable with.

  As it happened, the first enemy they encountered was a mutant. It was scavenging through the rubble, and stepped into their midst before it had seen them. Carwen brought up his gun but heard the watchmaster’s voice in his ear, ordering his men to stay their fire. Two grenadiers seized the terrified creature and broke its scrawny neck before it could let out a warning cry. Then they waited in tense silence to learn if the scuffle had attracted attention to their position.

  Barely had they started forward again when the fighting began in earnest.

  The reports of alien weapons echoed around Carwen, and he dropped to his haunches and looked around in fright for their source. By the time the truth had dawned upon him – that it wasn’t his squad that had come under fire – the watchmaster was screaming at his men, out loud rather than through the comm-beads, to attack.

  So, Carwen followed a grenadier around a rubble heap, and he saw them: the necrons. Three or four score of them, more than there had appeared to be from above, but what most surprised him was that there were almost as many mutant slaves. His throat dried at the realisation of just how badly his platoon was outnumbered.

  Two things worked in their favour, the first that a large space had been cleared in front of the pyramid’s gateway so the Krieg squads were both shooting into a wide open arena from cover. The second was that the other squad had been discovered first, and so most of the necrons had turned to face them. Carwen’s Krieg comrades made full use of the targets thus presented to them, and a volley of hellgun beams found their marks, striking between metallic shoulder blades.

  To Carwen’s dismay, none of the necrons fell. He wasn’t sure if this was because they were too far away for the full strength of the beams to reach them. As the necrons turned, however, as they unleashed forks of green lightning upon this second front, he was left in no doubt about one unpalatable fact: that the necrons’ great guns were blessed with both power and range.

  A grenadier died in a flash of bright green, and Carwen ducked behind a rubble heap but could feel beams slamming into its far side, blasting away at his cover. ‘That’s it,’ came the calm voice of the watchmaster in his ear, ‘we’ve got their attention. Now start to pull back, but keep firing. Draw the necrons away from the gateway.’

  Carwen peered around the edge of the rubble, and his heart leapt at the sight of a row of four necrons marching unhurriedly towards him. They herded six mutants ahead of them, as living shields, and it was clear from the terror in those aberrations’ eyes that they weren’t willing volunteers.

  Carwen loosed off six shots, picking off two mutants, and three more were slain by the grenadiers as was one of their cadaverous masters. The remaining necrons were now too close for comfort, and Carwen looked for a safer position to fall back to. He sprinted for a gap between two rubble heaps, but green lightning cut across his path and, although a grenadier beside him kept running and made it to his goal, Carwen shied away, back to where he had started.

  The necrons were almost upon him, were about to round the rubble heap and find him exposed unless he got out of sight, and the only way he could see to do this was to duck behind that same heap, to keep it between him and them. It meant getting closer to the pyramid, but Carwen didn’t have time to be worried about that now. The necrons appeared before he could fully conceal himself. He crouched down, holding his breath, expecting them to turn and find him at any moment.

  Thankfully, they were distracted by hellgun fire, and they stomped off in pursuit of Carwen’s comrades. Only now did the young trooper stop to consider that he had allowed the necrons to cut off his escape route, such as it had been, to surround him. He took a few deep breaths to calm the queasy feeling in his stomach, and reminded himself that he had never expected to survive this day anyway.

  More voices spoke in his comm-bead, and Carwen felt numb as two further casualties were reported, one of them Trooper Parvel, but there was some good news. The watchmaster had waited for the necrons to close to melta range; now, he sprung an ambush upon them. It sounded as if he was holding his foes at bay, destroying more than his fair share, his main concern that there weren’t enough of them.

  ‘We’ve lured thirteen or fourteen necrons away from the gateway so far. We need to double that number, for the co
mmand squad to stand a fighting chance.’

  Carwen knew what he had to do.

  ‘The necrons,’ he sub-vocalised, ‘I’ve… managed to slip behind them. I’m going to try… I’m going to get closer up to the pyramid, fire on them again. Maybe, if I can move fast enough and stay out of their sight, I can convince them there’s more than… that there’s a third squad attacking them, and then maybe they might…’

  ‘The Emperor be with you, Trooper Carwen,’ said the watchmaster brusquely.

