Calgar's Siege

by Paul Kearney

  But he missed that steady, sardonic presence at his side, he had to admit. It would not be for long – no more than a day, with luck and the Emperor’s Grace – but the days and nights in Zalathras were long now, and every hour was measured out in the blood of the defenders.

  He had sent Brother Valerian along for a different reason. For a long time now, the Librarian had been trying to contact other members of his calling in the distant line companies of the Ultramarines, specifically the Epistolary, Brother Carimus with Seventh. Librarians were not astropaths, but their psychic skills still allowed them to project messages at great distances.

  But Brother Valerian had been foiled at every turn. The psychic signature of the ork armies was growing, cohering, and its proximity, just beyond the gates of Zalathras, interfered with his attempts to contact his brethren. He feared that the moment of critical mass, when the xenos tribes would finally come together in a Waaagh!, was fast approaching. By getting him clear of the city for a while, Calgar hoped that he might be able to get through the crude psychic storm that the orks were generating. It was something of a long shot, but then all the shots were long right now.

  They had set up a forward command post a mile from the Vanaheim Gate, in the mansion belonging to the council member and banker Ferdia Rosquin – who had been persuaded to vacate the place for the greater good. Here, Colonel Boros’ vox specialists had run comm cables and set up a link to the main augur network in Alphon Spire, relaying all the information from the map room up there to a series of data-slates and old-fashioned plasreel printers.

  From the outside, the only thing that looked different about the Rosquin compound was the profusion of antennae that had sprouted from the roof of the mansion, and the heavy cables that ran out to a back-up power generator humming in the garden.

  The population of Zalathras still peered up at the cloud-hidden summit of Alphon Spire and believed that Marneus Calgar was up there, looking down on them, when in fact he was located just off the main arterial north–south highway of the city. This had been cleared of all but military traffic, however, and under martial law, all those who had no work to do or rations to collect were directed to remain indoors, stay off the grid, and hunker down while listening to announcements from the vox-casters that had been set up on hundreds of street corners.

  Boredom and fear, the two common elements of all wars. Millions of ordinary people endured them now within the circuit of the defences, as Zalathras entered its second month of siege.

  The mansion was austere, old-fashioned and capacious, though still a little cramped after the cyclopean architecture of the Governor’s Palace. Boxes of data-slates, plasreels, and good old-fashioned paper files had been brought down from the Alphon and arrayed around the walls of the central atrium, and Fennick had hung his beloved maps around the walls, displacing artworks worth a small fortune in the process. He was supervising the unpacking of the files as Marneus Calgar – fully armoured again – stared at a huge blueprint of the city that covered almost half of one wall.

  ‘Lord Fennick, a word, please.’

  Fennick stood beside the Chapter Master. He was staring at the wall-mounted plans intently.

  ‘I have not seen this outlay before. It is different from the ones we studied up in the Spire. Why is that?’

  Fennick looked more closely. ‘This is an old plan, my lord, superseded by later building work. What you see is the city as it was perhaps twenty years ago – the red corrections are the improvements made since.’

  ‘And what is this?’ Calgar asked, stabbing a finger at a dotted line that ran south out of the city, straight as ruler’s edge.

  ‘That? It’s the old sewer outlet. At one time it ran all the way down to the Dromion River, forty miles. We blocked it up a dozen years ago, and now the city has new outlets which feed directly into caverns delved below us, which in turn drain into the bedrock of the planet. The Dromion was prone to flooding, and the sewers would back up in the rainy season… My lord, is there a problem?’

  ‘How was this older structure blocked off?’

  ‘We blasted it closed, and then poured in rockcrete, at least fifteen to twenty feet thick…’ Fennick trailed off.

  ‘Is it guarded?’

  Fennick found it hard to speak. ‘No.’

  Calgar clenched one fist. ‘I should have been made aware of this, my lord governor. This old outlet represents a chink in our defences which should have been looked into long ago.’

