Raising his lamp-pack, he identified those shapes as his comrades. Anakora and Mikhaelev greeted the scout’s return with relief, and quickly woke Sergeant Gavotski as they had been instructed. The Ice Warriors had been taking the opportunity to catch up on their sleep, spread out across the ledge, while they awaited the outcome of Palinev’s scouting mission — although of course they had left two troopers on watch.
Everyone was cheered by the news that both Wollkenden and Steele were alive. Beside that, the matter of rescuing them seemed almost inconsequential. Palinev had to remind himself that they still had much to do.
“We could go in there now,” said Gavotski, “but it sounds as if the colonel and the confessor are well-guarded, and we’re dog-tired. We can’t take out two squads of traitors, not before they can raise the alarm and surround us. I suggest we wait until this ceremony of theirs has started. At least then we’ll know where most of the heretics are, and that they’ll be distracted. We should have the run of the palace.”
“Until we reach that courtyard,” said Mikhaelev, as always sounding the first note of caution. “Then we’ll have to fight our way through the heretics, and they’ll outnumber us by hundreds to one.”
“You’re right,” said Gavotski, with a quiet smile. “They won’t know what’s hit them.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Time to Destruction of Cressida: 04.22.14
Steele wished he could close his senses to it all.
He wished he couldn’t hear the baying of the heretics — hundreds of them were packed into the courtyard, standing in the arched doorways, even hanging out of the surrounding windows. He wished he couldn’t feel the touch of the cultists that had gathered around him, preparing him, painting their vile symbols on his face and his exposed chest. He wished he couldn’t smell the stink of the incense burner that Furst carried, waving it under Steele’s nose as if it were some kind of a trophy, or feel the evil presence of the Chaos Space Marine lurking behind his right shoulder.
And he wished he couldn’t hear Wollkenden, to his left, still chained to the eight-pointed ice pillar as was Steele, but whimpering and pleading for mercy. The so-called saviour of the Artemis system, his demeanour shaming his legend.
Steele wasn’t afraid to die. Even now, he would have given his life gladly in exchange for the confessor’s freedom. But he could think of nothing worse than this: to die a failure.
He closed his good eye, tried to blot it all out, tried to cast his mind back to a happier time, a more serene time, a more welcome ceremony. It seemed like months — although, in fact, little more than a day and a half had passed — since he had stood beside the Termite borer, his head bowed, to receive the blessing of an Imperial priest.
Had the Ecclesiarchy known, then, that this was to be his fate? Had they sanctified his soul to deny it to the Chaos gods? He prayed that this might be the case. He prayed as hard and as loud as he could, tried to fill his own head with the uplifting sound.
“Your Emperor can’t save you now,” Furst hissed spitefully in Steele’s ear.
The mutant’s master, Mangellan, was on the dais too, strutting around, circling his captives, waving his sceptre, playing to the crowd. His voice rose and fell as he half-chanted, half-sang words in some ancient, evil language — words that Steele didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand. He knew that his augmented brain wouldn’t let him forget those words; he couldn’t bear that they would be captured inside him, a part of him. They were dark words, cold words. Words that seemed to distort space itself, to punch open a channel to a more malignant realm.
But the words were, he sensed, coming to an end. Mangellan had whipped his audience into a frenzy. He was gesturing at the pillar, at the readied sacrifices — the colonel and the confessor — with the sceptre in one hand and a large, ornamental dagger clutched by the jewelled hilt in the other.
And now he turned to Steele, rested the dagger’s point on his chest, traced the outlines of the symbols that had been daubed onto his skin — and Mangellan sighed, and in his calm, honeyed voice, he said, “You should have joined us when I gave you the chance. A shame that such a spirit, such an intellect, as yours should have been wasted on a lifetime of servitude to an ungrateful master. You could have been anything you wanted to be, Colonel Steele.”
Steele looked him in the eye, and he said, “I was.”
