Hammer and Bolter Year One

by Christian Dunn

  ‘Emperor’s teeth, it’s come to something when you mommas’ boys can’t finish off a bunch of damned half-mutant freaks.’ I shouted down the line. ‘And in front of the general! Well, I don’t care how long it takes, not one of you is slacking off for a single damn second till we’re back behind our lines. I promised you today was gonna be a cakewalk, and the man who makes a liar out of old ‘Iron Hand’ Straken, I’ll throttle with his own entrails. What…?’

  I drew to a halt, and the march stopped all around me. The constant buzz of insects and howl of jungle creatures had suddenly been joined by another noise – the faint tinkling of wind chimes.

  ‘What am I looking at here? Where the hell did this come from?’ I asked.

  Without warning, we had come to a clearing, at least half a kilometre wide. The jungle canopy opened right up, and I was dazzled by the final rays of the setting sun. The air was suddenly cool and fresh, scented with blossom. And, squinting against the light, I could make out dark, unnatural shapes: Buildings. Dark-timbered wooden huts.

  My first thought was that we’d found an enemy bolthole. But these huts were sturdy and well-kept, arranged around a larger central hall. Our enemies could never have built anything so orderly. Besides, if the taint of the Ruinous Powers had been there, I’d have damn well smelled it.

  Why, then, was my gut warning me of something rotten about this place? And why the hell didn’t I listen to it?

  As we stood gawping, a figure approached us from between the huts. A boy, barely into his teenage years – but, with the last of the blood-red light behind him, I couldn’t make out much more than that. Of course, my men reacted as they had been trained to do, raising their lasguns and taking aim, but the boy didn’t seem at all worried by the sight of thirty muzzles pointed at his heart.

  He padded closer, as the sun disappeared and the clearing was washed in the faint blue light of a swollen moon. I could make out the boy’s face now, round and gentle, his eyes bright and wide. His skin was sun-bronzed to perfection, and the moonlight made his bald head shine like a halo. He was wearing a simple white robe, ornamented by a garland of flowers.

  ‘Welcome,’ he offered.

  The boy cocked his head a little, his full lips pursed as if he found the sight of thirty bloodied vets on his doorstep somehow amusing.

  ‘Welcome to safe haven.’ He continued. ‘I am Kadence Moonglow – and all that my people have, we offer to share with you.’

  ‘So you say, kid,’ I spat back. ‘But before we break out the damned peace pipe, I got a few questions for you.’

  General Farris stepped forward with a diplomatic clearing of his throat. It was the first time I’d heard his voice all day.

  ‘What Colonel Straken means to say is that we weren’t aware of any settlement in this area.’

  ‘And seeing as how, in two months here we haven’t found a single life form that hasn’t tried to eviscerate us-’

  ‘I assure you that nobody in this village would wish harm to another being,’ interrupted Kadence. ‘We have learned to live in balance with even this harsh environment. As for your enemies… yes, they were a part of our commune once, but no longer. They have been cast out of this place.’

  Sounded like bull to my ears. But General Farris motioned to the men to lower their guns – and, with a few uncertain glances at me, they obeyed.

  Farris introduced himself, and the rest of us, to this Kadence Moonglow, and accepted his offer of hospitality.

  ‘Now hold on a minute, Sir.’ I said. ‘I told the men I’d get us back to the camp tonight. Nothing has changed. We can still—’

  Farris shook his head firmly. ‘The men are tired, Straken.’

  ‘And some of them need proper medical attention. You think they’ve got a damned hospital tent set up here?’

  Kadence interjected again. ‘We will do what we can for your wounded. We have balms and tinctures, and most importantly our faith in the healing spirits.’

  ‘Yeah’, I thought, ’cos a few herbal potions and a bit of wailing to the skies, that’s gonna sew Trooper Thorn’s damned hand right back on. But Farris wouldn’t be moved on the subject.

  ‘We’ll keep the men in better shape by letting them rest than by force-marching them overnight through that jungle.’

