Shield of Baal: Tempestus

by Braden Campbell

  The soldiers in the other two vehicles sprayed the Scions with bullets. Savdra and Brandt killed two of them for their efforts. Devries jerked and fell onto his back. He clutched at his left arm where a bullet had pierced him through a gap in his armour.

  ‘I’m all right,’ he shouted.

  The groundcars wheeled around, and began to flee down another street. Erdon fired the volley gun again. Steam began to rise from its heavy casing. Most of the shots struck the street and walls, leaving pools of glass in their wake. One of the groundcars, however, took a direct hit to its rear and exploded. The bodies of its occupants flew up into the air and crashed on the weed-covered pavement.

  The third groundcar roared away.

  Chavis cut the air with a flattened hand. ‘Hold your fire. Move up and hold your fire.’

  The Scions sprinted to where the first wreck sat smouldering, and took up a position against a crumbling wall. Chavis grabbed a dead man’s boot and pulled him inside a doorway. The tempestor rolled the man’s face from side to side, and considered his apparel.

  ‘Professional-grade cloth,’ he said. ‘And this flak armour isn’t something that the average Lysite has access to.’

  ‘His weapon’s in decent shape too.’ Erdon pointed to a large patch on the corpse’s left shoulder. It depicted several bright white stars against a field of dark blue. The number ‘99’ was emblazoned across it in faded yellow. ‘What about this?’

  ‘A unit insignia of some kind. I don’t recognise it.’

  A shadow fell across them and a voice said, ‘That’s because it hasn’t been used for quite some time.’

  Erdon and Chavis looked up to Ulrich standing in the doorway. Margene was behind him.

  ‘Only ninety-nine worlds received such emblems for their soldiers, and believe it or not, at one time, Lysios was among them. This man was a member of the Lysios Home Guard.’

  Behind him, Margene gave a slight gasp.

  ‘Inquisitor,’ Chavis said, getting to his feet, ‘you should remain in the Taurox. This is still an active zone.’

  Ulrich waved a hand dismissively. ‘Those men were driving groundcars. That means they must have some kind of fuel, yes? Fuel we can take and use?’

  Chavis nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I had the same thought.’

  ‘Inquisitor,’ Margene said, ‘There was only one unit of trained soldiers on Lysios, and they were all attached to the planetary governor. If these men are here, then the governor must be somewhere nearby. We have to find him.’

  ‘You’d think so,’ Ulrich said, ‘but in point of fact, we don’t.’

  ‘Then let me contact Canoness Grace, and give her the coordinates for this place. The Sisters have been searching for the governor–’

  Ulrich cut her off sharply. ‘I told you before: we are under a communications blackout. We will speak to no one, because no one is to be informed of our mission here.’

  Margene glared at the inquisitor. ‘Why?’

  Ulrich gave her no answer. ‘Tempestor, let’s go find where these men have gotten themselves to.’

  ‘Very good, sir. Devries?’

  ‘Yes, tempestor?’

  ‘I want you to stay behind. Seal up the Taurox, and man the cannon. If any more of these men show up…’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘The rest of you, prepare to move out. This is a search-and-destroy scenario, sigma delta.’

  ‘Sigma delta?’ Margene asked quietly. Her eyes remained fixed on the inquisitor.

  Chavis removed the ammo clip on his bolt pistol and inspected the first round. ‘Urban combat environment, multiple targets.’

  Chapter Seven

  Chavis led the way down the ruined street. The tyre tracks were simple enough to follow among the seaweed and algae drifts, and it took them only a few minutes to encounter another attack group. Chavis could hear them fussing with something that sounded large and heavy. He motioned for everyone to stop, and carefully peered around the corner.

  Beyond was a small square, hedged in on all sides by tall ruins. Chavis saw a group of soldiers gathered around the cracked base of an ancient fountain.

  ‘Must be a checkpoint. I count two men with rifles, one with a grenade launcher, and what looks like a commanding officer,’ he whispered over his vox. ‘The last two have set up a crew-served heavy weapon. Looks like an Agrippina-pattern autocannon.’

