THE WARMASTER

by Dan Abnett

  The falling body hit the rockcrete floor of the fabricatory with a bone-snapping thump. The rifle, a hard-round, Urdeshi-made sniper weapon, struck beside it, splintering the wooden stock.

  They scurried over. Neither doubted the shooter was dead. Nessa’s shot had taken out his spine.

  Vivvo rolled him over. He was wearing a filthy Munitorum uniform and a patched cloak. Around his throat, wet with blood, was a gold chain with an emblem. A face, made of gold, with a hand clamped across the mouth.

  The Sons of Sek.

  Criid stalked into a rubble-choked alley at the left-hand end of the fab. Her lasrifle was at her shoulder, ready to fire, and she swung slowly and carefully as she prowled forwards, hunting for movement and hiding spots.

  The rate of fire coming from above her was still steady.

  She heard movement behind her, and wheeled. Maddalena Darebeloved ran into view, gun in hand. Criid blinked. She didn’t know anything human could run that fast, or achieve that length of stride.

  ‘Go back!’ Criid hissed.

  Maddalena ignored her. A flash of red in her bright body glove, the Vervunhive lifeward ran past her, vaulted onto the top of a fuel drum and sprang onto the roof. She’d cleared about three metres in one running bound.

  Criid wanted to yell after her not to be an idiot, but shouting was just asking for trouble.

  Furiously, she ran after her, scrambling up onto the drum, and then straining hard to drag herself up onto the roof. The augmetic, transhuman bitch had done it in one leap, and made it look easy.

  Criid made the roof, and rolled into cover as soon as she got there.

  ‘Maddalena!’ she hissed. ‘Maddalena!’

  Hunched behind a ventilation cowling, she surveyed the roof. It was a multi-gabled expanse, caked in lichen. Chimney stacks rose like trees from the ridges and furrows of ragged tiles immediately around her. Beyond, the incline of the roof grew steeper, forming the higher central section of the fabricatory’s structure. This section had been planked out with flakboard and metal sheeting, presumably at some point in the past when the old tiles had decayed. The building had been abandoned at some point after that, and even the planking was loose and sagging under its own weight. Criid saw exposed rafters where whole portions had collapsed.

  Far ahead, she spotted another flash of red. Maddalena had made it as far as the main roof, and was darting like a high-wire performer along the parapet. She had to have vaulted several metres more just to get up there. She was fast, but holy gak, had she never heard of cover?

  Criid shifted position, and then dropped down again fast. A las-bolt blew the pot off the chimney stack beside her. Dust and earthenware fragments showered her. She’d been spotted, which was ironic, as she wasn’t the one leaping about in the open, wearing bright red.

  Another shot whined over her head. She grappled to get her lasrifle around, but she was crumpled in tight cover and the effort was too awkward. She let go of her rifle, and unbuckled her sidearm from the holster strapped to her chest webbing. Hunched as low as possible, she snaked her arm around the side of the chimney stack, and spat off a series of shots in the vague direction of the source of fire.

  Two more heavy rifle shots came her way. Then she heard a clattering burst of fire from a large handgun.

  Silence.

  She risked a look. There was no sign of anyone, and no more shooting. On hands and knees, she wriggled forwards as fast as she could, heading for the next clump of chimney stacks.

  Mkoll and Zhukova kept low and ran up the long incline of the roof. They reached a deep rainwater channel choked with waste, and then scaled the low ledge of the overhang and slid into cover behind a buttress. Spools of loose wire were staked along the lip of the roof, perhaps to deter roosting birds or perhaps just a relic of some previous phase of conflict. Feathers had caught on the wire, and the stakes were caked in birdlime. Mkoll worked one of the stakes free and made a gap that both of them could slither through.

  Up ahead, repeated shots were ringing from the stout belfry that had once summoned fabricatory workers to their daily shifts.

  Mkoll signed to Zhukova to move right. He went left. It was a poor and improvised way of staging a pincer, but the shooter in the belfry was clearly not going to stop firing into the yard until he ran out of munitions.