  He had drawn as close to the gateway as he dared. He was practically in the necrons’ midst now; he could hear them labouring in the rubble just metres away from him, apparently so confident in their fellows’ ability to repulse the Death Korps’ two-pronged attack upon them that they had simply returned to their work.

  He was too close, he thought. There was no way he could shoot at a necron without being seen. Then it occurred to him that he had no need to.

  He aimed his hellgun at the edge of a rubble heap and fired, hoping the impact would drown out the gun’s report, confuse the necrons into believing that the shot had originated from over there. Another two wild shots in the opposite direction, then two into the air, then Carwen was running, and a green beam crackled past his ear and he didn’t dare stop to see how many more necrons his tactics had drawn out.

  ‘The watchmaster’s down!’ came a voice in his comm-bead. ‘Repeat, the watchmaster is down. I’m the only one left. It’s up to you now, Lieutenant, we have done all we can, and may the Emperor have mercy on our worthless–’

  Carwen rounded a rubble heap, found a figure in front of him, snapped up his gun, realised that it was just a man: a dishevelled, frightened man, his workers’ smock in tatters, staggering beneath the weight of a hunk of plascrete. A necron slave, evidently, like the mutants, looking at the soldier with a desperate appeal in his eyes.

  ‘I can’t help you,’ he said wretchedly. ‘I’m sorry, but you should get as far away from me as you can. The necrons are behind me, and you don’t want them thinking…’

  The man was rooted to the spot. Carwen stepped forward, made to give him an encouraging push in the right direction – the man’s eyes flashed and, with a guttural snarl, he smashed his plascrete hunk into the side of Carwen’s head.

  He was lying on the ground with no memory of having fallen. His head was numb and, when his hand brushed against it, it came away tacky. He had dropped his hellgun and couldn’t raise his head to find it, his neck muscles felt like sponges… and the necrons were here, their metallic feet tramping down the rubble beside him.

  A necron skull loomed over Carwen; he was staring helplessly into its gun barrel, and he swore he could see the green lightning sparking in its depths, or maybe it was just the light patterns in his eyes. Then the necron turned, stalked away from him, and Carwen’s stomach shook with silent, giddy laughter and he thanked the Emperor because in the end he had been one of the lucky ones, he wasn’t going to die like that.

  His comm-bead was spitting static. Carwen’s eyes closed, and from the direction of the pyramid he could hear the command squad’s hellguns and meltas, and the answering reports of the necrons’ guns, like the tearing of cloth, and he thought at first that the latter sounds were outnumbered by the former, but the hellguns and the meltas were falling silent one by one, while the necron guns only seemed to increase in number until they were the only ones left firing.

  The last thing he heard was a voice in his ear, the voice of the human slave that had laid Carwen low. ‘The Emperor is dead,’ the voice hissed. ‘We have new gods now.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  For the twenty-third time, Costellin woke to the sound of explosions from Hieronymous City. He almost didn’t register it at first, having grown well used to the constant percussive rumbling. He climbed out of the camp bed that, with due regard for the lack of billets at the space port, he had set up in his office. Sunlight streamed in through his window, and Hanrik’s PDF draftees were already training on the ramp.

  Forty minutes later, washed, shaved and kitted out in the clean uniform that an aide had laid out for him, he reported to Colonel 186’s office for what had become their regular morning briefing. Governor-General Hanrik was there too, having learned of these briefings two weeks ago and invited himself to them.

  The colonel was fielding a barrage of reports from his aides at the vox-caster, and it was some time before he could give his fellow officers his full attention, although by then Costellin had gleaned much about the events of the night anyway.

  ‘I take it the skirmish to the north is concluded,’ he said.

  The colonel nodded. ‘The necrons retreated at 05.19, or rather–’

  ‘Or rather, they disappeared again.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said the colonel, ‘necron casualties were particularly heavy in the last hour of fighting. I have congratulated Colonel 42 on a battle well won.’

  ‘What about our side?’ asked Hanrik. ‘What casualties did we take?’

  ‘Those figures are not yet available,’ said the colonel.

  ‘Best estimate?’ Costellin prodded him.

  ‘We lost something in the region of eighteen hundred men.’

