The deputy was conscious, though only just. ‘Can’t… stop them,’ he groaned.
‘How old are you?’ asked Stürm. A few years younger than Old Man Jerebeus, he estimated. ‘How long before your turn comes?’ The deputy didn’t answer him. His eyelids fluttered, and he slumped into unconsciousness. Stürm locked him in the cell and searched the outer room for his equipment, finding nothing.
He was left with the deputy’s gun. Its operation seemed simple enough, similar to a stub pistol he had fired in training. It had no scope, just a notch at the end of the barrel to sight along. There were shells in each of its six chambers.
It wasn’t much, but it was all the Emperor had granted him. It would have to be enough. Stürm heard a swell of excited voices. The crowd behind the gaolhouse was being whipped to fever pitch. He had no time to search for his imprisoned comrades. He hurried out of the building and plunged into the alleyway alongside it.
One hundred and fourteen souls, Lymax had said.
Almost all of them had assembled at Solace’s heart. They filled an open square, at the centre of which had been erected a scaffold. The magistrate himself stood atop this, Old Man Jerebeus alongside him. Four younger men, between them, supported the limp, bound form of Sergeant Kramer.
Lymax was appealing for quiet. At length, the crowd subsided enough for him to speak. Concealed in the mouth of the alleyway, behind their backs, Stürm watched and listened.
‘This past month has been uncommonly kind to us,’ said Lymax. ‘Young Karib shook off his sickness to become a fine, strapping young man. Our hunting parties returned safe from the forest, having gathered all we need. We celebrated the arrival of a new member of our community.’
A smattering of applause greeted this pronouncement, as if childbirth were a rare event in Solace. It probably was.
‘Even more crucially, no wood sprites dared enter our village. We were kept safe from the monsters that would slaughter us all in our beds. Our children were kept safe. We were protected. Now, it is the night of the Thanksgiving Moon once again, and time for us to show how we appreciate that protection.’
These words dampened the crowd’s enthusiasm. Lymax continued, however: ‘It pleases me to say that here too fortune has favoured us. Tonight, we were to say farewell to a long-time pillar of our community.’ Old Man Jerebeus shuffled forward and took a half-bow. ‘Thank you, my friend,’ said Lymax, ‘for what you were willing to do for all our sakes. It will not be forgotten. That sacrifice is no longer needed, however – because, tonight, five strangers came to Solace.’
Sergeant Kramer was dragged to the hanging frame. He was awake, but barely so. Stürm saw purple bruises on his face, even from this distance. Three of the young men lifted him, while the fourth looped a rope around his ankles. They were planning to hang Kramer upside down – like the aeldari out in the forest. Stürm felt anger overtaking him again, even as his stomach muscles cramped in disgust.
‘They are not like us,’ Lymax proclaimed. ‘We know this from hard-won experience. As city-dwellers, they live their lives protected by great walls and armies. They haven’t endured what we have been forced to endure. They cannot comprehend our ways, and will never approve of them.’
The crowd rallied now. Many yelled out in anger – which made Stürm resent them all the more, because what did they have to be angry about? He sensed that proceedings were building to a climax. His every nerve screamed at him to act – but what could he do? Every man and woman here was armed as well as he was. Moonlight glinted off a blade in the magistrate’s hand.
‘The lives of these strangers will buy more life for all of us – their leader tonight, the others during the moons to come.’
Sergeant Kramer was hoisted by his ankles, the crowd hooting and jeering at him. Someone threw a bottle at him, which shattered on the hanging frame. For Stürm, it was the final straw. These people, every one of them, were traitors, consorting with the vilest forces imaginable. The thought of what they had done to Zoransky, what they were doing now, made his blood run hot in his veins. He wished he had killed the deputy at the gaolhouse. He wished he could kill every one of them.
‘The appointed moment arrives once more,’ Lymax intoned. He brandished his knife and stepped up to the hanging Kramer. He uttered an incantation in some arcane, blasphemous language. Stürm threw his hands to his ears, but couldn’t quite blot out the terrible, painful words.
