Gomery stared, piqued, at Roussell for a moment, then picked up Mister Emmett, tucked him under his arm and strode outside.
Roussell watched Gomery depart with not a little relief. The man had been trying to oust him from his seniority for three years now, ever since the 92nd had been decimated crossing the Katee River on Ordan and the survivors had been folded into the 11th. He’d never let up about his nearly unbeaten season as team captain in his last year at schola either, as though prancing up and down a field and kicking a ball had anything to do with an officer’s competency to lead men into battle. Even now he still carried a ball around him wherever he went, painted to look like a face with white daubs for its eyes, nose and mouth.
Roussell had no idea who the real Mister Emmett was, or even if there ever was one, but he praised the Emperor for him because that was all the colonel needed to see to ensure that Captain Gomery was never going to be promoted again.
Roussell knew that, as the senior officer, he was in charge, but he had been left here practically alone. The only other major up at the fort with him was the artillery commander, Major Rosa, and you couldn’t trust an officer whose idea of a day’s work was to sit down with paper and pencil and a cogitator in order to work out how to hit something five kilometres away. That wasn’t proper officering. The colonel and Brooce had gone back to Dova, so had Drum and his tanks. The orks weren’t supposed to be attacking them at night when they were battened down safely in their fort. Why now and not during the day when they dispersed along the trail and it was Arbulaster or Brooce who would have to put their reputation on the line?
Brooce had it in for him; he had been trying to oust him from his seniority for ten years now, ever since the 371st had been the first to go in on Mespots and the survivors were folded into the 11th. In fact, Roussell wouldn’t have put it past Brooce to have set him up, leaving him in command when he knew an attack was coming, so as to blacken his eye. Roussell had served the entire crusade, he had won over a dozen victories in the first ten years, he had a chest-full of clink, his place in the colour-guard had been guaranteed even then, and he had steered clear of all disgrace since. But it would all be for nothing if a costly debacle could be pinned on him here at the last!
But the battle was going well, too well. The orks’ first attack had been beaten back without loss by Captain Wymondham’s company on the west wall. Tyrwhitt’s company, as the closest company encamped, had automatically moved up to the wall to add their firepower. The remainder of the line companies were either on the other walls watching out for flanking attacks or were forming up as a ready reserve in the centre of the camp. Rosa’s mortars were deploying and in a few minutes would be dropping ranging shots on the ork’s horde. Everyone was doing exactly what they should be… despite the fact that he had not issued a single order yet!
It was a nightmare! If they won the battle without him issuing a single order then he would look a fool, as though he had slept through the whole thing. But as everyone was doing exactly what they should be doing and everything was going splendidly, any order he did give would be to get someone to do something that they shouldn’t be doing and he would look like an idiot. Worse, if everything then stopped going splendidly, it would be his order that would get blamed for turning the tide against them. And if he issued an order to order everyone to do exactly what they were already doing he would look like an incompetent who didn’t know what his troops were already doing. And if he issued an order to order everyone to continue doing what they were already doing he would draw even more attention to the fact that they had all been doing exactly what they should be doing without any orders from him! He was trapped. Utterly trapped.
Another runner came into the tent looking for orders, his helmet and uniform both stained brown.
‘Lieutenant Carson sends his apologies, sir, and requests orders for his company.’
Roussell eyed the runner suspiciously. He wasn’t a young man, but then none of them were. He was heavy-set with a powerful frame, his skin mottled and scarred, though his stare was as wide-eyed as a child’s. But if he came looking for orders he had come to the wrong place.
‘What’s your name, trooper?’
‘Private Stones, sir.’
‘Don’t know you. Where’s the second lieutenant?’ Roussell stressed the ‘second’. Too many people, officers and men alike, seemed to forget Carson’s proper rank. Carson, Roussell knew, was another one who would have ousted him from his seniority if he could. Then he could have both the light companies to himself. But he’d killed the wrong man and he was never getting out from under that.
