Astra Militarum

by David Annandale, Justin D Hill, Toby Frost, Braden Campbell (epub)

  ‘We have no need for your maps,’ Isaias said. ‘You will guide us safely to our destination.’

  ‘Which is?’ I asked.

  ‘The Verevya Basilica.’

  I removed my hat and vigorously scratched the top of my head. On the map, Verevya Basilica was located near the centre of the city on an artificial island created by several intersecting canals. What the Templars were asking us – telling us – to do was reasonable from a tactical standpoint. Even a machine as impenetrable as the Land Raider could find itself crippled by a single well-placed explosive device, especially since the mysterious fog rendered augurs all but unusable. Our job would be to clear a path for it by finding and eliminating such potential traps, as well as any enemies that might be lying in wait. The journey would not be long, but it would be fraught with danger.

  I put my hat back on and called to the sergeant. As she snapped a salute, her eyes darted nervously toward Isaias. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Sergeant, I want you to gather up twelve men and form a squad. Repair our barricades, and get the autocannons cleaned and reloaded. You’re in charge of defending this bridge now.’

  Crowell nodded. ‘And the bodies, sir?’

  ‘Gather up the ones that are ours and form a burial detail. Burn the rest.’

  Crowell saluted once again and left to carry out her orders. I turned back to Isaias.

  ‘I’ll leave a token force here,’ I said. ‘That means I can give you two full squads of shock troops, plus myself, the priest and our psyker. Will that be enough?’

  ‘It will suffice.’

  I called Velez to come up. There were weapons and lasgun powerpacks scattered among the dead cultists that we could put to use, and I intended him to oversee this unpleasant duty. But the second he limped to my side, I saw Isaias’ face tighten and give Velez a burning, hate-filled stare. He actually growled at him.

  Velez kept his eyes on the ground and began chewing on his lower lip. His mysterious abilities had always been an issue within our regiment. Everyone made certain to steer clear of him, and no one besides myself placed any real amount of trust in him. He was given the same regard that one might give an unexploded bomb: it was safe for the time being but could go off at any time, and when that happened it was best to be at a safe distance.

  This was something more, though. Isaias’s eyes burned with enmity, not suspicion. Velez withered under the Templar’s gaze as I gave him orders to secure any extra weapons and ammunition he could find.

  ‘Especially flamers,’ I said. ‘I know I saw a few.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he muttered.

  ‘I can give you fifteen minutes, at most. Get whatever you need and meet back here.’

  ‘No,’ Isaias said. ‘It is not coming with us.’

  I caught the full implication of the impersonal pronoun. ‘I wouldn’t dare go into the city without him,’ I replied. ‘He’s a diviner. He’s our help in avoiding traps and ambushes, just as he’s always been.’

  ‘A psyker is a gateway to things and powers that you could not begin to comprehend. Margh will easily tempt him into destruction.’

  I had no idea who or what Isaias was referring to, but I was determined to take Velez with us into Rycklor. ‘He bears the symbols of Imperial conditioning and carries the staff of a registered psyker. That’s not assurance enough for you?’

  Isaias stared at me for a moment, and I did my best not to whither beneath his icy gaze. ‘If time were not against us, I would leave the lot of you here and find others to guide us,’ he said, plodding back into the gaping maw of the Land Raider. The other Templars fell in behind him without so much as a word.

  Lantz scowled at me. ‘You forget yourself, captain. We are all servants of the Emperor, but the Angels of Death are closer to His divinity than mortal men. They are to be obeyed, not argued with.’

  ‘Sir,’ Velez said quietly, ‘I agree. You should have let it go.’

  ‘Probably. But if we’re going into the city, then I want every possible protection.’

  On the horizon, the dark spires of Rycklor looked like the jagged teeth of a colossal monster lying in wait to swallow us whole.

