THE WARMASTER

by Dan Abnett

  He looked at Blenner.

  ‘Right?’ he asked firmly.

  ‘Meryn, I–’

  ‘We’re in this together, Blenner. You and me. It’s a simple, sad tale, and our stories will match. All right?’

  Blenner nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said Meryn. ‘Now let’s find a fething corpsman.’

  TWENTY-TWO: THE TULKAR BATTERIES

  The sea was close, less than half a mile away, but all Rawne could smell was the rank promethium smoke blowing in from the south. Vast banks of black smoke were making the night air opaque, as though a shroud lay over the city. Ten kilometres south of his position, a zone of mills and manufactories along the edge of the Northern Dynastic Claves became an inferno. The horizon was a wall of leaping orange light that back-lit the buildings nearby. There was a steady thump of artillery and armour main-guns, and every now and then a brighter flash lit up the flame belt, casting sparks and lancing spears of fire high into the darkness.

  The Ghosts were waiting, silent. Rawne had eighteen of the regiment’s twenty companies with him, a complement of over five thousand Guardsmen. The Tanith First had advanced south from K700, moving fast, and had entered the Millgate quarter of the city under cover of darkness and rain. There, they’d ditched their transports and hefted the heavy weapons and munitions by hand.

  The area was deserted, and the Ghosts companies had fanned out across a half-mile front through empty streets, advancing fire-team by fire-team down adjacent blocks. Rawne knew they were tired from the fast deploy, but he kept the pace up and maintained strict noise discipline. The Ghosts had melted into the zone, pouring down the dark streets, one company flanking the next. The only sounds had been the quiet hurrying of feet.

  At a vox-tap from Rawne, the regiment had halted in the neighbourhood of Corres Square, a few streets short of the batteries. Rawne knew the five thousand ready Guardsmen were in the vicinity, but they were so quiet and they’d hugged into the shadows so well, he could barely see any of them.

  Marksmen from all companies had drawn in around the southern edge of the square. They’d fitted night scopes, so they had the best eyes. Rawne heard a tiny tap, barely louder than the rain pattering on the rockcrete. His microbead.

  ‘Rawne,’ he whispered.

  ‘Larkin,’ the response came. ‘They’re coming back.’

  Rawne waited for the scouts to reappear. Mkoll was suddenly at his elbow.

  ‘Hit me,’ Rawne whispered.

  ‘The batteries are manned,’ Mkoll replied quietly. ‘But the main guns aren’t firing.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Waiting for a clear target is my guess,’ said Mkoll. ‘They won’t risk depletion. There’s a brigade of Helixid dug in to the east of the batteries.’

  Mkoll flipped out his lumen stick, cupped his hand around the blade of light, and showed Rawne the relative positions on the chart. ‘The avenue here, to the west of the batteries, that looks wide open.’

  ‘Between the batteries and the sea?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Maritime vessels, industrial units. They’re moored together in a large block from the harbour side all the way down the coast. I think they’re junked. Decommissioned. They effectively extend the land about half a mile from the shore.’

  ‘Enemy units?’

  ‘We spotted a few at a distance. And there are dead along the avenue, so the batteries have repulsed at least one assault. I think another rush is imminent.’

  ‘Gut feeling?’ asked Rawne.

  Mkoll nodded. Mkoll’s gut feeling was good enough for Rawne.

  ‘We’ll advance and stand ready to hold the avenue west of the batteries,’ Mkoll said. He looked at Oysten.

  ‘Get the word to the company leaders.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Rawne glanced back at Mkoll.

  ‘I don’t want to risk open comms. Can you get runners to the batteries and the Helixid, and inform them we’re coming in alongside them to plug the hole?’

  Mkoll nodded.

  There was another furious ripple of distant artillery, then it abruptly stopped.

  ‘Move,’ said Rawne. ‘Here they come.’

  The Tulkar Batteries were a cluster of heavy, stone gun emplacements raised on a steep rockcrete pier overlooking a broad esplanade. Their gun slots, like the slit visors of ancient war-helms, were angled to cover the bay, and Rawne presumed they had once been sea forts for coastal defence. But they had enough traverse room to cover the shorefront and the esplanade, and defend against any ground attack that came from the south west along the coastal route.

