[Imperial Guard 05] - Ice Guard

by Steve Lyons - (ebook by Undead)

  “Do your worst,” said Steele calmly, “but do this one thing for me, would you, Furst? Have the courage to look me in the eye as you do it.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Time to Destruction of Cressida: 09.53.21

  The mutant Furst didn’t have time to scream.

  The energy discharge from Steele’s bionic eye hit him square in the face, scorched his skin, made his hair stand on end, froze the open-mouthed leer on his lips. It also propelled him backwards into the stone wall of the cell, which he hit with the back of his skull. He slumped to the floor, leaving a smear of blood, his eyes rolling into his head, his tongue hanging out.

  And Steele had the keys. He had managed to wrap two fingers around them before he had struck, had almost lost them as Furst had been wrenched away from him but had kept his hold, pulling them out of the mutant’s hand. He gathered them carefully into his palm, securing his grip, trying not to be impatient, to rush.

  There were nine keys in the bundle, and Furst’s lamp-pack had been extinguished when he’d fallen. Steele worked by touch alone, analysing the shape of each key until he found the one that matched the padlock on his chains. If he hunched his left shoulder, thrust his elbow back, twisted his wrist, he could just about reach it. After a couple of false starts, scrabbling and scratching in the dark, the teeth of the key clicked into place in the hole. It was the sweetest sound he had heard all day.

  As the chains fell away, Steele’s legs almost buckled beneath him. It took all the will-power he had not to fall, to crouch beside Furst, to take his knife and his lamp-pack, and then to half-stagger, half-fall out through the door that the mutant had left open, out into the cavern. Steele’s right eye was blind again, but his augmented ear told him that he was alone down here. Fortunately for him.

  He found a damp, uneven wall to lean against, to cool his forehead — for he was burning up, despite the freezing temperature. He gave his muscles time to adjust to being able to stretch again. His throat was parched, and there was condensation on the wall — but it was stained purple by the clinging fungus, and Steele didn’t dare drink it.

  When he felt able, he pushed himself up, took his own weight, lit his purloined lamp-pack and inspected his surroundings. He could see six cell doors, but the cavern meandered off into passageways and alcoves that were hidden from him. If he upped the gain on his acoustic enhancers, he could hear the soft breathing of people behind some of those doors. Some were asleep, letting out the occasional snore, while others stirred, clanking their chains, and someone was sobbing to himself.

  Each door had a small inspection hatch, secured by a metal bar. Steele opened the nearest and raised his lamp, letting just enough light fall into the cell for him to make out its occupant. It was an Imperial Guardsman, in the tattered remains of a red and gold Validian flak jacket, chained as Steele had been — and to judge by the smell of him, he had been there for some time. He looked up at the colonel with a wretched expression, and gasped, “Help… help me… for the love of the Emperor, help…”

  It was with some regret that Steele closed the panel, leaving the man to his fate. He would have been dead weight, more hindrance than help. And his suffering would be over soon, Steele told himself. As soon as the virus bombs fell.

  He opened another hatch, and something heavy threw itself at the door. Steele leapt back by reflex, and narrowly avoided a clawed hand that swiped at him through the aperture. He discouraged it with a blow from the hatch’s locking bar, and its owner — another grey-furred mutant — howled and recoiled.

  The vile creature was still howling a minute later, and Steele cursed it under his breath. He had taken cover as best he could behind a rocky outcrop, and was wondering if he dared make a sprint back to his cell, to hide in there.

  He kept his good eye fixed on the steps, expecting Traitor Guardsmen to appear at their head. He cast around for a weapon with which to greet them if they did, but could see only rocks. He collected a few anyway, but was relieved not to have to use them. The mutant’s howls subsided into a quiet whimpering, and Steele assumed that the traitors were more than used to hearing sounds of anguish from down here and so had not bothered to investigate.

  He recognised the prisoner in the third cell at once.

  He had seen him only once before, and then only in holographic effigy — but he had studied the image, committed it to his enhanced memory.