  The journey down the highway was uneventful. The sky remained threatening and sickly, and the wind blew steadily across the empty plain. Lantz, Velez, and I walked along together while Integuma rumbled a short distance behind us. Up ahead, my men moved in a loose formation across the width of the road. Two of them carried flame throwers they had ripped from the dead hands of the cultists. Trooper Medrano, the youngest member of our platoon, had been entrusted with a vox-caster, one of only two communication arrays we had left. I considered taking the three grenade launchers we had discovered, but in the end left them with Sergeant Crowell. If our mission into Rycklor succeeded only in stirring up the crazed and mutated inhabitants, allowing them to stream out of the ruins like a swarm of angry hornets, she would need them more than me in order to keep that bridge in Imperial hands.

  As we neared the city, the dark orange mist – the miasma, Isaias had called it – thickened. It pooled in low places, such as the bomb craters and wrecked vehicles that littered the roadside, and clung to our ankles with wispy tendrils. It smelled of copper and made our eyes water and turn bloodshot. The backs of our throats swelled until it became painful to swallow. Three of the troopers developed nosebleeds, while others began to sporadically cough. Worst of all, it reduced our visibility greatly.

  We came to the outermost defence wall. Huge pieces of rockcrete had fallen from its top or been blown out of Rycklor’s external facing. The highway dipped downward into a wide tunnel, filled with swirling banks of gas. We closed up the distance between ourselves and began to head under the wall. Four of the men lit flares that bathed the tunnel with wavering orange light and phantom shapes. The security checkpoints were empty, the gun emplacements were rusted and abandoned – it was a perfect spot for an ambush, and sure enough, within moments we encountered our first trap.

  It was what we Cadians call an EFP – an explosively formed penetrator – and was little more than a sheet of plasteel lying on the ground. Underneath it was a canister tightly packed with explosives. If Integuma had gone over the plate the detonator would have been triggered, and the plasteel sheet would have rocketed upwards into the tank at several times the speed of sound. Sergeant Ingram, who had the steadiest nerves of any man I’d ever known, disarmed the device and placed the canister into his shoulder bag for safekeeping.

  The road pitched upward and we emerged on the other side of the wall. The wind had vanished and a light snow fell, stained an awful colour by the miasma. Before us lay an open area, filled with abandoned vehicles, and beyond that a cluster of dead trees. We made our way carefully between the vehicles, scanning for tripwires or pressure plates. Integuma emerged from the mouth of the tunnel exit and lurched forward, loudly crushing a dozen groundcars beneath its tread as it went.

  I rubbed my burning eyes. ‘You know, at first I was overjoyed at the thought of having a tank on our side – an honest-to-Terra tank – but this is ridiculous.’

  ‘Every wretched soul in this city is going hear us coming for miles,’ Ingram replied.

  I fully agreed. The Land Raider was an immensely powerful weapon to have on one’s side, but it was also a fire magnet. We had to increase our distance from it without completely isolating it either.

  Although I hated to reduce our small number any further, I ordered Ingram to take half the men to form a scout unit. Composed of the fastest runners, I made certain that they travelled light and leave the excess gear to the rest of us.

  I unfolded our hand drawn map and smoothed it across the hood of the groundcar. Ingram and I studied it for several minutes, tracing paths through the maze of streets with our fingers. We discounted several possibilities before deciding on a tentative route. Ingram took the paper and left with the scouts.

 
Slowly we crept towards the cathedral at the centre of Rycklor, and the orange fog grew worse. Crumbled buildings and heaps of rubble leapt into clarity as we came upon them, fading into nonexistence as soon as we passed. We could see no more than half a block in any direction. For the most part, the only sounds were our footsteps as we made our way through the deepening drifts and the distant thrum of Integuma’s engine. Sometimes a sudden screech or the grinding of metal on metal would break the silence, but we could never find its source.

  We were passing by a shattered storefront when we heard the sound of crunching glass and boots scrabbling over stones. All of the Guardsmen pulled their lasguns up into firing position, and I drew my pistol. Around the corner, came one of the forward scouts. At the sight of our weapons, he skidded to a halt. Wide-eyed and gasping for breath, he made a flailing gesture, pointing towards something down an adjacent street.

