by Various
‘Already full. I’ve been busy. Here, help me put this back on.’
Rowd obliges, just as the dull echoes of violence sound in the tunnel ahead.
It takes three minutes for Thiel and Trooper Rowd to armour him. Another three minutes sees them halfway up the tunnel, en route to the command hub where Thiel hopes that Captain Vultius is still in charge.
Three hard bangs sound in the phosphor gloom, louder than before. Thiel slows to a light jog, armour clanking dully.
Rowd catches him, out of breath. ‘What was that?’
‘Bolter fire.’
All the colour drains from Rowd’s face, illuminated starkly by the fizzing lamp overhead. ‘That’s a Legion weapon.’
‘Yes.’
Rowd checks the power gauge on his las-carbine, and clicks off the safety with his thumb.
Thiel has drawn a bolt pistol from a side holster. In his other hand, he has his gladius.
The gunfire is joined by shouting. Some of the voices he recognises. One belongs to Captain Vultius as he bellows orders. Others are more guttural, harsh. He knows the language, even if he cannot actually speak it.
Colchisian.
Word Bearers.
Thiel’s grip tightens around the handle of his pistol, and the hilt of his gladius. He wants to reach for the electromagnetic longsword sheathed down the side of the generator upon his back, but he doesn’t yet know what he’s facing. No practical to gauge his response, no theoretical worth formulating during these strange days of fratricide.
‘Get behind me,’ Thiel warns, prowling the last few hundred metres of the tunnel. There are blast doors at the end of it; a key-coded panel prevents entry, but somehow an enemy force has found and infiltrated their base of operations.
The sounds of battle are getting louder, even through the thick plasteel of the doors. Thiel pauses at the threshold, tapping in the precise numeric sequence to disengage them. He wishes there was another way, but this is the only clear route into the command hub. The opening blast doors will announce his presence – he must be ready for whatever lies beyond. Memories of fighting aboard the Macragge’s Honour return to him in cold flashes. Thiel tries to suppress them, hoping to face only mortal foes this time.
‘Every door, a new horror…’ he mutters.
Rowd looks up. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
Loud even over the din of weapons fire, shouts and curses, the blast doors grind open.
‘Stay with me, Rowd!’
Head low, Thiel darts for the side wall, absorbing snatches of tactical data in his first brief glance at the room.
Much of the command hub is destroyed, its cogitators and strategium consoles wrecked. Flickering overhead lumen strips suggest that the power generator is on backup too. A pair of blast doors on the opposite side are blown-in and lying broken on the fire-black ground, the obvious point of ingress. Three Ultramarines are behind stone support columns towards the centre of the room, chips of ornate filigree and baroque lapidary exploding around them as they take cover.
One of them is Captain Vultius. Blood is leaking into his eye from a savage head wound that must also be spoiling his aim. He is hunkered down, reduced to making snap shots, the hollow echo of his pistol a sign that the magazine is close to empty.
Fifteen targets spread out across the other side of the large chamber, advancing in pairs. Thiel counts seven wearing power armour, but stripped down to leave their arms bare. The other eight are human cultists – flak armour, robes, carrying solid-shot weapons and stolen lasguns. Poorly equipped but well motivated, they move with a precision uncommon in the zealot brotherhoods.
A three-shot burst from Thiel’s bolt pistol clips a Word Bearer in the gut, and he spins with the sudden flesh wound, stunned. Rowd gets off a shot too, taking a cultist through the neck, dropping him instantly.
‘Good aim,’ shouts Thiel.
‘I was going for the torso.’
The pair of them are pressed against the chamber wall, using the natural alcoves to shelter in. Blistering return fire is keeping them pinned.
Static crackles over Thiel’s vox-feed and the grainy voice of Captain Vultius resolves a moment later.
‘They bombed the door, Thiel. Numetor and Hargellus are dead. Practical – we are ambushed and outgunned.’
‘I count seven legionaries and seven cultists.’
‘Negative. There are at least double that number of human auxiliaries.’
Thiel grits his teeth. ‘I’m sorry sir, this is my fault. They must have followed me.’
Theoretical: they are losing, and in a few short minutes the command hub will be overrun.
