Rebirth

by Nick Kyme

  ‘Hold here. Fortify and defend what we have won, and send in scouts to see what lies before us,’ Elysius said.

  ‘Why would I do that when our enemy retreats?’

  Elysius tried not to sound exasperated. ‘It’s a dozen warriors, perhaps fewer.’

  ‘They are on the run, for the first time since this war began.’

  ‘We have been afforded a glimpse and know nothing of our foes’ disposition or strength. Look to the evidence of your eyes and see the peril of underestimating what is out there.’

  ‘Are you a military tactician, Chaplain, or do you in fact advise on the spiritual wellbeing of your brothers?’

  Heeding his better judgement, Elysius did not give in to pettiness.

  ‘I am a servant of the Emperor, as are you, whose solemn duty is to preserve the rituals of the Chapter and guard against false pride.’

  Drakgaard was stubborn. He bit back a sharp reply and instead answered, ‘As soon as Sergeant Kadoran arrives, we advance, and nothing shall dissuade me from that course. We have been made fools of by a dwindling warband of heretics who used the terrain to their advantage. That ends. Now.’

  It availed them nothing to be at odds now – for good or ill. Drakgaard would receive his full support.

  ‘In Vulkan’s name then,’ Elysius replied, but the words rang hollow.

  Eighteen armour kills littered the field, their shells still burning. Another seven were scattered throughout the connecting streets. Most were light vehicles, with only a few actual battle tanks amongst their number. No Renegade Astartes armour, no foul engines of the Dark Mechanicus. This was a distraction force, thrown together with the express purpose of dragging Zantho’s company deeper into the ruins. The tank commander was beginning to wonder if a real army still existed on Heletine, or if in fact they had been chasing shadows for the past weeks. Such a warren as Canticus made it difficult to know.

  Ever since they had cleared and crossed Salvation Bridge, the route had become ever more crowded with scrap and wreckage. It had taken two hours to destroy the heretic armour. Zantho had been forced to reduce much of the district to rubble in the process. Fortunately, the arrival of Kor’ad and the Guard battle tanks had made bracketing the enemy easier. It was then a simple matter of tenaciously advancing down every road and street that could accommodate a battle tank until nothing remained.

  In the end, they had pinned the last recalcitrant enemy armour in an expansive public square. The rare allowance of space did little to improve manoeuvrability, such was the overcrowding of vehicles. Victory came swiftly to the fire-born but felt almost profligate.

  ‘We should aim south, break through here,’ Redgage indicated a point on the hololith with his gloved finger where a wide road circumvented the city outskirts, ‘and then reroute east as ordered.’

  Zantho stroked his beard. It was part of the great red mane of spiked hair that framed his face which, presently, was wrinkled with consternation.

  ‘A long diversion, colonel.’

  ‘True, but faster than slogging our way through these streets where we’re at risk of being ambused. Concealed infantry should be our main concern.’

  ‘My main concern is following my commander’s orders,’ Zantho replied, looking up from the grainy map image to see the Vindicators had almost cleared the enemy wrecks with their attached dozer blades. Embarkation was imminent. ‘But you’re right,’ he conceded, looking back at Colonel Redgage. They had only lost four vehicles during the battle, and all of those to hidden demolitions teams. ‘I’ll give the order to head south.’

  ‘Right you are, sir,’ said Redgage, smoothing his grey moustaches. ‘My lord,’ he added, looking up nervously to Zantho’s left before saluting crisply and returning to his tank with his men.

  The three commanders had met in the square in the shadow of Zantho’s Predator. Redgage had come with his entourage. Zantho was alone, so too the third officer of this gathering.

  ‘You cannot bear me a grudge for following orders, brother.’ Zantho kept his eyes level, and didn’t look up. ‘Had I not acted as I did, further lives may have been lost.’

  ‘Lives were lost,’ a deep, mechanised voice replied, conveyed through a vox-emitter.

  ‘It is war. That is its currency,’ said Zantho, finally gazing up at the towering form of Venerable Kor’ad.

  ‘One which I have long accepted, since before you were even an initiate.’ The Dreadnought turned a fraction, easing his sarcophagus over the sergeant to glower through his vision slit at him.

