by Dan Abnett
“Did you see the way the Zoicans’ armour was smeared with tar and oil?”
“I did,” said Varl, clipping off a few more shots. “What of it?”
“I think that’s how they got in, how they broke us open. They came through the pipeline from Vannick Hive.” Rodyin pointed out across the depot to the series of vast fuel-pipe routes that came in over the river on metal stilt legs from the northern hinterlands. “The pipes come in right under the Curtain Wall.”
“Why the feth weren’t they shut down?” snapped Varl.
Rodyin shrugged. “They were meant to be. That’s what I was told, anyway. The directive was circulated weeks ago, right after Vannick was obliterated. The guilds controlling the fuelways were ordered to blow the pipes on the far shore and fill the rest with rockcrete.”
“Someone didn’t do their job properly,” Varl mused. Somehow the information aggravated him. It was way too fething late to find out how they had been breached.
The fight at hand took his mind off it. Persistent rocket grenades were tumbling onto them from a loading dock at the edge of the depot. Varl ordered a pack of Roane down to establish covering fire and then sent Brostin in with the flamer.
He edged the rest of his men along down the devastated depot roadway, sometimes using the litter of metal plating and broken girders as cover, sometimes having to negotiate ways over or around it. A fuel lank sixty metres away blew out with huge, bright fury.
Logris, Meryn and Nehn, working forward with a handful of Vervun Primary troopers, almost ran into a Zoican fireteam in a drain-away under one of the main derrick rigs. The Tanith laid in fearlessly with bayonets, but the Vervunhivers tried to find room to shoot and several were cut down.
Hearing the commotion over his microbead, Varl charged in with several other Tanith, spiking the first ochre-suited soldier he met with his silver bayonet. Another sliced at him with a boarding hatchet and Varl punched his head off with one blow from his metal arm.
Major Rodyin came in behind, shooting his autopistol frantically. He seemed pale and short of breath. Varl knew that Rodyin had never been in combat like this before. In truth, the man had never been in combat at all before that day.
Three desperate, bloody minutes of close fighting cleared the drain-away of Zoicans. Logris and Nehn set up solid fire positions down the gully, overlooking the dock causeway.
Rodyin took off his glasses and tried to adjust the earpieces with shaking hands. He looked like he was about to weep.
“You alright, major?” Varl asked. He knew full well Rodyin wasn’t, but he suspected it had less to do with combat shock and more to do with the sight of his home city falling around him. Varl could certainly sympathise with that.
Rodyin nodded, replacing his spectacles. “The more I kill, the better I feel.”
Nearby, Corporal Meryn laughed. “The major sounds like Gaunt himself!”
The notion seemed to please Rodyin.
“What now? Left or right?” Meryn asked. He was wearing bulky fuel-worker’s overalls in place of the Tanith kit which had been scorched off him. His seared scalp was caked with dried blood and matted tufts of scorched hair.
“Feth knows,” Varl answered.
“Right. We try to push down the river towards the bridge,” Rodyin said with great certainty.
Varl said nothing. He’d rather have stayed put or even fallen back a little to consolidate. The last thing they wanted was to overreach themselves, yet Rodyin was determined. Varl was uneasy following the major, even though the Verghastite had rank. But Willard was dead — Varl had seen his burning body fall from the Wall — and there was no one of authority to back him up.
So they moved east, daring the open firestorms of the docks, winning back Vervunhive a metre at a time.
* * *
General Grizmund walked down the steps of the Main Spine exit, adjusting his cap and powersword. Wind-carried ash washed back across the stone terrace of the Commercia where the Narmenian tanks were drawn up: one hundred and twenty-seven main battle tanks of the Leman Russ pattern, with twenty-seven Demolishers and forty-two light support tanks. Their engines revved, filling the air with blue exhaust smoke and thunder.
Brigadier Nachin saluted his general.
“Good to have you back, sir,” he said.
Grizmund nodded. He and the other officers liberated by Gaunt from the hands of the VPHC were more than ready to see action.