  I understood at once. Lighting a flare, I dropped it into the intersection to show the Space Marines our whereabouts and gestured to the scout. ‘Show us,’ I said.

  He led us back around the corner and down a narrow, two-laned side street. When this opened up into a circular area, he stopped, bent over with his hands on his knees, and gulped for air. The other members of the scouting party stood nearby. Their faces were pale.

  ‘We thought you should see this, sir,’ one of them said to me.

  In the middle of the roundabout was a fluted column three metres tall, atop which the image of some long-dead Imperial nobleman had once stood. The statue now lay toppled in the street, face down and partially buried in the snow. In his place, someone or something had built a pyramid of corpses. In the heap, I could make out men and women, young and old, dark skinned and fair. Once citizens of Rycklor, loyal servants of the Imperium, they were now a grotesque monument to evil. Their arms, legs and bodies were held together by the frozen blood of a thousand wounds. Crimson icicles stretched down to the ground and fused into pools. But that wasn’t the worst part.

  ‘They… they have no…Where are the heads?’ I finally managed to say.

  ‘Not here, sir,’ Sergeant Ingram said through a clenched jaw. ‘We looked.’

  Lantz began to pray softly that the Emperor would take the souls of these unfortunates into His care. A few others began to join him.

  ‘Velez,’ I said, my gaze still locked on the obscenity before me, ‘does this mean anything to you?’

  The psyker limped to the base of the column, slipped on a pool of frozen blood, regained his balance and gripped the frigid stone. He closed his eyes and the muscles in his cheeks twitched.

  Velez yanked his hand away from the column. ‘Captain, we are in critical danger here.’

  Before he could elaborate, we were bathed in a brilliant light. The Land Raider had turned the corner, and was slowly crawling towards us. Lamps mounted above its track assemblies cast everything in shades of white. The machine ground to a halt, and the forward ramp dropped open with a loud clang.

  Castellan Isaias came clomping toward us. I wanted to ask him if the Space Marines knew anything of being subtle or inconspicuous, but decided against it. The Templar leader was still helmetless, and his eyes narrowed as he surveyed the hideous monument.

  ‘Emperor as my witness, I will repay Samnang Margh for this a hundred-fold,’ he said, breathing thick clouds in the frigid air. Then, he raised his voice to address us. ‘There is no time for rest. We will soon lose what little daylight we have. How close are we to the basilica?’

  Ingram answered. ‘It’s not far now. To the west there’s a canal. We go over that, then cut through Bivin Park. The church is across the street from there.’

  Velez touched my sleeve. ‘Captain, I still have to advise against going any farther.’

  ‘Keep your intuitions to yourself, psyker!’ Isaias barked. ‘We’ve no need of them here. To abandon us in this mission is to admit defeat, and to admit defeat is to blaspheme against the Emperor.’

  Lantz apparently agreed with the Space Marine leader, and wanted him to know so. ‘Indeed, captain. If there is a weakening of morale here, it is because of your undermining opinions, Velez. We have our faith and the Emperor’s own angels to watch over us. With those two things, we shall not want.’

  At these words, the men regained some of their fortitude. A few of them even nodded grimly. Medrano cracked his knuckles, like a brawler spoiling for a fight. I had no doubt that a great danger lay ahead of us, just as Velez had said.

  I motioned to the two men carrying flamers to set the headless pile ablaze. Streams of burning promethium shot forth and filled the plaza with the stink of roasting flesh.

  ‘Let’s move out,’ I said.

  Satisfied, Isaias began to walk back to his transport. Velez, used to being a pariah, silently endured the scowls and whispers directed at him and headed down the street.

  ‘We’ll just finish this and get the hell out of here,’ I said to him, meaning it to be conciliatory.

  Three times we found our path blocked by collapsed buildings and heaps of impassable rubble, and four times we encountered explosive traps designed to gut the belly of any troop transport. We were forced to backtrack and search for alternate routes. I grew more and more frustrated as the hours slipped past and the shadows grew longer. Finally, we passed through a massive manufactorum that had been gutted by fire. The roof was completely gone, save for a blackened, skeletal support beam and sagging catwalks. Snow covered the silent hulks of machines, whose purposes I could not even guess, and the sound of Integuma’s engine reverberated off of the bare brick walls.

