The Lost and the Damned

by Guy Haley

  ‘That attitude explains your lack of female company. She’s not “my woman”. I barely know her.’

  ‘I think you do,’ said Runnecan slyly. ‘I think you know her much better than you’re saying.’

  Doromek grunted. ‘What can I say? I lose my heart to pretty faces. That’s as far as it goes. I know her about as well as you do.’

  ‘What did you think of the primarch?’ asked Katsuhiro, trying to find something positive in the day.

  Doromek shrugged. ‘How did he make you feel?’

  It annoyed Katsuhiro that the question was turned around on him, but he answered anyway. ‘Joy, awe.’

  They headed down the slope of the crater. Filthy water puddled the bottom. As they skirted it, Doromek glanced back.

  ‘That’s not all is it? Come on now, we’re all comrades here. Be honest.’

  ‘I feel… sad,’ said Katsuhiro uncomfortably. ‘Hollow.’

  ‘Insignificant?’

  Katsuhiro nodded. They walked into the network of trenches between lines two and one. Large sections of it were collapsed and abandoned.

  ‘They do that. Them and their sons. I ask myself why the Emperor created them,’ Doromek said. Myz was well ahead, and he spoke more freely when she wasn’t listening in. ‘He always said they were to protect us, and that men would take over when they were done. But why make something so powerful, so beyond humanity?’

  ‘Oooh, that’s treason that,’ said Runnecan.

  ‘Shut it, you,’ said Doromek.

  ‘He’s right, Runnecan,’ said Katsuhiro. ‘I don’t know what to think any more. I felt insignificant when I saw Sanguinius.’ He fell quiet for a few paces. ‘This is their war,’ he said quickly. ‘We’re just in the way.’

  Doromek nodded. ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  The aegis thrummed painfully overhead. A shell pierced the energy membrane and dived murderously for the ground, scattering troops with a terrifying howl. It bored into the mud and stone a few metres ahead of the first line and detonated, lofting a section of the outwork ramparts upwards with a searing flash. Katsuhiro and the others hit the ground the instant before it struck. He kept his hands over his head as debris pattered everywhere.

  They got up. Men were screaming. New corpses waited to be carted off by servitor orderlies to the funeral pits. Katsuhiro looked on helplessly at a screaming man clutching the ragged stumps of his legs. There was nothing he could do. Doromek was already walking on. The others followed. The screaming had stopped before they’d gone a hundred metres more.

  Myz was over by a small, isolated bunker at the end of its own run of trench.

  ‘Get a move on!’ she shouted.

  ‘I thought this was your idea,’ said Katsuhiro.

  ‘It was,’ said Doromek. ‘Truly.’

  ‘I thought you said she wasn’t your woman,’ Runnecan said unpleasantly.

  ‘I told you, she’s not,’ said Doromek, and jumped into the trench.

  A small plaque over an armoured door proclaimed the bunker Nexus Zero-One-Five. Myz did something to open the lock, and the four of them descended into the dark under the battlefield.

  A short spiral staircase brought them out into a tunnel just wide enough for two men to walk abreast. Cabling hung in long sweeps from loops set into the ceiling. The tunnel was made of precast ferrocrete sections, but if it had been laid straight, it no longer was. Deformation of the battlefield by the bombardment pushed the tunnel out of true, in some places forcing the segments apart and allowing water to seep in. As a result, a stream of dirty water, ankle-deep and polluted with bodily fluids, ran along the bottom, collecting into deeper pools where the tunnel sagged. The tunnel shook every now and then when a shell or energy beam made it through the aegis. The ground transmitted the vibrations well, and down there, without other distractions to the senses, hits on the earth seemed more frequent than they had above.

  Doromek consulted a map. Myz paid particular attention to it, then pointed off down the tunnel. The pair of them disappeared around a kink in the line. Katsuhiro made to follow them, but was stopped by a grubby hand.

  ‘Did you see that?’ said Runnecan. ‘She had a cypher wand.’

  ‘So what?’ said Katsuhiro grumpily. His bones ached with his fever and the rads. He welcomed the quiet under the battlefield. He wanted to lie down. Standing still made the aching worse.

  ‘Where did she get it from?’ said Runnecan.

  ‘I don’t know – Jainan?’

  ‘Then why didn’t he give it to Doromek?’