Grizmund pulled his command officers into a huddle and flipped out the hololithic display of a data-slate. A three-dimensional light-map of the Commercia and adjacent districts billowed into the sooty air. Grizmund began to explain to his commanders what he wanted them to do, how they would be deployed, what objectives they were to achieve.
His voice was relayed by vox/pict drones to all the Narmenian crews. His briefing turned into a speech, a rousing declamation of power and victory. At the end of it, the tank crews, more than a thousand men, cheered and yelled.
Grizmund walked down the line of growling tanks and clambered deftly up onto his flag-armour, The Grace of the Throne, a long-chassis Russ variant with a hundred and ten-centimetre main weapon. Like all the Narmenian vehicles, it was painted mustard-drab and bore the Imperial eagle crest and the spiked fist sigil of Narmenia.
It felt like coming home. Grizmund dropped down through the main turret’s hatch, strapped himself into the command chair, and plugged the dangling lead of his headset into the vox-caster.
Grizmund tested the vox-link and made sure he had total coverage.
He pulled the recessed lever that clanged the top-hatch down, and he saw his driver, gunner and loader grinning up at him from the lower spaces of the tank hull.
“Let’s give them hell,” Grizmund said to his crew and, via the vox, to all his men.
The Narmenian tank units roared down through the Commercia and back into the war.
House Command was a molten ruin full of scorched debris and a few fused corpses. The blast that had taken it out had also blown out the floor and disintegrated the Main Spine structure for three levels below. Gaunt viewed it from the shattered doorway for a minute or two.
Searching the adjacent areas, Gaunt appropriated a Ministorum baptistry on Level Mid-36 as a new command centre. Under Daur’s supervision, workteams cleared the pews and consecration tables and brought in codifiers and vox-systems liberated from dozens of houses ordinary on that level. Gaunt himself hefted a sheet of flakboard onto the top of the richly decorated font to make a desk. He began to pile up his data-slates and printouts.
Ecclesiarch Immaculus and his brethren watched the Imperial soldiers overrun their baptistry. It was one of the few remaining shrines in the hive still intact. They had been singing laments for the basilica when Gaunt arrived.
Immaculus joined Gaunt at his makeshift desk.
“I suppose you’re going to tell me this is sacrilege,” Gaunt said.
The old man in long, purple robes shook his head wearily. “You fight for the Imperial cause, my son. In such manner, you worship the Emperor more truly than a hundred of my prayers. If our baptistry suits your needs, you are welcome to it.”
Gaunt inclined his head reverently and thanked the Ecdesiarch.
“Baptise this war in blood, colonel-commissar,” Immaculus said.
The cleric had been nothing but gracious and Gaunt was anxious to show his appreciation. “I will feel happier if you and your brothers would hold vigil here for us, watching over this place as a surety against destruction.”
Immaculus nodded, leading his brethren up to the celebratory, from where their plainsong chants soon echoed.
Gaunt viewed the data-slates, seeing the depth of the destruction. He made note marks on a paper chart of the hive.
Daur brought him the latest reports. Xance was dead; Nash too. Sturm had vanished. As Gaunt surveyed the lists of the dead, Major Otte of the Vervun forces, the lord marshal’s adjutant, arrived in the baptistry. He was wounded and shellshocked, one of the few
men to make it clear of the fall of Sondar Gate.
He saluted Gaunt. “Marshal Croe is slain,” he said simply.
Gaunt sighed.
“As ranking officer of Vervun Primary, I hand command to you, as ranking Imperial commander.”
Gaunt stood up and solemnly received the salute with one of his own. What he had suspected ever since he led the assault on Sondar’s lair was now confirmed: he was the senior surviving Imperial officer in Vervunhive and so overall military authority was now his. All senior ranks, both local and off-world, were dead or missing. Only Grizmund held a rank higher than Gaunt and armour was always subservient to an infantry command.
Otte presented Gaunt with Croe’s sword of office: the powerblade of Heironymo Sondar.
“I can’t accept—”
“You must. Whoever leads Vervunhive to war must carry the sword of Heironymo. It is a custom and tradition we have no wish to break.”
Gaunt accepted, allowing Otte to formally buckle the carrying sash around him.