  ‘Only six of them?’ Ulrich scoffed. ‘This should be easy.’

  Chavis was no stranger to the perils of urban combat. Years of experience had taught him that, within the confines of a city, nothing was easy. And if it appeared to be so, it was usually a trap.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘we should bypass this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A set-up like this is designed to draw us into any number of hazards. That square could be mined. Could be targeted by snipers. There could be sentry guns hidden on the perimeter. Trust me, sir, when I tell you that there’s something amiss here.’

  Chavis expected an argument from the inquisitor, and was surprised when he got none. ‘All right then, we’ll go around.’

  Chavis led the group across a shattered cross street and into a low building, gesturing everyone to keep down. Through the empty windows and the holes in the walls, they could catch glimpses of the square and the checkpoint.

  The tempestor picked up the groundcar tracks again one block to the north. They turned sharply and vanished down an access tunnel below the street. The tunnel entrance was heavily guarded. Chavis counted three platoons of solders, and at least as many heavy lascannons. All told, there were nearly forty men blocking their path.

  ‘There’s no avoiding this one, I take it?’ Ulrich asked knowingly.

  ‘That depends, sir. Are you still adamant that you will not contact anyone to come and evacuate us?’

  Ulrich stared at the tempestor.

  ‘Then, no, there’s no going around this.’ Chavis wished briefly that he had more men. But he did not. These four would have to suffice. He moved in between Savdra and Margene. ‘A direct charge will see us all killed,’ he said. ‘We have to hit them on a flank, so that they won’t be able to turn their total firepower on us. Erdon, when we get into range, your job is to slag those lascannons.

  ‘Savdra, I want you to stay here with Sister Margene. Your job is to provide distraction fire. Make a lot of noise. Keep them focused here. If they try to get too close to you, give them some grenades.

  ‘Thieus and Brandt, you’re with me. We cover Erdon until he gets the volley gun in range, then we close the distance and finish them off.’

  Chavis looked at Ulrich and remembered which of them was actually in charge of the mission. ‘Is that acceptable, sir?’

  ‘With one exception. I’m coming with you.’

  Minutes later, Chavis, Ulrich, and the others had made their way around to the side of the underground entrance. The sound of Margene’s boltgun could not be missed and the guards began to return fire, the lascannons blowing holes through the rockcrete around her and Savdra.

  Ulrich and Chavis broke from their cover, followed by Brandt and Thieus. Erdon, in the rear with the volley gun, fired a quartet of searing las-beams into the nearest platoon. Three men were blown apart instantly. Brandt and Thieus, as they sprinted forwards, each managed to down two more before the element of surprise was exhausted. Three of the remaining five men wheeled around and fired their rifles. Most of the bullets impacted in the street or ricocheted off into the ruins. One mushroomed off Ulrich’s refractor field, millimetres in front of his neck. The two men manning the platoon’s lascannon desperately tried to turn it, but by the time they did so, Chavis was lobbing a grenade into their midst. It bounced far past its intended target, and detonated in a cloud of burning shrapnel.

  Ulrich was the first to leap into the melee. His sword cleaved the air above the soldiers’ heads as they ducked to avoid his blows. Chavis closed to point-blank range and shot the closest man through the heart with his bolt pistol. Bra
ndt, Thieus, and Erdon rushed up behind their tempestor and began savagely beating whoever got in their way.

  Margene and Savdra kept up their fire from across the street, but the second platoon of men were no longer fooled. They came charging forward to help their comrades.

  Ulrich swept his blade downward, and cut clean through the two men who had avoided him seconds before. Chavis put another bolt through the armour of a soldier, while beside him, Thieus smashed the butt of his lasgun into an opponent’s face.

  The group that had rushed to reinforce their fellows punched and kicked at Chavis’s tiny assault group for all they were worth. The inquisitor absorbed the majority of their blows, letting them bounce harmlessly off either his refractor field or his ornate armour.