  ‘He’s not thinking clearly, he’s sick.’

  Runnecan gave a smile partway between sympathetic and patronising. ‘Listen, I know you don’t like me very much. You think I’m underhive scum, and I am. Because of that, I can see something odd is happening here. Those two know each other, trust me. There’s something going on here. I–’

  Footsteps splashed back towards them.

  ‘Come on. Stop hanging back. We’ll need your guns if there are infiltrators down here,’ said Doromek.

  ‘I bet you will,’ muttered Runnecan.

  ‘Coming,’ said Katsuhiro. ‘Just catching our breath, that’s all.’

  They followed the tunnels as best they could. A little way beyond the kink was a crossroads. The western line went half a kilometre towards the walls before terminating in another staircase leading back to the surface. The northern line had taken a direct hit, and was open to the sky. A surprised sentry posted to keep soldiers from hiding down there challenged them. Doromek told them of their business and they quizzed him as to the state of the tunnel beyond.

  ‘All gone in,’ he said. He had a nigh-impenetrable accent. ‘All pounded flat, far as the Helios Gate.’

  Doromek thanked him.

  ‘Back this way, lads,’ he said.

  Myz said nothing.

  Back at the crossroads they turned east, away from the wall.

  Katsuhiro couldn’t decide what the tunnels were for. They were too small to move many troops or munitions, or to shelter men from the bombs. They could have been escape routes, he supposed. He asked Doromek what he thought, but the veteran muttered something he didn’t catch.

  ‘Lines for power, for water,’ Runnecan said, pointing to the bundles of cables hanging down. ‘And yes, probably so the officers can run away, and not die with the rest of us.’

  Neither answer satisfied Katsuhiro, but no other was forthcoming.

  Eventually they arrived at a wall in the tunnel. The power lines disappeared through a plasteel plate stencilled with a large numeral sixteen.

  Doromek shook his head. ‘Nothing the enemy can do with these,’ he said. ‘Too small, too short, too fragmented. I declare myself satisfied.’

  He rolled up his map. ‘Come on, back to our posts. Our little excursion is over.’

  It took little time to retrace their steps. As they reached the bottom of the iron stair, Katsuhiro paused.

  ‘Something’s changed.’

  ‘Shh!’ Doromek had his head cocked to one side.

  ‘I tell you, something’s changed!’ said Katsuhiro.

  ‘It’s the shells,’ said Doromek.

  The noise of the bombardment was so ubiquitous that it took a moment for Katsuhiro to register they had stopped. The tunnel wasn’t shaking.

  ‘Shhh! Do you hear that?’

  ‘What? What do you mean? I hear nothing,’ said Runnecan.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘The bombardment. It has really stopped? Oh thank the Emperor!’ Katsuhiro forgot his aches, and forced his way up the stairs. Runnecan was right behind him, and they hurried through the door together.

  Outside the sky had ceased to burn. Rolling ash clouds filled the air. Although the Palace guns had not relented flinging their cannonade towards the heavens, without the shelling from o
rbit the battlefield felt quiet. Katsuhiro’s ears rang with the lack of noise.

  All down the line cheers fluttered from lips pale with tiredness.

  ‘They’ve stopped!’ said Katsuhiro, letting his lasrifle dangle from its straps so he could grasp Runnecan’s skinny arms. The hiver smiled back at him.

  ‘They have!’

  Myz pushed past, eyes on the heavens. Doromek shook his head pointedly.

  ‘I’d stop that if I were you,’ he said.

  ‘But it’s stopped!’ said Katsuhiro. Excited chatter rose from the soldiers. More and more were looking upwards. Only the veterans, few in number, remained stern and watchful. That should have informed Katsuhiro something was about to happen, but hope outdoes sense in every contest.

  ‘They’ve stopped bombing, because they’re coming at us again.’ Doromek put his face between Runnecan’s and Katsuhiro’s.

  ‘So?’ said Runnecan. ‘We beat ’em back half a dozen times! Let them come.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ said Doromek with a cruel smile. ‘If they’re not ­firing, it’s because they don’t want to hit their own troops. They’ve not minded about that before, have they? Stand ready, boys. They’re going to have another go, and I don’t think they’ll be sending cannon fodder this time.’