  Zhukova crawled past the rusted drums and gears of machine heads that poked clear of the roof line, ancient bulk hoists that had once conveyed product from one of the fab’s interiors to the other. She could still see Mkoll, sliding low across a section of galvanised roof plate. She had an angle on the belfry, good enough to see the muzzle flashes lighting up the oval window on its north side, but she couldn’t get a draw on the shooter. She willed him to move, to adjust to a new position. Just a moment of exposure, that was all she’d need.

  Mkoll had reached the base of the belfry on the opposite side to the shooter’s vantage point. He signed to Zhukova – sustained.

  She nodded back, adjusted her grip on her weapon, and lined up. She waited as Mkoll started to haul himself up the outside of the belfry, clawing up the old brickwork with fingers and toes. He reached the window on the opposite side to the shooter.

  Time for a distraction.

  Zhukova started to fire. She peppered the stonework around the shooter’s slot with shots, splintering the stone surround and the window’s ornate frame, and raising a billowing cloud of dust. The shooter stopped firing, and ducked back to avoid glancing injury. He was probably surprised to come under fire from such a tight angle. Zhukova fired some more, then paused to check on Mkoll.

  There was no sign of the chief scout. During her distraction fire, he must have crawled in through the other window. Zhukova tensed, and started shooting again. More distraction was needed, fast.

  She peppered the window area again. Her ammo was low.

  Mkoll slid down into the darkness of the belfry, silent. The air was close and dusty, and stank of gunsmoke. He could hear Zhukova’s suppressing fire cracking against the far side of the small tower. He squinted to adjust his eyes to the darkness after the bright daylight outside. Movement, beyond the jumble of boxes. A man crouching to get ammo clips out of a canvas satchel.

  Mkoll was about to shoot. The man was only two metres away, and hadn’t seen him.

  Mkoll hesitated. The man wasn’t the shooter. Though he couldn’t see directly, Mkoll was aware of a second man just out of sight around the corner in the alcove facing the other window. The man he could see had no rifle. He was the loader, fetching fresh clips to feed the shooter at the window. If he shot him, the other guy would react and that would lead to the sort of tight-confine firefight Mkoll considered distinctly disadvantageous.

  Mkoll slung his rifle and drew his blade. Using the darkness and the low beams as cover, he edged around the belfry dome and grabbed the loader from behind. Hand over mouth, straight silver between the third and fourth ribs. A moment of silent spasm, and the man went limp. Mkoll set him down gently.

  Zhukova’s firing had stopped. She was probably out of ammo. Mkoll heard the shooter call out.

  ‘Eshbal vuut!’ More ammo, fast!

  ‘Eshett!’ he called back. Coming!

  He picked up the heavy satchel, and moved towards the alcove. The shooter was crouching in the window slot, his back to him. He was clutching his heavy, long-build autorifle, reaching a hand back insistently for a reload.

  He started to turn. Mkoll hurled the satchel at him. The weight of it knocked the man back against the window. One-handed, Mkoll put two rounds into him with his lasgun before he could get back up.

  Mkoll picked up the shooter’s autorifle, and threw it through the window.

  ‘Clear!’ he yelled.

  Captain Mklure slithered into cover beside the cargo-8. He was clutching two drums of ammo for the .30. He was soaked with Mkteesh’s blood.

  Major Pasha grabbed one of the drums, and locked it into position on top of the assembled support weapon. Domor already had his
hands on the spade grips, and was turning it to face the cement works.

  ‘Locked!’ Pasha yelled.

  Domor opened fire. The weapon let out a chattering roar like a piece of industrial machinery. The upper floor of the cement works began to pock and stipple. Black holes like bruises or rust-spots on fruit started to appear, clouded by the haze of dust foaming off the impact area. Then the wall began to splinter and collapse. Chunks of rockcrete exploded and blew out, fracturing the upper level of the ruin.

  Drum out, Domor eased off the firing stud.

  ‘Load the other one,’ he said.

  ‘Did we get him?’ asked Pasha.

  ‘Are you joking?’ Meryn snorted. ‘Shoggy took the top off the building.’

  ‘Wait,’ Larkin called out.

  They waited, watching. The dust was billowing off the structure in the damp afternoon air.

  ‘You made him scram down a floor,’ whispered Larkin, aiming.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Domor.

  ‘I just saw him in a first floor window,’ said Larkin. His weapon fired one loud crack.

  ‘And again,’ he said, lowering his rifle.