  Though the Ghosts were on the edge of the Great Bay, the sea was invisible, merely a concept. The rolling banks of smoke had closed down any sense of space or distance, and choked out the view over the water. What Rawne could see, beyond the rockcrete line of the esplanade, was a rusty mass that seemed like a continuation of the shoreline. This was the junk Mkoll had described.

  In better days, the city, like much of Urdesh, had employed fleets of mechanised harvester barges and agriboats to gather and process the weed growth of the shallow inshore seas as a food staple. War, Urdesh’s long and miserable history of conflict, had brought that industry to a halt. The huge agriboats had been moored along the bayside and abandoned. The machines were big, crude mechanical processors, some painted red, some green, some yellow, all corroded and decaying, their paintwork scabbing and flaking. They had been moored wharf-side, and around the jetties of the food mills and processing plants that ran along the seawall on the bay side of the avenue. The long, rusting, rotting line of them extended as far as Rawne could see, right down to the coast, hundreds if not thousands of half-sunk barges, chained five or six deep in places. It was a graveyard of maritime industry. Rawne could smell the festering sumps of the old boats, the pungent reek of decomposed weed, the tarry, stagnant stench of the mud and in-water ooze the agriboats sat in. These were the first scents strong enough to overpower the stink of smoke.

  The esplanade, wide and well maintained, was also well lit by the flame-light of the distant mills. The horizon, more clearly visible now, burned like a hellscape. Rawne could see the black outlines of mills as the fires gutted them.

  In half-cover, he stared at the open road. The obvious route. Fast-paced armour could flood along it in a matter of minutes. There was little cover, but if the enemy had enough mass in its assault that would hardly matter. The sea road was a direct artery into the southern quarters of Eltath. If the Archenemy opened and held that, they’d have their bridge into the city.

  Via Oysten, he issued quick orders to Kolosim, Vivvo, Elam and Chiria. They scurried their companies forwards, heads down, and set up a block across the road under the shoulder of the batteries. Old transports and cargo-carriers were parked on the loading ramps of the mills along the sea wall, and the Ghosts began to roll them out to form a barricade. Rawne heard glass smash as Guardsmen punched out windows to enter the cabs and disengage the brakes. Fire-teams worked together, straining, to push the vehicles out onto the road and lug prom drums and cargo pallets to the makeshift line. He moved his own company, along with A and C, into the narrow streets under the batteries on the south side of the avenue. This was another commercial zone, an extension of the Millgate quarter formed of narrow streets and packing plants. Curtains and rugs had been strung between buildings to deter snipers.

  Rawne kept a steady eye on the dispersal. This was his game, and he wasn’t about to feth it up. Oysten was almost glued to his side, passing quick reports from the company leaders. The tension in the air was as heavy as the smoke, and there was almost no sound except the thumps and quick exchanges from the teams forming the barricade. The Ghosts seemed to be as efficient as ever. That was a small miracle. They were down two commissars, three if you counted Blenner, which Rawne never did. With Kolea, Baskevyl and Domor missing, Daur off at the palace with Gaunt, and Raglon still away in the infirmary, five companies were operatin
g under the commands of their seconds or adjutants: Caober, Fapes, Chiria, Vivvo and Mkdask respectively. It was Tona Criid’s first time in combat at the head of A Company. That felt like a lot of new faces to Rawne, a lot of Ghosts who had proven themselves as good soldiers but had yet to go through the stress test of full field command.

  That applied to him too, he reminded himself. He’d commanded the Ghosts, by order or necessity, many times, but this was different. He was named command now, Colonel fething Rawne. The reins had been handed to him, and he had a sick feeling he would never pass them back again.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Ludd whispered to him.

  ‘If I had armour, I’d drive up the road,’ Rawne replied quietly. ‘Do it with enough confidence, and you’d get momentum. Break through, and circle the batteries from behind.’

  He glanced at Criid, Ludd and Caober.

  ‘But if I was using the Ghosts,’ he said, ‘I’d come up through this district, off the main road. Push infantry up into Millgate. You could get a lot of men a long way in before you were seen.’

  ‘And if you had both?’ asked Criid.

  Rawne smiled.

  ‘They have both, captain,’ he said.