‘He’s indisposed, sir.’
‘You mean he’s in that Voorjer trollop.’ Roussell mocked Carson’s success with her because he’d had none himself. ‘Tell him he can stay there! Stanhope’s company stays in reserve. They shall not engage until and unless they receive orders to do so.’
He swept away from the man, dismissing him. But Blanks didn’t leave.
‘And if attacked, he should still not engage?’
Roussell tried to peer down at the private; however, he found it difficult to peer down at the taller man. ‘Are you trying to be smart, man?’
‘No, sir. Merely trying to understand your orders fully. Sir.’ Blanks replied. Roussell did not miss the slight lengthening of the pause.
‘Of course he should engage!’ Roussell snapped back. Carson wasn’t going to get the chance to have his men stand passively by as they got hacked apart and then blame it on his orders! ‘He should do exactly as he should do at all times until ordered otherwise.’
‘Is that an order?’
‘Most definitely not!’ Roussell fumed.
‘Understood, sir,’ Blanks left. Roussell would have called him up on failing to salute an officer if he had not then been distracted by Gomery walking back in, still carrying Mister Emmett.
‘Signals in touch with Dova. They’re waking the colonel; they’ll patch it through here.’
‘Excellent.’ Roussell started stalking again impatiently. Soon someone else would be giving the orders and it would be their reputation on the line and not his. He noticed Gomery was staring at him.
‘What is it?’ he demanded.
‘Orders for my company?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Roussell considered for a moment as he prowled. ‘First, though, the orks.’
‘Yes?’ Gomery asked impatiently.
‘How many of them are there?’
Thousands of them. That’s how many there seemed to be to Dennett as he pulled his gun’s trigger, listened to it whine as the power cycled back and then pulled the trigger again. His shoulder ached and his cheek was burning from being pressed against the overheating gun, but he continued to fire as quickly as he could.
The las-shots poured from the top of the wall like bolts from the heavens, but their effect was far less impressive. The ork was tough; a single lasgun shot, more often than not, would scorch its hide but not bring it down. The troopers had to hit their targets two or three times in succession to get the kill. Dennett himself had hit one ork five times in a row; each time the ork lurched, but then shrugged off the injury, before the sixth shot made it tumble.
Tyrwhitt’s troopers had already mounted the wall and were adding their own fire, but as fast as they all shot, it wasn’t enough to hold the horde back. The orks had swarmed across the dead ground and the glacis, and as soon as they had reached the trench they had lobbed their torches up into the blinding light of the floods and onto the wall. Some were thrown too short and rebounded off the ramparts back onto the heads of the orks in the trench, but the rest sailed high, slow enough for a man to dodge normally, but not when crammed onto a firing-step, pressed up close with fellows either side.
The torches smacked home onto Brimlock helmets, and troopers all along the wall jerked away from the flames, believing themselves to be alight. The
y shouted in alarm and stepped back from the step, dropping their guns and batting at themselves. The men either side of them stopped firing as well to aid them or to defend themselves against their fellows’ wild flailing. The las-fire lessened and the orks bellowed in triumph and hoisted up their makeshift ladders again.
The officers shouted at their men to keep shooting; the sergeants stepped up behind them, smacking the panicking men and hauling them back to their posts, kicking the torches off the back of the walls for the next company coming up in reserve to douse. The autocannons in the high towers continued to spray their fire, unable to miss the mass of ork warriors beneath them, but it was not enough. Even as the singed troopers picked their lasguns up again, the ladders were thumping onto the ramparts.
‘We’re to stay put?’ Carson questioned Blanks. He could stand on his own again and Van Am had returned to her Voorjer scouts.
‘Unless attacked,’ Blanks replied.
Carson turned to the assembled company. His eyes flicked briefly to Stanhope, but the major was simply staring over to the west, lost in some personal reverie. Carson drew his breath and opened his mouth to give his orders, but whatever he was going to say was lost in the explosion.