  ‘My lord, it is as good as destroyed–’

  Calgar ignored him. ‘Sergeant Avila!’

  The Ultramarine was by the door in a second. His helm was off – the first time Fennick had seen his face. It was a square, shorn countenance much like Calgar’s own, with metal studs implanted in the flesh of the temple and a shine to the eyes that spoke of ocular augmentation.

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  ‘You will gather together a small task force – a half-squad of our brethren – take Brother Parsifal – and a company of the militia with demolition equipment. Lord Fennick will show you where to go.’

  Calgar turned to the governor. ‘Let us hope the orks are as ignorant of these tunnels as I have been.’

  The day drew on. The distant crump of artillery came and went, and with it, more meaningless deaths in the southern districts of the city. On the broad avenue beyond Rosquin’s compound, the vehicles of Lieutenant Janus’ firefighters remained lined up under cameleoline tarps and in the shadow of buildings, while the men of the regiment sat in trenches that disfigured urban gardens, and cannibalised whatever materials they needed for overhead protection. It was safer in the rain-filled trenches than in any hab; across the city, thousands of civilians were slower to learn than the soldiers, but backyard trenches and shelters were now common all the same, a place to run to when the klaxons sounded.

  On the walls, the guns were silent, and the Vanaheim stood like some ominous blackened ruin frowning across the broken plain below. Once, a flight of ork fighter-bombers swept towards it, but a sudden storm of Hydra fire made them veer off and return to their bases. A heavy silence hung in the air between the artillery strikes, and to Fennick at least it seemed that the planet was as tired as he felt himself, beaten and battered in the endless rain and reeking of death.

  His beloved Zalathras still stood, but the city had lost all trace of the busy, thronged metropolis it had once been. Whole districts were well-nigh deserted now, their inhabitants having fled the vulnerable regions near the southern walls. They were holed up now in the base of the three hive-spires that rose up out of the plain and lost themselves in rainclouds, man-made mountains which had once been the pride of Zalidar.

  Part of Fennick’s everyday duties was to manage the accommodation of the dispossessed, and their numbers grew by the hour, cramming into the undercity of the spires and living as tight-packed as meat in a can. Five thousand militiamen had been taken off the walls to police those slums, though they were mainly home to women and children, the old and the sick. All able-bodied men were subject to conscription now, and if they could not be armed, they could fight fires, create firebreaks, clear rubble and tend the vegetable gardens that now covered every patch of earth and vacant lot within the perimeter.

  A great Imperial city mere weeks before, Zalathras’ economy had been brought down to the level of a primal village. Barter and prostitution were rife, and the gangs of the undercity had taken control of many streets and subterranean hab layouts, looking after their own and preying on the weak.

  It happened in every war, and Boros’ militia were thrown into it by the regiment to root out those who did not contribute to the defence. But as soon as one gang was destroyed, another sprang up. It was part of existence now as much as the rain and the ork attacks.

  ‘They are massing for another assault,’ Colonel Boros said, lowering the magnoculars. He turned to his aide. ‘Pherias, send word to
Fennick. Ork formations growing to our front, and they seem–’ Here he peered through the magnoculars again, striving to pierce the veil of rain that swept across the plain. ‘They seem to have heavy vehicles. This could be something new.’

  Pherias bent over the vox-station and began keying in the text of the message. They sent most non-combat comm this way now, for it was more secure and more reliable than a crackling voice down the line.

  Boros looked up and down the walls. He stood in the central roof bunker of the Vanaheim Gate, a structure which had seen much death in the last month, and which still bore the marks of it. It was an unpleasant place, reeking of decayed flesh and stained with the blood of those who had died within it. But its view of the plain below was unmatched, and the thick roof had yet to be pierced by any shell.

  In the casements that ran along it were half a dozen autocannon, some meltaguns and several missile launchers. Pride of place, however, was given to two lascannons – the best anti-armour weapons the defenders possessed. There were only a dozen of these on the planet, and their charge packs were rationed out with the utmost care, for there was no way of creating more on Zalidar.