Thiel is still formulating a plan when the voice of the enemy leader is broadcast into the room, above the tumult of the firefight.
‘This is Kurtha Sedd, Apostle of the Third Hand, Seventeenth Legion. You are outgunned and outmanoeuvred. Surrender, and your lives – and the lives of those in service to you – will be spared.’
The command hub is part of the wider arcology network, the centre from which the Ultramarines have coordinated the local shelters these past years. There are no refugees here, but there are still civilians. Fourteen men and women, only a third of whom are soldiers, the rest logisticians, engineers and cooks, cower with their failed protectors. Some clutch las-pistols in shaking fingers. Others lie dead, hit by stray shots or ended by their own hand. Like Thiel, Vultius is responsible for them.
They are the blood of Calth. Or all that’s left of it.
Static fills Thiel’s vox-feed as Vultius gives his final order.
‘Get out, Thiel. You’re the only one who can.’
‘You’re giving up?’
‘They want prisoners – that gives you time, sergeant.’
‘Time for what, sir?’
‘To mount a rescue.’ He laughs, enjoying a moment of black humour that Thiel doesn’t share. ‘It’s like you said, sergeant – this is an unconventional war, requiring unconventional tactics. These are mine. Now go.’
Thiel’s mouth becomes a stern line as he realises what he has to do.
‘Fall back.’
Rowd looks at him questioningly. ‘Sergeant?’
‘To the blast doors. Now. We’re leaving.’
Thiel shields Rowd as he leads the retreat out of the command hub and back into the tunnel. He winces as a slew of snap fire follows them through the gap.
‘Move!’
Risking a stray bullet, he reengages the locking sequence and puts a bolt-round into the panel before he leaves. The blast doors are still closing when an explosion sounds behind them, putting Rowd on the deck and staggering Thiel so that he has to brace himself against the wall.
Looking back, he sees several figures advancing eagerly through the smoke. Twisted metal lays strewn either side of the ragged doors. He hauls Rowd to his feet. ‘Get up, soldier. Hold here.’
The Army trooper is dazed but follows orders, recovering his composure quickly, and firing from a kneeling position. Three screams reward their efforts, one kill definitely Rowd’s. The rest of the cultists are more cautious after that.
Thiel holds up a clenched fist, signalling for Rowd to stop. ‘Go to overwatch.’ He then listens as the resonance of las and bolter fire fades.
The silhouettes gathering in the dissipating smoke are falling back, though a voice lower than the rest still seems to be issuing orders.
‘They’re retreating.’ Rowd cannot help but sound relieved.
Thiel continues to listen. More muttering, the sharp clink of metal against metal. His eyes widen as he recognises the sound of a grenade pin being pulled.
‘Down!’
His warning is swallowed by a painful blare of white noise, intensified by the close confines of the tunnel. Rowd cries out as pellucid light fills the space, as bright as Calth’s angry sun.
‘They’ve got… stun grenades…’ Thiel’s speech is slurred. He feels groggy, ears ringing, head like the inside of a pounding drum.
The detonations have overloaded his auto-senses, feeding back directly into his cerebral cortex.
He hears a high-pitched pop, followed by the aggressive whoosh of expelled pressure and released gas. Fresh smoke is filling the tunnel, spilling out from a new clutch of grenades. Grunting, Thiel drags himself upright. His battle-helm’s retinal lenses have overloaded so he takes it off, mag-locking it to his belt and leaving it to auto-calibrate.
Everything gets louder, the stench of cordite igniters more potent. Vision still blurred, he stays low in case the cultists come out shooting.
They don’t. Hurried footsteps resolve through the still-fading echoes of combat instead.
Thiel pulls the dazed Rowd to his feet.
‘Something’s wrong.’
The cultists are backing off. Beneath the sound of their movements, Thiel swears he can hear chuckling. He blinks, willing the harsh sensory afterimages to fade. With the effects of the stun grenade and the smoke, his targeting ability is severely compromised.
Something is coming. Blurred silhouettes, he can’t tell exactly how many from this distance, are barrelling towards them. He fires off a shot, but misses. Grainy, crimson ovals emerge through the dense smoke. They are the lenses of pioneer infra-goggles, burning in the murk with heat-targeting certainty.