  Confessor Wollkenden looked thinner than he had in his hologram. He was also dehydrated, his skin stretched like parchment, but his bone structure was unaltered. His prominent jaw was unmistakeable. The hologram, Steve saw now, had also been an old one, showing the confessor in his prime.

  To his surprise, Wollkenden was not chained, but instead lay curled on a filthy mattress, asleep, wisps of white hair splayed about the oval crown of his head. Steele fumbled with Furst’s keys, almost dropping them as his hands trembled in anticipation. He opened the cell door, stepped inside, leaned over the prone form of its occupant and tried to shake him awake. Wollkenden didn’t respond at first, and for a moment Steele feared that he might already be dead, that he might have come all this way for nothing. Then, as he tapped the confessor lightly on his pale cheeks, he rolled over onto his back, let out a soft groan, and his eyelids fluttered.

  “Confessor Wollkenden. Confessor. It’s OK, I’m going to get you out of here. Can you hear me? Confessor?”

  Steele glanced over his shoulder anxiously. He didn’t know how much time he had. Somebody had to know that Furst had come down here — and, if not, they might yet find a set of keys missing and come to investigate.

  He took Wollkenden’s right arm, draped it around his shoulders, put his arm around the confessor’s waist and hauled him to his feet.

  “We need to find you some water,” he muttered. “We need to find us both some water.”

  He carried Wollkenden out into the cavern, walked him up and down. He was gratified to feel the confessor responding, finding his strength again — but worried, at the same time, that he wouldn’t find enough.

  “Who… who are you?” the confessor asked hoarsely.

  “Colonel Stanislev Steele, sir, of the Valhallan 319th.”

  “They… sent a regiment to rescue me?” Wollkenden seemed to find the idea amusing, although Steele had no idea why. Perhaps it was just relief, or a mild form of hunger-induced hysteria that choked a spluttering laugh out of him. “I told Mangellan. I told him they wouldn’t leave Helmat Wollkenden to rot in these dungeons, he is too important… too, too important.”

  “The Ecclesiarchy is keen to get you back, confessor,” said Steele. He thought it best not to mention, for now, that he hadn’t exactly brought a whole regiment with him.

  And then Wollkenden was struggling in his grip, trying to stand by himself although he evidently wasn’t able.

  “Where are they?” he babbled. “Where are your men? I wish to address them. They need to know what is expected of them, and they will listen to me. I can inspire them, turn them into heroes.”

  “I know, confessor, but—”

  Wollkenden squirmed around, gripped the front of Steele’s ragged coat, and stared intensely into his eyes. “That’s the worst thing, you know, the hardest thing about imprisonment. So much time to think, and yet… Did they tell you about the Artemis System? They say that, without my words, we would have lost a score of worlds to the Chaos blight there.”

  “I know you have had a distinguished career,” said Steele, “but we ought to—”

  “What am I, then, without an audience? What am I without my voice?”

  “We’ll find you an audience,” Steele promised, “but not here. Mangellan is—”

  “How did he die? Las-beam? Grenade? Did he live to see his Ice Palace fall? I imagine that was some sight, yes? Did you break down the walls, or just melt through them? Water running through the streets, washing away the blood… Oh, I knew you’d come, I knew you’d kill Mangellan for taking me, I told him so.”

  Wo
llkenden’s voice was getting louder, more strident, and Steele couldn’t interrupt him. He pressed his hand over the confessor’s mouth, stifling the flow, and prayed that the Emperor would forgive his discourtesy.

  “With respect, sir,” he hissed, “Mangellan’s palace has not fallen, and if we make too much noise his men will be down here in a second. We have to get out of here, and we have to do it quietly. Do you understand?”

  Wollkenden nodded frantically. He looked almost afraid of his rescuer now; still the message appeared to have got through to him. Steele removed his hand, and guided the confessor to the steps. It became apparent, as they tried to climb them, just how weak Wollkenden truly was. He slipped on the purple fungus, and would have fallen on his face had Steele not caught him. With each subsequent step they took, he threatened to overbalance the pair of them, send them over the side.