Then the crowd began to chant along with their magistrate: a grumbling undercurrent at first, but swelling to a resounding roar. They pounded their fists in the air. The moon was still full, the stars bright, but the sky seemed to have darkened. Stürm could feel the villagers’ hyped-up emotions like a physical wave crashing over him, making his heart beat faster. The veins in his temple throbbed.
He had to force himself to breathe. He had to think clearly, now more than ever before. He raised his salvaged pistol. He could get off two shots, perhaps three, before the crowd saw where he was and fell upon him. He had to make them count.
He rested his sights upon Magistrate Lymax, whom he hated most of all. Think clearly… Would his death halt this unholy ceremony? Probably not. Someone else – Old Man Jerebeus or one of the younger men – would only take over from him.
‘He wouldn’t have survived long, in any case. His wound was infected.’
Stürm saw no way to save his comrade’s life. He could save his soul, however. Vulfgang Kramer was a good man, a devout man. He deserved the Emperor’s mercy. One bullet for him, then; one for the magistrate after. Stürm shifted his aim to his faithful comrade, his friend. He prayed for the fortitude to do his duty. He took a deep, steadying breath. His finger tightened on his trigger.
Then, with his peripheral vision, through the crowd, he saw her.
She was standing at the front, a hundred yards away from him. Her back was to him, but her vivid red tunic and flowing blonde hair were unmistakable.
Suddenly, Alyce’s head snapped around. She couldn’t have seen him in the shadows, not from that distance. It was impossible. While all other eyes were fixed upon the stage, however, her bright blue orbs stared directly at Guardsman Stürm.
His bullet ricocheted off the hanging frame. He cursed in frustration. He had allowed himself to be distracted, and the strange weapon’s recoil had surprised him. He re-aimed and fired again, hastily – even as Lymax dived for cover. Stürm was just in time to see his broad-brimmed hat dropping behind the scaffold.
The villagers turned on him, howling in indignation. He knew he had to run, lest he take Kramer’s place. Then he realised that no one was moving towards him. The raging crowd parted, creating a channel from him to Alyce. She was skipping towards him, her eyes shining coldly, a smile pulling at her lips.
She raised a hand towards Stürm, and something struck him in the stomach. He doubled over with the force of the blow, which was followed by another and another. Invisible punches assailed him from every direction, filling him with pain, making him jerk like a broken puppet. His nostrils filled with the scent of blood, though he didn’t think he had been cut. The faces of Solace’s inhabitants leered before him, twisted into nightmare masks. Their raging voices filled his ears, building in intensity until he felt like his head would explode.
He recalled Lymax’s tale of the aeldari that had penetrated the village, of the dark force that had destroyed it. In a moment of adrenaline-sharpened clarity, he knew that force had been the anger of the villagers themselves. A force that was killing him too. A force collected, directed, embodied – somehow, in some way that he couldn’t understand and feared to try – by a blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl.
Alyce had almost reached him. Stürm fell to his knees at her scuffed leather, open-toed shoes, tears and sweat blurring his vision. He gaped up at three images of her face with its fixed look of detached amusement. ‘No,’ he gasped. ‘I am Mordian Iron Guard. No remorse, no me
rcy, no forgiveness.’
He had never encountered a psyker before. He had been trained to resist their malign mental influence, but had never imagined the effort would hurt so much. He felt as if his mind would shatter.
‘Not a single step back, not a single moment of hesitation.’ He recited the words of Colonel Drescher, when he had raised the legendary 18th Regiment – words that had been drilled into every Iron Guard recruit since.
‘You will not… will not succumb to fear or… doubt…’ His right arm was a dead weight, but he willed himself to raise it. The primitive pistol trembled in his grip. Three images of Alyce became hundreds, twisting and whirling in front of him as if he were looking at her through a cracked kaleidoscope.
‘…and you will relent only after you have given your last moment for…’
Stürm screwed his eyes shut. He tried to focus past the pain that wracked his body, his mind and his soul. He tried to slow his breathing, which had become a series of tortured gasps, slicing into his lungs like icy blades. He couldn’t see his enemy, couldn’t hear her, but he knew where she was by the waves of hatred emanating from her.