  ‘For an ancient, you are petty, Kor’ad.’

  ‘For an ancient, I am temperate!’ roared the Dreadnought, stomping towards Zantho so he had to back away or be crushed. ‘But do not think me blind, either,’ he said more calmly. ‘I know what Drakgaard ordered you to do, as I know my own orders. He is frustrated and believes he can lose this war. To compensate he throws himself into the crucible without proper caution.’

  Only an ancient such as Kor’ad would ever openly criticise his commanding officer in this way. Such things, whilst incredibly uncommon, were not without precedent. Yet the fact of hearing it still rankled with Zantho.

  ‘Defeat is always possible. Though, I never took you for cautious, brother.’

  ‘Not for the victors. And I am mindful. There is a stark difference.’ Kor’ad paused, letting the harsh grind of servos articulate his mood. ‘If you are so certain of our captain, why are your largest war engines languishing in Escadan?’

  ‘To reinforce us. I am being prudent.’

  Zantho didn’t feel it, though, and Kor’ad was wise enough to see that.

  ‘Grind down a blade enough,’ uttered the Dreadnought, ‘and soon even the sharpest sword will lose its edge.’

  ‘Zen’de, but what has philosophy got to do with any of this?’

  ‘Our captain functions with blunted purpose.’

  ‘Then it is our duty to help restore it. I say again: what is your meaning, Kor’ad?’

  ‘Be mindful, that is all. As we speak, Ur’zan Drakgaard is dangerously close to being reckless,’ said Kor’ad, turning and stomping away.

  The last words of the ancient troubled Zantho, for he too had noticed the strain Drakgaard was under. His old wounds had made him bitter, the fact of his being sidelined to the reserve companies even more so. This was a great opportunity for him to show his mettle and, in his opinion at least, restore the Chapter’s reputation. Drakgaard had needed a war of his own; he just didn’t need this one.

  Climbing back aboard his Predator, Zantho took up position in the cupola hatch and stared out into the dark horizon. The way ahead was occluded but he felt a cold wind against his face and wondered what it might portend.

  Naeb landed with a minor ignition flare from his jump pack, burning the earth around him and searing the short grass underfoot. This part of Canticus had once been its ornamental gardens and vineyard, but the war had made it a dirty brown mess of felled trees, broken statues and fire-blackened vegetation. The grass was churned to dark earth from the tramp of booted feet, the fountains were broken or choked with chemicals. A single tree stood alone in the midst of this destruction, the fruit on its branches withering and rotting in the actinic air.

  ‘A world has lost its innocence, brother,’ Va’lin remarked as Naeb killed his turbine engines.

  ‘I’m not sure if Heletine was ever innocent, but it has certainly lost much.’

  An explosion detonated fifty metres away, turning a fallen ornamental arch into rubble but neither fire-born reacted beyond a glance.

  Redgage’s engineers were demolishing the gardens, clearing a path for the tanks to traverse unimpeded. Until they were needed elsewhere, the Wyverns had been tasked with ensuring the sappers’ safety.

  Va’lin stared into the darkness, willing the enemy to appear. Since Salvation Bridge, he had seen little in the way of combat and now the silence of that was becoming deafening. Instead of foes, though, he saw the squad widely dispersed over the expa
nsive area, patrolling in loose pairs. His mood darkened further. With the deaths of Sor’ad and Illus, they had been reduced to eight.

  ‘You saved Dersius and I,’ said Naeb softly, as if guessing Va’lin’s dark thoughts. ‘Illus died a Wyvern, fighting hard and on his feet. None of us can ask for more.’

  ‘Then why does it bother me still?’

  ‘Because they are dead, and we would wish them not to be. It’s not so hard to understand, brother.’

  ‘You have an over simple view of the world, Naeb.’

  ‘And you think too much.’ Naeb gestured to Dersius as he landed nearby and within earshot. ‘Try being more like the Themian. An anvil feels nothing.’

  Dersius did not rise to the bait as Iaptus and the rest of the squad landed a few seconds later. In the distance, a Chimera had arrived to ferry the engineers. Evidently, their work was complete.