  Thirty shots each, that’s it, Boros thought. If the orks come at us with a mass of armour, then the thing is as good as over.

  The rain thinned a little. All along the walls the sentries stared out and hefted their lasguns and found their mouths suddenly dry and their palms sweating. Twenty-five thousand militiamen guarded the southern perimeter, but most of these were in bombproofs within the walls themselves, getting what rest they could. The sentries would not call their fellows below up onto the catwalk until they were told, or until the alarm was sounded.

  Boros was sweeping the far-off ranks of the ork host with the magnocs when he stopped and cursed in a low, fluent flow of profanity. Amid the boiling, crowding mobs of the enemy he could see even more massive, boxy shapes lurching and swaying as they advanced over the rough ground, and the orks made lanes for them in their ranks. The rain came and went in a blur, but there could be no mistake.

  ‘Looted Leman Russes and ork Battlewagons. They have heavy armour.’ Boros sounded bitter, as though his own fears had given rise to the advancing tanks.

  ‘Pherias, sound the stand-to. And give me the vox.’

  The young lieutenant punched the red klaxon button on the wall of the bunker and handed the vox mike to Boros. All over the city, the vox-casters droned out the dull blare of the alarm; this was not the tearing whine of the air-raid siren, but the more ominous repetitive thud of imminent ground assault. There was not a citizen in all of Zalathras who did not know the difference.

  Along the twenty-mile length of the walls, men began thundering up the stairs from the bombproofs below, white-faced, silent or cursing. Some of the newer recruits vomited, but were shoved onwards by those behind them. At their rear, hard-faced militia noncoms from Boros’ original divisions barked at them to hurry, laspistols drawn. Militia they might be, but those who had survived from the beginning of the siege were as good as any veteran Guardsman now, or they would have been dead already.

  All across the city, civilian life came to a standstill. The barter markets in the lower southern districts broke up, the taverns emptied, and even in the looming hive-spires people instinctively sought the core regions, moving away from the vulnerable flanks of the structures. The ork fighter-bomber that had crashed into the side of Alphon Spire had killed upwards of two hundred.

  They packed now into the centres of Alphon and Kalgatt and Minon Spires, and huddled together there in every square and roadway and corridor, snarling at anyone who tried to make them move. Traffic came to a halt. The spires became congested flues packed tight with humanity.

  ‘Fennick, you there?’ Boros spoke into the vox impatiently.

  There was a crackle – moisture in the caster. Boros shook the thing with a grimace and tried again.

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m here. What’s to report?’

  ‘New attack in the making. They have armour. I have counted a dozen Leman Russes and other heavy armour, though there may be more.’

  ‘Good luck to them getting through the swamp in front of the gates.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly. But all the same, I would like more lascannon down here around the Vanaheim. Do I have your permission to move a few from the northern walls?’

  ‘Not my decision, my friend. Lord Calgar has specified that all redeployments of heavy weapons must be made through him.’

  Boros cursed. ‘Well, where the hell is he?’

  ‘Not so far away, colonel.’

  His bulk blotted out the daylight as he stooped through the rear blast doors of the bunker. Those manning the casemates set up a mutter that was both joyous and apprehensive. Some stared, some looked away, some became busy with their weapons.

  Marneus Calgar looked around. He spoke quietly, but his voice filled the dank air of the bunker all the same.

  ‘We have four lascannon in the southern circuit. That will suffice. I will not denude the rest of the perimeter, colonel, not at this time.’

  Behind Calgar were his skull-faced Chaplain, an honour guard Ultramarine, and two others.

  ‘We will fight them from here, with what we have,’ Calgar said, looking around. ‘I know you men will not let me down.’

  ‘It seems you have your answer,’ Fennick said with something like dark humour in his tone. ‘Good luck, Boros. Keep me updated on plas-printer.’

  ‘Boros out,’ the colonel said. He bowed to Calgar. ‘My lord, it is good to have you here.’