  Ride of the ordu

  Information

  Siege work

  Palace outworks, Daylight Wall section 16, 7th of Quartus

  Sanguinius was still outside the wall when the bombardment ceased.

  The Blood Angels recognised what this meant before their helms rang with urgent communications.

  ‘Legionary spearhead inbound across all sectors,’ Azkaellon relayed. ‘Father, you must retire behind the walls.’ He looked upwards. As yet, no drop pods pierced the ash clouds.

  ‘What example will that set to our brave defenders?’ said Sanguinius distractedly. His attention was on the wall, not on the void. He was so intent on the stretch between the Helios Gate and the Dawn Tower that several of his men followed his gaze to see what so fascinated him.

  ‘My lord…’ Azkaellon began. He waved forwards the Sanguinary Guard to shield the primarch.

  ‘We remain. My brother will need me,’ Sanguinius said, his voice still distant.

  Azkaellon looked at Raldoron.

  ‘What do you foresee, father?’ Raldoron asked quietly.

  ‘A need for assistance. The White Scars come.’

  The scream of jets cut through the boom and thwack of the Palace defences, high and pure, an orchestra of a thousand engines: Land Speeders, jetbikes, gunships and attack craft. Over a narrow frontage of the defences, between two lesser towers to the south, a storm of white shapes dropped precipitously off the wall, then raced over the outworks towards the siege camp facing the Helios Gate. As soon as the threat registered, guns on the contravallation began firing again. Though their first volleys smacked harmlessly into the aegis, the White Scars were heading courageously into a solid enemy barrage.

  Sanguinius smiled as his brother roared by on an oversized jet­cycle and tilted stubby wings in salute. Mortals ducked, so close to the ground were the White Scars flying. Once they were past the final line, they flew lower still, their contra-grav sending up sprays of debris and their plasma jets heating the air into a dancing shimmer. On and on the stream of attackers went, a thousand warriors in white, all mounted, all shouting melodic Chogorian war cries. At the edge of the aegis they split into multiple flights, hugging the ground, dodging between the wrecks of ships and armoured vehicles from earlier days of the fighting. Starbursts of shrapnel detonated among them, swift lasers slashed out, unseating some of the ordu, but the mass flew on, accelerating towards the enemy line until they were jinking blurs. The kilometres between besiegers and besieged were covered swiftly, and they were soon in range, firing their guns, the gunships pulling up to draw the enemy’s attention, loop around and attack targets of priority. One exploded under a withering hail of hard rounds. A few moments later, the siege line shields buckled under massed fire, and soon after that the first enemy cannon died.

  Sanguinius watched transfixed.

  ‘He fights with such elegance,’ the Angel said.

  ‘He was ordered not to attack?’ asked Raldoron.

  ‘He is the Khan of the ordu of the White Scars Legion, the Warhawk of Chogoris,’ said Sanguinius. ‘One might as well attempt to chain the wind.’

  ‘The enemy will be with us soon,’ said Raldoron. ‘What are your orders, father?’

  Azkaellon consulted with distant command nexuses.

  ‘My lord, we must return within the walls. The Death Guard are arriving in force. A third of their Legion is bound for the Palace battle sphere alone.’

  Sanguinius looked skywards calmly.

  ‘Bring me my helm and my weapons. Retire our colours behind the walls. We fight.’

  ‘You are at risk!’ Azkaellon said fiercely.

  Sanguinius responded with the disturbing mantra his sons had heard all too often of late. ‘I do not die today,’ he said, ‘and if I do not aid my brother on his return, he will. I have seen it. My sword, my spear! Man the ramparts alongside these brave warriors of the Imperium.’

  His helm was brought and Sanguinius locked it into place.

  ‘It is time at last for the Ninth Legion to fight.’

  Grand Borealis Strategium, 7th of Quartus

  ‘My lord, the Death Guard drop assault will be on the ground within five minutes.’ The officer stood to attention, not daring to meet Lord Dorn’s eyes. ‘Here is a cartograph of their projected landing zone. The larger part is divided into seven groups bound for the Palace, but there are numerous smaller detachments headed for locations all over Terra.’ A cartolithic map blinked on close to Dorn’s observational pulpit.