  Criid paused. She’d just heard sustained fire from a support weapon. The Ghosts in the yard behind her had finally got something heavy up to tackle the sniper in the cement works.

  It was quiet on the roof. There’d been some firing from the west side of the building a couple of minutes before. She presumed that was Mkoll and the Verghastite. Things had gone still since then. She was high up, and the wind coming in across the city buffeted her ears. Maybe they’d dealt with them all, or driven them off.

  She heard a sudden crack. A rifle shot. Then a quick burst from an automatic handgun. Another louder, single shot.

  Silence.

  A figure broke cover on the roof ridge ahead of her. A man in filthy combat fatigues, lugging a scoped long gun. He was trying to scramble down her side. Hastily, she whipped up her lasgun and fired, blowing out roof tiles on the ridge to his left.

  He flinched and spotted her, swinging his rifle up to fire. He got off one round that missed her cheek by a finger’s length. Criid put three rounds through his upper body. He jerked a hammer-blow shock with each one, then pitched sideways. His limp body, almost spread-eagled, slid down the incline of the roof towards her, and rolled into a heap at the foot.

  Her rifle up to her shoulder and aiming, Criid hurried forwards. The shooter was dead. No need to even check. Were there any more?

  She went around the edge of the slope via a parapet onto a stretch of flat roof beyond. The space was jumbled with abandoned extractor vents, all rusting and pitted, and stacks of broken window frames lined up against the low lip of the roof.

  No one in sight. She decided to circle back and find Mkoll and Vivvo.

  She heard a sound. A chip of glass tinkling as it dislodged and fell.

  She looked back at the stacks of window frames. She saw the foot sticking out.

  She ran to it.

  Maddalena Darebeloved lay on her back in the pile of frames. She’d crushed and shattered them. There were fragments of glass everywhere. Her weapon was still in her hand, but it was locked out and empty. Her face was as red as her bodysuit, glazed with blood that also matted her hair. She’d been hit twice by long gun fire. The first wound was to her hip, and it was cripplingly nasty, but probably not lethal. The second, to her head, was a kill shot.

  Her eyes were still wide open. Droplets of blood clung to her eyelashes.

  ‘Oh, feth,’ Criid murmured.

  Maddalena blinked.

  Criid scrambled down beside her, ignoring the pain as glass chips dug into her knees and shins.

  ‘Hold still! Hold still!’ she said. ‘I’ll get a medic!’ How was the woman still alive with a wound like that?

  Maddalena was staring at the sky. She let out a sigh or a moan that seemed to empty her lungs.

  ‘I’ll get a medic!’ Criid told her, fumbling in her pack for a dressing or anything she could pack the wound with.

  ‘Criid–’ Maddalena said. Her voice was tiny, her lips barely moving. It was almost just a shallow breath.

  ‘I’ll get a medic,’ Criid reassured her.

  ‘Look after–’

  ‘What?’ Criid bent to hear, her ear to Maddalena’s lips. Blood bubbled as the lifeward spoke.

  ‘Look after…’ Maddalena repeated. ‘You have children. You know. You know how. You–’

  ‘Stop talking.’

  ‘Felyx. Please look–’

  Her voice was almost gone.

  ‘Stay with me!’ Criid said, trying to get the dressing packed across the head wound.

  ‘You have children. Don’t let her–’

  ‘Who? Do you mean Yoncy? What about Yoncy?’

  ‘Promise me you’ll look after Felyx. Protect Felyx.’

  ‘What? Stay with me!’

  ‘Promise me.’

  ‘I promise.’

  Maddalena blinked again.

  ‘Good, then,’ she said. And was gone.

  FIFTEEN: STAFF

  Gaunt followed Biota through the halls of the Urdeshic Palace. The tactician seemed little inclined to speak further.

  There were guards posted at every corner and doorway: Urdeshi in full colours, Narmenians with chrome breastplates and power staves, Keyzon siege-men in heavy armour. The fortress was pale stone and draughty. Footsteps echoed, and the wind murmured in the empty halls. Walls had been stripped of paintings, and floors of carpets. Rush matting and thermal-path runners had been laid down to line thoroughfares. The old galvanic lighting had been removed and replaced with lumen globes.