  The third lascannon missed striking Margene by only the slimmest of margins. She ducked back down behind the wall she and Savdra were using for cover as the beam punched clean through. Savdra was hit twice in the chest by bullets, but his armour held firm.

  Margene and Savdra thinned the remaining platoon while Ulrich continued his murderous spree. Two more soldiers died on his blade. Then three more. Before long, the dead and severely wounded were piling up around him. When the last of the governor’s guards attempted to fall back into the tunnel, Ulrich led the charge that cut them down.

  Silence swept back into the ruined city. Margene and Savdra emerged from the shattered building covered with a multitude of small cuts and the dust of vaporised rockcrete. Brandt had lost his helmet and was bleeding from a deep gash on his chin. Chavis’s leg wound had opened up again. He tore a blue sash from one of the dead soldiers, and tied it tightly over his thigh.

  The inquisitor seemed completely unharmed. More than that, Chavis thought, he seemed invigorated. He looked down into the tunnel entrance. ‘We should keep moving. Who knows what might be waiting for us?’

  Chavis took the lead once again. The group moved underground, past a long-abandoned rail platform. They were forced to stop at four separate junctions where additional tunnels stretched off into the gloom. At each one, Chavis scoured the floor for signs of the groundcar. Eventually, they emerged into a titanic space filled with trains.

  At some point in the distant past, this place had been a depot of some kind. Now, it was a museum to decay. High overhead was an arched glass roof, covered in centuries of sediment. The light that filtered through was dim and buttery yellow. The locomotives and rail cars were massive, ornate affairs that had once impressed all who witnessed them. Now they were rusted and encased in salty residue. Everything stank of brine and rot. No fires burned in the trains’ reactors, and no lights shone in their carriages.

  No, Chavis saw. That wasn’t entirely true. He could make out lights near the centre of the space. There was still life to be found here, below the dead cities of Lysios.

  In the middle of the train yard was a squat, round building three storeys tall. Guards were posted on either side of the single entryway.

  Ulrich surveyed the structure. ‘Is this where they’re holed up?’ he asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, he walked towards the doorway. ‘Well, come on then.’

  Ulrich shot the two guards before they had time to react. As the Scions pressed in behind him, he kicked the door open. The ground floor of the building was set up as a single large room. Along one wall were a series of empty ticket kiosks. Tables and couches were scattered about. A pair of large signboards that had once hung from the ceiling now lay broken on the floor. In the centre of the room was a wide spiral staircase. Thudding down it came twenty more soldiers.

  Margene, Chavis, and the Scions burst through the door and fanned out to either side of the inquisitor. He charged forward, firing his pistol as he went. The soldiers on the staircase welcomed him with bullets. Ulrich’s entourage returned the overture with las-fire and bolts. Heat poured off Erdon’s volley gun as it fired.

  Ulrich reached the bottom of the stairs and slashed the throats of two men. Then the rest were leaping down at him, hoping to knock him back under the press of their bodies. He twisted and turned. His sword tore through protective plates. Bodies began to fall off the sides of the staircase.

  Chavis called his men into close assault, and the five of them pressed in beside Ulrich. Ulrich began to bleed from a cut above his eye, but the initiative remained with the inquisitor. The soldiers tried to retreat back to the second floor. Ulrich and Chavis swept their legs out from under them, and killed them.

  Ulrich sheathed his sword. ‘We need to search this entire building,’ he said. ‘Margene and I will start down here, the rest of you secure the upper floors.’

  Chavis saluted with his fist over his heart, and led his men to the upstairs. They had only been gone a minute or two when Thieus came charging back down. He pointed at Margene. ‘You need to see this.’

  Margene glanced toward Ulrich, but the inquisitor was occupied within one of the abandoned kiosks.

  She followed him to the third floor. The ceiling was a filthy dome of stained glass. The rest of the room was dominated by a carved metal desk large enough to accommodate half a dozen men. Seated behind it in a high-backed chair was what she at first glance took to be a mummified corpse. There was a single hole, the size of a bolt, in the centre of its chest. It was a man, or had been at some point. His skin was like vellum. There were strange machines all around him, connected to him by transparent tubes, coloured cables, and suction pads.