  Somehow, though, they made it to the top. Steele lowered his charge into a sitting position, cautioned him to be silent and still. He put out his lamp, flattened himself beside the doorway through which he had been dragged almost four hours before, and peered out into the Ice Palace’s grand hallway.

  A part of him had hoped to find the hall empty, its sentries off-duty for the night. He had known, however, that this was unlikely. Almost immediately, he heard the footsteps of a pair of Traitor Guardsmen, and he shrank back into the shadows. The traitors had hardly gone by when another pair approached from the opposite direction.

  Mangellan had set regular patrols. Funny, thought Steele, how men like that preached Chaos and yet were so quick to dispense orders. That said, there was no point in his trying to time the traitors, to deduce when there might be a gap between their patrols — they would hardly be so disciplined.

  There was no hope of crossing the hallway unseen, and the portcullis would be guarded anyway. But Steele remembered the ice bridges spanning the expanses between the palace’s upper levels and the hive streets around them. And closing his eyes, concentrating, he also remembered something else, something to which he had paid scant attention as he had passed it earlier. He remembered a door, standing half-open — and behind that door, the base of a winding staircase.

  He would have to rely on his enhanced ear to alert him to approaching patrols — and on the Emperor’s grace, to ensure that the guards at the entrance wouldn’t turn and see him and Wollkenden while they were exposed. But Steele thought that they could reach that door. And from there…

  The palace was an enormous building. There had to be places in which they could hide. And maybe they could find weapons, and robes to disguise themselves. Maybe they could find an unguarded bridge. Anything was possible… if they could just reach that door.

  Steele crouched beside Wollkenden, told him what he had planned, asked him if he felt up to it. Wollkenden stared through him, and he said, “It looks majestic out there, doesn’t it? All that ice… It reminds me of the victory celebrations on Artemis Major, of the crystal statues they erected in Imperial Square.”

  Steele explained the plan again, patiently. Then he helped Wollkenden up to the doorway and waited.

  They crept out behind the next two-man patrol, Steele praying that neither of the traitors would look over their shoulders. He could already hear the next pair, tramping towards them. They had… his processors quickly worked out the figure… eleven seconds before they came into view around the grand staircase. He tried to pick up the pace, but Wollkenden chose that moment to apparently lose all strength in his legs. He let out a grunt as Steele caught him, and the colonel felt his heart freeze, expecting the sound to reveal them.

  Five seconds… and the door, that inviting door, was still an unattainable four metres away.

  Wollkenden’s chin sagged onto his chest. He was losing consciousness, but they had come too far to turn back now. Steele bundled the confessor’s limp body into his arms, almost staggered by the weight. He would have to run, have to sacrifice silence for speed.

  He had made it all of three paces when Wollkenden began to struggle violently. “No!” he yelled. “No, you won’t take me through that door, you won’t put me in chains again!”

  Steele tried to hush him, made to put his hand over the confessor’s mouth again, but it was already far, far too late.

  Wollkenden wriggled out of his grip, tried to stand, but fell to his knees, and crawled up to an ice statue of a leering, gargoyle-like figure. “Help me,” he beseeched it, extending his clasped hands towards as it as if in prayer. “It is your duty to help me, for the Emperor, for the score of worlds I liberated from—”

  There was more, much more. But Steele heard none of it — because Traitor Guardsmen were streaming in from all directions, even through the door that he had hoped would be his escape route. And even if he had been in any condition to fight them, he could never have won. Even if he could have run, there was nowhere he could have run to.

  They were dragged along endless passageways, Steele and Wollkenden, by cultists and traitors — their numbers growing as more of their kind rushed out of their rooms or abandoned patrols to join the throng, until the two prisoners were all but borne aloft on a fast-moving river of bodies.

  Steele said nothing, bearing his fate stoically, but Wollkenden was delirious. He was waving to the crowd, thanking them, assuring them that a parade was not necessary, that he had only done what any man of his considerable talents would do.

  They emerged, at last, into a large courtyard, bordered by four sheer walls, overlooked by hundreds of windows. Ice trees grew around its edges, reaching sizes of a hundred storeys tall, their branches spreading across the yard to intertwine with each other. Moonlight streamed in through this intricate frozen web, and bathed the courtyard in a cool shade of blue.

