Yarrick: The Pyres of Armageddon

by David Annandale

  We traded fire for a few minutes. Von Strab’s men ran back and forth, making my shots difficult. Fertig took a hit to the right arm. His breath whined. He could no longer raise his rifle. He perched it on a broken desk and kept firing.

  I killed two more, then reloaded. The elevator doors opened again, unloading reinforcements. Numbers gave the von Strab troops courage, and they changed their tactics. They pushed against their barricade. The heap moved forward along the floor for almost two metres before it collapsed. The overlord’s faithful rushed us. They ran into our fire, and we took some down, but there were only three of us. Their shots kept us down, seeking the thicker portions of our shield. Dreher’s luck ran out. Las came through a gap and seared her through her throat. I killed two more of the enemy, and they were down to ten by the time they reached the barricade. Half of them fired low into the desks. The others began to climb. I jumped up, held the leg of a chair and kept my feet a metre off the ground, avoiding the incoming fire. I fired up and through the barrier, spreading my shots. Bodies fell. Fertig tried to scramble up too, but his arm was too weak. Las took him down at the legs, and when he fell, he was burned.

  I was alone against seven. I threw a frag over the barricade and jumped back. It was a short toss. It came down on the other side, too close to be safe. I crouched against the doors. The las-fire stopped as the grenade landed. There was a half-second of shouts of alarm, then the blast, the wind of shrapnel, and the screams. A portion of the barricade blew my way. Jagged metal and wood slammed against bronze. They cut through the back of my coat, lacerating my flesh. I felt a hard punch against my spine. It knocked me forward, but did not impale. I stood, turned and charged back, pistol firing and sword drawn. I plunged through the burning gap in the barrier. Splintered wood gouged my face and smoke enveloped me as I ran. On the other side, blood slicked the floor. Men with no faces and missing limbs writhed. One of the enemy, his uniform torn, his chest bleeding, lunged at me. I hacked at his neck with my blade. He staggered back three steps, vitae fountaining over me, and then collapsed.

  Two left standing, still stunned by the blast. One raised his rifle. I blew the right side of his skull away. The other backed away from his gun, arms up. ‘Your actions betray Armageddon and the Emperor,’ I said. I shot him in the face, obliterating a traitor. Then I took my sword to the injured troops, finishing them off. I struck without mercy, but as punishment.

  Silence, then, dusted with the creaks of settling debris. It lasted a minute before the elevator rumbled once more. There was no shelter now. I advanced to the doors and pointed my bolt pistol, ready to fire. The doors ground open. Von Strab stood with five of his retinue. Brenken and Mannheim were there too. I lowered my weapon quickly before his men had an excuse to shoot.

  Another moment when I might have killed von Strab passed. I had not sought it, but the opportunity had been there. A squeeze of the trigger, one simple act, and we would have both been absent from the rest of the war. Let the chroniclers decide if my decision was the correct one.

  I stepped back from the elevator. The guards emerged, rifles trained on me. Von Strab waited until they had me surrounded, then stepped out. ‘Disarm him,’ he said. His voice snapped with anger. His right cheek twitched. His mask of control had slipped. I was pleased. I had never seen a blow land against his power before, and I am human. I was happy to be the author of his discomfort.

  His guards hesitated. I holstered my pistol and sheathed my sword. I stared at them, daring them to come for my arms. They stood fast, guns unwavering. They did nothing more. Von Strab walked away as if his order had been obeyed. He kicked his way through the wreckage towards the far doors. ‘I will not be defied,’ he announced.

  Brenken and Mannheim came up behind the guards. They said nothing. Their rank spoke for them. The guards took a step back from me.

  Von Strab was a few steps from the door. ‘You’re too late,’ I bluffed.

  He looked back. ‘You should pray I’m not.’

  He was bluffing too, I thought. He walked forward again. He reached for the door.

  The scream came.

  It was a single voice and many. It was a mosaic of psychic pain. It wrapped itself around our souls. It savaged us with the shrapnel of minds. The guards dropped their guns. All of us clapped our hands to our ears as if we could keep out the cry. It rose, it twisted, it drew itself out to a ragged scraping of high notes. At the end, I thought I detected, buried in the horror, a note of triumph.