  The Lord of Macragge moved up to the deep-set viewing slits in the bunker. ‘Effective range of the lascannon is over ten thousand feet. Effective range of the Leman Russ main gun is similar – but the tanks will be in motion, and the soft ground will slow them down. They will be good targets. But your men must aim true, colonel.’

  ‘They will, my lord.’

  ‘Then let us wait and see what the enemy can bring to this fight.’

  Far below the lofty heights of the walls, in a cramped, subterranean world, Sergeant Avila and his brethren led the way down the dripping, moss-slick and noisome tunnel.

  With him were four of his squad, and Brother Parsifal, the white flashes on his power armour livid in the dim light. And some way behind them, eighty sweating, splashing militiamen followed in a long file, bearing bulky packs of explosive.

  The tunnel had been built to last, from massive granite blocks which still bore the marks of the masons who had fashioned them. The Vanaheim sigil was on every base-stone, though most were obscured by encrusted, writhing vegetation and fungi of all manner and description. It had been many years since the tunnel ran with the effluent of the city above, and yet it still stank. Avila could have shut out the reek with a blink-click on his auto-senses, but he chose to endure it, to savour it almost. Every sense was of use in war. Every sensation had to be utilised and endured.

  Even the Adeptus Astartes were knee-deep in brown water, while it came almost to the crotch of the men. The Ultramarines waded through it slowly, weapons raised. The Rubicon’s pilot, Brother Dextus, was out in front, and behind him came Parsifal with a hand-held auspex more powerful than those which were built into every Space Marine’s helm. He swept it back and forth, its data automatically relayed to his heads-up display. He tapped a hand on Dextus’ power-pack, and the lead Space Marine immediately stopped and scanned the darkness ahead.

  ‘I’m getting tremors above us,’ Parsifal said. ‘Getting stronger.’

  ‘How far out are we?’ Avila asked him.

  ‘We’re five and a half miles south of the Vanaheim Gate.’ Parsifal looked up at the dripping masonry of the tunnel ten feet above his head.

  ‘We are below the ork lines.’

  They stopped, every man of the militia company behind them freezing in place, white-faced, looking up as though they expected
the orks suddenly to come pouring through the ceiling.

  ‘Can you hear it, brother?’ Parsifal asked softly.

  They all could, now. A dull, rumbling thunder far above their heads that seemed to be in movement, south to north. It travelled over them like the rumour of a distant storm.

  ‘The xenos are on the move,’ Avila said.

  ‘I read more than that. Tank tracks. They are bringing up heavy armour,’ Parsifal said, still in that same low voice.

  ‘We should be on the walls,’ Avila said. ‘We’ll be needed there.’ His voice betrayed his frustration.

  ‘We are needed here, brother,’ Parsifal said calmly.

  ‘How much farther to the block point?’

  ‘Another mile.’

  ‘I am inclined to blow the tunnel here and now, brother.’

  ‘We were also detailed to discover whether the orks have infiltrated this structure,’ the Apothecary said. ‘We have not yet done so. We must go on.’

  Avila grunted and checked the magazine in his bolter. He patted the weapon as though it were a favoured pet. ‘Very well. Lead on then. But let us pick up the pace a little. The main event seems to be underway above us.’

  ‘I count fifteen Battlewagons, plus a few dozen Chimera equivalents and a motley horde of wartrucks,’ Calgar said. He had helmed up, and his fists flexed in the Gauntlets of Ultramar. ‘Thirty thousand infantry, give or take. This is a major effort.’

  Boros was staring out the viewslit of the bunker at the hosts of the enemy milling about on the vast plains below. The rain was easing a little, and there was even a brightness in the sky that spoke of far-off sunshine.

  He could no longer remember what it was like to be rested and well fed and, above all, dry. The rainy season on northern Zalidar was a trial at the best of times, but to have to fight a war in it just stacked up the misery. His uniform was stuck to his flesh under the heavy body armour, and sweat was oozing down under his helmet.