  ‘We push north,’ Iaptus told them, ‘acting as escort for the armour. Brother Orcas will provide infiltration momentarily.’

  ‘Do we have eyes on the enemy, brother-sergeant?’ asked Va’lin.

  ‘The Black Legion? Not yet. Nothing since the bridge, but apparently Captain Drakgaard is confident we are close.’

  Above, they could all hear the heavy whip of a gunship’s turbo fans as it came in to land.

  ‘Even the skies fall quiet…’ muttered Ky’dak as the vague outline of the Thunderhawk appeared overhead.

  ‘They will be aflame soon enough,’ said Iaptus, flatly.

  Arrok ventured a question, ‘Brother-sergeant, what of the Sororitas? Have we received word of their movements?’

  Iaptus looked up at the descending gunship, which was close and right above them.

  ‘Nothing beyond their pledged support.’

  ‘I, for one, am grateful of it,’ said Xerus, the veteran having nothing but praise for the Seraphim who had fought beside them on Salvation Bridge.

  Iaptus nodded, but kept his own counsel.

  Ky’dak exchanged a glance with Va’lin, their discovery of the Sororitas scavenger in the ruins still fresh in the mind.

  ‘Tell me, brother,’ said Naeb, his words lost to the others in the down wash of heat and noise as Orcas brought the gunship down to land, ‘I neglected to ask, what did she say to you on the bridge?’

  ‘She said we were too few,’ Va’lin replied as the ruckus from the engine was diminishing.

  Everyone heard him – their silence provided the same answer.

  They were too few, and alone could not win the war.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Heletine, Solist

  In the early days of the war for Heletine, Solist had suffered in the punitive bombardments of the local militia. Its name had once meant ‘sanctuary’ in native Heletian, but had become a thing of bitter and chilling irony. For days, falsely believing it to be the heretics’ muster point, macro cannon bursts and ceaseless missile salvoes had pummelled the city into a desert of grey rock and partially irradiated dust. The desperate actions of the now-dead planetary governor achieved little except the wholesale destruction of one of Heletine’s major cities, together with its unwillingly sacrificed populace.

  Only bones inhabited Solist now.

  Picked clean by the carrion that roamed the wastes, a skeletal hand reached up out of the sand trying to grasp the sun. The clawed stanchion of a black gunship crushed its bleached fingers, its turbine engines kicking up dust in savage, twisting squalls. The embarkation ramp was descending before the ship had touched down, Angerer’s silhouette framed just inside it by the hold’s internal illumination.

  ‘Laevenius…’ said the canoness, summoning her second-in-command, and allowing the ship to land before she stepped out.

  The Sister Superior followed, twenty Celestians looming behind but waiting aboard the transport. As she walked down the ramp, Laevenius’s armoured grip tightened around the leather book, her gauntleted fingers digging in. Though to a casual glance it would appear nondescript, the book was far from ordinary. It described the identities of traitors, those believed shown to Dominica by the Emperor before she was sainted.

  It was a list of prey, of those meant for death or incarceration. In Angerer’s mind that was currently a list of one… the Order’s great shame, the black opal on her rosary chain. Many knew of her existence, but few knew of her provenance.

  A wretched creature crawled over to the canoness on its belly, emaciated by radiation poisoning. It had once been a man, a soldier judging by his tattered uniform. A sigil of Chaos marked his blighted skin, doubtless an act of desperation when the pain had become too much to bear. Many of those in Solist were afflicted thusly, a shambling and half dead host, the dead governor’s dark legacy.

  Angerer stalled the wretch’s progress with her armoured boot, and looked down at him through cold retinal lenses. All the Sisters had donned their helms. Only low-level radiation permeated the city now, and Angerer was sure their faith would protect them, but a layer of hermetically sealed adamantium and ceramite were also adjudged prudent.

  ‘The Dark Gods don’t grant succour for the weak… nor does the Throne,’ said Angerer, levelling her fusion pistol and ending the wretch’s suffering. ‘The brass compass, sister,’ she added, staring macabrely at the cauterised stump of neck where the man’s head used to be. ‘His soul will burn as do the souls of all traitors.’