  I wondered if he was really talking about the men, or about himself. Farris had taken a scratch in the fighting today. His left arm was held in a makeshift sling. He’d kept up with the rest of us so far, and hadn’t whined about it – but I’d been watching him sweating and stumbling for a while now, waiting for him to drop.

  Either way, I couldn’t fault his logic – even if he hadn’t been my superior officer. So, taking my silence as a sign of assent, the general asked Kadence to lead the way forward, and ordered my men to follow. I caught Thorn’s eye as he passed me. He was still holding his bloodied hand to the stump of his left wrist.

  ‘Never mind, kid.’ I told him. ‘That hand’s looking a bit green now, anyway. Probably too late to save it. Have to make do with an augmetic. Hell, I once had my whole damned arm ripped off by a Miral land shark, you don’t hear me grizzling about that. It’s character forming.’

  Walking into that village was like stepping onto a different world. The jungle suddenly seemed a long way away, and I was surprised to see children playing on the grass between the huts. Some of them stopped to stare at us as we passed. There was excitement and wonder in their wide eyes, but not a trace of fear, although we must have presented a terrifying sight in our jungle camouflage, laden down with weapons.

  Farris dropped back, falling into step beside me.

  ‘How do they survive?’ he asked. ‘They let their children play outdoors, for the Emperor’s sake, just a few hundred metres from the monsters and the poison and the sickness out there.’ He shuddered at the thought. ‘We have to evacuate them, Straken. First thing in the morning. They aren’t safe here.’

  General Farris, you might have gathered by now, was not one of us. He hailed from Validius, a world so in-bred that eighty per cent of its population belonged to the monarchy, and didn’t they just love to let you know it. To be fair, Farris had posted himself to the front line this morning – he must have had some guts. Somehow, though, during the fighting, he’d been separated from his own regiment and ended up with ours. A scrawny, pasty-faced man, the general clearly wasn’t used to jungle conditions. He had brightened up plenty now that we had found shelter.

  Kadence led us into the spacious central hall. It was packed with more of his people, all dressed in white robes, talking and laughing and sharing out bowls of plump, ripe berries. They cleared spaces for us, on benches or on cushions, and handed us fruit, hunks of sweet-smelling bread and mugs of crystal clear water.

  Farris was in his element, shaking the hand of anyone who looked like they might be important, thanking them for their kindness, promising to repay it. I was happy to leave all the jawing to him.

  My men were approaching the villagers’ gifts with caution. I’d have stuck my boot up the backsides of any of them who hadn’t. As Catachans, though, we have good instincts about food and drink; wouldn’t last too damned long otherwise. We were soon satisfied that no one was trying to poison us.

  In fact, the fruits in particular were sweet and moist, quenching the flames in my throat. I couldn’t help but wonder why I hadn’t seen their like before on Borealis Four.

  Soon, my men were mixing with the villagers as if they’d been friends all their lives. I listened in on their conversations, heard a lot of small talk about Catachan and life in the Imperial Guard, but not so much about our hosts. They were good at deflecting questions.

  Then Farris introduced me to two village elders – white-haired, straight-backed and dignified but with the same glint of humour in their eyes that I’d seen in Kadence’s – and it seemed he had pried some information out of them, at least.

  ‘They’ve been telling me of their people’s legends,’ Farris began. ‘They believe they
came to this world in a “great sky chariot” a thousand generations ago.’

  ‘The Stellar Exodus?’

  I knew that some of the first colony ships had strayed beyond the Segmentum Solar, and so in those pre-warp days had become lost to history. It had even been suggested that one of those ships had seeded human life on Catachan.

  ‘Their ancestors were born on Holy Terra. They’re the Emperor’s people, like us.’ Farris said.

  ‘It seems we have a great deal in common, and much to talk about on the morrow.’ One of the elders spoke up. ‘For now, you and your men must sleep. We can clear this meeting hall for you. I see you have bedrolls. We can fetch more cushions and pillows if you wish.’

  ‘That would be more than acceptable.’ Farris responded. ‘Thank you.’

  As Kadence and the elders left, I grumbled something about making the men soft. Farris let out a sigh. ‘You know, your men don’t all have your… advantages, shall we say. You can push them too hard.’