And at that moment, a ray of sunlight streamed into the courtyard, through the network of ice-formed branches above their heads, and glinted off the dagger as Mangellan drew it back, let the crowd see its blade for a final time as he prepared to plunge it into its first victim.
“Do it, master,” breathed Furst eagerly. “Do it now! Cut out their hearts!”
That was when the first bomb went off.
Grayle and Palinev had timed their ascent to the dais perfectly.
Cloaked in their purloined robes, they had given themselves enough time to reach Wollkenden and Steele respectively — but not quite enough for the cultists to realise that their numbers had been swelled by two, to start asking questions.
The explosion ripped through the courtyard, incinerating heretics by the score in a great blossom of fire. They hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t spotted that their enemies were walking among them in disguise. And Mikhaelev had placed his demolition charge well. It collapsed two huge ice trees, their razor branches falling clear of the dais and into the crowd, where they sliced, dismembered and decapitated. Grayle just hoped that his comrade was not among the casualties, that he had had time to get clear. He concentrated on his own task, concealing his lasgun as best he could with his body as he placed its muzzle to Wollkenden’s chains.
The heretics were screaming, surging away from the site of the first blast… to where the second was waiting.
The courtyard became a seething mass of panic. None of the heretics knew which way to run, but they trampled each other in their haste to run somewhere.
A hand came down on Grayle’s shoulder; he was spun around to face a suspicious cultist, whose eyes widened at the sight of a stranger’s features beneath the hood. The cultist opened his mouth to yell a warning that might have been heard by the augmented ears of the Chaos Space Marine even over all the noise. Two las-beams struck him in the head, one more in the shoulder, and he went down.
More beams flashed from the surrounding windows, and the cultists on the dais cried out, scattered, leapt into the turmoil around them rather than remain sitting ducks. Grayle prayed that his comrades knew who they were shooting at, that they wouldn’t mistake him and Palinev for their targets.
Most of their fire, in fact, was directed at Mangellan — but he was well-protected, by the Traitor Guardsmen around him, bustling him away down the dais steps. Furst scurried along behind them, keeping close, benefiting from their armour, although Grayle couldn’t tell if the traitors had even seen him in their wake.
And then there was the Chaos Space Marine.
He leapt from the dais, reaching the edge of the courtyard with one powerful spring. He smacked into the palace wall, punching through the ice to make handholds for himself, started to haul himself upwards. Grayle saw Blonsky’s face in a window, paling as a gauntleted hand clamped onto the sill in front of him. He drove his gun butt into the Chaos Space Marine’s fingers, but couldn’t dislodge them. He turned and ran, disappearing from Grayle’s view as his pursuer squeezed his massive form through the small window after him.
In the confusion, no one had thought to secure the would-be sacrifices. Perhaps Mangellan thought them secure enough, hadn’t realised that his enemies had already got to them. Grayle’s lasgun burnt through Wollkenden’s chains at last, and the confessor fell into his arms.
“Is it my turn to speak?” he asked weakly. “I must say, I expected a little more discipline from the troops. Obviously, I’ve been gone too long. That’s the trouble these days, no leadership.”
“Please, confessor,” said Grayle, “I’m trying to rescue you. Just… ju
st hold still… sir, please… I need to get this cloak over your head.”
“Take your hands off me!” bellowed Wollkenden — and he pushed Grayle aside, took his own weight unsteadily, and looked around like a startled rabbit about to bolt…
…as Steele, having been freed and disguised by Palinev, strode up beside him and, without breaking his step, threw a punch to Wollkenden’s head that knocked him spark out. Grayle and Palinev watched in abject astonishment as the colonel hoisted the confessor’s limp body over his shoulders.
“Well?” he barked at them. “Are we getting out of here or what?”
Barreski could hardly breathe.
The explosions had kicked up twin plumes of smoke, which were settling now upon the occupants of the courtyard. The Chaos worshippers were packed too tightly around him, restricting his movement, their elbows digging into his ribs and his stomach. He braced himself against them, knowing that if he let his guard down for an instant he would be crushed between them or just overrun.