  By the time she looked up again at Laevenius, the Sister Superior was holding out the compass.

  Twenty Celestians had marched from the gunship’s hold, filing out in ivory ranks, their chasubles the hue of sanctified blood. Bolters locked across their bodies, they loosely encircled their leader. Angerer had barely noticed, her attention instead on the compass and the teardrop still balanced precipitously on it. Even wearing her gauntlets, she could feel the heat of divination. It told what she believed to be true in her heart.

  ‘She is here,’ she breathed, her hand straying subconsciously to the rosary pearls and the single black opal that spoiled the perfect chain. ‘What did I tell you about belief, Sister Laevenius?’

  Whilst Angerer was establishing the proximity of their quarry, two more ships had landed on the barren wastes and were disgorging the rest of the canoness’s forces. Two further squads of Battle Sisters and a squad each of Retributors and Dominions. The latter half of the force was heavily armed, equipped with flamer and melta weaponry.

  Angerer was taking no chances, not with this prey. Not with this particular traitor. Over sixty armoured Sororitas waited silently on the sand, standing at the ready outside their transports, and it was still not enough.

  ‘Signal the rest of the Preceptory. Give them the code command, Angelicus.’

  ‘All of them, my canoness?’ asked Laevenius.

  Angerer turned sharply, her glare like a chastening fire even through the icy blue of her retinal lenses. ‘Bring everything to this city. Have them hold position at the border. Nothing must prevent us from getting off Heletine with our prisoner. Do it quickly. As soon as our troops move, the barbarian drakes will suspect they have been betrayed.’

  ‘Have they not, my canoness?’ asked Laevenius again.

  Angerer scowled, unaccustomed to being questioned by anyone, let alone her trusted right hand. ‘For good cause. Our ends justify the means – never forget that. Is your faith wavering, Sister? I thought we were of one mind and soul on this matter, its consequences and its cost…’

  ‘We are, canoness,’ Laevenius replied, lowering her head and touching the book. She remembered the scar on her face and looked up. ‘By the Emperor’s will, by Throne it shall be done.’

  Satisfied, Angerer gave the order to move. Only Laevenius and her trusted Celestians would accompany her. The rest would stay with the gunships to protect their egress. A rise up ahead of the landing zone shielded what she knew was a valley where they would find Sister Revina and redemption for the Order. She could not wait for further reinforcement. She had waited too long already.

  It was hard t
o make out at first. A hot wind blew through the valley, creating a veil of dust that occluded whatever was lurking at its basin in murky grey.

  Something was down there, Angerer was certain. And as she and her entourage drew closer, it began to resolve. First an indistinct smudge against the grey, then a roughly humanoid shape, finally a woman dressed in a ragged robe.

  She was staked down in the sand, wrists and ankles, and left to bake in the sun.

  Angerer’s wrath warred between those who had subjected her sister to this degradation and Revina herself. Of the former, there was no sign. Tracking auspex and bio-scanners revealed nothing, too fouled by latent radiation to provide an accurate reading. Trusting to caution, Angerer approached slowly and sent Laevenius with one squad of Celestians out into flanking positions that encircled the torture site.

  She eyed the ridgeline – so did Laevenius from the left flank. Nothing manifested. No surprise attack, no trap was sprung – Angerer merely got closer. As she closed, she saw the caked blood around Revina’s mouth: her cracked and bone-dry lips, the patches of exposed skin where the sun had burned her.

  It took a good deal of Angerer’s composure not to rush over and free her, to roar her defiance at the slow torture visited upon Revina. She wondered how long she had been here, if the heretics realised who and what she was. It felt like a goad, Revina trussed up like this. It felt like she was bait.

  ‘Sister…’ Angerer uttered across the vox-link, afraid to speak too loudly and disturb the silence of the desert into action. So quiet, so eerily still in spite of the eddying dust clouds and even they had begun to subside in the last few seconds.

  ‘No movement,’ answered Laevenius, knowing precisely what was going through her canoness’s mind.

  ‘Do not be fooled,’ Angerer replied, casting her gaze across the opposite ridgeline again. ‘We are not alone out here.’