  Biota swept down a long, curved flight of stone steps, and threw open the doors of a long undercroft with a ribbed stone roof. The undercroft was full of men, standing in informal huddles, talking. They all looked around and glared as the doors opened.

  Biota didn’t break stride, walking the length of the chamber towards the double doors at the far end without giving the men a second glance.

  Gaunt followed him. He was aware of the eyes on him. The men, in a wide variety of Astra Militarum uniforms that generally featured long dark storm coats or cloaks, watched him as he walked past. There were a hundred or more, and not a single one of them below the rank of general or field commander. By a considerable margin, Gaunt was the lowest ranking person in the room.

  Biota reached the end doors. Made of weighty metal, of ornate design, they were decorated with etched steel and elaborate gilt fixtures. Gaunt reflected that they were probably one of the fortress’ original features, ancient doors that had felt the knock of kings, and seen the passing of dynast chieftains and sector lords. It was better, he felt, to reflect on that notion than on the thought of the combined authority of the eyes watching him fiercely.

  Biota knocked once, then opened the left-hand door. Gaunt smelt the smoke of lho-sticks and cigars. He entered as Biota beckoned him, and then realised that Biota had shut the door behind him without following.

  The chamber was large, and draped in wall-hangings and battle standards, some fraying with age and wear. A draught was coming from somewhere, fluttering the naked flames of torches set in black metal tripods around the circumference of the room. In the dancing glow, Gaunt could see the inscriptions on the wall, proclaiming this chamber to be the war room of the Collegia Bellum Urdeshi.

  The floors were a gloss black stone that contrasted with the paler stone of the rest of the old fortress. They were covered in lists, lists etched in close-packed lines and then infilled with hammered gold wire. Legends of battle, military campaigns, rolls of honour.

  There was a vast semicircular table in the centre of the room, its straight edge facing him and the door. The table was wooden, and looked as if it was a half-section of a single tree trunk, lacquered and varnished to a deep gleaming brown. A cluster of lumen globes hovered over it. Above them, in a ring around the table space, twenty small cyberskulls floated in position, their eyes glowin
g green, their sculpted silver faces mumbling and chattering quietly.

  Thirty people sat at the table around the curved side. They were all staring at him. A thirty-first seat stood, vacant, at the centre of them.

  Gaunt recognised them all. Their ranks and power, at least. Some he knew by pict and file reports, some from commissioned paintings. Some he knew personally. To the left, Grizmund, his old ally from Verghast, now a full lord general by the braid on his collar and sleeves. Grizmund nodded a curt greeting to Gaunt.

  ‘Step forward, Bram,’ said Van Voytz, with a casual gesture. He had a cigar clenched in the fist that beckoned, and the smoke rose in a lazy yellow haze through the lumen glow, reminding Gaunt of the creep of toxin gas on battlefields. Van Voytz was sitting to the left of the vacant chair.

  Gaunt stepped forwards, facing the straight edge of the table. He took off his cap, tucked it under his arm, and made the sign of the aquila.

  ‘Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt of the Tanith First, returned to us,’ said Van Voytz.

  A murmur ran around the table.

  ‘The Emperor protects,’ said Lord Militant Cybon. ‘I am heartened to see your safe delivery, Gaunt.’

  Gaunt glanced at the massive, augmeticised warlord. Cybon’s haggard face, braced with bionic artifice, was deadpan. Torch light glinted off the jet carrion-bird emblems at his throat.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Gaunt said.

  ‘It’s been a while,’ said Lord General Bulledin, broad and grey-bearded. ‘A while indeed. Monthax, was it?’

  ‘Just prior to Hagia, I believe, lord.’

  ‘Ah, Hagia,’ said Bulledin with a dark chuckle. The chuckle was echoed by others at the table.

  ‘Things work out for the best, in the end,’ said another lord general further around the semicircle. Bulledin glanced his way.

  ‘You’re living testament to that, my friend,’ he said archly.

  The man he was speaking to simpered some retort as if it were all barrack room banter. Gaunt glanced his way. He saw that the man was Lugo. He stiffened. Lugo looked older, much older, than he had the last time Gaunt had seen him, as if age had sandblasted him. He wore the rich brocade of a lord militant general, perhaps the most showy of the various uniforms in the room. A lord general again, Gaunt thought. Times have moved on.