‘…for the Emperor!’ he bellowed. And fired his pistol.
It felt like the world had stopped.
For one eternal moment, Stürm drifted in silent darkness and knew the Emperor’s peace. Only gradually did he become aware of his surroundings again. He was still at the edge of the square, still on his knees. His pistol was still warm. It pinned his hand to the ground, as if it had become too heavy to bear.
Many members of the crowd were kneeling too. They might have been praying – assuming they had anyone left to pray to. Their anger had drained out of them, leaving them spent. Someone let out a keening, despairing howl. It was Old Man Jerebeus, on the scaffold. Some followed his lead, while others wept self-pitying tears over Alyce’s body or just into the dry, dusty soil.
Stürm had just shot a child. The thought made him feel nauseous. He would need to pray too, for forgiveness. Not now, though. The villagers appeared to have forgotten all about him. Doubtless they would pull themselves together soon and turn on the architect of their woes. Stürm knew he had to move – only he couldn’t muster the energy to stand.
He saw a blur of movement, then another. He blinked, in case his vision was at fault. He witnessed an explosion of blood and gore in the crowd directly ahead of him, but couldn’t see its cause. Momentarily, he glimpsed a milky-white face, silken black hair and mocking eyes. Then, there was more blood – and the screaming started.
There were aeldari in Solace. They must have been waiting all this time for their chance. As ever, there may only have been a handful of them; there may have been dozens. It was impossible to tell. Stürm only glimpsed them out of the corners of his eyes. He tracked them by their deadly wakes.
He saw the flashing of their slender blades. He saw one villager after another cut down before they could apprehend their peril. Some were just beginning to rally. Pistols were drawn and fired, their bullets striking more friends than foes.
Stürm pushed his way through them. He elbowed and punched them aside when they stumbled into his path. His duty, first and foremost, was to his endangered comrades. He reached the scaffold and pulled himself up onto it. He was too late.
Kramer was still hanging, inverted, from his ropes. His throat was slit. Old Man Jerebeus knelt beside him. Tears rolled down his ruddy cheeks. His hands dripped with the sergeant’s blood. His clothes were plastered with it.
‘I thought… I prayed, if I completed the sacrifice,’ the old man bleated. He raised his head to the moon and cried out, ‘Take me. Please. Take my body. My soul. Do with them as you wish. Just, please, do not desert us. We need you. My people. My family. Don’t let the lives we have lived here count for–’
Stürm shot the old man in the head.
He heard the heavy double-clack of a cocking shotgun. He knew, before he turned, who he would find behind him. Lymax marched across the planking towards him, with both barrels levelled at Stürm’s unprotected head. His pinhole eyes blazed with contempt. ‘You did this,’ he spluttered.
‘I defended myself and my comrades from you.’
‘From the moment we took you in here, you judged our way of life.’
‘Your way of death.’
‘We only defended ourselves too. We did what we had to, to survive.’
‘But at a price.’
‘A few lives – most of them close to ending, anyhow – in exchange for a hundred years of peace. Now, you have destroyed us.’
‘Yes,’ Stürm acknowledged, proudly. ‘I have.’ He straightened his back and puffed out his chest. Lymax could hardly miss him at this range, but he would die with honour. He had served the Emperor dutifully. His life was a price worth paying.
Suddenly, the magistrate stiffened. Blood trickled from one corner of his mouth and the shotgun slipped from his numbed fingers. It took Stürm a second to see the blade protruding from Lymax’s chest. Then he noticed the shadow beside him. He fired at it, but the shadow, along with the blade, was gone. He whirled around, half expecting to find both looming behind him, but saw nothing.
Lymax’s corpse hit the planking with a hefty, wet thud. Stürm was left alone on the scaffold at the eye of a maelstrom. He checked his gun: two bullets left. He decided to save them. He took a breath and leapt back into the heart of the melee.