  The cry ended. Von Strab had fallen to his knees. He stood up and hauled open the doors. We followed him into the astropathic chamber.

  The choir was shattered. Several of the shapes in the marble cocoons were still. Others twitched, their mouths slack and drooling. A few wept. Master Genest turned his head at the sound of our arrival. Blood ran from his eyes, from his ears, and from a hole that had opened in the centre of his forehead, as if a predatory animal had gouged him with a claw. His face had turned white veined with rotten green. I wondered if he could hear us. Yet his blank eyes were trained on me. With a voice that seemed to come from the depths of the void, he whispered, ‘It is done.’

  1. Yarrick

  If Mannheim and Brenken hadn’t been witnesses, von Strab would have had me executed. And even their presence would have been insufficient if Genest had been unable to complete the call for help. But Armageddon’s silence was broken. Its plight was known. Von Strab had to factor into his political calculations the arrival of other parties. So he publicly washed his hands of me. He had his guards escort me to Seroff’s quarters.

  The lord commissar stared at me. ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Not enough greenskins out there for you? You felt the need to kill men engaged in the loyal execution of their duty?’

  I snorted. ‘Can’t you do any better than that, Dominic? I was doing what you should have done.’

  ‘You really believe that working at cross-purposes to the supreme commander of Armageddon’s defence is helpful?’

  ‘You really believe that following his lead is?’

  ‘I don’t have to answer to you.’

  ‘No. But in the end, you will be called upon to answer for your actions. Whether or not any of us survive this war.’ His new defensiveness was telling. He had to be uneasy about the conduct of the war. Seroff was no fool. I thought he was also uncomfortable about his alliance with von Strab. ‘You’re better than von Strab,’ I said. ‘We are beholden to the Emperor, not the corrupt.’

  I had given him a way out. He refused it. His features darkened with his hatred of me. ‘The disloyal have no lessons to teach about corruption.’

  I shrugged. ‘Very true.’

  He took my agreement as an insult. Which it was.

  ‘So?’ I asked. ‘What now?’

  ‘I want you out of my sight,’ he said.

  But not dead, and not in prison. He had the official authority to see to those fates, but not the moral one, and he was conscious of Mannheim, and, like von Strab, of who might be on their way to Armageddon.

  Seroff and von Strab had made their decision even before the guards had brought me to the lord commissar. They sentenced me to my original punishment. They banished me from the seat of power. And so at last I came to Hades Hive.

  I flew out on the same Valkyrie that had brought me to Volcanus. Wengraf was heading back to rejoin Teodor Helm’s command. I sat in the cockpit with him. At the first sight of the hive, I winced. My right arm throbbed again. I rubbed it, though the pain ran deeper than the muscles. My shoulder tensed as if caught in a vice.

  Wengraf noticed. ‘Commissar?’ he asked.

  I flexed my arm. The pain flared into a bright shock, jerking me to the right. Then it faded. ‘I’m all right,’ I said. ‘An old wound on an old man.’

  Through the armourglass canopy, I looked at Hades as I had not in the past. In the pursuit of my duty to the planet, as I endeavoured to bec
ome familiar with all of Armageddon, I had been to Hades before. Not for long periods, but long enough to know my way around. Like all of the world’s great hives, it was a sprawling, mountainous concatenation of manufactoria and habs, each blending into the other. From this distance, spires and chimneys were indistinguishable in the shroud of black smoke. Hades was different from the other hives because of its decline. Its governor, Lord Matthias Tritten, had the least influence of any of his peers, and thus was one of the most beholden to von Strab. Hades’ principle industries were mining and the refining of ore. Its output was measured in the millions of tonnes every year, but every year, the production decreased. One seam after another was exhausted. A massive, interconnected tapestry of mines spread from the city walls. The mixture of surface and sub-surface operations had turned the landscape outside Hades into a hollowed-out moonscape. The search for more deposits spread the mark of the hive ever further, but the last few decades had made it clear the richest reserves in that region of the continent had already been found. There was still work for millions of Hades’ citizens.