‘Fix bayonets!’ Captain Wymondham had shouted a few minutes before as he fired his pistol into the face of a climbing ork. They were crawling all over the wall now. The autocannons had targeted the base of the tree-trunk ladders where the orks had bunched together and swept them clean, but there were too many ladders and not enough guns.
The orks dropped their weapons and used the logs as though they were ramps, charging up on all fours like apes. The troopers concentrated their fire on those at the front, the orks’ bodies erupting with the red shot as they cartwheeled off the trunk-ladders, dying in mid-air. But then the troopers faced agonising seconds, while their guns recycled and the ork behind the first kept charging on. That ork got two metres more before the red shot lashed out again, and the one behind it got one metre further.
The orks bought each step with lives, but they were willing to spend them, until finally they were close enough to leap from the end of the ladder and cannonball into the knot of humans ranged against them, smacking them aside.
Dennett halted his fire and grabbed his bayonet. He ducked down, brought his lasgun back, swore as he burned his fingers on the barrel and slotted the bayonet home. A thick green hand slammed down on the rampart right by his face. Dennett snapped his head up and looked straight into the red burning eyes of an ork who had climbed up the sheer wall. It shouted unintelligibly into his face and let go of one of its handholds to grab him, catching the lip of his helmet. Dennett tried to rip it off, but the chinstrap had caught and wouldn’t come free. He hauled himself away from the wall and the ork held on tight, dragging itself over the rampart.
Gun and bayonet lost, Dennett fell down the earth slope behind the fire-step and the ork rolled with him, both of them punching, scratching and kicking at the other with all the strength they could muster. Its barks and grunts filled his ears, its pungent fungoid smell invaded his nose.
They hit the ground tangled together, the ork pressing down upon him. It heaved and Dennett felt his throat tighten, and then a sudden release as his chinstrap broke and the ork ripped the helmet from his head. The xenos monster towered over him in the night and gripped the helmet with both hands, ready to smash it down on Dennett’s head and break his skull apart. Dennett scrabbled in the dirt behind his back for anything to defend himself with, but he was too slow and the ork hammered down with a cry of victory.
Dennett clenched his eyes shut as the ork’s cry turned into one of outrage as it found itself plucked from the ground and lifted effortlessly into the air.
Dennett looked and there above him stood another monster, this one standing twice the height even of an ork and made of cold, grey steel. The Sentinel held the struggling ork aloft in its hydraulic claw and, without missing a step, the beard at the controls activated the las-cutter and sliced the ork to pieces. Dennett shielded himself from the rain of cleanly cut segments of ork.
All around him, the Sentinels of the support company were climbing the earth slope up to the ramparts. The troopers fighting on the walls made way to give them room. The Sentinels ignored the orks already on the ramparts, instead making straight for their targets: the log-ladders. One Sentinel was not quick enough, and an ork leapt onto its cockpit. The beard inside fired his pistol, but the ork held on and wrapped its hands over the man’s head and crunched. The Sentinel overbalanced and fell forwards, smacking down on the log-ladder and knocking it from the wall.
The rest of the Sentinels took a grip on the logs but did not push them off; rather they pulled and dragged them over the wall and into the fort. The climbing orks clung on as their ladders were launched forwards, but the Sentinels merely twisted their grip to turn the logs upside down and wiped the orks off like a gentleman using a boot-scraper.
Dennett scrabbled back up the slope. Everywhere men were cheering, and he found himself cheering as well. The orks remaining on the ramparts were outnumbered and swiftly skewered by the merciless Brimlocks. Dennett found his gun, the unused bayonet still in its socket, and took his place again on the fire-step amongst his jubilant fellows.
He looked out onto the floodlit dead ground, now fully deserving its name as it lay carpeted with ork corpses, and the furious ork warriors cutting handholds into the wall. He raised his gun once again to pick them off and so did not see the shape in the darkness beyond the floodlights. He heard the boom, however, and looked up just in time to see the giant comet of fire burning towards him.