He fought his way through it, through a writhing mass of anger and fear and despair, back the way he had come across the square. Some villagers yelled out as they saw him. Some even made hopeless grabs for him, but most were only concerned with themselves. Stürm saw no more aeldari, but he felt their presence in the spasms that wracked the crowd each time they struck.
He found himself trampling an increasing number of dead and dying. Hemmed in as he was, he was no less vulnerable than anyone else around him. He probably wouldn’t even see the creature that slew him.
‘Mordians don’t run.’ His own words returned to haunt him.
He fought his way along the alleyway between gaolhouse and store.
Beyond this, the crowd was dispersing. People streamed into their all-too-flimsy shacks, bolting doors behind them. One man, locked out of his home, hammered on the shutters, pleading with his family indoors. Seconds later, he lay dead on the ground, criss-crossed with livid red cuts. The aeldari were here too. ‘They’re faster than we are. They want the pleasure of hunting you down.’
Stürm heard the cracks and whines of a pair of lasguns. He found the sound – something familiar, amid so much that was not – reassuring. Guardsmen Ven Eisen and Ludo stood back to back outside the tavern, ensuring that no one could sneak up behind either of them. Ven Eisen’s posture was awkward, favouring his injured foot, while Ludo struggled to aim one-handed. They fought on, nevertheless.
Stürm hurried up to them. ‘Where have you been?’ Ven Eisen greeted him, breathlessly. He loosed another beam into the shadows, punching a hole through a barrel. ‘What the Golden Throne is happening in Solace?’
‘A long story,’ said Stürm, ‘best saved for our debriefing.’
‘Armed men burst into our room. I was unarmed, and Ludo was sleeping. They held us captive. When the shouting started, one of them panicked and fled. We sprung on the other two and overpowered them.’
‘We’re leaving. Now,’ said Stürm.
Ven Eisen gaped at him. ‘What of Sergeant Kramer?’
Stürm shook his head. ‘He’s dead. Zoransky too. That leaves me in command of this squad, and I say we’re leaving.’
How could he explain all he had witnessed here? Already, he questioned his own recollections, as if his mind knew they were too dangerous to retain. He felt as if he had just stumbled through a dream, and now reality’s cold air had slapped him hard across the face. He only knew he had to get away from here.
He led his t
wo surviving comrades out of the village, the same way they had entered it. The aeldari didn’t bother them. By sheer good fortune or the Emperor’s grace, he wondered? Perhaps they saw the villagers as the greater threat to them. Or they knew three Guardsmen wouldn’t get far in the forest.
It was a few hours yet till dawn. ‘My guess is, our compasses will lead us back to our campsite now,’ said Stürm. He even half believed it himself.
They reached the branch from which the dead aeldari had hung. Someone had cut down the body and taken it away. From among the huddle of wooden buildings behind them, they heard a woman’s scream, abruptly curtailed. Ven Eisen faltered. He had obeyed his orders, as any Mordian would. Now, however, he could hold his silence no longer. ‘Shouldn’t we fight for them? They are men, after all, facing the xenos scourge. Is it not our duty to protect them?’
Stürm shook his head emphatically. ‘Not this time. Not these men. You haven’t seen all I have seen. They have amply earned this fate. Our duty now is to survive to fight again – and choose a better battle, a worthier cause, next time.’
His comrades saw his grim expression and the shadows in his eyes, and they questioned him no more. They formed up and straightened their backs, adjusting their bright blue uniform greatcoats. As one, they stepped out into the dark, foreboding forest.
They shook the dust of Solace from their shoes to whatever fate now awaited them.
GLORY IMPERIALIS OMNIBUS
by Various authors
Three novels featuring the brave soldiers of the Astra Militarum, facing off against the worst of mankind’s enemies: the ferocious orks, piratical Drukhari and renegades who have fallen from the Emperor’s light.
Find this title, and many others, on blacklibrary.com
TIES OF BLOOD
Jamie Crisalli
As a lover of gritty melodrama and bloody combat, it seems fitting that debut author Jamie Crisalli chose to deliver us a tale of Slaaneshi cultists infiltrating a Khornate stronghold.
Inferno Volume 2 - Guy Haley Page 22