  I didn’t bother to answer that. No outsider could understand the bond between me and my men. They’d have crawled through a Catachan Devil’s nest on their bare bellies if I’d asked them to. That much I knew.

  ‘All right, you milksops, that’s enough damned pampering for one day. Get out there, start laying traps around the village’s perimeter. Go easy on the mines, we’re running dry. I want toe-poppers, lashing branches, anything that’ll kick up a damn good racket. Graves, put that cushion down! Hop to it, you slackers, or do I have to do everything myself? And once you’re done, I want four volunteers to join me on first watch. McDougal, Vines, Kopachek, Greif, you’ll do.’

  It didn’t take me long to find a good sentry position, in an old tree right on the jungle line. Its star-shaped leaves gave off a eucalyptus reek that would mask my scent, and my camouflage would be more effective here than against the buildings behind me.

  I lowered myself onto my stomach along a low, stout branch, and shouldered my plasma pistol.

  I was almost invisible now. So long as I didn’t move a muscle, or make a sound. But then, I had no reason to do either.

  Something was wrong.

  It was nothing I could see, nothing I could hear. But I knew there was something. Something out there, at the edge of my senses.

  I held my breath, straining to catch the slightest sound. There was nothing. Just the night-time breeze. Without turning my head, I refocussed my gaze, through my pistol’s sights. I re-examined my surroundings through an infrared filter, but again there was nothing.

  My damned comm-bead was still dead. I couldn’t sub-vocalise a warning to the other four sentries, couldn’t shout to them without giving myself away. It didn’t matter, I told myself. They’d have sensed it, too.

  For the next fifteen minutes, I stayed frozen in place – as did my unseen opponents. A waiting game. That suited me. I could wait all night.

  Of course, I knew I wouldn’t have to.

  They made their move, at last. If I’d blinked, I’d have missed it. I knew then that these couldn’t be the same cultists we’d been fighting these past months. They were too damned good.

  But I was better.

  There was a subtle shift in the texture of the darkness, the crunch of a leaf on the ground. I had already teased a frag grenade from my webbing and thumbed the time-delay to its shortest setting.

  It plopped into the jungle grass just where the disturbance had been, and it lit up the night.

  I had hoped to hear screaming, but instead I saw shadows streaming from the impact point, just an instant ahead of the earth-shattering blast. These were lumpen, gnarled shapes that could have belonged to nothing entirely human. I squeezed off ten shots, until my pistol was hot in my hands. I couldn’t tell if I had struck true. The explosion had shot my night-vision to hell. I knew one thing, though. I had to move.

  I rolled out of the tree, hitting the ground running beneath a barrage of las-fire from the jungle. Whoever – whatever – was out there, like the cultists, they had Imperial weaponry. At least I had made them reveal themselves.

  I feigned a stumble, faltering for an instant, making myself a target. I was hoping to make the hostiles bold – and careless. A few steps forward, and they’d hit the tripwire that I knew was strung between us.

  No such luck. I heard a soft thud at my heels, and I leapt for the cover of the line of huts ahead of me. The grenade that had just landed exploded, the blast wave hitting me in midair, engulfing me in a broiling heat but buoying my flight. I was propelled much further than my legs could have carried me. I landed hard, and instinctively rolled onto my augmetic shoulder, letting it take the brunt of the impact. I heard something break inside it, and a servo sputtered and whined, but I felt no loss of function as I pushed myself up and put a charred hut between myself and my attackers.

  The sound of las-fire across the clearing told me that Kopachek had also engaged the enemy. I thought about going to his aid, but knew I had a line to hold.

  I swapped my pistol for my trusty old shotgun: primitive, in some people’s eyes, but reliable, and suited to firing from the hip. My eyes were readjusting to the dark, and I peered around the hut’s side. The jungle was still again, silent. As if nothing had happened. But that silence was a lie.

  The hostiles were still out there. Chastened, maybe; tonight, they had learned that Colonel ‘Iron Hand’ Straken was no pushover. They would be regrouping, redrawing their plans. But they hadn’t retreated. I could still feel their presence, like a stench of old bones in the air.