  Dorn knew all the map had to tell. He guessed the enemy’s intentions well in advance, and read the actualities of their attack, seeing them in the dance of numbers streaming through the hololiths before the strategium’s machines or his subordinates could collate them.

  ‘Keep monitoring. Notify me of anything out of the ordinary. Compare projections with the developing situation. Miss nothing!’

  The officer swallowed.

  ‘My lord, there is more. We have large numbers of loyal light grav-attack craft departing the Palace, sector fifteen and sixteen, around the Helios Gate.’

  ‘What?’ Dorn’s stone-hard face turned suddenly to look at the officer.

  ‘It is the White Scars, my lord. They are making a sally.’

  ‘Where is the Khan?’

  ‘He is leading them. I am sorry, my lord, we had no warning, and have made all attempts to urge him back but–’

  Dorn silenced him with a gesture. ‘Strategic overlay, Daylight Wall, central quadrant,’ he commanded. An overhead representation blinked into view in the strategium shaft.

  ‘My lord!’ another officer shouted. ‘More White Scars battle groups are departing the Palace, sections 1,004, 320, 87 and 2,400.’

  Dorn summoned more cartographs.

  ‘He’s going for the siege camps. Damn his impetuousness. Aerial command!’ he barked. ‘Get our fighters into the air now. Split six squadrons off from interception missions to cover all White Scars fall-back corridors, but concentrate efforts on sectors 15 to 16. Prepare to aid my brother’s retreat – if he plays his usual game he will strike hard and make for the Palace. Ensure he returns intact.’

  ‘My lord, if he doesn’t?’

  ‘Then he is on his own,’ growled Dorn. Alarms bleeped from numerous stations in the Borealis Strategium. ‘By the Emperor, get those fighters up!’

  Palace outworks, Daylight Wall section 16, 7th of Quartus

  Jaghatai Khan’s jetbike surged under him with a leonine growl as he accelerated out past the contravallation. At the head of a hundred jetbikes, he burned out across the
broken lands beyond, and swung back on another attack run. The defences were well planned, with outwards ramparts against the possibility of relief forces coming to the Palace’s aid, and although the rearward guns were fewer in number than those facing the Palace, they mustered a considerable firestorm against the White Scars.

  The Khan rode with three brotherhoods. They crowded the air, their jinking paths taking them so close to one another he could hear the snapping of pennants over the battle’s roar. He took in a massive amount of information from the battlefield; he did not possess Sanguinius’ ability to see the future, but his mental powers lent him near-preternatural reflexes. A slight movement on the parapet was enough warning for him to swing his jetbike a few degrees, avoiding the lascannon aimed at him.

  His sons, though skilled, were not as gifted as he. Many were blasted from the sky. Some died in flight, their mounts consumed with fire, their armour shattered. The lucky ones tumbled from smoking saddles, rolling on the shattered ground with a born horseman’s grace to come up firing. Some dozens were forming up in ad hoc squads to continue the fight on foot.

  An eye-blink later the Khan was back over the enemy siege line. The shields protecting the camp were not as sophisticated as those making up the Palace aegis, and the light vehicles slipped through them with little more than a flurry of sparks breaking over their prows. The Khan banked hard down the trench, and sped along directly above the foe. Hundreds of Dark Mechanicum tech thralls turned their weapons around, too late, too slow. Rotary cannons in the nose of the Khan’s jetbike whined up to firing speed and sent twin impact lines down ahead of him, shredding metal and flesh to ruin. He drew his tulwar, keyed on the power field and, with a kick on the control pedals, sent his jetbike arrowing down with a scream of overtaxed engines.

  ‘For the Emperor!’ he roared. ‘For Unity, for the Imperium!’

  Such was his speed that he could have wielded a switch of wood and it would have cleaved his enemy down. When the tulwar struck the enemy, they exploded in showers of oily blood.

  ‘Onwards, my ordu! Onwards!’

  Dozens of jetbikes followed him, the bolters mounted on their fairings spitting death. Mass-reactives pulverised the foe’s servants, leaving them to hang as bloody shreds on the guns they operated. Land Speeders dipped from the sky, targeting weapons emplacements, turning them to slag with roaring fusion beams. Living beings hit directly by the terrible weapons were vaporised. Those only clipped suffered horrific deaths as the vapour within their cells was atomised, and their organs exploded with sufficient force to rupture their plasteel casings.