  The forward squad stopped. Sergeant Ingram waved for me to come join them. Next to a conveyor belt, where the wind was unable to disturb them, a series of footprints were pressed into a snowdrift. They had two large front toes and one behind. From the depth of them, the creature that made them was very heavy.

  ‘Could be dogs,’ Ingram said hopefully.

  ‘Have you heard any wild dogs since we’ve been here?’ I scowled.

  Ingram muttered something insubordinate in reply that I didn’t catch. We each peered about. Nothing moved in the shadows or the clinging fog, and yet the feeling that we were being watched was unshakable.

  Outside the building was a neighbourhood of narrow hab-blocks separated by alleyways. The street contracted to the point where the Land Raider’s tracks crumpled the pavement and its side sponsons scraped against the fronts of the buildings. We were forced to alter our formation into a long column.

  Three blocks remained until we came to the canal, and the cold was increasing as the afternoon waned. Trooper Medrano was walking not more than five steps ahead of me, his shoulders hunched and head down. Many of the men, Medrano included, had insufficient winter gear, and were having to make do with multiple layers of clothing beneath their flak armour. As an officer I was slightly better off, and thought about offering him the use of my gloves, when something hulking and red shot out of the tiny side street to my right. There was a hot rush of foul-smelling air. Medrano made a sharp gasp, and then he was gone. Something had snagged him and then vanished down the alleyway on the left, trailing blood as it went. The tracks it had made in the snow were the same as those I had seen in the manufactorum.

  Ingram broke formation and ran to the mouth of the alley. It was pitch black, but he was determined to charge in, regardless. I caught his arm before he could go any farther.

  ‘No, don’t!’ I barked.

  ‘Medrano!’ Ingram shouted. Additional hands clasped his shoulders, dragging him back towards the street.

  ‘He’s gone, trooper,’ I yelled. ‘And if you go charging after him, you will be too. What were you thinking?’

  There was a scream from somewhere nearby, followed by a baleful, undulating howl.

  Then silence.

  The men holding Ingram back tentatively released their grasp. He let out a long exhal
ation and said, ‘Sir, he had the vox-caster.’

  It took a moment for this to sink in. There could now be no contact with Sergeant Crowell back at the bridge and no calling for aid or reinforcements. We were completely cut off from the outside world. My hands balled themselves into fists, and before I knew it, I was cursing Medrano’s name. How could he be so stupid as to let himself be snatched away like that? How could he have let his guard down?

  ‘Captain!’ Lantz shouted.

  But as quickly as the rage had came over me, it suddenly passed.

  Everyone was staring. I removed my hat and squeezed my eyes shut. What was happening? We were Cadians, damn it. We didn’t suffer fits of rage, shaken nerves, and internal squabbling that so often plagued other, less-disciplined regiments. If we were going to survive whatever it was that the Space Marines had dragged us into, we would have to stay united and strong. We would also have to get out of the city before we ended up turning on each other.

  ‘Did anyone see it?’ I asked.

  ‘I did,’ one of the men said. ‘It had four legs, captain, and red skin.’

  ‘It was… terrible,’ said another.

  Lantz had opened his tome of sacred writings and read from it in a subdued voice. ‘Where the Ruinous Powers are made manifest, there are the nightmares of men given form. When you find yourself in such a place, pilgrim, cling steadfast to the Emperor’s light, for truly you walk among daemons.’

  He closed the book with a dramatic thunk and no one spoke for several seconds. What more was there to say? Integuma drew steadily closer. I put my hat back on, and we continued once more. With every pace, every shadow that wavered, we expected the creature to return. But it didn’t.

  Moments later, we entered onto a broad avenue hedged by low, rockcrete security barriers. A canal ran parallel to it. There was a curved stone bridge nearby, and a small forest of ashen, barren trees beyond it. Whatever lay past it was lost in drifting curtains of snow and fog.