He had one advantage, though, over the heretics. He knew where the bombs were — or rather, where they had been, because Mikhaelev had only had two demolition charges left and they had both blown. Barreski had placed one himself, and was proud of his handiwork, the carnage he had caused.
A hapless cultist lost his footing and fell coughing against the disguised Ice Warrior. Barreski took the opportunity to slip his knife into the man’s heart, let him slide to the floor. Another one less to worry about, he thought.
His quarter of the crowd appeared to have reached an unspoken consensus. They had chosen an archway, an escape route, through which to evacuate, had started to move together instead of fighting each other. Barreski hoisted himself onto the shoulders of a protesting cultist in front of him, and he screamed out, “Another bomb! Look! There it is! Can’t you see it? In the branches of that tree!”
No one could see the bomb, because it didn’t exist. Still, Barreski’s words were enough to make a significant number of the heretics turn back, to fight once more against the tide of their fellows, to spread more panic.
He glanced up at the dais, and saw that it was empty. Grayle and Palinev would be heading for their preselected exit, taking Steele and Wollkenden with them. He muttered a quick prayer for their safety. It was time for him to get out of here himself.
Palinev had chosen a different way out for Barreski, a closer one to his position. He had scouted a route for him back to the sewer tunnel, made sure that he had memorised the directions. Barreski pressed his elbows into service, and started to force his way across the yard.
And that was when he saw Mangellan, his traitor escort clearing a path for him, using their lasguns when they had to. And he was just a few metres away…
He couldn’t resist it. He knew it meant giving himself away, but he snuck his lasgun out from beneath his robes, flicked its power pack to full auto and squeezed off ten las-beams in the high priest’s direction.
The traitors reacted quickly, putting themselves in the line of fire, deflecting most of it with their armour… most of it… Barreski gave a triumphant cry as one of his beams glanced across Mangellan’s face, causing him to scream out, to clap his hands to his eyes. But now he had his own safety to worry about.
Already, the traitors were starting to move towards him. He had to lose himself again. He put his head down, tried to slip away amid the other black cloaks, but he was brought up short by a brawny cultist with a knife.
“Did you see him?” bluffed Barreski, pointing wildly. “He had a bomb, and he was coming up behind the high priest. He would have killed him if I hadn’t… Look, you need to defend yourself!” He thrust his lasgun into the cultist’s hands while he was still gaping, trying to work out what it was he had seen.
Then Barreski was gone, leaving the brawny cultist with the weapon. Which was how the Traitor Guardsmen found him, a second later.
“Space Marines! Coming up the passageway!” Pozhar hated this.
He was stationed in one of the arched doorways into the palace proper, his job to keep it as clear as he could for Steele and Wollkenden’s escape. This meant pretending to be one of the heretics — almost as bad, pretending to be afraid — but Gavotski had given him no say in the matter.
Few of the cultists were coming this way, anyway. Mikhaelev and Barreski had placed their charges carefully, herding them in the opposite direction — and of those who did try to pass Pozhar, about half were turned back by his feigned panic. Still, there were some who didn’t seem to hear him, or were so eager to get out of the courtyard that they took their chances. As one of them bumped into him, it was all he could do not to draw his lasgun and start shooting.
“They… they’ve got chainswords!” he shouted desperately after the escapees. “And guns! Big guns!”
“Pozhar!”
He turned at the sound of his name, couldn’t see who had called it at first. In a yard full of robed figures, it was near impossible to tell which ones were his comrades. Then he recognised the slight form of Palinev — and there, beside him, that had to be Grayle. And between them…
Pozhar raced forward, dived into the crowd, helped Palinev to lift the unconscious Wollkenden. He had discarded his sling, declaring himself healed; still, this exercise of his muscles sent a lance of pain down his right arm.
“What happened?” he cried. “What went wrong?”