Roussell did not hear the sound of the mega-bombard firing, but he did hear the explosion that cracked the western wall and reverberated throughout the camp. And when he heard it, he muttered his thanks to the Emperor. Finally, all was not going to plan.
Arbulaster’s angry, flustered voice erupted on the vox in front of him.
‘What the throne is going on up there?’
Roussell replied crisply. ‘We’re under assault, colonel. Several thousand attackers. We’re coming under heavy fire. All companies are in defending positions. Transmitting details now and awaiting your orders.’
Roussell breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Back at Dova, the colonel would be receiving all the data he needed so as to decide what actions were best. The battle was finally out of his hands.
Chapter Twelve
Carson arrived to find the western wall still burning. The bodies of a half-dozen troopers littered the earth slope at the point of impact. Their platoon-mates were tumbling down either side of them in disarray, Captain Wymondham calling uselessly after them from the ramparts, his company dissolving around him. Carson heard the explosion again from beyond the walls and Wymondham was plucked from where he stood and thrown in a flaming arc through the air. The survivors around him rolled down the slope to extinguish themselves and then kept running.
The wall had held so far, Carson saw, but that wouldn’t matter if there was no one left defending it.
‘Stop ’em, Red,’ he ordered, pointing at the fleeing men. ‘Booth, take the north section up to the tower. Forjaz, you’re with me.’
Carson led Forjaz and second platoon up the slope, his thrice-cursed legs pumping hard. An ork appeared, hauling itself up over the wall. Carson drew his pistol and snap-fired as he ran. The heavy shot burned through the xenos’s face and caused its brain to explode inside its skull. Another ork appeared. Carson flicked his hand and his other pistol was there, firing. The second xenos met the same fate as the first.
Second platoon crashed into the top of the wall and threw the climbing orks back. Frn’k bounded up, snapping an ork’s neck and knocking it off the ramparts with a smack of his hand. Then he suddenly dropped down onto his hands and knees and the autocannon strapped to his back was in the perfect position to fire down the length of the wall. Gardner, following
right behind him, was there ready to pull the trigger, and he and his ogryn cackled with glee as the climbing orks fell from their tenuous fingerholds and scrambled for cover.
Further along the wall, Tyrwhitt’s men were holding their footing against the attack. Carson snatched a glance over the wall at the dead ground. This assault had been too light and he quickly saw why; it had consisted only of those orks who had survived the previous waves and had been caught in the trench below. The next wave proper was holding its position beyond the range of the floodlights. They were waiting for a breach.
As if at their request, the mega-bombard fired again. Carson ducked instinctively, but this shot went wide, striking further down the wall, incinerating in an instant half a squad from one of Tyrwhitt’s platoons and the dozen orks climbing up at them.
With that bombard, it would be deadly to stay where they were. The orks could pound them with impunity, and until their main force attacked, his men could do nothing but sit there. Better to send second platoon back to the rest of the company at the bottom of the earth slope; a few observers in the towers could give them warning enough to get up to the ramparts.
‘Message incoming from Major Roussell,’ Peel, his vox-officer, started. Carson took the proffered handset and held it to his ear. The voice of Major Roussell crackled back at him.
‘--- All companies --- Defend the western wall --- No retreat --- Hold the wall at all costs --- Order direct from the colonel --- Stay on the wall ---’
Direct from the colonel? Carson swore under his breath. The colonel was nearly forty kilometres away, why in the blazes was Roussell deferring to him? And why were they piling the men onto the wall like ducks on a shooting range?
‘That’s it. I’m going to take it out,’ one of the platoon announced a few paces away. Carson looked back. It was Blanks, and he was already strapping on a noctocle he had taken from a dead corporal and readying to move out. He wasn’t going to ask permission.
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