  Everywhere, there was paper. Reams and reams, piled in stacks and rolled up into scrolls. Boxes upon boxes were filled to overflowing with sheaves. It was more than Margene had seen in her entire life.

  All the Scions, save Chavis, had their weapons levelled at the man behind the desk. The tempestor gestured to the machinery and paper mountains. ‘What is all this?’

  Margene plucked a handful of sheets from the box nearest her. Each page was densely packed with words written in a tiny, perfect script.

  ‘This was done by machine,’ she said. ‘I would say that all of this has been dictated into a transcriber.’

  ‘But what is it?’

  Margene flipped through the pages she had in her hand. Along the top of each one were the same two words in bold print: ‘Cantos Continuous.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s High Gothic. It means “everlasting song”. It seems to be the title for all of this.’ She read on a bit more. It quickly became obvious to her that these writings were supposed to have come from the Brine Goddess. It could hardly be called poetry. It was more like a series of incoherent ramblings. ‘This is Shelsist literature. All of it. Emperor save us.’ She dropped the pages to the floor, and crossed to the desk. She noted that the tall chair had obscured two additional rooms. One contained a large bed covered in mouldy sheets. The other held two smaller chairs and what appeared to be some kind of very old communications array.

  She picked up another sheaf and riffled through them. ‘These seem to be more recent,’ she said, ‘but they’re just as nonsensical.’

  Chavis seemed satisfied. ‘As long as there’s no danger here, we need to see about finding a drum or two of fuel.’

  Margene nodded absently. ‘I’ll be fine. I just want to sort through some of this before we go.’

  Chavis, Erdon, and Thieus left. Margene barely noticed.

  Her eyes were fixed on the parchment sheet in her hand. Printed near the top, just below the title bar, was yet another paragraph wherein Shelse called out to Ixoi. What frightened Margene, however, was that she had heard it before.

  ‘Promise me, O, promise me,’ she read, ‘we’ll be together soon. The stars begin to fall, and this era draws to a close…’

  It wasn’t possible. There was no way that she could have dreamed these exact words. Yet here they were. The Shelsist leaders had received them and transcribed them, and she too had received them somehow. She thought about the Brine Prophet that the Canoness had encountered months before. Canoness Grace had said the man was possessed, that he was channelli
ng an evil presence, and speaking as if on behalf of the Brine Goddess.

  Was that what had been happening here, she wondered? Had the former Governor allowed Shelse to speak through him? Had he set down every awful word, and then passed it on to the cult at large? Very likely. But it still didn’t explain how the words had come into her mind.

  She looked into the comms room again.

  Chavis, Erdon, and Thieus found a garage one level below the ground floor. Only one of the Governor’s converted groundcars was there, although Thieus was the one who pointed out that there was room enough for twenty more such vehicles. In one corner, beneath a sheet of waterproof canvas, they found three crates filled with spearguns, and two empty cases for explosives. They also found a cache of fuel drums. They hefted one of the barrels into the back of the car, and Erdon started the engine and drove it up into the darkened railway tunnels. Brandt and Savdra met them outside the main depot building.

  ‘Where’s Ulrich?’ Chavis asked them.

  ‘He went to get the dialogus,’ Savdra replied. ‘Told us to come out here and cover you.’

  There was an explosion from inside the main depot building and a shattering of glass. The five men raced inside. The ground floor was empty, but the smell of smoke and burnt flesh wafted down to them from above.

  They emerged at the top of the stairs to find the room on fire. Part of the stained-glass ceiling had been smashed in. The gigantic desk was turned over on its side, and everywhere the Cantos Continuous burned. The bodies of five more Lysios Home Guard lay in heaps among the blaze. Chavis found the inquisitor on the floor near the bed. He seemed dazed.

  ‘Inquisitor,’ he shouted, ‘are you wounded?’

  ‘I’m all right.’ Ulrich refused help as he returned to standing. ‘They came in through there. Took us by surprise.’