“It’s okay, trooper,” said Steele breathlessly, picking himself up, leaning on Palinev. “I just… overestimated my strength, that’s all. Still tired… Perhaps you and Grayle could… could look after Confessor Wollkenden for me?”
Pozhar would have accepted that burden gladly. But at that moment, he heard gunfire from somewhere close by, and he turned to see a squad of Traitor Guardsmen pushing their way towards the Ice Warriors. They were brandishing lasguns, firing into the air so that the heretics parted before them.
Pozhar drew his gun, shouting to Grayle and Palinev, “Go! Get the confessor and the colonel out of here. I’ll hold them off!”
And he started firing — not upwards, but straight into the bodies in front of him.
The cultists were taken unawares. They fell like dominoes, each hit felling three or more of them — and the ripple effect spread back to the Traitor Guardsmen, blocking their path, threatening to knock them down too. They tried to fire back, but the seething mass of people between them and Pozhar made it an impossible shot, and they only succeeded in taking out a few more of their own.
He could have gone after the others, then, could have taken the chance that he had delayed their pursuers long enough for them all to escape. Yes, he could have done that…
The cultists between Pozhar and the Traitor Guardsmen had begun to rally, identified the threat in their midst and, unable to flee, swarmed him instead. Few of them were trained fighters — half of them were women — but they had overwhelming numbers on their side. They punched the Ice Warrior, clawed at him, dragged him down. He saw the glint of a knife blade, too late to avoid its swipe, felt it breaking the synth-skin on his stomach where the sewer creature had holed him with its spines. His lasgun was snatched from him. He took blow after blow to his head. He wasn’t quite sure what kept him from falling down — but as long as he was standing, he would fight.
Pozhar was a whirlwind of limbs, punching, kicking, scratching, defying any of his foes to get a firm hold on him.
And clutched in his left fist, he held his ultimate weapon: the primed frag grenade that would collapse the archway behind Steele and the others, slow down anyone who tried to follow them — and also ensure that the heretics that killed him would die by his side. Just as he had planned would happen outside Alpha Hive two mornings ago.
He wondered if this, then, was what the Emperor had spared him for on that occasion. He wanted to believe this. But the itchy grey fur was all over his chest, spreading down his back, and he could no longer open his right hand fully. His fingers had hunched over and he thought his fingernails had
grown longer, and Pozhar knew in his heart that his god could have played no part in any of that.
He hadn’t come into this battle with the intention of dying in it. At least, he didn’t think he had. But the only thing keeping his secret now, he was sure, was the black cloak he was wearing, and he couldn’t bear to see the expressions of his comrades, didn’t want to have to face their judgement, when that cloak came off.
The Traitor Guardsmen were almost upon him. Another few seconds, and they would have a clear shot, would be able to finish him. He activated the grenade, on a short fuse, and he lured them back towards the archway.
It was better this way, he thought.
Better that his body be blown apart, and then liquefied by the virus bombs before any piece of him could suffer the ignominy of being flung into a Chaos burial pit. Better that no one should have the chance to inspect his remains, that his comrades, let alone his commanders, should never learn of his shame.
Better to let them all believe that Trooper Pozhar died a hero.
Mangellan was blind.
He hadn’t seen the las-beam that had hit him, his eyes already teary with smoke. There had just been a flash, and a searing pain. He felt as if his face was on fire. He couldn’t see where he was going, didn’t know what was happening, he had to trust to his escorts to guide him to safety.
He stumbled into the cooling embrace of his palace, his magnificent Ice Palace, his gods’ gift to him — but, for the first time, he felt unsafe within its walls.
He could hear running footsteps, cultists evacuating around him, and he yelled at the Traitor Guardsmen to keep them away from him, to trust no one.
He felt an insistent tugging at his sleeve, heard Furst’s voice ask, “Why are we running, master? What about the sacrifices? Who is guarding them?”
[Imperial Guard 05] - Ice Guard Page 18