  And there was only desperation for millions more.

  That desperation, I thought, would be useful. We were all desperate now, even if not every inhabitant knew it yet.

  Hades Hive was distinct from the other hives in another way – its mountain of spires was hollow. The towers, manufactoria, chapels and winding, labyrinthine streets surrounded a structure so massive, it was the size of a small city on its own. The inner fastness of Hades was an indestructible relic of its history, of its former wealth, and of other wars, millennia past, on Armageddon. The hive had grown up around the great fortress. It was a squat, boxy monstrosity. It had been an attempt to create an entirely self-sufficient, unbreachable arcology. Ore refining, administration, worship, habitation – they were all contained within its gigantic rockcrete-and-iron walls. The fastness was a folly, suitable only to a state of war. Inside, there were more and still more barriers, a concentric retrenchment that envisioned the need to pull back and back and back, until only the most vital elements held out in one final keep. Life confined to its interior was intolerable. Even the governor’s palace was a recent addition, built up on the fastness’s roof. It was not a structure anyone inhabited or worked in by choice. For the hundreds of thousands inside, there was no choice.

  On this day, I saw it with new eyes. I thought it was beautiful.

  I looked down at the terrain, at the vast pits, the sinkholes, and the pinpricks of shafts. This was a network of hollowed out land that put the trenches of Volcanus to shame. I saw potential there too.

  Wengraf descended to a landing pad inside the east wall. A wide road and rail network led to the main gate on this side. Transport vehicles and ore trains were still making their runs. They would do so until the threat was imminent. Inside the gates, the road traffic was re-routed around the tanks and artillery of the 33rd, 97th, 110th and 146th Regiments. Helm, overall commander due to seniority, had his troops on high alert, and his defence was ready for the enemy. The road would be the most inviting approach for the orks. I pictured the tactic used at Volcanus, and imagined the furious speed the battlewagons could achieve on that pavement. Helm had his heavy armour prepped to deny Ghazghkull this entry. As we landed, I saw plenty of activity on the walls. Good signs all.

  A sergeant greeted me when I disembarked. ‘Commissar Yarrick,’ he said. ‘Colonel Helm would like to meet you.’ The soldier was an old veteran, long of arm and short of leg. His narrow face looked incongruous on his broad shoulders. He grinned as he saluted, and he kept grinning.

  ‘What’s your name, sergeant?’ I asked as he led me from the landing pad.

  ‘Lanner, commissar.’

  ‘You seem amused, Sergeant Lanner.’

  He nodded. ‘Heard some good stories. Heard you don’t put up with what that fat turd keeps shovelling our way.’

  I managed to keep a straight face. Lanner’s effrontery was astonishing. It was also bulletproof. I would be a hypocrite if I denied the accuracy of his evaluation of von Strab. I was also stunned any trooper would spout such blatant sedition to a commissar, never mind one he had just met.

  I was caught off guard.

  I liked the man immediately.

  ‘I sense you’re not one to conceal your opinions.’

  Lanner chuckled. He tapped at his copious facial scars. ‘I didn’t come by all these in the battlefield, commissar. Amazing how many people object to a fellow being frank with them.’

  ‘Amazing,’ I said dryly.

  His grin was huge now. ‘It really is.’

  The command tent was set up midway between the landing pad and the lines of tanks. Lanner pulled the flap back, announced me, carelessly saluted and sauntered away. I stepped inside to find Teodor Helm who was alone. Though younger than Brenken, Helm was old enough and not new to combat. He was wiry, of medium height, and had eyes of a grey so pale they seemed translucent. ‘I’m glad to meet you, commissar,’ he said. ‘I thought it best we had our first conference on our own.’

  ‘I agree. Let me begin with my thanks,’ I replied. ‘Those of Colonel Brenken too.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘As well as a colonel whose command has been thrown away by a fool can be.’ If Helm had sent Lanner to greet me, it was clear we were going to understand each other.

  ‘Has any of the 252nd survived?’

  ‘In Volcanus? We’ve heard nothing. We can hope. The Emperor protects.’