  ‘So… snipers and flamers?’ asked Caober.

  ‘Yes. Spread them out. Cover the corners here. All cross streets. If infantry’s coming this way, I want to know about it, and I want it locked out. Oysten?

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Signal up J and L Companies. Tell them to move in behind us and add a little weight.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Wes Maggs came running up.

  ‘Word from Mkoll, sir,’ he said. ‘The battery garrison and the Helixid are aware of our deployment. The Urdeshi commander of the batteries sends his compliments and invites us to enjoy the show.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  Maggs shrugged.

  ‘The batteries have the road locked tight. We are apparently to expect a demonstration of Urdeshi artillery at its finest.’

  Rawne glanced at the massive batteries that loomed behind them. He could hear the distant whine of munition hoists and loading mechanisms. Artillery was a principal weapon of ground warfare, and could be decisive. But for all its might, it was cumbersome and unwieldy. If the tide of a fight moved against it, artillery could be found wanting. It lacked the agility to compensate fast and counter-respond. It was a superb instrument of destruction, but it was not adaptable.

  And war, Rawne knew too well, flowed like quicksilver.

  ‘I wish the Urdeshi commander success,’ Rawne said. ‘May the Emperor protect him. Because if He doesn’t, we’ll be doing it.’

  As if hurt by the thinly veiled cynicism in Rawne’s voice, the Tulkar Batteries spoke. There was a searing light-blink, and then a shock wave boom that hurt their ears and made them all wince. Two dozen Medusas and Basilisks had fired almost simultaneously. The ground shook, and windows rattled in the buildings around them.

  ‘Ow,’ said Varl.

  The batteries fired again, hurling shells directly over them. This time, past a hand raised to shield against the glare, Rawne saw the huge cones of muzzle flash scorch out of the gun slots. He heard a more distant thunder, the staggered detonations of the shells falling a mile or so away.

  ‘Positions!’ he yelled, and ran for the nearest building, kicking in the access shutter. Oysten, Ludd and Maggs followed him through the old packing plant, up the stairs and out onto the low roof.

  The batteries continued to fire overhead. They could hear the almost musical whizz of shells punching the air above them. Fyceline smoke descended like a mist across the streets, welling out of the batteries’ venting ports. It had a hard, acrid stink, familiar from a hundred battlefields.

  The concussion pulse from the bombardment made Rawne shake. He could feel each punch in his diaphragm. He kept his mouth open to stop his eardrums bursting, and took out his field glasses with fingers that tingled with the repeated shock.

  In the distance, two kilometres away, the shells were dropping on the mill complexes and the western head of the sea road. Each flash was blurred and dimpled by the shock-force it was kicking out. Rawne saw buildings flattened, outer walls cascading away in avalanches of burning stone. Some buildings just evaporated in fireballs. Others seemed to lift whole, as though cut loose from their foundations and gusted up on boiling clouds of fire-mass before disintegrating. He saw vast steel girders spinning into the sky like twigs.

  There were tanks on the sea road. Urdeshi-made AT70s, rolling hard, lifting fans of grit, thumping shells from their main guns as they ran. They were emerging from the firezone of the mills in the Clave district. SteG 4 light tanks scurried among them. A fast armoured push right down the artery. Just what Rawne had predicted.

  That’s what had woken the batteries up.

  He kept watching. Artillery shelling continued to drop on the mill complexes. Some hit the sea road too. He saw an AT70 light off like a mine. He saw two more annihilated by direct hits. He saw a fourth get hit as it was running, the blast lifting the entire machine end over end and dropping it, turret down, on a speeding SteG 4. Munition loads inside the wrecked vehicles cooked and blew.

  ‘It’s not enough,’ he said. No one could hear him over the thunder of the bombardment. He looked at Maggs, Oysten and Ludd, and signed instead, Verghast-style.

  Not enough. They’re moving too fast.

  The enemy armour was taking brutal losses. They were driving through a hellish rain of heavy, high-explosive shells. But they had an open roadway, and they were pushing hard, as fast as their drives could manage. A dozen tank wrecks burned on the ruptured highway, but the majority of shells were falling behind the heels of the leading machines. The Urdeshi commander was traversing and adjusting range rapidly to stop the armour force moving in under his fire-field, but the distance was closing. How short could the long-range guns drop their shells? How far around to the north west could they traverse? It was a simple matter of angles. There would come a point at which the gun slots of the massive battery fortress would simply not be wide enough to allow a main gun to range the road and sea wall to its extreme right.