Intendant Banefail of the Administratum, surrounded by a procession of servitors and clerks, entered the baptistry as Otte was performing the ceremony. He nodded to Gaunt gravely and accepted his authority without question.
“My ministry is at your disposal, commander. I have mobilised labour teams to assist in fire control and damage clearance. We… are overwhelmed by the situation. Most of the population is trying to flee across the river, all militarised units request ammunition supply, the main—”
Gaunt raised his hand. “I am confident the Administratum will provide whatever they can, whatever is in their means. I trust the astropaths have been maintaining contact with the warmaster?”
“Of course.”
“I will not ask Macaroth for aid, but I want him to understand the situation here. If he deems it worthy of his notice, he will assist us.”
Horns sounded, a pathetic gesture of pomp, and Legislator Anophy shuffled into the baptistry with his retinue: a long train of child-slaves, servitors and guards, some carrying banner poles. The banners and the robes were singed and grubby in places, and the slaves looked wet-eyed and terrified. Representatives of the guilds and high houses flocked in behind the Legislator’s procession, shouting and disputing.
Gaunt turned to Banefail. “You can help me immediately by keeping these worthies out of my face. Listen to their petitions and notarise them. I will review later — if there is an opportunity.”
“It will be done,” Banefail said. “May the Emperor of Mankind provide for you in this hour.”
As the Administratum staff swept away behind Banefail to head off the angry mob of dignitaries, Gaunt resumed his review of the battle data. The first of the vox-links had just been set up and Daur brought him a speaker set.
Gaunt selected a channel. “Vervunhive Command to Grizmund. Signal ‘Uncle Dercius’.”
“ ‘Uncle Dercius’ given and heard,” crackled the receiver.
“I need you to deny the approaches to Croe Gate and Ontabi Gate. From what I can see here, the main vehicular invasion is pouring in that way.”
“Agreed. But there are tank squadrons coming up through Sondar Gate too.”
“Noted. I’ll deal with that. May the God-Emperor guide you, general.”
“And watch over you, colonel-commissar.”
Adjusting his channel setting, Gaunt raised the commander of North-Col armour groups milling in confusion south of the Commercia. He directed them down towards Sondar Gate. Then he began to systematically contact all the tattered sections of infantry and Guard.
He got through to Corbec at Guild Githran Agricultural.
“Feth, commissar! I thought you were dead!”
“I thought the same of you, Colm. How is it?”
“Bad as anything I’ve seen. We’re holding, just barely, but they’re pouring it on. I could really do with a pinch of armour.”
“It’s coming your way as we speak. Colm, we need to do more than hold, we have to push them back. The Shield will only work for us if we can hunt them out from under it.”
“You don’t ask for much, do you?”
“Never.”
“You’ll owe me a planet of my own for this, you realise?”
“I owe you that already, Corbec. Think bigger.”
A servitor brought Gaunt more data feeds from the newly engaged codifiers set up in the baptistry. Gaunt looked through them, his gaze stopped by a report relayed in from Varl.
“Daur?”
“Sir!”
“I want a list of guilds controlling fuel supply and accredited proof from every damn one of them that they closed their pipelines down.”
“Yes, commander.”
Gaunt spent the next ten minutes voxing tactical instructions to dozens of individual troop units throughout the hive. He was unable to reach Varl or any unit north of the Main Spine. As he worked, servitors and staff officers tracked the substance and matter of his battle-plan on a hololithic chart of the city, overlaying it with any data they received from the ground.
For a short while, Gaunt toyed with the settings of the vox-unit, hunting through the bands to locate the low frequencies the Zoicans were using. He still hoped they might intercept and unscramble the Zoican transmissions and eavesdrop on their tactical command net. But it was futile. The Zoican channels were seething with transmissions, but all in that incomprehensible chatter, the chatter that defied translation even by linguistic cogitators, a constant, meaningless stream of corrupt machine noise that gave up no secrets. Either that, or the chanting repeats of the Heritor’s name on the propaganda wavelengths. Gaunt had fought Chaos long enough to know not to call in human scholars or astropaths to try to decode the chatter. He couldn’t allow that filth to taint any mind in Vervunhive.