Closing his eyes, Thiel listens.
Three attackers, running full pelt.
He brings up his pistol two-handed, his eyes closed. He pinpoints a figure – one shot, followed by a grunt of pain.
‘Two to go,’ he breathes, focusing.
The next shot only wings the target. He hears the shell ricochet, the target yelping as it stumbles. Another shot takes it centre-mass, bringing it down hard.
‘One more…’
The cultist shrieks, so loud, so close that Thiel realises he has run out of time. He opens his eyes, and sees that the madman has just triggered the incendiary device strapped to his torso.
The blast rips Thiel from his feet and throws him into the tunnel’s ceiling. The thunder of falling rock is almost deafening. As darkness takes him, he imagines himself tumbling down into the maw of a creature that lives beyond reality, through the veil.
A scratching sensation against his breastplate wakes him.
Thiel opens his eyes to darkness, the reek of earth and wet stone. Something intensely heavy is pressing down on his back. He tries to move, but he is pinned; breathing is hard enough.
‘Trooper…’ The word is nothing more than a croak, made flat and dull by the ton of rock on top of him.
It is Rowd scraping Thiel’s war-plate, arms flattened against his chest by the Ultramarine’s armour, fingers locked around a tiny knife, desperately scoring the metal in hope of a response.
‘Thank the Emperor,’ Rowd breathes.
Thiel is crouched over him, the Ultramarine’s pinned body the only thing between the trooper and being crushed to death. At least Rowd had the sense to fit his mask and rebreather before the cave-in.
‘Can you lift it?’ he asks.
It feels like a tank is squatting on Thiel’s back. Experimentally, he pushes. Grunting, he raises the slab of rock that is slowly flattening them both by just a few millimetres before letting it down slowly again.
‘Can’t get it any higher.’
‘Even Space Marines have their limits then?’ It is intended as a joke, but Rowd doesn’t sell the humour well. ‘I don’t want to die here, sir.’
‘Nor I. That’s why you’re going to reach down to my belt and unclip one of my grenades. Can you do that, trooper?’
Rowd nods, letting go of the knife.
Thiel’s arms are braced either side of him, bearing the load. His legs are similarly trapped. His body is arched just enough that the trooper has a small amount of space to manoeuvre. Thiel feels the grenade disengage, hears it scrape against his breastplate as Rowd brings it up to his face.
‘Now what?’
‘Adjust the timer to thirty seconds, then reach up and push it into the gap between me and the rock on top of us. Push it deep. You’re not wearing power armour, and a blast this close will almost certainly kill you if you’re unshielded.’
Rowd sounds uncertain at this plan. ‘And what will it do to you?’
By contrast, Thiel is resigned. ‘Hurt like hell. Now do it.’
Rowd obeys. He sets the thirty second timer, engages it and plugs the grenade as deep as he can so that Thiel’s body will be between him and the blast.
‘Done.’
‘Good. You have less than twenty seconds. Make yourself as small as you can, and do me a favour – cover my ears.’
With Rowd’s trembling hands pressed against the sides of his head, Thiel feels the grenade counting down, each minute tremor of the timer rippling through his armour. With three seconds left, he closes his eyes.
Heat, pressure, the sound of splintered rock, the stench of burnt metal and the taste of blood in his mouth – it all hits him at once in a whirlwind of agonising sensation. Thiel has weathered the blast, though his limbs are numb and his war-plate’s integrity has been severely compromised.
Above, the air is brighter and he is able to turn, albeit with an intense amount of pain. Rubble and dirt tumbles from his back.
‘You alive?’ he rasps to the trooper. There’s blood on his teeth. He can taste it.
Rowd’s reply comes with a strange lack of conviction. ‘Yes.’
‘Then help me up, trooper. I can hear the cultists scouring the rubble. They’re coming for us.’
Alone and without an apothecary, it is difficult for Thiel to ascertain the full extent of his injuries. It feels like internal bleeding, some bone fractures around the rib-shell, and possibly the left shoulder. With his helmet now back on, the retinal display reveals blast damage to both the plate and seals of his armour, as well as his power plant couplings.