  That moment was coming. By risking the open highway, and accepting brutal losses, the enemy armour had forgone safety in favour of speed.

  Maggs grabbed Rawne’s sleeve and pointed. Less than a kilometre away to the south west, SteG 4s and stalk-tanks were breaking out of Millgate quarter onto the sea road. Smaller and faster than the main battle tanks, these war machines had moved up under cover through the streets of the district. The big tanks of the main road assault had been a misdirection. The lighter machines were already onto the open highway, and were coming in under even the shortest drop of the batteries’ cone of fire.

  Pasha, Rawne signed to Oysten.

  At the roadblock line, Major Petrushkevskaya had already spotted the sleight of hand. SteGs and stalk-tanks were rushing her position. She, Elam and Kolosim had got their tread fethers un-crated and in position, and crew-served weapons were set up along the roadside and among the line of trucks.

  ‘Steady!’ she ordered calmly over her link. The weapon mounts of the advancing enemy had greater range than her infantry support weapons. She wanted no wastage, even if that meant they had to take their licks first.

  Shells from the .40 cal cannons of the SteG 4s began to bark their way. Some went over, others blew craters out of the road surface short of the line. The light tanks were rolling at maximum speed to reach their target, and that made them unstable, imprecise platforms. The stalk-tanks, scurrying like metal spiders, were spitting las-fire from their belly-mounts. Shots struck the line of trucks, puncturing metal and blowing out wheels. A round from a SteG 4 howled in, and blew the cab off a transport in a cloud of shredded metal.

  Men went down, hurt by shrapnel. Pasha took her eyes off the road to shout for medics, but Curth and Kolding were already on the ground.

  ‘Do you need help?’ Pasha called to Curth.

 
‘Free a few bodies from the line to help us carry these men clear, please!’ Curth shouted back.

  ‘Squad two!’ Pasha yelled. ‘Work as corpsmen! Take instruction from Doctor Curth!’

  Her troopers slung their lasguns over their shoulders and hurried to help Curth. The medicae officers started pulling the injured clear with the help of troopers seconded as corpsmen. Pasha looked back at the approaching armour.

  ‘Hold steady,’ Pasha said.

  ‘Sixty metres,’ Kolosim voxed.

  ‘Understood,’ she nodded. Another few seconds…

  She raised her hand. At her side, her adjutant Konjic was watching as if hypnotised, his thumb on the vox-tap switch.

  Another shell tore at them, and flipped one of the trucks, scattering debris. Two more shells ripped in, punching clean through the bodywork of barricade transports, killing Ghosts sheltering in their lee.

  Pasha dropped her hand. Konjic sent the tap command.

  At the left-hand end of the barricade line, Captain Spetnin led two teams out of the roadside culvert. He had shouldered a tread fether himself. Trooper Balthus had the other. Kneeling, they lined up and fired. Each tube weapon gasped a suck-whoosh, and anti-tank rockets spat out across the road. Spetnin blew one of the leading stalk-tanks apart. Balthus stopped a SteG 4 dead in its tracks. It slewed aside, on fire, a gaping hole under its engine case. A SteG directly behind it tried to steer out and cannoned into the wreck, shunting it forwards and twisting its own chassis violently.

  The men loading Spetnin and Balthus were already slotting in fresh rockets. From the midline of the vehicle barricade, Venar and Golightly fired their tread fethers. Venar’s rocket burst a stalk-tank, flinging it around hard, toppling it into a burning pool of its own fuel. Golightly hit an oncoming SteG so square and low it flipped as if it had tripped over something. It tumbled and blew up.

  On the right-hand flank of the barricade, Chiria’s company fired its anti-tank weapons. More rockets streaked across the open highway. One made a clean kill of a running SteG, the other ripped the turret off a second. The crippled tank kept going, trailing fire in its wake, but either its crew was dead or its steering was ruined. It veered off, headlong, hit the rockcrete sidings of the seawall and overturned, its six oversized wheels spinning helplessly.