  Overlooked amid the crowd, one cultist watched all this, and tried his best not to rub shoulders with those around him. He kept his hood pulled over his head, concealing his face, and was careful not to catch anybody’s eye. When the crowd yelled out anti-Imperium slogans, he pretended to join in, although he couldn’t bring himself to give voice to the words.

  A huge stone dais stood in the centre of the courtyard — and from this, there rose an ice column, eight-pointed like the Chaos star, its sides engraved with sigils that hurt the naked eye to look at them. Steele and Wollkenden were thrust against two of the column’s points, secured to them with chains.

  That was when Mangellan appeared, with an imposing figure marching at his shoulder. The lone cultist recognised the Chaos Space Marine, and could tell that he had been in a fight since last he had seen him. His black power armour was damaged, his face bloodied. Still, the crowd parted as he moved through it, even the heretics keen to give this abomination a wide berth.

  Shuffling at Mangellan’s heels was his disgusting, mutated little servant, his head bandaged. The lone cultist had heard that his name was Furst, that he was a man of scant intellect — but favoured by Mangellan, perhaps for that very reason. The rumours had been rife since the attempted escape of Steele and Wollkenden that it was Furst who had let them go. It seemed that Mangellan either didn’t believe those rumours or did not care.

  As the high priest mounted the dais, Wollkenden seemed to recognise him, to realise where he was at last, and he started to yell out, to struggle. Mangellan ignored him, turning to his audience, raising his hands for silence. It took a moment for the clamour to subside, and then Mangellan assembled a squad of Traitor Guardsmen and instructed them to patrol the courtyard for the rest of the night, to keep a close eye on the prisoners. The Chaos Space Marine had taken up a position at a back corner of the dais, and it looked like he intended to stay put too.

  “Our guests will not trouble us much longer,” Mangellan assured his flock. “Our plans remain as they were. In four hours’ time, we will meet here to begin the ceremony. As the first light of dawn touches the courtyard, we will deliver not one but two noble souls to our gods.”

  The lone cultist had heard enough.

  The crowd was shout
ing, roaring its approval of Mangellan’s plan. The cultist slipped with surprising ease through the crush of bodies, heading for the archway through which most of them had entered. He didn’t want to be the first to leave, so he waited nervously for the crowd to begin to disperse, to return to their rooms or their duties in twos and threes, chattering about the undoubted spectacle to come.

  He retraced his steps through the Ice Palace, trying not to appear too hurried. As the other cultists peeled off around him, streaming up staircases, he was left on his own for a moment. He ducked into a side passageway, narrow, dark, uncarpeted, its floor smooth and slippery in contrast to the well-trodden paths elsewhere.

  An iron door caught in its ice frame, and it took all the cultist’s strength to wrench it free. He stepped through onto a flight of stone steps, and produced a lamp-pack from beneath his robes to light the way down into a dank cave.

  This unnatural system extended, as far as he had been able to tell, beneath the whole of the Ice Palace. The dungeons, he had learned, were housed in a part of it — a part that, after much searching, he had reluctantly accepted could not be reached except through the palace itself — as were various wine cellars and treasure troves housing the spoils of the Chaos army’s recent victory. This cave, however, had not found a use yet. Indeed, the cultist had seen no sign that anyone had passed this way before him.

  It was with some relief, then, that he shucked off his purloined robes, and became Trooper Palinev of the Imperial Guard again.

  He squeezed through a niche in the rock wall into a tiny antechamber. Lying there, where he could not be seen from the steps, was the corpse of a defrocked cultist, his throat slit. The man had made the fatal error of passing the wrong door at the wrong moment. And of being about Palinev’s size.

  A hole had been knocked through the wall of the small cave. Palinev had to lie on his stomach in order to squeeze through it. He lowered himself feet first, and dropped the last half-metre into the tunnel below. He landed on a precarious ledge, its brickwork slimy with sewer water — and immediately, dark shapes rose around him.