Thiel limps to his feet, shucking off the split sections of fallen rock shattered by the grenade. He stares through a cloud of displaced earth and dust, finding enemies.
‘Four contacts, thirty-three metres.’ He pulls out his pistol, three rounds still in the clip according to the ammo gauge.
A single burst echoes loudly, harsh muzzle flash lighting up the half-dark. Three cultists are reduced to blasted chunks of meat. A fourth dies more elegantly to a well-placed las-bolt from Rowd.
Thiel nods. ‘You’re actually a pretty decent shot with that.’
Rowd is still wiping the grit and sweat from his face, having pulled off the mask to make the kill.
‘I fight for Ultramar, sergeant, even down here in the dirt. Retribution is also a strong motivator. Helps focus.’
‘Justly said. What did you do before joining the Army?’
Rowd hesitates. ‘I… I was a convict, sir. Penal conscript.’
Thiel whistles. There’s a smile in his voice. ‘What are the odds?’
Up ahead, solid shot cracks noisily from the shadows. A bullet ricochets from the wall, spitting debris. Another prangs off Thiel’s shoulder guard, leaving a shallow groove in the ceramite. Beyond them, a heavier weapon is being wheeled into position, hunkered down behind the rubble. Crewmen are getting it braced, fixing its magazine and targeter.
Thiel has no wish to test the resilience of his power armour any further. ‘We need to move.’
Not waiting to be asked, Rowd supports the Ultramarine’s weaker left side and together they stumble down the tunnel, turning the bend just before the autocannon opens up.
Rowd crouches down. Thiel rams a fresh clip into his bolt pistol.
With his hands over his ears, Rowd has to yell to be heard. ‘Now what?’
‘We can’t go back that way.’
Gunfire is shredding the end of the tunnel, chewing up rock and earth like a drill.
‘Enemy legionaries won’t be far behind them, either.’ Thiel checks the chrono count on his retinal display. He has it running all the time, just like the operational mark that has been running ever since the Calth engag
ement began. ‘Solar flare should have subsided by now. There’s an egress not far from this point.’
‘Head to the surface? But it’s–’
‘A deadly radiation-scorched wasteland.’ It’s easy to tell from his manner that Thiel’s mind is made up. ‘Theoretical – we have to find a different approach of attack, surprise Kurtha Sedd and his men. Practical – we stay here, we’re dead and so are the others. Captain Vultius won’t fight back if he can’t guarantee he’ll protect the civilians by doing so. Sedd wants prisoners.’
Rowd looks far from sanguine. ‘Seems like both choices are death, one just slower than the other.’
Already on the move, Thiel seems not to hear him. ‘Suit up, and watch your rad-gauge.’
‘I doubt it’ll provide much comfort during another solar flare. Where will we go once we’re out there?’
Thiel turns his head, regarding the trooper with cold retinal lenses.
‘Somewhere underground, and quickly. If we don’t, we both burn.’
Kurtha Sedd stands impassively, his armoured form half swathed in dissipating smoke and shadows. The little of his war-plate that is revealed in the phosphor light is barbed, misshapen and wrought with lines of cuneiform script. Much of it has been written by his own hand, for he thinks of himself as something of a preacher. Some passages even spread from metal onto flesh but, unlike his armour, these markings are etched in his own blood and not that of his victims.
Hands clasped across his lower torso, he waits.
Three cultists emerge from the shadows, followed by one of his legionaries. He addresses only the Word Bearer.
‘Eshra. Where are they?’
‘Escaped, my lord.’ The legionary kneels when he reaches Kurtha Sedd, lowering his neck for a punitive ritual beheading.
‘Lift your gaze. I won’t kill you for this failure, but you must make atonement.’
Since Lorgar left his errant sons to die on Calth, a factionalist mentality has arisen, spurred on by a profound survival instinct and sense of righteous denial. Sedd believes that he has been left behind for some divine, albeit unknown, purpose.
Eshra has no war-helm. He lost his several weeks ago and now goes without it, his scars displayed to all as a declaration of his devotion.