  Costellin whistled through his teeth. ‘More than a third of the 42nd’s remaining complement. I suggest we pray the necrons don’t return in a hurry.’

  The colonel was unfolding a brittle, yellowed paper map of the city, laying it out on his desk between them. ‘The generals consider that unlikely,’ he said. ‘This necron force was the largest we have seen yet, and the defeat handed to them a decisive one. We must have exhausted a good proportion of their resources too.’

  ‘You said the same after last week’s attack to the east.’

  ‘The important thing is that, in each case, the line was held against an enemy that was clearly desperate to break through. Our strategy is proving sound.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ conceded Costellin. ‘The question is, what proportion of their resources can the necrons replenish? Their beacon is still transmitting despite our tech-priests’ most strenuous attempts to block the signal.’

  ‘Perhaps you have forgotten, Commissar Costellin,’ said the colonel, ‘that our own reinforcements are scheduled to arrive in two days.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ said Costellin. ‘We will have to revise our planned troop allocations, however. I expect that, after last night, the generals will be assigning more of the new recruits to the 42nd regiment.’

  ‘We still have the PDF,’ offered Hanrik. ‘Recruitment and training is going well. I can spare eighteen, maybe twenty platoons. We can send them to bolster the 42nd in the short term, and also start to extend the draft to other cities. The only problem, as I’ve mentioned before, is equipment for the newer recruits. We don’t have the–’

  ‘Send your men,’ said the colonel. ‘The quartermasters of the 42nd will do what they can to equip them.’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ said Costellin, ‘the necrons’ gauss weaponry doesn’t leave a great deal behind. When we lose a man, we tend to lose everything he was carrying.’

  ‘The Emperor will provide,’ said the colonel.

  Costellin wasn’t so sure, but then he was also aware that, increasingly, he was sounding like the voice of doom at these meetings – and perhaps, he thought, the colonel was right. The Death Korps had made good progress these past weeks, closing their ring of steel about the city, and although his own regiment had not yet seen combat, both the 42nd and the 81st had won impressive victories. He wouldn’t have dreamed it possible, but it did seem the necrons were on the back foot. Still, he felt that somebody had to sound a note of caution. Somebody had to remember that they were still facing perhaps the greatest threat known to the Imperium.

  Even Hanrik had come round somewhat to the colonel’s way of thinking. Since the loss of his niece, he had certainly been more willing to offer his citizens, the people he had once been so desperate to protect, as sacrifices in the cause of winn
ing this war.

  ‘I am awaiting sight of Colonel 42’s report,’ said the colonel, ‘into the enemy’s tactics in this latest encounter. In particular, I am interested in fresh insights into the nature of this new necron breed and how their abilities might be countered.’

  Hanrik looked blank, so Costellin explained to him, ‘They appeared on the battlefield late last night: like half-formed necrons with no lower bodies, only spinal columns, but they can hover like ghosts and become insubstantial like ghosts too – until they get close enough to use the surgical blades they have in place of their hands, and then they are only too corporeal.’

  ‘I suggest we adjourn this meeting for now,’ said the colonel, ‘and reconvene when that report is available.’

  It was a little over two hours later that Costellin heard a familiar insistent knocking at his door, and Hanrik let himself in. ‘I’m not disturbing you?’ presumed the governor-general, already helping himself to a seat.

  ‘I was about to take a stroll along the front lines,’ said Costellin, ‘spread the news of our glorious triumph last night. I believe I have collected sufficient anecdotal evidence of remarkable heroism against overwhelming odds.’

  ‘Hmm, yes. That is what I wished to discuss with you, in a way.’

  Costellin raised an inquisitive eyebrow, inviting Hanrik to continue.

  ‘Last night. I was thinking about the necron attack, and I wondered, why there? Why attempt to break out of the city to the north when the regiment to the east, the 81st, was still depleted from their previous attempt? The colonel said it himself, this was the largest necron force we have seen. If they had sent that force against the 81st regiment, we may not have been celebrating a victory now.’

  ‘You have a theory?’ asked Costellin.

  ‘Of course, it could just be that the necrons’ intelligence was defective.’

  ‘Indeed. For all they knew, we could have been expecting a second attack to the east and built up our forces there.’