  They were waiting.

  A second burst of gunfire took me by surprise. This one came not from one of the other sentry posts, but from the meeting hall at the village’s centre. I hesitated for about half a second before I turned and pelted towards the sound. When I got there, the men were spilling out of the hall. They were still shrugging on jackets, tying bandanas, checking their weapons, but were already awake and alert to their surroundings, looking for a target. I grabbed the nearest of them – Levitski – and ordered him to replace me at the jungle’s edge. I sent the next to relieve Kopachek – I wanted him back here with a situation report.

  Trooper Graves was nursing a fresh wound. Snatching his hand from his temple, I saw the familiar red welt of a glancing las-beam hit.

  ‘What the hell’s been going on here?’ I shouted.

  I pushed my way into the hall, where I found the remains of my platoon in disarray – and two of them dead on the floor.

  Standing over these two, with his laspistol drawn, was General Farris – and as he turned to me with a regretful slump of his shoulders, I realised what he must have done. He had shot them. A tense silence filled the hall before Farris leapt to defend his actions: ‘I had no choice. They were lashing out, screaming, firing everywhere. This one, he came at me with his knife. He was saying crazy things, calling me a monster. I think… I think the cultists must have got to them.’

  ‘No!’ The protest came automatically to my lips. ‘No damned way!’

  It was one thing to see a comrade cut down in battle, dying for what he believed in. This… This was senseless. I felt cold inside. I felt numb.

  I felt angry.

  I remembered how Myers had fought so well that morning, laughing as he’d sunk his knife arm up to the elbow in cultist guts. I remembered how Wallenski had been so proud, last week, when the men had honoured him with an earned name. ‘Nails’, they had called him.

  ‘They were good men, my men. You had no right.’

  Farris’s eyes darkened.

  ‘Do I have to remind you, colonel, that I am the ranking officer here? You weren’t even present. You don’t know what—’

  ‘I knew them, sir. I know my men, and they were two of the best.’

  A heavy silence had fallen upon the hall. All eyes were fixed upon the general and me. Still, my words provoked a ragged, defiant cheer from the dead men’s comrades.

  ‘Either one of those soldiers would have given his last damned dro
p of blood for the Emperor.’ I continued. ‘It must have been… They must have come down with some virus. A fever. It made them see things.’

  ‘Whatever the cause of their behaviour, they were threatening us all. I had to act.’

  ‘You didn’t even know their damned names!’

  And the silence returned, almost a physical force between us.

  It was broken by a quiet voice. Kadence Moonglow had entered the hall, and walked right up to my shoulder without my being aware of him. That, as much as any of the night’s events so far, disquieted me.

  ‘The covenant has been broken,’ the boy said.

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ I rounded on him.

  ‘Blood has been shed. Now, they will not rest until they have blood in return.’

  ‘Who will not rest? The cultists?’ Farris asked.

  Kadence shook his head. ‘The jungle has bred far worse than those misguided souls. There are monsters out there. Monsters that the eye cannot see, but whose presence is felt nonetheless.’

  ‘Yeah, well, thanks for the warning,’ I said, ‘but those “monsters” of yours already tried to blow me into chunks.’

  Kadence shot me a sharp look – and, for a moment, his calm facade slipped and I caught a glimpse of something darker beneath it.

  ‘They would not have attacked you except in self-defence.’

  Then, composing himself, he continued.

  ‘We welcomed you into our village, our home, because we sensed that you were noble souls. We only prayed that, in return, you could leave your war at our doors.’

  ‘I don’t know if you’re aware of this, kid, but your monsters have this village surrounded.’ I replied.

  ‘And now they are free to enter it as they please. By sunrise, all we have built here will be ashes. No one will survive.’

  ‘In a grox’s eye!’ I spat. ‘Those things out there, whatever they are – they aren’t dealing with a bunch of tree-hugging pushovers any more. If they want this village, they’ll have to go through us to get it.’

  ‘Colonel Straken has a point.’ Farris cut in. ‘We will do everything in our power to protect you.’