A commotion at the door roused Gaunt from his work. A detail of Vervun Primary soldiers was escorting General Sturm into the baptistry.
“We found him trying to join a party of refugees boarding a ferry at the viaduct jetty, sir,” the squad’s leader told Gaunt.
Gaunt looked Sturm up and down. “Desertion?” he said softly.
Sturm straightened his cap, bristling. “I am senior commander here, Gaunt! Not you! Vervunhive is lost! I have given the signal to retreat and evacuate! I could have you all shot for disobedience!”
“You… gave the signal to evacuate? Then why are all Imperial forces and planetary units still fighting? Even your own Volpone? You must have given the signal very quietly.”
“Don’t talk that way to me, you jumped-up shit!” Sturm croaked. The room fell silent around them and all eyes turned to observe the confrontation. “I am the senior general of the Royal Volpone! I am ranking officer here in Vervunhive! You will obey me! You will respect me!”
“What’s to respect?” Gaunt walked around Sturm, looking out at the watching faces with interest. No one showed any sign of leaping to the general’s defence. “You fled the assault on House Sondar. You fled the Main Spine and headed for the river. You gave up on Vervunhive.”
“I am ranking officer!”
With a brutal tear, Gaunt ripped Sturm’s rank pins of his jacket.
“Not anymore. You’re a disgrace. A coward — and a murderer. You know damn well it was your orders that killed five hundred of my Tanith on Voltemand. Killed them because they managed to win what your Blue-bloods could not.” Gaunt stared into Sturm’s blinking eyes.
“How you ever made general, I don’t know.”
Sturm seemed to sag.
“A weapon…” he said weakly.
“What?”
Sturm looked up with blazing eyes. “Give me a cursing weapon, colonel-commissar! I’ll not be lectured at by a lowborn shit like you! Or punished! Give me a weapon and allow me the good grace of making my own peace!”
Gaunt shrugged. He pulled his bolt pistol from its holster and held it out butt-first to the general.
“Final request granted. Officers of the watch, so note General Sturm has volunt
eered to exact his own punishment.” He looked back at Sturm. “I’ve never even slightly liked you, Noches. Give me a reason to speak of you well. Make it clean and simple.”
Sturm took the proffered gun.
“Officers of the watch, also note,” hissed Sturm, “that Ibram Gaunt refuses to signal evacuation. He’s condemned you all to death by fire. I’m glad to be out of it.”
He cocked the weapon and raised it to his mouth.
Gaunt turned his back.
There was a long pause.
“Gaunt!” Captain Daur screamed.
Gaunt swung around, the powersword of Heironymo Sondar already out and lit in his hand. It sliced through Sturm’s wrist before the Volpone general could fire the bolt gun — the bolt gun that had been aimed at Gaunt’s skull.
Sturm fell sidelong on the baptistry flagstones, shrieking out as blood pumped from his wrist stump. Nerves spasmed in his severed hand and the bolt pistol fired once, blowing a hole through the ornate prayer screen behind Gaunt.
Gaunt glared down at the general’s writhing form for a moment. Then he stooped and retrieved his bolt pistol from the detached hand.
“Get him out of my sight,” he told the waiting troopers with a dismissive gesture at Sturm. “I don’t want to look at that treacherous bastard any longer than I have to.”
By early afternoon on that fateful thirty-fifth day, whatever co-ordinated resistance could be made was being made. Gaunt’s command post in the Main Spine had contacted and tactically deployed almost two-thirds of the available fighting strength in the hive, a feat of determined efficiency that left both the Administratum and the surviving officers of the Vervun Primary Strategic Planning Cadre dumbfounded. What made it altogether more extraordinary was that Gaunt had driven the work almost single-handedly. After the incident with Sturm, he worked with an intense devotion that was almost terrifying. Latterly, as the cohesion of his plan became clear, he was able to delegate work to the eager tactical staffers, but the core of the resistance plan was his alone.
Ban Daur stepped out of the baptistry a little after midday to clear his head and find water. He stood for a while under a blackened arch at the end of the hallway, watching through glassless windows as flickering areas of warfare boiled through the dense streets below.