  ‘The Emperor protects,’ he repeated, heartfelt.

  I glanced around the tent. Its contents were minimal: a vox unit, a single chair, a table with maps of Hades and its environs. ‘May I ask why you’ve set up command here?’ There were plenty of buildings overlooking the traffic node he had turned into staging grounds.

  ‘More central,’ he said. ‘When I have to move, I expect I won’t have much time.’

  ‘Very true.’ Everything I learned confirmed Brenken’s judgement of Helm.

  Helm picked up a data-slate from the table. ‘I have orders concerning you, commissar.’

  ‘My guess is my original assignment as recruitment overseer has changed.’

  ‘It has. Somewhat. I’m instructed to assign you as political officer to whatever company will be first out to meet the orks.’

  ‘Those orders are subtle in their intent.’

  ‘Quite. I am also to keep you far from the levers of command.’

  ‘I appreciate your candour.’

  He tossed the data-slate back on the table. ‘I have no intention of following orders so idiotic.’

  ‘Do they come from General Andechs?’

  ‘Ostensibly.’

  ‘You are showing little respect for the chain of command,’ I reminded him.

  ‘As a commissar, it is not just your right, but your duty, to remove unfit officers from their position.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘By extension, and in the absence of said unfit officers, it could be argued it becomes your responsibility to set aside their unfit orders.’

  ‘So it could be argued, yes.’

  He spread his hands. ‘Then the matter is in your hands. Commissar, I have reason to doubt the validity of these orders.’

  We understood each other. ‘Tell me where things stand in Hades Hive,’ I said.

  ‘I have integrated the Hive Militia with the regiments. That has gone smoothly. But based on what you saw at Tempestora and Volcanus, are we strong enough to repel the orks?’

  ‘No.’

  His eyebrows shot up. ‘You think they will take Hades?’

  ‘They will not. We will hold. And the citizens must fight with us.’

  ‘As they did in Volcanus?’

  ‘Yes. With full regiments and more time to prepare.’ And my vow.

  Helm nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We do not
have the armoury of Volcanus.’

  ‘We’ll manage. What is your take on the governor?’

  ‘That you should meet him for yourself.’

  ‘I see. He’s back, then?’

  ‘Yes. Von Strab sent them all back to their respective hives yesterday. Governor Tritten is weak politically. The extent of the poverty here…’ He shook his head.

  ‘I know. And the underhive?’

  ‘Tritten can barely keep a lid on it. He would quarantine it if he could.’

  The situation had been bad when I had last been here. It had gone downhill since. I would find a way to use it all. I would fashion Hades into a weapon with which to smash the orks. ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I should see the governor.’

  ‘Sergeant Lanner’s squad will escort you. He’s inspecting the battlements.’

  ‘Will he rally the people?’

  Helm grimaced. ‘You should see him,’ he repeated.

  ‘I see.’ I turned to go. At the flap, I paused. ‘Colonel,’ I said, ‘Hades will not fall, because we will not fight a defensive war. We will go on the offence. This hive will be our counterattack.’

  Matthias Tritten was not where Lanner had expected to find him.

  The sergeant looked up and down the ramparts. There was no sign of the governor and his retinue. He asked the troopers stationed nearby. Tritten had left not long before, descending to the streets. They didn’t know where he’d gone, but it couldn’t have been very far.

  ‘Not like him,’ Lanner said. ‘He likes to be visible, that one.’

  ‘You’re not new to Hades,’ I guessed.

  ‘Born and bred,’ he said with rough pride. ‘Underhive rat, me. I remember Tritten’s father. Haven’t been here that much since I was tithed, but enough. Wants everybody to know he’s the great man, does our lord governor.’ He snorted. ‘When he’s out and about, you always know where he is and where he’s been.’

  So Tritten’s absence was significant. I walked to the inward edge of the rampart and looked out at the streets. They were crowded, too much so. The pedestrian traffic was interfering with the movement of military convoys. Tritten, or his proxy during his absence, should have already converted the entire hive to a war footing. I was seeing citizens attempting to continue with their lives. Already, this was a significant failure of leadership.